THE BALLAD OF THE CLAMPHERDOWN
It was our war-ship Clampherdown Would sweep the Channel clean, Wherefore she kept her hatches close When the merry Channel chops arose, To save the bleached marine.
She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton, And a great stern-gun beside; They dipped their noses deep in the sea, They racked their stays and stanchions free In the wash of the wind-whipped tide.
It was our war-ship Clampherdown, Fell in with a cruiser light That carried the dainty Hotchkiss gun And a pair o' heels wherewith to run From the grip of a close-fought fight.
She opened fire at seven miles-- As ye shoot at a bobbing cork-- And once she fired and twice she fired, Till the bow-gun drooped like a lily tired That lolls upon the stalk.
“Captain, the bow-gun melts apace, The deck-beams break below, 'Twere well to rest for an hour or twain, And patch the shattered plates again.” And he answered, “Make it so.”
She opened fire within the mile-- As ye shoot at the flying duck-- And the great stern-gun shot fair and true, With the heave of the ship, to the stainless blue, And the great stern-turret stuck.
“Captain, the turret fills with steam, The feed-pipes burst below-- You can hear the hiss of the helpless ram, You can hear the twisted runners jam.” And he answered, “Turn and go!”
It was our war-ship Clampherdown, And grimly did she roll; Swung round to take the cruiser's fire As the White Whale faces the Thresher's ire When they war by the frozen Pole.
“Captain, the shells are falling fast, And faster still fall we; And it is not meet for English stock To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock The death they cannot see.”
“Lie down, lie down, my bold A.B., We drift upon her beam; We dare not ram, for she can run; And dare ye fire another gun, And die in the peeling steam?”
It was our war-ship Clampherdown That carried an armour-belt; But fifty feet at stern and bow Lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow, To the hail of the Nordenfeldt.
“Captain, they hack us through and through; The chilled steel bolts are swift! We have emptied the bunkers in open sea, Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be.” And he answered, “Let her drift.”
It was our war-ship Clampherdown, Swung round upon the tide, Her two dumb guns glared south and north, And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth, And she ground the cruiser's side.
“Captain, they cry, the fight is done, They bid you send your sword.” And he answered, “Grapple her stern and bow. They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now; Out cutlasses and board!”
It was our war-ship Clampherdown Spewed up four hundred men; And the scalded stokers yelped delight, As they rolled in the waist and heard the fight Stamp o'er their steel-walled pen.
They cleared the cruiser end to end, From conning-tower to hold. They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet; They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet, As it was in the days of old.
It was the sinking Clampherdown Heaved up her battered side-- And carried a million pounds in steel, To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel, And the scour of the Channel tide.
It was the crew of the Clampherdown Stood out to sweep the sea, On a cruiser won from an ancient foe, As it was in the days of long ago, And as it still shall be.
THE BALLAD OF THE “BOLIVAR”
Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again, Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain: Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away-- We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!
We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails; We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted; We put out from Sunderland--met the winter gales-- Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.
Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow, All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below, Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray-- Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!
One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by; Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo'c'sle short; Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly; Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.
Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul; Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll; Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray-- So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay!
'Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she'd break; Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock; Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake; Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block.
Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal; Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul; Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day-- Hi! we cursed the Bolivar--knocking round the Bay!
O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still-- Up and down and back we went, never time for breath; Then the money paid at Lloyd's caught her by the heel, And the stars ran round and round dancin' at our death.
Aching for an hour's sleep, dozing off between; 'Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green; 'Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play-- That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay.
Once we saw between the squalls, lyin' head to swell-- Mad with work and weariness, wishin' they was we-- Some damned Liner's lights go by like a long hotel; Cheered her from the Bolivar--swampin' in the sea.
Then a grayback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed; “Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell--rig the winches aft! Yoke the kicking rudder-head--get her under way!” So we steered her, pulley-haul, out across the Bay!
Just a pack o' rotten plates puttied up with tar, In we came, an' time enough, 'cross Bilbao Bar.
Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!
Seven men from all the world, back to town again, Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain: Seven men from out of Hell. Ain't the owners gay, 'Cause we took the “Bolivar” safe across the Bay?
THE ENGLISH FLAG
Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack, remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in the incident.--DAILY PAPERS.
Winds of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro-- And what should they know of England who only England know?-- The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!
Must we borrow a clout from the Boer--to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?
We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share. What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!
The North Wind blew:--“From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go; I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe; By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God, And the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod.
“I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame, Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came; I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast, And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.
“The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night, The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light: What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare, Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!”
The South Wind sighed:--“From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon.
“Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys, I waked the palms to laughter--I tossed the scud in the breeze-- Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.
“I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn; I have chased it north to the Lizard--ribboned and rolled and torn; I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.
“My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross, Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare, Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!”
The East Wind roared:--“From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come, And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home. Look--look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoon I swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon!
“The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before, I raped your richest roadstead--I plundered Singapore! I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows.
“Never the lotus closes, never the wild-fowl wake, But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake-- Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid-- Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.
“The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows, The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!”
The West Wind called:--“In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die. They make my might their porter, they make my house their path, Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath.
“I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole, They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll, For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath, And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death.
“But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day, I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away, First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky, Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.
“The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it--the frozen dews have kissed-- The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare, Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!”
“CLEARED” (In Memory of a Commission)
Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt, Help for an honorable clan sore trampled in the dirt! From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song, The honorable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.
Their noble names were mentioned--O the burning black disgrace!-- By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case; They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it, And “coruscating innocence” the learned Judges gave it.
Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife, The honorable gentlemen deplored the loss of life; Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger, No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger!
Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies, Like phoenixes from Phoenix Park (and what lay there) they rise! Go shout it to the emerald seas-give word to Erin now, Her honorable gentlemen are cleared--and this is how:
They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price, They only helped the murderer with council's best advice, But--sure it keeps their honor white--the learned Court believes They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.
They ever told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide, They never marked a man for death--what fault of theirs he died?-- They only said “intimidate,” and talked and went away-- By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!
Their sin it was that fed the fire--small blame to them that heard The “bhoys” get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at the word-- They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too, The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew and well they knew.
They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail, They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clan-na-Gael. If black is black or white is white, ill black and white it's down, They're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
“Cleared,” honorable gentlemen. Be thankful it's no more: The widow's curse is on your house, the dead are at your door. On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South The band of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.
“Less black than we were painted”?--Faith, no word of black was said; The lightest touch was human blood, and that, ye know, runs red. It's sticking to your fist today for all your sneer and scoff, And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.
Hold up those hands of innocence--go, scare your sheep, together, The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether; And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen, Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!
“The charge is old”?--As old as Cain--as fresh as yesterday; Old as the Ten Commandments, have ye talked those laws away? If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball, You spoke the words that sped the shot--the curse be on you all.
“Our friends believe”? Of course they do--as sheltered women may; But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay? They--If their own front door is shut, they'll swear the whole world's warm; What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm?
The secret half a country keeps, the whisper in the lane, The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane, The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees, And shows the “bhoys” have heard your talk--what do they know of these?
But you--you know--ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead, Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred, The mangled stallion's scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer's low. Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know!
My soul! I'd sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight, Pure crime I'd done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate, Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered, While one of those “not provens” proved me cleared as you are cleared.
Cleared--you that “lost” the League accounts--go, guard our honor still, Go, help to make our country's laws that broke God's laws at will-- One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal “strike again”; The other on your dress-shirt front to show your heart is @dane,
If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down, You're only traitors to the Queen and but rebels to the Crown If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends: We are not ruled by murderers, only--by their friends.
AN IMPERIAL RESCRIPT
Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed, To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need, He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat, That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set.
The Lords of Their Hands assembled; from the East and the West they drew-- Baltimore, Lille, and Essen, Brummagem, Clyde, and Crewe. And some were black from the furnace, and some were brown from the soil, And some were blue from the dye-vat; but all were wearied of toil.
And the young King said:--“I have found it, the road to the rest ye seek: The strong shall wait for the weary, the hale shall halt for the weak; With the even tramp of an army where no man breaks from the line, Ye shall march to peace and plenty in the bond of brotherhood--sign!”
The paper lay on the table, the strong heads bowed thereby, And a wail went up from the peoples:--“Ay, sign--give rest, for we die!” A hand was stretched to the goose-quill, a fist was cramped to scrawl, When--the laugh of a blue-eyed maiden ran clear through the council-hall.
And each one heard Her laughing as each one saw Her plain-- Saidie, Mimi, or Olga, Gretchen, or Mary Jane. And the Spirit of Man that is in Him to the light of the vision woke; And the men drew back from the paper, as a Yankee delegate spoke:--
“There's a girl in Jersey City who works on the telephone; We're going to hitch our horses and dig for a house of our own, With gas and water connections, and steam-heat through to the top; And, W. Hohenzollern, I guess I shall work till I drop.”
And an English delegate thundered:--“The weak an' the lame be blowed! I've a berth in the Sou'-West workshops, a home in the Wandsworth Road; And till the 'sociation has footed my buryin' bill, I work for the kids an' the missus. Pull up? I be damned if I will!”
And over the German benches the bearded whisper ran:-- “Lager, der girls und der dollars, dey makes or dey breaks a man. If Schmitt haf collared der dollars, he collars der girl deremit; But if Schmitt bust in der pizness, we collars der girl from Schmitt.”
They passed one resolution:--“Your sub-committee believe You can lighten the curse of Adam when you've lightened the curse of Eve. But till we are built like angels, with hammer and chisel and pen, We will work for ourself and a woman, for ever and ever, amen.”
Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser held-- The day that they razored the Grindstone, the day that the Cat was belled, The day of the Figs from Thistles, the day of the Twisted Sands, The day that the laugh of a maiden made light of the Lords of Their Hands.
TOMLINSON
Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square, And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair-- A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away, Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way: Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease, And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
“Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die-- The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!” And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.
“O I have a friend on earth,” he said, “that was my priest and guide, And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side.” --“For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair, But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square: Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you, For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two.” Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there, For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare: The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.
“This I have read in a book,” he said, “and that was told to me, And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy.” The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path, And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.
“Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought,” he said, “and the tale is yet to run: By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer--what ha'ye done?” Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore, For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before:-- “O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say, And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway.” --“Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate; There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate! O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within; Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, And... the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!” * * * * *
The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell: The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain, But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again: They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark, They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark.
The Wind that blows between the worlds, it nipped him to the bone, And he yearned to the flare of Hell-Gate there as the light of his own hearth- stone.
The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew, But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.
“Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?” said he, “That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me? I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn, For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born.
“Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die.” And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light; And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat.
“O I had a love on earth,” said he, “that kissed me to my fall, And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all.” --“All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair, But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square: Though we whistled your love from her bed tonight, I trow she would not run, For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!” The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life:-- “Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave, And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave.” The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool:-- “Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool? I see no worth in the hobnailed mirth or the jolthead jest ye did That I should waken my gentlemen that are sleeping three on a grid.” Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and there was little grace, For Hell-Gate filled the houseless Soul with the Fear of Naked Space.
“Nay, this I ha' heard,” quo' Tomlinson, “and this was noised abroad, And this I ha' got from a Belgian book on the word of a dead French lord.” --“Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! and the tale begins afresh-- Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye or the sinful lust of the flesh?” Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, “Let me in-- For I mind that I borrowed my neighbour's wife to sin the deadly sin.” The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high: “Did ye read of that sin in a book?” said he; and Tomlinson said, “Ay!” The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran, And he said: “Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man: Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth: There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of earth.”
Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire, But weep that they bin too small to sin to the height of their desire, Over the coal they chased the Soul, and racked it all abroad, As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard.
And back they came with the tattered Thing, as children after play, And they said: “The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away.
“We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find: We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone, And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own.” The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low:-- “I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go.
“Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place, My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face; They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host, And--I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost.” The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame, And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name:-- “Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry: Did ye think of that theft for yourself?” said he; and Tomlinson said, “Ay!” The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care:-- “Ye have scarce the soul of a louse,” he said, “but the roots of sin are there, And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone. But sinful pride has rule inside--and mightier than my own.
“Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his priest and whore: Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore.
“Ye are neither spirit nor spirk,” he said; “ye are neither book nor brute-- Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute.
“I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain, But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again. Get hence, the hearse is at your door--the grim black stallions wait-- They bear your clay to place today. Speed, lest ye come too late! Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed--go back with an open eye, And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die: That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one-- And... the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!”
* * * * * * *
BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS
Dedication
To T. A.
I have made for you a song, And it may be right or wrong, But only you can tell me if it's true; I have tried for to explain Both your pleasure and your pain, And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
O there'll surely come a day When they'll give you all your pay, And treat you as a Christian ought to do; So, until that day comes round, Heaven keep you safe and sound, And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you! --R. K.
DANNY DEEVER
“What are the bugles blowin' for?” said Files-on-Parade.
“To turn you out, to turn you out”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
“What makes you look so white, so white?” said Files-on-Parade.
“I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, The regiment's in 'ollow square--they're hangin' him today; They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away, An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
“What makes the rear-rank breathe so 'ard?” said Files-on-Parade.
“It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
“What makes that front-rank man fall down?” said Files-on-Parade.
“A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
They are hangin' Danny Deever, they are marchin' of 'im round, They 'ave 'alted Danny Deever by 'is coffin on the ground; An' 'e'll swing in 'arf a minute for a sneakin' shootin' hound-- O they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'!
“'Is cot was right-'and cot to mine”, said Files-on-Parade.
“'E's sleepin' out an' far tonight”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
“I've drunk 'is beer a score o' times”, said Files-on-Parade.
“'E's drinkin' bitter beer alone”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must mark 'im to 'is place, For 'e shot a comrade sleepin'--you must look 'im in the face; Nine 'undred of 'is county an' the regiment's disgrace, While they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
“What's that so black agin' the sun?” said Files-on-Parade.
“It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
“What's that that whimpers over'ead?” said Files-on-Parade.
“It's Danny's soul that's passin' now”, the Colour-Sergeant said.
For they're done with Danny Deever, you can 'ear the quickstep play, The regiment's in column, an' they're marchin' us away; Ho! the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want their beer today, After hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
TOMMY
I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, The publican 'e up an' sez, “We serve no red-coats here.” The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I: O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Tommy, go away”; But it's “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play, The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, O it's “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be, They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls, But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls! For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Tommy, wait outside”; But it's “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper's on the tide, The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide, O it's “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper's on the tide.
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?” But it's “Thin red line of 'eroes” when the drums begin to roll, The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, O it's “Thin red line of 'eroes” when the drums begin to roll.
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints; While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Tommy, fall be'ind”, But it's “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there's trouble in the wind, There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind, O it's “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there's trouble in the wind.
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Chuck him out, the brute!” But it's “Saviour of 'is country” when the guns begin to shoot; An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool--you bet that Tommy sees!
FUZZY-WUZZY (Soudan Expeditionary Force)
We've fought with many men acrost the seas, An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not: The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese; But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.
We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im: 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses, 'E cut our sentries up at Suakim, An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces.
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; We gives you your certificate, an' if you want it signed We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined.
We took our chanst among the Khyber 'ills, The Boers knocked us silly at a mile, The Burman give us Irriwaddy chills, An' a Zulu impi dished us up in style: But all we ever got from such as they Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller; We 'eld our bloomin' own, the papers say, But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oller.
Then 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missis and the kid; Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did. We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't 'ardly fair; But for all the odds agin' you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square.
'E 'asn't got no papers of 'is own, 'E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards, So we must certify the skill 'e's shown In usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords: When 'e's 'oppin' in an' out among the bush With 'is coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear, An 'appy day with Fuzzy on the rush Will last an 'ealthy Tommy for a year.
So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' your friends which are no more, If we 'adn't lost some messmates we would 'elp you to deplore; But give an' take's the gospel, an' we'll call the bargain fair, For if you 'ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square!
'E rushes at the smoke when we let drive, An', before we know, 'e's 'ackin' at our 'ead; 'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive, An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.
'E's a daisy, 'e's a ducky, 'e's a lamb! 'E's a injia-rubber idiot on the spree, 'E's the on'y thing that doesn't give a damn For a Regiment o' British Infantree! So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air-- You big black boundin' beggar--for you broke a British square!
SOLDIER, SOLDIER
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Why don't you march with my true love?” “We're fresh from off the ship an' 'e's maybe give the slip, An' you'd best go look for a new love.” New love! True love! Best go look for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes, An' you'd best go look for a new love.
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, What did you see o' my true love?” “I seed 'im serve the Queen in a suit o' rifle-green, An' you'd best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Did ye see no more o' my true love?” “I seed 'im runnin' by when the shots begun to fly-- But you'd best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Did aught take 'arm to my true love?” “I couldn't see the fight, for the smoke it lay so white-- An' you'd best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, I'll up an' tend to my true love!” “'E's lying on the dead with a bullet through 'is 'ead, An' you'd best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, I'll down an' die with my true love!” “The pit we dug'll 'ide 'im an' the twenty men beside 'im-- An' you'd best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, Do you bring no sign from my true love?” “I bring a lock of 'air that 'e allus used to wear, An' you'd best go look for a new love.”
“Soldier, soldier come from the wars, O then I know it's true I've lost my true love!” “An' I tell you truth again--when you've lost the feel o' pain You'd best take me for your true love.” True love! New love! Best take 'im for a new love, The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes, An' you'd best take 'im for your true love.
SCREW-GUNS
Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool, I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule, With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets--'Tss! 'Tss! For you all love the screw-guns--the screw-guns they all love you! So when we call round with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do--hoo! hoo! Jest send in your Chief an' surrender-- it's worse if you fights or you runs: You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don't get away from the guns!
They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't: We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint: We've chivied the Naga an' Looshai, we've give the Afreedeeman fits, For we fancies ourselves at two thousand, we guns that are built in two bits--'Tss! 'Tss! For you all love the screw-guns...
If a man doesn't work, why, we drills 'im an' teaches 'im 'ow to behave; If a beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im an' rattles 'im into 'is grave. You've got to stand up to our business an' spring without snatchin' or fuss. D'you say that you sweat with the field-guns? By God, you must lather with us--'Tss! 'Tss! For you all love the screw-guns...
The eagles is screamin' around us, the river's a-moanin' below, We're clear o' the pine an' the oak-scrub, we're out on the rocks an' the snow, An' the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules-- the jinglety-jink o' the chains--'Tss! 'Tss! For you all love the screw-guns...
There's a wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', an' a wheel on the edge o' the Pit, An' a drop into nothin' beneath you as straight as a beggar can spit: With the sweat runnin' out o' your shirt-sleeves, an' the sun off the snow in your face, An' 'arf o' the men on the drag-ropes to hold the old gun in 'er place--'Tss! 'Tss! For you all love the screw-guns...
Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool, I climbs in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule. The monkey can say what our road was-- the wild-goat 'e knows where we passed.
Stand easy, you long-eared old darlin's! Out drag-ropes! With shrapnel! Hold fast--'Tss! 'Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns--the screw-guns they all love you! So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do--hoo! hoo! Jest send in your Chief an' surrender-- it's worse if you fights or you runs: You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!
GUNGA DIN
You may talk o' gin and beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
Now in Injia's sunny clime, Where I used to spend my time A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen, Of all them blackfaced crew The finest man I knew Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
He was “Din! Din! Din! You limpin' lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din! Hi! slippy hitherao! Water, get it! Panee lao!1 You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”
The uniform 'e wore Was nothin' much before, An' rather less than 'arf o' that be'ind, For a piece o' twisty rag An' a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment 'e could find.
When the sweatin' troop-train lay In a sidin' through the day, Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl, We shouted “Harry By!” 2 Till our throats were bricky-dry, Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us all.
It was “Din! Din! Din! You 'eathen, where the mischief 'ave you been? You put some juldee 3 in it Or I'll marrow 4 you this minute If you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”
'E would dot an' carry one Till the longest day was done; An' 'e didn't seem to know the use o' fear.
If we charged or broke or cut, You could bet your bloomin' nut, 'E'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear. With 'is mussick 5 on 'is back, 'E would skip with our attack, An' watch us till the bugles made “Retire”, An' for all 'is dirty 'ide 'E was white, clear white, inside When 'e went to tend the wounded under fire! It was “Din! Din! Din!” With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green.
When the cartridges ran out, You could hear the front-files shout, “Hi! ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!”
I shan't forgit the night When I dropped be'ind the fight With a bullet where my belt-plate should 'a' been. I was chokin' mad with thirst, An' the man that spied me first Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din. 'E lifted up my 'ead, An' he plugged me where I bled, An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green: It was crawlin' and it stunk, But of all the drinks I've drunk, I'm gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
It was “Din! Din! Din! 'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is spleen; 'E's chawin' up the ground, An' 'e's kickin' all around: For Gawd's sake git the water, Gunga Din!”
'E carried me away To where a dooli lay, An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean. 'E put me safe inside, An' just before 'e died, “I 'ope you liked your drink”, sez Gunga Din. So I'll meet 'im later on At the place where 'e is gone-- Where it's always double drill and no canteen; 'E'll be squattin' on the coals Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
1 Bring water swiftly. 2 Mr Atkins' equivalent for “O Brother.” 3 Hit you. 4 Be quick. 5 Water skin.
OONTS (Northern India Transport Train)
Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to @penk, wot makes 'im to perspire? It isn't standin' up to charge nor lyin' down to fire; But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load. O the oont, 1 O the oont, O the commissariat oont! With 'is silly neck a-bobbin' like a basket full o' snakes; We packs 'im like an idol, an' you ought to 'ear 'im grunt, An' when we gets 'im loaded up 'is blessed girth-rope breaks.
Wot makes the rear-guard swear so 'ard when night is drorin' in, An' every native follower is shiverin' for 'is skin? It ain't the chanst o' being rushed by Paythans from the 'ills, It's the commissariat camel puttin' on 'is bloomin' frills! O the oont, O the oont, O the hairy scary oont! A-trippin' over tent-ropes when we've got the night alarm! We socks 'im with a stretcher-pole an' 'eads 'im off in front, An' when we've saved 'is bloomin' life 'e chaws our bloomin' arm.
The 'orse 'e knows above a bit, the bullock's but a fool, The elephant's a gentleman, the battery-mule's a mule; But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said an' done, 'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one. O the oont, O the oont, O the Gawd-forsaken oont! The lumpy-'umpy 'ummin'-bird a-singin' where 'e lies, 'E's blocked the whole division from the rear-guard to the front, An' when we get him up again--the beggar goes an' dies!
'E'll gall an' chafe an' lame an' fight--'e smells most awful vile; 'E'll lose 'isself for ever if you let 'im stray a mile; 'E's game to graze the 'ole day long an' 'owl the 'ole night through, An' when 'e comes to greasy ground 'e splits 'isself in two. O the oont, O the oont, O the floppin', droppin' oont! When 'is long legs give from under an' 'is meltin' eye is dim, The tribes is up be'ind us, and the tribes is out in front-- It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites an' crows for 'im.
So when the cruel march is done, an' when the roads is blind, An' when we sees the camp in front an' 'ears the shots be'ind, Ho! then we strips 'is saddle off, and all 'is woes is past: 'E thinks on us that used 'im so, and gets revenge at last. O the oont, O the oont, O the floatin', bloatin' oont! The late lamented camel in the water-cut 'e lies; We keeps a mile be'ind 'im an' we keeps a mile in front, But 'e gets into the drinkin'-casks, and then o' course we dies.
1 Camel--oo is pronounced like u in “bull,” but by Mr. Atkins to rhyme with “front.”
LOOT
If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back, If you've ever snigged the washin' from the line, If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack, You will understand this little song o' mine.
But the service rules are 'ard, an' from such we are debarred, For the same with English morals does not suit.
(Cornet: Toot! toot!) W'y, they call a man a robber if 'e stuffs 'is marchin' clobber With the-- (Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu! lulu! Loo! loo! Loot! loot! loot! Ow the loot! Bloomin' loot! That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot! It's the same with dogs an' men, If you'd make 'em come again Clap 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! (ff) Whoopee! Tear 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!
If you've knocked a nigger edgeways when 'e's thrustin' for your life, You must leave 'im very careful where 'e fell; An' may thank your stars an' gaiters if you didn't feel 'is knife That you ain't told off to bury 'im as well.
Then the sweatin' Tommies wonder as they spade the beggars under Why lootin' should be entered as a crime; So if my song you'll 'ear, I will learn you plain an' clear 'Ow to pay yourself for fightin' overtime.
(Chorus) With the loot,...
Now remember when you're 'acking round a gilded Burma god That 'is eyes is very often precious stones; An' if you treat a nigger to a dose o' cleanin'-rod 'E's like to show you everything 'e owns.
When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot (Cornet: Toot! toot!)-- When the ground begins to sink, shove your baynick down the chink, An' you're sure to touch the-- (Chorus) Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! Ow the loot!...
When from 'ouse to 'ouse you're 'unting, you must always work in pairs-- It 'alves the gain, but safer you will find-- For a single man gets bottled on them twisty-wisty stairs, An' a woman comes and clobs 'im from be'ind.
When you've turned 'em inside out, an' it seems beyond a doubt As if there weren't enough to dust a flute (Cornet: Toot! toot!)-- Before you sling your 'ook, at the 'ousetops take a look, For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot.
(Chorus) Ow the loot!...
You can mostly square a Sergint an' a Quartermaster too, If you only take the proper way to go; I could never keep my pickin's, but I've learned you all I knew-- An' don't you never say I told you so.
An' now I'll bid good-bye, for I'm gettin' rather dry, An' I see another tunin' up to toot (Cornet: Toot! toot!)-- So 'ere's good-luck to those that wears the Widow's clo'es, An' the Devil send 'em all they want o' loot! (Chorus) Yes, the loot, Bloomin' loot! In the tunic an' the mess-tin an' the boot! It's the same with dogs an' men, If you'd make 'em come again (fff) Whoop 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot! Heeya! Sick 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot! loot! loot!
'SNARLEYOW'
This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps Which is first among the women an' amazin' first in war; An' what the bloomin' battle was I don't remember now, But Two's off-lead 'e answered to the name o' Snarleyow.
Down in the Infantry, nobody cares; Down in the Cavalry, Colonel 'e swears; But down in the lead with the wheel at the flog Turns the bold Bombardier to a little whipped dog!
They was movin' into action, they was needed very sore, To learn a little schoolin' to a native army corps, They 'ad nipped against an uphill, they was tuckin' down the brow, When a tricky, trundlin' roundshot give the knock to Snarleyow.
They cut 'im loose an' left 'im--'e was almost tore in two-- But he tried to follow after as a well-trained 'orse should do; 'E went an' fouled the limber, an' the Driver's Brother squeals: “Pull up, pull up for Snarleyow--'is head's between 'is 'eels!”
The Driver 'umped 'is shoulder, for the wheels was goin' round, An' there ain't no “Stop, conductor!” when a batt'ry's changin' ground; Sez 'e: “I broke the beggar in, an' very sad I feels, But I couldn't pull up, not for you--your 'ead between your 'eels!”
'E 'adn't 'ardly spoke the word, before a droppin' shell A little right the batt'ry an' between the sections fell; An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels.
Then sez the Driver's Brother, an' 'is words was very plain, “For Gawd's own sake get over me, an' put me out o' pain.” They saw 'is wounds was mortial, an' they judged that it was best, So they took an' drove the limber straight across 'is back an' chest.
The Driver 'e give nothin' 'cept a little coughin' grunt, But 'e swung 'is 'orses 'andsome when it came to “Action Front!” An' if one wheel was juicy, you may lay your Monday head 'Twas juicier for the niggers when the case begun to spread.
The moril of this story, it is plainly to be seen: You 'avn't got no families when servin' of the Queen-- You 'avn't got no brothers, fathers, sisters, wives, or sons-- If you want to win your battles take an' work your bloomin' guns!
Down in the Infantry, nobody cares; Down in the Cavalry, Colonel 'e swears; But down in the lead with the wheel at the flog Turns the bold Bombardier to a little whipped dog!
THE WIDOW AT WINDSOR
'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam--she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red. (Ow, poor beggars in red!)
There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses, There's 'er mark on the medical stores-- An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind That takes us to various wars. (Poor beggars!--barbarious wars!) Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor, An' 'ere's to the stores an' the guns, The men an' the 'orses what makes up the forces O' Missis Victorier's sons. (Poor beggars! Victorier's sons!)
Walk wide o' the Widow at Windsor, For 'alf o' Creation she owns: We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame, An' we've salted it down with our bones. (Poor beggars!--it's blue with our bones!) Hands off o' the sons o' the Widow, Hands off o' the goods in 'er shop, For the Kings must come down an' the Emperors frown When the Widow at Windsor says “Stop”! (Poor beggars!--we're sent to say “Stop”!) Then 'ere's to the Lodge o' the Widow, From the Pole to the Tropics it runs-- To the Lodge that we tile with the rank an' the file, An' open in form with the guns. (Poor beggars!--it's always they guns!)
We 'ave 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor, It's safest to let 'er alone: For 'er sentries we stand by the sea an' the land Wherever the bugles are blown. (Poor beggars!--an' don't we get blown!) Take 'old o' the Wings o' the Mornin', An' flop round the earth till you're dead; But you won't get away from the tune that they play To the bloomin' old rag over'ead. (Poor beggars!--it's 'ot over'ead!) Then 'ere's to the sons o' the Widow, Wherever, 'owever they roam. 'Ere's all they desire, an' if they require A speedy return to their 'ome. (Poor beggars!--they'll never see 'ome!)
BELTS
There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay, Between an Irish regiment an' English cavalree; It started at Revelly an' it lasted on till dark: The first man dropped at Harrison's, the last forninst the Park.
For it was:--“Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!” An' it was “Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for you!” O buckle an' tongue Was the song that we sung From Harrison's down to the Park!
There was a row in Silver Street--the regiments was out, They called us “Delhi Rebels”, an' we answered “Threes about!” That drew them like a hornet's nest--we met them good an' large, The English at the double an' the Irish at the charge.
Then it was:--“Belts...
There was a row in Silver Street--an' I was in it too; We passed the time o' day, an' then the belts went whirraru! I misremember what occurred, but subsequint the storm A Freeman's Journal Supplemint was all my uniform.
O it was:--“Belts...
There was a row in Silver Street--they sent the Polis there, The English were too drunk to know, the Irish didn't care; But when they grew impertinint we simultaneous rose, Till half o' them was Liffey mud an' half was tatthered clo'es.
For it was:--“Belts...
There was a row in Silver Street--it might ha' raged till now, But some one drew his side-arm clear, an' nobody knew how; 'Twas Hogan took the point an' dropped; we saw the red blood run: An' so we all was murderers that started out in fun.
While it was:--“Belts...
There was a row in Silver Street--but that put down the shine, Wid each man whisperin' to his next: “'Twas never work o' mine!” We went away like beaten dogs, an' down the street we bore him, The poor dumb corpse that couldn't tell the bhoys were sorry for him.
When it was:--“Belts...
There was a row in Silver Street--it isn't over yet, For half of us are under guard wid punishments to get; 'Tis all a merricle to me as in the Clink I lie: There was a row in Silver Street--begod, I wonder why!
But it was:--“Belts, belts, belts, an' that's one for you!” An' it was “Belts, belts, belts, an' that's done for you!” O buckle an' tongue Was the song that we sung From Harrison's down to the Park!
THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER
When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East 'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast, An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, Serve, serve, serve as a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen!
Now all you recruities what's drafted today, You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay, An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may: A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier...
First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts, For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts-- Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts-- An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier...
When the cholera comes--as it will past a doubt-- Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout, For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out, An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier...
But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead: You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said: If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead, An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier...
If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind, Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind; Be handy and civil, and then you will find That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier...
Now, if you must marry, take care she is old-- A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told, For beauty won't help if your rations is cold, Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier...
If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath To shoot when you catch 'em--you'll swing, on my oath!-- Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both, An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier...
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier...
When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch, Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old bitch; She's human as you are--you treat her as sich, An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier...
When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine, The guns o' the enemy wheel into line, Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine, For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier...
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier...
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen!
MANDALAY
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!” Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay: Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay? On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green, An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat--jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen, An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot, An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot: Bloomin' idol made o'mud-- Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd-- Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud! On the road to Mandalay...
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow, She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing “Kulla-lo-lo!” With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak. Elephints a-pilin' teak In the sludgy, squdgy creek, Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak! On the road to Mandalay...
But that's all shove be'ind me--long ago an' fur away, An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay; An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells: “If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else.” No! you won't 'eed nothin' else But them spicy garlic smells, An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells; On the road to Mandalay...
I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones, An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones; Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand, An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand? Beefy face an' grubby 'and-- Law! wot do they understand? I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land! On the road to Mandalay...
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst; For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be-- By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea; On the road to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay, With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay! On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
TROOPIN' (Our Army in the East)
Troopin', troopin', troopin' to the sea: 'Ere's September come again--the six-year men are free. O leave the dead be'ind us, for they cannot come away To where the ship's a-coalin' up that takes us 'ome today.
We're goin' 'ome, we're goin' 'ome, Our ship is at the shore, An' you must pack your 'aversack, For we won't come back no more.
Ho, don't you grieve for me, My lovely Mary-Ann, For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit As a time-expired man.
The Malabar's in 'arbour with the Jumner at 'er tail, An' the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders for to sail. Ho! the weary waitin' when on Khyber 'ills we lay, But the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders 'ome today.
They'll turn us out at Portsmouth wharf in cold an' wet an' rain, All wearin' Injian cotton kit, but we will not complain; They'll kill us of pneumonia--for that's their little way-- But damn the chills and fever, men, we're goin' 'ome today!
Troopin', troopin', winter's round again! See the new draf's pourin' in for the old campaign; Ho, you poor recruities, but you've got to earn your pay-- What's the last from Lunnon, lads? We're goin' there today.
Troopin', troopin', give another cheer-- 'Ere's to English women an' a quart of English beer. The Colonel an' the regiment an' all who've got to stay, Gawd's mercy strike 'em gentle--Whoop! we're goin' 'ome today.
We're goin' 'ome, we're goin' 'ome, Our ship is at the shore, An' you must pack your 'aversack, For we won't come back no more.
Ho, don't you grieve for me, My lovely Mary-Ann, For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit As a time-expired man.
FORD O' KABUL RIVER
Kabul town's by Kabul river-- Blow the bugle, draw the sword-- There I lef' my mate for ever, Wet an' drippin' by the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! There's the river up and brimmin', an' there's 'arf a squadron swimmin' 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.
Kabul town's a blasted place-- Blow the bugle, draw the sword-- 'Strewth I sha'n't forget 'is face Wet an' drippin' by the ford! Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! Keep the crossing-stakes beside you, an' they will surely guide you 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.
Kabul town is sun and dust-- Blow the bugle, draw the sword-- I'd ha' sooner drownded fust 'Stead of 'im beside the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! You can 'ear the 'orses threshin', you can 'ear the men a-splashin', 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.
Kabul town was ours to take-- Blow the bugle, draw the sword-- I'd ha' left it for 'is sake-- 'Im that left me by the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! It's none so bloomin' dry there; ain't you never comin' nigh there, 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark?
Kabul town'll go to hell-- Blow the bugle, draw the sword-- 'Fore I see him 'live an' well-- 'Im the best beside the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder, for their boots'll pull 'em under, By the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.
Turn your 'orse from Kabul town-- Blow the bugle, draw the sword-- 'Im an' 'arf my troop is down, Down an' drownded by the ford. Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river, Ford o' Kabul river in the dark! There's the river low an' fallin', but it ain't no use o' callin' 'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.
ROUTE MARCHIN'
We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains, A little front o' Christmas-time an' just be'ind the Rains; Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed, There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road; With its best foot first And the road a-sliding past, An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last; While the Big Drum says, With 'is “rowdy-dowdy-dow!”-- “Kiko kissywarsti don't you hamsher argy jow?” 2
Oh, there's them Injian temples to admire when you see, There's the peacock round the corner an' the monkey up the tree, An' there's that rummy silver grass a-wavin' in the wind, An' the old Grand Trunk a-trailin' like a rifle-sling be'ind.
While it's best foot first,...
At half-past five's Revelly, an' our tents they down must come, Like a lot of button mushrooms when you pick 'em up at 'ome. But it's over in a minute, an' at six the column starts, While the women and the kiddies sit an' shiver in the carts.
An' it's best foot first,...
Oh, then it's open order, an' we lights our pipes an' sings, An' we talks about our rations an' a lot of other things, An' we thinks o' friends in England, an' we wonders what they're at, An' 'ow they would admire for to hear us sling the bat.1
An' it's best foot first,...
It's none so bad o' Sunday, when you're lyin' at your ease, To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees, For although there ain't no women, yet there ain't no barrick-yards, So the orficers goes shootin' an' the men they plays at cards.
Till it's best foot first,...
So 'ark an' 'eed, you rookies, which is always grumblin' sore, There's worser things than marchin' from Umballa to Cawnpore; An' if your 'eels are blistered an' they feels to 'urt like 'ell, You drop some tallow in your socks an' that will make 'em well.
For it's best foot first,...
We're marchin' on relief over Injia's coral strand, Eight 'undred fightin' Englishmen, the Colonel, and the Band; Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed, There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road; With its best foot first And the road a-sliding past, An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last; While the Big Drum says, With 'is “rowdy-dowdy-dow!”-- “Kiko kissywarsti don't you hamsher argy jow?” 2
1 Thomas's first and firmest conviction is that he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. As a matter of fact, he depends largely on the sign-language. 2 Why don't you get on
The end
* * * * * *
VOLUME III. THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW AND OTHER GHOST STORIES
THE PHANTOM 'RICKSHAW
May no ill dreams disturb my rest, Nor Powers of Darkness me molest. --Evening Hymn.
ONE of the few advantages that India has over England is a great Knowability. After five years' service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows something about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel anywhere and everywhere without paying hotel-bills.
Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right, have, even within my memory, blunted this open-heartedness, but none the less today, if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a Black Sheep, all houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and helpful.
Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Kumaon some fifteen years ago. He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheumatic fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder's establishment, stopped Polder's work, and nearly died in Polder's bedroom. Polder behaves as though he had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements, will work themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into serious trouble.
Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a hospital on his private account--an arrangement of loose boxes for Incurables, his friend called it--but it was really a sort of fitting-up shed for craft that had been damaged by stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry, and since the tale of bricks is always a fixed quantity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally break down and become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.
Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariable prescription to all his patients is, “lie low, go slow, and keep cool.” He says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory that there was a crack in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death. “Pansay went off the handle,” says Heatherlegh, “after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & 0. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him poor devil. Write him off to the System--one man to take the work of two and a half men.”
I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pansay sometimes when Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be within claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even voice, the procession that was always passing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick man's command of language.
When he recovered I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.
He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted did not calm him. Two months afterward he was reported fit for duty, but, in spite of the fact that he was urgently needed to help an undermanned Commission stagger through a deficit, he preferred to die; vowing at the last that he was hag-ridden. I got his manuscript before he died, and this is his version of the affair, dated 1885:
My doctor tells me that I need rest and change of air. It is not improbable that I shall get both ere long--rest that neither the red-coated messenger nor the midday gun can break, and change of air far beyond that which any homeward-bound steamer can give me. In the meantime I am resolved to stay where I am; and, in flat defiance of my doctor's orders, to take all the world into my confidence. You shall learn for yourselves the precise nature of my malady; and shall, too, judge for yourselves whether any man born of woman on this weary earth was ever so tormented as I.
Speaking now as a condemned criminal might speak ere the drop-bolts are drawn, my story, wild and hideously improbable as it may appear, demands at least attention. That it will ever receive credence I utterly disbelieve. Two months ago I should have scouted as mad or drunk the man who had dared tell me the like. Two months ago I was the happiest man in India. Today, from Peshawur to the sea, there is no one more wretched. My doctor and I are the only two who know this. His explanation is, that my brain, digestion, and eyesight are all slightly affected; giving rise to my frequent and persistent “delusions.” Delusions, indeed! I call him a fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the same bland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I begin to suspect that I am an ungrateful, evil-tempered invalid. But you shall judge for yourselves.
Three years ago it was my fortune--my great misfortune--to sail from Gravesend to Bombay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the admission now without one particle of vanity. In matters of this sort there is always one who gives and another who accepts. From the first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was conscious that Agnes's passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and--if I may use the expression--a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterward it was bitterly plain to both of us.
Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we went our respective ways, to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the season together; and there my fire of straw burned itself out to a pitiful end with the closing year. I attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learned that I was sick of her presence, tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth. On her neither my openly expressed aversion nor the cutting brutalities with which I garnished our interviews had the least effect. “Jack, darling!” was her one eternal cuckoo cry: “I'm sure it's all a mistake--a hideous mistake; and we'll be good friends again some day. Please forgive me, Jack, dear.”
I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowledge transformed my pity into passive endurance, and, eventually, into blind hate--the same instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider he has but half killed. And with this hate in my bosom the season of 1882 came to an end.
Next year we met again at Simla--she with her monotonous face and timid attempts at reconciliation, and I with loathing of her in every fibre of my frame. Several times I could not avoid meeting her alone; and on each occasion her words were identically the same. Still the unreasoning wail that it was all a “mistake”; and still the hope of eventually “making friends.” I might have seen had I cared to look, that that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I maintain that she was much to blame. And again, sometimes, in the black, fever-stricken night-watches, I have begun to think that I might have been a little kinder to her. But that really is a “delusion.” I could not have continued pretending to love her when I didn't; could I? It would have been unfair to us both.
Last year we met again--on the same terms as before. The same weary appeal, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her attempts at resuming the old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart--that is to say, she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade were fantastically intermingled--my courtship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white face flitting by in the 'rickshaw with the black and white liveries I once watched for so earnestly; the wave of Mrs. Wessington's gloved hand; and, when she met me alone, which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering; honestly, heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed “magpie” jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it already.
“So I hear you're engaged, Jack dear.” Then, without a moment's pause--“I'm sure it's all a mistake--a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day, Jack, as we ever were.”
My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before me like the blow of a whip. “Please forgive me, Jack; I didn't mean to make you angry; but it's true, it's true!”
And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that I had been an unutterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she had turned her 'rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me.
The scene and its surroundings were photographed on my memory.
The rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden, dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed a gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of the jhampanies, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington's down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She was holding her handkerchief in her left hand and was leaning back exhausted against the 'rickshaw cushions. I turned my horse up a bypath near the Sanjowlie Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call of “Jack!” This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify it. Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on horseback; and, in the delight of a long ride with her, forgot all about the interview.
A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the inexpressible burden of her existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy. Before three months were over I had forgotten all about her, except that at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I had disinterred what was left of our correspondence from among my scattered belongings and had burned it. At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I was at Simla--semi-deserted Simla--once more, and was deep in lover's talks and walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be married at the end of June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I did, I am not saying too much when I pronounce myself to have been, at that time, the happiest man in India.
Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight.
Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals circumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement ring was the outward and visible sign of her dignity as an engaged girl; and that she must forthwith come to Hamilton's to be measured for one. Up to that moment, I give you my word, we had completely forgotten so trivial a matter. To Hamilton's we accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that--whatever my doctor may say to the contrary--I was then in perfect health, enjoying a well-balanced mind and an absolute tranquil spirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton's shop together, and there, regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring in the presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope that leads to the Combermere Bridge and Peliti's shop.
While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and Kitty was laughing and chattering at my side--while all Simla, that is to say as much of it as had then come from the Plains, was grouped round the Reading-room and Peliti's veranda,--I was aware that some one, apparently at a vast distance, was calling me by my Christian name. It struck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I could not at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the road between the path from Hamilton's shop and the first plank of the Combermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might have committed such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have been singing in my ears. Immediately opposite Peliti's shop my eye was arrested by the sight of four jharnpanies in “magpie” livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar 'rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back to the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without her black and white servitors reappearing to spoil the day's happiness? Whoever employed them now I thought I would call upon, and ask as a personal favor to change her jhampanies' livery. I would hire the men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs. It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories their presence evoked.
“Kitty,” I cried, “there are poor Mrs. Wessington's jhampanies turned up again! I wonder who has them now?”
Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always been interested in the sickly woman. “What? Where?” she asked. “I can't see them anywhere.”
Even as she spoke her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself directly in front of the advancing 'rickshaw. I had scarcely time to utter a word of warning when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin air.
“What's the matter?” cried Kitty; “what made you call out so foolishly, Jack? If I am engaged I don't want all creation to know about it. There was lots of space between the mule and the veranda; and, if you think I can't ride--
“--There!”
Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a hand-gallop in the direction of the Bandstand; fully expecting, as she herself afterward told me, that I should follow her. What was the matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I was mad or drunk, or that Simla was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. The 'rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near the left railing of the Combermere Bridge.
“Jack! Jack, darling!” (There was no mistake about the words this time: they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) “It's some hideous mistake, I'm sure. Please forgive me, jack, and let's be friends again.”
The 'rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as I hope and pray daily for the death I dread by night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief in hand, and golden head bowed on her breast.
How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my syce taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I tumbled off my horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of cherry-brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then than the consolations of religion could have been. I plunged into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably endeavoured to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind--as a child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright in the dark. I must have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's clear voice outside inquiring for me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my face stopped her.
“Why, Jack,” she cried, “what have you been doing? What has happened? Are you ill?” Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.
In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter.
Here was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the year of grace, 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror from my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broad daylight. The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, in defiance of every law of probability, in direct outrage of Nature's ordinance, there had appeared to me a face from the grave.
Kitty's Arab had gone through the 'rickshaw: so that my first hope that some woman marvelously like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round this treadmill of thought; and again and again gave up baffled and in despair. The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had originally some wild notion of confiding it all to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the 'rickshaw. “After all,” I argued, “the presence of the 'rickshaw is in itself enough to prove the existence of a spectral illusion. One may see ghosts of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The whole thing is absurd. Fancy the ghost of a hill-man!”
Next morning I sent a penitent note to Kitty, imploring her to overlook my strange conduct of the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency born of night-long pondering over a falsehood, that I had been attacked with sudden palpitation of the heart--the result of indigestion. This eminently practical solution had its effect; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us.
Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road--anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out together toward Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Convent to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of Mrs. Wessington all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our oldtime walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it aloud overhead; the rain-fed torrents giggled and chuckled unseen over the shameful story; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud.
As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies' Mile the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight--only the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and the golden head of the woman within--all apparently just as I had left them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that Kitty must see what I saw--we were so marvelously sympathetic in all things. Her next words undeceived me--“Not a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and I'll race you to the Reservoir buildings!” Her wiry little Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this order we dashed under the cliffs. Half a minute brought us within fifty yards of the 'rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The 'rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the Arab passed through it, my horse following. “Jack! Jack dear! Please forgive me,” rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an interval:--“It's a mistake, a hideous mistake!”
I spurred my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at the Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still waiting--patiently waiting--under the grey hillside, and the wind brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered me a good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had been talking up till then wildly and at random.
To save my life I could not speak afterward naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church wisely held my tongue.
I was to dine with the Mannerings that night, and had barely time to canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men talking together in the dusk.--“It's a curious thing,” said one, “how completely all trace of it disappeared. You know my wife was insanely fond of the woman ['never could see anything in her myself), and wanted me to pick up her old 'rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but I've got to do what the Memsahib tells me.
“Would you believe that the man she hired it from tells me that all four of the men--they were brothers--died of cholera on the way to Hardwar, poor devils, and the 'rickshaw has been broken up by the man himself. 'Told me he never used a dead Memsahib's 'rickshaw. 'Spoiled his luck.' Queer notion, wasn't it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one's luck except her own!” I laughed aloud at this point; and my laugh jarred on me as I uttered it. So there were ghosts of 'rickshaws after all, and ghostly employments in the other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go?
And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my horse at the head of the 'rickshaw, and politely wished Mrs. Wessington “Good evening.” Her answer was one I knew only too well. I listened to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim recollection of talking the commonplaces of the day for five minutes to the Thing in front of me.
“Mad as a hatter, poor devil--or drunk. Max, try and get him to come home.”
Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington's voice! The two men had overheard me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look after me. They were very kind and considerate, and from their words evidently gathered that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings' ten minutes late. I pleaded the darkness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down.
The conversation had already become general; and under cover of it, I was addressing some tender small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware that at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was describing, with much broidery, his encounter with a mad unknown that evening.
A few sentences convinced me that he was repeating the incident of half an hour ago. In the middle of the story he looked round for applause, as professional story-tellers do, caught my eye, and straightway collapsed. There was a moment's awkward silence, and the red-whiskered man muttered something to the effect that he had “forgotten the rest,” thereby sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart, and--went on with my fish.
In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end; and with genuine regret I tore myself away from Kitty--as certain as I was of my own existence that It would be waiting for me outside the door. The red-whiskered man, who had been introduced to me as Doctor Heatherlegh, of Simla, volunteered to bear me company as far as our roads lay together. I accepted his offer with gratitude.
My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readiness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he bad been thinking over it all dinner time.
“I say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?” The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me before I was aware.
“That!” said I, pointing to It.
“That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don't liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can't be D. T. There's nothing whatever where you're pointing, though you're sweating and trembling with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it's Eyes. And I ought to understand all about them. Come along home with me. I'm on the Blessington lower road.”
To my intense delight the 'rickshaw instead of waiting for us kept about twenty yards ahead--and this, too whether we walked, trotted, or cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my companion almost as much as I have told you here.
“Well, you've spoiled one of the best tales I've ever laid tongue to,” said he, “but I'll forgive you for the sake of what you've gone through. Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I've cured you, young man, let this be a lesson to you to steer clear of women and indigestible food till the day of your death.”
The 'rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red-whiskered friend seemed to derive great pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.
“Eyes, Pansay--all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of these three is Stomach. You've too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the rest follows. And all that's French for a liver pill.
“I'll take sole medical charge of you from this hour! for you're too interesting a phenomenon to be passed over.”
By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road and the 'rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, over-hanging shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh rapped out an oath.
“Now, if you think I'm going to spend a cold night on the hillside for the sake of a stomach-cum-Brain-cum-Eye illusion--Lord, ha' mercy! What's that?”
There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side--pines, undergrowth, and all--slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had subsided, my companion muttered:--“Man, if we'd gone forward we should have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. 'There are more things in heaven and earth...' Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg badly.”
We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr. Heatherlegh's house shortly after midnight.
His attempts toward my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week I never left his sight. Many a time in the course of that week did I bless the good fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla's best and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh's “spectral illusion” theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I wrote to Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused by a fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; and that I should be recovered before she had time to regret my absence.
Heatherlegh's treatment was simple to a degree. It consisted of liver pills, cold-water baths, and strong exercise, taken in the dusk or at early dawn--for, as he sagely observed:--“A man with a sprained ankle doesn't walk a dozen miles a day, and your young woman might be wondering if she saw you.”
At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and strict injunction' as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting benediction:--“Man, I can certify to your mental cure, and that's as much as to say I've cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your traps out of this as soon as you can; and be off to make love to Miss Kitty.”
I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his kindness. He cut me short.
“Don't think I did this because I like you. I gather that you've behaved like a blackguard all through. But, all the same, you re a phenomenon, and as queer a phenomenon as you are a blackguard. No!”--checking me a second time--“not a rupee please. Go out and see if you can find the eyes-brain-and-stomach business again. I'll give you a lakh for each time you see it.”
Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings' drawing-room with Kitty--drunk with the intoxication of present happiness and the fore-knowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a ride at once; and, by preference, a canter round Jakko.
Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vitality and mere animal spirits, as I did on the afternoon of the 30th of April. Kitty was delighted at the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings' house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road as of old.
I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my boisterousness. “Why, Jack!” she cried at last, “you are behaving like a child. What are you doing?”
We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of my riding-whip.
“Doing?” I answered; “nothing, dear. That's just it. If you'd been doing nothing for a week except lie up, you'd be as riotous as I.”
“'Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, Joying to feel yourself alive; Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth, Lord of the senses five.'”
My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner above the Convent; and a few yards further on could see across to Sanjowlie. In the centre of the level road stood the black and white liveries, the yellow-paneled 'rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe must have said something. The next thing I knew was that I was lying face downward on the road with Kitty kneeling above me in tears.
“Has it gone, child?” I gasped. Kitty only wept more bitterly.
“Has what gone, Jack dear? what does it all mean? There must be a mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake.” Her last words brought me to my feet--mad--raving for the time being.
“Yes, there is a mistake somewhere,” I repeated, “a hideous mistake. Come and look at It.”
I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could break the tie between us; and Kitty only knows how much more to the same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately to the Terror in the 'rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from a torture that was killing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes.
“Thank you, Mr. Pansay,” she said, “that's quite enough. Syce ghora lao.”
The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the recaptured horses; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of the bridle, entreating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered back to the side of the 'rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the riding-whip had raised a livid blue wheal on it. I had no self-respect. Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been following Kitty and me at a distance, cantered up.
“Doctor,” I said, pointing to my face, “here's Miss Mannering's signature to my order of dismissal and--I'll thank you for that lakh as soon as convenient.”
Heatherlegh's face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter.
“I'll stake my professional reputation”--he began.
“Don't be a fool,” I whispered. “I've lost my life's happiness and you'd better take me home.”
As I spoke the 'rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a cloud and fall in upon me.
Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I was lying in Heatherlegh's room as weak as a little child. Heatherlegh was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table. His first words were not encouraging; but I was too far spent to be much moved by them.
“Here's Miss Kitty has sent back your letters. You corresponded a good deal, you young people. Here's a packet that looks like a ring, and a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which I've taken the liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman's not pleased with you.”
“And Kitty?” I asked, dully.
“Rather more drawn than her father from what she says. By the same token you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot-headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. 'Says she'll die before she ever speaks to you again.”
I groaned and turned over to the other side.
“Now you've got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken off; and the Mannerings don't want to be too hard on you. Was it broken through D. T. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can't offer you a better exchange unless you'd prefer hereditary insanity. Say the word and I'll tell 'em it's fits. All Simla knows about that scene on the Ladies' Mile. Come! I'll give you five minutes to think over it.”
During those five minutes I believe that I explored thoroughly the lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself faltering through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which dreadful alternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering in a voice that I hardly recognized, “--They're confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give 'em fits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let me sleep a bit longer.”
Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half crazed, devil-driven I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past month.
“But I am in Simla,” I kept repeating to myself. “I, Jack Pansay, am in Simla and there are no ghosts here. It's unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are. Why couldn't Agnes have left me alone? I never did her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes. Only I'd never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can't I be left alone--left alone and happy?”
It was high noon when I first awoke, and the sun was low in the sky before I slept--slept as the tortured criminal sleeps on his rack, too worn to feel further pain.
Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning that he had received an answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to his (Heatherlegh's) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had traveled through the length and breadth of Simla, where I was on all sides much pitied.
“And that's rather more than you deserve,” he concluded, pleasantly, “though the Lord knows you've been going through a pretty severe mill. Never mind; we'll cure you yet, you perverse phenomenon.”
I declined firmly to be cured. “You've been much too good to me already, old man,” said I; “but I don't think I need trouble you further.”
In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the burden that had been laid upon me.
With that knowledge came also a sense of hopeless, impotent rebellion against the unreasonableness of it all. There were scores of men no better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another world; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in time give place to another where it seemed that the 'rickshaw and I were the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all ghosts; and the great, grey hills themselves but vain shadows devised to torture me. From mood to mood I tossed backward and forward for seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger and stronger, until the bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to everyday life, and was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as expressionless and commonplace as ever. I had expected some permanent alteration--visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I found nothing.
On the 15th of May, I left Heatherlegh's house at eleven o'clock in the morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me to the Club. There I found that every man knew my story as told by Heatherlegh, and was, in clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my fellows; and I envied very bitterly indeed the laughing coolies on the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o'clock wandered aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meeting Kitty. Close to the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; and I heard Mrs. Wessington's old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever since I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom 'rickshaw and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to the bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay me the compliment of quickening her pace; though the rainy afternoon had served for an excuse.
So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly Light-o'-Love, crept round Jakko in couples. The road was streaming with water; the pines dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks below, and the air was full of fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself almost aloud: “I'm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla--at Simla! Everyday, ordinary Simla. I mustn't forget that--I mustn't forget that.” Then I would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the prices of So-and-So's horses--anything, in fact, that related to the workaday Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.
Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was left alone with Mrs. Wessington. “Agnes,” said I, “will you put back your hood and tell me what it all means?” The hood dropped noiselessly, and I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand; and the same cardcase in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a cardcase!) I had to pin myself down to the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road, to assure myself that that at least was real.
“Agnes,” I repeated, “for pity's sake tell me what it all means.” Mrs. Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the head I used to know so well, and spoke.
If my story had not already so madly overleaped the hounds of all human belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one--no, not even Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justification of my conduct--will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I walked with her from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the Commander-in-Chief's house as I might walk by the side of any living woman's 'rickshaw, deep in conversation. The second and most tormenting of my moods of sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like the Prince in Tennyson's poem, “I seemed to move amid a world of ghosts.” There had been a garden-party at the Commander-in-Chief's, and we two joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed that they were the shadows--impalpable, fantastic shadows--that divided for Mrs. Wessington's 'rickshaw to pass through. What we said during the course of that weird interview I cannot--indeed, I dare not--tell. Heatherlegh's comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that I had been “mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera.” It was a ghastly and yet in some indefinable way a marvelously dear experience. Could it be possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty?
I met Kitty on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows.
If I were to describe all the incidents of the next fortnight in their order, my story would never come to an end; and your patience would Be exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly 'rickshaw and I used to wander through Simla together. Wherever I went there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company to and from my hotel. At the Theatre I found them amid the crowd of yelling jhampanies; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my reappearance; and in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the 'rickshaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning some hard-riding friend against cantering over it. More than once I have walked down the Mall deep in conversation with Mrs. Wessington to the unspeakable amazement of the passers-by.
Before I had been out and about a week I learned that the “fit” theory had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods from the 15th of May up to today.
The presence of the 'rickshaw filled me by turns with horror, blind fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and utter despair. I dared not leave Simla; and I knew that my stay there was killing me. I knew, moreover, that it was my destiny to die slowly and a little every day. My only anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her outrageous flirtations with my successor--to speak more accurately, my successors--with amused interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost content. By night I implored Heaven to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave.
* * * * *
August 27.--Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application for sick leave. An application to escape the company of a phantom! A request that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of five ghosts and an airy 'rickshaw by going to England. Heatherlegh's proposition moved me to almost hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await the end quietly at Simla; and I am sure that the end is not far off. Believe me that I dread its advent more than any word can say; and I torture myself nightly with a thousand speculations as to the manner of my death.
Shall I die in my bed decently and as an English gentleman should die; or, in one last walk on the Mall, will my soul be wrenched from me to take its place forever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm? Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall I meet Agnes loathing her and bound to her side through all eternity? Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till the end of Time? As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living flesh feels toward escaped spirits from beyond the grave grows more and more powerful. It is an awful thing to go down quick among the dead with scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a thousand times more awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my “delusion,” for I know you will never believe what I have written here Yet as surely as ever a man was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man.
In justice, too, pity her. For as surely as ever woman was killed by man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. And the last portion of my punishment is ever now upon me.
* * * * *
MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY
As I came through the Desert thus it was-- As I came through the Desert. --The City of Dreadful Night.
Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and plays and shop windows to look at, and thousands of men who spend their lives in building up all four, lives a gentleman who writes real stories about the real insides of people; and his name is Mr. Walter Besant. But he will insist upon treating his ghosts--he has published half a workshopful of them--with levity. He makes his ghost-seers talk familiarly, and, in some cases, flirt outrageously, with the phantoms. You may treat anything, from a Viceroy to a Vernacular Paper, with levity; but you must behave reverently toward a ghost, and particularly an Indian one.
There are, in this land, ghosts who take the form of fat, cold, pobby corpses, and hide in trees near the roadside till a traveler passes. Then they drop upon his neck and remain. There are also terrible ghosts of women who have died in child-bed. These wander along the pathways at dusk, or hide in the crops near a village, and call seductively. But to answer their call is death in this world and the next. Their feet are turned backward that all sober men may recognize them. There are ghosts of little children who have been thrown into wells. These haunt well curbs and the fringes of jungles, and wail under the stars, or catch women by the wrist and beg to be taken up and carried. These and the corpse ghosts, however, are only vernacular articles and do not attack Sahibs. No native ghost has yet been authentically reported to have frightened an Englishman; but many English ghosts have scared the life out of both white and black.
Nearly every other Station owns a ghost. There are said to be two at Simla, not counting the woman who blows the bellows at Syree dak-bungalow on the Old Road; Mussoorie has a house haunted of a very lively Thing; a White Lady is supposed to do night-watchman round a house in Lahore; Dalhousie says that one of her houses “repeats” on autumn evenings all the incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice accident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been swept by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers' Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose furniture is guaranteed to creak, not with the heat of June but with the weight of Invisibles who come to lounge in the chairs; Peshawur possesses houses that none will willingly rent; and there is something--not fever--wrong with a big bungalow in Allahabad. The older Provinces simply bristle with haunted houses, and march phantom armies along their main thoroughfares.
Some of the dak-bungalows on the Grand Trunk Road have handy little cemeteries in their compound--witnesses to the “changes and chances of this mortal life” in the days when men drove from Calcutta to the Northwest. These bungalows are objectionable places to put up in. They are generally very old, always dirty, while the khansamah is as ancient as the bungalow. He either chatters senilely, or falls into the long trances of age. In both moods he is useless. If you get angry with him, he refers to some Sahib dead and buried these thirty years, and says that when he was in that Sahib's service not a khansamah in the Province could touch him. Then he jabbers and mows and trembles and fidgets among the dishes, and you repent of your irritation.
In these dak-bungalows, ghosts are most likely to be found, and when found, they should be made a note of. Not long ago it was my business to live in dak-bungalows. I never inhabited the same house for three nights running, and grew to be learned in the breed. I lived in Government-built ones with red brick walls and rail ceilings, an inventory of the furniture posted in every room, and an excited snake at the threshold to give welcome. I lived in “converted” ones--old houses officiating as dak-bungalows--where nothing was in its proper place and there wasn't even a fowl for dinner. I lived in second-hand palaces where the wind blew through open-work marble tracery just as uncomfortably as through a broken pane. I lived in dak-bungalows where the last entry in the visitors' book was fifteen months old, and where they slashed off the curry-kid's head with a sword. It was my good luck to meet all sorts of men, from sober traveling missionaries and deserters flying from British Regiments, to drunken loafers who threw whisky bottles at all who passed; and my still greater good fortune just to escape a maternity case. Seeing that a fair proportion of the tragedy of our lives out here acted itself in dak-bungalows, I wondered that I had met no ghosts. A ghost that would voluntarily hang about a dak-bungalow would be mad of course; but so many men have died mad in dak-bungalows that there must be a fair percentage of lunatic ghosts.
In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, for there were two of them. Up till that hour I had sympathized with Mr. Besant's method of handling them, as shown in “The Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other Stories.” I am now in the Opposition.
We will call the bungalow Katmal dak-bungalow. But THAT was the smallest part of the horror. A man with a sensitive hide has no right to sleep in dak-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dak-bungalow was old and rotten and unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, and the windows were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largely used by native Sub-Deputy Assistants of all kinds, from Finance to Forests; but real Sahibs were rare. The khansamah, who was nearly bent double with old age, said so.
When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy palms outside. The khansamah completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He gave me the name of a well-known man who has been buried for more than a quarter of a century, and showed me an ancient daguerreotype of that man in his prehistoric youth. I had seen a steel engraving of him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs a month before, and I felt ancient beyond telling.
The day shut in and the khansamah went to get me food. He did not go through the pretense of calling it “khana”--man's victuals. He said “ratub,” and that means, among other things, “grub”--dog's rations. There was no insult in his choice of the term. He had forgotten the other word, I suppose.
While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myself down, after exploring the dak-bungalow. There were three rooms, beside my own, which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other through dingy white doors fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow was a very solid one, but the partition walls of the rooms were almost jerry-built in their flimsiness. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed from my room down the other three, and every footfall came back tremulously from the far walls. For this reason I shut the door. There were no lamps--only candles in long glass shades. An oil wick was set in the bathroom.
For bleak, unadulterated misery that dak-bungalow was the worst of the many that I had ever set foot in. There was no fireplace, and the windows would not open; so a brazier of charcoal would have been useless. The rain and the wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round the house, and the toddy palms rattled and roared.
Half a dozen jackals went through the compound singing, and a hyena stood afar off and mocked them. A hyena would convince a Sadducee of the Resurrection of the Dead--the worst sort of Dead. Then came the ratub--a curious meal, half native and half English in composition--with the old khansamah babbling behind my chair about dead and gone English people, and the wind-blown candles playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the mosquito-curtains. It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make a man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that he intended to commit if he lived.
Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not easy. The lamp in the bath-room threw the most absurd shadows into the room, and the wind was beginning to talk nonsense.
Just when the reasons were drowsy with blood-sucking I heard the regular--“Let--us--take--and--heave--him--over” grunt of doolie-bearers in the compound. First one doolie came in, then a second, and then a third. I heard the doolies dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front of my door shook. “That's some one trying to come in,” I said. But no one spoke, and I persuaded myself that it was the gusty wind. The shutter of the room next to mine was attacked, flung back, and the inner door opened. “That's some Sub-Deputy Assistant,” I said, “and he has brought his friends with him. Now they'll talk and spit and smoke for an hour.”
But there were no voices and no footsteps. No one was putting his luggage into the next room. The door shut, and I thanked Providence that I was to be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the sound that no man in his senses can possibly mistake--the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates when the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute afterwards there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened--indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had become of the doolies. I jumped into bed for that reason.
Next minute I heard the double click of a cannon and my hair sat up. It is a mistake to say that hair stands up. The skin of the head tightens and you can feel a faint, prickly, bristling all over the scalp. That is the hair sitting up.
There was a whir and a click, and both sounds could only have been made by one thing--a billiard ball. I argued the matter out at great length with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one bed, one table, and two chairs--all the furniture of the room next to mine--could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. After another cannon, a three--cushion one to judge by the whir, I argued no more. I had found my ghost and would have given worlds to have escaped from that dak-bungalow. I listened, and with each listen the game grew clearer.
There was whir on whir and click on click. Sometimes there was a double click and a whir and another click. Beyond any sort of doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. And the next room was not big enough to hold a billiard table!
Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward--stroke after stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices; but that attempt was a failure.
Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear of insult, injury or death, but abject, quivering dread of something that you cannot see--fear that dries the inside of the mouth and half of the throat--fear that makes you sweat on the palms of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the uvula at work? This is a fine Fear--a great cowardice, and must be felt to be appreciated. The very improbability of billiards in a dak-bungalow proved the reality of the thing. No man--drunk or sober--could imagine a game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a “screw-cannon.”
A severe course of dak-bungalows has this disadvantage--it breeds infinite credulity. If a man said to a confirmed dak-bungalow-haunter:--“There is a corpse in the next room, and there's a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel have just eloped from a place sixty miles away,” the hearer would not disbelieve because he would know that nothing is too wild, grotesque, or horrible to happen in a dak-bungalow.
This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person fresh from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. I did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores of things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the echoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that the players might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatures who could play in the dark would be above such superfluities. I only know that that was my terror; and it was real.
After a long, long while the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have dropped the door-bar and peered into the dark of the next room.
When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and inquired for the means of departure.
“By the way, khansamah,” I said, “what were those three doolies doing in my compound in the night?”
“There were no doolies,” said the khansamah.
I went into the next room and the daylight streamed through the open door. I was immensely brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below.
“Has this place always been a dak-bungalow?” I asked.
“No,” said the khansamah. “Ten or twenty years ago, I have forgotten how long, it was a billiard room.”
“A how much?”
“A billiard room for the Sahibs who built the Railway. I was khansamah then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But the Sahibs are all dead now, and the Railway runs, you say, nearly to Kabul.”
“Do you remember anything about the Sahibs?”
“It is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always angry, was playing here one night, and he said to me:--'Mangal Khan, brandy-pani do,' and I filled the glass, and he bent over the table to strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the table, and his spectacles came off, and when we--the Sahibs and I myself--ran to lift him he was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib! But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your favor.”
That was more than enough! I had my ghost--a firsthand, authenticated article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research--I would paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty miles of assessed crop land between myself and that dak-bungalow before nightfall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate later on.
I went into my own room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,--with a miss in balk this time, for the whir was a short one.
The door was open and I could see into the room. Click--click! That was a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight within and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at a tremendous rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was running to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose window-sash was making fifty breaks off the window-bolt as it shook in the breeze!
Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake the whir of a ball over the slate! But I was to be excused. Even when I shut my enlightened eyes the sound was marvelously like that of a fast game.
Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sorrows, Kadir Baksh.
“This bungalow is very bad and low-caste! No wonder the Presence was disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and said that it was their custom to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people! What honor has the khansamah? They tried to enter, but I told them to go. No wonder, if these Oorias have been here, that the Presence is sorely spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man!”
Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from each gang two annas for rent in advance, and then, beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the big green umbrella whose use I could never before divine. But Kadir Baksh has no notions of morality.
There was an interview with the khansamah, but as he promptly lost his head, wrath gave place to pity, and pity led to a long conversation, in the course of which he put the fat Engineer-Sahib's tragic death in three separate stations--two of them fifty miles away. The third shift was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dogcart.
If I had encouraged him the khansamah would have wandered all through Bengal with his corpse.
I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed for the night, while the wind and the rat and the sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong “hundred and fifty up.” Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped, and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story.
Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of it.
That was the bitterest thought of all!
THE STRANGE RIDE OF MORROWBIE JUKES
Alive or dead-there is no other way. --Native Proverb.
THERE is, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though he is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar institution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is a story that if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart of the Great Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but a town where the Dead who did not die but may not live have established their headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true that in the same Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money lenders retreat after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous C-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-of-pearl, I do not see why Jukes's tale should not be true. He is a Civil Engineer, with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could earn more by doing his legitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and grows very hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatment he received. He wrote this quite straightforwardly at first, but he has since touched it up in places and introduced Moral Reflections, thus:
In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and Muharakpur--a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient attention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined to so unmanly a weakness.
On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little feverish. There was a full moon at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was baying it. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few days previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his carcass in terrorem about fifty yards from my tent-door. But his friends fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body; and, as it seemed to me, sang their hymns of thanksgiving afterward with renewed energy.
The light-heartedness which accompanies fever acts differently on different men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixed determination to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to a shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both barrels of my shot-gun, when it struck me that my best plan would be to ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, of course, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient; but I remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and feasible.
I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him round quietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his head prepared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift up his voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets for a couple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armed with a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been rousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then, that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute bolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and we were flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed.
In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten why it was that I had taken the horse and hogspear.
The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the air must have taken away the remnant of my senses. I have a faint recollection of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandishing my hog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad gallop; and of shouting challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they whizzed past. Once or twice I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic's neck, and literally hung on by my spurs--as the marks next morning showed.
The wretched beast went forward like a thing possessed, over what seemed to be a limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the waters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic blundered heavily on his nose, and we rolled together down some unseen slope.
I must have lost consciousness, for when I recovered I was lying on my stomach in a heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to break dimly over the edge of the slope down which I had fallen. As the light grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horse-shoe shaped crater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of the Sutlej. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of a slight dizziness in the head, I felt no had effects from the fall over night.
Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal exhausted, but had not hurt himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite polo one, was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly. It took me some time to put him to rights, and in the meantime I had ample opportunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly dropped.
At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length: inasmuch as an accurate mental picture of its peculiarities will be of material assistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows.
Imagine then, as I have said before, a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope, I fancy, must have been about 65 degrees.) This crater enclosed a level piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part, with a crude well in the centre. Round the bottom of the crater, about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of eighty-three semi-circular ovoid, square, and multilateral holes, all about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over the mouth a wooden drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey's cap, for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a most sickening stench pervaded the entire amphitheatre--a stench fouler than any which my wanderings in Indian villages have introduced me to.
Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not thought fit to put in an appearance, so I was left to my own devices. My first attempt to “rush” Pornic up the steep sand-banks showed me that I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the ant-lion sets for its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down from above in tons, and rattled on the drip-boards of the holes like small shot. A couple of ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down to the bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand; and I was constrained to turn my attention to the river-bank.
Here everything seemed easy enough. The sand hills ran down to the river edge, it is true, but there were plenty of shoals and shallows across which I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to terra firma by turning sharply to the right or left. As I led Pornic over the sands I was startled by the faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at the same moment a bullet dropped with a sharp “whit” close to Pornic's head.
There was no mistaking the nature of the missile-a regulation Martini-Henry “picket.” About five hundred yards away a country-boat was anchored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting away from its bows in the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? The treacherous sand slope allowed no escape from a spot which I had visited most involuntarily, and a promenade on the river frontage was the signal for a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. I'm afraid that I lost my temper very much indeed.
Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool my porridge; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five human beings from the badger-holes which I had up till that point supposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of spectators--about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not have been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed in that salmon-colored cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants, and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band of loathsome fakirs. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond all description, and I shuddered to think what their life in the badger-holes must be.
Even in these days, when local self government has destroyed the greater part of a native's respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed to a certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on approaching the crowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my presence. As a matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what I had looked for.
The ragged crew actually laughed at me--such laughter I hope I may never hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked into their midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on the ground in convulsions of unholy mirth. In a moment I had let go Pornic's head, and irritated beyond expression at the morning's adventure, commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The wretches dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gave place to wails for mercy; while those yet untouched clasped me round the knees, imploring me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them.
In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself for having thus easily given way to my temper, a thin, high voice murmured in English from behind my shoulder: “--Sahib! Sahib! Do you not know me? Sahib, it is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master.”
I spun round quickly and faced the speaker.
Gunga Dass, (I have, of course, no hesitation in mentioning the man's real name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin loaned by the Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in charge of a branch telegraph-office there, and when I had last met him was a jovial, full-stomached, portly Government servant with a marvelous capacity for making had puns in English--a peculiarity which made me remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in his official capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes English puns.
Now, however, the man was changed beyond all recognition. Caste-mark, stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turban-less and almost naked, with long matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes.
But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek--the result of an accident for which I was responsible I should never have known him. But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and--for this I was thankful--an English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of all that I had gone through that day.
The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned toward the miserable figure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from the crate. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my question climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of the holes, and commenced lighting a fire there in silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolation from the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When they were in a bright glow, and the crow was neatly spitted in front thereof, Gunga Dass began without a word of preamble:
“There are only two kinds of men, Sar. The alive and the dead. When you are dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live.” (Here the crow demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in danger of being burned to a cinder.) “If you die at home and do not die when you come to the ghat to be burned you come here.”
The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I had known or read of the grotesque and the horrible paled before the fact just communicated by the ex-Brahmin. Sixteen years ago, when I first landed in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the existence, somewhere in India, of a place to which such Hindus as had the misfortune to recover from trance or catalepsy were conveyed and kept, and I recollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to consider a traveler's tale.
Sitting at the bottom of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson's Hotel, with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced Armenian, rose up in my mind as vividly as a photograph, and I burst into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd!
Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, watched me curiously. Hindus seldom laugh, and his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He removed the crow solemnly from the wooden spit and as solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his story, which I give in his own words:
“In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to be burned almost before you are dead. When you come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps, makes you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud is put on your nose and mouth and you die conclusively. If you are rather more alive, more mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you go and take you away. I was too lively, and made protestation with anger against the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In those days I was Brahmin and proud man.
“Now I am dead man and eat”--here he eyed the well-gnawed breast bone with the first sign of emotion that I had seen in him since we met--“crows, and other things. They took me from my sheets when they saw that I was too lively and gave me medicines for one week, and I survived successfully. Then they sent me by rail from my place to Okara Station, with a man to take care of me; and at Okara Station we met two other men, and they conducted we three on camels, in the night, from Okara Station to this place, and they propelled me from the top to the bottom, and the other two succeeded, and I have been here ever since two and a half years. Once I was Brahmin and proud man, and now I eat crows.”
“There is no way of getting out?”
“None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments frequently and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the sand which is precipitated upon our heads.”
“But surely,” I broke in at this point, “the river-front is open, and it is worth while dodging the bullets; while at night”--I had already matured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishness forbade me sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined my unspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed; and, to my intense astonishment, gave vent to a long low chuckle of derision--the laughter, be it understood, of a superior or at least of an equal.
“You will not”--he had dropped the Sir completely after his opening sentence--“make any escape that way. But you can try. I have tried. Once only.”
The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain attempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast--it was now close upon ten o'clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on the previous day--combined with the violent and unnatural agitation of the ride had exhausted me, and I verily believe that, for a few minutes, I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand-slope. I ran round the base of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. I crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven back each time in an agony of nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cut up the sand round me--for I dared not face the death of a mad dog among that hideous crowd--and finally fell, spent and raving, at the curb of the well. No one had taken the slightest notion of an exhibition which makes me blush hotly even when I think of it now.
Two or three men trod on my panting body as they drew water, but they were evidently used to this sort of thing, and had no time to waste upon me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, indeed, when he had banked the embers of his fire with sand, was at some pains to throw half a cupful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the while in the same mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi-comatose condition, I lay till noon.
Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and intimated as much to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard as my natural protector. Following the impulse of the outer world when dealing with natives, I put my hand into my pocket and drew out four annas. The absurdity of the gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace the money.
Gunga Dass, however, was of a different opinion. “Give me the money,” said he; “all you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you!” All this as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
A Briton's first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his pockets; but a moment's reflection convinced me of the futility of differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me comfortable; and with whose help it was possible that I might eventually escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs. 9-8-5--nine rupees eight annas and five pie--for I always keep small change as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and hid them at once in his ragged loin cloth, his expression changing to something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one had observed us.
“Now I will give you something to eat,” said he.
What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I am unable to say; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight I was not sorry that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no doubt that he would have had me killed if I had refused. One does not protest against the vagaries of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were lower than any beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse chapatti and a cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not the faintest sign of curiosity--that curiosity which is so rampant, as a rule, in an Indian village.
I could even fancy that they despised me. At all events they treated me with the most chilling indifference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. I plied him with questions about the terrible village, and received extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been in existence from time immemorial--whence I concluded that it was at least a century old--and during that time no one had ever been known to escape from it. [I had to control myself here with both hands, lest the blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving round the crater.] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizing this point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would induce him to tell me who the mysterious “They” were.
“It is so ordered,” he would reply, “and I do not yet know any one who has disobeyed the orders.”
“Only wait till my servants find that I am missing,” I retorted, “and I promise you that this place shall be cleared off the face of the earth, and I'll give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend.”
“Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place; and, besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of course, but none the less you are dead and buried.”
At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped down from the land side into the amphitheatre, and the inhabitants fought for them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death coming on he retreated to his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the hole and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay.
The phrase “thrown on to the sand” caught my attention, and I asked Gunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a pestilence.
“That,” said he, with another of his wheezy chuckles, “you may see for yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations.”
Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continued the conversation:--“And how do you live here from day to day? What do you do?” The question elicited exactly the same answer as before coupled with the information that “this place is like your European heaven; there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.”
Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself admitted, had he only changed his religion “like a wise man,” might have avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long as I was with him I fancy he was happy.
Here was a Sahib, a representative of the dominant race, helpless as a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there was no escape “of no kind whatever,” and that I should stay here till I died and was “thrown on to the sand.” If it were possible to forejudge the conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer; all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the overpowering nausea of the Channel passage--only my agony was of the spirit and infinitely more terrible.
As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to appear in full strength to catch the rays of the afternoon sun, which were now sloping in at the mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four o'clock, as far as I could judge Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair for a moment, emerging with a live crow in his hands. The wretched bird was in a most draggled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no way afraid of its master, Advancing cautiously to the river front, Gunga Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch of sand directly in the line of the boat's fire. The occupants of the boat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous turns of the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with outstretched wings. As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air with its claws. In a few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a few hundred yards away, where they were discussing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows flew over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, to attack the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock, motioned to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless precaution. In a moment, and before I could see how it happened, a wild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, was entangled in the latter's claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, and pegged down beside its companion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed, overpowered the rest of the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I had time to withdraw to the tussock, two more captives were struggling in the upturned claws of the decoys. So the chase--if I can give it so dignified a name--continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows. Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further operations another day. I was a good deal impressed by this, to me, novel method of securing food, and complimented Gunga Dass on his skill.
“It is nothing to do,” said he. “Tomorrow you must do it for me. You are stronger than I am.”
This calm assumption of superiority Upset me not a little, and I answered peremptorily;--“Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I have given you money for?”
“Very well,” was the unmoved reply. “Perhaps not tomorrow, nor the day after, nor subsequently; but in the end, and for many years, you will catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you have crows to catch and eat.”
I could have cheerfully strangled him for this; but judged it best under the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking my God that I had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike, seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were old men, bent and worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all appearance as the Fates themselves. They sat together in knots and talked--God only knows what they found to discuss--in low equable tones, curiously in contrast to the strident babble with which natives are accustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or woman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the steep slope until, baffled and bleeding, he fell back on the platform incapable of moving a limb. The others would never even raise their eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their fellows' attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four such outbursts in the course of the evening.
Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and while we were dining--I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but it was painful enough at the time-propounded the terms on which he would consent to “do” for me. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at the rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one days, or about seven weeks; that is to say, he would be willing to cater for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after myself. For a further consideration--videlicet my boots--he would be willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare.
“Very well, Gunga Dass,” I replied; “to the first terms I cheerfully agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as you sit here and taking everything that you have” (I thought of the two invaluable crows at the time), “I flatly refuse to give you my boots and shall take whichever den I please.”
The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had succeeded. Gunga Dass changed his tone immediately, and disavowed all intention of asking for my boots. At the time it did not strike me as at all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years' standing in the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world, it seemed, for centuries. I was as certain then as I am now of my own existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that of the strongest; that the living dead men had thrown behind them every canon of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to depend for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the ill-fated Mignonette are the only men who would understand my frame of mind. “At present,” I argued to myself, “I am strong and a match for six of these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for my own sake, keep both health and strength until the hour of my release comes--if it ever does.”
Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and drank as much as I could, and made Gunga Dass understand that I intended to be his master, and that the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with the only punishment I had it in my power to inflict--sudden and violent death. Shortly after this I went to bed.
That is to say, Gunga Dass gave me a double armful of dried bents which I thrust down the mouth of the lair to the right of his, and followed myself, feet foremost; the hole running about nine feet into the sand with a slight downward inclination, and being neatly shored with timbers. From my den, which faced the river-front, I was able to watch the waters of the Sutlej flowing past under the light of a young moon and compose myself to sleep as best I might.
The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by the contact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled abominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited frame of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire amphitheatre was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs.
Personally I am not of an imaginative temperament,--very few Engineers are,--but on that occasion I was as completely prostrated with nervous terror as any woman. After half an hour or so, however, I was able once more to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sand walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of this some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, in the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. The place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergo any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creeping stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not there. My freedom lay before me in the next few steps!
By walking out to the first shallow pool that lay at the foot of the projecting left horn of the horseshoe, I could wade across, turn the flank of the crater, and make my way inland. Without a moment's hesitation I marched briskly past the tussocks where Gunga Dass had snared the crows, and out in the direction of the smooth white sand beyond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass showed me how utterly futile was any hope of escape; for, as I put my foot down, I felt an indescribable drawing, sucking motion of the sand below. Another moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with devilish delight at my disappointment. I struggled clear, sweating with terror and exertion, back to the tussocks behind me and fell on my face.
My only means of escape from the semicircle was protected with a quicksand!
How long I lay I have not the faintest idea; but I was roused at last by the malevolent chuckle of Gunga Dass at my ear. “I would advise you, Protector of the Poor” (the ruffian was speaking English) “to return to your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat returns, you will most certainly be rifled at.” He stood over me in the dim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressing my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to the quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below the burrows.
Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke, I asked--“Gunga Dass, what is the good of the boat if I can't get out anyhow?” I recollect that even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore.
Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer:--“They have the boat only in daytime. It is for the reason that there is a way. I hope we shall have the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough.”
I staggered, numbed and helpless, toward the fetid burrow allotted to me, and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing scream--the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who have once heard that will never forget the sound. I found some little difficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I saw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was better than crow, and “greatest good of greatest number is political maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a fair share of the beast. If you like, we will pass a vote of thanks. Shall I propose?”
Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Republic of wild beasts penned at the bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted no protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the hideous sight in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, Pornic's body was divided, in some unclear way or other; the men and women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their normal meal. Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangle him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became insupportable, and I bade him say something.
“You will live here till you die like the other Feringhi,” he said, coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing.
“What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at once, and don't stop to tell me a lie.”
“He is over there,” answered Gunga Dass, pointing to a burrow-mouth about four doors ta the left of my own. “You can see for yourself. He died in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and as all these men and women and the one child will also die.”
“For pity's sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he come, and when did he die?”
This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and replied:--“I will not--unless you give me something first.”
Then I recollected where I was, and struck the man between the eyes, partially stunning him. He stepped down from the platform at once, and, cringing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led me round to the burrow which he had indicated.
“I know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness that I do not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from attempting. He was shot here.” Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean stomach and bowed to the earth.
“Well, and what then? Go on!”
“And then--and then, Your Honor, we carried him in to his house and gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his house and gave up the ghost.”
“In how long? In how long?”
“About half an hour, after he received his wound. I call Vishnu to witness,” yelled the wretched man, “that I did everything for him. Everything which was possible, that I did!”
He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had my doubts about Gunga Dass's benevolence, and kicked him off as he lay protesting.
“I believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a minute or two. How long was the Sahib here?”
“Nearly a year and a half. I think he must have gone mad. But hear me swear, Protector of the Poor! Won't Your Honor hear me swear that I never touched an article that belonged to him? What is Your Worship going to do?”
I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had hauled him on to the platform opposite the deserted burrow. As I did so I thought of my wretched fellow-prisoner's unspeakable misery among all these horrors for eighteen months, and the final agony of dying like a rat in a hole, with a bullet-wound in the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going to kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the population, in the plethora that follows a full flesh meal, watched us without stirring.
“Go inside, Gunga Dass,” said I, “and fetch it out.”
I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. Gunga Dass nearly rolled off the platform and howled aloud.
“But I am Brahmin, Sahib--a high-caste Brahmin. By your soul, by your father's soul, do not make me do this thing!”
“Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my soul and my father's soul, in you go!” I said, and, seizing him by the shoulders, I crammed his head into the mouth of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down, covered my face with my hands.
At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft thud--and I uncovered my eyes.
The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a yellow-brown mummy. I told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it.
The body--clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn, with leather pads on the shoulders--was that of a man between thirty and forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of the left hand was a ring--a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a monogram that might have been either “B.K.” or “B.L.” On the third finger of the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and, covering the face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the unfortunate man:
1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge; much worn and blackened; bound with string at the crew.
2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken.
3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel name-plate, marked with monogram “B.K.”
4. Envelope, postmark Undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, addressed to “Miss Mon-” (rest illegible) -“ham-'nt.”
5. Imitation crocodile-skin notebook with pencil. First forty-five pages blank; four and a half illegible; fifteen others filled with private memoranda relating chiefly to three persons--a Mrs. L. Singleton, abbreviated several times to “Lot Single,” “Mrs. S. May,” and “Garmison,” referred to in places as “Jerry” or “Jack.”
6. Handle of small-sized hunting-knife. Blade snapped short. Buck's horn, diamond cut, with swivel and ring on the butt; fragment of cotton cord attached.
It must not be supposed that I inventoried all these things on the spot as fully as I have here written them down. The notebook first attracted my attention, and I put it in my pocket with a view of studying it later on.
The rest of the articles I conveyed to my burrow for safety's sake, and there being a methodical man, I inventoried them. I then returned to the corpse and ordered Gunga Dass to help me to carry it out to the river-front. While we were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet. Gunga Dass had not seen it; and I fell to thinking that a man does not carry exploded cartridge-cases, especially “browns,” which will not bear loading twice, about with him when shooting. In other words, that cartridge-case had been fired inside the crater. Consequently there must be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my intention to push it out and let it be swallowed up--the only possible mode of burial that I could think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away.
Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quicksand. In doing so--it was lying face downward--I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat open, disclosing a hideous cavity in the back. I have already told you that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment's glance showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun--the gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the rifle-fire from the boat.
I pushed the corpse out hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in a few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way I turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and discolored slip of paper bad been inserted between the binding and the back, and dropped out as I opened the pages. This is what it contained:--“Four out from crow-clump: three left; nine out; two right; three back; two left; fourteen out; two left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right; six back; four right; seven back.” The paper had been burned and charred at the edges. What it meant I could not understand. I sat down on the dried bents turning it over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dass standing immediately behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands.
“Have you got it?” he panted. “Will you not let me look at it also? I swear that I will return it.”
“Got what? Return what?” asked.
“That which you have in your hands. It will help us both.” He stretched out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness.
“I could never find it,” he continued. “He had secreted it about his person. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtain it.”
Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about the rifle-bullet. I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted by consorting with the Dead who are alive.
“What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give you?”
“The piece of paper in the notebook. It will help us both. Oh, you fool! You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape!”
His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before me. I own I was moved at the chance of my getting away.
“Don't skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of paper will help us? What does it mean?”
“Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I pray you to read it aloud.”
I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and drew an irregular line in the sand with his fingers.
“See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have those barrels. Four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows straight out; do you follow me? Then three left--Ah! how well I remember when that man worked it out night after night Then nine out, and so on. Out is always straight before you across the quicksand. He told me so before I killed him.”
“But if you knew all this why didn't you get out before?”
“I did not know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat had gone away, and he could get out near the quicksand safely. Then he said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him. Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here should escape. Only I, and I am a Brahmin.”
The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass's caste back to him. He stood up, walked about and gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed to make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage across the quicksand; how he had declared it to be simplicity itself up to within about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank of the left horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not completed when Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun.
In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were to make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting throughout the afternoon.
About ten o'clock, as far as I could judge, when the Moon had just risen above the lip of the crater, Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow to bring out the gun-barrels whereby to measure our path. All the other wretched inhabitants had retired to their lairs long ago. The guardian boat drifted downstream some hours before, and we were utterly alone by the crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carrying the gun-barrels, let slip the piece of paper which was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily to recover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that the diabolical Brahmin was aiming a violent blow at the back of my head with the gun-barrels. It was too late to turn round. I must have received the blow somewhere on the nape of my neck. A hundred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and I fell forwards senseless at the edge of, the quicksand.
When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I was sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had disappeared and my mouth was full of blood. I lay down again and prayed that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I had before mentioned, laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland toward the walls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in a whisper--“Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!” exactly as my bearer used to call me in the morning I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the amphitheatre--the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy, who attended to my collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro for the while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted together, with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge something forward; was conscious that I was being dragged, face downward, up the steep sand slope, and the next instant found myself choked and half fainting on the sand hills overlooking the crater. Dunnoo, with his face ashy grey in the moonlight, implored me not to stay but to get back to my tent at once.
It seems that he had tracked Pornic's footprints fourteen miles across the sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly refused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the hideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies and a couple of punkah-ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I have described.
To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my personal servant on a gold mohur a month--a sum which I still think far too little for the services he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that devilish spot again, or to reveal its whereabouts more clearly than I have done. Of Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some one may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I have given above, the corpse of the man in the olive-green hunting-suit.
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