Life's handicap : being stories of mine own people

\- iJ ^,J

THE LIBRARY
OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

GIFT OF

Estate of
Mary Kingsley

LIFE'S HANDICAP

Life's Handicap

Being Stories of Mine
Own People

By Rudyard Kipling

Gakden Citt New York

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1919

COPYMGHT, 1 891,

By MACMILLAN AND CO.

Copyright, 1899,
By RUDYARD KIPLING

GIFJ

K51

TO

£. m. HL

PROM

R. K.

1887-89
C. M. G.

iVi83D124

PREFACE

In Northern India stood a monastery called The Chubara
of Dhunni Bhagat. No one remembered who or what
Dhunni Bhagat had been. He had lived his Hfe, made a
little money and spent it all, as every good Hindu should
do, on a work of piety — the Chubara. That was full of
brick cells, gaily painted with the figures of Gods and
kings and elephants, where worn-out priests could sit and
meditate on the latter end of things; the paths were brick
paved, and the naked feet of thousands had worn them
into gutters. Clumps of mangoes sprouted from between
the bricks; great pipal trees overhung the well- windlass
that whined all day; and hosts of parrots tore through the
trees. Crows and §quirrels were tame in that place, for
they knew that never a priest would touch them.

The wandering mendicants, charm-sellers, and holy
vagabonds for a hundred miles round used to make the
Chubara their place of call and rest. Mahomedan, Sikh,
and Hindu mixed equally under the trees. They were old
men, and when man has come to the turnstiles of Night
all the creeds in the world seem to him wonderfully alike
and colourless.

Gobind the one-eyed told me this. He was a holy man
who lived on an island in the middle of a river and fed the
fishes with little bread pellets twice a day. In flood-time,
when swollen corpses stranded themselves at the foot of
the island, Gobind would cause them to be piously burned,
for the sake of the honour of mankind, and having regard

viii PREFACE

to his own account with God hereafter. But when two-
thirds of the island was torn away m a spate, Gobind
came across the river to Dhunni Bhagat's Chubira, he
and his brass drinking vessel with the well-cord round
the neck, his short arm-rest crutch studded with brass
nails, his roll of bedding, his big pipe, his umbrella, and
his tall sugar-loaf hat with the nodding peacock feathers
in it. He wrapped himself up in his patched quilt made
of every colour and material in the world, sat down in a
sunny corner of the very quiet Chubara, and, resting his
arm on his short-handled crutch, waited for death. The
people brought him food and little clumps of marigold
flowers, and he gave his blessing in return. He was
nearly blind, and his face was seamed and lined and
wrinkled beyond behef , for he had lived in his time which
was before the English came within five hundred miles
of Dhunni Bhagat's Chubira.

When we grew to know each other well, Gobind would
tell me tales in a voice most like the rumbling of heavy
guns over a wooden bridge. His tales were true, but not
one in twenty could be printed in an English book, be-
cause the English do not think as natives do. They
brood over matters that a native would dismiss till a
fitting occasion; and what they would not think twice
about a native will brood over till a fitting occasion: then
native and English stare at each other hopelessly across
great gulfs of miscomprehension.

'And what,' said Gobind one Sunday evening, 4s your
honoured craft, and by what manner of means earn you
your daily bread? '

'1 am,' said I, 'a kerani — one who writes with a pen
upon paper, not being in the service of the Government.'

* Then what do you write? ' said Gobind. * Come nearer,
for I cannot see your countenance, and the light fails.'

PREFACE ii

*I write of all matters that lie within my understand-
ing, and of many that do not. But chiefly I write of Life
and Death, and men and women, and Love and Fate
according to the measure of my abiHty, telling the tale
through the mouths of one, two, or more people. Then
by the favour of God the tales are sold and money accrues
to me that I may keep alive.'

'Even so,' said Gobind. 'That is the work of the
bazar story-teller; but he speaks straight to men and
women and does not write anything at all. Only when
the tale has aroused expectation, and calamities are about
to befall the virtuous, he stops suddenly and demands
payment ere he continues the narration. Is it so in your
craft, my son? '

'I have heard of such things when a tale is of great
length, and is sold as a cucumber, in small pieces.'

'Ay, I was once a famed teller of stories when I was
begging on the road between Koshin and Etra; before the
last pilgrimage that ever I took to Orissa. I told many
tales and heard many more at the rest-houses in the
evening when we were merry at the end of the march.
It is in my heart that grown men are but as little children
in the matter of tales, and the oldest tale is the most be-
loved.'

'With your people that is truth,' said I. 'But in re-
gard to our people they desire new tales, and when all is
written they rise up and declare that the tale were better
told in such and such a manner, and doubt either the
truth or the invention thereof.'

'But what folly is theirs!' said Gobind, throwing out
his knotted hand. 'A tale that is told is a true tale as
long as the telHng lasts. And of their talk upon it— you
know how Bilas Khan, that was the prince of tale-
tellers, said to one who mocked him in the great rest'

X PREFACE

house on the Jhelum road: ''Go on, my brother, and
finish that I have begun," and he who mocked took up
the tale, but having neither voice nor manner for the task
came to a standstill, and the pilgrims at supper made
him eat abuse and stick half that night.'

'Nay, but with our people, money having passed, it is
their right; as we should turn against a shoeseller in
regard to shoes if those wore out. If ever I make a book
you shall see and judge.'

'And the parrot said to the falhng tree. Wait, brother,
till I fetch a prop I' said Gobind with a grim chuckle.
' God has given me eighty years, and it may be some over.
I cannot look for more than day granted by day and as a
favour at this tide. Be swift.'

'In what manner is it best to set about the task,'
said I, '0 chief est of those who string pearls with^ their
tongue?'

'How do I know? Yet'— he thought for a little—
'how should I not know? God has made very many
heads, but there is only one heart in all the world among
your people or my people. They are children in the
matter of tales.'

'But none are so terrible as the Uttle ones, if a man
misplace a word, or in a second teUing vary events by so
much as one small devil.'

'Ay, I also have told tales to the little ones, but do

thou this ' His old eyes fell on the gaudy paintings

of the wall, the blue and red dome, and the flames of the
pomsettias beyond. 'Tell them first of those things that
thou hast i 3n and they have seen together. Thus their
knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell them
of what thou alone hast seen, then what thou hast heard,
and since they be children tell them of battles and kings,
horses, devils, elephants, and angels, but omit not to tell

PREFACE xi

them of love and suchlike. All the earth is full of tales
to him who listens and does not drive away the poor
from his door. The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for
they must lay their ear to the ground every night.*

After this conversation the idea grew in my head, and
Gobind was pressing in his inquiries as to the health of
the book.

Later, when we had been parted for months, it hap-
pened that I was to go away and far off, and I came to
bid Gobind good-bye.

*It is farewell between us now, for I go a very long
journey,* I said.

'And I also. A longer one than thou. But what of
the book? * said he.

*It will be bom in due season if it is so ordained.'

*I would I could see it,' said the old man, huddling
beneath his quilt. 'But that will not be. I die three
days hence, in the night, a little before the dawn. The
term of my years is accomplished.'

In nine cases out of ten a native makes no miscalcula-
tion as to the day of his death. He has the foreknowl-
edge of the beasts in this respect.

'Then thou wilt depart in peace, and it is good talk,
for thou hast said that life is no deHght to thee.'

'But it is a pity that our book is not born. How
shall I know that there is any record of my name? '

'Because I promise, in the forepart of the book, pre-
ceding everything else, that it shall be written, Gobind,
sadhu, of the island in the river and awaiting God in
Dhuimi Bhagat's Chubara, first spoke of the book,' said
I.

'And gave counsel — an old man's counsel. Gobind,
son of Gobind of the Chumi village in the Karaon tehsil,
in the district of Mooltan. Will that be written also? '

xii PREFACE

'That wdll be written also/

'And the book will go across the Black Water to the
houses of your people, and all the Sahibs will know of
me who am eighty years old?'

'All who read the book shall know. I cannot promise
for the rest.'

'That is good talk. Call aloud to all who are in the
monastery, and I will tell them this thing.'

They trooped up, faquirSj sadhus^ sunnyasis, byragis^
nihangs, and mullahs, priests of all faiths and every
degree of raggedness, and Gobind, leaning upon his
crutch, spoke so that they were visibly filled with envy,
and a white-haired senior bade Gobind think of his
latter end instead of transitory repute in the mouths
of strangers. Then Gobind gave me his blessing and
I came away.

These tales have been collected from all places, and all
sorts of people, from priests in the Chubara, from Ala
Yar the carver, Jiwun Singh the carpenter, nameless
men on steamers and trains round the world, women
spinning outside their cottages in the twilight, officers
and gentlemen now dead and buried, and a few, but
these are the very best, my father gave me. The greater
part of them have been published in magazines and news-
papers, to whose editors I am indebted; but some are new
on this side of the water, and some have not seen the
light before.

The most remarkable stories are, of course, those which
do not appear — for obvious reasons.

CONTENTS

FACE

The Lang Men o' Larut 3

Reingelder and the German Flag .... 8

The Wandering Jew 12

Through the Fire 17

The Finances of the Gods 23

The Amir's Homily 29

Jews in Shushan 34

The Limitations of Pambe Serang .... 39

Little Tobrah 45

Bubbling Well Road ........ 49

'The City OF Dreadful Night' ..... 54

Georgie Porgie 62

Naboth 73

The Dream of Duncan Parrenness .... 78

The LsrcARNATiON of Krishna Mulvaney . . 85

The Courting of Dinah Shadd 117

On Greenhow Hill 146

The Man Who Was 169

The Head of the District 187

Without Benefit of Clergy ... . . 215

xili

jjiv CONTENTS

PAGE

At the End of the Passage 244

The Mutiny of the Mavericks 270

The Mark of the Beast 294

The Return of Imray 3^1

Namgay Doola 326

Bertran and Bimi 340

Moti Guj— Mutineer '347

LIFE'S HANDICAP

THE LANG MEN O' LARUT*

The Chief Engineer's sleeping suit was of yellow striped
with blue, and his speech was the speech of Aberdeen.
They sluiced the deck under him, and he hopped on to
the ornamental capstan, a black pipe between his teeth,
though the hour was not seven of the morn.

*Did you ever hear o' the Lang Men o' Larut?' he
asked when the Man from Orizava had finished a story
of an aboriginal giant discovered in the wilds of Brazil.
There was never story yet passed the lips of teller, but
the Man from Orizava could cap it.

*No, we never did,' we responded with one voice. The
Man from Orizava watched the Chief keenly, as a possible
rival.

*I'm not telling the story for the sake of talking
merely,' said the Chief, 'but as a warning against bet-
ting, unless you bet on a perrfect certainty. The Lang
Men o' Larut were just a certainty. I have had
talk wi' them. Now Larut, you will understand, is a
dependency, or it may be an outlying possession, o' the
island o' Penang, and there they will get you tin and
manganese, an' it mayhap mica, and all manner o'
meenerals. Larut is a great place.'

*But what about the population?' said the Man from
Orizava.

'The population,' said the Chief slowly, 'were few
but enorrmous. You must understand that, exceptin*

^Copyright, 1891, by Macmillan & Co.
3

4 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the tin-mines, there is no special inducement to Euro-
peans to reside in Larut. The climate is warm and
remarkably like the climate o' Calcutta; and in regard
to Calcutta, it cannot have escaped your obsairvation
that- — '

'Calcutta isn't Larut; and we've only just come
from it,' protested the Man from Orizava. 'There's a
meteorological department in Calcutta, too.'

'Ay, but there's no meteorological department in
Larut. Each man is a law to himself. Some drink
whisky, and some drink brandipanee, and some drink
cocktails — vara bad for the coats o' the stomach is a
cocktail — and some drink sangaree, so I have been
credibly informed; but one and all they sweat like the
packing of a piston-head on a f ourrteen-days' voyage
with the screw racing half her time. But, as I was say-
ing, the population o' Larut was five all told of EngUsh
— that is to say, Scotch — an' I'm Scotch, ye know,' said
the Chief.

The Man from Orizava lit another cigarette, and
waited patiently. It was hopeless to hurry the Chief
Engineer.

' I am not pretending to account for the population o'
Larut being laid down according to such fabulous dimen-
sions. O' the five white men engaged upon the extrac-
tion o' tin ore and mercantile pursuits, there were three
o' the sons o' Anak. Wait while I remember. Lammit-
ter was the first by two inches — a giant in the land, an' a
terreefic man to cross in his ways. From heel to head he
was six feet nine inches, and proportionately built across
and through the thickness of his body. Six good feet
nine inches — an overbearin' man. Next to him, and I
have forgotten his precise business, was Sandy Vowle.
And he was six feet seven, but lean and lathy, and it

THE LANG MEN O' LARUT ^

was more in the elasteecity of liis neck that the height
lay than in any honesty o' bone and sinew. Five feet
and a few odd inches may have been his real height.
The remainder came out when he held up his head, and
six feet seven he was upon the door-siUs. I took his
measure in chalk standin' on a chair. And next to him,
but a proportionately made man, ruddy and of a fair
countenance, was Jock Coan— that they called the Fir
Cone. He was but six feet five, and a child beside
Lammitter and Vowle. When the three walked out
together, they made a scunner run through the colony o*
tarut. The Malays ran round them as though they had
been the giant trees in the Yosemite Valley— these three
Lang Men o' Larut. It was perfectly ridiculous— a licsus
nakir(B—tha.t one little place should have contained
maybe the three tallest ordinar' men upon the face o'
the earth.

'Obsairve now the order o' things. For it led to the
finest big drink in Larut, and six sore heads the morn
that endured for a week. I am against immoderate
liquor, but the event to follow was a justification. You
must understand that many coasting steamers call at
Larut wi' strangers o' the mercantile profession. In the
spring time, when the young cocoanuts were ripening,
and the trees o' the forests were putting forth their
leaves, there came an American man to Larut, and he
was six foot three, or it may have been four, in his
stockings. He came on business from Sacramento, but
he stayed for pleasure wi' the Lang Men o' Larut.
Less than a half o' the population were ordinar' in their
girth and stature, ye will understand— Howson and
Nailor, merchants, five feet nine or thereabouts. He
had business with those two, and he stood above them
from the six feet threedom o' his height till they went

5 LIFE'S HANDICAP

to drink. In the course o* conversation he said, as taB
men will, things about his height, and the trouble of it to
him. That was his pride o' the flesh.

'''As the longest man in the island " he said, but

there they took him up and asked if he were sure.

'"I say I am the longest man in the island," he said,
"and on that I'll bet my substance."

'They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and
there, and put it aside while they called Jock Coan from
his house, near by among the fireflies' winking.

'*' How's a' wi' you?" said Jock, and came in by the
side o' the Sacramento profligate, two inches, or it may
have been one, taller than he.

' ' "You're long," said the man, opening his eyes. "But
I am longer." An' they sent a whistle through the night
an' howkit out Sandy Vowle from his bit bungalow, and
he came in an' stood by the side o' Jock, an' the pair just
flllit the room to the ceiling-cloth.

'The Sacramento man was a euchre-player and a most
profane sweerer. "You hold both Bowers," he said,
"but the Joker is with me."

' " Fair an' softly," says Nailor. "Jock, whaur's Lang
Lammitter?"

'"Here," says that man, putting his leg through the
window and coming in like an anaconda o' the desert
furlong by furlong, one foot in Penang and one in Batavia,
and a hand in North Borneo it may be.

'"Are you suited?" said Nailor, when the hinder end
o' Lang Lammitter was slidden through the sill an' the
head of Lammitter was lost in the smoke away above.

'The American man took out his card and put it on
the table. "Esdras B. Longer is my name, America is
my nation, 'Frisco is my resting-place, but this here beats
Creation," said he. "Boys, giants— side-show giants— I

THE LANG MEN O' LARUT 7

minded to slide out of my bet if I had been overtopped,
on the strength of the riddle on this paste-board. I
would have done it if you had topped me even by three
inches, but when it comes to feet — yards — miles, I am
not the man to shirk the biggest drink that ever made
the travellers'- joy palm blush with virginal indignation,
or the orang-outang and the perambulating dyak howl
with envy. Set them up and continue till the final con-
clusion."

'O mon, I tell you 'twas an awful sight to see those
four giants threshing about the house and the island, and
tearin' down the pillars thereof an' throwing palm-trees
broadcast, and currhng their long legs round the hills o*
Larut. An awfu' sight! I was there. I did not mean
to tell you, but it's out now. I was not overcome, for I
e'en sat me down under the pieces o' the table at four the
mom an' meditated upon the strangeness of things.

'Losh, yon's the breakfast-bell!'

REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG^

Hans Breitmann paddled across the deck in his pink
pyjamas, a cup of tea in one hand and a cheroot in the
other, when the steamer was sweltering down the coast on
her way to Singapur. He drank beer all day and all
night, and played a game called 'Scairt' with three
compatriots.

'I haf washed,' said he in a voice of thunder, 'but
dere is no use washing on these hell-seas. Look at me — I
am still all wet and schweatin'. It is der tea dot makes
me so. Boy, bring me Bilsener on ice.'

'You will die if you drink beer before breakfast,'
said one man. 'Beer is the worst thing in the world
for '

'Ya, I know~der liver. I haf no Hver, und I shall
not die. At least I will not die obon dese benny sdeamers
dot haf no beer fit to trink. If I should haf died, I will
haf don so a hoondert dimes before now — in Shermany,
in New York, in Japon, in Assam, und all over der inside
barts of South Amerique. Also in Shamaica should I haf
died or in Siam, but I am here; und der are my orchits
dot I have drafelled all the vorld round to find.'

He pointed towards the wheel, where, in two rough
wooden boxes, lay a mass of shrivelled vegetation, sup-
posed by all the ship to represent Assam orchids of fabu-
lous value.

Now, orchids do not grow in the main streets of towns,

^Copyright, 1891, by Macmillan & Co.
S

REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG 9

and Hans Breitmann had gone far to get his. There
was nothing that he had not collected that year, from
king-crabs to white kangaroos.

'Lisden now/ said he, after he had been speaking for
not much more than ten minutes without a pause; 'Lisden
und I will dell you a sdory to show how bad und worse
it is to go goUectin' und belief vot anoder fool haf said.
Dis was in Uraguay which was in Amerique — North or
Sout' you would not know — und I was hoontin' orchits
und aferydings else dot I could back in my kanasters —
dot is drafelling sbecimen-gaces. Dere vas den mit me
anoder man — Reingelder, dot vas his name — und he vas
hoontin' also but only coral-snakes — joost Uraguay coral-
snakes — aferykind you could imagine. I dell you a
coral-snake is a peauty — all red und white like coral dot
has been gestrung in bands upon der neck of a girl. Dere
is one snake howefer dot we who gollect know ash der
Sherman Flag, pecause id is red und plack und white,
joost Hke a sausage mit druffles. Reingelder he was
naturalist — goot man — goot trinker — better as me ! ''By
Gott," said Reingelder, ''I will get a Sherman Flag snake
or I will die." Und we toorned all Uraguay upside-
behint all pecause of dot Sherman Flag.

'Von day when we was in none knows where —
shwingin' in our hummocks among der woods, oop comes
a natif woman mit a Sherman Flag in a bickle-bottle — •
my bickle-bottle — und we both fell from our hummocks
flat ubon our pot — what you call stomach — mit shoy at
dis thing. Now I was gollectin' orchits also, und I
knowed dot der idee of life to Reingelder vas dis Sher-
man Flag. Derefore I bicked myselfs oop und I said,
"Reingelder, dot is your find." — "Heart's true friend, dou
art a goot man," said Reingelder, und mit dot he obens
der bickle-bottle, und der natif woman she shqueals:

,o LIFE'S HANDICAP

*'Herr Gott! It will bite." I said— pecause in Uraguay
a man must be careful of der insects — ''Reingelder,
shpifligate her in der alcohol und den she will be all
right."— "Nein/' said Reingelder, ''I will der shnake
alife examine. Dere is no fear. Der coral-shnakes are
mitout shting-apparatus brofided." Boot I looked at
her het, und she vas der het of a boison-shnake — der
true viper cranium, narrow und contract. "It is not
goot," said I, ''she may bite und den— we are tree
hoondert mile from aferywheres. Broduce der alcohol
und bickle him alife." Reingelder he had him in his
hand — grawlin' und grawlin' as slow as a woorm und
dwice as guiet. ''Nonsense," says Reingelder. "Yates
haf said dot not von of der coral-shnakes haf der sack of
boison." Yates vas der crate authority ubon der reptilia
of Sout' Amerique. He haf written a book. You do
not know, of course, but he vas a crate au thorite.

'I gum my eye upon der Sherman Flag, grawlin' und
grawlin' in Reingelder's fist, und der het vas not der het
of innocence. "Mein Gott," I said. "It is you dot vvil)
get der sack— der sack from dis Ufe here pelow!"

'"Denyoumay haf der shnake," says Reingelder, pat-
tin' it ubon her het. "See now, I will show you vat
Yates haf written!"

'Und mit dot he went indo his dent, unt brung out
his big book of Yates; der Sherman Flag grawlin' in his
fist. "Yates haf said," said Reingelder, und he throwed
oben der book in der fork of his fist und read der passage,
proofin' conglusivement dot nefer coral-shnake bite vas
boison. Den he shut der book mit a bang, und dot
shqueeze der Sherman Flag, und she nip once und dwice.

' "Der liddle fool he haf bit me," says Reingelder.

'Dese things was before we know apout der perman-
ganat-pota^ iniection. I was discomfordable.

REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG ii

'''Die oop der arm, Reingelder," said I, "und trink
whisky on til you can no more trink."

"'Trink ten tousand tevils! I will go to dinner," said
Reingelder, und he put her afay und it vsis very red mit
emotion.

'We lifed upon soup, horse-flesh, und beans for dinner,
but before we vas eaten der soup, Reingelder he haf hold
of his arm und cry, "It is genumben to der clavicle. I
am a dead man; und Yates he haf lied in brintl"

'I dell you it vas most sad, for der symbtoms dot
came vas all dose of strychnine. He vas doubled into
big knots, und den undoubled, und den redoubled mooch
worse dan pefore, und he frothed. I vas mit him, saying,
''Reingelder, dost dou know me?" but he himself, der
inward gonsciousness part, was peyond knowledge, und
so I know he vas not in bain. Den he wrop himself oop
in von dremendous knot und den he died— all alone mit
me in Uraguay. I was sorry, for I lofed Reingelder, und
I puried him, und den I took der coral-shnake— dot Sher-
man Flag— so bad und dreacherous und I bickled him
alife.

'So I got him: und so I lost Reingelder.'

THE WANDERING JEW^

'If you go once round the world in an easterly direction,
you gain one day,' said the men of science to John
Hay. In after years John Hay went east, west, north,
and south, transacted business, made love, and begat a
family, as have done many men, and the scientific infor-
mation above recorded lay neglected in the deeps of his
mind with a thousand other matters of equal importance.
When a rich relative died, he found himself wealthy
beyond any reasonable expectation that he had enter-
tained in his previous career, which had been a chequered
and evil one. Indeed, long before the legacy came to
him, there existed in the brain of John Hay a Httle cloud
— a momentary obscuration of thought that came and
went almost before he could realize that there was any
solution of continuity. So do the bats flit round the
eaves of a house to show that the darkness is falling. He
entered upon great possessions, in money, land, and houses;
but behind his delight stood a ghost that cried out that
his enjoyment of these things should not be of long dura-
tion. It was the ghost of the rich relative, who had been
permitted to return to earth to torture his nephew into
the grave. Wherefore, under the spur of this constant
reminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy
business-like stohdity that hid the shadow on his mind,
turned investments, houses, and lands into sovereigns —
rich, round, red, EngHsh sovereigns, each one worth

^Copyright, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
I?

THE WANDERING JEW 13

twenty shillings. Lands may become valueless, and
houses fly heavenward on the wings of red flame, but till
the Day of Judgment a sovereign will always be a sov-
ereign— that is to say, a king of pleasures.

Possessed of his sovereigns, John Hay would fain have
spent them one by one on such coarse amusements as his
soul loved; but he was haunted by the instant fear of
Death; for the ghost of his relative stood in the hall of
his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway
that hfe was short, that there was no hope of increase of
days, and that the undertakers were already roughing
out his nephew's coffin. John Hay was generally alone
in the house, and even when he had company, his friends
could not hear the clamorous uncle. The shadow inside
his brain grew larger and blacker. His fear of death was
driving John Hay mad.

Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed
away all his discarded information, rose to Hght the
scientific fact of the Easterly journey. On the next
occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairway urging
him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, 'Who
goes round the world once easterly, gains one day.'

His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made
John Hay unwilling to give this precious message of hope
to his friends. They might take it up and analyse it.
He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely
were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him
alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the
secret of immortality been vouchsafed. It would be
impious— against all the designs of the Creator — to set
mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, tliis would crowd
the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all
things to be alone. If he could get round the world in
two months — some one of whom he had read, he could

14 LIFE'S HANDICAP

not remember the name, had covered the passage in
eighty days — he would gain a clear day; and by steadily
continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one
hundred and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year.
It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisa-
tion advanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was
opened, he could improve the pace.

Armed with many sovereigns, Jolm Hay, in the
tliirty-fifth year of his age, set forth on his travels,
two voices bearing him company from Dover as he
sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates
Valley Railway was newly opened, and he was the
first man who took ticket direct from Calais to Calcutta
—thirteen days in the train. Thirteen days in the train
are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world
and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over
the two months, and started afresh with four and twenty
hours of precious time to his credit. Three years passed,
and John Hay rehgiously went round this earth seeking
for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his
sovereigns. He became known on many lines as the
man who wanted to go on; when people asked him what
he was and what he did, he answered —

'I'm the person who intends to live, and I am trying
to do it now.'

His days were divided between watching the white
wake spinning behind the stern of the swiftest steamers,
or the brown earth flashing past the windows of the
fastest trains; and he noted in a pocket-book every
minute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless
eternity.

'This is better than praying for long Hfe,' quoth John
Hay as he turned his face eastward for his twentieth trip.
The years had done more for him than he dared to hope.

THE WANDERING JEW 15

By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet
the newly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway
ticket held good ma Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong.
The round trip could be managed in a fraction over forty-
seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John Hay
told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the
house-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and
passed; but the woman was one of resource, and im-
mediately took counsel with the lawyers who had first
informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many
sovereigns still remained, and another Hay longed to
spend them on things more sensible than railway tickets
and steamer accommodation.

The chase was long, for when a man is journeying
literally for the dear life, he does not tarry upon the
road. Round the world Hay swept anew, and overtook
the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look
for him, in Madras. It was there that he found the
reward of his toil and the assurance of a blessed im-
mortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watching always
the parched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that
turned eternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in
a little house close to the Madras surf. All that Hay
need do was to hang by ropes from the roof of the room
and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This
was better than steamer or train, for he gained a day in
a day, and was thus the equal of the undying sun. The
other Hay would pay his expenses throughout eternity.

It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais
to Hongkong, though that will come about in fifteen
years; but men say that if you wander along the southern
coast of India you shall find in a neatly whitewashed

i6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from the roof,
over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys
the attraction of the earth, an old and worn man who
for ever faces the rising sun, a stop-watch in his hand,
racing against eternity. He cannot drink, he does not
smoke, and his Hving expenses amount to perhaps
twenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the
Immortal. Without, he hears the thunder of the wheel-
ing world with which he is careful to explain he has no
connection whatever; but if you say that it is only the
noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on
his brain is passing away as the brain ceases to work, and
he doubts sometimes whether the doctor spoke the truth.
'Why does not the sun always remain over my head?'
asks John Hay.

THROUGH THE FIRE*

The Policeman rode through the Himalayan forest, under
the moss-draped oaks, and his orderly trotted after him.

'It's an ugly business, Bhere Singh,' said the Police-
man. 'Where are they?'

'It is a very ugly business,' said Bhere Singh; 'and as
for them, they are, doubtless, now frying in a hotter fire
than was ever made of spruce-branches.'

'Let us hope not,' said the PoHceman, 'for, allowing for
the difference between race and race, it's the story of
Francesca da Rimini, Bhere Singh.'

Bhere Singh knew nothing about Francesca da Rimini,
so he held his peace until they came to the charcoal-
burners' clearing where the dying flames said ^whit, whit,
whit* as they fluttered and whispered over the white
ashes. It must have been a great fire when at full
height. Men had seen it at Donga Pa across the valley
winking and blazing through the night, and said that the
charcoal-burners of Kodru were getting drunk. But it
was only Suket Singh, Sepoy of the i02d Punjab Native
Infantry, and Athira, a woman, burning — burning —
burning.

This was how things befell; and the PoHceman's Diary
will bear me out.

Athira was the wife of Madu, who was a charcoal-
burner, one-eyed and of a maHgnant disposition. A
week after their marriage, he beat Athira with a heavy

^Copyright, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
17

i8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

stick. A month later, Suket Singh, Sepoy, came that
way to the cool hills on leave from his regiment, and
electrified the villagers of Kodru with tales of service
and glory under the Government, and the honour in
which he, Suket Singh, was held by the Colonel Sahib
Bahadur. And Desdemona listened to Othello as Des-
demonas have done all the world over, and, as she lis-
tened, she loved.

'I've a wife of my own,' said Suket Singh, 'though
that is no matter when you come to think of it. I am
also due to return to my regiment after a time, and I
cannot be a deserter — I who intend to be Havildar.'
There is no Himalayan version of 'I could not love thee,
dear, as much. Loved I not Honour more;' but Suket
Singh came near to making one.

'Never mind,' said Athira, 'stay with me, and, if
Madu tries to beat me, you beat him.'

'Very good,' said Suket Singh; and he beat Madu
severely, to the deHght of all the charcoal-burners of
Kodru.

'That is enough,' said Suket Singh, as he rolled Madu
down the hillside. 'Now we shall have peace.' But
Madu crawled up the grass slope again, and hovered
round his hut with angry eyes.

'He'll kill me dead,' said Athira to Suket Singh.
* You must take me away.'

'There'll be a trouble in the Lines. My wife will pull
out my beard; but never mind,' said Suket Singh, 'I will
take you.'

There was loud trouble in the Lines, and Suket
Singh's beard was pulled, and Suket Singh's wife went to
live with her mother and took away the children. ' That's
all right,' said Athira; and Suket Singh said, 'Yes, that's
all right'

THROUGH THE FIRE i^

So there was only Madu left in the hut that looks
across the valley to Donga Pa; and, since the beginning
of time, no one has had any s>Tnpathy for husbands so
unfortunate as Madu.

He went to Juseen Daze, the wizard-man who keeps
the Talking Monkey's Head.

*Get me back my wife,' said Madu.

'I can't,' said Juseen Daze, 'until you have made the
Sutlej in the valley run up the Donga Pa.'

*No riddles/ said Madu, and he shook his hatchet
above Juseen Daze's wliite head.

'Give all your money to the headmen of the village,'
said Juseen Daze; 'and they will hold a communal
Council, and the Council will send a message that your
wife must come back.'

So Madu gave up all his worldly wealth, amounting
to twenty-seven rupees, eight annas, three pice, and a
silver chain, to the Council of Kodru. And it fell as
Juseen Daze foretold.

They sent Athira's brother down into Suket Singh's
regiment to call Athira home. Suket Singh kicked
him once round the Lines, and then handed him over to
the Havildar, who beat him with a belt.

' Come back,' yelled Athira's brother.

'Where to?' said Athira.

'To Madu,' said he.

'Never,' said she.

'Then Juseen Daze will send a curse, and you will
wither away like a barked tree in the springtime,' said
Athira's brother. Athira slept over these things.

Next morning she had rheumatism. 'I am beginning
to wither away Hke a barked tree in the springtime,' she
said. ' That is the curse of Juseen Daze.'

And she really began to wither away because her

*o LIFE'S HANDICAP

heart was dried up with fear, and those who beKeve in
curses die from curses. Suket Singh, too, was afraid
because he loved Athira better than his very life. Two
months passed, and Athira's brother stood outside the
regimental Lines again and yelped, *Aha! You are
withering away. Come back.'

'I will come back,' said Athira.

' Say rather that we will come back,' said Suket Singh.

'Ai; but when?' said Athira's brother.

*Upon a day very early in the morning,' said Suket
Singh; and he tramped off to apply to the Colonel Sahib
Bahadur for one week's leave.

'I am withering away like a barked tree in the spring,'
moaned Athira.

'You will be better soon,' said Suket Singh; and he
told her what was in his heart, and the two laughed
together softly, for they loved each other. But Athira
grew better from that hour.

They went away together, travelling third-class by
train as the regulations provided, and then in a cart to
the low hills, and on foot to the high ones. Athira
sniffed the scent of the pines of her own hills, the wet
Himalayan hills. 'It is good to be alive,' said Athira.

'Hah!' said Suket Singh. 'Where is the Kodru road
and where is the Forest Ranger's house?' . . .

'It cost forty rupees twelve years ago,' said the Forest
Ranger, handing the gun.

'Here are twenty,' said Suket Singh, 'and you must
give me the best bullets.'

'It is very good to be alive,' said Athira wistfully,
sniiling the scent of the pine-mould; and they waited
tiii the night had fallen upon Kodru and the Donga Pa.
Madu had stacked the dry wood for the next day's
charcoal-burning on the SDur above his house. 'It is

THROUGH THE FIRE 21

courteous in Madu to save us this trouble,' said Suket
Singh as he stumbled on the pile, which was twelve foot
square and four high. 'We must wait till the mooi,
rises.'

When the moon rose, Athira knelt upon the pile. ' If
it were only a Government Snider,' said Suket Singh
ruefully, squinting down the wire-bound barrel of the
Forest Ranger's gun.

'Be quick,' said Athira; and Suket Singh w^as quick;
but Athira was quick no longer. Then he lit the pile
at the four corners and climbed on to it, re-k>ading the
gun.

The little flames began to peer up between the b:-!„
logs atop of the brushwood. 'The Government should
teach us to pull the triggers with our toes,' said Suket
Singh grimly to the moon. That was the last publi."
observation of Sepoy Suket Singh.

Upon a day, early in the morning, Madu came to the
pyre and shrieked very grievously, and ran away to catch
the Policeman who was on tour in the district.

'The base-bom has ruined four rupees' worth of
charcoal wood,' Madu gasped. 'He has also killed my
wife, and he has left a letter which I cannot read, dad to
a pine bough.'

In the stiff, formal hand taught in the regimental
school. Sepoy Suket Singh had written —

'Let us be burned together, if anything remain over,
for we have made the necessary prayers. We have also
cursed Madu, and Malak the brother of Athira— both
evil men. Send my service to the Colonel Sahib Baha-
dur,'

The Policemaii looked long and curiously at the

22 LIFE'S HANDICAP

marriage bed of red and white ashes on which lay, dull
black, the barrel of the Ranger's gun. He drove his
spurred heel absently into a half-charred log, and the
chattering sparks flew upwards. 'Most extraordinary
people,' said the Policeman.

' Whe-w, whew, ouiou,' said the little flames.

The PoUceman entered the dry bones of the case, for
the Punjab Government does not approve of romancing,
in his Diary.

^But who will pay me those four rupees? ' said Madu.

THE FINANCES OF THE GODS^

The evening meal was ended in Dhunni Bhagat's Chu-
bara and the old priests were smoking or counting their
beads. A little naked child pattered in, with its mouth
wide open, a handful of marigold flowers in one hand, and
a lump of conserved tobacco in the other. It tried to
kneel and make obeisance to Gobind, but it was so fat
that it fell forward on its shaven head, and rolled on its
side, kicking and gasping, while the marigolds tumbled
one way and the tobacco the other. Gobind laughed,
set it up again, and blessed the marigold flowers as he
received the tobacco.

'From my father,' said the child. 'He has the fever,
and cannot come. Wilt thou pray for him, father?^

'Surely, Httlest; but the smoke is on the ground, and
the night-chill is in the air, and it is not good to go
abroad naked in the autumn/

'I have no clothes,' said the child, 'and all to-day I
have been carrying cow-dung cakes to the bazar. It was
very hot, and I am very tired.' It shivered a little, for
the twilight was cool.

Gobind hfted an arm under his vast tattered quilt of
many colours, and made an inviting little nest by his
side. The child crept in, and Gobind filled his brass-
studded leather waterpipe with the new tobacco. When
I came to the Chubara the shaven head with the tuft
atop, and the beady black eyes looked out of the folds

^Copyright, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
23

34 LIFE'S HANDICAP

of the quilt as a squirrel looks out from his nest, and
Gobind was smiling while the child played with his
beard.

I would have said something friendly, but remembered
in time that if the child fell ill afterwards I should be
credited with the Evil Eye, and that is a horrible pos-
session.

' Sit thou still, Thumbling,' I said as it made to get up
and run away. 'Where is thy slate, and why has the
teacher let such an evil character loose on the streets
when there are no poHce to protect us weaklings? In
which ward dost thou try to break thy neck with flying
kites from the house-tops? '

'Nay, Sahib, nay,' said the child, burrowing its face
into Gobind's beard, and twisting uneasily. 'There was
a holiday to-day among the schools, and I do not always
fly kites. I play ker-li-kit Hke the rest.'

Cricket is the national game among the schoolboys of
the Punjab, from the naked hedge-school children, who
use an old kerosene- tin for wicket, to the B.A.'s of the
University, who compete for the Championship belt.

'Thou play kerlikit! Thou art half the height of the
bat!' I said.

The child nodded resolutely. ' Yea, I do play. Perlay-
hall, Ow-atI Ran, ran, ran J I know it all.'

'But thou must not forget with all this to pray to the
Gods according to custom,' said Gobind, who did not
altogether approve of cricket and western innovations.

'I do not forget,' said the child in a hushed voice.

'Also to give reverence to thy teacher, and' — Gobind's
voice softened — ' to abstain from pulling holy men by the
beard, Httle badling. Eh, eh, eh?'

The child's face was altogether hidden in the great
white beard, and it began to whimper till Gobind soothed

THE FINANCES OF THE GODS 25

it as children are soothed all the world over, with the
promise of a story.

*I did not think to frighten thee, senseless little one.
Look up! Am I angry? Are, are, are! Shall I weep
too, and of our tears make a great pond and drown us
both, and then thy father will never get well, lacking thee
to pull his beard? Peace, peace, and I will tell thee of
the Gods. Thou hast heard many tales? '

* Very many, father.'

*Now, this is a new one which thou hast not heard.
Long and long ago when the Gods walked with men as
they do to-day, but that we have not faith to see, Shiv,
the greatest of Gods, and Parbati his wife, were walking
in the garden of a temple.'

^ Which temple? That in the Nandgaon ward?' said
the child.

^ Nay, very far away. Maybe at Trimbak or Hurdwar,
whither thou must make pilgrimage when thou art a
man. Now, there was sitting in the garden under the
jujube trees, a mendicant that had worshipped Shiv for
forty years, and he Uved on the offerings of the pious, and
meditated holiness night and day.'

*0h father, was it thou?' said the child, looking up
with large eyes.

'Nay, I have said it was long ago, and, moreover, this
mendicant was married.'

*Did they put him on a horse with flowers on his head,
and forbid him to go to sleep all night long? Thus they
did to me when they made my wedding,' said the child,
who had been married a few months before.

*And what didst thou do?' said I.

'I wept, and they called me evil names, and then I
smote her, and we wept together.'

'Thus did not the mendicant,' said Gobind; 'for he

26 LIFE'S HANDICAP

was a holy man, and very poor. Parbati perceived him
sitting naked by the temple steps where all went up and
down, and she said to Shiv, "What shall men think of the
Gods when the Gods thus scorn their worshippers? For
forty years yonder man' has prayed to us, and yet there
be only a few grains of rice and some broken cowries
before him after all. Men's hearts will be hardened by
this thing." And Shiv said, "It shall be looked to," and
so he called to the temple which was the temple of his
son, Ganesh of the elephant head, saying, "Son, there is
a mendicant without who is very poor. What wilt thou
do for him?" Then that great elephant-headed One
awoke in the dark and answered, "In three days, if it be
thy will, he shall have one lakh of rupees." Then Shiv
and Parbati went away.

^But there was a money-lender in the garden hidden
among the marigolds' — the child looked at the ball of
crumpled blossoms in its hands — 'ay, among the yellow
marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking. He was a
covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that
lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant
and said, "0 brother, how much do the pious give thee
daily?" The mendicant said, "I cannot tell. Some-
times a little rice, sometimes a Httle pulse, and a few
cowries and, it has been, pickled mangoes, and dried fish." '

'That is good,' said the child, smacking its Hps.

'Then said the money-lender, "Because I have long
watched thee, and learned to love thee and thy patience,
I will give thee now five rupees for all thy earnings of
the three days to come. There is only a bond to sign on
the matter." But the mendicant said, "Thou art mad.
In two months I do not receive the worth of five rupees,"
and he told the thing to his wife that evening. She, being
a woman, said, "When did money-lender ever make a bad

THE FINANCES OF THE GODS 27

bargain? The wolf runs through the corn for the sake of
the fat deer. Our fate is in the hands of the Gods.
Pledge it not even for three days."

' So the mendicant returned to the money-lender, and
would not sell. Then that wicked man sat all day before
him offering more and more for those three days' earnings.
First, ten, fifty, and a hundred rupees; and then, for he
did not know when the Gods would pour down their
gifts, rupees by the thousand, till he had offered half a
lakh of rupees. Upon this sum the mendicant's wife
shifted her counsel, and the mendicant signed the bond,
and the money was paid in silver; great white bullocks
bringing it by the cartload. But saving only all that
money, the mendicant received nothing from the Gods at
all, and the heart of the money-lender was uneasy on
account of expectation. Therefore at noon of the third
day the money-lender went into the temple to spy upon
the councils of the Gods, and to learn in what manner
that gift might arrive. Even as he was making his
prayers, a crack between the stones of the floor gaped,
and, closing, caught him by the heel. Then he heard the
Gods walking in the temple in the darkness of the columns,
and Shiv called to his son Ganesh, saying, ''Son, what
hast thou done in regard to the lakh of rupees for the
mendicant?" And Ganesh woke, for the money-lender
heard the dry rustle of his trunk uncoihng, and he
answered, "Father, one half of the money has been paid,
and the debtor for the other half I hold here fast by the
heel."'

The child bubbled with laughter. 'And the money-
lender paid the mendicant? ' it said.

' Surely, for he whom the Gods hold by the heel must
pay to the uttermost. The money was paid at evening,
all silver, in great carts, and thus Ganesh did his work.'

28 LITE'S HANDICAP

'Nathu! OheNathu!^

A woman was calling in the dusk by the door of the
courtyard.

The child began to wriggle. 'That is my mother/
it said.

'Go then, littlest,' answered Gobind; 'but stay a
moment.'

He ripped a generous yard from his patchwork-quilt,
put it over the child's shoulders, and the child ran
away.

THE AMIR'S HOMILY^

His Royal Highness Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanis-
tan, G.C.S.I., and trusted ally of Her Imperial Majesty
the Queen of England and Empress of India, is a gentle-
man for whom all right-thinking people should have a
profound regard. Like most other rulers, he governs not
as he would but as he can, and the mantle of his author-
ity covers the most turbulent race under the stars. To
the Afghan neither life, property, law, nor kingship are
sacred when his own lusts prompt him to rebel. He is
a thief by instinct, a murderer by heredity and training,
and frankly and bestially immoral by all three. None
the less he has his own crooked notions of honour, and
his character is fascinating to study. On occasion he
will fight without reason given till he is hacked in pieces;
on other occasions he will refuse to show fight till he is
driven into a comer. Herein he is as unaccountable as
the gray wolf, who is his blood-brother.

And these men His Higlmess rules by the only weapon
that they understand — the fear of death, which among
some Orientals is the beginning of wisdom. Some say
that the Amir's authority reaches no farther than a rifle
bullet can range; but as none are quite certain when
their king may be in their midst, and as he alone hold?
every one of the threads of Government, his respect is
increased among men. Gholam Hyder, the Commander-
in-chief of the Afghan army, is feared reasonably, for he

^Copyright, 1 89 1, by Macmillan & Co.
29

30 LIFE'S HANDICAP

can impale; all Kabul city fears the Governor of Kabul,
who has power of life and death through all the wards;
but the Amir of Afghanistan, though outlying tribes pre-
tend otherwise when his back is turned, is dreaded beyond
chief and governor together. His word is red law; by
the gust of his passion falls the leaf of man's life, and his
favour is terrible. He has suffered many things, and
been a hunted fugitive before he came to the throne, and
he imderstands all the classes of his people. By the
custom of the East any man or woman having a com-
plaint to make, or an enemy against whom to be avenged,
has the right of speaking face to face with the king at
the daily pubHc audience. This is personal government,
as it was in the days of Harun al Raschid of blessed
memory, whose times exist still and will exist long after
the Enghsh have passed away.

The privilege of open speech is of course exercised at
certain personal risk. The king may be pleased, and
raise the speaker to honour for that very bluntness of
speech which three minutes later brings a too imitative
petitioner to the edge of the ever ready blade. And the
people love to have it so, for it is their right.

It happened upon a day in Kabul that the Amir
chose to do his day's work in the Baber Gardens, which
lie a short distance from the city of Kabul. A light
table stood before him, and round the table in the open
air were grouped generals and finance ministers accord-
ing to their degree. The Court and the long tail of feudal
chiefs — men of blood, fed and cowed by blood — stood in
an irregular semicircle round the table, and the wind
from the Kabul orchards blew among them. All day
long sweating couriers dashed in with letters from the
outlying districts with rumours of rebellion, intrigue,
famine, failure of pa)rments, or announcements of treas-

THE AMIR'S HOMILY 31

ure on the road; and all day long the Amir would read
the dockets, and pass such of these as were less private
to the officials whom they directly concerned, or call up a
waiting chief for a word of explanation. It is well to
speak clearly to the ruler of Afghanistan. Then the grim
head, under the black astrachan cap with the diamond
star in front, would nod gravely, and that chief would
return to his fellows. Once that afternoon a woman
clamoured for divorce against her husband, who was
bald, and the Amir, hearing both sides of the case, bade
her pour curds over the bare scalp, and lick them off, that
the hair might grown again, and she be contented. Here
the Court laughed, and the woman withdrew, cursing her
king under her breath.

But when twilight was falling, and the order of the
Court was a little relaxed, there came before the king, in
custody, a trembling haggard wretch, sore with much
bufifeting, but of stout enough build, who had stolen
three rupees — of such small matters does His Highness
take cognisance.

^Why did you steal?' said he; and when the king
asks questions they do themselves service who answer
directly.

*I was poor, and no one gave. Hungry, and there
was no food.'

* Why did you not work? '

'I could find no work, Protector of the Poor, and I
was starving.'

*You lie. You stole for drink, for lust, for idleness,
for anything but hunger, since any man who will may
find work and daily bread.'

The prisoner dropped his eyes. He had attended the
Court before, and he knew the ring of the death-tone.

*Any man may get work. Who knows this so well

32 LIFE'S HANDICAP

as I do? for I too have been hungered — not like you,
bastard scum, but as any honest man may be, by the
turn of Fate and the will of God.'

Growing warm, the Amir turned to his nobles all arow
and thrust the hilt of his sabre aside with his elbow.

*You have heard this Son of Lies? Hear me tell a
true tale. I also was once starved, and tightened my
belt on the sharp belly-pinch. Nor was I alone, for
with me was another, who did not fail me in my evil
days, when I was hunted, before ever I came to this
throne. And wandering like a houseless dog by Kanda-
har, my money melted, melted, melted til}— — ' He
flung out a bare palm before the audience. 'And day
upon day, faint and sick, I went back to that one who
waited, and God knows how we Hved, till on a day I took
our best lihaf — silk it was, fine work of Iran, such as no
needle now^ works, warm, and a coverlet for two, and all
that we had. I brought it to a money-lender in a by-
iane, and I asked for three rupees upon it. He said to
me, who am now the King, ^'You are a thief. This is
w^ortb three hundred." ^*I am no thief," I answered,
''but a prince of good blood, and I am hungry." — ''Prince
of wandering beggars," said that money-lender, "I have
no money with me, but go to my house with my clerk
and he will give you two rupees eight annas, for that ia
all I will lend." So I went wath the clerk to the house,
and we talked on the way, and he gave me the money.
We lived on it till it was spent, and we fared hard. And
then that clerk said, being a young man of a good heart,
"Surely the money-lender will lend yet more on that
lihaf, ^^ and he offered me two rupees. These I refused,
saying, *'Nay; but get me some work." And he got
me work, and I, even I, Abdur Rahman.^ Amir of Afghanis-
tan, wrought day by d^y as a coolif ^ bearing burdens,

THE AMIR^ HOMILY

33

and labouring of my hands, receiving four annas wage
a day for my sweat and backache. But he, this bastard
son of naught, must steal ! For a year and four months I
worked, and none dare say that I lie, for I have a wit-
ness, even that clerk who is now my friend.'

Then there rose in his place among the Sirdars and
the nobles one clad in silk, who folded his hands and
aaid, ' This is the truth of God, for I, who, by the favour
of God and the Amir, am such as you know, was once
clerk to that money-lender.'

There was a pause, and the Amir cried hoarsely to
the prisoner, throwing scorn upon him, till he ended with
the dread 'Dar arid/ which clinches justice.

So they led the thief away, and the whole of him was
seen no more together; and the Court rustled out of
its silence, whispering, 'Before God and the Prophet, but
this is a man!'

JEWS IN SHUSHAN*

My newly purchased house furniture was, at the least,
insecure; the legs parted from the chairs, and the tops
from the tables, on the slightest provocation. But such
as it was, it was to be paid for, and Ephraim, agent and
collector for the local auctioneer, waited in the verandah
with the receipt. He was announced by the Mahomedan
servant as 'Ephraim, Yahudi' — Ephraim the Jew. He
who beheves in the Brotherhood of Man should hear my
Elahi Bukhsh grinding the second word through his
white teeth with all the scorn he dare show before his
master. Ephraim was, personally, meek in manner — so
meek indeed that one could not understand how he had
fallen into the profession of bill-collecting. He resembled
an over-fed sheep, and his voice suited his figure. There
was a fixed, unvarying mask of childish wonder upon his
face. If you paid him, he was as one marveUing at your
wealth; if you sent him away, he seemed puzzled at your
hard-heartedness. Never was Jew more unlike his dread
breed.

Ephraim wore list slippers and coats of duster-cloth,
so preposterously patterned that the most brazen of
British subalterns would have shied from them in fear.
Very slow and deliberate was his speech, and carefully
guarded to give offence to no one. After many weeks,
Ephraim was induced to speak to me of his friends.

'There be eight of us in Shushan, and we are waiting

^Copyright, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
S4

JEWS IN SHUSHAN 35

till there are ten. Then we shall apply for a synagogue,
and get leave from Calcutta. To-day we have no syna-
gogue; and I, only I, am Priest and Butcher to our people.
I am of the tribe of Judah — I think, but I am not sure.
My father was of the tribe of Judah, and we wish much
to get our synagogue. I shall be a priest of that syna-
gogue.'

Shushan is a big city in the North of India, counting
its dwellers by the ten thousand; and these eight of
the Chosen People were shut up in its midst, waiting till
time or chance sent them their full congregation.

Miriam the wife of Ephraim, two Httle children, an
orphan boy of their people, Epraim's uncle Jackrael
Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew
from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest
and Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan.
They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great
city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine,
and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing
of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the
children of the City came to the waste place to fly their
kites, and Ephraim's sons held aloof, watching the sport
from the roof, but never descending to take part in them,
At the back of the house stood a small brick enclosure,
in which Ephraim prepared the daily meat for his people
after the custom of the Jews. Once the rude door of the
square was suddenly smashed open by a struggle from
inside, and showed the meek bill-collector at his work,
nostrils dilated, lips drawn back over his teeth, and his
hands upon a half-maddened sheep. He was attired in
strange raiment, having no relation whatever to duster
coats or hst slippers, and a knife was in his mouth.
As he struggled with the animal between the walls, the
breath came from him in thick sobs, and the nature of

36 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the man seemed changed. When the ordained slaughter
was ended, he saw that the door was open and shut it
hastily, his hand leaving a red mark on the timber, while
his children from the neighbouring house-top looked down
awe-stricken and open-eyed. A glimpse of Ephraim
busied in one of his religious capacities was no thing
to be desired twice.

Summer came upon Shushan, turning the trodden
waste-ground to iron, and bringing sickness to the city.

'It mil not touch us,' said Ephraim confidently.
'Before tlie winter we shall have our synagogue. My
brother and his wife and children are comJng up from
Calcutta, and then I shall be the priest of the synagogue.'

Jackrael Israel, the old m.an, would crawl out in the
stifling evenings to sit on the rubbish-heap and watch the
corpses being borne down to the river.

*It will not come near us,' said Jackrael Israel feebly,
*for we are the People of God, and my nephew will be
priest of our synagogue. Let them die.' He crept
back to his house again and barred the door to shut him-
self off from the world of the Gentile.

But Miriam, the wife of Ephraim, looked out of the
window at the dead as the biers passed and said that she
was afraid. Ephraim comforted her with hopes of the
synagogue to be, and collected bills as was his custom.

In one night, the two children died and were buried
early in the morning by Ephraim. The deaths never
appeared in the City returns. 'The sorrow is my sor-
row,' said Ephraim; and this to him seemed a sufficient
reason for setting at naught the sanitary regulations of a
large, flourishing, and remarkably well-governed Empire.

The orphan boy, dependent on the charity of Ephraim
and his wife, could have felt no gratitude, and must have
been a ruffian. He begged for whatever money his pro-

JEWS IN SHUSHAN 37

lectors would give him, and with that fled down-country
for his life. A week after the death of her children
Miriam left her bed at night and wandered over the
country to find them. She heard them cr}dng behind
every bush, or drowning in every pool of water in the
fields, and she begged the cartmen on the Grand Trunk
Road not to steal her little ones from her. In the morn-
ing the sun rose and beat upon her bare head, and she
turned into the cool wet crops to lie down and never
•r^ame back; though Hyem Benjamin and Ephraim sought
her for two nights.

The look of patient wonder on Ephraim 's face deep-
ened, but he presently found an explanation. 'There
are so few of us here, and these people are so many/ said
he, ' that, it may be, our God has forgotten ua.'

In ihe house on the outskirts of the dty old Jackrad
Israel and Hester grumbled that there was no one to
wait on them, and that Miriam had been untrue to her
race. Ephraim went out and collected bills, and in the
evenings smoked with Hyem Benjamin till, one dawning,
Hyem Benjamin died, having first paid all his debts to
Ephraim. Jackrael Israel and Hester sat alone in the
empty house all day, and, when Ephraim returned,
wept the easy tears of age tiU they cried themselves
asleep.

A week later Ephraim, staggering under a huge
bundle of clothes and cooking-pots, led the old man anc!
woman to the railway station, where the bustle and con-
fusion made them whimper.

'We are going back to Calcutta,' said Ephraim, to
whose sleeve Hester was clinging. 'There are more of
us there, and here my house is empty/

He helped Hester into the carriage and, turning back,
said to me, ' I should have been priest of the synagogue

38 LIFE'S HANDICAP

if there had been ten of us. Surely we must have been
forgotten by our God.'

The remnant of the broken colony passed out of the
station on their journey south; while a subaltern, turning
over the books on the bookstall, was whistling to himself
'The Ten Little Nigger Boys.'

But the tune sounded as solemn as the Dead March,

It was the dirge of the Jews in Shushan.

THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG^

If you consider the circumstances of the case, it was the
only thing that he could do. But Pambe Serang has
been hanged by the neck till he is dead, and Nurkeed
is dead also.

Three years ago, when the Elsass-Lothringen steamer
Saarbruck was coaling at Aden and the weather was very
hot indeed, Nurkeed, the big fat Zanzibar stoker who fed
the second right furnace thirty feet down in the hold, got
leave to go ashore. He departed a ' Seedee boy,' as they
call the stokers; he returned the full-blooded Sultan of
Zanzibar— His Highness Sayyid Burgash, with a bottle
in each hand. Then he sat on the fore-hatch grating,
eating salt fish and onions, and singing the songs of a far
country. The fogd belonged to Pambe, the Serang or head
man of the lascar sailors. He had just cooked it for him-
self, turned to borrow some salt, and when he came back
Nurkeed's dirty black fingers were spading into the rice.

A serang is a person of importance, far above a stoker,
though the stoker draws better pay. He sets the chorus
of 'Hya! Hulla! Hee-ah! Heh!' when the captain's
gig is pulled up to the davits; he heaves the lead too; and
sometimes, when all the ship is lazy, he puts on his
whitest muslin and a big red sash, and plays with the
passengers' children on the quarter-deck. Then the
passengers give him money, and he saves it all up for
an orgie at Bombay or Calcutta, or Pulu Penang.

^Copyright, 1891, by Macmillan & Co.
39

46 L1FE»S HANDICAP

'Ho! you fat black barrel, you're eating my food!'
said Pambe, in the Other Lingua Franca that begins
where the Levant tongue stops, and runs from Port Said
eastward till east is west, and the sealing-brigs of the
Kurile Islands gossip with the strayed Hakodate junks.

'Son of Eblis, monkey-face, dried shark's liver, pig-
man, I am the Sultan Sayyid Burgash, and the com-
mander of all this ship. Take away your garbage;'
and Nurkeed thrust the empty pewter rice-plate into
Pambe's hand.

Pambe beat it into a basin over Nurkeed's woolly
head. Nurkeed drew his sheath-knife and stabbed
Pamb6 in the leg. Pambe drew his sheath-knife; but
Nurkeed dropped down into the darkness of the hold
and spat through the grating at Pambe, who was staining
the clean fore-deck with his blood.

Only the white moon saw these things; for the oflScers
were looking after the coaHng, and the passengers were
tossing in their close cabins. 'All right,' said Pambe
—and went forward to tie up his leg— 'we will settle
the account later on.'

He was a Malay born in India: married once in Burma,
where his wife had a cigar-shop on the Shwe Dagon
road; once in Singapore, to a Chinese girl; and once in
Madras, to a Mahomedan woman who sold fowls. The
English sailor cannot, owing to postal and telegraph
facilities, marry as profusely as he used to do; but native
sailors can, being uninfluenced by the barbarous inven-
tions of the Western savage. Pambe was a good hus-
band when he happened to remember the existence of a
wife; but he was also a very good Malay; and it is not
wise to offend a Malay, because he does not forget any-
thing. Moreover, in Pambe's case blood had been drawn
and food spoiled.

THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBS SERANG 41

Next morning Nurkeed rose with a blank mind. He
was no longer Sultan of Zanzibar, but a very hot stoker.
So he went on deck and opened his jacket to the morning
breeze, till a sheath-knife came like a flying-fish and
stuck into the woodwork of the cook's galley half an
inch from his right armpit. He ran down below before
his time, trying to remember what he could have said to
the owner of the weapon. At noon, when all the ship's
lascars were feeding, Nurkeed advanced into their midst,
and, being a placid man with a large regard for his own
skin, he opened negotiations, saying, 'Men of the ship,
last night I was drunk, and this morning I know that I
behaved unseemly to some one or another of you. Who
was that man, that I may meet him face to face and say
that I was drunk? '

Pambe measured the distance to Nurkeed's naked
breast. If he sprang at him he might be tripped up,
and a blind blow at the chest sometimes only means
a gash on the breast-bone. Ribs are difficult to thrust
between unless the subject be adeep. So he said
nothing; nor did the other lascars. Their faces im-
mediately dropped all expression, as is the custom of
the Oriental when there is killing on the carpet or
any chance of trouble. Nurkeed looked long at the
white eyeballs. He was only an African, and could
not read characters. A big sigh — almost a groan —
broke from him, and he went back to the furnaces.
The lascars took up the conversation where he had
interrupted it. They talked of the best methods of
cooking rice.

Nurkeed suffered considerably from lack of fresh
air during the run to Bombay. He only came on deck
to breathe when all the world was about; and even then a
heavy block once dropped from a derrick within a foot

42 LIFE'S HANDICAP

of his head, and an apparently firm-lashed grating on
which he set his foot, began to turn over with the inten-
tion of dropping him on the cased cargo fifteen feet below;
and one insupportable night the sheath-knife dropped
from the fo'c's'le, and this time it drew blood. So
Nurkeed made complaint; and, when the Saarhruck
reached Bombay, fled and buried himself among eight
hundred thousand people, and did not sign articles till
the ship had been a month gone from the port. Pambe
waited too; but his Bombay wife grew clamorous, and
he was forced to sign in the Spicheren to Hongkong, be-
cause he realised that all play and no work gives Jack a
ragged shirt. In the foggy China seas he thought a great
deal of Nurkeed, and, when Elsass-Lothringen steamers
lay in port with the Spicheren, inquired after him and
found he had gone to England via the Cape, on the
Gravelotte. Pambe came to England on the Worth,
The Spicheren met her by the Nore Light. Nurkeed
was going out with the Spicheren to the Calicut coast.

'Want to find a friend, my trap-mouthed coal-scuttle?'
said a gentleman in the mercantile service. 'Nothing
easier. Wait at the Nyanza Docks till he comes. Every
one comes to the Nyanza Docks. Wait, you poor
heathen.' The gentleman spoke truth. There are
three great doors in the world where, if you stand long
enough, you shall meet any one you wish. The head
of the Suez Canal is one, but there Death comes also;
Charing Cross Station is the second — for inland work;
and the Nyanza Docks is the third. At each of these
places are men and women looking eternally for those who
will surely come. So Pambe waited at the docks. Time
was no object to him; and the wives could wait, as he
did from day to day, week to week, and month to month,
by the Blue Diamond funnels, the Red Dot smoke-stacks,

THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG 43

the Yellow Streaks, and the nameless dingy gypsies of
the sea that loaded and unloaded, jostled, whistled, and
roared in the everlasting fog. When money failed, a
kind gentleman told Pambe to become a Christian; and
Pambe became one with great speed, getting his rehgious
teachings between ship and ship's arrival, and six or
seven shillings a week for distributing tracts to mariners.
What the faith was Pambe did not in the least care; but
he knew if he said 'Native Ki-lis-ti-an, Sar' to men with
long black coats he might get a few coppers; and the
tracts were vendible at a little public-house that sold
shag by the 'dottel,' which is even smaller weight than
the 'half-screw,' which is less than the half-ounce, and a
most profitable retail trade.

But after eight months Pambe fell sick with pneu-
monia, contracted from long standing still in slush; and
much against his will he was forced to lie down in his
two-and-sixpenny room raging against Fate.

The kind gentleman sat by his bedside, and grieved
to find that Pambe talked in strange tongues, instead of
Hstening to good books, and almost seemed to become a
benighted heathen again — till one day he was roused from
semi-stupor by a voice in the street by the dock-head.
'My friend — he,' whispered Pambe. 'Call now — call
Nurkeed. Quick ! God has sent him ! '

'He wanted one of his own race,' said the kind gentle-
man; and, going out, he called 'Nurkeed!' at the top of
his voice. An excessively coloured man in a rasping
white shirt and brand-new slops, a shining hat, and a
breastpin, turned round. Many voyages had taught
Nurkeed how to spend his money and made him a citizen
of the world.

'Hi! Yes!' said he, when the situation was ex-
plained. 'Command him — black nigger — when I was

44 LIFE'S HANDICAP

in the Saarhruck. Ole Pambe, good ole Pamb6. Dam
lascar. Show him up, Sar;' and he followed into the
room. One glance told the stoker what the kind gentle-
man had overlooked. Pambe was desperately poor.
Nurkeed drove his hands deep into his pockets, then
advanced with clenched fists on the sick, shouting,
'Hya, Pambe. Hya! Hee-ah! HuUa! Heh! Takilo!
Takilo! Make fast aft, Pambe. You know, Pambe.
You know me. Dekho, jee! Look! Dam big fat lazy
lascar!'

Pamb6 beckoned with his left hand. His right
was under his pillow. Nurkeed removed his gorgeous
hat and stooped over Pambe till he could catch a faint
whisper. 'How beautiful!' said the kind gentleman.
*How these Orientals love like children!'

* Spit him out,' said Nurkeed, leaning over Pambe yet
more closely.

'Touching the matter of that fish and onions ^

said Pambe — and sent the knife home under the edge of
the rib-bone upwards and forwards.

There was a thick sick cough, and the body of the
African slid slowly from the bed, his clutching hands
letting fall a shower of silver pieces that ran across the
room.

^Now I can die!' said Pambe.

But he did not die. He was nursed back to life with
all the skill that money could buy, for the Law wanted
him; and in the end he grew sufi&ciently healthy to be
hanged in due and proper form.

Pambe did not care particularly; but it was a sad
blow to the kind gentleman.

LITTLE TOBRAH^

'Prisoner's head did not reach to the top of the dock/
as the English newspapers say. This case, however, was
not reported because nobody cared by so much as a
hempen rope for the life or death of Little Tobrah. The
assessors in the red court-house sat upon him all through
the long hot afternoon, and whenever they asked him a
question he salaamed and whined. Their verdict was
that the evidence was inconclusive, and the Judge con-
curred. It was true that the dead body of Little To-
brah's sister had been found at the bottom of the well, and
Little Tobrah was the only human being within a half
mile radius at the time; but the child might have fallen
in by accident. Therefore Little Tobrah was acquitted,
and told to go where he pleased. This permission was
not so generous as it sounds, for he had nowhere to go
to, nothing in particular to eat, and nothing whatever to
wear.

He trotted into the court-compound, and sat upon the
well-kerb, wondering whether an unsuccessful dive into
the black water below would end in a forced voyage
across the other Black Water. A groom put down an
emptied nose-bag on the bricks, and Little Tobrah, being
hungry, set himself to scrape out what wet grain the
horse had overlooked.

'O Tliief— -and but newly set free from the terror of
the Law! Come along!' said the groom, and Little To-
Copyright, 1891, by Macmillan & Co.
45

46 LIFE'S HANDICAP

brah was led by the ear to a large and fat Englishman,
who heard the tale of the theft.

' Hah ! ' said the Englishman three times (only he said
a stronger word). 'Put him into the net and take him
home.' So Little Tobrah was thrown into the net of the
cart, and, nothing doubting that he should be stuck like
a pig, was driven to the EngKshman's house. 'Hah!'
said the Englishman as before. 'Wet grain, by Jove!
Feed the little beggar, some of you, and we'll make a
riding-boy of him! See? Wet grain, good Lord!'

'Give an account of yourself,' said the Head of the
Grooms, to Little Tobrah after the meal had been eaten,
and the servants lay at ease in their quarters behind the
house. 'You are not of the groom caste, unless it be for
the stomach's sake. How came you into the court, and
why? Answer, little devil's spawn!'

'There was not enough to eat,' said Little Tobrah
calmly. 'This is a good place.'

'Talk straight talk,' said the Head Groom, 'or I will
make you clean out the stable of that large red stallion
v/ho bites like a camel.'

'We be Telis, oil-pressers,' said Little Tobrah, scratch-
ing his toes in the dust. 'We were Telis — my father,
my mother, my brother, the elder by four years, myself,
and the sister.'

'She who was found dead in the well?' said one who
had heard something of the trial.

'Even so,' said Little Tobrah gravely. 'She who was
found dead in the well. It befel upon a time, which is
not in my memory, that the sickness came to the village
where our oil-press stood, and first my sister was smitten
as to her eyes, and went without sight, for it was mata —
the smallpox. Thereafter, my father and my mother
died of that same sickness, so we were alone — my brother

LITTLE TOBRAH 47

who had twelve years, I who had eight, and the sister
who could not see. Yet were there the bullock and the
oil-press remaining, and we made shift to press the oil as
before. But Surjun Dass, the grain-seller, cheated us in
his dealings; and it was always a stubborn bullock to
drive. We put marigold flowers for the Gods upon the
neck of the bullock, and upon the great grinding-beam
that rose through the roof ; but we gained nothing thereby,
and Surjun Dass was a hard man.'

' Bapri-bap/ muttered the grooms' wives, Ho cheat a
child so! But we know what the bunnia-io\k sue,
sisters.'

'The press was an old press, and we were not strong
men — my brother and I; nor could we fix the neck of
the beam firmly in the shackle.'

*Nay, indeed,' said the gorgeously-clad wife of the
Head Groom, joining the circle. 'That is a strong man's
work. When I was a maid in my father's house '

'Peace, woman,' said the Head Groom. ' Go on, boy.'

'It is nothing,' said Little Tobrah. 'The big beam
tore down the roof upon a day which is not in my mem-
ory, and with the roof fell much of the hinder wall, and
both together upon our bullock, whose back was broken.
Thus we had neither home, nor press, nor bullock — my
brother, myself, and the sister who was blind. We
went crying away from that place, hand-in-hand, across
the fields; and our money was seven annas and six pie.
There was a famine in the land. I do not know the
name of the land. So, on a night when we were sleep-
ing, my brother took the five annas that remained to us
and ran away. I do not know wliither he went. The
curse of my father be upon him. But I and the sister
begged food in the villages, and there was none to give.
Only all men said — "Go to the Englishmen and they

48 LIFE'S HANDICAP

will give." I did not know what the Englishmen were;
but they said that they were white, living in tents. I
went forward; but I cannot say whither I went, and there
was no more food for myself or the sister. And upon a
hot night, she weeping and calling for food, we came to a
well, and I bade her sit upon the kerb, and thrust her in,
for, in truth, she could not see; and it is better to die
than to starve.'

*Ai! Ahi!' wailed the grooms' wives in chorus; 'he
thrust her in, for it is better to die than to starve ! '

'I would have thrown myself in also, but that she
was not dead and called to me from the bottom of the
well, and I was afraid and ran. And one came out of
the crops saying that I had killed her and defiled the
well, and they took me before an Englishman, white and
terrible, living in a tent, and me he sent here. But
there were no witnesses, and it is better to die than to
starve. She, furthermore, could not see with her eyes,
and was but a little child.'

'Was but a little child,' echoed the Head Groom's
wife. 'But who art thou, weak as a fowl and small as
a day-old colt, what art thou ? '

'I who was empty am now full,' said Little Tobrah,
stretching himself upon the dust. 'And I would sleep.'

The groom's wife spread a doth over him while Little
Tobrah slept the sleep of the just.

BUBBLING WELL ROAD^

Look out on a large scale map the place where the
Chenab river falls into the Indus fifteen miles or so above
the hamlet of Chachuran. Five miles west of Chachuran
lies Bubbling Well Road, and the house of the gosain or
priest of Arti-goth. It was the priest who showed me
the road, but it is no thanks to him that I am able to
tell this story.

Five miles west of Chachuran is a patch of the plumed
jungle-grass, that turns over in silver when the wind
blows, from ten to twenty feet high and from three
to four miles square. In the heart of the patch hides the
gosain of Bubbling Well Road. The villagers stone him
when he peers into the dayUght, although he is a priest,
and he runs back again as a strayed wolf turns into tall
crops. He is a one-eyed man and carries, burnt between
his brows, the impress of two copper coins. Some say
that he was tortured by a native prince in the old days;
for he is so old that he must have been capable of mis-
chief in the days of Runjit Singh. His most pressing
need at present is a halter, and the care of the British
Government.

These things happened when the jungle-grass was
tall; and the villagers of Chachuran told me that a
sounder of pig had gone into the Arti-goth patch. To
enter jungle-grass is always an unwise proceeding, but I
went, partly because I knew nothing of pig-hunting, and

^Copyright, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
49

50 LIFE'S HANDICAP

partly because the villagers said that the big boar of the
sounder owned foot long tushes. Therefore I wished to
shoot him, in order to produce the tushes in after years,
and say that I had ridden him down in fair chase. I
took a gun and went into the hot, close patch, beheving
that it would be an easy thing to unearth one pig in ten
square miles of jungle. Mr. Wardle, the terrier, went
with me because he believed that I was incapable of
existing for an hour without his advice and countenance.
He managed to slip in and out between the grass clumps,
but I had to force my way, and in twenty minutes was
as completely lost as though I had been in the heart of
Central Africa. I did not notice this at first till I had
grown wearied of stumbKng and pushing through the
grass, and Mr. Wardle was beginning to sit down very
often and hang out his tongue very far. There was
nothing but grass ever}^where, and it was impossible to
see two yards in any direction. The grass-stems held
the heat exactly as boiler-tubes do.

In half-an-hour, when I was devoutly wishing that I
had left the big boar alone, I came to a narrow path
which seemed to be a compromise between a native foot-
path and a pig-run. It was barely six inches wide, but I
could sidle along it in comfort. The grass was extremely
thick here, and where the path was ill defined it was
necessary to crush into the tussocks either with both
hands before the face, or to back into it, leaving both
hands free to manage the rifle. None the less it was a
path, and valuable because it might lead to a place.

At the end of nearly fifty yards of fair way, just when
I was preparing to back into an unusually stiff tussock, I
missed Mr. Wardle, who for his girth is an unusually
frivolous dog and never keeps to heel. I called him three
times and said aloud, 'Where has the little beast gone

BUBBLING WELL ROAD 51

to? ^ Then I stepped backwards several paces, for almost
under my feet a deep voice repeated, * Where has the
little beast gone?' To appreciate an unseen voice
thoroughly you should hear it when you are lost in
stifling jungle-grass. I called JMr. Wardle again and the
underground echo assisted me. At that I ceased calling
and hstened very attentively, because I thought I heard
a man laughing in a peculiarly offensive manner. The
heat made me sweat, but the laughter made me shake.
There is no earthly need for laughter in high grass. It is
indecent, as well as impoHte. The chuckling stopped,
and I took courage and continued to call till I thought
that I had located the echo somewhere behind and below
the tussock into which I was preparing to back just before
I lost Mr. Wardle. I drove my rifle up to the triggers,
between the grass-stems in a downward and forward
direction. Then I waggled it to and fro, but it did not
seem to touch ground on the far side of the tussock as
it should have done. Every time that I grunted with
the exertion of driving a heavy rifle through thick grass,
the grunt was faithfully repeated from below, and when
I stopped to wipe my face the sound of low laughter was
distinct beyond doubting.

I went into the tussock, face first, an inch at a time,
my mouth open and my eyes fine, full, and prominent.
When I had overcome the resistance of the grass I found
that I was looking straight across a black gap in the
ground — that I was actually lying on my chest leaning
over the mouth of a well so deep I could scarcely see the
water in it.

There v^ere things in the water, — black things, — and
the water was as black as pitch with blue scum atop.
The laughing sound came from the noise of a Httle spring,
spouting half-way down one side of the well. Some-

52 LIFE'S HANDICAP

times as the black things circled round, the trickle from
the spring fell upon their tightly-stretched skins, and
then the laughter changed into a sputter of mirth. One
thing turned over on its back, as I watched, and drifted
round and round the circle of the mossy brickwork with
a hand and half an arm held clear of the water in a stiff
and horrible flourish, as though it were a very wearied
guide paid to exhibit the beauties of the place.

I did not spend more than half-an-hour in creeping
round that well and finding the path on the other side.
The remainder of the journey I accomphshed by feeling
every foot of ground in front of me, and crawHng like a
snail through every tussock. I carried Mr. Wardle in
my arms and he licked my nose. He was not frightened
in the least, nor was I, but we wished to reach open
ground in order to enjoy the view. My knees were
loose, and the apple in my throat refused to sHde up and
down. The path on the far side of the well was a very
good one, though boxed in on all sides by grass, and it
led me in time to a priest's hut in the centre of a little
clearing. When that priest saw my very white face
coming through the grass he howled with terror and em-
braced my boots; but when I reached the bedstead set
outside his door I sat down quickly and Mr. Wardle
mounted guard over me. I was not in a condition to
take care of myself.

When I awoke I told the priest to lead me into the
open, out of the Arti-goth patch, and to walk slowly in
front of me. Mr. Wardle hates natives, and the priest
was more afraid of Mr. Wardle than of me, though we
were both angry. He walked very slowly down a narrow
little path from his hut. That path crossed three paths,
such as the one I had come by in the first instance, and
every one of the three headed towards the Bubbling

BUBBLING WELL ROAD S3

Well. Once when we stopped to draw breath, I heard
the Well laughing to itself alone in the thick grass, and
only my need for his services prevented my firing both
barrels into the priest's back.

When we came to the open the priest crashed back
into cover, and I went to the village of Arti-goth for a
drink. It was pleasant to be able to see the horizon all
round, as well as the ground underfoot.

The villagers told me that tlie patch of grass was full
of devils and ghosts, all in the service of the priest, and
that men and women and children had entered it and had
never returned. They said the priest used their livers
for purposes of witchcraft. When I asked why they had
viot told me of this at the outset, they said that they were
afraid they would lose their reward for bringing news of
the pig.

Before I left I did my best to set the patch alight,
but the grass was too green. Some fine summer day,
however, if the wind is favourable, a file of old newspapers
and a box of matches will make clear the mystery ©f
Bubbling Well Road.

'THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT'^

The dense wet heat that hung over the face of land, like
a blanket, prevented all hope of sleep in the first instance.
The cicalas helped the heat; and the yelling jackals the
cicalas. It was impossible to sit still in the dark, empty,
echoing house and watch the punkah beat the dead air.
So, at ten o'clock of the night, I set my walking-stick on
end in the middle of the garden, and waited to see how
it would fall. It pointed directly down the moonHt road
that leads to the City of Dreadful Night. The sound of
its fall disturbed a hare. She limped from her form and
ran across to a disused Mahomedan burial-ground, where
the jawless skulls and rough-butted shank-bones, heart-
lessly exposed by the July rains, glimmered Hke mother
o' pearl on the rain-channelled soil. The heated air and
the heavy earth had driven the very dead upward for
coolness' sake. The hare limped on; snuffed curiously
at a fragment of a smoke-stained lamp-shard, and died
out, in the shadow of a clump of tamarisk trees.

The mat-weaver's hut under the lee of the Hindu
temple was full of sleeping men who lay Hke sheeted
corpses. Overhead blazed the unwinking eye of the
Moon. Darkness gives at least a false impression of
coolness. It was hard not to believe that the flood
of light from above was warm. Not so hot as the Sun,
but still sickly warm, and heating the heavy air beyond
what was our due. Straight as a bar of polished steel

iCopy right, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
54

^THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT' 55

mn the road to the City of Dreadful Night; and on
either side of the road lay corpses disposed on beds in
fantastic attitudes— one hundred and seventy bodies
of men. Some shrouded all in white with bound-up
mouths; some naked and black as ebony in the strong
light; and one— that lay face upwards with dropped jaw^
far away from the others— silvery white and ashen gray.

'A leper asleep; and the remainder wearied cooHes,
servants, small shopkeepers, and drivers from the hack-
stand hard by. The scene — a main approach to Lahore
city, and the night a warm one in August.' This was all
that there was to be seen; but by no means all that one
could see. The witchery of the moonlight was every-
where; and the world was horribly changed. The long
line of the naked dead, flanked by the rigid silver statue,
was not pleasant to look upon. It was made up of
men alone. Were the womenkind, then, forced to sleep
in the shelter of the stifling mud-huts as best they
might? The fretful wail of a child from a low mud-roof
ansv/ered the question. Where the children are the
mothers must be also to look after them. They need
care on these sweltering nights. A black Uttle bullet-
head peeped over the coping, and a thin— a painfully
thin— brown leg was slid over on to the gutter pipe.
There was a sharp cluik of glass bracelets; a woman's
arm showed for an instant above the parapet, twined
itself round the lean Httle neck, and the child was
dragged back, protesting, to the shelter of the bedstead.
His thin, high-pitched shriek died out in the thick air
almost as soon as it was raised; for even the children o^
the soil found it too hot to weep.

More corpses; more stretches of moonht, white road,
a string of sleeping camels at rest by the wayside; a
vis-ion of scudding jackals; ekka-ponies asleep — the

S6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

harness still on their backs, and the brass-studded
country carts, winking in the moonlight — and again
more corpses. Wherever a grain cart atilt, a tree
trunk, a sawn log, a couple of bamboos and a few handfuls
of thatch cast a shadow, the ground is covered with them.
They lie — some face downwards, arms folded, in the dust;
some with clasped hands flung up above their heads;
some curled up dog- wise; some thrown like limp gunny-
bags over the side of the grain carts; and some bowed
with their brows on their knees in the full glare of the
Moon. It would be a comfort if they were only given to
snoring; but they are not, and the likeness to corpses is
unbroken in all respects save one. The lean dogs snuff
at them and turn away. Here and there a tiny child
lies on his father's bedstead, and a protecting arm is
thrown round it in every instance. But, for the most
part, the children sleep with their mothers on the house-
tops. Yellow-skinned white-toothed pariahs are not to
be trusted within reach of brown bodies.

A stifling hot blast from the mouth of the Delhi
Gate nearly ends my resolution of entering the City
of Dreadful Night at this hour. It is a compound of all
evil savours, animal and vegetable, that a walled city
can brew in a day and a night. The temperature within
the motionless groves of plantain and orange-trees
outside the city walls seems chilly by comparison.
Heaven help all sick persons and young children within
the city to-night ! The high house- walls are still radiating
heat savagely, and from obscure side gullies fetid breezes
eddy that ought to poison a buffalo. But the buffaloes
do not heed. A drove of them are parading the vacant
main street; stopping now and then to lay their pon-
derous muzzles against the closed shutters of a grain
dealer's shop^ and to blow thereon like grampuses.

*THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT' S7

Then silence follows — the silence that is full of the
night noises of a great city. A stringed mstrument of
some kind is just, and only just, audible. High over-
head some one throws open a window, and the rattle
of the wood-work echoes down the empty street. On
one of the roofs, a hookah is in full blast; and the men
are talking softly as the pipe gutters. A Httle farther
on, the noise of conversation is more distinct. A sKt of
Hght shows itself between the sliding shutters of a shop.
Inside, a stubble-bearded, weary-eyed trader is balancing
his account-books among the bales of cotton prints that
surround him. Three sheeted figures bear him company,
and throw in a remark from time to time. First he
makes an entry, then a remark; then passes the back of
his hand across his streaming forehead. The heat in the
built-in street is fearful. Inside the shops it must be
almost unendurable. But the work goes on steadily;
entry, guttural growl, and upHfted hand-stroke succeed-
ing each other with the precision of clock-work.

A poUceman — turbanless and fast asleep — lies across
the road on the way to the Mosque of Wazir Khan. A
bar of moonhght falls across the forehead and eyes of the
sleeper, but he never stirs. It is close upon midnight,
and the heat seems to be increasing. The open square
in front of the Mosque is crowded with corpses; and a
man must pick his way carefully for fear of treading on
them. The moonlight stripes the Mosque's high front of
coloured enamel work in broad diagonal bands; and each
separate dreaming pigeon in the niches and corners of the
masonry throws a squab little shadow. Sheeted ghosts
rise up wearily from their pallets, and flit into the dark
depths of the building. Is it possible to climb to the
top of the great Minars, and thence to look down on the
city? At all events the attempt is worth making, and

58 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the chances are that the door of the staircase will be
unlocked. Unlocked it is; but a deeply sleeping janitor
lies across the threshold, face turned to the Moon. A
rat dashes out of his turban at the sound of approaching
footsteps. The man grunts, opens his eyes for a minute,
turns round, and goes to sleep again. All the heat
o-f a decade of fierce Indian summers is stored in the
pitch-black, polished walls of the corkscrew staircase.
Half-way up, there is something alive, warm, and
feathery; and it snores. Driven from step to step as
it catches the sound of my advance, it flutters to the
top and reveals itself as a yellow-eyed, angry kite.
Dozens of kites are asleep on this and the other Minars,
and on the domes below. There is the shadow of a cool,
or at least a less sultry breeze at this height; and, re-
freshed thereby, turn to look on the City of Dreadful
Night.

Dore might have drawn it! Zola could describe it —
this spectacle of sleeping thousands in the moonlight and
in the shadow of the Moon. The roof-tops are crammed
with men, women, and children; and the air is full of
undistinguishable noises. They are restless in the City
of Dreadful Night; and small wonder. The marvel
is that they can even breathe. If you gaze intently
at the multitude, you can see that they are almost
as uneasy as a daylight crowd; but the. tumult is sub-
dued. Everywhere, in the strong light, you can watch
the sleepers turning to and fro; shifting their beds and
again resettling them. In the pit-like court-yards of the
houses there is the same movement.

Hie pitiless Moon shows it all. Shows, too, the plains
outside the city, and here and there a hand's-breadth of
the Ravee without the walls. Shows lastly, a splash of
glittering silver on a house-top almost directly below the

'THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT' 59

mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to throw a
jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the fall-
ing water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other
men, in far-off corners of the City of Dreadful Night,
follow his example, and the water flashes like hehographic
signals. A small cloud passes over the face of the Moon,
and the city and its inhabitants — clear drawn in black
and white before— fade into masses of black and deeper
black. Still the unrestful noise contmues, the sigh of a
great city overwhehned with the heat, and of a people
seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class
women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the
torment be in the latticed zenanas, where a few lamps
are still twinkling? There are footfalls in the court
below. It is the Muezzin — faithful minister; but he
ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful
that prayer is better than sleep — the sleep that will not
come to the city.

The Muezzin fumbles for a moment with the door of
one of the Minars, disappears awhile, and a bull-like
roar— a magnificent bass thunder — tells that he has
reached the top of the Minar. They must hear the cry
to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across
the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud
drifts by and shows him outlined in black against the
sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad chest heaving
with the play of his lungs— 'Allah ho Akbar'; then a
pause while another Muezzin somewhere in the direction
of the Golden Temple takes up the call—' Allah ho Akbar/
Again and again; four times in all; and from the bed-
steads a dozen men have risen up already. — 'I bear
witness that there is no God but God.' What a splendid
cry it is, the proclamation of the creed that brings men
cut of their beds by scores at midnight! Once again he

6o LIFE'S HANDICAP

thunders through the same phrase, shaking with the
vehemence of his own voice; and then, far and near, the
night air rings with 'Mahomed is the Prophet of God/
It is as though he were flinging his defiance to the far-off
horizon, where the summer Ughtning plays and leaps
like a bared sword. Every Muezzin in the city is in full
cry, and some men on the roof-tops are beginning to
kneel. A long pause precedes the last cry, 'La ilaha
Illallah/ and the silence closes up on it, as the ram on the
head of a cotton-bale.

The Muezzin stumbles down the dark stairway
grumbHng in his beard. He passes the arch of the
entrance and disappears. Then the stifling silence settles
down over the City of Dreadful Night. The kites on the
Minar sleep again, snoring more loudly, the hot breeze
comes up in puffs and lazy eddies, and the Moon slides
down towards the horizon. Seated with both elbows on
the parapet of the tower, one can watch and wonder over
that heat- tortured hive till the dawn. 'How do they
live down there? What do they think of? When will
they awake?' ]\Iore tinkling of sluiced water-pots; faint
jarring of wooden bedsteads moved into or out of the
shadows; uncouth music of stringed instruments softened
by distance into a plaintive wail, and one low grumble of
far-off thunder. In the courtyard of the mosque the
janitor, who lay across the threshold of the Minar when
I came up, starts wildly in his sleep, throws his hands
above his head, mutters something, and falls back again.
Lulled by the snoring of the kites — they snore like over-
gorged humans — I drop off into an uneasy doze, conscious
that three o'clock has struck, and that there is a slight —
a very slight — coolness in the atmosphere. The city is^
absolutely quiet now, but for some vagrant dog's love-
song. Nothing save dead heavy sleep.

'THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT' 6i

Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the
xVEoon has gone out. The very dogs are still, and I
watch for the first Hght of the dawn before making my
way homeward. Again the noise of shuMng feet.
The morning call is about to begin, and my night watch
is over. 'Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The
east grows gray, and presently saffron; the dawn wind
comes up as though the Muezzin had summoned it; and,
as one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its
bed and turns its face towards the dawning day. With
return of Kfe comes return of sound. First a low whis-
per, then a deep bass hum; for it must be remembered
that the entire city is on the house-tops. My eyehds
weighed down with the arrears of long deferred sleep, I
escape from the Minar through the courtyard and out
into the square beyond, where the sleepers have risen,
stowed away the bedsteads, and are discussing the morn-
ing hookah. The minute's freshness of the air has
gone, and it is as hot as at first.

'Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?'
What is it? Something borne on men's shoulders comes
by in th,^ half-Hght, and I stand back. A woman's
corpse g'An^ down to the burning-ghat, and a bystander
says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.' So the city
was of Death as well as Night after all.

GEORGIE PORGIE^

Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
When the girls came out to play
Georgie Porgie ran away.

If you will admit that a man has no right to enter his
drawing-room early in the morning, when the housemaid
is setting things right and clearing away the dust, you
will concede that civiKsed people who eat out of china
and own card-cases have no right to apply their standard
of right and wrong to an unsettled land. When the
place is made fit for their reception, by those men who
are told off to the work, they can come up, bringing in
their trunks their own society and the Decalogue, and
all the other apparatus. Where the Queen's Law does
not carry, it is irrational to expect an observance of other
and weaker rules. The men who run ahead of the cars
of Decency and Propriety, and make the jungle ways
straight, cannot be judged in the same manner as the
stay-at-home folk of the ranks of the regular TcJiin.

Not many months ago the Queen's Law stopped a few
miles north of Thayetmyo on the Irrawaddy. There was
no very strong PubKc Opinion up to that limit, but it
existed to keep men in order. When the Governmxent
said that the Queen's Law must carry up to Bhamo and
the Chinese border the order was given, and some men
whose desire was to be ever a little in advance of the

^Copyright, 1 891, by Macmillan & Co.
62

GEORGIE PORGIE 63

rush of Respectability flocked forward with the troops.
These were the men who could never pass examinations,
and would have been too pronounced in their ideas for
the administration of bureau- worked Provuices. The
Supreme Government stepped in as soon as might be,
with codes and regulations, and all but reduced New
Burma to the dead Indian level; but there was a short
time during which strong men were necessary and
ploughed a field for themselves.

Among the fore-runners of Civilisation was Georgie
Porgie, reckoned by all who knew him a strong man.
He held an appointment in Lower Burma when the order
came to break the Frontier, and his friends called him
Georgie Porgie because of the singularly Burmese-like
manner in which he sang a song whose first Hne is some-
thmg like the words 'Georgie Porgie.' Most men who
have been m Burma will know the song. It means:
'Puff, puff, puff, puff, great steamboat!' Georgie sang
it to his banjo, and his friends shouted with delight,
so that you could hear them far away in the teak-
forest.

When he went to Upper Burma he had no special
regard for God or Man, but he knew how to make him-
self respected, and to carry out the mixed Mihtary-Civil
duties that fell to most men's share in those months.
He did his office work and entertained, now and again,
the detachments of fever-shaken soldiers who blundered
through his part of the world in search of a flying party
of dacoits. Sometimes he turned out and dressed down
dacoits on his own account; for the country was still
smouldering and would blaze when least expected. He
enjoyed these charivaris, but the dacoits were not so
amused. All the officials who came in contact with him
departed with the idea that Georgie Porgie was a valuable

64 LIFE'S HANDICAP

person, well able to take care of himself, and, on that
belief, he was left to his own devices.

At the end of a few months he wearied of his solitude,
and cast about for company and refinement. The
Queen's Law had hardly begun to be felt in the country,
and Public Opinion, which is more powerful than the
Queen's Law, had yet to come. Also, there was a cus-
tom in the country which allowed a white man to take to
himself a wife of the Daughters of Heth upon due pay-
ment. The marriage was not quite so bindmg as is the
nikkah ceremony among Mahomedans, but the Vvdfe was
very pleasant.

When all our troops are back from Burma there ml\
be a proverb in their mouths, 'As thrifty as a Burmese
wife,' and pretty English ladies will wonder what in the
world it means.

The headman of the village next to Georgie Porgie's
post had a fair daughter who had seen Georgie Porgie
and loved him from afar. WTien news went abroad that
the Englishman with the heavy hand who hved in the
stockade was looking for a housekeeper, the headman
came in and explained that, for five hundred rupees
down, he would entrust his daughter to Georgie Porgie's
keeping, to be maintained in all honour, respect, and
comfort, viith pretty dresses, according to the custom of
the country. This thing was done, and Georgie Porgie
never repented it.

He found his rough-and-tumble house put straight
and made comfortable, his hitherto unchecked expenses
cut down by one half, and himself petted and made much
of by his new acquisition, who sat at the head of his
table and sang songs to him and ordered his Madrassee
servants about, and was in every way as sweet and merry
and honest and winning a little woman as the most

GEORGIE PORGIE 6s

exacting of bachelors could have desired. No race, men
say who know, produces such good wives and heads of
households as the Burmese. When the next detachment
tramped by on the war-path the Subaltern in Command
found at Georgie Porgie's table a hostess to be deferential
to, a woman to be treated in every way as one occupying
an assured position. When he gathered his men together
next dawn and replunged into the jungle he thought re-
gretfully of the nice little dinner and the pretty face, and
envied Georgie Porgie from the bottom of his heart. Yet
he was engaged to a girl at Home, and that is how some
men are constructed.

The Burmese girl's name was not a pretty one; but as
she was promptly christened Georgina by Georgie Porgie,
the blemish did not matter. Georgie Porgie thought well
of the petting and the general comfort, and vowed that
he had never spent five hundred rupees to a better end.

After three months of domestic life, a great idea
struck him. Matrimony — English matrimony — could
not be such a bad thing after all. If he were so thor-
oughly comfortable at the Back of Beyond mth this
Burmese girl who smoked cheroots, how much more
comfortable would he be with a sweet EngHsh maiden
who would not smoke cheroots, and would play upon a
piano instead of a banjo? Also he had a desire to return
to his kind, to hear a Band once more, and to feel how
it felt to wear a dress-suit again. Decidedly, Matrimony
would be a very good thing. He thought the matter
out at length of evenings, while Georgina sang to him,
or asked him why he was so silent, and whether she had
done anything to offend him. As he thought, he smoked,
and as he smoked he looked at Georgina, and in his
fancy turned her into a fair, thrifty, amusing, merry,
little English girl, with hair coming low down on hei

66 LIFE'S HANDICAP

forehead, and perhaps a cigarette between her lips.
Certainly, not a big, thick, Burma cheroot, of the brand
that Georgina smoked. He would wed a girl with
Georgina's eyes and most of her ways. But not all.
She could be improved upon. Then he blew thick
smoke-wreaths through his nostrils and stretched himself.
He would taste marriage. Georgina had helped him to
save money, and there were six months' leave due to him.

'See here, Httle woman,' he said, 'we must put by
more money for these next three months. I want it.'
That was a direct slur on Georgina's housekeeping; for
she prided herself on her thrift; but since her God wanted
money she would do her best.

'You want money?' she said with a Httle laugh. '1
have money. Look!' She ran to her own room and
fetched out a small bag of rupees. 'Of all that you give
me, I keep back some. See! One hundred and seven
rupees. Can you want miore money than that? Take
it. It is my pleasure if you use it.' She spread out the
money on the table and pushed it towards him, mth her
quick, httle, pale yellow fingers.

Georgie Porgie never referred to economy in the house-
hold again.

Three months later, after the dispatch and receipt of
•several mysterious letters v/hich Georgina could not
understand, and hated for that reason, Georgie Porgie
said that he was going away and she must return to her
father's house and stay there.

Georgina wept. She would go with her God from the
world's end to the world's end. Why should she leave
him? She loved him.

'I am only going to Rangoon,' said Georgie Porgie.
'I shall be back in a month, but it is safer to stay with
your father. I will leave you two hundred rupees.'

GEORGIE PORGIE

(57

'If you go for a month, what need of two hundred?
Fifty are more than enough. There is some evil here.
Do not go, or at least let me go with you.'

Georgie Porgie does not like to remember that scene
even at this date. In the end he got rid of Georgina by
a compromise of seventy-five rupees. She would not
take more. Then he went by steamer and rail to Ran-
goon.

The mysterious letters had granted him six months'
leave. The actual flight and an idea that he might have
been treacherous hurt severely at the time, but as soon as
the big steamer was well out into the blue, things were
easier, and Georgina's face, and the queer little stockaded
house, and the memory of the rushes of shouting dacoits
by night, the cry and struggle of the first man that he had
ever killed with his own hand, and a hundred other more
intimate things, faded and faded out of Georgie Porgie's
heart, and the vision of approaching England took its
place. The steamer was full of men on leave, all ram-
pantly jovial souls who had shaken off the dust and sweat
of Upper Burma and were as merry as schoolboys. They
helped Georgie Porgie to forget.

Then came England with its luxuries and decencies
and comforts, and Georgie Porgie walked in a pleasant
dream upon pavements of which he had nearly forgotten
the ring, wondering why men in their senses ever left
Town. He accepted his keen dehght in his furlough as
the reward of his services. Providence further arranged
for him another and greater dehght — all the pleasures
of a quiet EngKsh wooing, quite different from the brazen
businesses of the East, when half the community stand
back and bet on the result, and the other half wonder
what Mrs. So-and-So will say to it.

It was a pleasant girl and a perfect summer, and a big

6S LIFE'S HANDICAP

country-house near Petworth where there are acres and
acres of purple heather and high-grassed water-meadows
to wander through. Georgie Porgie felt that he had at
last found something worth the living for, and naturally
assumed that the next thing to do was to ask the girl to
share his life in India. She, in her ignorance, was wiUing
to go. On this occasion there was no bartering with a
village headman. There was a line middle-class wedding
in the country, with a stout Papa and a weeping Mamma,
and a best-man in purple and fine linen, and six snub-
nosed girls from the Sunday School to throw roses on the
path between the tombstones up to the Church door.
The local paper described the affair at great length, even
down to giving the hymns in full. But that was because
the Direction were starving for want of material.

Then came a honeymoon at Arundel, and the Mamma
wept copiously before she allowed her one daughter to
sail away to India under the care of Georgie Porgie the
Bridegroom. Beyond any question, Georgie Porgie was
immensely fond of his wife, and she was devoted to him
as the best and greatest man in the world. When he re-
ported himself at Bombay he felt justified in demanding
a good station for his wife's sake; and, because he had
made a httle mark in Burma and was beginning to be
appreciated, they allowed him nearly all that he asked
for, and posted him to a station which we will call
Sutrain. It stood upon several hills, and was styled
officially a 'Sanitarium,' for the good reason that the
drainage was utterly neglected. Here Georgie Porgie
settled down, and found married life come very naturally
to him. He did not rave, as do m.any bridegrooms, over
the strangeness and delight of seeing his own true love
sitting down to breakfast vdth. him every morning 'as
\hous:h it were the most natural thing in the world.'

GEORGIE PORGIE 69

'He had been there before/ as the Americans say, and,
checking the merits of his own present Grace by those of
Georgina, he was more and more incHned to think that
he had done well.

But there was no peace or comfort across the Bay of
Bengal, under the teak-trees where Georgina lived with
her father, waiting for Georgie Porgie to return. The
headman was old, and remembered the war of ^51. He
had been to Rangoon, and knew something of the ways of
the Kidlalts. Sitting in front of his door in the evenings,
he taught Georgina a dry philosophy which did not con-
sole her in the least.

The trouble was that she loved Georgie Porgie just as
much as the French girl in the English History books
loved the priest whose head was broken by the king's
bullies. One day she disappeared from the village with
all the rupees that Georgie Porgie had given her, and a
ver>^ small smattering of English — also gained from
Georgie Porgie.

The headman was angry at first, but lit a fresh cheroot
and said something uncompUmentary about the sex in
general. Georgina had started on a search for Georgie
Porgie, who might be in Rangoon, or across the Black
Water, or dead, for aught that she knew. Chance
favoured her. An old Sikh policeman told her that
Georgie Porgie had crossed the Black Water. She took a
steerage-passage from Rangoon and went to Calcutta;
keeping the secret of her search to herself.

In India every trace of her was lost for six weeks,
and no one knows what trouble of heart she must have
undergone.

She reappeared, four hundred miles north of Calcutta,

* ■iil) heading northwards, very worn and liaggard, but

; ... i'y.i'^d in her determination to find Georgie Porgie.

7© LIFE'S HANDICAP

She could not understand the language of the people;
but India is infinitely charitable, and the women-folk
along the Grand Trunk gave her food. Something made
her believe that Georgie Porgie was to be found at the
end of that pitiless road. She may have seen a sepoy who
knew him in Burma, but of this no one can be certain.
At last, she found a regiment on the line of march, and
met there one of the many subalterns whom Georgie
Porgie had invited to dinner in the far-off, old days of the
dacoit-hunting. There was a certain amount of amuse-
ment among the tents when Georgina threw herself at the
man's feet and began to cry. There was no amusement
when her story was told; but a collection was made, and
that was more to the point. One of the subalterns knew
of Georgie Porgie's whereabouts, but not of his marriage.
So he told Georgina and she went her way joyfully to the
north, in a railway carriage where there was rest for tired
feet and shade for a dusty Httle head. The marches
from the train through the hills into Sutrain were trying,
but Georgina had money, and families journeying in
bullock-carts gave her help. It was an ahnost miraculous
journey, and Georgina felt sure that the good spirits of
Burma were looking after her. The hill-road to Sutrain
is a chilly stretch, and Georgina caught a bad cold. Still
there was Georgie Porgie at the end of all the trouble to
take her up in his arms and pet her, as he used to do in
the old days when the stockade was shut for the night and
he had approved of the evening meal. Georgina went
forward as fast as she could; and her good spirits did her
one last favour.

An Englishman stopped her, in the twilight, just at
the turn of the road into Sutrain, saying, ' Good Heavens!
What are you doing here? '

He was Gillis, the man who had been Georgie Porgie's

GEORGIE PORGIE It

assistant in Upper Burma, and who occupied the next
post to Georgie Porgie's in the jungle. Georgie Porgie
had apphed to have him to work with at Sutram because
he hked him.

'I have come/ said Georgina simply. 'It was such a
long way, and I have been months in coming. Where is
his house? '

Gillis gasped. He had seen enough of Georgina in
the old times to know that explanations would be use-
less. You cannot explain things to the Oriental. You
must show.

'I'll take you there,' said Gillis, and he led Georgina
off the road, up the cUff, by a Httle pathway, to the back
of a house set on a platform cut into the hillside.

The lamps were just Ht, but the curtains were not
drawn. 'Now look,' said Gillis, stopping in front of the
drawing-room window. Georgina looked and saw Georgie
Porgie and the Bride.

She put her hand up to her hair, which had come
out of its top-knot and was stragghng about her face.
She tried to set her ragged dress in order, but the dress
was past pulling straight, and she coughed a queer Httle
cough, for she really had taken a very bad cold. Gilhs
looked, too, but while Georgina only looked at the Bride
once, turning her eyes always on Georgie Porgie, Gillis
looked at the Bride all the time.

'What are you going to do?' said Gillis, who held
Georgina by the wrist, in case of any unexpected rush
into the lamplight. 'Will you go in and tell that English
woman that you Hved with her husband? '

' No,' said Georgina faintly. ' Let me go. I am going
away. I swear that I am going away.' She twisted
herself free and ran off into the dark.

'Poor little beast!' said Gillis, droppmg on to the main

72 LIFE'S HANDICAP

road. ' I'd ha' given her something to get back to Burma
with. What a narrow shave though! And that angel
would never have forgiven it.'

This seems to prove that the devotion of Gillis was
not entirely due to his affection for Georgia Porgie.

The Bride and the Bridegroom came out into the
verandah after dinner, in order that the smoke of Georgie
Porgie's cheroots might not hang in the new drawing-
room curtains.

'What is that noise down there?' said the Bride.
Both Hstened.

'Oh/ said Georgie Porgie, 'I suppose some brute of a
hillman has been beating his wife.'

'Beating— his— wife! How ghastly!' said the Bride.
'Fancy your beating met' She shpped an arm round
her husband's waist, and, leaning her head against his
shoulder, looked out across the cloud-filled valley in deep
content and security.

But it was Georgina crying, all by herself, down the
hillside, among the stones of the water-course where the
washermen wash the clothes.

NABOTH'

This was how it happened; and the truth is also an
allegory of Empire.

I met him at the comer of my garden, an empty
basket on his head, and an unclean cloth round his loins.
That was all the property to which Naboth had the
shadow of a claim when I first saw Mm. He opened
our acquaintance by begging. He was very thin and
showed nearly as many ribs as his basket; and he told
me a long story about fever and a lawsuit, and an iron
cauldron that had been seized by the court in execution
of a decree. I put my hand into my pocket to help
Naboth, as kings of the East have helped aHen adven-
turers to the loss of their kingdoms. A rupee had
hidden in my waistcoat lining. I never knew it was
there, and gave the trove to Naboth as a direct gift from
Heaven. He replied that I was the only legitimate
Protector of the Poor he had ever known.

Next morning he reappeared, a little fatter in the
round, and curled himself into knots in the front ve-
randah. He said I was his father and his mother, and
the direct descendant of all the gods in his Pantheon,
besides controlling the destinies of the universe. He
himself was but a sweetmeat-seller, and m.uch less
important than the dirt under my feet. I had heard
this sort of thing before, so I asked him what he wanted.
My rupee, quoth Naboth, had raised him to the ever-

iCopyright, 1 89 1, by Maoolian & Co.
73

74

LIFE'S HANDICAP

lasting heavens, and he wished to prefer a request. He
wished to establish a sweetmeat-pitch near the house of
liis benefactor, to gaze on my revered countenance as I
went to and fro illumining the world. I was graciously
pleased to give permission, and he went away with liis
head between his knees.

Now at the far end of my garden, the ground slopes
toward the pubHc road, and the slope is crowned with a
thick shrubbery. There is a short carriage-road from
the house to the Mall, which passes close to the shrub-
bery. Next afternoon I saw that Naboth had seated
himself at the bottom of the slope, down in the dust of the
public road, and in the full glare of the sun, with a starved
basket of greasy sweets in front of him. He had gone into
trade once more on the strength of my munificent dona-
tion, and the ground was as Paradise by my honoured
favour. Remember, there was only Naboth, his basket,
the sunshine, and the gray dust when the sap of my Em-
pire first began.

Next day he had moved himself up the slope nearer
to my shrubbery, and waved a palm-leaf fan to keep the
flies off the sweets. So I judged that he must have done
a fair trade.

Four days later I noticed that he had backed himself
and his basket under the shadow of the shrubbery, and had
tied an Isabella-coloured rag betv/een two branches in order
to make more shade. There were plenty of sweets in his
basket. I thought that trade must certainly be looking up.

Seven weeks later the Government took up a plot of
ground for a Chief Court close to the end of my com-
pound, and employed nearly four hundred coolies on the
foundations. Naboth bought a blue and white striped
blanket, a brass lamp-stand, and a small boy, t@ eope
with the rush of trade, which was tremendous.

NABOTH 75

Five days later he bought a huge, fat, red-backed
account-book, and a glass inkstand. Thus I saw that
the coolies had been getting into his debt, and that com-
merce was increasing on legitimate lines of credit. Also
I saw that the one basket had grown into three, and that
Kfaboth had backed and hacked into the shrubbery, and
made himself a nice little clearing for the proper display
of the basket, the blanket, the books, and the boy.

One week and five days later he had built a mud fire-
place in the clearing, and the fat account-book was over-
flowing. He said that God created few EngUshmen of
my kind, and that I was the incarnation of all human
virtues. He offered me some of his sweets as tribute,
and by accepting these I acknowledged him as my feuda-
tory under the skirt of my protection.

Three weeks later I noticed that the boy was in the
habit of cooking Naboth's mid-day meal for him, and
N'aboth was beginning to grow a stomach. He had
hacked away more of my shrubbery and owned another
and a fatter account-book.

Eleven weeks later Naboth had eaten his way nearly
Jirough that shrubbery, and there was a reed hut with a
oedstead outside it, standing in the little glade that he
had eroded. Two dogs and a baby slept on the bedstead.
So I fancied Naboth had taken a wife. He said that he
had, by my favour, done this thing, and that I was
several times finer than Krishna.

Six weeks and two days later a mud wall had grown
up at the back of the hut. There were fowls in front
and it smelt a little. The Municipal Secretary said that
a cess-pool was forming in the public road from the
drainage of my compound, and that I must take steps to
clear it away. I spoke to Naboth. He said I was Lord
Paramount of his earthly concerns, and the p;arden was

76 LIFE'S HANDICAP

all my own property, and sent me some more sweets in a
second-hand duster.

Two months later a coolie bricklayer was killed in a
scuffle that took place opposite Naboth's Vineyard. The
Inspector of Police said it was a serious case; went into
my servants' quarters; insulted my butler's wife, and
wanted to arrest my butler. The curious thing about the
murder was that most of the coolies were drunk at the
time. Naboth pointed out that my name was a strong
shield between him and his enemies, and he expected that
another baby would be bom to him shortly.

Four months later the hut was all mud walls, very
solidly built, and Naboth had used most of my shrubbery
for his five goats. A silver watch and an aluminium
chain shone upon his very round stomach. My servants
were alarmingly drunk several times, and used to waste
the day with Naboth when they got the chance. I spoke
to Naboth. He said, by my favour and the glory of m)'
coimtenance, he would make all his women-folk ladies,
and that if any one hinted that he was running an illicit
still under the shadow of the tamarisks, why, I, his
Suzerain, was to prosecute.

A week later he hired a man to make several dozen
square yards of trellis-work to put around the back of his
hut, that his women-folk might be screened from the
pubHc gaze. The man went away in the evening, and
left his day's work to pave the short cut from the public
road to my house. I was driving home in the dusk, and
turned the corner by Naboth's Vineyard quickly. The
next thing I knew was that the horses of the phaeton
were stamping and plunging in the strongest sort of
bamboo net-work. Both beasts came down. One rose
with nothing more than chipped knees. The other was
so badly kicked that I was forced to shoot him.

NABOTH 77

Naboth is gone now, and his hut is ploughed into its
native mud with sweetmeats instead of salt for a sign
that the place is accursed. I have built a summer-house
to overlook the end of the garden, and it is as a fort on
my frontier whence I guard my Empire.

I know exactly how Ahab felt. He has been shame-
fully misrepresented in the Scriptures.

THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS*

Like Mr. Bunyan of old, I, Duncan Parrenness, Writer
to the Most Honourable the East India Company, in this
God-forgotten city of Calcutta, have dreamed a dream,
and never since that Kitty my mare fell lame have I
been so troubled. Therefore, lest I should forget my
dream, I have made shift to set it down here. Though
Heaven knows how unhandy the pen is to me who was
always readier with sword than ink-horn when I left
London two long years since.

When the Governor- General's great dance (that he
gives yearly at the latter end of November) was finisht,
I had gone to mine own room which looks over that
sullen, un-EngKsh stream, the Hoogly, scarce so sober as
I might have been. Now, roaring drunk in the West is
but fuddled in the East, and I was drunk Nor'-Nor'
Easterly as Mr. Shakespeare might have said. Yet, in
spite of my liquor, the cool night winds (though I have
heard that they breed chills and fluxes innumerable)
sobered me somewhat; and I remembered that I had
been but a Httle wrung and wasted by all the sicknesses
of the past four mon^ths, whereas those young bloods that
came eastward with me in the same ship had been all, a
month back, planted to Eternity in the foul soil north of
Writers' Buildings. So then, I thanked God mistily
(though, to my shame, I never kneeled down to do so) for
license to live, at least till March should be upon us again,

^Copyright, 1891, by Macmtllan & Co.
78

THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 79

Indeed, we that were alive (and our number was less by-
far than those who had gone to their last account in the
hot weather late past) had made very merry that evening,
by the ramparts of the Fort, over this kindness of Provi-
dence; though our jests were neither witty nor such as I
should have liked my Mother to hear.

When I had lain down (or rather thrown me on my
bed) and the fumes of my drink had a little cleared away,
I found that I could get no sleep for thinking of a thou-
sand things that were better left alone. First, and it
was a long time since I had thought of her, the sweet face
of Kitty Somerset, drifted, as it might have been drawn in
a picture, across the foot of my bed, so plainly, that I
almost thought she had been present in the body. Then
I remembered how she drove me to this accursed country
to get rich, that I might the more quickly marry her, our
parents on both sides giving their consent; and then how
she thought better (or worse may be) of her troth, and
wed Tom Sanderson but a short three months after I had
sailed. From Kitty I fell a-musing on Mrs. Vansuythen,
a tall pale woman with violet eyes that had come to Cal-
cutta from the Dutch Factory at Chinsura, and had set
all our young men, and not a few of the factors, by the
ears. Some of our ladies, it is true, said that she had
never a husband or marriage- lines at all; but women, and
specially those who have led only indifferent good lives
themselves, are cruel hard one on another. Besides,
Mrs. Vansuythen was far prettier than them all. She
had been most gracious to me at the Governor- General's
rout, and indeed I was looked upon by all as her preux
chevalier — which is French for a much worse word. Now,
whether I cared so much as the scratch of a pin for this
same Mrs. Vansuythen (albeit I had vowed eternal love
three days after we met) I knew not then nor did till

8o LIFE'S HANDICAP

later on; but mine own pride, and a skill in the smaH
sword that no man in Calcutta could equal, kept me in
her affections. So that I believed I worshipt her.

When I had dismist her violet eyes from my thoughts,
my reason reproacht me for ever having followed her at
all; and I saw how the one year that I had lived in this
land had so burnt and seared my mind with the flames
of a thousand bad passions and desires, that I had aged
ten months for each one in the Devil's school. Whereat
I thought of my Mother for a while, and was very
penitent: making in my sinful tipsy mood a thousand
vows of reformation — all since broken, I fear me, again
and again. To-morrow, says I to myself, I will live
cleanly for ever. And I smiled dizzily (the liquor being
still strong in me) to think of the dangers I had escaped;
and built all manner of fine Castles in Spain, whereof a
shadowy Kitty Somerset that had the violet eyes and the
sweet slow speech of Mrs. Vansuy then, was always Queen,

Lastly, a very fine and magnificent courage (that
doubtless had its birth in Mr. Hastings' Madeira) grew
upon me, till it seemed that I could become Governor-
General, Nawab, Prince, ay, even the Great Mogul him-
self, by the mere wishing of it. Wherefore, taking my
first steps, random and unstable enough, towards my new
kingdom, I kickt my servants sleeping without till they
howled and ran from me, and called Heaven and Earth
to witness that I, Duncan Parrenness, was a Writer in
the service of the Company and afraid of no man. Then,
seeing that neither the Moon nor the Great Bear were
minded to accept my challenge, I lay down again and
must have fallen asleep.

I was waked presently by my last words repeated tw«
or three times, and I saw that there had come into the
room a drunken man, as I thought, from Mr. Hastings*

THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 81

rout. He sate down at the foot of my bed in all the
world as it belonged to him, and I took note, as well as
i could, that his face was somewhat like mine own grown
'^Ider, save when it changed to the face of the Governor-
General or my father, dead these six months. But this
seemed to me only natural, and the due result of too much
wine; and I was so angered at his entry all unannounced,
that I told him, not over civilly, to go. To all my words
he made no answer whatever, only saying slowly, as
though it were some sweet morsel: 'Writer in the Com-
pany's service and afraid of no man.' Then he stops
short, and turning round sharp upon me, says that one of
my kidney need fear neither man nor devil; that I was a
brave young man, and like enough, should I live so long,
to be Governor- General. But for all these things (and I
suppose that he meant thereby the changes and chances
of our shifty life in these parts) I must pay my price.
By this time I had sobered somewhat, and being well
waked out of my first sleep, was disposed to look upon
the matter as a tipsy man's jest. So, says I merrily:
'And what price shall I pay for this palace of mine, which
is but twelve feet square, and my five poor pagodas a
month? The Devil take you and your jesting: I have
Daid my price twice over in sickness.' At that moment
my man turns full towards me: so that by the moonlight
I could see every line and wrinkle of his face. Then my
drunken mirth died out of me, as I have seen the waters
of our great rivers die away in one night; and I, Duncan
Parrenness, who was afraid of no man, was taken with a
more deadly terror than I hold it has ever been the lot
of mortal man to know. For I saw that his face was
my very own, but marked and lined and scarred with the
furrows of disease and much evil living — as I once, when
I was (Lord help me) very dnmk ir.deed, have seen mine

82 LIFE'S HANDICAP

own face, all white and drawn and grown old, in a mirror.
I take it that any man would have been even more
greatly feared than I. For I am in no way wanting in
courage.

After I had lain still for a little, sweating in my agony
and waiting until I should awake from this terrible dream
(for dream I knew it to be) he says again, that I must pay
my price, and a little after, as though it were to be given
in pagodas and sicca rupees : ' What price will you pay? '
Says I, very softly: 'For God's sake let me be, whoever
you are, and I will mend my ways from to-night.' Says
he, laughing a little at my words, but otherwise making
no motion of having heard them: 'Nay, I would only
rid so brave a young rufHer as yourself of much that will
be a great hindrance to you on your way through life in
the Indies; for believe me,' and here he looks full on
me once more, ' there is no return.' At all this rigmarole,
which I could not then understand, I was a good deal
put aback and waited for what should come next. Says
he very calmly, ' Give me your trust in man.' At that I
saw how heavy would be my price, for I never doubted
but that he could take from me all that he asked, and my
head was, through terror and wakefulness, altogether
cleared of the wine I had drunk. So I takes him up
very short, cr}dng that I was not so wholly bad as he
would make beUeve, and that I trusted my fellows to the
full as much as they were worthy of it. ' It was none of
my fault,' says I, 'if one half of them were liars and the
other half deserved to be burnt in the hand, and I would
once more ask him to have done with his questions.*
'Hien I stopped, a Httle afraid, it is true, to have let my
tongue so run away with me, but he took no notice of
this, and only laid his hand lightly on my left breast and
I felt very cold there for a while. Then he says, laughing

THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS 83

more : ' Give me your faith in women.' At that I started
in my bed as though I had been stung, for I thought of
my sweet mother in England, and for a while fancied that
my faith in God's best creatures could neither be shaken
nor stolen from me. But later, Myself's hard eyes being
upon me, I fell to thinking, for the second time that
night, of Kitty (she that jilted me and married Tom
Sanderson) and of Mistress Vansuythen, whom only my
devilish pride made me follow, and how she was even worse
than Kitty, and I worst of them all — seeing that with my
life's work to be done, I must needs go dancing down the
Devil's swept and garnished causeway, because, forsooth,
there was a light woman's smile at the end of it. And I
thought that all women in the world were either like
Kitty ®r Mistress Vansuythen (as indeed they have ever
since been to me) and this put me to such an extremity
of rage and sorrow, that I was beyond word glad when
Myself's hand fell again on my left breast, and I was no
more troubled by these follies.

After this he was silent for a little, and I made sure
that he must go or I awake ere long: but presently he
speaks again (and very softly) that I was a fool to care
for such follies as those he had taken from me, and that
ere he went he would only ask me for a few other trifles
such as no man, or for matter of that boy either, would
keep about him in this country. And so it happened
that h-e took from out of my very heart as it were,
looking all the time into my face with my own eyes, as
much as remained to me of my boy's soul and conscience.
This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that
I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had
travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly
living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a
certaim goodness of heart which, whep T was sober (or

84 LIFE'S HANDICAP

sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before
the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in
place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. I am
not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear
that what I have just written may not be readily under-
stood. Yet there be certain times in a young man's life,
when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is
burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the
more sorrowful state of manhood: as our staring Indian
day changes into night witli never so much as the gray of
twilight to temper the two extremes. This shall perhaps
make my state more clear, if it be remembered that my
torment was ten times as great as comes in the natural
course of nature to any man. At that time I dared not
think of the change that had come over me, and all in
one night: though I have often thought of it since. 4
have paid the price,' says I, my teeth chattering, for I was
deadly cold, 'and what is my return?' At this time it
was nearly dawn, and Myself had begun to grow pale
and thin against the white light in the east, as my mother
used to tell me is the custom of ghosts and devils and
the like. He made as if he would go, but my words
stopt him and he laughed — as I remember that I laughed
when I ran Angus Macalister through the sword-arm last
August, because he said that Mrs. Vansuythen was no
better than she should be. 'What return?' — says he,
catching up my last words — 'Why, strength to live as
long as God or the Devil pleases, and so long as you live
my young master, my gift.' With that he puts some-
thing into my hand, though it was still too dark to see
what it v/as, and when next I lookt up he was gone.

When the light came I made shift to behold his gift,
and saw that }t was a Httle piece of dry bread.

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA
MULVANEY

Wohl auf, my bully cavaliers,

We ride to church to-day,
The man that hasn't got a horse

Must steal one straight away.

Be reverent, men, remember

This is a Gottes hau§.
Du, Conrad, cut along der aisle

And schenck der whiskey aus.

Hans Breitmann^s Ride to Church.

Once upon a time, very far from England, there lived
three men who loved each other so greatly that neither
man nor woman could come between them. They were
in no sense refined, nor to be admitted to the outer-
door mats of decent folk, because they happened to be
private soldiers in Her Majesty's Army; and private
soldiers of our service have small time for self-culture.
Their duty is to keep themselves and their accoutre-
ments specklessly clean, to refrain from getting drunk
more often than is necessary, to obey their superiors, and
to pray for a war. All these things my friends accom.-
plished; and of their own motion threw in some fighting-
work for which the Army Regulations did not call.
Their fate sent them to serve in India, which is not
a golden country, though poets have sung otherwise.
There men die with great swiftness, and those who liv*:?

85

86 LIFE'S HANDICAP

suffer many and curious things. I do not think that my
friends concerned themselves much with the social or
political aspects of the East. They attended a not un-
important war on the northern frontier, another one on
our western boundary, and a third in Upper Burma.
Then their regiment sat still to recruit, and the boundless
monotony of cantonment Hfe was their portion. They
were drilled morning and evening on the same dusty
parade-ground. They wandered up and down the same
stretch of dusty white road, attended the same church
and the same grog-shop, and slept in the same lime-
washed barn of a barrack for two long years. There was
Mulvaney, the father in the craft, who had served with
various regiments from Bermuda to Halifax, old in war,
scarred, reckless, resourceful, and in his pious hours an
unequalled soldier. To him turned for help and comfort
six and a half feet of slow-moving, heavy-footed York-
shireman, born on the wolds, bred in the dales, and
educated chiefly among the carriers' carts at the back of
York railway-station. His name was Learoyd, and his
chief virtue an unmitigated patience which helped him
to win fights. How Ortheris, a fox-terrier of a Cockney,
ever came to be one of the trio, is a mystery which even
to-day I cannot explain. ^ There was always three av us,'
Mulvaney used to say. 'An' by the grace av God, so
long as our service lasts, three av us they'll always be.
'Tis betther so.'

They desired no companionship beyond their own,
and it was evil for any man of the regiment who at-
tempted dispute with them. Physical argument was
out of the question as regarded Mulvaney and the York-
shireman; and assault on Ortheris meant a combined
attack from these twain — a business which no five men
were anxious to have on their hands. Therefore they

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 87

flourished, sharing their drinks, their tobacco, and their
money; good luck and evil; battle and the chances of
death; Hfe and the chances of happiness from Calicut in
southern, to Peshawur in northern India.

Through no merit of my own it was my good fortune
to be in a measure admitted to their friendship — frankly
by Mulvaney from the beginning, sullenly and with re-
luctance by Learoyd, and suspiciously by Ortheris, who
held to it that no man not in the Army could fraternise
with a red-coat. ' Like to Hke,' said he. ' I'm a bloomin'
sodger— he's a bloomin' civilian. 'Tain't natural —
that's all'

But that was not all. They thawed progressively,
and in the thawing told me more of their lives and ad-
ventures than I am ever Hkely to write.

Omitting all else, this tale begins with the Lamentable
Thirst that was at the beginnmg of First Causes. Never
was such a thirst— Mulvaney told me so. They kicked
against their compulsory virtue, but the attempt was
only successful in the case of Ortheris. He, whose
talents were many, went forth into the highways and
stole a dog from a 'civilian' — videlicet, some one, he knew
not who, not in the Army. Now that civiHan was
but newly connected by marriage with the colonel of the
regiment, and outcry was made from quarters least
anticipated by Ortheris, and, in the end, he was forced,
lest a worse thing should happen, to dispose at ridicu-
lously unremunerative rates of as promising a small
terrier as ever graced one end of a leading string. The
purchase-money was barely sufficient for one small out-
break which led him to the guard-room. He escaped,
however, with nothing worse than a severe reprimand,
and a few hours of punishment drill. Not for nothing
had he acquired the reputation of being ' the best soldier

88 LIFE'S HANDICAP

of his inches' in the regiment. Mulvaney had taught
personal cleanHness and efficiency as the first articles
of his companions' creed. 'A dhirty man,' he was used
to say, in the speech of his kind, 'goes to Clink for a
weakness in the knees, an' is coort-martialled for a pair
av socks missin'; but a clane man, such as is an orna-
ment to his service — a man whose buttons are gold,
whose coat is wax upon him, an' whose 'coutrements are
widout a speck — that man may, spakin' in reason, do
fwhat he likes an' dhrink from day to divil. That's the
pride av bein' dacint.'

We sat together, upon a day, in the shade of a ravine
far from the barracks, where a watercourse used to run
in rainy weather. Behind us was the scrub jungle, in
which jackals, peacocks, the gray wolves of the North-
western Provinces, and occasionally a tiger estrayed
from Central India, were supposed to dwell. In front
lay the cantonment, glaring white under a glaring sun;
and on either side ran the broad road that led to Delhi.

It was the scrub that suggested to my mind the
wisdom of Mulvaney taking a day's leave and going upon
a shooting-tour. The peacock is a holy bird throughout
India, and he who slays one is in danger of being mobbed
by the nearest villagers; but on the last occasion that
Mulvaney had gone forth, he had contrived, without in
the least offending local rehgious susceptibihties, to return
with six beautiful peacock skins which he sold to profit.
It seemed just possible then

'But fwhat manner av use is ut to me goin' out
wddout a dhrink? The ground's powdher-dhry under-
foot, an' ut gets unto the throat fit to kill,' wailed
Mulvaney, looking at me reproachfully. 'An' a peacock
is not a bird you can catch the tail av onless ye run.
Can a man run on wather — an' jungle- wather too?'

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 89

Ortheris had considered the question in all its bearings.
He spoke, chewing his pipe-stem meditatively the while:

* Go forth, return in glory,
To Clusium's royal 'ome:
An' round these bloomin' temples 'ang
The bloomin' shields o' Rome.

Vou better go. You ain't Hke to shoot yourself— not
while there's a chanst of Uquor. Me an' Learoyd '11 stay
at 'ome an' keep shop — 'case o' anythin' turnin' up. But
you go out with a gas-pipe gun an' ketch the little pea-
cockses or some thin'. You kin get one day's leave easy
as winkin'. Go along an' get it, an' get peacockses or
some thin'.'

' Jock,' said Mulvaney, turning to Learoyd, who was half
asleep under the shadow of the bank. He roused slowly.

'Sitha, Mulvaaney, go,' said he.

And Mulvaney went; cursing his allies with Irish
fluency and barrack-room point.

'Take note,' said he, when he had won his holiday,
and appeared dressed in his roughest clothes with the
only other regimental fowling-piece in his hand. 'Take
note, Jock, an' you Orth'ris, I am goin' in the face av
my own will — all for to please you. I misdoubt any-
thin' will come av permiscuous huntin' afther peacockses
in a desolit Ian'; an' I know that I will He down an' die
wid thirrrst. Me catch peacockses for you, ye lazy scutts
— an' be sacrificed by the peasanthry — Ugh!'

He waved a huge paw and went away.

At twilight, long before the appointed hour, he re-
turned empty-handed, much begrimed with dirt.

'Peacockses?' queried Ortheris from the safe rest
of a barrack-room table whereon he was smoking cross-
legged, Learoyd fast asleep on a bench.

go LIFE'S HANDICAP

'Jock/ said Mulvaney without answering, as he stirred
up the sleeper. 'Jock, can ye fight? Will ye fight?'

Very slowly the meaning of the words communicated
itself to the half-roused man. He understood — and
again — what might these things mean? Mulvaney was
shaking him savagely. Meantime the men in the room
howled with delight. There was war in the confederacy
at last — war and the breaking of bonds.

Barrack-room etiquette is stringent. On the direct
challenge must follow the direct reply. This is more
binding than the ties of tried friendship. Once again
Mulvaney repeated the question. Learoyd answered by
the only means in his power, and so swiftly that the
Irishman had barely time to avoid the blow. The
laughter around increased. Learoyd looked bewilderedly
at his friend — himself as greatly bewildered. Ortheris
dropped from the table because his world was falling.

' Come outside,' said Mulvaney, and as the occupants
of the barrack-room prepared joyously to follow, he
turned and said furiously, 'There will be no fight this
night — onless any wan av you is wishful to assist. The
man that does, follows on.'

No man moved. The three passed out into the moon-
light, Learoyd fumbling with the buttons of his coat.
The parade-ground was deserted except for the scurrying
jackals. Mulvaney 's impetuous rush carried his com-
panions far into the open ere Learoyd attempted to turn
round and continue the discussion.

'Be still now. 'Twas my fault for beginnin' things
in the middle av an end, Jock. I should ha' comminst
wid an explanation; but Jock, dear, on your sowl are
ye fit, think you, for the finest fight that iver was —
betther than fightin' me? Considher before ye ansv/er.'

More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round tv/o or

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 91

three times, felt an arm, kicked tentatively, and an-
swered, 'Ah'm fit.' He was accustomed to fight blindly
at the bidding of the superior mind.

They sat them down, the men looking on from afar,
and Mulvaney untangled himself in mighty words.

'Followin' your fools' scheme I wint out into the
thrackless desert beyond the barricks. An' there I met
a pious Hindu dhriving a bullock-kyart. I tuk ut for
granted he wud be delighted for to convoy me a piece,
an' I jumped in '

'You long, lazy, black-haired swine,' drawled Ortheris,
who would have done the same tiling under similar
circumstances.

* 'Twas the height av policy. That naygur-man dhruv
miles an' miles — as far as the new railway line they're
buildin' now back av the Tavi river. ^' 'Tis a kyart for
dhirt only," says he now an' again timoreously, to get me
out av ut. '' Dhirt I am," sez I, "an' the dhryest that
you iver kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an glory be wid
you." At that I wint to slape, an' took no heed till he
pulled up on the embankmint av the line where the
cooHes were pilin' mud. There was a matther av two
thousand coolies on that line — you remimber that.
Prisintly a bell rang, an' they throops off to a big pay-
shed. ''Where's the white man in charge?" sez I to my
kyart-dhriver. "In the shed," sez he, "engaged on a
rifile."— "A fwhat?" sez I. "Riffle," sez he. "You
take ticket. He take money. You get no thin'." —
"Oho!" sez I, "that's fwhat the shuperior an' cultivated
man calls a raffle, me misbeguided child a^^ darkness an'
sin. Lead on to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief
'tis doin' so far away from uts home — which is the charity-
bazaar at Christmas, an' the colonel's wife grinnin'
behind the tea-table — is more than I know." Wid that

92 LIFE'S HANDICAP

I wint to the shed an' found 'twas pay-day among the
coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a big, fine,
red buck av a man — sivun fut high, four fut wide, an'
three fut thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He
was payin' the cooHes fair an' easy, but he wud ask each
man if he wud raffie that month, an' each man sez,
*'Yes," av course. Tliin he wud deduct from their
wages accordin'. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould
cigar-box full av gun-wads an' scatthered ut among the
coolies. They did not take much joy av that per-
formince, an' small wondher. A man close to me picks
up a black gun-wad an' sings out, *'I have ut." — "Good
may ut do you," sez I. The cooHe wint forward to this
big, fine, red man, who threw a cloth off av the most
sumpshus, jooled, enamelled an' variously bedivilled
sedan-chair I iver saw.'

'Sedan-chair! Put your 'ead in a bag. That "was a
palanquin. Don't yer know a palanquin when you see
it? ' said Ortheris with great scorn.

*I chuse to call ut sedan-chair, an' chair ut shall be,
Uttle man,' continued the Irishman. ' 'Twas a most
amazin' chair — all fined wid pink silk an' fitted wid red
silk curtains. ''Here ut is," sez the red man. "Here
ut is," sez the cooHe, an' he grinned weakly-ways. "I?
ut any use to you?" sez the red man. "No," sez the
coolie; "I'd like to make a presint av ut to you." — "I am
graciously pleased to accept that same," sez the red man;
an' at that all the coohes cried aloud in fwhat was mint
for cheerful notes, an' wint back to their diggin', lavin'
me alone in the shed. The red man saw me, an' his face
grew blue on his big, fat neck. "Fwhat d'you want
here?" sez he. "Standin'-room an' no more," sez I,
"onless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an' that's manners,
ye raflain' ruffian," fo r J. was not ^oin' to have the Service

THE INCARNATION OF ElRtSHNA MULVANEV 93

throd upon. *'Out of this," sez he. *'I'm in charge av
this section av construction." — ''I'm in charge av
mesilf," sez I, "an' it's like I will stay a while. D'ye
raffle much in these parts?" — '^Fwhat's that to you?'*
sez he. ''Nothin'," sez I, "but a great dale to you, for
begad I'm thinkin' you get the full half av your revenue
from that sedan-chair. Is ut always raffled so?" I sez,
an' wid that I wint to a coohe to ask questions. Bhoys,
that man's name is Dearsley, an' he's been rafflin' that
ould sedan-chair monthly this matther av nine months.
Ivry coohe on the section takes a ticket — or he gives 'em
the go — ^wanst a month on pay-day. Ivry coohe that
wins ut gives ut back to him, for 'tis too big to carry
away, an' he'd sack the man that thried to sell ut. That
Dearsley has been makin' the rowlin' wealth av Roshus
by nefarious rafflin'. Think av the burnin' shame to the
sufferin' coolie-man that the army in Injia are bound to
protect an' nourish in their bosoms! Two thousand
cooHes defrauded wanst a month ! '

*Dom t' coolies. Has't gotten t' cheer, man?' said
Learoyd.

' Hould on. Havin' onearthed this amazin' an' stupen-
jus fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council
av wat; he thryin' all the time to sejuce me into a
fight with opprobrious language. That sedan-chair
niver belonged by right to any foreman av coohes. 'Tis
a king's chair or a quane's. There's gold on ut an' silk
an' all manner av trapesemints. Bhoys, 'tis not for me
to countenance any sort av wrong-doin' — me bein' the

ould man — but anyway he has had ut nine months,

an' he dare not make th rouble av ut was taken from him.
Five miles away, or ut may be six '

There was a long pause, and the jackals howled mer-
rily. Learoyd bared one arm, and contemplated it in

94 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the moonlight. Then he nodded partly to himself and
partly to his friends. Ortheris wriggled with suppressed
emotion.

'I thought ye wud see the reasonableness av ut,' said
IMulvaney. 'I made bould to say as much to the man
before. He was for a direct front attack — fut, horse, an'

guns an' all for nothin', seein' that I had no thrans-

port to convey the machine away. *'I will not argue
wid you," sez I, *'this day, but subsequintly, Mister
Dearsley, me rafflin' jool, we talk ut out lengthways.
'Tis no good poHcy to swindle the naygur av his hard-
earned emolumints, an' by presint informashin'" —
'twas the kyart man that tould me — ''ye've been per-
pethrating that same for nine months. But I'm a just
man," sez I, *'an' overlookin' the presumpshin that
yondher settee wid the gilt top was not come by honust"
— at that he turned sky-green, so I knew things was more
thrue than tellable — "not come by honust, I'm willin'
to compound the felony for this month's winnin's." '

'Ah! Ho!' from Learoyd and Ortheris.

*That man Dearsley's rushin' on his fate,' continued
Mulvaney, solemnly w^agging his head. 'AH Hell had no
name bad enough for me that tide. Faith, he called me
a robber! Me! that was savin' him from continuin' in
his evil w^ays widout a remonstrince — an' to a man av
conscience a remonstrince may change the chune av his
life. '' 'Tis not for me to argue," sez I, "fwhatever ye
are. Mister Dearsley, but, by my hand, I'll take away the
temptation for you that Hes in that sedan-chair." — "You
will have to fight me for ut," sez he, "for well I know you
will never dare make report to any one." — "Fight I will,"
sez I, "but not this day, for I'm rejuced for want av
nourishment." — "Ye're an ould bould hand," sez he,
sizin' me up an' down ; "an' a jool av a fight we will have.

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 95

Eat now an' dhrink, an' go your way." Wid that he gave
me some hump an' whisky — good whisky — an' we talked
av this an' that the while. ''It goes hard on me now,"
sez I, wipin' my mouth, "to confiscate that piece av
furniture, but justice is justice." — '' Ye've not got ut yet,"
sez he; "there's the fight between."— "There is," sez I,
"an' a good fight. Ye shall have the pick av the best
quality in my rigimint for the dinner you have given this
day." Thin I came hot-foot to you two. Hould your
tongue, the both. 'Tis this way. To-morrow we three
will go there an' he shall have his pick betune me an'
Jock. Jock's a deceivin' fighter, for he is all fat to the
eye, an' he moves slov/. Now, I'm all beef to the look,
an' I move quick. By my reckonin' the Dearsley man
won't take me; so me an' Orth'ris '11 see fair play. Jock,
I tell you, 'twill be big fightin' — whipped, wid the cream
above the jam. Afther the business 'twill take a good
three av us— Jock '11 be very hurt — to haul away that
sedan-chair.'

* Palanquin.' This from Ortheris.

'Fwhatever ut is, we must have ut. 'Tis the only
seUin' piece av property widin reach that we can get so
cheap. An' fwhat's a fight afther all? He has robbed
the naygur-man, dishonust. We rob him honust for the
sake av the whisky he gave me.'

*But wot'll we do with the bloomin' article when we've
got it? Them palanquins are as big as 'ouses, an'
uncommon 'ard to sell, as McCleary said when ye stole
the sentry-box from the Curragh.'

'Wlio's goin' to do t' fightin'?' said Learoyd, and
Ortheris subsided. The three returned to barracks with-
out a word. Mulvaney's last argument clinched the
matter. This palanquin was property, vendible, and
t© be attained in the simplest and least embarrassing

'$6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

fashion. It would eventually become beer. Great was
Mulvaney.

Next afternoon a procession of three formed itself and
disappeared into the scrub in the direction of the new
railway line. Learoyd alone was without care, for Mul-
vaney dived darkly into the future, and little Ortheris
feared the unknown. What befell at that interview in
the lonely pay-shed by the side of the half -built embank-
ment, only a few hundred coolies know, and their tale is
a confusing one, running thus —

'We were at work. Three men in red coats came.
They saw the Sahib — Dearsley Sahib. They made
oration; and noticeably the small man among the red-
coats. Dearsley Sahib also made oration, and used
many very strong words. Upon this talk they departed
together to an open space, and there the fat man in the
red coat fought with Dearsley Sahib after the custom of
white men — with his hands, making no noise, and never
at all pulling Dearsley Sahib's hair. Such of us as were
not afraid beheld these things for just so long a time as a
man needs to cook the mid-day meal. The small man
in the red coat had possessed himself of Dearsley Sahib's
watch. No, he did not steal that watch. He held it in
his hand, and at certain seasons made outcry, and the
twain ceased their combat, which was like the combat of
young bulls in spring. Both men were soon all red, but
Dearsley Sahib was much more red than the other.
Seeing this, and fearing for his life — because we greatly
loved him — some fifty of us made shift to rush upon the
red-coats. But a certain man — very black as to the hair,
and in no way to be confused with the small man, or the
fat man who fought — that man, we affirm, ran upon us,
and of us he embraced some ten or fifty in both arms,
and b«at our heads together, so that our livers turned to

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 97

water, and we ran away. It is not good to interfere in
the fightings of white men. After that Dearsley Sahib
fell and did not rise, these men jumped upon his stomach
and despoiled him of all his money, and attempted to
fire the pay-shed, and departed. Is it true that Dearsley
Sahib makes no complaint of these latter things ha\ing
been done? We were senseless with fear, and do not
at all remember. There was no palanquin near the pa} -
shed. What do we know about palanquins? Is it true
that Dearsley Sahib docs not return to this place, on
account of his sickness, for ten days? This is the fault
of those bad men in the red coats, who should be severely
punished; for Dearsley Sahib is both our father and
mother, and we love him much. Yet, if Dearsley Sahib
does not return to this place at all, we will speak the
truth. There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which
we were forced to pay nine- tenths of our monthly wage.
On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make
obeisance to him before the palanquin. What could we
do? We were poor men. He took a full half of our
wages. WiU the Government repay us those moneys?
Those three men in red coats bore the palanquin upon
their shoulders and departed. All the money that
Dearsley Sahib had taken from us was in the cushions of
that palanquin. Therefore they stole it. Thousands of
rupees were there — all our money. It was our bank-box,
to fill which we cheerfully contributed to Dearsley Sahib
three-sevenths of our monthly wage. Why does the
white man look upon us with the eye of disfavour?
Before God, there was a palanquin, and now there is no
palanquin; and if they send the police here to make in-
quisition, we can only say that there never has been any
palanquin. Why should a palanquin be near these
works? We are poor men, ard we know nothing.'

98 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Such is the simplest version of the simplest story
connected with the descent upon Dearsley. From the
lips of the coolies I received it. Dearsley himself was in
no condition to say anything, and Mulvaney preserved
a massive silence, broken only by the occasional licking
of the lips. He had seen a fight so gorgeous that even
liis power of speech was taken from him. I respected
that reserve until, three days after the ajffair, I discovered
in a disused stable in my quarters a palanquin of unchas-
tened splendour — evidently in past days the Htter of a
queen. The pole whereby it swung between the shoulders
of the bearers was rich with the painted papier-mache
of Cashmere. The shoulder-pads were of yellow silk.
The panels of the litter itself were ablaze with the loves
of all the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon —
lacquer on eedar. The cedar sliding doors were fitted
with hasps of translucent Jaipur enamel and ran in
grooves shod with silver. The cushions were of brocaded
Delhi silk, and the curtains which once hid any glimpse
of the beauty of the king's palace were stiff with gold.
Closer investigation showed that the entire fabric was
everywhere rubbed and discoloured by time and wear;
but even thus it was sufi&ciently gorgeous to deserve
housing on the threshold of a royal zenana. I found no
fault with.it, except that it was in my stable. Then,
trying to Hft it by the silver-shod shoulder-pole, I laughed.
The road from Dearsley's pay-shed to the cantonment
was a narrow and uneven one, and, traversed by three very
inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was sorely
battered about the head, must have been a path of tor-
ment. Still I did not quite recognise the right of the three
musketeers to turn me into a 'fence' for stolen property.

'I'm askin' you to warehouse ut,' said Mulvaney when
he was brought to consider the question. * There's no

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 99

steal in ut. Dearsley tould us we cud have ut if we
fought. Jock fought — an', oh, sorr, when the throuble
was at uts finest an' Jock was bleedin' Hke a stuck pig,
an' Httle Orth'ris was shquealin' on one leg chewin' big
bites out av Dearsley 's watch, I wud ha' given my place
at the fight to have had you see wan round. He tuk
Jock, as I suspicioned he would, an' Jock was deceptive.

Nine roun's they were even matched, an' at the tenth

About that palanquui now. There's not the least
throuble in the world, or we wud not ha' brought ut
here. You will ondherstand that the Queen — God bless
her! — does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape ele-
phints an' palanquins an' sich in barricks. Afther we
had dhragged ut down from Dearsley's through that
cruel scrub that near broke Orth'ris's heart, we set ut in
the ravine for a night; an' a thief av a porcupine an' a
civet-cat av a jackal roosted in ut, as well we knew in the
mornin'. I put ut to you, sorr, is an elegint palanquin,
fit for the princess, the natural abidin' place av all the
vermin m cantonmints? We brought ut to you, afther
dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not let your
consciense prick. Think av the rejoicin' men in the
pay-shed yonder — lookin' at Dearsley wid his head
tied up in a towel — an' well knowin' that they can dhraw
their pay ivry month widout stoppages for rifHes. In-
directly, sorr, you have rescued from an onprincipled
son av a night-hawk the peasanthry av a numerous vil-
lage. An' besides, will I let that sedan-chair rot on our
hands? Not I. 'Tis not every day a piece av pure
joolry comes into the market. There's not a king widin
these forty miles' — he waved his hand round the dusty
horizon — 'not a king wud not be glad to buy ut. Some
day meself, whin I have leisure, I'll take ut up along the
road an' dishpose av ut.'

300

UFE'S HANDICAP

'How?' said I, for I knew the man was capable of
anything.

'Get mto ut, av coorse, and keep wan eye open
through the curtains. Whin I see a likely man av the
native persuasion, I will descind blushin' from my canopy
and say, ''Buy a palanquin, ye black scutt?" I will
have to hire four men to carry me first, though; and that's
impossible till next pay-day.'

Curiously enough, Learoyd, who had fought for the
prize, and in the wiiming secured the highest pleasure
life had to offer him, was altogether disposed to under-
value it, while Ortheris openly said it would be better to
break the thing up. Dearsley, he argued, might be a
many-sided man, capable, despite his magnificent fighting
quahties, of setting in motion the machinery of the civil
law — a thing much abhorred by the soldier. Under any
circumstances their fun had come and passed, the next
pay-day was close at hand, when there would be beer for
all. Wherefore longer conserve the painted palanquin?

'A first-class rifle-shot an' a good Httle man av your
inches you are,' said Mulvaney. 'But you niver had
a head worth a soft-boiled egg. 'Tis me has to lie awake
av nights schamin' an' plottin' for the three av us.
Orth'ris, me son, 'tis no matther av a few gallons av beer
— no, nor twenty gallons — but tubs an' vats an' firkins
in that sedan-chair. Who ut was, an' what ut was, an'
how ut got there, we do not know; but I know in my
bones tliat you an' me an' Jock wid his sprained thumb
will get a fortune thereby. Lave me alone, an' let me
think.'

Meantime the palanquin stayed in my stall, the key
of which was in Mulvaney's hands.

Pay-day came, and with it beer. It was not in experi-
ence to hope that Muivaney, dried by four weeks'

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY loi

drought, would avoid excess. Next morning he and the
palanquin had disappeared. He had taken the precau-
tion of getting three days' leave 'to see a friend on the
railway/ and the colonel, well knowing that the seasonal
outburst was near, and hoping it would spend its force
beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, cheerfully gave him
all he demanded. At this point Mulvaney's history, as
recorded in the mess-room, stopped.

Ortheris carried it not much further. 'No, 'e wasn't
drunk,' said the little man loyally, 'tht hquor was no
more than feelin' its way round inside of 'im; but 'e
went an' filled that 'ole bloomin' palanquin with bottles
'fore 'e went off. 'E's gone an' 'ired six men to carry
'im, an' I 'ad to 'elp 'im into 'is nupshal couch, 'cause 'e
wouldn't 'ear reason. 'E's gone off in 'is shirt an' trousies,
swearin' tremenjus — gone down the road in the palanquin,
wavin' 'is legs oiit o' windy.'

'Yes,' said I, 'but where?'

'Now you arx me a question. 'E said 'e was goin'
to sell tiiat palanquin, but from observations what
happened when I was stufhn' 'im through the door, I
fancy 'e's gone to the new embankment to mock at
Dearsley. 'Soon as Jock's off duty I'm goin' there to
see if 'e's safe— not Mulvaney, but t'other man. My
saints, but I pity 'im as 'elps Terence out o' the palanquin
when 'e's once fair drunk!'

'He'll come back without harm,' I said.

' 'Corse 'e will. On'y question is, what '11 'e be doin'
on the road? Killing Dearsley, like as not. 'E shouldn't
'a gone without Jock or me.'

Reinforced by Learoyd, Ortheris sought the foreman
of the coolie-gang. Dearsley's head was still embellished
with towels. Mulvaney, drunk or sober, would have
struck no man in that condition, and Dearsley indig-

102 LIFE'S HANDICAP

nantly denied that he would have taken advantage of the
intoxicated brave.

'I had my pick o' you two/ he explained to Learoyd,
'and you got my palanquin — not before I'd made my
profit on it. Why'd I do harm when everything's settled?
Your man did come here — drunk as Davy's sow on a
frosty night — came a-purpose to mock me — stuck his
head out of the door an' called me a crucified hodman.
I made him drunker, an' sent him along. But I never
touched him.'

To these things, Learoyd, slow to perceive the evi-
dences of sincerity, answered only, ' If owt comes to Mul-
vaaney 'long o' you, I'll gripple you, clouts or no clouts
on your ugly head,an'I'll draw t' throat twistyways, man.
See there now.'

The embassy removed itself, and Dearsley, the bat-
tered, laughed alone over his supper that evening.

Three days passed — a fourth and a fifth. The week
drew to a close and Mulvaney did not return. He, his
royal palanquin, and his six attendants, had vanished
into air. A very large and very tipsy soldier, his feet
sticking out of the fitter of a reigning princess, is not a
thing to travel along the ways without comment. Yet
no man of aU the country round had seen any such won-
der. He was, and he was not; and Learoyd suggested
the immediate smashment of Dearsley as a sacrifice to his
ghost. Ortheris insisted that all was well, and in the
light of past experience his hopes seemed reasonable.

'When Mulvaney goes up the road,' said he, "e's
like to go a very long ways up, specially when 'e's so blue
drunk as 'e is now. But what gits me is 'is not bein'
'eard of pulfin' wool off the niggers somewheres about.
That don't look good. The drink must ha' died out in
'im by this, unless 'e's broke a bank, an' then — Why

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 103

don't 'e come back? 'E didn't ought to ha' gone off
without us.'

Even Ortheris's heart sank at the end of the seventh
day, for half the regiment were out scouring the country-
side, and Learoyd had been forced to fight two men who
hinted openly that Mulvaney had deserted. To do him
justice, the colonel laughed at the notion, even when it
was put forward by his much-trusted adjutant.

'Mulvaney would as soon think of deserting as you
would,' said he. 'No; he's either fallen into a mischief
among the villagers — and yet that isn't likely, for he'd
blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on
urgent private affairs — some stupendous devilment that
we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of
the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have
to give him twenty-eight days' confinement at least for
being absent without leave, just when I most want him to
lick the new batch of recruits into shape. I never knew
a man who could put a polish on young soldiers as
quickly as Mulvaney can. How does he do it? '

'With blarney and the buckle-end of a belt, sir,' said
the adjutant. 'He is worth a couple of non-commis-
sioned officers when we are dealing with an Irish draft,
and the London lads seem to adore him. The worst of
it is that if he goes to the cells the other two are neither
to hold nor to bind till he comes out again. I believe
Ortheris preaches mutiny on those occasions, and I know
that the mere presence of Learoyd mourning for Mul-
vaney kills all the cheerfulness of his room. The ser-
geants tell me that he allows no man to laugh when he
feels unhappy. They are a queer gang.'

'For all that, I wish we had a few more of them. I
like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced,
shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the

»4 LIFE'S HANDICAP

depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue.
They don't seem to have backbone enough to do any-
thing but play cards and prowl round the married
quarters. I beheve I'd forgive that old villain on
the spot if he turned up with any sort of explanation
that I could in decency accept.'

'Not hkely to be much difficulty about that, sir/
said the adjutant. 'Mulvaney's explanations are only
one degree less wonderful than his performances. They
say that when he was in the Black Tyrone, before he
came to us, he was discovered on the banks of the Liffey
trying to sell his colonel's charger to a Donegal dealer
as a perfect lady's hack. Shackbolt commanded the
Tyrone then.'

'Shackbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought
of his ramping war-horses answering to that description.
He used to buy unbacked devils, and tame them on
some pet theory of starvation. What did Mulvaney
say?'

'That he was a member of the Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Animals, anxious to "sell the poor
baste where he would get something to fill out his dim-
ples." Shackbolt laughed, but I fancy that was why
Mulvaney exchanged to ours.'

'I w^sh he were back,' said the colonel; 'for I like
him and beHeve he likes me.'

That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris,
and I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine.
All the dogs attended, but even their clamour — and
they began to discuss the shortcomings of porcupines
before they left cantonments — could not take us out
of ourselves. A large, low moon turned the tops of
the plume-grass to silver, and the stunted camelthom
bushes and sour tamarisks into the likenesses of trooping

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 105

devils. The smell of the sun had not left the earth,
and little aimless winds blowing across the rose-gardens
to the southward brought the scent of dried roses and
water. Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily
disposed to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed
to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earth, and looked
across the scrub seamed with cattle paths, white with
the long grass, and dotted with spots of level pond-
bottom, where the snipe would gather in winter.

'This,' said Ortheris, with a sigh, as he took in the
unkempt desolation of it all, 'this is sanguinary. This
is unusually sanguinary. Sort o' mad country. Like a
grate when the fire's put out by the sun.' He shaded
his eyes against the moonhght. 'An' there's a loony
dancin' in the middle of it all. Quite right. I'd dance
too if I wasn't so downheart.'

There pranced a Portent in the face of the moon — a
huge and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its
wings from afar. It had risen out of the earth; it was
coming towards us, and its outline was never twice the
same. The toga, table-cloth, or dressing-gown, what-
ever the creature wore, took a hundred shapes. Once it
stopped on a neighbouring mound and flung all its legs
and arms to the winds.

' My, but that scarecrow 'as got 'em bad ! 'said Ortheris.
'Seems like if 'e comes any furder we'll 'ave to argify
with 'im.'

Learoyd raised liimself from the dirt as a bull clears
his flanks of the wallow. And as a bull bellows, so he,
after a short minute at gaze, gave tongue to the stars. ,

'MulvaaneyI Mulv.aaney! A-hoo!'

Oh then it was that we yelled, and the figure dipped
into the hollow, till, with a crash of rending grass, the
iost one strode up to the light of the fire and disappeared^

io6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs! Then Learoyd
and Ortheris gave greeting, bass and falsetto together,
both swallowing a lump in the throat.

'You damned fool!' said they, and severally pounded
him with their fists.

'Go easy!' he answered; wrapping a huge arm round
each. 'I would have you to know that I am a god, to be
treated as such — tho', by my faith, I fancy I've got to go
to the guard-room just like a privit soldier.'

The latter part of the sentence destroyed the sus-
picions raised by the former. Any one would have
been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was
hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were
dropping off him. But he wore one wondrous garment
— a gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heel — of
pale pink silk, wTought all over in cunningest needlework
of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu
gods. The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the
light of the fire as he settled the folds round him.

Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment
while I was trying to remember w^here I had seen it
before. Then he screamed, 'What ^ave you done with
the palanquin? You're wearin' the linin'.'

'I am,' said the Irishman, 'an' by the same token
the 'broidery is scrapin' my hide off. I've lived in this
sumpshus counterpane for four days. Me son, I begin to
ondherstand why the naygur is no use. Widout me
boots, an' me trousies like an openwork stocking on a
gyurl's leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-man
— all fearful an' timoreous. Give me a pipe an' I'll tell
on.'

He lit a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and
rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter.

'^ulvaney,' said Ortheris sternly, ' 'tain't no time for

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 107

kughin'. YouVe given Jock an' me more trouble than
you're worth. You 'ave been absent without leave an'
you'll go into cells for that; an' you 'ave come back
disgustin'ly dressed an' most improper in the linin' o'
that bloomm' palanquin. Instid of which you laugh.
An' we thought you was dead all the time.'

'Bhoys,' said the culprit, still shaking gently, 'wliin
I've done my tale you may cry if you like, an' Httle
Orth'ris here can thrample my inside out. Ha' done
an' listen. My performinces have been stupenjus: my
luck has been the blessed luck av the British Army—
an' there's no betther than that. I went out dhrunk
an' dhrinkin' in the palanquin, and I have come back a
pink god. Did any of you go to Dearslcy afther my time
was up? He was at the bottom of ut all.'

'Ah said so,' murmured Learoyd. 'To-morrow ah'H
smash t' face in upon his heead.'

'Ye will not. Dearsley's a jool av a man. Afther
Ortheris had put me into the palanquin an' the six
bearer-men were gruntin' down the road, I tuk thought
to mock Dearsley for that fight. So I tould thim, ''Go
to the embankmint," and there, bein' most amazin' full, I
shtuck my head out av the concern an' passed compli-
ments wid Dearsley. I must ha' miscalled him out-
rageous, for whin I am that way the power av the tongue
comes on me. I can bare remimber tellin' him that his
mouth opened endways like the mouth av a skate, which
was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut; an' I clear
remimber his takin' no manner nor matter av offence,
but givin' me a big dhrink of beer. 'Twas the beer did
the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, step-
pin' on me right ear wid me left foot, an' thin I slept hke
the dead. Wanst I half-roused, an' begad the noise in
my head was tremenjus — roarin' and rattlin' an' poundin'

io8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

such as was quite new to me. "Mother av Mercy,"
thinks I, "phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders
whin I wake!" An' wici that I curls mysilf up to sleep
before ut sliould get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise
was not dhrink, 'twas the rattle av a thrain!'

There followed an impressive pause.

'Yes, he had put me on a thrain — put me, palanquin
an' all, an' six black assassins av his own coohes that was
in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-
thruck, and we were rowlin' an' bowhn' along to Benares.
Glory be that I did not wake up thin an' introjuce mysilf
to the coolies. As I was sayin', I slept for the betther
part av a day an' a night. But remimber you, that that
man Dearsley had packed me off on wan av his material-
thrains to Benares, all for to make me overstay my leave
an' get me into the cells.'

The explanation v/as an eminently rational one
Benares lay at least ten hours by rail from the canton-
ments, and nothing in the world could have saved
Mulvaney from arrest as a deserter had he appeared there
in the apparel of has orgies. Dearsley had not for-
gotten to take revenge. Learoyd, drawing back a little,
began to place soft blows over selected portions of Mul-
vaney's body. His thoughts were away on the embank-
ment, and they meditated evil for Dearsley. Mulvaney
continued —

'Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down
in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin' an'
talkin'. But I knev/ well I was far from home. There
is a queer smell upon our cantonments — a smell av dried
earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable-
litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an' bad water,
an' wanst somethin' alive came an' blew heavy mth his
muzzle at the chink av t^e shutter. ''It's in a village

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 199

I am," thinks I to mysilf, "an' the parochial buffalo Is
investigatin' the palanquin." But anyways I had no
desire to move. Only lie still whin you're in foreign
parts an' the standin' luck av the British Army will
carry ye through. That is an epigram. I made ut.

'Thin a lot av whishperin' divils surrounded the
palanquin. "Take ut up," sez wan man. "But who'll
pay us?" sez another. "The Maharanee's minister, av
coorse," sez the man. "Oho!" sez I to mysilf, "I'm a
quane in me own right, wid a minister to pay me ex-
penses. I'll be an emperor if I he still long enough; but
this is no village I've found." I lay quiet, but I gummed
me right eye to a crack av the shutters, an' I saw that
the whole street was crammed wid palanquins an' horses,
an' a sprinklin' av naked priests all yellow powder an'
tigers' tails. But I may tell you, Orth'ris, an' you,
Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most
imperial an' magnificent. Now a palanquin means a
native lady all the world over, except whin a soldier av
the Quane happens to be takin' a ride. "Women an'
priests!" sez I. "Your father's son is in the right pew
this time, Terence. There will be proceedin's." Six
black divils in pink mushn tuk up the palanquin, an' oh !
but the rowlin' an' the rockin' made me sick. Thin we
got fair jammed among the palanquins — not more than
fifty av them — an' we grated an' bumped like Queens-
town potato-smacks in a runnin' tide. I cud hear the
women gigglin' and squirkin' in their palanquins, but
mine was the royal equipage. They made way for ut,
an', begad, the pink muslin men o' mine were howlin',
"Room for the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun." Do
you know aught av the lady, sorr? '

'Yes,' said I. 'She is a very estimable old queen
of the Central Indian States, and they say she is fat.

no LIFE'S HANDICAP

How on earth could she go to Benares without all the

city knowing her palanquin?'

* 'Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygur-man.
They saw the palanquin l3dng loneful an' forlornsome,
an' the beauty av ut, after Dearsley's men had dhropped
ut and gone away, an' they gave ut the best name that
occurred to thim. Quite right too. For aught we know
the ould lady was thravellin' incog — like me. I'm glad
to hear she's fat. I was no Kght weight mysilf, an' my
men were mortial anxious to dhrop me under a great big
archway promiscuously ornamented wid the most im-
proper car\'in's an' cuttin's I iver saw. Begad! they
made me blush — like a — like a Maharanee.'

'The temple of Prithi-Devi,' I murmured, remember-
ing the monstrous horrors of that sculptured archway at
Benares.

'Pretty Devilskins, savin' your presence, sorr! There
was nothin' pretty about ut, except me. 'Twas all half
dhark, an' whin the coolies left they shut a big black
gate behind av us, an' half a company av fat yellow
priests began puUy-haulin' the palanquins into a dharker
place yet — a big stone hall full av pillars, an' gods, an'
incense, an' all manner av similar thruck. The gate dis-
concerted me, for I perceived I wud have to go forward
to get out, my retreat bein' cut off. By the same token
a good priest makes a bad palanquin-coolie. Begad!
they nearly turned me inside out draggin' the palanquin
to the temple. Now the disposishin av the forces inside
was this way. The Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun —
that was me — lay by the favour av Providence on the
far left flank behind the dhark av a pillar carved with
elephints' heads. The remainder av the palanquins was
in a big half circle facing in to the biggest, fattest, an'
most amazin' she-god that iver I dreamed av. Her head

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY iii

ran up into the black above us, an' her feet stuck out
in the light av a little fire av melted butter that a priest
was feedin' out av a butter-dish. Thin a man began to
sing an' play on somethin' back in the dhark, an' 'twas
a queer song. Ut made my hair Hft on the back av my
neck. Thin the doors av all the palanquins sKd back,
an' the women bundled out. I saw what I'll niver see
again. 'Twas more glorious than thransformations at
a pantomime, for they was in pink an' blue an' silver an'
red an' grass green, wid di'monds an' im'ralds an' great
red rubies all over thim. But that was the least part
av the glory. O bhoys, they were more lovely than the
like av any loveliness in hiven; ay, their little bare feet
were betther than the white hands av a lord's lady, an'
their mouths were like puckered roses, an' their eyes were
bigger an' dharker than the eyes av any livin' women I've
seen. Ye may laugh, but I'm speakin' truth. I niver
saw the like, an' niver I will again.'

* Seeing that in all probability you were watching the
wives and daughters of most of the kings of India, the
chances are that you won't,' I said, for it was dawning
on me that Mulvaney had stumbled upon a big Queens'
Praying at Benares.

'I niver will,' he said mournfully. 'That sight
doesn't come twist to any man. It made me ashamed
to watch. A fat priest knocked at my door. I didn't
think he'd have the insolince to disturb the Maharanee
av Gokral-Seetarun, so I lay still. ''The old cow's
asleep," sez he to another. "Let her be," sez that.
"'Twill be long before she has a calf!" I might ha^
known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in
Injia — an' for matter o' that in England too — is childher.
That made me more sorry I'd come, me bein', as you weH
know, a childless man.'

112 LIFE'S HANDICAP

He was silent for a moment, thinking of his little son,
dead many years ago.

'They prayed, an' the butter-iires blazed up an' the
incense turned everything blue, an' between that an' the
fires the women looked as tho' they were all ablaze an'
twinklin'. They took hold av the she-god's knees, they
cried out an' they threw themselves about, an' that
world- wi thou t-end-amen music was dhrivin' thim mad.
Mother av Hiven! how they cried, an' the ould she-god
grinnin' above thim all so scornful! The dhrink was
dyin' out in me fast, an' I was thinkin' harder than the
thoughts wud go through my head — thinkin' how to get
out, an' all manner of nonsense as well. The women
were rockin' in rows, their di'mond belts dickin', an' the
tears runnin' out betune their hands, an' the lights were
goin' lower an' dharker. Thin there was a blaze Hke
lightnin' from the roof, an' that showed me the inside
av the palanquin, an' at the end where my foot was,
stood the Hvin' spit an' image o' mysilf v/orked on the
linin'. This man here, ut was.'

He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand
under one, and thrust into the firelight a foot-long em-
broidered presentment of the great god Krishna, play-
ing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring eye, and
the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-olf
resemblance to Mulvaney.

'The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame
came to me thin. I believe I was mad too. I slid the
off-shutter open an' rowled out into the dhark behind
the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my
knees, sKpped oft* my boots an' tuk a general hould av
all the pink Hnin' av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped
out Hke a woman's dhriss whin you tread on ut at a
sergeants' ball, an' a bottle came with ut. I tuk the

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 113

bottle an' the next minut I was out av the dhark av
the pillar, the pink linin' wrapped round me most grace-
ful, the music thunderin' like kettledrums, an' a could
draft blowin' round my bare legs. By this hand that
did ut, I was Khrislma tootHn' on the flute — the god
that the rig'mental chaplain talks about. A sweet sight
I must ha' looked. I knew my eyes were big, and my
face was wax-white, an' at the worst I must ha' looked
like a ghost. But they took me for the li\in' god. The
music stopped, and the women were dead dumb an' I
crooked my legs like a shepherd on a china basin, an' I
did the ghost- waggle with my feet as I had done ut at the
rig'mental theatre many times, an' I slid acrost the width
av that temple in front av the she-god tootlin' on the beer
bottle.'

*Wot did you toot?' demanded Ortheris the prac-
tical.

' Me? Oh ! ' Mulvaney sprang up, suiting the action to
the word, and sHding gravely in front of us, a dilapidated
but imposing deity in the half Ught. ' I sang —

'Only say

You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan.

Don't say nay,
Charmin' Judy Callaghan.

I didn't know me own voice when I sang. An' oh!
'twas pitiful to see the women. The darlin's were down
on their faces. Whin I passed the last wan I cud see
her poor little fingers workin' one in another as if she
wanted to touch my feet. So I dhrew the tail av tLis
pink overcoat over her head for the greater honour, an'
I sHd into the dhark on the other side av the temple,
and fetched up in the arms av a big fat priest. All i
wanted was to ge,t away clear. So I tuk him by his

114 LIFE'S HANDICAP

greasy throat an' shut the speech out av him. "Out!''
sez I. ''Which way, ye fat heathen?"— ''Oh!" sez he.
"Man," sez I. "White man, soldier man, common
soldier man. Where in the name av confusion is the
back door?" The women in the temple were still on
their faces, an' a young priest was holdin' out his arms
above their heads.

'"This way," sez my fat friend, duckin' behind a big
bull-god an' divin' into a passage. Thin I remimbered
that I must ha' made the miraculous reputation av that
tem_ple for the next fifty years. "Not so fast," I sez, an'
I held out both my hands wid a wink. That ould thief
smiled like a father. I tuk him by the back av the
neck in case he should be wishful to put a knife into
me unbeknownst, an' I ran him up an' down the passage
twice to collect his sensibilities! "Be quiet," sez he, in
English. "Now you talk sense," I sez. "Fwhat '11 you
give me for the use av that most iligant palanquin I
have no time to take away?" — "Don't tell," sez he.
"Is ut like?" sez I. "But ye might give me my rail-
way fare. I'm far from my home an' I've done you a
service." Bhoys, 'tis a good thing to be a priest. The
ould man niver throubled himself to dhraw from a bank.
As I will prove to you subsequint, he philandered all
round the slack av his clothes an' began dribblin' ten-
rupee notes, old gold mohurs, and rupees into my hand
till I could hould no more.'

'You lie!' said Ortheris. 'You're mad or sunstrook.
A native don't give coin unless you cut it out o' 'im.
'Tain't nature.'

'Then my lie an' my sunstroke is concealed under
that lump av sod yonder,' retorted Mulvaney unruffled,
nodding across the scrub. 'An' there's a dale more in
nature than your squidgy little legs have iver tak^i yc«\

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY 115

to, Orth'ris, me son. Four hundred an' thirty-four rupees
by my reckonin', an^ a big fat gold necklace that I took
from him as a remimbrancer, was our share in that
business.'

^An' 'e give it you for love?' said Ortheris.

*We were alone in that passage. Maybe I was a
trifle too pressin', but considher fwhat I had done for the
good av the temple and the iverlastin' joy av those
women. 'Twas cheap at the price. I wud ha' taken
more if I cud ha' found ut. I turned the ould man up-
side down at the last, but he was milked dhry. Thin he
opened a door in another passage an' I found mysilf up
to my knees in Benares river-water, an' bad smellin' ut
is. More by token I had come out on the river-line
close to the burnin' ghat and contagious to a cracklin'
corpse. This was in the heart av the night, for I had
been four hours in the temple. There was a crowd av
boats tied up, so I tuk wan an' wint across the river.
Thin I came home acrost country, lyin' up by day.'

*How on earth did you manage?' I said.

^How did Sir Frederick Roberts get from Cabul to
Candahar? He marched an' he niver tould how near he
was to breakin' down. That's why he is fwhat he is.
An' now — ' Mulvaney yawned portentously. *Now I
will go an' give myself up for absince widout leave. It's
eight an' twenty days an' the rough end of the colonel's
tongue in orderly room, any way you look at ut. But
'tis cheap at the price.'

* Mulvaney,' said I softly. *If there happens to be
any sort of excuse that the colonel can in any way
accept, I have a notion that you'll get nothing more than
the dressing-gown. The new recruits are in, and '

'Not a word more, sorr. Is ut excuses the old man
wants? 'Tis not my way, but he shall have thim. I'll

Ti6 LITE'S HANDICAP

tell him I was engaged in financial operations connected
wid a church,' and he flapped his way to cantonments and
the cells, singing lustily —

' So they sent a corp'ril's file,
And they put me in the gyard-room
For conduck unbecomin' of a soldier.'

And when he was lost in the midst of the moonlight we
could hear the refrain —

Bang upon the big drum, bash upon the cymbals,

As we go marchin' along, boys, oh!

For although in this campaign

There's no whisky nor champagne,

We'll keep our spirits goin' with a song, boys!'

Therewith he surrendered himself to the joyful and
almost weeping guard, and was made much of by his
fellows. But to the colonel he said that he had been
smitten with sunstroke and had lain insensible on a
villager's cot for untold hours; and between laughter
and goodwill the affair was smoothed over, so that he
could, next day, teach the new recruits how to 'Fear
God, Honour the Queen, Shoot Straight, and Keep
Clean.'

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD

What did the colonel's lady thmk?

Nobody never knew.
Somebody asked the sergeant's wife

An' she told 'em true.
When you git to a man in the case

They're like a row o' pins,
For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady

Arc sisters under their skins.

Barrack-Room Ball^nd.

All day I had followed at the heels of a pursuing anny
engaged on one of the finest battles that ever camp of
exercise beheld. Thirty thousand troops had by the
wisdom of the Government of India been turned loose
over a few thousand square miles of country to practise
in peace what they would never attempt in war. Con-
sequently cavalry charged unshaken infantry at the trot.
Infantry captured artillery by frontal attacks deKvered
in line of quarter columns, and mounted infantry skir-
mished up to the wheels of an armoured train which
carried nothing more deadly than a twenty-five pounder
Armstrong, two Nordenfeldts, and a few score/ volunteers
all cased in three-eighths-inch boiler-plate. Yet it was
a very lifelike camp. Operations did not cease at sun-
down; nobody knew the country and nobody spared
man or horse. There was unending cavalry scouting
and almost unending forced work over broken ground.
The Army of the South had finally pierced the centre of
the Army of the North, and was pouring through the gap

117

ii8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

hot-foot to capture a city of strategic importance. Its
front extended fanwise, the sticks being represented by
regiments strung out along the line of route backwards to
the divisional transport columns and all the lumber that
trails behind an army on the move. On its right the
broken left of the Army of the North was flying in
mass, chased by the Southern horse and hammered by
the Southern guns till these had been pushed far beyond
the limits of their last support. Then the flying sat
down to rest, while the elated commandant of the pur-
suing force telegraphed that he held all in check and
observation.

Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his
right flank a flying column of Northern horse with a
detachment of Ghoorkhas and British troops had been
pushed round, as fast as the failing Kght allowed, to
cut across the entire rear of the Southern Army, to
break, as it were, all the ribs of the fan where they
converged by striking at the transport, reserve ammuni-
tion, and artillery suppHes. Their instructions were
to go in, avoiding the few scouts who might not have
been drawn off by the pursuit, and create sufficient
excitement to impress the Southern Army with the
wisdom of guarding their own flank and rear before
they captured cities. It was a pretty manoeuvre, neatly
carried out.

Speaking for the second division of the Southern
Army, our first intimation of the attack was at twilight,
when the artillery were labouring in deep sand, most of
the escort were trying to help them out, and the main
body of the infantry had gone on. A Noah's Ark of
elephants, camels, and the mixed menagerie of an Indian
transport-train bubbled and squealed behind the guns
when there appeared from nowhere in particular British

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 119

infantry to the extent of three companies, who sprang to
the heads of the gun-horses and brought all to a stand-
still amid oaths and cheers.

^ How's that, umpire?' said the major commanding
the attack, and with one voice the drivers and limber
gunners answered 'Hout!' while the colonel of artillery
sputtered.

*A11 your scouts are charging our main body,' said
the major. ' Your flanks are unprotected for two miles.
I think we've broken the back of this division. And
listen,— there go the Ghoorkhas!'

A weak fire broke from the rear-guard more than
a mile away, and was answered by cheerful bowlings.
The Ghoorkhas, who should have swung clear of the
second division, had stepped on its tail in the dark,
but drawing off hastened to reach the next line of attack,
which lay almost parallel to us five or six miles away.

Our column swayed and surged irresolutely, — three
batteries, the divisional ammunition reserve, the baggage,
and a section of the hospital and bearer corps. The
commandant ruefully promised to report himself 'cut
up' to the nearest umpire, and commending his cavalry
and all other cavalry to the special care of Eblis, toiled
on to resume touch with the rest of the division.

* We'll bivouac here to-night,' said the major, 'I have
a notion that the Ghoorkhas will get caught. They may
want us to re-form on. Stand easy till the transport
gets away.'

A hand caught my beast's bridle and led him out of
the choking dust; a larger hand deftly canted me out of
the saddle; and two of the hugest hands in the world
received me sliding. Pleasant is the lot of the special
correspondent who falls into such hands as those of
Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd.

I20 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'An' that's all right,' said the Irishman calmly. 'We
thought we'd find you somewheres here by. Is there
anything av yours in the transport? Orth'ris '11 fetch ut
out'

Ortheris did 'fetch ut out,' from under the trunk of an
elephant, in the shape of a servant and an animal both
laden with medical comforts. The little man's eyes
sparkled.

'If the brutil an' Hcentious soldiery av these parts
gets sight av the thruck,' said Mulvaney, making prac-
tised investigations, 'they'll loot ev'rything. They're
bein' fed on iron-filin's an' dog-biscuit these days, but
glory's no compensation for a belly-ache. Praise be,
we're here to protect you, sorr. Beer, sausage, bread
(soft an' that's a cur'osity), soup in a tin, whisky by the
smell av ut, an' fowls! Mother av Moses, but ye take
the field like a confectioner! 'Tis scand'lus.'

^'Ere's a orficer,' said Ortheris significantly. 'When
the sergent's done lushin' the privit may clean the pot.'

I bundled several things into Mulvaney's haversack
before the major's hand fell on my shoulder and he said
tenderly, 'Requisitioned for the Queen's service. Wolse-
ley was quite wrong about special correspondents: they
are the soldier's best friends. Come and take pot-luck
with us to-night.'

And so it happened amid laughter and shoutings that
my well-considered commissariat melted away to reap-
pear later at the mess- table, which was a waterproof
sheet spread on the ground. The flying column had
taken three days' rations with it, and there be few things
nastier than government rations — especially when govern-
ment is experimenting with German toys. Erbsenwurst,
tinned beef of surpassing tinniness, compressed vegetables,
ana meat-biscuits may be nourishing, but what Thomas

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 121

Atkins needs is bulk in his inside. The major, assisted
by his brother officers, purchased goats for the camp and
so made the experiment of no effect. Long before the
fatigue-party sent to collect brushwood had returned, the
men were settled down by their valises, kettles and pots
had appeared from the surrounding country and were
dangUng over fires as the kid and the compressed vege-
table bubbled together; there rose a cheerful clinking of
mess-tins; outrageous demands for *a little more stuffin'
with that there Uver-wing;* and gust on gust of chaff as
pointed as a bayonet and as delicate as a gun-butt.

'The boys are in a good temper,' said the major.
' They'll be singing presently. Well, a night like this is
enough to keep them happy.'

Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars,
which are not all pricked in on one plane, but, preserving
an orderly perspective, draw the eye through the velvet
darkness of the void up to the barred doors of heaven
itself. The earth was a gray shadow more unreal than
the sky. We could hear her breathing Hghtly in the
pauses between the howHng of the jackals, the movement
of the wind in the tamarisks, and the fitful mutter of
musketry-fire leagues away to the left. A native woman
from some unseen hut began to sing, the mail-train
thundered past on its way to Delhi, and a roosting crow
cawed drowsily. Then there was a belt-loosening silence
about the fires, and the even breathing of the crowded
earth took up the story.

The men, full fed, turned to tobacco and song, — their
officers with them. The subaltern is happy who can
win the approval of the musical critics in his regiment,
and is honoured among the more intricate step-dancers.
By him, as by him who plays cricket cleverly, Thomas
Atkins will stand in time of need, when he will let a

122 LIFE'S HANDICAP

better officer go on alone. The ruined tombs of forgotten
Mussulman saints heard the ballad of Agra Town, The
Buffalo Battery, Marching to Kabul, The long, long Indian
Day, The Place where the Punkah-coolie died, and that
crashing chorus which announces,

Youth's daring spirit, manhood's fire,

Firm hand and eagle eye,
Must he acquire who would aspire

To see the gray boar die.

To-day, of all those jovial thieves who appropriated
my commissariat and lay and laughed roimd that water-
proof sheet, not one remains. They went to camps
that were not of exercise and battles without umpires.
Burmah, the Soudan, and the frontier, — fever and fight,
— took them in their time.

I drifted across to the men's fires in search of Mul-
vaney, whom I found strategically greasing his feet by
the blaze. There is nothing particularly lovely in the
sight of a private thus engaged after a long day's march,
but when you reflect on the exact proportion of the
* might, majesty, dominion, and power' of the British
Empire which stands on those feet you take an interest in
the proceedings.

'There's a blister, bad luck to ut, on the heel,' said
Mulvaney. 'I can't touch ut. Prick ut out, little man.'

Ortheris took out his house-wife, eased the trouble
with a needle, stabbed Mulvaney in the calf with the
same weapon, and was swiftly kicked into the fire.

*I've bruk the best av my toes over you, ye grinnin'
child av disruption,' said Mulvaney, sitting cross-legged
and nursing his feet; then seeing me, 'Oh, ut's you,
son ! Be welkim, an' take that maraudin' scutt's place.
Jock, hold him down on the cindhers for a bit.'

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 123

But Ortheris escaped and went elsewhere, as I took
possession of the hollow he had scraped for himself and
lined with his greatcoat. Learoyd on the other side of
the fire grinned affably and in a minute fell fast asleep.

'There's the height av politeness for you/ said Mul-
vaney, Ugh ting his pipe with a flaming branch. 'But
Jock's eaten half a box av your sardines at wan gulp,
an' I think the tin too. What's the best wid you, sorr,
an' how did you happen to be on the losin' side this day
whin we captured you?'

'The Army of the South is winning all along the
line,' I said.

'Then that Ime's the hangman's rope, savin' your
presence. You'll learn to-morrow how we rethreated to
dhraw thim on before we made thim trouble, an' that's
what a woman does. By the same tokin, we'll be
attacked before the dawnin' an' ut would be betther not
to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the
light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us
ever so far inside av the enemy's flank an' a crowd av
roarin', tarin', squealin' cavalry gone on just to turn out
the whole hornet's nest av them. Av course the enemy
will pursue, by brigades like as not, an' thin we'll have
to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion
av Polonius whin he said, "Don't fight wid ivry scutt
for the pure joy av fightin', but if you do, knock the
nose av him first an' frequint." We ought to ha' gone
on an' helped the Ghoorkhas.'

'But what do you know about Polonius?' I demanded.
This was a new side of Mulvaney's character.

'AH that Shakespeare iver wrote an' a dale more that
the gallery shouted,' said the man of war, carefully lacing
his boots. 'Did I not tell you av Silver's theatre in
Dublin, whin I was younger than I am now an' a patron

134 LIFE'S HANDICAP

av the drama? Ould Silver wud never pay actor-man or
woman their just dues, an' by consequince his comp'nies
^as collapsible at the last minut. Thin the bhoys wud
damour to take a part, an' oft as not ould Silver made
them pay for the fun. Faith, I've seen Hamlut played
wid a new black eye an' the queen as full as a cornu-
copia. I remimber wanst Hogin that 'Ksted in the Black
Tyrone an' was shot in South Africa, he sejuced ould
Silver into givin' him Hamlut's part instid av me that
had a fine fancy for rhetoric in those days. Av course
I wint into the gallery an' began to fill the pit wid other
people's hats, an' I passed the time av day to Hogin
walkin' through Denmark like a hamstrung mule wid a
pall on his back. ^'Hamlut," sez I, '' there's a hole in
your heel. Pull up your shtockin's, Hamlut," sez I.
''Hamlut, Hamlut, for the love av decincy dhrop that
skull an' pull up your shtockin's." The whole house
begun to tell him that. He stopped his soliloquishms
mid-between. ''My shtockin's may be comin' down or
they may not," sez he, screwin' his eye into the gallery,
for well he knew who I was. "But afther this per-
formince is over me an' the Ghost '11 trample the tripes
out av you, Terence, wid your ass's bray!" An' that's
how I come to know about Hamlut. Eyah! Those
days, those days ! Did you iver have onendin' devilmint
an' nothin' to pay for it in your life, sorr?'

'Never, without having to pay,' I said.

'That's thrue! 'Tis mane whin you considher on ut;
but ut's the same wid horse or fut. A headache if you
dhrink, an' a belly-ache if you eat too much, an' a heart-
ache to kape all down. Faith, the beast only gets the
colic, an' he's the lucky man.'

He dropped his head and stared into the fire, finger-
ing his moustache the while. From the far side of

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD US

the bivouac the voice of Corbet-Nolan, senior subaltern
of B company, uplifted itself in an ancient and much
appreciated song of sentiment, the men moaning me-
lodiously behind him.

The north wind blew coldly, she drooped from that hour,
My own little Katlileen, my sweet little Kathleen,
Kathleen, my Kathleen, Kathleen O'Moore!

With forty-five O's in the last word: even at that
distance you might have cut the soft South Irish accent
with a shovel.

'For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel
high,' murmured Mulvaney when the chorus had
ceased.

'What's the trouble?' I said gently, for I knew that
he was a man of an inextinguishable sorrow.

'Hear now,' said he. 'Ye know what I am now. 1
know what I mint to be at the beginnin' av my service.
I've tould you time an' again, an' what I have not Dinah
Shadd has. An' what am I ? Oh, Mary Mother av
Hiven, an ould dhrunken, untrustable baste av a privit
that l:a5 :een the reg'ment change out from colonel to
drumme:-boy, n©t wanst or twice, but scores av times!
Ay, scores! An' me not so near gettin' promotion as
in the first! An' me livin' on an' kapin' clear av clink,
not by my own good conduck, but the kindness av some
orf'cer-bhoy young enough to be son to me! Do I not
know ut? Can I not tell whin I'm passed over at
p'rade, tho' I'm rockin' full av liquor an' ready to fall all
in wan piece, such as even a suckin' child might see,
bekaze, "Oh, 'tis only ould Mulvaney!" An' whin I'm
let off in ord'ly-room through some thrick of the tongue
an' a ready answer an' the ould man's mercy, is ut smilin'
I feel whin I fall away an' go back to Dinah Shadd, thryin'

126 LIFE'S HANDICAP

to carry ut all off as a joke? Not I! Tis hell to me,
dumb hell through ut all; an' next time whin the fit
comes I will be as bad again. Good cause the reg'ment
has to know me for the best soldier in ut. Better cause
have I to know mesilf for the worst man. I'm only fit to
tache the new drafts what I'll niver learn mesilf; an'
I am sure, as tho' I heard ut, that the minut wan av
these pink-eyed recruities gets away from my ''Mind ye
now," an' ''Listen to tliis, Jim, bhoy," — sure I am that
the sergint houlds me up to him for a warnin'. So I
tache, as they say at musketry-instruction, by direct
and ricochet fire. Lord be good to me, for I have stud
some throuble!'

'Lie down and go to sleep,' said I, not being able to
comfort or advise. 'You're the best man in the regi-
ment, and, next to Ortheris, the biggest fool. Lie down
and wait till we're attacked. What force will they turn
out? Guns, think you?'

'Try that wid your lorrds an' ladies, twistin' an' turnin'
the talk, tho' you mint ut well. Ye cud say nothin' to
help me, an' yet ye niver knew what cause I had to be
what I am.'

'Begin at the beginning and go on to the end,' I said
royally. 'But rake up the fire a bit first.'

I passed Ortheris's bayonet for a poker.

'That shows how little we know what we do,' said
Mulvaney, putting it aside. 'Fire takes all the heart
out av the steel, an' the next time, may be, that our little
man is fighting for his life his bradawl '11 break, an' so
you'll ha' killed him, manin' no more than to kape your-
self warm. 'Tis a recruity's thrick that. Pass the
clanin'-rod, sorr.'

I snuggled down abased; and after an interval the
voice of Mulvaney began.

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 127

'Did I iver tell you how Dinah Shadd came to be
wife av mine?'

I dissembled a burning anxiety that I had felt for
some months — ever since Dinah Shadd, the strong, the
patient, and the infinitely tender, had of her own good
love and free will washed a shirt for me, moving in a
barren land where washing was not.

'I can't remember,' I said casually. ^Was it before
or after you made love to Annie Bragin, and got no
satisfaction? '

The story of Annie Bragin is written in another place.
It is one of the many less respectable episodes in Mul-
vaney's chequered career.

'Before — before — long before, was that business av
Annie Bragin an' the corp'ril's ghost. Niver woman was
the worse for me whin I had married Dinah. There's a
time for all things, an' I know how to kape all things in
place — barrin' the dhrink, that kapes me in my place wid
no hope av comin' to be aught else.'

'Begin at the beginning,' I insisted. 'Mrs. Mulvaney
told me that you married her when you were quartered
in Krab Bokhar barracks.'

'An' the same is a cess-pit,' said Mulvaney piously.
' She spoke thrue, did Dinah. 'Twas this way. Talkin'
av that, have ye iver fallen in love, sorr? '

I preserved the silence of the damned. Mulvaney
continued —

'Thin I will assume that ye have not. / did. In
the days av my youth, as I have more than wanst tould
you, I was a man that filled the eye an' delighted the
sowl av women. Niver man was hated as I have bin.
Niver man was loved as I — no, not within half a day's
march av ut! For the first five years av m.y service,
whin I was what I wud give my sowl to be now, I tuk

128 LIFE'S HANDICAP

whatever was within my reach an' digested ut — an that's
more than most men can say. Dhrink I tuk, an' ut did
me no harm. By the Hollow av Hiven, I cud play wid
four women at wanst, an' kape them from lindin' out
anythin' about the other three, an' smile like a full-blown
marigold through ut all. Dick Coulhan, av the battery
we'll have down on us to-night, could drive his team no
betther than I mine, an' I hild the worser cattle ! An' so
I lived, an' so I wa^ happy till afther that business wid
Annie Bragin — she that turned me off as cool as a meat-
safe, an' taught me where I stud in the mind av an honest
woman. 'Twas no sweet dose to swallow.

'.Afther that I sickened awhile an' tuk thought to my
reg'mental work; conceiting mesilf I wud study an' be a
sergint, an' a major-gineral twinty minutes afther that.
But on top av my ambitiousness there was an empty
place in my sowl, an' me own opinion av mesilf cud not
fiU ut. Sez I to mesilf, " Terence, you're a great man an'
the best set-up in the reg'mint. Go on an' get promo-
tion." Sez mesilf to me, ^'What for?" Sez I to mesUf,
''For the glory av ut!" Sez mesilf to me, ''Will that
fill these two strong arrums av yours, Terence?" "Go
to the devil," sez I to mesilf. " Go to the married Knes,"
sez mesilf to me. '' 'Tis the same thing," sez I to mesilf.
"Av you're the same man, ut is," said mesilf to me; an'
wid that I considhered on ut a long while. Did you
iver feel that way, sorr? '

I snored gently, knowing that if Mulvaney were un-
interrupted he would go on. The clamour from the
bivouac fires beat up to the stars, as the rival singers of
the companies were pitted against each other.

'So I felt that way an' a bad time ut was. Wanst,
bein' a fool, I wint into the married lines more for the
sake av spakin' to our ould colour-sergint Shadd than

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 129

for any thruck wid women-folk. I was a corp'ril then
— rejuced aftherwards, but a corp'ril then. I've got a
photograft av mesilf to prove ut. '' You'll take a cup
av tay wid us?" sez Shadd. ''I will that," I sez, ''tho'
tay is not my divarsion."

' " 'Twud be better for you if ut were," sez ould Mother
Shadd, an' she had ought to know, for Shadd, in the ind
av his service, dhrank bung-full each night.

'Wid that I tuk off my gloves — there was pipe-
clay in thim, so that they stud alone — an' pulled up
my chair, lookin' round at the china ornaments an' bits av
things in the Shadds' quarters. They were things that
belonged to a man, an' no camp-kit, here to-day an' dishi-
pated next. '' You're comfortable in this place, sergint,"
sez I. '' 'Tis the wife that did ut, boy," sez he, pointin'
the stem av his pipe to ould Mother Shadd, an' she
smacked the top av his bald head apon the compliment.
**That manes you want money," sez she.

'An' thin — an' thin whin the kettle was to be filled,
Dinah came in — my Dinah — her sleeves rowled up to
the elbow an' her hair in a winkin' glory over her fore-
head, the big blue eyes beneath twinklin' like stars on a
frosty night, an' the tread av her two feet lighter than
waste-paper from the colonel's basket in ord'ly-room
whin ut's emptied. Bein' but a shhp av a girl she went
pink at seein' me, an' I twisted me moustache an' looked
at a picture forninst the wall. Niver show a woman that
ye care the snap av a finger for her, an' begad she'll come
bleatin' to 3^our boot-heels ! '

'I suppose that's why you followed Annie Bragin till
everybody in the married quarters laughed at you,' said
I, remembering that unhallowed Vv'^ooing and casting off
the disguise of drowsiness.

'I'm layin' down the sdn'ral theory av the attack,' said

I30 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Mulvaney, driving his boot into the dying fire. *Ii
you read the Soldier's Pocket Book, which niver any sol-
dier reads, you'll see that there are exceptions. Whin
Dinah was out av the door (an' 'twas as tho' the sun-
light had shut too) — '^Mother av Hiven, sergint," sez
I, *'but is that your daughter?" — "I've believed that
way these eighteen years," sez ould Shadd, his eyes twink-
lin'; ''but Mrs. Shadd has her own opinion, like iv'ry
woman." — " 'Tis wid yours this time, for a mericle," sez
Mother Shadd. ''Thin why in the name av fortune did I
niver see her before?" sez I. ''Bekaze youVe been
thrapesin' round wid the married women these three
years past. She was a bit av a child till last year, an'
she shot up wid the spring," sez ould Mother Shadd.
"I'll thrapese no more," sez I. "D'you mane that?"
sez ould Mother Shadd, lookin' at me side-ways like a
hen looks at a hawk whin the chickens are runnin' free.
"Try me, an' tell," sez I. Wid that I pulled on my gloveS;
dhrank off the tay, an' went out av the house as stiff as
at gin'ral p'rade, for well I knew that Dinah Shadd'3
eyes were in the small av my back out av the scullery
window. Faith! that was the only time I mourned I
was not a cav'lry-man for the pride av the spurs to
jingle.

'I wint out to think, an' I did a powerful lot av
thinkin', but ut all came round to that shlip av a girl
in the dotted blue dhress, wid the blue eyes an' the spar-
kil in them. Thin I kept off canteen, an' I kept to the
married quarthers, or near by, on the chanst av meetin'
Dinah. Did I meet her? Oh, my time past, did I not;
wid a lump in my throat as big as my valise an' my
heart goin' like a farrier's forge on a Saturday morning?
Twas "Good day to ye. Miss Dinah," an' "Good day
t'you, corp'ril," for a week or two, and divil a bit further

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 131

could I get bekaze av the respect I had to that girl that
I cud ha' broken be tune finger an' thumb.'

Here I giggled as I recalled the gigantic figure of
Dinah Shadd when she handed me my shirt.

' Ye may laugh,' grunted Mulvaney. ' But Tm spcakin'
the trut', an' 'tis you that are m fault. Dinah was a girl
that wud ha' taken the imperiousness out av the Duchess
av Clonmel in those days. Flower hand, foot av shod
air, an' the eyes av the livin' m.ornin' she had that is
my wife to-day — ould Dinah, and niver aught else than
Dinah Shadd to me.

' 'Twas after three weeks standin' off an' on, an' niver
makin' headway excipt through the eyes, that a little
drummer-boy grinned in me face whin I had admonished
him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin' all over the
place. ''An' I'm not the only wan that doesn't kape to
barricks," sez he. I tuk him by the scruff av his neck,
—my heart was hung on a hair-thrigger those days, you
will onderstand— an' ''Out wid ut," sez I, "or I'll lave
no bone av you unbreakable." — "Speak to Dempsey,"
sez he howlin'. "Dempsey which? " sez I, "ye unwashed
limb av Satan."— "Av the Bob-tailed Dhragoons," sez
he. "He's seen her home from her aunt's house in the
civil lines four times this fortnight."— "Child!" sez I,
dhroppin' him, "your tongue's stronger than your body.
Go to your quarters. I'm sorry I dhressed you down."

'At that I went four ways to wanst huntin' Dempsey.
I was mad to think that wid all my airs among women
I shud ha' been chated by a basin-faced fool av a cav'lry-
man not fit to trust on a trunk. Presintly I found him
in our lines — the Bobtails was quartered next us — an' a
tallowy, topheavy son av a she-mule he was wid his big
brass spurs an' his plastrons on his epigastrons an' all.
But he niver flinched a hair.

132 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'"A word wid you, Dempsey," sez I. '' YouVe walked
wid Dinah Shadd four times this fortnight gone."

'*' What's that to you?" sez he. ''I'll walk forty
times more, an' forty on top av that, ye shovel-futted
clod-breakin' infantry lance-corp'ril."

' Before I cud gyard he had his gloved fist home on my
cheek an' down I went full-sprawl. "Will that content
you?" sez he, blowin' on his knuckles for all the world
like a Scots Greys orf'cer. "Content!" sez I. "For
your own sake, man, take off your spurs, peel your jackut,
an' onglove. 'Tis the beginnin' av the overture; stand
up!"

'He stud all he know, but he niver peeled his jackut,
an' his shoulders had no fair play. I was fightin' for
Dinah Shadd an' that cut on my cheek. What hope had
he forninst me? "Stand up," sez I, time an' again whin
he was beginnin' to quarter the ground an' gyard high an'
go large. "This isn't ridin'-school," I sez. "0 man,
stand up an' let me get in at ye." But whin I saw
he wud be runnin' about, I grup his shtock in my left an'
his waist-belt in my right an' swung him clear to my
right front, head undher, he hammerin' my nose till the
wind was knocked out av him on the bare ground.
"Stand up," sez I, "or I'll kick your head into your
chest! " and I wud ha' done ut too, so ragin' mad I was.

'"My collar-bone's bruk," sez he. "Help m.e back
to lines. I'll walk wid her no more." So I helped him
back.'

'And was his collar-bone broken?' I asked, for I
fancied that only Learoyd could neatly accomplish that
terrible throw.

' He pitched on his left shoulder-point. Ut was. Next
day the news was in both barricks, an' whin I met Dinah
Shadd wid a cheek on me like all the reg'mintal tailor's

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHAPD 133

samples there was no ''Good mornin', corp'ril," or aught
else. ^'An' what have I done, Miss Shadd," sez I, very
bould, plan tin' mesilf forninst her, "that ye should not
pass the time of day?"

'''Ye've half-killed rough-rider Dempsey/' sez she,
her dear blue eyes fillin' up.

'''May be," sez I. "Was he a friend av yours that
saw ye home four times in the fortnight?"

'"Yes," sez she, but her mouth was down at the
corners. "An' — an' what's that to you?" she sez.

'"Ask Dempsey," sez I, purtendin' to go away.

'"Did you fight for me then, ye silly man?" she sez,
tho' she knew ut all along.

'"Who else?" sez I, an' I tuk wan pace to the front.

'"I wasn't worth ut," sez she, fingerin' in her apron.

'"That's for me to say," sez I. "Shall I say ut?"

'"Yes," sez she in a saint's whisper, an' at that I
explained mesilf; and she tould me what ivry man that
is a man, an' many that is a woman, hears wanst in his
Hfe.

'"But what made ye cry at startin', Dinah, darlin'?"
sez I.

'"Your — your bloody cheek," sez she, duckin' her
little head down on my sash (I was on duty for the day)
an' whimperin' like a sorrowful angil.

'Now a man cud take that two ways. I tuk ut as
pleased me best an' my first kiss wid ut. Mother av
Innocence! but I kissed her on the tip av the nose an'
undher the eye; an' a girl that let's a kiss come tumble-
ways like that has never been kissed before. Take note
av that, sorr. Thin we wint hand in hand to ould Mother
Shadd like two little childher, an' she said 'twas no bad
thing, an' ould Shadd nodded beliind his pipe, an' Dinah
ran away to her own room. That day I throd on rollin'

T34 LIFE'S HANDICAP

clouds. All earth was too small to hould me. Begad, I
cud ha* hiked the sun out av the sky for a live coal
to my pipe, so magnificent I was. But I tuk recruities
at squad-drill instid, an' began wid general battalion
advance whin I shud ha' been balance-steppin' them.
Eyah! that day! that day!'

A very long pause. 'Well?' said I.

* 'Twas all wrong,' said Mulvaney, with an enormous
sigh. *An' I know that ev'ry bit av ut was my own
foolishness. That night I tuk maybe the half av three
pints — not enough to turn the hair of a man in his
natural senses. But I was more than half drunk wid pure
joy, an' that canteen beer was so much whisky to me. I
can't tell how it came about, but bekaze I had no thought
for anywan except Dinah, bekaze I hadn't slipped her
little white arms from my neck five minuts, bekaze the
breath of her kiss was not gone from my mouth, I must
go through the married lines on my way to quarters an'
I must stay tall^in' to a red-headed Mullingar heifer av a
girl, Judy Sheehy, that was daughter to Mother Sheehy,
the wife of Nick Sheehy, the canteen-sergint — the Black
Curse av Shielygh be on the v/hole brood that are above
groun' this day!

'''An' what are ye houldin' your head that high for,
corp'ril?" sez Judy. "Come in an' thry a cup av tay,'*
she sez, standin' in the doorway. Bein' an ontrustable
fool, an' thinkin' av anything but tay, I wint.

'"Mother's at canteen," sez Judy, smoothin' the hair
av hers that was like red snakes, an' lookin' at me corner-
ways out av her green cats' eyes. " Ye will not mind,
corp'ril?"

'"I can endure," sez I; ould Mother Sheehy bein' no
divarsion av mine, nor her daughter too. Judy fetched
the tea things an' put thim on the tablcj leanin' over me

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHABD 13S

very close to get thim square. I dhrew back, thinkin'
av Dinah.

'"Is ut afraid you are av a girl alone?" sez Judy.

'''No," sez I. "Why should I be?"

'"That rests wid the girl," sez Judy, dhrawin' her
chair next to mine.

'"Thin there let ut rest," sez I; an' thinkin' I'd been
a triiSe onpolite, I sez, "The tay's not quite sweet enough
for my taste. Put your httle finger in the cup, Judy.
'Twill make ut necthar."

'"What's necthar?" sez she.

"'Somethin' very sweet," sez I; an' for the sinful life
av me I cud not help lookin' at her out av the comer av
my eye, as I was used to look at a woman.

'"Go on wid ye, corp'ril," sez she. "You're a flirrt."

'"On me sowl I'm not," sez I.

'"Then you're a cruel handsome man, an' that's
worse," sez she, heaving big sighs an' lookin' crossways.

'"You know your own mind," sez I.

'" 'Twud be better for me if I did not," she sez.

'"There's a dale to be said on both sides av that," sez
I, unthinkin'.

'"Say your own part av ut, then, Terence, darlin',"
sez she; "for begad I'm thinkin' I've said too much or
too Httle for an honest girl," an' wid that she put her
arms round my neck an' kissed me.

'"There's no more to be said afther that," sez I, kissin'
her back again— Oh the mane scutt that I was, my head
ringin' wid Dinah Shadd! How does ut come about,
sorr, that when a man has put the comether on wan wo-
man, he's sure bound to put it on another? 'Tis the
same thing at musketry. Wan day ivry shot goes wide
or into the bank, an' the next, lay high lay low, sight or
snap, ye can't get off the bull's-eye for ten shots rumiin'.'

136 LIFE'S ilANDICAl*

'That only happens to a man who has had a good
deal of experience. He does it without thinking/ I
replied.

'Thankin' you for the complimint, sorr, ut may be so.
But I'm doubtful whether you mint ut for a complimint.
Hear now; I sat there wid Judy on my knee tellin' me
all manner av nonsinse an' only sa>in' ''yes" an' "no,"
when I'd much better ha' kept tongue betune teeth. An'
that was not an hour afther I had left Dinah! What I
was thinkin' av I cannot say. Presintly, quiet as a cat,
ould Mother Sheehy came in velvet-dhrunk. She had
her daughter's red hair, but 'twas bald in patches, an' I
cud see in her wicked ould face, clear as lightnin', what
Judy wud be twenty years to come. I was for jumpin'
up, but Judy niver moved.

' ''Terence has promust, mother/' sez she, an' the couW
sweat bruk out all over me. Ould Mother Sheehy sat
down of a heap an' began playin' wid the cups. "Thin
you're a well-miatched pair," she sez very thick. "For
he's the biggest rogue that iver spoiled the queen's shoe-
leather" an'— -

' "I'm off, Judy," sez I. "Ye should not talk nonsinse
to your mother. Get her to bed, girl."

'"Nonsinse!" sez the ould woman, prickin' up her
ears like a cat an' grippin' the table-edge. " 'Twill be
the most nonsinsical nonsinse for you, ye grinnin' badger,
if nonsinse 'tis. Git clear, you. I'm goin' to bed."

'I ran out into the dhark, my head in a stew an' rny
heart sick, but I had sinse enough to see that I'd brought
ut all on mysilf. "It's this to pass the time av day to a
panjandhrum av hell-cats," sez I. "What I've said, an'*
what I've not said do not matther. Judy an' her dam
will hould me for a promust man, an' Dinah will give me
the go, an' I desarve ut. I will ^o an' get dhrunk," sez I,

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 137

"an' forget about ut, for 'tis plain I'm not a marrin'
man."

' On my way to canteen I ran against Lascelles, colour-
sergint that was av E Comp'ny, a hard, hard man, wid
a torment av a wife. "You've the head av a drowned
man on your shoulders," sez he; "an' you're goin' where
you'll get a worse wan. Come back," sez he. "Let me
go," sez I. "I've thrown my luck over the wall wid
my own hand!" — "Then that's not the way to get ut
back again," sez he. "Have out wid your throuble, ye
fool-bhoy." An' I tould him how the matther was.

'He sucked in his lower lip. "You've been thrapped,"
sez he. "Ju Sheehy wud be the betther for a man's
name to hers as soon as can. An' ye thought ye'd put
the comether on her, — that's the natural vanity of the
baste. Terence, you're a big born fool, but you're not
bad enough to marry into that comp'ny. If you said
any thin', an' for all your protestations I'm sure ye did — ■
or did not, which is worse, — eat ut all — lie like the father
of all lies, but come out av ut free av Judy. Do I not
know what ut is to marry a woman that was the very
spit an' image av Judy whin she was young? I'm
gettin' old an' I've larnt patience, but you, Terence,
you'd raise hand on Judy an' Idll her in a year. Never
mind if Dinah gives you the go, you've desarved ut;
never mind if the whole reg'mint laughs you all day.
Get shut av Judy an' her mother. They can't dhrag
you to church, but if they do, they'll dhrag you to
hell. Go back to your quarters and lie down," sez he.
Thin over his shoulder, "You must ha' done with thim."

'Next day I wint to see Dinah, but there was no
tucker in me as I walked. I knew the throuble wud
come soon enough widout any handlin' av mine, an'
I dreaded ut sore.

138 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'I heard Judy callin* me, but I hild straight on to
the Shadds' quarthers, an' Dinah wud ha' kissed me but
I put her back.

'*'WMn all's said, darlin'," sez I, ''you can give ut me
if ye will, tho' I misdoubt 'twill be so easy to come by
then/'

' I had scarce begun to put the explanation into shape
before Judy an' her mother came to the door. I think
there was a verandah, but I'm forget tin'.

'''Will ye not step in?" sez Dinah, pretty and polite,
though the Shadds had no deahn's with the Sheehys.
Ould Mother Shadd looked up quick, an' she was the fust
to see the throuble; for Dinah was her daughter.

'"I'm pressed for time to-day," sez Judy as bould
as brass; "an' I've only come for Terence, — ^my promust
man. 'Tis strange to find him here the day afther the
day."

'Dinah looked at me as though I had hit her, an' I
answered straight.

'"There was some nonsinse last night at the Sheehys'
quarthers, an' Judy's carryin' on the joke, darhn',"
sez I.

'"At the Sheehys' quarthers?" sez Dinah very slow,
an' Judy cut in wid: "He was there from nine till ten,
Dinah Shadd, an' the betther half av that time I was
sittin' on his knee, Dinah Shadd. Ye may look and ye
may look an' ye may look me up an' down, but ye won't
look away that Terence is my promust man. Terence,
darlin', 'tis time for us to be comin' home."

'Dinah Shadd niver said word to Judy. "Ye left me
at half -past eight," she sez to me, "an I niver thought
that ye'd leave me for Judy, — promises or no promises.
Go back wid her, you that have to be fetched by a girl!
I'm done with you," sez she, and she ran into her own

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 139

room, her mother followin*. So I was alone wid those
two women and at liberty to spake my sentiments.

'"Judy Sheehy," sez I, '*if you made a fool av me
betune the lights you shall not do ut in the day. I
niver promised you words or lines."

'"You He," sez ould Mother Sheehy, "an' may ut
choke you where you stand!" She was far gone in
dhrink.

' "An' tho' ut choked me where I stud I'd not change,"
sez I. ''Go home, Judy. I take shame for a decent
girl like you dhraggin' your mother out bare-headed on
this errand. Hear now, and have ut for an answer. I
gave my word to Dinah Shadd yesterday, an', more
blame to me, I was wid you last night talkin' nonsinse
but nothin' more. You've chosen to thry to hould me
on ut. I will not be held thereby for anythin' in the
world. Is that enough? "

'Judy wint pink all over. "An' I wish you joy av
the perjury," sez she, duckin' a curtsey. "You've lost a
woman that would ha' wore her hand to the bone for
your pleasure; an' 'deed, Terence, ye were not thrapped.
. . ." Lascelles must ha' spoken plain to her. "I
am such as Dinah is — 'deed I ami Ye've lost a fool av
a girl that'll niver look at you again, an' ye've lost what
he niver had, — your common honesty. If you manage
your men as you manage your love-makin', small won-
dher they call you the worst corp'ril in the comp'ny.
Come away, mother," sez she.

' But divil a fut would the ould woman budge ! " D'you
hould by that?" sez she, peerin' up under her thick gray
eyebrows.

'"Ay, an' wud," sez I, "tho' Dinah give me the go
twinty times. I'll have no thruck with you or yours,"
sez I. " Take your child away, ye shameless woman."

140 LIFE'S HANDICAP

**'An' am I shameless?" sez she, bringin' her hands
up above her head. "Thin what are you, ye lyin',
schamin', weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son av a sutler?
Am / shameless? Who put the open shame on me
an' my child that we shud go beggin' through the lines
in the broad daylight for the broken word of a man?
Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence Mul-
vaney, that think yourself so strong! By Mary and
the saints, by blood and water an' by ivry sorrow that
came into the world since the beginnin', the black blight
fall on you and yours, so that you may niver be free
from pain for another when ut's not your own! May
your heart bleed in your breast drop by drop wid all
your friends laughin' at the bleedin' ! Strong you think
yourself? May your strength be a curse to you to
dhrive you into the divil's hands against your own will !
Clear-eyed you are? May your eyes see clear ivry step
av the dark path you take till the hot cindhers av hell
put thim out! May the ragin' dry thirst in my own ould
bones go to you that you shall niver pass bottle full nor
glass empty. God preserve the light av your onder-
standin' to you, my jewel av a bhoy, that ye may niver
forget what you mint to be an' do, whin you're wallowin'
in the muck! May ye see the betther and follow the
worse as long as there's breath in your body; an' may
ye die quick in a strange land, watchin' your death
before ut takes you, an' onable to stir hand or foot!"

*I heard a scuflSin' in the room behind, and thin
Dinah Shadd's hand dhropped into mine like a rose-
leaf into a muddy road.

'"The half av that I'll take," sez she, "an' more too if
I can. Go home, ye silly talkin' woman, — go home an'
confess."

'"Come away! Come away!" sez Judy, pullin' her

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD t4t

mother by the shawl. " Twas none av Terence^s fault.
For the love av Mary stop the talkin'!''

**'An' you!" said ould Mother Sheehy, spinnin' round
forninst Dinah. "Will ye take the half av that man's
load? Stand off from him, Dinah Shadd, before he takes
you down too — you that look to be a quarther-master-
sergeant's wife in five years. You look too high, child.
You shall wash for the quarther-master-sergeant, whin he
plases to give you the job out av charity; but a privit's
wife you shall be to the end, an' ivry sorrow of a privit's
wife you shall know and niver a joy but wan, that shall
go from you like the running tide from a rock. The pain
av bearin' you shall know but niver the pleasure av
giving the breast; an' you shall put away a man-child
into the common ground wid niver a priest to say a
prayer over him, an' on that man-child ye shall think
ivry day av your life. Think long, Dinah Shadd, for
you'll niver have another tho' you pray till your knees
are bleedin'. The mothers av childher shall mock you
behind your back when you're wringfaig over the wash-
tub. You shall know what ut is to help a dhrunken
husband home an' see him go to the gyard-room. WiD
that plase you, Dinah Shadd, that won't be seen talkin'
to my daughter? You shall talk to worse than Judy
before all's over. The sergints' wives shall look down on
you contemptuous, daughter av a sergint, an' you shall
cover ut all up wid a smiling face when your heart's
burstin'. Stand off av him, Dinah Shadd, for I've put
the Black Curse of Shielygh upon him an' his own mouth
shall make ut good."

' She pitched forward on her head an' began foamin' at
the mouth. Dinah Shadd ran out wid water, an' Judy
dhragged the ould woman into the verandah till she sat
up.

142 LIFE'S HANDICAP

*"I'm old an' forlore," she sez, thremblin' an' cryin',
"and 'tis like I say a dale more than I mane."

'"When you're able to walk, — go," says ould Mother
Shadd. "This house has no place for the likes av you
that have cursed my daughter."

'"Eyah!" said the ould woman. "Hard words
break no bones, an' Dinah Shadd '11 kape the love
av her husband till my bones are green corn. Judy
darUn', I misremember what I came here for. Can
you lend us the bottom av a taycup av tay, Mrs. Shadd? "

'But Judy dhragged her off cryin' as tho' her heart
wud break. An' Dinah Shadd an' I, in ten minutes we
had forgot ut all.'

'Then why do you remember it now?' said I.

'Is ut lilve I'd forget? Ivry word that wicked ould
woman spoke fell thrue in my Hfe aftherwards, an' I cud
ha' stud ut all— stud ut all— excipt when my Httle Shadd
was born. That was on the line av march three months
afther the regiment was taken with cholera. We were
betune Umballa an' Kalka thin, an' I was on picket.
Whin I came off duty the women showed me the child,
an' ut turned on uts side an' died as I looked. We
buried hun by the road, an' Father Victor was a day's
march behind wid the heavy baggage, so the comp'ny
captain read a prayer. An' since dien I've been a
childless man, an' all else that ould Mother Sheehy put
upon me an' Dinah Shadd. W^at do you think, sorr? '

I thought a good deal, but it seemed better then to
reach out for Mulvaney's hand. The demonstration
nearly cost me the use of three fingers. Whatever he
knows of his weaknesses, Mulvaney is entirely igno-
rant of his strength.

'But what do you think?' he repeated, as I was
straightening out the crushed fingers.

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 143

My reply was drowned in yells and outcries from
the next fire, where ten men were shouting for 'Orth'ris,'
'Privit Orth'ris/ 'Mistah Or— ther— ris ! ' 'Deah boy,'
Xap'n Orth'ris/ Tield-Marshal Orth'ris/ 'Stanley, you
pen 'north o' pop, come 'ere to your own comp'ny ! ' And
the cockney, who had been delighting another audience
with recondite and Rabelaisian yarns, was shot down
among his admirers by the major force.

'You've crumpled my dress-shirt 'orrid,' said he, ^an*
I shan't sing no more to this 'ere bloomin' drawin'-room_.'

Learoyd, roused by the confusion, uncoiled himself,
crept behind Ortheris, and slung him aloft on his shoul-
ders.

'Sing, ye bloomin' hummin' bird!' said he, and
Ortheris, beating time on Learoyd 's skull, deKvered
himself, in the raucous voice of the Ratcliffe Highway, of
this song: —

My girl she give me the go onst,

When I was a London lad,
An' I went on the drink for a fortnight,

An' then I went to the bad.
The Queen she give me a shillin'

To fight for 'er over the seas;
But Guv'ment built me a fever-trap,

An' Injia give me disease.

Chorus.
Ho! don't you 'eed what a girl says,

An' don't you go for the beer;
But I was an ass when I was at grass,

An' that is why I'm 'ere.

I fired a shot at a Afghan,

The beggar 'e fired again,
An' I lay on my bed with a 'ole in my 'cd;

An' missed the next campaign!

144 LIFE'S HANDICAP

I up with my gun at a Burman

Who carried a bloomin' dah,
But the cartridge stuck and the bay'nit bruk,

An' all I got was the scar.

Chorus.
Ho! don't you aim at a Afghan

When you stand on the sky-line clear;
An' don't you go for a Burman

If none o' your friends is near.

I served my time for a corp'ral,

An' wetted my stripes with pop,
For I went on the bend with a intimate friend

An' finished the night in the 'shop.'
I served my time for a sergeant;

Thecolonel'esez'No!
The most you'll see is a full C. B.'*

An' , . . very next night 'tw»s so.

Chorus.
Ho! don't you go for a corp'ral

Unless your 'ed is clear;
But I was an ass when I was at grass,

An' that is why I'm 'ere.

I've tasted the luck o' the army

In barrack an' camp an' clink,
An' I lost my tip through the bloomin' trip

Along o' the women an' drink.
I'm down at the heel o' my service

An' when I am laid on the shelf,
' M}'- very wust friend from beginning to end

By the blood of a mouse was myself!

Chorus.
Ho! don't you 'eed what a girl says,

An' don't you go for the beer;
But I was an ass when I was at grass

An' that is why I'm 'ere.

^ Confined to barracks.

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 145

'Ay, listen to our little man now, singin' an' shoutin*
as tho' trouble had niver touched him. D'you remember
when he went mad with the home-sickness?' said Mul-
vaney, recalling a never-to-be-forgotten season when
Ortheris waded through the deep waters of afHiction and
behaved abominably. 'But he's talkin' bitter truth,
though. Eyah!

'My very worst frind from beginnin' to ind
By the blood av a mouse was mesilf ! '

When I woke I saw Mulvaney, the night-dew gem-
ming his moustache, leaning on his rifle at picket, lonely
as Prometheus on his rock, with I know not what vultures
tearing his liver.

ON GREENHOW HILL

To Love's low voice she lent a careless ear;

Her hand within his rosy fingers lay,

A chilling weight. She would not turn or hear;

But with averted face went on her way.

But when pale Death, all featureless and grim,

Lifted his bony hand, and beckoning

Held out his c>'press- wreath, she followed bin,

And Love was left forlorn and wondering,

That she who for his bidding would not stay,

At Death's first whisper rose and went away.

Rivals.

' Ore , A hmed Din I Shafiz Ullah alwo ! Bahadur Khan,
where are you? Come out of the tents, as I have done,
and fight against the English. Don't kill your own kinl
Come out to me ! '

The deserter from a native corps was crawling round
the outskirts of the camp, firing at intervals, and shout-
ing invitations to his old comrades. Misled by the rain
and the darkness, he came to the EngHsh wing of the
camp, and with his yelping and rifle-practice disturbed
the men. They had been making roads all day, and
were tired.

Ortheris was sleeping at Learoyd's feet. 'Wot's all
that?' he said thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider
bullet ripped its way through the tent wall. The men
swore. 'It's that bloomin' deserter from the Auranga-
badis,' said Ortheris. 'Git up, some one, an' tell 'im
'e's come to the wrong shop.'

146

ON GREENHOW HILL 147

'Go to sleep, little man/ said Mulvaney, who was
steaming nearest the door. ' I can't arise an' expaytiate
with him. 'Tis rainin' entrenchin' tools outside.'

' 'Tain't because you bloomin' can't. It's 'cause you
bloomin' won't, ye long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar, you.
'Arkto'im 'owHnM'

'Wot's the good of argifying? Put a bullet into the
swine! 'E's keepin' us awake!' said another voice.

A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry
whined from the darkness —

* 'Tain't no good, sir. I can't see 'im. 'E's 'idin'
somewhere down 'ill.'

Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. 'Shall I try to
get 'im, sir?' said he.

*No,' was the answer. 'Lie down. I won't have the
whole camp shooting all round the clock. Tell him to go
and pot his friends.'

Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his
head under the tent wall, he called, as a 'bus conductor
calls in a block, ' Tgher up, there! 'Igher up!'

The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down
wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a
mistake, went off to worry his ovm regiment half a mile
away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis
were very angry with him for disgracing their colours.

'An' that's all right,' said Ortheris, withdrawing his
head as he heard the hiccough of the Sniders in the dis-
tance. 'S'elp me Gawd, tho', that man's not fit to live
— messin' with my beauty-sleep this way.'

'Go out and shoot him in the morning, then,' said
the subaltern incautiously. 'Silence in the tents now.
Get your rest, men.'

Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in
two minutes there was no sound excppt the rain on the

148 LIFE'S HANDICAP

canvas and the all-embracing and elemental snoring of
Learoyd.

The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and
for a week had been waiting for a flying colmnn to make
connection. The nightly rounds of the deserter and his
friends had become a nuisance.

In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sun-
shine and cleaned their grimy accoutrements. The
native regiment was to take its turn of road-making that
day while the Old Regiment loafed.

'I'm goin' to lay for a shot at that man/ said Ortheris,
w^hen he had finished washing out his rifle. ' 'E comes
up the watercourse every evenin' about five o'clock. If
we go and lie out on the north 'ill a bit this afternoon we'll
get 'im.'

'You're a bloodthirsty little mosquito/ said Mulvaney,
blowing blue clouds into the air. 'But I suppose I will
have to come wid you. Fwhere's Jock? '

'Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, 'cause 'e thinks
'isself a bloomin' marksman,' said Ortheris with scorn.

The 'iMixed Pickles' were a detachment of picked
shots, generally employed in clearing spurs of hills when
the enemy were too impertinent. This taught the young
officers how to handle men, and did not do the enemy
much harm. Mulvaney and Ortheris strolled out of
camp, and passed the Aurangabadis going to their road-
making.

'You've got to sweat to-day,' said Ortheris genially.
'We're going to get your man. You didn't knock 'im
out last night by any chance, any of you? '

'No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one
shot at him,' said a private. 'He's my cousin, and /
ought to have cleared our dishonour. But good luck to
you.'

ON GREENHOW HILL 149

They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris
leading, because, as he explained, 'this is a long-range
show, an^ I've got to do it.' His was an almost pas-
sionate devotion to his rifle, wliich, by barrack-room
report, he was supposed to kiss every night before turn-
ing in. Charges and scuffles he held in contempt, and,
when they were inevitable, shpped between Mulvaney
and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for his skin as well
as their own. They never failed him. He trotted along,
questing like a hound on a broken trail, through the
wood of the north hill. At last he was satisfied, and
threw himself down on the soft pine-needled slope that
commanded a clear view of the watercourse and a brown ,
bare hillside beyond it. The trees made a scented dark-
ness in which an army corps could have hidden from the
sun-glare without.

' 'Ere's the tail o' the wood,' said Ortheris. ' 'E's eot
to come up the watercourse, 'cause it gives 'im cover.
We'll lay 'ere. 'Tain't not arf so bloomin' dusty
neither.'

He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white
violets. No one had come to tell the flowers that the
season of their strength was long past, and they had
bloomed merrily in the twilight of the pines.

'This is something like,* he said luxuriously. *Wot
a 'evinly clear drop for a bullet acrost! How much d'you
make it, Mulvaney? '

'Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekaze the air's
so thin.'

Wop! wop! wop! went a volley of musketry on the
rear face of the north hill.

'Curse them Mixed Pickles firin' at nothin'! They'll
scare arf the country,'

*Thry a sigh tin' shot in the middle of the row,' said

150 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Mulvaney, the man of many wiles. 'There's a red rock
yonder he'll be sure to pass. Quick ! '

Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and
fired. The bullet threw up a feather of dust by a clump
of gentians at the base of the rock.

' Good enough!' said Ortheris, snapping the scale down.
'You snick your sights to mine or a Httle lower. You're
always firin' high. But remember, first shot to me.
O Lordy! but it's a lovely afternoon.'

The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a
tramping of men in the wood. The two lay very quiet,
for they knew that the British soldier is desperately
prone to fire at anything that moves or calls. Then
Learoyd appeared, his tunic ripped across the breast by
a bullet, looking ashamed of himself. He flung down on
the pine-needles, breathing in snorts.

'One o' them damned gardeners o' th' Pickles,' said
he, fingering the rent. 'Firin' to th' right flank, when
he knowed I was there. If I knew who he was I'd 'a'
rippen the hide offan him. Look at ma tunic ! '

' That's the spishil trustability av a marksman. Train
him to hit a fly wid a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an'
he loose on any thin' he sees or hears up to th' mile.
You're well out av that fancy-firin' gang, Jock. Stay
here.'

'Bin firin' at the bloomin' wind in the bloomin' tree-
tops,' said Ortheris with a chuckle. 'I'll show you some
firin' later on.'

They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun warmed
them where they lay. The Mixed Pickles ceased firing,
and returned to camp, and left the wood to a few scared
apes. The watercourse lifted up its voice in the silence,
and talked foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the
dull thump of a blasting charge three miles away told

ON GREENHOW HILL I5i

that the Aurangabadis were in difficulties with their
road-making. The men smiled as they listened and lay
still, soaking in the warm leisure. Presently Learoyd,
between the whiffs of his pipe —

'Seems queer — about 'im yonder — desertin' at all.'

^ 'E'U be a bloomin' side queerer when I've done with
'im,' said Ortheris. They were talking in whispers, for
the stillness of the wood and the desire of slaughter lay
heavy upon them.

'I make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin';
but, my faith! I make less doubt ivry man has good
reason for killin' him,' said Mulvaney.

'Happen there was a lass tewed up m' it. Men do
more than more for th' sake of a lass.'

'They make most av us 'list. They've no manner av
right to make us desert.'

'Ah; they make us 'list, or their fathers do,' said
Learoyd softly, his helmet over his eyes.

Ortheris's brows contracted savagely. He was watch-
ing the valley. ' If it's a girl I'll shoot the beggar twice
over, an' second time for bein' a fool. You're blasted
sentimental all of a sudden. Thinkin' o' your last near
shave? '

'Nay, lad; ah was but thinkin' o' what had hap-
pened.'

'An' fwhat has happened, ye lumberin' child av
calamity, that you're lowing like a cow-calf at the back
av the pasture, an' suggestin' invidious excuses for the
man Stanley's goin' to kill. Ye'll have to wait another
hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an' bellow
melojus to the moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet
graze to fetch aught out av you. Discourse, Don Juan!
The a-moors av Lotharius Learoyd! Stanley, kape a
rowlin' rig'mental eye on the valley.'

1^ LIFE'S HANDICAP

'It's along o' yon hill there/ said Learoyd, watching
the bare sub-Himalayan spur that reminded him of his
Yorkshire moors. He was speaking more to himself
than his fellows. 'Ay/ said he, 'Rumbolds Moor stands
up ower Skip ton town, an' Greenhow Hill stands up
ower Pately Brig. I reckon you've never heeard tell o'
Greenhow Hill, but yon bit o' bare stuff if there was
nobbut a white road windin' is Uke ut; strangely like.
Moors an' moors an' moors, wi' never a tree for shelter,
an' gray houses wi' flagstone rooves, and pewits cryin',
an' a windhover goin' to and fro just Hke these kites.
And cold ! A wind that cuts you Hke a knife. You could
tell Greenhow Hill folk by the red-apple colour o' their
cheeks an ' nose tips, and their blue eyes, driven into pin-
points by the wind. Miners mostly, burro win' for lead
i' th' hillsides, followin' the trail of th' ore vein same as a
field-rat. It was the roughest minin' I ever seen. Yo'd
come on a bit o' creakin' wood windlass like a well-head,
an' you was let down i' th' bight of a rope, fendin' yoursen
off the side wi' one hand, carryin' a candle stuck in a
Lamp o' clay with t'other, an' clickin' hold of a rope with
t'other hand.'

'An' that's three of them,' said Mulvaney. 'Must be
a good cHmate in those parts.'

Learoyd took no heed.

'An' then yo' came to a level, where you crept on
your hands and knees through a mile o' windin' drift, an'
you come out into a cave-place as big as Leeds Town-
hall, with a engine pumpin' water from workin's 'at went
deeper still. It's a queer country, let alone mining for
the hill is full of those natural caves, an' the rivers an'
the becks drops into what they call pot-holes, an' come
out again miles away.'

'Wot was you doin' there?' said Ortheris.

ON GREENHOW HILL igg

'I was a young chap then, an' mostly went wi' 'osses,
leadin' coal and lead ore; but at th' time I'm tellin' on I
was drivin' the waggon-team i' th' big sumph. I didn't
belong to that country-side by rights. I went there
because' of a little difference at home, an' at fust I took
up wi' a rough lot. One night we'd been drinkin', an' I
must ha' hed more than I could stand, or happen th' ale
was none so good. Though i' them days, By for God, I
never seed bad ale.' He flung his arms over his head, and
gripped a vast handful of white violets. 'Nah,' said
he, 'I never seed the ale I could not drink, the bacca I
could not smoke, nor the lass I could not kiss. Well,
we mun have a race home, the lot on us. I lost all th'
others, an' when I was climbin' ower one of them walls
built o' loose stones, I comes down into the ditch, stones!
and all, an' broke my arm. Not as I knawed much about
it, for I fell on th' back of my head, an' was knocked
stupid like. An' when I come to my sen it were mornin',
an' I were lyin' on the settle i' Jesse Roantree's house-
place, an' 'Liza Roan tree was settin' sewin'. I ached all
ower, and my mouth were like a lime-kiln. She gave
me a drink out of a china mug wi' gold letters — ^' A Pres-
ent from Leeds" — as I looked at many and many a time
at after. '' Yo're to lie still while Dr. Warbottom comes,
because your arm's broken, and father has sent a lad to
fetch him. He found yo' when he w\as goin' to work,
an' carried you here on his back," sez she. ''Oa!" sez
I; an' I shet my eyes, for I felt ashamed o' mysen.
''Father's gone to his work these three hours, an' he
said he'd tell 'em to get somebody to drive the tram."
The clock ticked, an' a bee comed in the house, an' they
rung i' my head like mill-wheels. An' she give me
another drink an' settled the pillow. ''Eh, but yo're
young to be getten drunk an' such like, but yo' won't do

154 LIFE'S HANDICAP

it again, will yo'?"— ''Noa/' sez I, ''I wouldn't if she'd
not but stop they mill-wheels clatterin'.'"

'Faith, it's a good thing to be nursed by a woman
when you're sick!' said Mulvaney. 'Dir' cheap at the
price av tv/enty broken heads.'

Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had
not been nursed by many women in his life.

'An' then Dr. Warbottom comes ridin' up, an' Jesse
Roantree along with 'im. He was a high-lamed doctor,
but he talked wi' poor folk same as theirsens. ''What's
ta big agaate on naa?" he sings out "Brekkin' tha
thick head?" An' he felt me all ower. "That's none
broken. Tha' nobbut knocked a bit sillier than ordi-
nary, an' that's daaft eneaf ." An' soa he went on, callin'
me all the names he could think on, but settin' my arm,
wi' Jesse's help, as careful as could be. "Yo' mun let
the big oaf bide here a bit, Jesse," he says, when he hed
strapped me up an' given me a dose o' physic; "an' you
an' Liza will tend him, though he's scarcelins worth the
trouble. An' tha'll lose tha work," sez he, "an' tha'U be
upon th' Sick Club for a couple o' months an' more.
Doesn't tha think tha's a fool?"'

'But whin was a young man, high or low, the other
av a fool, I'd like to know?' said Mulvaney. 'Sure,
folly's the only safe way to wisdom, for I've thried
it.'

'Wisdom!' grinned Ortheris, scanning his comrades
with uplifted chin. 'You're bloomin' Solomons, you
two, ain't you? '

Learoyd went calmly on, with a steady eye like an ox
chewing the cud.

'And that was how I come to know 'Liza Roantree.
There's some tunes as she used to sing — aw, she were
always singin' — that fetches Greenhow Hill before my

ON GREENHOW HILL 155

eyes as fair as yon brow across there. And she would
learn me to sing bass, an' I was to go to th' chapel wi'
'em where Jesse and she led the singin', th' old man play-
in' the fiddle. He was a strange chap, old Jesse, fair mad
wi' music, an' he made me promise to learn the big fiddle
when my arm was better. It belonged to him, and it
stood up in a big case alongside o' th' eight-day clock, but
Willie Satterthwaite, as played it in the chapel, had getten
deaf as a door-post, and it vexed Jesse, as he had to rap
him ower his head wi' th' fiddle-stick to make him give
ower sawin' at th' right time.

'But there was a black drop in it all, an' it was a man
in a black coat that brought it. When th' Primitive
Methodist preacher came to Greenhow, he would always
stop wi' Jesse Roantree, an' he laid hold of me from th'
beginning. It seemed I wor a soul to be saved, and he
meaned to do it. At th' same time I jealoused 'at he were
keen o' savin' 'Liza Roantree's soul as well, and I could
ha' killed him many a time. An' this went on till one
day I broke out, an' borrowed th' brass for a drink from
'Liza. After fower days I come back, wi' my tail be-
tween my legs, just to see 'Liza again. But Jesse were
at home an' th' preacher — th' Reverend Amos Barra-
clough. 'Liza said naught, but a bit o' red come into
her face as were white of a regular thing. Says Jesse,
tryin' his best to be civil, *' Nay, lad, it's Hke this. You've
getten to choose which way it's goin' to be. I'll ha*
nobody across ma doorstep as goes a-drinkin', an' bor-
rows my lass's money to spend i' their drink. Ho'd
tha tongue, 'Liza," sez he, when she wanted to put in a
word 'at I were welcome to th' brass, and she were none
afraid that I wouldn't pay it back. Then the Reverend
cuts in, seein' as Jesse were losin' his temper, an' they
fair beat me among them. But it were 'Liza, as looked

iS6 LUFE'5 HANDICAP

an' said naught, as did more than either o' their tongues,
an' soa I concluded to get converted.'

*Fwhat?' shouted Mulvaney. Then, checking him-
self, he said softly, 'Let be! Let be! Sure the Blessed
Virgin is the mother of all reHgion an' most women; an'
there's a dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let
ut stay there. I'd ha' been converted myself under the
circumstances.'

'Nay, but,' pursued Learoyd with a blush, *I meaned
it.'

Ortheris laughed as loudly as he dared, having regard
to his business at the time.

*Ay, Ortheris, you may laugh, but you didn't know
yon preacher Barraclough — a Httle white-faced chap, wi'
a voice as 'ud wile a bird off an a bush, and a way o'
layin' hold of folks as made them think they'd never
had a live man for a friend before. You never saw him,
an' — an' — you never seed 'Liza Roantree — never seed
'Liza Roantree. . . . Happen it was as much 'Liza
as th' preacher and her father, but anyways they all
meaned it, an' I was fair shamed o' mysen, an' so I be-
come what they call a changed character. And when I
think on, it's hard to believe as yon chap going to prayer-
meetin's, chapel, and class-meetin's were me. But I
never had naught to say for mysen, though there was a
deal o' shoutin', and old Sammy Strother, as were almost
clemmed to death and doubled up with the rheumatics,
would sing out, ''Joyful! Joyful!" and 'at it were better
to go up to heaven in a coal-basket than dowTi to hell i'
a coach an' six. And he would put his poor old claw on
my shoulder, sayin', "Doesn't tha feel it, tha great lump?
Doesn't tha feel it?" An' sometimes I thought I did,
and then again I thought I didn't, an' how was that?'

'The iverlastin' nature av mankind,' said Mulvaney.

ON GREENHOW HILL 157

*An^ furthermore, I misdoubt you were built for the
Primitive Methodians. They're a new corps anjrways. I
hold by the Ould Church, for she's the mother of them
all — ay, an' the father, too. I like her bekaze she's most
remarkable regimental in her fittings. I may die in
Honolulu, Nova Zambra, or Cape Cayenne, but wherever
I die, me bein' fwhat I am, an' a priest handy, I go under
the same orders an' the same words an' the same unction
as tho' the Pope himself come down from the roof av
St. Peter's to see me off. There's neither high nor low,
nor broad nor deep, nor betwixt nor between wid her, an'
that's what I like. But mark you, she's no manner av
Church for a wake man, bekaze she takes the body and
the soul av him, onless he has his proper work to do. I
remember when my father died that was three months
comin' to his grave; begad he'd ha' sold the shebeen
above our heads for ten minutes' quittance of purgathory.
An' he did all he could. That's why I say. ut takes a
strong man to deal with the Ould Church, an' for that
reason you'll find so many women go there. An' that
same's a conundrum.'

*Wot's the use o' worritin' 'bout these things?' said
Ortheris. ' You're bound to find all out quicker nor you
want to, any'ow.' He jerked the cartridge out of the
breech-block into the palm of his hand. ' 'Ere's my
chaplain,' he said, and made the venomous black-headed
bullet bow like a marionette. ' 'E's goin' to teach a man
all about which is which, an' wot's true, after all, before
sundown. But wot 'appened after that, Jock? '

' There was one thing they boggled at, and almost shut
th' gate i' my face for, and that were my dog Blast, th'
only one saved out o' a Htter o' pups as was blowed up
when a keg o' minin' powder loosed off in th' store-
keeper's hut. They liked his name no better than his

158 LIFE'S HANDICAP

business, which were fightin' every dog he corned across;
a rare good dog, wi' spots o' black and pink on his face,
one ear gone, and lame o' one side wi' being driven in a
basket through an iron roof, a matter of half a mile.

'They said I mun give him up 'cause he were worldly
and low; and would I let mysen be shut out of heaven
for the sake on a dog? "Nay," says I, "if th' door isn't
wide enough for th' pair on us, we'll stop outside, for
we'll none be parted." And th' preacher spoke up for
Blast, as had a Kkin' for him from th' first — I reckon
that was why I come to like th' preacher — and wouldn't
hear o' changin' his name to Bless, as some o' them
wanted. So th' pair on us became reg'lar chapel-
members. But it's hard for a young chap o' my build
to cut traces from the world, th' flesh, an' the devil all
uv a heap. Yet I stuck to it for a long time, while th'
lads as used to stand about th' town-end an' lean ower
th' bridge, spittin' into th' beck o' a Sunday, would call
after me, "Sitha, Learoyd, when's ta bean to preach,
'cause we're comin' to hear tha." — "Ho'd tha jaw. He
hasn't getten th' white choaker on ta morn," another
lad would say, and I had to double my fists hard i' th'
bottom of my Sunday coat, and say to mysen, "If 'twere
Monday and I warn't a member o' the Primitive Metho-
dists, I'd leather all th' lot of yond'." That was th'
hardest of all — to know that I could fight and I mustn't
fight.'

Sympathetic grunts from Mulvaney.

'So what wi' singin', practisin', and class-meetin's, and
th' big fiddle, as he made me take between my knees, I
spent a deal o' time i' Jesse Roantree's house-place. But
often as I was there, th' preacher fared to me to go of tener,
and both th' old man an' th' young woman were pleased
to have him. He lived i' Pately Brig, as were a goodish

ON GREENHOW HILL iS9

step off, but he come. He come all the same. I liked
him as well or better as any man I'd ever seen i' one
way, and yet I hated him wi' all my heart i' t'other, and
we watched each other Hke cat and mouse, but civil as
you please, for I was on my best behaviour, and he was
that fair and open that I was bound to be fair with him.
Rare good company he was, if I hadn't wanted to wring
his cHver Httle neck half of the time. Often and often
when he was goin' from Jesse's I'd set him a bit on
the road.'

'See 'im 'ome, you mean? ' said Ortheris.

'Ay. It's a way we have i' Yorkshire o' seein' friends
off. You was a friend as I didn't want to come back, and
he didn't want me to come back neither, and so we'd
walk together towards Pately, and then he'd set me back
again, and there we'd be wal two o'clock i' the mornin'
settin' each other to an' fro like a blasted pair o' pen-
dulums twLxt hill and valley, long after th' hght had gone
out i' 'Liza's window, as both on us had been looking at,
pretending to watch the moon.'

'Ah!' broke in Mulvaney, 'ye'd no chanst against the
maraudin' psalm-singer. They'll take the airs an' the
graces instid av the man nine times out av ten, an'
they only find the blunder later— the wimmen.'

'That's just where yo're wrong,' said Learoyd, red-
dening under the freckled tan of his cheeks. ' I was th'
first wi' 'Liza, an' yo'd think that were enough. But
th' parson were a steady-gaited sort o' chap, and Jesse
were strong o' his side, and all th' women i' the congre-
gation dinned it to 'Liza 'at she were fair fond to take up
wi' a wastrel ne'er-do-weel like me, as was scarcelins
respectable an' a fighting dog at his heels. It was all
very well for her to be doing me good and saving my
soul, but she must mind as she didn't do herself harm.

i6o LIFE'S HANDICAP

They talk o' rich folk bein' stuck up an' genteel, but for
cast-iron pride o' respectability there's naught like poor
chapel folk. It's as cold as th' wind o' Greenhow Hill-
ay, and colder, for 'twill never change. And now I
come to think on it, one at strangest things I know is 'at
they couldn't abide th' thought o' soldiering. There's a
vast o' fightin' i' th' Bible, and there's a deal of Metho-
dists i' th' army; but to hear chapel folk talk yo'd think
that soldierin' were next door, an' t'other side, to hangin'.
I' their meetin's all their talk is o' fightin' . When Sammy
Strother were stuck for sum mat to say in his prayers,
he'd sing out, *'Th' sword o' th' Lord and o' Gideon."
They were alius at it about puttin' on th' whole armour
o' righteousness, an' fightin' the good fight o' faith. And
then, atop o' 't all, they held a prayer-meetin' ower a
young chap as wanted to 'list, and nearly deafened him,
till he picked up his hat and fair ran away. And they'd
tell tales in th' Sunday-school o' bad lads as had been
thumped and brayed for bird-nesting o' Sundays and
playin' truant o' week-days, and how they took to
wrestlin', dog-fightin', rabbi t-runnin', and drinkin',
till at last, as if 'twere a hepitaph on a gravestone, they
damned him across th' moors wi', "an' then he went and
'listed for a soldier," an' they'd all fetch a deep breath,
and throw up their eyes lilie a hen drinkin'.'

Twhy is ut?' said Mulvaney, bringing down his
hand on his thigh with a crack. 'In the name av God.
fwhy is ut? I've seen ut, tu. They cheat an' they
swindle an' they lie an' they slander, an' fifty things
fifty times worse; but the last an' the worst by their
reckonin' is to serve the Widdy honest. It's like the
talk av childher — seein' things all round.'

'Plucky lot of fightin' good fights of whatsername
they'd do if wc didn't sec tbey had a quJet pla<:e to fight

ON GREENHOW HILL i6i

in. And such fightin' as theirs is! Cats on the tiles.
T'other callin' to which to come on. I'd give a month's
pay to get some o' them broad-backed beggars in London
sweatin' through a day's road-makin' an' a night's rain.
They'd carry on a deal afterv/ards — same as we're sup-
posed to carry on. I've bin turned out of a measly arf-
license pub down Lambeth way, full o' greasy kebmen,
'fore now,' said Ortheris with an oath.

'Maybe you were dhrunk,' said Mulvaney soothingly.

'Worse nor that. The Forders were drunk. I was
wearin' the Queen's uniform.'

'I'd no particular thought to be a soldier i' them
days,' said Learoyd, still keeping his eye on the bare hill
opposite, 'but this sort o' talk put it i' my head. They
was so good, th' chapel folk, that they tumbled ower
t'other side. But I stuck to it for 'Liza's sake, specially
as she was learning me to sing the bass part in a horo-
torio as Jesse were gettin' up. She sung hke a throstle
hersen, and we had practisin's night after night for a
matter of three months.'

'I know what a horotorio is,' said Ortheris pertly.
'It's a sort of chaplain's suig-song— words all out of the
Bible, and hullabaloojah choruses.'

'Most Greenhow Hill folks played some instrument
or t'other, an' they all sung so you might have heard them
miles away, and they were so pleased wi' the noise they
made they didn't fair to want anybody to listen. The
preacher sung high seconds when he wasn't pla\in' the
flute, an' they set me, as hadn't got far with big fiddle,
agam WiUie Satterthwaite, to jog his elbow when he had
to get a' gate playin'. Old Jesse was happy if ever a
man was, for he were th' conductor an' th' first fiddle an'
th' leadin' smger, beatin' time wi' his fiddle-stick, till at
times he'd rap with it on the table, and cry out, "Now,

i62 LIFE'S HANDICAP

you mun all stop; it's my turn." And he'd face round
to his front, fair sweating wd' pride, to sing th' tenor
solos. But he were grandest i' th' choruses, v/aggin' his
head, flinging his arms round like a windmill, and singin'
hisself black in the face. A rare singer were Jesse.

*Yo' see, I was not o' much account wi' 'em all ex-
ceptin' to 'Liza Roantree, and I had a deal o' time settin'
quiet at meetings and horotorio practises to hearken their
talk, and if it were strange to me at beginnin', it got
stranger still at after, when I was shut on it, and could
study what it meaned.

'Just after th' horotorios come off, 'Liza, as had alius
been weakly like, was took very bad. I v/alked Dr.
Warbottom's horse up and down a deal of times while he
were inside, where they wouldn't let me go, though I fair
ached to see her.

''' She'll be better i' noo, lad — better i' noo," he used
to say. "Tha mun ha' patience." Then they said if I
was quiet I might go in, and th' Reverend Amos Barra-
clough used to read to her lyin' propped up among th'
pillows. Then she began to mend a bit, and they let
me carry her on to th' settle, and when it got warm again
she went about same as afore. Th' preacher and me and
Blast was a deal together i' them days, and i' one way
we was rare good comrades. But I could ha' stretched
him time and again with a good will. I mind one da}^
he said he would hke to go down into th' bowels o' th'
earth, and see how th' Lord had builded th' framework o'
th' everlastin' hills. He were one of them chaps as had
a gift o' sayin' things. They rolled off the tip of his
clever tongue, same as Mulvaney here, as would ha' made
a rare good preacher if he had nobbut given his mind
to it. I lent him a suit o' miner's kit as almost buried
th' little man, and his white face down i' th' coat-collar

ON GREENHOW HILL 163

and hat-flap looked like the face of a boggart, and he
cowered down i' th' bottom o' the waggon. I was drivin'
a tram as led up a bit of an incline up to th' cave where
the engine was pumpin', and where th' ore was brought
up and put into th' waggons as went down o' themselves,
me puttin' th' brake on and th' horses a-trottin' after.
Long as it was daylight we were good friends, but when
we got fair into th' dark, and could nobbut see th' day
shinin' at the hole like a lamp at a street-end, I feeled
downright wicked. Ma religion dropped all away from
me when I looked back at him as were always comin'
between me and 'Liza. The talk was 'at they were to be
wed when she got better, an' I couldn't get her to say
yes or nay to it. He began to sing a hymn in his thin
voice, and I came out wi' a chorus that was all cussin'
an' swearin' at my horses, an' I began to know how I
hated him. He were such a little chap, too. I could
drop him wi' one hand down Garstang's Copper-hole —
a place where th' beck slithered ower th' edge on a rock,
and fell wi' a bit of a whisper into a pit as no rope i'
Greenhow could plump.'

Again Learoyd rooted up the innocent violets. *Ay,
he should see th' bowels o' th' earth an' never naught
else. I could take him a mile or two along th' drift, and
leave him wi' his candle doused to cry hallelujah, wi'
none to hear him and say amen. I was to lead him
down th' ladder-way to th' drift where Jesse Roantree
was workin', and why shouldn't he sHp on th' ladder, wi'
my feet on his fingers till they loosed grip, and I put him
down wi' my heel? If I went fust down th' ladder I
could click hold on him and chuck him over my head,
so as he should go squshin' down the shaft, breakin' his
bones at ev'ry timberin' as Bill Appleton did when he was
fresh, and hadn't a bone left when he wrought to th'

i64 LIFE'S HANDICAP

bottom. Niver a blasted leg to walk from Pately. Niver
an arm to put round 'Liza Roantree's waist. Niver no
more — niver no more.'

The thick lips curled back over the yellow teeth, and
that flushed face was not pretty to look upon. Mulvaney
nodded sympathy, and Ortheris, moved by his comrade's
passion, brought up the rifle to his shoulder, and searched
the hillside for his quarry, muttering ribaldry about a
sparrow, a spout, and a thunder-storm. The voice of
the watercourse supplied the necessary small talk till
Learoyd picked up his story.

'But it's none so easy to kiU a man like yon. When
I'd given up my horses to th' lad as took my place
and I was showin' th' preacher th' workin's, shoutin'
into his ear across th' clang o' th' pumphi' engines, I saw
he were afraid o' naught; and when the lampHght showed
his black eyes, I could feel as he was masterin' me again.
I were no better nor Blast chained up short and growlin'
i' the depths of him while a strange dog went safe past.

'"'Th'art a coward and a fool," I said to mysen; an'
I wrestled i' my mind again' him till, when we come to
Garstang's Copper-hole, I laid hold o' the preacher and
lifted him up over my head and held him into the darkest
on it. ''Now, lad," Isays "it's to be one or t'other on
us — thee or me — for 'Liza Roantree. Why, isn't thee
afraid for thysen?" I says, for he were still i' my arms as
a sack. "Nay; I'm but afraid for thee, my poor lad, as
knows naught," says he. I set him down on th' edge,
an' th' beck run stifler, an' there was no more buzzin'
in my head like when th' bee come through th' window
o' Jesse's house. "What dost tha mean? " says I.

*"I've often thought as thou ought to know," says he,
"but 'twas hard to tell thee. 'Liza Roantree's for nei-
ther on us, nor for nobody o' this earth. Dr. Warbottom

ON GREENHOW HILL 165

says — and he knows her, and her mother before her — ■
that she is in a decline, and she cannot Hve sLx months
longer. He's known it for many a day. Steady, John!
Steady !'' says he. And that weak little man pulled
me further back and set me again' him, and talked it all
over quiet and still, me tumin' a bunch o' candles in my
hand, and counting them ower and ower again as I Hs-
tened. A deal on it were th' regular preachin' talk, but
there were a vast lot as made me begin to think as he
were more of a m'an than I'd ever given him credit for,
till I were cut as deep for him as I were for mysen.

*Six candles wx had, and we crawled and dimbed aU
that day while they lasted, and I said to mysen, " Xiza
Roan tree hasn't six months to Uve." And when we came
into th' daylight again we were like dead men to look at,
an' Blast come behind us without so much as waggin' his
tail. When I saw 'Liza again she looked at me a minute
and says, *^ Who's telledtha? For I see tha knows." And
she tried to smile as she kissed me, and I fair broke down.

^Yo' see, I was a young chap i' them days, and had
seen naught o' hfe, let alone death, as is alius a-waitin'.
She telled me as Dr. Warbottom said as Greenhow air
was too keen, and they were goin' to Bradford, to Jesse's
brother David, as worked i' a mill, and I mun hold up
like a man and a Christian, and she'd pray for me. Well,
and they went away, and the preacher that same back
end o' th' year were appointed to another circuit, as they
call it, and I were left alone on Greenhow Hill.

'I tried, and I tried hard, to stick to th' chapel, but
'tweren't th' same thing at after. I hadn't 'Liza's voice
to follow i' th' singin', nor her eyes a-shinin' acrost their
heads. And i' th' class-meetings they said as I mun have]
some experiences to tell, and I hadn't a word to say for'
mysen.

i66 LIFE'S HANDICAP

^ Blast and me moped a good deal, and happen we
didn't behave ourselves over well, for they dropped us
and wondered however they'd come to take us up. I
can't tell how we got through th' time, while i' th' winter
I gave up my job and went to Bradford. Old Jesse were
at th' door o' th' house, in a long street o' little houses.
He'd been sendin' th' children 'way as were clatterin'
their clogs in th' causeway, for she were asleep.

'^'Is it thee?" he says; ''but you're not to see her.
I'll none have her wakened for a nowt like thee. She's
goin' fast, and she mun go in peace. Thou 'It never be
good for naught i' th' world, and as long as thou lives
thou'U never play the big fiddle. Get away, lad, get
away ! " So he shut the door softly i' my face.

* Nobody never made Jesse my m_aster, but it seemed
to me he was about right, and I went away into the town
and knocked up against a recruiting sergeant. The old
tales o' th' chapel folk came buzzin' into my head. I
was to get away, and this were th' regular road for the
likes o' me. I 'listed there and then, took th' Widow's
shillin', and had a bunch o' ribbons pinned i' my hat.

'But next day I found my way to David Roan tree's
door, and Jesse came to open it. Says he, ''Thou's come
back again wi' th' devil's colours flyin' — thy true colours,
as I always telled thee."

'But I begged and prayed of him to let me see her
nobbut to say good-bye, till a woman calls down th'
stairway, "She says John Learoyd's to come up." Th*
old man shifts aside in a flash, and lays his hand on my
arm, quite gentle Kke. "But thou'lt be quiet, John,"
says he, "for she's rare and weak. Thou was alius a
good lad."

'Her eyes were all alive wi' light, and her hair was
thick on the pillow round her, but her cheeks were thin

ON GREENHOW HILL 167

—thin to frighten a man that's strong. ''Nay, father,
yo mayn't say th' devil's colours. Them ribbons is
pretty." An' she held out her hands for th' hat, an' she
put all straight as a woman will wi' ribbons. ''Nay, but
what they're pretty," she says. "Eh, but I'd ha' liked to
see thee i' thy red coat, John, for thou was alius my own
lad — my very own lad, and none else."

'She hfted up her arms, and they come round my
neck i' a gentle grip, and they slacked away, and she
seemed fainting. "Now yo' mun get away, lad," says
Jesse, and I picked up my hat and I came downstairs.

'Th' recruiting sergeant were waitin' for me at th'
corner pubUc-house. "Yo've seen your sweetheart?"
says he. "Yes, I've seen her," says I. "Well, we'll
have a quart now, and you'll do your best to forget her,"
says he, bein' one o' them smart, bustlin' chaps. "Ay,
sergeant," says I. "Forget her." And I've been for-
gettin' her ever since.'

He threw away the wilted clump of white violets as
he spoke. Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle
at his shoulder, and peered across the valley in the clear
afternoon Hght. His chin cuddled the stock, and there
was a twitching of the muscles of the right cheek as he
sighted; Private Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his
business. A speck of white crawled up the watercourse.

'See that beggar? . . . Got 'im.'

Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred
down the hillside, the deserter of the Aurangabadis
pitched forward, rolled down a red rock, and lay very
still, with his face in a clump of blue gentians, while a big
raven flapped out of the pine wood to make investiga-
tion.

'That's a clean shot, little man,' said Mulvaney.

Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away.

i68 LIFERS HANDICA1>

'Happen there was a lass tewed up wi' him, too/ said
he.

Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the
valley, with the smile of the artist who looks on the
completed worko

THE MAN WHO WAS

The Earth gave up her dead that tide,

Into our camp he came,
And said his say, and went his way,

And left our hearts aflame.

Keep tally — on the gun-butt score

The vengeance we must take.
When God shall bring full reckoning,

For our dead comrade's sake.

Ballad.

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delight-
ful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he
is charming. It is only when he insists upon being
treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of
the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial
anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never
knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next.

Dirkovitch was a Russian — a Russian of the Russians
— who appeared to get his bread by serving the Czar as
an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a
Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice
alike. He was a handsome young Oriental, fond of wan-
dering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he
arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least
no living man could ascertain whether it was by way of
Balkh, Badakshan, Chitral, Beluchistan, or Nepaul, or
anywhere else. The Indian Government, being in an
unusually affable mood, gave orders that he was to be

169

170 LIFE'S HANDICAP

civilly treated and shown everything that was to be seen.
So he drifted, talking bad English and worse French, from
one cit}^ to another, till he foregathered with Her Maj-
esty's White Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which
stands at the mouth of that narrow swordcut in the hills
that men call the Khyber Pass. He was undoubtedly
an oflScer, and he was decorated after the manner of the
Russians with little enamelled crosses, and he could talk,
and (though this has nothing to do with his merits) he
had been given up as a hopeless task, or cask, by the
Black Tyrone, who individually and collectively, with
hot whisky and honey, mulled brandy, and mixed spirits
of every kind, had striven in all hospitality to make him
drunk. And when the Black Tyrone, who are exclu-
sively Irish, fail to disturb the peace of head of a foreigner
—that foreigner is certain to be a superior man.

The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing
their wine as in charging the enemy. All that they
possessed, including some wondrous brandy, was placed at
the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he enjoyed him-
self hugely — even more than among the Black Tyrones.

But he remained distressingly European through it all.
The White Hussars were 'My dear true friends/ 'Fellow-
soldiers glorious,' and 'Brothers inseparable.' He would
unburden himself by the hour on the glorious future that
awaited the combined arms of England and Russia when
their hearts and their territories should run side by side
and the great mission of civilising Asia should begin.
That was unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be
civiUsed after the methods of the West. There is too
much Asia and she is too old. You cannot reform a
lady of many lovers, and Asia has been insatiable in her
flirtations aforetime. She will never attend Sunday-
school or learn to vote save with swords for tickets.

THE MAN WHO WAS 171

Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it
suited him to talk special-correspondently and to make
himself as genial as he could. Now and then he volun-
teered a little, a very Httle, information about his own
sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look after them-
selves somewhere at the back of beyond. He had done
rough work in Central Asia, and had seen rather more
help-yourself fighting than most men of his years. But
he was careful never to betray his superiority, and more
than careful to praise on all occasions the appearance,
drill, uniform, and organisation of Her Majesty's White
Hussars. And indeed they were a regiment to be ad-
mired. When Lady Durgan, widow of the late Sir John
Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a short time
had been proposed to by every single man at mess, she
put the public senthnent very neatly when she explained
that they were all so nice that unless she could marry
them all, including the colonel and some majors already
married, she was not going to content herself with one
hussar. Wherefore she wedded a Httle man in a rifle
regiment, being by nature contradictious; and the White
Hussars were going to wear crape on their arms, but
compromised by attending the wedding in full force,
and lining the aisle with unutterable reproach. She
had jilted them all — from Basset-Holmer the senior
captain to Httle Mildred the junior subaltern, who
could have given her four thousand a year and a
title.

The only persons who did not share the general regard
for the White Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of
Jewish extraction who lived across the border, and
answered to the name of Pa than. They had once met
the regiment officially and for something less than twenty
minutes, but the interview, which was complicated with

172 LIFE'S HANDICAP

many casualties, had filled them with prejudice. They
even called the White Hussars children of the devil and
sons of persons whom it would be perfectly impossible to
meet in decent society. Yet they were not above making
their aversion fill their money-belts. The regiment
possessed carbines — beautiful Martini-Henri carbines
that would lob a bullet into an enemy's camp at one
thousand yards, and were even handier than the long
rifle. Therefore they were coveted all along the border,
and since demand inevitably breeds supply, they were
supplied at the risk of life and limb for exactly their
weight in coined silver — seven and one-half pounds
weight of rupees, or sixteen pounds sterling reckoning
the rupee at par. They were stolen at night by snaky-
haired thieves who crawled on their stomachs under the
nose of the sentries; they disappeared mysteriously from
locked arm-racks, and in the hot weather, when all the
barrack doors and windows were open, they vanished like
puffs of their own smoke. The border people desired
them for family vendettas and contingencies. But in
the long cold nights of the northern Indian winter they
were stolen most extensively. The traffic of murder
was liveliest among the hills at that season, and prices
ruled high. The regimental guards were first doubled
and then trebled. A trooper does not much care if he
loses a weapon — Government must make it good — but
he deeply resents the loss of his sleep. The regiment
grew very angry, and one rifle-thief bears the visible
marks of their anger upon him to this hour. That
incident stopped the burglaries for a time, and the guards
were reduced accordingly, and the regiment devoted itself
to polo with unexpected results; for it beat by two goals
to one that very terrible polo corps the Lushkar Light
Horse, though the latter had four ponies apiece for a

THE MAN WHO WAS 173

short hour's fight, as well as a native officer who played
like a lambent flame across the ground.

They gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The
Lushkar team came, and Dirkovitch came, in the fullest
full uniform of a Cossack officer, which is as full as a
dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and
opened his eyes as he regarded. They were fighter
men than the Hussars, and they carried themselves
with the swing that is the pecuHar right of the Punjab
Frontier Force and all Irregular Horse. Like every-
thing else in the Service it has to be learnt, but, unlike
many things, it is never forgotten, and remains on the
body tin death.

The great beam-roofed mess-room of the White
Hussars was a sight to be remembered. All the mess
plate was out on the long table — the same table that had
served up the bodies of five ofiicers after a forgotten
fight long and long ago — the dingy, battered standards
faced the door of entrance, clumps of winter-roses lay
between the silver candlesticks, and the portraits of
eminent ©flacers deceased looked down on their suc-
cessors from between the heads of sambhur, nilghai,
markhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning snow-
leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months'
leave that he might have spent in England, instead of on
the road to Thibet and the daily risk of his fife by ledge,
snow-slide, and grassy slope.

The servants in spotless white musKn and the crest
of their regiments on the brow of their turbans waited
behind their masters, who were clad in the scarlet and
gold of the White Hussars, and the cream and silver of
the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green
uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his
big onyx eyes made up for it. He was fraternising ef-

174 LIFE'S HANDICAP

fusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was
wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his own
dark wiry down-countrymen could account for in a fair
charge. But one does not speak of these things openly.

The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental
band played between the courses, as is the immemorial
custom, till all tongues ceased for a moment with the
removal of the dinner-slips and the first toast of obli-
gation, when an officer rising said, 'Mr. Vice, the Queen,*
and little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered,
'The Queen, God bless her,' and the big spurs clanked a?
the big men heaved themselves up and drank the Queen
upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to settle
their mess-bills. That Sacrament of the Mess never
grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the
throat of the Hstener wherever he be by sea or by land.
Dirkovitch rose with his 'brothers glorious/ but he could
not understand. No one but an officer can tell what the
toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than
comprehension. Immediately after the Httle silence that
follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer
who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not,
of course, eat with the mess, but he came in at dessert,
all six feet of him, with the blue and silver turban atop,
and the big black boots below. The mess rose joyously
as he thrust forward the hilt of his sabre in token of
fealty for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch,
and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of: ^Rung
ho, Hira Singh!' (wliich being translated means 'Go in
and win'). 'Did I whack you over the knee, old man?'
'Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil made you play that
kicking pig of a pony in the last ten minutes? ' 'Shabash,
Ressaidar Sahib ! ' Then the voice of the colonel, 'The
health of Ressaidar Hira Singh!*

THE MAN WHO WAS 175

After the shouting had died away Hira Singh rose
to reply, for he was the cadet of a royal house, the son
of a king's son, and knew what was due on these oc-
casions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular: — 'Colonel
Sahib and officers of this regiment. Much honour
have you done me. This will I remember. We came
down from afar to play you. But we were beaten.'
(*No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our
own ground y'know. Your ponies were cramped from
the railway. Don't apologise!') 'Therefore perhaps
we will come again if it be so ordained.' ('Hear! Hear!
Hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!') 'Then we will play
you afresh' ('Happy to meet you.') 'till there are left
no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for sport.' He
dropped one hand on his sword-hilt and his eye wandered
to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. 'But if by the
will of God there arises any other game which is not
the polo game, then be assured. Colonel Sahib and
officers, that we will play it out side by side, though
they,^ again his eye sought Dirkovitch, 'though they
I say have fifty ponies to our one horse.' And with
a deep-mouthed Rung ho! that sounded like a mus-
ket-butt on flagstones he sat down amid leaping
glasses.

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the
brandy — the terrible brandy aforementioned — did not
understand, nor did the expurgated translations offered
to him at all convey the pomt. Decidedly Hira Singh's
was the speech of the evening, and the clamour might
have contiiiued to the dawn had it not been broken by
the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling
at his defenceless left side. Then there was a scuffle and
a yell of pain.

'Carbine-stealing again!' said the adjutant, calmly

176 LIFE'S HANDICAP

sinking back in his chair. 'This comes of reducing the
guards. I hope the sentries have killed him.'

The feet of armed men pounded on the verandah flags,
and it was as though something was being dragged.

'Why don't they put him in the cells till the morn-
ing?' said the colonel testily. 'See if they've damaged
him, sergeant.'

The mess sergeant fled out into the darkness and
returned with tv/o troopers and a corporal, all very much
perplexed.

'Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir,' said the corporal.
'Leastways 'e was crawlin' towards the barricks, sir, past
the main road sentries, an' the sentry 'e sez, sir '

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men
groaned. Never was seen so destitute and demoralised
an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked with
dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh
started slightly at the sound of the man's pain. Dirko-
vitch took another glass of brandy.

' What does the sentry say? ' said the colonel.

'Sez 'e speaks English, sir,' said the corporal.

'So you brought him into mess instead of handing
him over to the sergeant ! If he spoke all the Tongues of
the Pentecost you've no business '

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little
Mildred had risen from his place to inspect. He jumped
back as though he had been shot.

'Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men
away,' said he to the colonel, for he was a much privileged
subaltern. He put his arms round the ragbound horror
as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may not
have been explained that the Httleness of Mildred lay
in his being six feet four and big in proportion. The
corporal seeing that an officer was disposed to look after

THE M.\N WHO WAS 177

the capture, and that the colonel's eye was beginning to
blaze, promptly removed himself and his men. The
mess was left alone \dth tlae carbine-thief, who laid his
head on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and
inconsolably, as Uttle children weep.

Hira Singh leapt to his feet. 'Colonel Sahib,' said
he, 'that man is no Afghan, for they weep At! At!
Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep Oh ! Ho ! He
weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say Ow 1

Owr

'Now where the dickens did you get that knowl-
edge, Hira Singh?' said the captain of the Lushkar
team.

'Hear him!' said Hira Smgh simply, pointing at
the crumpled figure that wept as though it would never
cease.

'He said, "My God!'" said little Mildred 'I heard
him say it.'

The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man
in silence. It is a horrible thing to hear a man cry. A
woman can sob from the top of her palate, or her lips,
or anywhere else, but a man must cry from his diaphragm,
and it rends him to pieces.

'Poor devil!' said the colonel, coughing tremendously.
'We ought to send him to hospital. He's been man-
handled.'

Now the adjutant loved his carbines. They were
to him as his grandchildren, the men standing in the
first place. He grunted rebeUiously : ' I can understand
an Afghan steahng, because he's built that way. But
I can't understand his crying. That makes it worse.'

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he
lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There
^as nothing special in the ceiling beyond a shadow

172 LIFE'S R\NDICAP

as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity
in the construction of the mess-room this shadow was
always thrown when the candles were lighted. It
never disturbed the digestion of the White Hussars.
They were in fact rather proud of it.

'Is he going to cry ail night?' said the colonel, 'or
are we supposed to sit up with little Mildred's guest
until he feels better? '

The man in the chair threw up his head and stared
at the mess. 'Oh, my God!' he said, and every soul
in the mess rose to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain
did a deed for which he ought to have been given the
Victoria Cross — distinguished gallantry in a fight against
overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his
eyes as the hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune
momxcnt, and pausing only by the colonel's chair to say,
'This isn't our affair, you know, sir,' led them into the
verandah and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last to
go, and he looked at Dirkovitch. But Dirkovitch had
departed into a brandy-paradise of his own. His lips
moved without sound and he was studying the coffin on
the ceihng.

'White — white all over,' said Basse t-Hohner, the
adjutant. 'What a pernicious renegade he must be!
I wonder where he came from? '

The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and
'Who are you?' said he.

There was no answer. The man stared round the
mess-room and smiled in the colonel's face. Little
Mildred, who was always more of a woman than a man
till ' Boot and saddle' was sounded, repeated the question
in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a
geyser. The man only smiled. Dirkovitch at the far
end of the table slid gently from his chair to the floor.

THE MAN WHO WAS J79

No son of Adam in this present imperfect world can mix
the Hussars' champagne with the Hussars' brandy by five
and eight glasses of each without remembering the pit
whence he was digged and descending thither. The
band began to play the tune with which the White Hus-
sars from the date of their formation have concluded all
their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than
abandon that tune; it is a part of their system. The
man straightened himself in his chair and drummed on
the table with his fingers.

^I don't see why we should entertain lunatics,' said
the colonel. ' Call a guard and send him off to the cells.
We'll look into the business in the morning. Give him a
glass of wine first though.'

Little Mildred filled a sherry-glass with the brandy
And thrust it over to the man. He drank, and the tune
rose louder, and he straightened himself yet more. Then
he put out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate
opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery
connected with that piece of plate, in the shape of a
spring which converted what was a seven-branched
candlestick, three springs on each side and one in the
middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He
found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly. He
rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall,
then moved on to another picture, the mess watching him
without a word. When he came to the mantelpiece
he shook his head and seemed distressed. A piece of
plate representing a mounted hussar in full uniform
caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the man-
telpiece with inquiry in his eyes.

' What is it— Oh what is it ? ' said little Mildred. Then
as a mother might speak to a child, 'That is a horse.
Yes, a horse.'

i8o LIFE'S HANDICAP

Very slowly came the answer in a thick, passionless
guttural — ' Yes, I— have seen. But— where is the horse? '

You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating
as the men drew back to give the stranger full room in his
wanderings. There was no question of calUng the guard.

Again he spoke — very slowly, 'Where is our horse?'

There is but one horse in the White Hussars, and
his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess-room.
He is the piebald drum-horse, the king of the regimental
band, that served the regiment for seven-and-thirty
years, and in the end was shot for old age. HaK the
mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it
into the man's hands. He placed it above the mantel-
piece, it clattered on the ledge as his poor hands dropped
it, and he staggered towards the bottom of the table,
falKng into Mildred's chair. Then all the men spoke to
one another sometliing after this fashion, 'The drum-
horse hasn't hung over the mantelpiece since '67.'
'How does he know?' 'Mildred, go and speak to him
again. ^ 'Colonel, what are you gomg to do?' 'Oh,
dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself
together.' 'It isn't possible anyhow. The man's a
lunatic'

Little Mildred stood at the colonel's side talking in his
ear. ' Will you be good enough to take your seats please,
gentlemen ! ' he said, and the mess dropped into the chairs.
Only Dirkovitch's seat, next to little Mildred's, was
blank, and Httle Mildred himself had found Hira Singh's
place. The wide-eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses
in deep silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his
hand shook and the port spilled on the table as he looked
straight at the man in httle Mildred's chair and said
hoarsely, ' Mr. Vice, the Queen.' There was a little pause,
but the man sprung to his feet and answered without hesi-

THE MAN WHO WAS iSi

tation, 'The Queen, God bless her!' and as he emptied
the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers.

Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a
young woman and there were no unclean ideals in the
land, it was the custom of a few messes to drink the
Queen's toast in broken glass, to the vast delight of the
mess-contractors. The custom is now dead, because
there is nothing to break anything for, except now and
again the word of a Government, and that has been bro-
ken already.

'That settles it,' said the colonel, with a gasp. 'He's
not a sergeant. What in the world is he? '

The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of
questions would have scared any man. It was no wonder
tiiat the ragged, filthy invader could only smile and shake
his head.

From under the table, calm and smiling, rose Dirko-
vitch, who had been roused from healthful slumber by
feet upon his body. By the side of the man he rose,
and the man shrieked and grovelled. It was a horrible
sight coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the
toast that had brought the strayed wits together.

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but little
Mildred heaved him up in an instant. It is not good
that a gentleman who can answer to the Queen's toast
should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.

The hasty action tore the wretch's upper clothing
nearly to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry
black scars. There is only one weapon in the world that
cuts: in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the
cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his
eyes dilated. Also his face changed. He said something
that sounded like Skto ve takete, and the man fawning an-
swered, Cketyre,

t82 LIFE'S HANDICAP

* What's that?' said everybody together.

* His number. That is number four, you know.* Dirko-
vitch spoke very thickly.

' What has a Queen's officer to do with a qualified num-
ber?' said the Colonel, and an unpleasant growl ran
round the table.

'How can I tell?' said the affable Oriental with a sweet
smile. 'He is a — how you have it? — escape — run-a-way,
from over there.' He nodded towards the darkness of
the night.

'Speak to him if he'll answer you, and speak to him
gently,' said little Mildred, settling the man in a chair.
It seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch
should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Rus-
sian to the creature who answered so feebly and with
such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to
understand no one said a word. All breathed heavily,
leaning forward, in the long gaps of the conversation.
The next time that they have no engagements on hand
the White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg in a
body to learn Russian.

'He does not know how many years ago,' said Dirko-
vitch, facing the mess, 'but he says it was very long ago
in a war. I think that there was an accident. He says
he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the
war.'

'The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the roils!' said
little Mildred, and the adjutant dashed off bare-headed to
the orderly-room, where the muster-rolls of the regiment
were kept. He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch
conclude, 'Therefore, my dear friends, I am most sorry to
say there was an accident wliich would have been repa-
rable if he had apologised to that our colonel, which he
had insulted.'

THE MAN WHO WAS 183

Then followed another growl which the colonel tried
to beat down. The mess was in no mood just then to
weigh insults to Russian colonels.

'He does not remember, but I think that there was
an accident, and so he was not exchanged among the
prisoners, but he was sent to another place — how do you
say? — the country. So, he says, he came here. He does
not know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany' —
the man caught the word, nodded, and shivered — ^at
Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I cannot understand how he
escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for
many years, but how many years he has forgotten — that
with many things. It was an accident; done because he
did not apologise to that our colonel. Ah!'

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch's sigh of regret, it is sad
to record that the White Hussars liveHly exhibited un-
christian delight and other emotions, hardly restrained
by their sense of hospitahty. Holmer flung the frayed
and yeUow regimental rolls on the table, and the men
flung themselves at these.

'Steady! Fifty-sk— fifty-five— fifty-four,' said Hol-
mer. 'Here we are. "Lieutenant Austin Limmason.
Missing.'' That was before Sebastopol. What an
infernal shame ! Insulted one of their colonels, and was
quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.'

'But he never apologised. Said he'd see him damned
first,' chorused the mess.

' Poor chap ! I suppose he never had the chance after-
wards. How did he come here? ' said the colonel.

The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.

'Do you know who you are?'

It laughed weakly.

'Do you know that you are Limmason — ^Lieutenant
Limmason of the White Hussars? '

i84 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly
surprised tone, 'Yes, I'm Limmason, of course.' The
light died out in his eyes, and the man collapsed, watch-
ing every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight
from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind,
but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought.
The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon,
he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of
what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He
cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had
pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture
of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the
Queen. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian
tongue could only in part remove. His head bowed on
his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately.

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dir-
kovitch at this extremely inopportune moment to
make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped
the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and
began :

' Fellow-soldiers glorious — true friends and hospitables.
It was an accident, and deplorable — most deplorable.'
Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess. 'But you
wall think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not?
The Czar ! Posh ! I slap my fingers — I snap my fingers
at him. Do I believe in him? No! But in us Slav
who has done nothing, him I beHeve. Seventy — how
much — millions peoples that have done nothing — not
one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode.' He
banged a hand on the table. 'Hear you, old peoples,
we have done nothing in \hQ world — out here. All
our work is to do; and it shall be done, old peoples.
Get a-way!' He waved his hand imperiously, and
pointed to the man. *You see him. He is not good to

THE MAN WHO WAS 185

see. He was just one little— oh, so little— accident, that
no one remembered. Now he is That ! So will you be,
brother-soldiers so brave — so will you be. But you
will never come back. You will all go where he is
gone, or' — he pointed to the great coffin-shadow on the
ceiling, and muttering, 'Seventy millions — get a- way,
you old peoples,' fell asleep.

' Sweet, and to the point,' said little Mildred. ' What's
the use of getting wroth? Let's make this poor devil
comfortable.'

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken
from the loving hands of the White Hussars. The Ueu-
tenant had returned only to go away again three days
later, when the wail of the Dead March, and the tramp
of the squadrons, told the wondering Station, who saw
no gap in the mess-table, that an officer of the regiment
had resigned his new-found commission.

And Dirkovitch, bland, supple, and always genial,
went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and
another man saw him off, for he was the guest of the
mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open
hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hos-
pitality.

' Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey,' said
little Mildred.

^Au revoir,^ said the Russian.

'Indeed! But we thought you were going home?'

*Yes, but I will come again. My dear friends, is
that road shut?' He pointed to where the North Star
burned over the Khyber Pass.

'By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet
you, old man, any time you like. Got everything you
want? Cheroots, ice, bedding? That's all right. Well,
au revoir, Dirkovitch.'

i86 LIFE'S HANDICAP

^Um/ said the other man, as the tail-lights of the
train grew small. ^ Of — all — the — unmitigated ! '

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the
North Star and hummed a selection from a recent Simla
burlesque that had much deHghted the White Hussars.
It ran —

I'm sorry for Mister Bluebeard,
I'm sorry to cause him pain;
But a terrible spree there's sure to be
When he comes back again.

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT

There's a convict more in the Central Jail,

Behind the old mud wall;
There's a lifter less on the Border trail,
And the Queen's Peace over all,

Dear boys
The Queen's Peace over all.

For we must bear our leader's blame,

On us the shame will fall,
If we lift our hand from a fettered land
And the Queen's Peace over all.

Dear boys,
The Queen's Peace over all!

The Running of Shindand.

The Indus had risen in flood without warning. Last
night it was a fordable shallow; to-night five miles of
raving muddy water parted bank and caving bank, and
the river was still rising under the moon. A Htter borne
by six bearded men, all unused to the work, stopped in
the white sand that bordered the whiter plain.

'It's God's will,' they said. 'We dare not cross to-
night, even in a boat. Let us light a fire and cook food.
We be tired men.'

They looked at the litter inquiringly. Within, the
Deputy Commissioner of the Kot-Kumharsen district
lay dying of fever. They had brought him across
country, sLx fighting-men of a frontier clan that he had

187

iSS LIFE'S HANDICAP

won over to the paths of a moderate righteousness,
when he had broken down at the foot of their inhos-
pitable hills. And Tallantire, his assistant, rode with
them, heavy-hearted as heavy-eyed with sorrow and
lack of sleep. He had served under the sick man for
three years, and had learned to love him as men asso-
ciated in toil of the hardest learn to love — or hate. Drop-
ping from his horse he parted the curtains of the Htter
and peered inside.

*Orde — Orde, old man, can you hear? We have to
wait till the river goes down, worse luck.'

'I hear,' returned a dry whisper. ^Wait till the river
goes down. I thought w^e should reach camp before the
dawn. Polly knows. She'll meet me.'

One of the Htter-men stared across the river and
caught a faint twinkle of light on the far side. He
whispered to Tallantire, 'There are his camp-fires, and
his wife. They will cross in the morning, for they have
better boats. Can he live so long? '

Tallantire shook his head. Yardley-Orde was very
near to death. WTiat need to vex his soul with hopes
of a meeting that could not be? The river gulped at
the banks, brought down a cKff of sand, and snarled the
more hungrily. The htter-men sought for fuel in the
waste — dried camel-thorn and refuse of the camps that
had waited at the ford. Their sword-belts clinked as
they moved softly in the haze of the moonhght, and Tal-
lantire's horse coughed to explain that he would like a
blanket.

'I'm cold too,' said the voice from the htter. 'I
fancy this is the end. Poor Polly! '

Tallantire rearranged the blankets. Khoda Dad
Khan, seeing tliis, stripped off his own heav}^- wadded
sheepskin coat and added it to the pile. 'I shall be

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 189

warm by the fire presently/ said he. Tallantire took
the wasted body of his chief into his arms and held it
against his breast. Perhaps if they kept him very warm
Orde might live to see his wife once more. If only
blind Providence would send a three-foot fall in the river !

'That's better/ said Orde faintly. 'Sorry to be a
nuisance, but is — is there anything to drink? '

They gave him milk and whisky, and Tallantire felt
a little warmth against his own breast. Orde began to
mutter.

'It isn't that I mind dying,' he said. 'It's leaving
Polly and the district. Thank God! we have no chil-
dren. Dick, you know, I'm dipped — awfully dipped —
debts in my first five years' service. It isn't much of a
pension, but enough for her. She has her mother at
home. Getting there is the difficulty. And — and — you
see, not being a soldier's wife '

'We'll arrange the passage home, of course,' said
Tallantire quietly.

'It's not nice to think of sending round the hat;
but, good Lord! how many men I lie here and remem-
ber that had to do it! Morten's dead— he was of my
year. Shaughnessy is dead, and he had children; I
remember he used to read us their school-letters; what
a bore we thought him! Evans is dead — Kot-Kum-
harsen killed him! Ricketts of Myndonie is dead — and
I'm going too. "Man that is born of a woman is small
potatoes and few in the hill." That reminds me, Dick;
the four Khusru Kheyi villages in our border want a
one- third remittance this spring. That's fair; their
crops are bad. See that they get it, and speak to Ferris
about the canal. I should like to have lived till that
was finished; it means so much for the North-Indus
villages — but Ferris is an idle beggar — wake him up.

I90 LIFE'S HANDICAP

You'll have charge of the district till my successor comes.
I wish they would appoint you permanently; you know
the folk. I suppose it will be Bullows, though. 'Good
man, but too weak for frontier work; and he doesn't
understand the priests. The blind priest at Jagai will
bear watching. You'll find it in my papers, — in the
uniform-case, I think. Call the Khusru Kheyl men up;
I'll hold my last pubHc audience. Khoda Dad Khan!'

The leader of the men sprang to the side of the litter,
his companions following.

*Men, I'm dying,' said Orde quickly, in the vernacular;
'and soon there will be no more Orde Sahib to twist
your tails and prevent you from raiding cattle.'

'God forbid this thing!' broke out the deep bass
chorus. 'The Sahib is not going to die.'

'Yes, he is; and then he will know whether Mahomed
speaks truth, or Moses. But you must be good men,
when I am not here. Such of you as live in our borders
must pay your taxes quietly as before. I have spoken of
the villages to be gently treated this year. Such of you
as live in the hills must refrain from cattle-Hfting, and
burn no more thatch, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of
the priests, who, not knowing the strength of the Govern-
ment, v/ould lead you into foolish wars, wherein you will
surely die and your crops be eaten by strangers. And
you must not sack any caravans, and must leave your
arms at the pohce-post when you come in; as has been
your custom, and my order. And Tallantire Sahib will
be with you, but I do not know who takes my place. I
speak now true talk, for I am as it were already dead,
my children, — for though ye be strong men, ye are
children.'

'And thou art our father and our mother,' broke in
Khoda Dad Khan with an oath. 'What shall we do<

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 191

now there is no one to speak for us, or to teach us to
go wisely!'

'There remains Tallantire Sahib. Go to him; he
knows your talk and your heart. Keep the young men
quiet, listen to the old men, and obey. Khoda Dad
Khan, take my ring. The watch and chain go to thy
brother. Keep those things for my sake, and I will
speak to whatever God I may encounter and tell him
that the Khusru Kheyl are good men. Ye have my
leave to go.'

Khoda Dad Khan, the ring upon his finger, choked
audibly as he caught the well-known formula that closed
an interview. His brother turned to look across the
river. The dawn was breaking, and a speck of white
showed on the dull silver of the stream. 'She comes,'
said the man under his breath. ' Can he live for another
two hours?' And he pulled the newly-acquired watch
out of his belt and looked uncomprehendingly at the
dial, as he had seen Englishmen do.

For two hours the bellying sail tacked and blundered
up and down the river, Tallantire still clasping Orde in
his arms, and Khoda Dad Khan chafing his feet. He
spoke now and again of the district and his wife, but,
as the end neared, more frequently of the latter. They
hoped he did not know that she was even then risk-
ing her life in a crazy native boat to regain him. But
the awful foreknowledge of the dying deceived them.
Wrenching himself forward, Orde looked through the
curtains and saw how near was the sail. 'That's Polly,'
he said simply, though his mouth was wried with agony.
* Polly and — the grimmest practical joke ever played on a
man. Dick — you'll — have — to — explain.'

And an hour later Tallantire met on the bank a
woman in a gingham riding-habit and a sun-hat who

192 LIFE»S HANDICAP

cried out to him for her husband— her boy and her darling
—while Khoda Dad Khan threw himself face-down on
the sand and covered his eyes.

II

The very simplicity of the notion was its charm . What
more easy to win a reputation for far-seeing statesman-
ship, originality, and, above all, deference to the desires
of the people, than by appointing a child of the country
to the rule of that country? Two hundred millions of
the most loving and grateful folk under Her Majesty's
dominion would laud the fact, and their praise would
endure for ever. Yet he was indifferent to praise or
blame, as befitted the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys.
His administration w^as based upon principle, and the
principle must be enforced in season and out of season.
His pen and tongue had created the New India, teeming
with possibilities — loud-voiced, insistent, a nation among
nations — all his very own. Wherefore the Very Greatest
of All the Viceroys took another step in advance, and
with it counsel of those who should have advised him
on the appointment of a successor to Yardley-Orde.
There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil
Service who had won his place and a university degree
to boot in fair and open competition with the sons of
the English. He was cultured, of the world, and, if
report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, sympatheti-
cally ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal.
He had been to England and charmed many drawing-
rooms there. His name, if the Viceroy recollected aright,
was Mr. Grish Chunder De, M. A. In short, did any-
body see any objection to the appointment, always on
principle, of a man of the people to rule the people?
The district in South-Eastern Bengal might with advan-

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 193

tage, he apprehended, pass over to a younger civilian
of Mr. G. C. De's nationality (who had written a re-
markably clever pamphlet on the political value of
sympathy in administration); and Mr. G. C. De could
be transferred northward to Kot-Kumharsen. The
Viceroy was averse, on principle, to interfering with
appointments under control of the Provincial Govern-
ments. He wished it to be understood that he merely
recommended and advised in this instance. As regarded
the mere question of race, Mr. Grish Chunder De was
more EngHsh than the EngHsh, and yet possessed of that
pecuHar sympathy and insight which the best among the
best Service in the world could only win to at the end
of their service.

The stern, black-bearded kings who sit about the
Council-board of India divided on the step, with the in-
evitable result of driving the Very Greatest of All the
Viceroys into the borders of hysteria, and a bewildered
obstinacy pathetic as that of a child.

*The principle is sound enough,' said the weary-eyed
Head of the Red Pro\'inces in which Kot-Kumharsen
lay, for he too held theories. ' The only difficulty is '

'Put the screw on the District officials; brigade De
with a very strong Deputy Commissioner on each side
of him; give him the best assistant in the Province;
rub the fear of God into the people beforehand; and if
anything goes wrong, say that his colleagues didn't back
him up. All these lovely little experunents recoil on
the District-Officer in the end,' said the Knight of the
Drawn Sword with a truthful brutahty that made the
Head of the Red Provinces shudder. And on a tacit
understanding of this kind the transfer was accomplished,
as quietly as might be for many reasons.

It is sad to think that what goes for public opinion

x94 LIFE'S HANDICAP

in India did not generally see the wisdom of the Viceroy's
appointment. There were not lacking indeed hireling
organs, notoriously in the pay of a tyrannous bureau-
cracy, who more than hinted that His Excellency was a
fool, a dreamer of dreams, a doctrinaire, and, worst of
all, a trifler with the lives of men. 'The Viceroy's Ex-
cellence Gazette,' pubhshed in Calcutta, was at pains to
thank 'Our beloved Viceroy for once more and again
thus gloriously vindicating the potentialities of th-^
BengaH nations for extended executive and administra-
tive duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not
at all doubt that our excellent fellow- townsman, Mr.
Grish Chunder De, Esq., M. A., will uphold the prestige
of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue
and peshhindi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his
fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians,
some of which will now have to serve under a despised
native and take orders too. How will you like that,
Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to sub-
stantiate himself superiorly to race-prejudice and colour-
blindness, and to allow the flower of this now our Civil
Service all the full pays and allowances granted to his
more fortunate brethren.'

Ill

'When does this man take over charge? I'm alone
just now, and I gather that I'm to stand fast under him.'

'Would you have cared for a transfer?' said BuUows
keenly. Then, laying his hand on Tallan tire's shoulder:
'We're all in the same boat; don't desert us. And yet,
why the devil should you stay, if you can get another
charge? '

'It was Orde's,' said Tallantire simply.

'Well, it's De'.^ now. He's a Bengali of the BengaHs,

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT / iqS

crammed with code and case law; a beautiful man so far
as routine and deskwork go, and pleasant to talk to.
They naturally have always kept him in his own home
district, where all his sisters and his cousins and his
aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca. He did no more
than turn the place into a pleasant Httle family preserve,
allowed his subordinates to do what they liked, and let
everybody have a chance at the shekels. Consequently
he's immensely popular down there.'

'I've nothing to do with that. How on earth am I to
explain to the district that they are going to be governed
by a BengaH? Do you — does the Government, I mean
— suppose that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when
they once know? What will the Mahomedan heads of
villages say? How will the poKce— Muzbi Sikhs and
Pathans— how will they work under him? We couldn't
say anything if the Government appointed a sweeper;
but my people will say a good deal, you know that. It's
a piece of cruel folly ! '

'My dear boy, I know all that, and more. I've rep-
resented it, and have been told that I am exhibiting
''culpable and puerile prejudice." By Jove, if the
Khusru Kheyl don't exhibit something worse than that
I don't know the Border! The chances are that you
will have the district alight on your hands, and I shall
have to leave my work and help you pull through. I
needn't ask you to stand by the BengaH man in every
possible way. You'll do that for your own sake.'

'For Orde's. I can't say that I care twopence per-
sonally.'

'Don't be an ass. It's grievous enough, God knows,
and the Government will know later on; but that's no
reason for your sulking. You must try to run the dis-
trict, you must stand between hini and as much insult a=

196 LIFE'S HANDICAP

possible; you must show him the ropes; you must pacify
the Khusru Kheyl, and just warn Curbar of the Police to
look out for trouble by the way. I'm always at the end
of a telegraph-wire, and wilHng to peril my reputation
to hold the district together. You'll lose yours, of course.
If you keep things straight, and he isn't actually beaten
with a stick when he's on tour, he'll get all the credit.
If anything goes wrong, you'll be told that you didn't
support him loyally.'

'I know what I've got to do,' said TaUantire wearily,
'and I'm going to do it. But it's hard.'

'The work is with us, the event is with Allah, — as
Orde used to say when he was more than usually in hot
water.' And Bullows rode away.

That two gentlemen in Her Majesty's Bengal Civil
Service should thus discuss a third, also in that service,
and a cultured and affable man withal, seems strange
and saddening. Yet Hsten to the artless babble of the
Blind Mullah of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl,
sitting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five years
before, a chance-hurled shell from a screw-gun battery
had dashed earth in the face of the Mullah, then urging
a rush of Ghazis against half a dozen British bayonets.
So he became bhnd, and hated the EngHsh none the less
for the httle accident. Yardley-Orde knew his failing,
and had many times laughed at him therefor.

'Dogs you are,' said the Blind Mullah to the Hstening
tribesmen round the fire. 'Whipped dogs! Because
you Hstened to Orde Sahib and called him father and
behaved as his children, the British Government have
proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye know is
dead.'

'Ai! ai! ai!' said half a dozen voices.

'He was a man. Comes now in his stead, whom thirU

THZ HEAD OF THE DISTiaCT 197

ye? A Bengali of Bengal — an eater of fish from the
South/

'A lie!' said Khoda Dad Khan. 'And but for the
small matter of thy priesthood, I'd drive my gun butt-
first down thy throat.'

'Oho, art thou there, Hckspittle of the Enghsh? Go
in to-morrow across the Border to pay service to Orde
Sahib's successor, and thou shalt slip thy shoes at the
tent-door of a BengaH, as thou shaJt hand thy offering tu
a Bengali's black fist. This I know; and in my youth>
when a young man spoke evil to a Mullah holding the
doors of Heaven and Hell, the gun-butt was not rammed
down the Mullah's gullet. No!'

The Blind Mullah hated Khoda Dad Khan with
Afghan hatred; both being rivals for the headship of the
tribe; but the latter was feared for bodily as the other for
spiritual gifts. Khoda D ad Khan looked at Orde's ring
and grunted, ' I go in to-morrow because I am not an old
fool, preaching war against the Enghsh. If the Govern-
ment, smitten with madness, have done this, then . . ."

'Then,' croaked the Mullah, 'thou wilt take out the
young men and strike at the four villages within the
Border?'

'Or wring thy neck, black raven of Jehannum, for a
bearer of ill-tidmgs.'

Khoda Dad Khan oiled his long locks with great care,
put on his best Bokhara belt, a new turban-cap and fine
green shoes, and accompanied by a few friends came
down from the hills to pay a visit to the new Deputy
Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen. Also he bore tribute
' — four or five priceless gold mohurs of Akbar's time in a
white handkerchief. These the Deputy Commissioner
would touch and remit. The little ceremony used to be
a sign tliat, so far as Khoda Dad Khan's personal influ-

igS LIFE'S IL\XDICAP

ence went, the Khusni Kheyl would be good boys, — till
the next time; especially if Khoda Dad Khan hap-
pened to lilve the new Deputy Commissioner. In Yardley-
Orde's consulship his visit concluded with a sumptuous
dinner and perhaps forbidden Kquors; certainly with
some wonderful tales and great good-felloy\^ship. Then
Khoda Dad Khan would swagger back to his hold, vow-
ing that Orde Sahib v/as one prince and Tallantire Saliib
another, and that whosoever went a-raiding into British
territory would be flayed aHve. On this occasion he
found the Deputy Commissioner's tents looking much as
usual. Regarding himself as pri^dleged he strode through
the open door to confont a suave, portly Bengali in
English costume writing at a table. Unversed in the
elevating influence of education, and not in the least
caring for university degrees, Khoda Dad Khan promptly
set the man dov.Ti for a Babu — the native clerk of the
Deputy Commissioner — a hated and despised animal.

'Ugh I' said he cheerfully. 'Wliere's your master,
Babujee?'

'I am the Deputy Commissioner,' said the gentleman
in Enghsh.

Now he overvalued the effects of university degrees,
and stared Khoda Dad Khan in the face. But if from
your earliest infancy you have been accustomed to look
on battle, murder, and sudden death, if spilt blood affects
your nerves as much as red paint, and, above all, if you
have faithfully believed that the BengaH was the servant
of all Hindustan, and that all Hindustan was vastly
inferior to your own large, lustful self, you can endure,
even though uneducated, a very large amount of looking
over. You can even stare down a graduate of an Oxford
college if the latter has been born in a hothouse, of stock
bred in a hothouse v ^nd fearing physical pain as some

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 199

men fear sin; especially if your opponent's mother has
frightened him to sleep in his youth with horrible stories
of devils inhabiting Afghanistan, and dismal legends oi
the black North. The eyes behind the gold spectacles
sought the floor. Khoda Dad Khan chuckled, and
swung out to find Tallantire hard by. 'Here,' said he
roughly, thrusting the coins before him, 'touch and
remit. That answers for my good behaviour. But, O
Sahib, has the Government gone mad to send a black
BengaH dog to us? And am I to pay service to such an
one? And are you to work under him? What does it
mean? '

'It is an order,' said Tallantire. He had expected
something of this kind. 'He is a very clever S-sahib.'

'He a Sahib! He's a kala admi — a black man — -
unfit to run at the tail of a potter's donkey. All the
peoples of the earth have harried Bengal. It is written,
Thou knowest when we of the North v/anted women or
plunder whither went we? To Bengal — where else?
What child's talk is this of Sahibdom — after Orde Sahib
too! Of a truth the BKnd Mullah was right.'

'What of him?' asked Tallantire uneasily. He mis-
trusted that old man witli his dead eyes and his deadly
tongue.

'Nay, now, because of the oath that I sware to Orde
Sahib when we watched him die by the river yonder, I
will tell. In the first place, is it true that the EngHsh
have set the heel of the BengaH on their own neck, and
that there is no more EngHsh rule in the land?'

'I am here,' said TaHantire, 'and I serve the Maha-
ranee of England.'

'The Mullah said otherwise, and further that because
we loved Orde Sahib the Government sent us a pig to
show that we were dog? , who till now have been held by

800 LIFE'S HA^miCAP

the strong hand. Also that they were taking away the
white soldiers, that more Hindustanis might come, and
that all was changing.'

This is the worst of ill-considered handling of a very
large country. What looks so feasible in Calcutta, so
right in Bombay, so unassailable in Madras, is mis-
understood by the North and entirely changes its com-
plexion on the banks of the Indus. Khoda Dad Khan
explained as clearly as he could that, though he himself
intended to be good, he really could not answer for the
more reckless members of his tribe under the leadership
of the BHnd Mullah. They might or they might not
give trouble, but they certainly had no intention what-
ever of obeying the new Deputy Commissioner. Was
Tallantire perfectly sure that in the event of any system-
atic border-raiding the force in the district could put it
down promptly?

'Tell the Mullah if he talks any more fool's talk,' said
Tallantire curtly, 'that he takes his men on to certain
death, and his tribe to blockade, trespass-fine, and blood-
money. But why do I talk to one who no longer carries
weight in the counsels of the tribe? '

Khoda Dad Khan pocketed that insult. He had
learned something that he much wanted to know, and
returned to his hills to be sarcastically comphmented by
the Mullah, whose tongue raging round the camp-fires
was deadlier flame than ever dung-cake fed.

IV

Be pleased to consider here for a moment the unknown
district of Kot-Kumharsen. It lay cut lengthways by
the Indus under the line of the Khusru liills — ramparts
of useless earth and tumbled stone. It was seventy
miles long by fifty broad, maintained a population of

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT zat

something less than two hundred thousand, and paid
taxes to the extent of forty thousand pounds a year on an
area that was by rather more than half sheer, hopeless
waste. The cultivators were not gentle people, the
miners for salt were less gentle still, and the cattle-
breeders least gentle of all. A police-post in the top
right-hand corner and a tiny mud fort in the top left-
liand corner prevented as much salt-smuggHng and
cittle-lifting as the influence of the civihans could not
put down; and in the bottom right-hand corner lay Ju-
mala, the district headquarters — a pitiful knot of lime-
washed bams facetiously rented as houses, reeking with
frontier fever, leaking in the rain, and ovens in the sum-
mer.

It was to this place that Grish Chunder De was
travelling, there formally to take over charge of the dis-
trict. But the news of his coming had gone before.
BengaHs were as scarce as poodles among the simple
Borderers, who cut each other's heads open with their
long spades and worshipped impartially at Hindu and
Mahomedan shrines. They crowded to see him, point-
ing at him, and diversely comparing him to a gravid
milch-buffalo, or a broken-down horse, as their limited
range of metaphor prompted. They laughed at his
poHce-guard, and wished to know how long the burly
Sikhs were going to lead Bengali apes. They inquired
whether he had brought his women with him, and ad-
vised him expKcitly not to tamper with theirs. It re-
mained for a wrinkled hag by the roadside to slap her
lean breasts as he passed, crying, 'I have suckled six
that could have eaten six thousand of him. The Govern-
ment shot them, and made this That a king ! ' Whereat
a blue-turbaned huge-boned plough-mender shouted,
*Have hope, mother o' mine! He may yet go the way

202 LIFE'S HANDICAP

of thy wastrels.' And the children, the little brown
puff-balls, regarded curiously. It was generally a
good thing for infancy to stray into Orde Sahib's tent,
where copper coins w^ere to be v/on for the mere wishing,
and tales of the most authentic, such as even their
mothers knew but the first half of. No ! This fat black
man could never tell them how Pir Prith hauled the eye-
teeth out of ten devils; how the big stones came to He
all in a row on top of the Khusru hills, and what happened
if you shouted through the village-gate to the gray wolf
at even 'Badl Khas is dead.' Meantime Grish Chunder
De talked hastily and much to Tallantire, after the
manner of those who are 'more English than the Enghsh,'
• — of Oxford and 'home,' with much curious book-knowl-
edge of bump-suppers, cricket-matches, hunting-runs,
and other unholy sports of the ahen. 'We must get
these fellows in hand,' he said once or twice uneasily;
*get them well in hand, and drive them on a tight rein.
No use, you know, being slack with your district.'

And a moment later Tallantire heard Debendra Nath
De, who brotherliwise had followed his kinsman's fortune
and hoped for the shadow of his protection as a pleader,
whisper in Bengali, 'Better are dried fish at Dacca than
drawn swords at Delhi. Brother of mine, these men are
devils, as our mother said. And you will always have to
ride upon a horse ! '

That night there was a pubKc audience in a broken-
down little town thirty miles from Jumala, when the
new Deputy Commissioner, in reply to the greetings of
the subordinate native officials, delivered a speech. It
was a carefully thought-out speech, which w^ould have
been very valuable had not his third sentence begun with
three innocent words, 'Hamara hookum hai — It is my
order.' Then there was a laugh, clear and bell-Hke, from

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 203

the back of the big tent, where a few border landholders
sat, and the laugh grew and scorn mingled with it, and the
lean, keen face of Debendra Nath De paled, and Grish
Chunder turning to Tallantire spake: ^You — you put
up this arrangement.' Upon that instant the noise of
hoofs rang without, and there entered Curbar, the Dis-
trict Superintendent of PoHce, sweating and dusty. The
State had tossed him into a comer of the province for
seventeen weary years, there to check smuggling of salt,
and to hope for promotion that never came. He had
forgotten how to keep his white uniform clean, had
screwed rusty spurs into patent-leather shoes, and
clothed his head indifferently with a helmet or a turban.
Soured, old, worn with heat and cold, he waited till he
should be entitled to sufficient pension to keep him from
starving.

^Tallantire,' said he, disregarding Grish Chunder De,
'come outside. I want to speak to you.' They with-
drew. 'It's this,' continued Curbar. 'The Khusru
Kheyl have rushed and cut up half a dozen of the coolies
on Ferris's new canal-embankment; killed a couple of
m.en and carried off a woman. I wouldn't trouble you
about that— Ferris is after them and Hugonin, my as-
sistant, with ten mounted police. But that's only the
beginning, I fancy. Their fires are out on the Hassan
Ardeb heights, and unless we're pretty quick there'll be
a flare-up all along our Border. They are sure to raid
the four Khusru villages on our side of the line; there's
been bad blood between them for years; and you know
the Blind Mullah has been preaching a holy war since
Orde went out. What's your notion?'

'Damn!' said Tallantire thoughtfully. 'They've be-
gun quick. Well, it seems to me I'd better ride off to
Fort Ziar and get what men I can there to picket among

904 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the lowland villages, if it's not too late. Tommy Dodd
commands at Fort Ziar, I think. Ferris and Hugonin

ought to teach the canal-thieves a lesson, and No,

we can't have the Head of the Police ostentatiously
guarding the Treasury. You go back to the canal. I'll
wire Bullows to come into Jumala with a strong police-
guard, and sit on the Treasury. They won't touch the
place, but it looks well.'

'I — I — I insist upon knowing what this means,' said
the voice of the Deputy Commissioner, who had followed
the speakers.

' Oh ! ' said Curbar, who being in the Police could not
understand that fifteen years of education must, on
principle, change the Bengali into a Briton. 'There has
been a fight on the Border, and heaps of men are killed.
There's going to be another fight, and heaps more will be
kiUed.'

'What for?'

'Because the teeming millions of this district don't
exactly approve of you, and think that under your benign
rule they are going to have a good time. It strikes me
that you had better make arrangements. I act, as you
know, by your orders. What do you advise?'

*I — I take you all to witness that I have not yet
assumed charge of the district,' stammered the Deputy
Commissioner, not in the tones of the 'more English.'

'Ah, I thought so. Well, as I was saying, Tallantire,
your plan is sound. Carry it out. Do you want an
escort? '

'No; only a decent horse. But how about wiring to
headquarters? '

'I fancy, from the colour of his cheeks, that your
superior officer will send some wonderful telegrams before
the night's over. Let him do that, and we shall have

T::2 HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 205

half the troops of the province coming up to see what's
the trouble. Well, run along, and take care of yourself —
the Khusru Kheyl jab upwards from below, remember.
Ho! Mir Khan, give Tallantire Sahib the best of the
horses, and tell five men to ride to Jumala with the Dep-
uty Commissioner Sahib Bahadur. There is a hurry
toward.'

There was; and it was not in the least bettered by
Debendra Nath De cHnging to a poKceman's bridle and
demanding the shortest, the very shortest way to Jumala.
Now originality is fatal to the Bengali. Debendra Nath
should have stayed vath his brother, who rode steadfastly
for Jumala on the railway-line, thanking gods entirely
unknov/n to the most cathoUc of universities that he had
not taken charge of the district, and could still — happy
resource of a fertile race! — fall sick.

And I grieve to say that when he reached his goal
two poHcemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been con-
ferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged
an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one
and then the other entering his room with prodigious
details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and deviUsh
tribes, and the burning of towns. It was almost as good,
said these scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive
Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at work for
half an hour on telegrams which the sack of Delhi would
hardly have justified. To every power that could move
a bayonet or transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder De
appealed telegraphically. He was alone, his assistants
had fled, and in truth he had not taken over charge of
the district. Had the telegrams been despatched many
things would have occurred; but since the only signaller
in Jumala had gone to bed, and the station-master, after
one look at the tremendous pile of paper, discovered that

2o6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

railway regulations forbade the forwarding of imperial
messages, policemen Ram Singh and Nihal Singh were
fain to turn the stuff into a pillow and slept on it very
comfortably.

Tallantire drove his spurs into a ramxpant skewbald
stallion v/ith china-blue eyes, and settled himself for the
forty-mile ride to Fort Ziar. Knowing his district blind-
fold, he wasted no tim.e hunting for short cuts, but headed
across the richer grazing-ground to the ford where Orde
had died and been buried. The dusty ground deadened
the noise of his horse's hoofs, the moon threw his shadow,
a restless gobHn, before him, and the heavy dew drenched
him to the skin. Hillock, scrub that brushed against the
horse's belly, unmetalled road where the whip-like foHage
of the tamarisks lashed his forehead, illimitable levels of
lowland furred wdth bent and speckled with drowsing
cattle, Vv^aste, and hullock anew, dragged themselves past,
and the skewbald was labouring in the deep sand of the
Indus-ford. Tallantire was conscious of no distinct
thought till the nose of the dawdhng ferry-boat grounded
on the farther side, and his horse shied snorting at the
white headstone of Orde's grave. Then he uncovered,
and shouted that the dead might hear, 'They're out, old
man! Wish me luck.' In the cliill of the dawn he was
hammering with a stirrup-iron at the gate of Fort Ziar,
where fifty sabres of that tattered regimicnt, the Belooch
Beshaklis were supposed to guard Her Majesty's interests
along a few hundred miles of Border. This particular
fort was commanded by a subaltern, vv^ho, born of the
ancient family of the Derouletts, naturally answered to
the name of Tommy Dodd. Him Tallantire found robed
in a sheepskin coat, shaking with fever Uke an aspen, and
trying to read the native apothecary's hst of invalids.

'So you've come, too,' said he. 'Well, we're all sick

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 207

here, and I don't think I can horse thirty men; but we're
bub — bub— bub blessed willing. Stop, does this im-
press you as a trap or a He? ' He tossed a scrap of paper
to Tallantire, on which was written painfully in crabbed
Gurmukhi, 'We cannot hold young horses. They will
feed after the moon goes down in the four border villages
issuing from the Jagai pass on the next night.' Then in
English round hand — 'Your sincere friend.'

'Good man!' said Tallantire. 'That's Khoda Dad
Khan's v/ork, I know. It's the only piece of EngHsh he
could ever keep in his head, and he is immensely proud
of it. He is pla}dng against the Blind Mullah for his
own hand — the treacherous young ruffian!'

'Don't know the poHtics of the Khusru Kheyl, but if
you're satisfied, I am. That was pitched in over the
gate-head last night, and I thought we might pull our-
selves together and see what was on. Oh, but we're sick
with fever here and no mistake! Is this going to be a
big business, tliink you? ' said Tommy Dodd.

Tallantire gave him briefly the outlines of the case, and
Tommy Dodd whistled and shook with fever alternately.
That day he devoted to strategy, the art of war, and the
enlivenment of the invahds, tiU at dusk there stood ready
forty-two troopers, lean, worn, and dishevelled, whom
Tommy Dodd surveyed with pride, and addressed thus:
'0 men! If you die you ^^dll go to Hell. Therefore
endeavour to keep alive. But if you go to Hell that
place cannot be hotter than this place, and we are not
told that we shall there suffer from fever. Consequently
be not afraid of dying. File out there!' They grinned,
and went.

V

It will be long ere the Khusru Kheyl forget their
joight attack an the lovdaud villages, The Mullah had

3oS LIFERS HANDICAP

promised an easy victory and unlimited plunder; but
behold, armed troopers of the Queen had risen out of
the very earth, cutting, slashing, and riding down under
the stars, so that no man knew where to turn, and all
feared that they had brought an army about their ears,
and ran back to the hills. In the panic of that flight
more men were seen to drop from wounds inflicted by
an Afghan knife jabbed upwards, and yet more from
long-range carbine-fire. Then there rose a cry of treach-
ery, and when they reached their own guarded heights,
they had left, with some forty dead and sixty wounded,
all their confidence in the Blind Mullah on the plains
below. They clamoured, swore, and argued round the
fires; the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah
shrieking curses on the returned.

Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and unbreathed,
for he had taken no part in the fight, rose to improve the
occasion. He pointed out that the tribe owed every item
of its present misfortune to the Blind Mullah, who had
lied in every possible particular and talked them into a
trap. It was undoubtedly an insult that a Bengali, the
son of a Bengali, should presume to administer the
Border, but that fact did not, as the Mullah pretended,
herald a general time of license and liftmg; and the inex-
plicable madness of the English had not in the least im-
paired their power of guarding their marches. On the
contrary, the baffled and out-generalled tribe would now,
just when their food-stock was lowest, be blockaded
from any trade with Hindustan until they had sent
hostages for good behaviour, paid compensation for
disturbance, and blood-money at the rate of thirty-sLx
English pounds per head for every %illager that they
might have slain. 'And ye know that those lowland
dogs will make oath that we have slain scores. Will the

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 209

Mullah pay the fines or must we sell our guns?' A
low growl ran round the fires. 'Now, seeing that all
this is the Mullah's work, and that we have gained noth-
ing but promises of Paradise thereby, it is in my heart
that we of the Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to
pray. We are weakened, and henceforth how shall we
dare to cross into the Madar Klieyl border, as has been
our custom, to kneel to Pir Sajji's tomb? The Madar
men v/ill fall upon us, and rightly. But our Mullah is a
holy man. He has helped two score of us into Paradise
this night. Let him therefore accompany his flock, and
we will build over his body a dome of the blue tiles of
Mooltan, and burn lamps at his feet every Friday night.
He shall be a saint: we shall have a shrine; and there our
women shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our
fighting-tale. How think you? '

A grim chuckle followed the suggestion, and the soft
wheep, wheep of unscabbarded knives followed the chuc-
kle. It was an excellent notion, and met a long felt want
of the tribe. The Mullah sprang to his feet, glaring with
withered eyeballs at the drawn death he could not see,
and calling down, the curses of God and Mahomed on
the tribe. Then began a game of blind man's buff round
and between the fires, whereof Khuruk Shah, the tribal
poet, has sung in verse that will not die.

They tickled him gently under the armpit with the
knife-point. He leaped aside screaming, only to feel a
cold blade drawn lightly over the back of his neck, or a
rifle-muzzle rubbing his beard. He called on his ad-
herents to aid him, but most of these lay dead on the
plains, for Khoda Dad Khan had been at some pains to
arrange their decease. Men described to him the glories
of the shrine they would build, and the little children
clapping their hands cried, ^Run, Mullah, run! There's

2IO LIFE'S I-L\NDICAP

a man behind you ! ' In the end, when the sport wearied,-
Khoda Dad Khan's brother sent a knife home between
his ribs. 'Vv^herefore/ said Khoda Dad Khan with
charming simphcity, 'I am now Chief of the Khusru
Kheyl!' No man gainsaid him; and they all went to
sleep very stiff and sore.

On the plain below Tommy Dodd was lecturing
on the beauties of a cavalry charge by night, and Tal-
lantire, bowed on his saddle, was gasping hysterically
because there was a sword danghng from his wrist
flecked with the blood of the Khusru Kheyl, the tribe
that Orde had kept in leash so well. When a Rajpoot
trooper pointed out that the skewbald's right ear had
been taken oif at the root by some bhnd slash of its un-
skilled rider, Tallantire broke down altogether, and
laughed and sobbed till Tommy Dodd made him lie down
and rest.

'We must wait about till the morning,' said he. 'I
mred to the Colonel just before v/e left, to send a wing
of the BeshakKs after us. He'll be furious with me for
monopoHsing the fun, though. Those beggars in the hills
won't give us any more trouble.'

^ Then tell the Beshaklis to go on and see what
has happened to Curbar on the canal. We m.ust patrol
the whole hne of the Border. You're quite sure. Tommy,
that — that stuff was — v/as only the skewbald's ear? '

'Oh, quite,' said Tommy. 'You just missed cutting
off liis head. / saw you when we went into the mess.
Sleep, old man.'

Noon brought two squadrons of Beshaklis and a
knot of furious brother ofhcers demanding the court-
martial of Tommy Dodd for 'spoiHng the picnic,' and
a gallop across country to the canal- works where Ferris,
Curbar, and Hugonin were haranguing the terror-strickeo

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 211

coolies on the enormity of abandoning good work and
high pay, merely because half a dozen of their fellows
had been cut down. The sight of a troop of the Beshaklis
restored wavering confidence, and the police-hunted
section of the Khusru Kheyl had the joy of watching the
canal-bank humming with Hfe as usual, while such of
their men as had taken refuge in the watercourses and
ravines were being dri\en out by the troopers. By
sundown began the remorseless patrol of the Border by
police and trooper, most Uke the cow-boys' eternal ride
round restless cattle.

*Now,' said Khoda Dad Khan to his fellows, pointing
out a line of twinkling fires below, ^ye may see how far
the old order changes. After their horse will come the
little devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops of
the hills, and, for aught I know, to the clouds when we
crown the hills. If the tribe-council thinks good, I will
go to Tallantire Sahib — who loves me — and see if I can
stave off at least the blockade. Do I speak for the
tribe?'

*Ay, speak for the tribe in God's name. How those
accursed fires wink! Do the EngHsh send their troops
on the wire — or is this the work of the BengaH?'

As Khoda Dad Khan went down the hill he was
delayed by an interview with a hard-pressed tribes-
man, which caused him to return hastily for some-
thing he had forgotten. Then, handing himself over
to the two troopers who had been chasing his friend,
he claimed escort to Tallantire Sahib, then with Bul-
lows at Jumala. The Border was safe, and the time
for reasons in writing had begun.

* Thank Heaven!' said Bullows, 'that the trouble
came at once. Of course we can never put down the
reason in black and ^/hite. but all India will under-

2m LITE'S HANDICAP

stand. And it is better to have a sharp short out-
break than five years of impotent administration inside
the Border. It costs less. Grish Chimder De has
reported himself sick, and has been transferred to his
own province without any sort of reprimand. He
was strong on not having taken over the district.'

'Of course,' said Tallantire bitterly. 'Well, what am
I supposed to have done that was wrong? '

'Oh, you will be told that you exceeded all your
powers, and should have reported, and written, and
advised for three weeks until the Khusru Kheyl could
really come down in force. But I don't think the
authorities will dare to make a fuss about it. They've
had their lesson. Have you seen Curbar's version of
the affair? He can't write a report, but he can speak
the truth,'

'What's the use of the truth? He'd much better
tear up tlie report. I'm sick and heartbroken over
it all. It was so utterly unnecessary — except in that
it rid us of that Babu.'

Entered unabashed Khoda Dad Khan, a stuffed
forage-net in his hand, and the troopers behind him.

'May you never be tired!' said he cheerily. 'Well,
Sahibs, that was a good light, and Naim Shah's mother is
in debt to you, Tallantire Sahib. A clean cut, they tell
me, through jaw, wadded coat, and deep into the collar-
bone. Well done! But I speak for the tribe. There
has been a fault — a great fault. Thou knowest that I
and mine, Tallantire Sahib, kept the oath we sware
to Orde Sahib on the banks of the Indus.'

'As an Afghan keeps his knife — sharp on one side,
blunt on the other,' said Tallantire.

'The better swing in the blow, then. But I speak
God's truth. Only the Blind Mullah carried the young

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 213

men on the tip of his tongue, and said that there was no
more Border-law because a Bengali had been sent, and we
need not fear the EngHsh at all. So they came down to
avenge that insult and get plunder. Ye know what be-
fell, and how far I helped. Now five score of us are dead
or wounded, and we are all shamed and sorry, and desire
no further war. Moreover, that ye may better Ksten to
us, we have taken off the head of the Blind Mullah,
whose evil counsels have led us to folly. I bring it for
proof,' — and he heaved on the floor the head. 'He will
give no more trouble, for / am chief now, and so I sit in
a higher place at all audiences. Yet there is an offset to
this head. That was another fault. One of the men
found that black Bengali beast, through whom this
trouble arose, wandering on horseback and weeping.
Reflecting that he had caused loss of much good hfe,
Alia Dad Khan, whom, if you choose, I will to-miorrow
shoot, whipped off this head, and I bring it to you
to cover your shame, that ye may bury it. See, no man
kept the spectacles, though they were of gold.'

Slowly rolled to Tallan tire's feet the crop-haired head
of a spectacled Bengali gentleman, open-eyed, open-
mouthed — the head of Terror incarnate. Bullows bent
down. 'Yet another blood-fine and a heavy one, Khoda
Dad Khan, for this is the head of Debendra Nath, the
man's brother. The Babu is safe long since. All but the
fools of the Khusru Kheyl know that.'

'Well, I care not for carrion. Quick meat for me.
The thing was under our hills asking the road to Ju-
mala and Alia Dad Khan showed him the road to
Jehannum, being, as thou sayest, but a fooi. Remains
now what the Government will do to us. As to the
blockade '

'Who art thou, seller of dog's flesh,' thundered Tallan-

«i4 LIFE'S HANDICAP

tire, *to speak of terms and treaties? Get hence to the
hills — go, and wait there starving, till it shall please the
Government to call thy people out for punishment —
children and fools that ye be ! Count your dead, and be
still. Best assured that the Government will send you a
man!^

^Ay,' returned Khoda Dad Khan, 'for we also be
men.'

As he looked Tallantire between the eyes, he added,
*And by God, Sahib, may thou be that man!'

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

Before my Spring I garnered Autumn's gain.
Out of her time my field was white with grain,

The year gave up her secrets to my woe.
Forced and deflowered each sick season lay,
In mystery of increase and decay;
I saw the sunset ere men saw the day,

Who am too wise in that I shotdd not know.

BUter Waters,

'But if it be a girl?'

'Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for
so many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl's shrine so
often, that I know God will give us a son — a man-child
that shall grow into a man. Think of this and be glad.
My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again,
and the mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his
nativity — God send he be born in an auspicious hour! —
and then, and then thou wilt never weary of me, thy
slave.'

' Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?'
'Since the beginning — till this mercy came to me.
How could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had
been bought with silver? '

'Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother.*

'And she has buried it, and sits upon it aU day long

like a hen. What talk is yours of dower! I was bought

as though I had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a

child.'

n6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'Art thou sorry for the sale? *

'I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt
never cease to love me now? — answer, my king/

' Never — never. No. '

'Not even though the ^nein-log — the white women of
thy own blood — love thee? And remember, I have
watched them driving in the evening; they are very fair.'

'I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have
seen the moon, and — then I saw no more iire-balloons.*

Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. 'Very good
talk,' she said. Then with an assumption of great state-
liness, 'It is enough. Thou hast my permission to de-
part,— if thou wilt.'

The man did not move. He was sitting on a low
red-lacquered couch in a room furnished only with a
blue and white floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very com-
plete collection of native cushions. At his feet sat a
"woman of sixteen, and she was all but all the world in his
eyes. By every rule and law she should have been other-
wise, for he was an Enghshman, and she a Mussulman's
daughter bought two years before from her mother, who,
being left without money, would have sold Ameera
shrieking to the Prince of Darkness if the price had been
sufficient.

It was a contract entered into with a Hght heart;
but even before the girl had reached her bloom she
came to fill the greater portion of John Holden's Hfe.
For her, and the withered hag her mother, he had taken
a Kttle house overlooking the great red-walled city, and
found, — when the marigolds had sprung up by the well
in the courtyard and Ameera had estabHshed herself
according to her own ideas of comfort, and her mother
had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-
places, the distance from the daily market, and at matters

WITBOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 217

of house-keeping in general, — that the house was to him
his home. Any one could enter his bachelor's bungalow
by day or night, and the Hfe that he led there was an
unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet only
could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the women's
rooms; and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind
him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera for
queen. And there was going to be added to this king-
dom a third person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to
resent. It interfered with his perfect happiness. It
disarranged the orderly peace of the house that was his
own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the thought
of it, and her mother not less so. The love of a man, and
particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant
affair, but it might, both women argued, be held fast by
a baby's hands. 'And then,' Ameera would always say,
*then he will never care for the white mem-log. I hate
them all — I hate them all.'

*He will go back to his own people in time,' said
the mother; 'but by the blessing of God that time is yet
afar off.'

Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future,
and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of
a double life are manifold. The Government, with
singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a
fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was
watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal
notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful
remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being
a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news
to Ameera.

*It is not good,' she said slowly, 'but it is not all
bad. There is my mother here, and no harm will come
to me — unless indeed I die of pure joy. Go thou to

2i8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When the
days are done I believe . . . nay, I am sure. And
— and then I shall lay him in thy arms, and thou wilt love
me fori ever. The train goes to-night, at midnight is it
not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by
cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning?
Thou wilt not stay on the road to talk to the bold white
mem-log. Come back to me swiftly, my Hfe.'

As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was
tethered to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-
haired old watchman who guarded the house, and bade
him under certain contingencies despatch the filled-up
telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that
could be done, and with the sensations of a man who
has attended his own funeral Holden went away by the
night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he
dreaded the arrival of the telegram, and every hour of
the night he pictured to himself the death of Ameera.
In consequence his work for the State was not of first-
rate quality, nor was his temper towards his colleagues
of the most amiable. The fortnight ended mthout a
sign from his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties,
Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious
hours by a dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a
man hears in a swoon, voices telling him how execrably
he had performed the other man's duties, and how he
had endeared himself to all his associates. Then he fled
on horseback through the night with his heart in his
mouth. There was no answer at first to his blows on
the gate, and he had just wheeled his horse round to
kick it in when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and
held his stirrup.

*Has aught occurred? ' said Holden.

*The news does not come from my mouth, Protector

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 219

of the Poor, but ' He held out his shaking hand

as befitted the bearer of good news who is entitled to a
reward.

Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned
in the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway,
and he heard a shrill Uttle wail that sent all the blood into
the apple of his throat. It was a new voice, but it did not
prove that Ameera was alive.

'Who is there?' he called up the narrow brick stair-
case. >

There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then
the voice of the mother, tremulous with old age and
pride — 'We be two women and — the — man — thy — son.'

On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a
naked dagger, that was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it
broke at the hilt under his impatient heel.

' God is great ! ' cooed Ameera in the half-Hght. ' Thou
hast taken his misfortunes on thy head.'

'Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old
woman, how is it with her? '

' She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child
is born. There is no harm; but speak softly,' said the
mother.

'It only needed thy presence to make me all well,'
said Ameera. ' My king, thou hast been very long away.
What gifts hast thou for me? Ah, ah! It is I that
bring gifts this time. Look, my Hfe, look. Was there
ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear
my arm from him.'

'Rest then, and do not talk. I am here, bachari [little
woman].'

'Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope [pee-
charee] between us now that nothing can break. Look
—canst thou see in this light? He is without spot

3m WFE'S HANDICAP

or blemish. Never was such a man-chfld. Ya illahJ
he shall be a pundit — no, a trooper of the Queen. And,
my life, dost thou love me as well as ever, though I am
faint and sick and worn? Answer truly.'

'Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul. Lie
still, pearl, and rest.'

'Then do not go. Sit by ray side here — so. Mother,
the lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it.' There
was an almost imperceptible movement on the part of
the new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera's arm.
'Aho!' she said, her voice breaking with love. 'The
babe is a champion from his birth. He is kicking me
in the side with mighty kicks. Was there ever such a
babe! And he is ours to us — thine and mine. Put
thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is very young,
and men are unskilled in such matters.'

Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his
fingers the downy head.

'He is of the faith,' said Ameera; 'for lying here
in the night-watches I whispered the call to prayer and
the profession of faith into his ears. And it is most
marvellous that he was born upon a Friday, as I w^as
born. Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost
grip mth his hands.'

Holden found one helpless little hand that closed
feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his
body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole
thought had been for Ameera. He began to reahse
that there was some one else in the world, but he could
not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He
sat down to think, and Ameera dozed hghtly.

' Get hence, sahih,^ said her mother under her breath.
*It is not good that she should find you here on waking.
She must be still.'

WITHOUT BENEHT OF CLERGY ati

*I go,* said Holden submissively. 'Here be rupees.
See that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs/

The chink of the silver roused Ameera. 'I am his
mother, and no hireling,' she said weakly. 'Shall I look
to him more or less for the sake of money? Mother,
give it back. I have born my lord a son.'

The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost
before the sentence was completed. Holden went down
to the courtyard very softly with his heart at ease. Pir
Khan, the old watchman, was chuckhng with delight.
'This house is now complete,' he said, and without further
comment thrust into Holden's hands the hilt of a sabre
worn many years ago when he, Pir Khan, served the
Queen in the poHce. The bleat of a tethered goat came
from the well-kerb.

'There be two,' said Pir Khan, 'two goats of the best.
I bought them, and they cost much money; and since
there is no birth-party assembled their flesh will be all
mine. Strike craftily, sahib I 'Tis an ill-balanced sabre
at the best. Wait till they raise their heads from crop-
ping the marigolds.'

'And why?' said Holden, bewildered.

'For the birth-sacrifice. What else? Otherwise the
child being unguarded from fate may die. The Protector
of the Poor knows the fitting words to be said.'

Holden had learned them once with little thought that
he would ever speak them in earnest. The touch of the
cold sabre-hilt in his palm turned suddenly to the clinging
grip of the child upstairs — the child that was his own
son — and a dread of loss filled him.

'Strike!' said Pir Khan. 'Never life came into the
world but life was paid for it. See, the goats have raised
their heads. Now! With a drawing cut!'

Hardly knowing what he did Holden cut twice as he

222 LIFE'S HANDICAP

muttered the Mahomedan prayer that runs: 'Almighty!
In place of this my son I offer Hfe for Hfe, blood for blood,
head for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin/
The waiting horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at
the smell of the raw blood that spirted over Holden's
riding-boots.

'Well smitten!' said Pir Khan, wiping the sabre. 'A
swordsman was lost in thee. Go with a Hght heart,
Heaven-born. I am thy servant, and the servant of thy
son. May the Presence live a thousand years and . . .
the flesh of the goats is all mine? ' Pir Khan drew back
richer by a month's pay. Holden swung himself into the
saddle and rode off through the low-hanging wood-smoke
of the evening. He was full of riotous exultation, alter-
nating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards no
particular object, that made him choke as he bent over
the neck of his uneasy horse. 'I never felt like this
in my life,' he thought. 'I'll go to the club and pull
myself together.'

A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full
of men. Holden entered, eager to get to the light and the
company of his fellows, singing at the top of his voice —

In Baltimore a- walking, a lady I did meet!

'Did you?' said the club-secretary from his corner.
'Did she happen to tell you that your boots were wringing
wet? Great goodness, man, it's blood!'

'Bosh!' said Holden, picking his cue from the rack.
'May I cut in? It's dew. I've been riding through
high crops. My faith ! my boots are in a mess though !

'And if it be a girl she shall wear a wedding-ring,
And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king,
With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue,
He shall walk the quarter-deck — '

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 223

'Yellow on blue — green next player/ said the marker
monotonously.

^He shall walk the quarter-deck, — Am I green, marker?
He shall walk the quarter-deck, — eh! that's a bad shot, —
As his daddy used to do ! '

'I don't see that you have anything to crow about,'
said a zealous junior civilian acidly. 'The Government
is not exactly pleased with your work when you relieved
Sanders.'

'Does that mean a wigging from headquarters?' said
Holden with an abstracted smile. 'I think I can stand
it.'

The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each
man's work, and steadied Holden till it was time to go
to his dark empty bungalow, where his butler received
him as one who knew all his affairs. Holden remained
awake for the greater part of the night, and his dreams
were pleasant ones.

II

' How old is he now? '

^Ya Utah I What a man's question! He is all but
six weeks old; and on this night I go up to the house-
top with thee, my life, to count the stars. For that is
auspicious. And he was born on a Friday under the
sign of the Sun, and it has been told to me that he will
outlive us both and get wealth. Can we wish for aught
better, beloved? '

'There is nothing better. Let us go up to the roof,
and thou shalt count the stars — but a few only, for the
sky is heavy with cloud.'

'The winter rains are late, and maybe they come out
of season. Come, before all the stars are hid. I have
put on my richest jewels.'

224 LIFE'S HANDICAP

* Thou hast forgotten the best of all.*

^Ail Ours. He comes also. He has never yet seen
the skies.'

Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that led to the
flat roof. The child, placid and unwinking, lay in the
hollow of her right arm, gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin
with a small skull-cap on his head. Ameera wore all
that she valued most. The diamond nose-stud that takes
the place of the Western patch in drawing attention to
the curv^e of the nostril, the gold ornament in; the centre
of the forehead studded with tallow-drop emeralds and
flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of beaten gold that was
fastened round her neck by the softness of the pure metal,
and the chinking curb-patterned silver anklets hanging
low over the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade-
green muslin as befitted a daughter of the Faith, and from
shoulder to elbow and elbow to wrist ran bracelets of
silver tied with floss silk, frail glass bangles slipped over
the wrist in proof of the slendemess of the hand, and
certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her
country's ornaments but, since they were Holden's gift
and fastened with a cunning European snap, dehghted
her immensely.

They sat down by the low white parapet of the roof,
overlooking the city and its lights.

'They are happy down there,' said Ameera. *But I
do not think that they are as happy as we. Nor do I
think the white mem-log are as happy. And thou?'

'I know they are not.'

'How dost thou know?'

*They give their children over to the nurses.'

^I have never seen that,' said Ameera with a sigh,
'nor do I wish to see. A hi! — she dropped her head on
Holden's shoulder, — 'I have counted forty stars, and I

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY ?as

am tired. Look at the child, love of my life, he is count-
ing too.'

The baby was staring with round eyes at the dark of
the heavens. Ameera placed him in Holden's arms, and
he lay there without a cry.

'What shall we call him among ourselves?' she said.
*Look! Art thou ever tired of looking? He carries thy
very eyes. But the mouth '

*Is thine, most dear. Who should know better
than I?'

* 'Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! And yet it
holds my heart between its Hps. Give him to me now.
He has been too long away.'

*Nay, let him he; he has not yet begun to cry.'

'When he cries thou wilt give him back — eh? What
a man of mankind thou art! If he cried he were only
the dearer to me. But, my life, what Uttle name shaU
we give him? '

The small body lay close to Holden's heart. It was
utterly helpless and very soft. He scarcely dared to
breathe for fear of crushing it. The caged green parrot
that is regarded as a sort of guardian-spirit in most
native households moved on its perch and fluttered a
drowsy wing.

'There is the answer,' said Holden. 'Mian Mittu has
spoken. He shall be the parrot. When he is ready he
will talk mightily and run about. Mian Mittu is the
parrot in thy — in the Mussulman tongue, is it not? '

'Why put me so far off?' said Ameera fretfully.
'Let it be like unto some EngHsh name — but not wholly,
For he is mine.'

'Then call him Tota, for that is Hkest English.'

'Ay, Tota, and that is still the parrot. Forgive me,
my lord, for a minute aeo, but in truth he is too little to

226 LIFE'S HANDICAP

wear all the weight of Mian Mittu for name. He shall
be Tota — our Tota to us. Hearest thou, O small one?
Littlest, thou art Tota.' She touched the child's cheek,
and he waking wailed, and it was necessary to return him
to his mother, who soothed him with the wonderful rhyme
of Are koko, J are koko I which says:

Oh crow! Go crow! Baby's sleeping sound,

And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound.

Only a penny a pound, baba, only a penny a pound.

Reassured many times as to the price of those plums,
Tota cuddled himself down to sleep. The two sleek,
white well-bullocks in the courtyard were steadily chew-
ing the cud of their evening meal; old Pir Khan squatted
at the head of Holden's horse, his police sabre across his
knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked
like a bull-frog in a pond. Ameera's mother sat spinning
in the lower verandah, and the wooden gate was shut and
barred. The music of a marriage-procession came to the
roof above the gentle hum of the city, and a string of
flying-foxes crossed the face of the low moon.

'I have prayed,' said Ameera after a long pause, 'I
have prayed for two things. First, that I may die in
thy stead if thy death is demanded, and in the second
that I may die in the place of the child. I have prayed
to the Prophet and to Beebee Miriam [the Virgin Mary]-
Thinkest thou either will hear? '

'From thy lips who would not hear the lightest
word? '

'I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me
sweet talk. Will my prayers be heard? '

'How can I say? God is very good.'

'Of that I am not sure. Listen now. When I die,
or the child dies, what is thy fate? Living, thou wilt

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 227

return to the bold white mem-log, for kind calls to
kind.'

'Not always.'

'With a woman, no; with a man it is otherwise.
Thou wilt in this life, later on, go back to thine own folk.
That I could almost endure, for I should be dead.
But in thy very death thou wilt be taken away to a
strange place and a paradise that I do not know.'

'Will it be paradise?'

'Surely, for who would harm thee? But we two —
I and the child — shall be elsewhere, and we cannot come
to thee, nor canst thou come to us. In the old days,
before the child was born, I did not think of these |things;
but now I think of them always. It is very hard talk.'

'It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we do not
know, but to-day and love we know well. Surely we are
happy now.'

'So happy that it were well to make our happiness
assured. And thy Beebee Miriam should listen to me;
for she is also a woman. But then she would envy me!
It is not seemly for men to worship a woman.'

Holden laughed aloud at Ameera's Kttle spasm of
jealousy.

' Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not turn me from
worship of thee, then? '

'Thou a worshipper! And of me? My king, for all
thy sweet words, well I know that I am thy servant and
thy slave, and the dust under thy feet. And I would
not have it otherwise. See ! '

Before Holden could prevent her she stooped forward
and touched his feet; recovering herself with a little
laugh she hugged Tota closer to her bosom. Then,
almost savagely —

'Is it true that the bold white m£m-log live for three

228 LIFE'S HANDICAP

times the length of my life? Is it true that they make
their marriages not before they are old women? '

'They marry as do others — when they are women/

• That I know, but they wed when they are twenty-five.
Is that true?'

•That is true/

' Ya illah ! At twenty-five ! Who would of his own
will take a wife even of eighteen? She is a woman —
aging every hour. Twenty-five! I shall be an old

woman at that age, and Those mem-log remain

young for ever. How I hate them!'

'What have they to do with us?'

'I cannot tell. I know only that there may now
be alive on this earth a woman ten years older than I
who may come to thee and take thy love ten years after
I am an old woman, gray-headed, and the nurse of
Tota's son. That is unjust and evil. They should die
too.'

' Now, for all thy years thou art a child, and shalt be
picked up and carried down the staircase.'

'Total Have a care for Tota, my lord! Thou at
least art as foolish as any babe!' Ameera tucked Tota
out of harm's way in the hollow of her neck, and was
carried downstairs laughing in Holden's arms, while Tota
opened his eyes and smiled after the manner of the lesser
angels.

He was a silent infant, and, almost before Holden
could reaHse that he was in the world, developed into a
small gold-coloured httle god and unquestioned despot of
the house overlooking the city. Those were months of
absolute happiness to Holden and Ameera — happiness
withdrawn from the world, shut in behind the wooden
gate that Pir Khan guarded. By day Holden did his
work with Ian immense pity for such as were not so toi-

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY sag

tunate as himself, and a sympathy for small children that
amazed and amused many mothers at the little station-
gatherings. At nightfall he returned to Ameera, —
Ameera, full of the wondrous doings of Tota; how he had
been seen to clap his hands together and move his fingers
with intention and purpose — which was manifestly a
miracle — how later, he had of his own initiative crawled
out of his low bedstead on to the floor and swayed on
both feet for the space of three breaths.

'And they were long breaths, for my heart stood still
with delight,' said Ameera.

Then Tota took the beasts into his councils — the well-
bullocks, the little gray squirrels, the mongoose that
lived in a hole near the well, and especially Mian Mittu,
the parrot, whose tail he grievously pulled, and Mian
Mittu screamed till Ameera and Holden arrived.

'O villain! Child of strength! This to thy brother
on the house-top! Tohah, tohah! Fie! Fie! But I
know a charm to make him wise as Suleiman and Afla-
toun [Solomon and Plato]. Now look,' said Ameera.
She drew from an embroidered bag a handful of almonds.
'See ! we count seven. In the name of God ! '

She placed Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, on
the top of his cage, and seating herself between the babe
and the bird she cracked and peeled an almond less white
than her teeth. 'This is a true charm, my Kfe, and do
not laugh. See! I give the parrot one half and Tota the
other.' Mian Mittu with careful beak took his share
from between Ameera's Hps, and she kissed the other
half into the mouth of the child, who ate it slowly with
wondering eyes. 'This I will do each day of seven, and
without doubt he who is ours will be a bold speaker and
wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt thou be when thou art a man
and I am gray-h©ad«d? ' Tota tucked his fat legs into

230 LIFE'S HANDICAP

adorable creases. He could crawl, but he was not going
to waste the spring of his youth in idle speech. He
wanted Mian Mittu's tail to tweak.

When he was advanced to the dignity of a silver belt
• — which, with a magic square engraved on silver and
hung round his neck, made up the greater part of his
clothing — he staggered on a perilous journey down the
garden to Pir Khan and proffered him all his jewels in
exchange for one Uttle ride on Holden's horse, having
seen his mother's mother chaffering with pedlars in the
verandah. Pir Khan wept and set the untried feet
on his own gray head in sign of fealty, and brought
the bold adventurer to his mother's arms, vowing
that Tota would be a leader of men ere his beard was
grown.

One hot evening, while he sat on the roof between his
father and mother watching the never-ending warfare of
the kites that the city boys flew, he demanded a kite of
his own with Pir Khan to fly it, because he had a fear
of dealing with anything larger than himself, and [when
Holden called him a 'spark,' he rose to his feet and
answered slowly in defence of his new-found individual-
ity, ^ Hum'' park nakin Imi. Hum admi hai [I am no
spark, but a man].'

The protest made Holden choke and devote himself
very seriously to a consideration of Tota's future. He
need hardly have taken the trouble. The delight of that
life was too perfect to endure. Therefore it was taken
away as many things are taken away in India — suddenly
and without warning. The little lord of the house, as Pir
Khan called him, grew sorrowful and complained of pains
who had never known the meaning of pain. Ameera,
wild with terror, watched him through the night, and in
the dawning of the second day the life was shaken out of

r

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 231

him by fever — the seasonal autumn fever. It seemed
altogether impossible that he could die, and neither
Ameera nor Holden at first believed the evidence of the
little body on the bedstead. Then Ameera beat her head
against the wall and would have flung herself down the
well in the garden had Holden not restrained her by
main force.

One mercy only was granted to Holden. He rode tG
his office in broad daylight and found waiting him an
unusually heavy mail that demanded concentrated atten-
tion and hard work. He was not, however, alive to this
kindness of the gods.

Ill

The first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk
pinch. The wrecked body does not send in its protest
to the soul till ten or fifteen seconds later. Holden
realised his pain slowly, exactly as he had reaHsed his
happiness, and with the same imperious necessity for
hiding all trace of it. In the beginning he only felt that
there had been a loss, and that Ameera needed com-
forting, where she sat with her head on her knees shiver-
ing as Mian Mittu from the house-top called. Tola! Total
Tola ! Later all his world and the daily life of it rose
up to hurt him. It was an outrage that any one of the
children at the band-stand in the evening should be
alive and clamorous, when his own child lay dead. It
was more than mere pain when one of them touched him,
and stories told by over-fond fathers of their children's
latest performances cut him to the quick. He could not
declare his pain. He had neither help, comfort, nor
sympathy; and Ameera at the end of each weary day
would lead him through the hell of self-questioning re-
proach which is reserved for those who have lost a child,

33^ LIFE'S HANDICAP

and befieve that with a little — just a little — ^more care
it might have been saved.

* Perhaps/ Ameera would say, 'I did not take suf-
ficient heed. Did I, or did I not? The sun on the
roof that day when he played so long alone and I was —
ahil braiding my hair — it may be that the sun then bred
the fever. If I had warned him from the sun he might
have lived. But, oh my Hfe, say that I am guiltless!
Thou knowest that I loved him as I love thee. Say
that there is no blame on me, or I shall die — I shall
die!'

' There is no blame, — ^before God, none. It was written
and how could we do aught to save? What has been, has
been. Let it go, beloved.'

'He was all my heart to me. How can I let the
thought go when my arm tells me every night that he is
not here? Ahi ! Ahi! O Tota, come back to me—
come back again, and let us be all together as it was
before!'

'Peace, peace! For thine own sake, and for mine also,
if thou lovest me — rest.'

'By this I know thou dost not care; and how shouldst
thou? The white men have hearts of stone and souls of
iron. Oh, that I had married a man of inine own people
— though he beat me — and had never eaten the bread of
an alien!'

'Am I an alien — mother of my son? '

'What else — Sahib? . . . Oh, forgive me — for-
give! The death has driven me mad. Thou art the
life of my heart, and the Hght of my eyes, and tlie breath
of my life, and — and I have put thee from me, though it
was but for a moment. If thou goest away, to whom
shall I look for help? Do not be angry. Indeed, it
was the pain that spoke and not thy slave.'

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 233

'I know, I knov/. We be two who were three. The
greater need therefore that we should be one.'

They were sitting on the roof as of custom. The night
was a warm one in early spring, and sheet-Kghtning was
dancing on the horizon to a broken tune played by far-off
thunder. Ameera settled herself in Holden's arms.

*The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the rain,
and I — I am afraid. It was not like this when we
counted the stars. But thou lovest me as much as
before, though a bond is taken away? Answer!'

'I love more because a new bond has come out of
the sorrow that we have eaten together, and that thou
knowest.'

'Yea, I knew,' said Ameera in a very small whisper.
*But it is good to hear thee say so, my life, who art so
strong to help. I will be a child no more, but a woman
and an aid to thee. Listen! Give me my sitar and I
will sing bravely.'

She took the light silver-studded sitar and began
a song of the great hero Rajah Rasalu. The hand failed
on the strings, the tune halted, checked, and at a low
note turned off to the poor little nursery-rhyme about
the wicked crow —

And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound.
Only a penny a pound, baba — only . . .

Then came the tears, and the piteous rebellion against
fate till she slept, moaning a little in her sleep, with
the right arm thrown clear of the body as though it pro-
tected something that was not there. It was after this
night that Hfe became a Httle easier for Holden. The
ever-present pain of loss drove him into his work, and
the work repaid him by filling up his mind for nine or
ten hours a day. Ameera sat alone in the house and

234 LIFE'S HANDICAP

brooded, but grew happier when she understood that
Holden was more at ease, according to the custom of
women. They touched happiness again, but this time
with caution.

'It was because we loved Tota that he died. The
jealousy of God was upon us,' said Ameera. 'I have
hung up a large black jar before our window to turn the
evil eye from us, and we must make no protestations of
delight, but go softly underneath the stars, lest God find
us out. Is that not good talk, worthless one? '

She had shifted the accent on the word that means
* beloved,' in proof of the sincerity of her purpose. But
the kiss that followed the new christening was a thing
that any deity might have envied. They went about
henceforward saying, 'It is naught, it is naught;' and
hoping that all the Powers heard.

The Powers were busy on other things. They had
allowed thirty million people four years of plenty wherein
men fed well and the crops were certain, and the birth-
rate rose year by year; the districts reported a purely
agricultural population varying from nine hundred to
two thousand to the square mile of the overburdened
earth; and the Member for Lower Tooting, wandering
about India in pot-hat and frock-coat, talked largely of
the benefits of British rule and suggested as the one
thing needful the establishment of a duly qualified elec-
toral system and a general bestowal of the franchise. His
long-suffering hosts smiled and made him welcome, and
when he paused to admire, with pretty picked words,
the blossom of the blood-red dhak-tree that had flowered
untimely for a sign of what was coming, they smiled more
than ever.

It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen,
staying at the club for a day, who lightly told a tale

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 235

that made Holden's blood run cold as he overheard the
end.

'He won't bother any one any more. Never saw a
man so astonished in my Hfe. By Jove, I thought he
meant to ask a question in the House about it. Fellow-
passenger in his ship — dined next him — bowled over by
cholera and died in eighteen hours. You needn't laugh,
you fellows. The Member for Lower Tooting is awfully
angry about it; but he's more scared. I think he's going
to take his enlightened self out of India.'

'I'd give a good deal if he were knocked over. It
might keep a few vestrymen of his kidney to their own
parish. But what's this about cholera? It's fuU early
for anything of that kind,' said the warden of an un-
profitable salt-Hck.

'Don't know,' said the Deputy Commissioner reflect-
ively. 'We've got locusts with us. There's sporadic
cholera all along the north — at least we're calling it
sporadic for decency's sake. The spring crops are short
in five districts, and nobody seems to know where the
rains are. It's nearly March now. I don't want to
scare anybody, but it seems to me that Nature's going to
audit her accounts with a big red pencil this summer.'

'Just when I wanted to take leave, too!' said a voice
across the room.

'There won't be much leave this year, but there ought
to be a great deal of promotion. I've come in to persuade
the Government to put my pet canal on the list of famine-
relief works. It's an ill- wind that blows no good. I
shall get that canal finished at last.'

'Is it the old programme then,' said Plolden; 'famine,
fever, and cholera?'

'Oh no. Only local scarcity and an unusual preva-
lence of seasonal sickness. You'll find it all in the

ts6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

reports if you live till next year. You're a lucky chap.
You haven't got a wife to send out of harm's way. The
hill-stations ought to be full of women this year.'

'I think you're incHned to exaggerate the talk in the
bazars,* said a young civilian in the Secretariat. 'Now I
have observed '

'I daresay you have/ said the Deputy Commissioner,
'but you've a great deal more to observe, my son. In
the meantime, I wish to observe to you— — ' and he
drew him aside to discuss the construction of the canal
that was so dear to his heart. Holden went to his bun-
galow and began to understand that he was not alone in
the world, and also that he was afraid for the sake of
another, — which is the most soul-satisfying fear known
to man.

Two months later, as the Deputy had foretold, Nature
began to audit her accounts with a red pencil. On the
heels of the spring-reapings came a cry for bread, and the
Government, which had decreed that no man should die
of want, sent wheat. Then came the cholera from all
four quarters of the compass. It struck a pilgrim-gather-
ing of half a million at a sacred shrine. Many died at
the feet of their god; the others broke and ran over the
face of the land carrying the pestilence with them. It
smote a walled city and killed two hundred a day. The
people crowded the trains, hanging on to the footboards
and squatting on the roofs of the carriages, and the
cholera followed them, for at each station they"" dragged
out the dead and the dying. They died by the roadside,
and the horses of the Englishmen shied at the corpses in
the grass. The rains did not come, and the earth turned
to iron lest man should escape death by hiding in her.
The Enghsh sent their wives away to the hills and went
about their work, coming forward as they were bidden to

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 237

fill the gaps in the fighting-line. Holden, sick with fear
of losing his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best
to persuade Ameera to go away with her mother to the
Himalayas.

'Why should I go?' said she one evening on the
roof.

'There is sickness, and people are dying, and all the
white mem-log have gone.'

'All of them?'

'All — unless perhaps there remain some old scald-
head who vexes her husband's heart by running risk of
death.'

'Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou must not
abuse her, for I will be a scald-head too. I am glad all
the bold mem-log are gone.'

'Do I speak to a woman or a babe? Go to the hills
and I will see to it that thou goest like a queen's daughter.
Think, child. In a red-lacquered bullock-cart, veiled
and curtained, with brass peacocks upon the pole and
red cloth hangings. I will send two orderlies for guard,
and '

'Peace! Thou art the babe in speaking thus. What
use are those toys to me? He would have patted
the bullocks and played with the housings. For his
sake, perhaps,— thou hast made me very EngHsh— I
might have gone. Now, I will not. Let the mem-log
run.'

'Their husbands are sending them, beloved.'

'Very good talk. Since when hast thou been my
husband to tell me what to do? I have but borne thee
a son. Thou art only all the desire of my soul to me.
How shall I depart when I know that if evil befall thee
by the breadth of so much as my littlest finger-nail-
is that not small?— I should be aware of it though I

238 LIFE'S HANDICAP

were in paradise. And here, this summer thou mayest
die — at, janee, die ! and in dying they might call to tend
thee a wliite woman, and she would rob me in the last of
thy love ! '

' But love is not born in a moment or on a death-bed ! '

'What dost thou know of love, stoneheart? Sha
would take thy thanks at least and, by God and the
Prophet and Beebee Miriam the mother of thy Prophet,
that I v/ill never endure. My lord and my love, let
there be no more foolish talk of going away. Where
thou art, I am. It is enough.' She put an arm round
his neck and a hand on his mouth.

There are not many happinesses so complete as those
that are snatched under the shadow of the sword. They
sat together and laughed, calling each other openly by
every pet name that could move the wrath of the gods.
The city below them was locked up in its own torments.
Sulphur fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the
Hindu temples screamed and bellowed, for the gods were
inattentive in those days. There was a service in the
great Mahomedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the
minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing
in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a
mother who had lost a child and was caUing for its re-
turn. In the gray dawn they saw the dead borne out
through the city gates, each litter with its own little
knot of mourners. Wherefore they kissed each other
and shivered.

It was a red and heavy audit, for the land was very
sick and needed a little breathing-space ere the torrent
of cheap life should flood it anew. The children of
immature fathers and undeveloped mothers made no
resistance. They were cowed and sat still, waiting till
the sword should be sheathed in November if it were

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 239

SO willed. There were gaps among the English, but
the gaps were filled. The work of superintending famine-
relief, cholera-sheds, medicine-distribution, and what
little sanitation was possible, went forward because it
was so ordered.

Holden had been told to keep himself in readiness to
move to replace the next man who should fall. There
were twelve hours in each day when he could not see
Ameera, and she might die in three. He was considering
what his pain would be if he could not see her for three
months, or if she died out of his sight. He was absolutely
certain that her death would be demanded — so certain
that when he looked up from the telegram and saw Pir
Khan breathless in the doorway, he laughed aloud.
'And?' said he,

'When there is a cry in the night and the spirit flut-
ters into the throat, who has a charm that will restore?
Come swiftly, Heaven-born! It is the black cholera.'

Holden galloped to his home. The sky was heavy
with clouds, for the long-deferred rains were near and the
heat was stifling. Ameera's mother met him in the
courtyard, whimpering, 'She is dying. She is nursing
herself into death. She is all but dead. What shall I do,
sahib ? '

Ameera was lying in the room in which Tota had
been born. She made no sign when Holden entered,
because the human soul is a very lonely thing and, when
it is getting ready to go away, hides itself in a misty
borderland where the living may not follow. The black
cholera does its work quietly and without explanation.
Ameera was being thrust out of Hfe as though the Angel
of Death had liimself put his hand upon her. The quick
breathing seemed to show that she was either afraid or in
painj but neither eyes nor mouth gave any answer to

S40 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Holden's kisses. There was nothing to be said or done.
Holden could only wait and suffer. The first drops of
the rain began to fall on the roof, and he could hear
shouts of joy in the parched city.

The soul came back a little and the lips moved.
Holden bent down to listen. 'Keep nothing of mine/
said Ameera. 'Take no hair from my head. Slie would
make thee bum it later on. That flame I should feel.
Lower ! Stoop lower ! Remember only that I was thine
and bore thee a son. Though thou wed a white woman
to-morrow, the pleasure of receiving in thy arms thy first
son is taken from thee for ever. Remember me when thy
son is bom — the one that shall carry thy name before all
men. His misfortimes be on my head. I bear witness —
I bear witness' — the lips were forming the words on his
ear — 'that there is no God but — thee, beloved!'

Then she died. Holden sat still, and all thought was
taken from him, — till he heard Ameera's mother lift the
curtain.

' Is she dead, sahib ? '

'She is dead.'

'Then I will mourn, and afterwards take an inventory
of the fumiture in this house. For that will be mine.
The sahib does not mean to resume it? It is so Httle, so
very little, sahib, and I am an old woman. I would like
to lie softly.'

'For the m.ercy of God be silent a while. Go out and
mourn where I cannot hear.'

'Sahib, she will be buried in four hours.'

'I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken away.
That matter is in thy hands. Look to it, that the bed on
which — on which she lies '

'Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. I have
long de«red '

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 241

^That the bed is left here untouched for my disposal.
AH else in the house is thine. Hire a cart, take every-
thing, go hence, and before sunrise let there be nothing
in this house but that wliich I have ordered thee to
respect.'

'I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the
days of mourning, and the rains have just broken.
Whither shaU I go?'

'What is that to me? My order is that there is a
going. The house-gear is worth a thousand rupees and
my orderly shall bruig thee a hundred rupees to-night.'

' That is very Httle. Think of the cart-hire.'

'It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with speed.
O woman, get hence and leave me with my dead! '

The mother shuffled down the staircase, and in her
anxiety to take stock of the house-fittings forgot to
mourn. Holden stayed by Ameera's side and the rain
roared on the roof. He could not think connectedly
by Reason of the noise, though he made many attempts to
do so. Then four sheeted ghosts ghded dripping into the
room and stared at him through their veils. They were
the washers of the dead. Holden left the room and went
out to his horse. He had come in a dead, stifling calm
through ankle-deep dust. He found the courtyard a rain-
lashed pond ahve with frogs; a torrent of yellow water ran
under the gate, and a roaring wind drove the bolts of the
rain like buckshot against the mud-walls. Pir Khan was.
shivering in his Httle hut by the gate, and the horse was
stamping uneasily in the water.

'I have been told the sahib's order,' said Pir Khan.
'It is well. This house is now desolate. I go also, for
my monkey-face would be a reminder of that which hss
been. Concerning the bed, I will bring that to thy
house yonder in the morning; but remember, sakib,

342 LIFE'S HANDICAP

it will be to thee a knife turning in a green wound,
I go upon a pilgrimage, and I will take no money*
I have grown fat in the protection of the Presence
whose sorrow is my sorrow. For the last time I hold
lixs stirrup.'

He touched Holden's foot with both hands and the
horse sprang out into the road, where the creaking
bamboos were whipping the sky and all the frogs were
chuckHng. Holden could not see for the rain in his
face. He put his hands before his eyes and muttered —

' Oh you brute ! You utter brute ! '

The news of his trouble was already in his bungalow.
He read the knowledge in his butler's eyes when Ahmed
Khan brought m food, and for the first and last time in
his life laid a hand upon his master's shoulder, saying,
'Eat, sahih, eat. Meat is good against sorrow. I also
have known. Moreover the shadows come and go,
sahih; the shadows come and go. These be curried
eggs.'

Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The heavens
sent down eight inches of rain in that night and washed
the earth clean. The waters tore down walls, broke
roads, and scoured open the shallow graves on the
Mahomedan burying-ground. All next day it rained,
and Holden sat still in his house considering his sorrow.
On the morning of the third day he received a telegram
which said only, 'Ricketts, Myndonie. Dying. Holden
reUeve. Immediate.' Then he thought that before he
departed he would look at the house wherein he had been
master and lord. There was a break in the weather,
and the rank earth steamed with vapour.

He found that the rains had torn down the mud
pillars of the gateway, and the heavy wooden gate that
had guarded his life hung hjzjly from one hinge. There

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 243

was grass three inches high in the courtyard; Pir Khan^s
lodge was empty, and the sodden thatch sagged between
the beams. A gray squirrel was in possession of tlie
verandah, as if the house had been untenanted for thirty
years instead of three days. Ameera's mother had
reinoved everything except some mildewed matting.
The tick-tick of the little scorpions as they hurried across
the floor was the only sound in the house. Ameera's
room and the other one where Tota had lived were heavy
with mildew; and the narrow staircase leading to the
roof was streaked and stained with rain-borne mud.
Holden saw all these things, and came out again to meet
in the road Durga Dass, his landlord, — portly, affable,
clothed in white muslin, and driving a Cee-spring buggy.
He was overlooking his property to see how the roofs
stood the stress of the first rains.

'I have heard,' said he, 'you will not take this place
any more, sahih ? '

' What are you going to do with it? '

* Perhaps I shall let it again.'

'Then I will keep it on while I am away.'

Durga Dass was silent for some time. 'You shall
not take it on, sahib,'' he said. 'When I was a young
man I also , but to-day I am a member of the Munic-
ipality. Ho! Ho! No. When the birds have gone
what need to keep the nest? I will have it pulled down
— the timber will sell for something always. It shall be
pulled down, and the MunicipaKty shall make a road
across, as they desire, from the burning-ghat to the
city wall, so that no man may say where this house
stood.'

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE

The sky is lead and our faces are red,

And the gates of Hell are opened and riven,
And the winds of Hell are loosened and driven.

And the dust flies up in the face of Heaven,
And the clouds come down in a fiery sheet,

Heavy to raise and hard to be borne.
And the soul of man is turned from his meat,

Turned from the trifles for which he has striven
Sick in his body, and heavy hearted,
And his soul flies up like the dust in the sheet
Breaks from his flesh and is gone and departed.

As the blasts they blow on the cholera-horn.

Himaiayan,

Four men, each entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness,' sat at a table playing whist. The thermom-
eter marked — for them — one hundred and one degrees
of heat. The room was darkened till it was only just
possible to distinguish the pips of the cards and the very
white faces of the players. A tattered, rotten punkah of
whitewashed calico was puddling the hot air and whining
dolefully at each stroke. Outside lay gloom of a Novem-
ber day in London. There was neither sky, sun, nor
horizon, — nothing but a brown purple haze of heat. It
w^as as though the earth were dying of apoplexy.

From time to time clouds of tawny dust rose from
the ground without wind or warning, flung themselves
tablecloth- wise among the tops of the parched trees,
and came down again. Then a whirling dust-devil would
scutter across the plain for a couple of miles, break, and

244

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 245

fall outward, though there was nothing to check its flight
save a long low line of piled railway-sleepers white with
the dust, a cluster of huts made of mud, condemned rails,
and canvas, and the one squat four-roomed bungalow
that belonged to the assistant engineer in charge of a
section of the Gaudhari State line then under construc-
tion.

The four, stripped to the thinnest of sleeping-suits,
played whist crossly, with wranglings as to leads and
returns. It was not the best kind of whist, but they had
taken some trouble to arrive at it. Mottram of the
Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred
miles from his lonely post in the desert since the night
before; Lowndes of the Civil Service, on special duty in
the poHtical department, had come as far to escape for a,n
instant the miserable intrigues of an impoverished native
State whose king alternately fawned and blustered for
more money from the pitiful revenues contributed by
hard- wrung peasants and despairing camel-breeders;
Spurstow, the doctor of the line, had left a cholera-
stricken camp of coolies to look after itself for forty-eight
hours while he associated with white men once more.
Hummil, the assistant engineer, was the host. He stood
fast and received his friends thus every Sunday if they
could come in. When one of them failed to appear, he
would send a telegram to his last address, in order that
he might know whether the defaulter were dead or alive.
There are very many places in the East where it is not
good or kind to let your acquaintances drop out of sight
even for one short week.

The players were not conscious of any special regard
for each other. They squabbled whenever they met; but
they ardently desired to meet, as men mthout water
desire to drink. They were lonely folk who understood

246 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the dread meaning of loneliness. They were all under
thirty years of age, — which is too soon for any man to
possess that knowledge.

'Pilsener?' said Spurstow, after the second rubber,
mopping his forehead.

* Beer's out, I'm sorry to say, and there's hardly
enough soda-water for to-night,' said Hummil.

'What filthy bad management!' Spurstow snarled.

'Can't help it. I've written and wired; but the trains
don't come through regularly yet. Last week the ice ran
out, — as Lowndes knows.'

'Glad I didn't come. I could ha' sent you some if I
had known, though. Phew! it's too hot to go on playing
bumblepuppy.' This with a savage scowl at Lowndes,
who only laughed. He was a hardened offender.

Mottram rose from the table and looked out of a
chink in the shutters.

'What a sweet day!' said he.

The company yawned all together and betook them-
selves to an aimless investigation of all Hummil's pos-
sessions,— guns, tattered novels, saddlery, spurs, and the
like. They had fingered them a score of times before,
but there was really nothing else to do.

' Got anything fresh? ' said Lowndes.

'Last week's Gazette oj India, and a cutting from a
home paper. My father sent it out. It's rather
amusing.'

'One of those vestrymen that call 'emselves M.P.'s
again, is it?' said Spurstow, who read his newspapers
when he could get them.

'Yes. Listen to this. It's to your address, Lowndes.
The man was making a speech to his constituents, and he
piled it on. Here's a sample: "And I assert unhesita-
tingly that the Civil Service in India is the preserve —

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 247

the pet preserve — of the aristocracy of England. What
does the democracy — what do the masses — get from that
country, which we have step by step fraudulently an-
nexed? I answer, nothing whatever. It is farmed with
a single eye to their own interests by the scions of the
aristocracy. They take good care to maintain their
lavish scale of incomes, to avoid or stifle any inquiries
into the nature and conduct of their administration,
while they themselves force the unhappy peasant to.
pay with the sweat of his brow for all the luxuries in
which they are lapped.'" Hummil waved the cutting
above his head. ' 'Ear! 'ear!' said his audience.

Then Lowndes, meditatively: 'I'd give — I'd give three
months' pay to have that gentleman spend one month
with me and see how the free and independent native
prince works things. Old Timbersides' — this was his
flippant title for an honoured and decorated feudatory
prince — ' has been wearing my life out this week past for
money. By Jove, his latest performance was to send
me one of his women as a bribe ! '

' Good for you ! Did you accept it? ' said Mottram.

*No. I rather wish I had, now. She was a pretty
little person, and she yarned away to me about the hor-
rible destitution among the king's women-folk. The
darlings haven't had any new clothes for nearly a month,
and the old man wants to buy a new drag from Calcutta, —
solid silver raihngs and silver lamps, and trifles of that
kind. I've tried to make him understand that he has
played the deuce with the revenues for the last twenty
years and must go slow. He can't see it.'

'But he has the ancestral treasure- vaults to draw on.
There must be three millions at least in jewels and coin
under his palace,' said Hummil.

Xatch a native king disturbing the family treasure!

U8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

The priests forbid it except as the last resort. Old
Timbersides has added something like a quarter of a
million to the deposit in his reign.'

'Where the mischief does it all come from?' said
Mottram.

'The country. The state of the people is enough to
make you sick. I've known the tax-men wait by a
milch-camel till the foal was born and then hurry off the
mother for arrears. And what can I do? I can't get
the court clerks to give me any accounts; I can't raise
anything more than a fat smile from the commander-in-
chief when I find out the troops are three months in
arrears; and old Timbersides begins to weep when I
speak to him. He has taken to the King's Peg heavily, —
liqueur brandy for whisky, and Heidsieck for soda-water.'

' That's what the Rao of Jubela took to. Even a native
can't last long at that,' said Spurstow. * He'll go out.'

'And a good tiling, too. Then I suppose we'll have
a council of regency, and a tutor for the young prince,
and hand liim back his kingdom with ten years' accu-
mulations.'

* Whereupon that young prince, having been taught all
the vices of the English, will play ducks and drakes with
the money and undo ten years' work in eighteen months.
I've seen that business before,' said Spurstow. 'I should
tackle the king with a Hght hand, if I were you, Lowndes.
They'll hate you quite enough under any circumstances.'

'That's all very well. The man who looks on can
talk about the light hand; but you can't clean a pig-stye
with a pen dipped in rose-water. I know my risks; but
nothing has happened yet. My servant's an old Pathan,
and he cooks for me. They are hardly likely to bribe
him, and I don't accept food from my true friends, as
they call themselves. Oh, but it's weary work! I'd

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 249

sooner be with you, Spurstow. There's shooting near
your camp.'

* Would you? I don't think it. About fifteen deaths
a day don't incite a man to shoot anything but himself.
And the worst of it is that the poor devils look at you as
though you ought to save them. Lord knows, I've tried
everything. My last attempt was empirical, but it
pulled an old man through. He was brought to me ap-
parently past hope, and I gave him gin and Worcester
sauce with cayenne. It cured him; but I don't recom*
mend it.'

'How do the cases run generally?' said Hummil.

'Very simply indeed. Chlorodyne, opium pill, chloro-
dyne, collapse, nitre, bricks to the feet, and then — the
burning-ghat. The last seems to be the only thing that
stops the trouble. It's black cholera, you know. Poor
devils! But, I will say, little Bunsee Lai, my apothe-
cary, works like a demon. I've recommended him for
promotion if he comes through it all alive.'

'And what are your chances, old man?' said Mottram.

'Don't know; don't care much; but I've sent the
letter in. What are you doing with yourself generally? '

'Sitting under a table in the tent and spitting on the
sextant to keep it cool,' said the man of the survey.
'Washing my eyes to avoid ophthalmia, which I shall
certainly get, and trying to make a sub-surveyor under-
stand that an error of five degrees in an angle isn't quite
so small as it looks. I'm altogether alone, y' know, and
shall be till the end of the hot weather,'

'Hummil's the lucky man,' said Lowndes, flinging
himself into a long chair. 'He has an actual roof — torn
as to the ceiling-cloth, but still a roof — over his head.
He sees one train daily. He can get beer and soda-water
and ice 'em when God is good. He has books, pictures,'

250 LIFE'S HANDICAP

— they were torn from the Graphic, — ' and the society of
the excellent sub-contractor Jevins, besides the pleasure
of recemng us weekly.'

Hummil smiled grimly. 'Yes, I'm the lucky man, I
suppose. Je\'ins is luckier.'

^How? Not '

'Yes. Went out. Last Monday.'

'By his own hand?' said Spurstow quickly, hinting
the suspicion that was in everybody's mind. There was
no cholera near Hummil's section. Even fever gives a
man at least a week's grace, and sudden death generally
implied self-slaughter.

'I judge no man this weather,' said Hummil. 'He
had a touch of the sun, I fancy; for last week, after you
fellows had left, he came into the verandah and told me
that he was going home to see his wife, in Market Street,
Liverpool, that evening.

'I got the apothecary in to look at him, and we tried
to make him He dowm. After an hour or two he rubbed
his eyes and said he believed he had had a fit, — hoped he
hadn't said anything rude. Jevins had a great idea of
bettering himself socially. He was very like Chucks in
his language.'

'Well?'

'Then he went to his own bungalow and began clean-
ing a rifle. He told the serv^ant that he was going to
shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with
the trigger, and shot himself through the head — accident-
ally. The apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and
Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I'd have wired to
you, Spurstow, if you could have done anything.'

'You're a queer chap,' said Mottram. 'If you'd killed
the man yourself you couldn't have been more quiet about
the business.'

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 251

^Good Lord! what does it matter?' said Hummil
calmly. 'I've got to do a lot of his overseeing work in
addition to my own. I'm the only person that suffers.
Jevins is out of it, — by pure accident, of course, but out
of it. The apothecary was going to write a long screed on
suicide. Trust a babu to drivel when he gets the chance.'

'Why didn't you let it go in as suicide?' said Lowndes.

'No direct proof. A man hasn't many privileges in
this country, but he might at least be allowed to mis-
handle his own rifle. Besides, some day I may need a
man to smother up an accident to myself. Live and
letKve. Die and let die.'

'You take a pill,' said Spurstow, who had been watch-
ing Hummil's white face narrowly. 'Take a pill, and
don't be an ass. That sort of talk is skittles. Anyhow,
suicide is shirking your work. If I were Job ten times
over, I should be so interested in what was going to
happen next that I'd stay on and watch.'

'Ah! I've lost that curiosity,' said Hummil.

'Liver out of order?' said Lowndes feelingly.

'No. Can't sleep. That's worse.'

'By Jove, it is!' said Mottram. 'I'm that way every
now and then, and the fit has to wear itself out. What
do you take for it? '

'Nothing. What's the use? I haven't had ten min-
utes' sleep since Friday morning.'

'Poor chap! Spurstow, you ought to attend to this,'
said Mottram. 'Now you mention it, your eyes are
rather gummy and swollen.'

Spurstow, still watching Hummil, laughed lightly.
' I'll patch him up, later on. Is it too hot, do you think,
to go for a ride?'

'Where to?' said Lowndes wearily. 'We shall have
to go away at eight, and there'll be riding enough for us

35* UFE'S HANDICAP

then. I hate a horse, when I have to use him as a

necessity. Oh, heavens! what is there to do?'

* Begin whist again, at chick points ['a chick' is sup-
posed to be eight shillings] and a gold mohur on the rub,'
said Spurstow promptly.

'Poker. A month's pay all round for the pool,— no
limit, — and fifty-rupee raises. Somebody would be
broken before we got up,' said Lowndes.

' Can't say that it would give me any pleasure to break
my man in this company,' said Mottram. 'There isn't
enough excitement in it, and it's fooHsh.' He crossed
over to the worn and battered little camp-piano, — wreck-
age of a married household that had once held the
bungalow, — and opened the case.

'It's used up long ago,' said Hummil. 'The servants
have picked it to pieces.'

The piano was indeed hopelessly out of order, but
Mottram managed to bring the rebellious notes into a sort
of agreement, and there rose from the ragged keyboard
something that might once have been the ghost of a
popular music-hall song. The men in the long chairs
turned with evident interest as Mottram banged the
more lustily.

'That's good!' said Lowndes. 'By Jove! the last
time I heard that song was in '79, or thereabouts, just
before I came out.'

' Ah ! ' said Spurstow with pride, * I was home in '80. ' And
he mentioned a song of the streets popular at that date.

Mottram executed it roughly. Lowndes criticised
and volunteered emendations. Mottram dashed into an-
other ditty, not of the music-hall character, and made
as if to rise.

' Sit down,' said Hummil. ' I didn't know that you had
any music in your composition. Go on playing until you

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 253

can't think of anything more. I'll have that piano tuned
up before you come again. Play something festive.'

Very simple indeed were the tunes to which Mottram's
art and the limitations of the piano could give effect, but
the men hstened with pleasure, and in the pauses talked
all together of what they had seen or heard when they
were last at home. A dense dust-storm sprung up out-
side, and swept roaring over the house, enveloping it in
the choking darkness of midnight, but Mottram continued
unheeding, and the crazy tinkle reached the ears of the
listeners above the flapping of the tattered ceiling-cloth.

In the silence after the storm he ghded from the
more directly personal songs of Scotl'and, half humming
them as he played, into the Evening Hymn.

* Sunday,' said he, nodding his head.

' Go on. Don't apologise for it,' said Spurstow.

Hummil laughed long and riotously. ' Play it, by all
means. You're full of surprises to-day. I didn't know
you had such a gift of finished sarcasm. How does that
thing go? '

Mottram took up the tune.

*Too slow by half. You miss the note of gratitude,'
said Hummil. 'It ought to go to the "Grasshopper's
Polka," — this way.' And he chanted, prestissimo, —

'Glory to thee, my God, this nighL
For all the blessings of the light.

That shows we really feel our blessings. How does it go
on?—

'If in the night I sleepless lie,
My soul with sacred thoughts supply;
May no ill dreams disturb my rest,' —

Quicker, Mottram! —

*0r powers of darkness me molest!'

254 LIFE'S HANDICAP

* Bah ! what an old hypocrite you are ! '

'Don't be an ass/ said Lowndes. 'You are at full
liberty to make fun of anything else you like, but leave
that hymn alone. It's associated in my mind with the
most sacred recollections '

'Summer evenings in the country, — stained-glass
window, — hght going out, and you and she jamming your
heads together over one h}Tnn-book,' said Mot tram.

'Yes, and a fat old cockchafer hitting you in the eye
when you v/alked home. Smell of hay, and a moon as
big as a bandbox sitting on the top of a haycock; bats,
— roses, — milk and midges,' said Lowndes.

'Also mothers. I can just recollect my mother singing
me to sleep with that when I was a Httle chap,' said
Spurstow.

The darkness had fallen on the room. They could
hear Hummxil squirming in his chair.

'Consequently,' said he testily, 'you sing it when you
are seven fathom deep in Hell! It's an insult to the
intelligence of the Deity to pretend we're anything but
tortured rebels.'

'Take two pills,' said Spurstow; 'that's tortured
liver.'

'The usually placid Hummil is in a vile bad temper.
I'm sorry for his coolies to-morrow,' said Lowndes, as the
servants brought in the hghts and prepared the table for
dinner.

As they were settHng into their places about the miser-
able goat-chops, and the smoked tapioca pudding, Spur-
stow took occasion to whisper to Mottram, 'Well done,
David!'

'Look after Saul, then,' was the reply.

'What are you two whispering about?' said Hummil
suspiciously.

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 255

' Only saying that you are a damned poor host. This
fowl can't be cut/ returned Spurstow with a sweet smile.
* Call this a dinner? '

' I can't help it. You don't expect a banquet, do you? '

Throughout that meal Hummil contrived laboriously
to insult directly and pointedly all his guests in succession,
and at each insult Spurstow kicked the aggrieved persons
under the table; but he dared not exchange a glance of
intelligence with either of them. Hummil's face was
white and pinched, while his eyes were unnaturally large.
No man dreamed for a moment of resenting his savage
personalities, but as soon as the meal was over they made
haste to get away.

'Don't go. You're just getting amusing, you fellows.
I hope I haven't said anything that annoyed you.
You're such touchy devils.' Then, changing the note
into one of almost abject entreaty, Hummil added, 'I
say, you surely aren't going? '

'In the language of the blessed Jorrocks, where I
dines I sleeps,' said Spurstow. 'I want to have a look at
your cooHes to-morrow, if you don't mind. You can
give me a place to He down in, I suppose? '

The others pleaded the urgency of their several
duties next day, and, saddling up, departed together,
Hummil begging them to come next Sunday. As they
jogged off, Lowndes unbosomed himself to Mottram —

' . . . And I never felt so like kicking a man at his
own table in my Hfe. He said I cheated at whist, and re-
minded me I was in debt ! 'Told you you were as good
as a liar to your face! You aren't half indignant enough
over it.'

'Not I,' said Mottram. 'Poor devil! Did you ever
know old Hummy behave like that before or within a
hundred miles of it? '

«56 LIFE'S HANDICAP

' That's no excuse. Spurstow was hacking my shin all the
time, so I kept a hand on myself. Else I should have '

'No, you wouldn't. You'd have done as Hummy did
about Je\ins; judge no man this weather. By Jovel
the buckle of my bridle is hot in my hand! Trot out a
bit, and 'ware rat-holes.'

Ten minutes' trotting jerked out of LowTides one very
sage remark when he pulled up, sweating from every
pore —

' 'Good thing Spurstow's with him to-night.'

'Ye-es. Good man, Spurstow. Our roads turn here.
See you again next Sunday, if the sun doesn't bowl me
over.'

'S'pose so, unless old Timbersides' finance minister
manages to dress some of my food. Good-night, and —
God bless you ! '

'What's wrong now?'

'Oh, nothing.' Lowndes gathered up his whip, and,
as he flicked Mottram's mare on the flank, added,
'You're not a bad little chap, — that's all.' And the
mare bolted half a mile across the sand, on the word.

In the assistant engineer's bungalow Spurstow and
Hummil smoked the pipe of silence together, each nar-
rowly watching the other. The capacity of a bachelor's
establishment is as elastic as its arrangements are simple.
A servant cleared away the dining-room table, brought
in a couple of rude native bedsteads made of tape
strung on a light wood frame, flung a square of cool
Calcutta matting over each, set them side by side, pinned
two towels to the punkah so that their fringes should
just sweep clear of the sleepers' nose and mouth, and
announced that the couches were ready.

The men flung themselves down, ordering the punkah-
coolies by all the powers of Hell to pull. Every door

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 257

and window was shut, for the outside air was that of
an oven. The atmosphere within was only 104°, as
the thermometer bore witness, and heavy with the foul
smell of badly- trimmed herosene lamps; and this stench,
combined with that of native tobacco, baked brick, and
dried earth, sends the heart of many a strong man down
to his boots, for it is the smell of the Great Indian
Empire when she turns herself for six months into a
house of torment. Spurstow packed his pillows craftily
so that he recHned rather than lay, his head at a safe
elevation above his feet. It is not good to sleep on a
low pillow in the hot weather if you happen to be ot
thick-necked build, for you may pass with lively snores
and gugghngs from natural sleep into the deep slumber
of heat-apoplexy.

^Pack your pillows,' said the doctor sharply, as he
saw Hummil preparing to He down at full length.

The night-light was trimmed; the shadow of the
punkah wavered across the room, and the 'flick' of the
punkah-towel and the soft whine of the rope through
the wall-hole followed it. Then the punkah flagged,
almost ceased. The sweat poured from Spurstow's
brow. Should he go out and harangue the coolie? It
started forward again with a savage jerk, and a pin came
out of the towels. When this was replaced, a tomtom in
the coolie-lines began to beat with the steady throb of a
swollen artery inside some brain-fevered skull. Spur-
stow turned on his side and swore gently. There was
no movement on Hummil's part. The man had com-
posed himself as rigidly as a corpse, his hands clinched
at his sides. The respiration was too hurried for any
suspicion of sleep. Spurstow looked at the set face. The
jaws were dinched, and there was a pucker round tb^
quivering eyelids.

258 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'He^s holding himself as tightly as ever he can/ thought
Spurstow. * What in the world is the matter with him ? —
Hummil ! '

'Yes/ in a tliick constrained voice.

'Can't you get to sleep?'

'No.'

' Head hot? 'Throat feeling bulgy? or how? '

' Neither, thanks. I don't sleep much, you know/

''Feel pretty bad?'

'Pretty bad, thanks. There is a tomtom outside, isn't
there? I thought it was my head at first. . . . Oh,
Spurstow, for pity's sake give me something that will
put me asleep, — sound asleep, — if it's only for six hours!'
He sprang up, trembHng from head to foot. 'I haven't
been able to sleep naturally for days, and I can't stand it!
— I can't stand it!'

' Poor old chap ! '

' That's no use. Give me something to make me sleep.
I tell you I'm nearly mad. I don't know what I say
half my time. For three weeks I've had to think and
spell out every word that has come through my lips
before I dared say it. Isn't that enough to drive a man
mad? I can't see things correctly now, and I've lost my
sense of touch. My skin aches — my skin aches! Make
me sleep. Oh, Spurstow, for the love of God make me
sleep sound. It isn't enough merely to let me dream.
Let me sleep ! '

'All right, old man, all right. Go slow; you aren't
half as bad as you think.'

The flood-gates of reserve once broken, Hummil was
clinging to him like a frightened child. 'You're pinching
my arm to pieces.'

'I'll break your neck if you don't do something for
me. No, I didn't mean that. Don't be angry, old

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 259

fellow.' He wiped the sweat off himself as he fought
to regain composure. ' I'm a bit restless and off my oats,
and perhaps you could recommend some sort of sleeping
mixture, — bromide of potassium.'

'Bromide of skittles! Why didn't you tell me this
before? Let go of my arm, and I'll see if there's any-
thing in my cigarette-case to suit your complaint.'
Spurstow hunted among his day-clothes, turned up the
lamp, opened a Httle silver cigarette-case, and advanced on
the expectant Hummil with the daintiest of fairy squirts.

'The last appeal of civiUsation,' said he, 'and a thing I
hate to use. Hold out your arm. Well, your sleepless-
ness hasn't ruined your muscle; and what a thick hide it
is ! Might as well inject a buffalo subcutaneously . Now
in a few minutes the morphia will begin working. Lie
down and wait.'

A smile of unalloyed and idiotic dehght began to creep
over Hummil's face. 'I think,' he whispered,— ' I think
I'm gomg off now. Gad ! it's positively heavenly ! Spur-
stow, you must give me that case to keep; you '

The voice ceased as the head fell back.

'Not for a good deal,' said Spurstow to the uncon-
scious form. 'And now, my friend, sleeplessness of your
kind being very apt to relax the moral fibre in Httle
matters of Hfe and death, I'll just take the liberty of
spiking your guns.'

He paddled into Hummil's saddle-room in his bare
feet and uncased a twelve-bore rifle, an express, and a
revolver. Of the first he unscrewed the nipples and
hid them in the bottom of a saddlery-case; of the second
he abstracted the lever, kicking it behind a big ward-
robe. The third he merely opened, and knocked the
doll-head bolt of the grip up with the heel of a riding-
boot.

26o LIFE'S HANDICAP

'That's settled/ he said, as he shook the sweat off his
hands. 'These little precautions will at least give you
time to turn. You have too much sympathy with gun-
room accidents.'

And as he rose from his knees, the thick muffled voice
of Hummil cried in the doorway, ' You fool! '

Such tones they use who speak in the lucid intervals of
delirium to their friends a little before they die.

Spurstow started, dropping the pistol. Hummil stood
in the doorway, rocking with helpless laughter.

'That was awf'ly good of you, I'm sure,' he said, very
slowly, feeling for his words. ' I don't intend to go out by
my own hand at present. I say, Spurstow, that stuff
won't work. What shall I do? What shall I do?'
And panic terror stood in his eyes.

' Lie down and give it a chance. Lie down at once.'

' I daren't. It will only take me half-way again, and I
shan't be able to get away this time. Do you know it was
all I could do to come out just now? Generally I am as
quick as lightning; but you had clogged my feet. I was
nearly caught.'

'Oh yes, I understand. Go and lie down.'

*No, it isn't delirium; but it was an awfully mean trick
to play on me. Do you know I might have died? '

As a sponge rubs a slate clean, so some power unknown
to Spurstow had wiped out of Hummil's face all that
stamped it for the face of a man, and he stood at the
doorway in the expression of his lost innocence. He had
slept back into terrified childhood.

'Is he going to die on the spot?' thought Spurstow.
Then, aloud, 'AH right, my son. Come back to bed, and
tell me all about it. You couldn't sleep ; but what was all
the rest of the nonsense? '

^'A place, — a place down there/ said Hummil, with

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 361

simple sincerity. The drug was acting on him by waves,
and he was flung from the fear of a strong man to the
fright of a child as his nerves gathered sense or were
dulled.

*Good God! I've been afraid of it for months past,
Spurstow. It has made every night hell to me; and yet
I'm not conscious of having done anything wrong.'

'Be still, and I'll give you another dose. We'll stop
your nightmares, you unutterable idiot!'

'Yes, but you must give me so much that I can't get
away. You must make me quite sleepy, — not just a little
sleepy. It's so hard to run then.'

' I know it; I know it. I've felt it myself. The symp-
toms are exactly as you describe.'

'Oh, don't laugh at me, confound you! Before this
awful sleeplessness came to me I've tried to rest on my
elbow and put a spur in the bed to sting me when I fell
back. Look!'

'By Jove! the man has been ro welled like a horse!
Ridden by the nightmare with a vengeance ! And we all
thought him sensible enough. Heaven send us under-
standing! You like to talk, don't you?'

' Yes, sometimes. Not when I'm frightened. Then I
want to run. Don't you?'

'Always. Before I give you your second dose try to
tell me exactly what your trouble is.'

Hummil spoke in broken whispers for nearly ten
minutes, whilst Spurstow looked into the pupils of his
eyes and passed his hand before them once or twice.

At the end of the narrative the silver cigarette-case
was produced, and the last words that Hummil said as he
fell back for the second time were, *Put me quite to
sleep; for if I'm caught I die, —I die! '

'Yes, yes; we all do that sooner or later, — thank

262 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Heaven who has set a term to our miseries/ said Spur-
stow, settling the cushions under the head. 'It occurs
to me that unless I drink something I shall go out
before my time. I've stopped sweating, and — I wear
a seven teen-inch collar.' He brewed himself scald-
ing hot tea, which is an excellent remedy against heat-
apoplexy if you take three or four cups of it in time.
Then he watched tlie sleeper.

*A blind face that cries and can't wipe its eyes, a
blind face that chases him down corridors! H'm!
Decidedly, Hummil ought to go on leave as soon as
possible; and, sane or otherwise, he undoubtedly did
rowel himself most cruelly. WeU, Heaven send us
understanding ! '

At mid-day Hummil rose, with an evil taste in his
mouth, but an unclouded eye and a joyful heart.

'I was pretty bad last night, wasn't I? ' said he.

'I have seen healtliier men. You must have had a
touch of the sun. Look here: if I write you a swingeing
medical certificate, will you apply for leave on the spot? '

'No.'

'Why not? You want it.'

'Yes, but I can hold on till the weather's a little
cooler.'

'Why should you, if you can get relieved on the spot?'

'Burkett is the only man who could be sent; and he's
a born fool.'

'Oh, never mind about the line. You aren't so im-
portant as all that. Wire for leave, if necessary.'

Hummil looked very uncomfortable.

'I can hold on till the Rains,' he said evasively.

' You can't. Wire to headquarters for FJurkett.'

'I won't. If you want to know why, particularly,
Burkett is married, md his wile's just had a kid, and

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 263

she's up at Simla, in the cool, and Burkett has a very
nice billet that takes him into Simla from Saturday to
Monday. That little woman isn't at all well. If Burkett
was transferred she'd try to follow him. If she left the
baby behind she'd fret herself to death. If she came,
— and Burkett's one of those selfish little beasts who
are always talking about a wife's place being with her
husband, — she'd die. It's murder to bring a woman here
just now. Burkett hasn't the physique of a rat. If he
came here he'd go out; and I know she hasn't any
money, and I'm pretty sure she'd go out too. I'm salted
in a sort of way, and I'm not married. Wait till the
Rains, and then Burkett can get thin down here. It'll do
him heaps of good.'

*Do you mean to say that you intend to face^ — what
you have faced, till the Rains break? '

'Oh, it won't be so bad, now you've shown me a way
out of it. I can always wire to you. Besides, now I've
once got into the way of sleeping, it'll be all right. Any-
how, I shan't put in for leave. That's the long and the
short of it.'

'My great Scott! I thought all that sort of thing was
dead and done with.'

'Bosh! You'd do the same yourself. I feel a new
man, thanks to that cigarette-case. You're going over
to camp now, aren't you? '

'Yes; but I'll try to look you up every other day, if I
can.'

'I'm not bad enough for that. I don't want you to
bother. Give the coolies gin and ketchup.'

' Then you feel all right? '

'Fit to fight for my Hfe, but not to stand out in the
sun talking to you. Go along, old man, and bless you!'

Hummil turned on his heel to face the echoing deso-

264 LIFE'S HANDICAP

lation of his bungalow, and the first thing he saw stand-
ing in the verandah was the figure of himself. He had
met a similar apparition once before, when he was suffer-
ing from overwork and the strain of the hot weather.

'This is bad, — already,' he said, rubbing his eyes. 'If
the thing slides away from me all in one piece, like a
ghost, I shall know it is only my eyes and stom.ach that
are out of order. If it walks — my head is going.'

He approached the figure, which naturally kept at an
unvarying distance from him, as is the use of all spectres
that are born of overwork. It slid through the house
and dissolved into swimming specks within the eyeball
as soon as it reached the burning fight of the garden.
Hummil went about his business till even. When he
came in to dinner he found himself sitting at the table.
The vision rose and walked out hastily. Except that
it cast no shadow it was in all respects real.

No living man knov/s what that week held for Hum-
mil. An increase of the epidemic kept Spurstow in
camp among the coolies, and all he could do was to
telegraph to Mottram, bidding him go to the bungalow
and sleep there. But Mottram was forty miles away
from the nearest telegraph, and knew nothing of anything
save the needs of the survey till he met, early on Sunday
morning, Lowndes and Spurstow heading towards Hum-
mil's for the weekly gathering.

'Hope the poor chap's in a better temper,' said the
former, swinging himself off his horse at the door. 'I
suppose he isn't up yet.'

'I'll just have a look at him,' said the doctor. 'If
he's asleep there's no need to wake him.'

And an instant later, by the tone of Spurstow's voice
caUing upon them to enter, the men knew what had
happened. There was no need to wake him.

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 26s

The punkah was still being pulled over the bed, but
Hummil had departed this life at least three hours.

The body lay on its back, hands clinched by the side,
as Spurstow had seen it lying seven nights previously.
In the staring eyes was written terror beyond the ex-
pression of any pen.

Mottram, who had entered behind Lowndes, bent over
the dead and touched the forehead Hghtly with his hps.
'Oh, you lucky, lucky devil!' he whispered.

But Lowndes had seen the eyes, and withdrew shud-
dering to the other side of the room.

'Poor chap! poor old chap! And the last time I met
him I was angry. Spurstow, we should have watched
him. Has he ?'

Deftly Spurstow continued his investigations, ending
by a search round the room.

'No, he hasn't,' he snapped. 'There's no trace of
anything. Call the servants.'

They came, eight or ten of them, whispering and peer-
ing over each other's shoulders.

'When did your Sahib go to bed?' said Spurstow.

'At eleven or ten, we think,' said Hummil's personal
servant.

' He was well then? But how should you know? '

'He was not ill, as far as our comprehension extended.
But he had slept very httle for three nights. This I
know, because I saw him walking much, and specially in
the heart of the night.'

As Spurstow was arranging the sheet, a big straight-
necked hunting-spur tumbled on the ground. The
doctor groaned. The personal servant peeped at the
body.

'What do you think, Chuma?' said Spurstow, catch
ing the look on the dark face.

266 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'Heaven-born, in my poor opinion, this that was my
master has descended into the Dark Places, and there
has been caught because he was not able to escape with
sufficient speed. We have the spur for evidence that he
fought with Fear. Thus have I seen men of my race do
with thorns when a spell was laid upon them to overtake
them in their sleeping hours and they dared not sleep.'

Xhuma, you're a mud-head. Go out and prepare
seals to be set on the Sahib's property.'

' God has made the Heaven-born. God has made me.
Who are we, to inquire into the dispensations of God?
I will bid the other servants hold aloof while you are
reckoning the tale of the Sahib's property. They are all
thieves, and would steal.'

*As far as I can make out, he died from — oh, any-
thing; stoppage of the heart's action, heat-apoplexy,
or some other visitation,' said Spurstow to his com-
panions. 'We must make an inventory of his effects,
and so on.'

'He was scared to death,' insisted Lowndes. 'Look
at those eyes! For pity's sake don't let him be buried
with them open ! '

'Whatever it was, he's clear of all the trouble now,'
said Mottram softly.

Spurstow was peering into the open eyes.

'Come here,' said he. 'Can you see anything there?'

'I can't face it!' whimpered Lowndes. 'Cover up the
face! Is there any fear on earth that can turn a man
into that likeness? It's ghastly. Oh, Spurstow, cover
it up!'

'No fear — on earth,' said Spurstow. Mottram leaned
over his shoulder and looked intently.

'I see nothing except some gray blurs in the pupil,
lliere can be nothing there, you know.'

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 267

'Even so. Well, let's think. It'll take half a day
to knock up any sort of coffin; and he must have died
at midnight. Lowndes, old man, go out and tell the
coolies to break ground next to Jevins's grave. Mot-
tram, go round the house with Chuma and see that the
seals are put on things. Send a couple of men to me
here, and I'll arrange.'

The strong-armed servants when they returned to
their own kind told a strange story of the doctor Sahib
vainly trying to call their master back to Ufe by magic
arts, — to wit, the holding of a Httle green box that
clicked to each of the dead man's eyes, and of a be-
wildered muttering on the part of the doctor Sahib, who
took the httle green box away with him.

The resonant hammering of a coffin-lid is no pleasant
thing to hear, but those who have experience main-
tain that much more terrible is the soft swish of the
bed-Hnen, the reeving and unreeving of the bed-tapes,
when he who has fallen by the roadside is apparelled for
burial, sinking gradually as the tapes are tied over, till
the swaddled shape touches the floor and there is no
protest against the indignity of hasty disposal.

At the last moment Lowndes was seized with scruples
of conscience. 'Ought you to read the service, — from
beginning to end? ' said he to Spurstow.

'I intend to. You're my senior as a civilian. You
can take it if you like.'

*I didn't mean that for a moment. I only thought if
we could get a chaplain from somewhere, — I'm willing to
ride anywhere, — and give poor Hummil a better chance.
That's all.'

'Bosh!' said Spurstow, as he framed his lips to the
tremendous words that stand at the head of the burial
service.

968 LIFE'S HANDICAP

After breakfast they smoked a pipe in silence to the
memory of the dead. Then Spurs tow said absently —

' Tisn't in medical science.'

*What?'

^Things in a dead man's eye.'

'For goodness' sake leave that horror alone!' said
Lowndes. 'I've seen a native die of pure fright
when a tiger chivied him. I know what killed Hum-
mil.'

'The deuce you do! I'm going to try to see.' And
the doctor retreated into the bath-room with a Kodak
camera. After a few minutes there was the sound of
something being hammered to pieces, and he emerged,
very white indeed.

' Have you got a picture? ' said Mottram. ' What does
the thing look like? '

'It was impossible, of course. You needn't look,
Mottram. I've torn up the films. There was nothing
there. It was impossible.'

'That,' said Lowndes, very distinctly, watching the
shaking hand striving to relight the pipe, ' is a damned
Ue.'

Mottram laughed uneasily. 'Spurstow's right,' he
said. 'We're all in such a state now that we'd believe
anything. For pity's sake let's try to be rational.'

There was no further speech for a long time. The
hot wind whistled without, and the dry trees sobbed.
Presently the daily train, winking brass, burnished steel,
and spouting steam, pulled up panting in the intense
glare. 'We'd better go on on that,' said Spurstow.
'Go back to work. I've written my certificate. We
can't do any more good here, and work '11 keep our wits
together. Come on.'

No one moved. It is not pleasant to face railway

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 269

journeys at mid-day in June. Spurstow gathered up his
hat and whip, and, turning in the doorway, said —

•There may be Heaven,— there must be Hell.
Meantime, there is our life here. We-ell? '

Neither Mottram nor Lowndes had any answer to the
question.

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS

!^ • ' I (in forces j Regular forces,

^,^^^^r^l^ mutinyj belonging ( Reserve forces,
""ersons to( '^'^'^'''' to Her r Auxiliary forces,
^Tuse J (Majesty'sJ Navy.

When three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued
on insufficient premises they condemned a fellow-creature
to a most unpleasant death in a far country, which had
nothing whatever to do with the United States, They
foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama
Street, an unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling
for certain drirxks, they conspired because they were con-
spirators by trade, officially known as the Third Three of
the I. A. A. — an institution for the propagation of pure
light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is
affiliated to many. The Second Three live in Montreal,
and work among the poor there; the First Three have
their home in New York, not far from Castle Garden,
and write regularly once a week to a small house near
one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens
after that, a particular section of Scotland Yard knows
too well, and laughs at. A conspirator detests ridicule.
More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia Borgia dag-
gers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head
Centres and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for
this is human nature.
The Third Three conspired over whisky cocktails

270

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 271

and a clean sheet of notepaper against the British Empire
and all that lay therein. This work is very like what
men without discernment call poHtics before a general
election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of
congenial friends, all the weak points in your opponents'
organisation, and unconsciously dwell upon and exagger-
ate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that
the hated party holds together for an hour.

'Our principle is not so much active demonstration —
that we leave to others — as passive embarrassment, to
weaken and unnerve,' said the first man. 'Wherever an
organisation is crippled, wherever a confusion is thrown
into any branch of any department, we gain a step
for those who take on the work; we are but the forerun-
ners.' He was a German enthusiast, and editor of a
newspaper, from whose leading articles he quoted fre-
quently.

'That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her
own that unless we doubled the year's average I guess
it wouldn't strike her anything special had occurred,'
said the second man. 'Are you prepared to say that all
our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a
hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on
a plain rock in clear daylight? They can beat us at our
own game. 'Better join hands with the practical
branches; we're in funds now. Try a direct scare in a
crowded street. They value their greasy hides.' He was
the drag upon the wheel, and an Americanised Irish-
man of the second generation, despising his own race
and hating the other. He had learned caution.

The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word.
He was the strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge
of life was limited. He picked a letter from his breast-
pocket and threw it across the table, That epistle to the

J72 LIFE'S HANDICAP

heathen contained some very concise directions from the
First Three in New York. It said—

* The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern
markets, where our agents have been forcing down th^
English-held stock among the smaller buyers who watch the
turn of shares. Any immediate operations, such as western
bears, would increase their willingness to unload. This,
Itowever, cannot be expected till they see clearly that foreign
iron-masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should
be dispatcJted to feel the pulse of tJte market, and act accord-
ingly. Mavericks are at present the best for our purpose.
—P.D.Q.'

As a message referring to an iron crisis in Penn-
sylvania, it was interesting, if not lucid. As a new
departure in organised attack on an outl>Tng EngHsh
dependency, it was more than interesting.

The second man read it through and murmured —

'Already? Surely they are in too great a hurry. All
that DhuUp Singh could do in India he has done, down
to the distribution of his photographs among the peas-
antry. Ho! Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and
he has no substantial money backing from the Other
Power. Even our agents in India know he hasn't.
What is the use of our organisation wasting men on work
that is already done? Of course the Irish regiments in
India are half mutinous as they stand.'

This shows how near a lie may come to the truth.
An Irish regiment, for just so long as it stands still, is
generally a hard handful to control, being reckless and
rough. When, however, it is moved in the direction of
musketry-firing, it becomes strangely and unpatriotically
content with its lot. It has even been heard to cheer the
Queen with enthusiasm on these occasions.

But the notion of tampering with the army was, from

THE MUTimr OF THE MAVERICKS 275

the point of view of Tehama Street, an altogether sound
one. There is no shadow of stability in the policy of
an English Government, and the most sacred oaths of
England would, even if engrossed on vellum, find very few
buyers among colonies and dependencies that have suf-
fered from vain beliefs. But there remains to England
always her army. That cannot change except in the
matter of uniform and equipment. The officers may
write to the papers demanding the heads of the Horse
Guards in default of cleaner redress for grievances; the
men may break loose across a country town and seriously
startle the pubKcans; but neither officers nor men have it
in their composition to mutiny after the continental
manner. The English people, when they trouble to think
about the army at all, are, and with justice, absolutely
assured that it is absolutely trustworthy. Imagine for a
moment their emotions on realising that such and such a
regiment was in open revolt from causes directly due to
England's management of Ireland. They would prob-
ably send the regiment to the polls forthwith and exam-
ine their own consciences as to their duty to Erin; but
they would never be easy any more. And it was this
Vague, unhappy mistrust that the I. A. A. were labouring
to produce.

^ Sheer waste of breath,' said the second man after
a pause in the council, 'I don't see the use of tampering
with their fool-army, but it has been tried before and
we must try it again. It looks well in the reports.
If we send one man from here you may bet your life
that other men are going too. Order up Mulcahy.'

They ordered him up— a slim, slight, dark-haired
young man, devoured with that blind rancorous hatred
of England that only reaches its full growth across the
Atlantic. He had sucked it from his mother's breast in

274 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the little cabin at the back of the northern avenues of
New York; he had been taught his rights and his wrongs,
in German and Irish, on the canal fronts of Chicago ; and
San Francisco held men who told him strange and awful
things of the great blind power over the seas. Once,
when business took him across the Atlantic, he had
served in an EngHsh regiment, and being insubordinate
had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas of Eng-
land that v/ere not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints
from one iron-fisted colonel and an unbending adjutant.
He would go to the mines if need be to teach his gospel.
And he went as his instructions advised p.d.q. — which
means ^with speed' — to introduce embarrassment into
an Irish regiment, ^already half -mutinous, quartered
among Sikh peasantry, all wearing miniatures of His
Highness Dhulip Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab, next
their hearts, and all eagerly expecting his arrival.'
Other information equally valuable was given him by his
masters. He was to be cautious, but never to grudge
expense in winning the hearts of the men in the regiment.
His mother in New York would supply funds, and he
was to write to her once a month. Life is pleasant for a
man who has a mother in New York to send him two hun-
dred pounds a year over and above his regimental pay.

In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge
of drill and musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy,
wearing the corporal's stripe, went out in a troopship and
joined Her Majesty's Royal Loyal Musketeers, commonly
known as the 'Mavericks,' because they were masterless
and unbranded cattle — sons of small farmers in County
Clare, shoeless vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Bally-
vegan, much wanted 'moonhghters' from the bare rainy
headlands of the south coast, officered by 0 'Mores,
Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the like. Never to outward

THE MUTtNY OF THE MAVERICKS 275

seeming was there more promising material to work on.
The First Three had chosen their regiment well. It
feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel
and the regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat
Father Dennis, who held the keys of heaven and hell,
and blared like an angry bull when he desired to be con-
vincing. Him also it loved because on occasions of
stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge with
the rest into the merriest of the fray, where he always
found, good man, that the saints sent him a revolver
when there was a fallen private to be protected, or — but
this came as an afterthought — his own gray head to be
guarded.

Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and
with much beer, Mulcahy opened his projects to such as
he deemed fittest to Hsten. And these were, one and
all, of that quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly irrespon-
sible and profoundly lovable race that fight Uke fiends,
argue like children, reason like women, obey like men, and
jest like their own goblins of the rath through rebellion,
loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a
conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the
world over. At the end of six months — the seed always
falling on good ground — Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly,
hinting darkly in the approved fashion at dread powers
behind him, and advising nothing more nor less than
mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? had they
not all their own and their national revenges to satisfy?
Who in these days would do aught to nine hundred men
in rebelHon? Who, again, could stay them if they broke
for the sea, Hcking up on their way other regiments only
too anxious to join? And afterwards . . . here
followed windy promises of gold and preferment, office,
and honour, ever dear to a certain type of Irishman.

2 76 LIFE'S HANDICAP

As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to
his chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly
unslung belt behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady
flew out in the gloom and arrested something. Then
said Dan —

'Mulcahy, you're a great man, an' you do credit to
whoever sent you. Walk about a bit while we think of
it.' Mulcahy departed elate. He knew his words
would sink deep.

*Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me
belt him?' grunted a voice.

'Because I'm not a fat-headed fool. Boys, 'tis what
he's been dri\ing at these six months — our superior
corpril with his education and his copies of the Irish
papers and his everlasting beer. He's been sent for the
purpose and that's where the money comes from. Can
ye not see? That man's a gold-mine, which Horse Egan
here would have destroyed \vith a belt-buckle. It would
be throwing away the gifts of Pro\idence not to faU in
with his little plans. Of coorse we'll mut'ny till all's dry.
Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the
company officers, ransack the arsenal, and then — Boys,
did he tell you what next? He told me the other night
when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we're to join
with the niggers, and look for help from DhuHp Singh
and the Russians!'

'And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side
of Hell ! Danny, I'd have lost the beer to ha' given him
the belting he requires.'

'Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He's got no — no
constructiveness, but that's the egg-meat of his plan,
and you must understand that I'm in with it, an' so are
you. We'll want oceans of beer to convince us — firma-
ments full. We'll give him talk for his money, and one

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 277

by one all the boys '11 come in and he'll have a nest of
nine hundred mutineers to squat in an' give drink to.'

'What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do
what the niggers did thirty years gone. That an' his
pig's cheek in saying that other regiments would come
along/ said a Kerry man.

* That's not so bad as hintin' we should loose off on the
colonel.'

'Colonel be sugared! I'd as soon as not put a shot
through his helmet to see him jump and clutch his old
horse's head. But Mulcahy talks o' shootin' our comp'ny
orf'cers accidental.'

'He said that, did he.^' said Horse Egan.

'Some thin' like that, anyways. Can't ye fancy ould
Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin' Kke a
sick monkey, an' sayin', "Bhoys, I do not mind your
gettin' dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor Hke men.
The man that shot me is dbrunk. I'll suspend in-
vestigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut out,
an' then " '

'An' then,' continued Horse Egan, for the peppery
Major's peculiarities of speech and manner were as well
known as his tanned face; "'an' then, ye dissolute, half-
baked, putty-faced scum o' Connemara, if I find a man so
much as lookin' confused, begad, I'll coort-martial the
whole company. A man that can't get over his liquor
in six hours is not fit to belong to the Mavericks! " '

A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the
sketch.

'It's pretty to think of,' said the Kerry man slowly.
* Mulcahy would have us do all the devilmint, and get
clear himself, someways. He wudn't be takin' all this
fool's throuble in shpoilin' the reputation of the regi-
ment-—'

278 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'Reputation of your grandmother's pig!' said Dan.

'Well, an' he had a good reputation tu; so it's all right.
Mulcahy must see his way to clear out behind him, or
he'd not ha' come so far, talkin' powers of darkness.'

'Did you hear anything of a regimental court-martial
among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company
of 'em took one of the new draft an' hanged him by his
arms with a tent-rope from a third story verandah.
They gave no reason for so doin', but he was half dead.
I'm thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was
a iriend of Mulcahy's, or a man in the same trade.
They'd a deal better ha' taken his beer,' returned Dan
reflectively.

* Better still ha' handed him up to the Colonel,' said
Horse Egan, ' onless — but sure the news wud be all over
the counthry an' give the reg'ment a bad name.'

'An' there'd be no reward for that man — he but went
about talkin',' said the Kerry man artlessly.

'You speak by your breed,' said Dan with a laugh.
'There was never a Kerry man yet that wudn't sell his
brother for a pipe o' tobacco an' a pat on the back from
a p'liceman.'

'Praise God I'm not a bloomin' Orangeman,' was the
answer.

'No, nor never will be,' said Dan. 'They breed men
in Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one? '

The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The
odds of battle were too great.

'Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a — a strike for his
money,' said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what
he called ' trouble' of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with
large strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The
room was empty. In a corner, cased like the King of

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 279

Dahomey's state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours,
Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the
candles the record of the Mavericks — tattered, worn, and
hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with
big brown stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp
were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the to-
tem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, em-
broidered folds, whose price is human life, rustled down
slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long and
guard them very sacredly.

*Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee,
Ferozshah, an' Sobraon — that was fought close next door
here, against the very beggars he wants us to join. In-
kermann, The Alma, Sebastopol! What are those Httle
businesses compared to the campaigns of General Mul-
cahy? The Mut'ny, think o' that; the Mut'ny an' some
dirty little matters in Afghanistan; an' for that an' these
an' those' — Dan pointed to the names of glorious bat-
tles—'that Yankee man with the partin' in his hair
comes an 'says as easy as ''have a drink." . . . Holy
Moses, there's the captain!'

But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the
men clattered out, and found the colours uncased.

From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to
the joy of Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New
York — the good lady who sent the money for the beer.
Never, so far as words went, was such a mutiny. The
conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured
in daily. They were sound men, men to be trusted, and
they all wanted blood; but first they must have beer.
They cursed the Queen, they mourned over Ireland, they
suggested hideous plunder of the Indian country side, and
then, alas — some of the younger men would go forth and
wallow on the ground in spasms of wicked laughter.

»8o LIFE'S HA>rDlCAP

The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remarkable.
None the less they would swear no oaths but those of
their o\\ti making, which were rare and curious, and they
were always at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks
they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought demoral-
isation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and
when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the
nose or called his commanding officer a bald-headed old
lard-bladder and even worse names, he fancied that re-
bellion and not Hquor was at the bottom of the outbreak.
Other gentlemen w^ho have concerned themselves in
larger conspiracies have made the same error.

The hot season, in which they protested no man could
rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible
return for liis teachings. As to the actual upshot of the
mutiny he cared nothing. It would be enough if the
English, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their
army, should be startled with news of an Irish regiment
revolting from political considerations. His persistent
demands would have ended, at Dan's instigation, in a
regimental belting which in all probability would have
killed him and cut off the supply of beer, had not he been
sent on special duty somie fifty miles away from the can-
tonment to cool his heels in a mud fort and dismount
obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of the Mavericks,
reading his newspaper dihgently, and scenting Frontier
trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and
pled with the Commander-in-chief for certain privileges,
to be granted under certain contingencies; which con-
tingencies cam^e about only a week later, when the an-
nual Kttle v/ar on the border developed itself and the
colonel returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks.
He held the promise of the Chief for active service, and
the men must get ready.

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 281

On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an uncon-
sidered corporal — yet great in conspiracy — returned to
cantonments, and heard sounds of strife and howlings
from afar off. The mutiny had broken out and the
barracks of the Mavericks were one white- washed
pandemonium. A private tearing through the barrack-
square, gasped in his ear, * Service! Active service. It's
a burnin' shame.' Oh joy, the Mavericks had risen on
the eve of battle! They would not — noble and loyal
sons of Ireland — serve the Queen longer. The news
would flash through the country side and over to Eng-
land, and he — Mulcahy — the trusted of the Third Three,
had brought about the crash. The private stood in the
middle of the square and cursed colonel, regiment, ofScers,
and doctor, particularly the doctor, by his gods. An
orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through
the mob of soldiers. He was half Hfted, half dragged
from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand-
claps till his eyes watered, and called all manner of en-
dearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternised
with the native troops. Who then was the agent among
the latter that had blindly wrought with Mulcahy so
well?

An oflicer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a bar-
rack. He was mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who
closed round but did not kill him, for he fought his way
to shelter, flying for the life. Mulcahy could have wept
with pure joy and thankfulness. The very prisoners in
the guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells and
howling like wild beasts, and from every barrack poured
the booming as of a big war-drum.

Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could
hardly hear himself speak. Eighty men were pounding
with fist and heel the tables and trestles — eighty men,

282 LIFE'S HANDICAP

flushed with mutiny, stripped to their shirt sleeves, their
knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the
two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted to a tune
that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the
Mavericks —

Listen in the north, my boys, there's trouble on the wind;
Tramp o' Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind,
Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin' kind,
Trouble on the waters o' the Oxus!

Then, as a table broke under the furious accompani-
ment—

Hurrah! hurrah! it's north by west we go;
Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so;
Let 'em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow,
As we go marchin' to the Kremling.

'Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils
in cinders, where's my fine new sock widout the heel?'
howled Horse Egan, ransacking everybody's valise but
his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies
of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he
steals best who steals last. 'Ah, Mulcahy, you're in
good time,' he shouted. 'We've got the route, and we're
off on Thursday for a pic-nic wid the Lancers next
door.'

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket
full of lint rolls, provided by the forethought of the
Queen for such as might need them later on. Horse
Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under Mulcahy's
nose, chanting —

' Sheepskin an' bees' wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster,
The more you try to pull it oft, the more it sticks the faster.
As I was goin' to New Orleans —

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 283

'You know the rest of it, my Irish American- Jew
boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the Queen in the inside
av a fortnight, my darlin'.'

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked
vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when
the pantomime-cab is at the door; or a girl develop a
will of her own when her mother is putting the last
touches to the first ball-dress; but do not ask an Irish
regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a
campaign; when it has fraternised with the native
regiment that accompanies it, and driven its officers into
retirement with ten thousand clamorous questions, and
the prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand in
the open, calHng down aU kno^vn diseases on the head of
the doctor, who has certified that they are "medically
unfit for active service." At even the Mavericks might
have been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed
in their natures as Mulcahy. At dawn a girls' school
might have learned deportment from them. They knew
that their colonel's hand had closed, and that he who
broke that iron disciphne would not go to the front:
nothing in the world will persuade one of our soldiers
when he is ordered to the north on the smallest of affairs
that he is not immediately going gloriously to slay Cos-
sacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the Czar. A
few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy's beer,
because the campaign was to be conducted on strict
temperance principles, but as Dan and Horse Egan said
sternly, 'We've got the beer-man with us. He shall
drink now on his own hook.'

Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of
being sent on active service. He had made up his mind
that he would not go under any circumstances, but for-
tune was against him.

,84 UTI.*S HANDICAP

'Sick — you?' said the doctor, who had served an
unholy apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poorhouses.
'You're only home-sick, and what you call varicose veins
come from over-eating. A Httle gentle exercise will cure
that.' And later, 'Mulcahy, my man, everybody is
allowed to apply for a sick-certificate once. If he tries it
twice we call him by an ugly name. Go back to your
duty, and let's hear no more of your diseases.'

I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the
study of Mulcahy's soul in those days, and Dan took an
equal interest. Together they would communicate to
their corporal all the dark lore of death which is the por-
tion of those who have seen men die. Egan had the
larger experience, but Dan the finer imagination. Mul-
cahy shivered when the former spoke of the knife as an
intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving
particularity on the fate of those who, w^ounded and
helpless, had been overlooked by the ambulances, and
had fallen into the hands of the Afghan women-folk.

Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at
least, was dead; knew, too, that a change had come
over Dan's usually respectful attitude towards him, and
Horse Egan's laughter and frequent allusions to abortive
conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had
guessed. The horrible fascination of the death-stories,
however, made him seek the men's society. He learnt
much more than he had bargained for; and in this man-
ner: It was on the last night before the regiment en-
trained to the front. The barracks were stripped of
everything movable, and the men were too excited to
sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of
chloride of lime.

'And what,' said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper,
after some conversation on the eternal subject, 'are

THE MUtlN\^ OF THE MAVERiC&S sSj

you going to do to me, Dan? ' This might have been the
language of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit.

'You'll see,' said Dan grimly, turning over in his
cot, 'or I rather shud say you'll not see.'

This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mul-
cahy shook under the bed-clothes.

'Be easy with him,' put in Egan from the next cot.
'He has got his chanst o' goin' clean. Listen, Mulcahy;
all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that
you take your death standing up, as a man shud. There
be heaps an' heaps of enemy — plenshus heaps. Go
there an' do all you can and die decent. You'll die with
a good name there. 'Tis not a hard thing considerin'.'

Again Mulcahy shivered.

'An ' how could a man wish to die better than fightin'? *
added Dan consoKngly.

'And if I won't?' said the corporal in a dry whisper.

'There'll be a dale of smoke,' returned Dan, sitting
up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, 'sure to be,
an' the noise of the firin' '11 be tremenjus, an' we'll be
running about up and down, the regiment will. But we,
Horse and I — we'll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let
you go. Maybe there'll be an accident.'

'It's playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity's
sake let me go. I never did you harm, and — and I
stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, don't be hard
on me, Dan! You are — you were in it too. You won't
kill me up there, will you?'

'I'm not thinkin' of the treason; though you shud
be glad any honest boys drank with you. It's for the
regiment. We can't have the shame o' you bringin'
shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick
cat to get and stay behind an' live with the women at
the depot — you that wanted us to run to the sea in

286 LIFE'S HANDICAP

wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood
dared to be! But we knew about your goin' to the
doctor, for he told in mess, and it's all over the regiment.
Bein', as we are, your best friends, we didn't allow
any one to molest you yet. We will see to you our-
selves. Fight which you will — us or the enemy — you'll
never lie in that cot again, and there's more glory and
maybe less kicks from fightin' the enemy. That's fair
speakin'.'

'And he told us by word of mouth to go and join
with the niggers — you've forgotten that, Dan,' said
Horse Egan, to justify sentence.

'What's the use of plaguin' the man? One shot pays
for all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand,
do ye not?'

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of
anything at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp,
or at parade, stood two big men with soft voices ad-
juring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should
happen — to die for the honour of the regiment in decency
among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded
death. He remembered certain things that priests had
said in his infancy, and his mother — not the one at New
York — starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a
husband's soul in torment. It is well to be of a cultured
intelHgence, but in time of trouble the weak human
mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and
if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also,
the death he would have to face would be physically
painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations.
Mulcahy could see him.self, as he lay on the earth in the
night, dying by various causes. They were all horrible;
the mother in New York was very far away, and the
Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 287

you forward whether you will or won't, was daily coming
closer to the enemy!

They were brought to the field of Marzun-Katai, and
with the Black Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that
has never been set down in the newspapers. In response,
many beheve, to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis,
the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, but made
a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish mothers knew
later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across
the open in shouting masses, and were pot-vaHant
in artillery. It was expedient to hold a large reserve
and wait for the psychological moment that was being
prepared by the shrieking shrapnel. Therefore the
Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill
to watch the play till their call should come. Father
Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the
trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make
his way to the foremost of his boys and lay like a black
porpoise, at length on the grass. To him crawled Mul-
cahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution.

'Wait till you're shot,' said Father Dennis sweetly.
* There's a time for everything.'

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time
into the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned
and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke
like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general
heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots fol-
lowed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested.
The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose
and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their
companies.

This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a

288 LIFE'S HANDICAP

guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve.
You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though
you know that you are a mark for every rifle within
extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you
must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards
through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze
brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather
cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the
appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the
nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for
half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end;
English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment,
while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward
by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back.
The truly wise commandant of highly strung troops
allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of
their own voices uplifted in song. There is a legend of an
English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting
' Sam Hall,' to the horror of its newly appointed and pious
colonel. The Black Boneens, who were suffering more
than the Mavericks, on a hill half a nule away, began
presently to explain to all who cared to listen —

We'll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea.
And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan- van Vogh.

'Sing, boys,* said Father Dennis softly. 'It looks as
if we cared for their Afghan peas.'

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees ajid opened his
mouth in a song imparted to him, as to m.ost of his com^
rades, in the strictest confidence by Mulcahy — the
Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting 0£l the grass, the
chill fear of death upon him.

Company after company caught up^ fjig words which,

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 289

the I. A. A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin,
and to breathe which, except to those duly appointed
to hear, is death. WHierefore they are printed in this
place.

The Saxon in Heaven's just balance is weighed,
His doom like Belshazzar's in death haLS been cast,

And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed
TiU his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past.

They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a
swirl; the I. A. A. are better served by their pens than
their petards. Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the
back, asking him to sing up. The officers lay down
again. There was no need to walk any more. Their
men were soothing themselves thunderously, thus —

St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow
That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood,

From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough,
Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

*I'll speak to you after all's over,' said Father Dennis
authoritatively in Dan's ear. 'What's the use of con-
fessing to me when you do this foolishness? Dan, you've
been playing with fire! I'll lay you more penance in a
week than '

' Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The
Boneens are on the move; they'll let us go now! '

The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one
man; but one man there was who rose more swiftly than
all the others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the
fleshy part of his leg.

* You've got to do it,' said Dan grimly. ' Do it decent,
anyhow;' and the roar of the rush drowned his words,

290 LIFE'S HANDICAP

for the rear companies thrust forward the first, still sing-
ing as they swung down the slope —

From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough
Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood!

They should have sung it in the face of England, not
of the Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the
wild Irish yell.

'They came down singing,' said the unofficial report of
the enemy, borne from village to village the next day.
'They continued to sing, and it was written that our men
could not abide when they came. It is beheved that
there was magic in the aforesaid song.'

Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neigh-
30urhood of Mulcahy. Twice the man would have
bolted back in the confusion. Twice he was heaved,
kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable
inferno of a hotly contested charge.

At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him
into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes star-
ing at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breath-
ing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while
Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud
wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail
and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan
who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the
straight Hne of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent
souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on
the muzzle of a gun as his companions danced among the
gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from that
battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retir-
ing in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost
hehnet and belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 291

the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and distressed,
had thrown themselves down on the ground by the
captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy's charge.

'Mad/ said Horse Egan critically. 'Mad with fear!
He's going straight to his death, an' shouting's no use.'

'Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him,
maybe.'

The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the
noise of shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready
to hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners.
Mulcahy tore on, sobbing; the straight-held blade went
home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched
forward almost before a shot from Dan's rifle brought
down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan
retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their
dead.

'He was given the point and that was an easy death,'
said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. 'But would you
ha' shot him, Danny, if he had Hved? '

'He didn't Uve, so there's no sayin'. But I doubt I
wud have bekase of the fun he gave us — let alone the
beer. Hike up his legs. Horse, and we'll bring him in.
Perhaps 'tis better this way.'

They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the
regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their rifles; and there
was a general snigger when one of the younger subalterns
said, ' That was a good man ! '

'Phew,' said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had
taken over the burden. 'I'm powerful dhry, and this
reminds me there'll be no more beer at all.'

'Fwhy not?' said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as
he stretched himself for rest. 'Are we not conspirin' all
we can, an' while we conspire are we not entitled to free
dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would not

«92 LIFE'S HANDICAP

let her son's comrades perish of drouth — ^if she can be
reached at the end of a letter.'

'You're a janius,' said Horse Egan. 'O' coorse she
will not. I wish this crool war was over an' we'd get
back to canteen. Faith, the Commander-in-Chief ought
to be hanged in his own Httle sword-belt for makin' us
work on wather.'

The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan's opinion.
So they made haste to get their work done as soon as
possible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected
peace. 'We can fight the sons of Adam,' said the tribes-
men, 'but we cannot fight the sons of EbHs, and this
regiment never stays still in one place. Let us therefore
come in.' They came in and 'this regiment' withdrew
to conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady.

Excellent as a subordinate Dan failed altogether as a
chief-in-command — possibly because he was too much
swayed by the advice of the only man in the regiment who
could manufacture more than one kind of handwriting.
The same mail that bore to Mulcahy's mother in New
York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly
her son had fought for the Queen, and how assuredly he
would have been recom.mended for the Victoria Cross had
he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve
to say, by that same colonel and all the of&cers of the
regiment, explaining their willingness to do 'anything
which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of
revolutions' if only a httle money could be forwarded
to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire,
would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who 'was unwell at
this present time of writing.'

Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama
Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief
as thev were bitter. The Third Three read and looked

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 293

at each other. Then the Second Conspirator — he who
believed in ^joining hands with the practical branches' —
began to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said,
' Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. We're
left again. Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew
they would, but' — here he laughed afresh — 'I'd give
considerable to know what was at the back of it all.'

His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen
Dan Grady, discredited regimental conspirator, trying to
explain to his thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival
of funds from New YorL

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

Your Gods and my Gods — do you or I know which are the stronger?

Native Proverb.

East of Suez, some hold, the direct control of Providence
ceases; Man being there handed over to the power of the
Gods and Devils of Asia, and the Church of England
Providence only exercising an occasional and modified
supervision in the case of EngHshmen.

This theory accounts for some of the more unnecessary
horrors of life in India: it may be stretched to explain
my story.

My friend Strickland of the PoHce, who knows as
much of natives of India as is good for any man, can bear
witness to the facts of the case. Dumoise, our doctor,
also saw what Strickland and I saw. The inference
which he drew from the evidence was entirely incorrect.
He is dead now; he died, in a rather curious manner,
which has been elsewhere described.

When Fleete came to India he owned a Httle money
and some land in the Himalayas, near a place called
Dharmsala. Both properties had been left him by an
uncle, and he came out to finance them. He was a big,
heavy, genial, and inoffensive man. His knowledge of
natives was, of course, Hmited, and he complained of the
difficulties of the language.

He rode in from his place in the hills to spend New
Year in the station, and he stayed with Strickland. On
New Year's Eve there was a big dinner at the club, and

294

THE MARK OF THE BEAST 295

the night was excusably wet. When men foregather
from the uttermost ends of the Empire, they have a right
to be riotous. The Frontier had sent down a contingent
o' Catch- 'em-Alive-0's who had not seen twenty white
faces for a year, and were used to ride fifteen miles to
dinner at the next Fort at the risk of a Khyberee bullet
where their drinks should He. They profited by their new
security, for they tried to play pool with a curled-up
hedgehog found in the garden, and one of them carried
the marker round the room in his teeth. Half a dozen
planters had come in from the south and were talking
'horse' to the Biggest Liar in Asia, who was tr}dng to
cap all their stories at once. Everybody was there, and
there was a general closing up of ranks and taking stock
of our losses in dead or disabled that had fallen during
the past year. It was a very wet night, and I remember
that we sang ' Auld Lang Syne' with our feet in the Polo
Championship Cup, and our heads among the stars, and
swore that we were all dear friends. Then some of us
went away and annexed Burma, and some tried to open
up the Soudan and were opened up by P'uzzies in that
cruel scrub outside Suakim, and some found stars and
medals, and some v/ere married, which was bad, and some
did other things which were worse, and the others of us
stayed in our chains and strove to make money on
insufficient experiences.

Fleete began the night with sherry and bitters, drank
champagne steadily up to dessert, then raw, rasping
Capri with all the strength of whisky, took Benedictine
with his coffee, four or five whiskies and sodas to im-
prove his pool strokes, beer and bones at half-past two,
winding up with old brandy. Consequently, when he
came out, at half -past three in the morning, into four-
teen degrees of frost, he was very angry with his horse

296 LIFE'S HANDICAP

for coughing, and tried to leapfrog into the saddle. The
horse broke away and went to his stables; so Strickland
and I formed a Guard of Dishonour to take Fleete home.

Our road lay through the bazaar, close to a Kttle
temple of Hanuman, the Monkey-god, who is a leading
divinity worthy of respect. All gods have good points,
just as have all priests. Personally, I attach much
importance to Hanuman, and am kind to his people — the
great gray apes of the hills. One never knows when one
may want a friend.

There was a light in the temple, and as we passed, we
could hear voices of men chanting hymns. In a native
temple, the priests rise at all hours of the night to do
honour to their god. Before we could stop him, Fleete
dashed up the steps, patted two priests on the back, and
was gravely grinding the ashes of his cigar-butt into the
forehead of the red stone image of Hanuman. Strick-
land tried to drag him out, but he sat down and said
solemnly :

'Shee that? 'Mark of the B— beashtl / made it.
Ishn'titfine?'

In half a minute the temple was alive and noisy, and
Strickland, who knew what came of polluting gods, said
that things might occur. He, by virtue of his official
position, long residence in the country, and weakness for
going among the natives, was known to the priests and
he felt unhappy. Fleete sat on the ground and refused
to move. He said that 'good old Hanuman' made a very
soft pillow.

Then, without any warning, a Silver Man came out of
a recess behind the image of the god. He was perfectly
naked in that bitter, bitter cold, and his body shone like
frosted silver, for he was what the Bible calls 'a leper as
white as snow.' A^so he had no face, because he was a

THE MARK OF THE BEAST a^r

leper of some years' standing and his disease was heavy
upon him. We two stooped to haul Fleete up, and the
temple was filling and filling with folk who seemed to
spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under
our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an
otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head
on Fleete's breast before we could wrench him away.
Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the
crowd blocked all the doors.

The priests were very angry until the Silver Man
touched Fleete. That nuzzHng seemed to sober them.

At the end of a few minutes' silence one of the priests
came to Strickland and said, in perfect English, 'Take
your friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but
Hanuman has not done with him.' The crowd gave
room and we carried Fleete into the road.

Strickland was very angry. He said that we might all
three have been knifed, and that Fleete should thank his
stars that he had escaped without injury.

Fleete thanked no one. He said that he wanted to go
to bed. He was gorgeously drunk.

We moved on, Strickland silent and wrathful, until
Fleete was taken with violent shivering fits and sweating.
He said that the smells of the bazaar were overpowering,
and he wondered why slaughter-houses were permitted so
near English residences. 'Can't you smell the blood?'
said Fleete.

We put him to bed at last, just as the dawn was
breaking, and Strickland invited me to have another
whisky and soda. While we were drinking he talked
of the trouble in the temple, and admitted that it baffled
him completely. Strickland hates being mystified by
natives, because his business in life is to overmatch them
with their own weapons. He has not yet succeeded m

agS LIFE'S HANDICAP

doing this, but in fifteen or twenty years he will have
made some small progress.

'They should have mauled us/ he said, * instead of
mewing at us. I wonder what they meant. I don't
like it one little bit.'

I said that the Managing Committee of the temple
would in all probability bring a criminal action against
us for insulting their religion. There was a section of
the Indian Penal Code which exactly met Fleete's offence.
Strickland said he only hoped and prayed that they would
do this. Before I left I looked into Fleete's room, and
saw him lying on his right side, scratching his left breast.
Then I went to bed cold, depressed, and unhappy, at
seven o'clock in the morning.

At one o'clock I rode over to Strickland's house to
inquire after Fleete's head. I imagined that it would
be a sore one. Fleete was breakfasting and seemed un-
well. His temper was gone, for he was abusing the cook
for not supplying him with an underdone chop. A man
who can eat raw meat after a wet night is a curiosity. I
told Fleete this and he laughed.

'You breed queer mosquitoes in these parts,' he said.
* I've been bitten to pieces, but only in one place.'

'Let's have a look at the bite,' said Strickland. 'It
may have gone down since this morning.'

While the chops were being cooked, Fleete opened
his shirt and showed us, just over his left breast, a mark,
the perfect double of the black rosettes — the five or six
irregular blotches arranged in a circle — on a leopard's hide.
Strickland looked and said, 'It was only pink this morn-
ing. It's grown black now.'

Fleete ran to a glass.

' By Jove ! ' he said, ' this is nasty. What is it? '

We could not answer. Here the chops came in, all

TPIE MARK OF THE BEAST 299

red and juicy, and Fleete bolted three in a most offensive
manner. He ate on his right grinders only, and threw
his head over his right shoulder as he snapped the meat.
When he had finished, it struck him that he had been
behaving strangely, for he said apologetically, 'I don't
think I ever felt so hungry in my hfe. I've bolted like
an ostrich.'

After breakfast Strickland said to me, 'Don't go.
Stay here, and stay for the night.'

Seeing that my house was not three miles from Strick-
land's, this request was absurd. But Strickland insisted,
and was going to say something when Fleete interrupted
by declaring in a shamefaced way that he felt hungry
again. Strickland sent a man to my house to fetch over
my bedding and a horse, and we three went down to
Strickland's stables to pass the hours until it was time
to go out for a ride. The man w^ho has a weakness for
horses never wearies of inspecting them; and when two
men are killing time in this way they gather knowledge
and lies the one from the other.

There were five horses in the stables, and I shall never
forget the scene as we tried to look them over. They
seemed to have gone mad. They reared and screamed
and nearly tore up their pickets; they sweated and
shivered and lathered and were distraught with fear.
Strickland's horses used to know him as well as his dogs;
which made the matter more curious. We left the stable
for fear of the brutes throwing themselves in their panic.
Then Strickland turned back and called m.e. The horses
were still frightened, but they let us 'gentle' and make
much of them, and put their heads in our bosoms.

'They aren't afraid of its,' said Strickland. 'D'you
know, I'd give three months' pay if Outrage here could
talk.'

300 LIFE'S HANDICAP

But Outrage was dumb, and could only cuddle up to
his master and blow out his nostrils, as is the custom of
horses when they wish to explain things but can't. Fleete
came up when we were in the stalls, and as soon as the
horses saw him, their fright broke out afresh. It was
all that we could do to escape from the place imkicked.
Strickland said, 'They don't seem to love you, Fleete.'

'Nonsense,' said Fleete; 'my mare will follow me
like a dog.' He went to her; she was in a loose-box;
but as he shpped the bars she plunged, knocked him
down, and broke away into the garden. I laughed, but
Strickland was not amused. He took his moustache in
both fists and pulled at it till it nearly came out. Fleete,
instead of going off to chase his property, yawned, saying
that he felt sleepy. He went to the house to he down,
which was a foolish way of spending New Year's Day.

Strickland sat with me in the stables and asked if I
had noticed anything peculiar in Fleete 's manner. I said
that he ate his food like a beast; but that this might
have been the result of living alone in the hills out of
the reach of society as refined and elevating as ours for
instance. Strickland was not amused. I do not think
that he listened to me, for his next sentence referred to
the mark on Fleete's breast, and I said that it might
have been caused by blister-flies, or that it was possibly a
birth-mark newly born and now visible for the first time.
We both agreed that it was unpleasant to look at, and
Strickland found occasion to say that I was a fool.

'I can't tell you what I tliink now,' said he, 'because
you would call me a madman; but you must stay with
me for the next few days, if you can. I want you to
watch Fleete, but don't tell me what you think till I have
made up my mind.'

'But I am dining out to-night,' I said.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST 301

So am I,' said vStrickland, 'and so is Fleete. At
least if he doesn't change his mind/

We walked about the garden smoking, but saying
nothing — because we were friends, and talking spoils
good tobacco — till our pipes were out. Then we went
to wake up Fleete. He was wide awake and fidgeting
about his room.

'I say, I want some more chops,' he said. 'Can I
get them?'

We laughed and said, 'Go and change. The ponies
will be round in a minute.'

'All right,' said Fleete. 'I'll go when I get the
chops — underdone ones, mind.'

He seemed to be quite in earnest. It was four o'clock,
and we had had breakfast at one; still, for a long time,
he demanded thos» underdone chops. Then he changed
into riding clothes and went out into the verandah.
His pony — the mare had not been caught — would not
let him come near. All three horses were unmanageable
— ^mad w^ith fear — and finally Fleete said that he would
stay at home and get something to eat. Strickland and
I rode out wondering. As we passed the temple of
Hanuman, the Silver Man came out and mewed at us.

'He is not one of the regular priests of the temple/
said Strickland. 'I think I should pecuKarly like to lay
my hands on him.'

There was no spring in our gallop on the racecourse
that evening. The horses were stale, and moved as
though they had been ridden out.

'The fright after breakfast has been too much for
them,' said Strickland.

That was the only remark he made through the re-
mainder of the ride. Once or twice I think he swore to
himself; but that did not count.

302 LIFE'S HANDICAP

We came back in the dark at seven o'clock, and saw
that there were no Kghts in the bungalow. 'Careless
ruffians my servants are! ' said Strickland.

My horse reared at something on the carriage drive,
and Fieete stood up under its nose.

'What are you doing, grovelling about the garden?'
said Strickland.

But both horses bolted and nearly threw us. We
dismounted by the stables and returned to Fieete, who
was on his hands and knees under the orange-bushes.

'What the devil's wrong with you?' said Strickland.

'Nothing, nothing in the world,' said Fieete, speaking
very quickly and thickly. 'I've been gardening — botan-
ising you know. The smell of the earth is delightful.
I think I'm going for a walk — a long walk — ail night.'

Then I saw that there was something excessively out
of order somewhere, and I said to Strickland, ' I am not
dining out.'

'Bless you!' said Strickland. 'Here, Fieete, get up.
You'll catch fever there. Come in to dinner and let's
have the lamps lit. We '11 all dine at home.'

Fieete stood up unwillingly, and said, 'No lamps — no
lamps. It's much nicer here. Let's dine outside and
have some more chops— lots of 'em and underdone —
bloody ones with gristle.'

Now a December evening in Northern India is bit-
terly cold, and Fleete's suggestion was that of a maniac.

'Come in,' said Strickland sternly. 'Come in at
once.'

Fieete came, and when the lamps were brought, we
saw that he was literally plastered with dirt from head
to foot. He must have been rolling in the garden. He
shrank from the Kght and went to his room. His eyes
were horrible to look at. There was a green light behind

THE MARK OF THE BEAST 303

them, not in them, if you understand, and the man's
lower Kp hung down.

Strickland said, 'There is going to be trouble — big
trouble — to-night. Don't you change your riding- things.'

We waited and waited for Fleete's reappearance, and
ordered dinner in the meantime. We could hear him
moving about his own room, but there was no Hght there.
Presently from the room came the long-drawn howl of a
wolf.

People write and talk lightly of blood running cold
and hair standing up and things of that kind. Both
sensations are too horrible to be trifled with. My heart
stopped as though a knife had been driven through it,
and Strickland turned as white as the tablecloth.

The howl was repeated, and was answered by another
howl far across the fields.

That set the gilded roof on the horror. Strickland
dashed into Fleete's room. I followed, and we saw
Fleete getting out of the window. He made beast-noises
\n the back of his throat. He could not answer us when
vN^e shouted at him. He spat.

I don't quite remember what followed, but I think
that Strickland must have stunned him with the long
boot-jack or else I should never have been able to sit on
his chest. Fleete could not speak, he could only snarl,
and his snarls were those of a wolf, not of a man. The
human spirit must have been giving way all day and
have died out \vith the twihght. We were dealing with
a beast that had once been Fleete.

The affair was beyond any human and rational ex-
perience. I tried to say 'Hydrophobia,' but the word
wouldn't come, because I knew that I was lying.

We bound this beast with leather thongs of the punkah-
rope, and tied its thumbs and big toes together, and

304 LIFE'S HANDICAP

gagged it with a shoe-horn, which makes a very efficient
gag if you know how to arrange it. Then we carried it
into the dining-room, and sent a man to Dumoise, the
doctor, telling him to come over at once. After we had
despatched the messenger and were drawing breath,
Strickland said, 'It's no good. This isn't any doctor's
work.' I, also, knew that he spoke the truth.

The beast's head was free, and it threw it about from
side to side. Any one entering the room would have be-
lieved that we were curing a woli's pelt. That was the
most loathsome accessory of all.

Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of his fest,
watching the beast as it wriggled on the groimd, but say-
ing nothing. The shirt had been torn open in the scuffle
and showed the black rosette mark on the left breast. It
stood out like a blister.

In the silence of the watchmg we heard something
without mewing like a she-otter. We both rose to our
feet, and, I answer for myself, not Strickland, felt sick-
actually and physically sick. We told each other, as did
the men in Pinafore, that it was the cat.

Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a Httle man so
unprofessionaUy shocked. He said that it was a heart-
rending case of hydrophobia, and that nothing could
be done. At least any paihative measures would only
prolong the agony. The beast was foaming at the
mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been bitten
by dogs once or twice. Any man who keeps half a
dozen terriers must expect a nip now and again. Du-
moise could offer no help. He could only certify that
Fleete was dying of hydrophobia. The beast was then
how^ling, for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn.
Dumoise said that he would be ready to certify to the
cause of death, and that the end was certain. He was

THE MARK OF THE BEAST 305

a good little man, and he offered to remain with us; but
Strickland refused the kindness. He did not wish to
poison Dumoise's New Year. He would only ask
him not to give the real cause of Fleete's death to the
public.

So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as soon as the
noise of the cart-wheels had died away, Strickland told
me, in a whisper, his suspicions. They were so wildly
improbable that he dared not say them out aloud; and
I, who entertained all Strickland's beliefs, was so ashamed
of owning to them that I pretended to disbelieve.

^Even if the Silver Man had bewtiched Fleete for
polluting the image of Hanuman, the punishment could
not have fallen so quickly.'

As I was whispering this the cry outside the house
rose again, and the beast fell into a fresh paroxysm
of struggling till we were afraid that the thongs that
held it would give way.

'Watch!' said Strickland. 'If this happens six times
I shall take the law into my own hands. I order you to
help me.'

He went into his room and came out in a few minutes
with the barrels of an old shot-gun, a piece of fishing-
line, some thick cord, and his heavy wooden bedstead.
I reported that the convulsions had followed the cry by
two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed percepti-
bly weaker.

Strickland muttered, 'But he can't take away the
life ! He can't take away the Hfe ! '

I said, though I knew that I was arguing against my-
self, 'It may be a cat. It must be a cat. If the Silver
Man is responsible, why does he dare to come here? '

Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, put the
gun-barrels into the glow of the fire, spread the twine on

3o6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

the table and broke a walking stick in two. There was
one yard of fishing line, gut, lapped with wire, such as
is used for mahseer-^ishing, and he tied the two ends
together in a loop.

Then he said, 'How can we catch him? He must be
taken alive and unhurt.'

I said that we must trust in Providence, and go out
softly with polo-sticks into the shrubbery at the front of
the house. The man or animal that made the cry was
evidently moving round the house as regularly as a
night-v/atchman. We could wait in the bushes till
he came by and knock him over.

Strickland accepted this suggestion, and we sUpped
out from a bath-room window into the front verandah
and then across the carriage drive into the bushes.

In the moorJight we could see the leper coming round
the corner of the house. He was perfectly naked, and
from time to time he mewed and stopped to dance with
his shadow. It was an unattractive sight, and thinking
of poor Fleete, brought to such degradation by so foul a
creature, I put av/ay all my doubts and resolved to help
Strickland from the heated gun-barrels to the loop of
twine — from the loins to the head and back again —
with all tortures that might be needful.

The leper halted in the front porch for a moment and
we jumped out on him with tlie sticks. He was wonder-
fully strong, and we were afraid that he might escape or
be fatally injured before we caught him. We had an
idea tliat lepers were frail creatures, but this proved
to be incorrect. Strickland knocked his legs from
under him and I put my foot on his neck. He mewed
hideously, and even through my riding-boots I could feel
that his flesh was not the flesh of a clean man.

He struck at us with his hand and feet-stumps. We

THE MARK OF THE BEAST 307

looped the lash of a dog- whip round him, under the arm-
pits, and dragged him backwards into the hall and so
into the dining-room where the beast lay. There we
tied him with trunk-straps. He made no attempt to
escape, but mewed.

When we confronted him with the beast the scene
was beyond description. The beast doubled backwards
into a bow as though he had been poisoned with styrch-
nine, and moaned in the most pitiable fashion. Several
other things happened also, but they cannot be put down
here.

'I think I was right,' said Strickland. 'Now we will
ask him to cure this case.'

But the leper only mewed. Strickland wrapped a
towel round his hand and took the gun-barrels out of the
iire. I put the half of the broken walking stick through
the loop of fishing-line and buckled the leper comfortably
to Strickland's bedstead. I understood then how men
and women and Kttle children can endure to see a witch
burnt alive; for the beast was moaning on the floor, and
though the Silver Man had no face, you could see horrible
feelings passing through the slab that took its place,
exactly as waves of heat play across red-hot iron — gun-
barrels for instance.

Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands for a mo-
ment and we got to work. This part is not to be printed.

The dawn was beginning to break when the leper
spoke. His mewings had not been satisfactory up to
that point. The beast had fainted from exhaustion and
the house was very still. We unstrapped the leper and
told him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled to the
beast and laid his hand upon the left breast. That was

3o8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

all. Then he fell face down and whined, drawing in his
breath as he did so.

We watched the face of the beast, and saw the soul of
Fleete coming back into the eyes. Then a sweat broke
out on the forehead and the eyes — they were human eyes
— closed. We waited for an hour but Fleete still slept.
We carried him to his room and bade the leper go, giving
him the bedstead, and the sheet on the bedstead to cover
his nakedness, the gloves and the towels with which we
had touched him, and the whip that had been hooked
round his body. He put the sheet about him and
went out into the early morning without speaking or
mewing.

Strickland wiped his face and sat down. A night-
gong, far away in the city, made seven o'clock.

'Exactly four-and-twenty hours!' said Strickland.
'And I've done enough to ensure my dismissal from the
service, besides permanent quarters in a lunatic asyliun.
Do you beheve that we are awake? '

The red-hot gun-barrel had fallen on the floor
and was singeing the carpet The smell was entirely
real.

That morning at eleven we two together went to
wake up Fleete. We looked and saw that the black
leopard-rosette on his chest had disappeared. He was
very drowsy and tired, but as soon as he saw us, he said,
' Oh ! Confound you fellows. Jlappy New Year to you.
Never mix your liquors. I'm nearly dead.'

'Thanks for your kindness, but you're over time,' said
Strickland. 'To-day is the morning of the second.
You've slept the clock round with a vengeance.'

The door opened, and little Dumoise put his head in.
He had come on foot, and fancied that we were laying
out Fleete.

THE MARK OF THE BEAST 309

' I Ve brought a nurse/ said Dumoise. ' I suppose that
she can come in for . . . what is necessary.'

*By all means,' said Fleete cheerily, sitting up in bed.
^ Bring on your nurses.'

Dumoise was dumb. Strickland led him out and
explained that there must have been a mistake in the
diagnosis. Dumoise remained dumb and left the house
hastily. He considered that his professional reputation
had been injured, and was inclined to make a personal
matter of the recovery. Strickland went out too. When
he came back, he said that he had been to call on the
Temple of Hanimian to offer redress for the pollution of
the god, and had been solemnly assured that no white
man had ever touched the idol and that he was an incar-
nation of all the virtues labouring under a delusion.
'What do you think?' said Strickland.

I said, ' '' There are more things . . .'"

But Strickland hates that quotation. He says that I
have worn it threadbare.

One other curious thing happened which frightened
me as much as anything in all the night's work. When
Fleete was dressed he came into the dining-room and
sniffed. He had a quaint trick of moving his nose when
he sniffed. 'Horrid doggy smell, here,' said he. 'You
should really keep those terriers of yours in better order.
Try sulphur, S trick.'

But Strickland did not answer. He caught hold of
the back of a chair, and, without warning, went into an
amazing fit of hysterics. It is terrible to see a strong
man overtaken \vith hysteria. Then it struck me that
we had fought for Fleete 's soul with the Silver Man in
that room, and had disgraced ourselves as Englishmen
for ever, and I laughed and gasped and gurgled just as
shamefully as Strickland, while Fleete thought that we

3IO LIFE'S HANDICAP

had both gone mad. We never told him what we had
done.

Some years later, when Strickland had married and
was a church-going member of society for his wife's sake,
we reviev/ed the incident dispassionately, and Strickland
suggested that I should put it before the pubHc.

I cannot myself see that this step is likely to clear
up the mystery; because, in the first place, no one will
believe a rather unpleasant story, and, in the second, it
is well known to every right-minded man that the gods
of the heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt to
deal with them otherwise is justly condemned.

THE RETURN OF IMRAY

The doors were wide, the stoiy saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith,
He might not speak, and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron's minniver —
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin,
He roved the castle to seek his kin.
And oh, 'twas a piteous thing to see
The dumb ghost follow his enemy!

TJie Baron.

Imeay achieved the impossible. Without warning, fov.
no conceivable motive, in his youth, at the threshold of
his career he chose to disappear from the world — which
is to say, the Httle Indian station where he lived.

Upon a day he was aUve, well, happy, and in great
evidence among the bilHard- tables at his Club. Upon
a morning, he was not, and no manner of search could
make sure where he might be. He had stepped out of
his place ; he had not appeared at his office at the proper
time, and his dogcart was not upon the public roads.
For these reasons, and because he was hampering, in a
microscopical degree, the administration of the Indian
Empire, that Empire paused for one microscopical mo-
ment to make inquiry into the fate of Imray. Ponds
were dragged, wells were plumbed, telegrams were de-
spatched down the Hues of railways and to the nearest
seaport town — twelve hundred miles away; but Imray
was not at the end of the drag-ropes nor the telegraph
wires. He was gone, and his place knew him no more.

311

312 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Then the work of the great Indian Empire swept for-
ward, because it could not be delayed, and Imray from
being a man became a mystery — such a thing as men talk
over at their tables in the Club for a month, and then
forget utterly. His guns, horses, and carts were sold to
the highest bidder. His superior officer wrote an alto-
gether absurd letter to his mother, saying that Imray
had imaccountably disappeared, and his bungalow stood
empty.

After three or four months of the scorching hot
weather had gone by, my friend Strickland, of the Police,
saw fit to rent the bungalow from the native landlord.
This was before he was engaged to Miss Youghal — an
affair which has been described in another place — and
while he was pursuing his investigations into native life.
His own life was sufficiently peculiar, and men com-
plained of his manners and customs. There was always
food in his house, but there were no regular times for
meals. He ate, standing up and walking about, whatever
he might find at the sideboard, and this is not good for
human beings. His domestic equipment was limited to
six rifles, three shot-guns, five saddles, and a collection
of stifi'-jointed mahseer-rods, bigger and stronger than the
largest salmon-rods. These occupied one-half of his
bungalow, and the other half was given up to Strickland
and his dog Tietjens — an enormous Rampur slut who
devoured daily the rations of two men. She spoke to
Strickland in a language of her own; and whenever, walk-
ing abroad, she saw things calculated to destroy the
peace of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress, she returned
to her master and laid information. Strickland would
take steps at once, and the end of his labours was trouble
and fine and imprisonment for other people. The natives
beh'eved that Tietjens was a familiar spirit, and treated

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 313

her with the great reverence that is born of hate and
fear. One room in the bungalow was set apart for her
opecial use. She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a
drinking-trough, and if any one came into Strickland's
room at night her custom was to knock down the invader
and give tongue till some one came with a light. Strick-
land owed his life to her, when he was on the Frontier,
in search of a local murderer, who came in the gray dawn
to send Strickland much farther than the Andaman
Islands. Tietjens caught the man as he was crawling
into Strickland's tent with a dagger between his teeth;
and after his record of iniquity was established in the
eyes of the law he was hanged. From that date Tietjens
wore a collar of rough silver, and employed a monogram
on her night-blanket; and the blanket was of double
woven Kashmir cloth, for she was a delicate dog.

Under no circumstances would she be separated from
Strickland; and once, when he was ill with fever, made
great trouble for the doctors, because she did not know
how to help her master and would not allow another
creature to attempt aid. Macarnaght, of the Indian
Medical Service, beat her over her head ^vith a gun-butt
before she could understand that she must give room for
those who could give quinine.

A short time after Strickland had taken Imray's
bungalow, my business took me through that Station,
and naturally, the Club quarters being full, I quartered
myself upon Strickland. It was a desirable bungalow,
eight-roomed and hea\dly thatched against any chance
of leakage from rain. Under the pitch of the roof ran a
ceiling-cloth which looked just as neat as a white-washed
ceiling. The landlord had repainted it when Strickland
took the bungalow. Unless you knew how Indian bunga-
lows were built you would never have suspected that

314 LIFE'S HANDICAP

above the cloth lay the dark three-cornered cavern of the
roof, where the beams and the underside of the thatch
harboured all manner of rats, bats, ants, and foul things.
Tie tj ens met me in the verandah with a bay like the
boom of the bell of St. Paul's, putting her paws on my
shoulder to show she was glad to see me. Strickland
had contrived to claw together a sort of meal which he
called lunch, and immediately after it was finished went
out about his business. I was left alone with Tie tj ens
and my own affairs. The heat of the summer had broken
up and turned to the warm damp of the rains. There
was no motion in the heated air, but the rain fell like
ramrods on the earth, and flung up a blue mist when it
splashed back. The bamboos, and the custard-apples,
the poinsettias, and the mango-trees in the garden stood
still while the warm water lashed through them, and the
frogs began to sing among the aloe hedges. A little
before the Hght failed, and when the rain was at its worst,
I sat in the back verandah and heard the water roar from
the eaves, and scratched myself because I was covered
with the thing called prickly-heat. Tietjens came out
with me and put her head in my lap and was very sor-
rowful; so I gave her biscuits when tea was ready, and I
took tea in the back verandah on account of the little
coolness found there. The rooms of the house were dark
behind me. I could smell Strickland's saddlery and the
oil on his guns, and I had no desire to sit among these
things. My own servant came to me in the twihght, the
muslin of his clothes clinging tightly to his drenched
body, and told me that a gentleman had called and wished
to see some one. Very much against my will, but only
because of the darkness of the rooms, I went into the
naked drawing-room, telling my man to bring the lights.
There might or might not have been a caller waiting— it

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 315

seemed to me that I saw a figure by one of the windows —
but when the lights came there was nothing save the
spikes of the rain without, and the smell of the drinking
earth in my nostrils. I exj.'^lained to my servant that he
was no wiser than he ought to be, and went back to the
verandah to talk to Tietjens. She had gone out into the
wet, and I could hardly coax her back to me; even with
biscuits with sugar tops. Strickland came home, dripping
wet, just before dinner, and the first thing he said was.

*Has any one called? '

I explained, with apologies, that my servant had
summoned me into the drawing-room on a false alarm;
or that some loafer had tried to call on Strickland, and
thinking better of it had fled after giving his name.
Strickland ordered dinner, without comment, and since it
was a real dinner with a white tablecloth attached, we
sat down.

At nine o'clock Strickland wanted to go to bed, and
I was tired too. Tietjens, who had been lying under-
neath the table, rose up, and swung into the least exposed
verandah as soon as her master moved to his own room,
which was next to the stately chamber set apart for
Tietjens. If a mere wife had wished to sleep out of
doors in that pelting rain it would not have mattered;
but Tietjens was a dog, and therefore the better animal.
I looked at Strickland, expecting to see him flay her with
a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would smile after
telling some unpleasant domestic tragedy. 'She has
done this ever since I moved in here,' said he. 'Let her

go.'

The dog was Strickland's dog, so I said nothing, but
I felt all that Strickland felt in being thus made Hght
of. Tietjens encamped outside my bedroom window, and
storm after storm came up, thundered on the thatch,

3i6 LIFE'S HANDICAP

and died away. The lightning spattered the sky as a
thrown egg spatters a barn-door, but the Hght was pale
blue, not yellow; and, looking through my spHt bamboo
blinds, I could see the great dog standing, not sleeping,
in the verandah, the hackles aHft on her back and her
feet anchored as tensely as the drawn wire-rope of a
suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the
thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that some one
wanted me very urgently. He, whoever he was, was
trying to call me by name, but his voice was no more
than a husky whisper. The thunder ceased, and Tiet-
jens went into the garden and howled at the low moon.
Somebody tried to open my door, walked about and
about through the house and stood breathing heavily
in the verandahs, and just when I was falling asleep
I fancied that I heard a wild hammering and clamour-
ing above my head or on the door.

I ran into Strickland's room and asked him whether
he was ill, and had been calling for me. He was lying
on his bed half dressed, a pipe in his mouth. 'I thought
you'd come,' he said. 'Have I been walking round the
house recently? '

I explained that he had been tramping in the dining-
room and the smoking-room and two or three other places,
and he laughed and told me to go back to bed. I went
back to bed and slept till the morning, but through all
my mixed dreams I was sure I was doing some one an
injustice in not attending to his wants. What those
wants were I could not tell; but a fluttering, whispering,
bolt-fumbling, lurking, loitering Someone was reproach-
ing me for my slackness, and, half awake, I heard the
howling of Tietjens in the garden and the threshing of the
rain.

I lived in that house lor iwo days. Strickland went

THE RETURN OF IMRAY ^if

to his office daily, leaving me alone for eight or ten hours
with Tietjens for my only companion. As long as the
full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was Tietjens;
but in the twilight she and I moved into the back verandah
and cuddled each other for company. We were alone
in the house, but none the less it was much too fully
occupied by a tenant with whom I did not wish to inter-
fere. I never saw him, but I could see the curtains
between the rooms quivering where he had just passed
through; I could hear the chairs creaking as the bamboos
sprung under a weight that had just quitted them; and
I could feel when I went to get a book from the dining-
room that somebody was waiting in the shadows of the
front verandah till I should have gone away. Tietjens
made the twilight more interesting by glaring into the
darkened rooms with every hair erect, and following the
motions of something that I could not see. She never
entered the rooms, but her eyes moved interestedly,
that was quite sufficient. Only when my servant came
to trim the lamps and make all Hght and habitable she
would come in with me and spend her time sitting on her
haunches, v/atching an invisible extra man as he moved
about behind my shoulder. Dogs are cheerful compan-
ions.

I explained to Strickland, gently as might be, that I
would go over to the Club and find for myself quarters
there. I admired his hospitahty, was pleased with his
guns and rods, but I did not much care for his house and
its atmosphere. He heard me out to the end, and then
smiled very wearily, but without contempt, for he is a
man who understands things. 'Stay on,' he said, 'and
see what this thing means. All you have talked about
I have known since I took the bungalow. Stay on and
wait. Tietjens has left me. Are you going too? '

3i8 LIFE'S HANDICAP

I had seen him through one little affair, connected
with a heathen idol, that had brought me to the doors
of a lunatic asylum, and I had no desire to help him
through further experiences. He was a man to whom
unpleasantnesses arrived as do dinners to ordinary
people.

Therefore I explained more clearly than ever that T
liked him immensely, and would be happy to see him in
the daytime; but that I did not care to sleep under his
roof. This was after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out
to lie in the verandah.

' Ton my soul, I don't wonder,' said Strickland, with
his eyes on the ceiling-cloth. 'Look at that! '

The tails of two brown snakes were hanging between
the cloth and the cornice of the wall. They threw long
shadows in the lampHght.

'If you are afraid of snakes of course ' said Strick-
land.

I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the
eyes of any snake you \\all see that it knows all and
more of the mystery of man's fall, and that it feels all
the contempt that the Devil felt when Adam was evicted
from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal,
and it twists up trouser legs.

'You ought to get your thatch overhauled,' I said.
'Give me a mahseer-rod, and we'll poke 'em down.'

'They'll hide among the roof-beams,' said Strickland.
'I can't stand snakes overhead. I'm going up into the
roof. If I shake 'em down, stand by with a cleaning-rod
and break their backs.'

I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work,
but I took the cleaning-rod and waited in the dining-
room, while Strickland brought a gardener's ladder from
the verandah, and set it against the side of the room.

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 319

The snake-tails drew themselves up and disappeared.
We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies
running over the baggy ceiling-cloth. Strickland took a
lamp with him, while I tried to make clear to him the
danger of hunting roof -snakes between a ceiling-cloth and
a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused
by ripping out ceiling-cloths.

* Nonsense!' said Strickland. * They're sure to hide
near the walls by the cloth. The bricks are too cold for
'em, and the heat of the room is just what they Hke.'
He put his hand to the corner of the stuff and ripped it
from the cornice. It gave with a great sound of tearing,
and Strickland put his head through the opening into the
dark of the angle of the roof-beams. I set my teeth and
lifted the rod, for I had not the least knowledge of what
might descend.

*H'm!' said Strickland, and his voice rolled and
rvmibled in the roof. 'There's room for another set of
rooms up here, and, by Jove, some one is occupying 'em!'

* Snakes? ' I said from below.

'No. It's a buffalo. Hand me up the two last
joints of a mahseer-rod, and I'll prod it. It's lying on
the main roof -beam.'

I handed up the rod.

*What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder
the snakes live here,' said Strickland, chmbing farther
into the roof. I could see his elbow thrusting with the
rod. Xome out of that, whoever you are! Heads
below there! It's falling.'

I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre of the
room bag with a shape that was pressing it downwards
and downwards towards the lighted lamp on the table.
I snatched the lamp out of danger and stood back. Then
the cloth ripped out from the walls, tore, split, swayed,

320 LIFE'S HANDICAP

and shot down upon the table something that I dared
not look at, till Strickland had sHd down the ladder and
was standing by my side.

He did not say much, being a man of few words; but
he picked up the loose end of the tablecloth and threw
it over the remnants on the table.

'It strikes me,' said he, putting down the lamp, 'our
friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would
you?'

There was a movement under the cloth, and a little
snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the
mahseer-rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks
worth recording.

Strickland meditated, and helped himseK to drinks.
The arrangement under the cloth made no more signs of
Hfe.

*Isit Imray?' I said.

Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment, and
looked.

'It is Imray,' he said; 'and his throat is cut from ear
to ear.'

Then we spoke, both together and to ourselves: 'That's
why he whispered about the house.'

Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A
little later her great nose heaved open the dining-room
door.

She sniffed and was still. The tattered ceiling-cloth
hung down almost to the level of the table, and there
was hardly room to move away from the discovery.

Tietjens came in and sat down; her teeth bared under
her lip and her forepaws planted. She looked at Strick-
land.

'It's a bad business, old lady,' said he. 'Men don't
climb up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 321

they don't fasten up the ceiling cloth behind 'em. Let's
think it out.'

* Let's think it out somewhere else,' I said.

'Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We'll get
into my room.'

I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland's
room first, and allowed him to make the darkness. Then
he followed me, and we lit tobacco and thought. Strick-
land thought. I smoked furiously, because I was afraid.

'Imray is back,' said Strickland. 'The question is —
who killed Imray? Don't talk, I've a notion of my own.
When I took this bungalow I took over most of Imray's
servants. Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn't
he?'

I agreed; though the heap under the cloth had looked
neither one thing nor the other.

'If I call in all the servants they will stand fast in a
crowd and He like Aryans. Wliat do you suggest? '

'Call 'em in one by one,' I said.

'They'll run away and give the news to all their
fellows,' said Strickland. 'We must segregate 'em. Do
you suppose your servant knows anything about it? '

'He may, for aught I know; but I don't think it's
Hkely. He has only been here two or three days,' I
answered. 'What's your notion?'

'I can't quite tell. How the dickens did the man get
the wrong side of the ceiling-cloth? '

There was a heavy coughing outside Strickland's
bedroom door. This showed that Bahadur Khan, his
body-servant, had waked from sleep and wished to put
Strickland to bed.

'Come in,' said Strickland. 'It's a very warm night,
isn't it?'

Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot

322 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Mahomedan, said that it was a very warm night; but
that there was more rain pending, which, by his Honour's
favour, would bring reHef to the country.

'It will be so, if God pleases,' said Strickland, tugging
off his boots. 'It is in my mind, Bahadur Khan, that I
have worked thee remorselessly for many days — ever
since that tune when thou first earnest into my service.
What time was that? '

'Has the Heaven-born forgotten? It was when
Imray Sahib went secretly to Europe without warning
given; and I — even I — came into the honoured service
of the protector of the poor.'

'And Imray Sahib went to Europe? '

'It is so said among those who were his servants.'

'And thou wilt take service with him when he re-
turns? '

'Assuredly, Sahib. He was a good master, and
cherished his dependants.'

'That is true. I am very tired, but I go buck-shooting
to-morrow. Give me the httle sharp rifle that I use for
black -buck; it is in the case yonder.'

The man stooped over the case; handed barrels, stock,
and fore-end to Strickland, who fitted all together, yawn-
ing dolefully. Then he reached down to the gun-case,
took a sohd-drawn cartridge, and sKpped it into the
breech of the '360 Express.

'And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe secretly!
That is very strange, Bahadur Khan, is it not? '

'What do I know of the ways of the white man,
Heaven-born? '

'Very Httle, truly. But thou shalt know more anon.
It has reached me that Imray Sahib has returned from
his so long journeyings, and that even now he Hes in the
next room, waiting his servant.'

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 333

^Sahib!'

The lamplight slid along the barrels of the rifle as
they levelled themselves at Bahadur Elhan's broad breast.

*Go and look!' said Strickland. 'Take a lamp. Thy
master is tired, and he waits thee. Go!'

The man picked up a lamp, and went into the dining-
room, Strickland following, and almost pushing him with
the muzzle of the rifle. He looked for a moment at the
black depths behind the ceiling-cloth; at the writhing
snake under foot; and last, a gray glaze settling on his
face, at the thing under the tablecloth.

'Hast thou seen? ' said Strickland after a pause.

'I have seen. I am clay in the white man's hands.
What does the Presence do?'

'Hang thee within the month. What else?'

*For killing him? Nay, Sahib, consider. Walking
among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child,
who was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten
days he died of the fever — my child!'

'What said Imray Sahib?'

'He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on
the head; wherefore my child died. Wherefore I killed
Imray Sahib in the twihght, when he had come back from
office, and was sleeping. Wherefore I dragged him up
into the roof-beams and made all fast behind him. The
Heaven-born knows all things. I am the servant of the
Heaven-born.'

Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in
the vernacular, 'Thou art witness to this saying? He
has killed.'

Bahadur ELhan stood ashen gray in the light of the
one lamp. The need for justification came upon him very
swiftly. 'I am trapped,' he said, 'but the offence was
that man's. He cast an evil eye upon my child, and I

324 LIFE'S HANDICAP

killed and hid him. Only such as are served by devils,'
he glared at Tietjens, couched stolidly before him, ^only
such could know what I did.'

*It was clever. But thou shouldst have lashed him
to the beam with a rope. Now, thou thyself wilt hang
by a rope. Orderly!'

A drowsy poHceman answered Strickland's call. He
was followed by another, and Tietjens sat wondrous still.

'Take him to the poHce-station,' said Strickland.
'There is a case toward.'

'Do I hang, then?' said Bahadur Khan, making no
attempt to escape, and keeping his eyes on the ground.

'If the sun shines or the water runs — yes!' said
Strickland.

Bahadur Khan stepped back one long pace, quivered,
and stood still. The two policemen waited further
orders.

' Go ! ' said Strickland.

'Nay; but I go very swiftly,' said Bahadur Khan.
'Look! I am even now a dead man.'

He Hfted his foot, and to the Httle toe there clung the
head of the half-ldlled snake, firm fixed in the agony of
death.

'I come of land-holding stock,' said Bahadur Khan,
rocking where he stood. 'It were a disgrace to me to
go to the public scaffold: therefore I take this way. Be
it remembered that the Sahib's shirts are correctly enu-
merated, and that there is an extra piece of soap in his
washbasin. My child was bewitched, and I slew the
wizard. Why should you seek to slay me with the rope?
My honour is saved, and— and — I die.'

At the end of an hour he died, as they die who are
bitten by the Httle brown karait, and the poHcemen bore
him and the thing under the tablecloth to their appointed

THE RETURN OF IMRAY 325

places. All were needed to make clear the disappear-
ance of Imray.

'This/ said Strickland, very calmly, as he climbed
into bed, 'is called the nineteenth century. Did you
hear what that man said? '

' I heard,' I answered. ' Imray made a mistake.'

'Simply and solely through not knowing the nature
of the Oriental, and the coincidence of a little seasonal
fever. Bahadur Khan had been with him for four years.'

I shuddered. My own servant had been with me for
exactly that lengtli of time. AVhen I went over to my
own room I found my man waiting, impassive as the
copper head on a penny, to pull off my boots.

'What has befallen Bahadur Khan? ' said I.

'He was bitten by a snake and died. The rest the
Sahib knows,' was the answer.

'And how much of tliis matter hast thou known?'

'As much as might be gathered from One coming in
in the twihght to seek satisfaction. Gently, Sahib. Let
me pull off those boots.'

I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion when I
heard Strickland shouting from his side of the house —

'Tietjens has come back to her place! '

And so she had. The great deerhound was couched
statelily on her own bedstead on her own blanket, while,
in the next room, the idle, empty, ceiling-cloth waggled
as it trailed on the table.

NAMGAY DOOLA

There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,

The dew on his wet robe hung heavy and chill;

Ere the steamer that brought him had passed out of hearin',

He was Alderman Mike inthrojuicin' a bill!

American Song,

Once upon a time there was a King who lived on the
road to Thibet, very many miles in the Himalayas. His
Kingdom was eleven thousand feet above the sea and
exactly four miles square; but most of the miles stood
on end owing to the nature of the country. His revenues
were rather less than four hundred pounds yearly, and
they were expended in the maintenance of one elephant
and a standing army of five men. He was tributary to
the Indian Government, who allowed him certain sums
for keeping a section of the Himalaya-Thibet road in
repair. He further increased his revenues by selling
timber to the railway-companies; for he would cut the
great deodar trees in his one forest, and they fell thunder-
ing into the Sutlej river and were swept down to the
plains three hundred miles away and became railway- ties.
Now and again this King, whose name does not matter,
would mount a ringstraked horse and ride scores of miles
to Simla-town to confer with the Lieutenant-Governor on
matters of state, or to assure the Viceroy that his sword
was at the service of the Queen-Empress. Then the
Viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded, and
the ringstraked horse and the cavalry of the State — two
men in tatters — and the herald who bore the silver stick

326

NAMGAY DOOLA 32?

before the King would trot back to their own place, which
lay between the tail of a heaven-climbing glacier and a
dark birch-forest.

Now, from such a King, always remembering that he
possessed one veritable elephant, and could count his
descent for twelve hundred years, I expected, when it was
my fate to wander through his dominions, no more than
mere license to Uve.

The night had closed in rain, and rolling clouds
blotted out the Hghts of the villages in the valley. Forty
miles away, untouched by cloud or storm, the white
shoulder of Donga Pa— the Mountain of the Council of
the Gods — upheld the Evening Star. The monkeys sang
sorrowfully to each other as they hunted for dry roosts
in the fern-wreathed trees, and the last puff of the day-
wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp
wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rot-
ting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Hima-
layas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that
man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills
to die. The clouds closed and the smell went away, and
there remained nothing in all the world except chilling
white mist and the boom of the Sutlej river racing through
the valley below. A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want
to die, bleated piteously at my tent door. He was
scuffing with the Prime Minister and the Director-
General of Public Education, and he was a royal gift to
me and my camp servants. I expressed my thanks suit-
ably, and asked if I might have audience of the King.
The Prime Minister readjusted his turban, which had
fallen off in the struggle, and assured me that the King
would be very pleased to see me. Therefore I despatched
two bottles as a foretaste, and when the sheep had entered
upon another incarnation went to the King's Palace

328 LIFE'S IL\NDICA1'

through the wet. He had sent liis army to escort me,
but the army stayed to talk with my cook. Soldiers are
very much aUke all the world over.

The Palace was a four-roomed and whitewashed mud
and timber house, the finest in all the hills for a day's
journey. The King was dressed in a purple velvet jacket,
white muslin trousers, and a saffron-yellow turban of
price. He gave me audience in a little carpeted room
opening off the palace courtyard which was occupied by
the Elephant of State. The great beast was sheeted and
anchored from trunk to tail, and the curve of his back
stood out grandly against the mist.

The Prime Minister and the Director-General of PubHc
Education were present to introduce me, but all the
court had been dismissed, lest the two bottles aforesaid
should corrupt their morals. The King cast a wreath of
heavy-scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and
inquired how my honoured presence had the feUcity to
be. I said that through seeing his auspicious counte-
nance the mists of the night had turned into sunshine,
and that by reason of his beneficent sheep his good
deeds would be remembered by the Gods. He said that
since I had set my magnificent foot in his Kingdom the
crops would probably yield seventy per cent more than
the average. I said that the fame of the King had
reached to the four corners of the earth, and that the
nations gnashed their teeth when they heard daily of the
glories of his realm and the wisdom of his moon-like
Prime Minister and lotus-like Director- General of Public
Education.

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was
at the King's right hand. Three minutes later he was
telling me that the state of the maize crop was something
disgraceful, and that the railway-companies would not

NMIGAY DOOLA 329

pay him enough for his timber. The talk shifted to and
fro with the bottles, and we discussed very many stately
things, and the King became confidential on the subject
of Government generally. Most of all he dwelt on the
shortcomings of one of his subjects, who, from all I could
gather, had been paralyzing the executive,

*In the old days,' said the King, 'I could have ordered
the Elephant yonder to trample him to death. Now I
must e'en send him seventy miles across the hills to be
tried, and his keep would be upon the State. The
Elephant eats everything.'

^What be the man's crimes. Rajah Sahib?' said I.

'Firstly, he is an outlander and no man of mine own
people. Secondly, since of my favour I gave him land
upon his first coming, he refuses to pay revenue. Am I
not the lord of the earth, above and below, entitled by
right and custom to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this
devil, establishing himself, refuses to pay a single tax; and
he brings a poisonous spawn of babes.'

'Cast him into jail,' I said.

'Sahib,' the King answered, shifting a Httle on the
cushions, 'once and only once in these forty years sick-
ness came upon me so that I was not able to go abroad,
in that hour I made a vow to my God that I would never
again cut man or woman from the hght of the sun and
the air of God; for I perceived the nature of the punish-
ment. How can I break my vow? Were it only the
lopping of a hand or a foot I should not delay. But even
that is impossible now that the English have rule. One
or another of my people' — he looked obUquely at the
Director-General of PubHc Education — 'would at once
write a letter to the Viceroy, and perhaps I should be
deprived of my ruffie of drums.'

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-

330 LIFE'S HANDICAP

pipe, fitted a plain amber mouthpiece, and passed his
pipe to me. 'Not content with refusing revenue,' he
continued, 'this outlander refuses also the hegar^ (this
was the corv^ee or forced labour on the roads) 'and stirs
my people up to the like treason. Yet he is, when he
wills, an expert log-snatcher. There is none better or
bolder among my people to clear a block of the river when
the logs stick fast.'

'But he worships strange Gods,' said the Prime Minis-
ter deferentially.

'For that I have no concern,' said the King, who was
as tolerant as Akbar in matters of belief. ' To each man
his own God and the fire or Mother Earth for us all at
last. It is the rebellion that offends me.'

'The King has an army,' I suggested. 'Has not the
King burned the man's house and left him naked to the
night dews? '

'Nay, a hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man.
But once, I sent my army against him when his excuses
became wearisome: of their heads he brake three across
the top \\ith a stick. The other two men ran away.
Also the guns would not shoot.'

I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One-third
of it was an old muzzle-loading fowHng-piece, with a
ragged rust-hole where the nipples should have been, one-
third a wire-bound matchlock with a worm-eaten stock,
and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun without a flint.

'But it is to be remembered,' said the King, reaching
out for the bottle, ' that he is a very expert log-snatcher
and a man of a merry face. What shall I do to him,
Sahib?'

This was interesting. The timid hill-folk would as
soon have refused taxes to their king as revenues to their
Gods.

NAMGAY DOOLA 331

'If it be the King's permission/ I said, 'I will not
strike my tents till the third day and I will see this man.
The mercy of the King is God-like, and rebellion is like
unto the sin of witchcraft. Moreover, both the bottles
and another be empty.'

* You have my leave to go,' said the King.

Next morning a crier went through the state pro-
claiming that there was a log-jam on the river and that
it behoved all loyal subjects to remove it. The people
poured down from their villages to the moist warm valley
of poppy-fields; and the King and I went with them.
Hundreds of dressed deodar-logs had caught on a snag
of rock, and the river was bringing down more logs every
minute to complete the blockade. The water snarled
and wrenched and worried at the timber, and the popu-
lation of the state began prodding the nearest logs with a
pole in the hope of starting a general movement. Then
there went up a shout of 'Namgay Doola! Namgay
Doolal' and a large red-haired villager hurried up,
stripping off his clothes as he ran.

' That is he. That is the rebel,' said the King. 'Now
will the dam be cleared.'

'But why has he red hair?' I asked, since red hair
among hill-folks is as common as blue or green.

'He is an outlander,' said the King. 'Well done! Oh
well done ! '

Namgay Doola had scrambled out on the jam and was
clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-
hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves,
three or four others followed it, and the green water
spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the vil-
lagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs,
pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the
red head of Namgay Doola was chief among them all.

332 LIFE'S HANDICAP

The logs swayed and chafed and groaned as fresh coii-
signments from upstream battered the now weakemng
dam. All gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing
logs, bobbing black heads and confusion indescribable.
The river tossed everything before it. I saw the red
head go down with the last remnants of the jam and
disappear between the great grinding tree-trunks. It
rose close to the bank and blowing like a grampus.
Namgay Doola wrung the water out of his eyes and
made obeisance to the King. I had time to observe
him closely. The virulent redness of his shock head
and beard was most startling; and in the thicket of
hair wrinkled above high cheek bones shone two very
merry blue eyes. He was indeed an outlander, but yet
a Thibetan in language, habit, and attire. He spoke the
Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the
gutturals. It was not so much a lisp as an accent.

^Whence comest thou?' I asked.

'From Thibet.' He pointed across the hills and
grinned. That grin went straight to my heart. Mechani-
cally I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it.
No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning
of the gesture. He went away to look for his clothes, and
as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell
that seemed unaccountably familiar. It was the whoop-
ing of Namgay Doola.

*You see now,' said the King, 'why I would not kill
him. He is a bold man among my logs, but,' and he
shook his head like a schoohnaster, ' I know that before
long there will be complaints of him in the court. Let
us return to the Palace and do justice.' It was that
King's custom to judge his subjects every day between
eleven and three o'clock. I saw him decide equitably in
weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a little \^dfe-

NAMGAY DOOLA 333

Stealing. Then his brow clouded and he summoned
me.

'Again it is Namgay Doola/ he said despairingly.
'Not content with refusing revenue on his own part, he
has bound half his village by an oath to the like treason.
Never before has such a thing befallen me! Nor are my
taxes heavy.'

A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind
his ear, advanced trembling. He had been in the con-
spiracy, but had told everything and hoped for the King's
favour.

'O King,' said I, 'if it be the King's will let this
matter stand over till the morning. Only the Gods can do
right swiftly, and it may be that yonder villager has lied.'

'Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay Doola; but
since a guest asks let the matter remain. Wilt thou
speok harshly to this red-headed outlander? He may
listen to thee.'

I made an attempt that very evening, but for the life
of me I could not keep my countenance. Namgay
Doola grinned persuasively, and began to tell me about a
big brown bear in a poppy-field by the river. Would I
care to shoot it? I spoke austerely on the sin of con-
spiracy, and the certainty of punishment. Namgay
Doola 's face clouded for a moment. Shortly afterwards
he withdrew from my tent, and I heard him singing to
himself softly among the pines. The words were unin-
telligible to me, but the tune, like his liquid insinuating
speech, seemed the ghost of something strangely familiar.

' Dir han6 raard-i-yemen dir
To weeree ala gee.'

sang Namgay Doola again and again, and I racked my
brain for that lost tune. It was not till after dinner

334 LIFE'S HANDICAP

that I discovered some one had cut a square foot of
velvet from the centre of my best camera-cloth. This
made me so angry that I wandered down the valley in
the hope of meeting the big brown bear. I could hear
him grunting Hke a discontented pig in the poppy-field,
and I waited shoulder deep in the dew-dripping Indian
com to catch him after his meal. The moon was at full
and drew out the rich scent of the tasselled crop. Then I
heard the anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow, one of
the Httle black crummies no bigger than Newfoundland
dogs. Two shadows that looked like a bear and her cub
hurried past me. I was in act to fire when I saw that
they had each a brilliant red head. The lesser animal
was trailing some rope behind it that left a dark track on
the path. They passed within six feet of me, and the
shadow of the moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces.
Velvet-black was exactly the word, for by all the powers
of moordight they were masked in the velvet of my
camera-cloth ! I marvelled and went to bed.

Next morning the Kingdom was in uproar. Namgay
Doola, men said, had gone forth in the night and with a
sharp knife had cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the
rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. It was
sacrilege unspeakable against the Holy Cow. The State
desired his blood, but he had retreated into his hut, bar-
ricaded the doors and windows with big stones, and defied
the world.

The King and I and the populace approached the hut
cautiously. There was no hope of capturing the man
without loss of hfe, for from a hole in the wall projected
the muzzle of an extremely well-cared-for gun — the only
gun in the State that could shoot. Namgay Doola had
narrowly missed a villager just before we came up. The
Standing Army stood. It could do no more, for when it

NAMGAY DOOLA 335

advanced pieces of sharp shale flew from the windows.
To these were added from time to time showers of scald-
ing water. We saw red heads bobbing up and down
in the hut. The family of Namgay Doola were aiding
their sire, and blood-curdhng yells of defiance were the
only answers to our prayers.

* Never,' said the King, puffing, 'has such a thing
befallen my State. Next year I will certainly buy a
little cannon.' He looked at me imploringly.

*Is there any priest in the Kingdom to whom he will
listen? ' said I, for a fight was beginning to break upon me.

*He worships his own God,' said the Prime Minister.
*We can starve him out.'

^Let the white man approach,' said Namgay Doola
from within. ^AU others I will kiU. Send me the
white man.'

The door was thrown open and I entered the smoky
interior of a Thibetan hut crammed with children. And
every child had flaming red hair. A raw cow's- tail lay
on the floor, and by its side two pieces of black velvet —
my black velvet — rudely hacked into the semblance of
masks.

*And what is this shame, Namgay Doola?' said I.

He grinned more winningly than ever. 'There is no
shame,' said he. 'I did but cut off the tail of that man's
cow. He betrayed me. I was minded to shoot him,
Sahib. But not to death. Indeed not to death. Only
in the legs.'

'And why at all, since it is the custom to pay revenue
to the King? Why at all?'

'By the God of my father I cannot tell,' said Namgay
Doola.

*And who was thy father?'

*The same that had this gun.' He showed me his

336 LIFE'S HANDICAP

weapon — a Tower musket bearing date 1832 and the
stamp of the Honourable East India Company.

'And thy father's name?' said I.

'Timlay Doola/ said he. 'At the first, I being then
a little child, it is in my mind that he wore a red coat.'

'Of that I have no doubt. But repeat the name of
thy father thrice or four times.'

He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling
accent in his speech came. 'Thimla Dhula,' said be
excitedly. ' To this hour I worship his God. '

'May I see that God?'

*In a little while — at twilight time.'

'Rememberest thou aught of thy father's speech?'

*It is long ago. But there is one word which he said
often. Thus ''Shun.'' Then I and my brethren stood
upon our feet, our hands to our sides. Thus.'

* Even so. And what was thy mother? '

' A woman of the hills. We be Lepchas of Dar jeeling, but
me they call an outlander because my hair is as thou seest.'

The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on the
arm gently. The long parley outside the fort had lasted
far into the day. It was now close upon twilight — the
hour of the Angelus. Very solemnly, the red-headed
brats rose from the floor and formed a semicircle. Nam-
gay Doola laid his gun against the wall, lighted a little
ml lamp, and set it before a recess in the wall. Pulling
aside a curtain of dirty doth, he revealed a worn brass
crucifix leaning against the helmet-badge of a long for-
gotten East India regiment. 'Thus did my father,' he
said, crossing himself clumsily. The wife and children
followed suit. Then all together they struck up the wail-
ing chant that I heard on the hillside—

Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir
To weeree ala gee.

NAMGAY DOOLA $37

I was puzzled no longer. Again and again they crooned,
as if their hearts would break, their version of the chorus
of the Wearing of the Green —

They're hanging men and women too,
For the wearing of the green.

A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of the brats, a
boy about eight years old, was watching me as he sang.
I pulled out a rupee, held the coin between finger and
thumb and looked — only looked — at the gun against the
wall. A grin of brilliant and perfect comprehension
overspread the face of the child. Never for an instant
stopping the song, he held out his hand for the money,
and then slid the gun to my hand. I might have shot
Namgay Doola as he chanted. But I was satisfied. The
blood-instinct of the race held true. Namgay Doola
drew the curtain across the recess. Angelus was over.

*Thus my father sang. There was much more, but I
have forgotten, and I do not know the purport of these
words, but it may be that the God will understand. I
am not of this people, and I will not pay revenue.'

'And why?'

Again that soul-compelling grin. *What occupation
would be to me between crop and crop? It is better
than scaring bears. But these people do not understand.'
He picked the masks from the floor, and looked in my
face as simply as a child.

'By what road didst thou attain knowledge to make
these devilries? ' I said, pointing.

'I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjeeling, and
yet the stuff '

'Which thou hast stolen.'

'Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it so. The

338 LIFE'S HANDICAP

stuff — the stuff — what else should I have done with the
stuff? ' He twisted the velvet between his fingers.

'But the sin of maiming the cow — consider that.'

'That is true; but oh, Sahib, that man betrayed me
and I had no thought — but the heifer's tail waved in the
moonlight and I had my knife. What else should I have
done? The tail came off ere I was aware. Sahib, thou
knowest more than I.'

'That is true,' said I. 'Stay within the door. I go
to speak to the King.'

The population of the Scate were ranged on the hill-
sides. I went forth and spoke to the King.

'O Eling,' said I. 'Touching this man there be two
courses open to thy wisdom. Thou canst either hang
him from a tree, he and his brood, till there remains no
hair that is red within the lajid.'

'Nay,' said the King. 'Why should I hurt the little
children? '

They had poured out of the hut door and were mak-
ing plump obeisance to everybody. Namgay Doola
waited with his gun across his arm.

'Or thou canst, discarding the impiety of the cow-
mxaiming, raise him to honour in thy Army. He comiCS of
a race that mil not pay revt/iue. A red flame is in his
blood wliich comes out at the top of his head in that
glowing hair. Make him chief of the Army. Give him
honour as may befall, and full allowance of work, but
look to it, 0 King, that neithtr he nor his hold a foot
of earth from thee henceforward. Feed him with words
and favour, and also Hquor from certain bottles that thou
knowest of, and he will be a bulwark of defence. But
deny him even a tuft of grass for his owti. This is the
nature that God has given him. Moreover he has
brethren '

NAMGAY DOOLA 339

The State groaned unanimously.

'But if his brethren come, they will surely j5ght with
each other till they die; or else the one will always
give information concerning the other. Shall he be of
thy Army, O King? Choose.'

The King bowed liis head, and I said, 'Come forth,
Namgay Doola, and command the King's Army. Thy
name shall no more be Namgay in the mouths of men,
but Patsay Doola, for as thou hast said, I know.'

Then Namgay Doola, new christened Patsay Doola,
son of Timlay Doola, which is Tim Doolan gone very
wrong indeed, clasped the King's feet, cufifed the Stand-
ing Army, and hurned in an agony of contrition from
temple to temple, making offerings for the sin of cattle-
maiming.

And the King was so pleased with my perspicacity,
that he offered to sell me a village for twenty pounds
sterling. But I buy no villages in the Himalayas so
long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven-
climbing glacier and the dark birch-forest.

I know that breed.

BERTRAN AND BIMI

The orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to the
sheep-pen began the discussion. The night was stiflingly
hot, and as I and Hans Breitmann, the big-beamed Ger-
man, passed him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak
of the steamer, he roused himself and chattered obscenely.
He had been caught somewhere in the Malayan Archi-
pelago, and was going to England to be exhibited at a
shilHng a head. For four days he had struggled, yelled,
and wrenched at the heavy bars of his prison without
ceasing, and had nearly slain a lascar, incautious enough
to come within reach of the great hairy paw.

'It would be well for you, mine friend, if you was a
liddle seasick,' said Hans Breitmann, pausing by the
cage. 'You haf too much Ego in your Cosmos.'

The orang-outang's arm slid out negligently from
between the bars. No one would have beheved that it
would make a sudden snakelike rush at the German's
breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit tore out;
Hans stepped back unconcernedly to pluck a banana
from a bunch hanging close to one of the boats.

'Too much Ego,' said he, peeKng the fruit and offering
it to the caged devil, who was rending the silk to tatters.

Then we laid out our bedding in the bows among the
sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze that the pace of the
ship might give us. The sea was like smoky oil, except
where it turned to fire under our forefoot and whirled
back into the dark in smears of dull flame. There was

340

BERTRAN AND BIMI 341

a thunderstorm some miles away; we could see the
glunmer of the lightning. The ship's cow, distressed by
the heat and the smell of the ape-beast in the cage, lowed
unhappily from time to time in exactly the same key as
that in wliich the look-out man a,nswered the hourly call
from the bridge. The trampling tune of the engines was
very distinct, and the jarring of the ash-Hft, as it was
tipped into the sea, hurt the procession of hushed noise.
Hans lay down by my side and lighted a good-night
cigar. Tliis was naturally the beginning of conversation.
He owned a voice as soothing as the wash of the sea,
and stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself; for
his business in life was to wander up and down the
world, collecting orchids and wild beasts and ethnological
specimens for German and American dealers. I watched
the glowing end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom,
as the sentences rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep.
The orang-outang, troubled by some dream of the forests
of his freedom, began to yell like a soul in purgatory,
and to pluck madly at the bars of the cage.

'If he was out now dere would not be much of us
left hereabout,' said Hans lazily. 'He screams goot.
See, now, how I shall tame him when he stops liimself.'

There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans'
mouth came an imitation of a snake's hiss, so perfect that
I almost sprang to my feet. The sustained murderous
sound ran along the deck, and the wrenching at the bars
ceased. The orang-outang was quaking in an ecstasy of
pure terror.

'Dot stopped him,' said Hans. 'I learned dot trick
in Mogoung Tanjong when I was collecting liddle
monkeys for some peoples in Berlin. Efery one in der
world is afraid of der monkeys — except der snake. So
I blay snake against monkey, and he keep quite still.

342 LIFE'S HANDICAP

Dere was too much Ego in his Cosmos. Dot is der soul-
custom of monkeys. Are you asleep, or will you listen,
and I will tell a dale dot you shall not pelief ? '

'There's no tale in the wide world that I can't believe/
I said.

'If you haf learned pelief you haf learned somedings.
Now I shall try your pelief. Goot! When I was
collecting dose liddle monkeys — it was in '79 or '80, und
I was in der islands of der Archipelago — over dere in der
dark' — he pointed southward to New Guinea generally
— 'Mein Gott! I would sooner collect life red devils
than liddle monkeys. When dey do not bite off your
thumbs dey are always dying from nostalgia — home-
sick— for dey haf der imperfect soul, which is mid-
way arrested in defelopment — imd too much Ego. I
was dere for nearly a year, und dere I found a man dot
was called Bertran. He was a Frenchman, und he was
goot man — naturahst to his bone. Dey said he was
an escaped convict, but he was naturalist, und dot was
enough for me. He would call all der life beasts from
der forest, und dey would come. I said he was St.
Francis of Assizi in a new dransmigration produced, und
he laughed und said he haf never preach to der fishes.
He sold dem for tripang—beche'de-mer.

'Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer men, he
had in der house shust such anoder as dot devil-animal
in der cage — a great orang-outang dot thought he was a
man. He haf foimd him when he was a child — der
orang-outang — und he was child und brother und opera
comique all round to Betran. He had his room in dot
house — not a cage, but a room — mit a bed imd sheets,
imd he would go to bed und get up in der morning und
smoke his cigar und eat his dinner mit Bertran, und wall:
mit him hand in hand, which was most horrible. Herr

BERTRAN AND BIMI 343

Gott! I haf seen dot beast throw himself back in his
chair und laugh when Bertran haf made fun of me. He
was not a beast; he was a man, und he talked to Bertran,
imd Bertran comprehend, for I have seen dem. Und he
was always politeful to me except when I talk too long
to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den he would
pull me away — dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous
paws — shust as if I was a child. He was not a beast;
he was a man. Dis I saw pefore I know him three
months, und Bertran he haf saw the same; and Bimi,
der orang-outang, haf understood us both, mit his cigar
between his big dog-teeth und der blue gum.

'I was dere a year, dere und at dere oder islands —
somedimes for monkeys und somedimes for butterflies und
orchits. One time Bertran says to me dot he will be
married, because he haf found a girl dot was goot, und he
enquire if this marrying idee was right. I would not
say, pecause it was not me dot was going to be married.
Den he go off courting der girl — she was a half-caste
French girl — very pretty. Haf you got a new light for
my cigar? Ouf ! Very pretty. Only I say, "Haf you
thought of Bimi? If he pull me away when I talk to
you, what will he do to your wife? He will pull her in
pieces. If I was you, Bertran, I would gif my wife for
wedding-present der stuff figure of Bimi." By dot time
I had learned some dings about der monkey peoples.
"Shoot him?" says Bertran. ''He is your beast," I said;
"if he was mine he would be shot now!"

'Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of
Bimi. Mein Gott! I tell you dot he talked through
dose fingers. It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet all
gomplete. He slide his hairy arm round my neck, und
he tilt up my chui und looked into my face, shust to see
if I \mderstood his talk so well as he understood mine.

344 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'''See now dere!" says Bertran, "und you would
shoot him while he is cuddlin' you? Dot is der Teuton
ingrate!"

'But I kncw^ dot I had made Bimi a life's-enemy,
pecause his fingers haf talk murder through the back of
my neck. Next dime I see Bimi dere was a pistol in
my belt, und he touched it once, und I open der breech to
show him it was loaded. He haf seen der Hddle monkeys
killed in der woods: he understood.

'So Bertran he was married, and he forgot clean about
Bimi dot was skippin' alone on der beach mit der half of
a human soul in his belly. I was see him skip, und he
took a big bough und thrash der sand till he haf made a
great hole like a grave. So I says to Bertran, "For any
sakes, kill Bimi. He is mad mit der jealousy."

'Bertran haf said "He is not mad at all. He haf obey
und lofe my wdfe, und if she speak he will get her slippers,"
und he looked at his wife agross der room. She was a
very pretty girl.

'Den I said to him, "Dost dou pretend to know
monkeys und dis beast dot is lashing himself mad upon
der sands, pecause you do not talk to him? Shoot him
when he comes to der house, for he haf der light in his
eye dot means killing — und killing." Bimi come to der
house, but dere was no Kght in liis eye. It was all put
away, cunning — so cunning — und he fetch der girl her
sUppers, und Bertran turn to me und say, "Dost dou
know him in nine months more dan I haf known him in
twelve years? Shall a child stab his fader? I haf
fed him, und he was my child. Do not speak this
nonsense to my wife or to me any more."

'Dot next day Bertran came to my house to help me
make some wood cases for der specimens, und he tell me
dot he haf left his wife a Hddle while mit Bimi in der

BERTRAN AND BIMI 345

garden. Den I linish my cases quick, und I say, 'Xet us
go to your houses und get a trink." He laugh and say,
" Come along, dry mans."

'His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi did not
come when Bertran called. Und his wife did not come
when he called, und he knocked at her bedroom door und
dot was shut tight — locked. Den he look at me, und his
face was white. I broke down der door mit my shoulder,
und der thatch of der roof was torn into a great hole,
und der sun came in upon der floor. Haf you ever seen
paper in der waste-basket, or cards at whist on der table
scattered? Dere was no wife dot could be seen. I tell
you dere was nodings in dot room dot might be a woman.
Dere was stuff on der floor und dot was all. I looked at
dese things und I was very sick; but Bertran looked a
hddle longer at what was upon the floor und der walls,
und der hole in der thatch. Den he pegan to laugh, soft
und low, und I knew und thank Gott dot he was mad.
He nefer cried, he nefer prayed. He stood all still in
der doorway und laugh to himself. Den he said, ''She
haf locked herself in dis room, and he haf torn up der
thatch. Fi done! Dot is so. We will mend der thatch
und wait for Bimi. He vv^ill surely com.e."

' I tell you we waited ten days in dot house, after der
room was made into a room again, und once or twice we
saw Bimi comin' a hddle way from der woods. He was
afraid pecause he haf done wrong. Bertran called him
when he was come to look on the tenth day, und Bimi
come skipping along der beach und making noises, mit a
long piece of black hair in his hands. Den Bertran laugh
and say, ''Fi done!'' shust as if it was a glass broken
upon der table; und Bimi come nearer, und Bertran was
honey-sweet in his voice und laughed to himself. For
three days he made love to Bimi, pecause Bimi would not

346 LIFE'S HANDICAP

let himself be touched. Den Bimi come to dimier at
der same table mit us, und the hair on his hands was all
black und thick mit — mit what had dried on der hands.
Bertran gave him sangaree till Bimi was dnmk and
stupid, und den '

Hans paused to puff at his cigar.

'And then?' said I.

*Und den Bertran he kill him mit his hands, und I
go for a walk upon der beach. It was Bertran 's own
piziness. When I come back der ape he was dead, und
Bertran he was dying abofe him; but still he laughed
Hddle und low und he was quite content. Now you
know der formula of der strength of der orang-outang —
it is more as seven to one in relation to man. But
Bertran, he haf killed Bimi mit sooch dings as Gott gif
him. Dot was der miracle.'

The infernal clamour in the cage recommenced. ' Aha !
Dot friend of ours haf still too much Ego in his Cosmos.
Be quiet, dou!'

Hans hissed long and venomously. We could hear
the great beast quaking in his cage.

'But why in the world didn't you help Bertran instead
of letting him be killed? ' I asked.

'My friend,' said Hans, composedly stretching himself
to slumber, 'it was not nice even to mineself dot I should
live after I haf seen dot room mit der hole in der thatch.
Und Bertran, he was her husband. Goot-night, und —
sleep well.'

MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER

Once upon a time there was a coffee-planter in India
who wished to clear some forest land for coffee-planting.
Whtn he had cut down all the trees and burned the
under-wood the stumps still remained. Dynamite is
expensive and slow-fire slow. The happy medium for
stump-clearing is the lord of all beats, who is the elephant.
He will either push the stump out of the ground with
his tusks, if he has any, or drag it out with ropes. The
planter, therefore, hired elephants by ones and twos
and threes, and fell to work. The very best of all the
elephants belonged to the very worst of all the drivers or
mahouts; and the superior beast's name was Moti Guj.
He was the absolute property of his mahout, which would
never have been the case under native rule, for Moti Guj
was a creature to be desired by kings; and his name,
being translated, meant the Pearl Elephant. Because the
British Government was in the land, Deesa, the mahout,
enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated.
When he had made much money through the strength of
his elephant, he would get extremely drunk and give
Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over the tender nails
of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the Hfe out of
Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that after the
beating was over Deesa would embrace his trunk and
weep and call him his love and his Hfe and the Hver of
his soul, and give him some Hquor. Moti Guj was very
fond of liquor — arrack for choice, though he would drink

347

34^ LIFE'S HANDICAP

palm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. Then Deesa
would go to sleep between Moti Guj's forefeet, and as
Deesa generally chose the middle of the public road, and
as Moti Guj mounted guard over him and would not
permit horse, foot, or cart to pass by, traffic was congested
till Deesa saw fit to wake up.

There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter's
clearing: the wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on
Moti Guj's neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj
rooted up the stumps — for he owned a magnificent pair
of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope — for he had a
magnificent pair of shoulders, while Deesa kicked him
behind the ears and said he was the king of elephants.
At evening time Moti Guj would wash down his three
hundred pounds' weight of green food with a quart of
arrack, and Deesa would take a share and sing songs
between Moti Guj's legs till it was time to go to bed.
Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and
Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows,
while Deesa went over him with a coir-swab and a brick.
Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the latter
for the smack of the former that warned him to get up
and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would
look at his feet, and examine his eyes, and turn up the
fringes of his mighty ears in case of sores or budding
ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would ^come
up with a song from the sea,' Moti Guj all black and
shining, waving a torn tree branch twelve feet long in
his trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long wet
hair.

It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the
return of the desire to drink deep. He wished for an
orgie. The little draughts that led nowhere were taking
the manhood out of him.

MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 349

He went to the planter, and 'My mother's dead/ said
he, weeping.

*She died on the last plantation two months ago; and
she died once before that when you were working for me
last year,' said the planter, who knew something of the
ways of nativedom.

^Then it's my aunt, and she was just the same as a
mother to me,' said Deesa, weeping more than ever.
'She has left eighteen small children entirely without
bread, and it is I who must fill their Httle stomachs,' said
Deesa, beating his head on the floor,

'Who brought you the news? ' said the planter.

'The post,' said Deesa.

'There hasn't been a post here for the past week.
Get back to your lines! '

'A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all
my wives are dying,' yelled Deesa, really in tears this time.

'Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa's village,' said
the planter. ' Chihun, has this man a wife? '

'He!' said Chihun. 'No. Not a woman of our
village would look at him. They'd sooner marry the
elephant.' Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed.

'You will get into a difficulty in a minute,' said the
planter. ' Go back to your work ! '

'Now I will speak Heaven's truth,' gulped Deesa,
with an inspiration. 'I haven't been drunk for two
months. I desire to depart in order to get properly
drunk afar off and distant from this heavenly plantation.
Thus I shall cause no trouble.'

A flickering smile crossed the planter's face. 'Deesa,'
said he, 'you've spoken the truth, and I'd give you leave
on the spot if anything could be done with Moti Guj
while you're away. You know that he will only obey
your orders.'

350 LIFE'S HANDICAP

'May the Light of the Heavens live forty thousand
years. I shall be absent but ten Httle days. After that,
upon my faith and honour and soul, I return. As to the
inconsiderable interval, have I the gracious permission of
the Heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?'

Permission was granted, and, in answer to Deesa's
shrill yell, the lordly tusker swung out of the shade of
a clump of trees where he had been squirting dust over
himself till his master should return.

'Lightof my heart, Protector of the Drunken, Mountain
of Might, give ear,' said Deesa, standing in front of him.

Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. 'I
am going away,' said Deesa.

Moti Guj's eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well
as his master. One could snatch all manner of nice
things from the roadside then.

'But you, you fubsy old pig, must stay behind and
work.'

The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look de-
lighted. He hated stump-hauling on the plantation.
It hurt his teeth.

'I shall be gone for ten days, 0 Delectable One. Hold
up your near forefoot and I'll impress the fact upon it,
warty toad of a dried mud-puddle.' Deesa took a tent-
peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on the nails. Moti
Guj grunted and shuiHed from foot to foot.

'Ten days,' said Deesa, 'you must work and haul and
root trees as Chihun here shall order you. Take up
Chihun and set him on your neck!' Moti Guj curled
the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there and was
swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy
anktis, the iron elephant-goad.

Chihun thumped Moti Guj's bald head as a paviour
thumps a kerbstone.

MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 3Si

Moti Guj trumpeted.

*Be still, hog of the backwoods. Chihun's your
mahout for ten days. And now bid me good-bye, beast
after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my king! Jewel of
all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your
honoured health ; be virtuous. Adieu ! '

Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung
him into the air twice. That was his way of bidding the
man good-bye.

* He'll work now,' said Dessa to the planter. 'Have
I leave to go? '

The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the wt)ods.
Moti Guj went back to haul stimips.

Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy
and forlorn notwithstanding- Chihun gave him balls of
spices, and tickled him under the chin, and Chihun's
little baby cooed to him after work was over, and
Chihun's wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a
bachelor by instinct, as Deesa was. He did not under-
stand the domestic emotions. He v/anted the Ught of his
universe back again — the drink and the drunken slumber,
the savage beatings and the savage caresses

None the less he worked well, and the planter won-
dered. Deesa had vagabonded along the roads till he
met a marriage procession of his own caste and, drinking,
dandng, and tippling, had drifted past all knowledge of
the lapse of time.

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there
returned no Deesa. Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes
for the daily stint. He swung clear, looked round,
shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away, as one
having business elsewhere.

'Hi! ho! Come back, you,' shouted Chihun. Tome
back, and put me on your neck, Misborn Mountain. Re-

352 LIFE'S HANDICAP

turn, Splendour of the Hillsides. Adornment of all
India, heave to, or I'll bang every toe off your fat fore-
foot!'

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun
ran after him with a rope and caught him up. Moti Guj
put his ears forward, and Chihun knew what that meant,
though he tried to carry it off with high words.

'None of your nonsense with me,' said he. 'To your
pickets, Devil-son.'

'Hrrump!' said Moti Guj, and that was all — that
and the forebent ears.

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a
branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing,
making jest of the other elephants, who had just set to
work.

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter,
who came out with a dog-whip and cracked it furiously.
Moti Guj paid the white man the compliment of charging
him nearly a quarter of a mile across the clearing and
'Hrrumping' him into the verandah. Then he stood out-
side the house chuckling to himself, and shaking all over
with the fun of it, as an elephant will.

'We'll thrash him,' said the planter. 'He shall have
the finest thrashing that ever elephant received. Give
Kala Nag and Nazim twelve foot of chain apiece, and tell
them to lay on twenty blows.'

Kala Nag — which means Black Snake — and Nazim
were two of the biggest elephants in the lines, and one of
their duties was to administer the graver punishments,
since no man can beat an elephant properly.

They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in
their trunks as they sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to
hustle him between them. Moti Guj had never, in all
his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped, and he did not

MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 353

intend to open new experiences. So he waited, weaving
his head from right to left, and measuring the precise
spot in Kala Nag's fat side where a blunt tusk would
sink deepest. Kala Nag had no tusks; the chain was
his badge of authority; but he judged it good to swing
wide of Moti Guj at the last minute, and seem to appear
as if he had brought out the chain for amusement.
Nazim turned round and went home early. He did not
feel fighting-fit that morning, and so Moti Guj was left
standing alone with his ears cocked.

That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti
Guj rolled back to his inspection of the clearing. An
elephant who will not work, and is not tied up, is not
quite so manageable as an eighty-one ton gun loose in a
heavy sea-way. He slapped old friends on the back and
asked them if the stumps were coming away easily; he
talked nonsense concerning labour and the inalienable
rights of elephants to a long 'nooning'; and, wandering
to and fro, thoroughly demoralized the garden till sun-
down, when he returned to his pickets for food.

'If you won't work you shan't eat,' said Chihun
angrily. 'You're a wild elephant, and no educated
animal at all. Go back to your jungle.'

Chihun's Uttle brown baby, rolling on the floor of the
hut, stretched its fat arms to the huge shadow in the
doorway. Moti Guj knew well that it was the dearest
thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with
a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw
itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled
up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet
above his father's head.

' Great Chief ! ' said Chihun. ' Flour cakes of the best,
twelve in number, two feet across, and soaked in rum
shall be yours on the instant, and two hundred pounds'

354

LIFE'S HANDICAP

weight of fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith. Deign
only to put down safely that insignificant brat who is my
he-art and my Hfe to me.'

Moti Guj tucJced the brown baby comfortably between
his forefeet, that could have knocked into toothpicks all
Chihun's hut, and waited for his food. He ate it, and the
brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed, and thought
of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with the
elephant is that his huge body needs less sleep than any-
thing else tliat Hves. Four or five hours in the night
suffice — two just before midnight, lying down on one side;
two just after one o'clock, lying down on the other.
The rest of the silent hours are filled with eating and
fidgeting and long grumbhng soliloquies.

At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his
pickets, for a thought had come to him that Deesa might
be l}dng drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none
to look after him. So all that night he chased through
the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking
his ears. He went down to the river and blared across
the shallows where Deesa used to wash him, but there
was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he dis-
turbed all the elephants in the fines, and nearly frightened
to death some gypsies in the woods.

At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had
been very drunk indeed, and he expected to fall into
trouble for outsta>dng his leave. He drew a long breath
when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were
still uninjured; for he knew something of Moti Guj's
temper; and reported himself with many lies and salaams.
Moti Guj had gone to his pickets for breakfast. His
night exercise had made hun hungry.

'Call up your beast,' said the planter, and Deesa
shouted in the mysterious elephant-language, that sonif?

MOn GUJ— MUTINEER 355

mahouts believe came from China at the birth of the
world, when elephants and not men were masters. Moti
Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They
move from spots at varying rates of speed. If an ele-
phant wished to catch an express train he could not
gallop, but he could catch the train. Thus Moti Guj was
at the planter's door almost before Chihun noticed that
he had left his pickets. He fell into Deesa's arms
trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and
slobbered over each other, and handled each other from
head to heel to see that no harm had befallen.

*Now we will get to work,' said Deesa. 'Lift me up,
my son and my joy.'

Moti Guj swung him up and the two went to the
coffee-clearing to look for irksome stumps.

The planter was too astonished to be very angry.

VENVOI

My new-ciU ashlar takes the light

Where crimson-blank the windows flare;

By my own work, before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought,

Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine;

Where I have failed to meet Thy thought
I know, through Thee, the blame is mine.

One instant's toil to Thee denied

Stands all Eternity's offence,
Of that I did with Thee to guide

To Thee, through Thee, be eoccellence.

Who, lest all thought of Eden fade.

Bring' st Eden to the crajtsman's brain,

Godlike to muse o'er his owti trade
And Manlike stand with God again.

The depth and dream of my desire.
The bitter paths wherein I stray.

Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest Who hast made the CUy.

One stone the more swings to her place

In that dread Temple of Thy Worth-
It is enough thai through Thy grace
I saw naught common on Thy earth.

Take not that vision from my ken;

Oh whatso'er may spoil or speed,
Edp me to need no aid from men

That I may help such men as need I

356

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRB«S
GARDEN QTY, N. Y.

^ftM»«Mi».'