Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders

DRIFTWOOD SPARS

THE STORIES OF A MAN, A BOY, A WOMAN, AND CERTAIN OTHER PEOPLE WHO STRANGELY MET UPON THE SEA OF LIFE

BY

CAPTAIN PERCIVAL CHRISTOPHER WREN, I.A.R.

AUTHOR OF "DEW AND MILDEW", "FATHER GREGORY", "SNAKE AND SWORD", ETC.

"Like driftwood spars which meet and pass
Upon the boundless ocean-plain,
So on the sea of life, alas!
Man nears man, meets, and leaves again"

—MATTHEW ARNOLD

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED WIFE

NOTE.—This book was written in the year 1912

CONTENTS.

I. THE MAN (Mainly concerning the early life of John, Robin
Ross-Ellison.)

II. THE BOY (Mainly concerning the life of Moussa Isa Somali.)

III. THE WOMAN (And Augustus Grabble; General Murger; Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith; Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green; Mr. Horace Faggit; as well as a reformed JOHN ROBIN ROSS-ELLISON.)

IV. "MEET AND LEAVE AGAIN"

CHAPTER I.

THE MAN.

(Mainly concerning the early life of John Robin Ross-Ellison.)

Truth is stranger than fiction, and many of the coincidences of real life are truly stranger than the most daring imaginings of the fictionist.

Now, I, Major Michael Malet-Marsac, happened at the moment to be thinking of my dear and deeply lamented friend John Ross-Ellison, and to be pondering, for the thousandth time, his extraordinary life and more extraordinary death. Nor had I the very faintest notion that the Subedar-Major had ever heard of such a person, much less that he was actually his own brother, or, to be exact, his half-brother. You see I had known Ross-Ellison intimately as one only can know the man with whom one has worked, soldiered, suffered, and faced death. Not only had I known, admired and respected him—I had loved him. There is no other word for it; I loved him as a brother loves a brother, as a son loves his father, as the fighting-man loves the born leader of fighting-men: I loved him as Jonathan loved David. Indeed it was actually a case of "passing the love of women" for although he killed Cleopatra Dearman, the only woman for whom I ever cared, I fear I have forgiven him and almost forgotten her.

But to return to the Subedar-Major. "Peace, fool! Art blind as Ibrahim Mahmud the Weeper," growled that burly Native Officer as the zealous and over-anxious young sentry cried out and pointed to where, in the moonlight, the returning reconnoitring-patrol was to be seen as it emerged from the lye-bushes of the dry river-bed.

A recumbent comrade of the outpost sentry group sniggered.

My own sympathies were decidedly with the sentry, for I had fever, and "fever is another man". In any case, hours of peering, watching, imagining and waiting, for the attack that will surely come—and never comes—try even experienced nerves.

"And who was Ibrahim the Weeper, Subedar-Major Saheb?" I inquired of the redoubtable warrior as he joined me.

"He was my brother's enemy, Sahib," replied Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, principal Native Officer of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry and member of the ruling family of Mekran Kot in far Kubristan.

"And what made him so blind as to be for a proverb unto you?"

"Just some little drops of water, Sahib, nothing more," replied the big man with a smile that lifted the curling moustache and showed the dazzling perfect teeth.

It was bitter, bitter cold—cold as it only can be in hot countries (I have never felt the cold in Russia as I have in India) and the khaki flannel shirt, khaki tunic, shorts and putties that had seemed so hot in the cruel heat of the day as we made our painful way across the valley, seemed miserably inadequate at night, on the windy hill-top. Moreover I was in the cold stage of a go of fever, and to have escaped sunstroke in the natural oven of that awful valley at mid-day seemed but the prelude to being frost-bitten on the mountain at midnight. Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan appeared wholly unaffected by the 100° variation in temperature, but then he had a few odd stone of comfortable fat and was bred to such climatic trifles. He, moreover, knew not fever, and, unlike me, had not experienced dysentery, malaria, enteric and pneumonia fairly recently.

"And had the hand of your brother anything to do with the little drops of water that made Ibrahim the Weeper so blind?" I asked.

"Something, Sahib," replied Mir Daoud Khan with a laugh, "but the hand of Allah had more than that of my brother. It is a strange story. True stories are sometimes far stranger than those of the bazaar tale-tellers whose trade it is to invent or remember wondrous tales and stories, myths, and legends."

"We have a proverb to that effect, Mir Saheb. Let us sit in the shelter of this rock and you shall tell me the story. Our eyes can work while tongue and ear play—or would you sleep?"

"Nahin, Sahib! Am I a Sahib that I should regard night as the time wholly sacred to sleep and day as the time when to sleep is sin? I will tell the Sahib the tale of the Blindness of Ibrahim Mahmud the Weeper, well knowing that he, a truth-speaker, will believe the truth spoken by his servant. To no liar would it seem possible.

"Know then, Sahib, that this brother of mine was not my mother's son, though the son of my father (Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan Mir Faquir Mahommed Afzul Khan), who was the youngest son of His Highness the Jam Saheb of Mekran Kot in Kubristan. And he, my father, was a great traveller, a restless wanderer, and crossed the Black Water many times. To Englistan he went, and without crossing water he also went to the capital of the Amir of Russia to say certain things, quietly, from the King of Islam, the Amir of Afghanistan. To where the big Waler horses come from he also went, and to where they take the camels for use in the hot and sandy northern parts."

"Yes, Australia" I remarked.

"Without doubt, if the Sahib be pleased to say it. And there, having taken many camels in a ship that he might sell them at a profit, he wedded a white woman—a woman of the race of the Highland soldiers of Englistan, such as are in this very Brigade."

"Married a Scotchwoman?"

"Without doubt. Of a low caste—her father being a drunkard and landless (though grandson of a Lord Sahib), living by horses and camels menially, out-casted, a jail-bird. Formerly he had carried the mail through the desert, a fine rider and brave man, but sharab[1] had loosened the thigh in the saddle and palsied hand and eye. On hearing this news, the Jam Saheb was exceeding wroth, for he had planned a good marriage for his son, and he arranged that the woman should die if my father, on whom be Peace, brought her to Mekran Kot. 'Tis but desert and mountain, Sahib, with a few big jagirs[2] and some villages, a good fort, a crumbling tower, and a town on the Caravan Road—but the Jam Saheb's words are clearly heard and for many miles.

[1] Wine. [2] Estates.

"Our father, however, was not so foolish as to bring the woman to his home, for he knew that Pathan horse-dealers, camel-men, and traders would have taken the truth, and more than the truth, concerning the woman's social position to the gossips of Mekran Kot. And, apart from the fact that her father was a drunkard, landless, a jail-bird, out-casted by his caste-fellows, no father loves to see his son marry with a woman of another community, nor with any woman but her with whose father he has made his arrangements.

"So my father, bringing the fair woman, his wife, by ship to Karachi, travelled by the rêlwêy terain to Kot Ghazi and left her there in India, where she would be safe. There he left her with her butcha,[3] my half-brother, and journeyed toward the setting sun to look upon the face of his father the Jam Saheb. And the Jam Saheb long turned his face from him and would not look upon him nor give him his blessing—and only relented when my father took to himself another wife, my mother, the lady of noble birth whom the Jam Saheb had desired for him—and sojourned for a season at Mekran Kot. But after I was born of this union (I am of pure and noble descent) his heart wearied, being with the fair woman at Kot Ghazi, for whom he yearned, and with her son, his own son, yet so white of skin, so blue of eye, the fairest child who ever had a Pathan father. Yea, my brother was even fairer than I, who, as the Huzoor knoweth, have grey eyes, and hair and beard that are not darkly brown.

[3] Baby.

"So my father began to make journeys to Kot Ghazi to visit the woman his first wife, and the boy his first-born. And she, who loved him much, and whom he loved, prevailed upon him to name my brother after her father as well as after himself, the child's father (as is our custom) and so my brother was rightly called Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan."

"And what part of that is the name of his mother's father?" I asked, for the Subedar-Major's rapid utterance of the name conveyed nothing of familiar English or Scottish names to my mind.

"Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan," replied Mir Daoud Khan; "that was her father's name, Sahib."

"Say it again, slowly."

"Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan."

"I have it! Yes, but what?—John Robin Ross-Ellison? Good God! But I knew a John Robin Ross-Ellison when I was a Captain. He was Colonel of the Corps of which I was Adjutant, in fact—the Gungapur Volunteer Rifles…. By Jove! That explains a lot. John Robin Ross-Ellison!"

I was too incredulous to be astounded. It could not be.

"Han[4] Sahib, bé shak![5] Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan was his name. And his mother called him Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan and his father, Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, called him Ilderim Dost Mahommed."

[4] Yes. [5] Without doubt.

"H'm! A Scotch Pathan, brought up by an Australian girl in India, would be a rare bird—and of rare possibilities naturally," I murmured, while my mind worked quickly backward.

"My brother was unlike us in some things, Sahib. He was fond of the sharab called 'Whisky' and of dogs; he drank smoke from the cheroot after the fashion of the Sahib-log and not from the hookah nor the bidi;[6] he wore boots; he struck with the clenched fist when angered; and never did he squat down upon his heels nor sit cross-legged upon the ground. Yet he was true Pathan in many ways during his life, and he died as a Pathan should, concerning his honour (and a woman). Yea—and in his last fight, ere he was hanged, he killed more men with his long Khyber knife, single-handed against a mob, than ever did lone man before with cold steel in fair fight."

[6] Native cigarette.

Then it was so. And the Subedar-Major was John Robin Ross-Ellison's brother!

"He may have been foolishly kind to women, servants and dogs, and of a foolish type of honour that taketh not every possible advantage of the foe—but he was very brave, Huzoor, a strong enemy, and when he began he made an end, and if that same honour were affronted he killed his man. And yet he did not kill Ibrahim Mahmud the Weeper, who surely earned his death twice, and who tried to kill him in a manner most terrible to think of. No, he did not—but it shall be told…. And the white woman prevailed upon our father to make her man-child a Sahib and to let him go to the maktab[7] and madressah-tul-Islam[8] at Kot Ghazi, to learn the clerkly lore that gives no grip to the hand on the sword-hilt and lance-shaft nor to the thighs in the saddle, no skill to the fingers on the reins, no length of sight to the eye, no steadiness to the rifle and the lance, no understanding of the world and men and things. But our father corrected all this, that the learning might do him no harm, for oft-times he brought him to Mekran Kot (where my mother tried to poison him), and he took him across the Black Water and to Kabul and Calcutta and showed him the world. Also he taught him all he knew of the horse, the rifle, the sword, and the lance—which was no small matter. Thus, much of the time wasted at school was harmless, and what the boy lost through the folly of his mother was redeemed by the wisdom of his father. Truly are our mothers our best friends and worst enemies. Why, when I was but a child my mother gave me money and bade me go prove—but I digress. Well, thus my brother grew up not ignorant of the things a man should know if he is to be a man and not a babu, but the woman, his mother, wept sore whenever he was taken from her, and gave my father trouble and annoyance as women ever do. And when, at last, she begged that the boy might enter the service of the Sirkar as a wielder of the pen in an office in Kot Ghazi, and strive to become a leading munshi[9] and then a Deputy-Saheb, a babu in very fact, my father was wroth, and said the boy would be a warrior—yea, though he had to die in his first skirmish and ere his beard were grown. Then the woman wept and wearied my father until it seemed better to him that she should die and, being at peace, bring peace. No quiet would he have at Mekran Kot from my mother and his father, the Jam Saheb, while the woman lived, nor would she herself allow him quiet at Kot Ghazi. And was she not growing old and skinny moreover? And so he sent my brother to Mekran Kot—and the woman died, without scandal. So my brother dwelt thenceforward in Mekran Kot, knowing many things, for he had passed a great imtahan[10] at Bombay and won a sertifcut[11] thereby, whereof the Jam Saheb was very pleased, for the son of the Vizier had also gone to a madresseh and won a sertifcut, and it was time the pride of the Vizier and his son were abated.

[7] School. [8] Mohammedan High School. [9] Clerk. [10] Examination. [11] Certificate.

"Now the son of the Vizier, Mahmud Shahbaz, was Ibrahim—and a mean mangy pariah cur this Ibrahim Mahmud was, having been educated, and he hated my brother bitterly by reason of the sertifcut and on account of a matter concerning a dancing-girl, one of those beautiful fat Mekranis, and, by reason of his hatred and envy and jealousy, my mother made common cause with him, she also desiring my brother's death, in that her husband loved this child of another woman, an alien, his first love, better than he loved hers. But I bore him no ill-will, Huzoor. I loved him and admired his deeds.

"Many attempts they made, but though my mother was clever and Ibrahim Mahmud and his father the Vizier were unscrupulous, my brother was in the protection of the Prophet. Moreover he was much away from Mekran Kot, being, like our father, a great traveller and soon irked by whatever place he might be in. And, one time, he returned home, having been to Germany on secret service (a thing he often did before he became a Sahib) and to France and Africa on a little matter of rifles for Afghanistan and the Border, and spoke to us of that very Somaliland to which this very pultan, the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, went in 1908 (was it?), and how the English were losing prestige there and would have to send troops or receive boondah[12] and the blackened face from him they called the Mad Mullah. And yet another time he returned from India bringing a Somali boy, a black-faced youth, but a good Mussulman, whom, some time before, he had known and saved from death in Africa, and now had most strangely encountered again. And this Somali lad—who was not a hubshi, a Woolly One, not a Sidi[13] slave—saved my brother's life in his turn. I said he was not a slave—but in a sense he was, for he asked nothing better than to sit in the shadow of my brother throughout his life; for he loved my brother as the Huzoors' dogs love their masters, yea—he would rather have had blows from my brother than gold from another. He it was who saved Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan from the terrible death prepared for him by Ibrahim Mahmud. It was during this visit to Mekran Kot that Mahmud Shahbaz, the Vizier, announced that he was about to send his learned son, the dog Ibrahim, to Englistan to become English-made first-class Pleader—what they called—'Barishtar-at-Lar' is it not, Sahib?"

[12] An insulting and contemptuous gesture.
[13] A class of negroes, much employed as sailors and boatmen, and
called Seedeeboys.

"That's it, Mir Saheb," replied I, sitting alert with chattering teeth and shivering ague-stricken body. "Barrister-at Law…. Sit as close to me as you can, for warmth…. Hark! Is that a signal?" as a long high wavering note rose from the dry river-bed before us and wailed lugubriously upon the night, rising and falling in mournful cadence.

"'Twas a genuine jackal-cry, Huzoor. One can always tell the imitation if jackals have sung one's lullaby from birth—though most Pathans can deceive white ears in the matter…. Well, this made things no pleasanter, for Ibrahim crowed like the dung-hill cock he was, and boasted loudly. Also my mother urged him to do a deed ere he left Mekran Kot for so long a sojourn in Belait.[14] And to her incitements and his own inclination and desires was added that which made revenge and my brother's death the chiefest things in all the world to Ibrahim Mahmud, and it happened thus…. But do I weary the Sahib with my babble?"

[14] Europe.

"Nay—nay—far from it, Mir Saheb," replied I. "The sentry of talk challenges the approaching skirmishers of sleep. The thong of narrative drives off the dogs of tedium. Tell on." And in point of fact I was now too credulous to be anything but astounded…. John Robin Ross-Ellison!

"Well, one day, my brother and I went forth to shoot sand-grouse, tuloor,[15] chikor,[16] chinkara[17] and perchance ibex, leaving behind this black body-servant Moussa Isa, the Somali boy, because he was sick. And it was supposed that we should not return for a week at the least. But on the third day we returned, my brother's eyes being inflamed and sore and he fearing blindness if he remained out in the desert glare. This is a common thing, as the Sahib knoweth, when dust and sun combine against the eyes of those who have read over-many books and written over-much with the steel pen upon white paper, and my brother was somewhat prone to this trouble in the desert if he exhausted himself with excessive shikar and—other matters. And this angered him greatly. Yet it was all ordained by Allah for the undoing of that unclean dog Ibrahim Mahmud—for, returning and riding on his white camel (a far-famed pacer of speed and endurance) under the great gateway of the Jam's fort—high enough for a camel-rider to pass unstooping and long enough for a rêlwêy-tunnel—he came upon Mahmud Ibrahim and his friends and followers (for he had many such, who thought he might succeed his father as Vizier) doing a thing that enraged my brother very greatly. Swinging at the end of a cord tied to his hands, which were bound behind his back, was the boy Moussa Isa the Somali, apparently dead, for his eyes were closed and he gave no sign of pain as Ibrahim's gang of pimps, panders, bullies and budmashes[18] kept him swinging to and fro by blows of lathis[19] and by kicks, while Ibrahim and his friends, at a short distance, strove to hit the moving body with stones. I suppose the agony of hanging forward from the arms, and the blows of staff and stone, had stunned the lad—who had offended Ibrahim, it appeared, by preventing him from entering my brother's house—probably to poison his water-lotah[20] and gurrah[21]—at the door of which he, Moussa Isa, lay sick. My brother, Mir Jan, sprang from his camel without waiting for the driver to make it kneel, and going up to Ibrahim, he struck him with his closed, but empty, hand. Not with the slap that stings and angers, he struck him, but with the thud that stuns and injures, upon the mouth, removing certain of his teeth,—such being his anger and his strength. Rising from the ground and plucking forth his knife, Ibrahim sprang at my brother who, unarmed, straightway smote him senseless, and that is talked of in Mekran Kot to this day. Yea—senseless. Placing the thumb upon the knuckles of the clenched fingers, he smote at the chin of Ibrahim, and laid him, as one dead, upon the earth. Straight to the front from the shoulder and not downwards nor swinging sideways he struck, and it was as though Ibrahim had been shot. The Sahib being English will believe this, but many Baluchis and Pathans do not. They cannot believe it, though to me Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry of the Army of the King Emperor of India, they pretend that they do, when I tell of that great deed…. Then my brother loosed Moussa Isa with his own hand, saying that even as he had served Ibrahim Mahmud so would he serve any man who injured a hair of the head of his body-servant. And Moussa Isa clave to my brother yet the more, and when a great Sidi slave entered the room of my brother by night, doubtless hired by Ibrahim Mahmud to slay him, Moussa Isa, grappling with him, tore out his throat with his teeth, though stabbed many times by the Sidi, ere my brother could light torch or wick to tell friend from foe. Whether he were thief or hired murderer, none could say—least of all the Sidi when Moussa Isa, at my brother's bidding, loosed his teeth from the man's throat. But all men held that it was the work of Ibrahim, for, on recovering his senses that day of the blow, he had walked up to my brother Mir Jan and said:—

[15] Bustard. [16] A kind of partridge. [17] Gazelle. [18] Bad characters. [19] Long staves. [20] Brass cup or vase. [21] Basin or pot.

"'For that blow will I have a great revenge, O Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, descendant of Mirs and of mlecca dogs, this year or next year, or ten years hence, or when thou art old, or upon thy first-born. By the sacred names of God, by the Beard of the Prophet, by the hilt and blade of this my knife, and by the life of my oldest son, I swear to have a vengeance on thee that shall turn men pale as they whisper it. And may Allah smite me blind if I do not unto thee a thing of which children yet unborn shall speak with awe.'

"Thus spake Ibrahim, son of Mahmud, for though a dog, a mangy pariah cur, he was still a Pathan.

"But my brother laughed in his face and said but 'It would seem that I too have tortured a slave' whereat Ibrahim repeated again 'Yea—may Allah smite me blind!'

"And something of this coming to the ears of our father, now heir to the Jam of Mekran Kot, as his brothers were dead (in the big Border War they died), he prayed the Jam Saheb to hasten the departure of the Vizier's cub, and also told the Vizier that he would surely cut out his tongue if aught befell Mir Jan. So the Vizier sent Ibrahim to Kot Ghazi on business of investing moneys—wrung by knavery, doubtless, from litigant suitors, candidates, criminals, and the poor of Mekran Kot. And shortly after, the Jam Saheb heard of a new kind of gun that fires six of the fat cartridges such as are used for the shooting of birds, without reloading; and he bade Mir Jan who understood all things, and the ways of the European gun-shop at Kot Ghazi, to hasten forthwith and procure him a couple, and if none were in Kot Ghazi to send a tar[22] to Bombay for them, or even, if necessary, to Englistan, though at a cost of two rupees a word. With such a gun the Jam hoped to get better shikar when sitting on his camel and circling round the foolish crouching grouse or tuloor, and firing at them as they sat. He thought he might fire twice or thrice at them sitting, and again twice or thrice at the remnant flying, and perchance hit some on the wing, after the wonderful manner of the Sahibs. So he sent my brother, knowing him to be both clever and honest and understanding the speech and ways of the English most fully.

[22] Telegram.

"Now it is many days' journey, Sahib, across the desert and the mountains, from Mekran Kot in Kubristan to Kot Ghazi in India, but at Kot Ghazi is a fine bungalow, the property of the Jam Saheb, and there all travellers from his house may sojourn and rest after their long and perilous travel.

"Taking me and Mir Abdul Haq and Mir Hussein Ali and many men and servants, among whom was the body-servant, the boy Moussa Isa Somali, he set forth, a little depressed that we heard not the cry of the partridge in the fields of Mekran Kot as we started—not exactly a bad omen, but lacking a good one. And sure enough, ere we won to Kot Ghazi, his eyes became red and inflamed, very sore and painful to use. So, he put the tail of his puggri[23] about his face and rode all day from sun-rise to sun-set in darkness, his camel being driven by Abdulali Gulamali Bokhari—the same who later rose to fame and honour as an outlaw and was hanged at Peshawar after a brave and successful career. And being arrived, in due course, at Kot Ghazi, before entering the bungalow belonging to the Jam Saheb, he knelt his camel at the door of the shop of a European hakim—in English a—er—"

[23] Turban.

"Chemist, Mir Saheb," I suggested.

"Doubtless, since your honour says it—of a kimmish, and entering, to the Eurasian dog therein said in English, of which he knew everything (and taught me much, as your honour knows), 'Look you. I need lotion for my eyes, eye medicine, and a bath for them' and the man mixed various waters and poured them into a blue bottle with red labels, very beautiful to see, and wrote upon it. Also he gave my brother a small cup of glass, shaped like the mouth of the pulla fish or the eye-socket of a man. And my brother, knowing what to do, used the things then and there, to the wonder of Abdul Haq and Hussein Ali, pouring the liquor into the glass cup, and holding it to his eyes, and with back-thrown head washing the eye and soothing it.

"'Shahbas!'[24] quoth he. 'It is good,' and anon we proceeded to the gun-shop and then to the bungalow belonging to the Jam Saheb. And lo and behold, here we discovered the dog Ibrahim Mahmud, and my brother twisted the knife of memory in the wound of insult by ordering him to quit the room he occupied and seek another, since Mir Jan intended the room for his body-servant, Moussa Isa Somali—the servant of a Mir being more deserving of the room than the son of a Vizier! This was unwise, but my brother's heart was too great to fear (or to fathom) the guile of such a serpent as Ibrahim.

[24] Bravo! Excellent!

"And when he had bathed and prayed, eaten and drunk and rested, my brother again anointed his eyes with the liquid—which though only like water, was strong to soothe and heal. And our servants and people watched him doing this with wonder and admiration, and the news of it spread to the servants of Ibrahim Mahmud, who told their master of this cleverness of Mir Jan,—and Ibrahim, after a while, sent a message and a present to my brother, humbling himself, and asking that he too might see this thing.

"And Mir Jan, perhaps a little proud of his English ways, sat upon his charpai,[25] and bathed his eyes in the little bath, until, wearying of the trouble of pouring back the liquid into the bottle, he would press the bottle itself to his eye and throw back his head. So his eyes were quickly eased of pain, and in the evening we all went forth to enjoy.

[25] Native cot or bed.

"On his return to the room, Mir Jan flung himself, weary, upon his charpai and Moussa Isa lay across the doorway.

"In the morning my brother awoke and sitting on the charpai, took up the blue bottle, drew the cork, and raised the bottle towards his eyes. As he did this, Moussa Isa entered, and knowing not why he did so, sprang at his master and dashed the bottle from his hand. It fell to the ground but broke not, the floor being dhurrie[26]-covered.

[26] Carpet.

"In greatest amazement Mir Jan glanced from Moussa Isa to the bottle, clenching his hand to strike the boy—when behold! the very floor bubbled and smoked beneath the touch of the liquid as it ran from the bottle. By the Beard of the Prophet, that stone floor bubbled and smoked like water and the dhurrie was burnt! Snatching up the bottle my brother dropped drops from it upon the blade of his knife, upon the leather of his boots, upon paint and brass and clothing—and behold it was liquid fire, burning and corroding all that it touched! To me he called, and, being shown these things, I could scarce believe—and then I cried aloud 'Ibrahim Mahmud! Thine enemy!… Oh, my brother,—thine eyes!' and I remembered the words of Ibrahim, 'a vengeance that shall turn men pale as they whisper it—a thing of which children yet unborn shall speak with awe' and we rushed to his room,—to find it empty. He and his best camel and its driver were gone, but all his people and servants and oont-wallahs[27] were in the serai,[28] and said they knew not where he was, but had received a hookum[29] over-night to set out that day for Mekran Kot. And, catching up a pariah puppy, I re-entered the house and dropped one drop from the blue bottle into its eye. Sahib, even I pitied the creature and slew it quickly with my knife. And it was this that Ibrahim Mahmud had intended for the blue eyes of my beautiful brother. This was the vengeance of which men should speak in whispers. Those who saw and heard that puppy would speak of it in whispers indeed—or not at all. I felt sick and my fingers itched to madness for the throat of Ibrahim Mahmud. Had I seen him then, I would have put out his eyes with my thumbs. Nay—I would have used the burning liquid upon him as he had designed it should be used by my brother.

[27] Camel-men. [28] Halting-enclosure, rest-house. [29] Order.

"Hearing Mir Jan's voice, I hurried forth, and found that his white pacing-camel was already saddled and that he sat in the front seat, prepared to drive. 'Up, Daoud Khan' he cried to me 'we go a-hunting'—and I sprang to the rear saddle even as the camel rose. 'Lead on, Moussa Isa, and track as thou hast never tracked before, if thou wouldst live,' said he to the Somali, a noted paggi,[30] even among the Baluch and Sindhi paggis of the police at Peshawar and Kot Ghazi. 'I can track the path of yesterday's bird through the air and of yesterday's fish through the water,' answered the black boy; 'and I would find this Ibrahim by smell though he had blinded me,' and he led on. Down the Sudder Bazaar he went unfaltering, though hundreds of feet of camels, horses, bullocks and of men were treading its dust. As we passed the shop of the European hakim, yes, the kimmish, my brother leapt down and entering the shop asked questions. Returning and mounting he said to me: ''Tis as I thought. Hither he came last night, and, saying he was science-knowing failed B.Sc., demanded certain acids, that, being mixed, will eat up even gold—which no other acid can digest, nor even assail….'"

[30] Tracker.

"Aqua Regia, or vitriol, I believe," I murmured, still marvelling … Ross-Ellison!

"Doubtless, if your honour is pleased to say so. 'He must have poured these acids into the bottle while we were abroad last night,' continued my brother. 'Oh, the dog! The treacherous dreadful dog!… 'Twas in a good hour that I saved Moussa Isa,' and indeed I too blessed that Somali, so mysteriously moved by Allah to dash the bottle from my brother's hand.

"'Think you that Ibrahim Mahmud bribed Moussa and that he repented as he saw you about to anoint your eyes with the acid?' I asked of my brother.

"'Nay—Moussa was with me until I returned,' replied he, 'and returning, I put the bottle beneath my pillow. Besides, Ibrahim had fled ere we returned to the bungalow. Moreover, Moussa would lose his tongue ere he would tell me a lie, his eyes ere he would see me suffer, his hand ere he would take a bribe against me. No—Allah moved his heart—rewarding me for saving his life at the risk of mine own, when he lay beneath a lion,—or else it is that the black dog hath the instincts of a dog and knows when evil threatens what it loves.' And indeed it is a wonderful thing and true; and Moussa Isa never knew how he knew, but said his arm moved of itself and that he wondered at himself as he struck the bottle from his master's hand. And, in time, we left the city and followed the road and found that Ibrahim was fleeing to Mekran Kot, doubtless to be far away when the thing happened, and also to get counsel and money from his father and my mother, should suspicion fall on him and flight be necessary. And anon even untrained eyes could see where he had left the Caravan Road and taken the shorter route whereby camels bearing no heavy load could come by steeper passes and dangerous tracks in shorter time to Mekran Kot, provided the rider bore water sufficient—for there was no oasis nor well. 'Enough, Moussa Isa, thou mayest return, I can track the camel of Ibrahim now that he hath left the road,' quoth my brother, breaking a long silence; but Moussa Isa, panting as he ran before, replied: 'I come, Mir Saheb. I shall not fall until mine eyes have beheld thy vengeance—in which perchance, I may take a part. He called me "Hubshi".'

"'He hath many hours' start, Moussa,' said my brother, 'and his camel is a good one. He will not halt and sleep for many hours even though he suppose me dead!'

"'I can run for a day; for a day and a night I can run,' replied the Somali, 'and I can run until the hour of thy vengeance cometh. He called me "Hubshi"' … and he ran on.

"Sahib, for the whole of that day he ran beside the fast camel, my brother drawing rein for no single minute, and when, at dawn, I awoke from broken slumber in the saddle, Moussa Isa was running yet! And then we heard the cry of the partridge and knew that our luck was good.

"'He may have left the track,' quoth my brother soon after dawn, 'but I think he is making for Mekran Kot, to get money and documents and to escape again ere news of his deed—or the suspicion of him—reaches the Jam Saheb. We may have missed him, but I could not halt and wait for daylight. He cannot be far ahead of us now. This camel shall live on milk and meal and wheaten bread, finest bhoosa[31] and chosen young green shoots, and buds, and leaves—and he shall have a collar of gold with golden bells, and reins of silk, and hanging silken tassels, and he shall——" and then Moussa Isa gave a hoarse scream and pointed to the sky-line above which rose a wisp of smoke.

[31] Bran.

"'It is he,' said my brother, and within the hour we beheld the little bush-tent of Ibrahim Mahmud (made with cloths thrown over a bent bush) and his camel, near to which, his oont-wallah Suleiman Abdulla had kindled a fire and prepared food. (Later this liar swore that he made the fire smoke with green twigs to guide the pursuit,—a foolish lie, for he knew not what Ibrahim had done, nor anything but that his master hastened.)

"Moussa Isa staggered to where Ibrahim Mahmud lay asleep, looked upon his face, and fell, seeming to be about to die.

"Making a little chukker[32] round, my brother drove the camel between
Suleiman and the tent and made it kneel.

[32] Circuit, course.

"'Salaam aleikoum,[33] Mir Saheb,' said Suleiman, and my brother replied:—

[33] A Mussulman greeting.

"'Salaam. Tend thou my camel and prepare food for me, and my brother, and my servant. And if thou wouldst not hang in a pig's skin, be wise and wary, and keep eyes, ears, and mouth closed.' And we drank water.

"Then, treading softly, we went to the tent where Ibrahim Mahmud slept and sat us down where we could look upon his face. There he slept, Sahib, peacefully, like a little child!—having left Mir Jan to die the death 'whereof men should speak with awe,' as he had threatened.

"We sat beside him and watched. Saying nothing, we sat and watched. An hour passed and an hour again. For another hour without moving or speaking we sat and Moussa Isa joined us and watched.

"'Twas sweet, and I licked my lips and hoped he might not wake for hours, although I hungered. The actual revenge is very, very sweet, Sahib, but does it exceed the joy of watching the enemy as he lies wholly at your mercy, lies in the hollow of your hand and is your poor foolish plaything,—knave made fool at last? Like statues we sat, moving not our eyes from his face, and we were very happy.

"Then, suddenly, he awoke and his eyes fell on my brother—and he shrieked aloud, as the hare shrieks when hound or jackal seize her; as the woman shrieks when the door goes down before the raiders and the thatch goes up in flame.

"Thus he shrieked.

"We moved not.

"'Why cryest thou, dear brother?' asked Mir Jan in a soft, sweet voice.

"'I—I—thought thou wast a spirit, come to—' he faltered, and my brother answered:—

"'And why should I be a spirit, my brother? Am I not young and strong?'

"'I dreamed,' quavered Ibrahim.

"'I too have had a dream,' said my brother.

"''Twas but a dream, Mir Jan. I will arise and prepare some—' replied
Ibrahim, affecting ease of manner but poorly, for he had no real nerve.

"'Thou wilt not arise yet, Ibrahim Mahmud,' murmured my brother gently.

"'Why?'

"'Because thine eyes are somewhat wearied and I purpose to wash them with my magic water,' and as he held up the blue bottle with the red label Ibrahim screamed like a girl and flung himself forward at my brother's feet, shrieking and praying for mercy:—

"'No, No!' he howled; 'not that! Mercy, O kingly son of Kings! I will give thee—"

"'Nay, my brother,—what is this?' asked Mir Jan softly, with kind caressing voice. 'What is all this? I do but propose to bathe thine eyes with this same magic water wherewith I bathed mine own, the day before yesterday. Thou didst see me do it—thou didst watch me do it.'

"'Mercy—most noble Mir! Have pity, 'twas not I. Mercy!' he screamed.

"'But, Ibrahim, dear brother' expostulated Mir Jan, 'why this objection to my magic water? It gave me great relief and my eyes were quickly healed. Thine own need care—for see—water gushes from them even now.'

"The dog howled—like a dog—and offered lakhs of rupees.

"'But surely, my brother, what gave me relief will give thee relief? Thou knowest how my eyes were soothed and healed, and that it is a potent charm, and surely it is not changed?' Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan was all Pathan then, Sahib, whatever he may have been at other times. I could not have played more skilfully with the dog myself.

"At last, turning to Moussa Isa he said:—

"'Our brother seemeth distraught, and perchance will do himself some injury if he be not tended with care and watched over. Bind him, to make sure that he hurt not himself in this strange madness that hath o'ertaken him, making him fancy harm even in this healing balm. Bind him tightly.' And at that, the treacherous, murderous dog found his manhood for a moment and made to spring to his feet and fight, but as he tried to rise, Moussa Isa kicked him in the face and fell upon him.

"'Shall I serve thee as I served thy Hubshi hireling, thy Sidi slave?' he grunted and showed his sharp strong teeth.

"'Perchance 'twould cure him of his madness if we bled the poor soul a little,' cooed my brother, putting his hand to his cummerbund where was his long Afghan knife, and Ibrahim Mahmud lay still. Picking up his big, green turban from beside his rug, I bound his arms to his sides and then, going forth, got baggage-cords from the oont-wallah and likewise his puggri, and Moussa Isa bound his feet and hands and knees.

"Then my brother called Suleiman Abdulla the oont-wallah, and bade Moussa Isa sleep—which he did with his knife in his hand, having bound his foot to that of Ibrahim.

"'Look, thou dog,' said Mir Jan to Suleiman, 'should this rat-flea escape, thy soul and thy body shall pay, for I will put out thine eyes with glowing charcoal and hang thee in the skin of a pig, if I have to follow thee to Cabul to do it—yea, to Balkh or Bokhara. See to it.' And Suleiman put his head upon my brother's feet, poured dust upon it and said 'So be it, Mir Saheb. Do this and more if he escape,' and we slept awhile.

"Anon we awoke, ate, drank and smoked, my brother smoking the cheroots of the Sahib-log and I having to be content with the bidis of Suleiman as there was no hookah.

"And when we had rested we went and sat before the face of Ibrahim and gazed upon him long, without words.

"And he wept. Like a woman he wept, and said 'Slay me, Mir Saheb, and have done. Slay me with thy knife.'

"But my brother replied softly and sweetly:—

"'What wild words are these, Ibrahim? Why should I slay thee? Some matter of a quarrel there was concerning thy torturing of my servant—but I am not of them that bear grudges and nurse hatred. In no anger slay thee with my knife? Why should I injure thee? I do most solemnly swear, Ibrahim, that I will do thee no wilful hurt. I will but anoint thine eyes with the contents of this bottle just as I did anoint my own. Why should I slay thee or do thee hurt?'

"And I chuckled aloud. He was all Pathan then, Sahib, and handling his enemy right subtly.

"And Ibrahim wept yet more loudly and said again:—

"'Slay me and have done.' Then my brother gave him the name by which he was known ever after, saying:—

"'Why should I slay thee, Ibrahim, the Weeper?' and he produced the bottle and held it above that villain's face.

"His screams were music to me, and in the joy of his black heart Moussa
Isa burst into some strange chant in his own Somali tongue.

"'Nay, our friends must hear thy eloquence and songs, Ibrahim,' said my brother, after he had held the bottle tilted above the face of the Weeper for some minutes. ''Twere greedy to keep this to ourselves.'

"Again and again that day my brother would say: 'Nay—I cannot wait longer. Poor Ibrahim's weeping eyes must be relieved at once,' and he would produce the bottle, uncork it, and hold it over Ibrahim's face as he writhed and screamed and twisted in his bonds.

"'What ails thee, Ibrahim the Weeper?' he would coo. 'Thou knowest it is a soothing lotion. Didst thou not see me use it on mine own eyes?' Yea, he was true Pathan then, and I loved him the more.

"A hundred times that day he did thus and enjoyed the music of Ibrahim's screams, and by night the dog was a little mad. So, lest we defeat ourselves and lose something of the sport our souls loved, we left him in peace that night, if 'peace' it is to know that the dreadful death you have prepared for another now overhangs you. Moussa Isa kept watch through the night. And in the morning came Abdul Haq and Hussein Ali and the servants and oont-wallahs, save a few who had been sent with laden camels by the Caravan Road. And, when all had eaten and rested, my brother held durbar,[34] having placed Ibrahim Mahmud in the midst, bound, and looking like one who has long lain upon a bed of sickness.

[34] Meeting.

"This durbar proceeded with the greatest solemnity and no man smiled when my brother said: 'And now, touching the matter of my beloved and respected Ibrahim Mahmud, son of our grandfather's Vizier,—the learned Ibrahim, who shortly goeth (perhaps) across the black water to Englistan to become a great and famous pleader,—can any suggest the cause of the strange and distressing madness that hath come upon him so suddenly? For, behold, I have to keep him bound lest he do himself an injury, and constantly he crieth, "Kill me, Mir Saheb, kill me with thy knife and make an end." And when I go to bathe his poor eyes, so sore and red with weeping, behold he shrieketh like the rêlwêy terain at Peshawar and weepeth like a woman.'

"And Abdul Haq spoke and said: 'Is it so indeed, Mir Saheb?' And my brother said: 'It is so;' and Hussein Ali said: 'Is it so indeed, Mir Saheb?' And my brother said 'It is so;' and all men said the same thing gravely and my brother made the same answer.

"Sahib, I shall never forget the joy of that durbar with Ibrahim the Weeper there, like a trapped rat, in the midst, looking from face to face for mercy.

"'Yea—it is so. It is indeed so,' again said my brother when all had asked. 'You shall see—and hear. Behold I will drop but one drop of my soothing lotion into each of his eyes!' … and he turned to Ibrahim the Weeper, with the uncorked bottle in his hand—the bottle from which came forth smoke, though it was cold. But Ibrahim rolled screaming, and strove to thrust his face into the ground. 'It is strange indeed,' mused Abdul Haq, stroking his beard, while none smiled. 'Strange, in every truth. But thou hast not dropped the drops, Mir Saheb. Perchance he will arise and thank thee and be cured of this madness when he feels the healing anointment that so benefited thine own eyes. Oh, the cleverness of these European hakims,' and he raised hands and eyes in wonder as he sighed piously.

"'Yea—perchance he will,' agreed my brother and bade Moussa Isa hold him by the ears with his face to the sky while the oont-wallahs kept him on his back. And Ibrahim's body heaved up those four strong men as it bent like a bow and bucked like a horse, while my brother removed the cork once again.

"His shrieks delighted my soul.

"''Tis a marvellous mystery to me,' sighed my brother. 'He knows how innocent and healing are these waters and yet he refuses them. He saw me use them on my own eyes—and surely the medicine is unchanged?' And he balanced the bottle sideways above the face of his enemy and allowed the devilish acid to well up and impend upon the very edge of the neck of the bottle, as he murmured: 'But a single drop for each eye! More I cannot spare—to-day. Perchance a drop for each ear to-morrow, and one for his tongue on the next day—if his madness spare him to us for so long.'

"Then, as Ibrahim, foaming, shrieked curses and cried aloud to Allah and Mohammed his Prophet, he said: 'Nay, this is ingratitude. He shall not have them to-day at all, but shall endure without them till sunrise to-morrow. Take him yonder, and lay him on that flat rock, bareheaded in the sun, that his tears may be dried for him.' …

"Yea! I found no fault with my brother then, Sahib.

"He was a master in his revenge. And the durbar murmured its applause, and praised and thanked my brother. Not one of them but had suffered at the hands of Mahmud Shahbaz, his father, the Vizier, or at the insolent hands of this his own son…. Then Mir Jan called to Moussa Isa, his body-servant, and said unto him:—

"'Hear, Moussa Isa, and make no tiny error if thou wouldst see to-morrow's sun and go to Paradise anon. Feed that carrion well and pretend to be filled with the pity that is the child of avarice. Ask what he will give thee to help him to escape. Affect to haggle long, and speak much of the difficulties and dangers of the deed. At length agree to put him on my fast camel this night at moon-rise, if thou art left as his guard and we are wrapt in slumber. Play thy part well, and show thy remorse at cheating thy master—even for a lakh[35] of rupees—yea, and show fear of what will happen to thee, and pretend distrust of him. At length succumb again, and as the moon just shows above the mountains untie his bonds and do thus and thus—' and he whispered instructions while a light shone in the eyes of Moussa Isa, the Somali, and a smile played about his mouth.

[35] One hundred thousand.

"And Mir Jan told the matter that night to all and gave instructions.

"Moussa Isa meanwhile did everything as he was bid and, while we ate, he carried his own food to the Weeper, as though secretly.

"Long and merrily we feasted, pretending to drink to excess of the forbidden sharab, singing and behaving like toddy-laden coolies, and in time we staggered to our carpets, put on our poshteens,[36] pulled rugs over our heads and slept—not.

[36] Warm sheep-skin coats.

"From under his rug my brother kept watch. Shortly after, Moussa Isa arose from beside Ibrahim the Weeper and crawled like a snake to where the camels knelt in a ring, and there he saddled the swift white camel of Mir Jan, and I heard its bubbling snarl as he made it rise, and led it over near to where Ibrahim lay. There he made it kneel again, and, throwing the nose-rope over its head, he laid the loop thereof, with his stick, on the front seat of the saddle. This done, he crept back to Ibrahim Mahmud and feigned sleep awhile. Anon, none stirring, he began to untie with his teeth and knife-point the cords that bound the captive, and when, at length, the man was free, Moussa chafed his stiffened arms and legs, his hands and feet.

"When, after a time, Ibrahim tried to rise, he fell again and again, and the moon not yet having risen above the mountains, the avaricious-seeming Moussa again massaged and chafed the limbs of the villain Ibrahim, who earnestly prayed Moussa Isa to lay him on the saddle as he was—and depart ere some sleeper awoke. But Moussa said 'twould be vain to start until Ibrahim could sit in the saddle and hold on, and he continued to rub his arms and legs.

"But when the edge of the moon shone above the mountain, Moussa placed the arm of Ibrahim around his neck, put his arm round Ibrahim's body, and staggered with him to where the racing-camel knelt. After a few steps the strength of Ibrahim seemed to return, and, by the time they reached the camel, he could totter on his feet and stand without help. With some difficulty Moussa hoisted him into the rear saddle. Having done so, he thrust the stirrups upon his feet and commenced to unwind his puggri.

"'Mount, mount!' whispered Ibrahim.

"'Nay, I must tie thee on,' replied Moussa Isa and, knotting one end of the puggri to the back of the saddle, he passed it twice round Ibrahim and tied the other end near the first. This done, and Ibrahim being in a frantic fever of haste and fear and hope, Moussa Isa commenced to bargain, Ibrahim agreeing to every demand and promising even more.

"'Anything! anything!' he shrieked beneath his breath. 'Bargain as we go. You cannot ask too much. I and my father will strip ourselves for thee.' … And having tortured him awhile, Moussa sprang into the saddle and brought the camel to its feet—as my brother's voice said, softly and sweetly:—

"'Wouldst thou leave us, O Ibrahim, my friend?' and my own chimed in:—

"'Could'st thou leave us, O Ibrahim, my brother's friend?' and the voice of Abdul Haq followed with:—

"'Shouldst thou leave us, O Ibrahim, my cousin's friend?' and Hussein
Ali's voice added:—

"'Do not leave us, O Ibrahim, my friend's friend.' Like the wolf-pack, every other voice in the camp in turn implored:—

"'Never leave us, O Ibrahim, our master's friend.'

"'Go! go!' shrieked Ibrahim, kicking with his heels at the camel's sides and striking at Moussa Isa, as that obedient youth, raising his stick, caused the camel to bound forward, and drove it, swiftly trotting—to where my brother lay, and there made it kneel again….

"Dost thou sleep, Huzoor?"

"Nay, Mir Saheb," I replied, "nor would I till your tale be done and I have seen the return of another reconnoitring-patrol. We might then take turns…. Nay, I will not sleep at all. 'Tis too near dawn—when things are wont to happen in time of war."

Little did the worthy Subedar-Major guess how, or why, his tale enthralled me.

"I have nearly done, Sahib…. On the morrow my brother said: 'To-day I will make an end. After the evening prayer let all assemble and behold the anointing of the eyes of Ibrahim the Weeper with the same balm that he intended to be applied to mine.' And during the day men drove strong stakes deep into the ground, the distance between them being equal to the width of Ibrahim's head, which they measured—telling him why. Also pegs were driven into the ground convenient for the fastening of his hands and feet, and stones were collected as large as men could carry.

"And, after evening prayer and prostration we took Ibrahim, and forcing his head between the stakes so that he could not turn it, we tied his hands and feet to the pegs and weighted his body with the stones, being careful to do him no injury and to cause no such pain as might detract from the real torture, and lessen his punishment.

"And then Mir Jan stood over him with the bottle and said, softly and sweetly:—

"'Ibrahim, my friend, thou didst vow upon me a vengeance, the telling of which should turn men pale, because I struck thee for torturing my servant. And now I return good for thine evil, for I take pity on thy weeping eyes and heal them. These several days thou hast refused this benefaction with floods of tears, and sobs and screams. Now, behold, and see how foolish thou hast been,' and he spilt a drop from the bottle, so that it fell near the face of Ibrahim, but not on it.

"And I was amazed to see that the stone upon which the drop fell did not bubble and boil. This prolongation and refinement of the torture I could appreciate and enjoy—but why did not the acid affect the stone? 'Twas as though mere cold water had fallen upon it. Nor was the bottle smoking as always hitherto.

"And even as I wondered, my brother quickly stooped and dashed some of the contents of the bottle in the eyes of Ibrahim the Weeper.

"With a shriek that pierced our ear-drums and must have been heard for many kos,[37] Ibrahim writhed and jerked so that the stones were thrown from his body and the pegs that held his feet and hands were torn from the ground. The stakes holding his head firmly, he flung his body over until his head was beneath it and then back again, and screamed like a wounded horse. At last he wrenched his head free, and, holding his hands to his face—which appeared to be in no way injured—leapt up and ran round and round in circles, until he was seized, and, by my brother's orders, his hands were torn from his face.

[37] Kos = two miles.

"And behold, his eyes and face were unmarked and uninjured, and the liquid that dripped upon his clothing made no mark and did no hurt.

"'Blind,' he shrieked,' I am blind! O Merciful Allah, my eyes!' and he fell, howling.

"'Now that is very strange,' said my brother, 'for I threw pure, plain, cold water in his face. See me drink of the remainder!' and he drank from the bottle, and so did I, in fear and wonder. Cold, pure, fair water it was, and nothing else!

"But Ibrahim the Weeper was blind. Stone blind to his dying day and never looked upon the sun again. Little drops of water had struck him blind. Nay, the Hand of Allah had struck him blind—him who had cried: 'May Allah strike me blind if I do not unto thee a thing of which children yet unborn shall speak with awe". He had tried to do such a thing and God had struck him blind—though my brother, who was very learned, spoke of self-suggestion, and of imagination being sometimes strong enough to make the imagined come to pass. (He told of a man who died for no reason, on a certain day at a certain hour, because his father had done so and he believed that he would also. But more likely it was witchcraft and he was under a curse.)

"Howbeit, little drops of pure water blinded Ibrahim the Weeper. And there the foreign blood of my poor brother showed forth. He could not escape the taint and was weak. At the last moment he had wavered and, like a fool, had forgiven his enemy."

"Was he a Christian?" I asked (and had often wondered in the past).

"Nahin, Sahib! He was a Mussulman, my father having had him taught with special care by a holy moulvie,[38] by reason of the fact that his mother had had him sprinkled with holy water by her priests and had taught him the tenets of the Christian faith—doubtless a high and noble one since your honour is of it."

[38] Priest.

"He had been taught the Christian doctrines, then?"

"Without doubt, Sahib. Throughout his childhood; in the absence of his father. And doubtless this aided his foreign blood in making him act thus foolishly."

"Doubtless," I agreed, with a smile.

"Yea, at the last moment he had put his vengeance from him and behaved like a weak fool, throwing away the acid, cleaning the bottle and filling it with pure water. He had intended to give Ibrahim a fright (and also the opprobrious title of the Weeper), to teach him a lesson and to let him go—provided he swore on the Q'ran never to return to Mekran Kot when he left for England…. Such a man was my poor brother. But the hand of Allah intervened and Ibrahim the Weeper lived and died stone blind…. A strange man that poor brother of mine, strong save when his foreign blood and foreign religion arose like poison within him and made him weak…. There was the case of the English Sergeant Larnce-Ishmeet whom he spared and sent into the English lines in the little Border War."

"Lance-Sergeant Smith? What regiment?" I asked.

"I know not, Sahib, save that it was a British Infantry Regiment. (He was not Lance-Sergeant Ishmeet but Sergeant Larnce-Ishmeet.) We … I mean … they … slew many of a Company that was doing rear-guard and their officers being slain and many men also, a Sergeant took them off with great skill. Section by section, from point to point he retired them, and our … their … triumphant joy at the capture and slaughter of the Company was changed to gnashing of teeth—for we lost many and the Company retired safely on the main body. But we got the Sergeant, badly wounded, and my brother would not have him slain. Rather he showed him much honour and had him borne to Mekran Kot, and when he was healed he took him to within sight of the outermost Khyber fort and set him free…. Yet was he not an enemy, Sahib, taken in war? Strange weaknesses had my poor brother…."

"I knew a Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith," I remarked, as light dawned on me after pondering "Larnce-Ishmeet." "He shot himself at Duri some time ago."

"He was a brave man," said Mir Daoud Khan. "Peace be upon him."

"And what became of your brother?" I asked, although I knew only too well—alas!

"He left Mekran Kot when I did, Sahib, for our father died, the old Jam Saheb was poisoned, and we had to flee or die. I never saw him again for he made much money (out of rifles), travelled widely, and became a Sahib (and I followed the pultan[39]). But he died as a Pathan should—for his honour. In Gungapur jail they hanged him (after the failure of the foolish attempt by some seditious Sikhs and Punjabis and Bengalis at a second Great Killing) and I do not care to speak of that thing even to—"

[39] Infantry Regiment.

A sputter of musketry broke out in the thick vegetation of the river-bed, crackled and spread, as Subedar-Major Mir Daoud Khan (once against the civilized, brave and distinguished officer) and I sprang to our feet and hurried to our posts—I, even at that moment, thinking how small a World is this, and how long is the long arm of Coincidence. Here was I, while waiting for what then seemed almost certain death, hearing from the lips of his own brother, the early history of the remarkable, secretive and mysterious man whom I had loved above all men, and whose death had been the tragedy of my life.

CHAPTER II.

THE BOY.

(Mainly concerning the early life of Moussa Isa Somali.)

Moussa Isa Somali never stole, lied, seduced, cheated, drank, swore, gambled, betrayed, slandered, blasphemed, nor behaved meanly nor cowardly—but, alas! he had personal and racial Pride.

It is written that Pride is the sin of Devils and that by it, Lucifer,
Son of the Morning, fell.

If it be remembered that he fell for nine days, be realized that he must have fallen with an acceleration of velocity of thirty-two feet per second, each second, and be conceded that he weighed a good average number of pounds, some idea will be formed of the violence of the concussion with which he came to earth.

In spite of the terrible warning provided by so great a smash there yet remain people who will argue that it is better to fall through Pride than to remain unfallen through lack of it. By Pride, Pride is meant of course—not Conceit, Snobbishness and Bumptiousness, which are all very damnable, and signs of a weak, base mind. One gathers that Lucifer, Son of the Morning, was not conceited, snobbish, nor bumptious. Nor was Moussa, son of Isa, Somali—but, like Lucifer, Son of the Morning, Devil, he fell, through Pride, and came to a Bad End.

One has known people who have owned to a sneaking liking and unwilling admiration for Lucifer, Son of the Morning—people of the same sort as those who find it difficult wholly to revere the prideless Erect when comparing them with the prideful Fallen—and, for the life of me, I cannot help a sneaking liking and unwilling admiration for Moussa Isa Somali, who fell through Pride.

There was something fine about him, even as there was about Lucifer, Son of the Morning, and one cannot avoid feeling that if both did not get more of hard luck and less of justice than some virtuous people one knows, they certainly cut a better figure. Of course it is a mistake to adopt any line of action that leads definitely to the position of Under-Dog, and to fight when you cannot win. It is not Prudent, and Prudence leads to Favour, Success, Decorations, and the Respect of Others if not of yourself. It is also to be remembered that whether you are a Wicked Rebel or a Noble True-Hearted Patriot depends very largely on whether you succeed or fail.

All of which is mere specious and idle special pleading on behalf of
Moussa Isa, a sinful murderous Somali….

Most of the memories of Moussa Isa centred round scars. When I say "memories of Moussa Isa" I mean Moussa Isa's own memories, for there are no memories concerning him. The might, majesty, dominion and power of the British Empire were arrayed against him, and the Empire's duly appointed agents hanged him by the neck until he was dead—at an age when some people are yet at school, albeit he had gathered in his few years of life a quantity and quality of experience quite remarkable.

'Twas a sordid business, and yet Moussa Isa died, like many very respectable and highly belauded folk, from the early Christians in Italy to the late Christians in Armenia, for a principle and an idea.

He was black, he was filthy, he was savage, ignorant and ugly—but he had his Pride, both personal and racial, for he was a Somali. A Somali, mark you, not a mere Hubshi or Woolly One, not a common Nigger, not a low and despicable person—worshipping idols, eating human flesh, grubs, roots and bark—the "black ivory" of Arabs.

If you called Moussa Isa a Hubshi, he either killed you or marked you down for death, according to circumstances.

Had Moussa Isa lived a few centuries earlier, been of another colour, and swanked around in painful iron garments and assorted cutlery, he would have been highly praised for his fine and proper spirit. Poet, bard, and troubadour would have noted and published his quickness on the point of honour. Moussa would have been set to music and have become a source of income to the gifted. He would have become a Pillar of the Order of Knighthood and an Ornament of the Age of Chivalry. A wreath of laurels would have encircled his brow—instead of a rope of hemp encircling his neck.

For such fine, quick, self-respecting Pride, such resentment of insult, men have become Splendid Figures of the Glorious Past.

Autres jours autres moeurs.

How many people called him Hubshi, we know not; but we know, from his own lips, of the killing of some few. Of the killing of others he had forgotten, for his memory was poor, save for insult and kindness. And, having caught and convicted him in one or two cases the appointed servants of the British Empire first "reformed" and then slew him in their turn—thus descending to his level without his excuse of private personal insult and injury….

The scars on Moussa Isa's face with the hole in his ear were connected with one of his very earliest memories—or one of his very earliest memories was connected with the scars on his face and the hole in his ear—a memory of jolting along on a camel, swinging upside-down, while a strong hand grasped his foot; of seeing his father rush at his captor with a long, broad-bladed spear, of being whirled and flung at his father's head; and of seeing his father's intimate internal economy seriously and permanently disarranged by the two-handed sword of one of the camel rider's colleagues (who flung aside a heavy gun which he had just emptied into Moussa's mamma) as his father fell to the ground under the impact and weight of the novel missile. Though Moussa was unaware, in his abysmal ignorance, of the interesting fact, the great two-handed sword so effectually wielded by the supporter of his captor, was exactly like that of a Crusader of old. It was like that of a Crusader of old, because it was a direct lineal descendant of the swords of the Crusaders who had brought the first specimens to the country, quite a good many years previously. Indeed some people said that a few of the swords owned by these Dervishes were real, original, Crusaders' swords, the very weapons whose hilts were once grasped by Norman hands, and whose blades had cloven Paynim heads in the name of Christianity and the interests of the Sepulchre. I do not know—but it is a wonderfully dry climate, and swords are there kept, cherished, and bequeathed, even more religiously than were the Stately Homes of England in that once prosperous land, in the days before park, covert, pleasaunce, forest, glade, dell, and garden became allotments, and the spoil of the "Working"-man.

Picked up after the raid and pursuit with a faceful of gravel, sand, dirt, and tetanus-germs, Moussa Isa, orphan, was flung on a pile of dead Somali spearmen and swordsmen, of horses, asses, camels, negroes, (old) women and other cattle—and, crawling off again, received kicks and orders to clean and polish certain much ensanguined weapons sullied with the blood of his near and distant relatives. Thereafter he was recognized by the above-mentioned swordsman, and accorded the privilege of removing his own father's blood from the great two-handed sword before alluded to—a task of a kind that does not fall to many little boys. So willingly and cheerfully did Moussa perform his arduous duty (arduous because the blood had had time to dry, and dried blood takes a lot of removing from steel by one unprovided with hot water) that the Arab swordsman instead of blowing off the child's head with his long and beautiful gun, damascened of barrel, gold-mounted of lock, and pearl-inlaid of stock, allowed him to rim for his life that he might die a sporting death in hot blood, doing his devilmost. (These were not slavers but avengers of enmity to the Mad Mullah and punishers of friendship to the English.)

"How much law will you give me, O Emir?" asked the child.

"Perhaps ten yards, dog, perhaps a hundred, perhaps more…. Run!"

"You could hit me at a thousand yards, O Emir," was the reply. "Let me die by a shot that men will talk about…."

"Run, yelping dog," growled the Arab with a sardonic smile.

And Moussa ran. He also bounded, shied, dodged, ducked, swerved, dropped, crawled, zig-zagged and generally gave his best attention to evading the shot of the common fighting-man whom he had propitiatorily addressed as "Emir," though a mere wearer of a single fillet of camel-hair cord around his haik. Like a naval gunner—the Arab laid his gun and waited till the sights "came on," fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the child fling up his arms, leap into the air and fall twitching to the ground. Good shot! The twitches and the last convulsive spasm were highly artistic and creditable to the histrionic powers of Moussa Isa, shot through the ear, and inwardly congratulating himself that he had yet a chance. But then he had had wide opportunity for observation, and plenty of good models, in the matter of sudden-death spasms and twitches, so the credit is the less. Anyhow, it deceived experienced Arab eyes at a hundred yards, and the performance may therefore be classed as good. To the reflective person it will be manifest that Moussa's reverence for the sanctity of human life received but little encouragement or development from the very beginning….

Returning refugees, a few days later, found Moussa very pleased-with himself and very displeased with uncooked putrid flesh. Being exceedingly poor and depressed as a result of the Mad Mullah's vengeful razzia, they sold Moussa Isa, friendless, kinless orphan, and once again cursed the false English who made them great promises in the Mahdi's troublous day, and abandoned them to the Mad Mullah and his Dervishes as soon as the Mahdi was happily dead.

The Mad Mullah they could understand; the English they could not. For the Mad Mullah they had no blame whatsoever; for the English they had the bitterest blame, the deepest hatred and the uttermost contempt. Who blames the lion for seeking and slaying his prey? Who defends the unspeakable creature that throws its friends and children to the lion—in payment of its debts and in cancellation of its obligations to those friends and children? In discussing the raid on their way to market with Moussa Isa, they mentioned the name of the Mad Mullah with respect and fear. When they mentioned the English they expectorated and made a gesture too significant to be particularized. And the tom-toms once again throbbed through the long nights, sending (by a code that was before Morse) from village to village, from the sea to the Nile, from the Nile to the Niger and the Zambesi, from the Mediterranean to the Cape, the news that once more the Mad Mullah had flouted that failing and treacherous race, the English, and slaughtered those who lived within their gates, under the shadow of their flag and the promise of their protection.

Ere Moussa Isa got his next prominent scar, the signal-drums throbbed out the news that the gates were thrown open, the flag hauled down, and the promises shamefully broken. That the representatives of the failing treacherous race now stood huddled along the sea-shore in fear and trembling, while those who had helped them in their trouble and had believed their word were slaughtered by the thousand; that the country was the home of fire and sword, the oasis-fields yielding nothing but corpses, the wells choked with dead … red slaughter, black pestilence, starvation, misery and death, where had been green cultivation, fenced villages, the sound of the quern and the well-wheel, the song of women and the cry of the ploughman to his oxen. News and comments which did nothing to lessen the pride and insolence of the Jubaland tribesmen, of the Wak tribesmen, of the bold Zubhier sons of the desert, nor to strike terror to the hearts of the murderers of Captain Aylmer and Mr. Jenner, of slave-traders, game-poachers, raiders, wallowers in slaughter….

Another very noticeable and remarkable scar broke the fine lines and smooth contours of Moussa's throat and another memory was as indelibly established in his mind as was the said scar on his flesh.

At any time that he fingered the horrible ridged cicatrice, he could see the boundless ocean and the boundless blue sky from a wretched cranky canoe-shaped boat, in which certain Arab, Somali, Negro, and other gentlemen were proceeding all the way from near Berbera to near Aden with large trustfulness in Allah and with certain less creditable goods. It was a long, unwieldy vessel which ten men could row, one could steer with a broad oar, and a small three-cornered sail could keep before the wind.

But the various-clad crew of this cranky craft were gentlemen all, who, beyond running up the string-tied sail to the clothes-prop mast, or taking a trick at the wheel—another clothes-prop with a large disc of wood at the water-end, were far above work.

Trusting in Allah and Mohammed his Prophet is a lot easier than rowing a lineless, blunt-nosed, unseaworthy boat beneath a tropical sun. So they trusted in God, and permitted Moussa Isa, slave-boy, to do all that it was humanly possible for him to do.

Moussa did all that was expected of him, but not so Allah and Mohammed his Prophet.

The gentle breeze that (sometimes) carries you steadily over a glassy sea straight up the forty-fifth meridian of east longitude from Berbera to Aden in the month of October, failed these worthy trustful Argonauts, and they were becalmed.

But Time is made for slaves, and the only slave upon the Argosy was Moussa Isa, and so the becalming was neither here nor there. The cargo would keep (if kept dry) for many a long day—and the greater the delay in delivery, the greater the impatience of the consignees and their willingness to pay even more than the stipulated price—its weight in silver per rifle. But food is made for men as well as slaves, and if you, in your noble trustfulness, resolutely decline to reduce your daily rations, there must, with mathematical certitude of date, arrive the final period to any given and limited supply. Though banking wholly with Heaven in the matter of their own salvation from hunger, the Argonauts displayed mere worldly wisdom in the case of Moussa Isa and gave him the minimum of food that might be calculated to keep within him strength adequate to his duties of steering, swarming up the mast, baling, cooking, massaging the liver of the Leading Gentleman, and so forth. And in due course, the calm continuing, these pious and religious voyagers came to the bitter end of their water, their rice, their dhurra, their dates—and all (except the salt and coffee which formed part of the ostensible, bogus cargo) that they had, as they too-slowly drifted into the track of those vessels that enter and leave the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears, the tears of the starving, drowning, ship-wrecked and castaway.

Salt per se is a poor diet, and, for the making of potable coffee, fresh water is very necessary.

Some of the Argonauts were, as has been said, Negro gentlemen. On the third day of absolute starvation, one had an Idea and made a suggestion.

The Leading Gentleman entertained it with an open mind and without enthusiasm.

The Tanga tout acclaimed it as a divine inspiration.

The one-eyed Moor literally smiled upon it. As his eye was single and his body therefore full of light, he saw the beauty of the notion at once. Had it been full of food instead, we may charitably suppose he would not have remarked:—

"A pity we did not feed him up better".

For the suggestion concerned Moussa Isa and food—Moussa Isa as food, in point of fact. The venerable gentle-looking Arab, whose face beamed effulgent with benevolence and virtue, murmured:—

"He will have but little blood, the dog. None of it must be—er—wasted by the—ah—butcher."

The huge man with the neat geometrical pattern of little scars, perpendicular on the forehead, horizontal on the cheeks and in concentric circles on the chest (done with loving care and a knife, in his infancy, by his papa) said only "Ptwack" as he chewed a mouthful of coffee-beans and hide. It may have been a pious ejaculation or a whole speech in his own peculiar vernacular. It was a tremendous smacking of tremendous lips, and the expression which overspread his speaking countenance was of gusto, appreciative, and such as accords with lip-smacking.

But a very fair man (very fair beside the Negroes, Somalis, Arabs and others our little black and brown brothers), a man with grey-blue eyes, light brown hair and moustache, and olive complexion, said to the originator of the Idea in faultless English, if not in faultless taste "You damned swine".

A look of profoundest disgust overspread his handsome young face, a face which undoubtedly lent itself to very clear expression of such feelings as contempt, disgust and scorn, an unusual face, with the thin high-bridged nose of an English aristocrat, the large eyes and pencilled black brows of an Indian noble, the sallow yet cheek-flushed complexion of an Italian peasant-girl, and the firm lips, square jaw, and prominent chin of a fighting-man. It was essentially an English face in expression, and essentially foreign in detail; a face of extraordinary contradictions. The eyes were English in colour, Oriental in size and shape; the mouth and chin English in mould and in repose, Oriental in mobility and animation; the whole countenance English in shape, Oriental in complexion and profile—a fine, high-bred, strong face, upon which played shadows of cruelty, ferocity, diabolical cunning; a face admired more quickly than liked, inspiring more speculation than trust.

The same duality and contradiction were proclaimed in the hands—strong, tenacious, virile hands; small, fine, delicate hands; hands with the powerful and purposeful thumb of the West; hands with the supple artistic fingers and delicate finger-nails of the East.

And the man's name was in keeping with hands and face, with mind, body, soul, and character, for, though he would not have done so, he could have replied to the query "What is your name?" with "My name? Well, in full, it is John Robin Ross-Ellison Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan, and its explanation is my descent from General Ross-Ellison, Laird of Glencairn, and from Mir Faquir Mahommed Afzul Khan, Jam of Mekran Kot".

In Piccadilly, wearing the garb of Piccadilly, he looked an Englishman of the English.

In Abdul Rehman Bazaar, Cabul, wearing the garb of Abdul Rehman Bazaar, he looked a Pathan of Pathans. In the former case, rather more sunburnt than the average lounger in Piccadilly; in the latter, rather fairer than the average Afghan and Pathan loafer in Abdul Rehman Bazaar.

"Walking down Unter den Linden in Berlin, with upturned moustache, he looked a most Teutonic German.

"You observed, my friend?" queried the Leading Gentleman (whose father
was the son of a Negro-Arab who married, or should have married, a
Jewess captured near Fez, and whose mother was the daughter of a
Tunisian Turk by a half-bred Negress of Timbuctoo).

"I observed," replied the fair young man in the mongrel Arabic-Swahili lingua franca of the Red Sea and East African littorals "that it is but natural for dogs to prey upon dogs."

"There are times when the lion is driven to prey upon dogs, my dear son," interposed the mild-eyed, benevolent-looking Arab—a pensive smile on his venerable face.

"Yes—when he is old, mangy, toothless and deserving of nothing better, my dear father," replied the fair young man, and his glances at the white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was well known that the old gentleman's name was famous across Northern and Eastern Africa for monstrous villainy and fiendish cruelty—the name of the worst and wickedest of those traders in "black ivory," one of whose side-lines is frequently gun-running. Also he knew that the benevolent-looking old dear was desirous that the Leading Gentleman, his partner, should join with him in a little scheme (a scheme revealed by one Moussa Isa, eaves-dropper) to give the fair young man some inches of steel instead of the pounds of Teutonic gold due for services (and rifles) rendered, when they should reach the quiet spot on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf where certain bold caravan-leaders would await them and their precious cargo—a scheme condemned by the Leading Gentleman on the grounds of the folly of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. But then the wealthy Arab patriarch was retiring from the risky business (already nearly ruined and destroyed by English gun-boats) after that trip, and the Leading Gentleman was not. Thus it was that the attitude of the fair young man toward Sheikh Abou ben Mustapha Muscati did not display that degree of respect that his grey hairs and beautiful old face would appear to deserve.

The French-speaking Moslem Berber ex-Zouave, from Algiers, suggested that Moussa Isa, a slave, was certainly not fitting food for gentlemen who fight, hunt, travel, poach elephants, deal in "black ivory," run guns, and generally lead a life too picturesque for an over-"educated," utilitarian and depressing age—but what would you? "One eats—but yes, one eats, or one ceases to live, and one does not wish to cease to live—and therefore one eats" and he cocked a yellow and appraising eye at Moussa Isa. The sense of the meeting appeared to be that though one would not have chosen this particular animal, necessity knows no rule—and if the throat be cut while the animal be alive, one may eat of the flesh and break the Law by so much the less. Moussa Isa must be halalled.[40] But the fair young man drawing a Khyber knife with two feet of blade, observed that it was now likely that there would be a plethora of food, as he would most assuredly cut the throat of any throat-cutter.

[40] To halal is to make lawful, here to cut the throat of a living animal in order that its flesh may be eatable by good Mussulmans.

Moussa Isa regarded him with the look often seen in the eye of an intelligent dog.

The venerable Arab smiled meaningly at the Leading Gentleman, and the Tanga tout asked if all were to hunger for the silly scruples of one. "If the fair-faced Sheikh did not wish to eat of Moussa, none would urge it. Live and let live. The gentlemen were hungry; …" but the fair young man unreasonably replied, "Then let them eat thee since they can stomach carrion," and for the moment the subject dropped—largely because the fair young man was supposed always to carry a revolver, which was not a habit of his good colleagues. It was another evidence of his strange duality that revolver and knife were (rare phenomenon) equally acceptable to him, though in certain environment the pistol rather suggested itself to his left hand, while in others his right hand went quite unconsciously to his long knife.

In the present company no thought of the fire-arm entered his head—this was a knifing, back-stabbing outfit;—none here who stood up to shoot and be shot at in fair fight….

The Leading Gentleman looked many times and hard at Moussa Isa during the second day of his own starvation, which was the third of that of his companions and the fourth of Moussa's. The Leading Gentleman, who was as rich as he was ragged and dirty, wore a very beautiful knife, which (though it reposed in a gaudy sheath of yellow, green and blue beads, fringed with a dependent filigree, or lace work, of similar beads with tassels of cowrie-shells) hailed from Damascus and had a handle of ivory and gold, and an inlaid blade on which were inscribed verses from the Q'ran.

Moussa Isa knew the pattern of it well by the close of day. The Leading Gentleman took that evening to sharpening the already sharp blade of the knife. As he sharpened it on his sandal and the side of the boat, and tried its edge on his thumb, he regarded the thin body of Moussa Isa very critically.

His look blended contempt, anticipation, and anxiety.

He broke a long brooding silence with the remark:—

"The little dog will be thinner still, to-morrow "—a remark which evoked from the fair youth the reply: "And so will you".

Perhaps truth covered and excused a certain indelicacy and callousness in the statement of the Leading Gentleman, albeit the fair young man appeared annoyed at it. His British blood and instincts became predominant when the killing and eating of a fellow-creature were on the tapis—the said fellow-creature being on it at the same time.

A colleague from Dar-es-Salaam, who had an ear and a half, three teeth, six fingers, innumerable pockmarks and a German accent, said, "He will have little fat," and there was bitterness in his tone. As a business man he realized a bad investment of capital. The food in which they had wallowed should have gone to the fattening of Moussa Isa. Also a fear struck him.

"He'll jump overboard in the night—the ungrateful dog. Tie him up," and he reached for a coil of cord.

"He will not be tied up," observed the fair youth in a quiet, obstinate voice.

"See, my friend," said the Leading Gentleman, "it is a case of one or many. Better that one," and he pointed to Moussa Isa, "than another," and he looked meaningly at the fair young man.

"And yet, I know not," murmured the venerable Arab, "I know not. We are not in the debt of the slave. We are in the debt of the Sheikh. It would cancel all obligations if the Sheikh from the North preferred to offer himself as—"

The young man's long knife flashed from its sheath as he sprang to his feet. "Let us eat monkey, if eat we must," he cried, pointing to the Arab—and, even as he spoke, the huge man with the scars, flinging his great arms around the youth's ankles, partly rose and neatly tipped him overboard. He had long hated the fair man.

Straightway, unseen by any, as all eyes were on the grey-eyed youth and his assailant, Moussa Isa cast loose the toni[41] that nestled beneath the stern of the larger boat. He was about to shout that he had done so when he realised that this would defeat his purpose, and also that the fair Sheikh was still under water.

[41] Small dug-out canoe.

"Good," murmured the old Arab, "now brain him as he comes up—and secure his body."

But the fair youth knew better than to rise in the immediate neighbourhood of the boat. Swimming with the ease, grace and speed of a seal, he emerged with bursting lungs a good hundred yards from where he had disappeared. Having breathed deeply he again sank, to re-appear at a point still more distant, and be lost in the gathering gloom.

"He is off to Cabul to lay his case before the Amir," observed the elderly Arab with grim humour.

"Doubtless," agreed the Leading Gentleman, "he will swim the 2000 miles to India, and then up the Indus to Attock." And added, "But, bear witness all, if the young devil turn up again some day, that I had no quarrel with him…. A pity! A pity!… Where shall we find his like, a Prank among the Franks, an Afghan among Afghans, a Frenchman in Algiers, a nomad robber in Persia, a Bey in Cairo, a Sahib in Bombay—equally at home as gentleman or tribesman? Where shall we find his like again as gatherer of the yellow honey of Berlin and as negotiator in Marseilles (where the discarded Gras breech-loaders of the army grow) and in Muscat? Woe! Woe!"

"Or his like for impudence to his elders, harshness in a bargain, cunning and greed?" added the benevolent-looking Arab, who had gained a handsome sum by the murder.

"For courage," corrected the Leading Gentleman, and with a heavy sigh, groaned. "We shall never see him more—and he was worth his weight to me annually in gold."

"No, you won't see him again," agreed the Arab. "He'll hardly swim to Aden—apart from the little matter of sharks…. A pity the sharks should have so fair a body—and we starve!" and he turned a fatherly benevolent eye on Moussa Isa—whom a tall slender black Arab, from the hills about Port Sudan, of the true "fuzzy-wuzzy" type, had seized in his thin but Herculean arms as the boy rose to spring into the toni and paddle to the rescue of his benefactor.

The Dar-es-Salaam merchant threw Fuzzy Wuzzy a coil of cord and Moussa Isa (who struggled, kicked, bit and finding resistance hopeless, screamed, "Follow the boat, Master," as he lay on his back), was bound to a cracked and salt-encrusted beam or seat that supported, or was supported by, the cracked and salt-encrusted sides of the canoe-shaped vessel.

Although very, very hungry, and perhaps as conscienceless and wicked a gang as ever assembled together on the earth or went down to the sea in ships, there was yet a certain reluctance on the part of some of the members to revert to cannibalism, although all agreed that it was necessary.

Among the reluctant-to-commence were those who had no negro blood. Among the ready-to-commence, the full-blooded negroes were the most impatient.

Although very hungry and rather weak they were in different case from that of European castaway sailors, in that all were inured to long periods of fasting, all had crossed the Sahara or the Sus, lived for days on a handful of dates, and had tightened the waist-string by way of a meal. Few of them ever thought of eating between sunrise and sunset. The lives of the negroes were alternations of gorging and starving, incredible repletion and more incredible fasting; devouring vast masses of hippopotamus-flesh to-day, and starving for a week thereafter; pounds of prime meat to-day, gnawing hunger and the weakness of semi-starvation for the next month.

"At sunrise," said the Leading Gentleman finality.

Good! That left the so-desirable element of chance. It left opportunity for change of programme inasmuch as sunrise might disclose help in the shape of a passing ship. The matter would rest with Heaven, and pious men might lay them down to sleep with clear conscience, reflecting that, should it be the Will of Allah that His servants should not eat of this flesh, other would be provided; should other not be provided it was clearly the Will of Allah that His servants should eat of this flesh! Excellent—there would be a meal soon after sunrise.

And the Argonauts laid them down to sleep, hungry but gratefully trustful, trustfully grateful. But Moussa Isa watched the wondrous lustrous stars throughout the age-long, flash-short night and thought of many things.

Had the splendid, noble Sheikh from the North heard his cry and had he found the toni? How far had he swum ere his strength gave out or, with sudden swirl, he was dragged under by the man-eating shark? Would he remove his long cotton shirt, velvet waistcoat and baggy cotton trousers? The latter would present difficulties, for the waist-string would tangle and the water would swell the knot and prevent the drawing of string over string.

Moreover, the garments, though very baggy, were tight round the ankles. Would he cast off his beautiful yard-long Khyber knife? It would go to his heart to do that, both for the sake of the weapon itself and because he would have to go to his death unavenged, seized by a shark without giving it its death-wound. Had he heard and would he follow the boat in the moonlight, find the toni and escape? Could he swim to Aden? They had said not—even leaving sharks out of consideration, and indeed it must be forty or fifty miles away. Judging by their progress they must have done about one hundred and fifty miles since they embarked at the lonely spot on the Berbera coast for the other lonely spot on the Aden coast, where certain whisperings with certain mysterious camel-riders would preface their provisioning for the voyage along the weary Hadramant coast to the Ras el Had and Muscat—just a humble boat-load of poor but honest toilers and tradesmen, interested in dried fish, dates, the pearl-fishery and the pettiest trading. No, he would never reach land, wonderful swimmer as he was. He would be lost in the sea as is the Webi Shebeyli River in the sands of the South, unless he followed the drifting boat and found the toni. Otherwise, he might be picked up, but he would have to keep afloat all night to do that, unless he had the extraordinary luck to be seen by dhow or ship before dark. That could hardly be, unless the same ship or dhow were visible from their own boat, and none had been seen.

No, he must be dead—and Moussa Isa would shortly follow him. How he wished he could have given his life to save him. Had he known, he would have cried out, "Let them eat me, O Master," and prevented him from risking his life. If he should get the chance of striking one blow for his life in the morning he would bestow it upon the scar-faced beast who had tripped the fair Sheik overboard. If he could strike two he would give the second to the old Arab who flogged women and children to death with the kourbash,[42] as an amusement, and whose cruelties were famous in a cruel land; the old Evil who hated, and plotted the death of, the fair Sheikh, with the leader of the expedition in order that they might divide his large share of the gun-running proceeds and German subsidy. If he could strike a third blow it should be at the filthy Hubshi of the Aruwimi, the low degraded Woolly One from the dark Interior (of human sacrifice, cannibalism and ju-ju) who had proposed eating him. Yes—if he could grab the leader's knife and deal three such stabs as the Sheikh dealt the lion, at these three, he could die content. But this was absurd! They would halal him first, of course, and unbind him afterwards…. They might unbind him first though, so as to place him favourably with regard to—economy. They would use the empty army-ration tin, shining there like silver in the moonlight, the tin with which he had done so much weary baling. Doubtless the leader and the Arab would share its contents. He grudged it them, and hoped a quarrel and struggle might arise and cause it to be spilt.

[42] Rhinoceros-hide whip.

An unpleasant death! Without cowardice one might dislike the thought of having one's throat cut while one's hands were bound and one watched the blood gushing into an old army-ration tin. Perhaps there would be none to gush—and a good job too. Serve them right. Could he cut his wrists on a nail or a splinter or with the cords, and cheat them, if there were any blood in him now. He would try. Yes, an unpleasant death. No one, no true Somali, that is, objected to a prod in the heart with a shovel-headed spear, a thwack in the head with a hammered slug, a sweep at the neck with a big sword—but to have a person sawing at your throat with weak and shaking hands is rotten….

One quite appreciated that masters must eat and slaves must die, and the religious necessity for cutting the throat while the animal is alive, according to the Law—and there was great comfort in the fact that the leader's knife was inscribed with verses of the Q'ran and would probably be used for the job. (The leader liked jobs of that sort.) Countless it would confer distinction in Paradise upon one already distinguished as having died to provide food for a band of right-thinking, religious-minded gentlemen, who, even in such terrible straits, forgot not the Law nor omitted the ceremonies….

Where now was the fair-faced master who so resembled the English but was so much braver, fiercer, so much more staunch? Though fair as they, and knowing their speech, he could not be of a race that led whole tribes to trust in them, called them "Friendlies" and then forsook them; came to them in the day of trouble asking help, and then scuttled away and deserted their allies, leaving them to face alone the Power whose wrath and vengeance their help-giving had provoked. Yet there were good men among them—there was Kafil[43] Bey for example. Kafil Bey whose last noble fight he had witnessed. If the fair-faced Sheikh had any of the weak English blood in his veins it must be of such a man as Kafil Bey.

[43] Corfield?

Was he still swimming? Had he been picked up? Was he shark's food? To think that he should have come to his death over such a thing as a slave boy (albeit a Somali and no Hubshi).

This was an Emir indeed.

An idea!… He called aloud: "Are you there, Master? The toni is loose and must be near," again and again, louder and louder. Perhaps he was following and would hear. Again, louder still.

The one-eyed man, disturbed by the cry, stirred, threw his arms abroad, stretched, and put his foot on the mouth of a neighbour lying head-to-foot beside him. The neighbour snored loudly and turned his face sideways under the foot. He had slept standing jammed against the wall in the Idris of Omdurman, one of the most terrible jails of all time, and a huge foot on his face was a matter of no moment.

The Tanga tout suddenly emitted a scream, a blood-curdling scream, and immediately scratched his ribs like a monkey…. Moussa Isa held his peace.

Anon the scar-faced man turned over, moving others.

Could it be near dawn already, and were his proprietors waking up? He could see no change in the East, no paling of the lustrous stars. Was it an hour ago or eight hours ago that the night had fallen? Had he an hour to live or a night? Would he ever see Berbera again, steer a boat down its deep inlet, gaze upon its two lighthouses, its fort, hospital, barracks, piers, warehouses, bazaars; drive a camel along by its seven miles of aqueduct, look down from the hills upon this wonderful and mighty metropolis, greater and grander than Jibuti, Zeyla, Bulhar and Karam, surely the greatest and most marvellous port and city of the world, ere driving on through the thorn-bush and acacia-jungle into the vast waterless Haud? Would he ever again see the sun rise in the desert, smell the smoke of the camel-dung cooking-fires…. What was that? The sky was paling in the East, growing grey, a rose-pink flush on the horizon—dawn and death were at hand.

Before the heralds of the sun, the moon slowly veiled her face with lightest gossamer while the weaker stars fled. The daily miracle and common marvel proceeded before the tired eyes of the bound slave; the rim of the sun appeared above the rim of the sea; the moon more deeply veiled her face from the fierce red eye, and gracefully and gradually retired before the advance of the usurping conqueror—and the slave seemed to hear the fat croaking voice of the leader saying, "At sunrise".

Broad day and all but he asleep. Well—it had come at last. When would they awake? Was the toni anywhere near?

The man with the geometrical pattern of scars on his face and chest suddenly sat bolt upright like a released spring, yawned, looked at the sky and the limp sail, and then at Moussa Isa. As his eye fell upon the boy he smiled copiously, protruded a very red tongue between very white teeth, and licked huge blue-black lips. He leaned over and awakened the Leading Gentleman. Then he pointed to the Victim. Both watched the horizon where, beyond distant Bombay and China, the sun was appearing, rising with the rapidity of the minute hand of a big clock. Neither looked to the West.

The child knew that when the sun had risen clear of the sea, he might look upon it for a minute or two—and no more. A puff of wind fanned his cheek; the sail filled and drew. The boat moved through the water and the one-eyed gentleman, arising and treading upon the out-lying tracts of the sleepers, stumbled to the rudder, which was tied with coconut-fibre to an upright stake. The breeze strengthened and there was a ripple of water at the bows. Was he saved?

The one-eyed person looked more disappointed than pleased, and observed to the Leading Gentleman: "We cannot live to Aden, though the wind hold. We must eat," and he regarded the figure of Moussa Isa critically, appraisingly, with mingled favour and disfavour. His expressive countenance seemed to say, "He is food—but he is poor food".

Nevertheless an unmistakable look of relief overspread his face as the
Leading Gentleman replied with conviction, "We must eat…." and added,
"This is but a dawn-breeze and will not take us half a mile".

"Then let us eat forthwith," said the one-eyed man, and he fairly beamed upon Moussa Isa, doubtless with the said light of which his body was full, in consequence of his singleness of vision. The whole party was by this time awake and Moussa Isa the cynosure of neighbouring eyes. The Leading Gentleman drew his beautiful knife from its tawdry sheath and gave it a last loving strop on his horny palm.

Willing hands dragged the head of Moussa Isa across the beam and willing bodies sat upon him, that he might not waste time, and something more precious, by thoughtless wriggling, delaying breakfast. The Leading Gentleman crawled to an advantageous position, and having bowed in prayer, sawed away industriously.

Moussa Isa wished to shriek to him that he was a fool and a bungler; that throats were not to be cut in that fashion, with hackings and sawing at the gullet. Knew the clumsy fumbler nothing of big blood-vessels?… but he could not speak.

"That is not the way," said the benevolent-looking old Arab. "Stab, man, stab under the ear—don't cut … not there, anyhow."

The Leading Gentleman tried the other side of the double-edged blade, continuing obstinately, and Moussa Isa contrived a strange sound which died away on a curious bubbling note and he grew faint.

Suddenly the one-eyed individual at the rudder screamed aloud, and disturbed the Leading Gentleman's earnest endeavour to prevent waste. Not from sensibility did the one-eyed scream, nor on account of his growing conviction that the Leading Gentleman was getting more than his share, but because, as all realized upon looking up, a great ship was bearing down upon them from the West.

So intent had all been upon the preparation of breakfast that the steamer was almost audible when seen.

Good! Here came water, rice, bread, sugar, flour, and perhaps meat, for poor castaways, and probably money—from kindly lady-passengers, this last, for the ship was obviously a liner. The wretched Moussa Isa's carcase was now superfluous—nay dangerous, and must be disposed of at once, for Europeans are most kittle cattle. They will exterminate your tribe with machine-guns, gin, small-pox, and still nastier things, but they are fearfully shocked at a bit of killing on the part of others. They call it murder. And though they will well-nigh depopulate a country themselves, they will wax highly indignant if any of the survivors do a little slaying, even if they kill but a miserable slave, like this Somali dog.

Heave him overboard.

No. Ships carry the "far-eye," the magic instrument that makes the distant near, that brings things from miles away to within a few yards. Doubtless telescopes were on them already. Keep in a close group round the body, smuggle it under the palm-mats and make believe to have been trying to kindle a fire in an old kerosine-oil tin…. Signals of distress appeared and Moussa Isa disappeared. The great steamer approached, slowed down, and came to a standstill beside the boat of the starving castaways. From her cliff-like side the passengers, crowding the rails of her many decks, looked down with interest upon a prehistoric craft in which lay a number of poor emaciated blacks and Arabs, clad for the most part in scanty cotton rags. These poor creatures feebly extended skinny hands and feebly raised quavering voices, as they begged for water and a little rice, only water and a little rice in the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate. Their tins, lotahs and goat-skins were filled, bags of rice, bread and flour were lowered to them; a box of sugar and a packet of biscuit were added; and a gentle little rain of coins fell as though from Heaven.

Kodaks clicked, clergymen beamed, ladies said, "How sweetly picturesque—poor dears"; the Captain murmured, "Damnedest scoundrels unhung—but can't leave 'em to starve"; the "poor dears" smiled largely and ate wolfishly; Moussa Isa bled, and the great steamer resumed her way.

"Pat" Brighte (she was Cleopatra Diamond Brighte who married Colonel Dearman of the Gungapur Volunteer Bines) found she had got a splendid snap-shot when her films were developed at Gungapur. A little later she got another when the look-out saw, and a boat picked up, a man who was lying in a little dug-out or toni. When able to speak, he told the serang[44] of the lascars that he was the sole survivor of a bunder-boat which had turned turtle and sunk. He understood nothing but Hindustani…. Miss Brighte pitied the poor wretch but thought he looked rather horrid….

[44] Native boatswain.

The hearts of the castaways were filled with contentment as their stomachs were filled with food, and so busily did they devote themselves to eating, drinking, and sleeping that they forgot all about Moussa Isa beneath the palm-mats.

When they chanced upon him he was just alive, and his wound was closed. The attitude in which he had been dumped down upon the cargo (the ostensible and upper strata thereof, consisting of hides and salt, with a hint of ostrich-feathers, coffee, frankincense and myrrh) had favoured his chance of recovery, for, thanks to a friendly bundle, his head was pressed forward to his chest and the lips of the gaping wound in his throat were shut.

Moussa Isa was tougher than an Indian chicken.

Near Aden his proprietors were captured by an officious and unsympathetic police (Moussa was sent to what he dreamed to be Heaven and later perceived to be a hospital) and while they went to jail, a number of bristly-haired Teutonic gentlemen at the Freidrichstrasse, Arab gentlemen at Muscat, and Afghan gentlemen at Cabul, were made to exercise the virtue of patience. So the would-be murderers of John Robin Ross-Ellison Ilderim Dost Mahommed unintentionally saved him from jail, but never received his acknowledgments….

Discharged from the hospital, Moussa became his own master, a gentleman at large, and, for a time, prospered in the coal-trade.

He steered a coal-lighter that journeyed between the shore and the ships.

One day he received a blow, a curse, and an insult, from the maccudam or foreman of the gang that worked in the boat which he steered. Neither blows nor curses were of any particular account to Moussa, but this man Sulemani, a nondescript creature of no particular race, and only a man in the sense that he was not a woman nor a quadruped, had called him "Hubshi" Woolly One. Had called Moussa Isa of the Somal a Hubshi, as though he had been a common black nigger. And, of course, it was intentional, for even this eater of dogs and swine and lizards knew the great noble, civilized and cultured Somal, Galla, Afar and Abyssinian people from niggers. Even an English hide-and-head-buying tripper and soi-disant big-game hunter knew a Zulu from a Hottentot, a Masai from a Wazarambo, and a Somali from a Nigger!

The only question was as to how the scoundrel should be killed, for he was large and strong, and never far from a shovel, crow-bar, boat-hook or some weapon. Not much hope of being able to fasten on his throat like a young leopard on a dibatag, kudu or impala buck.

As Moussa sat behind him at the tiller, he would regard the villain's neck with interest, his fat neck, just below and behind the big ear.

If he only had a knife—such as the beauty that once cut his throat—or even a scrap of iron or of really hard pointed wood, honour could be satisfied and a stain removed from the scutcheon of Moussa Isa of the Somal race, insulted.

One lucky night he got his next scar, the fine one that ornamented his cheek-bone, and a really serviceable weapon of offence against the offender Sulemani.

On this auspicious night, a festive English sailor flung a bottle at him, in merry sport, as he passed beneath the verandah of the temple of Venus and Bacchus in which the sailor sprawled. It struck him in the face, broke against his cheek-bone, and provided him with a new scar and a serviceable weapon, a dagger, convenient to handle and deadly to slay. The bottle-neck was a perfect hilt and the long tapering needle-pointed spire of glass projecting from it was a perfect blade—rightly used, of course. Only a fool would attempt a heart-stab with such a dagger, as it would shatter on the ribs, leaving the fool to pay for his folly. But the neck-stab—for the big blood-vessels—oho! And Moussa Isa licked his chops just as he had seen the black-maned lion do in his own fatherland; just as did the lion from whom the fair Sheikh had saved him.

Toward the sailor, Moussa felt no resentment for the assault that had laid him bleeding in the gutter. Had he called him "Hubshi" it would have been a different matter—perhaps very different for the sailor. Moussa Isa regarded curses, cruelties, blows, wounds, attempts at murder, as mere natural manifestations of the attitude of their originators, and part of the inevitable scheme of things. Insults to his personal and racial Pride were in another category altogether.

Yes—the bottle must have been thus usefully broken by the hand of the Supreme Deity himself, prompted by Moussa's own particular and private kismet, to provide Moussa with the means of doing his duty by himself and his race, in the matter of the dog who had likened a long-haired, ringletty-haired aquiline-nosed, thin-lipped son of the Somals to a Woolly One—a black beast of the jungle!

Our young friend had never heard of the historical glass-bladed daggers of the bravos of Venice, but he saw at a glance, as he rose to his feet and stared at the bottle, that he could do his business (and that of the foreman) with the fortunately—shaped fragment, and eke leave the point of the weapon in the wound for future complications if the blow failed of immediate fatal effect.

He bided his time….

One black night Moussa Isa sat on the stern of his barge holding to a rope beneath the high wall of the side of the P. & O. liner, Persia, in shadow and darkness undispelled by the flickering flare of a brazier of burning fuel, designed to illuminate the path of panting, sweating, coal-laden coolies up and down narrow bending planks, laid from the lighter to the gloomy hole in the ship's side.

The hot, still air was thick with coal-dust and the harmless necessary howls of the hundreds of sons of Ham, toiling at high pressure.

In the centre of a vast, silent circle of mysterious lamp-spangled sea and shore, and of star-spangled sky, this spot was Inferno, an offence to the brooding still immensity.

And suddenly Moussa Isa was dimly conscious of his enemy, of him who had insulted the great Somal race and Moussa Isa. On the broad edge of the big barge Sulemani stood, before, and a foot below him, in the darkness, yelling directions, threats, promises and encouragement to his gang. If only there had been a moon or light by which he could see to strike! Suddenly the edge of a beam of yellow light from a port-hole struck upon Sulemani's neck, illuminating it below and behind his ear. Mrs. "Pat" Dearman, homeward bound, had just entered her cabin and switched on the electric light. (When last she passed Aden she had been Miss Cleopatra Diamond Brighte, bound for Gungapur and the bungalow of her brother.)

It was Mrs. Pat Dearman's habit to read a portion of the Scriptures nightly, ere retiring to rest, for she was a Good Woman and considered the practice to be not only a mark of, but essential to, goodness.

Doubtless the Powers of Evil smiled sardonically when they noted that the light which she evoked for her pious exercise lit the hand of Moussa Isa to murder, providing opportunity. Moussa Isa weighed chances and considered. He did not want to bungle it and lose his revenge and his life too. Would he be seen if he struck now? The light fell on the very spot for the true infallible death-stroke. Should he strike now, here, in the midst of the yelling mob?

Rising silently, Moussa drew his dagger of glass from beneath his only garment, aimed at the patch of light upon the fat neck, and struck. Sulemani lurched, collapsed, and fell between the lighter and the ship without an audible sound in that dim pandemonium.

Even as the "dagger" touched flesh, the light was quenched, Mrs. Pat Dearman having realized that the stuffy, hot cabin was positively uninhabitable until the port-hole could be opened, after coaling operations were completed.

Moussa Isa reseated himself, grabbed the rope again, and with clear conscience, duty done, calmly awaited that which might follow.

Nothing followed. None had seen the deed, consummated in unrelieved gloom; the light had failed most timely….

The next person who mortally affronted Moussa Isa, committing the unpardonable sin, was a grievously fat, foolish Indian Mohammedan youth whose father supported four wives, five sons, six daughters and himself in idleness and an Aden shop.

It was a remarkably idle and unobtrusive shop and yet money flowed into it without stint, mysteriously and unostentatiously, the conduits of its flow being certain modest and retiring Arab visitors in long brown or white haiks, with check cotton head-dresses girt with ropes of camel-hair, who collogued with the honest tradesman and departed as silently and unobtrusively as they came….

One of them, strangely enough, ejaculated "Himmel" and "Donnerwetter" as often as "Bismillah" and "Inshallah" when he swore.

The very fat son of this secretive house in an evil hour one inauspicious evening took it upon him to revile and abuse his father's servant, one Moussa Isa, an African boy, as he performed divers domestic duties in the exiguous "compound" of the dwelling-place and refused to do the fat youth's behest ere completing them.

"Haste thee at once to the bazaar, thou dog," screamed the fat youth.

"Later on," replied Moussa Isa, using the words that express the general attitude of the East.

"Now, dog. Now, Hubshi, or I will beat thee."

"I will kill you," replied Moussa Isa, and again bided his time.

"Hubshi, Hubshi, Hubshi," goaded the misguided fat one.

His Kismet led the youth, some weeks later, to lay him down and sleep in the shade of the house upon some broad flagstones. Here Moussa found him and regretted the loss of his glass-dagger,—last seen in the neck of a foreman of coal-coolies toppling into the dark void between a barge and a ship,—but remembered a big heavy stone used to facilitate the scaling of the compound wall.

Staggering with it to the spot where the fat youth lay slumbering peacefully, Moussa Isa, in the sight of all men (who happened to be looking), dashed it upon his fez-adorned head, and established the hitherto disputable fact that the fat youth had brains.

To the Magistrate, Moussa Isa offered neither excuse nor prayer.
Explanation he vouchsafed in the words:—

"He called me, Moussa Isa of the Somali, a Hubshi!"

Being of tender years and of insignificant stature he was condemned to flogging and seven years in a Reformatory School. He was too juvenile for the Aden Jail. The Reformatory School nearest to Aden is at Duri in India, and thither, in spite of earnest prayers that he might go to hard labour in Aden Jail like a man and a Somali, was Moussa Isa duly transported and therein incarcerated.

At the Duri Reformatory School, Moussa Isa was profoundly miserable, most unhappy, and deeply depressed by a sense of the very cruellest injustice.

For here they simply did not know the difference between a Somal and a woolly-haired dog of a negro. They honestly did not know that there was a difference. To them, a clicking Bushman was as a Nubian, an earth-eating Kattia as a Kabyle, a face-cicatrized, tooth-sharpened cannibal of the Aruwimi as a Danakil,—a Hubshi as a Somal. They simply did not know. To them all Africans were Hubshis (just as to an English M.P. all the three or four hundred millions of Indians are Bengali babus). They meant no insult; they knew no better. All Africans were black niggers and every soul in the place, from Brahmin to Untouchable, looked down upon the African, the Black Man, the Nigger, the Cannibal, the Hubshi, sent from Africa to defile their Reformatory and destroy their caste.

Here, the proud self-respecting Moussa, jealous champion of the honour of his, to him, high and noble race, found himself a god-send to the Out-castes, the Untouchables, the Depressed Classes, Mangs, Mahars, and Sudras,—they whose touch, nay the touch of whose very shadow, is defilement! For, at last, they, too, had some one to look down upon, to despise, to insult. After being the recipients-of-contempt as naturally and ordainedly as they were breathers-of-air, they at last could apply a salve, and pass on to another the utter contempt and loathing which they themselves received and accepted from the Brahmins and all those of Caste. They had found one lower than themselves. Moussa Isa of the Somali was the out-cast of out-casts, the pariah of pariahs, prohibited from touching the untouchables, one of a class depressed below the depressed classes—in short a Hubshi!

Even a broad-nosed, foreheadless, blubber—lipped aborigine from the hill-jungles objected to his presence!

In the small, self-contained, self-supporting world of the Reformatory, it was Moussa Isa against the World. And against the World he stood up.

It had to learn the difference between a Somali and a Hubshi at any cost—the cost of Moussa's life included.

What added to the sorrow of the situation was the realization of how charming and desirable a retreat the place was in itself,—apart from its ignorant and stupid inhabitants.

Expecting a kind of torture-house wherein he would be starved, sweated, thrashed by brutal kourbash-wielding overseers, he found the most palatial and comfortable of clubs, a place of perfect peace, safety, and ease, where one was kindly treated by those in authority, sumptuously fed, luxuriously lodged, and provided with pleasant occupation, attractive amusements and reasonable leisure.

He had always heard and believed that the English were mad, and now he knew it.

As a punishment for murder he had got a birching that merely tickled him, and a free ticket to seven years' board, lodging, clothing, lighting, medical care, instruction and diversion!

Wow!

Were it not for the presence of the insolent, ignorant, untravelled, inexperienced, soft-living, lily-livered dogs of inhabitants, the place was the Earthly Paradise. They were the crocodile in the ointment.

A young Brahmin, son of a well-paid Government servant, and incarcerated for forgery and theft, was his most annoying persecutor. He was at great pains to expectorate and murmur "Hubshi" in accents of abhorrent contempt, whenever Moussa Isa chanced between the wind and his nobility.

The first time, Moussa replied with pitying magnanimity and all reasonableness:—

"I am not a Hubshi, but a Somali, which is quite different—even as a lion is different from a jackal or a man from an ape".

To which the Brahmin replied but:—

"Hubshi," and pointed out that there was danger of Moussa Isa's shadow touching him, if Moussa were not careful.

"I must kill you if you call me Hubshi, understanding that I am of the
Somals," said Moussa Isa.

"Hubshi," would the Brahmin reply and loudly bewail his evil Luck which had put him in the power of the accursed Feringhi Government—a Government that compelled a Brahmin to breathe the same air as a filthy negro dog, a Woolly One of Africa, barely human and most untouchable, a living Contamination … and Moussa cast about for a weapon.

His first opportunity arose when he found the Brahmin, who was in the book-binding and compositor department, working one day in the same gardening-gang with himself.

He had but a watering-can by way of offensive weapon, but good play can be made with a big iron watering-can wielded in the right spirit and the right hand.

Master Brahmin was feebly tapping the earth with a kind of single-headed pick, and watching him, Moussa Isa saw that, in a quarter of an hour or so, he might plausibly and legitimately pass within a yard or two of this his enemy, as he went to and fro between the water-tap and the strip of flower-border that he was sprinkling…. Would they hang him if he killed the Brahmin, or would they feebly flog him again and give him a longer sentence (that he be supported, fed, lodged, clothed and cared for) than the present seven years?

There was no foretelling what the mad English would do. Sometimes they acquitted a criminal and gave him money and education, and sometimes they sent him to far distant islands in the South and there housed and fed him free, for life; and sometimes they killed him at the end of a rope.

Doubtless Allah smote the English mad to prevent them from stealing the whole world…. If they were not mad they would do so and enslave all other races—except their conquerors, the Dervishes, of course…. It was like the lying hypocrites to call the Great Mullah "the Mad Mullah" knowing themselves to be mad, and being afraid of their victorious enemy who had driven them out of Somaliland to the coast forts….

Oh, if they would only treat him, Moussa Isa, as an adult, and send him to the Aden Jail to hard labour. There folk knew a Somali from a Hubshi; a gentleman of Afar and Galla stock, of Arab blood, Moslem tenets, and Caucasian descent, from a common nigger, a low black Ethiopian, an eater of men and insects, a worshipper of idols and ju-ju.

In Aden, men knew a Somali from a Hubshi as surely as they knew an
Emir from a mere Englishman.

Here, in benighted, ignorant, savage India, the Dark Continent indeed, men knew not what a Somali was, likened him to a Negro, ranked him lower than a Hindu even—called him a Hubshi in insolent ignorance. If only the beautiful Reformatory were in Berbera, and tenanted by Africans.

Better Aden Jail a thousand times than Duri Reformatory.

What a splendid joke if the dog of a Brahmin who persistently insulted him—even after he had been shown his error and ignorance—should be the unwitting means of his return to Aden—where a Somali gentleman is recognized. There is no harm about a Jail as such. Far from it. A jail is a wise man's paradise provided by fools. You have excellent and plentiful food, a roof against the sun, unfailing water supply, clothing, interesting occupation, and safety—protection from your enemies. No man harries you, you are not chained, you are not tortured; you have all that heart can desire. Freedom?… What is Freedom? Freedom to die of thirst in the desert? Freedom to be disembowelled by the Great Mullah? Freedom to be sold as a slave into Arabia or Persia? Freedom to be the unfed, unpaid, well-beaten property of gun-runners in the Gulf, or of Arab safari ruffians and "black-ivory" men? Freedom to be left to the hyaena when you broke down on the march? Freedom to die of starvation when you fell sick and could not carry coal? Thanks.

If the mad English provided beautiful refuges, and made the commission of certain crimes the requisite qualification for admission, let wise men qualify.

Take this Reformatory—where else could a little Somali boy get such safety, peace, food, and sumptuous luxury; everything the heart could desire, in return for doing a little gardening? Even a house to himself as though he were the honoured, favourite son of some chief.

To Moussa Isa, the dark and dingy cell with its bare stone walls, mud floor, grated aperture and iron door was a fine safe house; its iron bed-frame with cotton-rug-covered laths and stony pillow, a piece of wanton luxury; its shelf, stool and utensils, prideful wealth. If only the place were in Africa or Aden! Well, Aden Jail would do, and if the Brahmin's death led to his being sent there as a serious and respectable murderer, it would be a real case of two enemies on one spear—an insult avenged and a most desired re-patriation achieved.

That would be subtilty,—at once washing out the insult in the Brahmin's blood and getting sent whither his heart turned so constantly and fondly. They had treated him as a juvenile offender because he was so small and young, and because the killing of the fat Mussulman was his first offence, as they supposed. Surely they would recognize that he was a man when he had killed his second enemy—especially if he told them about Sulemani. What in the name of Allah did they want, to constitute a real sound criminal, fit for Aden Jail, if three murders were not enough? Well, he would go on killing until they did have enough, and were obliged to send him to Aden Jail. There he would behave beautifully and kill nobody until they wanted to turn him out to starve. Then, since murder was the requisite qualification, he would murder to admiration. He knew they could not send him over the way to the Duri Jail, since he belonged to Aden, had been convicted there, and only sent to the Duri Reformatory because Aden boasted no such institution….

Yes. The Brahmin's corpse should be the stepping-stone to higher things and the place where people knew a Somali from a Negro.

If only he were in the carpentry department with Master Brahmin, where there were axes, hammers, chisels, knives, saws, and various pointed instruments. Fancy teaching the young gentleman manners and ethnology with an axe! However, after one or two more journeys between the tap and the flower-bed, he would pass within striking-distance of the dog as he worked his slow way along the tract of earth he was supposed to be digging up with the silly short-handled pick.

Should he try and seize the pick and give him one on the temple with it?
No, the Brahmin would scream and struggle and the overseer would be on
Moussa Isa in a single bound. He must strike a sudden blow in the act of
passing.

A few more journeys to the water-tap….

Now! "Hubshi," eh?

Halting beside the crouching Brahmin youth, Moussa Isa swung up the heavy watering-can by the spout and aimed a blow with all his strength at the side of his enemy's head. He designed to bring the sharp strong rim of the base behind the ear with the first blow, on the temple with the second, and just anywhere thereafter, if time permitted of a thereafter.

But the aggravating creature tossed his head as Moussa, with a grunt of energy, brought the vessel down, and the rim merely struck the top of the shaven skull. Another—harder. Another—with frenzied strength and the force of long-suppressed rage and sense of wrong.

And then Moussa was knocked head over heels and sat upon by the overseer in charge of the garden-gang, while the Brahmin twitched convulsively on the ground. He was by no means dead, however, and the sole immediate results, to Moussa, were penal diet, solitary confinement in his palatial cell, a severe sentence of corn-grinding with the heavy quern, and most joyous recollections of the sound of the water-can on the pate of the foe.

"I have still to kill you, of course," he whispered to his victim, the next time they met, and the Brahmin went in terror of his life. He was a very clever young person and had passed an astounding number of examinations in the course of his brief career. But he was not courageous, and his "education" had given him skill in nothing practical, except in penmanship, which skill he had devoted to forgery.

"Why did you violently commit this dastardish deed, and assault the harmless peaceful Brahmin?" asked the Superintendent, a worthy and voluble babu, and then translated the question into debased Hindustani.

"He called me Hubshi, and I will kill him," replied Moussa.

"Oho! and you kill everyone who calls you Hubshi, do you, Master
African?"

"I do. I wish to go to Aden Jail for attempting murder. It will be murder if I am kept here where none knows a man from a dog."

"Oho! And you would kill even me, I suppose, if I called you Hubshi."

"Of course! I will kill you in any case if I am not sent to Aden Jail."

The babu decided that it was high time for some other institution to shelter this touchy and truculent person, and that he would lay the case before the next weekly Visitor and ask for it to be submitted to the Committee at their ensuing monthly meeting.

The Visitor of the week happened to be the Educational Inspector. "Wants to leave India, does he?" said the Inspector, looking Moussa over as he heard the statement of the Superintendent. "I admire his taste. India is a magnificent country to leave."

The Educational Inspector, a very keen, thoughtful and competent educationist, was a disappointed man, like so many of his Service. He felt that he had, for quarter of a century, strenuously woven ropes of sand. When his liver was particularly sluggish he felt that for quarter of a century he had worked industriously, not at a useless thing, but at an evil thing—a terrible belief.

Moreover, after quarter of a century of faithful labour and strict economy, he found himself with a load of debt, broken health, and a cheaply educated family of boys and girls to whom he was a complete stranger—merely the man who found the money and sent it Home, visiting them from time to time at intervals of four or five years. India had killed his wife, and broken him.

He had had what seemed to him to be bitter experience also. An individual, notoriously slack and incompetent, ten years his junior, had been promoted over his head, because he was somebody's cousin and the kind of fatuous ass that only labours industriously in drawing-rooms and at functions, recuperating by slacking idly in offices and at duties—a paltry but paying game much practised by a very small class in India.

Another individual, by reason of his having come to India two boats earlier than the Inspector, drew Rs. 500 a month more than he did, this being the Senior Inspector's Allowance. That he was reported on as lazy, eccentric, and irregular, made no difference to the fact that he was a fortnight senior to, and therefore worth Rs. 500 a month more than, the next man. The recipient regarded the extra trifle (£400 a year) as his bare right and merest due. The Inspector regarded it as an infamous piece of injustice and folly that for fifteen years the whole of this sum should go to a lazy fool because he happened to set sail from England on a certain date, and not a fortnight later. So he loathed and detested India where he had had bad luck, bad health and what he considered bad treatment, and sympathized with the desire of Moussa Isa.

"Why do you want to go back to Aden?" he inquired in the lingua franca of the Indian Empire, of Moussa whose heart beat high with hope.

"Because here, where there are no lions, wolves think a lion is a dog; here where there are no men, asses think a man is a monkey. I am a Somal, and these ignorant camels think I am a negro—a filthy Hubshi."

"And you tried to kill another boy because he called you 'Hubshi,' eh?"

"I did, Sahib, and I will kill him yet if I be not sent to Aden. If that fail I will kill myself also."

"Stout fella," commented the Inspector in his own vernacular, and added, musing aloud:—

"You'll come to the gallows through possessing pride, self-respect and determination, my lad. You're behind the times—or rather you maintain a spirit for which Civilization has no use. You must return to the Wilds of the Earth or else you must be content to become good, grubby, and grey, dull and dejected, sober and sorrowful, respectable and unenterprising—like me; and you must cultivate fat, propriety, smugness and the Dead Level…. What, you young Devil! You'd have self-respect and pride, would you; be quick upon the point of honour, eh? revive the duello, what? Get thee to a—er—less civilized and respectable age or place … in other words, Mr. Toshiwalla, bring the case before the Committee of Visitors. I'll put up a note to the effect that he had better be sent back to Aden. This is a Reformatory, and there's nothing very reformatory about keeping him to plan murder and suicide because he has been (quite unjustifiably) transported as well as flogged and imprisoned. Yes, we'll consider the case. Meanwhile, keep a sharp eye on him—and give him all the corn-grinding he can do. Sweat the Original Sin out of him … and see he does not secrete any kind of weapon."

Accordingly was Moussa segregated, and to the base women's-work of corn-grinding in the cook-house, wholly relegated. It was hard, soul-breaking work, ignoble and degrading, but he drew two crumbs of comfort from the bread of affliction. He was developing his arm-muscles and he was literally watering the said bread of affliction with the sweat of labour. As the heavy drops trickled from chin and nose into the meal around the grindstone, it pleased Moussa Isa to reflect that his enemy should eat of it. Since the shadow of Moussa was pollution to these travesties of men and warriors, let them have a little concrete pollution also. But in the cook-house, while arm and soul wearied together, one heavy day of copper sky and brazen earth, first eye and then foot, fell upon a piece of tin, the lid of some empty milk-tin or like vessel. The prehensile toes gathered in the trove, the foot gently rose and the fingers of the pendant left hand secured the disc, while the body swayed with the strenuous circlings of the right hand chat revolved the heavy upper millstone.

That night, immediately after being locked in his cell, that there might be the fullest time for bleeding to death, he slashed and slashed while strength lasted at wrist and abdomen—but without succeeding in penetrating the abdominal wall and reaching the viscera.

This effected his transfer to the Reformatory hospital and underlined the remark of the Inspector in the Visitors' Book to the effect that one Moussa Isa would commit suicide or murder, if kept at Duri, and would certainly not be "reformed" in any way. In hospital, Major Jackson of the Royal Army Medical Corps, a Visitor of the Duri Jail, paying his periodical visits, grew interested in the sturdy bright boy and soon came to like him for his directness, cheery courage, and refreshing views. When the boy was convalescent he took him on the surrounding Duri golf-links as his caddie in his endless games with his poor friend Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith, ex-gentleman.

Moussa was grateful and, fingering the scar on his throat, likened Major Jackson to his hero, the fair Sheikh who had saved him from the lion and had lost his life through intervening on Moussa's behalf in the boat. But he was not mad like these English. He would not, with infinite earnestness, seriousness and mingled joy at success and grief at failure, have pursued a little white ball with a stick, mile after mile, knocking it with infinite precautions, every now and then, into a little hole, and taking it out again.

No, his idea of sport across country with an iron-shod stick would rather have been lion-hunting with an assegai (yet, curiously enough, one, Robin Ross-Ellison, lived to play more than one game of golf with Major Jackson on these same Duri Links). To see this adult white man behaving so, coram publico, made Moussa bitterly ashamed for him.

And, as the sun set, Moussa Isa earned a sharp rebuke for inattentive slacking, as he stood sighing his soul to where it sank in the West over Aden and Somaliland…. Wait till his chance of escape arrived; he would journey straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore. There he would steal a canoe and paddle and paddle straight for the sunset, day after day, until he reached a sea-shore again. That would be Africa or Arabia, and Moussa Isa would be where a Somal is known from a Hubshi…. Should he make a bolt for it now? No, too weak, and not fair to this kind Sahib who had healed him and sympathized with him in the matter of the ignorance and impudence of those who misnamed a son of the Somals…. In due course, the Committee of Visitors met at the Reformatory one morning, and found on the agenda paper inter alia the case of Moussa Isa, a murderer from Aden, his attempt at murder and suicide, and his prayer to be sent to Aden Jail.

On the Committee were the Director of Public Instruction, the Collector, the Executive Engineer, the Superintendent of Duri Jail, the Educational Inspector, the Cantonment Magistrate, Major Jackson of the Royal Army Medical Corps, and a number of Indian gentlemen. To the Chairman's inquiries Moussa Isa made the usual replies. He had been mortally affronted and had endeavoured to avenge the insult. He had tried to do his duty to himself—and to his enemy. He had been put to base women's-work as a punishment for defending his honour and he had tried to take his life in despair. Was there no justice in British lands? What would the Sahib himself do if his honour were assailed? If one rose up and insulted him and his race? Called him baboon, born of baboons, for example? Or had the Sahib no honour? Why should he have been transported when he was not sentenced to transportation? What had he done but defend his honour and avenge insults? Unless he were now tried for murder and suicide, and sentenced to hard labour in Aden Jail, he would go on murdering until they did send him there. If they said, "Well, you shan't go there, whatever you do," he would kill himself. If he could get no sort of weapon he would starve himself (he did not in his ignorance quote the gentle and joyous Pankhurst family) or hold his breath. So they had better send him, and that was all he had got to say about it.

"Send him for trial before the City Magistrate and recommend that he go to Aden Jail at once, before he hurts somebody else," said the native members of the Committee. "Why should we be troubled with the off-scourings of Aden?"

"Certainly not," opined the Collector of Duri. A pretty state of affairs if every criminal were to be allowed to select his own place of punishment, and to terrorize any penitentiary that had the misfortune to lack favour in his sight. Let the boy be well flogged for the assault and attempted suicide, and then let him rejoin the ordinary gangs and classes. It was the Superintendent's duty to watch his charges and keep discipline in what was, after all, a school.

"Sir, he is one violent and dangerous character and will assault the peaceful and mild. Yea—he may even attack me," objected the babu.

"Are we to understand that you admit your inability to maintain order in this Reformatory?" inquired the Director of Public Instruction from the Chair.

Anything but that. They were to understand, on the contrary, that the babu was respectfully a most unprecedented disciplinarian.

"You don't expect cock angels in a Reformatory, y' know," said the engineer, suddenly awaking to light a fat black cheroot. "Got to use the—ah—strong hand;—on their—ah—you know," and he resumed his slumbers, puffing mechanically and unconsciously at his cheroot.

So Moussa Isa was flogged and sent back to gardening, lessons and drawing.

Yes—the Somali was taught drawing. Not mere utilitarian drawing-to-scale and making plans and elevations, but "freehand"-drawing, the reproducing of meaningless twirly curves and twiddly twists from symmetrical conventional "copies". He copied copies and drew lines—but never copied things, nor drew things. In time he could, with infinite labour, produce a copy of a flat "copy" that a really observant eye could identify with the original, but had you asked him to draw his foot or the door of the room, his desk, his watering-can or book, he would probably have replied, "They are not drawing-copies," and would have laughed at your absurd joke. No, he was not taught to draw things, nor to give expression to impression.

And he had a special warder all to himself, who watched him as a cat watches a mouse. However, warders cannot prevent looks and smiles, and whenever Moussa Isa saw the Brahmin youth, he gave a peculiar look and a meaning smile. It was borne in upon the clever young man that the Hubshi looked at his neck, below his ear, when he smiled that dreadful smile.

Sometimes a significant gesture accompanied the meaning smile. For Moussa Isa had decided, upon the rejection of his prayer by the Committee, to wait until he was a little older and bigger, more like a proper criminal and less of a wretched little "juvenile offender," and then to qualify, by murder, for the Aden Jail—with the unoffered help of the Brahmin boy.

Allah would vouchsafe opportunity, and when he did so, Moussa Isa, his servant, would seize it. Doubtless it would come as soon as he was big enough to receive the privileges of an adult and serious criminal. Anyhow, the insult would be properly punished and the honour of the Somal race avenged….

Came the day when certain of the sinful inhabitants of the Duri
Reformatory were to be conducted to a neighbouring Government High
School, a centre for the official Drawing Examinations for the district,
there to sit and be examined in the gentle art of Art.

To this end they had been trained in the copying of lines and in the painting of areas of conventional shape, not that they might be made to observe natural form, express themselves in reproduction, render the inner outer, originate, articulate … but that they might pass an examination in copying unnatural things in impossible colours. Thus it came to pass that, in the big hall of this school, divers of the Reformed found themselves copying, and colouring the copy of, a curious picture pinned to a blackboard—the picture of a floral wonder unknown to Botany, possessed of delicate mauve leaves, blue-veined, shaped some like the oak-leaf and some like the ivy; of long slender blades like those of the iris, but of tenderest pink; of beautiful and profusely chromatic blossoms, reminding one now of the orchid, now of the sunflower and anon of the forget-me-not; and likewise of clustering fulgent fruit.

And at the back of all these budding artists and blossoming jail-birds, and in the same small desk sat the Brahmin youth and—Oh Merciful Allah!—Moussa Isa, Somali.

The native gentleman in charge of the party from the Duri Reformatory had duly escorted his charges into the hall, handed them over to Mr. Edward Jones, the Head of the High School, and been requested to wait outside with similar custodians of parties. (Mr. Edward Jones had known very strange things to happen in Examination Halls to which the friends and supporters of candidates had access during the examination.)

To Mr. Edward Jones the thus deserted Brahmin boy made frantic and piteous appeal.

"Oh, Sir," prayed he, "let me sit somewhere else and not beside this
African."

"You'll stay where you are," replied Mr. Edward Jones, suspicious of the appeal and the appellant. If the fat glib youth objected to the African on principle, Mr. Edward Jones would be glad, metaphorically speaking, to rub his Brahminical nose in it. If this were not his reason, it was, doubtless, one even less creditable. Mr. Edward Jones had been in India long enough to learn to look very carefully for the motive.

Moussa Isa licked his chops once again, and, as Mr. Jones turned away, the unhappy Brahmin cried in his anguish of soul:—

"Oh, Sir! Watch this African carefully."

"All will be watched carefully," was the suspicious and cold reply.

Moussa smiled broadly upon his erstwhile contemptuous and insulting enemy, and began to consider the possibilities of a long and well-pointed lead-pencil as a means of vengeance. Pencils were intended for marking fair surfaces—might one not be used on this occasion for the cleaning of a sullied surface, that of a besmirched honour?

One insulter of the Somal race had died by the stab of a piece of broken bottle. Might not another die by the stab of a lead-pencil?

Doubtful. Very risky. The stabbing and piercing potentialities of a lead pencil are not yet properly investigated, tabulated, established and known. It would be a pity to do small damage and incur a heavy corn-grinding punishment. He might never get another chance of vengeance either, if he bungled this one.

Well, there were three hours in which to decide … and Moussa Isa commenced to draw, pausing, from time to time, to smile meaningly at the Brahmin, and to lick his chops suggestively. Anon he rested from his highly uninteresting and valueless labours, laid his pencil on the desk, and gazed around in search of inspiration in the matter of the best method of dealing with his enemy.

His eye fell upon a picture of a lion that ornamented the wall of the hall; he stiffened like a pointer and fingered some scars on his right arm. He had never seen a picture of a lion before and, for a fraction of a second, he was shocked and alarmed—and then, while his body sat in an Indian High School hall, his spirit flew to an East African desert, and there sojourned awhile.

Moussa Isa was again the slave of an ivory-poaching, hide-poaching, specimen-poaching, slave-dealing gang of Arabs, Negroes, and Portuguese half-castes, led by a white man of the Teutonic persuasion. He could feel the smiting heat, see the scrub, jungle, and sand shimmering and dancing in the heat haze. He could see the line of porters, bales on heads, the Arabs on horseback, the white man in a litter swinging from a long bamboo pole beneath which half a dozen Swahili loped along. He could see the velvet star-gemmed night and the camp-fires, smell the smoke and the savoury odours of the cooking, hear the sudden shrieks and yells that followed the roar of the springing lion, feel the crushing crunch of its great teeth in his arm as it seized him from beside the nearest fire and stood over him…. Yes, that was the night when the fair Sheikh from the North had showed the mettle of his pastures and bound Moussa Isa to him for ever in the bonds of worshipping gratitude and love. For, while others shrieked, yelled, fled, flung burning brands and spears, or fired hasty, unaimed, ineffectual shots, the fair Sheikh from the North had sprung at the lion as it stood over Moussa Isa and driven his knife into its eye, and as it smote him to the earth, buried its fangs in his shoulder and started to drag him away, had stabbed upward between the ribs, giving it a second death-blow, transfixing its heart. Thus it was he had earned the name by which he was known from Zanzibar to Berbera, "He-who-slays-lions-with-the-knife," had earned the envy and hatred of the fat white man and the Arabs, the boundless admiration of the Swahili askaris, hunters and porters, and the deep dog-like affection of Moussa Isa….

And then Moussa's spirit returned to his body and he saw but the picture of a lion on a High School wall. He commenced to draw again and suddenly had an inspiration. Deliberately he broke the point of his pencil and, rising, marched up to the dais, whereon, at a table, sat Mr. Edward Jones.

Mr. Edward Jones had been shot with bewildering suddenness from Cambridge quadrangles into the Indian Educational Service. Of India he knew nothing, of education he knew less, but boldly took it upon him to combine the two unknowns for the earning of his living. If wise and beneficent men offered him a modest wage for becoming a professor and exponent of that which he did not know, he had no objection to accepting it; but there were people who wondered why it should be that, out of forty million English people, Mr. Edward Jones should be the chosen one to represent England to the youth of Duri, and asked whether there were no keen, strictly conscientious, sporting, strong Englishmen available; no enthusiastic educational experts left in all the British Isles, that Mr. Edward Jones of all people had come to Duri?

"What do you want?" he asked (how he hated these poverty-stricken, smelly, ignoble creatures. Why was he not a master at Eton, instead of at Duri High School. Why wouldn't somebody give him a handsome income for looking handsome and standing around beautifully—like these aide-de-camp Johnnies and "staff" people. Since there was nothing on earth he could do well, he ought to have been provided with a job in which he could look well).

"May I borrow the Sahib's knife?" asked Moussa Isa, "I have broken my pencil and cannot draw." Mr. Edward Jones picked up the penknife that lay on his desk, the cheap article of restricted utility supplied to Government Offices by the Stationery Department, and handed it to Moussa Isa. Even as he took it with respectful salaam, Moussa Isa summed up its possibilities. Blade two inches long, sharp-pointed, handle six inches long, wooden; not a clasp knife, blade immovable in handle. It would do—and he turned to go to his seat and presumably to sharpen his pencil.

Idly watching the boy and thinking of other things, Jones saw him try the point of the knife on his thumb, walk up behind the other occupant of his desk, his Brahmin neighbour, seize that neighbour by the hair, push his head sharp over on to the shoulder, and plunge the knife into his neck; seat himself, and commence to draw with the unfortunate Brahmin's pencil.

Jones sprang to his feet and rushed to the spot, to find that he had not been dreaming. No—on the back seat drooped a boy bleeding like a stuck pig and another industriously drawing, his face illuminated by a smile of contentment.

Jones pressed his thumbs into the neck of the sufferer, as he called to an assistant-supervisor to run to the hospital for Dr. Almeida, hoping to be able to close the severed jugular from which welled an appalling stream of blood.

"It is quite useless, Sahib," observed Moussa, "nor can a doctor help. When one has got it there, he may give his spear to his son and turn his face to the wall. That dog will never say 'Hubshi' to a Somal again."

"Catch hold of that boy," said Mr. Edward Jones to another assistant-supervisor who clucked around like a perturbed hen.

"Fear not, Sahib, I shall not escape. I go to Aden Jail," said Moussa cheerfully—but he pondered the advisability of attempting escape from the Reformatory should he be sentenced to be hanged. It had always seemed an impossibility, but it would be better to attempt the impossible than to await the rope. But doubtless they would say he was too small and light to hang satisfactorily, and would send him to Aden. Thanks, Master Brahmin, realize as you die that you have greatly obliged your slayer….

* * * * *

"Now you will most certainly be hanged to death by rope and I shall be rid of troublesome fellow," said the Superintendent to Moussa Isa when that murderous villain was temporarily handed over to him by the police-sepoy to whom he had been committed by Mr. Jones.

"I have avenged my people and myself," replied Moussa Isa, "even as I said, I go to Aden Jail—where there are men, and where a Somal is known from a Hubshi"

"You go to hang—across the road there at Duri Gaol," replied the babu, and earnestly hoped to find himself a true prophet. But though the wish was father to the thought, the expression thereof was but the wicked uncle, for it led to the undoing of the wish. So convinced and convincing did the babu appear to Moussa Isa, that the latter decided to try his luck in the matter of unauthorized departure from the Reformatory precincts. If they were going to hang him (for defending and purging his private and racial honour), and not send him to Aden after all, he might as well endeavour to go there at his own expense and independently. If he were caught they could not do more than hang him; if he were not caught he would get out of this dark ignorant land, if he had to walk for a year….

When he came to devote his mind to the matter of escape, Moussa Isa found it surprisingly easy. A sudden dash from his cell as the door was incautiously opened that evening, a bound and scramble into a tree, a leap to an out-house roof, another scramble, and a drop which would settle the matter. If something broke he was done, if nothing broke he was within a few yards of six-foot-high crops which extended to the confines of the jungle, wherein were neither police, telegraph offices, railways, roads, nor other apparatus of the enemy. Nothing broke—Duri Reformatory saw Moussa Isa no more. For a week he travelled only by night, and thereafter boldly by day, getting lifts in bylegharies,[45] doing odd jobs, living as the crows and jackals live when jobs were unavailable, receiving many a kindness from other wayfarers, especially those of the poorer sort, but always faring onward to the West, ever onward to the setting sun, always to the sea and Africa, until the wonderful and blessed day when he believed for a moment that he was mad and that his eyes and brain were playing him tricks…. After months and months of weary travel, always toward the setting sun, he had arrived one terrible evening of June at a wide river and a marvellous bridge—a great bridge hung by mighty chains upon mightier posts which stood up on either distant bank. It was a pukka road, a Grand Trunk Road suspended in the air across a river well-nigh great as Father Nile himself.

[45] Bullock carts.

On the banks of this river stood an ancient walled city of tall houses separated by narrow streets, a city of smells and filth, wherein there were no Sahibs, few Hindus and many Mussulmans. In a mud-floored miserable mussafarkhana,[46] without its gates, Moussa Isa slept, naked, hungry and very sad—for he somehow seemed to have missed the sea. Surely if one kept on due westward always to the setting sun, one reached the sea in time? The time was growing long, however, and he was among a strange people, few of whom understood the Hindustani he had learnt at Duri. Luckily they were largely Mussulmans. Should he abandon the setting sun and take to the river, following it until it reached the sea? He could take ship then for Africa by creeping aboard in the darkness, and hiding himself until the ship had started…. There might be no city at the mouth of the river when he got there. It might never reach the sea. It might just vanish into some desert like the Webi-Shebeyli in Somaliland. No, he would keep on toward the West, crossing the great bridge in the morning. He did so, and turned aside to admire the railway-station of the Cantonment on the other side of the river, to get a drink, and to see a train come in, if happily such might occur.

[46] Poor travellers' rest-house.

Ere he had finished rinsing his mouth and bathing his feet at the public water-standard on the platform, the whistle of a distant train charmed his ears and he sat him down, delighted, to enjoy the sights and sounds, the stir and bustle, of its arrival and departure. And so it came about that certain passengers by this North West Frontier train were not a little intrigued to notice a small and very black boy suddenly arise from beside the drinking-fountain and, with a strange hoarse scream, fling himself at the feet of a young Englishman (who in Norfolk jacket and white flannel trousers strolled up and down outside the first-class carriage in which he was travelling to Kot Ghazi from Karachi), and with every sign of the wildest excitement and joy embrace and kiss his boots….

Moussa Isa was convinced that he had gone mad and that his eyes and brain were playing him tricks.

Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison (also Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz
Ullah Khan when in other dress and other places) was likewise more than
a little surprised—and certainly a little moved, at the sight of Moussa
Isa and his wild demonstrations of uncontrollable joy.

"Well, I'm damned!" said he in the rôle of Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison. "Rum little devil. Fancy your turning up here." And in the rôle of Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan added in debased Arabic: "Take this money, little dog, and buy thee a tikkut to Kot Ghazi. Get into this train, and at Kot Ghazi follow me to a house."

To the house Moussa Isa followed him and to the end of his life likewise, visiting en route Mekran Kot, among other places, and encountering one, Ilderim the Weeper, among other people (as was told to Major Michael Malet-Marsac by Ross-Ellison's half-brother, the Subedar-Major.)

CHAPTER III.

THE WOMAN.

(And Augustus Grabble; General Murger; Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith; Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green; Mr. Horace Faggit; as well as a reformed JOHN ROBIN ROSS-ELLISON.)

§ 1. MR. GROBBLE.

There was something very maidenly about the appearance of Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble. One could not imagine him doing anything unfashionable, perspiry, rough or rude; nor could one possibly imagine him doing anything ruthless, fine, terrible, strong or difficult.

One expected his hose to be of the same tint as his shirt and handkerchief, his dress-trousers to be braided, his tie to be delicate and beautiful, his dainty shoes to be laced with black silk ribbon,—but one would never expect him to go tiger-shooting, to ride a gay and giddy young horse, to box, or to do his own cooking and washing in the desert or jungle.

Augustus had been at College during that bright brief period of the attempted apotheosis of the dirty-minded little Decadent whose stock in trade was a few Aubrey Beardsley drawings, a widow's-cruse-like bottle of Green Chartreuse, an Oscar Wilde book, some dubious blue china, some floppy ties, an assortment of second-hand epigrams, scent and scented tobacco, a nil admirari attitude and long weird hair.

Augustus had become a Decadent—a silly harmless conventionally-unconventional Decadent. But, as Carey, a contemporary Rugger blood, coarsely remarked, he hadn't the innards to go far wrong.

It was part of his cheap and childish ritual as a Decadent to draw the curtains after breakfast, light candles, place the flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham "god" or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read—hoping for visitors and an audience.

If any fellow dropped in and, very naturally, exclaimed, "What the devil are you doing?" he would reply:—

"Wha'? Oh, sunligh'? Very vulgar thing sunligh'. Art is always superior to Nature. You love the garish day being a gross Philistine, wha'? Now I only live at night. Glorious wicked nigh'. So I make my own nigh'. Wha'? Have some Green Chartreuse—only drink fit for a Hedonist. I drink its colour and I taste its glorious greenness. Ichor and Nectar of Helicon and the Pierian Spring. I loved a Wooman once, with eyes of just that glowing glorious green and a soul of ruby red. I called her my Emerald-eyed, Ruby-souled Devil, and we drank together deep draughts of the red red Wine of Life——"

Sometimes the visitor would say: "Look here, Grobb, you ought to be in the Zoo, you know. There's a lot there like you, all in one big cage," or similar words of disapproval.

Sometimes a young fresher would be impressed, especially if he had been brought up by Aunts in a Vicarage, and would also become a Decadent.

During vac. the Decadents would sometimes meet in Town, and See Life—a singularly uninteresting and unattractive side of Life (much more like Death), and the better men among them—better because of a little sincerity and pluck—would achieve a petty and rather sordid "adventure" perhaps.

Augustus had no head for Mathematics and no gift for Languages, while his Classics had always been a trifle more than shaky. History bored him—so he read Moral Philosophy.

There is a somewhat dull market for second-hand and third-class Moral Philosophy in England, so Augustus took his to India. In the first college that he adorned his classes rapidly dwindled to nothing, and the College Board dispensed with the services of Augustus, who passed on to another College in another Province, leaving behind him an odour of moral dirtiness, debt, and decadence. Quite genuine decadence this time, with nothing picturesque about it, involving doctors' bills, alimony, and other the fine crops of wild-oat sowing.

At Gungapur he determined to "settle down," to "turn over a new leaf," and laid a good space of paving-stone upon his road to reward.

He gave up the morning nip, docked the number of cocktails, went to bed before two, took a little gentle exercise, met Mrs. Pat Dearman—and (like Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, General Miltiades Murger and many another) succumbed at once.

Mrs. Pat Dearman had come to India (as Miss Cleopatra Diamond Brighte) to see her brother, Dickie Honor Brighte, at Gungapur, and much interested to see, also, a Mr. Dearman whom, in his letters to her, Dickie had described as "a jolly old buster, simply full of money, and fairly spoiling for a wife to help him blew it in." She had not only seen him but had, as she wrote to acidulous Auntie Priscilla at the Vicarage, "actually married him after a week's acquaintance—fancy!—the last thing in the world she had ever supposed … etc." (Auntie Priscilla had smiled in her peculiarly unpleasant way as the artless letter enlarged upon the strangeness of her ingenuous niece's marrying the rich man about whom her innocent-minded brother had written so much.)

Having thoroughly enjoyed a most expensive and lavish honeymoon, Mrs. Pat Dearman had settled down to make her good husband happy, to have a good time and to do any amount of Good to other people—especially to young men—who have so many temptations, are so thoughtless, and who easily become the prey of such dreadful people and such dreadful habits.

Now it is to be borne in mind that Mrs. Dearman's Good Time was marred to some extent by her unreasoning dislike of all Indians, a dislike which grew into a loathing hatred, born and bred of her ignorance of the language, customs, beliefs and ideals of the people among whom she lived, and from whom her husband's great wealth sprang.

To Augustus—fresh from very gilded gold, painted lilies and highly perfumed violets—she seemed a vision of delight, a blessed damozel, a living Salvation.

"Incedit dea aperta," he murmured to himself, and wondered whether he had got the quotation right. Being a weak young gentleman, he straightway yearned to lead a Beautiful Life so as to be worthy to live in the same world with her, and did it—for a little while. He became a teetotaller, he went to bed at ten and rose at five—going forth into the innocent pure morning and hugging his new Goodness to his soul as he composed odes and sonnets to Mrs. Pat Dearman. So far so excellent—but in Augustus was no depth of earth, and speedily he withered away. And his reformation was a house built upon sand, for, even at its pinnacle, it was compatible with the practising of sweet and pure expressions before the glass, the giving of much time to the discovery of the really most successful location of the parting in his long hair, the intentional entangling of his fingers with those of the plump and pretty young lady (very brunette) in Rightaway & Mademore's, what time she handed him "ties to match his eyes," as he requested.

It was really only a change of pose. The attitude now was: "I, young as you behold me, am old and weary of sin. I have Passed through the Fires. Give me beauty and give me peace. I have done with the World and its Dead Sea Fruit. There is no God but Beauty, and Woman is its Prophet." And he improved in appearance, grew thinner, shook off a veritable Old Man of the Sea in the shape of a persistent pimple which went ill with the Higher Aestheticism, and achieved great things in delicate socks, sweet shirts, dream ties, a thumb ring and really pretty shoes.

In the presence of Mrs. Pat Dearman he looked sad, smouldering, despairing and Fighting-against-his-Lower-Self, when not looking Young-but-Hopelessly-Depraved-though-Yearning-for-Better-Things. And he flung out quick epigrams, sighed heavily, talked brilliantly and wildly, and then suppressed a groan. Sometimes the pose of, "Dear Lady, I could kiss the hem of your garment for taking an interest in me and my past—but it is too lurid for me to speak of it, or for you to understand it if I did," would appear for a moment, and sometimes that of, "Oh, help me—or my soul must drown. Ah, leave me not. If I have sinned I have suffered, and in your hands lie my Heaven and my Hell." Such shocking words were never uttered of course—but there are few things more real than an atmosphere, and Augustus Clarence could always get his atmosphere all right.

And Mrs. Pat Dearman (who had come almost straight from a vicarage, a vicar papa and a vicarish aunt, to an elderly, uxorious husband and untrammelled freedom, and knew as much of the World as a little bunny rabbit whom its mother has not brought yet out into the warren for its first season), was mightily intrigued.

She felt motherly to the poor boy at first, being only two years his junior; then sisterly; and, later, very friendly indeed.

Let it be clearly understood that Mrs. Pat Dearman was a thoroughly good, pure-minded woman, incapable of deceiving her husband, and both innocent and ignorant to a remarkable degree. She was the product of an unnatural, specialized atmosphere of moral supermanity, the secluded life, and the careful suppression of healthy, natural instincts. In justice to Augustus Clarence also it must be stated that the impulse to decency, though transient, was genuine as far as it went, and that he would as soon have thought of cutting his long beautiful hair as of thinking evil in connection with Mrs. Pat Dearman.

Yes, Mrs. Pat Dearman was mightily intrigued—and quickly came to the conclusion that it was her plain and bounden duty to "save" the poor, dear boy—though from what she was not quite clear. He was evidently unhappy and obviously striving-to-be-Good—and he had such beautiful eyes, dressed so tastefully, and looked at one with such a respectful devotion and regard, that, really—well, it added a tremendous savour to life. Also he should be protected from the horrid flirting Mrs. Bickker who simply lived to collect scalps.

And so the friendship grew and ripened—quickly as is possible only in India. The evil-minded talked evil and saw harm where none existed, proclaiming themselves for what they were, and injuring none but themselves. (Sad to say, these were women, with one or two exceptions in favour of men—like the Hatter—who perhaps might be called "old women of the male sex," save that the expression is a vile libel upon the sex that still contains the best of us.) Decent people expressed the belief that it would do Augustus a lot of good—much-needed good; and the crystallized male opinion was that the poisonous little beast was uncommon lucky, but Mrs. Pat Dearman would find him out sooner or later.

As for Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman, that lovable simple soul was grateful to Augustus for existing—as long as his existence gave Mrs. Dearman any pleasure. If the redemption of Augustus interested her, let Augustus be redeemed. He believed that the world neither held, nor had held, his wife's equal in character and nobility of mind. He worshipped an image of his own creation in the shape of Cleopatra Dearman, and the image he had conceived was a credit to the single-minded, simple-hearted gentleman.

Naturally he did not admire Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble (learned in millinery; competent, as modes varied, to discuss harem, hobble, pannier, directoire, slit, or lamp-shade skirts, berthes, butterfly-motif embroideries, rucked ninon sleeves, chiffon tunics, and similar mysteries of the latest fashion-plates, with a lady undecided).

Long-haired men put Dearman off, and he could not connect the virile virtues with large bows, velvet coats, scent, manicure, mannerisms and meandering.

But if Augustus gave his wife any pleasure—why Augustus had not lived wholly in vain. His attitude to Augustus was much that of his attitude to his wife's chocolates, fondants, and crystallized violets—"Not absolutely nourishing and beneficial for you, Dearest;—but harmless, and I'll bring you a ton with pleasure".

Personally he'd as soon go about with his wife's fat French poodle as with Augustus, but so long as either amused her—let the queer things flourish.

Among the nasty-minded old women who "talked" was the Mad Hatter.

"Shameful thing the way that Dearman woman throws dust in her husband's eyes!" said he, while sipping his third Elsie May at the club bar. "He should divorce her. I would, to-morrow, if I were burdened with her."

A knee took him in the small of the back with unnecessary violence and he spun round to demand instant apology from the clumsy….

He found himself face to face with one John Robin Ross-Ellison newly come to Gungapur, a gentleman of independent means but supposed to be connected with the Political Department or the Secret Service or something, who stared him in the eyes without speaking while he poised a long drink as though wondering whether it were worth while wasting good liquor on the face of such a thing as the Hatter.

"You'll come with me and clear the dust from Dearman's eyes at once," said he at last. "Made your will all right?"

The Hatter publicly apologised, then and there, and explained that he had, for once in his life, taken a third drink and didn't know what he was saying.

"If your third drink brings out the real man, I should recommend you to stick to two, Bonnett," said the young man, and went away to cogitate.

Should he speak to Dearman? No. He didn't want to see so good a chap hanged for a thing like the Bonnett. Should he go and slap Augustus Grobble hard and make him leave the station somehow? No. Sure to be a scandal. You can no more stop a scandal than a locust-cloud or a fog. The best way to increase it is to notice it. What a horrid thing is a scandal-monger—exhaling poison. It publishes the fact that it is poisonous, of course—but the gas is not enjoyable.

Well, God help anybody Dearman might happen to hear on the subject! Happily Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman heard nothing, for he was a quiet, slow, jolly, red-haired man, and the wrath of a slow, quiet, red-haired man, once roused, is apt to be a rather dangerous thing. Also Mr. Dearman was singularly elephantine in the blundering crushing directness of his methods, and his idea of enough might well seem more than a feast to some.

And Mr. Dearman suffered Augustus gladly, usually finding him present at tea, frequently at dinner, and invariably in attendance at dances and functions.

Augustus was happy and Good—for Augustus. He dallied, he adored, he basked. For a time he felt how much better, finer, more enjoyable, more beautiful, was this life of innocent communion with a pure soul—pure, if just a little insipid, after the real spankers he had hitherto affected.

He was being saved from himself, reformed, helped, and all the rest of it. And when privileged to bring her pen, her fan, her book, her cushion, he always kissed the object with an appearance of wishing to be unseen in the act. It was a splendid change from the Lurid Life and the mean adventure. Piquant.

Unstable as water he could not excel nor endure, however, even in dalliance; nor persevere even when adopted as the fidus Achates of a good and beautiful woman—the poor little weather-cock. He was essentially weak, and weakness is worse than wickedness. There is hope for the strong bad man. He may become a strong good one. Your weak man can never be that.

There came a lady to the Great Eastern Hotel where Augustus lived. Her husband's name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him as the Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen—and like Betsey Prig, they "didn't believe there was no sich person". And beyond doubt she was a spanker.

Augustus would sit and eye her at meals—and his face would grow a little less attractive. He would think of her while he took tea with Mrs. and Mr. Dearman, assuring himself that she was certainly a stepper, a stunner, and, very probably,—thrilling thought—a wrong 'un.

Without the very slightest difficulty he obtained an introduction and, shortly afterwards, decided that he was a man of the world, a Decadent, a wise Hedonist who took the sweets of every day and hoped for more to-morrow.

Who but a fool or a silly greenhorn lets slip the chances of enjoyment, and loses opportunities of experiences? There was nothing in the world, they said, to compare with War and Love. Those who wanted it were welcome to the fighting part, he would be content with the loving rôle. He would be a Dog and go on breaking hearts and collecting trophies. What a milk-and-water young ass he had been, hanging about round good, silly, little Mrs. Dearman, denying himself champagne at dinner-parties, earning opprobrium as a teetotaller, going to bed early like a bread-and-butter flapper, and generally losing all the joys of Life! Been behaving like a backfisch. He read his Swinburne again, and unearthed from the bottom of a trunk some books that dealt with the decadent's joys,—poets of the Flesh, and prosers of the Devil, in his many weary forms.

Also he redoubled his protestations (of undying, hopeless, respectful devotion and regard) to Mrs. Dearman, until she, being a woman, therefore suspected something and became uneasy.

One afternoon he failed to put in an appearance at tea-time, though expected. He wrote that he had had a headache. Perhaps it was true, but, if so, it had been borne in the boudoir of the fair spanker whose husband may or may not have been named Harris.

As his absences from the society of Mrs. Dearman increased in frequency, his protestations of undying gratitude and regard for her increased in fervour.

Mrs. Dearman grew more uneasy and a little unhappy.

Could she be losing her influence for Good over the poor weak boy? Could it be—horrible thought—that he was falling into the hands of some nasty woman who would flirt with him, let him smoke too many cigarettes, drink cocktails, and sit up late? Was he going to relapse and slip back into that state of wickedness of some kind, that she vaguely understood him to have been guilty of in the unhappy past when he had possessed no guardian angel to keep his life pure, happy and sweet, as he now declared it to be?

"Where's your young friend got to lately?" inquired her husband one day.

"I don't know, John," she replied, "he's always missing appointments nowadays," and there was a pathetic droop about the childish mouth.

"Haven't quarrelled with him, or anything, have you, Pat?"

"No, John dear. It would break his heart if I were unkind to him—or it would have used to. I mean it used to have would. Oh, you know what I mean. Once it would have. No, I have not been unkind to him—it's rather the other way about, I think!"

Rather the other way about! The little affected pimp unkind to Mrs. Dearman! Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman made no remark—aloud.

Augustus came to tea next day and his hostess made much of him. His host eyed him queerly. Very.

Augustus felt uncomfortable. Good Heavens! Was Dearman jealous? The man was not going to cut up jealous at this time of day, surely! Not after giving him the run of the house for months, and allowing him to take his wife everywhere—nay, encouraging him in every way. Absurd idea!

Beastly disturbing idea though—Dearman jealous, and on your track! A rather direct and uncompromising person, red-haired too. But the man was absolutely fair and just, and he'd never do such a thing as to let a fellow be his wife's great pal, treat him as one of the family for ages, and then suddenly round on him as though he were up to something. No. Especially when he was, if anything, cooling off a bit.

"He was always most cordial—such a kind chap,—when I was living in his wife's pocket almost," reflected Augustus, "and he wouldn't go and turn jealous just when the thing was slacking off a bit."

But there was no doubt that Dearman was eyeing him queerly….

"Shall we go on the river to-morrow night, Gussie?" said Mrs. Dearman, "or have a round of golf, or what?"

"Let's see how we feel to-morrow," replied Augustus, who had other schemes in view. "Sufficient unto the day is the joy thereof," and he escorted Mrs. Dearman to the Gymkhana, found her some nice, ladies' pictorials, said, "I'll be back in a minute or two,"—and went in search of Mrs. "Harris".

"Well," said that lady, "been a good little boy and eaten your bread and butter nicely? Have a Lyddite cocktail to take the taste away. So will I." …

"Don't forget to book the big punt," said the Siren an hour or so later.
"I'll be ready for you about five."

Augustus wrote one of his charming little notes on his charming little note-paper that evening.

"KIND AND GRACIOUS LADYE,

"Pity me. Pity and love me. To-morrow the sun will not shine for your slave, for he will not see it. I am unable to come over in the evening. I stand 'twixt love and duty, and know you would counsel duty. Would the College and all its works were beneath the ocean wave! Think of me just once and I shall survive till the day after. Oh, that I could think your disappointment were but one thousandth part of mine. I live but for Thursday.

"Ever your most devoted loving slave,

"GUSSIE."

Mrs. Dearman wept one small tear, for she had doubted his manner when he had evaded making the appointment, and was suspicious. Mr. Dearman entered and noted the one small tear ere it trickled off her dainty little nose.

She showed him the note.

Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman thought much. What he said was "Hm!"

"I suppose he has got to invigilate at some horrid examination or something," she said, but she did not really suppose anything of the kind. Even to her husband she could not admit the growing dreadful fear that the brand she had plucked from the burning was slipping from her hand—falling back into the flames.

At a dinner-party that night a woman whom she hated, and wrote down an evil-minded scandal-monger and inventor and disseminator of lies, suddenly said to her, "Who is this Mrs. Harris, my dear?"

"How should I know?" replied Mrs. Dearman.

"Oh, I thought your young friend Mr. Grobble might have told you—he seems to know her very well," answered the woman sweetly.

That night Mr. Dearman heard his wife sobbing in bed. Going to her he asked what was the matter, and produced eau-de-Cologne, phenacetin, smelling-salts and sympathy.

She said that nothing at all was the matter and he went away and pondered. Next day he asked her if he could row her on the river as he wanted some exercise, and Augustus was not available to take her for a drive or anything.

"I should love it, John dear," she said. "You row like an ox," and John, who had been reckoned an uncommon useful stroke, felt that a compliment was intended if not quite materialized.

Mrs. Pat Dearman enjoyed the upstream trip, and, watching her husband drive the heavy boat against wind and current with graceful ease, contrasted him with the puny, if charming, Augustus—to the latter's detriment. He was so safe, so sound, so strong, reliable and true. But then he never needed any protection, care and help. It was impossible to "mother" John. He loved her devotedly and beautifully but one couldn't pretend he leaned on her for moral help. Now Augustus did need her or he had done so—and she did so love to be needed. Had done so? No—she would put the thought away. He needed her as much as ever and loved her as devotedly and honourably…. The boat was turned back at the weir and, half an hour later, reached the Club wharf.

"I want to go straight home without changing, Pat; do you mind? I'll drop you at the Gymkhana if you don't want to get home so early," said Dearman, as he helped his wife out.

"Won't you change and have a drink first, John?" she replied. "You must be thirsty."

"No. I want to go along now, if you don't mind."

He did want to—badly. For, rowing up, he had seen something which his wife, facing the other way, could not see.

Under an over-hanging bush was a punt, and in the punt were Augustus and the lady known as Mrs. Harris.

The bush met the bank at the side toward his wife, but at the other side, facing Dearman, there was an open space and so he had seen and she had not. Returning, he had drawn her attention to something on the opposite bank. This had been unnecessary, however, as Augustus had effected a change of venue without delay. And now he did not want his wife to witness the return of the couple and learn of the duplicity of her snatched Brand.

(He'd "brand" him anon!)

* * * * *

Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble sat in the long cane chair in his sitting-room, a glass beside him, a cigarette between his lips, a fleshly poet in his hand, and a reminiscent smile upon his flushed face.

She undoubtedly was a spanker. Knew precisely how many beans make five. A woman of the world, that. Been about. Knew things. Sort of woman one could tell a good story to—and get one back. Life! Life! Knew it up and down, in and out. Damn reformation, teetotality, the earnest, and the strenuous. Good women were unmitigated bores, and he…. A sharp knock at the door.

"Kon hai?"[47] he called. "Under ao."[48]

[47] Who's there. [48] Come in.

The door opened and large Mr. Dearman walked in. He bore a nasty-looking malacca cane in his hand—somewhat ostentatiously.

"Hullo, Dearman!" said Augustus after a decidedly startled and anxious look. "What is it? Sit down. I'm just back from College. Have a drink?"

Large Mr. Dearman considered these things seriatim.

"I will sit down as I want a talk with you. You are a liar in the matter of just being back from College. I will not have a drink." He then lapsed into silence and looked at Augustus very straight and very queerly, while bending the nasty malacca suggestively. The knees of Augustus smote together.

Good God! It had come at last! The thrashing he had so often earned was at hand. What should he do? What should he do!

Dearman thought the young man was about to faint.

"Fine malacca that, isn't it?" he asked.

"Ye-yes!"

"Swishy, supple, tough."

"Ye-yes!" (How could the brute be such a fool as to be jealous now—now when it was all cooling off and coming to an end?)

"Grand stick to thrash a naughty boy with, what?"

"Ye-yes!—Dearman, I swear before God that there is nothing between me and——"

"Shut up, you infernal God-forsaken cub, or I shall have to whip you.
I——"

"Dearman, if you are jealous of me——"

"Better be quiet and listen, or I shall get cross, and you'll get hurt…. You have given us the pleasure of a great deal of your company this year, and I have come to ask you——"

"Dearman, I have not been so much lately, and I—"

"That's what I complain of, my young friend."

"What?"

"That's what I complain of! I have come to protest against your making yourself almost necessary to me, in a sense, and then—er—deserting me, in a sense."

"You are mocking me, Dearman. If you wish to take advantage of my being half your size and strength to assault me, you——"

"Not a bit of it, my dear Augustus. I am in most deadly earnest, as you'll find if you are contumacious when I make my little proposition. What I say is this. I have grown to take an interest in you, Augustus. I have been very kind to you and tried to make a better man of you. I have been a sort of mother to you, and you have sworn devotion and gratitude to me. I have reformed you somewhat, and you have admitted to me that I have made another man of you, Augustus, and that you love me for it, you love me with a deep Platonic love, my Augustus, and—don't you forget it."

"I admit that your wife——"

"Don't you mention my wife, Augustus, or you and I and that malacca will have a period of great activity. I was saying that I am disappointed in you, Augustus, and truly grieved to find you so shallow and false. I asked you to take me on the river to-night and you lied to me and took a very different type of—er—person. Such meanness and ingratitude fairly get me, Augustus. Now I never asked you to run after me and come and swear I had saved your dirty little soul alive, but since you did it, Augustus, and I have come to take a deep interest in saving the thing—why, you've got to stick it, Augustus—and if you don't—why, then I'll make you, my dear."

"Dearman, your wife has been the noblest friend——"

"Will you come off it, Augustus? I don't want to be cruel. Now look here. I have got accustomed to having you about the house and employing you in those funny little ways in which you are a useful little animal. I am under no delusion as to the value of that Soul of yours—but, such as it is, I am determined to save it. So just you bring it round to tea to-morrow, as usual; and don't you ever be absent again without my permission. You began the game and I'll end it—when I think fit. Grand malacca that."

"Dearman, I will always——"

"'Course you will. See you at tea to-morrow, Gussie. If ever my wife hears of this I'll kill you painfully. Bye-Bye."

Augustus was present at tea next day, and, thenceforth, so regular was he that Mrs. Dearman found, first, that she had been very foolish in thinking that her Brand was slipping back into the fire and, later, that Gussie was a bore and a nuisance.

One day he said in the presence of John:—

"I can't keep that golf engagement on Saturday, dear lady, I have to attend a meeting of the Professors, Principal and College Board".

"Have you seen my malacca cane, Pat," said Dearman. "I want it."

"But I really have!" said Augustus, springing up.

"Of course you have," replied Dearman. "What do you mean?"

* * * * *

"John dear," remarked Mrs. Dearman one day, "I wish you could give Gussie a hint not to come quite so often. I have given him some very broad ones during the last few months, but he won't take them. He would from you, I expect."

"Tired of the little bounder, Pat?"

"Oh, sick and tired. He bores me to tears. I wish he were in Government Service and could be transferred. A Government man's always transferred as soon as he has settled to his job. I can't forbid him the house, very well, but I wish he'd realize how weary I am of his poses and new socks."

* * * * *

Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble sat in the long cane chair in his sitting-room, a look of rebellious discontent upon his face. What could he do? Better chuck his job and clear out! The strain was getting awful. What a relentless, watchful brute Dearman was! To him entered that gentleman after gently tapping at the chamber door.

"Gussie," said he, "I have come to say that I think you weary me. I don't want you to come and play with me any more. But be a nice good boy and do me credit. I have brought you this malacca as a present and a memento. I have another, Gussie, and am going to watch you, so be a real credit to me."

And Gussie was.

So once again a good woman redeemed a bad man—but a trifle indirectly perhaps.

Then came General Miltiades Murger and Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison to be saved.

During intervals in the salvation process, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison vainly endeavoured to induce Mr. Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble to lend his countenance, as well as the rest of his person, to the European Company of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteer Corps which it was the earnest ambition of Ross-Ellison to raise and train and consolidate into a real and genuine defence organization, with a maxim-gun, a motor-cycle and car section, and a mounted troop, and with, above all, a living and sturdy esprit-de-corps. Such a Company appeared to him to be the one and only hope of regeneration for the ludicrous corps which Colonel Dearman commanded, and to change the metaphor, the sole possible means of leavening the lump by its example of high standards and high achievement.

To Augustus, however, as to many other Englishmen, the idea was merely ridiculous and its parent simply absurd.

The day dawned when Augustus, like the said many other Englishmen, changed his mind. In his, and their defence, it may be urged that they knew nothing of the activities of a very retiring but persevering gentleman, known to his familiars as Ilderim the Weeper, and that they had grown up in the belief that all England's fighting and defence can be done by a few underpaid, unconsidered, and very vulgar hirelings.

Perish the thought that Augustus and his like should ever be expected to do the dirty work of defending themselves, their wives, children, homes and honour.

§ 2. GENERAL MURGER.

In a temporary Grand Stand of matchboarding and canvas tout Gungapur greeted Mrs. Pat Dearman, who was quite At Home, ranged itself, and critically inspected the horses, or the frocks, of its friends, according to its sex.

Around the great ring on to which the Grand Stand looked, Arab, Pathan, and other heathen raged furiously together and imagined many vain things. Among them unobtrusively moved a Somali who listened carefully to conversations, noted speakers, and appeared to be collecting impressions as to the state of public opinion—and of private opinion. Particularly he sought opportunities of hearing reference to the whereabouts and doings of one Ilderim the Weeper. In the ring were a course of stiff jumps, lesser rings, the judges' office, a kind of watch-tower from which a strenuous fiend with a megaphone bawled things that no living soul could understand, and a number of most horsily-arrayed gentlemen, whose individual status varied from General and cavalry-colonel to rough rider, troop sergeant-major and stud groom.

I regret to add that there was also a Lady, that she was garbed for riding in the style affected by mere man, and that she swaggered loud-voiced, horsey, slapping a boot.

Let men thank the good God for womanly women while such be—and appreciate them.

Behind the Grand Stand were massed the motor-cars and carriages of Society, as well as the Steward of the Gungapur Club, who there spent a busy afternoon in eating ices and drinking Cup while his myrmidons hurried around, washed glasses, squeezed lemons, boiled water and dropped things. Anon he drank ices and ate Cup (with a spoon) and was taken deviously back to his little bungalow behind the Club by the Head Bootlaire Saheb (or butler) who loved and admired him.

Beyond the big ring ran the river, full with the summer rains, giving a false appearance of doing much to cool the air and render the afternoon suitable to the stiff collars and "Europe" garments of the once sterner sex.

A glorious sea-breeze did what the river pretended to do. Beneath the shade of a clump of palms, scores of more and less valuable horses stamped, tossed heads, whisked tails and possibly wondered why God made flies, while an equal number of syces squatted, smoked pungent bidis, and told lies.

Outside a tent, near by, sat a pimply youth at a table bearing boxes of be-ribboned labels, number-inscribed, official, levelling.

These numbers corresponded with those attached to the names of the horses in the programme of events, and riders must tie one round each arm ere bringing a horse up for judgment when called on.

Certain wretched carping critics alleged that this arrangement was to prevent the possibility of error on the part of the Judges, who, otherwise, would never know whether a horse belonged to a General or a Subaltern, to a Member of Council or an Assistant Collector, to a Head of a Department or a wretched underling—in short to a personage or a person.

You find this type of doubter everywhere—and especially in India where official rank is but the guinea stamp and gold is brass without it.

Great, in the Grand Stand, was General Miltiades Murger. Beside Mrs. Dearman, most charming of hostesses, he sate, in the stage of avuncular affection, and told her that if the Judges knew their business his hunter would win the Hunter-Class first prize and be "Best Horse in the Show" too.

As to his charger, his hack, his trapper, his suitable-for-polo ponies, his carriage-horses he did not worry; they might or might not "do something," but his big and beautiful hunter—well, he hoped the Judges knew their business, that was all.

"Are you going to show him in the ring yourself, General?" asked Mrs.
Dearman.

"And leave your side?" replied the great man in manner most avuncular and with little reassuring pats upon the lady's hand. "No, indeed. I am going to remain with you and watch Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh ride him for me. Finest horseman in India. Good as myself. Yes, I hope the Judges for Class XIX know their business. I imported that horse from Home and he cost me over six thousand rupees."

Meanwhile, it may be mentioned, evil passions surged in the soul of Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison as he watched the General, and witnessed his avuncular pattings and confidential whisperings. Mr. Ross-Ellison had lunched with the Dearmans, had brought Mrs. Dearman to the Horse Show, and was settling down, after she had welcomed her guests, to a delightful, entrancing, and thrillful afternoon with her—to be broken but while he showed his horse—when he had been early and utterly routed by the General. The heart of Mr. Ross-Ellison was sore within him, for he loved Mrs. Dearman very devotedly and respectfully.

He was always devotedly in love with some one, and she was always a nice good woman.

When she, or he, left the station, his heart died within him, life was hollow, and his mouth filled with Dead Sea fruit. The world he loved so much would turn to dust and ashes at his touch. After a week or so his heart would resurrect, life would become solid, and his mouth filled with merry song. He would fall in love afresh and the world went very well then.

At present he loved Mrs. Dearman—and hated General Miltiades Murger, who had sent him for a programme and taken his seat beside Mrs. Dearman. There was none on the other side of her—Mr. Ross-Ellison had seen to that—and his prudent foresight had turned and rent him, for he could not plant a chair in the narrow gangway.

He wandered disconsolately away and instinctively sought the object of the one permanent and unwavering love of his life—his mare "Zuleika," late of Balkh.

Zuleika was more remarkable for excellences of physique than for those of mind and character. To one who knew her not, she was a wild beast, fitter for a cage in a Zoo than for human use, a wild-eyed, screaming man-eating she-devil; and none knew her save Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison, who had bought her unborn. (He knew her parents.)

"If you see an ugly old cove with no hair and a blue nose come over here for his number, just kick his foremost button, hard," said Mr. Ross-Ellison to her as he gathered up the reins and, dodging a kick, prepared to mount. This was wrong of him, for Zuleika had never suffered any harm at the hands of General Miltiades Murger, "'eavy-sterned amateur old men" he quoted in a vicious grumble.

A wild gallop round the race-course did something to soothe the ruffled spirit of Mr. Ross-Ellison and nothing to improve Zuleika's appearance—just before she entered the show-ring.

On returning, Mr. Ross-Ellison met the Notable Nut (Lieutenant Nottinger
Nutt, an ornament of the Royal Horse Artillery), and they talked evil of
Dignitaries and Institutions amounting to high treason if not blasphemy,
while watching the class in progress, with young but gloomy eyes.

"I don't care what _any_body says," observed the Notable Nut. "You read the lists of prize-winners of all the bally horse-shows ever held here and you'll find 'em all in strict and decorous order of owner's rank. 'Chargers. First Prize—Lieutenant-General White's "Pink Eye". Second Prize—Brigadier-General Black's "Red Neck". Third Prize—Colonel Brown's "Ham Bone". Highly commended—Major Green's "Prairie Oyster". Nowhere at all—Second-Lieutenant Blue's "Cocktail,"'—and worth all the rest put together. I tell you I've seen horse after horse change hands after winning a First Prize as a General's property and then win nothing at all as a common Officer's or junior civilian's, until bought again by a Big Pot. Then it sweeps the board. I don't for one second dream of accusing Judges of favouritism or impropriety any kind, but I'm convinced that the glory of a brass-bound owner casts a halo about his horse that dazzles and blinds the average rough-rider, stud-groom and cavalry-sergeant, and don't improve the eyesight of some of their betters, when judging."

"You're right, Nutty," agreed Mr. Ross-Ellison. "Look at that horse 'Runaway'. Last year it won the First Prize as a light-weight hunter, First Prize as a hack, and Highly Commended as a charger—disqualified from a prize on account of having no mane. It then belonged to a Colonel of Dragoons. This year, with a mane and in, if possible, better condition, against practically the same horses, it wins nothing at all. This year it belongs to a junior in the P.W.D. one notices."

"Just what I say," acquiesced the aggrieved Nut, whose rejected horse had been beaten by another which it had itself beaten (under different ownership) the previous year. "Fact is, the judges should be absolutely ignorant as to who owns the horses. They mean well enough, but to them it stands to reason that the most exalted Pots own the most exalted horses. Besides, is it fair to ask a troop sergeant-major to order his own Colonel's horse out of the ring, or the General's either? They ought not to get subordinates in at all. Army Veterinary Colonels from other Divisions are the sort of chaps you want, and some really knowledgeable unofficial civilians—and, as I say, to be in complete ignorance as to ownership. No man to ride his own horse—and none of these bally numbers to prevent the Judges from thinking a General's horse belongs to a common man, and from getting the notion that a subaltern's horse belongs to a General."

"Yes" mused Mr. Ross-Ellison, "and another thing. If you want to get a horse a win or a place in the Ladies' Hack class—get a pretty girl to ride it. They go by the riders' faces and figures entirely…. Hullo! Class XIX wanted. That's me and Zuleika. Come and tie the labels on my arms like a good dog."

"Right O. But you haven't the ghost of a little look in," opined the Nut. "Old Murger has got a real corking English hunter in. A General will win as usual—but he'll win with by far the best horse, for once in the history of horse-shows."

Dismounting and handing their reins to the syces, the two young gentlemen strolled over to the table where presided he of the pimples and number-labels.

A burly Sikh was pointing to the name of General Miltiades Murger and asking for the number printed thereagainst.

The youth handed Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh two labels each bearing the number 99. These, the gallant Native Officer proceeded to tie upon his arms—putting them upside down, as is the custom of the native of India when dealing with anything in any wise reversible.

Mr. Ross-Ellison approached the table, showed his name on the programme and asked for his number—66.

"Tie these on," said he returning to his friend. "By Jove—there's old
Murger's horse," he added—"what a magnificent animal!"

Looking up, the Nut saw Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh mounting the beautiful English hunter—and also saw that he bore the number 66. Therefore the labels handed to him were obviously 99, and as 99 he tied on the 66 of Mr. Ross-Ellison—who observed the fact.

"I am afraid I'm all Pathan at this moment," silently remarked he unto his soul, and smiled an ugly smile.

"Not much good my entering Zuleika against that mare," he said aloud. "It must have cost just about ten times what I paid for her. Never mind though! We'll show up—for the credit of civilians," and he rode into the ring—where a score of horses solemnly walked round and round the Judges and in front of the Grand Stand….

General Murger brought Mrs. Dearman a cup of tea, and, having placed his topi[49] in his chair, went, for a brandy-and-soda and cheroot, to the bar behind the rows of seats.

[49] Sun-helmet.

On his return he beheld his superb and expensive hunter behaving superbly and expensively in the expert hands of Rissaldar-Major Shere Singh.

He feasted his eyes upon it.

Suddenly a voice, a voice he disliked intensely, the voice of Mr. Dearman croaked fiendishly in his ear: "Why, General, they've got your horse numbered wrongly!"

General Miltiades Murger looked again. Upon the arm of Rissaldar-Major
Shere Singh was the number 66.

Opening his programme with trembling fingers he found his name, his horse's name, and number 99!

He rose to his feet, stammering and gesticulating. As he did so the words:—

"Take out number 66," were distinctly borne to the ears of the serried ranks of the fashionable in the Grand Stand. Certain military-looking persons at the back abandoned all dignity and fell upon each other's necks, poured great libations, danced, called upon their gods, or fell prostrate upon settees.

Others, seated among the ladies, looked into their bats as though in church.

"Has Ross-Ellison faked it?" ran from mouth to mouth, and, "He'll be hung for this".

A minute or so later the Secretary approached the Grand Stand and announced in stentorian tones:

"First Prize—General Murger's Darling, Number 99".

While behind him upon Zuleika, chosen of the Judges, sat and smiled Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison, who lifted his voice and said: "Thanks—No!—This horse is mine and is named Zuleika." He looked rather un-English, rather cunning, cruel and unpleasant—quite different somehow, from his ordinary cheery, bright English self.

* * * * *

"Old" Brigadier General Miltiades Murger was unique among British Generals in that he sometimes resorted to alcoholic stimulants beyond reasonable necessity and had a roving and a lifting eye for a pretty woman. In one sense the General had never taken a wife—and, in another, he had taken several. Indeed it was said of him by jealous colleagues that the hottest actions in which he had ever been engaged were actions for divorce or breach of promise, and that this type of imminent deadly breach was the kind with which he was best acquainted. Also that he was better at storming the citadel of a woman's heart than at storming anything else.

No eminent man is without jealous detractors.

As to the stimulants, make no mistake and jump to no hasty conclusions. General Murger had never been seen drunk in the whole of his distinguished and famous (or as the aforesaid colleagues called it, egregious and notorious) career.

On the other hand, the voice of jealousy said he had never been seen sober either. In the words of envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness it declared that he had been born fuddled, had lived fuddled, and would die fuddled. And there were ugly stories.

Also some funny ones—one of which concerns the, Gungapur Fusilier Volunteer Corps and Colonel Dearman, their beloved but shortly retiring (and, as some said, their worthy) Commandant.

Mr. Dearman was a very wealthy (and therefore popular), very red haired and very patriotic mill-owner who tried very hard to be proud of his Corps, and, without trying, was immensely proud of his wife.

As to the Corps—well, it may at least be said that it would have followed its beloved Commandant anywhere (that was neither far nor dangerous), for every one of its Officers, except Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison, and the bulk of its men, were his employees.

They loved him for his wealth and they trusted him absolutely—trusted him not to march them far nor work them much. And they were justified of their faith.

Several of the Officers were almost English—though Greeks and
Goa-Portuguese predominated, and there was undeniably a drop or two of
English blood in the ranks, well diffused of course. Some folk said that
even Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison was not as Scotch as his name.

On guest-nights in the Annual Camp of Exercise (when the Officers' Mess did itself as well as any Mess in India—and only took a few hundred rupees of the Government Grant for the purpose) Colonel Dearman would look upon the wine when it was bubbly, see his Corps through its golden haze, and wax so optimistic, so enthusiastic, so rash, as roundly to state that if he had five hundred of the Gungapur Fusiliers, with magazines charged and bayonets fixed, behind a stout entrenchment or in a fortified building, he would stake his life on their facing any unarmed city mob you could bring against them. But these were but post-prandial vapourings, and Colonel Dearman never talked nor thought any such folly when the Corps was present to the eye of flesh.

On parade he saw it for what it was—a mob of knock-kneed, sniffling lads with just enough strength to suck a cigarette; anaemic clerks, fat cooks, and loafers with just enough wind to last a furlong march; huge beery old mechanics and ex-"Tommies," forced into this coloured galley as a condition of their "job at the works "; and the non-native scum of the city of Gungapur—which joined for the sake of the ammunition-boots and khaki suit.

There was not one Englishman who was a genuine volunteer and not half a dozen Parsis. Englishmen prefer to join a corps which consists of Englishmen or at least has an English Company. When they have no opportunity of so doing, it is a little unfair to class them with the lazy, unpatriotic, degenerate young gentlemen who have the opportunity and do not seize it. Captain Ross-Ellison was doing his utmost to provide the opportunity—with disheartening results.

However—Colonel Dearman tried very hard to be proud of his Corps and never forgave anyone who spoke slightingly of it.

As to his wife, there was, as stated, no necessity for any "trying". He was immensely and justly proud of her as one of the prettiest, most accomplished, and most attractive women in the Bendras Presidency.

Mrs. "Pat" Dearman, née Cleopatra Diamond Brighte, was, as has been said, consciously and most obviously a Good Woman. Brought up by a country rector and his vilely virtuous sister, her girlhood had been a struggle to combine her two ambitions, that of being a Good Woman with that of having a Good Time. In the village of Bishop's Overley the former had been easier; in India the latter. But even in India, where the Good Time was of the very best, she forgot not the other ambition, went to church with unfailing regularity, read a portion of the Scriptures daily; headed subscription lists for the myriad hospitals, schools, widows'-homes, work-houses, Christian associations, churches, charitable societies, shelters, orphanages, rescue-homes and other deserving causes that appeal to the European in India; did her duty by Colonel Dearman, and showed him daily by a hundred little bright kindnesses that she had not married him for his great wealth but for his—er—his—er—not exactly his beauty or cleverness or youthful gaiety or learning or ability—no, for his Goodness, of course, and because she loved him—loved him for the said Goodness, no doubt. No, she never forgot the lessons of the Rectory, that it is the Whole Duty of Man to Save his or her Soul, but remembered to be a Good Woman while having the Good Time. Perhaps the most industriously pursued of all her goodnesses was her unflagging zealous labour in Saving the Souls of Others as well as her own Soul—the "Others" being the young, presentable, gay, and well-placed men of Gungapur Society.

Yes, Mrs. Pat Dearman went beyond the Rectory teachings and was not content with personal salvation. A Good Woman of broad altruistic charity, there was not a young Civilian, not a Subaltern, not a handsome, interesting, smart, well-to-do, well-in-society, young bachelor in whose spiritual welfare she did not take the deepest personal interest. And, perhaps, of all such eligible souls in Gungapur, the one whose Salvation she most deeply desired to work out (after she wearied of the posings and posturings of Augustus Grobble) was that of Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of her husband's corps—an exceedingly handsome, interesting, smart, well-to-do, well-in-society young bachelor. The owner of this eligible Soul forebore to tell Mrs. Pat Dearman that it was bespoke for Mohammed the Prophet of Allah—inasmuch as almost the most entrancing, thrilling and delightful pursuit of his life was the pursuit of soul-treatment at the hands, the beautiful tiny white hands, of Mrs. Pat Dearman. Had her large soulful eyes penetrated this subterfuge, he would have jettisoned Mohammed forthwith, since, to him, the soul-treatment was of infinitely more interest and value than the soul, and, moreover, strange as it may seem, this Mussulman English gentleman had received real and true Christian teaching at his mother's knee. When Mrs. Pat Dearman took him to Church, as she frequently did, on Sunday evenings, he was filled with great longings—and with a conviction of the eternal Truth and Beauty of Christianity and the essential nobility of its gentle, unselfish, lofty teachings. He would think of his mother, of some splendid men and women he had known, especially missionaries, medical and other, at Bannu and Poona and elsewhere, and feel that he was really a Christian at heart; and then again in Khost and Mekran Kot, when carrying his life in his hand, across the border, in equal danger from the bullet of the Border Police, Guides, or Frontier Force cavalry-outposts and from the bullet of criminal tribesmen, when a devil in his soul surged up screaming for blood and fire and slaughter; during the long stealthy crawl as he stalked the stalker; during the wild, yelling, knife-brandishing rush; as he pressed the steady trigger or guided the slashing, stabbing Khyber knife, or as he instinctively hallaled the victim of his shikar, he knew he was a Pathan and a Mussulman as were his fathers.

But whether circumstances brought his English blood to the surface or his Pathan blood, whether the day were one of his most English days or one of his most Pathan days, whether it were a day of mingled and quickly alternating Englishry and Pathanity he now loved and supported Britain and the British Empire for Mrs. Dearman's sake. Often as he (like most other non-officials) had occasion to detest and desire to kick the Imperial Englishman, championship of England and her Empire was now his creed. And as there was probably not another England-lover in all India who had his knowledge of under-currents, and forces within and without, he was perhaps the most anxiously loving of all her lovers, and the most appalled at the criminal carelessness, blind ignorance, fatuous conceit, and folly of a proportion of her sons in India.

Knowing what he knew of Teutonic intrigue and influence in India, Ceylon, Afghanistan, Aden, Persia, Egypt, East Africa, the Straits Settlements, and China, he was reminded of the men and women of Pompeii who ate, drank, and were merry, danced and sang, pursued pleasure and the nimble denarius, while Vesuvius rumbled.

Constantly the comparison entered his mind.

He had sojourned with Indian "students" in India, England, Germany, Geneva, America and Japan, and had belonged to the most secret of societies. He had himself been a well-paid agent of Germany in both Asia and Africa; and he had been instrumental in supplying thousands of rifles to Border raiders, Persian bandits, and other potential troublers of the pax Britannica. He now lived half his double life in Indian dress and moved on many planes; and to many places where even he could not penetrate unsuspected, his staunch and devoted slave, Moussa Isa, went observant. And all that he learnt and knew, within and without the confines of Ind, by itself disturbed him, as an England-lover, not at all. Taken in conjunction with the probabilities of a great European War it disturbed him mightily. As mightily as unselfishly. To him the dripping weapon, the blazing roof, the shrieking woman, the mangled corpse were but incidents, the unavoidable, unobjectionable concomitants of the Great Game, the game he most loved (and played upon every possible occasion)—War.

While, with one half of his soul, John Robin Ross-Ellison might fear internal disruption, mutiny, rebellion and civil war for what it might bring to the woman he loved, with the other half of his soul, Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan dwelt upon the joys of battle, of campaigning, the bivouac, the rattle of rifle-fire, the charge, the circumventing and slaying of the enemy, as he circumvents that he may slay. Thus, it was with no selfish thought, no personal dread, that he grew, as said, mightily disturbed at what he knew of India whenever he saw signs of the extra imminence of the Great European Armageddon that looms upon the horizon, now near, now nearer still, now less near, but inevitably there, plain to the eyes of all observant, informed and thoughtful men.[50]

[50] Written in 1912.—AUTHOR.

What really astounded and appalled him was the mental attitude, the mental condition, of British "statesmen," who (while a mighty and ever-growing neighbour, openly, methodically, implacably prepared for the war that was to win her place in the sun) laboured to reap votes by sowing class-hatred and devoted to national "insurance" moneys sorely needed to insure national existence.

To him it was as though hens cackled of introducing time-and-labour-saving incubators while the fox pressed against the unfastened door, smiling to think that their cackle smothered all other sounds ere they reached them or the watch-dog.

Yes—while England was at peace, all was well with India; but let England find herself at war, fighting for her very existence … and India might, in certain parts, be an uncomfortable place for any but the strong man armed, as soon as the British troops were withdrawn—as they, sooner or later, most certainly would be. Then, feared Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of the Gungapur Fusiliers, the British Flag would, for a terrible breathless period of stress and horror, fly, assailed but triumphant, wherever existed a staunch well-handled Volunteer Corps, and would flutter down into smoke, flames, ruin and blood, where there did not. He was convinced that, for a period, the lives of English women, children and men; English prosperity, prestige, law and order; English rule and supremacy, would in some parts of India depend for a time upon the Volunteers of India. At times he was persuaded that the very continuance of the British Empire might depend upon the Volunteers of India. If, during some Black Week (or Black Month or Year) of England's death-struggle with her great rival she lost India (defenceless India, denuded of British troops), she would lose her Empire,—be the result of her European war what it might. And knowing all that he knew, he feared for England, he feared for India, he feared for the Empire. Also he determined that, so far as it lay in the power of one war-trained man, the flag should be kept flying in Gungapur when the Great European Armageddon commenced, and should fly over a centre, and a shelter, for Mrs. Dearman, and for all who were loyal and true.

That would be a work worthy of the English blood of him and of the Pathan blood too. God! he would show some of these devious, subterranean, cowardly swine what war is, if they brought war to Gungapur in the hour of India's danger and need, the hour of England and the Empire's danger and need.

And Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison (and still more Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan), obsessed with the belief that a different and more terrible 1857 would dawn with the first big reverse in England's final war with her systematic, slow, sure, and certain rival, her deliberate, scientific, implacable rival, gave all his thoughts, abilities and time to the enthralling, engrossing game of Getting Ready.

Perfecting his local system of secret information, hearing and seeing all that he could with his own Pathan ears and eyes, and adding to his knowledge by means of those of the Somali slave, he also learnt, at first hand, what certain men were saying in Cabul and on the Border—and what those men say in those places is worth knowing by the meteorologist of world-politics. The pulse of the heart of Europe can be felt very far from that heart, and as is the wrist to the pulse-feeling doctor, is Afghanistan and the Border to the head of India's Political Department; as is the doctor's sensitive thumb to the doctor's brain, is the tried, trusted and approven agent of the Secret Service to the Head of all the Politicals…. What chiefly troubled Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison of the Gungapur Fusiliers was the shocking condition of those same Fusiliers and the blind smug apathy, the fatuous contentment, the short memories and shorter sight, of the British Pompeians who were perfectly willing that the condition of the said Fusiliers should remain so.

Clearly the first step towards a decently reliable and efficient corps in Gungapur was the abolition of the present one, and, with unformulated intentions towards its abolition, Mr. Ross-Ellison, by the kind influence of Mrs. Dearman, joined as a Second Lieutenant and speedily rose to the rank of Captain and the command of a Company. A year's indefatigable work convinced him that he might as well endeavour to fashion sword-blades from leaden pipes as to make a fighting unit of his gang of essentially cowardly, peaceful, unreliable, feeble nondescripts. That their bodies were contemptible he would have regarded as merely deplorable, but there was no spirit, no soul, no tradition—nothing upon which he could work. "Broken-down tapsters and serving-men" indeed, in Cromwell's bitter words, and to be replaced by "men of a spirit".

They must go—and make way for men—if indeed men could be found, men who realized that even an Englishman owes something to the community when he goes abroad, in spite of his having grown up in a land where honourable and manly National Service is not, and those who keep him safe are cheap hirelings, cheaply held….

On the arrival of General Miltiades Murger he sat at his feet as soon as, and whenever, possible; only to discover that he was not only uninterested in, but obviously contemptuous of, volunteers and volunteering. When, at the Dearmans' dinner-table, he endeavoured to talk with the General on the subject he was profoundly discouraged, and on his asking what was to happen when the white troops went home and the Indian troops went to the Border, or even to Europe, as soon as England's inevitable and final war broke out, he was also profoundly snubbed.

When, after that dinner, General Miltiades Murger made love to Mrs.
Dearman on the verandah, he also made an enemy, a bitter, cruel, and
vindictive enemy of Mr. Ross-Ellison (or rather of Mir Ilderim Dost
Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan).

Nor did his subsequent victory at the Horse Show lessen the enmity, inasmuch as Mrs. Dearman (whom Ross-Ellison loved with the respectful platonic devotion of an English gentleman and the fierce intensity of a Pathan) took General Miltiades Murger at his own valuation, when that hero described himself and his career to her by the hour. For the General had succumbed at a glance, and confided to his Brigade-Major that Mrs. Dearman was a dooced fine woman and the Brigade-Major might say that he said so, damme.

As the General's infatuation increased he told everybody else also—everybody except Colonel Dearman—who, of course, knew it already.

He even told Jobler, his soldier-servant, promoted butler, as that sympathetic and admiring functionary endeavoured to induce him to go to bed without his uniform.

At last he told Mrs. Dearman herself, as he saw her in the rosy light that emanated from the fine old Madeira that fittingly capped a noble luncheon given by him in her honour.

He also told her that he loved her as a father—and she besought him not to be absurd. Later he loved her as an uncle, later still as a cousin, later yet as a brother, and then as a man.

She had laughed deprecatingly at the paternal affection, doubtfully at the avuncular, nervously at the cousinly, angrily at the brotherly,—and not at all at the manly.

In fact—as the declaration of manly love had been accompanied by an endeavour to salute what the General had called her damask-cheek—she had slapped the General's own cheek a resounding blow….

"Called you 'Mrs. Darlingwoman,' did he!" roared Mr. Dearman upon being informed of the episode. "Wished to salute your damask cheek, did he! The boozy old villain! Damask cheek! Damned cheek! Where's my dog-whip?" … but Mrs. Dearman had soothed and restrained her lord for the time being, and prevented him from insulting and assaulting the "aged roué"—who was years younger, in point of fact, than the clean-living Mr. Dearman himself.

But he had shut his door to the unrepentant and unashamed General, had cut him in the Club, had returned a rudely curt answer to an invitation to dinner, and had generally shown the offender that he trod on dangerous ground when poaching on the preserves of Mr. Dearman. Whereat the General fumed.

Also the General swore that he would cut the comb of this insolent money-grubbing civilian.

Further, he intimated his desire to inspect the Gungapur Fusiliers "on
Saturday next".

Not the great and terrible Annual Inspection, of course, but a preliminary canter in that direction.

Doubtless, the new General desired to arrive at a just estimate of the value of this unit of his Command, and to allot to it the place for which it was best fitted in the scheme of local defence and things military at Gungapur.

Perhaps he desired to teach the presumptuous upstart, Dearman, a little lesson….

The Brigade Major's demy-official letter, bearing the intimation of the impending visitation—fell as a bolt from the blue and smote the Colonel of the Gungapur Fusiliers a blow that turned his heart to water and loosened the tendons of his knees.

The very slack Adjutant was at home on leave; the Sergeant-Major was absolutely new to the Corps; the Sergeant-Instructor was alcoholic and ill; and there was not a company officer, except the admirable Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison, competent to drill a company as a separate unit, much less to command one in a battalion. And Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison was away on an alleged shikar-trip across the distant Border. Colonel Dearman knew his battalion-drill. He also knew his Gungapur Fusiliers and what they did when they received the orders of those feared and detested evolutions. They walked about, each man a law unto himself, or stood fast until pushed in the desired direction by blasphemous drill-corporals.

Nor could any excuse be found wherewith to evade the General. It was near the end of the drill-season, the Corps was up to its full strength, all the Officers were in the station—except Captain Ross-Ellison and the Adjutant. And the Adjutant's absence could not be made a just cause and impediment why the visit of the General should not be paid, for Colonel Dearman had with some difficulty, procured the appointment of one of his Managers as acting-adjutant.

To do so he had been moved to describe the man as an "exceedingly smart and keen Officer," and to state that the Corps would in no way suffer by this temporary change from a military to a civilian adjutant, from a professional to an amateur.

Perhaps the Colonel was right—it would have taken more than that to make the Gungapur Fusiliers "suffer".

And all had gone exceeding well up to the moment of the receipt of this terrible demi-official, for the Acting-Adjutant had signed papers when and where the Sergeant-Major told him, and had saluted the Colonel respectfully every Saturday evening at five, as he came on parade, and suggested that the Corps should form fours and march round and round the parade ground, prior to attempting one or two simple movements—as usual.

No. It would have to be—unless, of course, the General had a stroke before Saturday, or was smitten with delirium tremens in time. For it was an article of faith with Colonel Dearman since the disgraceful episode—that a "stroke" hung suspended by the thinnest of threads above the head of the "aged roué" and that, moreover, he trembled on the verge of a terrible abyss of alcoholic diseases—a belief strengthened by the blue face, boiled eye, congested veins and shaking hand of the breaker of hearts. And Colonel Dearman knew that he must not announce the awful fact until the Corps was actually present—or few men and fewer Officers would find it possible to be on parade on that occasion.

Saturday evening came, and with it some five hundred men and Officers—the latter as a body, much whiter-faced than usual, on receipt of the appalling news.

"Thank God I have nothing to do but sit around on my horse," murmured
Major Pinto.

"Don't return thanks yet," snapped Colonel Dearman. "You'll very likely have to drill the battalion"—and the Major went as white as his natural disadvantages permitted.

Bitterly did Captain Trebizondi regret his constant insistence upon the fact that he was senior Captain—for he was given command of "A" Company, the post of honour and danger in front of all, and was implored to "pull it through" and not to stand staring like an owl when the Colonel said the battalion would advance; or turn to the left when he shouted "In succession advance in fours from the right of Companies".

And in the orderly-room was much hurried consulting of Captain
Ross-Ellison's well-trained subaltern and of drill-books; and a babel of
such questions as: "I say, what the devil do I do if I'm commanding
Number Two and he says 'Deploy outwards'? Go to the right or left?"

More than one gallant officer was seen scribbling for dear life upon his shirt-cuff, while others, to the common danger, endeavoured to practise the complicated sword-brandishment which is consequent upon the order "Fall out the Officers".

Colonel Dearman appealed to his brothers-in-arms to stand by him nobly in his travail, but was evidently troubled by the fear that some of them would stand by him when they ought to march by him. Captain Petropaulovski, the acting-adjutant, endeavoured to moisten his parched lips with a dry tongue and sat down whenever opportunity offered.

Captain Euxino Spoophitophiles was seen to tear a page from a red manual devoted to instruction in the art of drill and to secrete it as one "palms" a card—if one is given to the palming of cards. Captain Schloggenboschenheimer was heard to promise a substantial trink-geld, pour-boire, or vot-you-call-tip to Sergeant-Instructor Progg in the event of the latter official remaining mit him and prompting him mit der-vord-to-say ven it was necessary for him der-ting-to-do.

Too late, Captain Da Costa bethought him of telephoning to his wife (to telephone back to himself imploring him to return at once as she was parlous ill and sinking fast), for even as he stepped quietly toward the telephone-closet the Sergeant-Major bustled in with a salute and the fatal words:—

"'Ere's the General, Sir!"

"For God's sake get on parade and play the man this day," cried Colonel Dearman, as he hurried out to meet the General, scoring his right boot with his left spur and tripping over his sword en route.

* * * * *

The General greeted the Colonel as a total stranger, addressed him as "Colonel," and said he anticipated great pleasure from this his first visit to the well-known Gungapur Fusiliers. He did, and he got it.

Dismounting slowly and heavily from his horse (almost as though "by numbers") the General, followed by his smart and dapper Brigade-Major and the perspiring Colonel Dearman, strode with clank of steel and creak of leather, through the Headquarters building and emerged upon the parade-ground where steadfast stood seven companies of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteers in quarter column—more or less at "attention".

"'Shun!" bawled Colonel Dearman, and those who were "at ease" 'shunned, and those who were already 'shunning took their ease.

"'Shun!" again roared the Colonel, and those who were now in that military position relinquished it—while those who were not, assumed it in their own good time.

As the trio drew nigh unto the leading company, Captain Trebizondi, coyly lurking behind its rear rank, shrilly screamed, "'A' Gompany! Royal Salutes! Present Arrrrms!" while a volunteer, late a private of the Loyal Whitechapel Regiment, and now an unwilling member of this corps of auxiliary troops, audibly ejaculated through one corner of his mobile mouth:—

"Don't you do nothink o' the sort!" and added a brief orison in prejudice of his eyesight.

Certain of "A's" stalwarts obeyed their Captain, while others took the advice of the volunteer—who was known to have been a man of war in the lurid past, and to understand these matters.

Lieutenant Toddywallah tugged valiantly at his sword for a space, but finding that weapon coy and unwilling to leave its sheath, he raised his helmet gracefully and respectfully to the General. His manner was always polished.

"What the devil are they doing?" inquired the General.

"B," "C," "D," "E," "F," and "G" Companies breathed hard and protruded their stomachs, while Sergeant-Instructor Progg deserved well of Captain Schloggenboschenheimer by sharply tugging his tunic-tail as he was in the act of roaring:—

"Gomm—!" the first syllable of the word "Company," with a view to bestowing a royal salute likewise. Instead, the Captain extended the hand of friendship to the General as he approached. The look of nil admirari boredom slowly faded from the face of the smart and dapper Brigade-Major, and for a while it displayed quite human emotions.

Up and down and between the ranks strode the trio, the General making instructive and interesting comments from time to time, such as:—

"Are your buttons of metal or bone, my man? Polish them and find out."

"What did you cook in that helmet?"

"Take your belt in seven holes, and put it where your waist was."

"Are you fourteen years old yet?"

"Personally I don't care to see brown boots, patent shoes nor carpet slippers with uniform."

"And when were you ninety, my poor fellow?"

"Get your belly out of my way."

"Put this unclean person under arrest or under a pump, please, Colonel."

"Can you load a rifle unaided?" and so forth.

The last-mentioned query "Can you load a rifle unaided?" addressed to a weedy youth of seventeen who stood like a living mark-of-interrogation, elicited the reply:—

"Nossir".

"Oh, really! And what can you do?" replied the General sweetly.

"Load a rifle Lee-Metford," was the prompt answer.

The General smiled wintrily, and, at the conclusion of his peregrination, remarked to Colonel Dearman:—

"Well, Colonel, I can safely say that I have never inspected a corps quite like yours"—an observation capable of various interpretations—and intimated a desire to witness some company drill ere testing the abilities of the regiment in battalion drill.

"Let the rear company march out and go through some movements," said he.

"Why the devil couldn't he have chosen Ross-Ellison's company," thought Colonel Dearman, as he saluted and lifted up his voice and cried aloud:—

"Captain Rozario! March 'G' Company out for some company-drill.
Remainder—stand easy."

Captain Rozario paled beneath the bronze imparted to his well-nourished face by the suns of Portugal (or Goa), drew his sword, dropped it, picked it up, saluted with his left hand and backed into Lieutenant Xenophontis of "F" Company, who asked him vare the devil he was going to—hein?…

To the first cold stroke of fright succeeded the hot flush of rage as Captain Rozario saw the absurdity of ordering him to march his company out for company drill. How in the name of all the Holy Saints could he march his company out with six companies planted in front of him? Let them be cleared away first. To his men he ejaculated:—

"Compannee——!" and they accepted the remark in silence.

The silence growing tense he further ejaculated "Ahem!" very loudly, without visible result or consequence. The silence growing tenser, Colonel Dearman said encouragingly but firmly:—

"Do something, Captain Rozario".

Captain Rozario did something. He drew his whistle. He blew it. He replaced it in his pocket.

Nothing happening, he took his handkerchief from his sleeve, blew his nose therewith and dropped it (the handkerchief) upon the ground. Seven obliging volunteers darted forward to retrieve it.

"May we expect the evolutions this evening, Colonel?" inquired General
Murger politely.

"We are waiting for you to move off, Captain Rozario," stated Colonel
Dearman.

"Sir, how can I move off with oll the rest in my front?" inquired
Captain Rozario reasonably.

"Form fours, right, and quick march," prompted the Sergeant-Major, and
Captain Rozario shrilled forth:

"Form right fours and march quick," at the top of his voice.

Many members of "G" Company turned to their right and marched towards the setting-sun, while some turned to their left and marched in the direction of China.

These latter, discovering in good time that they had erred, hurried to rejoin their companions—and "G" Company was soon in full swing if not in fours….

There is a limit to all enterprise and the march of "G" Company was stayed by a high wall.

Then Captain Rozario had an inspiration.

"About turn," he shrieked—and "G" Company about turned as one man, if not in one direction.

The march of "G" Company was stayed this time by the battalion into which it comfortably nuzzled.

Again Captain Rozario seized the situation and acted promptly and resourcefully.

"Halt!" he squeaked, and "G" Company halted—in form an oblate spheroid.

Some of its members removed their helmets and the sweat of their brows, some re-fastened bootlaces and putties or unfastened restraining hooks and buttons. One gracefully succumbed to his exertions and fainting fell, with an eye upon the General.

"Interestin' evolution," remarked that Officer. "Demmed interestin'. May we have some more?"

"Get on, Captain Rozario," implored Colonel Dearman. "Let's see some company-drill."

"One hundred and twenty-five paces backward march," cried Captain Rozario after a brief calculation, and "G" Company reluctantly detached itself from the battalion, backwards.

"Turn round this away and face to me," continued the gallant Captain, "and then on the left form good companee."

The oblate spheroid assumed an archipelagic formation, melting into irregularly-placed military islands upon a sea of dust.

"Oll get together and left dress, please," besought Captain Rozario, and many of the little islands amalgamated with that on their extreme right while the remainder gravitated to their left—the result being two continents of unequal dimensions.

As Captain Rozario besought these disunited masses to conjoin, the voice of the General was heard in the land—

"Kindly order that mob to disperse before it is fired on, will you,
Colonel? They can go home and stay there," said he.

Captain Rozario was a man of sensibility and he openly wept.

No one could call this a good beginning—nor could they have called the ensuing battalion-drill a good ending.

"Put the remainder of the battalion through some simple movements if they know any," requested the General.

Determined to retrieve the day yet, Colonel Dearman saluted, cleared his throat terrifically and shouted: '"Tallish, 'shun!" with such force that a nervous man in the front rank of "A" Company dropped his rifle and several "presented" arms.

Only one came to the "slope," two to the "trail" and four to the "shoulder".

Men already at attention again stood at ease, while men already at ease again stood at attention.

Disregarding these minor contretemps, Colonel Dearman clearly and emphatically bellowed:—

"The battalion will advance. In succession, advance in fours from the left of companies—"

"Why not tell off the battalion—just for luck?" suggested General
Murger.

"Tell off the battalion," said Colonel Dearman in his natural voice and an unnaturally crestfallen manner.

Captain Trebizondi of "A" Company glared to his front, and instead of replying "Number One" in a loud voice, held his peace—tight.

But his lips moved constantly, and apparently Captain Trebizondi was engaged in silent prayer.

"Tell off the battalion," bawled the Colonel again.

Captain Trebizondi's lips moved constantly.

"Will you tell off the dam battalion, Sir?" shouted the Colonel at the enrapt supplicant.

Whether Captain Trebizondi is a Mohammedan I am not certain, but, if so, he may have remembered words of the Prophet to the effect that it is essential to trust in Allah absolutely, and expedient to tie up your camel yourself, none the less. Captain Trebizondi was trusting in Allah perchance—but he had not tied up his camel; he had not learnt his drill.

And when Colonel Dearman personally and pointedly appealed to him in the matter of the battalion's telling-off, he turned round and faced it and said—

"Ah—battalion—er—" in a very friendly and persuasive voice.

Then a drill corporal took it upon him to bawl Number One as Captain Trebizondi should have done, some one shouted Number Two from "B" Company, the colour-sergeant of "C" bawled Number Three and then, with ready wit, the Captains of "D," "E," and "F" caught up the idea, and the thing was done.

So far so good.

And the Colonel returned to his first venture and again announced to the battalion that it would advance in succession and in fours from the left of companies.

It bore the news with equanimity and Captain Trebizondi visibly brightened at the idea of leaving the spot on which he had suffered and sweated—but he took no steps in the matter personally.

He tried to scratch his leg through his gaiter.

"'A' Company going this evening?" inquired the General. "Wouldn't hurry you, y'know, but—I dine at nine."

Captain Trebizondi remembered his parade-manners and threw a chest instead of a stomach.

The jerk caused his helmet to tilt forward over his eyes and settle down slowly and firmly upon his face as a fallen cliff upon the beach beneath.

"The Officer commanding the leading company appears to be trying to hide," commented General Murger.

Captain Trebizondi uncovered his face—a face of great promise but no performance.

"Will you march your company off, sir," shouted Colonel Dearman, "the battalion is waiting for you."

With a look of reproachful surprise and an air of "Why couldn't you say so?" the harassed Captain agitated his sword violently as a salute, turned to his company and boomed finely:—

"March off!"

The Company obeyed its Commander.

Seeing the thing so easy of accomplishment Captains Allessandropoulos, Schloggenboschenheimer, Da Costa, Euxino, Spoophitophiles and José gave the same order and the battalion was in motion—marching to its front in quarter-column instead of wheeling off in fours.

Unsteadily shoulder from shoulder,
Unsteadily blade from blade,
Unsteady and wrong, slouching along,
Went the boys of the old brigade.

"Halt," roared Colonel Dearman.

"Oh, don't halt 'em," begged General Murger, "it's the most entertainin' show I have ever seen."

The smart and dapper Brigade-Major's mouth was open.

Major Pinto and Captain-and-Acting-Adjutant Petropaulovski forgot to cling to their horses with hand and heel and so endangered their lives.

The non-commissioned officers of the permanent staff commended their souls to God and marched as men in a dream.

On hearing the Colonel's cry of "Halt" many of the men halted. Not hearing the Colonel's cry of "Halt" many of the men did not halt.

In two minutes the battalion was without form and void.

In ten minutes the permanent staff had largely re-sorted it and, to a great extent, re-formed the original companies.

Captain José offered his subaltern, Lieutenant Bylegharicontractor, a hundred rupees to change places with him.

Offer refused, with genuine and deep regret, but firmly.

"Shall we have another try, Colonel," inquired General Murger silkily. "Any amount of real initiative and originality about this Corps. But I am old-fashioned enough to prefer drill-book evolutions on the barrack-square, I confess. Er—let the Major carry on as it is getting late."

Colonel Dearman's face flushed a rich dark purple. His eyes protruded till they resembled those of a crab. His red hair appeared to flame like very fire. His lips twitched and he gasped for breath. Could he believe his ears. "Let the Major carry on as it is getting late!" Let him step into the breach "as it is getting late!" Let the more competent, though junior, officer take over the command "as it is getting late". Ho!—likewise Ha! This aged roué, this miserable wine-bibbing co-respondent, with his tremulous hand and boiled eye, thought that Colonel Dearman did not know his drill, did he? Wanted the wretched and incompetent Pinto to carry on, did he?—as it was getting late.

Good! Ha! Likewise Ho! "Let Pinto carry on as it was getting late!"

Very well! If it cost Colonel Dearman every penny he had in the world he would have his revenge on the insolent scoundrel. He might think he could insult Colonel Dearman's wife with impunity, he might think himself entitled to cast ridicule on Colonel Dearman's Corps—but "let the Major carry on as it is getting late!" By God that was too much!—That was the last straw that breaks the camel's heart—and Colonel Dearman would have his revenge or lose life, honour, and wealth in the attempt.

Ha! and, moreover, Ho!

The Colonel knew his battalion-drill by heart and backwards. Was it his fault that his officers were fools and his men damn-fools?

Major Pinto swallowed hard, blinked hard, and breathed hard. Like the
Lady of Shallott he felt that the curse had come upon him.

"Battalion will advance. Quick march," he shouted, as a safe beginning.
But the Sergeant-Major had by this time fully explained to the sweating
Captain Trebizondi that he should have given the order "Form fours.
Left. Right wheel. Quick march," when the Colonel had announced that the
battalion would advance "in succession from the left of companies".

Like lightning he now hurled forth the orders. "Form fours. Left. Right wheel. Quick march.", and the battalion was soon under way with one company in column of fours and the remaining five companies in line….

Time cures all troubles, and in time "A" Company was pushed and pulled back into line again.

The incident pleased Major Pinto as it wasted the fleeting minutes and gave him a chance to give the only other order of which he was sure.

"That was oll wrong," said he. "We will now, however, oll advance as 'A' Company did. The arder will be 'Battalion will advance. In succession, advance in fours from the right of companees.' Thenn each officer commanding companees will give the arder 'Form fours. Right. Left wheel. Quick march' one after thee other."

And the Major gave the order.

To the surprise of every living soul upon the parade-ground the manoeuvre was correctly executed and the battalion moved off in column of fours. And it kept on moving. And moving. For Major Pinto had come to the end of his tether.

"Do something, man," said Colonel Dearman with haughty scorn, after some five minutes of strenuous tramping had told severely on the morale of the regiment.

And Major Pinto, hoping for the best and fearing the worst, lifted up his voice and screamed:—

"On the right form battalion!"

Let us draw a veil.

The adjective that General Murger used with the noun he called the
Gungapur Fusiliers is not to be printed.

The address he made to that Corps after it had once more found itself would have led a French or Japanese regiment to commit suicide by companies, taking the time from the right. A Colonel of Romance Race would have fallen on his sword at once (and borrowed something more lethal had it failed to penetrate).

But the corps, though not particularly British, was neither French nor
Japanese and was very glad of the rest while the General talked. And
Colonel Dearman, instead of falling on his sword, fell on General Murger
(in spirit) and swore to be revenged tenfold.

He would have his own back, cost what it might, or his name was not
Dearman—and he was going Home on leave immediately after the Volunteer
Annual Camp of Exercise, just before General Murger retired….

"I shall inspect your corps in camp," General Murger had said, "and the question of its disbandment may wait until I have done so."

Disbandment! The question of the disbandment of the fine and far-famed Fusiliers of Gungapur could wait till then, could it? Well and good! Ha! and likewise Ho!

On Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison's return from leave, Colonel Dearman told that officer of General Murger's twofold insult—to Colonel Dearman's wife and to Colonel Dearman's Corps. On hearing of the first, Captain Ross-Ellison showed his teeth in a wolfish and ugly manner, and, on hearing of the second, propounded a scheme of vengeance that made Colonel Dearman grin and then burst into a roar of laughter. He bade Captain Ross-Ellison dine with him and elaborate details of the scheme.

* * * * *

To rumours of General Murger's failing health and growing alcoholism Colonel Dearman listened with interest—nay, satisfaction. Stories of seizures, strokes and "goes" of delirium tremens met with no rebuke nor contradiction from him—and an air of leisured ease and unanxious peacefulness pervaded the Gungapur Fusiliers. If any member had thought that the sad performance of the fatal Saturday night and the winged words of General Murger were to be the prelude to period of fierce activity and frantic preparation, he was mistaken. It was almost as though Colonel Dearman believed that General Murger would not live to carry out his threat.

The corps paraded week by week, fell in, marched round the ground and fell out again. There was no change of routine, no increase of work, no stress, no strain.

All was peace, the corps was happy, and in the fullness of time (and the absence of the Adjutant) it went to Annual Camp of Exercise a few miles from Gungapur. And there the activities of Captain John Robin Ross-Ellison and a large band of chosen men were peculiar. While the remainder, with whom went Colonel Dearman, the officers, and the permanent staff, marched about in the usual manner and enjoyed the picnic, these others appeared to be privately and secretly rehearsing a more specialized part—to the mystification and wonder of the said remainder. Even on the great day, the day of the Annual Inspection, this division was maintained and the "remainder" were marched off to the other side of the wood adjacent to the Camp, some couple of hours before the expected arrival of the General, who would come out by train.

The arrangement was that the horses of the General and the Brigade-Major should await those officers at the camp station, and that, on arrival, they would be mounted by their owners who would then ride to the camp, a furlong distant. Near the camp a mounted orderly would meet the General and escort him to the spot where the battalion, with Colonel Dearman at its head, would be drawn up for his inspection.

A large bungalow, used as the Officers' Mess, a copse, and a hillock completely screened the spot used as the battalion parade-ground, from the view of one approaching the Camp, and the magnificent sight of the Gungapur Fusiliers under arms would burst upon him only when he rounded the corner of a wall of palms, cactus, and bamboos, and entered by a narrow gap between it and a clump of dense jungle.

* * * * *

General Murger was feeling distinctly bad as he sat on the edge of his bed and viewed with the eye of disfavour the choti hazri[51] set forth for his delectation.

[51] "Little presence," early breakfast, petit déjeuner.

As he intended to inspect the Volunteers in the early morning and return to a mid-day breakfast, the choti hazri was substantial, though served on a tray in his bedroom.

The General yawned, rubbed his eyes and grunted.

"Eggs be demmed," said he.

"Toast be demmed," he said.

"Tea be demmed," he shouted.

"Paté de fois gras be demmed," shouted he.

"Jobler! Bring me a bottle of beer," he roared.

"No, bring me a brandy-cocktail," roared he.

For the brandy-cocktail the General felt better for a time but he wished, first, that his hand would not shake in such a way that hair-brushing was difficult and shaving impossible; secondly, that the prevailing colour of everything was not blue; thirdly, that he did not feel giddy when he stood up; fourthly, that his head did not ache; fifthly, that his mouth would provide some other flavour than that of a glue-coated copper coin; sixthly, that things would keep still and his boots cease to smile at him from the corner; seventhly, that he had not gone to the St. Andrew's dinner last night, begun on punch à la Romaine, continued on neat whisky in quaichs and finished on port, liqueurs, champagne and haphazard brandy-and-sodas, whisky-and-sodas, and any old thing that was handy; and eighthly, that he had had a quart of beer instead of the brandy-cocktail for choti hazri.

But that could easily be remedied by having the beer now. The General had the beer and soon wished that he hadn't, for it made him feel very bad indeed.

However, a man must do his dooty, ill or well, and when the Brigade-Major sent up to remind the General that the train went at seven, he was answered by the General himself and a hint that he was officious. During the brief train-journey the General slumbered.

On mounting his horse, the General was compelled to work out a little sum.

If one has four fingers there must be three inter-finger spaces, eh? Granted. Then how the devil are four reins to go into three places between four fingers, eh? Absurd idea, an' damsilly. However, till the matter was referred to the War Office and finally settled, one could put two reins between two fingers or pass one outside the lill' finger, what? But the General hated compromises…. The mounted orderly met the General, saluted and directed him to the entrance to the tree-encircled camp and parade-ground.

At the entrance, the General, leading, reined in so sharply as to throw his horse on its haunches—his mouth fell open, his mottled face went putty-coloured, and each hair that he possessed appeared to bristle.

He uttered a deep groan, rubbed his eyes, emitted a yell, wheeled round and galloped for dear life, with a cry, nay a scream, of "I've got 'em at last," followed by his utterly bewildered but ever-faithful Brigade-Major, who had seen nothing but foliage, scrub, and cactus. To Gungapur the General galloped without drawing rein, took to his bed, sent for surgeon and priest—and became a teetotaller.

And what had he seen?

The affair is wrapped in mystery.

The Brigade-Major says nothing because he knows nothing, as it happens, and the Corps declared it was never inspected. Father Ignatius knows what the General saw, or thinks he saw, and so does the Surgeon-General, but neither is in the habit of repeating confessions and confidences. What Jobler, at the keyhole, understood him to say he had seen, or thought he had seen, is not to be believed.

Judge of it.

"I rode into the dem place and what did I behold? A dem pandemonium, Sir, a pantomime—a lunatic asylum, Sir—all Hell out for a Bank Holiday, I tell you. There was a battalion of Red Indians, Negroes, Esquimaux, Ballet Girls, Angels, Sweeps, Romans, Sailors, Pierrots, Savages, Bogeymen, Ancient Britons, Bishops, Zulus, Pantaloons, Beef-eaters, Tramps, Life-Guards, Washerwomen, Ghosts, Clowns and God-knows-what, armed with jezails, umbrellas, brooms, catapults, pikes, brickbats, kukeries,[52] pokers, clubs, axes, horse-pistols, bottles, dead fowls, polo-sticks, assegais and bombs. They were commanded by a Highlander in a bum-bee tartan kilt, top-hat and one sock, with a red nose a foot long, riding on a rocking horse and brandishing a dem great cucumber and a tea-tray made into a shield. There was a thundering great drain-pipe mounted on a bullock-cart and a naked man, painted blue, in a cocked-hat, laying an aim and firing a penny-pistol down the middle of it and yelling 'Pip!'

[52] Ghurka knives.

"There was a chauffeur in smart livery on an elephant, twirling a steering-wheel on its neck for dear life, and tooting a big motor-horn.. There was a fat man in a fireman's helmet and pyjamas, armed with a peashooter, riding a donkey backwards—and the moke wore two pairs of trousers!… As I rubbed my poor old eyes, the devil in command howled 'General salaam. Pre_sent_-legs'—and every fiend there fell flat on his face and raised his right leg up behind—I tell you, Sir, I fled for my life, and—no more liquor for me." …

When ex-Colonel Dearman heard any reference to this mystery he roared with laughter—but it was the Last Muster of the fine and far-famed Gungapur Fusiliers, as such.

The Corps was disbanded forthwith and re-formed on a different basis (of quality instead of quantity) with Lieutenant-Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison, promoted, in command—he having caught the keen eye of that splendid soldier and gentleman Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Barnet, K.C.V.O., K.C.S.I. (G.O.C., XVIth Division), as being the very man for the job of re-organizing the Corps, and making it worth its capitation-grant.

"If I could get Captain Malet-Marsac as Adjutant and a Sergeant-Major of whom I know (used to be at Duri—man named Lawrence-Smith) I'd undertake to show you something, Sir, in a year or two," said Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison.

"Malet-Marsac you can certainly have," replied Sir Arthur Barnet. "I'll speak to your new Brigadier. If you can find your Lawrence-Smith we'll see what can be done." …

And Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison wrote to Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith of the Duri Volunteer Rifles to know if he would like a transfer upon advantageous terms, and got no reply.

As it happened, Lieutenant-Colonel Ross-Ellison, in very different guise, had seen Sergeant Lawrence-Smith extricate and withdraw his officerless company from the tightest of tight places (on the Border) in a manner that moved him to large admiration. It had been a case of "and even the ranks of Tuscany" on the part of Mir Jan Rah-bin-Ras el-Isan Ilderim Dost Mahommed…. Later he had encountered him and Captain Malet-Marsac at Duri.

§ 3. SERGEANT-MAJOR LAWRENCE-SMITH.

Mrs. Pat Dearman was sceptical.

"Do you mean to tell me that you, a man of science, an eminent medical man, and a soldier, believe in the supernatural?"

"Well, you see, I'm 'Oirish' and therefore unaccountable," replied Colonel Jackson (of the Royal Army Medical Corps), fine doctor, fine scholar, and fine gentleman.

"And you believe in haunted houses and ghosts and things, do you? Well!"

The salted-almond dish was empty, and Mrs. Dearman accused her other neighbour, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison. Having already prepared to meet and rebut the charge of greediness he made passes over the vessel and it was replenished.

"Supernatural!" said she.

"Most," said he.

She prudently removed the dish to the far side of her plate—and
Colonel Jackson emptied it.

Not having prepared to meet the request to replenish the store a second time, it was useless for Mr. Ross-Ellison to make more passes when commanded so to do.

"The usual end of the 'supernatural,'" observed Mrs. Dearman with contempt.

"Most usual," said he.

"More than 'most,'" corrected Mrs. Dearman. "It is the invariable end of it, I believe. Just humbug and rubbish. It is either an invention, pure and simple, or else it is perfectly explicable. Don't you think so, Colonel Jackson?"

"Not always," said her partner. "Now, will you, first, believe my word, and, secondly, find the explanation—if I tell you a perfectly true 'supernatural' story?"

"I'll certainly believe your word, Colonel, if you're serious, and I'll try and suggest an explanation if you like," replied Mrs. Dearman.

"Same to me, Mrs. Dearman?" asked Mr. Ross-Ellison. "I've had 'experiences' too—and can tell you one of them."

"Same to you, Mr. Ross-Ellison," replied Mrs. Dearman, and added: "But why only one of them?"

Mr. Ross-Ellison smiled, glanced round the luxuriously appointed table and the company of fair women and brave men—and thought of a far-distant and little-known place called Mekran Kot and of a phantom cavalry corps that haunted a valley in its vicinity.

"Only one worth telling," said he.

"Well,—first case," began Colonel Jackson, "I was once driving past a cottage on my way home from College (in Ireland), and I saw the old lady who lived in that cottage come out of the door, cross her bit of garden, go through a gate, scuttle over the railway-line and enter a fenced field that had belonged to her husband, and which she (and a good many other people) believed rightly belonged to her.

"'There goes old Biddy Maloney pottering about in that plot of ground again,' thinks I. 'She's got it on the brain since her law-suit.' I knew it was Biddy, of course, not only because of her coming out of Biddy's house, but because it was Biddy's figure, walk, crutch-stick, and patched old cloak. When I got home I happened to say to Mother: 'I saw poor old Biddy Maloney doddering round that wretched field as I came along'.

"'What?' said my mother, 'why, your father was called to her, as she was dying, hours ago, and she's not been out of her bed for weeks.' When my father came in, I learned that Biddy was dead an hour before I saw her—before I left the railway station in fact! What do you make of that? Is there any 'explanation'?"

"Some other old lady," suggested Mrs. Dearman.

"No. There was nobody else in those parts mistakable for Biddy Maloney, and no other old woman was in or near the house while my father was there. We sifted the matter carefully. It was Biddy Maloney and no one else."

"Auto-suggestion. Visualization on the retina of an idea in the mind.
Optical illusion," hazarded Mrs. Dearman.

"No good. I hadn't realized I was approaching Biddy Maloney's cottage until I saw her coming out of it and I certainly hadn't thought of Biddy Maloney until my eye fell upon her. And it's a funny optical illusion that deceives one into seeing an old lady opening gates, crossing railways and limping away into fenced fields."

"H'm! What was the other case?" asked Mrs. Dearman, turning to Mr.
Ross-Ellison.

"That happened here in India at a station called Duri, away in the Northern Presidency, where I was then—er—living for a time. On the day after my arrival I went to call on Malet-Marsac to whom I had letters of introduction—political business—and, as he was out, but certain to return in a minute or two from Parade, I sat me down in a comfortable chair in the verandah——"

"And went to sleep?" interrupted Mrs. Dearman.

'"I nevah sleep,'" quoted Mr. Ross-Ellison, "and I had no time, if any inclination. Scarcely indeed had I seated myself, and actually while I was placing my topi on an adjacent stool, a lady emerged from a distant door at the end of the verandah and walked towards me. I can tell you I was mighty surprised, for not only was Captain Malet-Marsac a lone bachelor and a misogynist of blameless life, but the lady looked as though she had stepped straight out of an Early Victorian phonograph-album. She had on a crinoline sort of dress, a deep lace collar, spring-sidey sort of boots, mittens, and a huge cameo brooch. Also she had long ringlets. Her face is stamped on my memory and I could pick her out from a hundred women similarly dressed, or her picture from a hundred others…."

"What did you do?" asked Mrs. Dearman, whose neglected ice-pudding was fast being submerged in a pink lake of its own creation.

"Do? Nothing. I grabbed my topi, stood up, bowed—and looked silly."

"And what did the lady do?"

"Came straight on, taking no notice whatsoever of me, until she reached the steps leading into the porch and garden…. She passed down these and out of my sight…. That is the plain statement of an actual fact. Have you any 'explanation' to offer?"

"Well—what about a lady staying there, unexpectedly and unbeknownst (to the station), trying on a get-up for a Fancy Dress Ball. Going as 'My ancestress' or something?" suggested Mrs. Dearman.

"Exactly what I told myself, though I knew it was nothing of the kind…. Well, five minutes later Malet-Marsac rode up the drive and we were soon fraternizing over cheroots and cold drinks…. As I was leaving, an idea struck me, and I saw a way to ask a question—which was burning my tongue,—without being too rudely inquisitive.

"'By the way,' said I, 'I fear I did not send in the right number of visiting cards, but they told me there was no lady here, so I only sent in one—for you.'

"'There is no lady here,' he replied, eyeing me queerly. 'What made you think you had been misinformed?'

"'Well,' said I bluntly, 'a lady came out of the end room just now, walked down the verandah, and went out into the garden. You'd better see if anything is missing as she's not an inhabitant!'

"'No—there won't be anything missing,' he replied. 'Did she wear a crinoline and a general air of last century?'

"'She did,' said I.

"'Our own private ghost,' was the answer—and it was the sort of statement I had anticipated. Now I solemnly assure you that at that time I had never heard, read, nor dreamed that there was a 'ghost' in this bungalow, nor in Duri—nor in the whole Northern Presidency for that matter….

"'What's the story?' I asked, of course.

"'Mutiny. 1857,' said Malet-Marsac. 'Husband shot on the parade-ground. She got the news and marched straight to the spot. They cut her in pieces as she held his body in her arms. Lots of people have seen her—anywhere between that room and the parade-ground.'

"'Then you have to believe in ghosts—in Duri, or how do you account for it?' I asked.

"'I don't bother my head,' he replied. 'But I have seen that poor lady a good many times. And no one told me a word about her until after I had seen her.'"

And then Mrs. Dearman suddenly rose, as her hostess "caught" the collective female eye of the table.

"Was all that about the 'ghosts' of the old Irishwoman and the Early
Victorian Lady true, you fellows?" asked John Bruce, the Professor of
Engineering, after coffee, cigars and the second glass of port had
reconciled the residue or sediment to the departure of the sterner sex.

"Didn't you hear me say my story was true?" replied Colonel Jackson brusquely. "It was absolutely and perfectly true."

"Same here," added Mr. Ross-Ellison.

"Then on two separate occasions you two have seen what you can only believe to be the ghosts of dead people?"

"On one occasion I have, without any possibility of error or doubt, seen the ghost of a dead person," said Colonel Jackson.

"Have you ever come across any other thoroughly substantiated cases of ghost-seeing—cases which have really convinced you, Colonel?" queried Mr. Ross-Ellison—being deeply interested in the subject by reason of queer powers and experiences of his own.

"Yes. Many in which I fully believe, and one about which I am certain.
A very interesting case—and a very cruel tragedy."

"Would you mind telling me about it?" asked Mr. Ross-Ellison.

"Pleasure. More—I'll give you as interesting and convincing a 'human document' about it as ever you read, if you like."

"I shall be eternally grateful," replied the other.

"It was a sad and sordid business. The man, whose last written words I'll give you to read, was a Sergeant-Major in the Volunteer Rifles (also at Duri where I was stationed, as you know) and he was a gentleman born and bred, poor chap." ["Lawrence-Smith," murmured Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison with an involuntary movement of surprise. His eyebrows rose and his jaw fell.] "Yes, he was that rare bird a gentleman-ranker who remained a gentleman and a ranker—and became a fine soldier. He called himself Lawrence-Smith and owned a good old English name that you'd recognize if I mentioned it—and you'd be able to name some of his relatives too. He was kicked out of Sandhurst for striking one of the subordinate staff under extreme provocation. The army was in his blood and bones, and he enlisted."

"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Ross-Ellison, "you speak of this
Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith in the past tense. Is he dead then?"

"He is dead," replied Colonel Jackson. "Did you know him?"

"I believe I saw him at Duri," answered Mr. Ross-Ellison with an excellent assumption of indifference. "What's the story?"

"I'll give you his own tale on paper—let me have it back—and, mind you, every single word of it is Gospel truth. The man was a gentleman, an educated, thoughtful, sober chap, and as sane as you or I. I got to know him well—he was in hospital, with blood-poisoning from panther-bite, for a time—and we became friends. Actual friends, I mean. Used to play golf with him. (You remember the Duri Links.) In mufti, you'd never have dreamed for a moment that he was not a Major or a Colonel. Army life had not coarsened him in the slightest, and he kept some lounge-suits and mess-kit by Poole. Many a good Snob of my acquaintance has left my house under the impression that the Lawrence-Smith he had met there, and with whom he had been hail-fellow-well-met, was his social equal or superior.

"He simply was a refined and educated gentleman and that's all there is about it. Well—you'll read his statement—and, as you read, you may tell yourself that I am as convinced of its truth as I am of anything in this world…. He was dead when I got to him.

"The stains, on the backs of some of the sheets and on the front of the last one, are—blood stains…."

And at this point their host suggested the propriety of joining the ladies….

Colonel Jackson gave Mr. Ross-Ellison a "lift" in his powerful motor as far as his bungalow, entered, and a few minutes later emerged with a long and fat envelope.

"Here you are," said he. "I took it upon myself to annex the papers as I was his friend. Let's have 'em back. No need for me to regard them as 'private and confidential' so far as I can see, poor chap. Good-night."

Having achieved the haven of loose Pathan trousers and a muslin shirt (worn over them) in the privacy of his bed-room, Mr. Ross-Ellison, looking rather un-English, sat on a camp-cot (he never really liked chairs) and read, as follows, from a sheaf of neatly-written (and bloodstained) sheets of foolscap.

* * * * *

I have come to the point at which I decide to stop. I have had enough.
But I should like to ask one or two questions.

1. Why has a man no right to quit a world in which he no longer desires to live? 2. Why should Evil be allowed to triumph? 3. Why should people who cannot see spirit forms be so certain that such do not exist, when none but an ignorant fool argues, "I believe in what I can see"?

With regard to the first question I maintain that a man has a perfect right to "take" the life that was "given" him (without his own consent or desire), provided it is not an act of cowardice nor an evasion of just punishment or responsibility. I would add—provided also that he does not, in so doing, basely desert his duty, those who are in any way dependent on him, or those who really love him.

I detest that idiotic phrase "while of unsound mind". I am as sound in mind as any man living, but because I end an unbearable state of affairs, and take the only step I can think of as likely to give me peace—I shall be written down mad. Moreover should I fail—in my attempt to kill myself (which I shall not) I should be prosecuted as a criminal!

To me, albeit I have lived long under strict discipline and regard true discipline as the first essential of moral, physical, mental, and social training, to me it seems a gross and unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the individual—to deny him sufficient captaincy of his soul for him to be free to control it at the dictates of his conscience, and to keep it Here or to send it There as may seem best. Surely the implanted love of life and fear of death are sufficient safeguards without any legislation or insolent arrogant interference between a man and his own ego? Anyhow, such are my views, and in perfect soundness of mind and body, after mature reflection and with full confidence in my right so to do, I am about to end my life here.

As to the second question, "Why should Evil be allowed to triumph?" I confess that my mind cannot argue in a circle and say, "You are born full of Original Sin, and if you sin you are Damned"—a vicious circle drawn for me by the gloomy, haughty, insincere and rather unintelligent young gentleman whom I respectfully salute as Chaplain, and who regards me and every other non-commissioned soldier as a Common, if not Low, person.

He would not even answer my queries by means of the good old loop-hole, "It is useless to appeal to Reason if you cannot to Faith" and so beg the question. He said that things were because the Lord said they were, and that it was impious to doubt it. More impious was it, I gathered, to doubt him, and to allude to Criticisms he had never read.

His infallible "proof" was "It is in the Bible".

Possibly I shall shortly know why an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Impeccable Deity allows this world to be the Hell it is, even if there be no actual Hell for the souls of his errant Creatures (in spite of the statements of the Chaplain who appears to have exclusive information on the subject, inaccessible to laymen, and to rest peacefully assured of a Real Hell for the wicked,—nonconforming, and vulgar).

At present I cannot understand and I do not know—though I am informed and infused with a burning and reverent desire to understand and to know—why Evil should be allowed to triumph, as in my own case, as well as in those of millions of others, it does. And thirdly, why does the man who would never deny beauty in a poem or picture because he failed to see it while others did, deny that immaterial forms of the dead exist, because he has never seen one, though others have?

I know of so many many men who would blush to be called "I-believe-what-I-see men," who yet laugh to scorn the bare idea of the materialization and visualization of visitants from the spirit world, because they have never seen one. I have so often met the argument, "The ghost of a man I might conceive—but I can not conceive the appearance of the ghost of a pair of trousers or of a top-hat," offered as though it were unanswerable. Surely the spirit, aura, shade, ghost, soul, ego—what you will—can permeate and penetrate and pervade clothing and other matter as well as flesh?

Well, once again, I do not know,—and yet I have seen, not once but repeatedly, not by moonlight in a churchyard, but under the Indian sun on a parade-ground, the ghost of a man and of all his accoutrements,—of a rifle, of a horse and all a horse's trappings.

I have been a teetotaller for years, I have never had sunstroke and I am as absolutely sane as ever a man was.

And further I am in no sense remorseful, repentant, or "dogged by the spectre of an evil deed".

I killed Burker intentionally. Were he alive again I would kill him again. I punished him myself because the law could not punish him as he deserved, and I in no way regret or deplore my just and judicial action. There are deeds a gentleman must resent and punish—with the extreme penalty. No, it is in no sense a case of the self-tormented wretch driven mad by the awful hallucinations of his guilty, unhinged mind. I am no haunted murderer pursued by phantoms and illusions, believing himself always in the presence of his victim's ghost.

All people who have read anything, have read of the irresistible fascination that the scene of the murder has for the murderer, of the way in which the victim "haunts" the slayer, and of how the truth that "murder will out" is really based on the fact that the murderer is his own most dangerous accuser by reason of his life of terror, remorse, and terrible hallucination.

My case is in no wise parallel.

I am absolutely without fear, regret, remorse, repentance, dread or terror in the matter of my killing Sergeant Burker. Exactly how and why I killed him, and how and why I am about to kill myself, I will now set forth, without the slightest exaggeration, special pleading or any other deviation from the truth….

I am to my certain knowledge the eighth consecutive member of my family, in the direct line, to follow the profession of arms, but am the first to do so without bearing a commission. My father died young in the rank of Captain, my grandfather led his own regiment in the Crimea, my great-grandfather was a Lieutenant-General, and, if I told you my real name, you could probably state something that he did at Waterloo.