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Mary Anerley, by R. D. Blackmore

Chapter XL

Stormy Gap

Snowy weather now set in, and people were content to stay at home. Among the scaurs and fells and moors the most perturbed spirit was compelled to rest, or try to do so, or at any rate not agitate its body out-of-doors. Lazy folk were suited well with reason good for laziness; and gentle minds, that dreaded evil, gladly found its communication stopped.

Combined excitement and exertion, strong amazement, ardent love, and a cold of equal severity, laid poor Pet Carnaby by the heels, and reduced him to perpetual gruel. He was shut off from external commune, and strictly blockaded in his bedroom, where his only attendants were his sweet mother, and an excellent nurse who stroked his forehead, and called him “dear pet,” till he hated her, and, worst of all, that Dr. Spraggs, who lived in the house, because the weather was so bad.

“We have taken a chill, and our mind is a little unhinged,” said the skillful practitioner: “careful diet, complete repose, a warm surrounding atmosphere, absence of undue excitement, and, above all, a course of my gentle alteratives regularly administered — these are the very simple means to restore our beloved patient. He is certainly making progress; but I assure you, my dear madam, or rather I need not tell a lady of such wonderfully clear perception, that remedial measures must be slow to be truly efficacious. With lower organizations we may deal in a more empiric style; but no experiments must be tried here —”

“Dr. Spraggs, I should hope not, indeed. You alarm me by the mere suggestion.”

“Gradation, delicately pursued, adapted subtly, discriminated nicely by the unerring diagnosis of extensive medical experience, combined with deep study of the human system, and a highly distinguished university career — such, madam, are, in my humble opinion, the true elements of permanent amelioration. At the same time we must not conceal from ourselves that our constitution is by no means one of ordinary organization. None of your hedger and ditcher class, but delicate, fragile, impulsive, sensitive, liable to inopine derangements from excessive activity of mind —”

“Oh, Dr. Spraggs, he has been reading poetry, which none of our family ever even dreamed of doing — it is a young man, over your way somewhere. Possibly you may have heard of him.”

“That young man has a great deal to answer for. I have traced a very bad case of whooping-cough to him. That explains many symptoms which I could not quite make out. We will take away this book, madam, and give him Dr. Watts — the only wholesome poet that our country has produced; though even his opinions would be better expressed in prose.”

But the lad, in spite of all this treatment, slowly did recover, and then obtained relief, which set him on his nimble legs again. For his aunt Philippa, one snowy morning, went into the room beneath that desperately sick chamber, to see whether wreaths of snow had entered, as they often did, between the loose joints of the casement. She walked very carefully, for fear of making a noise that might be heard above, and disturb the repose of the poor invalid. But, to her surprise, there came loud thumps from above, and a quivering of the ceiling, and a sound as of rushing steps, and laughter, and uproarious jollity.

“What can it be? I am perfectly amazed,” said Mistress Yordas to herself. “I must inquire into this.”

She knew that her sister was out of the way, and the nurse in the kitchen, having one of her frequent feeds and agreeable discourses. So she went to a mighty ring in her own room, as large as an untaxed carriage wheel, and from it (after due difficulty) took the spare key of the passage door that led the way to Lancelot.

No sooner had she passed this door than she heard a noise a great deal worse than the worst imagination — whiz, and hiss, and crack, and smash, and rolling of hollow things over hollow places, varied with shouts, and the flapping of skirts, and jingling of money upon heart of oak; these and many other travails of the air (including strong language) amazed the lady. Hastening into the sick-room, she found the window wide open, with the snow pouring in, a dozen of phial bottles ranged like skittles, some full and some empty, and Lancelot dancing about in his night-gown, with Divine Songs poised for another hurl.

“Two for a full, and one for an empty. Seven to me, and four to you. No cheating, now, or I’ll knock you over,” he was shouting to Welldrum’s boy, who had clearly been smuggled in at the window for this game. “There’s plenty more in old Spraggs’s chest. Holloa, here’s Aunt Philippa!”

Mistress Yordas was not displeased with this spirited application of pharmacy; she at once flung wide the passage door, and Pet was free of the house again, but upon parole not to venture out of doors. The first use he made of his liberty was to seek the faithful Jordas, who possessed a little private sitting-room, and there hold secret council with him.

The dogman threw his curly head back, when he had listened to his young lord’s tale (which contained the truth, and nothing but the truth, yet not by any means the whole truth, for the leading figure was left out), and a snort from his broad nostrils showed contempt and strong vexation.

“Just what I said would come o’ such a job,” he muttered, without thought of Lancelot; “to let in a traitor, and spake him fair, and make much of him. I wish you had knocked his two eyes out, Master Lance, instead of only blacking of ’un. And a fortnight lost through that pisonin’ Spraggs! And the weather going on, snow and thaw, snow and thaw. There’s scarcely a dog can stand, let alone a horse, and the wreaths getting deeper. Most onlucky! It hath come to pass most ontoimely.”

“But who is Sir Duncan? And who is Mr. Bert? I have told you everything, Jordas; and all you do is to tell me nothing.”

“What more can I tell you, sir? You seem to know most about ’em. And what was it as took you down that way, sir, if I may make so bold to ask?”

“Jordas, that is no concern of yours; every gentleman has his own private affairs, which can not in any way concern a common man. But I wish you particularly to find out all that can be known about Mr. Bert — what made him come here, and why does he live so, and how much has he got a year? He seems to be quite a gentleman —”

“Then his private affairs, sir, can not concern a common man. You had better ways go yourself and ask him; or ask his friend with the two black eyes. Now just you do as I bid you, Master Lance. Not a word of all this here to my ladies; but think of something as you must have immediate from Middleton. Something as your health requires”— here Jordas indulged in a sarcastic grin —“something as must come, if the sky come down, or the day of Judgment was tomorrow.”

“I know, yes, I am quite up to you, Jordas. Let me see: last time it was a sweet-bread. That would never do again. It shall be a hundred oysters; and Spraggs shall command it, or be turned out.”

“Jordas, I really can not bear,” said the kind Mrs. Carnaby, an hour afterward, “that you should seem almost to risk your life by riding to Middleton in such dreadful weather. Are you sure that it will not snow again, and quite sure that you can get through all the wreaths? If not, I would on no account have you go. Perhaps, after all, it is but the fancy of a poor fantastic invalid, though Dr. Spraggs feels that it is so important, and may be the turning-point in his sad illness. It seems such a long way in such weather; and selfish people, who can never understand, might say that it was quite unkind of us. But if you have made up your mind to go, in spite of all remonstrance, you must be sure to come back to-night; and do please to see that the oysters are round, and have not got any of their lids up.”

The dogman knew well that he jeopardized his life in either half of the journey; no little in going, and tenfold as much in returning through the snows of night. Though the journey in the first place had been of his own seeking, and his faithful mind was set upon it, some little sense of bitterness was in his heart, that his life was not thought more of. He made a low bow, and turned away, that he might not meet those eyes so full of anxiety for another, and of none for him. And when he came to think of it, he was sorry afterward for indulging in a little bit of two-edged satire.

“Will you please to ask my lady if I may take Marmaduke? Or whether she would be afeared to risk him in such weather?”

“I think it is unkind of you to speak like that. I need not ask my sister, as you ought to know. Of course you may take Marmaduke. I need not tell you to be careful of him.”

After that, if he had chosen for himself, he would not have taken Marmaduke. But he thought of the importance of his real purpose, and could trust no other horse to get him through it.

In fine summer weather, when the sloughs were in, and the water-courses low or dry, and the roads firm, wherever there were any, a good horse and rider, well acquainted with the track, might go from Scargate Hall to Middleton in about three hours, nearly all of the journey being well down hill. But the travel to come back was a very different thing; four hours and a half was quick time for it, even in the best state of earth and sky, and the Royal Mail pony was allowed a good seven, because his speed (when first established) had now impaired his breathing. And ever since the snow set in, he had received his money for the journey, but preferred to stay in stable; for which everybody had praised him, finding letters give them indigestion.

Now Jordas roughed Marmaduke’s shoes himself; for the snow would be frozen in the colder places, and ball wherever any softness was — two things which demand very different measures. Also he fed him well, and nourished himself, and took nurture for the road; so that with all haste he could not manage to start before twelve of the day. Travelling was worse than he expected, and the snow very deep in places, especially at Stormy Gap, about a league from Scargate. Moreover, he knew that the strength of his horse must be carefully husbanded for the return; and so it was dusk of the winter evening, and the shops of the little town were being lit with hoops of candles, when Jordas, followed by Saracen, came trotting through the unpretending street.

That ancient dog Saracen, the largest of the blood-hounds, had joined the expedition as a volunteer, craftily following and crouching out of sight, until he was certain of being too far from home to be sent back again. Then he boldly appeared, and cantered gayly on in front of Marmaduke, with his heavy dewlaps laced with snow.

Jordas put up at a quiet old inn, and had Saracen chained strongly to a ringbolt in the stable; then he set off afoot to see Mr. Jellicorse, and just as he rang the office bell a little fleecy twinkle fell upon one of his eyelashes, and looking sharply up, he saw that a snowy night was coming.

The worthy lawyer received him kindly, but not at all as if he wished to see him; for Christmas-tide was very nigh at hand, and the weather made the ink go thick, and only a clerk who was working for promotion would let his hat stay on its peg after the drum and fife went by, as they always did at dusk of night, to frighten Bonyparty.

“There are only two important facts in all you have told me, Jordas,” Mr. Jellicorse said, when he had heard him out: “one that Sir Duncan is come home, of which I was aware some time ago; and the other that he has been consulting an agent of the name of Mordacks, living in this county. That certainly looks as if he meant to take some steps against us. But what can he do more than might have been done five-and-twenty years ago?” The lawyer took good care to speak to none but his principals concerning that plaguesome deed of appointment.

“Well, sir, you know best, no doubt. Only that he hath the money now, by all accounts; and like enough he hath labored for it a’ purpose to fight my ladies. If your honor knew as well as I do what a Yordas is for fighting, and for downright stubbornness —”

“Perhaps I do,” replied the lawyer, with a smile; “but if he has no children of his own, as I believe is the case with him, it seems unlikely that he would risk his substance in a rash attempt to turn out those who are his heirs.”

“He is not so old but what he might have children yet, if he hath none now to hand. Anyways it was my duty to tell you my news immediate.”

“Jordas, I always say that you are a model of a true retainer — a character becoming almost extinct in this faithless and revolutionary age. Very few men would have ridden into town through all those dangerous unmade roads, in weather when even the Royal Mail is kept, by the will of the Lord, in stable.”

“Well, sir,” said Jordas, with his brave soft smile, “the smooth and the rough of it comes in and out, accordin’. Some days I does next to nought; and some days I earns my keepin’. Any more commands for me, Lawyer Jellicoose? Time cometh on rather late for starting.”

“Jordas, you amaze me! You never mean to say that you dream of setting forth again on such a night as this is? I will find you a bed; you shall have a hot supper. What would your ladies think of me, if I let you go forth among the snow again? Just look at the window-panes, while you and I were talking! And the feathers of the ice shooting up inside, as long as the last sheaf of quills I opened for them. Quills, quills, quills, all day! And when I buy a goose unplucked, if his quills are any good, his legs won’t carve, and his gizzard is full of gravel-stones! Ah, the world grows every day in roguery.”

“All the world agrees to that, sir; ever since I were as high as your table, never I hear two opinions about it; and it maketh a man seem to condemn himself. Good-night, sir, and I hope we shall have good news so soon as his Royal Majesty the king affordeth a pony as can lift his legs.”

Mr. Jellicorse vainly strove to keep the man in town that night. He even called for his sensible wife and his excellent cook to argue, having no clerk left to make scandal of the scene. The cook had a turn of mind for Jordas, and did think that he would stop for her sake; and she took a broom to show him what the depth of snow was upon the red tiles between the brew-house and the kitchen. An icicle hung from the lip of the pump, and new snow sparkled on the cook’s white cap, and the dark curly hair which she managed to let fall; the brew-house smelled nice, and the kitchen still nicer; but it made no difference to Jordas. If he had told them the reason of this hurry, they would have said hard things about it, perhaps; Mrs. Jellicorse especially (being well read in the Scriptures, and fond of quoting them against all people who had grouse and sent her none) would have called to mind what David said, when the three mighty men broke through the host, and brought water from the well of Bethlehem. So Jordas only answered that he had promised to return, and a trifle of snow improved the travelling.

“A willful man must have his way,” said Mr. Jellicorse at last. “We can not put him in the pound, Diana; but the least we can do is to provide him for a coarse, cold journey. If I know anything of our country, he will never see Scargate Hall to-night, but his blanket will be a snowdrift. Give him one of our new whitneys to go behind his saddle, and I will make him take two things. I am your legal adviser, Jordas, and you are like all other clients. Upon the main issue, you cast me off; but in small matters you must obey me.”

The hardy dogman was touched with this unusual care for his welfare. At home his services were accepted as a due, requiring little praise and less of gratitude. It was his place to do this and that, and be thankful for the privilege. But his comfort was left for himself to study; and if he had studied it much, reproach would soon have been the chief reward. It never would do, as his ladies said, to make too much of Jordas. He would give himself airs, and think that people could not get on without him.

Marmaduke looked fresh and bold when he came out of stable; he had eaten with pleasure a good hot dinner, or supper perhaps he considered it, liking to have his meals early, as horses generally do. And he neighed and capered for the homeward road, though he knew how full it was of hardships; for never yet looked horse through bridle, without at least one eye resilient toward the charm of headstall. And now he had both eyes fixed with legitimate aim in that direction; and what were a few tiny atoms of snow to keep a big horse from his household?

Merrily, therefore, he set forth, with a sturdy rider on his back; his clear neigh rang through the thick dull streets, and kind people came to their white blurred windows, and exclaimed, as they glanced at the party-colored horseman rushing away into the dreary depths, “Well, rather him than me, thank God!”

“You keep the dog,” Master Jordas had said to the hostler, before he left the yard; “he is like a lamb, when you come to know him. I can’t be plagued with him to-night. Here’s a half crown for his victuals; he eats precious little for the size of him. A bullock’s liver every other day, and a pound and a half the between times. Don’t be afeared of him. He looks like that, to love you, man.”

Instead of keeping on the Durham side of Tees, as he would have done in fair weather for the first six miles or so, Jordas crossed by the old town bridge into his native county. The journey would be longer thus, but easier in some places, and the track more plain to follow, which on a snowy night was everything. For all things now were in one indiscriminate pelt and whirl of white; the Tees was striped with rustling floes among the black moor-water; and the trees, as long as there were any, bent their shrouded forms and moaned.

But with laborious plunges, and broad scatterings of obstruction, the willing horse ploughed out his way, himself the while wrapped up in white, and caked in all his tufty places with a crust that flopped up and down. The rider, himself piled up with snow, and bearded with a berg of it, from time to time, with his numb right hand, fumbled at the frozen clouts that clogged the poor horse’s mane and crest.

“How much longer will a’ go, I wonder?” said Jordas to himself for the twentieth time. “The Lord in heaven knows where we be; but horse knows better than the Lord a’most. Two hour it must be since ever I ‘tempted to make head or tail of it. But Marmaduke knoweth when a’ hath his head; these creatures is wiser than Christians. Save me from the witches, if I ever see such weather! And I wish that Master Lance’s oysters wasn’t quite so much like him.”

For, broad as his back was, perpetual thump of rugged and flintified knobs and edges, through the flag basket strapped over his neck, was beginning to tell upon his stanch but jolted spine; while his foot in the northern stirrup was numbed, and threatening to get frost-bitten.

“The Lord knoweth where we be,” he said once more, growing in piety as the peril grew. “What can old horse know, without the Lord hath told ’un? And likely he hath never asked, no more than I did. We mought ‘a come twelve moiles, or we mought ‘a come no more than six. What ever is there left in the world to judge by? The hills, or the hollows, or the boskies, all is one, so far as the power of a man’s eyes goes. Howsomever, drive on, old Dukie.”

Old Dukie drove on with all his might and main, and the stout spirit which engenders strength, till he came to a white wall reared before him, twice as high as his snow-capped head, and swirling like a billow of the sea with drift. Here he stopped short, for he had his own rein, and turned his clouted neck, and asked his master what to make of it.

“We must ‘a come at last to Stormy Gap: it might be worse, and it might be better. Rocks o’ both sides, and no way round. No choice but to get through it, or to spend the night inside of it. You and I are a pretty good weight, old Dukie. We’ll even try a charge for it, afore we knock under. We can’t have much more smother than we’ve gotten already. My father was taken like this, I’ve heard tell, in the service of old Squire Philip; and he put his nag at it, and scumbled through. But first you get up your wind, old chap.”

Marmaduke seemed to know what was expected of him; for he turned round, retreated a few steps, and then stood panting. Then Jordas dismounted, as well as he could with his windward leg nearly frozen. He smote himself lustily, with both arms swinging, upon his broad breast, and he stamped in the snow till he felt his tingling feet again. Then he took up the skirt of his thick heavy coat, and wiped down the head, mane, and shoulders of the horse, and the great pile of snow upon the crupper. “Start clear is a good word,” he said.

For a moment he stopped to consider the forlorn hope of his last resolution. “About me, there is no such great matter,” he thought; “but if I was to kill Dukie, who would ever hear the last of it? And what a good horse he have been, to be sure! But if I was to leave him so, the crows would only have him. We be both in one boat; we must try of it.” He said a little prayer, which was all he knew, for himself and a lass he had a liking to, who lived in a mill upon the river Lune; and then he got into the saddle again, and set his teeth hard, and spoke to Marmaduke, a horse who would never be touched with a spur. “Come on, old chap,” was all he said.

The horse looked about in the thick of the night, as the head of the horse peers out of the cloak, in Welsh mummery, at Christmas-tide. The thick of the night was light and dark, with the dense intensity of down-pour; light in itself, and dark with shutting out all sight of everything — a close-at-hand confusion, and a distance out of measure. The horse, with his wise snow-crusted eyes, took in all the winnowing of light among the draff, and saw no possibility of breaking through, but resolved to spend his life as he was ordered. No power of rush or of dash could he gather, because of the sinking of his feet; the main chance was of bulk and weight; and his rider left him free to choose. For a few steps he walked, nimbly picking up his feet, and then, with a canter of the best spring he could compass, hurled himself into the depth of the drift, while Jordas lay flat along his neck, and let him plunge. For a few yards the light snow flew before him, like froth of the sea before a broad-bowed ship, and smothered as he was, he fought onward for his life. But very soon the power of his charge was gone, his limbs could not rise, and his breath was taken from him; the hole that he had made was filled up behind him; fresh volumes from the shaken height came pouring down upon him; his flanks and his back were wedged fast in the cumber, and he stood still and trembled, being buried alive.

Jordas, with a great effort, threw himself off, and put his hat before his mouth, to make himself a breathing space. He scarcely knew whether he stood or lay; but he kicked about for want of air, and the more he kicked the worse it was, as in the depth of nightmare. Blindness, choking, smothering, and freezing fell in a lump upon his poor body now, and the shrieking of the horse and the panting of his struggles came, by some vibration, to him.

But just as he began to lose his wits, sink away backward, and gasp for breath, a gleam of light broke upon his closing eyes; he gathered the remnant of his strength, struck for it, and was in a space of free air. After several long pants he looked around, and found that a thicket of stub oak jutting from the crag of the gap had made a small alcove with billows of snow piled over it. Then the brave spirit of the man came forth. “There is room for Dukie as well as me,” he gasped; “with God’s help, I will fetch him in.”

Weary as he was, he cast himself back into the wall of snow, and listened. At first he heard nothing, and made sure that all was over; but presently a faint soft gurgle, like a dying sob, came through the murk. With all his might he dashed toward the sound, and laid hold of a hairy chin just foundering. “Rise up, old chap,” he tried to shout, and he gave the horse a breath or two with the broad-brimmed hat above his nose. Then Marmaduke rallied for one last fight, with the surety of a man to help him. He staggered forward to the leading of the hand he knew so well, and fell down upon his knees; but his head was clear, and he drew long breaths, and his heart was glad, and his eyes looked up, and he gave a feeble whinny.

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:50


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Zanoni, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Chapter 3

Man is the eye of things.

Euryph, “de Vit. Hum.”

. . . There is, therefore, a certain ecstatical or transporting

power, which, if at any time it shall be excited or stirred up by

an ardent desire and most strong imagination, is able to conduct

the spirit of the more outward even to some absent and

far-distant object.

Von Helmont.

The rooms that Mejnour occupied consisted of two chambers communicating with each other, and a third in which he slept. All these rooms were placed in the huge square tower that beetled over the dark and bush-grown precipice. The first chamber which Glyndon entered was empty. With a noiseless step he passed on, and opened the door that admitted into the inner one. He drew back at the threshold, overpowered by a strong fragrance which filled the chamber: a kind of mist thickened the air rather than obscured it, for this vapour was not dark, but resembled a snow-cloud moving slowly, and in heavy undulations, wave upon wave regularly over the space. A mortal cold struck to the Englishman’s heart, and his blood froze. He stood rooted to the spot; and as his eyes strained involuntarily through the vapour, he fancied (for he could not be sure that it was not the trick of his imagination) that he saw dim, spectre-like, but gigantic forms floating through the mist; or was it not rather the mist itself that formed its vapours fantastically into those moving, impalpable, and bodiless apparitions? A great painter of antiquity is said, in a picture of Hades, to have represented the monsters that glide through the ghostly River of the Dead, so artfully, that the eye perceived at once that the river itself was but a spectre, and the bloodless things that tenanted it had no life, their forms blending with the dead waters till, as the eye continued to gaze, it ceased to discern them from the preternatural element they were supposed to inhabit. Such were the moving outlines that coiled and floated through the mist; but before Glyndon had even drawn breath in this atmosphere — for his life itself seemed arrested or changed into a kind of horrid trance — he felt his hand seized, and he was led from that room into the outer one. He heard the door close — his blood rushed again through his veins, and he saw Mejnour by his side. Strong convulsions then suddenly seized his whole frame — he fell to the ground insensible. When he recovered, he found himself in the open air in a rude balcony of stone that jutted from the chamber, the stars shining serenely over the dark abyss below, and resting calmly upon the face of the mystic, who stood beside him with folded arms.

“Young man,” said Mejnour, “judge by what you have just felt, how dangerous it is to seek knowledge until prepared to receive it. Another moment in the air of that chamber and you had been a corpse.”

“Then of what nature was the knowledge that you, once mortal like myself, could safely have sought in that icy atmosphere, which it was death for me to breathe? Mejnour,” continued Glyndon, and his wild desire, sharpened by the very danger he had passed, once more animated and nerved him, “I am prepared at least for the first steps. I come to you as of old the pupil to the Hierophant, and demand the initiation.”

Mejnour passed his hand over the young man’s heart — it beat loud, regularly, and boldly. He looked at him with something almost like admiration in his passionless and frigid features, and muttered, half to himself, “Surely, in so much courage the true disciple is found at last.” Then, speaking aloud, he added, “Be it so; man’s first initiation is in TRANCE. In dreams commences all human knowledge; in dreams hovers over measureless space the first faint bridge between spirit and spirit — this world and the worlds beyond! Look steadfastly on yonder star!”

Glyndon obeyed, and Mejnour retired into the chamber, from which there then slowly emerged a vapour, somewhat paler and of fainter odour than that which had nearly produced so fatal an effect on his frame. This, on the contrary, as it coiled around him, and then melted in thin spires into the air, breathed a refreshing and healthful fragrance. He still kept his eyes on the star, and the star seemed gradually to fix and command his gaze. A sort of languor next seized his frame, but without, as he thought, communicating itself to the mind; and as this crept over him, he felt his temples sprinkled with some volatile and fiery essence. At the same moment a slight tremor shook his limbs and thrilled through his veins. The languor increased, still he kept his gaze upon the star, and now its luminous circumference seemed to expand and dilate. It became gradually softer and clearer in its light; spreading wider and broader, it diffused all space — all space seemed swallowed up in it. And at last, in the midst of a silver shining atmosphere, he felt as if something burst within his brain — as if a strong chain were broken; and at that moment a sense of heavenly liberty, of unutterable delight, of freedom from the body, of birdlike lightness, seemed to float him into the space itself. “Whom, now upon earth, dost thou wish to see?” whispered the voice of Mejnour. “Viola and Zanoni!” answered Glyndon, in his heart; but he felt that his lips moved not.

Suddenly at that thought — through this space, in which nothing save one mellow translucent light had been discernible — a swift succession of shadowy landscapes seemed to roll: trees, mountains, cities, seas, glided along like the changes of a phantasmagoria; and at last, settled and stationary, he saw a cave by the gradual marge of an ocean shore — myrtles and orange-trees clothing the gentle banks. On a height, at a distance, gleamed the white but shattered relics of some ruined heathen edifice; and the moon, in calm splendour, shining over all, literally bathed with its light two forms without the cave, at whose feet the blue waters crept, and he thought that he even heard them murmur. He recognised both the figures. Zanoni was seated on a fragment of stone; Viola, half-reclining by his side, was looking into his face, which was bent down to her, and in her countenance was the expression of that perfect happiness which belongs to perfect love. “Wouldst thou hear them speak?” whispered Mejnour; and again, without sound, Glyndon inly answered, “Yes!” Their voices then came to his ear, but in tones that seemed to him strange; so subdued were they, and sounding, as it were, so far off, that they were as voices heard in the visions of some holier men from a distant sphere.

“And how is it,” said Viola, “that thou canst find pleasure in listening to the ignorant?”

“Because the heart is never ignorant; because the mysteries of the feelings are as full of wonder as those of the intellect. If at times thou canst not comprehend the language of my thoughts, at times also I hear sweet enigmas in that of thy emotions.”

“Ah, say not so!” said Viola, winding her arm tenderly round his neck, and under that heavenly light her face seemed lovelier for its blushes. “For the enigmas are but love’s common language, and love should solve them. Till I knew thee — till I lived with thee; till I learned to watch for thy footstep when absent: yet even in absence to see thee everywhere! — I dreamed not how strong and all-pervading is the connection between nature and the human soul! . . .

“And yet,” she continued, “I am now assured of what I at first believed — that the feelings which attracted me towards thee at first were not those of love. I know THAT, by comparing the present with the past — it was a sentiment then wholly of the mind or the spirit! I could not hear thee now say, ‘Viola, be happy with another!’”

“And I could not now tell thee so! Ah, Viola, never be weary of assuring me that thou art happy!”

“Happy while thou art so. Yet at times, Zanoni, thou art so sad!”

“Because human life is so short; because we must part at last; because yon moon shines on when the nightingale sings to it no more! A little while, and thine eyes will grow dim, and thy beauty haggard, and these locks that I toy with now will be grey and loveless.”

“And thou, cruel one!” said Viola, touchingly, “I shall never see the signs of age in thee! But shall we not grow old together, and our eyes be accustomed to a change which the heart shall not share!”

Zanoni sighed. He turned away, and seemed to commune with himself.

Glyndon’s attention grew yet more earnest.

“But were it so,” muttered Zanoni; and then looking steadfastly at Viola, he said, with a half-smile, “Hast thou no curiosity to learn more of the lover thou once couldst believe the agent of the Evil One?”

“None; all that one wishes to know of the beloved one, I know — THAT THOU LOVEST ME!”

“I have told thee that my life is apart from others. Wouldst thou not seek to share it?”

“I share it now!”

“But were it possible to be thus young and fair forever, till the world blazes round us as one funeral pyre!”

“We shall be so, when we leave the world!”

Zanoni was mute for some moments, and at length he said —

“Canst thou recall those brilliant and aerial dreams which once visited thee, when thou didst fancy that thou wert preordained to some fate aloof and afar from the common children of the earth?”

“Zanoni, the fate is found.”

“And hast thou no terror of the future?”

“The future! I forget it! Time past and present and to come reposes in thy smile. Ah, Zanoni, play not with the foolish credulities of my youth! I have been better and humbler since thy presence has dispelled the mist of the air. The future! — well, when I have cause to dread it, I will look up to heaven, and remember who guides our fate!”

As she lifted her eyes above, a dark cloud swept suddenly over the scene. It wrapped the orange-trees, the azure ocean, the dense sands; but still the last images that it veiled from the charmed eyes of Glyndon were the forms of Viola and Zanoni. The face of the one rapt, serene, and radiant; the face of the other, dark, thoughtful, and locked in more than its usual rigidness of melancholy beauty and profound repose.

“Rouse thyself,” said Mejnour; “thy ordeal has commenced! There are pretenders to the solemn science who could have shown thee the absent, and prated to thee, in their charlatanic jargon, of the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid of whose true properties they know but the germs and elements. I will lend thee the books of those glorious dupes, and thou wilt find, in the dark ages, how many erring steps have stumbled upon the threshold of the mighty learning, and fancied they had pierced the temple. Hermes and Albert and Paracelsus, I knew ye all; but, noble as ye were, ye were fated to be deceived. Ye had not souls of faith, and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye aimed! Yet Paracelsus — modest Paracelsus — had an arrogance that soared higher than all our knowledge. Ho, ho! — he thought he could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself the Divine gift — the breath of life. (Paracelsus, ‘De Nat. Rer.,’ lib. i.)

“He would have made men, and, after all, confessed that they could be but pygmies! My art is to make men above mankind. But you are impatient of my digressions. Forgive me. All these men (they were great dreamers, as you desire to be) were intimate friends of mine. But they are dead and rotten. They talked of spirits — but they dreaded to be in other company than that of men. Like orators whom I have heard, when I stood by the Pnyx of Athens, blazing with words like comets in the assembly, and extinguishing their ardour like holiday rockets when they were in the field. Ho, ho! Demosthenes, my hero-coward, how nimble were thy heels at Chaeronea! And thou art impatient still! Boy, I could tell thee such truths of the past as would make thee the luminary of schools. But thou lustest only for the shadows of the future. Thou shalt have thy wish. But the mind must be first exercised and trained. Go to thy room, and sleep; fast austerely, read no books; meditate, imagine, dream, bewilder thyself if thou wilt. Thought shapes out its own chaos at last. Before midnight, seek me again!”

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:51

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text:
Ayesha: The Return of She, by H. Rider Haggard

Chapter 14

The Court of Death

Now the curtains were open. Before us appeared a chamber hollowed from the thickness of the altar, and in its centre a throne, and on the throne a figure clad in waves of billowy white flowing from the head over the arms of the throne down to its marble steps. We could see no more in the comparative darkness of that place, save that beneath the folds of the drapery the Oracle held in its hand a loop-shaped, jewelled sceptre.

Moved by some impulse, we did as Oros had done, prostrating ourselves, and there remained upon our knees. At length we heard a tinkling as of little bells, and, looking up, saw that the sistrum-shaped sceptre was stretched towards us by the draped arm which held it. Then a thin, clear voice spoke, and I thought that it trembled a little. It spoke in Greek, but in a much purer Greek than all these people used.

“I greet you, Wanderers, who have journeyed so far to visit this most ancient shrine, and although doubtless of some other faith, are not ashamed to do reverence to that unworthy one who is for this time its Oracle and the guardian of its mysteries. Rise now and have no fear of me; for have I not sent my Messenger and servants to conduct you to this Sanctuary?”

Slowly we rose, and stood silent, not knowing what to say.

“I greet you, Wanderers,” the voice repeated. “Tell me thou”— and the sceptre pointed towards Leo —“how art thou named?”

“I am named Leo Vincey,” he answered.

“Leo Vincey! I like the name, which to me well befits a man so goodly. And thou, the companion of — Leo Vincey?”

“I am named Horace Holly.”

“So. Then tell me, Leo Vincey and Horace Holly, what came ye so far to seek?”

We looked at each other, and I said —“The tale is long and strange. O— but by what title must we address thee?”

“By the name which I bear here, Hes.”

“O Hes,” I said, wondering what name she bore elsewhere.

“Yet I desire to hear that tale,” she went on, and to me her voice sounded eager. “Nay, not all to-night, for I know that you both are weary; a little of it only. In sooth, Strangers, there is a sameness in this home of contemplations, and no heart can feed only on the past, if such a thing there be. Therefore I welcome a new history from the world without. Tell it me, thou, Leo, as briefly as thou wilt, so that thou tell the truth, for in the Presence of which I am a Minister, may nothing else be uttered.”

“Priestess,” he said, in his curt fashion, “I obey. Many years ago when I was young, my friend and foster-father and I, led by records of the past, travelled to a wild land, and there found a certain divine woman who had conquered time.”

“Then that woman must have been both aged and hideous.”

“I said, Priestess, that she had conquered time, not suffered it, for the gift of immortal youth was hers. Also she was not hideous; she was beauty itself.”

“Therefore stranger, thou didst worship her for her beauty’s sake, as a man does.”

“I did not worship her; I loved her, which is another thing. The priest Oros here worships thee, whom he calls Mother. I loved that immortal woman.”

“Then thou shouldst love her still. Yet, not so, since love is very mortal.”

“I love her still,” he answered, “although she died.”

“Why, how is that? Thou saidst she was immortal.”

“Perchance she only seemed to die; perchance she changed. At least I lost her, and what I lost I seek, and have sought this many a year.”

“Why dost thou seek her in my Mountain, Leo Vincey?”

“Because a vision led me to ask counsel of its Oracle. I am come hither to learn tidings of my lost love, since here alone these may be found.”

“And thou, Holly, didst thou also love an immortal woman whose immortality, it seems, must bow to death?”

“Priestess,” I answered, “I am sworn to this quest, and where my foster-son goes I follow. He follows beauty that is dead ——”

“And thou dost follow him. Therefore both of you follow beauty as men have ever done, being blind and mad.”

“Nay,” I answered, “if they were blind, beauty would be naught to them who could not see it, and if they were mad, they would not know it when it was seen. Knowledge and vision belong to the wise, O Hes.”

“Thou art quick of wit and tongue, Holly, as ——” and she checked herself, then of a sudden, said, “Tell me, did my servant the Khania of Kaloon entertain both of you hospitably in her city, and speed you on your journey hither, as I commanded her?”

“We knew not that she was thy servant,” I replied. “Hospitality we had and to spare, but we were sped from her Court hitherward by the death-hounds of the Khan, her husband. Tell us, Priestess, what thou knowest of this journey of ours.”

“A little,” she answered carelessly. “More than three moons ago my spies saw you upon the far mountains, and, creeping very close to you at night, heard you speak together of the object of your wanderings, then, returning thence swiftly, made report to me. Thereon I bade the Khania Atene, and that old magician her great-uncle, who is Guardian of the Gate, go down to the ancient gates of Kaloon to receive you and bring you hither with all speed. Yet for men who burned to learn the answer to a riddle, you have been long in coming.”

“We came as fast as we might, O Hes,” said Leo; “and if thy spies could visit those mountains, where no man was, and find a path down that hideous precipice, they must have been able also to tell thee the reason of our delay. Therefore I pray, ask it not of us.”

“Nay, I will ask it of Atene herself, and she shall surely answer me, for she stands without,” replied the Hesea in a cold voice. “Oros, lead the Khania hither and be swift.”

The priest turned and walking quickly to the wooden doors by which we had entered the shrine, vanished there.

“Now,” said Leo to me nervously in the silence that followed, and speaking in English, “now I wish we were somewhere else, for I think that there will be trouble.”

“I don’t think, I am sure,” I answered; “but the more the better, for out of trouble may come the truth, which we need sorely.” Then I stopped, reflecting that the strange woman before us said that her spies had overheard our talk upon the mountains, where we had spoken nothing but English.

As it proved, I was wise, for quite quietly the Hesea repeated after me —“Thou hast experience, Holly, for out of trouble comes the truth, as out of wine.”

Then she was silent, and, needless to say, I did not pursue the conversation.

The doors swung open, and through them came a procession clad in black, followed by the Shaman Simbri, who walked in front of a bier, upon which lay the body of the Khan, carried by eight priests. Behind it was Atene, draped in a black veil from head to foot, and after her marched another company of priests. In front of the altar the bier was set down and the priests fell back, leaving Atene and her uncle standing alone before the corpse.

“What seeks my vassal, the Khania of Kaloon?” asked the Hesea in a cold voice.

Now Atene advanced and bent the knee, but with little graciousness.

“Ancient Mother, Mother from of old, I do reverence to thy holy Office, as my forefathers have done for many a generation,” and again she curtseyed. “Mother, this dead man asks of thee that right of sepulchre in the fires of the holy Mountain which from the beginning has been accorded to the royal departed who went before him.”

“It has been accorded as thou sayest,” answered the Hesea, “by those priestesses who filled my place before me, nor shall it be refused to thy dead lord — or to thee Atene — when thy time comes.”

“I thank thee, O Hes, and I pray that this decree may be written down, for the snows of age have gathered on thy venerable head and soon thou must leave us for awhile. Therefore bid thy scribes that it be written down, so that the Hesea who rules after thee may fulfil it in its season.”

“Cease,” said the Hesea, “cease to pour out thy bitterness at that which should command thy reverence, oh! thou foolish child, who dost not know but that tomorrow the fire shall claim the frail youth and beauty which are thy boast. I bid thee cease, and tell me how did death find this lord of thine?”

“Ask those wanderers yonder, that were his guests, for his blood is on their heads and cries for vengeance at thy hands.”

“I killed him,” said Leo, “to save my own life. He tried to hunt us down with his dogs, and there are the marks of them,” and he pointed to my arm. “The priest Oros knows, for he dressed the hurts.”

“How did this chance?” asked the Hesea of Atene.

“My lord was mad,” she answered boldly, “and such was his cruel sport.”

“So. And was thy lord jealous also? Nay, keep back the falsehood I see rising to thy lips. Leo Vincey, answer thou me. Yet, I will not ask thee to lay bare the secrets of a woman who has offered thee her love. Thou, Holly, speak, and let it be the truth.”

“It is this, O Hes,” I answered. “Yonder lady and her uncle the Shaman Simbri saved us from death in the waters of the river that bounds the precipices of Kaloon. Afterwards we were ill, and they treated us kindly, but the Khania became enamoured of my foster-son.”

Here the figure of the Priestess stirred beneath its gauzy wrappings, and the Voice asked —“And did thy foster-son become enamoured of the Khania, as being a man he may well have done, for without doubt she is fair?”

“He can answer that question for himself, O Hes. All I know is that he strove to escape from her, and that in the end she gave him a day to choose between death and marriage with her, when her lord should be dead. So, helped by the Khan, her husband, who was jealous of him, we fled towards this Mountain, which we desired to reach. Then the Khan set his hounds upon us, for he was mad and false-hearted. We killed him and came on in spite of this lady, his wife, and her uncle, who would have prevented us, and were met in a Place of Bones by a certain veiled guide, who led us up the Mountain and twice saved us from death. That is all the story.”

“Woman, what hast thou to say?” asked the Hesea in a menacing voice.

“But little,” Atene answered, without flinching. “For years I have been bound to a madman and a brute, and if my fancy wandered towards this man and his fancy wandered towards me — well, Nature spoke to us, and that is all. Afterwards it seems that he grew afraid of the vengeance of Rassen, or this Holly, whom I would that the hounds had torn bone from bone, grew afraid. So they strove to escape the land, and perchance wandered to thy Mountain. But I weary of this talk, and ask thy leave to rest before tomorrow’s rite.”

“Thou sayest, Atene,” said the Hesea, “that Nature spoke to this man and to thee, and that his heart is thine; but that, fearing thy lord’s vengeance, he fled from thee, he who seems no coward. Tell me, then, is that tress he hides in the satchel on his breast thy gage of love to him?”

“I know nothing of what he hides in the satchel,” answered the Khania sullenly.

“And yet, yonder in the Gatehouse when he lay so sick he set the lock against thine own — ah, dost remember now?”

“So, O Hes, already he has told thee all our secrets, though they be such as most men hide within their breasts;” and she looked contemptuously at Leo.

“I told her nothing of the matter, Khania,” Leo said in an angry voice.

“Nay, thou toldest me nothing, Wanderer; my watching wisdom told me. Oh, didst thou think, Atene, that thou couldst hide the truth from the all-seeing Hesea of the Mountain? If so, spare thy breath, for I know all, and have known it from the first. I passed thy disobedience by; of thy false messages I took no heed. For my own purposes I, to whom time is naught, suffered even that thou shouldst hold these, my guests, thy prisoners whilst thou didst strive by threats and force to win a love denied.”

She paused, then went on coldly: “Woman, I tell thee that, to complete thy sin, thou hast even dared to lie to me here, in my very Sanctuary.”

“If so, what of it?” was the bold answer. “Dost thou love the man thyself? Nay, it is monstrous. Nature would cry aloud at such a shame. Oh! tremble not with rage. Hes, I know thy evil powers, but I know also that I am thy guest, and that in this hallowed place, beneath yonder symbol of eternal Love, thou may’st shed no blood. More, thou canst not harm me, Hes, who am thy equal.”

“Atene,” replied the measured Voice, “did I desire it, I could destroy thee where thou art. Yet thou art right, I shall not harm thee, thou faithless servant. Did not my writ bid thee through yonder searcher of the stars, thy uncle, to meet these guests of mine and bring them straight to my shrine? Tell me, for I seek to know, how comes it that thou didst disobey me?”

“Have then thy desire,” answered Atene in a new and earnest voice, devoid now of bitterness and falsehood. “I disobeyed because that man is not thine, but mine, and no other woman’s; because I love him and have loved him from of old. Aye, since first our souls sprang into life I have loved him, as he has loved me. My own heart tells me so; the magic of my uncle here tells me so, though how and where and when these things have been I know not. Therefore I come to thee, Mother of Mysteries, Guardian of the secrets of the past, to learn the truth. At least thou canst not lie at thine own altar, and I charge thee, by the dread name of that Power to which thou also must render thy account, that thou answer now and here.

“Who is this man to whom my being yearns? What has he been to me? What has he to do with thee? Speak, O Oracle and make the secret clear. Speak, I command, even though afterwards thou dost slay me — if thou canst.”

“Aye, speak! speak!” said Leo, “for know I am in sore suspense. I also am bewildered by memories and rent with hopes and fears.”

And I too echoed, “Speak!”

“Leo Vincey,” asked the Hesea, after she had thought awhile, “whom dost thou believe me to be?”

“I believe,” he answered solemnly, “that thou art that Ayesha at whose hands I died of old in the Caves of Kor in Africa. I believe thou art that Ayesha whom not twenty years ago I found and loved in those same Caves of Kor, and there saw perish miserably, swearing that thou wouldst return again.”

“See now, how madness can mislead a man,” broke in Atene triumphantly. “‘Not twenty years ago,’ he said, whereas I know well that more than eighty summers have gone by since my grandsire in his youth saw this same priestess sitting on the Mother’s throne.”

“And whom dost thou believe me to be, O Holly?” the Priestess asked, taking no note of the Khania’s words.

“What he believes I believe,” I answered. “The dead come back to life — sometimes. Yet alone thou knowest the truth, and by thee only it can be revealed.”

“Aye,” she said, as though musing, “the dead come back to life — sometimes — and in strange shape, and, mayhap, I know the truth. To-morrow when yonder body is borne on high for burial we will speak of it again. Till then rest you all, and prepare to face that fearful thing — the Truth.”

While the Hesea still spoke the silvery curtains swung to their place as mysteriously as they had opened. Then, as though at some signal, the black-robed priests advanced. Surrounding Atene, they led her from the Sanctuary, accompanied by her uncle the Shaman, who, as it seemed to me, either through fatigue or fear, could scarcely stand upon his feet, but stood blinking his dim eyes as though the light dazed him. When these were gone, the priests and priestesses, who all this time had been ranged round the walls, far out of hearing of our talk, gathered themselves into their separate companies, and still chanting, departed also, leaving us alone with Oros and the corpse of the Khan, which remained where it had been set down.

Now the head-priest Oros beckoned to us to follow him, and we went also. Nor was I sorry to leave the place, for its death-like loneliness — enhanced, strangely enough, as it was, by the flood of light that filled it; a loneliness which was concentrated and expressed in the awful figure stretched upon the bier, oppressed and overcame us, whose nerves were broken by all that we had undergone. Thankful enough was I when, having passed the transepts and down the length of the vast nave, we came to the iron doors, the rock passage, and the outer gates, which, as before, opened to let us through, and so at last into the sweet, cold air of the night at that hour which precedes the dawn.

Oros led us to a house well-built and furnished, where at his bidding, like men in a dream, we drank of some liquor which he gave us. I think that drink was drugged, at least after swallowing it I remembered no more till I awoke to find myself lying on a bed and feeling wonderfully strong and well. This I thought strange, for a lamp burning in the room showed me that it was still dark, and therefore that I could have rested but a little time.

I tried to sleep again, but was not able, so fell to thinking till I grew weary of the task. For here thoughts would not help me; nothing could help, except the truth, “that fearful thing,” as the veiled Priestess had called it.

Oh! what if she should prove not the Ayesha whom we desired, but some “fearful thing”? What were the meaning of the Khania’s hints and of her boldness, that surely had been inspired by the strength of a hidden knowledge? What if — nay, it could not be — I would rise and dress my arm. Or I would wake Leo and make him dress it — anything to occupy my mind until the appointed hour, when we must learn — the best — or the worst.

I sat up in the bed and saw a figure advancing towards me. It was Oros, who bore a lamp in his hand.

“You have slept long, friend Holly,” he said, “and now it is time to be up and doing.”

“Long?” I answered testily. “How can that be, when it is still dark?”

“Because, friend, the dark is that of a new night. Many hours have gone by since you lay down upon this bed. Well, you were wise to rest you while you may, for who knows when you will sleep again! Come, let me bathe your arm.”

“Tell me,” I broke in ——“Nay, friend,” he interrupted firmly, “I will tell you nothing, except that soon you must start to be present at the funeral of the Khan, and, perchance, to learn the answer to your questions.”

Ten minutes later he led me to the eating-chamber of the house, where I found Leo already dressed, for Oros had awakened him before he came to me and bidden him to prepare himself. Oros told us here that the Hesea had not suffered us to be disturbed until the night came again since we had much to undergo that day. So presently we started.

Once more we were led through the flame-lit hall till we came to the loop-shaped apse. The place was empty now, even the corpse of the Khan had gone, and no draped Oracle sat in the altar shrine, for its silver curtains were drawn, and we saw that it was untenanted.

“The Mother has departed to do honour to the dead, according to the ancient custom,” Oros explained to us.

Then we passed the altar, and behind the statue found a door in the rock wall of the apse, and beyond the door a passage, and a hall as of a house, for out of it opened other doors leading to chambers. These, our guide told us, were the dwelling-places of the Hesea and her maidens. He added that they ran to the side of the Mountain and had windows that opened on to gardens and let in the light and air. In this hall six priests were waiting, each of whom carried a bundle of torches beneath his arm and held in his hand a lighted lamp.

“Our road runs through the dark,” said Oros, “though were it day we might climb the outer snows, but this at night it is dangerous to do.”

Then taking torches, he lit them at a lamp and gave one to each of us.

Now our climb began. Up endless sloping galleries we went, hewn with inconceivable labour by the primeval fire-worshippers from the living rock of the Mountain. It seemed to me that they stretched for miles, and indeed this was so, since, although the slope was always gentle, it took us more than an hour to climb them. At length we came to the foot of a great stair.

“Rest awhile here, my lord,” Oros said, bowing to Leo with the reverence that he had shown him from the first, “for this stair is steep and long. Now we stand upon the Mountain’s topmost lip, and are about to climb that tall looped column which soars above.”

So we sat down in the vault-like place and let the sharp draught of air rushing to and from the passages play upon us, for we were heated with journeying up those close galleries. As we sat thus I heard a roaring sound and asked Oros what it might be. He answered that we were very near to the crater of the volcano, and that what we heard through the thickness of the rock was the rushing of its everlasting fires. Then the ascent commenced.

It was not dangerous though very wearisome, for there were nearly six hundred of those steps. The climb of the passages had reminded me of that of the gallery of the Great Pyramid drawn out for whole furlongs; that of the pillar was like the ascent of a cathedral spire, or rather of several spires piled one upon another.

Resting from time to time, we dragged ourselves up the steep steps, each of them quite a foot in height, till the pillar was climbed and only the loop remained. Up it we went also, Oros leading us, and glad was I that the stairway still ran within the substance of the rock, for I could feel the needle’s mighty eye quiver in the rush of the winds which swept about its sides.

At length we saw light before us, and in another twenty steps emerged upon a platform. As Leo, who went in front of me, walked from the stairway I saw Oros and another priest seize him by the arms, and called to him to ask what they were doing.

“Nothing,” he cried back, “except that this is a dizzy place and they feared lest I should fall. Mind how you come, Horace,” and he stretched out his hand to me.

Now I was clear of the tunnel, and I believe that had it not been for that hand I should have sunk to the rocky floor, for the sight before me seemed to paralyse my brain. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I doubt whether the world can show such another.

We stood upon the very apex of the loop, a flat space of rock about eighty yards in length by some thirty in breadth, with the star-strewn sky above us. To the south, twenty thousand feet or more below, stretched the dim Plain of Kaloon, and to the east and west the snow-clad shoulders of the peak and the broad brown slopes beneath. To the north was a different sight, and one more awesome. There, right under us as it seemed, for the pillar bent inwards, lay the vast crater of the volcano, and in the centre of it a wide lake of fire that broke into bubbles and flowers of sudden flame or spouted, writhed and twisted like an angry sea.

From the surface of this lake rose smoke and gases that took fire as they floated upwards, and, mingling together, formed a gigantic sheet of living light. Right opposite to us burned this sheet and, the flare of it passing through the needle-eye of the pillar under us, sped away in one dazzling beam across the country of Kaloon, across the mountains beyond, till it was lost on the horizon.

The wind blew from south to north, being sucked in towards the hot crater of the volcano, and its fierce breath, that screamed through the eye of the pillar and against its rugged surface, bent the long crest of the sheet of flame, as an ocean roller is bent over by the gale, and tore from it fragments of fire, that floated away to leeward like the blown-out sails of a burning ship.

Had it not been for this strong and steady wind indeed, no creature could have lived upon the pillar, for the vapours would have poisoned him; but its unceasing blast drove these all away towards the north. For the same reason, in the thin air of that icy place the heat was not too great to be endured.

Appalled by that terrific spectacle, which seemed more appropriate to the terrors of the Pit than to this earth of ours, and fearful lest the blast should whirl me like a dead leaf into the glowing gulf beneath, I fell on to my sound hand and my knees, shouting to Leo to do likewise, and looked about me. Now I observed lines of priests wrapped in great capes, kneeling upon the face of the rock and engaged apparently in prayer, but of Hes the Mother, or of Atene, or of the corpse of the dead Khan I could see nothing.

Whilst I wondered where they might be, Oros, upon whose nerves this dread scene appeared to have no effect, and some of our attendant priests surrounded us and led us onwards by a path that ran perilously near to the rounded edge of the rock. A few downward steps and we found that we were under shelter, for the gale was roaring over us. Twenty more paces and we came to a recess cut, I suppose, by man in the face of the loop, in such fashion that a lava roof was left projecting half across its width.

This recess, or rock chamber, which was large enough to shelter a great number of people, we reached safely, to discover that it was already tenanted. Seated in a chair hewn from the rock was the Hesea, wearing a broidered, purple mantle above her gauzy wrappings that enveloped her from head to foot. There, too, standing near to her were the Khania Atene and her uncle the old Shaman, who looked but ill at ease, and lastly, stretched upon his funeral couch, the fiery light beating upon his stark form and face, lay the dead Khan, Rassen.

We advanced to the throne and bowed to her who sat thereon. The Hesea lifted her hooded head, which seemed to have been sunk upon her breast as though she were overcome by thought or care, and addressed Oros the priest. For in the shelter of those massive walls by comparison there was silence and folk could hear each other speak.

“So thou hast brought them safely, my servant,” she said, “and I am glad, for to those that know it not this road is fearful. My guests, what say you of the burying-pit of the Children of Hes?”

“Our faith tells us of a hell, lady,” answered Leo, “and I think that yonder cauldron looks like its mouth.”

“Nay,” she answered, “there is no hell, save that which from life to life we fashion for ourselves within the circle of this little star. Leo Vincey, I tell thee that hell is here, aye, here,” and she struck her hand upon her breast, while once more her head drooped forward as though bowed down beneath some load of secret misery.

Thus she stayed awhile, then lifted it and spoke again, saying —“Midnight is past, and much must be done and suffered before the dawn. Aye, the darkness must be turned to light, or perchance the light to eternal darkness.”

“Royal woman,” she went on, addressing Atene, “as is his right, thou hast brought thy dead lord hither for burial in this consecrated place, where the ashes of all who went before him have become fuel for the holy fires. Oros, my priest, summon thou the Accuser and him who makes defence, and let the books be opened that I may pass my judgment on the dead, and call his soul to live again, or pray that from it the breath of life may be withheld.

“Priest, I say the Court of Death is open.”

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:55


text:
The Story of Grettir the Strong, by William Morris

Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings that Occur in the Story.

A friend should warn a friend of ill, 30

Ale is another man, 55

All must fare when they are fetched, 188

All things bide their day, 218

All will come to an end, 233

Bare is the back of the brotherless, 241

Best to bairn is mother still, 41

Bewail he, who brought the woe, 175

Broad spears are about now, 133

Deeds done will be told of, 224

Even so shall bale be bettered by biding greater bale, 140

For one thing alone will I not be known, 192

From ill cometh ill, 105

Good luck and goodliness are twain, 105

Hand for wont doth yearn, 226

Hottest is the fire that lies on oneself, 176

Ill deed gains ill hap, 188

Ill heed still to ill doth lead, 121

Ill if a thrall is thine only friend, 240

Ill it is ill to be, 165

Ill it is to goad the foolhardy, 30

Let one oak have what from the other it shaves, 67

Little can cope with cunning of eld, 205

Long it takes to try a man, 61

Many a man lies hid within himself, 203

Many a man stretches round the door to the lock, 86

More one knows the more one tries, 30

No man makes himself, 125

Now this, now that has strokes in his garth, 125

Odd haps are worst haps, 37

Oft a listening ear in the holt is anear, 173

Oft fail in wisdom folk of better trust, 32

Old friends are the last to sever, 240

One may be apaid of a man's aid, 44

Overpraised, and first to fail, 132

Sooth is the sage's guess, 92

Swear loud and say little, 266

The lower must lowt, 267

The nigher the call, the further the man, 211

Things boded will happen, so will things unboded, 32

Though the spoon has taken it up, yet the mouth has had no sup, 168

Thralls wreak themselves at once, dastards never, 35

Thrice of yore have all things happed, 262

To the goat-house for wool, 226

With hell's man are dealings ill, 176

Woe is before one's own door when it is inside one's neighbour's, 105

This web edition published by:

The University of Adelaide Library
University of Adelaide
South Australia 5005

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:58


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Burmese Days, by George Orwell

Chapter 18

After the row overnight Ellis was looking forward to a week of baiting Flory. He had nicknamed him Nancy — short for nigger’s Nancy Boy, but the women did not know that — and was already inventing wild scandals about him. Ellis always invented scandals about anyone with whom he had quarrelled — scandals which grew, by repeated embroideries, into a species of saga. Flory’s incautious remark that Dr Veraswami was a ‘damned good fellow’ had swelled before long into a whole Daily Worker-ful of blasphemy and sedition.

‘On my honour, Mrs Lackersteen,’ said Ellis — Mrs Lackersteen had taken a sudden dislike to Flory after discovering the great secret about Verrall, and she was quite ready to listen to Ellis’s tales — ‘on my honour, if you’d been there last night and heard the things that man Flory was saying — well, it’d have made you shiver in your shoes!’

‘Really! You know, I always thought he had such CURIOUS ideas. What has he been talking about now? Not SOCIALISM, I hope?’

There were long recitals. However, to Ellis’s disappointment, Flory had not stayed in Kyauktada to be baited. He had gone back to camp the day after his dismissal by Elizabeth. Elizabeth heard most of the scandalous tales about him. She understood his character perfectly now. She understood why it was that he had so often bored her and irritated her. He was a highbrow — her deadliest word — a highbrow, to be classed with Lenin, A. J. Cook and the dirty little poets in the Montparnasse cafes. She could have forgiven him even his Burmese mistress more easily than that. Flory wrote to her three days later; a weak, stilted letter, which he sent by hand — his camp was a day’s march from Kyauktada. Elizabeth did not answer.

It was lucky for Flory that at present he was too busy to have time to think. The whole camp was at sixes and sevens since his long absence. Nearly thirty coolies were missing, the sick elephant was worse than ever, and a vast pile of teak logs which should have been sent off ten days earlier were still waiting because the engine would not work. Flory, a fool about machinery, struggled with the bowels of the engine until he was black with grease and Ko S’la told him sharply that white men ought not to do ‘coolie-work’. The engine was finally persuaded to run, or at least to totter. The sick elephant was discovered to be suffering from tapeworms. As for the coolies, they had deserted because their supply of opium had been cut off — they would not stay in the jungle without opium, which they took as a prophylactic against fever. U Po Kyin, willing to do Flory a bad turn, had caused the Excise Officers to make a raid and seize the opium. Flory wrote to Dr Veraswami, asking for his help. The doctor sent back a quantity of opium, illegally procured, medicine for the elephant and a careful letter of instructions. A tapeworm measuring twenty-one feet was extracted. Flory was busy twelve hours a day. In the evening if there was no more to do he would plunge into the jungle and walk and walk until the sweat stung his eyes and his knees were bleeding from the briers. The nights were his bad time. The bitterness of what had happened was sinking into him, as it usually does, by slow degrees.

Meanwhile, several days had passed and Elizabeth had not yet seen Verrall at less than a hundred yards’ distance. It had been a great disappointment when he had not appeared at the Club on the evening of his arrival. Mr Lackersteen was really quite angry when he discovered that he had been hounded into his dinner-jacket for nothing. Next morning Mrs Lackersteen made her husband send an officious note to the dakbungalow, inviting Verrall to the Club; there was no answer, however. More days passed, and Verrall made no move to join in the local society. He had even neglected his official calls, not even bothering to present himself at Mr Macgregor’s office. The dakbungalow was at the other end of the town, near the station, and he had made himself quite comfortable there. There is a rule that one must vacate a dakbungalow after a stated number of days, but Verrall peaceably ignored it. The Europeans only saw him at morning and evening on the maidan. On the second day after his arrival fifty of his men turned out with sickles and cleared a large patch of the maidan, after which Verrall was to be seen galloping to and fro, practising polo strokes. He took not the smallest notice of any Europeans who passed down the road. Westfield and Ellis were furious, and even Mr Macgregor said that Verrall’s behaviour was ‘ungracious’. They would all have fallen at the feet of a lieutenant the Honourable if he had shown the smallest courtesy; as it was, everyone except the two women detested him from the start. It is always so with titled people, they are either adored or hated. If they accept one it is charming simplicity, if they ignore one it is loathsome snobbishness; there are no half-measures.

Verrall was the youngest son of a peer, and not at all rich, but by the method of seldom paying a bill until a writ was issued against him, he managed to keep himself in the only things he seriously cared about: clothes and horses. He had come out to India in a British cavalry regiment, and exchanged into the Indian Army because it was cheaper and left him greater freedom for polo. After two years his debts were so enormous that he entered the Burma Military Police, in which it was notoriously possible to save money; however, he detested Burma — it is no country for a horseman — and he had already applied to go back to his regiment. He was the kind of soldier who can get exchanges when he wants them. Meanwhile, he was only to be in Kyauktada for a month, and he had no intention of mixing himself up with all the petty sahiblog of the district. He knew the society of those small Burma stations — a nasty, poodle-faking, horseless riffraff. He despised them.

They were not the only people whom Verrall despised, however. His various contempts would take a long time to catalogue in detail. He despised the entire non-military population of India, a few famous polo players excepted. He despised the entire Army as well, except the cavalry. He despised all Indian regiments, infantry and cavalry alike. It was true that he himself belonged to a native regiment, but that was only for his own convenience. He took no interest in Indians, and his Urdu consisted mainly of swear-words, with all the verbs in the third person singular. His Military Policemen he looked on as no better than coolies. ‘Christ, what God-forsaken swine!’ he was often heard to mutter as he moved down the ranks inspecting, with the old subahdar carrying his sword behind him. Verrall had even been in trouble once for his outspoken opinions on native troops. It was at a review, and Verrall was among the group of officers standing behind the general. An Indian infantry regiment approached for the march-past.

‘The —— Rifles,’ somebody said.

‘AND look at it,’ said Verrall in his surly boy’s voice.

The white-haired colonel of the —— Rifles was standing near. He flushed to the neck, and reported Verrall to the general. Verrall was reprimanded, but the general, a British Army officer himself, did not rub it in very hard. Somehow, nothing very serious ever did happen to Verrall, however offensive he made himself. Up and down India, wherever he was stationed, he left behind him a trail of insulted people, neglected duties and unpaid bills. Yet the disgraces that ought to have fallen on him never did. He bore a charmed life, and it was not only the handle to his name that saved him. There was something in his eye before which duns, burra memsahibs and even colonels quailed.

It was a disconcerting eye, pale blue and a little protuberant, but exceedingly clear. It looked you over, weighed you in the balance and found you wanting, in a single cold scrutiny of perhaps five seconds. If you were the right kind of man — that is, if you were a cavalry officer and a polo player — Verrall took you for granted and even treated you with a surly respect; if you were any other type of man whatever, he despised you so utterly that he could not have hidden it even if he would. It did not even make any difference whether you were rich or poor, for in the social sense he was not more than normally a snob. Of course, like all sons of rich families, he thought poverty disgusting and that poor people are poor because they prefer disgusting habits. But he despised soft living. Spending, or rather owing, fabulous sums on clothes, he yet lived almost as ascetically as a monk. He exercised himself ceaselessly and brutally, rationed his drink and his cigarettes, slept on a camp bed (in silk pyjamas) and bathed in cold water in the bitterest winter. Horsemanship and physical fitness were the only gods he knew. The stamp of hoofs on the maidan, the strong, poised feeling of his body, wedded centaurlike to the saddle, the polo-stick springy in his hand — these were his religion, the breath of his life. The Europeans in Burma — boozing, womanizing, yellow-faced loafers — made him physically sick when he thought of their habits. As for social duties of all descriptions, he called them poodle-faking and ignored them. Women he abhorred. In his view they were a kind of siren whose one aim was to lure men away from polo and enmesh them in tea-fights and tennis-parties. He was not, however, quite proof against women. He was young, and women of nearly all kinds threw themselves at his head; now and again he succumbed. But his lapses soon disgusted him, and he was too callous when the pinch came to have any difficulty about escaping. He had had perhaps a dozen such escapes during his two years in India.

A whole week went by. Elizabeth had not even succeeded in making Verrall’s acquaintance. It was so tantalizing! Every day, morning and evening, she and her aunt walked down to the Club and back again, past the maidan; and there was Verrall, hitting the polo-balls the sepoys threw for him, ignoring the two women utterly. So near and yet so far! What made it even worse was that neither woman would have considered it decent to speak of the matter directly. One evening the polo-ball, struck too hard, came swishing through the grass and rolled across the road in front of them. Elizabeth and her aunt stopped involuntarily. But it was only a sepoy who ran to fetch the ball. Verrall had seen the women and kept his distance.

Next morning Mrs Lackersteen paused as they came out of the gate. She had given up riding in her rickshaw lately. At the bottom of the maidan the Military Policemen were drawn up, a dust-coloured rank with bayonets glittering. Verrall was facing them, but not in uniform — he seldom put on his uniform for morning parade, not thinking it necessary with mere Military Policemen. The two women were looking at everything except Verrall, and at the same time, in some manner, were contriving to look at him.

‘The wretched thing is,’ said Mrs Lackersteen — this was a propos de bottes, but the subject needed no introduction — ‘the wretched thing is that I’m afraid your uncle simply MUST go back to camp before long.’

‘Must he really?’

‘I’m afraid so. It is so HATEFUL in camp at this time of year! Oh, those mosquitoes!’

‘Couldn’t he stay a bit longer? A week, perhaps?’

‘I don’t see how he can. He’s been nearly a month in headquarters now. The firm would be furious if they heard of it. And of course both of us will have to go with him. SUCH a bore! The mosquitoes — simply terrible!’

Terrible indeed! To have to go away before Elizabeth had so much as said how-do-you-do to Verrall! But they would certainly have to go if Mr Lackersteen went. It would never do to leave him to himself. Satan finds some mischief still, even in the jungle. A ripple like fire ran down the line of sepoys; they were unfixing bayonets before marching away. The dusty rank turned left, saluted, and marched off in columns of fours. The orderlies were coming from the police lines with the ponies and polo-sticks. Mrs Lackersteen took a heroic decision.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘we’ll take a short-cut across the maidan. It’s SO much quicker than going right round by the road.’

It WAS quicker by about fifty yards, but no one ever went that way on foot, because of the grass-seeds that got into one’s stockings. Mrs Lackersteen plunged boldly into the grass, and then, dropping even the pretence of making for the Club, took a bee-line for Verrall, Elizabeth following. Either woman would have died on the rack rather than admit that she was doing anything but take a short-cut. Verrall saw them coming, swore, and reined in his pony. He could not very well cut them dead now that they were coming openly to accost him. The damned cheek of these women! He rode slowly towards them with a sulky expression on his face, chivvying the polo-ball with small strokes.

‘Good morning, Mr Verrall!’ Mrs Lackersteen called out in a voice of saccharine, twenty yards away.

‘Morning!’ he returned surlily, having seen her face and set her down as one of the usual scraggy old boiling-fowls of an Indian station.

The next moment Elizabeth came level with her aunt. She had taken off her spectacles and was swinging her Terai hat on her hand. What did she care for sunstroke? She was perfectly aware of the prettiness of her cropped hair. A puff of wind — oh, those blessed breaths of wind, coming from nowhere in the stifling hot-weather days! — had caught her cotton frock and blown it against her, showing the outline of her body, slender and strong like a tree. Her sudden appearance beside the older, sun-scorched woman was a revelation to Verrall. He started so that the Arab mare felt it and would have reared on her hind legs, and he had to tighten the rein. He had not known until this moment, not having bothered to inquire, that there were any YOUNG women in Kyauktada.

‘My niece,’ Mrs Lackersteen said.

He did not answer, but he had thrown away the polo-stick, and he took off his topi. For a moment he and Elizabeth remained gazing at one another. Their fresh faces were unmarred in the pitiless light. The grass-seeds were tickling Elizabeth’s shins so that it was agony, and without her spectacles she could only see Verrall and his horse as a whitish blur. But she was happy, happy! Her heart bounded and the blood flowed into her face, dyeing it like a thin wash of aquarelle. The thought, ‘A peach, by Christ!’ moved almost fiercely through Verrall’s mind. The sullen Indians, holding the ponies’ heads, gazed curiously at the scene, as though the beauty of the two young people had made its impression even on them.

Mrs Lackersteen broke the silence, which had lasted half a minute.

‘You know, Mr Verrall,’ she said somewhat archly, ‘we think it RATHER unkind of you to have neglected us poor people all this time. When we’re so PINING for a new face at the Club.’

He was still looking at Elizabeth when he answered, but the change in his voice was remarkable.

‘I’ve been meaning to come for some days. Been so fearfully busy — getting my men into their quarters and all that. I’m sorry,’ he added — he was not in the habit of apologizing, but really, he had decided, this girl was rather an exceptional bit of stuff — ‘I’m sorry about not answering your note.’

‘Oh, not at all! We QUITE understood. But we do hope we shall see you at the Club this evening! Because, you know,’ she concluded even more archly, ‘if you disappoint us any longer, we shall begin to think you rather a NAUGHTY young man!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I’ll be there this evening.’

There was not much more to be said, and the two women walked on to the Club. But they stayed barely five minutes. The grass-seeds were causing their shins such torment that they were obliged to hurry home and change their stockings at once.

Verrall kept his promise and was at the Club that evening. He arrived a little earlier than the others, and he had made his presence thoroughly felt before being in the place five minutes. As Ellis entered the Club the old butler darted out of the card-room and waylaid him. He was in great distress, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

‘Sir! Sir!’

‘What the devil’s the matter now!’ said Ellis.

‘Sir! Sir! New master been beating me, sir!’

‘BEATING me sir!’ His voice rose on the ‘beating’ with a long tearful wail — ‘be-e-e-eating!’

‘Beating you? Do you good. Who’s been beating you?’

‘New master, sir. Military Police sahib. Beating me with his foot, sir — HERE!’ He rubbed himself behind.

‘Hell!’ said Ellis.

He went into the lounge. Verrall was reading the Field, and invisible except for Palm Beach trouser-ends and two lustrous sooty-brown shoes. He did not trouble to stir at hearing someone else come into the room. Ellis halted.

‘Here, you — what’s your name — Verrall!’

‘Have you been kicking our butler?’

Verrall’s sulky blue eye appeared round the corner of the Field, like the eye of a crustacean peering round a rock.

‘What?’ he repeated shortly.

‘I said, have you been kicking our bloody butler?’

‘Then what the hell do you mean by it?’

‘Beggar gave me his lip. I sent him for a whisky and soda, and he brought it warm. I told him to put ice in it, and he wouldn’t — talked some bloody rot about saving the last pieces of ice. So I kicked his bottom. Serve him right.’

Ellis turned quite grey. He was furious. The butler was a piece of Club property and not to be kicked by strangers. But what most angered Ellis was the thought that Verrall quite possibly suspected him of being SORRY for the butler — in fact, of disapproving of kicking AS SUCH.

‘Serve him right? I dare say it bloody well did serve him right. But what in hell’s that got to do with it? Who are YOU to come kicking our servants?’

‘Bosh, my good chap. Needed kicking. You’ve let your servants get out of hand here.’

‘You damned, insolent young tick, what’s it got to do with YOU if he needed kicking? You’re not even a member of this Club. It’s our job to kick the servants, not yours.’

Verrall lowered the Field and brought his other eye into play. His surly voice did not change its tone. He never lost his temper with a European; it was never necessary.

‘My good chap, if anyone gives me lip I kick his bottom. Do you want me to kick yours?’

All the fire went out of Ellis suddenly. He was not afraid, he had never been afraid in his life; only, Verrall’s eye was too much for him. That eye could make you feel as though you were under Niagara! The oaths wilted on Ellis’s lips; his voice almost deserted him. He said querulously and even plaintively:

‘But damn it, he was quite right not to give you the last bit of ice. Do you think we only buy ice for you? We can only get the stuff twice a week in this place.’

‘Rotten bad management on your part, then,’ said Verrall, and retired behind the Field, content to let the matter drop.

Ellis was helpless. The calm way in which Verrall went back to his paper, quite genuinely forgetting Ellis’s existence, was maddening. Should he not give the young swab a good, rousing kick?

But somehow, the kick was never given. Verrall had earned many kicks in his life, but he had never received one and probably never would. Ellis seeped helplessly back to the card-room, to work off his feelings on the butler, leaving Verrall in possession of the lounge.

As Mr Macgregor entered the Club gate he heard the sound of music. Yellow chinks of lantern-light showed through the creeper that covered the tennis-screen. Mr Macgregor was in a happy mood this evening. He had promised himself a good, long talk with Miss Lackersteen — such an exceptionally intelligent girl, that! — and he had a most interesting anecdote to tell her (as a matter of fact, it had already seen the light in one of those little articles of his in Blackwood’s) about a dacoity that had happened in Sagaing in 1913. She would love to hear it, he knew. He rounded the tennis-screen expectantly. On the court, in the mingled light of the waning moon and of lanterns slung among the trees, Verrall and Elizabeth were dancing. The chokras had brought out chairs and a table for the gramophone, and round these the other Europeans were sitting or standing. As Mr Macgregor halted at the corner of the court, Verrall and Elizabeth circled round and glided past him, barely a yard away. They were dancing very close together, her body bent backwards under his. Neither noticed Mr Macgregor.

Mr Macgregor made his way round the court. A chilly, desolate feeling had taken possession of his entrails. Good-bye, then, to his talk with Miss Lackersteen! It was an effort to screw his face into its usual facetious good-humour as he came up to the table.

‘A Terpsichorean evening!’ he remarked in a voice that was doleful in spite of himself.

No one answered. They were all watching the pair on the tennis court. Utterly oblivious of the others, Elizabeth and Verrall glided round and round, round and round, their shoes sliding easily on the slippery concrete. Verrall danced as he rode, with matchless grace. The gramophone was playing ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home,’ which was then going round the world like a pestilence and had got as far as Burma:

‘Show me the way to go home, I’m tired an’ I wanna go to bed; I had a little drink ‘bout an hour ago, An’ it’s gone right TO my head!’ etc.

The dreary, depressing trash floated out among the shadowy trees and the streaming scents of flowers, over and over again, for Mrs Lackersteen was putting the gramophone needle back to the start when it neared the centre. The moon climbed higher, very yellow, looking, as she rose from the murk of dark clouds at the horizon, like a sick woman creeping out of bed. Verrall and Elizabeth danced on and on, indefatigably, a pale voluptuous shape in the gloom. They moved in perfect unison like some single animal. Mr Macgregor, Ellis, Westfield and Mr Lackersteen stood watching them, their hands in their pockets, finding nothing to say. The mosquitoes came nibbling at their ankles. Someone called for drinks, but the whisky was like ashes in their mouths. The bowels of all four older men were twisted with bitter envy.

Verrall did not ask Mrs Lackersteen for a dance, nor, when he and Elizabeth finally sat down, did he take any notice of the other Europeans. He merely monopolized Elizabeth for half an hour more, and then, with a brief good night to the Lackersteens and not a word to anyone else, left the Club. The long dance with Verrall had left Elizabeth in a kind of dream. He had asked her to come out riding with him! He was going to lend her one of his ponies! She never even noticed that Ellis, angered by her behaviour, was doing his best to be openly rude. It was late when the Lackersteens got home, but there was no sleep yet for Elizabeth or her aunt. They were feverishly at work till midnight, shortening a pair of Mrs Lackersteen’s jodhpurs, and letting out the calves, to fit Elizabeth.

‘I hope, dear, you CAN ride a horse?’ said Mrs Lackersteen.

‘Oh, of course! I’ve ridden ever such a lot, at home.’

She had ridden perhaps a dozen times in all, when she was sixteen. No matter, she would manage somehow! She would have ridden a tiger, if Verrall were to accompany her.

When at last the jodhpurs were finished and Elizabeth had tried them on, Mrs Lackersteen sighed to see her. She looked ravishing in jodhpurs, simply ravishing! And to think that in only a day or two they had got to go back to camp, for weeks, months perhaps, leaving Kyauktada and this most DESIRABLE young man! The pity of it! As they moved to go upstairs Mrs Lackersteen paused at the door. It had come into her head to make a great and painful sacrifice. She took Elizabeth by the shoulders and kissed her with a more real affection than she had ever shown.

‘My dear, it would be such a SHAME for you to go away from Kyauktada just now!’

‘It would, rather.’

‘Then I’ll tell you what, dear. We WON’T go back to that horrid jungle! Your uncle shall go alone. You and I shall stay in Kyauktada.’

Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:58