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 " ' T have seen. lam clay in the lohite man's hands. What does the presence dof " 
 
 Thk REcnuDESPEKCE OF Imray— Vol. iii., p. 43. 
 
SELECTED WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING 
 
 MINE OWN PEOPLE 
 
 THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 AMERICAN NOTES 
 UNDER THE DEODARS 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES 
 BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS 
 AND OTHER VERSES 
 
 Volume Three 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 PETER FENELON COLLIER & SON 
 
 MCM 
 
3 
 
 V.3 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 VOLUME THREE 
 
 MINE OWN PEOPLE 
 
 Rudyard Kjpling, by A. Lang „ . , S 
 
 Introduction, by Henry James 10 
 
 Bimi , 21 
 
 Namgay Doola 27 
 
 The Recrudescence of Lnray 38 
 
 Moti Guj — Mutineer , . . . » 51 
 
 The Mutiny of the Mavericks ts8 
 
 At the End of the Passage 78 
 
 The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney 100 
 
 The Courting of Dinah Shadd , . , , . . 126 
 
 The Man Who Was .• 151 
 
 A Conference of the Powers , 167 
 
 On Greenhow Hill. . 182 
 
 Without Benefit of Clergy 201 
 
 AMERICAN NOTES 
 
 Rudyard Kipling at the Golden Gate 224 
 
 American Politics Turned Inside Out , . . . . 241 
 
 Rudj^ard Kipling's American Catches 254 
 
 Rudyard Kipling astride the Clouds 204 
 
 * Poor Chicago Kipling-struck , 275 
 
 Uncle Sam's Army under Kipling Giuis o 286 
 
 Kipling's View of Our Defenseless Coasts 292 
 
 Kipling brought to Book 303 
 
 Andrew Lang on Kipling 305 
 
 o UNDER THE DEODARS AND OTHER TALES 
 
 > The Education of Otis Yeere , 310 
 
 —At the Pit's Mouth 333 
 
 •• A Wayside Comedy » , . 340 
 
 S The Hill of Illusion 352 
 
 «^ Second-rate Woman. . , 368 
 
 > 3 
 
^oi)tei)ts 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES, BARRACK-ROOM 
 BALLADS, AND OTHER VERSES 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES 
 
 Prelude 384 
 
 General Summary 385 
 
 Army Headquarters 386 
 
 Study of an Elevation, in In- 
 dian Ink 387 
 
 A Legend of the Foreign Office 388 
 
 The Story of Uriah 389 
 
 The Post that Fitted 390 
 
 Public Waste 392 
 
 Delilah , 393 
 
 What Happened 395 
 
 Pink Dominoes 396 
 
 The Man who could Write 398 
 
 Municipal 399 
 
 A Code of Morals 401 
 
 The Jjast Department. 403 
 
 BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS 
 
 Danny Deever 404 
 
 "Tommy" 405 
 
 "Fuzzy Wuzzy" 407 
 
 Oonts! 409 
 
 Loot 410 
 
 Soldier, Soldier 413 
 
 The Sons of the Widow 414 
 
 Troopin' 416 
 
 Gunga Din 417 
 
 Mandalay 420 
 
 The Young British Soldier 422 
 
 Screw-Guns 424 
 
 Belts 426 
 
 OTHER VERSES 
 
 To the Unknown Goddess. . . 
 The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal'vin 429 
 
 La Nuit Blanche 430 
 
 My Rival 433 
 
 The Lovers' Litany 434 
 
 A Ballad of Burial 436 
 
 Divided Destinies 437 
 
 The Masque of Plenty 438 
 
 The Mare's Nest 443 
 
 Possibilities 444 
 
 Christmas in India 446 
 
 Pagett, M.P, 447 
 
 The Song of the Women 449 
 
 A Ballade of Jakko Hill 450 
 
 The Plea of the Simla Danc- 
 ers 451 
 
 The Ballad of Fisher's Board- 
 
 ing-House 453 
 
 "As the Bell Clinks" 456 
 
 An Old Song 458 
 
 Certain Maxims of Hafiz. ..... 460 
 
 The Grave of the Hundred 
 
 Head 468 
 
 The Moon of Other DaySc 466 
 
 The Overland Mail 467 
 
 What the People said 468 
 
 The Undertaker's Horse 470 
 
 The Fall of Jock Gillespie 471 
 
 Arithmetic on the Frontier. . . 473 
 
 One Viceroy Resigns 474 
 
 The Betrothed 479 
 
 A Tale of Two Cities 482 
 
 Giffen's Debt 484 
 
 In Springtime 486 
 
 Two Months 487 
 
 The Galley-Slave 488 
 
 L'Envoi..' 491 
 
 The Conundrum of the Work- 
 shops 492 
 
 The Explanation 494 
 
 The Gift of the Sea 494 
 
 Evarra and his Gods. ..... c .. . 49? 
 
Some years ago, among the books which came in bat- 
 talions to a reviewer, I found an odd little volume of verses, 
 bound like an official report. Where is that volume now? It 
 has gone the way of first editions ; a thing to regret, as it 
 was an example of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's ''Departmental 
 Ditties." They were light pieces of rhyme on Anglo-Indian 
 life and society ; they were lively, sad, cynical, and very un- 
 like most poetry, Mr. Kipling's name was new to me, and, 
 much as I had admired his verses, I heard no more of him 
 till I received "The Story of the Gadsbys," "Studies in Black 
 and White," and "Under the Deodars." They were aU un- 
 pretending Httle tomes, clad in gray paper, and published in 
 India. Then, on reading them, one saw that a new star 
 in Hterature had swum into one's ken. Here was extraor- 
 dinary brightness, brevity, observation, humor; unusual, 
 perhaps unexampled, knowledge of life in India—life of the 
 people, of their white rulers, of men and women, and of the 
 private soldiers. Mr. Kiphng had the unusual art of telling 
 ^ a short story ; he cut it down almost to anecdote in his hatred 
 of the prolix and the superfluous. This is always a rare art 
 in English ; in French it is more common, and is made far 
 more welcome. 
 
 All this time the European Enghsh knew little or noth- 
 ing of Mr. KipUng. He was praised in reviews ; his books 
 were the treasures of a few people who Hke to find a fresh 
 thing that is good. Then, in autumn, 1889, Mr. Kiphng 
 came to England, paying a long visit to America on his 
 way. The few facts that need be told about his past career 
 
 (5) 
 
6 F^udyard l^iplii?^ 
 
 were soon known. Mr. Kipling was born at Bombay, on 
 December 30, 1865. He is, therefore, still a very young 
 man ; at his age Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson had only shown 
 his genius to the world in a few admirable magazine articles. 
 Born in India, the son of the head of the School of Art at 
 Lahore, Mr. Kipling was educated at "Westward Ho," the 
 watering-place and home of the Golfes, named after Canon 
 Kingsley's novel. He returned to India early, and how early 
 he began to write articles, tales, and verses in the Indian 
 newspapers I do not know. His little romances first ap- 
 peared in the journals of our Oriental dependency, and were 
 part of his regular newspaper work. The largest collections, 
 "Plain Tales from the Hills," in the dignity of a cloth cover, 
 can occasionally be purchased from a bookseller of unusual 
 intelligence. But, as the books came out in India, it has 
 hitherto been difficult to get them; they have been "very 
 rare." Doubtless these difficulties are being removed, and 
 perhaps all Mr. Kipling's works will become as accessible 
 as those of other British authors. It is not my purpose to 
 write a biography of Mr, Kipling, nor to describe him "at 
 home." He is fond of horses and of fishing; he is not fond 
 of psychology nor of M. Paul Bourget. His political opin- 
 ions are of the kind which were English in old days before 
 Mr. Gladstone, and I am not aware that he has ever at- 
 tempted to overthrow the Christian religion, nor to supply 
 his own mixture, at reasonable charges, as a substitute. He 
 is thus, though young and popular, a little belated in our 
 intelligent and advanced generation. 
 
 Enough, or more than enough, of personal description. 
 As to his writings, Mr. Kipling appears to myself to possess 
 a very original genius, nor is this an original opinion. His 
 "Plain Tales" have been called "The best book ever written 
 on India," by an authority of very great experience in life, 
 in government, and in literature. For the first time" he has 
 shown English readers what India is like ; how full of in- 
 finitely various life and romance. He seems to have seen 
 and known, and been able to make real and vivid, the exist- 
 
F^udyard l^iplip<$ 7 
 
 ence of all classes in that continent. For my own part, I 
 least like his tales about official life, about flirtations and 
 jobs, "appointments" of all kinds at Simla. The descrip- 
 tions may be very true; they are not very pleasing. His 
 married flirts, his frivolous ladies, his people who '*play 
 tennis with the Seventh Commandment," are melancholy, 
 and no doubt admonitory spectacles. Vice, in them, has 
 certainly not freed itself from what is coarse and common. 
 Vice seldom does, and it is not Mr. Kipling's fault, but the 
 fault of his characters, that one turns from their feverish 
 society, their "smartness," and their slang. There are 
 touching passages in "The Story of the Gadsbys," but it 
 has the defect of reminding one of "Gyp," an author whom 
 Mr. Kipling may never have read, for all that I know. To 
 my own taste — after all, it is a question of taste — his tales 
 of native life in many ranks, castes, religions, and nations 
 are his best. There is a wonderful horror, mixed with vul- 
 gar magic, in the story called "The House of Suddhoo." 
 The confessions of an opium-smoker, in ' ' The Gate of a 
 Hundred Sorrows," defeat De Quincey on his own ground. 
 "On the City Wall" is a romance that is real, and an amaz- 
 ing glimpse into the true mind of Orientals, hidden from us 
 often by a veneer of Western culture. - "The Strange Ride 
 of Morrowbie Jukes," who fell into a village of thieves, who 
 should be dead but yet live, is a nightmare more perfect 
 and terrible, I think, than anything of Edgar Poe's. There 
 is a scene of passion at a midnight picnic, and in a nocturnal 
 dust-storm, which is purely magical, a revelation of things 
 possible. The story of a little Indian child is a mere sketch, 
 but it brings tears even into critical eyes. There is an as- 
 tonishing variety in Mr. Kipling's powers. In the "Phan- 
 tom 'Rickshaw," his tale of the dead wife's appointment 
 with her husband moves one like a vivid dream of the be- 
 loved dead. Then we have a handsome piece of witchery in 
 the "Bisara of Pooree," where the impossible becomes real 
 to fancy. From these tales it is a long step to the military 
 humors of "Soldiers Three," the magnificent, daring, YSbin^ 
 
8 F^adyard \{\pliT)<^ 
 
 and generous Irish Hercules, Mulvaney; the Httle Cockney 
 who shoots so well and has a madness of homesickness ; Orth- 
 eris, and the large Yorkshireman who is their comrade. 
 "How They Took the Town of Lungtungpen" and *'With 
 the Rear Guard" are tales of as good fighting as ever was 
 transcribed. Every soldier should inspire himself with their 
 gay daring and masterful adventure. The legend of the 
 wanderer, with the head of his crushed and dead comrade in 
 his wallet, proves that Mr. Kipling could escel in the wildest 
 myths of adventure, if he cared. He has comedy, tragedy, 
 farce in his repertory, all in small parcels. He has seen a 
 perfect Odyssey of strange experience, has known or has 
 divined the most unheard-of dealings of men with men, and 
 everywhere has found them very human. The last story in 
 *' Plain Tales" promises, not a conclusion, but a beginning, 
 to the legend of an English scholar sunk in drink, in Islam, 
 and the dirt of a bazaar. All this would be entirely new, 
 and we may trust that Mr. Kipling will give us a longer nar- 
 rative on the subject. Whether he can write a long novel, 
 or a novel, rather, of the usual proportions, remains to be 
 seen. Very few men have excelled in both forms of the art 
 fictitious, and he certainly excels in one. At a passage, a 
 picture, an incident, a character, he is already, perhaps, all 
 but unrivaled among his contemporaries. Can he weave 
 many of these into a consistent fable? This remains to be 
 tried. 
 
 I do not anticipate for Mr. Kipling a very popular popu- 
 larity. He does not compete with Miss Braddon or Mr. E. 
 P. Roe. His favorite subjects are too remote and unfamiliar 
 for a world that likes to be amused with matters near home 
 and passions that do not stray far from the drawing-room or 
 the parlor. In style, as has been said, he has brevity, bril- 
 liance, selection ; he is always at the center of the interest ; 
 he wastes no words, he knows not padding. He can under- 
 stand passion, and makes us understand it. He has sym- 
 pathies unusually wide, and can find the rare strange thing 
 in the midst of the commonplace. He has energy, spirit^ 
 
I^udyard l^iplip^ 9 
 
 vision. Refinement he has not in an equal measure ; per- 
 haps he is too abrupt, too easily taken by a piece of slang, 
 and one or two little mannerisms become provoking. It does 
 not seem, as yet, that he very well understands, or can write 
 very well about, ordinary English life. But he has so much 
 to say that he might well afford to leave the ordinary to 
 other writers. He has the alacrity of the French intellect, 
 and often displays its literary moderation and reserve. One 
 may overestimate what is so new, what is so undeniably rich 
 in many promises. This is a natural tendency in the critic. 
 To myself Mr. Kipling seems one of two, three, or four young 
 men, and he is far the youngest, who flash out genius from 
 some unexpected place, who are not academic, nor children 
 of the old literature of the world, but of their own works. 
 "What seems cynical, flighty, too brusque, and too familiar 
 in him should mellow with years. I do not beheve that 
 Europe is the place for him ; there are three other continents 
 where I can imagine that his genius would find a more ex- 
 hilarating air and more congenial materials. He is an exotic 
 romancer. His Muse needs the sun, the tramp of horses, the 
 clash of swoids, the jingling of bridle-reins; vast levels of 
 sand, thick forests, wide-gleaming rivers, the temples of 
 strange gods. This, at least, is a personal theory, which 
 may readily be contradicted by experience. But I trust that 
 it may not be contradicted, and that Mr. Kipling's youth and 
 adventurous spirit may bring in tales and sketches and bal- 
 lads from many shores not familiar, from many a home of 
 Pathans, Kaffirs, Pawnees, from all natural men. He is not 
 in tune with our modern civilization, whereof ma^ny a heart 
 is sick; he is more at home in an Afghan pass than in the 
 Strand. A. Lang, 
 
It would b© difficult to answer the general question 
 whether the books of the world grow, as they multiply, 
 as much better as one might suppose they ought, with such 
 a lesson of wasteful experiment spread perpetually behind 
 them. There is no doubt, however, that in one direction w© 
 profit largely by this education : whether or not we have be- 
 come wiser to fashion, we have certainly become keener to 
 enjoy. We have acquired the sense of a particular quality 
 which is precious beyond all others — so precious as to make 
 us wonder where, at such a rate, our posterity will look for 
 it, and how they will pay for it. After tasting many essences 
 we find freshness the sweetest of all. We yearn for it, we 
 watch for it and lie in wait for it, and when we catch it on 
 the wing (it flits by so fast) we celebrate our capture with 
 extravagance. We feel that after so much has come and 
 gone it is more and more of a feat and a tour de force to be 
 fresh. The tormenting part of the phenomenon is that, in 
 any particular key, it can happen but once — by a sad failure 
 of the law that inculcates the repetition of goodness. It is 
 terribly a matter of accident ; emulation and imitation have 
 a fatal eSect upon it. It is easy to see, therefore, what im- 
 portance the epicure may attach to the brief moment of its 
 bloom. While that lasts we all are epicures. 
 
 This helps to explain, I think, the unmistakable intensity 
 of the general relish for Mr. Rudyard Kipling. His bloom 
 lasts, from month to month, almost surprisingly — by which 
 I mean that he has not worn out even by active exercise the 
 particular property that made us all, more than a year ago, 
 (10) 
 
iptrodaetiop 11 
 
 so precipitately drop everything else to attend to him. He 
 has many others which he will doubtless always keep ; but a 
 part of the potency attaching to his freshness, what makes 
 it as exciting as a drawing of lots, is our instinctive convic- 
 tion that he cannot, in the nature of things, keep that; so 
 that our enjoyment of him, so long as the miracle is still 
 wrought, has both the charm of confidence and the charm of 
 suspense. And then there is the further charm, with Mr, 
 Kipling, that this same freshness is such a very strange 
 affair of its kind — so mixed and various and cynical, and, in 
 certain lights, so contradictory of itself. The extreme re- 
 centness of his inspiration is as enviable as the tale is start- 
 ling that his productions tell of his being at home, domesti- 
 cated and initiated, in this wicked and weary world. At 
 times he strikes us as shockingly precocious, at others as 
 serenely wise. On the whole, he presents himself as a 
 strangely clever youth who has stolen the formidable mask 
 of maturity and rushes about, making people jump with the 
 deep sounds, the sportive exaggerations of tone, that issue 
 from its painted lips. He has this mark of a real vocation, 
 that different spectators may like him— must like him, I 
 should almost say — for different things; and this refinement 
 of attraction, that to those who reflect even upon their pleas- 
 ures he has as much to say as to those who never reflect upon 
 anything. Indeed there is a certain amount of room for sur- 
 prise in the fact that, being so much the sort of figure that 
 the hardened critic likes to meet, he should also be the sort 
 of figure that inspires the multitude with confidence — for a 
 complicated air is, in general, the last thing that does this. 
 
 By the critic who likes to meet such a bristling advent- 
 urer as Mr. Kipling I mean, of course, the critic for whom 
 the happy accident of character, whatever form it may take, 
 is more of a bribe to interest than the promise of some char- 
 acter cherished in theory — the appearance of justifying some 
 foregone conclusion as to what a writer or a book "ought," 
 in the Ruskinian sense, to be ; the critic, in a word, who has, 
 a priori, no rule for a literary production but that it shall 
 
12 Ii)troduetioi? 
 
 have genuine life Such a critic (he gets much more out of 
 his opportunities, I think, than the other sort) likes a writer 
 exactly in proportion as he is a challenge, an appeal to inter- 
 pretation, intelligence, ingenuity, to what is elastic in the 
 critical mind — in proportion indeed as he may be a negation 
 of things familiar and taken for granted. He feels in this 
 case how much more play and sensation there is for himself. 
 
 Mr. Kipling, then, has the character that furnishes plenty 
 of play and of Yicarious experience — that makes any percep- 
 tive reader foresee a rare luxury. He has the great merit 
 of being a compact and convenient illustration of the surest 
 source of interest in any painter of life — ^that of having an 
 identity as marked as a window-frame. He is one of the 
 illustrations, taken near at hand, that help to clear up the 
 vexed question in the novel or the tale, of kinds, camps, 
 schools, distinctions, the right way and the wrong way; so 
 very positively does he contribute to the showing that there 
 are just as many kinds, as many ways, as many forms and 
 degrees of the *' right," as there are personal points in view. 
 It is the blessing of the art he practices that it is made up of 
 experience conditioned, infinitely, in this personal way — the 
 sum of the f eehng of life as reproduced by innumerable nat- 
 ures; natures that feel through all their differences, testify 
 through their diversities. These differences, which make 
 the identity, are of the individual ; they form the channel by 
 which life flows through him, and how much he is able to 
 give us of life — ^in other words, how much he appeals to us — 
 depends on whether they form it solidly. 
 
 This hardness of the conduit, cemented with a rare assur- 
 ance, is perhaps the most striking idiosyncrasy of Mr. Kip- 
 ling; and what makes it more remarkable is that incident of 
 his extreme youth which, if we talk about him at all, we 
 cannot affect to ignore. I cannot pretend to give a biography 
 or a chronology of the author of ^'Soldiers Three,"' but I 
 cannot overlook the general, the importunate fact that, con- 
 fidently as he has caught the trick and habit of this sophisti- 
 cated world, he has not been long of it. His extreme youth 
 
fptroduGtroi? 13 
 
 is indeed what I may call his window-bar — ^the support on 
 which he somewhat rowdily leans while he looks down at the 
 human scene with his pipe in his teeth; just as his other con- 
 ditions (to mention only some of them), are his prodigious 
 facility, which is only less remarkable than his stiff selection; 
 his unabashed temperament, his flexible talent, his smoking- 
 room manner, his familiar friendship with India — established 
 so rapidly, and so completely under his control ; his delight 
 in battle, his *^ cheek" about women — and indeed about men 
 and about everything; his determination not to be duped, his 
 *' imperial" fiber, his love of the inside view, the private sol* 
 dier and the primitive man. I must add further to this list 
 of attractions the remarkable way in which he makes us 
 aware that he has been put up to the whole thing directly by 
 life (miraculously, in his teens), and not by the communica- 
 tions of others. These elements, and many more, constitute 
 a singularly robust little literary character (our use of the 
 diminutive is altogether a note of endearment and enjoyment) 
 which, if it has the rattle of high spirits and is in no degre© 
 apologetic or shrinking, yet offers a very hberai pledge in the 
 way of good faith and immediate performance. Mr. Kip- 
 ling's performance comes off before the more circumspect 
 have time to decide whether they like him or not, and if yon 
 have seen it once you will be sure to return to the show. He 
 makes us prick up our ears to the good news that in the 
 smoking-room too there may be artists ; and indeed to an 
 intimation still more refined — that the latest development of 
 the modern also may be, most successfully, for the canny 
 artist to put his victim off his guard by imitating the amateur 
 (superficially, of course) to the life. 
 
 These, then, are some of the reasons why Mr. Kipling 
 may be dear to the analyst as well as, M, Renan says, to the 
 simple. The simple may like him because he is wonderful 
 about India, and India has not been **done"; while there is 
 plenty left for the morbid reader in the surprises of his skill 
 and the fioriture of his form, which are so oddly independent 
 of any distinctively literary note in him, any bookish associa- 
 
14 Iptroduetfoi) 
 
 tion. It is as one of the morbid that the writer of these 
 remarks (which doubtless only too shamefully betray his 
 character) exposes himseK as most consentingly under the 
 spell. The freshness arising from a subject that — by a good 
 fortune I do not mean to underestimate — has never been 
 *'done," is after all less of an affair to build upon than the 
 freshness residing in the temper of the artist. Happy indeed 
 is Mr. Kipling, who can command so much of both kinds. 
 It is still as one of the morbid, no doubt — that is, as one of 
 those who are capable of sitting up all night for a new im- 
 pression of talent, of scouring the trodden field for one little 
 spot of green — that I find our young author quite most curious 
 in his air, and not only in his air, but in his evidently very 
 real sense, of knowing his way about life. Curious in the 
 highest degree and well worth attention is such an idiosyncrasy 
 as this in a young Anglo-Saxon. We meet it with famihar 
 frequency in the budding talents of France, and it startles 
 and haunts us for an hour. After an hour, however, the 
 mystery is apt to fade, for we find that the wondrous initia- 
 tion is not in the least general, is only exceedingly special, 
 and is, even with this limitation, very often rather conven- 
 tional. In a word, it is with the ladies that the young 
 Frenchman takes his ease, and more particularly with the 
 ladies selected expressly to make this attitude convincing. 
 When they have let him off, the dimnesses too often encom- 
 pass him. But for Mr. Kiphng there are no dimnesses any- 
 where, and if the ladies are indeed violently distinct they are 
 not only strong notes in a universal loudness. This loudness 
 fills the ears of Mr. Kipling's admirers (it lacks sweetness, 
 no doubt, for those who are not of the number), and there is 
 really only one strain that is absent from it — the voice, as it 
 were, of the civilized man ; in whom I of course also include 
 the civilized woman. But this is an element that for the 
 present one does not miss — every other note is so articulate 
 and direct. 
 
 It is a part of the satisfaction the author gives us that he 
 can make us speculate as to whether he will be able to com- 
 
iQtroduetiop 15 
 
 plete his picture altogether (this is as far as we presume to go 
 in meddling with the question of his future) without bringing 
 in the complicated soul. On the day he does so, if he handles 
 it with anything like the cleverness he has already shown, 
 the expectation of his friends will take a great bound. Mean- 
 while, at any rate, we have Muivaney, and Mulvaney is 
 after all tolerably comphcated. He is only a six-foot saturated 
 Irish private, but he is a considerable pledge of more to come. 
 Hasn't he, for that matter, the tongue of a hoarse siren, and 
 hasn't he also mysteries and infinitudes almost Carlylese? 
 Since I am speaking of him I may as well say that, as an 
 evocation, he has probably led captive those of Mr. KipKng's 
 readers who have most given up resistance. He is a piece of 
 portraiture of the largest, vividest kind, growing and grow- 
 ing on the painter's hands without ever outgrowing them. 
 I can't help regarding him, in a certain sense, as Mr. Kip- 
 ling's tutelary deity — a landmark in the direction in which it 
 is open to him to look furthest. If the author will only go as 
 far in this direction as Mulvaney is capable of taking him 
 (and the inimitable Irishman is, like Voltaire's Habakkuk, 
 capable de tout), he may still discover a treasure and find a 
 reward for the services he has rendered the winner of Dinah 
 Shadd. I hasten to add that the truly appreciative reader 
 should surely have no quarrel with the primitive element in 
 Mr. Kipling's subject-matter, or with what, for want of a 
 better name, I may call his love of low life. "What is that 
 but essentially a part of his freshness? And for what part of 
 his freshness are we exactly more thankful than for just this 
 smart jostle that he gives the old stupid superstition that the 
 amiability of a story-teUer is the amiability of the people he 
 represents — that their vulgarity, or depravity, or gentility, or 
 fatuity are tantamount to the same qualities in the painter 
 itself? A blow from which, apparently, it will not easily 
 recover is dealt this infantine philosophy by Mr. Howells 
 when, with the most distinguished dexterity and all the de- 
 jtachment of a master, he handles some of the clumsiest, 
 [crudest, most human things in life — answering surely thereby 
 
16 Ii>trodiietioi> 
 
 tlie play-goers in the sixpenny gallery who howl at the repre- 
 sentative of the villain when he conies before the curtain. 
 
 Nothing is more refreshing than this active, disinterested 
 sense of the real; it is doubtless the quality for the want of 
 more of which our English and American fiction has turned 
 so wofully stale. We are ridden by the old conventionalities 
 of type and small proprieties of observance — by the foolish 
 baby-formula (to put it sketchily) of the picture and the sub- 
 ject. Mr. Kipling has all the air of being disposed to lift the 
 whole business off the nursery carpet, and of being perhaps 
 even more able than he is disposed. One must hasten of 
 course to parenthesize that there is not, intrinsically, a bit 
 more luminosity in treating of low life and of primitive man 
 than of those whom civilization has kneaded to a finer paste : 
 the only luminosity in either case is in the intelligence with 
 which the thing is done. But it so happens that, among 
 ourselves, the frank, capable outlook, when turned upon the 
 vulgar majority, the coarse, receding edges of the social per- 
 spective, borrows a charm from being new ; such a charm as, 
 for instance, repetition has already despoiled it of among the 
 French— the hapless French who pay the penalty as well as 
 enjoy the glow of living intellectually so much faster than 
 we. It is the most inexorable part of our fate that we grow 
 tired of everything, and of course in due time we may grow 
 tired even of what explorers shall come back to tell us about 
 the great grimy condition, or, with unprecedented items and 
 details, about the gray middle state which darkens into it. 
 But the explorers, bless them ! may have a long day before 
 that ; it is early to trouble about reactions, so that we must 
 give them the benefit of every presumption. We are thankful 
 for any boldness and any sharp curiosity, and that is why we 
 are thankful for Mr. Kipling's general spirit and for most of 
 his excursions. 
 
 Many of these, certainly, are into a region not to be- desig- 
 nated as superficially dim, though indeed the author always 
 reminds us that India is above all the land of mystery, A 
 large part of his high spirits, and of ours, comes doubtless 
 
ii)troduetroo 17 
 
 from the amiisement of such vivid, heterogeneous material, 
 from the irresistible magic of scorching suns, subject empires, 
 uncanny rehgions, uneasy garrisons and smothered-up women 
 — from heat and color and danger and dust, India is a 
 poii:entous image, and we are duly awed by the familiarities 
 it undergoes at Mr. Kipling's hand and by the fine impunity j 
 the sort of fortune that favors the brave, of his want of awe. 
 An abject humility is not his strong point, but he gives us 
 something instead of it— vividness and drollery, the vision 
 and the thrill of naany things, the misery and strangeness of 
 most, the personal sense of a hundred queer contacts and 
 risks. And then in the absence of respect he has plenty of 
 knowledge, and if knowledge should fail him he would have 
 plenty of invention. Moreover, if invention should ever fail 
 him, he would still have the lyric string and the patriotic 
 chord, on which he plays admirably ; so that it may be said 
 he is a man of resources. What he gives us, above all, is the 
 feeling of the English manner and the English blood in con- 
 ditions they have made at once so much and so little their 
 own; with manifestations grotesque enough in some of his 
 satiric sketches and deeply impressive in some of his anecdotes 
 of individual responsibility. 
 
 His Indian impressions divide themselves into three 
 groups, one of which, I think, very much outshines the 
 others. First to be mentioned are the tales of native life, 
 curious glimpses of custom and superstition, dusky matters 
 not beholden of the many, for which the author has a remark- 
 able flair. Then comes the social, the Anglo- Indian episodcj 
 the study of administrative and military types, and of the 
 wonderful rattling, riding ladies who, at Simla and more 
 desperate stations, look out for husbands and lovers; often, 
 it would seem, and husbands and lovers of others. The most 
 brilliant group is devoted wholly to the common soldier, and 
 of this series it appears to me that too much good is hardly to 
 be said. Here Mr. Kipling, with all his off-handedness, is a 
 master; for we are held not so much by the greater or less 
 oddity of the particular yam— sometimes it is scarcely a yam 
 
18 Ii)troduGtIoi> 
 
 at all, but something much less artificial — as by the robust 
 attitude of the narrator, who never arranges or glosses or 
 falsifies, but makes straight for the common and the char- 
 acteristic. I have mentioned the great esteem in which I 
 hold Mulvaney — surely a charming man and one qualified to 
 adorn a higher sphere. Mulvaney is a creation to be proud 
 of, and his two comrades stand as firm on their legs. In spite 
 of Mulvaney 's social possibilities, they are all three finished 
 brutes ; but it is precisely in the finish that we delight. What- 
 ever Mr. Kipling may relate about them forever will en- 
 counter readers equally fascinated and unable fully to justify 
 their faith. 
 
 Are not those literary pleasures' after all the most intense 
 which are the most perverse and whimsical, and even in- 
 defensible? There is a logic in them somewhere, but it often 
 lies below the plummet of criticism. The spell may be weak 
 in a writer who has every reasonable and regular claim, and 
 it may be irresistible in one who presents himself with a style 
 corresponding to a bad hat. A good hat is better than a bad 
 one, but a conjurer may wear either. Many a reader will 
 never be able to say what secret human force lays its hand 
 upon him when Private Ortheris, having sworn '* quietly into 
 the blue sky," goes mad with homesickness by the yellow 
 river and raves for the basest sights and sounds of London. 
 I can scarcely tell why I think ^'The Courting of Dinah 
 Shadd" a masterpiece (though, indeed, I can make a shrewd 
 guess at one of the reasons), nor would it be worth while 
 perhaps to attempt to defend the same pretension in regard 
 to "On Greenhow Hill" — much less to trouble the tolerant 
 reader of these remarks with a statement of how many more 
 performances in the nature of "The End of the Passage" 
 (quite admitting even that they might not represent Mr. 
 Kipling at his best) I am conscious of a latent relish for. 
 One might as well admit while one is about it that one has 
 wept profusely over "The Drums of the Fore and Aft," the 
 history of the "Dutch courage" of two dreadful dirty little 
 boys, who, in the face of Afghans scarcely more dreadfuls 
 
iptrodaetfoi) 19 
 
 saved the reputation of their regiment and perished, the least 
 mawkishly in the world, in a squalor of battle incomparably 
 expressed. People who know how peaceful they are them- 
 selves and have no bloodshed to reproach themselves with 
 needn't scruple to mention the glamour that Mr. Kipling's in- 
 tense militarism has for them, and how astonishing and con- 
 tagious they find it, in spite of the unromantic complexion of 
 it — the way it bristles with all sorts of ugliness and techni- 
 calities. Perhaps that is why I go all the way even with 
 **The Gadsbys'' — -the Gadsbys were so connected (uncom- 
 fortably, it is true) with the army. There is fearful fighting 
 —or a fearful danger of it — in '*The Man Who Would be 
 King' ' : is that the reason we are deeply affected by this ex- 
 traordinary tale? It is one of them, doubtless, for Mr. Kip- 
 ling has many reasons, after all, on his side, though they 
 don't equally call aloud to be uttered. 
 
 One more of them, at any rate, I must add to these un- 
 systematized remarks — it is the one I spoke of a shrewd guess 
 at in alluding to "The Courting of Dinah Shadd." The 
 talent that produces such a tale is a talent eminently in har- 
 mony with the short story, and the short story is, on our side 
 of the Channel and of the Atlantic, a mine which will take 
 a great deal "of working. Admirable is the clearness with 
 which Mr. Kipling perceives this — perceives what innumer- 
 able chances it gives, chances of touching life in a thousand 
 different places, taking it up in innumerable pieces, each a 
 specimen and an illustration. In a word, he appreciates the 
 episode, and there are signs to show that this shrewdness 
 will, in general, have long innings. It will find the detach- 
 able, compressible "case" an admirable, flexible form; the 
 cultivation of which may well add to the mistrust already 
 entertained by Mr. Kiphng, if his manner does not betray 
 him, for what is clumsy and tasteless in the time-honored 
 practice of the "plot." It will fortify him in the conviction 
 that the vivid picture has a greater communicative value than 
 the Chinese puzzle. There is little enough "plot" in such a 
 perfect little piece of hard representation as "The End of the 
 
30 Ir>troduel-ioi7 
 
 Passage," to cite again only the most saKent of twenty 
 examples. 
 
 But I am speaking of our author's future, which is the 
 luxury that I meant to forbid myself — precisely because the 
 subject is so tempting. There is nothing in the world (for 
 the prophet) so charming as to prophesy, and as there is 
 nothing so inconclusive the tendency should be repressed in 
 proportion as the opportunity is good. There is a certain 
 want of courtesy to a peculiarly contemporaneous present 
 even in speculating, with a dozen differential precautions, on 
 the question of what will become in the later hours of the day 
 of a talent that has got up so early. Mr. Kipling's actual 
 performance is like a tremendous walk before breakfast, 
 making one welcome the idea of the meal, but consider with 
 some alarm the hours still to be traversed. Yet if his break- 
 fast is all to come, the indications are that he will be more 
 active than ever after he has had it. Among these indica- 
 tions are the unflagging character of his pace and the excel- 
 lent form, as they say in athletic circles, in which he gets 
 over the ground. We don't detect him stumbling; on the 
 contrary, he steps out quite as briskly as at first, and still 
 more firmly. There is something zealous and craftsman-like 
 in him which shows that he feels both joy and responsibility. 
 A whimsical, wanton reader, haunted by a recollection of all 
 the good things he has seen spoiled; by a sense of the miser- 
 able, or, at any rate, the inferior, in so many continuations 
 and endings, is almost capable of perverting poetic justice to 
 the idea that it would be even positively well for so surprising 
 a producer to remain simply the fortunate, suggestive, un- 
 confirmed and unqualified representative of what he has 
 actually done. We can always refer to that. 
 
 Henry James. 
 
MINE OWN PEOPLE 
 
 BIMI 
 
 The orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to the sheep- 
 pen began the discussion. The night was stiflinglj hot, and 
 as Hans Breitmann and I passed him, dragging our bedding 
 to the fore-peak of the steamer, he roused himself and chat- 
 tered obscenely. He had been caught somewhere in the 
 Malayan Archipelago, and was going to England to be 
 exhibited at a shilling a head. For four days he had strug- 
 gled, yelled, and wrenched at the heavy iron bars of his prison 
 without ceasing, and had nearly slain a Lascar incautious 
 enough to come within reach of the great hairy paw. 
 
 * ' It would be well for you, mine friend, if you was a liddle 
 seasick," said Hans Breitmann, pausing by the cage. ''You 
 haf too much Ego in your Cosmos. " 
 
 The orang-outang's arm slid out negligently from between 
 the bars. N"o one would have believed that it would make a 
 sudden snake-hke rush at the German's breast. The thin 
 silk of the sleeping-suit tore out : Hans stepped back uncon 
 cernedly, to pluck a banana from a bunch hanging close to 
 one of the boats. 
 
 "Too much Ego," said he, peeling the fruit and offering 
 it to the caged devil, who vfas rending the silk to tatters. 
 
 Then we laid out our bedding in the bows, among the 
 sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze that the pace of the 
 ship might give us. The sea was like snioky oil, except 
 where it turned to fire under our forefoot and whirled back 
 into the dark in smears of dull flame. There was a thunder- 
 
 (31) 
 
g2 TI/orKs of F^adyard I^iplip^ 
 
 storm some miles away : we could see the glimmer of tlie 
 lightning. The ship's cow, distressed by the heat and the 
 smell of the ape-beast in the cage, lowed unhappily from time 
 to time in exactly the same key as the lookout man at the 
 bows answered the hourly call from the bridge. The tramp- 
 ling tune of the engines was very distinct, and the jarring of 
 the ash lift, as it was tipped into the sea, hurt the procession 
 of hushed noise. Hans lay down by my side and lighted a 
 good-night cigar. This was naturally the beginning of con- 
 versation. He owned a voice as soothing as the wash of the 
 sea, and stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself; for 
 his business in life was to wander up and down the world, 
 collecting orchids and wild beasts and ethnological specimens 
 for German and American dealers, I watched the glowing- 
 end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom, as the sentences 
 rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep. The orang-outang, 
 troubled by some dream of the forests of his freedom, began 
 to yell like a soul in purgatory, and to wrench madly at the 
 bars of the cage. 
 
 *'If he was out now dere would not be much of us left 
 hereabouts," said Hans, lazily. '*He screams good. See, 
 now, how I shall tame him when he stops himself." 
 
 There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans* mouth 
 came an imitation of a snake's hiss, so perfect that I almost 
 sprung to my feet. The sustained murderous sound ran 
 along the deck, and the wrenching at the bars ceased. The 
 orang-outang was quaking in an ecstasy of pure terror. 
 
 "Dot stop him," said Hans. "I learned dot trick in 
 Mogoung Tanjong when I was collecting liddle monkeys for 
 some peoples in Berhn. Ef6ry one in der world is afraid of 
 der monkeys — except der snake. So I blay snake against 
 monkey, and he keep quite still. Dere was too much Ego in 
 his Cosmos. Dot is der soul-custom of monkeys Are yoa 
 asleep, or will you listen, and I will tell a dale dot you shall 
 not pelief?" 
 
 "There's no tale in the wide world that I can't believe, ^^ 
 I said. 
 
/T\ipe 0\jjT) people 23 
 
 if 
 
 'If you have learned pelief you haf learned somedings. 
 Now I shall try your pehef . Good ! When I was collecting 
 dose liddle monkeys — ^it was in '79 or '80, und I was in der 
 islands of der Archipelago — over dere in der dark" — he 
 pointed southward to New Guinea generally — "Mein Gott! 
 I would sooner collect life red devils than hddle monkeys. 
 "When dey do not bite off your thumbs dey are always dying 
 from nostalgia — home-sick- — for dey haf der imperfect soul, 
 which is midway arrested in defelopment — und too much 
 Ego. I was dere for nearly a year, und dere I found a man 
 dot was called Bertran. He was a Frenchman, und he was 
 a goot man — naturalist to the bone. Dey said he was an 
 escaped convict, but he was a naturalist, und dot was enough 
 for me. He would call all her life beasts from der forest, 
 und dey would come. I said he was St. Francis of Assisi in 
 a new dransmigration produced,- und he laughed und said he 
 haf never preach to der fishes. He sold dem for tripang— 
 beche-de-mer. 
 
 "Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer men, he 
 had in der house shush such anoder as dot devil-animal in der 
 cage — ^a great orang-outang dot thought he was a man. H© 
 haf found him when he was a child — der orang-outang — -und 
 he was child and brother and opera comique all round to 
 Bertran. He had his room in dot house — not a cage, but a 
 room — mit a bed and sheets, and he would go to bed and get 
 up in der morning and smoke his cigar und eat his dinner 
 mit Bertran, und walk mit him hand-in-hand, which was 
 most horrible. Herr Gott ! I haf seen dot beast throw him- 
 self back in his chair and laugh when Bertran haf made fun 
 of me. He was not a beast; he was a man, and he talked to 
 Bertran, und Bertran comprehended, for I have seen dem. 
 'Und he was always politeful to me except when I talk too 
 long to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den he would 
 pull me away — dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous paws 
 — shush as if I was a child. He was not a beast, he was 
 a man. Dis I saw pefore I know him three months, und 
 Bertran he haf saw the same; and Bimi, der orang-outangs 
 
24: WorKs of P^udyard l^iplfp<$ 
 
 haf understood us both, mit his cigar between his big-dog 
 teeth und der blue gum. 
 
 ' ' I was dere a year, dere und at dere oder islands — some- 
 dimes for monkeys and somedimes for butterflies und orchits. 
 One time Bertran says to me dot he will be married, because 
 he haf found a girl dot was goot, and he inquire if this 
 marrying idea was right. I would not say, pecause it was 
 not me dot was going to be married. Den he go off courting 
 der girl — she was a half-caste French girl— very pretty. 
 Haf you got a new light for my cigar? Oof! Very pretty. 
 Only I say : *Haf you thought of Bimi? If he pulls me away 
 when I talk to you, what will he do to your wife? He will 
 pull her in pieces. If I was you, Bertran, I would gif my 
 wife for wedding present der stuff figure of Bimi. ' By dot 
 time I had learned somedings about der monkey peoples. 
 'Shoot him?' says Bertran. *He is your beast,' I said; *if he 
 was mine he would be shot now.' 
 
 "Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of Bimi. 
 Mein Gott 1 I tell you dot he talked through dose fingers. 
 It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet all gomplete. He slide 
 his hairy arm round my neck, and he tilt up my chin und 
 look into my face, shust to see if I understood his talk so well 
 as he understood mine. 
 
 " 'See now dere!' says Bertran, 'und you would shoot him 
 vv^hile he is cuddling you? Dot is der Teuton ingrate!' 
 
 "But I knew dot I had made Bimi a life's enemy, pecause 
 his fingers haf talk murder through the back of my neck. 
 Next dime I see Bimi dere was a pistol in my belt, und he 
 touch it once, and I open der breech to show him it was 
 loaded. He haf seen der Hddle monkeys killed in der woods, 
 and he understood. 
 
 "So Bertran he was married, and he forgot clean about 
 Bimi dot was skippin' alone on der beach mit der half of a 
 human soul in his belly. I was see him skip, und he took 
 a big bough und thrash der sand till he haf made a great 
 hole like a grave. So I says to Bertran: 'For any sakes, kill 
 Bimi. He is mad mit der jealousy.' 
 
/I\ii?e Omjt) people 25 
 
 **Bertran haf said: *He is not mad at all. He haf obey 
 and love my wife, und if she speaks he will get her slippers, ' 
 und he looked at his wife across der room. She was a very 
 pretty girl. 
 
 *'Den I said to him : *Dost thou pretend to know monkeys 
 und dis beast dot is lashing himself mad npon der sands, pe- 
 cause you do not talk to him? Shoot him when he comes to 
 der house, for he haf der light in his eyes dot means killing 
 — und killing.' Bimi come to der house, but dere was no 
 light in his eyes. It was all put away, cunning— so cunning 
 —und he fetch der girl her slippers, and Bertran turn to me 
 und say: *Dost thou know him in nine months more dan I 
 haf known him in twelve years? Shall a child stab his fader? 
 I have fed him, und he was my child. Do not speak this 
 nonsense to my wife or to me any more.* 
 
 "Dot next day Bertran came to my house to help me 
 make some wood cases for der specimens, und he tell me dot 
 he haf left his wife a liddle while mit Bimi in der garden. 
 Den I finish my cases quick, und I say: 'Let us go to your 
 house und get a trink.' He laugh und say: 'Gome along, 
 dry mans.' 
 
 "His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi did not eome 
 when Bertran called. Und his wife did not come when he 
 called, und he knocked at her bedroom door und dot was 
 shut tight— locked. Den he look at me^ und his face was 
 white. I broke down der door mit my shoulder, und der 
 thatch of der roof was torn into a great hole, und der sun 
 came in upon der floor. Haf you ever seen paper in der 
 waste-basket, or cards at whist on der table scattered? Dere 
 was no wife dot could be seen. I tell you dere was noddings 
 in dot room dot might be a woman. Dere was stuff on der 
 floor, und dot was all. I looked at dese things und I was 
 very sick ; but Bertran looked a liddle longer at what was 
 upon the floor und der walls, und der hole in der thatch. 
 Den he pegan to laugh, soft and low, und I knew und thank 
 Got dot he was mad. He nefer cried, he nefer prayed. He 
 stood still in der doorway und laugh to himself. Den he 
 Vol. 3. 2 
 
26 U/or^s of l^adyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 said; 'She liaf locked herself in dis room, and he haf torn up 
 der thatch. Fi done. Dot is so. We will mend der thatch 
 und wait for Bimi. He will surely come.' 
 
 *'I tell you we waited ten days in dot house, after der 
 room was made into a room again, and once or twice we saw 
 Bimi comin' a liddle way from der woods. He was afraid 
 pecause he haf done wrong. Bertran called him when he 
 was come to look on the tenth day, und Bimi come skipping 
 along der beach und making noises, mit a long piece of black 
 hair in his hands. Den Bertran laugh and say, 'jFV doncP 
 shust as if it was a glass broken upon der table ; und Bimi 
 come nearer, und Bertran was honey -sweet in his voice and 
 laughed to himself. For three days he made love to Bimi, 
 pecause Bimi would not let himself be touched. Den Bimi 
 come to dinner at der same table mit us, und der hair on his 
 hands was all black und thick mit — mit what had dried on 
 his hands. Bertran gave him sangaree till Bimi was drunk 
 and stupid, und den — 
 
 Hans paused to puff at his cigar. 
 
 *' And then?" said I. 
 
 *'Und den Bertran kill him with his hands, und I go for 
 a walk upon der beach. It was Bertran's own piziness. 
 When I come back der ape he was dead, und Bertran he 
 was dying abof e him ; but still he laughed a liddle und low, 
 and he was quite content. Now you know der formula 
 of der strength of der orang-outang — ^it is more as seven 
 to one in relation to man. , But Bertran, he haf killed 
 Bimi mit sooch dings as Gott gif him. Dot was der 
 mericle." 
 
 The infernal clamor in the cage recommenced. "Aha! 
 Dot friend of ours haf still too much Ego in his Cosmos. 
 Be quiet, thou!" 
 
 Hans hissed long and venomously. We could hear the 
 great beast quaking in his cage. 
 
 "But why in the world didn't you help Bertran instead 
 of letting him be killed?" I asked. 
 
 "My friend," said Hans, composedly stretching himself 
 
/I\ip8 OwT) people 27 
 
 to slumber, *4t was not nice even to mineself dot I should- lir 
 after I had seen dot room wit der hole in der thatch. Und 
 Bertran, he was her husband. Goot-night, und sleep well." 
 
 NAMGAY DOOLA 
 
 Once upon a time there was a king who lived on the road 
 to Thibet, very many miles in the Himalaya Mountains. His 
 kingdom was 11,000 feet above the sea, and exactly four miles 
 square, but most of the miles stood on end, owing to the nat- 
 ure of the country. His revenues were rather less than £400 
 -yearly, and they were expended on the maintenance of one 
 elephant and a standing army of five men. He was tribu- 
 tary to the Indian government, who allowed him certain 
 sums for keeping a section of the Himalaya Thibet road in 
 repair. He further increased his revenues by selling timber 
 to the railway companies, for he would cut the great deodar 
 trees in his own forest and they fell thundering into the SutleJ 
 Biver and were swept down to the Plains, 300 miles away, 
 and became railway ties. Kow and again this king, whose 
 name does not matter, would mount a ring-streaked horse 
 and ride scores of miles to Simlatown to confer with the Heu- 
 tenant-governor on matters of state, or assure the viceroy 
 that his sword was at the service of the queen-empress. Then 
 the viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be sounded and 
 the ring-streaked horse and the cavalry of the state— two 
 men in tatters — and the herald who bore the Silver Stick be- 
 fore the king would trot back to their own place, which was 
 between the tail of a heaven-climbing glacier and a dark 
 birch forest. 
 
 Now, from such a king, always remembering that he 
 possessed one veritable elephant and could count his descent 
 for 1,200 years, I expected, when it was my fate to wander 
 through his dominions, no m.ore than mere license to live. 
 
 The night had closed in rain, and rolling clouds blotted 
 
2S U/orKs of I^udyard I^iplir)($ 
 
 out the lights of the villages in the valley. Forty miles 
 av,^ay, untouched by cloud or storm, the white shoulder of 
 Dongo Pa — the Mountain of the Council of the Gods — upheld 
 the evening star. The monkeys sung sorrowfully to each 
 other as they hunted for dry roots in the fern-draped trees, 
 and the last puff of the day -wind brought from the unseen 
 villages the scent of damp wood smoke, hot cakes, dripping 
 undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That smell is the true 
 smell of the Himalayas, and if it once gets into the blood of 
 a man he will, at the last, forgetting everything else, return 
 to the Hills to die. The clouds closed and the smell went 
 away, and there remained nothing in all the world except 
 chilling white mists and the boom of the Sutlej River. 
 
 A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want to die, bleated la-, 
 mentably at my tent-door. He was scuffling with the prime 
 minister and the director-general of public education, and he 
 was a royal gift to me and my camp servants. I expressed 
 my thanks suitably and inquired if I might have audience of 
 the king. The prime minister readjusted his turban — it had 
 fallen off in the struggle- — and assured me that the king would 
 be very pleased to see me. Therefore I dispatched two bot- 
 tles as a foretaste, and when the sheep had entered upon an- 
 other incarnation, climbed up to the king's palace through 
 the wet. He had sent his army to escort me, but it stayed 
 to talk with my cook. Soldiers are very much alike all the 
 world over. 
 
 The palace was a four-roomed, whitewashed mud-and- 
 timber house, the finest in all the Hills for a day's journey. 
 The king was dressed in a purple velvet jacket, white muslin 
 trousers, and a saffron-yellow turban of price. He gave me 
 audience in a little carpeted room opening off the palace 
 courtyard, which was occupied by the elephant of state. 
 The great beast was sheeted and anchored from trunk to 
 tail, and the curve of his back stood out against the sky. line. 
 
 The prime minister and the director-general of public in- 
 struction were present to introduce me ; but all the court had 
 been dismissed lest the two bottles aforesaid should corrupt 
 
/I\ir?e Omjt) people 29 
 
 their morals. The king cast a wreath of heavy, scented 
 flowers round my neck as I bowed, and inquired how my 
 honored presence had the fehcity to be. I said that through 
 seeing his auspicious countenance the mists of the night had 
 turned into sunshine, and that by reason of his beneficent 
 sheep his good deeds would be remembered by the gods. He 
 said that since I had set my magnificent foot in his kingdom 
 the crops would probably yield seventy per cent more than 
 the average. I said that the fame of the king had reached 
 to the four comers of the earth, and that the nations gnashed 
 their teeth when they heard daily of the glory of his realm 
 and the wisdom of his moon-like prime minister and lotas- 
 eyed director-general of pubHc education. 
 
 Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was at 
 the king's right hand. Three minutes later he was telling 
 me that the condition of the maize crop was something dis- 
 graceful, and that the railway companies would not pay hiia 
 enough for his timber. The talk shifted to and fro with the 
 bottles. We discussed very many quaint things, and the 
 king became confidential on the subject of government gen- 
 erally. Most of all he dwelt on the shortcomings of one of 
 his subjects, who, from what I could gather, had been para 
 lyzing the executive. 
 
 "In the old days," said the king, '*I could have ordered 
 the elephant yonder to trample him to death. !Now I must 
 e'en send him seventy miles across the hiUs to be tried, and 
 his keep for that time would be upon the state. And th@ 
 elephant eats everything." 
 
 "What be the man's crimes. Rajah Sahib?" said I. 
 
 "First, he is an ^outlander,' and no man of mine own 
 people. Secondly, since of my favor I gave him land upon 
 his coming, he refuses to pay revenue. Am I not the lord 
 of the earth, above and below — entitled by right and custom 
 to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this devil, establishing him- 
 self, refuses to pay a single tax . . . and he brings a poison- 
 ous spawn of babes." 
 
 **Oast him into jail," I said. 
 
go U/ori^s of R^adyard I^ipIlQ^ 
 
 ** Sahib," the king answered, shifting a little on the cush- 
 ions, "once and only once in these forty years sickness came 
 upon me so that I was not able to go abroad. In that hour 
 I made a vow to my God that I would never again cut man 
 or woman from the light of the sun and the air of God, for I 
 perceived the nature of the punishment. How can I break 
 my vow? Were it only the lopping off of a hand or a foot, 
 I should not delay. But even that is impossible now that 
 the English have rule. One or another of my people" — he 
 looked obliquely at the director-general of public education — 
 *' would at once write a letter to the viceroy, and perhaps I 
 should be deprived of that ruffle of drums. ' ' 
 
 He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-pipe, 
 fitted a plain amber one, and passed the pipe to me. '^ISrot 
 content with refusing revenue," he continued, *'this out- 
 lander refuses also to beegar" (this is the corvee or forced 
 labor on the roads), "and stirs my people up to the like 
 treason. Yet he is, if so he wills, an expert log-snatcher. 
 There is none better or bolder among my people to clear a 
 block of the river when the logs stick fast." 
 
 "But he worships strange gods," said the prime minister, 
 deferentially. 
 
 "For that I have no concern," said the king, who was as 
 tolerant as Akbar in matters of belief. "To each man his 
 own god, and the fire or Mother Earth for us all at the last. 
 It is the rebellion that offends me." 
 
 "The king has an army," I suggested. "Has not the 
 king burned the man's house, and left him naked to the night 
 dews?" 
 
 "Nay. A hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man. 
 But once I sent my army against him when his excuses be- 
 came wearisome. Of their heads he brake three across the 
 top with a stick. The other two men ran away. Also 
 the guns would not shoot." 
 
 I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One- third of 
 it was an old muzzle-loading fowling-piece with ragged rust 
 holes where the nipples should have beenj one- third a wire- 
 
/T\ipe OwT) people 31 
 
 bound match-lock with a worm-eaten stock, and one-third a 
 four-bore flint duck-gun, without a flint. 
 
 "But it is to be remembered," said the king, reaching out 
 for the bottle, *'that he is a very expert log-snatcher and a 
 man of a merry face. What shall I do to him, sahib?" 
 
 This was interesting. The timid hill-folk would as soon 
 have refused taxes to their king as offerings to their gods. 
 The rebel must be a man of character. 
 
 ''If it be the king's permission," I said, ''I will not strike 
 my tents till the third day, and I will see this man. The 
 mercy of the king is godlike, and rebellion is like unto the 
 sin of witchcraft. Moreover, both the bottles, and another, 
 be empty." 
 
 "You have my leave to go," said the king. 
 
 Next morning the crier went through the state proclaira- 
 ing that there was a log- jam on the river and that it behooved 
 all loyal subjects to clear it. The people poured down from 
 their villages to the moist, warm valley of poppy fields, and 
 the king and I went with them. 
 
 Hundreds of dressed deodar logs had caught on a snag of 
 rock, and the river was bringing down more logs every min- 
 ute to complete the blockade. The water snarled and wrenched 
 and worried at the timber, while the population of the state 
 prodded at the nearest logs with poles, in the hope of easing 
 the pressure. Then there went up a shout of "N"amgay 
 Doola! Kamgay Doola!" and a large, red-haired villager 
 hurried up, stripping off his clothes as he ran. 
 
 "That is he. That is the rebel!" said the king. "Now 
 will the dam be cleared." 
 
 "But why has he red hair?" I asked, since red hair among 
 hill-folk is as uncommon as blue or green. 
 
 "He is an outlander," said the king. "Well done! Oli^ 
 well done!" 
 
 Namgay Doola had scrambled on the jam and was claw- 
 ing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of a boat-hook. It 
 shd forward slowly, as an alligator moves, and three or four 
 others followed it. The green water spouted through the 
 
32 Tl/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 gaps. Then tlie villagers howled and shouted and leaped 
 among the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, 
 and the red head of Namgay Doola was chief among them 
 all. The logs swayed and chafed and groaned as fresh con- 
 signments from up-stream battered the now weakening dam. 
 It gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing butts, bob- 
 bing black heads, and a confusion indescribable, as the river 
 tossed everything before it. I saw the red head go down 
 with the last remnants of the jam and disappear between the 
 great grinding tree trunks. It rose close to the bank, and 
 blowing like a grampus, l^amgay Doola wiped the water out 
 of his eyes and made obeisance to the king. 
 
 I had time to observe the man closely. The virulent red- 
 ness of his shock head and beard was most startling, and in 
 the thicket of hair twinkled above high cheek-bones two very 
 merry blue eyes. He was indeed an outlander, but yet a 
 Thibetan in language, habit and attire. He spoke the Lepcha 
 dialect with an indescribable softening of the gutturals. It 
 was not so much a lisp as an accent. 
 
 *' Whence comest thou?" I asked, wondering. 
 
 "From Thibet.'* He pointed across the hills and grinned. 
 That grin went straight to my heart. Mechanically I held 
 out my hand, and !N"amgay Doola took it. !N"o pure Thibetan 
 would have understood the meaning of the gesture. He 
 went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back 
 to his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccount- 
 ably familiar. It was the whooping of ITamgay Doola. 
 
 "You see now," said the king, "why I would not kill 
 him. He is a bold man among my logs, but," and he shook 
 his head like a schoolmaster, "I know that before long there 
 wiU be complaints of him in the court. Let us return to the 
 palace and do justice." | 
 
 It was that king's custom to judge his subjects every dajF 
 between eleven and three o'clock. I heard him do justice | 
 equitably on weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a little 
 wife-stealing. Then Ms brow clouded and he summoned me 
 
 * ' Again it is Namgay Doola, ' ' he said , despairingly. * * Not 
 
(I\ir)8 Omjt) people 33 
 
 content with refusing revenue on Ms own part, he has bound 
 half his village by an oath to the like treason. Never before 
 has such a thing befallen me! !N"or are my taxes heavy." 
 
 A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind 
 his ear, advanced trembling. He had been in Kamgay 
 Doola's conspiracy, but had told everything and hoped for 
 the king's favor. 
 
 **0h, king!" said I, ^'if it be the king's will, let this mat- 
 ter stand over till the morning. Only the gods can do right 
 in a hurry, and it may be that yonder villager has lied." 
 
 "!N"ay, for I know the nature of Xamgay Doola; but since 
 a guest asks, let the matter remain. Wilt thou, for my sake, 
 speak harshly to this red-headed outlander? He may listen 
 to thee." 
 
 I made an attempt that very evening, but for the life of 
 me I could not keep my countenance. ITamgay Doola 
 grinned so persuasively and began to tell me about a big 
 brown bear in a poppy field by the river. "Would I care to 
 shoot that bear? I spoke austerely on the sin of detected 
 conspiracy and the certainty of punishment. !N"amgay 
 Doola's face clouded for a moment. Shortly afterward 
 he withdrew from my tent^ and I heard him singing softly 
 among the pines. The words were unintelligible to me, but 
 the tune, like his liquid, insinuating speech, seemed the ghost 
 of something strangely f amihar. 
 
 *'Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir 
 To weeree ala gee, ' ' 
 
 crooned Namgay Doola again and again, and I racked my 
 brain for that lost tune. It was not till after dinner that 
 I discovered some one had cut c. square foot of velvet from 
 the center of my best camera-cloth. This made me so angry 
 that I wandered down the valley in the hope of meeting the 
 big brown bear. I could hear him grunting like a discon- 
 tented pig in the poppy field as I waited shoulder deep in the 
 dew-dripping Indian corn to catch him after his meal. The 
 moon was at full and drew out the scent of the tasseled crop. 
 
34 U/or^s of F^udyard KjpUT)q 
 
 Then I heard the anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow- 
 one of the little black crummies no bigger than !N"ewfound- 
 land dogs. Two shadows that looked like a bear and her 
 cub hurried past me, I was in the act of firing when I saw 
 that each bore a brilliant red head. The lesser animal was 
 trailing something rope-like that left a dark track on the 
 path. They were within six feet of me, and the shadow of 
 the moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces. Yelvet«black 
 was exactly the word, for by all the powers of moonlight 
 they were masked in the velvet of my camera-cloth. I 
 marveled, and went to bed. 
 
 ^N'ext morning the kingdom was in an nproar. Famgay 
 Doola, men said, had gone forth in the night and with a 
 sharp knife had cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the 
 irabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. It was sacri- 
 lege unspeakable against the holy cow! The state desired 
 liis blood, but he had retreated into his hut, barricaded the 
 doors and windows with big stones, and defied the world. 
 
 The king and I and the populace approached the hut cau- 
 tiously. There was no hope of capturing our man without 
 loss of life, for from a hole in the wall projected the muzzle 
 of an extremely well-cared-for gun— the only gun in the state 
 that could shoot. Kamgay Doola had narrowly missed a 
 villager just before we came up. 
 
 The standing army stood. 
 
 It could do no more, for when it advanced pieces of sharp 
 shale flew from the windows. To these were added from 
 time to time showers of scalding water. We saw red heads 
 bobbing up and down within. The family of l&Tamgay Doola 
 were aiding their sire. Blood-curdling yells of defiance were 
 the only answer to our prayers. 
 
 ''Kever,*' said the king, puffing, *'has such a thing be- 
 fallen my state. Next year I will certainly buy a little 
 cannon." He looked at me imploringly, 
 
 '*Is there any priest in the kingdom to whom he will 
 listen?'* said I, for a light was beginning to break upon 
 meo 
 
/r\ii}e OwT) people 35 
 
 *'He worships his own god/' said the prime minister. 
 ^*We can but starve him out." 
 
 '*Let the white man approach," said ]N"amgay Doola from 
 within. *'A11 others I will kill. Send me the white man." 
 
 The door was thrown open and I entered the smoky inte- 
 rior of a Thibetan hut crammed with children. And every 
 child had flaming red hair. A fresh-gathered cow's tail lay 
 on the floor, and by its side tv/o pieces of black velvet — my 
 black velvet — rudely hacked into the semblance of masks. 
 
 "And what is this shame, Namgay Doola?" I asked. 
 
 He grinned more charmingly than ever. *' There is no 
 shame," said he. "I did but cut off the tail of that man's 
 cow. He betrayed me. I was minded to shoot him, sahib, 
 but not to death. Indeed, not to death ; only in the legs. ' ' 
 
 *'And why at all, since it is the custom to pay revenue to 
 the king? Why at all?" 
 
 *'By the god of my father, I cannot tell," said Namgay 
 Doola. 
 
 *'And who was thy father?" 
 
 **The same that had this gun." He showed me his 
 weapon, a Tower musket, bearing date 1832 and the stamp 
 of the Honorable East India Company. 
 
 "And thy father's name?" said I. 
 
 "Timlay Doola," said he. "At the first, I being then a 
 little child, it is in my mind that he wore a red coat. ' ' 
 
 "Of that I have no doubt; but repeat the name of thy 
 father twice or thrice." 
 
 He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling accent 
 in his speech came. "Thimla Dhula!" said he, excitedly. 
 "To this hour I worship his god." 
 
 "May I see that god?" 
 
 "In a little while — at twilight time." 
 
 "Rememberest thou aught of thy father's speech?" 
 
 "It is long ago. But there was one word which he said 
 often. Thus, ' 'Shun!' Then I and my brethren stood upon 
 our feet, our hands to our sides, thus." 
 
 Even so. And what was thy mother?" 
 
 iC 
 
36 U/orl^s of F^adyard KJpViT)^ 
 
 **A woman of the Hills. We be Lepchas of Darjiling, 
 but me they call an outlander because my hair is as thou 
 seest." 
 
 The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on the arm 
 gently. The long parley outside the fort had lasted far into 
 the day. It was now close upon twilight — the hour of the 
 Angelus. Very solemnly tbe red-headed brats rose from the 
 floor and formed a semicircle. Namgay Doola laid his gun 
 aside, lighted a little oil lamp, and set it before a recess in 
 the wall. Pulling back a whisp of dirty cloth, he revealed 
 a worn brass crucifix leaning against the helmet badge of a 
 long-forgotten East India Company's regiment. "Thus did 
 my father," he said, crossing himseK clumsily. The wife 
 and children followed suit. Then, all together, they struck 
 up the wailing chant that I heard on the hillside : 
 
 "Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir 
 To weeree ala gee. " 
 
 I was puzzled no longer. Again and again they sung, 
 as if their hearts would break, their version of the chorus of 
 "The Wearing of the Green": 
 
 "They're hanging men and women, too^ 
 For the wearing of the green. " 
 
 A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of the brats, 
 a boy about eight years old — could he have been in the fields 
 last night? — was watching me as he sung. I pulled out a 
 rupee, held the coin betv^^een finger and thumb, and looked — 
 only looked—at the gun leaning against the wall. A grin of 
 brilliant and perfect comprehension overspread his porringer- 
 like face, l^ever for an instant stopping the song, he held 
 out his hand for the money, and then slid the gun to my 
 hand. I might have shot IvTamgay Doola dead as he chanted, 
 but I was satisfied. The inevitable blood-instinct held -true. 
 ITamgay Doola drew the curtain across the recess. Angelus 
 was over. 
 
 "Thus my father sung. There was much more, but I 
 
fC[iT)e Omjt) people 37 
 
 have forgotten, and I do not know the purport of even these 
 words, but it may be that the god will understand. I am 
 not of this people, and I will not pay revenue." 
 
 *'And why?" 
 
 Again that soul-compelling grin. "What occupation 
 would be to me between crop and crop? It is better than 
 scaring bears. But these people do not understand." 
 
 He picked the masks off the floor and looked in my face 
 as simply as a child. 
 
 ''By what road didst thou attain knowledge to make 
 those deviltries?" I said, pointing. 
 
 *'I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjiling, and yet 
 the stuff—" 
 
 "Which thou hast stolen," said I, 
 
 "Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it so. The stuff— 
 the stuff. What else should I have done with the stuff?" 
 He twisted the velvet between his fingers. 
 
 "But the sin of maiming the cow — consider that." 
 
 "Oh, sahib, the man betrayed me; the heifer^s tail waved 
 in the moonjight, and I had my knife. What else should I 
 have done? The tail came off ere I was aware. Sahib, thou 
 knowest more than I." 
 
 "That is true," said I, "Stay within the door. I go to 
 speak to the king." The population of the state were ranged 
 on the hillside. I went forth and spoke. 
 
 "Oh, king," said I, "touching this man, there be two 
 courses open to thy wisdom. Thou canst either hang him 
 from a tree— he and his brood^ — till there remains no hair 
 that is red within thy land." 
 
 "ISTay," said the king. "Why should I hurt the little 
 children?" 
 
 They had poured out of the hut and were making plump 
 obeisances to everybody. !N"amgay Doola waited at the door 
 with his gun across his arm. 
 
 "Or thou canst, discarding their impiety of the cow-maim- 
 ing, raise him to honor m thy army. He comes of a race 
 that will not pay revenue. A red flame is in his blood which 
 
38 U/orKs of F^udyard \{ip\\T)<^ 
 
 comes out at the top of Ms head in that glowing hair. Maks 
 him chief of thy army. Give him honor as may befall and 
 full allowance of work, but look to it, oh, king, that neither 
 he nor his hold a foot of earth from thee henceforward. Feed 
 him with words and favor, and also liquor from certain bot- 
 tles that thou knowest of, and he will be a bulwark of de- 
 fense. But deny him even a tuftlet of grass for his own. 
 This is the nature that God has given him. Moreover, he 
 has brethren—" 
 
 The state groaned unanimously. 
 
 *'But if his brethren come they will surely fight with each 
 other till they die ; or else the one will always give informa- 
 tion concerning the other. Shall he be of thy army, oh, king? 
 Choose." 
 
 The king bowed his head, and I said: *'Come forth, 
 ^Namgay Doola, and command the king's army. Thy name 
 shall no more be E'amgay in the mouths of men, but Patsay 
 Doola, for, as thou hast truly said, I know." 
 
 Then ITamgay Doola, new-christened Patsay Doola, son 
 of Timlay Doola — which is Tim Doolan — clasped the king's 
 feet, cuffed the standing army, and hurried in an agony of 
 contrition from temple to temple making offerings for the sin 
 of the cattle maiming. 
 
 And the king was so pleased with my perspicacity that 
 he offered to sell me a village for £20 sterling. But I buy 
 no village in the Himalayas so long as one red head flares 
 between the tail of the heaven-climbing glacier and the dark 
 birch forest. 
 
 I know that breed. 
 
 THE RECRUDESCENCE OF IMRAY 
 
 Imray had achieved the impossible. Without warning, 
 for no conceivable motive, in his youth and at the threshold 
 of his career he had chosen to disappear from the world — 
 
/T\ipe OwT) people 39 
 
 which is to say, the little Indian station where he lived. 
 Upon a day he was alive, well, happy, and in great evidence 
 at his club, among the billiard- tables. Upon a morning he 
 was not, and no manner of search could make sure where 
 he might be. He had stepped out of his place ; he had not 
 appeared at his office at the proper time, and his dog-cart was 
 not upon the public roads. For these reasons and because he 
 was hampering in a microscopical degree the administration 
 of the Indian Empire, the Indian Empire paused for one 
 microscopical moment to make inquiry into the fate of Imray, 
 Ponds were dragged, wells were plumbed, telegrams were 
 dispatched down the Knes of railways and to the nearest sea- 
 port town — 1,200 miles away — but Imray was not at the end 
 of the drag-ropes nor the telegrams. He was gone, and his 
 place knew him no more. Then the work of the great Indian 
 Empire swept forward, because it could not be delayed, and 
 Imray, from being a man, became a mystery — such a thing 
 as men talk over at their tables in the club for a month and 
 then forget utterly. His guns, horses, and carts were sold to 
 the highest bidder. His superior officer wrote an absurd 
 letter to his mother, saying that Imray had unaccountably 
 disappeared and his bungalow stood empty on the road. 
 
 After three or four months of the scorching hot weather 
 had gone by, my friend Strickland, of the police force, saw 
 fit to rent the bungalow from the native landlord. This was 
 before he was engaged to Miss Youghal — an affair which has 
 been described in another place- — and while he was pursuing 
 his investigations into native life. His own life was suffi- 
 ciently peculiar, and men complained of his manners and 
 customs. There was always food in his house, but there 
 were no regular times for meals. He eat, standing up and 
 walking about, whatever he might find on the sideboard, and 
 this is not good for the insides of human beings. His domes- 
 tic equipment was limited to six rifles, three shot-guns, five 
 saddles, and a collection of stiff -jointed masheer rods, bigger 
 and stronger than the largest salmon rods. These things 
 occupied one half of his bungalow^ and the other half was 
 
40 U/orl^s of F^adyard l^iplii>^ 
 
 given up to Strickland and his dog Tietjens — an enormous 
 Kanipur slut, who sung when she was ordered, and devoured 
 daily the rations of two men. She spoke to Strickland in a 
 language of her own, and whenever in her walks abroad she 
 saw things calculated to destroy the peace of Her Majesty 
 the Queen Empress, she returned to her master and gave him 
 information. Strickland would take steps at once, and the 
 end of his labors was trouble and fine and imprisonment for 
 other people. The natives believed that Tietjens was a fa- 
 miliar spirit, and treated her with the great reverence that is 
 born of hate and fear. One room in the bungalow was set 
 apart for her special use. She owned a bedstead, a blanket, 
 and a drinking-trough, and if any one came into Strickland's 
 room at night, her custom was to knock down the invader 
 and give tongue till some one came with a light. Strickland 
 owes his life to her. When he was on the frontier in search 
 of the local murderer who came in the gray dawn to send 
 Strickland much further than the Andaman Islands, Tietjens 
 caught him as he was crawhng into Strickland's tent with a 
 dagger between his teeth, and after his record of iniquity was 
 established in the eyes of the law, he was hanged. From 
 that date Tietjens wore a collar of rough silver and employed 
 a monogram on her night blanket, and the blanket was 
 double-woven Kashmir cloth, for she was a delicate dog. 
 
 Under no circumstances would she be separated from 
 Strickland, and when he was ill with fever she made great 
 trouble for the doctors because she did not know how to help 
 her master and would not allow another creature to attempt 
 aid. Macarnaght, of the Indian Medical Service, beat her 
 over the head with a gun, before she could understand that 
 she must give room for those who could give quinine. 
 
 A short time after Strickland had taken Imray's bun- 
 galow, my business took me through that station, and natur- 
 ally, the club quarters being full, I quartered myself -upon 
 Strickland. It was a desirable bungalovf , eight-roomed, and 
 heavily tha^tched against any chance of leakage from rain. 
 Under the pitch of the roof ran a ceiling cloth, which looked 
 
/r\ii>3 OwT) people 41 
 
 just as nice as a whitewashed ceiling. The landlord had 
 repainted it when Strickland took the bungalow, and unless 
 you knew how Indian bungalows were built you would never 
 have suspected that above the cloth lay the dark, three- 
 cornered cavern of the roof, where the beams and the under 
 side of the thatch harbored all manner of rats, bats, ants, and 
 other things. 
 
 Tietjens met me in the veranda with a bay like the boom 
 of the bells of St. Paul's, and put her paws on my shoulders 
 and said she was glad to see me. Strickland had contrived 
 to put together that sort of meal which he called lunch, and 
 immediately after it was finished went out about his business. 
 I was left alone with Tietjens and my own affairs. The heat 
 of the summer had broken up and given place to the warm 
 damp of the rains. There was no motion in the heated air, 
 but the rain fell like bayonet rods on the earth, and flung up 
 a blue mist where it splashed back again. The bamboos and 
 the custard apples, the poinsettias and the mango-trees in the 
 garden stood still -while the warm water lashed through them, 
 and the frogs began to sing among the aloe hedges. A little 
 before the light failed, and when the rain "was at its worst, I 
 sat in the back veranda and heard the water roar from the 
 eaves, and scratched myself because I was covered with the 
 thing they called prickly heat. Tietjens came out with me 
 and put her head in my lap, and was very sorrowful, so I 
 gave her biscuits when tea was ready, and I took tea in the 
 back veranda on account of the little coolness I found there. 
 The rooms of the house were dark behind me. I could smeR 
 Strickland's saddlery and the oil on his guns, and I did not 
 the least desire to sit among these things. My own servant 
 came to me in the twilight, the musHn of his clothes clinging 
 tightly to his drenched body, and told me that a gentleman 
 had called and wished to see some one. Very much against 
 my will, and because of the darkness of the rooms, I went 
 into the naked drawing -room, telling my man to bring the 
 lights. There might or might not have been a caller in the 
 room — it seems to me that I saw a figure by one of the win- 
 
4^ U/or^s of F^udyard l^fplii79 
 
 dows, but when the Hghts came there was nothing save the 
 spikes of the rain without and the smell of the drinking earth 
 in my nostrils. I explained to my man that he was no wiser 
 than he ought to be, and went back to the veranda to talk to 
 Tietjens. She had gone out into the wet and I could hardly 
 coax her back to me — even with biscuits with sugar on top. 
 Strickland rode back, dripping wet, just before dinner, and 
 the first thing he said was : 
 
 ^'Has any one called?" 
 
 I explained, with apologies, that my servant had called 
 me into the drawing-room on a false alarm ; or that some 
 loafer had tried to call on Strickland, and, thinking better of 
 it, fled after giving his name. Strickland ordered dinner 
 without comment, and since it was a real dinner, with white 
 table-cloth attached, we sat down. 
 
 At nine o'clock Strickland wanted to go to bed, and I was 
 tired too. Tietjens, who had been lying underneath the 
 table, rose up and went into the least exposed veranda as soon 
 as her master moved to his own room, which was next to the 
 stately chamber set apart for Tietjens. If a mere wife had 
 wished to sleep out-of-doors in that pelting rain, it would not 
 have mattered, but Tietjens was a dog, and therefore the 
 better animal. I looked at Strickland, expecting to see him 
 flog her with a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would 
 smile after telling some hideous domestic tragedy. ' ' She has 
 done this ever since I moved in here." 
 
 The dog was Strickland's dog, so I said nothing, but I 
 felt all that Strickland felt in being made light of. Tietjens 
 encamped outside my bedroom window, and storm after 
 storm came up, thundered on the thatch, and died away. 
 The lightning spattered the sky as a thrown egg spatters a 
 barn door, but the light was pale blue, not yellow ; and look- 
 ing through my slit bamboo blinds, I could see the great dog 
 standing, not sleeping, in the veranda, the hackles alift on 
 her back, and her feet planted as tensely as the drawn wire 
 rope of a suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the 
 thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that some one wanted 
 
/r\ioe Ou/Q people 43 
 
 me very badly. He, whoever he was, was trying to call me 
 by name, but his voice was no more than a husky whisper. 
 Then the thunder ceased and Tietjens went into the garden 
 and howled at the low moon. Somebody tried to open my 
 door, and walked about and through the house, and stood 
 breathing heavily in the verandas, and just when I was fall- 
 ing asleep I fancied that I heard a wild hammering and 
 clamoring above my head or on the door. 
 
 I ran into Strickland's room and asked him whether he 
 was ill and had been calling for me. He was lying on the 
 bed half -dressed, with a pipe in his mouth. "I thought you'd 
 come," he said. "Have I been walking around the house 
 at all?" 
 
 I explained that he had been in the dining-room and the 
 smoking-room and two or three other places ; and he laughed 
 and told me to go back to bed. I went back to bed and slept 
 till the morning, but in all my dreams I was sure I was doing 
 some one an injustice in not attending to his wants. What 
 those wants were I could not tell, but a fluttering, whispering, 
 bolt-fumbling, luring, loitering some one was reproaching 
 me for my slackness, and through all the dreams I heard the 
 howling of Tietjens in the garden and the thrashing of the 
 rain. 
 
 I was in that house for two days, and Strickland went to 
 his office daily, leaving me alone for eight or ten hours a daj, 
 with Tietjens for my only companion. As long as the full 
 light lasted I was comfortable, and so was Tietjens ; but in 
 the twilight she and I moved into the back veranda and 
 cuddled each other for company. "We were alone in the 
 house, but for all that it was fully occupied by a tenant with 
 whom I had no desire to interfere. I never saw him, but I 
 could see the curtains between the rooms quivering where he 
 had just passed through ; I could hear the chairs creaking as 
 the bamboos sprung under a weight that had just quitted 
 them ; and I could feel when I went to get a book from the 
 dining-room that somebody was waiting in the shadows of 
 the front veranda till I should have gone away. Tietjens 
 
44 U/orl^s of r^udyard I^iplii)^ 
 
 made the twilight more interesting by glaring into the dark- 
 ened rooms, with every hair erect, and following the motions 
 of something that I could not see. She never entered the 
 rooms, but her eyes moved, and that was quite sufficient. 
 Only when my servant came to trim the lamps and make all 
 light and habitable, she would come in with me and spend 
 her time sitting on her haunches watching an invisible extra 
 man as he moved about behind my shoulder. Dogs are 
 cheerful companions. 
 
 I explained to Strickland, gently as might be, that I would 
 go over to the club and find for myseK quarters there. I 
 admired his hospitality, was pleased with his guns and rods, 
 but I did not much care for his house and its atmosphere. He 
 heard me out to the end, and then smiled very wearily, but 
 without contempt, for he is a man who understands things. 
 *'Stay on," he said, *^and see what this thing means. AU 
 you have talked about I have known since I took the bun- 
 galow. Stay on and wait. Tietjens has left me. Are you 
 going too?" 
 
 I had seen him through one little affair connected with an 
 idol that had brought me to the doors of a lunatic asylum, 
 and I had no desire to help him through further experiences. 
 He was a man to whom unpleasantnesses arrived as do 
 dinners to ordinary people. 
 
 Therefore I explained more clearly than ever that I liked 
 him immensely, and would be happy to see him in the day- 
 time, but that I didn't care to sleep under his roof. This was 
 after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out to lie in the veranda. 
 
 '"Pon my soul, I don't wonder," said Strickland, with his 
 eyes on the ceiling-cloth. "Look at that!" 
 
 The tails of two snakes were hanging between the cloth 
 and the cornice of the wall. They threw long shadows in 
 the lamplight. *'If you are afraid of snakes, of course—" 
 said Strickland. "I hate and fear snakes, because if you look 
 into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and 
 more of man's fall, and that it feels all the contempt that 
 the devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides 
 
fT\iT)e Ou/p people 45 
 
 which its bite is generally fatal, and it bursts up trouser 
 legs." 
 
 *'You ought to get your thatch overhauled," I said, 
 *'Give me a masheer rod, and we'll poke 'em down." 
 
 *' They'll hide among the roof beams," said Strickland. 
 '*I can't stand snakes overhead. I'm going up. If I shake 
 'em down, stand by with a cleaning-rod and break their 
 backs. ' ' 
 
 I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work, but I 
 took the loading-rod and waited in the dining-room, while 
 Strickland brought a gardener's ladder from the veranda and 
 set it against the side of the room. The snake tails drew 
 themselves up and disappeared. We could hear the dry 
 rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy cloth* 
 Strickland took a lamp with hini, while I tried to make clear" 
 the danger of hunting roof snakes between a ceiling-cloth and 
 a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused by 
 ripping out ceiling-cloths. 
 
 ' ' ITonsense ! ' ' said Strickland. ' ' They're sure to hide near 
 the walls by the cloth. The bricks are too cold for 'em, and 
 the heat of the room is just what they hke." He put his 
 hand to the corner of the cloth and ripped the rotten stulf 
 from the cornice. It gave a great sound of tearing, and 
 Strickland put his head through the opening into the dark of 
 the angle of the roof beams. I set my teeth and lifted the 
 loading-rod, for I had not the least knowledge of what might 
 descend. 
 
 '^H'm," said Strickland; and his voice rolled and rumbled 
 in the roof. "There's room for another set of rooms up here^ 
 and, by Jove! some one is occupying 'em." 
 
 "Snakes?" I said down below. 
 
 "No. It's a buffalo. Hand me up the two first joints of 
 a masheer rod, and I'll prod it. It's lying on the main 
 beam. " 
 
 I handed up the rod. 
 
 "What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder the 
 snakes Hve here, ' ' said Strickland, climbing further into the 
 
46 U/or^s of I^adyard I^iplip^ 
 
 roof. I could see his elbow thrusting with the rod. *'Come 
 out of that, whoever you are! Look out! Heads below 
 there! It's tottering." 
 
 I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the center of the room 
 bag with a shape that was pressing it downward and down- 
 ward toward the lighted lamps on the table. I snatched a 
 lamp out of danger and stood back. Then the cloth ripped 
 out from the walls, tore, split, swayed, and shot down upon 
 the table something that I dared not look at tOl Strickland 
 had slid down the ladder and was standing by my side. 
 
 He did not say much, being a man of few words, but he 
 picked up the loose end of the table-cloth and threw it over 
 the thing on the table. 
 
 "It strikes me," said he, pulling down the lamp, "our 
 friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would you?" 
 
 There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake 
 wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the masheer 
 rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks worth 
 recording. 
 
 Strickland meditated and helped himself to drinks liberally. 
 The thing under the cloth made no more signs of life. 
 
 "Is it Imray?" I said. 
 
 Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment and 
 looked. " It is Imray," he said, "and his throat is cut from 
 ear to ear." 
 
 Then we spoke both together and to ourselves: "That*s 
 why he whispered about the house," 
 
 Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little 
 later her great nose heaved upon the dining-room door. 
 
 She sniffed and was still. The broken and tattered ceil- 
 ing-cloth hung down almost to the level of the table, and 
 there was hardly room to move away from the discovery. 
 
 Then Tietjens came in and sat down, her teeth bared and 
 her forepaws planted. She looked at Strickland. 
 
 "It's bad business, old lady," said he. "Men don't go 
 up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and they don't 
 fasten up the ceiling-cloth behind 'em. Let's think it out." 
 
fi\\i)Q OwT) people 47 
 
 *' Let's think it out somewhere else," I said. 
 
 ' ' Excellent idea ! Turn the lamps out. We'll get into my 
 
 room. ' ' 
 
 I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Strickland's 
 room first and allowed him to make the darkness. Then he 
 followed me, and w^e lighted tobacco and thought. Strick- 
 land did the thinking. I smoked furiously because I was 
 afraid. 
 
 "Imray is back," said Strickland. ^'The question is, who 
 killed Imray? Don't talk — I have a notion of my own. 
 When I took this bungalow I took most of Imray's servants, 
 Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn't he?" 
 
 I agreed, though the heap under the cloth looked neither 
 one thing nor the other. 
 
 " If I call the servants they will stand fast in a crowd and 
 lie like Aryans. What do you suggest?" 
 
 *'Call 'em in one by one," I said. 
 
 *^ They'll run away and give the news to all their feUows," 
 said Strickland. 
 
 "We must segregate 'em. Do you suppose your servant 
 knows anything about it?" 
 
 "He may, for aught I know, but 1 don't think it's likely. 
 He has only been here two or three days. " 
 "What's your notion?" I asked. 
 
 "I can't quite tell. How the dickens did the man get the 
 wrong side of the ceiling-cloth?" 
 
 There was a heavy coughing outside Strickland's bedroom 
 door. This showed that Bahadur Khan, his body-servant, 
 had waked from sleep and wished to put Strickland to bed. 
 
 "Come in," said Strickland. "It is a very warm night, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot Moham- 
 medan, said that it was a very warm night, but that there 
 was more rain pending, which, by his honor's favor, would 
 bring relief to the country. 
 
 "It will be so, if God pleases," said Strickland, tugging 
 off his boots. "It is in my mind, Bahadur Khan, that I have 
 
48 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplii)^' 
 
 worked thee remorselessly for many days — ever since that 
 time when thou first earnest into my service. What time 
 was that?" 
 
 "Has the heaven-born forgotten? It was when Imray 
 Sahib went secretly to Europe without warning given, and I 
 —even I — came into the honored service of the protector of 
 the poor." 
 
 *' And Imray Sahib went to Europe?" 
 
 "It is so said among the servants." 
 
 "And thou wilt take service with him when he returns?" 
 
 "Assuredly, sahib. He was a good master and cherished 
 his dependents. ' ' 
 
 "That is true. I am very tired, but I can go buck-shoot- 
 ing to-morrow. Give me the little rifle that I use for black 
 buck; it is in the case yonder," 
 
 The man stooped over the case, handed barrels, stock, and 
 fore-end to Strickland, who fitted them together. Yawning 
 dolefully, then he reached down to tha gun-case, took a sohd 
 drawn cartridge, and slipped it into the breech of the .360 
 express. 
 
 "And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe secretly? That is 
 very strange, Bahadur Khan, is it not?" 
 
 "What do I know of the ways of the white man, heaven- 
 born?" 
 
 "Very little, truly. But thou shalt know more. It has 
 reached me that Imray Sahib has returned from his so long 
 journe3dngs, and that even now he lies in the next room^ 
 waiting his servant." 
 
 "Sahib!" 
 
 The lamplight slid along the barrels of the rifle as they 
 leveled themselves against Bahadur Khan's broad breast. 
 
 "Go, then, and look!" said Strickland, "Take a lamp. 
 Thy master is tired, and he waits. Go ! ' ' 
 
 The man picked up a lamp and v/ent into the dining-room, 
 Strickland foUovdng, and almost pushing him with the muz-= 
 zle of the rifle. He looked for a moment at the black depths 
 behind the ceiling-cloth, at the carcass of the mangled snake 
 
/T\iQe Ouji> people 49 
 
 underfoot, and last, a gray glaze setting on his face, at the 
 thing under the table-cloth. 
 
 *'Hast thou seen?" said Strickland, after a pause. 
 
 ''I have seen. I am clay in the white man's hands. 
 "What does the presence do?" 
 
 '*Hang thee within a month! What else?" 
 
 **For killing him? Fay, sahib, consider. "Walking among 
 us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child, who was 
 four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died 
 of the fever. My child !" 
 
 **"What said Imray Sahib?" 
 
 **He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on the 
 head; wherefore my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray 
 Sabib in the twilight, when he came back from office and was 
 sleeping. The heaven-born knows all things. I am the 
 servant of the heaven-bom." 
 
 Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in the 
 vernacular: "Thou art witness to this saying. He has 
 killed." 
 
 Bahadur Khan stood ashen gray in the light of the one 
 lamp. The need for justification came upon him very swiftly » 
 
 "I am trapped," he said, "but the offense was that man's. 
 He cast an evil eye upon my child, and I killed and hid him. 
 Only sucli as are served by devils^" he glared at Tietjens^ 
 crouched stolidly before him, *'only such could know what 
 I did." 
 
 * * It was clever. But thou shouldst have lashed him to the 
 beam with a rope. Kow, thou thyself wilt hang hy a ropOe 
 Orderly!" 
 
 A drowsy policeman answered Strickland's call. He was 
 followed by another, and Tietjens sat still. 
 
 "Take him to the station," said Strickland. "There is a 
 case toward." 
 
 "Do I hang, then?" said Bahadur Khan, making no 
 attempt to escape and keeping his eyes on the ground. 
 
 "If the sun shines, or the water runs, thou wilt hang," 
 said Strickland. Bahadur Khan stepped back one pace, 
 Vol. 3. 3 
 
50 Tl/orl^s of F^udyard t^iplii)^ 
 
 quivered, and stood still. The two policemen waited further 
 orders. 
 
 ^*Go!" said Strickland. 
 
 "Kay; but I go very swiftly," said Bahadur Khan. 
 **Look! I am even now a dead man." 
 
 He lifted his foot, and to the little toe there clung the head 
 of the half "killed snake, firm fixed in the agony of death. 
 
 "I come of land-holding stock," said Bahadur Khan, 
 rocking where he stood. "It were a disgrace for me to go to 
 the public scaffold, therefore I take this way. Be it remem ' 
 bered that the sahib's shirts are correctly enumerated, and 
 that there is an extra piece of soap in his wash-basin. My 
 child was bewitched, and I slew the wizard. Why should 
 you seek to slay me? My honor is saved, and — and — I 
 die." 
 
 At the end of an hour he died as they die who are bitten 
 by the little kariat, and the policemen bore him and the thing 
 under the table-cloth to their appointed places. They were 
 needed to make clear the disappearance of Imray. 
 
 ''This," said Strickland, very calmly, as he cHmbed into 
 bed, "is called the nineteenth century. Did you hear what 
 that man said?" 
 
 ''I heard," I answered. "Imray made a mistake." 
 
 "Simply and solely through not knowing the nature and 
 the coincidence of a httle seasonal fever. Bahadur Khan had 
 been with him for four years." 
 
 I shuddered. My own servant had been with me for 
 exactly that length of time. When I went over to my own 
 room I found him waiting, impassive as the copper head on 
 a penny, to pull off my boots. 
 
 "What has befallen Bahadur Khan?" said I. 
 
 ' ' He was bitten by a snake and died ; the rest the sahib 
 knows," was the answer. 
 
 "And how much of the matter hast thou known?"* 
 
 "As much as might be gathered from one coming in the 
 twilight to seek satisfaction. Gently, sahib. Let me pull oi 
 those boots." 
 
fT\lT)e 0\jjT) people 61 
 
 I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion when I heard 
 Strickland shouting from his side of the house : 
 
 ^'Tietjens has come back to her room!" 
 
 And so she had. The great deerhound was couched on 
 her own bedstead, on her own blanket, and in the next room 
 the idle, empty ceiling-cloth wagged light-heartedly as it 
 flailed on the tablee 
 
 MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 
 
 Once upon a time there was a coffee-planter m India who 
 wished to clear some forest land for coffee-planting. When 
 he had cut down all the trees and burned the underwood, the 
 stumps still remained. Dynamite is expensive and slow fir© 
 slow. The happy medium for stump-clearing is the lord of 
 all beasts, who is the elephant. He will either pi^h the 
 stump out of the ground with his tusks, if he has any, or 
 drag it out with ropes. The planter, therefore, hired ele- 
 phants by ones and twos and threes, and fell to work. The 
 very best of all the elephants belonged to the very wossk of 
 all the drivers or mahouts; and this superior beast^saam® 
 was Moti Guj. He was the absolute property of his mahout, 
 which would never have been the case under native rules for 
 Moti Guj was a creature to be desired by kings^ and his 
 name, being translated, meant the Pearl Elephant. Because 
 the British government was in the land, Deesa, the mahout, 
 enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. When 
 he had made much money through the strength of his ele. 
 phant, he would get extremely drunk and give Moti Guj a 
 beating with a tent-peg over the tender nails of the forefeet, 
 Moti Guj never trampled the life out of Deesa on these occa- 
 sions, for he knew that, after the beating was over, Beesa 
 would embrace his trunk and weep and call him his love and 
 his life and the liver of his soul, and give him some liquor, 
 Moti Guj was very fond of liquor — arrack for choice, though 
 he would drink palm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. 
 
52 Worlds of r^udyard I^iplii)^ 
 
 Then Deesa would go to sleep between Moti Guj's forefeet, 
 and as Deesa generally chose the middle of the public road, 
 and as Moti Guj mounted guard over him, and would not 
 permit horse, foot, or cart to pass by, traffic was congested 
 till Deesa saw fit to wake up. 
 
 There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter's 
 clearing : the wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on 
 Moti Guj's neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj 
 rooted up the stumps — for he owned a magnificent pair of 
 tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope— for he had a magrifi- 
 cent pair of shoulders — while Deesa kicked him behind the 
 ears and said he was the king of elephants. At evening time 
 Moti Guj would wash down his three hundred pounds' weight 
 of green food with a quart of arrack, and Deesa would take 
 a share, and sing songs between Moti Guj's legs till it was 
 time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down 
 to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously in the 
 shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir swab and 
 a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the 
 latter for the smack of the former that warned him to get up 
 and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at 
 his feet and examine his eyes and turn up the fringes of his 
 mighty ears in case of sores or budding ophthalmia. After 
 inspection the two would "come up with a song from the 4 
 sea," Moti Guj, all black and shining, waving a torn tree 
 branch twelve feet long in his trunk, and Deesa knotting up 
 his own long wet hair. 
 
 It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the return 
 of the desire to drink deep. He wished for an orgy. The 
 little draughts that led nowhere were taking the manhood 
 out of him. 
 
 He went to the planter, and *'My mother's dead," said 
 he, weeping. 
 
 "She died on the last plantation two months ago, and she 
 died once before that when you were working for me last 
 year," said the planter, who knew something of the ways of 
 nativedom. 
 
/I\ira OwT) people 53 
 
 **Then it's my ruunV;, and she was just the same as a 
 mother to me," said Deesa, weeping more than ever. **She 
 has left eighteen sme U children entirely without breads and 
 it is I who must fill their little stomachs," said Deesa, beat- 
 ing his head on the floor. 
 
 ^'Who brought yon the news?'^ said the planter, 
 
 **The post," said Deesa. 
 
 "There hasn't been a post here for the past week. Gel 
 back to your lines r' 
 
 "A devastating sickness has fallen on my vill^e, aiad all 
 my wives are dyingj" yelled Deesa, really in team this time, 
 
 "Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa's village^" said the 
 planter. "Chihun, has this man got a wife?*^ 
 
 "He?" said Chihun. "IToc N^ot a woman of our Tillag© 
 would look at him. They'd sooner marry the elephant.'^ 
 
 Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed. 
 
 "You will get into a diMculty in a minute," said tl^ 
 planter, "Go back to your work!" 
 
 "E"ow I will speak Heaven's truth/* gulped Dee^ with 
 an inspiration. * ' I haven' t been drunk for two months, I de- 
 sire to depart in order to get properly drunk afar off and distant 
 from this heavenly plantation. Thus I shall caxiBe no trouble. ^^ 
 
 A flickering smile crossed the planter's face* **Dee6a5" 
 said he, "you've spoken the truth, and I'd give you leave 
 on the spot if anything could be done with Mot! GuJ whilo 
 you're away. You know that he will only obey your orders. *^ 
 
 "May the light of the heavens live forty thousand years. 
 I shall be absent but ten little days. After iha% upon my 
 faith and honor and soul, I return. As to the inconsiderable 
 interval, have I the gracious permission of the heaven-borB 
 to call up Moti Guj?'' 
 
 Permission was granted, and in answer to Deesa's shrill 
 yell, the mighty tusker swung out of the shade of a clump 
 of trees where he had been squirting dust over himd^If till 
 his master should return. 
 
 "Light of my heart, protector of the drunken, mountain 
 of might, give earl" said Deesa, standing in front of him. 
 
0-1 U/orl^s of F^udyar i I^iplfi^^ 
 
 Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted wiib his trunk. **I am 
 going away," said Deesa. 
 
 Moti Guj's eyes twinkled. He lik d jaunts as well as his 
 master. One could snatch all manner of nice things from 
 the roadside then. 
 
 "But you, you fussy old pig, must stay behind and work." 
 
 The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look dehghted. 
 He hated stump-hauling on the plantation. It hurt his teeth. 
 
 **I shall be gone for ten days, oh. delectable one! Hold 
 up your near forefoot and I'll impress the fact upon it, warty 
 toad of a dried mud-puddle." Deesa took a tent-peg and 
 banged Moti Guj ten times on the nails. Moti Guj grunted 
 and shuffled from foot to foot. 
 
 "Ten days," said Deesa, "you will work and haul and 
 root the trees as Chihun here shall order you. Take up 
 Chihun and set him on your neck!" Moti Guj curled the 
 tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there, and was swung 
 on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy ankus— 
 the iron elephant goad. 
 
 Chihun thumped Moti Guj's bald head as a paver thumps 
 a curbstone. 
 
 Moti Guj trumpeted. 
 
 "Be still, hog of the backwoods! Chihun's your mahout 
 for ten days. And now bid me good-by, beast after mine 
 own heart. Oh, my lord, my king! Jewel of all created 
 elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your honored health; be 
 virtuous. Adieu ! ' ' 
 
 Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him 
 into the air twice. That was his way of bidding him good-by. 
 
 "He'll work now," said Deesa to the planter. "Have I 
 leave to go?" 
 
 The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. 
 Moti Guj went back to haul stumps. 
 
 Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and 
 forlorn for all that. Chihun gave him a ball of spices, and 
 tickled him under the chin, and Chihun's little baby cooed 
 to him after work was over, and Chihun's wife called him 
 
/T\ii)e OwT) people 55 
 
 a darling ; but Moti Guj was a bachelor by instinct, as Deesa 
 was. He did not understand the domestic emotions. He 
 wanted the light of his universe back again— the drink and 
 the drunken slumber, the savage beatings and the savage 
 caresses. 
 
 None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. 
 Deesa had wandered along the roads till he met a marriage 
 procession of his own caste, and, drinking, dancing, and tip- 
 pHng, had drifted with it past all knowledge of the lapse of 
 time. 
 
 The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there re- 
 turned no Deesa. Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes for 
 the daily stint. He swung clear, looked round, shrugged his 
 shoulders, and began to walk away, as one having business 
 elsewhere. 
 
 "Hi! ho! Come back you!" shouted Chihun. "Come 
 back and put me on your neck, misborn mountain ! Return, 
 splendor of the hillsides ! Adornment of all India, heave to, 
 or I'll bang every toe off your fat forefoot!" 
 
 Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun ran 
 after him with a rope and caught him up. " Moti Guj put his 
 ears forward, and Chihun knew what that meant, though he 
 tried to carry it off with high words. 
 
 "None of your nonsense with me," said he. "To your 
 pickets, devil- son!" 
 
 "Hrrumph!" said Moti Guj, and that was all — that and 
 the forebent ears. 
 
 Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch 
 for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making fun 
 of the other elephants who had just set to work. 
 
 Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who 
 came out with a dog- whip and cracked it furiously. Moti 
 Guj paid the white man the compliment of charging him 
 Qearly a quarter of a mile across the clearing and ' ' Hrrumph- 
 ing" him into his veranda. Then he stood outside the house, 
 chuckling to himself and shaking all over with the fun of it, 
 as an elephant will. 
 
56 U/orl^s of I^udyard K^plii)^ 
 
 * ' We'll thrash him, ' ' said the planter. * * He shall have the 
 finest thrashing ever elephant received. Give Kala Nag and 
 !N"azim twelve foot of chain apiece, and tell them to lay on 
 twenty. ' ' 
 
 Kala ISTag — which means Black Snake — and ISTazim were 
 two of the biggest elephants in the lines, and one of their 
 duties was to administer the graver punishment, since no 
 man can beat an elephant properly. 
 
 They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in their 
 trunks as they sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to hustle him 
 between them. Moti Guj had never, in all his life of thirty- 
 nine years, been whipped, and he did not intend to begin a 
 new experience. So he waited, waving his head from right 
 to left, and measuring the precise spot in Kala !N'ag's fat side 
 vfhere a blunt tusk could sink deepest. Kala Nag had no 
 tusks; the chain was the badge of his authority; but for all 
 that, he swung wide of Moti Guj at the last minute, and tried 
 to appear as if he had brought the chain out for amusement. 
 Nazim turned round and went home early. He did not feel 
 fighting fit that morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing 
 alone with his ears cocked. 
 
 That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti Guj 
 rolled back to his amateur inspection of the clearing. An 
 elephant who will not work and is not tied up is about as 
 manageable as an eighty-one-ton gun loose in a heavy sea- 
 way. He slapped old friends on the back and asked them if 
 the stumps were coming away easily ; he talked nonsense con- 
 cerning labor and the inalienable rights of elephants to a long 
 ** nooning"; and, wandering to and fro, he thoroughly de- 
 moralized the garden till sundown, when he returned to his 
 picket for food. 
 
 '*If you won't work, you shan't eat," said Chihun, an- 
 grily. **You're a wild elephant, and no educated animal at 
 all. Go back to your jungle. " 
 
 Chihun' s Httle brown baby was rolling on the floor of th© 
 hut, and stretching out its fat arms to the huge shadow in 
 the doorway. Moti Guj knew well that it was the dearest 
 
■[T\iT)e OwT) people 5? 
 
 thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with a 
 fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself, 
 shouting, upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the 
 brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet above his 
 father's head. 
 
 "Great Lord!" said Chihun. "Flour cakes of the best, 
 twelve in number, two feet across and soaked in rum, shall 
 be yours on the instant, and two hundred pounds weight of 
 fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith. Deign only to put 
 down safely that insignificant brat who is my heart and my 
 life to me!" 
 
 Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between 
 his forefeet, that could have knocked into toothpicks all 
 Chihun's hut, and waited for his food. He eat it, and the 
 brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed and thought of 
 Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with the elephant 
 is that his huge body needs less sleep than anything else that 
 lives. Four or five hours in the night suffice — two just be- 
 fore midnight, lying down on one side ; two just after one 
 o'clock, lying down on the other. The rest of the silent 
 hours are filled with eating and fidgeting, and long grum- 
 bling soliloquies. 
 
 At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pick- 
 ets, for a thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying 
 drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none to look after 
 him. So all that night he chased through the undergrowth, 
 blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears. He went 
 . down to the river and blared across the shallows where Deesa 
 used to wash him, but there was no answer. He could not 
 find Deesa, but he disturbed all the other elephants in the 
 lines, and nearly frightened to death some gypsies in the 
 woods. 
 
 At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been 
 very drunk indeed, and he expected to get into trouble for 
 outstaying his leave. He drew a long breath when he saw 
 that the bungalow and the plantation were still uninjured, 
 for he knew something of Moti Guj's temper, and reported 
 
58 U/orl^s of l^adyard \{ip\li)<^ 
 
 himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to 
 his pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had made him 
 hungry. 
 
 "Call up your beast," said the planter; and Deesa shouted 
 in the mysterious elephant language that some mahouts be- 
 lieye came from China at the birth of the world, when ele- 
 phants and not men were masters. Moti Guj heard and 
 came. Elephants do not gallop. They move from places 
 at varying rates of speed. If an elephant wished to catch 
 an express train he could not gallop, but he could catch the 
 train. So Moti Guj was at the planter's door almost before 
 Chihun noticed that he had left his pickets. He fell into 
 Deesa 's arms trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast 
 wept and slobbered over each other, and handled each other 
 from head to heel to see that no harm had befallen. 
 
 "Now we will get to work," said Deesa. "Lift me up^ 
 my son and my joy!" 
 
 Moti Guj swung him up, and the two went to the coffee- 
 clearing to look for difficult stumps. 
 
 The planter was too astonished to be very angry. 
 
 THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 
 
 When three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued 
 on insufficient premises, they condemned a feUow creature 
 to a most unpleasant death in a far country which had noth- 
 ing whatever to do with the United States. They foregath- 
 ered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama Street, an 
 unsavory quarter of the city, and there calling for certain 
 drinks, they conspired because they were conspirators by 
 trade, officially known as the Third Three of the I. A. A. — 
 an institution for the propagation of pure hght, not to be con- 
 founded with any others, though it is affiliated to many, i 
 The Second Three live in Montreal and work among the poor 
 there; the First Three have their home in 'New York, not \ 
 
/r\ii>e OwT) people 59 
 
 far from Castle Garden, and write regularly once a week to 
 a small house near one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What 
 happens after that, a particular section of Scotland Yard 
 knows too well and laughs at. A conspirator detests ridi- 
 cule. More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia Borgia 
 daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at head 
 centers and triangles than for betraying secrets ; for this is 
 human nature. 
 
 The Third Three conspired over whisky cocktails and a 
 clean sheet of notepaper against the British Empire and all 
 that lay therein. This work is very like what men without 
 discernment call politics before a general election. You pick 
 out and discuss in the company of congenial friends all the 
 weak points in your opponents' organization, and uncon- 
 sciously dwell upon and exaggerate all their raishaps, till it 
 seems to you a miracle that the party holds together for an 
 hour. 
 
 *'Our principle is not so much active demonstration — that 
 we leave to others^ — as passive embarrassment to weaken and 
 unnerve," said the first man. ''Wherever an organization 
 is crippled, wherever a confusion is thrown into any branch 
 of any department, we gain a step for those who take on the 
 work ; we are but the forerunners. ' ' He was a German en- 
 thusiast, and editor of a newspaper, from whose leading 
 articles he quoted frequently. 
 
 ''That cursed empire makes so many blunders of her own 
 that unless we doubled the year's average I guess it wouldn't 
 strike her anything special had occurred," said the second 
 man. "Are you prepared to say that all our resources are 
 equal to blowing off the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or 
 spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in clear day- 
 light? They can beat us at our own game. Better join 
 hands with the practical branches ; we're in funds now. Try 
 and direct a scare in a crowded street. They value their 
 greasy hides. ' ' He was the drag upon the wheel, and an 
 Americanized Irishman of the second generation, despising 
 his own race and hating the other. He had learned caution. 
 
60 U/orl^s of F^adyard l^iplii?^ 
 
 The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. 
 He was the strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge of 
 life was limited. He picked a letter from his breast-pocket 
 and threw it across the table. That epistle to the heathen 
 contained some very concise directions from the First Three 
 in !N"ew York. It said : 
 
 *'The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern 
 markets, where our agents have been forcing down the En- 
 glish-held stock among the smaller buyers who watch the 
 turn of shares. Any immediate operations, such as western 
 bears, would increase their willingness to unload. This, 
 however, cannot be expected till they see clearly that for- 
 eign iron-masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should 
 be dispatched to feel the pulse of the market, and act 
 accordingly. Mavericks are at present the best for our 
 purpose. — P. D. Q." 
 
 As a message referring to an iron crisis in Pennsylvania 
 it was interesting, if not lucid. As a new departure in 
 organized attack on an outlying EngHsh dependency, it was 
 more than interesting. 
 
 The first man read it through, and murmured i 
 
 ^'Already? Surely they are in too great a hurry. All 
 that Dhulip Singh could do in India he has done, down to 
 the distribution of his photographs among the peasantry. 
 Ho! Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and he has no 
 substantial money backing from the Other Power. Even 
 our agents in India know he hasn't. What is the use of our 
 organization wasting men on work that is already done? Of 
 course, the Irish regiments in India are half mutinous as 
 they stand." 
 
 This shows how near a lie may come to the truth. An 
 Irish regiment, for just so long as it stands stiU, is generally 
 a hard handful to control, being reckless and rough. When, 
 however, it is moved in the direction of musketry-fire, it be- 
 comes strangely and unpatriotically content with its lot. It 
 has even been heard to cheer the queen with enthusiasm on 
 these occasions. 
 
fC[iT)e OwT) people 61 
 
 But the notion of tampering with the army was, from the 
 point of view of Tehama Street, an altogether sound one. 
 There is no shadow of stabihty in the pohcy of an Enghsh 
 government, and the most sacred oaths of England would, 
 even if embossed on vellum, find very few buyers among 
 colonies and dependencies that have suffered from vain be- 
 liefs. But there remains to England always her army. 
 That cannot change, except in the matter of uniform and 
 equipment. The oflScers may write to the papers demanding 
 the heads of the Horse Guards in default of cleaner redress 
 for grievances; the men may break loose across a country 
 town, and seriously startle the publicans, but neither officers 
 nor men have it in their composition to mutiny after the 
 Continental manner. The English people, when they trouble 
 to think about the army at all, are, and with justice, abso- 
 lutely assured that it is absolutely trustworthy. Imagine for 
 a moment their emotions on realizing that such and such a 
 regiment was in open revolt from causes directly due to Eng- 
 land's management of Ireland. They would probably send 
 the regiment to the polls forthwith, and examine their own 
 consciences as to their duty to Erin, but they would never be 
 easy any more. And it was this vague, unhappy mistrust 
 that the I. A. A. was laboring to produce. 
 
 ' ' Sheer waste of breath, ' ' said the second man, after a 
 pause in the council. "I don't see the use of tampering with 
 their fool-army, but it has been tried before, and we must 
 try it again. It looks well in the reports. If we send one 
 man from here, you may bet your life that other men are 
 going too. Order up Mulcahy." 
 
 Th^y ordered him up — a shm, shght, dark-haired young 
 man, devoured with that bhnd, rancorous hatred of England 
 that only reaches its full growth ac'^oss the Atlantic. He had 
 sucked it from his mother's breast in the httle cabin at the 
 back of the northern avenues of New York; he had been 
 taught his rights and his wrongs, in German and Irish, on 
 the canal fronts of Chicago; and San Francisco held men 
 who told him strange and awful things of the great blind 
 
62 U/orl^s of Fjudyard l^iplii>(J 
 
 power over the seas. Once, when business took hun across 
 the Atlantic, he had served in an Enghsh regiment, and being 
 insubordinate, had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas 
 of England that were not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints 
 from one iron- fisted colonel and an unbending adjutant. He 
 would go to the mines if need be to teach his gospel. And 
 he went as his instructions advised, p. d. q. — which means 
 *'with speed" — to introduce embarrassment into an Irish 
 regiment, "already half mutinous, quartered among Sikh 
 peasantry, all wearing miniatures of His Highness Dhulip 
 Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab, next their hearts, and all 
 eagerly expecting his arrival." Other information equally 
 valuable was given him by his masters. He was to be cau- 
 tious, but never to grudge expense in winning the hearts of 
 the men in the regiment. His mother in ITew York would 
 supply funds, and he was to write to her once a month. Life 
 is pleasant for a man who has a mother in New York to send 
 him £200 a year over and above his regimental pay. 
 
 In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge of 
 drill and musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy, wearing 
 the corporal's stripe, went out in a troop-ship and joined her 
 Majesty's Royal Loyal Musketeers, commonly known as the 
 "Mavericks," because they were masterless and unbranded 
 cattle — sons of small farmers in County Clare, shoeless vaga- 
 bonds of Kerry, herders of Bally vegan, much wanted "moon- 
 Ughters" from the bare rainy headlands of the south coast, 
 officered by O' Mores, Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the like. I 
 Never, to outward seeming, was there more promising mate- 
 rial to work on. The First Three had chosen their regiment 
 well. It feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel 
 and the regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat Father 
 Dennis, who held the keys of heaven and hell, and glared 
 like an angry bull when he desired to be convincing. Him 
 also it loved because on occasions of stress he was wont to 
 tuck up his cassock and charge with the rest into the mer- 
 riest of the fray, where he always found, good man, that the 
 saints sent him a revolver when there was a fallen private to 
 
/I\ir>e OwT) people 68 
 
 be protected or — but this came as an after-thought — his own 
 gray head to be guarded. 
 
 Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with 
 much beer, Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed 
 fittest to Ksten. And these were, one and all, of that quaint, 
 crooked, sweet, profoundly irresponsible, and profoundly lov- 
 able race that fight like fiends, argue hke children, reason 
 like women, obey like men, and Jest like their own goblins 
 of the wrath through rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. 
 The underground work of a conspiracy is always dull, and 
 very much the same the world over. At the end of six 
 months — the seed always falling on good ground — Mulcahy 
 spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the approved fash- 
 ion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more 
 nor less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? 
 had they not all their own and the natural revenges to sat- 
 isfy? Who in these days could do aught to nine hundred 
 men in rebellion? who, again, could stay them if they broke 
 for the sea, licking up on their way other regiments only too 
 anxious to join? And afterward . . . here followed windy 
 promises of gold and preferment, office and honor, ever dear 
 to a certain type of Irishman. 
 
 As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to his 
 chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly unslung 
 belt behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady flew out in 
 the gloom and arrested something. Then said Dan : 
 
 "Mulcahy, you're a great man, an' you do credit to who- 
 ever sent you. Walk about a bit while we think of it." 
 Mulcahy departed elated. He knew his words would sink 
 deep. 
 
 "Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me curl 
 the tripes out of him?" grunted a voice, 
 
 "Because I'm not a fat-headed fool. Boys, 'tis what he's 
 been driving at these six months — our superior corpril, with 
 his education, and his copies of the Irish papers, and his 
 everlasting beer. He's been sent for the purpose, and that's 
 where the money comes from. Can ye not see? That man's 
 
64 lI/orKs of F^udyard \{\p\iT)<^ 
 
 a gold-mine, which Horse Egan here would have destroyed 
 with a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of 
 Providence not to fall in with his little plans. Of course 
 we'll mutiny till all's dry. Shoot the colonel on the parade- 
 ground, massacre the company officers, ransack the arsenal, 
 and then — boys, did he tell you what next? He told me the 
 other night, when he was beginning to talk wild. Then we're 
 to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhuhp Singh 
 and the Russians!" 
 
 ' ' And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of 
 hell! Danny, I'd have lost the beer to ha' given him the 
 belting he requires." 
 
 "Oh, let him go this a while, man! He's got no — no 
 constructiveness ; but that's the egg-meat of his plan, and 
 you must understand that I'm in with it, an' so are you. 
 We'll want oceans of beer to convince us — firmaments full. 
 We'll give him talk for his money, and one by one all the 
 boys'U come in, and he'll have a nest of nine hundred muti- 
 neers to squat in an' give drink to." 
 
 *'What makes me kilhng mad is his wanting us to do 
 what the niggers did thirty years gone. That an' his pig's 
 cheek in saying that other regiments would come along," 
 said a Kerry man. 
 
 "That's not so bad as hintin' we should loose off at the 
 colonel." 
 
 "Colonel be sugared! I'd as soon as not put a shot 
 through his helmet, to see him jump and clutch his old 
 horse's head. But Mulcahy talks o' shootin' our comp'ny 
 orf'cers accidental." 
 
 "He said that, did he?" said Horse Egan. 
 
 "Somethin' like that, anyways. Can't ye fancy ould 
 Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin' like a sick 
 monkey an' sayin' : 'Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin' 
 dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor hke men. " The 
 man that shot me is dhrunk. I'll suspend investigations for 
 six hours, while I get this bullet cut out, and then — ' " 
 
 "An' then," continued Horse Egan, for the peppery ma- 
 
/I\ii}e OxuT) people 65 
 
 jor's peculiarities of speech and manner were as well fcaown 
 as his tanned face — "an' then, ye dissolute, half-baked, 
 putty-faced scum o' Connemara, if I find a man so much 
 as lookin' confused, bedad I'll coort-martial the whole com- 
 pany. A man that can't get over his liquor in six hours is 
 not fit to belong to the Mavericks." 
 
 A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the sketch. 
 
 "It's pretty to think of," said the Kerry man slowly. 
 "Mulcahy would have us do all the devilment, and get clear 
 himself, someways. He wudn't be takin' all this fool's 
 throuble in shpoilin' the reputation of the regiment." 
 
 "Reputation of your grandmother's pig!" said Dan. 
 
 "Well, an' he had a good reputation too; so it's all right. 
 Mulcahy must see his way clear out behind him, or he'd not 
 ha' come so far, talkin' powers of darkness." 
 
 "Did you hear anything of a regimental court-martial 
 among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company of 
 'em took one of the new draft an' hanged him by his arms 
 with a tent- rope from a third-story veranda. They gave no 
 reason for so doin', but he was haK dead. I'm thinking that 
 the Boneens are short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahy's, 
 or a man in the same trade. They'd a deal better ha' taken 
 his beer," returned Dan, reflectively. 
 
 "Better still ha' handed him up to the colonel," said 
 Horse Egan, "onless — But sure the news wud be all over 
 the oounthry an' give the reg'ment a bad name." 
 
 "An' there'd be no reward for that man — ^but he went 
 about talkin'," said the Kerry man, artlessly. 
 
 "You speak by your breed," said Dan, with a laugh. 
 "There was never a Kerry man yet that wudn't sell his brother 
 for a pipe o' tobacco an' a pat on the back from a poHceman." 
 
 "Thank God I'm not a bloomin' Orangeman," was the 
 answer. 
 
 ^"No, nor never will be," said Dan. "They breed men in 
 Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one?" 
 
 The Kerry man looked and longed, but forebore. The 
 odds of battle were too great. 
 
66 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip($ 
 
 **Then you'll not even give Mulcahy a — a strike for his 
 money/' said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what 
 he called * 'trouble" of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity. 
 
 Dan answered not at all, but crept on tiptoe, with large 
 strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The rooin was 
 empty. In a corner, cased like the King of Dahomey's state 
 umbrella, stood the regimental colors. Dan lifted them 
 tenderly, and unrolled in the light of the candles the record 
 of the Mavericks — tattered, worn, and hacked. The white 
 satin was darkened everywhere with big brown stains, the 
 gold threads on the crowned harp were frayed and discolored, 
 and the red bull, the totem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. 
 The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is human life, 
 rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their colors long 
 and guard them very sacredly. 
 
 "Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, 
 Ferozshah, and Sobraon — that was fought close next door 
 here, a.gainst the very beggars he wants us to join. Inker- 
 mann, the Alma, Sebastopol! What are those little busi- 
 nesses compared to the campaigns of General Mulcahy? The 
 mut'ny, think o' that; the mut'ny an' some dirty little mat- 
 ters in Afghanistan, and for that an' these and those" — Dan 
 pointed to the names of glorious battles — "that Yankee man 
 with the partin' in his hair comes and says as easy as 'have 
 a drink' . . . Holy Moses! there's the captain !" 
 
 But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the men 
 clattered out, and found the colors uncased. 
 
 From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to the 
 joy of Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New York — the 
 good lady who sent the money for the beer. !N"ever, as far as 
 words went, was such a mutiny. The conspirators, led by 
 Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured in daily. They were 
 sound men, men to be trusted, and they all wanted blood t 
 but first they must have beer. They cursed the queen,- they 
 mourned over Ireland, they suggested hideous plunder of the 
 Indian country-side, and then, alasl some of the younger 
 men would go forth and wallow on the ground in spasms of 
 
/r\ir}e Omjt) people 67 
 
 unlioly laughter. The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is 
 remarkable. ]N"one the less, they would swear no oaths but 
 those of their own making, which were rare and curious, and 
 they were always at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks 
 they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought demoraliza- 
 tion. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and when 
 a pot-valiant Maverick smote a servant on the nose or called 
 his commanding officer a bald headed old lard-bladder, and 
 even worse names, he fancied that rebellion and not liquor 
 was at the bottom of the outbreak. Other gentlemen who 
 have concerned themselves in larger conspiracies have made 
 the same error. 
 
 The hot season, in which they protested no man could 
 rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible re- 
 turn for his teachings. As to the actual upshot of the 
 mutiny, he cared nothing. It would be enough if the En- 
 glish, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their army, 
 should be startled with news of an Irish regiment revolting 
 from political considerations. His persistent demands would 
 have ended, at Dan's instigation, in a regimental belting, 
 which in all probability would have killed him and cut off 
 the supply of beer, had not he been sent on special duty some 
 fifty miles away from the cantonment to cool his heels in a 
 mud fort and dismount obsolete artillery. Then the colonel 
 of the Mavericks, reading his newspaper diligently and 
 scenting frontier trouble from afar, posted to the army head- 
 quarters and pleaded with the commander in-chief for certain 
 privileges, to be granted under certain contingencies; which 
 contingencies came about only a week later when the annual 
 little war on the border developed itself and the colonel re- 
 turned to carry the good news to the Mavericks. He held 
 the promise of the chief for active service, and the men musi 
 get ready. 
 
 On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an unconsid- 
 ered corporal — yet great in conspiracy — returned to canton- 
 ments, and heard sounds of strife and bowlings from afar off. 
 The mutiny had broken out, and the barracks of the Maver- 
 
68 U/orl^s of F^adyard t^iplii><J 
 
 icks were one whitewaslied pandemonium. A private tearing 
 through the barrack square gasped in his ear: '* Service! 
 Active service! It's a burnin' shame." Oh, joy, the Mav- 
 ericks had risen on the eve of battle ! They would not — noble 
 and loyal sons of Ireland ! — serve the queen longer. The news 
 would flash through the country-side and over to England, 
 and he — Mulcahy — the trusted of the Third Three, had 
 brought about the crash. The private stood in the middle of 
 the square and cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, 
 particularly the doctor, by his gods. An orderly of the native 
 cavalry regiment clattered through the mob of soldiers. He 
 was half hfted, half dragged from his horse, beaten on the 
 back with mighty hand-clasps till his eyes watered, and called 
 all manner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had 
 fraternized with the native troops. "Who, then, was the 
 agent among the latter that had blindly wrought with 
 Mulcahy so well? 
 
 An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a barrack. 
 He was mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who closed round 
 but did not kill him, for he fought his way to shelter, flying 
 for his life, Mulcahy could have wept with pure joy and 
 thankfulness. The very prisoners in the guard-room were 
 shaking the bars of their cells and howHng Hke wild beasts, 
 and from every barrack poured the booming as of a big war- 
 drum. 
 
 Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could hardly 
 hear himself speak. Eighty men were pounding with fist and 
 heel the tables and trestles — eighty men flushed with mutiny, 
 stripped to their shirt-sleeves, their knapsacks half -packed 
 for the march to the sea, made the two-inch boards thunder 
 again as they chanted, to a tune that Mulcahy knew well, the 
 Sacred War Song of the Mavericks : 
 
 "Listen in the north, my boys, there's trouble on the wind; 
 Tramp o' Cossacks' hoofs in front, gray great-coats be- 
 hind. 
 Trouble in the frontier of a most amazin' kind, 
 Trouble on the water o' the Oxus!" 
 
/I\ir?e Ovui) people 69 
 
 Then as a table broke under the furious accompaniment : 
 
 "Hurrah! hurrah! it's north by west we go; 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! the chance we wanted so ; 
 Let 'em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow, 
 As we go marching to the Kremlin." 
 
 *' Mother of all the saints in bhss and all the devils in cin- 
 ders, where's my fine new sock widout the heel?" howled 
 Horse Egan, ransacking everybody's knapsack but his own. 
 He was engaged in making up deficiencies of kit preparatory 
 to a campaign, and in that employ he steals best who steals 
 last. "Ah, Mulcahy, you're in good time," he shouted. 
 " We've got the route, and we're off on Thursday for a picnic 
 wid the Lancers next door. ' ' 
 
 An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full 
 of lint rolls, provided, by the forethought of the queen, for 
 such as might need them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his 
 bandage and flickered it under Mulcahy' s nose, chanting : 
 
 " 'Sheep's skin an' bees'-wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster; 
 The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. 
 As I was goin' to New Orleans — ' 
 
 You know the rest of it, my Irish- American-Jew boy. By 
 gad, ye have to fight for the queen in the inside av a fort- 
 night, my darlin' . ' ' 
 
 A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly 
 down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when the panto- 
 mime-cab is at the door, or a girl develop a will of her own 
 when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball- 
 dress, but do not ask an Irish regiment to embark upon 
 mutiny on the eve of a campaign; when it has fraternized 
 with the native regiment that accompanies it, and driven its 
 officers into retirement with ten thousand clamorous ques- 
 tions, and the prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand 
 in the open, calling down all known diseases on the head of 
 the doctor who has certified that they are "medically unfit 
 for active service." At even the Mavericks might have been 
 mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed in their natures as 
 
70 U/orl^s of l^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 Mulcahy. At dawn a girls' school might have learned de- 
 portment from them. They knew that their colonel's hand 
 had closed, and that he who broke that iron discipHne would 
 not go to the front. Nothing in the world will persuade one 
 of our soldiers when he is ordered to the north on the smallest 
 of affairs that he is not immediately going gloriously to slay 
 Cossacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the czar. A 
 few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahy's beer, because 
 the campaign was to be conducted on strict temperance prin- 
 ciples, but, as Dan and Horse Egan said sternly: "We've 
 got the beerman with us; he shall drink now on his own 
 hook." 
 
 Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of 
 being sent on active service. He had made up his mind that 
 he would not go under any circiunstances ; but fortune was 
 against him. 
 
 "Sick — you?" said the doctor, who had served an unholy 
 apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poor-houses. "You're 
 only homesick, and what you call varicose veins come from 
 overeating. A Httle gentle exercise will cure that." And 
 later: "Mulcahy, my man, everybody is allowed to apply 
 for a sick certificate 07ice. If he tries it twice, we call him 
 by an ugly name. Go back to your duty, and let's hear no 
 more of your diseases." 
 
 I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the study 
 of Mulcahy's soul in those days, and Dan took an equal 
 interest. Together they would communicate to their corporal 
 all the dark lore of death that is the portion of those who 
 have seen men die. Egan had the larger experience, but 
 Dan the finer imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the 
 former spoke of the knife as an intimate acquaintance, or 
 the latter dwelt with loving particularity on the fate of those 
 who, wounded and helpless, had been overlooked by the 
 ambulances, and had fallen into the hands of the Afghan 
 women-folk. 
 
 Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at least, 
 was dead. Knew, too, that a change had come over Dan's 
 
/T\ii?e OwT) people 71 
 
 usually respectful attitude toward him, and Horse Egan's 
 laughter and frequent allusions to abortive conspiracies em- 
 phasized all that the conspirator had guessed. The horrible 
 fascination of the death stories, however, made him seek 
 their society. He learned much more than he had bargained 
 for ; and in this manner. It was on the last night before the 
 regiment entrained to the front. The barracks were stripped 
 of everything movable, and the men were too excited to sleep. 
 The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of chloride of 
 lime — a stench that depresses the soul. 
 
 "And what," said Mulcahy in an awestricken whisper, 
 after some conversation on the eternal subject, ''are you 
 going to do to me, Dan?" This might have been the lan- 
 guage of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit. 
 
 "You'll see," said Dan, grimly, turning over in his cot, 
 "or I rather shud say you'll not see." 
 
 This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy 
 shook under the bed-clothes. 
 
 "Be easy with him," put in Egan from the next cot. "He 
 has got his chanst o' goin' clean. Listen, Mulcahy; all we 
 want is for the good sake of the regiment that you take your 
 death standing up, as a man shud. There be heaps an' heaps 
 of enemy — plenshus heaps. Go there an' do all you can and 
 die decent. You'll die with a good name there. 'Tis not a 
 hard thing considerin'." 
 
 Again Mulcahy shivered. 
 
 "And how could a man wish to die better than fightin'?" 
 added Dan, consolingly. 
 
 "And if I won't?" said the corporal in a dry whisper. 
 
 "There'll be a dale of smoke," returned Dan, sitting up 
 and ticking off the situation on his fingers, "sure to be, an' 
 the noise of the firin' '11 be tremenjus, an' we'll be running 
 about up and down, the regiment will. But we, Horse and I 
 —we'll stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe 
 there'll be an accident." 
 
 "It's playing it low on me. Let me go. For pity's sake, 
 let me go ! I never did you harm, and — ^and I stood you as 
 
72 U/orKs of F^adyard l^iplip<;5 
 
 mucti beer as I could. Oh, don't be hard on me, Dan ! You 
 are — you were in it, too. You won't kill me up there, will 
 you?" 
 
 ''I'm not thinkin' of the treason; though you shud be 
 glad any honest boys drank with you. It's for the regiment. 
 We can't have the shame o' you bringin' shame on us. You 
 went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind 
 an' Hve with the women at the depot — you that wanted us to 
 run to the sea in wolf -packs like the rebels none of your black 
 blood dared to be ! But we knew about your goin' to the 
 doctor, for he told it in mess, and it's all over the regiment, 
 Bein' as we are your best friends, we didn't allow any one 
 to molest you yet. We will see to you ourselves. Fight 
 which you will — us or the enemy — you'll never lie in that 
 cot again, and there's more glory and maybe less kicks from 
 fighting the enemy. That's fair speakin'." 
 
 "And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with 
 the niggers — you've forgotten that, Dan," said Horse Egan, 
 to justify sentence. 
 
 ''What's the use of plaguin' the man? One shot pays for 
 all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. But you understand, do ye 
 not?" 
 
 Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of any- 
 thing at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp, or at 
 parade, stood two big men with soft voices adjuring him to 
 commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should happen — to die 
 for the honor of the regiment in decency among the nearest 
 knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He remembered cer- 
 tain things that priests had said in his infancy, and his mother 
 — not the one at New York — starting from her sleep with 
 shrieks to pray for a husband's soul in torment. It is well 
 to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the 
 weak human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the 
 breast, and if that creed be not a pretty one, trouble follows. 
 Also, the death he would have to face would be physically 
 painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations. Mul- 
 cahy could see himself, as he lay on the earth in the night, 
 
/I\ipe Omjt) people 73 
 
 dying by various causes. They were all horrible ; the mother 
 in New York was very far away, and the regiment, the en- 
 gine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you forward 
 whether you will or won't, was daily coming closer to the 
 enemy ! 
 
 They were brought to the field of Marzun-Katai, and with 
 the Black Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never 
 been set down in the newspapers. In response, many beHeve, 
 to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis, the enemy not only 
 elected to fight in the open, but made a beautiful fight, as 
 many weeping Irish mothers knew later. They gathered 
 behind walls or flickered across the open in shouting masses, 
 and were pot-vahant in artillery. It was expedient to hold 
 a large reserve and wait for the psychological moment that 
 was being prepared by the shrieking shrapnel. Therefore 
 the Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill 
 to watch the play till their call should come. Father Dennis, 
 whose place was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the 
 wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the 
 foremost of his boys, and lay, like a black porpoise, at length 
 on the grass. To him crawled Mulcahy, ashen- gray, de- 
 manding absolution. 
 
 *'Wait till you're shot," said Father Dennis, sweetly. 
 "There's a time for everything." 
 
 Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into 
 the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried 
 -his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke Hke a snipe imme- 
 diately above his head, and a general heave and tremor rip- 
 pled the line. Other shots followed, and a few took effect, 
 as a shriek or a grunt attested. The officers, who had been 
 lying down with the men, rose and began to walk steadily 
 up and down the front of their companies. 
 
 This maneuver, executed not for pubhcation, but as a 
 guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. 
 You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you 
 know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme 
 Vol. 3 4 
 
74 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{ipUi)<!^ 
 
 range; and, above all, if you are smitten you must make as 
 little noise as possible and roll inward through the files. It 
 is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of 
 the powder to noses rather cold at the tips, and the eye can 
 quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the 
 strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can en- 
 dure for half a day, and abate no whit of their zeal at the 
 end; English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, 
 while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward by 
 ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. The 
 truly wise commandant of highly strung troops allows them 
 in seasons of waiting to hear the sound of their own voices 
 uplifted in song. There is a legend of an English regiment 
 that lay by its arms under fire chanting ' ' Sam Hall, ' ' to the 
 horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel. The Black 
 Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a 
 hiU half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who 
 cared to listen : 
 
 "We'll sound the jubilee, from the center to the sea. 
 And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van- Voght. " 
 
 "Sing, boys," said Father Dennis, softly. *'It looks as 
 if we cared for their Afghan peas." 
 
 Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his 
 mouth in a song imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, 
 in the strictest confidence by Mulcahy — that Mulcahy then 
 lying limp and fainting on the grass, the chill fear of death 
 upon him. 
 
 Company after company caught up the words which, the 
 I. A. A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin, and to 
 breathe which, except to those duly appointed to hear, is 
 death. Wherefore they are printed in this place : 
 
 " The Saxon in heaven's just balance is weighed. 
 
 His doom, hke Belshazzar's, in death has been cast, 
 And the hand of the 'venger shall never be stayed 
 Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past." ' 
 
[T\ir)e Owt) people 75 
 
 They were heart-filling Hnes, and they ran with a swirl ; 
 the I. A. A. are better served by pens than their petards. 
 Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the back, asking him to 
 sing up. The officers lay down again. There was no need 
 to walk any more. Their men were soothing themselves 
 thunderously, thus: 
 
 *'St. Mary in heaven has written the vow 
 
 That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood, 
 From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plow, 
 Has rolled to the ocean hke Shannon in flood!" 
 
 *'I'll speak to you after all's over," said Father Dennis, 
 authoritatively, in Dan's ear. "What's the use of confess- 
 ing to me when you do this foolishness? Dan, you've been 
 playing with fire I I'll lay you more penance in a week 
 than—" 
 
 "Oome along to purgatory with us, father dear. The 
 Boneens are on the move; they'll let us go now!" 
 
 The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; 
 but one man there was who rose more swiftly than all the 
 others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of 
 his leg. 
 
 "You've got to do it," said Dan, grimly. "Do it decent, 
 anyhow;" and the roar of the rush drowned his words as the 
 rear companies thrust forward the first, still singing as they 
 swung down the slope : 
 
 "From the child at the breast to the hand at the plow, 
 Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!" 
 
 They should have sung it in the face of England, not of 
 the Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the wild 
 Irish yell. 
 
 "They came down singing," said the unofficial report of 
 the enemy, borne from village to village next day. "They 
 continued to sing, and it W8.s written that our men could not 
 abide when they came. It is believed that there was magic 
 in the aforesaid song." 
 
 Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbor- 
 
76 U/orKs of I^adyard l^iplir?($ 
 
 hood of Mulcahy. Twice the man would have bolted back 
 in the confusion. Twice he was heaved like a half-drowned 
 kitten into the unpaintable inferno of a hotly contested charge. 
 
 At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into 
 madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at 
 nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one 
 in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled 
 after him. The charge was checked at a high mud wall. It 
 was Mulcahy that scrambled up tooth and nail and heaved 
 down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred 
 his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of 
 the rabid dog, led a collection of ardent souls at a newly un- 
 masked battery, and flung himself on the muzzle of a gun as 
 his companions danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy 
 who ran wildly on from that battery into the open plain where 
 the enemy were retiring in sullen groups. His hands were 
 empty, he had lost helmet and belt, and he was bleeding 
 from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting 
 and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground 
 by the captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahy's flight. 
 
 '^Mad," said Horse Egan, critically. "Mad with fear! 
 He's going straight to his death, an' shouting's no use." 
 
 "Let him go. "Watch now! If we fire we'll hit him 
 maybe. ' ' 
 
 The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the 
 noise of shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready to 
 hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mul- 
 cahy ran on, sobbing, and the straight-held blade went home 
 through the defenseless breast, and the body pitched forward 
 almost before a shot from Dan's rifle brought down the slayer 
 and still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The two Irish- 
 men went out to bring in their dead. 
 
 ' ' He was given the point, and that was an easy death, ' * 
 said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. "But would you ha' 
 shot him, Danny, if he had lived?" 
 
 "He didn't live, so there's no sa^dn'. But I doubt I wud 
 have, bekase of the fun he gave us — let alone the beer. Hike 
 
/I\ir)e OwT) people 77 
 
 up his legs, Horse, and we'll bring him in. Perhaps 'tis bet- 
 ter this way. ' ' 
 
 They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the regiment, 
 lolling open-mouthed on their rifles ; and there was a general 
 snigger when one of the younger subalterns said: *'That was 
 a good man!" 
 
 "Phew !" said Horse Egan when a burial party had taken 
 over the burden. "I'm powerful dhry, and this reminds me, 
 therein be no more beer at all." 
 
 "Fwhy not?" said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he 
 stretched himseK for rest. "Aro we not conspirin' all we 
 can, an' while we conspire are 've not entitled to free dhrinks? 
 "Sure his ould mother in 'New York would not let her Fon's 
 comrades perish of drouth — ii she can be reached at th 3 end 
 of a letter." 
 
 "You're a janius," said Horse Egan. "O' coorse she 
 will not. I wish this crool war was over, an' we'd get back 
 to canteen. FaHh, the commander-in-chief ought to be 
 hanged on his cwn little sword-belt for makin' us work 
 on wather." 
 
 The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egan's opinion. 
 So they made haste to g 3t their work done as soon as pos- 
 sible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected peace, 
 "We can fight the sons of Adam," ^aid the tribesmen, "but 
 we cannot fight the sonf of Eblis, and this regiment never 
 stays still in one place. Let us therefore come in." They 
 came in, and "this regiment" withdrew to conspire under 
 the leadership of Dan Grady. 
 
 Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed altogether as a 
 chief -in-command — possibly because he was too much swayed 
 by the advice of the only man in the regiment who could per- 
 petrate more than one kind of handwriting. The same mail 
 that bore to Mulcahy's mother in New York a letter from 
 the colonel, telling her how valiantly her son had fought for 
 the queen, and how assuredly he would have been recom- 
 mended for the Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a 
 communication signed, I grieve to say, by that same colonel 
 
78 U/orks of r^udyard \{ip\iT)<^ 
 
 and all the officers of the regiment, explaining their willing- 
 ness to do *' anything which is contrary to the regulations 
 and all kinds of revolutions" if only a little money could be 
 forwarded to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, 
 Esquire, would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who *'was 
 unwell at this present time of writing." 
 
 Both letters were forwarded from Few York to Tehama 
 Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as 
 they were bitter. The Third Three read and looked at each 
 other. Then the Second Conspirator — he who believed in 
 "joining hands with the practical branches" — began to 
 laugh, and on recovering his gravity, said: "Gentlemen, 
 I consider this will be a le&son to us. We're left again. 
 These cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would, 
 but" — here he laughed afresh — "I'd give considerable to 
 know what was at the back of it all." 
 
 His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan 
 Grady, discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain 
 to his thirsty comrades in India the noii-arrival of funds 
 from Kew York. 
 
 AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 
 
 Four men, theoretically entitled to "life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness," sat at a table playing whist. The 
 thermometer marked — for them— one hundred and one de- 
 grees of heat. The room was darkened till it was only just 
 possible to distinguish the pip^'- of the cards and the very 
 white faces of the players. A tattered, rotten punkah of 
 whitewashed calico was puddling the hot air and whining 
 dolefully at each stroke. Outside lay gloom of a November 
 day in London. There was neither sky, sun, nor horizon — 
 nothing but a brown-purple haze of heat. It was as though 
 the earth were dying of apoplexy. 
 
 From time to time clouds of tawny dust rose from the 
 
/I\ii>e OwT) people 79 
 
 ground without wind or warning, flung themselves tablecloth- 
 wise among the tops of the parched trees, and came down 
 again. Then a whirling dust-devil would scutter across the 
 plain for a couple of miles, break, and fall outward, though 
 there was nothing to check its flight save a long low line of 
 piled railway-sleepers white with the dust, a cluster of huts 
 made of mud, condemned rails and canvas, and the one 
 squat four-roomed bungalow that belonged to the assistant 
 engineer in charge of a section of the Gandhari State Hne 
 then under construction. 
 
 The four men, stripped to the thinnest of sleeping-suits, 
 played whist crossly, with wranghngs as to leads and returns. 
 It was not the best kind of whist, but they had taken some 
 trouble to arrive at it. Mottram, of the India Survey, had 
 ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely 
 post in the desert since the previous night ; Lowndes, of the 
 Civil Service, on special duty in the political department, had 
 come as far to escape for an instant the miserable intrigues of 
 an impoverished native state whose king alternately fawned 
 and blustered for more money from the pitiful revenues con- 
 tributed by hard- wrung peasants and ■ despairing camel- 
 breeders ; Spurstow, the doctor of the line, had left a cholera- 
 stricken camp of coolies to look after itself for forty-eight 
 hours while he associated with white men once more. Hum- 
 mfl, the assistant engineer, was the host. He stood fast, and 
 received his friends thus every Sunday if they could come in. 
 "When one of them failed to appear, he would send a telegram 
 to his last address, in order that he might know whether the 
 defaulter was dead or alive. There be very many places 
 in the East where it is not good or kind to let your acquaint- 
 ances drop out of sight even for one short week. 
 
 The players were not conscious of any special regard for 
 each other. They squabbled whenever they met; but they 
 ardently desired to meet, as men without water desire to 
 drink. They were lonely folk who understood the dread 
 meaning of loneliness. They were all under thirty years of 
 age — which is too soon for any man to possess that knowledge. 
 
80 U/or^s of Hudyard \{ip\ii)<^ 
 
 *^Pilsener," said Spurstow, after the second rubber, mop- 
 ping his forehead. 
 
 * 'Beer's out, I'm sorry to say, and there's hardly enough 
 soda-water for to-night," said Hummil. 
 
 "What filthy bad management!" snarled Spurstow. 
 
 "Can't help it. I've written and wired; but the trains 
 don't come through regularly yet. Last week the ice ran 
 out — as Lowndes knows." 
 
 "Glad I didn't come. I could ha' sent you some if I had 
 known, though. Phew ! it's too hot to go on playing bumble- 
 puppy." 
 
 This was a savage growl at Lowndes, who only laughed. 
 He was a hardened offender. 
 
 Mottram rose from the table and looked out of a chink in 
 the shutters. 
 
 "What a sweet day!" said he. 
 
 The company yawned unanimously and betook them- 
 selves to an aimless investigation of all Hummil's possessions 
 — guns, tattered novels, saddlery, spurs, and the like. They 
 had fingered them a score of times before, but there was 
 really nothing else to do. 
 
 "Got anything fresh?" said Lowndes. 
 
 "Last week's 'Gazette of India,' and a cutting from a 
 home paper. My father sent it out. It's rather amusing. " 
 
 "One of those vestrymen that call 'emselves M. P. 's again, 
 is it?" said Spurstow, who read his newspapers when he 
 could get them. 
 
 "Yes. Listen to this. It's to your address, Lowndes, 
 The man was making a speech to his constituents, and he 
 piled it on. Here's a sample: *And I assert unhesitatingly 
 that the Civil Service in India is the preserve — the pet pre- 
 serve — of the aristocracy of England. What does the de- 
 mocracy — what do the masses — get from that country, which 
 we have step by step fraudulently annexed? I answer, -noth- 
 ing whatever. It is farmed, with a single eye to their own 
 interests, by the scions of the aristocracy. They take good 
 care to maintain their lavish scale of incomes, to avoid or 
 
fT\lT)e Omjt) people 81 
 
 stifle any inquiries into the nature and conduct of their ad- 
 ministration, while they themselves force the unhappy peasant 
 to pay with the sweat of his brow for all the luxuries in which 
 they are lapped.' " Hummil waved the cutting above his 
 head. "'Ear! 'ear!" said his audience. 
 
 Then Lowndes, meditatively: "I'd give — I'd give three 
 months' pay to have that gentleman spend one month with 
 me and see how the free and independent native prince works 
 things. Old Timbersides" — this was his flippant title for an 
 honored and decorated prince — "has been wearing my life 
 out this week past for money. By Jove ! his latest perform- 
 ance was to send me one of his women as a bribe!" 
 
 "Good for you. Did you accept it?" said Mottram. 
 
 "No. I rather wish I had, now. She was a pretty little 
 person, and she yarned away to me about the horrible desti- 
 tution among the king's women-folk. The darlings haven't 
 had any new clothes for nearly a month, and the old man 
 wants to buy a new drag from Calcutta — solid silver railings 
 and silver lamps, and trifles of that kind. I've ti'ed to 
 make him understand that he has played the deuce with the 
 revenues for the last twenty years, and must go slow. He 
 can't see it. " 
 
 "But he has the ancestral treasure- vault to draw on. 
 There must be three millions at least in jewels and coin under 
 his palace," said HummiL - 
 
 ' ' Catch a native king disturbing the family treasure ! The 
 priests forbid it, except as the last resort. Old Timbersides 
 has added something like a quarter of a million to the deposit 
 in his reign." 
 
 "Where the mischief does it all come from?" said Mot- 
 tram. 
 
 "The country. The state of the people is enough to make 
 
 you sick. I've known the tax-men wait by a milch-camel 
 
 till the foal was born, and then hurry off the mother for 
 
 ^ arrears. And what can I do? I can't get the court clerks to 
 
 give me any accounts ; I can't raise anything more than a 
 
 I fat smile from the commander-in-chief when I find out the 
 
82 U/orKs of I^udyard \{\pllT)<^ 
 
 troops are three months in arrears; and old Timbersides 
 begins to weep when I speak to him. He has taken to the 
 king's peg heavily — liqueur brandy for whisky and Heidsieck 
 for soda-water." 
 
 *' That's what the Rao of Jubela took to. Even a native 
 can't last long at that," said Spurstow. ''He'll go out." 
 
 "And a good thing, too. Then I suppose we'll have a 
 council of regency, and a tutor for the young prince, and 
 hand him back his kingdom with ten years' accumulations." 
 
 "Whereupon that young prince, having been taught all 
 the vices of the English, will play ducks and drakes with the 
 money, and undo ten years' work in eighteen months. I've 
 seen that business before," said Spurstow. "I should tackle 
 the king with a hght hand, if I were you, Lowndes. They'll 
 hate you quite enough under any circumstances. ' ' 
 
 "That's all very well. The man who looks on can talk 
 about the light hand but you can't clean a pigsty with a 
 pen d'pped in rosewatDr. I know my risks; but nothing has 
 happened yet. My servant's an old Pathan, and he cooks for 
 me. They are hardly likely to bribe him, and I don't accept 
 food from my true friends, as they call themselves. Oh, but 
 it's weary work ! I'd sooner be with you, Spurstow. There's 
 shooting near your camp." 
 
 "Would you? I don't think it. About fifteen deaths a 
 day don't incite a man to shoot anything but himself. And 
 the worst of it is that the poor devils look at you as though 
 you ought to save them. Lord knows, I've tried everything. 
 My last attempt was empirical, but it pulled an old man 
 through. He was brought to me apparently past hope, and 
 I gave him gin and Worcester sauce with cayenne. It cured 
 him; but I don't recommend it." 
 
 "How do the cases run generally?" said Hummil. 
 
 "Very simply indeed. Chlorodyne, opium pill, chloro- 
 dyne, collapse, niter, bricks to the feet, and then — the burn- 
 ing-ghat. The last seems to be the only thing that stops the 
 trouble. It's black cholera, you know. Poor devils ! But, 
 I will say, little Bunsee Lai, my apothecary, works Hke a 
 
fT\\T)e 0\jjT) people 83 
 
 demon. I've reconiniended him for promotion if he comes 
 through it all alive." 
 
 '*And what are your chances, old man?" said Mottram. 
 
 "Don't know; don't care much; but I've sent the letter 
 in. What are you doing with yourself generally?" 
 
 "Sitting under a table in the tent and spitting on the 
 sextant to keep it cool, " said the man of the survey. "Wash- 
 ing my eyes to avoid ophthalmia, which I shall certainly get, 
 and trying to make a sub- surveyor understand that an error 
 of five degrees in ar angle isn't quite so small as it looks. 
 I'm altogether alone, y'know, and shaU be till the end of the 
 hot weather." 
 
 "Hummil's the lucky man," said Lowndes, flinging him- 
 seK into a long chair. "He has an actual roof — torn as to 
 the, ceiling-cloth, but still a roof — over his head. He sees 
 one train daily. He can get beer and soda-water, and ice it 
 when God is good. He has books, pictures" — they were torn 
 from the "Graphic" — "and the society of the excellent sub- 
 contractor Jevins, besides the pleasure of receiving us weekly. ' ' 
 
 Hummil smiled grimly. "Yes, I'm the lucky man, I 
 suppose. Jevins is luckier. " 
 
 "How? Not—" 
 
 "Yes. Went out. Last Monday." 
 
 "^p sef^ said Spurstow, quickly, hinting the suspicion 
 that was in everybody's mind. There was no cholera near 
 Hummil's section. Even fever gives a man at least a week's 
 grace, and sudden death generally implied self -slaughter. 
 
 "I judge no man this weather," said Hummil. "He had 
 a touch of the sun, I fancy ; for last week, after you f eUows 
 had left, he came into the veranda and told me that he was 
 going home to see his wife, in Market Street, Liverpool, that 
 evening. I got the apothecary in to look at him, and we 
 tried to make him lie down. After an hour or two he rubbed 
 his eyes and said he believed he had had a fit — hoped he 
 hadn't said anything rude. Jevins had a great idea of bet- 
 tering himself socially. He was very hke Chucks in his 
 language." 
 
S4 U/orl^s of r^adyard I^iplir>(^ 
 
 "Then he went to his own bungalow and began cleaning 
 a rifle. He told the servant that he was going after buck in 
 the morning. Naturally he fumbled with the trigger, and 
 shot himseK through the head accidentally. The apothecary 
 sent in a report to my chief, and Jevins is buried somewhere 
 out there. I'd have wired to you, Spurstow, if you could 
 have done anything." 
 
 "You're a queer chap," said Mottram. "If you killed 
 the man yourself you couldn't have been more quiet about 
 the business." 
 
 "Good Lord! what does it matter?" said Hummil, calmly. 
 "I've got to do a lot of his overseeing work in addition to my 
 own. I'm the only person that suffers. Jevins is out of it — 
 by pure accident, of course, but out of it. The apothecary 
 was going to write a long screed on suicide. Trust a babu to 
 drivel when he gets the chance." 
 
 "Why didn't you let it go in as suicide?'* said Lowndes. 
 
 "ITo direct proof. A man hasn't many privileges in this 
 country, but he might at least be allowed to mishandle his 
 ov^^n rifle. Besides, some day I may need a man to smother 
 up an accident to myself. Live and let live. Die and let die. " 
 
 "You take a pill," said Spurstow, who had been watching 
 Hummil's white face narrowly. "Take a pill, and don't be 
 an ass. That sort of talk is skittles. Anyhow, suicide is 
 shirking your work. If I was a Job ten times over, I should 
 be so interested in what was gomg to happen next that I'd 
 stay on and watch." 
 
 "Ah! I've lost that curiosity," said Hummil. 
 
 "Liver out of order?" said Lowndes, feehngly. 
 
 "N"o. Can't sleep. That's worse." 
 
 "By Jove, it is!" said Mottram. "I'm that way every 
 now and then, and the fit has to wear itself out. What 
 do you take for it?" 
 
 "ITothing. What's the use? I haven't had ten minutes' 
 sleep since Friday morning. ' ' 
 
 "Poor chap! Spurstow, you ought to attend to this,'^ 
 
IT\iT)e 0\jjT) people 85 
 
 said Mottram. "Now you mention it, your eyes are rather 
 gummy and swollen. " 
 
 Spurstow, still watching Hummil, laughed lightly. *'I'U 
 patch him up later on. Is it too hot, do you think, to go for 
 a ride?" 
 
 "Where to?" said Lowndes, wearily. *' We shall have to 
 go away at eight, and there'll be riding enough for us then. 
 I hate a horse, when I have to use him as a necessity. Oh, 
 heavens ! what is there to do?' ' 
 
 *' Begin whist again, at chick points" (a *' chick" is sup- 
 posed to be eight shillings), '*and a gold mohur on the rub," 
 said Spurstow, promptly. 
 
 "Poker. A month's pay all round for the pool — no limit 
 — and fifty-rupee raises. Somebody would be broken before 
 we got up," said Lowndes. 
 
 "Can't say that it would give me any pleasure to break 
 any man in this company," said Mottram, "There isn't 
 enough excitement in it, and it's foolish." He crossed over 
 to the worn and battered little camp-piano — wreckage of a 
 married household that had once held the bungalow — and 
 opened the case. 
 
 "It's used up long ago," said Hummil. "The servants 
 have picked it to pieces." 
 
 The piano was indeed hopelessly out of order, but Mot- 
 tram managed to bring the rebellious notes into a sort of 
 agreement, and there rose from the ragged key-board some- 
 thing that might once have been the ghost of a popular 
 music-hall song. The men in the long chairs turned with 
 evident interest as Mottram banged the more lustily. 
 
 "That's good!" said Lowndes. "By Jove! the last time 
 I heard that song was in '79, or thereabout, just before I 
 came out." 
 
 **Ah!" said Spurstow, with pride, "I was home in '80." 
 And he mentioned a song of the streets popular at that 
 dat«. 
 
 Mottram executed it indifferently well. Lowndes criti- 
 cised, and volunteered emendations. Mottram dashed into 
 
S<s U/orl^s of I^udyar<i l^ipIiQ($ 
 
 another ditty, not of the music-hall character, and made as 
 if to rise. 
 
 "Sit down," said Hummil. "I didn't know that you 
 had any music in your composition. Go on playing until 
 you can't think of anything more. I'll have that piano 
 tuned up before you come again. Play something festive." 
 
 Very simple indeed were the tunes to which Mottram's 
 art and the limitations of the piano could give effect, but the 
 men hstened with pleasure, and in the pauses talked all to- 
 gether of what they had seen or heard when they were last 
 at home. A dense dust-storm sprung up outside and swept 
 roaring over the house, enveloping it in the choking dark- 
 ness of midnight, but Mottram continued unheeding, and the 
 crazy tinkle reached the ears of the listeners above the flap- 
 ping of the tattered ceiling-cloth. 
 
 In the silence after the storm he glided from the more 
 directly personal songs of Scotland, half humming them as 
 he played, into the ** Evening Hymn." 
 
 ** Sunday," said he, nodding his head. 
 
 **Go on. Don't apologize for it," said Spurstow. 
 
 Hummil laughed long and riotously. **Play it, by all 
 means. You're full of surprises to-day. I didn't know you 
 had such a gift of finished sarcasm. How does that thing go?' ' 
 
 Mottram took up the tune. 
 
 '*Too slow by half. You miss the note of gratitude," 
 said Hummil. '*It ought to go to the 'Grasshopper's Polka' 
 — ^this way." And he chanted, prestissimo: 
 
 " 'Glory to Thee, my God, this night, 
 For all the blessings of the light. ' 
 
 That shows we really feel our blessings. How does it go on?— 
 
 '' 'If in the night I sleepless lie. 
 
 My soul with sacred thoughts supply; 
 May no ill dreams disturb my rest'— 
 
 Quicker, Mottram! — 
 
 *' 'Or powers of darkness me molest!' '* 
 
 i 
 
/T\ii7G OwT) people 87 
 
 **Bah! what an old hypocrite you are." 
 
 *' Don't be an ass," said Lowndes. "You are at full lib- 
 erty to make fun of anything else you like, but leave that 
 hymn alone. It's associated in my mind with the most 
 sacred recollections— ' ' 
 
 '* Summer evenings in the country — stained- glass window 
 — hght going out, and you and she jamming your heads to- 
 gether over one hymn-book, ' ' said Mottram. 
 
 ''Yes, and a fat old cockchafer hitting you in the eye 
 when you walked home. Smell of hay, and a moon as big 
 as a band-box sitting on the top of a haycock; bats — roses — 
 milk and midges," said Lowndes. 
 
 "Also mothers. I can just recollect my mother singing 
 me to sleep with that when I was a little chap, ' ' said Spur- 
 stow. 
 
 The darkness had fallen on the room. They could hear 
 Hummil squirming in his chair. 
 
 "Consequently," said he, testily, "you sing it when you 
 are seven fathoms deep in hell ! It's an insult to the intel- 
 hgence of the Deity to pretend we're anything but tortured 
 rebels." 
 
 "Take two pills," said Spurstow; "that's tortured liver." 
 
 "The usually placid Hummil is in a vile bad temper. I'm 
 sorry for the cooHes to-morrow," said Lowndes, as the ser- 
 vants brought in the lights and prepared the table for dinner. 
 
 As they were settling into their places about the miser- 
 able goat-chops, the curried eggs, and the smoked tapioca 
 pudding, Spurstow took occasion to whisper to Mottram i 
 "Well done, David!" 
 
 "Look after Saul, then," was the reply. 
 
 "What are you two whispering about?" said Hummil, 
 suspiciously. 
 
 "Only saying that you are a d d poor host. This 
 
 fowl can't be cut," returned Spurstow, with a sweet smile, 
 "Call this a dinner?" 
 
 "I can't help it. You don't expect a banquet, do you?" 
 
 Throughout that meal Hummil contrived laboriously to 
 
88 ' U/orKs of r^adyard \{lpliT)<^ 
 
 insult directly and pointedly all his guests in succession, and 
 at each insult Spurstow kicked the aggrieved person under 
 the table ; but he dared not exchange a glance of intelligence 
 with either of them. Hummil's face was white and pinched, 
 while his eyes were unnaturally large. No man dreamed for 
 a moment of resenting his savage personalities, but as soon 
 as the meal was over they made haste to get away. 
 
 "Don't go. You're just getting amusing, you fellows. 
 I hope I haven't said anything that annoyed you. You're 
 such touchy devils." Then, changing the note into one of 
 almost abject entreaty: "I say, you surely aren't going?" 
 
 "Where I dines, I sleeps, in the language of the blessed 
 Jorrocks," said Spurstow. "I want to have a look at your 
 coolies to-morrow, if you don't mind. You can give me a 
 place to lie down in, I suppose?" 
 
 The others pleaded the urgency of their several employs 
 next day, and, saddling up, departed together, Hummil beg- 
 ging them to come next Sunday. 
 
 As they jogged off together, Lowndes unbosomed him- 
 self to Mottram : " . . . And I never felt so like kicking a 
 man at his own table in my life. Said I cheated at whist, 
 and reminded me I was in debt! Told you you were as 
 good as a liar to your face! You aren't half indignant 
 enough over it." 
 
 "Not I," said Mottram. "Poor devil! Did you ever 
 know old Hummy behave like that before? Did you ever 
 know him go within a hundred miles of it?" 
 
 "That's no excuse. Spurstow was hacking my shin all 
 the time, so I kept a hand on myself. Else I should 
 have — " 
 
 "No, you wouldn't. You'd have done as Hummy did 
 about Jevins : judge no man this weather. By Jove ! the 
 buckle of my bridle is hot in my hand ! Trot out a bit, and 
 mind the rat-holes. " 
 
 Ten minutes' trotting jerked out of Lowndes one very 
 sage remark when he pulled up, sweating from every pore : 
 
 "Good thing Spurstow's with him to-night." 
 
/r\ii}e Ou;r> people 89 
 
 "Ye-es. Good man, Spurstow. Our roads turn here. 
 See you again next Sunday, if the sun doesn't bowl me 
 over." 
 
 **S'pose so, unless old Timbersides' finance minister man- 
 ages to dress some of my food. Good-night, and — God bless 
 you!" 
 
 "What's wrong now?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing." Lowndes gathered up his whip, and, as 
 he flicked Mottram's mare on the flank, added: "You're 
 a good little chap— that's all." And the mare bolted half 
 a mile across the sand on the word. 
 
 In the assistant engineer's bungalow Spurstow and Hxmi" 
 mil smoked the pipe of silence together, each narrowly watch« 
 ing the other. The capacity of a bachelor's establishment is 
 as elastic as its arrangements are simple. A servant cleared 
 away the dining-room table, brought in a couple of rude na- 
 tive bedsteads made of tape strung on a hght wood frame, 
 flung a square of cool Calcutta matting over each, set them 
 side by side, pinned two towels to the punkah so that their 
 fringes should just sweep clear of each sleeper's nose and 
 mouth, and announced that the couches were ready. 
 
 The men flung themselves down, adjuring the punkah- 
 coolies by all the powers of Eblis to pull. Every door and 
 window was shut, for the outside air was that of an oven. 
 The atmosphere within was only 104°, as the thermometer 
 attested, and heavy with the foul smell of badly trimmed 
 kerosene lamps; and this stench, combined with that of na- 
 tive tobacco, baked brick, and dried earth, sends the heart 
 of many a strong man down to his boots, for it is the smell 
 of the great Indian Empire when she turns herself for six 
 months into a house of torment, Spurstow packed his pil- 
 lows craftily, so that he reclined rather than lay, his head at 
 a safe elevation above his feet. It is not good to sleep on a 
 low pillow in the hot weather if you happen to be of thick- 
 necked build, for you may pass with lively snores and gur- 
 glings from natural sleep into the deep slumber of heat- 
 apoplexy. 
 
90 U/or^s of F^adyard l^iplii)<$ 
 
 **Pack your pillows," said the doctor, sharply, as he saw 
 Huraniil preparing to lie down at full length. 
 
 The night-light was trimmed ; the shadow of the punkah 
 wavered across the room, and the flick of the punkah-towel 
 and the soft whine of the rope through the wall-hole followed 
 it. Then the punkah flagged, almost ceased. The sweat 
 poured from Spurstow's brow. Should he go out and ha- 
 rangue the coolie? It started forward again with a savage 
 jerk, and a pin came out of the towels. When this was re- 
 placed, a tom-tom in the coolie lines began to beat with the 
 steady throb of a swollen artery inside some brain-fevered 
 skull. Spurstow turned on his side and swore gently. There 
 was no movement on Hummil's part. The man had com- 
 posed himself as rigidly as a corpse, his hands clinched at 
 his sides. The respiration was too hurried for any suspicion 
 of sleep. Spurstow looked at the set face. The jaws were 
 clinched, and there was a pucker round the quivering eyelids. 
 
 *'He's holding himself as tightly as ever he can," thought 
 Spurstow. "What a sham it is! and what in the world is 
 the matter with him? — Hummil!" 
 
 ''Yes." 
 
 "Can't you get to sleep?" 
 
 "ITo." 
 
 "Head hot? Throat feeling bulgy? or how?" 
 
 "ISTeither, thanks. I don't sleep much, you know. 
 
 "Feel pretty bad?" 
 
 "Pretty bad, thanks. There is a tom-tom outside, isn't 
 there? I thought it was my head at first. Oh, Spurstow, 
 for pity's sake, give me something that will put me asleep — 
 sound sleep — if it's only for six hours!" He sprung up. "I 
 haven't been able to sleep naturally for days, and I can't 
 stand it! — I can't stand it!" 
 
 "Poor old chap!" 
 
 "That's no use. Give me something to make me sleep. 
 I tell you I'm nearly mad. I don't know what I say half 
 miy time. For three weeks I've had to think and spell out 
 every word that has come through my lips before I dared 
 
fT\iT)Q 0\jjT) people 91 
 
 say it. I had to get my sentences out down to the last word, 
 for fear of talking drivel if I didn't. Isn't that enough to 
 drive a man mad? I can't see things correctly now, and 
 I've lost my sense of touch. Make me sleep. Oh, Spur- 
 stow, for the love of God, make me sleep sound. It isn't 
 enough merely to let me dream. Let me sleep!" 
 
 "All right, old man, all right. Go slow. You aren't 
 half as bad as you think. ' ' The flood-gates of reserve once 
 broken, Hummil was clinging to him like a frightened child. 
 
 ^'You're pinching my arm to pieces." 
 
 "I'll break your neck if you don't do something for me. 
 No, I didn't mean that. Don't be angry, old feUow." He 
 wiped the sweat off himself as he fought to regain com- 
 posure. "As a matter of fact, I'm a bit restless and off my 
 oats, and perhaps you could recommend some sort of sleep- 
 ing-mixture — bromide of potassium." 
 
 "Bromide of skittles! "Why didn't you tell me this be- 
 fore? Let go of my arm, and I'll see if there's anything in 
 my cigarette-case to suit your complaint. ' ' He hunted among 
 his day-clothes, turned up the lamp, opened a little silver 
 cigarette-case, and advanced on the expectant Hummil with 
 the daintiest of fairy squirts. 
 
 "The last appeal of civilization," said he, "and a thing 
 I hate to use. Hold out your arm. Well, your sleeplessness 
 hasn't ruined your muscle; and what a thick hide it is! 
 Might as well inject a buffalo subcutaneously. Now in a 
 few minutes the morphia will begin working. Lie down 
 and wait. ' ' 
 
 A smile of unalloyed and idiotic delight began to creep 
 over Hummil 's face. "I think," he whispered — "I think 
 I'm going off now. Gad! it's positively heavenly ! Spur- 
 stow, you must give me that case to keep; you — " The 
 voice ceased as the head fell back. 
 
 "Not for a good deal," said Spurstow to the unconscious 
 form. "And now, my friend, sleeplessness of your kind be- 
 ing very apt to relax the moral fiber in little matters of hf e 
 and death, I'll just take the liberty of spiking your guns." 
 
B2 U/orl^s of r^udyard \{ipliT)(^ 
 
 He paddled into Hummirs saddle-room in his bare feet, 
 and uncased a twelve-bore, an express, and a revolver. Of 
 the first he unscrewed the nipples and hid them in the bottom 
 of a saddlery-case; of the second he abstracted the lever, 
 placing it behind a big wardrobe. The third he merely 
 opened, and knocked the doll-head bolt of the grip up with 
 the heel of a riding-boot. 
 
 "That's settled," he said, as he shook the sweat off his 
 hands. "These little precautions will at least give you time 
 to turn. You have too much sympathy with gun-room 
 accidents." 
 
 And as he rose from his knees, the thick mufl9.ed voice of 
 Hummil cried in the doorway: "You fool!" 
 
 Such tones they use who speak in the lucid intervals of 
 delirium to their friends a little before they die. 
 
 Spurstow jumped with sheer fright. Hummil stood in 
 the doorway, rocking with helpless laughter. 
 
 "That was awf'ly good of you, I'm sure," he said, very 
 slowly, feeling for his words. "I don't intend to go out by 
 my own hand at present. I say, Spurstow, that stuff won't 
 work. What shall I do? What shall I do?" And panic 
 terror stood in his eyes. 
 
 "Lie down and give it a chance. Lie down at once." 
 
 "I daren't. It will only take me half-way again, and I 
 shan't be able to get away this time. Do you know it was 
 ail I could do to come out just now? Generally I am as quick 
 as lightning; but you have clogged my feet. I was nearly 
 caught." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I understand. Go and lie down." 
 
 "!N"o, it isn't delirium; but it was an awfully mean trick 
 to play on me. Do you know I might have died?" 
 
 As a sponge rubs a slate clean, so some power unknown 
 to Spurstow had wiped out of Hummil 's face all that stamped 
 it for the face of a man, and he stood at the doorway in the 
 expression of his lost innocence. He had slept back into 
 terrified childhood. 
 
 "Is he going to die on the spot?" thought Spurstow. 
 
fT[iv)Q Ou/r> people 93 
 
 Then, aloud: *^A11 right, my son. Come back to bed, and 
 
 tell me all about it. You couldn't sleep; but what was all 
 
 the rest of the nonsense?" 
 
 jl "A place — a place down there," said Hummil, with simple 
 
 sincerity. The drug was acting on him by waves, and he 
 
 was flung from the fear of a strong man to the fright of a 
 
 .child as his nerves gathered sense or were dulled. 
 
 ! ^'Good God! I've been afraid of it for months past, Spur- 
 
 istow. It has made every night hell to me; and yet I'm not 
 
 conscious of having done anything wrong. " 
 
 [ "Be still, and I'll give you another dose. We'll stop 
 
 your nightmares, you unutterable idiot!" 
 
 I * ' Yes, but you must give me so much that I can't get 
 iaway. You must make me quite sleepy — not just a httle 
 jsleepy. It's so hard to run then." 
 
 "I know it; I know it. I've felt it myself . The symp- 
 [toms are exactly as you describe." 
 
 "Oh, don't laugh at me, confound you! Before this 
 awful sleeplessness came to me I've tried to rest on my elbow 
 and put a spur in the bed to sting me when I fell back. 
 Look!" 
 
 II " By Jove ! the man has been roweled like a horse ! Ridden 
 'by the nightmare with a vengeance! And we all thought 
 him sensible enough. Heaven send us understanding! You 
 like to talk, don't you, old man?" 
 
 I "Yes, sometimes. Not when I'm frightened. Then I 
 want to run. Don't you?" 
 
 I' "Always. Before I give you your second dose, try to tell 
 me exactly what your trouble is. " 
 
 Hummil spoke in broken whispers for nearly ten minutes, 
 while Spurstow looked into the pupils of his eyes and passed 
 his hand before them once or twice. 
 
 At the end of the narrative the silver cigarette-case was 
 produced, and the last words that Hummil said as he fell 
 back for the second time were: "Put me quite to sleep; for 
 if I'm caught, I die — I die!" 
 
 "Yes, yes; we all do that sooner or later, thank Heaven! 
 
94 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplii>0 
 
 who has set a term to our miseries," said Spurstow, settling 
 the cushions under the head. *'It occurs to me that unless I 
 drink something I shall go out before my time. IVe stopped 
 sweating^ and I wear a seventeen-inch collar." And he 
 brewed himself scalding hot tea, which is an excellent remedy 
 against heat-apoplexy if you take three or four cups of it in 
 time. Then he watched the sleeper. 
 
 "A blind face that cries and can't wipe its eyes. H'm! 
 Decidedly, Hummil ought to go on leave as soon as possible; 
 and, sane or otherwise, he undoubtedly did rowel himself 
 most cruelly. Well, Heaven send us understanding!" 
 
 At midday Hummil rose, with an evil taste in his mouth, 
 but an unclouded eye and a joyful heart. 
 
 **I was pretty bad last night, wasn't I?" said he. 
 
 * ' I have seen healthier men. You must have had a touch 
 of the sun. Look here: if I write you a swingeing medical 
 certificate, will you apply for leave on the spot?" 
 
 *'No." 
 
 *' Why not? You want it." 
 
 "Yes, but I can hold on till the weather's a little cooler." 
 
 *'"Why should you, if you can get relieved on the spot?" 
 
 '*Burkett is the only man who could be sent; and he's a 
 born fool." 
 
 **0h, never mind about the line. You aren't so important 
 as all that. Wire for leave, if necessary." 
 
 Hummil looked very uncomfortable. 
 
 "I can hold on till the rains," he said, evasively. 
 
 '*You can't. Wire to headquarters for Burkett." 
 
 *'I won't. If you want to know why, particularly, 
 Burkett is married, and his wife's just had a kid, and she's 
 up at Simla, in the cool, and Burkett has a very nice billet 
 that takes him into Simla from Saturday to Monday. That 
 little woman isn't at all well. If Burkett was transferred 
 she'd try to follow him. If she left the baby behind she'd 
 fret herself to death. If she came — and Burkett 's one of 
 those selfish little beasts who are always talking about a 
 wife's place being with her husband — she'd die. It's murder 
 
fT[ii)Q OwT) people 95 
 
 to bring a woman here just now. Burkett has got the 
 physique of a rat. If he came here he'd go out; and I know 
 she hasn't any mone}^^, and I'm pretty sure she'd go out too. 
 I'm salted in a sort of way, and I'm not married. Wait till 
 the rains, and then Burkett can get thin down here. It'll do 
 him heaps of good. ' ' 
 
 **Do you mean to say that you intend to face — what you 
 have faced, for the next fifty-six nights?" 
 
 "Oh, it won't be so bad, now you've shown me a way 
 out of it. I can always wire to you. Besides, now I've 
 once got into the way of sleeping, it'll be all right. Anyhow, 
 I shan't put in for leave. That's the long and the short 
 of it." 
 
 "My great Scott! I thought all that sort of thing was 
 dead and done with." 
 
 "Bosh! You'd do the same yourself. I feel a new man, 
 thanks to that cigarette-case. You're going over to camp 
 now, aren't you?" 
 
 "Yes; but I'll try to look you up every other day, if 
 I can." 
 
 "I'm not bad enough for that. I don't want you to 
 bother. Give the coolies gin and ketchup." 
 
 "Then you feel all right?" 
 
 "Fit to fight for my life, but not to stand out in the sun 
 talking to you. Go along, old man, and bless you!" 
 
 Hummil turned on his heel to face the echoing desolation 
 of his bungalow, and the first thing he saw standing in the 
 veranda was the figure of himself. He had met a similar 
 apparition once before, when he was suffering from overwork 
 and the strain of the hot weather. 
 
 "This is bad — already," he said, rubbing his eyes. "If 
 the thing slides away from me all in one piece, like a ghost, 
 I shall know it is only my eyes and stomach that are out of 
 order. If it walks, I shall know that my head is going." 
 
 He walked to the figure, which naturally kept at an un- 
 varying distance from him, as is the use of all specters that 
 are born of overwork. It slid through the house and dissolved 
 
96 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplip^J 
 
 into swinnning specks within the eyeball as soon as it reached 
 the burning light of the garden. Hummil went about his 
 business till even. When he came into dinner he found him- 
 self sitting at the table. The thing rose and walked out hastily. 
 
 !N"o living man knows what that week held for Hummil. 
 An increase of the epidemic kept Spurstow in camp among the 
 coolies, and all he could do was to telegraph to Mottram, 
 bidding him go to the bungalow and sleep there. But Mot- 
 tram was forty miles away from the nearest telegraph, and 
 knew nothing of anything save the needs of the survey till he 
 met early on Sunday morning Lowndes and Spurstow heading 
 toward Hummil's for the weekly gathering. 
 
 *'Hope the poor chap's in a better temper," said the 
 former, swinging himself off his horse at the door. "I sup- 
 pose he isn't up yet." 
 
 **I'll just have a look at him," said the doctor. "If he's 
 asleep there's no need to wake him." 
 
 And an instant later, by the tone of Spurstow's voice call- 
 ing upon them to enter, the men knew what had happened. 
 
 The punkah was still being pulled over the bed, but Hima- 
 mil had departed this life at least three hours before. 
 
 The body lay on its back, hands clinched by the side, as 
 Spurstow had seen it lying seven nights previously. In the 
 staring eyes was written terror beyond the expression of 
 any pen. 
 
 Mottram, who had entered behind Lowndes, bent over 
 the dead and touched the forehead lightly with his lips. "Oh, 
 you lucky, lucky devil!" he whispered. 
 
 But Lowndes had seen the eyes, and had withdrawn 
 shuddering to the other side of the room. 
 
 "Poor chap! poor chap! And the last time I met him 
 I was angry, Spurstow, we should have watched him. 
 Has he—" 
 
 Deftly Spurstow continued his investigations, ending by 
 a search round the room. 
 
 "No, he hasn't," he snapped. "There's no trace of 
 anything. Call in the servants." 
 
/I\ii)e 0\JJT) people 97 
 
 They came, eight or ten of them, whispering and peering 
 over each other's shoulders. 
 
 "When did your sahib go to bed?" said Spurstow. 
 
 **At eleven or ten, we think," said Hummil's personal 
 servant. 
 
 *'He was well then? But how should you know?" 
 
 *'He was not ill, as far as our comprehension extended. 
 But he had slept very little for three nights. This I know, 
 because I saw him walking much, and especially in the heart 
 of the night." 
 
 As Spurstow was arranging the sheet, a big, straight- 
 necked hunting-spur tumbled on the ground. The doctor 
 groaned. The personal servant peeped at the body. 
 
 *'What do you think, Chuma?" said Spurstow, catching 
 the look in the dark face. 
 
 *' Heaven-born, in my poor opinion, this that was my 
 master has descended into the Dark Places, and there has been 
 caught, because he was not able to escape with sufficient 
 speed. We have the spur for evidence that he fought with 
 Fear. Thus have I se^n men of my race do with thorns 
 when a spell was laid upon them to overtake them in their 
 sleeping hours and they dared not sleep." 
 
 '* Chuma, you're a mud-head. Go out and prepare seals 
 to be set on the sahib's property." 
 
 * ' God has made the heaven-born. God has made me. Who 
 are we, to inquire into the dispensations of God? I will bid the 
 other servants hold aloof while you are reckoning the tale of 
 the sahib's property. They are all thieves, and would steal." 
 
 *'As far as I can make out, he died from — oh, anything: 
 stopping of the heart's action, heat-apoplexy, or some other 
 visitation," said Spurstow to his companions. "We must 
 jnake an inventory of his effects, and so on." 
 
 "He was scared to death," insisted Lowndes. "Look at 
 those eyes ! For pity's sake, don't let him be buried with 
 them open!" 
 
 "Whatever it was, he's out of all the trouble now," said 
 Mottram, softly. 
 Vol. 3. 5 
 
98 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplii)(5 
 
 Spurstow was peering into the open eyes. 
 
 ' ' Come here, ' ' said he. " Can you see anything there?' ' 
 
 *'I can't face it!" whimpered Lowndes. "Cover up the 
 face ! Is there any fear on earth that can turn a man into 
 that hkeness? It's ghastly. Oh, Spurstow, cover him up!" 
 
 "E'o fear — on earth," said Spurstow. Mottram leaned 
 over his shoulder and looked intently. 
 
 *'I see nothing except some gray blurs in the pupil. There 
 can be nothing there, you know." 
 
 ''Even so. Well, let's think. It'll take half a day to 
 knock up any sort of coffin ; and he must have died at mid- 
 night. Lowndes, old man, go out and tell the coolies to break 
 ground next to Jevins' grave. Mottram, go round the house 
 with Chuma and see that the seals are put on things. Send 
 a couple of men to me here, and I'll arrange." 
 
 The strong-armed servants when they returned to their 
 own kind told a strange story of the doctor sahib vainly trying 
 to call their master back to life by magic arts — to wit, the 
 holding of a little green box opposite each of the dead man's 
 eyes, of a frequent clicking of the same, and of a bewildered 
 muttering on the part of the doctor sahib, who subsequently 
 took the little green box away with him. 
 
 The resonant hammering of a coffin-hd is no pleasant thing 
 to hear, but those who have experience maintain that much 
 more terrible is the soft swish of the bed-linen, the reeving 
 and unreeving of the bed-tapes, when he who has fallen by 
 the roadside is appareled for burial, sinking gradually as the 
 tapes are tied over, till the swaddled shape touches the floor 
 and there is no protest against the indignity of hasty disposal. 
 
 At the last moment Lowndes was seized with scruples of 
 conscience. "Ought you to read the service — from begin- 
 ning to end?" said he. 
 
 "I intend to. You're my senior as a civilian. You can 
 take it, if you like." 
 
 "I didn't mean that for a moment. I only thought if we 
 could get a chaplain from somewhere — I'm willing to ride any- 
 where—and give poor Hummil a better chance. That's aU." 
 
P\lT)e OwT) people 99 
 
 *'Bosh!" said Spurstow, as he framed his hps to the tre- 
 mendous words that stand at the head of the burial service. 
 
 After breakfast they smoked a pipe in silence to the 
 memory of the dead. Then said Spurstow, absently: 
 
 *' 'Tisn't in medical science." 
 
 *'What?" 
 
 *' Things in a dead man's eyes." 
 
 **For goodness' sake, leave that horror alone!" said 
 Lowndes. "I've seen a native die of fright when a tiger 
 chivied him. I know what killed Hummil. ' ' 
 
 *'The deuce you do! I'm going to try to see." And the 
 doctor retreated into the bath-room with a Kodak camera, 
 splashing and grunting for ten minutes. Then there was the 
 sound of something being hammered to pieces, and Spurstow 
 emerged, very white indeed. 
 
 *'Have you got a picture?" said Mottram. '^What does 
 the thing look like?" 
 
 "Nothing there. It was impossible, of course. You 
 needn't look, Mottram. I've torn up the films. There was 
 nothing there. It was impossible." 
 
 "That," said Lowndes, very distinctly, watching the 
 shaking hand striving to relight the pipe, "is a damned He.'* 
 
 There was no further speech for a long time. The hot 
 wind whistled without, and the dry trees sobbed. Presently 
 the daily train, winking brass, burnished steel, and spouting 
 steam, pulled up panting in the intense glare. "We'd better 
 go on on that," said Spurstow. "Go back to work. I've 
 written my certificate. We can't do any more good here. 
 Come on." 
 
 Ko one moved. It is not pleasant to face railway jour- 
 neys at midday in June. Spurstow gathered up his hat and 
 whip, and, turning in the doorway, said : 
 
 "There may be heaven — there must be hell. 
 Meantime, there is our hfe here. We-ell?" 
 
 But neither Mottram nor Lowndes had any answer to 
 
 the question. 
 
100 U/orKs of r^udyard l{lpl'iT)<^ 
 
 THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA 
 MULVANEY 
 
 Once upon a time, and very far from this land, lived 
 three men who loved each other so greatly that neither man 
 nor woman could come between them. They were in no 
 sense refined, nor to be admitted to the outer door-mats of 
 decent folk, because they happened to be private soldiers in 
 her Majesty's army; and private soldiers of that employ 
 have small time for self -culture. Their duty is to keep 
 themselves and their accouterments specklessly clean, to re- 
 frain from getting drunk more often than is necessary, to 
 obey their superiors, and to pray for a war. All these things 
 my friends accomplished, and of their own motion threw in 
 some fighting- work for which the Army Regulations did not 
 call. Their fate sent them to serve in India, which is not a 
 golden country, though poets have sung otherwise. There 
 men die with great swiftness, and those who live suffer many 
 and curious things. I do not think that my friends con- 
 cerned themselves much with the social or political aspects 
 of the East. They attended a not unimportant war on the 
 northern frontier, another one on our western boundary, and 
 a third in Upper Burma. Then their regiment sat still to 
 recruit, and the boundless monotony of cantonment life was 
 their portion. They were drilled morning and evening on 
 the same dusty parade-ground. They wandered up and 
 down the same stretch of dusty white road, attended the 
 same church and the same grog-shop, and slept in the same 
 lime-washed barn of a barrack for two long years. There 
 was Mulvaney, the father in the craft, who had served with 
 various regiments, from Bermuda to Halifax, old in war, 
 scarred, reckless, resourceful, and in his pious hours an un- 
 equaled soldier. To him turned for help and comfort six 
 
f[\\T)e OwT) people 101 
 
 and a half feet of slow-moving, heavy-footed Yorkshiremanj 
 born on the wolds, bred in the dales, and educated chiefly 
 among the carriers' carts at the back of York railway- sta- 
 tion. His name was Learoyd, and his chief virtue an un- 
 mitigated patience which helped him to win fights. How 
 Ortheris, a fox-terrier of a Cockney, eT3r came to be one of 
 the trio, is a mystery which even to-day I cannot explain. 
 *' There was always three av us," Mulvaney used to say. 
 "An', by the grace av God, so long as our service lasts, three 
 av us they'll always be. 'Tis betther so." 
 
 They desired no companionship beyond their own, and 
 evil it was for any man of the regiment who attempted dis» 
 pute with them. Physical argument was out of the question 
 as regarded Mulvaney and the Yorkshireman ; and assault 
 on Ortheris meant a combined attack from these twain — a 
 business which no five men were anxious to have on their 
 hands. Therefore they flourished, sharing their drinks, their 
 tobacco, and their money, good luck and evil, battle and the 
 chances of death, life and the chances of happiness from 
 Calicut in southern, to Peshawar in northern India. Through 
 no merit of my own it was my good fortune to be in a meas- 
 ure admitted to their friendship — frankly by Mulvaney from 
 the beginning, sullenly and with reluctance by Learoyd, and 
 suspiciously by Ortheris, who held to it that no man not in 
 the army could fraternize with a red-coat. **Like to like," 
 said, he. *'I'm a bloomin' sodger — he's a bloomin' civilian. 
 'Tain't natural — that's all." 
 
 But that was not all. They thawed progressively, and 
 in the thawing told me more of their lives and adventures 
 than I am likely to find room for here. 
 
 Omitting all else, this tale begins with the lamentable 
 thirst that was at the beginning of First Causes. ITever was 
 such a thirst — Mulvaney told me so. They kicked against 
 their compulsory virtue, but the attempt was only successful 
 in the case of Ortheris. He, whose talents were many, went 
 forth into the highways and stole a dog from a "civilian" — 
 t)idelicet, some one he knew not Who, not in the armyo 
 
i02 U/orl^s of r^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 Now that civilian was but newly connected by marriage with 
 the colonel of the regiment, and outcry was made from quar- 
 ters least anticipated by Ortheris, and, in the end, he was 
 forced, lest a worse thing should happen, to dispose at ridicu- 
 lously unremunerative rates of as promising a small terrier 
 as ever graced one end of a leading-string. The purchase- 
 money was barely sufficient for one small outbreak which led 
 him to the guard-room. He escaped, however, with nothing 
 worse than a severe reprimand, and a few hours of punish- 
 ment drill. Not for nothing had he acquired the reputation 
 of being "the best soldier of his inches" in the regiment. 
 Mulvaney had taught personal cleanliness and efficiency as 
 the first articles of his companions' creed. ** A dhirty man," 
 he was used to say, in the speech of his kind, '*goes to clink 
 for a weakness in the knees, an' is coort-martialed for a pair 
 av socks missin' ; but a clane man, such as is an ornament 
 to his service — a man whose buttons are gold, whose coat is 
 wax upon him, an' whose 'couterments are widout a speck — 
 that man may, spakin' in reason, do fwhat he likes, an' 
 dhrink from day to divil. That's the pride av bein' dacint." 
 
 We sat together, upon a day, in the shade of a ravine far 
 from the barracks, where a water-course used to run in rainy 
 weather. Behind us was the scrub jungle, in which jackals, 
 peacocks, the gray wolves of the Northwestern Provinces, 
 and occasionally a tiger estrayed from Central India, were 
 supposed to dwell. In front lay the cantonment, glaring 
 white under a glaring sun, and on either side ran the broad 
 road that led to Delhi. 
 
 It was the scrub that suggested to my mind the wisdom 
 of Mulvaney taking a day's leave and going upon a shooting 
 tour. The peacock is a holy bird throughout India, and 
 whoso slays one is in danger of being mobbed by the nearest 
 villagers ; but on the last occasion that Mulvaney had gone 
 forth he had contrived, without in the least offending local 
 religious susceptibilities, to return with six beautiful peacock 
 skins which he sold to profit. It seemed just possible then— - 
 
 "But fwhat manner av use is ut to me goin' widout a 
 
/I\ir?e Ou/r> people 103 
 
 dhrink? The ground's powdher-dhry underfoot, an' ut gets 
 unto the throat fit to kill, ' ' wailed Mulvaney , looking at me 
 reproachfully. "An' a peacock is not a bird you can catch 
 the tail av onless ye run. Can a man run on wather — an' 
 jungle- wather too?" 
 
 Ortheris had considered the question in all its bearings. 
 He spoke, chewing his pipe-stem meditatively : 
 
 '' 'Go forth, return in glory. 
 To Clusium's royal 'ome; 
 An' round these bloomin' temples 'ang 
 The bloomin' shields o' Kome. ' 
 
 You'd better go. You ain't to shoot yourself — not while 
 there's a chanst of liquor. Me an' Learoyd'U stay at 'ome 
 an' keep shop — case o' anythin' turnin' up. But you go out 
 with a gas pipe gun an' ketch the little peacockses or some- 
 thin'. You kin get one day's leave easy as winkin'. Go 
 along an' get it, an' get peacockses or somethin'." 
 
 *' Jock," said Mulvaney, turning to Learoyd, who was half 
 asleep under the shadow of the bank. He roused slowly. 
 
 *'Sitha, Mulvaney, go," said he. 
 
 And Mulvaney went, cursing his allies with Irish fluency 
 and barrack-room point. 
 
 "Take note," said he, when he had won his holiday, and 
 appeared dressed in his roughest clothes with the only other 
 regimental fowling-piece in his hand — "take note, Jock, an' 
 you, Orth'ris, I am goin' in the face av my own will — all for 
 to please you. I misdoubt anythin' will come av permiscu- 
 ous huntin' afther peacockses in a disolit Ian' ; an' I know 
 that I will lie down an' die wid thirrst. Me catch peacockses 
 for you, ye lazy scuts — an' be sacrificed by the peasanthry. ' ' 
 
 He waved a huge paw and went away. 
 
 At twilight, long before the appointed hour, he returned 
 empty-handed, much begrimed with dirt. 
 
 "Peacockses?" queried Ortheris, from the safe rest of a 
 barrack room table, whereon he was smoking cross-legged. 
 Learoyd fast asleep on a bench. 
 
I04 U/orl^s of F^adyard \{\pUT)<^ 
 
 "Jock," said Mulvaney, as lie stirred up the sleeper. 
 ' ' Jock, can ye fight? Will ye fight?' ' 
 
 Very slowly the meaning of the words communicated it- 
 seK to the half -roused man. He understood — and again — 
 what might these things mean? Mulvaney was shaking 
 him savagely. Meantime, the men in the room howled 
 with delight. There was war in the confederacy at last — 
 war and the breaking of bonds. 
 
 Barrack-room etiquette is stringent. On the direct chal- 
 lenge must follow the direct reply. This is more binding 
 than the tie of tried friendship. Once again Mulvaney re- 
 peated the question. Learoyd answered by the only means 
 in his power, and so swiftly that the Irishman had barely 
 time to avoid the blow. The laughter around increased. 
 Learoyd looked bewilderedly at his friend — himself as greatly 
 bewildered. Ortheris dropped from the table. His world 
 was falling. 
 
 *'Come outside," said Mulvaney; and as the occupants of 
 the barrack-room prepared joyously to follow, he turned and 
 said furiously: ** There will be no fight this night — onless any 
 wan av you is wishful to assist. The man that does, follows 
 on." 
 
 N"o man moved. The three passed out into the moon- 
 light, Learoyd fumbling with the buttons of his coat. The 
 parade-ground was deserted except for the scurrying jackals. 
 Mulvaney's impetuous rush carried his companions far into 
 the open ere Learoyd attempted to turn round and continue 
 the discussion. 
 
 "Be still now. 'Twas my fault for beginnin' things in 
 the middle av an end, Jock. I should ha' comminst wid an 
 explanation; but, Jock dear, on your sowl, are ye fit, think 
 you, for the finest fight that iver was — betther than fightin' 
 me? Considher before ye answer." 
 
 More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round two or 
 three times, felt an arm, kicked tentatively, and answered : : 
 "Ah'm fit." He was accustomed to fight blindly at the 
 bidding of the superior mind. 
 
 
(I\ii?e 0\jjT) people 105 
 
 They sat them down, the men looking on from afar, and 
 Mulvaney untangled himself in mighty words. 
 
 "FoUowin' your fool's scheme, I wint out into the thrack- 
 less desert beyond the barricks. An' there I met a pious 
 Hindu dhriving a buUock-kyart. I tuk ut for granted he 
 wud be delighted for to convoy me a piece, an' I jumped 
 in—" 
 
 *'You long, lazy, black-haired swine," drawled Ortheris, 
 who would have done the same thing under similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 ** 'Twas the height av policy. That naygur man dhruv 
 miles an' miles — as far as the new railway line they're build- 
 in' now back av the Tavi River. ' 'Tis a kyart for dhirt 
 only,' says he now an' again timorously, to get me out av 
 ut. * Dhirt I am,' sez I, *an' the dhryst that you iver 
 kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an' glory be wid you.' At 
 that I wint to slape, an' took no heed till he pulled up on 
 the embankment av the line where the coolies were pilin' 
 mud. There was a matther av two thousand coolies on that 
 line — you remimber that. Prisintly a bell rang, an' they 
 throops off to a big pay-shed. 'Where's the white man in 
 charge?' sez I to my kyart-driver. 'In the shed,' sez he, 'en- 
 gaged on a rif&e.' 'A fwhat?' sez I. 'Riffle,' sez he. 'You 
 take ticket. He takes money. You get nothin'.' 'Oho!' 
 sez I, 'that's fwhat the shuperior an' cultivated man calls a 
 raffle, me misbeguided child av darkness an' sin. Lead on 
 to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief 'tis doin' so far 
 away from uts home — which is the charity-bazaar at Christ- 
 mas, an' the colonel's wife grinnin' behind the tea-table — Is 
 more than I know.' Wid that I wint to the shed an' found 
 'twas pay-day among the coolies. Their wages was on a 
 table forninst a big, fine, red buck av a man — sivun fut 
 high, four fut wide, an' three fut thick, wid a fist on him 
 like a corn-sack. He was pay in' the coolies fair an' easy^ but 
 he wud ask each man if he wud raffle that month, an' each 
 man sez, 'Yes, av course.' Thin he wud deduct from theif 
 wages accordin'. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould cigar- 
 
103 U/or^s of I^adyard I^iplfr)^ 
 
 box full av gun- wads an' scattered ut among the coolies. 
 They did not take much joy av that performince, an' small 
 wondher. A man close to me picks up a black gun-wad, an' 
 sings out, *I have ut.' *Good may ut do you,' sez I. The 
 coolie wint forward to this big, fine red man, who threw a 
 cloth off of the most sumpshus, jooled, enameled, an' vari- 
 ously bediviled sedan-chair I iver saw." 
 
 ''Sedan-chair! Put your 'ead in a bag. That was a 
 palanquin. Don't yer know a palanquin when you see it?'' 
 said Ortheris, with great scorn. 
 
 *'I chuse to call ut sedan-chair, an' chair ut shall be, lit- 
 tle man," continued the Irishman. *' 'Twas a most amazin' 
 chair — all Hned wid pink silk an' fitted wid red silk curtains. 
 *Here ut is,' sez the red man. *Here ut is,' sez the coolie, 
 an' he grinned weakly ways. 'Is ut any use to you?' sez the 
 red man. 'INTo,' sez the coolie; 'I'd like to make a presint 
 av ut to you.' 'I am graciously pleased to accept that same,' 
 sez the red man ; an' at that all the coolies cried aloud f what 
 was mint for cheerful notes, an' wint back to their diggin', 
 lavin' me alone in the shed. The red man saw me, an' his 
 face grew blue on his big, fat neck. 'Fwhat d'you want 
 here?' sez he. 'Standin'-room an' no more,' sez I, 'onless it 
 may be fwhat ye niver had, an' that's manners, ye ra£9.in' 
 ruffian, ' for I was not goin' to have the service throd upon. 
 'Out of this,' sez he. 'I'm in charge av this section av con- 
 struction.' 'I'm in charge av mesilf,' sez I, 'an' it's like I 
 will stay a while. D 'ye raffle much in these parts?' ' Fwhat 's 
 that to you?' sez he. 'ITothin',' sez I, 'but a great dale to 
 you, for, bedad, I'm thinkin ' you get the full haK av your 
 revenue from that sedan-chair. Is ut always raffled so?' I 
 sez, an' wid that I wint to a cooHe to ask questions. Bhoys, 
 that man's name is Dearsley, an' he's been rafflin' that ould 
 sedan-chair monthly this matter av nine months. Ivry coolie 
 on the section takes a ticket — or he gives 'em the go — ^wanst 
 a month on pay-day. Ivry coolie that wins ut gives ut back , 
 to him, for 'tis too big to carry away, an' he'd sack the man ' 
 that thried to sell ut. That Dearsley has been makin' the 
 
fT\\T)e Omjt) people 107 
 
 rowlin' wealth av Eoshus by nefarious rafflin'. Two thou- 
 sand cooHes defrauded wanst a month!" 
 
 "Dom t' cooHes. Hast gotten t' cheer, man?" said Lea- 
 royd. 
 
 "Hould on. Havin' onearthed this amazin' an' stupenjus 
 fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council av 
 war; he thryin' all the time to sejuce me into a fight wid op- 
 probrious language. That sedan-chair niver belonged by 
 right to any foreman av coolies. 'Tis a king's chair or a 
 quane's. There's gold on ut an' silk an' all manner av 
 trapesemints. Bhoys, 'tis not for me to countenance any 
 sort av wrong-doin' — me bein' the ould man — but — any way 
 he has had ut nine months, an' he dare not make throuble av 
 ut was taken from him. Five miles away, or ut may be six — " 
 
 There was a long pause, and the jackals howled merrily. 
 Learoyd bared one arm and contemplated it in the moonlight. 
 Then he nodded partly to himself and partly to his friends. 
 Ortheris wriggled with suppressed emotion. 
 
 "I thought ye wud see the reasonableness av ut," said 
 Mulvaney . * ' I made bould to say as much to the man be- 
 fore. He was for a direct front attack — fut, horse, an' guns 
 — an' all for nothin', seein' that I had no transport to convey 
 the machine away. *I will not argue wid you,' sez I, 'this 
 day, but subsequintly. Mister Dearsley, me rafflin' jool, we'll 
 talk ut out lengthways. 'Tis no good policy to swindle the 
 naygur av his hard-earned emolumints, an' by presint in- 
 formashin' —'twas the kyart man that tould me — *ye've been 
 perpethrating that same for nine months. But I'm a just 
 man,' sez I, 'an' overlookin' the presumpshin that yondher 
 settee wid the gilt top was not come by honust' — at that he 
 turned sky-green, so I knew things was more thrue than 
 tellable — 'I'm willin' to compound the felony for this month's 
 winnin's.' " 
 
 "Ah! Ho!" from Learoyd and Ortheris. 
 
 "That man Dearsley 's rushin' on his fate," continued 
 Mulvaney, solemnly wagging his head. "All hell had no 
 name bad enough for me that tide. Faith, he called me a 
 
108 U/orl^s of P^adyard \{ipl'iT)(^ 
 
 robber ! Me ! tbat was savin' him from continuin' in his evil 
 ways widout a remonstrince — an' to a man av conscience a 
 remonstrince may change the chune av his life. ' 'Tis not 
 for me to argue,' sez I, 'f whatever ye are, Mister Dearsley, 
 but by my hand I'll take away the temptation for you that 
 lies in that sedan-chair.' *You will have to fight me for ut,' 
 sez he, 'for well I know you will never dare make report to 
 any one.' * Fight I will,' sez I, 'but not this day, for I'm 
 rejuced for want av nourishment.' 'Ye're an ould bould 
 hand,' sez he, sizin' me up an' down; 'an' a jool av a fight 
 we will have. Eat now an' dhrink, an' go your way. ' Wid 
 that he gave me some hump an' whisky — good whisky — an' 
 we talked av this an' that the while. 'It goes hard on me 
 now,' sez I, wipin' my mouth, 'to confiscate that piece av 
 furniture; but justice is justice.' 'Ye've not got ut yet,' sez 
 he; 'there's the fight between.' 'There is,' sez T, 'an' a good 
 fight. Ye shall have the pick av the best quality in my regi- 
 ment for the dinner you have given this day. ' Thin I came 
 hot-foot for you two. Hould your tongue, the both. 'Tis 
 this way. To-morrow we three will go there an' he shall 
 have his pick betune me an' Jock. Jock's a deceivin' fighter, 
 for he is all fat to the eyes, an' he moves slow. iN'ow I'm 
 all beef to the look, an' I move quick. By my reckonin', 
 the Dearsley man won't take me; so me an' Orth'ris '11 see 
 fair play. Jock, I tell you, 'twill be big fightin' — whipped, 
 wid the cream above the jam. Afther the business 'twill 
 take a good three av us — Jock'll be very hurt — to take away 
 that sedan-chair." 
 
 "Palanquin." This from Ortheris. 
 
 "F whatever ut is, we must have ut. 'Tis the only sellin' 
 piece av property widin reach that we can get so cheap. An' 
 fwhat's a fight afther all? He has robbed the naygur man 
 dishonust. "We rob him honust. " 
 
 "But wot'U we do with the bloomin' harticle when we've 
 got it? Them palanquins are as big as 'ouses, an' uncom- 
 mon 'ard to seU, as McCleary said when ye stole the sentry- 
 box from the Curragh." * 
 
/I\ii>e Omjt) people 109 
 
 •^"Who's goin' to do t' fightin'?" said Learoyd, and Orth- 
 eris subsided. The three returned to barracks without a 
 word. Mulvaney's last argument clinched the matter. 
 This palanquin was property, vendible and to be attained 
 in the least embarrassing fashion. It would eventually be- 
 come beer. Great was Mulvaney. 
 
 Next afternoon a procession of three formed itseK and 
 disappeared into the scrub in the direction of the new rail- 
 way line. Learoyd alone was without care, for Mulvaney 
 dived darkly into the future and little Ortheris feared the 
 unknown. 
 
 What befell at that interview in the lonely pay-shed by 
 the side of the half -built embankment only a few hundred 
 coolies know, and their tale is a confusing one, running thus : 
 
 /'We were at work. Three men in red coats came. They 
 saw the sahib — Dearsley Sahib. They made oration, and 
 noticeably the small man among the red-coats. Dearsley 
 Sahib also made oration, and used many very strong words. 
 Upon this talk they departed together to an open space, and 
 there the fat man in the red coat fought with Dearsley Sahib 
 after the custom of white men — with his hands, making no 
 noise, and never at all pulling Dearsley Sahib's hair. Such 
 of us as were not afraid beheld these things for just so long a 
 time as a man needs to cook the midday meal. The small 
 man in the red coat had possessed himself of Dearsley Sahib's 
 watch. Ko, he did not steal that watch. He held it in his 
 hands, and at certain season made outcry, and the twain 
 ceased their combat, which was like the combat of young 
 bulls in spring. Both men were soon all red, but Dearsley 
 Sahib was much more red than the other. Seeing this, and 
 fearing for his life — because we greatly loved him — some 
 fifty of us made shift to rush upon the red-coats. But a cer- 
 tain man — very black as to the hair, and in no way to be 
 confused with the small man, or the fat man who fought — 
 that man, we affirm, ran upon us, and of us he embraced 
 some ten or fifty in both arms, and beat our heads together, 
 so that our livers turned to water, and we ran away. It is 
 
110 U/orKs of I^udyard t^iplii)^ 
 
 not good to interfere in the fightings of white men. After 
 that Dearsley Sahib fell and did not rise; these men jumped 
 upon his stomach and despoiled him of all his money, and 
 attempted to fire the pay-shed, and departed. Is it true that 
 Dearsley Sahib makes no complaint of these latter things 
 having been done? We were senseless with fear, and do not 
 at all remember. There was no palanquin near the pay- 
 shed. What do we know about palanquins? Is it true that 
 Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place, on account of 
 sickness, for ten days? This is the fault of those bad men in 
 the red coats, who should be severely punished; for Dearsley 
 Sahib is both our father and mother, and we love him much. 
 Yet if Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place at all, we 
 will speak the truth. There was a palanquin, for the up- 
 keep of which we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our 
 monthly wage. On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed 
 us to make obeisance to him before the palanquin. What 
 could we do? We were poor men. He took a full half of 
 our wages. Will the government repay us those moneys? 
 Those three men in red coats bore the palanquin upon their 
 shoulders and departed. All the money that Dearsley Sahib 
 had taken from us was in the cushions of that palanquin. 
 Therefore they stole it. Thousands of rupees were there — 
 all our money. It was our bank-box, to fill which we cheer- 
 fully contributed to Dearsley Sahib three-sevenths of our 
 monthly wage. Why does the white man look upon us with 
 the eye of disfavor? Before God, there was a palanquin, 
 and now there is no palanquin; and if they send the police 
 here to make inquisition, we can only say that there never 
 has been any palanquin. Why should a palanquin be near 
 these works? We are poor men, and we know nothing.** 
 
 Such is the simplest version of the simplest story con- 
 nected with the descent upon Dearsley. From the lips of the 
 coolies I received it. Dearsley himself was in no condition 
 to say anything, and Mulvaney preserved a massive silence, 
 broken only by the occasional licking of the lips. He had 
 seen a fight so gorgeous that even his power of speech was 
 
/I\ii?e Oujo people 111 
 
 taken from him. I respected that reserve until, three days 
 after the affair, I discovered in a disused stable in my quar- 
 ters a palanquin of unchastened splendor — evidently in past 
 days the litter of a queen. The pole whereby it swung be- 
 tween the shoulders of the bearers was rich with the painted 
 papier-mache of Cashmere. The shoulder-pads were of yel- 
 low silk. The panels of the litter itseK were ablaze with the 
 loves of all the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon 
 — lacquer on cedar. The cedar sliding-doors were fitted 
 with hasps of translucent Jaipur enamel, and ran in gTOOves 
 shod with silver. The cushions were of brocaded Delhi silk, 
 and the curtains, which once hid any glimpse of the beauty 
 of the king's palace, were stiff with gold. Closer investiga- 
 tion showed that the entire fabric was everywhere rubbed 
 and discolored by time and wear ; but even thus it was suffi- 
 ciently gorgeous to deserve housing on the threshold of a 
 royal zenana. I found no fault with it, except that it was 
 in my stable. Then, trying to lift it by the silver-shod shoul- 
 der-pole, I laughed. The road from Dearsley's pay-shed to 
 the cantonment was a narrow and uneven, one, and, traversed 
 by three very inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom 
 was sorely battered about the head, must have been a path 
 of torment. Still I did not quite recognize the right of the 
 three musketeers to turn me into a "fence." 
 
 "I'm askin' you to warehouse ut," said Mulvaney, when 
 he was brought to consider the question. "There's no steal 
 in ut. Dearsley tould us we cud have ut if we fought. Jock 
 fought — an', oh, sorr, when the throuble was at uts finest an' 
 Jock was bleedin' hke a stuck pig, an' little Orth'ris was 
 shquealin' on one leg, cliewin' big bites out av Dearsley's 
 watch, I wud ha' given my place at the fight to have had 
 you see wan round. He tuk Jock, as I suspicioned he would, 
 an' Jock was deceptive. Nine roun's they were even matched, 
 an' at the tenth — About that palanquin now. There's not 
 the least trouble in the world, or we wud not ha' brought ut 
 here. You will ondherstand that the queen — God bless her! 
 — does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape elephints an' 
 
112 U/orl^s of I^udyard i^iplir>($ 
 
 palanquins an' sich in barricks. Afther we had dhragged 
 ut down from Dearsley's through that cruel scrub that n'r 
 broke Orth'ris' heart, we set ut in the ravine for a night; an' 
 a thief av a porcupine an' a civit-cat av a jackal roosted in 
 ut, as well we knew in the mornin'. I put ut to you, sorr, 
 is an elegant palanquin, fit for the princess, the natural 
 abidin' -place av all the vermin in cantonmints? "We brought 
 ut to you, afther dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not 
 let your conscience prick. Think av the rejoicin' men in the 
 pay-shed yonder — lookin' at Dearsley wid his head tied up in 
 a towel — an' well knowin' that they can dhraw their pay 
 ivery month widout stoppages for riffles. Indirectly, sorr, 
 you have rescued from an onprincipled son av a night-hawk 
 the peasantry av a numerous village. An' besides, will I let 
 that sedan-chair rot on your hands? Not I. 'Tis not every 
 day a piece av pure joolry comes into the market. There's 
 not a king widin these forty miles" — he waved his hand 
 round the dusty horizon — "not a king wud not be glad to 
 buy it. Some day meself, whin I have leisure, I'll take ut 
 up along the road an' dispose av ut." 
 
 "How?" said I. 
 
 "Get into ut, av course, an' keep wan eye open through 
 the curtain. Whin I see a likely man of the native persua- 
 sion, I will descend blushin' from my canopy, and say: 'Buy 
 a palanquin, ye black scut?' I will have to hire four men to 
 carry me first though ; and that's impossible till next pay-day. ' ' 
 
 Curiously enough, Learoyd, who had fought for the prize, 
 and in the winning secured the highest pleasure life had to 
 ofPer him, was altogether disposed to undervalue it, while 
 Ortheris openly said it would be better to break the thing up. 
 Dearsley, he argued, might be a many-sided man, capable, 
 despite his magnificent fighting qualities, of setting in motion 
 the machinery of the civil law, a thing much abhorred by the 
 soldier. Under the circumstances their fun had come and 
 passed; the next pay-day was close at hand, when there 
 would be beer for all. Wherefore longer conserve the painted 
 palanquin? 
 
/I\ipe Ou/Q people 113 
 
 **A first-class rifle-shot an' a good little man av your 
 inches you are," said Mulvaney. "But you niver had a head 
 worth a soft-boiled egg. 'Tis me has to lie awake av nights 
 schamin' an' plottin' for the three av us. Orth'ris, me son, 
 'tis no matther av a few gallons av beer — no, nor twenty 
 gallons — but tubs an' vats an' firkins in that sedan-chair." 
 
 Meantime, the palanquin stayed in my stall, the key of 
 vfhich was in Mulvaney 's hand. 
 
 Pay-day came, and with it beer. It was not in experience 
 to hope that Mulvaney, dried by four weeks' drought, would 
 avoid excess. Next morning he and the palanquin had dis- 
 appeared. He had taken the precaution of getting three 
 days' leave "to see a friend on the railway," and the colonel, 
 well knowing that the seasonal outburst was near, and hoping 
 it would spend its force beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, 
 cheerfully gave him all he demanded. At this point his 
 history, as recorded in the mess-room, stopped. 
 
 Ortheris carried it not much further. "ISTo, 'e wasn't 
 drunk," said the Httle man, loyally, "the liquor was no more 
 than feelin' its way round inside of 'im; but 'e went an' filled 
 tliat 'ole bloomin' palanquin with bottles 'fore 'e went off. 
 He's gone an' 'ired six men to carry 'im, an' I 'ad to 'elp 'im 
 into 'is nupshal couch, 'cause 'e wouldn't 'ear reason. 'E's 
 gone off in 'is shirt an' trousies, swearin' tremenjus — gone 
 down the road in the palanquin, wavin' 'is legs out o' windy." 
 
 "Yes," said I, "but where?" 
 
 "Now you arx me a question. 'E said 'e was going to 
 sell that palanquin; but from observations what happened 
 when I was stuffin' 'im through the door, I fancy 'e's gone 
 to the new embankment to mock at Dearsley. Soon as Jock's 
 off duty I'm going there to see if 'e's safe — not Mulvaney, but 
 t'other man. My saints, but I pity 'im as 'elps Terence out 
 o' the palanquin when 'e's once fair drunk!" 
 
 "He'U come back," I said. 
 
 "'Corse 'e will. On'y question is, what'U 'e be doin' on 
 the road. Killing Dearsley, like as not. 'E shouldn't 'a' gone 
 without Jock or me. ' ' 
 
114 U/orl^s of F^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 Re-enforced by Learoyd, Ortheris sought the foreman of 
 the coohe-gang. Dearsley's head was still embellished with 
 towels. Mulvaney, drunk or sober, would have struck no 
 man in that condition, and Dearsley indignantly denied that 
 he would have taken advantage of the intoxicated brave. 
 
 "I had my pick o' you two," he explained to Learoyd, 
 "and you got my palanquin — not before I'd made my profit 
 on it. "Why'd I do harm when everything's settled? Your 
 man did come here — drunk as Davy's cow on a frosty night 
 — came a-purpose to mock me — stuck his 'ead out of the door 
 an' called me a crucified hodman. I made him drunker, an' 
 sent him along. But I never touched him." 
 
 To these things Learoyd, slow to perceive the evidences of 
 sincerity, answered only : ' * If owt comes to Mulvaney long o' 
 you, I'll gripple you, clouts or no clouts on your ugly head, 
 an' I'll draw t' throat twisty- ways, man. See there now." 
 
 The embassy removed itself, and Dearsley, the battered, 
 laughed alone over his supper that evening. 
 
 Three days passed — a fourth and a fifth. The week drew 
 to a close, and Mulvaney did not return. He, his royal 
 palanquin, and his six attendants, had vanished into air. A 
 very large and very tipsy soldier, his feet sticking out of the 
 litter of a reigning princess, is not a thing to travel along the 
 ways without comment. Yet no man of all the country 
 round had seen any such wonder. He was, and he was not; 
 and Learoyd suggested the immediate smashment as a sacri- 
 fice to his ghost. Ortheris insisted that all was well. 
 
 "When Mulvaney goes up the road," said he, '"e's like 
 to go a very long ways up, especially when 'e's so blue drunk 
 as 'e is now. But what gits me is 'is not bein' 'eard of 
 puUin' wool of the niggers somewheres about. That don't 
 look good. The drink must ha' died out in 'im by this, un- 
 less 'e's broke a bank, an' then — Why don't 'e come back? 
 'E didn't ought to ha' gone off without us." 
 
 Even Ortheris' heart sunk at the end of the seventh day, 
 for half the regiment were out scouring the country-sides, and 
 Learoyd had been forced to fight two men who hinted openly 
 
fT[\T)e 0\jjT) people 115 
 
 that Mulvaney had deserted. To do him justice, the colonel 
 laughed at the notion, even when it was put forward by his 
 much-trusted adjutant. 
 
 *' Mulvaney would as soon think of deserting as you 
 would," said he. "No; he's either fallen into a mischief 
 among the villagers — and yet that isn't hkely, for he'd blarney 
 himself out of the pit ; or else he is engaged on urgent private 
 affairs — some stupendous devilment that we shall hear of at 
 mess after it has been the round of the barrack-rooms. The 
 worst of it is that I shall have to give him twenty-eight days' 
 confinement at least for being absent without leave, just when 
 I most want him to lick the new batch of recruits into shape. 
 I never knew a man who could put a polish on young soldiers 
 as quickly as Mulvaney can. How does he do it?" 
 
 **With blarney and the buckle-end of a belt, sir," said the 
 adjutant. ' ' He is worth a couple of non-commissioned officers 
 when we are dealing with an Irish draft, and the London lads 
 seem to adore him. The worst of it is that if he goes to the 
 cells the other two are neither to hold nor to bind till he comes 
 out again. I believe Ortheris preaches .mutiny on those 
 occasions, and I know that the mere presence of Learoyd 
 mourning for Mulvaney kills all the cheerfulness of his room. 
 The sergeants tell me that he allows no man to laugh when 
 he feels unhappy. They are a queer gang. ' ' 
 
 "For all that, I wish we had a few more of them. I like 
 a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, shifty-eyed, 
 mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the depot worry me 
 sometimes with their offensive virtue. They don't seem to 
 have backbone enough to do anything but play cards and 
 prowl round the married quarters. I believe I'd forgive that 
 old villain on the spot if he turned up with any sort of 
 explanation that I could in decency accept. ' ' 
 
 "Not likely to be much difficulty about that, sir," said the 
 adjutant. " Mulvaney 's explanations are one degree less 
 wonderful than his performances. They say that when he 
 was in the Black Tyrone, before he came to us, he was dis- 
 covered on the banks of the Liffey trying to sell his colonel's 
 
il6 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{ipVii)(^ 
 
 charger to a Donegal dealer as a perfect lady's hack. Shak- 
 bolt commanded the Tyrone then. ' ' 
 
 "Shakbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought of his 
 ramping war-horses answering to that description. He used 
 to buy unbacked devils and tame them by starvation. What 
 did Mulvaney say?" 
 
 "That he was a member of the Society for the Prevention 
 of Cruelty to Animals, anxious to *sell the poor baste where 
 he would get something to fill out his dimples.' Shakbolt 
 laughed, but I fancy that was why Mulvaney exchanged to 
 ours." 
 
 "I wish he were back," said the colonel; "for I hke him, 
 and believe he likes me." 
 
 That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris, and 
 I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine. All the dogs 
 attended, but even their clamor — and they began to discuss 
 the shortcomings of porcupines before they left cantonments 
 — could not take us out of ourselves. A large, low moon 
 turned the tops of the plume grass to silver, and the stunted 
 camel-thorn bushes and sour tamarisks into the hkeness of 
 trooping devils. The smell of the sun had not left the earth, 
 and little aimless winds, blowing across the rose gardens to 
 the southward, brought the scent of dried roses and water. 
 Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily disposed to wait 
 the dash of the porcupine, we chmbed to the top of a rain- 
 scarred hillock of earth, and looked across the scrub, seamed 
 with cattle-paths, white with the long grass, and dotted with 
 spots of level pond-bottom, where the snipe would gather in 
 winter. 
 
 "This," said Ortheris, with a sigh, as he took in the un- 
 kempt desolation of it all, "this is sanguinary. This is un- 
 usual sanguinary. Sort o' mad country. Like a grate when 
 the fire's .put out by the sun." He shaded his eyes against 
 the moonhght. "An' there's a loony dancin' in the middle 
 of it all. Quite right. I'd dance, too, if I wasn't so down- 
 heart. ' ' 
 
 There pranced a portent in the face of the moon — a huge 
 
(I\ipe Ou/p people 117 
 
 and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its wings from 
 afar. It had risen out of the earth ; it was coming toward 
 us, and its outhne was never twice the same. The toga, 
 tablecloth, or dressing-gown, whatever the creature wore, 
 took a hundred shapes. Once it stopped on a neighboring 
 mound and flung all its legs and arms to the winds. 
 j *'My, but that scarecrow 'as got 'em bad!" said Ortheris. 
 *' Seems like if 'e comes any furder we'll 'ave to argify 
 with 'im." 
 
 i Learoyd raised himself from the dirt as a bull clears his 
 flanks of the wallow. And as a bull bellows, so he, after a 
 short minute at gaze, gave tongue to the stars. 
 
 ' ' Mulvaney ! Mulvaney ! A hoo ! ' ' 
 
 Then we yelled all together, and the figure dipped into the 
 hollow till, with a crash of rending grass, the lost one strode 
 up to the light of the fire, and disappeared to the waist in a 
 wave of joyous dogs. Then Learoyd and Ortheris gave 
 greeting bass and falsetto. 
 
 "You damned fool!" said they, and severally punched 
 him with their fists. 
 
 *'Go easy!" he answered, wrapping a huge arm round 
 each. "I would have you to know that I am a god, to be 
 treated as such — though, by my faith, I fancy I've got to go 
 to the guard-room just like a privit soldier. ' ' 
 
 The latter part of the sentence destroyed the suspicions 
 raised by the former. Any one would have been justified in 
 regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was hatless and shoeless, 
 and his shirt and trousers were dropping off him. But he 
 wore one wondrous garment — a gigantic cloak that fell from 
 collar-bone to heels — of pale pink silk, wrought all over, in 
 cunningest needlework of hands long since dead, with the 
 loves of the Hindu gods. The monstrous figures leaped in 
 and out of the light of the fire as he settled the folds round him. 
 
 Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment while 
 I was trying to remember where I had seen it before. 
 
 Then he screamed: *'What ^ave you done with the palan- 
 quin? You're wearin' the linin'." 
 
118 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{\plU)(^ 
 
 ^*I am," said the Irisliman, "an' by the same .oken the 
 'broidery is scrapin' me hide off. I've Hved in this sumpshus 
 counterpane for four days. Me son, I begin to ondherstand 
 why the naygur is no use. "Widout me boots, an' me trousers 
 like an open-work stocking on a gyurl's leg at a dance, I 
 began to feel like a naygur — all timorous. Give me a pipe 
 an' I'll tell on." 
 
 He Hghted a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and 
 rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter. 
 
 ''Mulvaney," said Ortheris, sternly, *"tain't no time for 
 laughin'. You've given Jock an' me more trouble than 
 you're worth. You 'ave been absent without leave, and 
 you'll go into the cells for that; an' you 'ave come back dis- 
 gustingly dressed, an' most improper, in the linin' o' that 
 bloomin' palanquin. Instid of which you laugh. An' we 
 thought you was dead all the time. ' ' i 
 
 "Bhoys," said the culprit, still shaking gently, *'whin I've 
 done my tale you may cry if you hke, an' little Orth'ris here 
 can thrample my insides out. Ha' done an' listen. My per- 
 f orminces have been stupenjus ; my luck has been the blessed 
 luck of the British army— an' there's no better than that. I 
 went out drunk an' drinking in the palanquin, and I have 
 come back a pink god. Did any of you go to Dearsley afther 
 my time was up? He was at the bottom of ut all." 
 
 "Ah said so," murmured Learoyd. "To-morrow ah'U 
 smash t' face in upon his head." 
 
 "Ye will not. Dearsley 's a jool av a man. Afther 
 Orth'ris had put me into the palanquin an' the six bearer-men 
 were gruntin' down the road, I tuk thought to mock Dearsley 
 for that fight. So I tould thim : ' Go to the embankment, ' 
 and there, bein' most amazin' fuU, I shtuck my head out av 
 the concern an' passed compliments wid Dearsley. I must 
 ha' miscalled him outrageous, for whin I am that way the 
 power of the tongue comes on me. I can bare remimberr 
 tellin' him that his mouth opened endways like the mouth off 
 a skate, which was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut ; an' ' 
 I clear remimber his taking no manner nor matter of offense, 
 
/I\ir)e Ou/i> people 119 
 
 but givin' me a big dhrink of beer. 'Twas the beer that did 
 the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, steppin' on 
 me right ear wid me left foot, an' thin I slept like the dead. 
 "Wanst I half roused, an' begad the noise in my head was 
 tremenjus — roarin' an' poundin' an' rattlin' such as was 
 quite new to me. 'Mother av mercy,' thinks I, 'phwat a 
 concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake ! An' 
 wid that I curls myself up to sleep before ut should get hould 
 on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, 'twas the rattle 
 av a thrain!" 
 
 There followed an impressive pause. 
 
 ''Yes, he had put me on a thrain — put me, palanquin an' 
 all, an' six black assassins av his own coohes that was in his 
 nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-truck, and we 
 were rowlin' and bowlin' along to Benares. Glory be that I 
 did not wake up then an' introjuce myself to the coolies. 
 As I was sayin', I slept for the better part av a day an' a 
 night. But remimber you, that that man Dearsley had 
 packed me off on one av his material thrains to Benares, all 
 for to make me overstay my leave an' get me into the cells." 
 
 The explanation was an eminently rational one. Benares 
 was at least ten hours by rail from the cantonments, and 
 nothing in the world could have saved Mulvaney from arrest 
 as a deserter had he appeared there in the apparel of his 
 orgies. Dearsley had not forgotten to take revenge. Learoyd, 
 drawing back a little, began to place soft blows over selected 
 portions of Mulvaney 's body. His thoughts were away on 
 the embankment, and they meditated evil for Dearsley. 
 Mulvaney continued : ' ' Whin I was full awake, the palanquin 
 was set down in a street, I suspicioned, for I could hear 
 people passin' and talkin'. But I knew well I was far from 
 home. There is a queer smell upon our cantonments — smell 
 av dried earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av a cavalry stable- 
 litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an' bad water, an' 
 wanst somethin' alive came an' blew heavy with his muzzle 
 at the chink of the shutter. 'It's in a village I am,' thinks I 
 to myself, 'an' the parochial buffalo is investigatin' the 
 
120 U/orl^s of r^adyard l^iplip^J 
 
 palanquin.' But anyways I liad no desire to move. Only 
 lie still whin you're in foreign parts, an' the standin' luck av 
 the British army will carry ye through. That is an epigram. 
 I made ut. 
 
 "Thin a lot av whisperin' devils surrounded the palanquin. 
 *Take ut up,' says wan man. *But who'll pay us?' says 
 another. 'The Maharanee's minister, av course,' sez the man. 
 *Oho!' sez I to myself; 'I'm a quane in me own right, wid a 
 minister to pay me expenses. I'll be an emperor if I lie still 
 long enough. But this is no village I've struck.' I lay 
 quiet, but I gummed me right eye to a crack av the shutters, 
 an' I sa<w that the whole street was crammed wid palanquins 
 an' horses an' a sprinklin' av naked priests, all yellow pow- 
 der an' tigers' tails. But I may tell you, Orth'ris, an' you, 
 Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most im- 
 perial an' magnificent. !N"ow, a palanquin means a native 
 lady all the world over, except whin a soldier av the quane 
 happens to be takin' a ride. 'Women an' priest!' sez I. 
 'Your father's son is in the right pew this time, Terence. 
 There will be proceedin's.' Six black devils in pink muslin 
 tuk up the palanquin, an' oh! but the rowlin' an' the rockin' 
 made me sick. Thin we got fair jammed among the palan- 
 quins — not more than fifty av them — an' we grated an' 
 bumped like Queenstown potato-smacks in a runnin' tide. 
 I cud hear the women gigglin' and squirmin' in their palan- 
 quins, but mine was the royal equipage. They made way 
 for ut, an', begad, the pink muslin men o' mine were howlin', 
 'Room for the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun.' Do you 
 know av the lady, sorr?" 
 
 "Yes," said I. "She is a very estimable old queen of the 
 Central India States, and they say she is fat. How on earth 
 could she go to Benares without all the city knowing her 
 palanquin?" 
 
 "'Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygur men. They 
 saw the palanquin lying loneful an' forlornsome, an' the 
 beauty of ut, after Dearsley's men had dhropped ut an' gone 
 away, an' they gave ut the best name that occurred to thim. 
 
/I\ir>e 0\jjT) people 121 
 
 Quite right too. For aught we know, the old lady was 
 travelin' incog. — like me. I'm glad to hear she's fat. I was 
 no light-weight myself, an' my men were mortial anxious to 
 dhrop me under a great big archway promiscuously orna- 
 mented wid the most improper carvin's an' cuttin's I iver 
 saw. Begad! they made me blush — hke a maharanee." 
 
 "The temple of the Prithi-Devi," I murmured, remem- 
 bering the monstrous horrors of that sculptured archway at 
 Benares. 
 
 "Pretty Devilskins, savin' your presence, sorr. There was 
 nothin' pretty about ut, except me! 'Twas all half dhark, an' 
 whin the coolies left they shut a big black gate beliind av us, 
 an' half a company av fat yellow priests began puUy-haulin' 
 the palanquins into a dharker place yet — a big stone hall full 
 av pillars an' gods an' incense an' all manner av similar 
 thruck. The gate disconcerted me, for I perceived I wud 
 have to go forward to get out, my retreat bein' cut off. By 
 the same token, a good priest makes a bad palanquin-coolie. 
 Begad ! they nearly turned me inside out dragging the palan- 
 quin to the temple. Now the disposishin av the forces inside 
 was this way. The Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun — that 
 was me — lay by the favor of Providence on the far left flank 
 behind the dhark av a pillar carved with elephants' heads. 
 The remainder av the palanquins was in a big half circle 
 facing into the biggest, fattest, and most amazin' she-god 
 that iver I dreamed av. Her head ran up into the black 
 above us, an' her feet stuck out in the light av a little fire av 
 melted butter that a priest was feedin' out av a butter-dish. 
 Thin a man began to sing an' play on somethin', back in the 
 dhark, an' 'twas a queer song. Ut made my hair lift on the 
 back av my neck. Thin the doors av all the palanquins slid 
 back, an' the women bundled out. I saw what I'll never see 
 again. 'Twas more glorious than transformations at a pan- 
 tomime, for they was in pink, an' blue, an' silver, an' red, 
 an' grass-green, wid diamonds, an' imeralds, an' great red 
 rubies. I niver saw the like, an' I niver will again. ' ' 
 
 "Seeing that in all probability you were watching the 
 Vol. 3. 6 
 
122 U/orl^s of l^tidyard t^iplip^ 
 
 wives and daughters of most of the kings of India, the chances 
 are that you won't," I said, for it was dawning upon me that 
 Mulvaney had stumbled upon a big queen's praying at 
 Benares. 
 
 "I niver will," he said, mournfully. "That sight doesn't 
 come twict to any man. It made me ashamed to watch. A 
 fat priest knocked at my door. I didn't think he'd have the 
 insolence to disturb the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun, so I 
 lay still. 'The old cow's asleep,' sez he to another. 'Let her 
 be, ' sez that. ' 'Twill be long before she has a calf ! ' I might 
 ha' known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in 
 Injia — an' for the matter o' that in England too — is childher. 
 That made me more sorry I'd come, me bein', as you well 
 know, a childless man. 
 
 "They prayed, an' the butter-fires blazed up an' the in- 
 cense turned everything blue, an' between that an' the fires 
 the women looked as tho' they were all ablaze an' twinkhn'. 
 They took hold of the she-god's knees, they cried out, an' 
 they threw themselves about, an' that world-without-end- 
 amen music was dhrivin' thim mad. Mother av Hiven ! how 
 they cried, an' the ould she-god grinnin' above them all so 
 scornful! The dhrink was dyin' out in me fast, an' I was 
 thinkin' harder than the thoughts wud go through my head 
 — thinkin' how to get out, an' all manner of nonsense as 
 well. The women were rockin' in rows, their di'mond belts 
 clickin', an' the tears runnin' out betune their hands, an' the 
 lights were goin' lower and dharker. . Thin there was a blaze 
 like lightnin' from the roof, an' that showed me the inside 
 av the palanquin, an' at the end where my foot was stood the 
 livin' spit an' image o' myself worked on the linin'. This 
 wan here, it was." 
 
 He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand under 
 one, and thrust into the fire-light a foot-long embroidered 
 presentment of the great god Krishna playing on a flute." The 
 heavy jowl, the staring eye, and the blue-black mustache of 
 the god made up a far-off resemblance to Mulvaney. 
 
 "The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame 
 
/I\ipe OwT) people 123 
 
 came to me thin. I believe I was mad, too. I slid the off- 
 shutter open an' rowled out into the dhark behind the ele- 
 phant-head pillar, tucked up mj trousies to my knee, slipped 
 off my boots, and took a general hould av all the pink linin' 
 av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out hke a woman's 
 driss when you thread on ut at a sargent's ball, an' a bottle 
 came with ut. I tuk the bottle, an' the next minut I was out 
 av the dhark av the pillar, the pink hnin' wrapped round me 
 most graceful, the music thunderin' hke kettle-drums, an' a 
 cowl draft blowin' round my bare legs. By this hand that 
 did ut, I was Krishna tootlin' on the flute ^ — the god that the 
 rig'mental chaplain talks about. A sweet sight I must ha' 
 looked. I knew my eyes were big and my face was wax- 
 white, an' at the worst I must ha' looked like a ghost. But 
 they took me for the livin' god. The music stopped, and the 
 women were dead dumb, an' I crooked my legs like a shep- 
 herd on a china basin, an' I did the ghost-waggle with my 
 feet as I had done at the rig'mental theater many times, an' 
 slid across the temple in front av the she-god, tootlin' on the 
 beer-bottle." 
 
 **Wot did you toot?" demanded Ortheris. 
 
 **Me? Oh!" Mulvaney sprung up, suiting the action to 
 the word, and shding gravely in front of us, a dilapidated 
 deity in the half light. ^ 'I sung: 
 
 ** *Only say 
 
 You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan. 
 Don't say nay, 
 
 Charmin' Juley Callaghan.' 
 
 I didn't know my own voice when I sung. An' oh! 'twas 
 pitiful to see the women. The darhn's were down on their 
 faces. Whin I passed the last wan I could see her poor little 
 fingers workin' one in another as if she wanted to touch my 
 feet. So I threw the tail of this pink overcoat over her head 
 for the greater honor, an' slid into the dhark on the other side 
 of the temple, and fetched up in the arms av a big fat priest. 
 All I wanted was to get away clear. So I tuk him by his 
 
124 U/orlvS of P^udyard I^iplii^^ 
 
 greasy throat an' shut the speech out av him. *Out!' sez L 
 'Which way, ye fat heathen?' *0h!' sez he. 'Man,' sez I. 
 * White man, soldier man, common soldier man. Where is 
 the back door?' 'This way,' sez my fat friend, duckin' be- 
 hind a big bull-god an' divin' into a passage. Thin I remim- 
 bered that I must ha' made the miraculous reputation of that 
 temple for the next fifty years. 'Not so fast,' I sez, an' I 
 held out both my hands wid a wink. That ould thief smiled 
 like a father. I took him by the back av the neck in case he 
 should be wishful to put a knife into me unbeknownst, an' I 
 ran him up an' down the passage twice to collect his sensi- 
 bilities. 'Be quiet,' sez he, in English. 'Now you talk 
 sense,' I sez. 'Fwhat'll you give me for the use of that most 
 iligant palanquin I have no time to take away?' 'Don't tell,' 
 sez he. 'Is ut like?' sez I. 'But ye might give me my rail- 
 way fare. I'm far from my home, an' I've done you a ser- 
 vice. ' Bhoys, 'tis a good thing to be a priest. The ould man 
 niver throubled himself to draw from a bank. As I will 
 prove to you subsequint, he philandered all round the slack 
 av his clothes and began dribblin' ten-rupee notes, old gold 
 mohurs, and rupees into my hand till I could hould no more." 
 
 "You he!" said Ortheris. "You're mad or sunstrook. 
 A native don't give coin unless you cut it out av 'im. 'Tain't 
 nature." 
 
 "Then my he an' my sunstroke is concealed under that 
 lump av sod yonder," retorted Mulvaney, unruffled, nodding 
 across the scrub. "An' there's a dale more in nature than 
 your squidgy little legs have iver taken you to, Orth'ris, me 
 son. Four hundred and thirty-four rupees by my reckonin', 
 an'' a big fat gold necklace that I took from him as a remim- 
 brancer." 
 
 "An' 'e give it to you for love?" said Ortheris. 
 
 "We were alone in that passage. Maybe I was a trifle 
 too pressin', but considher fwhat I had done for the good av 
 the temple and the iverlastin' joy av those women. 'Twas 
 cheap at the price. I would ha' taken more if I could ha' 
 found it. I turned the ould man upside down at the last, but 
 
fT\iT)e OwT) people 125 
 
 he was milked dhry. Thin he opened a door in another 
 passage, an' I found myself up to my knees in Benares river- 
 water, an' bad smellin' ut is. More by token I had come out 
 on the river line close to the burnin'-ghat and contagious to 
 a cracklin' corpse. This was in the heart av the night, for I 
 had been four hours in the temple. There was a crowd av 
 boats tied up, so I tuk wan an' wint across the river. Thin 
 I came home, lyin' up by day. " 
 
 "How on earth did you manage?" I said. 
 
 *'How did Sir Frederick Roberts get from Cabul to Can- 
 dahar? He marched, an' he niver told how near he was to 
 breakin' down. That's why he is phwat he is. An' now" — 
 Mulvaney yawned portentously — "now I will go and give 
 myself up for absince widout leave. It's eight-an' -twenty 
 days an' the rough end of the colonel's tongue in orderly-room, 
 any way you look at ut. But 'tis cheap at the price." 
 
 "Mulvaney," said I, softly, "if there happens to be any 
 sort of excuse that the colonel can in any way accept, I 
 have a notion that you'll get nothing more than the dressing 
 down. The new recruits are in, and — " 
 
 "Not a word more, sorr. Is ut excuses the ould man 
 wants? 'Tis not my way, but he shall have thim." And he 
 flapped his way to cantonments, singing lustily : 
 
 "So they sent a corp'ril s file. 
 And they put me in the guyard-room. 
 For conduck unbecomin' of a soldier." 
 
 Therewith he surrendered himself to the joyful and almost 
 weeping guard, and was made much of by his fellows. But 
 to the colonel he said that he had been smitten with sunstroke 
 and had lain insensible on a villager's cot for untold hours, 
 and between laughter and good- will the affair was smoothed 
 over, so tha^ he could next day teach the new recruits how to 
 "fear God honor the queen, shoot straight, and keep clean.'' 
 
 END OF " MINE OWN PEOPLE " 
 
THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD 
 
 All day I had followed at the heels of a pursuing army, 
 engaged on one of the finest battles that ever camp of exer- 
 cise beheld. Thirty thousand troops had by the wisdom of 
 the government of India been turned loose over a few thou- 
 sand square miles of country to practice in peace what they 
 would never attempt in war. The Army of the South had 
 finally pierced the center of the Army of the North, and was 
 pouring through the gap, hot- foot, to capture a city of strategic 
 importance. Its front extended fanwise, the sticks being rep- 
 resented by regiments strung out along the line of route back- 
 ward to the divisional transport columns, and all the lumber 
 that trails behind an army on the move. On its right the 
 broken left of the Army of the North was flying in mass", 
 chased by the Southern horse and hammered by the South- 
 ern guns, till these had been pushed far beyond the limits of 
 their last support. Then the flying Army of the North sat 
 down to rest, while the commandant of the pursuing force 
 telegraphed that he held it in check and observation. 
 
 Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his right 
 flank a flying column of Northern horse, with a detachment 
 of Goorkhas and British troops, had been pushed round, as 
 fast as the fading Hght allowed, to cut across the entire rear 
 of the Southern Army, to break, as it were, all the ribs of 
 the fan where they converged, by striking at the transport 
 reserve, ammunition, and artillery supplies. Their instruc- 
 tions were to go in, avoiding the few scouts who might not 
 have been drawn off by the pursuit, and create sufficient ex- 
 citement to impress the Southern Army with the wisdom of 
 (126) 
 
T^e QcurtiQ^ of Dipal? B\)zdd 127 
 
 guarding their own flank and rear before they captured cities. 
 It was a pretty maneuver, neatly carried out. 
 
 Speaking for the second division of the Southern Army, 
 our first intimation of it was at twilight, when the artillery 
 were laboring in deep sand, most of the escort were trying 
 to help them out, and the main body of the infantry had 
 gone on. A Noah's ark of elephants, camels, and the mixed 
 menagerie of an Indian transport train bubbled and squealed 
 behind the guns, when there rose up from nowhere in par 
 ticular British infantry to the extent of three companies, who 
 sprung to the heads of the gun-horses, and brought all to a 
 standstill amid oaths and cheers. 
 
 "How's that, umpire?" said the major commanding the 
 attack, and with one voice the drivers and limber gunners 
 answered, "Hout!" while the colonel of artillery sputtered. 
 
 "All your scouts are charging our main body," said the 
 major. "Your flanks are unprotected for two miles. I 
 think we've broken the back of this division. And listen ! 
 there go the Goorkhas!" 
 
 A weak fire broke from the rear-guard more than a mile 
 away, and was answered by cheerful bowlings. The Goor- 
 khas, who should have swung clear of the second division, 
 had stepped on its tail in the dark, but, drawing off, hastened 
 to reach the next Hne, which lay almost parallel to us, five 
 or six miles away. 
 
 Our column swayed and surged irresolutely — three bat- 
 teries, the divisional ammunition reserve, the baggage, and 
 a section of hospital and bearer corps. The commandant 
 ruefully promised to report himself "cut up" to the nearest 
 umpire, and commending his cavalry and all other cavalry 
 to the care of Eblis, toiled on to resume touch with the rest 
 of the division. 
 
 "We'll bivouac here to-night," said the major. "I have 
 a notion that the Goorkhas will get caught. They may 
 want us to reform on. Stand easy till the transport gets 
 away. ' ' 
 
 A hand caught my beast's bridle and led him out of the 
 
128 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 choking dust ; a larger hand deftly canted me out of the sad- 
 dle, and two of the hugest hands in the world received me 
 shding. Pleasant is the lot of the special correspondent who 
 falls into such hands as those of Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, 
 and Learoyd. 
 
 "An' that's all right," said the Irishman, calmly. '*We 
 thought we'd find you somewheres here by. Is there any- 
 thing of yours in the transport? Orth'ris '11 fetch ut out." 
 
 Ortheris did "fetch ut out" from under the trunk of an 
 elephant, in the shape of a servant and an animal, both laden 
 with medical comforts. The little man's eyes sparkled. 
 
 "If the brutil an' licentious soldiery av these parts gets 
 sight av the thruck, ' ' said Mulvaney, making practiced in- 
 vestigation, "they'll loot ev'rything. They're bein' fed on 
 iron-filin's an' dog biscuit these days, but glory's no com- 
 pensation for a bellyache. Praise be, we're here to protect 
 you, sorr. Beer, sausage, bread (soft, an' that's a cur'osity), 
 soup in a tin, whisky by the smell av ut, an' fowls. Mother 
 av Moses, but ye take the field like a confectioner! 'Tis 
 scand'lus." 
 
 " 'Ere's a orficer," said Ortheris, significantly. "When 
 the sergent's done lushin', the privit may clean the pot." 
 
 I bundled several things into Mulvaney 's haversack be- 
 fore the major's hand fell on my shoulder, and he said, ten- 
 derly : "Requisitioned for the queen's service. Wolseley was 
 quite wrong about special correspondents. They are the best 
 friends of the soldier. Come an' take pot-luck with us to- 
 night." 
 
 And so it happened amid laughter and shoutings that my 
 well-considered commissariat melted away to reappear on the 
 mess-table, which was a water-proof sheet spread on the 
 ground. The flying column had taken three days' rations 
 with it, and there be few things nastier than government 
 rations — especially when government is experimenting with 
 German toys. Erbswurst, tinned beef, of surpassing tinni- 
 ness, compressed vegetables, and meat biscuits may be nour- 
 ishing, but what Thomas Atkins wants is bulk in his inside. 
 
Jl^e <?ourtip($ of Dipal? Sl^add 129 
 
 The major, assisted by his brother officers, purchased goats 
 for the camp, and so made the experiment of no effect. Long 
 before the fatigue-party sent to collect brushwood had re- 
 turned, the men were settled down by their valises, kettles 
 and pots had appeared from the surrounding country, and 
 were dangling over fires as the kid and the compressed vege- 
 tables bubbled together; there rose a cheerful clinking of 
 mess tins, outrageous demands for a ''little more stuffin' 
 with that there liver wing, ' ' and gust on gust of chaff as 
 pointed as a bayonet and as delicate as a gun-butt. 
 
 * ' The boys are in a good temper, ' ' said the major. ' ' They'll 
 be singing presently. Well, a night like this is enough to 
 keep them happy. " 
 
 Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars, which 
 are not all pricked in on one plane, but preserving an orderly 
 perspective, draw the eye through the velvet darkness of the 
 void up to the barred doors of heaven itself. The earth was 
 a gray shadow more unreal than the sky. We could hear 
 her breathing lightly in the pauses between the howling of 
 the jackals, the movement of the wind in the tamarisks, and 
 the fitful mutter of musketry fire leagues away to the left. 
 A native woman in some unseen hut began to sing, the mail 
 train thundered past on its way to Delhi, and a roosting crov/ 
 cawed drowsily. Then there was a belt-loosening silence 
 about the fires, and the even breathing of the crowded earth 
 took up the story. 
 
 The men, full fed, turned to tobacco and song — their 
 officers with them. Happy is the subaltern who can win the 
 approval of the musical critics in his regiment, and is hon- 
 ored among the more intricate step dancers. By him, as by 
 him who plays cricket craftily, will Thomas Atkins stand in 
 time of need when he will let a better officer go on alone. 
 The ruined tombs of forgotten Mussulman saints heard the 
 ballad of "Agra Town," "The Buffalo Battery," "March- 
 ing to Cabul," "The long, long Indian Day," "The Place 
 Where the Punkah Coolie Died," and that crashing chorus 
 which announces 
 
130 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 "Youth's daring spirit, manliood's fire^ 
 Firm hand, and eagle eye 
 Must he acquire who would aspire 
 To see the gray boar die." 
 
 To-day, of all those jovial thieves who appropriated my 
 commissariat, and lay and laughed round that water-proof :, 
 sheet, not one remains. They went to camps that were not 
 of exercise, and battles without imapires. Burma, the Sou- 
 dan, and the frontier fever and fight took them in their 
 time. 
 
 I drifted across to the men's fires in search of Mulvaney, 
 whom I found greasing his feet by the blaze. There is noth- 
 ing particularly lovely in the sight of a private thus engaged 
 after a long day's march, but when you reflect on the exact 
 proportion of the ''might, majesty, dominion, and power" of 
 the British Empire that stands on those feet, you take an 
 interest in the proceedings. 
 
 ''There's a blister — bad luck to ut! — on the heel," said 
 Mulvaney. "I can't touch it. Prick ut out, Httle man." 
 
 Ortheris produced his housewife, eased the trouble with 
 a needle, stabbed Mulvaney in the calf with the same weapon, 
 and was incontinently kicked into the fire. 
 
 "I've bruk the best av my toes over you, ye grinnin' child 
 av disruption!" said Mulvaney, sitting cross-legged and 
 nursing his feet; then, seeing me; "Oh, ut's you, sorr! Be 
 welkim, an' take that maraudin' scut's place. Jock, hould 
 him down on the cindhers for a bit. ' ' 
 
 But Ortheris escaped and went elsewhere as I took pos- 
 session of the hollow he had scraped for himself and lined 
 with his greatcoat. Learoyd, on the other side of the fire, 
 grinned affably, and in a minute fell fast asleep. 
 
 "There's the height av politeness for you," said Mul- j 
 vaney, lighting his pipe with a flaming branch. "But Jock's 
 eaten half a box av your sardines at wan gulp, an' I think 
 the tin too. What's the best wid you, sorr; an' how did you 
 happen to be on the losin' side this day when we captured 
 you?" 
 
Jl^e <?ourtii7($ of Dii^al? Sl^add 131 
 
 **The Army of the South is winning all along the line," 
 I said. 
 
 "Thin that line's the hangman's rope, savin' your pres- 
 ence. You'll learn to-morrow how we retreated to dhraw 
 thim on before we made thim trouble, an' that's what a wo- 
 man does. By the same token, we'll be attacked before the 
 dawnin', an' ut would be betther not to slip your boots. 
 How do I know that? By the light av pure reason. Here 
 are three companies av us ever so far inside av the enemy's 
 flank, an' a crowd av roarin', t'arin', an' squealin' cavalry 
 gone on just to turn out the whole nest av thim. Av course 
 the enemy will pursue by brigades like as not, an' then we'll 
 have to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion 
 av Polonius, whin he said: 'Don't fight wid ivry scut for the 
 pure joy av fightin' ; but if you do, knock the nose av him 
 first an' frequint!' We ought to ha' gone on an' helped the 
 Goorkhas." 
 
 "But what do you know about Polonius?" I demanded. 
 This was a new side of Mulvaney's character. 
 
 "All that Shakespeare ever wrote, an' a dale more that 
 the gallery shouted," said the man of war, carefully lacing 
 his boots. "Did I not tell you av Silver's Theater in Dublin 
 whin I was younger than I am now, an' a patron av the 
 drama? Ould Silver wud never pay actor, man or woman, 
 their just dues, an' by consequence his comp'nies was col- 
 lapsible at the last minut. Then the bhoys would clamor to 
 take a part, an' oft as not ould Silver made them pay for the 
 fun. Faith, I've seen Hamlut played wid a new black eye, 
 an' the queen as full as a cornucopia. I remember wanst 
 Hogin, that 'listed in the Black Tyrone an' was shot in 
 South Africa, he sejuced ould Silver into givin' him Ham- 
 lut 's part instid av me, that had a fine fancy for rhetoric in 
 those days. Av course I wint into the gallery an' began to 
 fill the pit wid other people's hats, an' I passed the time av 
 day to Hogin walkin' through Denmark like a hamstrung 
 mule wid a pall on his back. 'Hamlut,' sez I, 'there's a 
 hole in your heel. Pull up your shtockin's, Hamlut,' sez I. 
 
132 U/orKs of I^odyard K^plip<$ 
 
 'Hamlut, Hamlut, for the love av decincy, dhrop that skull, 
 an' pull up your shtockin's,' The whole house began to teU 
 hun that. He stopped his soliloquishms mid between. 'My 
 shtockin's may be comin' down, or they may not,' sez he, 
 sorewin' his eye into the gallery, for well he knew who I 
 was; 'but afther the performince is over, me an' the Ghost'll 
 trample the guts out av you, Terence, wid your ass's bray.' 
 An' that's how I come to know about Hamlut. Eyah! 
 Those days, those days! Did you iver have onendin' devil- 
 mint, an' nothin' to pay for it in your Hfe, sorr?" 
 
 "Never without having to pay," I said. 
 
 "That's thrue. 'Tis mane, whin you considher on ut; 
 but ut's the same wid horse or fut. A headache if you 
 dhrink, an' a bellyache if you eat too much, an' a heartache 
 to kape all down. Faith, the beast only gets the colic, an' 
 he's the lucky man." 
 
 He dropped his head and stared into the fire, fingering 
 his mustache the while. From the far side of the bivouac 
 the voice of Corbet-Nolan, senior subaltern of B Company, 
 uplifted itself in an ancient and much-appreciated song of 
 sentiment, the men moaning melodiously behind him : 
 
 "The north wind blew coldly, she dropped from 
 that hour, 
 My own little Kathleen, my sweet httle Kathleen, 
 Kathleen, my Kathleen, Kathleen O'Moorei" 
 
 with forty-five o's in the last word. Even at that distance 
 you might have cut the soft South Irish accent with a shovel. 
 
 "For all we take we must pay; but the price is cruel 
 high," murmured Mulvaney when the chorus had ceased. 
 
 "What's the trouble?" I said gently, for I knew that he 
 was a man of an inextinguishable sorrow. 
 
 "Hear now," said he. "Ye know what I am now. I 
 know what I mint to be at the beginnin' av my service. I've 
 tould you time an' again, an' what I have not, Dinah Shadd 
 has. An' what am I? Oh, Mary Mother av Hiven! an ould 
 dhrunken, untrustable baste av a privit that has seen the 
 regiment change out from colonel to drummer-boy, not wanst 
 
Xl?e ^ourtip<$ of Dipal? Sl^add 133 
 
 or twict, but scores av times'. Ay, scores! An' me not so 
 near gettin' promotion as in the furst. An' me livin' on an' 
 kapin' clear o' clink not by my own good conduck, but the 
 kindness av some orf'cer-bhoy young enough to be son to 
 me ! Do I not know ut? Can I not tell whin I'm passed 
 over at p'rade, tho' I'm rockin' full av liquor an' ready to 
 fall all in wan piece, such as even a suckin' child might see, 
 bekase, 'Oh, 'tis only ould Mulvaney!' An' whin I'm let 
 off in the ord'ly-room, through some thrick av the tongue 
 an' a ready answer an' the ould man's mercy, is ut smilin' I 
 feel whin I fall away an' go back to Dinah Shadd, thryin' to 
 carry ut all off as a joke? Not I. 'Tis hell to me — dumb 
 hell through ut all; an' next time whin the fit comes I will 
 be as bad again. Good cause the reg'ment has to know me 
 for the best soldier in ut. Better cause have I to know me- 
 silf for the worst man. I'm only fit to tache the new drafts 
 what I'U never learn myself; an' I am sure as tho' I heard 
 ut, that the minut wan av these pink-eyed recruities gets 
 away from my 'Mind ye, now,' an' 'Listen to this, Jim, 
 bhoy , ' sure I am that the sergint houlds me up to him for a 
 warnin'. So I tache, as they say at musketry instruction, 
 by direct an' ricochet fire. Lord be good to me ! for I have 
 stud some trouble." 
 
 "Lie down and go to sleep," said I, not being able to 
 comfort or advise. "You're the best man in the regiment, 
 and, next to Ortheris, the biggest fool. Lie down, and wait 
 till we're attacked. "What force will they turn out? Guns, 
 think you?" 
 
 "Thry that wid your lorrds an' ladies, twistin' an' tumin' 
 the talk, tho' you mint ut well. Ye cud say nothin' to help 
 me ; an' yet ye never knew what cause I had to be what I 
 am." 
 
 "Begin at the beginning and go on to the end," I said, 
 royally. "But rake up the fire a bit first." I passed Orth- 
 eris' bayonet for a poker. 
 
 "That shows how little you know what to do," said Mul- 
 vaney, putting it aside. "Fire takes all the heart out av the 
 
134 U/orKs of r^udyard t^iplip^ 
 
 steel, an' the next time, maybe, that our Httle man is fightin' 
 for his life his bradav/1 '11 break, an' so you'll 'ave killed 
 him, m'anin' no more than to kape yourself warm. 'Tis a 
 recruity's thrick that. Pass the cPanin'-rod, sorr." 
 
 I snuggled down, abashed, and after an interval the low, 
 
 even voice ^f Mulvaney began. 
 
 II 
 
 "Did I ever tell you how Dinah Shadd came to be wife 
 av mine?" 
 
 I dissembled a burning anxiety that I had felt for some 
 months — ever since Dinah Shadd, the strong, the patient, 
 and the infinitely tender, had, of her own good love and free 
 will, washed a shirt for me, moving in a barren land where 
 washing was not. 
 
 "I can't remember," I said, casually. "Was it before 
 or after you made love to Annie Bragin, and got no satis- 
 faction?" 
 
 The story of Annie Bragin is written in another place. 
 It is one of the many episodes in Mulvaney 's checkered 
 career. 
 
 ' ' Before — before — long before was that business av Annie 
 Bragin an' the corp'ril's ghost. Never woman was the 
 worse for me whin I had married Dinah. There's a time 
 for all things, an' I know how to kape all things in place — 
 barrin' the dhrink, that kapes me in my place, wid no hope 
 av comin' to be aught else." 
 
 "Begin at the beginning," I insisted. "Mrs. Mulvaney 
 told me that you married her when you were quartered in 
 Krab Bokhar barracks." 
 
 "An* the same is a cess-pit," said Mulvaney, piously. 
 "She spoke thrue, did Dinah. 'Twas this way. Talkin' av 
 that, have ye iver fallen in love, sorr?" 
 
 I preserved the silence of the damned. Mulvaney con- 
 tinued : 
 
Tl?e <?ourtii)<J of Dii>al? Sl?add 135 
 
 *'Thiii I will assume that ye have not. I did. In the 
 days av my youth, as I have more than wanst told you, I 
 was a man that filled the eye an' deUghted the sowl av 
 women. Mver man was hated as I have been. Mver man 
 v/as loved as I— no, not within half a day's march av ut. 
 For the first five years av my service, whin I was what I 
 wad give my sowl to be now, I tuk whatever was widin my 
 reach, an' digested ut, an' that's more than most men can 
 say. Dhrink I tuk, an' ut did me no harm. By the hoUov/ 
 av hiven, I could play wid four women at wanst, an' kape 
 thim from findin' out anything about the other three, and 
 smile hke a full-blown marigold through ut all. Dick Coul- 
 han, of the battery we'll have down on us to-night, could 
 dhrive his team no better than I mine ; an' I hild the worser 
 cattle. An' so I lived an' so I was happy, till afther that 
 business wid Annie Bragin — she that turned me off as cool 
 as a meat-safe, an' taught me where I stud in the mind av 
 an honest woman. 'Twas no sweet dose to take. 
 
 '* Afther that I sickened a while an' tuk thought to my 
 reg'mental work, conceiting mesilf I wud study an' be a sar- 
 gint, an' a major-gineral twinty minutes afther that. But 
 on top o' my ambitiousness there was an empty place in my 
 sowl, an' me own opinion av mesilf cud not fill ut. Sez I to 
 mesilf: * Terence, you're a great man an' the best set up in 
 the reg'ment. Go on an' get promotion. ' Sez mesilf to me, 
 * What for?' Sez I to mesilf, 'For the glory av ut.' Sez me- 
 silf to me, ' Will that fill these two strong arrums av yours, 
 Terence?' *Go to the devil,' sez I to mesilf. 'Go to the 
 married lines,' sez mesilf to me. ' 'Tis the same thing,' sez 
 I to mesilf. *Av you're the same man, ut is,' said mesilf to 
 me. An' wid that I considhered on ut a long while. Did 
 you iver feel that way, sorr?" 
 
 I snored gently, knowing that if Mulvaney were uninter- 
 rupted he would go on. The clamor from the bivouac fires 
 beat up to the stars as the rival singers of the companies 
 were pitted against each other. 
 
 "So I felt that way, an' a bad time ut was. Wanst, be- 
 
136 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 in' a fool, I went into the married lines, more for the sake 
 av speakin' to our ould color-sergint Shadd than for any 
 thruck wid wimmen-folk. I was a corp'ril then — rejuced 
 afther wards; but a corp'ril then. I've got a phot ogr aft av 
 mesilf to prove ut. 'You'll take a cup av tay wid us?' sez 
 he. 'I will that,' I sez; 'tho' tay is not my divarsion.' 
 * 'Twud be better for you if ut were,' sez ould Mother Shadd. 
 An' she had ought to know, for Shadd, in the ind av his 
 service, dhrank bung-full each night. 
 
 * ' Wid that I tuk off my gloves — there was pipe-clay in 
 thim so that they stud alone — an' pulled up my chair, lookin' 
 round at the china ornamints an' bits av things in the Shadds' 
 quarters. They were things that belonged to a woman, an' 
 no camp kit, here to-day an' dishipated next. 'You're com- 
 fortable in this place, sergint,' sez I. ' 'Tis the wife that 
 did ut, boy,' sez he, pointin' the stem av his pipe to ould 
 Mother Shadd, an' she smacked the top av his bald head 
 upon the compliment. 'That manes you want money,' sez 
 she. 
 
 "An' thin — an' thin whin the kettle was to be filled, 
 Dinah came in — my Dinah — her sleeves rowled up to the 
 elbow, an' her hair in a gowlden glorj^ over her forehead, 
 the big blue eyes beneath twinklin' like stars on a frosty 
 night, an' the tread of her two feet lighter than waste paper 
 from the colonel's basket in ord'ly-room when ut's emptied. 
 Bein' but a shlip av a girl, she went pink at seein' me, an' 
 I twisted me mustache an' looked at a picture forninst the 
 wall. Never show a woman that ye care the snap av a 
 finger for her, an', begad, she'll come bleatin' to your boot 
 heels." 
 
 "I suppose that's why you followed Annie Br agin till 
 everybody in the married quarters laughed at you, ' ' said I, 
 remembering that unhallowed wooing, and casting off the 
 disguise of drowsiness. 
 
 "I'm layin' down the gineral theory av the attack," said 
 Mulvaney, driving his foot into the dying fire. "If you read 
 the 'Soldier's Pocket-Book, ' which never any soldier reads. 
 
J\)e <?oartir>($ of Dipal;) SJ^add 137 
 
 you'll see that there are exceptions. When Dinah was out 
 av the door (an' 'twas as tho' the sunlight had gone too), 
 * Mother av Hiven, sergint!' sez I, 'but is that your daugh- 
 ter?' 'I've believed that way these eighteen years,' sez ould 
 Shadd, his eyes twinklin'. 'But Mrs. Shadd has her own 
 opinion, hke ivry other woman.' ' 'Tis wid yours this time, 
 for a mericle, ' sez Mother Shadd. ' Then why, in the name 
 av fortune, did I never see her before?' sez I. 'Bekaze 
 you've been thraipsin' round wid the married women these 
 three years past. She was a bit av a child till last year, an' 
 she shot up wid the spring,' sez ould Mother Shadd. 'I'll 
 thraipse no more, ' sez I. 'D'you mane that?' sez ould Mother 
 Shadd, lookin' at me sideways, like a hen looks at a hawk 
 whin the chickens are runnin' free. 'Try me, an' tell,' sez 
 I. Wid that I pulled on my gloves, dhrank off the tea, an' 
 wint out av the house as stiff as at gineral p'rade, for weU I 
 knew that Dinah Shadd' s eyes were in the small av my back 
 out av the scullery window. Faith, that wa,s the only time 
 I moui-ned I was not a cav'lryman, for the sake av the spurs 
 to jingle. 
 
 "I wint out to think, an' I did a powerful lot av thinkin', 
 but ut aU came round to that shlip av a girl in the dotted 
 blue dhress, wid the blue eyes an' the sparkil in them. Thin 
 I kept off canteen, an' I kept to the married quarthers or 
 near by on the chanst av meetin' Dinah. Did I meet her? 
 Oh, my time past, did I not, wid a lump in my throat as big 
 as my valise, an' my heart goin' like a farrier's forge on a 
 Saturday mornin' ! 'Twas 'Good-day to ye. Miss Dinah,' 
 an' 'Good-day t'you, corp'ril,' for a week or two, an' divil a 
 bit further could I get, bekase av the respict I had to that 
 girl that I cud ha' broken betune finger an' thumb." 
 
 Here T giggled as I recalled the gigantic figure of Dinah 
 Shadd when she handed me my shirt. 
 
 "Ye may laugh," grunted Mulvaney. "But I'm speak- 
 in' the trut', an' 'tis you that are in fault. Dinah was a girl 
 that wud ha' taken the imperiousness out av the Duchess av 
 Clonmel in those days. Flower hand, foot av shod air, an' 
 
138 U/or^s of F^udyard i^iplip^ 
 
 the eyes av the mornin' she had. That is my wife to-day— 
 ould Dinah, an' never aught else than Dinah Shadd to me. 
 
 " 'Twas after three weeks standin' off an' on, an' niver 
 makin' headway excipt through the eyes, that a httle drum- 
 mer-boy grinned in me face whin I had admonished him wid 
 the buckle av my belt for riotin' all over the place. 'An' I'm 
 not the only wan that doesn't kape to barricks,' sez he. I 
 tuk him by the scruff av his neck — ray heart was hung on a 
 hair trigger those days, you will understand — an' 'Out wid 
 ut,' sez I, 'or I'll lave no bone av you unbruk.' 'Speak to 
 Dempsey,' sez he, howlin'. 'Dempsey which,' sez I, 'ye 
 unwashed limb av Satan?' 'Of the Bobtailed Dhragoons,' 
 sez he. 'He's seen her home from her aunt's house in the 
 civil lines four times this fortnight.' 'Child,' sez I, dhrop- 
 pin' him, 'your tongue's stronger than your body. Go to 
 your quarters. I'm sorry I dhressed you down.' 
 
 "At that I wint four ways to wanst huntin' Dempsey. I 
 was mad to think that wid all my airs among women I shud 
 ha' been ch'ated by a basin-faced fool av a cav'lry-man not 
 fit to trust on a mule thrunk. Presintly I found him in our 
 lines — the Bobtails was quartered next us — an' a tallowy, 
 top-heavy son av a she -mule he was, wid his big brass 
 spurs an' his plastrons on his epigastons an' all. But he 
 niver flinched a hair. 
 
 " 'A word wid you, Dempsey,' sez I. 'You've walked 
 wid Dinah Shadd four times this fortnight gone. ' 
 
 " 'What's that to you?' sez he. 'I'll walk forty times 
 more, an' forty on top av that, ye shovel-futted, clod-breakin' 
 infantry lance-corp'riL' 
 
 "Before I cud gyard, he had his gloved fist home on me 
 cheek, an' down I went full sprawl. 'Will that content you?' 
 sez he, blowin' on his knuckles for all the world like a Scots 
 Grays orf'cer. 'Content?' sez I. 'For your own sake, man, 
 take off your spurs, peel your jackut, and onglove. 'Tis the 
 beginnin' av the overture. Stand up!' 
 
 "He stud all he knew, but he niver peeled his jackut, an' 
 his shoulders had no fair play. I was fightin' for Dinah 
 
Xl?e <^ourtiT)(^ of Dipal? SI?add 139 
 
 Shadd an' that cut on me cheek. What hope had he forninst 
 me? * Stand up!' sez I, time an' again, when he was begin- 
 nin' to quarter the ground an' gyard high an' go large. 
 *This isn't ridin'-school,' sez I. 'Oh, man, stand up, an' let 
 me get at jeV But whin I saw he wud be runnin' about, I 
 grup his shtock in me left an' his waist-belt in me right, an' 
 swung him clear to me right front, head undher, he hammerin' 
 me nose till the wind was knocked out av him on the bare 
 ground. * Stand up,' sez I, 'or I'll kick your head into your 
 chest.' An' I wud ha' done ut, too, so ragin' mad I was. 
 
 " 'Me collar-bone's bruk, ' sez he. 'Help me back to Hues. 
 I'll walk wid her no more.' So I helped him back." 
 
 "And was his collar-bone broken?" I asked, for I fancied 
 that only Learoyd could neatly accomplish that terrible throw. 
 
 "He pitched on his left shoulder-point. It was. Next 
 day the news was in both barracks ; an' whin I met Dinah 
 Shadd wid a cheek like all the reg'mintal tailors' samples, 
 there was no 'Good-mornin', corp'ril,' or aught else. 'An' 
 what have I done. Miss Shadd, ' sez I, very bould, plantin' 
 mesilf forninst her, 'that ye should not pass the time of day?' 
 
 " 'Ye've half killed rough-rider Dempsey,' sez she, her 
 dear blue eyes fillin' up. 
 
 " 'Maybe,' sez I. 'Was he a friend av yours that saw ye 
 home four times in a fortnight?' 
 
 " 'Yes,' sez she, very bould; but her mouth was down at 
 the corners. 'An' — an' what's that to you?' 
 
 ' ' ' Ask Dempsey, ' sez I, purtendin' to go away. 
 
 " 'Did you fight for me then, ye silly man?' she sez, tho' 
 she knew ut all along. 
 
 " 'Who else?' sez I; an' I tuk wan pace to the front. 
 
 " 'I wasn't worth ut,' sez she, fingerin' her apron. 
 
 " 'That's for me to say,' sez I. 'Shall I say ut?' 
 
 " 'Yes,' sez she, in a saint's whisper; an' at that I ex- 
 plained mesilf ; an' she tould me what ivry man that is a man, 
 an' many that is a woman, hears wanst in his life. 
 
 " 'But what made ye cry at startin', Dinah, darlin'?' sez I. 
 Your — your bloody cheek,' sez she, duckin' her little 
 
 (( ( 
 
140 U/orl^s of F^adyard l^iplii?^ 
 
 head down on my sash (I was duty for the day), an' whim- 
 perin' like a sorrowful angel. 
 
 '^'Now, EL man cud take that two ways. I tuk ut as 
 pleased me best, an' my first kiss wid it. Mother av inno- 
 cence ! but I kissed her on the tip av the nose an' undher the 
 eye, an' a girl that lets a kiss come tumbleways like that has 
 never been kissed before. Take note av that, sorr. Thin we 
 wint, hand in hand, to ould Mother Shadd, like two little 
 childher, an' she said it was no bad thing; an' ould Shadd 
 nodded behind his pipe, an' Dinah ran away to her own 
 room. That day I throd on roUin' clouds. All earth was 
 too small to hould me. Begad, I cud ha' picked the sun out 
 av the sky for a Hve coal to me pipe, so magnificent I was. 
 But I tuk recruities at squad-drill, an' began with general 
 battalion advance whin I shud ha' been balance-steppin' 'em. 
 Eyah! that day! that day!" 
 
 A very long pause. '* Well?" said I. 
 
 "It was all wrong," said Mulvaney, with an enormous 
 sigh, "An' sure I know that ev'ry bit av ut was me own 
 f oohshness. That night I tuk maybe the half av three pints 
 — not enough to turn the hair of a man in his natural sinses. 
 But I was more than half dhrunk wid pure joy, an' that can- 
 teen beer was so much whisky to me. I can't tell how ut 
 came about, but bekase I had no thought for any wan except 
 Dinah, bekase I hadn't slipped her Httle white arms from me 
 neck five minutes, bekase the breath av her kiss was not 
 gone from my mouth, I must go through the married hnes 
 on me way to quarthers, an' I must stay talkin' to a red- 
 headed MuUengar heifer av a girl, Judy Sheehy, that was 
 daughter to Mother Sheehy, the wife av E"ick Sheehy, the 
 canteen sergint — -the black curse av Shielygh be on the whole 
 brood that are above groun' this day! 
 
 " * An' what are ye houldin' your head that high for, 
 corp'ril?' sez Judy. *Come in an' thry a cup av tay,' she sez, 
 standin' in the doorway. 
 
 "Bein' an onbustable fool, an' thinkin' av any thin' but 
 tay, I wint. 
 
J1[)Q Qourtii)($ of Dii)al? Sl^add 141 
 
 " * Mother's at canteen,' sez Judy, smoothin' the hair av 
 hers that was like red snakes, an' lookin' at me corner-ways 
 out av her green cat's eyes. 'Ye will not mind, corp'ril?' 
 
 " 'I can endure,' sez I. 'Ould Mother Sheehy bein' no 
 divarsion av mine, nor her daughter too. ' Judy fetched the 
 tea-things an' put thim on the table, leanin' over me very 
 close to get them square. I dhrew back, thinkin' of Dinah. 
 
 *' 'Is ut afraid you are av a girl alone?' sez Judy, 
 
 '^ 'IN'o,' sez I. 'Why should I be?' 
 
 " 'That rests wid the girl,' sez Judy, dhrawin' her chair 
 next to mine. 
 
 " 'Thin there let ut rest,' sez I; an' thinkin' I'd been a 
 trifle onpolite, I sez, 'The tay's not quite sweet enough for 
 me taste. Put your little finger in the cup, Judy; 'twill 
 make ut necthar.' 
 
 " 'What's necthar?' sez she. 
 
 " 'Somethin' very sweet,' sez I; an' for the sinful life av 
 me I cud not help lookin' at her out av the corner av my eye, 
 as I was used to look at a woman. 
 
 " 'Go on wid ye, corp'ril,' sez she. 'You're a flirt.' 
 
 " 'On me sowl I'm not,' sez I. 
 
 " 'Then you're a cruel handsome man, an' that's worse^' 
 sez she, heavin' big sighs an' lookin' crossways. 
 
 " 'You know your own mind,' sez I. 
 
 " "Twud be better for me if I did not,' she sez. 
 
 " 'There's a dale to be said on both sides av that,' sez I, 
 not thinkin'. 
 
 " 'Say your own part av ut, then, Terence, darlin',' sez 
 she; 'for begad I'm thinkin' I've said too much or too little 
 for anlionest girl;' an' wid that she put her arms round me 
 neck an' kissed me. 
 
 " 'There's no more to be said afther that,' sez I, kissin' 
 her back again. Oh, the mane scut that I was, my head 
 ringin' wid Dinah Shadd ! How does ut come about, sorr, 
 that whin a man has put the comether on wan woman he's 
 sure bound to put ut on another? 'Tis the same thing at 
 musketry. Wan day ev'ry shot goes wide or into the bank, 
 
i42 U/or^s of I^udyard l^iplii7<J 
 
 an' the next — lay high, lay low, sight or snap — ye can't get 
 off the bull's-eye for ten shots runnin'." 
 
 ''That only happens to a man who has had a good deal of 
 experience; he does it without thinking," I replied. 
 
 "Thankin' you for the complimint, sorr, ut may be so; 
 but I'm doubtin' whether you mint ut for a complimint. 
 Hear, now. I sat there wid Judy on my knee, teUin' me ail 
 manner av nonsinse, an' only sayin' 'yes' an' *no,' when I'd 
 much better ha' kept tongue betune teeth. An' that was 
 not an hour af ther I had left Dinah. ^ "What I was thinkin' 
 av I cannot say. 
 
 "Presently, quiet as a cat, ould Mother Sheehy came in 
 velvet-dhrunk. She had her daughter's red hair, but 'twas 
 bald in patches, an' I cud see in her wicked ould face, clear 
 as Hghtnin'j what Judy wud be twenty year to come. I was 
 for jumpin' up, but Judy niver moved. 
 
 " 'Terence has promust, mother,' sez she, an' the cowld 
 sweat bruk out all over me. 
 
 "Ould Mother Sheehy sat down of a heap, an' began 
 playin' wid the cups. 'Thin you're a well-matched pair,' 
 she sez, very thick; 'for he's the biggest rogue that iver 
 spoiled the queen's shoe-leather, an' — ' 
 
 " 'I'm off, Judy,' sez I. 'Ye should not talk nonsinse to 
 your mother. Get her to bed, girl. ' 
 
 " ' !N"onsinse?' sez the ould woman, prickin' up her ears 
 like a cat, an' grippin' the table- edge. ' 'Twill be the most 
 nonsinsical nonsinse for you, ye grinnin' badger, if nonsinse 
 'tis. Git clear, you. I'm goin' to bed.' 
 
 "I ran out into the dhark, me head in a stew an' me 
 heart sick, but I had sinse enough to see that I'd brought 
 ut all on mesilf. 'It's this to pass the time av day to a pan- 
 jandhrum of hell-cats,' sez I. 'What I've said an' what 
 I've not said do not matther. Judy an' her dam will hould 
 me for a promust man, an' Dinah will give me the "go, an' 
 I desarve ut. I will go an' get dhrunk,' sez I, 'an' forgit 
 about ut, for 'tis plain I'm not a marryin' man.' 
 
 "On me way to canteen I ran against Lascelles, color- 
 
7^6 <?ourtio($ of Dipal? Slpadd 143 
 
 scrgint that was av E Comp'ny — a hard, hard man, wid a 
 tormint av a wife. 'You've the head av a drowned man on 
 your shoulders,' sez he, 'an' you're goin' where you'll get a 
 worse wan. Come back,' sez he. 'Let me go,' sez I. 'I've 
 thrown me luck over the wall wid me own hand.' 'Then 
 that's not the way to get ut back,' sez he. 'Have out wid 
 your throuble, ye fool-bhoy.' An' I tould him how the 
 matther was. 
 
 "He sucked his lower lip. 'You've been thrapped,' sez 
 he. ' Ju Sheehy wud be the betther for a man's name to 
 hers as soon as she can. An' ye thought ye'd put the 
 comether on her. That's the naturil vanity av the baste. 
 Terence, you're a big born fool, but you're not bad enough 
 to marry into that comp'ny. If you said anythin', an' for 
 all your protestations I'm sure you did — or did not, which is 
 worse — eat ut all. Lie like the father av all lies, but come 
 out av ut free av Judy. Do I not know what ut is to marry 
 a woman that was the very spit av Judy when she was 
 young? I'm gettin' ould, an' I've larnt patience; but you, 
 Terence, you'd raise hand on Judy an' kill her in a year. 
 Never mind if Dinah gives you the go; you've desarved ut. 
 Never mind if the whole reg'mint laughs at you all day. 
 Get shut av Judy an' her mother. They can't dhrag you 
 to church, but if they do, they'll dhrag you to hell. Go 
 back to your quarthers an' lie down,' sez he. Thin, over 
 his shoulder, 'You must ha' done with thim.' 
 
 "Nixt day I wint to see Dinah; but there was no tucker 
 ■in me as I walked. I knew the throuble wud come soon 
 enough widout any handlin' av mine, an' I dreaded ut sore. 
 
 ' ' I heard Judy callin' me, but I hild straight on to the 
 Shadds' quarthers, an' Dinah wud ha' kissed me, but I hild 
 her back. 
 
 " 'Whin all's said, darlin',' sez I, 'you can give ut me if 
 you will, tho' I misdoubt 'twill be so easy to come by thin.' 
 
 "I had scarce begun to put the explanation into shape 
 before Judy an' her mother came to the door. I think there 
 was a veranda, but I'm forgettin'. 
 
144 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 ** *Will ye not step in?' sez Dinah, pretty and polite, 
 though the Shadds had no dealin's with the Sheehys. Ould 
 Mother Shadd looked up quick, an' she was the fust to see 
 the throuble, for Dinah was her daughter. 
 
 " 'I'm pressed for time to-day,' sez Judy, as bould as 
 brass; 'an' I've only come for Terence — my promust man, 
 'Tis strange to find him here the day afther the day.' 
 
 "Dinah looked at me as though I had hit her, an' I 
 answered straight: 
 
 " 'There was some nonsinse last night at the Sheehys' 
 quarthers, an' Judy's carryin' on the joke, darlin',' sez I. 
 
 " 'At the Sheehys' quarthers?' sez Dinah, very slow; 
 an' Judy cut in wid : 
 
 " 'He was there from nine till tin, Dinah Shadd, an' the 
 betther haK av that time I was sittin' on his knee, Dinah 
 Shadd. Ye may look an' ye may look an' ye may look me 
 up an' down, but ye won't look away that Terence is my 
 promust man. Terence, darlin', 'tis time for us to be comin' 
 home. ' 
 
 "Dinah Shadd never said word to Judy. 'Ye left me at 
 half -past eight,' sez she to me, 'an' I never thought that ye'd 
 leave me for Judy, promises or no promises. Go back wid 
 her, you that have to be fetched by a girl ! I'm done with 
 you,' sez she; and she ran into her own room, her ruother 
 foUowin'. So I was alone with those two women, and at 
 liberty to spake me sintiments. 
 
 " 'Judy Sheehy,' sez I, 'if you made a fool av me betune 
 the lights, you shall not do ut in the day. I never promised 
 you words or lines. ' M 
 
 " 'You lie!' sez ould Mother Sheehy; 'an' may ut choke 
 you where you stand!' She was far gone in dhrink. 
 
 ** 'An' tho' ut choked me where I stud I'd not change,' 
 sez I. 'Go home, Judy. I take shame for a decent girl hke 
 you dhraggin' your mother out bareheaded on this errand. 
 Hear, now, and have ut for an answer. I gave me word to 
 Dinah Shadd yesterday, an' more blame to me I was with 
 you last night talkin' nonsinse, but nothin' more. You've 
 
Jl^e Qourtii7<$ of Dipal? Sl^add 145 
 
 chosen to thry to hould me on ut. I will not be held thereby 
 for anythin' in the world. Is that enough?' 
 
 "Judy wint pink all over. 'An' I wish you joy av the 
 perjury,' sez she. 'You've lost a woman that would ha' 
 wore her hand to the bone for your pleasure ; an' 'deed, Ter- 
 ence, ye were not thrapped.' . , . Lascelles must ha' spoken 
 plain to her. 'I am such as Dinah is — 'deed I am! Ye've 
 lost a fool av a girl that'll never look at you again, an' ye've 
 lost what ye niver had- — your common honesty. If you 
 manage your men as you manage your love-makin', small 
 wondher they call you the worst corp'ril in the company. 
 Come away, mother,' sez she. 
 
 "But divil a fut would the ould woman budge! *D'you 
 hould by that?' sez she, peerin' up under her thick gray 
 eyebrows. 
 
 " 'Ay, an' wud,' said I, 'tho' Dinah gave me the go 
 twinty times. I'll hav no thruck with you or yours,' sez I. 
 *Take your child away, ye shameless woman!' 
 
 " 'An' am I shameless?' sez she, bringin' her hands up 
 above her head. 'Thin what are you, ye lyin', schamin', 
 weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son of a sutler? Am I shameless? 
 Who put the open shame on me an' my child that we shud 
 go beggin' though the lines in daylight for the broken word 
 of a man? Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence 
 Mulvaney , that think yourself so strong ! By Mary and the 
 saints, by blood and water, an' by ivry sorrow that came 
 Into the world since the beginnin', the black blight fall on 
 you and yours, so that you may niver be free from pain for 
 another when ut's not your own ! May your heart bleed in 
 your breast drop by drop wid all your friends laugh in' at the 
 bleedin'! Strong you think yourself? May your strength 
 be a curse to you to dhrive you into the devil's hands against 
 your own will! Clear-eyed you are? May your eyes see 
 clear ivry step av the dark path you take till the hot cinders 
 av hell put thim out ! May the ragin' dry thirst in my own 
 ould bones go to you, that you shall never pass bottle full 
 nor glass empty! God preserve the light av your under- 
 Vol. 3. 7 
 
146 U/orks of P^udyard l^ipliQ<$ 
 
 standin' to you, my jewel av a bhoy, that ye may niver for« 
 get what you m.int to be an' do, when you're wallowin' in 
 the muck! May ye see the betther and follow the worse as 
 long as there's breath in your body, an' may ye die quick 
 in a strange land, watchin' your death before ut takes you, 
 an' onable to stir hand or fut!' 
 
 "I heard a scufflin' in the room behind, and thin Dinah 
 Shadd's hand dhropped into mine like a roseleaf into a muddy 
 road. 
 
 ''The half av that I'll take,' sez she, 'an' more too, if I 
 can. Go home, ye silly-talkin' woman — go home an' con- 
 fess.' 
 
 "'Come away! Come away!' sez Judy, pulHn' he 
 mother by the shawl. ' 'Twas none av Terence's fault. 
 For the love av Mary, stop the talkin'!' 
 
 "'An' you!' said ould Mother Sheehy, spinnin' round 
 forninst Dinah. 'Will ye take the half av that man's load? 
 Stand off from him, Dinah Shadd, before he takes you down 
 too — you that look to be a quarthermaster-sergint's wife in 
 five years. Ye look too high, child. Ye shall wash for the 
 quarthermaster-sergint, whin he pl'ases to give you the job 
 out av charity; but a privit's wife ye shall be to the end, an' 
 ivry sorrow of a privit's wife ye shall know, an' niver a joy 
 but wan, that shall go from you like the tide from a rock. 
 The pain of bearin' ye shall know, but niver the pleasure of 
 givin' the breast; an' you shall put away a man-child into' 
 the common ground wid niver a priest to say a prayer over 
 him, an' on that man-child ye shall think ivry day av your 
 life. Think long, Dinah Shadd, for you'll niver have an- 
 other tho' you pray till your knees are bleedin'. The moth- 
 ers av children shall mock you behind your back whin you're 
 wringin' over the wash-tub. You shall know what ut is to 
 take a dhrunken husband home an' see him go to the gyard- 
 room. Will that pl'ase you, Dinah Shadd, that won't be 
 seen talkin' to my daughter? You shall talk to worse than 
 Judy before all's over. The sergint's wives shall look down 
 on you, contemptuous daughter av a sergint, an' you shall 
 
pi?e ^ourtip^ of Dipal; Sl^add 147 
 
 cover ut all up wid a smilin' face wMn your heart's burstin'. 
 Stand off him, Dinah Shadd, for I've put the Black Curse 
 of Shielygh upon him, an' his own mouth shall make ut 
 good.' 
 
 *'She pitched forward on her head an' began foamin' at 
 the mouth. Dinah Shadd ran out with water, an' Judy 
 dhragged the ould woman into the veranda till she sat up. 
 
 '.' 'I'm old an' forlorn,' she sez, tremblin' an' cryin', 'an' 
 'tis like I say a dale more than I mane. ' 
 
 " 'When you're able to walk — go,' says ould Mother 
 Shadd. *This house has no place for the likes av you, that 
 have cursed my daughter.' 
 
 " 'Eyah!' said the ould woman. *Hard words break no 
 bones, an' Dinah Shadd'U kape the love av her husband till 
 my bones are green com. Judy, darlin', I misremember 
 what I came here for. Can you lend us the bottom av a 
 taycup av tay, Mrs. Shadd':'' 
 
 **But Judy dhragged her off, cryin' as tho' her heart wud 
 break. An' Dinah Shadd an' I, in ten minutes we had forgot 
 ut ail." 
 
 "Then why do you remember it now?" said I« 
 
 " Is ut like I'd f orgit? Ivry word that wicked ould woman 
 spoke fell thrue in my life aftherward ; an' I cud ha' stud ut 
 all — stud ut all, except fwhen little Shadd was bom. That 
 was on the line av march three months afther the regiment 
 was taken wid cholera. We were betune Umballa an' Kalka 
 •thin, an' I was on picket. When I came off, the women 
 showed me the child, an' ut turned on uts side an' died as I 
 looked. We buried him by the road, an' Father Tictory was 
 a day's march behind wid the heavy baggage, so the com- 
 p'ny captain read prayer. An' since then I've been a child- 
 less man, an' all else that ould Mother Sheehy put upon me 
 an' Dinah Shadd. What do you think, sorr?" 
 
 I thought a gpod deal, but it seemed better then to reach 
 out for Mulvaney's hand. This demonstration nearly cost 
 me the use of three fingers. Whatever he knows of his 
 weaknesses, Mulvaney is entirely ignorant of his strength. 
 
14r» U/orH;s of I^adyard I^iplip^ 
 
 "But what do you think?" he insisted, as I was straight- 
 ening out the crushed member. 
 
 My reply was drowned in yells and outcries from the next 
 fire, where ten men were shouting for "Orth'ris!" "Privit 
 Orth'ris!" "Mistah Or-ther-is!' "Deah Boy!" "Cap'n 
 Orth'ris!" "Field- Marshal Orth'ris!" "Stanley, you pen- 
 n'orth o' pop, come 'ere to your own comp'ny!" And the 
 Cockney, who had been delighting another audience ,with 
 recondite and Rabelaisian yarns, was shot down among his 
 admirers by the major force. 
 
 "You've crumpled my dress-shirt 'orrid," said he; "an' I 
 shan't sing no more to this 'ere bloomin' drawin'-room." 
 
 Learoyd, roused by the confusion, uncoiled himself, crept 
 behind Ortheris, and raised him aloft on his shoulders. 
 
 "Sing, ye bloomin' hummin'-bird!" said he; and Orth- 
 eris, beating time on Learoyd's skull, delivered himself, in 
 the raucous voice of the Ratcliffe Highway, of the following 
 chaste and touching ditty : 
 
 "My girl she give me the go oncet, 
 
 When I was a London lad, 
 An' I went on the drunk for a fortnight. 
 
 An' then I went to the bad. 
 The queen she gave me a shillin', 
 
 To fight for 'er over the seas ; 
 But guv'ment built me a fever trap, 
 
 An' Injia gave me disease. 
 
 Vhorus, — "Hoi don't you 'eed what a girl says, 
 An' don't you go for the beer; 
 But I was an ass when I was at grass, 
 An' that is why I'm 'ere. 
 
 ec 
 
 I fired a shot at an Afghan; 
 
 The beggar 'e fired again ; 
 An' I lay on my bed with a 'ole in my 'ead, 
 
 An' missed the next campaign ! 
 I up with my gun at a Burman 
 
 Who carried a bloomin' dah, 
 But the cartridge stuck an' the bay 'nit bruk, 
 
 An' ail I got was the scar. 
 
Jlpe ^ourtip($ of Dipal? Sljadd 149 
 
 Chorus, — "Ho! don't you aim at a Afghan 
 
 When you stand on the sky-hne clear; 
 An' don't you go for a Burman 
 If none o' your friends is near. 
 
 **I served my time for a corporal, 
 
 An' wetted my stripes with pop. 
 For I went on the bend with a intimate f riend. 
 
 An' finished the night in the shop, 
 I served my time for a sergeant ; 
 
 The colonel 'e sez '!N'o! 
 The most you'll be is a full 0. B,' * 
 
 An' — very next night 'twas so. 
 
 Chorus. — "Ho! don't you go for a corp'ral, 
 Unless your 'ead is: clear; 
 But I was an ass when I was at grass. 
 
 An' that is why I'm 'ere. 
 
 **I've tasted the luck o' the army 
 
 In barrack an' camp an' clink, 
 An' I lost my tip through the bloomin' trip 
 
 Along o' the women an' drink. 
 I'm down at the heel o' my service, 
 
 An' when I am laid on the shelf, 
 My very wust friend from beginning to end^ 
 
 By the blood of a mouse, was myself. 
 
 Chorus, — *'Ho! don't you 'eed what a girl says, 
 An' don't you go for the beer; 
 But I was an ass when I was at grass, 
 An' that is why I'm 'ere." 
 
 *' Ay, listen to our little man now, singin' and shoutin' as 
 tho' trouble had never touched him! D'ye remember when 
 he went mad with the homesickness?" said Mulvaney, re- 
 calling a never-to-be-forgotten season when Ortheris waded 
 through the deep waters of affliction and behaved abomi» 
 nably. *'But he's talkin' the bitter truth, tho'. Eyahl 
 
 *' 'My very worst friend from beginning to end, 
 By the blood of a mouse, was mesilf.' 
 
 * Confined to barracks. 
 
150 U/orl^s of I^udyard \{ipUT)<^ 
 
 Hark out!" he continued, jumping to his feet. "What did 
 I tell you, sorr?" 
 
 Fttl! spttl! whttl! went the rifles of the picket in the 
 darkness, and we heard their feet rushing toward us as 
 Ortheris tumbled past me and into his greatcoat. It is an 
 impressive thing, even in peace, to see an armed camp spring 
 to life with clatter of accouterments, click of Martini levers, 
 and blood-curdling speculations as to the fate of missing 
 boots. "Pickets dhriven in," said Mulvaney, staring like 
 a buck at bay into the soft, clinging gloom. "Stand by an' 
 kape close to us. If 'tis cav'lry, they may blundher into the 
 fires." 
 
 Tr — ra ra! ta — ra — la! sung the thrice-blessed bugle, 
 and the rush to form square began. There is much rest and 
 peace in the heart of a square if you arrive in time and are 
 not trodden upon too frequently. The smell of leather belts, 
 fatigue uniform, and unpacked humanity is comforting. 
 
 A dull grumble, that seemed to come from every point of 
 the compass at once, struck our listening ears, and little 
 thrills of excitement ran down the faces of the square = Those 
 who write so learnedly about judging distance by sound 
 should hear cavalry on the move at night. A high-pitched 
 yell on the left told us that the disturbers were friends — the 
 cavalry of the attack, who had missed their direction in the 
 darkness, and were feeling blindly for some sort of support 
 and camping-ground. The difficulty explained, they jin- 
 gled on. 
 
 "Double pickets out there; by your arms lie down and 
 sleep the rest," said the major, and the square melted away 
 as the men scrambled for their places by the fires. ^ 
 
 When I woke I saw Mulvaney, the night-dew gemming 
 his mustache, leaning on his rifle at picket, lonely as Pro- 
 metheus on his rock, with I know not what vultures tearing 
 his liver. 
 
THE MAN WHO WAS 
 
 Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delight- 
 ful person till he tucks his shirt in. As an Oriental he is 
 charming. It is only when he insists upon being treated as 
 the most easterly of Western peoples, instead of the most 
 westerly of Easterns, that he becomes a racial anomaly ex- 
 tremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which 
 side of his nature is going to turn up next. 
 
 Dirkovitch was a Russian — a Russian of the Russians, as 
 he said— who appeared to get his bread by serving the czar 
 as an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a 
 Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice the 
 same. He was a handsome young Oriental, with a taste fo« 
 wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he 
 arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least no 
 living man could ascertain whether it was by way of Balkh, 
 Budukhshan, Chitrai, Beloochistan, Nepaul, or anywhere 
 else. The Indian government, being in an unusually affable 
 mood, gave orders that he was to be civilly treated, and 
 shown everything that was to be seen ; so he drifted, talking 
 bad English and worse French, from one city to another till 
 he foregathered with her Majesty's White Hussars in the 
 city of Peshawar, which stands at the mouth of that narrow 
 sword-cut in the hills that men call the Khyber Pass. He 
 was -undoubtedly an officer, and he was decorated, after the 
 manner of the Russians, with little enameled crosses, and he 
 could talk, and (though this has nothing to do with his 
 merits) he had been given up as a hopeless task or case by 
 the Black Tyrones, who, individually and collectively, with 
 hot whisky and honey, mulled brandy and mixed spirits of 
 all kinds, had striven in all hospitality to make him drunk . 
 And when the Black Tyrones, who are exclusively Irish, fail 
 
 (151) 
 
i52 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^ipliij^ 
 
 to disturb the peace of head of a foreigner, that foreigner is 
 certain to be a superior man. This was the argiunent of the 
 Black Tyrones, but they were ever an unruly and self- 
 opinionated regiment, and they allowed junior subalterns of 
 four years' service to choose their wines. The spirits were 
 always purchased by the colonel and a committee of majors. 
 And a regiment that would so behave may be respected but 
 cannot be loved. 
 
 The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing 
 their wine as in charging the enemy. There was a brandy 
 that had been purchased by a cultured colonel a few years 
 after the battle of Waterloo. It has been maturing ever 
 since, and it was a marvelous brandy at the purchasing. 
 The memory of that liquor would cause men to weep as 
 they lay dying in the teak forests of Upper Burmah or the 
 slime of the Irrawaddy. And there was a port which was 
 notable ; and there was a champagne of an obscure brand, 
 which always came to m.ess without any labels, because the 
 White Hussars wished none to know where the source of 
 supply might be found. The officer on whose head the 
 champagne-choosing lay was forbidden the use of tobacco for 
 six weeks previous to sampling. 
 
 This particularity of detail is necessary to emphasize the 
 fact that that champagne, that port, and, above all, that 
 brandy— the green and yellow and white liqueurs did not 
 count — was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, 
 and he enjoyed himself hugely— -even more than among the 
 Black Tyrones. 
 
 But he remained distressingly European through it all. 
 The White Hussars were— "My dear true friends," ** Fellow- 
 soldiers glorious, *' and "Brothers inseparable." He would 
 unburden himself by the hour on the glorious future that 
 awaited the combined arms of England and Russia "when 
 their hearts and their territories should run side by side, and 
 the great mission of civilizing Asia should begin. That was 
 unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be civilized after 
 the methods of the West. There is too much Asia, and she 
 
 
7I?e /I\ap U/I70 U/as 153 
 
 is too old. You cannot reform a lady of many lovers, and 
 Asia has been insatiable in her flirtations aforetime. She 
 will never attend Sunday-school, or learn to vote save with 
 swords for tickets. 
 
 Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited 
 him to talk special-correspondently and to make himself as 
 genial as he could. !N"ow and then he volunteered a little, a 
 very little, information about his own Sotnia of Cossacks, 
 left apparently to look after themselves somewhere at the 
 back of beyond. He had done rough work in Central Asia, 
 and had seen rather more help-yourself fighting than most 
 men of his years. But he was careful never to betray his 
 superiority, and more than careful to praise on all occasions 
 the appearance, drill, uniform, and organization of her 
 Majesty's White Hussars. And, indeed, they were a regi- 
 ment to be admired. When Mrs. Durgan, widow of the late 
 Sir John Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a short 
 time had been proposed to by every single man at mess, she 
 put the public sentiment very neatly when she explained that 
 they were all so nice that unless she could marry them all, 
 including the colonel and some majors who were already 
 married, she was not going to content herself with one of 
 them. Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle regiment 
 —being by nature contradictious — -and the White Hussars 
 were going to wear crape on their arms, but compromised by 
 attending the wedding in full force, and lining the aisle with 
 unutterable reproach. She had jilted them all — from Basset- 
 Holmer, the senior captain, to Little Mildred, the last subal- 
 tern, and he could have given her four thousand a year and 
 a title. He was a viscount, and on his arrival the mess had 
 said he had better go into the Guards, because they were all 
 sons of large grocers and small clothiers in the Hussars, but 
 Mildred begged very hard to be allowed to stay, and behaved 
 so prettily that he was forgiven, and became a man, which is 
 much more important than being any sort of viscount. 
 
 The only persons who did not share the general regard for 
 the White Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of Jewish 
 
154 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 extraction who Kved across tlie border, and answered to the 
 name of Pathan. They had only met the regiment officially, 
 and for something less than twenty minutes, but the inter- 
 view, which was complicated with many casualties, had 
 filled them with prejudice. They even called the "White 
 Hussars "children of the devil," and sons of persons whom 
 it would be perfectly impossible to meet in decent society. 
 Yet they were not above making their aversion fill their 
 money-belts. The regiment possessed carbines, beautiful 
 Martini- Henry carbines, that would cob a bullet into an 
 enemy's camp at one thousand yards, and were even handier 
 than the long rifle. Therefore they were coveted all along 
 the border, and, since demand inevitably breeds supply, they 
 were supplied at the risk of life and limb for exactly their 
 weight in coined silver — seven and one-half pounds of rupees, 
 or sixteen pounds and a few shillings each, reckoning the 
 rupee at par. They were stolen at night by snaky-haired 
 thieves that crawled on their stomachs under the nose of the 
 sentries ; they disappeared mysteriously from arm-racks ; and 
 in the hot weather, when all the doors and windows were 
 open, they vanished like puffs of their own smoke. The 
 border people desired them first for their own family 
 vendettas, and then for contingencies. But in the long 
 cold nights of the Northern Indian winter they were 
 stolen most extensively. The traffic of murder was liveliest 
 among the hills at that season, and prices ruled high. The 
 regimental guards were first doubled and then trebled. A 
 trooper does not much care if he loses a weapon — govern- 
 ment must make it good — ^but he deeply resents the loss of 
 his sleep. The regiment grew very angry, and one night- 
 thief who managed to limp away bears the visible marks of 
 their anger upon him to this hour. That incident stopped 
 the burglaries for a time, and the guards were reduced ac- 
 cordingly, and the regiment devoted itself to polo with un- 
 expected results, for it beat by two goals to one that very 
 terrible polo corps the Lushkar Light Horse, though the 
 latter had four ponies apiece for a short hour's fight, as well 
 
ne /T\ai? U/I?o U/as 155 
 
 as a native officer who played like a lambent flame across the 
 ground. 
 
 Then they gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The 
 Lushkar team came, and Dirkovitch came, in the fullest full 
 uniform of a Cossack officer, which is as full as a dressing- 
 gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and opened his 
 eyes as he regarded them. They were hghter men than the 
 Hussars, and they carried themselves with the swing that is 
 the peculiar right of the Punjab frontier force and all irregular 
 horse. Like everything else in the service, it has to be 
 learned ; but, unlike many things, it is never forgotten, and 
 remains on the body till death. 
 
 The great beam-roofed mess-room of the "White Hussars 
 was a sight to be remembered. All the mess-plate was on 
 the long table— the same table that had served up the bodies 
 of five dead officers in a forgotten fight long and long ago 
 — the dingy, battered standards faced the door of entrance, 
 clumps of winter roses lay between the silver candlesticks, 
 the portraits of eminent officers deceased looked down on 
 their successors from between the heads of sambhur, nilghai, 
 maikhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning snov/- 
 leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months' leave 
 that he might have spent in England instead of on the road 
 to Thibet, and the daily risk of his life on ledge, snow-sHde, 
 and glassy grass-slope. 
 
 The servants, in spotless white muslin and the crest of 
 their regiments on the brow of their turbans, waited behind 
 their masters, who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the 
 White Hussars and the cream and silver of the Lushkar Light 
 Horse. Dirkovitch' s dull green uniform was the only dark 
 spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. He 
 was fraternizing effusively with the captain of the Lushkar 
 team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitch's Cos- 
 sacks his own long, lathy down-countrymen could account 
 for in a fair charge. But one does not speak of these things 
 openly. 
 
 The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band 
 
156 U/orKs of T^udyard K^plii)<$ 
 
 played between the courses, as is the immemoria* custom, till 
 all tongues ceased for a moment with the removal of the 
 dinner slips and the First Toast of Obligation, when the 
 colonel, rising, said: "Mr. Vice, the Queen," and Little Mil- 
 dred from the bottom of the table answered: "The Queen, 
 God bless her!" and the big spurs clanked as the big men 
 heaved themselves up and drank the Queen, upon whose pay 
 they were falsely supposed to pay their mess-bills. That 
 sacrament of the mess never grows old, and never ceases to 
 bring a lump into the throat of the listener wherever he be, 
 by land or by sea, Dirkovitch rose with his "brothers glori- 
 vDus," but he could not understand. No one but an officer 
 can understand what the toast means ; and the bulk have 
 more sentiment than comprehension. It all comes to the same 
 in the end, as the enemy said when he was wriggling on a 
 lance-point. Immediately after the little silence that follows 
 on the ceremony there entered the native officer who had 
 played for the Lushkar team. He could not of course eat 
 with the alien, but he came in at dessert, all six feet of him, 
 Vfith the blue-and-silver turban atop and the big black top- 
 boots below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward 
 the hilt of his saber, in token of fealty, for the colonel of the 
 "White Hussars to touch, and dropped into a vacant chair 
 amid shouts of ^''Rung ho! Hira Singh!" (which being trans- 
 lated means "Go in and win!"). "Did I whack you over 
 the knee, old man?" "Kessaidar Sahib, what the devil 
 made you play that kicking pig of a pony in the last ten 
 minutes?" "Shabash, Kessaidar Sahib!" Then the voice of 
 the colonel: "The health of Kessaidar Hira Singh!" 
 
 After the shouting had died away, Hira Singh rose to 
 repl}^, for he was the cadet of a royal house, the son of a 
 king's son, and knew what was due on these occasions. 
 Thus he spoke in the vernacular: 
 
 "Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment, much honor 
 have you done me. This will I remember. We came down 
 from afar to play you; but we were beaten." ("No fault of 
 yours, Kessaidar Sahib. Played on your own ground, y' 
 
JI?e /I\ap \I/l70 U/as 157 
 
 know. Your ponies were cramped from the raflway. Don't 
 apologize.") ''Therefore perhaps we will come again if it be 
 so ordained." ("Hear! Hear, hear, indeed ! Bravo! H'sh!") 
 "Then we will play you afresh" ("Happy to meet you"), 
 "till there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for 
 sport." He dropped one hand on his sword-hilt, and his eye 
 wandered to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. "But if by 
 the will of God there arises any other game which is not the 
 polo game, then be assured. Colonel Sahib and officers, that 
 we shall play it out side by side, though they'^- — again his eye 
 sought Dirkovitch— -"though they, I say, have fifty ponies to 
 our one horse." And with a deep-mouthed Bung ho! that 
 rang like a musket-butt on flag-stones, he sat down amid 
 shoutings. 
 
 Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the 
 brandy — the terrible brandy aforementioned — did not under- 
 stand, nor did the expurgated translations offered to him at 
 all convey the point. Decidedly the native officer's was the 
 speech of the evening, and the clamor might have continued 
 to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot 
 without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left 
 side. It is notable that Dirkovitch "reached back," after the 
 American fashion — a gesture that set the captain of the 
 Lushkar team wondering how Cossack officers were armed 
 at mess. Then there was a scuffle and a yell of pain. 
 
 "Carbine-stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly 
 sinking back in his chair. "This comes of reducing the 
 guards. I hope the sentries have killed him." 
 
 The feet of armed men pounded on the veranda Sags, 
 and it sounded as though something was being dragged. 
 
 "Why don't they put him in the cells till the morning?" 
 said the colonel, testily. "See if they've damaged hinij 
 sergeant. ' ' 
 
 The mess-sergeant fled out into the darkness, and re- 
 turned with two troopers and a corporal, all very much 
 perplexed. 
 
 "Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir," said the corporaL 
 
158 U/or^s of F^udyard i{ipllT)<^ 
 
 *' Leastways 'e was crawlin' toward the barricks, sir, past 
 the main-road sentries; an' the sentry 'e says, sir — " 
 
 The Hmp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. 
 Kever was seen so destitute and demorahzed an Afghan. Ho 
 was turbanless, shoeless, caked with dirt, and all but dead 
 with rough handling. Hira Singh started slightly at the 
 sound of the man's pain. Dirko^dtch took another liqueur- 
 glass of brandy. 
 
 '* What does the sentry say?" said the colonel. 
 
 *'Sez he speaks English, sir," said the corporal. 
 
 "So you brought him into mess instead of handing himj 
 over to the sergeant! If he spoke all the tongues of thel 
 Pentecost, you've no business—" 
 
 Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred' 
 had risen from his place to inspect. He jumped back as 
 though he had been shot. 
 
 ^* Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away," 
 said he to the colonel, for he was a much-privileged sub- 
 altern. He put his arms round the rag-bound horror as he 
 spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may not have been 
 explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in his being six 
 feet four, and big in proportion. The corporal, seeing that 
 an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and 
 that the colonel's eye was beginning to blaze, promptly 
 removed himseK and his men. The mess was left alone 
 with the carbine thief, who laid his head on the table and 
 wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably, as Uttle children 
 weep. 
 
 Hira Singh leaped to his feet with a long-drawn vernacu- 
 lar oath. *' Colonel Sahib," said he, "that man is no Afghan, 
 for they weep ^Ail AiP 'Nov is he of Hindustan, for they 
 weep * Oh! HoP He weeps after the fashion of the white- 
 men, who say ^Ow! OwP " 
 
 "I^ow where the dickens did you get that knowledge, 
 Hira Singh?" said the captain of the Lushkar team. 
 
 "Hear him!" said Hira Singh, simply, pointing at the 
 crumpled figure, that wept as though it would never cease. 
 
Tl?e f[\zT) U/l?o U/as 159 
 
 "He said, ^ My God!'" said Little Mildred. **I heard 
 him say it." 
 
 The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man in 
 silence. It is a horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman 
 can sob from the top of her palate, or her lips, or anywhere 
 else, but a man cries from his diaphragm, and it rends him 
 to pieces. Also, the exhibition causes the throat of the on- 
 looker to close at the top. 
 
 *'Poor devil!" said the colonel, coughing tremendously. 
 **We ought to send him to hospital. He's been man- 
 handled. ' ' 
 
 Now the adjutant loved his rifles. They were to him as 
 his grandchildren — the men standing in the first place. He 
 grunted rebelliously : *'I can understand an Afghan steaKng, 
 because he's made that way. But I can't understand his 
 crying. That makes it worse. " 
 
 The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay 
 back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There was noth- 
 ing special in the ceihng beyond a shadow as of a huge black 
 coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in the construction of the 
 mess-room, this shadow was always thrown when the candles 
 were Kghted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White 
 Hussars. They were, in fact, rather proud of it. 
 
 "Is he going to cry all night," said the colonel, "or are 
 we supposed to sit up with Little Mildred's guest until he 
 feels better?" 
 
 The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the 
 mess. , Outside, the wheels of the first of those bidden to 
 the festivities crunched the roadway. 
 
 **0h, my God!" said the man in the chair, and every 
 soul in the mess rose to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain 
 did a deed for which he ought to have been given the Vic- 
 toria Cross— distinguished gallantry in a fight against over- 
 whelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his eyes 
 as the hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune moment, 
 and pausing only by the colonel's chair to say: "This isn't 
 our affair, you know, sir," led the team into the veranda 
 
160 U/orl^s of r^udyard ^iplip^ 
 
 and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last, and he looked 
 at Dirkovitch as he moved. But Dirkovitch had departed 
 into a brandy paradise of his own. His Hps moved without 
 sound, and he was studying the coffin on the ceiling. 
 
 *' White — white all over," said Basset-Holmer, the ad-| 
 jutant. ' ' What a pernicious renegade he must be ! I wonder 
 where he came from?" 
 
 The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and "Who 
 are you?" said he. 
 
 There was no answer. The man stared round the mess- 
 room and smiled in the colonel's face. Little Mildred, who 
 was always more of a woman than a man till "Boot and 
 saddle" was sounded, repeated the question in a voice that 
 would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man 
 only smiled. Dirkovitch, at the far end of the table, slid 
 gently from his chair to the floor. 'No son of Adam, in this 
 present imperfect world, can mix the Hussars' champagne 
 with the Hussars' brandy by five and eight glasses of each 
 without remembering the pit whence he has been digged and 
 descended thither. The band began to play the tune with 
 which the White Hussars, from the date of their formation, 
 preface all their functions. They would sooner be disbanded 
 than abandon that tune. It is a part of their system. The 
 man straightened himself in his chair and drumraed on the 
 table with his fingers. 
 
 "I don't see why we should entertain lunatics," said the 
 colonel; "call a guard and send him off to the cells. We'll 
 look into the business in the morning. Give him a glass of 
 wine first, though." 
 
 Little Mildred filled a sherry glass with the brandy and 
 thrust it over to the man. He drank, and the tune rose 
 louder, and he straightened himself yet more. Then he put 
 out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate opposite and 
 fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery connected with 
 that piece of plate in the shape of a spring, which converted 
 what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs each 
 side and one in the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke can- 
 
Jl^e /I\a9 U/I?o U/as 161 
 
 delabrum. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed 
 weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on 
 the wall, then moved on to another picture, the mess watch* 
 ing him without a word. When he came to the mantel-piece 
 he shook his head and seemed distressed. A piece of plate 
 representing a mounted hussar in full uniform caught his 
 eye. He pointed to* it, and then to the mantel-piece, with 
 inquiry in his eyes. 
 
 ** What is it— oh, what is it?" said Little Mildred. Then, 
 as a mother might speak to a child, *'That is a horse—yes, 
 ahorse." 
 
 Very slowly came the answer, in a thick, passionless gut- 
 tural: *'Yes, I— have seen. But— where is the horse?" 
 
 He could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as 
 the men drew hack to give the stranger full room in his 
 wanderings. There was no question of calling the guard. 
 
 Again he spoke, very slowly: *' Where is our horse?" 
 
 There is no saying what happened after that. There is 
 but one horse in the White Hussars, and his portrait hangs 
 outside the door of the mess-room. He is the piebald drum- 
 horse, the king of the regimental band, that served the regi- 
 m.ent for seven-and-thirty years, and in the end was shot for 
 old age. Half the mess tore the thing down from its place 
 and thrust it into the man's hands. He placed it above the 
 mantel- piece ; it clattered on the ledge, as his poor hands 
 dropped it, and he staggered toward the bottom of the table, 
 falling into Mildred's chair. The band began to play the 
 "River of Years" waltz, and the laughter from the gardens 
 came mto the tobacco-scented mess-room. But nobody, even 
 the youngest, was thinking of waltzes. They all spoke to 
 one another something after this fashion: "The drum-horse 
 hasn't hung over the mantel-piece since '67," "How does he 
 know?' ' ' ' Mildred, go and speak to him again. " " Colonel, 
 what are you going to do?" "Oh, dry up, and give the poor 
 devil a chance to pull himself together!" "It isn't possible, 
 anyhow. The man's a lunatic." 
 
 Little Mildred stood at the colonel's side talking into his 
 
^ 
 
 161 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplii)^ 
 
 ear. "Will you be good enough to take your seats, please, 
 gentlemen?" he said, and the mess dropped into the chairs. 
 
 Only Dirkovitch's seat, next to Little Mildred's, was 
 blank, and Little Mildred himself had found Hira Singh's 
 place. The wide-eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses in 
 dead silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his hand 
 shook, and the port spilled on the table as he looked straight 
 at the man in Little Mildred's chair and said, hoarsely: "Mr. 
 Vice, the Queen. ' ' There was a little pause, but the man 
 sprung to his feet and answered, without hesitation: "The 
 Queen, God bless her!" and as he emptied the thin glass he 
 snapped the shank between his fingers. 
 
 Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a 
 young woman, and there were no unclean ideals in the land, 
 it was the custom in a few messes to drink the queen's toast 
 in broken glass, to the huge delight of the mess contractors. 
 The custom is now dead, because there is nothing to break 
 anything for, except now and again the word of a govern- 
 ment, and that has been broken already. 
 
 "That settles it," said the colonel, with a gasp. "He's 
 not a sergeant. "What in the world is he?" 
 
 The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of 
 questions would have scared any man. Small wonder that 
 the ragged, filthy invader could only smile and shake his 
 head. 
 
 From under the table, calm and smiling urbanely, rose 
 Dirkovitch, who had been roused from healthful slumber by 
 feet upon his body. By the side of the man he rose, and the 
 man shrieked and groveled at his feet. It was a horrible ' 
 sight, coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the toast 
 that had brought the strayed wits together. « 
 
 Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but Little. Mildred I 
 heaved him up in an instant. It is not good that a gentle- • 
 man who can answer to the queen's toast should lie at the 3 
 feet of a subaltern of Cossacks. 
 
 The hasty action tore the wretch's upper clothing nearly 
 to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry black scars. 
 
TI?e /I\ai? U/I70 U/as 163 
 
 There is only one weapon in the world that cuts in parallel 
 lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat. Dirkovitch saw 
 the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated — also, his face 
 changed. He said something that sounded like "Shto ve 
 takete"; and the man, fawning, answered, *'Chetyre." 
 
 "What's that?" said everybody together. 
 
 ' ' His number. That is number four, you know. ' ' Dirko- 
 vitch spoke very thickly. 
 
 "What has a queen's oflScer to do with a qualified num- 
 ber?" said the colonel, and there rose an unpleasant growl 
 round the table. 
 
 "How can I tell?" said the affable Oriental, with a sweet 
 smile. "He is a — how you have it? — escape — runaway, from 
 over there." 
 
 He nodded toward the darkness of the night. 
 
 "Speak to him, if he'll answer you, and speak to him 
 gently, ' ' said Little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It 
 seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch should 
 sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Russian to the 
 creature who answered so feebly and with such evident 
 dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no 
 man said a word. They breathed heavily, leaning forward 
 in the long gaps of the conversation. The next time that 
 they have no engagements on hand the White Hussars intend 
 to go to St. Petersburg and learn Russian. 
 
 "He does not know how many years ago," said Dirko- 
 vitch, facing the mess, "but he says it was very long ago, in 
 a war. I think that there was an accident. He says he was 
 of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the war." 
 
 "The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!" said 
 Little Mildred, and the adjutant dashed off bareheaded to 
 the orderly-room where the rolls of the regiment were kept. 
 He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch conclude; 
 "Therefore I am most sorry to say there was an accident, 
 which would have been reparable if he had apologized to 
 that our colonel, which he had insulted. ' ' 
 
 Another growl, which the colonel tried to beat down. 
 
164 U/orl^s of r^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 The mess was in no mood to weigh insults to Russian colonels 
 just then. 
 
 "He does not remember, but I think that there was an 
 accident, and so he was not exchanged among the prisoners, 
 but he was sent to another place—how do you say?-— the 
 country. So^ he says, he came here. He does not know 
 how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany"— the man caught 
 the word, nodded, and shivered— ^' at Zhigansk and Irkutsk. 
 I cannot understand how he escaped. He says, too, that he 
 was in the forests for many years, but how many years he 
 has forgotten — that with many things. It was an accident; 
 done because he did not apologize to that our colonel. Ah!" 
 
 Instead of echoing Dirkovitch's sigh of regret, it is sad to 
 record that the White Hussars livelily exhibited unchristian 
 delight and other emotions, hardly restrained by their sense 
 of hospitality. Holmei flung the frayed and yellow regi- 
 mental rolls on the table, and the men flung themselves atop 
 of these. 
 
 * ' Steady ! Fif ty-six—fif ty-five —fifty-four, ' ' said Holmer. 
 ^'Here we are. 'Lieutenant Austin Limmason — missing.^ 
 That was before Sebastopol. What an infernal shame ! In- 
 sulted one of their colonels, and was quietly shipped off. 
 Thirty years of his life wiped out.** 
 
 "But he never apologized. Said he'd see him first," 
 
 chorused the mess. 
 
 "Poor devil! I suppose he never had the chance after- 
 ward. How did he come here?'' said the colonel. 
 
 The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer, 
 
 "Do you know who you are?'* 
 
 It laughed weakly. 
 
 "Do you know that you are Limmason — Lieutenant 
 Limmason, of the White Hussars?" 
 
 Swift as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised 
 tone: "Yes, I'm Limmason, of course." The light died out 
 in his eyes, and he collapsed afresh, watching every motion 
 of Dirkovitch with terror, A flight from Siberia may fix a 
 few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not lead to 
 
J\)e /I\ai> W\)0 U/as 165 
 
 continuity of thought. The man could not explain how. like 
 a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess 
 again. Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. 
 He cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had 
 pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture of 
 the drum-horse, and answered to the queen's toast. The 
 rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue could 
 only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and 
 he giggled and cowered alternately. 
 
 The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch 
 at this extremely inopportune moment to make a speech. He 
 rose, swaying slightly, gripped the table-edge, while his eyes 
 glowed like opals, and began : 
 
 ** Fellow -soldiers glorious — true friends and hospitables. 
 It was an accident, and deplorable — most deplorable " Here 
 he smiled sweetly all round the mess. "But you will think 
 of this little — little thing. So little, is it not? The czar! 
 Posh ! I slap my fingers — I snap my fingers at him. Do I 
 believe in him? ISTo ! But the Slav who " has done nothing, 
 him I believe. Seventy — how much? — millions that have 
 done nothing — not one thing. Napoleon was an episode." 
 He banged a hand on the table. *'Hear you, old peoples, we 
 have done nothing in the world— out here. All our work is 
 to do: and it shall be done, old peoples. Get away!" He 
 waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the man. ''You 
 see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little — oh, 
 so little — accident, that no one remembered. lN"ow he is That. 
 So will you be, brother-soldiers so brave — so will you be. 
 But you will never come back. You will all go where he is 
 gone, or—" he pointed to the great coffin shadow on the 
 ceiling, and muttering, "Seventy millions — get away, you 
 old people," fell asleep. 
 
 "Sweet, and to the point," said Little Mildred. "What's 
 the use of getting wroth? Let's make the poor devil com- 
 fortable." 
 
 But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from 
 the loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had 
 
166 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 returned only to go away again three days later, when the 
 wail of the *'Dead March" and the tramp of the squadrons 
 told the wondering station, that saw no gap in the table, an 
 officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found commission. 
 
 And Dirkovitch — bland, supple, and always genial — ^went 
 away too hj a night train. Little Mildred and another saw 
 him off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he 
 smitten the colonel with the open hand, the law of the mess 
 allowed no relaxation of hospitality. 
 
 *'Good-by, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant joumeyj" said 
 Little Mildred. 
 
 ^^Au revoir, my true friends,^' said the Russian. 
 
 ** Indeed! But we thought you were going home?" 
 
 *'Yes; but I will come again. My friends, is that road 
 shut?" He pointed to where the north star burned over the 
 Khyber Pass. 
 
 ^' By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, 
 old man, any time you like. Got everything you want — 
 cheroots, ice, bedding? That's all right. Well, au revoir^ 
 Dirkovitch.'^ 
 
 *'Um," said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train 
 grew small. **0f — all— the — unmitigated—-" 
 
 Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the north 
 star, and hummed a selection from a recent burlesque that 
 had much deHghted the White Hussars. It ran : 
 
 **I'm sorry for Mr. Bluebeard, 
 I'm sorry to cause him pain; 
 But a terrible spree there's sure to be 
 When he comes back again." 
 
A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 
 
 "Life liveth best in life, and doth not roam 
 To other realms if all be well at home. 
 'Solid as ocean foam,' quoth ocean foam." 
 
 The roora was blue with the smoke of three pipes and a 
 cigar. The leave season had opened in India, and the first- 
 fruits on the English side of the water were "Tick" Boileau, 
 of the Forty-fifth Bengal Cavalry, who called on me after 
 three years' absence to discuss old things which had hap- 
 pened. Fate, who always does her work handsomely, sent 
 up the same staircase within the same hour the Infant, fresh 
 from Upper Burmah, and he and Boileau, looking out of my 
 window, saw walking in the street one Kevin, late in a 
 Goorkha regiment and the Black Mountain expedition. 
 They yelled to him to come up, and the whole street was 
 aware that they desired him to come up; and he came up, 
 and there foUov/ed pandemonium, because we had fore- 
 gathered from the ends of the earth, and three of us were on 
 a holiday, and none of us was twenty-five, and all the delights 
 of all London lay waiting our pleasure. 
 
 Boileau took the only other chair; and the Infant, by 
 right of his bulk, the sofa ; and N"evin, being a little man, sat 
 cross-legged on the top of the revolving bookcase ; and we 
 all said: *' Who'd ha' thought it?" and "What are you doing 
 here?' ' till speculation was exhausted, and the talk went over 
 to inevitable "shop." Boileau was full of a great scheme 
 for securing military attacheship at St. Petersburg; Nevin 
 had hopes of the Staff College; and the Infant had been 
 moving heaven and earth and the Horse Guards for a com- 
 mission in the Egyptian army. 
 
 "What's the use o' that?" said Nevin, twirling round on 
 the bookcase. 
 
 "Oh, heaps! Course if you get stuck with a Fellaheen 
 
 (167) 
 
168 U/or^s of r^adyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 regiment, you're sold; but if you are appointed to a Sou- 
 danese lot, you're in clover. They are first-class fighting 
 men, and just think of the eligible central position of Egypt 
 in the next row ! ' ' 
 
 This was putting the match to a magazine. We all began 
 to explain the Central- Asian question off-hand, flinging army 
 corps from the Helmund to Cashmir with more than Russian 
 recklessness. Each of the boys made for himself a war to 
 his own liking, and when we had settled all the details of 
 Armageddon, killed all our senior officers, handled a division 
 apiece, and nearly torn the atlas in two in attempts to explain 
 our theories, Boileau needs must lift up his voice above the 
 
 clamor and cry: "Anyhow, it'll be the ^ of a row!" in 
 
 tones that carried conviction far down the staircase. 
 
 Entered unperceived in the smoke "William the Silent. 
 ^'Gen'leman to see you, sir," said he, and disappeared, leav- 
 ing in his stead none other than Mr. Eustace Cleever. Wil- 
 liam would have introduced the dragon of Wantley with 
 equal disregard of present company. 
 
 "I — I beg your pardon! I didn't know that there was 
 anybody — with you. I—" 
 
 But it was not seemly to allow Mr. Cleever to depart, for 
 he was a great man. The boys remained where the}^ were, 
 because any movement would block the little room. Only 
 when they saw his gray hairs they stood up on their feet, and 
 when the Infant caught the name, he said: *^Are you — did 
 you write that book called * As it was in the Beginning'?" 
 
 Mr. Cleever admitted that he had written the book. 
 
 "Then— then I don't know how to thank you, sir," said 
 the Infant, flushing pink. "I was brought up in the country 
 you wrote about. All my people live there, and I read the 
 book in camp out in Burmah on the Hlinedatalon^j and I 
 knew every stick and stone, and the dialect, too; and, by 
 Jove ! it was just like being at home and hearing the country 
 people talk. ITevin, you know 'As it was in the Beginning'? 
 So does Ti — Boileau." 
 
 Mr. Cleever has tasted as much praise, public and private, 
 
f{ ^opferei^ee of tl?e pou/ers 169 
 
 as one man may safely swallow, but it seemed to me that the 
 outspoken admiration in the Infant's eyes and the little stir 
 in the little company came home to him very nearly indeed. 
 
 "Won't you take the sofa?" said the Infant. *'I'U sit on 
 Boileau's chair, and—" Here he looked at me to spur me 
 to my duties as a host, but I was watching the novehst's face. 
 Cleever had not the least intention of going aw^ay, but settled 
 himseK on the sofa. Following the -first great law of the 
 army, which says: "All property is common except money > 
 and yonVe only got to ask the next man for that/' the 
 Infant offered tobacco and drink. It was the least he could 
 do. but not four columns of the finest review in the world 
 held half as much appreciation and reverence as the Infant's 
 simple: "Say when, sir," above the long glass. 
 
 Cleever said "when,"' and more thereto, for he was a 
 golden talker, and he sat in the midst of hero-worship devoid 
 of all taint of self-interest. The boys asked him of the birth 
 of his book, and whether it was hard to write, and how his 
 notions came to him, and he answered with the same absolute 
 simplicity as he was questioned. His big eyes twinkled, he 
 dug his long, thin hands into his gray beard, and tugged it 
 as he grew animated and dropped little by little from the 
 peculiar pinching of the broader vowels — the indefinable 
 "euh" that runs through the speech of the pundit caste — and 
 the elaborate choice of words to freely mouthed ows and ois, 
 and for him, at least, unfettered colloquialisms. He could 
 not altogether understand the boys who hung upon his words 
 so reverently. The line of the chin-strap that stiU showed 
 white and untanned on cheek-bone and jaw, the steadfast 
 young eyes puckered at the corners of the lids with much 
 staring through red-hot sunshine, the deep, troubled breath- 
 ing, and the curious crisp, curt speech seemed to puzzle him. 
 equally. He could create men and women, and send them to 
 the uttermost ends of the earth to help, delight, and comfort ; 
 he knew every mood of the fields, and could interpret them 
 to the cities, and he knew the hearts of many in the city and 
 country, but he had hardly in forty years come into contact 
 Vol. 3. 8 
 
170 U/orKs of l^udyard l^iplfr?^ 
 
 witli the thing which is called a Subaltern oi the Line. He 
 told the boys this. 
 
 *'Well, how should you?" said the Infant. ** You — you're 
 quite different, y' see, sir." 
 
 The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone rather than his 
 words, and Cleever understood the compliments. 
 
 '* We're only subs," said Nevin, "and we aren't exactly 
 the sort of men you'd meet much in your Hfe, I s'pose." 
 
 "That's true," said Cleever. "I live chiefly among those 
 who write and paint and sculp and so forth. We have our 
 own talk and our own interests, and the outer world doesn't 
 trouble us much. ' ' 
 
 "That must be awf'ly jolly," said Boileau, at a venture. 
 "We have our own shop too, but 'tisn't half as interesting as 
 yours, of course. You know all the men who've ever done 
 anything, and we only knock about from place to place, and 
 we do nothing. ' ' 
 
 "The army's a very lazy profession, if you choose to 
 make it so," said Nevin. "When there's nothing going on, 
 there is nothing going on, and you lie up. ' ' 
 
 * ' Or try to get a billet somewhere so as to be ready for the 
 next show," said the Infant, with a chuckle. 
 
 "To me," said Cleever, softly, "the whole idea of warfare 
 seems so foreign and unnatural — so essentially vulgar, if I 
 may say so — that I can hardly appreciate your sensations „ 
 Of course, though, any change from idling in garrison towns 
 must be a godsend to you." 
 
 Like not a few home-staying Englishmen, Cleever beheved 
 that the newspaper phrase he quoted covered the whole duty 
 of the army, whose toil enabled him to enjoy his many-sided 
 life in peace. The remark was not a happy one, for Boileau 
 had just come off the Indian frontier, the Infant had been on 
 the warpath for nearly eighteen months, and the little red 
 man, Nevin, two months before had been sleeping under the 
 stars at the peril of his life. But none of them tried to ex- 
 plain till I ventured to point out that they had all seen service, 
 and were not used to idling. Cleever took in the idea slowly. 
 
fi ^opferepee of tl^e pou/ers 171 
 
 **Seen service?" said he. Then, as a child might ask, 
 **Tell me— tell me everything about everything." 
 
 *'How do you mean, sir?" said the Infant, delighted at 
 being directly appealed to by the great man. 
 
 ' ' Good heavens ! how am I to make you understand if you 
 can't see? In the first place, what is your age?" 
 
 *' Twenty-three next July," said the Infant, promptly, 
 
 Cleever questioned the others with his eyes. 
 
 *'I'm twenty-four," said !N"evin. 
 
 **I'm twenty-two," said Boileau. 
 
 **And you've all seen service?" 
 
 ** We've all knocked about a little bit, sir, but the Infant's 
 the war-worn veteran. He's had two years' work in Upper 
 Burmah," said ITevin. 
 
 "When you say work, what do you mean, you extraor- 
 dinary creatures?" 
 
 "Explain it. Infant," said ]N"evin. 
 
 "Oh, keeping things in order generally, and running 
 about after little dahus — that's Dacoits— and so on. There's 
 nothing to explain." 
 
 "Make that young leviathan speak," said Cleever, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "How can he speak?" said I. "He's done the work. 
 The two don't go together. But, Infant, you are requested 
 to hukh.''^ 
 
 "What about? I'll try." 
 
 '^Bukh about a daur. You've been on heaps of 'em," 
 said ITevin. 
 
 "What in the world does that mean? Has the army a 
 language of its own?" 
 
 The Infant turned very red. He was afraid he was being 
 laughed at, and he detested talking before outsiders ; but it 
 was the author of "As it was in the Beginning" who waited. 
 
 "It's all so new to me," pleaded Cleever. "And — and 
 you said you liked my book." 
 
 This was a direct appeal that the Infant could under- 
 stand. He began, rather flurriedly, with "Pull me up, sir^ 
 
172 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 if I say anything you don't follow. 'Bout six months before 
 I took my leave out of Burmah I was on the Hlinedatalone 
 up near the Shan states with sixty Tommies — private sol- 
 diers, that is — and another subaltern, a year senior to me. 
 The Burmese business was a subaltern war, and our forces 
 were split up into little detachments, all running about the 
 country and trying to keep the Dacoits quiet. The Dacoits 
 were having a first-class time, y' know — filling women up 
 with kerosene and setting 'em alight, and burning villages, 
 and crucifying people. " 
 
 The wonder in Eustace Cleever's eyes deepened. He 
 disbelieved wholly in a book which describes crucifixion at 
 length, and he could not quite realize that the custom still 
 existed. 
 
 "Have you ever seen a crucifixion?" said he. 
 
 "Of course not. Shouldn't have allowed it if I had. 
 But I've seen the corpses. The Dacoits had a nice trick of 
 sending a crucified corpse down the river on a raft, just to 
 show they were keeping their tail up and enjoying them- 
 selves. Well, that was the kind of people I had to deal 
 with." 
 
 "Alone?" said Cleever. Solitude of the soul he knew — 
 none better ; but he had never been ten miles away from his 
 fellowmen in his life. 
 
 "I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty much alone. 
 The nearest military post that could give me orders was fif- 
 teen miles away, and we used to heliograph to them, and 
 they used to give us orders same way. Too many orders." 
 
 "Who was your C. O.?" said Boileau. 
 
 "Bounderby. Major. Pukka Bounderby. More Boun- 
 der than pukka. He went out up Bhamo way. Shot or cut 
 down last year," said the Infant. 
 
 "What mean these interludes in a strange tongue?" said 
 Cleever to me. 
 
 "Professional information, like the Mississippi pilots' talk. 
 He did not approve of his major, who has since died a violent 
 death," said I. "Go on, Infant." 
 
f\ ^oi)ferei}Qe of tl?e pou/ers 173 
 
 "Far too many orders. You couldn't take the Tommies 
 out for a two-days' daur — that means expedition, sir — ^with* 
 out being blown up for not asking leave. And the whole 
 country was humming with Dacoits. I used to send out 
 spies and act on their information. As soon as a man came 
 in and told me of a gang in hiding, I'd take thirty men, with 
 some grub, and go out and look for them, while the other 
 subaltern lay doggo in camp." 
 
 "Lay? Pardon me, but how did he lie?" said Cleever, 
 
 "Lay doggo. Lay quiet with the other thirty men. 
 "When I came back, he'd take out his half of the command^ 
 and have a good time of his own." 
 
 " Who was he?" said Boileau, 
 
 "Carter-Deecy, of the Aurangabadis. Good chap^ but 
 too zuhberdiisty, and went hokJiar four days out of seveiL 
 He's gone out too. Don't interrupt a man." 
 
 Cleever looked helplessly at me. 
 
 "The other subaltern, " I translate, swiftly^ **came from 
 a native regiment and was overbearing in his demeanor. He 
 suffered much from the fever of the country, and is now 
 dead. Go on, Infant." 
 
 "After a bit we got into trouble for using the raen o£ 
 frivolous occasions, and so I used to put my signaler under 
 arrest to prevent him reading the helio orders. Then I'd go 
 out, and leave a message to be sent an hour after I got clear 
 of the camp; something Hke this: 'Received important in* 
 formation; start in an hour, unless countermanded.' If I 
 was ordered back, it didn't much matter. I swore that the 
 0. O.'s watch was wrong, or something, when I came back. 
 The Tommies enjoyed the fun, and^ — oh, yes— there was one 
 Tommy who was the bard of the detachment. He used t© 
 make up verses on everything that happened.'* 
 
 "What sort of verses?" said Cleever. 
 
 "Lovely verses; and the Tommies used to sing 'em* 
 There was one song with a chorus, and it said something 
 like this." The Infant dropped into the barrack-rocMH 
 twang : 
 
174 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplfp^ 
 
 " 'Theebau, the Burmali king, did a very foolish thing 
 "When 'e mustered 'ostile forces in ar-rai. 
 'E Httul thought that we, from far across the sea, 
 Would send our armies up to Mandaiai!' " 
 
 *'0h, gorgeous!" said Cleever. ''And how magnificently 
 direct! The notion of a regimental bard is new to me. It's 
 epic." 
 
 "He was awf'ly popular with the men," said the Infant. 
 **He had them all down in rhyme as soon as ever they had 
 done anything. He was a great bard. He was always on 
 time with a eulogy when we picked up a Boh— that's a 
 leader of Dacoits." 
 
 "How did you pick him up?" said Cleever. 
 
 "Oh, shot him if he wouldn't surrender." 
 
 "You! Have you shot a man?" 
 
 There was a subdued chuckle from all three, and it dawned 
 on the questioner that one experience in life which was denied 
 to himself— and he weighed the souls of men in a balance- 
 had been shared by three very young gentlemen of engaging 
 appearance. He turned round on ITevin, who had climbed 
 to the top of the bookcase and was sitting cross-legged as 
 before. 
 
 "And have you, too?" 
 
 "Think so," said Nevin, sweetly. "In the Black Moun- 
 tain, sir. He was rolling cliffs on to my half-company and 
 spoiling our formation. I took a rifle from a man and 
 brought him down at the second shot?' 
 
 "Good heavens! And how did you feel afterward?" 
 
 "Thirsty. I wanted a smoke, too." 
 
 Cleever looked at Boileau, the youngest. Surely his 
 hands were guiltless of blood. Boileau shook his head and 
 laughed. **Go on. Infant," said he. 
 
 "And you, too?" said Cleever. 
 
 "Fancy so. It was a case of cut — cut or be cut — with 
 me, so I cut at one. I couldn't do any more, sir," said 
 Boileau. 
 
 Cleever looked as though he would like to ask many 
 
f{ <?opferei?Ge of tl?e pou/ers 175 
 
 questions, but the Infant swept on in the full tide of 
 his tale. 
 
 '*Well, we were called insubordinate young whelps at 
 last, and strictly forbidden to take the Tommies out any 
 more without orders. I wasn't sorry, because Tommy is 
 such an exacting sort of creature, though he works beauti- 
 fully. He wants to live as though he were in barracks all 
 the time. I was grubbing on fowls and boiled corn, but the 
 Tommies wanted their pound of fresh meat, and their half 
 ounce of this, and their two ounces of t'other thing, and they 
 used to come to me and badger me for plug tobacco when we 
 were four days in jungle! I said: 'I can get you Burmah 
 tobacco, but I don't keep a canteen up my sleeve. ' They 
 couldn't see it. They wanted all the luxuries of the season, 
 confound 'em!" 
 
 "You were alone when you were dealing with these 
 men?" said Cleever, watching the Infant's face under the 
 palm of his hand. He was receiving new ideas, and they 
 seemed to trouble him. 
 
 "Of course. Unless you count the mosquitoes. They 
 were nearly as big as the men. After I had to lie doggo I 
 began to look for something to do, and I was great pals with 
 a man called Hicksey, in the Burmah police — the best man 
 that ever stepped on earth ; a first-class man. ' ' 
 
 Cleever nodded applause. He knew something of enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 "Hicksey and I were as thick as thieves. He had some 
 Burmah mounted police — nippy little chaps, armed with 
 sword and Snider carbine. They rode punchy Burmah 
 ponies, with string stirrups, red cloth saddles, and red bell- 
 rope headstalls. Hicksey used to lend me six or eight of 
 them when I asked him — nippy little devils, keen as mus- 
 tard. But they told their wives too much, and all my plans 
 got known, till I learned to give false marching orders over- 
 night, and take the men to quite a different village in the 
 morning. Then we used to catch the simple dakus before 
 breakfast, and make them very sick. It's a ghastly country 
 
176 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplii?<$ 
 
 on the Hlinedatalone ; all bamboo jungle, with paths about 
 four feet wide winding through it. The dakus knew all the 
 paths, and used to pot at us as we came round a corner ; but 
 the mounted police knew the paths as well as the dakus, and 
 we used to go stalking 'em in and out among the paths. 
 Once we flushed 'em^ — the men on the ponies had the pull of 
 the man on foot. We held all the coTintry absolutely quiet 
 for ten miles round in about a month. Then we took Boh 
 Na-ghee — Hicksey and I and the civil officer. That was a 
 lark!" 
 
 "I think I am beginning to understand a little," said 
 Cleever. ' ' It was a pleasure to you to administer and fight, 
 and so on." 
 
 "Rather. There's nothing nicer than a satisfactory little 
 expedition, when you find all your plans fit together and 
 your conformations teek — correct, you know — and the whole 
 suhchiz — I mean when everything works out like formulas 
 on a blackboard. Hicksey had all the information about the 
 Boh, He had been burning villages and murdering people 
 right and left, and cutting up government convoys, and all 
 that. He was lying doggo in a village about fifteen miles 
 off, waiting to get a fresh gang together. So we arranged 
 to take thirty mounted police, and turn him out before he 
 could plunder into the newly settled villages. At the last 
 minute the civil officer in our part of the world thought he'd 
 assist in the performance." 
 
 **Who was he?" said Nevin. 
 
 "His name was Dennis," said the Infant, slowly; "an J 
 we'll let it stay so. He's a better man now than he was 
 then." 
 
 "But how old was the civil power?" said Cleever. "Tho 
 situation is developing itself." Then, in his beard; "Who 
 are you, to judge men?" 
 
 "He was about six-and-twenty, " said the Infant; "and 
 he was awf 'ly clever. He knew a lot of literary things, but 
 I don't think he was quite steady enough for Dacoit-hunting. 
 We started overnight for Boh !N"a-ghee's village, and we got 
 
f{ <$oi?ferer>ee of tl?e povuers 177 
 
 there just before the morning, without raising an alarm. 
 Dennis had turned out armed to the teeth — two revolvers, 
 a carbine, and all sorts of things. I was talking to Hicksey 
 about posting our men, and Dennis edged his pony in be- 
 tween us, and said: 'What shall I do? What shall I do? 
 Tell me what to do, you fellows.' We didn't take much 
 notice, but his pony tried to bite me in the leg, and I said : 
 * Pull out a bit, old man, till we've settled the attack.' He 
 kept edging in, and fiddling with his reins and the revolvers, 
 and saying: 'Dear me! dear me! Oh, dear me! What do 
 you think I'd better do?' The man was in a blue funk and 
 his teeth were chattering." 
 
 ' ' I sympathize with the civil power, ' ' said Cleever. ' ' Con- 
 tinue, young Olive." 
 
 "The fun of it was that he was supposed to be our supe- 
 rior officer. Hicksey took a good look at him, and told him 
 to attach himself to my party. Beastly mean of Hicksey, 
 that. The chap kept on edging in and bothering, instead of 
 asking for some men and taking up his own position, till I 
 got angry. The carbines began popping on the other side of 
 the village. Then I said: 'For God's sake, be quiet, and sit 
 down where you are ! If you see anybody come out of the 
 village, shoot at him. ' I knew he couldn't hit a hayrick at 
 a yard. Then I took my men over the garden wall — over 
 the palisades, y'know — somehow or other, and the fun be- 
 gan. Hicksey had found the Boh in bed under a mosquito 
 curtain, and he had taken a flying jump on to him." 
 
 "A flying jump!" said Oleever. "Is that also war?" 
 
 ' ' Yes, ' ' said the Infant, now thoroughly warmed. ' ' Don' t 
 you know how you take a flying jump on to a fellow's head 
 at school when he snores in the dormitor? The Boh was 
 sleeping in a regular bedful of swords and pistols, and Hick- 
 sey came down a la Zazel through the netting, and the net 
 got mixed up with the pistols and the Boh and Hicksey, and 
 they all rolled on the floor together. I laughed till I couldn't 
 stand, and Hicksey was cursing me for not helping him, so I 
 left him to fight it out, and went into the village. Our men 
 
178 U/orl^s of r^adyard 1t{ipUT)<^ 
 
 were slashing about and firing, and so were the Dacoits, and 
 in the thick of the mess some ass set fire to a house, and we 
 all had to clear out. I froze on to the nearest daku and ran 
 to the palisade, shoving him in front of me. He wriggled 
 clear and bounded over to the other side. I came after him, 
 but when I had one leg one side and one leg the other of the 
 palisade, I saw that my friend had fallen flat on Dennis's 
 head. That man had never moved from where I left him. 
 The two rolled on the ground together, and Dennis's carbine 
 v,^ent off and nearly shot me. The daku picked himself up 
 and ran, and Dennis heaved his carbine after him, and it 
 caught him on the back of his head and knocked him silly. 
 You never saw anything so funny in your life. I doubled 
 up on the top of the palisade and hung there, yelling with 
 laughter. But Dennis began to weep like anything. *0h, 
 I've killed a man!' he said^'I've killed a man, and I shall 
 never know another peaceful hour in my life ! Is he dead? 
 Oh, is he dead? Good God! I've killed a man!' I came 
 down and said: * Don't be a fool!' But he kept on shouting 
 'Is he dead?' till I could have kicked him. The daku was 
 only knocked out of time with the carbine. He came to 
 after a bit, and I said: *Are you hurt much?' He grinned 
 and said no. His chest was all cut with scrambling over 
 the palisade. 'The white man's gun didn't do that,' he said. 
 ''I did that myself, and I knocked the white man over.' Just 
 like a Burman, wasn't it? Dennis wouldn't be happy at any 
 price. He said: 'Tie up his wounds. He'll bleed to death. 
 Oh, my God, he'll bleed to death!' 'Tie 'em up yourself,' I 
 said, 'if you're so anxious.' 'I can't touch him,' said Dennis, 
 'but here's my shirt.' He took off his shirt, and he fixed his 
 braces again over his bare shoulders. I ripped the shirt up 
 and bandaged the Dacoit quite professionally. He was grin- 
 ning at Dennis all the time ; and Dennis's haversack was 
 lying on the ground, bursting full of sandwiches. Greedy 
 hog! I took some and offered some to Dennis. 'How can 
 I eat?' he said. 'How can you ask me to eat? His very 
 blood is on your hands, oh, God! and you're eating my ■ 
 
 I 
 
f\ Qoi?ferepee of tl^e pou/ers 179 
 
 sandwiches!' *A11 right,' I said. *T'll give 'em to the 
 daku.'' So I did, and the little chap was quite pleased, and 
 wolfed 'em down like one o'clock." 
 
 Cleever brought his hand down on the table-cloth a 
 thump that made the empty glasses dance. "That's art," 
 he said. "Flat, flagrant mechanism. Don't tell me that 
 happened on the spot!" 
 
 The pupils of the Infant's eyes contracted to pin points. 
 "I beg your pardon," he said slowly and a httle stiffly, "but 
 I am telling this thing as it happened. ' ' 
 
 Cleever looked at him for a moment. ' ' My fault entirely, ' ' 
 said he. "I should have known. Please go on." 
 
 * ' Oh, then Hicksey came out of what was left of the vil- 
 lage with his prisoners and captives all neatly tied up. Boh 
 Na-ghee was first, and one of the villagers, as soon as he saw 
 the old ruffian helpless, began kicking him quietly. The 
 Boh stood it as long as he could, and then groaned, and we 
 saw what was going on. Hicksey tied the villager up and 
 gave him half a dozen good ones to remind him to leave a 
 prisoner alone. You should have seen the old Boh grin. 
 Oh, but Hicksey was in a furious rage with everybody. He'd 
 got a wipe over the elbow that had tickled up his funny-bone, 
 and he was simply rabid with me for not having helped him 
 with the Boh and the mosquito net. I had to explain that I 
 couldn't do anything. If you'd seen 'em both tangled up 
 together on the floor, like a blaspheming cocoon, you'd have 
 laughed for a week. Hicksey swore that the only decent 
 man of his acquaintance was the Boh, and all the way back 
 to camp Hicksey was talking to him, and the Boh was 
 grumbling about the soreness of his bones. When we got 
 home and had had a bath, the Boh wanted to know when he 
 was going to be hanged, Hicksey said he couldn't oblige 
 him on the spot, but had to send him to Rangoon. The Boh 
 went down on his knees and reeled off a catalogue of his 
 crimes —he ought to have been hanged seventeen times over 
 by his own confession — and implored Hicksey to settle the 
 business out of hand. 'If I'm sent to Rangoon,' said he^ 
 
180 U/orKs of P^udyard \{ip\lT)<^ 
 
 ^they'll keep me in jail all my life, and that is a death every 
 time the sun gets up or the wind blows.' But we had to 
 send him to Rangoon ; and, of course, he was let off down 
 there and given penal servitude for life. When I came to 
 Rangoon I went over the jail — I had helped to fill it, y'know 
 — and the old Boh was there and recognized me at once. He 
 begged for some opium first, and I tried to get him some; 
 but that was against the rules. Then he asked me to have 
 his sentence changed to death, because he was afraid of being 
 sent to the Andamans. I couldn't do that, either; but I 
 tried to cheer him, and told him how the row was going up 
 country. And the last thing he said was: *Give my compli- 
 ments to the fat white m.an who jumped on me. If I^d been 
 awake I'd have killed him.' I wrote that to Hicksey next 
 mail, and — and that's all. I'm 'fraid I've been gassing 
 awf'ly, sir." 
 
 Cleever said nothing for a long time. The Infant looked 
 uncomfortable. He feared that, misled by enthusiasm, he 
 had filled up the novelist's time with unprofitable recital of 
 trivial anecdotes. 
 
 Then said Cleever: *'I can't understand it. Why should 
 you have seen and done all these things before you have cut 
 your wisdom-teeth?" 
 
 *' Don't know," said the Infant, apologetically. ^'I 
 haven't seen much^ — only Burmese jungle." 
 
 *'And dead men and war and power and responsibility," 
 said Cleeverj under his breath. "You won't have any sen- 
 sations left at thirty if you go on as you have done. But 
 I want to hear more tales — ^more tales." He seemed to 
 forget that even subalterns might have engagements of 
 their own. 
 
 ** We're thinking of dining out somewhere, the lot of us, 
 and gouig on to the Empire afterward," said N"evin, with 
 hesitation. He did not Hke to ask Cleever to come too. The 
 invitation might be regarded as "cheek." And Cleever, 
 anxious not to wag a gray beard unbidden among boys at 
 large, said nothing on his side. 
 
P Qoi)ferei7ee of tY^e powers 181 
 
 Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurting out : ** Won't 
 you come too, sir?" 
 
 Cleever almost shouted **Yes," and while he was being 
 helped into his coat, continued to murmur ''Good heavens!" 
 at intervals, in a manner that the boys could not understand. 
 
 "I don't think I've been to the Empire in my life," said 
 he. ''But, good heavens I what is my Hfe, after all? Let 
 us go back." 
 
 So they went out with Eustace Cleever, and I sulked at 
 home because the boys had come to see me, but had gone 
 over to the better man, which was humiliating. They packed 
 him into a cab with utmost reverence, for was he not the 
 author of "As it was in the Beginning," and a person in 
 whose company it was an honor to go abroad? From all I 
 gathered later, he had taken no less interest in the perform- 
 ance before him than in the boys' conversation, and they 
 protested with emphasis that he was "as good a man as they 
 make, knew what a man was driving at almost before he 
 said it, and yet he's so dashed simple about things any man 
 knows." That was one of many comments made afterward. 
 
 At midnight they returned, announcing that they were 
 highly respectable gondoliers, and that oysters and stout 
 VA^ere what they chiefly needed. The eminent novelist was 
 still with them, and I think he was calling them by their 
 shorter names. I am certain that he said he had heen mov- 
 ing in worlds not realized, and that they had shown him the 
 Empire in a new light. Still sore at recent neglect, I an- 
 swered shortly: "Thank Heaven, we have within the land 
 ten thousand as good as they!" and when Cleever departed, 
 asked him what he thought of things generally. 
 
 He replied with another quotation, to the effect that 
 though singing was a remarkably fine performance, I was to 
 be quite sure that few lips would be moved to song if they 
 coulvl find a sufficiency of kissing. 
 
 Whereat I understood that Eustace Cleever, decorator and 
 color man in words, was blaspheming his own art, and that 
 he would be sorry for this in the morning. 
 
ON GREENHOW HILL 
 
 *^ Ohe aJimed din! Shafiz Ullah ahool Bahadur Khan, 
 where are you? Come out of the tents, as I have done, and 
 fight against the Enghsh. Don't kill your own kin! Come 
 out to me!" 
 
 The deserter from a native corps was crawling round the 
 outskirts of the camp, firing at intervals, and shouting invita- 
 tions to his old comrades. Misled by the rain and the dark- 
 ness, he came to the English wing of the camp, and with his 
 yelping and rifle practice disturbed the men. They had been 
 making roads all day, and were tired. 
 
 Ortheris was sleeping at Learoyd's feet. *'Wot's all 
 that?" he said, thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider bullet 
 ripped its way through the tent wall. The men swore. *'It*s 
 that bloomin' deserter from the Aurangabadis, " said Ortheris. 
 "Git up, some one, an' tell 'im 'e's come to the wrong shop." 
 
 '*Go to sleep, little man," said Mulvaney, who was 
 steaming nearest the door. "I can't rise an' expaytiat© 
 with him. 'Tis rainin' intrenchin' tools outside." 
 
 "'Tain't because you bloomin' can't. It's 'cause you 
 bloomin' won't, ye long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar you. 'Ark 
 to 'im 'owhn'!" 
 
 '*Wot's the good of argyfying? Put a bullet into the 
 swine? 'E's keepin' us awake!" said another voice. 
 
 A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry whined 
 from the darkness. 
 
 **'Tain't no good, sir. I can't see 'im. 'E's 'idin' some- 
 where down 'ill." 
 
 Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. ** Shall I try to get 
 'im, sir?" said he. 
 
 *'No," was the answer; *'lie down. I won't have the 
 whole camp shooting all round the clock. Tell him to go 
 and pot his friends." 
 
Oi> Qreei?l70uj pill 183 
 
 Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his 
 head under the tent wall, he called, as a 'bus conductor calls 
 in a block, ^"Igher up, there! 'Igher up!" 
 
 The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down 
 wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a mis- 
 take, went off to worry his own regiment half a mile away. 
 He was received with shots, for the Aurangabadis were very 
 angry with him for disgracing their colors. 
 
 "An' that's all right," said Ortheris, withdrawing his 
 head as he heard the hiccough of the Sniders in the distance. 
 *'S'elp me Gawd, tho', that man's not fit to live — messin' 
 with my beauty-sleep this way." 
 
 *'Go out and shoot him in the morning, then," said the 
 subaltern, incautiously. *' Silence in the tents now! Get 
 your rest, men." 
 
 Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in two 
 minutes there was no sound except the rain on the canvas 
 and the all-embracing and elemental snoring of Learoyd. 
 
 The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and for 
 a week had been waiting for a flying column to make con- 
 nection. The nightly rounds of the deserter and his friends 
 had become a nuisance. 
 
 In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sunshine 
 and cleaned their grimy accouterments. The native regi- 
 ment was to take its turn of road-making that day while the 
 Old Regiment loafed. 
 
 "I'm goin' to lay fer a shot at that man," said Ortheris, 
 when he had finished washing out his rifle. '^ 'E comes up 
 the water-course every evenin' about five o'clock. If we go 
 and lie out on the north 'ill a bit this afternoon we'll get 'im." 
 
 "You're a bloodthirsty httle mosquito," said Mulvaney, 
 blowing blue clouds into the air. "But I suppose I will have 
 to come wid you. Fwhere's Jock?" 
 
 "Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, 'cause 'e thinks 'isself 
 a bloomin' marksman," said Ortheris, with scorn. 
 
 The "Mixed Pickles" were a detachment of picked shots, 
 generally employed in clearing spurs of hiUs when the enemy 
 
184 U/orl^s of r^udyard l^ipliQ<$ , 
 
 were too impertinent. This taught the young officers how 
 to handle men, and did not do the enemy much harm. Mul- 
 vaney and Ortheris strolled out of camp, and passed the 
 Aurangabadis going to their road-making. 
 
 "You've got to sweat to-day," said Ortheris, genially. 
 "We're going to get your man. You didn't knock 'im out 
 last night by any chance, any of you?" 
 
 "No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one shot 
 at him," said a private. "He's my cousin, and J ought to 
 have cleared our dishonor. But good luck to you. ' ' 
 
 They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris leading, 
 because, as he explained, "this is a long-range show, an' 
 I've got to do it." His was an almost passionate devotion 
 to his rifle, whom, by barrack-room report, he was supposed 
 to kiss every night before turning in. Charges and scuffles 
 he held in contempt, and, when they were inevitable, slipped 
 between Mulvaney and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for 
 his skin as well as their own. They never failed him. He 
 trotted along, questing like a hound on a broken trail, through 
 the wood of the north hill. At last he was satisfied, and 
 threw himself down on the soft pine-needle slope that com- 
 manded a clear view of the water-course and a brown bare 
 hill-side beyond it. The trees made a scented darkness in 
 which an army corps could have hidden from the sun-glare 
 without. 
 
 "'Ere's the tail o' the wood," said Ortheris. "'E's got 
 to come up the water-course, 'cause it gives 'im cover. We'll 
 lay 'ere. 'Tain't not 'arf so bloomin' dusty neither." 
 
 He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white violets. 
 No one had come to tell the flowers that the season of their 
 strength was long past, and they had bloomed merrily in the 
 twilight of the pines. 
 
 "This is something like," he said, luxuriously. "Wot a 
 'evinly clear drop for a bullet acrost. How much d' you 
 miake it, Mulvaney?" 
 
 "Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekase the air's 
 so thin." 
 
Or) Qreei^l^ou; pill 185 
 
 Wop! wop! wop! went a volley of rausketry on the rear 
 face of the north hill. 
 
 "Curse them Mixed Pickles firin' at nothin'! They'll 
 scare 'arf the country." 
 
 *'Thry a sightin' shot in the middle of the row," said 
 Mulvaney, the man of many wiles. ** There's a red rock 
 yonder he'll be sure to pass. Quick !'^ 
 
 Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and fired. 
 The bullet threw up a feather of dust by a clump of gentians 
 at the base of the rock. 
 
 "Good enough!^' said Ortheris, snapping the scale down. 
 "You snick your sights to mine, or a little lower. You're 
 always firin' high. But remember, first shot to me. Oh, 
 Lordy! but it^s a lovely afternoon. " 
 
 The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a 
 tramping of men in the wood. The two lay very quiet, for 
 they knew that the British soldier is desperately prone to fire 
 at anything that moves or calls. Then .Learoyd appeared, 
 his tunic ripped across the breast by a bullet, looking ashamed 
 of himseK. He flung down on the pine-needles, breathing 
 in snorts. 
 
 "One o' them damned gardeners o' th' Pickles," said he, 
 fingering the rent. "Firin' to th' right flank, when ho 
 knowed I was there. If I knew who he was I'd 'a' rippen 
 the hide off 'un. Look at ma tunic!" 
 
 "That's the spishil trustability av a marksman. Train 
 him to hit a fly wid a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an' he'U. 
 loose on anythin' he sees or hears up to th' mile. You're 
 well out av that fancy-firin' gang, Jock. Stay here." 
 
 "Bin firin' at the bloomin' wind in the bloomin' treetops," 
 said Ortheris, with a chuckle. "I'll show you some firin' 
 later on," 
 
 They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun warmed 
 them where they lay. The Mixed Pickles ceased firing and 
 returned to camp, and left the wood to a few scared apes. 
 The water-course lifted up its voice in the silence and talked 
 foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the dull thump of a 
 
186 U/orKs of F^udyard \{ipliv)<^ 
 
 blastmg cliarge three miles away told that the Aurangabadis 
 were in difficulties with their road-rtiaking. The men smiled 
 as they listened, and lay still soaking in the warm leisure. 
 Presently Learoyd, between the whiffs of his pipe : 
 
 '"Seems queer — about 'im yonder — desertin' at all." 
 
 *' 'E'll be a bloomin' site queerer when IVe done with 
 'im," said Ortheris. They were talking in whispers, for the 
 stillness of the wood and the desire of slaughter lay heavy 
 upon them. 
 
 '*T make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin'; but, 
 my faith ! I make less doubt ivry man has good reason for 
 killin' him,'" said Mulvaney. 
 
 * ' Happen there was a lass tewed up wi' it. Men do more 
 than more for th' sake of a lass." 
 
 "They make most ay us 'list. They've no manner av 
 right to make us desert." 
 
 '*Ah. they make us 'list, or their fathers do," said Lea- 
 royd, softly, his helmet over his eyes. 
 
 Ortheris' brows contracted savagely. He was watching 
 the valley. "If it's a girl, I'll shoot the beggar twice over, 
 an' second time for bein' a fool. You're blasted sentimental 
 all of a sudden. Thinkin' o' your last near shave?" 
 
 "Xay, lad; ah was but t hinkin ' o' what had happened." 
 
 "An' fwhat has happened, ye lumberin' child av calam- 
 ity, that you're lowing like a cow-calf at the back av the 
 pasture, an' suggestin' invidious excuses for the man Stan- 
 ley's goin.' to kill. YeTl have to wait another hour yet, Kt- 
 tle man. Spit it out. Jock, an' bellow melojus to the moon. 
 It takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out 
 av you. Discourse, Don JtianI The a-moors of Lotharius 
 Learoyd. Stanley, kape a rowlin' rig 'mental eye on the 
 valley. ' ' 
 
 "It's along o' yon hill there," said Learoyd, watching 
 the bare sub- Himalayan spur that reminded him of his York- 
 shire moors. He was speaking more to himself than his fel- 
 lows. "Ay,'' said he: "Riunbolds Moor stands up ower 
 Skipton town, an' Greenhow Hill stands up ower Pately 
 
Ot) Oreepl^ou; jiill 187 
 
 Brigg. I reckon you've never heeard tell o' Greenhow Hill, 
 but yon bit o' bare stuff, if there was nobbut a white road 
 windin', is Hke ut, strangely like. Moors an' moors — moors 
 wi' never a tree for shelter, an' gray houses wi' flagstone 
 rooves, and pewits cryin', an' a windhover goin' to and fro 
 just like these kites. And cold ! a wind that cuts you hke a 
 knife. You could tell Greenhow Hill folk by the red-apple 
 color o' their cheeks an' nose tips, an' their blue eyes, driven 
 into pin-points by the wind. Miners mostly, burrowin' for 
 lead i' th' hillsides, followin' the trail of th' ore vein same 
 as a field-rat. It was the roughest minin' I ever seen. Yo'd 
 come on a bit o' creakin' wood windlass like a well-head, an' 
 you was let down i' th' bight of a rope, fendin' yoursen off 
 the side wi' one hand, carryin' a candle stuck in a lump o' 
 clay with t'other, an' clickin' hold of a rope with t'other 
 hand. ' ' 
 
 '*An' that's three of them," said Mulvaney. **Must be 
 a good chmate in those parts." 
 
 Learoyd took no heed. 
 
 *'An' then yo' came to a level, where you crept on your 
 hands an' knees through a mile o' windin' drift, an' you 
 come out into a cave-place as big as Leeds Town-hall, with 
 a engine pumpin' water from workin's 'at went deeper still. 
 It's a queer country, let alone minin', for the hill is full of 
 those natural caves, an' the rivers an' the becks drops into 
 what they call pot-holes, an' come out again miles away." 
 
 "Wot was you doin' there?" said Ortheris. 
 
 "I was a young chap then, an' mostly went wi' 'osses, 
 leadin' coal and lead ore; but at th' time I'm teUin' on I 
 was drivin' the wagon team i' the big sumph. I didn't be- 
 long to that country-side by rights; I went there because of 
 a little difference at home, an' at fust I took up wi' a rough 
 lot. One night we'd been drinkin', an' I must ha' hed 
 more than I could stand, or happen th' ale was none so good. 
 Though i' them days, by for God, I never seed bad ale." 
 He flung his arms over his head and gripped a vast handful 
 of white violets. "Nah," said he, "I never seed the ale I 
 
188 U/orKs of F^adyard \{\plii)(^ 
 
 could not drink, the 'bacca I could not smoke, nor the lass 
 I could not kiss. Well, we mun have a race home, the lot 
 on us. I lost all th' others, an' when I was climbin' ower 
 one of them walls built o' loose stones, I comes down into 
 the ditch, stones an' all, an' broke my arm. Not as I 
 knowed much about it, for I fell on th' back o' my head, 
 an' was knocked stupid like. An' when I come to mysen 
 it were mornin', an' I were lyin' on the settle i' Jesse Roan- 
 tree's house-place, an' 'Liza Roantree was settin' sewin'. I 
 ached all ower, and my mouth were like a lime-kiln. She 
 gave me a drink out of a china mug wi' gold letters — * A 
 Present from Leeds' — as I looked at many and many a time 
 after. 'Yo're to lie still while Dr. Warbottom comes, be- 
 cause your arm's broken, an' father has sent a lad to fetch 
 him. He found yo' when he was goin' to work, an' carried 
 you here on his back,' sez site. 'Oa!' sez I; an' I shet my 
 eyes, for I felt ashamed o' mysen. * Father's gone to his 
 work these three hours, an' he said he'd tell 'em to get some- 
 body to drive the train. ' The clock ticked an' a bee corned 
 in the house, an' they rung i' my head like mill-wheels. An' 
 she give me another drink an' settled the pillow. *Eh, but 
 yo're young to be getten drunk an' such like, but yo' won't 
 do it again, will yo?' *E"oa,' sez I, 'I wouldn't if she'd not 
 but stop they mill-wheels clatterin'.' " 
 
 ** Faith, it's a good thing to be nursed by a woman when 
 you're sick!'' said Mulvaney. *'Dirt cheap at the price av 
 twenty broken heads. " 
 
 Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had not 
 been nursed by many women in his life. 
 
 **An' then Dr. Warbottom comes ridin' up, an' Jesse 
 Roantree along with 'im. He was a high-larned doctor, 
 but he talked wi' poor folks same as theirsens. 'Wha-t's tha 
 bin agaate on naa?' he sings out. *Brekkin tha thick head?* 
 An' he felt me all over. 'That's none broken. Tha' nobbut 
 knocked a bit sillier than ordinary, an' that's daaft eneaf.' 
 An' soa he went on, callin' me all the names he could think 
 on, but settin^ my arm, wi' Jesse's help, as careful as could 
 
Ot) Qre8i>l?ou7 J4ill 189 
 
 be. *Yo' mun let the big oaf bide here a bit, Jesse,' he says, 
 when he had strapped me up an' given me a dose o' physic ; 
 *an' you an' 'Liza will tend him, though he's scarcehns 
 worth the trouble. An' tha'U lose tha work,' sez he, *an' 
 tha'U be upon th' Sick Club for a couple o' months an' more. 
 Doesn't tha thmk tha's a fool?' " 
 
 *'But whin was a young man, high or low, the other av 
 a fool, I'd Hke to know?" said Mulvaney. "Sure, folly's 
 the only safe way to wisdom, for I've thried it." 
 
 "Wisdom!" grinned Ortheris, scanning his comrades with 
 uplifted chin. "You're bloomin' Solomons, you two, ain't 
 you?" 
 
 Learoyd went calmly on, with a steady eye like an ox 
 chewing the cud. "And that was how I comed to know 
 'Liza Roantree. There's some tunes as she used to sing — 
 aw, she were always singin' — that fetches Greenhow Hill 
 before my eyes as fair as yon brow across there. And she 
 would learn me to sing bass, an' I was to go to th' chapel 
 wi' 'em, where Jesse and she led the singin', th' old man 
 playin' the fiddle. He was a strange chap, old Jesse, fair 
 mad wi' music, an' he made me promise to learn the big fid- 
 dle when my arm was better. It belonged to him, and it 
 stood up in a big case alongside o' th' eight-day clock, but 
 Willie Satterthwaite, as played it in the chapel, had getten 
 deaf as a door-post, and it vexed Jesse, as he had to rap him 
 . ower his head wi' th' fiddle-stick to make him give ower 
 sawin' at th' right time. 
 
 "But there was a black drop in it all, an' it was a man 
 in a black coat that brought it. When th' Primitive Method- 
 ist preacher came to Greenhow, he would always stop wi' 
 Jesse Roantree, an' he laid hold of me from th' beginning. 
 It seemed I wor a soul to be saved, an' he meaned to do it. 
 At th' same time I jealoused 'at he were keen o' savin' 'Liza 
 Roantree's soul as well, an' I could ha' killed him many a 
 time. An' this went on till one day I broke out, an' bor- 
 rowed th' brass for a drink from 'Liza. After fewer days 
 I come back, wi' my tail between my legs, just to see 'Liza 
 
190 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplir)^ 
 
 again. But Jesse were at liome, an' th.' preacher — th' Rev- 
 erend Amos Barraclough. 'Liza said naught, but a bit o' red 
 come into her face as were white of a regular thing. Says 
 Jesse, tryin' his best to be civil: *Nay, ladj it's Mke this. 
 You've getten to choose which way it's goin' to be. I'll ha' 
 nobody across ma doorsteps as goes a-drinMn', an' borrows 
 my lass's money to spend i' their drink. Ho'd tha tongue, 
 'Liza,' sez he, when she wanted to put in a word 'at I were 
 welcome to th' brass, an' she were none afraid that I wouldn't 
 pay it back. Then the reverend cuts in, seein' as Jesse were 
 losin' his temper, an' they fair beat me among them. Bufc 
 it were 'Liza, as looked an' said naught, as did more than 
 either o' their tongues, an' soa I concluded to get converted." 
 
 "Fwhat!" shotited Mulvaney. Then, checking himself, 
 he said, softly: *'Let be! Let be! Sure the Blessed Virgin 
 is the mother of all religion an' most women; an' there's a 
 dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let it stay 
 there. I'd ha' been converted myseK under the circum- 
 stances." 
 
 *^lTay, but," pursued Learoyd, with a blush, **I meaned 
 it." 
 
 Ortheris laughed as loudly as he dared, having regard to 
 his business at the time. 
 
 *'Ay, Ortheris, you may laugh, but you didn't know yon 
 preacher Barraclough— a little white-faced chap wi' a voice 
 as 'ud wile a bird off an a bush, and a way o' lay in' hold of 
 folks as made them think they'd never had a live man for 
 a friend before. You never saw him, an'— -an' — you never 
 seed 'Liza Roantree — never seed 'Liza Roantree. . . . Hap- 
 pen it was as much 'Liza as th' preacher and her father, but 
 anywaj^s they all meaned itj an' I was fair shamed o' mysen, 
 an' so become what they called a changed character.- And 
 when I think on, it's hard to believe as yon chap going to 
 prayer-meetin's, chapel, and class-meetin's were me. But I 
 never had naught to say for mysen, though there was a deal 
 o' shoutin', and old Sammy Strother, as were almost clemmed 
 to death and doubled up with the rheumatics, would sing out, 
 
Ot) Qreei>l?ou/ j^'iU 191 
 
 •Joyful! joyful!' and 'at it were better to go up to heaven in 
 a coal-basket than down to hell i' a coach an' six. And he 
 would put his poor old claw on my shoulder, sayin' : 'Doesn't 
 tha feel it, tha great lump? Doesn't tha feel it?' An' some- 
 times I thought I did, and then again I thought I didn't, an' 
 how was that?" 
 
 "The iverlastin' nature av mankind," said Mulvaney. 
 "An' furthermore, I misdoubt you were built for the Primi- 
 tive Methodians. They're a new corps anyways. I hold by 
 the Ould Church, for she's the mother of them all — ay, an' 
 the father, too. I like her bekase she's most remarkable regi- 
 mental in her fittings. I may die in Honolulu, Nova Zam- 
 bra, or Cape Cayenne, but wherever I die, me bein' fwhat I 
 am, an' a priest handy, I go under the same orders an' the 
 same words an' the same unction as tho' the pope himself 
 come down from the dome av St. Peter's to see me off. 
 There's neither high nor low, nor broad nor deep, nor be- 
 twixt nor between with her, an' that's what I like. But 
 mark you, she's no manner av Church for a wake man, be- 
 kase she takes the body and the soul av him, onless he has 
 his proper work to do. I remember when my father died, 
 that was three months comin' to his grave; begad he'd ha' 
 sold the sheebeen above our heads for ten minutes' quittance 
 of purgathory. An' he did all he could. That's why I say it 
 takes a strong man to deal with the Ould Church, an' for 
 .that reason you'll find so many women go there. An' that 
 same's a conundrum." 
 
 "Wot's the use o' worritin' 'bout these things?" said 
 Ortheris. "You're bound to find all out quicker nor you 
 want to, any'ow." He jerked the cartridge out of the 
 breech-lock into the palm of his hand. " 'Ere's my chap« 
 Iain," he said, and made the venomous black-headed bullet 
 bow like a marionette. " 'E's goin' to teach a man all about 
 which is which, an' wot's true, after all, before sundown. 
 But wot 'appened after that, Jock?" 
 
 "There was one thing they boggled at, and almost shut 
 th' gate i' my face for, and that were my dog Blast, th' only 
 
192 U/or^s of r^udyard l^iplip($ 
 
 one saved out o' a litter o' pups as was blowed up when a keg 
 o' minin' powder loosed off in th' storekeeper's hut. They 
 liked his name no better than his business, which was fightin' 
 every dog he corned across; a rare good dog, wi' spots o' 
 black and pink on his face, one ear gone, and lame o' one 
 side wi' being driven in a basket through an iron roof, a 
 matter of half a mile. 
 
 **They said I mun give him up 'cause he were worldly 
 and low; and would I let mysen be shut out of heaven for 
 the sake of a dog? *lTay,' says I, 'if th' door isn't wide 
 enough for th' pair on us, we'll stop outside, or we'll none be 
 parted. ' And th' preacher spoke up for Blast, as had a 
 likin' for him from th' first— -I reckon that was why I come 
 to like th' preacher— and wouldn't hear o' changin' his name 
 to Bless, as some o' them wanted. So th' pair on us became 
 reg'lar chapel members. But it's hard for a young chap o' 
 my build to cut tracks from the world, th' flesh, an' the devil 
 all av a heap. Yet I stuck to it for a long time, while th' 
 lads as used to stand about th' town»end an' lean ower th* 
 bridge, spittin' into th' beck o' a Sunday, would call after me, 
 *Sitha, Learoyd, when's tha bean to preach, 'cause we're 
 comin' to hear that.' 'Ho'd tha jaw! He hasn't gotten th' 
 white choaker on to morn,' another lad would say, and I had 
 to double my fists hard i' th' bottom of my Sunday coat, and 
 say to mysen, *If 'twere Monday and I warn't a member o' 
 the Primitive Methodists, I'd leather all th' lot of yond.' 
 That was th' hardest of all — to know that I could fight and 
 I mustn't fight." 
 
 Sympathetic grunts from Mulvaney. 
 
 **So what wi' singin', practicin', and class-meetin's, and 
 th' big fiddle, as he made me take between my knees, I 
 spent a deal o' time i' Jesse Roantree's house-place But 
 often as I was there, th' preacher fared to me to go oftener, 
 and both th' old an' th' young woman were pleased to have 
 him. He lived i' Pately Brigg, as were a goodish step off, 
 but he come. He come all the same. I liked him as well 
 or better as any man I'd ever seen i' one way, and yet I 
 
Ot) Qreeplpou; pill 193 
 
 hated him wi' all mj heart i' t'other, and we watched each 
 other Hke cat and mouse, but civil as you please, for I was 
 on my best behavior, and he was that fair and open that I 
 was bound to be fair with him. Rare and good company he 
 was, if I hadn't wanted to wring his chver little neck haK of 
 the time. Often and often when he was goin' from Jesse's 
 I'd set him a bit on the road." 
 
 "See 'im 'ome, you mean?" said Ortheris, 
 
 *' Ay. It's a way we have i' Yorkshire o' seein' friends 
 off. Yon was a friend as I didn't want to come back, and 
 he didn't want me to come back neither, and so we'd walk 
 together toward Pately, and then he'd set me back again, 
 and there we'd be twal two o'clock i' the mornin' settin' each 
 other to an' fro like a blasted pair o' pendulums 'twixt hill 
 and valley, long after th' hght had gone out i' 'Liza's win- 
 dow, as both on us had been looking at, pretending to watch 
 the moon." 
 
 "Ah!" broke in Mulvaney, "ye'd no chanst against the 
 maraudin' psalm-singer. They'll take the airs an* the graces, 
 instid av the man, nine times out av ten, an' they only find 
 the blunder later — the wimmen." 
 
 "That's just where yo're wrong," said Learoyd, reddening 
 under the freckled tan of his cheek. "I was th' first wi' 
 'Liza, an' yo'd think that were enough. But th' parson 
 were a steady-gaited sort o' chap, and Jesse were strong o' 
 his side, and all th' women i' the congregation dinned it to 
 'Liza 'at she were fair fond to take up wi' a wastrel ne'er-do- 
 weel like me, as was scarcelins respectable, and a fighting- 
 dog at his heels. It was all very weU for her to be doing me 
 good and saving my soul, but she must mind as she didn't 
 do herself harm. They talk o' rich folk bein' stuck up an' 
 genteel, but for cast-iron pride o' respectability there's naught 
 like poor chapel folk. It's as cold as th' wind o' Greenhow 
 Hill — ay, and colder, for 'twill never change. And now I 
 come to think on it, one of the strangest things I know is 'at 
 they couldn't abide th' thought o' soldiering. There's a vast 
 o' fightin' i' th' Bible, and there's a deal of Methodists i' th' 
 Vol. 3, 9 
 
194 U/orl^s of r^udyard l^iplii}^ 
 
 army ; but to hear cliapel folk talk yo'd think that soldierin' 
 were next door, an' t'other side, to hangin'. I' their meetin's 
 all their talk is o' fightin'. When Sammy Strother were 
 struk for summat to say in his prayers, he'd sing out : 'The 
 sword o' th' Lord and o' Gideon.' They were alius at it 
 about puttin' on th' whole armor o' righteousness, an' fightin' 
 the good fight o' faith. And then, atop o' 't all, they held a 
 prayer-meetin' ower a young chap as wanted to 'list, and 
 nearly deafened him, till he picked up his hat and fair ran 
 away. And they'd tell tales in th' Sunday-school o' bad 
 lads as had been thumped and brayed for bird-nesting o' 
 Sundays and playin' truant o' week-days, and how they took 
 to wrestlin', dog-fightin', rabbit-runnin', and drinkin', till at 
 last, as if 'twere a hepitaph on a grave-stone, they damned 
 him across th' moors wi' it, an' then he went and 'listed for 
 a soldier, an' they'd all fetch a deep breath, and throw up 
 their eyes like a hen drinkin'." 
 
 ''Fwhy is it?" said Mulvaney, bringing down his hand 
 on his thigh with a crack. '*In the name av God, fwhy is 
 it? I've seen it, tu. They cheat an' they swindle, an' they 
 lie an' they slander, an' fifty things fifty times worse; but 
 the last an' the worst, by their reckonin', is to serve the 
 Widdy honest. It's like the talk av childer — seein' things 
 all round." 
 
 "Plucky lot of fightin' good fights of whatsername they'd 
 do if we didn't see they had a quiet place to fight in. And 
 such fightin' as theirs is! Cats on the tiles. T'other callin' 
 to which to come on. I'd give a month's pay to get some o' 
 them broad-backed beggars in London sweatin' through a 
 day's road-makin' an' a night's rain. They'd carry on a 
 deal afterward — same as we're supposed to carry on. I've 
 bin turned out of a measly 'arf -license pub down Lambeth 
 way, full o' greasy kebm en, 'fore now," said Ortheris with 
 an oath. 
 
 "Maybe you were dhrunk," said Mulvaney, soothingly. 
 
 "Worse nor that. The Forders were drunk. I was 
 wearin' the queen's uniform." 
 
Oi> Qreepl^ou/ pill 195 
 
 "I'd not particular thought to be a soldier V them days," 
 said Learoyd, still keeping his eye on tne bare hill opposite, 
 *'but this sort o' talk put it i* my head. They was so good, 
 th' chapel folk, that they tumbled ower t'other side. But I 
 stuck to it for 'Liza's sake, specially as she was leainingme 
 to sing the bass part in a horotorio as Jesse were getting up. 
 She sung like a throstle hersen, and we had practicin's night 
 after night for a matter of three months. ^ ' 
 
 * ' I know what a horotorio is, ' ' said Ortheris, pertly. ' ' It's 
 a sort of chaplain's sing-song — words ah out of the Bible, 
 and hullabalooj ah choruses. '* 
 
 "Most Greenhow HiU folks played some instrument or 
 t'other, an' they all sung so you might have heard them 
 miles away, and they was so pleased wi* the noise they made 
 they didn't fair to want anybody to listen. The preacher 
 sung high seconds when he wasn't playin' the flute, an' they 
 set me, as hadn't got far with big fiddle, again WilHe Satter- 
 thwaite, to jog his elbow when he had to get a gate playin'. 
 Old Jesse was happy if ever a man was, for he were th' con- 
 ductor an' th' first fiddle an' th^ leadin' singer, beatin' time 
 wi' his fiddle-stick, till at times he'd rap with it on the table, 
 and cry outs 'Now, you mun all stop; it's my turn.' And 
 he'd face round to his front, fair sweatin' wi' pride, to sing 
 the tenor solos. But he were grandest i' th' chorus, waggin' 
 his head, flingin' his arms round like a windmill, and singin' 
 hisself black in the face. A rare singer were Jesse. 
 
 *' Yo' see, I was not o' much account wi' 'em all exceptin' 
 to Eliza Roantree, and I had a deal o' time settin' quiet at 
 meetin' and horotorio practices to hearken their talk, and if 
 it were strange to me at beginnin', it got stranger still at 
 after, when I was shut in, and could study what it meaned. 
 
 *'Just after th' horotorios come off, 'Liza, as had alius 
 been weakly like, was took very bad. I walked Doctor 
 "Warbottom's horse up and down a deal of times while he 
 Were inside, where they wouldn't let me go, though I fair 
 ached to see her. 
 
 ** * She'll be better i' noo, lad — better i' noo,' he used to 
 
196 
 
 Worlds of F^ndyard l^iplip^ 
 
 say. *Tha mun ha' patience.' Then they said if I was 
 quiet I might go in, and th' Reverend Amos Barraclough 
 used to read to her iyin' propped up among th' pillows. 
 Then she began to mend a bit, and they let me carry her on 
 th' settle, and when it got warm again she went about same 
 as afore. Th' preacher and me and Blast was a deal to- 
 gether i' them days, and i' one way we was rare good com- 
 rades. But I could ha' stretched him time and again with a 
 good- will. I mind one day he said he would like to go down 
 into th' bowels o' th' earth, and see how th' Lord had build ed 
 th' framework o' the everlastin' hills. He was one of them 
 chaps as had a gift o' sayin' things. They rolled off the tip 
 of his clever tongue, same as Mulvaney here, as would ha' 
 made a rale good preacher if he had nobbut given his mind 
 to it. I lent him a suit o' miner's kit as almost buried th' 
 httle man, and his white face, down i' th' coat collar and 
 hat flap, looked like the face of a boggart, and he cowered 
 down i' th' bottom o' the wagon. I was drivin' a tram as 
 led up a bit of an incline up to th' cave where the engine was 
 pumpin', and where th' ore was brought up and put into th' 
 wagons as went down o' themselves, me puttin' th' brake on 
 and th' horses a-trottin' after. Long as it was daylight we 
 were good friends, but when we got fair into th' dark, and 
 could nobbut see th' day shinin' at the hole like a lamp at a 
 street end, I feeled downright wicked. My religion dropped 
 all aWay from me when I looked back at him as were always 
 comin' between me and Eliza. The talk was 'at they were 
 to be wed when she got better, an' I couldn't get, her to say 
 yes or nay to it. He began to sing a hymn in his thin voice, 
 and I came out wi' a chorus that was all cussin' an' swearin' 
 at my horses, an' I began to know how I hated him. He 
 were such a little chap, too. I could drop him wi' one hand 
 down Garstang's copper-hole — a place where th' beck slithered 
 ower th' edge on a rock, and fell wi' a bit of a whisper into 
 a pit as no rope i' Greenhow could plump." 
 
 Again Learoyd rooted up the innocent violets. '*Ay, he 
 should see th' bowels o' th' earth an' never naught else. I 
 
Ot) Creepl^ou; pill 197 
 
 could take him a mile or two along th' drift, and leave him 
 wi' his candle doused to cry hallelujah, wi' none to hear him 
 and say amen. I was to lead him down th' ladder-way to 
 th' drift where Jesse Roantree was workin', and why 
 shouldn't he slip on th' ladder, wi' my feet on his fingers till 
 they loosed grip, and I put him down wi' my heel? If I 
 went fust down th' ladder I could click hold on him and 
 chuck him over my head, so as he should go squashin' down 
 the shaft, breakin' his bones at ev'ry timberin', as Bill 
 Appleton did when he was fresh, and hadn't a bone left when 
 he brought to th' bottom. Niver a blasted leg to walk from. 
 Pately. Mver an arm to put round 'Liza Roantree's waist. 
 Niver no more — niver no more." 
 
 The thick lips curled back over the yellow teeth, and that 
 flushed face was not pretty to look upon. Mulvaney nodded 
 sympathy, and Ortheris, moved hj his comrade's passion, 
 brought up the rifle to his shoulder, and searched the hill« 
 sides for his quarry, muttering ribaldry about a sparrow, a 
 spout, and a thunder-storm. The voice of the water-course 
 supplied the necessary small-talk till Learoyd picked up his 
 story. 
 
 ''But it's none so easy to kill a man like yon. When I'd 
 give up my horses to th' lad as took my place, and I was 
 showin 'th' preacher th' workin's, shoutin' into his ear across 
 th' clang o' th' pumpin' engines, I saw he was afraid o' 
 naught; and when the lamp-light showed his black eyes, I 
 could feel as he was masterin' me again. I were no better 
 nor Blast chained up short and growlin' i' the depths of him 
 while a strange dog went safe past. 
 
 " 'Th' art a coward and a fool,' I said to mysen; an' I 
 wrestled i' my mind again' him till, when we come to Gar» 
 stang's copper-hole, I laid hold o' the preacher and lifted him 
 up over my head and held him into the darkest on it. *Now, 
 lad,' I says, 'it's to be one or t'other on us — ^thee or me — for 
 'Liza Roantree. Why, isn't thee afraid for thysen?' I says, 
 for he were still i' my arms as a sack. 'ItTay; I'm but 
 afraid for thee, my poor lad, as knows naught, ' says he. I 
 
198 U/orKs of F^udyard \{ip\iT)<^ 
 
 set him down on th' edge, an* th' beck run stiller, an' tliere 
 was no more bnzzin' in my head like when th' bee come 
 through th' window o* Jesse's house. 'What does tha 
 mean?' says I. 
 
 '' 'I've often thought as thou ought to know,' says he, 
 'but 'twas hard to tell thee. 'Liza Roantree's for neither on 
 us, nor for nobody o' this earth. Doctor Warbottom says — 
 and he knows her, and her mother before her — that she is in 
 a decline, and she cannot hve six months longer. He's known 
 it for many a day. Steady, John! Steady!' says he. And 
 that weak Kttle man pulled me further back and set me 
 again' him, and talked it all over quiet and still, me turnin' 
 a bunch o' candles in my hand, and counting them ower and 
 ower again as I listened. A deal on it were th' regular 
 preachin' talk, but there were a vast lot as made me begin to 
 think as he were more of a man than I'd ever given him 
 credit for, till I were cut as deep for him as I were for mysen. 
 
 "Six candles we had, and we crawled and climbed all 
 that day while they lasted, and I said to mysen: ' 'Liza 
 Roantree hasn't six months to live. ' And when we came 
 into th' daylight again we were like dead men to look at, 
 an' Blast come behind us without so much as waggin' his 
 tail. "When I saw 'Liza again she looked at me a minute, 
 and says: 'Who's telled tha? For I see tha knows.' And 
 she tried to smile as she kissed me, and I fair broke down. 
 
 "You see, I was a young chap i' them days, and had 
 seen naught o' Hfe, let alone death, as is alius a-waitin'. 
 She telled me as Dr. "Warbottom said as Greenhow air was 
 too keen, and they were goin' to Bradford, to Jesse's brother 
 David, as worked i' a mill, and I mun hold up like a man 
 and a Christian, and she'd pray for me well; and they went 
 away, and the preacher that same back end o' th' year were 
 appointed to another circuit, as they call it, and I were left 
 alone on Greenhow Hill. 
 
 "I tried, and I tried hard, to stick to th' chapel, but 
 'tweren't th' same thing at all after. I hadn't 'Liza's voice 
 to follow i' th' singin', nor her eyes a-shinin' acrost their 
 
Oi) QreeT)\)o\jj flill 199 
 
 heads. And i' th' class-meetings they said as I mun have 
 some experiences to tell, and I hadn't a word to say for 
 mysen. 
 
 "Blast and me moped a good deal, and happen we didn't 
 behave ourselves over well, for they dropped us, and won- 
 dered however they'd come to take us up. I can't tell how 
 we got through th' time, while i' th' winter I gave up my 
 job and went to Bradford. Old Jesse were at th' door o' th' 
 house, in a long street o' little houses. He'd been sendin' 
 th' children 'way as were clatterin' their clogs in th' cause- 
 way, for she were asleep. 
 
 *' 'Is it thee?' he says; *but you're not to see her. I'll 
 non« have her wakened for a nowt like thee. She's goin' 
 fast, and she mun go in peace. Thou'lt never be good for 
 naught i' th' world, and as long as thou lives thou'U never 
 play the big fiddle. Get away, lad, get away I' So he shut 
 the door softly i' my face. 
 
 *' Nobody never made Jesse my master, but it seemed to 
 me he was about right, and I went away into the town and 
 knocked up against a recruiting sergeant. The old tales o' 
 th' chapel folk came buzzin' into my head. I was to get 
 away, and this were th' regular road for the likes o' me. I 
 'listed there and then, took th' Widow's shillin', and had a 
 bunch o' ribbons pinned i' my hat. 
 
 "But next day I found my way to David Roantree's door, 
 and Jesse came to open it. Says he: 'Thou's come back 
 again wi' th' devil's colors fljdn' — thy true colors, as I 
 always telled thee.' 
 
 *'But I begged and prayed of him to let me see her, 
 nobbut to say good-by, till a woman calls down th' stairway 
 — she says, 'John Learoyd's to come up.' Th' old man shift 
 aside in a flash, and lays his hand on my arm, quite gentle 
 like. 'But thou'lt be quiet, John,' says he, 'for she's rare 
 and weak. Thou wast alius a good lad. ' 
 
 "Her eyes were ahve wi' light, and her hair was thick 
 on the pillow round her, but her cheeks were thin — thin to 
 frighten a man that's strong. 'Nay, father, yo' mayn't say 
 
^00 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplir}($ 
 
 I 
 
 th' devil's colors. Them ribbons is pretty. ' An' she held 
 out her hands for th' hat, an' she put all straight as a 
 woman will wi' ribbons. 'ISfay, but what they're pretty,' 
 she says. 'Eh, but I'd ha' liked to see thee i' thy red coat, 
 John, for thou wast alius my own lad— my very own lad, 
 and none else.' 
 
 **She lifted up her arms, and they came round my neck 
 i' a gentle grip, and they slacked away, and she seemed 
 fainting. *!N"ow yo' mun get away, lad,' says Jesse, and I 
 picked up my hat and I came downstairs. 
 
 *^Th' recruiting sergeant were waitin' for me at th' cor- 
 ner pubhc-house. *Yo've seen your sweetheart?' says he. 
 *Yes, I've seen her,' says I. 'WeU, we'll have a quart now, 
 and you'll do your best to forget her,' says he, beia' one o' 
 them smart, bustlin' chaps. 'Ay, sergeant,* says I. * For- 
 get her.' And I've been forgettin' her ever since." 
 
 He threw away the wilted clump of white violets as he 
 spoke, Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle at his 
 shoulder, and peered across the valley in the clear afternoon 
 light. His chin cuddled the stock, and there was a twitch- 
 ing of the muscles of the right cheek as he sighted. Private 
 Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his business. A speck of 
 white crawled up the water-course. 
 
 *'See that beggar? Got 'im." 
 
 Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred down 
 the hillside, the deserter of the Aurangabadis pitched for- 
 ward, rolled down a red rock, and lay very still, with his 
 face in a clump of blue gentians, while a big raven flapped 
 out of the pine wood to make investigation. 
 
 "That's a clean shot, little man," said Mulvaney. 
 
 Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away. 
 
 "Happen there was a lass tewed up wi' him, too," said 
 he. Ortheris did not reply. He was stariag across the val* 
 ley, with the smile of the artist who looks on the completed 
 work. For he saw that it was good. 
 
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 
 
 I 
 
 "But if it be a girl?" 
 
 ' ' liord of my life, it cannot be ! I have prayed for so 
 many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badl's shrine so often, 
 that I know God will give us a son — a man-child that shall 
 grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. My mother 
 shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the mullah 
 of the Pattan Mosque shall cast his nativity — God send he 
 be born in an auspicious hour ! — and then, and then thou wilt 
 never weary of me, thy slave." 
 
 ''Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?" 
 
 *' Since the beginning — till this mercy came to me. How 
 could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had been 
 bought with silver?" 
 
 "Kay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother." 
 
 "And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long Hke 
 a hen. What talk is yours of dowry? I was bought as 
 though I had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a 
 child." 
 
 "Art thou sorry for the sale?" 
 
 "I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt 
 never cease to love me now? Answer, my king." 
 
 "Never — never. No." 
 
 "Not even though the mem-log — the white women of thy 
 own blood — love thee? And remember, I have watched them 
 driving in the evening; they are very fair." 
 
 "I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred, I have seen 
 the moon, and — then I saw no more fire-balloons. ' ' 
 
 Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. "Very good 
 talk," she said. Then, with an assumption of great stateli- 
 ness: "It is enough. Thou hast my permission to depart—* 
 if thou wilt." 
 
 (301) 
 
202 U/orks of E^adyard li{lpliT)(l^ 
 
 The man did not moYe. He was sitting on a low red- 
 lackered couch in a room furnished only with a blue-and- 
 white floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very complete collection 
 of native cushions. At his feet sat a woman of sixteen, and 
 she was all but all the world in his eyes. By every rule and 
 law she should have been otherwise, for he was an English- 
 man and she a Mussulman's daughter, bought two years 
 before from her mother, who, being left without money, 
 would have sold Ameera, shriekingj to the Prince of Dark- 
 ness, if the price had been sufficient. 
 
 It was a contract entered into with a light hearts But 
 even before the girl had reached her bloom she came to fill 
 the greater portion of John Holden's life. For her and the 
 withered hag her mother he had taken a little house over- 
 looking the great red- walled city, and found, when the mari- 
 golds had sprung up by the well in the courtyard, and 
 Ameera had established herself according to her own ideas 
 of comfort, and her mother had ceased grumbling at the 
 inadequacy of the cooking-=places, the distance from the daily 
 market, and matters of housekeeping in general, that the 
 house was to him his home. Any one could enter his bach- 
 elor's bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led 
 there was an unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet 
 only could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the women's 
 rooms; and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind 
 him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera for 
 queen. And there was going to be added to this kingdom 
 a third person, whose arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. 
 It interfered with his perfect happiness. It disarranged the 
 orderly peace of the house that was his own. But Ameera 
 was wild with delight at the thought of it, and her mother 
 not less so. The love of a man, and particularly a white 
 man, was at the best an inconstant affair, but it might, both 
 women argued, be held fast by a baby's hands. '^And 
 then," Ameera would alwa^^s say — "then he will never care 
 for the white mem-log. I hate them all — I hate them all!" 
 
 "He will go back to his own people in time," said the 
 
U/itl^oiit Benefit of <?ler($y 203 
 
 mother, "but, by the blessing of God, that time is yet afar 
 off." 
 
 Holden sat silent on the couch, thinking of the future, 
 and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a 
 double life are manifold. The government, with singular 
 care, had ordered him out of the station for a fortnight on 
 special duty, in the place of a man who was watching by the 
 bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the trans- 
 fer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought 
 to think himself lucky in being a bachelor and a freeman. 
 He came to break the news to Ameera. 
 
 *^It is not good," she said, slowly, "but it is not all bad. 
 There is my mother here, and no harm will come to me — • 
 unless, indeed, I die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work, and 
 think no troublesome thoughts. When the days are done, I 
 believe . . . nay, I am sure. And — and then I shall lay 
 him in thy arms, and thou wilt love me forever. The train 
 goes to-night — at midnight, is it not? Go now, and do not 
 let thy heart be heavy by cause of me. But thou wilt not 
 delay in returning ! Thou wilt not stay on the road to talk 
 to the bold white mem-log! Come back to me swiftly, my 
 life!" 
 
 As he left the courtyard to reach his horse, that was 
 tethered to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired 
 old watchman who guarded the house, and bid him under 
 certain contingencies dispatch the fiUed-up telegraph form 
 that Holden gave him. It was all that could be done, and, 
 with the sensations of a man who has attended his own 
 funeral, Holden went away by the night mail to his exile. 
 Every hour of the day he dreaded the arrival of the tele- 
 gram, and every hour of the night he pictured to himself the 
 death of Ameera. In consequence, his work for the state 
 was not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper toward his 
 colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended without 
 a sign from his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, 
 Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious hours 
 by a dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a man hears in 
 
204 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^ipIiQ<J 
 
 a swoon, voices telling him how execrahly he had performed 
 the other man's duties, and how he had endeared himself to 
 all his associates. Then he fled on horseback through the 
 night with his heart in his mouth. There was no answer at 
 first to his blows on the gate, and he had just wheeled his 
 horse round to kick it in, when Pir Khan appeared with a 
 lantern and held his stirrup. 
 
 **Has aught occurred?" said Holden. 
 
 *'The news does not come from my mouth,' Protector of 
 the Poor, but — " He held out his shaking hand, as befitted 
 the bearer of good news who is entitled to a reward. 
 
 Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned 
 in the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway, and 
 he heard a pin-pointed wail that sent all the blood into the 
 apple of his throat. It was a new Yoice, but it did not prove 
 that Ameera was alive. 
 
 '* Who is there?^' he called up the narrow brick staircase. 
 
 There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the 
 voice of her mother, tremulous with old age and pride: "We 
 be two women, and—the — man — ^thy son." 
 
 On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a naked 
 dagger that was laid there to avert ill-luck^ and it broke at 
 the hilt under his impatient heel. 
 
 ^'God is great!" cooed Ameera in the half-light. *'Thou 
 hast taken his misfortunes on thy head." 
 
 "Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old woman, 
 how is it with her?" 
 
 "She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is 
 bom. There is no harm; but speak softly," said the mother. 
 
 "It only needed thy presence to make me all well," said 
 Ameera. "My king, thou hast been very long away. What 
 gifts hast thou for me? Ah I ah I It is I that bring gifts 
 this time. Look, my fife, look! Was there ever such a 
 babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear my arm from 
 him." 
 
 "Rest, then, and do not talk. I am here, hachheri^ 
 (little woman). 
 
U/itl^out Bepefit of ^ler^y 205 
 
 *' Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope Ypeecharee] 
 between us now that nothing can break. Look — canst thou 
 see in this light? He is without spot or blemish, ISTever was 
 such a man-child. Ya illah! he shall be a pundit— no, a 
 trooper of the queen. And, my life, dost thou love me as 
 well as ever, though I am faint and sick and worn? Answer 
 truly." 
 
 *'Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my souL JJb 
 still, pearl, and rest." 
 
 *' Then do not go. Sit by my side here— so. Mother,. the 
 lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it." There was 
 an almost imperceptible movement on the part of the new 
 life that lay in the hollow of Ameera's arm. '"Aho!" she 
 said, her voice breaking with love. '*The babe is a champion 
 from his birth. He is kicking me in the side with mighty 
 kicks. Was there ever such a babe? And he is ours to us— 
 thine and mine. Put thy hand on his head, but carefuUyj 
 for he is very young, and men are unskilled in such matters." 
 
 Y'ziVj cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers 
 the downy head. 
 
 *'He is of the Faith," said Ameera; '*for, lying here in 
 the night-watches, I whispered the Gall to Prayer and the 
 Profession of Faith into his ears. And it is most marvelous 
 that he was born upon a Friday, as I was born. Be careful 
 of him, my life; but he can almost grip with his hands." 
 
 Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feeblj 
 on his finger. And the clutch ran through his limbs till it 
 settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had heen 
 for Ameera. He began to realize that there was some one 
 else in the world, but he could not feel that it was a veritable 
 son with a souL He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed 
 lightly. 
 
 "Get hence, sahib," said her mother, under her breath. 
 "It is not good that she should find you here on waking. 
 She must be still." 
 
 "I go," said Holden, submissively. "Here be rupees. 
 See that my haha gets fat and finds all that he needs." 
 
206 U/orl^s of F^udyard K^plii)^ 
 
 The cMnk of the silver roused Ameera. **I am his 
 mother, and no hirehng," she said, weakly. "Shall I look 
 to him more or less for the sake of money? Mother, give it 
 back. I have borne my lord a son. ' ' 
 
 The deep sleep of weakness came upon her ahnost before 
 the sentence was completed. Holden went down to the 
 courtyard very softly, with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, 
 the old watchman, was chuckling with delight. 
 
 '*This house is now complete," he said, and without 
 further comment thrust into Holden's hands the hilt of a 
 saber worn many years ago, when Pir Khan served the queen 
 in the'pohce. The bleat of a tethered goat came from the 
 well-curb. 
 
 "There be two," said Pir Khan — "two goats of the best. 
 I bought them, and they cost much money ; and since there 
 is no birth-party assembled, their flesh will be all mine. 
 Strike craftily, sahib. 'Tis an ill-balanced saber at the best. 
 Wait till they raise their heads from cropping the marigolds. " 
 
 "And why?" said Holden, bewildered. 
 
 "For the birth sacrifice. "What else? Otherwise the 
 child, being unguarded from fate, may die. The Protector 
 of the Poor knows the fitting words to be said." 
 
 Holden had learned them once, with little thought that 
 he would ever say them in earnest. The touch of the cold 
 saber-hilt in his palm turned suddenly to the clinging grip of 
 the child upstairs — the child that was his own son— and a 
 dread of loss filled him. 
 
 "Strike!" said Pir Khan. "!N"ever life came into the 
 world but life was paid for it. See, the goats have raised 
 their heads. IsTow ! With a drawing cut ! ' ' 
 
 Hardly knowing what he did, Holden cut twice as he 
 muttered the Mohammedan prayer that runs: "Almighty! 
 In place of this my son I offer life for life, blood for blood, 
 head for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin." 
 The waiting horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at the 
 smell of the raw blood that spurted over Holden's riding- 
 boots. 
 
U/itl?oat Benefit of <?Ier<$y 207 
 
 "Well smitten!" said Pir Khan, wiping the saber. **A 
 swordsman was lost in thee. Go with a light heart, heaven 
 born. I am thy servant and the servant of thy son. May 
 the Presence live a thousand years, and . . . the flesh of the 
 goats is all mine?" 
 
 Pir Khan drew back richer by a month's pay. Holden 
 swung himself into the saddle and rode off through the low- 
 hanging wood smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous 
 exultation, alternating with a vast vague tenderness directed 
 toward no particular object, that made him choke as he bent 
 over the neck of his uneasy horse. "I never felt like this in 
 my life," he thought. "I'll go to the club and pull myself 
 together. ' ' 
 
 A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full 
 of men. Holden entered, eager to get to the light and the 
 company of his fellows, singing at the top of his voice : 
 
 ** 'In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet.' '^ 
 
 *'Did you?" said the club secretary from his corner. 
 "Did she happen to tell you that your boots were wringing 
 wet. Great goodness, man, it's blood!" 
 
 "Bosh!" said Holden, picking his cue from the rack. 
 "May I cut in? It's dew. I've been riding through high 
 crops. My faith ! my boots are in a mess, though ! 
 
 " 'And if it be a girl, she shall wear a wedding-ring; 
 And if it be a boy, he shall fight for his king ; 
 With his dirk and his cap, and his little jacket blue, 
 He shall walk the quarter-deck — ' " 
 
 "Yellow and blue — green next player," said the marker, 
 m.onotonously. 
 
 " 'He shall walk the quarter-deck'^ — am I green, marker? 
 -—'he shall walk the quarter-deck'— ouch! that's a bad shot! 
 —'as his daddy used to do!' " 
 
 "I don't see that you have anything to crow about," said 
 a zealous junior civiHan, acidly. "The government is not 
 exactly pleased with your work when you relieved Sanders." 
 
208 U/or^s of I^udyard l^iplip*^ 
 
 *'Does that mean a wigging from headquarters?" said 
 Holden, with an abstracted smile. ''I think I can stand it." 
 
 The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each 
 man's work, and steadied Holden till it was time to go to his 
 dark, empty bungalow, where his butler received him as one 
 who knew all his affairs. Holden remained awake for the 
 greater part of the night, and his dreams were pleasant ones. 
 
 II 
 
 "How old is he now?" 
 
 ''Fa illah! What a man's question! He is all but six 
 weeks old ; and on this night I go up to the house-top with 
 thee, my life, to count the stars. For that is auspicious. And 
 he was born on a Friday, under the sign of the Sun, and it 
 has been told to me that he will outlive us both and get 
 wealth. Can we wish for aught better, beloved?" 
 
 *' There is nothing better. Let us go up to the roof, and 
 thou shalt count the stars — but a few only, for the sky is 
 heavy with cloud." 
 
 "The winter rains are late, and maybe they come out of 
 season. Come, before all the stars are hid. I have put on 
 my richest jewels." 
 
 "Thou hast forgotten the best of all." 
 
 "Ai! Ours. He comes also. He has never yet seen 
 the skies." 
 
 Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that led to the flat 
 roof. The child, placid and unwinking, lay in the hollow of 
 her right arm, gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin, with a small 
 skull-cap on his head. Ameera wore all that she valued 
 most. The diamond nose-stud that takes the place of the 
 Western patch in drawing attention to the curve of the nos- 
 tril, the gold ornament in the center of the forehead studded 
 with tallow-drop emeralds and flawed rubies, the heavy 
 circlet of beaten gold that was fastened round her neck by 
 the softness of the pure metal, and the chinking curb-pat- 
 
U/itI?oufc Bei^efifc of ^ler^Jy 209 
 
 terned silver anklets hanging low over the rosy ankle-bone. 
 She was dressed in jade-green musHn, as befitted a daughter 
 of the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow to ' rrist 
 ran bracelets of silver tied with floss silk, frail glass bangles 
 slipped over the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand, 
 and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her 
 country's ornaments, but since they were Holden's gift, and 
 fastened with a cunning European snap, delighted her 
 immensely. 
 
 They sat down by the low white parapet of tho roofj 
 overlooking the city and its hghts. 
 
 *'They are happy down there," said Ameera. *^But I do 
 not think that they are as happy as we. Kor do I think 
 the white mem-log are as happy. And thou?'^ 
 
 **I know they are not." 
 
 *'How dost thou know?" 
 
 **They give their children over to the nurses." 
 
 **I have never seen that," said Ameera, with a sigh; 
 **nor do I wish to see. Ahi!" — she dropped her head on 
 Holden's shoulder— "I have counted forty starSj and I am 
 tired. Look at the chUd, love of my life. He is counting, 
 too." 
 
 The baby was staring with round eyes at tho dark of the 
 heavens. Ameera placed him in Holden's arms, and he lay 
 there without a cry. 
 
 *'What shall we caU him among ourselves?" she said. 
 **Look! Art thou ever tired of looking? He carries thy 
 very eyes! But the mouth-—" 
 
 "Is thine, most dear. Who should know better than I?" 
 
 *"Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! And yet it 
 holds my heart between its Hps. Give him to me now. He 
 has been too long away." 
 
 "Nay, let him lie; he has not yet begun to cry." 
 
 "When he cries thou wilt give him back, eh? What a 
 man of mankind thou art ! If he cried, he were only the 
 dearer to me. But, my life, what little name shall we give 
 him?" 
 
310 U/orl^s of I^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 The small body lay close to Holden's heart. It was ut- 
 terly helpless and very soft. He scarcely dared to breathe 
 for fear of crushing it. The caged green parrot, that is re- 
 garded as a sort of guardian spirit in most native households, 
 moved on its perch and fluttered a drowsy wing, 
 
 '^ There is the answer," said Holden. ''Mian Mittu has 
 spoken. He shall be the parrot. When he is ready he will 
 talk mightily, and run about. Mian Mittu is the parrot in 
 thy — in the Mussulman tongue, is it not?" 
 
 "Why put me so far off?" said Ameera, fretfully. "Let 
 it be like unto some English name — but not wholly. For he 
 is mine. ' ' 
 
 "Then call him Tota, for that is likest English." 
 
 "Ay, Tota; and that is still the parrot. Forgive me, my 
 lord, for a minute ago ; but, in truth, he is too little to wear 
 all the weight of Mian Mittu for name. He shall be Tota — 
 our Tota to us. Hearest thou, oh, small one? Littlest, thou 
 art Tota." 
 
 She touched the child's cheek, and, he waking, wailed, 
 and it was necessary to return him to his mother, who soothed 
 him with the wonderful rhyme of "^re koko^ Ja re kokoP^ 
 which says: 
 
 "Oh, crow! Go crow! Baby's sleeping sound. 
 And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a 
 
 pound — 
 Only a penny a pound, Baha — only a penny a pound." 
 
 Reassured many times as to the price of those plums, Tota 
 cuddled himself down to sleep. The two sleek white well- 
 bullocks in the courtyard were steadily chewing the cud of 
 their evening meal; old Pir Khan squatted at the head of 
 Holden's horse, his police saber across his knees, pulling 
 drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked like a bull-frog in 
 a pond. Ameera's mother sat spinning in the lower veranda, 
 and the wooden gate was shut and barred. The music of a 
 marriage procession came to the roof above the gentle hum 
 of the city, and a string of flying-foxes crossed the face of 
 the low moon. 
 
U/it}?oiJt B3i>efit of <?ler<5y 211 
 
 -*I have prayed," said Ameera, after a long pause, with 
 her chin in her hand— "I have prayed for two things. First, 
 that I may die in thy stead; if thy death, is demanded; and 
 iin the second, that I may die in the place of the child. I 
 have prayed to the Prophet and to Beebee Miriam.* Think- 
 est thou either will hear?" 
 
 "From thy lips who would not hear the lightest word?" 
 
 *'I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me sweet 
 talk. Will my prayers be heard?" 
 
 ''How can I say? God is very good." 
 
 "Of that I am not sure. Listen now. "When I die or the 
 child dies, what is thy fate? Living, thou wilt return to the 
 bold white mem-log^ for kind calls to kind." 
 
 "Not always." 
 
 "With a woman, no. With a man it is otherwise. Thou 
 wilt in this life, later on, go back to thine own folk. That 
 I could almost endure, for I should be dead. But in thy 
 very death thou wilt be taken away to a strange place and a 
 paradise that I do not know." 
 
 " Will it be paradise?" 
 
 "Surely; for what God would harm thee? But we two 
 -^I and the child — shall be elsewhere, and we cannot come 
 to thee, nor canst thou come to us. In the old days, before 
 the child was born, I did not think of these things ; but now 
 I think of them perpetually. It is very hard talk." 
 . "It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we do not know, 
 but to-day and love we know well. Surely we are happy 
 now." 
 
 "So happy that it were well to make our happiness as- 
 sured. And thy Beebee Miriam should listen to me ; for she 
 is also a woman. But then she would envy me — It is not 
 seemly for men to worship a woman." 
 
 Holden laughed aloud at Ameera 's little spasm of jealousy. 
 
 "Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not turn me from 
 worship of thee, then?" 
 
 *The Virgin Mary. 
 
idl '^ U/orl^s of P^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 1 
 
 "Thou a worshiper! And of me! My king, for all thy 
 sweet words, well I know that I am thy servant and thy 
 slave, and the dust under thy feet. And I would not have 
 it otherwise. See ! ' ' 
 
 Before Holden could prevent her she stooped forward and 
 touched his feet ; recovering herself with a little laugh, she 
 hugged Tota closer to her bosom. Then, almost savagely: 
 
 "Is it true that the bold white mem-log live for three 
 times the length of my life? Is it true that they make their 
 maxriages not before they are old women?'* 
 
 *'They marry as do others— when they are women.** 
 
 *'That I know, but they wed when they are twenty-five. 
 Is that true?" 
 
 "That is true." . 
 
 ^^Ya illah! At twenty-five! Who would of his own 
 win take a wife even of eighteen? She is a woman — ^aging 
 every hour. Twenty-five! I shall be an old woman at that 
 age, and— Those mem-log remain young forever* How I 
 hate them!" 
 
 ""What have they to do with us?" 
 
 "I cannot tell. I know only that there may now be alive 
 on this earth a woman ten years older than I who may come 
 to thee and take thy love ten years after I am an old woman, 
 gray-headed, and the nui^e of Tota's son. That is unjust 
 and evil. They should die too." 
 
 "IjTow, for all thy years thou art a child, and shalt be 
 picked up and carried down the staircase." 
 
 "Tota! Have a care for Tota, mj lord? Thou, at least, 
 art as foolish as any babe!" Ameera tucked Tota out ofi 
 harm's way in the hollow in her neck, and was carric 
 downstairs, laughing, in Holden's arms, while lota opene( 
 his eyes and smiled, after the manner of the lesser angels. 
 
 He was a silent infant, and almost before Holden coul( 
 realize that he was in the world, developed into a small gold4 
 colorec. godling and unquestioned despot of the house over-' 
 looking the city. Those were months of absolute happiness^ 
 to Holden and Ameera — happiness withdrawn from the- 
 
 m 
 
U/itlpout Benefit of Qler($y 213 
 
 world, shut in behind the wooden gate that Pir Khan 
 guarded. By day Holden did his work, with an immense 
 pity for such as were not so fortunate as himself, and a 
 sympathy for small children that amazed and amused many 
 mothers at the little station gatherings. At nightfall he 
 returned to Ameera — Ameera full of the wondrous doings, 
 of Tota : how he had been seen to clap his hands together 
 i and move his fingers with intention and purpose, which was 
 manifestly a miracle ; how, later, he had of his own initiative 
 crawled out of his low bedstead on to the floor, and swayed 
 on both feet for the space of three breaths, "And they were 
 long breaths, for my heart stood still with delight, ' ' said 
 Ameera, 
 
 Then he took the beasts into his councils — the weU-bul- 
 ! locks, the little gray squirrels, the mongoose that lived in 
 ; a hole near the well, and especially Mian Mittu, the parrot, 
 [ whose tail he grievously pulled, and Mian Mittu screamed 
 ; till Ameera and Holden arrived. 
 
 ' ' Oh, villain ! Child of strength ! This to thy brother 
 ' on the house-top ! Tobah, tohah! Me ! fie ! But I know a 
 \ charm to make him wise as Suleiman and Aflatoun. * Now 
 ?Iook," said Ameera. She drew from an embroidered bag a 
 handful of almonds. "See! we count seven. In the name 
 of God!" She placed Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, 
 on the top of his cage, and, seating herself between the babe 
 and the bird, cracked and peeled an almond less white than 
 her teeth. "This is a true charm, my life ; and do not laugh. 
 See! I give the parrot one half and Tota the other." Mian 
 Mittu, with careful beak, took his share from between 
 Ameera's lips, and she kissed the other half into the mouth 
 of the child, who eat it slowly, with wondering eyes. "This 
 I will do each day of seven, and without doubt he who is 
 ours will be a bold speaker and wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt 
 thou be when thou art a man and I am gray-headed?" Tota 
 tucked his fat legs into adorable creases. He could crawL 
 
 * Solomon and Plato. 
 
^■14 U^orks of r^udyard l^iplip<$ 
 
 but lie was not going to waste the spring of his youth in idle 
 speech. He wanted Mian Mittu's tail to tweak. 
 
 When he was advanced to the dignity of a silver belt— 
 which, with a magic square engraved on silver and hung 
 round his neck, made up the greater part of his clothing — he 
 staggered on a perilous journey down the garden to Pir Khan 
 and proffered him all his jewels in exchange for one little 
 ride on Holden's horse. He had seen his mother's mother 
 chaffering with peddlers in the veranda. Pir Khan wept, set 
 the untried feet on his own gray head in sign of fealty, and 
 brought the bold adventurer to his mother's arms, vowing 
 that Tota would be a leader of men ere his beard was grown. 
 
 One hot evening, while he sat on the roof between his 
 father and mother, watching the never-ending warfare of 
 the kites that the city boys flew, he demanded a kite of his 
 own, with Pir Khan to ily it, because he had a fear of deal- 
 ing with anything larger than himself; and when Hoi den 
 called him a ''spark," he rose to his feet and answered 
 slowly, in defense of his new-found individuahty : ^^Hiim 
 ^park nahin hai. Hum admi hai, ' ' (I am no spark, but 
 a man.) 
 
 The protest made Holden choke, and devote himself very 
 seriously to a consideration of Tota's future. 
 
 He need hardly have taken the trouble. The delight of 
 that life was too perfect to endure. Therefore it was taken 
 away, as many things are taken away in India, suddenly 
 and without warning. The little lord of the house, as Pir 
 Khan called him, grew sorrowful and complained of pains, 
 who had n^ver known the meaning of pain. Ameera, wild 
 with terror, watched him through the night, and in the dawn 
 ing of the second day the life was shaken out of him by f eve 
 — the seasonal autumn fever. It seemed altogether impos- 
 sible that he could die, and neither Ameera nor Holden at 
 first believed the evidence of the body on the bedstead. Then 
 Ameera beat her head against the wall, and would have flung 
 herself down the well in the garden had Holden not restrained 
 her by main force. . 
 
U/itl^out Benefit of Qler($y 215 
 
 One mercy only was granted to Holden. He rode to his 
 office in broad daylight, and found waiting him an unusually 
 heavy mail that demanded concentrated attention and hard 
 work. He was not, however, alive to this kindness of the 
 gods. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk pinch. 
 The wrecked body does not send in its protest to the soul till 
 ten or fifteen seconds later. Then comes thirst, throbbing, 
 and agony, and a ridiculous amount of screaming. Holden 
 realized his pain slowly, exactly as he had realized his happi- 
 ness, and with the same imperious necessity for hiding all 
 trace of it. In the beginning he only felt that there had 
 been a loss, and that Ameera needed comforting where she 
 sat with her head on her knees, shivering as Mian Mittu, 
 from the house-top, called "Tota! Tota! Tota!" Later all 
 his world and the daily life of it rose up to hurt him. It 
 was an outrage that any one of the children at the band- 
 stand in the evening should be alive and clamorous when 
 his own child lay dead. It was more than mere pain when 
 one of them touched him, and stories told by overf ond fathers 
 of their children's latest performances cut him to the quick. 
 He could not declare his pain. He had neither help, com- 
 fort, nor sympathy, and Ameera, at the end of each weary 
 day, would lead him through the hell of self-questioning 
 reproach which is reserved for those who have lost a child, 
 and believe that with a little — just a little — more care it 
 might have been saved. There are not many hells worse 
 than this, but he knows one who has sat down temporarily 
 to consider whether he is or is not responsible for the death 
 of his wife. 
 
 ''Perhaps," Ameera would say, "I did not take su£&cient 
 heed. Did I, or did I not? The sun on the roof that day 
 when he played so long alone, and I was — ahi! braiding my 
 hair — it may be that the sun then bred the fever. If I had 
 
1 
 
 S16 U/orKs of r^adyard I^iplip^ 
 
 warned him from tlie sun lie might have lived. But, oh, 
 my life, say that I am guiltless! Thou knowest that I loved 
 him as I love thee ! Say that there is no blame on me, or I 
 shall die— I shall die!" 
 
 *' There is no blame. Before God, none. It was written, 
 and how could we do aught to save? What has been, has 
 been. Let it go, beloved." 
 
 *'He vras all my heart to me. How can I let the thought 
 go when my arm tells me every night that he is not here? 
 Ahi! ahif Oh, Tota^ come back to me— come back again, 
 and let us be all together as it was before!" 
 
 * * Peace ! peace ! For thine own sake, and for mine also, 
 if thou lovest me, rest." 
 
 *' By this I know thou dost not care; and how shouldst 
 thou? The white men have hearts of stone and souls of iron. 
 Oh, that I had married a man of mine own people — though 
 he beat me- — and had never eaten the bread of an ahen!" 
 
 "Am I an alien, mother of my son?" 
 
 ''What else, sahib? . . . Oh, forgive me — forgive! The 
 death has driven me mad. Thou art the hfe of my heart, 
 and the light of my eyes, and the breath of my life, and — 
 and I have put thee from me, though it was but for a mo- 
 ment. If thou goest away, to whom shall I look for help? 
 Do not be angry. Indeed, it was the pain that spoke, and 
 not thy slave." 
 
 "I know— I know. We be two who were three. The 
 greater need, therefore, that we should be one." 
 
 They were sitting on the roof, as of custom. The night 
 was a wann one in early spring, and sheet-lightning was 
 dancing on the horizon to a broken tune played by far=off 
 thunder. Ameera settled herself in Holden's arms. 
 
 "The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the rain, and I — 
 I am afraid. It was not like this when we counted th^ stars. 
 But thou lovest me as much as before, though a bond is 
 taken away? Answer." 
 
 "I love more, because a new bond has come out of the 
 sorrow that we have eaten together; and that thou knowest." 
 
U/itl?out Benefit of Qler^y 217 
 
 "Yea, I know," said Ameera, in a very small whisper. 
 "But it is good to hear thee say so, my Hfe, who art so strong 
 to help. I will be a child no more, but a woman and an 
 aid to thee. Listen. Give me my sitar, and I will sing 
 bravely." 
 
 She took the light silver-studded sitar^ and began a song 
 of the great hero Raja Rasalu. The hand failed on the 
 strings, the tune halted, checked, and at a low note turned 
 off to the poor little nursery rhyme about the wicked crow : 
 
 (C ( 
 
 And the wild plums grow in the jungle — 
 
 Only a penny a pound, 
 
 Only a penny a pound, Baha — only — ' 
 
 J >> 
 
 Then came the tears and the piteous rebellion against 
 fate, till she slept, moaning a Httle in her sleep, with the 
 right arm thrown clear of the body, as though it protected 
 something that was not there. 
 
 It was after this night that life became a Httle easier for 
 Holden. The ever-present pain of loss drove him into his 
 work, and the work repaid him by filling up his mind for 
 eight or nine hours a day. Ameera sat alone in the house 
 and brooded, but grew happier when she understood that 
 Holden was more at ease, according to the custom of women. 
 They touched happiness again, but this time with caution. 
 
 "It was because we loved Tota that he died. The jeal- 
 ousy of God was upon us," said Ameera. "I have hung up 
 a large black jar before our window to turn the Evil Eye 
 from us, and we must make no protestations of delight, but 
 go softly xm.derneath the stars, lest God find us out. Is 
 that not good talk, worthless one?" 
 
 She had shifted the accent of the word that means "be- 
 loved," in proof of the sincerity of her purpose. But the 
 kiss that followed the new christening was a thing that any 
 deity might have envied. They went about henceforth say- 
 ing: "It is naught — it is naught," and hoping that all the 
 powers heard. 
 
 T^i^e powers were busy on other things. They had allowed 
 Vol. 3. 10 
 
218 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^J 
 
 thirty million people four years of plenty, wherein men fed 
 well and the crops were certain and the birth-rate rose year 
 by year ; the districts reported a purely agricultural popula- 
 tion varying from nine hundred to two thousand to the square 
 mile of the overburdened earth. It was time to make room. 
 And the Member of the Lower Tooting, wandering about 
 India in top-hat and frock-coat, talked largely of the benefits 
 of British rule, and suggested as the one thing needful the 
 estabhshment of a duly quahfied electoral system and a 
 general bestowal of the franchise. His long-suffering hosts 
 smiled and made him welcome, and when he paused to 
 admire, with pretty picked words, the blossom of the blood- 
 red dhak-tree, that had flowered untimely for a sign of the 
 sickness that was coming, they smiled more than ever. 
 
 It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen, stay- 
 ing at the club for a day, who lightly told a tale that made 
 Holden's blood run cold as he overheard the end. 
 
 "He won't bother any one any more. Never saw a man 
 
 so astonished in my life. By Jove ! I thought he meant to 
 
 ask a question in the House about it. Fellow-passenger in 
 
 his ship — dined next him — bowled over by cholera, and died 
 
 in' eighteen hours. You needn't laugh, you fellows. The 
 Member for Lower Tooting is awfully angry about it; but 
 
 he's more scared. I think he's going to take his enlightened 
 
 self out of India." 
 
 "I'd give a good deal if he were knocked over. It might 
 keep a few vestrymen of his kidney to their parish. But 
 what's this about cholera? It's full early for anything of 
 that kind," said a warden of an unprofitable salt-lick. 
 
 "Dunno," said the deputy commissioner, reflectively. 
 **We've got locusts with us. There's sporadic cholera all 
 along the north — at least, we're calling it sporadic for 
 decency's sake. The spring crops are short in G.Ye dis- 
 tricts, and nobody seems to know where the winter rains 
 are. It's nearly March now. I don't want to scare any- 
 body, but it seems to me that ISTature's going to audit her 
 accounts with a big red pencil this summer." 
 
Drawn by C. D. Graves. 
 
 " It seemed impossible that he cotdd die, and neither Am,eera nor Holden at first 
 believed the evidence of the body on the bed.''"' 
 
 "Without Benefit of Clergy— Vol III., p. 214. 
 
U/itl?out Benefit of <?ler<$y 319 
 
 "Just when I wanted to take leave, too,'* said a voice 
 across the room. 
 
 "There won't be much leave this year, but there ought to 
 be a great deal of promotion. I've come in to persuade the 
 government to put my pet canal on the list of famine-relief 
 works. It's an ill wind that blows no good. I shall get 
 that canal finished at last." 
 
 "Is it the old programme, then," said Holden — -"famine, 
 fever, and cholera?" 
 
 "Oh, no! Only local scarcity and an unusual prevalence 
 of seasonal sickness. You'll find it aU in the reports if you 
 live till next year. You're a lucky chap. You haven't got 
 a wife to put you out of harm's way. The hill-stations ought 
 to be full of women this year." 
 
 "I think you're inclined to exaggerate the talk in the 
 bazaars, " said a young civilian in the secretariat, "^ow, 
 I have observed — " 
 
 "I daresay you have," said the deputy commissioner, 
 "but you've a great deal more to observe, my son. In the 
 meantime, I wish to observe to you — " And he drew him 
 aside to discuss the construction of the canal that was so dear 
 to his heart. 
 
 Holden went to his bungalow, and began to imderstand 
 that he was not alone in the world, and also that he was 
 afraid for the sake of another, which is the most soid-satisfy- 
 ing fear known to man. 
 
 Two ruonths later, as the deputy had foretold, Nature 
 began to audit her accounts with a red pencil. On the heels 
 of the spring reapings came a cry for bread, and the govern- 
 ment, which had decreed that no man should die of want, 
 sent wheat. Then came the cholera from all four quarters 
 of the compass. It struck a pilgrim gathering of half a mil- 
 lion at a sacred shrine. Many died at the feet of their god, 
 the others broke and ran over the face of the land, carrying 
 the pestilence with them. It smote a walled city and killed 
 two hundred a day. The people crowded the trains, hang- 
 ing on to the foot-boards and squatting on the roofs of the 
 
^2(1 U/or^s of I^udyard \{ipl\T)<^ 
 
 carriages ; and the cholera followed them, for at each station 
 they dragged out the dead and the dying on the platforms 
 reeking of lime-wash and carbolic acid. They died by the 
 roadside, and the horses of the Englishmen shied at the 
 corpses in the grass. The rains did not come, and the earth 
 turned to iron lest man should escape by hiding in her. The 
 English sent their wives away to the Hills, and went about 
 their work, coming forward as they were bidden to fill the 
 gaps in the fighting line. Holden, sick with fear of losing 
 his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best to persuade 
 Ameera to go away with her mother to the Himalayas. 
 
 "Why should I go?" said she one evening on the roof. 
 
 *' There is sickness, and the people are dying, and all the 
 white mem-log have gone." 
 
 ''AH of them?" 
 
 *'A11 — unless, perhaps, there remain some old scald-head 
 who vexes her husband's heart by running risk of death." 
 
 "Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou must not abuse 
 her, for I will be a scald-head too. I am glad all the bold 
 white mein-log are gone." 
 
 "Do I speak to a woman or a babe? Go to the Hills, and 
 I will see to it that thou goest like a queen's daughter. Think, 
 child ! In a red-lackered bullock-cart, veiled and curtained, 
 with brass peacocks upon the pole and red-cloth hangings. I 
 will send two orderlies for guard, and — " 
 
 "Peace ! Thou art the babe in speaking thus. What use 
 are those toys to me? He would have patted the bullocks 
 and played with the housings. For his sake, perhaps — thou 
 hast made me very English — I might have gone. Now I 
 will not. Let the mem-log run." . 
 
 "Their husbands are sending them, beloved." 
 
 "Yery good talk. Since when hast thou been my hus- 
 band to tell me what to do? I have but borne thee a son. 
 Thou art only all the desire of my soul to me. How shall I 
 depart when I know that if evil befall thee by the breadth 
 of so much as my littlest finger-nail — is that not small? — I 
 should be aware of it though I were in Paradise? And here. 
 
UAitl^out Benefit of ^ler^y 321 
 
 this summer thou mayest die — ai, janee, die ! — and in dying 
 they might call to tend thee a white woman, and she would 
 rob me in the last of thy love." 
 
 *'But love is not bom in a moment, or on a deathbed." 
 
 *'What dost thou know of love, stone-heart? She would 
 take thy thanks at least, and, by God and the Prophet and 
 Beebee Miriam, the mother of thy Prophet, that I will never 
 endure. My lord and my love, let there be no more foolish 
 talk of going' away. Where thou art, I am. It is enough." 
 She put an arm round his neck and a hand on his mouth. 
 
 There are not many happinesses so complete as those that 
 are snatched under the shadow of the sword. They sat to- 
 gether and laughed, calling each other openly by every pet 
 name that could move the wrath of the gods. The city be- 
 low them was locked up in its own torments. Sulphur-fires 
 blazed in the streets; the conches in the Hindu temples 
 screamed and bellowed, for the gods were inattentive in 
 those days. There was a service in the great Mohammedan 
 shrine, and the call to prayer from the minarets was almost 
 unceasing. They heard the wailing in the houses of the 
 dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost a child 
 and was calling for its return. In the gray dawn they saw 
 the dead borne out through the city gates, each litter with 
 its own little knot of mourners. Wherefore they kissed each 
 other and shivered. 
 
 It was a red and heavy audit, for the land was very sick 
 and needed a little breathing-space ere the torrent of cheap 
 Hfe should flood it anew. The children of immature fathers 
 and undeveloped mothers made no resistance. They were 
 cowed and sat still, waiting till the sword should b '■ sheathed 
 in November, if it were so willed. There were gaps among 
 the English, but the gaps were filled. The work of superin- 
 tending famine rehef, cholera-sheds, medicine distribution, 
 and what little sanitation was possible, went forward because 
 it was so ordered. 
 
 Holden had been told to hold himself in readiness to move 
 to replace the next man who should fall. There were twelve 
 
222 U/orKs of F(udyard Kiplii?^ 
 
 hours in eacli day when he could not see Ameera, and she 
 might die in three. He was considering what his pain would 
 be if he could not see her for three months, or if she died out 
 of his sight. He was absolutely certain that her death would 
 be demanded — -so certain that, when he looked up from the 
 telegram and saw Pir Khan breathless in the doorway, he 
 laughed aloud, "And?" — said he. 
 
 "When there is a cry in the night and the spirit flutters 
 into the throat, who has a charm that will restore? Come 
 swiftly, heaven born. It is the black cholera. ^^ 
 
 Holden galloped to his home. The sky was heavy with 
 clouds, for the long-deferred rains were at hand, and the 
 heat was stifling. Ameera' s mother met him in the court- 
 yard, whimpering: "She is dying. She is nursing herself 
 into death. She is all but dead. What shall I do, sahib?" 
 
 Ameera was lying in the room in which Tota had been 
 born. She made no sign when Holden entered, because the 
 human soul is a very lonely thing, and when it is getting 
 ready to go away hides itself in a misty borderland where 
 the living may not follow. The black cholera does its work 
 quietly and without explanation. Ameera was being thrust 
 out of life as though the Angel of Death had himself put his 
 hand upon her. The quick breathing seemed to show that 
 she was either afraid or in pain, but neither eyes nor mouth 
 gave any answer to Holden's kisses. There was nothing to 
 be said or done. Holden could only wait and suffer. The 
 first drops of the rain began to fall on the roof, and he could 
 hear shouts of joy in the parched city. 
 
 The soul came back a little and the lips moved. Holden 
 bent dowr fco Hsten. "Keep nothing of mine," said Ameera. 
 **Take no hair from my head. She would make thee burn 
 it later on. That flame I should feel. Lower! Stoop lower! 
 Remember only that I was thine and bore thee a son. Though 
 thou wed a white woman to-morrow, the pleasure of taking 
 in thy arms thy flrst son is taken from thee forever. Re- 
 member me when thy son is born — the one that shall carry 
 thy name before all men. His misfortunes be on my head. 
 
U/itl^out Benefit of Qler^y 223 
 
 I bear witness — I bear witness"— the lips were forming the 
 words on his ear — "that there is no God but — thee, beloved." 
 
 Then she died. Holden sat still, and thought of any 
 kind was taken from him till he heard Ameera's mother lift 
 the curtain. 
 
 "Is she dead, sahib?" 
 
 "She is dead." 
 
 "Then I will mourn, and afterward take an inventory of 
 the furniture in this house ; for that will be mine. The sahib 
 does not mean to resume it. It is so little, so very little, 
 sahib, and I am an old woman. I would like to He softly." 
 
 "For the mercy of God, be silent a while! Go out and 
 mourn where I cannot hear." 
 
 "Sahib, she will be buried in four hours." 
 
 "I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken away. 
 That matter is in thy hands. Look to it that the bed — on 
 which — on which — she lies — " 
 
 "Aha! That beautiful red-lackered bed. I have long 
 desired — " 
 
 " — That the bed is left here untouched for my disposal. 
 All else in the house is thine. Hire a cart, take everything, 
 go hence, and before sunrise let there be nothing in this house 
 but that which I have ordered thee to respect." 
 
 ' ' I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the days of 
 mourning, and the rains have just broken. Whither shall I go?' ' 
 
 "What is that to me? My order is that there is a going. 
 The house-gear is worth a thousand rupees, and my orderly 
 shall bring thee a hundred rupees to-night. ' ' 
 
 "That is very little. Think of the cart-hire." 
 
 "It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with speed. 
 Oh, woman, get hence, and leave me to my dead!" 
 
 The mother shuffled down the staircase, and in her anx- 
 iety to take stock of the house-fittings forgot to mourn. 
 Holden stayed by Ameera's side, and the rain roared on the 
 roof. He could not think connectedly by reason of the noise, 
 though he made many attempts to do so. Then four sheeted 
 ghosts glided dripping into the room and stared at him 
 
224 U/orl^s of F^udyard li{\pllT)^ 
 
 tlirougli their veils. They were the washers of the dead. 
 Holden left the room and went out to his horse. He had 
 come in a dead, stifling calm, through ankle-deep dust. He 
 found the courtyard a rain-lashed pond aHve with frogs, a 
 torrent of yellow water ran under the gate, and a roaring 
 wind drove the bolts of the rain like buckshot against the 
 mud walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his little hut by the 
 gate, and the horse was stamping uneasily in the water. 
 
 "I have been told the sahib's order," said he. **It is 
 well. This house is now desolate. I go also, for my monkey 
 face would be a reminder of that which has been. Concern- 
 ing the bed, I will bring that to thy house yonder in the 
 morning. But remember, sahib, it will be to thee as a knife 
 turned in a green wound. I go upon a pilgrimage and I 
 will take no money. I have grown fat in the protection of 
 the Presence, whose sorrow is my sorrow. For the last time 
 I hold his stirrup." 
 
 He touched Holden's foot with both hands, and the horse 
 sprung out into the road, where the creaking bamboos were 
 whipping the sky and all the frogs were chuckling. Holden 
 could not see for the rain in his face. He put his hands before 
 his eyes and muttered^ ^^Oh, you brute! You utter brute!" 
 
 The news of his trouble was already in his bungalow. 
 He read the knowledge in his butler's eyes when Ahmed 
 Khan brought in food, and for the first and last time in his 
 life laid a hand upon his master's shoulder, saying: **Eat, 
 sahib, eat. Meat is good against sorrow. I also have known. 
 Moreover, the shadows come and go, sahib. The shadows 
 come and go. These be curried eggs." 
 
 Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The heavens sent 
 down eight inches of rain in that night and scoured the earth 
 clean. The waters tore down walls, broke roads, and washed 
 open the shallow graves in the Mohammedan burying-ground. 
 All next day it rained, and Holden sat still in his house con- 
 sidering his sorrow. On the morning of the third day he 
 received a telegram which said only: **Ricketts, Myndonie. 
 Dying. Holden. Reheve, Immediate." Then he thought 
 
U/itl?otJt Benefit of <?ler($y 225 
 
 that before he departed he would look at the house wherein 
 he had been master and lord. There was a break in the 
 weather. The rank earth steamed with vapor, and Holden 
 was vermilion from head to heel with the prickly-heat born 
 of sultry moisture. 
 
 He found that the rains had torn down the mud-pillars of 
 the gateway, and the heavy wooden gate that had guarded 
 his life hung drunkenly from one hinge. There was grass 
 three inches high in the courtyard; Pir Khan's lodge was 
 empty, and the sodden thatch sagged between the beams. A 
 gray squirrel was in possession of the veranda, as if the house 
 had been untenanted for thirty years instead of three days. 
 Ameera's mother had removed everything except some mil- 
 dewed matting. The tick- tick of the little scorpions as they 
 hurried across the floor was the only sound in the house. 
 Ameera's room and that other one where Tota had lived were 
 heavy with mildew, and the narrow staircase leading to the 
 roof was streaked and stained with rain-borne mud. Holden 
 saw all these things, and came out again to meet in the road 
 Durga Dass, his landlord— portly, affable, clothed in white 
 muslin, and driving a C-spring buggy. He was overlooking 
 his property, to see how the roofs withstood the stress of the 
 first rains. 
 
 "I have heard," said he, "you will not take this place any 
 more, sahib?" 
 
 "What are you going to do with it?" 
 "Perhaps I shall let it again." 
 "Then I will keep it on while I am away." 
 Durga Dass was silent for some time. "You shall not 
 take it on, sahib," he said. "When I was a young man I 
 also — But to-day I am a member of the municipality. Ho ! 
 bo ! No. When the birds have gone, what need to keep the 
 nest? I will have it pulled down ; the timber will sell for 
 something always. It shall be pulled down, and the munic- 
 ipality shall make a road across, as they desire, from the 
 burning-ghat to the city wall. So that no man may say 
 where this house stood." 
 
AMERICAN NOTES 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING AT THE GOLDEN 
 
 GATE 
 
 CUTTING NOTES ON AMERICA BY THE INDIA-ENGLISH AUTHOR 
 —MAD ABOUT COPYRIGHT— INCISIVE JABS AT THE HOTEL 
 CLERK, CATARRH, AND OTHER DEFECTS IN AMERICAN 
 CHARACTER 
 
 * 'Serene, indifferent to fate, 
 Thou (fittest at the Western Gate; 
 Thou seest the white seas fold their tents. 
 Oh, warder of two continents ; 
 Thou drawest all things small and great, 
 To thee, beside the Western Gate." 
 
 This is what Bret Harte has written of the great city of 
 San Francisco, and for the past fortnight I have been won- 
 dering what made him do it. 
 
 There is neither serenity nor indifference to be found in 
 these parts; and evil would it be for the continents whose 
 wardship were intrusted to so reckless a guardian. 
 
 Behold me pitched neck-and-crop from twenty days of 
 the high seas into the whirl of California, deprived of any 
 guidance and left to draw my own conclusions. Protect me 
 from the wrath of an outraged community if these letters be 
 ever read by American eyes. San Francisco is a mad city — 
 inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose 
 women are of a remarkable beauty. 
 
 When the '*City of Pekin" steamed through the Golden 
 (226) 
 
/Imerieap flotes 227 
 
 Gate I saw with great joy that the block house which guarded 
 the mouth of the ''finest harbor in the world, sir," could be 
 silenced by two gunboats from Hong Kong with safety, 
 comfort, and dispatch. Also, there was not a single Amer- 
 ican vessel of war in the harbor. 
 
 This may sound blood-thirsty ; but remember, I had come 
 with a grievance upon me™ the grievance of the pirated 
 English books. 
 
 SEES A REPORTER 
 
 Then a reporter leaped aboard and ere I could gasp held 
 me in his toils. He pumped me exhaustively while I was 
 getting ashore, demanding of all things in the world news 
 about Indian journalism. It is an awful thing to enter a 
 new land with a new lie on your lips. I spoke the truth to 
 the evil-minded Custom House man who turned my most 
 sacred raiment on a floor composed of stable refuse and pine 
 splinters ; but the reporter overwhelmed me not so much by 
 his poignant audacity as his beautiful ignorance. I am sorry 
 now that I did not tell him more lies as I passed into a city 
 of three hundred thousand white men. Think of it ! Three 
 hundred thousand white men and women gathered in one 
 spot, walking upon real pavements in front of plate-glass 
 windowed shops, and talking something: that at first hearing 
 was not very different from English. It was only when I 
 had tangled myself up in a hopeless maze of small wooden 
 houses, dust, street refuse and children who played with 
 
 j, empty kerosene tins, that I discovered the difference of speech. 
 
 1^ "You want to go to the Palace Hotel?" said an affable 
 
 youth on a dray. ' ' What in hell are you doing here, then? 
 This is about the lowest ward in the city. Go six blocks 
 
 I north to corner of Geary and Markey, then walk around till 
 you strike corner of Gutter and Sixteenth, and that brings 
 you there." 
 
 I do not vouch for the literal accuracy of these directions, 
 quoting but from a disordered memory. 
 
 "Amen," I said. "But who am I that I should strike the 
 
228 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplii^^ 
 
 corners of such as you name? Peradventure tliej be gentle- 
 men of repute, and might hit back. Bring it down to dots, 
 my son." 
 
 I thought he would have smitten me, but he didn't. He 
 explained that no one ever used the word street, and that 
 every one was supposed to know how the streets ran, for 
 sometimes the names were upon the lamps and sometimes 
 they weren't. Fortified with these directions, I proceeded 
 till I found a mighty street, full of sumptuous buildings four 
 and five stories high, but paved with rude cobblestones, after 
 the fashion of the year 1. 
 
 THE CABLE CAR 
 
 Here a tram-car, without any visible means of support, 
 slid stealthily behind me and nearly struck me in the back. 
 That was the famous cable car of San Francisco, which runs 
 by gripping an endless wire rope sunk in the ground, and of 
 which I will tell you more anon. A hundred yards further 
 there was a slight commotion in the street, a gathering to- 
 gether of three or four, something that glittered as it moved 
 very swiftly. A ponderous Irish gentleman, with priest's 
 cords in his hat and a small nickel-plated badge on his fat 
 bosom, emerged from the knot supporting a Chinaman who 
 had been stabbed in the eye and was bleeding like a pig. The 
 bystanders went their ways, and the Chinaman, assisted by 
 the policeman, his own. Of course this was none of my 
 business, but I rather wanted to know what had happened to 
 the gentleman who had dealt the stab. It said a great deal 
 for the excellence of the municipal arrangement of the town 
 that a surging crowd did not at once block the street to see 
 what was going forward. I was the sixth man and the last 
 who assisted at the performance, and my curiosity was six 
 times the greatest. Indeed, I felt ashamed of showing it, 
 
 A CRACK AT THE HOTEL CLERK 
 
 There were no more incidents till I reached the Palace 
 Hotel, a seven-storied warren of humanity with a thousand 
 
/imerieai) f/otes 229 
 
 rooms in it. All the travel books will tell you about hotel 
 arrangements in this country. They should be seen to be 
 appreciated. Understand clearly — and this letter is written 
 after a thousand miles of experiences — that money will not 
 buy you service in the West. When the hotel clerk — the 
 man who awards your room to you and who is supposed to 
 give you information — when that resplendent individual 
 stoops to attend to your wants he does so whistling or hum- 
 ming or picking his teeth, or pauses to converse with some 
 one he knows. These performances, I gather, are to impress 
 upon you that he is a free man and your equal. From his 
 general appearance and the size of his diamonds he ought to 
 be your superior. There is no necessity for this swaggering 
 self-consciousness of freedom. Business is business, and the 
 man who is paid to attend to a man might reasonably devote 
 his whole attention to the job. Out of office hours he can 
 take his coach and four and pervade society if he pleases. 
 
 In a vast marble-paved hall, under the glare of an electric 
 light, sat forty or fifty men, and for their use and amusement 
 were provided spittoons of infinite capacity and generous 
 gape. Most of the men wore frock-coats and top-hats-— the 
 things that we in India put on at a wedding-breakfast, if we 
 possess them — but they all spat. They spat on principle. 
 The spittoons were on the staircases, in each bedroom — ^yea, 
 and in chambers even more sacred than these. They chased 
 one into retirement, but they blossomed in chiefest splendor 
 roimd the bar, and they were aU used, every reeking one of 
 them. 
 
 ANSWERS MENDACIOUS AND EVASIVE 
 
 Just before I began to feel deathly sick another reporter 
 grappled me. What he wanted to know was the precise area 
 of India in square miles. I referred him to Whittaker. He 
 had never heard of Whittaker. He wanted it from my own 
 mouth, and I would not tell him. Then he swerved off just 
 like the other man to details of journalism in our own country. 
 I ventured to suggest that the interior economy of a paper 
 most concerned the people who worked it. 
 
230 U/or^s of P^adyard \{ipViT)^ 
 
 * ' That's the very thing that interests us, ' ' he said. " Have 
 you got reporters anything hke our reporters on Indian news- 
 papers?" 
 
 "We have not," I said, and suppressed the "thank God" 
 rising to my Hps. 
 
 "Why haven't you?" said he. 
 
 "Because they would die," I said. 
 
 It was exactly like talking to a child — a very rude little 
 child. He would begin almost every sentence with, "N"ow 
 tell me something about India," and would turn aimlessly 
 from one question to the other without the least continuity. 
 I was not angry, but keenly interested. The man was a 
 revelation to me. To his questions I returned answers men- 
 dacious and evasive. After all it really did not matter what 
 I said. He could not understand. I can only hope and pray 
 that none of the readers of the "Pioneer" will ever see that 
 portentous interview. The man made me out to be an idiot 
 several sizes more driveling than my destiny intended, and 
 the rankness of his ignorance managed to distort the few 
 poor facts with which I supplied him into large and elaborate 
 lies. Then, thought I, "the matter of American journalism 
 shall be looked into later on. At present I will enjoy myself. ' ' 
 
 ABOUT THE CITY 
 
 No man rose to tell me what were the lions of the place. 
 No one volunteered any sort of conveyance. I was abso- 
 lutely alone in this big city of white folk. By instinct I 
 sought refreshment and came upon a bar-room full of bad 
 Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their 
 heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institu- 
 tion of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink 
 and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less 
 than a rupee a day a man can feed himself smnptuously in 
 San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember 
 this if ever you are stranded in these parts. 
 
 Later I began a vast but unsystematic exploration of the 
 streets. I asked for no names. It was enough that the 
 
/Imerieap jvfotes 231 
 
 pavements were full of white men and women, the streets 
 clanging with traffic, and that the restful roar of a great city 
 rang in my ears. The cable cars glided to all points of the 
 compass at once. I took them one by one till I could go 
 no further. San Francisco has been pitched down on the 
 sand bunkers of the Bikaneer desert. About one-fourth 
 of it is ground reclaimed from the sea— any old-timers will 
 tell you all about that. The remainder is just ragged, un- 
 thrifty sand hills, to-day pegged down by houses. 
 
 UP AND DOWN THE SAND HILLS 
 
 From an English point of view there has not been the 
 least attempt at grading those hills, and indeed you might as 
 well try to grade the hillocks of Sind. The cable cars have 
 for all practical purposes made San Francisco a dead level. 
 They take no count of rise or fall, but slide equably on their 
 appointed courses from one end to the other of a six-mile 
 street. They turn corners almost at right angles, cross other 
 lines, and for aught I know may run up the sides of houses. 
 There is no visible agency of their flight, but once in a while 
 you shall pass a five-storied building humming with machinery 
 that winds up an everlasting wire cable, and the initiated 
 will tell you that here is the mechanism. I gave up asking 
 questions. If it pleases Providence to make a car run up and 
 down a slit in the ground for many miles, and if for two- 
 pence half -penny I can ride in that car, why shall I seek the 
 reasons of the miracle? Rather let me look out of the win- 
 dows till the shops give place to thousands and thousands of 
 little houses made of wood (to imitate stone), each house just 
 big enough for a man and his family. Let me watch the 
 people in the cars and try to find out in what manner they 
 differ from us, their ancestors. 
 
 It grieves me now that I cursed them (in the matter of 
 book piracy), because I perceived that my curse is working 
 and that their speech is becoming a horror already. They 
 delude themselves into the belief that they talk English — the 
 English — and I have already been pitied for speaking with 
 
232 U/or^s of I^udyard K^plip<$ 
 
 "an English accent." The man who pitied me spoke, so far 
 as I was concerned, the language of thieves. And they all 
 do. "Where we put the accent forward they throw it back, 
 SiTid vice versa; where we give the long "a" they use the 
 short, and words so simple as to be past mistaking they pro- 
 nounce somewhere up in the dome of their heads. How do 
 these things happen? 
 
 NO AMERICAN LANGUAGE 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes says that the Yankee schoolmarm, 
 the cider and the salt codfish of the Eastern States, are re- 
 sponsible for what he calls a nasal accent. I know better. 
 They stole books from across the water without paying for 
 'em, and the snort of delight was fixed in their nostrils for- 
 ever by a just Providence. That is why they talk a foreign 
 tongue to-day. 
 
 "Cats is dogs, and rabbits is dogs, and so's parrots. But 
 this 'ere tortoise is an insect, so there ain't no charge,*' as 
 the old porter said. 
 
 A Hindu is a Hindu and a brother to the man who knows 
 his vernacular. And a Frenchman is French because he 
 speaks his own language. But the American has no lan- 
 guage. He is dialect, slang, provincialism, accent, and so 
 forth. Now that I have heard their voices all the beauty of 
 Bret Harte is being ruined for me, because I find myself 
 catching through the roll of his rhythmical prose the cadence 
 of his peculiar fatherland. Get an American lady to read to 
 you *'How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar" and see how 
 much is, under her tongue, left of the beauty of the original. 
 
 But I am sorry for Bret Harte. It happened this way. 
 A reporter asked me what I thought of the city, and I mguie 
 answer suavely that it was hallowed ground to me, because 
 of Bret Harte. That was true. 
 
 "Well," said the reporter, "Bret Harte claims California, 
 but California don't claim Bret Harte. He's been so long in 
 England that he's quite English. Have you seen our cracker 
 factories or the new offices of the 'Examiner'?" 
 
fimeriean) fiotes 233 
 
 He could not understand that to the outside world the 
 sity was worth a great deal less than the man. I never 
 intended to curse the people with a provincialism so vast as 
 this. 
 
 THE CLIFF HOUSE 
 
 But let us return to our sheep — which means the sea-Uons 
 of the Cliff House. They are the great show of San Fran- 
 cisco. You take a train which pulls up the middle of the 
 street (it killed two people the day before yesterday, being 
 unbraked and driven absolutely regardless of consequenoes}-j 
 and you pull up somewhere at the back of the city on the 
 Pacific beach. Originally the chffs and their approaches 
 must have been pretty, but they have been bo carefully de- 
 filed with advertisements that they are now one big bhstered 
 abomination. A hundred yards from the shore stood a big 
 rock covered with the carcasses of the sleek sea-beasts who 
 roared and rolled and walloped in the spouting surges. No 
 bold man had painted the creatures sky-blue or advertised 
 newspapers on their backs, wherefore they did not match the 
 landscape, which was chiefly hoarding. Some day, perhaps, 
 whatever sort of government may obtain in this country will 
 make a restoration of the place and keep it clean and neat. 
 At present the sovereign people, of whom I have heard so 
 much already, are vending cherries and painting the virtues 
 of "Little Bile Beans" all over it. 
 
 ON KEARNEY STREET 
 
 Night fell over the Pacific and the white sea-fog whipped 
 through the streets, dimming the splendors of the electric 
 lights. It is the use of this city, her men and women folk 
 to parade between the hours of eight and ten a certain street 
 called Kearney Street, where the finest shops are situated. 
 Here the click of light heels on the pavement is loudest, here 
 the lights are brightest, and here the thunder of the traffic is 
 most overwhelming. I watched Young California and saw 
 that it was, at least, expensively dressed, cheerful in manner, 
 and self-asserting in conversation. Also the women were 
 
234 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplii>($ 
 
 very fair. Perhaps eighteen days aboard ship had some- 
 thing to do with my unreserved admiration. The maidens 
 were of generous build, large, well groomed, and attired in 
 raiment that even to my inexperienced eyes must have cost 
 much. Kearney Street at nine o'clock levels all distinctions 
 of rank as impartially as the grave. Again and again I 
 loitered at the heels of a couple of resplendent beings, only 
 to overhear, when I expected the level voice of culture, the 
 staccato "Sez he," *'Sez I" that is the mark of the white 
 servant-girl all the world over. 
 
 THE OLD ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 This was depressing because, in spite of all that goes to 
 the contrary, fine feathers ought to make fine birds. There 
 was wealth— unlimited wealth — in the streets, but not an 
 accent that would not have been dear at fifty cents. Where- 
 fore, revolving in my mind that these folk were barbarians, 
 I was presently enlightened and made aware that they also 
 were the heirs of all the ages and civilized after all. There 
 appeared before me an affable stranger of prepossessing ap- 
 pearance, with a blue and an innocent eye. Addressing me 
 by name, he claimed to have met me in New York, at the 
 Windsor, and to this claim I gave a qualified assent. I did 
 not remember the fact, but since he was so certain of it, 
 why, then — I waited developments. 
 
 *'And what did you think of Indiana when you came 
 through?" was the next question. 
 
 It revealed the mystery of previous acquaintance and one 
 or two other things. With reprehensible carelessness my 
 friend of the light-blue eye had looked up the name of his 
 victim in the hotel register and read "India" for Indiana. 
 
 The provincialism with which I had cursed his people ex- 
 tended to himself. He could not imagine an Englishman 
 coming through the States from west to east instead of by 
 the regularly ordained route. My fear was that in his de- 
 light in finding me so responsive he would make remarks 
 about 'N^'W York and the Windsor which I could not under- 
 
stand. And, indeed, he adventured in this direction once or 
 twice, asking me what I thought of such and such streets, 
 which from his tone I gathered to be anything but respect- 
 able. It is trying to talk unknown New York in almost un- 
 known San Francisco. But my friend was merciful. He 
 protested that I was one after his own heart, and pressed 
 upon me rare and curious drinks at more than one bar. 
 These drinks I accepted with gratitude, as also the cigars 
 with which his pockets were stored. He would show me the 
 life of the city. Having no desire to watch a weary old play 
 again, I evaded the offer and received in heu of the devil's 
 instruction much coarse flattery. Curiously constituted is 
 the soul of man. Knowing how and where this man lied, 
 waiting idly for the finale, I was distinctly conscious, as he 
 bubbled compliments in my ear, of soft thrills of gratified 
 pride stealing from hat-rim to boot-heels. I was wise, quoth 
 he — anybody could see that with half an eye; sagacious, 
 versed in the ways of the world, an acquaintance to be de- 
 sired ; one who had tasted the cup of life with discretion. 
 
 THE BUNCO STEERER 
 
 All this pleased me, and in a measure numbed the sus- 
 picion that was thoroughly aroused. Eventually the blue- 
 eyed one discovered, nay, insisted, that I had a taste for 
 cards (this was clumsily worked in, but it was my fault, for 
 jn that I met him half-way and allowed him no chance of 
 good acting). Hereupon I laid my head upon one side and 
 simulated unholy wisdom, quoting odds and ends of poker 
 talk, all ludicrously misappHed. My friend kept his counte- 
 nance admirably, and well he might, for five minutes later 
 we arrived, always by the purest of chances, at a place where 
 we could play cards and also frivol with Louisiana State 
 Lottery tickets. Would I play? 
 
 *'Nay," said I, *'for to me cards have neither meaning 
 nor continuity; but let us assume that I am going to play. 
 How would you and your friends get to work? Would you 
 play a straight game, or make me drunk, or — well, the fact 
 
236 U/or^s of F^udyard t^iplii?^ 
 
 is, I'm a newspaper man, and I'd be mucli obliged if you'd 
 let me know something about bunco steering." 
 
 My blue-eyed friend erected himself into an obelisk of 
 profanity. He cursed me by his gods — the right and left 
 bower ^ he even cursed the very good cigars he had given me. 
 But, the storm over, he quieted down and explained. I 
 apologized for causing him to waste an evening, and we 
 spent a very pleasant time together. 
 
 Inaccuracy, provincialism and a too hasty rushing to con- 
 clusions were the rocks that he had split on, but he got his 
 revenge when he said i 
 
 **How would I play with you? From all the poppycock 
 (Anglice bosh) you talked about poker I'd ha' played a 
 straight game and skinned you. I wouldn't have taken the 
 trouble to make you drunk. You never knew anything of 
 the game, but how I was mistaken in going to work on you 
 makes me sick." 
 
 He glared at me as though I had done him an injury. 
 To-day I know how it is that year after year, week after 
 week, the bimco steerer, who is the confidence trick and the 
 card-sharper man of other climes, secures his prey. He 
 clavers them over with flattery as the snake slavers the 
 rabbit. The incident depressed me because it showed I had 
 left the innocent East far behind and was come to a country 
 where a man must look out for himself. The very hotel 
 bristled with notices about keeping my door locked and de- 
 positing my valuables in a safe. The white man in a lump 
 is bad. Weeping softly for 0-Toyo (little I knew then that 
 my heart was to be torn afresh from my bosom) I fell asleep 
 in the clanging hotel. || 
 
 Next morning I had entered upon the deferred inherit- 
 ance. There are no princes in America— at least with crowns 
 on their heads — ^but a generous-minded member of some royal j 
 family received my letter of introduction. Ere the day * 
 closed I was a member of the two clubs and looked for 
 many engagements to dinner and party. Now, this prince, 
 upon whose financial operations be continual increase, had 
 
 
no reason, nop had the others, his friends, to put himself out 
 ll for the sake of one Briton more or less, but he rested not till 
 
 he had accomplished all in my behalf that a mother could 
 I think of for her debutante daughter. 
 
 i' 
 
 l! 
 
 THE BOHEMIAN CLUB 
 
 Do you know the Bohemian Club of San Francisco? They 
 
 1 say its fame extends over the world. It was created some- 
 
 i what on the lines of the Savage by men who wrote or drew 
 
 things, and has blossomed into most unrepublican luxury. 
 
 The ruler of the place is an owl — an owl standing upon a 
 
 skull and cross-bones, showing forth grimly the wisdom of 
 
 the man of letters and the end of his hopes for immortality. 
 
 The owl stands on the staircase, a statue four feet high; is 
 
 carved in the woodwork, flutters on the frescoed ceiling, is 
 
 !i stamped on the note-paper, and hangs on the walls. He 
 
 is an ancient and honorable bird. Under his wing 'twas 
 
 my privilege to meet with white men whose lives were not 
 
 chained down to routine of toil, who wrote magazine articles 
 
 ;! instead of reading them hurriedly in the pauses of office- 
 
 i| work, who painted pictures instead of contenting themselves 
 
 with cheap etchings picked up at another man's sale of effects. 
 
 , Mine were all the rights of social intercourse, craft by craft, 
 
 j': that India, stony-hearted stepmother of collectors, has swin- 
 
 l died us out of. 
 
 Treading soft carpets and breathing the incense of supe- 
 
 1 rior cigars, I wandered from room to room studying the 
 
 I' .paintings in which the members of the club had carica- 
 
 I tured themselves, their associates, and their aims. There 
 
 j was a slick French audacity about the workmanship of these 
 
 || men of toil unbending that went straight to the heart of the 
 
 I beholder. And yet it was not altogether French. A dry 
 
 '• grimness of treatment, almost Dutch, marked the difference. 
 
 The men painted as they spoke— with certainty. The club 
 
 indulges in revelries which it calls "jinks" — high and low— 
 
 at intervals — and each of these gatherings is faithfully por- 
 
 trayed in oils by hands that know their businesSe In this 
 
238 U/orHs of F^udyard K*plii?<$ 
 
 club were no amateurs spoiling canvas, because they fancied I 
 they could handle oils without knowledge of shadows orr 
 anatomy — no gentleman of leisure ruining the temper off 
 publishers and an already ruined market with attempts to 
 write ''because everybody writes something these days." 
 
 PLEASANT HOURS j 
 
 i 
 
 My hosts were working or had worked for their daily ' 
 bread with pen or paint, and their talk for the most part was 
 of the shop — shoppy — that is to say, delightful. They ex- 
 tended a large hand of welcome and were as brethren, and I 
 did homage to the owl and listened to their talk. An Indian 
 club about Christmas-time will yield, if properly worked, an 
 abundant harvest of queer tales ; but at a gathering of Ameri- 
 cans from the uttermost ends of their own continent the tales 
 are larger, thicker, more spinous, and even more azure than 
 any Indian variety. Tales of the war I heard told by an ex- 
 officer of the South over his evening drink to a colonel of the 
 Northern army, my introducer, who had served as a trooper 
 in the Northern Horse, throwing in emendations from time 
 to time. "Tales of the Law,*' which in this country is an 
 amazingly elastic affair, followed from the lips of a judge. 
 Forgive me for recording one tale that struck me as new. It 
 may interest the up-country Bar in India. 
 
 Once upon a time there was Samuelson, a young lawyer, 
 who feared not God, neither regarded the Bench. (Name, 
 age, and town of the man were given at great length.) To 
 him no case had ever come as a client, partly because he 
 lived in a district where lynch law prevailed, and partly be- 
 cause the most desperate prisoner shrunk from intrusting 
 himself to the mercies of a phenomenal stammerer. But in 
 time there happened an aggravated murder — so bad, indeed, 
 that by common consent the citizens decided, as a prelude to ' 
 lynching, to give the real law a chance. They could, in fact, 
 gambol round that murder. They met — the court in its shirt- 
 sleeves — and against the raw square of the Court House win- 
 dow a temptingly suggestive branch of a tree fretted the sky« 
 
/Imerieai) f/otes 239 
 
 No one appeared for the prisoner, and, partly in jest, the 
 
 court advised young Samuelson to take up the case. 
 
 * ' The prisoner is undefended, Sam, ' ' said the court. ' ' The 
 !i square thing to do would be for you to take him aside and do 
 
 the best you can for him." 
 
 Court, jury, and witness then adjourned to the veranda, 
 
 while Samuelson led his client aside to the Court House cells. 
 
 An hour passed ere the lawyer returned alone. Mutely the 
 
 audience questioned. 
 
 "May it p-p-please the c-court," said Samuelson, "my 
 
 client's case is a b-b-b-bad one — a d-d-damn bad one. You 
 
 told me to do the b-b-best I c-could for him, judge, so I've 
 i jest given him y-your b-b-bay gelding an' told him to light 
 I out for healthier c-c-climes, my p-p-professional opinion be- 
 [ ing he'd be hanged quicker'n h-h-hades if he dallied here, 
 i B-by this time my client's 'bout fifteen mile out yonder some- 
 i whares. That was the b-b-best I could do for him, may it 
 ! p-p-please the court." 
 
 The young man, escaping punishment in lieu of the 
 I prisoner, made his fortune ere five years. 
 
 TALES OF OLD DAYS 
 
 Other voices followed, with equally wondrous tales of 
 
 I lariat throwing in Mexico and Arizona, of gambling at army 
 
 I posts in Texas, of newspaper wars waged in godless Chicago 
 
 I il could not help being interested, but they were not pretty 
 
 tricks), of deaths sudden and violent in Montana and Dakota, 
 
 of the loves of half-breed maidens in the South, and fantastic 
 
 huntings for gold in mysterious Alaska. Above all, they 
 
 told the story of the building of old San Francisco, when the 
 
 "finest collection of humanity on God's earth, sir, started this 
 
 town, and the water came up to the foot of Market Street. '.' 
 
 Very terrible were some of the tales, grimly humorous the 
 
 others, and the men in broadcloth and fine Hnen who told 
 
 them had played their parts in them. 
 
 ' ' And now and again when things got too bad they would 
 toll the city bell and the Vigilance Committee turned out 
 
240 U/orl^s of f^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 and hanged the suspicious characters. A man didn't begin 
 to be suspected in those days till he had committed at least 
 one unprovoked murder," said a calm-eyed, portly old gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 I looked at the pictures around me, the noiseless, neat- 
 uniformed waiter behind me, the oak-ribbed ceiling above, 
 the velvety carpet beneath. It was hard to realize that even 
 twenty years ago you could see a man hanged with great 
 pomp. Later on I found reason to change my opinion. The 
 tales gave me a headache and set me thinking. How in the 
 world Y/as it possible to take in even one thousandth of this 
 huge, roaring, many-sided continent? In the tobacco-scented 
 silence of the sumptuous library lay Professor Bryce's book 
 on the American Republic. 
 
 **It is an omen," said I. "He has done all things in all 
 seriousness, and he may be purchased for half a guinea. 
 Those who desire information of the most undoubted must 
 refer to his pages. For me is the daily round of vagabond- 
 age, the recording of the incidents of the hour and intercourse 
 with the traveling-companion of the day. I will not *do' this 
 country at all." 
 
 INDIA FORGOTTEN 
 
 And I forgot all about India for ten days while I went 
 out to dinners and watched the social customs of the people, 
 which are entirely different from our customs, and was in- 
 troduced to men of many millions. These persons are harm- 
 less in their earHer stages — ^that is to say, a man worth three 
 or four million dollars may be a good talker, clever, amus- 
 ing, and of the world ; a man with twice that amount is to 
 be avoided, and a twenty million man is — ^just twenty mil- 
 lions. Take an instance. I was speaking to a newspaper 
 man about seeing the proprietor of his journal, as in my 
 innocence I supposed newspaper men occasionally did. My 
 friend snorted indignantly : 
 
 *' See him! Great Scott 1 "No. If he happens to appear 
 in the oflSce, I have to associate with him ; but, thank Heaven! 
 outside of that I move in circles where he cannot come." 
 
/imerieai) flotes 241 
 
 And yet the first thing I have been taught to believe is 
 that money was everything in America ! 
 
 AMERICAN POLITICS TURNED INSIDE 
 
 OUT 
 
 SEAMY SIDES SEEN BY RUDYARD KIPLING IN THE CLEAR 
 LIGHT OP CALIFORNIA — AMERICAN MAIDENS ANALYZED 
 —ETHNOLOGICAL AND OTHER PROBLEMS TO BE WORKED 
 OUT WITH AMERICA'S DESTINY 
 
 I HAVE been watching machinery in repose after reading 
 about machinery in action. 
 
 An excellent gentleman, who bears a name honored in 
 the magazine, writes, much as Disraeli orated, of *'the sub- 
 lime instincts of an ancient people," the certainty with which 
 they can be trusted to manage their own affairs in their own 
 way, and the speed with which they are making for all sorts 
 of desirable goals. This he called a statement or purview of 
 American politics. 
 
 I went almost directly afterward to a saloon where gentle 
 men interested in ward politics nightly congregate. They 
 were not pretty persons. Some of them were bloated^ and 
 * they all swore cheerfully till the heavy gold watchchains on 
 their fat stomachs rose and fell again; but they talked, over 
 their hquor as men who had power and unquestioned access 
 to places of trust and profit. 
 
 The magazine writer discussed theories of government; 
 these men the practice. They had been there. They knew 
 all about it. They banged their fists on the table and spoke 
 of political 'Epulis," the vending of votes, and so forth. 
 Theirs was not the talk of village babblers reconstructing the 
 affairs of the nation, but of strong, coarse, lustful men fight- 
 ing for spoil and thoroughly understanding the best methods 
 of reaching it. 
 Vol. 3. U 
 
242 U/or^s of F^udyard I^iplii)^ 
 
 I listened long and intently to speech I could not under* 
 stand — or but in spots. 
 
 It was the speech of business, however. I had sense 
 enough to know that, and to do my laughing outside the door. 
 
 Then I began to understand why my pleasant and well- 
 educated hosts in San Francisco spoke with a bitter scorn of 
 such duties of citizenship as voting and taking an interest in 
 the distribution of offices. Scores of men have told me, 
 without false pride, that they would as soon concern them- 
 selves with the public affairs of the city or state as rake muck 
 with a steam-shovel. It may be that their lofty disdain 
 covers selfishness, but I should be very sorry habitually to 
 meet the fat gentlemen with shiny top-hats and plump cigars 
 in whose society I have been spending the evening. 
 
 Read about poHtics as the cultured writer of the magazines 
 regards 'em, and then, and not till then, pay your respects to 
 the gentlemen who run the grimy reality. 
 
 I'm sick of interviewing night editors who lean their chair 
 against the wall and, in response to my demand for the record 
 of a prominent citizen, answer: ''Well, you see, he began by 
 keeping a saloon," etc. I prefer to believe that my inform- 
 ants are treating me as in the old sinful days in India I was 
 used to treat the wandering globe-trotter. They declare that 
 they speak the truth, and the news of dog politics lately 
 vouchsafed to me in groggeries inclines me to believe, but I 
 won't. The people are much too nice to slangander as reck- 
 lessly as I have been doing. 
 
 OH, fie! rudyard 
 
 Besides, I am hopelessly in love with about eight Ameri- 
 can maidens — all perfectly delightful till the next one comes 
 into the room. 
 
 0-Toyo was a darling, but she lacked several things — 
 conversation for one. You cannot live on giggles. She shall 
 remain unmarried at Nagasaki, while I roast a battered 
 heart before the shrine of a big Kentucky blonde, who had 
 for a nurse when she was little a negro "mammy. 
 
 )> 
 
/imerieai) f/ofces M3 
 
 By consequence she has welded on Calif omian beauty, 
 Paris dresses, Eastern culture, Europe trips and wild "Western 
 originality, the queer, dreamy superstitions of the quarters, 
 and the result is soul-shattering. And she is but one of 
 many stars. 
 
 Item, a maiden who behoves in education and possesses 
 it, with a few hundred thousand dollars to boot and a taste 
 for slumming. 
 
 Item, the leader of a sort of informal salon where girls 
 congregate, read papers, and daringly discuss metaphysical 
 problems and candy — a sloe-eyed, black-browed, imperious 
 maiden she. 
 
 Item, a very small maiden, absolutely without reverence, 
 who can in one swift sentence trample upon and leave gasping 
 half a dozen young men. 
 
 Item, a millionairess, burdened with her money, lonely, 
 caustic, with a tongue keen as a sword, yearning for a 
 sphere, but chained up to the rock of her vast possessions. 
 
 Item, a typewriter maiden earning her own bread in thi* 
 big city, because she doesn't think a girl ought to be a burden 
 on her parents, who quotes Theophile Gautier and moves 
 through the world manfully, much respected for all her 
 twenty inexperienced summers. 
 
 Item, a woman from cloud-land who has no history ia 
 the past or future, but is discreetly of the present and strives 
 for the confidences of male himaanity on the grounds of 
 "sympathy" (methinks this is not altogether a new type). 
 
 Item, a girl in a "dive," blessed with a Greek head and 
 eyes that seem to speak aU that is best and sweetest in th« 
 world. But woe is me! She has no ideas in this world or 
 the next beyond the consimiption of beer (a commission on 
 each bottle), and protests that she sings the songs allotted to 
 her nightly without more than the vaguest notion of their 
 meaning. 
 
 AMERICAN GIRLS SUPREME 
 
 Sweet and comely are the maidens of Devonshire ; delicate 
 and of gracious seeming those who Hve in the pleasant places 
 
244 U/orl^s of f^udyard \{lplli)(^ 
 
 of London ; fascinating for all their demureness the damsels 
 of France, clinging closely to their mothers and with large 
 eyes wondering at the wicked world; excellent in her own 
 place and to those who understand her is the Anglo-Indian 
 ''spin" in her second season; but the girls of America are 
 above and beyond them all. They are clever, they can talk 
 — yea, it is said that they think. Certainly they have an 
 appearance of so doing which is delightfully deceptive. 
 
 They are original, and regard you between the brows with 
 unabashed eyes as a sister might look at her brother. They 
 are instructed, too, in the folly and vanity of the male mind, 
 for they have associated with 'Hhe boys" from babyhood 
 and can discerningly minister to both vices or pleasantly snub 
 the possessor. They possess, moreover, a life among them- 
 selves, independent of any masculine associations. They 
 have societies and clubs and unlimited tea-fights where all 
 the guests are girls. They are self-possessed, without parting 
 with any tenderness that is their sex-right ; they understand ; 
 they can take care of themselves; they are superbly inde- 
 pendent. When you ask them what makes them so charm- 
 ing, they say : 
 
 *'It is because we are better educated than your girls, and 
 — and we are more sensible in regard to men. We have good 
 times all round, but we aren't taught to regard every man 
 as a possible husband. Nor is he expected to marry the first 
 girl he calls on regularly, ' ' 
 
 Yes, they have good times, their freedom is large, and 
 they do not abuse it. They can go driving with young men 
 and receive visits from young men to an extent that would 
 make an English mother wink with horror, and neither driver 
 nor drivee has a thought beyond the enjoyment of a good 
 time. As certain, also, as their own poets have said : " 
 
 "Man is fire and woman is tow, 
 And the devil he comes and begins to blow." 
 
 In America the tow is soaked in a solution that makes it 
 fire-proof, in absolute liberty and large knowledge; conse- 
 
/Imerieai? Jvfotes 245 
 
 quently accidents do not exceed the regular percentage 
 arranged by the devil for each class and climate under the 
 
 skies. 
 
 MADE TOO MUCH OF 
 
 But the freedom of the young girl has its drawbacks. 
 She is— I say it with all reluctance — ^irreverent, from her 
 forty-dollar bonnet to the buckles in her eighteen-dollar shoes. 
 She talks flippantly to her parents and men old enough to be 
 her grandfather. She has a prescriptive right to the society 
 of the man who arrives. The parents admit it. 
 
 This is sometimes embarrassing, especially when you call 
 on a man and his wife for the sake of information—the one 
 being a merchant of varied knowledge, the other a woman 
 of the world. In five minutes your host has vanished. In 
 another five his wife has followed him, and you are left alone 
 with a very charming maiden, doubtless, but certainly not 
 the person you came to see. She chatters and you grin, but 
 you leave with the very strong impressioij of a wasted morn- 
 ing. This has been my experience once or twice. I have 
 even said as pointedly as I dared to a man : 
 
 *'I came to see you." 
 
 *' You'd better see me in my office, then. The house be- 
 longs to my women folk — to my daughter, that is to say," 
 
 He spoke the truth. The American of wealth is owned 
 by his family. They exploit him for bullion. The women 
 get the ha'pence, the kicks are all his own. Nothing is too 
 good for an American's daughter (I speak here of the moneyed 
 classes). 
 
 The girls take every gift as a matter of course, and yet 
 they develop greatly when a catastrophe arrives and the man 
 of many millions goes up or goes down, and his daughters 
 take to stenography or typewriting. I have heard many tales 
 of heroism from the lips of girls who counted the principals 
 among their friends. The crash came, Mamie, or Hattie, or 
 Sadie gave up their maid, their carriages and candy, and 
 with a No. 2 Remington and a stout heart set about earning 
 their daily bread. 
 
246 U/orKs of P^udyard l^iplip($ 
 
 ^* And did I drop her from the Hst of my friends? No, 
 sir," said a scariet-lipped vision in white lace; "that might 
 happen to us any day." 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO VELOCITY 
 
 It may be this sense of possible disaster in the air that 
 makes San Franciscan society go with so captivating a rush 
 and whirl. Recklessness is in the air. I can't explain where 
 it comes from, but there it is. The roaring winds off the 
 Pacific make you drunk to begin with. The aggressive 
 luxury on all sides helps out the intoxication, and you spin 
 forever "down the ringing grooves of change" (there is no 
 small change, by the way, west of the Rockies) as long as 
 money lasts. They make greatly and they spend lavishly; 
 not only the rich, but the artisans, who pay nearly five 
 pounds for a suit of clothes and for other luxuries in pro- 
 portion. 
 
 The young men rejoice in the days of their youth. They 
 gamble, yacht, race, enjoy prize-fights and cock-fights, the 
 one openly, the other in secret ; they establish luxurious clubs ; 
 they break themselves over horse-flesh and other things, and 
 they are instant in a quarrel. At twenty they are experi- 
 enced in business, embark in vast enterprises, take partners 
 as experienced as themselves, and go to pieces with as much 
 splendor as their neighbors. Remember that the men who 
 stocked California in the fifties were physically and, as far as 
 regards certain tough virtues, the pick of the earth. The 
 inept and the weakly died en route or went under in the days 
 of construction. To this nucleus were added all the races of 
 the Continent — French, Italian, German, and, of course, the 
 Jew. 
 
 The result you can see in large-boned, deep-chested^ deli- 
 cate-handed women and long, elastic, well-built boys. It 
 needs no little golden badge swinging from the watchchain 
 to mark the native son of the golden West, the country -bred 
 of California. 
 
 Him I love because he is devoid of fear, carries himself 
 
/ImeriGap J^otes 24? 
 
 like a man, and has a heart as big as his books. I fancy, 
 too, he knows how to enjoy the blessings of Hfe that his 
 province so abundantly bestows upon him. At least, I heard 
 a little rat of a creature with hock-bottle shoulders explaining 
 that a man from Chicago could pull the eye-teeth of a Cah- 
 fornian in business. 
 
 ABOUT THAT CLIMATE 
 
 Well, if I lived in fairy-land, where cherries were as big 
 as plums, plums as big as apples, and strawberries of no 
 account, where the procession of the fruits of the seasons 
 was like a pageant in a Drury Lane pantomime and the dry 
 air was wine, I should let business slide once in a way and 
 kick up my heels with my fellows. The tale of the resources 
 of California — vegetable and mineral — is a fairy-tale. You 
 can read it in books. You would never believe me. 
 
 All manner of nourishing food, from sea-fish to beef, may 
 be bought at the lowest prices, and the people are conse- 
 quently well developed and of a high stomach. They demand 
 ten shillings for tinkering a jammed lock of a trunk; they 
 receive sixteen shillings a day for working as carpenters; 
 they spend many sixpences on very bad cigars which the 
 poorest of them smoke, and they go mad over a prize-fight. 
 When they disagree they do so fatally with firearms in their 
 hands and on the pubhc streets. I was just clear of Mission 
 Street when the trouble began between two gentlemen, one 
 of whom perforated the other. When a poKceman, whose 
 name I do not recollect, "fatally shot Ed Hearney" for at- 
 tempting to escape arrest, I was in the next street. For 
 these things I am thankful. It is enough to travel with a 
 poHceman in a tram-car, and, while he arranges his coat-tails 
 as he sits down, to catch sight of a loaded revolver. It is 
 enough to know that fifty per cent of the men in the public 
 saloons carry pistols about them. 
 
 The Chinaman waylays his adversary and methodically 
 chops him to pieces with his hatchet. Then the press roars 
 about the brutal ferocity of the pagan. 
 
248 U/orl^s of P^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 The Italian reconstructs his friend with a long knife. 
 The press complains of the waywardness of the alien. 
 
 The Irishman and the native Californian in their hours 
 of discontent use the revolver, not once, but six times. The 
 press records the fact and asks in the next column whether 
 the world can parallel the progress of San Francisco. The 
 American who loves his country will tell you that this sort 
 of thing is confined to the lower classes. Just at present an 
 ex-judge who was sent to jail by another judge (upon my 
 word I cannot teU whether these titles mean anything) is 
 breathing red-hot vengeance against his enemy. The papers 
 have interviewed both parties and confidently expect a 
 fatal issue. 
 
 AFRICAN-AMERICAN TYPES 
 
 Kow, let me draw breath and curse the negro waiter, and 
 through him the negro in service generally. He has been 
 made a citizen with a vote, consequently both political parties 
 play with him. But that is neither here nor there. He will 
 commit in one meal every betise that a senllion fresh from 
 the plow-tail is capable of, and he will continue to repeat 
 those faults. He is as complete a heavy-footed, uncompre- 
 hending, bungle-fisted fool as any memsahib in the East 
 ever took into her estabhshment. But he is according to 
 law a free and independent citizen — consequently above re- 
 proof or criticism. He, and he alone, in this insane city, will 
 wait at table (the Chinaman doesn't count). 
 
 He is untrained, inept, but he will fill the place and draw 
 the pay. !N"ow, God and his father's fate made him intel- 
 lectually inferior to the Oriental. He insists on pretending 
 that he serves tables by accident — as a sort of amusement. 
 He wishes you to understand this little fact. You wish to 
 eat your meals, and, if possible, to have them properly 
 served. He is a big, black, vain baby and a man rolled 
 into one. 
 
 A colored gentleman who insisted on getting me pie when 
 I wanted something else demanded information about India. 
 I gave him some facts about wages. 
 
/imeriGar? J^otes 249 
 
 **0h, hell!" said he, cheerfully, **that wouldn't keep me 
 in cigars for a month." 
 
 Then he fawned on me for a ten-cent piece. Later he 
 took it upon himself to pity the natives of India. ' ' Heathens, ' ' 
 he called them — this woolly one, whose race has been the butt 
 of every comedy on the native stage since the beginningo 
 And I turned and saw by the head upon his shoulders that 
 he was a Yoruba man, if there be any truth in ethnological 
 castes. He did his thinking in English, but he was a Yoruba 
 negro, and the race type had remained the same throughout 
 his generations. And the room was full of other races— 
 some that looked exactly like Gallas (but the trade was 
 never recruited from that side of Africa), some duplicates of 
 Cameroon heads, and some Kroomen, if ever Kroomen wore 
 evening dress. 
 
 The American does not consider little matters of descent, 
 though by this time he ought to know all about '* damnable 
 heredity." As a general rule he keeps himself very far from 
 the negro, and says things about him- that are not pretty. 
 There are six million negroes, more or less, in the States^ 
 and they are increasing. The American once having made 
 them citizens cannot unmake them. He says, in his news- 
 papers, they ought to be elevated by education. He is try- 
 ing this, but it is likely to be a long job, because black blood 
 is much more adhesive than white and throws back with 
 annoying persistence. 
 
 When the negro gets religion he returns directly as a 
 hiving bee to the first instincts of his people. Just now 
 a wave of religion is sweeping over some of the Southern 
 States. 
 
 Up to the present two Messiahs and a Daniel have ap~ 
 peared, and several human sacrifices have been offered up to 
 these incarnations. The Daniel managed to get three young 
 men, who he insisted were Shadrach, Meshach and Abed- 
 nego, to walk into a blast furnace, guaranteeing noncombus- 
 tion. They did not return. I have seen nothing of this 
 kind, but I have attended a negro church — they pray or are 
 
250 U/orl^s of I^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 caused to pray by themselves in this country. The congrega- 
 tion were moved by the spirit to groans and tears, and one of 
 them danced up the aisle to the mourners' bench. The mo- 
 tive may have been genuine. The movements of the shaken 
 body were those of a Zanzibar stick dance, such as you see 
 at Aden on the coal-boats, and even as I v/atched the people 
 the links that bound them to the white man snapped one by 
 one, and I saw before me the hubshi (woolly hair) praying 
 to a God he did not understand. Those neatly dressed folk 
 on the benches, the gray-headed elder by the window, were 
 savages neither more nor less. 
 
 AN IKREPRESSIBLE PROBLEM 
 
 What will the American do with the negro? The South 
 will not consort with him. In some States miscegenation is 
 a penal offense. The ITorth is every year less and less in 
 need of his services. 
 
 And he will not disappear. He will continue as a 
 problem. His friends will urge that he is as good as the 
 white man. His enemies—well, you can guess what his 
 enemies will do from a little incident that followed on a 
 recent appointment by the President, He made a negro an 
 assistant in a post-office where— think of it! — he had to work 
 at the next desk to a white girl, the daughter of a colonel, 
 one of the first families of Georgia's modern chivalry, and 
 all the weary, weary rest of it. The Southern chivalry 
 howled and hanged or burned some one in effigy. Perhaps 
 it was the President, and perhaps it was the negro— but the 
 principle remains the same. They said it was an insult. It 
 is not good to be a negro in the land of the free and the home 
 of the brave. 
 
 But this has nothing to do with San Francisco and .her 
 merry maidens, her strong, swaggering men, and her wealth 
 of gold and pride. They bore me to a banquet in honor of a 
 brave lieutenant — Carlin, of the " Vandalia"— who stuck by 
 his ship in the great cyclone at Apia and comported himself 
 as an officer should. On that occasion — 'twas at the Bo« 
 
/imerieai) ]S[ofces 251 
 
 hemian Club — I heard oratory with the roundest of o's, and 
 devoured dinner the memory of which will descend with me 
 into the hungry grave. 
 
 SCREAMS FROM THE EAGLE 
 
 There were about forty speeches delivered, and not one 
 of them was average or ordinary. It was my first introduc- 
 tion to the American eagle screaming for all it was worth. 
 The lieutenant's heroism served as a peg from which the 
 silver-tongued ones turned themselves loose and kicked. 
 
 They ransacked the clouds of sunset, the thunderbolts of 
 heaven, the deeps of hell, and the splendor of the resurrec- 
 tion for tropes and metaphors, and hurled the result at the 
 head of the guest of the evening. 
 
 Never since the morning stars sung together for joy, I 
 learned, had an amazed creation witnessed such superhuman 
 bravery as that displayed by the American navy in the Samoa 
 cyclone. Till earth rotted in the phosphorescent star-and- 
 stripe slime of a decayed universe that god-like gallantry 
 would not be forgotten. I grieve that I cannot give the 
 exact words. My attempt at reproducing their spirit is pale 
 and inadequate. I sat bewildered on a coruscating Niagara 
 of blatherumskite. It was magnificent— it was stupendous 
 — and I was conscious of a wicked desire to hide my face in 
 a napkin and grin. Then, according to rule, they produced 
 their dead, and across the snowy tablecloths dragged the 
 corpse of every man slain in the Civil "War and hurled defi- 
 ance at ''our natural enemy" (England, so please you), *'with 
 her chain of fortresses across the world." Thereafter they 
 glorified their nation afresh from the beginning, in case any 
 detail should have been overlooked, and that made me un- 
 comfortable for their sakes. How in the world can a white 
 man, a sahib, of our blood, stand up and plaster praise on 
 his own country? He can think as highly as he likes, but 
 this open-mouthed vehemence of adoration struck me almost 
 as indelicate. My hosts talked for rather more than three 
 hours, and at the end seemed ready for three hours more. 
 
252 U/orl^6 of Hudyard )!{lpUT)(^ 
 
 But when the lieutenant — such a big, brave, gentle giant 
 —rose to bis feet, be delivered what seemed to me as the 
 speech of the evening. I remember nearly the whole of it, 
 and it ran something in this way : 
 
 "Gentlemen— It's very good of you to give me this din- 
 ner and to tell me all these pretty things, but what I want 
 vou to understand-— the fact is, what we want and what we 
 ought to get at once, is a navy — more ships— lote of 'em~" 
 
 Then we howled the top of the roof off^ and I for one fell 
 in love with Carlin on the spot. Wallah! He was a man. 
 
 The prince among merchants bade me take no heed to 
 the war-like sentiments of some of the old generals. 
 
 **The sky-rockets are thrown In for effect,^* quoth he, 
 *^and whenever we get on our hind legs we always express 
 a desire to chaw up England. It's a sort of family affair." 
 
 And, indeed, when you come to think of it, there is no 
 other country for the American pubhc speaker to trample 
 upon. 
 
 France has Germany, we have Russia; for Italy Austria 
 is provided, and the humblest Pathan possesses an ancestral 
 enemy. 
 
 Only America stands out of the racket, and therefor© to 
 be in fashion makes a sand-bag of the mother country and 
 hangs her when occasion requires. 
 
 **The chain of fortresses" man, a fascinating talker, ex- 
 plained to me after the affair that he was compelled to blow 
 off steam. Everybody expected it. 
 
 When we had chanted "The Star Spangled Banner" not 
 more than eight times, we adjourned. America is a very 
 great country, but it is not yet heaven, with electric lights 
 and plush fittings, as the speakers professed to believe. • My 
 listening mind went back to the politicians in the saloon, 
 who wasted no time in talking about freedom, but quietly 
 made arrangements to impose their will on the citizens. 
 
 "The judge is a great man, but give thy presents to the 
 clerk, ' ' as the proverb saith. 
 
/Imerieap ffotes 253 
 
 TRAITS OF THE TYPEWEITEE 
 
 And what more remains to tell? I cannot write con« 
 nectedly, because I am in love with all those girls aforesaid 
 and some others who do not appear in the invoice. The 
 typewriter is an institution of which the comic papers make 
 much capital, but she is vastly convenient. She and a com- 
 panion rent a room in a business quarter, and, aided by a 
 typewriting machine, copy MSS. at the rate of six annas 
 a page. Only a woman can operate a typewriting ma« 
 chine, because she has served apprenticeship to the sewing 
 machine. She can earn as much as one hundred dollars a 
 month, and professes to regard this form of bread- winning 
 as her natural destiny. But, oh! how she hates it in her 
 heart of hearts I When I had got over the surprise of doing 
 business with and trying to give orders to a young woman of 
 coldly, clerkly aspect intrenched behind gold-rimmed spec- 
 tacles I made inquiries concerning the pleasures of this inde« 
 pendence. They liked it — indeed they dido 'Twas the natu- 
 ral fate of almost all girls — the recognized custom in America 
 — and I was a barbarian not to see it in that light. 
 Well, and after?" said I. "What happens?" 
 We work for our bread," 
 And then what do you expect?" 
 Then we shall work for our bread.'* 
 Till you die?" 
 Ye-es— unless — " 
 
 'Unless what? This is your business, you know. A 
 man works until he dies." 
 
 "So shall we" — this without enthusiasm-— "I suppose." 
 
 Said the partner in the firm audaciously : 
 
 "Sometimes we marry our employes — at least, that's 
 what the newspapers say." 
 
 The hand banged on half a dozen of the keys of the ma- 
 chine at once. *'Yet I don't care. I hate it — I hate it— I 
 hate it — and you needn't loOK. sol'' 
 
254 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{ip\iT)(^ 
 
 The senior partner was regarding the rebel with grave- 
 eyed reproach. 
 
 *'I thought you did," said I. "I don't suppose American 
 girls are much different from Enghsh ones in instinct." 
 
 *' Isn't it Theophile Gautier who says that the only differ- 
 ence between country and country lie in the slang and the 
 uniform of the police?" 
 
 Now, in the name of all the gods at once, what is one to 
 say to a young lady (who in England would be a person) who 
 earns her own bread, and very naturally hates the employ, 
 and slings out-of-the-way quotations at your head? That 
 one falls in love with her goes without saying, but that is 
 not enough. 
 
 A mission should be established. 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING'S AMERICAN 
 CATCHES 
 
 EPIC STORY OF HEROIC SIZE ABOUT EXPLOITS IN SALMON 
 FISHING — MILITANT AND TRIUMPHANT — HOW AN EN- 
 GLISHMAN PORTRAYS AMERICAN SPORT TO READERS IN 
 INDIA 
 
 The race is neither to the swift nor the battle to the strong ; but 
 time and chance cometh to aU 
 
 I HAVE lived! 
 
 The American Continent may now sink under the sea, 
 for I have taken the best that it yields, and the best was 
 neither dollars, love, nor real estate. 
 
 Hear now, gentlemen of the Punjab Fishing Club, who 
 whip the reaches of the Tavi, and you who painfully import 
 trout over to Octamund, and I will tell you how old man 
 California and I went fishing, and you shall envy. 
 
5> 
 
 /imerieaij f/otes 255 
 
 We returned from The Dalles to Portland by the way we 
 had come, the steamer stopping en route to pick up a night's 
 catch of one of the salmon wheels on the river and to deliver 
 it at a cannery down- stream. 
 
 When the proprietor of the wheel announced that his take 
 was two thousand two hundred and thirty pounds' weight of 
 fish, ''and not a heavy catch neither," I thought he lied. 
 But he sent the boxes aboard, and I counted the salmon by the 
 hundred—huge fiftr-pounders hardly dead, scores of twenty 
 and thirty-pounders, and a host of smaller £sh. They were 
 all Chenook salmon, as distinguished from the "steel head 
 and the "silver side." That is to say, they were r< 
 salmon, and California and I dropped a tear over them as 
 monarchs who deserved a better fate, but the lust of slaugh- 
 ter entered into our souls, and we talked fish and forgot the 
 mountain scenery that had so moved us a day before. 
 
 The steamer halted at a rude wooden warehouse built on 
 piles in a lonely reach of the river and sent in the fish. I 
 followed them up a scale-strewn, fishy incline that led to the 
 cannery. The crazy building was quivering with the ma- 
 chinery on its floors and a glittering bank of tin scraps 
 twenty feet high showed where the waste was thrown alt^ 
 the cans had been punched. 
 
 IK A CANNERY 
 
 Only Chinamen were employed on the work, and thef 
 looked like blood-besmeared, yellow devils as they crossed 
 the rifts of sunlight that lay upon the floor. When our con-" 
 signment arrived the rough wooden boxes broke of them- 
 selves as they were dumped down under a jet of water and 
 the salmon burst out in a stream of quicksilver. A China- 
 man jerked up a twenty-pounder, beheaded and detailed it 
 with two swift strokes of a knife, flicked out its internal ar- 
 rangements with a third, and cast it into a blood-dyed tank. 
 The headless fish leaped from under his hands as though 
 they were facing a rapid. Other Chinamen pulled them 
 from the vat and thrust them under a thing like a chaff- 
 
;856 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplii)<^ 
 
 cutter, whicli, descending, hewed them into unseemly red 
 gobbets fit for the can. 
 
 More Chinamen, with yellow, crooked fingers, jammed 
 the stuff into the cans, which slid down some marvelous 
 machine forthwith, soldering their own tops as they passed. 
 Each can was hastily tested for flaws and then sunk with a 
 hundred companions into a vat of boiling water, there to be 
 half cooked for a few minutes. The cans bulged slightly 
 after the operation, and were therefore slidden along by the 
 trolleyf ul to men with needles and soldering-irons who vented 
 them and soldered the aperture. Except for the label, the 
 ** Finest Columbia Salmon" was ready for the market. I 
 was impressed not so much with the speed of the manu- 
 facture as the character of the factory. Inside, on a floor 
 ninety by forty, the most civilized and murderous of ma- 
 chinery. Outside, three footsteps, the thick-growing pines 
 and the immense solitude of the hills. Our steamer only 
 stayed twenty minutes at that place, but I counted two hun- 
 dred and forty finished cans made from the catch of the 
 previous night ere I left the slippery, blood-stained, scale- 
 spangled, oily floors and the offal-smeared Chinamen. 
 
 LUST OF SLAUGHTER 
 
 We reached Portland, California and I crying for salmon, 
 and a real estate man, to whom we had . been intrusted by 
 an insurance man, met us in the street, saying that fifteen 
 miles away, across country, we should come upon a place 
 called Clackamas, where we might perchance find what we 
 desired. And California, his coat-tails flying in the wind, 
 ran to a livery-stable and chartered a wagon and team forth- 
 with. I could push the wagon about with one hand, so light 
 was its structure. The team was purely American — that is 
 to say, almost human in its intelligence and docility. Some 
 one said that the roads were not good on the way to Clacka- 
 mas, and warned us against smashing the springs. "Port' 
 land, ' ' who had watched the preparations, finally reckoned 
 *'He'd come along, too," and under heavenly skies we three 
 
/lmeriear> f/otes 257 
 
 companions of a day set forth, California carefully lashing 
 our rods into the carriage and the bystanders overwhelming 
 us with directions as to the saw-mills we were to pass, the 
 ferries we were to cross, and the sign-posts we were to seek 
 signs from. HaK a mile from this city of fifty thousand 
 souls we struck (and this must be taken Kteraily) a plank 
 road that would have been a disgrace to an Irish village. 
 
 OFF FOB CLACKAMAS 
 
 Then six miles of macadamized road showed us that the 
 team could move. A railway ran between us and the banks 
 of the "Willamette, and another above us through the moun- 
 tains. All the land was dotted with small townships and the 
 roads were full of farmers in their tovm wagons, bunches of 
 tow-haired, boggle-eyed urchins sitting in the hay behind. 
 The men generally looked like loafers, but their women were 
 all well dressed. 
 
 Brown braiding on a tailor-made jacket does not, how- 
 ever, consort with hay- wagons. Then we struck into the 
 v/oods along what California called a camina reale—a, good 
 road — and Portland a **fair track." It wound in and out 
 among fire-blackened stumps under pine-trees, along the cor- 
 ners of log fences, through hollows, which must be hopeless 
 marsh in the winter, and up absurd gradients. But nowhere 
 throughout its length did I see any evidence of road-making, 
 . There was a track — ^you couldn't well get off it, and it was 
 aU you could do to stay on it. The dust lay a foot thick in 
 the blind ruts, and under the dust we found bits of planking 
 and bundles of brushwood that sent the wagon bounding into 
 the air The journey in itself was a delight. Sometimes 
 we crashed through bracken ; anon, where the blackberries 
 grew rankest, we found a lonely little cemetery, the wooden 
 rails all awry and the pitiful, stumpy headstones nodding 
 drunkenly at the soft green mullions. Then, with oaths and 
 the sound of rent underwood, a yoke of mighty bulls would 
 swing down a **skid" road, hauling a forty-foot log along a 
 rudely made slide. 
 
258 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 A valley full of wheat and cherry-trees succeeded, and 
 halting at a house, we bought ten-pound weight of luscious 
 black cherries for something less than a rupee and got a 
 drink of icy-cold water for nothing, while the untended team 
 browsed sagaciously by the roadside. Once we found a way- 
 side camp of horse-dealers lounging by a pool, ready for a 
 sale or a swap, and once two sun-tanned youngsters shot 
 down a hill on Indian ponies, their full creels banging from 
 the high-pommeled saddle. They had been fishing, and were 
 our brethren therefore. We shouted aloud in chorus to scare 
 a wild cat ; we squabbled over the reasons that had led a 
 snake to cross a road ; we heaved bits of bark at a venture- 
 some chipmunk, who was really the little gray squirrel of 
 India, and had come to call on me ; we lost our way and got 
 the wagon so beautifully fixed on a khud-bound road that we 
 had to tie the two hind wheels to get it down. 
 
 Above all, California told tales of Nevada and Arizona, 
 of lonely nights spent out prospecting, the slaughter of deer 
 and the chase of men, of woman — lovely woman — who is a 
 firebrand in a Western city and leads to the popping of pis- 
 tols, and of the sudden changes and chances of Fortune, who 
 delights in making the miner or the lumberman a quadrupli- 
 cate millionaire and in "busting" the railroad king. 
 
 DAY TO BE REMEMBERED 
 
 That was a day to be remembered, and it had only begun 
 when we drew rein at a tiny farmhouse on the banks of the 
 Clackamas and sought horse feed and lodging, ere we hast- 
 ened to the river that broke over a weir not a quarter of a 
 mile away. Imagine a stream seventy yards broad divided 
 by a pebbly island, running over seductive "riffles" and 
 swirling into deep, quiet pools, where the good salmon goes 
 to smoke his pipe after meals. Get such a stream amid 
 fields of breast-high crops surrounded by hills of pines, throw 
 in where you please quiet water, long-fenced meadows, and 
 a hundred-foot bluff just to keep the scenery frora growing 
 too monotonous, and you will get some faint notion of the 
 
f{meriQ3LT) ffotes 259 
 
 Clackamas. The weir had been erected to pen the Chenook 
 salmon from going further up-stream. We could see them, 
 twenty or thirty pounds, by the score in the deep pools, or 
 flying madly against the weir and foolishly skinning their 
 noses. They were not our prey, for they would not rise at a 
 fly, and we knew it. All the same, when one made his leap 
 against the weir and landed on the foot-plank with a jar 
 that shook the board I was standing on, I would fain have 
 claimed him for my own capture. 
 
 Portland had no rod. He held the gaff and the whisky. 
 California sniffed up-stream and down stream, across the 
 racing water, chose his ground, and let the gaudy fly drop in 
 the tail of a riffle. I was getting my rod together when I 
 heard the joyous shriek of the reel and the yells of California, 
 and three feet of living silver leaped into the air far across 
 the water. The forces were engaged. 
 
 BATTLE ROYAL WITH SALMON 
 
 The salmon tore up-stream, the tense line cutting the 
 water like a tide-rip behind him, and the light bamboo bowed 
 to breaking. What happened thereafter I cannot tell. Cah- 
 fornia swore and prayed and Portland shouted advice, and I 
 did all three for what appeared to be half a day, but was in 
 reality a little over a quarter of an hour, and sullenly our flsh 
 came home with spurts of temper, dashes head on and sara- 
 bands in the air, but home to the bank came he, and the 
 remorseless reel gathered up the thread of his life inch by 
 inch. We landed him in a little bay, and the spring weight 
 in his gorgeous gills checked at eleven and one-half pounds. 
 Eleven and one-half pounds of fighting salmon ! We danced 
 a war-dance on the pebbles, and California caught me round 
 the waist in a hug that went near to breaking my ribs while 
 he shouted : 
 
 "Partner! Partner! This is glory! Now you catch 
 your fish! Twenty-four years I've waited for this!" 
 
 I went into that icy-cold river and made my cast just 
 above the weir, and all but foul-hooked a blue-and-black 
 
260 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplir>^ 
 
 water- snake with a coral mouth who coiled herself on a stone 
 and hissed maledictions. 
 
 The next cast — ah, the pride of it, the regal splendor of 
 it ! the thrill that ran down from finger-tip to toe ! Then the 
 water boiled. He broke for the fly and got it. There re- 
 mained enough sense in me to give him all he wanted when 
 he jumped not once, but twenty times, before the up-stream 
 flight that ran my line out to the last half dozen turns, and I 
 saw the nickeled reel-bar glitter under the thinning green 
 coils. My thumb was burned deep when I strove to stopper 
 the hne. 
 
 I did not feel it till later, for my soul was out in the 
 dancing weir praying for him to turn ere he took my tackle 
 away. And the prayer was heard. As I bowed back, the 
 butt of the rod on my left hip-bone and the top joint dipping 
 like unto a weeping willow, he turned and I accepted each inch 
 of slack that I could by any means get in as a favor from on 
 high. There lie several sorts of success in this world that 
 taste well in the moment of enjoyment, but I question 
 whether the stealthy theft of line from an able-bodied salmon 
 who knows exactly what you are doing and why you are 
 doing it is not sweeter than any other victory within human 
 scope. Like California's fish, he ran at me head on and 
 leaped against the line, but the Lord gave me two hundred 
 and fifty pairs of fingers in that hour. The banks and the 
 pine-trees danced dizzily round me, but I only reeled — reeled 
 as for life— reeled for hours, and at the end of the reehng 
 continued to give him the butt while he sulked in a pool. 
 California was further up the reach, and with the corner of 
 my eye I could see him casting with long casts and much 
 skill. Then he struck and my fish broke for the weir in the 
 same instant, and down the reach we came, Cahfornia and 
 I, reel answering reel even as the morning stars sing together. 
 
 SWEETS OF VICTORY 
 
 The first wild enthusiasm of capture had died away. "We 
 were both at work now in deadly earnest to prevent the lines 
 
/imerieai? J^otes 261 
 
 fouling, to stall off a down-stream rush for shaggy water just 
 above the weir, and at the same time to get the fish into the 
 shallow bay down-stream that gave the best practicable 
 landing. Portland bade us both be of good heart, and 
 volunteered to take the rod from my hands. 
 
 I would rather have died among the pebbles than sur- 
 render my right to play and land a salmon, weight unknown, 
 with an eight-ounce rod. I heard California, at my ear, it 
 seemed, gasping: "He's a fighter from Fightersville sure!" 
 as his fish made a fresh break across the stream. I saw 
 Portland fall off a log fence, break the overhanging bank, 
 and clatter down to the pebbles, all sand and landing-net, 
 and I dropped on a log to rest for a moment. As I drew 
 breath the weary hands slackened their hold and I forgot to 
 give him the butt. 
 
 A wild scutter in the water, a plunge, and a break for the 
 head-waters of the Clackamas was my reward, and the weary 
 toil of reeling in with one eye under the water and the other 
 on the top joint of the rod was renewed. Worst of all, I was 
 blocking California's path to the little landing bay aforesaid, 
 and he had to halt and tire his prize where he was. 
 
 "The father of all the salmon!" he shouted. "For the 
 love of Heaven, get your trout to bank, Johnny Bull!" 
 
 But I could do no more. Even the insult failed to move 
 me. The rest of the game was with the salmon. He suffered 
 himself to be drawn, skipping with pretended delight at 
 getting to the haven where I would fain bring him. Yet no 
 sooner did he feel shoal water under his ponderous belly than 
 he backed like a torpedo-boat, and the snarl of the reel told 
 me that my labor was in vain. A dozen times, at least, this 
 happened ere the line hinted he had given up the battle and 
 would be towed in. He was towed. The landing-net was 
 useless for one of his size, and I would not have him gaffed. 
 I stepped into the shallows and heaved him out with a re- 
 spectful hand under the gill, for which kindness he battered 
 me about the legs with his tail, and I felt the strength of 
 him and was proud. California had taken my place in the 
 
262 U/ort^s of I^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 shallows, his fish hard held. I was up the bank lying full 
 length on the sweet scented grass and gasping in company 
 with my first salmon caught, played and landed on an eight- 
 ounce rod. My hands were cut and bleeding, I was dripping 
 with sweat, spangled like a harlequin with scales, water 
 from my waist down, nose peeled by the sun, but utterly, 
 supremelyj and consummately happy. 
 
 The beauty, the darling, the daisy, my Salmon Bahadur, 
 weighed twelve pounds, and I had been seven-and-thirty 
 minutes bringing him to bank 1 He had been hghtly hooked 
 on the angle of the right jaw and the hook had not wearied 
 him. That hour I sat among princes and crowned hea^ds, 
 greater than them all. Below the bank we heard California 
 scuffling with his salmon and swearing Spanish oaths. Port- 
 land and I assisted at the capture, and the fish dragged the 
 spring balance out by the roots. It was only constructed to 
 weigh up to fifteen pounds. We stretched the three fish on 
 the grass — the eleven and a half, the twelve and fifteen- 
 pounder — and we gave an oath that all who came after should 
 merely be weighed and put back again. 
 
 RESTING ON LAURELS 
 
 How shall I tell the glories of that day so that you may 
 be interested? Again and again did California and I prance 
 down that reach to the little bay, each with a salmon in tow, 
 and land him in the shallovfs. Then Portland took my rod 
 and caught some ten-pounders, and my spoon was carried 
 away by an unknown leviathan. Each fish, for the merits 
 of the three that had died so gamely, was hastily hooked on 
 the balance and flung back. Portland recorded the weight 
 in a pocket-book, for he was a real estate man. Each fish 
 fought for all he was worth, and none more savagely than 
 the smallest, a game little six-pounder. At the end of six 
 hours we added up the list. Read it. Total : Sixteen fish ; 
 aggregate weight, one hundred and forty pounds. The score 
 in detail runs something like this — ^it is only interesting to 
 those concerned ; fifteen, eleven and a half, twelve, ten, nine 
 
/imerieai) f^otes 263 
 
 and three-quarters, eight, and so forth; as I have said, 
 nothing under six pounds, and three ten-pounders. 
 
 Very solemnly and thankfully we put up our rods — it was 
 glory enough for all time — and returned weeping in each 
 other's arms, weeping tears of pure joy, to that simple, bare- 
 legged family in the packing-house by the water-side. 
 
 The old farmer recollected days and nights of fierce 
 warfare with the Indians "way back in the fifties," when 
 every ripple of the Columbia River and her tributaries hid 
 covert danger. God had dowered him with a queer, crooked 
 gift of expression and a fierce anxiety for the welfare of his 
 two little sons — tanned and reserved children, who attended 
 school daily and spoke good English in a strange tongue. 
 
 His wife was an austere woman, who had once been 
 kindly, and perhaps handsome. 
 
 Very many years of toil had taken the elasticity out of 
 step and voice. She looked for nothing better than everlast- 
 ing work — the chafing detail of housework- — and then a grave 
 somewhere up the hill among the blackberries and the pines. 
 But in her grim way she sympathized with her eldest 
 daughter, a small and silent maiden of eighteen, who had 
 thoughts very far from the meals she tended and the pans 
 she scoured. 
 
 We stumbled into the household at a crisis, and there was 
 a deal of downright humanity in that same. A bad, wicked 
 dressmaker had promised the maiden a dress in time for a 
 to-morrow's railway journey, and though the barefooted 
 Georgy, who stood in very wholesome awe of his sister, had 
 scoured the woods on a pony in search, that dress never 
 arrived. So, with sorrow in her heart and a hundred Sister- 
 Anne glances up the road, she waited upon the strangers 
 and, I doubt not, cursed them for the wants that stood 
 between her and her need for tears. It was a genuine little 
 tragedy. The mother, in a heavy, passionless voice, rebuked 
 her impatience, yet sat up far into the night, bowed over a 
 heap of sewing for the daughter's benefit. 
 
 These things I beheld in the long marigold-scented twi- 
 
*264 U/orKs of ^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 light and whispering night, loafing round the little house 
 with Californiaj who unfolded himself like a lotus to the 
 moon, or in the little boarded bunk that was our bedroom, 
 swapping tales with Portland and the old man. 
 
 Most of the yarns began in this way : 
 
 *'Red Larry was a bull-puncher back of Lone County, 
 Montana," or ** There was a man riding the trail met a jack- 
 rabbit sitting in a cactus," or *"Bout the time of the San 
 Diego land boom a woman from Monterey," etc. 
 
 You can try to piece out for yourselves what sort of stories 
 they were. 
 
 .UDYARD KIPLING ASTRIDE THE 
 
 CLOUDS 
 
 INTOXICATED BY DEEP DRAUGHTS OF YELLOWSTONE WON- 
 DERS—AMERICAN BEAT ENGLISH MANNERS — WORD- 
 PAINTING ADEQUATE TO THE SOCIETY AND INSPIRA- 
 TION OF A NEW HAMPSHIRE GIRL. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a carter who brought his 
 team and a friend into the Yellowstone Park without due 
 thought. Presently they came upon a few of the natural 
 beauties of the place, and that carter turned his team into his 
 friend's team, howling : 
 
 *'Get out o' this, Jim3 All hell's alight under our noses !" 
 
 And they called the place Hell's Half- Acre to this day to 
 witness if the carter lied. 
 
 We, too, the old lady from Chicago, her husband, Tom, 
 and the good little mares, came to Hell's Half- Acre, which 
 is about sixty acres in extent, and when Tom said : 
 
 ''Would you like to drive over it?" 
 
 We said : 
 
 "Certainly not, and if you do we shall report you to the 
 park authorities." 
 
^mericap f/otes 365 
 
 There was a plain, blistered and peeled and abominable, 
 and it was given over to the sportings and spoutings of 
 devils who threw mud, and steam, and dirt at each other 
 with whoops, and halloos, and bellowing curses. 
 
 The places smelled of the refuse of the pit, and that odor 
 mixed with the clean, wholesome aroma of the pines in our 
 nostrils throughout the day. 
 
 LAID OUT LIKE OLLENDORF 
 
 This Yellowstone Park is laid out like OUendorf , in exer- 
 cises of progressive difficulty. HelPs Half- Acre was a pre- 
 lude to ten or twelve miles of geyser formation. 
 
 We passed hot streams boiling in the forest; saw whiffs 
 of steam beyond these, and yet other whiffs breaking through 
 the misty green hills in the far distance; we trampled on 
 sulphur in crystals, and sniffed things much worse than any 
 sulphur which is known to the upper world ; and so journey- 
 ing, bewildered with the novelty, came upon a really park- 
 like place where Tom suggested we should get out and play 
 with the geysers on foot. 
 
 Imagine mighty green fields splattered with lime-beds, 
 all the flowers of the summer growing up to the very edge of 
 the lime. That was our first glimpse of the geyser basins. 
 
 The buggy had pulled up close to a rough, broken, blistered 
 cone of spelter stuff between ten and twenty feet high. There 
 was trouble in that place — moaning, splashing, gurgling, and 
 the clank of machinery. A spurt of boiling water jumped 
 into the air and a wash of water followed. 
 
 I removed swiftly. The old lady from Chicago shrieked. 
 *'What a wicked waste," said her husband. 
 
 I think they call it the Riverside Geyser. Its spout was 
 torn and ragged Hke the mouth of a gun when a shell has 
 burst there. It grumbled madly for a moment or two, and 
 then was still. I crept over the steaming lime^it was the 
 burning marl on which Satan lay—and looked fearfully down 
 its mouth. You should never look a gift geyser in the 
 mouth. 
 Vol. 3. 12 
 
^66 U/or^s of F^adyard K*pliQ<J 
 
 devil's bethesda 
 
 I beheld a horrible, slippery, slimy funnel with water 
 rising and falling ten feet at a time. Then the water rose to 
 lip level with a rush, and an infernal bubbling troubled this 
 Devil's Bethesda before the sullen heave of the crest of a wave 
 lapped over the edge and made me run. 
 
 Mark the nature of the human soul. I had begun with 
 awe, not to say terror, for this was my first experience of 
 such things. I stepped back from the banks of the Riverside 
 Geyser, saying: 
 
 "Pooh! Is that aU it can do?" 
 
 Yet for aught I knew the whole thing might have blown 
 up at a minute's notice, she, he, or it being an arrangement 
 of uncertain temper. 
 
 We drifted on, up that miraculous valley. On either 
 side of us were hills from a thousand or fifteen hundred feet 
 high, wooded from crest to heel. As far as the eye could 
 range forward were columns of steam in the air, misshapen 
 lumps of lime, mist-like preadamite monsters, still pools of 
 turquois-blue stretches of blue corn-flowers, a river that 
 coiled on itself twenty times, pointed bowlders of strange 
 colors, and ridges of glaring, staring white. 
 
 A moon-faced trooper of German extraction — never was 
 park so carefully patroled — came up to inform us that as yet 
 we had not seen any of the real geysers ; that they were all 
 a mile or so up the valley, and tastefully scattered round the 
 hotel in which we would rest for the night. 
 
 THE trooper's STORY 
 
 America is a free country, but the citizens look down on 
 the soldier. I had to entertain that trooper. The old lady 
 from Chicago would have none of him; so we loafed alone 
 together, now across half-rotten pine logs sunk in swampy 
 ground, anon over the ringing geyser formation, then pound- 
 ing through river-sand or brushing knee-deep through long 
 grass. 
 
flmeriGap f/otes 267 
 
 «e 
 
 "And why did you enlist?" said I. 
 
 The moon-faced one's face began to work. I thought he 
 would have a fit, but h© told me a story instead — such a nice 
 tale of a naughty little girl who wrote pretty love letters to 
 two men at once. She was a simple village wife, but a 
 wicked **family novelette" countess couldn't have accom- 
 plished her ends better. She drove one man nearly wild 
 with the pretty little treachery, and the other man abandoned 
 her and came West to forget the trickery. 
 
 Moonface was that man. 
 
 GOBLIN BATHTUBS 
 
 We rounded and limped over a low spur of hill and came 
 out upon a field of aching snowy lime, rolled in sheets, twisted 
 into knots, riven with rents, and diamonds, and stars, stretch- 
 ing for more than half a mile in every direction. 
 
 On this place of despair lay most of the big. bad geysers 
 who know when there is trouble in Krakatoa^ who tell the 
 pines when there is a cyclone on the Atlantic seaboard, and 
 who are exhibited to visitors under pretty and fanciful names. 
 
 The first mound that I encountered belonged to a goblin 
 who was splashing in his tub. I heard him kick, pull a 
 shower-bath on his shoulders, gasp, crack his joints, and rub 
 himself down with a towel ; then he let the water out of the 
 bath, as a thoughtful man should, and it all sunk down out 
 of sight till another gobhn arrived. 
 
 So we looked and we wondered at the Beehive, whose 
 mouth is built up exactly hke a hive, at the Turban (which 
 is not in the least like a turban), and at many, many other 
 geysers, hot holes, and springs. Some of them rumbled, 
 some hissed, some went off spasmodically, and others lay 
 dead still in sheets of sapphire and beryl. 
 
 TURNING A geyser's STOMACH 
 
 Would you believe that even these terrible creatures have 
 to be guarded by the troopers to prevent the irreverent Ameri- 
 can from chipping the cones to pieces, or, worse still, making 
 
268 U/orKs of I^adyard \{\pVir)(^ 
 
 the geyser sick? If you take of soft-soap a small barreKul 
 and drop it down a geyser's mouth, that geyser will pres- 
 ently be forced to lay all before you and for days afterward 
 will be of an irritated and inconstant stomach. 
 
 When they told me the tale I was filled with sympathy. 
 !N"ow I wish that I had soft-soap and tried the experiment on 
 some lonely little beast far away in the woods. It sounds so 
 probable and so human. 
 
 Yet he would be a bold man who would administer emet- 
 ics to the Giantess. She is flat-lipped, having no mouth, 
 she looks like a pool, fifty feet long and thirty wide, and 
 there is no ornamentation about her. At irregular intervals 
 she speaks and sends up a column of water over two hundred 
 feet high to begin with, then she is angry for a day and a 
 half — sometimes for two days. 
 
 Owing to her peculiarity of going mad in the night, not 
 many people have seen the Giantess at her finest ; but the 
 clamor of her unrest, men say, shakes the wooden hotel and 
 echoes like thnnder among the hills. 
 
 UNCLE SAM'S SOLDIEES 
 
 The congregation returned to the hotel to put down their 
 impressions in diaries and note-books which they wrote up 
 ostentatiously in the verandas. It was a sweltering hot day, 
 albeit we stood somewhat higher than the level of Simla, and 
 I left that raw pine creaking caravansary for the cool shade 
 of a clump of pines between whose trunks glimmered tents. 
 
 A batch of United States troopers came down the road 
 and flung themselves across the country into their rough 
 lines. The Melican cavalryman can ride, though he keeps 
 his accou torments pig-fashion and his horse cow-fashion. 
 
 I was free of that camp in five minutes — free to play with 
 the heavy, lumpy carbines, have the saddles stripped, and 
 punch the horses knowingly in the ribs. One of the men 
 had been in the fight with " Wrap-up-his-Tail, " and he told 
 me how that great chief, his horse's tail tied up in red calico, 
 swaggered in front of the United States cavalry, challenging 
 
fimQTiQzi) f/otes 269 
 
 all to single combat. But he was slain, and a few of his 
 tribe with him. 
 
 "There's no use in an Indian, anyway," concluded my 
 friend. 
 
 A couple of cow-boys — real cow-boys — jingled through 
 the camp amid a shower of mild chaff. They were on their 
 way to Cook City, I fancy, and I know that they never 
 washed. But they were picturesque ruffians exceedingly, 
 with long spurs, hooded stirrups, slouch hats, fur weather- 
 cloth over their knees, and pistol-butts just easy to hand. 
 
 "The cow-boy's goin' under before long," said my friend. 
 "Soon as the country's settled up he'll have to go. But he's 
 mighty useful now. What would we do without the cow- 
 boy?" 
 
 WHAT COW-BOYS AEE GOOD FOR 
 
 "As how?" said I, and the camp laughed. 
 
 "He has the money. We have the skill. He comes in 
 winter to play poker at the military posts. We play poker 
 — a few. When he's lost his money we make him drunk 
 and let him go. Sometimes we get the wrong man." 
 
 And he told me a tale of an innocent cow-boy who turned 
 up, cleaned out, at an army post, and played poker for thirty- 
 six hours. But it was the post that was cleaned out when 
 that long-haired Caucasian removed himself, heavy with 
 everybody's pay and declining the proffered liquor. 
 
 "Noaw," said the historian, "I don't play with no cow- 
 boy unless he's a httle bit drunk first." 
 
 Ere I departed I gathered from more than one man tho 
 significant fact that up to one hundred yards he felt abso- 
 lutely secure behind his revolver. 
 
 "In England, I understand," quoth the Hmber youth from 
 the South, "in England a man isn't allowed to play with no 
 firearms. He's got to be taught all that when he enhsts. I 
 didn't want much teaching how to shoot straight 'fore I served 
 Uncle Sam. And that's just where it is. But you was talk- 
 ing about your Horse Guards now?" 
 
 I explained briefly some peculiarities of equipment con- 
 
270 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplii>($ 
 
 nected with our crackest crack cavalry. I grieve to say the 
 camp roared. 
 
 "Tak« 'em over swampy ground. Let 'em run around 
 a bit an' work the starch out of 'em, an' then, Almighty, if 
 we wouldn't plug 'em at ease I'd eat their horses." 
 
 A HENRY JAMES MAIDEN 
 
 There was a maiden — a very little maiden — who had just 
 stepped out of one of James's novels. She owned a delight- 
 ful mother and an equally delightful father — a heavy-eyed, 
 slow-voiced man of finance. The parents thought that their 
 daughter wanted change. 
 
 She hved in New Hampshire. Accordingly, she had 
 dragged them up to Alaska and to the Yosemite Valley, and 
 was now returning leisurely via the Yellowstone just in time 
 for the tail-end of the summer season at Saratoga. 
 
 We had met once or twice before in the park, and I had 
 been amazed and amused at her critical commendation of the 
 wonders that she saw. From that very resolute little mouth 
 I received a lecture on American literature, the nature and 
 inwardness of "Washington society, the precise value of 
 Cable's works as compared with Uncle Remus Harris, and 
 a few other things that had nothing whatever to do with 
 geysers, but were altogether pleasant. 
 
 ITow, an English maiden who had stumbled on a dust- 
 grimed, lime-washed, sun-peeled, collarless wanderer come 
 from and going to goodness knows where, would, her mother 
 inciting her and her father brandishing his umbrella, have 
 regarded him as a dissolute adventurer — a person to be dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 AMERICAN VERSUS ENGLISH MANNERS 
 
 !N'ot so those delightful people from New Hampshire, 
 They were good enough to treat him — it sounds almost in- 
 credible — ^as a human being, possibly respectable, probably 
 not in immediate need of financial assistance. 
 
 Papa talked pleasantly and to the point. 
 
 The little maiden strove valiantly with the accent of her 
 
f\mer'iQ2LT) flotes 271 
 
 birth and that of her rearing, and mamma smiled benignly 
 in the background. 
 
 Balance this with a story of a young English idiot I met 
 mooning about inside his high collar, attended by a valet. 
 He condescended to tell me that *'you can't be too careful 
 who you talk to in these parts." And stalked on fearing, I 
 suppose, every minute for his social chastity. 
 
 That man was a barbarian (I took occasion to tell him 
 so), for he comported himself after the manner of the head- 
 hunters and hunted of Assem who are at perpetual feud one 
 with another. 
 
 You will understand that these foolish stories are intro- 
 duced in order to cover the fact that this pen cannot describe 
 the glories of the Upper Geyser Basin. The evening I spent 
 under the lee of the Castle Geyser, sitting on a log with some 
 troopers and watching a baronial keep forty feet high spout- 
 ing hot water. If the Castle went off first they said the 
 Giantess would be quiet, and vice versd, and then they told 
 tales till the moon got up and a party of campers in the 
 woods gave us all something to eat. 
 
 CHANCE CAVALRY ESCORT 
 
 Then came soft, turfy forest that deadened the wheels, 
 and two troopers on detachment duty stole noiselessly behind 
 us. One was the Wrap-up-his-Tail man, and they talked 
 merrily while the half -broken horses bucked about among 
 the trees. And so a cavalry escort was with us for a mile, 
 till we got to a mighty hill all strewn with moss agates, and 
 everybody had to jump out and. pant in that thin air. But 
 how intoxicating it was ! The old lady from Chicago ducked 
 like an emancipated hen as she scuttled about the road, cram- 
 ming pieces of rock into her recticule. She sent me fifty 
 yards down to the hillside to pick up a piece of broken bottle 
 which she insisted was moss agate. 
 
 *'I've some o' that at home, an' they shine. Yes, you 
 go get it, young man," 
 
 As we climbed the long path the road grew viler and viler 
 
272 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^fplii)^ 
 
 till it became, witliout disguise, the bed of a torrent; and 
 just when things were at their rockiest we nearly fell into a 
 little sapphire lake— but noYer sapphire was so blue — called 
 Mary's Lake; and that between eight and nine thousand 
 feet above the sea. 
 
 Afterward, grass downs, all on a vehement slope, so that 
 the buggy, following the new-made road, ran on the two off- 
 wheels mostly till we dipped head-first into a ford, climbed 
 up a cliff, raced along down, dipped again, and pulled up 
 disheveled at *' Larry's" for lunch and an hour's rest. 
 
 Then we lay on the grass and laughed with sheer bliss of 
 being alive. This have I known once in Japan, once on the 
 banks of the Columbia, what time the salmon came in and 
 California howled, and once again in the Yellowstone by the 
 light of the eyes of the maiden from New Hampshire. Four 
 little pools lay at my elbow, one was of black water (tepid), 
 one clear water (cold), one clear water (hot), one red water 
 (boiling) . My newly washed handkerchief covered them all, 
 and we two marveled as children marvel. 
 
 DOING THE CANYON 
 
 *'This evening we shall do the Grand Canyon of the 
 Yellowstone," said the maiden. 
 
 ''Together?" said I; and she said, "Yes." 
 
 The sun was beginning to sink when we heard the roar 
 of falling waters and came to a broad river along whose 
 banks we ran. And then — I might at a pinch describe the 
 infernal regions, but not the other place. The Yellowstone 
 River has occasion to run through a gorge about eight miles 
 long. To get to the bottom of the gorge it makes two leaps, 
 one of about one hundred and twenty and the other of three 
 hundred feet. I investigated the upper or lesser fall, which 
 is close to the hotel. 
 
 Up to that time nothing particular happens to the Yel- 
 lowstone—its banks being onlj^ rocky, rather steep, and 
 plentifully adorned with pines. 
 
 At the falls it comes round a corner, green, solid, ribbed 
 
/Imerieai? ffotes 273 
 
 with a little foam, and not more than thirty yards wide. 
 Then it goes over, still green, and rather more solid than 
 before. After a minute or two you, sitting upon a rock 
 directly above the drop, begin to understand that some- 
 thing has occurred; that the river has jumped between 
 solid cliff walls, and that the gentle froth of water lapping 
 the sides of the gorge below is really the outcome of great 
 waves. 
 
 And the river yells aloud ; but the cliffs do not allow the 
 yells to escape. 
 
 That inspection began with curiosity and finished in terror, 
 for it seemed that the whole world was sliding in chrysolite 
 from undar my feet. I followed with the others round the 
 corner to arrive at the brink of the canyon. We had to climb 
 up a nearly perpendicular ascent to begin with, for the ground 
 rises more than the river drops. Stately pine woods fringe 
 either lip of the gorge, which is the gorge of the Yellowstone. 
 You'll find ali about it in the guide books. 
 
 SOME WORD-PAINTING 
 
 All that I can say is that without warning or preparation 
 I looked into a gulf seventeen hundred feet deep with eagles 
 and fish-hawks circling far below. And the sides of that 
 gulf were one wild welter of color — crimson, emerald, cobalt, 
 ocher, amber, honey splashed with port wine, snow white, 
 vermilion, lemon, and silver gray in wide washes. The sides 
 did not fall sheer, but were graven by time, and water, and 
 air into monstrous heads of kings, dead chiefs — men and 
 women of the old time. So far below that no sound of its 
 strife could reach us, the Yellowstone River ran a finger- 
 wide strip of jade green. 
 
 The sunlight took those wondrous walls and gave fresh 
 hues to those that nature had already laid there. 
 
 Evening crept through the pines that shadowed us, but 
 the full glory of the day fiamed in that canyon as we went 
 out very cautiously to a jutting piece of rock — blood-red oi 
 pink it was^ — that overhung the deepest deeps of all. 
 
274 U/or^s of I^udyard i^iplip^ 
 
 Now I know what it is to sit enthroned amid the clouds 
 of sunset as the spirits sit in Blake's pictures. Giddiness 
 took away all sensation of touch or form, but the sense of 
 blinding color remained. 
 
 When I reached the mainland again I had sworn that I 
 had been floating. 
 
 The maid from "New Hampshire said no word for a very- 
 long time. Then she quoted poetry, which was perhaps the 
 best thing she could have done. 
 
 '^And think that this show-place has been going on all 
 these days an' none of we ever saw it," said the old lady from 
 Chicago, with an acid glance at her husband. 
 
 "No, only the Injians," said he, unmoved; and the 
 maiden and I laughed. 
 
 TOYING WITH IMMENSITIES 
 
 Inspiration is fleeting, beauty is vain, and the power of 
 the mind for wonder limited. Though the shining hosts 
 themselves had risen choiring from the bottom of the gorge, 
 they would not have prevented her papa and one baser than 
 he from rolling stones down those stupendous rainbow-washed 
 slides. Seventeen hundred feet of steepest pitch and rather 
 more than seventeen hundred colors for log or bowlder to 
 whirl through! 
 
 So we heaved things and saw them gather way and bound 
 from white rock to red or yellow, dragging behind them tor° 
 rents of color, till the noise of their descent ceased and they 
 bounded a hundred yards clear at the last into the Yellow- 
 stone. 
 
 **I've been down there," said Tom, that evening. "It's 
 easy to get down if you're careful— just sit an' shde; but 
 getting up is worse. An' I found down below there two 
 stones just marked with a picture of the canyon. I wouldn't 
 sell these rocks not for fifteen dollars." 
 
 And papa and I crawled down to the Yellowstone — just 
 above the first little fall— to wet a line for good luck. The 
 round moon came up and turned the cHfls and pines into 
 
/imeriGai) flotes 275 
 
 silver ; and a two-pound trout came up also, and we slew liim 
 among the rocks, nearly tumbling into that wild river. 
 
 Then out and away to Livingstone once more. The 
 maiden from New Hampshire disappeared, papa and mamma 
 with her. Disappeared, too, the old lady from Chicago, and 
 the others. 
 
 POOR CHICAGO KIPLING-STRUCK 
 
 AMERICA'S YOUNG PRODIGY FROM AN EXTREMELY ORIENTAL. 
 POINT OF VIEW — WRITING DOWN TO INDIAN LEVELS — 
 RUDYARD KIPLING TELLS WHAT HE COULD NOT LEARN 
 ABOUT CHICAGO IN TEN HOURS 
 
 "I know thy cunning and thy greed, 
 Thy hard high lust and willful deed, 
 And all thy glory loves to tell 
 Of specious gifts material." 
 
 I HAVE struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago. 
 
 The other places do not count. San Francisco was a 
 pleasure-resort as weU as a city, and Salt Lake was a phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 This place is the first American city I have encountered. 
 It holds rather more than a million people with bodies, and 
 stands on the same sort of soil as Calcutta. Having seen it, 
 I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by 
 savages. Its water is the water of the Hooghly, and its air 
 is dirt. Also it says that it is the "boss'* town of America. 
 
 I do not believe that it has anything to do with this 
 country. They told me to go to the Pahner House, which is 
 overmuch gilded and mirrored, and there I found a huge 
 hall of tesselated marble crammed with people talking about 
 money and spitting about everywhere. Other barbarians 
 charged in and out of this inferno with letters and telegrams 
 
276 U/or^s of ^udyard I^iplii?^ 
 
 in their hands, and jet others shouted at each other. A man 
 who had drunk quite as much as was good for him told me 
 that this was **the finest hotel in the finest city on God 
 Almighty's earth." By the way, when an American wishes 
 to indicate the next country or state, he says, **God A'mighty's 
 earth. ^' This prevents discussion and flatters his vanity. 
 
 Then I went out into the streets, which are long and flat 
 and without end. And verily it is not a good thing to live 
 in the East for any length of time. Tour ideas grow to clash 
 with those held by every right-thinking man, I looked down 
 interminable viitas "Sanked with ninoj ten, and fifteen-storied 
 houses, and crowded with men and women, and the show 
 impressed m.© with a great horror. 
 
 Except in London — and I have forgotten what London 
 was like — I had never seen so many white people together, 
 and never such a collection of miser ables. There was no 
 color in the street and no beauty — only a maze of wire ropes 
 overhead and dirty stone flagging under foot. 
 
 THROUGH A CAB-DRIVER'S LENS 
 
 A cab-driver volunteered to show me the glory of the 
 town for so much an hour, and with him I wandered far. 
 He conceived that all this turmoil and squash was a thing to 
 be reverently admired, that it was good to huddle men to- 
 gether in fifteen layers, one atop of the other, and to dig 
 holes in the ground for offices. 
 
 He said that Chicago was a live town, and that all the 
 creatures hurrying by me were engaged in business. That is 
 to say they were trying to make some money that they might 
 not die through lack of food to put into their bellies. He 
 took me to canals as black as ink, and filled with untold 
 abominations, and bade me watch the stream of traffic across 
 the bridges. 
 
 He then took me into a saloon, and, while I drank, made 
 me note that the floor was covered with coins sunk in cement. 
 A Hottentot would not have been guilty of this sort of bar- 
 barism. The coins made an effect pretty enough, but the 
 
/Imerieai) f/otes 277 
 
 man who put them there had no thought to beauty, and, 
 therefore, he was a savage. 
 
 Then my cab-driver showed me business blocks, gay with 
 signs and studded with fantastic and absurd advertisements 
 of goods, and looking down the long street so adorned, it 
 was as though each vender stood at his door howling : 
 
 "For the sake of money, employ or buy of me, and me 
 only!" 
 
 Have you ever seen a crowd at a famine-relief distribu- 
 tion? You know then how the men leap into the air, 
 stretching out their arms above the crowd in the hope of 
 being seen, while the women dolorously slap the stomachs 
 of their children and whimper. I had sooner watch famine 
 relief than the white man engaged in what he calls legiti- 
 mate competition. The one I understand. The other makes 
 me ill. 
 
 And the cabman said that these things were the proof of 
 progress, and by that I knew he had been reading his news- 
 paper, as every intelhgent American should. The papers tell 
 their clientele in language fitted to their comprehension that 
 the snarling together of telegraph-wires, the heaving up of 
 houses, and the making of money is progress. 
 
 DONE IN TEN HOURS 
 
 I spent ten hours in that huge wilderness, wandering 
 through scores of miles of these terrible streets and josthng 
 some few hundred thousand of these terrible people who 
 talked paisa hat through their noses. 
 
 The cabman left me ; but after a while I picked up another 
 man, who was full of figures, and into my ears he poured 
 them'as occasion required or the big blank factories suggested. 
 Here they turned out so many hundred thousand dollars' 
 worth of such and such an article; there so many million 
 other things ; this house was worth so many million dollars ; 
 that one so many million more or less. It was like listening 
 to a child babbling of its hoard of shells. It was like watch- 
 ing a fool playing with buttons. But I was expected to do 
 
278 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 more than listen or watch. He demanded that I should 
 admire ; and the utmost that I could say was : 
 
 **Are these things so. Then I am very sorry for you." 
 
 That made him angry, and he said that insular envy made 
 me unresponsive. So, you see, I could not make him under- 
 stand. 
 
 About four and a half hours after Adam was turned out 
 of the Garden of Eden he felt hungry, and so, bidding Eve 
 take care that her head was not broken by the descending 
 fruit, shinned up a cocoanut-palm. That hurt his legs, cut 
 his breast, and made him breathe heavily, and Eve was tor- 
 mented with fear lest her lord should miss his footing, and 
 so bring the tragedy of this world to an end ere the curtain 
 had fairly risen. Had I met Adam then, I should have been 
 sorry for him. To-day I find eleven hundred thousand of his 
 sons just as far advanced as their father in the art of getting 
 food, and immeasurably inferior to him in that they think 
 that their palm-trees lead straight to the skies. Consequently, 
 I am sorry in rather more than a million different ways. 
 
 In the East bread comes naturally, even to the poorest, by 
 a little scratching or the gift of a friend not quite so poor. 
 In less favored countries one is apt to forget. Then I went 
 to bed. And that was on a Saturday night. 
 
 CHICAGO PREACHING 
 
 Sunday brought me the queerest experiences of all — a 
 revelation of barbarism complete. I found a place that was 
 officially described as a church. It was a circus really, but 
 that the worshipers did not know. There were flowers all 
 about the building, which was fitted up with plush and stained 
 oak and much luxury, including twisted brass candlesticks 
 of severest Gothic design. 
 
 To these things and a congregation of savages entered sud- 
 denly a wonderful man, completely in the confidence of their 
 God, whom he treated colloquially and exploited very much 
 as a newspaper reporter would exploit a foreign potentate. 
 But, unhke the newspaper reporter, he never allowed his 
 
/ImerieaQ f^otes 279 
 
 listeners to forget that he, and not He, was the center of 
 attraction. With a voice of silver and with imagery borrowed 
 from the auction-room he built up for his hearers a heaven on 
 the lines of the Palmer House (but with all the gilding real 
 gold, and all the plate-glass diamond) and set in the center of 
 it a loud-voiced, argumentative, very shrewd creation that 
 he called God. One sentence at this point caught my de- 
 lighted ear. It was apropos of some question of the Judg- 
 ment, and ran : 
 
 "l^o! I tell you God doesn't do business that way." 
 
 He was giving them a deity whom they could compre- 
 hend, and a gold and jeweled heaven in which they could 
 take a natural interest. He interlarded his performance with 
 the slang of the streets, the counter, and the exchange, and 
 he said that religion ought to enter into daily life. Conse- 
 quently, I presume he introduced it as daily life — his own 
 and the life of his friends. 
 
 Then I escaped before the blessing, desiring no benedic- 
 tion at such hands. But the persons who listened seemed to 
 enjoy themselves, and I understand that I had met with a 
 popular preacher. 
 
 Later on, when I had perused the sermons of a gentle- 
 man called Talmage and some others, I perceived that I had 
 been listening to a very mild specimen. Yet that man, with 
 his brutal gold and silver idols, his hands-in-pocket, cigar-in- 
 mouth, and hat-on-the-back-of-the-head style of dealing with 
 the sacred vessels, would count himself, spiritually, quite 
 competent to send a mission to convert the Indians. 
 
 All that Sunday I listened to people who said that the 
 mere fact of spiking down strips of iron to wood and getting 
 a steam and iron thing to run along them was progress, that 
 the telephone was progress, and the network of wires over- 
 head was progress. They repeated their statements again 
 and again. 
 
 One of them took me to their City Hall and Board of 
 Trade works and pointed it out with pride. It was very 
 ugly, but very big, and the streets in front of it were narrow 
 
^80 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplip^ 
 
 and unclean. "When I saw the faces of the men who did 
 business in that building, I felt that there had been a mistake 
 in their billeting. 
 
 WRITING DOWN TO HIS AUDIENCE 
 
 By the way, 'tis a consolation to feel that I am not writing 
 to an English audience. Then should I have to fall into 
 feigned ecstasies over the marvelous progress of Chicago 
 since the days of the great fire, to allude casually to the raising 
 of the entire city so many feet above the level of the lake 
 which it faces, and generally to grovel before the golden calf. 
 But you, who are desperately poor, and therefore by these 
 standards of no account, know things, will understand when 
 I write that they have managed to get a million of men to- 
 gether on flat land, and that the bulk of these men together 
 appear to be lower than Mahajans and not so companionable 
 as a Punjabi Jat after harvest. 
 
 But I don't think it was the blind hurry of the people, 
 their argot, and their grand ignorance of things beyond their 
 immediate interests, that displeased me so much as a study of 
 the daily papers of Chicago. 
 
 Imprimis, there was some sort of a dispute between IsTew 
 York and Chicago as to which town should give an exhibi- 
 tion of products to be hereafter holden, and through the 
 medium of their more dignified journals the two cities were 
 ya-hooing and hi-yi-ing at each other like opposition news- 
 boys. They called it humor, but it sounded like somethmg 
 quite different. 
 
 That was only the first trouble. The second lay in the 
 tone of the productions. Leading articles which include 
 gems such as "Back of such and such a place," or, "We 
 noticed, Tuesday, such an event," or, "don't" for "does 
 not," are things to be accepted with thankfulness. All that 
 made me want to cry was that in these papers were faith- 
 fully reproduced all the war-cries and "back talk" of the 
 Palmer House bar, the slang of the barber-shops, the mental 
 elevation and integrity of the Pullman car porter, the dig- 
 
/ImeriGai? f/otes 281 
 
 nity of the dime museum, and tlie accuracy of the excited 
 fish- wife. I am sternly forbidden to beheve that the paper 
 educates the pubhc. Then I am compelled to believe that 
 the public educate the paper, yet suicides on the press are 
 rare. 
 
 STRUCK A PROTECTIONIST 
 
 Just when the sense of unreality and oppression was 
 strongest upon me, and when I most wanted help, a man 
 sat at my side and began to talk what he called politics. 
 
 I had chanced to pay about six shillings for a travelings 
 cap worth eighteen pence, and he made of the fact a text for 
 a sermon. He said that this was a rich country, and that 
 the people liked to pay two hundred per cent on the value of 
 a thing. They could afford it. He said that the govern- 
 ment imposed a protective duty of from ten to seventy per 
 cent on foreign-made articles, and that the American manu- 
 facturer consequently could sell his goods for a healthy sum. 
 Thus an imported hat would, with duty, cost two guineas. 
 The American manufacturer would make a hat for seventeen 
 shillings, and sell it for one pound fifteen. In these things, 
 he said, lay the greatness of America and the effeteness of 
 England. Competition between factory and factory kept 
 the prices down to decent limits, but I was never to forget 
 that this people were a rich people, not like the pauper Con* 
 tinentals, and that they enjoyed paying duties. 
 
 To my weak uitellect this seemed rather hke juggling 
 with counters. Everything that I have yet purchased costs 
 about twice as much as it would in England, and when 
 native made is of inferior quahty. 
 
 AN OBJECT-LESSON IN TRUSTS 
 
 Moreover, since these lines were first thought of, I have 
 visited a gentleman who owned a factory which used to pro- 
 duce things. He owned the factory still. Not a man was 
 in it, but he was drawing a handsome income from a syndi- 
 cate of firms for keeping it closed, in order that it might not 
 produce things. This man said that if protection were aban- 
 
282 U/orKs of l^udyard \{ipViT)(^ 
 
 doned a tide of pauper labor would flood the country, and as 
 I looked at his factory I thought how entirely better it was 
 to have no labor of any kind whatever rather than face so 
 horrible a future. 
 
 Meantime, do you remember that this peculiar country 
 enjoys paying money for value not received? I am an alien, 
 and for the life of me cannot see why six shillings should be 
 paid for eighteen-penny caps, or eight shillings for haK-crown 
 cigar-cases. When the country fills up to a decently popu- 
 lated level a few million people who are not aliens will be 
 smitten with the same sort of blindness. 
 
 But my friend's assertion somehow thoroughly suited the 
 grotesque ferocity of Chicago. 
 
 CHICAGO VERSUS INDIA 
 
 See now and judge! In the village of Isser Jang, on the 
 road to Montgomery, there be four Changar women who 
 winnow corn — some seventy bushels a year. Beyond their 
 hut lives Purun Dass, the money-lender, who on good secur- 
 ity lends as much as five thousand rupees in a year. Jowala 
 Singh, the smith, mends the village plows — some thirty, 
 broken at the share, in three hundred and sixty-five days; 
 and Hukm Chund, who is letter-writer and head of the little 
 club under the travelers' tree, generally keeps the village 
 posted in such gossip as the barber and the midwife have not 
 yet made public property. 
 
 Chicago husks and winnows her wheat by the million 
 bushels, a hundred banks lend hundreds of millions of dol- 
 lars in the year, and scores of factories turn out plow-gear 
 and machinery by steam. Scores of daily papers do work 
 which Hukm Chund and the barber and the midwife per- 
 form, with due regard for public opinion, in the village of 
 Isser Jang. So far as manufactures go, the difference be- 
 tween Chicago on the lake and Isser Jang on the Mont- 
 gomery road is one of degree only, and not of kind. As far 
 as the understanding of the uses of life goes Isser Jang, for 
 all its seasonal cholera, has the advantage over Chicago. 
 
/imeriGar) jNfotes 283 
 
 Jowala Singh knows and takes care to avoid the three or 
 four ghoul-haunted fields on the outskirts of the village ; but 
 he is not urged by millions of devils to run about all day in 
 the sun and swear that his plowshares are the best in the 
 Punjab ; nor does Purun Dass fly forth in an ekka more than 
 once or twice a year, and he knows, on a pinch, how to use 
 the railway and the telegraph as well as any son of Israel in 
 Chicago. But this is absurd. 
 
 The East is not the West, and these men must continue 
 to deal with the machinery of life and to call it progress. 
 Their very preachers dare not rebuke them. They gloss 
 over the hunting for money and the thrice-sharpened bitter- 
 ness of Adam's curse, by saying that such things dower a 
 man with a larger range of thoughts and higher aspirations. 
 They do not say, "Free yourselves from your own slavery," 
 but rather, "If you can possibly manage it, do not set quite 
 so much store on the things of this world." 
 
 And they do not know what the things of this world are ! 
 
 FE, FI, FO, fum! 
 
 I went off to see cattle killed, by way of clearing my 
 head, which, as you will perceive, was getting muddled. 
 They say every Englishman goes to the Chicago stock- 
 yards. You shall find them about six miles from the city ; 
 and once having seen them, you will never forget the sight. 
 
 As far as the eye can reach stretches a township of cat= 
 tie-pens, cunningly divided into blocks, so that the animals 
 of any pen can be speedily driven out close to an inclined 
 timber path which leads to an elevated covered way strad- 
 dhng high above the pens. These viaducts are two-storied. 
 On the upper story tramp the doomed cattle, stolidly for the 
 most part. On the lower, with a scuffling of sharp hoofs 
 and multitudinous yells, run the pigs, the same end being 
 appointed for each. Thus you will see the gangs of cattle 
 waiting their turn — as they wait sometimes for days; and 
 they need not be distressed by the sight of their fellows run- 
 ning about in the fear of death. All they know is that a 
 
284 U/orl^s of P^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 man on horseback causes their next-door neighbors to move 
 by means of a whip. Certain bars and fences are unshipped, 
 and behold ! that crowd have gone up the mouth of a sloping 
 tunnel and return no more. 
 
 It is different with the pigs. They shriek back the news 
 of the exodus to their friends, and a hundred pens skirl 
 responsive. 
 
 It was to the pigs I first addressed myself. Selecting a 
 viaduct which was full of them, as I could hear, though I 
 could not see, I marked a somber building whereto it ran, 
 and went there, not unalarmed by stray cattle who had man- 
 aged to escape from their proper quarters. A pleasant smell 
 of brine warned me of what was coming. I entered the fac- 
 tory and found it full of pork in barrels, and on another story 
 more pork unbarreled, and in a huge room the halves of 
 swine, for whose behoof great lumps of ice were being pitched 
 in at the window. That room was the mortuary chamber 
 where the pigs lay for a little while in state ere they began 
 their progress through such passages as kings may sometimes 
 travel. 
 
 HOW PORK IS MADE 
 
 Turning a corner, and not noting an overhead arrange- 
 ment of greased rail, wheel, and pulley, I ran into the arms 
 of four eviscerated carcasses, all pure white and of a human 
 aspect, pushed by a man clad in vehement red. When I 
 leaped aside the floor was slippery under me. Also there 
 was a flavor of farmyard in my nostrils and the shouting of 
 a multitude in my ears. But there was no joy in that shout- 
 ing. Twelve men stood in two lines six a side. Between 
 them and overhead ran the railway of death that had nearly 
 shunted me through the "window. Each man carried a knife, 
 the sleeves of his shirt were cut off at the elbows, and from 
 bosom to heel he was blood-red. 
 
 Beyond this perspective was a column of steam, and be- 
 yond that was where I worked my awestruck way, unwilling 
 to touch beam or wall. The atmosphere was stifling as a 
 night in the rains by reason of the steam and the crowd. I 
 
/ImeriGai) f/ofces 285 
 
 climbed to the beginning of things and, perched upon a nar- 
 row beam, overlooked very nearly all the pigs ever bred in 
 Wisconsin. They had just been shot out of the mouth of 
 the viaduct and huddled together in a large pen. Thence 
 they were flicked persuasively, a few at a time, into a smaller 
 chamber, and there a man fixed tackle on their hinder legs, 
 so that they rose in the air, suspended from the railway of 
 death. 
 
 Oh ! it was then they shrieked and called on their mothers, 
 and made promises of amendment, till the tackle-man punted 
 them in their backs and they slid head down into a brick- 
 floored passage, very like a big kitchen sink, that was blood- 
 red. There awaited them a red man with a knife which he 
 passed jauntily through their throats, and -the full- voiced 
 shriek became a splutter, and then a fall as of heavy tropical 
 rain, and the red man, who was backed against the passage 
 wall, you will understand, stood clear of the wildly kicking 
 hoofs and passed his hand over his eyes, not from any feel- 
 ing of compassion, but because the spurted blood was in his 
 eyes, and he had barely time to stick the next arrival. Then 
 that first stuck swine dropped, still kicking, into a great vat 
 of boiling water, and spoke no more words, but wallowed in 
 obedience to some unseen machinery, and presently came 
 forth at the lower end of the vat, and was heaved on the 
 blades of a blunt paddle-wheel, things which said "Hough, 
 hough, hough!" and skelped all the hair off him, except 
 what little a couple of men with knives could remove. 
 
 Then he was again hitched by the heels to that said rail- 
 way, and passed down the line of the twelve men, each man 
 with a knife — losing with each man a certain amount of his 
 individuality, which was taken away in a wheelbarrow, and 
 when he reached the last man he was very beautiful to be- 
 hold, but excessively unstuffed and limp. Preponderance of 
 individuality was ever a bar to foreign travel. That pig 
 could have been in case to visit you in India had he not 
 parted with some of his most cherished notions. 
 
 The dissecting part impressed me not so much as the slay- 
 
286 U/orKs of r^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 ing. They were so excessively alive, these pigs. And then, 
 they were so excessively dead, and the man in the dripping, 
 clammy, hot passage did not seem to care, and ere the blood 
 of such a one had ceased to foam on the floor such another 
 and four friends with him had shrieked and die. But a pig 
 is only the unclean animal — the forbidden of the prophet. 
 
 UNCLE SAM'S ARMY UNDER KIPLING 
 
 GUNS 
 
 MILITARY CRITICISM AND ADVICE FROM THE ANGLO-INDIAN 
 EDITOR — bird's-eye VIEW OF MORMONDOM — TRICK- 
 ERY'S ASCENDENCY OVER IMPORTED IGNORANCE WHICH 
 ONCE CHALLENGED THE NATION'S SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 I SHOULD very much like to deliver a dissertation on the 
 American army and the possibilities of its extension. You 
 see, it is such a beautiful little army, and the dear people 
 don't quite understand what to do with it. The theory is 
 that it is an instructional nucleus round which the militia of 
 the country will rally and from which they will get a stiffen- 
 ing in time of danger. Yet other people consider that the 
 army should be built, Hke a pair of lazy tongs — on the prin- 
 ciple of elasticity and extension — so that in time of need it 
 may fill up its skeleton battalions and empty saddle troops. 
 This is real wisdom, because the American army, as at pres- 
 ent constituted, is made up of — 
 
 Twenty-five regiments infantry, ten companies each. 
 
 Ten regiments cavalry, twelve companies each. - 
 
 Five regiments artillery, twelve companies each. 
 
 Now there is a notion in the air to reorganize the service 
 on these lines: 
 
 Eighteen regiments infantry at four battalions, four 
 companies each; third battalion, skeleton; fourth on paper. 
 
/Imericap flotes 287 
 
 Eight regiments cavalry at four battalions, four troops 
 each; third battalion, skeleton; fourth on paper. 
 
 Five regiments artillery at four battalions, four companies 
 each ; third battalion, skeleton ; fourth on paper. 
 
 A CONCERTINA ARMY 
 
 Observe the beauty of this business. The third battaHon 
 will have its ofiQcers, but no men ; the fourth will probably 
 have a rendezvous and some equipment. 
 
 It is not contemplated to give it anything more definite at 
 present. Assuming the regiments to be made up to full com- 
 plement, we get an army of fifty thousand men, which after 
 the need passes away must be cut down fifty per cent, to the 
 huge delight of the officers. 
 
 The military needs of the States be three : (a) Frontier 
 warfare, an employment well within the grip of the present 
 army of twenty-five thousand, and in the nature of things 
 growing less arduous year by year; (b) internal riots and 
 commotions which rise up hke a dust devil, whirl furiously, 
 and die out long before the authorities at Washington could 
 begin to fill up even the third skeleton battalions, much less 
 hunt about for material for the fourth; (c) civil war, in 
 which, as the case in the affair of the North and South, the 
 regular army would be swamped in the mass of mihtia and 
 armed volunteers that would turn the land into a hell. 
 
 Yet the authorities persist in regarding an external war 
 as a thing to be seriously considered. 
 
 The Power that would disembark troops on American soil 
 would be capable of heaving a shovelful of mud into the 
 Atlantic in the hope of filling it up. Consequently the au- 
 thorities are fascinated with the idea of the sliding scale or 
 concertina army. This is an hereditary instinct, for you 
 know that when we English ha^ve got together two com- 
 panies, one machine gun, a sick bullock, forty generals and 
 a mass of w. o. forms, we say we possess "an army corps 
 capable of indefinite extension." 
 
 The American army is a beautiful little army. Some 
 
288 U/or^s of I^udyard \{ipUT)<^ 
 
 day, when all the Indians are happily dead or drunk, it 
 ought to make the finest scientific and survey corps that the 
 world has ever seen ; it does excellent work now, but there is 
 this defect in its nature : It is ofiicered, as you know, from 
 West Point. 
 
 WEST POINT LEAVENING 
 
 The mischief of it is that "West Point seems to be created 
 for the purpose of spreading a general knowledge of military 
 matters among the people. A boy goes up to that institution, 
 gets his pass, and returns to civil life, so they tell me, with a 
 dangerous knowledge that he is a suckling Von Moltke and 
 may apply his learning when occasion offers. Given trouble, 
 that man will be a nuisance, because he is a hideously versa- 
 tile American, to begin with, as cocksure of himself as a 
 man can be, and with all the racial disregard for human life 
 to back him, through any demi-semi-professional generalship. 
 
 In a country where, as the records of the daily papers 
 show, men eagaged in a conflict with police or jails are all too 
 ready to adopt a military formation and get heavily shot in 
 a sort of cheap, half-instructed warfare, instead of being 
 decently scared by the appearance of the mihtary, this sort of 
 arrangement does not seem wise. 
 
 SOVEREIGN STATE LAWLESSNESS 
 
 The bond between the States is of an amazing tenuity. 
 So long as they do not absolutely march into the District of 
 Columbia, sit on the Washington statues, and invent a flag 
 of their own, they can legislate, lynch, hunt negroes through 
 swamps, divorce, railroad and rampage as much as ever they 
 choose. They do not need knowledge of their own military 
 strength to back their genial lawlessness. 
 
 That regular army, which is a dear little arm}^, should be 
 kept to itself, blooded on detachment duty, turned into the 
 paths of science, and now and again assembled at feasts of 
 Free Masons, and so forth. 
 
 It is too tiny to be a political power. The immortal wreck 
 of the Grand Army of the Republic is a political power of the 
 
/imerieap f'otes 289 
 
 largest and most unblushing description. It ought not to 
 help to lay the foundations of an amateur military power 
 that is blind and irresponsible. 
 
 SALT LAKE CITY 
 
 By great good luck the eYil-minded train, already delayed 
 twelve hours by a burned bridge, brought me to the city on 
 a Saturday by way of that valley which the Mormons, over 
 their efforts, had caused to blossom like the rose. Twelve 
 hours previously I had entered into a new world where, in 
 conversation, every one was either a Mormon or a Gentile. 
 It is not seemly for a free and independent citizen to dub 
 himself a Gentile, but the Mayor of Ogden — which is the 
 Gentile city of the valley — told me that there must be some 
 distinction between the two flocks. 
 
 Long before the fruit orchards of Logan or the shining 
 levels of the Salt Lake had been reached, that mayor — him- 
 self a Gentile, and one renowned for his dealings with the 
 Mormons — told me that the great question of the existence of 
 the power within the power was being gradually solved by 
 the ballot and by education. 
 
 All the beauty of the valley could not make me forget it. 
 And the valley is very fair. Bench after bench of land, flat 
 as a table against the flanks of the ringing hills, marks where 
 the Salt Lake rested for a while in its collapse from an inland 
 *sea to a lake fifty miles long and thirty broad. 
 
 THE CREED OF MORMON 
 
 There are the makings of a very fine creed about Mor- 
 monism. To begin with, the Church is rather more absolute 
 than that of Rome. Drop the polygamy plank in the plat- 
 form, but on the other hand deal lightly with certain forms 
 of excess. Keep the quahty of the recruit down to the low 
 mental level, and see that the best of all the agricultural 
 science available is in the hands of the elders, and there you 
 have a first-class engine for pioneer work. The tawdry 
 mysticism and the borrowing from Freemasonry serve the 
 Vol. 3. 13 
 
390 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplip^ 
 
 low caste Swede and Dane, the Welshman and the Cornish 
 cotter just as well as a highly organized heaven. 
 
 Then I went about the streets and peeped into people's 
 front windows, and the decorations upon the tables were 
 after the manner of the year 1850. Main Street was full of 
 country folk from the desert, come in to trade with the Zion 
 Mercantile Co-operative Institute. The Church, I fancy, 
 looks after the finances of this thing, and it consequently 
 pays good dividends. 
 
 The faces of the women were not lovely. Indeed, but for 
 the certainty that ugly persons are just as irrational in the 
 matter of undivided love as the beautiful, it seems that 
 polygamy was a blessed institution for the women, and that 
 only the dread threats of the spiritual power could drive the 
 hulking board-faced men into it. The women wore hideous 
 garments, and the men appeared to be tied up with strings. 
 
 They would market all that afternoon, and on Sunday go 
 to the praying-place. I tried to talk to a few of them, but 
 they spoke strange tongues and stared and behaved like cows. 
 Yet one woman, and not an altogether ugly one, confided to 
 me that she hated the idea of Salt Lake City being turned 
 into a show-place for the amusement of the Gentiles. 
 
 "If we 'ave our own institutions that ain't no reason why 
 people should come 'ere and stare at us, his it?" 
 
 The dropped "h" betrayed her. 
 
 "And when did you leave England?" I said. 
 
 ' ' Summer of ' 84. I am Dorset, ' ' she said. * ' The Mormon 
 agents was very good to us, and we was very poor. "Now 
 we're better off — my father an' mother an' me." 
 
 "Then you like the State?" 
 
 She misunderstood at first. 
 
 "Oh, I ain't livin' in the state of polygamy. Not me, 
 yet. I ain't married. I like where I am. I've got things 
 o' my own— and some land." 
 
 "But I suppose you will — " 
 
 "Not me. I ain't like them Swedes an' Danes. I ain't 
 got nothin' to say for or against polygamy. It's the elders' 
 
/Imerieai) J^otes 291 
 
 business, an' between you an' me, I don't think it's going on 
 much longer. You'll 'ear them in the 'ouse to-morrer talkin' 
 as if it was spreadin' all over America. The Swedes they 
 think it his. I know it hisn't." 
 
 **But you've got your land all right?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; we've got our land, an' we never say aught 
 against polygamy, o' course — father, an' mother, an' me." 
 
 AT THE LAST GASP 
 
 On a table-land overlooking all the city stands the United 
 States garrison of infantry and artillery. The State of Utah 
 can do nearly anything it pleases until that much-to-be de- 
 sired hour when the Gentile vote shall quietly swamp out 
 Mormonism, but the garrison are kept there in case of ac= 
 cidents. The big, shark-mouthed, pig-eared, heavy-boned 
 farmers sometimes take to their creed with wildest fanaticism, 
 and in past years have made life excessively unpleasant for 
 the Gentile when he was few in the land. But to-day, so 
 far from killing openl}^ or secretly or burning Gentile farms, 
 it is all the Mormon dare do to feebly try to boycott the 
 interloper. His journals preach defiance to the United States 
 Government, and in the Tabernacle on a Sunday the preachers 
 follow suit. 
 
 When I went there the place was full of people who would 
 have been much better for a washing. A man rose up and 
 told them that they were the chosen of God, the elect of 
 Israel ; that they were to obey their priests, and that there 
 was a good time coming. I fancy that they had heard all 
 this before so many times it produced no impression whatever ; 
 even as the sublimest mysteries of another faith lose salt 
 through constant iteration. They breathed heavily through 
 their noses and stared straight in front of them — impassive 
 as flat fish. 
 
J392 Worlds of F^udyard I^iplipi^ 
 
 KIPLING'S VIEW OF OUR DEFENSELESS 
 
 COASTS 
 
 NEW YOEK ABJECTLY AT THE MERCY, OF TWO OR THREE 
 CHINESE IRONCLADS— INLAND PORTS AND CANADIAN 
 CRAFT — HOW PROVINCIAL AND FRONTIER AMERICAN 
 MANNERS STRIKE ENGLISH INSULARITY 
 
 Just suppose that America were twenty days distant 
 from England. Then a man could study its customs with 
 undivided soul ; but being so very near next door he goes 
 about the land with one eye on the smoke of the flesh-pots of 
 the old country across the seas, while with the other he squints 
 biliously and prejudicially at the alien. 
 
 I can lay my hand upon my sacred heart and affirm that 
 up to to-day I have never taken three consecutive trips by 
 rail without being delayed by an accident. That it was an 
 accident to another train makes no difference. My own turn 
 may come next. 
 
 A few miles from peaceful, pleasure-loving Lakewood 
 they had managed to upset an express goods train to the 
 detriment of the flimsy permanent way; and thus the train 
 which should have left at three departed at seven in the even- 
 ing. I was not angry. I was scarcely even interested. 
 When an American train starts on time I begin to anticipate 
 disaster — a visitation for such good luck, you understand. 
 
 Buffalo is a large village of a quarter of a milhon inhabit- 
 ants, situated on the sea-shore, which is falsely called Lake 
 Erie. It is a peaceful place, and more like an English 
 county town than most of its friends. 
 
 Once clear of the main business streets you launch upon 
 miles and miles of asphalted roads running between cottages ,| 
 and cut-stone residences of those who have money and peace. 
 
fimerieaT) JVotss 293 
 
 All the Eastern cities own this fringe of elegance, but except 
 in Chicago nowhere is the fringe deeper or more heavily 
 widened than in Buffalo. 
 
 WHY THE AMERICAN WON'T VOTE 
 
 The American will go to a bad place because he cannot 
 speak English and is proud of it ; but he knows how to make 
 a home for himself and his mate ; knows how to keep the 
 grass green in front of his veranda, and how to fullest use 
 the mechanism of Hfe — hot water, gas, good bell-ropes, tele- 
 phones, etc. His shops sell him delightful household fitments 
 at very moderate rates, and he is encompassed with all man- 
 ner of labor-saving appliances. This does not prevent his 
 wife and his daughter working themselves to death over 
 household drudgery ; but the intention is good. 
 
 When you have seen the outsides of a few hundred thou- 
 sand of these homes and the insides of a few score, you begin 
 to understand why the American (the respectable one) does 
 not take a deep interest in what they call "politics," and 
 why he is so vaguely and generally proud of the country that 
 enables him to be so comfortable. How can the owner of a 
 dainty chalet, with smoked-oak furniture, imitation Venetian 
 tapestry curtains, hot and cold water laid on, a bed of gera- 
 niums and hollyhocks, a baby crawling down the veranda, 
 and a self-acting twirly-whirly hose gently hissing over the 
 grass in the balmy dusk of an August evening— how can 
 such a man despair of the Republic or descend into the streets 
 on voting days and mix cheerfully with "the boys"? 
 
 No, it is the stranger — the homeless jackal of a stranger 
 — ^whose interest in the country is Hmited to his hotel-bill 
 and a railway-ticket, that can run from Dan to Beersheba, 
 crying : 
 
 "All is barren!" 
 
 Every good American wants a home — a pretty house and 
 a little piece of land of his very own ; and every other good 
 American seems to get it. 
 
294 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 AMERICA'S YOUTHFUL MARRIAGES 
 
 It was when my gigantic intellect was grappling with 
 this question that I confirmed a discovery half made in the 
 West. The natives of most classes marry young — absurdly 
 young. One of my informants — not the twenty-two-year- 
 old husband I met on Lake Chautauqua — said that from 
 twenty to twenty-four was about the usual time for this folly. 
 And when I asked whether the practice was confined to the 
 constitutionally improvident classes, he said "No" very 
 quickly. He said it was a general custom, and nobody saw 
 anything wrong with it. 
 
 "I guess, perhaps, very early marriage may account for 
 a good deal of the divorce," said he, reflectively. 
 
 Whereat I was silent. Their marriages and their divorces 
 only concern these people ; and neither I traveling, nor you, 
 who may come after, have any right to make rude remarks 
 about them. Only — only coming from a land where a man 
 begins to lightly turn to thoughts of love not before he is 
 thirty, I own that playing at housekeeping before that age 
 rather surprised me. Out in the West, though, they marry, 
 boys and girls, from sixteen upward, and I have met more 
 than one bride of fifteen — husband aged twenty. 
 
 "When man and woman are agreed, what can the Kazi 
 do?" 
 
 From those peaceful homes, and the envy they inspire 
 (two trunks and a walking-stick and a bit of pine^ forest in 
 British Columbia are not satisfactory, any way you look at 
 them), I turned me to the lake front of Buffalo, where the 
 steamers bellow to the grain elevators and the locomotives 
 yell to the coal-shutes, and the canal barges jostle the lum- 
 ber-raft half a mile long as it snakes across the water in tow 
 of a launch, and earth, and sky, and sea alike are thick with 
 smoke. 
 
 In the old days before the railway ran into the city all the 
 -business quarters fringed the lake-shore where the traffic was 
 
/ImeriGai? flotes 295 
 
 largest. To-day the business quarters have gone up-town to 
 meet the railroad; the lake traffic still exists, but you shall 
 find a narrow belt of red-brick desolation, broken windows, 
 gap-toothed doors, and streets where the grass grows between 
 the crowded wharfs and the bustling city. To the lake front 
 conies wheat from Chicago, lumber, coal, and ore, and a 
 large trade in cheap excursionists. 
 
 buffalo's wheat elevators 
 
 It was my felicity to catch a grain steamer and an eleva- 
 tor emptying that same steamer. The steamer might have 
 been two thousand tons burden. She was laden with wheat 
 in bulk ; from stem to stern, thirteen feet deep, lay the clean, 
 red wheat. There was no twenty-five per cent dirt admixt- 
 ure about it at all. It was wheat, fit for the grindstones 
 as it lay. They nianeuvered the fore-hatch of that steamer 
 directly under an elevator— a house of red tin a hundred and 
 fifty feet high. Then they let down into that fore-hatch a 
 trunk as if it had been the trunk of an elephant, but stiff be- 
 cause it was a pipe of iron-clamped wood. And the trunk 
 had a steel-shod nose to it, and contained an endless chain of 
 steel buckets. 
 
 Then the captain swore, raising his eyes to heaven, and 
 a gruff voice answered him from the place he swore at, and 
 certain machinery, also in the firmament, began to clack, 
 and the glittering, steel-shod nose of that trunk burrowed 
 into the wheat and the wheat quivered and sunk upon the 
 instant as water sinks when the siphon sucks, because the 
 steel buckets within the trunk were flying upon their endless 
 round, carrying away each its appointed morsel of wheat. 
 
 The elevator was a Persian well wheel — a wheel squashed 
 out thin and cased in a pipe, a wheel driven not by bullocks, 
 but by much horse-power, licking up the grain at the rate of 
 thousands of bushels the hour. And the wheat sunk into the 
 fore -hatch while a man looked — sunk till the brown timbers 
 of the bulkheads showed bare and men leaped down through 
 clouds of golden dust and shoveled the wheat furiously round 
 
296 U/or^s of I^udyard V^ipUqd^ 
 
 the nose of tlie trunk, and got a steam-shovel of glittering 
 steel and made that shovel also, till there remained of the 
 grain not more than a horse leaves in the fold of his nose-bag. 
 In this manner do thej handle wheat at Buffalo. On one 
 side of the elevator is the steamer, on the other the railway 
 track ; and the wheat is loaded into the cars in bulk. "Wah ! 
 wah ! God is great, and I do not think He ever intended Gar 
 Sahai or Luckman Narain to supply England with her wheat. 
 India can cut in not without profit to herself when her har- 
 vest is good and the American yield poor; but this very big 
 country can upon the average supply the earth with aU the 
 beef and bread that is required. 
 
 FEEE TRADE IN SPEECH 
 
 A man in the train said to me ; 
 
 ^^We kin feed all the earth, jest as easily as we kin whip 
 all the earth." 
 
 Now the second statement is as false as the first is true. 
 One of these days the respectable Republic will find this out. 
 
 Unfortunately we, the English, will never be the people 
 to teach her ; because she is a chartered libertine allowed to 
 say and do anything she likes, from demanding the head of 
 the empress in an editorial waste-basket to chev37ing Ca- 
 nadian schooners up and down the Alaska Seas. It is per- 
 fectly impossible to go to war with these people, whatever 
 they may do. 
 
 They are much too nice, in the first place, and in the sec- 
 ondj it would throw out all the passenger traflSc of the Atlan- 
 tic and upset the financial arrangements of the English syndi- 
 cates who have invested their money in breweries, railways, 
 and the like, and in the third, it's not to be done. Every- 
 body knows that, and no one better than the American. " 
 
 NEW YORK city's PERILS 
 
 Yet there are other powers who are not **ohai band "(of 
 the brotherhood) — China, for instance. Try to believe an 
 irresponsible writer when he assures you that China's fleet 
 
/ImeriGai) f/otes ^ 297 
 
 to-day, if properly manned, could waft the entire American 
 navy out of the v/ater and into the blue. The big, fat Re- 
 public that is afraid of nothing because nothing up to the 
 present date has happened t.« make her afraid, is as unpro- 
 tected as a jelly-fish. Not internally, of course' — it would be 
 madness for any Power to throw men into America; they 
 would die — but as far as regards coast defense. 
 
 From five miles out at sea (I Lave seen a test of her "forti- 
 fied'' ports) a ship of the power of H.M.S. "Collingwood" 
 (they haven't run her on a rock yet?) would wipe out any or 
 every town from San Francisco to Long Branch; and three 
 first-class ironclads would account for New York, Bartholdi's 
 Statue and all. 
 
 Reflect on this. T would be *'Pay up or go up'* round 
 the entire coast of jhe United States. To this furiously 
 answers the patriotic American: 
 
 "We should not pay. We should invent a Columbiad in 
 Pittsburg or — or anywhere else and blow any outsider into 
 h— 1." 
 
 They might invent. They might lay waste their cities 
 and retire inland, for they can subsist entirely on their own 
 produce. Meantime, in a war waged the only way it could 
 be waged by an unscrupulous Power, their coast cities and 
 their dockyards would be ashes. They could construct their 
 navy inland if they liked, but you could never bring a ship 
 down to the waterways, as they stand now. 
 
 They could not, with an ordinary water patrol, dispatch 
 one regiment of men six miles across the seas. There would 
 be about five million excessively angry, armed men, pent up 
 within American limits. These men would require ships to 
 get themselves afloat. The country has no such ships, and 
 until the ships were built New York need not be allowed a 
 single-wheeled carriage within her limits. 
 
 Behold now the glorious condition of this Republic which 
 has no fear. There is ransom and loot past the counting of 
 man on her seaboard alone — plunder that would enrich a 
 nation — and she has neither a navy nor half a dozen first- 
 
298 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplii>^ 
 
 class forts to guard the whole. No man catches a snake by 
 the tail, because the creature will sting; but you can build 
 a fire around a snake that will make it squirm. 
 
 The country is supposed to be building a navy now. When 
 the ships are completed her alliance will be worth having — if 
 the alhance of any republic can be relied upon. For the next 
 three years she can be hurt, and badly hurt. Pity it is that 
 she is of our own blood, looking at the matter from a Pin- 
 darris point of view. Dog cannot eat dog. 
 
 OUR LAKE PORTS DOOMED 
 
 These sinful reflections were prompted by the sight of the 
 beautifully unprotected condition of Buffalo — a city that could 
 be made to pay up five million dollars without feeling it. 
 There are her companies of infantry in a sort of fort there. 
 A gunboat brought over in pieces from Niagara could get 
 the money and get away before she could be caught, while 
 an unarmored gunboat guarding Toronto could ravage the 
 towns on the lakes. When one hears so much of the nation 
 that can whip the earth, it is, to say the least of it, surpris- 
 ing to find her so temptingly spankable. 
 
 The average American citizen seems to have a notion that 
 any Power engaged in strife with the Star Spangled Banner 
 will disembark men from flat-bottomed boats on a convenient 
 beach for the purpose of being shot down by local militia. In 
 his own simple phraseology : 
 
 "Not by a darned sight. No, sir." 
 
 Ransom at long range will be about the size of it — cash 
 or crash. 
 
 Let us revisit calmer scenes. 
 
 PROVINCIAL society's DIVERSIONS " « 
 
 In the heart of Buffalo there stands a magnificent build'^ 
 ing which the population do innocently style a music-hall. 
 Everybody comes here of evenings to sit round little tables 
 and listen to a first-class orchestra. The place is something 
 like the Gaiety Theater at Simla, enlarged twenty times. 
 
/imericar) flotes 299 
 
 The ** Light Brigade" of Buffalo occupy the boxes and the 
 stage, "as it was at Simla in the days of old," and the others 
 sit in the parquet. Here I went with a friend — poor or boor 
 is the man who cannot pick up a friend for a season in 
 America — and here was shown the really smart folk of the 
 city. I grieve to say I laughed, because when an American 
 wishes to be correct he sets himself to imitate the English- 
 man. This he does vilely, and earns not only the contempt 
 of his brethren, but the amused scorn of the Briton. 
 
 I saw one man who was pointed out to me as being the 
 glass of fashion hereabout. He was aggressively English in 
 his get-up. From eyeglass to trouser-hem the illusion was 
 perfect, but — he wore with evening-dress buttoned boots 
 with brown cloth tops! Not till I wandered about this 
 land did I understand why the comic papers belabor the 
 Anglomaniac. 
 
 Certain young men of the more idiotic sort launch into 
 dog-carts and raiment of English cut, and here in Buffalo 
 they play polo at four in the afternoon. I saw three youths 
 come down to the polo-ground faultlessly attired for the game 
 and mounted on their best ponies. Expecting a game, I lin- 
 gered; but I was mistaken. These three shining ones with 
 the very new yellow hide boots and the red silk sashes had 
 assembled themselves for the purpose of knocking the ball 
 about. They smote with great solemnity up and down the 
 grounds, while the little boys looked on. When they trotted, 
 which was not seldom, they rose and sunk in their stirrups 
 with a conscientiousness that cried out "Riding-school!" from 
 afar. 
 
 Other young men in the park were riding after the En- 
 glish manner, in neatly cut riding-trousers and light saddles. 
 Fate in derision had made each youth bedizen his animal 
 with a checkered enameled leather brow-band visible half a 
 mile away. A black-and-white checkered brow-band. They 
 can't do it, any more than an Englishman by taking cold can 
 add that indescribable nasal twang to his orchestra. 
 
600 U/orKs of F^udyard K^plii)^ 
 
 ARGUMENTS FOR PROHIBITION 
 
 The other sight of the evening was a horror. The little 
 tragedy played itself out at a neighboring table where two 
 very young men and two very young women were sitting. 
 It did not strike me till far into the evening that the pimply 
 young reprobates were making the girls drunk. They gave 
 them red wine and then white, and the voices rose slightly 
 with the maiden cheeks' flushes. I watched, wishing to 
 stay, and the youths drank till their speech thickened and 
 their eyeballs grew watery. It was sickening to see, because 
 I knew what was going to happen. My friend eyed the 
 group and said : 
 
 "Maybe they're children of respectable people. I hardly 
 think, though, they'd be allowed out without any better escort 
 than these boys. And yet the place is a place where every 
 one comes, as you see. They may be Little Immoralities — 
 in which case they wouldn't be so hopelessly overcome with 
 two glasses of wine. They may be — " 
 
 Whatever they were they got indubitably drunk — there 
 in that lovely hall, surrounded by the best of Buffalo soci- 
 ety. One could do nothing except invoke the judgment of 
 Heaven on the two boys, themselves half sick with liquor. 
 At the close of the performance the quieter maiden laughed 
 vacantly and protested she couldn't keep her feet. The four 
 linked arms, and, staggering, flickered out into the street — 
 drunkj gentlemen and ladies, as Davy's swine, drunk as 
 lords! They disappeared down a side avenue, but I could 
 hear their laughter long after they were out of sight. 
 
 And they were all four children of sixteen and seventeen. 
 Then, recanting previous opinions, I became a prohibitionist. 
 Better it is that a man should go without his beer in public 
 places, and content himself with swearing at the narrow- 
 mindedness of the majority; better it is to poison the inside 
 with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively 
 at back-doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of youug 
 
/Imerieai^ f/otes 301 
 
 fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why 
 the preachers rage against drink. I have said : ' ' There is no 
 harm in it, taken moderately;" and yet my own demand for 
 beer helped directly to send those two girls reeling down the 
 dark street to — God alone knows what end. 
 
 If liquor is worth drinking, it is worth taking a little 
 trouble to come at — such trouble as a man will undergo to 
 compass his own desires. It is not good that we should let 
 it lie before the eyes of children, and I have been a fool in 
 vfriting to the contrary. Very sorry for myself, I sought a 
 hotel, and found in the hall a reporter who wished to know 
 what I thought of the country. Him I lured into conversa« 
 tion about his own profession, and from him gained much 
 that confirmed me in my views of the grinding tyranny of 
 that thing which they call the press here. Thus: 
 
 FRONTIER PRESS ENORMITIES 
 
 I — But you talk about interviewing people whether they 
 like it or not. Have you no bounds beyond which even your 
 indecent curiosity must not go? 
 
 He — I haven't struck 'em yet. What do you think of 
 interviewing a widow two hours after her husband's death^ 
 to get her version of his life? 
 
 I — I think that is the work of a ghoul. Must the people 
 have no privacy? 
 
 He — There is no domestic privacy in America. If there 
 was, what the deuce would the papers do? See here. Some 
 time ago I had an assignment to write up the floral tributes 
 when a prominent citizen had died. 
 
 I — Translate, please; I don't understand your pagan rites 
 and ceremonies. 
 
 He — I was ordered by the office to describe the flowers 
 and wreaths, and so on, that had been sent to a dead man's 
 funeral. WeU, I went to the house. There was no one 
 there to stop me, so I yanked the tinkler — pulled the bell — 
 and drifted into the room where the corpse lay all among the 
 roses and smilax. I whipped out my note-book and pawed 
 
302 U/orKs of F(udyard K^plii?^ 
 
 around among the floral tributes, turning up the tickets on 
 the wreaths and seeing who had sent them. In the middle 
 of this I heard some one saying: "Please, oh, please!" be- 
 hind me, and there stood the daughter of the house, just 
 bathed in tears — 
 
 I — You unmitigated brute ! 
 
 He — Prettj^ much what I felt myself. "I'm very sorry, 
 miss, ' ' I said, "to intrude on the privacy of your grief. Trust 
 me, I shall make it as little painful as possible. ' ' 
 
 I — But by what conceivable right did you outrage — 
 
 He — Hold your horses. I'm telling you. Well, she didn't 
 want me in the house at all, and between her sobs fairly 
 waved me away, I had half the tributes described, though, 
 and the balance I did partly on the steps when the stiff 'un 
 came out, and partly in the chiiroh. The preacher gave a 
 sermon. That wasn't my assignment. I skipped about 
 among the floral tributes while he was talking. I couid 
 have made no excuse if I had gone back to the office and 
 said that a pretty girl's sobs had stopped me obeying orders. 
 I had to do it. What do you think of it all? 
 
 I (slowly) — Do you want to know? 
 
 He (with his note-book ready) — Of course. How do you 
 regard it? 
 
 I —It makes me regard your interesting nation with the 
 same shuddering curiosity that I should bestow on a Pappan 
 cannibal chewing the scalp off his mother's skull. Does that 
 convey any idea to your mind? It makes me regard the 
 whole pack of you as heathens — real heathens — not the sort 
 you send missions to — creatures of another flesh and blood. 
 You ought to have been shot, not dead, but through the 
 stomach, for your share in the scandalous business, and the 
 thing you call your newspaper ought to have been sacked 
 by the mob and the managing proprietor hanged. 
 
 He — From which I suppose you have nothing of that 
 kir.d in your country? 
 
 Oh, Pioneer, venerable Pioneer, and you not less honest 
 press of India who are occasionally dull but never black- 
 
guardly, what could I say? A mere "^NTo,'' shouted never 
 so loudly, would not have met the needs of the case. I said 
 no word. 
 
 The reporter went away, and I took a train for !N"iagara 
 Falls, which are twenty-two miles distant from this bad 
 town, where girls get drunk of nights and reporters trample 
 on corpses in the drawing-rooms of the brave and the free'. 
 
 KIPLING BROUGHT TO BOOK 
 
 SHARPLY TAKEN TO TASK BY A JERSEY GIRL FOR 
 SUPERFICIALITY AND CONCEIT 
 
 Oh, wide-eyed young Ithuriel, be patient with us! Re- 
 member our inheritances and cHmate, and forgive us that we 
 are nasal-toned, thieves, and braggarts. 
 
 We admit, in sack-cloth and ashes, that we do steal books, 
 but we are outgrowing our inheritance in that direction. 
 There are many among us who read only ** authorized edi- 
 tions," and while as yet it seems we must steal, isn't it some- 
 thing that we confine ourselves to books, and are not pirates 
 upon the high seas, nor take countries, nor commerce, nor 
 patents of other nations? 
 
 Let us hope, for in all good things nations grow slowly, 
 that in time these very books may help us to some higher 
 level — to some real progress. 
 
 When our eagle screams over the material progress of our 
 young cities, what is it but a remnant of the old Viking spirit, 
 shouting its psean of victory over terrible obstacles conquered. 
 Could you have seen the wide, muddy wastes where Chicago 
 now is only a few years ago (mere moments in a nation's 
 life), you would better understand the reason of her exulta- 
 tion over her achievements in iron and wood. She may well 
 be proud of them, and of many other things — her princely 
 
304 U/orl^s of I^udyard l^iplip9 
 
 hospitality, her grand generosity, and her attainments in art 
 and literature. She is young, and may be forgiven her con- 
 ceit when even our elder, the British lion, has not yet out- 
 grovni it. 
 
 We are conceited, and in our ignorance had even thought 
 that nations, guided by their environments and exigencies, 
 developed a type of civilization, a growth in material, finan- 
 cial, military, and all other arts and sciences, best adapted to 
 their needs and possibilities. So believing, we were proud of 
 many things —our schools — even West Point, that could turn 
 out such men as Grant and Sherman, who could return to 
 civil life, and then, when the need arose, show that the 
 ** leaven of West Point" had not made of them a ''nuisance." 
 
 But the gods have been good to us, and have raised up 
 an adolescent Englishman, skilled in the refinements of Indian 
 barracks and London Bohemian life, with a "pattern on his 
 thumb-nail," to teach us modesty, culture, military and 
 political wisdom, and, in short, what true progress is. 
 
 We are a courageous people, and once we understand our 
 failures we try again. Although, owing to climatic and 
 other differences, we may never attain to the soft tones or 
 pure and homogeneous English of our mother country, it is 
 something to have high ideals. 
 
 By the way, how sweet and soothing to your rasped ears 
 must have been the pure English of the Dorset maid in Salt 
 Lake — like a pure fountain in the desert. Then, too, the 
 knowledge that your compatriots ''had their land all right" 
 must have been an "added rose leaf." Thus are the gods 
 mindful of their messengers and comfort them in their need. 
 
 It is blissful to reflect that amid our many imperfections 
 the brightness of American dollars proves one redeeming, 
 alluring trait, and perhaps in time, being thus led by wisdom, 
 we may amend our ways and part with them even more 
 readily, paying for all the wit and pathos we appropriate, 
 appreciate, and enjoy, thus attaining to truer progress. 
 
 We will not resent your looking on the surface onl}^, so 
 long as you do not find among us Anglo- Indian women as 
 
Amerieai) INTotes 305 
 
 you have seen them. The hope arises that with them you 
 have not given them all the charity that was their duGe Like 
 poor Chicago, they may have had grand traits you have not 
 learned. 
 
 Score us as you may, but remember, in a sense you belong 
 to us. Before you were our censor we had been with you in 
 too many camps, in times of fun, of dangers and of death, for 
 the bonds of sympathy to be easily loosened. Your heroes, 
 *'The Man That Was,'' '" Wee Willie," '^Private Mulvaney,'^ 
 and all the others, are our friends, too. They make a part 
 of our lives, and we thank you for bringing them to our 
 knowledge, and we shall follow you with broadest sympathies 
 and hopes that in seeing the weaknesses, the sweetness of 
 which each has some litfcle share^ may not escape your notice^ 
 and so, farewell. Harriet P 
 
 Jersey City. 
 
 ANDREW LANG ON KIPLING 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN SEVERELY: SCORED, AND BY AN ENGLISH- 
 MAN—THE AUTHOR AS SEEN AT HOME—KIPLING DIS* 
 CARDED CHARLES DICKENS'S ADVICE — OTHER THINGS IM 
 AMERICA BESIDES POMPOUS HOTEL CLERKS, SHRILL- 
 VOICED WOMEN, AND SPITTOONS— PERHAPS HE IS FUNNY 
 TO US 
 
 A COMPATRIOT of Rudyard Kipling, obviously Andrew 
 Lang, thus takes him editorially to task in the London '* Daily 
 News" for his recently published articles on America: 
 
 Mr. Rudyard Kipling is displeased with America. He 
 does not like its ways. He disapproves of its hotel clerks. 
 He is offended by its accent, especially by the accent of its 
 women. He is disquieted by its interviewers; and on that 
 
306 U/orKs of f^udyard K^plip^ 
 
 point we can only say that we are not surprised. But it is 
 only fair to say that there are interviewers in other lands as 
 well as in the American States. America may have had the 
 odious distinction of inventing the interviewer, but other 
 countries have had the still more odious responsibility of 
 adopting and nationalizing and multiplying him. America 
 may have sinned by inventing him out of pure lightness of 
 heart, but surely the countries that, forewarned, and, there^ 
 fore forearmed, encouraged him to grow and blossom and 
 bourgeon and spread among them are more culpable still 
 than even his heedless inventors. However, we are not 
 going to find fault with Mr. Kipling because he does not like 
 interviewers. He says they have no such newspaper tribe in 
 India; but then, can it be that Mr. Kipling never reads any 
 of the Indian newspapers? Or can it be that in the Indian 
 newspapers the editors invent the interviews without taking 
 the trouble to send round the interviewer to waylay his vic- 
 tim? If we can trust the evidence of our eyes, the interviews 
 do now and then appear in Indian newspapers ; but perhaps 
 Mr. Kipling's point is that it would be more convenient to 
 have the interviews published without having the interviewed 
 put to the trouble of a call from the interviewer. There 
 certainly is something in that. 
 
 The American, Mr. Kipling says, has no language. *'He 
 is dialect, slang, provincialism, accent, and so forth." Now 
 that Mr. Kipling has heard American voices all the beauty 
 of Bret Harte is ruined for him. He finds himself catching 
 through the roll of Bret Harte's rhythmical prose the cadence 
 of Bret Harte's peculiar fatherland. It is rather a pity that 
 a traveler should be so curiously sensitive. It is rather a 
 pity, too, that a traveler should be so general or so monotonous 
 in his impressions. "We do not know how much of America 
 Mr. Kipling has seen or heard, but he certainly writes about 
 accents as if he was under the impression that New York 
 and Vermont give tongue and tone to America. "Get an 
 American lady," he says, "to read to you 'How Santa Clans 
 Came to Simpson's Bar,' and see how much is, under her 
 
^merieaQ |^ot8S 307 
 
 tongue, left of the beauty of the original.'* An American 
 lady? We are inclined to think that such a reading, say by 
 Miss Ada Kehan, would not be a bad thing to listen to. 
 There are soft, sweet voices of women along the Pacific slope, 
 and there are musical tones in Virginia, and enchanting 
 accents in Louisiana. !N"ot all the voices of Anglo-Indian 
 women are like the voice of Cordelia, and there are doubtless 
 English ladies whose reading from Shakespeare would be 
 sadly to the prejudice of the immortal bard in the ears of a 
 too sensitive hstener. 
 
 ADVICE OF DICKENS 
 
 If one is in a mood to find fault one finds reasons for fault- 
 finding. Dickens strongly advised people never to travel 
 with the preconceived idea : ' ' How clever I am, and how 
 funny every one else is." Dickens himself, perhaps, began 
 his own traveling with something of this idea, but his warn- 
 ing against it was only the more justifiable on that account. 
 Mr. Kipling evidently went to America with the conviction 
 down deep in his soul, *'IIow clever I am, and how funny 
 every one else is. ' ' His estimate of himself is reasonable 
 enough, but we distrust his estimate of every one else. 
 
 In a certain Bohemian Club Mr. Kipling was told some 
 good stories, specimens of which he reproduces. Is it possible 
 that the little chestnut-bell was not rung while these stories 
 were being told? For they are as old as the hills from which 
 the ' ' Plain Tales' ' themselves have come. The tellers of the 
 stories must, have felt a fearful joy when they found they 
 had got hold of a young man fresh from India to whom these 
 ancient narratives were new and amusing. Mr. Kipling, it 
 is right to say, is grateful for the stories, even if he is not 
 grateful for anything else in America. His books are well 
 appreciated in the United States. He was recognized in 
 America as soon, or almost as soon, as he was recognized 
 here. It is certainly a sign and an evidence of his inde- 
 pendence of character, and the unpurchasable toughness of 
 his judgment, that he cannot be won over by mere praise. 
 
308 U/orKs of F^udyard \{ipViT)<^ 
 
 If he does not like a lady's accent lie bluntly says so, even 
 though the tones that grated on his ears may have been rasp- 
 ing out unmeasured eulogy of his latest and his favorite 
 masterpiece. The hotel clerk, whom he detests, may have 
 observed to him: '*Mr. Kiphng, sir, I have read all your 
 books. Mr. Kipling, sir, I know all your books backward." 
 An ordinary author would perhaps be mollified a little, for 
 the vanity of authorship is a common weakness in the tribe. 
 But Mr. Kipling is not to be mollified in this way. He does 
 not like the hotel clerk, and he thinks all hotel clerks are 
 built the same way. He **goes for" the hotel clerk ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 Poor hotel clerks! We have heard, we have read, we 
 have dreamed, that some of them are remarkably civil and 
 obliging persons. We have been told— or have read in ro- 
 mance, perhaps— of English travelers who have found much 
 comfort in their American wanderings from the courtesy and 
 the kind attentiveness of the hotel clerk. But there are hotel 
 clerks of various kinds, and there are travelers of various 
 kinds. 
 
 VIRTUE IN OUR SLANG 
 
 Mr. Kipling finds fault with the slang of America. There 
 is no doubt a great deal of slang in America. But the one 
 virtue of American slang is that it is an effort to find new 
 and expressive phrases for new objects and new <jonditions of 
 life. Our slang here is usually employed to give a second and 
 what is supposed to be a comical name to something which 
 has already a well established and recognized name of its 
 own. This fact was pointed out and well illustrated by Bret 
 Harte years and years ago. We have a good deal of slang in 
 England, and judging by Mr. Kipling's novels, they must 
 have an immense amount of slang in the English society of 
 Indian regions, Mr. Kipling's latest novel, **The Light That 
 Failed," is a story of England, and is practically all slang. 
 The men and women never for one sentence, never by any 
 chance, talk pure English. The whole conversation is a 
 
/imerieai? f/otes 309 
 
 mere jargon which to a foreigner not well skilled in the En- 
 glish vernacular of daily life would be a hopeless puzzle out 
 of which no dictionary could help him. It is all very clever, 
 very spirited, very much like the real English life of the class 
 the story describes and of to-day, and in its very realism an 
 American might find the easiest answer to Mr. Kipling's 
 charge about the overdoing of slang in the United States. 
 
 If Mr. Kipling's dialogues were not true to life in certain 
 English society, then Mr. Kipling would be still entitled to 
 find fault with the slang of certain American society. But 
 if Mr. Kipling's English slang is genuine — and it is — ^why 
 talk of America as if it were the one country on the face of 
 the earth from the lips of whose children comes forth the 
 language of slang? Some of the customs which Mr. Kipling 
 describes as still existing in America were existing no doubt 
 in the days of Martin Chuzziewit, but from what we have 
 heard, and still more perhaps from what we have not heard, 
 we should not have been inclined to regard them as existing 
 now. Still, Mr. Kipling is the man who has been there and 
 ought to know. It is some comfort to any one who may have 
 to travel on the other side of the Atlantic to beheve that there 
 are other things in America besides pompous hotel clerks and 
 shrill -voiced women and spittoons. 'No, visitor is compelled 
 to engage his attention only with these subjects of study. 
 
 END OF " AMERICAN NOTES 
 
UNDER THE DEODARS 
 
 AND OTHER TALES 
 
 UNDER THE DEODARS 
 THE EDUCATION OF OTIS YEEEE 
 
 ' I 
 
 SHOWING HOW THE GREAT IDEA Vt^AS BORN 
 
 In the pleasant orchard-closes 
 **God bless all our gains," say we ; 
 
 But "May God bless all our losses," 
 Better suits with our degree. 
 
 — Hie Lost Bower 
 
 This is the history of a Failure ; but the woman who 
 failed said it might be an instructive tale to put into print 
 for the benefit of the younger generation. The younger gen- 
 eration does not want instruction. It is perfectly willing 
 to instruct if any one will listen to it. None the less, here 
 begins the story where every right-minded story should be- 
 gin, that is to say, at Simla, where all things begin and 
 many come to an evil end. 
 
 The mistake was due to a very clever woman making a 
 blunder and not retrieving it. Men are licensed to stumble, 
 but a clever woman's mistake is outside the regular course of 
 Nature and Providence ; since all good people know^ that a 
 woman is the only infallible thing in this world, except Gov- 
 ernment paper of the '79 issue, bearing interest at four and 
 a half per cent. Yet, we have to remember that six consecu- 
 tive days of rehearsing the star-part of "The Fallen Angel," 
 at the New Gaiety Theater, where the plaster is not yet 
 (310) 
 
Hinder tl^e Deodars 311 
 
 properly dry, might have brought about an unhingement of 
 spirits which, again, might have led to eccentricities. 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee came to *'The Foundry" to tiffin with 
 Mrs. Mallowe, her one bosom friend, for she was in no sense 
 "a woman's woman." And it was a woman's tiffin, the 
 door shut to all the world ; and they both talked chiffons, 
 which is French for Mysteries. 
 
 "I've enjoyed an interval of sanity," Mrs. Hauksbee 
 announced, after tiffin was over and the two were comfort- 
 ably settled in the little writing-room that opened out of Mrs, 
 Mallowe's bedroom. 
 
 ^'My dear girl, what has he done?" said Mrs. Mallowe, 
 sweetly. It is noticeable that ladies of a certain age call 
 each other *'dear girl," just as commissioners of twenty- 
 eight years' standing address their equals in the Civil List 
 as "my boyo" 
 
 "There's no he in the case. Who am I that an imaginary 
 man should be always credited to me? Am I an Apache?" 
 
 "No, dear; but somebody's scalp is generally drying at 
 your wigwam door. Soaking, rather." 
 
 This was an illusion to the Hawley Boy, who was in the 
 habit of riding all across Simla in the Eains, to call on Mrs. 
 Hauksbee. That lady laughed. 
 
 "For my sins, the Aide at Tyrconnel last night told mo 
 off to The Mussuck. Hush ! Don't laugh. One of my most 
 devoted admirers. When duff came in — some one really 
 ought, to teach them to make puddings at Tyrconnel — The 
 Mussuck was at liberty to attend to me." 
 
 "Sweet soul! I know his appetite," said Mrs. Mallowe. 
 "Did he, oh, did he, begin his wooing?" 
 
 "By a special mercy of Providence, no. He explained 
 his importance as a Pillar of the Empire. I didn't laugh. ' ' 
 
 "Lucy, I don't believe you." 
 
 "Ask Captain Sangar; he was on the other side. Well, 
 as I was saying. The Mussuck dilated." 
 
 "I think I can see him doing it," said Mrs. Mallowe, 
 pensively, scratching her fox-terrier's ears. 
 
312 \I/,xK8 of F^udyard lt{ipViT)<^ 
 
 «<" 
 
 'I was properly impressed. Most properly. I yawned 
 openly. 'Strict supervision, and play them off one against 
 the other/ said The Mussuck, shoveling down his ice by 
 tureenfuls, I assure you. ^That, Mrs. Hauksbee, is the 
 secret of our Government.' " 
 
 Mrs. Malbwe laughed long and merrily. *'And what 
 did you say?" 
 
 ^'Did you ever know me at loss for an answer yet? I 
 said: 'So I have observed in my dealings with you.' The 
 Mussuck swelled with pride. He is coming to call on me 
 to-morrow. The Hawley Boy is coming too." 
 
 '* 'Strict supervision, and play them off one against the 
 other. That, Mrs, Hauksbee, is the secret of our Govern- 
 ment.' And I daresay if we could get to The Mussuck's 
 heart, we should find that he considers himseK a man of the 
 world." 
 
 " As h© is on the other two things. I like The Mussuck, 
 and I won't have you call him names. He amuses me. " 
 
 *'H© has reformed you, too, by what appears. Explain 
 the interval of sanity, and hit Tim on the nose with the 
 paper-cutter, please. That dog is too fond of sugar. Do 
 you take milk in yours?'* 
 
 '^ITOj thanks. Polly, I^m wearied of this life. It's hol- 
 low." 
 
 "Turn rehgious, then. I always said that Rome would 
 be your fate*" 
 
 "Only exchanging half a dozen attaches in red for one in 
 black, and if I fasted, the wrinkles would come, and never, 
 never go. Has it ever struck you, dear, that I'm getting 
 old?" 
 
 "Thanks for your courtesy. 1*11 return it. Ye-es, we 
 are both not exactly— how shall I put it?" 
 
 "What we have been. 'I feel it in my bones,' as Mrs. 
 Orossley says. Polly, I've wasted my life." 
 
 "As how?" 
 
 "!N'ever mind how. I feel it. 1 want to be a Power 
 before I die." 
 
Ui>der tl?e Deodars 313 
 
 *^Be a Power then. You've wits enough for anything 
 . . . and beauty?*' 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee pointed a teaspoon straight at her hostess. 
 *' Polly, if you heap compliments on me Hke this, I shall cease 
 to beheye that you're a woman. Tell me how I am to be a 
 Power." 
 
 "Inform The Mussuck that he is the most fascinating 
 and slimmest man in Asia, and he'U tell you anything and 
 everything you please. " 
 
 *' Bother The Mussuck! I mean an intellectual Power — 
 not a gras-power. Polly, I'm going to start a salon." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe turned lazily on the sofa and rested her 
 head on her hand. "Hear the words of the Preacher, the 
 son of Baruch." 
 
 " Will you talk sensibly?" 
 
 "I wiU, dear, for I see that you are going to make a 
 mistake." 
 
 * ' I never made a mistake in my life— at least, never one 
 that I couldn't explain away afterward." 
 
 "Going to make a mistake," went on Mrs. Mallowe, com- 
 posedly. "It is impossible to start a salon in Simla. A bar 
 would be much more to the point." 
 
 "Perhaps; but why? It seems so easy." 
 
 "Just what makes it so difficult. How many clever 
 women are there in Simla?" 
 
 "Myself and yourself," said Mrs. Hauksbee, without a 
 moment's hesitation. 
 
 "Modest woman 1 Mrs. Feardon would thank you for 
 that. And how many clever men?" 
 
 "Oh — er— -hundreds," said Mrs. Hauksbee, vaguely. 
 
 "What a fatal blunder I Not one. They are all bespoke 
 by the Government. Take my husband, for instance. Jack 
 was a clever man, though I say so who shouldn't. Govern- 
 ment has eaten him up. AU his ideas and powers of con- 
 versation—he reaUy used to be a good talker, even to his 
 wife, in the old days— are taken from him by this — this 
 kitchen-sink of a Government. That's the case with every 
 Vol. 3. - (4 
 
314: U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplir?^ 
 
 man up here who is at work. I don't suppose a Russian 
 convict under the knout is able to amuse the rest of his gang ; 
 and all our men-folk here are gilded convicts." 
 
 "But there are scores — " 
 
 '*I know what you're going to say. Scores of idle men 
 up on leave. I admit it, but they are all of two objection- 
 able sets. The Civilian who'd be dehghtful if he had the 
 military man's knowledge of the world and style, and the 
 military man who'd be adorable if he had the Civilian's 
 culture." 
 
 "Detestable word! Have Civilians culchaw? I never 
 studied the breed deeply." 
 
 "Don't make fun of Jack's service. Yes. They're hke 
 the teapoys in the Lakka Bazaar — good material, but not 
 polished. They can't help themselves, poor dears. A Civil- 
 ian only begins to be tolerable after he has knocked about 
 the world for fifteen years." 
 
 "And a military man?" 
 
 "When he has had the same amount of service. The 
 young of both species are horrible. You would have scores 
 of them in your salon." 
 
 "I would notr^ said Mrs. Hauksbee, fiercely. "I would 
 tell the bearer to darwaza band them. I'd put their own 
 colonels and commissioners at the door to turn them away. 
 I'd give them to the Topsham girl to play with." 
 
 "The Topsham girl would be grateful for the gift. But 
 to go back to the salon. Allowing that you had gathered all 
 your men and women together, what would you do with 
 them? Make them talk? They would all with one accord 
 begin to flirt. Your salon would become a glorified Peliti's 
 — a * Scandal Point' by lamplight." 
 
 "There's a certain amount of wisdom in that view." 
 
 ' * There's all the wisdom in the world in it. Surely, twelve 
 Simla seasons ought to have taught you that you can't focus 
 anything in India ; and a salon, to be any good at all, must 
 be permanent. In two seasons your roomful would be scat- 
 tered all over Asia. "We are only little bits of dirt on the 
 
Hinder tl^e Deodars 315 
 
 hillsides — here one day and blown down the khud the next. 
 "We have lost the art of talking — at least our men have. We 
 have no cohesion — " 
 
 "George Eliot in the flesh," interpolated Mrs. Hauksbee, 
 wickedly. 
 
 "And collectively, my dear scoffer, we, men and women 
 alike, have no influence. Come into the veranda and look 
 at the Mall." 
 
 The two looked down on the now rapidly filling road, for 
 all Simla was abroad to steal a stroll between a shower and 
 a fog. 
 
 "How do you propose to ^ that river? Look! There's 
 The Mussuck — head of goodness knows what. He is a power 
 in the land, though he does eat like a costermonger. There's 
 Colonel Blone, and General Grucher, and Sir Dugald Delane, 
 and Sir Henry Haughton, and Mr. Jellalatty. All Heads of 
 Departments, and all powerful," 
 
 "And all my fervent admirers," said Mrs. Hauksbee, 
 piously. "Sir Henry Haughton raves about me. But go 
 on." 
 
 "One by one, these men are worth something. Collect- 
 ively, they're just a mob of Anglo- Indians. Who cares for 
 what Anglo- Indians say? Your salon won't weld the De- 
 partments together and make you mistress of India, dear. 
 And these creatures won't talk administrative *shop' in a 
 crowd — ^your salon— because they are so afraid of the men in 
 the lower ranks overhearing it. They have forgotten what 
 of Literature and Art they ever knew, and the women — " 
 
 "Can't talk about anything except the last Gymkhana, 
 or the sins of their last dhai. I was calling on Mrs. Derwills 
 this morning. " 
 
 "You admit that? They can talk to the subalterns 
 though, and the subalterns can talk to them. Your salon 
 would suit their views admirably, if you respected the rehg- 
 ious prejudices of the country and provided plenty of kala 
 juggahs." 
 
 "Plenty of kala juggahs. Oh, my poor little idea! 
 
316 U/orl^s of l^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 Kala juggahs in a salon! But who made you so awfully 
 clever?'* 
 
 ** Perhaps I've tried myself; or perhaps I know a woman 
 who has. I have preached and expounded the whole matter, 
 and the conclusion thereof — " 
 
 "You needn't go on. 'Is Vanity.' Polly, I thank you. 
 These vermin" — Mrs. Hauksbee waved her hand from the 
 veranda to two men in the crowd below who had raised their 
 hats to her — *' these vermin shall not rejoice in a new Scan- 
 dal Point or an extra Peliti's. I will abandon the notion of 
 a salon. It did seem so tempting, though. But what shall 
 I do? I must do something." 
 
 *'Why? Are not Abana and Pharphar— " 
 
 *'Jack has made you nearly as bad as himself! I want 
 to, of course. I'm tired of everything and everybody, from 
 a moonlight picnic at Seepee, to the blandishments of The 
 Mussuck." 
 
 "Yes — that comes, too, sooner or later. Have you nerve 
 enough to make your bow yet?" 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee's mouth shut grimly. Then she laughed. 
 *'I think I see myself doing it. Big pink placards on the 
 Mall: 'Mrs. Hauksbee! Positively her last appearance on 
 any stage! This is to give notice!' !N"o more dances; no 
 more rides or luncheons ; no more theatricals with supper to 
 follow ; no more sparring with one's dearest, dearest friend ; 
 no more fencing with an inconvenient man who hasn't wit 
 enough to clothe what he's pleased to call his sentiments in 
 passable speech ; no more parading of The Mussuck while 
 Mrs. Tarkass calls all round Simla, spreading horrible stories 
 about me ! No more of anything that is thoroughly weary- 
 ing, abominable and detestable, but, all the same, makes life 
 worth the having. Yes ! I see it all ! Don't interrupt, Polly, 
 I'm inspired. A mauve and white striped 'cloud' round my 
 venerable shoulders, a seat in the fifth row of the Gaiety, 
 and both horses sold. Delightful vision! A comfortable 
 armchair, situated in three different draughts, at every ball- 
 room; and nice, large, sensible shoes for all the couples to 
 
Ui)der tl?e Deodars 317 
 
 stumble over as thej go into the veranda I Then at supper. 
 Can't you imagine the scene? The greedy mob gone away. 
 Reluctant subaltern, pink all over like a newly powdered 
 baby — ^they really ought to tan subalterns before they are 
 exported — Polly — sent back by the hostess to do his duty. 
 Slouches up to me across the room, tugging at a glove two 
 sizes too large for him — I hate a man who wears gloves like 
 overcoats — and trying to look as if he'd thought of it from 
 the first. *May I ah-have the pleasure 'f takin' you *nt' 
 supper?' Then I get up with a hungry smile. Just like 
 this." 
 
 ** Lucy, how can you be so absurd?" 
 
 *'And sweep out on his arm. Sol After supper I shall 
 go away early, you know, because I shall be afraid of catch- 
 ing cold. 2To one will look for my 'rickshaw. Mine, so 
 please you I I shall stand, always with that mauve and 
 white * cloud' over my head, while the wet soaks into my 
 dear, old, venerable feet and Tom swears and shouts for the 
 memsahib's gharri. Then home to bed at half past eleven! 
 Truly excellent life — helped out by the visits of the Padrij 
 Just fresh from burying somebody down below there." She 
 pointed through the pines, toward the cemetery, and continued 
 with vigorous dramatic gesture : 
 
 "Listen! I see it all— down, down even to the stays! 
 Such stays! Six eight a pair, Polly, with red flannel — or list, 
 is it? — that they put into the tops of those fearful things. I 
 can draw you a picture of them." 
 
 **Lucy, for Heaven's sake, don't go waving your arms 
 about in that idiotic manner I Recollect, every one can see 
 you from the Mall." 
 
 *^Let them see! They'll think I am rehearsing for *The 
 Fallen Angel.' Look! There's The Mussuck. How badly 
 he rides. There!" 
 
 She blew a kiss to the venerable Indian administrator 
 with infinite grace. 
 
 *'Now," she continued, *' he'll be chaffed about that at the 
 Club in the deHcate manner those brutes of men affect, and 
 
618 U/orl^s of F^aiyard t^iplip^ 
 
 the Hawley Boy will tell me all about it — softening the de* 
 tails for fear of shocking me. That boy is too good to hve, 
 Polly. I've serious thoughts of recommending him to throw 
 up his commission and go into the Church. In his present 
 frame of mind he would obey me. Happy, happy child!" 
 
 "Never again," said Mrs. Mallowe, with an affectation of 
 indignation, "shall you tiffin here! 'Lucindy, your behavior 
 is scand'lus.' " 
 
 "All your fault," retorted Mrs. Hauksbee, "for suggest- 
 ing such a thing as my abdication. !N"o ! Jamais-Nevaire ! 
 I win act, dance, ride, frivol, talk scandal, dine out, and 
 appropriate the legitimate captives of any woman I choose, 
 until I d-r-r-rop, or a better woman than I puts me to shame 
 before all Simla ... and it's dust and ashes in my mouth 
 while I'm doing it!" 
 
 She dashed into the drawing-room. Mrs. Mallowe fol- 
 lowed and put an arm round her waist. 
 
 "I'm notP^ said Mrs. Hauksbee, defiantly, rummaging 
 in the bosom of her dress for her handkerchief. "I've been 
 dining out for the last ten nights, and rehearsing in the after- 
 noon. You'd be tired yourself. It's only because I'm 
 tired." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe did not at once overwhelm Mrs. Hauksbee 
 with spoken pity or ask her to lie down. She knew her friend 
 too well. Handing her another cup of tea, she went on with 
 the conversation. 
 
 "I've been through that too, dear," she said. 
 
 "I remember," said Mrs. Hauksbee, a gleam of fun oi^ 
 her face. "In '84, wasn't it? You went out a great deal 
 less next season." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe smiled in a superior and sphinx-like fashion. 
 
 "I became an Influence," said she. 
 
 "Good gracious, child, you didn't join the Theosophists 
 and kiss Buddha's big toe, did you? I tried to get into their 
 set once, but they cast me out for a skeptic — without a chance 
 of improving my poor little mind, too." 
 
 "!N"o, I didn't Theosophilander. Jack says — " 
 
Upder tl^e Deodars 319 
 
 "Never mind Jack. What a husband says is not of the 
 least importance. What did you do?" 
 
 '' I made a lasting impression. " 
 
 "So have I — for four months. But that didn't console me 
 in the least, I hated the man. Will you stop smiling in 
 that inscrutable way and tell me what you mean?" 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe told. 
 • . ..•« • * « 
 
 "And — you — mean — to — say that it is absolutely platonic 
 on both sides?" 
 
 "Absolutely, or I should never have taken it up." 
 
 "And his last promotion was due to you?" 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe nodded. 
 
 "And you warned him against the Topsham girl?" 
 
 Another nod. 
 
 "And told him of Sir Dugald Delane's private Memo, 
 about him?" 
 
 A third nod. 
 
 "What a question to ask a woman! Because it amused 
 me at first. I am proud of my property now. If I live, he 
 shall continue to be successful. Yes, I will put him upon the 
 straight road to Knighthood, and everything else that a 
 man values. The rest depends upon himself." 
 
 "Polly, you are a most extraordinary woman." 
 
 "Not in the least. I'm concentrated, that's all. You 
 diffuse yourself, dear ; and though all Simla knows your skill 
 in managing a Team — ' ' 
 
 "Can't you choose a prettier word?" 
 
 "Team, of half a dozen, from The Mussuck to the Hawley 
 Boy, you gain nothing by it. Not even amusement." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "Try my recipe. Take a man, not a boy, mind, but an 
 almost mature, unattached man, and be his guide, philoso- 
 pher, and friend. You'll find it the most interesting occupa- 
 tion that you ever embarked on. It can be done — you needn 't 
 look like that — because I've done it." 
 
820 U/orKs of F^udyard K^plip^ 
 
 "There's an element of danger about it that makes the 
 notion attractive. I'll get such a man and say to him: 
 ^IsTow there must be no flirtation. Do exactly what I tell 
 you, profit by my instruction and counsels, and all will yet 
 be well,' as Toole says. Is that the idea?" 
 
 "More or less," said Mrs. Mallowe, with an iinfathom- 
 able smile. "But be sure he understands that there must be 
 no flirtation." 
 
 n 
 
 SHOWING WHAT WAS BORN OF THE GREAT IDEA 
 
 Dribble-dribble— trickle-trickle— 
 
 What a lot of raw dust I 
 My dollie*s had an accident 
 
 And out came all the sawdust! 
 
 —Nursery Rhyme 
 
 So Mrs. Hauksbee, in "The Foundry" which overlooks 
 Simla MaU, sat at the feet of Mrs. Mallowe and gathered 
 wisdom. The end of the Conference was the Great Idea 
 upon which Mrs. Hauksbee so plumed herself. 
 
 "I warn you," said Mrs. Mallowe, beginning to repent of 
 her suggestion, "that the matter is not haK so easy as it 
 looks. Any woman — even the Topsham girl- — can catch a 
 man, but very, very few know how to manage him when 
 captured." 
 
 **My child," was the answer, "I've been a female St. 
 Simon Stylites looking down upon men for these— these years 
 past. Ask The Mussuck whether I can manage them." 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee departed humming: "I'll go to him and 
 oay to him in manner most ironical." Mrs. Mallowe laughed 
 to herself. Then she grew suddenly sober. "I wonder 
 whether I've done well in advising that amusement? Lucy's 
 a clever woman, but a thought too mischievous where a man 
 is concerned." 
 
 A week later, the two met at a Monday Pop. "Well?" 
 said Mrs. Mallowe. 
 
 I 
 
llT)der tl^e Deodars 321 
 
 "I've caught him!" said Mrs. Hauksbee. Her eyes were 
 dancing with merriment. 
 
 "Who is it, you mad woman? I'm sorry I ever spoke 
 to you about it." 
 
 "Look between the pillars. In the third row; fourth 
 from the end. You can see his face now. Look!" 
 
 "Otis Yeere! Of all the improbable people! I don't 
 believe you." 
 
 "Hush! Wait till Mrs. Tarkass begins murdering Milton 
 Wellings, and I'll tell you all about it. S-s-ssI There we 
 are. That woman's voice always reminds me of an Under- 
 ground train coming into Earl's Court with the brakes down. 
 InTow listen. It is really Otis Yeere." 
 
 "So I see, but it doesn't follow that he is your prop- 
 erty . ' ' 
 
 "He is! By right of trove, as the barristers say. I 
 found him, lonely and unbefriended, the very next night 
 after our talk, at the Dugald Delano's burra-khana. I liked 
 his eyes, and I talked to him. Next day he called. Next 
 day we went for a ride together, and to-day he's tied to my 
 'rickshaw-wheels hand and foot. You'll see when the con- 
 cert's over. He doesn't know I'm here yet." 
 
 ' ' Thank goodness you haven't chosen a boy. What are 
 you going to do with him, assuming that you've got him?" 
 
 "Assuming, indeed! Does a woman — do I — ever make a 
 mistake in that sort of thing? First" — Mrs. Hauksbee ticked 
 off the items ostentatiously on her daintily gloved fingers— 
 "First, my dear, I shall dress him properly. At present his 
 raiment is a disgrace, and he wears a dress-shirt hke a 
 crumpled sheet of the 'Pioneer.' Secondly, after I have 
 made him presentable, I shall form his manners — his morals 
 are above reproach." 
 
 "You seem to have discovered a great deal about him 
 considering the shortness of your acquaintance." 
 
 "Surely you ought to know that the first proof a man 
 gives of his interest in a woman is by talking to her about 
 his own sweet self. If the woman listens without yawniag. 
 
322 II/orKs of I^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 lie begins to Kke her. If slie flatters the animal's vanity, he 
 ends by adoring her." 
 
 "In some cases." 
 
 ** Never mind the exceptions. I know which one you are 
 thinking of. Thirdly, and lastly, after he is poHshed and 
 made pretty, I shall, as you said, be his guide, philosopher, 
 and friend, and he shall become a success— as great a success 
 as your friend. I always wondered how that man got on. 
 Did The Mussuck come to you with the Civil List, and, drop- 
 ping on one knee— no, two knees, tb la Gibbon — hand it to 
 you and say; * Adorable angel, choose your friend's appoint- 
 ment?' " 
 
 * ' Lucy, your long experiences of the Military Department 
 have demoralized you. One doesn't do that sort of thing on 
 the Civil Side." 
 
 *'No disrespect meant to * Jack's Service,' my dear. I 
 only asked for information. Give me three months, and see 
 what changes I shall work in my prey." 
 
 "Go your own way since you must. But I'm sorry that 
 I was weak enough to suggest the amusement." 
 
 '* 'I am aU discretion, and may be trusted to an in-finite 
 extent,' " quoted Mrs. Hauksber from **The Fallen Angel"; 
 and the conversation ceased with Mrs. Tarkass's last long- 
 drawn war-whoop. 
 
 Her bitterest enemies — and she had many — could hardly 
 accuse Mrs. Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was 
 one of those wandering "dumb" characters, foredoomed 
 through Hfe to be "nobody's property." Ten years in Her 
 Majesty's Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part, in 
 undesirable Districts, had dowered him with little to be proud 
 of, and nothing to give confidence. Old enough to have lost 
 the "first fine careless rapture" that showers on the immature 
 'Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars, and sends 
 him into the collar with coltish earnestness and abandon; too 
 young to be yet able to look back upon the progress he had 
 made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of to- 
 day he had come even so far, he stood upon the "dead-center" 
 
Upder tl^e Deodars 323 
 
 of his career. And when a man stands still, he feels the 
 slightest impulse from without. Fortune had ruled that 
 Otis Yeere should be, for the first part of his service, one of 
 the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels of the 
 Administration, losing heart and soul, and mind and strength, 
 in the process. Until steam replaces manual power in the 
 working of the Empire, there must always be this percentage 
 — must always be the men who are used up, expended, in the 
 mere mechanical routine. For these promotion is far off, and 
 the mill-grind of every day very near and instant. The Sec- 
 retariats know them only by name ; they are not the picked 
 men of the Districts with the Divisions and Collectorates 
 awaiting them. They are simply the rank and file — the food 
 for fever — sharing with the ryot and the plow-bullock the 
 honor of being the plinth on which the State rests. The older 
 ones have lost their aspirations; the younger are putting 
 theirs aside with a sigh. Both learn to endure patiently until 
 the end of the day. Twelve years in the rank and file, men 
 say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull the wits of 
 the most keen. 
 
 Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months, 
 drifting, for the sake of a Httle mascuhne society, into Simla. 
 When his leave was over he would return to his swampy, 
 sour-green, undermanned district, the native Assistant, the 
 native Doctor, the native Magistrate, the steaming, swelter- 
 ing Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised insolence 
 of the Municipality that babbled away the lives of men. 
 Life was cheap, however. The soil spawned humanity, as it 
 bred frogs in the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of one 
 season was filled to overflowing by the fecundity of the next, 
 Otis was unfeignedly thankful to lay down his work for a 
 little while and escape from the seething, whining, weakly 
 hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power to cripple, 
 thwart, and annoy the weary-eyed man who, by official irony, 
 was said to be "in charge" of it. 
 
 "I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal. They 
 
324 ^ U/orKs of I^udyard l^iplip^J 
 
 come up here sometimes. But I didn't know that there were 
 men-dowdies, too." 
 
 Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis Yeere that his 
 clothes were rather ancestral in appearance. It will be seen 
 from the above that his friendship with Mrs. Hauksbee had 
 made great strides. 
 
 As that lady truthfully says, a man is never so happy as 
 when he is talking about himself. From Otis Yeere's lips 
 Mrs. Hauksbee, before long, learned everything that she 
 wished to know about the subject of her experiment ; learned 
 what manner of life he had led in what she vaguely called 
 ** those awful cholera districts"; learned, too, but this knowl- 
 edge came later, what manner of life he had purposed to 
 lead, and what dreams he had dreamed in the year of grace 
 '77, before the reality had knocked the heart out of him. 
 Very pleasant are the shady bridle-paths round Prospect Hill 
 for the telling of confidences. 
 
 '^Kot yet," said Mrs. Hauksbee to Mrs. Mallowe. "l^ot 
 yet. I must wait until the man is properly dressed, at least. 
 Great heavens, is it possible that he doesn't know what an 
 honor it is to be taken up by MeP"* 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty as one of her 
 failings. 
 
 "Always with Mrs. Hauksbee!" murmured Mrs. Mal- 
 lowe, with her sweetest smile, to Otis. "Oh, you men, you 
 men! Here are our Pimjabis growling because you've mo- 
 nopolized the nicest woman in Simla. They'll tear you to 
 pieces on the Mall, some day, Mr. Yeere." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe rattled down-hill, ha^dng satisfied herself, 
 by a glance through the fringe of her sunshade, of the effect 
 of her words. 
 
 The shot went home. Of a surety Otis Yeere was some- 
 body in this bewildering whirl of Simla. 'Had monopolized 
 the nicest woman in it, and the Punjabis were growling. 
 The notion justified a mild glow of vanity. He had never 
 regarded his acquaintance with Mrs. Hauksbee as a matter 
 for general interest. 
 
Upder t}?e Deodars 325 
 
 The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feeling to the 
 man of no account. It was intensified later in the day when 
 a luncher at the Club said spitefully : *' Well, for a debilitated 
 Ditcher, Yeere, you are going it. Hasn't any kind friend 
 told you that she's the most dangerous woman in Simla?" 
 
 Yeere chuckled and passed out. When, oh, when, would 
 his new clothes be ready? He descended into the Mall to 
 inquire ; and Mrs. Hauksbee, coming over the Church Ridge 
 in her 'rickshaw, looked down upon him approvingly. **He's 
 learning to carry himself as if he were a man, instead of a 
 piece of furniture, and' ^— she screwed up her eyes to see the 
 better through the sunlight — "he is a man when he holds 
 himseK like that. Oh, blessed Conceit, what should we be 
 without you?" 
 
 With the new clothes came a new stock of self-confidence. 
 Otis Yeere discovered that he could enter a room without 
 breaking into a gentle perspiration, and could cross one, even 
 to talk to Mrs. Hauksbee, as though rooms were meant to 
 be crossed. He was, for the first time in nine years, proud 
 of himself, and contented with his life, satisfied with his 
 new clothes, and rejoicing in the coveted friendship of Mrs. 
 Hauksbee. 
 
 *' Conceit is what the poor fellow wants," she said in con- 
 fidence to Mrs. Mallowe. * 'I believe they must use Civilians 
 to plow the fields with in Lower Bengal. You see, I have 
 to begin from the very beginning — haven't I? But you'll 
 admit, won't you, dear, that he is immensely improved since 
 I took him in hand? Only give me a little more time and 
 he won't know himself." 
 
 Indeed, Yeere was rapidly beginning to forget what he 
 had been. One of his own rank and file put the matter tn 
 a nutshell when he asked Yeere, in reference to nothing : 
 ** And who has been making you a Member of Council, lately? 
 You carry the side of half a dozen of 'em." 
 
 *'I — I'm awf'ly sorry. I didn't mean it you know," said 
 Yeere, apologetically. 
 
 *' There'll be no holding you," continued the old stager, 
 
2J26 U/orKs of l^udyard i^fplii?*^ 
 
 grimly. ** Climb down, Otis — climb down, and get all that 
 beastly affectation knocked out of you with fever ! Three 
 thousand a month wouldn't support it." 
 
 Yeere repeated the incident to Mrs. Hauksbee. He had 
 insensibly come to look upon her as his Frau Confessorin. 
 
 ''And you apologized!" she said. "Oh, shame! 1 hate 
 a man who apologizes. !N"ever apologize for what your friend 
 called 'side.' Never! It's a man's business to be insolent 
 and overbearing until he meets with a stronger. iN'ow, you 
 bad boy, listen to me." 
 
 Simply and straightforwardly, as the 'rickshaw loitered 
 round Jakko, Mrs. Hauksbee preached to Otis Yeere the 
 Great Gospel of Conceit, illustrating it with living subjects 
 encountered during their Sunday afternoon stroll. 
 
 "Good gracious!" she concluded with the personal argu- 
 ment, "you'll apologize next for being my attache?" 
 
 "!N"ever!" said Otis Yeere. "That's another thing alto- 
 gether. I shall always be — " 
 
 "What's coming?" thought Mrs. Hauksbee. 
 
 " — Proud of that," said Otis. 
 
 "Safe for the present," she said to herself. 
 
 "But I'm afraid I have grown conceited. Like Jeshurun, 
 you know. When he waxed fat, then he kicked. It's the 
 having no worry on one's mind and the Hill air, I suppose." 
 
 ' ' Hill air, indeed ! ' ' said Mrs. Hauksbee to herself. ' ' He'd 
 have been hiding in the Club till the last day of his leave, if 
 I hadn't discovered him. ' ' Then aloud : 
 
 "Why shouldn't you be? You have every right to." 
 
 "I! Why?" 
 
 "Oh, hundreds of things. I'm not going to waste this 
 lovely afternoon by explaining ; but I know you have. What 
 was that heap of manuscript you showed me about the gram- 
 mar of the aboriginal — what's their names?" 
 
 "GuUals. A piece of nonsense. I've far too much work 
 to do to bother over GuUals now. You should see my Dis- 
 trict. Come down with your husband some day and I'll 
 show you round. Such a lovely place in the Rains ! A sheet 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 327 
 
 of water with the railway embankment and the snakes stick- 
 ing out, and, in the summer, green flies and green squash. 
 The people would die of fear if you shook a dog- whip at 'em. 
 But they know you're forbidden to do that, so they conspire 
 to make your life a burden to you. My District's worked 
 by some man at Darjiling, on the strength of a pleader's 
 false reports. Oh, it's a heavenly place 1" 
 
 Otis Yeere laughed bitterly. 
 
 "There's not the least necessity that you should stay In it. 
 Why do you?" 
 
 "Because I must. How'm I to get out of it?" 
 
 "How! In a hundred and fifty ways. If there weren't 
 so many people on the road, I'd like to box your ears. Ask, 
 my dear sir, ask! Look! There is young Hexarly with six 
 years' service and half your talents. He asked for what he 
 wanted, and he got it. See, down by the Convent ! There's 
 McArthurson who has come to his present position by asking 
 — sheer, downright asking — after he had pushed himself out 
 of the rank and file. One man is as good as another in your 
 service — believe me. I've seen Simla for more seasons than 
 I care to think about. Do you suppose men are chosen for 
 appointments because of their special fitness beforehand 9 
 You have all passed a high test — what do you call it? — in the 
 beginning, and, excepting the three or four who have gone 
 altogether to the bad, you can all work. Asking does the 
 rest. Call it cheek, call it insolence, call it anything you 
 hke, but ask! Men argue — yes, I know what men say — that 
 a man, by the mere audacity of his request, must have some 
 good in him. A weak man doesn't say: *Give me this and 
 that.' He whines: 'Why haven't I been given this and 
 that?' If you were in the Army, I should say learn to spin 
 plates or play a tambourine with your toes. As it \^—ask! 
 You belong to a Service that ought to be able to command 
 the Channel fleet, or set a leg at twenty minutes' notice, and 
 yet you hesitate over asking to escape from the squashy green 
 district where you admit you are not master. Drop the Ben- 
 gal Government altogether. Even Darjiling is a little out- 
 
328 U/orKs of F(udyard \{ipUT)(^ 
 
 of-the-way hole. I was there once, and the rents were ex- 
 tortionate. Assert yourself. Get the Government of India 
 to take you over. Try to get on the Frontier, where every 
 man has a grand chance if he can trust himself. Go some- 
 where ! Do something ! You have twice the wits and three 
 times the presence of the men up here, and — and"— Mrs. 
 Hauksbee paused for breath; then continued — "and in any 
 way you look at it, you ought to. You who could go so 
 far!" 
 
 **I don't know," said Yeere, rather taken aback by the 
 unexpected eloquence. "I haven't such a good opinion of 
 myself." 
 
 It was not strictly Platonic, but it was Policy. Mrs. 
 Hauksbee laid her hand lightly upon the ungloved paw that 
 rested on the turned-back 'rickshaw hood, and, looking the 
 man full in the face, said tenderly, almost too tenderly: *'/ 
 believe in you if you mistrust yourself. Is that enough, my 
 friend?" 
 
 *'It is enough," answered Otis, very solemnly. 
 
 He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams 
 that he had dreamed eight years ago, but through them all 
 ran, as sheet-lightning through a golden cloud, the light of 
 Mrs. Hauksbee's violet eyes. 
 
 Curious and impenetrable are the mazes of Simla life — - 
 the only existence in this desolate land worth the living^ 
 Gradually it went abroad among men and women, in the 
 pauses between dance, play, and Gymkhana, that Otis Yeere, 
 the man with the newly lighted light of self-confidence in his 
 eyes, had *'done something decent" in the wilds whence he 
 came. He had brought an erring Municipality to reason, 
 appropriated the funds on his own responsibility, and saved 
 the lives of hundreds. He knew more about the GuUals 
 than any hving man. 'Had a vast knowledge of the aborigi- 
 nal tribes ; was, in spite of his juniority, the greatest author- 
 ity on the aboriginal GuUals. ISTo one quite knew who or 
 what the GuUals were till The Mussuck, who had been call- 
 ing on Mrs. Hauksbee, and prided himself upon picking peo- 
 
Uijder tl?e Deodars 829 
 
 pie's braing, explained they were a tribe of ferocious Hillmen, 
 soraewhere near Sikkim, whose friendship even the Great 
 Indian Empire would find it worth her while to secure. N"ow 
 we know that Otis Yeere had showed Mrs. Hauksbee his 
 MS. notes of six years' standing on these same Gullals. He 
 had told her, too, how, sick and shaken with the fever their 
 negligence had bred, crippled by the loss of his pet clerk, 
 and savagely angry at the desolation in his charge, he had 
 once damned the collective eyes of his "intelligent local 
 board" for a set of haramzadas. Which act of ** brutal and 
 tyrannous oppression" won him a Reprimand Royal from, 
 the Bengal Government; but in the anecdote as amended for 
 Korthern consumption, we find no record of this. Hence we 
 are forced to conclude that Mrs. Hauksbee "edited" his remi- 
 niscences before sowing them in idle ears, ready, as she well 
 knew, to exaggerate good or evil. And Otis Yeere bore 
 himseK as befitted the hero of many tales. 
 
 "You can talk to me when you don't fall into a brown 
 study. Talk now, and talk your brightest and best," said 
 Mrs. Hauksbee. 
 
 Otis needed no spur. Look to a man who has the coun- 
 sel of a woman of or above the world to back him. So long 
 as he keeps his head, he can meet both sexes on equal ground 
 — an advantage never intended by Providence, who fashioned 
 Man on one day and Woman on another, in sign that neither 
 should know more than a very little of the other's Hfe. Such 
 a man goes far, or, the counsel being withdrawn, collapses 
 suddenly while his world seeks the reason. 
 
 Generaled by Mrs. Hauksbee, who, again, had all Mrs. 
 Mallowe's wisdom at her disposal, proud of himself, and, in 
 the end, believing in himself because he was believed in, Otis 
 Yeere stood ready for any f ortime that might befall, certain 
 that it would be good. He would fight for his own hand, 
 and intended that this second struggle should lead to better 
 issue than the first helpless surrender of the bewildered 
 'Stunt. 
 
 What might have happened, it is impossible to say. This 
 
330 U/orKs of F^udyard li{lpUT)(^ 
 
 lamentable thing befell, bred directly by a statement of Mrs. 
 Hauksbee that she would spend the next season in Darjiling. 
 
 *'Are you certain of that?" said Otis Yeere. 
 
 *' Quite. "We're writing about a house now." 
 
 Otis Yeere "stopped dead," as Mrs. Hauksbee put it in 
 discussing the relapse with Mrs. Mallowe. 
 
 "He has behaved," she said, angrily, "just hke Captain 
 Kerrington's pony — only Otis is a donkey — at the last Gym- 
 khana. Planted his forefeet and refused to go on another 
 step. Polly, my man's going to disappoint me. "What shall 
 I do?" 
 
 As a rule, Mrs. Mallowe does not approve of staring, but 
 on this occasion she opened her eyes to the utmost. 
 
 "You have managed cleverly so far," she said. "Speak 
 to him, and ask him what he means. ' ' 
 
 "I will — at to-night's dance." 
 
 "No — o, not at a dance," said Mrs. Mallowe, cautiously. 
 "Men are never themselves quite at dances. Better wait till 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Nonsense. If he's going to revert in this insane way, 
 there isn't a day to lose. Are you going? No ! Then sit 
 up for me, there's a dear. I shan't stay longer than supper 
 under any circumstances." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe waited through the evening, looking long 
 and earnestly into the fire, and sometimes smiling to herself. 
 
 "Oh! oh! oh! The man's an idiot! A raving, positive 
 idiot! I'm sorry I ever saw him!" 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee burst into Mrs. Mallowe's house, at mid- 
 night, almost in tears. 
 
 "What in the world has happened?" said Mrs. Mallowe, 
 but her eyes showed that she had guessed an answer. 
 
 "Happened! Everything has happened! He was- there. 
 I went to him and said: *Now, what does this nonsense 
 mean?' Don't laugh, dear, I can't bear it. But you know 
 what I mean I said. Then it was a square, and I sat it out 
 with him and wanted an explanation, and he said — Oh! I 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 331 
 
 hayen't patience with, such idiots ! You know what I said 
 about going to Darjiling next year? It doesn't matter to me 
 where I go. I'd have changed the Station and lost the rent 
 to have saved this. He said, in so many words, that he 
 wasn't going to try to work up any more, because — because 
 he would be shifted into a province away from Darjiling, and 
 his own District, where these creatures are, is within a day's 
 journey — " 
 
 "Ah — hh!" said Mrs. Mallowe, in a tone of one who 
 has successfully tracked an obscure word through a large 
 dictionary. 
 
 "Did you ever hear of anything so mad^ — so absurd? And 
 he had the ball at his feet. He had only to kick it ! I would 
 have made him anything! Anything in the wide world. 
 He could have gone to the world's end. I would have helped 
 him. I made him, didn't I, Polly? Didn't I create that 
 man? Doesn't he owe everything to me? And to reward 
 me, just when everything was nicely arranged, by this lunacy 
 that spoiled everything!" 
 
 "Very few men understand devotion thoroughly." 
 "Oh, Polly, donH laugh at me! I give men up from this 
 hour. I could have killed him then and there. What right 
 had this man — this Thing I had picked out of his filthy paddy- 
 fields — to make love to me?" 
 
 "He did that, did he?" 
 I "He did. I don't remember half he said, I was so angry. 
 I Oh, but such a funny thing happened ! I can't help laughing 
 I at it now, though I felt nearly ready to cry with rage. He 
 I raved, and I stormed — I'm afraid we must have made an 
 i awful noise in our kala juggah. Protect my character, dear, 
 if it's all over Simla by to-morrow — and then be bobbed for- 
 ward in the middle of this insanity — I firmly believe the 
 man's demented — 'and kissed me." 
 
 * ' Morals above reproach, ' ' purred Mrs. Mallowe. 
 ' ' So they were — so they are ! It was the most absurd kiss 
 ij. I don't believe he'd ever kissed a woman in his life beforOc 
 I threw my head back, and it was a sort of slidy, pecking 
 
)S> 
 
 ^32 U/or^s of F^udyard I^iplip^j 
 
 dab, just on the end of tue chin — here." Mrs. Hauksbeet 
 tapped her rather masculine chin with her fan. "Then, of 
 course, I was furiously angry, and told him that he was no 
 gentleman, and I was sorry I'd ever met him, and so on. 
 He was crushed so easily that I couldn't be very angry. 
 Then I came away straight to you." 
 
 *'Was this before or after supper?^ 
 
 'Oh ! before— oceans before. Isn't it perfectly disgusting?" 
 
 **Let me think. I withhold judgment till to-morrow. 
 Morning brings counsel." 
 
 But morning brought only a servant with a dainty bouquet 
 of Annandale roses for Mrs. Hauksbee to wear at the dance 
 at Viceregal Lodge that night. 
 
 "He doesn't seem to be very penitent," said Mrs. Mal- 
 low©. "What's the billet-doux in the center?" 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee opened the neatly folded note — anothei 
 accomplishment that she had taught Otis — read it, and 
 groaned tragically. 
 
 ' * Last wreck of a feeble intellect ! Poetry ! Is it his. own,i 
 do you think? Oh, that I ever built my hopes on such ai 
 maudlin idiot!" 
 
 "No. It's a quotation from Mrs. Browning, and, in view 
 of the facts of the case, as Jack says, uncommonly well 
 chosen. Listen : 
 
 ** * Sweet, thou hast trod on a heart — 
 Pass! There's a world full of men; 
 And women as fair as thou art. 
 Must do such things now and then. 
 
 ** 'Thou only hast stepped unaware — 
 Malice not one can impute; 
 And why should a heart have been there, 
 In the way of a fair woman's foot?' " 
 
 "I didn't— I didn't~I didn't!" said Mrs. Hauksbee, an- 
 grily, her eyes filling with tears; "there was no malice a1 
 all. Oh, it's too vexatious!" 
 
 "You've misunderstood the compliment," said Mrs. MaL 
 
 I 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 333 
 
 lowe. "He clears you completely, and — ahem! — I should 
 think by this that he has cleared completely, too. My ex- 
 perience of men is that when they begin to quote poetry, thej^ 
 are going to flit. Like swans singing before they die, you 
 know." 
 
 "Polly, you take my sorrows in a most unfeehng way." 
 "Do I? Is it so terrible? If he's hurt your vanity, I 
 should say that you've done a certain amount of damage to 
 his heart." 
 
 "Oh, you can never tell about a manP* said Mrs. Hauks- 
 bee, with deep scorn. 
 
 • ••••••• 
 
 Reviewing the matter as an impartial outsider, it strikes 
 me that I'm about the only person who has profited by the 
 education of Otis Yeere. It comes to twenty-seven pages 
 and bittook. 
 
 AT THE PIT'S MOUTH 
 
 Men say it was a stolen tide — 
 
 The Lord that sent it He knows all. 
 
 But in mine ear will aye abide 
 The message that the bells let fall, 
 
 And awesome bells they were to me, 
 
 That in the dark rang, **Enderby." 
 
 —Jean Ingelow 
 
 Once upon a time there was a Man and his Wife and a 
 Tertium Quid. 
 
 All three were unwise, but the "Wife was the unwisest. 
 The Man should have looked after his "Wife, who should have 
 avoided the Tertium Quid, who, again, should have married 
 a wife of his own, after clean and open flirtations, to which 
 nobody can possibly object, round Jakko or Observatory Hill. 
 When you see a young man with his pony in a white lather, 
 and his hat on the back of his head, flying down-hill at fifteen 
 miles an hour to meet a girl who will be properly surprised 
 
334 U/orl^s of I^udyard K^plii}^ 
 
 to meet tdm, you naturally approve of that young man, and: 
 wish Viim Staff appomtments, and take an mterest m his wel- 
 fare, and as the proper time comes, give him sugar-tongs on 
 side-saddles, according to your means and generosity. 
 
 The Tertium Quid flew down-hill on horseback, but it was 
 to meet the Man's Wife; and when he flew up-hill it was fori 
 the same end. The Man was in the Plains, earning money 
 for his "Wife to spend on dresses and four-hundred-rupee' 
 bracelets, and inexpensive luxuries of that kind. He worked- 
 very hard, and sent her a letter or post-card daily. She alsoi 
 wrote to him daily, and said that she was longing for him to) 
 come up to Simla. The Tertium Quid used to lean over her: 
 shoulder and laugh as she wrote the notes. Then the twoi 
 would ride to the post-office together. 
 
 Now, Simla is a strange place, and its customs are pecuHar ; 
 nor is any man who has not spent at least ten seasons there 
 qualified to pass judgment on circumstantial evidence, which i 
 is the most untrustworthy in the Courts. For these reasons, 
 and for others which need not appear, I decline to state posi- 
 tively whether there was anything irretrievably wrong in the 
 relations between the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid. If 
 there was, and hereon you must form your own opinion, it 
 was the Man's Wife's fault. She was kittenish in her man- 
 ners, wearing generally an air of soft and fluffy innocence. 
 But she was deadly learned and evil-instructed; and, now 
 and again, when the mask dropped, men saw this, shuddered, 
 and — -almost drew back. Men are occasionally particular, 
 and the least particular men are always the most exacting. 
 
 Simla is eccentric in its fashion of treating friendships.. 
 Certain attachments which have set and crystallized through 
 half a dozen seasons acquire almost the sanctity of the mar- 
 riage bond, and are revered as such. Again, certain attach- 
 ments equally old, and, to all appearance, equally venerable, 
 never seem to win any recognized official status; while a 
 chance-sprung acquaintance, not two months old, steps into 
 the place which by right belongs to the senior. There is no 
 law reducible to print which regulates these affairs. 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 335 
 
 Some people have a gift which secures them infinite tolera- 
 tion, and others have not. The Man's Wife had not. If she 
 looked over the garden wall, for instance, women taxed her 
 with stealing their husbands. She complained pathetically 
 that she was not allowed to choose her own friends. When 
 she put up her big white muff to her hps, and gazed over it 
 and under her eyebrows at you as she said this thing, you 
 felt that she had been infamously misjudged, and that all the 
 other women's instincts were all wrong; which was absurd. 
 She was not allowed to own the Tertium Quid in peace ; and 
 was so strangely constructed that she would net have enjoyed 
 peace had she been so permitted. She preferred some sem- 
 blance of intrigue to cloak even her most commonplace actions. 
 
 After two months of riding, first round Jakko, then 
 Elysium, then Summer Hill, then Observatory Hill, then 
 under Jutogh, and lastly up and down the Cart Road as far 
 as the Tara Devi gap in the dusk, she said to the Tertium 
 Quid: "Frank, people say we are too much together, and 
 people are so horrid." 
 
 The Tertium Quid pulled his mustache, and replied that 
 horrid people were unworthy of the consideration of nice 
 people. 
 
 *'But they have done more than talk — they have written 
 — written to my hubby — I'm sure of it," said the Man's 
 Wife ; and she pulled a letter from her husband out of her 
 saddle-pocket and gave it to the Tertium Quid. 
 
 It was an honest letter, written by an honest man, then 
 stewing in the Plains on two hundred rupees a month (for he 
 allowed his wife eight hundred and fifty), and in a silk banian 
 and cotton trousers. It said that, perhaps, she had not 
 thought of the unwisdom of allowing her name to be so gen- 
 erally coupled with the Tertium Quid's; that she was too 
 much of a child to understand the dangers of that sort of 
 thing; that he, her husband, was the last man in the world 
 to interfere jealously with her' little amusements and inter- 
 ests, but that it would be better were she to drop the Tertium 
 Quid quietly and for her husband's sake. The letter was 
 
336 U/orKs of F^udyard K^plii)(J 
 
 sweetened with many pretty little pet names, and it amused 
 the Tertium Quid considerably. He and She laughed over 
 it, so that you, fifty yards away, could see their shoulders 
 shaking while the horses slouched along side by side. 
 
 Their conversation was not worth reporting. The upshot 
 of it was that, next day, no one saw the Man's Wife and the 
 Tertium Quid together. They had both gone down to the 
 Cemetery, which, as a rule, is only visited oflQcially by the 
 inhabitants of Simla. 
 
 A Simla funeral with the clergyman riding, the mourners 
 riding, and the coffin creaking as it swuigs between the 
 bearers, is one of the most depressing things on this earth, 
 particularly when the procession passes under the wet, dank 
 dip beneath the Rockcliffe Hotel, where the sun is shut out, 
 and all the hill streams are wailing and weeping together as 
 they go down the valleys. 
 
 Occasionally, folk tend the graves; but we in India shift 
 and are transferred so often that, at the end of the second 
 year, the Dead have no friends — only acquaintances who are 
 far too busy amusing themselves up the hill to attend to old 
 partners. The idea of using a Cemetery as a rendezvous is 
 distinctly a feminine one. A man would have said simply : 
 **Let people talk. We'll go down the Mall." A woman is 
 made differently, especially if she be such a woman as the 
 Man's Wife. She and the Tertium Quid enjoyed each other's 
 society among the graves of men and women that they had 
 known and danced with aforetime 
 
 They used to take a big horse blanket and sit on the grass 
 a little to the left of the lower end, where there is a dip in the 
 ground, and where the occupied graves die out and the ready- 
 made ones a/e not ready. Any self-respecting Indian Ceme- 
 tery keeps half a dozen graves permanently open for contin- 
 gencies and incidental wear and tear. In the Hills these are 
 more usually baby's size, because children who come up 
 weakened and sick from the Plains often succumb to the 
 effects of the Rains in the Hills, or get pneumonia from their 
 ayahs taking them through damp pine-woods after the sun 
 
tlT)der tl?e Deodars 337 
 
 has set. In Cantonments, of course, the man's size is more 
 in request, these arrangements varying with the cHmate and 
 population. 
 
 One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had 
 just arrived in the Cemeteryj they saw some coohes breaking 
 ground. They had marked out a full-sLzed grave, and the 
 Tertium Quid asked them whether any Sahib was sick. They 
 said that they did not know; but it was an order that they 
 should dig a Sahib's grave. 
 
 ^' Work away," said the Tertium Quid, "and let's see how 
 it's done." 
 
 The coolies worked away, and the Man's Wife and the 
 Tertium Quid watched and talked for a couple of hours while 
 the grave was being deepened. Then a coolie, taking the 
 earth in baskets as it was thrown up, jumped over the grave. 
 
 ** That's queer," said the Tertium Quid. "Where's my 
 ulster?" 
 
 "What's queer?" said the Man's Wife. 
 
 "I have got a chill down my back — ^just as if a goose had 
 walked over my grave." 
 
 "Why do you look at the horror, then?" said the Man's 
 Wife. "Let us go." 
 
 The Tertium Quid stood at the head of the grave, and 
 stared without answering for a space. Then he said, drop- 
 ping a pebble down: "It is nasty — and cold: horribly cold. 
 I don't think I shall come to the Cemetery any more. I 
 don't think grave-digging is cheerful." 
 
 The two talked and agreed that the Cemetery was depress- 
 ing.. They also arranged for a ride next day out from the 
 Cemetery through the Mashobra Tunnel up to Fagoo and 
 back, because all the world was going to a garden-party at 
 Viceregal Lodge, and all the people of Mashobra would 
 go too. 
 
 Coming up the Cemetery road, the Tertium Quid's horse 
 tried to bolt up-hill, being tired with standing so long, and 
 managed to strain a back sinew. 
 
 "I shall have to take the mare to-morrow,'* said the 
 Vol. 3. 15 
 
338 U/or^s of F^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 Tertium Quid, **and she will stand nothing heavier than a 
 snaffle." 
 
 They made their arrangements to meet in the Cemetery, 
 after allowing all the Mashobra people time to pass into 
 Simla. That night it rained heavily, and, next day, when 
 the Tertium Quid came to the trysting-place, he saw that 
 the new grave had a foot of water in it, the ground being 
 a tough and sour clay. 
 
 "Jove! That looks beastly," said the Tertium Quid. 
 *' Fancy being boarded up and dropped into that well!" 
 
 They then started off to Fagoo, the mare playing with 
 the snaffle and picking her way as though she were shod 
 with satin, and the sun shining divinely. The road below 
 Mashobra to Fagoo is officially styled the Himalayan-Thibet 
 Road ; but in spite of its name it is not much more than six 
 feet wide in most places, and the drop into the valley below 
 may be anything between one and two thousand feet. 
 
 "^ow we're going to Thibet," said the Man's "Wife, 
 merrily, as the horses drew near to Fagoo. She was riding 
 on the cliff-side. 
 
 '^Into Thibet,'* said the Tertium Quid, "ever so far from 
 people who say horrid things, and hubbys who write stupid 
 letters. "With you — to the end of the world!" 
 
 A coolie carrying a log of wood came round a corner, and 
 the mare went wide to avoid him— forefeet in and hunches 
 out, as a sensible mare should go. 
 
 "To the world's end," said the Man's Wife, and looked 
 unspeakable things over her near shoulder at the Tertium 
 Quid. 
 
 He was smiling, but, while she looked, the smile froze 
 stiff, as it were, on his face, and changed to a nervous grin 
 — the sort of grin men wear when they are not quite easy in 
 their saddles. The mare seemed to be sinking by the stern, 
 and her nostrils cracked while she was trying to realize what 
 was happening. The rain of the previous night had rotted 
 the drop-side of the Himalayan-Thibet Road, and it was giv- 
 ing way under her. "What are you doing?" said the Man's 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 339 
 
 Wife. The Tertium Quid gave no answer. He grinned 
 nervously and set his spurs into the mare, who rapped with 
 her forefeet on the road, and the struggle began. The Man's 
 "Wife screamed: **0h, Frank, get off!" 
 
 But the Tertium Quid was glued to the saddle — his face 
 blue and white — and he looked into the Man's Wife's eyes. 
 Then the Man's "Wife clutched at the mare's head and caught 
 her by the nose instead of the bridle. The brute threw up 
 her head and went down with a scream, the Tertium Quid 
 upon her, and the nervous grin still set on his face. 
 
 - The Man's Wife heard the tinkle-tinkle of little stones 
 and loose earth falling off the roadway, and the sliding roar 
 of the man and horse going down. Then everything was 
 quiet, and she called on Frank to leave his mare and walk 
 up. But Frank did not answer. He was underneath the 
 mare, nine hundred feet below, spoiling a patch of Indian 
 com. 
 
 As the revelers came back from Viceregal Lodge in the 
 mists of the evening, they met a temporarily insane woman, 
 on a temporarily mad horse, swinging round the comers, 
 with her eyes and her mouth open, and her head like the 
 head of a Medusa. She was stopped by a man at the risk of 
 his life, and taken out of the saddle, a limp heap, and put 
 on the bank to explain herself. This wasted twenty minutes, 
 and then she was sent home in a lady's 'rickshaw, still with 
 her mouth open and her hands picking at her riding-gloves. 
 
 She was in bed for the following three days, which were 
 rainy; so she missed attending the funeral of the Tertium 
 Quid, who was lowered into eighteen inches of water, instead 
 of the twelve to which he had first objected. 
 
340 U/orKs of I^adyard t^iplip^ 
 
 A WAYSIDE COMEDY 
 
 Because to every purpose there is time and judgment ; therefore 
 the misery of man is great upon him. — Eccl. viii. 6 
 
 Fate and the Government of India have turned the Sta- 
 tion of Kashima into a prison ; and, because there is no help 
 for the poor souls who are now lying there in torment, I 
 write this story, praying that the Government of India may 
 be moved to scatter the European population to the four 
 winds. 
 
 Kashima is bounded on all sides by the rock-tipped circle 
 of the Dosehri hills. In Spring, it is ablaze with roses ; in 
 Summer, the roses die and the hot winds blow from the hills ; 
 in Autumn, the white mists from the jhils cover the place as 
 with water, and in Winter the frosts nip everything young 
 and tender to earth level. There is but one view in Kashima 
 — that of a stretch of perfectly flat pasture and plow-land, 
 running up to the gray-blue scrub of the Dosehri hills. 
 
 There are no amusements except snipe and tiger shooting ; 
 but the tigers have been long since hunted from their lairs 
 in the rock-caves, and the snipe only come once a year. Kar- 
 karra — one hundred and forty-three miles by road — is the 
 nearest station to Kashima. But Kashima never goes to 
 Narkarra, where there are at least twelve EngHsh people. 
 It stays within the circle of the Dosehri hills. 
 
 All Kashima acquits Mrs. Vansuythen of any intention 
 to do harm ; but all Kashima knows that she, and she alone, 
 brought about their pain. 
 
 Boulte, the engineer, Mrs. Boulte, and Captain Kurrell 
 know this. They are the English population of Kashima, if 
 we except Major Yansuythen, who is of no importance what- 
 ever, and Mrs. Yansuythen, who is the most important of all. 
 
 You must remember, though you will not understand, that 
 
Upder tl^e Deodars 341 
 
 all laws weaken in a small and hidden community where there 
 is no public opinion. If the Israelites had been only a ten- 
 tent camp of gypsies, their Headman would never have taken 
 the trouble to climb a hill and bring down the lithographed 
 edition of the Decalogue, and a great deal of trouble would 
 have been avoided. When a man is absolutely alone in a 
 Station, he runs a certain risk of falling into evil ways. This 
 risk is multiphed by every addition to the population up to 
 twelve — ^the Jury number. After that, fear and consequent 
 restraint begin, and human action becomes less grotesquely 
 jerky. 
 
 There was deep peace in Kashima till Mrs. Yansuythen 
 arrived. She was a charming woman, every one said so 
 everywhere ; and she charmed every one. In spite of thiSj 
 or, perhaps, because of this, since Fate is so maliciously per- 
 verse, she cared only for one man, and he was Major Yan- 
 suythen. Had «he been plain or stupid, this matter would 
 have been intelligible to Kashima. But she was a fair wo- 
 man, with very still gray eyes, the color of a lake just before 
 the light of the sun touches it. Ko man who had seen those 
 eyes could, later on, explain what fashion of woman she was 
 to look upon. The eyes dazzled him. Her own sex said that 
 she was "not bad lookiag, but spoiled by pretending to be so 
 grave." And yet her gravity was natural. It was not her 
 habit to smile. She merely went through life, looking at 
 those who passed; and the women objected, while the men 
 fell down and worshiped. 
 
 She knows and is deeply sorry for the evil she has don® 
 to Kashima ; but Major Yansuythen cannot understand why 
 Mrs. Boulte does not drop in to afternoon tea at least three 
 times a week. "When there are only two women in one Sta- 
 tion, they ought to see a great deal of each other," says 
 Major Yansuythen. 
 
 Long and long before ever Mrs. Yansuythen came out of 
 those far-away places where there is society and amusement, 
 Kurrell had discovered that Mrs. Boulte was the one woman 
 in the world for him, and — you dare not blame them. Ka- 
 
342 U/or^s of F^udyard 1i{ip\\T)(^ 
 
 shima was as out of the world as Heaven or the other place, 
 and the Dosehri hills kept their secret well. Boulte had no 
 concern in the matter. He was in camp for a fortnight at a 
 time. He was a hard, heavy man, and neither Mrs. Boulte 
 nor Kurrell pitied him. They had all Kashima and each 
 other for their very, very own ; and Kashima was the Gar- 
 den of Eden in those days. When Boulte returned from his 
 wanderings he would slap Kurrell between the shoulders and 
 call him *'old fellow," and the three would dine together. 
 Kashima was happy then when the judgment of God seemed 
 almost as distant as Narkarra or the railway that ran down 
 to the sea. But the Government sent Major Vansuythen to 
 Kashima, and with him came his wife. 
 
 The etiquette of Kashima is much the same as that of a 
 desert island. When a stranger is cast away there, all hands 
 go down to the shore to make him welcome. Kashima as- 
 sembled at the masonry platform close to the ITarkarra Road, 
 and spread tea for the Vansuythens. That ceremony was 
 reckoned a formal call, and made them free of the Station, 
 its rights and privileges. When the Vansuythens were set- 
 tled down, they gave a tiny house-warming to all Kashima ; 
 and that made Kashima free of their house, according to the 
 immemorial usage of the Station. 
 
 Then the Rains came, when no one could go into camp, 
 and the Narkarra Road was washed away by the Kasun 
 River, and in the cup-like pastures of Kashima the cattle 
 waded knee-deep. The clouds dropped down from the 
 Dosehri hills and covered everything. 
 
 At. the end of the Rains, Boulte's manner toward Ms wife 
 changed and became demonstratively affectionate. They had 
 been married twelve years, and the change startled Mrs. 
 Boulte, who hated her husband with the hate of a woman 
 who has met with nothing but kindness from her mate, and, 
 in the teeth of this kindness, has done him a great wrong. 
 Moreover, she had her own trouble to fight with — her watch 
 to keep over her own property, Kurrell. For two months 
 the Rains had hidden the Dosehri hills and many other 
 
Ui)der tl?e Deodars 343 
 
 things besides; but, when they lifted, they showed Mrs. 
 Boulte that her man among men, her led — for she called 
 him Ted in the old days when Boulte was out of ear-shot — 
 was slipping the links of the allegiance. 
 
 "The Vansuythen Woman has taken him," Mrs. Boulte 
 said to herself ; and when Boulte was away, wept over her 
 belief, in the face of the over- vehement blandishments of 
 Ted. Sorrow in Kashima is as fortunate as Love, in that 
 there is nothing to weaken it save the flight of Time. Mrs. 
 Boulte had never breathed her suspicion to Kurrell, because 
 she was not certain ; and her nature led her to be very cer- 
 tain before she took steps in any direction. That is why she 
 behaved as she did. 
 
 Boulte came into the house one evening, and leaned 
 against the door-post of the drawing-room, chewing his 
 mustache. Mrs. Boulte was putting some flowers into a 
 vase. There is a pretense of civilization even in Kashima. 
 
 "Little woman," said Boulte, quietly, "do you care for 
 me?" 
 
 "Immensely," said she, with a laugh. ' "Can you ask it?" 
 
 "But I'm serious," said Boulte. "Do you care for me?" 
 
 Mrs. Boulte dropped the flowers, and turned round quickly. 
 "Do you want an honest answer?" 
 
 "Ye-es; I've asked for it." 
 
 Mrs. Boulte spoke in a low, even voice for five minutes, 
 very distinctly, that there might be no misunderstanding her 
 meaning. "When Samson broke the pillars of Gaza, he did 
 a little thing, and one not to be compared to the deliberate 
 pulling down of a woman's homestead about her own ears. 
 There was no wise female friend to advise Mrs. Boulte, the 
 singularly cautious wife, to hold her hand. She struck at 
 Boulte's heart, because her own was sick with suspicion of 
 Kurrell, and worn out with the long strain of watching alone 
 through the Rains. There was no plan or purpose in her 
 speaking. The sentences made themselves ; and Boulte list- 
 ened, leaning against the door post with his hands in his 
 pockets. When all was over, and Mrs. Boulte began to 
 
344 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplii?^ 
 
 breathe througli her nose, before breaking out into tears, he 
 laughed and stared straight in front of him at the Dosehri 
 hills. 
 
 "Is that all?" he said. ''Thanks; I only wanted to 
 know, you know." 
 
 ** What are you going to do?" said the woman, between 
 her sobs, 
 
 '*Dol Nothing. What should I do? KiH Kurrell or 
 send you home, or apply for leave to get a divorce? It's 
 two days' dak into Narkarra." He laughed again and went 
 on 2 **I'll tell you what you can do. You can ask Kurrell to 
 dinner to-morrow— no, on Thursdays that will allow you time 
 to pack — and you can bolt with him, I give you my word, 
 I won^t follow." 
 
 He took up his helmet and went out of the room, and 
 Mrs. Boulte sat till the moonlight streaked the floor, think- 
 ing and thinking and thinking. She had done her best upon 
 the spur of the m.oment to pull the house down ; but it would 
 not fall. Moreover, she could not understand her husband, 
 and she was afraid. ^ Then the folly of her useless truthful- 
 ness struck her, and she was ashamed to write to Kurrell, 
 saying: "I have gone mad and told everything. My hus- 
 band says that I am free to elope with you. Get a dak for 
 Thursda}^^ and we. will fly after dinner," There was a cold- 
 bloodedness about that procedure which did not appeal to 
 her. So she sat still in her own house and thought. 
 
 At dinner-time Boulte came back from his walk, white 
 and worn and haggard, and the woman was touched at his 
 distress. As the evening wore on, she muttered some ex- 
 pression of sorrow, something approaching to contrition. 
 Boulte came out of a brown study, and said: '^Oh, that! I 
 wasn't thinking about that. By the way, what does Kurrell 
 say to the elopement?" 
 
 "I haven't seen him," said Mrs. Boulte. "Good God! is 
 that all?" 
 
 But Boulte was not listening, and her sentence ended in 
 a giilp. 
 
tli)der ti)e Deodars 345 
 
 The next day brought no comfort to Mrs. Boulte, for 
 Kurrell did not appear, and the new Hfe that she, in the 
 five minutes' madness of the previous evening, had hoped 
 to build out of the ruins of the old, seemed to be no nearer. 
 
 Boulte eat his breakfast, advised her to see her Arab pony- 
 fed in the veranda, and went out. The morning wore through, 
 and at midday the tension became unendurable. Mrs. Boulte 
 could not cry. She had finished her crying in the night, and 
 now she did not want to be left alone. Perhaps the Van- 
 suythen Woman would talk to her; and, since talking opens 
 the heart, perhaps there might be some comfort to be found 
 in her company. She was the only other woman in the 
 Station. 
 
 In Kashima there are no regular calling-hours. Every 
 one can drop in upon every one else at pleasure. Mrs. Boulte 
 put on a big terai hat, and walked across to the Vansuythens' 
 house to borrow last week's "Queen." The two compounds 
 touched, and instead of going up the drive, she crossed through 
 the gap in the cactus-hedge, entering the house from the back. 
 As she passed through the dining-room, she heard, behind 
 the purdah that cloaked the drawing-room door, her hus- 
 band's voice, saying : 
 
 "But on my Honor! On my Soul and Honor, I tell you 
 she doesn't care for me. She told me so last night. I would 
 have told you then if Vansuythen hadn't been with you. If 
 it is for her sake that you'll have nothing to say to me, you 
 can make your mind easy. It's Kurrell — " 
 
 "What?" said Mrs. Vansuythen, with a hysterical little 
 laugh. "Kurrell! Oh, it can't be! You two must have 
 made some horrible mistake. Perhaps you — you lost your 
 teraper, or misunderstood, or something. Things canH be 
 as wrong as you say. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Vansuythen had shifted her defense to avoid the 
 man's pleading, and was desperately trying to keep him to 
 a side-issue. 
 
 "There must be some mistake," she insisted, "and it can 
 be all put right again." 
 
346 U/orKs of I^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 BoTilte laughed grimly. 
 
 "It can't be Captain Kurrell! He told me that he had 
 never taken the least — ^the least interest in your wife, Mr. 
 Boulte. Ohj do listen! He said he had not. He swore he 
 had not," said Mrs. Yansuythen. 
 
 The purdah rustled^ and the speech was cut short by the 
 entry of a little^ thin woman, with big rings round her eyes. 
 Mrs. Vansuythen stood up with a gasp. 
 
 ''What was that you said?" asked Mrs. Boulte. "l^ever 
 mind that man. What did Ted say to you? What did he 
 say to you? What did he say to you?" 
 
 Mrs. Vansuythen sat down helplessly on the sofa, over- 
 borne by the trouble of her questioner. 
 
 ''He said— I can't remember exactly what he said—-but 
 I understood him to say— that is . » . But, really, Mrs. 
 Boulte, isn't it rather a strange question?" 
 
 " Will you tell me what he said?" repeated Mrs. Boulte. 
 Even a tiger will fly before a bear robbed of her whelps, and 
 Mrs. Vansuythen was only an ordinarily good woman. She 
 began in a sort of desperations "Well, he said that he never 
 cared for you at all, and, of course, there was not the least 
 reason why he should have, and — and— that was all." 
 
 "You said he swore he had not cared for me. Was that 
 true?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Vansuythen, very softly. 
 
 Mrs. Boulte wavered for an instant where she stood, and 
 then fell forward fainting. 
 
 "What did I tell you?" said Boulte, as though the con- 
 versation had been unbroken. "You can see for yourself. 
 She cares for /^.^m." The light began to break into his dull 
 mind, and he went on: "And he — what was he saying to 
 you?" 
 
 But Mrs. Vansuythen, with no heart for explanations or 
 impassioned protestations, was kneeling over Mrs. Boulte. 
 
 ^'Oh, you brute!" she cried. "Are all men like this? 
 Help me to get her into my room— and her face is cut against 
 the table. Oh, will you be quiet, and help me to carry herf 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 347 
 
 I hate you, and I hate Captain Kurrell. Lift her up care- 
 fully, and now — go! Go away!" 
 
 Boulte carried his wife into Mrs. Vansuythen's bedroom, 
 and departed before the storm of that lady's wrath and dis» 
 gust, impenitent and burning with jealousy. Kurrell had 
 been making love to Mrs. Vansuythen — would do Yan- 
 suythen as great a wrong as he had done Boulte, who caught 
 himself considering whether Mrs. Vansuythen would faint if 
 she discovered that the man she loved had foresworn her. 
 
 In the middle of these meditations, Kurrell came canter- 
 ing along the road and pulled up with a cheery: "Good- 
 mornin'. 'Been mashing Mrs. Vansuythen as usual, eh? 
 Bad thing for a sober, married man, that. What will Mrs. 
 Boulte say?" 
 
 Boulte raised his head and said, slowly : 
 
 *'0h, you liar!" Kurrell's face changed. 
 
 *' What's that?" he asked, quickly. 
 
 *' Nothing much," said Boulte. ''Has my wife told you 
 that you two are free to go off whenever you please? She 
 has been good enough to explain the situation to me. You've 
 been a true friend to me, Kurrell — old man — haven't you?" 
 
 Kurrell groaned, and tried to frame some sort of idiotic 
 sentence about being willing to give "satisfaction." But 
 his interest in the woman was dead, had died out in the 
 Rains, and, mentally, he was abusing her for her amazing 
 indiscretion. It would have been so easy to have broken off 
 the liaison gently and by degrees, and now he was saddled 
 with. . . Boulte 's voice recalled him. 
 
 "I don't think I should get any satisfaction from killing 
 you, and I'm pretty sure you'd get none from killing me." 
 
 Then in a querulous tone, ludicrously disproportioned to 
 his wrongs, Boulte added : 
 
 '* 'Seems rather a pity that you haven't the decency to 
 keep to the woman, now you've got her. You've been a 
 true friend to her too, haven't you?" 
 
 Kurrell stared long and gravely. The situation was get- 
 ting beyond him. 
 
MS U/orl^s of F^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 ''What do you mean?" lie said. 
 
 Boulte answered, more to himself than the questioner: 
 *'My wife came over to Mrs. Vansuythen's just now; and it 
 seems you'd been telling Mrs. Vansuythen that you'd never 
 cared for Emma. I suppose you lied, as usual. What had 
 Mrs. Vansuythen to do with yoUj or you with her? Try to 
 speak the truth for once in ^ way." 
 
 Kurrell took the double insult without wincingj and replied 
 by another question t 
 
 **Goon, What happened?" 
 
 "Emma fainted/' said Boulte, simply, **But, look here, 
 what had yon been saying to Mrs. Yansuythenf" 
 
 Kurrell laughed, Mrs. Boulte had, with unbridled tongue, 
 made havoc of his plans; and he could at least retaliate by 
 hurting the man in whose eyes he was humiliated and shown 
 dishonorable. 
 
 ^^8aid to her? What does a man tell a lie like that for? 
 I suppose I said pretty much what you've said, unless I'm a 
 good deal mistaken.'^ 
 
 *'I spoke the truth," said Boulte, again more to himself 
 than Kurrell. "Emma told me she hated me. She has no 
 right in me." 
 
 "iN"©! I suppose not. You're only her husband, y'know. 
 And what did Mrs. Vansuythen say after you had laid your 
 disengaged heart at her feet?" 
 
 Kurrell felt almost virtuous as he put the question. 
 
 *'I don't think that matters," Boulte replied; "and it 
 doesn't concern you." 
 
 "But it does! I tell you it does," began Kurrell, shame- 
 ressly. 
 
 The sentence was cut by a roar of laughter from Boulte'a 
 lips. Kurrell was silent for an instant, and then he, too, 
 laughed — laughed long and loudly, rocking in his saddle. It 
 was an unpleasant sound- — the mirthless mirth of these men 
 on the long, white line of the Karkarra Road. There were 
 no strangers in Kashima, or they might have thought that 
 captivity within the Dosehri hills had driven half the Eu<^ 
 
Hinder tl?e Deodars 349 
 
 ropean population mad. The laughter stopped abruptly. 
 Kurrell was the first to speak. 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do?" 
 
 Boulte looked up the road, and at the hills. *' Nothing," 
 said he, quietly. "What's the use? It's too ghastly for any- 
 thing. "We must let the old life go on. I can only call you 
 a hound and a liar, and I can't go on calling you names 
 forever. Besides which, I don't feel that I*m much better. 
 We can't get out of this place, y 'know. What is there to do?" 
 
 Kurrell looked round the rat-pit of Kashima, and made no 
 reply. The injured husband took up the wondrous talt. 
 
 "Ride on, and speak to Emma if you want to. God 
 knows I don't care what you do." 
 
 He walked forward and left Kurrell gazing blanMy after 
 him. Kurrell did not ride on either to see Mrs. Boulte or 
 Mrs. Vansuythen. He sat in his saddle and thought, while 
 his pony grazed by the road-side. 
 
 The whir of approaching wheels roused him. Mrs. Van- 
 suythen was driving home Mrs. Boulte, white and wan, with 
 a cut on her forehead. 
 
 "Stop, please," said Mrs. Boulte; "I want to speak to 
 Ted." 
 
 Mrs. Vansuythen obeyed, but as Mrs. Boulte leaned for« 
 ward, putting her hand upon the splash-board of the dog-cart, 
 Kurrell spoke. 
 
 "I've seen your husband, Mrs. Boulte." 
 
 There was no necessity for any further explanation. Th® 
 man's eyes were fixed, not upon Mrs. Boulte, but her com- 
 panion. Mrs. Boulte saw the look. 
 
 "SpeaJ^ to him I" she pleaded, turning to the woman at 
 her side. "Oh, speak to him! Tell him what you told me 
 Just now. Tell him you hate him ! Tell him you hate him !" 
 
 She bent forward and wept bitterly, while the sais, decor^ 
 ously impassive, went forward to hold the horse. Mrs. Van- 
 suythen turned scarlet and dropped the rein. She wished to 
 be no party to such an unholy explanation. 
 
 "I've nothing to do with it," she began, coldly; but Mrs, 
 
^50 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplir>^ 
 
 Boulte's sobs overcame her, and she addressed herself to the 
 man. ''I don't know what I am to say, Captain Kurrell. 
 I don't know what I can call you. I think you've — you've 
 behaved abominably, and she has cut her forehead terribly 
 against the table." 
 
 "It doesn't hurt. It isn't anything," said Mrs. Boulte, 
 feebly. '''That doesn't matter. Tell him what you told me. 
 Say you don't care for him. Oh, Ted, wonH you believe 
 her?" 
 
 "Mrs. Boulte has made me understand that you were— 
 that you were fond of her once upon a time," went on Mrs. 
 Vansuythen. 
 
 "Well!" said Kurrell, brutally. "It seems to me that 
 Mrs. Boulte had better be fond of her own husband first." 
 
 "Stop!" said Mrs. Yansuythen. "Hear me first. I don't 
 care — I don't want to know anything about you and Mrs. 
 Boulte ; but I want you to know that I hate you, that I think 
 you a cur, and that I'll never, never speak to you again. 
 Oh, I don't dare to say what I think of you, you . . . man ! 
 Sais^ gorah ko Jane do.'^ 
 
 "I want to speak to Ted," moaned Mrs. Boulte; but the 
 dog-cart rattled on, and Kurrell was left on the road, shamed, 
 and boiling with wrath against Mrs. Boulte. 
 
 He waited till Mrs. Yansuythen was driving back to her 
 own house, and, she being freed from the embarrassment of 
 Mrs. Boulte's presence, learned for the second time a truthful 
 opinion of himself and his actions. 
 
 In the evenings, it was the wont of all Kashima to meet at 
 the platform on the l^arkarra Road, to drink tea, and discuss 
 the trivialities of the day. Major Yansuythen and his wife 
 found themselves alone at the gathering-place for almost the 
 first time in their remembrance; and the cheery Major, in 
 the teeth of his wife's remarkably reasonable suggestion that 
 the rest of the Station might be sick, insisted upon driving 
 round to the two bungalows and unearthing the population. 
 
 "Sitting in the twilight!" said he, with great indignation, 
 to the Boultes. "That'll never do! Hang it all, we're one 
 
llpder tl?e Deodars 351 
 
 family here ! You must come out, and so must Kurrell. I'll 
 make Mm bring his banjo." 
 
 So great is the power of honest simplicity and a good 
 digestion over guilty consciences that all Kashima did turn 
 out, even down to the banjo; and the Major embraced the 
 company in one espansive grin. As he grinned, Mrs. Yan- 
 suythen raised her eyes for an instant and looked at Kashima. 
 Her meaning was clear. Major Yansuythen would never 
 know anything. He was to be the outsider in that happy 
 family whose cage was the Dosehri hills. 
 
 "You're singing villainously out of tune, Kurrell/* said 
 the Major, truthfully. ^*Pass me that banjo." 
 
 And he sung in excruciating- wise till the stars came out 
 and Kashima went to dinner. 
 
 That was the beginning of the ITew Life of Kashima — -the 
 life that Mrs. Boulte made when her tongue was loosened in 
 the twilight. 
 
 Mrs. Yansuythen has never told the Major; and since ho 
 insists upon the maintenance of a burdensome geniality, she 
 has been compelled to break her vow of not speaking to Kur- 
 rell. This speech, which must of necessity preserve the sem- 
 blance of politeness and interest, serves admirably to keep 
 alight the flame of jealousy and dull hatred in Boulte's bosom, 
 as it awakens the same passions in his wife's heart, Mrs. 
 Boulte hates Mrs. Yansuythen because she has taken Ted 
 from her, and, in some curious fashion, hates her because 
 Mrs. Yansuythen — -and here the wife's eyes see far more 
 clearly than the husband's— detests Ted. And Ted^ — that 
 gallant captain and honorable man— knows now that it is 
 possible to hate a woman once loved, even to the verge of 
 wishing to silence her forever with blows. Above all, is he 
 shocked that Mrs. Boulte cannot see the error of her ways, 
 
 Boulte and he go out tiger-shooting together in amity and 
 all good friendship. Boulte has put their relationship on a 
 most satisfactory footing. 
 
 "You're a blackguard," he says to Kurrell, "and I've 
 
^52 Worlds of F^udyard \{ipViT)q 
 
 lost any self-respect I may ever have had ; but when you're 
 with me, I can feel certain that you are not with Mrs. Van- 
 suythen, or making Emma miserable." 
 
 Kurrell endures anything that Boulte may say to him. 
 Sometimes they are away for three days together, and then 
 the Major insists upon his wife going over to sit with Mrs. 
 Boulte; although Mrs. Vansuythen has repeatedly avowed 
 that she prefers her husband's company to any in the world. 
 From the way in which she clings to him, she would certainly 
 appear to be speaking the truth. 
 
 But of course, as the Major says, ''in a little Station we 
 must all be friendly." 
 
 THE HILL OF ILLUSION 
 
 What rendered vain their deep desire? 
 A God, a God their severance ruled, 
 And bade between their shores to be 
 The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea. 
 
 — M. Arnold 
 
 He. — Tell your jhampanis not to hurry so, dear. They 
 forget I'm fresh from the Plains. 
 
 She. — Sure proof that I have not been going out with 
 anyone. Yes, they are an untrained crew. Where do 
 we go? 
 
 He.— As usual — to the world's end. !N"o, Jakko. 
 
 She. — Have your pony led after you, then. It's a long 
 Tound. 
 
 He.— -And for the last time, thank Heaven! 
 
 She. — Do you mean that still? I didn't dare to write to 
 you about it ... all these months. 
 
 He. — Mean it! I've been shaping my affairs to that end 
 since Autumn. "What makes you speak as though it had 
 occurred to you for the first time? 
 
 She. — I? Oh! I don't know. I've had long enough to 
 think, too. 
 
Hinder tl?e Deodars 353 
 
 He. — And you*ve changed your mind? 
 
 She. — Ko. You ought to know that I am a miracle of 
 constancy. "What are your — arrangements? 
 
 "He.— Ours, Sweetheart, please. 
 
 She. — Ours, be it then. My poor boy, how the prickly 
 heat has marked your forehead! Have you ever tried sul- 
 phate of copper in water? 
 
 He. — It'll go away in a day or two up here. The arrange- 
 ments are simple enough. Tonga in the early morning— 
 reach Kalka at twelve — Umballa at seven — down, straight 
 by night-train, to Bombay, and then the steamer of the 21st 
 for Rome. That's my idea. The Continent and Sweden— 
 a ten-week honeymoon. 
 
 She. — Ssh! Don't talk of it in that way. It makes me 
 afraid. Guy, how long have we two been insane? 
 
 He. — Seven months and fourteen days; I forget the odd 
 hours exactly, but I'll think. 
 
 She. — I only wanted to see if you remembered. Wko are 
 those two on the Blessington Road? 
 
 He. — Eabrey and the Penner woman. What do they 
 matter to usf Tell me everything that youVe been doing 
 and saying and thinking. 
 
 She.— Doing little, saying less, and thinking a great deal. 
 I've hardly been out at all. 
 
 He. —That was wrong of you. You haven't been mopingf 
 
 She. — Not very much. Can you wonder that I'm disiii« 
 clined for amusement? 
 
 He. — Frankly, I do. Where was the diSScnlty? 
 
 She. — In this only. The more people I know and the 
 more I'm known here, the wider spread will be the news of 
 the crash when it comes. I don't like that. 
 
 He.—Konsense. We shall be out of it. 
 
 She. — You think so? 
 
 He. — I'm sure of it, if there is any power in steam or 
 horse-flesh to carry us away. Hal ha! 
 
 She. — And the fun of the situation comes in — where, my 
 Lancelot? 
 
354 U/orl^s of I^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 He. — Nowhere, Guinevere. I was only thinking of some- 
 thing. 
 
 She. — They say men have a keener sense of humor than 
 women. Kow I was thinking of the scandal. 
 
 He. — Don't think of anything so ugly. We shall be 
 beyond it. 
 
 She. — It will be there all the same— in the mouths of 
 Simla — telegraphed over India, and talked of at the dinners 
 -—and when He goes out they will stare at Him to see how 
 He takes it. And we shall be dead, Guy dear— dead and 
 cast into the outer darkness, where there is — 
 
 He. — Love at least. Isn't that enough? 
 
 She. — I have said so. 
 
 He.— And you think so still? 
 
 She.— What do you think? 
 
 He. — What have I done? It means equal ruin to 
 me, as the world reckons it — outcasting, the loss of my 
 appointment, the breaking off my life's work. I pay my 
 price. 
 
 She. — And are you so much above the world that you can 
 afford to pay it. Am I? 
 
 He. — My Divinity — what else? 
 
 She. — A very ordinary woman, I'm afraid, but, so far, 
 respectable. How do you do, Mrs. Middleditch? Your hus- 
 band? I think he's riding down to Annandale with Colonel 
 Statters. Yes, isn't it divine after the rain? . . , Guy, 
 how long am I to be allowed to bow to Mrs. Middleditch? 
 TiU the 17th? 
 
 Hs. — Frouzy Scotch woman! What is the use of bring- 
 ing her into the discussion? You were saying? 
 
 She. — Nothing. Have you ever seen a man hanged? 
 
 He. — Yes. Once. 
 
 She. — What was it for? 
 
 He. — Murder, of course. 
 
 She. —Murder ! Is that so great a sin after all? I wonder 
 how he felt before the drop fell. 
 
 He.— I don't think he felt much. What a gruesome lit-* 
 
 i 
 
Under the Deodars 355 
 
 tie woman it is this evening! You're sliivering» Put on 
 your cape, dear. 
 
 She. — I think I will. Oh! look at the mist coming over 
 Sanjaoli; and I thought we should have sunshine on the 
 Ladies' Mile! Let's turn back. 
 
 He. — What's the good? There's a cloud on Elysium 
 Hill, and that means it's foggy all down the Mall. We'll 
 go on. It'll blow away before we get to the Convent, per- 
 haps. Jove! It is chilly. 
 
 She. — You feel it, fresh from below. Put on your ulster. 
 What do you think of my cape? 
 1^ He. — ITever ask a man his opinion of a woman's dress 
 when he is desperately and abjectly in love with the wearer. 
 Let me look. Like everything else of yours, it's perfect. 
 Where did you get it from? 
 
 She. — He gave it me, on Wednesday . . . our wedding- 
 day, you know. 
 fc' He. — The deuce He did! He's growing generous in his 
 old age. D'you like all that frilly, bunchy stuff at the 
 throat? I don't. 
 
 She.—Don't you? 
 
 "Kind Sir, o' your courtesy, 
 As you go by the town. Sir, 
 Pray you o' your love for me 
 Buy me a russet gown. Sir." 
 
 He. — I won't say: *'Keek into the draw-well, Janet, 
 Janet." Only wait a little, darling, and you shall be stocked 
 with russet gowns and everything else. 
 
 She. — And when the frocks wear out, you'll get me new 
 ones . . . and everything else? 
 
 He. — Assuredly. 
 
 She. — I wonder! 
 
 He. — Look here. Sweetheart, I didn't spend two days 
 and two nights in the train to hear you wonder. I thought 
 we'd settled all that at Shaifazehat. 
 
 She {dreamily). — At Shaifazehat? Does the Station go 
 
1 
 
 S/SB U/orKs of F^udyard \{ip\lT)<^ 
 
 on still? Tliat was ages and ages ago. It must be crum- 
 bling to pieces. All except the Amirtollah kutcha road. I 
 don't believe that could crumble till the Day of Judgment. 
 
 He.— You think so? What is the mood now? 
 
 She. —I can't telL How cold it is ! Let us get on quickly. 
 
 He.— -Better walk a little. Stop your Jhampanis and gett 
 out. What's the matter with you this evening, dear? 
 
 She, — Kothing. You must grow accustomed to my ways. . 
 If I'm boring you I can go home. Here's Captain Oongletoa 
 coming; I daresay he'll be willing to escort me. 
 
 He.— Goose! Between ms, too! Dam^ Captain Congle- 
 ton. There! 
 
 She. — Chivalrous Knight! Is it your habit to swear 
 much in talking? It jars a littles and you might swear at 
 me. 
 
 He.— My angel! I didn't know what I was saying; and 
 you changed so quickly that I couldn't follow. I'U apologize 
 in dust and ashes. 
 
 She. — Spare those. There'll be enough of them later on. 
 Good-night, Captain Congleton. Going to the singing-qua- 
 drilles already? What dances am I giving you next week? 
 No! You must have written them down wrong. Five and 
 Seven, I said« If you've made a mistake, I certainly don't 
 intend to sufiPer for it. You must alter your programme. 
 
 He. — I thought you told me that you had not been going 
 out much this season? 
 
 She.— Quite true, but when I do I dance with Captain 
 Congleton. He dances very nicelyc 
 
 He. — ^And sit out with him, I suppose? 
 
 She.— Yes. Have you any objection? Shall I stand 
 under the chandelier in future? 
 
 He» — What does he talk to you about? 
 
 She.— What do men talk about when they sit out? 
 
 He. — Ugh! Don't! Well, now, I'm up. You must dis- 
 pense with the fascinating Congleton for a while. I don't t 
 like him. 
 
 She {after a pause), — Do you know what you hare said? i 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 357 
 
 He. —'Can't say that I do, exactly. I'm not in the best 
 of tempers. 
 
 She. — So I see . . . and feel. My true and faithful lover, 
 where is your ''eternal constancy," "unalterable trust," and 
 ** reverent devotion"? I remember those phrases ; you seem 
 ,to have forgotten them. I mention a man's name — 
 I He. — A good deal more than that. 
 
 i She. — Well, speak to him about a dance — perhaps the last 
 dance that I shall ever dance in my life before I , . . before 
 I go away ; and you at once distrust and insult me. 
 
 He. — I never said a word. 
 
 She. — How much did you imply? Guy, is this amount 
 of confidence to be our stock to start the new Ufe on? 
 
 He. — !N"o, of course not. I didn't mean that. On my 
 word and honor, I didn't. Let it pass, dear. Please let 
 it pass. 
 
 She. — This once — yes — and a second time, and again and 
 again, all through the years when I shall be unable to resent 
 it. You want too much, my Lancelot, and . . . you know 
 too much. 
 
 He. — How do you mean? 
 
 She. — That is a part of the punishment. There cannot 
 be perfect trust between us. 
 
 He. — In Heaven's name, why not? 
 
 She. — Hush! The Other Place is quite enough. Ask 
 yourself. 
 
 He. — I don't follow. 
 
 She. — You trust me so implicitly that when I look afe 
 another man . . . Never mind. Guy, have you ever made 
 love to a girl — a good girl? 
 
 He. — Something of the sort. Centuries ago — in the Dark 
 Ages, before I ever met you, dear. 
 
 She. — Tell me what you said to her. 
 
 He. — What does a man say to a girl? I've forgotten. 
 
 She. — J remember. He tells her that he trusts her and 
 worships the ground she walks on, and that he'll love and 
 honor and protect her till her dying day ; and so she marries 
 
358 U/orl^s of I^udyard t^iplip^ 
 
 in that belief. At least, I speak of one girl who was not 
 protected. 
 
 He. — "Well, and then? 
 
 She. — And then, Guy, and then, that girl needs ten times 
 the love and trust and honor— yes, honor— that was enough 
 when she was only a mere wife if— -if — the second life she 
 elects to lead is to be made eyen bearable. Do you under- 
 stand? 
 
 He. — Even bearable! It'll be Paradise. 
 
 She. — Ah ! Can you give me all I've asked for— not now, 
 nor a few months later, but when you begin to think of what 
 you might have done if you had kept your own appointment 
 and your caste here— when you begin to look upon me as 
 a drag and a burden? I shall want it most then, Guy, for 
 there will be no one in the wide world but you. 
 
 He. — You're a little overtired to-night, Sweetheart, and 
 you're taking a stage view of the situation. After the neces- 
 sary business in the Courts, the road is clear to — 
 
 She.' — **The holy state of matrimony!" Ha! ha! ha! 
 
 He. — Ssh! Don't laugh in that horrible way! 
 
 She.— I — I c-c-c-can't help it! Isn't it too absurd! Ah! 
 Ha! ha! ha! Guy, stop me quick, or I shall — 1-1-laugh till 
 we get to the Church. 
 
 He.— For goodness' sake, stop! Don't make an exhibi- 
 tion of yourself. What is the matter with you? 
 
 She.^ — !N"-nothing. I'm better now. 
 
 He. — That's all right. One moment, dear. There's a . 
 little whisp of hair got loose from behind your right ear, and 
 it's straggling over your cheek. So! 
 
 She,— Thank'oo. I'm 'fraid my hat's on one side, too. 
 
 He. — "What do you wear these huge dagger bonnet- 
 skewers for? They're big enough to kill a man with. 
 
 She.— Oh! Don't kill me, though. You're sticking it 
 into my head! Let me do it. You men are so clumsy. 
 
 He. — Have you had many opportunities of comparing ; 
 us — in this sort of work? 
 
 She. —Guy, what is my name? 
 
Urjder tlpe Deodars 359 
 
 He.— Eh! I don't follow. 
 
 She.— Here's my card-case. Can you read? 
 
 He.— Yes. Well? 
 
 She. — "Well, that answers your question. You know the 
 other man's name. Am I sufficiently humbled, or would you 
 like to ask me if there is any one else? 
 
 He. — I see now. My darling, I never meant that for an 
 instant. I was only joking. There ! Lucky there's no one 
 on the road. - They'd be scandalized. 
 
 She. — They'll be more scandalized before the end. 
 
 He. — Do-on't. I don't like you to talk in that way. 
 
 She, — Unreasonable man! "Who asked me to face the 
 situation and accept it? Tell me, do I look like Mrs. Penner? 
 Do I look like a naughty woman? Swear I don't ! Give me 
 your word of honor, my honorable friend, that I'm not like 
 Mrs. Buzgago. That's the way she stands, with her hands 
 clasped at the back of her head. D'you like that? 
 
 He. — Don't be affected. 
 
 She.— I'm not. I'm Mrs. Buzgago. Listen! 
 
 "Pendant une anne' toute entiere, 
 Le regiment n'a pas r'paru. 
 Au Ministere de la Guerre 
 On le r 'porta comme perdu. 
 
 C( 
 
 On se r'noncait a r'trouver sa trace, 
 Quand un matin subitement, 
 On le vit r'paraitre sur la place, 
 L' Colonel tou jours en avanti" 
 
 That's the way she rolls her r's. Am I like her? 
 
 He. — No ; but I object when you go on like an actress 
 and sing stuff of that kind. "Where in the world did you pick 
 up the Chanson du Colonel? It isn't a drawing-room song. 
 It isn't proper. 
 
 She. — Mrs. Buzgago taught it me. She is both drawing- 
 room and proper, and in another month she'll shut her draw- 
 ing-room to me, and, thank God, she isn't as improper as I 
 am. Oh,. Guy, Guy! I wish I was like some women, and 
 
360 U/orKs of F^udyard l{ip\iT)(^ 
 
 had no scruples about — wliat is it Keene says? — "Wearing a 
 corpse's hair, and being false to the bread thej eat." 
 
 He.— I am only a man of limited intelligence, and, just 
 now, very bewildered. When you have quite finished flash- 
 ing through all your moods, tell me, and I'll try to under- 
 stand the last one. 
 
 She. — Moods, Guy! I haven't any. I'm sixteen years 
 ©Id, and you're just twenty, and you've been waiting for two 
 hours outside the school in the cold. And now I've met you, 
 and now we're walking home together. Does that suit you. 
 My Imperial Majesty? 
 
 He. — Fo. We aren't children. Why can't you be ra- 
 tional? 
 
 She.— He asks m.® that when I'm going to commit social 
 suicide for his ^ake, a^d, and . . . I don't want to be French 
 and rave about ^^nm m-ire^^^ but have I ever told you that I 
 have a mother, and a brother who was my pet before I mar- 
 ried? He's married new. Oan't you imagine the pleasure 
 that the news of the elopement will give him? Have you 
 any people at home, Guy, to be pleased with your perform- 
 ances? 
 
 He.— One or two. We can't make omelets without break- 
 ing eggs. 
 
 She (slowly).—! don't see the necessity— 
 
 He. — Hah! What do you mean? 
 
 She.— Shall I speak the truth? 
 
 He.— Under the circumstances, perhaps it would bo as 
 well. 
 
 She. — Guy, I'm afraid. 
 
 He. — I thought we'd settled all that. What of? 
 
 She.— Of you. 
 
 He. — Oh, damn it all I The old business ! This is too bad I 
 
 She. — Of you. 
 
 He. — ^And what now? 
 
 She. — What do you think of me? 
 
 He. — Beside the question altogether. What do you in- 
 tend to do? 
 
Ui)der tl?e Deodars 361 
 
 She. — I daren't risk it. I'm afraid. If I could only- 
 cheat . . . 
 
 He. — A la Buzgago? Ko, thanks. That's the one point 
 on which I have any notion of Honor. I won't eat his salt 
 and steal too. I'll loot openly or not at all. 
 
 She. — I never meant anything else. 
 
 He. — Then, why in the world do you pretend not to be 
 willing to come? 
 
 She. — It's not pretense, Guy. I am afraid. 
 
 He.- — Please explain. 
 
 She. — It can't last, Guy. It can't last. You'll get angry, 
 and then you'll swear, and then you'll get jealous, and then 
 you'll mistrust me — you do now — and you yourself will be 
 the best reason for doubting. And I— what shall J do? I 
 shall be no better than Mrs. Buzgago found out — no better 
 than any one. And you'll know that. Oh, Guy, can't you 
 see 9 
 
 He. — I see that you are desperately unreasonable, little 
 woman. 
 
 She.— There! The moment I begin to object, you get 
 angry. "What will you do when I am only your property — 
 stolen property? It can't be, Guy— It can't be! I thought 
 it could, but it canH. You'll get tired of me. 
 
 He. — I tell you I shall not. Won't anything make you 
 understand that? 
 
 She. — There, can't you see? If you speak to me like that 
 *now, you'll call me horrible names later, if I don't do every- 
 thing as you Hke. And if you were cruel to me, Guy, where 
 should I go — where should I go? I can't trust you! 
 
 He. — I suppose I ought to say that I can trust you. I've 
 ample reason. 
 
 She. — Please don't, dear. It hurts as much as if you 
 hit me. 
 
 He. — It isn't exactly pleasant for me. 
 
 She. — I can't help it. I wish I were dead! I can't trust 
 you, and I don't trust myself. Oh, Guy, let it die away and 
 be forgotten 1 
 Vol. 3. !6 
 
362 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 He. — Too late now. I don't understand you — I won't— 
 and I can't trust myself to talk this evening. May I call 
 to-morrow?? 
 
 She. —Yes. No! Oh, give me time ! The day after. I 
 get into my 'rickshaw here and meet Him at Peliti's. You 
 ride. 
 
 He. — I'll go on to Peliti's, too. I think I want a drink. 
 My world's knocked about my ears, and the stars are falling. 
 Who are those brutes howling in the Old Library? 
 
 She. — They're rehearsing the singing-quadrilles for the 
 Fancy Ball. Can't you hear Mrs. Buzgago's voice? She 
 has a solo. It's quite a new idea. Listen! 
 
 Mrs. Buzgago {in the Old Library, con. molt, exp.). 
 
 a 
 
 See-saw! Margery Daw! 
 
 Sold her bed to lie upon straw. 
 
 Wasn't she a silly slut 
 
 To sell her bed and lie upon dirt?'' 
 
 Captain Congleton, I'm going to alter that to *' flirt." It 
 sounds better. 
 
 He. — -No, I've changed my mind about the drink. Good- 
 night, little lady. I shall see you to-morrow? 
 
 She. — Ye— es. Good-night, Guy. DonH he angry with 
 me. 
 
 He.— Angry' You /b?i02^ I trust you absolutely. Good- 
 night, and — God bless you! 
 
 {Three seconds later. Solus.) H'm! I'd give some 
 thing to discover whether there's another man at the back of 
 all this. 
 
 i 
 
Uijder tl?e Deodars 363 
 
 A SECOND-RATE WOMAN 
 
 Est fuga, volvitur rota^ 
 
 On we drift: where looms the dim port? 
 One Two Three Four Five contribute their quota: 
 
 Something is gained if one caught but the import, 
 Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha. 
 
 —Master Hugues of Saxe-Qotha 
 
 ** Dressed! DonH tell me that woman ever dressed in 
 her Hfe. She stood in the middle of the room while her ayah 
 —no, her husband — it must have been a man— threw her 
 clothes at her. She then did her hair with her fingers, and 
 rubbed her bonnet in the flue under the bed, I know she 
 did, as well as if I had assisted at the orgy. Who is she?" 
 said Mrs. Hauksbee. 
 
 "Don*t!" said Mrs^ Mallowe, feebly. "Yon make my 
 head ache. I'm miserable to-day. Stay me with fondants^ 
 comfort me with chocolates, for I am ... Did you bring 
 anything from Peliti's?" 
 
 "Questions to begin with. You shall have the sweets 
 when you have answered them. Who and what is the crea- 
 ture? There were at least half a dozen men round her, and 
 she appeared to be going to sleep in their midst, 
 
 *'i)elville," said Mrs. Mallowe, " 'Shady' Delville, to 
 distinguish her from Mrs. Jim of that ilk. She dances as 
 untidily as she dresses, I believe, and her husband is some- 
 where in Madras. Go and call, if you are so interested." 
 
 "What have I to do with Shigramitish women? She 
 merely caught my attention for a minute, and I wondered at 
 the attraction that a dowd has for a certain type of man. I 
 expected to see her walk out of her clothes — until I looked at 
 her eyes." 
 
 "Hooks and eyes, surely," drawled Mrs. Mallowe. 
 
 "Don't be clever, Polly. You make my head ache. And 
 round this hayrick stood a crowd of men — a positive crowd!" 
 
364 U/orks of F^adyard I^iplip^ 
 
 "Perhaps they also expected — " 
 
 *' Polly, don't be Rabelaisian!" 
 
 Mrs. Mallov/e curled herself up comfortably on the sofa, 
 and turned her attention to the sweets. She and Mrs. Hauks- 
 bee shared the same house at Simla ; and these things befell 
 two seasons after the matter of Otis Yeere, which has been 
 already recorded. 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee stepped into the veranda and looked down 
 upon the Mall, her forehead puckered with thought. 
 
 "Hah!" said Mrs. Hauksbee, shortly. "Indeed!" 
 
 "What is it?" said Mrs. Mallowe, sleepily. 
 
 "That dowd and The Dancing Master- — to whom I 
 object," 
 
 "Why to The Dancing Master? He is a middle-aged gen- 
 tleman, of reprobate and romantic tendencies, and tries to be 
 a friend of mine." 
 
 "Then make up your mind to lose him. Dowds cling by 
 nature, and I should imagine that this animal — how terrible 
 her bonnet looks from above! — is specially clingsome." 
 
 "She is welcome to The Dancing Master so far as I am 
 concerned. I never could take an interest in a monotonous 
 liar. The frustrated aim of his life is to persuade people that 
 he is a bachelor." 
 
 "0-oh! I think I've met that sort of man before. And 
 isn't he?" 
 
 . * ' No. He confided that to me a few days ago. Ugh ! 
 Some men ought to be killed." 
 
 "What happened then?" 
 
 "He posed as the horror of horrors — a misunderstood man. 
 Heaven knows the femme incomprise is sad enough and bad 
 enough — but the other thing!" 
 
 "And so fat, too! I should have laughed in his face. 
 Men seldom corSde in me. How is it they come to you?" 
 
 "For the sake of impressing me with their careers in the 
 past. Protect me from men with confidences!" 
 
 "And yet you encourage themr" 
 
 "What can I do? They talk, I listen, and they vow that 
 
Ur>der el?e Deodars 365 
 
 I am sympathetic. I know I always profess astonishment 
 even when the plot is— -of the most old possible." 
 
 "Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if they are once 
 allowed to talk, whereas women's confidences are full of 
 reservations and fibs, except — " 
 
 *'When they go mad and babble of the Unutterabilities 
 after a week's acquaintance. Even then, they always paint 
 themselves ci la Mrs. Gummidge — throwing cold water on 
 him. Really, if you come to consider, we know a great deal 
 more of men than of our own sex." 
 
 "And the extraordinary thing is that men will never 
 believe it. They say we are trying to hide something." 
 
 "They are generally doing that on their own account— 
 and very clumsily they hide. Alas! These chocolates pall 
 upon me, and I haven't eaten more than a dozen. I think I 
 shall go to sleep." 
 
 "Then you'll get fat, dear. If you took more exercise 
 and a more intelligent interest in your neighbors, you 
 would—" 
 
 "Be as imiversally loved as Mrs. Hauksbee, You*re a 
 darling in many ways, and I like you — -you are not a woman's 
 woman — but why do you trouble yourself about mere human 
 beings?" 
 
 "Because, in the absence of angels, who, I am sure, would 
 be horribly dull, men and women are the most fascinating 
 things in the whole wide world, lazy one. I am interested in 
 The Dowd — I am interested in The Dancing Master— I am 
 interested in the Hawley Boy— and I am interested in you."*^ 
 
 "Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He is your 
 property." 
 
 "Yes, and in his own guileless speech, I'm making a good 
 thing out of him. "When he is slightly more reformed, and 
 has passed his Higher Standard, or whatever the authorities 
 think fit to exact from him, I shall select a pretty little girl, 
 the Holt girl, I think, and" — here she waved her hands airily 
 — " 'whom Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined together let no man 
 put asunder.' That's all." 
 
366 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplip*^ 
 
 "And when you have yoked May Holt with the most 
 notorious detrimental in Simla, and earned the undying hatred 
 of Mamma Holt, what will you do with me, Dispenser of the 
 Destinies of the Universe?" 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in front of the 
 fire, and, chin in hand, gazed long and steadfastly at Mrs. 
 Mallowe. 
 
 ''I do not know," she said, shaking her head, ^^what I 
 shall do with you, dear. It's obviously impossible to marry 
 you to some one else — your husband would object, and the 
 experiment might not be successful after all. I think I shall 
 begin by preventing you from — what is it? — 'sleeping on ale- 
 house benches and snoring in the sun.' " 
 
 "Don't! I don't like your quotations. They are so rude. 
 Go to the Library and bring me new books." 
 
 "While you sleep? No! If you don't come with me, I 
 shall spread your newest frock on my 'rickshaw-bow, and 
 when any one asks me what I am doing, I shall say that I 
 am going to Phelps's to get it let out. I shall take care that 
 Mrs. McNamara sees me. Put your things on, there's a 
 good girl." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe groanf d and obeyed, and the two went off 
 to the Library, where they found Mrs. Delville and the man 
 who went by the nickname of The Dancing Master. By that 
 time Mrs. Mallowe was awake and eloquent. 
 
 "That is the Creature!" said Mrs. Hauksbee, with the air 
 of one pointing out a slug in the road. 
 
 "No," said Mrs. MaUowe. "The man is the Creature. 
 tJgh ! Good-evening, Mr. Bent. I thought you were com- 
 ing to tea this evening." 
 
 "Surely it was for to-morrow, was it not?" answered The 
 Dancing Master. "I understood ... I fancied . . , I'm 
 so sorry . . . How very unfortunate! ..." 
 
 But Mrs. Mallowe had passed on. 
 
 "For the practiced equivocator you said he was," mur-. 
 mured Mrs. Hauksbee, "he strikes me as a failure. Now, 
 wherefore should he have preferred a walk with The Dowd 
 
UT)der ti)e Deodars 36? 
 
 to tea with us? Elective afiinities, I suppose — both grubby. 
 Polly, I'd never forgive that woman as long as the world 
 rolls." 
 
 *'I forgive every woman everything," said Mrs. Mallowe, 
 ^*He will be a sufficient punishment for her. What a com= 
 mon voice she has!" 
 
 Mrs. Deiville's voice was not pretty, her carriage was 
 even less lovely, and her raiment was strikingly neglected. 
 All these facts Mrs. Mallowe absorbed over the top of a 
 magazine. 
 
 "l!Tow, what is there in her?" said Mrs. Hauksbee. *'Do 
 you see what I meant about the clothes falling off? If I were 
 a man I would perish sooner than be seen with that rag-bagc 
 And yet, she has good eyes, but — oh!" 
 
 '^Whatisit?" 
 
 **She doesn't know how to use them! On my Honor, she 
 does not. Look ! Oh, look ! Untidiness I can endure, but 
 ignorance never! The woman's a fool." 
 
 "H'sh! She'll hear you." 
 
 ''All the women in Simla are fools. She'll think I mean 
 some one else. Now she's going out. What a thoroughly 
 objectionable couple she and The Dancing Master make! 
 Which reminds me. Do you suppose they'll ever dance 
 together?" 
 
 "Wait and see. I don't envy her the conversation of 
 The Dancing Master — loathly man! His wife ought to 
 be up here before long?" 
 
 ''Do you know anything about him?" 
 
 "Only what he told me. It may be all a fiction. He 
 married a girl bred in the country, I think, and, being an 
 honorable, chivalrous soul, told me that he repented his bar- 
 gain, and sent her to her mother as often as possible— a per 
 son who has lived in the Doon since the memory of man, and 
 goes to Mussoorie when other people go home. The wife is 
 with her at present. So he says." 
 
 "Babies." 
 
 "One only, but he talks of his wife in a revolting way. 
 
S68 U/crl^s of I^iidyard l^iplir^^ 
 
 I hated him for it. He thought he was being epigrammatic 
 and briUiant." 
 
 *'That is a vice peculiar to men. I dislike him because 
 he is generally in the wake of some girl, to the disgust of the 
 Eligibles. He will persecute May Holt no more, unless I am 
 much mistaken." 
 
 **ITo. I think Mrs. Delville may occupy his attention for 
 a while." 
 
 **Do you suppose she knows that he is the head of a 
 family?" 
 
 *'!N"ot from his lips. He swore me to eternal secrecy. 
 Wherefore I tell you. Don't you know that type of man?" 
 
 "Not intimatelyj thank goodness! As a general rulej 
 when a man begins to abuse his wife to me, I find that the 
 Lord gives me wherewith to answer him according to his 
 folly, and we part with a coolness between us. I laugh." 
 
 '*I'm different. I've no sense of humor." 
 
 "Cultivate it, then. It has been my mainstay for more 
 years than I care to think about. A well-educated sense of 
 Humor will save a woman when Religion, Training, and 
 Home influences fail. And we may all need salvation some- 
 times." 
 
 **Do you suppose that the Delville woman has humor?" 
 
 "Her dress bewrays her. How can a Thing who wears 
 her supplement under her left arm have any notion of the 
 fitness of things- — much less their folly? If she discards The 
 Dancing Master after having once seen him dance, I may 
 respect her. Otherwise—" 
 
 "But are we not both assuming a great deal too much, 
 dear? You saw the woman at Peliti's — half an hour later 
 you saw her walking with The Dancing Master — an hour later 
 you met her here at the Library." 
 
 "Still with The Dancing Master, remember." 
 
 "Still with The Dancing Master, I admit, but why on the 
 strength of that should you imagine — " 
 
 "I imagine nothing. I have no imagination. I am only 
 convinced that The Dancing Master is attracted to The Dowd 
 
Updei tl?e Deodars 369 
 
 because he is objectionable in every way and she in every 
 other. If I know the man as you have described h:n, he 
 holds his wife in deadly subjection at present." 
 
 **She is twenty years younger than he." 
 
 '*Poor wretch! And, in the end, after he has posed and 
 swaggered and lied — he has a mouth under that ragged mus- 
 tache simply made for hes — he will be rewarded according to 
 his merits." 
 
 *'I wonder what those really are," said Mrs. Mallowe. 
 
 But Mrs. Hauksbee, her face close to the sheK of the new 
 books, was humming softly: "What shall he have who killed 
 the Deer ? ' ' She was a lady of unfettered speech. One month 
 later, she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs. Del- 
 ville. Both Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe were in 
 morning wrappers, and there was great peace in the land, 
 
 '*I should go as I was," said Mrs. Mallowe. "It would 
 be a delicate compliment to her style." 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee studied herself in the glass. 
 
 "Assuming for a moment that she ever darkened these 
 doors, I should put on this robe, after all the others, to show 
 her what a morning- wrapper ought to be. It might enliven 
 her. As it is, I shall go in the dove-colored — sweet emblem 
 of youth and innocence —and shall put on my new gloves.'* 
 
 "If you really are going, dirty tan would be too good; 
 and you know that dove-color spots with the rain." 
 
 "I care not. I may make her envious. At least I shall 
 try, though one cannot expect very much from a wonian 
 who puts a lace tucker into her habit." 
 
 "Just Heavens! When did she do that?" 
 
 "Yesterday —riding with The Dancing Master. I met 
 them at the back of Jakko, and the rain had made the lace 
 lie down. To complete the effect, she was wearing an im- 
 clean terai with the elastic under her chin. I felt almost too 
 well content to take the trouble to despise her. ' ' 
 
 '^'The Hawley Boy was riding with you. What did he 
 think?" 
 
 "Does a boy ever notice these things? Should I like him 
 
370 U/orks of F^udyard l^iplin<$ 
 
 if he did? He stared in the rudest way, and just when I 
 thought he had seen the elastic, he said; '^There's some- 
 thing Yery taking about that face.' I rebuked him on the 
 spot» I don't approve of boys being taken by feces.'* 
 
 *^ Other than your own. I shoaldn^t be in the least sur- 
 prised if the Hawley Boy immediately went to call." 
 
 "I forbid him. Let her be satisfied with The Dancing 
 Master, and his wife when she comes up, I*m rather curi- 
 ous to see Mrs, Bent and the Delville woman together,*' 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee dBparted, and at the end of an hour re- 
 turned slightly flushed. 
 
 "There is no limit to the treachery of youth! I ordered 
 the Hawley Boy, as he valued my patronage, not to call. 
 The first person I stumble over — literally stumble over — in 
 her poky, dark little drawing-room is, of course, the Hawley 
 Boy. She kept us waiting ten minutes, and then emerged 
 as though she had been tipped out of the dirty-clothes-basket. 
 You know my way, dear, when I am at all put out. I was 
 Supeiior, c-r-r-r-rushingly Superior! 'Lifted my eyes to 
 Heaven, and had heard of nothing — 'dropped my eyes on 
 the carpet, and 'really didn't know'— 'played with my card- 
 case and * supposed so.' The Hawley Boy giggled like a 
 girl, and I had to freeze him with scowls between the 
 sentences," 
 
 ^^ And she?'* 
 
 "She sat in a heap on the edge of a couch, and managed 
 to convey the impression that she was suffering from stomach- 
 ache, at the very least. It was all I could do not to ask after 
 her symptoms. When I rose, she grunted just like a buffalo 
 in the water — too lazy to move." 
 
 "Are you certain — " 
 
 "Am I blind, Polly? Laziness, sheer laziness, nothing 
 else— or her garments were only constructed for sitting dc^n 
 in. I stayed for a quarter of an hour trying to penetrate the 
 gloom, to guess what her surroundings were like, while she 
 stuck out her tongue.** 
 
 ''Lu—cyr 
 
Ur^der tl?e Deodars B71 
 
 "Well — I'll withdraw the tongue, though I^m sure if she 
 didn't do it when I was in the room, she did the minute I 
 was outside. At any rate, she lay in a lump and grunted. 
 Ask the Hawley Boy, dear. I believe the grunts were meant 
 for sentences, but she spoke so indistinctly that I can't swear 
 to it." 
 
 "You are incorrigible, simply," 
 
 "I am not! Treat me civilly, give me peace with honor^ 
 don't put the only available seat facing the window, and a 
 child may eat jam in my lap before Church. But I resent 
 being grunted at. Wouldn't you? Do you suppose that she 
 communicates her views on life and love to The Dancing 
 Master in a set of modulated ^Grmphs'?" 
 
 "You attach too much importance to The Dancing Mas- 
 ter." 
 
 "He came as we went, and The Dowd grew almost cor- 
 dial at the sight of him. He smiled greasily, and moved 
 about that darkened dog-kennel in a suspiciously familiar 
 way." 
 
 "Don't be uncharitable. Any sin but that I'll forgive." 
 
 "Listen to the voice ox History. I am only describing 
 what I saw. He entered, the heap on the sofa revived 
 slightly, and the Hawley Boy and I came away together. 
 He is disillusioned, but I felt it my duty to lecture him 
 severely for going there. And that's all." 
 
 "Now, for pity's sake, leave the wretched creature and 
 The Dancing Master alone. They never did you any harm. " 
 
 "No harm! To dress as an example and a stumbHng* 
 block for half Simla, and then to find this Person who is 
 dressed by the hand of God — not that I wish to disparage 
 Him for a moment, but you know the tikka-dhurzie way. 
 He attires those lilies of the field— this Person draws the eyes 
 of men — and some of them nice men ! It's almost enough to 
 make one discard clothing. I told the Hawley Boy so." 
 
 "And what did that sweet youth do?" 
 
 "Turned shell-pink and looked across the far blue hills 
 like a distressed cherub. Am 1 talking wildly, Polly? Let 
 
572 U/or^s of F^udyard I^iplip^j 
 
 me say my say, and I shall be calm. Otherwise I may go 
 abroad and disturb Simla with a few original reflections. 
 Excepting always your own sweet self, there isn't a single 
 woman in the land who understands me when I am — what's 
 the word?" 
 
 ^'Tete-feUe,'*^ suggested Mrs. Mallowe. 
 
 "Exactly! And now let us have tiffin. The demands of 
 Society are exhausting, and as Mrs. Delville says — '* Here 
 Mrs. Hauksbee, to the horror of the khitmatgai^, lapsed into 
 a series of grunts, while Mrs. Mallowe stared in lazy surprise. 
 
 *^ 'God gie us a gude conceit of oorselves,' ^' said Mrs. 
 Hauksbee, piously, returning to her natural speech. *'Now, 
 in any other woman that would have been vulgar. I am 
 consumed with curiosity to see Mrs. Bent. I expect com- 
 plications." 
 
 *^ "Woman of one idea," said Mrs. Mallowe^ shortly, "all 
 complications are as old as the hills ! I have lived through 
 or near all— alZ— all!" 
 
 "And yet do not understand that men and women never 
 behave twice ahke. I am old who was young~if ever I put 
 my head in your lap, you dear, big skeptic, you will leam 
 that my parting is gauze— but never, no never, have I lost 
 my interest in men and women. Polly, I shall see this busi- 
 ness out to the bitter end." 
 
 "I am going to sleep," said Mrs, Mallowe, calmly. "I 
 never interfere with men or women unless I am compelled," 
 and she retired with dignity to her own room. 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee's curiosity was not long left ungratified, 
 for Mrs. Bent came up to Simla a few os.'^ after the con- 
 versation faithfully reported above, and pervaded the Mall 
 by her husband's side. 
 
 . " Behold 1" said Mrs. Hauksbee, thoughtfully rubbing her 
 nose. "That is the last Hnk of the chain, if we omit the 
 \usband of the Delville, whoever he may be. Let me con- 
 sider. The Bents and the Delvilles inhabit the same hotel; 
 and the Delville is detested by the "Waddy—- do you know the 
 "Waddy?^who is almost as big a dowd. The "Waddy also 
 
Updei tl^e Deodars 373 
 
 abominates the male Bent, for wliicli, if her other sins do 
 not weigh too heavily, she will eyentually be caught up to 
 Heaven." 
 
 "Don't be irreverent," said Mrs. Mallowe. "I like Mrs. 
 Bent's face." 
 
 **I am discussing the "Waddy," returned Mrs. Hauksbee, 
 loftily* **The Waddy will take the fem.ale Bent apart, after 
 having borrowed— yes!— everything that she can, from hair« 
 pins to babies' bottles. Such, my dear, is life in a hotel. 
 The Waddy will tell the female Bent facts and fictions about 
 The Dancing Master and The Dowd." 
 
 "Lucy, I should like you better if you were not always 
 looking into people's back-bedrooms." 
 
 "Anybody can look into their front drawing-rooms; and 
 remember whatever I do, and wherever I look, I never talk 
 —as the Waddy will. Let us hope that The Dancing Mas» 
 ter's greasy smile and manner of the pedagogue will 'soften 
 the heart of that cow,' his wife. If mouths speak truth, I 
 should think that little Mrs. Bent could get very angry on 
 occasion." 
 
 "But what reason has she for being angry?" 
 
 "What reason! The Dancing Master in himself is a 
 reason. How does it go? *If in his life some trivial ©rrors 
 fall, Look in his face and you'll believe them all.' I am 
 prepared to credit any evil of The Dancing Master, because 
 I hate him so. And The Dowd is so disgustingly badly 
 dressed- — ^" 
 
 "That she, too, is capable of every iniquity? I always 
 prefer to believe the best of everybody. It saves so much 
 trouble." 
 
 "Very good. I prefer to believe the worst. It gaves 
 useless expenditure of sympathy. And you may be quite 
 (pertain that the Waddy believes with me." 
 
 Mrs. Mallowe sighed and made no answer. 
 
 The conversation was holden after dinner while MrSc 
 Hauksbee .was dressing for a dance. 
 
 "I am too tired to go," pleaded Mrs. Mallowe; and Mrs. 
 
 \ 
 
374 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip9 
 
 Hauksbee left her in peace till two in the morning, when sbf. 
 was aware of emphatic knocking at her door. 
 
 *' Don't be very angry, dear," said Mrs. Hauksbee. "My 
 idiot of an ayah has gone home, and, as I hope to sleep to- 
 night, there isn't a soul in the place to unlace me." 
 
 "Oh, this is too bad!" said Mrs. Mallowe, sulkily. 
 
 " 'Can't help it. I'm a lone, lorn grass- widow, but I 
 will not sleep in my stays. And such news, too! Oh, do 
 unlace me, there's a darling! The Dowd— The Dancing 
 Master — I and the Hawley Boy — You know the North 
 veranda?" 
 
 "How can I do anything if you spin round like this?'* 
 protested Mrs. Mallowe, fumbling with the knot of the 
 lace. 
 
 "Oh, I forget. I must tell my tale without the aid 
 of your eyes. Do you know you've lovely eyes, dear? 
 Well, to begin with, I took the Hawley Boy to a kala 
 juggah." 
 
 "Did he want much taking?" 
 
 "Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in 
 kanats, and she was in the next one talking to him.^^ 
 
 "Which? How? Explain." 
 
 "You know what I mean — The Dowd and The Dancing 
 Master. We could hear every word, and we listened shame- 
 lessly- — 'specially the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that 
 woman!" 
 
 "This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What 
 happened?" 
 
 "Onemomemt. Ah — h! Blessed relief . I've been look* 
 ing forward to taking them off for the last half hour — which 
 is ominous at my time of life. But, as I was saying, we list- 
 ened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than ever. She drops 
 her final g's like a barmaid or a blue-blooded Aid-de-Camp. 
 'Look he'ere, you're gettin' too fond o' me,' she said, and 
 The Dancing Master owned it was so in language that nearly 
 made me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we 
 heard her say, 'Lood he'ere, Mister Bent, why are you such 
 
Ur^der tl?e Deodars 375 
 
 an aw-ful liar?' I nearly exploded while The Dancing Mas- 
 ter denied the charge. It seems he never told her he was a 
 married man." 
 
 "I said he wouldn't." 
 
 ** And she had taken this to heart, on personal gfounds, I 
 suppose. She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching 
 him with his perfidy, and grew quite motherly. 'K"ow jouVe 
 got a nice little wife of your own— you have,' she said, ^ She's 
 ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he'ere, 
 you never told me a word about her, and I've been thinkin' 
 about it a good deal, and I think you're a liar.' Wasn't that 
 delicious? The Dancing Master maundered and raved till the 
 Hawley Boy suggested that he should burst in and beat him. 
 His voice runs up into an impassioned squeak when he is 
 afraid. The Dowd must be an extraordinary womaR. She 
 explained that had he been a bachelor she might not have 
 objected to his devotion; but since h©» was a married man 
 and the father of a very nice baby, she considered him a 
 hypocrite, and this she repeated twice. She wound up her 
 drawl with: *An' I'm tellin' you this because your wife is 
 angry vnth me, an' I hate quarrelin' with any other woman, 
 an' I Hke your wife. You know how you have behaved for 
 the last six weeks. You shouldn't have done it, indeed you 
 shouldn't. You're too old an' too fat.' Can't you imagine 
 how The Dancing Master would wince at that! *K"ow go 
 away,' she said. *I don't want to tell you what I think of 
 you, because I think you are not nice. I'll stay he'ere till 
 the next dance begins.' Did you think that the creature had 
 so much in her?" 
 
 "I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds 
 unnatural. "What happened?" 
 
 ''The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, 
 jocularity, and the style of the Lord High Warden, and I 
 had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy to make him keep 
 quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence, and, in the 
 end, he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in 
 a novel. He looked more objectionable than ever. I laughed. 
 
376 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplir)^ 
 
 I love that woman — in spite of her clothes. And now I'm 
 going to bed. What do you think of it?" 
 
 "I shan't begin to think till the morning," said Mrs. 
 Mallowe, yawning. "Perhaps she spoke the truth. They 
 do fly into it by accident sometimes." 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee's account of her eavesdropping was an 
 ornate one, but truthful in the main. For reasons best 
 known to herself, Mrs. "Shady" Delville had turned upon 
 Mr. Bent and rent him lunb from limb, casting him away 
 limp and disconcerted ere she withdrew the light of her eyes 
 from him permanently. Being a man of resource, and any^ 
 thing but pleased in that he had been called both old and 
 fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to understand that he had, during 
 her absence in the Doon, been the victim of unceasing perse- 
 cution at the hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the tale so 
 often and with such eloquence that he ended in believing it, 
 while his wife marveled at the manners and customs of "some 
 women." When the situation showed signs of languishing, 
 Mrs. Waddy was always on hand to wake the smoldering 
 fires of suspicion in Mrs. Bent's bosom, and to contribute 
 generally to the peace and comfort of the hotel. Mr. Bent's 
 life was not a happy one, for if Mrs. Waddy's story were 
 true, he was, argued his wife, untrustworthy to the last de- 
 gree. If his own statement was true, his charms of manner 
 and conversation were so great that he needed constant sur» 
 veillance. And he received it, till he repented genuinely of 
 his marriage and neglected his personal appearance. Mrs. 
 Delville alone in the hotel was iinchanged. She removed her 
 chair some six paces toward the head of the table, and occa- 
 sionally in the twilight ventured on timid overtures of friend* 
 ship to Mrs. Bent, which were repulsed. 
 
 "She does it for my sake," hinted the virtuous Bent. 
 
 '*A dangerous and designing woman," purred Mrs 
 Waddy. 
 
 Worst of all, every other hotel in Simla was fuH! 
 
 "Polly, are you afraid of diphtheria?" 
 
llT)der t\)e Deodars 377 
 
 "Of nothing in the world except small-pox. Diphtheria 
 kills, but it doesn't disfigure. "Why do you ask?'* 
 
 ** Because the Bent baby has got it, and the whole hotel is 
 upside down in consequence. The Waddy has *set her five 
 young on the rail' and fled. The Dancing Master fears for 
 his precious throat, and that miserable little woman, his wife, 
 has no notion of wba4i ought to be done. She wanted to put 
 it into a mustard l^th — ^for croup f 
 
 "Where did yon learn all this?" 
 
 "Just now, on the Mail, Dr. Howlea told me. Tha 
 Manager of the hotel is abusing the Bents, and the B^^ts ase 
 abusing tha Manner. They are a feckless couple. ^^ 
 
 "Well. What's on your mind?*' 
 
 "This ; and I know it's a grave tbix^ to a^. Would f(m 
 seriously object to my bringing the child over here^ with its 
 mother?'* 
 
 "On the most strict understanding that we see nothing of 
 the Dancing Master." 
 
 "He will be only too glad to stay away. Polly^ you*re 
 an angel. The woman really is at her wits' end.'* 
 
 "And you know nothing about her, careless, and would 
 hold her up to public scorn if it gave you a minute's amuse- 
 ment. Therefore you risk your life for the sake of her brat. 
 No, Loo, Pm not the angel. I shall keep to my rooms and 
 avoid her. But do as you please — only tell me why you 
 do it." 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee's eyes softened; she looked out of the 
 window and back into Mrs. Mallowe's face. 
 
 "I don't know," said Mrs. Hauksbee, simply. 
 
 "You dear!" 
 
 "Polly! — and for aught you knew you might have taken 
 my fringe off. Never do that again without warning. Now 
 we'll get the rooms ready. I don't suppose I shall be allowed 
 to circulate in society for a month." 
 
 "And I also. Thank goodness I shall at last get all the 
 sleep I want." 
 
 Much to Mrs. Bent's surprise, she and the baby were 
 
^78 U/or^s of F^udyard i^iplii}<$ 
 
 brought over to the house almost before she knew where she 
 was. Bent was devoutly and undisguisedly thankful, for he 
 was afraid of the infection, and also hoped that a few weeks 
 in the hotel alone with Mrs. Delville might lead to some sort 
 of explanation. 
 
 Mrs. Bent had cast her jealousy to the winds in her fear 
 for her child's life. 
 
 ''"We can give you good milk," said Mrs. Hauksbee to 
 her, "and our house is much nearer to the Doctor's than the 
 hotel, and you won't feel as though you were living in a hos- 
 tile camp. Where is the dear Mrs. Waddy? She seemed to 
 be a particluar friend of yours. " 
 
 "They've all left me," said Mrs. Bent, bitterly. "Mrs. 
 "Waddy went first. She said I ought to be ashamed of my- 
 self for introducing diseases there, and I am sure it wasn't 
 my fa-ult that little Dora — " 
 
 "How nice!" cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. "The "Waddy is an 
 infectious disease herself — 'more quickly caught than the 
 plague, and the taker runs presently mad.' I lived next 
 door to her at the Elysium, three years ago. Now, see, you 
 won't give us the least trouble, and I've ornamented all the 
 house with sheets soaked in carbolic. It smells comforting, 
 doesn't it? Remember I'm always in call, and my ayah's at 
 your service when yours goes to her meals, and . . . and 
 ... if you cry I'll never forgive you." 
 
 Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention 
 through the day and the night. The Doctor called thrice in 
 the twenty-four hours, and the house reeked with the smell 
 of the Condy's Fluid, chlorine water, and carbolic acid 
 washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms — she con 
 sidered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause 
 of humanity — and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the 
 Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the half-distraught 
 mother. 
 
 "I know nothing of illness," said Mrs. Hauksbee to the 
 Doctor. "Only tell me what to do, and I'll do it." 
 
 "Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let 
 
Upder tl?e Deodars 379 
 
 her have as little to do with the nursing as you possibly 
 can," said the Doctor; '*I'd turn her out of the sick-room^ 
 but that I honestly believe she'd die of anxiety. She is 
 less than no good, and I depend on you and the ayahsj 
 remember. ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, even though 
 it painted olive hollows under her eyes and forced her into 
 her oldest dresses. Mrs. Bent clung to her with more than 
 child-like faith. 
 
 "I know you'll make Dora well, won't you?" she said at 
 least twenty times a day; and twenty times a day MrSo 
 Hauksbee answered valiantly: ''Of course I will." 
 
 But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor seemed to be 
 always in the house. 
 
 ''There's some danger of the thing taking a bad turn,'* 
 he said; "I'll come over between three and four in the morn= 
 ing to-morrow. " 
 
 "Good gracious!" said Mrs. Hauksbee. "He never told 
 me what the turn would be ! My education has been horribly 
 neglected; and I have only this foolish mother- woman to 
 fall back upon. " 
 
 The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. Hauksbee dozed 
 in a chair by the fire. There was a dance at the Viceregal 
 Lodge, and she dreamed of it till she was aware of Mrs. 
 Bent's anxious eyes staring into her own. 
 
 "Wake up! /Wake up! Do something!" cried Mrs. 
 Bent, piteously. "Dora's choking to death! Do you mean 
 to let her die?" 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent over the bed. 
 The child was fighting for breath, while the mother wrung 
 her hands in despair. 
 
 "Oh, what can I do? What can I do? She won't stay 
 still ! I can't hold her. Why didn't the Doctor say this was 
 coming?" screamed Mrs. Bent. " WonH you help me? She's 
 dying!" 
 
 "I — I've never seen a child die before!" stammered Mrs. 
 ; Hauksbee, feebly, and then — ^let no one blame her weakness 
 
S80 U/or^s of F^udyard K^pllr?^ 
 
 after tlie strain of lone watching — she broke down, and cov- 
 ered her face with her hands. The ayahs on the threshold 
 snored peacefully. i 
 
 There was a rattle of 'rickshaw wheels below, the clash' 
 of an opening door, a heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs. 
 Delville entered to find Mrs. Bent screaming for the Doctor 
 as she ran round the room* Mrs. Hauksbee, her hands to 
 her ears, and her face buried in the chintz of a chair, was 
 quivering with pain at each cry from the bed, and murmur* 
 ing: '* Thank God, I never bore a child! Oh! thank God, I 
 never bore a child!" 
 
 Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs, 
 Bent by the shoulders, and said quietly j **Get me some caus- 
 tic. Be quick." i 
 
 The mother obeyed mechanically, Mrs. Delville had 
 thrown herself down by the side of the child and was 
 opening its mouth. 
 
 '*0h, you're killing her!" cried Mrs. Bent. ** Where's- 
 the Doctor? Leave her alone!" 
 
 Mrs. Delville made no reply for a minute, but busied her- 
 self with the child. 
 
 '*!N"ow the caustic, and hold a lamp behind my shoulder. 
 Will you do as you are told? The acid-bottle, if you don't' 
 know what I mean," she said. 
 
 A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the child. Mrs. 
 Hauksbee, her face still hidden, sobbed and shivered. One 
 of the ayahs staggered sleepily into the room, yawning: 
 "Doctor Sahib hai." 
 
 Mrs. Delville turned her head. 
 
 "You're only just in time," she said. *'It was chokin" 
 her when I came, an' I've burned it." 
 
 "There was no sign of the membrane getting to the air- 
 passages after the last steaming. It was the general weak- 
 ness I feared," said the Doctor, half to himself, and he; 
 whispered as he looked : "You've done what I should have 
 been afraid to do without consultation. ' ' 
 
 "She was dyin'," said Mrs. Delville, under her breath. 
 
Hinder tl^e Deodars 381 
 
 '*Can you do anythin'? What a mercy it was I went to the 
 dance ! " 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head. 
 
 ''Is it all over?" she gasped. "I'm useless. I'm worse 
 than useless! What are you doing here?" 
 
 She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, realizing for the 
 first time who was the Goddess from the Machine, stared also. 
 
 Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, putting on a dirty 
 long glove and smoothing a crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress. 
 
 "I was at the dance, an' the Doctor was tellin' me about 
 your baby bein' so ill. So I came away early, an' your door 
 was open, an' I — I — lost my boy this way six months ago, 
 an' I've been tryin' to forget it ever since, an' I — I — I am 
 very sorry for, intrudin' an' anythin' that has happened." 
 
 Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor's eye with a lamp 
 as he stooped over Dora. "Take it away," said the Doc- 
 tor. "I think the child will do, thanks to you, Mrs. Delville. 
 I should have come too late, but, I assure you" — he was 
 addressing himself to Mrs. Delville — "I had not the faintest 
 reason to expect this. The membrane must have grown like 
 a mushroom. Will one of you ladies help me, please?' ' 
 ' He had reason for his concluding sentence. Mrs. Hauks- 
 bee had thrown herself into Mrs. Delville 's arms, where she 
 was weeping copiously, and Mrs. Bent was unpicturesquely 
 mixed up with both, while from the triple tangle came the 
 sound of many sobs and much promiscuous kissing. 
 
 "Good gracious! I've spoiled all your beautiful roses!" 
 said Mrs. Hauksbee, lifting her head from the lump of 
 crushed gum and calico atrocities on Mrs. Delville's shoulder 
 and hurrying to the Doctor. 
 
 Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and slouched out of the 
 room, mopping her eyes with the glove that she had not put on. 
 
 "I always said she was more than a woman," sobbed 
 Mrs. Hauksbee, hysterically, "and that proves it!" 
 
 Six weeks later, Mrs. Bent and Dora had returned to the 
 hotel. Mrs. Hauksbee had come out of the Valley of Hu- 
 
382 U/orl^s of r^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 miliation, had ceased to reproach herself for her collapse in 
 an hour of bitter need, and was even beginning to direct the 
 affairs of the world as before. 
 
 "So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, 
 and I kissed The Dowd. Polly, I feel so old. Does it show 
 in my face?" 
 
 "Kisses don't, as a rule, do they? Of course you know 
 what the result of The Dowd's providential arrival has been.'^ 
 
 "They ought to build her a statue — only no sculptor dare 
 reproduce those skirts. " 
 
 "Ah!" said Mrs. Mallowe, quietly. "She has found an- 
 other reward. The Dancing Master has been smirking through 
 Simla, giving every one to understand that she came because 
 of her undying love for him — for him — to save his child, and 
 all Simla naturally believes this." 
 
 "But Mrs. Bent—" 
 
 "Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one else. She won't 
 speak to The Dowd now. IsnH The Dancing Master an angel?" 
 
 Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bedtime. 
 The doors of the two rooms stood open. 
 
 "Polly," said a voice from the darkness, "what did that 
 American-heiress-globe-trotter girl say last season when she 
 was tipped out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd 
 adjective that made the man who picked her up explode." 
 
 " * Paltry,' " said Mrs. Mallowe. "Through her nose — 
 like this — 'Ha-ow pahltry' !" 
 
 "Exactly," said the voice. "Ha-ow pahltry it all is I" 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 "Everything — Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. Bent and the 
 Dancing Master, I whooping in a chair, and The Dowd 
 dropping in from the clouds. I wonder what the motive 
 was — all the motives." 
 
 "Um!" 
 
 "What do you think?" 
 
 "Don't ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep.'* 
 
 END OF "under THE DEODARS" 
 
DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES 
 
 BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS AND 
 
 OTHER VERSES 
 
 883 
 
I HAVE eaten your bread and salt, 
 I have drunk your water and wine, 
 
 The deaths ye died I have watched besido^ 
 And the Hves that ye led were mine. 
 
 Was there aught that I did not share 
 
 In vigil or toil or ease — 
 One joy or woe that I did not know. 
 
 Dear hearts across the seas? 
 
 I have written the tale of our life 
 For a sheltered people's mirth. 
 
 In jesting guise— but ye are wise. 
 And ye know what the jest is worths 
 
 384 
 
DEPARTHENTAL DITTIES 
 
 GENERAL SUMMARY 
 
 We are very slightly changed 
 From the semi-apes who rang^ed 
 
 India's prehistoric clay; 
 Whoso drew the longest boWj 
 Ran his brother down, you know^ 
 
 As we run men down to-daj* 
 
 "Dowb," the first of all his mm. 
 Met the Mammoth face to fa<^ 
 
 On the lake or in the cave, 
 Stole the steadiest canoe. 
 Ate the quarry others slew, 
 
 Died — and took the finest gravs. 
 
 When they scratched the reindeer-base^ 
 Some one made the sketch his own. 
 
 Filched it from the artist— then» 
 Even in those early days, 
 Won a simple Viceroy's praise 
 
 Through the toil of other men. 
 
 Ere they hewed the Sphinx's vissg^ 
 Favoritism governed kissage, 
 Even as it does in this age. 
 
 Who shall doubt the secret hid 
 Under Cheops' pyramid 
 Was that the contractor did 
 Cheops out of several millions? 
 /ol. 3. 885 «7 
 
U/orl^s of I^adyard \ipllT)(^ 
 
 Or that Joseph's sudden rise 
 To Comptroller of Supplies 
 Was a fraud of monstrous size 
 
 On King Pharaoh's swart Civiliansl 
 
 Thus, the artless songs I sing 
 Do not deal with anything 
 
 Kew or never said before. 
 As it was in the beginning. 
 Is to-day official sinning, 
 
 And shall be for evermore. 
 
 ARMY HEADQUARTERS 
 
 Old is the song that I sing — 
 
 Old as my unpaid bills- 
 Old as the chicken that hitmutgars bring 
 
 Men at dak-bungalows — old as the Hillgu 
 
 Ahasubrus Jenkins of the ''Operatic Own'' 
 Was dowered, with a tenor voice of S'Mjjer-Santley tone. 
 His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer; 
 He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh 1 he had an ear. 
 
 He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day, 
 
 He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way, 
 
 His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders. 
 
 But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shouldars. j|d| 
 
 He took two months to Simla when the year was at the ^ring, 
 And underneath the deodars eternally did singe 
 He warbled like a bulbul, but particularly at 
 Oomelia Agrippina, who was musical and fat. 
 
 She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a 
 
 Dept., 
 
 Where Cornelia Agrippina's human singing-birds were kept 
 From April to October on a plump retaining fee, 
 Supplied, of course, per mensem, by the Indian Treasury. 
 
Departmental Ditties 887 
 
 Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play; 
 He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they : 
 So when the winds of April turned the budding ros^ brown, 
 Cornelia told her husband: "Tom, you mustn't send him 
 down." 
 
 They haled him from his regiment which didn*t much t^r^ 
 
 him; 
 They found for him an oflBce-stool, and on that stool they t^t 
 
 him. 
 To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day. 
 And draw his plump retaining fee— which means his dcmbk 
 
 pay, 
 
 K"ow, ever after dinner^ when the coffee-cups are brought, 
 Ahasuerus waileth o'er the gTand pianoforte; 
 And. thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxBn great, 
 And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a power in the State. 
 
 STUDY OF AN ELEVATION. 
 INDIAN INK 
 
 This ditty is a string of lies. 
 
 But— how the deuce did Gubbins rise? 
 
 PoTiPHAR Gubbins, C. E., 
 Stands at the top of the tree; 
 And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led 
 To the hoisting of Potiphar G. 
 
 Potiphar Gubbins, C. E., 
 Is seven years jimior to Me; 
 Each bridge that he makes he either buckles or bi©aks,. 
 And his work is as rough as he. 
 
 Potiphar Gubbins, C. E., 
 Is coarse as a chimpanzee ; 
 And I can't understand why you gave him your ba^d^ 
 Lovely Mehitabel Lee. 
 
U/orl^s of I^udyard l^ipllp^ 
 
 Potipliar Gubbins, C. E., 
 Is dear to the Powers that Be ; 
 For They bow and They smile in an affable style 
 "Which is seldom accorded to Me. 
 
 Potiphar Gubbins, 0. E., 
 Is certain as certain can be 
 Of a Mghly-paid post which is claimed by a host 
 Of seniors — ^including Me. 
 
 Careless and lazy is he, 
 Greatly inferior to Me, 
 What is the spell that you manage so well. 
 Commonplace Potiphar G.? 
 
 Lovely Mehitabel Lee, 
 Let me inquire of thee, 
 Should I have riz to what Potiphar is, 
 
 Hadst thou been mated to Me? 
 
 A LEGEND OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE 
 
 This is the reason why Rustum Beg, 
 
 Rajah of Kolazai, 
 Drinketh the "simpkin" and brandy peg, 
 
 Maketh the money to fly, 
 Vexeth a Government, tender and kind. 
 Also — ^but this is a detail — blind. 
 
 Rustum Beg of Kolazai— sHghtly backward native state— 
 Lusted for a 0. S. I. — -so began to sanitate. 
 Built a Jail and Hospital — nearly built a City drain— 
 TiU his faithful subjects all thought their ruler was insane. 
 
 Strange departures made he then—yea, Departments stranger 
 
 still, 
 Half a dozen Enghshmen helped the Rajah with a will, 
 Talked of noble aims and high, hinted of a future fine 
 For the State of Kolazai, on a strictly Western line. 
 
Departmei)tal Ditties 389 
 
 Bajah Rustum held his peace; lowered octroi dues a half; 
 
 Organized a State Police; purified the Civil Staff; 
 
 Settled cess and tax afresh in a very liberal way; 
 
 Cut temptations of the flesh— also cut the Bukhshi's pay; 
 
 Boused his Secretariat to a fine Mahratta fury. 
 By a Hookum hinting at supervision of dasturi; 
 Turned the State of Kolazai very nearly upside-down; 
 When the end of May was nigh, waited his achievement Cfown, 
 
 Then the Birthday Honors came. Sad to state and sad to seej 
 Stood against the Rajah's name nothing more than O. I. E.f 
 
 • • • • • e •• 
 
 Things were lively for a week in the State of Kolazai. 
 Even now the people speak of that time regretfully. 
 
 How he disendowed the Jail— stopped at once the City drain; 
 Turned to beauty fair and frail — got his senses back again; 
 Doubled taxes, cesses, all ; cleared away each new-built thana; 
 Turned the two-lakh Hospital into a superb Zenana; 
 
 Heaped upon the Bukhshi Sahib wealth and honors manifold; 
 Clad himself in Eastern garb — squeezed his people as of old. 
 Happy, happy Kolazai ! Never more will Rustum Beg 
 Play to catch the Viceroy's eye. He prefers the'*simpkin'^ peg. 
 
 THE STORY OF URIAH 
 
 *'Now there were two men in one city; the one rich asd 
 ©ther poor." 
 
 Jack Barrett went to Quetta 
 
 Because they told him to. 
 He left his wife at Simla 
 
 On three-fourths his monthly screw t 
 Jack Barrett died at Quetta 
 
 Ere the next month's pay he drew« 
 
 Jack Barrett went to Quetta. 
 He didn't understand 
 
S90 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{ipUT)6 
 
 The reason of his transfer 
 
 From the pleasant mountain-land! 
 
 The season was September, 
 And it killed him out of hand. 
 
 Jack Barrett went to Quetta, 
 And there gave up the ghost, 
 
 Attempting two men*s duty 
 In that very healthy post ; 
 
 And Mrs, Barrett mourned for him 
 Five lively months at most. 
 
 Jack Barrett's bones at Quetta 
 Enjoy profound repose; 
 
 But I shouldn't be astonished 
 If now his spirit knows 
 
 The reason of his transfer 
 From the Himalayan snows. 
 
 And, when the Last Great Bugle OaU 
 
 Adown the Hurnai throbs, 
 When the last grim joke is entered 
 
 In the big black Book of JobSg 
 And Quetta graveyards give again 
 
 Their victims to the air, 
 I shouldn't like to be the man 
 
 "Who sent Jack Barrett there. 
 
 THE POST THAT FITTED 
 
 Though tangled and twisted the course of true love, 
 
 This ditty explains 
 No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve 
 
 If the Lover has brains. 
 
 Ere the steamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to 
 
 marry 
 An attractive girl at Tunbridge, whom he called "my little 
 
 Carrie, • ' 
 
Departmental Ditties 391 
 
 Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way. 
 Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight paltry dibs a day? 
 Long he pondered o'er the question in his scantly furnished 
 
 quarters — 
 Then proposed to Minnie Boffkin, eldest of Judge Boff kin's 
 
 daughters. 
 Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch, 
 But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another 
 
 match. 
 
 So they recognized the business, and, to feed and clothe the 
 
 bride, 
 Got him made a Something Something somewhere on the 
 
 Bombay side. 
 Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry-— 
 As the artless Sleary put it: "Just the thing for me and 
 
 Carrie." 
 
 Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin — impulse of a baser mind? 
 No ! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind. 
 (Of his modus operandi only this much I could gather i 
 "Pears' shaving sticks will give you little taste and lots of 
 lather.") 
 
 Frequently in public places his affiiction used to smite 
 Sleary with distressing vigor — always in the Boffkins' sight. 
 Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring, 
 Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of 
 marrying. 
 
 Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy — 
 
 Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ— 
 
 Wired three short words to Carrie — took his ticket, packed 
 
 his kit — 
 Bade farewell to Minnie Boffkin in one last, long, lingering fit. 
 
 Four weeks later, Carrie Sleary read — and laughed until she 
 
 wept — 
 Mrs. Boffkin's warning letter on the "wretched epilept." 
 Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits 
 AYaiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits. 
 
B92 Worlds of F^udyard l^ipIiQ^ 
 
 PUBLIC WASTE 
 
 Walpole talks of **a man and his pnoa 
 List to a ditty queer — 
 
 The sale of a Deputy -Acting- Vice- 
 Resident-Engineer, 
 
 Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide, 
 
 By the Little Tin Gods on the Mountain ^da. 
 
 By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of 
 brass 
 
 Tiiat only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the Railways 
 of State, 
 
 Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects wherein 
 he must pass; 
 
 Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his knowl- 
 edge is great. 
 
 ITow Exeter Battleby Tring had labored from boyhood to eld 
 On the Lines of the East and the West, and eke of the North 
 
 and South ; 
 Many Lines had he built and surveyed — important the posts 
 
 which he held; 
 And the Lords of the Iron Horse were dumb when he opened 
 
 his mouth. 
 
 Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still — 
 
 Hinting that Railways required lifetimes of study and knowl- 
 edge; 
 
 Never clanked sword by his side — ^Vauban he knew not, nor 
 driU— 
 
 Nor was his name on the Hst of the men who had passed 
 through the ' ' College. ' ' 
 
 "Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried then* little tin souls, 
 Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his 
 heelsj 
 
Departmental Ditties 393 
 
 Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the Government 
 
 rolls 
 For the billet of ** Railway Instructor to Little Tin Gods on 
 
 Wheels/' 
 
 Letters not seldom they wrote him, "having the honor to 
 
 state," 
 It would he better for aU men if he were laid on the shelf : 
 Much would accrue to his bank-book, and he consented to 
 
 wait 
 Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth for himself. 
 
 "Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law of the Fifty 
 
 and Five, 
 Even to Ninety and ITine" — these were the terms of the pact : 
 Thus did the Little Tin Gods (long may Their Highnesses 
 
 thrive !) 
 Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact ; 
 
 Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed the Bhamo 
 
 State Line 
 (The which was one mile and one furlong— a guaranteed 
 
 twenty-inch gauge). 
 So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims to resign, 
 And died, on four thousand a month, in the ninetieth yeai of 
 
 Ms age. 
 
 DELILAH 
 
 We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done. 
 Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne. 
 
 Delilah Aberyswith was a lady — not too young — 
 With a perfect taste in dresses, and a badly»bitted tongue, 
 With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praige^ 
 And a little house in Simla, in the Prehistoric Days. 
 
 By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power, 
 Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the houTf 
 And many little secrets, of a half-official kind. 
 Were whispered to Dehlah, and she bore them all in mind. 
 
394 MforUis of P^udyard I^iplii>^ 
 
 She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne, 
 Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful onCc 
 He wrote for divers papers, which, as everybody knows, 
 Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows. 
 
 He praised her '* queenly beauty' ' first ; and, later on, he hinted 
 At the "vastness of her intellect" with compliment unstinted. 
 He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such 
 That he lent her all his horses, and — she galled them very 
 much. 
 
 One day, They brewed a secret of a fine financial sortj 
 It related to Appointments, to a Man and a Report. 
 'Twas almost worth the keeping (only seven people knew it), 
 And Gunne rose up to seek the truth and patiently ensue it. 
 
 It was a Viceroy's Secret, but— perhaps the wine was red — 
 Perhaps an Aged Councilor had lost his aged head — 
 Perhaps Delilah's eyes were bright — Dehlah's whispers 
 
 sweet — 
 The Aged Member told her what 'twere treason to repeat. 
 
 Ulysses went a-riding, and they talked of love and flowers; 
 Ulysses went a-calling, and he called for several hours; 
 Ulysses went a-waltzing, and Delilah helped him dance — 
 Ulysses let the waltzes go, and waited for his chance. 
 
 The summer sun was setting, and the summer air was stiU, 
 The couple went a- walking in the shade of Summer Hill, 
 The wasteful sunset faded out in turkis-green and gold, 
 Ulysses pleaded softly, and . . • that bad Delilah told! 
 
 E"ext mom, a startled Empire learned the all-important news; 
 Kext week, the Aged Councilor was shaking in his shoes; 
 IText month, I met Delilah, and she did not show the least 
 Hesitation in affirming that Ulysses was a "beast.'* 
 
 We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done. 
 Of Delilah Aberyswith and most mean Ulysses Gunne! 
 
Departmental Ditties 395 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED 
 
 HuRREE Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar^ 
 Owner of a native press, *'Barrishter-at-Lar," 
 Waited on the Government with a claim to wear 
 Sabers by the bucketful, rifles by the pair. 
 
 Then the Indian Government winked a wicked winkj 
 Said to Chunder Mookerjee; "Stick to pen and ink. 
 They are safer implements ; but, if you insist, 
 We will let you carry arms wheresoe'er you list," 
 
 Hurree Chunder Mookerjee sought the gunsmith and 
 Bought the tuber of Lancaster, Ballard, Dean, and Bland, 
 Bought a shiny bowie-knife, bought a town-made sword. 
 Jingled like a carriage-horse when he went abroad. 
 
 But the Indian Government, always keen to please, 
 Also gave permission to horrid men like- these — 
 Yar Mahommed Yusufzai, down to kill or steal, 
 Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer, Tantia the Bhil. 
 
 Killar Khan the Marri chief, Jowar Singh the Sikh, 
 Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat, Abdul Huq Rafiq— 
 He was a Wahabi; last, little Boh Hla-oo 
 Took advantage of the act — took a Snider too. 
 
 They were unenlightened men, Ballard knew them not. 
 They procured their swords and guns chiefly on the spot, 
 And the lore of centuries, plus a hundred fights, 
 Made them slow to disregard one another's rights. 
 
 With a unanimity dear to patriot hearts 
 
 AU those hairy gentlemen out of foreign parts 
 
 Said: '*The good old days are back— let us go to war!" 
 
 Swaggered down the Grand Trunk Koad, into Bow Bazaar^ 
 
 ISTubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat found a hide-bound flail, 
 Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer oiled his Tonk jezail. 
 
896 U/ori^s of F^udyard K^plii)<$ 
 
 Yar Mahommed Yusufzai spat and grinned with glee 
 As he ground the butcher-knife of the Khyberee. 
 
 Jowar Bingh the Sikh procured saber, quoit, and ma<;e, 
 Abdul Huq, Wahabi, took the dagger from its place. 
 While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered 
 Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared the dah-blade from the sc?ib- 
 bard. 
 
 What became of Mookerjee? Soothly^ who can smy? 
 Yar Mahommed only grins in a nasty way, 
 Jowar Singh is reticent, Ohimbu Singh is mute. 
 But the belts ©f them all simply bulge with loot. 
 
 What became of Ballard's gunsf Afghans black and grubby 
 Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbii 
 And tl^ shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword ara 
 Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border. , 
 
 What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar, 
 Prodding Siva's sacred bull down the Bow Bazaar. 
 Speak to placid Kubbee Baksh— question land and sea— ^ 
 Ask the Indian Congress men — only don't ask usel 
 
 PINK DOMINOES 
 
 ^'They are fools who kiss and t«ii" 
 Wisely has the poet sung. 
 Man may hold all sorts of poetig 
 2f he'll only hold his tongue. 
 
 JENNY and Me were engaged, you see^ 
 On the eve of the Fancy Ball; 
 
 80 a kiss or two was nothing to you 
 Or any one else at all. 
 
 Jenny would go in a domino-— 
 Pretty and pink but warm ; 
 
 While I attended, clad in a splendid 
 Austrian uniform. 
 
Departmental Ditties 397 
 
 Kow we had arranged, through notes exchanged 
 
 Early that afternoon, 
 At Number Four to waltz no more. 
 
 But to sit in the dusk and spoon. 
 
 (I wish you to see that Jenny and Me 
 
 Had barely exchanged our troth; 
 So a kiss or two was strictly due 
 
 By, from, and between us both,) 
 
 When Three was over, an eager loFer, 
 
 I fled to the gloom outside; 
 And a Domino came out also 
 
 "Whom I took for my future bride. 
 
 That is to say, in a casual way, 
 
 I slipped my arm around her ; 
 With a kiss or two (which is nothing to Jou% 
 
 And ready to kiss I found her. 
 
 She turned her head, and the name she sai^ 
 
 Was certainly not my own; 
 But ere I could speak, with a smothered shr?ek 
 
 She fled and left me alone. 
 
 Then Jenny came, and I saw with shame 
 
 She'd doffed her domino; 
 And I had embraced an alien waist— 
 
 But I did not tell her so. 
 
 ^ext mom I knew that there were two 
 
 Dominoes pink, and one 
 Had cloaked the spouse of Sir Juhan Vons^ 
 
 Our big political gun. 
 
 Sir J. was old, and her hair was gold. 
 
 And her eye was a blue cerulean ; 
 And the name she said when she turned her ht^ 
 
 Was not in the least like "Julian." 
 
398 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplii}($ 
 
 !N"ow wasn't it nice, when want of pice 
 Forbade us twain to marry, 
 
 That old Sir J., in the kindest way, 
 Made me his Becretarryf 
 
 THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE 
 
 Shun— shun the Bowl I That fatal, facile drink 
 
 Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in*t, 
 
 Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink 
 Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in't. 
 
 There may be silver in the "blue-black" — all 
 
 I know of is the iron and the gall. 
 
 Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen, 
 Is a dismal failure — is a Might-have-been, 
 In a luckless mome^ t he discovered men 
 Rise to high position through a ready pen. 
 
 Boanerges Blitzen argued, therefore: "I 
 With the selfsame weapon can attatin as high." 
 Only he did not possess, when he made the trial, 
 Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L 1. 
 
 (Men who spar with Government need, to back their 
 
 blows, 
 Something more than ordinary journalistic prose,) 
 
 Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright. 
 Till an Indian paper found that he could write : 
 Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark, 
 When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark. 
 
 Certainly he scored it, bold and black and firm. 
 In that Indian paper — made his seniors squirm, " 
 Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth — 
 Was there ever known a more misguided youth? 
 
 When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game^ 
 Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame : 
 
Departmental Ditties 399 
 
 W"lien the men he wrote of shook their heads and 
 
 swore, 
 Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more. 
 
 Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim. 
 Till he found promotion didn't come to him; 
 Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot. 
 And his many Districts curiously hot. 
 
 Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win, 
 
 Boanerges Blitzen didn't care a pin : 
 
 Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn't 
 
 right — 
 Boanerges Blitzen put it down to ** spite." 
 
 Languished in a District desolate and dry ; 
 
 "Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by; 
 
 "Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair. 
 • • • • • • • 
 
 That was seven years ago — and he still is there. 
 
 MUNICIPAL 
 
 •*Why is my District death-rate lowf" 
 
 Said Binks of Hezabad. 
 •*Welis, drains, and sewage-outfalls are 
 
 My own peculiar fad. 
 I learnt a lesson once. It ran 
 "Thus," quoth that most veracious man:--» 
 
 It was an August evening, and, in snowy garments olad$ 
 I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezabad ; 
 When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all, 
 A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall. 
 
 I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed 
 That that Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth. 
 I didn't care to meet him, and I couldn't well get down, 
 So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town. 
 
400 U/or^s of I^udyard t^iplip^ 
 
 The buggy was a new one, and, praise Dykes, it stood the 
 
 strain, 
 Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain ; 
 And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals, 
 And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent 
 
 wheels. 
 
 He seemed to want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear, 
 To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear — 
 Reached the four-foot drain-head safely, and, in darkness and 
 
 despair, 
 Felt the brute's proboscis fingering my terror-stiffened hair. 
 
 Heard it trumpet on my shoulder — tried to crawl a little 
 
 higher — 
 Found the Main Drain sewage-outfall blocked, some eight 
 
 feet up, with mire ; 
 And, for twenty reeking minutes. Sir, my very marrow froze, 
 While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on my toes ! 
 
 It missed me by a fraction, but my hair was turning gray 
 Before they called the drivers up and dragged the brute away. 
 Then I sought the City Elders, and my words were very plain. 
 They flushed that four-foot drain- head, and — it never choked 
 again. 
 
 You may hold with surface-drainage, and the sun-f or-garbage 
 
 cure. 
 Till you've been a periwinkle shrinking coyly up a sewer. 
 I believe in well-flushed culverts .... 
 
 This is why the death-rate's small ; 
 And, if you don't believe me, get shikarred yourself. That's 
 
 all. 
 
Departmei^tal Ditties 401 
 
 A CODE OF MORALS 
 
 Lest you should think this story true, 
 I merely mention I 
 Evolved it lately. 'Tis a most 
 Unmitigated misstatement. 
 
 Fow Jones had left his new- wed bride to keep his house in 
 
 order, 
 And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border. 
 To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught 
 His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught. 
 
 And Love had made him very sage, as I^ature made her fair; 
 
 So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair. 
 
 At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel 
 
 wise — 
 At e'en, the dying sunset bore her husband's homiii^. 
 
 He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and 
 
 gold, 
 As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old; 
 But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs) 
 That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs. 
 
 'Twas General Bangs, with Aid and Staff, that tittupped on 
 
 the way, 
 When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play ; 
 They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and 
 
 burned — 
 So stopped to take the message down — and this is what they 
 
 learned : 
 
 "Dash dot dot, dot, dot dash, dot dash dot" twice. The 
 
 General swore. 
 **Was ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before? 
 *My love,' i' faith I 'My Duck,' Gadzooksl 'My darling 
 
 popsy-wop!' 
 Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on that mountain top?" 
 
\ 
 
 402 U/orks of F^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 The artless Aid-de-camp was mute ; the gilded Staff were still. 
 
 As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that m.essage from 
 the hill; 
 
 For, clear as summer's lightning flare, the husband's warn- 
 ing ran : 
 
 ^' Don't dance or ride with General Bangs — a most immoral 
 man." 
 
 (At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel 
 
 wise — 
 But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.) 
 With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife 
 Some interesting details of the General's private life. 
 
 The artless Aid-de-camp was mute ; the shining Staff wera 
 
 still, 
 And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill. 
 And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not) : 
 "I think we've tapped a private line. Hi I Threes about 
 
 there! Troti" 
 
 All honor unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know 
 By word or act official who read off that helio, ; 
 But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Moolfan 
 They know the worthy General as * 'that most immoral man. " 
 
 I 
 
 THE LAST DEPARTMENT 
 
 Twelve hundred million men are spread 
 
 About this Earth, and I and You 
 Wonder, when You and I are dead, 
 
 What will those luckless millions do ? 
 
 ^^IToNE whole or clean," we cry, "or free from staia 
 Of favor." Wait a while, till we attain 
 
 The Last Department, where nor fraud nor f ools^ 
 Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again. 
 
Depart/RSQtal Ditties ~ 403 
 
 Fear, Favor, or Affection — what are tliese 
 To the grim Head who claims our services? 
 
 I never knew a wife or interest yet 
 Delay that pukka step, miscalled "decease'* | 
 
 When leave, long overdue, none can deny; 
 When idleness of all Eternity 
 
 Becomes our furlough, and the marigold 
 Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury. 
 
 Transferred to the Eternal Settlement, 
 Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent. 
 
 No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals. 
 Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent. 
 
 And One, long since a pillar of the Court, 
 
 As mud between the beams thereof is wrought; 
 
 And One who wrote on phosphates for the cr<^ 
 Is subject-matter of his own Report. 
 
 (These be the glorious ends whereto we pass- 
 Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was; 
 
 And He shall see the mallie steals the slab 
 For currie -grinder, and for goats the grass.) 
 
 A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight, 
 A draught of water, or a horse's fright — 
 
 The droning of the fat Sheristadar 
 Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the nigM 
 
 For you or Me. Do those who live decline 
 The step that offers, or their work resign? 
 Trust me, To-day's Most Indispensables, 
 Five hundred men can take your place or mliso. 
 

 ■■/. 
 
 BARRACK«ROOM BALLADS 
 
 DANNY DEEVER 
 
 ^' What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Farade, i 
 *'To turn you out, to turn you out,^^ the Color-Sergeant said. 
 *'What makes you look so white, so white?** said Files»on- 
 
 Farade« 
 "I'm dreadin' what I've got to wateh,*' the Color-Sergeant 
 said. 
 For they're hangin* Danny Deever, you c^n 'ear the 
 
 Dead March play, f 
 
 The regiment's in 'oilow square — ^they're hangin' 
 
 him to-day; 
 They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes 
 
 away. 
 An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the momin'. 
 
 **What makes the rear-rank breathe so 'ard?" said Files-on- 
 
 **It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold," the Color-Sergeant said. 
 **What makes that front-rank man fall down?" says Files- 
 
 on-Parade. 
 "A touch of sun, a touch of sun," the Color-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', shoot- 
 in' hound— 
 O they're hangin' Danny Deever in the momin'! 
 
 it fTTiJ, 
 
 *' 'Is cot was right- 'and cot to mine," said Files-on-Parade. 
 'E's sleepin' out an' far to-night," the Color-Sergeant said, 
 
 (404) 
 
 I 
 
BarraeK-Room Ballads 
 
 "I've drunk 'is beer a score o' times," said Files-on-Parade» 
 *' 'E's drinkia' bitter beer alone," the Color-Sergeant said. 
 
 They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must maik 
 
 '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 dis 
 
 grace, 
 While they're hangin' Danny Deever in the momin'. 
 
 ** What's that so black agin the sun?" said Files-on-Parade« 
 "It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life," the Color-Sergeant said. 
 "What's that that whimpers over'ead?" said Files-on-Paradec 
 "It's Danny's soul that's passin' now," the Color-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 ; 
 Hoi the young recruits are shakin', an' they'll want 
 
 their beer to-day, 
 After hangin' Danny Deever in the momia'a 
 
 "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 : 
 
 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. 
 
406 U/orl^s of F^udyard t^iplip^ 
 
 I went into a theater as sober as could be, 
 They give 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 troop- 
 er's on the tide, 
 The troopship's on the tide, my boys, etc. 
 
 O makin' mock o^ uniforms that guard you while you sleep 
 Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap; 
 An* hustlin' drunken sodgers 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 hne of 'eroes" when the drums 
 
 begin to roll, 
 The drums begin to roll, my boys, etc. 
 
 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 plastej* saints. 
 While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' ** Tom- 
 my 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, etc. 
 
 Yoti talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all i 
 We ^11 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 i 
 
 him out, the brute!" 
 But it's *' Savior of 'is country" when the guns begin 
 to shoot; 
 
Barracl^-r^oom Ballads 407 
 
 An* it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an* anything 
 
 you please ; 
 An' Tommy ain't a bloom in' fool — you bet that 
 
 Tommy sees! 
 
 "FUZZY WUZZV 
 
 {Soudan Expeditionary Force) 
 
 We've fought with many men acrost the seas. 
 An' some of 'em was brave an' some was nots 
 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 Snsikim, 
 An* 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces. 
 So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome 
 
 in the Sowdan ; 
 You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first- 
 class fightin' man; 
 We gives you your certifikit, an' if you want 
 
 it signed 
 We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you when- 
 ever you're incHned. 
 
 We took our chanst among the Kyber 'ills, 
 
 The Boers knocked us silly at a mile, 
 The Burman guv us Irriwaddy chills. 
 
 An' a Zulu impi dished us up in styles 
 But all we ever got from such as they 
 
 Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swalleri 
 We 'eld our bloomin' ow*, the papers say, 
 But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oHer. 
 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. 
 
40S U/orKs of P^udyard I^iplii)^ 
 
 We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't 
 
 'ardly fair; 
 But for all the odds agin you, Fuzzy-Wu% 
 
 you bruk the square, 
 
 ^M *asn't got no papers of 'is own, 
 
 *E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards, 
 S© we must certify the sMll 'e*s shown 
 
 In iisin* of 'is long two-'anded swords: 
 Wlien Vs 'oppin* in an' out among the bu^ 
 
 With 'is coffin«'eaded shield an' shoTel-speap, 
 Jt *appy day with Fuzzy on the rush 
 WM last a 'ealthy Tommy for a year. 
 
 JBo 'ere's to you, Fuzgy-Wuzzy, an* your 
 
 friends which is no more, 
 If we *adn't lost some messmates we would 
 
 'elp you to deplore; 
 But give an' take's the gospel^ an' we'H call 
 
 the bargain fair, 
 For if you 'ave lost more than us, yoa 
 cnunpled up the square! 
 
 *E rashes at the smoke when we let drire, 
 
 Ari'j before we know, 'e's 'ackin' at our 'ead; 
 ^E 5 all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive. 
 
 An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead. 
 *E'3 a daisy, 'e's a ducky, 'e's a lamb! 
 ' E's a injia-rubber idiot on the spree, 
 ■ E 3 the on*y thing that doesn't care a damn 
 For the Regiment o' British Infantree. 
 
 So 'ere's to you. Fuzzy- Wuzzy, at your 
 
 'ome in the Sowdan; 
 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 
 bruk a British square. 
 
BarraoK-I^oom Ballads 409 
 
 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 or lyin* down to fire ; 
 But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road 
 For the commissariat camel an' 'is commissariat load. 
 
 O the oont, * O the oont, O the commissariat oontf 
 With 'is silly neck a-hobbin' like a basket full o' 
 
 snakes; 
 We packs 'im hke a 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' bein' rushed by Paythans fruna th© 'iUs, 
 It's the commissariat camel puttin' on 'is blessed frills! 
 O the oont, O the oont, O the hairy scary oontf 
 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 baggage-mule's a mule; 
 But the commissariat cam-u-el, when all is said an' dons, 
 'E's a devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan-child in one. 
 
 ♦Camel ; oo is pronounced like u in "bull," but by Mr. Atkins to 
 rhyme with "front." 
 Vol. 3. tB 
 
410 U/or^s of I^udyard l^iplii}^ 
 
 O the oont, O the oont, O thf^ Gawd-forsaken oont! 
 The 'lunpy-lumpy 'ummin'-bird a-singin' where 'e 
 
 hes, 
 'E's blocked the 'ole division from the rear-guard to 
 
 the front, 
 An' when we gets 'im up again — the beggar goes 
 
 an' dies! 
 
 'E'll gall an' chafe an' lame an' fight; 'e smells most awful 
 
 vile ; 
 'E'll lose 'imself forever 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 oonty O the oont, O the fioppin', droppin' oo7itf 
 When 'is long legs give from under an' 'is meltin' 
 
 eye is dim, 
 The tribes is up be'ind us an' the tribes is out in front. 
 It ain't no jam for Tommy, but it's kites and 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, 
 O then we strips 'is saddle off, and all 'is woes is past: 
 'E thinks on us that used 'im so, an' gets revenge at last. 
 
 O the oont, O the oont, O tha floatin', bloatin' oont! 
 
 The late lamented camel in the water-cut he lies; 
 
 We keeps a mile behind 'im an' we keeps a mile in 
 front, 
 
 But 'e gets into the drinkin' casks, and then o' course 
 we dies. 
 
 LOOT 
 
 If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back. 
 If you've ever snigged the washin' frum the line. 
 
 If you've ever crammed a gander in your bloomin' 'aversack, 
 You will understand this Httle song o' mine. 
 
BarraeK-H^o^ Ballads 411 
 
 But the service rules are 'ard, an' frum sucli we are de* 
 barred, 
 For the same with British morals does not suit {Comet: 
 Toot I toot!)— 
 W^j^ they call a man a robber if 'e stuffs 'is marchin' clobber 
 
 With the— 
 (Chorus,) Loot loo! Lulu I lulu I 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 I 
 Loot! loot! loot! 
 
 If you've knocked a nigger edgeways when 'e's thrustin' fo? 
 your life, 
 You must leave 'im very careful wh^re 'e fell; 
 An' may thank your stars an' gaiters if you didn't feel ^is 
 knife 
 That you ain't told off to bury him as weU. 
 Then the sweatin' Tommies wonder as they spade the beg- 
 gars 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' over time. 
 {Chorus.) With the loot, etc. 
 
 l^ow 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 ovms. 
 When 'e won't prodooce no more, pour some water on the floor 
 Where you 'ear it answer 'ollow to the boot {Comet: 
 Toot! toot!)— 
 
412 U/orl^s of I^udyard I^iplir>^ 
 
 "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, etc. 
 
 When from 'ouse to 'ouse you're 'untin' you must always 
 work in pairs— 
 It 'alves the gain, but safer you will find — 
 For a single man gits 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 'ouse-tops take a look, 
 For it's underneath the tiles they 'ide the loot. 
 {Chorus.) 'Ow the loot, etc. 
 
 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-by, for I'm gettin' rather dry, 
 
 An' I see another tunin' up to toot {Cornet: Toot! toot!)— 
 So 'ore's good luck to those that wears the Widow's clo'es. 
 An' the Devil send 'em all they want o' loot I 
 {Chorus.) Yes, the loot, 
 Bloomin' loot. 
 In the tunic an' the mess-tin an' the boot I 
 It's the same with dogs an' men, 
 If you'd make 'em come again 
 Whoop 'eni forward with the Loo! loo! Lulu I' 
 
 Loot ! loot ! loot ! 
 Heeya! Sick 'im, puppy 1 Loo I loo! Lulu! 
 Loot! loot! loot! 
 
BarraeK"Room Ballads 413 
 
 SOLDIER, SOLDIER 
 
 **SoLDiER, soldier come from the wars, 
 
 Why don't you march with m.y 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* yovJd 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 see '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 see '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 hkf 
 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 lie down an' die with my true love I'* 
 
414 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplir>9 
 
 *'Tlie pit we dug'U 'ide 'im an' twenty men 
 beside 'ini — 
 
 An' you'd best go look for a new iove." 
 "Soldier, soldier come from the wars, 
 
 Do you bring no sign from my true love?" 
 **I bring a lock of 'air that 'e alius 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 Hm for a neiv love. 
 The dead they cannot rise, an^ you^d better 
 
 dry your eyes, 
 An'' you^d best take Hm for your true love. 
 
 THE SONS OF THE WIDOW 
 
 '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!) 
 
BarraG^-I^oom Ballads 415 
 
 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 I) 
 Hands off o' the sons of 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 'ore'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 forms with the guns. 
 (Poor beggars! — it's always them 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 'ore'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 'omel) 
 
416 U/or^s of F^adyard t^iplip^ 
 
 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-coahn' up that takes us 'ome to-day. 
 
 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- Anne, 
 
 For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny bit 
 
 As a time-expired man. 
 
 The ^* Malabar's" in 'arbor with the " Jumner" at 'er tail. 
 An' the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders for to sail. 
 O the weary waitin' when on Khyber 'ills we lay. 
 But the time-expired's waitin' of 'is orders 'ome to-day. 
 
 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 to-day! 
 
 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 to-day. 
 
 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 1 we're goin' 'ome to-day. 
 
BarraeK-^oom Ballads 417 
 
 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- Anne, 
 
 For I'll marry you yit on a fourp'ny Wt 
 
 As a time-expired man. 
 
 GUNGA DIN 
 
 The bhisti, or water-carrier, attached to regiments in India, is often 
 one of the most devoted of the Queen's servants. He is also appreciated 
 by the men. 
 
 [this ballad is extensively plagiarized] 
 
 You may talk o' gin an' beer 
 
 When you're quartered safe out 'ere, 
 
 An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; 
 
 But if it conies to slaughter 
 
 You will do your work on water. 
 
 An' you'll hck the bloomin' boots of 'im that's 
 
 got it. 
 l^ow in Injia's sxmny clime, 
 Where I used to spend my time 
 A-serviu' of 'er Majesty the Queen, 
 Of all them black faced crew 
 The finest man I knew 
 Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Bin. 
 
 He was "Din! Din! Din! 
 
 You hmping lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din ! 
 
 Hi! slippy hither ao! 
 
 Water, get it! Panee lao! * 
 
 You squidgy- nosed old idol, Gunga Din!*' 
 
 * Bring water swiftly. 
 
^8 U/ort^s of I^adyard K'P"^^ 
 
 The unifonn 'e wore - 
 
 Was nothin' much before, 
 
 An' rather less than 'arfo' that be'ind. 
 
 For a twisty piece o' rag 
 
 An' a goatskin water-bag 
 
 "Was all the field-equipment 'e could find. 
 
 When the sweatin' troop train lay 
 
 In a sidin' through i^e day. 
 
 Where the 'eat would make your bloomin' €j3^ 
 brows crawl, 
 
 We shouted ** Harry By !" * 
 
 TiU our throats were bricky-dry, 
 
 Then we wopped 'im 'cause 'e couldn't serve us alL 
 Itwas*'Din! Din! Din! 
 You 'eathen, where the mischief 'are you beenf 
 You put some juldee in it, 
 Or I'll marrow you this minute f 
 If you don't fiU 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 fiank rear. 
 With 'is mussick 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! 
 Itwas**Dinl Dm! Din!" 
 With the bullets kickin' dust-spots on thegreei&c 
 When the cartridges ran out, 
 You could 'ear the front-files shout : 
 **HiI ammunition-mules an' Gunga Din!" 
 
 ♦ Mr. Atkins's equivalent for **0 Brotherl" f Hit you. 
 
BarraeK-r^oom Ballads 419 
 
 I shan't forgit the night 
 
 When I dropped be'ind the fight 
 
 "With a bullet where my belt-plate should *a* beezL 
 
 I was choMn' mad with thirst, 
 
 An' the man that spied me first 
 
 Was our good old grinnin', gruntin' Gunga Din. 
 
 *E lifted up my 'ead, 
 
 An' 'e 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 gratefulest to one from Gunga Din. 
 
 Itwas'^Dinl Din! Din! 
 
 'Ere's a beggar with a bullet through 'is 
 spleen; 
 
 'E's chawin' up the ground an' 'e's Mckin* 
 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 cleam 
 
 'E put me safe inside. 
 
 An' just before 'e died : 
 
 *'I 'ope you liked your drink," sez Gunga Dino 
 
 So I'll meet 'im later on 
 
 In 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 pore damned souls, 
 
 An' I'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din I 
 Din I Din! Din! 
 
 You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din I 
 Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you, 
 By the livin' Gawd that made you, 
 You^re a better man than I am, Gunga Din I 
 
490 Worl(8 of Tiadyard Kipl'0$ 
 
 MANDALAY 
 
 Bt the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward lo ihe sea, 
 There's a Burma girl a-settin', an' I know she thinks o' me; 
 For the wind is in the pahn-trees, an' the temple-bells they 
 
 says 
 **Oome you back, you British soldier; come you back to 
 Mandalayl" 
 
 Come you back to Mandalay, 
 Where the old Flotilla lay: 
 Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' trom Ban- 
 goon to Mandalay? 
 O the road to Mandalay, 
 "Where the flyin'-fishes play, 
 An' the dawn comes up like thimder outer 
 China 'crost the Bay! 
 
 *Er petticut 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 fust 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 sim was droppin' 
 
 slow, 
 She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing ^^Kullalo loH 
 With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' her 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 waa 'arf 
 afraid to speak! 
 
 On the road to Mandalay — 
 
BarraeK-I^oom Ballads 421 
 
 But that's all shove be'ind me — long ago an' fur away, 
 An' there ain't no 'buses runnin' from the Benk to Mandalay ; 
 An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year sodger tells : 
 *^*If you've 'eard the East a=callin'j why, you won't 'eed notli- 
 in' else." 
 
 iN'o ! you won't 'eed nothin' else 
 
 But them spicy garlic smells 
 
 An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an* tfe 
 tinkly temple-bells I 
 
 On the road to Mandalay — 
 
 I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gutty 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 imdefstandf* 
 
 Beefy face an' grubby 'and — 
 
 Law I wot do they understand? 
 
 I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cl^mer, 
 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, lookin' lazy at the sea— 
 On the road to Mandalay, 
 "Where the old Flotilla lay. 
 With our sick beneath the awnings wliesi we 
 
 went to Mandalay! 
 O the road to Mandalay, 
 Where the flyin'-fishes play. 
 An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 
 'crost the Bay ! 
 
4^22 U/orKs of l^udyard l^iplii}($ 
 
 THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER 
 
 When the 'arf-made recruitj 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 hof the Queen ! 
 
 Kow all you recruities v^hat's drafted to-day, 
 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 vs^hat'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 j 
 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 vrill past a doubt— 
 Keep out of the v^et and don't go on the shout, . 
 For the sickness comes 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 overhead; 
 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 
 
 As it's beer for the young British soldier. 
 Beer, beer, beer for the soldier — 
 
Barracl^-I^oom Ballads 423 
 
 Kow, if yon 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 vittles is cold, 
 An' 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 quit 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 or take 'eed at the man that is struck, 
 B© thankful you're livin' an' trust to your luck. 
 An' march to your front Hke a soldier. 
 Front, front, front like a soldiere 
 
 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 hke ladies so fin® 
 The guns o' the enemy wheel into line ; 
 Shoot low at the limbers and don't mind the ^^ir^ 
 
 For noise never startles the soldier. 
 Start-, start-, startles the soldier^^ 
 
 If your officer's dead and the sergeants look whites 
 Remember it's ruin to run from a fight; 
 So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, 
 An' wait for supports like a soldier. 
 Wait, wait, wait Hke a soldier— 
 
124 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{ipViT)(^ 
 
 "When you're wounded an' left on Afghanistan's 
 
 plains, 
 An' the women come out to cut up your remains, 
 Jest roll to your rifle an' blow out your brains, 
 An' go to your Gawd Hke a soldier: 
 Go, go, go like a soldier, 
 Go, go, go like a soldier, 
 Go, go, go like a soldier, 
 So-oldier hof the Queen. 
 
 SCREW-GUNS 
 
 Smokin^ my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin'-coolj 
 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 o' 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 send 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' Lushai, we've give the Afree 
 
 deeman fits. 
 For W0 fancies ourselves at two thousand, we guns that are 
 
 built in two bits — Tss ! Tss ! 
 
 For you all love the screw-guns — 
 
BarraeK-I^oom Ballads 425 
 
 If a man doesn't work, why, we drills 'im an' teaches 'im 
 
 'ow to be'ave; 
 If a beggar can't marcti, 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 — TssI 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 us 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 momin'- 
 
 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 I 
 
 With shrapnel ! Hold fast !— Tss ! Tss ! 
 
426 U/orl^s of l^udyard I^iplii)^} 
 
 For you all love the screw-guns — the screw-gu-ns 
 
 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 and surrender — it's worse 
 
 if you fights or you runs : 
 You may hide in the caves, they'll be only youi 
 
 graves, but you don't get away from the 
 
 guns ! 
 
 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 on to the Park! 
 
 There was a row in Silver Street — the regiments was out, 
 They called us "Delhi Rebels," an' we answered "Threes 
 
 about!" 
 Ihat 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 ivhirraru; 
 I misremember what occurred, but subsequint the storm 
 A "Freeman's Journal Supplemint" was all my uniform. 
 O it was : Belts — 
 
Barrae^-I^oom Ballads 427 
 
 There was a row in Silver Street — they sent the Polis there, 
 The EngHsh 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 took off the 
 
 shine, 
 Wid each man whishperin' 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 see 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 punishmints to get; 
 'Tis all a mericle to me as in the Clink I lie; 
 " There was a row in Silver Street — ^begod, I wonder why I 
 
 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 I 
 
>THER VERSES 
 
 TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS 
 
 Will yon conquer my heart with your beauty ; my soul go- 
 ing out from afar? 
 
 Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious^ 
 shikarf . 
 
 Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, un' 
 
 thinking and blind? 
 Shall I meet you next session at Simla, O sweetest and best 
 
 of your kind? 
 
 Does the P. and O. bear you to me-ward, or, clad in short 
 
 frocks in the West, 
 Are you growing the charms that shall capture and torturei 
 
 the heart in my breast? 
 
 Will you stay in the Plains till September— my passion asf 
 
 warm as the day? 
 Will you bring me to book on the Mountains, or where thes 
 
 thermantidotes play? 
 
 When the light of your eyes shall make pallid the mean lessen 
 
 lights I pursue, 
 And the charm of your presence shall lure me from love of 
 
 the gay *Hhirteen-two"; 
 
 When the peg and the pigskin shall please not; when I buy 
 
 me Calcutta-built clothes; 
 When I quit the Delight of Wild Asses; forswearing the 
 
 swearing of oaths; 
 
 As a deer to the hand of the hunter when I turn 'mid th^ 
 
 gibes of my friends ; 
 When the days of my freedom are numbered, and the life ol 
 
 the bachelor ends. 
 (428) 
 
OtI?er Verses 429 
 
 Ah Goddess! child, spinster, or widow — as of old on Mars 
 
 Hill when they raised 
 To the God that they knew not an altar— so I, a young 
 
 Pagan, have praised 
 
 The Goddess I know not nor worship ; yet, if half that men 
 
 tell me be true, 
 You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are 
 
 written to you. 
 
 THE RUPAIYAT OF OMAR KAUVIN 
 
 [Allowing for the difference 'twixt prose and rhymed exaggeration, 
 
 this ought to reproduce the sense of what Sir A told the nation 
 
 some time ago, when the Government struck from our incomes two 
 per cent.] 
 
 Now the N"ew Year, reviving last Year's Debt, 
 The Thoughtful -Fisher casteth wide his Net ; 
 So I with begging Dish and ready Tongue 
 Assail all Hen for all that I can get.' 
 
 Imports indeed are gone with all their Dues— 
 Lo ! Salt a Lever that I dare not use, 
 
 Nor may I ask the Tillers in Bengal — 
 Surely my Kith and Kin will not refuse! 
 
 Pay — and I promise by the Dust of Spring, 
 Betrenchment. If my promises can bring 
 
 Comfort, Ye have Them now a thousand-fold—^ 
 By Allah ! I will promise Anything! 
 
 Indeed, indeed. Retrenchment oft before 
 I swore — but did I mean it when I swore? 
 
 And then, and then, "We wandered to the HiUs^ 
 And so the Little Less became Much More, 
 
 Whether at Boileaugunge or Babylon, 
 
 I know not how the wretched Thing is done^ 
 
 The Items of Receipt grow surely small; 
 The Items of Expense mount one by one. 
 
430 U/orKs of F^adyard l^iplip^ 
 
 I cannot lielp it. "What have I to do 
 
 With One and Five, or Four, or Three, or Two? 
 
 Let Scribes spit Blood and Sulphur as they please^ 
 Or Statemen call me foolish — Heed not you. 
 
 Behold, I promise — Anything You will. 
 Behold, I greet you with an empty Till — 
 
 Ah I Fellow-Sinners, of your Charity 
 Seek not the Eeason of the Dearth, but filL 
 
 For if I sinned and fell, where lies the Gain 
 
 Of Knowledge? Would it ease you of your Pain 
 
 To know the tangled Threads of Revenue, 
 I ravel deeper in a hopeless Skein? 
 
 *^Who hath not Prudence" — what was it I said, 
 Of Her who paints Her Eyes and tires Her Head, 
 
 And gibes and mocks the People in the Street, 
 And fawns upon them for Her thriftless Bread? 
 
 Accursed is She of Eve's daughters— She 
 Hath cast off Prudence, and Her Elid shall be 
 
 Destruction . . . Brethren, of your Bounty grant 
 Some portion of your daily Bread to Me, 
 
 LA NUIT BLANCHE 
 
 A much-discerning Public hold 
 The Singer generally sings 
 Of personal and private things. 
 And prints and sells his past for gold. 
 
 Whatever I may here disclaim, 
 The very clever folk I sing to 
 Will most indubitably cling to 
 
 Their pet delusion, just the same, 
 
 I HAD seen, as dawn was breaking 
 And I staggered to my rest, 
 
 Tari Devi softly shaking 
 
 From the Cart Road to the crept. 
 
Ofcl?^'^ l/erses 431 
 
 I had seen the spurs of Jakko 
 
 Heave and quiver, swell and sink 
 
 "Was it Earthquake or tobacco, 
 Day of Doom or Mght of Drink? 
 
 In the full, fresh, fragrant morning 
 
 I observed a camel crawl. 
 Laws of gravitation scorning, 
 
 On the ceiling and the wall ; 
 Then I watched a fender walkings 
 
 And I heard gray leeches sing, 
 And a red-hot monkey talking 
 
 Did not seem the proper thing. 
 
 Then a Creature, skinned and crimson, 
 
 Kan about the floor and cried, 
 And they said I had the "jims" on, 
 
 And they dosed me with bromide, 
 And they locked me in my bedroom — 
 
 Me and one wee Blood Red Mouse- 
 Though I said : "To give my head room 
 
 You had best unroof the house." 
 
 But my words were all unheeded, 
 
 Though I told the grave M.D. 
 That the treatment really needed 
 
 Was a dip in open sea 
 That was lapping just below me. 
 
 Smooth as silver, white as snow. 
 And it took three men to throw me 
 
 When I found I could not go. 
 
 Half the night I watched the Heaveng 
 
 Fizz like '81 champagne — 
 Fly to sixes and to sevens. 
 
 Wheel and thunder back again ; 
 And when all was peace and ordef 
 
 Save one planet nailed askew, 
 Much I wept because my warder 
 
 Would not let me set it true. 
 
[B% U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 After frenzied hours of waiting, 
 
 When the Earth and Skies were dumb. 
 Pealed an awful voice dictating 
 
 An interminable sum, 
 Changing to a tangled story — 
 
 *'What she said you said I said—'* 
 Till the Moon arose in glory, 
 
 And I found her ... in my head; 
 
 Then a Face came, blind and weepings 
 
 And It couldn't wipe Its eyes, 
 And It muttered I was keeping 
 
 Back the moonlight from the ski^| 
 So I patted It for pity. 
 
 But it whistled shrill with wrath. 
 And a huge black Devil City 
 
 Poured its peoples on my path. 
 
 So I fled with steps uncertain 
 
 On a thousand-year long race, 
 But the bellying of the curtain 
 
 Kept me always in one place; 
 While the tumult rose and maddened 
 
 To the roar of Earth on fire, 
 Ere it ebbed and sank and saddened 
 
 To a whisper tense as wire. 
 
 In intolerable stillness 
 
 Rose one little, little star, 
 And it chuckled at my illness, 
 
 And it mocked me from afar; 
 And its brethren came and eyed me, 
 
 Called the Universe to aid, 
 Till I lay, with naught to hide me, 
 
 'Neath the Scorn of AU Things Mad^ 
 
 Dun and saffron, robed and splendid. 
 Broke the solemn, pitying Day, 
 
 And I knew my pains were ended, 
 And I turned and tried to pray; 
 
Otl?er Verses 433 
 
 But my speech was shattered wholly, 
 
 And I wept as children weep, 
 Till the dawn-wind, softly, slowly. 
 
 Brought to burning eyelids sleep. 
 
 MY RIVAL 
 
 I GO to concert, party, ball— 
 
 What profit is in these? 
 I sit alone against the wall 
 
 And strive to look at ease. 
 The incense that is mine by right 
 
 They burn before Her shrine; 
 And that's because I'm seventeen 
 
 And She is forty-nine. 
 
 I cannot check my girlish blush, 
 
 My color comes and goes; 
 I redden to my finger-tips, 
 
 And sometimes to my nose. 
 But She is white where white should h®^ 
 
 And red where red should shine. 
 The blush that flies at seventeen 
 
 Is fixed at forty-nine. 
 
 I wish I had Her constant cheeks 
 
 I wish that I could sing 
 All sorts of funny little songSr 
 
 Kot quite the proper thing. 
 I'm very gauche and very shy. 
 
 Her jokes aren't in my line; 
 And, worst of all, I'm seventeen 
 
 While She is forty-nine. 
 
 The young men come, the young men go^ 
 Each pink and white and neat. 
 
 She's older than their mothers, but 
 They grovel at Her feet. 
 Vol. 3. 19 
 
434 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 They walk beside Her "* rickshaw wheels— = 
 
 None ever walk by mine ; 
 And that's because I'm seventeen 
 
 And She is forty-nine^ 
 
 She rides with half a dozen men 
 
 (She calls them "boys' ' and "mashers"), 
 I trot along the Mall alone ; 
 
 My prettiest frocks and sashes 
 Don't help to fill my programme-card, 
 
 And vainly I repine 
 From ten to two a.m. Ah me! 
 
 Would I were forty-nine ! 
 
 She calls me ' ' darling, " " pet, ' ' and * ' dear, * - 
 
 And "sweet retiring maid." 
 I'm always at the back, I know, 
 
 She puts me in the shade. 
 She introduces me to men, 
 
 "Cast" lovers, I opine, 
 For sixty takes to seventeen, 
 
 Nineteen to forty-nine. 
 
 But even She must older grow 
 
 Ana end Her dancing days. 
 She can't go on forever so 
 
 At concerts, balls, and plays. 
 One ray of priceless hope I see 
 
 Before my footsteps shine; 
 Just think, that She'll be eighty-one 
 
 When I am forty- nine. 
 
 THE LOVERS' LITANY 
 
 Eyes of gray — a sodden quay. 
 Driving rain and falling tears, 
 As the steamer wears to sea 
 In a parting storm of cheers. 
 
OtI?er Verses 435 
 
 Sing, for Faith and Hope are high— > 
 None so true as you and I — 
 Sing the Lovers' Litany : 
 ^'Love like ours can never dieP^ 
 
 Eyes of black— a throbbing keel, 
 Milky foam to left and right; 
 Whispered converse near the wheel 
 In the brilliant tropic night. 
 
 Cross that rules the Southern Sky! 
 
 Stars that sweep and wheel and fiy^ 
 
 Hear the Lovers' Litany : 
 
 *^Love like ours can never dieP* 
 
 Eyes of brown- — a dusty plain 
 Split and parched with heat of June, 
 Flying hoof and tightened rein, 
 Hearts that beat the old, old tune. 
 
 Side by side the horses fly, 
 
 Frame we now the old reply 
 
 Of the Lovers' Litany : 
 
 ''Love like ours can never dieP^ 
 
 Eyes of blue— the Simla Hills 
 Silvered with the moonlight hoar; 
 Pleading of the waltz that thrills, 
 Dies and echoes round Benmore. 
 
 ''Mabel,'' ''Officers,'' '' Oood-by,''^ 
 
 Glamour, wine, and witchery- — 
 
 On my soul's sincerity, 
 
 "Love like ours can never dieP^ 
 
 Maidens, of your charity, 
 Pity my most luckless state. 
 Four times Cupid's debtor I — 
 Bankrupt in quadruplicate. 
 
 Yet, despite this evil case. 
 
 An a maiden showed me grace. 
 
436 U/orKs of F^udyard I^fplip^ 
 
 Four-and-forty times would I 
 Sing the Lovers' Litany : 
 ^^Love like ours can never dieP^ 
 
 A BALLAD OF BURIAL 
 
 {**8aint Praxed's ever was the Church for peace 
 
 If down here I chance to die, 
 
 Solemnly I beg you take 
 Ml that is left of '* I" 
 
 To the Hills for old sake's sake. 
 Pack me very thoroughly 
 
 In the ice that used to slake 
 Pegs I drank when I was dry — 
 
 This observe for old sake's sakSo 
 
 To the railway station hie, 
 
 There a single ticket take 
 For Umballa — goods-train— I 
 
 Shall not mind delay or shake. 
 I shall rest contentedly 
 
 Spite of clamor coolies make; 
 Thus in state and dignity 
 
 Send me up for old sake's sake. 
 
 Next the sleepy Babu wake, 
 
 Book a Kalka van *'for four.'* 
 Few, I think, will care to make 
 
 Journeys with me any more 
 As they used to do of yore. 
 
 I shall need a "special" break— 
 Thing I never took before — 
 
 Get me one for old sake's sake. 
 
 After that — arrangements make. 
 
 No hotel will take me in, 
 And a bullock's back would break 
 
 'Neath the teak and leaden skin. 
 
OtI?er Verses 437 
 
 Tonga ropes are frail and tliin. 
 
 Or, did I a back-seat take, 
 In a tonga I might spin — 
 
 Do your best for old sake's sake. 
 
 After that — your work is done. 
 
 Recollect a Padre must 
 Mourn the dear departed one — 
 
 Throw the ashes and the dust. 
 Don't go down at once. I trust 
 
 You will find excuse to '* snake 
 Three days' casual on the bust," 
 
 Get your fun for old sake's sake. 
 
 I could never stand the Plains. 
 
 Think of blazing June and May, 
 Think of those September rains 
 
 Yearly till the Judgment Day! 
 I should never rest in peace, 
 
 I should sweat and lie awake. 
 Rail me then, on my decease. 
 
 To the Hills for old sake's sake^ 
 
 DIVIDED DESTINIES 
 
 It was an artless Bandar^ and he danced upon a pine. 
 And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast 
 
 might dine, 
 And many, many other things, +dll, o'er my morning smoke, 
 I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamt that Bandar spoke. 
 
 He said : * ' O man of many ci^thes ! Sad crawler on the Hills ! 
 Observe, I know not Rankei 's shop, nor Ranken's monthly 
 
 bnis; 
 I take no heed to trousers or the coats that you call dress ; 
 Nor am I plagued with little cards for little drinks at Mess. 
 
4:38 U/or^s of F^udyard lt{iplir)<^ 
 
 "I steal the bunnia's grain at morn, at noon and eventide 
 (For he is fat and I am spare), I roam the mountain side, 
 I follow no man's carriage, and no, never in my life 
 Have I flirted at Peliti's with another Bandar'' s wife. 
 
 ''O man of futile fopperies — unnecessary wraps; 
 I own no ponies in the hills, I drive no tall- wheeled traps ; 
 I buy me not twelve-button gloves, 'short-sixes,' eke, or rings, 
 Nor do I waste at Hamilton's my wealth on 'pretty things.' 
 
 "I quarrel with my wife at home, we never fight abroad; 
 But Mrs. B. has grasped the fact I am her only lord. 
 I never heard of fever — dumps nor debts depress my soul; 
 And I pity and despise you!" Here he pouched my break- 
 fast-roll. 
 
 His hide was very mangy, and his face was very red. 
 And ever and anon he scratched with energy his head. 
 His manners were not always nice, but how my spirit cried 
 To be an artless Bandar loose upon the mountain side ! 
 
 So I answered : ' ' Gentle Bandar^ an inscrutable Decree 
 Makes thee a gleesome, fleasome Thou, and me a wretched Me. 
 Go ! Depart in peace, my brother, to thy home amid the pine ; 
 Yet forget not once a mortal wished to change his lot with 
 thine." 
 
 THE MASQUE OF PLENTY 
 
 Argument. — The Indian Government, being minded to discover the 
 economic condition of their lands, sent a Committee to inquire into it ; 
 and saw that it was good. 
 
 Scene. — The wooded heights of Simla. The Incarnation 
 of the Government of I idia i7i the raiment of the 
 Angel of Plenty sings to pianoforte accompani- 
 ment: — 
 
 "How sweet is the shepherd's sweet life! 
 From the dawn to the even he strays — 
 
Otl^er Uersss 439 
 
 He shall follow his sheep all the day, 
 
 And his tongue shall be filled with praise. 
 
 (Adagio dim.) Filled with praise!" 
 
 (Largendo con sp.) Now this is the position, 
 
 Go make an inquisition 
 Into their real condition 
 As swiftly as ye may. 
 {p.) Ay, paint our swarthy billions 
 The richest of vermilions 
 Ere two well-led cotillions 
 
 Have danced themselves away. 
 
 Turkish Patrol, as able and intelligent Investigators 
 wind down the Himalayas: 
 
 What is the state of the lN"ation? What is its occupation? 
 Hi ! get along, get along, get along — lend us the information ! 
 
 {Dim.) Census the hyle and the yabu — capture a first-class 
 
 Babu, 
 Set him to cut Gazetteers — Gazetteers . . . 
 
 iff') What is the state of the Nation, etc., etc. 
 
 Interlude, from Nowhere in Particular, to stringed and 
 
 Oriental instruments 
 Our cattle reel beneath the yoke they bear — 
 
 The earth is iron, and the skies are brass — 
 And faint with fervor of the flaming air 
 The languid hours pass. 
 
 The well is dry beneath the village tree — 
 The young wheat withers ere it reach a span, 
 
 And belts of blinding sand show cruelly 
 Where once the river ran. 
 
 Pray, brothers, pray, but to no earthly King — 
 Lift up your hands above the blighted grain. 
 
 Look westward — if they please, the Gods shall bring 
 Their mercy with the rain. 
 
440 U/orl^s of P^udyard \{ipnT)(^ 
 
 Look westward — bears tlie blue no brown cloud-bank? 
 
 Nay, it is written — wherefore should we fly? 
 On our own field and by our cattle's flank 
 
 Lie down, lie down to die! 
 
 Semi-Chorus 
 By the plumed heads of Kings 
 
 Waving high, 
 Where the tall corn springs 
 
 O'er the dead. 
 If they rust or rot we die, 
 If they ripen we are fed. 
 Very mighty is the power of our Kings! 
 Triumphal return to Simla of the Investigators, attired 
 after the manner of Dionysus, leading a pet tiger-cub 
 in wreaths of rhubarb leaves, symbolical of India 
 under medical treatment. They sing: 
 
 We have seen, we have written— behold it, the proof of our 
 
 manifold toil ! 
 In their hosts they assembled and told it — the tale of the sons 
 
 of the soil. 
 
 We have said of the Sickness, *' Where is it?"— and of Death. 
 
 "It is far from our ken;" 
 We have paid a particular visit to the affluent children of men. 
 We have trodden the mart and the well-curb — ^we have stooped 
 
 to the Held and the byre; 
 And the King may the forces of Hell curb, for the People 
 
 have all they desire! 
 
 Castanets and step-dance: 
 Oh, the dom and the mag and the thakur and the thag. 
 
 And the nat and the brinjaree, 
 And the bunnia and the ryot are as happy and as quiet 
 
 And as plump as they can be I 
 Yes, the jain and the jat in his stucco-fronted hut. 
 
 And the bounding bazugar, 
 By the favor of the King, are as fat as anything, 
 
 They are — they are— they are ! 
 
OtI?er l/erses 411 
 
 Recitative, Government of India, with white satin 
 wings and electroplated harp: 
 How beautiful upon the mountains- — in peace reclining, 
 Thus to be assured that our people are unanimously dining. 
 And though there are places not so blessed as others in natu- 
 ral advantages, which, after all, was only to be expected, 
 Proud and glad are we to congratulate you upon the work you 
 
 have thus ably effected. 
 (Ores.) How be-ewtiful upon the mountains! 
 
 Hired Band, brasses only, full chorus: 
 God bless the Squire 
 And all his rich relations 
 Who teach us poor people 
 We eat our proper rations — 
 
 We eat our proper rations, 
 
 In spite of inundations, 
 
 Malarial exhalations. 
 
 And casual starvations, 
 We have, we have, they say we have — 
 We have our proper rations! 
 
 ( Cornet) 
 
 Which nobody can deny! 
 
 If he does he tells a lie — 
 
 We are all as willing as Barkis — 
 We all of us loves the Markiss — 
 We all of us stuffs our ca-ar-kis— 
 
 With food until we die ! {Da capo.) 
 
 Chorus of the Crystallized Facts 
 Before the beginning of years 
 There came to the rule of the State 
 Men with a pair of shears, 
 Men with an Estimate — 
 Strachey with Muir for leaven, 
 Lytton with locks that fell, 
 Ripon fooling with Heaven, 
 And Temple riding like H-IU 
 
§43 U/orl^s of V{adyard t^iplip^ 
 
 And the bigots took in hand 
 Cess and the falling of rain, 
 And the measure of sifted sand 
 The dealer puts in the grain — 
 Imports by land and sea, 
 To uttermost decimal worth, 
 And registration — free — 
 In the houses of death and of birth : 
 And fashioned with pens and paper, 
 And fashioned in black and white, 
 "With Life for a flickering taper 
 And Death for a blazing light — 
 With the Armed and the Civil Power, 
 That his strength might endure for a span. 
 From Adam's Bridge to Peshawur, 
 The Much Administered man. 
 
 In the towns of the North and the East, 
 They gathered as unto rule, 
 They bade him starve the priest 
 And send his children to school. 
 Railways and roads they wrought, 
 / For the needs of the soil within; 
 A time to squabble in court, 
 A time to bear and to grin. 
 And gave him peace in his ways, 
 Jails — and Police to tight, 
 Justice at length of days, 
 And Right — -and Might in the Right. 
 His speech is of mortgaged bedding, 
 On his kine he borrows yet. 
 At his heart is his daughter's wedding, 
 In his eye foreknowledge of debt. 
 He eats and hath indigestion. 
 He toils and he may not stop; 
 His life is a long-drawn question 
 Between a crop and a crop. 
 
Otl?er l/erses 443 
 
 THE MARE'S NEST 
 
 Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse 
 Was good beyond all earthly need; 
 
 But, on the other hand, her spouse 
 Was very, very bad indeed. 
 
 He smoked cigars, called churches slow. 
 And raced — but this she did not know. 
 
 For Belial Machiavelli kept 
 
 The little fact a secret, and. 
 Though o'er his minor sins she wept, 
 
 Jane Austen did not understand 
 That Lilly — thirteen-two and bay— 
 Absorbed one half her husband's pay. 
 
 She was so good, she made him worse 
 (Some women are like this, I think) ; 
 
 He taught her parrot how to curse, 
 Her Assam monkey how to drink. 
 
 He vexed her righteous soul until 
 
 She went up, and he went down hill. 
 
 Then came the crisis, strange to say, 
 Which turned a good wife to a better. 
 
 A telegraphic peon, one day. 
 
 Brought her — now, had it been a letter 
 
 For Belial Machiavelli, I 
 
 Know Jane would just have let it lie. 
 
 But 'twas a telegram instead. 
 
 Marked *' urgent," and her duty plain 
 To open it. Jane Austen read : 
 
 **Your Lilly's got a cough again. 
 Can't understand why she is kept 
 At your expense." Jane Austen wept. 
 
444 U/orKs of F^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 It was a misdirected wire. 
 
 Her husband was at Shaitanpore. 
 She spread her anger,, hot as fire, 
 
 Through six thin foreign sheets or morOc 
 Sent off that letter, wrote another 
 To her soHcitor — and mother. 
 
 Then Belial Machiavelli saw 
 
 Her error and, I trust, his own, 
 Wired to the minion of the Law, 
 
 And traveled wifeward — not alone. 
 For Lilly— thirteen-two and bay- 
 Came in a horse-box all the way. 
 
 There was a scene — a weep or two — 
 With many kisses. Austen Jane 
 
 Rode Lilly all the season through. 
 And never opened wires again. 
 
 She races now with Belial. This 
 
 Is very sad, but so it is. 
 
 POSSIBILITIES 
 
 Ay, lay him 'neath the Simla pine— 
 A fortnight fully to be missed, 
 Behold, we lose our fourth at whist, 
 
 A chair is vacant where we dine. 
 
 His place forgets him ; other men 
 
 Have bought his ponies, guns, and trapSc 
 His fortune is the Great Perhaps 
 
 And that cool rest-house down the glen, 
 
 Whence he shall hear, as spirits may. 
 Our mundane revel on the height. 
 Shall watch each flashing 'rickshaw-light 
 
 Sweep on to dinner, dance, and play. 
 
Otl^er l/erses 445 
 
 Benmore shall woo him to the ball 
 
 With lighted rooms and braying band, 
 And he shall hear and understand 
 
 ^^ Dream Faces^^ better than us all. 
 
 For, think you, as the vapors flee 
 
 Across Sanjaolie after rain, 
 
 His soul may climb the hiU again 
 To each old field of victory. 
 
 Unseen, who women held so dear, 
 
 The strong man's yearning to his kind 
 Shall shake at most the window-blind^ 
 
 Or dull a while the card-room's cheer. 
 
 In his own place of power unknown, 
 
 His Light o' Love another's flame, 
 
 His dearest pony galloped lame, 
 And he an ahen and alone. 
 
 Yet may he meet with many a friend — 
 Shrewd shadows, lingering long unseen 
 Among us when *' God save the Queen^^ 
 
 Shows even '* extras" have an end. 
 
 And, when we leave the heated room. 
 And, when at four the lights expire, 
 The crew shall gather round the fire 
 
 And mock our laughter in the gloom. 
 
 Talk as we talked, and they ere death- 
 First wanly, dance in ghostly wise, 
 With ghosts of tunes for melodies, 
 
 And vanish at the morniB^'s-breaQi. 
 
446 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 CHRISTMAS IN INDIA 
 
 Dim dawn behind the tamarisks — the sky is saffron-yellow — 
 
 As the women in the village grind the com, 
 And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to bis fellow 
 That the Day, the staring Eastern Day is bom. 
 
 Oh, the white dust on the highway! Oh, the stenches 
 in the byway ! 
 Oh, the clammy fog that hovers over earth! 
 And at Home they're making merry 'neath the white 
 and scarlet berry — 
 What pai-t have India's exiles in their mirth? 
 
 Full day behind the tamarisks — the sky is blue and staring — 
 
 As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke, 
 And they bear One o'er the field-path, who is past all hope 
 or caring, 
 To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke. 
 
 Call on Kama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother 
 
 lowly — 
 
 Call on Rama — he may hear, perhaps, your voice ! 
 
 With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to 
 
 other altars. 
 
 And to-day we bid *'good Christian men rejoice!" 
 
 High noon behind the tamarisks — the sun is hot above us — 
 
 As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan, 
 They wiQ drink our healths at dinner — those who tell us how 
 they love us, 
 And forget us till another year be gone ! 
 
 Oh, the toil that knows no breaking ! Oh, the Heim" 
 weh, ceaseless, aching! 
 Oh, the black dividing Sea and alien Plain! 
 Youth was cheap — wherefore we sold it. 
 Gold was good — we hoped to hold it. 
 And to-day we know the fullness of our gain. 
 
Otl^er X/ersGS ' 447 
 
 Gray dusk behind the tamarisks — the parrots fly together — 
 
 As the sun is sinking slowly over Home ; 
 And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether 
 That drags us back howe'er so far we roam. 
 
 Hard her service, poor her payment — she in ancient, 
 tattered raiment — 
 India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind. 
 If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we 
 enter, 
 The door is shut — we may not look behind. 
 
 Black night behind the tamarisks — the owls begin their 
 chorus- — 
 As the conches from the temple scream and bray. 
 With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years 
 before us, 
 Let us honor, O my brothers, Christmas Day ! 
 
 Call a truce, then, to our labors- — let us feast with 
 friends and neighbors, 
 And be merry as the custom of our caste; 
 For if ''faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness 
 follow after, 
 We are richer by one mocking Christmas past. 
 
 PAGETT, M.P. 
 
 The toad beneath the harrow knows 
 Exactly where each tooth-point goes. 
 The butterfly upon the road 
 Preaches co/^tentnxont to that toad. 
 
 PaGett, M.P., was a liar, and a fluent liar therewith- 
 
 He spoke of the heat of India as the ''Asian Solar 
 
 Came on a four months' visit, to "stud}^ the East,'* in ITo- 
 
 vember. 
 And I got him to sign an agreement vowing to stay tiU Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 
448 U/orl^s of F^udyard \{ipUT)(^ 
 
 March came in with the koil. Pagett was cool and gay, 
 Called me a "bloated Brahmin, ' * talked of my "princely pay. " 
 March went out with the roses. "Where is your heat?" 
 
 said he. 
 "Coming," said I to Pagett. "Skittles!" said Pagett, M.P. 
 
 April began with the punkah, coolies, and prickly-heat — 
 Pagett was dear to mosquitoes, sandflies found him a treat. 
 He grew speckled and lumpy — hammered, I grieve to say, 
 Aryan brothers who fanned him, in an illiberal way. 
 
 May set in with a dust-storm — Pagett went down with the sun. 
 All the delights of the season tickled him one by one. 
 Imprimis — ten days' "liver" — due to his drinking beer; 
 Later, a dose of fever — slight, but he called it severe. 
 
 Dysent'ry touched him in June, after the Chota Bursat — 
 Lowered his portly person — made him yearn to depart. 
 He didn't call me a "Brahmin," or "bloated," or "overpaid," 
 But seemed to think it a wonder that any one stayed. 
 
 July was a trifle unhealthy— -Pagett was ill with fear, 
 'Called it the "Cholera Morbus," hinted that life was dear. 
 He babbled of "Eastern exile," and mentioned his home with 
 
 tears ; 
 But I hadn't seen my children for close upon seven years. 
 
 We reached a hundred and twenty once in the Court at noon 
 (I've mentioned Pagett was portly), Pagett went ofi:* in a 
 
 swoon. 
 That was an end to the business; Pagett, the perjured, fled 
 With a practical, working knowledge of "Solar Myths" in 
 
 his head. 
 
 And I laughed as I drove from the station, but the mirth 
 
 died out on my lips 
 As I thought of the fools like Pagett who write of their 
 
 "Eastern trips," 
 And the sneers of the traveled idiots who duly misgovern the 
 
 land. 
 And I prayed to the Lord to deliver another one into my hand. 
 
Otl?ir Uerses 449 
 
 THE SONG OF THE WOMEN 
 
 {Lady Dufferiii's Fund for medical aid to the Women of India) 
 
 HoAV shall she know the worship we would do her? 
 
 The walls are high, and she is very far. 
 How shall the women's message reach unto her 
 Above the tumult of the packed jazaar? 
 Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing, 
 Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing. 
 
 Go forth across the fields we may not roam in, 
 Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city, 
 To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in, 
 Who dowered us with wealth of love and pity. 
 Out of our shadow pass, and seek her singing — • 
 "I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing." 
 
 Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her. 
 
 But old in grief, and very wise in tears ; 
 Say that we, being desolate, entreat her 
 That she forget us not in after years ; 
 For we have seen the light, and it were grievous 
 To dim that dawning if our lady leave us. 
 
 By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing, 
 
 By Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring. 
 When Love in ignorance wept unavailing 
 
 O'er young buds dead before their blossoming; 
 By all the gray owl watched, the pale moon viewed, 
 In past grim years, declare our gratitude! 
 
 By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not. 
 By gifts that found no favor in their sight. 
 By faces bent above the babe that stirred not, 
 By nameless horrors of the stifling night; 
 By ills f oredone, by peace her toils discover, 
 Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her ! 
 
450 U/orl![^s of r^adyard l^iplii}<§ 
 
 If she have sent her servants in our pain, 
 
 If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword ; 
 If she have given back our sick again 
 
 And to the breast the weakling lips restored, 
 Is it a Httle thing that she has wrought? 
 Then Life and Death and Motherhood be naught. 
 
 Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings, 
 
 And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed, 
 In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings, 
 Who have been helpen by her in their need. 
 
 All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat 
 Shall be a tasseled floorcloth to thy feet. 
 
 Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest! 
 
 Loud-voiced embassador, from sea to sea 
 Proclaim the blessing, manifold, confest. 
 Of those in darkness by her hand set free, 
 Then very softly to her presence move. 
 And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love I" 
 
 A BALLADE OF JAKKO HILL 
 
 One moment bid the horses v^ait, 
 
 Since tiffin is not laid till three. 
 Below the upward path and straight 
 
 You climbed a year ago with me. 
 Love came upon us suddenly 
 
 And loosed — an idle hour to kill — 
 A headless, armless armory 
 
 That smote us both on Jakko Hill. 
 
 Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait 
 Through Time and to Eternity ! 
 
 Ah Heaven! we could conquer Fate 
 With more than Godlike constancy! 
 
Oti?G? Uerses 451 
 
 I cut the date upon a tree — 
 
 Here stand the clumsy figures still : 
 
 "10-7-85, A.D." 
 Damp with the mist on Jakko Hill. 
 
 What came of high resolve and great, 
 
 And until Death fidehtj? 
 Whose horse is waiting at your gate? 
 
 Whose 'rickshaw- wheels ride over me? 
 No Saint's, I swear; and — let me see 
 
 To-night what names your programme fill — 
 We drift asunder merrily, 
 
 As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill ! 
 
 L' ENVOI 
 
 Princess, behold our ancient state 
 
 Has clean departed ; and we see 
 'Twas Idleness we took for Fate 
 
 That bound light bonds on you and me. 
 Amen ! Here ends the comedy 
 
 Where it began in all good will ; 
 Since Love and Leave together flee 
 
 As driven mist on Jakko Hill! 
 
 THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS 
 
 Too late, alas! the song 
 
 To remedy the wrong ; — 
 The rooms are taken from us, swept and garnished for their fate. 
 
 But these tear-besprinkled pages 
 
 Shall attest to future ages 
 That we cried against the crime of it — too late, alas I too late! 
 
 **What have we ever done to bear this grudge?'' 
 Was there no room save only in Benmore 
 
 For docket, duftar, and for office drudge, 
 That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor? 
 
452 U/or^s of F^udyard I^iplir>^ 
 
 Must babus do their work on polished teak? 
 
 Are ball-roonis fittest for the ink you spill? 
 Was there no other cheaper house to seek? 
 
 You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill. 
 
 We never harmed you! Innocent our guise, 
 
 Dainty our shining feet, our voices low ; 
 And we revolved to divers melodies, 
 
 And we were happy but a year ago. 
 To-night, the moon that watched our lightsome 
 wiles— 
 
 That beamed upon us through the deodars — 
 Is wan with gazing on official files. 
 
 And desecrating desks disgust the stars. 
 
 E"ay ! by the memory of tuneful nights— 
 
 Nay ! by the witchery of flying feet- 
 Nay ! by the glamour of f oredone delights— > 
 
 By all things merry, musical, and meet- 
 By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes— 
 
 By wailing waltz— by reckless gallop's strain- 
 By dim verandas and by soft replies. 
 
 Give us our ravished bail-room back again! 
 
 Or — hearken to the curse we lay on youi 
 
 The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain, 
 And murmurs of past merriment pursue 
 
 Your 'wildered clerks that they indite in vain; 
 And, when you count your poor Provincial mil- 
 lions. 
 
 The only figures that your pen shall frame 
 Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions 
 
 Danced out in tumult long before you came. 
 
 Yea! "/S'ea Saw^^ shall upset your estimates, 
 ' ' Dream Faces' ' shall your heavy heads bemuse. 
 
 Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates 
 Our temple ; fit for higher, worthier use. 
 
Otl^er Verses 453 
 
 And all the long verandas, eloquent 
 
 With echoes of a score of Simla years, 
 Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment — 
 
 Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears. 
 
 So shall you mazed amid old memories stand, 
 
 So shall you toil, and shall accomplish naught, 
 And ever in your ears a phantom Band 
 
 Shall blare away the staid official thought. 
 Wherefore — and ere this awful curse be spoken, 
 
 Cast out your swarthy sacrilegious train. 
 And give — ere dancing cease and hearts be broken— 
 
 Give us our ravished ball-room back again ! 
 
 BALLAD OF FISHER'S BOARDING- 
 HOUSE 
 
 That night, when through the mooring-chains 
 The wide-eyed, corpse rolled free, 
 
 To blunder down by Garden Reach 
 And rot at Kedgeree, 
 
 The Tale the Hughli told the shoal 
 The lean shoal told to me, 
 
 'TwAS Fultah Fisher's boarding-house 
 
 Where sailor-men reside, 
 And there were men of all the ports 
 
 From Mississip to Clyde, 
 And regally they spat and smoked, 
 
 And f earsomely they lied. 
 
 They lied about the purple Sea 
 That gave them scanty bread, 
 
 They Hed about the Earth beneath, 
 The Heavens overhead, 
 
 For they had looked too often on 
 Black rum when that was red. 
 
464 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplii>(J 
 
 They told their tales of wreck and wrong, 
 Of shame and lust and fraud, 
 
 They backed their toughest statements with 
 The Brimstone of the Lord, 
 
 And crackling oaths went to and fro 
 Across the fist-banged board. 
 
 And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane, 
 
 Bull-throated, bare of arm, 
 Who carried on his hairy chest 
 
 The maid Ultruda's charm— 
 The little silver crucifix 
 
 That keeps a man from harm. 
 
 And there was Jake Without-the-Eare, 
 
 And Pamba the Malay, 
 And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook, 
 
 And Luz from Vigo Bay, 
 And Honest Jack who sold them slops 
 
 And harvested their pay. 
 And there was Salem Hardieker, 
 
 A lean Bostonian he — 
 Russ, German, English, Halfbreed, Fins^ 
 
 Yank, Dane, and Portugee, 
 At Fultah Fisher's boarding-house 
 
 They rested from the sea. 
 
 Kow Anne of Austria shared their drin^ 
 
 Collinga knew her fame. 
 From Tarnau in Galicia 
 
 To Jaun Bazaar she came, 
 To eat the bread of infamy 
 
 And take the wage of shame. 
 
 She held a dozen men to heel- — 
 Rich spoil of war was hers. 
 
 In hose and gown and ring and chain, 
 From twenty mariners. 
 
 And, by Port Law, that week, men called 
 Her Salem Hardieker's. 
 
Otl^er Verses 455 
 
 But seamen learnt — what landsmen know — 
 
 That neither gifts nor gain 
 Can hold a winking Light o' Love 
 
 Or Fancy's flight restrain, 
 When Anne of Austria rolled her eyes ' 
 
 On Hans the blue-eyed Dane. 
 
 Since Life is strife, and strife means knife^ 
 
 From Howrah to the Bay, 
 And he may die before the dawn 
 
 Who liquored out the day, 
 In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house 
 
 We woo while yet we may. 
 
 But cold was Hans the blue-eyed Dane, 
 
 Bull-throated, bare of arm. 
 And laughter shook the chest beneath 
 
 The maid Ultruda's charm — 
 The little silver crucifix 
 
 That keeps a man from harm. 
 **You speak to Salem Hardieker, 
 
 You was his girl, I know. 
 I ship mineselfs to-morrow, see, 
 
 Und round the Skaw we go. 
 South, down the Cattegat, by Hjeli% 
 
 To Besser m Saro. ' ' 
 
 When love rejected turns to hate, 
 
 All ill betide the man. 
 **You speak to Salem Hardieker" — 
 
 She spoke as woman can. 
 A scream — a sob — ^^'He called me — names I'' 
 
 And then the fray began. 
 
 An oath from Salem Hardieker, 
 
 A shriek upon the stairs, 
 A dance of shadows on the Wall, ^ 
 
 A knife-thrust unawares — 
 And Hans came down, as cattle drop. 
 
 Across the broken chairs. 
 
46B U/orl^8 of F^udyard I^ipHp^ 
 
 In Anne of Austria's trembling hands 
 
 The weary head fell low : 
 **I ship mineselfs to-morrow, straight 
 
 For Besser in Saro : 
 Und there Ultruda comes to me 
 
 At Easter, nnd I go 
 
 •*Soiith, down the Cattegat — "What's hexe? 
 
 There^ — are — ^no — lights — to — guide I" 
 The mutter ceased, the spirit passed 
 
 And Anne of Austria cried 
 In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house 
 
 When Hans the mighty died. 
 
 Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane^ 
 
 Bull-throated, bare of arm, 
 But Anne of Austria looted first 
 
 The maid Ultruda's charm — 
 • The little silver crucifix 
 
 That keeps a man from harm. 
 
 "AS THE BELL CLINKS" 
 
 As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the yision of a comely 
 Maid last season worshiped dumbly, watched with fervor 
 
 from afar; 
 And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me 
 
 kindly. 
 That was all — ^the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar. 
 Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar. 
 
 For my misty meditation, at the second changing station, 
 Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar 
 Of a Wagner ohbligato, scherzo, double hand staccato^ 
 Played on either pony's saddle by the clacking tonga-bar — 
 Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting 
 bar. 
 
Otl^er Uerses 457 
 
 "She was sweet," thought I, "last season, but 'twere surely 
 wild unreason 
 
 Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star, 
 
 When she whispered, something sadly : *I--we feel your go- 
 ing badly!' ^ 
 
 *^And you let the chance escape youf^ rapped the rattling 
 tonga-bar. 
 
 '^ What a chance -and zvhat an idiot P^ clicked the vicious 
 tonga-bar. 
 
 Heart of man — oh, heart of putty I Had I gone by Kakahutti, 
 On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had 'scaped that fatal car, 
 But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the mile- 
 stones slide by, 
 To *' You call on Her to-morrow P^— fugue with cymbals by 
 
 the bar— 
 *^ You must call on Her fo-morroti?.^"— post-horn gallop by 
 the bar. 
 
 Yet a further stage my goal on—- we were whirling down to 
 Solon, 
 
 With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und 
 gar— 
 
 *^She was very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been im- 
 printed—?" 
 
 " ' Would ha' saved a world of troubleP^ clashed the busy 
 tonga-bar. 
 
 ^^^Been accepted or rejectedP^ banged and clanged th© 
 tonga-bar. 
 
 Then a notion wild and daring, 'spite the income tax's paring. 
 And a hasty thought of sharing — less than many incomes are. 
 Made me put a question private, you can guess what I would 
 
 drive at. 
 "Fow must work the sum to prove it,^^ clanked the careless 
 
 tonga-bar. 
 ** Simple Rule of Two will prove it^'^ Hlted back the tonga- 
 bar. 
 Vol.3. - 20 
 
458 U/orKs of F^udyard t^iplii)($ 
 
 It was under Khyraghaut I mused: "Suppose the maid be 
 haughty — 
 
 (There are lovers rich — and forty) — wait some wealthy Avatar? 
 
 Answer, monitor untiring, 'twixt the ponies twain perspir- 
 ing!" 
 
 ^^ Faint heart never won fair lady,^^ creaked the straining 
 tonga-bar. 
 
 ^^Can I tell you ere you ask Herf pounded slow the tonga- 
 bar. 
 
 Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burn- 
 ing, 
 Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far. 
 As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it 
 
 tingled — 
 Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar — 
 " Try your luck — you can^t do better P^ twanged the loosened 
 tonga-bar. 
 
 AN OLD SONG 
 
 60 long as 'neath the Kalka hills 
 
 The tonga-horn shall ring. 
 So long as down the Solon dip 
 
 The hard-held ponies swing, 
 So long as Tara Devi sees 
 
 The lights o' Simla town, 
 So long as Pleasure calls us up, 
 
 And duty drives us down, 
 If you love me as I love you, 
 What pair so happy as we two9 
 
 So long as Aces take the King, 
 
 Or backers take the bet. 
 So long as debt leads men to wed, 
 
 Or marriage leads to debt, 
 
Otl^er Verses 459 
 
 So long as little luncheons, Love, 
 
 And scandal hold their vogue, 
 While there is sport at Annandale 
 Or whisky at Jutogh, 
 If you love me as I love you. 
 What knife can cut our love in imof 
 
 So long as down the rocking floor 
 
 The raving polka spins, 
 So long as Kitchen Lancers spur 
 
 The maddened violins. 
 So long as through the whirling smoke 
 
 We hear the oft-told tale t 
 "Twelve hundred in the Lotteries," 
 
 And Whatshername for sale? 
 If you love me as I love you. 
 We HI play the game and win it too^ 
 
 Bo long as Lust or Lucre tempt 
 
 Straight riders from the course, 
 So long as with each drink we pour 
 
 Black brewage of Remorse, 
 So long as those unloaded guns 
 
 We keep beside the bed 
 Blow off, by obvious accident. 
 
 The lucky owner's head. 
 If you love me as I love you. 
 What can Life kill or Death nndof 
 
 So long as Death 'twixt dance and dance 
 
 Chills best and bravest blood, 
 And drops the reckless rider down 
 
 The rotten, rain-soaked khud, 
 So long as rumors from the !N"orth 
 
 Make loving wives afraid. 
 So long as Burma takes the boy 
 
 And typhoid kills the maid, 
 If you love me as I love you, 
 What knife can cut our love in twof 
 
460 U/ort^s of F^adyard \{ip\iY)(^ 
 
 By all tliat lights our daily life 
 
 Or works our lifelong woe, 
 From Boileaugunge to Simla Downs 
 
 And those grim glades below, 
 Where, heedless of the flying hoof 
 
 And clamor overhead, 
 Sleep, with the gray langur for guard, 
 
 Our very scornful Dead, 
 If you love me as I love you, 
 All Earth is servant to us two? 
 
 By Docket, Billetdoux, and File, 
 
 By Mountain, Cliff, and Fir, 
 By Fan and Sword and Office-box, 
 
 By Corset, Plume, and Spur, 
 By Riot, Revel, Waltz, and War, 
 
 By Women, Work, and Bills, 
 By all the life that fizzes in 
 
 The everlasting Hills, . 
 If you love me as I love you, 
 What pair so happy as we twoP 
 
 CERTAIN MAXIMS OF HAFIZ 
 
 I 
 
 If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai, 
 Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buyV 
 If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say? 
 *'Lol She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day I" 
 
 II 
 
 Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum 
 
 If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent per 
 
 annum. 
 
 Ill 
 Blister we not for hursati? So when the heart is vext, 
 The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of 
 
 the next. 
 
Otl?er Uerses 461 
 
 IV 
 
 The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's 
 
 tune— 
 Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June? 
 
 V 
 
 "Who are the rulers of Ind — to whom shall we bow the knee? 
 Make your peace with the women, and men will make you 
 L. G. 
 
 VI 
 
 Does the woodpecker flit round the young ferasTif Does 
 
 grass clothe a new-built wall? 
 Is she under thirty, the woman who holds a boy in her thrall? 
 
 VII 
 
 If She grow suddenly gracious — reflect. Is it aU for thee? 
 The black-buck is stalked through the bullock, and Man 
 through jealousy. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Seek not for favor of women. So shall you find it indeed. 
 Does not the boar break cover just when you're hghting a 
 weed? 
 
 IX 
 
 If He play, being young and unskillful, for shekels of silver 
 
 and gold. 
 Take His money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was 
 
 ordained to be sold. 
 
 X 
 
 "With a "weed" among men or horses verily this is the best, 
 That you work him in oflSce or dog-cart lightly — but give 
 him no rest. 
 
 XI 
 
 Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and 
 carriage ; 
 
 But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn- 
 bit of Marriage. 
 
462 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 XII 
 
 As the thriftless gold of the babul, so is the gold that we spend 
 On a Derby Sweep, or our neighbor's wife, or the horse that 
 we buy from a friend. 
 
 XIII 
 
 The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame 
 To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing 
 that same. 
 
 XIV 
 
 In public Her face turneth to thee, and pleasant Her smile 
 
 when ye meet. 
 It is ill. The cold rocks of El-Gidar smile thus on the waves 
 
 at their feet. 
 In public Her face is averted, with anger She nameth thy name. 
 It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of 
 
 the game? 
 
 XV 
 
 If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed. 
 
 And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret 
 revealed. 
 
 If She have written a letter, delay not an instant, but burn it. 
 
 Tear it in pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall re- 
 turn it ! 
 
 If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can 
 clear. 
 
 Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear. 
 
 XVI 
 
 My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee" give 
 
 o'er, 
 Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward — get out ! She has 
 
 been there before. 
 They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who 
 
 are lacking in lore. 
 
Obiter l/erses . 463 
 
 XVII 
 
 If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoof-slide is scarred 
 
 on the course. 
 Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever 
 
 Remorse. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 *'By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or 
 the Maid : 
 
 ' ' Alas ! I do not understand, ' ' my son, be thou nowise afraid. 
 
 In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler dis- 
 played. 
 
 XIX 
 
 My son, if I, Hafiz, thy father, take hold of thy knees in my 
 
 pain, 
 Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour — 
 
 refrain. 
 Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest another 
 
 man's chain? • 
 
 THE GRAVE OF THE HUNDRED HEAD 
 
 There^s a widow in sleepy Chester 
 
 Who weeps for her only son; 
 There^s a grave on the Pabeng Biver, 
 
 A grave that the Burmans shun, 
 And there^s Suhadar Prag Tewarri 
 
 Who tells how the work was done, 
 
 A Snider squibbed in the jungle, 
 
 Somebody laughed and fled, 
 And the men of the First Shikaris 
 
 Picked up their Subaltern dead. 
 With a big blue mark in his forehead 
 
 And the back blown out of his head. 
 
464 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 Subadar Prag Tewarri, 
 
 Jemadar Hira Lai, 
 Took command of the party, 
 
 Twenty rifles in all, 
 Marched them down to the river 
 
 As the day was beginning to fall. 
 
 They buried the boy by the river, 
 
 A blanket over his face — 
 They wept for their dead Lieutenant, 
 
 The men of an alien race — 
 They made a sarnddh in his honor, 
 
 A mark for his resting-place. 
 
 For they swore by the Holy "Water, 
 They swore by the salt they ate, 
 
 That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib 
 Should go to his God in state ; 
 
 With fifty file of Burman 
 To open him Heaven's gate. 
 
 The men of the First Shikaris 
 
 Marched till the break of day. 
 Till they came to the rebel village^ 
 
 The village of Pabengmay — 
 A jingal covered the clearing, 
 
 Calthrops hampered the way. 
 Subadar Prag Tewarri, 
 
 Bidding them load with ball, 
 Halted a dozen rifles 
 
 Under the village wall; 
 Sent out a flanking-party 
 
 With Jemadar Hira Lai. 
 
 The men of the First Shikaris 
 Shouted and smote and slew, 
 
 Turning the grinning jingal 
 On to the howling crew. 
 
 The Jemadar's flanking-party 
 Butchered the folk who flew. 
 
Otl7er l/erses 465 
 
 Long was the morn of slaughter, 
 
 Long was the list of slain, 
 Five score heads were taken, 
 
 Five score heads and twain; 
 And the men of the First Shikaris 
 
 Went back to their grave again, 
 
 Each man bearing a basket 
 
 Red as his palms that day, 
 Red as the blazing village — 
 
 The village of Pabengmay. 
 And the '"' drip-drip-drip^^ from the baskets 
 
 Reddened the grass by the way. 
 
 They made a pile of their trophies 
 
 High as a tall man's chin, 
 Head upon head distorted, 
 
 Set in a sightless grin, 
 Anger and pain and terror ' 
 
 Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin. 
 
 Subadar Prag Tewarri 
 
 Put the head of the Boh 
 On the top of the mound of triumph, 
 
 The head of his son below. 
 With the sword and the peacock-banner 
 
 That the world might behold and know. 
 
 Thus the samddh was perfect, 
 
 Thus was the lesson plain 
 Of the wrath of the First Shikaris — 
 
 The price of a white man slain ; 
 And the men of the First Shikaris 
 
 Went back into camp again. 
 
 Then a silence came to the river, 
 
 A hush fell over the shore. 
 And Bohs that were brave departed 
 
466 U/or^s of l^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 And Sniders squibbed no more; 
 
 For the Burmans said 
 
 That a kullah^s head 
 Must be paid for with heads five score. 
 
 There's a widow in sleepy Chester 
 Who weeps for her only son; 
 
 There's a grave on the Pabeng River ^ 
 A grave that the Burmans shun, 
 
 And there's Subadar Prag Teivarri 
 Who tells how the work was done. 
 
 THE MOON OF OTHER DAYS 
 
 Beneath the deep veranda's shade 
 
 "When bats begin to fly, 
 I sit me down and watch — alas! — 
 
 Another evening die. 
 Blood-red behind the sere ferash 
 
 She rises through the haze. 
 Sainted Diana! can that be 
 
 The Moon of Other Days? 
 
 Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith, 
 
 Sweet Saint of Kensington! 
 Say, was it ever thus at Home 
 
 The Moon of August shone, 
 When arm in arm we wandered long 
 
 Through Putney's evening haze. 
 And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath 
 
 The Moon of Other Days? 
 
 But Wandle's stream is Sutlej now, 
 
 And Putney's evening haze 
 The dust that half a hundred kine 
 
 Before my window raise. 
 
Ott?er Uerses 467 
 
 Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist 
 
 The seething city looms. 
 In place of Putney's golden gorse 
 
 The sickly babul blooms. 
 
 Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust, 
 
 And bid the pie-dog yell, 
 Draw from the drain its typhoid-germ. 
 
 From each bazaar its smell; 
 Yea, suck the fever from the tank 
 
 And sap my strength therewith : 
 Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face 
 
 To little Kitty Smith! 
 
 THE OVERLAND MAIL 
 
 {Foot-Service to the Hills) 
 
 In the Name of the Empress of India, make way, 
 O Lords of the Jungle, v/herever you roam. 
 
 The woods are astir at the close of the day — 
 We exiles are waiting for letters from Home. 
 
 Let the robber retreat— let the tiger turn tail — 
 
 In the ISTame of the Empress, the Overland Mail! 
 
 With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in. 
 
 He turns to the footpath that heads up the hill — 
 
 The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin. 
 And, tucked in his waist-belt, the Post Office biB : 
 
 "Dispatched on this date, as received by the rail, 
 
 Per runner, two bags of the Overland Mail." 
 
 Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it or swim. 
 Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by 
 the cliff. 
 Does the tempest cry "Halt"? What are tempests to 
 him? 
 The Service admits not a '*but" or an '*if." 
 
4:iiS U/orl^s of I^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without 
 
 fail, 
 In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail. 
 
 From aloe to rose-oak, from rose-oak to fir, 
 From level to upland, from upland to crest, 
 
 From rice-field to rock-ridge, from rock-ridge to spur, 
 Fly the soft sandaled feet, strains the brawny brown 
 chest. 
 
 From rail to ravine — -to the peak from the vale— 
 
 Up, up through the night goes the Overland Mail. 
 
 There's a speck on the hillside, a dot on the road — 
 A jingle of bells on the footpath below — 
 
 There's a scuffle above in the monkey's abode — 
 The world is awake, and the clouds are aglow. 
 
 For the great Sun himself must attend to the hail : 
 
 ^^In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!" 
 
 WHAT THE PEOPLE SAID 
 
 (June 21st, 1887) 
 
 By the well, where the bullocks go 
 
 Silent and blind and slow — 
 
 By the field where the young corn dies 
 
 In the face of the sultry skies. 
 
 They have heard, as the dull Earth hears 
 
 The voice of the wind of an.hour. 
 
 The sound of the Great Queen's voice: 
 
 "My God hath given me years, 
 
 Hath granted dominion and power: 
 
 And I bid you, O Land, rejoice." 
 
 And the plowman settles the share 
 More deep in the grudging clod ; 
 For he saith; **The wheat is my care, 
 And the rest is the will of God. 
 
Otl?er ITerses 469 
 
 ^*He sent the Mahratta spear 
 
 As He sendeth the rain, 
 
 And the Mlech, in the fated year. 
 
 Broke the spear in twain, 
 
 And was broken in turn. Who knows 
 
 How our Lords make strife? 
 
 It is good that the young wheat grows. 
 
 For the bread is Life." 
 
 Then, far and near, as the twilight dreWg 
 
 Hissed up to the scornful dark 
 Great serpents, blazing, of red and bluej 
 That rose and faded, and rose anew. 
 
 That the Land might wonder and mas^ 
 *' To-day is a day of days," they said, 
 *'Make merry, O People, all!" 
 And the Plowman listened and bowed his head ^ 
 "To-day and to-morrow God's will," he ssid, 
 As he trimmed the lamps on the wall. 
 
 "He sendeth us years that are good. 
 
 As He sendeth the dearth. 
 
 He giveth to each man his food, - 
 
 Or Her food to the Earth. 
 
 Our Kings and our Queens are afaa>— 
 
 On their peoples be peace — 
 
 God bringeth the rain to the Bar, 
 
 That our cattle increase." 
 
 And the Plowman settled the share 
 
 More deep in the sun-dried clod : 
 
 "Mogul, Mahratta, and Mlech from the Kofih, 
 
 And "White Queen over the Seas — 
 
 God raiseth them up and driveth them foiN^ 
 
 As the dust of the plowshare flies in the bTeeseei 
 
 But the wheat and the cattle are all my caiie, 
 
 And the rest is the will of God." 
 
470 U/orii^s of F^udyard I^iplii>^ 
 
 THE UNDERTAKER'S HORSE 
 
 "To-tschin-shu is condemned to death. How can he drink tea with 
 the Executioner?" — Japanese Proverb 
 
 The eldest son bestrides him, 
 
 And the pretty daughter rides him, 
 
 And I meet him oft o' mornings on the Course; 
 
 And there wakens in my bosom 
 
 An emotion chill and gruesome 
 
 As I canter past the Undertaker's Horse. 
 
 Neither shies he nor is restive. 
 But a hideously suggestive 
 Trot, professional and placid, he affects;" 
 And the cadence of his hoof -beats 
 To my mind, this grim reproof beats : 
 "Mend your pace, my friend, I'm coming. "Who's 
 the next?" 
 
 Ah ! stud-bred of ill-omen, 
 
 I have watched the strongest go — men 
 
 Of pith and might and muscle — at your heels, 
 
 Down the plantain-bordered highway, 
 
 (Heaven send it ne'er be my way!) 
 
 In a lackered box and jetty upon wheels. 
 
 Answer, somber beast and dreary, 
 Where is Brown, the young, the cheery, 
 Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the 
 
 Force? 
 You were at that last dread dak 
 We must cover at a walk, 
 Bring them back to me, O Undertaker's Horse ! 
 
 With your mane unhogged and flowing, 
 And your curious way of going, 
 
Otl?er Verses 471 
 
 And that business-like black crimping of jour tail. 
 
 E'en with Beauty on your back, sir, 
 
 Pacing as a lady's hack, sir, 
 
 What wonder when I meet you I turn pale? 
 
 It may be you wait your time, Beast, 
 
 Till I write my last bad rhyme. Beast, 
 
 Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop th« glass? 
 
 Follow after with the others. 
 
 Where some dusky heathen smothers 
 
 Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass. 
 
 Or, perchance, in years to follow, 
 
 I shall watch your plump sides hollow, 
 
 See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse. 
 
 See old age at last o'erpower you. 
 
 And the Station Pack devour you, 
 
 I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker's Horse. 
 
 But to insult, gibe, and quest, I've 
 Still the hideously suggestive 
 Trot that hammers out the grim and warning te^. 
 And I hear it hard behind me, 
 In what place soe'er I find me i 
 "Sure to catch you sooner or later* Who*e Hie 
 next?" 
 
 THE FALL OF JOCK GILLESPIE 
 
 This fell when dinner-time was done— 
 'Twixt the first an' the second rub — 
 
 That oor mon Jock cam' hame again 
 To his rooms ahint the Club. 
 
 An' syne he laughed, an' syne he sang, 
 
 An' syne we thocht him fou. 
 An' syne he trumped his partner's trick 
 
 An' garred his partner rue. 
 
472 U/orl^s of I^udyard I^lpliQ^ 
 
 Then up and spake an elder mon, 
 That held the Spade its Ace — 
 
 *'God save the lad ! Whence comes the licht 
 That wimples on his face?" 
 
 An' Jock he sniggered an' Jock he smiled, 
 An' ower the card-brim wunk : 
 
 *'I'm a' too fresh fra' the stirrup-peg, 
 May be that I am drunk." 
 
 "There's whusky brewed in Galashiels, 
 
 An' L. L. L. forbye; 
 But never liquor lit the low 
 
 That keeks fra' oot your eye. 
 
 ** There's a thrid o' hair on your dress-coat 
 breast, 
 
 Aboon the heart a wee?" 
 **0h! that is fra' the lang-haired Skye 
 
 That slobbers ower me. " 
 
 *'0h! lang-haired Skyes are lovin' beasts, 
 
 An' terrier dogs are fair, 
 But never yet was terrier born 
 
 Wi' ell-lang gowden hair! 
 
 *' There's a smirch o' pouther on your breast,. 
 
 Below the left lappel?" 
 *'0h! that is fra' my auld cigar, 
 
 Whenas the stump-end fell." 
 
 *'Mon Jock, ye smoke the Trichi coarse. 
 
 For ye are short o' cash, 
 An' best Havanas couldna leave 
 
 Sae white an' pure an ash. 
 
 "This nicht ye stopped a story braid, 
 
 An' stopped it wi' a curse — 
 Last nicht ye told that tale yoursel, 
 
 An' capped it wi' a worse ! 
 
Ott?er l/erses 473 
 
 ^^Oh! we're no fou! Oh! we're no fou! 
 
 But plainly we can ken 
 Ye're fallin', fallin'j fra' the band 
 
 O' cantie single men!" 
 
 An' it fell when sirris-ohaws, were sere. 
 An' the nichts were lang and mirk, 
 
 In braw new breeks, wi' a go w den ring, 
 Oor Jockie gaed to the Kirk. 
 
 ARITHMETIC ON THE FRONTIER 
 
 A GREAT and glorious thing it is 
 To learn, for seven years or so, 
 
 The Lord knows what of that and this, 
 Ere reckoned fit to face the foe — 
 
 The flying bullet down the Pass, 
 
 That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass." 
 
 Three hundred pounds per annum spent 
 On making brain and body meeter 
 
 For all the murderous intent 
 
 Comprised in "villainous saltpeter!" 
 
 And after — ask the Yusufzaies 
 
 What comes of all our 'ologies. 
 
 A scrimmage in a Border Station — 
 A canter down some dark defile — 
 
 Two thousand pounds of education 
 Drops to a ten-rupee jezail — 
 
 The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride. 
 
 Shot like a rabbit in a ride ! 
 
 No proposition Euclid wrote, 
 
 No formulae the text-books know. 
 
 Will turn the bullet from your coat, 
 Or ward the tulwar's downward blow. 
 
 Strike hard who cares — shoot straight who can- 
 
 The odds are on the cheaper man. 
 
474 U/orl^s of F^adyard l^iplii?^ 
 
 One sword-knot stolen from the camp 
 Will pay for all the school expenses 
 
 Of any Kurrum Valley scamp 
 
 Who knows no word or moods and tenses j 
 
 But, being blessed with perfect sight, 
 
 Picks off our messmates left and right. 
 
 With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem, 
 The troopships bring us one by one, 
 
 At vast expense of time and steam, 
 To slay Afridis where they run. 
 
 The "captives of our bow and spear" 
 
 Are cheap — alas! as we are dear. 
 
 ONE VICEROY RESIGNS 
 
 {Lord Dufferin to Lord Lansdowne) 
 
 So here's your Empire. IsTo more wine, then? Good. 
 We'll clear the Aids and khitmatgars away. 
 (You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife — 
 He keeps the !N'ame Book, talks in English too, 
 And almost thinks himself the Government. ) 
 
 Youth, Youth, Youth ! Forgive me, you're so young. 
 Forty from sixty — twenty years of work 
 
 And power to back the working. Ay de mi! 
 You want to know, you want to see, to touch, 
 And, by your lights, to act. It's natural. 
 
 1 wonder can I help you. Let me try. 
 
 You saw — what did you see from Bombay east? 
 
 Enough to frighten any one but me? 
 
 IN'eat that! It frightened Me in Eighty- Four! 
 
 You shouldn't take a man from Canada 
 
 And bid him smoke in powder-magazines; 
 
 "Not with a Reputation such as — Bah ! 
 
 That ghost has haunted me for twenty yearg^ 
 
Otl^sr Verses 475 
 
 My Reputation now full blown — Your fault— 
 
 Yours, with your stories of the strife at Home, 
 
 Who's up, who's down, who leads and who is led — 
 
 One reads so much, one hears so httle here. 
 
 Well, now's your turn of exile. I go back 
 
 To Rome and leisure. All roads lead to Rome, 
 
 Or books — the refuge of the destitute. 
 
 When you . . . that brings me back to India. See! 
 
 Start clear. I couldn't. Egypt served my turn. 
 You'll never plumb the Oriental mind, 
 And if you did it isn't worth the toil. 
 Think of a sleek French priest in Canada; 
 Divide by twenty half-breeds. Multiply 
 By twice the Sphinx's silence. There's your East, 
 And you're as wise as ever. So am I. 
 
 Accept on trust and work in darkness, strike 
 At venture, stumble forward, make your mark 
 (It's chalk on granite), then thank God no flame 
 Leaps from the rock to shrivel mark and man. 
 I'm clear — my mark is made. Three months of drought 
 Had ruined much. It rained and washed away 
 The specks that might have gathered on my Name. 
 I took a country twice the size of France, 
 And shuttered up one doorway in the North. 
 I stand by those. You'll find that both will pay, 
 I pledged my ISTame on both — they're yours to-night. 
 Hold to them — they hold fame enough for two. 
 I'm old, but I shall live till Burma pays 
 Men there — not German traders — Cr~sthw-te knows— 
 You'll find it in my papers For the North 
 Guns always — quietly — but always guns. 
 You've seen your Council? Yes, they'll try to rule, 
 And prize their Reputations. Have you met 
 A grim lay-reader with a taste for coins. 
 And faith in Sin most men withhold from God? 
 He's gone to England. R-p-n knew his grip 
 And kicked. A Council always has its H-pes. 
 
476 U/orl^s of F^udyard Kiplir>^ 
 
 They look for notMng from ttie West but Death 
 Or Bath or Bournemouth. Here's their ground. 
 
 They fight 
 Until the middle classes take them back, 
 One of ten millions plus a C. S. I. 
 Or drop in harness. Legion of the Lost? 
 Not altogether — earnest, narrow men, 
 But chiefly earnest, and they'll do your work. 
 And end by writing letters to the "Times." 
 (Shall I write letters, answering H-nt-r — fawn 
 With R-p-n on the Yorkshire grocers? Ugh !) 
 They have their Reputations. Look to one — 
 I work with him — the smallest of them all, 
 White-haired, red-faced, who sat the plunging horse 
 Out in the garden. He's your right-hand man, 
 And dreams of tilting W-ls-y from the throne, 
 But while he dreams gives work we cannot buyj 
 He has his Reputation — wants the Lotds 
 By way of Frontier Roads. Meantime, I think, 
 He values very much the hand that falls 
 Upon his shoulder at the Council table — 
 Hates cats and knows his business : which is yours. 
 
 Your business ! Twice a hundred million souls. 
 Your business ! I could tell you what I did 
 Some nights of Eighty-Five, at Simla, worth 
 A Kingdom's ransom. When a big ship drives, 
 God knows to what new reef, the man at the wheel- 
 Prays with the passengers. They lose their lives, 
 Or rescued go their way; but he's no man 
 To take his trick at the wheel again — that's worse 
 Than drowning. Well, a galled Mashobra mule 
 (You'll see Mashobra) passed me on the Mall, 
 And I was — some fool's wife had ducked and bowed 
 To show the others I would stop and speak. 
 Then the mule fell — three galls, a hand-breadth each, 
 Behind the withers. Mrs. Whatsisname 
 Leers at the mule and me by turns, thweet thoull 
 
OtI?er Verses 477 
 
 **How could they make him carry such a load!'* 
 
 I saw — it isn't often I dream dreams — 
 
 More than the mule that minute — smoke and flame 
 
 From Simla to the haze below. That's weak. 
 
 You're younger. You'll dream dreams before you've 
 
 done. 
 You've youth, that's one — good workmen — that means 
 
 two 
 Fair chances in your favor. Fate's the third. 
 I know what J did. Do you ask me, "Preach"? 
 I answer by my past or else go back 
 To platitudes of rule — or take you thus 
 In confidence and say: *' You know the trick: 
 You've governed Canada. You know. You know I" 
 And all the while commend you to Fate's hand 
 (Here at the top one loses sight o' God), 
 Commend you, then, to something more than you — 
 The Other People's blunders and , . . that's all. 
 I'd agonize to serve you if I could. ' 
 It's incommunicable, like the cast 
 That drops the tackle with the gut adry. 
 Too much — too little — there's your salmon lost! 
 And so I tell you nothing — wish you luck, 
 And wonder — how I wonder ! — for your sake 
 And triumph for my own. You're young, yots're 
 
 young, 
 You hold to half a hundred Shibboleths. 
 I'm old. I followed Power to the last, 
 Gave her my best, and Power followed Me. 
 It's worth it — on my soul I'm speaking plain, 
 Here by the claret glasses! — worth it all. 
 I gave — no matter what I gave — I win. 
 I know I win. Mine's work, good work that live! 
 A country twice the size of France — the North 
 Safeguarded. That's my record : sink the rest 
 And better if you can. The Rains may serve, 
 Rupees may rise — threepence will give you Fame— 
 
i?8 U/orl^8 of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 It's rasli to hope for sixpence —If they rise 
 Get guns, more guns, and hft the salt-tax. 
 
 Oh? 
 I told you what the Congress meant or thought? 
 I'll answer nothing. Half a year will prove 
 The full extent of time and thought you'll spar© 
 To Congress. Ask a Lady Doctor once 
 How little Begums see the light— deduce 
 Thence how the True Reformer's child is borzL 
 It's interesting, curious . « . and vile. 
 I told the Turk he was a gentleman. 
 I told the Russian that his Tartar veins 
 Bled pure Parisian ichor; and he purred. 
 The Congress doesn't purr. I think it swears^ 
 You're young— you'll swear too ere you've reached the 
 
 end. 
 The End! God help you, if there be a God. 
 (There must be one to startle Gl-dst-ne's soul 
 In that new land where all the wires are cut, 
 And Cr-ss snores anthems on the asphodel.) 
 God help you! And I'd help you if I could. 
 But that's beyond me. Yes, your speech was crude, 
 Sound claret after olives— yours and mine; 
 But Medoc slips into vin ordinaire. 
 (I'll drink my first at Genoa to your health.) 
 Raise it to Hock. You'll never catch my style. 
 And, after all, the middle-classes grip 
 The middle-class — for Brompton talk Earl's Court. 
 Perhaps you're right. I'll see you in the ** Times'*— 
 A quarter-column of eye-searing print, 
 A leader once a quarter — then a war; 
 The Strand abellow through the fog: **Defeat!** 
 ** 'Orrible slaughter I" While you lie awake 
 And wonder. Oh, you'll wonder ere you're free! 
 I wonder now. The four years slide away 
 So fast, so fast, and leave me here alone. 
 R — ^y, C-lv-n, L — 1, R-b-rts, B-ck, the rest. 
 
Otl^er l/erses 479 
 
 Princes and Powers of Darkness, troops and trains 
 
 (I cannot sleep in trains), land piled on land. 
 
 Whitewash and weariness, red rockets, dust, 
 
 White snows that mocked me, palaces — with draughts, 
 
 And W-stl-nd with the drafts he couldn't pay, 
 
 Poor W-ls-n reading his obituary 
 
 Before he died, and H-pe, the man with bones. 
 
 And A-tch-s-n a dripping mackintosh 
 
 At Council in the Rains, his grating "Sirrr" 
 
 Half drowned by H-nt-r's silky: "Bat my lahd.*' 
 
 Hunterian always : M-rsh-I spinning plates 
 
 Or standing on his head ; the Rent Bill's roar, 
 
 A hundred thousand speeches, much red cloth. 
 
 And Smiths thrice happy if I call them Jones 
 
 (I can't remember half their names), or reined 
 
 My pony on the Mall to greet their wives. 
 
 More trains, more troops, more dust, and then all's dooa. 
 
 Four years, and I forget. If I forget 
 
 How will they bear me in their minds? The ITorth 
 
 Safeguarded — nearly (R-b-rts knows the rest), 
 
 A country twice the size of France annexed. 
 
 That stays at least. The rest may pass — may pass— 
 
 Your heritage — and I can teach you naught. 
 
 **High trust," *Vast honor," "interests twice as vast,*' 
 
 "Do reverence to your Council" — keep to those. 
 
 I envy you the twenty years you've gained. 
 
 But not the five to follow. What's that? One? 
 
 Two! — Surely not so late. Good-night. DonH dream. 
 
 THE BETROTHED 
 
 **You must choose between me and your cigar'* 
 Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout. 
 For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out. 
 
 We quarreled about Havanas — we fought o'er a good cheroot, 
 And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute. 
 
480 U/or^s of F^udyard t^iplii)^ 
 
 Open the old cigar- box— let me consider a space; 
 
 In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face. 
 
 Maggie is pretty to look at — Maggie's a loving lass, 
 But ^9 prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves 
 must pass. 
 
 There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, 
 But tii8 best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away — 
 
 Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown- 
 But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o* 
 tli© town ! 
 
 Mag^e, mj wife at ^f ty— gray and dour and old—- 
 With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold I 
 
 And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days 
 
 &at Are, 
 And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead 
 
 Th@ butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your 
 
 With never a now one to light tho' it's charred asd black to 
 the socket. 
 
 Open the old cigar-box — ^let me consider a while- 
 Here is a mild Manilla— there is a wifely smile. 
 
 Which 18 the better portion — bondage bought with & ftng^ 
 Or a harem of dusky beauties fifty tied in a string? 
 
 Counselors cunning and silent — comforters true and tried. 
 And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride. 
 
 Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, 
 F^ice in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close. 
 
 This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return, 
 With only a Suttee* s passion — ^to do their duty and bum. 
 
Otl^er Uerses 481 
 
 This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, 
 Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead. 
 
 The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, 
 When they hear my harem is empty, will send me my brides 
 again. 
 
 , I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths 
 r withal, 
 So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall. 
 
 ^ I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper 
 their hides, 
 And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the 
 tale of my brides. 
 
 For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between 
 The wee Httle whimpering Love and the great god Kick o' 
 Teen. 
 
 And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth 
 
 clear, 
 But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year; 
 
 And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery 
 
 Hght 
 Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work 
 
 and Fight. 
 
 And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must 
 
 prove, 
 But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of 
 
 Love. 
 
 Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged 
 
 in the mire? 
 Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful 
 
 fire? 
 
 Open the old cigar-box — let me consider anew — 
 
 Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon youf 
 
 Vol. 3. 21 
 
482 U/orl^s of F^udyard I^iplip^ 
 
 A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke ; 
 And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke. 
 
 Light me another Cuba ; I hold to my first-sworn vows, 
 
 If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse! 
 
 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 
 
 Where the sober colored cultivator smiles 
 
 On his hylesj 
 Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow 
 
 Come and go; 
 Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea, 
 
 Hides and ghi; 
 Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints 
 
 In his prints; 
 Stands a City— Charnock chose it — packed away 
 
 !N"ear a Bay — 
 By the sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer 
 
 Made impure, 
 By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp 
 
 Moist and damp; 
 And the City and the Viceroy, as we see. 
 
 Don't agree. 
 Once, two hundred years ago, the trader came 
 
 Meek and tame. 
 Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed^ 
 
 Till mere trade 
 Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth 
 
 South and N"orth 
 Till the country from Peshawar to Ceylon 
 
 Was his own. 
 Thus the midday halt of Charnock — more's the pity! 
 
 Grew a City. 
 As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed, 
 
 So it spread — 
 
Obiter Uerses 483 
 
 Chance directed, chance-erected, laid and built 
 
 On the silt- 
 Palace, byre, hovel — poverty and pride — 
 
 Side by side; 
 And, above the packed and pestilential town. 
 
 Death looked down. 
 But the rulers in that City by the Sea 
 
 Turned to flee — 
 Fled, with each returning spring-tide, from its His 
 
 To the Hills. 
 From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaae 
 
 Of the days, 
 From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat. 
 
 Beat retreat; 
 For the country from Peshawar to Ceylon 
 
 Was their own. 
 But the Merchant risked the perils of the Plain 
 
 For his gain. 
 
 Now the resting-place of Charnock, 'neath the 
 
 Asks an alms. 
 And the burden of its lamentation is, 
 
 Briefly, this: 
 ** Because, for certain months, we boil and stew§ 
 
 So should you. 
 Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspii^ 
 
 In our fire!" 
 And for answer to the argument, in vain 
 
 We explain 
 That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot try^ 
 
 *'^ZZ must fry!" 
 That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain 
 
 For his gain. 
 Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich m^ 
 
 From its kitchen. 
 Let the Babu drop inflammatory hints 
 
 In his prints; 
 
484 U/or^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 And mature — consistent soul — his plan for stealing 
 
 To Darjeeling; 
 Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile, 
 
 England's isle; 
 Let the City Charnock pitched on — evil dayl-— 
 
 Go Her way. 
 Though the argosies of Asia at Her doors 
 
 Heap their stores, 
 Though Her enterprise and energy secure. 
 
 Income sure, 
 Though ''out station orders punctually obeyed" 
 
 Swell Her trade — 
 Still, for rule, administration, and the rest, 
 
 Simla's best. 
 
 GRIFFEN'S DEBT 
 
 Impeimis he was ''broke." . Thereafter left 
 His regiment, and, later, took to drink ; 
 Then, having lost the balance of his friends, 
 ^^Went Fan tee"— joined the people of the land, 
 Turned three parts Mussulman and one Hindu, 
 And lived among the Gauri villagers, 
 Who gave him shelter and a wife or twain. 
 And boasted that a thorough, full-blood sahib 
 Had come among them. Thus he spent his time^ 
 Deeply indebted to the village shroff 
 (Who never asked for payment), always drunk, 
 Unclean, abominable, out-at-heels ; 
 Forgetting that he was an Englishman. 
 
 You know they dammed the Gauri with a danij 
 And all the good contractors scamped their workj 
 And all the bad material at hand 
 Was used to dam the Gauri — which was cheap, 
 And, therefore, proper. Then the Gauri burst. 
 
Otl^er Uerses 485 
 
 And several hundred thousand cubic tons 
 
 Of water dropped into the valley, flop^ 
 
 And drowned some five-and-twenty villagers, 
 
 And did a lakh or two of detriment 
 
 To crops and cattle. When the flood went down 
 
 "We found him dead, beneath an old dead horse. 
 
 Full six miles down the valley. So we said 
 
 He was a victim to the Demon Drink, 
 
 And moralized upon him for a week, 
 
 And then forgot him. Which was natural. 
 
 But, in the valley of the Gauri, men 
 
 Beneath the shadow of the big new dam 
 
 Relate a foolish legend of the flood, 
 
 Accounting for the httle loss of life 
 
 (Only those five-and twenty villagers) 
 
 In this wise ; On the evening of the flood, 
 
 They heard the groaning of the rotten dam. 
 
 And voices of the Mountain Devils. Then 
 
 An incarnation of the local God, 
 
 Mounted upon a monster-neighing horse, 
 
 And flourishing a flail-like whip, came down, 
 
 Breathing ambrosia, to the villages, 
 
 And fell upon the simple villagers 
 
 With yells beyond the power of mortal throat. 
 
 And blows beyond the power of mortal hand. 
 
 And smote them with the flail-like whip, and dfOTS 
 
 Them clamorous with terror up the hill. 
 
 And scattered, with the monster-neighing steed^ 
 
 Their crazy cottages about their ears. 
 
 And generally cleared those villages. 
 
 Then came the water, and the local God, 
 
 Breathing ambrosia, flourishing his whip, 
 
 And mounted on his monster-neighing steed. 
 
 Went down the valley with the flying trees 
 
 And residue of homesteads, while they watched 
 
 Safe on the mountain-side these wondrous things. 
 
 And knew that they were much beloved of HeaveiL 
 
486 U/ork^s of F^udyard l^iplir>(j 
 
 Wherefore, and when the dam was newly built, 
 
 They raised a temple to the local God, 
 
 And burned all manner of unsavory things 
 
 Upon his altar, and created priests. 
 
 And blew into a conch, and banged a bell, 
 
 And told the story of the Gauri flood 
 
 With circumstance and much embroidery. 
 
 So he the whiskified Objectionable, 
 
 Unclean, abominable, out-at-heels. 
 
 Became the tutelary Deity 
 
 Of all the Gauri valley villages ; 
 
 And may in time become a Solar Myth. 
 
 IN SPRINGTIME 
 
 My garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the 
 peach. 
 And the koil sings above it, in the siris by the well, 
 From the creeper- covered trellis comes the squirrel's chatter- 
 ing speech. 
 And the blue- jay screams and flutters where the cheery 
 sat-bhai dwell. 
 
 But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the koiVs note is 
 strange ; 
 I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened 
 bough. 
 Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of 
 Springtime range — 
 Give me back one day in England, for it's Spring in Eng« 
 land now! 
 
 Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown 
 fields blowing chill, 
 From the furrow of the plowshare streams the fragrance 
 of the loam. 
 
Otl?er I/erses 487 
 
 And the hawk nests on the cliff -side and the jackdaw in the 
 hill, 
 And my heart is back in England mid the sights and sounds 
 of Home. 
 
 But the garland of the sacrifice this wealth of rose and 
 peach is; 
 Ah ! A;o^7, Httle koil, singing on the siris bough. 
 In my ears the knell of exile your ceaseless bell-like speech is— 
 Can you tell me aught of England or of Spring in England 
 now? 
 
 TWO MONTHS 
 
 IN JUNE 
 
 N"o hope, no change! The clouds have shut us in, 
 And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down 
 Full on the bosom of the tortured Town. 
 
 Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin 
 
 That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease. 
 And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite 
 Glares through the haze and mocks with watery light 
 
 The torment of the uncomplaining trees. 
 
 Far off, the Thunder bellows her despair 
 
 To echoing Earth, thrice parched. The lightnings fly 
 
 In vain. No help the heaped-up clouds afford, 
 
 But wearier weight of burdened, burning air. 
 
 What truce with Dawn? Look, from the aching sky, 
 
 Day stalks, a tyrant with a flaming sword! 
 
488 U/orl^8 of F^udyard l{ipUT)^ 
 
 IN SEPTEMBER 
 
 At dawn there was a murmur in the trees, 
 
 A ripple on the tank, and in the air 
 
 Presage of coming coolness — everywhere 
 A voice of prophecy upon the breeze. 
 Up leaped the sun and smote the dust to gold, 
 
 And strove to parch anew the heedless land, 
 AU impotently, as a King grown old 
 
 Wars for the Empire crumbling 'neath his hand. 
 
 One after one, the lotos-petals fell, 
 
 Beneath the onslaught of the rebel year 
 
 In mutiny against a furious sky ; 
 
 And far-off Winter whispered: *^It is well! 
 
 Hot Summer dies. Behold, your help is near, 
 
 For when men's need is sorest, then come I." 
 
 THE GALLEY-SLAVE 
 
 Oh, gallant was our galley from her carven steering-wheel 
 To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered 
 
 steel ; 
 The leg-bar chafed the ankle, and we gasped for cooler air. 
 But no galley on the water with our galley could compare! 
 
 Our bulkheads bulged with cotton and our masts were stepped 
 
 in gold— 
 We ran a mighty merchandise of niggers in the hold ; 
 The white foam spun behind us, and the black shark swam 
 
 below, 
 As we gripped the kicking sweep-head and we made that 
 
 galley go. 
 
Otl?er Verses 489 
 
 It was merry in tlie galley, for we reveled now and tlien — 
 If they wore us down like cattle, faith, we fought and loved 
 
 like men ! 
 As we snatched her through the water, so we snatched a 
 
 minute's bliss, 
 And the mutter of the dying never spoiled the lovers' kiss. 
 
 Our women and our children toiled beside us in the dark — 
 They died, we filed their fetters, and we heaved them to the 
 
 shark — 
 We heaved them to the fishes, but so fast the galley sped, 
 We had only time to envy, for we could not mourn our 
 
 dead. 
 
 Bear witness, once, my comrades, what a hard-bit gang were 
 
 we — 
 The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea ! 
 By the hands that drove her forward as she plunged and 
 
 yawed and sheered. 
 Woman, Man, or God, or Devil, was there anything we 
 
 feared? 
 
 Was it storm? Our fathers faced it, and a wilder never 
 blew ; 
 
 Earth that waited for the wreckage watched the galley strug- 
 gle through. 
 
 Burning noon or choking midnight. Sickness, Sorrow, Part- 
 ing, Death? 
 
 Nay, our very babes would mock you, had they time for idle 
 breath. 
 
 But to-day I leave the galley, and another takes my place ; 
 There's my name upon the deck-beam^ — let it stand a little 
 
 space. 
 I am free— to watch my messmates beating out to open 
 
 main, 
 Free of all that Life can offer— save to handle sweep again- 
 
490 U/orl^s of F^udyard l^iplip^ 
 
 By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging 
 
 steel, 
 By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never 
 
 heal; 
 By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the 
 
 brine, 
 I am paid in full for service — would that service still were 
 
 mine! 
 
 Yet they talk of times and seasons and of woe the years bring 
 
 forth, 
 Of our galley swamped and shattered in the rollers of the 
 
 North. 
 When the niggers break the hatches, and the decks are gay 
 
 with gore, 
 And a craven-hearted pilot crams her crashing on the 
 
 shore. 
 
 She will need no half-mast signal, minute-gun, or rocket- 
 flare, 
 
 When the cry for help goes seaward, she will find her ser- 
 vants there. 
 
 Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years 
 gone by. 
 
 To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash them- 
 selves and die. 
 
 Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped 
 
 away— 
 Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day, 
 When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze 
 
 beneath, 
 And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in 
 
 their teeth. 
 
 It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once 
 
 more — 
 Set some strong man free for fighting as I take a while 
 
 his oar. 
 
Otl^er Uerses 491 
 
 But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service 
 
 then? 
 God be thanked — whate'er conies after, I have lived and 
 
 toiled with Men ! 
 
 UENVOI 
 
 (To whom it may concern) 
 
 The smoke upon your Altar dies. 
 
 The flowers decay, 
 The Goddess of your sacrifice 
 
 Has flown away. 
 What profit then to sing or slay 
 The sacrifice from day to day? 
 
 * ' We know the Shrine is void, ' ' they sale 
 
 "The Goddess flown — ■ 
 Yet wreaths are on the Altar laid-— 
 
 The Altar- Stone 
 Is black with fumes of sacrifice, 
 Albeit She has fled our eyes. 
 
 **For, it may be, if still we sing 
 
 And tend the Shrine, 
 Some Deity on wandering wing 
 
 May there incline; 
 And, finding all in order meet, 
 Stay while we worship at Her feet.*^ 
 
492 U/orKs of I^udyard H^iplip^ 
 
 THE CONUNDRUM OF THE WORK- 
 SHOPS 
 
 When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green 
 
 and gold, 
 Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a 
 
 stick in the mould ; 
 And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to 
 
 his mighty heart, 
 Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: ''It's pretty, but 
 
 is it art?" 
 
 Wherefore he called to his wife, and tied to fashion his work 
 
 anew — 
 The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread 
 
 review ; 
 And he left his lore to the use of his sons — and that was a 
 
 glorious gain 
 When the Devil chuckled: **Is it art?" in the ear of the 
 
 branded Cain. 
 
 They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars 
 apart, 
 
 Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: '*It's striking, but 
 is it art?" 
 
 The stone was dropped by the quarry-side, and the idle der- 
 rick swung, 
 
 While each man talked of the aims of art, and each in an 
 alien tongue. 
 
 They fought and they talked in the north and the south, they 
 
 talked and they fought in the west. 
 Till the waters rose on the jabbering land, and the poor Red 
 
 Clay had rest— 
 
Obiter Uerses 493 
 
 Had rest till the dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was 
 
 preened to start, 
 And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is 
 
 it art?" 
 
 The tale is old as the Eden Tree— as new as the new-cut 
 
 tooth — 
 For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of 
 
 art and truth; 
 And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of Mb 
 
 dying heart, 
 The Devil drum on the darkened pane: *' You did it, but was 
 
 it art?" 
 
 We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a 
 
 surplice-peg, 
 We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an 
 
 addled egg^ 
 We know that the tail must wag the dog, as the horse is 
 
 drawn by the cart; 
 But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old; "It's clever, 
 
 but is it art?" 
 
 When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the club-room's 
 
 green and gold, 
 The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens 
 
 in the mould — 
 They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves^ and 
 
 the ink and the anguish start 
 When the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but 
 
 is it art?" 
 
 ITow, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the four great 
 
 rivers flow, 
 And the wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long 
 
 ago, 
 
494 U/orl^s of I^udyard l^iplii)^ 
 
 And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry 
 
 through, 
 By the favor of God we might know as much — as our father 
 
 Adam knew. 
 
 THE EXPLANATION 
 
 Love and Death once ceased their strife 
 
 At the Tavern of Man's Life. 
 
 Called for wine, and threw — alas ! — 
 
 Each his quiver on the grass. 
 
 "When the bout was o'er they found 
 
 Mingled arrows strewed the ground. 
 
 Hastily they gathered then 
 
 Each the loves and lives of men. 
 
 Ah, the fateful dawn deceived! 
 
 Mingled arrows each one sheaved: 
 
 Death's dread armory was stored 
 
 With the shafts he most abhorred: 
 
 Love's light quiver groaned beneath 
 
 Venom-headed darts of Death. 
 
 Thus it was they wrought our woe 
 
 At the Tavern long ago. 
 
 Tell me, do our masters know, 
 
 Loosing blindly as they fly. 
 
 Old men love while young men die? 
 
 THE GIFT OF THE SEA 
 
 The dead child lay in the shroud. 
 And the widow watched beside ; 
 
 And her mother slept, and the Channel swept 
 The gale in the teeth of the tide. 
 
Otl^er Verses 495 
 
 But the widow laughed at all. 
 
 *'I have lost my man in the sea, 
 And the child is dead. Be still,'* she said, 
 
 *'What more can ye do to me?" 
 
 And the widow watched the dead, 
 
 And the candle guttered low, 
 And she tried to sing the Passing Song 
 
 That bids the poor soul go. 
 
 And "Mary take you now," she sang, 
 
 *'That lay against my heart." 
 And "Mary smooth your crib to-night," 
 
 But she could not say "Depart." 
 
 Then came a cry from the sea, 
 
 But the sea-rime blinded the glass. 
 And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said; 
 
 " 'Tis the child that waits to pass." 
 
 And the nodding mother sighed. 
 
 *' 'Tis a lambing ewe in the whin, 
 For why should the christened soul cry out. 
 
 That never knew of sin?" 
 
 **0h, feet I have held in my hand, 
 
 Oh, hands at my heart to catch. 
 How should they know the road to go, 
 
 And how should they hft the latch?'* 
 
 They laid a sheet to the door. 
 
 With the little quilt atop. 
 That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt, 
 
 But the crying would not stop. 
 
 The widow lifted the latch 
 
 And strained her eyes to see. 
 And opened the door on the bitter shore 
 
 To let the soul go free. 
 
496 U/orKs of F^udyard \{ipUr}<^ 
 
 There was neither ghmmer nor ghost, 
 There was neither spirit nor spark. 
 
 And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said, 
 *' 'Tis crying for me in the dark." 
 
 And the nodding mother sighed. 
 
 " 'Tis sorrow makes ye dull; 
 Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern, 
 
 Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?" 
 
 "The terns are blown inland, 
 The gray gull follows the plow. 
 
 'Twas never a bird, the voice I heard, 
 O mother, I hear it now!" 
 
 "Lie still, dear lamb, lie still; 
 
 The child is passed from harm, 
 'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest. 
 
 And the feel of an empty arm." 
 
 She puts her mother aside, 
 
 **In Mary's name let be! 
 For the peace of my soul I must go," she said, 
 
 And she went to the calling sea. 
 
 In the heel of the wind-bit pier, 
 Where the twisted weed was piled, 
 
 She came to the life she had missed by an hour. 
 For she came to a little child. 
 
 She laid it into her breast. 
 
 And back to her mother she came, 
 
 But it would not feed, and it would not heed, 
 Though she gave it her own child's name. 
 
 And the dead child dripped on her breast. 
 And her own in the shroud lay stark; 
 
 And, "God forgive us, mother," she said, 
 "We let it die in the dark !" 
 
Otl^er Uerses 497 
 
 EVARRA AND HIS GODS 
 
 Read here, 
 
 This is the story of Evarra — man — 
 Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea. 
 Because the city gave him of her gold, 
 Because the caravans brought turquoises, 
 Because his Hfe was sheltered by the King, 
 So that no man should maim him, none should steal. 
 Or break his rest with babble in the streets 
 When he was weary after toil, he made 
 An image of his God in gold and pearl, 
 With turquoise diadem and human eyes, 
 A wonder in the sunshine, known afar, 
 And worshiped by the King ; but, drunk with pride, 
 Because the city bowed to him for God, 
 He wrote above the shrine : ' ' Thus Gods are made^ 
 And whoso makes them otherwise shall die,^^ 
 And all the city praised him. . . . Then he died. 
 
 Bead here the story of Evarra — man — 
 Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea. 
 Because his city had no wealth to give. 
 Because the caravans were spoiled afar. 
 Because his life was threatened by the King, 
 So that all men despised him in the streets. 
 He hacked the living rock, with sweat and tears. 
 And reared a God against the morning-gold, 
 A terror in the sunshine, seen afar, 
 And worshiped by the King ; but, drunk with pride. 
 Because the city fawned to bring him back. 
 He carved upon the plinth : '^Thus Gods are made^ 
 And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.^'* 
 And all the people praised him. . . . Then he died. 
 
498 U/orl^s of F^adyard I^iplip^ 
 
 Bead here the story of Evarra — man — 
 Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea. 
 Because he lived among a simple folk, 
 Because his village was between the hills, 
 Because he smeared his cheeks with blood of ewes, 
 He cut an idol from a fallen pine, 
 Smeared blood upon its cheeks, and wedged a shell 
 Above its brows for eye, and gave it hair 
 Of trailing moss, and plaited straw for crown. 
 And all the village praised him for this craft, 
 And brought him butter, honey, milk, and curds. 
 Wherefore, because the shoutings drove him mad, 
 He scratched upon that log : ' ' Thus Gods are made. 
 And tvhoso makes them otherwise shall die.-^ 
 And all the people praised him. . . . Then he died. 
 
 Mead here the story of Evarra — man — 
 Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea. 
 Because his God decreed one clot of blood 
 Should swerve a hair's-breadth from the pulse's pathj 
 And chafe his brain, Evarra mowed alone. 
 Bag- wrapped, among the cattle in the fields. 
 Counting his fingers, jesting with the trees. 
 And mocking at the mist, until his God 
 Drove him to labor. Out of dung and horns 
 Dropped in the mire he made a monstrous God, 
 Abhorrent, shapeless, crowned with plantain tufts. 
 And when the cattle lowed at twilight- time. 
 He dreamed it was the clamor of lost crowds. 
 And howled among the beasts : ' ' Thus Gods are 
 
 made, 
 And ivhoso makes them otherwise shall die.^\ 
 Thereat the cattle bellowed. . . . Then he died. 
 
 Yet at the last he came to Paradise, 
 
 And found his own four Gods, and that he wrote; 
 
 And marveled, being very near to God, 
 
Otl^er l/erses 499 
 
 What oaf on earth had made his toil God's law, 
 Till God said, mocking : * ' Mock not. These be thine. ' ' 
 Then cried Evarra: ''I have sinned!" — "[N'ot so. 
 If thou hadst written otherwise, thy Gods 
 Had rested in the mountain and the mine, 
 And I were poorer by four wondrous Gods, 
 And thy more wondrous law, Evarra. Thine, 
 Servant of shouting crowds and lowing kine." 
 Thereat with laughing mouth, but tear- wet eyeSj 
 Evarra cast his Gods from Paradise. 
 
 This is the story of Evarra — man — 
 
 Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea. 
 
 KND OF VOLUME THREE 
 
University of 
 Connecticut 
 
 Libraries 
 
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