diff --git "a/data/train/2806.txt" "b/data/train/2806.txt" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/data/train/2806.txt" @@ -0,0 +1,4722 @@ + + + + +Produced by David Reed + + + + + +THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW AND OTHER GHOST STORIES + +By Rudyard Kipling + + * * * * * + + The Phantom 'Rickshaw + My Own True Ghost Story + The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes + The Man Who Would Be King + "The Finest Story in The World" + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW + + May no ill dreams disturb my rest, + Nor Powers of Darkness me molest. + --_Evening Hymn._ + +One of the few advantages that India has over England is a great +Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly +acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all +the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen +hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his +knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows +something about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere +and everywhere without paying hotel-bills. + +Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my +memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less to-day, if you +belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, +all houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and +helpful. + +Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon some fifteen years ago. +He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever, +and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's +work, and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though he +had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly +sends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the same +everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you +their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken +your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work +themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serious +trouble. + +Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, +a hospital on his private account--an arrangement of loose boxes for +Incurables, his friend called it--but it was really a sort of fitting-up +shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather. The weather +in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is always a fixed +quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work overtime +and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as mixed as +the metaphors in this sentence. + +Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariable +prescription to all his patients is, "lie low, go slow, and keep cool." +He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this +world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under +his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak +authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack +in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and +pressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle," says Heatherlegh, +"after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have +behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that +the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he +took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He +certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the +engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about +ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and +killed him poor devil. Write him off to the System--one man to take the +work of two and a half men." + +I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when +Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be within +claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even +voice, the procession that was always passing at the bottom of his bed. +He had a sick man's command of language. When he recovered I suggested +that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing +that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have +learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up +on a door. And this also is Literature. + +He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder +Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterward +he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was +urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a +deficit, he preferred to die; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. +I got his manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the +affair, dated 1885: + +My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not +improbable that I shall get both ere long--rest that neither the +red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air +far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the +meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of my +doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shall +learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too, +judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth +was ever so tormented as I. + +Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are +drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, +demands at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly +disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the man +who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man in +India. Today, from Peshawur to the sea, there is no one more wretched. +My doctor and I are the only two who know this. His explanation is, that +my brain, digestion, and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving rise +to my frequent and persistent "delusions." Delusions, indeed! I call him +a fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the same +bland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I +begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you +shall judge for your-selves. + +Three years ago it was my fortune--my great misfortune--to sail +from Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes +Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in +the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content +with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were +desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows +that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. In +matters of this sort there is always one who gives and another who +accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was +conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and--if +I may use the expression--a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she +recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plain +to both of us. + +Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective +ways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave +and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season together; +and there my fire of straw burned itself out to a pitiful end with the +closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessington +had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my +own lips, in August, 1882, she learned that I was sick of her presence, +tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine +women out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of them; +seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves by +active and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the +hundredth. On her neither my openly expressed aversion nor the cutting +brutalities with which I garnished our interviews had the least effect. + +"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo cry: "I'm sure it's all a +mistake--a hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day. +_Please_ forgive me, Jack, dear." + +I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity +into passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate--the same +instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider +he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the season of +1882 came to an end. + +Next year we met again at Simla--she with her monotonous face and timid +attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every fibre of +my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and on each +occasion her words were identically the same. Still the unreasoning wail +that it was all a "mistake"; and still the hope of eventually "making +friends." I might have seen had I cared to look, that that hope only was +keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You will +agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any one to +despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I maintain that she +was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the black, fever-stricken +night-watches, I have begun to think that I might have been a little +kinder to her. But that really is a "delusion." I could not have +continued pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It would have +been unfair to us both. + +Last year we met again--on the same terms as before. The same weary +appeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make +her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming the +old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart--that is to say, +she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing +interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, +the season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade +were fantastically intermingled--my courtship of little Kitty Mannering; +my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling +avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white +face flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries +I once watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved +hand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome +monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily +loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August +Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie" +_jhampanies_ at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment +of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it +already. + +"So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear." Then, without a moment's pause: +"I'm sure it's all a mistake--a hideous mistake. We shall be as good +friends some day, Jack, as we ever were." + +My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman +before me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't +mean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!" + +And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to +finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that +I had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she +had turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me. + +The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory. The +rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden, +dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed +a gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of +the _jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington's +down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She was holding her +handkerchief in her left hand and was leaning hack exhausted against +the 'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie +Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call +of "Jack!" This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify it. +Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on horseback; and, in the delight +of a long ride with her, forgot all about the interview. + +A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of her +existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy. +Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her, except +that at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded me +unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I had disinterred +what was left of our correspondence from among my scattered belongings +and had burned it. At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I was +at Simla--semi-deserted Simla--once more, and was deep in lover's talks +and walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be married at the +end of June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I +did, I am not saying too much when I pronounce myself to have been, at +that time, the happiest man in India. + +Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their +flight. Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals +circumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement ring +was the outward and visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and +that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured for one. Up to +that moment, I give you my word, we had completely forgotten so trivial +a matter. To Hamilton's we accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885. +Remember that--whatever my doctor may say to the contrary--I was then in +perfect health, enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolute tranquil +spirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there, +regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring in +the presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two +diamonds. We then rode out down the that leads to the Combermere +Bridge and Peliti's shop. + +While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and +Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side--while all Simla, that is +to say as much of it as had then come from the Plains, was grouped +round the Reading-room and Peliti's veranda,--I was aware that some one, +apparently at a vast distance, was calling me by my Christian name. It +struck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I could +not at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the road +between the path from Hamilton's shop and the first plank of the +Combermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might have +committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have +been singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my eye was +arrested by the sight of four _jhampanies_ in "magpie" livery, pulling a +yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back to +the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation +and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, +without her black and white servitors reappearing to spoil the day's +happiness? Whoever employed them now I thought I would call upon, and +ask as a personal favor to change her _jhampanies'_ livery. I would hire +the men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs. +It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories their +presence evoked. + +"Kitty," I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's _jhampanies_ turned +up again! I wonder who has them now?" + +Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always +been interested in the sickly woman. + +"What? Where?" she asked. "I can't see them anywhere." + +Even as she spoke her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself +directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to +utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider +passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin air. + +"What's the matter?" cried Kitty; "what made you call out so foolishly, +Jack? If I _am_ engaged I don't want all creation to know about it. +There was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you +think I can't ride--There!" + +Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a +hand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, as +she herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was the +matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla +was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. +The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near +the left railing of the Combermere Bridge. + +"Jack! Jack, darling!" (There was no mistake about the words this time: +they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) "It's +some hideous mistake, I'm sure. _Please_ forgive me, Jack, and let's be +friends again." + +The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily +for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief +in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast. + +How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by +my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the +horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and +dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There +two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing +the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me +just then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged +into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested +with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and +drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, +evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably +endeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I +refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind--as a child +rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark. +I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an +eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring for +me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly +upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my face +stopped her. + +"Why, Jack," she cried, "what _have_ you been doing? What has happened? +Are you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had +been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a +cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my +mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover +it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of +doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have +forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to +my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself. + +In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter. Here +was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the year +of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror +from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead +and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink. +Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington +when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterly +commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broad +daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, in +defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's +ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave. + +Kitty's Arab had gone _through_ the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope +that some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage +and the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went +round this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled +and in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had +originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her +to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the +'rickshaw. "After all," I argued, "the presence of the 'rickshaw is in +itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see +ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The +whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hillman!" + +Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook +my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very +wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency +born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked +with sudden palpitation of the heart--the result of indigestion. This +eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out +that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us. + +Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still +unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, +suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road--anything +rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I +yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out +together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, +according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent +to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched +horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we +neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington +all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our +oldtime walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it +aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over +the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud. + +As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies' +Mile the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight--only +the four black and white _jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled carriage, and +the golden head of the woman within--all apparently just as I had left +them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that +Kitty _must_ see what I saw--we were so marvelously sympathetic in all +things. Her next words undeceived me--"Not a soul in sight! Come along, +Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings!" Her wiry little +Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this +order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty +yards of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The +'rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the +Arab passed through it, my horse following. "Jack! Jack dear! _Please_ +forgive me," rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:--"It's +a mistake, a hideous mistake!" + +I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at +the Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still +waiting--patiently waiting--under the grey hillside, and the wind +brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered +me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had +been talking up till then wildly and at random. To save my life I could +not speak afterward naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wisely +held my tongue. + +I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to +canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men +talking together in the dusk.--"It's a curious thing," said one, "how +completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely +fond of the woman ('never could see anything in her myself), and wanted +me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for +love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I've got to do what +the _Memsahib_ tells me. Would you believe that the man she hired it +from tells me that all four of the men--they were brothers--died of +cholera on the way to Hardwar, poor devils, and the 'rickshaw has been +broken up by the man himself. 'Told me he never used a dead _Memsahib's_ +'rickshaw. 'Spoiled his luck. Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little +Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one's luck except her own!" I laughed +aloud at this point; and my laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there +_were_ ghosts of 'rickshaws after all, and ghostly employments in the +other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their +hours? Where did they go? + +And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing +blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short +cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and +checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to +a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my +horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington +"Good-evening." Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened +to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should +be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil +stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim +recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to +the Thing in front of me. + +"Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to come +home." + +Surely _that_ was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard +me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They +were very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered +that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away +to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes +late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by +Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down. + +The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, I +was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware +that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was +describing, with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that +evening. + +A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half +an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, as +professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed. +There was a moment's awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered +something to the effect that he had "forgotten the rest," thereby +sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built +up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart, +and--went on with my fish. + +In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine +regret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of my +own existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The +red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh, +of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay +together. I accepted his offer with gratitude. + +My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, +in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. +The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed +he had been thinking over it all dinner time. + +"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on +the Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer +from me before I was aware. + +"That!" said I, pointing to It. + +"_That_ may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don't +liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's nothing +whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling +with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it's Eyes. +And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I'm +on the Blessington lower road." + +To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept +about twenty yards ahead--and this, too whether we walked, trotted, or +cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion +almost as much as I have told you here. + +"Well, you've spoiled one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to," +said he, "but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through. +Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you, +young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and +indigestible food till the day of your death." + +The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed +to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts. + +"Eyes, Pansay--all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of these +three is Stomach. You've too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach, +and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the rest +follows. And all that's French for a liver pill. I'll take sole medical +charge of you from this hour! for you're too interesting a phenomenon to +be passed over." + +By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road +and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hanging +shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh +rapped out an oath. + +"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside +for the sake of a stomach-_cum_-Brain-_cum_-Eye illusion.... Lord, ha' +mercy! What's that?" + +There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front +of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the +cliff-side--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road below, +completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a +moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their +fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and +sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had +subsided, my companion muttered:--"Man, if we'd gone forward we should +have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. 'There are more things +in heaven and earth.'... Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg +badly." + +We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr. +Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight. + +His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week +I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I +bless the good-fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's best +and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. +Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with +Heatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating eyes, brain, and +stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a +fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be +recovered before she had time to regret my absence. + +Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver +pills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at +early dawn--for, as he sagely observed: "A man with a sprained ankle +doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be +wondering if she saw you." + +At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and +strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed +me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting +benediction: "Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that's as much +as to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your traps +out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss Kitty." + +I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me +short. + +"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved +like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you're a phenomenon, +and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. No!"--checking me a +second time--"not a rupee, please. Go out and see if you can find the +eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for each +time you see it." + +Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with +Kitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the +fore-knowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous +presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a +ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko. + +Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal +spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was +delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in +her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings' +house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla +road as of old. + +I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my +assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too +slow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. +"Why, Jack!" she cried at last, "you are behaving like a child. What are +you doing?" + +We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making +my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop +of my riding-whip. + +"Doing?" I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing +nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I." + + "'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, + Joying to feel yourself alive; + Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth, + Lord of the senses five.'" + +My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner +above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to +Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and white +liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. +I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have said +something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on +the road with Kitty kneeling above me in tears. + +"Has it gone, child!" I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly. + +"Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all mean? There must be a +mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake." Her last words brought me +to my feet--mad--raving for the time being. + +"Yes, there is a mistake somewhere," I repeated, "a hideous mistake. +Come and look at It." + +I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the +road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to +It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could +break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the +same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the +'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from +a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told +Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen +intently with white face and blazing eyes. + +"Thank you, Mr. Pansay," she said, "that's _quite_ enough. _Syce ghora +lao._" + +The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the +recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of +the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the +cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word +or two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and +judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side +of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the +riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had no self-respect. +Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a +distance, cantered up. + +"Doctor," I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering's +signature to my order of dismissal and... I'll thank you for that lakh +as soon as convenient." + +Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter. + +"I'll stake my professional reputation"--he began. + +"Don't be a fool," I whispered. "I've lost my life's happiness and you'd +better take me home." + +As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was +passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a +cloud and fall in upon me. + +Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I +was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh +was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table. +His first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much +moved by them. + +"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good +deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and +a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the +liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with +you." + +"And Kitty?" I asked, dully. + +"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token +you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just +before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as +you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for +his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it +too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road +turned up. 'Says she'll die before she ever speaks to you again." + +I groaned and turned over to the other side. + +"Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken +off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken +through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better +exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll +tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies' +Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it." + +During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the +lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on +earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering +through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. +I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which +dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering +in a voice that I hardly recognized,-- + +"They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give 'em +fits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer." + +Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven +I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past +month. + +"But I am in Simla," I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am in +Simla and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to +pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did +her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd +never have come hack on purpose to kill _her_. Why can't I be left +alone--left alone and happy?" + +It was high noon when I first awoke: and the sun was low in the sky +before I slept--slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too +worn to feel further pain. + +Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning +that he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to +his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had +traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all +sides much pitied. + +"And that's rather more than you deserve," he concluded, pleasantly, +"though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill. +Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon." + +I declined firmly to be cured. "You've been much too good to me already, +old man," said I; "but I don't think I need trouble you further." + +In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the +burden that had been laid upon me. + +With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion +against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no +better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another +world; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone +should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in +time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were +the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that +Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all +ghosts; and the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devised +to torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward for +seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the +bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and +was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs +of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as +expression-less and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent +alteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I +found nothing. + +On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the +morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I +found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in +clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized +that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my +fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on +the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered +aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to +the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs. +Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since +I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw +and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to +the bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any +sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay +me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had +served for an excuse. + +So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept +round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines +dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of +fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself +almost aloud: "I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla--_at Simla_! Everyday, +ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that--I mustn't forget that." Then I +would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the +prices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related to +the workaday Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the +multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was +not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have +prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time. + +Once more I wearily climbed the Convent and entered the level +road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left +alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put back your +hood and tell me what it all means?" The hood dropped noiselessly, and +I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing +the dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tiny +handkerchief in her right hand; and the same cardcase in her left. (A +woman eight months dead with a cardcase!) I had to pin myself down to +the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of +the road, to assure myself that that at least was real. + +"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means." Mrs. +Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used +to know so well, and spoke. + +If my story had not already so madly overleaped the bounds of all human +belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, not +even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of +my conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and +I walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the +Commander-in-Chief's house as I might walk by the side of any living +woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting +of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the +Prince in Tennyson's poem, "I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts." +There had been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief's, and we two +joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed +that _they_ were the shadows--impalpable, fantastic shadows--that +divided for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said +during the course of that weird interview I cannot--indeed, I dare +not--tell. Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a +remark that I had been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera." It was +a ghastly and yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. +Could it be possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a +second time the woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty? + +I met Kitty on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows. + +If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their +order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would be +exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly +'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went +there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company +to and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd or +yelling _jhampanies_; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of +whist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and +in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the +'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and +iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning +some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have +walked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the +unspeakable amazement of the passers-by. + +Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the "fit" theory +had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my +mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had +a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I +hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I +felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly +companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods +from the 15th of May up to to-day. + +The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind +fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave +Simla; and I knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover, +that it was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only +anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately +I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations +with my successor--to speak more accurately, my successors--with amused +interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I +wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven +to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these +varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen +and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one +poor soul to its grave. + + * * * * * + +_August 27._--Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on +me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application +for sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A +request that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of +five ghosts and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh's +proposition moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that I +should await the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not +far off. Believe me that I dread its advent more than any word can say; +and I torture myself nightly with a thousand speculations as to the +manner of my death. + +Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die; +or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to +take its place forever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm? +Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall +I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity? +Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time? +As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living +flesh feels toward escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and +more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with +scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more +awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable +terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion," for I know you +will never believe what I have written here. Yet as surely as ever a man +was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man. + +In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by +man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is +ever now upon me. + + + + +MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY + + As I came through the Desert thus it was-- + As I came through the Desert. + --_The City of Dreadful Night._ + +Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and +plays and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend their +lives in building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real stories +about the real insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant. +But he will insist upon treating his ghosts--he has published half +a workshopful of them--with levity. He makes his ghost-seers talk +familiarly, and, in some cases, flirt outrageously, with the phantoms. +You may treat anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, with +levity; but you must behave reverently toward a ghost, and particularly +an Indian one. + +There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby +corpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes. +Then they drop upon his neck and remain. There are also terrible ghosts +of women who have died in child-bed. These wander along the pathways at +dusk, or hide in the crops near a village, and call seductively. But to +answer their call is death in this world and the next. Their feet are +turned backward that all sober men may recognize them. There are ghosts +of little children who have been thrown into wells. These haunt well +curbs and the fringes of jungles, and wail under the stars, or catch +women by the wrist and beg to be taken up and carried. These and the +corpse ghosts, however, are only vernacular articles and do not attack +Sahibs. No native ghost has yet been authentically reported to have +frightened an Englishman; but many English ghosts have scared the life +out of both white and black. + +Nearly every other Station owns a ghost. There are said to be two +at Simla, not counting the woman who blows the bellows at Syree +dak-bungalow on the Old Road; Mussoorie has a house haunted of a very +lively Thing; a White Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round a +house in Lahore; Dalhousie says that one of her houses "repeats" on +autumn evenings all the incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice +accident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been swept +by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers' +Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose +furniture is guaranteed to creak, not with the heat of June but with +the weight of Invisibles who come to lounge in the chairs; Peshawur +possesses houses that none will willingly rent; and there is +something--not fever--wrong with a big bungalow in Allahabad. The older +Provinces simply bristle with haunted houses, and march phantom armies +along their main thoroughfares. + +Some of the dak-bungalows on the Grand Trunk Road have handy little +cemeteries in their compound--witnesses to the "changes and chances +of this mortal life" in the days when men drove from Calcutta to the +Northwest. These bungalows are objectionable places to put up in. +They are generally very old, always dirty, while the _khansamah_ is as +ancient as the bungalow. He either chatters senilely, or falls into the +long trances of age. In both moods he is useless. If you get angry with +him, he refers to some Sahib dead and buried these thirty years, and +says that when he was in that Sahib's service not a _khansamah_ in the +Province could touch him. Then he jabbers and mows and trembles and +fidgets among the dishes, and you repent of your irritation. + +In these dak-bungalows, ghosts are most likely to be found, and when +found, they should be made a note of. Not long ago it was my business to +live in dak-bungalows. I never inhabited the same house for three +nights running, and grew to be learned in the breed. I lived in +Government-built ones with red brick walls and rail ceilings, an +inventory of the furniture posted in every room, and an excited snake at +the threshold to give welcome. I lived in "converted" ones--old houses +officiating as dak-bungalows--where nothing was in its proper place +and there wasn't even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-hand +palaces where the wind blew through open-work marble tracery just as +uncomfortably as through a broken pane. I lived in dak-bungalows where +the last entry in the visitors' book was fifteen months old, and where +they slashed off the curry-kid's head with a sword. It was my good +luck to meet all sorts of men, from sober traveling missionaries and +deserters flying from British Regiments, to drunken loafers who threw +whisky bottles at all who passed; and my still greater good fortune just +to escape a maternity case. Seeing that a fair proportion of the tragedy +of our lives out here acted itself in dak-bungalows, I wondered that +I had met no ghosts. A ghost that would voluntarily hang about a +dak-bungalow would be mad of course; but so many men have died mad in +dak-bungalows that there must be a fair percentage of lunatic ghosts. + +In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, for there were two of +them. Up till that hour I had sympathized with Mr. Besant's method of +handling them, as shown in "The Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other +Stories." I am now in the Opposition. + +We will call the bungalow Katmal dak-bungalow. But THAT was the smallest +part of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep in +dak-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dak-bungalow was old and rotten +and unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, and +the windows were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largely +used by native Sub-Deputy Assistants of all kinds, from Finance to +Forests; but real Sahibs were rare. The _khansamah_, who was nearly bent +double with old age, said so. + +When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the +land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise +like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The +_khansamah_ completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served a +Sahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He gave me the name of a well-known +man who has been buried for more than a quarter of a century, and showed +me an ancient daguerreotype of that man in his prehistoric youth. I had +seen a steel engraving of him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs +a month before, and I felt ancient beyond telling. + +The day shut in and the _khansamah_ went to get me food. He did not go +through the pretense of calling it "_khana_"--man's victuals. He said +"_ratub_," and that means, among other things, "grub"--dog's rations. +There was no insult in his choice of the term. He had forgotten the +other word, I suppose. + +While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myself +down, after exploring the dak-bungalow. There were three rooms, beside +my own, which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other through +dingy white doors fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow was a very +solid one, but the partition walls of the rooms were almost jerry-built +in their flimsiness. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed from my room +down the other three, and every footfall came back tremulously from the +far walls. For this reason I shut the door. There were no lamps--only +candles in long glass shades. An oil wick was set in the bathroom. + +For bleak, unadulterated misery that dak-bungalow was the worst of +the many that I had ever set foot in. There was no fireplace, and +the windows would not open; so a brazier of charcoal would have been +useless. The rain and the wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round the +house, and the toddy palms rattled and roared. Half a dozen jackals +went through the compound singing, and a hyena stood afar off and mocked +them. A hyena would convince a Sadducee of the Resurrection of the +Dead--the worst sort of Dead. Then came the _ratub_--a curious meal, +half native and half English in composition--with the old _khansamah_ +babbling behind my chair about dead and gone English people, and +the wind-blown candles playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the +mosquito-curtains. It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make +a man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others +that he intended to commit if he lived. + +Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not easy. The lamp in the +bath-room threw the most absurd shadows into the room, and the wind was +beginning to talk nonsense. + +Just when the reasons were drowsy with blood-sucking I heard the +regular--"Let-us-take-and-heave-him-over" grunt of doolie-bearers in the +compound. First one doolie came in, then a second, and then a third. I +heard the doolies dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front of +my door shook. "That's some one trying to come in," I said. But no one +spoke, and I persuaded myself that it was the gusty wind. The shutter +of the room next to mine was attacked, flung back, and the inner door +opened. "That's some Sub-Deputy Assistant," I said, "and he has brought +his friends with him. Now they'll talk and spit and smoke for an hour." + +But there were no voices and no footsteps. No one was putting his +luggage into the next room. The door shut, and I thanked Providence that +I was to be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies +had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never +a sign of a doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, +in the next room, the sound that no man in his senses can possibly +mistake--the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates when +the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A +minute afterwards there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not +frightened--indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had become +of the doolies. I jumped into bed for that reason. + +Next minute I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. It +is a mistake to say that hair stands up. The skin of the head tightens +and you can feel a faint, prickly, bristling all over the scalp. That is +the hair sitting up. + +There was a whir and a click, and both sounds could only have been made +by one thing--a billiard ball. I argued the matter out at great length +with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one +bed, one table, and two chairs--all the furniture of the room next to +mine--could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. +After another cannon, a three-cushion one to judge by the whir, I +argued no more. I had found my ghost and would have given worlds to have +escaped from that dak-bungalow. I listened, and with each listen the +game grew clearer. There was whir on whir and click on click. Sometimes +there was a double click and a whir and another click. Beyond any sort +of doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. And the next +room was not big enough to hold a billiard table! + +Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward--stroke +after stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices; but that +attempt was a failure. + +Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear of insult, injury or death, +but abject, quivering dread of something that you cannot see--fear that +dries the inside of the mouth and half of the throat--fear that makes +you sweat on the palms of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the uvula +at work? This is a fine Fear--a great cowardice, and must be felt to +be appreciated. The very improbability of billiards in a dak-bungalow +proved the reality of the thing. No man--drunk or sober--could imagine a +game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a "screw-cannon." + +A severe course of dak-bungalows has this disadvantage--it +breeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed +dak-bungalow-haunter:--"There is a corpse in the next room, and there's +a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel +have just eloped from a place sixty miles away," the hearer would not +disbelieve because he would know that nothing is too wild, grotesque, or +horrible to happen in a dak-bungalow. + +This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person +fresh from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. I +did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores +of things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so +surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the +echoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that the +players might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatures +who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. I only +know that that was my terror; and it was real. + +After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept +because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept +awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and +peered into the dark of the next room. + +When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and +inquired for the means of departure. + +"By the way, _khansamah_," I said, "what were those three doolies doing +in my compound in the night?" + +"There were no doolies," said the _khansamah_. + +I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open +door. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black +Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below. + +"Has this place always been a dak-bungalow?" I asked. + +"No," said the _khansamah_. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten +how long, it was a billiard room." + +"A how much?" + +"A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was _khansamah_ +then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used +to come across with brandy-_shrab_. These three rooms were all one, and +they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But +the Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to +Kabul." + +"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?" + +"It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always +angry, was playing here one night, and he said to me:--'Mangal Khan, +brandy-_pani do_,' and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to +strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and his +spectacles came off, and when we--the Sahibs and I myself--ran to lift +him. He was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib! +But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your favor." + +That was more than enough! I had my ghost--a firsthand, authenticated +article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research--I would +paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty +miles of assessed crop land between myself and that dak-bungalow before +nightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate +later on. + +I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts +of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,--with a miss in +balk this time, for the whir was a short one. + +The door was open and I could see into the room. _Click--click!_ That +was a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight +within and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at +a tremendous rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was +running to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose +window-sash was making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in +the breeze! + +Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake +the whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I +shut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast +game. + +Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh. + +"This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was +disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the +bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it +was their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people! +What honor has the _khansamah_? They tried to enter, but I told them to +go. No wonder, if these _Oorias_ have been here, that the Presence is +sorely spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man!" + +Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for +rent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the +big green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir +Baksh has no notions of morality. + +There was an interview with the _khansamah_, but as he promptly lost his +head, wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation, +in the course of which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib's tragic death in +three separate stations--two of them fifty miles away. The third shift +was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dogcart. + +If I had encouraged him the _khansamah_ would have wandered all through +Bengal with his corpse. + +I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while +the wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong +"hundred and fifty up." Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped, +and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story. + +Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made _anything_ out +of it. + +That was the bitterest thought of all! + + + + +THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES + + Alive or dead--there is no other way. + --_Native Proverb._ + +There is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by +accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though +he is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar +institution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is +a story that if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart +of the Great Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but a +town where the Dead who did not die but may not live have established +their headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true that in the same +Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money lenders retreat +after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners +cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them, +but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring +barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold +and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-n'-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's +tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans +and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take +the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing his +legitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and grows +very hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatment +he received. He wrote this quite straightforwardly at first, but he has +since touched it up in places and introduced Moral Reflections, thus: + +In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work +necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and +Muharakpur--a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had +the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor +less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient +attention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so unmanly a +weakness. + +On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a full +moon at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was baying +it. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few +days previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his +carcass _in terrorem_ about fifty yards from my tent-door. But his +friends fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body; and, as +it seemed to me, sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewed +energy. + +The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently on +different men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixed +determination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been +foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to +a shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both +barrels of my shot-gun, when it struck me that my best plan would be to +ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, of +course, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient; but I +remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and +feasible. + +I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him round +quietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his +head prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift +up his voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a +couple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armed +with a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been +rousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then, +that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute +bolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and we were +flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed. + +In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten +why it was that I had taken the horse and hogspear. + +The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the +air must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint +recollection of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing my +hog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad +gallop; and of shout-log challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they +whizzed past. Once or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic's +neck, and literally hung on by my spurs--as the marks next morning +showed. + +The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemed +to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground +rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the +waters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic +blundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseen +. + +I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying on +my stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to +break dimly over the edge of the down which I had fallen. As the +light grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horseshoe-shaped +crater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of the +Sutlej. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of a +slight dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall over +night. + +Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal +exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite +polo one was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly. +It took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had +ample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly +dropped. + +At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length: +inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of +material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows. + +Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand +with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The , +I fancy, must have been about 65 degrees.) This crater enclosed a level +piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part, +with a crude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater, +about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of +eighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all +about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it +was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over +the mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey's +cap, for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a +most sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre--a stench fouler +than any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to. + +Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I +rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit +would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not +thought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My +first attempt to "rush" Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that +I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the +ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down +from above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes like +small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to +the bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and I was constrained +to turn my attention to the river-bank. + +Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river +edge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across +which I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to _terra firma_ by +turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic over the sands I +was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at the +same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp "_whit_" close to Pornic's +head. + +There was no mistaking the nature of the missile--a regulation +Martini-Henry "picket." About five hundred yards away a country-boat was +anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in +the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. +Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an _impasse_? The treacherous +sand allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most +involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for +a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lost +my temper very much indeed. + +Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool +my porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the +horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five +human beings from the badger-holes which I had up till that point +supposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of +spectators--about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not +have been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed in +that salmon- cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants, +and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band of loathsome +_fakirs_. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond +all description, and I shuddered to think what their life in the +badger-holes must be. + +Even in these days, when local self-government has destroyed the greater +part of a native's respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to a +certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching the +crowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my +presence. As a matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what I +had looked for. + +The ragged crew actually laughed at me--such laughter I hope I may never +hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked into +their midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on the +ground in convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornic's +head, and, irritated beyond expression at the morning's adventure, +commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The +wretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gave +place to wails for mercy; while those yet untouched clasped me round the +knees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them. + +In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself +for having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voice +murmured in English from behind my shoulder: "Sahib! Sahib! Do you not +know me? Sahib, it is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master." + +I spun round quickly and faced the speaker. + +Gunga Dass, (I have, of course, no hesitation in mentioning the man's +real name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin loaned by +the Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in charge +of a branch telegraph-office there, and when I had last met him was +a jovial, full-stomached, portly Government servant with a marvelous +capacity for making bad puns in English--a peculiarity which made +me remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in his +official capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns. + +Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark, +stomach, slate- continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. +I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with long +matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes. But for a crescent-shaped scar on +the left cheek--the result of an accident for which I was responsible I +should never have known him. But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and--for +this I was thankfull--an English-speaking native who might at least tell +me the meaning of all that I had gone through that day. + +The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the miserable +figure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from the +crater. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my +question climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of +the holes, and commenced lighting a fire there in silence. Dried bents, +sand-poppies, and driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolation +from the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When they +were in a bright glow, and the crow was nearly spitted in front thereof, +Gunga Dass began without a word of preamble: + +"There are only two kinds of men, Sar. The alive and the dead. When you +are dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live." (Here the crow +demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in +danger of being burned to a cinder.) "If you die at home and do not die +when you come to the ghat to be burned you come here." + +The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I had +known or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the fact +just communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Sixteen years ago, when I first +landed in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the +existence, somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as had +the misfortune to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed and +kept, and I recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to +consider a traveler's tale. + +Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's Hotel, +with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced +Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst +into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd! + +Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously. +Hindus seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga +Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly +from the wooden spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his +story, which I give in his own words: + +"In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to be burned almost before +you are dead. When you come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps, +makes you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud is put on +your nose and mouth and you die conclusively. If you are rather more +alive, more mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you go +and take you away. I was too lively, and made protestation with anger +against the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In those +days I was Brahmin and proud man. Now I am dead man and eat"--here he +eyed the well-gnawed breast bone with the first sign of emotion that +I had seen in him since we met--"crows, and other things. They took me +from my sheets when they saw that I was too lively and gave me medicines +for one week, and I survived successfully. Then they sent me by rail +from my place to Okara Station, with a man to take care of me; and +at Okara Station we met two other men, and they conducted we three +on camels, in the night, from Okara Station to this place, and they +propelled me from the top to the bottom, and the other two succeeded, +and I have been here ever since two and a half years. Once I was Brahmin +and proud man, and now I eat crows." + +"There is no way of getting out?" + +"None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments +frequently and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the +sand which is precipitated upon our heads." + +"But surely," I broke in at this point, "the river-front is open, and +it is worth while dodging the bullets; while at night"--I had already +matured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishness +forbade me sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined my +unspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed; and, to my intense +astonishment, gave vent to a long low chuckle of derision--the laughter, +be it understood, of a superior or at least of an equal. + +"You will not"--he had dropped the Sir completely after his opening +sentence--"make any escape that way. But you can try. I have tried. Once +only." + +The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain +attempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast--it +was now close upon ten o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on +the previous day--combined with the violent and unnatural agitation of +the ride had exhausted me, and I verily believe that, for a few minutes, +I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand- I +ran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. I +crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven back +each time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cut +up the sand round me--for I dared not face the death of a mad dog among +that hideous crowd--and finally fell, spent and raving, at the curb of +the well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an exhibition which +makes me blush hotly even when I think of it now. + +Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but they +were evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to waste +upon me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, indeed, when he had +banked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half +a cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could +have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the +while in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first +attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I +lay till noon. Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and +intimated as much to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as my +natural protector. Following the impulse of the outer world when dealing +with natives, I put my hand into my pocket and drew out four annas. The +absurdity of the gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace the +money. + +Gunga Dass, however, was of a different opinion. "Give me the money," +said he; "all you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you!" All +this as if it were the most natural thing in the world! + +A Briton's first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his +pockets; but a moment's reflection convinced me of the futility +of differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me +comfortable; and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually +escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs. +9-8-5--nine rupees eight annas and five pie--for I always keep small +change as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and +hid them at once in his ragged loin cloth, his expression changing to +something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one +had observed us. + +"_Now_ I will give you something to eat," said he. + +What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I am +unable to say; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was not +sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that he +would have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest against +the vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were lower than +any beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse +_chapatti_ and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not +the faintest sign of curiosity--that curiosity which is so rampant, as a +rule, in an Indian village. + +I could even fancy that they despised me. At all events they treated me +with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. +I plied him with questions about the terrible village, and received +extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been +in existence from time immemorial--whence I concluded that it was at +least a century old--and during that time no one had ever been known to +escape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest the +blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving +round the crater.] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizing +this point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would +induce him to tell me who the mysterious "They" were. + +"It is so ordered," he would reply, "and I do not yet know any one who +has disobeyed the orders." + +"Only wait till my servants find that I am missing," I retorted, "and I +promise you that this place shall be cleared off the face of the earth, +and I'll give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend." + +"Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place; +and, besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of +course, but none the less you are dead and buried." + +At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped down +from the land side into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for +them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreated +to his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the +hole and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay. + +The phrase "thrown on to the sand" caught my attention, and I asked +Gunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a +pestilence. + +"That," said he with another of his wheezy chuckles, "you may see for +yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations." + +Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continued +the conversation: "And how do you live here from day to day? What do you +do?" The question elicited exactly the same answer as before--coupled +with the information that "this place is like your European heaven; +there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage." + +Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself +admitted, had he only changed his religion "like a wise man," might have +avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was +with him I fancy he was happy. + +Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as +a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a +deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would +devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled +beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably +to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there +was no escape "of no kind whatever," and that I should stay here till I +died and was "thrown on to the sand." If it were possible to forejudge +the conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their +abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me +throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer; +all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable +terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare +the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the +overpowering nausea of the Channel passage--only my agony was of the +spirit and infinitely more terrible. + +As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to +catch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at the +mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among +themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four +o'clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair +for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird +was in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no +way afraid of its master. Advancing cautiously to the river front, Gunga +Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch +of sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of the +boat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous +turns of the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings. +As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air +with its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention +of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where they +were discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows +flew over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, to +attack the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock, +motioned to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless +precaution. In a moment, and before I could see how it happened, a +wild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, was +entangled in the latter's claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, and +pegged down beside its companion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed, +overpowered the rest of the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I +had time to withdraw to the tussock, two more captives were struggling +in the upturned claws of the decoys. So the chase--if I can give it so +dignified a name--continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows. +Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operations +another day. I was a good deal impressed by this, to me, novel method of +securing food, and complimented Gunga Dass on his skill. + +"It is nothing to do," said he. "Tomorrow you must do it for me. You are +stronger than I am." + +This calm assumption of superiority upset me not a little, and I +answered peremptorily: "Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I +have given you money for?" + +"Very well," was the unmoved reply. "Perhaps not to-morrow, nor the day +after, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you will +catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you +have crows to catch and eat." + +I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best under +the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating +one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I +had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening +meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform +opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. +Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike, +seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were +old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all +appearance as the Fates themselves. They sat together in knots and +talked--God only knows what they found to discuss--in low equable tones, +curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives are +accustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden +fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or +woman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the +steep until, baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform +incapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise their +eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their +fellows' attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four +such outbursts in the course of the evening. + +Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and +while we were dining--I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, +but it was painful enough at the time--propounded the terms on which he +would consent to "do" for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at +the rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one +days, or about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater +for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after +myself. For a further consideration--_videlicet_ my boots--he would be +willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply +me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare. + +"Very well, Gunga Dass," I replied; "to the first terms I cheerfully +agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as +you sit here and taking everything that you have" (I thought of the two +invaluable crows at the time), "I flatly refuse to give you my boots and +shall take whichever den I please." + +The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had +succeeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all +intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as at +all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years' standing +in the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus +calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a +consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world, +it seemed, for centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own +existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that +of the strongest; that the living dead men had thrown behind them every +canon of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to depend +for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the +ill-fated _Mignonette_ are the only men who would understand my frame of +mind. "At present," I argued to myself, "I am strong and a match for six +of these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for my +own sake, keep both health and strength until the hour of my release +comes--if it ever does." + +Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and drank as much as I could, +and made Gunga Dass understand that I intended to be his master, and +that the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with +the only punishment I had it in my power to inflict--sudden and violent +death. Shortly after this I went to bed. That is to say, Gunga Dass gave +me a double armful of dried bents which I thrust down the mouth of the +lair to the right of his, and followed myself, feet foremost; the +hole running about nine feet into the sand with a slight downward +inclination, and being neatly shored with timbers. From my den, which +faced the river-front, I was able to watch the waters of the Sutlej +flowing past under the light of a young moon and compose myself to sleep +as best I might. + +The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as +narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by +the contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled +abominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited +frame of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire +amphitheatre was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up +from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs. + +Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament,--very few Engineers +are,--but on that occasion I was as completely prostrated with nervous +terror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was able once +more to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sand +walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of +this some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, in +the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. The +place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergo +any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creeping +stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not +there. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps! + +By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of the +projecting left horn of the horseshoe, I could wade across, turn +the flank of the crater, and make my way inland. Without a moment's +hesitation I marched briskly past the tussocks where Gunga Dass had +snared the crows, and out in the direction of the smooth white sand +beyond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass showed me how +utterly futile was any hope of escape; for, as I put my foot down, I +felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Another +moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight +the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with devilish delight +at my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror and +exertion, back to the tussocks behind me and fell on my face. + +My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with a +quicksand! + +How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at last +by the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear "I would advise you, +Protector of the Poor" (the ruffian was speaking English) "to return to +your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat +returns, you will most certainly be rifled at." He stood over me in the +dim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressing +my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to the +quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below the +burrows. + +Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked: "Gunga Dass, +what is the good of the boat if I can't get out _anyhow_?" I recollect +that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the +waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore. + +Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer: "They have the boat only in +daytime. It is for the reason that _there is a way_. I hope we shall +have the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant +spot when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long +enough." + +I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted to +me, and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing +scream--the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who +have once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some little +difficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I +saw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they +had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was +better than crow, and "greatest good of greatest number is political +maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair +share of the beast. If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall I +propose?" + +Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the +bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted +no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight +in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, +Pornic's body was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and +women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing +their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible +impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me +afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass +was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another +remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. +This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him say +something. + +"You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi," he said, +coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing. + +"What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don't stop to tell me a +lie." + +"He is over there," answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth +about four doors to the left of my own. "You can see for yourself. He +died in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men +and women and the one child will also die." + +"For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he +come, and when did he die?" + +This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and +replied: "I will not--unless you give me something first." + +Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes, +partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and, +cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led +me round to the burrow which he had indicated. + +"I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness +that I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was +shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from +attempting. He was shot here." Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean +stomach and bowed to the earth. + +"Well, and what then? Go on!" + +"And then--and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house and +gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his +house and gave up the ghost." + +"In how long? In how long?" + +"About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to +witness," yelled the wretched man, "that I did everything for him. +Everything which was possible, that I did!" + +He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had +my doubts about Gunga Dass's benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay +protesting. + +"I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a +minute or two. How long was the Sahib here?" + +"Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me +swear Protector of the Poor! Won't Your Honor hear me swear that I never +touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship going to +do?" + +I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the +platform opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my +wretched fellow-prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrors +for eighteen months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, +with a bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going +to kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the +plethora that follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring. + +"Go inside, Gunga Dass," said I, "and fetch it out." + +I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled +off the platform and howled aloud. + +"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your +father's soul, do not make me do this thing!" + +"Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go!" +I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into +the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down, +covered my face with my hands. + +At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga +Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft +thud--and I uncovered my eyes. + +The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a +yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it. +The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn, +with leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man between thirty and +forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a +rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and +a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of +the left hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with +a monogram that might have been either "B.K." or "B.L." On the third +finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled +cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of +trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the +face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give +the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the +unfortunate man: + +1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and +blackened; bound with string at the crew. + +2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken. + +3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel, name-plate, marked +with monogram "B.K." + +4. Envelope, postmark undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, +addressed to "Miss Mon--" (rest illegible)--"ham"--"nt." + +5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages +blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private +memoranda relating chiefly to three persons--a Mrs.L. Singleton, +abbreviated several times to "Lot Single," "Mrs. S. May," and +"Garmison," referred to in places as "Jerry" or "Jack." + +6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short. Buck's +horn, diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cotton +cord attached. + +It must not be supposed that I inventoried all these things on the spot +as fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attracted +my attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view of studying it later +on. + +The rest of the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety's sake, and +there being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned to +the corpse and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it out to the +river-front. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old +brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet. +Gunga Dass had not seen it; and I fell to thinking that a man does not +carry exploded cartridge-cases, especially "browns," which will not +bear loading twice, about with him when shooting. In other words, that +cartridge-case had been fired inside the crater. Consequently there must +be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked +myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of +the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and +let it be swallowed up-the only possible mode of burial that I could +think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away. + +Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so, it +was lying face downward, I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat +open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you +that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glance +showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the +gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The +shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, +which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's +death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably +Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun--the gun that fitted the +brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the +rifle-fire from the boat. + +I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in +a few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way +I turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolored slip of paper +had been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as I +opened the pages. This is what it contained: "_Four out from crow-clump: +three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen out; two +left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six back; four right; +seven back._" The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. What +it meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turning +it over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dass +standing immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands. + +"Have you got it?" he panted. "Will you not let me look at it also? I +swear that I will return it." + +"Got what? Return what?" asked. + +"That which you have in your hands. It will help us both." He stretched +out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness. + +"I could never find it," he continued. "He had secreted it about his +person. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtain +it." + +Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about the +rifle-bullet. I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is +blunted by consorting with the Dead who are alive. + +"What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give +you?" + +"The piece of paper in the notebook. It will help us both. Oh, you fool! +You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape!" + +His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before +me. I own I was moved at the chance of my getting away. + +"Don't skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of +paper will help us? What does it mean?" + +"Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I pray you to read it aloud." + +I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and drew an irregular line in +the sand with his fingers. + +"See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have +those barrels. Four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows. +Straight out; do you follow me? Then three left. Ah! how well I remember +when that man worked it out night after night. Then nine out, and so on. +Out is always straight before you across the quicksand. He told me so +before I killed him." + +"But if you knew all this why didn't you get out before?" + +"I did _not_ know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a +half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat +had gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he +said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would +leave me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot +him. Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here +should escape. Only I, and _I_ am a Brahmin." + +The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass's caste back to him. He +stood up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed +to make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent +six months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage +across the quicksand; how he had declared it to be simplicity itself up +to within about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank +of the left horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not +completed when Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun. + +In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect +shaking hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we +were to make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work +waiting throughout the afternoon. + +About ten o'clock, as far as I could judge, when the Moon had just risen +above the lip of the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow to +bring out the gun-barrels whereby to measure our path. All the other +wretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardian +boat drifted downstream some hours before, and we were utterly alone by +the crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun-barrels, let slip +the piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily to +recover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical Brahmin +was aiming a violent blow at the back of my head with the gun-barrels. +It was too late to turn round. I must have received the blow somewhere +on the nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my +eyes, and I fell forwards senseless at the edge of, the quicksand. + +When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I was +sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had +disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayed +that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I had +before mentioned, laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward the +walls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in a +whisper--"Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!" exactly as my bearer used to call me in +the morning I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand +fell at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into +the amphitheatre--the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my +collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand +and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for the while, that +he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted +together, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and +under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that I +was being dragged, face downward, up the steep sand , and the +next instant found myself choked and half fainting on the sand +hills overlooking the crater. Dunnoo, with his face ashy grey in the +moonlight, implored me not to stay but to get back to my tent at once. + +It seems that he had tracked Pornic's footprints fourteen miles across +the sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly +refused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the +hideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies +and a couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out +as I have described. + +To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold +mohur a month--a sum which I still think far too little for the services +he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that +devilish spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I +have done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to +do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some +one may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I +have given above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit. + + + + +THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING + + "Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy." + +The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not +easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under +circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other +was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came +near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was +promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue, and +policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, +and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself. + +The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow +from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated +travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class, +but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions +in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, +which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, +or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy +from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and +buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside +water. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the +carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon. + +My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached +Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, +and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He +was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated +taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of +out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and +of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food. + +"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than +the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy +millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred +millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed +to agree with him. + +We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from +the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we +talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram +back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the +Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money +beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at +all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was +going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the +Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to +help him in any way. + +"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick," +said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and +_I_'ve got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling +back along this line within any days?" + +"Within ten," I said. + +"Can't you make it eight?" said he. "Mine is rather urgent business." + +"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I +said. + +"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It's this +way. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running +through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd." + +"But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained. + +"Well _and_ good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to +get into Jodhpore territory,--you must do that,--and he'll be coming +through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the +Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't be +inconveniencing you, because I know that there's precious few pickings +to be got out of these Central India States--even though you pretend to +be correspondent of the 'Backwoodsman.'" + +"Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked. + +"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get +escorted to the Border before you've time to get your knife into them. +But about my friend here. I _must_ give him a word o' mouth to tell him +what's come to me, or else he won't know where to go. I would take it +more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to +catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him, 'He has gone South for the +week.' He'll know what that means. He's a big man with a red beard, and +a great swell he is. You'll find him sleeping like a gentleman with +all his luggage round him in a Second-class apartment. But don't you be +afraid. Slip down the window and say, 'He has gone South for the week,' +and he'll tumble. It's only cutting your time of stay in those parts +by two days. I ask you as a stranger--going to the West," he said, with +emphasis. + +"Where have _you_ come from?" said I. + +"From the East," said he, "and I am hoping that you will give him the +message on the Square--for the sake of my Mother as well as your own." + +Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their +mothers; but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw +fit to agree. + +"It's more than a little matter," said he, "and that's why I asked +you to do it--and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. A +Second-class carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep +in it. You'll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I +must hold on there till he comes or sends me what I want." + +"I'll give the message if I catch him," I said, "and for the sake of +your Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice. Don't try +to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the +'Backwoodsman.' There's a real one knocking about here, and it might +lead to trouble." + +"Thank you," said he, simply; "and when will the swine be gone? I +can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the +Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him a jump." + +"What did he do to his father's widow, then?" + +"Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung +from a beam. I found that out myself, and I'm the only man that would +dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They'll try to +poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. +But you'll give the man at Marwar Junction my message?" + +He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard, +more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and +bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never +met any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die +with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of +English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of +government, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, +or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not +understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administration +of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent +limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one end +of the year to the other. They are the dark places of the earth, full +of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one +side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the +train I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days passed through +many changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes and consorted with +Princes and Politicals, drinking from crystal and eating from silver. +Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and devoured what I could get, from +a plate made of leaves, and drank the running water, and slept under the +same rug as my servant. It was all in the day's work. + +Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as I +had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where +a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native-managed railway runs to Jodhpore. +The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrived +just as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and go +down the carriages. There was only one Second-class on the train. +I slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming-red beard, half +covered by a railway-rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him +gently in the ribs. He woke with a grunt, and I saw his face in the +light of the lamps. It was a great and shining face. + +"Tickets again?" said he. + +"No," said I. "I am to tell you that he is gone South for the week. He +has gone South for the week!" + +The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. "He +has gone South for the week," he repeated. "Now that's just like his +impidence. Did he say that I was to give you anything? 'Cause I won't." + +"He didn't," I said, and dropped away, and watched the red lights die +out in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off +the sands. I climbed into my own train--not an Intermediate carriage +this time--and went to sleep. + +If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as +a memento of a rather curious affair. But the consciousness of having +done my duty was my only reward. + +Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do any +good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers, +and might, if they blackmailed one of the little rat-trap States +of Central India or Southern Rajputana, get themselves into serious +difficulties. I therefore took some trouble to describe them as +accurately as I could remember to people who would be interested in +deporting them; and succeeded, so I was later informed, in having them +headed back from the Degumber borders. + +Then I became respectable, and returned to an office where there were no +Kings and no incidents outside the daily manufacture of a newspaper. A +newspaper office seems to attract every conceivable sort of person, to +the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg that +the Editor will instantly abandon all his duties to describe a Christian +prize-giving in a back slum of a perfectly inaccessible village; +Colonels who have been overpassed for command sit down and sketch the +outline of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles on +Seniority _versus_ Selection; missionaries wish to know why they have +not been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse, and +swear at a brother missionary under special patronage of the editorial +We; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannot +pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New Zealand +or Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent punka-pulling +machines, carriage couplings, and unbreakable swords and axletrees call +with specifications in their pockets and hours at their disposal; tea +companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses with the office pens; +secretaries of ball committees clamour to have the glories of their last +dance more fully described; strange ladies rustle in and say, "I want +a hundred lady's cards printed _at once_, please," which is manifestly +part of an Editor's duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped +the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for employment as a +proof-reader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, +and Kings are being killed on the Continent, and Empires are saying, +"You're another," and Mister Gladstone is calling down brimstone upon +the British Dominions, and the little black copyboys are whining, +"_kaa-pi chay-ha-yeh_" ("Copy wanted"), like tired bees, and most of the +paper is as blank as Modred's shield. + +But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other months +when none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch +up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above +reading-light, and the press-machines are red-hot to touch, and nobody +writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or +obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because +it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew +intimately, and the prickly heat covers you with a garment, and you +sit down and write: "A slight increase of sickness is reported from +the Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in +its nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District +authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret +we record the death," etc. + +Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and +reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires +and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and +the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in +twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the +middle of their amusements say, "Good gracious! why can't the paper be +sparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on up here." + +That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, "must +be experienced to be appreciated." + +It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper +began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to +say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a great +convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed the dawn +would lower the thermometer from 96 degrees to almost 84 degrees for +half an hour, and in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 degrees +on the grass until you begin to pray for it--a very tired man could get +off to sleep ere the heat roused him. + +One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed +alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going to +die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on +the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the +latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. + +It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and +the _loo_, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the +tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and +again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the +flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It +was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, +while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the +windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their +foreheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, +whatever it was, would not come off, though the _loo_ dropped and the +last type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking +heat, with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and +wondered whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying +man, or struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the delay +was causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry to +make tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o-clock and the +machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was +in order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could have +shrieked aloud. + +Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little +bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front +of me. The first one said, "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!" And +they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped +their foreheads. "We seed there was a light burning across the road, +and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my +friend here, 'The office is open. Let's come along and speak to him as +turned us back from Degumber State,'" said the smaller of the two. +He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the +red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows +of the one or the beard of the other. + +I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with +loafers. "What do you want?" I asked. + +"Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office," +said the red-bearded man. "We'd _like_ some drink,--the Contrack doesn't +begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we really want is +advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favour, because we found +out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State." + +I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the +walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's something +like," said he. "This was the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let +me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's him, and Brother +Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our professions +the better, for we have been most things in our time--soldier, +sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and +correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we thought the paper wanted +one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first, and see that's +sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll take one of your +cigars apiece, and you shall see us light up." + +I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a +tepid whisky-and-soda. + +"Well _and_ good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth +from his moustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, +mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty +contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't big +enough for such as us." + +They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed to +fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they sat +on the big table. Carnehan continued: "The country isn't half worked +out because they that governs it won't let you touch it. They spend all +their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor +chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that, without all the +Government saying, 'Leave it alone, and let us govern.' Therefore, such +_as_ it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where +a man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and +there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed +a Contrack on that. _Therefore_ we are going away to be Kings." + +"Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot. + +"Yes, of course," I said. "You've been tramping in the sun, and it's +a very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Come +to-morrow." + +"Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot. "We have slept over the +notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have +decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong +men can Sar-a-_whack_. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it's the +top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles +from Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'll +be the thirty-third and fourth. It's a mountaineous country, the women +of those parts are very beautiful." + +"But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan. "Neither +Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel." + +"And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they +fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill +men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King +we find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how +to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will +subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty." + +"You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border," +I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. +It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has +been through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached +them you couldn't do anything." + +"That's more like," said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little more +mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this +country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to +tell us that we are fools and to show us your books." He turned to the +bookcases. + +"Are you at all in earnest?" I said. + +"A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got, even +if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got. We can +read, though we aren't very educated." + +I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and two +smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the "Encyclopaedia +Britannica," and the men consulted them. + +"See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak, Peachey +and me know the road. We was there with Robert's Army. We'll have to +turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we +get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand--it will +be cold work there, but it don't look very far on the map." + +I handed him Wood on the "Sources of the Oxus." Carnehan was deep in the +"Encyclopaedia." + +"They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help +us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'll +fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm!" + +"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate +as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here's +the file of the 'United Services' Institute.' Read what Bellew says." + +"Blow Bellew!" said Carnehan. "Dan, they're a stinkin' lot of heathens, +but this book here says they think they're related to us English." + +I smoked while the men poured over Raverty, Wood, the maps, and the +"Encyclopaedia." + +"There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four +o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we +won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless +lunatics, and if you come to-morrow evening down to the Serai we'll say +good-bye to you." + +"You _are_ two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the +Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want +any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance +of work next week." + +"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said Dravot. +"It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got our Kingdom +in going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us +govern it." + +"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?" said Carnehan, with +subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was +written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity. + + This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in + the name of God--Amen and so forth. + + (One) That me and you will settle this matter + together; i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan. + + (Two) That you and me will not, while this + matter is being settled, look at any + Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white, + or brown, so as to get mixed up with + one or the other harmful. + + (Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity + and Discretion, and if one of us gets + into trouble the other will stay by him. + + Signed by you and me this day. + Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan. + Daniel Dravot. + Both Gentlemen at Large. + +"There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing +modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that +loafers are,--we _are_ loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,--and +_do_ you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was +in earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth +having." + +"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this +idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away +before nine o'clock." + +I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back +of the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow," were +their parting words. + +The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the +strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the +nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk +of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try +to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats, +saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get +many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see +whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there +drunk. + +A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, +gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant +bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up +two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks +of laughter. + +"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabul +to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his +head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly +ever since." + +"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked +Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events." + +"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up +by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!" grunted the Eusufzai +agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into +the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes +were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. "Ohe, priest, whence come you and +whither do you go?" + +"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "from +Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, +robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! +Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are +never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not +fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, +of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to +slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? +The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours!" He spread out the +skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered +horses. + +"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, +_Huzrut_," said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou +also go and bring us good luck." + +"I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged +camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to +his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own." + +He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to +me, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will +sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan." + +Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the +Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted. + +"What d' you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk +their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant. +'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for +fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan +at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get +donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the +Amir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you +feel." + +I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another. + +"Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and ammunition to +correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls." + +"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "A +Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans." + +"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow, +or steal--are invested on these two camels," said Dravot. "We won't get +caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd +touch a poor mad priest?" + +"Have you got everything you want?" I asked, overcome with astonishment. + +"Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a memento of your kindness, +_Brother_. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half +my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is." I slipped a small charm +compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest. + +"Good-bye," said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last time +we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with +him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel passed me. + +Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along +the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no +failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they were +complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that +Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without +detection. But, beyond, they would find death--certain and awful death. + +Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the day +from Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been much laughter +here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation +to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as +great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar +and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. +The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that +such mad fellows bring good fortune." + +The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but +that night a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice. + +The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again. +Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The +daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there +fell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to +be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened +before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines +worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden +were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference. + +I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as +I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it +had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three +o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my +chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was +sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other +like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this +rag-wrapped, whining who addressed me by name, crying that he +was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's +sake, give me a drink!" + +I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I +turned up the lamp. + +"Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his +drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light. + +I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over +the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not +tell where. + +"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whisky. "What can I do for +you?" + +He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the +suffocating heat. + +"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me and +Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you setting +there and giving us the books. I am Peachey,--Peachey Taliaferro +Carnehan,--and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!" + +I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings +accordingly. + +"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which +were wrapped in rags--"true as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon +our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never +take advice, not though I begged of him!" + +"Take the whisky," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you can +recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the Border +on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do +you remember that?" + +"I ain't mad--yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember. +Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep +looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything." + +I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He +dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It +was twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, +diamond-shaped scar. + +"No, don't look there. Look at _me_," said Carnehan. "That comes +afterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that +caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people +we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the +people was cooking their dinners--cooking their dinners, and... what did +they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot's +beard, and we all laughed--fit to die. Little red fires they was, going +into Dravot's big red beard--so funny." His eyes left mine and he smiled +foolishly. + +"You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan," I said, at a venture, +"after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to +try to get into Kafiristan." + +"No, we didn't, neither. What are you talking about? We turned off +before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn't +good enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left the +caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would +be heathen, because the s didn't allow Mohammedans to talk to them. +So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot +I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and +slung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns. +He shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like +a heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels +couldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and +black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats--there are lots +of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no +more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don't let you sleep +at night." + +"Take some more whisky," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel +Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads +that led into Kafiristan?" + +"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan +that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in +the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in +the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. No; they +was two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and +woeful sore.... And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said to +Dravot, 'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads +are chopped off,' and with that they killed the camels all among the +mountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they took +off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along +driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing, +'Sell me four mules.' Says the first man, 'If you are rich enough to +buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put his hand +to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the other party +runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the rifles that was taken +off the camels, and together we starts forward into those bitter-cold +mountaineous parts, and never a road broader than the back of your +hand." + +He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the +nature of the country through which he had journeyed. + +"I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it +might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot +died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary, +and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and +down and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot +not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus +avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth +being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no +heed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the +mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having +anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and +played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out. + +"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty +men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They was fair +men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and remarkable well built. +Says Dravot, unpacking the guns, 'This is the beginning of the business. +We'll fight for the ten men,' and with that he fires two rifles at the +twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock +where he was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan and +Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down the +valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across the snow too, +and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots above their +heads, and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicks +them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to make them +friendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry, and +waves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. They +takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine +wood on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot +he goes to the biggest--a fellow they call Imbra--and lays a rifle and a +cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose respectfully with his own nose, +patting him on the head, and nods his head, and says, 'That's all right. +I'm in the know too, and these old jimjams are my friends.' Then he +opens his mouth and points down it, and when the first man brings him +food, he says, 'No;' and when the second man brings him food, he says +'no;' but when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings +him food, he says, 'Yes;' very haughty, and eats it slow. That was how +we came to our first village without any trouble, just as though we +had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damned +rope-bridges, you see, and--you couldn't expect a man to laugh much +after that?" + +"Take some more whisky and go on," I said. "That was the first village +you came into. How did you get to be King?" + +"I wasn't King," said Carnehan. "Dravot he was the King, and a handsome +man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other +party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the side +of old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot's +order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan Dravot picks +them off with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs down +into the valley and up again the other side, and finds another village, +same as the first one, and the people all falls down flat on their +faces, and Dravot says, 'Now what is the trouble between you two +villages?' and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that +was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village and +counts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man Dravot pours +a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig, and +'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of +each village by the arm, and walks them down the valley, and shows them +how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each +a sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people comes +down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says, 'Go and dig the +land, and be fruitful and multiply,' which they did, though they didn't +understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo--bread and +water and fire and idols and such; and Dravot leads the priest of each +village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and judge the people, +and if anything goes wrong he is to be shot. + +"Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as +bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and +told Dravot in dumb-show what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,' +says Dravot. 'They think we're Gods.' He and Carnehan picks out twenty +good men and shows them how to click off a rifle and form fours and +advance in line; and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see +the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch, and +leaves one at one village and one at the other, and off we two goes to +see what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there +was a little village there, and Carnehan says, 'Send 'em to the old +valley to plant,' and takes 'em there and gives 'em some land that +wasn't took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded 'em with a kid +before letting 'em into the new Kingdom. That was to impress the people, +and then they settled down quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot, who +had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous. +There was no people there, and the Army got afraid; so Dravot shoots +one of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the +Army explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better +not shoot their little matchlocks, for they had matchlocks. We makes +friends with the priest, and I stays there alone with two of the Army, +teaching the men how to drill; and a thundering big Chief comes across +the snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there was +a new God kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men half +a mile across the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a message +to the Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must come and shake +hands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, +and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about, same as +Dravot used, and very much surprised that Chief was, and strokes +my eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in +dumb-show if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have,' says the chief. So +Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to +show them drill, and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about +as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain +on the top of a mountain, and the Chief's men rushes into a village and +takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we +took that village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat, and +says, 'Occupy till I come;' which was scriptural. By way of a reminder, +when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet +near him standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on their +faces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by land or by +sea." + +At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted: "How +could you write a letter up yonder?" + +"The letter?--oh!--the letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes, +please. It was a string-talk letter, that we'd learned the way of it +from a blind beggar in the Punjab." + +I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with +a knotted twig, and a piece of string which he wound round the twig +according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days +or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He had reduced the +alphabet to eleven primitive sounds, and tried to teach me his method, +but I could not understand. + +"I sent that letter to Dravot," said Carnehan, "and told him to come +back because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle; and then +I struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. They +called the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first +village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, but +they had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from +another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked +for that village, and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards. +That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot, +who had been away two or three months, and I kept my people quiet. + +"One morning I heard the devil's own noise of drums and horns, and Dan +Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of +men, and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head. +'My Gord, Carnehan,' says Daniel, 'this is a tremenjus business, and +we've got the whole country as far as it's worth having. I am the son +of Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you're my younger brother and a +God too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been marching and +fighting for six weeks with the Army, and every footy little village for +fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I've got the key +of the whole show, as you'll see, and I've got a crown for you! I told +'em to make two of 'em at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the +rock like suet in mutton. Gold I've seen, and turquoise I've kicked out +of the cliffs, and there's garnets in the sands of the river, and here's +a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and, +here, take your crown.' + +"One of the men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was +too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it +was--five pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel. + +"'Peachey,' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight no more. The Craft's +the trick, so help me!' and he brings forward that same Chief that I +left at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was so +like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in +the old days. 'Shake hands with him,' says Dravot; and I shook hands +and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but +tried him with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I tried +the Master's Grip, but that was a slip. 'A Fellow-craft he is!' I says +to Dan. 'Does he know the word?' 'He does,' says Dan, 'and all the +priests know. It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a +Fellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours, and they've cut the +marks on the rocks, but they don't know the Third Degree, and they've +come to find out. It's Gord's Truth. I've known these long years that +the Afghans knew up to the Fellow-craft Degree, but this is a miracle. +A God and a Grand Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third +Degree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of +the villages.' + +"'It's against all the law,' I says, 'holding a Lodge without warrant +from any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge.' + +"'It's a master stroke o' policy,' says Dravot. 'It means running the +country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can't stop +to inquire now, or they'll turn against us. I've forty Chiefs at my +heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. +Billet these men on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some +kind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make +aprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of Chiefs to-night and Lodge +to-morrow.' + +"I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn't such a fool as not to see what +a pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests' families how +to make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot's apron the blue border +and marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took +a great square stone in the temple for the Master's chair, and little +stones for the officer's chairs, and painted the black pavement with +white squares, and did what we could to make things regular. + +"At the levee which was held that night on the hillside with big +bonfires, Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons of +Alexander, and Passed Grand Masters in the Craft, and was come to make +Kafiristan a country where every man should eat in peace and drink in +quiet, and specially obey us. Then the Chiefs come round to shake hands, +and they were so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with +old friends. We gave them names according as they was like men we had +known in India--Billy Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan, that was +Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on. + +"_The_ most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the old +priests was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we'd +have to fudge the Ritual, and I didn't know what the men knew. The old +priest was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. The +minute Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made for +him, the priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the +stone that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all up now,' I says. 'That comes +of meddling with the Craft without warrant!' Dravot never winked an +eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master's +chair--which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing +the bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he +shows all the other priests the Master's Mark, same as was on Dravot's +apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra +knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet +and kisses 'em. 'Luck again,' says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; +'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of. +We're more than safe now.' Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel +and says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right +hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all +Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, and +King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!' At that he puts on his crown +and I puts on mine,--I was doing Senior Warden,--and we opens the Lodge +in most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in +Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the +memory was coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raised +such as was worthy--high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy +Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. +It was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We +didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to +make the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised. + +"'In another six months,' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another Communication +and see how you are working.' Then he asks them about their villages, +and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick +and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting with +the Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into our country,' +says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier +guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled. +Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well, +and I know that you won't cheat me, because you're white people--sons of +Alexander--and not like common black Mohammedans. You are _my_ people, +and, by God,' says he, running off into English at the end, 'I'll make a +damned fine Nation of you, or I'll die in the making!' + +"I can't tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a +lot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I +never could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again +go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing, +and make 'em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the +country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and +down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both +fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just +waited for orders. + +"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were +afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of +friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across +the hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call +four priests together and say what was to be done. He used to call in +Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu, and an old Chief +we called Kafuzelum,--it was like enough to his real name,--and hold +councils with 'em when there was any fighting to be done in small +villages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests of Bashkai, +Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of 'em +they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying +turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made Martini +rifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one of the +Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of their +mouths for turquoises. + +"I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of +my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some +more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a +hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw +to six hundred yards, and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition for the +rifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed 'em among the men +that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attend +to those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me, and we +turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that knew +how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, hand-made +guns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about powder-shops and +factories, walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter was +coming on. + +"'I won't make a Nation,' says he. 'I'll make an Empire! These men +aren't s; they're English! Look at their eyes--look at their +mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own +houses. They're the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they've grown +to be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get +frightened. There must be a fair two million of 'em in these hills. The +villages are full o' little children. Two million people--two hundred +and fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want the +rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready +to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, +man,' he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, 'we shall be +Emperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to +us. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send me +twelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit. +There's Mackray, Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli--many's the good dinner +he's given me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, the +Warder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if +I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me; I'll send a man through +in the spring for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation from +the Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That--and all the +Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up +the Martini. They'll be worn smooth, but they'll do for fighting in +these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through the +Amir's country in driblets,--I'd be content with twenty thousand in one +year,--and we'd be an Empire. When everything was shipshape I'd hand +over the crown--this crown I'm wearing now--to Queen Victoria on my +knees, and she'd say, "Rise up, Sir Daniel Dravot." Oh, it's big! It's +big, I tell you! But there's so much to be done in every place--Bashkai, +Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.' + +"'What is it?' I says. 'There are no more men coming in to be drilled +this autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They're bringing the snow.' + +"'It isn't that,' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my +shoulder; 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no +other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you +have done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know +you; but--it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, in +the way I want to be helped.' + +"'Go to your blasted priests, then!' I said, and I was sorry when I made +that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior, +when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me. + +"'Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,' says Daniel, without cursing. 'You're +a King too, and the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can't you see, +Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now--three or four of 'em, that +we can scatter about for our Deputies. It's a hugeous great State, and +I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all +I want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all.' He put half his +beard into his mouth, all red like the gold of his crown. + +"'I'm sorry, Daniel,' says I. 'I've done all I could. I've drilled +the men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I've +brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you're +driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way.' + +"'There's another thing too,' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'The +winter's coming, and these people won't be giving much trouble, and if +they do we can't move about. I want a wife.' + +"'For Gord's sake leave the women alone!' I says. 'We've both got all +the work we can, though I _am_ a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep +clear o' women.'" + +"'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings +we have been these months past,' says Dravot, weighing his crown in his +hand. 'You go get a wife too, Peachey--a nice, strappin', plump girl +that'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than English +girls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hot +water, and they'll come out like chicken and ham.' + +"'Don't tempt me!' I says. 'I will not have any dealings with a woman, +not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been +doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work of three. +Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from +Afghan country and run in some good liquor; and no women.'" + +"'Who's talking o' _women_?' says Dravot. 'I said _wife_--a Queen to +breed a King's son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, +that'll make them your blood-brothers, and that'll lie by your side and +tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That's +what I want.' + +"'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was +a plate-layer?' says I. 'A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught me +the lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away +with the Station-master's servant and half my month's pay. Then +she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the +impidence to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in the +running-shed too!' + +"'We've done with that,' says Dravot; 'these women are whiter than you +or me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months.' + +"'For the last time o' asking, Dan, do _not_,' I says. 'It'll only bring +us harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength on +women, 'specially when they've got a new raw Kingdom to work over.' + +"'For the last time of answering, I will,' said Dravot, and he went away +through the pine-trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being on +his crown and beard and all. + +"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the +Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better +ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. 'What's wrong with me?' he +shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I a dog, or am I not enough of +a man for your wenches? Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this +country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?' It was me really, but Dravot +was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your guns? Who repaired the +bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut in the stone?' says he, +and he thumped his hand on the block that he used to sit on in Lodge, +and at Council, which opened like Lodge always. Billy Fish said nothing, +and no more did the others. 'Keep your hair on, Dan,' said I, 'and ask +the girls. That's how it's done at Home, and these people are quite +English.' + +"'The marriage of the King is a matter of State,' says Dan, in a +white-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against +his better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat +still, looking at the ground. + +"'Billy Fish,' says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 'what's the difficulty +here? A straight answer to a true friend.' + +"'You know,' says Billy Fish. 'How should a man tell you who knows +everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's not +proper.' + +"I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing us +as long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for me +to undeceive them. + +"'A God can do anything,' says I. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'll +not let her die.' 'She'll have to,' said Billy Fish. 'There are all +sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl +marries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know the +Mark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were men +till you showed the sign of the Master.' + +"I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine +secrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All +that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half-way +down the hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of the +priests told us that she was being prepared to marry the King. + +"'I'll have no nonsense of that kind,' says Dan. 'I don't want to +interfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife.' 'The girl's a +little bit afraid,' says the priest. 'She thinks she's going to die, and +they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple.' + +"'Hearten her very tender, then,' says Dravot, 'or I'll hearten you with +the butt of a gun so you'll never want to be heartened again.' He licked +his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half the night, +thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning. I wasn't +any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman in foreign +parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could not but be +risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep, and +I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the Chiefs talking +together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. + +"'What is up, Fish?' I say to the Bashkai man, who was wrapped up in his +furs and looking splendid to behold. + +"'I can't rightly say,' says he; 'but if you can make the King drop all +this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself a +great service.' + +"'That I do believe,' says I. 'But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me, +having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more +than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I +do assure you.' + +"'That may be,' says Billy Fish, 'and yet I should be sorry if it was.' +He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. +'King,' says he, 'be you man or God or Devil, I'll stick by you to-day. +I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go to +Bashkai until the storm blows over.' + +"A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except +the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot +came out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his +feet, and looking more pleased than Punch. + +"'For the last time, drop it, Dan,' says I, in a whisper; 'Billy Fish +here says that there will be a row.' + +"'A row among my people!' says Dravot. 'Not much. Peachey, you're a fool +not to get a wife too. Where's the girl?' says he, with a voice as loud +as the braying of a jackass. 'Call up all the Chiefs and priests, and +let the Emperor see if his wife suits him.' + +"There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on their +guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lot +of priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the +horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as +close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with +matchlocks--not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and +behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a +strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white +as death, and looking back every minute at the priests. + +"'She'll do,' said Dan, looking her over. 'What's to be afraid of, lass? +Come and kiss me.' He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes, +gives a bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan's +flaming-red beard. + +"'The slut's bitten me!' says he, clapping his hand to his neck, and, +sure enough, his hand was red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his +matchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into +the Bashkai lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, 'Neither God +nor Devil, but a man!' I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in +front, and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men. + +"'God A'mighty!' says Dan, 'what is the meaning o' this?' + +"'Come back! Come away!' says Billy Fish. 'Ruin and Mutiny is the +matter. We'll break for Bashkai if we can.' + +"I tried to give some sort of orders to my men,--the men o' the regular +Army,--but it was no use, so I fired into the brown of 'em with an +English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley was full +of shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking, 'Not a God +nor a Devil, but only a man!' The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy Fish all +they were worth, but their matchlocks wasn't half as good as the Kabul +breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. Dan was bellowing like a bull, +for he was very wrathy; and Billy Fish had a hard job to prevent him +running out at the crowd. + +"'We can't stand,' says Billy Fish. 'Make a run for it down the valley! +The whole place is against us.' The matchlock-men ran, and we went down +the valley in spite of Dravot. He was swearing horrible and crying +out that he was a King. The priests rolled great stones on us, and +the regular Army fired hard, and there wasn't more than six men, not +counting Dan, Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to the bottom of the +valley alive. + +"Then they stopped firing, and the horns in the temple blew again. 'Come +away--for Gord's sake come away!' says Billy Fish. 'They'll send runners +out to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I can protect you +there, but I can't do anything now." + +"My own notion is that Dan began to go mad in his head from that hour. +He stared up and down like a stuck pig. Then he was all for walking back +alone and killing the priests with his bare hands; which he could have +done. 'An Emperor am I,' says Daniel, 'and next year I shall be a Knight +of the Queen.' + +"'All right, Dan,' says I; 'but come along now while there's time.' + +"'It's your fault,' says he, 'for not looking after your Army better. +There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn't know--you damned +engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He sat +upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was +too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought +the smash. + +"'I'm sorry, Dan,' says I, 'but there's no accounting for natives. This +business is our Fifty-seven. Maybe we'll make something out of it yet, +when we've got to Bashkai.' + +"'Let's get to Bashkai, then,' says Dan, 'and, by God, when I come +back here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanket +left!' + +"We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and down +on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself. + +"'There's no hope o' getting clear,' said Billy Fish. 'The priests have +sent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn't +you stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I'm a dead man,' says +Billy Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to +his Gods. + +"Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down, no level +ground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at Billy +Fish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never said +a word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with +snow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army in +position waiting in the middle! + +"'The runners have been very quick,' says Billy Fish, with a little bit +of a laugh. 'They are waiting for us.' + +"Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side, and a chance +shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses. +He looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we had +brought into the country. + +"'We're done for,' says he. 'They are Englishmen, these people,--and +it's my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy +Fish, and take your men away; you've done what you could, and now cut +for it. Carnehan,' says he, 'shake hands with me and go along with +Billy. Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet 'em alone. It's me +that did it! Me, the King!' + +"'Go!' says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan! I'm with you here. Billy Fish, you +clear out, and we two will meet those folk.' + +"'I'm a Chief,' says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 'I stay with you. My men +can go.' + +"The Bashkai fellows didn't wait for a second word, but ran off, and Dan +and Me and Billy Fish walked across to where the drums were drumming and +the horns were horning. It was cold--awful cold. I've got that cold in +the back of my head now. There's a lump of it there." + +The punka-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were blazing in +the office, and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on the +blotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was shivering, and I feared that +his mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh grip of the piteously +mangled hands, and said, "What happened after that?" + +The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current. + +"What was you pleased to say?" whined Carnehan. "They took them without +any sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow, not though the King +knocked down the first man that set hand on him--not though old Peachey +fired his last cartridge into the brown of 'em. Not a single solitary +sound did those swines make. They just closed up tight, and I tell you +their furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend of us +all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a pig; and the +King kicks up the bloody snow and says, 'We've had a dashed fine run for +our money. What's coming next?' But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I tell +you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost his head, Sir. +No, he didn't, neither. The King lost his head, so he did, all along o' +one of those cunning rope bridges. Kindly let me have the paper-cutter, +Sir. It tilted this way. They marched him a mile across that snow to a +rope bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may have seen +such. They prodded him behind like an ox. 'Damn your eyes!' says +the King. 'D' you suppose I can't die like a gentleman?' He turns to +Peachey--Peachey that was crying like a child. 'I've brought you to +this, Peachey,' says he. 'Brought you out of your happy life to be +killed in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief of the +Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.' 'I do,' says Peachey. +'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.' 'Shake hands, Peachey,' says +he. 'I'm going now.' Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, and +when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, 'Cut you +beggars,' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and +round and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall +till he struck the water, and I could see his body caught on a rock with +the gold crown close beside. + +"But do you know what they did to Peachey between two pine-trees? They +crucified him, Sir, as Peachey's hand will show. They used wooden pegs +for his hands and feet; but he didn't die. He hung there and screamed, +and they took him down next day, and said it was a miracle that he +wasn't dead. They took him down--poor old Peachey that hadn't done them +any harm--that hadn't done them any--" + +He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back of +his scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes. + +"They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they said +he was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turned +him out on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home in +about a year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he +walked before and said, 'Come along, Peachey. It's a big thing we're +doing.' The mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they tried +to fall on Peachey's head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came +along bent double. He never let go of Dan's hand, and he never let go +of Dan's head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind +him not to come again; and though the crown was pure gold and Peachey +was starving, never would Peachey sell the same. You know Dravot, Sir! +You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now!" + +He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist; brought out a black +horsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook therefrom on to +my table--the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun, +that had long been paling the lamps, struck the red beard and blind +sunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of gold studded with raw +turquoises, that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples. + +"You be'old now," said Carnehan, "the Emperor in his 'abit as he +lived--the King of Kafiristan with his crown upon his head. Poor old +Daniel that was a monarch once!" + +I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognised the +head of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted to +stop him. He was not fit to walk abroad. "Let me take away the whisky, +and give me a little money," he gasped. "I was a King once. I'll go to +the Deputy Commissioner and ask to set in the Poorhouse till I get my +health. No, thank you, I can't wait till you get a carriage for me. I've +urgent private affairs--in the south--at Marwar." + +He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of the +Deputy Commissioner's house. That day at noon I had occasion to go down +the blinding-hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white +dust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after +the fashion of street-singers at Home. There was not a soul in sight, +and he was out of all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang +through his nose, turning his head from right to left: + + "The Son of Man goes forth to war, + A golden crown to gain; + His blood-red banner streams afar-- + Who follows in His train?" + +I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my carriage and +drove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the +Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me, whom he did not +in the least recognise, and I left him singing it to the missionary. + +Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Superintendent of the +Asylum. + +"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. He died early yesterday +morning," said the Superintendent. "Is it true that he was half an hour +bareheaded in the sun at midday?" + +"Yes," said I; "but do you happen to know if he had anything upon him by +any chance when he died?" + +"Not to my knowledge," said the Superintendent. + +And there the matter rests. + + + + +"THE FINEST STORY IN THE WORLD" + + "O' ever the knightly years were gone + With the old world to the grave, + I was a king in Babylon + And you were a Christian slave." + --W. E. Henley. + +His name was Charlie Mears; he was the only son of his mother who was a +widow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the City +every day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered from +aspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the marker +called him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bulls-eyes." +Charley explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to the +place to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheap +amusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to his +mother. + +That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call on +me sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with his +fellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a young man must, +he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He desired to +make himself an undying name chiefly through verse, though he was not +above sending stories of love and death to the drop-a-penny-in-the-slot +journals. It was my fate to sit still while Charlie read me poems of +many hundred lines, and bulky fragments of plays that would surely +shake the world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, and the +self-revelations and troubles of a young man are almost as holy as those +of a maiden. Charlie had never fallen in love, but was anxious to do so +on the first opportunity; he believed in all things good and all things +honorable, but, at the same time, was curiously careful to let me +see that he knew his way about the world as befitted a bank clerk on +twenty-five shillings a week. He rhymed "dove" with "love" and "moon" +with "June," and devoutly believed that they had never so been rhymed +before. The long lame gaps in his plays he filled up with hasty words of +apology and description and swept on, seeing all that he intended to +do so clearly that he esteemed it already done, and turned to me for +applause. + +I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations, and I know +that his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This he +told me almost at the outset of our acquaintance; when he was ravaging +my bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak the truth +as to his chances of "writing something really great, you know." Maybe +I encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyes +flaming with excitement, and said breathlessly: + +"Do you mind--can you let me stay here and write all this evening? I +won't interrupt you, I won't really. There's no place for me to write in +at my mother's." + +"What's the trouble?" I said, knowing well what that trouble was. + +"I've a notion in my head that would make the most splendid story that +was ever written. Do let me write it out here. It's _such_ a notion!" + +There was no resisting the appeal. I set him a table; he hardly +thanked me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an hour the pen +scratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. The +scratching grew slower, there were more erasures, and at last ceased. +The finest story in the world would not come forth. + +"It looks such awful rot now" he said, mournfully. "And yet it seemed so +good when I was thinking about it. What's wrong?" + +I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: "Perhaps +you don't feel in the mood for writing." + +"Yes I do--except when I look at this stuff. Ugh!" + +"Read me what you've done," I said. He read, and it was wondrous bad +and he paused at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a little +approval; for he was proud of those sentences, as I knew he would be. + +"It needs compression," I suggested, cautiously. + +"I hate cutting my things down. I don't think you could alter a word +here without spoiling the sense. It reads better aloud than when I was +writing it." + +"Charlie, you're suffering from an alarming disease afflicting a +numerous class. Put the thing by, and tackle it again in a week." + +"I want to do it at once. What do you think of it?" + +"How can I judge from a half-written tale? Tell me the story as it lies +in your head." + +Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything that his ignorance +had so carefully prevented from escaping into the written word. I looked +at him, and wondering whether it were possible, that he did not know the +originality, the power of the notion that had come in his way? It was +distinctly a Notion among notions. Men had been puffed up with pride by +notions not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But Charlie babbled +on serenely, interrupting the current of pure fancy with samples of +horrible sentences that he purposed to use. I heard him out to the end. +It would be folly to allow his idea to remain in his own inept hands, +when I could do so much with it. Not all that could be done indeed; but, +oh so much! + +"What do you think?" he said, at last. "I fancy I shall call it 'The +Story of a Ship.'" + +"I think the idea's pretty good; but you won't be able to handle it for +ever so long. Now I----" + +"Would it be of any use to you? Would you care to take it? I should be +proud," said Charlie, promptly. + +There are few things sweeter in this world than the guileless, +hot-headed, intemperate, open admiration of a junior. Even a woman in +her blindest devotion does not fall into the gait of the man she adores, +tilt her bonnet to the angle at which he wears his hat, or interlard her +speech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these things. Still +it was necessary to salve my conscience before I possessed myself of +Charlie's thoughts. + +"Let's make a bargain. I'll give you a fiver for the notion," I said. +Charlie became a bank-clerk at once. + +"Oh, that's impossible. Between two pals, you know, if I may call you +so, and speaking as a man of the world, I couldn't. Take the notion if +it's any use to you. I've heaps more." + +He had--none knew this better than I--but they were the notions of other +men. + +"Look at it as a matter of business-between men of the world," I +returned. "Five pounds will buy you any number of poetry-books. Business +is business, and you may be sure I shouldn't give that price unless----" + +"Oh, if you put it _that_ way," said Charlie, visibly moved by the +thought of the books. The bargain was clinched with an agreement that +he should at unstated intervals come to me with all the notions that he +possessed, should have a table of his own to write at, and unquestioned +right to inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of poems. Then I +said, "Now tell me how you came by this idea." + +"It came by itself." Charlie's eyes opened a little. + +"Yes, but you told me a great deal about the hero that you must have +read before somewhere." + +"I haven't any time for reading, except when you let me sit here, and +on Sundays I'm on my bicycle or down the river all day. There's nothing +wrong about the hero, is there?" + +"Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You say that your hero +went pirating. How did he live?" + +"He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was telling you +about." + +"What sort of ship?" + +"It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts through the +oar-holes and the men row sitting up to their knees in water. Then +there's a bench running down between the two lines of oars and an +overseer with a whip walks up and down the bench to make the men work." + +"How do you know that?" + +"It's in the tale. There's a rope running overhead, looped to the upper +deck, for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls. When the +overseer misses the rope once and falls among the rowers, remember the +hero laughs at him and gets licked for it. He's chained to his oar of +course--the hero." + +"How is he chained?" + +"With an iron band round his waist fixed to the bench he sits on, and a +sort of handcuff on his left wrist chaining him to the oar. He's on the +lower deck where the worst men are sent, and the only light comes from +the hatchways and through the oar-holes. Can't you imagine the sunlight +just squeezing through between the handle and the hole and wobbling +about as the ship moves?" + +"I can, but I can't imagine your imagining it." + +"How could it be any other way? Now you listen to me. The long oars on +the upper deck are managed by four men to each bench, the lower ones +by three, and the lowest of all by two. Remember it's quite dark on the +lowest deck and all the men there go mad. When a man dies at his oar +on that deck he isn't thrown overboard, but cut up in his chains and +stuffed through the oar-hole in little pieces." + +"Why?" I demanded, amazed, not so much at the information as the tone of +command in which it was flung out. + +"To save trouble and to frighten the others. It needs two overseers to +drag a man's body up to the top deck; and if the men at the lower deck +oars were left alone, of course they'd stop rowing and try to pull up +the benches by all standing up together in their chains." + +"You've a most provident imagination. Where have you been reading about +galleys and galley-slaves?" + +"Nowhere that I remember. I row a little when I get the chance. But, +perhaps, if you say so, I may have read something." + +He went away shortly afterward to deal with booksellers, and I wondered +how a bank clerk aged twenty could put into my hands with a profligate +abundance of detail, all given with absolute assurance, the story of +extravagant and bloodthirsty adventure, riot, piracy, and death in +unnamed seas. He had led his hero a desperate dance through revolt +against the overseas, to command of a ship of his own, and ultimate +establishment of a kingdom on an island "somewhere in the sea, you +know"; and, delighted with my paltry five pounds, had gone out to buy +the notions of other men, that these might teach him how to write. I +had the consolation of knowing that this notion was mine by right of +purchase, and I thought that I could make something of it. + +When next he came to me he was drunk--royally drunk on many poets for +the first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his words +tumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations. Most of +all was he drunk with Longfellow. + +"Isn't it splendid? Isn't it superb?" he cried, after hasty greetings. +"Listen to this-- + + "'Wouldst thou,' so the helmsman answered, + 'Know the secret of the sea? + Only those who brave its dangers + Comprehend its mystery.' + +By gum! + + "'Only those who brave its dangers + Comprehend its mystery.'" + +he repeated twenty times, walking up and down the room and forgetting +me. "But I can understand it too," he said to himself. "I don't know how +to thank you for that fiver. And this; listen-- + + "'I remember the black wharves and the ships + And the sea-tides tossing free, + And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips, + And the beauty and mystery of the ships, + And the magic of the sea.' + +"I haven't braved any dangers, but I feel as if I knew all about it." + +"You certainly seem to have a grip of the sea. Have you ever seen it?" + +"When I was a little chap I went to Brighton once; we used to live in +Coventry, though, before we came to London. I never saw it, + + 'When descends on the Atlantic + The gigantic + Storm-wind of the Equinox.'" + +He shook me by the shoulder to make me understand the passion that was +shaking himself. + +"When that storm comes," he continued, "I think that all the oars in +the ship that I was talking about get broken, and the rowers have their +chests smashed in by the bucking oar-heads. By the way, have you done +anything with that notion of mine yet?" + +"No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell me how in the world +you re so certain about the fittings of the ship. You know nothing of +ships." + +"I don't know. It's as real as anything to me until I try to write it +down. I was thinking about it only last night in bed, after you had +loaned me 'Treasure Island'; and I made up a a whole lot of new things +to go into the story." + +"What sort of things?" + +"About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black beans and wine in a +skin bag, passed from bench to bench." + +"Was the ship built so long ago as _that_?" + +"As what? I don't know whether it was long ago or not. It's only a +notion, but sometimes it seems just as real as if it was true. Do I +bother you with talking about it?" + +"Not in the least. Did you make up anything else?" + +"Yes, but it's nonsense." Charlie flushed a little. + +"Never mind; let's hear about it." + +"Well, I was thinking over the story, and after awhile I got out of bed +and wrote down on a piece of paper the sort of stuff the men might be +supposed to scratch on their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. It +seemed to make the thing more lifelike. It is so real to me, y'know." + +"Have you the paper on you?" + +"Ye--es, but what's the use of showing it? It's only a lot of scratches. +All the same, we might have 'em reproduced in the book on the front +page." + +"I'll attend to those details. Show me what your men wrote." + +He pulled out of his pocket a sheet of note-paper, with a single line of +scratches upon it, and I put this carefully away. + +"What is it supposed to mean in English?" I said. + +"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps it means 'I'm beastly tired.' It's great +nonsence," he repeated, "but all those men in the ship seem as real +people to me. Do do something to the notion soon; I should like to see +it written and printed." + +"But all you've told me would make a long book." + +"Make it then. You've only to sit down and write it out." + +"Give me a little time. Have you any more notions?" + +"Not just now. I'm reading all the books I've bought. They're splendid." + +When he had left I looked at the sheet of note-paper with the +inscription upon it. Then I took my head tenderly between both hands, +to make certain that it was not coming off or turning round. Then... +but there seemed to be no interval between quitting my rooms and finding +myself arguing with a policeman outside a door marked Private in a +corridor of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely as possible, +was "the Greek antiquity man." The policeman knew nothing except the +rules of the Museum, and it became necessary to forage through all the +houses and offices inside the gates. An elderly gentleman called away +from his lunch put an end to my search by holding the note-paper between +finger and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully. + +"What does this mean? H'mm," said he. "So far as I can ascertain it is +an attempt to write extremely corrupt Greek on the part"--here he glared +at me with intention--"of an extremely illiterate-ah-person." He read +slowly from the paper, "Pollock, Erckman, Tauchnitz, Henniker"--four +names familiar to me. + +"Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to mean--the gist of +the thing?" I asked. + +"I have been--many times--overcome with weariness in this particular +employment. That is the meaning." He returned me the paper, and I fled +without a word of thanks, explanation, or apology. + +I might have been excused for forgetting much. To me of all men had been +given the chance to write the most marvelous tale in the world, nothing +less than the story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by himself. Small +wonder that his dreaming had seemed real to Charlie. The Fates that are +so careful to shut the doors of each successive life behind us had, in +this case, been neglectful, and Charlie was looking, though that he did +not know, where never man had been permitted to look with full knowledge +since Time began. Above all he was absolutely ignorant of the knowledge +sold to me for five pounds; and he would retain that ignorance, for +bank-clerks do not understand metempsychosis, and a sound commercial +education does not include Greek. He would supply me--here I capered +among the dumb gods of Egypt and laughed in their battered faces--with +material to make my tale sure--so sure that the world would hail it as +an impudent and vamped fiction. And I--I alone would know that it was +absolutely and literally true. I--I alone held this jewel to my hand for +the cutting and polishing. Therefore I danced again among the gods till +a policeman saw me and took steps in my direction. + +It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, and here there was no +difficulty. But I had forgotten those accursed books of poetry. He came +to me time after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph--drunk on +Byron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the boy had been in his past +lives, and desperately anxious not to lose one word of his babble, I +could not hide from him my respect and interest. He misconstrued both +into respect for the present soul of Charlie Mears, to whom life was as +new as it was to Adam, and interest in his readings; and stretched my +patience to breaking point by reciting poetry--not his own now, but +that of others. I wished every English poet blotted out of the memory of +mankind. I blasphemed the mightiest names of song because they had drawn +Charlie from the path of direct narrative, and would, later, spur him to +imitate them; but I choked down my impatience until the first flood of +enthusiasm should have spent itself and the boy returned to his dreams. + +"What's the use of my telling you what _I_ think, when these chaps wrote +things for the angels to read?" he growled, one evening. "Why don't you +write something like theirs?" + +"I don't think you're treating me quite fairly," I said, speaking under +strong restraint. + +"I've given you the story," he said, shortly replunging into "Lara." + +"But I want the details." + +"The things I make up about that damned ship that you call a galley? +They're quite easy. You can just make 'em up yourself. Turn up the gas a +little, I want to go on reading." + +I could have broken the gas globe over his head for his amazing +stupidity. I could indeed make up things for myself did I only know what +Charlie did not know that he knew. But since the doors were shut behind +me I could only wait his youthful pleasure and strive to keep him +in good temper. One minute's want of guard might spoil a priceless +revelation: now and again he would toss his books aside--he kept them +in my rooms, for his mother would have been shocked at the waste of +good money had she seen them--and launched into his sea dreams. Again I +cursed all the poets of England. The plastic mind of the bank-clerk had +been overlaid, and distorted by that which he had read, and the +result as delivered was a confused tangle of other voices most like the +muttered song through a City telephone in the busiest part of the day. + +He talked of the galley--his own galley had he but known it--with +illustrations borrowed from the "Bride of Abydos." He pointed the +experiences of his hero with quotations from "The Corsair," and threw +in deep and desperate moral reflections from "Cain" and "Manfred," +expecting me to use them all. Only when the talk turned on Longfellow +were the jarring cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie was +speaking the truth as he remembered it. + +"What do you think of this?" I said one evening, as soon as I understood +the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he could +expostulate read him the whole of "The Saga of King Olaf!" + +He listened open-mouthed, flushed his hands drumming on the back of the +sofa where he lay, till I came to the Songs of Emar Tamberskelver and +the verse: + + "Emar then, the arrow taking + From the loosened string, + Answered: 'That was Norway breaking + 'Neath thy hand, O King.'" + +He gasped with pure delight of sound. + +"That's better than Byron, a little," I ventured. + +"Better? Why it's true! How could he have known?" + +I went back and repeated: + + "'What was that?' said Olaf, standing + On the quarter-deck, + 'Something heard I like the stranding + Of a shattered wreck.'" + +"How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and +go _z-zzp_ all along the line? Why only the other night.... But go back +please and read 'The Skerry of Shrieks' again." + +"No, I'm tired. Let's talk. What happened the other night?" + +"I had an awful nightmare about that galley of ours. I dreamed I was +drowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbor. The +water was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know where +I always sit in the galley?" He spoke haltingly at first, under a fine +English fear of being laughed at. + +"No. That's news to me," I answered, meekly, my heart beginning to beat. + +"On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on the upper deck. +There were four of us at the oar, all chained. I remember watching the +water and trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then we +closed up on the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over our +bulwarks, and my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three other +fellows on top of me, and the big oar jammed across our backs." + +"Well?" Charlie's eyes were alive and alight. He was looking at the wall +behind my chair. + +"I don't know how we fought. The men were trampling all over my back, +and I lay low. Then our rowers on the left side--tied to their oars, you +know--began to yell and back water. I could hear the water sizzle, and +we spun round like a cockchafer and I knew, lying where I was, that +there was a galley coming up bow-on, to ram us on the left side. I could +just lift up my head and see her sail over the bulwarks. We wanted to +meet her bow to bow, but it was too late. We could only turn a little +bit because the galley on our right had hooked herself on to us and +stopped our moving. Then, by gum! there was a crash! Our left oars began +to break as the other galley, the moving one y'know, stuck her nose into +them. Then the lower-deck oars shot up through the deck-planking, but +first, and one of them jumped clean up into the air and came down again +close to my head." + +"How was that managed?" + +"The moving galley's bow was plunking them back through their own +oarholes, and I could hear the devil of a shindy in the decks below. +Then her nose caught us nearly in the middle, and we tilted sideways, +and the fellows in the right-hand galley unhitched their hooks and +ropes, and threw things on to our upper deck--arrows, and hot pitch or +something that stung, and we went up and up and up on the left side, +and the right side dipped, and I twisted my head round and saw the water +stand still as it topped the right bulwarks, and then it curled over and +crashed down on the whole lot of us on the right side, and I felt it hit +my back, and I woke." + +"One minute, Charlie. When the sea topped the bulwarks, what did it look +like?" I had my reasons for asking. A man of my acquaintance had +once gone down with a leaking ship in a still sea, and had seen the +water-level pause for an instant ere it fell on the deck. + +"It looked just like a banjo-string drawn tight, and it seemed to stay +there for years," said Charlie. + +Exactly! The other man had said: + +"It looked like a silver wire laid down along the bulwarks, and I +thought it was never going to break." He had paid everything except +the bare life for this little valueless piece of knowledge, and I had +traveled ten thousand weary miles to meet him and take his knowledge +at second hand. But Charlie, the bank-clerk, on twenty-five shillings +a week, he who had never been out of sight of a London omnibus, knew +it all. It was no consolation to me that once in his lives he had been +forced to die for his gains. I also must have died scores of times, but +behind me, because I could have used my knowledge, the doors were shut. + +"And then?" I said, trying to put away the devil of envy. + +"The funny thing was, though, in all the mess I didn't feel a bit +astonished or frightened. It seemed as if I'd been in a good many +fights, because I told my next man so when the row began. But that cad +of an overseer on my deck wouldn't unloose our chains and give us a +chance. He always said that we'd all be set free after a battle, but we +never were; We never were." Charlie shook his head mournfully. + +"What a scoundrel!" + +"I should say he was. He never gave us enough to eat, and sometimes +we were so thirsty that we used to drink salt-water. I can taste that +salt-water still." + +"Now tell me something about the harbor where the fight was fought." + +"I didn't dream about that. I know it was a harbor, though; because we +were tied up to a ring on a white wall and all the face of the stone +under water was covered with wood to prevent our ram getting chipped +when the tide made us rock." + +"That's curious. Our hero commanded the galley? Didn't he?" + +"Didn't he just! He stood by the bows and shouted like a good 'un. He +was the man who killed the overseer." + +"But you were all drowned together, Charlie, weren't you?" + +"I can't make that fit quite," he said with a puzzled look. "The galley +must have gone down with all hands and yet I fancy that the hero went on +living afterward. Perhaps he climbed into the attacking ship. I wouldn't +see that, of course. I was dead, you know." + +He shivered slightly and protested that he could remember no more. + +I did not press him further, but to satisfy myself that he lay in +ignorance of the workings of his own mind, deliberately introduced him +to Mortimer Collins's "Transmigration," and gave him a sketch of the +plot before he opened the pages. + +"What rot it all is!" he said, frankly, at the end of an hour. "I don't +understand his nonsense about the Red Planet Mars and the King, and the +rest of it. Chuck me the Longfellow again." + +I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I could remember of his +description of the sea-fight, appealing to him from time to time for +confirmation of fact or detail. He would answer without raising his eyes +from the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge lay before flint +on the printed page. I spoke under the normal key of my voice that the +current might not be broken, and I know that he was not aware of what he +was saying, for his thoughts were out on the sea with Longfellow. + +"Charlie," I asked, "when the rowers on the galleys mutinied how did +they kill their overseers?" + +"Tore up the benches and brained 'em. That happened when a heavy sea was +running. An overseer on the lower deck slipped from the centre plank and +fell among the rowers. They choked him to death against the side of the +ship with their chained hands quite quietly, and it was too dark for the +other overseer to see what had happened. When he asked, he was pulled +down too and choked, and the lower deck fought their way up deck by +deck, with the pieces of the broken benches banging behind 'em. How they +howled!" + +"And what happened after that?" + +"I don't know. The hero went away--red hair and red beard and all. That +was after he had captured our galley, I think." + +The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned slightly with his +left hand as a man does when interruption jars. + +"You never told me he was redheaded before, or that he captured your +galley," I said, after a discreet interval. + +Charlie did not raise his eyes. + +"He was as red as a red bear," said he, abstractedly. "He came from the +north; they said so in the galley when he looked for rowers--not slaves, +but free men. Afterward--years and years afterward--news came from +another ship, or else he came back----" His lips moved in silence. He +was rapturously retasting some poem before him. + +"Where had he been, then?" I was almost whispering that the sentence +might come gentle to whichever section of Charlie's brain was working on +my behalf. + +"To the Beaches--the Long and Wonderful Beaches!" was the reply, after a +minute of silence. + +"To Furdurstrandi?" I asked, tingling from head to foot. + +"Yes, to Furdurstrandi," he pronounced the word in a new fashion "And I +too saw----" The voice failed. + +"Do you know what you have said?" I shouted, incautiously. + +He lifted his eyes, fully roused now. "No!" he snapped. "I wish you'd +let a chap go on reading. Hark to this: + + "'But Othere, the old sea captain, + He neither paused nor stirred + Till the king listened, and then + 'Once more took up his pen + And wrote down every word. + + "'And to the King of the Saxons + In witness of the truth, + Raising his noble head, + He stretched his brown hand and said, + "Behold this walrus tooth." + +By Jove, what chaps those must have been, to go sailing all over the +shop never knowing where they'd fetch the land! Hah!" + +"Charlie," I pleaded, "if you'll only be sensible for a minute or two +I'll make our hero in our tale every inch as good as Othere." + +"Umph! Longfellow wrote that poem. I don't care about writing things +any more. I want to read." He was thoroughly out of tune now, and raging +over my own ill-luck, I left him. + +Conceive yourself at the door of the world's treasure-house guarded by a +child--an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones--on whose favor +depends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my torment. +Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not lie within +the experiences of a Greek galley-slave. But now, or there was no virtue +in books, he had talked of some desperate adventure of the Vikings, of +Thorfin Karlsefne's sailing to Wineland, which is America, in the ninth +or tenth century. The battle in the harbor he had seen; and his own +death he had described. But this was a much more startling plunge into +the past. Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and was +then dimly remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It was +a maddening jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in his +normal condition was the last person in the world to clear it up. I +could only wait and watch, but I went to bed that night full of the +wildest imaginings. There was nothing that was not possible if Charlie's +detestable memory only held good. + +I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it had never been +written before, might tell the story of the first discovery of America, +myself the discoverer. But I was entirely at Charlie's mercy, and so +long as there was a three-and-six-penny Bohn volume within his reach +Charlie would not tell. I dared not curse him openly; I hardly dared jog +his memory, for I was dealing with the experiences of a thousand years +ago, told through the mouth of a boy of to-day; and a boy of to-day is +affected by every change of tone and gust of opinion, so that he lies +even when he desires to speak the truth. + +I saw no more of him for nearly a week. When next I met him it was in +Gracechurch Street with a billbook chained to his waist. Business took +him over London Bridge and I accompanied him. He was very full of the +importance of that book and magnified it. As we passed over the Thames +we paused to look at a steamer' unloading great slabs of white and brown +marble. A barge drifted under the steamer's stern and a lonely cow +in that barge bellowed. Charlie's face changed from the face of the +bank-clerk to that of an unknown and--though he would not have believed +this--a much shrewder man. He flung out his arm across the parapet of +the bridge, and laughing very loudly, said: + +"When they heard _our_ bulls bellow the Skroelings ran away!" + +I waited only for an instant, but the barge and the cow had disappeared +under the bows of the steamer before I answered. + +"Charlie, what do you suppose are Skroelings?" + +"Never heard of 'em before. They sound like a new kind of seagull. What +a chap you are for asking questions!" he replied. "I have to go to the +cashier of the Omnibus Company yonder. Will you wait for me and we can +lunch somewhere together? I've a notion for a poem." + +"No, thanks. I'm off. You're sure you know nothing about Skroelings?" + +"Not unless he's been entered for the Liverpool Handicap." He nodded and +disappeared in the crowd. + +Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or that of Thorfin +Karlsefne, that nine hundred years ago when Karlsefne's galleys came +to Leif's booths, which Leif had erected in the unknown land +called Markland, which may or may not have been Rhode Island, the +Skroelings--and the Lord He knows who these may or may not have +been--came to trade with the Vikings, and ran away because they were +frightened at the bellowing of the cattle which Thorfin had brought with +him in the ships. But what in the world could a Greek slave know of that +affair? I wandered up and down among the streets trying to unravel the +mystery, and the more I considered it, the more baffling it grew. One +thing only seemed certain and that certainty took away my breath for the +moment. If I came to full knowledge of anything at all, it would not be +one life of the soul in Charlie Mears's body, but half a dozen--half a +dozen several and separate existences spent on blue water in the morning +of the world! + +Then I walked round the situation. + +Obviously if I used my knowledge I should stand alone and unapproachable +until all men were as wise as myself. That would be something, but +manlike I was ungrateful. It seemed bitterly unfair that Charlie's +memory should fail me when I needed it most. Great Powers above--I +looked up at them through the fog smoke--did the Lords of Life and Death +know what this meant to me? Nothing less than eternal fame of the +best kind; that comes from One, and is shared by one alone. I would +be content--remembering Clive, I stood astounded at my own +moderation,--with the mere right to tell one story, to work out one +little contribution to the light literature of the day. If Charlie were +permitted full recollection for one hour--for sixty short minutes--of +existences that had extended over a thousand years--I would forego all +profit and honor from all that I should make of his speech. I would take +no share in the commotion that would follow throughout the particular +corner of the earth that calls itself "the world." The thing should be +put forth anonymously. Nay, I would make other men believe that they had +written it. They would hire bull-hided self-advertising Englishmen to +bellow it abroad. Preachers would found a fresh conduct of life upon it, +swearing that it was new and that they had lifted the fear of death from +all mankind. Every Orientalist in Europe would patronize it discursively +with Sanskrit and Pali texts. Terrible women would invent unclean +variants of the men's belief for the elevation of their sisters. +Churches and religions would war over it. Between the hailing and +re-starting of an omnibus I foresaw the scuffles that would arise among +half a dozen denominations all professing "the doctrine of the True +Metempsychosis as applied to the world and the New Era"; and saw, too, +the respectable English newspapers shying, like frightened kine, +over the beautiful simplicity of the tale. The mind leaped forward a +hundred--two hundred--a thousand years. I saw with sorrow that men would +mutilate and garble the story; that rival creeds would turn it upside +down till, at last, the western world which clings to the dread of death +more closely than the hope of life, would set it aside as an interesting +superstition and stampede after some faith so long forgotten that it +seemed altogether new. Upon this I changed the terms of the bargain that +I would make with the Lords of Life and Death. Only let me know, let me +write, the story with sure knowledge that I wrote the truth, and I would +burn the manuscript as a solemn sacrifice. Five minutes after the last +line was written I would destroy it all. But I must be allowed to write +it with absolute certainty. + +There was no answer. The flaming colors of an Aquarium poster caught my +eye and I wondered whether it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlie +into the hands of the professional mesmerist, and whether, if he were +under his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he did, and if +people believed him... but Charlie would be frightened and flustered, or +made conceited by the interviews. In either case he would begin to lie, +through fear or vanity. He was safest in my own hands. + +"They are very funny fools, your English," said a voice at my elbow, and +turning round I recognized a casual acquaintance, a young Bengali law +student, called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to England to +become civilized. The old man was a retired native official, and on an +income of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two hundred +pounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he could pretend +to be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indian +bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor. + +Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali dressed with +scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers and tan gloves. +But I had known him in the days when the brutal Indian Government paid +for his university education, and he contributed cheap sedition to +_Sachi Durpan_, and intrigued with the wives of his schoolmates. + +"That is very funny and very foolish," he said, nodding at the poster. +"I am going down to the Northbrook Club. Will you come too?" + +I walked with him for some time. "You are not well," he said. "What is +there in your mind? You do not talk." + +"Grish Chunder, you've been too well educated to believe in a God, +haven't you?" + +"Oah, yes, _here_! But when I go home I must conciliate popular +superstition, and make ceremonies of purification, and my women will +anoint idols." + +"And bang up _tulsi_ and feast the _purohit_, and take you back into +caste again and make a good _khuttrj_ of you again, you advanced social +Free-thinker. And you'll eat _desi_ food, and like it all, from the +smell in the courtyard to the mustard oil over you." + +"I shall very much like it," said Grish Chunder, unguardedly. "Once a +Hindu--always a Hindu. But I like to know what the English think they +know." + +"I'll tell you something that one Englishman knows. It's an old tale to +you." + +I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish Chunder put +a question in the vernacular, and the history went forward naturally in +the tongue best suited for its telling. After all it could never have +been told in English. Grish Chunder heard me, nodding from time to time, +and then came up to my rooms where I finished the tale. + +"_Beshak_," he said, philosophically. "_Lekin darwaza band hai._ +(Without doubt, but the door is shut.) I have heard of this remembering +of previous existences among my people. It is of course an old tale with +us, but, to happen to an Englishman--a cow-fed _Malechk_--an outcast. By +Jove, that is _most_ peculiar!" + +"Outcast yourself, Grish Chunder! You eat cow-beef every day. Let's +think the thing over. The boy remembers his incarnations." + +"Does he know that?" said Grish Chunder, quietly, swinging his legs as +he sat on my table. He was speaking in English now. + +"He does not know anything. Would I speak to you if he did? Go on!" + +"There is no going on at all. If you tell that to your friends they will +say you are mad and put it in the papers. Suppose, now, you prosecute +for libel." + +"Let's leave that out of the question entirely. Is there any chance of +his being made to speak?" + +"There is a chance. Oah, yes! But if he spoke it would mean that all +this world would end now--_instanto_--fall down on your head. These +things are not allowed, you know. As I said, the door is shut." + +"Not a ghost of a chance?" + +"How can there be? You are a Christi-an, and it is forbidden to eat, in +your books, of the Tree of Life, or else you would never die. How shall +you all fear death if you all know what your friend does not know that +he knows? I am afraid to be kicked, but I am not afraid to die, because +I know what I know. You are not afraid to be kicked, but you are afraid +to die. If you were not, by God! you English would be all over the shop +in an hour, upsetting the balances of power, and making commotions. It +would not be good. But no fear. He will remember a little and a little +less, and he will call it dreams. Then he will forget altogether. When +I passed my First Arts Examination in Calcutta that was all in the +cram-book on Wordsworth. 'Trailing clouds of glory,' you know." + +"This seems to be an exception to the rule." + +"There are no exceptions to rules. Some are not so hard-looking as +others, but they are all the same when you touch. If this friend of +yours said so-and-so and so-and-so, indicating that he remembered all +his lost lives, or one piece of a lost life, he would not be in the bank +another hour. He would be what you called sack because he was mad, and +they would send him to an asylum for lunatics. You can see that, my +friend." + +"Of course I can, but I wasn't thinking of him. His name need never +appear in the story." + +"Ah! I see. That story will never be written. You can try." + +"I am going to." + +"For your own credit and for the sake of money, of course?" + +"No. For the sake of writing the story. On my honor that will be all." + +"Even then there is no chance. You cannot play with the Gods. It is a +very pretty story now. As they say, Let it go on that--I mean at that. +Be quick; he will not last long." + +"How do you mean?" + +"What I say. He has never, so far, thought about a woman." + +"Hasn't he, though!" I remembered some of Charlie's confidences. + +"I mean no woman has thought about him. When that comes; +_bus_--_hogya_--all up! I know. There are millions of women here. +Housemaids, for instance." + +I winced at the thought of my story being ruined by a housemaid. And yet +nothing was more probable. + +Grish Chunder grinned. + +"Yes--also pretty girls--cousins of his house, and perhaps not of his +house. One kiss that he gives back again and remembers will cure all +this nonsense, or else----" + +"Or else what? Remember he does not know that he knows." + +"I know that. Or else, if nothing happens he will become immersed in the +trade and the financial speculations like the rest. It must be so. You +can see that it must be so. But the woman will come first, _I_ think." + +There was a rap at the door, and Charlie charged in impetuously. He had +been released from office, and by the look in his eyes I could see +that he had come over for a long talk; most probably with poems in his +pockets. Charlie's poems were very wearying, but sometimes they led him +to talk about the galley. + +Grish Chunder looked at him keenly for a minute. + +"I beg your pardon," Charlie said, uneasily; "I didn't know you had any +one with you." + +"I am going," said Grish Chunder. + +He drew me into the lobby as he departed. + +"That is your man," he said, quickly. "I tell you he will never speak +all you wish. That is rot-bosh. But he would be most good to make to see +things. Suppose now we pretend that it was only play"--I had never seen +Grish Chunder so excited--"and pour the ink-pool into his hand. Eh, what +do you think? I tell you that he could see _anything_ that a man could +see. Let me get the ink and the camphor. He is a seer and he will tell +us very many things." + +"He may be all you say, but I'm not going to trust him to your Gods and +devils." + +"It will not hurt him. He will only feel a little stupid and dull when +he wakes up. You have seen boys look into the ink-pool before." + +"That is the reason why I am not going to see it any more. You'd better +go, Grish Chunder." + +He went, declaring far down the staircase that it was throwing away my +only chance of looking into the future. + +This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peering +of hypnotized boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me do that. But +I recognized Grish Chunder's point of view and sympathized with it. + +"What a big black brute that was!" said Charlie, when I returned to +him. "Well, look here, I've just done a poem; did it instead of playing +dominoes after lunch. May I read it?" + +"Let me read it to myself." + +"Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my things +sound as if the rhymes were all wrong. + +"Read it aloud, then. You're like the rest of 'em." + +Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much worse than the average +of his verses. He had been reading his book faithfully, but he was not +pleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with +Charlie. + +Then we began to go through the MS. line by line; Charlie parrying every +objection and correction with: + +"Yes, that may be better, but you don't catch what I'm driving at." + +Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of poet. + +There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper and "What's that?" I +said. + +"Oh that's not poetry 't all. It's some rot I wrote last night before I +went to bed and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it +a sort of a blank verse instead." + +Here is Charlie's "blank verse": + + "We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails + were low. + + _Will you never let us go?_ + + We ate bread and onions when you took towns or ran aboard + quickly when you were beaten back by the foe. + + The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing + songs, but we were below. + + We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we + were idle for we still swung to and fro. + + _Will you never let us go?_ + + The salt made the oar handles like sharkskin; our knees were cut to + the bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and + our lips were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we + could not row. + + _Will you never let us go?_ + + But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water + runs along the oarblade, and though you tell the others to row after + us you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up + the winds in the belly of the sail. Aho! + + _Will you never let us go?_" + +"H'm. What's oar-thresh, Charlie?" + +"The water washed up by the oars. That's the sort of song they might +sing in the galley, y'know. Aren't you ever going to finish that story +and give me some of the profits?" + +"It depends on yourself. If you had only told me more about your hero in +the first instance it might have been finished by now. You're so hazy in +your notions." + +"I only want to give you the general notion of it--the knocking about +from place to place and the fighting and all that. Can't you fill in the +rest yourself? Make the hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and marry +her or do something." + +"You're a really helpful collaborator. I suppose the hero went through +some few adventures before he married." + +"Well then, make him a very artful card--a low sort of man--a sort +of political man who went about making treaties and breaking them--a +black-haired chap who hid behind the mast when the fighting began." + +"But you said the other day that he was red-haired." + +"I couldn't have. Make him black-haired of course. You've no +imagination." + +Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles upon which the +half-memory falsely called imagination is based, I felt entitled to +laugh, but forbore, for the sake of the tale. + +"You're right. _You're_ the man with imagination. A black-haired chap in +a decked ship," I said. + +"No, an open ship--like a big boat." + +This was maddening. + +"Your ship has been built and designed, closed and decked in; you said +so yourself," I protested. + +"No, no, not that ship. That was open, or half decked because----. By +Jove you're right. You made me think of the hero as a red-haired chap. +Of course if he were red, the ship would be an open one with painted +sails." + +Surely, I thought he would remember now that he had served in two +galleys at least--in a three-decked Greek one under the black-haired +"political man," and again in a Viking's open sea-serpent under the +man "red as a red bear" who went to Markland. The devil prompted me to +speak. + +"Why, 'of course,' Charlie?" said I. + +"I don't know. Are you making fun of me?" + +The current was broken for the time being. I took up a notebook and +pretended to make many entries in it. + +"It's a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap like yourself," I said +after a pause. "The way that you've brought out the character of the +hero is simply wonderful." + +"Do you think so?" he answered, with a pleased flush. "I often tell +myself that there's more in me than my mo--than people think." + +"There's an enormous amount in you." + +"Then, won't you let me send an essay on The Ways of Bank Clerks to +Tit-Bits, and get the guinea prize?" + +"That wasn't exactly what I meant, old fellow: perhaps it would be +better to wait a little and go ahead with the galley-story." + +"Ah, but I sha'n't get the credit of that. 'Tit-Bits' would publish my +name and address if I win. What are you grinning at? They _would_." + +"I know it. Suppose you go for a walk. I want to look through my notes +about our story." + +Now this reprehensible youth who left me, a little hurt and put back, +might for aught he or I knew have been one of the crew of the Argo--had +been certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. Therefore he was +deeply interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what Grish Chunder +had said I laughed aloud. The Lords of Life and Death would never allow +Charlie Mears to speak with full knowledge of his pasts, and I must even +piece out what he had told me with my own poor inventions while Charlie +wrote of the ways of bank-clerks. + +I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and the net result +was not cheering. I read them a second time. There was nothing that +might not have been compiled at second-hand from other people's +books--except, perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbor. The +adventures of a Viking had been written many times before; the history +of a Greek galley-slave was no new thing, and though I wrote both, who +could challenge or confirm the accuracy of my details? I might as well +tell a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of Life and Death +were as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow nothing +to escape that might trouble or make easy the minds of men. Though I +was convinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltation +followed reaction, not once, but twenty times in the next few weeks. My +moods varied with the March sunlight and flying clouds. By night or in +the beauty of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that tale +and shift continents thereby. In the wet, windy afternoons, I saw that +the tale might indeed be written, but would be nothing more than a +faked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work at the +end. Then I blessed Charlie in many ways--though it was no fault of his. +He seemed to be busy with prize competitions, and I saw less and less of +him as the weeks went by and the earth cracked and grew ripe to spring, +and the buds swelled in their sheaths. He did not care to read or talk +of what he had read, and there was a new ring of self-assertion in +his voice. I hardly cared to remind him of the galley when we met; but +Charlie alluded to it on every occasion, always as a story from which +money was to be made. + +"I think I deserve twenty-five per cent., don't I, at least," he said, +with beautiful frankness. "I supplied all the ideas, didn't I?" + +This greediness for silver was a new side in his nature. I assumed that +it had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up the +curious nasal drawl of the underbred City man. + +"When the thing's done we'll talk about it. I can't make anything of it +at present. Red-haired or black-haired hero are equally difficult." + +He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. "_I_ can't +understand what you find so difficult. It's all as clean as mud to me," +he replied. A jet of gas puffed out between the bars, took light and +whistled softly. "Suppose we take the red-haired hero's adventures +first, from the time that he came south to my galley and captured it and +sailed to the Beaches." + +I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was out of reach of +pen and paper, and dared not move to get them lest I should break the +current. The gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie's voice dropped almost +to a whisper, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley to +Furdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seen under the curve of the +one sail evening after evening when the galley's beak was notched into +the centre of the sinking disc, and "we sailed by that for we had no +other guide," quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and +explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three men whom they +found asleep under the pines. Their ghosts, Charlie said, followed the +galley, swimming and choking in the water, and the crew cast lots and +threw one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to the strange gods +whom they had offended. Then they ate sea-weed when their provisions +failed, and their legs swelled, and their leader, the red-haired man, +killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a year spent among the woods +they set sail for their own country, and a wind that never failed +carried them back so safely that they all slept at night. This and much +more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low that I could not +catch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He spoke of their +leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his God; for it was he +who cheered them and slew them impartially as he thought best for their +needs; and it was he who steered them for three days among floating ice, +each floe crowded with strange beasts that "tried to sail with us," said +Charlie, "and we beat them back with the handles of the oars." + +The gas-jet went out, a burned coal gave way, and the fire settled down +with a tiny crash to the bottom of the grate. Charlie ceased speaking, +and I said no word. + +"By Jove!" he said, at last, shaking his head. "I've been staring at the +fire till I'm dizzy. What was I going to say?" + +"Something about the galley." + +"I remember now. It's 25 per cent. of the profits, isn't it?" + +"It's anything you like when I've done the tale." + +"I wanted to be sure of that. I must go now. I've, I've an appointment." +And he left me. + +Had my eyes not been held I might have know that that broken muttering +over the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the +prelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the +Lords of Life and Death! + +When next Charlie came to me I received him with rapture. He was nervous +and embarrassed, but his eyes were very full of light, and his lips a +little parted. + +"I've done a poem," he said; and then quickly: "it's the best I've ever +done. Read it." He thrust it into my hand and retreated to the window. + +I groaned inwardly. It would be the work of half an hour to +criticise--that is to say praise--the poem sufficiently to please +Charlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding his +favorite centipede metres, had launched into shorter and choppier verse, +and verse with a motive at the back of it. This is what I read: + + "The day is most fair, the cheery wind + Halloos behind the hill, + Where he bends the wood as seemeth good, + And the sapling to his will! + Riot O wind; there is that in my blood + That would not have thee still! + + "She gave me herself, O Earth, O Sky; + Grey sea, she is mine alone! + Let the sullen boulders hear my cry, + And rejoice tho' they be but stone! + + "Mine! I have won her, O good brown earth, + Make merry! 'Tis hard on Spring; + Make merry; my love is doubly worth + All worship your fields can bring! + Let the bind that tills you feel my mirth + At the early harrowing." + +"Yes, it's the early harrowing, past a doubt," I said, with a dread at +my heart. Charlie smiled, but did not answer. + + "Red cloud of the sunset, tell it abroad; + I am victor. Greet me, O Sun, + Dominant master and absolute lord + Over the soul of one!" + +"Well?" said Charlie, looking over my shoulder. + +I thought it far from well, and very evil indeed, when he silently laid +a photograph on the paper--the photograph of a girl with a curly head, +and a foolish slack mouth. + +"Isn't it--isn't it wonderful?" he whispered, pink to the tips of his +ears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. "I didn't know; I +didn't think--it came like a thunderclap." + +"Yes. It comes like a thunderclap. Are you very happy, Charlie?" + +"My God--she--she loves me!" He sat down repeating the last words to +himself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders already +bowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and how he had loved in +his past lives. + +"What will your mother say?" I asked, cheerfully. + +"I don't care a damn what she says." + +At twenty the things for which one does not care a damn should, +properly, be many, but one must not include mothers in the list. I told +him this gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have described +to the newly named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve. +Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist's assistant with a +weakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times already +that She had never been kissed by a man before. + +Charlie spoke on, and on, and on; while I, separated from him by +thousands of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now I +understood why the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefully +behind us. It is that we may not remember our first wooings. Were it not +so, our world would be without inhabitants in a hundred years. + +"Now, about that galley-story," I said, still more cheerfully, in a +pause in the rush of the speech. + +Charlie looked up as though he had been hit. "The galley--what galley? +Good heavens, don't joke, man! This is serious! You don't know how +serious it is!" + +Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the love of woman that kills +remembrance, and the finest story in the world would never be written. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Ghost +Stories, by Rudyard Kipling + +*** \ No newline at end of file