East of Suez

Beynon, of the Irrigation Department

Beynon walked down to the edge of the weir and looked out across the Ganges River. The evening air was soft and warm, and heavy with the scent of babool-blossom, for the hot weather was creeping on apace, and already the mangoes had begun to take shape upon the trees, and the brain fever bird’s discordant song had risen to its most aggravating pitch. The sun was sinking with angry reluctance behind the low range of rocky hills that shone purple in the distance, and the smooth, gliding waters reflected the broad bars of crimson and yellow with which the sky was streaked. Here and there the monotony of the river was broken by islets of sand, points of sticks and weeds, the floating carcass of some decaying animal, and the hackled backs of the alligators resting as though dead on the long strips of mud. Flights of birds were swaying and soaring homewards, and clouds of saffron-coloured dust along the river-banks told of the cattle being driven back to the villages after their day’s grazing in the jungle.

Beynon looked at it all and saw nothing, principally because he was thinking of his work—he very seldom thought of anything else—and also because he was so accustomed to the scene; he had walked down to the weir and looked out across the river almost every evening for the past two years. After a few minutes he turned, inspected a tree-spur on his right, made a note of some repairs that seemed necessary, threw a stone at the snub nose of an alligator that appeared for a second above the water, and proceeded to stroll slowly home.

Home consisted of a small, thatched bungalow built on a piece of rising ground overlooking the river, with a little native village behind it, a cluster of workshops and engine-houses on one side, and on the other a row of deserted, tumble-down houses that spoke mournfully of the time when the weir was being built and they had been full of busy men; when the air had resounded with the hum of machinery, rumble of trucks, beating of hammers, and the turmoil of a mighty construction that had made eminent engineers of some men, invalided others, and killed more than one or two from exposure and overwork. Now the only sounds that broke the stillness were the barking of the pariah dogs and murmur of native voices from the little village, the rush of the water over the weir, and the cries of the birds that lived securely in the deserted compounds and revelled in a jungle of old gardens. Patakri was a very lonely spot, but it suited Beynon exactly. Being a civil engineer in the Irrigation Department, he had necessarily led a very lonely life, especially as he never remonstrated, and the authorities were only too willing to conclude in consequence that he liked it. Here was a man who never complained, who never sent up urgent applications for a transfer or made a fuss when he got one, who abstained from pestering them with furious letters and medical certificates when his leave was refused, and who worked as well in the jungle as amid civilisation—possibly a great deal better for aught that had been proved to the contrary.

Therefore Beynon spent the first ten years of his service in passing from one lonely, unpopular subdivision to another, until the solitude grew on him, and the shyness and reserve of his nature developed into a morbid shrinking from companionship, and a dislike almost amounting to horror, of meeting his fellow creatures. He even dreaded the inspections by his superior officers with which the long weeks were sometimes varied, particularly when there happened to be ladies of the party—a situation that filled him with nervous trepidation, and made him shy and quiet to absolute stupidity. So when his turn came for the charge of a division, his relief at finding that he was posted to Patakri, where he knew his solitude would remain undisturbed, far outstripped his appreciation of the official compliment paid to his capabilities, for it was an exceedingly important charge connected with river training and irrigation head-works. He soon grew to love the place, apart from his official interest in it, which was great. He was only inspected once or twice a year, when he went with a precious boat-load of senior officers up the river and down again from point to point, was commended for his conscientious work, and left thanking his stars when they had gone. He had very little camping, and quite as much work as he wanted, and consequently he was as happy as it was possible for him to be in his own negative fashion.

However, during the past few weeks a somewhat disturbing element had entered into his daily routine. Beynon had made a friend—or, rather, somebody had made friends with him. This was a young planter who had lately come to manage an indigo factory on the other side of the river, and hating the lonely life he was forced to lead, had discovered Beynon with joy. He soon began to come over at his own invitation, whenever the mood seized him, and at first Beynon had somewhat resented these intrusions, but now he looked forward to and rather enjoyed the informal visits, all the more so as he found he was not expected to talk much himself. By this time he was acquainted with almost every detail of Jack Massenger’s personal history; how he was the youngest of the many sons of an impoverished Irish baronet; how he had somehow failed to pass “every beastly exam” he had gone up for; how through the timely interest of a relative a billet had been secured for him on probation in the Indian police, from which he was subsequently evicted owing again to the exam difficulty. (“Such rot,” he asserted, “expecting a fellow to pass exams in such an idiotic language as Hindustani!”) How six months’ opium weightments had nearly been the death of him owing to the awful heat and the vile smell; how a year on a tea plantation had been worse than purgatory owing to the brute he was obliged to live with and the “bounders” with whom he had to associate; and how finally a berth in indigo had been found for him, which proved slightly more congenial than the foregoing occupations, for there were fewer bounders of whom to fall foul, the work was fairly light and the shooting good. So Massenger had stuck to indigo for the space of three years, and until lately, when he had been transferred to his present factory, had always been within reach of his fellow-creatures; consequently, he now took his inevitable loneliness in a rebellious spirit, and Beynon, being his only get-at-able neighbour, received the full benefit of his fits of discontent.

On this particular evening, when Beynon returned from his customary stroll, he found Jack Massenger established in the verandah with a whisky and soda, and apparently in his most pessimistic mood.

“I hadn’t intended coming over today,” he said gloomily; “but, by Jove, I couldn’t stand another evening alone. I haven’t spoken a word of English for three days. It’s enough to make a fellow take to drink or matrimony, upon my soul it is. How can you stand it, Beynon?” he concluded, with a sudden irritation against the latter.

“I like it,” said Beynon, simply; “but, of course, you’re different—you’re not accustomed to being alone.”

“Why haven’t you ever married?” inquired Jack, abruptly.

“I? Good heavens! What on earth should I do with a wife? It would be wicked to bring a girl out into a jungle like this, especially with such a dull devil as myself for a husband. Besides, I haven’t the least desire to marry.”

“Well, that’s reason enough, I should think, without anything else,” answered Jack, and then the two men sat silent for a few minutes.

“Do you remember,” began Jack again, presently, with a certain amount of hesitation, “my telling you about that girl I met last year whose father turned out to be an old pal of my governor’s?”

Beynon nodded his head. He had heard a good deal about “that girl” on and off. Jack rose from his seat and began to walk up and down.

“Look here, Beynon, I think I’ll take leave and go and marry that girl.”

“But,” inquired Beynon in amazement, “how do you know that she would marry you?”

Jack laughed. “Oh,” he said, in a confident tone, “that part’s all right. The only thing is—” he stopped, and did not conclude his sentence.

“But you couldn’t ask a girl to come and live at Bakrar factory—even with you” (with unconscious sarcasm).

“My good ass,” said Jack indulgently, “that’s just exactly what I shouldn’t do. If I marry Kitty Vawse I’ve seen the last of Bakrar and all the bally indigo in India. Old Vawse is a Member of Council, with a vast amount of interest and more money than he knows what to do with. She’s his only child, and he’s never thwarted her in anything yet. Therefore, should she be determined to marry an indigo planter, he wouldn’t let her go into the jungle, and his son-in-law would be accommodated with a billet worth taking.”

Beynon felt vaguely uncomfortable. He was sure there was something wrong somewhere. Of course he knew very little about such things, but it seemed to him that Jack ought not to look upon the matter in that light, or, at any rate, if he did, that he ought not to talk about it. He felt anxious to express his disapproval of the scheme in becoming language, but his usual reticence and inability to put his feelings into words handicapped him fatally when anything approaching to explanation was necessary.

“Are you in love with her?” he asked shyly.

Jack glanced at him with secret amusement.

“Of course,” he answered. “She’s the prettiest girl in India.”

Beynon sat silent.

“Well, I don’t know,” he said presently.

“Well, I do,” said Jack, with impatience, “and I want a fresh peg, this one’s flat.”

*  *  *

Another month dragged slowly by. The scorching west winds howled over the shrinking river and whirled up clouds of hot, copper-coloured dust from the widening banks, while the sun blazed pitilessly for twelve hours out of the twenty-four. Massenger, rendered desperate, went off on leave; a native was deputed to do his work, and, until the rains were well on, Beynon saw nobody but his servants and the natives who worked under him. Then one day he read the announcement in the paper of Jack Massenger’s marriage to Miss Vawse up at Simla, and a week later there arrived a letter from Jack himself, apologising for not having written the news sooner, and making every excuse but the real one, which was that he had totally forgotten Beynon’s existence for the time being. He also informed Beynon that his father-in-law had got him a berth in the Court of Wards, not liking the notion of his daughter living in the jungle; that they were coming down to collect and pack his things at Bakrar, and would Beynon, like a good fellow, put them up for a day or two while they were getting it done? If so, he was to telegraph “yes” at once.

Of course Beynon telegraphed “yes”, and then looked about him in despair. He wandered through the house trying to instil a little life and cheerfulness into the position of the furniture. He had a notion that ladies objected to a table in the middle of the room, so he pushed the ugly round object on one side and scattered the latest scientific papers over it. He turned out of his own bedroom because it was larger than the one he must otherwise give his guests, and the next morning he ransacked the deserted compounds and his own garden for flowers, which his bearer tied up into tight little bundles and placed in peg tumblers. These were then arranged symmetrically on the mantelpiece, together with some faded, old-fashioned photographs of Beynon’s home and people, the one long since broken up, and the other dispersed, married, or dead, he hardly knew which, as they had not written to him, nor he to them, for many years.

Still, in spite of all his efforts, the bare, whitewashed walls looked hopelessly cheerless, and the stiff wooden chairs wretchedly meagre and untidy. What on earth would a lady think of it all? And the very worst kind of lady, too, a young bride—of all others calculated to make a shy man feel nervous and ill at ease. He would have been thankful had the earth opened and swallowed him up on that dreaded morning, when he heard the terriers clamorously greeting the returning dogcart that he had sent to meet the bride and bridegroom.

Massenger was beaming. He rushed at Beynon with a shout, and turned with his hand stretched out towards his wife, watching his friend’s face with an expectant smile on his own.

“Here’s my missus,” he said, and then Beynon found himself shaking hands with a bright-eyed girl who showed a row of glistening white teeth as she smiled up at him from under her hat.

“I’m so dreadfully dirty,” she said, looking at her clothes and her little patent-leather shoes covered with dust. “We’ve been all night in the train, so it’s not fair to take stock of me now. Let me go to my room and get clean, and then I’ll come out and show myself.”

Poor Beynon was dumb with shyness. The girl’s vivid beauty dazzled him, and her easy, confident manner frightened him. He could only lead the way through the sitting-room (which looked more awful than ever by contrast as she passed through it) and lift the curtain with a silent indication that her room lay beyond. Then Massenger went to change, and half an hour later they appeared together in the dining-room for breakfast, Mrs Massenger dressed in pure, soft white, her eyes sparkling through their long lashes, a delicate pink flush high up on her cheeks, and looking as fresh as though she had never been in a train in her life. Beynon could not quite understand the relations between the newly-married pair. They did not appear to be rapturously in love with each other. Massenger was undoubtedly proud of his wife, but treated her with an amused criticism in his manner, and talked of her to Beynon in a way that was infinitely embarrassing to the latter, while the lady herself laughed carelessly and scarcely seemed to listen. On her side there seemed to be a rather ostentatious indifference mingled with a certain amount of admiration. She evidently appreciated Jack’s beauty of feature, his strength of limb, and the sweetness of his temper.

“I’ve never seen Jack in a rage,” she said to her host after breakfast. “I sometimes wonder what would make him really angry. I think I must try everything till I find out; it would be an excitement.”

Surely this was a joke, thought Beynon, and laughed appropriately.

He did no work at all that day, as Mrs Massenger would not allow it. She said somebody must talk to her, and as Jack was preparing to go down to the weir to try and catch a mahseer, delaying his visit to the factory till tomorrow, it was clearly Mr Beynon’s duty to stay and amuse her.

“I’ll have that long chair taken out into the verandah,” she said, as Jack and his fishing-rod disappeared. “There’s a nice breeze this morning and it’s not too hot, and you can bring that low thing and sit facing me. I hate talking to anyone sitting by my side, it makes my neck ache. Don’t you know the feeling?”

“I scarcely know the feeling of talking to anybody, to begin with,” said Beynon, dragging the low chairs out into the broad, shady verandah and placing them as she wished.

“But that is all your own fault,” she replied. Then she threw herself into the long chair and crossed her small, slender feet, showing a certain amount of delicate open-work stocking and a pair of high-heeled, shiny little shoes. Beynon wondered how she managed to walk in them.

“Oh, my head’s so uncomfortable,” she cried. “I must have a cushion. Have you got one?”

Beynon owned guiltily that he was afraid he had not.

“Well, then there’s one I brought with me in my room—a pink thing with a frill. Go and fetch it. You’ll probably find it on the floor.”

The astonished man rose to do her bidding without a word. What could he say? It was impossible, in the face of her request, to call a servant to fetch the cushion, and yet he felt he ought not to go into her room. It upset all his established notions of delicacy and propriety; however, as she had commanded, he must obey, so he passed through the open door with rather a beating heart. There was a faint perfume in the air that stirred his senses. He remembered noticing the same scent when Mrs Massenger passed near him. He saw the pillow on the ground on the other side of the room, and felt glad it was so far off, but ashamed of his gladness. He could not help glancing round as he made for the spot; silver-backed brushes gleamed on the dressing table, a dainty pink dressing gown covered with lace hung over a chair close to him, and from beneath it peeped a tiny pair of velvet slippers to match. How white the little feet must look thrust into them! He made a determined rush for the cushion, and the next moment was placing it at the back of Mrs Massenger’s head.

“That’s very nice,” she said; “now sit down and let us talk.”

She was so entirely at her ease, and spoke with such winning confidence, that Beynon began to feel a little less uncomfortable, and almost forgot himself and his shortcomings as he gazed respectfully at her pretty face and perfect figure.

“So you live here all by yourself,” she began. “Do you like it?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” he said.

“Do you mean always to go on living like this? Aren’t you perpetually wanting something different or better? I think it such a mistake to be contented,” she concluded decidedly.

“Why?” inquired Beynon, with a smile. He calculated that she could not be more than eighteen or nineteen, and she was talking with the conviction of a woman of fifty.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked quickly. “You think I am a child, perhaps? I am nearly twenty, let me tell you; and a woman of twenty is equal in mind—if she has any at all—to a man of thirty. Think of yourself when you were nineteen. Am I a child?”

Beynon blushed as he remembered himself at that age—over-grown, knock-kneed, awkward, spotty and stupid. Certainly, so far as he was concerned, there was truth in what she said. All the same he resented her tone. Why should he not be content if he liked?

“Why is it a mistake?” he asked again.

“Because if you’re contented you very seldom get any further. A man ought always to want something better than he has got. How can you stay here and let them sit on you, and be content? Why don’t you grumble for a better station or a nicer appointment? Oh, I know all about you from Jack. This lonely life is all your own fault.”

“There is nothing more contemptible than a discontented man or woman,” he said doggedly.

“Ah! There I agree. I did not say you ought to be discontented. Being discontented merely means that you haven’t the energy or brains to set about bettering what you don’t like. Perhaps I ought to have said every man should be ambitious instead of no man should be contented. There’s a vast difference between being discontented and ambitious.”

She put her head back into the soft cushion and looked at him through her long curling lashes.

“You are cross?” she asked softly.

“No,” said Beynon, humbly, straightway forgiving her, and then there was a little silence. A seven-sister bird fussed about amongst the creepers and scolded the squirrels that darted to and fro, and a shiny black crow hopped up the verandah steps and scrutinised Mrs Massenger with one bright, suspicious eye.

“Why have you never married?” she inquired presently.

“I’ve never been in love,” he answered simply.

“Never been in love? Just fancy! And”—with a little sigh—“it’s so easy!”

Beynon began to think it must be, under some circumstances.

“But wouldn’t you like to be married?”

“Yes,” said Beynon, slowly, “I should.”

But, strange to say, he had never thought so before.

*  *  *

It was with a heavy heart that Beynon realised that the last day of the Massengers’ visit had come. The time had passed like a dream for him, and he had never known before what real happiness meant. Jack had spent the days either over at the factory winding up affairs or else fishing down by the weir, while Mrs Massenger and Beynon had sat in the broad verandah and talked, strolled through the tangled gardens and explored the tumbledown houses, or rowed about on the swirling river in the warm evening air. He felt a blissful amazement that she seemed to like his company and to seek it, and as they sauntered down to the water the last evening he looked furtively at her with a tightening at his heart and throat—the sensation produced on some people by the sound of sacred music or the shimmer of moonlight on the sea.

She had asked him to take her for a final row on the river, and he had willingly assented. Indeed, he had reached that stage when he would cheerfully have drowned himself had Mrs Massenger asked him to do so! They got leisurely into the boat, both of them sitting in the cushioned stern, while four strong natives dressed in dark blue and crimson uniforms pulled them swiftly down the river. The islets of sand and long strips of mud had disappeared with the advent of the rains, and the river was now a broad sheet of swollen water, flowing very rapidly, though so silently that it hardly seemed to move. Every now and then a big fish would jump at a fly with a mighty splash, and silence would follow again save for the regular stroke of the oars.

Presently there arose a faint sound of nasal singing from a small native village perched up on the river bank, and winding down the crooked path to the water’s edge came a strange little procession. Ten or a dozen tall native priests swathed in salmon-pink cloth, and with shining shaven heads and faces, walked ahead chanting solemnly through their aquiline noses; then close behind came six more like them carrying a boat-shaped basket slung on bamboo poles, in which sat a dead body, also swathed in salmon-pink cloth, and almost covered with garlands of the sacred jessamine blossom. The procession was completed by a crowd of mourners, who joined in the funeral hymn, and a mixed assemblage of individuals from the village, whose curiosity had impelled them forth. The little column stopped at the river’s edge, and after a few minutes the basket was slowly and carefully launched, chanted prayers being kept up in a continual monotone, and the dead man, sitting upright in his basket, started alone on his last voyage, leaving a little trail of jessamine blossoms in his wake as the water swept him into the middle of the river.

Mrs Massenger looked inquiringly at Beynon.

“It’s a Gussein’s funeral,” he explained. “They are a particularly holy sect of Hindu, and when they die they are always put into the river like this instead of being burned. Look at him twirling round and round in the current. Ah, I thought so; there’s an alligator at him. See, he’s being pulled down.”

The basket with its burden was disappearing deeper into the water with little jerky movements, and then, as they watched it, suddenly went under altogether, leaving a tangled mass of jessamine garlands to mark the spot.

“Oh, how dreadful!” said Mrs Massenger, with a shudder. “Fancy falling in and being seized by one of those horrid brutes! I suppose there would be no chance whatever of being saved?”

“None,” replied Beynon, looking over his shoulder at the salmon-coloured stream of figures wending its way back to the village. “They swarm in the river, especially close to the weir. I’ve seen hundreds of them there of an evening—mostly the fish-eating kind; but there were plenty of the snub-nosed fellows, too; and one would be quite enough for anybody wishing to commit suicide.”

“Oh, don’t!”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m not going to jump in—though it wouldn’t make much difference to anyone if I did.”

“That’s not true.”

“Who would care?”

“I should, for one. Listen to me, Mr Beynon. You have no business to talk like that, and I’m going to seize the opportunity to give you a lecture. You’re behaving very badly to yourself, and some day you’ll be sorry. You’ve allowed yourself to stagnate, instead of making the most of life—even with such an existence as you have chosen you might have done a good deal. Your work? Of course you must do your work—you can’t help that; but you can help never reading an amusing book, never going away whenever you can beg, borrow, or steal a day’s leave, never trying to make any friends, and letting yourself get so shy that you’re miserable if a stranger comes near you.”

“What shall I do? What would you wish?”

“Well, smarten yourself up a little to begin with. Just look at your hair—you might almost do it in a Grecian knot! And then—you won’t mind what I say, will you?—you know your clothes. I’m certain you haven’t had any new ones since you first came out to India. Read some novels, and go away now and then and learn to enjoy yourself. You can begin with us when you’ve got some new clothes; but you couldn’t come and stay with me in the present state of your wardrobe!”

Beynon humbly assented. He wondered more and more how a woman like Mrs Massenger could take any interest in such a stupid chap as himself. He knew how rusty he was, and felt frightened at the amount of labour he would have to expend in improving himself to her satisfaction. But it would be a labour of love, and if he could please her ever so little it would be something.

“I never knew anyone like you,” he said suddenly, with adoration in his voice. “I don’t believe your equal exists.”

“Well, anyway I’m glad you’re not cross,” she answered, smiling.

The sun had disappeared during the last few moments, and the air felt damp and misty. They had rowed some way down the river with the stream, taking no note of time or distance, and Beynon, realising this, said he thought they had better get out and walk. It would perhaps be safer for her than sitting in the boat now the sun had set.

“The path is very fairly good,” he said, “and I’m so afraid of your catching cold. We can be home before it’s quite dark.”

She agreed, and the boat was taken to a cleft in the bank where they could easily get out, and side by side they started off briskly along the uneven pathway. Beynon talked more during that walk than he had done for months previously. Mrs Massenger could always make people talk, for she possessed the rare faculty of being a sympathetic listener; but after a time they were silent, for darkness was rapidly closing in, making it more difficult for them to pick their way, and they had still nearly half a mile before them.

“How dark it’s getting,” said Mrs Massenger; “perhaps I had better take your arm.”

He gave it to her with joyful readiness, and as they stumbled on he noticed the same subtle scent about her that had pervaded her room the day she had sent him to fetch her cushion, and it mounted to his brain and made it reel. Presently, her foot slipped, and she put out her other hand to save herself. In an instant his arm was round her, the blood rushed through his veins, he felt that he must tighten his clasp, must kiss the sweet face that was pressed against his coat, must tell her that he loved her, and pour out the passion that was bursting from his lips.

Then he recovered himself, and shuddered to think how near he had been to losing her friendship. He gently helped her to recover her balance, asked if she was hurt, and walked on beside her with his teeth clenched and his heart thumping against his side. He was thoroughly miserable and ashamed; he felt like a traitor, and dreaded to meet her in the light lest she should see the self-condemnation in his eyes. Poor Beynon! He had taken the disease very violently. Like measles, it is always worse the later we catch it, and his once monotonous, uneventful life had been suddenly turned into a chaos of keen misery and delirious happiness.

He felt he could have cried when he saw the Massengers off the next morning, but he was obliged to harden his heart and be thankful for the few days of bliss that had been his, and go back and put his shoulder to the wheel with more energy than ever. Luckily, he had a good deal to occupy his mind, for his office work had fallen sadly into arrears, but all the same he found time to remember Mrs Massenger’s behests, for he wrote to Calcutta and also to England for clothes, ordered a supply of the newest light literature, and sent for a barber, whom he bribed with fabulous wages to remain as his servant. He had something to buoy him up in his loneliness, too, something he was looking forward to ardently and intensely, which he dreamed of by night, and thought of by day—ten days’ leave to visit the Massengers.

“You may come directly the cold weather begins and you have got your new clothes,” she had called out to him from the train as they were starting. And he had smiled and nodded, and waved his hat, and lived from that moment on the prospect of seeing her again.

At last, one cold weather’s morning, some two months later, Beynon arrayed himself in a brand-new tweed suit and started off for the long-anticipated visit. For days he had been in a state of suppressed excitement, hardly able to eat or sleep, imagining his meeting with Mrs Massenger, the kind look of approval she would give him when he told her he had obeyed her to the letter; the long, confidential talks he would have alone with her; the ten whole days of unalloyed happiness that were in store for him. Perhaps she would be at the Gurpore station to meet him; but no, there was no little dainty figure on the platform, and so, relieved as well as disappointed, he got into a ghari and drove to the Massengers’ house. Jack came out into the porch to meet him, and welcomed him very heartily.

“Come and have a peg, old fellow. My wife’s out. I don’t suppose she’ll be back before dinner-time. She’s going to a dance tonight. Perhaps you’d like to go too, or would you rather stay and smoke with me?”

“Aren’t you going?”

“Oh, no, I never go to these things. They bore me to death. My wife likes them though, and they keep her amused.”

Beynon’s heart sank ever so little. He could not dance, and he would only be in the way if he went with her. But at any rate he would not decide till he had seen her and discovered what her wishes were on the subject. He sat chatting with Jack until it was dark, and the lamps were brought in, and then came a rattle of wheels and the sound of voices and laughter outside. He followed Jack into the verandah. Under the porch stood a high dogcart, from which Mrs Massenger was preparing to climb, while ready to help her was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a clean-cut, soldierly face and an iron-grey moustache.

“Won’t you come in,” she said when she had reached the ground.

“No, thanks, not this evening. How are you, Massenger? Coming to our dance tonight?”

“No, thanks, Colonel, my wife will go for me. Well, goodnight, as you won’t come in.”

The dogcart rattled away, and Mrs Massenger turned and greeted Beynon gaily, told him to make himself at home and ask for all he wanted, and then went off to dress. She was just as nice as ever to him, and yet he somehow felt a little damped and uncomfortable. He had a frightful presentiment that his old shyness was going to return, and that he would have to begin his friendship with her all over again. He caught his breath when she came in to dinner, she looked so lovely. It made him ask himself bitterly what was the use of this vain fluttering round the candle? He had much better have stayed and slaved away his days in the jungle, and so saved himself much bitter heartache.

She seemed to take it for granted that he was not going to the dance and said good-night to him after dinner as she wrapped herself in her evening cloak, and added that he was not to let Jack bore him. Then she went off, and he did not see her again until luncheon time the next day. At luncheon also appeared the Colonel with the iron-grey moustache, who looked inquiringly at Beynon through an eyeglass and made him feel profoundly uncomfortable. Mrs Massenger and the Colonel chatted incessantly of all that was going on in the station, and discussed people Beynon had never heard of, while he could only sit stupidly silent and feel convinced that the fellow kept her talking of these things on purpose to annoy him. He assured himself that she would have talked to him too, only the brute never gave her a chance, and she was obliged to answer him out of politeness. Yet was it politeness that made her go out driving with the Colonel directly after luncheon, and ask him in to dinner that night? Beynon became utterly wretched. He never for a moment blamed her; but he felt he was not wanted, and was more keenly alive than ever to his own inferiority and his presumption in dreaming for one moment that his presence would make any difference to her. All the same, he had expected that she would be glad to see him, had anticipated a few words of praise when he told her of the barber, his new library of books, and his renovated wardrobe, and now he had not even had a chance of speaking to her alone at all. She treated him as Jack’s friend. As if he had come all that way with such throbbing pulses merely to see Jack!

The Colonel was constantly at Mrs Massenger’s side. He sat in her boudoir in the morning, drove or rode with her in the afternoon, and generally dined in the house in the evening. Jack did a little work, ate, smoked, slept, went to the club to play poker, and took little note of anything else.

As a matter of fact, Massenger never had gone out much with his wife; he hated garden-parties and dancing, and was only too thankful when she was willing to go without him. In justice to her it must be owned that she had not always been so willing. At first she had implored him to go about with her, but he had only laughed good-humouredly and said:

“Oh, no, Kitty, I couldn’t—I should die of boredom. If you don’t like going alone, stay at home, or get somebody else to take you.”

“If I stay at home you only go off to the club and leave me by myself,” she had pouted.

“Well, if I went with you I should only be bored and bad-tempered,” he returned. “Go off and enjoy yourself in your own way, old girl, and let me do the same.”

She had taken him at his word, and “gone off and enjoyed herself” with a vengeance.

Before Beynon had been in the house three days, he was making plans for his departure. He wished he had never come. He longed for Patakri, and yearned for the weir, the rush of water, the still forms of the crocodiles, and the solitude that would be his in which to try and recover from his disappointment. On the fourth morning he found Mrs Massenger alone in the verandah for a moment.

“I think I had better go back,” he began moodily.

“Nonsense! What’s the matter with you. Don’t look so wretched, there’s a dear fellow. You know how busy I am. I’ve been longing for a talk with you. Do you remember how we used to talk at Patakri?”

Beynon smiled grimly. Did he remember? Rather, should he ever forget?

“Listen,” she said, laying her finger-tips on his arm, “I shall have an hour before dinner tonight. You shall come into my little room, and we’ll have a good chat. You mustn’t dream of going away. We shall have lots of other opportunities before your ten days are up.”

Beynon’s spirits rose. What a fool he had been! Of course it was only that she had had no time to take notice of him—she could not help her engagements—and he would stay his ten days, and be thankful if he only got a meagre half-hour of her society.

That evening he went to the door of the little room she had made her boudoir, and was about to knock and ask if he might enter, when he noticed that the door was slightly open, and heard the sound of voices within. One voice was Mrs Massenger’s, and she was crying. Beynon stood rooted to the spot. He had no intention of listening; his only idea was that she was in trouble, and that he was ready to help her if need be.

The other voice was the Colonel’s, and the next moment Beynon had heard it utter words that made him turn and fly to his own room in an agony of hideous doubt and bewilderment. He felt sick with apprehension, furious with Jack, on whose apathy and carelessness he threw all the blame, and half mad with the sense of his powerlessness to prevent her taking a step that must ruin her whole life. He was helplessly ignorant of what course to pursue. He could not go to Mrs Massenger and reason with her; he could not carry tales to Jack of his wife. Definite action was impossible, but there was one thing he could and would do—tell Jack what he thought of him, and spare him not one jot, so that when the crash came he should feel that he was to blame and no other.

Beynon called his servant and ordered him to pack his clothes and take them to the station. He meant to say things to Jack that would make it impossible for him to stay a night longer in the house. Then, with a singing in his ears and bitter sorrow in his heart, he went to look for his host.

“Will you come out for a walk,” he said, when he had found him. “I want to talk to you.”

Something in his voice and the expression of his face roused Jack, who looked somewhat anxiously at Beynon.

“Go for a walk?” he repeated. “But it’s such an unusual hour to go out, unless you’d like to drive up to the club.”

“No. I only want you to come out with me; I have something to say.”

Jack fetched his hat with reluctance, and wonderingly followed Beynon out into the cold, dusky air, which was heavy with the smoke of hundreds of native fires in neighbouring compounds. Jack shuddered and wanted to go back, but Beynon laid a hot, trembling hand on his shoulder and pushed him into the road. A solitary lamp had just been lighted and burned dimly in the smoky atmosphere; a dogcart flashed past them, and the occupants called out ‘Goodnight’ cheerily to Jack; a shivering native, followed by a lean, jackal-like dog, glided silently by and disappeared into the gloom; and then the two men were alone by the side of the dusty, metalled road, with only the murmur and lights of the bazaar a hundred yards ahead of them.

“Poof! This beastly smoke is enough to choke one,” said Jack, in a disgusted voice. “I hate this end of the station; so close to the bazaar, one never gets rid of the smell. What on earth possessed you to want to go out, Beynon? Come back and smoke by the fire.”

“I’m not going back,” said Beynon, hoarsely. “I’m never going into your house again. I’ve brought you out here to tell you what I think of you, and I couldn’t do that in your own house. You’re a selfish, lazy brute; you think of nothing but yourself and your own comfort. You married your wife for what you could get with her, and now you neglect her and leave her for other men to take about and look after, and do things for her that her husband is the proper person to do. As long as you have got all you want, what do you care what danger she is in, what people say about her, what she does? You don’t know her value, and you won’t until, by your own pig-headed laziness and selfishness, you have lost her—”

“Hold your tongue, sir!” cried Jack, in astonished rage. “Who are you to come preaching to me as to how I treat my wife? I never heard of such impudence in my life. You’re drunk or mad!”

“I’m not either,” said Beynon, slowly, a sudden hopelessness coming over him. He put his hands in his pockets doggedly. “I’m going away. Perhaps I’ve made an ass of myself. Of course, you think I’m a meddling fool, and you may for all I care. I may be right and I may be wrong, that is for you to find out. In any case we can never be the same to one another again. I wasn’t made to live with my fellow-creatures, and I sha’n’t try the experiment any more. I have told my bearer to take my things to the station, and I am going to walk there now.”

“Come, come, old chap,” said Jack, still angry and bewildered, but his natural good-temper coming to the fore, “what’s the matter with you? Never mind what you said just now. Of course it was beastly cheek, and God only knows why you said it, but I’ll forget all about it. You’re seedy; you’ve been drinking too much tea out at Patakri, and you take things too seriously. Come in and don’t talk any more rot.”

But Beynon’s mind was made up, and his resolve was not to be shaken. Jack forgot the cold, and the smell and the smoke, and waxed eloquent in his persuasions, but they were of no avail.

“But what am I to say to Kitty?” he asked helplessly. “Tell her exactly what happened,” said Beynon, “and every word I said. It’s no good trying to persuade me, Massenger. I am not going back.”

So finally the two men shook hands and parted, one in about as miserable a frame of mind as a man could well be, and the other in considerable doubt of his late guest’s sanity, yet depressed, puzzled, stirred by Beynon’s onslaught, and apprehensive of he knew not what. As he reached the house the Colonel’s dogcart was in the act of driving away, so he knew his wife would be alone, and he wondered moodily how he was to explain Beynon’s sudden departure to her. He went straight to her boudoir. She was sitting staring into the fire, and Jack saw that she had been crying. Beynon’s words rang in his ears with unpleasant distinctness, “You married your wife for what you could get with her.” Was it true? Well, partly, perhaps. But now, as he looked at her little sunny head, with the rippling brown hair shining in the firelight, and the mournful droop of her slender neck, his indolent, good-natured apathy cleared away like mist from water, and the knowledge of how he had grown to love his wife, and what his life would be without her, struck full upon him. A horrible fear took hold of him. Was it too late? Had he lost her through what Beynon had called his own pig-headed selfishness? He went up to her, and, lifting her chin in his hand, looked into her tear-stained eyes.

“What is it, little woman?” he asked unsteadily.

Her eyes fell and her mouth quivered. “You would not understand,” she answered.

Jack’s hand fell heavily to his side. He moved over to the mantelpiece, and, with one foot on the fender-stool, gazed silently into the fire. Mrs Massenger sat still. She was battling with her desire to break into stormy tears, and Jack looked up and saw the struggle.

“Do you hate me, Kitty?” he said impulsively.

“Do I hate you?” she repeated in wonder.

“I couldn’t blame you if you did,” he went on. “Something happened tonight; someone told me the truth about myself, and I see what a selfish beast I have been. I know, too, what you are to me, and how I love you, and now perhaps you don’t care for me, and it is all too late.” Poor, unhappy Jack put his arms on the mantelpiece and laid his handsome head on them to conceal the smarting in his eyeballs that he had not felt since he was a little boy leaving his mother to go to school.

There was a slight pause, and then Mrs Massenger was standing on the fender-stool to make herself as tall as Jack, her arms were round his neck and her cheek pressed tightly to his.

“Oh, Jack, Jack, I love you so awfully, and I thought you didn’t care!” Then it gradually came out how dearly she had always loved him, how bitter had been the discovery that his love for her was as nothing compared with her’s for him. How she had tried flirting with the Colonel just to see if Jack would be jealous, but without effect; how that very evening the man had tried to persuade her to run away with him, and how, when Jack came in, she had been crying because she thought he wouldn’t care a bit if she did run away.

“Hush!” said Jack, stopping her mouth with a kiss.

*  *  *

When Mrs Massenger heard of Jack’s extraordinary interview with Beynon in the road, and the latter’s sudden departure, she blamed herself bitterly. She felt sure she knew the reason of his flight, for had she not told him to come to her room that evening, and then forgotten all about it? And at that very moment the Colonel had been with her. Poor, dear fellow! Of course he had overheard something, and then he had “gone for” Jack, and blamed him instead of herself, with the result that he had given her the one great happiness she had longed for—Jack’s love.

“Why did you let him go?” she exclaimed. “We can’t get him back, because he must have caught the train by this time easily. You will have to take a week’s leave, Jack, and we will go and have a second honeymoon with him at Patakri. I will telegraph to him that we are coming, and then he will have plenty of time to clear out of his own room and make himself as uncomfortable as he likes for us. Oh, I am so sorry I wasn’t nicer to him; and I never told him how becoming his new clothes were, or how well he had had his hair cut, or how improved he was, or anything!” and she wrung her little hands.

“Don’t worry yourself,” said Jack. “I’ll get the leave, and then you can tell him what you like to your heart’s content.”

The next morning Mrs Massenger wired to Patakri, and after some hours a reply came to her telegram, but it was not from Beynon. It was from the native assistant-engineer, and it said, “Beynon ill with fever.” This hastened the Massengers’ departure, for they felt they must be with the sick man in his loneliness without delay.

Early the next morning they arrived at the little roadside station, which, being a tiny place of a primitive order, boasted of no ticca gharis. Jack wanted to send a man to Patakri to fetch Beynon’s dogcart, but Mrs Massenger insisted that they could not afford to lose the time, and they finally drove the six miles in an ekka. Mrs Massenger’s head ached, and her feet went to sleep, but she did not complain, and said little, except to urge the driver to make his scraggy little pony go faster.

Everything was very still when they reached the house. She thought of the first time she had entered it; Beynon’s embarrassment, the clamour of the dogs, the dust on her smart new shoes, and a dozen other trifles. In the verandah stood the native assistant, a portly gentleman in a tight cloth coat, a many-coloured worsted comforter round his neck, oily black hair, and large patent-leather shoes.

“Good morning, sir,” he began in halting English. “I have very much regret to inform your honour that Mr Beynon, Esq., executive engineer, is no longer in the land of the living. I have already wired to superintending engineer to make report, and to Mr Smith in next division.”

Jack turned to his wife in silent dismay. Her face was deathly white.

“Where is he?” she whispered, stepping forward to enter the house.

“Madam, he is not there,” said the babu, with officious importance. “Mr Beynon, Esq., I am very sad to report, lost his sanity with the effect of the fever; I absent. In this state he, rising from his bed last night, walked down to weir, where Bewani, watchman, was witness that he made false step and was fallen into water. Being full moon, this same Bewani was enabled to witness foregoing sad event. He used all endeavour to save Mr Beynon, Esq., but, being a poor man, was unable to take plunge into water from dread of the—er—the—er—the saurians, which would without doubt have caused his death also, therefore—”

“Hold your tongue, you ass!” shouted Jack, angrily, and was just in time to catch his wife’s figure as she fell back senseless.

*  *  *

It was all only too true, for the babu’s story was corroborated by the servants and the frightened watchman, whose mind was assailed by a terrible fear that he might be held accountable for the sahib’s death. Beynon had returned to Patakri with fever on him, and all the next day had lain tossing and raving in delirium. The bearer said he had not considered it serious, for the sahib often had illnesses like this; they were only common fever, and seldom lasted long. The native doctor had come to see him and given him medicine, and he had seemed better by the evening, so the bearer had allowed himself to go to sleep. He had awoke in the middle of the night to find his master delirious again and walking about the room. “He would not be persuaded to go back to bed,” continued the weeping bearer, “but he put on his new clothes that had come from England, and insisted on going out. I could not stay him, sahib; he was too strong, and I am growing old and feeble. I could only follow him to see that he came to no harm. He said he was going to the railway station, but he turned his steps towards the water, and ran swiftly down the slope. Before I could overtake him he had reached the weir and cast himself into the water. Bewani, watchman, says his foot slipped, but the sahib was light-headed and he sought the water to cool the burning of his skin. His body will not be found. Mother Ganga seldom gives back what she takes.”

The old bearer was right. Beynon’s body was not recovered, and Mrs Massenger had to go back without having told him how greatly she thought he had improved himself, or how much better he looked with his hair cut properly.

Her life must ever be tinged with the bitterness of remorse, and the remembrance of a man’s patient, honest eyes looking in vain to her for a word of approbation. And there is one corner in her heart from which, even in her happiest hours, there will still creep haunting visions of a little thatched bungalow overlooking the River Ganges, the deep, swirling water reflecting the sunset glow, a Gussein’s funeral, and the cruel, hungry alligators waiting so quietly for their prey.

The Tiger-charm

The sun, the sky, the burning dusty atmosphere, and the waving sea of tall yellow grass seemed molten into one blinding blaze of pitiless heat to the aching vision of little Mrs Wingate. In spite of blue goggles, pith sun hat and enormous umbrella, she felt as though she were being slowly roasted alive, for the month was May, and she and her husband were perched on the back of an elephant, traversing a large tract of jungle at the foot of the Himalayas.

Colonel Wingate was one of the keenest sportsmen in India, and every day for the past week had he and his wife, and their friend, Captain Bastable, sallied forth from the camp with a line of elephants to beat through the forests of grass that reached to the animal’s ears; to squelch over swamps, disturbing herds of antelope and wild pig; to pierce thick tangles of jungle, from which rose pea-fowl, black partridge, and birds of gorgeous plumage; to cross stony beds of dry rivers—ever on the watch for the tigers that had hitherto baffled all their efforts.

As each “likely” spot was drawn a blank, Netta Wingate heaved a sigh of relief, for she hated sport, was afraid of the elephants, and lived in hourly terror of seeing a tiger. She longed for the fortnight in camp to be over, and secretly hoped that the latter week of it might prove as unsuccessful as the first. Her skin was burnt to the hue of a berry, her head ached perpetually from the heat and glare, the motion of the elephant made her feel sick, and if she ventured to speak, her husband only impatiently bade her be quiet.

This afternoon, as they ploughed and rocked over the hard, uneven ground, she could scarcely keep awake, dazzled as she was by the vista of scorched yellow country and the gleam of her husband’s rifle barrels in the melting sunshine. She swayed drowsily from side to side in the howdah, her head drooped, her eyelids closed. . . .

She was roused by a torrent of angry exclamations. Her umbrella had hitched itself obstinately into the collar of Colonel Wingate’s coat, and he was making infuriated efforts to free himself. Jim Bastable, approaching on his elephant, caught a mixed vision of the refractory umbrella and two agitated sun hats, the red face and fierce blue eyes of the Colonel, and the anxious, apologetic, sleepy countenance of Mrs Wingate, as she hurriedly strove to release her irate lord and master. The whole party came to an involuntary halt, the natives listening with interest as the sahib stormed at the memsahib and the umbrella in the same breath.

“That howdah is not big enough for two people,” shouted Captain Bastable, coming to the rescue. “Let Mrs Wingate change to mine. It’s bigger, and my elephant has easier paces.”

Hot, irritated, angry, Colonel Wingate commanded his wife to betake herself to Bastable’s elephant, and to keep her infernal umbrella closed for the rest of the day, adding that women had no business out tiger-shooting; and why the devil had she come at all?—oblivious of the fact that Mrs Wingate had begged to be allowed to stay in the station, and that he himself had insisted on her coming.

She well knew that argument or contradiction would only make matters worse, for he had swallowed three stiff whiskies and sodas at luncheon in the broiling sun, and since the severe sunstroke that had so nearly killed him two years ago, the smallest quantity of spirits was enough to change him from an exceedingly bad-tempered man into something little short of a maniac. She had heedlessly married him when she was barely nineteen, turning a deaf ear to warnings of his violence, and now, at twenty-three, her existence was one long fear. He never allowed her out of his sight, he never believed a word she said; he watched her, suspected her, bullied her unmercifully, and was insanely jealous. Unfortunately, she was one of those nervous, timid women, who often rather provoke ill-treatment than otherwise.

This afternoon she marvelled at being permitted to change to Captain Bastable’s howdah, and with a feeling of relief scrambled off the elephant, though trembling, as she always did, lest the great beast should seize her with his trunk or lash her with his tail, that was like a jointed iron rod. Then, once safely perched up behind Captain Bastable, she settled herself with a delightful sense of security. He understood her nervousness, he did not laugh or grumble at her little involuntary cries of fear; he was not impatient when she was convinced the elephant was running away or sinking in a quicksand, or that the howdah was slipping off. He also understood the Colonel, and had several times helped her through a trying situation; and now the sympathy in his kind eyes made her tender heart throb with gratitude.

“All right?” he asked.

She nodded, smiling, and they started again ploughing and lurching through the coarse grass, great wisps of which the elephant uprooted with his trunk, and beat against his chest to get rid of the soil before putting them in his mouth. Half an hour later, as they drew near the edge of the forest, one of the elephants suddenly stopped short, with a jerky, backward movement, and trumpeted shrilly. There was an expectant halt all along the line, and a cry from a native of “Tiger! Tiger!” Then an enormous striped beast bounded out of the grass and stood for a moment in a small, open space, lashing its tail and snarling defiance. Colonel Wingate fired. The tiger, badly wounded, charged, and sprang at the head of Captain Bastable’s elephant. There was a confusion of noise; savage roars from the tiger; shrieks from the excited elephants; shouts from the natives; banging of rifles. Mrs Wingate covered her face with her hands. She heard a thud, as of a heavy body falling to the ground, and then she found herself being flung from side to side of the howdah, as the elephant bolted madly towards the forest, one huge ear torn to ribbons by the tiger’s claws.

She heard Captain Bastable telling her to hold on tight, and shouting desperate warnings to the mahout to keep the elephant as clear of the forest as possible. Like many nervous people in the face of real danger, she suddenly became absolutely calm, and uttered no sound as the pace increased and they tore along the forest edge, escaping overhanging boughs by a miracle. To her it seemed that the ponderous flight lasted for hours. She was bruised, shaken, giddy, and the crash that came at last was a relief rather than otherwise. A huge branch combed the howdah off the elephant’s back, sweeping the mahout with it, while the still terrified animal sped on trumpeting and crashing through the forest.

Mrs Wingate was thrown clear of the howdah. Captain Bastable had saved himself by jumping, and only the old mahout lay doubled up and unconscious amongst the debris of shattered wood, torn leather and broken ropes. Netta could hardly believe she was not hurt, and she and Captain Bastable stared at one another with dazed faces for some moments before they could collect their senses. Far away in the distance they could hear the elephant still running. Between them they extricated the mahout, and, seating herself on the ground, Netta took the old man’s unconscious head on to her lap, while Captain Bastable anxiously examined the wizened, shrunken body.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“I can’t be sure. I’m afraid he is. I wonder if I could find some water. I haven’t an idea where we are, for I lost all count of time and distance. I hope Wingate is following us. Should you be afraid to stay here while I have a look round and see if we are anywhere near a village?”

“Oh, no, I sha’n’t be frightened,” she said steadily. Her delicate, clear-cut face looked up at him fearlessly from the tangled background of mighty trees and dense creepers; and her companion could scarcely believe she was the same trembling, nervous little coward of an hour ago.

He left her, and the stillness of the jungle was very oppressive when the sound of his footsteps died away. She was alone with a dead, or dying man, on the threshold of the vast, mysterious forest, with its possible horrors of wild elephants, tigers, leopards, snakes! She tried to turn her thoughts from such things, but the scream of a peacock made her start as it rent the silence, and then the undergrowth began to rustle ominously. It was only a porcupine that came out, rattling his quills, and, on seeing her, ran into further shelter out of sight. It seemed to be growing darker, and she fancied the evening must be drawing in. She wondered if her husband would overtake them. If not, how were she and Jim Bastable to get back to the camp? Then she heard voices and footsteps, and presently a little party of natives came in sight, led by Jim and bearing a string bedstead.

“I found a village not far off,” he explained, “and thought we’d better take the poor old chap there. Then, if the Colonel doesn’t turn up by the time we’ve seen him comfortably settled, we must find our way back to the camp as best we can.”

The natives chattered and exclaimed as they lifted the unconscious body on to the bedstead, and then the little procession started. Netta was so bruised and stiff she could hardly walk; but, with the help of Bastable’s arm, she hobbled along till the village was gained. The headman conducted them to his house, which consisted of a mud hovel shared by himself and his family with several relations, besides a cow and a goat with two kids. He gave Netta a wicker stool to sit on and some smoky buffalo’s milk to drink, while the village physician was summoned, who at last succeeded in restoring the mahout to consciousness and pouring a potion down his throat.

“I die,” whispered the patient, feebly.

Netta went to his side, and he recognised her.

“A—ree! memsahib!” he quavered. “So Allah has guarded thee. But the anger of the Colonel sahib will be great against me for permitting the elephant to run away, and it is better that I die. Where is that daughter of a pig? She was a rascal from her youth up; but today was the first time she ever really disobeyed my voice.”

He tried to raise himself, but fell back groaning, for his injuries were internal and past hope.

“It is growing dark.” He put forth his trembling hand blindly. “Where is the little white lady who so feared the sahib, and the elephants, and the jungle? Do not be afraid, memsahib. Those who fear should never go into the jungle. So if thou seest a tiger, be bold, be bold; call him “uncle” and show him the tiger-charm. Then will he turn away and harm thee not—” He wandered on incoherently, his fingers fumbling with something at his throat, and presently he drew out a small silver amulet attached to a piece of cord. As he held it towards Netta, it flashed in the light of the miserable native oil lamp that someone had just brought in and placed on the floor.

“Take it, memsahib, and feel no fear while thou hast it, for no tiger would touch thee. It was my father’s, and his father’s before him, and there is that written on it which has ever protected us from the tiger’s tooth. I myself shall need it no longer, for I am going, whereat my nephew will rejoice; for he has long coveted my seat. Thou shalt have the charm, memsahib, for thou hast stayed by an old man, and not left him to die alone in a Hindu village and a strange place. Some day, in the hour of danger, thy little fingers may touch the charm, and then thou wilt recall old Mahomed Bux, mahout, with gratitude.”

He groped for Netta’s hand, and pushed the amulet into her palm. She took it, and laid her cool fingers on the old man’s burning forehead.

“Salaam, Mahomed Bux,” she said softly. “Bahut, bahut, salaam.” Which is the nearest Hindustani equivalent for “Thank you.”

But he did not hear her. He was wandering again, and for half an hour he babbled of elephants, of tigers, of camps and jungles, until his voice became faint and died away in hoarse gasps.

Then he sighed heavily and lay still, and Jim Bastable took Mrs Wingate out into the air, and told her that the old mahout was dead. She gave way and sobbed, for she was aching all over and tired to death, and she dreaded the return to the camp.

“Oh, my dear girl, please don’t cry!” said Jim distressfully. “Though really I can’t wonder at it, after all you’ve gone through today; and you’ve been so awfully plucky, too.”

Netta gulped down her tears. It was delicious to be praised for courage, when she was only accustomed to abuse for cowardice.

“How are we to get back to the camp?” she asked dolefully. “It’s so late.”

And, indeed, darkness had come swiftly on, and the light of the village fires was all that enabled them to see each other.

“The moon will be up presently; we must wait for that. They say the village near our camp lies about six miles off, and that there is a cart-track of sorts towards it. I told them they must let us have a bullock-cart, and we shall have to make the best of that.”

They sat down side by side on a couple of large stones, and listened in silence to the lowing of the tethered cattle, the ceaseless, irritating cry of the brain fever bird, and the subdued conversation of a group of children and village idlers, who had assembled at a respectful distance to watch them with inquisitive interest. Once a shrill trumpeting in the distance told of a herd of wild elephants out or a night’s raid on the crops, and at intervals packs of jackals swept howling across the fields, while the moon rose gradually over the collection of squalid huts and flooded the vast country with a light that made the forest black and fearful.

Then a clumsy little cart, drawn by two small, frightened white bullocks, rattled into view. Jim and Netta climbed into the vehicle, and were politely escorted off the premises by the headman and the concourse of interested villagers and excited women and children.

They bumped and shook over the rough, uneven track. The bullocks raced or crawled alternately, while the driver twisted their tails and abused them hoarsely. The moonlight grew brighter and more glorious. The air, now soft and cool, was filled with strong scents and the hum of insects released from the heat of the day.

At last they caught the gleam of white tents against the dark background of a mango-grove.

“The camp,” said Captain Bastable, shortly.

Netta made a nervous exclamation.

“Do you think there will be a row?” he asked with some hesitation. They had never discussed Mrs Wingate’s domestic troubles together.

“Perhaps he is still looking out for us,” she said evasively.

“If he had followed us at all, he must have found us. I believe he went on shooting, or back to the camp.” There was an angry impatience in his voice. “Don’t be nervous,” he added hastily. “Try not to mind anything he may say. Don’t listen. He can’t always help it, you know. I wish you could persuade him to retire; the sun out here makes him half off his head.”

“I wish I could,” she sighed. “But he will never do anything I ask him, and the big-game shooting keeps him in India.”

Jim nodded, and there was a comprehending silence between them till they reached the edge of the camp, got out of the cart, and made their way to the principal tent. There they discovered Colonel Wingate, still in his shooting clothes, sitting by the table, on which stood an almost empty bottle of whisky. He rose as they entered, and delivered himself of a torrent of bad language. He accused the pair of going off together on purpose, declaring he would divorce his wife and kill Bastable. He stormed, raved and threatened, giving them no opportunity of speaking, until at last Jim broke in and insisted on being heard.

“For Heaven’s sake, be quiet,” he said firmly, “or you’ll have a fit. You saw the elephant run away, and apparently you made no effort to follow us and come to our help. We were swept off by a tree, and the mahout was mortally hurt. It was a perfect miracle that neither your wife nor I was killed. The mahout died in a village, and we had to get here in a bullock-cart.” Then, seeing Wingate preparing for another onslaught, Bastable took him by the shoulders. “My dear chap, you’re not yourself. Go to bed, and we’ll talk it over tomorrow if you still wish to.”

Colonel Wingate laughed harshly. His mood had changed suddenly.

“Go to bed?” he shouted boisterously. “Why, I was just going out when you arrived. There was a kill last night, only a mile off, and I’m going to get the tiger.” He stared wildly at Jim, who saw that he was not responsible for his words and actions. The brain, already touched by sunstroke, had given way at last under the power of whisky. Jim’s first impulse was to prevent his carrying out his intention of going after the tiger. Then he reflected that it was not safe for Netta to be alone with the man, and that, if Wingate were allowed his own way, it would at least take him out of the camp.

“Very well,” said Jim quietly, “and I will come with you.”

“Do,” answered the Colonel pleasantly, and then, as Bastable turned for a moment, Mrs Wingate saw her husband make a diabolical grimace at the other’s unconscious back. Her heart beat rapidly with fear. Did he mean to murder Jim? She felt convinced he contemplated mischief; but the question was how to warn Captain Bastable without her husband’s knowledge. The opportunity came more easily than she had expected, for presently the Colonel went outside to call for his rifle and give some orders. She flew to Bastable’s side.

“Be careful,” she panted; “he wants to kill you, I know he does. He’s mad! Oh, don’t go with him—don’t go—”

“It will be all right,” he said reassuringly. “I’ll look out for myself, but I can’t let him go alone in this state. We shall only sit up in a tree for an hour or two, for the tiger must have come and gone long ago. Don’t be frightened. Go to bed and rest.”

She drew from her pocket the little polished amulet the mahout had given her.

“At any rate, take this,” she said hysterically. “It may save you from a tiger, if it doesn’t from my husband. I know I am silly, but do take it. There may be luck in it, you can never tell; and old Mahomed Bux said it had saved him and his father and his grandfather—and that you ought to call a tiger ‘uncle’”—she broke off, half laughing, half crying, utterly unstrung.

To please her he put the little charm into his pocket, and after a hasty drink went out and joined Wingate, who insisted that they should proceed on foot and by themselves. Bastable knew it would be useless to make any opposition, and they started, their rifles in their hands; but, when they had gone some distance and the tainted air told them they were nearing their destination, Jim discovered he had no cartridges.

“Never mind,” whispered the Colonel, “I have plenty, and our rifles have the same bore. We can’t go back now; we’ve no time to lose.”

Jim submitted, and he and Wingate tiptoed to the foot of a tree, the low branches and thick leaves of which afforded an excellent hiding place, down-wind from the half-eaten carcass of the cow. They climbed carefully up, making scarcely any noise, and then Jim held out his hand to the other for some cartridges. The Colonel nodded.

“Presently,” he whispered, and Jim waited, thinking it extremely unlikely that cartridges would be wanted at all.

The moonlight came feebly through the foliage of the surrounding trees on to the little glade before them, in which lay the remains of the carcass pulled under a bush to shield it from the carrion birds. A deer pattered by towards the river, casting startled glances on every side; insects beat against the faces of the two men; and a jackal ran out with his brush hanging down, looked round, and retired again, with a melancholy howl. Then there arose a commotion in the branches of the neighbouring trees, and a troop of monkeys fought and crashed and chattered, as they leapt from bough to bough. Jim knew that this often portended the approach of a tiger, and the moment afterwards a long, hoarse call from the river told him that the warning was correct. He made a silent sign for the cartridges; but Wingate took no notice: his face was hard and set, and the whites of his eyes gleamed.

A few seconds later a large tiger crept slowly out of the grass, his stomach on the ground, his huge head held low. Jim remembered the native superstition that the head of a man-eating tiger is weighed down by the souls of its victims. With a run and a spring the creature attacked its meal, and began growling and munching contentedly, purring like a cat, and stopping every now and then to tear up the earth with its claws.

A report rang out. Wingate had fired at and hit the tiger. The great beast gave a terrific roar and sprang at the tree. Jim lifted his rifle, only to remember that it was unloaded.

“Shoot again!” he cried excitedly, as the tiger fell back and prepared for another spring. To his horror, Wingate deliberately fired the second barrel into the air, and, throwing away the rifle, grasped him by the arms. The man’s teeth were bared, his face distorted and hideous, his purpose unmistakable—he was trying to throw Bastable to the tiger. Wingate was strong with the diabolical strength of madness, and they swayed till the branches of the tree crackled ominously. Again the tiger roared and sprang, and again fell back, only to gather itself together for another effort. The two men rocked and panted, the branches cracked louder with a dry, splitting sound, then broke off altogether, and, locked in each other’s arms, they fell heavily to the ground.

Jim Bastable went undermost, and was half stunned by the shock. He heard a snarl in his ear, followed by a dreadful cry. He felt the weight of Wingate’s body lifted from him with a jerk, and he scrambled blindly to his feet. As in a nightmare, he saw the tiger bounding away, carrying something that hung limply from the great jaws, just as a cat carries a dead mouse.

He seized the Colonel’s rifle that lay near him; but he knew it was empty, and that the cartridges were in the Colonel’s pocket. He ran after the tiger, shouting, yelling, brandishing the rifle, in hopes of frightening the brute into dropping its prey; but, after one swift glance back, it bounded into the thick jungle with the speed of a deer, and Bastable was left standing alone.

Faint and sick, he began running madly towards the camp for help, though he knew well that nothing in this world could ever help Wingate again. His forehead was bleeding profusely, either hurt in the fall or touched by the tiger’s claw, and the blood trickling into his eyes nearly blinded him. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket as he ran, and something came with it that glittered in the moonlight and fell to the ground with a metallic ring.

It was the little silver amulet. The tiger-charm.

The White Tiger

He was called the White Tiger by the villagers of the district because his yellow skin was pale with age, and his stripes so faded and far apart as to be almost invisible.

Having grown too large and heavy for cattle killing with any ease, he had lately become a man-eater, and terrible were the stories told by those who had seen him, and escaped the fatal blow of his huge paw. He was described as being the size of a bull-buffalo, with a belly that reached the ground, and a white moon between his ears, true tokens of the man-eater, as every native of India knows. He was said to have the power of assuming different shapes, and to lure his prey by the imitation of a human voice, and certainly his craft and cunning were such that not even Mar Singh, the local shikaree, had ever been able to trap him, or obtain a shot at him with his famous match-lock gun. And Mar Singh had seen the tiger often, knew his favourite haunts and lairs, and could point out the very trees upon which he preferred to sharpen his murderous claws.

The brute continued to levy his terrible tax on the scanty population of a remote district, until the women and children were afraid to leave the village, and the men went out to work in the fields fearing for their lives. At last the increasing number of victims attracted the attention of the local authorities, and a reward of a hundred rupees was placed on the head of the White Tiger, with the result that Mar Singh, who clothed himself in khaki with a disreputable turban to match, and was regarded in his village as the wariest of hunters, redoubled his efforts to bring about the destruction of this awful scourge. Also, now that the fame of the White Tiger’s misdeeds had penetrated to headquarters, it was more than likely that a party of “sahibs” would appear on the scene with elephants and rifles, in which case, though the tiger would be doomed, the reward would be distributed amongst the mahouts and the beaters, and Mar Singh himself would only receive a share.

So night after night he perched in the branches of the trees above the favourite routes of the enemy, and from sunrise to sunset he haunted the outskirts of the jungle, and hung about the drinking-pools in the bed of the shrinking river, for (unlike his cattle- and game-killing brothers) the man-eater may be sought for at all hours. But to no purpose, the White Tiger seized a plump human victim once every few days, and Mar Singh’s vision of the reward grew faint.

“The striped one is surely an evil spirit, and no beast at all!” said Mar Singh, who never uttered the word tiger if he could help it, for fear of ill-luck.

He had come in weary and crestfallen from a long day’s search, having actually caught a glimpse of the White Tiger, and followed the tracks of the huge, square pugs to the edge of a thorny thicket, without the chance of a shot that could have taken effect; and he was pouring out his irritation and disgust to Kowta, his half-brother, who sat at the door of the family hovel contentedly smoking a hookah.

“Without doubt,” agreed Kowta, “and therefore would it not be wiser to let the sahib slay the Evil One if he be able?”

“What sahib?” asked Mar Singh sharply, pausing in the act of cleaning the precious match-lock gun, which was the envy and admiration of the village.

“Then thou hast not heard the news?” said Kowta, innocently. “A sahib has pitched his camp within one day’s march of the village, and they say he has come to hunt the White Devil.”

The dreaded blow had fallen, and Mar Singh danced with rage.

“I will give him no news of the tiger. I will tell him nothing, and see, too, that thou remainest silent, Kowta, when he sends for information, else will it be the worse for thee!”

Kowta twiddled his big toe in the dust, always a sign of hesitation with a native, and Mar Singh scented trouble. He knew that Kowta was heavily in debt to the village usurer, and that sahibs often paid well for news of a tiger’s movements. He was also aware that Kowta was jealous of his standing and reputation in the village, which would be increased ten-fold could he but destroy the tiger and earn the magnificent reward.

He changed his tone.

“See, brother,” he began insinuatingly, “the utmost that the sahib would give thee might, perchance, be ten rupees, and thy share of the Government reward would scarcely be more than two. What are twelve rupees compared with forty, added to half the whiskers and claws of the Evil One, and perhaps the lucky bone as well? All this will I give thee when I slay the beast, as I most assuredly must do if the sahib doth not interfere.”

Kowta puffed stolidly at his hookah and was maddeningly silent.

“Also,” continued Mar Singh, eagerly, “consider the trouble that a sahib’s camp brings upon a village. His servants, being rascals, will order supplies in the name of the sahib, and pay us nothing for them, and the police will annoy us if we complain. We shall be forced to beat the jungle, and many will be hurt and some killed, if not by the tiger then by other wild beasts, also—”

“But how am I to tell that thou wilt give me the forty rupees and half the claws and whiskers? Whereas, a sahib holds to his promises, as we all know.”

“I swear it!” cried Mar Singh with fervour, “By the skin of the White Devil I swear to deal well by thee!”

So, after some further argument, Kowta reluctantly agreed to take his brother’s side, and Mar Singh unfolded a scheme by which Kowta was to proceed to the tents of the unwelcome Englishman, and pose as the shikaree of the district, possessing an intimate knowledge of the tiger’s habits. Mar Singh would keep Kowta well informed as to the movements of the tiger through the medium of the postman who ran from village to village with news and letters, and the sahib, at all hazards, was to be led in the wrong directions, until he grew weary of the fruitless chase, and withdrew from the district with his camp and elephants.

Kowta, therefore, proceeded to don the khaki costume, which he had long coveted, and the next morning he started on his diplomatic errand, while Mar Singh betook himself to the jungle to watch the movements of the White Tiger, that he might warn Kowta by the evening runner as to which locality must be avoided the following day.

Kowta enjoyed himself immensely at the camp. He arrived at sundown, and was interviewed by the sahib himself, to whom he gave voluble, but entirely false, information concerning the tiger, and promised to lead him direct to the animal’s lair in the morning. The sahib, being young and new to the country, retired to bed in happy anticipation, and Kowta repaired to the kitchen tent, where, surrounded by the servants, he sat smoking his hookah and relating blood-curdling tales of the doings of the White Tiger.

Natives seldom sleep till far on in the night, and therefore the gathering was at its height when the jingle of bells told of the postman’s approach, and Kowta, explaining to the company that he was expecting news of his dying grandmother, went out into the moonlight to meet him. The chink-chink of the bunch of bells grew louder, and mingled with the regular grunts of the runner, and Kowta, stepping forward into the sandy path, checked the man’s rapid trot.

“Oh, brother!” he saluted, “What word from Mar Singh, shikaree?”

“Kowta, there is no word from the mouth of Mar Singh, thy brother, seeing that but an hour after thy departure he was slain by the White Tiger on the outskirts of the grazing plain, and Merijhan, the cowherd, saw it happen. I bring the evil news to thee fresh from thy village.”

For a moment Kowta was paralysed by the horror of the dreadful and unexpected news. Then he asked questions, and learned that his brother’s body had been recovered by a party of villagers who had sallied forth with drums and fireworks and had driven the beast from its prey. The mangled remains now lay in the family hut, and Kowta’s presence was required to make arrangements for the funeral.

Kowta slipped some coppers into the postman’s willing hand, and charged him to keep silence as to the catastrophe when delivering letters in the camp. Then he collected his belongings, and left a plausible message for the sahib to say he had been summoned to his grandmother’s deathbed, but would return with all haste the following day. He set out in the moonlight along the narrow jungle path, bordered by tall grass higher than his head, and walked rapidly, though the heat was overpowering, until, just as the dawn broke, he came within sight of the village. He strode through the fields of tobacco and young wheat, and saw the bright green parrots flashing to and fro in the vivid yellow light; partridges ran from beneath his feet, calling shrilly as they disappeared behind the clumps of dry grass; and he could hear the jungle fowl in the distance crowing to the rising sun. Everything was awake and glowing with life, and the dark interior of the hut, where the women were wailing and the atmosphere seemed charged with death, formed a sharp contrast to the outside world.

The mangled body of the dead man, torn and chewed by the tiger, lay on the string bedstead, surrounded by a noisy group of mourning relatives. There was nothing for Kowta to do but arrange for the remains to be taken to the burning-ground in the evening and to attempt to pacify the wailing throng, until, as the fierce, hot noon came on, they gradually dispersed, and even the widow of the dead man sought a siesta in a neighbour’s hut, while Kowta sat down on the threshold of his home to think.

An idea had been slowly forming in his brain which brought with it a wave of exultation. Why should not he compass the destruction of the White Tiger, and so earn the whole reward. He was in debt to the moneylender, and he also greatly desired a plot of land that was for sale just outside the village, and the hundred rupees would not only free him from debt, but would also purchase the coveted little piece of ground. It was true that Mar Singh himself had never succeeded in shooting the White Tiger, but then his difficulty had always been the want of suitable bait, whereas now—Kowta glanced back into the shadow of the hut and shivered, remembering the native belief that the soul of the tiger’s victim becomes the servant of the slayer, and is bound to warn the master when danger threatens.

Mar Singh’s spirit might or might not be in bondage to the White Tiger, but, in any case, the hundred rupees was worth some risk, and with proper precautions there should be little or no danger, seeing that the matchlock gun had been recovered uninjured. Kowta rose and looked up and down the little village street. Not a breeze stirred the giant leaves of the plantain trees, not a bird uttered a note, not a voice broke the breathless calm, every creature except himself was wrapped in slumber.

He made up his mind. He would attempt the plan, and afterwards, whether he succeeded or failed, he could deny all knowledge of the disappearance of his brother’s body, and encourage the suggestion which would naturally arise, that the sorcery of the White Tiger had spirited the corpse away. So he gathered the wreck of Mar Singh into a bundle, wrapping it in his own white cotton waist-cloth, and with the loaded match-lock over his shoulder, went swiftly through the sleeping village and out into the fields, invoking on his errand the blessing of Durga, the goddess who rides the tiger. Thence he took a narrow jungle path with tangled shrubs closing over his head, and as he emerged from this on to the bushy, broken ground leading to the river, he gathered a leaf from the nearest tree and muttered—

“As thy life has departed, so may the striped one die.”

He walked up the pebbly bed of the dwindling stream till he reached a pool of clear water, in the wet margin of which were printed countless tracks of animals that had drunk there during the night. Wild pig, jackal, fox, hyena, all had slaked their thirst, but the White Tiger had not been of the company. A hundred yards off lay another pool, and around it Kowta found a solitary track—the big, square pugs of the beast who, by common consent of the other jungle inhabitants, had been given a wide berth, and allowed to drink alone.

The marks were not more than a few hours old, and Kowta followed them cautiously, grasping the gun and dragging his other burden behind him along the gravelly sand. The footprints led him to some rocky boulders, on the summit of which a family of monkeys sat peacefully hunting for fleas, a sign that the tiger was not on the move, else would they have been crashing and chattering in the nearest trees, and pouring forth torrents of abuse. The pugs led on round the rocks to a shady thicket of thorn bushes in a deep ravine, and Kowta felt that he had tracked the White Tiger to his lair.

He laid his brother’s body close to the edge of the thorny thicket, and then cast about for a safe retreat within easy shot, but no climbable trees were at hand, the cover consisting of low, scrubby bushes. The only suitable place of concealment seemed to be the nearest rock, behind which it would be easy to hide and yet command a good view of the bait.

The odour of the dead body tainted the air as the sun blazed full upon it, which suited Kowta’s purpose well, for tigers prefer their food as carrion, and hunger would soon bring the beast forth. Kowta lay down behind the rock and waited. A hot, high wind was blowing, and the sand from the river bed, getting into his eyes, made them smart, but he paid no heed to the discomfort, and only watched the thicket intently for the least movement.

He held his breath when, presently, something rustled and crept out—merely a mangy little jackal with loosely-hanging brush, who sprang four feet into the air as he came suddenly on Mar Singh’s body. Then the animal uttered the long, miserable wail known as the “pheeaow cry,” and ran back into the thicket, causing Kowta’s heart to beat high with hope, for he knew the jackal was a “provider,” one that gives notice to the tiger when food is to be found.

Now, without doubt the Evil One would steal forth, and nothing could then prevent a shot at such close quarters taking effect. A pea-fowl screeched wildly, and Kowta could hear the agitated flapping of its wings, that also was a token that the tiger moved. The monkeys set up a clatter and scuttled from the rocks. He was coming—the White Devil, the evil striped-one!

Kowta waited breathless, his pulses throbbing in his ears, thinking of the hundred rupees and the plot of ground that were now almost his own, and gazing fixedly over the sickening, twisted limbs of the mutilated body only a few yards from him.

The tension was terrible, and the cracking of a dry twig behind him sounded almost like the report of a gun, he felt a surging in his brain, and, as another stick snapped, some irresistible power compelled him to turn his head.

There, five yards behind him, crouched the White Tiger, that with silent steps and awful cunning had stalked him from the village. The ears were flattened to the broad head, the long white whiskers bristled and quivered, the wicked yellow eyes glared, and held the man helpless, spell-bound with horror, waiting for the spring that came with a hissing, growling roar, as the White Tiger claimed yet another victim.

Caulfield’s Crime

Caulfield was a sulky, bad-tempered individual who made no friends and was deservedly unpopular, but he had the reputation of being the finest shot in the Punjab, and of possessing a knowledge of sporting matters that was almost superhuman. He was an extremely jealous shot, and hardly ever invited a companion to join him on his shooting trips, so it may be understood that I was keenly alive to the honour conferred on me when he suddenly asked me to go out for three days’ small game shooting with him.

“I know a string of jheels,” he said, “about thirty miles from here, where the duck and snipe must swarm. I marked the place down when I was out last month, and I’ve made arrangements to go there next Friday morning. You can come, too, if you like.”

I readily accepted the ungracious invitation, though I could hardly account for it, knowing his solitary ways, except that he probably thought that I was unlikely to assert myself, being but a youngster, and also he knew me better than he did most people, for our houses were next door, and I often strolled over to examine his enormous collection of skins and horns and other sporting trophies.

I bragged about the coming expedition in the club that evening, and was well snubbed by two or three men who would have given anything to know the whereabouts of Caulfield’s string of jheels, and who spitefully warned me to be careful that Caulfield did not end by shooting me.

“I believe he’d kill any chap who annoyed him,” said one of them, looking round to make sure that Caulfield was not at hand. “I never met such a nasty-tempered fellow, I believe he’s mad. But he can shoot, and what he doesn’t know about game isn’t worth knowing.”

Caulfield and I rode out the thirty miles early on the Friday morning, having sent our camp on ahead the previous night. We found our tents pitched in the scanty shade of some stunted dâk jungle trees with thick, dry bark, flat, shapeless leaves, that clattered together when stirred by the wind, and wicked-looking red blossoms. It was not a cheerful spot, and the soil was largely mixed with salt which had worked its way in white patches to the surface, and only encouraged the growth of the rankest of grass.

Before us stretched a dreary outlook of shallow lake and swampy ground, broken by dark patches of reeds and little bushy islands, while on the left a miserable mud village overlooked the water. The sun had barely cleared away the thick, heavy mist, which was still slowly rising here and there, and the jheel birds were wading majestically in search of their breakfast of small fish, and uttering harsh, discordant cries.

To my astonishment, Caulfield seemed a changed man. He was in excellent spirits, his eyes were bright, and the sullen frown had gone from his forehead.

“Isn’t it a lovely spot?” he said, laughing and rubbing his hands. “Beyond that village the snipe ought to rise in thousands from the rice fields. We sha’n’t be able to shoot it all in three days, worse luck, but we’ll keep it dark, and come again. Let’s have breakfast. I don’t want to lose any time.”

Half an hour later we started, our guns over our shoulders, and a couple of servants behind us carrying the luncheon and cartridge bags. My spirits rose with Caulfield’s, for I felt we had the certainty of an excellent day’s sport before us.

But the birds were unaccountably wild and few and far between, and luck seemed dead against us. “Some brutes” had evidently been there before us and harried the birds, was Caulfield’s opinion, delivered with disappointed rage, and after tramping and wading all day, we returned, weary and crestfallen, with only a few couple of snipe and half a dozen teal between us. Caulfield was so angry he could hardly eat any dinner, and afterwards sat cursing his luck and the culprits who had forestalled us, till we could neither of us keep awake any longer.

The next morning we took a different route from the previous day, but with no better result. On and on, and round and round we tramped, with only an occasional shot here and there, and at last, long after midday, we sat wearily down to eat our luncheon. I was ravenously hungry, and greedily devoured my share of the provisions, but Caulfield hardly touched a mouthful, and only sat moodily examining his gun, and taking long pulls from his whisky flask. We were seated on the roots of a large tamarind tree, close to the village, and the place had a dreary, depressing appearance. The yellow mud walls were ruined and crumbling, and the inhabitants seemed scanty and poverty-stricken. Two ragged old women were squatting a short distance off, watching us with dim, apathetic eyes, and a few naked children were playing near them, while some bigger boys were driving two or three lean buffaloes towards the water.

Presently another figure came in sight—a fakir, or mendicant priest, as was evident by the tawny masses of wool woven amongst his own black locks and hanging in ropes below his shoulders, the ashes smeared over the almost naked body, and the hollow gourd for alms which he held in his hand. The man’s face was long and thin, and his pointed teeth glistened in the sunlight as he demanded money in a dismal monotone. Caulfield flung a pebble at him and told him roughly to be off, with the result that the man slowly disappeared behind a clump of tall, feathery grass.

“Did you notice that brute’s face?” said Caulfield as we rose to start again. “He must have been a pariah dog in a former existence. He was exactly like one!”

“Or a jackal perhaps,” I answered carelessly. “He looked more like a wild beast.”

Then we walked on, skirting the village and plunging into the damp, soft rice fields. We put up a wisp of snipe, which we followed till we had shot them nearly all, and then, to our joy, we heard a rush of wings overhead, and a lot of duck went down into the corner of a jheel in front of us.

“We’ve got ’em!” said Caulfield, and we hurried on till we were almost within shot of the birds, and could hear them calling to each other in their fancied security. But suddenly they rose again in wild confusion, and with loud cries of alarm were out of range in a second. Caulfield swore, and so did I, and our rage was increased tenfold when the disturber of the birds appeared in sight, and proved to be the fakir who had paid us a visit at luncheon-time. Caulfield shook his fist at the man and abused him freely in Hindustani, but without moving a muscle of his dog-like face the fakir passed us and continued on his way.

Words could not describe Caulfield’s vexation.

“They were pin-tail, all of them,” he said, “and the first decent chance we’ve had since we came out. To think of that beastly fakir spoiling the whole show, and I don’t suppose he had the least idea what he had done.”

“Probably not,” I replied, “unless there was some spite in it because you threw a stone at him that time.”

“Well, come along,” said Caulfield, with resignation, “we must make haste as it will be dark soon, and I want to try a place over by those palms before we knock off. We may as well let the servants go back as they’ve had a hard day. Have you got some cartridges in your pocket?”

“Yes, plenty,” I answered, and after despatching the two men back to the camp with what little game we had got, we walked on in silence.

The sun was sinking in a red ball and the air was heavy with damp, as the white mist stole slowly over the still, cold jheels. Far overhead came the first faint cackle of the wild geese returning home for the night, and presently as we approached the clump of palms we saw more water glistening between the rough stems, and on it, to our delight, a multitude of duck and teal.

But the next moment there was a whir-r-r of wings like the rumble of thunder, and a dense mass of birds flew straight into the air and wheeled bodily away, while the sharp, cold atmosphere resounded with their startled cries. Caulfield said nothing, but he set his jaw and walked rapidly forward, while I followed. We skirted the group of palms, and on the other side we came upon our friend the fakir, who had again succeeded in spoiling our sport. The long, lanky figure was drawn to its full height, the white eyeballs and jagged teeth caught the red glint of the setting sun, and he waved his hand triumphantly in the direction of the vanishing cloud of birds.

Then there came the loud report of a gun, and the next thing I saw was a quivering body on the ground, and wild eyes staring open in the agony of death. Caulfield had shot the fakir, and now he stood looking down at what he had done, while I knelt beside the body and tried hopelessly to persuade myself that life was not extinct. When I got up we gazed at each other for a moment in silence.

“What are we to do?” I asked presently.

“Well, you know what it means,” Caulfield said in a queer, hard voice. “Killing a native is no joke in these days, and I should come out of it pretty badly.”

I glanced at the body in horror. The face was rigid, and seemed more beast-like than ever. I looked at Caulfield again before I spoke, hesitatingly.

“Of course the whole thing was unpremeditated—an accident.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said defiantly. “I meant to shoot the brute, and it served him right. And you can’t say anything else if it comes out. But I don’t see why anyone should know about it but ourselves.”

“It’s a nasty business,” I said, my heart sinking at the suggestion of concealment.

“It will be nastier still if we don’t keep it dark, and you won’t like having to give me away, you know. Either we must bury the thing here and say nothing about it, or else we must take it back to the station and stand the devil’s own fuss. Probably I shall be kicked out of the service.”

“Of course I’ll stand by you,” I said with an effort, “but we can’t do anything this minute. We’d better hide it in that long grass and come back after dinner. We must have something to dig with.”

Caulfield agreed sullenly, and between us we pushed the body in amongst the thick, coarse grass, which completely concealed it, and then made our way back to the camp. We ordered dinner and pretended to eat it, after which we sat for half an hour smoking, until the plates were cleared away and the servants had left the tent. Then I put my hunting-knife into my pocket, and Caulfield picked up a kitchen chopper that his bearer had left lying on the floor, after hammering a stiff joint of a camp chair, and we quitted the tent casually as though intending to have a stroll in the moonlight, which was almost as bright as day. We walked slowly at first, gradually increasing our pace as we left the camp behind us, and Caulfield never spoke a word until we came close to the tall grass that hid the fakir’s body. Then he suddenly clutched my arm.

“God in heaven!” he whispered, pointing ahead, “What is that?”

I saw the grass moving, and heard a scraping sound that made my heart stand still. We moved forward in desperation and parted the grass with our hands. A large jackal was lying on the fakir’s body, grinning and snarling at being disturbed over his hideous meal.

“Drive it away,” said Caulfield, hoarsely. But the brute refused to move, and as it lay there showing its teeth, its face reminded me horribly of the wretched man dead beneath its feet. I turned sick and faint, so Caulfield shouted and shook the grass and threw clods of soil at the animal, which rose at last and slunk slowly away. It was an unusually large jackal, more like a wolf, and had lost one of its ears. The coat was rough and mangy and thickly sprinkled with grey.

For more than an hour we worked desperately with the chopper and hunting-knife, being greatly aided in our task by a rift in the ground where the soil had been softened by water running from the jheel, and finally we stood up with the sweat pouring from our faces, and stamped down the earth which now covered all traces of Caulfield’s crime. We had filled the grave with some large stones that were lying about (remnants of some ancient temple, long ago deserted and forgotten), thus feeling secure that it could not easily be disturbed by animals.

The next morning we returned to the station, and Caulfield shut himself up more than ever. He entirely dropped his shooting, which before had been his one pleasure, and the only person he ever spoke to, unofficially, was myself.

The end of April came with its plague of insects and scorching winds. The hours grew long and weary with the heat, and dust storms howled and swirled over the station, bringing perhaps a few tantalising drops of rain, or more often leaving the air thick with a copper-coloured haze.

One night when it was too hot to sleep, Caulfield suddenly appeared in my verandah and asked me to let him stay the night in my bungalow.

“I know I’m an ass,” he said in awkward apology, “but I can’t stay by myself. I get all sorts of beastly ideas.”

I asked no questions, but gave him a cheroot and tried to cheer him up, telling him scraps of gossip, and encouraging him to talk, when a sound outside made us both start. It proved to be only the weird, plaintive cry of a jackal, but Caulfield sprang to his feet, shaking all over.

“There it is again!” he exclaimed. “It has followed me over here. Listen!” turning his haggard, sleepless eyes on me. “Every night that brute comes and howls round my house, and I tell you, on my oath, it’s the same jackal we saw eating the poor devil I shot.”

“Nonsense, my dear chap,” I said, pushing him back into the chair, “you must have got fever. Jackals come and howl round my house all night. That’s nothing.”

“Look here,” said Caulfield, very calmly, “I have no more fever than you have, and if you imagine I am delirious you are mistaken.” He lowered his voice. “I looked out one night and saw the brute. It had only one ear!”

In spite of my own common sense and the certainty that Caulfield was not himself, my blood ran cold, and after I had succeeded in quieting him and he had dropped off to sleep on the couch, I sat in my long chair for hours, going over in my mind every detail of that horrible night in the jungle.

Several times after this Caulfield came to me and repeated the same tale. He swore he was being haunted by the jackal we had driven away from the fakir’s body, and finally took it into his head that the spirit of the murdered man had entered the animal and was bent on obtaining vengeance.

Then he suddenly ceased coming over to me, and when I went to see him he would hardly speak, and only seemed anxious to get rid of me. I urged him to take leave or see a doctor, but he angrily refused to do either, and said he wished I would keep away from him altogether. So I left him alone for a couple of days, but on the third evening my conscience pricked me for having neglected him, and I was preparing to go over to his bungalow, when his bearer rushed in with a face of terror and besought me to come without delay. He said he feared his master was dying, and he had already sent for the doctor. The latter arrived in Caulfield’s verandah simultaneously with myself, and together we entered the sick man’s room. Caulfield was lying unconscious on his bed.

“He had a sort of fit, sahib,” said the frightened bearer, and proceeded to explain how his master had behaved.

The doctor bent over the bed.

“Do you happen to know if he had been bitten by a dog lately?” he asked, looking up at me.

“Not to my knowledge,” I answered, while the faint wail of a jackal out across the plain struck a chill to my heart.

For twenty-four hours we stayed with Caulfield, watching the terrible struggles we were powerless to relieve, and which lasted till the end came. He was never able to speak after the first paroxysm, which had occurred before we arrived, so we could not learn from him whether he had been bitten or not, neither could the doctor discover any scar on his body which might have been made by the teeth of an animal. Yet there was no shadow of doubt that Caulfield’s death was due to hydrophobia.

As we stood in the next room when all was over, drinking the dead man’s whisky and soda, which we badly needed, we questioned the bearer closely, but he could tell us little or nothing. His master, he said, did not keep dogs, nor had the bearer ever heard of his having been bitten by one; but there had been a mad jackal about the place nearly three weeks ago which his master had tried to shoot but failed.

“It couldn’t have been that,” said the doctor; “he would have come to me if he had been bitten by a jackal.”

“No,” I answered mechanically, “it could not have been that.” And I went into the bedroom to take a last look at poor Caulfield’s thin, white face with its ghastly, hunted expression, for there was now nothing more that I could do for him.

Then I picked up a lantern and stepped out into the dark verandah, intending to go home. As I did so, something came silently round the corner of the house and stood in my path. I raised my lantern and caught a glimpse of a mass of grey fur, two fiery yellow eyes, and bared, glistening teeth. It was only a stray jackal, and I struck at it with my stick, but instead of running away it slipped past me and entered Caulfield’s room. The light fell on the animal’s head, and I saw that it had only one ear.

In a frenzy I rushed back into the house calling for the doctor and servants.

“I saw a jackal come in here,” I said, searching round the bedroom, “hunt it out at once.”

Every nook and corner was examined, but no jackal was found.

“Go home to bed, my boy, and keep quiet till I come and see you in the morning,” said the doctor, looking at me keenly. “This business has shaken your nerves, and your imagination is beginning to play you tricks. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” I answered, and went slowly back to my bungalow, trying to persuade myself that he was right.

An Eastern Echo

“Hasan! Husain! Hasan! Husain!”

The cry rose perpetually from hundreds of Mohammedan throats, hoarse with violent reiteration, yet ever strengthened by excitement and religious fervour.

It was the day of the great Muharram, one of the most important of Mohammedan religious festivals in northern India, when gorgeously decorated tazias (or models of the tomb of Hasan and Husain, the two martyred nephews of the Prophet) are annually borne in memorial procession through the city streets out into the country, where, with much ceremony and ostentatious lamentation, they are either buried or cast into a tank.

All through the long, hot midday, streams of frenzied mourners, with their gaudy pasteboard and tinsel sepulchres, had been pressing through the crowded, stifling streets of a small Mofussil town, and thence for half a mile along the white, glaring grand-trunk road to the temporary burying-ground. Fierce, fanatical Mohammedans shouted, howled and tore their clothes, beating their hairy chests and throwing themselves on the ground in a fervour of sorrow; others strode along half-naked, shrieking with ardent zeal, and dancing madly at intervals, while here and there passed groups of disapproving Hindus, sullen and silent, whose curiosity and love of excitement had drawn them irresistibly into the throng; women ran with fluttering clothes and wild eyes along the outskirts of the procession, and children clung to them, also echoing shrilly the universal cry, in tones of inconsolable lamentation: “Hasan! Husain! Hasan! Husain!”

High above the moving sea of turbans wobbled the tazias, incongruously gay with tinsel, paint, and coloured muslin, the bearers of these erections struggling manfully along, perspiring under their weight, jostling each other and still joining in the perpetual cry. Now and then a dispute would arise, often resulting in a free fight, as each possessor of a tazia hustled and pushed his neighbour in his efforts to secure a foremost position in which to display his tribute of respect to the dead, and his own violence of emotion.

The police had been hard at work from early dawn keeping order, protecting the weakly, regulating the processions, and nipping incipient battles in the bud. And as the afternoon wore on, the European police-inspector lifted his helmet many times from his hot, aching forehead, and sighed with weariness. Up and down, backwards and forwards, shouting, swearing, ordering, choked with dust, parched with heat, he had been on duty for hours, and as he rode past he threw an envious glance into the large, cool tent which had been erected by order of the magistrate of the district under a giant fig tree on the line of the procession. It contained a few ladies and one or two officials, comfortable wicker chairs, and a tempting refreshment table covered with fruit and iced drinks. The magistrate himself, who had also been in the city for the best part of the day, was now sitting cool and clean with a party he had invited to view the Muharram. He noticed how flushed and tired looked the inspector’s handsome face.

“Will you get down and have a whisky and soda, Somerton?” he called, with an involuntary tinge of patronage in his voice, for a police-inspector is a subordinate whose rank corresponds somewhat to that of a sergeant in the army.

There was a slight hesitation in Somerton’s manner before he replied. He glanced at the ladies, and his sunburned cheeks deepened in colour, but another glimpse of the refreshment-table behind their white skirts decided him.

“Thank you, sir,” he answered, dismounting, and followed Mr Sinclair into the tent. The ladies watched him with curiosity as he passed them, for they had heard, on good authority, that the inspector was a gentleman by birth.

“They say his grandfather was an earl,” whispered the police-officer’s wife to a girl who sat by her side.

“I can quite believe it,” answered the girl, fixing her blue eyes on the strongly-marked profile of the man who was lifting a tumbler to his lips.

“He has only come here on special duty, just for the Muharram, as my husband was so short of men,” continued the police-officer’s wife, “so I don’t suppose I shall have time to take any notice of him. I try to make a point of knowing something of my husband’s subordinates, though when they have no wives to go and see it makes it more difficult. I should think I might have him to dinner quite by himself, as he’s supposed to be a gentleman.”

“I should think so, indeed,” answered the girl, impetuously, “and I, for one, should be very glad to be asked to meet him.”

“Oh, Miss Murray, what would Mr Sinclair say if he heard you?” glancing in laughing reproof at the glittering engagement ring on the girl’s finger. “But it does seem absurd, I admit,” she added, ‘when a man is a gentleman, though my husband says discipline must be observed, and you cannot with any justice treat subordinates as equals. Perhaps he will get a commission some day, and then he will be all right. They say his present position is all his own fault. He wasted his money, and gambled, and drank, and ruined himself, and did all kinds of such dreadful things that a police-inspectorship in India was all his family influence could get for him.”

Meg Murray made no answer, but her eyes strayed again to the two men standing at the back of the tent. One so straight, so broad, so tall, with the peculiar, delicate lift of nostril and upper lip that betrays blue blood, the finely-poised head covered with slightly waving hair, and the long, well-bred hand holding the tumbler. The other, thin, spare, pale, with grizzled hair and moustache, and an habitual weary expression, due to long office hours and a heavy responsibility, yet with a certain air of dignified reserve and undoubted mental power that commanded respect, and made him the excellent ruler of a difficult district that he was.

Meg’s heart ached for a moment. The latter was the man she was to marry that day week. The former was just the type of man she would have— She checked the thought hurriedly, aghast at herself, and resolutely turned her mind to the widowed mother in a cheap country town, whose life had been a long, harassed struggle to educate her children on an inadequate income. Meg was well aware how great a sacrifice had been made in sending her out to relations in India, in the unspoken hope that there she might marry into her own class—which she would have little chance of doing in England.

She was an unusually lucky girl, hastily reflected Meg, to be marrying such a thoroughly good, nice man, who was also sufficiently well off to retire the instant he had earned his pension—which would be a month or two after their marriage. Yes, she was certainly very fortunate, and she liked and esteemed Henry Sinclair above all men, only— She looked again at the stalwart figure of the inspector, with its easy, distinguished carriage, turning to leave the tent, and as Somerton passed her and their eyes met, she forgot she was engaged, forgot he was a subordinate, forgot she was a self-respecting young lady, and smiled at him involuntarily. He put his hand to his helmet as though to raise it, but checked himself, and saluted instead; then passed out, leaving her flushed, breathless, and ashamed of herself.

“A fine-looking fellow,” she heard Sinclair saying in smooth, clear tones, “but a very regrettable case—every chance—plenty of money—good old family—all chucked to the winds. A great pity. However, he may do well yet. He has worked splendidly today, but those fellows always do when anything out of the ordinary is going on. It’s over the daily routine they fail one as a rule. Hallo!” with an apprehensive start, “What has happened?”

The monotonous shouts of the moving crowd had suddenly given place to an irregular, confused hubbub of sound, which presently rose to a roar, bearing down from the city. The portion of the procession then passing in front of the tent came to an abrupt halt and spread chaotically. Mr Sinclair hurried out and was met by an agitated native policeman, who incoherently announced that the Hindus had destroyed a tazia in the city, and that a desperate row had ensued. A tearing, fighting mob of raging Hindus and Mohammedans was advancing down the road, and the police, insufficient in number and worn out with the day’s work, were powerless to check it. Mr Sinclair rushed to his horse, and galloped towards the moving mass of infuriated, struggling people.

The ladies rose quickly, and asked with alarm if there was any danger? Was the tent likely to be thrown down? What were they to do? The few men who were with them told them to remain in their places, and assured them they were perfectly safe, then stationed themselves outside to avert any possible rush.

But Meg Murray had approached the front of the tent unnoticed, to look out. She felt nervous and apprehensive, and thought of the Mutiny and horrible tales of massacres. Would anyone be killed? She shivered at the idea. Somerton’s bold brown face rose before her, and immediately afterwards Sinclair’s tired eyes. She peered through the yellow clouds of dust and haze at the moving, indistinct mass that came nearer and nearer with a deafening turmoil—the thud of blows on flesh, the shouts, and clattering of hoofs, and above it all rang the fanatical yell, “Hasan! Husain! Hasan! Husain!” no longer in mournful lamentation, but with triumph and fury in its note.

“Keep back, keep back!” shouted someone to her. “Go inside!”

But at that moment there was a sudden break in the struggling crowd, then a rush of tazias as the Mohammedans gained the advantage, and Meg saw Somerton in the very front of the mêlée, urging his horse against it, and dealing blow after blow in his efforts to restore order.

“He will be killed!” she sobbed, under her breath, and ran blindly out into the road. The crowd overtook her at once, and she was swept down into the choking dust under myriads of trampling feet.

It was Somerton who, seeing what had happened, promptly dismounted, and, from sheer strength and determination, succeeded in dragging her out of danger before any real harm came to her. Faint, bruised, shaken, she lay in his arms sheltered behind a roadside tamarind tree, while the crowd surged past.

“You are all right,” he said protectingly, as she opened her frightened blue eyes and attempted to stand up. “Don’t move,” and taking out his handkerchief, he began to flick the dust from her hair and dress.

“What possessed you to leave the tent like that?” he inquired reproachfully, as her colour came slowly back.

“I hardly know,” she faltered. Then, with a sudden, overpowering impulse, she raised her eyes to his. “I was afraid you would be killed,” she said softly.

She heard his heart beat loudly, saw the blood rise above the line of sunburn across his forehead, and a quick flash light up his eyes; she noticed the long, dark eyelashes, the little golden ends to the dusty moustache, and the sharp curve of the lips as they opened to speak—then closed firmly without a word.

The next moment he had placed her gently against the tree, and was standing before her respectful and solicitous; the inspector again—the subordinate.

“I hope you feel better; could you walk to the tent? Or shall I fetch you something to drink? The worst of the row is over now, so you need not feel frightened. Ah! Here is Mr Sinclair, now you will be all right.”

As the magistrate approached in anxious haste, Somerton moved away, and Sinclair was too full of agitation and relief at finding Meg unhurt to think at the moment of calling the inspector back to thank him for having saved her.

However, the following morning he sent for Somerton, and in a becoming and well-considered little speech, conveyed to him his appreciation of his promptitude and courage.

“And I am sure Miss Murray would like to thank you herself,” he concluded.

“She is very kind, but I think she will forgive me when I say I would rather she did not. I am glad to have been of service.” Then he paused. “Do you know what induced her to leave the tent at that particular moment?” he added, the formality dropping out of his voice.

A slight colour rose in Sinclair’s pale face.

“I fancy she must have feared I was in danger,” he answered, somewhat consciously. “No doubt you have heard that Miss Murray is to become my wife very shortly.”

Somerton looked at the other man with a curious glance, and smiled furtively. Then, with a stifled sigh, he took up his helmet. “I wish you every happiness, sir,” he said, and, saluting, passed out into the verandah with his sword clanking after him.

*  *  *

Margaret Sinclair leaned lazily back in her comfortable garden chair, lulled by the soft English summer air, the drone of the bees in the lime blossoms above her head, the heavy scent from an adjacent petunia bed, and her husband’s voice reading sleepily aloud from a magazine. Two years of married life had passed very happily and peacefully for her. Prosperity, comfort, an increasing affection for her husband and the birth of her child had her existence completely, and the few months she had spent in India now seemed almost as far behind her as the days of her childhood. Sinclair himself had greatly improved in appearance, for rest, change and happiness had taken the weary expression from his eyes, and added flesh to his spare frame. It would have been hard to find a more peaceful picture than the well-kept English garden sloping towards the river from the substantial red brick house, and the happy, contented, sleepy couple under the trees on the lawn.

Presently Sinclair ceased reading, and smiled as he saw that his wife had fallen into a sound sleep. The smile was full of love and tenderness, and taking a light Indian shawl from a chair, he arranged it gently over her feet. Then he leant back and closed his eyes.

Half an hour slid by in the warm, uninterrupted silence of a summer’s afternoon, and then Mrs Sinclair stirred uneasily in her sleep. Her husband roused himself and bent over her laughingly. It was teatime, and she must be awakened.

“What did you say?” he inquired, as she murmured something.

Again a sleepy movement and an incoherent sentence. Then two words—loud, clear, and distinct—“Hasan! Husain!”

She sprang up startled and bewildered.

“What did you say, Henry?” she demanded nervously. “Did you speak, or did I?”

“You, Meg. You were talking in your sleep and dreaming about India. You shouted out, “Hasan! Husain!” as enthusiastically as any Mohammedan—which reminds me that the Muharram must just be on now. Last week’s papers said rows were expected, because the Hindu festival, the Dasahra, clashes with it this year. I wonder how my old district will get on.”

Mrs Sinclair smoothed her hair and shook a few leaves from her dress.

“I’m hardly awake yet,” she said. “I was not dreaming about India or the Muharram, and I can’t think why I should have called that out. Don’t talk about it. I hate being reminded of that day.”

But she was reminded of it again later, for while she was busy one morning with the coffee at breakfast, her husband opened the Indian weekly paper and began to scan the telegrams. Presently he uttered an exclamation.

“You remember Somerton, the police-inspector, who pulled you out of the Muharram row two years ago?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she replied quickly, with a little guilty blush. “What about him?”

“I see he has been killed in a Muharram-Dasahra riot. They seem to have had the devil’s own trouble. Poor fellow! What an awful thing! I shall always remember him with gratitude, for he undoubtedly saved your life.”

Mrs Sinclair sat white and silent. Killed—and probably at the very moment that the funeral cry had burst unconsciously from her lips! Instantly the scene of two years ago came vividly back. The well-appointed, comfortable English dining-room with the long French windows and the bright garden beyond, melted into a dusty yellow haze, and the bronzed face of the police-inspector rose before her. She saw the golden-tipped moustache, the little aristocratic lift of nostril and upper lip, and the suppressed emotion in the handsome eyes. She was alone with him again in the blinding glare of dust and heat, and ringing in her ears were the trampling of many feet, the rattle of tazias, the confused yells of rage and religious frenzy, and, above it all, the piercing cry, “Hasan! Husain! Hasan! Husain!”

“Margaret, what on earth is the matter with you? You look as if you had seen a ghost! Nurse has been at the window with baby for the last two minutes, and you haven’t taken the slightest notice of him. You unnatural little mother!”

She started, and passed her hand across her forehead.

“I was thinking of that poor fellow’s death,” she said, and going to the window, she took the laughing, radiant little boy in her arms and kissed him absently, her blue eyes full of tears.

The calm tranquility of her life had been suddenly stirred in its depths by the vague suspicion of something for ever missed and unattainable; and she felt that, though the surface might still shine on unruffled in the sun of a placid happiness, the undefined vibration of a regretful memory would lurk beneath, but deep down, covered over, and perchance in time almost forgotten.

A Perverted Punishment

Three o’clock on an April afternoon, and the mail train from Bombay steamed into the station of one of the largest cities of northern India.

The platform instantly became covered with a struggling, yelling mass of natives: fat, half-naked merchants; consequential Bengali clerks, with shiny yellow skins and lank black locks; swaggering sepoys on leave, with jaunty caps and fiercely-curled beards; keen, hawk-faced Afghans wrapped in garments suggestive of the Scriptures; whole parties of excited villagers, bound for some pilgrim shrine, clinging to each other and shouting discordantly; refreshment sellers screaming their wares, and coolies, bearing luggage on their heads, vociferating as wildly as though their very lives depended on penetrating the crowd.

Into this bewildering, deafening babel stepped Major Kenwithin from a first-class compartment. His rugged face, tanned and seared by twenty years of Indian service, wore anything but an amiable expression, and he barely responded to the cordial greeting of a young Englishman who was threading his way through a bevy of noisy, chattering, native females towards the parcels office.

“Missus went off all right?” shouted Cartwright over the crowd of draped heads.

Kenwithin only nodded, and turned his attention to his luggage and orderly.

“Poor old chap—how he feels it!” muttered the other as he proceeded to claim the parcel he had come to the station to fetch, while Kenwithin drove to his bungalow in the native cavalry lines feeling utterly and completely wretched.

The square, thatched house wore a dreary, deserted appearance. The plants in the verandah drooped, and the clambering bougainvillea and gold-mohur blossoms hung from the walls in long, neglected trails, waiting in vain for “the memsahib’s” careful supervision. The interior of the building shared the general dejection inevitable to an Anglo-Indian establishment from which a woman’s presence has been suddenly withdrawn, and the Major’s lonely heart ached as he roamed through the rooms, missing his wife more and more at every step. How on earth was he to get through six long, weary months without her? How had he ever lived without her at all?

And yet, until the day he met his wife, John Kenwithin had managed to lead an existence entirely after his own heart. His regiment first, and then shooting of every description had been all he lived for. With women he had had little to do, for he hated society and entertained no very exalted opinion of the opposite sex. He knew that the ladies of his own family had been good, loving wives and mothers, with duty as the keynote of their lives, and he wished all women were like them; but as, from what he had observed, this did not appear to be the case, he avoided the feminine world as much as possible.

However, the time came when his astonished friends learnt that he was engaged to be married, and subsequently discovered that he had made a very admirable selection. Certainly no one could have suited his tenacious, truth-loving somewhat harsh temperament better than the wife he had chosen, for she was a self-denying, conscientious soul, past her first girlhood, with a simple, sterling directness of character, and a calm, restful beauty of her own in her steadfast grey eyes and regular features. She adored the Major with her whole being; she considered nothing but his comfort and convenience; she bored people to death by making him her sole topic of conversation, and, in short, she surpassed even the memory of his mother and aunts in her capacity for doing her duty and worshipping her husband. The pair had led an ideally happy married life for the space of two years, and then had come Mrs Kenwithin’s sudden failure of health, and the doctor’s urgent advice that she should proceed “home” without delay to consult a heart specialist. So the Major had been forced to let her go alone, with no prospect of following her, for leave was stopped that season because of trouble on the frontier.

All that day he wandered aimlessly about the house, unable to do work or to pull himself together. He felt he had no heart to go to mess that night and answer kindly-meant inquiries as to his wife’s departure, so he wrote to Cartwright (who was his first cousin and senior subaltern in the regiment) and asked him to come and dine in the bungalow. Cartwright readily assented. He was fond of Kenwithin and understood him thoroughly. He knew of the goodness as well as the narrow sternness that lay in his cousin’s nature; knew that he was straight and honest as the day, but also—as is frequently the case—the most suspicious and intolerant of sin and weakness in others.

The two men ate their dinner more or less in silence. Cartwright made little attempt to talk, for he felt that well-intentioned conversation would be more likely to irritate than soothe; but afterwards, as they sat outside in front of the bungalow smoking their cheroots, he racked his brains for some subtle method of distracting his cousin’s thoughts. One plan he was fairly certain would succeed, but he hesitated to adopt it. Cartwright had never confided his own trouble to anyone, and only his anxiety to rouse Kenwithin from his moody reflections made him contemplate the mention of it now.

He took the cheroot from his lips and cleared his throat nervously. The sudden sound rang out in the warm, clear stillness of the Indian night, and subdued rustlings of startled birds and squirrels shook the creepers and undergrowth. He glanced around for a moment; the thatched roof of the bungalow loomed up dark against the sky that was already glimmering with the rising moon, and tall plantain trees, edging the garden, waved and bowed, disturbed by the puff of warm wind that crept round the walls of the bungalow wafting scents of mango and jessamine blossom in its train.

“I say, John,” began Cartwright, shamefacedly, feeling glad that the moon had not yet looked over the thatched roof, “I’m beastly sorry for you, old man. I know what it is to part with a woman you’d sell your soul for.”

Kenwithin turned quickly towards him.

“You? Why, I thought—you never said—?”

Cartwright smiled without amusement.

“No, because the less said about it the better. I suppose, with your notions, you’d call it a disgraceful affair, but I’m hanged if I can see it in that light.”

“A married woman?”

Cartwright nodded, and his memory turned to the face he loved, keeping him silent. Kenwithin’s eyes hardened and his mouth grew set, and as the moon rose slowly over the round of the thatched roof, the silver light showed up his large, rugged features clear against the dense background of the verandah, and touched his grizzled hair to whiteness.

“She knows you care for her?” he asked.

Cartwright nodded again, and covered his eyes with his hand, for in the brightness of the moonlight, recollections seemed to start from every shadow.

“And is her husband a brute to her?”

“No. That is the worst of it.”

Kenwithin laughed comprehensively.

“Look here, my dear boy, drop it! The whole thing is wrong and foolish, and nothing but harm can come of it. Either a woman is good or she is bad, and there’s no intermediate stage. No decent married woman would listen to a word of love from a man not her husband. I know the class. Without being actually depraved, they are false to the heart’s core—they can’t exist without illicit admiration!”

A dark look of rage swept over Cartwright’s face, but with an effort he controlled the outburst of fierce defence that rose to his lips—for had he not brought this on himself by opening the subject to a man of Kenwithin’s ideas? He carefully selected another cheroot, and spoke in the intervals of lighting it.

“Forgive—(puff)—my saying so—(puff)—Kenwithin, but I think you’re a bit narrow-minded. The woman I shall love till the day of my death is hardly of that class. No doubt I was wrong, and she weak; but there was no real harm in it; and now she has gone home. The only thing is that occasionally, tonight for instance, the future seems somewhat unfaceable.”

“Granted that there was no real harm, and that I am narrow-minded, the thing is still unsound throughout, and you know it! Perhaps I am behind the times, but my idea of a woman as she should be is that duty comes first with her. I would no more have married one who let me make love to her during her husband’s lifetime than I would have married—a native.”

“You were never tried,” remarked Cartwright, shortly, and changed the subject, for his effort to stir Kenwithin from his depression had been successful, and the two men sat on in the moonlight chatting casually of everyday matters until they parted for the night.

*  *  *

Helen Kenwithin gazed dreamily out over the dazzling glint of the Red Sea from the deck of an outward-bound P and O. steamer. The six long, weary months of separation were nearly over, and she was returning to her beloved “John” somewhat better in health, but with serious injunctions from the foremost heart specialist in London to avoid fatigue and excitement for the future. The deck was absolutely quiet, save for the monotonous vibration of the screw and an occasional flap of the awning in the burning, fitful wind. Helen’s white eyelids were slowly drooping when she was roused by the voice of a Mrs Trench (her cabin companion), who, fresh from a nap below, was settling herself by Mrs Kenwithin’s side, relentlessly prepared for conversation.

She was an attractive little person of barely five-and-twenty, with sparkling brown eyes and crisp, ruddy hair. She and Mrs Kenwithin had struck up a certain reserved friendship which neither permitted full play, seeing that it was not likely to be renewed; for, though Mrs Trench had spent a few years in India, her husband’s regiment had lately been moved to Aden, where she was now rejoining him after a summer in England.

“Here are the photographs I wanted to show you,” she began, opening a packet in her lap. “They were in that box in the hold after all. The first officer was angelic; he got it up for me, although it wasn’t a baggage day.” This with a significant air, which Helen ignored. She, like her husband, had no sympathy with flirtation.

She put out her hand for the photographs (which consisted chiefly of a collection of good-looking subalterns in uniform), glancing casually at each, until one arrested her attention.

“Oh, that’s Cecil Cartwright—my husband’s cousin. He’s in our regiment. Fancy your knowing him! Isn’t he nice?”

Mrs Trench put the portrait back with a hasty, nervous movement. “I used to meet him at Simla,” she said shortly.

“Yes, he spent all his leave there the last two or three years. John used to be furious because he wouldn’t join shooting expeditions to Thibet or the Terai instead. I believe he means to take furlough next month if he can get it. A nasty time of year to arrive in England. Don’t you hate the winter?”

The reply and discussion that followed took them away from the subject of Cecil Cartwright, and Helen thought no more of the incident until the night before they reached Aden, when she was destined to learn why it was that her husband’s cousin had spent so much of his leave at Simla.

According to her custom, Helen had gone early to bed, leaving on deck Mrs Trench, who generally came down long after her cabin companion was asleep. Tonight, however, she appeared a full hour before her usual time, and Helen, being still awake, saw with concern that the pretty face was white and quivering, and the large eyes shining with tears.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked involuntarily.

“Oh, did I wake you? I’m sorry. I came down because the moonlight on the water made me so miserable—anything beautiful makes me wretched now,” and sitting down on the edge of her berth, she began to cry hysterically, at the same time undressing with feverish haste.

This was so unlike the usually light-hearted little lady that Helen was alarmed, and went to her side.

“Tell me,” she urged sympathetically.

“Mrs Kenwithin,” said the other, suddenly, after a pause, “do you love your husband very much?”

“He is everything on earth to me!”

“Would you have loved him just the same if he had been a married man when you first met him? Supposing you knew that it was wrong to love him, would that stop you?”

“Oh, don’t!” cried Helen, chokingly. “What do you mean? Don’t you care for your husband? Isn’t he good to you?”

“He is more than good to me. But he is twenty-five years older than I am, and I married him before I knew anything at all about love. And now, just as you feel about your John, I feel about a man who is not my husband. Oh, sometimes I wish I had never seen him. I dread meeting my husband tomorrow. I am always so frightened”—lowering her voice—“so frightened of his guessing—”

Mrs Kenwithin’s pity drowned her principles.

“Tell me about it—perhaps I can help you,” she said, and the kindness and forbearance in her voice drew forth the ugly, commonplace little story of the love (innocent though it was of active wrong) that existed between Daisy Trench and Cecil Cartwright.

“How horrified you look!” was the defiant conclusion. “I suppose it sounds awful to you; but there was no real harm; and I am the better for loving him—it has done me good.”

“Good Heavens!” burst out Helen, passionately, “Are you the better for acting a lie every second of your life to a husband who believes in you and loves you? Is it doing you good to feel in perpetual terror of being found out? You may say you could not help loving Cecil, but you could help fostering the love, and being mean, false, deceitful!”

“Oh,” whimpered Mrs Trench, looking like a child who has accidentally broken something valuable, “I didn’t mean to be so wicked.”

Then Helen curbed her righteous anger and patiently strove to convince Mrs Trench of the error of her ways. She pleaded with her, coaxed her, and frightened her by turns until the night was well on.

“Yes, I know, I know,” she sobbed at last in abject penitence. “I must give him up—I must never see him again. Oh, why couldn’t God have made me happy and good like you? I am so miserable! And how am I to prevent his stopping at Aden on his way home?”

“Write to him, write now, at once, and meet your husband tomorrow with a clear conscience.”

“But I’ve packed up all my writing things. And I’m such a coward. I should be afraid of the letter going astray and coming back, and then my husband would see it. Such things have happened. A friend of mine told me once—”

“Let me tell Cecil,” interrupted Mrs Kenwithin; “he will not have started when I get back.”

The little woman hesitated, and for a moment Helen feared that the battle would have to be fought afresh.

“Be brave, dear,” she said. “I know you will be glad afterwards.” And finally she gained full permission to pronounce Cecil Cartwright’s sentence irrevocably, and was solemnly entrusted with a heart-shaped locket containing his picture and a curl of his hair, and a bunch of faded forget-me-nots in an envelope on which was written, “With Cecil’s love,” all of which Mrs Trench tearfully explained she had promised only to return if she wished everything to be over between them.

“But,” she insisted, “you are on no account to say that I don’t care for him any more—only that I mean to try not to, because I know I ought to give him up. And I dare say,” she added reluctantly, “it will be a relief in the end.”

“I will explain,” said Helen, soothingly, and then she locked the little packet away amongst her most private papers.

But Cecil Cartwright never received it from her hands, because the day after the ship left Aden, Mrs Kenwithin died suddenly and quietly of failure of the heart, and the husband, who had awaited her arrival so impatiently at Bombay, was obliged to return to the square, thatched bungalow with only her boxes and personal belongings.

For him there followed days of bitter, aching darkness, during which he did his work mechanically, and wandered about the house and compound like a man in a dream, his wife’s luggage piled unopened in her room, and the old ayah lingering disappointedly in the back premises.

Then at last Cartwright interfered, and offered to forego his leave to England if Kenwithin would accompany him on a shooting tour in Assam. But the Major absolutely refused to take advantage of the other’s good nature. So, finally, Cartwright took his furlough and departed, and perhaps his intended stoppage at Aden on his way home had somewhat to do with his arguing the matter no further.

Therefore it was not until long after Cartwright had gone and the first agony of his utter loneliness was abating, that Kenwithin forced himself to go through his wife’s things, and then it was that the little packet entrusted to Helen by Mrs Trench fell into his hands.

*  *  *

A year later, when the Bombay mail train steamed into the large, echoing, upcountry station at its accustomed hour, Cecil Cartwright and his wife were among the passengers who emerged from it.

The regiment had not been moved during Cartwright’s furlough, but various changes had taken place, the most important being the retirement of Major Kenwithin. He had sent in his papers some weeks after his wife’s death, which, it was generally understood, had changed him completely. Indeed, the few who had seen his haggard face and wild eyes previous to his departure, feared that it had also affected his reason, which theory was strengthened when it became known that he was not retiring to England like other people, but meant to devote the remainder of his existence to sport in India.

Cartwright had written to his cousin on hearing of his retirement, but, receiving no answer, and being the worst of correspondents, had not done so again until shortly before his return, when he announced his approaching marriage with the widow of Colonel Trench.

“I believe our marrying so soon after her husband’s death is considered positively indecent,” he wrote; “but I have cared for her for so long. Do you remember my telling you about it the evening you had returned from seeing poor Helen off?”

He had expected an answer to his news to meet him at Bombay, but none was forthcoming, and therefore his surprise and delight were unbounded when, amongst the usual crowd on the platform, he caught sight of a face which (though altered so as to be hardly recognisable) he knew to be Kenwithin’s.

“Great Scott! There’s John!” he exclaimed. “Wait for me here a minute, Daisy,” and he shouldered and pushed his way through the moving throng. “John, my dear old man! Did you get my letter? Have you come to meet us? How are you, old chap?”

“Yes,” said Kenwithin, inertly, “I got your letter, and I came to meet you to ask you a question which you can answer here—now.”

Cartwright looked anxiously at the altered face, all his ardour damped in a moment. There was evidently something more the matter with Kenwithin than undying grief at his wife’s loss.

“Yes, yes, anything you like, John, only come with us to the hotel, we shall be there until our bungalow is straight. Are you stopping there, or with the regiment?”

“Neither. I wrote to the Colonel for the date of your return, and I came by this morning’s train. I shall go on by this one when you’ve told me what I want to know. Get into this carriage with me—we have only ten minutes more”—and he pushed the other into the empty first-class compartment before which they had been standing.

“But my wife—”

“Hang your wife! Look here, listen to me! Until I got your last letter I thought that—that—you and Helen—”

“Helen!”

“Look at that!” and he thrust a crumpled packet into Cartwright’s astonished fingers; “Look at your infernal picture! Look at your hair; Look at the flowers, ‘with Cecil’s love’—what does it mean?—speak, man, explain.”

Cartwright had opened the packet in silence.

“Yes, I can explain,” he said calmly. “These things were given to Helen for me by my wife. The two were in the same cabin as far as Aden. Helen persuaded her to give me up—she told me when I saw her at Aden on my way home, and I suppose I ought to have written to you about it. But I never dreamt—it never even occurred to me that you would think it was Helen for one moment. Why didn’t you write and ask me? Good Heavens! Imagine your suspecting her like that!”

“Stop!” cried Kenwithin hoarsely. “Do you think I don’t loathe myself? But it is your fault—yours! You said there was no harm in that cursed intrigue of yours with another man’s wife! Well, there was this harm in it, that it has blasted my life, it made me wrong her memory! I could kill you! Get out of the carriage—the train’s moving,” and before Cartwright could answer he found himself on the platform. The crowd of natives yelled and surged, the hot odour of curry and ghee and black humanity rose around him, and he stood dazed and apprehensive, seeing as through a mist the bright figure of his wife waiting patiently for him by their luggage, while the train sped on through the warm, quivering afternoon air, carrying a man who sat with his face hidden in his hands, suffering the torture of bitter, hopeless regret.

“Helen! Helen!” he moaned, “Forgive! Forgive!”

“In the Court of Conscience”

Robert Fletcher, magistrate for the district of Tawah in Upper India, was having an afternoon tub, and as he splashed the water over his broad shoulders he sang loudly, and entirely out of tune.

It has been stated that only when a man is absolutely happy and light-hearted can he sing spontaneously in his bath, and Mrs Fletcher, seated outside in the verandah listening to the noise with which her lord and master conducted his ablutions, remembered the saying and sighed—not because Robert was happy, as his singing would imply, but because she had that on her mind which, she felt convinced, if uttered, would silence his inclination to sing for ever.

She took a letter written on thin paper from her pocket, and read it carefully through, her finely-marked eyebrows drawn distressfully together. When she came to the end of it she put it back, and sat looking with a troubled gaze over the scorched garden and dusty vista of flat country beyond. The tall yellow grass in the large, unkempt grounds rustled faintly, and the warm scent of sun-baked roses and mango blossom floated on the still afternoon air. The outlook beyond the low mud banks surrounding the garden possessed a dreary, neverending air of peace. A broad, white road, on which the powdery dust lay ankle-deep, a few isolated trees, the blue-washed walls of the Courts, where Robert Fletcher administered justice, and then miles and miles of flat, treeless, sandy monotony stretching to the horizon.

Tawah was a hideously lonely, neglected little civil station, situated practically in a desert, fifty miles from any railway, and boasting of but five official inhabitants with or without families. Yet Katherine Fletcher, a woman of three-and-twenty, possessing enormous capacities for enjoyment and more than her fair share of good looks, told herself that the place would seem a very paradise were her conscience only at rest. Indeed, at times, when the burden lightened a little, she was blissfully happy, for she adored her husband with all the passionate exaggeration of an emotional nature; and when, presently, he came into the verandah, clean-shaved, wholesome, big, honest, cheery, she forgot her trouble for the moment and smiled up at him for very admiration.

“Been enjoying the concert?” he enquired, putting a large forefinger under her chin and looking fondly into her eyes.

She laughed reproachfully. “Oh! Robert!”

“I do make a row,” he admitted, ‘but there’s something about a bath that raises a Briton’s spirits, and makes him give tongue. By the way, I shall have to go off tonight after dinner. There’s been some trouble at a police station twenty miles out, and if I sleep there tonight, I can see to it all in the morning and be back in time for breakfast.”

“What a nuisance!” she replied, “But it will be cooler for you going tonight than staying out there all day. I suppose you have told the servants to have your things ready? There’s the church bell. I must go and put on my hat.”

The clang, clang of a bell, or the substitute for one, rang out harshly. It was Sunday, and different from most Tawah Sundays in this respect, that the chaplain of the nearest station had come over to hold his quarterly services in the bare, ugly little church.

“I suppose the padre will be here to dinner tonight,” said Fletcher, as his wife reappeared in a large, shady white hat. “Rather lucky, as I have to go off directly afterwards. You won’t feel so lonely, and it will be something of a change for you.”

“I don’t particularly want any change,” she answered, smiling at him as she fastened her gloves.

“You’re a marvellous woman. I can’t think why you haven’t gone melancholy mad in this God-forsaken hole of a place. We shall get better stations when I am more senior; but a man can’t well howl over his first charge of a district. I really think you ought to go away to the hills later on. I know you feel depressed when you think I am not looking, and there are no women here you can make companions of. You’ve never been through a hot weather, and you don’t realise how trying it can be. This is only the beginning.”

“I’m certainly not going away without you,” she answered promptly.

“But I couldn’t ask for leave so soon after furlough.”

“Then here I stay. I couldn’t leave you.” He looked at her with silent tenderness, and then, with their prayerbooks in their hands, the pair walked across the garden into the church compound, which was only divided from their own domain by a dusty aloe hedge.

The service was of a somewhat primitive order. Music there was none, for the aged harmonium that still blocked a corner of the building had long since been disembowelled by rats. The congregation was scanty, and mostly composed of native Christians with a couple of attendant female missionaries. Everyone sang in his, or her, own particular fashion, the solitary hymn being led by the clergyman himself, and pitched in too high a key. Then came the sermon, and while it was being droned forth the sun sank in a thick yellow haze, and dusk crept into the white-washed interior of the little church with the suddenness pertaining to the East. A muskrat ran chirruping round the walls, myriads of mosquitoes woke and screamed in one frantic chorus; bats descended from their abodes in the rafters and swooped before the noses of the congregation, while the great, heavy punkah creaked and swayed monotonously, waving the hot air to and fro in blasts that might have emanated from the lower regions.

Katherine Fletcher sat through it all, heedless and impassive. Her mind was occupied with her own difficulty to the exclusion of everything else, for her trouble had leapt into flame afresh on the receipt of the letter in her pocket, and her conscience was causing her the most acute unrest. The thought flitted through her brain that, had she the opportunity, she might become a Roman Catholic to obtain rest and relief through confession, and then a sudden idea struck her. Why should she not tell the chaplain everything, and ask his advice? The prospect made her heart beat with mingled hope and dread; but by the time the service was over she had made her decision, and that night, when dinner was finished and Robert had taken his departure, and she and the Reverend Mr Croppin found themselves sitting alone in the broad, dim verandah, she felt that the hour had come.

She glanced nervously at the chaplain, and a swift revulsion of feeling overcame her. She had not taken the individual into account before. How could she bring herself to lay bare the mental torture of months to such an ordinary, commonplace little specimen of humanity, with a pallid countenance, an uncertain beard, and spectacles? Still, he was a clergyman, she must remember that. She must not consider the man himself any more than if she were consulting a doctor. He must know best what she ought to do, and, of course, he would respect her confidence. She sat hesitating and silent, listening to the cries of the sleepy birds, the harsh noise made by the crickets, and the rustling of the dry, coarse grass as the night breeze rose off the sand in fitful little gusts.

Mr Croppin had enjoyed his dinner; his chair was comfortable, an iced peg stood on a small table at his elbow; the air in the faintly lighted verandah was cool after the lamp-heated house, and the mosquitoes had not yet discovered his ankles. He complacently observed the picturesque outline of the figure of his hostess, and wondered why she was so silent.

“Mr Croppin,” she said suddenly, now only regarding her companion as a servant of God, and, therefore, the fitting source from whence to seek the advice and comfort she needed so badly.

The chaplain started at the sound of her voice, for its tone portended no ordinary remark.

“Yes, Mrs Fletcher?” he replied somewhat anxiously.

“I—have something of great importance to myself that I want to tell you and ask your advice about as a clergyman.”

“Certainly,” said the padre, politely, preparing to give his whole attention.

“It is a matter of conscience, but I have worried myself over it to such a degree that I cannot see my way clearly at all. It has become distorted and out of proportion.”

“Surely, if you pray—”

“Of course I have prayed,” she interrupted impatiently; “but it’s a thing to be talked about with a human being who can answer me, I am past praying over it.”

Mr Croppin fidgeted. He trusted he was not about to have some embarrassing confession thrust upon him. He thought Mrs Fletcher looked decidedly queer. Her face was white and quivering, her eyes shining, her hands gesticulating. Evidently a nervous, hysterical woman, who would be likely to make a mountain out of a molehill. For aught he could tell, she might be wrong in her head, or perhaps she drank—and he endeavoured to recollect what she had taken at dinner, while Katherine continued rapidly—

“I married my husband under false pretences.” (Mr Croppin gave himself up for lost.) “He thought I loved him, but he was mistaken. I did not love him at all, though I allowed him to think I did, and I have never undeceived him.”

“Well?” encouraged Mr Croppin.

“I had been thrown over—jilted by another man, and I was hard and reckless. I was free to go where I pleased, having money of my own, so I came out to India to escape from the remarks and commiseration that followed me everywhere at home. My husband was returning from furlough and we met on board ship. I was amused and distracted when he fell in love with me, and then I thought perhaps I might do worse than marry him, that, at any rate, it would show the other man my heart was not broken. But I let Robert think I cared for him, it was very easy—a man takes so much for granted when he is in love—and I understood him well enough to know he would never marry any woman unless he thought she loved him. So I told him nothing of the other man, and I deceived him without a qualm. I liked him, and I wanted peace and quiet and someone I could trust. So I married him.”

“Well?” said Mr Croppin again. It seemed to him a great fuss about nothing very dreadful, and he only hoped she was not going to ask his advice as to leaving her husband now she had married him.

“We were married at Bombay eight months ago, and came straight up here. You know the kind of place it is— lonely, hideous, cut off from the world. At first I thought I should never be able to endure it; but then gradually I discovered how good and unselfish my husband is, how manly and how true-hearted, and I fell in love with him honestly and devotedly. Now I might be so happy and contented, but I scarcely ever know a moment’s peace, for it is always on my conscience that I was not the woman he took me for when he married me. Yesterday I had a letter from that other man—fancy his daring to write to me!”—her hands clenched themselves and her eyes flashed—“and I had to hide the letter! I could not show it to my husband without explaining everything to him.”

“I wonder you don’t tell him all about it,” suggested Mr Croppin.

“Ah! That is just the question I wanted to ask you,” she answered eagerly. “Ought I to tell him? I don’t know what is right. I would give anything to ease the weight on my conscience, to relieve myself of the burden, but I so dread making him miserable! It is agony to me to know how I have deceived him, but if I tell him it may spoil the happiness of his life.”

“Oh! I don’t suppose it would exactly do that,” said Mr Croppin in an incredulous tone. (To himself he added, “The woman is morbidly hysterical.”) “If you feel that confessing your deception to your husband will ease your conscience, that in itself shows you the proper course to pursue. Never do evil that good may come.”

“But it seems so selfish,” she murmured helplessly.

Mr Croppin rubbed his spectacles with his silk pocket-handkerchief and then finished his peg, while Mrs Fletcher sat silent, in troubled doubt and hesitation. She was about to speak again, when the gong from the guardroom of the court-house boomed out eleven strokes.

“I must be going,” said the chaplain. “I start so early in the morning that all my things have to be ready overnight. Goodbye, Mrs Fletcher, I trust I have been of service to you. Follow the dictates of your conscience and you cannot go astray”—and Mr Croppin departed, uttering last platitudes of advice and exhortation.

That night was like a hideous dream to Katherine Fletcher. Sleep was impossible, and she tossed restlessly from side to side, half suffocated with the heat. She rose and wandered through the stuffy rooms, disturbing millions of mosquitoes, and then into the verandah, where she stood gazing out into the moonlit garden, a prey to mental indecision and unrest. What would Robert do if she told him? No doubt he would be gentle, kind and considerate, and blame her not at all; but a subtle change must creep in between them, born of the mutual knowledge of her capacities for deception. Their lives might never be the same again. Would it not be braver to hold her peace and suffer in silence? But the chaplain had urged her to obey her conscience, and surely her conscience was clamouring for confession? She recalled the time when Robert had proposed to her, how she had lied with her eyes and lips; how she had kept silent as to her past. Every word they had both said, every silence she had kept, seared into her memory. Of course he would remember it all equally clearly, and he would never believe in her again. Perhaps he would not even believe that she loved him now!

The unhappy woman rocked herself to and fro in a mental agony that was almost physical, though she dimly suspected that she had magnified her iniquity out of all proportion to the facts. Still, the facts were there, nothing could alter them, and she oscillated between the desire to tell her husband all, and the wish to save him pain and disappointment, crying hot tears of bewilderment and misery, and pacing the verandah with her slippered feet, until the watchman paused in his prowl round the house and coughed loudly in surprised expostulation.

The long, silent night gave place to a noisy dawn. Dogs began to bark, servants to yawn and talk, birds to twitter, squirrels and such-like small beasts to rustle in the undergrowths, and Katherine Fletcher sought her bed, worn out body and soul. Faint, sick, miserable, she cowered beneath the sheet, waiting for the moment when Robert should appear and hear the confession that was now almost bursting from her dry lips. . . .

When next she raised her head from the pillow the sun was shining fiercely and it was well on in the morning. How long had she been asleep? Had she had fever? She glanced at the clock and knew that Robert must be in soon. How she dreaded and yet longed for the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand.

There was a crunching of wheels outside. Her heart began to beat wildly—everything seemed changed since he had left her last night—she wanted to hide herself.

“Robert!” she cried, with a sob, as the curtain at the door of her room was raised and her husband s face looked in.

He was dusty, hot, tired and thirsty. He was longing for his bath and his breakfast, also for a cheroot, for he had found himself, by an oversight, minus a smoke on reaching the police-station, and in consequence had suffered as only a smoker can.

Katherine, at any other time, would have been the first to divine and minister to his wants, but now she was almost beside herself. She only knew that Robert had come back, and that she had resolved to reveal her perfidy.

“Kits!” he cried, concernedly, striding into the room, “Are you ill?”

For answer she began to cry weakly. The strain had been so great that now she gave way without a struggle.

“Darling!” he said, scared and astonished, “What on earth is the matter?”

“I want to tell you something,” she sobbed, “and when you know I am sure you will never love me again.”

He felt her pulse and her forehead anxiously. “I believe you’ve got fever,” he said.

“No, no,” putting her arms round his neck, “only I am very miserable.”

Robert sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hands firmly in his.

“Now try and stop crying,” he said, “and tell me what is the matter.”

Suddenly the whole affair seemed to sink into comparative insignificance before his calm common sense, and the familiarity of his presence. She ceased crying and wavered.

“Now, Kitty, go on. You have worried yourself into the devil’s own fuss about something while I have been away, and I swear I am not going to have my bath, or my breakfast, or even a smoke, until you tell me all about it.”

“I didn’t love you when I married you,” she burst out defiantly, and it sounded so inconsequent and out of place that she almost laughed.

“And don’t you love me now?” he asked gravely, dropping her hands.

“Love you—love you? I worship you! But I was so wicked and deceitful. I pretended—I let you think—oh! don’t you remember—?” and out came the story that she had poured into Mr Croppin’s unwilling ears the previous night, but incoherent, disjointed, tearful.

Fletcher listened, walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets and his head bent. Then he knelt down by his wife’s bedside and took her in his arms.

“Poor child,” he said gently, “how you must have suffered, bottling it up like this for so long. It has got on your nerves, and being in this beastly hole with no nice women to talk to has made it worse.”

“Oh, Robert!” she sobbed, “You always think of me first! Do you mind dreadfully? Will it make you miserable?

“My dear, I don’t mind anything so long as you love me now. I am glad you told me. Lots of women would have thought nothing of keeping it dark; but you are different from other women, and do you think I don’t know it? Kiss me, dearest, and lie down and go to sleep or you will make yourself really ill. Your poor eyes look like two burnt holes in a blanket! I must go and wash, I never felt so sticky and hot in my life. Bearer! Bearer!” he shouted over her head, “Get my bath ready at once.”

He kissed her again, and went out of the room, leaving her weak from emotion, and bewildered, relieved, but yet vaguely disappointed at the manner in which he had taken her news. It evidently had not struck him as being so terrible as it appeared to her; and she began to wonder if he quite realised all she had been through and the unspeakable disquietude she had suffered. Had he forgotten all her looks and words when she had so deliberately deceived him? Were all the details of their courtship fading from his mind? After all, perhaps she might just as well have considered herself only, and told him long ago without the dread of spoiling his life. How much bitter heartache it would have saved her!

She could hear him moving about in his dressing room preparing for his bath. Would he be able to sing as usual while he was having it? She listened anxiously, and presently there came to her ears the sound of splashing water from the other side of the wall, accompanied by a lusty, untuneful voice raised in song.

The Fakirs’ Island

On the ramparts of a red sandstone fort, built by Akbar, the great Moghul Emperor, in the days when Elizabeth was our Queen, stood a fair, fresh English girl. She was looking down on a scene that had been enacted year after year for some twenty centuries, with but little variation, save that comparative law and order now reigned where formerly riot, murder, theft and treachery were accepted as a mere matter of course.

Behind the dainty little figure in white towered the rugged red battlements, so indicative of the mighty character of the man who had raised them. Over her head blazed the electric blue of the Eastern sky, and below her surged nearly two millions of human beings, who had gathered from all quarters of India to bathe in the holy Ganges River and wash away their sins.

It was the time of the Khoom Mela, or great religious Hindu fair, and the noise that rose on the dry air was deafening; everyone shouted, everyone expostulated, gongs were being banged, bells rung, hymns chanted, and trumpets and conches blown furiously by the priests as they marched in long, fantastic processions towards the river’s edge.

The clear blue of the Ganges’ water was dulled and soiled for nearly a mile in the direction of the huge iron bridge that crossed her, and over which special trains had been labouring for the last three days, bearing densely-packed crowds of enthusiastic pilgrims.

“What a sight!” said the girl, gazing down at the sea of humanity. “I believe one could walk on their heads with the greatest ease.”

The man who stood at her side was looking at her, and not at the seething throng below, and the beauty and perfection of her face and figure struck him with a thrill, as it had struck him again and again since she had arrived fresh from England, two months ago, to keep house for her bachelor uncle, who commanded the fort.

George Robertson had fallen deeply in love with Mona Selwyn the moment he had seen her, and he was a man of whose love a girl might have been very proud. A steadfast, honest, self-reliant soldier, older than his thirty years in mind and character, well-born, well-bred, and with a straight, resolute face.

“Aren’t they horrid?” continued the girl, pointing downwards with her white parasol. “They make such a noise, and kick up such a dust, and smell so nasty. I hate natives.”

“But they are a wonderfully interesting people,” said Robertson, dreamily, thinking of the great civilisation that had been firmly established when Britons were yet barbarians, and that had, nevertheless, practically stood still for hundreds of years.

“I can’t say I see anything the least bit interesting in them. Look at them down there like a disturbed ants” nest, making the most awful fuss about bathing in an ordinary river!”

“It’s anything but an ordinary river to them, and, after all, it is much the same theory as our baptism.”

“But we don’t make such a row about it.”

“No.”

“Why do you say “no” like that? Do you think we ought to shout and scream, and crowd and push, and go quite out of our minds over a religious ceremony?”

Captain Robertson laughed.

“Of course not. But, at the same time, I believe that this people’s religion is far more real to them than is ours to us. Some say that is what has kept them at a standstill; but, at any rate, it is extraordinary what they will voluntarily suffer in its cause. Look over the river at that island. That is where the fakirs, or priests, are quartered during the fair time. I went there this morning and saw a man hanging by his heels to a sort of gallows, swinging his head to and fro through a fire he had lit below him. Another was buried up to his chin in the ground, and had been there for four days. I saw other men lying on beds of long, sharp nails, and one old fellow arrived from Peshawar while I was there, having measured his length the whole way along the ground for hundreds of miles. It is mortification of the flesh with a vengeance. They all believe that such doings will ensure them bliss in after-life, and our own old saints had much the same ideas.”

“Oh! How I should like to go over to the island and see them all! Will you take me there, Captain Robertson, tomorrow morning?”

The man’s brown cheek flushed.

“I would rather not,” he said gently. “I shouldn’t like you to go there.”

“What rubbish!” she uttered pettishly. “Why did you excite my curiosity about things that would interest me, and then calmly say you won’t take me to see them? Why shouldn’t I go, pray?”

“You wouldn’t like it. You would probably see some very unpleasant sights, and it is dreadfully dirty and smells abominably.”

He thought of the fierce, fanatical faces, the hideous deformities, the lack of clothing on most of the holy men, and the evil attention that the presence of a young English girl would attract in such a crowd.

“You wouldn’t like it,” he repeated.

“Yes, I should. And I have set my heart on going. Besides, I know Mrs Calcraft went, so why shouldn’t I?”

“Mrs Calcraft is an elderly woman, and writes for the papers.”

“All right, if you won’t take me I shall ask someone else.”

“I certainly won’t take you,” he replied, with a touch of temper.

She was charmed to have made him angry; now she would make him jealous. It gave her an exquisite pleasure to know that she had the power to rouse this man’s feelings. It was worth more to her than all the adoring demonstrations of her other slaves. She beckoned to a young man with a fair moustache, who made one of the group near them, and he instantly flew to her side.

“Mr Kerr, will you take me to see the Fakirs” Island tomorrow morning? It would be an object for a ride.”

“Of course I will! What a lark to see all those old Johnnies burning themselves alive and chopping off each other’s heads! Isn’t that what they do, Robertson?”

But Captain Robertson had moved off with a sore heart and a set jaw, and though Miss Selwyn laughed and joked with the fair-haired subaltern, there was a little cloud in her blue eyes, and a droop at the corner of her red mouth for the rest of the afternoon.

However, the following morning, when the sun was drawing the mist from “Mother Ganga’s” silver bosom, she rode with young Kerr over the bridge of boats leading to the Fakirs’ Island in the gayest of spirits. The long rows of temporary sheds were astir with life; prayers were being chanted, and praises sung to every god and goddess in the Hindu mythology. Holy water was being freely sprinkled over shrines erected for the time being, already gay with offerings of flowers and tinsel decorations. Morning ablutions were being performed, hair clipped, heads shaved, and sacred facemarks applied. Mona Selwyn and young Kerr got off their horses and walked down the little street, looking about them with lively curiosity.

“There’s a man on a nail bed!” she cried, pointing with her whip. “How hard his back must be. I should have expected him to be an early riser at any rate!”

“By Jove!” said her companion, putting up his eyeglass. “I never believed it was true before. He must have a hide like a rhinoceros.”

“Captain Robertson told me he saw a man roasting his head over a fire.”

The delicate colour in her cheeks deepened as she mentioned George’s name, and the next moment, with a guilty feeling of shame, she recognised the reasonableness of his objection to her expedition, for a group of almost nude priests passed close by, on their way to the river to bathe, staring boldly at the girl with fierce, blood-shot eyes. One of them whose body was smeared with ashes, and whose hair, matted with tow, hung down to his feet, walked backwards as he gazed at Mona, muttering to himself. She turned away frightened and impatient, and vexed with herself for having come at all.

“He was quite right,” she thought; “he is always right. I ought to have listened to him.”

“Oh! Look! Look!” cried Kerr, pulling her sleeve and pointing excitedly.

Coming towards them was an ancient fakir, with one arm held high in the air, withered to a stick, and fixed in that position. As he approached, it became apparent that the nails had grown through the palm of the hand, and were protruding at the back. Following him like a dog came a small, humped cow; from its shoulder grew an extra leg, and from its forehead dangled another tail, both having been grafted into the little creature’s flesh soon after its birth—a very sacred animal, rendered still more holy by the cruel deformities that had been practised on it. The old man himself was a loathsome sight. His arm rigid, his long white hair caked with mud, his wrinkled body grey with ashes and hung with filthy rags. Chains clanked on his bony ankles, and he moaned dismally for alms as he proffered his copper begging-bowl to every passer-by. Behind him crawled a crowd of squalid, diseased, half-naked people—professional beggars. Some huge with elephantiasis; others literally dropping to pieces with leprosy, a few sightless from small-pox, and all covered with sores, and clamouring for alms. The old fakir thrust his begging-bowl in front of Mona and gibbered.

“Oh! What does he want?” she said, shrinking back in horror.

“He wants the stick!” said Kerr angrily. “And he shall have it if he doesn’t clear off. Git! You old brute,” he added menacingly to the old man, who only raised his voice and wailed a still more discordant demand for money.

The crowd of beggars gathered round, whining, cringing, crawling, stretching out claw-like hands and finger-less stumps towards the English people, while the little cow stood on the outskirts of the group and lowed plaintively. One woman, her face a mass of corruption, caught Mona’s skirt, and dragged herself blindly towards the girl, who shrieked aloud in fear and disgust. Kerr raised his cane and struck the begging bowl from the fakir’s hand. It clattered to the ground, and the pressing, whining crowd of beggars shrank back. The old priest’s tawny eyes blazed with rage. He raised his living arm aloft until it matched the dead one, standing in a weird, grotesque figure before the angry man and frightened girl. Then he cursed them loudly and venomously—“and thou,” he concluded, glaring at Mona’s white face, “before ten suns have set thy beauty will be gone—thou wilt be as those—” pointing to the mumbling mass of maimed, halt and blind that had withdrawn to a safe distance from the Englishman’s cane.

“Oh! come away quickly!” cried Mona, gathering up her habit skirt and seizing her companion’s arm. “I wish I had never come. Why did you bring me? Make haste—” and they half ran up the path between the two rows of huts, from which horrible faces seemed to peer at them on every side.

They rode back to the fort in silence. Kerr with his mind misgiving him for having taken the girl to such a place, Mona with a white, troubled face, haunted by the voice and manner of the old fakir, for she had understood that he was threatening her, though his actual words had been unintelligible. They were a depressed couple as they dismounted in front of the officers’ quarters, and Mona did not recover her spirits all day, in spite of the prospect of a ball in the evening. The said ball was also a failure as far as her enjoyment was concerned, for when she arrived at it she was greeted with the unwelcome information, imparted by a casual acquaintance, that Captain Robertson had gone away on a month’s leave.

“Very sudden, isn’t it?” she asked, with a sinking heart.

“Oh, Robertson often goes off like that. He had a letter from a pal in the Dhoon, asking him to go up there at once for some ‘para’ shooting, so he got his leave and started. He never can resist the chance of a shoot.”

Mona felt hopeless. She wondered if she had been the cause in any way of his departure,—or was it that he was quite indifferent and preferred shooting to herself? She contemplated the coming month with a sensation of utter dismay, as she realised what a blank it would be to her. She wished she had been nicer to him, that she had taken his advice about the Fakirs’ Island, that she could do something to show her penitence. Perhaps if she rigidly abstained from accepting the attentions of any of her other admirers from this time forward, he might, on his return, notice the change, and understand. But, probably, if he thought about her at all, he was thoroughly disgusted with her. Oh! Why had she been such an utterly silly, vain, frivolous little fool? Mona cried herself to sleep that night, and the next day, instead of going to a picnic, she stayed at home and studied Emerson’s essays, because George Robertson had once told her she ought to read them.

*  *  *

Captain Robertson’s leave extended itself to two months before he returned to the station. Work was slack, camps of exercise were over, the hot weather was coming on, and he had been easily spared. Therefore, as his shooting instincts had led him into regions where letters could not follow him, he arrived in blissful unconsciousness that during his absence Mona Selwyn had been at death’s door. He heard it while breakfasting at mess on the morning of his return.

“Awful hard luck on the girl,” remarked a subaltern, helping himself to fried bacon, and addressing Robertson. “Small-pox, you know, and they say she’s badly marked. Supposed to have caught it at that beastly fair.”

“How is she now?” faltered Robertson, with a dry tongue and a queer feeling in his throat. He had been making heroic efforts to stifle his love for Mona Selwyn during these two months, but he knew very well he had not succeeded.

“She’s practically all right again, and, I believe, out of quarantine; but she won’t go anywhere, she’s so cut up about the havoc played with her looks. She goes out on the fort walls in the evening, and the Colonel said he hoped fellows would keep out of her way a bit, as she hates to be seen. Beastly hard lines—and such a pretty girl as she was!”

Robertson rose abruptly, letting his knife and fork fall into his plate. He could stand the other’s chatter no longer—he must go to his room and be alone to think.

The outcome of his cogitations was that in the cool of the afternoon, when the water-carts were laying the dust on the broad, white roads, and the scent of reviving flowers was stealing on to the freshened air, he drove rapidly down to the fort, and, leaving his dogcart outside, made his way to the ramparts.

In the back verandah of the Colonel’s quarters he could see a long couch, with a figure reclining on it. He stood still for a few moments, gazing at the figure, and shading his eyes with his hand, for the evening sun was powerful. Then he walked quickly forward, down a flight of stone steps, across a yard, up more steps, and finally into the verandah. The girl started, and turned her face towards him. She was greatly disfigured, but the marks were yet fresh, and would lessen with time. The fair, curly hair had been cropped short, and the blue eyes were full of a sadness that cut Robertson to the heart. His love and pity went out to her. Thank God, she was alive, and if she would take his life’s devotion it was hers. She gave a distressed little cry, and covered her face with her hands. Robertson knelt down by the couch and drew her hands gently away.

“Mona,” he said.

Tears of weakness, disappointment, misery, ran from her eyes, and she sobbed helplessly.

“Darling, I never knew till this morning, and now I have come to ask you if you will forgive me for going away, and love me a little? I have loved you ever since I first saw you; but I thought I had no chance. Will you let me comfort you, and take care of you, always—for ever?”

“I can’t,” she sobbed. “I am so ugly. Look at me!” She shut her eyes, and resolutely turned her face towards him. He kissed her mouth.

“It is you I want, dear,” he said gently and reverently, and then he took her, unresisting, into his arms.

There was a hushed silence in the air, broken only by the monotonous cry of a plover and the splash of oars in the river below. Their thoughts flew back to the day when they had last stood on the fort walls together, and looked down on the restless, seething, excited multitude below and the stained, turbid waters. Now the Ganges flowed softly, blue, clear, still. Nothing marked the banks but a few fishermen and the green patches of watermelon. The sky was flushed crimson with the setting sun, and peace reigned where but a short time before all had been confusion, clamour, dust and strife.

The Summoning of Arnold

One of the many lessons that the great Mother India instils into the hearts of her white foster children is to sympathise with one another’s troubles and misfortunes however trivial or however serious.

Therefore, when Mrs Arnold, the Collector’s wife at Usapore, was suddenly ordered home by the doctor, and Arnold could not get leave to go with her, it was sympathy with the husband’s lonely unhappiness that made Williamson offer to move over to Arnold’s bungalow and see him through the weary separation.

The offer was gratefully accepted, for the Arnolds had not been married long, and the man was missing his wife, and worrying about her ill-health to the verge of melancholia. So Williamson established himself in one half of the large, echoing bungalow, though there was no doubt that the move was somewhat inconvenient to himself; in fact, he admitted as much to me afterwards, when he was telling me of the horrible thing that happened while he was there.

But, being a thoroughly unselfish, good-hearted fellow, he thought little of his own inclinations and only endeavoured to prove a cheery companion, and help the other on from one English mail day to the other.

Arnold simply lived for the mail, and yet when his wife’s letters did come he would be almost afraid to open them, in case she might be worse, or anything bad had happened. Williamson sometimes found it very difficult to keep his friend’s spirits up to the mark, circumstances being unfavourable from every point of view. To begin with, Arnold himself was not in the best possible health, having had typhoid fever the previous year; he had the work of a large and turbulent district on his shoulders, no light burden; Usapore itself was a dismal, sandy little civil station; and, to crown it all, there seemed every prospect of the rains failing (which would mean a famine), and the heat was already beyond description.

However, the two men played mild tennis in the afternoons and whist in the baking little club in the evenings, and when they were alone they talked about Mrs Arnold’s last letter, and Arnold read bits of it aloud to Williamson, and always wound up by groaning over “his infernal luck.”

“Why didn’t I take leave six months ago when I could have got it?” he would reiterate, “And then Lilia wouldn’t have been ill, and I should not have felt such a worm myself. But I hung on to escape the hot weather. I’ve never felt really fit since I had typhoid, and I believe it has played the dickens with my heart. And then this anxiety about Lilia is simply driving me mad. I’m in such a funk that she makes light of things not to worry me, and doesn’t tell me what the doctors really say.”

But, in spite of these forebodings, Mrs Arnold’s letters continued to be very fairly satisfactory. She declared that she was better, that the air of Dover, where she was staying with her mother, was certainly doing her good, and the doctor hoped that in a few weeks she might be able to drop the role of invalid.

This sort of thing went on for several mails, and sometimes Arnold was in boisterous spirits, looking forward to his wife’s return with the advent of the cold weather, while at others he plunged into the lowest depths of depression.

Then at last, one fatal evening, the English mail brought a letter from Mrs Arnold saying that directly she could bear the move she was to go up to London to see a specialist. She besought her husband not to be anxious, the only reason for such a step being, she assured him, that the doctor thought she gained strength too slowly, and that, on the whole, it would be wiser to have the best advice.

Of course Arnold was in despair. That night, after eating no dinner, he sat outside on the plot of scorched grass in front of the house and surrendered himself to the gloomiest of views; and when bedtime came he refused to go in, saying he knew he should not sleep.

So Williamson lit another pipe and made up his mind to stay there too, because it was the kind of night in India when, if a man is not happy, he probably begins to wander about the compound with a revolver to shoot pariah dogs that bark and keep him awake, and sometimes, instead of a dead dog, it is the man who is found shot, through the roof of his mouth. So Williamson watched Arnold very carefully, and tried to induce him to talk instead of sitting huddled up in his chair, with his hands hanging down at his sides.

“Buck up, old man!” he said encouragingly. “If there’d been any bad news you would have had a telegram.”

“She may not have seen the London man yet,” replied Arnold. “She said in her letter she thought it would be a fortnight before she could go.”

“Well, it’s more than a fortnight since that letter was written. You look at the black side of things too much. Besides,” he added awkwardly, “she wouldn’t like it if she could see you now, Arnold. You know her one wish is that you shouldn’t worry.”

Arnold straightened himself wearily.

“I know, I know,” he said, as if ashamed of his weakness. “But when you care about a woman with all your heart and soul, Williamson, it’s hell when you think there’s any danger of losing her. Lilia is everything in the universe to me, and the parting from her was awful—our first parting! I wonder how a man manages to live out his life if his wife dies and he was really devoted to her—” He paused, and there was a dreary silence, broken presently by the harsh scream of the brain fever bird rising to a desperate pitch and then subsiding.

“You’ll laugh, perhaps, when I tell you,” he went on hesitatingly; “but when she left me she said that if she died she would come straight to me first, and I gave her the same promise on my side. If anything happens to Lilia she will come herself and tell me. She will come and fetch me. I believe this with every atom of my being.”

Williamson did not laugh. He felt a little cold thrill run down his back, and actually caught himself looking nervously over his shoulder. He was not a superstitious man by any means, but Arnold’s voice sounded so unnatural; the surroundings looked so weird in the increasing light of the rising moon, which threw the long black shadow of a clump of bamboos across the dried-up patch of uneven grass; and the magnetic stillness in the thick, hot atmosphere was severed at intervals by the desperate cry of the brain fever bird, as it flew restlessly from tree to tree.

Williamson mentally called himself an ass. “You’d better go to bed, Arnold,” he said bluntly; “and if you apply for sick leave I’m sure you’d get it.”

Arnold laughed a little.

“Oh, I’m all right,” he said, “and with a famine coming on I can’t well ask for leave unless I’m actually too ill to work, which I’m not, and I don’t think any doctor could honestly give me a certificate.”

Williamson thought otherwise, and determined to speak to the civil surgeon the next morning. In the meantime it was midnight, and if Arnold would only go to bed so much the better for them both.

“Come along,” he urged; “you’ll sleep all right if you go to bed now. The air will cool down very soon.”

They rose and went to their rooms, and shortly afterwards no sound was to be heard in the house or compound but the monotonous cry of the bird that would not rest.

*  *  *

Williamson undressed and threw himself on his bed. He listened at first to satisfy himself that Arnold was not moving about, and once he got up and crept to his friend’s door, but there was only silence, so he went back to his room, and presently fell into an uneasy sleep.

An hour or two later he was suddenly awakened by the loud sound of a voice calling. He sat up, the echo of what he had heard still ringing in his ears: “Lilia! Lilia!” He could only conclude that Arnold had been shouting his wife’s name in his sleep, so he waited a few moments, and the brain fever bird’s discordant shriek rose and fell in the air. Perhaps that was what had disturbed him, the cry was not unlike the two syllables repeated over and over again.

He listened intently, and finally got up. He put on his slippers and, taking his hand lamp, made his way to Arnold’s open door. He did not speak, for if Arnold were asleep, it would never do to wake him, but he moved the curtain quietly to one side and looked into the room.

The punkah was swaying slowly to and fro, and Arnold was lying on his back, covered with a sheet. He seemed all right, but still Williamson was not quite satisfied. He carefully advanced, then stopped and looked apprehensively about him, sniffing the air, for it was full of a strong and unmistakable odour of chloroform.

The fear seized him that Arnold had committed suicide, and he hurried to the bedside. The smell of chloroform was overpowering, and, half choked with the fumes, he shouted at Arnold, and shook him desperately. There was no movement, no response. Faint and giddy, he rushed from the room, roused the servants and sent for the doctor, who, when he came, confirmed Williamson’s fear, and said that Arnold was dead.

“Where is the bottle?” he said, when all restoratives had failed and hope was at an end.

“I couldn’t see any bottle,” said Williamson, feeling as though he were in a nightmare. “I looked, but I couldn’t see anything. The smell was awful when I came into the room, and only a few minutes before I could have sworn I heard him shouting in his sleep. That was what woke me. It must have been hideously quick work.”

“It would have been,” said the doctor; “his heart was so weak, it would not have taken very much to kill him.

“Then you ought to have made him go on sick leave.”

“I suggested it when his ordinary leave was refused, but he said he wasn’t bad enough, and I don’t know that he was, if he had let himself alone. And then, with the prospect of a famine, a man can’t conscientiously bolt unless he’s in a hopeless way;” then, after a pause—“Had he a medicine chest anywhere?”

“I don’t think so, but we’ll look.” They looked, but found nothing, and they also questioned the punkah-coolie, who could give them no information beyond the fact that he had fallen asleep, and he thought the sahib had shouted to wake him.

So the doctor said it was one of those mysteries which would probably never be explained. Arnold had certainly killed himself with chloroform, but had taken some extraordinary precaution beforehand that the bottle should not be discovered.

But early next morning a telegram came from London for Arnold, which was opened by Williamson and the doctor. It told them that Mrs Arnold had died while under chloroform, during an operation that had proved absolutely necessary.

“There!” cried Williamson, losing all self-control and beating his hands together like a maniac. “That explains it! That’s why there was no bottle—no trace of one! She came to fetch him—he said she would! He told me so only a few hours before. Oh! my God!”—and he sank into a chair, shuddering and shaking.

The doctor fetched some brandy.

“My dear fellow!” he said soothingly, “Pull yourself together. You’re over-strung. Drink this and go and get some sleep, or I shall be sending you home on sick leave next.” Which he afterwards had to do, for Williamson was very ill, and for some weeks it was doubtful whether he would get over it. But he did recover, and was sent home, and just before he sailed he told me this story.

In the Next Room

Long years after I had shaken the sandy soil of Usapore from my feet, I met a lady on board a P. and O. steamer to whom I told the story of Arnold.

“I could tell you a story about Usapore, too,” she said, “only nobody ever believes a word of it.”

“I would believe anything you told me,” I replied, “and anything about Usapore that was unpleasant. Tell me the story now, we have half an hour before dinner, and your husband is still playing whist.”

So she allowed herself to be persuaded, and it appeared that only the previous year “George,” her husband, who was a Bengal civilian, had been suddenly ordered to Usapore in the middle of the hot weather, and she, being a model wife, made prompt preparations to accompany him.

“And would you believe it,” she said, still sore at the recollection, “my cook and butler refused to come with me! I had been so kind to them, given them good wages, and clothes, and medicine, and everything they wanted, and I imagined they would never leave us. However they did, and we had to rely on picking up others at Usapore. We had an awful journey, the heat, the flies, and dust simply indescribable, and the dâk bungalow to end with. You must know what a ghastly little building that is.”

“Indeed, I do,” I sighed in sympathy.

Well, then we could not get a house, every bungalow was occupied, and our predecessor had been a bachelor and chummed with some other men. So at last we had to take a ruin belonging to a native, that had been built in the old days long before the Mutiny. Perhaps you remember it? Down by the river.”

“I think I do,” I said, searching my memory; “but it was only occupied by natives then as far as I recollect.”

“It is pulled down now, I believe, and a good thing, too, for, in spite of what George or anyone else may say, that house was haunted!”

“Really!”

“Yes, and you shall hear all about it if you have the patience to listen. It was a rambling old stone building, with fairly good verandahs, but filthy dirty and very much out of repair. However, three of the rooms were quite habitable, which were really all we needed, as we only expected to remain in the place for about three months. We had brought our camp furniture with us, and were soon able to leave the miseries of the dâk bungalow. I had got a cook, but no khansamah, and had almost made up my mind to do without one, when a man suddenly presented himself and his written characters and requested to be taken into our service. The characters were good and the man’s appearance respectable, so I engaged him.

“The first night in our new quarters passed quietly enough, but the next morning, just after George had started for office, my ayah entered my room crying.

“‘Memsahib,’ she whimpered, ‘do not keep the new khansamah. The watchman’s wife tells me—’

“I interrupted her and said I would not listen to tales of the other servants, so she said no more, but all the same I felt a little curious, and in consequence observed the new man closely when he came for orders. There certainly was something rather peculiar about him, though what I could not exactly say, and as I had no fault to find with him, I dismissed him from my thoughts. A fortnight passed away, and then one night I awoke very suddenly with a conviction that something had roused me. I first thought that the punkah had stopped, but found I was mistaken, and gradually I became aware of a sound in the drawing room, out of which our bedroom opened, and I sat up to listen.

“An indistinct murmur of two voices was going on in the next room, with something in the sound that was oddly familiar to me, though at the moment I could not name what it recalled to my mind. Thinking that for some reason the servants must have come into the house, I called out, but received no answer, neither did the low murmur cease. I got out of bed, and, taking the hand lamp from the dressing-table, I peered with it into the drawing room. All was dark, and the noise suddenly stopped. I called two or three times, and the watchman, hearing me, came into the verandah. He declared nobody had been about, that all the servants, with the exception of himself and the punkah-coolies, were asleep in their quarters, and no one had entered the bungalow. I concluded I must have been dreaming, and went back to bed puzzled and restless.

“The incident worried me so that I told my husband about it in the morning, and as he only said that it must have been the punkah-coolies talking, I dropped the subject to avoid argument. I saw him drive off to the Courts, and then sent for the khansamah to bring me his daily accounts. He began reading them out in the usual nasal monotone, ‘soup—eggs—fowls,’ etc., when it flashed across me in a second that this was what the sounds had reminded me of the previous night—a servant and his mistress going through the daily accounts! The murmur of the voices came back to me with redoubled distinctness, and I could only imagine that I had dreamt I was listening to myself taking down the items.

“Two or three nights afterwards the same thing happened again. I woke up with a start, and instantly my thoughts reverted to my dream, but this time I was positive I was wide-awake. Nevertheless, there was a low murmur of voices in the drawing room. I could have sworn to its being a native giving in his accounts to his mistress, and I could even distinguish the woman’s voice as she acknowledged each item. I woke George, then sprang out of bed, and rushed with the lamp to the drawing room door, followed sleepily by my husband, but directly I entered the room not a sound was to be heard except the chirrup of a musk-rat as it scuttled round the walls.

“‘Dreaming again,’ said George.

“In spite of his unbelief I insisted on his going through all the rooms and verandahs with me, and even out into the garden, where we found the watchman asleep, and while the unlucky sleeper was being shaken and abused, I went back to bed feeling somewhat small, but at the same time determined to leave no stone unturned until the mystery was solved. With great difficulty I persuaded George to stay awake for an hour, but to my intense annoyance we heard nothing. I began to doubt my own senses, and George made idiotic jokes about my having eaten cheese toast at dinner.

“News came the next day of a disturbance in the district, and George was obliged to hurry off at a moment’s notice, making the best arrangements he could, as he did not expect to get back for the night. The same evening I went for a long ride by myself, and returned rather late. I paused on my way through the drawing room to turn up the shaded lamps, and as I did so I was surprised to see Eli Bux, the new khansamah, standing by my writing-table with a kitchen knife and an old account book in his hands. Then I saw him walk into my bedroom, and, calling his name, I followed him. But when I entered the room he was not there.

“I knew my eyes had not deceived me, for I particularly remarked that the man seemed to stoop a good deal, which I had never observed in him before. I called the ayah and asked if Eli Bux had passed through my room, but she declared he had not. I sent her into the kitchen to inquire what he had been doing in the drawing room, but she returned with the startling announcement that the khansamah had gone to the city early in the afternoon and had not yet returned. The ayah naturally concluded that I should be vexed at the idea of his absenting himself just when dinner should have claimed his attention, and, seizing the opportunity, she once more burst forth into abuse of Eli Bux, but I snubbed her again, as, in any case, it was none of her business.

“I felt a little nervous when I went to bed that night, and lay sleepless for a long time, half expecting to hear the voices in the drawing room, and hardly knowing whether I hoped or dreaded that I should do so. I wondered again if I had really heard them, or if they simply existed in my imagination. If the former, I felt that there must be something strange in connection with the house; if the latter, that I must be out of sorts and require a doctor’s advice.

“I must at last have fallen into a doze, for I suddenly opened my eyes to see by the dim, lowered light of the lamp, the figure of a native man standing by my dressing-table with his back towards me. I caught sight of his face reflected in the glass. It was Eli Bux!

“I watched him for about a minute, and saw that he was ransacking my dressing-table drawers and opening the various little boxes in which I kept pins and scraps of jewellery. He put his hand under the looking-glass, and I knew he was feeling for the rings and brooch I wore every day. I was literally paralysed with fright, and felt as if I had been turned to stone, when the man looked into the mirror and caught sight of my reflection, open-mouthed and horror-struck, watching him from the bed. He turned slowly round, and in his hand was a long, sharp knife.

“I tried to scream, but my voice failed me, and we remained motionless staring at one another. The punkah was still, and the mosquitoes were buzzing savagely round my bed. The man took a step towards me. Then another. His eyes glittered, and his fingers felt along the edge of the knife—

“Suddenly a sound broke the stillness. The voices were in the drawing room, and this time louder and clearer than they had ever been before. Eli Bux started and looked wildly round. So he, too, could hear the voices! He listened for a second. Then an expression of abject terror crossed his face, and with a hoarse yell he rushed out into the verandah. I heard a muffled cry as of someone choking, followed by a heavy fall.

“I felt sure he was murdering the punkah-coolies, and then my presence of mind returned. I sprang out of bed and ran into the drawing room, all was quiet there again, not a sound to be heard. I ran through the hall and into the front verandah, where I called and shouted at the top of my voice, and stepped down on to the gravel path meaning to make my way to the servants’ quarters. But I had hardly gone two yards when my heart again stood still with fear. I saw something moving in the deep shadow of the trees, and a pariah dog flitted past me in the moonlight, uttering a long, dismal howl.

“It was more than my overstrung nerves could bear. Scarcely knowing what I was doing I fled like a hunted creature back into the house, and had barely reached my room when I fell to the floor in a dead faint.

“When I recovered consciousness it was broad daylight, and George and the doctor were bending over my bed, while the ayah stood weeping copiously in the background, expressing her firm conviction that I was quite dead. When I had swallowed some brandy, and been made to keep quiet for an hour, I was strong enough to tell George my story, not forgetting the part that ‘the voices’ had played. He heard me to the end with a grave face, and then told me that Eli Bux had been discovered dead in my verandah. The watchman and the two coolies had been drugged, and on the ayah coming to call me in the morning she had found the two coolies still in a heavy sleep, with the dead body of Eli Bux between them. My watch and rings were found in his pocket, and it was subsequently proved on examination that he had died from heart disease, from which he must have been suffering for years previously.

“When I was better I called the ayah and gave her leave to tell me all she knew about the khansamah, and, delighted at obtaining a hearing, she poured forth a voluble tale as to Eli Bux having been an accomplished scoundrel, and added that his father had been a great deal worse. Then she paused, and I impatiently told her to continue.

“‘Surely the memsahib has heard what happened in this house?’ she said, and when I shook my head she told me that the father of Eli Bux had been khansamah to a lady in that very bungalow when the Mutiny broke out, that her husband was shot while he was at office, and that the butler cut his mistress’s throat in the drawing room and ran off with all the jewellery and money he could find.

“‘And the watchman’s wife,’ continued the ayah with relish, ‘says that Eli Bux had lots of that poor memsahib’s jewellery buried somewhere, given him by his old father when he lay dying.’

“After this I felt I could stay in that horrible bungalow no longer. George did not believe the ayah’s story, and declared it was all a native yarn, but I know it was true, for I heard the spirit voices of that unfortunate woman and her murderer, and the man I saw in the drawing room was the ghost of Eli Bux’s father. Those voices saved my life, for if Eli Bux had not heard them, and, knowing what they were, died of fright, he would have cut my throat. What do you think about it?” she concluded abruptly.

“I entirely agree with you,” I responded with fervour. “Did you ever hear the voices again?”

“No, George sent me off to the hills, and joined me there directly his three months at Usapore were over, but he lived on in that awful house till he left the place. He says he never saw or heard anything unnatural, and to this day he exasperates me beyond words if I mention the story before him, by making silly references to cheese toast and indigestion!”

The Belief of Bhagwan, Bearer

The compound was quiet, for, being late in the evening, the servants had deserted to the bazaar, and the only indication that anyone remained was the flicker of a fire in the stable verandah, where the syce’s little brown wife sat cooking chupatties for her lord and master’s supper.

Her bright black eyes and mahogany-coloured skin reflected the dancing flames, while behind her, faintly discernible in the darkness of the loose box, shone the white muzzle and luminous eyes of the new Australian mare, who snuffed and sighed as the pungent smoke rose in her nostrils.

Chumpa, the syce’s wife (who, with Panchoo, her husband, had lately accompanied the mare from Calcutta), smacked and patted the large, flat cakes, and laid them carefully aside as each became ready to await its turn for baking. Now and then she cast anxious glances towards the road, for soon Panchoo would return from the bazaar, whither he had departed in the afternoon, directly his master had paid him his wages. By the dim starlight Chumpa could make out the figure of the sahib pacing up and down in front of the bungalow, the end of his cheroot a glowing crimson spot. From Bhagwan, the old bearer, she had learnt that tomorrow the sahib was going away to be married, and that after ten days he would bring home his bride.

That was why the bungalow had been freshly colour-washed and new bamboo furniture put into the drawing room; and a vague hope rose in Chumpa’s mind that he would treat his “memsahib” better than Panchoo treated her. She thought regretfully of her little village home far away at the foot of the Himalayas, where life had been one long, sunny game of play, until Panchoo had married her, and taken her hundreds of miles down country by rail, to an existence composed of threats, blows, and slavery. How she hated him! Although he wore heavy gold rings in his ears and, being a Kahar by caste, was entitled to be burned, as an orthodox Hindu, after death, and his ashes consigned to the Ganges.

Chumpa, who was only a Chumar by caste, was well aware that she had married above her, but she loathed and feared her husband, and tonight she was dreading his return, for he would assuredly be drunk, and her arms and back were still sore from the last beating he had given her. She heard him presently, stumbling along behind the hedge, shouting a low bazaar ditty, and she trembled so violently that the little pile of cakes she had just gathered up to bake slipped from her grasp, and fell into the blazing fire, where they were scorched to a cinder before she could rescue them.

The next moment Panchoo was standing over her, his turban awry, his oily black hair in disorder, and his blood-shot eyes, large, ugly teeth and gold earrings glistening in the firelight.

“What hast thou done, she-pig?” he cried hoarsely. “Thou hast an owl’s brain and clumsy coolie fingers!”

The child, for she was little more, began to whimper. Panchoo, drunk with filthy bazaar spirit, seized a bamboo stick that lay near, and rained heavy blows on the fragile, shrinking body. Suddenly, a strong hand caught his throat, another wrenched the stick from his grasp, and a mighty kick sent him flying into the middle of a carrot-bed, where he lay still, face downwards.

Chumpa looked up and beheld the sahib.

“He was drunk, I suppose?” said Captain Leroy, expecting the little woman to break into shrill lamentations after the manner of her kind, but she quietly answered, “Yes, sahib,” and hid her face with her shawl.

“Tell him I’ll have him put into jail if he touches you again,” said the young man, and walked back to the house, skirting the plot of ground where the drunken man lay, while Chumpa dissolved into tears of despair.

Matters were now worse than ever. The sahib had interfered on her behalf, and Panchoo would never forgive her. In the morning the sahib would go off to his wedding, and then Panchoo would revenge himself on her for the kick.

She crept up to the motionless figure on the carrot-bed, and bent over it fearfully, ready to start away should there be any movement. But Panchoo lay perfectly still, his face buried in the loose mould. She stood up, rejoicing in the helplessness of her tyrant, and resolved to return to her father and brothers at home among the pine trees. Even if Panchoo followed, he could but kill her, which he certainly would do if she remained.

She ran into the mare’s box, and by the light of the stable lantern unearthed a few rupees wrapped in a piece of rag. She collected one or two small brass cooking vessels, a few clothes and a blanket, and was in the act of making them into a bundle when she was disturbed by the sudden appearance of old Bhagwan, the bearer, who inquired what she was doing, and why Panchoo was lying on the carrot-bed.

Now Chumpa liked old Bhagwan. He had been kind to her on more than one occasion, so she threw herself on his mercy, and explained the situation. Bhagwan said nothing, but, taking the lantern, he stepped into the carrot-bed to examine Panchoo’s condition for himself. Then he called Chumpa, who approached gingerly, and seized her wrist.

“He is dead!” whispered Bhagwan. Chumpa screamed, and he promptly clapped his hand over her mouth.

“Silence! Dost thou desire to bring the sahib out here? Stand still and listen. If the sahib know that Panchoo be dead, he will, after the manner of sahibs, believe himself to blame, and there will be God knows what trouble and disturbance. He must be in his place tomorrow to marry the miss-sahib, for did he not cure his slave Bhagwan of cholera two years ago? Which is no small thing to be forgotten when trouble threatens his highness. Therefore, notice of what has happened shall not be given to the police, neither shall the sahib have any knowledge of it. Why should his honour be put to inconvenience by reason of the death of this pig, who doubtless had a big spleen, and would have died at a touch? Moreover, it was thou, Chumpa, his wife, who, desiring his death, didst fail to raise his head, and if a report be made, I will see that there be much worry and trouble for thee, woman!”

Chumpa sank trembling to the ground. She was terrified by Bhagwan’s threats of police interference. She was terrified also of her husband’s corpse, and perhaps feared him as much dead as when he had lived, for everyone knows the power of an evil spirit, and if any spirit was evil it would most assuredly be Panchoo’s.

“What dost thou wish?” she gasped. “I will do as thou wilt, only let me depart and protect myself from the—”

Bhagwan pulled her roughly to her feet before she could utter the word.

“There be a heap of bricks covered with weeds and rubbish behind the stables,” he said, “and we will bury Panchoo beneath it. None will seek him, for he was a down-country man, and had no people here, and the jackals will not be able to dig him out. In an hour or two thou wilt be on thy way to the Dhoon, where none will trouble to follow thee. Hasten, then, before the others return from the bazaar.”

“But,” objected Chumpa, below her breath, “Panchoo was even a Kahar by caste, and his body should be burned, and go to Mother Ganga, not to the earth as with the low-born ones. Otherwise will his spirit have no rest, but will follow and haunt me, and I shall die a dreadful death. And misfortune will fall upon thee, too, Bhagwan.”

“That may be,” said the old man, grimly. “Nevertheless, there is the sahib’s convenience to be considered above everything, and to take Panchoo’s body to the burning ghat at present would make the matter public. Later, if misfortune should come about, then will I make some arrangement.”

But Chumpa still hesitated.

“Very well,” said Bhagwan, “then tomorrow morning, after the sahib has departed, shall the police be told that Chumpa, wife of Panchoo, syce, has murdered her husband. Remember I remain here, I do not accompany the sahib.”

Chumpa grovelled again. Evil spirits might possibly be propitiated, but nothing could save her once she was in the dreaded clutches of the police. The result was that the white patch on the carrot-bed disappeared, and a staggering little group made its way in the dim light to the back of the stables, while the following morning Captain Leroy was informed by his bearer that both Panchoo and his wife had taken French leave.

“The son of a pig has run away, sahib. Doubtless because he had been paid his wages up to date, and also because the Huzoor chastised him for beating his wife. But it is of no matter; I can appoint my cousin’s son as syce, who, though a fool, is honest.”

And greatly to Bhagwan’s relief, Leroy, suspecting nothing, acquiesced in the arrangement, and started for his wedding, asking no further questions.

Ten days later, when he returned from his honeymoon, he was too full of happiness, and engrossed with his pretty wife, to notice that a change seemed to have crept over the old bearer, and Mrs Leroy was the first to remark that there was something wrong.

“That old man of yours looks half dead,” she observed one afternoon, when they were waiting on the verandah steps for the mare and dogcart to come round.

Leroy glanced quickly at Bhagwan, who was standing near with the carriage rug over his arm.

“What is the matter with you, Bhagwan?” he inquired. “You look very ill.”

“Huzoor! I have had fever,” replied the old man, salaaming. “It has been on me since the day of thine honour’s departure.”

“Then go to your house and keep quiet, and I will send for the native doctor tomorrow if you are not better. He is very old,” he explained to his wife, as Bhagwan shuffled off muttering to himself, “and really almost useless, but he’s devoted to me, and has been in my service ever since I came out to India. I once pulled him through an attack of cholera, and he has never forgotten it.”

“I should think not,” answered Mrs Leroy, with an admiring glance at her husband.

Then the mare and dogcart appeared, but escorted by a tattered, dishevelled creature who proclaimed himself to be the new syce and Bhagwan’s relative, and added that his livery had not yet been ordered.

“Well, we can’t take him with us like that,” said Mrs Leroy. “We can go without a syce, as we sha’n’t be stopping anywhere.”

So they started, syce-less, for their first drive, and after walking the mare over the narrow bridge that crossed a tributary of the river close to their own gate, were soon spinning along the broad, white road pleasantly shaded on either side by tamarind, mango and giant fig trees. On they bowled, through the cavalry lines, past the cemetery with its low mud walls and clusters of irregular monuments, over the level crossing of the railway, and down the grand trunk road, until the sun began to set and it was time to turn homewards.

As they neared the station again, a dog rushed out of a wayside hut and frightened the mare.

“By Jove! She can pull when she likes,” exclaimed Leroy.

Mrs Leroy clutched her husband’s arm, for she was a very nervous little person.

“I’m sure she’s going to bolt!” she cried. “Oh! do tell the syce to jump down and go to her head.”

“You know there’s no syce,” answered Leroy, between his teeth, for he was holding the mare in with all his strength, and yet the pace was growing faster. His wife paid no heed to his words, for they were rapidly approaching the narrow bridge, and she was beside herself with fear.

“Syce! Syce!” she shrieked, and then, as Leroy lost control over the mare, there came a violent smash against the corner of the stone parapet, and the occupants of the dogcart were hurled from their seats.

The night that followed the accident was one of intense anxiety for Leroy, for, though he himself had escaped comparatively uninjured, his wife was seriously hurt, and lay at the point of death.

“Syce! Syce!” she cried, as she tossed and raved in delirium. “Stop her! Go to her head!”

Nothing could calm her, nothing bring her to her senses, and old Bhagwan, seated outside the door watching like a dog, heard the oft-repeated cry with horror, and when his master for one moment stepped out into the verandah to cool his throbbing temples in the night air, the old servant fell at Leroy’s feet, sobbing and incoherent.

“It is Panchoo who is killing her!” he wailed, beating his forehead on the stone floor. “It is the dog of an unburned syce. The words of Chumpa were true, but I heeded them not. Keep the memsahib alive till the bones are burned and the spirit rests. I did it all for the best, sahib—but for the best—aree! aree!”

Leroy looked at the prostrate figure in dull amazement. He heard little of the words, but Bhagwan’s apparently frantic grief touched him.

“We are doing all we can, Bhagwan,” he said wearily, “but the doctor cannot say if she will live or die.”

The native scrambled to his feet and hurried off into the darkness, and Leroy heard his large, loose shoes clattering towards the stables. He heard them pass the house again about an hour later, and caught the flash of a lantern leaving the compound. After that he thought no more of Bhagwan until the morning came, and with it the doctor’s verdict that his wife would live. He walked out into the dewy compound, full of relief and thankfulness, and shouted for his bearer. Bhagwan should hear the good news at once. But Bhagwan was nowhere to be found.

“He left the compound late last night,” volunteered Bhagwan’s kinsman, “and he carried a bundle. He was angered when I asked whither he was going.”

“I suppose he will turn up soon,” thought Leroy, puzzled.

But two days passed, and Bhagwan did not reappear, and on the third morning his body was found by some boatmen in the river not far from the burning ghat. No one seemed able to throw any light on the affair, not even the priest in charge of the sacred burning-place, who, when questioned, shrugged his shoulders, threw out his palms, and shook his head.

Had he chosen, he might have related how, three nights before, an old Hindu servant, shaking with fever and half crazy with anxiety, had brought him a mysterious bundle of human remains to consecrate and burn, and how when the ashes were being cast on to the swirling bosom of the holy river, the old man had slipped away in the darkness towards the native city, taking the path along the treacherous river bank, with only the feeble light of a lantern to guide his failing sight and faltering steps.

But the priest held his tongue, and fingered in the folds of his ragged loin cloth the price of his silence—a pair of heavy gold rings that had once hung in the ears of one Panchoo, syce, Kahar.

Chunia, Ayah

“I hope you clearly understand that I do not believe in ghosts?”

The little grey-haired spinster paused and regarded me with suspicion, and, alarmed lest I should, after all, lose the story I had been so carefully stalking, I vehemently reassured her on the point, whereupon, to my relief, she continued,—

“It certainly was a most extraordinary thing, and even now I hardly know what to make of it, though it happened a long time ago. One cold weather when I was in India keeping house for my brother, I received a letter from a friend, begging me to pay her a long-promised visit. She wrote that her husband was going into camp for a month to a part of his district where she could not accompany him, so that she and her little girl would be all alone, and I should be doing her a great kindness by coming. So the end of it was I accepted the invitation, though I greatly disliked leaving my brother to the tender mercies of the servants, and after a long, hot journey arrived at my destination at five o’clock one evening.

“My friend, Mrs Pollock, was on the platform to meet me, and outside the station a bamboo cart was waiting, into which we climbed, and were soon bowling along the hard, white road at a brisk pace. Mary at once began to relate anecdotes of her little girl, whose name was Dot—how tall she was for her age (twenty months!), how much she ate, what she tried to say, what the ayah said about her, and so on.

“Now I must confess that I am not very fond of children; I like them well enough in their proper place (if that is not too near me), but I do not know how to behave towards them, and am always nervous as to what they will do or say next. Therefore, fond as I was of Mary herself, the subject of her conversation did not particularly interest me. When we arrived at the house, she actually inquired which I would do first—see Dot or have some tea! I boldly elected for tea, as I was exceedingly tired and thirsty, and I also reflected that if I did not at once make a determined stand, I should be Dot-ridden for the remainder of my visit.

“After tea I was taken to my room, and Mary brought her treasure to me for exhibition. She was the most lovely child I had ever beheld, with a grave, sweet face that quite won my unmotherly heart, and for once my prejudices completely melted away. Mary put her into my arms and stood by in an ecstasy of pride and delight as I proceeded to tap the pin-cushion, rattle my keys and perform various idiotic antics in my efforts to amuse Dot, who, I felt sure, would set up a howl in a few moments. But she watched my foolish attempts to be entertaining with an attentive gravity that was quite embarrassing, and charmed though I was with the little creature, I felt relieved when she held out her arms to go back to her mother.

“Mary called for the ayah to come and take the child to her nursery, and a woman with a sullen, handsome face entered and took her charge away. I remarked that the ayah looked bad-tempered, upon which Mary assured me that she could trust the child anywhere with her, and that she was a perfect treasure.

“The next morning I was awakened by a soft little pat on my face, and, opening my eyes, I found Dot holding herself upright by the corner of my pillow.

“‘Why, little one, are you all alone?’ I said, lifting her on to the bed, and then I discovered that her feet were wringing wet.

“She held up one wet little foot and examined it carefully, and then pointed to the bathroom door, which was open, and from where I lay I could see an overturned jug and streams of water on the floor—evidently Dot’s handiwork. I put on my dressing gown and took the child to her mother, explaining what had happened, and Mary hastily pulled off the soaking little shoes and socks and called for the ayah, who presently entered, and stood silently watching her mistress.

“‘What do you mean by leaving the child in this way?’ exclaimed Mary, angrily, and gathering up Dot’s shoes and socks, she threw them to the ayah, bidding her bring others that were dry. One of the little shoes struck the woman on the cheek, for Mary was annoyed and had flung them with unnecessary force, and never shall I forget the look on the ayah’s face as she left the room to carry out the order. It was the face of a devil, but Mary did not see it, for she was busy rubbing the cold little feet in her hands.

“‘Mary,’ I said impulsively, ‘I am sure the ayah is a brute. Do get rid of her. I never saw anything so dreadful as the look she gave you just now.’

“‘My dear,’ answered Mary, with good-humoured impatience, ‘you have taken an unreasonable dislike to Chunia. She knew she was in the wrong and felt ashamed of herself.’

“So the matter dropped; but I could not get over my dislike to Chunia, and as my visit wore on, and I became more and more attached to dear little Dot, I could hardly endure to see the child in her presence.

“My month with Mary passed quickly away, and I was really sorry when it was over, more especially as on my return home, my brother was called away unexpectedly on business, and I was left alone. I missed Dot more than I could have believed possible, for I had become ridiculously devoted to the small, round bundle of humanity, with the great dark eyes and short yellow curls, and my feelings are not to be described when the letter came from Mr Pollock giving me the awful news of the child’s death.

“I read the letter over and over again, hardly able to believe it. The whole thing was so hideously sudden! I had only left Mary and Dot such a short time ago, and when last I had seen the child she was in her mother’s arms on the platform of the railway station, kissing her little fat hands laboriously to me in farewell, and looking the picture of life and health.

“Poor Mr Pollock wrote in a heart-broken strain. It appeared that the child had strayed away one afternoon and must have fallen into the river, which ran past the bottom of the garden, for the little sun hat was found floating in the stream, and close to the water’s edge lay a toy that she had been playing with all day. Every search had been made, but no further trace could be found. The poor mother was distracted with sorrow, and Mr Pollock had telegraphed for leave, as he meant to take her to England at once. He added that the ayah, Chunia, had been absent on three days leave when the dreadful accident happened, or, they both felt convinced, it would never have occurred at all. Mary, he wrote, sent me a message to beg me to take the woman into my service, as she could not endure the idea of one who had been so much with their darling going to strangers, for the poor woman had been a faithful servant, and was stricken and dumb with grief.

“I telegraphed at once that I would take Chunia willingly. I forgot my old antipathy to her, and only remembered that I should have someone about me who had known and loved the child so well. When the woman arrived I was quite shocked at her altered appearance. Her face seemed to have shrunk to half its former size, and her eyes looked enormous, and shone with a strange brilliancy. She was very quiet at first but burst into a flood of tears when I tried to speak to her of poor little Dot, so I gave it up, as I saw she could hardly bear the subject mentioned.

“She helped me to undress the first night, and then, instead of leaving the room, she stood looking at me without speaking.

“‘What is it?’ I inquired.

“‘Memsahib,’ she said in a whisper, glancing over her shoulder, ‘may I sleep in your dressing room tonight?’

“I willingly gave her permission, for I saw that the woman’s nerves were unstrung and that she needed companionship. Then I got into bed, and must have been asleep for some hours when I awoke thinking I had heard a shrill voice crying in the compound. I listened, and again it came, a high, beseeching wail. It was certainly the voice of a child, and the awful pleading and despair expressed in the sound was heart-rending. I felt sure some native baby had wandered into the grounds and was calling hopelessly for its mother.

“I lit a candle and went into my dressing room, where to my astonishment, I saw Chunia crouching against the outer door that led into the verandah, holding it fast with both hands as though she were shutting someone out.

“I asked what she was doing, and whether she knew whose child was crying outside. She sprang to her feet and answered sullenly that she had heard no child crying. I opened the door and went out into the verandah, but nothing was to be seen or heard, and I had no reply to my shouts of inquiry; so, concluding that it must have been my fancy, or perhaps some prowling animal, I returned to bed, and slept soundly for the rest of the night.

“The next evening I dined out, and on my return was surprised to hear someone talking in my dressing room. I hurried in, and again found Chunia kneeling in front of the outer door imploring somebody to ‘go away’ at the top of her voice. Directly she saw me she came towards me excitedly.

“‘Oh! memsahib!’ she shrieked, ‘tell her to go away!’

“‘Tell who?’ I demanded.

“‘Dottie-babba,’ she wailed, wringing her hands. ‘She cries to come to me—listen to her—listen!’

“She held her breath and waited, and I solemnly declare that as I stood and listened with her, I heard a child crying and moaning on the other side of the door. I was mute with horror and bewilderment, while the plaintive cry rose and fell, and then flinging the door open, I held the candle high above my head. There was no need of a light, for the moon was full, but no child could I see, and the verandah was quite empty. I determined to sift the matter to the bottom, so I went to the servants’ quarters and called them all up. But no one could account for the crying of a child, and though the compound was thoroughly searched nothing was discovered. So the servants returned to their houses and I to my verandah, where I found Chunia in a most excited state.

“‘Memsahib,’ she said, with her fists clenched and her eyes starting out of her head, ‘will she go away if I tell you all about it?’

““‘Yes, yes,’ I cried soothingly, ‘tell me what you like.’

“She silently took my wrist and dragged me into the dressing room, shutting the door with the utmost caution.

“‘Stand with your back against it,’ she whispered, ‘so that she cannot enter.’

“I feared I was in the presence of a mad woman, so I did as she bade me, and waited quietly for her story. She walked up and down the room and began to speak in a kind of chant.

“‘I did it,’ she sang. ‘I killed the child, little Dottie-babba, and she has followed me always. You heard her cry tonight and last night. The memsahib angered me the day she struck me with the shoe, and then a devil entered into my heart. I asked for leave, and went away, but it was too strong, it drew me back, and it said kill! Kill! I fought and struggled against the voice, but it was useless. So on the second day of my leave I crept back and hid among the bushes till I saw the child alone, and then I took her away and killed her. She was so glad to see me, and laughed and talked, but when she saw the devil in my eyes she grew frightened, and cried just as you heard her cry tonight. I took her little white neck in my hands—see, memsahib, how large and strong my hands are—and I pressed and pressed until the child was dead, and then the devil left me. I looked and saw what I had done. I could not unclasp her fingers from my skirt, they clung so tightly, so I took it off and wrapped her in it—’

“The woman stopped suddenly. I had listened in silence, repressing the exclamations of horror that rose to my lips.

“‘What did you do then?’ I asked.

“Chunia looked wildly round.

“‘I forget,’ she murmured; ‘the river, I ran quickly to the river—’

“Then there came a shriek from the dry, parched lips, and flinging her arms above her head she fell at my feet unconscious and foaming at the mouth.

“Afterwards Chunia was found to be raving mad, and the doctor expressed his opinion that she must have been in a more or less dangerous state for some months past. I told him of her terrible confession to me, but he said that possibly the whole thing was a delusion on her part.

“I went to see her once after she had been placed under restraint, but the sight was so saddening that I never went again. She was seated on the floor of her prison patting an imaginary baby to sleep, croning the quaint little lullaby that ayahs always use, and when I spoke to her she only gazed at me with dull, vacant eyes, and continued the monotonous chant as though she had not seen me at all.”

*  *  *

“And the child you heard crying?” I ventured to ask.

“Oh! How can I tell what it was? I don’t know,” she answered with impatient perplexity. “I can’t believe that it was the spirit of little Dot, and yet—and yet—what was it?”

A Man’s Theory

John Orchard was one of those irritating people who are born with a talent for what is commonly called “knowing best.” As a child he was detested by his companions because he invariably tried to correct and improve their methods of playing games; as a youth he was loathed by his contemporaries because of his pedantic ways and opinionated self-complacency; as a man he was unpopular because he never hesitated to contradict, and lay down the law (the annoying part being that he was so often right), and, after he married, his wife’s affection for him changed to hatred, this story will explain why.

He was a prig of the first water, and a very successful prig, too. He did splendidly at school so far as learning was concerned. He conducted himself with caution and credit at college. He passed first of his year into the Indian Civil Service, and, apparently, knew more about the country and the natives before he went out than did many men with twenty years’ experience of both. He comported himself with the calm self-confidence of a being of mature age; he was well-read, clear-headed and far-seeing, and his first twelve months in India promised exceedingly well for his future career.

During the second year of his service he was transferred to a large military station, and there poor Mr Orchard led the life of a dog, owing to the “roasting” he received from the subalterns of the various regiments. He was dragged from his bed in the small hours of the morning and made to ride his washerman’s donkey round his own garden. He was tossed in a tablecloth after a big club dinner, together with the glass and crockery, remains of dessert and wine-dregs. He was insulted, buffeted, laughed at, chaffed, until he was utterly and completely miserable, and with tears of rage and mortification in his eyes besought his commissioner to transfer him to a more congenial atmosphere. Many men would have profited by the experience, and emerged wiser, if sadder, individuals, but Orchard’s trials merely had the effect of planting in his breast a deadly and eternal hatred of all things military, and of making him more dictatorial and opinionated than ever.

He was sent to a very small civil station, where his talents and position found some recognition, that is to say, he could argue and assert as much as he pleased in the little club, without danger of contradiction, except of a deferential nature. He gave dinner-parties to the few ladies the place could boast of, and showed them the proper way to manage servants and order meals. Having private means of his own, he was much respected, and the delightful manner in which he had arranged his rooms was greatly admired. He was also good-looking (in a rather common-place, uninteresting way), and he had not been settled in his new quarters more than six months before he discovered that he found considerable favour in the eyes of the civil surgeon’s pretty little daughter. Mary Forde took him at his own valuation, and thought him perfect. She was a single-hearted, unselfish girl, who, being motherless, had been educated under the care of a maiden aunt at Bedford, until she was old enough to join her father in India. Orchard was the first man who had paid her any serious attention, and it is doubtful if he would have done so, had he not one evening suddenly caught the admiring gaze of her soft blue eyes fixed upon him, while he was expounding his theories on whist to a man who had been an adept at the game when John was yet a schoolboy.

He began to think about Mary Forde. He considered that a man with money of his own, and good prospects, might safely marry early in life without harming his career. It gave him more social standing, and established a home, provided that the girl was healthy, good-tempered and obedient. In his own case he was fully aware that, matrimonially speaking, he could do vastly better for himself than propose to Mary Forde, but, at the same time, he was genuinely attracted by her quiet manner and sweet face, and felt convinced he might do a great deal worse. He gave himself six weeks to consider the matter, during which time Mary was miserable, doubting whether he really meant to propose, and torturing herself with the conviction that if he did she was not nearly good enough for him.

At the end of the allotted time he drove to the civil surgeon’s house one morning before breakfast. (John was exactly the kind of man who would propose before breakfast.) He found Mary busy in the garden among the roses, and half an hour later she was his promised wife.

The wedding took place some three months from that date. He chose her trousseau (he had excellent taste), he selected her ayah, he made all the arrangements for the ceremony, and allowed her no voice in any matter at all. She meekly acquiesced in everything, so certain was she always that John knew best, a theory that coincided entirely with John’s ideas.

They were married in April, and shortly afterwards were transferred to one of the hottest and driest stations in northern India. There was no question of Mary going to the hills, for, as John replied to an interfering friend who had suggested such a proceeding, “a wife’s place was with her husband. His wife, thank goodness, was young and strong, and if he could stand the heat she could, too.” And, indeed, Mary would have been the first to cry out against such a plan had she been given any choice in the matter.

She bore the hot weather remarkably well, thus justifying John’s opinion, and it was not until after her baby was born, the following summer, that she began to show any symptoms of flagging.

“Better send her to the hills,” advised the doctor.

“Nonsense,” replied Orchard; “she will pick up directly the child is a little older. She shall wean him in three months, and a baby is always better in the heat. In two or three years we shall take him home and leave him there.”

Mrs Orchard’s slender hands clasped the small bundle closer to her. Leave him at home when he was so little, and would forget her! Awful thought! But if John said so, it would have to be. She had begun to recognise of late that his will was cruelly inexorable. At any rate, he was quite right about the hills now, she would feel stronger later on, and she could never desert her husband. Still, during the long, stuffy nights, when the sheets of her bed felt as if they had just been removed from the front of a roaring fire, when the hot winds howled all day, and sometimes all night, and John would not allow wet grass screens in the doorways because he considered them unhealthy, she longed and craved for a breath of cool, pure air. She lay awake night after night gasping for breath, and patiently patting and soothing the child, that cried and whined continuously with the irritation of prickly heat and mosquitoes. It was a pet theory of her husband’s that babies should never be carried up and down, or even moved from their beds when they cried at night.

“Get the child into good habits from the beginning,” he would say, “and it will save an infinity of trouble afterwards, besides laying an excellent moral foundation for his future character. A child should never be allowed its own way in anything.”

Therefore, when John junior yelled and screamed in the night-time, his mother was obliged to lie and listen to him until John senior was sound asleep (nothing ever seemed to disturb his rest), and then followed hours of patient croonings and pattings, and pacings up and down the room until the little fellow fell unwillingly asleep and was unconsciously restored to his cradle.

The days and nights grew drier and hotter and more unendurable. Mrs Orchard became thinner and paler and unnaturally nervous. The sight of a rat in her bedroom one night sent her into hysterics, and it took all her husband’s sternest rebukes to calm her down. She slept little and ate less, and wore herself out during the day housekeeping and looking after the child—now nearly six weeks old. She had no English nurse, because John considered a good ayah far better for a young baby, and he was no doubt right; but Mary could never feel any confidence in an ayah, and consequently did far more for the child herself than was really necessary.

So continued her sleepless nights and busy days, until she could hardly drag one foot after the other, and at last, one evening when they were sitting together in the drawing room after dinner, John noticed the change in his wife.

“You want a tonic,” he announced, “and you must get more sleep at night. The child must be put into another room with the ayah. You must have got him into ridiculously bad habits, allowing him to disturb you so. Once a baby is in its cot it ought to go to sleep without any fuss. Children in England sleep all night through.”

“But, John, dear, the nights are so awful out here at this time of year. No one can sleep” (“except you,” she might have added), “and poor baby is a mass of prickly heat.”

“He is a self-willed little beggar, and he must be taught how to behave himself. I can’t have him wearing his mother to a skeleton. Now, Mary, don’t move,” as a fretful cry arose from the bedroom. “He knows you will go and pat him to sleep if he makes enough noise, and he’s only trying it on.”

“But the ayah has gone to her food, and he is alone,” she said anxiously, half rising; but her husband laid a restraining hand on her arm. The fretful cry went on.

“He will stop in a minute,” he said, with his smile of superior wisdom, “when he finds you take no notice.”

Mary lay back in her chair unwillingly, and sighed. The night was stifling, the crowds of motley insects were buzzing and beating round every lamp in the room, while the lizards licked them down wholesale. There was a dense haze of dust and heat in the air, and outside the stars were scarcely visible, while the harsh hum of crickets and the barking of weary dogs were the only sounds that cut through the dark, hot stillness. The cries from the bedroom increased gradually until baby was roaring lustily. John Orchard put out a warning hand.

“Don’t move,” he said again, in a voice of authority. “Discipline can’t be commenced too early, and the sooner he learns that he cannot have his own way the better for us all. The young man has a fine temper of his own, I must say!”

“Oh, John, I must go to him. Something is wrong. He never cries like that for nothing.”

“Doesn’t he? I’ve heard him often enough. The only difference is that he has never before howled like that without your going to him. I’m determined you sha’n’t be a slave to that child, Mary. It’s nothing but sheer temper, a regular cry of rage.”

He took up the newspaper and read calmly. Mary began to cry. She dared not openly disobey her husband, she had never done such a thing even over the smallest matter.

Presently the screams grew less violent, and changed to a feeble wail.

“What did I tell you?” said John, triumphantly. “After tonight you will have no more bother with him. Now he has stopped. He’s tired of making such a row and has gone to sleep.”

He looked up from the paper and found that Mary had noiselessly left the room. The next moment he heard a shriek (certainly not from the baby) followed by a crash.

“Damn!” he muttered, and, rising, reluctantly from his chair, he crossed the hall and entered the bedroom, which was quite dark, and as he advanced, his foot struck against something that clattered. It was the hand lamp that usually stood on the bedroom mantelpiece.

“Mary?” he said doubtfully, with fear creeping through his veins.

There was no answer. He fetched a lamp from the hall, and saw his wife lying on the floor by the cradle, a huddled, unconscious heap. He held the light aloft and peered into the little bed. The baby’s face was white and still, the tiny fists tightly clenched. From the child’s neck a narrow red stream trickled across the sheet, and on the pillow, hesitating whether to go or stay, and with its head and paws dyed crimson, sat a large grey rat.

The Biscobra

They were truly a dismal-looking group when they got out of the train, and stood shivering and sleepy on the dusty platform of the little railway station one raw, coldweather’s morning—young Krey, his still younger wife, and a few draggled servants in dirty white clothing and tumbled puggaries.

Young Krey had landed in India three months before, a newly-fledged Bengal civilian, with narrow, stooping shoulders, deep-set, intelligent eyes shining through powerful spectacles, a bald, bumpy forehead—and a wife!

Now, for a youngster to commence his official existence as a married man is an unpardonable piece of stupidity in the eyes of the Indian authorities. To marry at the outset of his career is to write himself down an ass, and he usually suffers accordingly for his folly. A bachelor can always be taken in at once by his superior official, housed, fed, schooled in the manners and customs of the country, pitied for his homesickness by the female members of his host’s family, and often has an uncommonly good time of it during the first few months of his service. But when there is a wife to be considered the aspect of affairs changes entirely. Married couples cannot always be “put up” at a moment’s notice; the lady may have an inconsiderate habit of falling ill in other people’s houses, or a tendency to stay in them longer than she is wanted, she may be exasperatingly helpless, or hopelessly bumptious, and also, a man alone is seldom any trouble, whereas a lady has more or less to be “entertained.”

So the Kreys, on their arrival at headquarters, found themselves pondering vaguely over all they had heard concerning the proverbial hospitality of Anglo-Indians, in a dirty, ill-kept hotel, the horrors of which they patiently endured for the space of ten days. Then came the taking of a huge barrack of a house at a fabulous rent, and impossible to make comfortable, but the only dwelling available at the time, and after being cheated right and left over the matting, floor-cloth and furniture, having unpacked their wedding presents, cut the curtains to fit the doors, and more or less settled down, there came orders for a transfer to a small station—the outcome of which was the aforementioned doleful group on the platform of the bare little railway station.

The Kreys had arrived at their new destination cold, tired and miserable, and the drive that followed to the dâk bungalow in a shaky hired vehicle was not calculated to raise the spirits of the young couple. First they passed an evil-smelling village tank, almost covered with thick green slime, in which buffaloes wallowed and dirty clothes were being soused. Then came the post office, an ugly little red-brick edifice with iron bars in front of the windows, and the postmaster seated outside on a string bedstead, wrapped in a quilt of many colours, warming himself in the misty morning sunshine. Then a bare length of road devoid of trees, bounded by crops on either side, and dotted with cattle being driven to the jungle to graze. Then, rising conspicuously from the surrounding flatness, a large fig tree with thick, whispering leaves which shaded a tiny temple containing a strange, many-limbed idol smeared with red paint, that made Mrs Krey think of blood, and the Mutiny, and hideous tales of human sacrifice.

A few European dwellings followed, and at last came the dâk bungalow, a severe little blue-washed building standing in a dusty area of bare ground, with the usual accessories of long-legged fowls, expectant crows, bearded khansamah, uncompromising furniture, and stuffy rooms filled with mosquitoes.

“I’m afraid we must stay here till we’ve got a house,” said young Krey, peering through his spectacles at the uninviting surroundings, “but it’s beastly uncomfortable. I’m so sorry, Nell!”

“What does it matter?” answered Mrs Krey cheerfully, diving into her travelling bag. “I shall be all right. Don’t get depressed, Frank.”

Nevertheless, though she spoke brightly enough, she was feeling very low and weary. She was not in the best possible health, and had been packing hard for the last week, but she was a brave little person in spite of her fragile appearance and pathetic blue eyes, and her very pluck and patience often caused Krey to blame himself bitterly for having brought her with him to a country where discomfort was rife for the uninitiated, and the so-called luxuries no more than mere necessities.

Just now she longed to indulge in a good cry, but she refrained heroically because she would bear anything rather than call up that look of remorse and self-condemnation in her husband’s boyish face. All she wanted, she said, was rest. So Frank helped her to take off her things, and tenderly drew the dusty shoes from the aching little feet, while he tried to speak in hopeful accents of the station. He felt sure his father had been judge there in bygone days, for he recollected hearing the governor speak of the place. If so, it would be a link, and perhaps some of the natives might remember, which would be a good beginning. He arranged the bed for her, brought her a cup of tea, and then left her to enjoy the rest she needed so badly.

She felt much more cheerful a few days later, when they had taken the only suitable house in the station, though it was an old bungalow and had not been occupied very lately. The thatched roof needed renewing, the walls seemed to be composed of mud and white ants, and nails driven into them disappeared and were no more seen. Wasps had made their dwellings in corners, and sparrows had built in the fireplaces, owls of all sizes lived in a state of sleepy serenity along the beams of the verandah, and mysterious creatures ran to and fro with sharp, pattering feet over the loose, discoloured ceiling cloths.

All this was a trial to Mrs Krey, but it gave her plenty to do and think of, and she waged untiring war against these unwelcome occupants of her house, for she dreaded and hated “animals,” as she called owls, ants, rats, spiders, snakes, or anything else she was afraid of. She always looked under her chair before she sat down, peered with a lamp into every nook and corner before she got into bed, and was continually on the watch for insect, reptile, bird or beast.

However, better times were not long in coming. The Kreys soon settled down, and were exceedingly happy in their rather dilapidated abode. He had enough work to keep him busy, but not too much to prevent his being home from office every evening in time to take his wife for a drive and a visit to the dingy little club. There were two other ladies in the station, who were kind to Mrs Krey, gave her good advice, and helped to make the time pass pleasantly. Everybody liked her and admired her delicate, girlish face and gentle manner, even including the crusty bachelor Collector, who quite fell in love with her, and poured the whole of his family history into her sympathetic ears.

But in spite of all her popularity there was no one in the place who was so absolutely devoted to Mrs Krey as old Beni, the aged Hindu bearer. He was the real ruler of the Krey household, for he had been bearer to young Krey’s father before him. He journeyed many miles from the village of his ancestors to discover whether this new sahib was the son of his old master, and having satisfied himself that such was the case, he had calmly attached himself to the young couple, and taken them under his special protection.

The morning that Beni first put in an appearance was one to be remembered. He arrived on a diminutive chestnut pony with a foal running at its heels, and his bedding tied across its back, on the summit of which Beni balanced himself, holding a stick threateningly aloft with one hand, and clinging to the bundle of quilts with the other.

He demanded audience of the sahib, obtained an interview, explained his errand, and displayed a testimonial of his merits as a bearer written by young Krey’s father, together with a faded photograph of the judge’s wife in a crinoline, with a child on her knee, who, Beni asserted, was Frank himself!

Krey sought his wife’s room to tell her the news.

“Such a queer old beggar, Nell,” he concluded. “He must be at least a hundred. Do come and see him. He says I shall never do such good work as my father, but that all the same he means to stay with us. He looks much too old for work, but, I suppose, we can’t refuse to keep him.”

Mrs Krey’s politeness was somewhat severely tried when she saw the old man. He looked like a mummified monkey, with his wrinkled brown skin, sunken black eyes and wizened features. He gazed at her intently, and then, to her infinite embarrassment, stooped and touched the toe of her little shoe, calling loudly on his gods to bless her and the unborn grandchild of his old master.

“Frank, he is dreadful; we can’t keep him!” she said when this trying interview was over. Nevertheless, the Kreys did keep the old bearer, for he absolutely refused to go, and at once constituted himself the “memsahib’s” guide, philosopher and friend. He initiated her into the mysteries of the true bazaar prices, took possession of the key of the store room, because she left it lying about and there was no knowing who might not profit by such carelessness; he saw the horses groomed and fed, kept an eye on the fowls and took care that none of the eggs were stolen, rated the other servants when necessary, and was the terror of the compound. On the other hand, he was a god-send to Mrs Krey, as she was soon obliged to admit.

“I can’t think what I should do without him,” she confessed to her husband a month later. “He’s wonderfully good, and I have learnt no end of Hindustani from him. But sometimes he’s very trying, Frank! He seems to think I’m a perfect child, and hardly ever leaves me by myself. All the time you are at office he sits just outside the drawing room door, and comes in now and then to see if I am all right. It’s really very humiliating, and then” (with a pink blush rising in her cheeks) “he does say such awful things. He asked me only this morning if I had ordered a cot yet! What would mother say if she knew? I call this a shameless country!”

Frank said the old man meant well, and she must remember the natives were not distinguished for delicacy of feeling. Gradually Mrs Krey became accustomed to Beni’s plain speaking, and often found his advice more useful than she would own even to herself. He purchased an excellent cow on her behalf, and was a dragon over its food and management. He wrote to a friend in Madras and secured a first-rate ayah, who was well-mannered and experienced, and saved her new mistress much trouble and fatigue. For, as time went on and the weather grew hot, Mrs Krey became more easily tired and less inclined to exert herself. She had never been very strong, her nerves were shaky, she was unconsciously homesick, and also frightened at the thought of the new experience that was to come to her in less than a couple of months.

And just then, to crown it all, the Collector suddenly sent for her husband to join him in camp for a week, and the night before he was to leave she was feeling more foolish and nervous than ever as they sat outside in the garden after dinner—she on a low couch, with a soft shawl over her shoulders and the bright moonlight sharpening her delicate features till her face looked almost ethereal.

“I wish you hadn’t to go, Frank,” she sighed.

“So do I, Nell,” he answered fervently, “and I’m afraid this is only the forerunner of other separations. You will have to go to the hills this year, I expect—at any rate, for the rains.”

Krey was young, and it did not occur to him that in giving utterance to his own forebodings he was causing his wife’s spirits to sink lower still.

“No, no,” she said harshly, “don’t talk about it. I couldn’t go away alone. What should I do without you? What would you do without me?”

She put out a white slender hand towards him, and he clasped it in both of his, shivering slightly.

“The evenings are still chilly,” he said, glancing uneasily round. “Are you cold, darling?”

“No, not cold,” in a weary, depressed voice, “only miserable. I can’t bear the thought of your going tomorrow. I feel as if something dreadful were going to happen. Frank, tell me, do you ever realise that some day a time will come when one of us will be left alone? When either you or I will have to face life with nothing in the way of comfort, but just recollections. Oh, Frank,” clinging to his hand, with a stifled sob, “which of us will it be?”

“Hush, Nell, hush, my dearest,” stroking her soft hair with anxious tenderness, “don’t go on like this. For God’s sake, don’t, darling, you’ll make yourself ill. Do promise not to fret while I’m away. The time will soon pass.”

He sat puzzled and wretched, for Nell was crying hysterically, and he was at his wits’ end to know how to comfort her.

Then, seeing the gloomy, despondent looks on his face, she choked back her tears and smiled at him.

“I’m all right now,” she said tremulously. “I don’t know what was the matter with me.”

She raised herself from the couch, put her arms round his neck, and they kissed each other passionately.

There was a short silence, broken by a noise in the verandah.

“What in the world is Beni doing?” ejaculated Krey, in astonishment.

The old bearer was mounted on an inverted packing case, poking violently up into the thatch with a long bamboo, while another servant brandished a lantern tied to the end of a stick.

“What is it, Beni?” shouted Krey.

“Sahib, it is a biscobra,” with another lunge into the thatch. “It is an evil beast, and its sting is more deadly than even the bite of the karait or cobra.”

“Oh! What is a biscobra?” cried Mrs Krey, half rising, and turning pale with horror. Here was a new “animal” that she had never even heard of, and in her own verandah roof, too!

“They are only big lizards,” said her husband, reassuringly. “I read a description of them somewhere the other day. Natives are awfully afraid of them because they are so uncanny-looking, and have a head like a snake’s, but I believe they are perfectly harmless. Leave it alone, Beni,” he called “you can’t get at it tonight.”

Beni reluctantly scrambled from his rickety perch, and approached his master and mistress describing the evil qualities of a biscobra with so much vehemence that Mrs Krey refused to go to bed till it was killed.

“But it’s only a lizard, and quite harmless. We can’t kill it tonight, Nell, dear; we should never see it.”

So she unwillingly agreed to leave the creature in peace for the night, but would not cross the verandah till the lantern was held before her to guide her over the dark shadows.

“It might have fallen down,” she said, advancing with cautious steps and peering nervously about.

The light of the lantern flickered up into the rafters, disturbing a family of bats that swooped down and out into the darkness, while some little owls chattered and objected and cuddled together indignantly on their beam.

“What was that noise?” whispered Mrs Krey, clutching her husband’s arm.

There was a slight scratching sound directly overhead, as of claws clinging to woodwork, a faint hiss, and the next moment flapping and turning in the air, the green scaly body of a large biscobra fell heavily on to Mrs Krey’s shoulder, where it hung for one hideous second, and then dropped with a thud on to the stone verandah floor.

*  *  *

That night death came to the little thatched bungalow and carried away the happiness of young Krey’s life, leaving him only a wailing scrap of humanity that he turned from with loathing when it was brought to him. The time had come only too swiftly and surely when one of them was left alone; when one of them was forced to face life with nothing but memories for comfort.

People in the station were very kind to him. The motherly-hearted doctor’s wife forced him to eat and drink, wrote letters home for him, and put away his wife’s clothes that the sight of them might not harrow him at every turn. She also took charge of the weakly little baby, doing all that her experience knew to keep the faint flame of life alight. And Beni did everything in his power to help her, poor old Beni, who was in despair over the “memsahib’s” death, but who found consolation in the child. Then, when the feeble, premature little life died out, his grief was pitiable to see. He closely followed the tiny coffin to the grave in which the young mother had been laid but a few days previously; he stayed in the cemetery for hours, and finally sought out his master, and proffered a piteous, humble bequest.

“Sahib,” he wailed, “I cannot leave the memsahib and the babba. I am an old man, my time is short, and I would stay with them while I am on earth. Speak to the Collector sahib and get me made caretaker of the cemetery. I do not want wages. I only wish to be with them.”

So when Krey left the station, transferred by his own desire to the other end of the province, old Beni remained behind and tended the little cemetery. Every morning he laid scented jessamine or sacred marigolds on the newly-made mound, and every evening he sat beside it and talked, or crooned songs, to the beloved “memsahib” and “babba” that lay beneath.

Shortly afterwards a marble cross arrived, which, under Beni’s supervision, was erected at once. It did not occur to anyone to interfere, and Beni did not know that it was put up too soon, and that, when the ground became sodden and loose with the rains, it would lean over to one side, or perhaps fall down altogether.

However, for the present, it reared itself in all its white purity amongst the stained and time-worn tombstones, and was kept fresh and clean by the old bearer’s tender, untiring care.

On the anniversary of his wife’s death Krey came once more to the station. At first glance it would have been hard to recognise him as the same man, for his health had broken down, his nerves were shattered, and he looked ten years older than his age. Sleep was now a rare visitor to him, and his eyes held a strange, restless gleam. He had just been ordered home on medical certificate, but Krey could not leave the country without saying goodbye to Nell and the baby; so, telling no one of his intention, he arrived at the dâk bungalow late one close, stuffy evening. The atmosphere of the little building was terribly oppressive. The narrow ill-ventilated rooms were crowded with bitter memories. Sleep, he well knew, was not to be expected, and so, instead of waiting till the following morning, he started on his solitary walk to the cemetery in the vivid moonlight shortly after midnight.

The air was warm and heavy as he entered the gates of the graveyard, the silence being broken only now and again by the cries of the jackals or the shrill scream of a cricket in one of the mango trees. He walked up the dry, dusty path and then stopped, searching for the cross he had chosen. The moonlight sharpened the edges of the irregular groups of stones and monuments, some of which were crumbling away into mere ruins, and deepened the shadows of the trees and shrubs that bordered the path. He spied a corner of the white cross, and strode rapidly towards it, picking his way amongst the quiet graves.

On reaching the spot he saw that the cross was leaning down to one side, and that a gaping hole had formed in the ground at its base. A sudden rage seized him. Where was Beni, who had pretended to be so faithful and who had promised to tend the grave? What had the Collector and the doctor’s wife been about to allow this to happen? He made his way swiftly towards a grass hut at the further end of the cemetery, but as he came alongside the miserable little dwelling, a sound of moaning from within made him pause to listen.

He stooped and looked into the shed, which held a low bedstead, a guttering oil lamp, a few cooking vessels and a hookah. On the bed, beneath a coarse brown blanket, lay Beni, shaking and groaning in the last stage of fever. His bloodshot eyes were vacant and staring, but as they fell on his master recognition flashed into them, and he struggled to raise himself.

“Sahib,” he whispered, “now have my prayers been answered, for thou hast come, now I can speak and tell thee what I feared I should say to no man, for I am going quickly.”

“Beni, why did you not let me know you were ill?” cried Krey, in sore distress, his anger gone as he saw the old man’s moments were numbered.

“How could I, sahib? Sickness came upon me, and none visit the cemetery save when a sahib dies. So I have lain and waited, for surely I knew that I could not die without seeing thy face once more—” He ceased abruptly, and his head sank.

“Beni?” said Krey.

He thought the end had come, but presently the bleared old eyes opened again.

“The babba,” came in a faint whisper; “who will feed her?”

“Yes, yes, it will be all right,” said Krey, thinking his mind was wandering.

“She was not fed last night, nor the night before. I could not go to her. She will be watching for me. Sahib, go and feed her. The goat is tethered to a tree outside, and the vessel for the milk lies on the floor.” Beni paused for a moment to get his breath, then he said impatiently, “Go, sahib, go quickly.”

“Yes,” answered Krey again.

“Thou thinkest I lie?” cried the old man, with sudden energy. “I speak but the truth. Every night had the babba left the grave and I have fed her with goat’s milk. I bought the goat with my own savings. Thou believest me not!” he continued with angry despair. “Come, then, and I will show thee! Nay, I will rise. I have enough life left to go forth once more and feed the babba, but it will be for the last time.”

Krey could not prevent his carrying out his purpose, and the old man rose slowly from the bed, tottering and shaking. Together they unfastened the goat, and with Krey carrying the brass “lota” for the milk, they slowly wended their way towards the marble cross, Beni hanging helplessly on to the arm of the young man, while the goat followed bleating anxiously.

When they reached the grave Beni sat down on the ground exhausted. Krey stood by him in silence. He felt as if he were dreaming, and a vague horror oppressed him. Gradually the old man revived, and with an almost superhuman effort called the goat to him and milked her into the “lota.” Then he crawled to the gap under the cross, set the vessel down at the edge of the fissure, and made a chirruping sound with his lips.

“Now, sahib,” he said, turning to Krey.

Two or three seconds passed. The moon glittered on brilliantly, a fox barked in a neighbouring field, an owl hooted and flew from one tree to another with a melancholy flap of its wings—and then came a scrambling inside the hole. Krey leant forward and held his breath, and saw a large biscobra slowly emerge from the crack in the ground and begin to lap the milk.

A cry of horror, rage and madness escaped his dry lips. He made a dash at the creature’s snake-like head with his stick, and beat it to a pulp with all his strength.

Another cry arose on the night air.

“Sahib! Sahib! What hast thou done? Thou hast slain the soul of the child—thou hast—” A rattle in the old man’s throat choked his utterance, and he fell forward on his face.

The next morning a half-caste clerk and his wife came to lay a painted metal wreath on the grave of a relative, and they found Beni’s lifeless body lying by the crooked white cross. Near at hand was an overturned brass vessel and a dead biscobra with its head beaten off, and wandering about the cemetery was an Englishman, who laughed and danced foolishly when they spoke to him, and from whose eyes the light of understanding had gone for ever.