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Title: The Garotters

Author: William D. Howells

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CONTENTS

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, Rudyard Kipling
TAJIMA, Miss Mitford
A CHINESE GIRL GRADUATE, R. K. Douglas
THE REVENGE OF HER RACE, Mary Beaumont
KING BILLY OF BALLARAT, Morley Roberts
THY HEART'S DESIRE, Netta Syrett


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy

By Rudyard Kipling


The Law,
as quoted,
lays down a fair conduct of life,
and one not easy
to follow.

I have been fellow
to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy.

I have still
to be brother
to a Prince,
though I once came near
to kinship
with what might have been a veritable King,
and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army,
law-courts,
revenue,
and policy all complete.

But,
to-day,
I greatly fear that my King is dead,
and if I want a crown I must go hunt it
for myself.

The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road
to Mhow from Ajmir.

There had been a Deficit in the Budget,
which necessitated travelling,
not Second-class,
which is only half as dear as First-Class,
but by Intermediate,
which is very awful indeed.

There are no cushions in the Intermediate class,
and the population are either Intermediate,
which is Eurasian,
or native,
which
for a long night journey is nasty,
or Loafer,
which is amusing though intoxicated.

Intermediates do not buy from refreshment-rooMs. They carry their food in bundles and pots,
and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers,
and drink the roadside water.

This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead,
and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.

My particular Intermediate happened
to be empty till I reached Nasirabad,
when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered,
and,
following the custom of Intermediates,
passed the time of day.

He was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself,
but
with an educated taste
for whisky.

He told tales of things he had seen and done,
of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated,
and of adventures in which he risked his life
for a few days'
food.

"If India was filled
with men like you and me,
not knowing more than the crows where they'd get their next day's rations,
it isn't seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred millions,"
said he;
and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed
to agree
with him.

We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted
to send a telegram back from the next station
to Ajmir,
the turning-off place from the Bombay
to the Mhow line as you travel westward.

My friend had no money beyond eight annas which he wanted
for dinner,
and I had no money at all,
owing
to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned.

Further,
I was going into a wilderness where,
though I should resume touch
with the Treasury,
there were no telegraph offices.

I was,
therefore,
unable
to help him in any way.

"We might threaten a Station-master,
and make him send a wire on tick,"
said my friend,
"but that'd mean inquiries
for you and
for me,
and /I/'ve got my hands full these days.

Did you say you were travelling back along this line within any days?"
"Within ten,"
I said.

"Can't you make it eight?"
said he.

"Mine is rather urgent business."

"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you,"
I said.

"I couldn't trust the wire
to fetch him,
now I think of it.

It's this way.

He leaves Delhi on the 23rd
for Bombay.

That means he'll be running through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd."

"But I'm going into the Indian Desert,"
I explained.

"Well /and/ good,"
said he.

"You'll be changing at Marwar Junction
to get into Jodhpore territory,--you must do that,--and he'll be coming through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail.

Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time?

'T won't be inconveniencing you,
because I know that there's precious few pickings
to be got out of these Central India States--even though you pretend
to be correspondent of the
'Backwoodsman.'
"
"Have you ever tried that trick?"
I asked.

"Again and again,
but the Residents find you out,
and then you get escorted
to the Border before you've time
to get your knife into them.

But about my friend here.

I /must/ give him a word o'
mouth
to tell him what's come
to me,
or else he won't know where
to go.

I would take it more than kind of you if you was
to come out of Central India in time
to catch him at Marwar Junction,
and say
to him,
'He has gone South
for the week.'

He'll know what that means.

He's a big man
with a red beard,
and a great swell he is.

You'll find him sleeping like a gentleman
with all his luggage round him in a Second-class apartment.

But don't you be afraid.

Slip down the window and say,
'He has gone South
for the week,'
and he'll tumble.

It's only cutting your time of stay in those parts by two days.

I ask you as a stranger--going
to the West,"
he said,
with emphasis.

"Where have /you/ come from?"
said I.

"From the East,"
said he,
"and I am hoping that you will give him the message on the Square--for the sake of my Mother as well as your own."

Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals
to the memory of their mothers;
but
for certain reasons,
which will be fully apparent,
I saw fit
to agree.

"It's more than a little matter,"
said he,
"and that's why I asked you
to do it--and now I know that I can depend on you doing it.

A Second- class carriage at Marwar Junction,
and a red-haired man asleep in it.

You'll be sure
to remember.

I get out at the next station,
and I must hold on there till he comes or sends me what I want."

"I'll give the message if I catch him,"
I said,
"and
for the sake of your Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice.

Don't try
to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the
'Backwoodsman.'

There's a real one knocking about here,
and it might lead
to trouble."

"Thank you,"
said he,
simply;
"and when will the swine be gone?

I can't starve because he's ruining my work.

I wanted
to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow,
and give him a jump."

"What did he do
to his father's widow,
then?"
"Filled her up
with red pepper and slippered her
to death as she hung from a beam.

I found that out myself,
and I'm the only man that would dare going into the State
to get hush-money
for it.

They'll try
to poison me,
same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there.

But you'll give the man at Marwar Junction my message?"
He got out at a little roadside station,
and I reflected.

I had heard,
more than once,
of men personating correspondents of newspapers and bleeding small Native States
with threats of exposure,
but I had never met any of the caste before.

They lead a hard life,
and generally die
with great suddenness.

The Native States have a wholesome horror of English newspapers,
which may throw light on their peculiar methods of government,
and do their best
to choke correspondents
with champagne,
or drive them out of their mind
with four-in-hand barouches.

They do not understand that nobody cares a straw
for the internal administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent limits,
and the ruler is not drugged,
drunk,
or diseased from one end of the year
to the other.

They are the dark places of the earth,
full of unimaginable cruelty,
touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one side,
and,
on the other,
the days of Harun-al-Raschid.

When I left the train I did business
with divers Kings,
and in eight days passed through many changes of life.

Sometimes I wore dress-clothes and consorted
with Princes and Politicals,
drinking from crystal and eating from silver.

Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and devoured what I could get,
from a plate made of leaves,
and drank the running water,
and slept under the same rug as my servant.

It was all in the day's work.

Then I headed
for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date,
as I had promised,
and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction,
where a funny little,
happy-go-lucky,
native-managed railway runs
to Jodhpore.

The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar.

She arrived just as I got in,
and I had just time
to hurry
to her platform and go down the carriages.

There was only one Second-class on the train.

I slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming-red beard,
half covered by a railway-rug.

That was my man,
fast asleep,
and I dug him gently in the ribs.

He woke
with a grunt,
and I saw his face in the light of the lamps.

It was a great and shining face.

"Tickets again?"
said he.

"No,"
said I.

"I am
to tell you that he is gone South
for the week.

He has gone South
for the week!"
The train had begun
to move out.

The red man rubbed his eyes.

"He has gone South
for the week,"
he repeated.

"Now that's just like his impidence.

Did he say that I was
to give you anything?

'Cause I won't."

"He didn't,"
I said,
and dropped away,
and watched the red lights die out in the dark.

It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off the sands.

I climbed into my own train--not an Intermediate carriage this time--and went
to sleep.

If the man
with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as a memento of a rather curious affair.

But the consciousness of having done my duty was my only reward.

Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do any good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers,
and might,
if they blackmailed one of the little rat-trap States of Central India or Southern Rajputana,
get themselves into serious difficulties.

I therefore took some trouble
to describe them as accurately as I could remember
to people who would be interested in deporting them;
and succeeded,
so I was later informed,
in having them headed back from the Degumber borders.

Then I became respectable,
and returned
to an office where there were no Kings and no incidents outside the daily manufacture of a newspaper.

A newspaper office seems
to attract every conceivable sort of person,
to the prejudice of discipline.

Zenana-mission ladies arrive,
and beg that the Editor will instantly abandon all his duties
to describe a Christian prize-giving in a back slum of a perfectly inaccessible village;
Colonels who have been overpassed
for command sit down and sketch the outline of a series of ten,
twelve,
or twenty- four leading articles on Seniority /versus/ Selection;
missionaries wish
to know why they have not been permitted
to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse,
and swear at a brother missionary under special patronage of the editorial We;
stranded theatrical companies troop up
to explain that they cannot pay
for their advertisements,
but on their return from New Zealand or Tahiti will do so
with interest;
inventors of patent punka-pulling machines,
carriage couplings,
and unbreakable swords and axletrees call
with specifications in their pockets and hours at their disposal;
tea companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses
with the office pens;
secretaries of ball committees clamour
to have the glories of their last dance more fully described;
strange ladies rustle in and say,
"I want a hundred lady's cards printed /at once/,
please,"
which is manifestly part of an Editor's duty;
and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business
to ask
for employment as a proof- reader.

And,
all the time,
the telephone-bell is ringing madly,
and Kings are being killed on the Continent,
and Empires are saying,
"You're another,"
and Mister Gladstone is calling down brimstone upon the British Dominions,
and the little black copyboys are whining,
"/kaa-pi chay-ha-yeh/"
("Copy wanted"),
like tired bees,
and most of the paper is as blank as Modred's shield.

But that is the amusing part of the year.

There are six other months when none ever come
to call,
and the thermometer walks inch by inch up
to the top of the glass,
and the office is darkened
to just above reading-light,
and the press-machines are red-hot
to touch,
and nobody writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or obituary notices.

Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror,
because it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew intimately,
and the prickly heat covers you
with a garment,
and you sit down and write:

"A slight increase of sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta Khan District.

The outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature,
and,
thanks
to the energetic efforts of the District authorities,
is now almost at an end.

It is,
however,
with deep regret we record the death,"
etc.

Then the sickness really breaks out,
and the less recording and reporting the better
for the peace of the subscribers.

But the Empires and the Kings continue
to divert themselves as selfishly as before,
and the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought
to come out once in twenty-four hours,
and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle of their amusements say,
"Good gracious! why can't the paper be sparkling?

I'm sure there's plenty going on up here."

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

It was in that season,
and a remarkably evil season,
that the paper began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night,
which is
to say Sunday morning,
after the custom of a London paper.

This was a great convenience,
for immediately after the paper was put
to bed the dawn would lower the thermometer from 96 degrees
to almost 84 degrees
for half an hour,
and in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 degrees on the grass until you begin
to pray
for it--a very tired man could get off
to sleep ere the heat roused him.

One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty
to put the paper
to bed alone.

A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going
to die or get a new Constitution,
or do something that was important on the other side of the world,
and the paper was
to be held open till the latest possible minute in order
to catch the telegram.

It was a pitchy-black night,
as stifling as a June night can be,
and the /loo/,
the red-hot wind from the westward,
was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels.

Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust
with the flop of a frog,
but all our weary world knew that was only pretence.

It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office,
so I sat there,
while the type ticked and clicked,
and the night-jars hooted at the windows,
and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called
for water.

The thing that was keeping us back,
whatever it was,
would not come off,
though the loo dropped and the last type was set,
and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat,
with its finger on its lip,
to wait the event.

I drowsed,
and wondered whether the telegraph was a blessing,
and whether this dying man,
or struggling people,
might be aware of the inconvenience the delay was causing.

There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry
to make tension,
but,
as the clock-hands crept up
to three o-clock and the machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times
to see that all was in order,
before I said the word that would set them off,
I could have shrieked aloud.

Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little bits.

I rose
to go away,
but two men in white clothes stood in front of me.

The first one said,
"It's him!"
The second said,
"So it is!"
And they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared,
and mopped their foreheads.

"We seed there was a light burning across the road,
and we were sleeping in that ditch there
for coolness,
and I said
to my friend here,
'The office is open.

Let's come along and speak
to him as turned us back from Degumber State,'
"
said the smaller of the two.

He was the man I had met in the Mhow train,
and his fellow was the red-bearded man of Marwar Junction.

There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the other.

I was not pleased,
because I wished
to go
to sleep,
not
to squabble
with loafers.

"What do you want?"
I asked.

"Half an hour's talk
with you,
cool and comfortable,
in the office,"
said the red-bearded man.

"We'd /like/ some drink,--the Contrack doesn't begin yet,
Peachey,
so you needn't look,--but what we really want is advice.

We don't want money.

We ask you as a favour,
because we found out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State."

I led from the press-room
to the stifling office
with the maps on the walls,
and the red-haired man rubbed his hands.

"That's something like,"
said he.

"This was the proper shop
to come to.

Now,
Sir,
let me introduce you
to Brother Peachey Carnehan,
that's him,
and Brother Daniel Dravot,
that is /me/,
and the less said about our professions the better,
for we have been most things in our time--soldier,
sailor,
compositor,
photographer,
proof-reader,
street-preacher,
and correspondents of the
'Backwoodsman'
when we thought the paper wanted one.

Carnehan is sober,
and so am I.

Look at us first,
and see that's sure.

It will save you cutting into my talk.

We'll take one of your cigars apiece,
and you shall see us light up."

I watched the test.

The men were absolutely sober,
so I gave them each a tepid whisky-and-soda.

"Well /and/ good,"
said Carnehan of the eyebrows,
wiping the froth from his moustache.

"Let me talk now,
Dan.

We have been all over India,
mostly on foot.

We have been boiler-fitters,
engine-drivers,
petty contractors,
and all that,
and we have decided that India isn't big enough
for such as us."

They certainly were too big
for the office.

Dravot's beard seemed
to fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half,
as they sat on the big table.

Carnehan continued:

"The country isn't half worked out because they that governs it won't let you touch it.

They spend all their blessed time in governing it,
and you can't lift a spade,
nor chip a rock,
nor look
for oil,
nor anything like that,
without all the Government saying,
'Leave it alone,
and let us govern.'

Therefore,
such /as/ it is,
we will let it alone,
and go away
to some other place where a man isn't crowded and can come
to his own.

We are not little men,
and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink,
and we have signed a Contrack on that.

/Therefore/ we are going away
to be Kings."

"Kings in our own right,"
muttered Dravot.

"Yes,
of course,"
I said.

"You've been tramping in the sun,
and it's a very warm night,
and hadn't you better sleep over the notion?

Come to-morrow."

"Neither drunk nor sunstruck,"
said Dravot.

"We have slept over the notion half a year,
and require
to see Books and Atlases,
and we have decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong men can Sar-a-/whack/.

They call it Kafiristan.

By my reckoning it's the top right-hand corner of Afghanistan,
not more than three hundred miles from Peshawar.

They have two and thirty heathen idols there,
and we'll be the thirty-third and fourth.

It's a mountaineous country,
the women of those parts are very beautiful."

"But that is provided against in the Contrack,"
said Carnehan.

"Neither Women nor Liqu-or,
Daniel."

"And that's all we know,
except that no one has gone there,
and they fight,
and in any place where they fight a man who knows how
to drill men can always be a King.

We shall go
to those parts and say
to any King we find,
'D'
you want
to vanquish your foes?'
and we will show him how
to drill men;
for that we know better than anything else.

Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty."

"You'll be cut
to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border,"
I said.

"You have
to travel through Afghanistan
to get
to that country.

It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers,
and no Englishman has been through it.

The people are utter brutes,
and even if you reached them you couldn't do anything."

"That's more like,"
said Carnehan.

"If you could think us a little more mad we would be more pleased.

We have come
to you
to know about this country,
to read a book about it,
and
to be shown maps.

We want you
to tell us that we are fools and
to show us your books."

He turned
to the bookcases.

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

"A little,"
said Dravot,
sweetly.

"As big a map as you have got,
even if it's all blank where Kafiristan is,
and any books you've got.

We can read,
though we aren't very educated."

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

"See here!"
said Dravot,
his thumb on the map.

"Up
to Jagdallak,
Peachey and me know the road.

We was there
with Robert's Army.

We'll have
to turn off
to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory.

Then we get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand --it will be cold work there,
but it don't look very far on the map."

I handed him Wood on the
"Sources of the Oxus."

Carnehan was deep in the
"Encyclopaedia."

"They're a mixed lot,"
said Dravot,
reflectively;
"and it won't help us
to know the names of their tribes.

The more tribes the more they'll fight,
and the better
for us.

From Jagdallak
to Ashang.

H'mm!"
"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate as can be,"
I protested.

"No one knows anything about it really.

Here's the file of the
'United Services'
Institute.'

Read what Bellew says."

"Blow Bellew!"
said Carnehan.

"Dan,
they're a stinkin'
lot of heathens,
but this book here says they think they're related
to us English."

I smoked while the men poured over Raverty,
Wood,
the maps,
and the
"Encyclopaedia."

"There is no use your waiting,"
said Dravot,
politely.

"It's about four o'clock now.

We'll go before six o'clock if you want
to sleep,
and we won't steal any of the papers.

Don't you sit up.

We're two harmless lunatics,
and if you come to-morrow evening down
to the Serai we'll say good-bye
to you."

"You /are/ two fools,"
I answered.

"You'll be turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan.

Do you want any money or a recommendation down-country?

I can help you
to the chance of work next week."

"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves,
thank you,"
said Dravot.

"It isn't so easy being a King as it looks.

When we've got our Kingdom in going order we'll let you know,
and you can come up and help us govern it."

"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?"
said Carnehan,
with subdued pride,
showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was written the following.

I copied it,
then and there,
as a curiosity.

This Contracx between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God--Amen and so forth.

(One)
That me and you will settle this matter together;
i.e.,
to be Kings of Kafiristan.

(Two)
That you and me will not,
while this matter is being settled,
look at any Liquor,
nor any Woman,
black,
white,
or brown,
so as
to get mixed up
with one or the other harmful.

(Three)
That we conduct ourselves
with Dignity and Discretion,
and if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.

Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.

Daniel Dravot.

Both Gentlemen at Large.

"There was no need
for the last article,"
said Carnehan,
blushing modestly;
"but it looks regular.

Now you know the sort of men that loafers are,--we /are/ loafers,
Dan,
until we get out of India,--and /do/ you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest?

We have kept away from the two things that make life worth having."

"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going
to try this idiotic adventure.

Don't set the office on fire,"
I said,
"and go away before nine o'clock."

I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the
"Contrack."

"Be sure
to come down
to the Serai to-morrow,"
were their parting words.

The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload.

All the nationalities of Central Asia may be found there,
and most of the folk of India proper.

Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay,
and try
to draw eye-teeth.

You can buy ponies,
turquoises,
Persian pussy- cats,
saddle-bags,
fat-tailed sheep,
and musk in the Kumharsen Serai,
and get many strange things
for nothing.

In the afternoon I went down
to see whether my friends intended
to keep their word or were lying there drunk.

A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up
to me,
gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig.

Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys.

The two were loading up two camels,
and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them
with shrieks of laughter.

"The priest is mad,"
said a horse-dealer
to me.

"He is going up
to Kabul
to sell toys
to the Amir.

He will either be raised
to honour or have his head cut off.

He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly ever since."

"The witless are under the protection of God,"
stammered a flat- cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi.

"They foretell future events."

"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!"
grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the Border,
and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the bazaar.

"Ohe,
priest,
whence come you and whither do you go?"
"From Roum have I come,"
shouted the priest,
waving his whirligig;
"from Roum,
blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves,
robbers,
liars,
the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs,
dogs,
and perjurers! Who will take the Protected of God
to the North
to sell charms that are never still
to the Amir?

The camels shall not gall,
the sons shall not fall sick,
and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away,
of the men who give me place in their caravan.

Who will assist me
to slipper the King of the Roos
with a golden slipper
with a silver heel?

The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours!"
He spread out the skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses.

"There starts a caravan from Peshawar
to Kabul in twenty days,
/Huzrut/,"
said the Eusufzai trader.

"My camels go therewith.

Do thou also go and bring us good luck."

"I will go even now!"
shouted the priest.

"I will depart upon my winged camels,
and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan,"
he yelled
to his servant,
"drive out the camels,
but let me first mount my own."

He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt,
and,
turning round
to me,
cried,
"Come thou also,
Sahib,
a little along the road,
and I will sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan."

Then the light broke upon me,
and I followed the two camels out of the Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted.

"What d'
you think o'
that?"
said he in English.

"Carnehan can't talk their patter,
so I've made him my servant.

He makes a handsome servant.

'T isn't
for nothing that I've been knocking about the country
for fourteen years.

Didn't I do that talk neat?

We'll hitch on
to a caravan at Peshawar till we get
to Jagdallak,
and then we'll see if we can get donkeys
for our camels,
and strike into Kafiristan.

Whirligigs
for the Amir,
O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you feel."

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

"Twenty of
'em,"
said Dravot,
placidly.

"Twenty of
'em and ammunition
to correspond,
under the whirligigs and the mud dolls."

"Heaven help you if you are caught
with those things!"
I said.

"A Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans."

"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg,
borrow,
or steal--are invested on these two camels,"
said Dravot.

"We won't get caught.

We're going through the Khaiber
with a regular caravan.

Who'd touch a poor mad priest?"
"Have you got everything you want?"
I asked,
overcome
with astonishment.

"Not yet,
but we shall soon.

Give us a momento of your kindness,
/Brother/.

You did me a service yesterday,
and that time in Marwar.

Half my Kingdom shall you have,
as the saying is."

I slipped a small charm compass from my watch-chain and handed it up
to the priest.

"Good-bye,"
said Dravot,
giving me hand cautiously.

"It's the last time we'll shake hands
with an Englishman these many days.

Shake hands
with him,
Carnehan,"
he cried,
as the second camel passed me.

Carnehan leaned down and shook hands.

Then the camels passed away along the dusty road,
and I was left alone
to wonder.

My eye could detect no failure in the disguises.

The scene in the Serai proved that they were complete
to the native mind.

There was just the chance,
therefore,
that Carnehan and Dravot would be able
to wander through Afghanistan without detection.

But,
beyond,
they would find death-- certain and awful death.

Ten days later a native correspondent,
giving me the news of the day from Peshawar,
wound up his letter with:

"There has been much laughter here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation
to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great charms
to H.

H.

the Amir of Bokhara.

He passed through Peshawar and associated himself
to the Second Summer caravan that goes
to Kabul.

The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that such mad fellows bring good fortune."

The two,
then,
were beyond the Border.

I would have prayed
for them,
but that night a real King died in Europe,
and demanded an obituary notice.

The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again.

Summer passed and winter thereafter,
and came and passed again.

The daily paper continued and I
with it,
and upon the third summer there fell a hot night,
a night issue,
and a strained waiting
for something
to be telegraphed from the other side of the world,
exactly as had happened before.

A few great men had died in the past two years,
the machines worked
with more clatter,
and some of the trees in the office garden were a few feet taller.

But that was all the difference.

I passed over
to the press-room,
and went through just such a scene as I have already described.

The nervous tension was stronger than it had been two years before,
and I felt the heat more acutely.

At three o'clock I cried,
"Print off,"
and turned
to go,
when there crept
to my chair what was left of a man.

He was bent into a circle,
his head was sunk between his shoulders,
and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear.

I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this rag-wrapped,
whining cripple who addressed me by name,
crying that he was come back.

"Can you give me a drink?"
he whimpered.

"For the Lord's sake,
give me a drink!"
I went back
to the office,
the man following
with groans of pain,
and I turned up the lamp.

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

I looked at him intently.

Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over the nose in an inch-broad black band,
but
for the life of me I could not tell where.

"I don't know you,"
I said,
handing him the whisky.

"What can I do
for you?"
He took a gulp of the spirit raw,
and shivered in spite of the suffocating heat.

"I've come back,"
he repeated;
"and I was the King of Kafiristan--me and Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you setting there and giving us the books.

I am Peachey,--Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan,--and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!"
I was more than a little astonished,
and expressed my feelings accordingly.

"It's true,"
said Carnehan,
with a dry cackle,
nursing his feet,
which were wrapped in rags--"true as gospel.

Kings we were,
with crowns upon our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh,
poor,
poor Dan,
that would never take advice,
not though I begged of him!"
"Take the whisky,"
I said,
"and take your own time.

Tell me all you can recollect of everything from beginning
to end.

You got across the Border on your camels,
Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant.

Do you remember that?"
"I ain't mad--yet,
but I shall be that way soon.

Of course I remember.

Keep looking at me,
or maybe my words will go all
to pieces.

Keep looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything."

I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could.

He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist.

It was twisted like a bird's claw,
and upon the back was a ragged,
red,
diamond-shaped scar.

"No,
don't look there.

Look at /me/,"
said Carnehan.

"That comes afterward,
but
for the Lord's sake don't distrack me.

We left
with that caravan,
me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics
to amuse the people we were with.

Dravot used
to make us laugh in the evenings when all the people was cooking their dinners--cooking their dinners,
and .

.

.

what did they do then?

They lit little fires
with sparks that went into Dravot's beard,
and we all laughed--fit
to die.

Little red fires they was,
going into Dravot's big red beard--so funny."

His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly.

"You went as far as Jagdallak
with that caravan,"
I said,
at a venture,
"after you had lit those fires.

To Jagdallak,
where you turned off
to try
to get into Kafiristan."

"No,
we didn't,
neither.

What are you talking about?

We turned off before Jagdallak,
because we heard the roads was good.

But they wasn't good enough
for our two camels--mine and Dravot's.

When we left the caravan,
Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too,
and said we would be heathen,
because the Kafirs didn't allow Mohammedans
to talk
to them.

So we dressed betwixt and between,
and such a sight as Daniel Dravot I never saw yet nor expect
to see again.

He burned half his beard,
and slung a sheepskin over his shoulder,
and shaved his head into patterns.

He shaved mine too,
and made me wear outrageous things
to look like a heathen.

That was in a most mountaineous country,
and our camels couldn't go along any more because of the mountains.

They were tall and black,
and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats --there are lots of goats in Kafiristan.

And these mountains,
they never keep still,
no more than the goats.

Always fighting they are,
and don't let you sleep at night."

"Take some more whisky,"
I said,
very slowly.

"What did you and Daniel Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads that led into Kafiristan?"
"What did which do?

There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan that was
with Dravot.

Shall I tell you about him?

He died out there in the cold.

Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey,
turning and twisting in the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell
to the Amir.

No;
they was two
for three ha'pence,
those whirligigs,
or I am much mistaken and woful sore.

.

.

.

And then these camels were no use,
and Peachey said
to Dravot,
'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads are chopped off,'
and
with that they killed the camels all among the mountains,
not having anything in particular
to eat,
but first they took off the boxes
with the guns and the ammunition,
till two men came along driving four mules.

Dravot up and dances in front of them,
singing,
'Sell me four mules.'

Says the first man,
'If you are rich enough
to buy,
you are rich enough
to rob;'
but before ever he could put his hand
to his knife,
Dravot breaks his neck over his knee,
and the other party runs away.

So Carnehan loaded the mules
with the rifles that was taken off the camels,
and together we starts forward into those bitter-cold mountaineous parts,
and never a road broader than the back of your hand."

He paused
for a moment,
while I asked him if he could remember the nature of the country through which he had journeyed.

"I am telling you as straight as I can,
but my head isn't as good as it might be.

They drove nails through it
to make me hear better how Dravot died.

The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary,
and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary.

They went up and up,
and down and down,
and that other party,
Carnehan,
was imploring of Dravot not
to sing and whistle so loud,
for fear of bringing down the tremenjus avalanches.

But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth being King,
and whacked the mules over the rump,
and never took no heed
for ten cold days.

We came
to a big level valley all among the mountains,
and the mules were near dead,
so we killed them,
not having anything in special
for them or us
to eat.

We sat upon the boxes,
and played odd and even
with the cartridges that was jolted out.

"Then ten men
with bows and arrows ran down that valley,
chasing twenty men
with bows and arrows,
and the row was tremenjus.

They was fair men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and remarkable well built.

Says Dravot,
unpacking the guns,
'This is the beginning of the business.

We'll fight
for the ten men,'
and
with that he fires two rifles at the twenty men,
and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock where he was sitting.

The other men began
to run,
but Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges,
up and down the valley.

Then we goes up
to the ten men that had run across the snow too,
and they fires a footy little arrow at us.

Dravot he shoots above their heads,
and they all falls down flat.

Then he walks over them and kicks them,
and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round
to make them friendly like.

He calls them and gives them the boxes
to carry,
and waves his hand
for all the world as though he was King already.

They takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine wood on the top,
where there was half a dozen big stone idols.

Dravot he goes
to the biggest--a fellow they call Imbra--and lays a rifle and a cartridge at his feet,
rubbing his nose respectfuly
with his own nose,
patting him on the head,
and nods his head,
and says,
'That's all right.

I'm in the know too,
and these old jimjams are my friends.'

Then he opens his mouth and points down it,
and when the first man brings him food,
he says,
'No;'
and when the second man brings him food,
he says
'no;'
but when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings him food,
he says,
'Yes;'
very haughty,
and eats it slow.

That was how he came
to our first village without any trouble,
just as though we had tumbled from the skies.

But we tumbled from one of those damned rope-bridges,
you see,
and--you couldn't expect a man
to laugh much after that?"
"Take some more whisky and go on,"
I said.

"That was the first village you came into.

How did you get
to be King?"
"I wasn't King,"
said Carnehan.

"Dravot he was the King,
and a handsome man he looked
with the gold crown on his head and all.

Him and the other party stayed in that village,
and every morning Dravot sat by the side of old Imbra,
and the people came and worshipped.

That was Dravot's order.

Then a lot of men came into the valley,
and Carnehan Dravot picks them off
with the rifles before they knew where they was,
and runs down into the valley and up again the other side,
and finds another village,
same as the first one,
and the people all falls down flat on their faces,
and Dravot says,
'Now what is the trouble between you two villages?'
and the people points
to a woman,
as fair as you or me,
that was carried off,
and Dravot takes her back
to the first village and counts up the dead--eight there was.

For each dead man Dravot pours a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig,
and
'That's all right,'
says he.

Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm,
and walks them down the valley,
and shows them how
to scratch a line
with a spear right down the valley,
and gives each a sod of turf from both sides of the line.

Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all,
and Dravot says,
'Go and dig the land,
and be fruitful and multiply,'
which they did,
though they didn't understand.

Then we asks the names of things in their lingo--bread and water and fire and idols and such;
and Dravot leads the priest of each village up
to the idol,
and says he must sit there and judge the people,
and if anything goes wrong he is
to be shot.

"Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as bees and much prettier,
and the priests heard all the complaints and told Dravot in dumb-show what it was about.

'That's just the beginning,'
says Dravot.

'They think we're Gods.'

He and Carnehan picks out twenty good men and shows them how
to click off a rifle and form fours and advance in line;
and they was very pleased
to do so,
and clever
to see the hang of it.

Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch,
and leaves one at one village and one at the other,
and off we two goes
to see what was
to be done in the next valley.

That was all rock,
and there was a little village there,
and Carnehan says,
'Send
'em
to the old valley
to plant,'
and takes
'em there and gives
'em some land that wasn't took before.

They were a poor lot,
and we blooded
'em
with a kid before letting
'em into the new Kingdom.

That was
to impress the people,
and then they settled down quiet,
and Carnehan went back
to Dravot,
who had got into another valley,
all snow and ice and most mountaineous.

There was no people there,
and the Army got afraid;
so Dravot shoots one of them,
and goes on till he finds some people in a village,
and the Army explains that unless the people wants
to be killed they had better not shoot their little matchlocks,
for they had matchlocks.

We makes friends
with the priest,
and I stays there alone
with two of the Army,
teaching the men how
to drill;
and a thundering big Chief comes across the snow
with kettledrums and horns twanging,
because he heard there was a new God kicking about.

Carnehan sights
for the brown of the men half a mile across the snow and wings one of them.

Then he sends a message
to the Chief that,
unless he wished
to be killed,
he must come and shake hands
with me and leave his arms behind.

The Chief comes alone first,
and Carnehan shakes hands
with him and whirls his arms about,
same as Dravot used,
and very much surprised that Chief was,
and strokes my eyebrows.

Then Carnehan goes alone
to the Chief,
and asks him in dumb- show if he had an enemy he hated.

'I have,'
says the chief.

So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men,
and sets the two of the Army
to show them drill,
and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers.

So he marches
with the Chief
to a great big plain on the top of a mountain,
and the Chief's men rushes into a village and takes it;
we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy.

So we took that village too,
and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat,
and says,
'Occupy till I come;'
which was scriptural.

By way of a reminder,
when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away,
I drops a bullet near him standing on the snow,
and all the people falls flat on their faces.

Then I sends a letter
to Dravot wherever he be by land or by sea."

At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted:

"How could you write a letter up yonder?"
"The letter?--oh!--the letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes,
please.

It was a string-talk letter,
that we'd learned the way of it from a blind beggar in the Punjab."

I remember that there had once come
to the office a blind man
with a knotted twig,
and a piece of string which he wound round the twig according
to some cipher of his own.

He could,
after the lapse of days or hours,
repeat the sentence which he had reeled up.

He had reduced the alphabet
to eleven primitive sounds,
and tried
to teach me his method,
but I could not understand.

"I sent that letter
to Dravot,"
said Carnehan,
"and told him
to come back because this Kingdom was growing too big
for me
to handle;
and then I struck
for the first valley,
to see how the priests were working.

They called the village we took along
with the Chief,
Bashkai,
and the first village we took,
Er-Heb.

The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right,
but they had a lot of pending cases about land
to show me,
and some men from another village had been firing arrows at night.

I went out and looked
for that village,
and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards.

That used all the cartridges I cared
to spend,
and I waited
for Dravot,
who had been away two or three months,
and I kept my people quiet.

"One morning I heard the devil's own noise of drums and horns,
and Dan Dravot marches down the hill
with his Army and a tail of hundreds of men,
and,
which was the most amazing,
a great gold crown on his head.

'My Gord,
Carnehan,'
says Daniel,
'this is a tremenjus business,
and we've got the whole country as far as it's worth having.

I am the son of Alexander by Queen Semiramis,
and you're my younger brother and a God too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen.

I've been marching and fighting
for six weeks
with the Army,
and every footy little village
for fifty miles has come in rejoiceful;
and more than that,
I've got the key of the whole show,
as you'll see,
and I've got a crown
for you! I told
'em
to make two of
'em at a place called Shu,
where the gold lies in the rock like suet in mutton.

Gold I've seen,
and turquoise I've kicked out of the cliffs,
and there's garnets in the sands of the river,
and here's a chunk of amber that a man brought me.

Call up all the priests and,
here,
take your crown.'
"One of the men opens a black hair bag,
and I slips the crown on.

It was too small and too heavy,
but I wore it
for the glory.

Hammered gold it was--five pounds weight,
like a hoop of a barrel.

"
'Peachey,'
says Dravot,
'we don't want
to fight no more.

The Craft's the trick,
so help me!'
and he brings forward that same Chief that I left at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward,
because he was so like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in the old days.

'Shake hands
with him,'
says Dravot;
and I shook hands and nearly dropped,
for Billy Fish gave me the Grip.

I said nothing,
but tried him
with the Fellow-craft Grip.

He answers all right,
and I tried the Master's Grip,
but that was a slip.

'A Fellow-craft he is!'
I says
to Dan.

'Does he know the word?'
'He does,'
says Dan,
'and all the priests know.

It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a Fellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours,
and they've cut the marks on the rocks,
but they don't know the Third Degree,
and they've come
to find out.

It's Gord's Truth.

I've known these long years that the Afghans knew up
to the Fellow-craft Degree,
but this is a miracle.

A God and a Grand Master of the Craft am I,
and a Lodge in the Third Degree I will open,
and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of the villages.'
"
'It's against all the law,'
I says,
'holding a Lodge without warrant from any one;
and you know we never held office in any Lodge.'
"
'It's a master stroke o'
policy,'
says Dravot.

'It means running the country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade.

We can't stop
to inquire now,
or they'll turn against us.

I've forty Chiefs at my heel,
and passed and raised according
to their merit they shall be.

Billet these men on the villages,
and see that we run up a Lodge of some kind.

The temple of Imbra will do
for a Lodge-room.

The women must make aprons as you show them.

I'll hold a levee of Chiefs to-night and Lodge to-morrow.'
"I was fair run off my legs,
but I wasn't such a fool as not
to see what a pull this Craft business gave us.

I showed the priests'
families how
to make aprons of the degrees,
but
for Dravot's apron the blue border and marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide,
not cloth.

We took a great square stone in the temple
for the Master's chair,
and little stones
for the officer's chairs,
and painted the black pavement
with white squares,
and did what we could
to make things regular.

"At the levee which was held that night on the hillside
with big bonfires,
Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons of Alexander,
and Passed Grand Masters in the Craft,
and was come
to make Kafiristan a country where every man should eat in peace and drink in quiet,
and specially obey us.

Then the Chiefs come round
to shake hands,
and they were so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands
with old friends.

We gave them names according as they was like men we had known in India--Billy Fish,
Holly Dilworth,
Pikky Kergan,
that was Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow,
and so on,
and so on.

"/The/ most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night.

One of the old priests was watching us continuous,
and I felt uneasy,
for I knew we'd have
to fudge the Ritual,
and I didn't know what the men knew.

The old priest was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai.

The minute Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made
for him,
the priest fetches a whoop and a howl,
and tries
to overturn the stone that Dravot was sitting on.

'It's all up now,'
I says.

'That comes of meddling
with the Craft without warrant!'
Dravot never winked an eye,
not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master's chair--which was
to say,
the stone of Imbra.

The priest begins rubbing the bottom end of it
to clear away the black dirt,
and presently he shows all the other priests the Master's Mark,
same as was on Dravot's apron,
cut into the stone.

Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra knew it was there.

The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet and kisses
'em.

'Luck again,'
says Dravot,
across the Lodge,
to me;
'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of.

We're more than safe now.'

Then he bangs the butt of his gun
for a gavel and says,
'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right hand and the help of Peachey,
I declare myself Grand Master of all Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o'
the country,
and King of Kafiristan equally
with Peachey!'
At that he puts on his crown and I puts on mine,--I was doing Senior Warden,--and we opens the Lodge in most ample form.

It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling,
as if the memory was coming back
to them.

After that Peachey and Dravot raised such as was worthy--high priests and Chiefs of far- off villages.

Billy Fish was the first,
and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him.

It was not in any way according
to Ritual,
but it served our turn.

We didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men,
because we didn't want
to make the Degree common.

And they was clamouring
to be raised.

"
'In another six months,'
says Dravot,
'we'll hold another Communication and see how you are working.'

Then he asks them about their villages,
and learns that they was fighting one against the other,
and were sick and tired of it.

And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting
with the Mohammedans.

'You can fight those when they come into our country,'
says Dravot.

'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes
for a Frontier guard,
and send two hundred at a time
to this valley
to be drilled.

Nobody is going
to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well,
and I know that you won't cheat me,
because you're white people--sons of Alexander--and not like common black Mohammedans.

You are /my/ people,
and,
by God,'
says he,
running off into English at the end,
'I'll make a damned fine Nation of you,
or I'll die in the making!'
"I can't tell all we did
for the next six months,
because Dravot did a lot I couldn't see the hang of,
and he learned their lingo in a way I never could.

My work was
to help the people plough,
and now and again go out
with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing,
and make
'em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the country horrid.

Dravot was very kind
to me,
but when he walked up and down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his
with both fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about,
and I just waited
for orders.

"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people.

They were afraid of me and the Army,
but they loved Dan.

He was the best of friends
with the priests and the Chiefs;
but any one could come across the hills
with a complaint,
and Dravot would hear him out fair,
and call four priests together and say what was
to be done.

He used
to call in Billy Fish from Bashkai,
and Pikky Kergan from Shu,
and an old Chief we called Kafuzelum,--it was like enough
to his real name,--and hold councils with
'em when there was any fighting
to be done in small villages.

That was his Council of War,
and the four priests of Bashkai,
Shu,
Khawak,
and Madora was his Privy Council.

Between the lot of
'em they sent me,
with forty men and twenty rifles,
and sixty men carrying turquoises,
into the Ghorband country
to buy those hand- made Martini rifles,
that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul,
from one of the Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of their mouths
for turquoises.

"I stayed in Ghorband a month,
and gave the Governor there the pick of my baskets
for hush-money,
and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some more,
and,
between the two and the tribes-people,
we got more than a hundred hand-made Martinis,
a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw
to six hundred yards,
and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition
for the rifles.

I came back
with what I had,
and distributed
'em among the men that the Chiefs sent in
to me
to drill.

Dravot was too busy
to attend
to those things,
but the old Army that we first made helped me,
and we turned out five hundred men that could drill,
and two hundred that knew how
to hold arms pretty straight.

Even those cork-screwed,
hand-made guns was a miracle
to them.

Dravot talked big about powder- shops and factories,
walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter was coming on.

"
'I won't make a Nation,'
says he.

'I'll make an Empire! These men aren't niggers;
they're English! Look at their eyes--look at their mouths.

Look at the way they stand up.

They sit on chairs in their own houses.

They're the Lost Tribes,
or something like it,
and they've grown
to be English.

I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get frightened.

There must be a fair two million of
'em in these hills.

The villages are full o'
little children.

Two million people-- two hundred and fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want the rifles and a little drilling.

Two hundred and fifty thousand men,
ready
to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries
for India! Peachey,
man,'
he says,
chewing his beard in great hunks,
'we shall be Emperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling
to us.

I'll treat
with the Viceroy on equal terMs. I'll ask him
to send me twelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit.

There's Mackray,
Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli-- many's the good dinner he's given me,
and his wife a pair of trousers.

There's Donkin,
the Warder of Tounghoo Jail;
there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if I was in India.

The Viceroy shall do it
for me;
I'll send a man through in the spring
for those men,
and I'll write
for a dispensation from the Grand Lodge
for what I've done as Grand Master.

That--and all the Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up the Martini.

They'll be worn smooth,
but they'll do
for fighting in these hills.

Twelve English,
a hundred thousand Sniders run through the Amir's country in driblets,--I'd be content
with twenty thousand in one year,--and we'd be an Empire.

When everything was shipshape I'd hand over the crown--this crown I'm wearing now--to Queen Victoria on my knees,
and she'd say,
"Rise up,
Sir Daniel Dravot."

Oh,
it's big! It's big,
I tell you! But there's so much
to be done in every place--Bashkai,
Khawak,
Shu,
and everywhere else.'
"
'What is it?'
I says.

'There are no more men coming in
to be drilled this autumn.

Look at those fat black clouds.

They're bringing the snow.'
"
'It isn't that,'
says Daniel,
putting his hand very hard on my shoulder;
'and I don't wish
to say anything that's against you,
for no other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you have done.

You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief,
and the people know you;
but--it's a big country,
and somehow you can't help me,
Peachey,
in the way I want
to be helped.'
"
'Go
to your blasted priests,
then!'
I said,
and I was sorry when I made that remark,
but it did hurt me sore
to find Daniel talking so superior,
when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me.

"
'Don't let's quarrel,
Peachey,'
says Daniel,
without cursing.

'You're a King too,
and the half of this Kingdom is yours;
but can't you see,
Peachey,
we want cleverer men than us now--three or four of
'em,
that we can scatter about
for our Deputies.

It's a hugeous great State,
and I can't always tell the right thing
to do,
and I haven't time
for all I want
to do,
and here's the winter coming on and all.'

He put half his beard into his mouth,
all red like the gold of his crown.

"
'I'm sorry,
Daniel,'
says I.

'I've done all I could.

I've drilled the men and shown the people how
to stack their oats better;
and I've brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you're driving at.

I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way.'
"
'There's another thing too,'
says Dravot,
walking up and down.

'The winter's coming,
and these people won't be giving much trouble,
and if they do we can't move about.

I want a wife.'
"
'For Gord's sake leave the women alone!'
I says.

'We've both got all the work we can,
though I /am/ a fool.

Remember the Contrack,
and keep clear o'
women.'
"
'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings;
and Kings we have been these months past,'
says Dravot,
weighing his crown in his hand.

'You go get a wife too,
Peachey--a nice,
strappin',
plump girl that'll keep you warm in the winter.

They're prettier than English girls,
and we can take the pick of
'em.

Boil
'em once or twice in hot water,
and they'll come out like chicken and ham.'
"
'Don't tempt me!'
I says.

'I will not have any dealings
with a woman,
not till we are a dam'
side more settled than we are now.

I've been doing the work o'
two men,
and you've been doing the work of three.

Let's lie off a bit,
and see if we can get some better tobacco from Afghan country and run in some good liquor;
and no women.'
"
'Who's talking o'
/women/?'
says Dravot.

'I said /wife/--a Queen
to breed a King's son
for the King.

A Queen out of the strongest tribe,
that'll make them your blood-brothers,
and that'll lie by your side and tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs.

That's what I want.'
"
'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was a plate-layer?'
says I.

'A fat lot o'
good she was
to me.

She taught me the lingo and one or two other things;
but what happened?

She ran away
with the Station-master's servant and half my month's pay.

Then she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste,
and had the impidence
to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in the running-shed too!'
"
'We've done
with that,'
says Dravot;
'these women are whiter than you or me,
and a Queen I will have
for the winter months.'
"
'For the last time o'
asking,
Dan,
do /not/,'
I says.

'It'll only bring us harm.

The Bible says that Kings ain't
to waste their strength on women,
'specially when they've got a new raw Kingdom
to work over.'
"
'For the last time of answering,
I will,'
said Dravot,
and he went away through the pine-trees looking like a big red devil,
the sun being on his crown and beard and all.

"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought.

He put it before the Council,
and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better ask the girls.

Dravot damned them all round.

'What's wrong
with me?'
he shouts,
standing by the idol Imbra.

'Am I a dog,
or am I not enough of a man
for your wenches?

Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this country?

Who stopped the last Afghan raid?'
It was me really,
but Dravot was too angry
to remember.

'Who bought your guns?

Who repaired the bridges?

Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut in the stone?'
says he,
and he thumped his hand on the block that he used
to sit on in Lodge,
and at Council,
which opened like Lodge always.

Billy Fish said nothing,
and no more did the others.

'Keep your hair on,
Dan,'
said I,
'and ask the girls.

That's how it's done at Home,
and these people are quite English.'
"
'The marriage of the King is a matter of State,'
says Dan,
in a white-hot rage,
for he could feel,
I hope,
that he was going against his better mind.

He walked out of the Council-room,
and the others sat still,
looking at the ground.

"
'Billy Fish,'
says I
to the Chief of Bashkai,
'what's the difficulty here?

A straight answer
to a true friend.'
"
'You know,'
says Billy Fish.

'How should a man tell you who knows everything?

How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils?

It's not proper.'
"I remembered something like that in the Bible;
but,
if after seeing us as long as they had,
they still believed we were Gods,
it wasn't
for me
to undeceive them.

"
'A God can do anything,'
says I.

'If the King is fond of a girl he'll not let her die.'

'She'll have to,'
said Billy Fish.

'There are all sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains,
and now and again a girl marries one of them and isn't seen any more.

Besides,
you two know the Mark cut in the stone.

Only the Gods know that.

We thought you were men till you showed the sign of the Master.'
"I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine secrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off;
but I said nothing.

All that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half- way down the hill,
and I heard the girl crying fit
to die.

One of the priests told us that she was being prepared
to marry the King.

"
'I'll have no nonsense of that kind,'
says Dan.

'I don't want
to interfere
with your customs,
but I'll take my own wife.'

'The girl's a little bit afraid,'
says the priest.

'She thinks she's going
to die,
and they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple.'
"
'Hearten her very tender,
then,'
says Dravot,
'or I'll hearten you
with the butt of a gun so you'll never want
to be heartened again.'

He licked his lips,
did Dan,
and stayed up walking about more than half the night,
thinking of the wife that he was going
to get in the morning.

I wasn't any means comfortable,
for I knew that dealings
with a woman in foreign parts,
though you was a crowned King twenty times over,
could not but be risky.

I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep,
and I saw the priests talking together in whispers,
and the Chiefs talking together too,
and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes.

"
'What is up,
Fish?'
I say
to the Bashkai man,
who was wrapped up in his furs and looking splendid
to behold.

"
'I can't rightly say,'
says he;
'but if you can make the King drop all this nonsense about marriage,
you'll be doing him and me and yourself a great service.'
"
'That I do believe,'
says I.

'But sure,
you know,
Billy,
as well as me,
having fought against and
for us,
that the King and me are nothing more than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made.

Nothing more,
I do assure you.'
"
'That may be,'
says Billy Fish,
'and yet I should be sorry if it was.'

He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak
for a minute and thinks.

'King,'
says he,
'be you man or God or Devil,
I'll stick by you to-day.

I have twenty of my men
with me,
and they will follow me.

We'll go
to Bashkai until the storm blows over.'
"
A little snow had fallen in the night,
and everything was white except the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north.

Dravot came out
with his crown on his head,
swinging his arms and stamping his feet,
and looking more pleased than Punch.

"
'For the last time,
drop it,
Dan,'
says I,
in a whisper;
'Billy Fish here says that there will be a row.'
"
'A row among my people!'
says Dravot.

'Not much.

Peachey,
you're a fool not
to get a wife too.

Where's the girl?'
says he,
with a voice as loud as the braying of a jackass.

'Call up all the Chiefs and priests,
and let the Emperor see if his wife suits him.'
"There was no need
to call any one.

They were all there leaning on their guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood.

A lot of priests went down
to the little temple
to bring up the girl,
and the horns blew fit
to wake the dead.

Billy Fish saunters round and gets as close
to Daniel as he could,
and behind him stood his twenty men
with matchlocks--not a man of them under six feet.

I was next
to Dravot,
and behind me was twenty men of the regular Army.

Up comes the girl,
and a strapping wench she was,
covered
with silver and turquoises,
but white as death,
and looking back every minute at the priests.

"
'She'll do,'
said Dan,
looking her over.

'What's
to be afraid of,
lass?

Come and kiss me.'

He puts his arm round her.

She shuts her eyes,
gives a bit of a squeak,
and down goes her face in the side of Dan's flaming-red beard.

"
'The slut's bitten me!'
says he,
clapping his hand
to his neck,
and,
sure enough,
his hand was red
with blood.

Billy Fish and two of his matchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into the Bashkai lot,
while the priests howls in their lingo,
'Neither God nor Devil,
but a man!'
I was all taken aback,
for a priest cut at me in front,
and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men.

"
'God A'mighty!'
says Dan,
'what is the meaning o'
this?'
"
'Come back! Come away!'
says Billy Fish.

'Ruin and Mutiny is the matter.

We'll break
for Bashkai if we can.'
"I tried
to give some sort of orders
to my men,--the men o'
the regular Army,--but it was no use,
so I fired into the brown of
'em
with an English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line.

The valley was full of shouting,
howling creatures,
and every soul was shrieking,
'Not a God nor a Devil,
but only a man!'
The Bashkai troops stuck
to Billy Fish all they were worth,
but their matchlocks wasn't half as good as the Kabul breech-loaders,
and four of them dropped.

Dan was bellowing like a bull,
for he was very wrathy;
and Billy Fish had a hard job
to prevent him running out at the crowd.

"
'We can't stand,'
says Billy Fish.

'Make a run
for it down the valley! The whole place is against us.'

The matchlock-men ran,
and we went down the valley in spite of Dravot.

He was swearing horrible and crying out that he was a King.

The priests rolled great stones on us,
and the regular Army fired hard,
and there wasn't more than six men,
not counting Dan,
Billy Fish,
and Me,
that came down
to the bottom of the valley alive.

"Then they stopped firing,
and the horns in the temple blew again.

'Come away--for Gord's sake come away!'
says Billy Fish.

'They'll send runners out
to all the villages before ever we get
to Bashkai.

I can protect you there,
but I can't do anything now."

"My own notion is that Dan began
to go mad in his head from that hour.

He stared up and down like a stuck pig.

Then he was all
for walking back alone and killing the priests
with his bare hands;
which he could have done.

'An Emperor am I,'
says Daniel,
'and next year I shall be a Knight of the Queen.'
"
'All right,
Dan,'
says I;
'but come along now while there's time.'
"
'It's your fault,'
says he,
'for not looking after your Army better.

There was mutiny in the midst,
and you didn't know--you damned engine- driving,
plate-laying,
missionary's-pass-hunting hound!'
He sat upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to.

I was too heart-sick
to care,
though it was all his foolishness that brought the smash.

"
'I'm sorry,
Dan,'
says I,
'but there's no accounting
for natives.

This business is our Fifty-seven.

Maybe we'll make something out of it yet,
when we've got
to Bashkai.'
"
'Let's get
to Bashkai,
then,'
says Dan,
'and,
by God,
when I come back here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanket left!'
"We walked all that day,
and all that night Dan was stumping up and down on the snow,
chewing his beard and muttering
to himself.

"
'There's no hope o'
getting clear,'
said Billy Fish.

'The priests have sent runners
to the villages
to say that you are only men.

Why didn't you stick on as Gods till things was more settled?

I'm a dead man,'
says Billy Fish,
and he throws himself down on the snow and begins
to pray
to his Gods.

"Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down,
no level ground at all,
and no food,
either.

The six Bashkai men looked at Billy Fish hungry-way as if they wanted
to ask something,
but they never said a word.

At noon we came
to the top of a flat mountain all covered
with snow,
and when we climbed up into it,
behold,
there was an Army in position waiting in the middle!
"
'The runners have been very quick,'
says Billy Fish,
with a little bit of a laugh.

'They are waiting
for us.'
"Three or four men began
to fire from the enemy's side,
and a chance shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg.

That brought him
to his senses.

He looks across the snow at the Army,
and sees the rifles that we had brought into the country.

"
'We're done for,'
says he.

'They are Englishmen,
these people,--and it's my blasted nonsense that has brought you
to this.

Get back,
Billy Fish,
and take your men away;
you've done what you could,
and now cut
for it.

Carnehan,'
says he,
'shake hands
with me and go along
with Billy,
Maybe they won't kill you.

I'll go and meet
'em alone.

It's me that did it! Me,
the King!'
"
'Go!'
says I.

'Go
to Hell,
Dan! I'm
with you here.

Billy Fish,
you clear out,
and we two will meet those folk.'
"
'I'm a Chief,'
says Billy Fish,
quite quiet.

'I stay
with you.

My men can go.'
"The Bashkai fellows didn't wait
for a second word,
but ran off,
and Dan and Me and Billy Fish walked across
to where the drums were drumming and the horns were horning.

It was cold--awful cold.

I've got that cold in the back of my head now.

There's a lump of it there."

The punka-coolies had gone
to sleep.

Two kerosene lamps were blazing in the office,
and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on the blotter as I leaned forward.

Carnehan was shivering,
and I feared that his mind might go.

I wiped my face,
took a fresh grip of the piteously mangled hands,
and said,
"What happened after that?"
The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current.

"What was you pleased
to say?"
whined Carnehan.

"They took them without any sound.

Not a little whisper all along the snow,
not though the King knocked down the first man that set hand on him--not though old Peachey fired his last cartridge into the brown of
'em.

Not a single solitary sound did those swines make.

They just closed up tight,
and I tell you their furs stunk.

There was a man called Billy Fish,
a good friend of us all,
and they cut his throat,
Sir,
then and there,
like a pig;
and the King kicks up the bloody snow and says,
'We've had a dashed fine run
for our money.

What's coming next?'
But Peachey,
Peachey Taliaferro,
I tell you,
Sir,
in confidence as betwixt two friends,
he lost his head,
Sir.

No,
he didn't,
neither.

The King lost his head,
so he did,
all along o'
one of those cunning rope bridges.

Kindly let me have the paper-cutter,
Sir.

It tilted this way.

They marched him a mile across that snow
to a rope bridge over a ravine
with a river at the bottom.

You may have seen such.

They prodded him behind like an ox.

'Damn your eyes!'
says the King.

'D'
you suppose I can't die like a gentleman?'
He turns
to Peachey-- Peachey that was crying like a child.

'I've brought you
to this,
Peachey,'
says he.

'Brought you out of your happy life
to be killed in Kafiristan,
where you was late Commander-in-Chief of the Emperor's forces.

Say you forgive me,
Peachey.'

'I do,'
says Peachey.

'Fully and freely do I forgive you,
Dan.'

'Shake hands,
Peachey,'
says he.

'I'm going now.'

Out he goes,
looking neither right nor left,
and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes,
'Cut you beggars,'
he shouts;
and they cut,
and old Dan fell,
turning round and round and round,
twenty thousand miles,
for he took half an hour
to fall till he struck the water,
and I could see his body caught on a rock
with the gold crown close beside.

"But do you know what they did
to Peachey between two pine-trees?

They crucified him,
Sir,
as Peachey's hand will show.

They used wooden pegs
for his hands and feet;
but he didn't die.

He hung there and screamed,
and they took him down next day,
and said it was a miracle that he wasn't dead.

They took him down--poor old Peachey that hadn't done them any harm--that hadn't done them any--"
He rocked
to and fro and wept bitterly,
wiping his eyes
with the back of his scarred hands and moaning like a child
for some ten minutes.

"They was cruel enough
to feed him up in the temple,
because they said he was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man.

Then they turned him out on the snow,
and told him
to go home,
and Peachey came home in about a year,
begging along the roads quite safe;
for Daniel Dravot he walked before and said,
'Come along,
Peachey.

It's a big thing we're doing.'

The mountains they danced at night,
and the mountains they tried
to fall on Peachey's head,
but Dan he held up his hand,
and Peachey came along bent double.

He never let go of Dan's hand,
and he never let go of Dan's head.

They gave it
to him as a present in the temple,
to remind him not
to come again;
and though the crown was pure gold and Peachey was starving,
never would Peachey sell the same.

You know Dravot,
Sir! You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now!"
He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist;
brought out a black horsehair bag embroidered
with silver thread;
and shook therefrom on
to my table--the dried,
withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun,
that had long been paling the lamps,
struck the red beard and blind sunken eyes;
struck,
too,
a heavy circlet of gold studded
with raw turquoises,
that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples.

"You be'old now,"
said Carnehan,
"the Emperor in his
'abit as he lived --the King of Kafiristan
with his crown upon his head.

Poor old Daniel that was a monarch once!"
I shuddered,
for,
in spite of defacements manifold,
I recognised the head of the man of Marwar Junction.

Carnehan rose
to go.

I attempted
to stop him.

He was not fit
to walk abroad.

"Let me take away the whisky,
and give me a little money,"
he gasped.

"I was a King once.

I'll go
to the Deputy Commissioner and ask
to set in the Poorhouse till I get my health.

No,
thank you,
I can't wait till you get a carriage
for me.

I've urgent private affairs--in the south--at Marwar."

He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of the Deputy Commissioner's house.

That day at noon I had occasion
to go down the blinding-hot Mall,
and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white dust of the roadside,
his hat in his hand,
quavering dolorously after the fashion of street-singers at Home.

There was not a soul in sight,
and he was out of all possible earshot of the houses.

And he sang through his nose,
turning his head from right
to left:

"The Son of Man goes forth
to war,
A golden crown
to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar-- Who follows in His train?"
I waited
to hear no more,
but put the poor wretch into my carriage and drove him off
to the nearest missionary
for eventual transfer
to the Asylum.

He repeated the hymn twice while he was
with me,
whom he did not in the least recognise,
and I left him singing it
to the missionary.

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

"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke.

He died early yesterday morning,"
said the Superintendent.

"Is it true that he was half an hour bareheaded in the sun at midday?"
"Yes,"
said I;
"but do you happen
to know if he had anything upon him by any chance when he died?"
"Not
to my knowledge,"
said the Superintendent.

And there the matter rests.

TAJIMA BY MISS MITFORD Once upon a time,
a certain ronin,
Tajima Shume by name,
an able and well-read man,
being on his travels
to see the world,
went up
to Kiyoto by the Tokaido.

[The road of the Eastern Sea,
the famous highroad leading from Kiyoto
to Yedo.

The name is also used
to indicate the provinces through which it runs.] One day,
in the neighbourhood of Nagoya,
in the province of Owari,
he fell in
with a wandering priest,
with whom he entered into conversation.

Finding that they were bound
for the same place,
they agreed
to travel together,
beguiling their weary way by pleasant talk on divers matters;
and so by degrees,
as they became more intimate,
they began
to speak without restraint about their private affairs;
and the priest,
trusting thoroughly in the honour of his companion,
told him the object of his journey.

"For some time past,"
said he,
"I have nourished a wish that has engrossed all my thoughts;
for I am bent on setting up a molten image in honour of Buddha;
with this object I have wandered through various provinces collecting alms,
and
(who knows by what weary toil?)
we have succeeded in amassing two hundred ounces of silver--enough,
I trust,
to erect a handsome bronze figure."

What says the proverb?

"He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears poison."

Hardly had the ronin heard these words of the priest than an evil heart arose within him,
and he thought
to himself,
"Man's life,
from the womb
to the grave,
is made up of good and of ill luck.

Here am I,
nearly forty years old,
a wanderer,
without a calling,
or even a hope of advancement in the world.

To be sure,
it seems a shame;
yet if I could steal the money this priest is boasting about,
I could live at ease
for the rest of my days;"
and so he began casting about how best he might compass his purpose.

But the priest,
far from guessing the drift of his comrade's thoughts,
journeyed cheerfully on till they reached the town of Kuana.

Here there is an arm of the sea,
which is crossed in ferry-boats,
that start as soon as some twenty or thirty passengers are gathered together;
and in one of these boats the two travellers embarked.

About half-way across,
the priest was taken
with a sudden necessity
to go
to the side of the boat;
and the ronin,
following him,
tripped him up while no one was looking,
and flung him into the sea.

When the boatmen and passengers heard the splash,
and saw the priest struggling in the water,
they were afraid,
and made every effort
to save him;
but the wind was fair,
and the boat running swiftly under the bellying sails;
so they were soon a few hundred yards off from the drowning man,
who sank before the boat could be turned
to rescue him.

When he saw this,
the ronin feigned the utmost grief and dismay,
and said
to his fellow-passengers,
"This priest,
whom we have just lost,
was my cousin;
he was going
to Kiyoto,
to visit the shrine of his patron;
and as I happened
to have business there as well,
we settled
to travel together.

Now,
alas! by this misfortune,
my cousin is dead,
and I am left alone."

He spoke so feelingly,
and wept so freely,
that the passengers believed his story,
and pitied and tried
to comfort him.

Then the ronin said
to the boatmen:

"We ought,
by rights,
to report this matter
to the authorities;
but as I am pressed
for time,
and the business might bring trouble on yourselves as well,
perhaps we had better hush it up
for the present;
I will at once go on
to Kiyoto and tell my cousin's patron,
besides writing home about it.

What think you,
gentlemen?"
added he,
turning
to the other travellers.

They,
of course,
were only too glad
to avoid any hindrance
to their onward journey,
and all
with one voice agreed
to what the ronin had proposed;
and so the matter was settled.

When,
at length,
they reached the shore,
they left the boat,
and every man went his way;
but the ronin,
overjoyed in his heart,
took the wandering priest's luggage,
and,
putting it
with his own,
pursued his journey
to Kiyoto.

On reaching the capital,
the ronin changed his name from Shume
to Tokubei,
and,
giving up his position as a samurai,
turned merchant,
and traded
with the dead man's money.

Fortune favouring his speculations,
he began
to amass great wealth,
and lived at his ease,
denying himself nothing;
and in course of time he married a wife,
who bore him a child.

Thus the days and months wore on,
till one fine summer's night,
some three years after the priest's death,
Tokubei stepped out on the veranda of his house
to enjoy the cool air and the beauty of the moonlight.

Feeling dull and lonely,
he began musing over all kinds of things,
when on a sudden the deed of murder and theft,
done so long ago,
vividly recurred
to his memory,
and he thought
to himself,
"Here am I,
grown rich and fat on the money I wantonly stole.

Since then,
all has gone well
with me;
yet,
had I not been poor,
I had never turned assassin nor thief.

Woe betide me! what a pity it was!"
and as he was revolving the matter in his mind,
a feeling of remorse came over him,
in spite of all he could do.

While his conscience thus smote him,
he suddenly,
to his utter amazement,
beheld the faint outline of a man standing near a fir-tree in the garden;
on looking more attentively,
he perceived that the man's whole body was thin and worn,
and the eyes sunken and dim;
and in that poor ghost that was before him he recognised the very priest whom he had thrown into the sea at Kuana.

Chilled
with horror,
he looked again,
and saw that the priest was smiling in scorn.

He would have fled into the house,
but the ghost stretched forth its withered arm,
and,
clutching the back of his neck,
scowled at him
with a vindictive glare and a hideous ghastliness of mien so unspeakably awful that any ordinary man would have swooned
with fear.

But Tokubei,
tradesman though he was,
had once been a soldier,
and was not easily matched
for daring;
so he shook off the ghost,
and,
leaping into the room
for his dirk,
laid about him boldly enough;
but,
strike as he would,
the spirit,
fading into the air,
eluded his blows,
and suddenly reappeared only
to vanish again;
and from that time forth Tokubei knew no rest,
and was haunted night and day.

At length,
undone by such ceaseless vexation,
Tokubei fell ill,
and kept muttering,
"Oh,
misery! misery! the wandering priest is coming
to torture me!"
Hearing his moans and the disturbance he made,
the people in the house fancied he was mad,
and called in a physician,
who prescribed
for him.

But neither pill nor potion could cure Tokubei,
whose strange frenzy soon became the talk of the whole neighbourhood.

Now it chanced that the story reached the ears of a certain wandering priest who lodged in the next street.

When he heard the particulars,
this priest gravely shook his head as though he knew all about it,
and sent a friend
to Tokubei's house
to say that a wandering priest,
dwelling hard by,
had heard of his illness,
and,
were it never so grievous,
would undertake
to heal it by means of his prayers;
and Tokubei's wife,
driven half wild by her husband's sickness,
lost not a moment in sending
for the priest and taking him into the sick man's room.

But no sooner did Tokubei see the priest than he yelled out,
"Help! help! Here is the wandering priest come
to torment me again.

Forgive! forgive!"
and hiding his head under the coverlet,
he lay quivering all over.

Then the priest turned all present out of the room,
put his mouth
to the affrighted man's ear,
and whispered:

"Three years ago,
at the Kuana ferry,
you flung me into the water;
and well you remember it."

But Tokubei was speechless,
and could only quake
with fear.

"Happily,"
continued the priest,
"I had learned
to swim and
to dive as a boy;
so I reached the shore,
and,
after wandering through many provinces,
succeeded in setting up a bronze figure
to Buddha,
thus fulfilling the wish of my heart.

On my journey homeward,
I took a lodging in the next street,
and there heard of your marvellous ailment.

Thinking I could divine its cause,
I came
to see you,
and am glad
to find I was not mistaken.

You have done a hateful deed;
but am I not a priest,
and have I not forsaken the things of this world,
and would it not ill become me
to bear malice?

Repent,
therefore,
and abandon your evil ways.

To see you do so I should esteem the height of happiness.

Be of good cheer,
now,
and look me in the face,
and you will see that I am really a living man,
and no vengeful goblin come
to torment you."

Seeing he had no ghost
to deal with,
and overwhelmed by the priest's kindness,
Tokubei burst into tears,
and answered,
"Indeed,
indeed,
I don't know what
to say.

In a fit of madness I was tempted
to kill and rob you.

Fortune befriended me ever after;
but the richer I grew,
the more keenly I felt how wicked I had been,
and the more I foresaw that my victim's vengeance would some day overtake me.

Haunted by this thought,
I lost my nerve,
till one night I beheld your spirit,
and from that time fell ill.

But how you managed
to escape,
and are still alive,
is more than I can understand."

"A guilty man,"
said the priest,
with a smile,
"shudders at the rustling of the wind or the chattering of a stork's beak;
a murderer's conscience preys upon his mind till he sees what is not.

Poverty drives a man
to crimes which he repents of in his wealth.

How true is the doctrine of Moshi [Mencius],
that the heart of man,
pure by nature,
is corrupted by circumstances!"
Thus he held forth;
and Tokubei,
who had long since repented of his crime,
implored forgiveness,
and gave him a large sum of money,
saying,
"Half of this is the amount I stole from you three years since;
the other half I entreat you
to accept as interest,
or as a gift."

The priest at first refused the money;
but Tokubei insisted on his accepting it,
and did all he could
to detain him,
but in vain;
for the priest went on his way,
and bestowed the money on the poor and needy.

As
for Tokubei himself,
he soon shook off his disorder,
and thenceforward lived at peace
with all men,
revered both at home and abroad,
and ever intent on good and charitable deeds.

A CHINESE GIRL GRADUATE BY R.

K.

DOUGLAS Who among the three hundred million sons of Han does not know the saying:

There's Paradise above,
't is true;
But here below we've Hang and Soo?

[Hangchow and Soochow] And though no one will deny the beauty of those far-famed cities,
they cannot compare in grandeur of situation and boldness of features
with many of the towns of the providence of the
"Four StreaMs. "

Foremost among the favoured spots of this part of the empire is Mienchu,
which,
as its name implies,
is celebrated
for the silky bamboos which grow in its immediate neighbourhood.

These form,
however,
only one of the features of its loveliness.

Situated at the foot of a range of mountains which rise through all the gradations from rich and abundant verdure
to the region of eternal snow,
it lies embosomed in groves of beech,
cypress,
and bamboo,
through the leafy screens of which rise the upturned yellow roofs of the temples and official residences,
which dot the landscape like golden islands in an emerald sea;
while beyond the wall hurries,
between high and rugged banks,
the tributary of the Fu River,
which bears
to the mighty waters of the Yangtsze- Kiang the goods and passengers which seek an outlet
to the eastern provinces.

The streets within the walls of the city are scenes of life and bustle,
while in the suburbs stand the residences of those who can afford
to live in peace and quiet,
undisturbed by the clamour of the Les and Changs [i.e.,
the people.

Le and Chang are the two commonest names in China.] of the town.

There,
in a situation which the Son of Heaven might envy,
stands the official residence of Colonel Wen.

Outwardly it has all the appearance of a grandee's palace,
and within the massive boundary-walls which surround it,
the courtyards,
halls,
grounds,
summer-houses,
and pavilions are not
to be exceeded in grandeur and beauty.

The office which had fallen
to the lot of Colonel Wen was one of the most sought after in the province,
and commonly only fell
to officers of distinction.

Though not without fame in the field,
Colonel Wen's main claim
to honour lay in the high degrees he had taken in the examinations.

His literary acquirements gained him friends among the civil officers of the district,
and the position he occupied was altogether one of exceptional dignity.

Unfortunately,
his first wife had died,
leaving only a daughter
to keep her memory alive;
but at the time when our story opens,
his second spouse,
more kind than his first,
had presented him
with a much-desired son.

The mother of this boy was one of those bright,
pretty,
gay creatures who commonly gain the affections of men much older than themselves.

She sang in the most faultless falsetto,
she played the guitar
with taste and expression,
and she danced
with grace and agility.

What wonder,
then,
that when the colonel returned from his tours of inspections and parades,
weary
with travel and dust,
he found relief and relaxation in the joyous company of Hyacinth! And was she not also the mother of his son?

Next
to herself,
there can be no question that this young gentleman held the chief place in the colonel's affections;
while poor Jasmine,
his daughter by his first venture,
was left very much
to her own resources.

No one troubled themselves about what she did,
and she was allowed,
as she grew up,
to follow her own pursuits and
to give rein
to her fancies without let or hindrance.

From her earliest childhood one of her lonely amusements had been
to dress as a boy,
and so unchecked had the habit become that she gradually drifted into the character which she had chosen
to assume.

She even persuaded her father
to let her go
to the neighbouring boys'
school.

Her mother had died before the colonel had been posted
to Mienchu,
and among the people of that place,
who had always seen her in boy's attire,
she was regarded as an adopted son of her father.

Hyacinth was only too glad
to get her out of the way as much as possible,
and so encouraged the idea of allowing her
to learn
to read and write in the company of their neighbours'
urchins.

Being bright and clever,
she soon gained an intellectual lead among the boys,
and her uncommon beauty,
coupled
with the magnetism belonging
to her sex,
secured
for her a popularity which almost amounted
to adoration.

She was tall
for her age,
as are most young daughters of Han;
and her perfectly oval face,
almond-shaped eyes,
willow-leaf eyebrows,
small,
well-shaped mouth,
brilliantly white teeth,
and raven-black hair,
completed a face and figure which would have been noticeable anywhere.

By the boys she was worshipped,
and no undertaking was too difficult or too troublesome if it was
to give pleasure
to Tsunk'ing,
or the
"Young Noble,"
as she was called;
for
to have answered
to the name of Jasmine would have been
to proclaim her sex at once.

Even the grim old master smiled at her through his horn spectacles as she entered the school-house of a morning,
and any graceful turn in her poetry or scholarly diction in her prose was sure
to win
for her his unsparing praise.

Many an evening he invited the
"young noble"
to his house
to read over chapters from Confucius and the poems of Le Taipoh;
and years afterward,
when he died,
among his most cherished papers were found odes signed by Tsunk'ing,
in which there was a good deal about bending willows,
light,
flickering bamboos,
horned moons,
wild geese,
the sound of a flute on a rainy day,
and the pleasures of wine,
in strict accord
with the models set forth in the
"Aids
to Poetry-making"
which are common in the land.

If it had not been
for the indifference
with which she was treated in her home,
the favour
with which she was regarded abroad would have been most prejudicial
to Jasmine;
but any conceit which might have been engendered in the school-house was speedily counteracted when she got within the portals of the colonel's domain.

Coming into the presence of her father and his wife,
with all the incense of kindness,
affection,
and,
it must be confessed,
flattery,
with which she was surrounded by her school-fellows,
fresh about her,
was like stepping into a cold bath.

Wholesome and invigorating the change may have been,
but it was very unpleasant,
and Jasmine often longed
to be alone
to give vent
to her feelings in tears.

One deep consolation she had,
however:

she was a devoted student,
and in the society of her books she forgot the callousness of her parents,
and,
living in imagination in the bygone annals of the empire,
she was able
to take part,
as it were,
in the great deeds which mark the past history of the state,
and
to enjoy the converse and society of the sages and poets of antiquity.

When the time came that she had gained all the knowledge which the old schoolmaster could impart
to her,
she left the school,
and formed a reading-party
with two youths of her own age.

These lads,
by name Wei and Tu,
had been her school-fellows,
and were delighted at obtaining her promise
to join them in their studies.

So industriously were these pursued that the three friends succeeded in taking their B.A.

degree at the next examination,
and,
encouraged by this success,
determined
to venture on a struggle
for a still higher distinction.

Though at one in their affection
for Jasmine,
Tu and Wei were unlike in everything else,
which probably accounted
for the friendship which existed between them.

Wei was the more clever of the two.

He wrote poetry
with ease and fluency,
and his essays were marked by correctness of style and aptness of quotation.

But there was a want of strength in his character.

He was exceedingly vain,
and was always seeking
to excite admiration among his companions.

This unhappy failing made him very susceptible of adverse criticism,
and at the same time extremely jealous of any one who might happen
to excel him in any way.

Tu,
on the other hand,
though not so intellectually favoured,
had a rough kind of originality,
which always secured
for his exercises a respectful attention,
and made him at all times an agreeable companion.

Having no exaggerated ideas of his capabilities,
he never strove
to appear otherwise than he was,
and being quite independent of the opinions of others,
he was always natural.

Thus he was one who was sought out by his friends,
and was best esteemed by those whose esteem was best worth having.

In outward appearance the youths were as different as their characters were diverse.

Wei was decidedly good-looking,
but of a kind of beauty which suggested neither rest nor sincerity;
while in Tu's features,
though there was less grace,
the want was fully compensated
for by the strength and honest firmness of his countenance.

For both these young men Jasmine had a liking,
but there was no question as
to which she preferred.

As she herself said,
"Wei is pleasant enough as a companion,
but if I had
to look
to one of them
for an act of true friendship--or as a lover,"
she mentally added--"I should turn at once
to Tu."

It was one of her amusements
to compare the young men in her mind,
and one day when so occupied Tu suddenly looked up from his book and said
to her:

"What a pity it is that the gods have made us both men! If /I/ were a woman,
the object of my heart would be
to be your wife,
and if /you/ were a woman,
there is nothing I should like better than
to be your husband."

Jasmine blushed up
to the roots of her hair at having her own thoughts thus capped,
as it were;
but before she could answer,
Wei broke in with:

"What nonsense you talk! And why,
I should like
to know,
should you be the only one the
'young noble'
might choose,
supposing he belonged
to the other sex?"
"You are both talking nonsense,"
said Jasmine,
who had had time
to recover her composure,
"and remind me of my two old childless aunts,"
she added,
laughing,
"who are always quarrelling about the names they would have given their children if the goddess Kwanyin had granted them any half a century ago.

As a matter of act,
we are three friends reading
for our M.A.

degrees,
neither more nor less.

And I will trouble you,
my elder brother,"
she added,
turning
to Tu,
"to explain
to me what the poet means by the expression
'tuneful Tung'
in the line:

'The greedy flames devour the tuneful Tung.'
"
A learned disquisition by Tu on the celebrated musician who recognised the sonorous qualities of a piece of Tung timber burning in the kitchen fire effectually diverted the conversation from the inconvenient direction it had taken,
and shortly