THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW AND OTHER GHOST STORIES

By Rudyard Kipling

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 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"

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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 greatKnowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectlyacquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, allthe Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteenhundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years hisknowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knowssomething about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhereand everywhere without paying hotel-bills. 

Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within mymemory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less to-day, if youbelong 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 andhelpful. 

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'swork, and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though hehad been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearlysends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the sameeverywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from youtheir opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blackenyour character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will workthemselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serioustrouble. 

Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on his private account--an arrangement of loose boxes forIncurables, his friend called it--but it was really a sort of fitting-upshed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather. The weatherin India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is always a fixedquantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work overtimeand get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as mixed asthe metaphors in this sentence. 

Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariableprescription 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 thisworld justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died underhis hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speakauthoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crackin Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through andpressed him to death. "Pansay went off the handle, " says Heatherlegh, "after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not havebehaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is thatthe work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that hetook to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. Flirtation. Hecertainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off theengagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense aboutghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, andkilled him poor devil. Write him off to the System--one man to take thework of two and a half men. "

I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes whenHeatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be withinclaim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, evenvoice, 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 suggestedthat he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowingthat ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys havelearned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it upon a door. And this also is Literature. 

He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunderMagazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterwardhe was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he wasurgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through adeficit, 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 theaffair, dated 1885:

My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is notimprobable that I shall get both ere long--rest that neither thered-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of airfar beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In themeantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of mydoctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shalllearn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too, judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earthwas ever so tormented as I. 

Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts aredrawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, demands at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterlydisbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the manwho had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man inIndia. 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, thatmy brain, digestion, and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving riseto my frequent and persistent "delusions. " Delusions, indeed! I call hima fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the samebland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till Ibegin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But youshall judge for your-selves. 

Three years ago it was my fortune--my great misfortune--to sailfrom Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one AgnesKeith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not inthe least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be contentwith the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I weredesperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knowsthat I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. Inmatters of this sort there is always one who gives and another whoaccepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I wasconscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and--ifI may use the expression--a purer sentiment than mine. Whether sherecognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plainto both of us. 

Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respectiveways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leaveand 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 theclosing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessingtonhad given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From myown 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-ninewomen out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of them;seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves byactive and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was thehundredth. On her neither my openly expressed aversion nor the cuttingbrutalities with which I garnished our interviews had the least effect. 

"Jack, darling!" was her one eternal cuckoo cry: "I'm sure it's all amistake--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 pityinto passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate--the sameinstinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spiderhe has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the season of1882 came to an end. 

Next year we met again at Simla--she with her monotonous face and timidattempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every fibre ofmy frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and on eachoccasion her words were identically the same. Still the unreasoning wailthat it was all a "mistake"; and still the hope of eventually "makingfriends. " I might have seen had I cared to look, that that hope only waskeeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You willagree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any one todespair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I maintain that shewas much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the black, fever-strickennight-watches, I have begun to think that I might have been a littlekinder to her. But that really is a "delusion. " I could not havecontinued pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It would havebeen unfair to us both. 

Last year we met again--on the same terms as before. The same wearyappeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would makeher see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming theold 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 absorbinginterests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shadewere fantastically intermingled--my courtship of little Kitty Mannering;my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my tremblingavowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a whiteface flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveriesI once watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's glovedhand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksomemonotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartilyloved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In AugustKitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed "magpie"_jhampanies_ at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentimentof pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew italready. 

"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 goodfriends some day, Jack, as we ever were. "

My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying womanbefore me like the blow of a whip. "Please forgive me, Jack; I didn'tmean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!"

And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her tofinish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, thatI had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that shehad turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me. 

The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory. Therain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden, dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formeda gloomy background against which the black and white liveries ofthe _jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington'sdown-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She was holding herhandkerchief in her left hand and was leaning hack exhausted againstthe 'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a bypath near the SanjowlieReservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint callof "Jack!" This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on horseback; and, in the delightof a long ride with her, forgot all about the interview. 

A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of herexistence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy. Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her, exceptthat at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded meunpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I had disinterredwhat was left of our correspondence from among my scattered belongingsand had burned it. At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I wasat Simla--semi-deserted Simla--once more, and was deep in lover's talksand walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be married at theend of June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as Idid, I am not saying too much when I pronounce myself to have been, atthat time, the happiest man in India. 

Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed theirflight. Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortalscircumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement ringwas the outward and visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; andthat she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured for one. Up tothat moment, I give you my word, we had completely forgotten so triviala 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 inperfect health, enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolute tranquilspirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there, regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring inthe presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with twodiamonds. We then rode out down the slope that leads to the CombermereBridge and Peliti's shop. 

While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, andKitty was laughing and chattering at my side--while all Simla, that isto say as much of it as had then come from the Plains, was groupedround 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. Itstruck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I couldnot at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the roadbetween the path from Hamilton's shop and the first plank of theCombermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might havecommitted such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must havebeen singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my eye wasarrested by the sight of four _jhampanies_ in "magpie" livery, pulling ayellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back tothe previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritationand disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without her black and white servitors reappearing to spoil the day'shappiness? Whoever employed them now I thought I would call upon, andask as a personal favor to change her _jhampanies'_ livery. I would hirethe men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs. It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories theirpresence evoked. 

"Kitty, " I cried, "there are poor Mrs. Wessington's _jhampanies_ turnedup again! I wonder who has them now?"

Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had alwaysbeen 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 himselfdirectly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time toutter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and riderpassed 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 youthink I can't ride--There!"

Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at ahand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, asshe herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was thematter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simlawas haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, nearthe 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'ssome hideous mistake, I'm sure. _Please_ forgive me, Jack, and let's befriends again. "

The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray dailyfor the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchiefin hand, and golden head bowed on her breast. 

How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused bymy syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From thehorrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse anddashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. Theretwo or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussingthe gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to mejust then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plungedinto the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jestedwith a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white anddrawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitablyendeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But Irefused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind--as a childrushes 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 aneternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring forme. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundlyupbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my facestopped 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 hadbeen a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of acloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw mymistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recoverit; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out ofdoors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I haveforgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away tomy hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself. 

In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter. Herewas I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the yearof grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terrorfrom my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been deadand buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessingtonwhen Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterlycommonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broaddaylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, indefiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature'sordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave. 

Kitty's Arab had gone _through_ the 'rickshaw: so that my first hopethat some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriageand the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I wentround this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffledand in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I hadoriginally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging herto 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 initself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may seeghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. Thewhole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hillman!"

Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlookmy strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still verywroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluencyborn of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attackedwith sudden palpitation of the heart--the result of indigestion. Thiseminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode outthat afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us. 

Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves stillunstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road--anythingrather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so Iyielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set outtogether toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Conventto the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretchedhorses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as weneared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessingtonall the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to ouroldtime walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang italoud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen overthe 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--onlythe four black and white _jhampanies_, the yellow-paneled carriage, andthe golden head of the woman within--all apparently just as I had leftthem eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied thatKitty _must_ see what I saw--we were so marvelously sympathetic in allthings. Her next words undeceived me--"Not a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings!" Her wiry littleArab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in thisorder we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fiftyyards 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 theArab passed through it, my horse following. "Jack! Jack dear! _Please_forgive me, " rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:--"It'sa mistake, a hideous mistake!"

I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head atthe Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were stillwaiting--patiently waiting--under the grey hillside, and the windbrought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty banteredme a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I hadbeen talking up till then wildly and at random. To save my life I couldnot speak afterward naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wiselyheld my tongue. 

I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time tocanter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two mentalking together in the dusk. --"It's a curious thing, " said one, "howcompletely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanelyfond of the woman ('never could see anything in her myself), and wantedme to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got forlove or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I've got to do whatthe _Memsahib_ tells me. Would you believe that the man she hired itfrom tells me that all four of the men--they were brothers--died ofcholera on the way to Hardwar, poor devils, and the 'rickshaw has beenbroken 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 littleMrs. Wessington spoiling any one's luck except her own!" I laughedaloud 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 theother world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were theirhours? Where did they go?

And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thingblocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by shortcuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time andchecked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad toa certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in myhorse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington"Good-evening. " Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listenedto the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but shouldbe delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devilstronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dimrecollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes tothe Thing in front of me. 

"Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to comehome. "

Surely _that_ was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheardme speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. Theywere very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gatheredthat I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered awayto my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minuteslate. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked byKitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down. 

The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, Iwas addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was awarethat at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man wasdescribing, with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown thatevening. 

A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of halfan hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, asprofessional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed. There was a moment's awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man mutteredsomething to the effect that he had "forgotten the rest, " therebysacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had builtup 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 genuineregret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of myown existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. Thered-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh, of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads laytogether. 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 showedhe had been thinking over it all dinner time. 

"I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening onthe Elysium road?" The suddenness of the question wrenched an answerfrom 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'tliquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's nothingwhatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and tremblingwith 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'mon the Blessington lower road. "

To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us keptabout twenty yards ahead--and this, too whether we walked, trotted, orcantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companionalmost 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 andindigestible food till the day of your death. "

The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemedto derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts. 

"Eyes, Pansay--all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of thesethree is Stomach. You've too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the restfollows. And all that's French for a liver pill. I'll take sole medicalcharge of you from this hour! for you're too interesting a phenomenon tobe passed over. "

By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower roadand the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hangingshale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherleghrapped out an oath. 

"Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillsidefor 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 frontof us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of thecliff-side--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for amoment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among theirfellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless andsweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone hadsubsided, my companion muttered:--"Man, if we'd gone forward we shouldhave been ten feet deep in our graves by now. 'There are more thingsin heaven and earth. '. .. Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a pegbadly. "

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 weekI never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did Ibless the good-fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's bestand 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 withHeatherlegh's "spectral illusion" theory, implicating eyes, brain, andstomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by afall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should berecovered before she had time to regret my absence. 

Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liverpills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or atearly dawn--for, as he sagely observed: "A man with a sprained ankledoesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might bewondering if she saw you. "

At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, andstrict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissedme as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his partingbenediction: "Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that's as muchas to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your trapsout 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 meshort. 

"Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behavedlike 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 asecond time--"not a rupee, please. Go out and see if you can find theeyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for eachtime you see it. "

Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room withKitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and thefore-knowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideouspresence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed aride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko. 

Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animalspirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty wasdelighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it inher delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings'house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simlaroad as of old. 

I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make myassurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all tooslow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. "Why, Jack!" she cried at last, "you are behaving like a child. What areyou doing?"

We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was makingmy Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loopof my riding-whip. 

"Doing?" I answered; "nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doingnothing 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 cornerabove the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across toSanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and whiteliveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have saidsomething. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward onthe 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 amistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake. " Her last words brought meto 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 theroad up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak toIt; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell couldbreak the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to thesame 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 froma torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have toldKitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listenintently with white face and blazing eyes. 

"Thank you, Mr. Pansay, " she said, "that's _quite_ enough. _Syce ghoraláo. _"

The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with therecaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold ofthe bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was thecut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a wordor two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, andjudged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the sideof the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of theriding-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 adistance, cantered up. 

"Doctor, " I said, pointing to my face, "here's Miss Mannering'ssignature to my order of dismissal and. .. I'll thank you for that lakhas 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'dbetter take me home. "

As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what waspassing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of acloud and fall in upon me. 

Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that Iwas lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherleghwas 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 muchmoved by them. 

"Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a gooddeal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, anda cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken theliberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased withyou. "

"And Kitty?" I asked, dully. 

"Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same tokenyou must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences justbefore I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman asyou did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity forhis kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have ittoo that you were suffering from D. T. When that row on the Jakko roadturned 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 brokenoff; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it brokenthrough D. T. Or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a betterexchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'lltell '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 thelowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread onearth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself falteringthrough the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, whichdreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answeringin a voice that I hardly recognized, --

"They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give 'emfits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer. "

Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-drivenI) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the pastmonth. 

"But I am in Simla, " I kept repeating to myself. "I, Jack Pansay, am inSimla and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman topretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never didher any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'dnever have come hack on purpose to kill _her_. Why can't I be leftalone--left alone and happy?"

It was high noon when I first awoke: and the sun was low in the skybefore I slept--slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, tooworn to feel further pain. 

Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morningthat he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks tohis (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction hadtraveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on allsides 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 theburden that had been laid upon me. 

With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellionagainst the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men nobetter than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for anotherworld; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I aloneshould have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would intime give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I werethe only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; thatMannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were allghosts; and the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devisedto torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward forseven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until thebedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, andwas as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signsof the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but asexpression-less and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanentalteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. Ifound nothing. 

On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in themorning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There Ifound that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, inclumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognizedthat for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of myfellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies onthe Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wanderedaimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close tothe 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 sinceI came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshawand I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close tothe bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For anysign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even payme the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon hadserved for an excuse. 

So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, creptround Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pinesdripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full offine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myselfalmost 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 Iwould try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: theprices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related tothe workaday Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated themultiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I wasnot taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must haveprevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time. 

Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the levelroad. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was leftalone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes, " said I, "will you put back yourhood and tell me what it all means?" The hood dropped noiselessly, andI was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearingthe dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tinyhandkerchief in her right hand; and the same cardcase in her left. (Awoman eight months dead with a cardcase!) I had to pin myself down tothe multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet ofthe 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 usedto know so well, and spoke. 

If my story had not already so madly overleaped the bounds of all humanbelief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, noteven Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification ofmy conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke andI walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below theCommander-in-Chief's house as I might walk by the side of any livingwoman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormentingof my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like thePrince 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 twojoined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemedthat _they_ were the shadows--impalpable, fantastic shadows--thatdivided for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we saidduring the course of that weird interview I cannot--indeed, I darenot--tell. Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and aremark that I had been "mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera. " It wasa 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 asecond 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 theirorder, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would beexhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I wentthere the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me companyto and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd oryelling _jhampanies_; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening ofwhist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; andin 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 andiron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warningsome hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I havewalked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to theunspeakable amazement of the passers-by. 

Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the "fit" theoryhad been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in mymode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I hada passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; Ihungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time Ifelt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostlycompanion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moodsfrom the 15th of May up to to-day. 

The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blindfear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leaveSimla; 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 onlyanxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. AlternatelyI hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtationswith my successor--to speak more accurately, my successors--with amusedinterest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day Iwandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heavento let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all thesevarying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seenand the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound onepoor soul to its grave. 

 * * * * *

_August 27. _--Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance onme; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an applicationfor sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! Arequest that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid offive ghosts and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh'sproposition moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that Ishould await the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is notfar 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 themanner 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 totake 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 shallI 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 livingflesh feels toward escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more andmore powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead withscarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times moreawful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginableterror. Pity me, at least on the score of my "delusion, " for I know youwill never believe what I have written here. Yet as surely as ever a manwas 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 byman, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment isever 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 andplays and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend theirlives in building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real storiesabout the real insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant. But he will insist upon treating his ghosts--he has published halfa workshopful of them--with levity. He makes his ghost-seers talkfamiliarly, and, in some cases, flirt outrageously, with the phantoms. You may treat anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, withlevity; but you must behave reverently toward a ghost, and particularlyan Indian one. 

There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobbycorpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes. Then they drop upon his neck and remain. There are also terrible ghostsof women who have died in child-bed. These wander along the pathways atdusk, or hide in the crops near a village, and call seductively. But toanswer their call is death in this world and the next. Their feet areturned backward that all sober men may recognize them. There are ghostsof little children who have been thrown into wells. These haunt wellcurbs and the fringes of jungles, and wail under the stars, or catchwomen by the wrist and beg to be taken up and carried. These and thecorpse ghosts, however, are only vernacular articles and do not attackSahibs. No native ghost has yet been authentically reported to havefrightened an Englishman; but many English ghosts have scared the lifeout of both white and black. 

Nearly every other Station owns a ghost. There are said to be twoat Simla, not counting the woman who blows the bellows at Syreedâk-bungalow on the Old Road; Mussoorie has a house haunted of a verylively Thing; a White Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round ahouse in Lahore; Dalhousie says that one of her houses "repeats" onautumn evenings all the incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipiceaccident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been sweptby cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers'Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whosefurniture is guaranteed to creak, not with the heat of June but withthe weight of Invisibles who come to lounge in the chairs; Peshawurpossesses houses that none will willingly rent; and there issomething--not fever--wrong with a big bungalow in Allahabad. The olderProvinces simply bristle with haunted houses, and march phantom armiesalong their main thoroughfares. 

Some of the dâk-bungalows on the Grand Trunk Road have handy littlecemeteries in their compound--witnesses to the "changes and chancesof this mortal life" in the days when men drove from Calcutta to theNorthwest. These bungalows are objectionable places to put up in. They are generally very old, always dirty, while the _khansamah_ is asancient as the bungalow. He either chatters senilely, or falls into thelong trances of age. In both moods he is useless. If you get angry withhim, he refers to some Sahib dead and buried these thirty years, andsays that when he was in that Sahib's service not a _khansamah_ in theProvince could touch him. Then he jabbers and mows and trembles andfidgets among the dishes, and you repent of your irritation. 

In these dâk-bungalows, ghosts are most likely to be found, and whenfound, they should be made a note of. Not long ago it was my business tolive in dâk-bungalows. I never inhabited the same house for threenights running, and grew to be learned in the breed. I lived inGovernment-built ones with red brick walls and rail ceilings, aninventory of the furniture posted in every room, and an excited snake atthe threshold to give welcome. I lived in "converted" ones--old housesofficiating as dâk-bungalows--where nothing was in its proper placeand there wasn't even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-handpalaces where the wind blew through open-work marble tracery just asuncomfortably as through a broken pane. I lived in dâk-bungalows wherethe last entry in the visitors' book was fifteen months old, and wherethey slashed off the curry-kid's head with a sword. It was my goodluck to meet all sorts of men, from sober traveling missionaries anddeserters flying from British Regiments, to drunken loafers who threwwhisky bottles at all who passed; and my still greater good fortune justto escape a maternity case. Seeing that a fair proportion of the tragedyof our lives out here acted itself in dâk-bungalows, I wondered thatI had met no ghosts. A ghost that would voluntarily hang about adâk-bungalow would be mad of course; but so many men have died mad indâk-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 ofthem. Up till that hour I had sympathized with Mr. Besant's method ofhandling them, as shown in "The Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and OtherStories. " I am now in the Opposition. 

We will call the bungalow Katmal dâk-bungalow. But THAT was the smallestpart of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep indâk-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dâk-bungalow was old and rottenand unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, andthe windows were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largelyused by native Sub-Deputy Assistants of all kinds, from Finance toForests; but real Sahibs were rare. The _khansamah_, who was nearly bentdouble with old age, said so. 

When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of theland, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noiselike the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The_khansamah_ completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served aSahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He gave me the name of a well-knownman who has been buried for more than a quarter of a century, and showedme an ancient daguerreotype of that man in his prehistoric youth. I hadseen a steel engraving of him at the head of a double volume of Memoirsa month before, and I felt ancient beyond telling. 

The day shut in and the _khansamah_ went to get me food. He did not gothrough 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 theother word, I suppose. 

While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myselfdown, after exploring the dâk-bungalow. There were three rooms, besidemy own, which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other throughdingy white doors fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow was a verysolid one, but the partition walls of the rooms were almost jerry-builtin their flimsiness. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed from my roomdown the other three, and every footfall came back tremulously from thefar walls. For this reason I shut the door. There were no lamps--onlycandles in long glass shades. An oil wick was set in the bathroom. 

For bleak, unadulterated misery that dâk-bungalow was the worst ofthe many that I had ever set foot in. There was no fireplace, andthe windows would not open; so a brazier of charcoal would have beenuseless. The rain and the wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round thehouse, and the toddy palms rattled and roared. Half a dozen jackalswent through the compound singing, and a hyena stood afar off and mockedthem. A hyena would convince a Sadducee of the Resurrection of theDead--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, andthe wind-blown candles playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and themosquito-curtains. It was just the sort of dinner and evening to makea man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the othersthat he intended to commit if he lived. 

Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not easy. The lamp in thebath-room threw the most absurd shadows into the room, and the wind wasbeginning to talk nonsense. 

Just when the reasons were drowsy with blood-sucking I heard theregular--"Let-us-take-and-heave-him-over" grunt of doolie-bearers in thecompound. First one doolie came in, then a second, and then a third. Iheard the doolies dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front ofmy door shook. "That's some one trying to come in, " I said. But no onespoke, and I persuaded myself that it was the gusty wind. The shutterof the room next to mine was attacked, flung back, and the inner dooropened. "That's some Sub-Deputy Assistant, " I said, "and he has broughthis 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 hisluggage into the next room. The door shut, and I thanked Providence thatI was to be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolieshad gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was nevera 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 possiblymistake--the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates whenthe striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. Aminute afterwards there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was notfrightened--indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had becomeof the doolies. I jumped into bed for that reason. 

Next minute I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. Itis a mistake to say that hair stands up. The skin of the head tightensand you can feel a faint, prickly, bristling all over the scalp. That isthe hair sitting up. 

There was a whir and a click, and both sounds could only have been madeby one thing--a billiard ball. I argued the matter out at great lengthwith myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that onebed, one table, and two chairs--all the furniture of the room next tomine--could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. After another cannon, a three-cushion one to judge by the whir, Iargued no more. I had found my ghost and would have given worlds to haveescaped from that dâk-bungalow. I listened, and with each listen thegame grew clearer. There was whir on whir and click on click. Sometimesthere was a double click and a whir and another click. Beyond any sortof doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. And the nextroom was not big enough to hold a billiard table!

Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward--strokeafter stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices; but thatattempt 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 thatdries the inside of the mouth and half of the throat--fear that makesyou sweat on the palms of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the uvulaat work? This is a fine Fear--a great cowardice, and must be felt tobe appreciated. The very improbability of billiards in a dâk-bungalowproved the reality of the thing. No man--drunk or sober--could imagine agame at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a "screw-cannon. "

A severe course of dâk-bungalows has this disadvantage--itbreeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmeddâk-bungalow-haunter:--"There is a corpse in the next room, and there'sa mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camelhave just eloped from a place sixty miles away, " the hearer would notdisbelieve because he would know that nothing is too wild, grotesque, orhorrible to happen in a dâk-bungalow. 

This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational personfresh from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. Idid not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scoresof things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, sosurely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in theechoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that theplayers might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatureswho could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. I onlyknow that that was my terror; and it was real. 

After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I sleptbecause I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have keptawake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar andpeered into the dark of the next room. 

When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, andinquired for the means of departure. 

"By the way, _khansamah_, " I said, "what were those three doolies doingin my compound in the night?"

"There were no doolies, " said the _khansamah_. 

I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the opendoor. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played BlackPool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below. 

"Has this place always been a dâk-bungalow?" I asked. 

"No, " said the _khansamah_. "Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgottenhow 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 usedto come across with brandy-_shrab_. These three rooms were all one, andthey held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. Butthe Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly toKabul. "

"Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?"

"It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and alwaysangry, 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 tostrike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and hisspectacles came off, and when we--the Sahibs and I myself--ran to lifthim. 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, authenticatedarticle. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research--I wouldparalyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eightymiles of assessed crop land between myself and that dâk-bungalow beforenightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigatelater on. 

I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the factsof the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again, --with a miss inbalk this time, for the whir was a short one. 

The door was open and I could see into the room. _Click--click!_ Thatwas a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlightwithin and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on ata tremendous rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat wasrunning to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loosewindow-sash was making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook inthe breeze!

Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistakethe whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when Ishut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fastgame. 

Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh. 

"This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence wasdisturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to thebungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that itwas 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 togo. No wonder, if these _Oorias_ have been here, that the Presence issorely 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 forrent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with thebig green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But KadirBaksh has no notions of morality. 

There was an interview with the _khansamah_, but as he promptly lost hishead, 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 inthree separate stations--two of them fifty miles away. The third shiftwas to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dogcart. 

If I had encouraged him the _khansamah_ would have wandered all throughBengal with his corpse. 

I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, whilethe 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_ outof 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 byaccident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, thoughhe is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similarinstitution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there isa story that if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heartof the Great Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but atown where the Dead who did not die but may not live have establishedtheir headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true that in the sameDesert is a wonderful city where all the rich money lenders retreatafter they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the ownerscannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-springbarouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with goldand ivory and Minton tiles and mother-n'-pearl, I do not see why Jukes'stale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plansand distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not takethe trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing hislegitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and growsvery hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatmenthe received. He wrote this quite straightforwardly at first, but he hassince touched it up in places and introduced Moral Reflections, thus:

In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My worknecessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan andMuharakpur--a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has hadthe misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more norless exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficientattention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so unmanly aweakness. 

On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a fullmoon at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was bayingit. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A fewdays previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended hiscarcass _in terrorem_ about fifty yards from my tent-door. But hisfriends fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body; and, asit seemed to me, sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewedenergy. 

The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently ondifferent men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixeddetermination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had beenforemost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks toa shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with bothbarrels of my shot-gun, when it struck me that my best plan would be toride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, ofcourse, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient; but Iremember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical andfeasible. 

I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him roundquietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at hishead prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again liftup his voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for acouple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armedwith a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had beenrousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then, that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brutebolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and we wereflying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed. 

In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgottenwhy it was that I had taken the horse and hogspear. 

The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through theair must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faintrecollection of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing myhog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my madgallop; and of shout-log challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as theywhizzed past. Once or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic'sneck, and literally hung on by my spurs--as the marks next morningshowed. 

The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemedto be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the groundrose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw thewaters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornicblundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseenslope. 

I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying onmy stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning tobreak dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As thelight grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horseshoe-shapedcrater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of theSutlej. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of aslight dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall overnight. 

Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good dealexhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favoritepolo 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 hadample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishlydropped. 

At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length:inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be ofmaterial assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows. 

Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sandwith steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope, I fancy, must have been about 65 degrees. ) This crater enclosed a levelpiece 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 ofeighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, allabout three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that itwas carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and overthe mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey'scap, for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but amost sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre--a stench foulerthan 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, Irode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exitwould be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had notthought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. Myfirst attempt to "rush" Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me thatI had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which theant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured downfrom above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes likesmall shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down tothe bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and I was constrainedto turn my attention to the river-bank. 

Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the riveredge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows acrosswhich I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to _terra firma_ byturning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic over the sands Iwas startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at thesame moment a bullet dropped with a sharp "_whit_" close to Pornic'shead. 

There was no mistaking the nature of the missile--a regulationMartini-Henry "picket. " About five hundred yards away a country-boat wasanchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows inthe still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an _impasse_? The treacheroussand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited mostinvoluntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal fora bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lostmy temper very much indeed. 

Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to coolmy porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to thehorseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-fivehuman beings from the badger-holes which I had up till that pointsupposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd ofspectators--about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could nothave been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed inthat salmon-colored cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants, and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band of loathsome_fakirs_. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyondall description, and I shuddered to think what their life in thebadger-holes must be. 

Even in these days, when local self-government has destroyed the greaterpart of a native's respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to acertain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching thecrowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of mypresence. As a matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what Ihad looked for. 

The ragged crew actually laughed at me--such laughter I hope I may neverhear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked intotheir midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on theground in convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornic'shead, and, irritated beyond expression at the morning's adventure, commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. Thewretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gaveplace to wails for mercy; while those yet untouched clasped me round theknees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them. 

In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myselffor having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voicemurmured in English from behind my shoulder: "Sahib! Sahib! Do you notknow 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'sreal name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin loaned bythe Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in chargeof a branch telegraph-office there, and when I had last met him wasa jovial, full-stomached, portly Government servant with a marvelouscapacity for making bad puns in English--a peculiarity which mademe remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in hisofficial capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns. 

Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark, stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with longmatted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes. But for a crescent-shaped scar onthe left cheek--the result of an accident for which I was responsible Ishould never have known him. But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and--forthis I was thankfull--an English-speaking native who might at least tellme the meaning of all that I had gone through that day. 

The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the miserablefigure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from thecrater. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to myquestion climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front ofthe holes, and commenced lighting a fire there in silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolationfrom the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When theywere 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 youare dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live. " (Here the crowdemanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire indanger of being burned to a cinder. ) "If you die at home and do not diewhen you come to the ghât to be burned you come here. "

The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I hadknown or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the factjust communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Sixteen years ago, when I firstlanded in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of theexistence, somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as hadthe misfortune to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed andkept, and I recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased toconsider 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-facedArmenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burstinto 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 GungaDass to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnlyfrom the wooden spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued hisstory, which I give in his own words:

"In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to be burned almost beforeyou 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 onyour nose and mouth and you die conclusively. If you are rather morealive, more mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you goand take you away. I was too lively, and made protestation with angeragainst the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In thosedays I was Brahmin and proud man. Now I am dead man and eat"--here heeyed the well-gnawed breast bone with the first sign of emotion thatI had seen in him since we met--"crows, and other things. They took mefrom my sheets when they saw that I was too lively and gave me medicinesfor one week, and I survived successfully. Then they sent me by railfrom my place to Okara Station, with a man to take care of me; andat Okara Station we met two other men, and they conducted we threeon camels, in the night, from Okara Station to this place, and theypropelled 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 Brahminand 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 experimentsfrequently and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to thesand which is precipitated upon our heads. "

"But surely, " I broke in at this point, "the river-front is open, andit is worth while dodging the bullets; while at night"--I had alreadymatured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishnessforbade me sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined myunspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed; and, to my intenseastonishment, 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 openingsentence--"make any escape that way. But you can try. I have tried. Onceonly. "

The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vainattempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast--itwas now close upon ten o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin onthe previous day--combined with the violent and unnatural agitation ofthe 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-slope Iran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. Icrawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven backeach time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cutup the sand round me--for I dared not face the death of a mad dog amongthat hideous crowd--and finally fell, spent and raving, at the curb ofthe well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an exhibition whichmakes me blush hotly even when I think of it now. 

Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but theywere evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to wasteupon me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, indeed, when he hadbanked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw halfa cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I couldhave fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all thewhile in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my firstattempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, Ilay till noon. Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, andintimated as much to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as mynatural protector. Following the impulse of the outer world when dealingwith natives, I put my hand into my pocket and drew out four annas. Theabsurdity of the gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace themoney. 

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!" Allthis as if it were the most natural thing in the world!

A Briton's first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of hispockets; but a moment's reflection convinced me of the futilityof differing with the one man who had it in his power to make mecomfortable; and with whose help it was possible that I might eventuallyescape 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 smallchange as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, andhid them at once in his ragged loin cloth, his expression changing tosomething diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no onehad observed us. 

"_Now_ I will give you something to eat, " said he. 

What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I amunable to say; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was notsorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that hewould have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest againstthe vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were lower thanany beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse_chapatti_ and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed notthe faintest sign of curiosity--that curiosity which is so rampant, as arule, in an Indian village. 

I could even fancy that they despised me. At all events they treated mewith the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. I plied him with questions about the terrible village, and receivedextremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had beenin existence from time immemorial--whence I concluded that it was atleast a century old--and during that time no one had ever been known toescape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest theblind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me ravinground the crater. ] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizingthis point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do wouldinduce him to tell me who the mysterious "They" were. 

"It is so ordered, " he would reply, "and I do not yet know any one whohas disobeyed the orders. "

"Only wait till my servants find that I am missing, " I retorted, "and Ipromise 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, ofcourse, but none the less you are dead and buried. "

At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped downfrom the land side into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought forthem like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreatedto his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of thehole 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 askedGunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed apestilence. 

"That, " said he with another of his wheezy chuckles, "you may see foryourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations. "

Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continuedthe conversation: "And how do you live here from day to day? What do youdo?" The question elicited exactly the same answer as before--coupledwith 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 himselfadmitted, had he only changed his religion "like a wise man, " might haveavoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I waswith him I fancy he was happy. 

Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless asa child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In adeliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy woulddevote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaledbeetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortablyto the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that therewas no escape "of no kind whatever, " and that I should stay here till Idied and was "thrown on to the sand. " If it were possible to forejudgethe conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in theirabode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to methroughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer;all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicableterror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can comparethe feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against theoverpowering nausea of the Channel passage--only my agony was of thespirit and infinitely more terrible. 

As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength tocatch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at themouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked amongthemselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About fouro'clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lairfor a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched birdwas in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in noway afraid of its master. Advancing cautiously to the river front, GungaDass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patchof sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of theboat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterousturns 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 airwith its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attentionof a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where theywere discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crowsflew over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, toattack the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock, motioned to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needlessprecaution. In a moment, and before I could see how it happened, awild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, wasentangled in the latter's claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, andpegged down beside its companion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed, overpowered the rest of the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and Ihad time to withdraw to the tussock, two more captives were strugglingin the upturned claws of the decoys. So the chase--if I can give it sodignified a name--continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows. Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operationsanother day. I was a good deal impressed by this, to me, novel method ofsecuring food, and complimented Gunga Dass on his skill. 

"It is nothing to do, " said he. "Tomorrow you must do it for me. You arestronger than I am. "

This calm assumption of superiority upset me not a little, and Ianswered peremptorily: "Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think Ihave given you money for?"

"Very well, " was the unmoved reply. "Perhaps not to-morrow, nor the dayafter, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you willcatch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that youhave crows to catch and eat. "

I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best underthe circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eatingone of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that Ihad a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that eveningmeal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platformopposite 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 wereold men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to allappearance as the Fates themselves. They sat together in knots andtalked--God only knows what they found to discuss--in low equable tones, curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives areaccustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that suddenfury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man orwoman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack thesteep slope until, baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platformincapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise theireyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of theirfellows' attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw foursuch outbursts in the course of the evening. 

Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, andwhile 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 hewould consent to "do" for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, atthe rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-onedays, or about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to caterfor me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look aftermyself. For a further consideration--_videlicet_ my boots--he would bewilling to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supplyme with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare. 

"Very well, Gunga Dass, " I replied; "to the first terms I cheerfullyagree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you asyou sit here and taking everything that you have" (I thought of the twoinvaluable crows at the time), "I flatly refuse to give you my boots andshall take whichever den I please. "

The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it hadsucceeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed allintention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as atall strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years' standingin the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thuscalmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for aconsideration 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 ownexistence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save thatof the strongest; that the living dead men had thrown behind them everycanon of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to dependfor my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of theill-fated _Mignonette_ are the only men who would understand my frame ofmind. "At present, " I argued to myself, "I am strong and a match for sixof these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for myown sake, keep both health and strength until the hour of my releasecomes--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, andthat the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited withthe only punishment I had it in my power to inflict--sudden and violentdeath. Shortly after this I went to bed. That is to say, Gunga Dass gaveme a double armful of dried bents which I thrust down the mouth of thelair to the right of his, and followed myself, feet foremost; thehole running about nine feet into the sand with a slight downwardinclination, and being neatly shored with timbers. From my den, whichfaced the river-front, I was able to watch the waters of the Sutlejflowing past under the light of a young moon and compose myself to sleepas best I might. 

The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly asnarrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy bythe contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelledabominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excitedframe of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entireamphitheatre was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping upfrom the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs. 

Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament, --very few Engineersare, --but on that occasion I was as completely prostrated with nervousterror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was able oncemore to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sandwalls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced ofthis some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, inthe uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. Theplace was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergoany risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creepingstealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was notthere. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps!

By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of theprojecting left horn of the horseshoe, I could wade across, turnthe flank of the crater, and make my way inland. Without a moment'shesitation I marched briskly past the tussocks where Gunga Dass hadsnared the crows, and out in the direction of the smooth white sandbeyond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass showed me howutterly futile was any hope of escape; for, as I put my foot down, Ifelt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Anothermoment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlightthe whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with devilish delightat my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror andexertion, back to the tussocks behind me and fell on my face. 

My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with aquicksand!

How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at lastby the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear "I would advise you, Protector of the Poor" (the ruffian was speaking English) "to return toyour house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boatreturns, you will most certainly be rifled at. " He stood over me in thedim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressingmy first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to thequicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below theburrows. 

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 recollectthat even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on thewaste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore. 

Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer: "They have the boat only indaytime. It is for the reason that _there is a way_. I hope we shallhave the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasantspot when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow longenough. "

I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted tome, and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercingscream--the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those whohave once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some littledifficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, Isaw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How theyhad killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse wasbetter than crow, and "greatest good of greatest number is politicalmaxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fairshare of the beast. If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall Ipropose?"

Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at thebottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attemptedno protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sightin 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 andwomen had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparingtheir normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistibleimpulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of meafresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dasswas offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed anotherremark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him saysomething. 

"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 alie. "

"He is over there, " answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouthabout four doors to the left of my own. "You can see for yourself. Hedied in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these menand women and the one child will also die. "

"For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did hecome, and when did he die?"

This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered andreplied: "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, ledme round to the burrow which he had indicated. 

"I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witnessthat I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he wasshot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him fromattempting. He was shot here. " Gunga Dass laid his hand on his leanstomach and bowed to the earth. 

"Well, and what then? Go on!"

"And then--and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house andgave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in hishouse and gave up the ghost. "

"In how long? In how long?"

"About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu towitness, " 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 hadmy doubts about Gunga Dass's benevolence, and kicked him off as he layprotesting. 

"I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in aminute or two. How long was the Sahib here?"

"Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear meswear Protector of the Poor! Won't Your Honor hear me swear that I nevertouched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship going todo?"

I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to theplatform opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of mywretched fellow-prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrorsfor 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 goingto kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in theplethora 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 rolledoff the platform and howled aloud. 

"But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by yourfather'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 intothe 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 GungaDass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a softthud--and I uncovered my eyes. 

The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into ayellow-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 andforty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and arough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, anda portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger ofthe left hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, witha monogram that might have been either "B. K. " or "B. L. " On the thirdfinger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiledcobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful oftrifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering theface of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I givethe full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of theunfortunate man:

1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn andblackened; 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, markedwith 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 pagesblank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with privatememoranda 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'shorn, diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cottoncord attached. 

It must not be supposed that I inventoried all these things on the spotas fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attractedmy attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view of studying it lateron. 

The rest of the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety's sake, andthere being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned tothe corpse and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it out to theriver-front. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an oldbrown 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 notcarry exploded cartridge-cases, especially "browns, " which will notbear loading twice, about with him when shooting. In other words, thatcartridge-case had been fired inside the crater. Consequently there mustbe a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checkedmyself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge ofthe quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out andlet it be swallowed up-the only possible mode of burial that I couldthink of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away. 

Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so, itwas lying face downward, I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coatopen, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told youthat the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glanceshowed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; thegun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. Theshooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch'sdeath was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumablyGunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun--the gun that fitted thebrown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of therifle-fire from the boat. 

I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally ina few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious wayI turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolored slip of paperhad been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as Iopened the pages. This is what it contained: "_Four out from crow-clump:three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen out; twoleft; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six back; four right;seven back. _" The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. Whatit meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turningit over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dassstanding immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands. 

"Have you got it?" he panted. "Will you not let me look at it also? Iswear that I will return it. "

"Got what? Return what?" asked. 

"That which you have in your hands. It will help us both. " He stretchedout his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness. 

"I could never find it, " he continued. "He had secreted it about hisperson. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtainit. "

Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about therifle-bullet. I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality isblunted by consorting with the Dead who are alive. 

"What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to giveyou?"

"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 beforeme. 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 ofpaper 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 inthe sand with his fingers. 

"See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I havethose 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 rememberwhen 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 sobefore 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 ahalf ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boathad gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then hesaid that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he wouldleave me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shothim. Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in hereshould escape. Only I, and _I_ am a Brahmin. "

The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass's caste back to him. Hestood up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managedto make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spentsix months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passageacross the quicksand; how he had declared it to be simplicity itself upto within about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flankof the left horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently notcompleted when Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun. 

In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollectshaking hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that wewere to make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary workwaiting throughout the afternoon. 

About ten o'clock, as far as I could judge, when the Moon had just risenabove the lip of the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow tobring out the gun-barrels whereby to measure our path. All the otherwretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardianboat drifted downstream some hours before, and we were utterly alone bythe crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun-barrels, let slipthe piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily torecover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical Brahminwas 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 somewhereon the nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before myeyes, and I fell forwards senseless at the edge of, the quicksand. 

When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I wassensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass haddisappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayedthat I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I hadbefore mentioned, laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward thewalls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in awhisper--"Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!" exactly as my bearer used to call me inthe morning I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sandfell at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down intothe amphitheatre--the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to mycollies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his handand showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for the while, thathe should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knottedtogether, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head andunder my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that Iwas being dragged, face downward, up the steep sand slope, and thenext instant found myself choked and half fainting on the sandhills overlooking the crater. Dunnoo, with his face ashy grey in themoonlight, 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 acrossthe sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatlyrefused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into thehideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my poniesand a couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me outas I have described. 

To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a goldmohur a month--a sum which I still think far too little for the serviceshe has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near thatdevilish spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than Ihave done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish todo. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that someone may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which Ihave 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 noteasy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again undercircumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the otherwas worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once camenear to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and waspromised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue, andpolicy 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 Mhowfrom Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitatedtravelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushionsin 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 buyfrom refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, andbuy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadsidewater. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of thecarriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon. 

My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reachedNasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. Hewas a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educatedtaste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, ofout-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, andof 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 thanthe crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventymillions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundredmillions, " said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposedto agree with him. 

We talked politics, --the politics of Loaferdom that sees things fromthe under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off, --and wetalked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegramback from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from theBombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no moneybeyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money atall, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I wasgoing into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with theTreasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable tohelp 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 travellingback 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, " Isaid. 

"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It's thisway. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be runningthrough 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 toget into Jodhpore territory, --you must do that, --and he'll be comingthrough Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by theBombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't beinconveniencing you, because I know that there's precious few pickingsto be got out of these Central India States--even though you pretend tobe correspondent of the 'Backwoodsman. '"

"Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked. 

"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you getescorted 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 himwhat's come to me, or else he won't know where to go. I would take itmore than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time tocatch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him, 'He has gone South for theweek. ' He'll know what that means. He's a big man with a red beard, anda great swell he is. You'll find him sleeping like a gentleman withall his luggage round him in a Second-class apartment. But don't you beafraid. 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 partsby two days. I ask you as a stranger--going to the West, " he said, withemphasis. 

"Where have _you_ come from?" said I. 

"From the East, " said he, "and I am hoping that you will give him themessage 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 theirmothers; but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I sawfit to agree. 

"It's more than a little matter, " said he, "and that's why I askedyou to do it--and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. ASecond-class carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleepin it. You'll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and Imust 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 ofyour Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice. Don't tryto run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the'Backwoodsman. ' There's a real one knocking about here, and it mightlead to trouble. "

"Thank you, " said he, simply; "and when will the swine be gone? Ican't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of theDegumber 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 hungfrom a beam. I found that out myself, and I'm the only man that woulddare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They'll try topoison 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 andbleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had nevermet any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally diewith great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror ofEnglish newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods ofgovernment, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do notunderstand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administrationof Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decentlimits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one endof the year to the other. They are the dark places of the earth, fullof unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on oneside, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left thetrain I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days passed throughmany changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes and consorted withPrinces and Politicals, drinking from crystal and eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and devoured what I could get, froma plate made of leaves, and drank the running water, and slept under thesame 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 Ihad promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, wherea funny little, happy-go-lucky, native-managed railway runs to Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrivedjust as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and godown the carriages. There was only one Second-class on the train. I slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming-red beard, halfcovered by a railway-rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug himgently in the ribs. He woke with a grunt, and I saw his face in thelight 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. Hehas gone South for the week!"

The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. "Hehas gone South for the week, " he repeated. "Now that's just like hisimpidence. 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 dieout in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing offthe sands. I climbed into my own train--not an Intermediate carriagethis time--and went to sleep. 

If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it asa memento of a rather curious affair. But the consciousness of havingdone my duty was my only reward. 

Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do anygood if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers, and might, if they blackmailed one of the little rat-trap Statesof Central India or Southern Rajputana, get themselves into seriousdifficulties. I therefore took some trouble to describe them asaccurately as I could remember to people who would be interested indeporting them; and succeeded, so I was later informed, in having themheaded back from the Degumber borders. 

Then I became respectable, and returned to an office where there were noKings and no incidents outside the daily manufacture of a newspaper. Anewspaper office seems to attract every conceivable sort of person, tothe prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg thatthe Editor will instantly abandon all his duties to describe a Christianprize-giving in a back slum of a perfectly inaccessible village;Colonels who have been overpassed for command sit down and sketch theoutline of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles onSeniority _versus_ Selection; missionaries wish to know why they havenot been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse, andswear at a brother missionary under special patronage of the editorialWe; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannotpay for their advertisements, but on their return from New Zealandor Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent punka-pullingmachines, carriage couplings, and unbreakable swords and axletrees callwith specifications in their pockets and hours at their disposal; teacompanies enter and elaborate their prospectuses with the office pens;secretaries of ball committees clamour to have the glories of their lastdance more fully described; strange ladies rustle in and say, "I wanta hundred lady's cards printed _at once_, please, " which is manifestlypart of an Editor's duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever trampedthe Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for employment as aproof-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 uponthe British Dominions, and the little black copyboys are whining, "_kaa-pi chay-ha-yeh_" ("Copy wanted"), like tired bees, and most of thepaper is as blank as Modred's shield. 

But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other monthswhen none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inchup to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just abovereading-light, and the press-machines are red-hot to touch, and nobodywrites anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations orobituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, becauseit tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knewintimately, and the prickly heat covers you with a garment, and yousit down and write: "A slight increase of sickness is reported fromthe Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic inits nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the Districtauthorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regretwe record the death, " etc. 

Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording andreporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empiresand the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, andthe Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once intwenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in themiddle of their amusements say, "Good gracious! why can't the paper besparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on up here. "

That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, "mustbe experienced to be appreciated. "

It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paperbegan running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is tosay Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a greatconvenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed the dawnwould lower the thermometer from 96 degrees to almost 84 degrees forhalf an hour, and in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 degreeson the grass until you begin to pray for it--a very tired man could getoff to sleep ere the heat roused him. 

One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bedalone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going todie or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important onthe other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till thelatest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. 

It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, andthe _loo_, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among thetinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now andagain a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with theflop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. Itwas 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 thewindows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from theirforeheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it was, would not come off, though the _loo_ dropped and thelast type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the chokingheat, with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, andwondered whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dyingman, or struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the delaywas causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry tomake tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o-clock and themachines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all wasin order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could haveshrieked aloud. 

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into littlebits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in frontof me. The first one said, "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!" Andthey both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and moppedtheir 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 myfriend here, 'The office is open. Let's come along and speak to him asturned 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 thered-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrowsof the one or the beard of the other. 

I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble withloafers. "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'tbegin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look, --but what we really want isadvice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favour, because we foundout you did us a bad turn about Degumber State. "

I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on thewalls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's somethinglike, " said he. "This was the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, letme introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's him, and BrotherDaniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our professionsthe better, for we have been most things in our time--soldier, sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, andcorrespondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we thought the paper wantedone. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first, and see that'ssure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll take one of yourcigars apiece, and you shall see us light up. "

I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each atepid whisky-and-soda. 

"Well _and_ good, " said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the frothfrom his moustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, pettycontractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't bigenough for such as us. "

They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed tofill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they saton the big table. Carnehan continued: "The country isn't half workedout because they that governs it won't let you touch it. They spend alltheir blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, norchip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that, without all theGovernment 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 wherea man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, andthere is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signeda 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'sa very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Cometo-morrow. "

"Neither drunk nor sunstruck, " said Dravot. "We have slept over thenotion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we havedecided that there is only one place now in the world that two strongmen can Sar-a-_whack_. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it's thetop right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred milesfrom Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'llbe the thirty-third and fourth. It's a mountaineous country, the womenof those parts are very beautiful. "

"But that is provided against in the Contrack, " said Carnehan. "NeitherWomen nor Liqu-or, Daniel. "

"And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and theyfight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drillmen can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any Kingwe find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him howto drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we willsubvert 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 hasbeen through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reachedthem you couldn't do anything. "

"That's more like, " said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little moremad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about thiscountry, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you totell us that we are fools and to show us your books. " He turned to thebookcases. 

"Are you at all in earnest?" I said. 

"A little, " said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got, evenif it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got. We canread, though we aren't very educated. "

I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and twosmaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the "EncyclopaediaBritannica, " and the men consulted them. 

"See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak, Peacheyand me know the road. We was there with Robert's Army. We'll have toturn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then weget among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand--it willbe 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 helpus to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'llfight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm!"

"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurateas can be, " I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here'sthe 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 fouro'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and wewon't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmlesslunatics, and if you come to-morrow evening down to the Serai we'll saygood-bye to you. "

"You _are_ two fools, " I answered. "You'll be turned back at theFrontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you wantany money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chanceof 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 Kingdomin going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help usgovern it. "

"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?" said Carnehan, withsubdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which waswritten 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, blushingmodestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men thatloafers 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 wasin earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worthhaving. "

"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try thisidiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire, " I said, "and go awaybefore nine o'clock. "

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the backof the "Contrack. " "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow, " weretheir parting words. 

The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where thestrings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All thenationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folkof India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and tryto draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and getmany strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to seewhether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying theredrunk. 

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servantbending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading uptwo camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieksof laughter. 

"The priest is mad, " said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabulto sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have hishead cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madlyever since. "

"The witless are under the protection of God, " stammered a flat-cheekedUsbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events. "

"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut upby the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!" grunted the Eusufzaiagent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted intothe hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortuneswere the laughing-stock of the bazaar. "Ohé, priest, whence come you andwhither do you go?"

"From Roum have I come, " shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "fromRoum, 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 arenever still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall notfall 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 toslipper 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 theskirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tetheredhorses. 

"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, _Huzrut_, " said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thoualso go and bring us good luck. "

"I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my wingedcamels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan, " he yelled tohis 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 tome, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I willsell 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 theSerai till we reached open road and the priest halted. 

"What d' you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talktheir 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 forfourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravanat Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can getdonkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for theAmir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what youfeel. "

I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another. 

"Twenty of 'em, " said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and ammunition tocorrespond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls. "

"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "AMartini 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 getcaught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'dtouch 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. Halfmy Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is. " I slipped a small charmcompass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest. 

"Good-bye, " said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last timewe'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands withhim, Carnehan, " he cried, as the second camel passed me. 

Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away alongthe dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect nofailure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they werecomplete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, thatCarnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan withoutdetection. But, beyond, they would find death--certain and awful death. 

Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the dayfrom Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been much laughterhere on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimationto sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes asgreat charms to H. H. The Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawarand associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine thatsuch mad fellows bring good fortune. "

The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, butthat 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. Thedaily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer therefell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something tobe telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happenedbefore. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machinesworked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office gardenwere a few feet taller. But that was all the difference. 

I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene asI have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than ithad been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At threeo'clock I cried, "Print off, " and turned to go, when there crept to mychair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head wassunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the otherlike a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--thisrag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that hewas come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord'ssake, give me a drink!"

I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and Iturned up the lamp. 

"Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned hisdrawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light. 

I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met overthe nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could nottell where. 

"I don't know you, " I said, handing him the whisky. "What can I do foryou?"

He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of thesuffocating heat. 

"I've come back, " he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me andDravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you settingthere and giving us the books. I am Peachey, --Peachey TaliaferroCarnehan, --and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!"

I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelingsaccordingly. 

"It's true, " said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, whichwere wrapped in rags--"true as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns uponour heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would nevertake advice, not though I begged of him!"

"Take the whisky, " I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you canrecollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the Borderon your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Doyou 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. Keeplooking at me in my eyes and don't say anything. "

I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. Hedropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. Itwas 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 comesafterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with thatcaravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the peoplewe were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all thepeople was cooking their dinners--cooking their dinners, and. .. What didthey do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot'sbeard, and we all laughed--fit to die. Little red fires they was, goinginto Dravot's big red beard--so funny. " His eyes left mine and he smiledfoolishly. 

"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 totry to get into Kafiristan. "

"No, we didn't, neither. What are you talking about? We turned offbefore Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn'tgood enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left thecaravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we wouldbe heathen, because the Kafirs didn't allow Mohammedans to talk to them. So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel DravotI never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, andslung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns. He shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look likea heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camelscouldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall andblack, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats--there are lotsof goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, nomore than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don't let you sleepat night. "

"Take some more whisky, " I said, very slowly. "What did you and DanielDravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roadsthat led into Kafiristan?"

"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehanthat was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there inthe cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting inthe air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. No; theywas two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken andwoeful sore. .. . And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said toDravot, 'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our headsare chopped off, ' and with that they killed the camels all among themountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they tookoff the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came alongdriving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing, 'Sell me four mules. ' Says the first man, 'If you are rich enough tobuy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put his handto his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the other partyruns away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the rifles that was takenoff the camels, and together we starts forward into those bitter-coldmountaineous parts, and never a road broader than the back of yourhand. "

He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember thenature 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 itmight be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravotdied. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary, and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, anddown and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravotnot to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjusavalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worthbeing King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took noheed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among themountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not havinganything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, andplayed odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out. 

"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twentymen with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They was fairmen--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 thetwenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rockwhere he was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan andDravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down thevalley. 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 theirheads, and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicksthem, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to make themfriendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry, andwaves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. Theytakes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pinewood on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravothe goes to the biggest--a fellow they call Imbra--and lays a rifle and acartridge 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 heopens his mouth and points down it, and when the first man brings himfood, 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 bringshim food, he says, 'Yes;' very haughty, and eats it slow. That was howwe came to our first village without any trouble, just as though wehad tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damnedrope-bridges, you see, and--you couldn't expect a man to laugh muchafter that?"

"Take some more whisky and go on, " I said. "That was the first villageyou came into. How did you get to be King?"

"I wasn't King, " said Carnehan. "Dravot he was the King, and a handsomeman he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the otherparty stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the sideof old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot'sorder. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan Dravot picksthem off with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs downinto 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 theirfaces, and Dravot says, 'Now what is the trouble between you twovillages?' and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, thatwas carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village andcounts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man Dravot poursa 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 ofeach village by the arm, and walks them down the valley, and shows themhow to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives eacha sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people comesdown and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says, 'Go and dig theland, and be fruitful and multiply, ' which they did, though they didn'tunderstand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo--bread andwater and fire and idols and such; and Dravot leads the priest of eachvillage 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 asbees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints andtold 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 twentygood men and shows them how to click off a rifle and form fours andadvance in line; and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to seethe hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch, andleaves one at one village and one at the other, and off we two goes tosee what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and therewas a little village there, and Carnehan says, 'Send 'em to the oldvalley to plant, ' and takes 'em there and gives 'em some land thatwasn't took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded 'em with a kidbefore letting 'em into the new Kingdom. That was to impress the people, and then they settled down quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot, whohad got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous. There was no people there, and the Army got afraid; so Dravot shootsone of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and theArmy explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had betternot shoot their little matchlocks, for they had matchlocks. We makesfriends 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 acrossthe snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there wasa new God kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men halfa mile across the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a messageto the Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must come and shakehands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about, same asDravot used, and very much surprised that Chief was, and strokesmy eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him indumb-show if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have, ' says the chief. SoCarnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army toshow them drill, and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre aboutas well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plainon the top of a mountain, and the Chief's men rushes into a village andtakes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So wetook that village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat, andsays, '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 bulletnear him standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on theirfaces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by land or bysea. "

At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted: "Howcould 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 itfrom a blind beggar in the Punjab. "

I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man witha knotted twig, and a piece of string which he wound round the twigaccording to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of daysor hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He had reduced thealphabet 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 comeback because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle; and thenI struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. Theycalled the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the firstvillage we took, Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, butthey had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men fromanother village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and lookedfor 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 DanDravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds ofmen, and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head. 'My Gord, Carnehan, ' says Daniel, 'this is a tremenjus business, andwe've got the whole country as far as it's worth having. I am the sonof Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you're my younger brother and aGod too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been marching andfighting for six weeks with the Army, and every footy little village forfifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I've got the keyof 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 therock like suet in mutton. Gold I've seen, and turquoise I've kicked outof the cliffs, and there's garnets in the sands of the river, and here'sa 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 wastoo small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold itwas--five pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel. 

"'Peachey, ' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight no more. The Craft'sthe trick, so help me!' and he brings forward that same Chief that Ileft at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was solike Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan inthe old days. 'Shake hands with him, ' says Dravot; and I shook handsand nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, buttried him with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I triedthe Master's Grip, but that was a slip. 'A Fellow-craft he is!' I saysto Dan. 'Does he know the word?' 'He does, ' says Dan, 'and all thepriests know. It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work aFellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours, and they've cut themarks on the rocks, but they don't know the Third Degree, and they'vecome to find out. It's Gord's Truth. I've known these long years thatthe 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 ThirdDegree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs ofthe villages. '

"'It's against all the law, ' I says, 'holding a Lodge without warrantfrom any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge. '

"'It's a master stroke o' policy, ' says Dravot. 'It means running thecountry as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can't stopto inquire now, or they'll turn against us. I've forty Chiefs at myheel, 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 somekind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must makeaprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of Chiefs to-night and Lodgeto-morrow. '

"I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn't such a fool as not to see whata pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests' families howto make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot's apron the blue borderand marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We tooka great square stone in the temple for the Master's chair, and littlestones for the officer's chairs, and painted the black pavement withwhite squares, and did what we could to make things regular. 

"At the levee which was held that night on the hillside with bigbonfires, Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons ofAlexander, and Passed Grand Masters in the Craft, and was come to makeKafiristan a country where every man should eat in peace and drink inquiet, 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 withold friends. We gave them names according as they was like men we hadknown in India--Billy Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan, that wasBazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on. 

"_The_ most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the oldpriests was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we'dhave to fudge the Ritual, and I didn't know what the men knew. The oldpriest was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. Theminute Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made forhim, the priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn thestone that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all up now, ' I says. 'That comesof meddling with the Craft without warrant!' Dravot never winked aneye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master'schair--which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbingthe bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently heshows all the other priests the Master's Mark, same as was on Dravot'sapron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbraknew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feetand 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 gaveland says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own righthand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of allFreemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, andKing of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!' At that he puts on his crownand I puts on mine, --I was doing Senior Warden, --and we opens the Lodgein most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved inLodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if thememory was coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raisedsuch as was worthy--high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. BillyFish 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. Wedidn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want tomake the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised. 

"'In another six months, ' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another Communicationand see how you are working. ' Then he asks them about their villages, and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sickand tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting withthe Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into our country, 'says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontierguard, 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 ofAlexander--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 adamned 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 alot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way Inever could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and againgo 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 thecountry horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up anddown in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with bothfists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I justwaited for orders. 

"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They wereafraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best offriends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come acrossthe hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and callfour priests together and say what was to be done. He used to call inBilly Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu, and an old Chiefwe called Kafuzelum, --it was like enough to his real name, --and holdcouncils with 'em when there was any fighting to be done in smallvillages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests of Bashkai, Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of 'emthey sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carryingturquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made Martinirifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one of theAmir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of theirmouths for turquoises. 

"I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick ofmy baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment somemore, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than ahundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throwto six hundred yards, and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition for therifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed 'em among the menthat the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attendto those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me, and weturned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that knewhow to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, hand-madeguns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about powder-shops andfactories, walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter wascoming on. 

"'I won't make a Nation, ' says he. 'I'll make an Empire! These menaren't niggers; they're English! Look at their eyes--look at theirmouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their ownhouses. They're the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they've grownto be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't getfrightened. There must be a fair two million of 'em in these hills. Thevillages are full o' little children. Two million people--two hundredand fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want therifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, readyto cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, man, ' he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, 'we shall beEmperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling tous. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send metwelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit. There's Mackray, Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli--many's the good dinnerhe's given me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, theWarder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on ifI was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me; I'll send a man throughin the spring for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation fromthe Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That--and all theSniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take upthe Martini. They'll be worn smooth, but they'll do for fighting inthese hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through theAmir's country in driblets, --I'd be content with twenty thousand in oneyear, --and we'd be an Empire. When everything was shipshape I'd handover the crown--this crown I'm wearing now--to Queen Victoria on myknees, and she'd say, "Rise up, Sir Daniel Dravot. " Oh, it's big! It'sbig, 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 drilledthis autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They're bringing the snow. '

"'It isn't that, ' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on myshoulder; 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for noother living man would have followed me and made me what I am as youhave done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people knowyou; but--it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, inthe way I want to be helped. '

"'Go to your blasted priests, then!' I said, and I was sorry when I madethat 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'rea 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, thatwe can scatter about for our Deputies. It's a hugeous great State, andI can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for allI want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all. ' He put half hisbeard 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 drilledthe men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I'vebrought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you'redriving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way. '

"'There's another thing too, ' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'Thewinter's coming, and these people won't be giving much trouble, and ifthey do we can't move about. I want a wife. '

"'For Gord's sake leave the women alone!' I says. 'We've both got allthe work we can, though I _am_ a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keepclear o' women. '"

"'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kingswe have been these months past, ' says Dravot, weighing his crown in hishand. 'You go get a wife too, Peachey--a nice, strappin', plump girlthat'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than Englishgirls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hotwater, 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 beendoing 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 fromAfghan country and run in some good liquor; and no women. '"

"'Who's talking o' _women_?' says Dravot. 'I said _wife_--a Queen tobreed 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 andtell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That'swhat I want. '

"'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I wasa plate-layer?' says I. 'A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught methe lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran awaywith the Station-master's servant and half my month's pay. Thenshe turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had theimpidence to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in therunning-shed too!'

"'We've done with that, ' says Dravot; 'these women are whiter than youor 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 bringus harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength onwomen, '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 awaythrough the pine-trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being onhis crown and beard and all. 

"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before theCouncil, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd betterask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. 'What's wrong with me?' heshouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I a dog, or am I not enough ofa man for your wenches? Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over thiscountry? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?' It was me really, but Dravotwas too angry to remember. 'Who bought your guns? Who repaired thebridges? 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 askthe girls. That's how it's done at Home, and these people are quiteEnglish. '

"'The marriage of the King is a matter of State, ' says Dan, in awhite-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going againsthis better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others satstill, looking at the ground. 

"'Billy Fish, ' says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 'what's the difficultyhere? A straight answer to a true friend. '

"'You know, ' says Billy Fish. 'How should a man tell you who knowseverything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's notproper. '

"I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing usas long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for meto undeceive them. 

"'A God can do anything, ' says I. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'llnot let her die. ' 'She'll have to, ' said Billy Fish. 'There are allsorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girlmarries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know theMark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were mentill you showed the sign of the Master. '

"I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuinesecrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. Allthat night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half-waydown the hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of thepriests 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 tointerfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife. ' 'The girl's alittle bit afraid, ' says the priest. 'She thinks she's going to die, andthey are a-heartening of her up down in the temple. '

"'Hearten her very tender, then, ' says Dravot, 'or I'll hearten you withthe butt of a gun so you'll never want to be heartened again. ' He lickedhis 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'tany means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman in foreignparts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could not but berisky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep, andI saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the Chiefs talkingtogether 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 hisfurs and looking splendid to behold. 

"'I can't rightly say, ' says he; 'but if you can make the King drop allthis nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself agreat 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 morethan two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, Ido 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 toBashkai until the storm blows over. '

"A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white exceptthe greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravotcame out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping hisfeet, and looking more pleased than Punch. 

"'For the last time, drop it, Dan, ' says I, in a whisper; 'Billy Fishhere says that there will be a row. '

"'A row among my people!' says Dravot. 'Not much. Peachey, you're a foolnot to get a wife too. Where's the girl?' says he, with a voice as loudas the braying of a jackass. 'Call up all the Chiefs and priests, andlet the Emperor see if his wife suits him. '

"There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on theirguns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lotof priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and thehorns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets asclose to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men withmatchlocks--not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, andbehind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and astrapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but whiteas 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'sflaming-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 hismatchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him intothe Bashkai lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, 'Neither Godnor Devil, but a man!' I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me infront, 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 thematter. We'll break for Bashkai if we can. '

"I tried to give some sort of orders to my men, --the men o' the regularArmy, --but it was no use, so I fired into the brown of 'em with anEnglish Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley was fullof shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking, 'Not a Godnor a Devil, but only a man!' The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy Fish allthey were worth, but their matchlocks wasn't half as good as the Kabulbreech-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 himrunning 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 downthe valley in spite of Dravot. He was swearing horrible and cryingout that he was a King. The priests rolled great stones on us, andthe regular Army fired hard, and there wasn't more than six men, notcounting Dan, Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to the bottom of thevalley alive. 

"Then they stopped firing, and the horns in the temple blew again. 'Comeaway--for Gord's sake come away!' says Billy Fish. 'They'll send runnersout to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I can protect youthere, 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 backalone and killing the priests with his bare hands; which he could havedone. 'An Emperor am I, ' says Daniel, 'and next year I shall be a Knightof 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 damnedengine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He satupon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I wastoo heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that broughtthe smash. 

"'I'm sorry, Dan, ' says I, 'but there's no accounting for natives. Thisbusiness 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 comeback here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanketleft!'

"We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and downon the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself. 

"'There's no hope o' getting clear, ' said Billy Fish. 'The priests havesent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn'tyou stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I'm a dead man, ' saysBilly Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray tohis Gods. 

"Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down, no levelground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at BillyFish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never saida word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered withsnow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army inposition waiting in the middle!

"'The runners have been very quick, ' says Billy Fish, with a little bitof a laugh. 'They are waiting for us. '

"Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side, and a chanceshot 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 hadbrought into the country. 

"'We're done for, ' says he. 'They are Englishmen, these people, --andit's my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, BillyFish, and take your men away; you've done what you could, and now cutfor it. Carnehan, ' says he, 'shake hands with me and go along withBilly. Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet 'em alone. It's methat did it! Me, the King!'

"'Go!' says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan! I'm with you here. Billy Fish, youclear out, and we two will meet those folk. '

"'I'm a Chief, ' says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 'I stay with you. My mencan go. '

"The Bashkai fellows didn't wait for a second word, but ran off, and Danand Me and Billy Fish walked across to where the drums were drumming andthe horns were horning. It was cold--awful cold. I've got that cold inthe back of my head now. There's a lump of it there. "

The punka-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were blazing inthe office, and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on theblotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was shivering, and I feared thathis mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh grip of the piteouslymangled 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 withoutany sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow, not though the Kingknocked down the first man that set hand on him--not though old Peacheyfired his last cartridge into the brown of 'em. Not a single solitarysound did those swines make. They just closed up tight, and I tell youtheir furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend of usall, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a pig; and theKing kicks up the bloody snow and says, 'We've had a dashed fine run forour money. What's coming next?' But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I tellyou, 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 arope bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may have seensuch. They prodded him behind like an ox. 'Damn your eyes!' saysthe King. 'D' you suppose I can't die like a gentleman?' He turns toPeachey--Peachey that was crying like a child. 'I've brought you tothis, Peachey, ' says he. 'Brought you out of your happy life to bekilled in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief of theEmperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey. ' 'I do, ' says Peachey. 'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan. ' 'Shake hands, Peachey, ' sayshe. 'I'm going now. ' Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, andwhen he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, 'Cut youbeggars, ' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round andround and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to falltill he struck the water, and I could see his body caught on a rock withthe gold crown close beside. 

"But do you know what they did to Peachey between two pine-trees? Theycrucified him, Sir, as Peachey's hand will show. They used wooden pegsfor 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 hewasn't dead. They took him down--poor old Peachey that hadn't done themany harm--that hadn't done them any--"

He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back ofhis scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes. 

"They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they saidhe was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turnedhim out on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home inabout a year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot hewalked before and said, 'Come along, Peachey. It's a big thing we'redoing. ' The mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they triedto fall on Peachey's head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey camealong bent double. He never let go of Dan's hand, and he never let goof Dan's head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remindhim not to come again; and though the crown was pure gold and Peacheywas 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 blackhorsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook therefrom on tomy table--the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun, that had long been paling the lamps, struck the red beard and blindsunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of gold studded with rawturquoises, that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples. 

"You be'old now, " said Carnehan, "the Emperor in his 'abit as helived--the King of Kafiristan with his crown upon his head. Poor oldDaniel that was a monarch once!"

I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognised thehead of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted tostop 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 tothe Deputy Commissioner and ask to set in the Poorhouse till I get myhealth. No, thank you, I can't wait till you get a carriage for me. I'veurgent private affairs--in the south--at Marwar. "

He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of theDeputy Commissioner's house. That day at noon I had occasion to go downthe blinding-hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the whitedust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously afterthe 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 sangthrough 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 anddrove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to theAsylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me, whom he did notin the least recognise, and I left him singing it to the missionary. 

Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Superintendent of theAsylum. 

"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. He died early yesterdaymorning, " said the Superintendent. "Is it true that he was half an hourbareheaded in the sun at midday?"

"Yes, " said I; "but do you happen to know if he had anything upon him byany 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 awidow, and he lived in the north of London, coming into the Cityevery day to work in a bank. He was twenty years old and suffered fromaspirations. I met him in a public billiard-saloon where the markercalled him by his given name, and he called the marker "Bulls-eyes. "Charley explained, a little nervously, that he had only come to theplace to look on, and since looking on at games of skill is not a cheapamusement for the young, I suggested that Charlie should go back to hismother. 

That was our first step toward better acquaintance. He would call onme sometimes in the evenings instead of running about London with hisfellow-clerks; and before long, speaking of himself as a young man must, he told me of his aspirations, which were all literary. He desired tomake himself an undying name chiefly through verse, though he was notabove sending stories of love and death to the drop-a-penny-in-the-slotjournals. It was my fate to sit still while Charlie read me poems ofmany hundred lines, and bulky fragments of plays that would surelyshake the world. My reward was his unreserved confidence, and theself-revelations and troubles of a young man are almost as holy as thoseof a maiden. Charlie had never fallen in love, but was anxious to do soon the first opportunity; he believed in all things good and all thingshonorable, but, at the same time, was curiously careful to let mesee that he knew his way about the world as befitted a bank clerk ontwenty-five shillings a week. He rhymed "dove" with "love" and "moon"with "June, " and devoutly believed that they had never so been rhymedbefore. The long lame gaps in his plays he filled up with hasty words ofapology and description and swept on, seeing all that he intended todo so clearly that he esteemed it already done, and turned to me forapplause. 

I fancy that his mother did not encourage his aspirations, and I knowthat his writing-table at home was the edge of his washstand. This hetold me almost at the outset of our acquaintance; when he was ravagingmy bookshelves, and a little before I was implored to speak the truthas to his chances of "writing something really great, you know. " MaybeI encouraged him too much, for, one night, he called on me, his eyesflaming with excitement, and said breathlessly:

"Do you mind--can you let me stay here and write all this evening? Iwon't interrupt you, I won't really. There's no place for me to write inat 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 thatwas 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 hardlythanked me, but plunged into the work at once. For half an hour the penscratched without stopping. Then Charlie sighed and tugged his hair. Thescratching 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 sogood when I was thinking about it. What's wrong?"

I could not dishearten him by saying the truth. So I answered: "Perhapsyou 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 badand he paused at all the specially turgid sentences, expecting a littleapproval; 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 wordhere without spoiling the sense. It reads better aloud than when I waswriting it. "

"Charlie, you're suffering from an alarming disease afflicting anumerous 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 liesin your head. "

Charlie told, and in the telling there was everything that his ignorancehad so carefully prevented from escaping into the written word. I lookedat him, and wondering whether it were possible, that he did not know theoriginality, the power of the notion that had come in his way? It wasdistinctly a Notion among notions. Men had been puffed up with pride bynotions not a tithe as excellent and practicable. But Charlie babbledon serenely, interrupting the current of pure fancy with samples ofhorrible 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 'TheStory of a Ship. '"

"I think the idea's pretty good; but you won't be able to handle it forever so long. Now I----"

"Would it be of any use to you? Would you care to take it? I should beproud, " 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 inher 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 herspeech with his pet oaths. And Charlie did all these things. Stillit was necessary to salve my conscience before I possessed myself ofCharlie'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 youso, and speaking as a man of the world, I couldn't. Take the notion ifit's any use to you. I've heaps more. "

He had--none knew this better than I--but they were the notions of othermen. 

"Look at it as a matter of business-between men of the world, " Ireturned. "Five pounds will buy you any number of poetry-books. Businessis 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 thethought of the books. The bargain was clinched with an agreement thathe should at unstated intervals come to me with all the notions that hepossessed, should have a table of his own to write at, and unquestionedright to inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of poems. Then Isaid, "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 haveread before somewhere. "

"I haven't any time for reading, except when you let me sit here, andon Sundays I'm on my bicycle or down the river all day. There's nothingwrong about the hero, is there?"

"Tell me again and I shall understand clearly. You say that your herowent pirating. How did he live?"

"He was on the lower deck of this ship-thing that I was telling youabout. "

"What sort of ship?"

"It was the kind rowed with oars, and the sea spurts through theoar-holes and the men row sitting up to their knees in water. Thenthere's a bench running down between the two lines of oars and anoverseer 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 upperdeck, for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls. When theoverseer misses the rope once and falls among the rowers, remember thehero laughs at him and gets licked for it. He's chained to his oar ofcourse--the hero. "

"How is he chained?"

"With an iron band round his waist fixed to the bench he sits on, and asort of handcuff on his left wrist chaining him to the oar. He's on thelower deck where the worst men are sent, and the only light comes fromthe hatchways and through the oar-holes. Can't you imagine the sunlightjust squeezing through between the handle and the hole and wobblingabout 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 onthe upper deck are managed by four men to each bench, the lower onesby three, and the lowest of all by two. Remember it's quite dark on thelowest deck and all the men there go mad. When a man dies at his oaron that deck he isn't thrown overboard, but cut up in his chains andstuffed through the oar-hole in little pieces. "

"Why?" I demanded, amazed, not so much at the information as the tone ofcommand in which it was flung out. 

"To save trouble and to frighten the others. It needs two overseers todrag a man's body up to the top deck; and if the men at the lower deckoars were left alone, of course they'd stop rowing and try to pull upthe benches by all standing up together in their chains. "

"You've a most provident imagination. Where have you been reading aboutgalleys 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 wonderedhow a bank clerk aged twenty could put into my hands with a profligateabundance of detail, all given with absolute assurance, the story ofextravagant and bloodthirsty adventure, riot, piracy, and death inunnamed seas. He had led his hero a desperate dance through revoltagainst the overseas, to command of a ship of his own, and ultimateestablishment of a kingdom on an island "somewhere in the sea, youknow"; and, delighted with my paltry five pounds, had gone out to buythe notions of other men, that these might teach him how to write. Ihad the consolation of knowing that this notion was mine by right ofpurchase, and I thought that I could make something of it. 

When next he came to me he was drunk--royally drunk on many poets forthe first time revealed to him. His pupils were dilated, his wordstumbled over each other, and he wrapped himself in quotations. Most ofall 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 forgettingme. "But I can understand it too, " he said to himself. "I don't know howto 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 inCoventry, 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 wasshaking himself. 

"When that storm comes, " he continued, "I think that all the oars inthe ship that I was talking about get broken, and the rowers have theirchests smashed in by the bucking oar-heads. By the way, have you doneanything with that notion of mine yet?"

"No. I was waiting to hear more of it from you. Tell me how in the worldyou re so certain about the fittings of the ship. You know nothing ofships. "

"I don't know. It's as real as anything to me until I try to write itdown. I was thinking about it only last night in bed, after you hadloaned me 'Treasure Island'; and I made up a a whole lot of new thingsto go into the story. "

"What sort of things?"

"About the food the men ate; rotten figs and black beans and wine in askin 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 anotion, but sometimes it seems just as real as if it was true. Do Ibother 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 bedand wrote down on a piece of paper the sort of stuff the men might besupposed to scratch on their oars with the edges of their handcuffs. Itseemed 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 frontpage. "

"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 ofscratches 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 greatnonsence, " he repeated, "but all those men in the ship seem as realpeople to me. Do do something to the notion soon; I should like to seeit 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 theinscription 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 findingmyself arguing with a policeman outside a door marked Private in acorridor of the British Museum. All I demanded, as politely as possible, was "the Greek antiquity man. " The policeman knew nothing except therules of the Museum, and it became necessary to forage through all thehouses and offices inside the gates. An elderly gentleman called awayfrom his lunch put an end to my search by holding the note-paper betweenfinger and thumb and sniffing at it scornfully. 

"What does this mean? H'mm, " said he. "So far as I can ascertain it isan attempt to write extremely corrupt Greek on the part"--here he glaredat me with intention--"of an extremely illiterate-ah-person. " He readslowly from the paper, "Pollock, Erckman, Tauchnitz, Henniker"--fournames familiar to me. 

"Can you tell me what the corruption is supposed to mean--the gist ofthe thing?" I asked. 

"I have been--many times--overcome with weariness in this particularemployment. That is the meaning. " He returned me the paper, and I fledwithout a word of thanks, explanation, or apology. 

I might have been excused for forgetting much. To me of all men had beengiven the chance to write the most marvelous tale in the world, nothingless than the story of a Greek galley-slave, as told by himself. Smallwonder that his dreaming had seemed real to Charlie. The Fates that areso careful to shut the doors of each successive life behind us had, inthis case, been neglectful, and Charlie was looking, though that he didnot know, where never man had been permitted to look with full knowledgesince Time began. Above all he was absolutely ignorant of the knowledgesold to me for five pounds; and he would retain that ignorance, forbank-clerks do not understand metempsychosis, and a sound commercialeducation does not include Greek. He would supply me--here I caperedamong the dumb gods of Egypt and laughed in their battered faces--withmaterial to make my tale sure--so sure that the world would hail it asan impudent and vamped fiction. And I--I alone would know that it wasabsolutely and literally true. I--I alone held this jewel to my hand forthe cutting and polishing. Therefore I danced again among the gods tilla policeman saw me and took steps in my direction. 

It remained now only to encourage Charlie to talk, and here there was nodifficulty. But I had forgotten those accursed books of poetry. He cameto me time after time, as useless as a surcharged phonograph--drunk onByron, Shelley, or Keats. Knowing now what the boy had been in his pastlives, and desperately anxious not to lose one word of his babble, Icould not hide from him my respect and interest. He misconstrued bothinto respect for the present soul of Charlie Mears, to whom life was asnew as it was to Adam, and interest in his readings; and stretched mypatience to breaking point by reciting poetry--not his own now, butthat of others. I wished every English poet blotted out of the memory ofmankind. I blasphemed the mightiest names of song because they had drawnCharlie from the path of direct narrative, and would, later, spur him toimitate them; but I choked down my impatience until the first flood ofenthusiasm 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 wrotethings for the angels to read?" he growled, one evening. "Why don't youwrite something like theirs?"

"I don't think you're treating me quite fairly, " I said, speaking understrong 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 alittle, I want to go on reading. "

I could have broken the gas globe over his head for his amazingstupidity. I could indeed make up things for myself did I only know whatCharlie did not know that he knew. But since the doors were shut behindme I could only wait his youthful pleasure and strive to keep himin good temper. One minute's want of guard might spoil a pricelessrevelation: now and again he would toss his books aside--he kept themin my rooms, for his mother would have been shocked at the waste ofgood money had she seen them--and launched into his sea dreams. Again Icursed all the poets of England. The plastic mind of the bank-clerk hadbeen overlaid, colored and distorted by that which he had read, and theresult as delivered was a confused tangle of other voices most like themuttered 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--withillustrations borrowed from the "Bride of Abydos. " He pointed theexperiences of his hero with quotations from "The Corsair, " and threwin deep and desperate moral reflections from "Cain" and "Manfred, "expecting me to use them all. Only when the talk turned on Longfellowwere the jarring cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie wasspeaking the truth as he remembered it. 

"What do you think of this?" I said one evening, as soon as I understoodthe medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he couldexpostulate read him the whole of "The Saga of King Olaf!"

He listened open-mouthed, flushed his hands drumming on the back of thesofa where he lay, till I came to the Songs of Emar Tamberskelver andthe 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 andgo _z-zzp_ all along the line? Why only the other night. .. . But go backplease 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 wasdrowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbor. Thewater was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know whereI always sit in the galley?" He spoke haltingly at first, under a fineEnglish 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 thewater and trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then weclosed up on the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over ourbulwarks, and my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three otherfellows 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 wallbehind 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, youknow--began to yell and back water. I could hear the water sizzle, andwe spun round like a cockchafer and I knew, lying where I was, thatthere was a galley coming up bow-on, to ram us on the left side. I couldjust lift up my head and see her sail over the bulwarks. We wanted tomeet her bow to bow, but it was too late. We could only turn a littlebit because the galley on our right had hooked herself on to us andstopped our moving. Then, by gum! there was a crash! Our left oars beganto break as the other galley, the moving one y'know, stuck her nose intothem. Then the lower-deck oars shot up through the deck-planking, butfirst, and one of them jumped clean up into the air and came down againclose to my head. "

"How was that managed?"

"The moving galley's bow was plunking them back through their ownoarholes, 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 andropes, and threw things on to our upper deck--arrows, and hot pitch orsomething 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 waterstand still as it topped the right bulwarks, and then it curled over andcrashed down on the whole lot of us on the right side, and I felt it hitmy back, and I woke. "

"One minute, Charlie. When the sea topped the bulwarks, what did it looklike?" I had my reasons for asking. A man of my acquaintance hadonce gone down with a leaking ship in a still sea, and had seen thewater-level pause for an instant ere it fell on the deck. 

"It looked just like a banjo-string drawn tight, and it seemed to staythere for years, " said Charlie. 

Exactly! The other man had said:

"It looked like a silver wire laid down along the bulwarks, and Ithought it was never going to break. " He had paid everything exceptthe bare life for this little valueless piece of knowledge, and I hadtraveled ten thousand weary miles to meet him and take his knowledgeat second hand. But Charlie, the bank-clerk, on twenty-five shillingsa week, he who had never been out of sight of a London omnibus, knewit all. It was no consolation to me that once in his lives he had beenforced to die for his gains. I also must have died scores of times, butbehind 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 bitastonished or frightened. It seemed as if I'd been in a good manyfights, because I told my next man so when the row began. But that cadof an overseer on my deck wouldn't unloose our chains and give us achance. He always said that we'd all be set free after a battle, but wenever 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 sometimeswe were so thirsty that we used to drink salt-water. I can taste thatsalt-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 wewere tied up to a ring on a white wall and all the face of the stoneunder water was covered with wood to prevent our ram getting chippedwhen 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. Hewas 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 galleymust have gone down with all hands and yet I fancy that the hero went onliving afterward. Perhaps he climbed into the attacking ship. I wouldn'tsee 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 inignorance of the workings of his own mind, deliberately introduced himto Mortimer Collins's "Transmigration, " and gave him a sketch of theplot before he opened the pages. 

"What rot it all is!" he said, frankly, at the end of an hour. "I don'tunderstand his nonsense about the Red Planet Mars and the King, and therest of it. Chuck me the Longfellow again. "

I handed him the book and wrote out as much as I could remember of hisdescription of the sea-fight, appealing to him from time to time forconfirmation of fact or detail. He would answer without raising his eyesfrom the book, as assuredly as though all his knowledge lay before flinton the printed page. I spoke under the normal key of my voice that thecurrent might not be broken, and I know that he was not aware of what hewas saying, for his thoughts were out on the sea with Longfellow. 

"Charlie, " I asked, "when the rowers on the galleys mutinied how didthey kill their overseers?"

"Tore up the benches and brained 'em. That happened when a heavy sea wasrunning. An overseer on the lower deck slipped from the centre plank andfell among the rowers. They choked him to death against the side of theship with their chained hands quite quietly, and it was too dark for theother overseer to see what had happened. When he asked, he was pulleddown too and choked, and the lower deck fought their way up deck bydeck, with the pieces of the broken benches banging behind 'em. How theyhowled!"

"And what happened after that?"

"I don't know. The hero went away--red hair and red beard and all. Thatwas after he had captured our galley, I think. "

The sound of my voice irritated him, and he motioned slightly with hisleft hand as a man does when interruption jars. 

"You never told me he was redheaded before, or that he captured yourgalley, " 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 thenorth; they said so in the galley when he looked for rowers--not slaves, but free men. Afterward--years and years afterward--news came fromanother ship, or else he came back----" His lips moved in silence. Hewas rapturously retasting some poem before him. 

"Where had he been, then?" I was almost whispering that the sentencemight come gentle to whichever section of Charlie's brain was working onmy behalf. 

"To the Beaches--the Long and Wonderful Beaches!" was the reply, after aminute of silence. 

"To Furdurstrandi?" I asked, tingling from head to foot. 

"Yes, to Furdurstrandi, " he pronounced the word in a new fashion "And Itoo 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'dlet 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 theshop never knowing where they'd fetch the land! Hah!"

"Charlie, " I pleaded, "if you'll only be sensible for a minute or twoI'll make our hero in our tale every inch as good as Othere. "

"Umph! Longfellow wrote that poem. I don't care about writing thingsany more. I want to read. " He was thoroughly out of tune now, and ragingover my own ill-luck, I left him. 

Conceive yourself at the door of the world's treasure-house guarded by achild--an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones--on whose favordepends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not lie withinthe experiences of a Greek galley-slave. But now, or there was no virtuein books, he had talked of some desperate adventure of the Vikings, ofThorfin Karlsefne's sailing to Wineland, which is America, in the ninthor tenth century. The battle in the harbor he had seen; and his owndeath he had described. But this was a much more startling plunge intothe past. Was it possible that he had skipped half a dozen lives and wasthen dimly remembering some episode of a thousand years later? It wasa maddening jumble, and the worst of it was that Charlie Mears in hisnormal condition was the last person in the world to clear it up. Icould only wait and watch, but I went to bed that night full of thewildest imaginings. There was nothing that was not possible if Charlie'sdetestable memory only held good. 

I might rewrite the Saga of Thorfin Karlsefne as it had never beenwritten before, might tell the story of the first discovery of America, myself the discoverer. But I was entirely at Charlie's mercy, and solong as there was a three-and-six-penny Bohn volume within his reachCharlie would not tell. I dared not curse him openly; I hardly dared joghis memory, for I was dealing with the experiences of a thousand yearsago, told through the mouth of a boy of to-day; and a boy of to-day isaffected by every change of tone and gust of opinion, so that he lieseven when he desires to speak the truth. 

I saw no more of him for nearly a week. When next I met him it was inGracechurch Street with a billbook chained to his waist. Business tookhim over London Bridge and I accompanied him. He was very full of theimportance of that book and magnified it. As we passed over the Thameswe paused to look at a steamer' unloading great slabs of white and brownmarble. A barge drifted under the steamer's stern and a lonely cowin that barge bellowed. Charlie's face changed from the face of thebank-clerk to that of an unknown and--though he would not have believedthis--a much shrewder man. He flung out his arm across the parapet ofthe 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 disappearedunder 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. Whata chap you are for asking questions!" he replied. "I have to go to thecashier of the Omnibus Company yonder. Will you wait for me and we canlunch 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 anddisappeared in the crowd. 

Now it is written in the Saga of Eric the Red or that of ThorfinKarlsefne, that nine hundred years ago when Karlsefne's galleys cameto Leif's booths, which Leif had erected in the unknown landcalled Markland, which may or may not have been Rhode Island, theSkroelings--and the Lord He knows who these may or may not havebeen--came to trade with the Vikings, and ran away because they werefrightened at the bellowing of the cattle which Thorfin had brought withhim in the ships. But what in the world could a Greek slave know of thataffair? I wandered up and down among the streets trying to unravel themystery, and the more I considered it, the more baffling it grew. Onething only seemed certain and that certainty took away my breath for themoment. If I came to full knowledge of anything at all, it would not beone life of the soul in Charlie Mears's body, but half a dozen--half adozen several and separate existences spent on blue water in the morningof the world!

Then I walked round the situation. 

Obviously if I used my knowledge I should stand alone and unapproachableuntil all men were as wise as myself. That would be something, butmanlike I was ungrateful. It seemed bitterly unfair that Charlie'smemory should fail me when I needed it most. Great Powers above--Ilooked up at them through the fog smoke--did the Lords of Life and Deathknow what this meant to me? Nothing less than eternal fame of thebest kind; that comes from One, and is shared by one alone. I wouldbe content--remembering Clive, I stood astounded at my ownmoderation, --with the mere right to tell one story, to work out onelittle contribution to the light literature of the day. If Charlie werepermitted full recollection for one hour--for sixty short minutes--ofexistences that had extended over a thousand years--I would forego allprofit and honor from all that I should make of his speech. I would takeno share in the commotion that would follow throughout the particularcorner of the earth that calls itself "the world. " The thing should beput forth anonymously. Nay, I would make other men believe that they hadwritten it. They would hire bull-hided self-advertising Englishmen tobellow 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 fromall mankind. Every Orientalist in Europe would patronize it discursivelywith Sanskrit and Pali texts. Terrible women would invent uncleanvariants of the men's belief for the elevation of their sisters. Churches and religions would war over it. Between the hailing andre-starting of an omnibus I foresaw the scuffles that would arise amonghalf a dozen denominations all professing "the doctrine of the TrueMetempsychosis 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 ahundred--two hundred--a thousand years. I saw with sorrow that men wouldmutilate and garble the story; that rival creeds would turn it upsidedown till, at last, the western world which clings to the dread of deathmore closely than the hope of life, would set it aside as an interestingsuperstition and stampede after some faith so long forgotten that itseemed altogether new. Upon this I changed the terms of the bargain thatI would make with the Lords of Life and Death. Only let me know, let mewrite, the story with sure knowledge that I wrote the truth, and I wouldburn the manuscript as a solemn sacrifice. Five minutes after the lastline was written I would destroy it all. But I must be allowed to writeit with absolute certainty. 

There was no answer. The flaming colors of an Aquarium poster caught myeye and I wondered whether it would be wise or prudent to lure Charlieinto the hands of the professional mesmerist, and whether, if he wereunder his power, he would speak of his past lives. If he did, and ifpeople believed him. .. But Charlie would be frightened and flustered, ormade 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, andturning round I recognized a casual acquaintance, a young Bengali lawstudent, called Grish Chunder, whose father had sent him to England tobecome civilized. The old man was a retired native official, and on anincome of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two hundredpounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he could pretendto be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indianbureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor. 

Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali dressed withscrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers and tan gloves. But I had known him in the days when the brutal Indian Government paidfor 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 isthere 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 popularsuperstition, and make ceremonies of purification, and my women willanoint idols. "

"And bang up _tulsi_ and feast the _purohit_, and take you back intocaste again and make a good _khuttrj_ of you again, you advanced socialFree-thinker. And you'll eat _desi_ food, and like it all, from thesmell in the courtyard to the mustard oil over you. "

"I shall very much like it, " said Grish Chunder, unguardedly. "Once aHindu--always a Hindu. But I like to know what the English think theyknow. "

"I'll tell you something that one Englishman knows. It's an old tale toyou. "

I began to tell the story of Charlie in English, but Grish Chunder puta question in the vernacular, and the history went forward naturally inthe tongue best suited for its telling. After all it could never havebeen 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 rememberingof previous existences among my people. It is of course an old tale withus, but, to happen to an Englishman--a cow-fed _Malechk_--an outcast. ByJove, that is _most_ peculiar!"

"Outcast yourself, Grish Chunder! You eat cow-beef every day. Let'sthink the thing over. The boy remembers his incarnations. "

"Does he know that?" said Grish Chunder, quietly, swinging his legs ashe 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 willsay you are mad and put it in the papers. Suppose, now, you prosecutefor libel. "

"Let's leave that out of the question entirely. Is there any chance ofhis being made to speak?"

"There is a chance. Oah, yes! But if he spoke it would mean that allthis world would end now--_instanto_--fall down on your head. Thesethings 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-án, and it is forbidden to eat, inyour books, of the Tree of Life, or else you would never die. How shallyou all fear death if you all know what your friend does not know thathe knows? I am afraid to be kicked, but I am not afraid to die, becauseI know what I know. You are not afraid to be kicked, but you are afraidto die. If you were not, by God! you English would be all over the shopin an hour, upsetting the balances of power, and making commotions. Itwould not be good. But no fear. He will remember a little and a littleless, and he will call it dreams. Then he will forget altogether. WhenI passed my First Arts Examination in Calcutta that was all in thecram-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 asothers, but they are all the same when you touch. If this friend ofyours said so-and-so and so-and-so, indicating that he remembered allhis lost lives, or one piece of a lost life, he would not be in the bankanother hour. He would be what you called sack because he was mad, andthey would send him to an asylum for lunatics. You can see that, myfriend. "

"Of course I can, but I wasn't thinking of him. His name need neverappear 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 avery 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 yetnothing was more probable. 

Grish Chunder grinned. 

"Yes--also pretty girls--cousins of his house, and perhaps not of hishouse. One kiss that he gives back again and remembers will cure allthis 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 thetrade and the financial speculations like the rest. It must be so. Youcan 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 hadbeen released from office, and by the look in his eyes I could seethat he had come over for a long talk; most probably with poems in hispockets. Charlie's poems were very wearying, but sometimes they led himto 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 anyone 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 speakall you wish. That is rot-bosh. But he would be most good to make to seethings. Suppose now we pretend that it was only play"--I had never seenGrish Chunder so excited--"and pour the ink-pool into his hand. Eh, whatdo you think? I tell you that he could see _anything_ that a man couldsee. Let me get the ink and the camphor. He is a seer and he will tellus very many things. "

"He may be all you say, but I'm not going to trust him to your Gods anddevils. "

"It will not hurt him. He will only feel a little stupid and dull whenhe 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 bettergo, Grish Chunder. "

He went, declaring far down the staircase that it was throwing away myonly chance of looking into the future. 

This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peeringof hypnotized boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me do that. ButI recognized Grish Chunder's point of view and sympathized with it. 

"What a big black brute that was!" said Charlie, when I returned tohim. "Well, look here, I've just done a poem; did it instead of playingdominoes after lunch. May I read it?"

"Let me read it to myself. "

"Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my thingssound 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 averageof his verses. He had been reading his book faithfully, but he was notpleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted withCharlie. 

Then we began to go through the MS. Line by line; Charlie parrying everyobjection 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?" Isaid. 

"Oh that's not poetry 't all. It's some rot I wrote last night before Iwent to bed and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made ita 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 mightsing in the galley, y'know. Aren't you ever going to finish that storyand give me some of the profits?"

"It depends on yourself. If you had only told me more about your hero inthe first instance it might have been finished by now. You're so hazy inyour notions. "

"I only want to give you the general notion of it--the knocking aboutfrom place to place and the fighting and all that. Can't you fill in therest yourself? Make the hero save a girl on a pirate-galley and marryher or do something. "

"You're a really helpful collaborator. I suppose the hero went throughsome few adventures before he married. "

"Well then, make him a very artful card--a low sort of man--a sortof political man who went about making treaties and breaking them--ablack-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 noimagination. "

Seeing that I had just discovered the entire principles upon which thehalf-memory falsely called imagination is based, I felt entitled tolaugh, but forbore, for the sake of the tale. 

"You're right. _You're_ the man with imagination. A black-haired chap ina 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 saidso yourself, " I protested. 

"No, no, not that ship. That was open, or half decked because----. ByJove 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 paintedsails. "

Surely, I thought he would remember now that he had served in twogalleys at least--in a three-decked Greek one under the black-haired"political man, " and again in a Viking's open sea-serpent under theman "red as a red bear" who went to Markland. The devil prompted me tospeak. 

"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 andpretended to make many entries in it. 

"It's a pleasure to work with an imaginative chap like yourself, " I saidafter a pause. "The way that you've brought out the character of thehero is simply wonderful. "

"Do you think so?" he answered, with a pleased flush. "I often tellmyself 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 toTit-Bits, and get the guinea prize?"

"That wasn't exactly what I meant, old fellow: perhaps it would bebetter 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 myname 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 notesabout 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--hadbeen certainly slave or comrade to Thorfin Karlsefne. Therefore he wasdeeply interested in guinea competitions. Remembering what Grish Chunderhad said I laughed aloud. The Lords of Life and Death would never allowCharlie Mears to speak with full knowledge of his pasts, and I must evenpiece out what he had told me with my own poor inventions while Charliewrote of the ways of bank-clerks. 

I got together and placed on one file all my notes; and the net resultwas not cheering. I read them a second time. There was nothing thatmight not have been compiled at second-hand from other people'sbooks--except, perhaps, the story of the fight in the harbor. Theadventures of a Viking had been written many times before; the historyof a Greek galley-slave was no new thing, and though I wrote both, whocould challenge or confirm the accuracy of my details? I might as welltell a tale of two thousand years hence. The Lords of Life and Deathwere as cunning as Grish Chunder had hinted. They would allow nothingto escape that might trouble or make easy the minds of men. Though Iwas convinced of this, yet I could not leave the tale alone. Exaltationfollowed reaction, not once, but twenty times in the next few weeks. Mymoods varied with the March sunlight and flying clouds. By night or inthe beauty of a spring morning I perceived that I could write that taleand shift continents thereby. In the wet, windy afternoons, I saw thatthe tale might indeed be written, but would be nothing more than afaked, false-varnished, sham-rusted piece of Wardour Street work at theend. 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 ofhim 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 talkof what he had read, and there was a new ring of self-assertion inhis voice. I hardly cared to remind him of the galley when we met; butCharlie alluded to it on every occasion, always as a story from whichmoney 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 thatit had been developed in the City, where Charlie was picking up thecurious nasal drawl of the underbred City man. 

"When the thing's done we'll talk about it. I can't make anything of itat present. Red-haired or black-haired hero are equally difficult. "

He was sitting by the fire staring at the red coals. "_I_ can'tunderstand 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 andwhistled softly. "Suppose we take the red-haired hero's adventuresfirst, from the time that he came south to my galley and captured it andsailed to the Beaches. "

I knew better now than to interrupt Charlie. I was out of reach ofpen and paper, and dared not move to get them lest I should break thecurrent. The gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie's voice dropped almostto a whisper, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley toFurdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seen under the curve of theone sail evening after evening when the galley's beak was notched intothe centre of the sinking disc, and "we sailed by that for we had noother guide, " quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island andexplorations in its woods, where the crew killed three men whom theyfound asleep under the pines. Their ghosts, Charlie said, followed thegalley, swimming and choking in the water, and the crew cast lots andthrew one of their number overboard as a sacrifice to the strange godswhom they had offended. Then they ate sea-weed when their provisionsfailed, and their legs swelled, and their leader, the red-haired man, killed two rowers who mutinied, and after a year spent among the woodsthey set sail for their own country, and a wind that never failedcarried them back so safely that they all slept at night. This and muchmore Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low that I could notcatch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He spoke of theirleader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his God; for it was hewho cheered them and slew them impartially as he thought best for theirneeds; 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, " saidCharlie, "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 downwith 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 thefire 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 mutteringover the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it theprelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat theLords of Life and Death!

When next Charlie came to me I received him with rapture. He was nervousand embarrassed, but his eyes were very full of light, and his lips alittle parted. 

"I've done a poem, " he said; and then quickly: "it's the best I've everdone. 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 tocriticise--that is to say praise--the poem sufficiently to pleaseCharlie. Then I had good reason to groan, for Charlie, discarding hisfavorite 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 atmy 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 laida 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 hisears, wrapped in the rosy mystery of first love. "I didn't know; Ididn'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 tohimself. I looked at the hairless face, the narrow shoulders alreadybowed by desk-work, and wondered when, where, and how he had loved inhis 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 toldhim this gently; and he described Her, even as Adam must have describedto the newly named beasts the glory and tenderness and beauty of Eve. Incidentally I learned that She was a tobacconist's assistant with aweakness for pretty dress, and had told him four or five times alreadythat She had never been kissed by a man before. 

Charlie spoke on, and on, and on; while I, separated from him bythousands of years, was considering the beginnings of things. Now Iunderstood why the Lords of Life and Death shut the doors so carefullybehind us. It is that we may not remember our first wooings. Were it notso, our world would be without inhabitants in a hundred years. 

"Now, about that galley-story, " I said, still more cheerfully, in apause 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 howserious it is!"

Grish Chunder was right. Charlie had tasted the love of woman that killsremembrance, and the finest story in the world would never be written.