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+business puzzles me, though you and your friends here seem to find it
+devilish amusing. When I told the Chief Constable, the manager of the
+shipyard, and the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Work that you were
+the guilty party, they all roared. For some reason the Admiral and the
+shipyard manager kept winking at one another and gurgling till I
+thought they would have choked. What _is_ the joke?"
+
+"If you are good, Dawson, I will tell you some day. This is November,
+and the _Rampagious_--the ship described on your paper--left for
+Portsmouth in August. In July--" I broke off hurriedly, lest I should
+tell my visitor too much. "It has taken our friend who put the paper
+in the sardine tin three months to find out details of her. I could
+have done better than that, Dawson."
+
+"That is just what the Admiral said, though he wouldn't explain why."
+
+"The truth is, Dawson, that the Admiral and I both come from Devon,
+the land of pirates, smugglers, and buccaneers. We are law breakers by
+instinct and family tradition. When we get an officer of the law on
+toast, we like to make the most of him. It is a playful little way of
+ours which I am sure you will understand and pardon."
+
+"You know, of course, that I am justified in arresting you. I have a
+warrant and handcuffs in my pocket."
+
+"Admirable man!" I cried, with enthusiasm. "You are, Dawson, the
+perfect detective. As a criminal I should be mightily afraid of you.
+But, as in my buttonhole I always wear the white flower which
+proclaims to the world my blameless life, I am thoroughly enjoying
+this visit and our cosy chat beside the fire. Shall I telephone to my
+office and say that I shall be unavoidably detained from duty for an
+indefinite time? 'Detained' would be the strict truth and the _mot
+juste_. If you would kindly lock me up, say, for three years or the
+duration of the war I should be your debtor. I have often thought that
+a prison, provided that one were allowed unlimited paper and the use
+of a typewriter, would be the most charming of holidays--a perfect
+rest cure. There are three books in my head which I should like to
+write. Arrest me, Dawson, I implore you! Put on the handcuffs--I have
+never been handcuffed--ring up a taxi, and let us be off to jail. You
+will, I hope, do me the honour of lunching with me first and meeting
+my wife. She will be immensely gratified to be quit of me. It cannot
+often have happened in your lurid career, Dawson, to be welcomed with
+genuine enthusiasm."
+
+"Why did that man say that he prepared the description of the ship for
+you?"
+
+"That is what we are going to find out, and I will help you all I can.
+My reputation is like the bloom upon the peach--touch it, and it is
+gone for ever. There is a faint glimmer of the truth at the back of my
+mind which may become a clear light. Did he say that he had given it
+to me personally, into my own hand?"
+
+"No. He said that he was approached by a man whom he had known off and
+on for years, a man who was employed by you in connection with
+shipyard inquiries. He was informed that this man was still employed
+by you for the same purpose now as in the past."
+
+"Your case against me is thinning out, Dawson. At its best it is
+second-hand; at its worst, the mere conjecture of a rather careless
+draughtsman. I have two things to do: first to find out the real
+seducer, who is probably also the despatcher of the parcels to the
+late lieutenant of Northumberland Fusiliers, and second, to save if I
+can this poor fool of a shipyard draughtsman from punishment for his
+folly. I don't doubt that he honestly thought he was dealing with me."
+
+"He will have to be punished. The Admiral will insist upon that."
+
+"We must make the punishment as light as we can. You shall help me
+with all the discretionary authority with which you are equipped. I
+can see, Dawson, from the tactful skill with which you have dealt with
+me that discretion is among your most distinguished characteristics.
+If you had been a stupid, bull-headed policeman, you would have been
+up against pretty serious trouble."
+
+"That was quite my own view," replied Dawson drily.
+
+"Who is the man described by our erring draughtsman?"
+
+"He won't say. We have put on every allowable method of pressure, and
+some that are not in ordinary times permitted. We have had over this
+spy hunt business to shed most of our tender English regard for
+suspected persons, and to adopt the French system of fishing
+inquiries. In France the police try to make a man incriminate himself;
+in England we try our hardest to prevent him. That may be very right
+and just in peace time against ordinary law breakers; but war is war,
+and spies are too dangerous to be treated tenderly. We have
+cross-examined the man, and bully-ragged him, but he won't give up the
+name of his accomplice. It may be a relation. One thing seems sure.
+The man is, or was, a member of your staff, engaged in shipyard
+inquiries. Can you give me a list of the men who are or have been on
+this sort of work during the past few years?"
+
+"I will get it for you. But please use it carefully. My present men
+are precious jewels, the few left to me by zealous military
+authorities. What I must look for is some one over military age who
+has left me or been dismissed--probably dismissed. When a British
+subject, of decent education and once respectable surroundings, gets
+into the hands of German agents, you may be certain of one thing,
+Dawson, that he has become a rotter through drink."
+
+"That's it," cried Dawson. "You have hit it. Crime and drink are twin
+brothers as no one knows better than the police. Look out for the name
+and address of a man dismissed for drunkenness and we shall have our
+bird."
+
+"The name I can no doubt give you, but not the address."
+
+"Give us any address where he lived, even if it were ten years ago,
+and we will track him down in three days. That is just routine police
+work."
+
+"I never presume to teach an expert his business--and you, Dawson, are
+a super-expert, a director-general of those of common qualities--but
+would it not be well to warn all the Post Offices, so that when
+another parcel is brought in addressed to the lieutenant the bearer
+may be arrested?"
+
+Dawson sniffed. "Police work; common police work. It was done at once
+for this city and fifty miles round. No parcel was put in last week.
+The warning has since been extended to the whole of the United
+Kingdom. We may get our man this week, or at least a messenger of his,
+but no news has yet come to me. I will lunch with you, as you so
+kindly suggest, and afterwards I want you to come with me to see the
+draughtsman in the lockup. You may be able to shake his confounded
+obstinacy. Run the pathetic stunt. Say if he keeps silent that you
+will be arrested, your home broken up, your family driven into the
+workhouse, and you yourself probably shot. Pitch it strong and rich.
+He is a bit of a softy from the look of him. That tender-hearted lot
+are always the most obstinate when asked to give away their pals."
+
+"Do you know, Dawson," I said, as he went upstairs with me to have a
+lick and a polish, as he put it--"I am inclined to agree with Cary
+that you are rather an inhuman beast."
+
+My wife, with whom I could exchange no more than a dozen words and a
+wink or two, gripped the situation and played up to it in the fashion
+which compels the admiration and terror of mere men. Do they humbug
+us, their husbands, as they do the rest of the world on our behalf?
+She met Dawson as if he were an old family friend, heaped hospitality
+upon him, and chaffed him blandly as if to entertain a police officer
+with a warrant and handcuffs in his pocket were the best joke in the
+world. "My husband, Mr. Dawson, needs a holiday very badly, but won't
+take one. He thinks that the war cannot be pursued successfully unless
+he looks after it himself. If you would carry him off and keep him
+quiet for a bit, I should be deeply grateful." She then fell into a
+discussion with Dawson of the most conveniently situated prisons. Mrs.
+Copplestone dismissed Dartmoor and Portland as too bleakly situated,
+but was pleased to approve of Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight--which I
+rather fancy is a House of Detention for women. She insisted that the
+climate of the Island was suited to my health, and wrung a promise
+from Dawson that I should, if possible, be interned there. Dawson's
+manners and conversation surprised me. His homespun origin was
+evident, yet he had developed an easy social style which was neither
+familiar nor aggressive. We were in his eyes eccentrics, possibly what
+he would call among his friends "a bit off," and he bore himself
+towards us accordingly. My small daughter, Jane, to whom he had been
+presented as a colonel of police--little Jane is deeply versed in
+military ranks--took to him at once, and his manner towards her
+confirmed my impression that some vestiges of humanity may still be
+discovered in him by the patient searcher. She insisted upon sitting
+next to him and in holding his hand when it was not employed in
+conveying food to his mouth. She was startled at first by the
+discussion upon the prisons most suitable for me, but quickly became
+reconciled to the idea of a temporary separation.
+
+"Colonel Dawson," she asked. "When daddy is in prison, may I come and
+see him sometimes. Mother and me?" Dawson gripped his hair--we were
+the maddest crew!--and replied. "Of course you shall, Miss Jane, as
+often as you like."
+
+"Thank you, Colonel Dawson; you are a nice man. I love you. Now show
+me the handcuffs in your pocket."
+
+For the second time that day poor Dawson blushed. He must have
+regretted many times that he had mentioned to me those unfortunate
+darbies. Now amid much laughter he was compelled to draw forth a
+pretty shining pair of steel wristlets and permit Jane to put them on.
+They were much too large for her; she could slip them on and off
+without unlocking; but as toys they were a delight. "I shouldn't mind
+being a prisoner," she declared, "if dear Colonel Dawson took me up."
+
+We were sitting upon the fire-guard after luncheon, dallying over our
+coffee, when Jane demanded to be shown a real arrest. "Show me how you
+take up a great big man like Daddy."
+
+Then came a surprise, which for a moment had so much in it of bitter
+realism that it drove the blood from my wife's cheeks. I could not
+follow Dawson's movements; his hands flickered like those of a
+conjurer, there came a sharp click, and the handcuffs were upon my
+wrists! I stared at them speechless, wondering how they got there,
+and, looking up, met the coldly triumphant eyes of the detective. I
+realised then exactly how the professional manhunter glares at the
+prey into whom, after many days, he has set his claws. My wife gasped
+and clutched at my elbow, little Jane screamed, and for a few seconds
+even I thought that the game had been played and that serious business
+was about to begin. Dawson gave us a few seconds of apprehension, and
+then laughed grimly. From his waistcoat pocket he drew a key, and the
+fetters were removed almost as quickly as they had been clapped on.
+"Tit for tat," said he. "You have had your fun with me. Fair play is a
+jewel."
+
+Little Jane was the first to recover speech. "I knew that dear Colonel
+Dawson was only playing," she cried. "He only did it to please me.
+Thank you, Colonel, though you did frighten me just a weeny bit at
+first." And pulling him down towards her she kissed him heartily upon
+his prickly cheek. It was a queer scene.
+
+The door bell rang loudly, and we were informed that a policeman stood
+without who was inquiring for Chief Inspector Dawson. "Show him in
+here," said I. The constable entered, and his manner of addressing my
+guest--that of a raw second lieutenant towards a general of
+division--shed a new light upon Dawson's pre-eminence in his Service.
+"A telegram for you, sir." Dawson seized it, was about to tear it
+open, remembered suddenly his hostess, and bowed towards her. "Have I
+your permission, madam?" he asked. She smiled and nodded; I turned
+away to conceal a laugh. "Good," cried Dawson, poring over the
+message. "I think, Mr. Copplestone, that you had better telephone to
+your office and say that you are unavoidably detained."
+
+"What--what is it?" cried my wife, who had again become white with
+sudden fear.
+
+"Something which will occupy the attention of your husband and myself
+to the exclusion of all other duties. This telegram informs me that a
+parcel has been handed in at Carlisle and the bearer arrested."
+
+"Excellent!" I cried. "My time is at your disposal, Dawson. We shall
+now get full light."
+
+He sat down and scribbled a reply wire directing the parcel and its
+bearer to be brought to him with all speed. "They should arrive in two
+or three hours," said he, "and in the meantime we will tackle the
+draughtsman who made that plan of the battleship. Good-bye Mrs.
+Copplestone, and thank you very much for your hospitality. Your
+husband goes with me." My wife shook hands with Dawson, and politely
+saw him off the premises. She has said little to me since about his
+visit, but I do not think that she wishes ever to meet with him again.
+Little Jane, who kissed him once more at parting, is still attached to
+the memory of her colonel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dawson led me to the private office at the Central Police Station,
+which was his temporary headquarters, and sent for the dossier of the
+locked up draughtsman. "I have here full particulars of him," said he,
+"and a verbatim note of my examination." I examined the photograph
+attached, which represented a bearded citizen of harmless aspect; over
+his features had spread a scared, puzzled look, with a suggestion in
+it of pathetic appeal. He looked like a human rabbit caught in an
+unexpected and uncomprehended trap. It was a police photograph. Then I
+began to read the dossier, but got no farther than the first
+paragraph. In it was set out the man's name, those of his wife and
+children, his employment, record of service, and so on. What arrested
+my researches was the maiden name of the wife, which, in accordance
+with the northern custom, had been entered as a part of her legal
+description. The name awoke in me a recollection of a painful incident
+within my experience. I saw before me the puffed, degraded face of one
+to whom I had given chance after chance of redeeming himself from
+thraldom to the whisky bottle, one who had promised again and again to
+amend his ways. At last, wearied, I had cast him out. He had been
+looking after an important shipbuilding district, had conspicuous
+ability and knowledge, the support of a faithful wife. But nothing
+availed to save him from himself. "Give me five minutes alone with
+your prisoner," I said to Dawson, "and I will give you the spy you
+seek."
+
+I had asked for five minutes, but two were sufficient for my purpose.
+The draughtsman had been obstinate with Dawson, seeking loyally to
+shield his wretched brother-in-law, but when he found that I had the
+missing thread in my hands, he gave in at once. "What relation is ----
+to your wife?" I asked. He had risen at my entrance, but the question
+went through him like a bullet; his pale face flushed, he staggered
+pitifully, and, sitting down, buried his face in his hands. "You may
+tell the truth now," I said gently. "We can easily find out what we
+must know, but the information will come better from you."
+
+"He is my wife's brother," murmured the man.
+
+"You knew that he was no longer in my service?"
+
+"Yes, I knew."
+
+I might fairly have asked why he had used my name, but refrained. One
+can readily pardon the lapses of an honest man, terrified at finding
+himself in the coils of the police, clinging to the good name of his
+wife and her family, clutching at any device to throw the
+sleuth-hounds of the law off the real scent. He had given his
+brother-in-law forbidden information from a loyal desire to help him
+and with no knowledge of the base use to which it would be put. When
+detected, he had sought at any cost to shield him.
+
+"I will do my best to help you," I said.
+
+His head drooped down till it rested upon his bent arms, and he
+groaned and panted under the torture of tears. His was not the stuff
+of which criminals are made.
+
+I found Dawson's chuckling joy rather repulsive. I felt that, being
+successful, he might at least have had the decency to dissemble his
+satisfaction. He might also have given me some credit for the rapid
+clearing up of the problem in detection. But he took the whole thing
+to himself, and gloated like a child over his own cleverness. I
+neither obtained from him thanks for my assistance nor apologies for
+his suspicions. It was Dawson, Dawson, all the time. Yet I found his
+egotism and unrelieved vanity extraordinarily interesting. As we sat
+together in his room waiting for the Carlisle train to come in he
+discoursed freely to me of his triumphs in detection, his wide-spread
+system of spying upon spies, his long delayed "sport" with some, and
+his ruthless rapid trapping of others. Men are never so interesting as
+when they talk shop, and as a talker of shop Dawson was sublime.
+
+"If," said Dawson, as the time approached for the closing scene, "our
+much-wanted friend has himself handed in the parcel at Carlisle--he
+would be afraid to trust an accomplice--our job will be done. If not,
+I will pull a drag net through this place which will bring him up
+within a day or two. What a fool the man is to think that he could
+escape the eye of Bill Dawson."
+
+A policeman entered, laid a packet upon the table before us, and
+announced that the prisoner had been placed in cell No. 2. Dawson
+sprang up. "We will have a look at him through the peephole, and if it
+is our man--" One glance was enough. Before me I saw him whom I had
+expected to see. He and his cargo of whisky bottles had reached the
+last stage of their long journey; at one end had been peace, reasonable
+prosperity, and a happy home; at the other was, perhaps, a rope or a
+bullet.
+
+Dawson began once more to descant upon his own astuteness, but I was
+too sick at heart to listen. I remembered only the visit years before
+which that man's wife had paid to me. "Will you not open the parcel?"
+I interposed. He fell upon it, exposed its contents of bread,
+chocolate, and sardine tins, and called for a can opener. He shook the
+tins one by one beside his ear, and then, selecting that which gave
+out no "flop" of oil, stripped it open, plunged his fingers inside,
+and pulled forth a clammy mess of putty and sawdust. In a moment he
+had come upon a paper which after reading he handed to me. It bore the
+words in English, "Informant arrested: dare not send more."
+
+"What a fool!" cried Dawson. "As if the evidence against him were not
+sufficient already he must give us this."
+
+"You will let that poor devil of a draughtsman down easily?" I
+murmured.
+
+"We want him as a witness," replied Dawson. "Tit for tat. If he helps
+us, we will help him. And now we will cut along to the Admiral. He is
+eager for news."
+
+We broke in upon the Admiral in his office near the shipyards, and he
+greeted me with cheerful badinage. "So you are in the hands of the
+police at last, Copplestone. I always told you what would be the end
+of your naval inquisitiveness."
+
+Dawson told his story, and the naval officer's keen kindly face grew
+stern and hard. "Germans I can respect," said he, "even those that
+pretend to be our friends. But one of our own folk--to sell us like
+this--ugh! Take the vermin away; Dawson, and stamp upon it."
+
+We stood talking for a few moments, and then Dawson broke in with a
+question. "I have never understood, Admiral, why you were so very
+confident that Mr. Copplestone here had no hand in this business. The
+case against him looked pretty ugly, yet you laughed at it all the
+time. Why were you so sure?"
+
+The Admiral surveyed Dawson as if he were some strange creature from
+an unknown world. "Mr. Copplestone is a friend of mine," said he
+drily.
+
+"Very likely," snapped the detective. "But is a man a white angel
+because he has the honour to be your friend?"
+
+"A fair retort," commented the Admiral. It happens that I had other
+and better reasons. For in July I myself showed Mr. Copplestone over
+the new battleship _Rampagious_, and after our inspection we both
+lunched with the builders and discussed her design and armament in
+every detail. So as Mr. Copplestone knew all about her in July, he was
+not likely to suborn a draughtsman in November. See?"
+
+"You should have told me this before. It was your duty."
+
+"My good Dawson," said the Admiral gently, "you are an excellent
+officer of police, but even you have a few things yet to learn. I had
+in my mind to give you a lesson, especially as I owed you some
+punishment for your impertinence in opening my friend Copplestone's
+private letters. You have had the lesson; profit by it."
+
+Dawson flushed angrily. "Punishment! Impertinence! This to me!"
+
+"Yes," returned the Admiral stiffly, "beastly impertinence."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+SABOTAGE
+
+Dawson showed no malice towards the Admiral or myself for our
+treatment of him. I do not think that he felt any; he was too fully
+occupied in collecting the spoils of victory to trouble his head about
+what a Scribbler or a Salt Horse might think of him. He gathered to
+himself every scrap of credit which the affair could be induced to
+yield, and received--I admit quite deservedly--the most handsome
+encomiums from his superiors in office. During the two weeks he passed
+in my city after the capture--weeks occupied in tracing out the
+threads connecting his wretch of a prisoner with the German agents
+upon what Dawson called his "little list"--he paid several visits both
+to my house and my office. His happiness demanded that he should read
+to me the many letters which poured in from high officials of the
+C.I.D., from the Chief Commissioner, and on one day--a day of days in
+the chronicles of Dawson--from the Home Secretary himself. To me it
+seemed that all these astute potentates knew their Dawson very
+thoroughly, and lubricated, as it were, with judicious flattery the
+machinery of his energies. I could not but admire Dawson's truly royal
+faculty for absorbing butter. The stomachs of most men, really good at
+their business, would have revolted at the diet which his superiors
+shovelled into Dawson, but he visibly expanded and blossomed. Yes,
+Scotland Yard knew its Dawson, and exactly how to stimulate the best
+that was in him. He never bored me; I enjoyed him too thoroughly.
+
+One day in my club I chanced upon the Admiral.
+
+"Have you met our friend Dawson lately?" I asked.
+
+"Met him?" shouted he, with a roar of laughter. "Met him? He is in my
+office every day--he almost lives with me; goodness knows when he does
+his work. He has a pocket full of letters which he has read to me till
+I know them by heart. If I did not know that he was a first-class man
+I should set him down as a colossal ass. Yet, I rather wish that the
+Admiralty would sometimes write to me as the severe but very human
+Scotland Yard does to Dawson."
+
+"Does he ever come to you in disguise?" I asked.
+
+"Not that I know of. I see vast numbers of people; some of them may be
+Dawson in his various incarnations, but he has not given himself
+away."
+
+Then I explained to my naval friend my own experience. "He tried," I
+said, "to play the disguise game on me, and clean bowled me the first
+time. While he was laughing over my discomfiture I studied his face
+more closely than a lover does that of his mistress. I tried to
+penetrate his methods. He never wears a wig or false hair; he is too
+wise for that folly. Yet he seems able to change his hair from light
+to dark, to make it lank or curly, short or long. He does it; how I
+don't know. He alters the shape of his nose, his cheeks, and his chin.
+I suppose that he pads them out with little rubber insets. He alters
+his voice, and his figure, and even his height. He can be stiff and
+upright like a drilled soldier, or loose-jointed and shambling like a
+tramp. He is a finished artist, and employs the very simplest means.
+He could, I truly believe, deceive his wife or his mother, but he will
+never again deceive me. I am not a specially observant man; still one
+can make a shot at most things when driven to it, and I object to
+being the subject of Dawson's ribaldry. If you will take my tip, you
+will be able to spot him as readily as I do now."
+
+"Good. I should love to score off Dawson. He is an aggravating beast."
+
+"Study his ears," said I. "He cannot alter their chief characters. The
+lobes of his ears are not loose, like yours or mine or those of most
+men and women; his are attached to the back of his cheekbones. My
+mother had lobes like those, so had the real Roger Tichborne; I
+noticed Dawson's at once. Also at the top fold of his ears he has
+rather a pronounced blob of flesh. This blob, more prominent in some
+men than in others, is, I believe, a surviving relic of the sharp
+point which adorned the ears of our animal ancestors. Dawson's
+ancestor must have been a wolf or a bloodhound. Whenever now I have a
+strange caller who is not far too tall or far too short to be Dawson,
+if a stranger stops me in the street to ask for a direction, if a
+porter at a station dashes up to help me with my bag, I go for his
+ears. If the lobes are attached to the cheekbones and there is a
+pronounced blob in the fold at the top, I address the man instantly as
+Dawson, however impossibly unlike Dawson he may be. I have spotted him
+twice now since he bowled me out, and he is frightfully savage--especially
+as I won't tell him how the trick is done. He says that it is my duty to
+tell him, and that he will compel me under some of his beloved Defence of
+the Realm Regulations. But the rack could not force me to give away my
+precious secret. Cherish it and use it. You will not tell, for you love
+to mystify the ruffian as much as I do."
+
+"I will watch for his ears when he next calls, which, I expect, will
+be to-morrow. Thank you very much. I won't sneak."
+
+"Remember that nothing else in the way of identification is of any
+use, for I doubt if either of us has ever seen the real, undisguised
+Dawson as he is known to God. We know a man whom we think is the
+genuine article--but is he? Cary's description of him is most unlike
+the man whom we see here. I expect that he has a different identity
+for every place which he visits. If he told me that at any moment he
+was wholly undisguised, I should be quite sure that he was lying. The
+man wallows in deception for the very sport of the thing. But he can't
+change his ears. Study them, and you will be safe."
+
+Our club was the only place in which we could be sure that Dawson did
+not penetrate, though I should not have been surprised to learn that
+one or two of the waitresses were in his pay. Dawson is an ardent
+feminist; he says that as secret agents women beat men to a frazzle.
+
+Shortly before Dawson left for his headquarters on the north-east
+coast he dropped in upon me. He had finished his researches, and
+revealed the results to me with immense satisfaction.
+
+"I have fixed up Menteith," he began, "and know exactly how he came
+into communication with the German Secret Service." The contemptuous
+emphasis which he laid on the word "Secret" would have annoyed the
+Central Office at Potsdam. I have given the detected British spy the
+name of Menteith after that of the most famous traitor in Scottish
+history; if I called him, say, Campbell or Macdonald, nothing could
+save me from the righteous vengeance of the outraged Clans.
+
+"It was all very simple," he went on, "like most things in my business
+when one gets to the bottom of them. He was seduced by a man whom the
+local police have had on their string for a long time, but who will
+now be put securely away. Menteith was a frequenter of a certain
+public house down the river, where he posed as an authority on the
+Navy, and hinted darkly at his stores of hidden information. Our
+German agent made friends with him, gave him small sums for drinks,
+and flattered his vanity. It is strange how easily some men are
+deceived by flattery. The agent got from Menteith one or two bits of
+news by pretending a disbelief in his sources of intelligence, and
+then, when the fool had committed himself, threatened to denounce him
+to the police unless he took service with him altogether. Money, of
+course, passed, but not very much. The Germans who employ spies so
+extensively pay them extraordinarily little. They treat them like
+scurvy dogs, for whom any old bone is good enough, and I'm not sure
+they are not right. They go on the principle that the white trash who
+will sell their country need only to be paid with kicks and coppers.
+Menteith swears that he did not receive more than four pounds for the
+plans and description of the _Rampagious_. Fancy selling one's country
+and risking one's neck for four measly pounds sterling! If he had got
+four thousand, I should have had some respect for him. His home is in
+a wretched state, and his wife--a pretty woman, though almost a
+skeleton, and a very nicely mannered, honest woman--says that her
+husband unexpectedly gave her four pounds a month ago. He had kept
+none of the blood money for drink! Curious, isn't it?"
+
+"It shows that the man had some good in him. It shows that he was
+ashamed to use the money upon himself. We must do something for the
+poor wife, Dawson."
+
+"She will easily get work, and she will be far better without her sot
+of a husband. She did not cry when I told her everything. 'I ought to
+have left him long ago,' she said, 'but I tried to save him. Thank God
+we have no children,' That seemed to be her most insistent thought,
+for she repeated it over and over again. 'Thank God that we have no
+children.'"
+
+"I hope that you were gentle with her, Dawson," said I, deeply moved.
+Long ago the wife had come to me and pleaded for her husband. She had
+shed no tear; she had admitted the justice, the necessity, of my
+sentence. "Can you not give him another chance?" she had asked. "No,"
+I had answered sadly. "He has exhausted all the chances." When she had
+risen to go and I had pressed her hand, she had said, still dry-eyed,
+"You are right, sir, it is no use, no use at all. Thank God that we
+have no children."
+
+"I hope that you were gentle with her, Dawson," I repeated.
+
+He astonished me by the suddenness of his explosion. "Damn," roared
+he--"damn and blast! Do you think that I am a brute. Gentle! It was as
+much as I could do not to kiss the woman, as your little daughter
+kissed me, and to promise that I would get her husband off somehow.
+But I should not be a friend to her if I tried to save that man."
+
+So Dawson had soft spots in his armour of callousness, and little
+Jane's instinct was far surer than mine. She had taken to him at
+sight. When I tried to get from her why, why he had so marked an
+attraction for her, her replies baffled me more than the central fact.
+"I love Colonel Dawson. He is a nice man. He has a little girl like
+me. Her name is Clara. Her birthday is next month. I shall save up my
+pocket money and send Clara a present. I like Colonel Dawson better
+even than dear Bailey." I tore my hair, for "Bailey" is a wholly
+imaginary friend of little Jane, whom I invented one evening at her
+bedside and who has grown gradually into a personage of clearly
+defined attributes--like the "Putois" of Anatole France. Dawson and
+"Bailey"; they are both "nice men" and little Jane's friends; she is
+sure of them, and I expect that she is right. Children always are
+right.
+
+Dawson, after his outburst, glowered at me for a moment and then
+laughed. "I am a man," said he, "though you may not think it, and I
+have my weaknesses. But I never give way to them when they interfere
+with business. Menteith is in my grip, and he won't get out of it. But
+he is a poor creature. He handed over the description of the
+_Rampagious_, saw it hidden in the sardine tin, and was ordered to
+take the food parcel to the Post Office. The German agent who used him
+had no notion of risking his own skin. Then followed the discovery and
+the arrest of the draughtsman who had drawn the plan. Those who had
+seduced Menteith forbade him to come near them. They slipped away into
+hiding--which profited them little since all of them were on our
+string--after threatening Menteith that he would be murdered if he
+gave himself up to the police, as in his terror he seemed to want to
+do. When nothing happened for two weeks, the vermin came out of their
+holes, made up the last parcel, and forced Menteith to go to Carlisle
+in order to post it. All through he has been the most abject of tools,
+and received nothing except the four pounds and various small sums
+spent in drinks."
+
+"You have the principal all right?"
+
+"Yes, I have him tight. The others associated with him I shall leave
+free; they will be most useful in future. They don't know that we know
+them; when they do know, their number will go up, for they will be
+then of no further use to us. It is a beautiful system, Mr. Copplestone,
+and you have had the unusual privilege of seeing it at work."
+
+"What will your prisoners get by way of punishment?"
+
+"I am not sure, but I can guess pretty closely. The principal will go
+out suddenly early some morning. He is a Jew of uncertain Central
+European origin, Pole or Czech, a natural born British subject, a
+shining light of a local anti-German society, an 'indispensable' in
+his job and exempted from military service. He will give no more
+trouble. Menteith will spend anything from seven to ten years in p.s.,
+learn to do without his daily whisky bottle, and possibly come out a
+decent citizen. The draughtsman, I expect, will be let off with
+eighteen months of the Jug. We are just, but not harsh. My birds don't
+interest me much once they have been caught; it is the catching that I
+enjoy. Down in the south, where I have a home of my own--which I
+haven't seen during the past year except occasionally for an hour or
+two--I used to grow big show chrysanthemums. All through the processes
+of rooting the cuttings, repotting, taking the buds, feeding up the
+plants, I never could endure any one to touch them. But once the
+flowers were fully developed, my wife could cut them as much as she
+pleased and fill the house with them. My job was done when I had got
+the flowers perfect. It is just the same with my business. I cultivate
+the little dears I am after, and hate any one to interfere with me; I
+humour them and water them and feed them with opportunities till they
+are ripe, and then I stick out my hand and grab them. After that the
+law can do what it likes with them; they ain't my concern any more."
+
+By this time it had become apparent even to my slow intelligence why
+Dawson told me so much about himself and his methods. He had formed
+the central figure in a real story in print, and the glory of it
+possessed him. He had tasted of the rich sweet wine of fame, and he
+thirsted for more of the same vintage. He never in so many words asked
+me to write this book, but his eagerness to play Dr. Johnson to my
+Boswell appeared in all our relations. He was communicative far beyond
+the limits of official discretion. If I now disclosed half, or a
+quarter, of what he told me of the inner working of the Secret
+Service, Scotland Yard, which admires and loves him, would cast him
+out, lock him up securely in gaol, and prepare for me a safe
+harbourage in a contiguous cell. So for both our sakes I must be very,
+very careful.
+
+"You have been most helpful to me," he said handsomely at parting,
+"and if anything good turns up on the North-East coast, I will let you
+know. Could you come if I sent for you?"
+
+"I would contrive to manage it," said I.
+
+Dawson went away, and the pressure of daily work and interests thrust
+him from my mind. For a month I heard nothing of him or of Cary, and
+then one morning came a letter and a telegram. The letter was from
+Richard Cary, and read as follows: "A queer thing has happened here.
+A cruiser which had come in for repair was due to go out this morning.
+She was ready for sea the night before, the officers and crew had all
+come back from short leave, and the working parties had cleared out.
+Then in the middle watch, when the torpedo lieutenant was testing the
+circuits, it was discovered that all the cables leading to the guns
+had been cut. Dawson has been called in, and bids me say that, if you
+can come down, now is the chance of your life. I will put you up."
+
+The telegram was from Dawson himself. It ran: "They say I'm beaten.
+But I'm not. Come and see."
+
+"The deuce," said I. "Sabotage! I am off."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+BAFFLED
+
+When at last I arrived at Cary's flat it was very late, and I was
+exceedingly tired and out of temper. A squadron of Zeppelins had been
+reported from the sea, the air-defence control at Newcastle had sent
+out the preliminary warning "F.M.W.," and the speed of my train had
+been reduced to about fifteen miles an hour. I had expected to get in
+to dinner, but it was eleven o'clock before I reached my destination.
+I had not even the satisfaction of seeing a raid, for the Zepps, made
+cautious by recent heavy losses, had turned back before crossing the
+line of the coast. Cary and his wife fell upon my neck, for we were
+old friends, condoled with me, fed me, and prescribed a tall glass of
+mulled port flavoured with cloves. My stern views upon the need for
+Prohibition in time of war became lamentably weakened.
+
+By midnight I had recovered my philosophic outlook upon life, and Cary
+began to enlighten me upon the details of the grave problem which had
+brought me eagerly curious to his city.
+
+"I expect that Dawson will drop in some time to-night," he said. "All
+hours are the same to him. I told him that you were on the way, and he
+wants to give you the latest news himself. He is dead set upon you,
+Copplestone. I can't imagine why."
+
+"Am I then so very unattractive?" I inquired drily. "It seems to me
+that Dawson is a man of sound judgment."
+
+"I confess that I do not understand why he lavishes so much attention
+upon you."
+
+"Your remarks, Cary," I observed, "are deficient in tact. You might,
+at least, pretend to believe that my personal charm has won for me
+Dawson's affection. As a matter of fact, he cares not a straw for my
+_beaux yeux_; his motives are crudely selfish. He thinks that it is in
+my power to contribute to the greater glory of Dawson, and he
+cultivates me just as he would one of his show chrysanthemums. He has
+done me the honour to appoint me his biographer extraordinary."
+
+"I am sure you are wrong," cried Cary. "He was most frightfully angry
+about that story of ours in _Cornhill_. He demanded from me your name
+and address, and swore that if I ever again disclosed to you official
+secrets he would proceed against me under the Defence of the Realm
+Act. He was a perfect terror, I can assure you."
+
+"And yet he always carries that story about with him in his
+breast-pocket; he has summoned me here to see him at his work; and you
+have been commanded to tell me everything which you know! My dear
+Cary, do not be an ass. You are too simple a soul for this rather
+grubby world. In your eyes every politician is an ardent,
+disinterested patriot, and every soldier or sailor a knightly hero of
+romance. Human beings, Cary, are made in streaks, like bacon; we have
+our fat streaks and our lean ones; we can be big and bold, and also
+very small and mean. Your great man and your national hero can become
+very poor worms when, so to speak, they are off duty. But I didn't
+come here, at great inconvenience, to talk this sort of stuff at
+midnight. Go ahead; give me the details of this sabotage case which is
+baffling Dawson and the naval authorities; let me hear about the
+cutting of those electric wires."
+
+"It is, as I told you, in my note, a queer business. The _Antinous_, a
+fast light cruiser, came in about a fortnight ago to have some defects
+made good in her high-speed geared-turbines. There was not much wrong,
+but her engineer commander recommended a renewal of some of the spur
+wheels. The officers and crew went on short leave in rotation, a care
+and maintenance party was put in charge, and the builders placed a
+working gang on board which was occupied in shifts, by night and by
+day, in making good the defects. When a ship is under repair in a
+river basin, it is practically impossible to keep up the beautiful
+order and discipline of a ship at sea. Men of all kinds are constantly
+coming and going, life on board is stripped of the most ordinary
+comforts and conveniences, there is inevitably some falling off in
+strict supervision. Lack of space, lack of facilities for moving about
+the ship, lack of any regular routine. You will understand. Just as
+the expansion in the New Army and the New Navy has made it possible
+for unknown enemy agents to take service in the Army and the Navy, so
+the dilution of labour in the shipyards has made it possible for
+workmen--whose sympathies are with the enemy--to get employment about
+the warships. The danger is fully recognised, and that is where
+Dawson's widespread system of counter-espionage comes in. There is not
+a trade union, among all the eighteen or twenty engaged in shipyard
+work--riveters, fitters, platers, joiners, and all the rest of
+them--in which he has not police officers enrolled as skilled
+tradesmen, members of the unions, working as ordinary hands or as
+foremen, sometimes even in office as "shop stewards" representing the
+interest of the unions and acting as their spokesmen in disputes with
+the employers. Dawson claims that there has never yet been a secret
+Strike Committee, since the war began, upon which at least one of his
+own men was not serving. He is a wonderful man. I don't like him; he
+is too unscrupulous and merciless for my simple tastes; but his value
+to the country is beyond payment."
+
+"But where in the world does he raise these men? One can't turn a
+policeman into a skilled worker at a moment's notice. How is it done?"
+
+"He begins at the other end. All his skilled workmen are the best he
+can pick out of their various trades. They have served their full time
+as apprentices and journeymen. They are recommended to him by their
+employers after careful testing and sounding. Most of them, I believe,
+come from the Government dockyards and ordnance factories. They are
+given a course of police training at Scotland Yard, and then dropped
+down wherever they may be wanted. Dawson, and inspectors like him,
+have these men everywhere--in shipyards, in shell shops, in gun
+factories, in aeroplane sheds, everywhere. They take a leading part in
+the councils of the unions wherever they go, for they add to their
+skill as workmen a pronounced, even blatant parade of loyalty to the
+interests of trade unions and a tasty flavour of socialist principles.
+Dawson is perfectly cynically outspoken to me over the business which,
+I confess, appals me. In his female agents--of which he has many--he
+favours what he calls a 'judicious frailty'; in his male agents he
+favours a subtle skill in the verbal technique of anarchism. And this
+man Dawson is by religion a Peculiar Baptist, in private life a
+faithful husband and a loving father, and in politics a strict Liberal
+of the Manchester School! As a man he is good, honest, and rather
+narrow; as a professional detective he is base and mean, utterly
+without scruple, and a Jesuit of Jesuits. With him the end justifies
+the means, whatever the means may be."
+
+"And yet you admit that his value to the country is beyond payment.
+Dawson--our remarkable Dawson of the double life in the two
+compartments, professional and private, which never are allowed to
+overlap--Dawson is an instrument of war. We do not like using gas or
+liquid fire, but we are compelled to use them. We do not like
+espionage, but we must employ it. As one who loves this fair land of
+England beyond everything in the world, and as one who would do
+anything, risk anything, and suffer anything to shield her from the
+filthy Germans, I rejoice that she has in her service such supremely
+efficient guardians as this most wickedly unscrupulous Dawson. There
+is, at any rate, not a trace of our English muddle about him."
+
+"Ours is a righteous cause," cried poor Cary desperately. "We are
+fighting for right against wrong, for defence against aggression, for
+civilisation against utter barbarism. We are by instinct clean
+fighters. If in the stress of conflict we stoop to foul methods, can
+we ever wash away the filth of them from our souls? We shall stand
+before the world nakedly confessed as the nation of hypocrites we have
+always been declared to be."
+
+"Cary," I said, "you make me tired. We cannot be too thankful that we
+possess Dawsons to counterplot against the Germans, and that
+personally we are in no way responsible for the morality of their
+methods. Come off the roof and get back to this most interesting
+affair of the _Antinous_. I presume one of Dawson's men was working,
+unknown to his fellows, with the care and maintenance party, and
+another, equally unknown, with the engineers who were busy upon the
+gearing of the turbines. Many of the regular ship's officers and men
+would also have been on board. Had our remarkable friend his agents
+among them too? Everything is possible with Dawson; I should not be
+surprised to hear that he had police officers in the Fleet flagship."
+
+"You are almost right. One of his men, a temporary petty officer of
+R.N.V.R., was certainly on board, and he tells me that down in the
+engine room was another--a civilian fitter. They were both first-class
+men. The electric wires, as you know, are carried about the ship under
+the deck beams, where they are accessible for examination and repairs.
+They are coiled in cables from which wires are led to the switch room,
+and thence to all parts of the ship. There are thousands of wires, and
+no one who did not know intimately their purpose and disposition could
+venture to tamper with them, for great numbers are always in use. If
+any one cut the lighting wires, for instance, the defects would be
+obvious at once; so with the heating or telephone wires. Nothing was
+touched except the lines to the guns, of which there are eight
+disposed upon the deck. From the guns connections run to the switch
+room, the conning tower, the gunnery control platform aloft, and to
+the gunnery officer's bridge. It was the main cable between the switch
+room and the conning tower which was cut, and it was one cable laid
+alongside a dozen others. Now who could know that this was the gun
+cable, and the only one in which damage might escape detection while
+the ship was in harbour? At sea there is constant gun drill, during
+which the electrical controls and the firing-tubes are always tested,
+but in harbour the guns are lying idle most of the time. It was
+evidently the intention of the enemy, who cut these wires, that the
+_Antinous_ should go to sea before the defect was discovered, and that
+her fire control should be out of action till the wiring system could
+be repaired. That very serious disaster was prevented by the
+preliminary testing during the night before sailing, but the enemy has
+been successful in delaying the departure of an invaluable light
+cruiser for two days. In these days, when the war of observation is
+more important even than the war of fighting, the services of light
+cruisers cannot be dispensed with for an hour without grave
+inconvenience and risk. Yet here was one delayed for forty-eight hours
+after her ordinary repairs had been completed. The naval authorities
+are in a frightful stew. For what has happened to the _Antinous_ may
+happen to other cruisers, even to battleships. If there is sabotage
+among the workmen in the shipyards, it must be discovered and stamped
+out without a moment's delay. This time it is the cutting of a wire
+cable; at another time it may be some wilful injury far more serious.
+A warship is a mass of delicate machinery to which a highly skilled
+enemy agent might do almost infinite damage. Dawson has been run off
+his feet during the past two days; I don't know what he has
+discovered; but if he does not get to the bottom of the business in
+double-quick time we shall have the whole Board of Admiralty, Scotland
+Yard, and possibly the War Cabinet down upon us. Think, too, of the
+disgrace to this shipbuilding city of which we are all so proud."
+
+"We shall know something soon," I said, "for, if I mistake not, here
+comes Dawson." The electric bell at the front door had buzzed, and
+Cary, slipping from the room, presently returned with a man who to me,
+at the first glance, was a complete stranger. I sprang up, moved round
+to a position whence I could see clearly the visitor's ears, and
+gasped. It was Dawson beyond a doubt, but it was not the Dawson whom I
+had known in the north. So what I had vaguely surmised was
+true--Cary's Dawson and Copplestone's Dawson were utterly unlike.
+Dawson winked at me, glanced towards Cary, and shook his head; from
+which I gathered that he did not desire his appearance to be the
+subject of comment. I therefore greeted him without remark, and, as he
+sat down under the electric lights, examined him in detail. This
+Dawson was ten years older than the man whom I had known and fenced
+with. The hair of this one was lank and grey, while that of mine was
+brown and curly; the face of this one was white and thin, while the
+face of mine was rather full and ruddy. The teeth were different--I
+found out afterwards that Dawson, who had few teeth of his own,
+possessed several artificial sets of varied patterns--the shape of the
+mouth was different, the nose was different. I could never have
+recognised the man before me had I not possessed that clue to identity
+furnished by his unchanging ears.
+
+"So, Dawson," said I slowly, "we meet again. Permit me to say that I
+congratulate you. It is very well done."
+
+He grinned and glanced at the unconscious Cary. "You are learning.
+Bill Dawson takes a bit of knowing."
+
+"Have you any news, Mr. Dawson?" asked Cary eagerly.
+
+"Not much. The wires of the _Antinous_ have all been renewed--the
+Admiralty won't allow cables to be patched except at sea--but I
+haven't found out who played hanky-panky with them. It could not have
+been any one in the engine-room party, as none of them went near the
+place where the wires were cut. Besides, they were engineers, not
+electricians, and could have known nothing of the arrangements and
+disposition of the ship's wires. My man who worked with them is
+positive that they are a sound, good lot without a sea-lawyer or a
+pacifist among them; a gang of plain, honest tykes. So we are thrown
+back on the maintenance party, included in which were all sorts of
+ratings. Some of them are skilled in the electrical fittings--my own
+man with them is, for one--but we get the best accounts of all of
+them. They are long service men, cast for sea owing to various medical
+reasons, but perfectly efficient for harbour work. Among the officers
+of the ship is a R.N.R. lieutenant with a German name. I jumped to
+him, but the captain laughed. The man's father and grandfather were in
+the English merchant service, and though his people originally came
+from Saxony, he is no more German than we are ourselves. Besides, my
+experience is that an Englishman with an inherited German name is the
+very last man to have any truck with the enemy. He is too much ashamed
+of his forbears for one thing; and for another he is too dead set on
+living down his beastly name. So we will rule out the Lieutenant
+R.N.R. My own man, who is a petty officer R.N.V.R., and has worked on
+a lot of ships which have come in for repairs, says that the temper
+among the workmen in the yards is good now. It was ugly when dilution
+of labour first came in, but the wages are so high that all that
+trouble has settled down. I have had what you call sabotage in the
+shell and gun shops, but never yet in the King's ships. We have had
+every possible cutter of the wires on the mat before the Captain and
+me. We have looked into all their records, had their homes visited and
+their people questioned, inquired of their habits--Mr. Copplestone,
+here, knows what comes of drink--and found out how they spend their
+wages. Yet we have discovered nothing. It is the worst puzzle that
+I've struck. When and how the gun cable was cut I can't tell you, but
+whoever did it is much too clever to be about. He must have been
+exactly informed of the lie and use of the cables, had with him the
+proper tools, and used them in some fraction of a minute when he
+wasn't under the eye of my own man whose business it was to watch
+everybody and suspect everybody. I thought that I had schemed out a
+pretty thorough system; up to now it has worked fine. Whenever we have
+had the slightest reason to suspect any man, we have had him kept off
+the ship and watched. We have run down a lot of footling spies, too
+stupid to give us a minute's anxiety, but this man who cut the
+_Antinous_'s wires is of a different calibre altogether. He is AI, and
+when I catch him, as I certainly shall, I will take off my hat to
+him."
+
+"You say that the _Antinous_ is all right now?" I observed.
+
+"Yes. I saw her towed out of the repair basin an hour ago, and she
+must be away down the river by this time. It is not of her that I'm
+thinking, but of the other ships which are constantly in and out for
+repairs. There are always a dozen here of various craft, usually small
+stuff. While the man who cut those wires is unknown I shall be in a
+perfect fever, and so will the Admiral-Superintendent. We'll get the
+beauty sooner or later, but if it is later, there may be had mischief
+done. If he can cut wires in one ship, he may do much worse things in
+some other. The responsibility rests on me, and it is rather
+crushing."
+
+Dawson spoke with less than his usual cheery confidence. I fancy that
+the thinness and whiteness of his face were not wholly due to
+disguise. He had not been to bed since he had been called up in the
+middle watch of the night before last, and the man was worn out.
+
+"If you take my poor advice, Dawson," I said, "you will cut off now
+and get some sleep. Even your brain cannot work continuously without
+rest. The country needs you at your best, and needs you very badly
+indeed."
+
+His dull, weary eyes lighted as if under the stimulus of champagne,
+and he turned upon me a look which was almost affectionate. I really
+began to believe that Dawson likes me, that he sees in me a kindred
+spirit as patriotically unscrupulous as himself.
+
+He jumped up and gripped my hand. "You are right. I will put in a few
+hours' sleep and then to work once more. This time I am up against a
+man who is nearly as smart as I am myself, and I can't afford to carry
+any handicap."
+
+I led him to the door and put him out, and then turned to Cary with a
+laugh. "And I, too, will follow Dawson's example. It is past one, and
+my head is buzzing with queer ideas. Perhaps, after all, the Germans
+have more imagination than we usually credit them with. I wonder--"
+But I did not tell to Cary what I wondered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were sitting after breakfast in Cary's study, enjoying the first
+sweet pipe of the day, when the telephone bell rang. Cary took off the
+earpiece and I listened to a one-sided conversation somewhat as
+follows:--
+
+"What! Is that you, Mr. Dawson? Yes, Copplestone is here. The
+_Antigone_? What about her? She is a sister ship of the _Antinous_,
+and was in with damage to her forefoot, which had been ripped up when
+she ran down that big German submarine north of the Orkneys--Yes, I
+know; she was due to go out some time to-day. What do you say? Wires
+cut? Whose wires have been cut? The _Antigone's?_ Oh, the devil! Yes,
+we will both come down to your office this afternoon. Whenever you
+like."
+
+Cary hung up the receiver and glared at me. "It has happened again,"
+he groaned. "The _Antigone_ this time. She has been in dry dock for
+the past fortnight and was floated out yesterday. Her full complement
+joined her last night. Dawson says that he was called up at
+eight-o'clock by the news that her gun-wires have been cut exactly
+like those of the _Antinous_ and in the same incomprehensible way. He
+seems, curiously enough, to be quite cheerful about it."
+
+"He has had a few hours sleep. And, besides, he sees that this second
+case, so exactly like the first, makes the solution of his problem
+very much more easy. I am glad that he is cheerful, for I feel
+exuberantly happy myself. I was kept awake half the night by a
+persistent notion which seemed the more idiotic the more I thought all
+round it. But now--now, there may be something in it."
+
+"What is your idea? Tell me quick."
+
+"No, thank you, Dr. Watson. We amateur masters of intuition don't work
+our thrilling effects in that way. We keep our notions to ourselves
+until they turn out to be right, and then we declare that we saw
+through the problem from the first. When we have been wrong, we say
+nothing. So you observe, Cary, that whatever happens our reputations
+do not suffer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+GUESSWORK
+
+Cary tried to shake my resolution, but I was obdurately silent. While
+he canvassed the whole position, bringing to bear his really profound
+knowledge of naval equipment and routine--and incidentally helping me
+greatly to realise the improbability of my own guesswork solution--I
+was able to maintain an air of lofty superiority. I must have
+aggravated him intensely, unpardonably, for I was his guest. He ought
+to have kicked me out. Yet he bore with me like the sweet-blooded
+kindly angel that he is, and when at the end it appeared that I was
+right after all, Cary was the first to pour congratulations and honest
+admiration upon me. If he reads this book he will know that I am
+repentant--though I must confess that I should behave in just the same
+abominable way if the incident were to occur again. There is no great
+value in repentance such as this.
+
+We reached Dawson's office in the early afternoon, and found his chief
+assistant there, but no Dawson. "The old man," remarked that officer,
+a typical, stolid, faithful detective sergeant, "is out on the
+rampage. He ought by rights to sit here directing the staff and leave
+the outside investigations to me. He is a high-up man, almost a deputy
+assistant commissioner, and has no call to be always disguising
+himself and playing his tricks on everybody. I suppose you know that
+white-haired old gent down here ain't a bit like Bill Dawson, who's
+not a day over forty?"
+
+"I have given up wondering where the real Dawson ends and where the
+disguises begin. The man I met up north wasn't the least bit like the
+one down here."
+
+"A deal younger, I expect," said the chief assistant, grinning. "He
+shifts about between thirty and sixty. The old man is no end of a
+cure, and tries to take us in the same as he does you. There's an
+inspector at the Yard who was at school with him down Hampshire way,
+and ought to know what he is really like, but even he has given Dawson
+up. He says that the old man does not know his own self in the
+looking-glass; and as for Mrs. Dawson, I expect she has to take any
+one who comes along claiming to be her husband, for she can't,
+possibly tell t'other from which."
+
+"One might make a good story out of that," I observed to Cary.
+
+"I don't understand," said he. "Mr. Dawson told me once that I knew
+the real Dawson, but that few other people did."
+
+"If he told you that," calmly observed the assistant, "you may bet
+your last shirt he was humbugging you. He couldn't tell the truth, not
+if he tried ever so."
+
+"What is he at now?" I asked.
+
+"I don't know, sir. And if he told me, I shouldn't believe him. I
+don't take no account of a word that man says. But he's the most
+successful detective we've got in the whole Force. He's sure to be
+head of the C.I.D. one day, and then he will have to stay in his
+office and give us others a chance."
+
+"I don't believe he will," I observed, laughing. "There will be a sham
+Dawson in the office and the genuine article will be out on the
+rampage. He is a man who couldn't sit still, not even if you tied him
+in his chair and sealed the knots."
+
+We spent a pleasant hour pulling Dawson to pieces and leaving to him
+not a rag of virtue, except intense professional zeal. We exchanged
+experiences of him, those of the chief assistant being particularly
+rich and highly flavoured. It appeared that Dawson when off duty loved
+to occupy the platform at meetings of his religious connection and to
+hold forth to the elect. The privilege of "sitting under him" had been
+enjoyed more than once by the assistant, who retailed to us extracts
+from Dawson's favourite sermon on "Truth." His views upon Truth were
+unbending as armour plate. "Under no circumstances, not to save
+oneself from imminent death, not to shield a wife or a child from the
+penalties for a lapse from virtue, not even to preserve one's country
+from the attacks of an enemy, was it permissible to a Peculiar Baptist
+to diverge by the breadth of a hair from the straight path of Truth.
+Hell yawned on either hand; only along the knife edge of Truth could
+salvation be reached."
+
+"He made me shiver," said the chief assistant, "and he drove me to
+thinking of one or two little deceptions of my own. When Dawson
+preaches, his eyes blaze, his voice breaks, and he will fall on his
+knees and pray for the souls of those who heed not his words. You
+can't look at him then and not believe that he means every word he
+says. Yet it's all humbug."
+
+"No, it is not," said I. "Dawson in the pulpit, or on the tub--or
+whatever platform he uses--is absolutely genuine. He is the finest
+example that I have ever met of the dual personality. He is in dead
+earnest when he preaches on Truth, and he is in just as dead earnest
+when, stripped of every moral scruple, he pursues a spy or a criminal.
+In pursuit he is ruthless as a Prussian, but towards the captured
+victim he can be strangely tender. I should not be surprised to learn
+that he hates capital punishment and is a strong advocate of gentle
+methods in prison discipline."
+
+The chief assistant stared, opened a drawer, and pulled forth a slim
+grey pamphlet. It was marked "For Office Use Only," and was entitled,
+"Some Notes on Prison Reform," by Chief Inspector William Dawson.
+
+I had begun to read the pamphlet, when a step sounded outside; the
+assistant snatched it from my hand, flashed it back into its place,
+and jumped to attention as Dawson entered. He surveyed us with those
+searching, unwinking eyes of his--for we had the air of
+conspirators--and said brusquely: "Clear out, Wilson. You talk too
+much. And don't admit any one except Petty Officer Trehayne."
+
+"The _Antigone_!" cried Cary, who thought only of ships. "The
+_Antigone_! Is she much damaged?"
+
+"No. Whoever tried to cut her wires was disturbed, or in too great a
+hurry to do his work well. The main gun-cable was nipped, but not cut
+through. She will be delayed till to-morrow, not longer. I am not
+worrying about the _Antigone_, but about the new battleship
+_Malplaquet_, which was commissioned last month, is nearly filled up
+with stores, and is expected to leave the river on Saturday. We can't
+have her delayed by any hanky tricks, not even if we have to put the
+whole detective force on board of her. Still, I'm not so anxious as I
+was. This _Antigone_ business has cleared things up a lot, and one can
+sift out the impossible from the possible. To begin with, the
+_Antinous_ was in for repairs to her geared turbines, and the
+_Antigone_ for damage to her forefoot. Engineers were on one job, and
+platers and riveters on the other. Different trades. So not a workman
+who was in the _Antinous_ was also in the _Antigone_. We can rule out
+all the workmen. We can also rule out my lieutenant R.N.R. with the
+German name who has gone to sea in the _Antinous_. The care and
+maintenance party in the _Antigone_ was not the same as the one in the
+_Antinous_, not a man the same."
+
+"You are sure of that?" cried I, for it seemed that my daring theory
+had gone to wreck. "You are quite sure."
+
+"Quite. I have all the names and have examined all the men. They were
+all off the ship by eleven o'clock last night. I hadn't one of my own
+men among them, but, to make sure, I sent Petty Officer Trehayne on
+board at eight o'clock to keep a sharp look-out and to see all the
+harbour party off the vessel. He reported a little after eleven that
+they were all gone and the ship taken over by her own crew. The damage
+was discovered at four bells in the morning watch."
+
+"Six o'clock a.m.," interpreted Cary.
+
+"It looks now as if there might be a traitor among her own crew, which
+is her officers' job, not mine. I wash my hands of the _Antigone_, but
+it is very much up to me to see that nothing hurtful happens to the
+_Malplaquet_. The Admiral has orders to support me with all the force
+under his command; the General of the District has the same orders.
+But it isn't force we want so much as brains--Dawson's brains. I have
+been beaten twice, but not the third time. I've told the Yard that if
+the _Malplaquet_ is touched I shall resign, and if they send any one
+to help me I shall resign. Between to-day, Thursday, and Saturday I am
+going to catch the wily josser who has a fancy for cutting gun cables
+or Dawson will say good-bye to the Force. That's a fair stake."
+
+The man swelled with determination and pride. He had no thought of
+failure, and drew inspiration and joy from the heaviness of the bet
+which he had made with Fortune. He took the born gambler's delight in
+a big risk.
+
+"Then you think that the _Antinous_ and the _Antigone_ were both
+damaged by the same man, and that he may have designs upon the
+_Malplaquet_?" said I.
+
+"I don't propose to tell you what I think," replied Dawson stiffly.
+
+"Still," I persisted, passing over the snub, "you have a theory?"
+
+"No, thanks," said Dawson contemptuously. "I have no use for theories.
+When they are wrong they mislead you, and when they are right they are
+no help. I believe in facts--facts brought out by constant vigilance.
+Unsleeping watchfulness and universal suspicion, those are the
+principles I work on. The theory business makes pretty story books,
+but the Force does not waste good time over them."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"This is Thursday afternoon. I am going to join the _Malplaquet_
+presently, and I'm not going to sleep till she is safely down the
+river. I'm going to be my own watchman this time."
+
+"How? In what capacity?"
+
+Dawson gave a shrug of impatience, for his nerves were on edge. For a
+moment he hesitated, and then, recollecting the high post to which I
+had tacitly been appointed in his household, he replied:
+
+"I am going as one of the Marine sentries."
+
+"It's no use, Dawson," protested I emphatically. "You are a wonder at
+disguise, and will look, I do not doubt, the very spit of a Marine.
+But you can't pass among the men for half an hour without discovery.
+They are a class apart, they talk their own language, cherish their
+own secret traditions, live in a world to which no stranger ever
+penetrates. You could pass as a naval officer more easily than you
+could as a Pongo. It is sheer madness, Dawson."
+
+He gave a short laugh. "Much you know about it. I have served in the
+Red Corps myself. I was a recruit at Deal, passed two years at
+Plymouth, and served afloat for three years. I was then drafted into
+the Naval Police. Afterwards I was recommended for detective work in
+the dockyards, and at the end of my Marine service joined the Yard. My
+good man, I was a sergeant before I left the Corps."
+
+"I give up, Dawson," said I. "Nothing about you will ever surprise me
+again. Not even if you claim to have been a Cabinet Minister."
+
+A queer smile stole over his face. "No, I have not been a minister,
+but I have attended a meeting of the Cabinet."
+
+Cary interposed at this point. "Yours is a fine idea, Mr. Dawson. As a
+Marine sentry you can get yourself posted by the Major wherever you
+please, and the Guard will not talk even though they may wonder that
+any man should want to do twenty-four hours of duty per day. The
+Marines are the closest, faith-fullest, and best disciplined force in
+the wide world. Bluejackets will gossip; Marines never. You will be
+able to watch more closely than even Trehayne, who, I suppose, will
+also be on board."
+
+"Yes. He is coming up soon for instructions. It's his last chance, as
+it is mine. He sees that he must be held responsible for the wire
+cutting in the _Antinous_, and to some slight extent also in the
+_Antigone_, and that if anything goes wrong with the _Malplaquet_ he
+will be dismissed. I shall be sorry to lose him, for he is an
+exceptionally good man, but we can't allow failures in petty officer
+detectives any more than we can in chief inspectors."
+
+"Where does Trehayne come from? His name sounds Cornish," I asked.
+
+"Falmouth, I believe. He is quite young, but he has had nearly three
+years in the _Vernon_ at Portsmouth and in the torpedo factory at
+Greenock. A first-class engineer and electrician and a sound
+detective. He has been with me for some twelve months. You will see
+him if he calls soon."
+
+I had been thinking hard over the details of Dawson's plans while the
+talk went on, and then ventured to offer some comments.
+
+"It is fortunate that you have grown a moustache since you were in the
+north; you could not have been a Marine as a clean-shaven man."
+
+"I often have to shave it," said Dawson, "but I always grow it again
+between whiles. One can take it off quicker than one can put it on
+again. False hair is the devil; I have never used it yet and never
+will. So whenever I have a spell of leisure I grow a moustache against
+emergencies--like this one."
+
+My next comment was rather difficult to make, for I did not wish
+either Cary or Dawson to divine its purpose. "If I may make a
+suggestion to a man of your experience it would be that none of your
+men here, not even your chief assistant or Trehayne, should know that
+you are joining the _Malplaquet_ as a Marine. Two independent strings
+are in this case better than a double-jointed string."
+
+"I never tell anything to any one, least of all to Pudden-Headed
+Wilson. He is loyal, but a stupid ass with a flapping tongue. Trehayne
+is close as wax, but, on general principles, I keep my movements
+strictly to myself. He will be in the ship, but he won't know that I
+am there too. The Commander must know and the Major of Marines, for I
+shall want a uniform and the free run of the ship, so as to be posted
+where I like. The Marine Sergeants of the Guard may guess, but, as Mr.
+Cary says, they won't talk. You two gentlemen are safe," added Dawson
+pleasantly, "for I've got you tight in my hand and could lock either
+of you up in a minute if I chose."
+
+A peculiar knock came upon the door, a word passed between Dawson and
+the police sentry outside, and a young man in the uniform of a naval
+petty officer entered the room. He was clean-shaven, looked about
+twenty-five years old, was dark and slim of the Latin type which is
+not uncommon in Cornwall, and impressed me at once with his air of
+intelligence and refinement. His voice, too, was rather striking. It
+was that of the wardroom rather than of the mess deck. I liked the
+look of Petty Officer Trehayne. Dawson presented him to us and then
+took him aside for instructions. When he had finished, both men
+rejoined us, and the conversation became light and general. Trehayne,
+though clearly suffering from nervous strain after his recent
+professional failures, talked with the ease and detachment of a highly
+cultivated man. It appeared that he had been educated at Blundell's
+School, had lost his parents at about sixteen, had done a course in
+some electrical engineering shops at Plymouth, and when twenty years
+old had secured a good berth on the engineering staff of the _Vernon_.
+He could speak both French and German, which he had learned partly at
+school and partly on the Continent during leave. Dawson, who was
+evidently very proud of his young pupil and assistant, paraded his
+accomplishments before us rather to Trehayne's embarrassment. "Try him
+with French and German," urged Dawson. "He can chatter them as well as
+English. But he is as close as wax in all three languages. Some men
+can't keep their tongues still in one."
+
+I turned to Trehayne and spoke in French: "German I can't abide, but
+French I love. My vocabulary is extensive, but my accent
+abominable--incurably British. You can hear it for yourself how it
+gives me away."
+
+"It is not quite of Paris," replied Trehayne. "Mais vous parlez
+francais tres bien, tres correctement. Beaucoup mieux que moi."
+
+"Non, non, monsieur," I protested, and then reverted to English.
+
+"Now," said Dawson, when Trehayne had left us, "I must get along, see
+the Commander of the _Malplaquet_, and draw a uniform and rifle out of
+the marine stores. It will be quite like old times. You won't see me
+until Saturday, when I shall be either a triumphant or a broken man.
+What is the betting, Mr. Copplestone?"
+
+I could not understand the quizzical little smile that Dawson gave me,
+nor the humorous twitch of his lips. He had contemptuously disclaimed
+all use of theories, yet there was more moving behind that big
+forehead of his than he chose to give away. Did his ideas run on
+parallel lines with mine; did he even suspect that I had formed any
+idea at all? I could not inquire, for I dislike being laughed at,
+especially by this man Dawson. I had nothing to go upon, at least so
+little that was palpable that anything which I might say would be
+dismissed as the merest guesswork, for which, as Dawson proclaimed, he
+had no use. Yet, yet--my original guess stuck firmly in my mind,
+improbable though it might be, and had just been nailed down
+tightly--I scorn to mystify the reader--by a few simple sentences
+spoken in French.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+THE MARINE SENTRY
+
+We had a whole day to fill in before we could get any news of Dawson's
+vigil in the _Malplaquet_, and I have never known a day as drearily
+long. Cary and I were both restless as peas on a hot girdle, and could
+not settle down to talk or to read or to write. Cary sought vainly to
+persuade me to read and pass judgment upon his Navy Book. In spite of
+my interest in the subject my soul revolted at the forbidding pile of
+manuscript. I promised to read the proofs and criticise them with
+severity, but as for the M.S.--no, thanks. Poor Cary needed all his
+sweet patience to put up with me. By eleven o'clock we had become
+unendurable to one another, and I gladly welcomed his suggestion to
+adjourn to his club, have lunch there, and try to inveigle the
+Commander of the _Malplaquet_ into our net. "I know him," said Cary.
+"He is a fine fellow; and though he must be pretty busy, he will be
+glad to lunch somewhere away from the ship. If we have luck we will go
+back with him and look over the _Malplaquet_ ourselves."
+
+"If you can manage that, Cary, you will have my blessing."
+
+He did manage to work the luncheon part by telephoning to the yard
+where the _Malplaquet_ was fitting out, and we left the rest to our
+personal charms.
+
+Cary was right. The Commander was a very fine fellow, an English naval
+officer of the best type. He confirmed the views I had frequently
+heard expressed by others of his profession that no hatred exists
+between English and German sailors. They leave that to middle-aged
+civilians who write for newspapers. The German Navy, in his opinion,
+was "a jolly fine Service," worthy in high courage and skill to
+contest with us the supremacy of the seas. He had been through the
+China troubles as a lieutenant in the _Monmouth_--afterwards sunk by
+German shot off Coronel--knew von Spee, von Mueller, and other officers
+of the Pacific Squadron, and spoke of them with enthusiasm. "They sunk
+some of our ships and we wiped out theirs. That was all in the way of
+business. We loved them in peace and we loved them in war. They were
+splendidly loyal to us out in China--von Spee actually transferred
+some of his ships to the command of our own senior officer so as to
+avoid any clash of control--and when it came to fighting, they fought
+like gentlemen. I grant you that their submarine work against merchant
+ships has been pretty putrid, but I don't believe that was the choice
+of their Navy. They got their orders from rotten civilians like Kaiser
+Bill." Imagine if you can the bristling moustache of the Supreme War
+Lord could he have heard himself described as a civilian!
+
+Our guest had commanded a destroyer in the Jutland battle, and assured
+us that the handling of the German battle squadrons had been masterly.
+"They punished us heavily for just so long as they were superior in
+strength, and then they slipped away before Jellicoe could get his
+blow in. They kept fending us off with torpedo attacks until the night
+came down, and then clean vanished. We got in some return smacks after
+dark at stragglers, but it was very difficult to say how much damage
+we did. Not much, I expect. Still it was a good battle, as decisive in
+its way as Trafalgar. It proved that the whole German Fleet could not
+fight out an action against our full force and have the smallest hope
+of success. I am just praying for the chance of a whack at them in the
+_Malplaquet_. My destroyer was a bonny ship, the best in the flotilla,
+but the _Malplaquet_ is a real peach. You should see her."
+
+"We mean to," said Cary. "This very afternoon. You shall take us back
+with you."
+
+The Commander opened his eyes at this cool proposal, but we prevailed
+upon him to seek the permission of the Admiral-Superintendent, who, a
+good deal to my surprise, proved to be quite pliable. Cary's
+reputation for discretion must be very high in the little village
+where he lives if it is able to guarantee so disreputable a scribbler
+as Bennet Copplestone! The Admiral, fortunately, had not read any of
+my Works before they had been censored. When printed in _Cornhill_
+they were comparatively harmless.
+
+I must not describe the _Malplaquet_. Her design was not new to me--I
+had seen more than one of her type--but as she is now a unit in
+Beatty's Fleet her existence is not admitted to the world. As we went
+up and down her many steep narrow ladders, and peered into dark
+corners, I looked everywhere for a Marine sentry whom I could identify
+by mark of ear as Dawson. I never saw him, but Trehayne passed me
+twice, and I found myself again admiring his splendid young manhood.
+He was not big, being rather slim and wiry than strongly built, but in
+sheer beauty of face and form he was almost perfectly fashioned. "Do
+you know that man?" I asked of our commander, indicating Trehayne.
+"No," said he. "He is one of the shore party. But I should like to
+have him with me. He is one of the smartest looking petty officers
+that I have ever seen."
+
+We were shown everything that we desired to see except the
+transmission room and the upper conning tower--the twin holy of holies
+in a commissioned ship--and slipped away, escaping the Captain by a
+bare two minutes. Which was lucky, as he would probably have had us
+thrown into the "ditch."
+
+The end of the day was as weariful as the beginning, and we were all
+glad--especially, I expect, Mrs. Cary--to go early to bed. That
+ill-used lady, to whom we could disclose nothing of our anxieties,
+must have found us wretched company.
+
+We had finished breakfast the next morning--the Saturday of Dawson's
+gamble--and were sitting on Cary's big fireguard talking of every
+subject, except the one which had kept us awake at night, when a
+servant entered and announced that a soldier was at the door with a
+message from Mr. Dawson. "Show him in," almost shouted Cary, and I
+jumped to my feet, stirred for once into a visible display of
+eagerness.
+
+A Marine came in, dressed in the smart blue sea kit that I love; upon
+his head the low flat cap of his Corps. He gave us a full swinging
+salute, and jumped to attention with a click of his heels. He looked
+about thirty-five, and wore a neatly trimmed dark moustache. His hair,
+also very dark, was cropped close to his head. Standing there with his
+hands upon the red seams of his trousers, his chest well filled out,
+and his face weather tanned, he looked a proper figure of a sea-going
+soldier. "Mr. Cary, sir," he said, in a flat, monotonous orderly's
+voice, "Major Boyle's compliments, and could you and your friend come
+down to the Police Station to meet him and Chief Inspector Dawson. I
+have a taxi-cab at the door, sir."
+
+"Certainly," cried Cary; "in two minutes we shall be ready."
+
+"Oh, no, we shan't," I remarked calmly, for I had moved to a position
+of tactical advantage on the Marine's port beam. "We will have the
+story here, if you don't mind, Dawson."
+
+He stamped pettishly on the floor, whipped off his cap, and spun it
+across the room. "Confound you, Mr. Copplestone!" he growled. "How
+the--how the--do you do it?" He could not think of an expletive mild
+enough for Mrs. Cary's ears. "There's something about me that I can't
+hide. What is it? If you don't tell, I will get you on the Regulation
+compelling all British subjects to answer questions addressed to them
+by a competent naval or military authority."
+
+"You don't happen to be either, Dawson," said I unkindly. "And,
+beside, there was never yet a law made which could compel a man to
+speak or a woman to hold her tongue. Some day perhaps, if you are
+good, I will show you how the trick is done. But not yet. I want to
+have something to bargain with when you cast me into jail. Out with
+the story; we are impatient. If I mistake not, you come to us Dawson
+triumphant. You haven't the air of a broken man."
+
+"I have been successful," he answered gravely, "but I am a long, long
+way from feeling triumphant. No, thank you, Mrs. Cary, I have had my
+breakfast, but if I might trouble you for a cup of coffee? Many
+thanks."
+
+Dawson sat down, and Cary moved about inspecting him from every angle.
+"No," declared he at last, "I cannot see the smallest resemblance, not
+the smallest. You were thin; now you are distinctly plump. Your hair
+was nearly white. Your cheeks had fallen in as if your back teeth were
+missing. Your lower lip stuck out." Dawson smiled, highly gratified.
+"I took in all my people at the office this morning," he said. "They
+all thought, and think still, that I was a messenger from the
+_Malplaquet_, which, by the way, is well down the river safe and
+sound. Just wait a minute." He walked into a corner of the room, moved
+his hands quickly between his side pockets and his face, and then
+returned. Except for the dark hair and moustache and the brown skin,
+he had become the Dawson of the Thursday afternoon. "It is as simple
+for me to change," said the artist, with a nasty look in my direction,
+"as it seems to be for Mr. Copplestone here to spot me. It will take a
+day or two to get the dye out of my hair and the tan off my skin. I am
+going to have a sharp touch of influenza, which is a useful disease
+when one wants to lie in. Since Sunday I have only been twice to bed."
+
+We filled him up with coffee and flattery--as one fills a motor car
+with petrol and oil--but asked him no questions until we were safely
+in Cary's study and Mrs. Cary had gone about her household duties.
+"Your good lady," remarked Dawson to Cary, "is as little curious as
+any woman I have met, and we will leave her at that if you don't mind.
+The best thing about our women is that they don't care tuppence about
+naval and military details. If they did, and once started prying with
+that keen scent and indomitable persistence of theirs, we might as
+well chuck up. Even my own bright team of charmers never know and
+never ask the meaning of the information that they ferret out for me.
+Their curiosity is all personal--about men and women, never about
+things. Women--"
+
+I cut Dawson short. He tended to become tedious.
+
+"Quite so," I observed politely. "And to revert to one big female
+creature, let us hear something of the _Malplaquet_."
+
+"You at any rate are curious enough for a dozen. It would serve you
+right to keep you hopping a bit longer. But I have a kindly eye for
+human weakness, though you might not think it. I joined the ship on
+Thursday afternoon, slipping in as one of a detachment of fifty
+R.M.L.I. who had been wired for from Chatham. They were an emergency
+lot; we hadn't enough in the ship for the double sentry go that I
+wanted. All my plans were made with the Commander and Major Boyle, and
+they both did exactly what I told them. It isn't often that a private
+of Marines has the ordering about of two officers. But Dawson is
+Dawson; no common man. They did as I told them, and were glad to do
+it. I had extra light bulbs put on all over the lower decks and every
+dark corner lit up--except one. Just one. And this one was where the
+four gun-cables ran out of the switch-room and lay alongside one
+another before they branched off to the fore and after turrets and to
+the port and starboard side batteries. That was the most likely spot
+which any one wanting to cut the gun-wires would mark down, and I
+meant to watch it pretty closely myself. We had double sentries at the
+magazines. The _Malplaquet_ is an oil-fired ship, so we hadn't any
+bothering coal bunkers to attract fancy bombs. I was pretty sure that
+after the _Antinous_ and the _Antigone_ we had mostly wire-cutting to
+fear. When a man has done one job successfully, and repeated it almost
+successfully, he is pretty certain to have a third shot. Besides, if
+one is out to delay a ship, cutting wires is as good a way as any. I
+had an idea that my man was not a bomber."
+
+"I thought that you scorned theories," I put in dryly. "When they are
+wrong they mislead you, and when they are right they are no help."
+
+Dawson frowned. "Shut up, Copplestone," snapped Cary.
+
+"We were in no danger from the lighting, heating, and telephone wires,
+for any defect would have been visible at once. It was the gun and
+gunnery control cables that were the weak spots. So I had L.T.O.'s
+posted in the spotting top, the conning tower, the transmission room,
+the four turrets, and at the side batteries. Every few minutes they
+put through tests which would have shown up at once any wires that had
+been tampered with. After the shore party had cleared out about nine
+o'clock on the Thursday, no officer or man was allowed to leave the
+ship without a special permit from the Commander. This was all dead
+against the sanitary regulations of the harbour, but I had the
+Admiral's authority to break any rules I pleased. By the way, you two
+ought never to have been allowed on board yesterday afternoon--I saw
+you, though you didn't see me; it was contrary to my orders. I spoke
+to the Admiral pretty sharp last night. 'Who is responsible for the
+ship?' says I. 'You or me?' 'You,' says he. 'I leave it at that,' says
+I."
+
+"One moment, Dawson," I put in. "If the shore party had all gone, how
+was it that I saw Petty Officer Trehayne in the ship?"
+
+"He had orders to stay and keep watch--though he didn't know I was on
+board myself. Two pairs of police eyes are better than one pair, and
+fifty times better than all the Navy eyes in the ship. Of all the
+simple-minded, unsuspicious beggars in the world, give me a pack of
+naval ratings! I wouldn't have one of them for sentries--that is why
+the fifty emergency Marines were sent for." Dawson's limitless pride
+in his old Service, and deep contempt for the mere sailor, had come
+back in full flood with the uniform of his Corps.
+
+"I started my own sentry duty in the dark corner I told you of as soon
+as I had seen to the arrangements all over the _Malplaquet_, and I was
+there, with very few breaks of not more than five minutes each for a
+bite of food, for twenty-six hours. Two Marine sentries took my place
+whenever I was away. I had my rifle and bayonet, and stood back in a
+corner of a bulkhead where I couldn't be seen. The hours were awful
+long; I stood without hardly moving. All the pins and needles out of
+Redditch seemed to dance up and down me, but I stuck it out--and I had
+my reward, I had my reward. I did my duty, but it's a sick and sorry
+man that I am this day."
+
+"There was nothing else to be done," I said. "What you feel now is a
+nervous reaction."
+
+"That's about it. I watched and watched, never feeling a bit like
+sleep though my eyes burned something cruel and my feet--they were
+lumps of prickly wood, not feet. Dull lumps with every now and then a
+stab as if a tin tack had been driven into them. Beyond me in the open
+alley-way the light was strong, and I could see men pass frequently,
+but no one came into my corner till the end, and no one saw me. I
+heard six bells go in the first watch ('Eleven p.m.,' whispered Cary)
+on Friday evening, though there was a good bit of noise of getting
+ready to go out in the early morning, and I was beginning to think
+that all my trouble might go for naught, when a man in a Navy cap and
+overalls stopped just opposite my dark hole between two bulkheads. His
+face was turned from me, as he looked carefully up and down the
+lighted way. He stood there quite still for some seconds, and then
+stepped backwards towards me. I could see him plain against the light
+beyond. He listened for another minute or so, and, satisfied that no
+one was near, spun on his heels, whipped a tool from his dungaree
+overalls, and reached up to the wires which ran under the deck beams
+overhead. In spite of my aching joints and sore feet I was out in a
+flash and had my bayonet up against his chest. He didn't move till my
+point was through his clothes and into his flesh. I just shoved till
+he gave ground, and so, step by step, I pushed him with the point of
+my bayonet till he was under the lights. His arms had come down, he
+dropped the big shears with insulated handles which he had drawn from
+his pocket, but he didn't speak a word to me and I did not speak to
+him. I just held him there under the lights, and we looked at one
+another without a word spoken. There was no sign of surprise or fear
+in his face, just a queer little smile. Suddenly he moved, made a
+snatch at the front of his overalls, and put something into his mouth.
+I guessed what it was, but did not try to stop him; it was the best
+thing that he could do."
+
+Dawson stopped and pulled savagely at his cigar. He jabbed the end
+with his knife, though the cigar was drawing perfectly well, and gave
+forth a deep growl which might have been a curse or a sob.
+
+"Have you ever watched an electric bulb fade away when the current is
+failing?" he asked. "The film pales down from glowing white to dull
+red, which gets fainter and fainter, little by little, till nothing
+but the memory of it lingers on your retina. His eyes went out exactly
+like that bulb. They faded and faded out of his face, which still kept
+up that queer, twisted smile. I've seen them ever since; wherever I
+turn. I shall be glad of that bout of influenza, and shall begin it
+with a stiff dose of veronal.... When the light had nearly gone out of
+his eyes and he was rocking on his feet, I spoke for the first time. I
+spoke loud too. 'Good-bye,' I called out; 'I'm Dawson.' He heard me,
+for his eyes answered with a last flash; then they faded right out and
+he fell flat on the steel deck. He had died on his feet; his will kept
+him upright to the end; that was a Man. He lived a Man's life, doing
+what he thought his duty, and he died a Man's death.... I blew my
+whistle twice; up clattered a Sergeant with the Marine Guard and
+stopped where that figure on the deck barred their way. 'Get a
+stretcher,' I said, 'and send for the doctor. But it won't be any use.
+The man's dead.' The Sergeant asked sharply for my report, and sent
+off a couple of men for a stretcher. 'Excuse me, Sergeant,' I said, in
+my best detective officer voice, 'I will report direct to your Major
+and the Commander. I am Chief Inspector Dawson.' He showed no surprise
+nor doubt of my word--if you want to understand discipline, gentlemen,
+get the Marines to teach you--he asked no questions. With one word he
+called the guard to attention, and himself saluted me--me a private! I
+handed him my rifle--there was an inch of blood at the point of the
+bayonet--and hobbled off to the nearest ladder. My word, I could
+scarcely walk, and as for climbing a ship's ladder--I could never have
+done if some one hadn't given me a boost behind and some one else a
+hand at the top. The Commander and the Major of Marines were both in
+the wardroom; I walked in, saluted them as a self-respecting private
+should do, and told them the whole story."
+
+"It was Petty Officer Trehayne," said I calmly--and waited for a
+sensation.
+
+"Of course," replied Dawson, greatly to my annoyance. He might have
+shown some astonishment at my wonderful intuition; but he didn't, not
+a scrap. Even Cary was at first disappointing, though he warmed up
+later, and did me full justice. "Trehayne a spy!" cried Cary. "He
+looked a smart good man."
+
+"I am not saying that he wasn't," snapped Dawson, whose nerves were
+very badly on edge. "He was obeying the orders of his superiors as we
+all have to do. He gave his life, and it was for his country's
+service. Nobody can do more than that. Don't you go for to slander
+Trehayne. I watched him die--on his feet."
+
+Cary turned to me. "What made you think it was Trehayne?" he asked.
+This was better. I looked at Dawson, who was brooding in his chair
+with his thoughts far away. He was still seeing those eyes fading out
+under the glare of the electrics between the steel decks of the
+_Malplaquet_!
+
+"It was a sheer guess at first," said I, preserving a decent show of
+modesty. "When I heard how the enemy plotted and Dawson
+counter-plotted with all those skilled workmen in his detective
+service, it occurred to me that an enemy with imagination might
+counter-counterplot by getting men inside Dawson's defences. I
+couldn't see how one would work it, but if German agents, say, could
+manage to become trusted servants of Dawson himself, they would have
+the time of their lives. So far I was guessing at a possibility,
+however improbable it might seem. Then when Dawson told us that he had
+sent Trehayne into the _Antigone_ and that he was the one factor
+common to both vessels--the workmen and the maintenance part were all
+different--I began to feel that my wild theory might have something in
+it. I didn't say anything to you, Cary, or to Dawson--he despises
+theories. Afterwards Trehayne came in and I spoke to him, and he to
+me, in French. He did not utter a dozen words altogether, but I was
+absolutely certain that his French had not been learned at an English
+public school and during short trips on the Continent. I know too much
+of English school French and of one's opportunities to learn upon
+Continental trips. It took me three years of hard work to recover from
+the sort of French which I learned at school, and I am not well yet.
+The French spoken by Trehayne was the French of the nursery. It was
+almost, if not quite, his mother tongue, just as his English was.
+Trehayne's French accent did not fit into Trehayne's history as
+retailed to us by Dawson. From that moment I plumped for Trehayne as
+the cutter of gun wires."
+
+Dawson had been listening, though he showed no interest in my speech.
+When I had quite finished, and was basking in the respectful
+admiration emanating from dear old Cary, he upset over me a bucket of
+very cold water.
+
+"Very pretty," said he. "But answer one question. Why did I send
+Trehayne to the _Antigone_?"
+
+"Why? How can I tell? You said it was to make sure that the shore
+party were all off the ship."
+
+"I said! What does it matter what I say! What I do matters a heap, but
+what I say--pouf! I sent Trehayne to the _Antigone_ to test him. I
+sent him expecting that he would try to cut her wires, and he did.
+Then when I was sure, though I had no evidence for a law court, I sent
+him to the _Malplaquet_, and I set my trap there for him to walk into.
+How did I guess? I don't guess; I watch. The more valuable a man is to
+me, the more I watch him, for he might be even more valuable to
+somebody else. Trehayne was an excellent man, but he had not been with
+me a month before I was watching him as closely as any cat. I hadn't
+been a Marine and served ashore and afloat without knowing a born
+gentleman when I see one, and knowing, too, the naval stamp. Trehayne
+was too much of a gentleman to have become a workman in the _Vernon_
+and at Greenock without some very good reason. He said that he was an
+orphan--yes; he said his parents left him penniless, and he had to
+earn his living the best way he could--yes. Quite good reasons, but
+they didn't convince me. I was certain sure that somewhere, some time,
+Trehayne had been a naval officer. I had seen too many during my
+service to make any mistake about that. So when I stood there waiting
+in that damned cold corner behind that bulkhead, it was for Trehayne
+that I was waiting. I meant to take him or to kill him. When he killed
+himself, I was glad. As I watched his eyes fade out, it was as if my
+own son was dying on his feet in front of me. But it was better so
+than to die in front of a firing party. For I--I loved him, and I
+wished him 'Good-bye,'"
+
+Dawson pitched his cigar into the fire, got up, and walked away to the
+far side of the room. I had never till that moment completely
+reverenced the penetrative, infallible judgment of Little Jane.
+
+Dawson came back after a few minutes, picked up another cigar from
+Cary's box, and sat down. "You see, I have a letter from him. I found
+it in his quarters where I went straight from the _Malplaquet_."
+
+"May we read it?" I asked gently. "I was greatly taken with Trehayne
+myself. He was a clean, beautiful boy. He was an enemy officer on
+Secret Service; there is no dishonour in that. If he were alive, I
+could shake his hand as the officer of the firing party shook the hand
+of Lody before he gave the last order."
+
+Dawson took a paper from his pocket, and handed it to me. "Read it
+out," said he; "I can't."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+TREHAYNE'S LETTER
+
+I took the letter from Dawson and glanced through it. The first sheet
+and the last had been written very recently--just before the boy had
+left his quarters for the last time to go on board the _Malplaquet_;
+the remainder had been set down at various times; and the whole had
+been connected up, put together, and paged after the completion of the
+last sheet. Trehayne wrote a pretty hand, firm and clear, the writing
+of an artist who was also a trained engineer. There was no trace in
+the script of nervousness or of hesitation. He had carried out his
+Orders, he saw clearly that the path which he had trod was leading him
+to the end of his journey, but he made no complaint. He was a Latin,
+and to the last possessed that loftiness of spirit wedded to sombre
+fatalism which is the heritage of the Latins. He was at war with his
+kindred of Italy and France, and with the English among whom he had
+been brought up, and whom he loved. He was their enemy by accident of
+birth, but though he might and did love his foes better than his
+German friends of Austria and Prussia, yet he had taken the oath of
+faithful service, and kept it to the end. I could understand why
+Dawson--that strange human bloodhound, in whom the ruthless will
+continually struggled with and kept under the very tender heart--would
+allow no one to slander Trehayne.
+
+Cary was watching me eagerly, waiting for me to read the letter.
+
+Dawson's head was resting on one hand, and his face was turned away,
+so that I could not see it. He could not wholly conceal his emotion,
+but he would not let us see more of it than he could help. He did not
+move once during my reading.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_To Chief Inspector William Dawson, C.I.D._
+
+SIR,
+
+Will you be surprised, my friend, when you read this that I have left
+for you, to learn that I, your right-hand man in the unending spy
+hunt, I whom you have called your bright jewel of a pupil, Petty
+Officer John Trehayne, R.N.V.R., am at this moment upon the books of
+the Austrian Navy as a sub-lieutenant, seconded for Secret Service?
+Have you ever been surprised by anything? I don't know. You have said
+often in my hearing that you suspect every one. Have you suspected me?
+Sometimes when I have caught that sidelong squint of yours, that
+studied accidental glance which sees so much, I have felt almost sure
+that you were far from satisfied that Trehayne was the man he gave
+himself out to be. I have been useful to you. I have eaten your salt,
+and have served you as faithfully as was consistent with the supreme
+Orders by which I direct my action. With you I have run down and
+captured German agents, wretched lumps of dirt, whom I loathe as much
+as you do. Those who have sworn fidelity to this fair country of
+England, and have accepted of her citizenship--things which I have
+never done--and then in fancied security have spied upon their adopted
+Mother, I loathe and spit upon. I have taken the police oath of
+obedience to my superiors, and I have kept it, but I have never sworn
+allegiance to His Majesty your King, whom I pray that God may preserve
+though I am his enemy. To your blunt English mind, untrained in logic,
+my sentiments and actions may lack consistency. But no. Those agents
+whom we have run down, you and I, were traitors--traitors to England.
+Of all traitors for whom Hell is hungry the German-born traitor is the
+most devilish. I would not have you think, my friend, that I am at one
+with them. Never while I have been in your pay and service have I had
+any communication direct or indirect with any of the naturalised-
+British Prussian scum, who have betrayed your noble generosity. I have
+taken my Orders from Vienna, I have communicated always direct with
+Vienna. I am an Austrian naval officer. I am no traitor to England.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I spring from an old Italian family which has long been settled in
+Trieste. For many generations we have served in the Austrian Navy.
+With modern Italy, with the Italy above all which has thrown the Holy
+Father into captivity and stripped the Holy See of the dominions
+bestowed upon it by God, we have no part or lot. Yet when I have met
+Italian officers, and those too of France, as I have frequently done
+during my cruises afloat, I have felt with them a harmony of spirit
+which I have never experienced in association with German-Austrians
+and with Prussians. I do not wish to speak evil of our Allies, the
+Prussians, but to one of my blood they are the most detestable people
+whom God ever had the ill-judgment to create.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was born in Trieste, and lived there with my parents until I was
+eight years old. In our private life we always spoke Italian or
+French, German was our official language. I know that language well,
+of course, but it is not my mother tongue. Italian or French, and
+afterwards English--I speak and write all three equally well; which of
+the three I shall use when I come to die and one reverts to the speech
+of the nursery and schoolroom, I cannot say; it will depend upon whom
+those are that stand about my deathbed.
+
+When I was eight years old, my father, Captain ---- (no, I will not
+tell you my name; it is not Trehayne though somewhat similar in
+sound), was appointed Austrian Consul at Plymouth, and we all moved to
+that great Devonshire seaport. I was young enough to absorb the rich
+English atmosphere, nowhere so rich as in that county which is the
+home and breeding-ground of your most splendid Navy. I was born again,
+a young Elizabethan Englishman. My story to you of my origin was true
+in one particular--I really was educated at Blundell's School at
+Tiverton. Whenever--and it has happened more than once--I have met as
+Trehayne old schoolfellows of Blundell's they have accepted without
+comment or inquiry my tale that I had become an Englishman, and had
+anglicised my name. Among the peoples which exist on earth to-day, you
+English are the most nobly generous and unsuspicious. The Prussians
+laugh at you; I, an Austrian-Italian, love and respect you.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I was sixteen, after I had spent eight years in Devon, and four
+of those years at an English public school, I was in speech and almost
+in the inner fibres of my mind an Englishman. Your naval authorities
+at Plymouth and Devonport, as serenely trustful and heedless of
+espionage as the mass of your kindly people, allowed my father--whom I
+often accompanied--to see the dockyards, the engine shops, the
+training schools, and the barracks. They knew that he was an Austrian
+naval officer, and they took him to their hearts as a brother, of the
+common universal brotherhood of the sea. I think that your Navy holds
+those of a foreign naval service as more nearly of kin to themselves
+than civilians of their own blood. The bond of a common profession is
+more close than the bond of a common nationality. I do not doubt that
+my father sent much information to our Embassy in London--it was what
+he was employed to do--but I am sure that he did not basely betray the
+wonderful confidence of his hosts. Our countries were at peace. My
+father is no Prussian; he is a chivalrous gentleman. I am sure that he
+did not send more than his English naval friends were content at the
+time that he should send. For in those years your newspapers and your
+books upon the Royal Navy of England concealed little from the world.
+I have visited Dartmouth; I have dined in the Naval College there with
+bright sailor boys of my own age. It was then my one dream, had I
+remained in England, to have become an Englishman, and to have myself
+served in your Navy. It was a vain dream, but I knew no better. Fate
+and my birth made me afterwards your enemy. I would have fought you
+gladly face to face on land or sea, but never, never, would I have
+stabbed the meanest of Englishmen in the back.
+
+When I was sixteen years old I left England with my parents and
+returned to Triest. I was a good mathematician with a keen taste for
+mechanics. I spent two years in the naval engineering shops at Pola,
+and I was gazetted as a sub-lieutenant in the engineering branch of
+the Austrian Navy. My next two years were spent afloat. Although I did
+not know it, I had already been marked out by my superiors for the
+Secret Service. My perfect acquaintance with English, my education at
+Blundell's, my knowledge of your thoughts and your queer ways, and
+twists of mind, had equipped me conspicuously for Secret Service work
+in your midst.
+
+As a youth of twenty, in the first flush of manhood, I was seconded
+for service here, and I returned to England. That was five years ago.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[I paused, for my throat was dry, and looked up. Cary was leaning
+forward intent upon every word. Dawson's face was still turned away;
+he had not moved. It seemed to me that to our party of three had been
+added a fourth, the spirit of Trehayne, and that he anxiously waited
+there yonder in the shadows for the deliverance of our judgment. Had
+he, an English public school boy, played the game according to the
+immemorial English rules? I went on.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was extraordinarily easy for me to obtain employment in the heart
+of your naval mysteries. Few questions were asked; you admitted me as
+one of yourselves. I took the broad open path of full acceptance of
+your conditions. I first obtained employment in a marine engineering
+shop at Southampton, joined a trade union, attended Socialist
+meetings--I, a member of one of the oldest families in Trieste. Though
+a Catholic, I bent my knee in the English Church, and this was not
+difficult, for I had always attended service in the chapel at
+Blundell's. To you, my friend, I can say this, for you are of some
+strange sect which consigns to the lowest Hell both Catholics and
+Anglicans alike. Your Heaven will be a small place. From Southampton I
+went to the torpedo training-ship _Vernon_. Again I had no difficulty.
+I was a workman of skill and intelligence. I was there for more than
+two years, learning all your secrets, and storing them in my mind for
+the benefit of my own Service at home.
+
+It was at Portsmouth that there came to me the great temptation of my
+life, for I fell in love, not as you colder people do, but as a
+Latin of the warm South. She was an English girl of good, if
+undistinguished, family. Though in my hours of duty I belonged to that
+you call the 'working classes,' I was well off, and lived in private
+the life of my own class. I had double the pay of my rank, an
+allowance from my father, and my wages, which were not small. There
+were many English families in Portsmouth and Southsea who were
+graciously pleased to recognise that John Trehayne, trade unionist,
+and weekly wage-earning workman, was a gentleman by birth and
+breeding. In any foreign port I should have been under police
+supervision as a person eminently to be suspected; in Portsmouth I was
+accepted without question for what I gave myself out to be--a
+gentleman who wished to learn his business from the bottom upwards. I
+will say nothing of the lady of my heart except that I loved her
+passionately, and should have married her--aye, and become an
+Englishman in fact, casting off my own, country--if War had not blown
+my ignoble plans to shatters. There was nothing ignoble in my love,
+for she was a queen among women, but in myself for permitting the hot
+blood of youth to blind my eyes to the duty claimed of me by my
+country. When war became imminent, I was not recalled, as I had hoped
+to be, since I wished to fight afloat as became my rank and family. I
+was ordered to take such steps as most effectively aided me to observe
+the English plans and preparations, and to report when possible to
+Vienna. In other words, I was ordered to act in your midst as a
+special intelligence officer--what you would call a Spy. It was an
+honourable and dangerous service which I had no choice but to accept.
+My dreams of love had gone to wreck. I could have deceived the woman
+whom I loved, for she would have trusted me and believed any story of
+me that I had chosen to tell. But could I, an officer, a gentleman by
+birth and I hope by practice, a secret enemy of England and a spy upon
+her in the hour of her sorest trial, could I remain the lover of an
+English girl without telling her fully and frankly exactly what I was?
+Could I have committed this frightful treason to love and remained
+other than an object of scorn and loathing to honest men? I could not.
+In soul and heart she was mine; I was her man, and she was my woman.
+With her there were no reserves in love. She was mine, yet I fled from
+her with never a word, even of good-bye. I made my plans, obtained
+certificates of my proficiency in the _Vernon_, kissed my dear love
+quietly, almost coldly, without a trace of the passion that I felt,
+and fled. It was the one thing left me to do. My friend, that was two
+years ago. She knows not whether I am alive or am dead; I know not
+permission to spend the night with her father, and Baron Clyde called
+about four o'clock to escort her. Was not that the hour, baron?"
+
+"Yes, your Grace," I answered, bowing. "I accompanied my cousin to
+her father's house, returned later to fetch her back to the palace,
+but she did not care to face the storm, so I remained till ten o'clock,
+returned to Whitehall, and slept till morning. Here is another witness,"
+I continued, laughing, as I turned to John Churchill, who was standing
+near the king. "Step forward, Churchill, and testify. I left him making
+his suit to one of the most interesting ladies in London."
+
+The king turned with an inquiring look, and Churchill answered: "Yes,
+your Majesty, it is all true. I was making my suit until near the hour
+of eleven, when Mistress Jennings, who was ill, told me it was time to
+go home. If she was kidnapped Sunday night, it was before five o'clock
+or after eleven."
+
+I flattered myself that we had all done a neat bit of convincing lying in
+a good cause.
+
+"Odds fish!" mumbled the king, pulling his chin beard, evidently puzzled.
+
+"Odds fish!" exclaimed Frances, mimicking the king's tone of voice and
+twisting an imaginary beard. "Some one has been hoaxing Jacob Hall's
+friend."
+
+It was a bold speech, but Frances carried it off splendidly by turning to
+the king and speaking in mock seriousness:--
+
+"Your Majesty should put a check on Rochester and the wags. It is a shame
+to permit them to work upon the credulity of one who is growing weak in
+mind by reason of age."
+
+The country girl had vanquished the terror of the court, and all who had
+witnessed the battle rejoiced; that is, all save the king and Castlemain.
+She glared at Frances, and her face, usually beautiful despite the lack
+of youth, became hideous with rage. She was making ready for another
+attack of words, if not of finger nails, when the duchess interposed,
+saying:--
+
+"Evidently some one has been hoaxing you, Lady Castlemain. Mistress
+Jennings was not kidnapped Sunday nor any other day. She has been with
+me constantly of late, excepting Sunday after four o'clock, and she has
+accounted for herself from that time till her return to my closet."
+
+Castlemain was whipped out, so she turned the whole matter off with a
+forced laugh, saying:--
+
+"It was that fool Rochester who set the rumor afloat."
+
+After standing through an awkward minute or two, Castlemain bowed stiffly
+to the king and the duchess, turned away from our group, and soon left
+the ballroom.
+
+When Castlemain was gone, we all laughed save the king. Presently he left
+us, and I saw him beckon Wentworth and Berkeley to his side. I followed
+him as though going to the other side of the gallery, but walked slowly
+when I approached him and the two worthy villains. I was rewarded by
+hearing his Majesty say:--
+
+"Odds fish! But you made a mess of it! You got the wrong woman! Who in
+the devil's name did you pick up?"
+
+I could not stop to hear the rest of this interesting conversation, but
+two days later I heard from Rochester, who had it from Wentworth, that
+the following occurred:--
+
+"We thought we had her," answered Berkeley, nodding towards Frances, "but
+the woman wore a full vizard and was wrapped in furs to her ears, so that
+we did not see her face."
+
+"Do you suppose we could have made a mistake?" asked Wentworth.
+
+"You surely did," answered the king. "She has established an alibi. At
+what hour did you leave Baynard's Castle?"
+
+"Near one o'clock," returned Berkeley.
+
+"One o'clock! She was playing cards with the duchess till four,"
+exclaimed the king, impatiently. "You picked up the wrong woman. But
+I'm glad you did. I suppose the lampooners will get hold of the story
+and will set every one laughing at me. Kidnapped the wrong woman and
+lost her! Odds fish! But you're a pair of wise ones. I see I shall have
+to find me a new Lord High Kidnapper."
+
+The king was right concerning the lampooners, for soon they had the
+story, and he became the laughing-stock of London, though Frances's name
+was not mentioned.
+
+It is a significant index to the morals of our time that the king's
+attempt to kidnap a woman in the streets of London should have aroused
+laughter rather than indignation.
+
+As it was, the kidnapping episode brought no harm to my cousin, but she
+did not want it to happen again, and so was careful to take a trusted
+escort with her when she went abroad thereafter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AT THE MAID'S GARTER
+
+
+Betty was confined to her room during the greater part of the next month,
+and Frances visited her frequently. Notwithstanding my vows not to see
+Betty, I was compelled to go with Frances as her body-guard. I even went
+so far in my feeble effort to keep my resolution as to suggest Churchill
+as a body-guard, but Frances objected, and the quality of my good intent
+was not enduring. So I went with my cousin, and the joy in Betty's eyes
+whenever we entered her room was not the sort that would come because she
+was glad to see Frances.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the first week of Bettina's illness she was too sick to talk,
+therefore we did not remain long with her. But as she grew better our
+visits lengthened, and my poor resolutions grew weaker day by day because
+my love for the girl was growing stronger and stronger hour by hour.
+
+On one occasion while Frances's back was turned, Betty impulsively
+snatched up my hand and kissed it, dropping it instantly, blushing
+intensely and covering her tracks by humming the refrain of a French
+lullaby. I longed to return the caress, but did not, and took great
+credit to myself because of my self-denial. Betty understood my sacrifice
+and appreciated it, feeling sure that she need not thereafter restrain
+herself for the purpose of restraining me.
+
+During those times I was making an honest effort to do the right by this
+beautiful child-woman and to save my own honor unsullied from the sin of
+making her unhappy for life through winning her love beyond her power to
+recall; and my effort toward the right, like all such efforts, achieved
+at least a part of the good for which I strove.
+
+One day after our visit to Betty's room, Frances asked me to take her to
+see George. I suspected that she had seen him frequently, but was not
+sure. I objected, but changed my mind when she said:--
+
+"Very well. I prefer going alone."
+
+I shall not try to describe the scene between them. We found George
+alone, and she sprang to him as the iron springs to the magnet.
+
+I knew then, if never before, that there could be no happiness in this
+world for her away from him. Whether she would find it with him was
+impossible for me to know, but I saw that she was in the grip of a mighty
+passion, and I could only hope that a way would open to save her.
+
+Hamilton's fortunes would need to mend a great deal before he could
+or would ask her to be his wife, for now he was at the bottom of the
+ladder. He lost no opportunity to impress this disagreeable truth upon
+her, but his honest efforts to hold himself aloof only increased her
+respect and love for him. It not only convinced her that notwithstanding
+his past life, he was a man of honor capable of resisting himself and of
+protecting her, but it gave him the quality so irresistible to a
+woman--unattainability.
+
+Taking it all in all, my poor beautiful cousin was falling day by
+day deeper into an abyss of love from which she could in no way
+extricate herself. In short, level-headed Frances had got far out
+of plumb, and, though she struggled desperately, she could not right
+herself, nor could any one help her. I fully realized that the small
+amount of self-restraint and passivity she still retained would give
+way to disastrous activity when the time should come for her to part
+with George and lose him forever. But I could see no way to save her
+unless I could induce George to leave England at once, for good and
+all.
+
+At times the fates seem to fly to a man's help, and in this instance they
+came to me most graciously that same day in Whitehall, in the person of
+my friend the Count de Grammont.
+
+Soon after leaving Frances in the maids' apartments, I met that most
+interesting gentleman roué, his Grace de Grammont, coming from the king's
+closet. As already stated, he had been banished from the French court by
+Louis XIV because of a too great friendliness for one of the king's
+sweethearts, and was living in exile in London till Louis should forgive
+his interference. The French king really liked De Grammont and trusted
+him when his Majesty's lady-loves were not concerned, so the count had
+been sent to England in honorable exile, and was employed in certain
+cases as a spy and in others as a means of secret communication between
+the French king and persons connected with the court of Charles II.
+
+When De Grammont saw me, he came forward, holding out both hands in his
+effusive French manner, apparently overjoyed at finding a long-lost
+brother.
+
+"Come with me, my dear baron," he cried, bending so close to me that I
+feared he was going to kiss me. "Come with me! You are the very man of
+all the world I want, I need, I must have!"
+
+"You have me, my dear count," said I, "but I cannot go with you. I am
+engaged elsewhere."
+
+"No, no, let me whisper!" He brought his lips close to my ear and
+continued almost inaudibly: "You may please me. You may help a friend.
+You may oblige--a king."
+
+The last, of course, was the _ne plus ultra_ of inducement according to
+the count's way of thinking, and he supposed the mere suggestion would
+vanquish me. Still I pleaded my engagement. He insisted, however,
+repeating in my ear:--
+
+"Oblige a king! A real king! Not a flimsy fool of bourgeois, who makes of
+himself the laughing-stock of his people, but a real king. I cannot name
+him now, but you must know."
+
+We were in a narrow passage leading to the Stone Gallery in Whitehall. He
+looked about him a moment, then taking me by the arm, led me to the Stone
+Gallery and thence to the garden. I wanted to stop, but he kept his grasp
+on my arm, repeating now and then the word "Come" in whispers, till we
+reached a lonely spot in St. James Park. There he halted, and though
+there was not a living creature in sight, he brought his lips to my ear
+and breathed the name, "'Sieur George Hamilton."
+
+I tried not to show that I was startled, but the quickwitted, sharp-eyed
+Frenchman read me as though I were an open book, and grasping my hand,
+cried out:--
+
+"Ah, I knew you could tell me. It is to rejoice! I knew it!"
+
+"Tell you what, count?" I asked.
+
+"Tell me where your friend and mine is, or if you will not tell me, take
+to him a letter. I have been trying to find him this fortnight."
+
+"I cannot tell you where he is, my dear count--"
+
+"Of course not! I do not ask," he interrupted.
+
+"--But I may be able to forward your letter to him. I heard only the
+other day that he was in France."
+
+"Of course, of course, he is in France! Not in England at all! Good,
+good! I see you are to be trusted. But I must have your word of honor
+that the letter will be delivered."
+
+"I shall send it by none but a trusted messenger," I answered, "and shall
+return it to you unopened unless I am convinced beyond a doubt that it
+will reach our friend."
+
+"Good, good! Come to my hotel. I will trust you."
+
+We went to De Grammont's house, and after taking great precautions
+against discovery, he gave me a small wooden box wound with yards of tape
+and sealed with quantities of wax. I put the box in my pocket, saying:--
+
+"I accept the trust on my honor, dear count, and though the package bears
+no name nor address, I shall deliver it to the person for whom it is
+intended."
+
+De Grammont said he knew nothing of the contents of the box except that
+it contained a message for a friend, and I believed him.
+
+When I left his house he came to the door with me, murmuring: "My
+gratitude! My gratitude! Also the gratitude of my king, which I hope may
+prove of far greater value to your friend than my poor offering of
+words."
+
+I lost no time in seeking George, except to make sure that I was not
+followed. I trusted De Grammont and felt sure that the box he had given
+me contained a personal communication from no less a person than Louis
+XIV of France, but I wanted to take no risk of betraying Hamilton by
+leading De Grammont or any one else to his hiding-place.
+
+Since Frances's providential escape, the king had suspected the right
+persons of her rescue. At least he suspected Hamilton, and was seeking
+him more diligently than ever before. His Majesty had not shown me any
+mark of disfavor, but I feared he suspected me, and was sure he was not
+convinced that Frances's alibi had been proved by unsuborned testimony.
+If he was sure that she was the one who had been kidnapped, his
+suspicious nature would connect George with the rescue, and would lead
+him to conclude that Hamilton must be in England.
+
+A maid of Lady Castlemain's told Rochester, who in turn told me, that the
+king had again set his men to work searching for Hamilton. That being the
+case, George was in danger, and should he be found by the king's secret
+agents, who, I understood, were prowling all over England in the hope of
+obtaining a reward, his life would not be worth a week's purchase.
+
+George knew the risk he ran by remaining in England, but it was a part of
+his reckless courage to take delight in it. Later on this recklessness of
+disposition induced him to take a far greater risk. But of that in its
+turn.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After supper, I found Hamilton in his bedroom, which was connected
+by a hidden stairway with the room of the sinking floor. He wore his
+Quaker's disguise, and on the table beside him were the Bible and a few
+theological works dear to the hearts of his sect. I gave him the box,
+telling him its history. The letter was brief and was written in cipher.
+
+George translated it thus:--
+
+"MASTER GEORGE HAMILTON:
+
+"Monsieur le Grand wishes you to pay him a visit immediately.
+
+"DE CATANET."
+
+"You probably know Monsieur le Grand?" I asked.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "and I shall visit him without delay."
+
+"In Paris?" I asked, not quite sure that Monsieur le Grand was King Louis
+of France, and not desiring to know certainly.
+
+"In Paris," he answered, giving me to understand by his manner that he
+must tell me nothing more definite of Le Grand's identity.
+
+"Don't tell me what you know of the business this letter refers to, but
+tell me whether you know," I said, hoping that George might at least tell
+me it meant good fortune for him.
+
+"I cannot even conjecture the business upon which I am wanted," he said,
+"but I hope that it may give me an opportunity to be of service to the
+writer."
+
+Thus I was relieved of the disagreeable task of trying to induce George
+to leave England, and was very thankful to escape it.
+
+After a long silence, during which he read the one-line letter many
+times, he asked:--
+
+"Are you willing to bring Frances to me early to-morrow morning, if she
+will come?"
+
+"Doubtless I can," I answered. "Her willingness to come has been shown
+all too plainly of late; but ought I bring her?"
+
+"Yes. It will be the last time I shall ever see her unless good fortune
+lies in this letter, and for that I hardly dare hope. You know that when
+a man's luck has been against him for a long time, it kills the very
+roots of hope and brings him almost to doubt certainty. Soon after I have
+seen my friend, Le Grand, I shall write to you in cipher, of which I
+shall leave you the key. If I see a prospect of fortune worthy of
+Frances, I shall ask her to wait a time for me, but if my ill fortune
+pursues me, I shall never again be heard from by any one in England. Are
+you satisfied with the conditions?"
+
+I gave him my hand for answer, and told him I would bring Frances to him
+early the following morning.
+
+I hastened back to Whitehall, and coming upon Frances unengaged, asked
+her to go to her parlor with me. When she had closed the door, she turned
+to me, asking:--
+
+"What is it, Baron Ned? Tell me quickly. I know there is something wrong
+with George."
+
+"Will you go with me early to-morrow morning to see Betty--very early?"
+I asked.
+
+Her eyes opened in wonder, and she answered, somewhat amused: "You have
+been acting as my guardian for a long time, cousin Ned, and now I think I
+owe it to you to return the favor. You should not see so much of Betty. I
+know you mean no wrong to her, but you will cause her great suffering if
+you continue to see her, for you must know that already the girl is
+almost mad with love of you. Yet you cannot marry her."
+
+"Nor can you marry some one else," I retorted, almost angrily, for a man
+dislikes to be prodded by a painful truth.
+
+"Ah, well, I suppose we are a pair of fools," she said.
+
+"You're right, Frances," I answered philosophically, "and the only
+consolation we can find lies in the fact that we know it."
+
+"Most fools lack that flattering unction," returned Frances, musingly.
+
+"Perhaps you will take more interest in this matter when I tell you
+that it is not Betty I propose to see," I answered. "I am deliberately
+offering to take you to see some one else who is about to leave England."
+
+She stood on tiptoe and kissed my lips for answer, then sank into a
+chair, covering her face with her hands to hide the sudden tears.
+
+I went to the window and waited till she was calm. I longed to comfort
+her by telling of the faint prospect of good fortune that lay in Le
+Grand's letter, but I hesitated raising a hope which might never be
+realized.
+
+At the end of five minutes I went to her and said: "Let me ask the
+duchess to excuse you for to-night, and in the morning I'll meet you on
+Bowling Green stairs, at, say, seven o'clock."
+
+"I'll be there," she answered, smiling through her tears.
+
+The next morning we took boat, and the tide running out, made good speed
+to the Bridge, hastened to the Old Swan, and found George in his printing
+shop awaiting us. I remained in the old tapestried room, leaving Frances
+and George to say their farewells. In the course of a few minutes he
+called me in. He had donned his Quaker disguise, and on the floor near
+him was a small bundle of linen. Frances was weeping, and George's voice
+was choked with emotion.
+
+"Well, at last, Baron Ned, you are to be rid of me," he said, glancing
+toward the bundle at his feet.
+
+"What are your plans of escape?" I asked.
+
+"I shall work my way down to Sheerness, where I hope to find a boat
+for The Hague or the French coast. Lilly, who seems to know everything,
+past, present and future, came last night to tell me that the king has
+fifty men seeking me in various parts of England, especially the
+seaports, and has offered a reward of two hundred pounds for me, dead
+or alive, preferably dead, I suppose. If I go direct to Sheerness and try
+to take a boat, I am sure to be examined, and I'm not prepared for the
+ordeal. So I intend to preach my way down the river and induce the king's
+officers to send me abroad by force."
+
+"How are you off for money, George?" I asked.
+
+"I borrowed ten guineas from Lilly," he answered.
+
+"I thought you might be in need of money, so I brought fifty guineas from
+the strong box under my bed," I said, offering him the little bag of
+gold.
+
+He hesitated, saying: "If I take the money, you may never again see a
+farthing of it."
+
+"In that case, I'll take my pay in abusing you," I replied.
+
+"Do you believe he would, Frances?" asked George, turning to my cousin.
+Then continuing thoughtfully:
+
+"It is strange that I should have found such a friend at the bottom of a
+quarrel, all because I allowed him to abuse me. Truly forbearance is a
+profitable virtue. The 'other cheek' is the better of the two."
+
+Upon my insistence, he accepted the gold and gave me the ten guineas he
+had borrowed from Lilly, asking me to return them.
+
+Frances was making an entire failure of her effort to hold herself in
+check, and George was having difficulty in restraining himself, so, to
+bring the interview to an end, he gave me his hand, saying:--
+
+"Thank you, Ned, and good-by. I wish I could hope ever to see you again,
+but if Le Grand fails me, I shall go to the new world and lose myself in
+the Canadian woods."
+
+"No, no!" cried Frances, imploringly.
+
+"I hope not," began George, but he could not finish, so he took Frances
+in his arms for a moment, and when he released her, thrust us both out
+the door, saying: "Please leave me at once. If you do not, I fear I shall
+never let her go. Take care of her, Ned. Good-by!"
+
+The door closed on us, and when Frances had put on her vizard, she
+followed me upstairs to see Betty.
+
+I was not admitted to Betty's room, so I went back to the printing shop
+for a moment, and George gave me the key to the cipher, in which we were
+to write to each other. His letters were to be sent under cover to Lilly,
+and mine were to go to an address in Paris which George would send to me.
+
+Long afterwards George told me of his adventures in making his escape,
+but I shall give them now in the order of their happening rather than in
+the order of time in which I learned them.
+
+Leaving the Old Swan within ten minutes after I had said good-by to him,
+George crossed London Bridge, attired in his Quaker disguise, and made
+his way to Deptford, where he preached in the streets. From Deptford
+he followed the river by easy stages to Sheerness, where he lodged nearly
+a week, awaiting a boat that would answer his purpose. Had he attempted
+to board a vessel, he would have been seized and examined; therefore his
+plan was to grow violent in his preaching, and, if possible, provoke the
+authorities to place him on board one of the outgoing crafts; that being
+a favorite method of the king's men in getting rid of the too blatant
+fanatics in Sheerness.
+
+The Dutch sea captains were fanatics almost to a man, and the exiled
+exhorters found them always willing to help their persecuted brethren of
+the faith.
+
+And so it happened with George in Sheerness. He was on the dock exhorting
+vehemently against the evils of the time, laying great stress on the
+wickedness of the king and denouncing the vileness of the court. Two of
+the king's officers tried to silence him, but failing, ordered him to
+leave England by a certain Dutch boat then waiting in the harbor with its
+pennant up. He protested and struggled, but at last was forced aboard,
+raving against those godless Balaamites, the clergy of the Established
+Church, who, with the devil, he declared, were behind his persecution.
+
+So well did George play his part that a collection was taken up among the
+passengers of the Dutch boat to help the good man so vilely put upon.
+There was a sweet bit of irony in the fact, learned afterwards, that the
+officers who forced George aboard the Dutch ship were at Sheerness for
+the purpose of winning the two hundred pounds reward offered for his
+capture.
+
+The goodness of God occasionally takes a whimsical form.
+
+A month later I received a letter from George, written in cipher, which I
+here give translated:--
+
+"DEAR FRIEND:
+
+"I reached Paris three weeks ago and was received by Monsieur Le G.
+most graciously. Although I cannot give definite news, I hope for great
+improvement in my fortune soon, and perhaps may write you more fully
+thereof before the week is spent.
+
+"Good fortune has but one meaning for me, of which you already know. I
+beg you to say to one that a letter from her hand would give me greater
+joy than she can know, and that I would now send one to her if I felt
+safe in so doing. Please send all letters in cipher, addressed: 'Monsieur
+le Blanc, in care of 'Sieur de Catanet, at the sign of the Double Arrow
+on the Rue St. Antoine, counting nine doors from the street corner
+nearest the Bastile.'
+
+"Your friend,
+
+"LE BLANC."
+
+When George wrote that he hoped for good fortune, I knew he had
+sound reason to expect it, for he was one who never permitted a mere
+possibility to take the form of hope, nor hope, however assuring, to
+take the aspect of certainty. Knowing this to be true, I found great
+joy in the letter, and when I told Frances, she did not pause even to
+give me one smile of thanks, but broke into a flood of tears and seemed
+to take great happiness in her tribulation.
+
+I told Frances that we should answer the letter at once, and suggested
+that she have hers ready in my hands the following day, if she wished to
+write one. I also suggested that we meet in Bettina's parlor, where
+Frances's letter could be rewritten in cipher. We trusted Bettina as we
+trusted ourselves, and when we told her the good news, she clapped her
+hands for joy, laughing, yet ready to weep, and was as happy as even she
+could be, which was very happy indeed.
+
+After we had talked, laughed, and cried a reasonable time in Betty's
+parlor, Frances handed me her letter, which was a bulky document, well
+taped and waxed.
+
+"It will require a week for me to translate this," I remarked, weighing
+the letter in my hand.
+
+"What do you mean by translating it?" she asked in surprise.
+
+"I must write it out in cipher. Hamilton directed that all letters should
+be sent in that form," I answered, amused at her alarm.
+
+"No, no!" she cried, snatching the letter from me, pressing it to her
+breast and blushing to her ears. "You shall not see my letter!"
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Because," she answered.
+
+"That is no reason," I replied. "Of course you have written nothing that
+you would not want me or your father to see?"
+
+"Well, yes, I have," she returned emphatically. "A great deal. Would you,
+Betty, want any one to see such a letter written by yourself?"
+
+"I suppose I could write a letter which I should want but one person in
+all the world to see," returned Betty, arching her eyebrows.
+
+"To whom would it be directed, Betty?" I asked, to tease her.
+
+A faint expression of reproach came to her eyes, but after a moment of
+pretty hesitancy, she answered boldly:--
+
+"Since you are so unwise as to ask, I'll answer in like folly. The letter
+could be directed to but one person in the world--you."
+
+I had received more than I had expected, and though I longed to make a
+suitable return, I dared not for the sake of my vows, so we all remained
+silent, and somewhat embarrassed, for a minute or two.
+
+Turning to Frances, I said: "If you don't want me to read your letter,
+I'll give you the key, and you may make it into cipher." But after
+examining the key, she declared that she could never learn to use it, and
+I suggested that she write a shorter letter in terms fit for a modest man
+to read.
+
+The next day she handed me a shorter letter, saying that she had cut and
+pruned it till there was nothing left worth sending, but I assured her
+that George would think otherwise.
+
+When I read the letter, my eyes were opened to the fact that there was
+more fire in Frances's heart than I had supposed any woman capable of
+holding in subjection. But that is a mistake often made by men.
+
+This was my cousin's "cut and pruned" letter:--
+
+"DEAR ONE:
+
+"Baron Ned says my letter must be short, so I smother what remnant of
+modesty I have, covering nothing with the veil of circumlocution, but
+telling you plainly what I know you want to hear. I love only you and am
+true to you in every thought, word, and deed. I long for you, yearn for
+you, pray for you, and be your fortune good or ill, I would share it and
+give you a part of the bliss of life which you would give to me.
+
+"So I pray you, do not desert me in case your present hope of good
+fortune fails you, but let me know at any time, and I will go to you, and
+will go with you wherever you will take me.
+
+"You will say, I fear, that none but a crazy woman would write such a
+letter as this, but if that be true, the world doubtless is and always
+has been populated by maniacs, and I pray God always will be. I pray you,
+remember, in judging me, that you are you and that I am but a woman
+by whom the good or evil of life is reckoned in the measure of her love;
+her joy or misery being only a matter of down weight or light weight more
+in the love she gives than in that which she receives. Remember, also,
+that in this letter I must condense when I might easily be prolix, and
+that after all is written, probably I shall have left unsaid the very
+thing I most wished to say. But these three words will tell it all and
+bear repeating: I love you.
+
+"FRANCES."
+
+And this from my sensible cousin! What would it be if her heart were not
+balanced by a wise head?
+
+Our letters being written, I became alarmed about posting them in London,
+not knowing when a messenger would start for France, nor who he would be.
+The next day Frances and I talked it over, and she suggested that as the
+king and most of the court were about to visit Bath for a season, and as
+neither she nor I cared to go, we should take the letters to Dover, cross
+to Calais, and post them in France.
+
+I sprang at the idea, but immediately sprang back, saying: "But it is not
+entirely proper for us to travel to Calais together, even though you are
+my sister-cousin."
+
+"We may take father," she suggested. "Sarah wants to visit Lady St.
+Albans, and she can go if we take father with us. And, Baron Ned; I have
+another suggestion to offer. Let us take Bettina."
+
+I sprang at that proposal and did not spring back. So we went first to my
+uncle, who said he would go with us, and then we went to see Bettina. She
+had recovered from her sprains and bruises, although she was still pale
+and not quite strong.
+
+When Frances asked her to go with us, she answered, "Ay, gladly, if
+father consents."
+
+Pickering, who was sitting with us at the time in Bettina's cozy parlor,
+turned to me, laughing, and said:--
+
+"You would suppose, from Betty's remark, that I am master here, but the
+truth is my soul is not my own, and now her modest request for permission
+is made for effect on the company."
+
+Betty ran to her father, sat on his knee, twined her arm about his neck,
+and kissed him as a protest against the unjust insinuation.
+
+"You see how she does it," said Pickering. "No hammer and tongs for
+Betty; just oil and honey."
+
+"And lots and lots of love, father," interrupted Betty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, our journey was soon arranged on a grand scale. Pickering lent us
+his new coach, just home from the makers in Cow Street. It was cushioned
+and curtained and had springs in place of thorough-braces. It also had
+glass in the windows and doors; a luxury then little known in England
+even among the nobles. There was a prejudice against its use in coach
+windows because of the fact that two or three old ladies had cut their
+faces in trying to thrust their heads through it.
+
+The new coach was a wonderful vehicle, and Frances and I, as well as
+Betty, were very proud of our grandeur. Pickering sent along with the
+coach and horses two lusty fellows as drivers, and gave us a hamper
+almost large enough to feed a company of soldiers. I was to pay all
+expenses on the road.
+
+Almost at the last hour Sir Richard concluded not to go, but insisted
+that Frances, Bettina, and I take the journey by ourselves. As Pickering
+offered no objection, Frances shrugged her shoulders in assent, I
+shrugged mine, and Betty laughed, whereby we all, in our own way, agreed
+to the new arrangement, and preparations went forward rapidly.
+
+By the time we were ready to start, the king, the duke, the duchess, and
+many ladies and gentlemen of the court circle had gone to Bath, thus
+giving us an opportunity to make our journey without the knowledge of any
+one in Whitehall; a consideration of vast importance to us under the
+circumstances. Some of our grand friends at court might have laughed at
+our taking the journey with an innkeeper's daughter, in an innkeeper's
+coach, but Frances and I laughed because we were happy.
+
+There are distinct periods of good and bad luck in every man's life,
+which may be felt in advance by one sensitive to occult influences,
+if one will but keep good watch on one's intuitions and leave them
+untrammelled by will or reason. At this time "I felt it in my bones,"
+as Betty would have said, that the day of our good luck was at hand.
+
+All conditions seemed to combine to our pleasure when, on a certain
+bright spring morning, Betty, Frances, and I went down to the courtyard
+of the Old Swan, where we found the coach, the horses, and even the
+drivers all glittering in the sunshine.
+
+There was ample room in the back seat of the coach for the three of us,
+so Betty took one corner, Frances made herself comfortable in another,
+and I took what was left, the pleasant place between them.
+
+After Betty had kissed her father at least a dozen times, and had shed a
+few tears just to make her happiness complete, the driver cracked his
+whip and away we went, out through the courtyard gate, down Gracious Hill
+and across London Bridge before a sleepy man could have winked his eyes.
+
+At first we thought we were in haste, but when we got out of Southwark
+and into the country, the dark green grass, the flowering hedges, the
+whispering leaves of the half-fledged trees, the violets by the roadside,
+and the smiling sun in the blue above, all invited us to linger. So we
+told the driver to slow his pace, and we lowered every window in the
+coach, there being no one in the country whose wonder and envy we cared
+to arouse by a display of our glass.
+
+There was not room in Betty's little heart for all the great flood of
+happiness that had poured into it, so presently, to give it vent, she
+began to sing the little French lullaby we had so often heard, whereupon
+Frances and I ceased listening to the birds, and I was more thoroughly
+convinced than ever before that there were at least distinct periods of
+_good_ fortune in every man's life.
+
+Before reaching Gravesend, we halted at a grassy spot near the river
+bank, where we ate our dinner. When the horses had rested, we set off for
+Rochester, in which place we expected to spend the night at the Maid's
+Garter, a famous old inn kept by a friend of Pickerings.
+
+I had noticed a twinkle in Pickering's eyes when he directed us to go to
+this tavern, but did not understand the cause of his merriment until I
+learned that by a curious old custom, a maid seeking entrance for the
+first time must contribute one of her garters before being admitted. The
+worst feature of the usage was that the garter must be taken off at the
+door, and then and there presented to the porter, who received it on the
+point of his official staff.
+
+After entering Rochester, we went to the Maid's Garter and at once drove
+into the courtyard, as the custom is with travellers intending to remain
+all night.
+
+When we left the coach and started to climb the steps to the great door,
+we found the landlord and his retinue waiting to receive us. Frances was
+in the lead, and when we reached the broad, flat stone in front of the
+door, the head porter stepped before her, bowed, and asked humbly:--
+
+"Is my lady maid or madam?"
+
+Frances looked up in surprise, and he repeated his question.
+
+"What is that to you, fellow?" asked Frances.
+
+"It is this, my lady," returned the porter. "If my lady be a maid, she
+must pay me one of her garters as her admission fee to this inn. If she
+be madam, she enters free. It is a privilege conferred on the Maid's
+Garter by good St. Augustine when he was Bishop of Canterbury, so long
+ago that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."
+
+"What nonsense is this?" asked Frances, turning to me, and Bettina asked
+the same question with her eyes. I explained the matter, and Frances,
+turning to the porter, said:--
+
+"I'll buy you off with a jacobus or a guinea."
+
+"Not a hundred guineas would buy me off, my lady," answered the porter,
+bowing, "though I might say that a shilling usually goes with the
+garter."
+
+"Well, I'll send you both the shilling and the garter from my room," said
+Frances, moving toward the inn door.
+
+"The garter must be paid here, my lady. The shilling may be paid at any
+time," returned the porter, with polite insistence.
+
+Frances was about to protest, but Betty, more in sympathy with the
+eccentric customs of inns, modestly lifted her skirts, untied her garter
+and offered it to the porter, telling him very seriously:--
+
+"I am a maid."
+
+The porter thanked her gravely, whereupon Frances, turning her back on
+the audience in the doorway, brought forth her garter, gave it to the
+porter, and we were admitted.
+
+Our supper, beds, and breakfast were all so good that they reconciled
+Frances and Bettina to the payment of the extraordinary admission fee,
+and when we left the next morning, curiosity prompted them to pass near
+the garter rack in the tap-room, where garters were hanging which had
+been taken from maids whose great granddaughters had become great
+grandmothers. The garters that had belonged to Frances and Bettina, being
+the latest contributions, hung at the bottom of the rack, neatly dated
+and labelled, and, as I left the room, I overheard Bettina whisper to
+Frances:--
+
+"I'm glad mine was of silk."
+
+We made a short drive to Maidstone, where we stopped over night. The next
+day a longer journey brought us to Canterbury, where we spent two nights
+and a day, visiting the cathedral both by sunlight and moonlight; the
+combination of moonlight and Bettina being very trying to me.
+
+From Canterbury we drove in the rain to Dover, where we lodged at that
+good inn, the Three Anchors, to await a fair wind for Calais.
+
+During the next three days the wind was fair, but it was blowing half a
+gale, and therefore the passage was not to be attempted. Though I was
+enjoying myself, I was anxious to post our letters, as mine gave a full
+account of several matters at court concerning which I knew George ought
+to be informed.
+
+Among other news, I told him that King Charles had sent a messenger
+into France carrying a personal letter to King Louis, asking his help
+in finding the man Hamilton, who had threatened Charles's life. I also
+suggested in my letter that the king of France was trying to buy the
+city of Dunkirk from King Charles, and that because of the friendly
+negotiations then pending, Louis might give heed to our king's request.
+In that case, it might be well, I thought, for Hamilton to leave France
+at once.
+
+With this urgency in mind, I suggested to Frances and Betty that I
+cross to Calais alone, regardless of the weather, leaving them at Dover
+till my return. But they would not be left behind, so we all set sail on
+a blustery morning and paid for our temerity with a day of suffering. In
+Calais we posted our letters, having learned that a messenger would leave
+that same day for Paris, and two days later we returned to Dover.
+
+Our journey home was made in the rain, Bettina sleeping with her head on
+my shoulder a great part of the way. And I enjoyed the rain even more
+than I had enjoyed the sunshine.
+
+We reached London nearly a week before the king's return, so that nothing
+was known of our journey at court.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"ALL SUNSHINE MAKES THE DESERT"
+
+
+Whatever faults Whitehall may have had as a place of residence, dulness
+was not among them. There were balls, games with high stakes, theatres,
+gossip, scandals, and once in a long while an affair of state to interest
+us. In order to interest the court thoroughly, an affair of state must
+have involved the getting of money for the privy purse; that is, for the
+king's personal use, for out of it the courtesans were fed and gambling
+debts were paid.
+
+The time of our Dover journey was one of extreme depletion in the privy
+purse. The king had borrowed from every person and every city within the
+realm who, by threats or cajolery, could be induced to part with money.
+But now he had reached the end of his tether.
+
+When matters were thus in extremis, some one, probably Castlemain,
+suggested the sale of England's possessions on the continent, chief of
+which was the rich city of Dunkirk, situate on the French side of the
+Straits of Dover. This fortified city, within a few leagues of Calais,
+had cost the English nation heavily in blood and gold to gain, and still
+more heavily to hold, but its value to England commercially and
+politically was beyond measure.
+
+Since Queen Mary had lost Calais, Dunkirk was the only important foothold
+England had on continental soil; therefore it was almost as dear to the
+English people as the city of London itself. Because of its importance,
+it was greatly coveted by the French king, who shortly before the time
+of our journey to Dover had made overtures to buy it.
+
+Charles turned a deaf ear to King Louis's first proposal to buy Dunkirk,
+not because he loved the city, or cared a farthing for its value to his
+people, but because he feared the storm of indignation its sale would
+raise. The Lord Chancellor objected to the sale of Dunkirk, and tried
+to show Charles the great folly of entertaining the offer. He was the
+only wise, honest man in the king's council, and, by reason of his
+wonderful knowledge of mankind, was called "the Chancellor of Human
+Nature." But the king needed money, so after a time he listened to
+Berkeley, Crofts, Castlemain, and others of like character, whose
+strongest argument consisted in accusing the king, most offensively,
+of being afraid of his people.
+
+"Are you not king?" asked Castlemain. "Does not Dunkirk belong to you,
+and may you not sell that which is your property? Are not these dogs,
+the people, your slaves, your property? Yet you stand in cowardly fear
+of a rabble which quakes if you but crook your finger. A like fear of his
+subjects cost your father his head. The people will crawl before you if
+you kick them, but let them see that you fear them, and you will learn
+that there is no cruelty like that of the good people."
+
+De Grammont, the French exile, called attention to the French king's
+successful tyranny, declaring that his master would sell Paris if he
+chose. De Grammont was acting secretly in the French king's interest.
+
+A weak man easily finds logic to justify the course he desires to take,
+so Charles turned a deaf ear to Clarendon, and, listening to Castlemain,
+announced that Dunkirk was for sale. As expected, a strong protest came
+from the people, but no one is so stubborn as a fool in the wrong, so
+Charles remained firm in his determination.
+
+Finding that protest would avail nothing, the people of London offered to
+buy Dunkirk, and began to bid for it against the French king. Louis,
+knowing that London was a rich city, and believing that its people would
+run up the price of Dunkirk to an exorbitant figure, took counsel with
+himself--his only adviser--and determined to employ other means than gold
+alone to obtain the coveted city.
+
+My first definite knowledge of the French king's new plan to buy Dunkirk
+at his own price came in a letter from Hamilton, which reached me at
+Lilly's house two or three weeks after my return from Dover. Like the
+others, it was written in cipher, but, translated, was as follows:--
+
+DEAR FRIEND:
+
+"Your warning letter reached me nearly a week ago, and I thank you for
+your watchfulness. I had full information of King Charles's design upon
+my life from no less a person than Monsieur le Grand himself, who showed
+me the letter asking that I be returned to England.
+
+"I explained to Monsieur le Grand that the English king sought my life,
+not because he is in fear of me, but because he thought I stood between
+him and a lady who despises him. While Monsieur le Grand was much in
+sympathy with the English king's grievance, his contempt for Charles,
+his regard for me, which seems to be sincere, and his longing to possess
+Dunkirk all induced him to laugh at the request, the nature of which he
+had imparted to no one save me.
+
+"My account of the lady who despised King Charles's love gave Monsieur le
+Grand a new idea, and suggested a method of purchasing Dunkirk which he
+hopes will save the heavy cost of bidding against the citizens of London.
+I had no hint of what he intended till one day he took me to his closet
+and began to question me.
+
+"'Do you possess the love of the lady who despises King Charles?' he
+asked.
+
+"'I do, your Majesty,' I answered.
+
+"'Do you know you possess it?' he asked.
+
+"'As well as a man who is not a king may know,' I returned.
+
+"'Tush, tush! Kings are no more certain than other men.'
+
+"'I know I possess this woman's love,' I said.
+
+"'Would she be willing to make a great sacrifice to help you?'
+
+"'Anything that I should ask,' I replied.
+
+"'Ah, I see, I see! Should ask? I take it there are certain sacrifices
+you would not ask,' returned the king. 'We here in France would say that
+your position was Quixotic. However, your King Charles is a weak fool,
+easily imposed upon. Is the lady quick and resourceful in expedients,
+calm and thoughtful in emergencies, and silent on great occasions?'
+
+"To all of which I answered, 'Yes.'
+
+"'Surely the lady is not La Belle Jennings?' asked the king.
+
+"'Yes,' I replied.
+
+"'In that case you are the very man I want, and your lady-love can help
+me buy Dunkirk. It is easy to lead a fool to do the wrong thing, and I'm
+sure La Belle Jennings will find a way to gain her end and ours. If,
+through her, you induce King Charles to sell Dunkirk to me on my own
+terms, I'll make you its governor and a rich man. I'll put you in a
+position to marry this paragon, Mam'selle Jennings, if, as I take it,
+lack of fortune is all that stands between you. I do not mind telling you
+now that De Grammont had given me full information concerning the king's
+view of La Belle Jennings and your relations to her before I wrote my
+first letter, inviting you to visit me.'
+
+"I am loath to undertake so mean an office as that of inducing King
+Charles to sell an English city, but I cannot save Dunkirk, and I may
+profit by helping what I cannot prevent. So I beg you broach the subject
+to Frances, cautioning her for me to take no risk, and if she is willing
+to use and to hoodwink the man who would not hesitate to take her life,
+let me know, and I shall write to you again with further instructions.
+
+"With gratitude,
+
+"Your friend,
+
+"LE BLANC."
+
+I sought Frances, and when I told her the substance of George's letter,
+she was almost wild with joy.
+
+"Am I willing to try?" she exclaimed, laughing while tears were hanging
+in her eyes. "I am not only willing to try, but am determined to succeed.
+Ay, I'd sell England itself in the same cause. Of all the men I have ever
+known, this king of ours is the greatest dupe. Since the return of the
+court to Whitehall, he has been growing more importunate every day. He
+seems to have lost what little wits he had, and does and says the
+silliest things one can imagine."
+
+"And you do not fear attempting to lead him on to sell Dunkirk? You do
+not fear going too near the precipice?" I asked, wishing to weigh her
+self-confidence more by the manner of her reply than by her words.
+
+She laughed and answered: "There is no precipice, cousin Ned; nothing to
+fear save kidnapping, and I am always guarded against that danger;
+nothing to do of which I need feel ashamed, save the acting of a lie, and
+surely one may lie to the father of lies without sin."
+
+"But the lie may be recognized," I suggested, "if one be too bold about
+it."
+
+"My lie will go little beyond a smile or two. The king's vanity will do
+the rest. He will make himself believe that I mean more than I say."
+
+Frances and I felt that we were traitors to our country in helping the
+French king, but we knew that in the end he would buy Dunkirk from our
+spendthrift monarch, and that out country's loss would be no greater by
+reason of our gain. Therefore I wrote George as follows:--
+
+"DEAR FRIEND:
+
+"The Duchess of Hearts is eager and confident. Write at once, giving full
+directions.
+
+"YOUR FRIEND."
+
+Frances added a postscript in cipher, but I shall not translate it.
+
+One morning, some three weeks after sending my letter, Frances came to me
+in my closet in the Wardrobe, and I saw at once she was in great trouble.
+Her eyes were red with weeping, and the woebegone expression of her face
+would have been amusing had I not known that some good cause was back of
+it. As soon as she entered I saw that she was going to speak, but closets
+in Whitehall have ears, so I placed my finger on my lips to enjoin
+silence, and spoke loud enough to be heard if any one was listening:--
+
+"Ah, Frances, I forgot that I had promised to go with you to your
+father's this morning. Wait for me at Holbein's Gate. I'll be there in
+ten minutes."
+
+Within the promised time I found Frances at Holbein's Gate, and we walked
+up to Charing Cross, thence down the Strand toward Temple Bar.
+
+"What is the trouble, Frances?" I asked, anxious to hear her news, which
+I feared was bad. She was in great distress, and I saw that a flood of
+tears was ready to accompany her tale of woe, so I said hurriedly: "Don't
+cry. Laugh while you speak. You will attract less attention."
+
+She tried to laugh, but the effort was piteous and became a failure, as
+she said:--
+
+"George Hamilton has sailed for Canada, and my heart is broken."
+
+Again she tried to smile, but the smile never reached her eyes, for they
+were full of tears.
+
+"How do you know?" I asked, almost stunned by the news.
+
+She tried to stay her tears, but failed, and answered between sobs: "Last
+night at the queen's ball, the king showed me a letter sent by order of
+the French king, saying that George had sailed from Bordeaux for Canada
+nearly a fortnight ago. I could not help showing my grief, and the king,
+who was boisterously happy, said: 'Now you will forget him and listen to
+me.' I smiled, but it was a poor effort, and he smiled, showing his
+yellow fangs as he left me. I pray God that I may never be called upon to
+hate another man as I hate him."
+
+"I can hardly believe that George has gone to Canada without notifying
+us," I said.
+
+"Yes, I fear it is true," she returned. "But if I am ever so fortunate
+as to find him again, I intend to go with him whether he consents or no,
+regardless of father and all the world. Just as soon as I learn where he
+is in Canada, I will go to him. You will take me, won't you, Baron Ned?"
+
+"I'll not give that promise," I answered. "But I am sure there is
+something back of King Louis's letter of which we do not know. Surely
+George would not have sailed without notifying us."
+
+"He may have feared to betray himself by writing," she suggested, "since
+King Charles had asked King Louis to detain him."
+
+"That is true," I returned. "But the occasion must have been urgent
+indeed if he could not have sent us word in some manner."
+
+But I could find no comfort for her, for I really believed that George
+had gone to Canada, and there was a certain relief to me in knowing that
+he had passed out of Frances's life.
+
+After along silence this feeling of relief found unintentional expression
+when I said:--
+
+"Time heals all wounds, Frances. One of these days you will find a man
+who will make amends for your present loss, and then--"
+
+"No, no, Baron Ned. Your words are spoken in kindness, but what you
+suggest is impossible. Perhaps if there had been fewer obstacles between
+us, or if I had not misjudged him so cruelly, I might have found my heart
+more obedient to my will."
+
+The only comfort I could give my beautiful cousin was that a letter would
+soon come explaining everything. In default of a letter, I promised to go
+to Paris and learn the truth from George's friends, if possible.
+
+Frances did not go back to Whitehall that day, but remained at home,
+pretending to be ill of an ague.
+
+At the end of a week, Frances not having returned to Whitehall, Sir
+Richard was honored by a visit from no less a person than the king,
+accompanied by the duchess and a gentleman in waiting. The visit was made
+incognito.
+
+As a result of this royal visit, which was made for the purpose of seeing
+Frances, a part of Sir Richard's estates near St. Albans were restored to
+him, and from poverty he rose at once to a comfortable income of, say, a
+thousand or twelve hundred pounds a year.
+
+Immediately all of Sir Richard's hatred of Charles II fell away, and once
+more the king shone in the resplendent light of his divine appointment.
+
+While Frances estimated the king's generosity at its true value, she was
+glad her father had received even a small part of what was his just due,
+and although she knew the restoration had been made to please, and, if
+possible, to win her, she was glad to have spoiled the royal Philistine,
+and despised him more than ever before, if that were possible.
+
+Sir Richard's good fortune brought a gleam of joy to Frances, but it also
+brought a pang of regret, because it had come too late. Her only purpose
+in going to Whitehall had been to marry a rich nobleman and thereby raise
+the fallen fortunes of her house. Now that reason existed no longer, and
+if George were here, she could throw herself away upon him with injury to
+no one but herself. But George was not here, and liberty to throw herself
+away had come too late to be of any value.
+
+Every day during the fortnight that Frances remained at home, she asked
+if I had any news from court, meaning the French court, but using the
+form of inquiry to avoid acquainting her father and Sarah with the real
+cause of her solicitude.
+
+But my answers were always, "Oh, nothing but Castlemain's new tantrum,"
+or "The duke's defeat at pall-mall."
+
+Frances was the last girl in the world, save, perhaps Sarah, who I should
+have supposed capable of languishing and dying of love, but the former
+she did before my eyes, and the latter I almost began to fear if news did
+not reach us soon from George.
+
+Betty came up to see Frances nearly every day, and the kissing and
+embracing that ensued disgusted Sarah.
+
+"Now, if Frances were a man, I could understand it," said Sarah. "The
+little barmaid must be tempting to a man, being pretty and--"
+
+"Beautiful, Sarah!" I interrupted.
+
+"Yes, beautiful, if you will."
+
+"Her eyes--" I began, again interrupting Sarah.
+
+"Oh, yes!" cried Sarah, impatiently. "Her eyes are fine enough, but their
+expression comes from their color, their size, and their preposterously
+long eyelashes. Black long lashes often give a radiance to the eyes which
+passes for expressiveness, and I doubt not--"
+
+"Nonsense, Sarah!" I cried, half angrily. "Bettina's eyes are expressive
+in themselves. As you say, their soft dark brown is the perfection of
+color, and they certainly are large. But aside from all that, their
+expression is--"
+
+"There is no intellect in them!" cried Sarah.
+
+"There is tenderness, gentleness, love, and truth in them," I answered,
+with as careless an air as I could assume.
+
+"Yes, there may be for a man, but I insist there is no real intellect."
+
+"Well, Sarah," I answered, showing irritation despite an effort to appear
+indifferent, "it is my opinion that the possession of great intellectual
+power by a woman is the one virtue with which men, as a rule, find
+themselves most willing to dispense. It gives her too great an
+advantage."
+
+"Yes, a soft, plump figure like Betty's, long lashes and red lips,
+surrounded by dimples, are apt to please a fool."
+
+"But they're good in their way, Sarah, you'll admit--excellent!"
+I retorted sharply, caring little if she saw that I was angry.
+
+"And men are fools, so there! Not another word about the barmaid!" cried
+Sarah, dismissing the subject with a wave of her hand.
+
+But men, too, sometimes like to have the last word, so I remarked: "The
+mother of the Duchess of York was a barmaid, at least, a barmistress."
+
+"Yes, but is that any reason why Frances should be kissing this one?
+Doubtless your friend Betty finds men enough to do the office."
+
+"Sarah!" I cried, springing to my feet, now thoroughly angry. "If you
+were a man, I'd give you the lie direct!"
+
+Sarah began to laugh and clapped her hands, saying: "I was leading you
+on. I suspected you were fond of her. Now I know it."
+
+But Sarah's remark, being so near the truth, did nothing to allay my
+anger, so I told her she was a fool, and went into an adjoining room,
+where I found Frances and Bettina luxuriating in tearful sympathy.
+
+I walked home with Bettina, and she invited me to go to her parlor to
+have a cup of tea. To see Bettina boil the tea (steep it or draw it, she
+said was the proper phrase) was as pretty a sight as one could wish to
+behold, and when she poured it out in thin china cups, handing one to
+me and taking one herself, her pride in following the fashion of modish
+ladies was as touching as it was simple and beautiful. It was almost more
+than my feeble resolutions could withstand, so when I was about to leave
+I had a great battle with myself and was defeated, for I seized her
+hands, and although I said nothing, she knew what was in my mind, so she
+hung her head, murmuring:--
+
+"If you are willing to make me more unhappy than I am."
+
+"Not for the world, Bettina," I answered, rallying against myself.
+"Goodnight."
+
+"Good night. Now I know you are my friend," she answered softly, holding
+my hands for a moment, then dropping them suddenly and turning from me.
+
+I have refrained from speaking of Mary Hamilton of late, partly because
+I did not see her frequently at this time, and partly because the shame I
+felt at the time of which I am now writing comes surging over me whenever
+I touch upon the subject. Not that I did anything of which I need be
+ashamed, but because I remember so vividly my motives and desires that
+the old sensations return, even at this distant day, as a perfume, a
+strain of music, the soft balminess of spring, or the sharp bite of
+winter's frost may recall a moment of the past, and set the heart
+throbbing or still it as of yore.
+
+After leaving Bettina, I went back to Whitehall and dressed for a ball
+which the queen was giving that night. It was an unfortunate time for me
+to see Mary. My heart was full, not to overflowing, but to sinking, with
+my love of Bettina and her love of me. There was nothing I would not have
+given at that time to be able to take her as my wife. I should have been
+glad to give my title, estates, and position--everything--to be a simple
+tradesman or an innkeeper so that I might take Bettina with happiness to
+her and without the damning sin of losing caste to me.
+
+It was true the king's brother had made a marriage of comparatively the
+same sort, but it is almost as impossible for a prince to lose caste as
+it is difficult for a mere baron to keep it. Bettina would not be happy
+in my sphere of life, nor could I live in hers, so what was there for me
+to do but to keep my engagement with Mary Hamilton and, if I could, lose
+my love for Bettina.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+The queen's ball was to be held that night at St. James's Palace, and
+I was glad to have the walk from Whitehall across the park. The night was
+perfect. A slim moon hung in the west, considerately withholding a part
+of her light that the stars might twinkle the brighter in their vain
+effort to rival Bettina's eyes. The night wind came to me, odor-laden
+from the roses, only to show me how poor a thing it was compared with
+Bettina's breath upon my cheek and its sweetness in my nostrils. Now and
+then a belated bird sang its sleepy song, only to remind me of the melody
+of her lullabies, and the cooing dove moaned out its plaintive call lest
+I forget the pain in her breast while selfishly remembering the ache in
+my own. Then I thought of what the Good Book says about "bright clouds,"
+and I prayed that my pain might make me a better man and might lead me to
+help Bettina in the days of her sorrowing, which I knew were at hand.
+
+Soon after I had kissed the hands of the king and the queen, I met
+George's brother, Count Anthony Hamilton. He had never been friendly to
+his younger brother, and had ceased to look upon him as a brother at all
+after his disgraceful reformation. Then when the king turned against
+George, Anthony, good courtier that he was, turned likewise, and there is
+no bitterness that may be compared with that of an apostate brother.
+
+After we had talked for a minute or two, Count Anthony asked if I knew
+anything of "the fool," as he was pleased to call his brother.
+
+"I know nothing of your brother George, my lord, if it is him you mean."
+
+"He is no brother of mine, and if you wish to become a member of our
+family, you will cease to consider him your friend," returned his
+Lordship, making an effort to conceal his anger.
+
+I was not in the mood to take his remark kindly, therefore I answered
+warmly:--
+
+"Shall my entering the ranks of your noble family curtail my privilege of
+choosing my own friends?"
+
+"No, with one exception," he replied.
+
+"The honor of the alliance is great, my lord, but I shall not consent to
+even one exception at your dictation. Your sister, my future wife, loves
+her brother, and if she does not object to my friendship for him, your
+Lordship oversteps your authority, as head of your house, by protesting."
+
+He turned angrily upon me, saying: "You have been paying your court with
+lukewarm ardor of late, Baron Clyde. Perhaps you would not grieve if your
+friendship for a family outcast were to bar you from the family."
+
+"If your Lordship means to say that I wish to withdraw dishonorably from
+my engagement with your sister, I crave the privilege of telling you that
+you lie!"
+
+I never was more calm in my life, and my words brought a cold smile to
+Hamilton's lips.
+
+"My friend De Grammont will have the honor of waiting on you to-morrow
+morning," he answered, bowing politely.
+
+"I shall be delighted to see his Grace," I answered. "Good night, my
+lord!"
+
+Here was a solution of my problem in so far as it concerned my engagement
+with Mary Hamilton, for if I killed her brother, she would not marry
+me, and if he killed me, I could not marry her. The fact that a gleam
+of joy came to me because of my unexpected release caused me to feel
+that I was a coward not to have broken the engagement in an honorable,
+straightforward manner rather than to have seized this opportunity to
+force a duel upon her brother. It is true I had not sought the duel
+deliberately and had not thought it possible one second before uttering
+the word that made it necessary. Still it was my act that brought it
+about, and I felt that I had taken an unmanly course.
+
+After leaving Count Anthony I walked across the room to where Mary
+was standing at the outer edge of a circle of ladies and gentlemen who
+surrounded De Grammont, listening to a narrative in broken English, of
+his adventures, fancied or real, I know not which, but interesting,
+and all of a questionable character.
+
+When I spoke to Mary, she turned and gave me her hand. I had not
+expected the least display of emotion on her part; therefore I was not
+disappointed when the smile with which she greeted me was the same she
+would have given to any other man. But Mary was Mary. Nature and art had
+made her what she was--charming, quiescent, and calm, not cold, simply
+lukewarm.
+
+"I have seen little of you this last month," said Mary, taking my arm and
+walking with me away from De Grammont's group. She might have remarked
+with equal emotion that Cromwell was dead or the weather fine. She did
+not wait for an explanation of my absence, but continued with a touch of
+eager hesitancy and a fluttering show of anxiety, "Have you had news
+recently of my brother George?"
+
+Of course I could not tell her the truth, so I answered evasively: "I
+suppose you have heard the news spread throughout the court that he has
+gone to Canada? Doubtless you can tell me more than I know."
+
+"That is all I know," she answered. "When he went, or where, I have been
+unable to learn, for George is a forbidden topic in our household and
+seems to be the same at court. What has he done, baron? I have heard it
+hinted that he threatened to take the king's life. Surely he did nothing
+of the sort."
+
+"If he did, it was in a delirium of fever," I answered, hoping that she
+would cease speaking of George and would ask a question or two concerning
+myself.
+
+But no. She turned again to me, asking, "Did you hear him?"
+
+"I have been told that the accusation comes from his physician, and
+perhaps from one who was listening at his door," I answered, avoiding a
+direct reply.
+
+"I suspect the informant is a wretched little hussy of whom I have
+heard--the daughter of the innkeeper," remarked Mary, looking up to
+me for confirmation.
+
+"Suspect no longer," I answered, with sharper emphasis than I should have
+used.
+
+"Do you know her?" she asked.
+
+"I do not know a 'wretched hussy' who is the daughter of the innkeeper,"
+I answered sullenly. "I know a beautiful girl who watched devotedly at
+your brother's bedside, day and night, and probably saved his life at a
+time when he was deserted by his sisters and his mother."
+
+"We often find that sort of kindness in those low creatures," she
+answered, unaware of the tender spot she was touching, and ignoring
+my reference to George's sisters and his mother.
+
+Naturally Mary was kind of heart, but her mother was a hard, painted
+old Jezebel, whose teachings would have led her daughter away from every
+gentle truth and up to all that was hard, cruel, and selfish in life. A
+woman in the higher walks of life is liable to become enamelled before
+her twentieth year.
+
+While I did not blame Mary for what she had said relating to Bettina,
+still I was angry and longed to do battle with any one who could fight.
+
+After we had been together perhaps ten minutes, some one claimed her for
+a dance, and she left me, saying hurriedly in my ear:--
+
+"I'll see you soon again. I want to ask you further about George." She
+had not a question to ask about me.
+
+She was not to see me again, for I asked permission of the queen to
+withdraw, and immediately left the ball.
+
+While I was crossing the park on my way back to Whitehall, the wind
+moaned and groaned--it did not breathe. The stars did not twinkle--they
+glared. The nightingales did not sing--they screamed. And the roses were
+odorless. Perhaps all this change to gloom was within me rather than
+without, but it existed just the same, and I went home and to bed, hating
+all the world save Bettina, whom I vowed for the hundredth time never to
+see again.
+
+The next day at noon De Grammont came to my closet, where I had waited
+for him all morning.
+
+"Welcome to you, dear count!" I cried, leading him by the hand to a
+chair.
+
+"Perhaps you will not so warmly welcome me," he returned, "when you learn
+my errand."
+
+"I already know your errand, Count Grammont, and it makes you doubly
+welcome," I answered, drawing a chair for myself and sitting down in
+front of him.
+
+"Ah, that is of good," he returned, rubbing his hands. "You already know
+the purpose of my visit?"
+
+"Yes, I do, my dear count, but any purpose would delight me which brings
+the pleasure of your company."
+
+"Ah, it is said like a civilized man," he returned, complimenting
+me by speaking English, though I shall not attempt to reproduce his
+pronunciation. "How far better it is to say: 'Monsieur, permit to me,'
+before one runs a man through than to do it as though one were sticking
+a mere pig. Is it not so?"
+
+"True as sunshine, my dear count," I returned. "There's a vast difference
+between the trade of butchering and the gentle art of murder."
+
+De Grammont threw back his head, laughing softly. "Ah, good, good! Very
+good, dear baron! The sentiment is beau-ti-ful and could not be better
+expressed--in English. You should have been born across the channel."
+
+"I wish I had been born any place, not excepting hell, rather than in
+England," I answered.
+
+"True, true, what a hole it is," returned the count, regretfully. "The
+Englishman is one pig."
+
+He saw by the expression of my face that while I might abuse my own
+countrymen, I did not relish hearing it from others, so with true French
+tact he held up his hand to keep me from speaking till he could correct
+himself.
+
+"Pardon, baron, I forgot the 'r,' The Englishman's affectation of a
+virtue he despises makes of him a prig--not a pig. Non, non! Mon Dieu!
+Not a pig--a prig! Is it not so?"
+
+"True, true, count," I returned, unable to restrain a laugh. "It is the
+affectation of virtue that makes frank vice attractive by comparison."
+
+"Ah, true, true, my dear baron. May I proceed with my errand?"
+
+"Proceed, count."
+
+"Monsieur le Comte Hamilton begs me to say that he was called away from
+London early to-day on the king's business, but that he will return
+in four weeks. When he returns he will do himself the honor to send
+me again, asking you to name a friend, unless you prefer to apologize,
+which no gentleman would do in a case of this sort. You said, I am told,
+that Monsieur le Comte lied. If you admit that he did not lie, of course
+you admit that you did. So, im-pos-si-ble! There must be to fight!"
+
+"Do you know, count, the cause of my having given Count Hamilton the
+lie?" I asked.
+
+"I did not inquire," he answered smilingly. "To me it was to carry the
+message."
+
+"George Hamilton is your friend, is he not?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, but far more, he is the friend of my king, and will make entreaty
+with my monarch for my return to France," answered De Grammont.
+
+"It was because of Count Hamilton's insulting reference to his brother
+that I used the ugly word," I returned.
+
+"A-ah, that is different!" Then recovering himself quickly: "But I
+undertook the mission. It is to finish. Monsieur George Hamilton? My
+friend? My king's friend? If it had been known to me! But you have the
+message of 'Sieur le Comte."
+
+After a short silence he said, "When Monsieur le Comte Hamilton returns,
+I shall ask him to relieve me of this duty."
+
+As De Grammont was leaving my closet, he paused at the door, and, after a
+moment's hesitancy, whispered:--
+
+"You may expect a letter from France soon. It will come from M. l'Abbé du
+Boise, who I hope will come soon to London on the business of my king.
+You know him not--M. l'Abbé?" The eyebrows lifted questioningly. "No? You
+soon will know him, yet you will not know him. You and perhaps a lady may
+help him in his mission. I, too, shall help him, but I, too, know him
+not. Yet I know him. If he succeed in his mission, he will be rich, he
+will be powerful. And I? Mon Dieu, my friend! If he succeed, my decree of
+banishment from Paris--it will be to revoke. I may return once more to
+bask in the smile of my king. You must not speak; the lady must not
+speak; I must not speak when Monsieur l'Abbé comes, nor before. It is to
+silence. Stone walls have one ear."
+
+
+"Two, sometimes, count," I suggested, laughing.
+
+"Yes, I should have said one ears! Non, non! I forget this damnable
+tongue of yours! When I arrive to great interest, it is to talk faster
+than it is to think, and--" A shrug of the shoulders finished the
+sentence.
+
+"Let us speak French hereafter, my dear count," I suggested.
+
+"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! It is to me more of pain to hear my sweet language
+murdered than to murder yours," answered Grammont, seriously.
+
+"Ah, but I speak French quite as well as I speak English. Perhaps I shall
+not murder it," I replied.
+
+"Perhaps? We shall try," he said, though with little show of faith.
+
+I began speaking French, but when I paused for his verdict, he shrugged
+his shoulders, saying:--
+
+"Ah, _oui, oui!_ It may be better than my English." But notwithstanding
+his scant praise, we spoke the French language thereafter.
+
+The count bowed himself out and left me to decipher, if I could, the
+problem of M. l'Abbé du Boise. Presently I discovered the cue. The
+Abbé was George Hamilton, and for the moment my heart almost stopped
+beating. If he should come to England on the French king's business,
+which could be nothing more nor less than the Dunkirk affair, and
+should be discovered, there would be a public entertainment on Tyburn
+Hill, with George as the central figure.
+
+When I found a spare hour, I hastened to see Lilly and came upon the
+good Doctor among the stars, as usual. There was a letter for me from
+Hamilton. It was short and in cipher:--
+
+"DEAR FRIEND:
+
+"This is to tell you that M. l'Abbé du Boise will soon be in London. He
+will be the guest of M. Comte de Grammont.
+
+"You do not know him. Please call on him when he arrives. Tell the
+Duchess of Hearts that he will want to see her. Ask her to be ready to
+help him. He goes to buy Dunkirk for the French king, and his success
+will mean good fortune for me.
+
+"Your friend,
+
+"LE BLANC."
+
+After reading the letter, I felt sure that the Abbé du Boise was George
+Hamilton. I could hardly bring myself to believe that he would be so
+foolhardy as to visit Whitehall, though I knew the adventure was of a
+nature likely to appeal to his reckless disregard of consequences. I
+knew also that, if successful, he would win the reward without which
+life had little value to him.
+
+I was sure that Hamilton had fully weighed the danger of his perilous
+mission, and that he was deliberately staking his life on a last
+desperate chance to win fortune and Frances Jennings.
+
+Though perhaps Lilly was a charlatan in many respects, he was to be
+trusted; still I did not feel that it was my place to impart George's
+secret to him, though I had in mind a plan whereby he might be of great
+help to the Abbé du Boise in influencing King Charles. The king consulted
+him secretly in many important affairs, and I was sure that if the good
+Doctor should be called in by his Majesty in the Dunkirk affair, the
+stars would tell a story in accord with our desires if we made it to
+Lilly's interest.
+
+However, all of that must wait for the Abbé du Boise. Of one thing I was
+sure; I must tell Frances at once so that she might be paving the way to
+the king with her smiles. It would be a disagreeable task, but I knew she
+would do it gladly, and I also knew that no woman could do it better.
+
+While I had expressed my doubts to Frances concerning Hamilton's
+emigration to Canada, I had not felt entirely sure there was nothing in
+it, and she, womanlike, taking the worst for granted, had accepted it as
+true. But the coming of the Abbé du Boise changed everything, and when I
+saw her at her father's house and told her of my suspicions, and showed
+her Le Blanc's letter, she was so greatly alarmed that she said she would
+rather know that George had gone to Canada than to fear his return to
+England under the circumstances.
+
+"The dastardly king will take his life if he comes," she said.
+
+"I admit the danger," I answered, as hopefully as possible, "but I
+believe, if George comes, he will be able to take care of himself."
+
+"Danger!" she exclaimed. "It is certain death! George will find no
+mercy."
+
+"If he is caught," I answered. "But the letter from King Louis will
+convince King Charles that Hamilton is in Canada and will throw our
+jealous monarch off his guard. Perhaps Hamilton will be safer than we
+suppose. He speaks French like a Parisian, but, above all, he is cool,
+calm, and thoughtful in danger. The London merchants will be far more
+dangerous than the king."
+
+"It does seem that we are guilty of treason to our country in thus
+helping France," she said. Then laughingly, "But I'll go back to the
+palace at once and begin my task of wheedling the king." She paused for a
+moment, then continued hesitatingly, "Do you suppose it possible that
+George would doubt me afterwards?"
+
+"Impossible," I answered, with emphasis that seemed to reassure her.
+
+"I am doing it for him," she continued with a sigh. "God knows I would
+do almost anything in the same cause. But I do not know men, and I fear
+it is possible that he will doubt me after I have succeeded. Let us go
+to see Betty. She is restful to me, and always soothes my nerves. But
+besides, I want to have her help. I'll introduce her to the king--"
+
+"No, by God, you'll not introduce her to the king! I'll explode the whole
+affair, and Dunkirk may go to the devil before you shall introduce Betty
+to the king," I answered.
+
+"Yet you are willing that I should meddle in the dangerous affair?
+Evidently you love her more than you love me?"
+
+"Only a few hundred million times more," I answered sullenly.
+
+"Is it that way with you, my dear brother?" she asked, coming to me as I
+stood gazing out the window, seeing nothing save Bettina's face. Frances
+put her hand on my shoulder and said coaxingly: "Forgive me. No harm
+shall come to her through me."
+
+Of course I was sorry that I had allowed myself to become angry, and at
+once made my apology as well as I could.
+
+"Let us go to see Betty, anyway," said Frances. And I assenting, she went
+to fetch her cloak, hat, and vizard.
+
+But when she returned, I had changed my mind and declined to go, telling
+Frances that I must see Bettina no more.
+
+"Why?" asked Frances.
+
+"Because I would not win a love from her which I cannot accept."
+
+"Baron Ned, there are few men who would be so considerate."
+
+But I required little coaxing, and when Frances had made ready for the
+journey, I buckled on my sword, which I had left standing in the corner,
+took my hat from the floor, and started out with her.
+
+While walking from the Bridge to the Old Swan, I remarked to Frances, "My
+engagement with Mary Hamilton is likely to be broken by her family."
+
+"Why, Baron Ned?" she asked in surprise.
+
+"Count Hamilton has challenged me to a duel, to be fought when he
+returns, and you see, if I kill him or if he kills me, well--" I
+answered, shrugging my shoulders.
+
+She was much alarmed at my disclosure, but was reassured when I made
+light of the affair, probably because there was no danger in it to George
+Hamilton, and, perhaps, because if I should kill Count Hamilton, George
+would inherit the title and estates.
+
+"But poor Mary! She will grieve," said Frances.
+
+"I think you need waste no tears for her sake," I answered. "She is a
+fine, pretty little creature, who will take what comes her way without
+excess of pain or joy. She is incapable of feeling keenly. God has been
+good to her in giving her numbness."
+
+"No, no, cousin Ned, you are wrong!" she returned. "Life without pain
+is not worth living. I have heard that the Arabs have a saying, 'All
+sunshine makes the desert.' God is good to us when he darkens the sun
+now and then and gives us the sunshine afterwards."
+
+"Perhaps you are right, Frances," I returned. "But you and I are in the
+cloud now, and a little sunshine would be most welcome."
+
+"Not enough sunshine to make a desert," she answered.
+
+"Ay! But enough to make a garden," I returned, as we climbed the narrow
+flight of steps leading to the private entrance to the Old Swan.
+
+When we paused at the door, Frances said, "Your garden is at hand." And
+when she opened the door, there stood Betty, and I was in Eden. The moist
+glow of her eyes, the faint blush of her cheeks, the nervous fluttering
+of her voice, spoke more eloquently than all the tongues of Babel could
+have spoken, and I could not help comparing her welcome with that which
+Maxy Hamilton had given me at the queen's ball.
+
+Bettina led us to the parlor, and while we were drinking a cup of tea,
+we had the great pleasure of asking and answering questions of which we
+always had a large supply in reserve.
+
+When it was time to go, Bettina walked down to the Bridge with us. As it
+was growing dark, Frances suggested that I walk back to the Old Swan with
+Betty, which I did, she taking my arm of her own accord, and both of us
+very happy, though we spoke not a word, for fear of saying too much, save
+"good night" at the door.
+
+"Good night at the door!" God gave its sweetness to youth right out of
+the core of His infinite love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A PERILOUS EMBASSY
+
+
+Four or five days after our visit to Bettina, I met De Grammont at
+Charing Cross, and he surprised me with an invitation to his house
+that night to meet Monsieur l'Abbé du Boise at supper.
+
+"The king and a dozen other gentlemen will be present," he said, "but
+there will be no ladies. Monsieur l'Abbé, being of the church, is not a
+ladies' man, and besides, ladies have sharper eyes than men, and might
+see much that is intended to remain unseen."
+
+The count's remark seemed to settle the question of the Abbé's identity,
+and I hastened to Frances with the news. She assured me that she was
+ready to die of fright, but showed no outward sign of dissolution, and
+when I complimented her on her power of self-control, said:--
+
+"Fortunately, I am part hypocrite, and can easily act a part."
+
+"You have a hard one ahead of you," I returned, "and will need all your
+strength before it is played to the end."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was on hand early at De Grammont's supper, but found several gentlemen
+ahead of me, awaiting, with the count in his parlor, the arrival of the
+king. Soon after I entered the room, De Grammont presented me to the
+Abbé. I was convinced at once that he was not George Hamilton. His beard,
+worn à la Richelieu,--a mustache and a tuft on the chin,--was snow white,
+and his hair, which was thin, hung in long white waves almost to his
+shoulders. He walked with a stoop and wore spectacles, the glasses of
+which were slightly colored. Being an ecclesiastic, though not a priest,
+he wore no wig; but he was of the Order of the Cordon Bleu, and wore, in
+addition to his badge and blue ribbon, a sword beneath his long coat. It
+was the first time I had ever seen an ecclesiastic wearing a sword,
+though it has since become common in France, where there are many "Abbés"
+who are neither priests nor in orders.
+
+The Abbé spoke poor English, therefore the conversation was carried on in
+French, much to the annoyance of some of our guests, who pretended to a
+greater knowledge of that language than they possessed.
+
+Soon after my presentation to the Abbé, the king arrived, and we all went
+out to the supper table, where the Abbé's chair was on the king's right,
+with De Grammont on his Majesty's left. After the king had been seated a
+moment, he rose and asked us to be seated; so we took our places, all
+save the king dropping our hats beside us on the floor because of his
+Majesty's presence.
+
+I sat next to De Grammont, almost opposite the Abbé, and had a good
+opportunity to observe the French emissary. The king's French was
+excellent, and the dinner conversation was carried on largely between him
+and the Abbé. All subjects were discussed, but the Abbé adroitly avoided
+Dunkirk and seemed to prefer talking on religious and philosophical
+topics, in which he took the liberty to disagree with the king in many
+respects, politely though positively.
+
+I listened attentively, hoping that some tone of the Abbé's voice, a pose
+or a gesture, might reveal George Hamilton, if it were he, in the most
+excellent disguise I had ever seen. But nothing of the sort occurred, and
+before the dinner was over, I was still more convinced that whoever the
+Abbé du Boise might be, he was not Hamilton.
+
+After dinner came the heavy wines, of which the Abbé did not partake, and
+of which De Grammont and I drank sparingly. All the others, including the
+king, were gloriously drunk long before the night was over.
+
+While smoking our pipes, the king, who was eager to get his hands
+on French money, told the Abbé that he hoped to see him, with his
+credentials, at Whitehall on the second morning following at ten o'clock,
+and the Abbé said he would leave his credentials with my Lord Clarendon,
+and would be at Whitehall at the hour suggested by the king, for the
+purpose of making the French king's offer.
+
+Most of the guests went home between two men, very late at night, but
+fortunately I was able to walk home by myself.
+
+I was both glad and disappointed not to find George in the gown of the
+Abbé. I was glad because of the risk he would have taken had he come to
+England, yet disappointed in missing what would have been the most
+picturesque, daring personal exploit of English court history. But on the
+whole it was better as it was.
+
+The next morning the king sent for me to come to his closet, and asked if
+I knew one Lilly, an astrologer. I answered that I knew little of him
+personally, but had heard much of his wisdom and learning.
+
+"Yes, yes, but you know where he lives, do you not? On the Strand, a
+dozen houses this side of Temple Bar?" asked the king.
+
+"I have seen the house often, your Majesty," I replied.
+
+"Good! Now listen attentively to what I have to say," returned the king,
+graciously taking my arm and leading me to a window overlooking the
+river. "I hear from De Grammont that the Abbé du Boise is a firm believer
+in the teachings of astrology. I want you to arrange, without letting any
+one know that my finger is in the pie, to take Lilly to see the Abbé, or
+the Abbé to see Lilly. I'll whisper a word in your ear. The stars will
+tell our friend, the Abbé, a story to suit our purposes. The French king
+and his ambassadors will find their match in me, I warrant you. I have
+bought Lilly, body and soul--with promises." The king shrugged his
+shoulders and whispered: "With promises, you understand, Baron Ned, with
+promises. Now give him a chance at the Abbé."
+
+Charles laughed and chuckled in self-gratulation, not the least
+suspecting that he was talking to the wrong man and playing into the
+French king's hand. I bore in mind the fact that the king had bought
+Lilly with promises, and I determined to buy the good Doctor with ready
+gold.
+
+"I'll try to carry out your Majesty's commands," I answered, apparently
+doubtful of my ability. "But of course you would not have me insist, if
+the Abbé seems disinclined to consult Lilly."
+
+"No, no! Odds fish, man, no! But find a way to bring them together,
+and your reward will come later. I choose, you for this little piece of
+business because you are in no way connected with the affair between the
+French king and me, and because I know you are to be trusted."
+
+I to be trusted! So was Brutus!
+
+"I shall do my best, your Majesty, and if I fail, I shall notify you at
+once," I said, taking my leave.
+
+I hastened to De Grammont's house, which at that time was over near the
+Mall, and told the count what the king had said.
+
+"Ah, that is good!" cried De Grammont. "A fool, who knows himself to be a
+fool, is likely to be wary, but one who deems himself wise is the easiest
+dupe in the world. I'll see Monsieur l'Abbé. Wait."
+
+De Grammont returned in a few minutes, saying that the Abbé would go with
+me to see Doctor Lilly, and I suggested that I return for him in three
+hours.
+
+I went back to Whitehall, where I found Frances, and told her to be at
+Lilly's house on the Strand within three hours, to meet the French king's
+ambassador, and to receive the instructions which George's letter had
+intimated the Abbé would give. I told her, also, that the Abbé was not
+the person we had expected to see.
+
+The evening before, she was ready to die of fright because we believed
+that the Abbé was George Hamilton, and now, since I had found he was not,
+she was ready to die of disappointment--so she assured me.
+
+At the appointed time, De Grammont, the Abbé, and I took the count's
+barge and went down to the water stairs nearest Temple Bar, where the
+Abbé and I left De Grammont and walked up through the crowded streets to
+Lilly's house. Owing to the crowded condition of the street, the Abbé and
+I found no opportunity to exchange words until we were before Lilly's
+house.
+
+Lilly was at home, I having sent word of our coming, so when we knocked,
+the servant opened and directed us to the waiting parlor, saying that the
+Doctor would soon come down.
+
+We started upstairs, I in the lead, the Abbé following ten paces behind.
+When I entered the room, I found Bettina and Frances sitting by the
+street window. They came to me quickly, and Frances explained Bettina's
+presence.
+
+"I did not like to come here alone, so I asked Betty to come with me. She
+is to be trusted."
+
+"You need not assure me of that," I answered, taking Betty's hand. "I
+already know it. I am glad you--"
+
+But here I was interrupted by a soft cry from Bettina, and by a
+half-smothered scream from Frances, both of whom deserted me suddenly
+and ran toward the door I had just entered. Turning, I saw Frances with
+her arms about the Abbé's neck, and Bettina clasping one of his hands.
+I thought the two had gone mad, but when Bettina saw my look of surprise
+and inquiry, she dropped his hand, came to me, and asked:--
+
+"Did you want us to pretend that we did not know him? If so, you should
+have told us."
+
+"But you don't know him," I declared.
+
+"Perhaps I don't," she returned, laughing softly and shrugging her
+shoulders, "but evidently your cousin does. If not, she should take her
+arms from around his neck."
+
+"But she is mistaken," I insisted.
+
+"She seems to be convinced," answered Bettina, with a curious little
+glance up to me, half laughing, half inquiring. Evidently she was
+doubtful whether I spoke in jest or in earnest.
+
+Frances still clung to the Abbé, her head resting on his shoulder, so I
+started toward her, intending to correct her mistake. Bettina, seeing my
+purpose, caught me by the arm, saying:--
+
+"Don't you really know?"
+
+The Abbé turned his face toward me, and when I caught a glimpse of his
+eyes without spectacles, I recognized George Hamilton, and almost choked
+myself in smothering a cry.
+
+Frances turned to me, asking indignantly, "Why did not you tell me?"
+
+"Because I did not know," I answered, hardly able to believe the truth.
+
+But we had important business before us, and I knew that we should
+prepare for it before Lilly came in. So George, Bettina, Frances, and
+I went to a window at the far end of the room to hold a consultation.
+
+"Since I did not recognize you, perhaps Lilly will not," I suggested. "I
+trust the Doctor, but perhaps we had better leave him under the
+impression that you are Monsieur l'Abbé du Boise and give no intimation
+of the truth."
+
+"I had not hoped that my disguise would deceive you, Baron Ned," said
+George, "but since it has, it is just as well that we leave Lilly in the
+dark if we can."
+
+"But he will know. The stars will tell him," suggested Bettina, opening
+her eyes very wide.
+
+"The stars will tell him what he is paid to hear," I remarked. Then
+turning to Frances, I asked, "How is it that you were able to recognize
+him?"
+
+"By his eyes!" exclaimed Frances and Bettina in concert.
+
+"That gives me a valuable hint," said George, hastily adjusting his
+colored spectacles. "Now, how about it?"
+
+"I still should know you," answered Frances.
+
+"Not I!" exclaimed Bettina.
+
+Presently Lilly came in, and I presented him to Monsieur l'Abbé du Boise
+and explained the presence of Frances and Bettina by saying:--
+
+"A friend of ours in France has asked Mistress Jennings to render what
+aid she can to Monsieur l'Abbé, and she is here at my request to receive
+his commands."
+
+"It is good!" exclaimed Lilly. "She has the king's ear if any one has,
+and the ear is very close to the mind. What may I do to serve Monsieur
+l'Abbé?"
+
+"If I may see you privately---the baron and me--I shall tell you how you
+may serve me," answered the Abbé.
+
+The Abbé and I excused ourselves to Frances and Bettina, and went with
+the Doctor to the room which he called his observatory, where we came to
+the point very quickly:--
+
+"I want to buy Dunkirk for my master for the sum of one hundred thousand
+pounds," said the Abbé, by way of starting the consultation.
+
+"But London has already offered that sum," returned Lilly, "and stands
+ready to pay more."
+
+"In payments," suggested the Abbé.
+
+"Yes," returned Lilly. "But I see no way of bringing the king to accept
+the sum you offer unless--unless Mistress Jennings can persuade him."
+
+"She may be able to do so," answered the Abbé, shrugging his shoulders.
+He spoke very bad English throughout the consultation. "But the stars,
+too, may be very persuasive with King Charles. To be plain, he will
+probably consult you, and if--"
+
+"I am to see him to-night. That is why your visit was postponed until
+to-morrow," interrupted Lilly.
+
+"That is as I supposed," remarked the Abbé. "Now, if I buy Dunkirk for
+one hundred thousand pounds, you shall receive two thousand pounds within
+ten days after signing the treaty, and Baron Clyde will be my surety."
+
+"Two thousand pounds?" mused Lilly. "That is rather a small sum in so
+great a transaction."
+
+"I doubt not the purchase may be made without the help of the stars if
+you feel that two thousand pounds is too small a sum to be considered,"
+returned the Abbé.
+
+"No, no," said Lilly. "I understand that you wish me to set a figure and
+work out the solution of this affair, and if I learn from the stars that
+it is to King Charles's interest to accept your offer of one hundred
+thousand pounds for the city of Dunkirk, I am to receive--"
+
+"If King Charles accepts!" interrupted the Abbé.
+
+"Ah, I see! Yes, yes, of course," returned Lilly. "I shall go to work
+immediately and set my figure. Of course I do not know what I shall
+learn, but I shall be glad to learn from the stars that which will enable
+me to advise the king according to your wishes. Two thousand pounds are
+two thousand pounds, and the word of a king is but a breath."
+
+"A man always says, 'who was the first one?' but the girl says, 'who'll
+be the next one?'" she returned, as she carefully laid the roses in her
+bureau drawer.
+
+"But the time comes when there never will be a next one."
+
+"No?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'd hate to stake my pile on that," observed the Girl, drily. She blew
+up each glove as it came off and likewise carefully laid them away in
+the bureau drawer.
+
+By this time Wowkle's soft tread had ceased, her duties for the night
+were over, and she stood at the table waiting to be dismissed.
+
+"Wowkle, git to your wigwam!" suddenly ordered her mistress, watching
+her until she disappeared into the cupboard; but she did not see the
+Indian woman's lips draw back in a half-grin as she closed the door
+behind her.
+
+"Oh, you're sending her away! Must I go, too?" asked Johnson, dismally.
+
+"No--not jest yet; you can stay a--a hour or two longer," the Girl
+informed him with a smile; and turning once more to the bureau she
+busied herself there for a few minutes longer.
+
+Johnson's joy knew no bounds; he burst out delightedly:
+
+"Why, I'm like Dante! I want the world in that hour, because, you see,
+I'm afraid the door of this little paradise might be shut to me after--
+Let's say this is my one hour--the hour that gave me--that kiss I want."
+
+"Go long! You go to grass!" returned the Girl with a nervous little
+laugh.
+
+Johnson made one more effort and won out; that is, he succeeded, at
+last, in getting her in his grasp.
+
+"Listen," said the determined lover, pleading for a kiss as he would
+have pleaded for his very life.
+
+It was at this juncture that Wowkle, silently, stealthily, emerged from
+the cupboard and made her way over to the door. Her feet were heavily
+moccasined and she was blanketed in a stout blanket of gay colouring.
+
+"Ugh--some snow!" she muttered, as a gust of wind beat against her face
+and drove great snow-flakes into the room, fairly taking her breath
+away. But her words fell on deaf ears. For, oblivious to the storm that
+was now raging outside, the youthful pair of lovers continued to
+concentrate their thoughts upon the storm that was raging within their
+own breasts, the Girl keeping up the struggle with herself, while the
+man urged her on as only he knew how.
+
+"Why, if I let you take one you'd take two," denied the Girl,
+half-yielding by her very words, if she but knew it.
+
+"No, I wouldn't--I swear I wouldn't," promised the man with great
+earnestness.
+
+"Ugh--very bad!" was the Indian woman's muffled ejaculation as she
+peered out into the night. But she had promised her lover to come to him
+when supper was over, and she would not break faith with him even if it
+were at the peril of her life. The next moment she went out, as did the
+red light in the Girl's lantern hanging on a peg of the outer door.
+
+"Oh, please, please," said the Girl, half-protestingly, half-willingly.
+
+But the man was no longer to be denied; he kept on urging:
+
+"One kiss, only one."
+
+Here was an appeal which could no longer be resisted, and though
+half-frightened by the tone of his voice and the look in his eye, the
+Girl let herself be taken into his arms as she murmured:
+
+"'Tain't no use, I lay down my hands to you."
+
+And so it was that, unconscious of the great havoc that was being
+wrought by the storm, unconscious of the danger that momentarily
+threatened their lives, they remained locked in each other's arms. The
+Girl made no attempt to silence him now or withdraw her hands from his.
+Why should she? Had he not come to Cloudy Mountain to woo her? Was she
+not awaiting his coming? To her it seemed but natural that the
+conventions should be as nothing in the face of love. His voice, low and
+musical, charged with passion, thrilled through her.
+
+"I love you," said the man, with a note of possession that frightened
+her while it filled her with strange, sweet joy. For months she had
+dreamed of him and loved him; no wonder that she looked upon him as her
+hero and yielded herself entirely to her fate.
+
+She lifted her eyes and he saw the love in them. She freed her hands
+from his grasp, and then gave them back to him in a little gesture of
+surrender.
+
+"Yes, you're mine, an' I'm yours," she said with trembling lips.
+
+"I have lived but for this from the moment that I first saw you," he
+told her, softly.
+
+"Me, too--seein' that I've prayed for it day an' night," she
+acknowledged, her eyes seeking his.
+
+"Our destinies have brought us together; whatever happens now I am
+content," he said, pressing his lips once more to hers. A little while
+later he added: "My darkest hour will be lightened by the memory of you,
+to-night."
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+
+The clock, striking the hour of two, filled in a lull that might
+otherwise have seemed to require conversation. For some minutes,
+Johnson, raised to a higher level of exaltation, even, than was the
+Girl, had been secretly rejoicing in the Fate that had brought them
+together.
+
+"It's wonderful that I should have found her at last and won her love,"
+he soliloquised. "We must be Fortune's children--she and I."
+
+The minutes ticked away and still they were silent. Then, of a sudden,
+with infinite tenderness in his voice, Johnson asked:
+
+"What is your name, Girl--your real name?"
+
+"Min--Minnie; my father's name was Smith," she told him, her eyes cast
+down under delicately tremulous lids.
+
+"Oh, Minnie Sm--"
+
+"But 'twa'n't his right name," quickly corrected the Girl, and
+unconsciously both rose to their feet. "His right name was Falconer."
+
+"Minnie Falconer--well, that is a pretty name," commented Johnson; and
+raising her hand to his lips he pressed them against it.
+
+"I ain't sure that's what he said it was--I ain't sure o' anythin' only
+jest you," she said coyly, burying her face in his neck.
+
+"You may well be sure of me since I've loved--" Johnson's sentence was
+cut short, a wave of remorse sweeping over him. "Turn your head away,
+Girl, and don't listen to me," he went on, gently putting her away from
+him. "I'm not worthy of you. Don't listen but just say no, no, no, no."
+
+The Girl, puzzled, was even more so when Johnson began to pace the
+floor.
+
+"Oh, I know--I ain't good enough for you !" she cried with a little
+tremour in her voice. "But I'll try hard, hard . . . If you see
+anythin' better in me, why don't you bring it out, 'cause I've loved you
+ever since I saw you first, 'cause I knowed that you--that you were the
+right man."
+
+"The right man," repeated Johnson, dismally, for his conscience was
+beginning to smite him hard.
+
+"Don't laugh!"
+
+"I'm not laughing," as indeed he was not.
+
+"O' course every girl kind o' looks ahead," went on the Girl in
+explanation.
+
+"Yes, I suppose," he observed seriously.
+
+"An' figgers about bein'--well, Oh, you know--about bein' settled. An'
+when the right man comes, why, she knows 'im, you bet! Jest as we both
+knowed each other standin' on the road to Monterey. I said that day,
+he's good, he's gran' an' he can have me."
+
+"I could have you," murmured Johnson, meditatively.
+
+The Girl nodded eagerly.
+
+There was a long silence in which Johnson was trying to make up his mind
+to tear himself away from her,--the one woman whom he loved in the
+world,--for it had been slowly borne in upon him that he was not a fit
+mate for this pure young girl. Nor was his unhappiness lessened when he
+recalled how she had struggled against yielding to him. At last,
+difficult though it was, he took his courage in both hands, and said:
+
+"Girl, I have looked into your heart and my own and now I realise what
+this means for us both--for you, Girl--and knowing that, it seems hard
+to say good-bye as I should, must and will . . ."
+
+At those clear words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide his
+misery, the Girl's face turned pale.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+Johnson coloured, hesitated, and finally with a swift glance at the
+clock, he briefly explained:
+
+"I mean it's hard to go and leave you here. The clock reminded me that
+long before this I should have been on my way. I shouldn't have come up
+here at all. God bless you, dear," and here their eyes came together and
+seemed unable to part,--"I love you as I never thought I could . . ."
+
+But at Johnson's queer look she hastened to inquire:
+
+"But it ain't for long you're goin'?"
+
+For long! Then she had not understood that he meant to go for all time.
+How tell her the truth? While he pondered over the situation there came
+to him with great suddenness the thought that, perhaps, after all, Life
+never intended that she should be given to him only to be taken away
+almost as suddenly; and seized with a desire to hold on to her at any
+cost, he sprang forward as if to take her in his arms, but before he
+reached her, he stopped short.
+
+"Such happiness is not for me," he muttered under his breath; and then
+aloud he added: "No, no, I've got to go now while I have the courage, I
+mean." He broke off as suddenly as he had begun, and taking her face in
+his hands he kissed her good-bye.
+
+Now, accustomed as was the Girl to the strange comings and goings of the
+men at the camp, it did not occur to her to question him further when he
+told her that he should have been away before now. Moreover, she trusted
+and loved him. And so it was without the slightest feeling of misgiving
+that she watched her lover quickly take down his coat and hat from the
+peg on the wall and start for the door. On the other hand, it must have
+required not a little courage on the man's part to have torn himself
+away from this lovely, if unconventional, creature, just as he was
+beginning to love truly and appreciate her. But, then, Johnson was a man
+of no mean determination!
+
+Not daring to trust himself to words, Johnson paused to look back over
+his shoulder at the Girl before plunging forth into the night. But on
+opening the door all the multitudinous wild noises of the forests
+reached his ears: Sounds of whispering and rocking storm-tossed pines,
+sounds of the wind making the rounds of the deep canyon below them,
+sounds that would have made the blood run cold of a man more daring,
+even, than himself. Like one petrified he stood blinded, almost, by the
+great drifts of snow that were being driven into the room, while the
+cabin rocked and shook and the roof cracked and snapped, the lights
+flickered, smoked, or sent their tongues of fire upward towards the
+ceiling, the curtains swayed like pendants in the air, and while
+baskets, boxes, and other small furnishings of the cabin were blown in
+every direction.
+
+But it was the Girl's quick presence of mind that saved them from being
+buried, literally, under the snow. In an instant she had rushed past him
+and closed both the outer and inner doors of the cabin; then, going over
+to the window, she tried to look through the heavily frosted panes; but
+the falling of the sleet and snow, striking the window like fine shot,
+made it impossible for her to see more than a few inches away.
+
+"Why, it's the first time I knew that it--" She cut her sentence short
+and ended with: "That's the way we git it up here! Look! Look!"
+
+Whereupon, Johnson went over to the window and put his face close to
+hers on the frosted panes; a great sea of white snow met his gaze!
+
+"This means--" he said, turning away from the window and meeting her
+glance--"surely it doesn't mean that I can't leave Cloudy to-night?"
+
+"It means you can't get off the mountain to-night," calmly answered the
+Girl.
+
+"Good Lord!" fell from the man's lips.
+
+"You can't leave this room to-night," went on the Girl, decidedly. "Why,
+you couldn't find your way three feet from this door--you a stranger!
+You don't know the trail anyway unless you can see it."
+
+"But I can't stay here?" incredulously.
+
+"Why not? Why, that's all right! The boys'll come up an' dig us out
+to-morrow or day after. There's plenty o' wood an' you can have my bed."
+And with no more ado than that, the Girl went over to the bed to remove
+the covers and make it ready for his occupancy.
+
+"I wouldn't think of taking that," protested the man, stoutly, while his
+face clouded over.
+
+The Girl felt a thrill at the note of regard in his voice and hastened
+to explain:
+
+"I never use it cold nights; I always roll up in my rug in front of the
+fire." All of a sudden she broke out into a merry little laugh. "Jest
+think of it stormin' all this time an' we didn't know it!"
+
+But Johnson was not in a laughing mood. Indeed, he looked very grave and
+serious when presently he said:
+
+"But people coming up here and finding me might--"
+
+The Girl looked up at him in blank amazement.
+
+"Might what?" And then, while she waited for his answer, two shots in
+close succession rang out in the night with great distinctness.
+
+There was no mistaking the nearness of the sound. Instantly scenting
+trouble and alert at the possibility of danger, Johnson inquired:
+
+"What's that? What's that?"
+
+"Wait! Wait!" came back from the Girl, unconsciously in the same tone,
+while she strained her ears for other sounds. She did not have long to
+wait, however, before other shots followed, the last ones coming from
+further away, so it seemed, and at greater intervals.
+
+"They've got a road agent--it's the posse--p'r'aps they've got Ramerrez
+or one o' his band!" suddenly declared the Girl, at the same time
+rushing over to the window for some verification of her words. But, as
+before, the wind was beating with great force against the frosted panes,
+and only a vast stretch of snow met her gaze. Turning away from the
+window she now came towards him with: "You see, whoever it is, they're
+snowed in--they can't get away."
+
+Johnson knitted his brows and muttered something under his breath which
+the Girl did not catch.
+
+Again a shot was fired.
+
+"Another thief crep' into camp," coldly observed the Girl almost
+simultaneously with the report.
+
+Johnson winced.
+
+"Poor devil!" he muttered. "But of course, as you say, he's only a
+thief."
+
+In reply to which the Girl uttered words to the effect that she was glad
+he had been caught.
+
+"Well, you're right," said Johnson, thoughtfully, after a short silence;
+then determinedly and in short jerky sentences, he went on: "I've been
+thinking that I must go--tear myself away. I have very important
+business at dawn--imperative business . . ."
+
+The Girl, who now stood by the table folding up the white cloth cover,
+watched him out of the corner of her eye, take down his coat from the
+peg on the wall.
+
+"Ever sample one o' our mountain blizzards?" she asked as he slipped on
+his coat. "In five minutes you wouldn't know where you was. Your
+important business would land you at the bottom of a canyon 'bout twenty
+feet from here."
+
+Johnson cleared his throat as if to speak but said nothing; whereupon
+the Girl continued:
+
+"You say you believe in Fate. Well, Fate has caught up with you--you got
+to stay here."
+
+Johnson was strangely silent. He was wondering how his coming there
+to-night had really come about. But he could find no solution to the
+problem unless it was in response to that perverse instinct which
+prompts us all at times to do the very thing which in our hearts we know
+to be wrong. The Girl, meanwhile, after a final creasing of the
+neatly-folded cover, started for the cupboard, stopping on the way to
+pick up various articles which the wind had strewn about the room.
+Flinging them quickly into the cupboard she now went over to the window
+and once more attempted to peer out into the night. But as before, it
+was of no avail. With a shrug she straightened the curtains at the
+windows and started for the door. Her action seemed to quicken his
+decision, for, presently, with a gesture of resignation, he threw down
+his hat and coat on the table and said as if speaking to himself:
+
+"Well, it is Fate--my Fate that has always made the thing I shouldn't do
+so easy." And then, turning to the Girl, he added: "Come, Girl, as you
+say, if I can't go, I can't. But I know as I stand here that I'll never
+give you up."
+
+The Girl looked puzzled.
+
+"Why, what do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," began Johnson, pacing the floor slowly. Now he stopped by a
+chair and pointed as though to the falling snow. "Suppose we say that's
+an omen--that the old trail is blotted out and there is a fresh road.
+Would you take it with me a stranger, who says: From this day I mean to
+be all you'd have me. Would you take it with me far away from here and
+forever?"
+
+It did not take the Girl long to frame an answer. Taking Johnson's hand
+she said with great feeling:
+
+"Well, show me the girl that would want to go to Heaven alone! I'll sell
+out the saloon--I'll go anywhere with you, you bet!"
+
+Johnson bent low over her hand and kissed it. The Girl's straightforward
+answer had filled his heart to overflowing with joy.
+
+"You know what that means, don't you?" a moment later he asked.
+
+Sudden joy leapt to her blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, yes," she told him with a world of understanding in her voice.
+There was a silence; then she went on reminiscently: "There's a little
+Spanish Mission church--I pass it 'most every day. I can look in an' see
+the light burnin' before the Virgin an' see the saints standin' round
+with glassy eyes an' faded satin slippers. An' I often tho't what they'd
+think if I was to walk right in to be made--well, some man's wife. It
+makes your blood like pin-points thinkin' about it. There's somethin'
+kind o' holy about love, ain't they?"
+
+Johnson nodded. He had never regarded love in that light before, much
+less known it. For many moments he stood motionless, a new problem of
+right and wrong throbbing in his bosom.
+
+At last, it being settled that Johnson was to pass the night in the
+Girl's cabin, she went over to the bed and, once more, began to make it
+ready for his occupancy. Meanwhile, Johnson, seated in the barrel rocker
+before the fire, watched her with a new interest. The Girl had not gone
+very far with her duties, however, when she suddenly came over to him,
+plumping herself down on the floor at his feet.
+
+"Say, did you ever ask any other woman to marry you?" she asked as she
+leaned far back in his arms.
+
+"No," was the man's truthful answer.
+
+"Oh, how glad I am! Take me--ah, take me I don't care where as long as
+it is with you!" cried the Girl in an ecstasy of delight.
+
+"So help me, God, I'm going to . . .!" promised Johnson, his voice
+strained, tense. "You're worth something better than me, Girl," he
+added, a moment later, "but they say love works miracles every hour,
+that it weakens the strong and strengthens the weak. With all my soul I
+love you, with all my soul I--" The man let his voice die out, leaving
+his sentence unfinished. Suddenly he called: "Why, Min-Minnie!"
+
+"I wasn't really asleep," spoke up the Girl, blinking sleepily. "I'm
+jest so happy an' let down, that's all." The next moment, however, she
+was forced to acknowledge that she was awfully sleepy and would have to
+say good-night.
+
+"All right," said Johnson, rising, and kissed her good-night.
+
+"That's your bed over there," she told him, pointing in the direction of
+the curtains.
+
+"But hadn't you better take the bed and let me sleep over here?"
+
+"Not much!"
+
+"You're sure you would be more comfortable by the fire--sure, now?"
+
+"Yes, you bet!"
+
+And so it was that Johnson decided to pass the night in the Girl's
+canopied bed while she herself, rolled up in a blanket rug before the
+fire, slept on the floor.
+
+"This beats a bed any time," remarked the Girl, spreading out the rug
+smoothly; and then, reaching up for the old patchwork, silk quilt that
+hung from the loft, she added: "There's one thing--you don't have to
+make it up in the mornin'."
+
+"You're splendid, Girl!" laughed Johnson. Presently, he saw her quietly
+closet herself in the cupboard, only to emerge a few minutes later
+dressed for the night. Over her white cambric gown with its coarse lace
+trimming showing at the throat, she wore a red woollen blanket robe held
+in at the waist by a heavy, twisted, red cord which, to the man who got
+a glimpse of her as she crossed the room, made her prettier, even, than
+she had seemed at any time yet.
+
+Quietly, now, the Girl began to put her house in order. All the lights,
+save the quaintly-shaded lamp that was suspended over the table, were
+extinguished; that one, after many unsuccessful attempts, was turned
+down so as to give the right minimum of light which would not interfere
+with her lover's sleep. Then she went over to the door to make sure that
+it was bolted. Outside the wind howled and shrieked and moaned; but
+inside the cabin it had never seemed more cosey and secure and peaceful
+to her.
+
+"Now you can talk to me from your bunk an' I'll talk to you from mine,"
+she said in a sleepy, lazy voice.
+
+Except for a prodigious yawn which came from the Girl there was an
+ominous quiet hanging over the place that chilled the man. Sudden sounds
+startled him, and he found it impossible to make any progress with his
+preparations for the night. He was about to make some remark, however,
+when to his well-attuned ears there came the sound of approaching
+footsteps. In an instant he was standing in the parting made by the
+curtains, his face eager, animated, tense.
+
+"What's that?" he whispered.
+
+"That's snow slidin'," the Girl informed him without the slightest trace
+of anxiety in her voice.
+
+"God bless you, Girl," he murmured, and retreated back of the curtains.
+It was only an instant before he was back again with: "Why, there is
+something out there--sounded like people calling," he again whispered.
+
+"That's only the wind," she said, adding as she drew her robe tightly
+about her: "Gettin' cold, ain't it?"
+
+But, notwithstanding her assurances, Johnson did not feel secure, and it
+was with many misgivings that he now directed his footsteps towards the
+bed behind the curtains.
+
+"Good-night!" he said uneasily.
+
+"Good-night!" unconsciously returned the Girl in the same tone.
+
+Taking off her slippers the Girl now put on a pair of moccasins and
+quietly went over to her bed, where she knelt down and made a silent
+prayer.
+
+"Good-night!" presently came from a little voice in the rug.
+
+"Good-night!" answered the man now settled in the centre of the
+much-befrilled bed.
+
+There was a silence; then the little voice in the rug called out:
+
+"Say, what's your name?"
+
+"Dick," whispered the man behind the curtains.
+
+"So long, Dick!" drowsily.
+
+"So long, Girl!" dreamily.
+
+There was a brief silence; then, of a sudden, the Girl bolted upright in
+bed, and asked:
+
+"Say, Dick, are you sure you don't know that Nina Micheltoreña?"
+
+"Sure," prevaricated the man, not without some compunction.
+
+Whereupon the Girl fell back on her pillows and called out contentedly a
+final "Good-night!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+
+There was no mistaking then--no need to contrast her feeling of anxiety
+of a few moments ago lest some other woman had preceded her in his
+affections, with her indifference on former occasions when her admirers
+had proved faithless, to make the Girl realise that she was experiencing
+love and was dominated by a passion for this man.
+
+So that, with no reason whatever in her mind to question the sincerity
+of Johnson's love for her, it would seem as if nothing were wanting to
+make the Girl perfectly happy; that there could be no room in her heart
+for any feeling other than elation. And yet, curiously enough, the Girl
+could not doze off to sleep. Some mysterious force--a vague foreboding
+of something about to happen--impelled her to open her eyes again and
+again.
+
+It was an odd and wholly new sensation, this conjuring up of distressing
+spectres, for no girl was given less to that sort of thing; all the
+same, it was with difficulty that she checked an impulse to cry out to
+her lover--whom she believed to be asleep--and make him dissipate, by
+renewed assurances, the mysterious barrier which she felt was hemming
+her in.
+
+As for Johnson, the moment that his head had touched the pillows, he
+fell to thinking of the awkward situation in which he was placed, the
+many complications in which his heart had involved him and, finally, he
+found himself wondering whether the woman whom he loved so dearly was
+also lying sleepless in her rug on the floor.
+
+And so it was not surprising that he should spring up the moment that he
+heard cries from outside.
+
+"Who's that knockin', I wonder?"
+
+Although her voice showed no signs of distress or annoyance, the
+question coming from her in a calm tone, the Girl was upon her feet
+almost before she knew it. In a trice she removed all evidences that she
+had been lying upon the floor, flinging the pillows and silk coverlet to
+the wardrobe top.
+
+In that same moment Johnson was standing in the parting of the curtains,
+his hand raised warningly. In another moment he was over to the door
+where, after taking his pistols from his overcoat pockets, he stood in a
+cool, determined attitude, fingering his weapons.
+
+"But some one's ben callin'," the Girl was saying, at the very moment
+when above the loud roaring of the wind another knock was heard on the
+cabin door. "Who can it be?" she asked as if to herself, and calmly went
+over to the table, where she took up the candle and lit it.
+
+Springing to her side, Johnson whispered tensely:
+
+"Don't answer--you can't let anyone in--they wouldn't understand."
+
+The Girl eyed him quizzically.
+
+"Understand what?" And before he had time to explain, much less to check
+her, she was standing at the window, candle in hand, peering out into
+the night.
+
+"Why, it's the posse!" she cried, wheeling round suddenly. "How did they
+ever risk it in this storm?"
+
+At these words a crushed expression appeared on Johnson's countenance;
+an uncanny sense of insecurity seized him. Once more the loud, insistent
+pounding was repeated, and as before, the outlaw, his hands on his guns,
+commanded her not to answer.
+
+"But what on earth do the boys want?" inquired the Girl, seemingly
+oblivious to what he was saying. Indeed, so much so that as the voice of
+Nick rose high above the other sounds of the night, calling,
+"Min-Minnie-Girl, let us in!" she hurriedly brushed past him and yelled
+through the door:
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+Again Johnson's hand went up imperatively.
+
+"Don't let him come in!" he whispered.
+
+But even then she heard not his warning, but silently, tremulously
+listened to Sonora, who shouted through the door: "Say, Girl, you all
+right?" And not until her answering voice had called back her assurance
+that she was safe did she turn to the man at her side and whisper in a
+voice that showed plainly her agitation and fear:
+
+"Jack Rance is there! If he was to see you here--he's that jealous I'd
+be afraid--" She checked her words and quickly put her ear close to the
+door, the voices outside having become louder and more distinct.
+Presently she spun round on her heel and announced excitedly: "Ashby's
+there, too!" And again she put her ear to the door.
+
+"Ashby!" The exclamation fell from Johnson's lips before he was aware of
+it. It was impossible to deceive himself any longer--the posse had
+tracked him!
+
+"We want to come in, Girl!" suddenly rang out from the well-known voice
+of Nick.
+
+"But you can't come in!" shouted back the Girl above the noise of the
+storm; then, taking advantage of a particularly loud howl of the blast,
+she turned to Johnson and inquired: "What will I say? What reason will I
+give?"
+
+Serious as was Johnson's predicament, he could not suppress a smile. In
+a surprisedly calm voice he told her to say that she had gone to bed.
+
+The Girl's eyes flooded with admiration.
+
+"Why, o' course--that's it," she said, and turned back to the door and
+called through it: "I've gone to bed, Nick! I'm in bed now!"
+
+The barkeeper's answer was lost in another loud howl of the blast. Soon
+afterwards, however, the Girl made out that Nick was endeavouring to
+convey to her a warning of some kind.
+
+"You say you've come to warn me?" she cried.
+
+"Yes, Ramerrez . . .!"
+
+"What? Say that again?"
+
+"Ramerrez is on the trail--"
+
+"Ramerrez's on the trail!" repeated the Girl in tones of alarm; and not
+waiting to hear further she motioned to Johnson to conceal himself
+behind the curtains of the bed, muttering the while:
+
+"I got to let 'em in--I can't keep 'em out there on such a night . . ."
+He had barely reached his place of concealment when the Girl slid back
+the bolts and bade the boys to come in.
+
+Headed by Rance, the men quickly filed in and deposited their lanterns
+on the floor. It was evident that they had found the storm most severe,
+for their boots were soaked through and their heavy buffalo overcoats,
+caps and ear-muffs were covered with snow, which all, save Rance,
+proceeded to remove by shaking their shoulders and stamping their feet.
+The latter, however, calmly took off his gloves, pulled out a
+beautifully-creased handkerchief from his pocket, and began slowly to
+flick off the snow from his elegant mink overcoat before hanging it
+carefully upon a peg on the wall. After that he went over to the table
+and warmed his hands over the lighted candle there. Meanwhile, Sonora,
+his nose, as well as his hands which with difficulty he removed from his
+heavy fur mittens, showing red and swollen from the effects of the
+biting cold, had gone over to the fire, where he ejaculated:
+
+"Ouf, I'm cold! Glad you're safe, Girl!"
+
+"Yes, Girl, The Polka's had a narrow squeak," observed Nick, stamping
+his feet which, as well as his legs, were wrapped with pieces of
+blankets for added warmth.
+
+Unconsciously, at his words, the Girl's eyes travelled to the bed; then,
+drawing her robe snugly about her, and seating herself, she asked with
+suppressed excitement:
+
+"Why, Nick, what's the matter? What's--"
+
+Rance took it upon himself to do the answering. Sauntering over to the
+Girl, he drawled out:
+
+"It takes you a long time to get up, seems to me. You haven't so much
+on, either," he went on, piercing her with his eyes.
+
+Smilingly and not in the least disconcerted by the Sheriff's remark, the
+Girl picked up a rug from the floor and wound it about her knees.
+
+"Well?" she interrogated.
+
+"Well, we was sure that you was in trouble," put in Sonora. "My breath
+jest stopped."
+
+"Me? Me in trouble, Sonora?" A little laugh that was half-gay,
+half-derisive, accompanied her words.
+
+"See here, that man Ramerrez--" followed up Rance with a grim look.
+
+"--feller you was dancin' with," interposed Sonora, but checked himself
+instantly lest he wound the Girl's feelings.
+
+Whereupon, Rance, with no such compunctions, became the spokesman, a
+grimace of pleasure spreading over his countenance as he thought of the
+unpleasant surprise he was about to impart. Stretching out his stiffened
+fingers over the blaze, he said in his most brutal tones:
+
+"Your polkying friend is none other than Ramerrez."
+
+The Girl's eyes opened wide, but they did not look at the Sheriff. They
+looked straight before her.
+
+"I warned you, girl," spoke up Ashby, "that you should bank with us
+oftener."
+
+The Girl gave no sign of having heard him. Her slender figure seemed to
+have shrunken perceptibly as she stared stupidly, uncomprehendingly,
+into space.
+
+"We say that Johnson was--" repeated Rance, impatiently.
+
+"--what?" fell from the Girl's lips, her face pale and set.
+
+"Are you deaf?" demanded Rance; and then, emphasising every word, he
+rasped out: "The fellow you've been polkying with is the man that has
+been asking people to hold up their hands."
+
+"Oh, go on--you can't hand me out that!" Nevertheless the Girl looked
+wildly about the room.
+
+Angrily Rance strode over to her and sneered bitingly:
+
+"You don't believe it yet, eh?"
+
+"No, I don't believe it yet!" rapped out the Girl, laying great stress
+upon the last word. "I know he isn't."
+
+"Well, he _is_ Ramerrez, and he _did_ come to The Polka to rob it,"
+retorted the Sheriff.
+
+All at once the note of resentment in the Girl's voice became positive;
+she flared back at him, though she flushed in spite of herself.
+
+"But he didn't rob it!"
+
+"That's what gits me," fretted Sonora. "He didn't."
+
+"I should think it would git you," snapped back the Girl, both in her
+look and voice rebuking him for his words.
+
+It was left to Ashby to spring another surprise.
+
+"We've got his horse," he said pointedly.
+
+"An' I never knowed one o' these men to separate from his horse,"
+commented Sonora, still smarting under the Girl's reprimand.
+
+"Right you are! And now that we've got his horse and this storm is on,
+we've got him," said Rance, triumphantly. "But the last seen of
+Johnson," he went on with a hasty movement towards the Girl and eyeing
+her critically, "he was heading this way. You seen anything of him?"
+
+The Girl struggled hard to appear composed.
+
+"Heading this way?" she inquired, reddening.
+
+"So Nick said," declared Sonora, looking towards that individual for
+proof of his words.
+
+But Nick had caught the Girl's lightning glance imposing silence upon
+him; in some embarrassment he stammered out:
+
+"That is, he was--Sid said he saw 'im take the trail, too."
+
+"But the trail ends here," pointed out Rance, at the same time looking
+hard at the Girl. "And if she hasn't seen him, where was he going?"
+
+At this juncture Nick espied a cigar butt on the floor; unseen by the
+others, he hurriedly picked it up and threw it in the fire.
+
+"One o' our dollar Havanas! Good Lord, he's here!" he muttered to
+himself.
+
+"Rance is right. Where was he goin'?" was the question with which he was
+confronted by Sonora when about to return to the others.
+
+"Well, I tho't I seen him," evaded Nick with considerable uneasiness. "I
+couldn't swear to it. You see it was dark, an'--Moses but the Sidney
+Duck's a liar!"
+
+At length, Ashby decided that the man had in all probability been snowed
+under, ending confidently with:
+
+"Something scared him off and he lit out without his horse." Which
+remark brought temporary relief to the Girl, for Nick, watching her, saw
+the colour return to her face.
+
+Unconsciously, during this discussion, the Girl had risen to her feet,
+but only to fall back in her chair again almost as suddenly, a sign of
+nervousness which did not escape the sharp eye of the Sheriff.
+
+"How do you know the man's a road agent?" A shade almost of contempt was
+in the Girl's question.
+
+Sonora breathed on his badly nipped fingers before answering:
+
+"Well, two greasers jest now were pretty positive before they quit."
+
+Instantly the Girl's head went up in the air.
+
+"Greasers!" she ejaculated scornfully, while her eyes unfalteringly met
+Rance's steady gaze.
+
+"But the woman knew him," was the Sheriff's vindictive thrust.
+
+The Girl started; her face went white.
+
+"The woman--the woman d'you say?"
+
+"Why, yes, it was a woman that first tol' them that Ramerrez was in the
+camp to rob The Polka," Sonora informed her, though his tone showed
+plainly his surprise at being compelled to repeat a thing which, he
+wrongly believed, she already knew.
+
+"We saw her at The Palmetto," leered Rance.
+
+"And we missed the reward," frowned Ashby; at which Rance quickly turned
+upon the speaker with:
+
+"But Ramerrez is trapped."
+
+There was a moment's startled pause in which the Girl struggled with her
+passions; at last, she ventured:
+
+"Who's this woman?"
+
+The Sheriff laughed discordantly.
+
+"Why, the woman of the back trail," he sneered.
+
+"Nina Micheltoreña! Then she does know 'im--it's true--it goes through
+me!" unwittingly burst from the Girl's lips.
+
+The Sheriff, evidently, found the Situation amusing, for he laughed
+outright.
+
+"He's the sort of a man who polkas with you first and then cuts your
+throat," was his next stab.
+
+The Girl turned upon him with eyes flashing and retorted:
+
+"Well, it's my throat, ain't it?"
+
+"Well I'll be!--" The Sheriff's sentence was left unfinished, for Nick,
+quickly pulling him to one side, whispered:
+
+"Say, Rance, the Girl's cut up because she vouched for 'im. Don't rub it
+in."
+
+Notwithstanding, Rance, to the Girl's query of "How did this Nina
+Micheltoreña know it?" took a keen delight in telling her:
+
+"She's his girl."
+
+"His girl?" repeated the Girl, mechanically.
+
+"Yes. She gave us his picture," went on Rance; and taking the photograph
+out of his pocket, he added maliciously, "with love written on the back
+of it."
+
+A glance at the photograph, which she fairly snatched out of his hands,
+convinced the Girl of the truthfulness of his assertion. With a movement
+of pain she threw it upon the floor, crying out bitterly:
+
+"Nina Micheltoreña! Nina Micheltoreña!" Turning to Ashby with an abrupt
+change of manner she said contritely: "I'm sorry, Mr. Ashby, I vouched
+for 'im."
+
+The Wells Fargo Agent softened at the note in the Girl's voice; he was
+about to utter some comforting words to her when suddenly she spoke
+again.
+
+"I s'pose they had one o' them little lovers' quarrels an' that made 'er
+tell you, eh?" She laughed a forced little laugh, though her heart was
+beating strangely as she kept on: "He's the kind o' man who sort o'
+polkas with every girl he meets." And at this she began to laugh almost
+hysterically.
+
+Rance, who resented her apologising to anyone but himself, stood
+scowling at her.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" he questioned.
+
+"Oh, nothin', Jack, nothin'," half-cried, half-laughed the Girl. "Only
+it's kind o' funny how things come out, ain't it? Took in! Nina
+Micheltoreña! Nice company he keeps--one o' them Cachuca girls with
+eyelashes at half-mast!"
+
+Once more, she broke out into a fit of laughter.
+
+"Well, well," she resumed, "an' she sold 'im out for money! Ah, Jack
+Rance, you're a better guesser'n I am!" And with these words she sank
+down at the table in an apathy of misery. Horror and hatred and
+hopelessness had possession of her. A fierce look was in her eyes when a
+moment later she raised her head and abruptly dismissed the boys,
+saying:
+
+"Well, boys, it's gittin' late--good-night!"
+
+Sonora was the first to make a movement towards the door.
+
+"Come on, boys," he growled in his deep bass voice; "don't you intend to
+let a lady go to bed?"
+
+One by one the men filed through the door which Nick held open for them;
+but when all but himself had left, the devoted little barkeeper turned
+to the Girl with a look full of meaning, and whispered:
+
+"Do you want me to stay?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no, Nick!" And with a "Good-night, all! Good-night, Sonora, an'
+thank you! Good-night, Nick!" the Girl closed the door upon them. The
+last that she heard from them was the muffled ejaculation:
+
+"Oh, Lordy, we'll never git down to Cloudy to-night!"
+
+Now the Girl slid the bolts and stood with her back against the door as
+if to take extra precautions to bar out any intrusion, and with eyes
+that blazed she yelled out:
+
+"Come out o' that, now! Step out there, Mr. Johnson!"
+
+Slowly the road agent parted the curtains and came forward in an
+attitude of dejection.
+
+"You came here to rob me," at once began the Girl, but her anger made it
+impossible for her to continue.
+
+"I didn't," denied the road agent, quietly, his countenance reflecting
+how deeply hurt he was by her words.
+
+"You lie!" insisted the Girl, beside herself with rage.
+
+"I don't--"
+
+"You do!"
+
+"I admit that every circumstance points to--"
+
+"Stop! Don't you give me any more o' that Webster Unabridged. You git to
+cases. If you didn't come here to steal you came to The Polka to rob it,
+didn't you?"
+
+Johnson, his eyes lowered, was forced to admit that such were his
+intentions, adding swiftly:
+
+"But when I knew about you--" He broke off and took a step towards her.
+
+"Wait! Wait! Wait where you are! Don't you take a step further or
+I'll--" She made a significant gesture towards her bosom, and then,
+laughing harshly, went on denouncingly: "A road agent! A road agent!
+Well, ain't it my luck! Wouldn't anybody know to look at me that a
+gentleman wouldn't fall my way! A road agent! A road agent!" And again
+she laughed bitterly before going on: "But now you can git--git, you
+thief, you imposer on a decent woman! I ought to have tol' 'em all, but
+I wa'n't goin' to be the joke o' the world with you behind the curtains
+an' me eatin' charlotte rusks an' lemming turnovers an' a-polkyin' with
+a road agent! But now you can git--git, do you hear me?"
+
+Johnson heard her to the end with bowed head; and so scathing had been
+her denunciations of his actions that the fact that pride alone kept her
+from breaking down completely escaped his notice. With his eyes still
+downcast be said in painful fragments:
+
+"One word only--only a word and I'm not going to say anything in defence
+of myself. For it's all true--everything is true except that I would
+have stolen from you. I _am_ called Ramerrez; I _have_ robbed; I _am_ a
+road agent--an outlaw by profession. Yes, I'm all that--and my father
+was that before me. I was brought up, educated, thrived on thieves'
+money, I suppose, but until six months ago when my father died, I did
+not know it. I lived much in Monterey--I lived there as a gentleman.
+When we met that day I wasn't the thing I am to-day. I only learned the
+truth when my father died and left me with a rancho and a band of
+thieves--nothing else--nothing for us all, and I--but what's the good of
+going into it--the circumstances. You wouldn't understand if I did. I
+was my father's son; I have no excuse; I guess, perhaps, it was in
+me--in the blood. Anyhow, I took to the road, and I didn't mind it much
+after the first time. But I drew the line at killing--I wouldn't have
+that. That's the man that I am, the blackguard that I am. But--" here he
+raised his eyes and said with a voice that was charged with feeling--"I
+swear to you that from the moment I kissed you to-night I meant to
+change, I meant to--"
+
+"The devil you did!" broke from the Girl's lips, but with a sound that
+was not unlike a sob.
+
+"I did, believe me, I did," insisted the man. "I meant to go straight
+and take you with me--but only honestly--when I could honestly. I meant
+to work for you. Why, every word you said to me to-night about being a
+thief cut into me like a knife. Over and over again I have said to
+myself, she must never know. And now--well, it's all over--I have
+finished."
+
+"An' that's all?" questioned the Girl with averted face.
+
+"No--yes--what's the use . . .?"
+
+The Girl's anger blazed forth again.
+
+"But there's jest one thing you've overlooked explainin', Mr. Johnson.
+It shows exactly what you are. It wasn't so much your bein' a road agent
+I got against you. It's this:" And here she stamped her foot excitedly.
+"You kissed me--you got my first kiss."
+
+Johnson hung his head.
+
+"You said," kept on the Girl, hotly, "you'd ben thinkin' o' me ever
+since you saw me at Monterey, an' all the time you walked straight off
+an' ben kissin' that other woman." She shrugged her shoulder and laughed
+grimly. "You've got a girl," she continued, growing more and more
+indignant. "It's that I've got against you. It's my first kiss I've got
+against you. It's that Nina Micheltoreña that I can't forgive. So now
+you can git--git!" And with these words she unbolted the door and
+concluded tensely:
+
+"If they kill you I don't care. Do you hear, I don't care . . ."
+
+At those bitter words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide
+their misery, the Girl's face became colourless.
+
+With the instinct of a brave man to sell his life as dearly as possible,
+Johnson took a couple of guns from his pocket; but the next moment, as
+if coming to the conclusion that death without the Girl would be
+preferable, he put them back, saying:
+
+"You're right, Girl."
+
+The next instant he had passed out of the door which she held wide open
+for him.
+
+"That's the end o' that--that's the end o' that," she wound up, slamming
+the door after him. But all the way from the threshold to the bureau she
+kept murmuring to herself: "I don't care, I don't care . . . I'll be
+like the rest o' the women I've seen. I'll give that Nina Micheltoreña
+cards an' spades. There'll be another hussy around here. There'll be--"
+The threat was never finished. Instead, with eyes that fairly started
+out of their sockets, she listened to the sound of a couple of shots,
+the last one exploding so loud and distinct that there was no mistaking
+its nearness to the cabin.
+
+"They've got 'im!" she cried. "Well, I don't care--I don't--" But again
+she did not finish what she intended to say. For at the sound of a heavy
+body falling against the cabin door she flew to it, opened it and,
+throwing her arms about the sorely-wounded man, dragged him into the
+cabin and placed him in a chair. Quick as lightning she was back at the
+door bolting it.
+
+With his eyes Johnson followed her action.
+
+"Don't lock that door--I'm going out again--out there. Don't bar that
+door," he commanded feebly, struggling to his feet and attempting to
+walk towards it; but he lurched forward and would have fallen to the
+floor had she not caught him. Vainly he strove to break away from her,
+all the time crying out: "Don't you see, don't you see, Girl--open the
+door." And then again with almost a sob: "Do you think me a man to hide
+behind a woman?" He would have collapsed except for the strong arms that
+held him.
+
+"I love you an' I'm goin' to save you," the Girl murmured while
+struggling with him. "You asked me to go away with you; I will when you
+git out o' this. If you can't save your own soul--" She stopped and
+quickly went over to the mantel where she took down a bottle of whisky
+and a glass; but in the act of pouring out a drink for him there came a
+loud rap on the window, and quickly looking round she saw Rance's
+piercing eyes peering into the room. For an instant she paled, but then
+there flashed through her mind the comforting thought that the Sheriff
+could not possibly see Johnson from his position. So, after giving the
+latter his drink, she waited quietly until a rap at the door told her
+that Rance had left the window when, her eye having lit on the ladder
+that was held in place on the ceiling, she quickly ran over to it and
+let it down, saying:
+
+"Go up the ladder! Climb up there to the loft You're the man that's got
+my first kiss an' I'm goin' to save you . . ."
+
+"Oh, no, not here," protested Johnson, stubbornly.
+
+"Do you want them to see you in my cabin?" she cried reproachfully,
+trying to lift him to his feet.
+
+"Oh, hurry, hurry . . .!"
+
+With the utmost difficulty Johnson rose to his feet and catching the
+rounds of the ladder he began to ascend. But after going up a few rounds
+he reeled and almost fell off, gasping:
+
+"I can't make it--no, I can't . . ."
+
+"Yes, you can," encouraged the Girl; and then, simultaneously with
+another loud knock on the door: "You're the man I love an' you
+must--you've got to show me the man that's in you. Oh, go on, go on,
+jest a step an' you'll git there."
+
+"But I can't," came feebly from the voice above. Nevertheless, the next
+instant he fell full length on the boarded floor of the loft with the
+hand outstretched in which was the handkerchief he had been staunching
+the blood from the wound in his side.
+
+With a whispered injunction that he was all right and was not to move on
+any account, the Girl put the ladder back in its place. But no sooner
+was this done than on looking up she caught sight of the stained
+handkerchief. She called softly up to him to take it away, explaining
+that the cracks between the boards were wide and it could plainly be
+seen from below.
+
+"That's it!" she exclaimed on observing that he had changed the position
+of his hand. "Now, don't move!"
+
+Finally, with the lighted candle in her hand, the Girl made a quick
+survey of the room to see that nothing was in sight that would betray
+her lover's presence there, and then throwing open the door she took up
+such a position by it that it made it impossible for anyone to get past
+her without using force.
+
+"You can't come in here, Jack Rance," she said in a resolute voice. "You
+can tell me what you want from where you are."
+
+Roughly, almost brutally, Rance shoved her to one side and entered.
+
+"No more Jack Rance. It's the Sheriff coming after Mr. Johnson," he
+said, emphasizing each word.
+
+The Girl eyed him defiantly.
+
+"Yes, I said Mr. Johnson," reiterated the Sheriff, cocking the gun that
+he held in his hand. "I saw him coming in here."
+
+"It's more 'n I did," returned the Girl, evenly, and bolted the door.
+"Do you think I'd want to shield a man who tried to rob me?" she asked,
+facing him.
+
+Ignoring the question, Rance removed the glove of his weaponless hand
+and strode to the curtains that enclosed the Girl's bed and parted them.
+When he turned back he was met by a scornful look and the words:
+
+"So, you doubt me, do you? Well, go on--search the place. But this ends
+your acquaintance with The Polka. Don't you ever speak to me again.
+We're through."
+
+Suddenly there came a smothered groan from the man in the loft; Rance
+wheeled round quickly and brought up his gun, demanding:
+
+"What's that? What's that?"
+
+Leaning against the bureau the Girl laughed outright and declared that
+the Sheriff was becoming as nervous as an old woman. Her ridicule was
+not without its effect, and, presently, Rance uncocked his gun and
+replaced it in its holster. Advancing now to the table where the Girl
+was standing, he took off his cap and shook it before laying it down;
+then, pointing to the door, his eyes never leaving the Girl's face, he
+went on accusingly:
+
+"I saw someone standing out there against the snow. I fired. I could
+have sworn it was a man."
+
+The Girl winced. But as she stood watching him calmly remove his coat
+and shake it with the air of one determined to make himself at home, she
+cried out tauntingly:
+
+"Why do you stop? Why don't you go on--finish your search--only don't
+ever speak to me again."
+
+At that, Rance became conciliatory.
+
+"Say, Min, I don't want to quarrel with you."
+
+Turning her back on him the Girl moved over to the bureau where she
+snapped out over her shoulder:
+
+"Go on with your search, then p'r'aps you'll leave a lady to herself to
+go to bed."
+
+The Sheriff followed her up with the declaration:
+
+"I'm plumb crazy about you, Min."
+
+The Girl shrugged her shoulder.
+
+"I could have sworn I saw--I--Oh, you know it's just you for me--just
+you, and curse the man you like better. I--I--even yet I can't get over
+the queer look in your face when I told you who that man really was." He
+stopped and flung his overcoat down on the floor, and fixing her with a
+look he demanded: "You don't love him, do you?"
+
+Again the Girl sent over her shoulder a forced little laugh.
+
+"Who--me?"
+
+The Sheriff's face brightened. Taking a few steps nearer to her, he
+hazarded:
+
+"Say, Girl, was your answer final to-night about marrying me?"
+
+Without turning round the Girl answered coyly:
+
+"I might think it over, Jack."
+
+Instantly the man's passion was aroused. He strode over to her, put his
+arms around her and kissed her forcibly.
+
+"I love you, I love you, Minnie!" he cried passionately.
+
+In the struggle that followed, the Girl's eyes fell on the bottle on the
+mantel. With a cry she seized it and raised it threateningly over her
+head. Another second, however, she sank down upon a chair and began to
+sob, her face buried in her hands.
+
+Rance regarded her coldly; at last he gave vent to a mirthless laugh,
+the nasty laugh of a man whose vanity is hurt.
+
+"So, it's as bad as that," he sneered. "I didn't quite realise it. I'm
+much obliged to you. Good-night." He snatched up his coat, hesitated,
+then repeated a little less angrily than before: "Good-night!"
+
+But the Girl, with her face still hidden, made no answer. For a moment
+he watched the crouching form, the quivering shoulders, then asked, with
+sudden and unwonted gentleness:
+
+"Can't you say good-night to me, Girl!"
+
+Slowly the Girl rose to her feet and faced him, aversion and pity
+struggling for mastery. Then, as she noted the spot where he was now
+standing, his great height bringing him so near to the low boards of the
+loft where her lover was lying that it seemed as though he must hear the
+wounded man's breathing, all other feelings were swept away by
+overwhelming fear. With the one thought that she must get rid of
+him,--do anything, say anything, but get rid of him quickly, she forced
+herself forward, with extended hand, and said in a voice that held out
+new promise:
+
+"Good-night. Jack Rance,--good-night!"
+
+Rance seized the hand with an almost fierce gladness in both his own,
+his keen glance hungrily striving to read her face. Then, suddenly, he
+released her, drawing back his hand with a quick sharpness.
+
+"Why, look at my hand! There's blood on it!" he said.
+
+And even as he spoke, under the yellow flare of the lamp, the Girl saw a
+second drop of blood fall at her feet. Like a flash, the terrible
+significance of it came upon her. Only by self-violence could she keep
+her glance from rising, tell-tale, to the boards above.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," she heard herself saying contritely, all the time
+desperately groping to invent a reason; at length, she added futilely:
+"I must have scratched you."
+
+Rance looked puzzled, staring at the spatter of red as though
+hypnotised.
+
+"No, there's no scratch there," he contended, wiping off the blood with
+his handkerchief.
+
+"Oh, yes, there is," insisted the Girl tremulously; "that is, there will
+be in the mornin'. You'll see in the mornin' that there'll be--" She
+stopped and stared in frozen terror at the sinister face of the Sheriff,
+who was coolly watching his handkerchief turn from white to red under
+the slow rain of blood from the loft above.
+
+"Oho!" he emitted sardonically, stepping back and pointing his gun
+towards the loft. "So, he's up there!"
+
+The Girl's fingers clutched his arm, dragging desperately.
+
+"No, he isn't, Jack--no, he isn't!" she iterated in blind, mechanical
+denial.
+
+With an abrupt movement, Rance flung her violently from him, made a grab
+at the suspended ladder and lowered it into position; then, deaf to the
+Girl's pleadings, harshly ordered Johnson to come down, meanwhile
+covering the source of the blood-drops with his gun.
+
+"Oh, wait,--wait a minute!" begged the Girl helplessly. What would
+happen if he couldn't obey the summons? He had spent himself in his
+climb to safety. Perhaps he was unconscious, slowly bleeding to death!
+But even as she tortured herself with fears, the boards above creaked as
+though a heavy body was dragging itself slowly across them. Johnson was
+evidently doing his best to reach the top of the ladder; but he did not
+move quickly enough to suit the Sheriff.
+
+"Come down, or I'll--"
+
+"Oh, just a minute, Jack, just a minute!" broke in the Girl frantically.
+"Don't shoot!--Don't you see he's tryin' to--?"
+
+"Come down here, Mr. Johnson!" reiterated the Sheriff, with a face
+inhuman as a fiend.
+
+The Girl clenched her hands, heedless of the nails cutting into her
+palms: "Won't you wait a moment,--please, wait, Jack!"
+
+"Wait? What for?" the Sheriff flung at her brutally, his finger
+twitching on the trigger.
+
+The Girl's lips parted to answer, then closed again dumbly,--for it was
+then that she saw the boots, then the legs of the road agent slide
+uncertainly through the open trap, fumble clumsily for the rungs of the
+ladder, then slip and stumble as the weight of the following body came
+upon them while the weak fingers strained desperately for a hold. The
+whole heart and soul and mind of the Girl seemed to be reaching out
+impotently to give her lover strength, to hurry him down fast enough to
+forestall a shot from the Sheriff. It seemed hours until the road agent
+reached the bottom of the ladder, then lurched with unseeing eyes to a
+chair and, finally, fell forward limply, with his arms and head resting
+on the table. Still dumb with dread, the Girl watched Rance slowly
+circle round the wounded man; it was not until the Sheriff returned his
+pistol to its holster that she breathed freely again.
+
+"So, you dropped into The Polka to-night to play a little game of poker?
+Funny how things change about in an hour or two!" Rance chuckled
+mirthlessly; it seemed to suit his sardonic humour to taunt his helpless
+rival. "You think you can play poker,--that's your conviction, is it?
+Well, you can play freeze-out as to your chances, Mr. Johnson of
+Sacramento. Come, speak up,--it's shooting or the tree,--which shall it
+be?"
+
+Goaded beyond endurance by Rance's taunting of the unconscious man, the
+Girl, fumbling in her bosom for her pistol, turned upon him in a sudden,
+cold fury:
+
+"You better stop that laughin', Jack Rance, or I'll send you to finish
+it in some place where things ain't so funny."
+
+Something in the Girl's altered tone so struck the Sheriff that he
+obeyed her. He said nothing, but on his lips were the words, "By Heaven,
+the Girl means it!" and his eyes showed a smouldering admiration.
+
+"He doesn't hear you,--he's out of it. But me--me--I hear you--I ain't
+out of it," the Girl went on in compelling tones. "You're a gambler; he
+was, too; well, so am I." She crossed deliberately to the bureau, and
+laid her pistol away in the drawer, Rance meanwhile eyeing her with
+puzzled interest. Returning, she went on, incisively as a whip lash:
+"I live on chance money, drink money, card money, saloon money. We're
+gamblers,--we're all gamblers!" She paused, an odd expression coming
+over her face,--an expression that baffled Rance's power to read.
+Presently she resumed: "Now, you asked me to-night if my answer was
+final,--well, here's your chance. I'll play you the game,--straight
+poker. It's two out o' three for me. Hatin' the sight o' you, it's the
+nearest chance you'll ever get for me."
+
+"Do you mean--" began Rance, his hands resting on the table, his
+hawk-like glance burning into her very thoughts.
+
+"Yes, with a wife in Noo Orleans all right," she interrupted him
+feverishly. "If you're lucky,--you'll git 'im an' me. But if you
+lose,--this man settin' between us is mine--mine to do with as I please,
+an' you shut up an' lose like a gentleman."
+
+"You must be crazy about him!" The words seemed wrung from the Sheriff
+against his will.
+
+"That's my business!" came like a knife-cut from the Girl.
+
+"Do you know you're talkin' to the Sheriff?"
+
+"I'm talkin' to Jack Rance, the gambler," she amended evenly.
+
+"You're right,--and he's just fool enough to take you up," returned
+Rance with sudden decision. He looked around him for a chair; there was
+one near the table, and the Girl handed it to him. With one hand he
+swung it into place before the table, while with the other he jerked off
+the table-cover, and flung it across the room. Johnson neither moved nor
+groaned, as the edge slid from beneath his nerveless arms.
+
+"You and the cyards have got into my blood. I'll take you up," he said,
+seating himself.
+
+"Your word," demanded the Girl, leaning over the table, but still
+standing.
+
+"I can lose like a gentleman," returned Rance curtly; then, with a swift
+seizure of her hand, he continued tensely, in tones that made the Girl
+shrink and whiten, "I'm hungry for you, Min, and if I win, I'll take it
+out on you as long as I have breath."
+
+A moment later, the Girl had freed her hand from his clasp, and was
+saying evenly, "Fix the lamp." And while the Sheriff was adjusting the
+wick that had begun to flare up smokily, she swiftly left the room,
+saying casually over her shoulder that she was going to fetch something
+from the closet.
+
+"What you goin' to get?" he called after her suspiciously. The Girl made
+no reply. Rance made no movement to follow her, but instead drew a pack
+of cards from his pocket and began to shuffle them with practiced
+carelessness. But when a minute had passed and the girl had not
+returned, he called once more, with growing impatience, to know what was
+keeping her.
+
+"I'm jest gettin' the cards an' kind o' steadyin' my nerves," she
+answered somewhat queerly through the doorway. The next moment she had
+returned, quickly closing the closet door behind her, blew out her
+candle, and laying a pack of cards upon the table, said significantly:
+
+"We'll use a fresh deck. There's a good deal depends on this, Jack." She
+seated herself opposite the Sheriff and so close to the unconscious form
+of the man she loved that from time to time her left arm brushed his
+shoulder.
+
+Rance, without protest other than a shrug, took up his own deck of
+cards, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and stowed them away in his
+pocket. It was the Girl who spoke first:
+
+"Are you ready?"
+
+"Ready? Yes. I'm ready. Cut for deal."
+
+With unfaltering fingers, the Girl cut. Of the man beside her, dead or
+dying, she must not, dared not think. For the moment she had become one
+incarnate purpose: to win, to win at any cost,--nothing else mattered.
+
+Rance won the deal; and taking up the pack he asked, as he shuffled:
+
+"A case of show-down?"
+
+"Show-down."
+
+"Cut!" once more peremptorily from Rance; and then, when she had cut,
+one question more: "Best two out of three?"
+
+"Best two out of three." Swift, staccato sentences, like the rapid
+crossing of swords, the first preliminary interchange of strokes before
+the true duel begins.
+
+Rance dealt the cards. Before either looked at them, he glanced across
+at the Girl and asked scornfully, perhaps enviously:
+
+"What do you see in him?"
+
+"What do you see in me?" she flashed back instantly, as she picked up
+her cards; and then: "What have you got?"
+
+"King high," declared the gambler.
+
+"King high here," echoed the Girl.
+
+"Jack next," and he showed his hand.
+
+"Queen next," and the Girl showed hers.
+
+"You've got it," conceded the gambler, easily. Then, in another tone,
+"but you're making a mistake--"
+
+"If I am, it's my mistake! Cut!"
+
+Rance cut the cards. The Girl dealt them steadily. Then,
+
+"What have you got?" she asked.
+
+"One pair,--aces. What have you?"
+
+"Nothing," throwing her cards upon the table.
+
+With just a flicker of a smile, the Sheriff once more gathered up the
+pack, saying smoothly:
+
+"Even now,--we're even."
+
+"It's the next hand that tells, Jack, ain't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's the next hand that tells me,--I'm awfully sorry,--" the words
+seemed to come awkwardly; her glance was troubled, almost contrite, "at
+any rate, I want to say jest now that no matter how it comes out--"
+
+"Cut!" interjected Rance mechanically.
+
+"--that I'll always think of you the best I can," completed the Girl
+with much feeling. "An' I want you to do the same for me."
+
+Silently, inscrutably, the gambler dealt the ten cards, one by one. But
+as the Girl started to draw hers toward her, his long, thin fingers
+reached across once more and closed not ungently upon hand and cards.
+
+"The last hand, Girl!" he reminded her. "And I've a feeling that I
+win,--that in one minute I'll hold you in my arms." And still covering
+her fingers with his own, he stole a glance at his cards.
+
+"I win," he announced, briefly, his eyes alone betraying the inward
+fever. He dropped the cards before her on the table. "Three kings,--and
+the _last hand_!"
+
+Suddenly, as though some inward cord had snapped under the strain, the
+Girl collapsed. Limply she slid downward in her chair, one groping hand
+straying aimlessly to her forehead, then dropping of its own weight.
+"Quick, Jack,--I'm ill,--git me somethin'!" The voice trailed off to
+nothingness as the drooping eyelids closed.
+
+In real consternation, the Sheriff sprang to his feet. In one sweeping
+glance his alert eye caught the whisky bottle upon the mantel. "All
+right, Girl, I'll fix you in no time," he said cheeringly over his
+shoulder. But where the deuce did she keep her tumblers? The next minute
+he was groping for them in the dark of the adjoining closet and softly
+cursing himself for his own slowness.
+
+Instantaneously, the Girl came to life. The unturned cards upon the
+table vanished with one lightning movement; the Girl's hand disappeared
+beneath her skirts, raised for the moment knee-high; then the same,
+swift reverse motion, and the cards were back in place, while the Girl's
+eyes trembled shut again, to hide the light of triumph in them. A smile
+flickered on her lips as the Sheriff returned with the glass and bottle.
+
+"Never mind,--I'm better now," her lips shaped weakly.
+
+The Sheriff set down the bottle, and put his arm around the Girl with a
+rough tenderness.
+
+"Oh, you only fainted because you lost," he told her.
+
+Averting her gaze, the Girl quietly disengaged herself, rose to her feet
+and turned her five cards face upwards.
+
+"No, Jack, it's because I've won,--three aces and a pair."
+
+The Sheriff shot one glance at the girl, keen, searching. Then, without
+so much as the twitch of an eyelid, he accepted his defeat, took a cigar
+from his pocket and lit it, the flame of the match revealing no
+expression other than the nonchalance for which he was noted; then,
+picking up his hat and coat he walked slowly to the door. Here he halted
+and wished her a polite good-night--so ceremoniously polite that at any
+other time it would have compelled her admiration.
+
+Pale as death and almost on the point of collapse, the Girl staggered
+back to the table where the wounded road agent was half-sitting,
+half-lying.
+
+Thrusting her hand now into the stocking from which she had obtained the
+winning, if incriminating, cards, she drew forth those that remained and
+scattered them in the air, crying out hysterically:
+
+"Three aces an' a pair an' a stockin' full o' pictures--but his life
+belongs to me!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+
+Conscious-stricken at the fraud that she had imposed upon the gambler,
+the Girl lived a lifetime in the moments that followed his departure.
+With her face buried in her hands she stood lost in contemplation of her
+shameful secret.
+
+A sound--the sound of a man in great pain checked her hysterical sobs.
+Dazed, she passed her hand over her face as if to clear away the dark
+shades that were obstructing her vision. Another groan--and like a flash
+she was down on her knees lavishing endearments upon the road agent.
+
+Never before, it is true, had the Girl had any experience in gun-shot
+wounds. She had played the part of nurse, however, more than once when
+the boys met with accidents at the mines. For the women of the
+California camps at that time had endless calls upon them. It was a
+period for sacrifices innumerable, and help and sympathy were never
+asked that they were not freely given. So, if the Girl did not know the
+very best thing to do, she knew, at least, what not to do, and it was
+only a few minutes before she had cut the coat from his back.
+
+The next thing to be done--the dragging of the unconscious man to the
+bed--was hard work, of course, but being strong of arm, as well as stout
+of heart, she at last accomplished it.
+
+Now she cut away his shirt in order to find the wound, which proved to
+be in his breast. Quickly then she felt with her fingers in an endeavour
+to find the ball, but in this she was unsuccessful. So after a moment's
+deliberation she made up her mind that the wound was a flesh one and
+that the ball was anywhere but in the man's body--a diagnosis that was
+largely due to the cheerful optimism of her nature and which,
+fortunately, proved to be true.
+
+Presently she went to a corner of the room and soon returned with a
+basin of water and some hastily torn bandages. For a good fifteen
+minutes after that she washed the gash and, finally, bandaged it as well
+as she knew how. And now, having done all that her knowledge or instinct
+prompted, she drew up a chair and prepared to pass the rest of the night
+in watching by his side.
+
+For an hour or so he slept the sleep of unconsciousness. In the room not
+a sound could be heard, but outside the storm still roared and raged. It
+was anything but an easy or cheerful situation: Here she was alone with
+a wounded, if not dying, man; and she well knew that, unless there came
+an abatement in the fury of the storm, it might be days before anyone
+could climb the mountain. True, the Indians were not far off, but like
+as not they would remain in their wigwam until the sun came forth again.
+In the matter of food there was a scant supply, but probably enough to
+tide them over until communication could be had with The Polka.
+
+For three days she watched over him, and all the time the storm
+continued. On the third day he became delirious, and that was the night
+of her torture. Despite a feeling that she was taking an unfair
+advantage of him, the Girl strained her ears to catch a name which, in
+his delirium, was constantly on his lips; but she could not make it out.
+All that she knew was that it was not her name that he spoke, and it
+pained her. She had given him absolute faith and trust and, already, she
+was overwhelmed with the fierce flames of jealousy. It was a new
+sensation, this being jealous of anyone, and it called forth a
+passionate resentment. In such moments she would rise and flee to the
+other end of the room until the whispered endearments had ceased. Then
+she would draw near again with flushes of shame on her cheeks for having
+heeded the sayings of an irresponsible person, and she would take his
+head in her lap and, caressing him the while, would put cold towels on
+his heated brow.
+
+Dawn of the fourth day saw the Girl still pale and anxious, though
+despair had entirely left her; for the storm was over and colour and
+speech had come back to the man early that morning. Love and good
+nursing, not to speak of some excellent whisky that she happened to have
+stored away in her cabin, had pulled him through. With a sigh of relief
+she threw herself down on the rug for a much-needed rest.
+
+The man woke just before the sun rose. His first thought, that he was
+home in the foothills, was dissipated by the sight of the snow ranges.
+Through the window of the cabin, as far as the eye could see, nothing of
+green was visible. Snow was everywhere; everything was white, save at
+the eastern horizon where silver was fast changing into rose and rose to
+a fiery red as the fast-rising sun sent its shafts over the snow-coated
+mountains.
+
+And now there came to him a full realisation of what had happened and
+where he was. To his amazement, though, he was almost without pain. That
+his wound had been dressed he was, of course, well aware for when he
+attempted to draw back still further the curtain at the window the
+movement strained the tight bandage, and he was instantly made conscious
+of a twinge of pain.
+
+Nevertheless, he persevered, for he wisely decided that it would be well
+to reconnoitre, to familiarise himself, as much as possible, with the
+lay of the land and find out whether the trail that he had followed to
+reach the cabin which, he recalled, was perched high up above a ravine,
+was the only means of communication with the valley below. It was a
+useless precaution, for the snow would have wholly obliterated any such
+trail had there been one and, soon realising the fact, he fell back
+exhausted by his effort on the pillows.
+
+A half hour passed and the man began to grow restless. He had, of
+course, no idea whatever of the length of time he had been in the cabin,
+and he knew that he must be thinking of an immediate escape. In
+desperation, he tried to get out of bed, but the task was beyond his
+power. At that a terrible feeling of hopelessness assailed him. His only
+chance was to reach the valley where he had little fear of capture; but
+wounded, as he was, that seemed out of the question, and he saw himself
+caught like a rat in a trap. In an access of rage at the situation in
+which he was placed he made another effort to raise himself up on his
+elbow and peer through the window at the Sierras. The noise that he
+made, slight though it was, awoke the Girl. In an instant she was at his
+bedside drawing the curtain over the window.
+
+"What you thinkin' of?" she asked. "At any moment--jest as soon as the
+trail can be cleared--there'll be someone of the boys up here to see how
+I've pulled through. They mustn't see you . . ."
+
+Forcibly, but with loving tenderness, she put him back among his pillows
+and seated herself by the bed. An awkward silence followed. For now that
+the man was in his right senses it was borne in upon her that he might
+remember that she had fed him, given him drink and fondled him. It was a
+situation embarrassing to both. Neither knew just what to say or how to
+begin. At length, the voice from the bed spoke:
+
+"How long have I been here?"
+
+"Three days."
+
+"And you have nursed me all that--"
+
+"You mustn't talk," warned the girl. "It's dangerous in more ways than
+one. But if you keep still no one'll suspect that you're here."
+
+"But I must know what happened," he insisted with increasing excitement.
+"I remember nothing after I came down the ladder. The Sheriff--Rance--
+what's become . . .?"
+
+The Girl chided him with gentle authority.
+
+"You keep perfectly still--you mustn't say nothin' 'til you've rested.
+Everythin's all right an' you needn't worry a bit." But then seeing that
+he chafed at this, she added: "Well, then, I'll tell you all there is to
+know." And then followed an account of the happenings of that night. It
+was not a thoroughly truthful tale, for in her narrative she told him
+only what she thought was necessary and good for him to know, keeping
+the rest to herself. And when she had related all that there was to tell
+she insisted upon his going to sleep again, giving him no opportunity
+whatsoever to speak, since she left his bedside after drawing the
+curtains.
+
+Unwillingly the man lay back and tried to force himself to be patient;
+but he fretted at the enforced quietude and, as a result, sleep refused
+to come to him. From time to time he could hear the Girl moving
+noiselessly about the room. The knowledge that she was there gave him a
+sense of security, and he began to let his thoughts dwell upon her. No
+longer did he doubt but what she was a real influence now; and the
+thought had the effect of making him keenly alive to what his life had
+been. It was not a pleasant picture that he looked back upon, now that
+he had caught a glimpse of what life might mean with the Girl at his
+side. From the moment that he had taken her in his arms he realised to
+the full that his cherished dream had come true; he realised, also, that
+there was now but one answer to the question of keeping to the oath
+given to his father, and that was that gratitude--for he had guessed
+rightly, though she had not told him, that she had saved him from
+capture by the Sheriff and his posse--demanded that he should put an end
+to his vocation and devote his life henceforth to making her happy.
+
+Once or twice while thus communing with himself he fancied that he heard
+voices. It seemed to him that he recognised Nick's voice. But whoever it
+was, he spoke in whispers, and though the wounded man strove to hear, he
+was unsuccessful.
+
+After a while he heard the door close and then the tension was somewhat
+relaxed, for he knew that she was keeping his presence in her cabin a
+secret with all the wiles of a clever and loving woman. And more and
+more he determined to gain an honoured place for her in some
+community--an honoured place for himself and her. Vague, very vague, of
+course, were the new purposes and plans that had so suddenly sprang up
+because of her influence, but the desire to lead a clean life had
+touched his heart, and since his old calling had never been pleasing to
+him, he did not for a moment doubt his ability to succeed.
+
+The morning was half gone when the Girl returned to her patient. Then,
+in tones that did her best to make her appear free from anxiety, she
+told him that it was the barkeeper, as he had surmised, with whom she
+had been talking and that she had been obliged to take him into her
+confidence. The man made no comment, for the situation necessarily was
+in her hands, and he felt that she could be relied upon not to make any
+mistake. Four people, he was told, knew of his presence in the cabin. So
+far as Rance was concerned she had absolute faith in his honour, gambler
+though he was; there was nothing that Nick would not do for her; and as
+for the Indians, the secret was sure to be kept by them, unless
+Jackrabbit got hold of some whisky--a contingency not at all likely, for
+Nick had promised to see to that. In fact, all could be trusted to be as
+silent as the grave.
+
+The invalid had listened intently; nevertheless, he sighed:
+
+"It's hard to lie here. I don't want to be caught _now_."
+
+The Girl smiled at the emphasis on the last word, for she knew that it
+referred to her. Furthermore, she had divined pretty well what had been
+his thoughts concerning his old life; but, being essentially a woman of
+action and not words, she said nothing.
+
+A moment or so later he asked her to read to him. The Girl looked as she
+might have looked if he had asked her to go to the moon.
+Notwithstanding, she got up and, presently, returned with a lot of old
+school-books, which she solemnly handed over for his inspection.
+
+The invalid smiled at the look of earnestness on the Girl's face.
+
+"Not these?" he gently inquired. "Where is the Dante you were telling me
+about?"
+
+Once more the Girl went over to the book-shelf; when she came back she
+handed him a volume, which he glanced over carefully before showing her
+the place where he wished her to begin to read to him.
+
+At first the Girl was embarrassed and stumbled badly. But on seeing that
+he seemed not to notice it she gained courage and acquitted herself
+creditably, at least, so she flattered herself, for she could detect, as
+she looked up from time to time, no expression other than pleasure on
+his face. It may be surmised, though, that Johnson had not merely chosen
+a page at random; on the contrary, when the book was in his hand he had
+quickly found the lines which the Girl had, so to say, paraphrased, and
+he was intensely curious to see how they would appeal to her. But now,
+apparently, she saw nothing in the least amusing in them, nor in other
+passages fully as sentimental. In fact, no comment of any kind was
+forthcoming from her--though Johnson was looking for it and, to tell the
+truth, was somewhat disappointed--when she read that Dante had probably
+never spoken more than twice to Beatrice and his passion had no other
+food than the mists of his own dreaming. However, it was different
+when,--pausing before each word after the manner of a child,--she came
+to a passage of the poet's, and read:
+
+"'In that moment I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath
+its dwelling in the most secret chambers of the heart, began to tremble
+so violently that the least pulse of my body shook herewith, and in the
+trembling it said these words: "Here is a deity stronger than I who,
+coming shall rule over me."'"
+
+At that the Girl let the book fall and, going down on her knees and
+taking both his hands in hers, she raised to him a look so full of
+adoring worship that he felt himself awed before it.
+
+"That 'ere Dante ain't so far off after all. I know jest how he feels.
+Oh, I ain't fit to read to you, to talk to you, to kiss you."
+
+Nevertheless, he saw to it that she did.
+
+After this he told her about the Inferno, and she listened eagerly to
+his description of the unfortunate characters, though she declared, when
+he explained some of the crimes that they had committed, that they "Got
+only what was rightly comin' to them."
+
+The patient could hardly suppress his amusement. Dante was discarded and
+instead they told each other how much love there was in that little
+cabin on Cloudy Mountain.
+
+The days that followed were all much like this one. Food was brought up
+from The Polka and, by degrees, the patient's strength came back. And it
+was but natural that he became so absorbed in his newly-found happiness
+that he gradually was losing all sense of danger. Late one night,
+however, when he was asleep, an incident happened that warned the Girl
+that it was necessary to get her lover away just as soon as he was able
+to ride a horse.
+
+Lying on the rug in front of the fire she had been thinking of him when,
+suddenly, her quick ear, more than ever alert in these days, caught the
+sound of a stealthy footstep outside the cabin. With no fear whatever
+except in relation to the discovery of her lover, the Girl went
+noiselessly to the window and peered out into the darkness. A man was
+making signs that he wished to speak with her. For a moment she stood
+watching in perplexity, but almost instantly her instinct told her that
+one of that race, for she believed the man to be a Mexican, would never
+dare to come to her cabin at that time of night unless it was on a
+friendly errand. So putting her face close to the pane to reassure
+herself that she had not been mistaken in regard to his nationality, she
+then went to the door and held it wide open for the man to enter, at the
+same time putting her finger to her lips as a sign that he should be
+very still.
+
+"What are you doin' here? What do you want?" she asked in a low voice,
+at the same time leading him to the side of the room further away from
+her lover.
+
+Jose Castro's first words were in Spanish, but immediately perceiving
+that he failed to make her understand, he nodded comprehendingly, and
+said:
+
+"All righta--I espeak Engleesh--I am Jose Castro too well known to the
+_Maestro_. I want to see 'im."
+
+The Girl's intuition told her that a member of the band stood before
+her, and she regarded him suspiciously. Not that she believed that he
+was disloyal and had come there with hostile intent, but because she
+felt that she must be absolutely sure of her ground before she revealed
+the fact that Johnson was in the cabin. She let some moments pass before
+she replied:
+
+"I don't know nothin' about your master. Who is he?"
+
+An indulgent smile crossed the Mexican's face.
+
+"That ver' good to tella other peoples; but I know 'im here too much.
+You trusta me--me quita safe."
+
+All this was said with many gestures and an air that convinced the Girl
+that he was speaking the truth. But since she deemed it best that the
+invalid should be kept from any excitement, she resolved to make the
+Mexican divulge to her the nature of his important errand.
+
+"How do you know he's here?" she began warily. "What do you want 'im
+for?"
+
+The Mexican's shifty eyes wandered all over the room as if to make
+certain that no inimical ears were listening; then he whispered:
+
+"I tella you something--you lika the _Maestro_?"
+
+Unconsciously the Girl nodded, which evidently satisfied the Mexican,
+for he went on:
+
+"You thinka well of him--yees. Now I tella you something. The man Pedro
+'e no good. 'E wisha the reward--the money for Ramerrez. 'E and the
+woman--woman no good--tell Meester Ashby they thinka 'im 'ere."
+
+The Girl felt the colour leave her cheeks, though she made a gesture for
+him to proceed.
+
+"Pedro not 'ere any longer," smiled the Mexican. "Me senda 'im to the
+devil. Serva 'im right."
+
+"An' the woman?" gasped the Girl.
+
+"She gone--got away--Monterey by this time," replied Castro with evident
+disappointment. "But Meester Ashby 'e know too much--'ees men everywhere
+searched the camp--no safa 'ere now. To-norrow--" Castro stopped short;
+the next instant with a joyful gleam in his eyes he cried out:
+"_Maestro_!"
+
+"Castro's right, Girl," said Johnson, who had waked and heard the
+Mexican's last words; "it is not safe a moment more here, and I must
+go."
+
+With a little cry of loving protest the Girl abruptly left the men to
+talk over the situation and sought the opposite side of the room. There,
+her eyes half-closed and her lips pressed tightly together she gave
+herself up to her distressing fears. After a while it was made plain to
+her that she was being brought into the conversation, for every now and
+then Castro would look curiously at her; at length, as if it had been
+determined by them that nothing should be undertaken without her advice,
+Johnson, followed by his subordinate, came over to her and related in
+detail all the startling information that Castro had brought.
+
+Quietly the Girl listened and, in the end, it was agreed between them
+that it would be safer for the men not to leave the cabin together, but
+that Castro should go at once with the understanding that he should
+procure horses and wait for the master at a given point across the
+ravine. It was decided, too, that there was not a moment to be lost in
+putting their plan into execution. In consequence, Castro immediately
+took his departure.
+
+The hour that passed before the time set for Johnson to leave the cabin
+was a most trying one for both of them. It was not so hard on the man,
+of course, for he was excited over the prospect of escaping; but the
+Girl, whose mind was filled with the dread of what might happen to him,
+had nothing to sustain her. Despite his objection, she had stipulated
+that, with Jackrabbit as a companion, she should accompany him to the
+outskirts of the camp. And so, at the moment of departure, throwing
+about her a cloak of some rough material, she went up to her lover and
+said with a quiver in her voice:
+
+"I'm ready, Dick, but I'm a-figurin' that I can't let you go alone--you
+jest got to take me below with you, an' that's all there is to it."
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"There's very little risk, believe me. I'll join Castro and ride all
+through the night. I'll be down below in no time at all. But we must be
+going, dear."
+
+The man passed through the door first. But when it came the Girl's turn
+she hesitated, for she had seen a dark shadow flit by the window. It was
+as if someone had been stealthily watching there. In another moment,
+however, it turned out to be Jackrabbit and, greatly relieved, the Girl
+whispered to Johnson that he was to descend the trail between the Indian
+and herself, and that on no account was he to utter a word until she
+gave him permission.
+
+For another moment or so they stood in silence; Johnson, appreciating
+fully what were the Girl's feelings, did not dare to whisper even a word
+of encouragement to her. At last, she ordered the Indian to lead the
+way, and they started.
+
+The trail curved and twisted around the mountain, and in places they had
+to use the greatest care lest a misstep should carry them over a
+precipice with a drop of hundreds of feet. It was a perilous descent,
+inasmuch as the path was covered with snow. Moreover, it was necessary
+that as little noise as possible should be made while they were making
+their way past the buildings of the camp below, for the Mexican had not
+been wrong when he stated that Ashby's men were quartered at, or in the
+immediate vicinity of, The Palmetto. Fortunately, they passed through
+without meeting anyone, and before long they came to the edge of the
+plateau beneath which was the ravine which Johnson had to cross to reach
+the spot where it had been agreed that Castro should be waiting with
+horses for his master. It was also the place where the Girl was to leave
+her lover to go on alone, and so they halted. A few moments passed
+without either of them speaking; at length, the man said in as cheery a
+voice as he could summon:
+
+"I must leave you here. I remember the way well. All danger is past."
+
+The Girl's lips were quivering; she asked:
+
+"An' when will you be back?"
+
+The man noted her emotion, and though he himself was conscious of a
+choking sensation he contrived to say in a most optimistic tone:
+
+"In two weeks--not more than two weeks. It will take all that time to
+arrange things at the rancho. As it is, I hardly see my way clear to
+dismissing my men--you see, they belong to me, almost, and--but I'll do
+so, never fear. No power on earth could make me take up the old life
+again."
+
+The Girl said nothing in reply; instead she put both her arms around his
+neck and remained a long time in his embrace. At last, summoning up all
+her fortitude she put him resolutely from her, and whispered:
+
+"When you are ready, come. You must leave me now." And with a curt
+command to the Indian she fled back into the darkness.
+
+For an instant the road agent's eyes followed the direction that she had
+taken; then, his spirits rising at the thought that his escape was now
+well-nigh assured, he turned and plunged down the ravine.
+
+
+
+    As a strong David, at the voice of verity,
+    Great Goliah, the pope, he struck down with his sling,
+    Restoring again to a Christian liberty
+    His land and people, like a most victorious king;
+    To his first beauty intending the Church to bring
+    From ceremonies dead to the living word of the Lord.
+    This the second act will plenteously record.
+
+As put into the mouth of the king himself, these other lines are hard to
+beat for deliberate partisan misrepresentation. The king feels himself
+about to die.
+
+    I have sore hungered and thirsted righteousness
+    For the office sake that God hath me appointed,
+    But now I perceive that sin and wickedness
+    In this wretched world, like as Christ prophesied,
+    Have the overhand: in me it is verified.
+    Pray for me, good people, I beseech you heartily,
+    That the Lord above on my poor soul have mercy.
+    Farewell noblemen, with the clergy spiritual,
+    Farewell men of law, with the whole commonalty.
+    Your disobedience I do forgive you all,
+    And desire God to pardon your iniquity.
+    Farewell, sweet England, now last of all to thee:
+    I am right sorry I could do for thee no more.
+    Farewell once again, yea, farewell for evermore.
+
+Prompted by a different motive, yet not far removed in actual effect
+from the politico-religious class of play represented by _New Custom_,
+are the early Interludes of John Heywood. It is quite impossible to read
+such a play as _The Pardoner and the Friar_ and believe that its author
+wrote under any such earnest and sober inspiration as did the author of
+_New Custom_. His intention was frankly to amuse, and to paint life as
+he saw it without the intrusion of unreal personages of highly virtuous
+but dull ideas. Yet he swung the lash of satire as cuttingly and as
+merrily about the flanks of ecclesiastical superstition as ever did the
+creator of Perverse Doctrine.[47]
+
+The simplest plot sufficed Heywood, and the minimum of characters. _The
+Pardoner and the Friar_ (possibly as early as 1520) demands only four
+persons, while the plot may be summed up in a few sentences, thus: A
+Pardoner and a Friar, from closely adjoining platforms, are endeavouring
+to address the same crowd, the one to sell relics, the other to beg
+money for his order. By a sort of stichomythic alternation each for a
+time is supposed to carry on his speech regardless of the other, so that
+to follow either connectedly the alternate lines must be read in
+sequence. But every now and then they break off for abuse, and finally
+they fight. A Parson and neighbour Prat interfere to convey them to jail
+for the disturbance, but are themselves badly mauled. Then the Pardoner
+and the Friar go off amicably together. There is no allegory, no moral;
+merely satire on the fraudulent and hypocritical practices of pardoners
+and friars, together with some horseplay to raise a louder laugh. The
+fashion of that satire may be judged from the following exchange of home
+truths by the rival orators.
+
+    _Friar._ What, should ye give ought to parting pardoners?--
+
+    _Pardoner._ What, should ye spend on these flattering liars,--
+
+    _Friar._ What, should ye give ought to these bold beggars?--
+
+    _Pardoner._ As be these babbling monks and these friars,--
+
+    _Friar._ Let them hardly labour for their living;--
+
+    _Pardoner._ Which do nought daily but babble and lie--
+
+    _Friar._ It much hurteth them good men's giving,--
+
+    _Pardoner._ And tell you fables dear enough at a fly,--
+
+    _Friar._ For that maketh them idle and slothful to wark,--
+
+    _Pardoner._ As doth this babbling friar here to-day?--
+
+    _Friar._ That for none other thing they will cark.--
+
+    _Pardoner._ Drive him hence, therefore, in the twenty-devil way!--
+
+_The Four P.P._ (? 1540), similarly, requires no more than a palmer, a
+pardoner, a 'pothecary and a pedlar, and for plot only a single
+conversation, devoid even of the rough play which usually enlivened
+discussions on the stage. In the debate arises a contest as to who can
+tell the biggest lie--won by the palmer's statement that he has never
+seen a woman out of patience--and that is the sole dramatic element.
+Nevertheless, by sheer wit interest is maintained to the end, every one
+smiling over the rival claims of such veteran humbugs as the old-time
+pardoner and apothecary; scant reverence does 'Pothecary vouchsafe to
+Pardoner's potent relics, his 'of All Hallows the blessed jaw-bone', his
+'great toe of the Trinity', his 'buttock-bone of Pentecost', and the
+rest. One of the raciest passages occurs in the Pardoner's relation of
+the wonders he has performed in the execution of his office. Amongst
+other deeds of note is the bringing back of a certain woman from hell to
+earth. For this purpose the Pardoner visited the lower regions in
+person--so he says--and brought her out in triumph with the full and
+joyful consent of Lucifer.
+
+     [_The_ PARDONER _has entered hell and secured a guide._]
+
+    _Pardoner._ This devil and I walked arm in arm
+        So far, till he had brought me thither,
+        Where all the devils of hell together
+        Stood in array in such apparel
+        As for that day there meetly fell.
+        Their horns well-gilt, their claws full clean,
+        Their tails well-kempt, and, as I ween,
+        With sothery[48] butter their bodies anointed;
+        I never saw devils so well appointed.
+        The master-devil sat in his jacket,
+        And all the souls were playing at racket.
+        None other rackets they had in hand,
+        Save every soul a good firebrand,
+        Wherewith they played so prettily
+        That Lucifer laughed merrily,
+        And all the residue of the fiends
+        Did laugh thereat full well like friends.
+
+     [_He interviews_ LUCIFER _and asks if he may take away_ MARGERY
+     CORSON.]
+
+        Now, by our honour, said Lucifer,
+        No devil in hell shall withhold her;
+        And if thou wouldest have twenty mo,
+        Wert not for justice, they should go.
+        For all we devils within this den
+        Have more to-do with two women
+        Than with all the charge we have beside;
+        Wherefore, if thou our friend will be tried,
+        Apply thy pardons to women so
+        That unto us there come no mo.
+
+_Johan Johan_, or, at greater length, _The Merry Play between Johan
+Johan the Husband, Tyb his Wife, and Sir Jhon the Priest_ (printed
+1533), contains only the three characters mentioned, but possesses a
+theme more nearly deserving the name of plot than do the other two,
+namely, the contriving and carrying out of a plan by Tyb for exposing
+her boastful husband's real and absolute subjection to her rule. Yet,
+even so, it is extremely simple. Johan Johan is first heard alone,
+declaring how he will beat his wife for not being at home. The tuggings
+of fear and valour in his heart, however, give his monologue an
+argumentative form, in which first one motive and then the other gains
+the upper hand, very similar to the conflict between Launcelot Gobbo's
+conscience and the Devil. He closes in favour of the beating and
+then--Tyb comes home. Oh the difference! Johan Johan suspects his wife
+of undue friendliness with Sir Jhon the Priest, but he dare not say so.
+Tyb guesses his doubts, and in her turn suspects that he is inclined to
+rebel. So she makes the yoke heavier. Johan Johan has to invite Sir Jhon
+to eat a most desirable pie with them; but throughout the meal, with
+jealousy at his heart and the still greater pangs of unsatisfied hunger
+a little lower, he is kept busy by his wife, trying to mend a leaky
+bucket with wax. Surely never did a scene contain more 'asides' than are
+uttered and explained away by the crushed husband! Finally overtaxed
+endurance asserts itself, and wife and priest are driven out of doors;
+but the play closes with a very pronounced note of uncertainty from the
+victor as to what new game the vanquished may shortly be at if he be not
+there to see.
+
+The all-important feature to be noticed in Heywood's work is that here
+we have the drama escaping from its alliance with religion into the
+region of pure comedy. Here is no well planned moral, no sententious
+mouthpiece of abstract excellence, no ruin of sinners and crowning of
+saints. Here, too, is no Vice, no Devil, although they are the chief
+media for comedy in other Interludes, nor is there any buffoonery; even
+of its near cousins, scuffling and fighting, only one of the three plays
+has more than a trace. Hence the earlier remark, that Heywood was before
+his time. It is not devils in bearskins and wooden-sworded vices that
+create true comedy; they belong to the realm of farce. Yet they
+continued to flourish long after Heywood had set another example, and
+with them the cuffing of ears and drunken gambolling which we may see,
+in the works of other men, trying to rescue prosy scenes from dullness.
+In _Johan Johan_ is simple comedy, the comedy of laughter-raising
+dialogue and 'asides'. We do not say it is perfect comedy, far from it;
+but it is comedy cleared of its former alloys. It is the comedy which
+Shakespeare refined for his own use in _Twelfth Night_ and elsewhere.
+
+[Footnote 34: Translation by W.C. Robinson, Ph.D. (Bohn's Standard
+Library).]
+
+[Footnote 35: aright.]
+
+[Footnote 36: world's.]
+
+[Footnote 37: company.]
+
+[Footnote 38: wealth.]
+
+[Footnote 39: know.]
+
+[Footnote 40: know not.]
+
+[Footnote 41: solace.]
+
+[Footnote 42: stealing.]
+
+[Footnote 43: lying.]
+
+[Footnote 44: fright.]
+
+[Footnote 45: glad.]
+
+[Footnote 46: alehouse sign.]
+
+[Footnote 47: The reader is warned against chronological confusion. In
+order to follow out the various dramatic contributions of the Interludes
+one must sometimes pass over plays at one point to return to them at
+another. Care has been taken to place approximate dates against the
+plays, and these should be duly regarded. The treatment of so early an
+Interlude writer as Heywood (his three best known productions may be
+dated between 1520 and 1540) thus late is justified by the fact that he
+is in some ways 'before his time', notably in his rejection of the
+Morality abstractions.]
+
+[Footnote 48: sweet.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+RISE OF COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
+
+
+No great discernment is required to see that, after the appearance of
+_Johan Johan_, all that was needed for the complete development of
+comedy was the invention of a well-contrived plot. For reasons already
+indicated, Interludes were naturally deficient in this respect. Nor were
+the Moralities and Bible Miracles much better: their length and
+comprehensive themes were against them. There were the Saint Plays, of
+which some still lingered upon the stage; these offered greater
+possibilities. But here, again, originality was limited; the
+_dénouement_ was more or less a foregone conclusion. Clearly, one of two
+things was wanted: either a man of genius to perceive the need and to
+supply it, or the study of new models outside the field of English
+drama. The man of genius was not then forthcoming, but by good fortune
+the models were stumbled upon.
+
+We say stumbled upon, because the absence of tentative predecessors and
+of anything approaching an eager band of successors, suggests an
+unpreparedness for the discovery when it came. Thus _Calisto and
+Melibaea_ (1530), an imitation of a Spanish comedy of the same name,
+though it contained a definitely evolved plot, sent barely a ripple over
+the surface of succeeding authorship. It represents the steadfastness of
+the maiden Melibaea against the entreaties of her lover Calisto and the
+much more crafty, indeed almost successful, wiles of the procuress,
+Celestine. True, the play is dull enough. But if dramatists had been
+awake to their defects, the value of the new importation from a foreign
+literature would have been noticed. The years passed, however, without
+producing imitators, until some time in the years between 1544 and 1551
+a Latin scholar, reading the plays of Plautus, decided to write a comedy
+like them. Latin Comedies, both in the original tongue and in
+translation, had appeared in England in previous years, but only as
+strayed foreigners. Nicholas Udall, the head master of Eton School,
+proposed a very different thing, namely, an English comedy which should
+rival in technique the comedies of the Latins. The result was _Ralph
+Roister Doister_. He called it an Interlude. Posterity has given it the
+title of 'the first regular English comedy'.
+
+Divided into five acts, with subordinate scenes, this play develops its
+story with deliberate calculated steps. Acts I and II are occupied by
+Ralph's vain attempts to soften the heart of Dame Christian Custance by
+gifts and messages. In Act III come complications, double-dealings.
+Matthew Merrygreek plays Ralph false, tortures his love, misreads--by
+the simple trick of mispunctuation--his letter to the Dame, and thus,
+under a mask of friendship, sets him further than ever from success.
+Still deeper complexities appear with Act IV, for now arrives, with
+greetings from Gawin Goodluck, long betrothed to Dame Custance, a
+certain sea-captain, who, misled by Ralph's confident assurance,
+misunderstands the relations between the Dame and him, suspects
+disloyalty, and changes from friendliness to cold aloofness. This, by
+vexing the lady, brings disaster upon Ralph, whose bold attempt, on the
+suggestion of Merrygreek, to carry his love off by force is repulsed by
+that Dame's Amazonian band of maid-servants with scuttles and brooms. In
+this extraordinary conflict Ralph is horribly belaboured by the
+malicious Matthew under pretence of blows aimed at Dame Custance. Act
+V, however, brings Goodluck himself and explanations. That worthy man
+finds his lady true, friendship is established all round, and Ralph and
+Merrygreek join the happy couple in a closing feast.
+
+This bald outline perhaps makes sufficiently clear the great advance in
+plot structure. Within the play, however, are many other good things.
+The character of Ralph Roister Doister, 'a vain-glorious, cowardly
+blockhead', as the list of dramatis personae has it, is thoroughly well
+done: his heavy love-sighs, his confident elation, his distrust, his
+gullibility, his ups and downs and contradictions, are all in the best
+comic vein. Only second in fullness of portraiture, and truer to Nature,
+is Dame Custance, who--if we exclude Melibaea as not native to English
+shores--may be said to bring into English secular drama honourable
+womanhood. Her amused indifference at first, her sharp reproof of her
+maids who have allowed themselves to act as Ralph's messengers, her
+gathering vexation at Ralph's tiresome wooing, her genuine alarm when
+she sees that his boastful words are accepted by the sea-captain as
+truth--these are sentiments and emotions copied from a healthy and
+worthy model. Matthew Merrygreek, an unmistakable 'Vice' ever at Ralph's
+elbow, is of all Vices the shrewdest striker of laughter out of a block
+of stupidity: it is from his ingenious brain that almost every absurd
+scene is evolved for the ridiculing of Ralph. Thoroughly human, and
+quite assertive, are the lower characters, the maid-servants and
+men-servants, Madge Mumblecrust, Tibet Talkapace, Truepenny, Dobinet
+Doughty and the rest. Need it be added that the battle in Act IV is pure
+fooling? or that jolly songs enliven the scenes with their rousing
+choruses (e.g. 'I mun be married a Sunday')? _Ralph Roister Doister_ is
+an English comedy with English notions of the best way of amusing
+English folk of the sixteenth century. With all its improvements it has
+no suggestion of the alien about it, as has the classically-flavoured
+_Thersites_ (also based, like Udall's play, on Plautus's _Miles
+Gloriosus_), or _Calisto and Melibaea_ with its un-English names.
+Perhaps that is why it had to wait fifteen years for a successor. Quite
+possibly its spectators regarded it as merely a better Interlude than
+usual, without recognizing the precise qualities which made it different
+from _Johan Johan_.
+
+Two quotations will be sufficient to illustrate the opposing characters.
+
+     (1)
+
+    _Merrygreek_ (_alone_). But now of Roister Doister somewhat to express,
+        That ye may esteem him after his worthiness,
+        In these twenty towns, and seek them throughout,
+        Is not the like stock whereon to graff a lout.
+        All the day long is he facing and craking[49]
+        Of his great acts in fighting and fray-making;
+        But when Roister Doister is put to his proof,
+        To keep the Queen's peace is more for his behoof.
+        If any woman smile, or cast on him an eye,
+        Up is he to the hard ears in love by and by:
+        And in all the hot haste must she be his wife,
+        Else farewell his good days, and farewell his life!
+
+
+     (2)
+
+     [TRISTRAM TRUSTY, _a good friend and counsellor to_ DAME CUSTANCE,
+     _is consulted by her on the matter of the sea-captain's_
+     (SURESBY'S) _misunderstanding of her attitude towards_ RALPH
+     ROISTER DOISTER.]
+
+    _T. Trusty._ Nay, weep not, woman, but tell me what your cause is.
+        As concerning my friend is anything amiss?
+
+    _C. Custance._ No, not on my part; but here was Sim. Suresby--
+
+    _T. Trusty._ He was with me, and told me so.
+
+    _C. Custance._ And he stood by
+        While Ralph Roister Doister, with help of Merrygreek,
+        For promise of marriage did unto me seek.
+
+    _T. Trusty._ And had ye made any promise before them twain?
+
+    _C. Custance._ No, I had rather be torn in pieces and slain.
+        No man hath my faith and troth but Gawin Goodluck,
+        And that before Suresby did I say, and there stuck;
+        But of certain letters there were such words spoken--
+
+    _T. Trusty._ He told me that too.
+
+    _C. Custance._ And of a ring and token,
+        That Suresby, I spied, did more than half suspect
+        That I my faith to Gawin Goodluck did reject.
+
+    _T. Trusty._ But was there no such matter, Dame Custance, indeed?
+
+    _C. Custance._ If ever my head thought it, God send me ill speed!
+        Wherefore I beseech you with me to be a witness
+        That in all my life I never intended thing less.
+        And what a brainsick fool Ralph Roister Doister is
+        Yourself knows well enough.
+
+    _T. Trusty._ Ye say full true, i-wis.
+
+In 1566 was acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, 'A Ryght Pithy,
+Pleasaunt, and merie Comedie, intytuled _Gammer Gurton's Needle_.' The
+authorship is uncertain, recent investigation having exalted a certain
+Stevenson into rivalry with the Bishop Still to whom former scholars
+were content to assign it. Possibly as the result of a perusal of
+Plautus, possibly under the influence of the last play--for in subject
+matter it is even more perfectly English than _Ralph Roister
+Doister_--this comedy is also built on a well-arranged plan, the plot
+developing regularly through five acts with subsidiary scenes. Let us
+glance through it.
+
+Gammer Gurton and her goodman Hodge lose their one and only needle, an
+article not easily renewed, nor easily done without, seeing that Hodge's
+garments stand in need of instant repair. Gib, the cat, is strongly
+suspected of having swallowed it. Into this confusion steps Diccon, a
+bedlam beggar, whose quick eye promptly detects opportunities for
+mischief. After scaring Hodge with offers of magic art, he goes to Dame
+Chat, an honest but somewhat jealous neighbour, unaware of what has
+happened, with a tale that Gammer Gurton accuses her of stealing her
+best cock. To Gammer Gurton he announces that he has seen Dame Chat pick
+up the needle and make off with it. Between the two dames ensues a
+meeting, the nature of which may be guessed, the whole trouble lying in
+the fact that neither thinks it necessary to name the article under
+dispute. No wonder that discussion under the disadvantage of so great a
+misunderstanding ends in violence. Doctor Rat, the curate, is now called
+in; but again Diccon is equal to the occasion. Having warned Dame Chat
+that Hodge, to balance the matter of the cock, is about to creep in
+through a breach in the wall and kill her chickens, he persuades Doctor
+Rat that if he will creep through this same opening he will see the
+needle lying on Dame Chat's table. The consequences for the curate are
+severe. Master Bailey's assistance is next requisitioned, and him friend
+Diccon cannot overreach. The whole truth coming out, Diccon is required
+to kneel and apologize. In doing so he gives Hodge a slap which elicits
+from that worthy a yell of pain. But it is a wholesome pang, for it
+finds the needle no further away than in the seat of Hodge's breeches.
+
+If we compare this play with _Ralph Roister Doister_ three ideas will
+occur: first, that we have made no advance; second, that, in giving the
+preference to rough country folk, the author has deliberately abandoned
+the higher standard of refinement in language and action set in Udall's
+major scenes; third, that whereas the earlier work bases its comedy on
+character, educing the amusing scenes from the clash of vanity,
+constancy and mischief, the later play relies for its comic effects on
+situations brought about by mischief alone. These are three rather heavy
+counts against the younger rival. But in the other scale may be placed a
+very fair claim to greater naturalness. Taking the scenes and characters
+in turn, mischief-maker, churchman and all, there is none so open to the
+charge of being impossible, and therefore farcical, as the battle
+between the forces of Ralph and Dame Custance, or the incredibly
+self-deceived Ralph himself. In accompanying Ralph through his
+adventures we seem to be moving through a fantastic world in which Sir
+Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio might feel at home; but with Dame Chat,
+Gammer Gurton and Hodge we feel the solid earth beneath our feet and
+around us the strong air which nourished the peasantry and yeomen of
+Tudor England.
+
+The first extract is a verse from this comedy's one and famous song; the
+second is taken from Act I, Scene 4.
+
+     (1)
+
+    I cannot eat but little meat,
+      My stomach is not good;
+    But sure I think that I can drink
+      With him that wears a hood.
+    Though I go bare, take ye no care,
+      I am nothing a-cold;
+    I stuff my skin so full within
+      Of jolly good ale and old.
+    Back and side go bare, go bare,
+      Both foot and hand go cold:
+    But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
+      Whether it be new or old.
+
+     (2)
+
+     [HODGE _hears of the loss of the needle on his return home from the
+     fields._]
+
+    _Hodge._ Your nee'le lost? it is pity you should lack care and
+            endless sorrow.
+        Gog's death, how shall my breeches be sewed? Shall I go thus
+            to-morrow?
+
+    _Gammer._ Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that ich could find my nee'le, by
+            the reed,
+        Ch'ould sew thy breeches, ich promise thee, with full good
+            double thread,
+        And set a patch on either knee should last this moneths twain.
+        Now God and good Saint Sithe, I pray to send it home again.
+
+    _Hodge._ Whereto served your hands and eyes, but this your nee'le
+            to keep?
+        What devil had you else to do? ye keep, ich wot, no sheep.
+        Cham[50] fain abroad to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,
+        Sossing and possing in the dirt still from day to day.
+        A hundred things that be abroad cham set to see them well:
+        And four of you sit idle at home and cannot keep a nee'le!
+
+    _Gammer._ My nee'le, alas, ich lost it, Hodge, what time ich me up
+            hasted
+        To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted.
+
+    _Hodge._ The devil he burst both Gib and Tib, with all the rest;
+        Cham always sure of the worst end, whoever have the best.
+        Where ha' you been fidging abroad, since you your nee'le lost?
+
+    _Gammer._ Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same
+            post;
+        Where I was looking a long hour, before these folks came here.
+        But, wellaway! all was in vain; my nee'le is never the near.
+
+    _Hodge._ Set me a candle, let me seek, and grope wherever it be.
+        Gog's heart, ye be foolish (ich think), you know it not when you
+            it see.
+
+    _Gammer._ Come hither, Cock: what, Cock, I say!
+
+    _Cock._ How, Gammer?
+
+    _Gammer._ Go, hie thee soon, and grope behind the old brass pan,
+        Which thing when thou hast done,
+        There shalt thou find an old shoe, wherein, if thou look well,
+        Thou shalt find lying an inch of white tallow candle:
+        Light it, and bring it tite away.
+
+    _Cock._ That shall be done anon.
+
+    _Gammer._ Nay, tarry, Hodge, till thou hast light, and then we'll
+        seek each one.
+
+_Ralph Roister Doister_ and _Gammer Gurton's Needle_ mark the end of the
+Interlude stage and the commencement of Comedy proper. Leaving the
+latter at this point for the present, we shall return in the next
+chapter to study its fortunes at the hands of Lyly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Morality Plays, though theoretically quite as suitable for tragic effect
+as for comic, since the former only required that Mankind should
+sometimes fail to reach heaven, seem nevertheless to have developed
+mainly the lighter side, setting the hero right at the finish and in the
+meantime discovering, to the relief of otherwise bored spectators, that
+wickedness, in some unexplained way, was funny. As long as propriety
+forbade that good should be overcome by evil it is hard to see how
+tragedy could appear. Had Humankind, in _The Castell of Perseverance_,
+been fought for in vain by the Virtues, or had Everyman found no
+companion to go with him and intercede for him, there had been tragedy
+indeed. But religious optimism was against any conclusion so
+discouraging to repentance. The lingering Miracles, it is true, still
+presented the sublimest of all tragedies in the Fall of Man and the
+apparent triumph of the Pharisees over Jesus. Between them, however, and
+the kind of drama that succeeded the Moralities, too great a gulf was
+fixed. Contemporaries of those original spirits, Heywood and Udall,
+could hardly revert for inspiration to the discredited performances of
+villages and of a few provincial towns. Tragedy had to wait until there
+was matured and made popular an Interlude from which the conflict of
+Virtues and Vices, with the orthodox triumph of the former, had been
+purged away, leaving to the author complete liberty alike in character
+and action. When that came, Tragedy returned to the stage, a stranger
+with strange stories to tell. Persia and Ancient Rome sent their tyrants
+and their heroines to contest for public favour with home-born knaves
+and fools. Nor were the newcomers above borrowing the services of those
+same knaves and fools. The Vice was given a place, low clownish fellows
+were admitted to relieve the harrowed feelings, and our old
+acquaintance, Herod, was summoned from the Miracles to lend his aid.
+
+Yet even so--and probably because it was so--Tragedy was ill at ease.
+She had called in low comedy and rant to please the foolish, only to
+find herself infected and degraded by their company. Moreover, the
+bustle of incident, the abrupt changes from grave to gay and to grave
+again, jangled her sad majestic harmonies with shrill interrupting
+discords. It had not been so in Greece. It had not been so even in
+Italy, where Roman Seneca, fearing the least decline to a lower plane of
+dignity and impressiveness, had disciplined tragedy by an imposition of
+artificial but not unskilful restraints. In place of the strong
+unbroken sweep of a resistless current, which characterized the
+evolution of an Aeschylean drama, he had insisted on an orderly division
+of a plot into acts and scenes, as though one should break up the sheer
+plunge of a single waterfall into a well-balanced group of cascades. Yet
+he was wise in his generation, securing by this means a carefully
+proportioned development which, in the absence of that genius which
+inspired the Greek dramatists, might otherwise have been lost. Once
+strong and free in the plays of Aeschylus and his compeers, hampered and
+constantly under guidance but still dignified and noble in the Senecan
+drama, Tragedy now found herself debased and almost caricatured in the
+English Interlude stage. Fortunately the danger was seen in time.
+English writers, face to face with self-conscious tragedy, realized that
+here at least was more than unaided native art could compass. Despairing
+of success if they persisted in the old methods, they fell back
+awkwardly upon classical imitation and, by assiduous study tempered by a
+wise criticism, achieved success.
+
+Only two plays with any claim to the designation of tragedies have
+survived to us from the Interludes, neither of them of much interest.
+_Cambyses_ (1561), by Thomas Preston, has all the qualities of an
+imperfect Interlude. There are the base fellows and the clowns, Huff,
+Ruff, Snuff, Hob and Lob; the abstractions, Diligence, Shame, Common's
+Complaint, Small Hability, and the like; the Vice, Ambidexter, who
+enters 'with an old capcase on his head, an old pail about his hips for
+harness, a scummer and a potlid by his side, and a rake on his
+shoulder'; and the same scuffling and horseplay when the comic element
+is uppermost. Incident follows incident as rapidly and with as trifling
+motives as before. In the course of a short play we see Cambyses, king
+of Persia, set off for his conquests in Egypt; return; execute
+Sisamnes, his unjust deputy; prove a far worse ruler himself; shoot
+through the heart the young son of Praxaspes, to prove to that too-frank
+counsellor that he is not as drunk as was supposed; murder his own
+brother, Smirdis, on the lying report of Ambidexter; marry, contrary to
+the law of the Church and her own wish, a lovely lady, his cousin, and
+then have her executed for reproaching him with the death of his
+brother; and finally die, accidentally pierced by his own sword when
+mounting a horse. All these horrors, except the death of the lady, take
+place on the stage. Thus we have such stage-directions as, 'Smite him in
+the neck with a sword to signify his death', 'Flay him with a false
+skin', 'A little bladder of vinegar pricked', 'Enter the King without a
+gown, a sword thrust up into his side, bleeding.' Of real tragedy there
+is little, the hustle of crime upon crime obliterating the impression
+which any one singly might produce. Yet even in this crude orgy of
+bloodshed the melancholy voice of unaffected pathos can be heard
+mourning the loss of dear ones. It speaks in the farewells of Sisamnes
+and his son Otian, and of Praxaspes (the honest minister) and his little
+boy; throughout the whole incident of the gentle lady whose fate melts
+even the Vice to tears; and in the outburst of a mother's grief over her
+child's corpse. We quote the last.
+
+    O blissful babe, O joy of womb, heart's comfort and delight,
+    For counsel given unto the king, is this thy just requite?
+    O heavy day and doleful time, these mourning tunes to make!
+    With blubb'red eyes into my arms from earth I will thee take,
+    And wrap thee in my apron white: but O my heavy heart!
+    The spiteful pangs that it sustains would make it in two to part,
+    The death of this my son to see: O heavy mother now,
+    That from thy sweet and sug'red joy to sorrow so shouldst bow!
+    What grief in womb did I retain before I did thee see;
+    Yet at the last, when smart was gone, what joy wert thou to me!
+    How tender was I of thy food, for to preserve thy state!
+    How stilled I thy tender heart at times early and late!
+    With velvet paps I gave thee suck, with issue from my breast,
+    And danced thee upon my knee to bring thee unto rest.
+    Is this the joy of thee I reap? O king of tiger's brood,
+    O tiger's whelp, hadst thou the heart to see this child's heart-blood?
+    Nature enforceth me, alas, in this wise to deplore,
+    To wring my hands, O wel-away, that I should see this hour.
+    Thy mother yet will kiss thy lips, silk-soft and pleasant white,
+    With wringing hands lamenting for to see thee in this plight.
+    My lording dear, let us go home, our mourning to augment.
+
+The second play, _Appius and Virginia_ (1563), by R.B. (not further
+identified), is, in some respects, weaker; though, by avoiding the
+crowded plot which spoilt _Cambyses_, it attains more nearly to tragedy.
+The low characters, Mansipulus and Mansipula, the Vice (Haphazard), and
+the abstractions, Conscience, Comfort and their brethren, reappear with
+as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that
+elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which
+tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems
+to have been obsessed with the notion that the familiar rant of Herod
+was peculiarly suited to his subject. In such a notion there lay, of
+course, the half-truth that lofty thoughts and impassioned speech are
+more befitting the sombre muse than the foolish chatter of clowns. But,
+except where his own deliberately introduced mirth-makers are speaking,
+he will have nothing but pompous rhetoric from the lips of his
+characters. His prologue begins his speech with the sounding line:
+
+    Who doth desire the trump of fame to sound unto the skies--
+
+Virginius's wife makes her début upon the stage with this encouraging
+remark to her companion:
+
+    The pert and prickly prime of youth ought chastisement to have,
+    But thou, dear daughter, needest not, thyself doth show thee grave.
+
+To which Virginia most becomingly answers:
+
+    Refell your mind of mournful plaints, dear mother, rest your mind.
+
+After this every one feels that the wicked judge, Appius, has done no
+more than his duty when he exclaims, at his entrance:
+
+    The furrowed face of fortune's force my pinching pain doth move.
+
+Virginius slays his daughter on the stage and serves her head up in a
+charger before Appius, who promptly bursts into a cataclysm of C's ('O
+curst and cruel cankered churl, O carl unnatural'); but there is not a
+suggestion of the pathos noticed in _Cambyses_. Instead there is in one
+place a sort of frantic agitation, which the author doubtless thought
+was the pure voice of tragic sorrow. It is in the terrible moment when,
+after the heroic strain of the sacrifice is over, Virginius realizes the
+meaning of what he has done. Presumably wild with grief, he raves in
+language so startlingly akin to the ludicrous despairs of Pyramus and
+Thisbe that the modern reader, acquainted with the latter, is almost
+jarred into laughter.
+
+    O cruel hands, O bloody knife, O man, what hast thou done?
+    Thy daughter dear and only heir her vital end hath won.
+    Come, fatal blade, make like despatch: come, Atropos: come, aid!
+    Strike home, thou careless arm, with speed; of death be not afraid.
+
+Of such eloquence we might truly say with Theseus, 'This passion, and
+the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.'
+
+In 1562 Tragedy, as we have said, took refuge in an imitation of the
+Senecan stage: translations of Seneca's tragedies had begun to appear in
+1559. _The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex_, or _Gorboduc_, as it was
+originally and is now most commonly named, marks a new departure for
+English drama. To understand this we ought perhaps to say something
+about the essential features of a Greek tragedy (Seneca's own model),
+and make a note of any special Senecan additions. What strikes one most
+in reading a play of Aeschylus is the prominence given to a composite
+and almost colourless character known as the Chorus (for though it
+consists of a body of persons, it speaks, for the most part, as one),
+the absence of any effective action from the stage, the limited number
+of actors, and the tendency of any speaker to expand his remarks into a
+set speech of considerable length. This tendency, especially noticeable
+in the Chorus, whose speeches commonly take the form of chants,
+encouraged the faculty of generalizing philosophically, so that one is
+constantly treated to general reflections expressive rather of broad
+wisdom and piety than of feelings directly and dramatically aroused;
+much also is made of retrospection and relation, whether the topic is
+ancient history, the events of a recent voyage, or a barely completed
+crime. The sage backward glance of the Chorus is quick to discover in
+present ruin a punishment for past crime; so that the plot becomes in a
+manner a picture of the resistless laws of moral justice. Speeches, a
+moralizing Chorus, actions not performed but reported in detail, a sense
+of divine retribution for sin, these are perhaps the qualities which,
+apart from the poetry itself, we recall most readily as typical of a
+Greek tragedy. These Seneca modified by the introduction of acts and
+scenes, a subordination of the Chorus, and an exaggerated predilection
+for long sententious speeches; he also added a new stage character known
+as the Ghost. Seneca's elevation, to the dogmatic position of laws, of
+the unities of Time, Place and Action, rules by no means invariable
+among his older and greater masters, has been the subject of much
+debate, but, on the whole, the verdict has been hostile. According to
+these unities, the time represented in the play should not greatly
+exceed the time occupied in acting it, the scene of the action should
+not vary, and the plot should be concerned only with one event. This
+last law was generally accepted, by Elizabethans, in Tragedy at least.
+The other two, though much insisted on by English theorists, such as Sir
+Philip Sidney, met with so much neglect in practice that we need devote
+no space to the discussion of them.
+
+Having thus hastily summarized the larger superficial characteristics of
+classical drama, we may return to _Gorboduc_ and inquire which of these
+were adopted in it and with what modifications. We find it divided into
+five acts and nine scenes. A Chorus, though it takes no other part,
+sings its moralizing lyrics at the end of each act except the last.
+Speeches of inordinate length are made--three consecutive speeches in
+Act I, Scene 2, occupy two hundred and sixty lines--the subject-matter
+being commonly argumentative. Only through the reports of messengers and
+eye-witnesses do we learn of the cold-blooded murder and many violent
+deaths that take place. Everywhere hurried action and unreasoning
+instinct give place to deliberation and debate. Between this play and
+its predecessors no change can be more sweeping or more abrupt. In an
+instant, as it were, we pass from the unpolished _Cambyses_, savage and
+reeking with blood, to the equally violent events of _Gorboduc_, cold
+beneath a formal restraint which, regulating their setting in the
+general framework, robs them of more than half their force. Had this
+severe discipline of the emotions been accepted as for ever binding upon
+the tragic stage Elizabethan drama would have been forgotten. The truth
+is that the germ of dissension was sown in _Gorboduc_ itself. Conscious
+that the banishment of action from the stage, while natural enough in
+Greece, must meet with an overwhelming resistance from the popular
+custom in England, the authors, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton,
+invented a compromise. Before each act they provided a symbolical Dumb
+Show which, by its external position, infringed no classical law, yet
+satisfied the demand of an English audience for real deeds and
+melodramatic spectacles. It was an ingenious idea, the effect of which
+was to keep intact the close link between stage and action until the
+native genius should be strong enough to cast aside its swaddling
+clothes and follow its own bent without hurt. As illustrating this
+innovation--the reader will not have forgotten that both Dumb Show and
+Chorus are to be found in _Pericles_--we may quote the directions for
+the Dumb Show before the second act.
+
+     First, the music of cornets began to play, during which came in
+     upon the stage a king accompanied with a number of his nobility and
+     gentlemen. And after he had placed himself in a chair of estate
+     prepared for him, there came and kneeled before him a grave and
+     aged gentleman, and offered up unto him a cup of wine in a glass,
+     which the king refused. After him comes a brave and lusty young
+     gentleman, and presents the king with a cup of gold filled with
+     poison, which the king accepted, and drinking the same, immediately
+     fell down dead upon the stage, and so was carried thence away by
+     his lords and gentlemen, and then the music ceased. Hereby was
+     signified, that as glass by nature holdeth no poison, but is clear
+     and may easily be seen through, ne boweth by any art; so a faithful
+     counsellor holdeth no treason, but is plain and open, ne yieldeth
+     to any indiscreet affection, but giveth wholesome counsel, which
+     the ill advised prince refuseth. The delightful gold filled with
+     poison betokeneth flattery, which under fair seeming of pleasant
+     words beareth deadly poison, which destroyeth the prince that
+     receiveth it. As befel in the two brethren, Ferrex and Porrex, who,
+     refusing the wholesome advice of grave counsellors, credited these
+     young parasites, and brought to themselves death and destruction
+     thereby.
+
+But it is time to set forth the plot in more detail. The importance of
+_Gorboduc_ as an example of English 'classical' tragedy prompts us to
+follow it through, scene by scene.
+
+_Act I, Scene 1._--Queen Videna discovers to her favourite and elder
+son, Ferrex, the king's intention, grievous in her eyes, of dividing his
+kingdom equally between his two sons. _Scene 2._--King Gorboduc submits
+his plan to the consideration of his three counsellors, whose wise and
+lengthy reasonings he listens to but elects to disregard.
+
+_Act II, Scene 1._--The division having been carried out, Ferrex, in his
+part of the kingdom, is prompted by evil counsel to suspect aggressive
+rivalry from his brother, and decides to collect forces for his own
+defence. _Scene 2._--Ferrex's misguided precautions having been
+maliciously represented to Porrex as directed against his power, that
+prince resolves upon an immediate invasion of his brother's realm.
+
+_Act III._--The news of these counter-moves and of the imminent
+probability of bloodshed is reported to the king. To restore the courage
+of the despairing Gorboduc is now the labour of his counsellors, but the
+later announcement of the death of Ferrex casts him lower than before.
+At this point the Chorus, recalling the murder of a cousin in an earlier
+generation of the royal race, points, in true Aeschylean fashion, to the
+hatred of an unsated revenge behind this latest blow:
+
+    Thus fatal plagues pursue the guilty race,
+      Whose murderous hand, imbru'd with guiltless blood,
+    Asks vengeance still before the heaven's face,
+      With endless mischiefs on the cursed brood.
+
+_Act IV, Scene 1._--Videna alone, in words of passionate vehemence,
+laments that she has lived so long to see the death of Ferrex, renounces
+his brother as no child of hers, and concludes with a threat of
+vengeance. _Scene 2._--Bowed down with remorse, Porrex makes his defence
+before the king, pleading the latter's own act, in dividing the kingdom,
+as the initial cause of the ensuing disaster. Before he has been long
+gone from his father's presence, Marcella, a lady-in-waiting, rushes
+into the room, in wild disorder and grief, to report his murder at his
+mother's hand. In anguished words she tells how, stabbed by Videna in
+his sleep, he started up and, spying the queen by his side, called to
+her for help, not crediting that she, his mother, could be his
+murderess. Again, in tones of solemn warning, the Chorus reminds the
+audience that
+
+    Blood asketh blood, and death must death requite:
+      Jove, by his just and everlasting doom,
+    Justly hath ever so requited it.
+
+_Act V, Scene 1._--This warning is proved true by a report of the death
+of the king and queen at the hands of their subjects in revolt against
+the blood-stained House. Certain of the nobles, gathered together,
+resolve upon an alliance for the purpose of restoring a strong
+government. The Duke of Albany, however, thinks to snatch power to
+himself from this opportunity. _Scene 2._--Report is made of the
+suppression of the rebellion, but this news is immediately followed by a
+report of Albany's attempted usurpation of the throne. Coalition for his
+defeat is agreed upon, and the play ends with the mournful soliloquy of
+that aged counsellor who first opposed the division of the throne and
+now sees, as the consequence of that fatal act, his country, torn to
+pieces by civil strife, left an easy prize for an ambitious conqueror.
+
+    Hereto it comes when kings will not consent
+    To grave advice, but follow wilful will.
+    This is the end, when in fond princes' hearts
+    Flattery prevails, and sage rede[51] hath no place:
+    These are the plagues, when murder is the mean
+    To make new heirs unto the royal crown....
+    And this doth grow, when lo, unto the prince,
+    Whom death or sudden hap of life bereaves,
+    No certain heir remains, such certain heir,
+    As not all only is the rightful heir,
+    But to the realm is so made known to be;
+    And troth thereby vested in subjects' hearts,
+    To owe faith there where right is known to rest.
+
+This last quotation, interesting in itself as containing a
+recommendation to Queen Elizabeth to marry, or at least name her
+successor, will also serve as a specimen of the new verse, Blank Verse,
+which here, for the first time, finds its way into English drama.
+Meeting with small favour from writers skilful in the stringing together
+of rhymes, it suffered comparative neglect for some years until Marlowe
+taught its capacities to his own and future ages. With Sackville's stiff
+lines before us we shall be better able to appreciate the later
+playwright's genius. But we shall also be reminded that the credit of
+introducing blank verse must lie with the older man.
+
+The chief question of all remains to be asked. Does _Gorboduc_, with all
+its borrowed devices, _and because of them_, rise to a higher level of
+tragedy than _Cambyses_ and _Appius and Virginia_? To answer this
+question we must examine the effect of those devices, and understand
+what is precisely meant by the term tragedy. Let it be first understood
+that the arrangement of acts and scenes is comparatively unimportant in
+this connexion, though most helpful in giving clearness to the action.
+Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_ (in the earlier edition) dispenses with it;
+so does Milton's _Samson Agonistes_; and we have just seen that the
+great Greek dramatists knew nothing of it. What is important is the
+exclusion of that comic element which, in some form or another, had
+hitherto found a place in almost every English play; the removal of all
+action from the stage--for the Dumb Shows stand apart from the play--;
+and the substitution of stately speeches for natural conversation and
+dialogue. Of all three the purpose is the same, namely, to impress the
+audience with a sense of greater dignity and awe than would be imparted
+by a more familiar style. The long speeches give importance to the
+decisions, and compel a belief that momentous events are about to
+happen or have happened. In harmony with this effect is the absence of
+all comic relief--although Shakespeare was to prove later that this has
+a useful place in tragedy. A smile, a jest would be sacrilege in the
+prevailing gloom. Two effects alone are aimed at; an impression of
+loftiness in the theme, and a profound melancholy. Not warm gushing
+tears. Those are the outcome of a personal sorrow, small and ignoble
+beside an abstract grief at 'the falls of princes', 'the tumbling down
+of crowns', 'the ruin of proud realms'. What does the reader or
+spectator know of Ferrex that he should mingle his cries with Videna's
+lamentations? The account of Porrex appealing, with childlike faith in
+his mother, to the very woman who has murdered him, may, for the moment,
+bring tears to the eyes. But it is an accidental touch. The tragedy lies
+not there but in the great fact that with him dies the last heir to the
+throne, the last hope of avoiding the miseries of a disputed succession;
+and that in her revengeful fury the queen, as a woman, has committed the
+blackest of all crimes, a mother's slaughter of her child. We are not
+asked to weep but to gasp at the horror of it. It is in order to protect
+the loftier, broader aspects of the catastrophe from the influence of
+the particular that action is excluded. This cautions us against
+confusing tragedy and pathos. To perceive the difference is to recognize
+that English Tragedy really begins with _Gorboduc_. Until its advent the
+stress laid on the pathetic partially obscured the tragic. This may be
+seen at once in the Miracles, though a little thought will reveal the
+intensely tragic nature of the complete Miracle Play. In _Cambyses_ we
+find the same obscuration: there is tragedy in the sudden ending of
+those young lives, but the pathos of the mother's anguish and the sweet
+girl's pleadings prevent us from thinking of it. _Appius and Virginia_
+maintains a much truer tragic detachment, the effect being heightened by
+its opening picture of virtuous happiness destined to abrupt and
+tyrannous ruin. But it expresses itself so ill, shatters our hearing so
+unmercifully with its alliterative mouthing, and hurls us down so
+steeply with its low comedy, that we refuse to give its characters the
+grandeur or excellence claimed for them by the author. _Gorboduc_ alone
+presents tragedy unspoiled by extraneous additions. In its triple
+catastrophe of princes, crown and realm we perceive the awful figure of
+the Tragic Muse and shrink back in reverent fear of what more may lie
+hid from us in the folds of her black robe. Darker, much darker and more
+terrible things have come since from that gloomy spirit. What has been
+written here should not be misinterpreted as an exaggerated appreciation
+of _Gorboduc_. We wish only to insist that this play did give to English
+drama for the first time (if we exclude translations) an example,
+however weak in execution, of pure tragedy; and was able to do so
+largely, if not entirely, by reason of its reversion to classical
+principles and devices.
+
+We have insisted on the difference between Tragedy and Pathos, and
+criticized the weakening effect of the latter upon the former. To escape
+the penalty that awaits general criticism we may add here that Tragedy
+is never greater than when her handmaid is ready to do her _modest_
+service. Sophocles puts into the mouth of Oedipus, at the moment of his
+departure into blind and desolate exile, tender injunctions regarding
+the care of his young daughters:
+
+    But my poor maidens, hapless and forlorn,
+    Who never had a meal apart from mine,
+    But ever shared my table, yea, for them
+    Take heedful care; and grant me, though but once,
+    Yea, I beseech thee, with these hands to feel,
+    Thou noble heart! the forms I love so well,
+    And weep with them our common misery.
+    Oh, if my arms were round them, I might seem
+    To have them as of old when I could see.[52]
+
+Shakespeare, too, knew well how to kindle the soft radiance which,
+fading again, makes the ensuing darkness darker still. Ophelia, the
+sleeping Duncan, Cordelia rise to our minds. Nor need we quote the
+famous words of Webster's Ferdinand. It is enough that the greatest
+scene in _Gorboduc_ is precisely that scene where pathos softens by a
+momentary dimness of vision our horror at a mother's crime.
+
+_The Misfortunes of Arthur_ (1587), by Thomas Hughes, though twenty-five
+years later, may be placed next to _Gorboduc_ in our discussion of the
+rise of tragedy. It will serve as an illustration of the kind of tragedy
+that was being evolved from Senecan models by plodding uninspired
+Englishmen before Marlowe flung his flaming torch amongst them. To
+understand the story a slight introduction is necessary. Igerna, the
+wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, was loved by King Uther, who foully
+slew her husband and so won her for himself. As a result of this union
+were born Arthur and Anne, who, in their youth, perpetuated the
+inherited taint of sin by becoming the parents of a boy, Mordred.
+Afterwards Arthur married Guenevera, and some years later went to France
+on a long campaign of conquest. In his absence Mordred gained the love
+of Guenevera. The play begins with the contemplated return of Arthur,
+glorious from victory, the object being to concentrate attention upon
+the swift fall from glory and power to ruin and death. Guenevera, having
+learnt to hate her husband, debates in her mind his death or hers,
+finally deciding, however, to become a nun. Her interview with Mordred
+ends in his resolving to resist Arthur's landing. Unsuccessful in this
+attempt, and defeated in battle, he spurns all thought of submission,
+challenging his father to a second conflict, in Cornwall. Arthur,
+feeling that his sins have found him out, would gladly make peace; but,
+stung by Mordred's defiance, he follows him into Cornwall. There both
+armies are destroyed and Mordred is slain, though in his death he
+mortally wounds his father. After the battle his body is brought before
+Arthur, in whom the sight awakens yet more fiercely the pangs of
+remorse. The play closes immediately before Arthur's own mysterious
+departure.
+
+Here is all the material for a great tragedy. The point for beginning
+the story is well chosen, though in obvious imitation of _Agamemnon_.
+Attention is concentrated on the catastrophe, no alien element being
+admitted to detract from the melancholy effect. It is sought to
+intensify the gloom by recourse to Seneca's stage Ghost; thus, the
+departed spirit of the wronged Gorlois opens the play with horrid
+imprecations of evil upon the house of Uther, and, at the close, exults
+in the fullness of his revenge. From his mouth, as well as from the lips
+of Arthur, and again from the Chorus (which closes the acts, as in
+_Gorboduc_) we learn the great purpose beneath this overwhelming ruin of
+a king and kingdom--to show that the day and the hour do come, however
+long deferred, when
+
+    Wrong hath his wreak, and guilt his guerdon bears.
+
+As before, all action is rigorously excluded from the stage, to be
+reported, at great length and with tremendous striving after vividness
+and effect, by one who was present. Dumb Shows before each act continue
+the attempt to balance matters spectacularly. Clearly the only hope of
+dramatic advance for disciples of the Senecan school lay in improved
+dialogue. This was possible in four directions, namely, in more stirring
+topics, in more personal feeling, in shorter speeches, and in a change
+in the style of language and verse. Unfortunately for Thomas Hughes, it
+is just here that he fails, and fails lamentably. What is more, he fails
+because of his methods. The dominant desire of the English 'classical'
+school was to be impressive. Hence the adoption by Hughes of a ghostly
+introduction and conclusion. His conversations, therefore, must reflect
+the same idea. He saw, indeed, that long speeches, except at rare
+intervals, were tedious, and reduced his to reasonable proportions, even
+making extensive use--as, we shall see, the author of _Damon and
+Pythias_ did before him--of the Greek device of stichomythia. He was
+most anxious, also, to provide stirring topics for his characters to
+
+MONTENEGRO.
+
+A Columbian. One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the pirate schooner _Panda_.
+Hanged at Boston in 1835.
+
+
+DE MONT, FRANCIS.
+
+Captured in South Carolina in 1717. Tried at Charleston, and convicted of
+taking the _Turtle Dove_ and other vessels in the previous July. Hanged in
+June, 1717.
+
+
+MOODY, CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER.
+
+A notorious pirate. Very active off the coast of Carolina, 1717, with two
+ships under his command. In 1722 was with Roberts on board the _Royal
+Fortune_, being one of his chief men or "Lords." Taken prisoner, and tried
+at Cape Coast Castle, and hanged in chains at the age of 28.
+
+
+MOORE. Gunner.
+
+A gunner aboard Captain Kidd's ship the _Adventure_. When Kidd's mutinous
+crew were all for attacking a Dutch ship, Kidd refused to allow them to,
+and Moore threatened the captain, who seized a bucket and struck Moore on
+the head with it, the blow killing him. Kidd was perfectly justified in
+killing this mutinous sailor, but eventually it was for this act that he
+was hanged in London.
+
+
+MORGAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+This pirate must not be confused with the buccaneer, Sir Henry Morgan.
+Little is known about him except that he was with Hamlin, the French
+pirate, in 1683, off the coast of West Africa, and helped to take several
+Danish and English ships. Soon the pirates quarrelled over the division of
+their plunder and separated into two companies, the English following
+Captain Morgan in one of the prizes.
+
+
+MORGAN, COLONEL BLODRE, or BLEDRY.
+
+This buccaneer was probably a relation of Sir Henry Morgan. He was an
+important person in Jamaica between 1660 and 1670. At the taking of Panama
+by Henry Morgan in 1670 the Colonel commanded the rearguard of 300 men. In
+May, 1671, he was appointed to act as Deputy Governor of Providence Island
+by Sir James Modyford.
+
+
+MORGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL EDWARD. Buccaneer.
+
+Uncle and father-in-law of Sir Henry Morgan.
+
+In 1665, when war had been declared on Holland, the Governor of Jamaica
+issued commissions to several pirates and buccaneers to sail to and attack
+the Dutch islands of St. Eustatius, Saba, and Curacao. Morgan was put in
+command of ten ships and some 500 men; most of them were "reformed
+prisoners," while some were condemned pirates who had been pardoned in
+order to let them join the expedition.
+
+Before leaving Jamaica the crews mutinied, but were pacified by the
+promise of an equal share of all the spoils that should be taken. Three
+ships out of the fleet slipped away on the voyage, but the rest arrived at
+St. Kitts, landed, and took the fort. Colonel Morgan, who was an old and
+corpulent man, died of the heat and exertion during the campaign.
+
+
+MORGAN, LIEUT.-COLONEL THOMAS.
+
+Sailed with Colonel Edward Morgan to attack St. Eustatius and Saba
+Islands, and after these were surrendered by the Dutch, Thomas Morgan was
+left in charge.
+
+In 1686 he sailed in command of a company of buccaneers to assist Governor
+Wells, of St. Kitts, against the French. The defence of the island was
+disgraceful, and Morgan's company was the only one which displayed any
+courage or discipline, and most of them were killed or wounded, Colonel
+Morgan himself being shot in both legs.
+
+Often these buccaneer leaders altered their titles from colonel to
+captain, to suit the particular enterprise on which they were engaged,
+according if it took place on sea or land.
+
+
+MORGAN, SIR HENRY. Buccaneer.
+
+This, the greatest of all the "brethren of the coast," was a Welshman,
+born at Llanrhymmy in Monmouthshire in the year 1635. The son of a
+well-to-do farmer, Robert Morgan, he early took to the seafaring life.
+When quite a young man Morgan went to Barbadoes, but afterwards he
+settled at Jamaica, which was his home for the rest of his life.
+
+Morgan may have been induced to go to the West Indies by his uncle,
+Colonel Morgan, who was for a time Deputy Governor of Jamaica, a post Sir
+Henry Morgan afterwards held.
+
+Morgan was a man of great energy, and must have possessed great power of
+winning his own way with people. That he could be absolutely unscrupulous
+when it suited his ends there can be little doubt. He was cruel at times,
+but was not the inhuman monster that he is made out to be by Esquemeling
+in his "History of the Bucaniers." This was largely proved by the evidence
+given in the suit for libel brought and won by Morgan against the
+publishers, although Morgan was, if possible, more indignant over the
+statement in the same book that he had been kidnapped in Wales and sold,
+as a boy, and sent to be a slave in Barbadoes. That he could descend to
+rank dishonesty was shown when, returning from his extraordinary and
+successful assault on the city of Panama in 1670, to Chagres, he left most
+of his faithful followers behind, without ships or food, while he slipped
+off in the night with most of the booty to Jamaica. No doubt, young Morgan
+came to Jamaica with good credentials from his uncle, the Colonel, for the
+latter was held in high esteem by Modyford, then Governor of Barbadoes,
+who describes Colonel Morgan as "that honest privateer."
+
+Colonel Morgan did not live to see his nephew reach the pinnacle of his
+success, for in the year 1665 he was sent at the head of an expedition to
+attack the Dutch stronghold at St. Eustatius Island, but he was too old to
+stand the hardships of such an expedition and died shortly afterwards.
+
+By this time Morgan had made his name as a successful and resolute
+buccaneer by returning to Port Royal from a raiding expedition in Central
+America with a huge booty.
+
+In 1665 Morgan, with two other buccaneers, Jackman and Morris, plundered
+the province of Campeachy, and then, acting as Vice-Admiral to the most
+famous buccaneer of the day, Captain Mansfield, plundered Cuba, captured
+Providence Island, sacked Granada, burnt and plundered the coast of Costa
+Rica, bringing back another booty of almost fabulous wealth to Jamaica. In
+this year Morgan married a daughter of his uncle, Colonel Morgan.
+
+In 1668, when 33 years of age, Morgan was commissioned by the Jamaican
+Government to collect together the privateers, and by 1669 he was in
+command of a big fleet, when he was almost killed by a great explosion in
+the _Oxford_, which happened while Morgan was giving a banquet to his
+captains. About this time Morgan calmly took a fine ship, the _Cour
+Volant_, from a French pirate, and made her his own flagship, christening
+her the _Satisfaction_.
+
+In 1670 the greatest event of Morgan's life took place--the sacking of
+Panama. First landing a party which took the Castle of San Lorenzo at the
+mouth of the Chagres River, Morgan left a strong garrison there to cover
+his retreat and pushed on with 1,400 men in a fleet of canoes up the river
+on January 9th, 1671. The journey across the isthmus, through the tropical
+jungle, was very hard on the men, particularly as they had depended on
+finding provisions to supply their wants on the way, and carried no food
+with them. They practically starved until the sixth day, when they found a
+barn full of maize, which the fleeing Spaniards had neglected to destroy.
+On the evening of the ninth day a scout reported he had seen the steeple
+of a church in Panama. Morgan, with that touch of genius which so often
+brought him success, attacked the city from a direction the Spaniards had
+not thought possible, so that their guns were all placed where they were
+useless, and they were compelled to do just what the buccaneer leader
+wanted them to do--namely, to come out of their fortifications and fight
+him in the open. The battle raged fiercely for two hours between the brave
+Spanish defenders and the equally brave but almost exhausted buccaneers.
+When at last the Spaniards turned and ran, the buccaneers were too tired
+to immediately follow up their success, but after resting they advanced,
+and at the end of three hours' street fighting the city was theirs. The
+first thing Morgan now did was to assemble all his men and strictly forbid
+them to drink any wine, telling them that he had secret information that
+the wine had been poisoned by the Spaniards before they left the city.
+This was, of course, a scheme of Morgan's to stop his men from becoming
+drunk, when they would be at the mercy of the enemy, as had happened in
+many a previous buccaneer assault.
+
+Morgan now set about plundering the city, a large part of which was burnt
+to the ground, though whether this was done by his orders or by the
+Spanish Governor has never been decided. After three weeks the buccaneers
+started back on their journey to San Lorenzo, with a troop of 200
+pack-mules laden with gold, silver, and goods of all sorts, together with
+a large number of prisoners. The rearguard on the march was under the
+command of a kinsman of the Admiral, Colonel Bledry Morgan.
+
+On their arrival at Chagres the spoils were divided, amidst a great deal
+of quarrelling, and in March, 1671, Morgan sailed off to Port Royal with a
+few friends and the greater part of the plunder, leaving his faithful
+followers behind without ships or provisions, and with but £10 apiece as
+their share of the spoils.
+
+On May 31st, 1671, the Council of Jamaica passed a vote of thanks to
+Morgan for his successful expedition, and this in spite of the fact that
+in July, a year before, a treaty had been concluded at Madrid between
+Spain and England for "restraining depredations and establishing peace" in
+the New World.
+
+In April, 1672, Morgan was carried to England as a prisoner in the
+_Welcome_ frigate. But he was too popular to be convicted, and after being
+acquitted was appointed Deputy Governor of Jamaica, and in November, 1674,
+he was knighted and returned to the West Indies. In 1672 Major-General
+Banister, who was Commander-in-Chief of the troops in Jamaica, writing to
+Lord Arlington about Morgan, said: "He (Morgan) is a well deserving
+person, and one of great courage and conduct, who may, with His Majesty's
+pleasure, perform good public service at home, or be very advantageous to
+this island if war should again break forth with the Spaniards."
+
+While Morgan was in England he brought an action for libel against William
+Crooke, the publisher of the "History of the Bucaniers of America." The
+result of this trial was that Crooke paid £200 damages to Morgan and
+published a long and grovelling apology.
+
+Morgan was essentially a man of action, and a regular life on shore proved
+irksome to him, for we learn from a report sent home by Lord Vaughan in
+1674 that Morgan "frequented the taverns of Port Royal, drinking and
+gambling in unseemly fashion," but nevertheless the Jamaican Assembly had
+voted the Lieutenant-Governor a sum of £600 special salary. In 1676
+Vaughan brought definite charges against Morgan and another member of the
+Council, Robert Byndloss, of giving aid to certain Jamaica pirates.
+
+Morgan made a spirited defence and, no doubt largely owing to his
+popularity, got off, and in 1678 was granted a commission to be a captain
+of a company of 100 men.
+
+The Governor to succeed Vaughan was Lord Carlisle, who seems to have liked
+Morgan, in spite of his jovial "goings on" with his old buccaneer friends
+in the taverns of Port Royal, and in some of his letters speaks of
+Morgan's "generous manner," and hints that whatever allowances are made to
+him "he will be a beggar."
+
+In 1681 Sir Thomas Lynch was appointed to be Governor, and trouble at once
+began between him and his deputy. Amongst the charges the former brought
+against Morgan was one of his having been overheard to say, "God damn the
+Assembly!" for which he was suspended from that body.
+
+In April, 1688, the King, at the urgent request of the Duke of Albemarle,
+ordered Morgan to be reinstated in the Assembly, but Morgan did not live
+long to enjoy his restored honours, for he died on August 25th, 1688.
+
+An extract from the journal of Captain Lawrence Wright, commander of
+H.M.S. _Assistance_, dated August, 1688, describes the ceremonies held at
+Port Royal at the burial of Morgan, and shows how important and popular a
+man he was thought to be. It runs:
+
+"Saturday 25. This day about eleven hours noone Sir Henry Morgan died, &
+the 26th was brought over from Passage-fort to the King's house at Port
+Royall, from thence to the Church, & after a sermon was carried to the
+Pallisadoes & there buried. All the forts fired an equal number of guns,
+wee fired two & twenty & after wee & the Drake had fired, all the merchant
+men fired."
+
+Morgan was buried in Jamaica, and his will, which was filed in the Record
+Office at Spanish Town, makes provision for his wife and near relations.
+
+
+MORRICE, HUMPHREY.
+
+Of New Providence, Bahama Islands.
+
+Hanged at New Providence in 1718 by his lately reformed fellow-pirates,
+and on the gallows taxed them with "pusillanimity and cowardice" because
+they did not rescue him and his fellow-sufferers.
+
+
+MORRIS, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+A privateer until 1665, he afterwards became a buccaneer with Mansfield.
+Took part in successful raids in Central America, plundering Vildemo in
+the Bay of Campeachy; he also sacked Truxillo, and then, after a journey
+by canoe up the San Juan River to take Nicaragua, surprised and plundered
+the city of Granada in March, 1666.
+
+
+MORRIS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+One of the pirates of New Providence, Bahamas, who, on pardon being
+offered by King George in 1717, escaped, and for a while carried on piracy
+in the West Indian Islands. Caught and hanged a few years afterwards.
+
+
+MORRIS, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Bartholomew Roberts's crew. When the _Royal Fortune_
+surrendered to H.M.S. _Swallow_, Morris fired his pistol into the
+gunpowder in the steerage and caused an explosion that killed or maimed
+many of the pirates.
+
+
+MORRISON, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Scotch pirate, who lived on Prince Edward Island.
+
+For an account of his career, see Captain NELSON.
+
+
+MORRISON, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged at White Point, Charleston, South
+Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh below low-water
+mark.
+
+
+MORTON, PHILIP.
+
+Gunner on board "Blackbeard's" ship, the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Killed on
+November 22nd, 1718, in North Carolina, during the fight with Lieutenant
+Maynard.
+
+
+MULLET, JAMES, _alias_ MILLET.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of the crew of the _Royal James_, in which vessel Major Stede Bonnet
+played havoc with the shipping along the coasts of South Carolina and New
+England. Hanged at Charleston in 1718.
+
+
+MULLINS, DARBY.
+
+This Irish pirate was born in the north of Ireland, not many miles from
+Londonderry. Being left an orphan at the age of 18, he was sold to a
+planter in the West Indies for a term of four years.
+
+After the great earthquake at Jamaica in 1691, Mullins built himself a
+house at Kingston and ran it as a punch-house--often a very profitable
+business when the buccaneers returned to Port Royal with good plunder.
+This business failing, he went to New York, where he met Captain Kidd, and
+was, according to his own story, persuaded to engage in piracy, it being
+urged that the robbing only of infidels, the enemies of Christianity, was
+an act, not only lawful, but one highly meritorious.
+
+At his trial later on in London his judges did not agree with this view of
+the rights of property, and Mullins was hanged at Execution Dock on May
+23rd, 1701.
+
+
+MUMPER, THOMAS.
+
+An Indian of Mather's Vineyard, New England.
+
+Tried for piracy with Captain Charles Harris and his men, but found to be
+"not guilty."
+
+
+MUNDON, STEPHEN.
+
+Of London.
+
+Hanged for piracy at Newport, Rhode Island, on July 19th, 1723, at the age
+of 20.
+
+
+MUSTAPHA. Turkish pirate.
+
+In 1558 he sailed, with a fleet of 140 vessels, to the Island of Minorca.
+Landed, and besieged the fortified town of Ciudadda, which at length
+surrendered. The Turks slew great numbers of the inhabitants, taking the
+rest away as slaves.
+
+
+NAU, CAPTAIN JEAN DAVID, _alias_ FRANCIS L'OLLONAIS.
+
+A Frenchman born at Les Sables d'Ollone.
+
+In his youth he was transported as an indented labourer to the French
+Island of Dominica in the West Indies. Having served his time L'Ollonais
+went to the Island of Hispaniola, and joined the buccaneers there, living
+by hunting wild cattle and drying the flesh or boucan.
+
+He then sailed for a few voyages as a sailor before the mast, and acted
+with such ability and courage that the Governor of Tortuga Island,
+Monsieur de la Place, gave him the command of a vessel and sent him out
+to seek his fortune.
+
+At first the young buccaneer was very successful, and he took many Spanish
+ships, but owing to his ferocious treatment of his prisoners he soon won a
+name for cruelty which has never been surpassed. But at the height of this
+success his ship was wrecked in a storm, and, although most of the pirates
+got ashore, they were at once attacked by a party of Spaniards, and all
+but L'Ollonais were killed. The captain escaped, after being wounded, by
+smearing blood and sand over his face and hiding himself amongst his dead
+companions. Disguised as a Spaniard he entered the city of Campeachy,
+where bonfires and other manifestations of public relief were being held,
+to express the joy of the citizens at the news of the death of their
+terror, L'Ollonais.
+
+Meeting with some French slaves, the fugitive planned with them to escape
+in the night in a canoe, this being successfully carried out, they
+eventually arrived back at Tortuga, the pirate stronghold. Here the
+enterprising captain stole a small vessel, and again started off "on the
+account," plundering a village called De los Cagos in Cuba. The Governor
+of Havana receiving word of the notorious and apparently resurrected
+pirate's arrival sent a well-armed ship to take him, adding to the ship's
+company a negro executioner, with orders to hang all the pirate crew with
+the exception of L'Ollonais, who was to be brought back to Havana alive
+and in chains.
+
+Instead of the Spaniards taking the Frenchman, the opposite happened, and
+everyone of them was murdered, including the negro hangman, with the
+exception of one man, who was sent with a written message to the Governor
+to tell him that in future L'Ollonais would kill every Spaniard he met
+with.
+
+Joining with a famous filibuster, Michael de Basco, L'Ollonais soon
+organized a more important expedition, consisting of a fleet of eight
+vessels and 400 men. Sailing to the Gulf of Venezuela in 1667, they
+entered the lake, destroying the fort that stood to guard the entrance.
+Thence sailing to the city of Maracaibo they found all the inhabitants had
+fled in terror. The filibusters caught many of the inhabitants hiding in
+the neighbouring woods, and killed numbers of them in their attempts to
+force from the rest the hiding-places of their treasure. They next marched
+upon and attacked the town of Gibraltar, which was valiantly defended by
+the Spaniards, until the evening, when, having lost 500 men killed, they
+surrendered. For four weeks this town was pillaged, the inhabitants
+murdered, while torture and rape were daily occurrences. At last, to the
+relief of the wretched inhabitants, the buccaneers, with a huge booty,
+sailed away to Corso Island, a place of rendezvous of the French
+buccaneers. Here they divided their spoil, which totalled the great sum of
+260,000 pieces of eight, which, when divided amongst them, gave each man
+above one hundred pieces of eight, as well as his share of plate, silk,
+and jewels.
+
+Also, a share was allotted for the next-of-kin of each man killed, and
+extra rewards for those pirates who had lost a limb or an eye. L'Ollonais
+had now become most famous amongst the "Brethren of the Coast," and began
+to make arrangements for an even more daring expedition to attack and
+plunder the coast of Nicaragua. Here he burnt and pillaged ruthlessly,
+committing the most revolting cruelties on the Spanish inhabitants. One
+example of this monster's inhuman deeds will more than suffice to tell of.
+It happened that during an attack on the town of San Pedros the buccaneers
+had been caught in an ambuscade and many of them killed, although the
+Spaniards had at last turned and fled. The pirates killed most of their
+prisoners, but kept a few to be questioned by L'Ollonais so as to find
+some other way to the town. As he could get no information out of these
+men, the Frenchman drew his cutlass and with it cut open the breast of one
+of the Spaniards, and pulling out his still beating heart he began to bite
+and gnaw it with his teeth like a ravenous wolf, saying to the other
+prisoners, "I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way."
+
+Shortly after this, many of the buccaneers broke away from L'Ollonais and
+sailed under the command of Moses van Vin, the second in command.
+L'Ollonais, in his big ship, sailed to the coast of Honduras, but ran his
+vessel on a sand-bank and lost her. While building a new but small craft
+on one of the Las Pertas Islands, they cultivated beans and other
+vegetables, and also wheat, for which they baked bread in portable ovens
+which these French buccaneers carried about with them. It took them six
+months to build their long-boat, and when it was finished it would not
+carry more than half the number of buccaneers. Lots were drawn to settle
+who should sail and who remain behind. L'Ollonais steered the boat towards
+Cartagena, but was caught by the Indians, as described by Esquemeling.
+"Here suddenly his ill-fortune assailed him, which of a long time had been
+reserved for him as a punishment due to the multitude of horrible crimes,
+which in his licentious and wicked life he had committed. For God
+Almighty, the time of His divine justice being now already come, had
+appointed the Indians of Darien to be the instruments and executioners
+thereof."
+
+These "instruments of God," having caught L'Ollonais, tore him in pieces
+alive, throwing his body limb by limb into the fire and his ashes into the
+air, to the intent "no trace nor memory might remain of such an infamous
+inhuman creature."
+
+Thus died a monster of cruelty, who would, had he lived to-day, have been
+confined in an asylum for lunatics.
+
+
+NEAL.
+
+A fisherman of Cork.
+
+Mutinied in a French ship sailing from Cork to Nantes in 1721, and, under
+the leadership of Philip Roche, murdered the captain and many of the crew
+and became a pirate.
+
+
+NEFF, WILLIAM.
+
+Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1667.
+
+A soldier, one of the guard at Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine. Deserted in
+1689 and went to sea with the pirate Captain Pound.
+
+
+NELSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Born on Prince Edward Island, where his father had a grant of land for
+services rendered in the American war. He was a wealthy man, a member of
+the Council and a Colonel of the Militia. In order to set his son up in
+life he bought him a captaincy in the Militia and a fine farm, where young
+Nelson married and settled down. Buying a schooner, he used to sail to
+Halifax with cargoes of potatoes and fruit. He seems to have liked these
+trips in which he combined business with pleasure, for we learn that on
+these visits to Halifax he "was very wild, and drank and intrigued with
+the girls in an extravagant manner." Getting into disgrace on Prince
+Edward Island, and losing his commission, he went to live near Halifax,
+and became a lieutenant in the Nova Scotia Fencibles, while his wife
+remained on the island to look after his estates, which brought him in
+£300 a year. Meeting with a Scotchman called Morrison, together they
+bought a "pretty little New York battleship," mounting ten guns. Manning
+this dangerous toy with a crew of ninety desperate characters, the
+partners went "on the account," and began well by taking a brig belonging
+to Mr. Hill, of Rotherhithe, which they took to New York, and there sold
+both ship and cargo.
+
+They next cruised in the West Indies, taking several English and Dutch
+ships, the crews of which they treated with the greatest brutality.
+
+Landing on St. Kitts Island, they burnt and plundered two Dutch
+plantations, murdering the owners and slaves. Sailing north to
+Newfoundland they took ten more vessels, which they sold in New York.
+After further successful voyages in the West Indies and off the coast of
+Brazil, Nelson felt the call of home ties becoming so strong that he
+ventured to return to Prince Edward Island to visit his wife and family,
+where no one dared to molest him.
+
+By this time Nelson had been a pirate for three years and had, by his
+industry, won for himself a fortune worth £150,000, but his Scotch
+partner, Morrison, being a frugal soul, had in the meantime saved an even
+larger sum. Eventually their ship was wrecked in a fog on a small barren
+island near Prince Edward Island, and Morrison and most of the crew were
+drowned, but Nelson and a few others were saved. At last he reached New
+York, where he lived the rest of his life in peaceful happiness with his
+wife and family.
+
+
+NICHOLLS, THOMAS, _alias_ NICHOLAS.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy at
+Charleston on November 8th, 1718, and found "not guilty."
+
+
+NONDRE, PEDRO.
+
+Hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in February, 1823. At the time of execution
+it was observed that he was covered with the marks of deep wounds. On the
+scaffold he wept bitterly. An immensely heavy man, he broke the rope, and
+had to be hanged a second time.
+
+
+NORMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Served under Morgan in 1670, and after the fall of Chagres Fort, Norman
+was left in charge with 500 men to hold it, while Morgan crossed the
+isthmus to attack Panama. Norman soon "sent forth to sea two boats to
+exercise piracy." These hoisted Spanish colours and met a big Spanish
+merchant ship on the same day. They chased the ship, which fled for safety
+into the Chagres River, only to be caught there by Norman. She proved a
+valuable prize, being loaded with all kinds of provisions, of which the
+garrison was in sore need.
+
+
+NORTH, CAPTAIN NATHANIEL.
+
+Born in Bermuda, and by profession a lawyer, Captain North was a man of
+remarkable ability, and in his later calling of piracy he gained great
+notoriety, and was a born leader of men. His history has been written
+fully, and is well worth reading. He had many ups and downs in his early
+seafaring life in the West Indies; being no less than three times taken by
+the pressgang, each time escaping. He served in Dutch and Spanish
+privateers, and eventually rose to being a pirate captain, making his
+headquarters in Madagascar. From here he sailed out to the East Indies,
+and preyed on the ships of the East India Company. Several times he was
+wrecked, once he was the only survivor, and swam ashore at Madagascar
+stark naked. The unusual sight of a naked Englishman spread terror amongst
+the natives who were on the beach, and they all fled into the jungle
+except one, a woman, who from previous personal experience knew that this
+was but a human being and not a sea devil. She supplied him with clothes,
+of a sort, and led him to the nearest pirate settlement, some six miles
+away. On another occasion when the pirates were having a jollification
+ashore, having left their Moorish prisoners on the ship at anchor, North
+gave the prisoners a hint to clear off in the night with the ship,
+otherwise they would all be made slaves. This friendly hint was acted
+upon, and in the morning both ship and prisoners had vanished. The pirates
+having lost their ship took to the peaceful and harmless life of planters,
+with North as their ruler. He won the confidence of the natives, who
+abided by his decision in all quarrels and misunderstandings. Occasionally
+North and his men would join forces with a neighbouring friendly tribe and
+go to war, North leading the combined army, and victory always resulted.
+The call of piracy was too strong in his bones to resist, and after three
+years planting he was back to sea and the Jolly Roger once more. On one
+occasion he seized the opportunity, when in the neighbourhood of the
+Mascarenhas Islands, to go ashore and visit the Catholic priest and
+confess, and at the same time made suitable arrangements for his children
+to be educated by the Church. North evidently truly repented his former
+sins, for he returned to resume his simple life on his plantation. On
+arriving home he found the settlement in an uproar. He soon settled all
+the disputes, appeased the natives, and before long had this garden-city
+of pirates back in its previous peaceful and happy state. Beyond an
+occasional little voyage, taking a ship or two, or burning an Arab
+village, North's career as a pirate may be considered to have terminated,
+as, indeed, his life was shortly afterwards, being murdered in his bed by
+a treacherous native. North's friends the pirates, shocked at this
+cold-blooded murder, waged a ruthless war on the natives for seven years:
+thus in their simple way thinking to revenge the loss of this estimable
+man, who had always been the natives' best friend.
+
+
+NORTON, GEORGE.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy in June, 1704, at the
+Star Tavern at Boston.
+
+
+NUTT, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Phillip's original crew of five pirates in the
+_Revenge_ in 1723. Nutt was made master or navigator.
+
+
+OCHALI. Barbary renegade.
+
+In 1511 he sailed from Algiers with a fleet of twenty-two vessels and
+1,700 men to raid Majorca. The Moors landed at Soller and pillaged it.
+Before they could get back to their ship, the pirates were attacked by the
+Majorcans, headed by Miguel Angelats, and completely routed, 500 of them
+being killed.
+
+
+ODELL, SAMUEL.
+
+Taken prisoner by the pirate Captain Teach on November 21st, 1718, and on
+the very next day retaken by Lieutenant Maynard. Odell received no less
+than seventy wounds in the fight, but recovered, and was carried to
+Virginia to stand his trial for piracy, and was acquitted.
+
+
+OUGHTERLAUNEY, THOMAS.
+
+Acted as pilot in the _Royal Fortune_. Took an active part in taking and
+plundering the _King Solomon_ on the West Coast of Africa in 1721.
+
+Was tried for piracy with the rest of Roberts's crew, when one witness,
+Captain Trahern, deposed that the prisoner dressed himself up in the
+captain's best suit of clothes, his new tye wig, and called loudly for a
+bottle of wine, and then, very arrogantly, gave orders as to the steering
+of the captured ship.
+
+Hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722.
+
+
+PAIN, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Bahaman privateer who in 1683 turned pirate and attacked St. Augustine
+in Florida under French colours. Being driven off by the Spaniards, he had
+to content himself with looting some neighbouring settlements. On
+returning to New Providence, the Governor attempted, but without success,
+to arrest Pain and his crew. Pain afterwards appeared in Rhode Island, and
+when the authorities tried to seize him and his ship, he got off by
+exhibiting an old commission to hunt for pirates given him a long while
+before by Sir Thomas Lynch. When the West Indies became too hot for him,
+Pain made the coast of Carolina his headquarters.
+
+
+PAINE, CAPTAIN PETER, _alias_ LE PAIN. A French buccaneer.
+
+He brought into Port Royal in 1684 a merchant ship, _La Trompeuse_.
+Pretending to be the owner, he sold both ship and cargo, which brought
+about great trouble afterwards between the French and English Governments,
+because he had stolen the ship on the high seas. He was sent from Jamaica
+under arrest to France the same year, to answer for his crimes.
+
+
+PAINTER, PETER.
+
+This Carolina pirate retired and lived at Charleston. In August, 1710, he
+was recommended for the position of public powder-receiver, but was
+rejected by the Upper House. "Mr. Painter Having committed Piracy, and
+not having his Majesties Pardon for the same, Its resolved he is not fit
+for that Trust." Which only goes to show how hard it was for a man to live
+down a thing like piracy.
+
+
+PARDAL, CAPTAIN MANUEL RIVERO.
+
+Known to the Jamaicans as "the vapouring admiral of St. Jago," because in
+July, 1670, he had nailed a piece of canvas to a tree on the Jamaican
+coast with this curious challenge written both in English and Spanish:
+
+"I, Captain Manuel Rivero Pardal, to the chief of the squadron of
+privateers in Jamaica. I am he who this year have done that which follows.
+I went on shore at Caimanos, and burnt 20 houses and fought with Captain
+Ary, and took from him a catch laden with provisions and a canoe. And I am
+he who took Captain Baines and did carry the prize to Cartagena, and now
+am arrived to this coast, and have burnt it. And I come to seek General
+Morgan, with 2 ships of 20 guns, and having seen this, I crave he would
+come out upon the coast and seek me, that he might see the valour of the
+Spaniards. And because I had no time I did not come to the mouth of Port
+Royal to speak by word of mouth in the name of my king, whom God preserve.
+Dated the 5th of July, 1670."
+
+
+PARKER, CAPTAIN WILLIAM. Buccaneer.
+
+Just after the city of Porto Bello had been made, as the Spanish thought,
+impregnable, by the building of the massive stone fort of San Jerome, the
+daring Parker, with but 200 English desperadoes, took the place by storm,
+burning part of the town and getting quickly and safely away with a huge
+amount of booty.
+
+
+PARKINS, BENJAMIN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew in the brigantine _Charles_. Tried at
+Boston for piracy in 1704.
+
+
+PARROT, JAMES.
+
+One of Quelch's crew, who turned King's evidence at the trial at Boston in
+1704, and thus escaped hanging.
+
+
+PATTERSON, NEAL.
+
+Of Aberdeen.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the
+marsh.
+
+
+PATTISON, JAMES.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+PEASE, CAPTAIN.
+
+A low down, latter-day South Sea pirate. Arrived in an armed ship with a
+Malay crew at Apia in Samoa in June, 1870, and rescued the pirate Bully
+Hayes, who was under arrest of the English Consul. He pleased the British
+inhabitants of the island by his display of loyalty to Queen Victoria by
+firing a salute of twenty-one guns on her Majesty's birthday.
+
+
+PELL, IGNATIUS.
+
+Boatswain of the _Royal James_, Major Stede Bonnet's ship. Turned King's
+evidence at trial of Bonnet and his crew at Charleston, Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+PENNER, MAJOR.
+
+We have been able to find out nothing of this pirate except that he was at
+New Providence Island in 1718 and took the King's pardon for pirates. He
+seems to have returned to the old life and was killed soon after, though
+how this came about is not recorded.
+
+
+PERKINS, BENJAMIN.
+
+One of Quelch's crew. Captured at Marblehead in 1704.
+
+
+PERRY, DANIEL.
+
+Of Guernsey.
+
+Tried for piracy in 1718 at Charleston, South Carolina, and found guilty.
+Hanged on November 8th at White Point. Buried in the marsh below low-water
+mark.
+
+
+PETERSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Of Newport, Rhode Island.
+
+In 1688 he arrived at Newport in a "barkalonga" armed with ten guns and
+seventy men. The Governor prosecuted him for piracy, but the grand jury,
+which consisted of friends and neighbours of Peterson, threw out the bill.
+Among other charges, Peterson was accused of selling some hides and
+elephants' teeth to a Boston merchant for £57, being part of the booty he
+had previously taken out of prizes in the West Indies.
+
+
+PETERSON, ERASMUS.
+
+Tried for piracy with the rest of Captain Quelch's crew at Boston. Was
+hanged there on June 30th, 1704. When standing on the gallows "He cryed of
+injustice done him and said, 'It is very hard for so many lives to be
+taken away for a little Gold.' He said his peace was made with God, yet he
+found it extremely hard to forgive those who had wronged him. He told the
+Executioner 'he was a strong man and Prayed to be put out of his misery
+as soon as possible.'"
+
+
+PETERSON, JOHN.
+
+A Swedish pirate, one of Gow's crew. He was hanged at Wapping in June,
+1725.
+
+
+PETIT, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+Of San Domingo.
+
+In 1634 was in command of _Le Ruze_, crew of forty men and four guns.
+
+
+PETTY, WILLIAM.
+
+Born at Deptford.
+
+A sailmaker in Captain Roberts's _Royal Fortune_ when the _King Solomon_
+was taken and plundered in West Africa. Petty, as sailmaker, had to see
+that all the sails and canvas aboard the prizes were removed to the pirate
+ship. Hanged at the age of 30.
+
+
+PHELIPP, CAPTAIN WILLIAM.
+
+In 1533 a Portuguese merchant, Peter Alves, engaged Phelipp to pilot his
+ship, the _Santa Maria Desaie_, from Tenby to Bastabill Haven. Off the
+Welsh coast the ship was attacked by a pirate vessel called the
+_Furtuskewys_, with a crew of thirty-five pirates. Alves was put ashore on
+the Welsh coast, and the two ships then sailed to Cork, where the ship and
+her cargo were sold to the mayor for 1,524 crowns.
+
+Alves complained to the King of England, and orders were sent to the Mayor
+of Cork, Richard Gowllys, to give up the ship, which he refused to do, but
+by way of excusing his actions he explained that he thought the ship was a
+Scotch one and not a Portuguese.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, CAPTAIN.
+
+In 1723 this noted pirate took a sloop, the _Dolphin_, of Cape Ann, on the
+Banks of Newfoundland. The crew of the _Dolphin_ were compelled by
+Phillips to join the pirates. Amongst the prisoners was a fisherman, John
+Fillmore. Finding no opportunity to escape, Fillmore with another sailor,
+Edward Cheesman, and an Indian, suddenly seized and killed Phillips and
+the two other chief pirates. The rest of the crew agreeing, the ship was
+taken to Boston.
+
+
+PHILIPS, JAMES.
+
+Of the Island of Antigua.
+
+Formerly of the _Revenge_, and afterwards in the _Royal Fortune_ (Captain
+Roberts). When the _Royal Fortune_ surrendered in 1722 to H.M.S.
+_Swallow_, Philips seized a lighted match and attempted to blow up the
+ship, swearing he would "send them all to Hell together," but was
+prevented by the master, Glasby. Hanged at the age of 35.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, JOHN.
+
+A carpenter by trade, he sailed from the West Country for Newfoundland in
+a ship that was captured by the pirate Anstis in the _Good Fortune_.
+Phillips soon became reconciled to the life of a pirate, and, being a
+brisk fellow, he was appointed carpenter to the ship. Returning to England
+he soon found it necessary to quit the country again, and he shipped
+himself on board a vessel at Topsham for Newfoundland. On arriving at
+Peter Harbour he ran away, and hired himself as a splitter to the
+Newfoundland cod fishery.
+
+On the night of August 29th, 1723, with four others, he stole a vessel in
+the harbour and sailed away. Phillips was chosen captain. Articles were
+now drawn up and were sworn to upon a hatchet, because no Bible could be
+found on board. Amongst other laws was the punishment of "40 stripes
+lacking one, known as Moses's law, to be afflicted for striking a
+fellow-pirate." The last law of the nine casts a curious light on these
+murderers; it runs: "If at any time you meet with a prudent Woman, that
+Man that offers to meddle with her, without her Consent, shall suffer
+present Death." The pirates, fortified by these laws, met with instant
+success, taking several fishing vessels, from which they augmented their
+small crew by the addition of several likely and brisk seamen. Amongst
+these they had the good fortune to take prisoner an old pirate called John
+Rose Archer, who had served his pirate apprenticeship under the able
+tuition of the famous Blackbeard, and who they at once promoted to be
+quartermaster. This quick promotion caused trouble afterwards, for some of
+the original crew, particularly carpenter Fern, resented it. The pirates
+next sailed to Barbadoes, that happy hunting ground, but for three months
+never a sail did they meet with, so that they were almost starving for
+want of provisions, being reduced to a pound of dried meat a day amongst
+ten of them.
+
+At last they met with a French vessel, a Martinico ship, of twelve guns,
+and hunger drove them to attack even so big a ship as this, but the sight
+of the Black flag so terrified the French crew that they surrendered
+without firing a shot. After this, they took several vessels, and matters
+began to look much brighter. Phillips quickly developed into a most
+accomplished and bloody pirate, butchering his prisoners on very little or
+on no provocation whatever. But even this desperate pirate had an
+occasional "qualm of conscience come athwart his stomach," for when he
+captured a Newfoundland vessel and was about to scuttle her, he found out
+that she was the property of a Mr. Minors of that island, from whom they
+stole the original vessel in which they went a-pirating, so Phillips,
+telling his companions "We have done him enough injury already," ordered
+the vessel to be repaired and returned to the owner. On another occasion,
+they took a ship, the master of which was a "Saint" of New England, by
+name Dependance Ellery, who gave them a pretty chase before being
+overhauled, and so, as a punishment, the "Saint" was compelled to dance
+the deck until he fell down exhausted.
+
+This pirate's career ended with a mutiny of his unruly crew, Phillips
+being tripped up and then thrown overboard to drown off Newfoundland in
+April, 1724.
+
+During the nine months of Phillips's command as a pirate captain, he
+accounted for more than thirty ships.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, JOSEPH.
+
+One of Teach's crew. Hanged in Virginia in 1718.
+
+
+PHILLIPS, WILLIAM.
+
+Born at Lower Shadwell.
+
+Boatswain in the _King Solomon_, a Guinea merchant ship. This ship, while
+lying at anchor in January, 1721, was attacked by a boatful of pirates
+from Bartholomew Roberts's ship, the _Royal Fortune_. The captain of the
+_King Solomon_ fired a musket at the approaching boat, and called upon his
+crew to do the same, but Phillips called for quarter and persuaded the
+rest of the crew to lay down their arms and surrender the ship. Phillips
+eagerly joined the pirates and signed the articles, and was "very forward
+and brisk" in helping to rob his own ship of provisions and stores.
+
+At his trial at Cape Coast Castle, he pleaded, as nearly all the prisoners
+did, that he was compelled to sign the pirates' articles, which were
+offered to him on a dish, on which lay a loaded pistol beside the copy of
+the articles.
+
+Found guilty and hanged in April, 1722, within the flood marks at Cape
+Coast Castle, in his 29th year.
+
+
+PHIPS, RICHARD.
+
+An English soldier who deserted from Fort Loyal, Falmouth, Maine, in 1689.
+Wounded by a bullet in the head at Tarpaulin Cove. Taken to Boston Prison,
+where he died.
+
+
+PICKERING, CAPTAIN CHARLES.
+
+Commanded the _Cinque Ports_ galley, sixteen guns, crew of sixty-three
+men, and accompanied Dampier on his voyage in 1703. Died off the coast of
+Brazil in the same year.
+
+
+PIERSE, GEORGE.
+
+Tried for piracy along with the rest of the crew of the brigantine
+_Charles_, at Boston, in 1704.
+
+
+PITMAN, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+POLEAS, PEDRO. Spanish pirate.
+
+Co-commander with Captain Johnson of a pirate sloop, the _Two Brothers_.
+In March, 1731, took a ship, the _John and Jane_ (Edward Burt, master),
+south of Jamaica, on board of which was a passenger, John Cockburn, who
+afterwards wrote a book relating his adventures on a journey on foot of
+240 miles on the mainland of America.
+
+
+PORTER, CAPTAIN.
+
+A West Indian pirate, who commanded a sloop, and, in company with a
+Captain Tuckerman in another sloop, came one day into Bennet's Key in
+Hispaniola. The two captains were but beginners at piracy, and finding
+the great Bartholomew Roberts in the bay, paid him a polite visit, hoping
+to pick up a few wrinkles from the "master." This scene is described by
+Captain Johnson, in his "Lives of the Pirates," when Porter and his friend
+"addressed the Pyrate, as the Queen of Sheba did Solomon, to wit, That
+having heard of his Fame and Achievements, they had put in there to learn
+his Art and Wisdom in the Business of pyrating, being Vessels on the same
+honourable Design with himself; and hoped with the Communication of his
+Knowledge, they should also receive his Charity, being in want of
+Necessaries for such Adventures. Roberts was won upon by the Peculiarity
+and Bluntness of these two Men and gave them Powder, Arms, and what ever
+else they had Occasion for, spent two or three merry Nights with them, and
+at parting, said, he hoped the L---- would Prosper their handy Works."
+
+
+POUND, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+On August 8th, 1689, this pirate, with five men and a boy, sailed out of
+Boston Harbour as passengers in a small vessel. When off Lovell's Island,
+five other armed men joined them. Pound now seized the craft and took
+command, and declared his intention of going on a piratical cruise. The
+first vessel they met with they decided to take. It was a fishing boat.
+Pound ran his craft alongside, but at the last moment his heart failed
+him, and he merely bought eight penn'o'th of mackerel from the surprised
+fishermen.
+
+He then sailed to Falmouth, Maine, where the corporal and soldiers of the
+guard at the fort deserted in the night and sailed off with Pound and his
+crew. Fortified by this addition to his crew, the pirate attacked a sloop,
+the _Good Speed_, off Cape Cod, and a brigantine, the _Merrimack_, and
+several other prizes. By this time, the Governor at Boston had heard of
+Pound's escapades, and sent an armed sloop, the _Mary_, to search for him.
+The pirate was discovered in Tarpaulin Cove, and a fierce and bloody fight
+took place before the pirates struck their "Red flagg." The prisoners were
+cast into Boston Gaol to await their trial. Pound had been wounded, being
+shot in the arm and side. The trial took place on January 13th, 1690.
+Pound was found guilty, but reprieved, and was sent to England, but was
+later on liberated. Afterwards he got command of a ship. He died in
+England in 1703.
+
+
+POWELL, THOMAS.
+
+Of Connecticut, New England.
+
+One of Captain Charles Harris's crew. Hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, on
+July 19th, 1723, at the age of 21.
+
+
+POWER, JOHN.
+
+Born in the West of England.
+
+Served in a slave vessel, the _Polly_ (Captain Fox, commander), on a
+voyage to the coast of West Africa. While the captain was on shore, the
+crew ran away with the ship, turned pirates, called their vessel the
+_Bravo_, and elected Power to be captain and sailed to the West Indies.
+Arrived there, he tried to sell his cargo of slaves, but being suspected
+of having stolen them, he thought it best to sail to New York. Here the
+pirates got ashore, but the ship's surgeon informed the authorities, and
+Power was arrested and sent to England, where he was tried, and hanged at
+Execution Dock on March 10th, 1768.
+
+
+PRICE, THOMAS.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. One of Major
+Stede Bonnet's crew.
+
+
+PRIMER, MATTHEW.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Turned King's evidence at the trial for
+piracy held at the Star Tavern, Boston, in June, 1704.
+
+
+PRINCE, CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.
+
+In 1760 this buccaneer sacked the city of Granada in company with Captains
+Harris and Ludbury. Late in the same year, Prince, with the rank of
+Lieut.-Colonel, led the vanguard in the attack on Panama.
+
+
+PRO, CAPTAIN.
+
+This Dutch South Sea pirate owned a small plantation in Madagascar, and
+was joined there by the pirate Williams after he had escaped from slavery.
+Both were taken prisoner by an English frigate. In a fight with the
+natives, the pirate crew was defeated, but Pro and Williams managed to
+escape and to reach some friendly natives. Procuring a boat, they sailed
+away to join some other pirates at Methulage in Madagascar.
+
+
+PROWSE, CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.
+
+A Devon man, a noted sea captain, and a terror to the Spaniards. Was
+imprisoned by King James I. at the instance of the King of Spain for
+piracy and was to have been executed, but English public feeling ran so
+high that Prowse was discharged.
+
+
+PULLING, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+Commanded the _Fame_, which set out in 1703 in company with Dampier in the
+_St. George_ on a plundering expedition to the South Seas. Their
+commissions were to attack only Spanish and French ships. The two
+captains quarrelled at the very beginning of the voyage, while lying off
+the Downs, and Pulling slipped away by himself to go a-pirating amongst
+the Canary Islands.
+
+
+PURSSER, CAPTAIN.
+
+In the sixteenth century this pirate became notorious for his piracies off
+the coast of Wales, and with Calles and Clinton, two other pirates, "grew
+famous, till Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory, hanged them at Wapping."
+
+
+QUELCH, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+A native of Massachusetts Colony.
+
+In 1703 was one of the crew of the brigantine _Charles_, eighty tons,
+owned by some leading citizens of Boston, and fitted out to go
+privateering off the coasts of Arcadia and Newfoundland. On leaving
+Marblehead the crew mutinied, locked the captain in his cabin, and elected
+Quelch their commander. They sailed to the south, and shortly afterwards
+threw the captain overboard. They hoisted a flag, the "Old Roger,"
+described as having "in the middle of it an Anatomy with an Hourglars in
+one hand and a dart in the Heart with three drops of Blood proceeding from
+it in the other." They took nine Portuguese vessels off the coast of
+Brazil, out of which they took plunder of very great value.
+
+Quelch now had the audacity to sail back to Marblehead, where his crew
+landed and quickly scattered with their plunder. Within a week Quelch was
+in gaol, and was taken to Boston, where his trial began on June 17th,
+1704, and he was found guilty. The days between the sentence and the
+execution must have, indeed, been trying for the prisoner. We read in a
+pamphlet published at the time: "The Ministers of the Town used more than
+ordinary Endeavours to Instruct the Prisoners and bring them to
+Repentance. There were Sermons Preached in their hearing Every Day, and
+Prayer daily made with them. And they were Catechised, and they had many
+occasional Exhortations. And nothing was left that could be done for their
+Good."
+
+On Friday, June 30th, 1704, Quelch and his companions marched on foot
+through the town of Boston to Scarlil's Wharf with a strong armed guard of
+musketeers, accompanied by various officials and two ministers, while in
+front was carried a silver oar, the emblem of a pirate's execution. Before
+the last act the minister gave a long and fervent harangue to the wretched
+culprits, in all of whom were observed suitable signs of repentance except
+Quelch, who, stepping forward on the platform, his hat in his hand, and
+bowing left and right to the spectators, gave a short address, in which he
+warned them "They should take care how they brought Money into New England
+to be Hanged for it."
+
+
+QUITTANCE, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew of the brigantine _Charles_. Tried with the
+rest of that crew at the Star Tavern at Boston in June, 1704.
+
+
+RACKAM, CAPTAIN JOHN, _alias_ CALICO JACK.
+
+Served as quartermaster in Captain Vane's company. On one occasion Vane
+refused to fight a big French ship, and in consequence was dismissed his
+ship and marooned on an uninhabited island off the coast of America, while
+the crew elected Rackam to be their captain in his place. This was on
+November 24th, 1718, and on the very first day of his command he had the
+good fortune to take and plunder several small vessels.
+
+Off the Island of Jamaica they took a Madeira ship, and found an old
+friend on board as a passenger--a Mr. Hosea Tisdell, who kept a tavern in
+the island, and they treated him with great respect.
+
+Christmas Day coming, the pirates landed on a small island to celebrate
+this festival in a thorough manner, carousing and drinking as long as the
+liquor lasted, when they sailed away to seek more. Their next prize was a
+strange one. On coming alongside a ship, she surrendered, and the pirates
+boarding her to examine her cargo, found it to consist of thieves from
+Newgate on their way to the plantations. Taking two more vessels, Rackam
+sailed to the Bahama Islands, but the Governor, Captain Woodes Rogers,
+sent a sloop, which took away their prizes.
+
+Rackam now sailed his ship to a snug little cove he knew of in Cuba, where
+he had more than one lady acquaintance. Here the pirates were very happy
+until all their provisions and money was spent. Just as they were about to
+sail, in comes a Spanish Guarda del Costa with a small English sloop which
+they had recently taken. Rackam was now in a very awkward position, being
+unable to get past the Spaniard, and all he could do was to hide behind a
+small island. Night came on, and when it was dark Rackam put all his crew
+into a boat, rowed quietly up to the sloop, clambered aboard, threatening
+instant death to the Spanish guards if they cried out, then cut the cables
+and sailed out of the bay. As soon as it was light the Spanish ship
+commenced a furious bombardment of Rackam's empty vessel, thinking he was
+still aboard her.
+
+In the summer of 1720 he took numbers of small vessels and fishing boats,
+but nothing very rich, and was not above stealing the fishermen's nets and
+landing and taking cattle. In October Rackam was chased near Nigril Bay by
+a Government sloop commanded by a Captain Barret. After a short fight
+Rackam surrendered, and was carried a prisoner to Port Royal.
+
+On November 16th Rackam and his crew were tried at St. Jago de la Vega,
+convicted and sentenced to death. Amongst the crew were two women dressed
+as men, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The former was married, in pirate
+fashion, to Rackam.
+
+On the morning of his execution Rackam was allowed, as a special favour,
+to visit his Anne, but all the comfort he got from her was "that she was
+sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a man, he need not have
+been hanged like a Dog."
+
+Rackam was hanged on November 17th, 1720, at Gallows Point, at Port Royal,
+Jamaica.
+
+
+RAPHAELINA, CAPTAIN.
+
+Much dreaded by the merchant sailors navigating the South Atlantic. In
+1822 he controlled a fleet of pirate vessels in the vicinity of Cape
+Antonio.
+
+
+RAYNER, CAPTAIN.
+
+In a letter to the Lords of Trade, dated from Philadelphia, February 28th,
+1701, William Penn mentions that several of Captain Kidd's men had settled
+as planters in Carolina with Rayner as their captain.
+
+
+RAYNOR, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+READ, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a brigantine which had its headquarters at Madagascar. Rescued
+the pirate Thomas White. Read died at sea.
+
+
+READ, MARY. Woman pirate.
+
+Born in London of obscure parentage; all that is known for certain is that
+her mother was a "young and airy widow." Mary was brought up as a boy, and
+at the age of 13 was engaged as a footboy to wait on a French lady. Having
+a roving spirit, Mary ran away and entered herself on board a man-of-war.
+Deserting a few years later, she enlisted in a regiment of foot and fought
+in Flanders, showing on all occasions great bravery, but quitted the
+service to enlist in a regiment of horse. Her particular comrade in this
+regiment was a Fleming, with whom she fell in love and disclosed to him
+the secret of her sex. She now dressed as a woman, and the two troopers
+were married, "which made a great noise," and several of her officers
+attended the nuptials. She and her husband got their discharge and kept an
+eating house or ordinary, the Three Horseshoes, near the Castle of Breda.
+The husband died, and Mary once again donned male attire and enlisted in a
+regiment in Holland. Soon tiring of this, she deserted, and shipped
+herself aboard a vessel bound for the West Indies. This ship was taken by
+an English pirate, Captain Rackam, and Mary joined his crew as a seaman.
+
+She was at New Providence Island, Bahama, when Woodes Rogers came there
+with the royal pardon to all pirates, and she shipped herself aboard a
+privateer sent out by Rogers to cruise against the Spaniards. The crew
+mutinied and again became pirates. She now sailed under Captain Rackam,
+who had with him another woman pirate, Anne Bonny. They took a large
+number of ships belonging to Jamaica, and out of one of these took
+prisoner "a young fellow of engaging behaviour" with whom Mary fell deeply
+in love. This young fellow had a quarrel with one of the pirates, and as
+the ship lay at anchor they were to go to fight it out on shore according
+to pirate law. Mary, to save her lover, picked a quarrel with the same
+pirate, and managed to have her duel at once, and fighting with sword and
+pistol killed him on the spot.
+
+She now married the young man "of engaging behaviour," and not long after
+was taken prisoner with Captain Rackam and the rest of the crew to
+Jamaica. She was tried at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica, and on November
+28th, 1720, was convicted, but died in prison soon after of a violent
+fever.
+
+That Mary Read was a woman of great spirit is shown by her reply to
+Captain Rackam, who had asked her (thinking she was a young man) what
+pleasure she could find in a life continually in danger of death by fire,
+sword, or else by hanging; to which Mary replied "that as to hanging, she
+thought it no great Hardship, for were it not for that, every cowardly
+Fellow would turn Pirate and so unfit the Seas, that Men of Courage must
+starve."
+
+
+READ, ROBERT.
+
+Tried for piracy with Gow's crew at Newgate in 1725, and acquitted.
+
+
+READ, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Londonderry, Ireland.
+
+One of Captain Harris's crew. Was hanged at Newport, Rhode Island, in
+1723, at the age of 35.
+
+
+READHEAD, PHILIP.
+
+One of Captain Heidon's crew of the pirate ship _John of Sandwich_,
+wrecked on Alderney Island in 1564. Was arrested and hanged at St.
+Martin's Point, Guernsey, in the same year.
+
+[Illustration: ANN BONNY AND MARY READ, CONVICTED OF PIRACY, NOVEMBER 28,
+1720, AT A COURT OF VICE-ADMIRALTY HELD AT ST. JAGO DE LA VEGA IN THE
+ISLAND OF JAMAICA.
+
+To face p. 256.]
+
+
+RHOADE, CAPTAIN JOHN.
+
+A Dutch coasting pilot of Boston.
+
+In 1674 appointed chief pilot to the Curacao privateer _Flying Horse_, and
+sailed along the coast of Maine and as far north as the St. John River.
+Afterwards attacked and plundered several small English craft occupied in
+bartering furs with the Indians. Condemned to be hanged at Cambridge,
+Massachusetts, in June, 1675.
+
+
+RICE, DAVID. Welsh pirate.
+
+Of Bristol.
+
+Taken out of the Cornwall galley by Captain Roberts, he served in the
+_Royal Fortune_. Tried and found guilty of piracy and condemned to death,
+but was reprieved and sold to the Royal African Company to serve for seven
+years in their plantations.
+
+
+RICE, OWEN. Welsh pirate.
+
+Of South Wales.
+
+Hanged at the age of 27 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Captain Charles
+Harris's crew.
+
+
+RICHARDS, LIEUTENANT.
+
+Lieutenant to Blackbeard on board the _Queen Ann's Revenge_. Cruised in
+the West Indies and along the coast of Carolina and Virginia.
+
+In 1717 Teach blockaded the harbour at Charleston and sent Richards with a
+party of pirates to the Governor to demand a medicine chest and all
+necessary medical supplies, with a threat that if these were not
+forthcoming he would cut the throats of all his prisoners, many of them
+the leading merchants of the town. While waiting for the Governor's reply,
+Richards and his companions scandalized the towns-folk of Charleston by
+their outrageous and swaggering conduct.
+
+
+RICHARDSON, JOHN.
+
+His father was a goldsmith at New York. John, tiring of the trade of
+cooper, to which he was apprenticed, ran away to sea. For many years he
+served both in men-of-war and in merchant ships. Although an unmitigated
+blackguard, he did not commit piracy nor murder until some years later,
+when, being at Ancona, he met a Captain Benjamin Hartley, who had come
+there with a loading of pilchards. Richardson was taken on board to serve
+as ship's carpenter, and sailed for Leghorn. With another sailor called
+Coyle, Richardson concocted a mutiny, murdered the captain in the most
+brutal manner, and was appointed mate in the pirate ship. As a pirate
+Richardson was beneath contempt. His life ended on the gallows at
+Execution Dock on January 25th, 1738.
+
+
+RICHARDSON, NICHOLAS.
+
+One of Captain Quelch's crew. Taken out of the brigantine _Charles_, and
+tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+RIDGE, JOHN.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
+Carolina.
+
+
+RINGROSE, BASIL. Buccaneer, pirate, and author.
+
+Sailed in 1679 to the West Indies. A year later Ringrose had joined the
+buccaneers at their rendezvous in the Gulf of Darien, where they were
+preparing for a bold enterprise on the Spanish Main. They landed and
+marched to the town of Santa Maria, which they plundered and burnt.
+Thence they travelled in canoes down the river to the Bay of Panama. After
+attacking the Spanish fleet and laying siege to the city, the buccaneers
+cruised up and down the West Coast of South America for eighteen months,
+sacking towns and attacking Spanish ships. All this while Ringrose kept a
+very full and graphic journal, in which he recorded not only their
+exploits, but also their hardships and quarrels, and gave descriptions as
+well of the various natives and their customs, and drew charts and
+sketches.
+
+In 1681 Ringrose was still with Captain Sharp, and sailed through the
+Straits of Magellan, and on January 30th of the same year anchored off
+Antigua. Here he got a passage in a ship to England, landing safely at
+Dartmouth on March 26th.
+
+A year later he published an account of his voyage, as a second volume to
+Esquemeling's, "Bucaniers of America." In 1684 he went to sea again in the
+_Cygnet_ (Captain Swan), to traffic with the Spanish colonies. But the
+Spaniards refused to trade with them. In October, 1684, they met the
+famous Captain Edward Davis at that favourite haunt of the buccaneers, the
+Isle of Plate. The two captains agreed to join forces and to go together
+"on the account," so all the cargo was thrown overboard the _Cygnet_, and
+the ships set out to make war on any Spanish ships they might meet with.
+
+In February, 1686, Ringrose with one hundred men took the town of Santiago
+in Mexico, but while returning with the plunder to their ship were caught
+by the Spaniards in an ambush, and Ringrose was killed.
+
+Ringrose never attained any rank among the buccaneers beyond occasionally
+being put in charge of a boat or a small company on shore, but as a
+recorder of the doings of his companions he proved both careful and
+painstaking. Dampier had a great regard for him, and in his book he
+writes: "My ingenious friend Ringrose had no mind to this voyage, but was
+necessitated to engage in it or starve."
+
+The title of Ringrose's book, first published in 1685, is "The Dangerous
+Voyage and Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others."
+
+Written by Mr. Basil Ringrose.
+
+Printed for William Crooke, 1685.
+
+
+ROACH, PETER.
+
+When Captain Quelch was captured with his crew, Roach escaped near the
+Cape by Snake Island. He was afterwards captured and thrown into the gaol
+at Salem. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern at Boston, and on June 30th,
+1704, was hanged. At the place of execution Roach disappointed the
+onlooking crowd, as, instead of the expected and hoped-for repentant
+speech, "he seemed little concerned, and said but little or nothing at
+all."
+
+
+ROB, ALEXANDER.
+
+One of Captain Gow's crew. Hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping, in June,
+1724. He was not one of the original crew of the _George_ galley, but was
+taken out of a prize and joined the pirates of his own free-will.
+
+
+ROBBINS, JAMES.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 along with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.
+
+
+ROBBINS, JAMES.
+
+Of London.
+
+One of the crew of the _Royal James_. Hanged in 1718 at Charleston, South
+Carolina.
+
+
+ROBERTS, CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW. Welsh pirate.
+
+Born 1682. Died 1722.
+
+If a pirate is to be reckoned by the amount of damage he does and the
+number of ships he takes there can be no doubt that Captain Roberts should
+be placed at the very head of his profession, for he is said to have taken
+over 400 vessels. The only man who can be said to rival him is Sir Henry
+Morgan, but Morgan, although in some ways an unmitigated blackguard, was a
+man of much greater breadth of outlook than Roberts ever was, and,
+moreover, was a buccaneer rather than a pirate.
+
+Roberts, like many other successful pirates, was born in Wales, not far
+from Haverfordwest. He is described as being "a tall black man," and was
+about 40 years of age at the time of his death. He was remarkable, even
+among his remarkable companions, for several things. First of all, he only
+drank tea--thus being the only total abstainer known to the fraternity.
+Also he was a strict disciplinarian, and on board his ships all lights had
+to be extinguished by 8 p.m., any of the crew who wished to continue
+drinking after that hour had to do so on the open deck. But try as he
+would this ardent apostle of abstemiousness was unable to put down
+drinking. If Roberts had lived to-day, no doubt he would have been on the
+council of the local vigilance committee. He would allow no women aboard
+his ships, in fact he made it a law that any man who brought a woman on
+board disguised as a man was to suffer death. Roberts allowed no games at
+cards or dice to be played for money, as he strongly disapproved of
+gambling. He was a strict Sabbatarian, and allowed the musicians to have a
+rest on the seventh day. This was as well, for the post of musician on a
+pirate ship was no sinecure, as every pirate had the right to demand a
+tune at any hour of the day or night. He used to place a guard to protect
+all his women prisoners, and it is sadly suspicious that there was always
+the greatest competition amongst the worst characters in the ship to be
+appointed sentinel over a good-looking woman prisoner. All quarrels had to
+be settled on shore, pirate fashion, the duellists standing back to back
+armed with pistol and cutlass. Roberts would have no fighting among the
+crew on board his ship.
+
+Bartholomew must have looked the very part of a pirate when dressed for
+action. A tall, dark man, he used to wear a rich damask waistcoat and
+breeches, a red feather in his cap, a gold chain round his neck with a
+large diamond cross dangling from it, a sword in his hand, and two pairs
+of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his shoulders.
+
+We first hear of Roberts as sailing, in honest employ, as master of the
+_Princess_ (Captain Plumb), from London in November, 1719, bound for the
+coast of Guinea to pick up a cargo of "black ivory" at Anamaboe. Here his
+ship was taken by the Welsh pirate Howel Davis. At first Roberts was
+disinclined for the pirate life, but soon changed his mind.
+
+On the death of Davis there were several candidates for the post of
+commander, all brisk and lively men, distinguished by the title of
+"Lords," such as Sympson, Ashplant, Anstis, and others. One of these
+"Lords," Dennis, concluded an eloquent harangue over a bowl of punch with
+a strong appeal for Roberts to be the new chief. This proposal was
+acclaimed with but one dissenting voice, that of "Lord" Sympson, who had
+hopes of being elected himself, and who sullenly left the meeting swearing
+"he did not care who they chose captain so it was not a papist." So
+Roberts was elected after being a pirate only six weeks; thus was true
+merit quickly appreciated and rewarded amongst them.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS.
+
+To face p. 262.]
+
+Roberts's speech to his fellow-pirates was short but to the point, saying
+"that since he had dipped his hands in muddy water, and must be a pyrate,
+it was better being a commander than a common man," not perhaps a graceful
+nor grateful way of expressing his thanks, but one which was no doubt
+understood by his audience.
+
+Roberts began his career in a bright manner, for to revenge the perfectly
+justifiable death of their late captain he seized and razed the fort,
+bombarded the town, and setting on fire two Portuguese ships so as to act
+as torches, sailed away the same night. Sailing to Brazil they found in
+the Bay of Bahia a fleet of forty-two Portuguese ships ready laden and on
+the point of leaving for Lisbon, and Roberts, with the most astounding
+boldness, sailed right in amongst them until he found the deepest laden,
+which he attacked and boarded, although his was a much smaller ship. He
+sailed away with his prize from the harbour. This prize, amongst the
+merchandise, contained 40,000 moidors and a cross of diamonds designed for
+the King of Portugal.
+
+He then took a Dutch ship, and two days later an English one, and sailed
+back to Brazil, refitting and cleaning at the Island of Ferdinando.
+
+In a work such as this is, it is impossible to recount all, or even a few,
+of the daring adventures, or the piratical ups and downs of one pirate.
+Roberts sailed to the West Indies devastating the commerce of Jamaica and
+Barbadoes. When things grew too hot there, he went north to Newfoundland,
+and played the very devil with the English and French fishing fleets and
+settlements.
+
+His first ship he called the _Fortune_, his next, a bigger ship, the
+_Royal Fortune_, another the _Good Fortune_.
+
+On two occasions Roberts had been very roughly handled, once by a ship
+from Barbadoes and once by the inhabitants of Martinica, so when he
+designed his new flag, he portrayed on it a huge figure of himself
+standing sword in hand upon two skulls, and under these were the letters
+A.B.H. and A.M.H., signifying a Barbadian's and a Martinican's head.
+
+In April, 1721, Roberts was back again on the Guinea Coast, burning and
+plundering. Amongst the prisoners he took out of one of his prizes was a
+clergyman. The captain dearly wished to have a chaplain on board his ship
+to administer to the spiritual welfare of his crew, and tried all he could
+to persuade the parson to sign on, promising him that his only duties
+should be to say prayers and make punch. But the prelate begged to be
+excused, and was at length allowed to go with all his belongings, except
+three prayer-books and a corkscrew--articles which were sorely needed
+aboard the _Royal Fortune_.
+
+The end of Roberts's career was now in sight. A King's ship, the _Swallow_
+(Captain Chaloner Ogle), discovered Roberts's ships at Parrot Island, and,
+pretending to fly from them, was followed out to sea by one of the
+pirates. A fight took place, and after two hours the pirates struck,
+flinging overboard their black flag "that it might not rise in Judgement
+over them." The _Swallow_ returned in a few days to Parrot Island to look
+for Roberts in the _Royal Fortune_. Roberts being at breakfast, enjoying a
+savoury dish of solomongundy, was informed of the approach of the ship,
+but refused to take any notice of it. At last, thoroughly alarmed, he cut
+his cables and sailed out, but most of his crew being drunk, even at this
+early hour, the pirates did not make as good a resistance as if they had
+been sober. Early in the engagement Roberts was hit in the throat by a
+grape-shot and killed; this being on February 10th, 1722. His body, fully
+dressed, with his arms and ornaments, was thrown overboard according to
+his repeated request made during his lifetime. Thus the arch-pirate died,
+as he always said he wished to die, fighting. His motto had always been "A
+short life and a merry one." One good word can be said for Roberts, that
+he never forced a man to become a pirate against his wish.
+
+
+ROBERTS, OWEN. Welsh pirate.
+
+Carpenter in the _Queen Ann's Revenge_, and killed on November 22nd, 1718,
+off the North Carolina Coast.
+
+
+ROBINSON, EDWARD.
+
+Of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
+
+Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+ROCHE, CAPTAIN PHILIP, _alias_ JOHN EUSTACE.
+
+In company with three other mariners--Cullen, Wife, and Neale--this Irish
+pirate shipped himself on board a French snow at Cork in November, 1721,
+for a passage to Nantes. Owing to Roche's briskness, genteel manners, and
+knowledge of navigation, the master used occasionally to place him in
+charge of the vessel. One night a few days out a pre-arranged mutiny took
+place, the French crew being butchered and thrown overboard. The captain,
+who pleaded for mercy, was also thrown into the sea. Driven by bad weather
+to Dartmouth, the new captain, Roche, had the ship repainted and
+disguised, and renamed her the _Mary_. Then sailing to Rotterdam he sold
+the cargo of beef and took on a fresh cargo with the owner, Mr. Annesly.
+The first night out of port they threw Mr. Annesly overboard, and he swam
+alongside for some while pleading to be taken in. On going into a French
+port, and hearing that an enquiry was being made about his ship, Roche ran
+away. The crew took the ship to Scotland, and there landed and
+disappeared, and the ship was seized and taken to the Thames.
+
+Later on Roche was arrested in London and committed to Newgate Prison,
+found guilty of piracy, and hanged on August 5th, 1723, at Execution Dock,
+at the age of 30. The hanging was not, from the public spectators point of
+view, a complete success, for the culprit "was so ill at the time that he
+could not make any public declaration of his abhorrence of the crime for
+which he suffered."
+
+
+RODERIGO, PETER.
+
+A "Flanderkin."
+
+Commanded a Dutch vessel, the _Edward and Thomas_, that sailed from Boston
+in 1674, and took several small English vessels along the coast of Maine.
+Tried for piracy at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and condemned to be hanged,
+but was afterwards pardoned.
+
+
+ROGERS, CAPTAIN THOMAS.
+
+Commanded a ship, the _Forlorn_. Routed the Spaniards at Venta Cruz in
+1671. One of Morgan's captains in his attack on Panama.
+
+
+ROGERS, CAPTAIN WOODES.
+
+As the life of this famous navigator and privateer is, very justly,
+treated fully in the "Dictionary of National Biography" it is unnecessary
+to mention more than a few incidents in his adventurous career. Woodes
+Rogers was not only a good navigator, for on many occasions he showed a
+remarkable gift for commanding mutinous crews in spite of having many
+officers on whom he could place little reliance. On leaving Cork in 1708,
+after an incompetent pilot had almost run his ship on two rocks off
+Kinsale called "The Sovereigne's Bollacks," Rogers describes his crew
+thus: "A third were foreigners, while of Her Majestie's subjects many were
+taylors, tinkers, pedlars, fiddlers, and hay-makers, with ten boys and one
+negro." It was with crews such as these that many of the boldest and most
+remarkable early voyages were made, and they required a man of Woodes
+Rogers stamp to knock them into sailors. Rogers had a gift for inspiring
+friendship wherever he went. On arriving at the coast of Brazil, his boat
+was fired on when trying to land at Angre de Reys. This settlement had but
+lately received several hostile visitors in the way of French pirates. But
+before a week was passed Woodes Rogers had so won the hearts of the
+Portuguese Governor and the settlers that he and his "musick" were invited
+to take part in an important religious function, or "entertainment," as
+Rogers calls it, "where," he says, "we waited on the Governour, Signior
+Raphael de Silva Lagos, in a body, being ten of us, with two trumpets and
+a hautboy, which he desir'd might play us to church, where our musick did
+the office of an organ, but separate from the singing, which was by the
+fathers well perform'd. Our musick played 'Hey, boys, up go we!' and all
+manner of noisy paltry tunes. And after service, our musicians, who were
+by that time more than half drunk, march'd at the head of the company;
+next to them an old father and two fryars carrying lamps of incense, then
+an image dressed with flowers and wax candles, then about forty priests,
+fryars, etc., followed by the Governor of the town, myself, and Capt.
+Courtney, with each of us a long wax candle lighted. The ceremony held
+about two hours; after which we were splendidly entertained by the
+fathers of the Convent, and then by the Governour. They unanimously told
+us they expected nothing from us but our Company, and they had no more but
+our musick."
+
+What a delightful picture this calls to the mind--the little Brazilian
+town, the tropical foliage, the Holy Procession, "wax figure" and priests,
+followed by the Governor with an English buccaneer on either side, and
+headed by a crew of drunken Protestant English sailors playing "Hey, boys,
+up go we!"
+
+Rogers, not to be outdone in hospitality, next day entertained the
+Governor and fathers on board the _Duke_, "when," he says, "they were very
+merry, and in their cups propos'd the Pope's health to us. But we were
+quits with 'em by toasting the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to keep up
+the humour, we also proposed William Pen's health, and they liked the
+liquor so well, that they refused neither." Alas! the good Governor and
+the fathers were not in a fit state to leave the ship when the end came to
+the entertainment, so slept on board, being put ashore in the morning,
+"when we saluted 'em with a huzza from each ship, because," as Rogers
+says, "we were not overstocked with powder."
+
+It was in March, 1710, that Rogers brought his little fleet into the
+harbour of Guam, one of the Ladrone Islands. Although at war with Spain,
+the captain soon became on his usual friendly terms with the Governor of
+this Spanish colony, and gave an entertainment on board his ship to him
+and four other Spanish gentlemen, making them "as welcome as time and
+place would afford, with musick and our sailors dancing." The Governor
+gave a return party on shore, to which Rogers and all his brother officers
+were invited, partaking of "sixty dishes of various sorts." After this
+feast Rogers gave his host a present, consisting of "two negro boys
+dress'd in liveries." One other instance of Woodes Rogers adaptability
+must suffice. In the year 1717 he was appointed Governor to the Bahama
+Islands, at New Providence, now called Nassau. His chief duty was to stamp
+out the West India pirates who had made this island their headquarters for
+many years, and were in complete power there, and numbered more than 2,000
+desperadoes, including such famous men as Vane and Teach. Rogers's only
+weapon, besides the man-of-war he arrived in, was a royal proclamation
+from King George offering free pardon to all pirates or buccaneers who
+would surrender at once to the new Governor. At first the pirates were
+inclined to resist his landing, but in the end the tactful Rogers got his
+own way, and not only landed, but was received by an armed guard of
+honour, and passed between two lines of pirates who fired salutes with
+their muskets.
+
+Most of the pirates surrendered and received their pardons, but some, who
+reverted shortly afterwards to piracy and were captured and brought back
+to New Providence, were tried and actually hanged by Rogers's late
+buccaneer subjects.
+
+Woodes Rogers eventually died in Nassau in the year 1729.
+
+He was the author of a delightful book entitled "A Cruising Voyage Round
+the World, begun in 1708 and finish'd in 1711, by Captain Woodes Rogers,
+Commander-in-Chief on this Expedition, with the ships _Duke_ and _Duchess_
+of Bristol."
+
+This was published in London in 1712.
+
+
+ROLLSON, PETER.
+
+Captain Gow's gunner in the _Revenge_. Hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping,
+in June, 1725.
+
+
+ROSS, GEORGE, or ROSE.
+
+Of Glasgow.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal James_. Was hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718, and buried in the marsh
+below low-water mark.
+
+
+ROSSOE, FRANCIS.
+
+In June, 1717, in company with four other Carolina pirates, was placed on
+trial for his life. Convicted with De Cossey, De Mont, and Ernandos, of
+piratically taking the vessels the _Turtle Dove_, the _Penelope_, and the
+_Virgin Queen_ in July of the previous year, and, after being sentenced to
+death by Judge Trott, Rossoe and his fellow-pirates were promptly
+executed.
+
+
+ROUNDSIVEL, CAPTAIN GEORGE.
+
+Of the Bahama Islands.
+
+He refused to avail himself of King George's pardon to all pirates in
+1717, and went off again on the "main chance" till captured.
+
+
+ROW, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1679, at the Boca del Toro, was with the buccaneer fleet that attacked
+and sacked Santa Maria. Row commanded a small vessel of twenty tons, a
+crew of twenty-five men, and no guns.
+
+
+RUIZ.
+
+One of Captain Gilbert's crew in the pirate schooner _Panda_, which
+plundered the Salem brig _Mexican_ in 1834. Tried in Boston and condemned
+to be hanged. Pleading insanity, he was respited for sixty days and then
+hanged on September 12th, 1835.
+
+
+RUPERT. Prince of the Rhine.
+
+After an adventurous life as a soldier on the Continent, he sailed from
+Ireland in 1648 with seven ships. His own ship was the _Swallow_. He was a
+man of boundless energy, who was never happy if not engaged in some
+enterprise, and as legitimate warfare gave him few opportunities he turned
+pirate. He spent five years at sea, largely in the West Indies, meeting
+with every kind of adventure.
+
+In 1653 he was caught in a storm in the Virgin Islands, and his fleet was
+wrecked. His brother, Prince Maurice, was lost with his ship, the
+_Defiance_, the only ship saved being the _Swallow_. Prince Rupert
+returned in the _Swallow_ to France in the same year. Hitherto the prince
+had been a restless, clever man, "very sparkish in his dress," but this
+catastrophe to his fleet and the loss of his brother broke his spirit, and
+he retired to England, where he died in his bed in 1682 at Spring Gardens.
+
+
+LE SAGE, CAPTAIN. French filibuster.
+
+In 1684 was at San Domingo, in command of the _Tigre_, carrying thirty
+guns and a crew of 130 men.
+
+
+SALTER, EDWARD.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.
+
+
+SAMPLE, CAPTAIN RICHARD. Buccaneer.
+
+Was at New Providence Island in 1718, and received the royal pardon from
+King George, offered to those pirates who surrendered themselves to
+Governor Woodes Rogers. Like many another, he fell again into his former
+wicked ways, and ended his life by being hanged.
+
+
+SAMPLE, CAPTAIN ROBERT.
+
+One of England's crew in the _Royal James_. In 1720 they took a prize, the
+_Elizabeth and Katherine_, off the coast of West Africa. Fitting her out
+for a pirate, they named her the _Flying King_, and Sample was put in
+command. In company with Captain Low, he sailed to Brazil and did much
+mischief amongst the Portuguese shipping. In November of the same year the
+two pirate ships were attacked by a very powerful man-of-war. Lane got
+away, but Sample was compelled to run his ship ashore on the coast. Of his
+crew of seventy men, twelve were killed and the rest taken prisoners, of
+whom the Portuguese hanged thirty-eight. Of these, thirty-two were
+English, three Dutch, two French, and one Portuguese.
+
+
+SANDERS, THOMAS.
+
+An Elizabethan mariner who was taken prisoner by the Moors. He wrote a
+narrative of his life as a slave on a Barbary pirate galley.
+
+"I and sixe more of my fellowes," he wrote, "together with four-score
+Italians and Spaniards, were sent foorth in a Galeot to take a Greekish
+Carmosell, which came into Africa to steale Negroes. We were chained three
+and three to an oare, and we rowed naked above the girdle, and the
+Boteswaine of the Galley walked abaft the masts, and his Mate afore the
+maste ... and when their develish choller rose, they would strike the
+Christians for no cause. And they allowed us but halfe a pound of bread a
+man in a day without any other kind of sustenance, water excepted.... We
+were then so cruelly manackled in such sort, that we could not put our
+hands the length of one foote asunder the one from the other, and every
+night they searched our chains three times, to see if they were fast
+riveted."
+
+
+SAWKINS, CAPTAIN RICHARD. Buccaneer.
+
+We know little of the early career of this remarkable buccaneer. He was
+loved by his crew, and had great influence over them. It is recorded that
+one Sunday morning, finding some of his men gambling, he threw the dice
+overboard, saying "he would have no gambling aboard his ship."
+
+We know that on one occasion he was caught in his vessel by H.M.S.
+_Success_ and brought to Port Royal, Jamaica, and that on December 1st,
+1679, he was in prison awaiting trial for piracy. Apparently he got off,
+for this brilliant young buccaneer is soon afterwards heard of as
+commanding a small vessel of sixteen tons, armed with but one gun and a
+crew of thirty-five men. He was one of a party of 330 buccaneers who,
+under the leadership of Coxon and Sharp, landed on the coast of Darien and
+marched through the jungle to attack and plunder the town of Santa Maria.
+The remainder of the journey across the isthmus was done in canoes, in
+which the pirates travelled down the Santa Maria River until they found
+themselves in the Pacific. On this expedition each captain had his company
+and had his own colours, Sawkins's flag being a red one with yellow
+stripes. Arrived at the sea, they captured two small Spanish vessels, and,
+the rest of the company being in the canoes, they boldly sailed towards
+Panama City. Meeting with the Spanish fleet of eight ships, the buccaneers
+attacked it, and, after a most furious battle, came off victorious. This
+was one of the most gallant episodes in the whole history of the "brethren
+of the coast," and was afterwards known as the Battle of Perico. Sawkins
+fought in the most brave and desperate manner, and took a large share in
+the successful enterprise. After this action some quarrelling took place,
+which ended by Captain Coxon going off with some seventy men, to return
+across the isthmus on foot. The company that remained in the Pacific
+elected Sawkins to be their leader, as Captain Sharp, a much older man,
+was away in his ship.
+
+The buccaneers, ever since they defeated the Spanish fleet, had blockaded
+the harbour, and a correspondence took place between the Governor of
+Panama and Sawkins, the former wishing to know what the pirates had come
+there for. To this message Sawkins sent back answer "that we came to
+assist the King of Darien, who was the true Lord of Panama and all the
+country thereabouts. And that since we were come so far, there was no
+reason but that we should have some satisfaction. So that if he pleased to
+send us five hundred pieces of eight for each man, and one thousand for
+each commander, and not any farther to annoy the Indians, but suffer them
+to use their own power and liberty, as became the true and natural lords
+of the country, that then we would desist from all further hostilities,
+and go away peaceably; otherwise that we should stay there, and get what
+we could, causing to them what damage was possible."
+
+This message was just bluff on Sawkins's part, but having heard that the
+Bishop of Santa Martha was in the city, Sawkins sent him two loaves of
+sugar as a present, and reminded the prelate that he had been his prisoner
+five years before, when Sawkins took that town. Further messengers
+returned from Panama next day, bringing a gold ring for Sawkins from the
+well-disposed Bishop, and a message from the Governor, in which he
+inquired "from whom we had our commission and to whom he ought to complain
+for the damage we had already done them?" To this Sawkins sent back answer
+"that as yet all his company were not come together; but that when they
+were come up we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our
+commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read them
+as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them."
+
+After lying off Panama for some while without meeting with any plunder,
+and their victuals running short, the crews began to grumble, and
+persuaded Sawkins to sail south along the coast. This he did, and,
+arriving off the town of Puebla Nueva on May 22nd, 1679, Sawkins landed a
+party of sixty men and led them against the town. But the Spaniards had
+been warned in time, and had built up three strong breastworks.
+
+Sawkins, who never knew what fear meant, stormed the town at the head of
+his men, but was killed by a musket-ball.
+
+Basil Ringrose, the buccaneer who wrote the narrative of this voyage,
+describes Sawkins as being "a man who was as valiant and courageous as any
+man could be, and the best beloved of all our company"; and on another
+occasion he speaks of him as "a man whom nothing on earth could terrifie."
+
+
+SAWNEY, CAPTAIN.
+
+A pirate of New Providence Island in the Bahamas. In this pirate republic
+this old man lived in the best hut, and was playfully known as "Governor
+Sawney."
+
+
+DE SAYAS, FRANCISCO.
+
+A Spanish pirate hanged at Kingston, Jamaica, in 1823.
+
+
+SCOT, LEWIS.
+
+Distinguished as being the first pirate to carry on the trade on land as
+well as at sea. Before this time pirates were never known to be anything
+but harmless drunkards when on shore, whatever they might be on board
+their ships. Scot changed all this when he sacked and pillaged the city of
+Campeachy. So successful was he that his example was quickly followed by
+Mansfield, John Davis, and other pirates.
+
+
+SCOT, ROGER.
+
+Born at Bristol.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's crew. Tried for piracy in April, 1722, at Cape
+Coast Castle, West Africa, after the great defeat of the pirates by H.M.S.
+_Swallow_. On this occasion no less than 267 pirates were accounted for.
+The finding of the Honourable the President and Judges of the Court of
+Admiralty for trying of pirates was as follows:
+
+  Acquitted                                 74
+  Executed                                  52
+  Respited                                   2
+  To Servitude                              20
+  To the Marshallsea                        17 for tryal
+
+The rest were accounted for as follows:
+
+  Killed { In the _Ranger_                  10
+         { In the _Fortune_                  3
+    Dy'd { In the passage to Cape Corso     15
+         { Afterwards in the castle          4
+  Negroes in both ships                     70
+                                          ----
+                                           267
+                                          ----
+
+A number of the prisoners signed a "humble petition" begging that, as
+they, being "unhappily and unwisely drawn into that wretched and
+detestable Crime of Piracy," they might be permitted to serve in the Royal
+African Company in the country for seven years, in remission of their
+crimes. This clemency was granted to twenty of the prisoners, of which
+Scot was one.
+
+A very impressive indenture was drawn up, according to which the prisoners
+were to become the slaves of the Company for seven years, and this was
+signed by the prisoners and by the President.
+
+
+SCOTT, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew in the _Royal James_. Tried for piracy in
+1718 at Charleston, South Carolina, and hanged at White Point on November
+8th.
+
+
+SCUDAMORE, CHRISTOPHER.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew. Tried for piracy at the Star Tavern in
+Hanover Street, Boston, in 1704, and hanged on Charles River, Boston Side,
+on June 30th. A report of the trial and execution of these pirates,
+describing Scudamore's conduct on the gallows, says: "He appeared very
+Penitent since his Condemnation, was very diligent to improve his time
+going to, and at the place of Execution."
+
+
+SCUDAMORE, PETER.
+
+Belonging to Bristol.
+
+Surgeon in the _Mercy_ galley, and taken by Captain Roberts in 1721. It
+was a rule on all pirate vessels for the surgeon to be excused from
+signing the ship's articles. When the next prize was taken, if she carried
+a surgeon, he was taken in place of their present one, if the latter
+wished to leave. But when Scudamore came on board the _Royal Fortune_ he
+insisted on signing the pirate articles and boasted that he was the first
+surgeon that had ever done so, and he hoped, he said, to prove as great a
+rogue as any of them.
+
+When the African Company's Guinea ship, the _King Solomon_, was taken,
+Scudamore came aboard and helped himself to their surgeon's instruments
+and medicines. He also took a fancy for a backgammon board, but only kept
+it after a violent quarrel with another pirate. It came out at his trial
+that on a voyage from the Island of St. Thomas, in a prize, the _Fortune_,
+in which was a cargo of slaves, Scudamore had tried to bring about a
+mutiny of the blacks to kill the prize crew which was on board, and he was
+detected in the night going about amongst the negroes, talking to them in
+the Angolan language. He said that he knew enough about navigation to sail
+the ship himself, and he was heard to say that "this were better than to
+be taken to Cape Corso to be hanged and sun dried."
+
+The same witness told how he had approached the prisoner when he was
+trying to persuade a wounded pirate, one James Harris, to join him in his
+scheme, but fearing to be overheard, Scudamore turned the conversation to
+horse-racing.
+
+Scudamore was condemned to death, but allowed three days' grace before
+being hanged, which he spent in incessant prayers and reading of the
+Scriptures. On the gallows he sang, solo, the Thirty-first Psalm. Died at
+the age of 35.
+
+
+SEARLES, CAPTAIN ROBERT.
+
+In 1664 he brought in two Spanish prizes to Port Royal, but as orders had
+only lately come from England to the Governor to do all in his power to
+promote friendly relations with the Spanish islands, these prizes were
+returned to their owners. To prevent Searle's doing such things again, he
+was deprived of his ship's rudder and sails. In 1666, Searle, in company
+with a Captain Stedman and a party of only eighty men, took the Island of
+Tobago, near Trinidad, from the Dutch, destroying everything they could
+not carry away.
+
+
+SELKIRK, ALEXANDER. The original Robinson Crusoe.
+
+Born in 1676 at Largo in Fifeshire, he was the seventh son of John
+Selcraig, a shoemaker. In 1695 he was cited to appear before the Session
+for "indecent conduct in church," but ran away to sea. In 1701 he was back
+again in Largo, and was rebuked in the face of the congregation for
+quarrelling with his brothers. A year later Selkirk sailed to England, and
+in 1703 joined Dampier's expedition to the South Seas. Appointed
+sailing-master to the _Cinque Ports_, commanded by Captain Stradling.
+
+In September, 1704, he arrived at the uninhabited island of Juan
+Fernandez, in the South Pacific. Selkirk, having quarrelled with the
+captain, insisted on being landed on the island with all his belongings.
+He lived alone here for nearly four years, building himself two cabins,
+hunting the goats which abounded, and taming young goats and cats to be
+his companions.
+
+On the night of January 31st, 1709, seeing two ships, Selkirk lit a fire,
+and a boat was sent ashore. These ships were the _Duke_ and _Duchess_ of
+Bristol, under the command of Captain Woodes Rogers, while his old friend
+Dampier was acting as pilot. Selkirk was at once appointed sailing-master
+of the _Duchess_, and eventually arrived back in the Thames on October
+14th, 1711, with booty worth £800, having been away from England for eight
+years. While in England he met Steele, who described Selkirk as a "man of
+good sense, with strong but cheerful expression." Whether Selkirk ever met
+Defoe is uncertain, though the character of Robinson Crusoe was certainly
+founded on his adventures in Juan Fernandez. In 1712 he returned to Largo,
+living the life of a recluse, and we must be forgiven for suspecting that
+he rather acted up to the part, since it is recorded that he made a cave
+in his father's garden in which to meditate. This life of meditation in an
+artificial cave was soon rudely interrupted by the appearance of a certain
+Miss Sophia Bonce, with whom Selkirk fell violently in love, and they
+eloped together to Bristol, which must have proved indeed a sad scandal to
+the elders and other godly citizens of Largo. Beyond the fact that he was
+charged at Bristol with assaulting one Richard Nettle, a shipwright, we
+hear no more of Selkirk until his first will was drawn up in 1717, in
+which he leaves his fortune and house to "my loving friend Sophia Bonce,
+of the Pall Mall, London, Spinster." Shortly after this, Alexander basely
+deserted his loving friend and married a widow, one Mrs. Francis Candis,
+at Oarston in Devon.
+
+In 1720 he was appointed mate to H.M.S. _Weymouth_, on board of which he
+died a year later at the age of 45.
+
+Selkirk is immortalized in literature, not only by Defoe, but by Cowper in
+his "Lines on Solitude," beginning: "I am monarch of all I survey."
+
+
+SHARP, ROWLAND.
+
+Of Bath Town in North Carolina.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried for piracy at Charleston in 1718
+and found "not guilty."
+
+
+SHASTER, ROGER.
+
+One of Captain Heidon's crew of the pirate ship _John of Sandwich_, which
+was wrecked on the coast of Alderney. Shaster was arrested and hanged at
+St. Martin's Point, Guernsey, in 1564.
+
+
+SHAW, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain Lowther's crew. Hanged at St. Kitts on March 11th, 1722.
+
+
+SHERGALL, HENRY, or SHERRAL. Buccaneer.
+
+A seaman with Captain Bartholomew Sharp in his South Sea voyage. One
+October day he fell into the sea while going into the spritsail-top and
+was drowned. "This incident several of our company interpreted as a bad
+omen, which proved not so, through the providence of the Almighty."
+
+
+SHIRLEY, SIR ANTHONY.
+
+In January, 1597, headed an expedition to the Island of Jamaica. He met
+with little opposition from the Spaniards, and seized and plundered St.
+Jago de la Vega.
+
+
+SHIVERS, CAPTAIN.
+
+This South Sea pirate cruised in company with Culliford and Nathaniel
+North in the Red Sea, preying principally on Moorish ships, and also
+sailed about the Indian Ocean as far as the Malacca Islands. He accepted
+the royal pardon to pirates, which was brought out to Madagascar by
+Commodore Littleton, and apparently gave up his wicked ways thereafter.
+
+
+SHUTFIELD, WILLIAM.
+
+Of Lancaster.
+
+Hanged at Rhode Island in July, 1723, at the age of 40.
+
+
+SICCADAM, JOHN.
+
+Of Boston.
+
+One of Captain Pound's crew. Found guilty of piracy, but pardoned.
+
+
+SIMMS, HENRY, _alias_ "GENTLEMAN HARRY." Pickpocket, highwayman, pirate,
+and Old Etonian.
+
+Born in 1716 at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Sent while quite young to
+school at Eton, where he "shewed an early inclination to vice," and at the
+age of 14 was taken from school and apprenticed to a breeches-maker. No
+Old Etonian, either then or now, would stand that kind of treatment, so
+Simms ran away, becoming a pickpocket and later a highwayman. After
+numerous adventures and escapes from prison, he was pressed on board
+H.M.S. _Rye_, but he deserted his ship at Leith. After an "affair" at
+Croydon, Simms was transplanted with other convicts to Maryland, in the
+_Italian Merchant_. On the voyage he attempted, but without success, to
+raise a mutiny. On his arrival in America he was sold to the master of the
+_Two Sisters_, which was taken a few days out from Maryland by a Bayonne
+pirate. Carried to Spain, Simms got to Oporto, and there was pressed on
+board H.M.S. _King Fisher_. Eventually he reached Bristol, where he
+bought, with his share of booty, a horse and two pistols, with which to go
+on the highway.
+
+Hanged on June 17th, 1747, for stealing an old silver watch and 5s. from
+Mr. Francis Sleep at Dunstable.
+
+
+SKIPTON, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded a pirate ship, in which he sailed in company with Captain
+Spriggs. Being chased by H.M.S. _Diamond_ off the coast of Cuba, Skipton
+ran his sloop on to the Florida Reef. Escaping with his crew to an island,
+they were attacked by the Indians, and many of them were captured and
+eaten. The survivors, embarking in a canoe, were caught by the man-of-war
+and taken prisoner.
+
+
+SKYRM, CAPTAIN JAMES. Welsh pirate.
+
+Hanged at the advanced age--for a pirate--of 44.
+
+Commanded the _Ranger_, one of Captain Roberts's ships that cruised in
+1721 and 1722 off the West Coast of Africa. In the fight with the King's
+ship that took him he was very active with a drawn sword in his hand, with
+which he beat any of his crew who were at all backward. One of his legs
+was shot away in this action, but he refused to leave the deck and go
+below as long as the action lasted. He was condemned to death and hanged
+in chains.
+
+
+SMITH, GEORGE. Welsh pirate.
+
+One of Captain Roberts's pirates. Hanged at the age of 25.
+
+
+SMITH, JOHN.
+
+One of the mutinous crew of the _Antonio_. Hanged at Boston in 1672.
+
+
+SMITH, JOHN WILLIAMS.
+
+Of Charleston, Carolina.
+
+Hanged in 1718 for piracy, at Charleston.
+
+
+SMITH, MAJOR SAMUEL. Buccaneer.
+
+At one time a buccaneer with the famous Mansfield.
+
+In 1641 he was sent, by the Governor of Jamaica, with a party to reinforce
+the troops which under Mansfield had recaptured the New Providence Island
+from the Spanish. In 1660 he was taken prisoner by the Spanish and carried
+to Panama and there kept in chains in a dungeon for seventeen months.
+
+
+DE SOTO, BERNADO.
+
+One of the crew of the schooner _Panda_ that took and plundered the Salem
+brig _Mexican_. The crew of the _Panda_ were captured by an English
+man-of-war and taken to Boston. De Soto was condemned to death, but
+eventually fully pardoned owing to his heroic conduct in rescuing the crew
+of an American vessel some time previously.
+
+
+DE SOTO, CAPTAIN BENITO.
+
+A Portuguese.
+
+A most notorious pirate in and about 1830.
+
+In 1827 he shipped at Buenos Ayres as mate in a slaver, named the
+_Defenser de Pedro_, and plotted to seize the ship off the African coast.
+The pirates took the cargo of slaves to the West Indies, where they sold
+them. De Soto plundered many vessels in the Caribbean Sea, then sailed to
+the South Atlantic, naming his ship the _Black Joke_. The fear of the
+_Black Joke_ became so great amongst the East Indiamen homeward bound that
+they used to make up convoys at St. Helena before heading north.
+
+In 1832 de Soto attacked the _Morning Star_, an East Indiaman, and took
+her, when he plundered the ship and murdered the captain. After taking
+several more ships, de Soto lost his own on the rocky coast of Spain, near
+Cadiz. His crew, although pretending to be honest shipwrecked sailors,
+were arrested, but de Soto managed to escape to Gibraltar. Here he was
+recognized by a soldier who had seen de Soto when he took the _Morning
+Star_, in which he had been a passenger. The pirate was arrested, and
+tried before Sir George Don, the Governor of Gibraltar, and sentenced to
+death. He was sent to Cadiz to be hanged with the rest of his crew. The
+gallows was erected at the water's edge, and de Soto, with his coffin, was
+conveyed there in a cart. He died bravely, arranging the noose around his
+own neck, stepping up into his coffin to do so; then, crying out, "Adios
+todos," he threw himself off the cart.
+
+This man must not be confused with one Bernado de Soto, who was tried for
+piracy at Boston in 1834.
+
+
+SOUND, JOSEPH.
+
+Of the city of Westminster.
+
+Hanged, at the age of 28, at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1723.
+
+
+SPARKS, JAMES.
+
+A Newfoundland fisherman.
+
+In August, 1723, with John Phillips and three others, ran away with a
+vessel to go "on the account." Sparks was appointed gunner.
+
+
+SPARKES, JOHN.
+
+A member of Captain Avery's crew, and described by one of his shipmates as
+being "a true cock of the game." A thief, he robbed his fellow-shipmates,
+and from one, Philip Middleton, he stole 270 pieces of gold.
+
+Hanged at Execution Dock in 1696.
+
+
+SPRATLIN, ROBERT.
+
+Was one of Dampier's party which in 1681 crossed the Isthmus of Darien,
+when he was left behind in the jungle with Wafer. Spratlin was lost when
+the little party attempted to ford the swollen Chagres River. He
+afterwards rejoined Wafer.
+
+
+SPRIGGS, CAPTAIN FRANCIS FARRINGTON.
+
+An uninteresting and bloody pirate without one single redeeming character.
+
+He learnt his art with the pirate Captain Lowther, afterwards serving as
+quartermaster with Captain Low and taking an active part in all the
+barbarities committed by the latter.
+
+About 1720 Low took a prize, a man-of-war called the _Squirrel_. This he
+handed over to some of the crew, who elected Spriggs their captain. The
+ship they renamed the _Delight_, and in the night altered their course and
+left Low. They made a flag, bearing upon it a white skeleton, holding in
+one hand a dart striking a bleeding heart, and in the other an hourglass.
+Sailing to the West Indies, Spriggs took several prizes, treating the
+crews with abominable cruelty. On one occasion the pirates chased what
+they believed to be a Spanish ship, and after a long while they came
+alongside and fired a broadside into her. The ship immediately
+surrendered, and turned out to be a vessel the pirate had plundered only a
+few days previously. This infuriated Spriggs and his crew, who showed
+their disappointment by half murdering the captain. After a narrow escape
+from being captured by a French man-of-war near the Island of St. Kitts,
+Spriggs sailed north to the Summer Isles, or Bermudas. Taking a ship
+coming from Rhode Island, they found her cargo to consist of horses.
+Several of the pirates mounted these and galloped up and down the deck
+until they were thrown. While plundering several small vessels of their
+cargo of logwood in the Bay of Honduras, Spriggs was surprised and
+attacked by an English man-of-war, and the pirates only escaped by using
+their sweeps. Spriggs now went for a cruise off the coast of South
+Carolina, returning again to Honduras. This was a rash proceeding on
+Spriggs's part, for as he was sailing off the west end of Cuba he again
+met the man-of-war which had so nearly caught him before in the bay.
+Spriggs clapped on all sail, but ran his ship on Rattan Island, where she
+was burnt by the _Spence_, while Captain Spriggs and his crew escaped to
+the woods.
+
+
+SPRINGER, CAPTAIN.
+
+He fought gallantly with Sawkins and Ringrose in the Battle of Perico off
+Panama on St. George's Day in 1680. He gave his name to Springer's Cay,
+one of the Samballoes Islands. This was the rendezvous chosen by the
+pirates, where Dampier and his party found the French pirate ship that
+rescued them after their famous trudge across the Isthmus of Darien.
+
+
+STANLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+With a few other buccaneers in their stronghold at New Providence Island
+in 1660, withstood an attack by a Spanish fleet for five days. The three
+English captains, Stanley, Sir Thomas Whetstone, and Major Smith, were
+carried to Panama and there cast into a dungeon and bound in irons for
+seventeen months.
+
+
+STEDMAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+In 1666, with Captain Searle and a party of only eighty men, he took and
+plundered the Dutch island of Tobago. Later on, after the outbreak of war
+with France, he was captured by a French frigate off the Island of
+Guadeloupe. Stedman had a small vessel and a crew of only 100 men, and
+found himself becalmed and unable to escape, so he boldly boarded the
+Frenchman and fought for two hours, being finally overcome.
+
+
+STEPHENS, WILLIAM.
+
+Died on January 14th, 1682, on board of Captain Sharp's ship a few days
+before their return to the Barbadoes from the South Seas. His death was
+supposed to have been caused by indulging too freely in mancanilla while
+ashore at Golfo Dulce. "Next morning we threw overboard our dead man and
+gave him two French vollies and one English one."
+
+
+STEPHENSON, JOHN.
+
+Sailed as an honest seaman in the _Onslow_ (Captain Gee) from Sestos.
+Taken in May, 1721, by the pirate Captain Roberts, he willingly joined the
+pirates. When Roberts was killed on board the _Royal Fortune_, Stephenson
+burst into tears, and declared that he wished the next shot might kill
+him. Hanged in 1722.
+
+
+STILES, RICHARD.
+
+Hanged in Virginia in 1718 with the rest of Captain Teach's crew.
+
+
+STOREY, THOMAS.
+
+One of William Coward's crew which stole the ketch _Elinor_ in Boston
+Harbour. Condemned to be hanged on January 27th, 1690, but afterwards
+reprieved.
+
+
+ST. QUINTIN, RICHARD.
+
+A native of Yorkshire.
+
+One of M'Kinlie's crew that murdered Captain Glass and his family in the
+Canary ship. Afterwards arrested at Cork and hanged in chains near Dublin
+on March 19th, 1765.
+
+
+STURGES, CAPTAIN.
+
+An Elizabethan pirate, who had his headquarters at Rochelle. In company
+with the notorious pirate Calles, he in one year pillaged two Portuguese,
+one French, one Spanish, and also a Scotch ship. His end is not known.
+
+
+O'SULLIVAN, LORD. Receiver of pirate plunder.
+
+The Sulivan Bere, of Berehaven in Ireland.
+
+A notorious friend of the English pirates, he bought their spoils, which
+he stored in his castle. He helped to fit out pirate captains for their
+cruises, and protected them when Queen Elizabeth sent ships to try and
+arrest them.
+
+
+SUTTON, THOMAS.
+
+Born at Berwick in 1699.
+
+Gunner in Roberts's ship the _Royal Fortune_. At his trial he was proved
+to have been particularly active in helping to take a Dutch merchantman,
+the _Gertruycht_. Hanged in chains at Cape Coast Castle in April, 1722, at
+the age of 23.
+
+
+SWAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+Commanded the _Nicholas_, and met Dampier when in the _Batchelor's
+Delight_ at the Island of Juan Fernandez in 1684. The two captains cruised
+together off the west coast of South America, the _Nicholas_ leaving
+Dampier, who returned to England by way of the East Indies.
+
+
+SWAN, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of the _Cygnet_. Left England as an honest trader. Rounded the Horn and
+sailed up to the Bay of Nicoya, there taking on a crew of buccaneers who
+had crossed the Isthmus of Darien on foot. Dampier was appointed pilot or
+quartermaster to the _Cygnet_, a post analogous to that of a navigating
+officer on a modern man-of-war, while Ringrose was appointed supercargo.
+Swan had an adventurous and chequered voyage, sometimes meeting with
+successes, but often with reverses. Eventually he sailed to the Philippine
+Islands, where the crew mutinied and left Swan and thirty-six of the crew
+behind. After various adventures the _Cygnet_, by now in a very crazy
+state, just managed to reach Madagascar, where she sank at her anchorage.
+
+
+SWITZER, JOSEPH.
+
+Of Boston in New England.
+
+Tried for piracy at Rhode Island in 1723, but found to be "not guilty."
+
+
+SYMPSON, DAVID.
+
+Born at North Berwick.
+
+One of Roberts's crew. Tried and hanged at Cape Coast Castle in 1722. On
+the day of execution Sympson was among the first six prisoners to be
+brought up from the ship's hold to have their fetters knocked off and to
+be fitted with halters, and it was observed that none of the culprits
+appeared in the least dejected, except Sympson, who "spoke a little faint,
+but this was rather imputed to a Flux that had seized him two or three
+days before, than Fear." There being no clergyman in the colony, a kindly
+surgeon tried to take on the duties of the ordinary, but with ill-success,
+the hardened ruffians being quite unmoved by his attempts at exhortation.
+In fact, the spectators were considerably shocked, as indeed they well
+might be, by Sympson, suddenly recognizing among the crowd a woman whom he
+knew, calling out "he had lain with that B----h three times, and now she
+was come to see him hanged."
+
+Sympson died at the age of 36, which was considerably above the average
+age to which a pirate might expect to live.
+
+
+TAYLOR, CAPTAIN.
+
+This formidable South Sea pirate must indeed have looked, as well as
+acted, the part, since his appearance is described by Captain Johnson as
+follows: "A Fellow with a terrible pair of Whiskers, and a wooden Leg,
+being stuck round with Pistols, like the Man in the Almanack with Darts."
+
+This man Taylor it was who stirred up the crew of the _Victory_ to turn
+out and maroon Captain England, and elect himself in his place. He was a
+villain of the deepest dye, and burnt ships and houses and tortured his
+prisoners.
+
+The pirates sailed down the West Coast of India from Goa to Cochin, and
+returned to Mauritius. Thence sailing to the Island of Mascarine they
+found a big Portuguese ship, which they took. In her they discovered the
+Conde de Eviceira, Viceroy of Goa, and, even better, four million dollars
+worth of diamonds.
+
+Taylor, now sailing in the _Cassandra_, heard that there were four
+men-of-war on his tracks, so he sailed to Delagoa Bay and spent the
+winter of the year 1722 there. It was now decided that as they had a huge
+amount of plunder they had better give up piracy, so they sailed away to
+the West Indies and surrendered themselves to the Governor of Porto Bello.
+The crew broke up and each man, with a bag of diamonds, went whither he
+would; but Captain Taylor joined the Spanish service, and was put in
+command of a man-of-war, which was sent to attack the English logwood
+cutters in the Bay of Honduras.
+
+
+TAYLOR, WILLIAM.
+
+One of Captain Phillips's crew. Wounded in the leg while attempting to
+desert. There being no surgeon on board, a consultation was held over the
+patient by the whole crew, and these learned men were unanimous in
+agreeing that the leg should be amputated. Some dispute then arose as to
+who should act the part of surgeon, and at length the carpenter was chosen
+as the most proper person. "Upon which he fetch'd up the biggest saw, and
+taking the limb under his Arm, fell to Work, and separated it from the
+Body of the Patient in as little Time as he could have cut a Deal Board in
+two." This surgeon-carpenter evidently appreciated the importance of
+aseptics, for, "after that he had heated his Ax red hot in the Fire,
+cauteriz'd the Wound but not with so much Art as he perform'd the other
+Part for he so burnt the Flesh distant from the Place of Amputation that
+it had like to have mortify'd." Taylor was tried and condemned to death at
+Boston on May 12th, 1714, but for some reason not explained was reprieved.
+
+
+TEACH, CAPTAIN EDWARD, or THATCH, or THACH, _alias_ DRUMMOND, _alias_
+BLACKBEARD. Arch-pirate.
+
+A Bristol man who settled in Jamaica, sailing in privateers, but not in
+the capacity of an officer.
+
+In 1716, Teach took to piracy, being put in command of a sloop by the
+pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, Hornigold and Teach sailed together
+from Providence towards the American coast, taking a billop from Havana
+and several other prizes. After careening their vessels on the coast of
+Virginia, the pirates took a fine French Guineaman bound to Martinico;
+this ship they armed with forty guns, named her the _Queen Ann's Revenge_,
+and Blackbeard went aboard as captain. Teach now had a ship that allowed
+him to go for larger prizes, and he began by taking a big ship called the
+_Great Allen_, which he plundered and then set fire to. A few days later,
+Teach was attacked by H.M.S. _Scarborough_, of thirty guns, but after a
+sharp engagement lasting some hours, the pirate was able to drive off the
+King's ship.
+
+The next ship he met with was the sloop of that amateur pirate and
+landsman, Major Stede Bonnet. Teach and Bonnet became friends and sailed
+together for a few days, when Teach, finding that Bonnet was quite
+ignorant of maritime matters, ordered the Major, in the most high-handed
+way, to come aboard his ship, while he put another officer in command of
+Bonnet's vessel. Teach now took ship after ship, one of which, with the
+curious name of the _Protestant Cæsar_, the pirates burnt out of spite,
+not because of her name, but because she belonged to Boston, where there
+had lately been a hanging of pirates.
+
+Blackbeard now sailed north along the American coast, arriving off
+Charleston, South Carolina. Here he lay off the bar for several days,
+seizing every vessel that attempted to enter or leave the port, "striking
+great Terror to the whole Province of Carolina," the more so since the
+colony was scarcely recovered from a recent visit by another pirate, Vane.
+
+Being in want of medicines, Teach sent his lieutenant, Richards, on shore
+with a letter to the Governor demanding that he should instantly send off
+a medicine chest, or else Teach would murder all his prisoners, and
+threatening to send their heads to Government House; many of these
+prisoners being the chief persons of the colony.
+
+Teach, who was unprincipled, even for a pirate, now commanded three
+vessels, and he wanted to get rid of his crews and keep all the booty for
+himself and a few chosen friends. To do this, he contrived to wreck his
+own vessel and one of his sloops. Then with his friends and all the booty
+he sailed off, leaving the rest marooned on a small sandy island. Teach
+next sailed to North Carolina, and with the greatest coolness surrendered
+with twenty of his men to the Governor, Charles Eden, and received the
+Royal pardon. The ex-pirate spent the next few weeks in cultivating an
+intimate friendship with the Governor, who, no doubt, shared Teach's booty
+with him.
+
+A romantic episode took place at this time at Bath Town. The pirate fell
+in love, not by any means for the first time, with a young lady of 16
+years of age. To show his delight at this charming union, the Governor
+himself married the happy pair, this being the captain's fourteenth wife;
+though certain Bath Town gossips were heard to say that there were no
+fewer than twelve Mrs. Teach still alive at different ports up and down
+the West India Islands.
+
+In June, 1718, the bridegroom felt that the call of duty must be obeyed,
+so kissing good-bye to the new Mrs. Teach, he sailed away to the Bermudas,
+meeting on his way half a dozen ships, which he plundered, and then
+hurried back to share the spoils with the Governor of North Carolina and
+his secretary, Mr. Knight.
+
+For several months, Blackbeard remained in the river, exacting a toll from
+all the shipping, often going ashore to make merry at the expense of the
+planters. At length, things became so unbearable that the citizens and
+planters sent a request to the Governor of the neighbouring colony of
+Virginia for help to rid them of the presence of Teach. The Governor,
+Spotswood, an energetic man, at once made plans for taking the pirate, and
+commissioned a gallant young naval officer, Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of
+H.M.S. _Pearl_, to go in a sloop, the _Ranger_, in search of him. On
+November 17, 1718, the lieutenant sailed for Kicquetan in the James River,
+and on the 21st arrived at the mouth of Okerecock Inlet, where he
+discovered the pirate he was in search of. Blackbeard would have been
+caught unprepared had not his friend, Mr. Secretary Knight, hearing what
+was on foot, sent a letter warning him to be on his guard, and also any of
+Teach's crew whom he could find in the taverns of Bath Town. Maynard lost
+no time in attacking the pirate's ship, which had run aground. The fight
+was furious, Teach boarding the sloop and a terrific hand-to-hand struggle
+taking place, the lieutenant and Teach fighting with swords and pistols.
+Teach was wounded in twenty-five places before he fell dead, while the
+lieutenant escaped with nothing worse than a cut over the fingers.
+
+Maynard now returned in triumph in his sloop to Bath Town, with the head
+of Blackbeard hung up to the bolt-spit end, and received a tremendous
+ovation from the inhabitants.
+
+During his meteoric career as a pirate, the name of Blackbeard was one
+that created terror up and down the coast of America from Newfoundland to
+Trinidad. This was not only due to the number of ships Teach took, but in
+no small measure to his alarming appearance. Teach was a tall, powerful
+man, with a fierce expression, which was increased by a long, black beard
+which grew from below his eyes and hung down to a great length. This he
+plaited into many tails, each one tied with a coloured ribbon and turned
+back over his ears. When going into action, Teach wore a sling on his
+shoulders with three pairs of pistols, and struck lighted matches under
+the brim of his hat. These so added to his fearful appearance as to strike
+terror into all beholders. Teach had a peculiar sense of humour, and one
+that could at times cause much uneasiness amongst his friends. Thus we are
+told that one day on the deck of his ship, being at the time a little
+flushed with wine, Blackbeard addressed his crew, saying: "Come let us
+make a Hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it," whereupon Teach,
+with several others, descended to the hold, shut themselves in, and then
+set fire to several pots of brimstone. For a while they stood it, choking
+and gasping, but at length had to escape to save themselves from being
+asphyxiated, but the last to give up was the captain, who was wont to
+boast afterwards that he had outlasted all the rest.
+
+Then there was that little affair in the cabin, when Teach blew out the
+candle and in the dark fired his pistols under the table, severely
+wounding one of his guests in the knee, for no other reason, as he
+explained to them afterwards, than "if he did not shoot one or two of them
+now and then they'd forget who he was."
+
+Teach kept a log or journal, which unfortunately is lost, but the entries
+for two days have been preserved, and are worth giving, and seem to smack
+of Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island." The entries, written in
+Teach's handwriting, run as follows:
+
+"1718. Rum all out--Our Company somewhat sober--A damn'd Confusion amongst
+us!--Rogues a plotting--great Talk of Separation--so I look'd sharp for a
+Prize.
+
+"1718. Took one, with a great deal of Liquor on Board, so kept the Company
+hot, damned hot, then all Things went well again."
+
+
+TEAGUE, ROBERT.
+
+A Scotch pirate, one of Captain Gow's crew. On May 26th, 1725, the crew
+were tried in London and found guilty and sentenced to death, except
+Teague and two others who were acquitted.
+
+
+TEMPLETON, JOHN.
+
+One of Captain John Quelch's crew of the ship _Charles_. Tried for piracy
+at Boston in 1704, but, being discovered to be not yet 14 years of age and
+only a servant on board the pirate ship, was acquitted.
+
+
+TEW, Captain THOMAS, or Too.
+
+A famous pirate, whose headquarters were at Madagascar. He was mentioned
+by name in King William III.'s Royal Warrant to Captain Kidd to go hunting
+for pirates, as a specially "wicked and ill-disposed person."
+
+He sailed with Captain Dew from the Barbadoes with a Commission from the
+Governor to join with the Royal African Company in an attack on the French
+factory at Goori, at Gambia. Instead of going to West Africa, Tew and his
+crew turned pirates, and sailed to the Red Sea. Here he met with a great
+Indian ship, which he had the hardiness to attack, and soon took her, and
+each of his men received as his share £3,000, and with this booty they
+sailed to Madagascar. He was already held in high esteem by the pirates
+who resided in that favourite stronghold. At one time he joined Misson,
+the originator of "piracy-without-tears" at his garden city of Libertatia.
+A quarrel arose between Misson's French followers and Tew's English
+pirates. A duel was arranged between the two leaders, but by the tact of
+another pirate--an unfrocked Italian priest--all was settled amicably, Tew
+being appointed Admiral and the diplomatic ex-priest suitably chosen as
+Secretary of State to the little republic. Such a reputation for kindness
+had Tew that ships seldom resisted him, but on knowing who their assailant
+was they gave themselves up freely. Some of Tew's men started a daughter
+colony on their own account, and the Admiral sailed after them to try and
+persuade them to return to the fold at Libertatia. The men refused, and
+while Tew was arguing and trying to persuade them to change their minds,
+his ship was lost in a sudden storm. Tew was soon rescued by the ship
+_Bijoux_ with Misson on board, who, with a few men, had escaped being
+massacred by the natives. Misson, giving Tew an equal share of his gold
+and diamonds, sailed away, while Tew managed to return to Rhode Island in
+New England, where he settled down for a while. To show the honesty of
+this man, being now affluent, he kept a promise to the friends in Bermuda
+who originally set him up with a ship, by sending them fourteen times the
+original cost of the sloop as their just share of the profits.
+
+At last, Tew found the call of the sea and the lure of the "grand account"
+too great to resist, and he consented to take command of a pirate ship
+which was to go on a cruise in the Red Sea. Arrived there, Tew attacked a
+big ship belonging to the Great Mogul, and during the battle was mortally
+wounded.
+
+His historian tells us "a shot carried away the rim of Tew's belly, who
+held his bowels with his hands for some space. When he dropped, it struck
+such terror to his men that they suffered themselves to be taken without
+further resistance." Thus fell fighting a fine sailor, a brave man, and a
+successful pirate, and one who cheated the gallows awaiting him at
+Execution Dock.
+
+
+THOMAS, CAPTAIN, _alias_ STEDE BONNET.
+
+
+THOMAS, JOHN.
+
+Of Jamaica.
+
+This Welsh pirate was one of Major Stede Bonnet's crew of the _Royal
+James_. Hanged at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1718.
+
+
+THOMPSON, CAPTAIN.
+
+A renegade pirate who joined the Barbary corsairs, becoming a Mohammedan.
+Commanded a pirate vessel, and was taken prisoner off the coast of Ireland
+by an Elizabethan ship. Hanged at Wapping.
+
+
+THURBAR, RICHARD.
+
+Tried for piracy at Boston in 1704.
+
+
+THURSTON, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+Of Tortuga Island.
+
+Refused to accept the Royal offer of pardon of 1670, when all commissions
+to privateer on the Spanish were revoked. Thurston, with a mulatto, Diego,
+using obsolete commissions issued by the late Governor of Jamaica,
+Modyford, continued to prey upon Spanish shipping, carrying their prizes
+to Tortuga.
+
+
+THWAITES, CAPTAIN JOSEPH.
+
+Coxswain to Captain Hood, he was promoted in 1763 to be a midshipman in
+H.M.S. _Zealous_, cruising in the Mediterranean. Putting into Algiers,
+Thwaites was sent ashore by the captain to buy some sheep, but did not
+return to the boat and, it being supposed he had been assassinated, the
+ship sailed without him. The fact was that young Thwaites, who spoke
+Turkish and Greek, had accepted an invitation to enter the Ottoman
+service. Embracing the Mohammedan religion, Thwaites was put in command of
+a forty-four gun frigate.
+
+His first engagement was with the flagship of the Tunisian Admiral, which
+he took and carried to Algiers. He soon brought in another prize, and so
+pleased the Dey that he presented him with a scimitar, the hilt of which
+was set with diamonds.
+
+Thwaites, having soiled his hands with blood, now became the pirate
+indeed, taking vessels of any nation, and drowning all his prisoners by
+tying a double-headed shot round their necks and throwing them overboard.
+
+He stopped at no atrocity--even children were killed, and one prisoner, an
+English lieutenant and an old shipmate of his, called Roberts, he murdered
+without a second thought. When Thwaites happened to be near Gibraltar, he
+would go ashore and through his agents, Messrs. Ross and Co., transmit
+large sums of money to his wife and children in England. But Thwaites had
+another home at Algiers fitted with every luxury, including three Armenian
+girls.
+
+For several years this successful pirate plundered ships of all nations
+until such pressure was brought to bear on the Dey of Algiers that
+Thwaites thought it best to collect what valuables he could carry away and
+disappear.
+
+Landing at Gibraltar in 1796, dressed in European clothes, he procured a
+passage to New York in an American frigate, the _Constitution_. Arriving
+in the United States, he purchased an estate not far from New York and
+built himself a handsome mansion, but a year later retribution came from
+an unlooked-for quarter, for he was bitten by a rattlesnake and died in
+the most horrible agonies both of mind and body.
+
+
+TOMKINS, JOHN.
+
+Of Gloucestershire.
+
+Hanged at the age of 23 at Rhode Island in 1723. One of Charles Harris's
+crew.
+
+
+TOPPING, DENNIS.
+
+He shipped on board the sloop _Buck_ at Providence in 1718, in company
+with Anstis and other famous pirates. Was killed at the taking of a rich
+Portuguese ship off the coast of Brazil.
+
+
+TOWNLEY, CAPTAIN. Buccaneer.
+
+A buccaneer who in the year 1684 was one of the mixed English and French
+fleet blockading Panama. On this occasion, he commanded a ship with a crew
+of 180 men. By the next year the quarrels between the English had reached
+such a pitch that Townley and Swan left Davis and sailed in search of
+their French friends. In May, 1685, Townley was amongst the company that
+took and sacked Guayaquil. In January, 1686, Townley rescued the French
+pirate Grogniet and some 350 Frenchmen who, when attacking the town of
+Quibo, were surprised by a Spanish squadron, which burnt their vessels
+while the crews were on shore. Townley then sailed north with his French
+comrades and sacked Granada.
+
+His next adventure was to take the town of Lavelia, near to Panama, where
+he found a rich cargo which the Viceroy had placed on shore because he was
+afraid to send it to sea when so many pirates were about.
+
+In August of the same year, Townley's ship was attacked by three Spanish
+men-of-war. A furious fight took place, which ended by two of the Spanish
+ships being captured and the third burnt. In this action the gallant
+Townley was gravely wounded, and died shortly afterwards.
+
+
+TRISTRIAN, CAPTAIN. French buccaneer.
+
+In the year 1681 Dampier, with other malcontents, broke away from Captain
+Sharp and marched on foot across the Isthmus of Darien. After undergoing
+terrible hardships for twenty-two days, the party arrived on the Atlantic
+seaboard, to find Captain Tristrian with his ship lying in La Sounds Cay.
+
+The buccaneers bought red, blue, and green beads, and knives, scissors,
+and looking-glasses from the French pirates to give to their faithful
+Indian guides as parting gifts.
+
+
+TRYER, MATTHEW.
+
+A Carolina pirate, accused and acquitted on a charge of having captured a
+sloop belonging to Samuel Salters, of Bermuda, in 1699.
+
+
+TUCKER, ROBERT.
+
+Of the Island of Jamaica.
+
+One of Major Stede Bonnet's crew. Tried, condemned, and hanged at
+Charleston, South Carolina, on November 8th, 1718. The prisoners were not
+defended by counsel, because the members of the South Carolina Bar still
+deemed it "a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward." We
+understand that the barristers of South Carolina have since persuaded
+themselves to overcome this prejudice. The result was that, with the
+famous Judge Trott, a veritable terror to pirates, being President of the
+Court of Vice-Admiralty, the prisoners had short and ready justice, and
+all but four of the thirty-five pirates tried were found guilty.
+
+
+TUCKERMAN, CAPTAIN.
+
+Sailed with Captain Porter in the West Indies. Captain Johnson gives an
+account of the meeting between these two pirate novices and the great
+Captain Roberts at Hispaniola.
+
+
+TURNLEY, CAPTAIN RICHARD.
+
+A New Providence pirate who received the general pardon from Captain
+Woodes Rogers in 1718. When, a little later, the scandal of Captain
+Rackam's infatuation for Anne Bonny was causing such gossip among the two
+thousand ex-pirates who formed the population of the settlement, it was
+Turnley who brought news of the affair to the notice of the Governor. In
+revenge for this action, Rackam and his lady, one day hearing that Turnley
+had sailed to a neighbouring island to catch turtles, followed him. It
+happened that Turnley was on shore hunting wild pigs and so escaped, but
+Rackam sank his sloop and took his crew away with him as prisoners.
+
+
+TYLE, CAPTAIN ORT VAN.
+
+A Dutchman from New York.
+
+A successful pirate in the days of the Madagascan sea-rovers. For some
+time he sailed in company with Captain James, taking several prizes in the
+Indian Ocean.
+
+Van Tyle had a plantation at Madagascar and used to put his prisoners to
+work there as slaves, one in particular being the notorious Welsh pirate,
+David Williams, who toiled with Van Tyles's other slaves for six months
+before making his escape to a friendly tribe in the neighbourhood.
+
+
+UPTON, BOATSWAIN JOHN.
+
+Born in 1679 of honest parents at Deptford.
+
+Apprenticed to a waterman, he afterwards went to sea, serving on different
+men-of-war as a petty officer. Until July, 1723, when 40 years of age,
+Upton lived a perfectly honest life, but his wife dying, Upton found she
+had contracted various debts and that he was in danger of being arrested
+by the creditors. Leaving his four orphans, Upton hurried to Poole in
+Dorsetshire, and was taken on as boatswain in the _John and Elizabeth_
+(Captain Hooper), bound for Bonavista in Newfoundland. He seems to have
+continued to sail as an honest seaman until November 14th, 1725, when
+serving as boatswain in the _Perry_ galley, on a voyage between Barbadoes
+and Bristol, the vessel was taken by a pirate, Cooper, in the _Night
+Rambler_. At his subsequent trial witnesses declared that Upton willingly
+joined the pirates, signed their articles, and was afterwards one of their
+most active and cruel men.
+
+Upton kept a journal, which was his only witness for his defence, in which
+he described how he was forced to sign the pirates' articles under threats
+of instant death. If his journal is to be believed, Upton escaped from the
+pirates at the first opportunity, landing on the Mosquito coast. After
+being arrested by the Spaniards as a spy, he was sent from one prison to
+another in Central America, at last being put on board a galleon at Porto
+Bello, to be sent to Spain. Escaping, he got aboard a New York sloop and
+arrived at Jamaica in December, 1726. While at Port Royal he was pressed
+on board H.M.S. _Nottingham_, serving in her for more than two years as
+quartermaster, until one day he was accused of having been a pirate. Under
+this charge he was brought a prisoner to England in 1729, tried in London,
+and hanged, protesting his innocence to the last.
+
+
+URUJ. See BARBAROSSA.
+
+
+VALLANUEVA, CAPTAIN.
+
+A Dominican.
+
+Commanded in 1831 a small gaff-topsail schooner, the _General Morazan_,
+armed with a brass eight-pounder and carrying a mixed crew of forty-four
+men, French, Italian, English, and Creoles of St. Domingo.
+
+
+VANCLEIN, CAPTAIN MOSES. Dutch filibuster.
+
+Was serving with L'Ollonais's fleet off the coast of Yucatan when a mutiny
+broke out, of which Vanclein was the ringleader. He persuaded the
+malcontents to sail with him along the coast till they came to Costa Rica.
+There they landed and marched to the town of Veraguas, which they seized
+and pillaged. The pirates got little booty, only eight pounds of gold, it
+proving to be a poor place.
+
+
+VANE, CAPTAIN CHARLES.
+
+Famous for his piratical activities off the coast of North America,
+specially the Carolinas.
+
+In 1718, when Woodes Rogers was sent by the English Government to break up
+the pirate stronghold in the Bahama Islands, all the pirates at New
+Providence Island surrendered to Rogers and received the King's pardon
+except Vane, who, after setting fire to a prize he had, slipped out of the
+bay as Rogers with his two men-of-war entered. Vane sailed to the coast of
+Carolina, as did other West Indian pirates who found their old haunts too
+warm for them.
+
+Vane is first heard of as being actively engaged in stealing from the
+Spaniards the silver which they were salving from a wrecked galleon in the
+Gulf of Florida. Tiring of this, Vane stole a vessel and ranged up and
+down the coast from Florida to New York, taking ship after ship, until at
+last the Governor of South Carolina sent out a Colonel Rhet in an armed
+sloop to try and take him. On one occasion Vane met the famous Blackbeard,
+whom he saluted with his great guns loaded with shot. This compliment of
+one pirate chief to another was returned in like kind, and then "mutual
+civilities" followed for several days between the two pirate captains and
+their crews, these civilities taking the form of a glorious debauch in a
+quiet creek on the coast.
+
+Vane soon had a change of fortune, when, meeting with a French man-of-war,
+he decided to decline an engagement and to seek safety in flight, greatly
+to the anger of his crew. For this he was obliged to stand the test of the
+vote of the whole crew, who passed a resolution against his honour and
+dignity, and branded him a coward, deprived him of his command, and packed
+him off with a few of his adherents in a small sloop. Vane, not
+discouraged by this reverse of fortune, rose again from the bottom rung of
+the ladder to success, and quickly increased in strength of ships and
+crew, until one day, being overcome by a sudden tornado, he lost
+everything but his life, being washed up on a small uninhabited island off
+the Honduras coast. Here he managed to support life by begging food from
+the fishermen who occasionally came there in their canoes.
+
+At last a ship put in for water, commanded by one Captain Holford, who
+happened to be an old friend of Vane's. Vane naturally was pleased at this
+piece of good fortune, and asked his dear old friend to take him off the
+island in his ship, to which Holford replied: "Charles, I shan't trust you
+aboard my ship, unless I carry you as a prisoner, for I shall have you
+caballing with my men, knock me on the head, and run away with my ship
+a-pirating." No promises of good behaviour from Vane would prevail on his
+friend to rescue him; in fact, Captain Holford's parting remark was that
+he would be returning in a month, and that if he then found Vane still on
+the island he would carry him to Jamaica to be hanged.
+
+Soon after Holford's departure another ship put in for water, none of the
+crew of which knew Vane by sight, and he was too crafty to let them find
+out the notorious pirate he was. They consented to take off the
+shipwrecked mariner, when, just as all seemed to be going well, back came
+the ship of friend Holford. Holford, who seems to have been a sociable
+kind of man, was well acquainted with the captain who was befriending
+Vane, and Holford was invited to dine on board his ship. As the guest was
+passing along the deck of his host's ship on his way to the great cabin he
+chanced to glance down the open hold, and there who should he see but his
+dear old friend Vane hard at work; for he had already won his new master's
+good graces by being a "brisk hand." Holford at once informed his host
+that he was entertaining a notorious pirate, and with his consent clapped
+Vane in irons, and removed him to his own ship, and when he arrived in
+Jamaica handed his old friend to the justices, who quickly tried,
+to the relative frequency of occurrence of hæmothorax I should have
+placed it at about 30 per cent. The patients in these early battles
+needed little wagon transport, and when sent down to the Base travelled
+in comfortable ambulance trains. After the commencement of the march
+from Modder River to Bloemfontein, however, these conditions were
+changed, and all the chest as other cases were exposed to the necessity
+of three days and nights' journey to the Stationary hospitals and
+afterwards to the long journey to Cape Town. Of these patients, at
+least 90 per cent. suffered with hæmothorax of varying degrees of
+severity.
+
+In some cases, the least common, signs of considerable intra-pleural
+hæmorrhage immediately followed the wound; in others, the accumulation
+of blood was gradual, and only manifest in any degree at the end of
+three or four days, when it became stationary if the patient was kept at
+rest. In a second series the hæmorrhage was of the recurrent variety;
+these cases differing little in character from those of slight
+continuous hæmorrhage. In a third, the bleeding was definitely of a
+secondary character, corresponding with one of the classes of secondary
+hæmorrhage described in Chapter IV., and occurring on the eighth or
+tenth day from giving way of an imperfectly closed wounded vessel. In
+either of the two latter classes the development of the hæmothorax often
+corresponded with a journey, or with allowing the patient to get up.
+
+The general course of these effusions was towards spontaneous absorption
+and recovery. Coagulation of the blood took place early, the fluid serum
+separated, and tended to undergo absorption with some rapidity, leaving
+a small amount of coagulum at the base, which evidenced its presence for
+many weeks by a persistence of a certain degree of dulness on
+percussion. Early coagulation, I think, accounted for the usual absence
+of gravitation ecchymosis as a sign.
+
+The course to recovery was sometimes broken by signs of slight pleuritic
+inflammation, which, as affecting the amount of effusion, will be spoken
+of under the heading of symptoms. In some cases the amount of blood was
+so great as to necessitate means being taken for its removal; in these a
+reaccumulation often took place. Occasionally an empyema followed in
+cases thus treated.
+
+The nature of the blood evacuated on tapping varied much. In very early
+aspirations unchanged blood was often met with, but clot sometimes made
+evacuation difficult and necessitated a second puncture. In the tappings
+done at the end of a week or more a dark porter-like fluid was common,
+while when suppuration was imminent a brick-red-coloured grumous fluid
+replaced normal blood. In the cases where early incision was resorted
+to, blood both fluid and in clots was often mixed with a certain
+proportion of lymph flakes, perhaps indicating the part taken by
+inflammatory reaction to the irritation of the clot in producing the
+rise of temperature.
+
+_Symptoms of hæmothorax._--In the more severe cases of primary bleeding
+the symptoms did not, as a rule, reach their full height until the third
+or fourth day after the injury. The patients then often suffered
+severely. The pulse and temperature rose, and to general symptoms of
+loss of blood were added: occasional lividity of countenance; severe
+dyspnoea, accompanied by inability to lie on the sound side or to
+assume the supine position; absence of respiratory movement on the
+injured side; pain, restlessness, cough, and sometimes continuance of
+hæmoptysis, small clots usually being expectorated.
+
+Accompanying these symptoms were the usual physical signs of fluid in
+the pleura in differing degrees and combination. Dulness of varying
+extent up to complete absence of resonance on one side, often
+accompanied in the incomplete cases by well-marked skodaic resonance
+anteriorly. Loss of vocal resonance, and fremitus; oegophony, tubular
+respiration over the root of the lung or at the upper limit of the
+dulness, and more or less extensive displacement of the heart. Obvious
+increase in girth, fulness of the intercostal spaces, or gravitation
+ecchymosis was rare. The latter was most common in instances in which
+multiple fracture of the ribs existed (see fig. 83). I think the rarity
+of the last sign must have been due to the early coagulation of the
+blood, and its retention by the pleura, as I saw well-marked gravitation
+ecchymosis in one or two cases of mediastinal hæmorrhage.
+
+The above complex of symptoms was common to all the cases, but in the
+slighter ones they gave rise to little trouble, and cleared up with
+great rapidity.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 83.--Gravitation Ecchymosis in a case of Hæmothorax,
+accompanying fracture of three ribs from within. The influence of the
+fractures on the development of the ecchymosis is shown by the linear
+arrangement of the discoloration]
+
+The most interesting feature was offered by the temperature, as this was
+very liable to lead one astray. A primary rise always occurred with the
+collection of blood in the pleura, this reaching its height on the third
+or fourth day, usually about 102° F. in well-marked cases; it then fell,
+and in favourable instances remained normal. In a large number of cases,
+however, where the amount of blood was considerable, this was not the
+case, the primary fall not reaching the normal, and a second rise
+occurred which reached the same height as before or higher. The second
+rise was accompanied by sweating, quickened pulse, and the probability
+of the development of an empyema had always to be considered. I believe
+in most cases this secondary rise was an indication of a further
+increase in the hæmorrhage, for the dulness usually increased in extent,
+and such rises were often seen when the patient had been moved or taken
+a journey. Again, the temperature often fell to normal after
+paracentesis and removal of the blood, to rise again with a fresh
+accumulation, which was not uncommon. I have already mentioned the large
+proportional incidence of hæmothorax observed in the patients who had
+to travel down from Paardeberg, and I might instance another case
+related to me by Dr. Flockemann of the German ambulance, which was very
+striking. A Boer, wounded at Colesberg, developed a hæmothorax which
+quieted down, and he was removed to Bloemfontein; on arrival at the
+latter place the temperature rose, and other signs of fever suggested
+the development of an empyema; an exploring needle, however, only
+brought blood to light. After a short stay at Bloemfontein the symptoms
+entirely subsided, and the man was sent to Kroonstadt, when an exactly
+similar attack resulted, again quieting down with rest.
+
+Similar recurrent attacks of hæmorrhage and fever occurred, however, in
+patients confined to their beds without moving after the first journey.
+Some temperature charts, in illustration of this point, are added to the
+cases quoted later. The explanation of the recurrent hæmorrhages is, I
+think, to be found in the reduction of the intra-thoracic pressure with
+coagulation and shrinkage of the clot in the pleura in the patients kept
+quiet in bed, while in the patients who had to travel it was probably
+the result of direct mechanical disturbance.
+
+In many of these cases a pleural rub was audible at the upper margin of
+the dulness with the development of the fresh symptoms. Whether this was
+due to actual pleurisy or to the rubbing of surfaces rough from the
+breaking down of slight recent adhesions which had formed a barrier to
+the effusion, I am unable to say, but the signs were fairly constant. In
+some instances the increase in the amount of fluid was, no doubt, due to
+pleural effusion resulting from irritation from the presence of
+blood-clot, or perhaps the shifting of the latter; in these the
+secondary rise of temperature may well be ascribed to the development of
+pleurisy.
+
+I am inclined to believe, however, that the primary rise of temperature
+was similar to that seen when blood accumulates in the peritoneal cavity
+as the result of trauma, and the secondary rises in most cases to those
+which we saw so frequently accompanying the interstitial secondary
+hæmorrhages spoken of in Chapter IV., and are to be explained on the
+theory of absorption of a blood ferment. The secondary rises always
+occurred with a fresh effusion, often of blood, occasioning an
+extension, which broke down probable light adhesions and exposed a fresh
+area of normal pleural membrane to act as a surface for absorption.
+
+It is, of course, manifest that the fever might also be ascribed to the
+infection of the clot or serum from without, and in the first cases I
+saw I was inclined to take this view, since we had in every case the
+primary wounds of chest-wall, and possibly of lung, and in some the
+addition of a puncture by an exploring needle between the first and
+second rise. After a wider experience, however, I abandoned the
+infection theory, as it seemed opposed by the very infrequent sequence
+of suppuration. The effect of simple removal of the blood or serum was
+also often so striking as to strongly suggest that it alone was
+responsible for the fever. Exactly the same result, moreover, followed
+evacuation of the interstitial blood effusions already mentioned
+elsewhere.
+
+The common course of all the cases of hæmothorax was to spontaneous
+recovery, the rapidity of the subsidence of the signs depending mainly
+on the quantity of the primary hæmorrhage, and the occurrence of further
+increases. The blood serum tended to collect at the upper limit of the
+original blood effusion (as was often proved on tapping), and this was
+first absorbed; the clot deposited on the pleural surface and at the
+basal part of the cavity was, however, not absorbed with the same
+rapidity. In the majority of the patients when they left the hospitals,
+at the end of six weeks on an average, some dulness and deficiency of
+vesicular murmur always remained, and the clot and the surrounding
+surface, irritated by its presence, will, no doubt, be responsible for
+permanent adhesions in many cases. That such adhesions do form in the
+majority of cases I feel certain, as, although these patients when they
+left the hospital were to all intents and purposes apparently well, few
+of them could undertake sustained exertion without getting short of
+breath, and sometimes suffering from transitory pain, and for this
+reason it became customary to invalid them home.
+
+In a small proportion of the cases empyema followed; but I never saw
+this in any case that had neither been tapped nor opened, and I saw
+only one patient die from a chest wound uncomplicated by other injuries.
+This case was an interesting one of recurrent hæmorrhage followed by
+inflammatory troubles:--
+
+[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 2.--Secondary Hæmorrhages in a case of
+Hæmothorax. Case No. 151]
+
+     (151) The wound was received at short range, probably at from
+     100 to 200 yards. _Entry_, 1 inch from the left axillary margin
+     in the first intercostal space; _exit_, at the back of the
+     right arm 1-1/2 inch below the acromial angle; both pleuræ were
+     therefore crossed. The patient expectorated at first fluid,
+     then clotted, blood in considerable quantity. When brought into
+     the advanced Base hospital on the third day, there were signs
+     of blood in the left pleura, cellular emphysema over the right
+     side of the chest, and signs of collapse of the right lung. The
+     temperature chart gives shortly the course of the case: the
+     right pneumo-thorax cleared up spontaneously, also the
+     emphysema; but the left pleura needed tapping to relieve
+     symptoms of pressure on four occasions, the 13th, 15th, 19th,
+     and 25th days respectively. On the first two occasions blood
+     was removed, on the third blood serum only, and on the last
+     pus. The patient was relieved after each aspiration; after the
+     third, the temperature fell to normal, the general condition
+     also improved, and he promised to do well. None the less,
+     reaccumulation took place, the evacuated fluid assumed an
+     inflammatory character, and an incision to evacuate pus was
+     eventually followed by death on the twenty-seventh day. The
+     amount of hæmoptysis throughout was considerable, and the case
+     was possibly one of pulmonary hæmothorax, as after death no
+     source of hæmorrhage could be localised in the intercostal
+     space. The track in the lung was almost healed, and although a
+     part of it allowed the introduction of a probe for about an
+     inch, it could be traced no further even on section of the
+     organ, and no special vessel could be located as the original
+     bleeding spot.
+
+_Empyema._--I may here add the little that I have to say on this
+subject. During the whole campaign the single case of primary empyema
+that I saw was the one recorded below, which deserves special mention as
+illustrating the disadvantage of extracting bullets on the field. Under
+the conditions which necessarily accompanied this operation the
+ensurance of asepsis was impossible, and the additional wound no doubt
+proved the source of infection.
+
+     (152) _Entry_, at the posterior margin of the sterno-mastoid
+     muscle, 2 inches above the clavicle; the bullet came to the
+     surface beneath the skin over the fifth rib, in the nipple line
+     of the right side. There was never any hæmoptysis, but the
+     patient suffered with some dyspnoea throughout. After a three
+     days' stay in the Field hospital, where the subcutaneous bullet
+     was removed, the patient was transported by wagon and train to
+     the Base, a journey of about 600 miles.
+
+     On the fifth day pus escaped from the extraction wound, and
+     when the case was examined at the Base, the temperature was
+     101°, the pulse over 100, the respirations 30, and the whole
+     side of the chest was dull, with the exception of a patch of
+     boxy resonance over the apex anteriorly. On the following day
+     the chest was drained, and a considerable amount of pus
+     evacuated, which was mixed with breaking-down blood-clot. A
+     fortnight later a second operation had to be performed to
+     improve the drainage, and the patient made a tedious recovery.
+
+The following case well illustrates the symptoms in a severe case of
+hæmothorax, and empyema following aspiration:--
+
+     (153) The patient was wounded at Paardeberg at a range of from
+     500 to 700 yards. _Entry_, just to the left of the episternal
+     notch; _exit_, in the fifth left interspace posteriorly, midway
+     between the spine and vertebral margin of the scapula. A
+     quantity of bright blood was brought up at once, and later
+     blood was coughed up in clots.
+
+     There was no great pain at the moment of the injury; the man
+     again got up to the firing line, and later walked two miles to
+     the Field hospital without aid. He remained here a week, when
+     he was sent down to the Base, and during the first three days'
+     journey in the wagon he began to get worse. On the fourth day
+     cough began to be very troublesome.
+
+     When he arrived at the Base, fifteen days after the original
+     injury, there was much dyspnoea; the temperature was 102°,
+     and the pulse 110. The left side of the chest was dull
+     throughout; an aspirating needle was introduced, and a pint of
+     very dark liquid blood drawn off. The whole of the blood was
+     not removed on account of the very severe cough and pain which
+     the evacuation occasioned. The man appeared to steadily improve
+     until three weeks later, when the temperature, which throughout
+     had been uneven, became consistently high, and signs of fluid
+     at the base increased. An aspirating needle was introduced, and
+     16 ounces of pus were drawn off. Two days later a piece of rib
+     was resected (Mr. Pegg) and another pint of pus evacuated.
+     After this, rapid improvement took place, and in ten days the
+     man was able to be up and dressed, although a small amount of
+     discharge still persisted. He eventually made an excellent
+     recovery.
+
+Secondary empyemata not uncommonly followed incision of the chest, or
+excision of a rib for draining a hæmothorax. These operations in the
+early part of the campaign were more freely undertaken on the
+supposition that rise of temperature and other symptoms of fever pointed
+to incipient breaking down of the clot. Subsequent experience showed
+this not to be the case, and early operations for drainage ceased to be
+undertaken. In these operations a primary difficulty was met with in
+effectively clearing out the clot, a drain had to be left, and
+suppuration occurred later in a considerable proportion. The
+suppurations were most troublesome; local adhesions formed, and the pus
+collected in small pockets, which were difficult to find and to drain,
+and even when the collections seemed to have been successfully dealt
+with at the time, residual abscesses often followed at a very late date.
+Thus, I saw a case with a contracted chest and a fresh abscess the day
+before I left Cape Town, in whom I had advised and witnessed an
+operation for the evacuation of clot in the presence of signs of fever a
+week after my arrival in the country, nine months previously. I saw
+another case where general infection followed incision of a hæmothorax,
+but the patient fortunately recovered.
+
+The question of _pleurisy_ has already been mentioned in connection with
+hæmothorax; it no doubt accounted for secondary effusion in some cases,
+and beyond this I have nothing to add to what has been there said.
+
+_Pneumonia_ was rare; there were occasionally signs of consolidation,
+but, I think, quite as often in the opposite lung as in the one injured.
+I never saw a fatal case, and I am inclined to think that when it
+occurred it was as often the result of cold and exposure as of the
+injury to the lung. Abscess of the lung I only saw once, and that in a
+case in which the injury to the chest was complicated by paraplegia from
+spinal injury and septicæmia, and it was possibly pyæmic.
+
+_Diagnosis._--No difficulties special to small-calibre wounds were
+experienced, except such as have been already dealt with. The only class
+of case which frequently gave rise to difficulty was hæmothorax. Here
+two points especially needed consideration. (1) _The source of the
+hæmorrhage as parietal or visceral._ As has been already foreshadowed,
+this was mainly to be decided by the amount and persistence of the
+hæmoptysis, but naturally free hæmoptysis did not negative concurrent
+parietal bleeding. Then the actual source of the bleeding other than
+from the lung had to be considered; in the great majority of cases the
+intercostal vessels were responsible, and attention to the course of the
+tracks often allowed this to be definitely decided upon.
+
+A case included in the chapter on Injuries to the Blood Vessels (No. 5,
+p. 127) is of great interest in this particular; in that instance
+feebleness of the radial pulse, together with the position of the wound,
+was a valuable indication of injury to the subclavian artery, but
+weakened somewhat by the fact of retention of the bullet, and hence
+uncertainty as to the exact course that it had taken, and as to whether
+the bullet itself was not responsible for pressure on the vessel. Such
+indications, however, should make one very chary of interference with a
+hæmothorax, even with extremely urgent symptoms, in the light of our
+present knowledge of the nature of the lesions to the great vessels
+produced by small-calibre bullets, and their tendency to be incomplete.
+
+(2) _The imminence of suppuration or its actual occurrence._--In most
+cases it sufficed to preserve an expectant attitude, and in the
+persistence or increase of symptoms, to have recourse to an exploratory
+puncture as the best means of solution of the difficulty.
+
+_Prognosis._--The prognosis both as to life and as to subsequent
+ill-effects was remarkably good; in many cases of uncomplicated injury
+to the lung the patients rejoined their regiments at the end of a month
+or six weeks. In the more serious cases complicated by the collection of
+blood in the pleura, convalescence was more prolonged, and an average
+time of six to eight weeks often elapsed before the patients could be
+safely discharged from hospital. In the more serious a certain amount of
+dulness always persisted at this time over the base of the lung, and the
+chest was usually somewhat contracted on the injured side, with evidence
+in the way of decreased vesicular murmur that the lung was still not
+free from compression. With regard to the persistence of dulness on
+percussion, it is well to bear in mind that a thin layer of blood
+apparently produces as serious impairment of resonance as a much larger
+quantity of serum. The signs appeared to favour the view that the space
+necessary for the location of the hæmorrhage had been obtained at the
+expense of the lung rather than by distension of the thoracic parietes,
+and also, I think, denoted the presence of adhesions. Possibly they will
+entirely disappear with the return of full excursion movements of
+respiration, the latter being often still somewhat restricted when the
+patients left hospital. All the patients with such signs were liable to
+attacks of pain and shortness of breath on actual bodily exertion. I
+happened to meet with an officer, the subject of a Lee-Metford wound of
+the thorax, sustained five years previously, and he told me that he was
+nine months before he could take active exercise without feeling short
+of breath.
+
+As to the cases of hæmothorax and empyema which needed drainage, all did
+well; but expansion of the lung was much less satisfactory than would
+have been expected, probably on account of especially firm adhesions.
+The importance of concurrent injury I need hardly dwell on; but I might
+add that perforation of one or both arms, the most common one, did not
+materially affect the general statements above made.
+
+_Treatment._--In the early stages of the pulmonary wounds rest was the
+all-important indication, and when this was assured few serious cases of
+hæmothorax occurred. Beyond simple rest, the administration of opium
+with a view to checking internal hæmorrhage was used with good effect.
+The wounds needed simple dressing only.
+
+The treatment of hæmothorax at a later date, however, was of much
+interest and difficulty. I think the following lines may be laid down
+for guidance in such cases:--
+
+(i) Hæmothorax, even of considerable severity, will undergo spontaneous
+cure. An early rise of temperature may be disregarded.
+
+(ii) Tapping the chest is indicated when pressure signs on the lung are
+sufficiently severe to cause serious symptoms, and the removal of the
+blood undoubtedly shortens the period of recovery, as well as relieves
+symptoms.
+
+In such cases the collection of blood has usually been rapid and
+continuous; hence a fresh hæmorrhage is always probable when the local
+pressure has been removed. Tapping therefore should not necessarily mean
+complete evacuation, and should be followed by careful firm binding up
+of the chest, the administration of opium, and the most stringent
+precautions for rest.
+
+(iii) Tapping may be needed as a diagnostic aid, and in such
+circumstances as much fluid as can be removed should be evacuated with
+the same precautions as mentioned in the last paragraph.
+
+(iv) Tapping may be indicated for the evacuation of serum expressed from
+the blood-clot, or due to pleural effusion, on the same lines as in any
+other collection of fluid in the pleural cavity.
+
+(v) Early free incision is, as a rule, to be steadfastly avoided. Some
+cases already quoted fully illustrate its disadvantages.
+
+(vi) Cases in which an incision and the ligature of a parietal artery
+are indicated are very rare. I never saw such a one myself.
+
+(vii) If a hæmothorax suppurates, it must be treated on the ordinary
+lines of an empyema. In view of the constant formation of adhesions and
+difficulty in drainage, a portion of a rib should always be resected in
+order to ensure sufficient space for after-treatment. The cavities, as a
+rule, are better irrigated, the usual precautions being taken where
+there is any reason to fear that the lung is still in communication with
+the cavity.
+
+Care in carrying out asepsis in tapping, which should be performed with
+an aspirator, need hardly be more than mentioned. It will be noted that
+in some of the cases quoted suppuration followed tapping, but it must be
+remembered that in these the two primary wounds already existed as
+possible channels of infection.
+
+Retained bullets of small calibre in the thoracic cavity were not
+common, unless the lodgment had occurred in the bodies of the vertebræ.
+I saw very few. Shrapnel bullets and fragments of shells, however, were,
+in proportion to the frequency of wounds from such projectiles, more
+commonly retained. The rules to be followed in such cases do not
+materially deviate from those to be observed in the body generally.
+
+When the bullet is causing no trouble, and is lodged in either the bone
+of the spine or the lung substance, no interference is advisable. When,
+on the other hand, the bullet as viewed by the X-rays is seen to be in
+the pleural cavity, and any symptoms of its presence exist, it may be
+justifiable to remove it. I saw this done in one case for the removal of
+a shrapnel bullet from the lower reflexion of the pleura on account of
+fixed pain and tenderness complained of by the patient. The bullet, a
+shrapnel, had perforated the arm, which the patient was sure was by his
+side at the moment of injury, and the X-rays showed it to lie at the
+bottom of the pleural cavity, where we assumed it had fallen. When,
+however, the bullet was removed by Mr. Watson, he found that the fixed
+pain and tenderness had been the result of a fracture of a rib from the
+inner side, not involving loss of continuity; hence the actual
+indication for the operation had been a delusive one, since the bullet
+had not fallen, but expended its last force in injuring the rib. The
+patient made an excellent recovery, and rejoined his regiment at the end
+of six weeks. I saw several cases in which the bullet was lodged in
+either the lung or bones of the spine do well with no interference. The
+great disadvantage of primary removal in inducing an artificial
+pneumo-thorax and in laying open a hæmothorax is obvious.
+
+In case of lodgment of the bullet in the lung, bearing in mind the
+infrequency of untoward symptoms, the latter should be watched for prior
+to interference.
+
+The following cases illustrate some typical instances of wound of chest
+accompanied by the development of hæmothorax:--
+
+[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 3.--Primary Hæmothorax, with rise of
+temperature. Secondary rise, with fresh effusion and pneumonia.
+Spontaneous recovery. Case No. 154]
+
+     (154) _Severe hæmothorax. Spontaneous recovery._--Wounded at
+     Modder River at a distance of 30 yards. _Entry_, at the
+     junction of the left anterior axillary fold with the
+     chest-wall; _exit_, immediately to the left of the seventh
+     dorsal spinous process. The patient arrived at the Base with
+     signs of an extensive hæmothorax, accompanied by a temperature
+     which reached 102° on the fourth day, and on the evening of the
+     tenth 103°. The man was very ill, and an exploring needle was
+     inserted, by which about an ounce of blood was evacuated. The
+     signs of fluid in the left pleura were accompanied by those of
+     consolidation over the lower fourth of the right lung, and the
+     sputa were rusty. Evidence of perforation of the left axillary
+     artery existed in feebleness of the radial pulse; and there was
+     musculo-spiral paralysis.
+
+     After the preliminary puncture, the man refused any further
+     operative treatment, although a second rise of temperature
+     commenced on the fifteenth day, culminating in a temperature of
+     103.2° on the eighteenth. The further treatment of the patient
+     consisted in the ensurance of rest and the alleviation of pain.
+     A steady fall in the temperature extended over another three
+     weeks, together with diminution in the signs of fluid in the
+     pleura. At the end of seventy-four days the man was sent home,
+     some slight dulness at the left base, and contraction of the
+     chest sufficient to influence the spine in the way of lateral
+     curvature, being the only remaining signs.
+
+[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 4.--Primary Hæmothorax. Secondary rise
+of temperature, with increase in the effusion. Spontaneous recovery.
+Case No. 155]
+
+     (155) _Severe hæmothorax. Secondary effusion. Spontaneous
+     recovery._--Wounded at Koodoosberg Drift, at a distance of 200
+     yards. _Entry_, at angle of the right scapula; _exit_, at the
+     junction of the left anterior axillary fold with the
+     chest-wall. No signs of spinal cord injury. The patient was
+     brought in from the field twelve miles by an ambulance wagon on
+     the second day, and in crossing the Modder River he was
+     accidentally upset into the stream. For the first four days
+     there was no hæmoptysis, but for the succeeding nine days small
+     brightish red clots were expectorated. There was some
+     tenderness over the ribs from the fifth to the ninth in the
+     axillary line, and on the ninth day some gravitation ecchymosis
+     appeared over the same region. Cough was an early troublesome
+     symptom in this case, and when admitted to the Base hospital,
+     about the seventh day, there was evidence of fluid extending
+     about a third of the way up the back.
+
+     On the tenth day after admission a pleural rub was detected at
+     the upper margin of the dulness, and the latter shortly
+     extended upwards over a little more than half the back.
+     Meanwhile, there was no further hæmoptysis, respiration was
+     fairly easy, 24 per minute, but accompanied by slight
+     dilatation of the alæ nasi, and the temperature, which had been
+     ranging from 99° to 100°, began to rise steadily, on the
+     fifteenth day reaching 102.5°. The patient refused even an
+     exploratory puncture, and was treated on the expectant plan.
+     The temperature slowly subsided, with a steady improvement in
+     the physical signs, and at the end of about ten weeks he left
+     for home with only slight dulness and incapacity for active
+     exertion remaining. (Now again on active service.)
+
+[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 5.--Hæmothorax, primary and secondary
+rises of temperature, on each occasion falling on the evacuation of the
+blood. Case No. 156]
+
+     (156) _Severe hæmothorax. Recurrent secondary effusion. Tapping
+     on two occasions. Cure._--The patient was wounded at
+     Paardeberg, and arrived at the Base on the eighteenth day.
+     _Entry_, below the first rib, just external to its junction
+     with the costal cartilage; _exit_, through the ninth rib, just
+     within the posterior axillary line. The whole right side of the
+     chest was dull, with signs of the presence of fluid, the heart
+     being displaced to the left. There was considerable distress;
+     the respirations averaged 40, the pulse 100, and the
+     temperature reached 101.5° the first evening after arrival.
+
+     On the nineteenth day the thorax was aspirated (Mr. Hanwell)
+     and 50 ounces of dirty red-coloured fluid, half clot, half
+     serum, were evacuated. Considerable relief was afforded; the
+     respirations became slightly less frequent; the heart returned
+     to a normal position, and distant tubular respiration was
+     audible. The temperature dropped to normal the third day after
+     evacuation of the fluid, but on the sixth day it again
+     commenced to rise, and meanwhile fluid again began to collect.
+
+     On the twenty-sixth day a second aspiration resulted in the
+     evacuation of 35 ounces of bloody fluid in which flakes of
+     lymph were found. Three days later the temperature became
+     normal. The respirations fell to 22, and the patient made an
+     uninterrupted recovery.
+
+[Illustration: TEMPERATURE CHART 6.--Wound of Lung. Secondary
+development of Hæmothorax, with rise of temperature. Spontaneous
+recovery. Case No 157]
+
+     (157) _Moderate hæmothorax. Secondary effusion at the end of
+     twenty days. Spontaneous recovery._--Wounded at Paardeberg;
+     range from 700 to 1,000 yards. _Entry_, in the centre of the
+     second right intercostal space, anteriorly; _exit_, at the
+     level of the sixth rib posteriorly, through the scapula, close
+     to its vertebral margin.
+
+     The patient arrived at the Base on the sixth day; he said he
+     expectorated some blood at the end of about ten minutes after
+     being shot, and experienced a 'half-choking sensation.' A small
+     quantity of phlegm and occasional clots had been expectorated
+     since. He had walked about a good deal; movement occasioned
+     cough, and he became 'blown' very rapidly.
+
+     On admission there were signs of fluid in the lower third of
+     the pleural cavity, but no general symptoms beyond an evening
+     rise of temperature to an average of 99°. About the twentieth
+     day the temperature commenced to rise, and on the twenty-third
+     and four following evenings reached 102°. The fever was
+     accompanied by some distress, and a well-marked increase in the
+     physical signs of the presence of fluid in the chest. The pulse
+     rose to 96, and the respirations considerably above the average
+     of 24, which was at first noted. A strictly expectant attitude
+     was maintained, and the temperature steadily fell in a curve
+     corresponding to the rise, gradually reaching the normal at the
+     end of a week. The physical signs at the base steadily cleared
+     up, and at the end of six weeks the patient returned to England
+     convalescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+INJURIES TO THE ABDOMEN
+
+
+Perhaps no chapter of military surgery was looked forward to with more
+eager interest than that dealing with wounds of the abdomen. In none was
+greater expectation indulged in with regard to probable advance in
+active surgical treatment, and in none did greater disappointment lie in
+store for us.
+
+Wounds of the solid viscera, it is true, proved to be of minor
+importance when produced by bullets of small calibre; but wounds of the
+intestinal tract, although they showed themselves capable of spontaneous
+recovery in a certain proportion of the cases observed, afforded but
+slight opportunity for surgical skill, and results generally deviated
+but slightly from those of past experience. Such success as was met with
+depended rather on the mechanical genesis and nature of the wounds than
+upon the efforts of the surgeon, and operative surgery scored but few
+successes.
+
+It is true that to the Civil Surgeon accustomed to surroundings replete
+with every modern appliance and convenience, and the possibility of
+exercising the most stringent precautions against the introduction of
+sepsis from without, abdominal operations presented difficulties only
+faintly appreciated in advance; but this alone scarcely accounted for
+the want of success attending the active treatment of wounds of the
+intestine when occasion demanded. Failure was rather to be referred to
+the severity of the local injury to be dealt with, or to the operations
+being necessarily undertaken at too late a date. Many fatalities, again,
+were due to the association of other injuries, a large proportion of the
+wound tracks involving other organs or parts beyond the boundaries of
+the abdominal cavity.
+
+The frequent association of wounds of the thoracic cavity with those of
+the abdomen afforded many of the most striking examples of immunity from
+serious consequences as a result of wound of the pleura. It must be
+conceded that in a large number of such injuries only the extreme limits
+of the pleural sac were encroached upon, yet in some the tracks passed
+through the lungs, although without serious consequences. Under the
+heading of injury to the large intestine a somewhat special form of
+pleural septicæmia will be referred to.
+
+It may at once be stated that such favourable results as occurred in
+abdominal injuries were practically limited to wounds caused by bullets
+of small calibre, and that, although in the short chapter dealing with
+shell injuries a few recoveries from visceral wounds will be mentioned,
+I never met with a penetrating visceral injury from a Martini-Henry or
+large sporting bullet which did not prove fatal.
+
+_Wounds of the abdominal wall._--It is somewhat paradoxical to say that
+these injuries possessed special interest from their comparative rarity
+of occurrence, since they were not of intrinsic importance. Their
+infrequency depended on the difficulty of striking the body in such a
+plane as to implicate the belly wall alone, and their interest in the
+diagnostic difficulty which they gave rise to.
+
+In many cases the position of the openings and the strongly oval or
+gutter character possessed by them were sufficient proof of the
+superficial passage of the bullet; in others we had to bear in mind that
+the position of the patient when struck was rarely that of rest in the
+supine position, in which the surgical examination was made, and
+considerable difficulty arose. Some superficial tracks crossing the
+belly wall have already been referred to in the chapter on wounds in
+general and in that dealing with injuries to the chest, in which the
+above characters sufficed to indicate that penetration of the abdominal
+cavity had not occurred. In other instances a definite subcutaneous
+gutter could be traced, and often in these a well-marked cord in the
+abdominal wall corresponding to the track could be felt at a later date.
+Again, limitation to the abdominal wall was sometimes proved by the
+position of the retained bullet, or sometimes by the presence in the
+track of foreign bodies carried in with the projectile. See case 160.
+
+Fig. 84 illustrates an example where the limitation to the abdominal
+wall was evident on inspection. Here the division of the thick muscles
+of the abdominal wall had led to the formation of a swelling exactly
+similar to that seen after the subcutaneous rupture of a muscle, and two
+soft fluctuating tumours bounded by contracted muscle existed in the
+substance of the oblique and rectus muscles.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 84.--Wound of Abdominal Wall (Lee-Metford). Division
+of fibres of external oblique and rectus abdominis muscles. Case 159]
+
+The cases which presented the most serious diagnostic difficulty in this
+relation were those in which the wound was situated in the thicker
+muscular portions of the lower part of the abdominal and pelvic walls.
+Such a case is illustrated in the chapter on fractures (see fig. 55, p.
+191). I saw one or two such instances, in which only the exploration
+necessary for treatment of the fracture decided the point. In many of
+the wounds affecting the lateral portion of the abdominal wall the
+question of penetration could never be definitely cleared up, as wounds
+of the colon sometimes gave rise to absolutely no symptoms.
+
+In a certain proportion of the injuries the peritoneal cavity was no
+doubt perforated without the infliction of any further visceral injury,
+and in these also the doubt as to the occurrence of penetration was
+never solved.
+
+     (158) _Wound of belly wall._--Wounded at Modder River. _Entry_
+     (Mauser), 2 inches below the centre of the left iliac crest;
+     _exit_, 1-1/2 inch above and internal to the left anterior
+     superior iliac spine. The patient was on horseback at the time
+     of the injury and did not fall; he got down, however, and lay
+     on the field an hour, whence he was removed to hospital.
+     Probably the track pierced the ilium, and remained confined to
+     the abdominal wall. There were no signs of visceral injury.
+
+     (159) Cape Boy. Wounded at Modder River. _Entry_ (Lee-Metford),
+     immediately above and outside right anterior superior spine;
+     _exit_, 1-1/2 inch below and to right of umbilicus. A
+     well-marked swelling corresponded with division of the fibres
+     of the oblique muscles and of the rectus, and on palpation a
+     hollow corresponding with the track was felt. The abdominal
+     muscles were exceptionally well developed (fig. 84).
+
+     (160) Wounded at Magersfontein while lying prone. _Entry_,
+     irregular, oblique, and somewhat contused, over the eighth left
+     rib, in the anterior axillary line; _exit_, a slit wound
+     immediately above and to the left of the umbilicus. The bullet
+     struck a small circular metal looking-glass before entering,
+     hence the irregularity of the wound. The patient developed a
+     hæmothorax, but no abdominal signs; the former was probably
+     parietal in origin, secondary to the fractured rib, and the
+     whole wound non-penetrating as far as the abdominal cavity was
+     concerned.
+
+     (161) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), 1-1/2 inch
+     external to and 1/2 inch below the left posterior superior
+     iliac spine; _exit_, 1 inch internal horizontally to the left
+     anterior superior spine.
+
+     No signs of intra-peritoneal injury were noted, but free
+     suppuration occurred in left loin; the ilium was tunnelled.
+
+     The same patient was wounded by a Jeffrey bullet in the hand;
+     the third metacarpal was pulverised, although the bullet, which
+     was longitudinally flanged, was retained.
+
+     (162) Wounded outside Heilbron. _Entry_, below the eighth right
+     costal cartilage; _exit_, below the eighth cartilage of the
+     left side. The wound of entry was slightly oval; that of exit
+     continued out as a 'flame'-like groove for 2 inches. A week
+     later the wound track could be palpated as an evident hard
+     continuous cord.
+
+_Penetration of the intestinal area without definite evidence of
+visceral injury._--This accident occurred with a sufficient degree of
+frequency to obtain the greatest importance, both from the point of view
+of diagnosis and prognosis, and as affecting the question of operative
+interference. Amongst the cases reported below a number occurred in
+which it was impossible to settle the question whether injury to the
+bowel had occurred or not, and I will here shortly give what explanation
+I can for the apparent escape of the intestine from serious injury.
+
+We may first recall the general question of the escape of structures
+lying to one or other side of the track of the bullet. I believe that
+there can be no doubt as to the accuracy of the remarks already made as
+to the escape of such structures as the nerves by means of displacement,
+and that the occurrence of such escapes is manifestly dependent on the
+degree of fixity of the nerve or the special segment of it implicated.
+The general tendency of the tissues around the tracks to escape
+extensive destruction from actual contusion has also been referred to,
+and is, I think, indisputable.
+
+If these observations be accepted, I think there can be no difficulty in
+allowing that the small intestine is exceptionally well arranged to
+escape injury. First of all, it is very moveable; secondly, it is so
+arranged that in certain directions a bullet may pass almost parallel to
+the long axis of the coils; thirdly, it is elastic, capable of
+compression, and light, and hence offers but a small degree of
+resistance to the passage of the bullet across the abdominal cavity.
+
+Certain evidence both clinical and pathological supports the contention
+that the small intestine may escape injury from the passing bullet.
+
+First of all, the fact may be broadly stated that injuries to the small
+intestine were fatal in the great majority of certainly diagnosed cases,
+while, on the other hand, many tracks crossed the area occupied by the
+small intestine without serious symptoms of any kind resulting.
+Secondly, experience showed that when the bullet crossed the line of the
+fixed portions of the large intestine the gut rarely escaped, and that,
+although a considerable proportion of these cases recovered
+spontaneously, in a large number of them immediate symptoms, or
+secondary complications, clearly substantiated the nature of the
+original injury. As far as my experience went, however, I never saw any
+instance in which an undoubted injury of the small intestine was
+followed by the development of a local peritoneal suppuration and
+recovery, a sequence by no means uncommon in the case of wounds of the
+large intestine. Although, therefore, I am not prepared to deny the
+possibility of spontaneous recovery from an injury to the small
+intestine, under certain conditions which will be stated later, I
+believe that in the immense majority of cases in which a bullet crossed
+the small intestine area without the supervention of serious symptoms,
+the small intestine escaped perforating injury.
+
+Beyond the clinical evidence offered above, certain pathological
+observations support the view that the intestine escapes perforation by
+displacement. Most of my knowledge on this subject was derived from the
+limited number of abdominal sections I performed on cases of injury to
+the small intestine, and may be summed up as follows.
+
+The small intestine may present evidence of lateral contusion in the
+shape of elongated ecchymoses, either parallel, oblique, or transverse
+to its long axis. These ecchymoses resemble in extent and outline those
+which ordinarily surround a wound of the intestinal wall produced by a
+bullet (see fig. 87, p. 418).
+
+The wall of the small intestine may be wounded to an extent short of
+perforation, either the peritoneal coat alone being split, or the wound
+implicating the muscular coat and producing an appearance similar to
+that seen when the intestine is dragged upon during an operation, but
+without so much gaping of the edges (see fig. 85, p. 416).
+
+I met with these conditions in association with co-existing complete
+perforations of the small intestine, and in one case of intra-peritoneal
+hæmorrhage in which no complete perforation was discoverable (No. 169,
+p. 432).
+
+The implication and perforation of the small intestine are to some
+extent influenced by the direction of the wound. A striking case is
+included below, No. 201, in which a bullet passed from the loin to the
+iliac fossa on each side of the body, approximately parallel to the
+course of the inner margin of the colon, and I also saw some other
+wounds in this direction in which no evidence of injury to the small
+intestine was detected, and which got well. Again wounds from flank to
+flank were, as a rule, very fatal; but I saw more than one instance
+where these wounds were situated immediately below the crest of the
+ilium, in which the intestine escaped injury (see case 171). A very
+striking observation was made by Mr. Cheatle in such a wound. The
+patient died as a result of a double perforation of both cæcum and
+sigmoid flexure; none the less the bullet had crossed the small
+intestine area without inflicting any injury.
+
+The sum of my experience, in fact, was to encourage the belief that,
+unless the intestine was struck in such a direction as to render lateral
+displacement an impossibility, the gut often escaped perforation.
+
+As a rule, the wounds of the abdomen which from their position proved
+the most dangerous to the intestine were--
+
+1. Wounds passing from one flank to the other were very dangerous, as
+crossing complicated coils of the small intestine, and two fixed
+portions of the colon. This danger was most marked when the wounds were
+situated between the eighth rib in the mid axillary line and the crest
+of the ilium; above this level the liver, or possibly liver and stomach,
+were sometimes alone implicated, and the cases did well. Again, when the
+wounds crossed the false pelvis the patients sometimes escaped all
+injury to viscera.
+
+2. Antero-posterior wounds in the small intestine area were very fatal
+if the course was direct; in such the small intestine seldom escaped
+injury.
+
+3. Wounds with a certain degree of obliquity from anterior wall to
+flank, or from flank to loin, were on the other hand comparatively
+favourable, as the small intestine often escaped, and if any gut was
+wounded, it was often the colon.
+
+4. Vertical wounds implicating the chest and abdomen, or the abdomen and
+pelvis, were on the whole not very unfavourable. For instance, when the
+bullet entered by the buttock and emerged below the umbilicus, a number
+of patients escaped fatal injury; this depended on the comparatively
+good prognosis in wounds of the rectum and bladder. A good many
+patients in whom the bullet entered by the upper part of the loin, and
+escaped 1-1/2 inch within the anterior superior spine of the ilium, also
+did well. The same holds good when the wounds either entered or emerged
+under the anterior costal margin of the thorax, either prior to or after
+traversing the thorax.
+
+Wounds passing directly backward from the iliac regions were in my
+experience very unfavourable; but I believe mainly as a result of
+hæmorrhage from the iliac arteries.
+
+_The occurrence of wounds of the abdomen of an 'explosive'
+character._--The vast majority of the abdominal wounds observed in the
+Stationary or Base hospitals were of the type dimensions. A certain
+number of the abdominal injuries which proved fatal on the field or
+shortly afterwards were described as explosive in character, and were
+referred by the observers to the employment of expanding bullets.
+
+A few words on this subject seem necessary, because it seems doubtful
+whether such injuries could be produced by any of the forms of expanding
+bullet of small calibre in use, unless the track crossed one of the
+bones in the abdominal or pelvic wall. That this was sometimes the case
+there is no doubt: thus I saw two cases in which the splenic flexure of
+the colon was wounded, in which the external opening was large, and a
+comminuted fracture of the ribs of the left side existed. One can well
+believe that bullets passing through the pelvic bones might 'set up' to
+a considerable extent, and although I never happened to see such a case,
+an explanation of some of the wounds described by others might be found
+in this occurrence.
+
+In instances in which the soft parts alone were perforated, I am
+disinclined to believe that bullets of small calibre, either regulation
+or soft-nosed, were responsible for the injuries. I had the opportunity
+of examining two Mauser bullets of the Jeffreys variety which crossed
+the abdomen and caused death. In the first (figured on page 94, fig. 40)
+very little alteration beyond slight shortening had occurred. In the
+second the deformity was almost the same, except that the side of the
+bullet was indented, probably from impact with some object prior to its
+entry into the body. In each case the bullet was of course travelling at
+a low rate of velocity; hence no very strong inference can be drawn
+from either. In the case of the second specimen, which was removed by
+Mr. Cheatle, a remarkable observation was made, which tends to throw
+some light on one possible mode of production of large exit apertures.
+This bullet crossed the cæcum, making two small type openings; but
+later, when it crossed the sigmoid flexure, it tore two large irregular
+openings in the gut. This might be explained on the ground that the
+velocity was so small as only just to allow of perforation, which
+therefore took the nature of a tear. I am inclined to suggest, as a more
+likely explanation, that the spent bullet turned head over heels in its
+course across the abdomen, and made lateral or irregular impact with the
+last piece of bowel it touched. A slightly greater degree of force would
+have allowed a similar large and irregular opening to be made in the
+abdominal wall also.
+
+In this relation the question will naturally be raised as to how far the
+explosive appearances may have been due to high velocity alone on the
+part of the bullet. I am disinclined from my general experience to
+believe that explosive injuries of the soft parts were to be thus
+explained. On the other hand, I believe that the possession of a low
+degree of velocity very greatly increased the danger in abdominal
+wounds. I believe that the bowel was, under these circumstances, less
+likely to escape by displacement, and was more widely torn when wounded;
+again, that inexact impact led to increase of size in the external
+apertures, and the bullet was of course more often retained.
+
+Mr. Watson Cheyne[19] published a very remarkable instance of one of the
+dangers of an injury from a spent bullet, in which, in spite of
+non-penetration of the abdominal cavity, the small intestine was
+ruptured in two places.
+
+I believe the majority of the wounds designated as explosive were the
+result of the passage of large leaden bullets, either of the
+Martini-Henry or Express type. The small opportunity of observing such
+injuries in the hospitals of course depended on the fact that the
+majority were rapidly fatal.
+
+_Nature of the anatomical lesion in wounds of the intestine._--The
+openings in the parietal peritoneum tended to assume the slit or star
+forms, probably on account of the elasticity of the membrane. A diagram
+of one of these forms is appended to fig. 89. In this instance the
+opening in the peritoneum was made from the abdominal aspect, prior to
+the escape of the bullet from the cavity, and on the impact of the tip,
+the long axis of the bullet was oblique to the surface of the abdominal
+wall.
+
+In the intestinal wall the openings varied in character according to the
+mode of impact.
+
+In some cases the gut was merely contused by lateral contact of the
+passing bullet. The result of this was evidenced later by the presence
+of localised oval patches of ecchymosis. These were identical in
+appearance with the patches shown surrounding the wounds in fig. 87.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 85.--Lateral Slit in Small Intestine produced by
+passage of bullet. Slit somewhat obscured by deposition of inflammatory
+lymph. (St. Thomas's Hospital Museum)]
+
+More forcible lateral impact produced a split of the peritoneum, or of
+this together with the muscular coat. Such a lateral slit is shown in
+fig. 85, although the clearness of outline is somewhat impaired by the
+presence of a considerable amount of inflammatory lymph.
+
+Fig. 86 exhibits a lateral injury of a more pronounced form. The bullet
+here struck the most prominent portion of the under surface of the
+bowel, and produced a circular perforation not very unlike one produced
+by rectangular impact, except in the lesser degree of eversion of the
+mucous membrane. Here again the appearance is somewhat altered by the
+presence of a considerable amount of lymph, but this is of less
+importance in this figure because the lymph is localised to the portion
+of the bowel in the immediate neighbourhood of the opening which had
+suffered contusion and erasion.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 86.--Gutter Wound of Small Intestine caused by
+lateral impact. Position of shallow portion of gutter indicated by
+deposition of inflammatory lymph. Circular perforation. (St. Thomas's
+Hospital Museum)]
+
+Fig. 87, A B, illustrates a symmetrical perforation of the small
+intestine; the aperture of entry (A) is roughly circular, and a ring of
+mucous membrane protrudes and partially closes the opening. The aperture
+of exit is a curved slit, again partially occluded by the mucous
+membrane. The same amount of difference between the two apertures did
+not always exist; in many cases both were circular, and apparently
+symmetrical. Beyond this I have seen three apertures in close proximity,
+two lying on the same aspect of the bowel, and the first of these was no
+doubt an opening due to lateral impact similar to that seen in fig. 86.
+In the recent condition little difference existed between the three
+apertures.
+
+The localised ecchymosis surrounding the apertures is quite
+characteristic of this form of injury, and is a valuable aid to finding
+the openings during an operation.
+
+Fig. 88 shows the interior of the same segment of bowel, as fig. 87. It
+shows the localised ecchymosis as seen from the inner surface, here
+rather more extensive from the fact that the blood spreads more readily
+in the submucous tissue.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 87.--Perforating Wounds of Small Intestine. A.
+Entry; note circular outline and eversion of mucous membrane. B. Wound
+of exit; curved slit-like character, eversion of mucous membrane. Note
+the localised ecchymosis, more abundant round exit aperture. (St.
+Thomas's Hospital Museum)]
+
+It will be noted that the main feature of the form of injury is the
+regular outline and the small size of the wounds. Another feature not
+illustrated by the figures should also be mentioned. In the ruptures of
+intestine with which we are acquainted in civil practice the wound in
+the gut is almost without exception situated at the free border of the
+bowel, but in these injuries it was just as frequently at the mesenteric
+margin. The importance of this factor is considerable, since wounds
+near the mesenteric edge are much more likely to be accompanied by
+hæmorrhage, and thus the opportunity for diffusion of infection is
+considerably multiplied, to say nothing of the danger from loss of
+blood.
+
+Beyond these more or less pure perforations, long slits or gutters were
+occasionally cut. I saw instances of these in the case of the ascending
+colon, and in the small curvature of the stomach. The comparative fixity
+of the portion of bowel struck is a matter of great importance in the
+production of this form of injury.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 88.--The same piece of Intestine as that shown in
+fig. 87, laid open to show the ecchymosis on the inner aspect of the
+Bowel. The two indicating lines lead to the openings, which appear
+slit-like, and are sunk at the bottom of folds. (St. Thomas's Hospital
+Museum)]
+
+It may be well to add that, although the figures inserted are all taken
+from small-intestine wounds, the nature of the wounds of the
+peritoneum-clad part of the large intestine in no way differed from
+them, except in so far as fixity of the bowel exposed it to a more
+extensive wound when the bullet took a parallel course to its long axis.
+
+A more important point in the injuries to the large intestine was the
+possibility of an extra-peritoneal wound. I saw several such lesions of
+the colon, every one of which ended fatally. I became still more fully
+convinced of the greater seriousness of extra- to intra-peritoneal
+rupture of this portion of the gut than I was when I expressed a similar
+opinion in a former paper.[20] It will be seen later that the results of
+intra- and extra-peritoneal wounds of the bladder fully confirm this
+view, as all extra-peritoneal injuries died, while many intra-peritoneal
+perforations recovered spontaneously.
+
+_Wounds of the mesentery._--I had little experience of this injury; in
+fact, case 169, on which I operated, was my sole observation. It stands
+to reason, however, that injuries to the mesentery would be much more
+frequent proportionately to wounds of the gut than is the case in the
+ruptures seen in civil practice, since the whole area of the mesentery
+is equally open to injury. Viewing the extreme danger of hæmorrhage into
+the peritoneal cavity in these injuries, I should be inclined to expect
+that a considerable proportion of those deaths from abdominal wounds
+which took place on the field of battle were due to this source.
+
+_Wounds of the omentum._--Here, again, I am unable to express any
+opinion, although the supposition that hæmorrhage from this source took
+place is natural.
+
+Prolapse of omentum was comparatively rare, except in cases with large
+wounds; it was apparently seen with some frequency among patients who
+died rapidly on the field of battle. I only saw it twice, and on each
+occasion in shell wounds. The wounds from small-calibre bullets were as
+a rule too small to allow of external prolapse.
+
+Fig. 89, however, illustrates a very interesting observation. A patient
+in the German Ambulance in Heilbron, under Dr. Flockemann, died as a
+result of suppuration and hæmorrhage secondary to an injury to the
+colon. At the autopsy a portion of the omentum was found adherent in the
+wound of exit, but it had not reached the external surface. The chief
+interest of the observation lies in the light it throws on the mechanism
+of these injuries. It is impossible to conceive that a small-calibre
+bullet coming into direct contact with the omentum could do anything but
+perforate it. It, therefore, appears clear that in a displacement like
+that figured, only lateral impact occurred with the omentum, which was
+carried along by the spin and rush of the bullet into the canal of exit,
+where it lodged.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 89.--Great Omentum carried by the bullet into an
+exit track leading from the abdominal cavity. A. Outline of opening in
+the peritoneum]
+
+_Results of injury to the intestine._ 1. _Escape of contents and
+infection of the peritoneal cavity._--I think there is little special to
+be said on this subject. The escape of contents into the peritoneal
+cavity was by no means free, unless the injury was multiple. Thus in one
+case of injury to the small intestine, No. 166, on which I operated,
+there was absolutely no gross escape until the bowel was removed from
+the abdominal cavity, when the contents spurted out freely. In one case
+of very oblique injury to the colon there was a considerable quantity of
+fæcal matter in a localised space, but as a rule the ordinary condition
+best described as 'peritoneal infection' from the wound was found. The
+bad effect of anything like free escape was well shown in multiple
+perforations; in these suppurative peritonitis rapidly developed and the
+patients died at the end of thirty-six hours or less. A typical case is
+quoted in No. 168.
+
+2. _Peritoneal infection, and general septicæmia._--As is evident from
+the results quoted among the cases, the degree which this reached varied
+greatly. It may of course be assumed that in some measure it occurred in
+every case in which the bowel was perforated, but it was sometimes so
+slight as to be scarcely noticeable. This may be said to have been most
+common in injuries to the large intestine. Wounds of the cæcum,
+ascending and descending colon, the sigmoid flexure, or the rectum, were
+sometimes followed by no serious symptoms, either local or general.
+Again in these portions of the bowel the development of local signs, and
+the later formation of an abscess, were by no means uncommon.
+
+In the case of the small intestine I never observed this sequence, and
+the same may be said of the transverse colon, which in its anatomical
+arrangement and position so nearly approximates to the small bowel. In
+suspected wounds of these portions of the bowel either the symptoms were
+so slight as to render it doubtful whether a perforation had occurred,
+or marked signs of general peritoneal septicæmia developed, and death
+resulted.
+
+The condition of the peritoneum in fatal cases varied much. In some a
+dry peritonitis, or one in which a considerable quantity of slightly
+turbid fluid was effused, was found. In others a rapid suppurative
+process, accompanied by the effusion of large quantities of plastic
+lymph, was met with. My experience suggested that the latter condition
+was the result of free infection from multiple wounds of the gut, the
+former the accompaniment of single wounds. Hence I should ascribe the
+difference mainly to the extent of the primary infection.
+
+This is perhaps a suitable place to further discuss the explanation of
+the escape of a considerable number of the patients who received wounds
+of the abdomen, possibly implicating the bowel. Although this was not, I
+think, so common an occurrence as has been sometimes assumed, yet many
+examples were met with. Several reasons have been advanced.
+
+(1) Great importance has been given to the fact that many of the men
+were wounded while in a state of hunger, no food having been taken for
+twelve or more hours before the reception of the injury. In view of the
+well-proved fact in these, as in other intestinal injuries, that free
+intestinal escape does not occur, and that it is usually a mere question
+of infection, this explanation, in my opinion, is of small importance.
+It might with far more justice be pointed out that many of these wounded
+men were for them in the happy position of not having friends freely
+dosing them with brandy and water after the reception of the injury, and
+this was possibly an element of some importance.
+
+Some of the men did, however, drink freely, and in one case which
+terminated fatally a comrade gave a man wounded through the belly an
+immediate dose of Beecham's pills.
+
+(2) Mr. Treves has suggested that the effect of the severe trauma on the
+muscular coat of the bowel is to cause a cessation of peristaltic
+movement. This, as in the case of 'local shock' elsewhere, may no doubt
+be of importance, and to it should be added the simultaneous cessation
+of abdominal respiratory movements in the segment of the belly wall
+covering the injured part. The occurrence of general cessation of
+peristaltic movement is, however, to some extent opposed by the fact
+that in a certain number of the cases early passage of motions was seen
+just as happens in the intestinal ruptures seen in civil practice.
+
+I should be inclined to ascribe the escape from serious infection in
+these injuries to the same cause which accounts for their comparative
+insignificance in other regions--namely, the small calibre of the bullet
+and consequent small size of the lesion: in point of fact to the minimal
+nature of the primary infection. I very much doubt if any patient who
+had more than one complete perforation of the small intestine got well
+during the whole campaign. This opinion is, moreover, supported by the
+fact that the prognosis was so far better in cases of injury to the
+large than to the small intestine, in which former segment of the bowel
+we have the advantages of a position beyond the region in which
+intestinal movement is most free, the unlikelihood of multiple injury,
+and a drier and more solid type of fæcal contents.
+
+In the instances in which recovery followed perforating injuries without
+any bad signs we can only assume a minimal infection, and sufficient
+irritation and reaction on the part of the bowel to produce rapid
+adhesion between contiguous coils, and thus provisional closure.
+
+The other mode of spontaneous recovery which I saw several times take
+place in the injuries to the large bowel consisted in the limitation of
+the spread of infection by early adhesions and the development of a
+local abscess. The non-observance of this process in any case of injury
+to the small intestine raises very great doubts in my mind as to the
+frequent recovery of patients in whom the small intestine was
+perforated.
+
+
+INJURIES TO THE INTESTINAL TRACT
+
+1. _Wounds of the stomach._--A considerable number of wounds in such a
+situation as to have possibly implicated the stomach were observed, and
+of these a certain number recovered spontaneously. The only two
+instances that came under my own observation are recorded below. It will
+be noted that in each the special symptoms were the classic ones of
+vomiting and hæmatemesis. In the first case blood was also passed per
+anum, and in the second the diagnosis was reinforced by the escape of
+stomach contents from the external wound.
+
+The second case was a surgical disappointment. No doubt the fatal issue
+was mainly dependent on the fact that the external wound had to be kept
+open to allow of the escape of the abundant discharge from the wounded
+liver. In the absence of the hepatic wound, however, I believe it would
+have been possible for this patient to have got well spontaneously, in
+view of the firm adhesions which had formed around the opening in the
+stomach, and the consequent localisation which had been effected.
+Another unfortunate element in this case was the comminuted fracture of
+the seventh costal cartilage, which maintained the patency of the
+aperture of exit. The latter point, however, was of doubtful importance
+from this aspect, as the vent provided for the gastric and biliary
+secretions may have been the safety-valve that had allowed localisation
+to develop.
+
+I believe that the secondary hæmorrhage was the main element in robbing
+us of a success in this case, and that this depended on the digestion of
+the wound by the gastric secretion. The early troubles which arose in
+the treatment of this patient well illustrate the difficulties by which
+the military surgeon is at times met; but the patient was admirably
+attended to and nursed by my friend Mr. Pershouse, and an orderly who
+was specially put on duty for the purpose.
+
+     (163) Wounded at Rensburg. _Entry_ (Mauser), in ninth left
+     intercostal space in posterior axillary line; _exit_, a
+     transverse slit 1/2 an inch in length to left of xiphoid
+     appendage. Patient was retiring when struck; he did not fall,
+     but ran for about 1,000 yards, whence he was conveyed to
+     hospital. He vomited half an hour after the injury (last meal
+     bread and 'bully beef,' taken two hours previously), and during
+     the evening three times again, the vomit consisting mainly 'of
+     dark thick blood.' He was put on milk diet, and not completely
+     starved; on the third day a large quantity of dark clotted
+     blood was passed per rectum with the stool, and this continued
+     for two days.
+
+     Ten days after the injury the temperature was still rising to
+     100°, and did not become normal till the fourteenth day. The
+     pulse averaged 80. The abdomen, meanwhile, moved fairly well,
+     respirations 18 to 20. Some tenderness was present in the
+     epigastrium and towards the spleen. Resonance throughout.
+     Ordinary diet was now resumed, and beyond slight epigastric
+     pain on deep inspiration, no further symptoms were observed,
+     and the patient left for England at the end of the month. The
+     spleen may have been traversed in this patient, as well as the
+     lower margin of the right lung.
+
+     (164*) Wounded at Enslin. _Entry_ (Mauser), 3/4 of an inch from
+     the spine, opposite the eighth intercostal space; _exit_,
+     through the seventh left costal cartilage, 1 inch from the
+     median line. The patient was lying in the prone position when
+     shot: he vomited blood freely, and the bowels acted three times
+     before he was seen forty hours after the accident, each motion
+     containing dark blood.
+
+     On the commencement of the third day the patient's expression
+     was extremely anxious, and he was suffering great pain. Pulse
+     96, temperature 100°. Tongue moist, occasional vomiting, bowels
+     open yesterday. Has taken fluid nourishment since injury. The
+     abdomen moved with respiration, but was moderately distended,
+     especially in the line of the transverse colon; it was
+     tympanitic on percussion, there was no dulness in the flanks,
+     and only moderate rigidity of the wall on palpation. Frothy
+     fluid stained with bile and fæcal in odour was escaping from
+     the wound of exit, and the everted margins of the latter were
+     bile-stained.
+
+     A vertical incision was carried downwards from the wound for 4
+     inches. A rugged furrow was found on the under surface of the
+     left lobe of the liver; the stomach was contracted and firmly
+     adherent by recent lymph to the under surface of the liver and
+     the diaphragm. The transverse colon was much distended. On
+     separating the stomach a slit wound was found at the lesser
+     curvature, immediately to the right of the oesophagus. This
+     wound was closed with some difficulty with two tiers of
+     sutures; the cavity was mopped out, and then irrigated with
+     boiled water; a plug was introduced along the line of the
+     furrow in the liver, and the lower part of the abdominal
+     incision closed.
+
+     The patient stood the operation well, and was removed to his
+     tent; during the day, however, two thunder showers occurred
+     during each of which water, several inches if not a foot deep,
+     rushed through the camp. After the second flood he was removed
+     to the operating room, the only house we had, and slept there.
+     The pulse rose to 120, and respiration to 26, and there was
+     pain, which was subdued by 1/3 grain of morphia, administered
+     subcutaneously. A fair amount of urine was passed, and the
+     bowels acted once, the motion containing blood.
+
+     On the second day after operation there was some improvement;
+     the pulse still numbered 116, and the temperature was raised to
+     100°, but the belly moved fairly, and pain was moderate.
+     Abundant foul-smelling, bile-stained discharge came from the
+     wound when the plug was removed. Rectal feeding was
+     supplemented by small quantities of milk and soda by the mouth.
+
+     The condition did not materially change, but on the fourth day
+     it was evident that the suturing of the stomach wound had given
+     way, and liquid food escaped readily when taken. The discharge
+     remained bile-stained and very foul. No extension of
+     inflammation to the general peritoneal cavity occurred, but it
+     was evident that the patient was suffering from constitutional
+     infection from the foul wound, the lower part of which opened
+     up somewhat after the removal of the stitches on the seventh
+     day. The wound was irrigated three times daily with 1-300
+     creolin lotion, but remained very foul. The man slowly lost
+     strength, although escape from the stomach considerably
+     decreased. On the tenth day a sudden severe hæmorrhage
+     occurred, presumably from a large branch of the coeliac axis.
+     The bleeding was readily controlled by a plug, and did not
+     recur; but the patient rapidly sank, and died on the twelfth
+     day after the operation, and fourteen days after reception of
+     the injury. No _post-mortem_ examination was made.
+
+2. _Wounds of the small intestine._--These were comparatively common,
+but offered little that was special either in their symptoms or the
+results attending them. Wounds were met with in every part of the small
+gut; but I saw no case in which an injury to the duodenum could be
+specially diagnosed.
+
+As to the symptoms which attended these injuries, it is somewhat
+difficult to speak with precision, and it must be left to my readers to
+form an opinion as to how many of the cases recounted below were really
+instances of perforating wounds. My own view is that in the majority of
+the cases that got well spontaneously, the injury was not of a
+perforating nature, and that for reasons which have been already set
+forth. It will, however, be at once noted that in all the five cases in
+which the injury was certainly diagnosed in hospital death occurred.
+
+The cases of injury to the small intestine are perhaps best arranged in
+three classes.
+
+1. Those who died upon the field, or shortly after removal from it. In
+these the external wounds were often large, the omentum was not rarely
+prolapsed, and escape of fæces sometimes occurred early. Shock from the
+severity of the lesion, and hæmorrhage, were no doubt important factors
+in the early lethal issue in this class. Many of the injuries were no
+doubt produced by bullets striking irregularly, by ricochets, by bullets
+of the expanding forms, or by bullets of large calibre. As being beyond
+the bounds of surgical aid, this class possessed the least interest.
+
+2. Cases brought into the Field, or even the Stationary hospitals, with
+symptoms of moderate severity, or even of an insignificant character,
+in which evidence of septic peritonitis suddenly developed and death
+ensued.
+
+3. Cases in which the position of the wounds raised the possibility of
+injury to the intestine, but in which the symptoms were slight or of
+moderate severity, and which recovered spontaneously.
+
+The whole crux in diagnosis lay in the attempt to separate the two
+latter classes, and, personally, I must own to having been no nearer a
+position of being able to form an opinion on this point, in the late
+than in the early stage of my stay in South Africa. The advent of
+peritoneal septicæmia was in many instances the only determining moment.
+On this matter I can only add that, in civil practice, an exploratory
+abdominal section is often the only means of determination of a rupture
+of the bowel wall.
+
+With regard to the cases of suspected injury to the bowel which
+recovered spontaneously, the symptoms were somewhat special in their
+comparative slightness, and in the limited nature of the local signs.
+Thus the pulse seldom rose to as much as 100 in rate, 80 was a common
+average. Respiration was never greatly quickened, 24 was a common rate.
+The temperature rarely exceeded 100°. Vomiting was occasionally severe,
+but usually not persistent, ceasing on the second day. A good quantity
+of urine was passed. As to the local signs, these again were of a
+limited nature; distension did not occur, or was slight; movement of the
+abdominal wall was only restricted in the neighbourhood of the wound,
+the affected area amounted to a quarter, or at most half, the abdominal
+wall, and rigidity was localised to a similar segment. Local tenderness
+usually existed; but, as a rule, there was little or no dulness to point
+to the occurrence either of fluid effusion or a considerable deposition
+of lymph.
+
+Again many of the patients suffered with very slight symptoms of
+constitutional shock, although there was considerable variation in this
+particular.
+
+     (165*) Wounded at Graspan, sustaining a compound fracture of
+     the fibula. While being carried off the field, a second bullet
+     (Lee-Metford) entered immediately outside the left posterior
+     superior iliac spine, perforated the pelvis, and emerged 1-1/2
+     inch within the left anterior superior spine. The patient was
+     then put down and left on the field ten hours; later he was
+     carried to shelter for the night, and arrived at Orange River
+     on the second day. He suffered with some pain in the abdomen,
+     especially during the journey in the train, but was not sick;
+     the bowels were confined.
+
+     When seen on the third day at 6 P.M., some pain was complained
+     of in the abdomen, which moved freely in the upper part, but
+     was motionless below the umbilicus. No distension. Tenderness
+     around wound of exit and some rigidity. The bowels had acted
+     four times during the day; motions loose, dark brown, and
+     containing no blood. Face not anxious, eyes bright, temperature
+     102°. Pulse 96, regular, and of good strength. Tongue moist and
+     little furred.
+
+     The abdomen was opened at 5 A.M. on the fourth day, as the
+     local signs had become more pronounced, and the patient had
+     passed a restless night in great abdominal pain. A local
+     incision was chosen, as the wound was presumably in the sigmoid
+     flexure. The sigmoid flexure was adherent to the abdominal wall
+     opposite the wound of exit, and a dark ecchymosed patch was
+     found, but no perforation could be detected. Foul pus and gas
+     escaped freely from the pelvis, but no wound of the large bowel
+     could be discovered here. On enlarging the incision upwards
+     three openings were found in a coil of jejunum, probably that
+     about five feet from the duodenal junction usually provided
+     with the longest mesentery. No fourth opening could be found.
+     The openings were circular, about 1/3 inch in diameter, clean
+     cut, with a ring of everted mucous membrane, and the wall of
+     the bowel in the neighbourhood was thickened. All three
+     openings were included within a length of 2-1/2 inches. There
+     was no surrounding ecchymosis of the bowel wall. Very little
+     escaped intestinal contents were found in the situation of the
+     bowel. The latter had apparently been retracted upwards, and
+     lay to the left of the lumbar spine. The wounds were readily
+     closed by five Lembert's sutures, three crossing the openings,
+     and one at each end. The belly was then washed out with boiled
+     water and closed. The delay in finding the wounds due to the
+     mistaken impression that they would be found in the pelvis
+     materially prolonged the operation, which lasted an hour and a
+     half. The patient never rallied, and died seventeen hours
+     later. It is possible that a wound in the sigmoid flexure was
+     present which had already closed at the time of operation.
+
+     (166*) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), opposite
+     central point of left ilium; _exit_, 1-1/2 inch above the
+     centre of the right Poupart's ligament. Vomiting commenced soon
+     after the injury, and this was continuous until the patient's
+     arrival in the Stationary hospital on the fourth day, when the
+     condition was as follows:--
+
+     Face extremely anxious in expression. Temperature 101°,
+     sweating freely. Pulse 110, fair strength. Tongue moist.
+     Abdomen much distended, rigid, motionless, tympanitic
+     throughout. Bowels confined. No urine had been passed for
+     twenty-four hours, [Symbol: ounce]ij in bladder on
+     catheterisation, clear, and containing no blood.
+
+     Abdominal section. Median incision. A considerable quantity of
+     bloody effusion was evacuated. Intestine generally congested
+     and distended. No lymph. Two wounds were found in the ileum on
+     the opposite sides of one coil; the openings were circular,
+     with the mucous membrane everted. No escape of fæcal matter was
+     visible until the intestine was delivered, when intestinal
+     contents spurted freely across the room. The openings were
+     sutured with five Lembert's stitches. The bowel was punctured
+     in two places to relieve distension, and then returned into the
+     belly, after washing with boiled water.
+
+     Four pints of saline solution were infused into the median
+     basilic vein, and 1/30 grain strychnine sulph. was injected
+     hypodermically.
+
+     The patient did not rally, and died twelve hours after the
+     operation.
+
+     (167*) Wounded at Graspan. _Entry_ (Lee-Metford), midway
+     between the umbilicus and pubes; _exit_, 1 inch to the left of
+     the fifth lumbar spine. The patient was seen on the third day
+     in the following condition: in great pain, expression extremely
+     anxious, vomiting constantly. Pulse 150 running, respirations
+     48. Temperature 100°, sweating freely. Great distension,
+     rigidity, and general tenderness of immobile abdomen. No
+     improvement followed the administration of brandy and
+     hypodermic injection of strychnine 1/30 grain, and operation
+     was deemed hopeless.
+
+     In the evening the patient was apparently dying. Face blue and
+     sunken and covered with sweat, eyes dull, speechless, pulse
+     imperceptible, restlessness extreme, bowels acting
+     involuntarily, no urine in bladder.
+
+     The man was placed in a tent by himself, and to my surprise was
+     alive and better the next morning; the expression was still
+     anxious, but the face brighter and not sweating; the pulse
+     only numbered 100, but was very weak, and the hands and feet
+     were cold. The condition of the abdomen was unaltered, but the
+     thoracic respiration had decreased in rapidity from 48 to 28.
+
+     His condition still seemed to preclude any chance of successful
+     intervention, but none the less life was retained until the
+     morning of the seventh day, the state alternating between a
+     moribund one and one of slight improvement. He was lucid at
+     times, although for the most part wandering, and was so
+     restless that no covering could be kept upon him. Vomiting was
+     continuous, so that no nourishment could be retained; the
+     bowels acted frequently involuntarily, and little or no urine
+     was passed. Meanwhile, the abdomen became flat, then sunken, an
+     area of induration and tenderness about 6 inches in diameter
+     developing around the wound of entry. Slight variations in the
+     pulse, and from normal to subnormal in the temperature, were
+     noted, and death eventually occurred from septicæmia and
+     inanition.
+
+     (168*) Wounded at Driefontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), above the
+     posterior third of the left iliac crest, at the margin of the
+     last lumbar transverse process (probably through ilio-lumbar
+     ligament); _exit_, 1 inch below and to the left of the
+     umbilicus.
+
+     The patient was wounded at 3 P.M., but not brought into the
+     Field hospital until 9 P.M., when the temperature of the tents
+     was below 28°F. He was considerably collapsed, suffering much
+     pain, and vomited freely. The abdomen was flat, but very
+     tender. Bowels confined. The column had to move at 5 A.M. the
+     next morning, when the temperature was still near freezing, and
+     during the day continuous fighting prevented any chance of
+     operation. The man steadily sank during the day, and died
+     thirty-six hours after the reception of the injury.
+
+     _Post-mortem condition._--Belly not distended, dull anteriorly
+     in patches, and right flank dull throughout. When the belly was
+     opened, extensive adhesion of omentum and intestine enclosing
+     numerous collections of pus were disclosed, and on disturbing
+     the adhesions a large collection of turbid blood-stained fluid
+     was set free from the right loin. The great omentum was much
+     thickened and matted, with deposition of thick patches of
+     lymph; very firm recent adhesions also united numerous coils of
+     small intestine. The pus was foetid, but no appreciable
+     quantity of intestinal contents was detected in it. The lower
+     half or more of the small intestine was injected, reddened, and
+     thickened. The wounds which were situated in the lower part of
+     the jejunum and ileum were multiple, and seven perforations
+     were detected; besides these the intestine was marked by
+     bruises, and some gutter slits affecting the serous and
+     muscular coats only. Considerable ecchymosis surrounded these
+     latter. The clean perforations were circular, less than 1/4
+     inch in diameter, and for the most part closed by eversion of
+     the mucous membrane. Intestinal contents were not apparent, but
+     escaped freely on manipulation of the bowel.
+
+     (169*) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), over the
+     eighth rib in the anterior axillary line; _exit_, 1 inch to the
+     left of second lumbar spinous process, just below the last rib.
+     Vomiting commenced almost immediately after reception of the
+     injury, and the bowels acted frequently. This condition
+     persisted until the fourth day, when the patient was brought
+     down to Orange River, and the signs were as follows.
+     Considerable pain in left half of abdomen, pulse 110, fair
+     strength, temperature 101°. Some general distension of abdomen
+     with complete disappearance of hepatic dulness. Some movement
+     of right half of abdomen, left half immobile, dulness extending
+     from the flank as far forwards as linea semilunaris. An
+     incision was made in left linea semilunaris, and Oj blood
+     evacuated from the left loin. There was no lymph on the
+     intestines nor sign of inflammation. No perforation was
+     discovered in either stomach or intestine, but on two coils of
+     jejunum there were deep slits 3/4 inch long, extending through
+     both peritoneal and muscular coats. Beyond these wounds, on
+     other coils oval patches of ecchymosis, due to direct bruising,
+     were present. The peritoneal cavity was sponged free of all
+     blood and irrigated with boiled water; no bleeding point was
+     discovered, and the abdomen was closed.
+
+     The next morning the patient was comfortable; temperature
+     100.2°, pulse 100. Tongue clean and moist; he vomited once
+     during the night.
+
+     Some bloody discharge had collected in the dressing, and at the
+     lower angle of wound there was a local swelling, apparently in
+     the abdominal wall. The flank was resonant.
+
+     During the afternoon the patient became faint, and when seen at
+     6 P.M. was in a state of collapse, in which he shortly died.
+
+     Death was apparently due to renewal of the previous hæmorrhage.
+     No _post-mortem_ examination was made.
+
+     (170*) Wounded at Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), 1/2 inch to
+     the left of the second sacral spine; _exit_, immediately below
+     the left anterior superior iliac spine; the patient was
+     kneeling at the time, and the same bullet traversed his left
+     thigh in the lower third. When seen on the third day, the
+     lower part of the abdomen was motionless, tumid, and tender.
+     The bowels had been confined for three days; there had been no
+     sickness, and the tongue was moist and clean. Temperature 100°,
+     pulse 90, fair strength, respirations 38. The patient had once
+     had an attack of acute appendicitis, and he himself said he was
+     sure he now had 'peritonitis,' as he had pain exactly similar
+     in the belly to that he had suffered in his previous illness.
+
+     No further signs, however, developed under an expectant
+     treatment, and he remained some two months in hospital, while
+     the wound in the thigh and a third injury to the elbow-joint
+     were healing.
+
+     (171) _Entry_ (Mauser), at the highest point of the left crista
+     ilii; _exit_, through the right ilium, 2 inches horizontally
+     anterior to the posterior superior spine. Absolutely no
+     abdominal symptoms followed. The bowels were confined five
+     days, and then opened by enema. The patient complained of some
+     stiffness in the lumbo-sacral region, but the right
+     synchondrosis was no doubt implicated in the track.
+
+     (172) Wounded at Paardeberg (range 800 yards). _Entry_
+     (Mauser), 2 inches diagonally below and to the right of the
+     umbilicus; _exit_, not discoverable. For the first two days the
+     patient had to lie out with the regiment; on the fourth he was
+     removed to the Field hospital. During the first three days the
+     patient vomited (green matter) frequently, and the belly was
+     hard and painful; as biscuit was the only available food, no
+     nourishment was taken. The bowels acted on the second night. At
+     the end of a week the patient was sent by bullock wagon (three
+     days and nights) to Modder River, and then down to Capetown,
+     where he walked into the hospital on the thirteenth day,
+     apparently well.
+
+     Two days later the temperature rose to 104°, and enteric fever
+     was diagnosed, no local signs pointing to the injury existing.
+     The patient made a good recovery.
+
+     (173) Wounded at Colenso. _Entry_ (Mauser), at junction of
+     outer 2/5 with inner 3/5 of line from right anterior superior
+     iliac spine to umbilicus; _exit_, at upper part of right great
+     sacro-sciatic foramen, in line of posterior superior iliac
+     spine. Advancing on foot when struck; he then fell and crept
+     fifty yards to behind a rock, where he remained seven and a
+     half hours. For two days subsequently he vomited freely; the
+     bowels acted nine hours after the injury, and then became
+     constipated. No further symptoms were noted, and at the end of
+     three weeks the abdomen was absolutely normal. The man is now
+     again on active service.
+
+     (174*) Wounded at Modder River while retiring on foot. _Entry_
+     (Mauser), at highest point of right iliac crest; _exit_, 2-1/2
+     inches to right of and 1/2 inch above level of umbilicus. The
+     injury was not followed by sickness, and the bowels remained
+     confined. During the first two days 'pain struck across the
+     abdomen' when micturition was performed.
+
+     When the patient came under observation on the third day the
+     condition was as follows:--Complains of little pain,
+     temperature normal, pulse 72, respirations 24, tongue moist,
+     bowels confined. Rigidity of abdominal wall and deficient
+     mobility of nearly whole right half of belly, the whole lower
+     half of which moves little with respiration. No track palpable
+     in abdominal parietes. No dulness, no distension. The
+     temperature rose to 99.5° at night. On the fourth day the
+     bowels acted freely, the pulse fell to 60, the respirations
+     were 24, and the temperature normal.
+
+     Tenderness and rigidity persisted in the right flank to the end
+     of a week, after which time no further signs persisted.
+
+     (175*) Wounded at Modder River while lying on right side. Range
+     500 yards. Walked 400 yards after injury. _Entry_ (Mauser), at
+     the junction of the posterior and middle thirds of the right
+     iliac crest; _exit_, 3 inches to right of and 1/2 inch below
+     the level of the umbilicus. The injury was followed by no signs
+     of intra-abdominal lesion; on the third day the temperature was
+     normal, pulse 80, and the tongue clean and moist. Some soreness
+     at times and tenderness on pressure were complained of, but the
+     man was discharged well at the end of one month.
+
+     (176*) Wounded while doubling in retirement at Modder River.
+     _Entry_ (Mauser), immediately above the junction of the
+     posterior and middle thirds of the left iliac crest; _exit_, 1
+     inch below costal margin (eighth rib), 3 inches to the right of
+     the median line. The bullet was lying in the anterior wound,
+     whence it was removed by the orderly who applied the first
+     dressing on the field. The patient remained on the field seven
+     and a half hours, and when brought into hospital at once
+     commenced to vomit. The ejected matter, at first green in
+     colour, during the next forty-eight hours changed to a dirty
+     brown. Meanwhile, the abdomen was somewhat painful. When seen
+     on the third day he had ceased to vomit for three hours. The
+     face was slightly anxious, and the patient lay on the ground
+     with the lower extremities extended. Temperature 99°, pulse 72,
+     fair strength. Respirations 32, shallow. Tongue moist, lightly
+     furred, bowels not open for four days. He slept fairly last
+     night. Abdomen soft, moving well with respiration, no
+     distension, slight tenderness below and to the right of the
+     umbilicus, and local dulness in right flank.
+
+     The next day the pulse fell to 60 and the bowels acted, but
+     there was no change in the local condition. The man looked
+     somewhat ill until the end of a week, but was then sent to the
+     Base, and at the expiration of a month was sent home well.
+
+     (177*) Wounded at Modder River. Two apertures of _entry_
+     (Mauser); (_a_) below cartilage of eighth rib in left nipple
+     line; (_b_) 2 inches below and 4-1/2 inches to the left of the
+     median line. No exit wound discovered, and no track could be
+     palpated between the two openings, which were both circular and
+     depressed. When seen on fourth day there was tenderness in the
+     lower half of the abdomen, and the left thigh was held in a
+     flexed position. Respirations 20, respiratory movement confined
+     to upper half of abdominal wall. Pulse 70, temperature 99°.
+     Tongue moist, covered with white fur; bowels confined since the
+     accident; no sickness. The patient remained under observation
+     thirteen days, during which time pain and difficulty in
+     movement of the left thigh persisted, also slight tenderness in
+     the lower part of the abdomen; but at the end of a month he was
+     sent to England well, but unfit to take further part in the
+     campaign. I thought the bullet might be in the left psoas, but
+     it was not localised.
+
+     (178*) Wounded at Modder River. _Entry_ (Mauser), 3-1/2 inches
+     above and 1-1/2 inch within the left anterior superior iliac
+     spine; _exit_, 1-1/2 inch to the right of the tenth dorsal
+     spinous process. The same bullet had perforated the forearm
+     just above the wrist prior to entering the abdomen. No local or
+     constitutional signs indicated either bowel injury or
+     perforation of liver. The man, however, was suffering from a
+     slight attack of dysentery, passing blood and mucus per rectum
+     with great tenesmus. He was sent to the Base at the end of a
+     week, and returned to England well three weeks later. He
+     attributed his dysentery to the wound, as the symptoms did not
+     exist prior to its reception; but as the disease coincided
+     exactly with what was very prevalent amongst the troops at the
+     time, I do not think there was any connection between it and
+     the injury.
+
+     (179) Wounded near Thaba-nchu. _Entry_, over the centre of the
+     sacrum at the upper border of fourth segment; _exit_, 1-1/2
+     inch above left Poupart's ligament, 2 inches from the median
+     line. Aperture of entry oval, with long vertical axis. Exit
+     wound a transverse slit, with slight tendency to starring (see
+     fig. 19, p. 58). One hour after being shot the patient vomited
+     once. There was some evidence of shock and considerable pain.
+     The bowels acted involuntarily simultaneously with the
+     vomiting, and incontinence of fæces and retention of urine
+     persisted for four days. The vomit was bilious in appearance;
+     no blood was seen either in it or the motions.
+
+     Forty-six hours after the injury the condition was as follows:
+     Face slightly anxious and pale; skin moist, temperature 100.4°;
+     pulse 116, regular and of fair strength; respirations 24;
+     abdomen slightly tumid; tenderness over lower half, especially
+     on left side; the lower half moves little with respiration.
+
+     Twenty-four hours later the patient had improved. He was
+     comfortable and hopeful; slept well with morphia 1/3 grain
+     hypodermically. Tongue moist, covered with white fur; has been
+     taking milk only, [Symbol: ounce]ij every half-hour. No
+     sickness. Temperature
+
+     99°. Pulse 104. Respirations 24. Abdomen flatter; general
+     respiratory movement; tenderness now mainly localised to an
+     area 2-1/2 inches in diameter, to the left of the umbilicus,
+     above exit wound.
+
+     The patient continued to improve, and on the fifth day
+     travelled six hours in a bullock wagon to Bloemfontein. Soon
+     after arrival his temperature was normal: pulse 80,
+     respirations 16, with good abdominal movement. Local tenderness
+     persisted in the same area, but was less in degree. Tongue
+     rather dry, bowels confined. Micturition normal. Two drachms of
+     castor oil and an enema were given.
+
+     On the ninth day patient was practically well, except for
+     slight deep tenderness. He remained in bed on ordinary light
+     diet, but at the end of the third week he was seized by a
+     sudden attack of pain, the temperature rising to 103° and the
+     pulse to 140, the abdomen becoming swollen and tender. He was
+     then under the charge of Mr. Bowlby, who ordered some opium,
+     and the symptoms rapidly subsided. Although this wound crossed
+     the small intestine area, it is probable that the symptoms may
+     have been due to an injury of the rectum or sigmoid flexure.
+
+3. _Wounds of the large intestine._--Injuries to every part of the large
+bowel were observed, and spontaneous recoveries were seen in all parts
+except the transverse colon, which, as already remarked, is near akin
+to the small intestine with regard to its position and anatomical
+arrangement.
+
+The only case of perforation of the vermiform appendix that I heard of,
+one under the care of Mr. Stonham, died of peritoneal septicæmia.
+Several cases of recovery from wounds of the cæcum and ascending colon
+are recounted below. The only points of importance in the nature of the
+signs of these injuries were their primary insignificance, and the
+comparative frequency with which _local_ peritoneal suppuration followed
+them. The absence of a similar sequence in some of the cases in which
+wounds of the small intestine were assumed, was, in my opinion, one of
+the strongest reasons for doubting the correctness of the diagnosis. It
+is also a significant fact that injuries of the ascending colon--that is
+to say, of the portion of the large bowel which perhaps lies most free
+from the area occupied by the small intestine--were those which most
+frequently recovered.
+
+The following cases afford examples of the course followed in a number
+of injuries to the large intestine, and illustrate both the
+uncomplicated and the complicated modes of spontaneous recovery.
+
+No. 180 affords a good example of an extra-peritoneal injury, and of the
+especially fatal character of such lesions. This case was also one of my
+surgical disappointments.
+
+Nos. 182, 183 are of great interest in several particulars. First, the
+aperture of exit was large and allowed the escape of fæces, not a very
+common feature in wounds not proving immediately fatal. Secondly, in
+neither were any peritoneal signs observed. Thirdly, in each the exit
+wound communicated with the pleura, and the patients died from
+septicæmia mainly due to absorption from the surface of that membrane
+(_Pleural septicæmia_).
+
+No. 190 is a most striking instance of spontaneous cure, since no doubt
+can exist that both rectum and bladder were perforated.
+
+     (180*) _Injury to the cæcum and ascending colon._--Boer,
+     wounded at Graspan while sheltering behind a rock, lying on his
+     back.
+
+     _Entry_ (Lee-Metford), in right thigh, 3 inches below and 1
+     inch within anterior superior spine of ilium; _exit_, in back,
+     on a level with the fourth lumbar spinous process and 3 inches
+     from that point.
+
+     Half an hour after the wound the patient commenced to suffer
+     severe stabbing pain; he lay on the field one hour; later he
+     was taken to a Field hospital, and on the second day was sent
+     by train a distance of twenty-five miles.
+
+     When seen at the end of fifty hours the condition was as
+     follows. Face anxious, complexion dusky. Great abdominal pain,
+     especially about the umbilicus. Vomiting frequent and
+     distressing; bowels confined since the accident; tongue dry and
+     furred. Urine scanty. Pulse full and strong, 125; respirations,
+     entirely thoracic, 30.
+
+     Abdomen generally distended and tympanitic, wall rigid and
+     motionless. Dulness in right flank, together with superficial
+     oedema and emphysema.
+
+     Abdominal section fifty-three and a half hours after accident.
+     Incision in right linea semilunaris. Great omentum adherent to
+     ascending colon, which was covered with plastic lymph. Gas and
+     intestinal contents escaped from an opening at the line of
+     reflexion of the peritoneum from the ascending colon;
+     retro-peritoneal extravasation and emphysema extended the whole
+     length of the ascending colon and around duodenum, the wall of
+     the colon itself exhibiting subperitoneal emphysema. The colon
+     was freed and the rent sewn up with interrupted sutures. About
+     [Symbol: ounce] iv of foul fæcal fluid were evacuated from
+     loin, and a free counter-opening made. The opening in the ilium
+     by which the bullet had entered the abdomen was found at the
+     brim of the pelvis; the loin and peritoneal cavity were sponged
+     dry and flushed with boiled water; no lymph was seen on the
+     small intestine. A large gauze plug was inserted into the
+     posterior wound, one end of the plug being brought out of the
+     operation incision.
+
+     During the succeeding six days progress was not unsatisfactory:
+     the abdomen became soft, moved with respiration, there was no
+     sickness, and the bowels acted. The pulse fell to 90,
+     respirations to 20, and the temperature did not exceed 102° F.
+     The wound suppurated freely, however, and although there were
+     no further signs of peritoneal septicæmia, it was evident that
+     general infection had taken place, and on the sixth day a
+     parotid bubo developed on the right side, which was opened.
+
+     On the seventh day the patient suddenly commenced to fail
+     rapidly; vomiting was almost continuous--at first curdled milk,
+     later frothy watery fluid--and on the eighth day he died. The
+     abdomen remained soft, sunken, and flaccid, and death no doubt
+     resulted from general septicæmia rather than from peritoneal
+     infection, absorption taking place from the large foul cavity
+     behind the colon. As the cavity in part surrounded the
+     descending duodenum, this possibly accounted for the attack of
+     vomiting which preceded death.
+
+     (181*) _Ascending colon._--Wounded at Graspan while lying in
+     prone position. _Entry_ (Mauser), over ninth rib in line of
+     right linea semilunaris; _exit_, in right buttock, just below
+     and behind the top of the great trochanter.
+
+     The injury was followed by little abdominal pain, but a strange
+     sensation of local gurgling was noted. The bowels acted as soon
+     as the patient reached camp, some hours after being wounded.
+     There was no sickness and nothing abnormal was noted in the
+     motions, except that they were loose and light-coloured.
+
+     On the evening of the third day the patient came under
+     observation in the ambulance train for Capetown. He looked
+     somewhat anxious and ill, but he complained of little pain; the
+     temperature was 102°, pulse 88, fair strength, soft and
+     regular. There was local dulness, tenderness, and deficiency of
+     movement in the right iliac region. As it was night, he was
+     removed from the train and an operation was performed the next
+     morning.
+
+     Prior to operation the condition was as follows: Pulse 84,
+     temperature 100°; respiration easy, 20. Tongue moist, but
+     thickly coated in centre. Abdomen moves fairly, and is
+     resonant, except in right lower quadrant. No distension.
+     Dulness, tenderness, and rigidity in right iliac region, marked
+     to outer side of cæcum. Entry wound nearly and exit quite
+     healed. Cannot flex right thigh. The following operation was
+     performed. Appendix incision, about [Symbol: ounce]j of fæcal
+     fluid and fæces in a localised cavity on outer and anterior
+     aspect of cæcum evacuated; adhesions very firm. Cavity sloughy
+     throughout and cæcum covered with dull grey lymph. The opening
+     in the bowel was not localised, and it was considered wiser to
+     treat the case like one of perforation from appendicitis than
+     to run the risk of breaking down adhesions. A small awl-like
+     opening was found in the ilium with powdered bone at its
+     entrance leading to the wound of exit.
+
+     The after-treatment of the case gave rise to no anxiety, but
+     healing of the resulting sinus was slow; fæcal-smelling pus
+     escaped for some days, and a number of small sloughs came away.
+     On the twelfth day the patient was sent down to Wynberg, where
+     he remained twelve weeks. A counter-incision was needed in the
+     loin to drain the suppurating cavity three weeks after the
+     primary operation, and five weeks after the operation an escape
+     of gas and fæces took place from the anterior wound, while the
+     bowels were acting, as a result of a dose of castor oil. No
+     further escape of fæces occurred, and he left for England with
+     a small sinus only. No extension of inflammation into the
+     original wound track ever occurred, both openings and the canal
+     healing by primary union.
+
+     The sinus remained open, and occasionally discharged for a
+     further period of six months, and then healed firmly; since
+     when the patient has been in perfect health.
+
+     (182*) _Splenic flexure, descending colon._--Wounded at
+     Magersfontein. _Entry_ (Mauser), in sixth left intercostal
+     space in mid-axillary line; _exit_, in left loin, below last
+     rib, at outer margin of erector spinæ. The patient remained in
+     the Field hospital three days, during which time he exhibited
+     no serious abdominal symptoms, but during the journey to Orange
+     River (53-1/2 miles) he was sick. He remained at Orange River
+     two days, and while there an enema was administered, producing
+     a normal motion. The abdomen was slightly distended; it moved
+     fairly, there was slight rigidity, but little tenderness.
+     Temperature 100.8°, pulse 120. No appearance of fæces in wound.
+
+     When seen on the sixth day the condition was as
+     follows:--Patient cheerful and not in great pain. Temperature
+     99.2°; pulse 120; respirations 48, very shallow. Abdomen soft,
+     moving freely, no distension or general tenderness. Fluid fæces
+     escaping in abundance from the wound in loin. Redness of skin
+     and swelling below level of wound, and cellular emphysema
+     above. Fæcal-smelling fluid was also escaping from the thoracic
+     wound.
+
+     The wound was enlarged, but the patient rapidly sank, and died
+     of septicæmia on the seventh day.
+
+     (183*) An exactly similar case came under observation from the
+     battle of Modder River, except that the opening in the loin was
+     somewhat larger, and earlier and freer escape of fæces took
+     place from it. In this also fæcal matter passed freely into the
+     left pleural cavity, and fæcal matter was expectorated, while
+     there was an almost complete absence of abdominal symptoms.
+     Death occurred on the fourth day.
+
+     No _post-mortem_ examination was made in either case, but I
+     believe in both the extra-peritoneal aspect of the colon was
+     implicated and that the septicæmia was in great part due to
+     absorption from the pleural rather than the peritoneal cavity,
+     since in neither case were the abdominal symptoms a prominent
+     feature.
+
+     (184) _Possible wound of cæcum._--Wounded at Spion Kop. Bullet
+     (Mauser) perforated the right forearm, then entered belly.
+     _Entry_, 3 inches from the right anterior superior iliac spine,
+     in the line of the supra-pubic fold of the belly wall (a
+     transverse slit); _exit_, in right buttock, on a level with the
+     tip of the great trochanter and 2 inches within it. The wound
+     was received immediately after breakfast had been eaten. There
+     was retention of urine and constipation for three days, but no
+     sickness. Local pain and tenderness were severe, and at the end
+     of three weeks there was still local tenderness, slight
+     induration, and dragging pain on defæcation. The patient
+     returned to England at the end of a month well, except for
+     slight local tenderness.
+
+     (185) _Possible wound of colon._--Wounded at Paardeberg; range
+     200 yards. Walking at time. The bullet (Mauser) perforated the
+     left forearm, just below the elbow-joint. _Entry_, into belly 1
+     inch anterior to the tip of the left eleventh costal cartilage;
+     no exit.
+
+     The injury was followed by pain in the left half of the abdomen
+     and vomiting, which continued for two days. The bowels acted on
+     the third day; no nourishment was taken for two days, but a
+     small quantity of water was allowed. No further symptoms were
+     noted, and at the end of a fortnight the patient was well,
+     except for slight local tenderness. The bullet could not be
+     detected with the X-rays.
+
+     (186) _Wound of cæcum_.--Wounded at Paardeberg. _Entry_
+     (Mauser), 2 inches diagonally above and within right anterior
+     superior iliac spine; _exit_, immediately to the right of the
+     fifth lumbar spinous process; the patient was lying on his left
+     side when struck. A burning pain down the right thigh
+     immediately followed the accident, and lasted some days. There
+     was no sickness, the bowels were confined three days, and there
+     was pain across the back and down the thigh.
+
+     On the tenth day he arrived at the Base, when he was lying on
+     his back suffering considerable pain. The temperature ranged to
+     101°. There was diarrhoea and cystitis, with a considerable
+     amount of pus in the urine, which was very offensive. A small
+     fluctuating spot existed on the back, just to the right of the
+     original exit wound which was firmly healed. The abdomen moved
+     fairly with respiration in its upper part, but was motionless
+     below, especially in the right iliac fossa; some induration was
+     to be felt here. The right thigh was kept flexed.
+
+     During the next few days the pus disappeared from the urine,
+     and with this change the induration in the right iliac fossa
+     increased. An incision (Mr. Gairdner) was made into the
+     fluctuating spot behind, and pus evacuated. The patient
+     recovered.
+
+     (187) _Possible wound of cæcum._--Wounded outside Heilbron.
+     _Entry_ (Mauser), in the right loin, 2-1/2 inches above the
+     iliac crest, at the margin of the erector spinæ; _exit_, 1-1/2
+     inch above and within the right anterior superior spine of the
+     ilium. There was little shock. The patient was brought six
+     miles in a wagon into camp, and slept comfortably with a small
+     morphia injection. Prior to the accident the patient was
+     suffering from diarrhoea, but afterwards the bowels were
+long as life lasted, so long did the heart continue to pulsate. There
+could be no effect without a cause. How then was it that these
+pulsations became spontaneous? To this query, no satisfactory answer had
+been forthcoming. Similar spontaneous movements were also observable in
+plant tissues, and by their investigation the secret of automatism in
+the animal world became unravelled. The existence of these spontaneous
+movements could easily be demonstrated by means of the Indian "Bon
+Charal", the telegraph plant, whose small leaflets danced continuously
+up and down. The popular belief that they danced in response to the
+clappings of the hand was quite erroneous. From the readings of the
+scripts made by this plant, the lecturer was in a position to state that
+the automatic movements of both plants and animals were guided by laws
+which were identical. Thus in the rhythmic tissues of the plant and the
+animal the pulsation frequency was increased under the action of warmth
+and lessened under cold, increased frequency being attended by
+diminution of amplitude, and "_vice versa_". Under ether, there was a
+temporary arrest, revival being possible when the vapour was blown off.
+More fatal was the effect of chloroform. The most extraordinary
+parallelism, however, lay in the fact that those poisons which arrested
+the beat of the heart in a particular way arrested the plant pulsation
+in a corresponding manner. The lecturer had succeeded in reviving a
+leaflet poisoned by the application of one with a dose of counteracting
+poison.
+
+A time came when after one answer to a supreme shock there was a sudden
+end of the plant's power to give any response. This supreme shock was
+the shock of death. Even in this crisis, there was no immediate change
+in the placid appearance of the plant. In man at the critical moment, a
+spasm passed through the whole body, and similarly in the plant the
+lecturer had discovered that a great contractile spasm took place. This
+was accompanied by an electrical spasm also. In the script of the death
+recorder the line that up to this point was being drawn became suddenly
+reversed, and then ended. This was the last answer of the plants.
+
+Thus the responsiveness of the plant world was one. There was no
+difference of any kind between sunshine plants, and those which had
+hitherto been regarded as insensitive or ordinary. It had also been
+shown that all the varied and complex responses of the animal were
+foreshadowed in the plant. An impressive spectacle was thus revealed of
+that vast unity in which all living organisms, from the simplest plant
+to the highest animal, were linked together and made one.
+
+--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 5-3-1913.
+
+
+
+
+EVIDENCE BEFORE THE PUBLIC SERVICES COMMISSION
+
+
+The following is the evidence given by Dr. J. C. Bose, C. S. I., C. I.
+E., Professor of Physics, Presidency College, Calcutta, on the 18th
+December, 1913, before the Royal Commission on the Public Services in
+India, presided over by Lord Islington, and published, in the Minutes of
+Evidence relating to the Education Department, at pages 135 to 137, in
+volume XX, Appendix to the Report of the Commissioners:
+
+
+WRITTEN STATEMENT RELATING TO THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
+
+83, 627 (I) _Method of recruitment._--The first question on which I have
+been asked to give my opinion is as regards the method of recruitment. I
+think that a high standard of scholarship should be the only
+qualification insisted on. Graduates of well-known Universities,
+distinguished for a particular line of study, should be given the
+preference. I think the prospects of the Indian Educational Service are
+sufficiently high to attract the very best material. In colonial
+Universities they manage to get very distinguished men without any
+extravagantly high pay. Possibly the present departmental method of
+election does not admit of sufficiently wide publicity of notice to
+attract the best candidates.
+
+83, 628 (II) _System of training and probation._--As regards probation
+and training, Educational officers should first win a reputation as good
+teachers before the appointment is confirmed as they are transferred to
+important colleges.
+
+83, 629 (IV) _Conditions of Salary._--As regards conditions of Salary,
+the pay should be moderately high, but not extravagant, and settled once
+for all under some simple and well-defined rules. It is not only very
+humiliating but degrading to a true scholar to be scrambling for money.
+The difference between the pay of the higher and lower services should
+be minimised.
+
+83, 630 (VI) _Conditions of pension._--With reference to pension, I
+think it is very unfair that more favourable terms are offered, when the
+pensioner elects to retire in England.
+
+83, 631 (VII) _Such limitations as exist in the employment of
+non-Europeans._--Passing on to the question of limitations that exist in
+the employment of Indians in the higher service, I should like to give
+expression to an injustice which is very keenly felt. It is unfortunate
+that Indian graduates of European Universities who have distinguished
+themselves in a remarkable manner do not for one reason or other find
+facilities for entering the higher Educational Service.
+
+As teachers and workers it is an incontestable fact that Indian officers
+have distinguished themselves very highly, and anything which
+discriminates between Europeans and Indians in the way of pay and
+prospects is most undesirable. A sense of injustice is ill-calculated to
+bring about that harmony which is so necessary among all the members of
+an educational institution, professors and students alike.
+
+83, 632 (VIII) _Relations of the service with the Indian Civil Service
+and with other services._--As regards the relations with the Indian
+Civil Service, I am under the impression that they are somewhat
+strained, but of this I have no personal experience.
+
+83, 633 (IX) _Other points._--I have endeavoured to give my opinion on
+the definite questions which have been asked. There is another aspect of
+educational work in India which I think of the highest importance,
+though I am not exactly sure whether it falls within the terms of
+reference to the Royal Commission. I think that all the machinery to
+improve the higher education in India would be altogether ineffectual
+unless India enters the world movement for the advancement of knowledge.
+And for this it is absolutely necessary to touch the imagination of the
+people so as to rouse them to give their best energies to the work of
+research and discovery, in which all the nations of the world are now
+engaged. To aim at anything less will only end in a lifeless and
+mechanical system from which the soul of reality has passed away. On
+this subject I could have said much, but I will confine myself to one
+point which I think at the present juncture to be of importance. The
+Government of Bengal has been foremost in a tentative way in encouraging
+research. What is necessary is the extension and continuity of this
+enlightened policy.
+
+83, 634. _Supplementary Note._--I would like to add a few remarks to
+make the meaning of paragraphs 83, 627 and 83, 631 in my note more
+explicit.
+
+At the present recruitment in the Indian Educational Service is made in
+England and is practically confined to Englishmen. Such racial
+preference is in my opinion, prejudicial to the interest of education.
+The best man available, English or Indian should be selected
+impartially, and high scholarship should be the only test.
+
+It has been said that the present standard of Indian Universities is
+not as high as that of British Universities, and that the work done by
+the former is more like that of a sixth form of public schools in
+England. It is therefore urged that what is required for an Educational
+officer is the capacity to manage classes rather than high scholarship.
+I do not agree with these views: (1) there are Universities in Great
+Britain whose standards are not higher than ours; I do not think that
+the Pass Degree even of Oxford or Cambridge is higher than the
+corresponding degree here; (2) the standard of the Indian Universities
+is being steadily raised; (3) the standard will depend upon what the men
+entrusted with Educational work will make it. For these reasons it is
+necessary that the level of scholarship represented by the Indian
+Educational Service should be maintained very high.
+
+In paragraph 83,631 I have stated that even these Indians who have
+distinguished themselves in European Universities have little chance of
+entering the higher Educational Service. I should like to add that these
+highly qualified Indians need only opportunities to render service which
+would greatly advance the cause of higher education. As regards
+graduates of Indian Universities, I have known men among them whose
+works have been highly appreciated. If promising Indian graduates are
+given the opportunity of visiting foreign Universities, I have no doubt
+that they would stand comparison with the best recruits that can be
+obtained from the West.
+
+
+DR. J. C. BOSE CALLED AND EXAMINED
+
+83,635. (Chairman). The witness favoured an arrangement by which Indians
+would enter the higher ranks of the service, either through the
+Provincial Service or by direct recruitment in India. The latter class
+of officers, after completing their education in India, should
+ordinarily go to Europe with a view to widening their experience. By
+this he did not wish to decry the training given in the Indian
+Universities, which produced some of the very best men, and he would not
+make the rule absolute. It was not necessary for men of exceptional
+ability to go to England in order to occupy a high chair. Unfortunately,
+on account of there being no openings for men of genius in the
+Educational Service, distinguished men were driven to the profession of
+Law. In the present condition of India a larger number of distinguished
+men were needed to give their lives to the education of the people.
+
+83,636. The witness himself had spent part of his career in Europe, and
+looking back he could say that this had been of great profit to him,
+not so much on account of the training he got, as by being brought into
+personal contact with eminent men whose influence extorted his
+admiration, and create in him a feeling of emulation. In this way he
+owed a great deal to Lord Rayleigh under whom he worked, but he did not
+see why that advantage should not eventually be secured by Indians in
+India under an Indian Lord Rayleigh.
+
+83,637. There should be only one Educational Service, but men who were
+distinguished in any subject should not start from its very lowest rung
+but should be placed somewhere in the middle of it.
+
+83,638. There were men in the Provincial Service who were very
+distinguished; it was all a question of genius. The Educational Service
+ought to be regarded not as a profession, but as a calling. Some men
+were born to be teachers. It was not a question of race, of course; in
+order to have an efficient educational system, there must be an
+efficient organisation, but this should not be allowed to become
+fossilised, and thus stand in the way of healthy growth.
+
+83,639. In the Presidency College a young man fresh from an English
+university was at once appointed a Professor regardless of his lack of
+experience, whereas an Indian who passed in highest examination with
+honours in India was appointed as an Assistant Professor. This grounding
+often made him more efficient as a teacher than the Professor recruited
+from England. There were now several Professors in the college, in the
+Provincial Service, who were highly qualified, and who lectured to the
+highest classes with very great success.
+
+83,640. In the Physics Department he had under his direction several
+Assistants who were so well qualified that they were allowed to give
+lectures to several classes. These Assistants, after their experience at
+the Presidency College, would be best fitted to become Professors in the
+mofussil at Colleges. He would like to see them promoted to the higher
+service after they had had experience. But before he gave them the
+highest positions, he would make it compulsory for them to go to Europe.
+
+83,641. A proportion of Europeans in the service was needed, but only as
+experts and not as ordinary teachers. Only the very best men should be
+obtained from Europe, and for exceptional cases. The general educational
+work should be done entirely by Indians, who understood the difficulties
+of the country much better than any outsider.
+
+83,642. He advocated the direct recruitment of Indians in India by the
+local government in consultation with the Secretary of State, rather
+than by the Secretary of State alone. Indians were under a great
+difficulty, in that they could not remain indefinitely in England after
+taking their degrees and being away from the place of recruitment their
+claims were overlooked.
+
+83,643. There was no reason why a European should be paid a higher rate
+of salary than an Indian on account of the distance he came. An Indian
+felt a sense of inferiority if a difference was made as regards pay. The
+very slight saving which government made by differentiating between the
+two did not compensate for the feeling of wrong done. This feeling would
+remain even if the pay was the same, but an additional grant in the
+shape of a foreign service allowance was made to Europeans. All workers
+in the field of education should feel a sense of solidarity, because
+they were all serving one great cause, namely, education.
+
+83,644. The term "professor", as at present used in India, was
+undoubtedly a comprehensive one, but it was equally comprehensive in the
+West.
+
+83,645. (Sir Murray Hammick). The witness did not wish to recruit
+definite proportions of the service in England and in India
+respectively. He would for various reasons prefer a large number of
+Indians engaged in education.
+
+83,646. Even in Calcutta he would not make any difference between the
+pay of the Indian and the pay of the European.
+
+83,647. (Sir Valentine Chirol). The witness attached great value to the
+influence of the teacher upon the student in the earlier stages of his
+education, and it was in these stages that that influence could best be
+exercised. At the same time he desired to limit the appointment of
+non-Indians to men of very great distinction.
+
+83,648. If a foreign professor would not come and serve in India for the
+same remuneration as he obtained in his own country, the witness would
+certainly not force him to come.
+
+83,649. (Mr. Abdur Rahim). Recruitment for the Educational Service
+should be made in the first place in India, if suitable men were
+available; but if not then he would allow the best outsiders to be
+brought in. In the present state of the country it would be very easy to
+fill up many of the chairs by selecting the best men in India.
+
+83,650. The aim of the universities should be to promote two classes of
+work--first, research; and secondly, an all-round sound education. Men
+of different types would be required for these two duties.
+
+83,651. (Mr. Madge). Any idea that the educational system of India was
+so far inferior to that of England, that Indians, who had made their
+mark, had done so, not because of the educational system of the country,
+but in spite of it, was quite unfounded. The standard of education
+prevailing in India was quite up to the mark of several British
+universities. It was as true of any other country in the world as of
+India that education was valued as a means for passing examinations, and
+not only for itself, and there was no more cramming in India than
+elsewhere.
+
+83,652. The West certainly brought to the East a modern spirit, which
+was very valuable, but it would be dearly purchased by the loss of an
+honorable career for competent Indians in their own country.
+
+83,653. The educational system in India had in the past been too
+mechanical, but a turn for the better was now taking place and the
+universities were recognising the importance of research work, and were
+willing to give their highest degrees to encourage it.
+
+83,654. (Mr. Macdonald). The witness did not think it was necessary to
+have a non-Indian element in the service in order to stiffen it up, but
+he accepted the principle that there should be a certain small
+proportion of non-Indians.
+
+83,655. The title of professor at a college or University should carry
+with it dignity and honour, and ought not to be so freely used as at
+present. All he asked was that it should not be abolished at the expense
+of such Indians as were doing as good work as their European colleagues.
+
+83,656. If the Calcutta university continued to develop its teaching
+side, there would be no objection to recruiting University Professors
+from aided colleges. This would have certain advantages.
+
+83,657. (Mr. Fisher). The witness desired to secure for India Europeans
+who had European reputations in their different branches of study. If it
+was necessary to go outside India or England to procure good men, he
+would prefer to go to Germany. This was the practice in America where
+they were annexing all the great intellects of Europe.
+
+83,658. The witness would like to see India entering the world movement
+in the advance and march of knowledge. It was of the highest importance
+that there should be an intellectual atmosphere in India. It would be
+of advantage if there were many Indians in the Educational Service. For
+they came more in contact with the people, and influenced their
+intellectual activity. Besides, on retirement they would live in India
+and their life experience would be at their countrymen's service.
+
+83,659. There was very little in the complaint made in certain quarters
+that the work of the Professors in the colleges in India was hampered by
+the Government regulations as to curricula. A good teacher was not
+troubled by such matters.
+
+83,660. (Mr. Sly). There was no scope for the employment of non-Indians
+in the high schools as apart from the colleges. It was in the
+professorial line that more help from the West was required.
+
+83,661. (Mr. Gokhale). The witness knew of three instances in which the
+colonies had secured distinguished men on salaries which were lower than
+these given to officers of the Indian Educational Service. One was at
+Toronto, another was in New Zealand and the third at Yale university.
+The salaries on the two latter cases were £600 and £500 a year. The same
+held good as regards Japan. The facts there had been stated in a
+Government of India publication as follows: "Subsequent to 1895 there
+were 67 Professors recruited in Europe and America, of those, 20 came
+from Germany, 16 from England and 16 from the United States. The average
+pay was £384. In the highest Imperial University the average pay is
+£684. As soon as Japanese could be found to do the work, even tolerably
+well, the foreigner was dropped."
+
+83,662. When the witness first started work in India, he found that
+there was no physical laboratory, or any grant made for a practical
+experimental course. He had to construct instruments with the help of
+local mechanics, whom he had to train. All this took him ten years. He
+then undertook original investigation at his own expense. The Royal
+Society became specially interested in his work and desired to give him
+a Parliamentary grant for its continuation. It was after this that the
+Government of Bengal came forward and offered him facilities for
+research.
+
+83,663. In the Educational Service he would take men of achievement from
+anywhere; but men of promise he would take from his own country.
+
+83,664. (Mr. Chaubal). He did not know whether the salaries he had
+mentioned as having been paid in Japan, New Zealand and Yale were on an
+incremental scale or not.
+
+83,665. There was a difference of kind between the way in which
+students were taught in schools and the way in which they were taught in
+colleges. He did not agree with the witnesses who had said that during
+the first year or two years at college the instruction given was similar
+to that given in a school. It was very difficult to disprove or to prove
+such statements. There would be no advantage in keeping boys to a school
+course up the intermediate standard and making the colleges deal with
+only those students who had passed the intermediate examination.
+
+83,666. (Sir Theodore Morison). There should be one scale of pay for all
+persons in the higher educational department. The rate of salary, Rs.
+200 rising to Rs. 1,500 per month, was suitable, subject to the proviso
+that the man of great distinction, instead of beginning at the lowest
+rate of pay, should start some where in the middle of the list, say, at
+Rs. 400 or Rs. 500. He would make no reference in regard to Europeans or
+Indians in that respect. In effect this no doubt amounted to making
+Indians eligible for higher educational posts both by direct recruitment
+and by promotion.
+
+83,667. He would not favour the handing over of all the Government
+institutions in Bengal to private agencies; there must be one or two
+Government colleges in order to keep up the standard. He should be
+sorry to see the Government dissociating itself from one of its primary
+duties, which was education.
+
+83,668. Privately managed Colleges paid less in salary than the
+Government Colleges. They paid about the same as was given in the
+Provincial Service, and they obtained fairly good men. It would not be
+right for a great Government to grant a minimum pay to Indian Professors
+and an extravagantly high pay to their European colleagues, for doing
+the same kind of work.
+
+83,669. At the Presidency College the facilities for scientific work
+were now greater than in many institutions in England. India was now
+becoming a great country for Biological research. Again, the Physical
+and Chemical Laboratories at the Presidency College were finer than many
+in England. If young men of science in England thought they obtained
+better opportunities in pursuing their subjects in New Zealand and
+Toronto than in India, the India office ought to remove that impression
+at once.
+
+83,670. (Lord Ronaldshay). When an Indian graduate under the witnesses'
+scheme was appointed direct to the higher service in India he would not
+compel him to go to England for a period of training. The person who
+would be appointed in India directly from the Indian Universities would
+have to have previously served with distinction in subordinate
+positions; a visit to Europe would be an advantage but not absolutely
+necessary.
+
+83,671. (Mr. Biss). The cost of living in Calcutta to an Indian
+Professor or Lecturer would all depend as the style in which he lived.
+In each service there is always a standard of living to which every
+member is expected to conform. An Indian Professor had to go to Europe
+from time to time to keep himself in touch with the developments of his
+subject. An Indian officer had to support a large number of relations.
+The question of a man's private expenses should not be raised in fixing
+his pay. One might as well inquire whether the candidate for admission
+to the service was a bachelor or married, or as to how many children he
+had. He had known Europeans who had led a simple life, and had been all
+the better for it.
+
+83,672. He could not understand why men went to Japan and Canada instead
+of coming to India on better terms. It was a mystery to him. He thought
+it was either sheer ignorance or the spread of the commercial spirit.
+
+83,673. All the students coming to his side of the University, were, as
+a rule, keen and anxious to learn; he could not wish for better
+students.
+
+83,674. (Mr. Gupta). He desired one service, because he thought it was
+most degrading that certain men, although they were doing the same work,
+should be classed in a Provincial Service, while others should be
+classed in an Imperial Service. The prospect of the members of the
+Provincial Service were not at all what they ought to be, and that was
+the reason why the best men were not attracted to it.
+
+
+
+
+PROF. J. C. BOSE AT MADURA
+
+
+On his way back to Calcutta from the Fourth Scientific Deputation to the
+West, Prof. J. C. Bose visited Madura, 14th June 1915. The Tamil Sangam
+presented him with an address. In reply Dr. Bose made an important
+speech, in course of which he said:--
+
+I am no longer a representative of Bengal nor have I come to a strange
+place, but as an Indian addressing the mighty India and her people. When
+we realise that unity of our destiny then a great future opens out for
+us.
+
+It may be we may theorise and attribute to the plants all the
+characteristics of the animals; but that will be merely theory: there
+will be no proof. There are certain classes of people who think that
+plants are utterly unlike animals and some hold that they are like
+animals. The mere theory is absolutely worthless in order to find out
+the truth. We have to find by investigation, by means of researches, by
+means of proofs, that one is identical with the other. We have not only
+to drop all theory but we have to make the plant itself write down the
+answers to the questions that we have to put to them. That was the great
+problem,--how to make the plant itself answer and write down answers to
+the question....
+
+If the plants are acted on by various medicines and drugs like
+ourselves, then we can create an agent or a spokesman on which we can
+carry out all future investigations on the action of drugs. Then there
+is opened out a great vista for the scientific study of medicine. And
+let me tell you medicine is not yet an exact science. It is merely a
+phase of tradition. We have not been able to make medicine scientific.
+Now by the data of the influence of drugs on the fundamental basis of
+life, as is seen in the plant, we shall be able to make the science of
+medicine purely scientific.
+
+In travelling all over the world, which I have done several times, I was
+struck by two great characteristics of different nations. One
+characteristic of certain nations is living for the future. All the
+modern nations are striving to win force and power from nature. There is
+another class of men who live on the glory of the past. Now, what is to
+be the future of our nation? Are we to live only on the glory of the
+past and die off from the face of the earth, to show that we are worthy
+descendants of the glorious past and to show by our work, by our
+intellect and by our service that we are not a decadent nation? We have
+still a great and mighty future before us, a future that will justify
+our ancestry. In talking about ancestry, do we ever realise that the
+only way in which we can do honour to our past is not to boast of what
+our ancestors have done but to carry out in the future something as
+great, if not greater than they. Are we to be a living nation, to be
+proud of our ancestry and to try to win renown by continuous
+achievements? These mighty monuments that I see around me tell us what
+has been done till very recent times. I have travelled over some of the
+greatest ruins of the Universities of India. I have been to the ruins of
+the University of Taxilla in the farthest corner of India which
+attracted the people of the west and the east. I had been to the ruins
+of Nalanda, a University which invited all the west to gain knowledge
+under its intellectual fostering. I had been all there and seen them. I
+have come here also and want to visit Conjeevaram. But are you to foster
+the dead honours or to try to bring back your University in India and
+drag once more from the rest of the world people who would come down and
+derive knowledge from India? It is in that way and that way alone we can
+win our self-respect and make our life and the life of the nation
+worthy. The present era is the era of temples of learning. In order to
+erect temples of learning we require all the offerings of our mighty
+people. We want to erect temples and "viharas" which are so
+indispensable to the study of nature and her secrets. It is a problem
+which appeals to every thoughtful Indian. It is by the effort of the
+people and by their generosity that all these mighty temples arose; and
+now are we to worship the dead stones or are we to erect living temples
+so that the knowledge that has been made in India shall be perpetuated
+in India? I received requests from the different Universities in America
+and Germany to allow students from those countries to come and learn the
+science that has been initiated in India. Now, is this knowledge to pass
+beyond our boundaries to that again in future time we may have to go to
+the west to get back this knowledge or are we to keep this flame of
+learning burning all the time?
+
+(_Modern Review, Vol. xviii, p. 22-23_).
+
+
+
+
+DR. J. C. BOSE ENTERTAINED
+
+PARTY AT RAM MOHAN LIBRARY
+
+
+On Saturday, 24th July, 1915, the members of the Ram Mohan Library and
+Reading room received Dr. J. C. Bose, the President of the Library in a
+right royal fashion, on his return to India from his Scientific
+Deputation to the West.
+
+There was a large and influential gathering, and the spacious hall was
+tastefully decorated.
+
+Dr. J. C. Bose arrived at 6:15 p.m. and was received at the gate by Mr.
+D. N. Pal, Secretary. Dr. Bose then went round the hall accompanied by
+the members of the Executive Committee while the Bharati Musical
+Association played excellent Jaltaranga Orchestra.
+
+Babu Bhupendra Nath Bose, Vice-President of the Library, made a
+brilliant speech welcoming Dr. Bose and detailing the great services
+done to the country by him.
+
+
+DR. BOSE'S REPLY
+
+Dr. Bose in reply expressed his thanks for the great interest shown in
+different parts of this country in the success of his work. This was the
+fourth occasion on which he had been deputed to the West by the
+Government of India on a scientific mission, and the success that has
+attended his visit to foreign countries has exceeded all his
+expectations. In Vienna, in Paris, in Oxford, Cambridge and London, in
+Harvard, Washington, Chicago and Columbia, in Tokio and in many other
+places his work has uniformly been received with high appreciation. In
+spite of the fact that his researches called into question some of the
+existing theories, his results have notwithstanding received the fullest
+acceptance. This was due to a great extent to the convincing character
+of the demonstration afforded by the very delicate instruments he had
+been able to invent and which worked under extremely difficult tests
+with extraordinary perfection. Even the most critical savants in Vienna
+felt themselves constrained to make a most generous admission. In these
+new investigations on the border land between physics and physiology,
+they held that Europe has been left behind by India, to which country
+they would now have to come for inspiration. It has also been fully
+recognised that science will derive benefit when the synthetic
+intellectual methods of the East co-operate with the severe analytical
+methods of the West. These opinions have also been fully endorsed in
+other centres of learning and Dr. Bose had received applications from
+distinguished Universities in Europe and America for admission of
+foreign post graduate scholars to be trained in his Laboratory in the
+new scientific methods that have been initiated in India.
+
+
+RESEARCH LABORATORY FOR INDIA
+
+This recognition that the advance of human knowledge will be incomplete
+without India's special contributions, must be a source of great
+inspiration for future workers in India. His countrymen had the keen
+imagination which could extort truth out of a mass of disconnected facts
+and the habit of meditation without allowing the mind to dissipate
+itself. Inspired by his visits to the ancient Universities, at Taxila,
+at Nalanda and at Conjevaram, Dr. Bose had the strongest confidence that
+India would soon see a revival of those glorious traditions. There will
+soon rise a Temple of Learning where the teacher cut off from worldly
+distractions would go on with his ceaseless pursuit after truth, and
+dying, hand on his work to his disciples. Nothing would seem laborious
+in his inquiry; never is he to lose sight of his quest, never is he to
+let it go obscured by any terrestrial temptation. For he is the Sanyasin
+spirit, and India is the only country where so far from there being a
+conflict between science and religion. Knowledge is regarded as religion
+itself. Such a misuse of science as is now unfortunately in evidence in
+the West would be impossible here. Had the conquest of air been achieved
+in India, her very first impulse would be to offer worship at every
+temple for such a manifestation of the divinity in man.
+
+
+ECONOMIC DANGER OF INDIA
+
+One of the most interesting events in his tour round the world was his
+stay in Japan, where he had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted
+with the efforts of the people and their aspirations towards a great
+future. No one can help being filled with admiration for what they have
+achieved. In materialistic efficiency, which in a mechanical era is
+regarded as an index of civilisation, they have even surpassed their
+German teachers. A few decades ago they had no foreign shipping and no
+manufacture. But within an incredibly short time their magnificent lines
+of steamers have proved so formidable a competitor that the great
+American line in the Pacific will soon be compelled to stop their
+sailings. Their industries again, through the wise help of the State and
+other adventitious aids are capturing foreign markets. But far more
+admirable is their foresight to save their country from any embroilment
+with other nations with whom they want to live in peace. And they
+realise any predominant interest of a foreign country in their trade or
+manufacture is sure to lead to misunderstanding and friction. Actuated
+by this idea they have practically excluded all foreign manufactured
+articles by prohibitive tariffs.
+
+
+REVIVAL OF INDIAN INDUSTRIES
+
+Is our country slow to realise the danger that threatens her by the
+capture of her market and the total destruction of her industries? Does
+she not realise that it is helpless passivity that directly provokes
+aggression? Has not the recent happenings in China served as an object
+lesson? There is, therefore, no time to be lost and the utmost effort is
+demanded of the Government and the people for the revival of our own
+industries. The various attempts that have hitherto been made have not
+been as successful as the necessity of the case demands. The efforts of
+the Government and of the people have hitherto been spasmodic and often
+worked at cross purposes. The Government should have an advisory body
+of Indian members. There should be some modification of rules as regards
+selection of Industrial scholars. Before being sent out to foreign
+countries they should be made to study the conditions of manufacture in
+this country and its difficulties. For a particular industry there
+should be a co-ordinated group of three scholars, two for the industrial
+and one for the commercial side. Difficulties would arise in adapting
+foreign knowledge to Indian conditions. This can only be overcome by the
+devoted labour of men of originality, who have been trained in our
+future Research Laboratory. The Government could also materially help
+(i) by offering facilities for the supply of raw materials (ii) by
+offering expert advice (iii) by starting experimental industries. He had
+reason to think that the Government is full alive to the crucial
+importance of the subject and is determined to take every step
+necessary. In this matter the aims of the people and the Government are
+one. In facing a common danger and in co-operation there must arise
+mutual respect and understanding. And perhaps through the very
+catastrophe that is threatening the world there may grow up in India a
+realisation of community of interest and solidarity as between
+Government and people.
+
+
+A CALL FOR NOBLER PATRIOTISM
+
+A very serious danger is thus seen to be threatening the future of
+India, and to avert it will require the utmost effort of the people.
+They have not only to meet the economic crisis but also to protect the
+ideals of ancient Aryan civilisation from the destructive forces that
+are threatening it. Nothing great can be conserved except through
+constant effort and sacrifice. There is a danger of, regarding the
+mechanical efficiency as the sole end of life; there is also the
+opposite danger of a life of dreaming, bereft of struggle and activity,
+degenerating into parasitic habits of dependence. Only through the
+nobler call of patriotism can our nation realise her highest ideals in
+thought and in action; to that call the nation will always respond. He
+had the inestimable privilege of winning the intimate friendship of Mr.
+G. K. Gokhale. Before leaving England, our foremost Indian statesman
+whose loss we so deeply mourn, had come to stay with the speaker for a
+few days at Eastbourne. He knew that this was to be their last meeting.
+Almost his parting question to Dr. Bose was whether science had anything
+to say about future incarnations. For himself, however he was certain
+that as soon as he would cast off his worn out frame he was to be born
+once more in the country he loved, and bear all the country that may be
+laid on him in her service. There can be no doubt that there must be
+salvation for a country which can count on sons as devoted as Gopal
+Krishna Gokhale.
+
+--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 26-7-1915.
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF A DISCOVERY
+
+
+Substance of a Lecture delivered by Prof. J. C. Bose on the 20th
+November 1915, at the Ram Mohan Library, under the Presidency of the
+Hon'ble Mr. P. C. Lyon, and published at p. 693, Vol. xviii, of the
+"Modern Review" (July to December, 1915).
+
+At the tournament held before the court at Hastinapur, more than
+twenty-five centuries ago, Karna, the reputed son of a Charioteer, had
+challenged the supremacy of Prince Arjuna. To this challenge Arjuna had
+returned a scornful answer; a prince could not cross swords with one who
+could claim no nobility of descent. "I am my own ancestor," replied
+Karna, and this perhaps the earliest assertion of the right of man to
+choose and determine his own destiny. In the realm of knowledge also the
+great achievements have been won only by men with determined purpose and
+without any adventitious aids. Undismayed by human limitations they had
+struggled in spite of many a failure. In their inquiry after truth they
+regarded nothing as too laborious, nothing too insignificant, nothing
+too painful. This is the process which all must follow; there is no
+easier path.
+
+The lecturer's research on the properties of Electric Waves was begun
+just twenty-one years ago. In this he was greatly encouraged by the
+appreciation shown by the Royal Society, which not only published his
+researches, but also offered a Parliamentary grant for the continuance
+of his work. The greatest difficulty lay in the construction of a
+receiver to detect invisible ether disturbances. For this a most
+laborious investigation had to be undertaken to find the action of
+electric radiation on all kinds of matter. As a result of this long and
+very patient work a new type of receiver was invented, so perfect in its
+action that the _Electrician_ suggested its use in ships and
+electro-magnetic high houses for the communication and transmission of
+danger signals at sea through space. This was in 1895, several years in
+advance of the present wireless system. Practical application of the
+result of Dr. Bose's investigations appear so important that Great
+Britain and the United States granted him patents for his invention of a
+certain crystal receiver which proved to be the most sensitive detector
+of wireless signals.
+
+
+UNIVERSAL SENSITIVENESS OF MATTER
+
+In the course of his investigations Dr. Bose found that the uncertainty
+of the early type of his receiver was brought on by fatigue, and that
+the curve of fatigue of his instrument closely resembled the fatigue
+curve of animal muscle. He was soon able to remove the 'tiredness' of
+his receiver by application of suitable stimulants; application of
+certain poisons, on the other hand, permanently abolished its
+sensitiveness. Dr. Bose was thus amazed at the discovery that inorganic
+matter was anything but inert, but that its particles were a thrill
+under the action of multitudinous forces that were playing on it. The
+lecturer was at this time constrained to choose whether to go on with
+the practical applications of his work, the success of which appeared to
+be assured, or to throw himself into a vortex of conflict for the
+establishment of some truth the glimmerings of which he was then but
+dimly beginning to perceive. It is very curious that the human mind is
+sometimes so constituted that it rejects lines of least resistance in
+favour of the more difficult path. Dr. Bose chose the more difficult
+path, and entered into a phase of activity which was to test all his
+strength.
+
+
+CASTE IN SCIENCE
+
+Dr. Bose's discovery of Universal sensitiveness of matter was
+communicated to the Royal Society on May 7th, 1901, when he himself gave
+a successful experimental demonstration. His communication was, however,
+strongly assailed by Sir John Burden-Sanderson, the leading
+physiologist, and one or two of his followers. They had nothing to urge
+against his experiments but objected to a physicist straying into the
+preserve that had been specially reserved for the physiologist. He had
+unwittingly strayed into the domain of a new and unfamiliar caste system
+and offended its etiquette. In consequence of this opposition his paper,
+which was already in print, was not published. This is not by any means
+to be regarded as an injustice done to a stranger. Even Lord Rayleigh,
+who occupies an unique position in the world of science, was subjected
+to fierce attacks from the chemists, because he, a physicist, had
+ventured to predict that the air would be found to contain new elements
+not hitherto discovered.
+
+It is natural that there should be prejudice against all innovations,
+and the attitude of Sir John Burden-Sanderson is easily explained.
+Unfortunately there was another incident about which similar explanation
+could not be urged. Dr. Bose's Paper had been placed in the archives of
+the Royal Society, so that technically there was no publication. And it
+came about that eight months after the reading of his Paper, another
+communication found publication in the Journal of a different society
+which was practically the same as Dr. Bose's but without any
+acknowledgment. The author of this communication was a gentleman who had
+previously opposed him at the Royal Society. The plagiarism was
+subsequently discovered and led to much unpleasantness. It is not
+necessary to refer any more to the subject except as explanation of the
+fact that the determined hostility and misrepresentations of one man
+succeeded for more than ten years to bar all avenues of publication for
+his discoveries. But every cloud has its silver lining; this incident
+secured for him many true friends in England who stood for fair play,
+and whose friendship has proved to be a source of great encouragement to
+him.
+
+
+FURTHER DIFFICULTIES
+
+Dr. Bose's next work in 1903 was the discovery of the identity of
+response and of automatic activity in plant and animal and of the
+nervous impulse in plant. These new contributions were regarded as of
+such great importance that the Royal Society showed its special
+appreciation by recommending it to be published in their Philosophical
+transactions. But the same influence which had hitherto stood in his way
+triumphed once more, and it was at the very last moment that the
+publication was withheld. The Royal Society, however, informed him that
+his results were of fundamental importance, but as they were so wholly
+unexpected and so opposed to the existing theories, that they would
+reserve their judgment until, at some future time, plants themselves
+could be made to record their answers to questions put to them. This was
+interpreted in certain quarters here as the final rejection of Dr.
+Bose's theories by the Royal Society, and the limited facilities which
+he had in the prosecution of his researches were in danger of being
+withdrawn. And everything was dark for him for the next ten years. The
+only thought that possessed him was how to make the plant give testimony
+by means of its own autograph.
+
+
+LONG DELAYED SUCCESS
+
+And when the night was at its darkest, light gradually appeared, and
+after innumerable difficulties had been overcome his Resonant Recorder
+was perfected, which enabled the plant to tell its own story. And in
+the meantime something still more wonderful came to pass. Hitherto all
+gates had been barred and he had to produce his passports everywhere. He
+now found friends who never asked him for credentials. His time had come
+at last. The Royal Society found his new methods most convincing and
+honoured him by publication of his researches in the Philosophical
+transactions. And his discoveries, which had so long remained in
+obscurity, found enthusiastic acceptance.
+
+Though his theories had thus received acceptance from the leading
+scientific men of the Royal Society, there was yet no general conviction
+of the identity of life reactions in plant and animal. No amount of
+controversy can remove the tendency of the human mind to follow
+precedents. The only thing left was to make the plant itself bear
+witness before the scientific bodies in the West, by means of
+self-records. At the recommendation of the Minister of Education, and of
+the Government of Bengal, the Secretary of State sanctioned his
+scientific deputation to Europe and America.
+
+
+JOURNEY OF INDIAN PLANT ROUND THE WORLD
+
+The special difficulty which he had to contend against lay in the fact
+that the only time during which the plant flourished at all in the West,
+was in the months of July and August, when the Universities and
+scientific societies were in vacation. The only thing left was to take
+the bold step of carrying growing plants from India and trust to human
+ingenuity to keep them alive during the journey. Four plants, two
+Mimosas and two Telegraph plants, were taken in a portable box with
+glass cover, and never let out of sight. In the Mediterranean they
+encountered bitter cold for the first time and nearly succumbed. They
+were unhappier still in the Bay of Biscay, and when they reached London
+there was a sharp frost. They had to be kept in a drawing room lighted
+by gas, the deadly influence of which was discovered the next morning
+when all the plants were found to be apparently killed. Two had been
+killed, and the other two were brought round after much difficulty. The
+plants were at once transferred to the hot-house in Regents Park. For
+every demonstration in Dr. Bose's private Laboratory at Maida Vale, the
+plant had to be brought and returned in a taxicab with closed doors so
+that no sudden chill might kill them. When travelling, the large box in
+which they were, could not be trusted out of sight in the luggage van.
+They had practically to be carried in a reserved compartment. The
+unusual care taken of the box always roused the greatest curiosity, and
+in an incredibly short time large crowds would gather. When travelling
+long distances, for example from London to Vienna, the carriage
+accommodation had to be secured in advance. It was this that saved Dr.
+Bose from being interned in Germany, where he was to commence his
+lectures on the 4th August. He was to start for the University of Bonn
+on the 2nd, but on account of hasty mobilisation of troops in Germany he
+could not secure the reserved accommodation. Two days after came the
+proclamation of War!
+
+
+OUTCOME OF HIS WORK
+
+The success of his scientific mission exceeded his most sanguine
+expectations. The work in which he long persevered in isolation and
+under most depressing difficulties, bore fruit at last. Apart from the
+full recognition that the progress of the world's science would be
+incomplete without India's special contributions, mutual appreciation
+and better understanding resulted from his visit. One of the greatest of
+Medical Institutions, the Royal Society of Medicine, has been pleased to
+regard his address before the society as one of the most important in
+their history and they expected that their science of medicine would be
+materially benefited by the researches that are being carried out by him
+in India. India has also been drawn closer to the great seats of
+learning in the West, to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; for
+there also the methods of inquiry initiated here have found the most
+cordial welcome. Many Indian students find their way to America,
+strangers in a strange land; hitherto they found few to advise and
+befriend them. It will perhaps be different now, since their leading
+Universities have begged from India the courtesy of hospitality for
+their post graduate scholars. Some of these Universities again have
+asked for a supply of apparatus specially invented at Dr. Bose's
+laboratory which in their opinion will mark an epoch in scientific
+advance.
+
+
+THE INEFFABLE WONDER BEHIND THE VEIL
+
+As for the research itself, he said its bearings are not exclusively
+specialistic, but touch the foundation of various branches of science.
+To mention only a few; in medicine it had to deal with the fundamental
+reaction of protoplasm to various drugs, the solution of the problem why
+an identical agent brings about diametrically opposite effects in
+different constitutions; in the science of life it dealt with the new
+comparative physiology by which any specific characteristic of a tissue
+is traced from the simplest type in plant to the most complex in the
+animal; the study of the mysterious phenomenon of death and the
+accurate determination of the death point and the various conditions by
+which this point may be dislocated backwards and forwards; in psychology
+it had to deal with the unravelling of the great mystery that underlies
+memory and tracing it backwards to latent impressions even in the
+inorganic bodies which are capable of subsequent revival; and finally,
+the determination of the special characteristic of that vehicle through
+which sensiferous impulses are transmitted and the possibility of
+changing the intensity and the tone of sensation. All these
+investigations, Dr. Bose said, are to be carried out by new physical
+methods of the utmost delicacy. He had in these years been able to
+remove the obstacles in the path and had lifted the veil so as to catch
+a glimpse of the ineffable wonder that had hitherto been hidden from
+view. The real work, he said, had only just begun.
+
+
+A SOCIAL GATHERING
+
+At the Social Gathering held on the 16th December 1915, in the compound
+of the Calcutta Presidency College, to meet him after his highly
+successful tour through Europe, America and Japan, Dr. Bose spoke as
+follows:--
+
+He said that it was his rare good fortune to have been amply rewarded
+for the hardships and struggles that he had gone through by the generous
+and friendly feelings of his colleagues and the love and trust of his
+pupils. He would say a few words regarding his experience in the
+Presidency College for more than three decades, which he hoped would
+serve to bring all who loved the Presidency College--present and past
+pupils and their teachers--in closer bonds of union. He would speak to
+them what he had learnt after years of patient labour, that the
+impossible became possible by persistent and determined efforts and
+adherence to duty and entire selflessness. The greatest obstacle often
+arises out of foolish misunderstanding of each other's ideals, such as
+the differing points of view, first of the Indian teacher, then of his
+western colleague, and last but not least, the point of view of the
+Indian pupils themselves. In all these respects his experience had been
+wide and varied. He had both been an undergraduate and a graduate of the
+Calcutta University with vivid realization of an Indian student's
+aspirations; he had then become a student of conservative Cambridge and
+democratic London. And during his frequent visits to Europe and America
+he had become acquainted with the inner working of the chief
+universities of the world. Finally he had the unique privilege of being
+connected with the Presidency College for thirty-one years, from which
+no temptation could sever him. He had the deepest sense of the sacred
+vocation of the teacher. They may well be proud of a consecrated
+life--consecrated to what? To the guidance of young lives, to the making
+of men, to the shaping and determining of souls in the dawn of their
+existence, with their dreams yet to be realised.
+
+Education in the West and in the East showed how different customs and
+ways might yet express a common ideal. In India the teacher was, like
+the head of a family, reverenced by his pupils so deeply as to show
+itself by touching the feet of their master. This in no servile act if
+we come to think of it; since it is the expression of the pupils' desire
+for his master's blessings, called down from heaven in an almost
+religious communion of souls. This consecration is renewed every day,
+calling forth patient foresight of the teacher. As the father shows no
+special favour, but lets his love and compassion go out to the weakest,
+so it is with the Indian teacher and his pupil. There is the relation
+something very human, something very ennobling. He would say it was
+essentially human rather than distinctively Eastern. For do we not find
+something very like it in Mediaeval Europe? There too before the coming
+of the modern era with its lack of leisure and its adherence to system
+and machinery, there was a bond as sacred between the master and his
+pupils. Luther used to salute his class every morning with lifted hat,
+"I bow to you, great men of the future, famous administrators yet to be,
+men of learning, men of character who will take on themselves the burden
+of the world." Such is the prophetic vision given to the greatest of
+teachers. The modern teacher from England will set before him an ideal
+not less exalted--regarding his pupils as his comrades, he as an
+Englishman will instill into them greater virility and a greater public
+spirit. This will be his special contribution to the forming of our
+Indian youths.
+
+Turning to the Indian students he could say that it was his good fortune
+never to have had the harmonious relation between teacher and pupils in
+any way ruffled during his long connection with them for more than three
+decades. The real secret of success was in trying at times to see things
+from the student's point of view and to cultivate a sense of humour
+enabling him to enjoy the splendid self-assurance of youth with a
+feeling not unmixed with envy. In essential matters, however, one could
+not wish to meet a better type or one more quickly susceptible to finer
+appeals to right conduct and duty as Indian students. Their faults are
+rather of omission than of commission, since in his experience he formed
+that the moment they realised their teachers to be their friends, they
+responded instantly and did not flinch from any test, however severe,
+that could be laid on them.
+
+--_The Presidency College Magazine._ _Vol. II, pages_ 339-341.
+
+
+
+
+LIGHT VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE
+
+
+On the 14th January 1916, Dr. J. C. Bose delivered a public lecture, on
+Light Visible and Invisible, at the third Indian Science Congress held
+at Lucknow, before a crowded audience which included the
+Lieutenant-Governor (Sir James Meston).
+
+Dr. Bose, in course of his lecture, spoke of the imperfection of our
+senses. Our ear, for example, fails to respond to all sounds. There are
+many sounds to which we are deaf. This was because our ear was tuned to
+answer to the narrow range of eleven octaves of sound vibrations. He
+showed a remarkable experiment of an artificial ear which remained
+irresponsive to various sounds, but when a particular note, to which it
+was tuned, was sounded even at the distant end of the hall, this ear
+picked it up and responded violently. As there were sounds audible and
+inaudible, so there were lights visible and invisible. The imperfection
+of our eye as a detector of ether vibrations was, however, far more
+serious. The eye could detect ether vibrations lying within a single
+octave--between 400 to 800 billion vibrations per second. Comparatively
+slow vibrations of ether did not affect our eye and the disturbances
+they give rise to well-known as electric waves. The electric waves,
+predicted by Maxwell, were discovered by Hertz. These waves were about
+three metres long. They were about ten million times larger than the
+beams of visible light. Dr. Bose showed that the three short electric
+waves have the same property as a beam of light, exhibiting reflections,
+refraction, even total reflection, through a black crystal, double
+refraction, polarisation, and rotation of the plane of polarisation. The
+thinnest film of air was sufficient to produce total reflection of
+visible light with its extremely short wave lengths. But with the new
+electric waves which he produced, Dr. Bose showed that the critical
+thickness of air space determined by the refracting power of the prison
+and by the wave length of electric oscillations. Dr. Bose determined the
+index of refraction of electric waves for different materials, and
+eliminated a difficulty which presented itself in Maxwell's theory as to
+the relation between the index of refraction of light and the
+di-electric constant of insulators. He also measured the wave lengths of
+various oscillations. The order to produce short electric oscillations,
+to detect them and study their optical properties, he had to construct a
+large number of instruments. It was a hard task to produce very short
+electric waves which had enough energy to be detected, but Dr. Bose
+overcame this difficulty by constructing radiators or oscillators of his
+own type, which emitted the shortest waves with sufficient energy. As a
+receiver he used a sensitive metallic coherer, which in itself led to
+new and important discoveries. When electric waves fall on a loose
+contact between two pieces of metals, the resistance of the contact
+changes and a current passes through the contact indicating the
+existence of electrical oscillations. Dr. Bose discovered the surprising
+fact that with potassium metal the resistance of the contact increases
+under the action of electric waves and that this contact exhibits an
+automatic recovery. He found further that the change of the metallic
+contact resistance when acted upon by electric waves, is a function of
+the atomic weight. These phenomena led to a new theory of metallic
+coherers. Before these discoveries it was assumed that the particles of
+the two metallic pieces in contact are, as it were, fused together, so
+that the resistance decreases. But the increasing resistance appearing
+for some elements, led to the theory that the electric forces in the
+waves produced a peculiar molecular action or a re-arrangement of the
+molecules, which may either increase or decrease the contact resistance.
+
+--_Pioneer_,--16-1-1916.
+
+
+
+
+HINDU UNIVERSITY ADDRESS
+
+
+The foundation of the Hindu University was laid by Lord Hardinge on the
+4th February 1916. "Many striking addresses were delivered on the
+occasion. Professor J.C. Bose in his masterly address went to the root
+of the matter and pointed in an inspiring manner what should be done to
+make the Hindu University worthy of its name. He deprecated a repetition
+of the Universities of the West." He said:--
+
+In tracing the characteristic phenomenon of life from simple beginnings
+in that vast region which may be called unvoiced, as exemplified in the
+world of plants, to its highest expression in the animal kingdom, one is
+repeatedly struck by the one dominant fact that in order to maintain an
+organism at the height of its efficiency something more than a
+mechanical perfection of its structure is necessary. Every living
+organism, in order to maintain its life and growth, must be in free
+communion with all the forces of the Universe about it.
+
+
+STIMULUS WITHIN AND WITHOUT
+
+Further, it must not only constantly receive stimulus from without, but
+must also give out something from within, and the healthy life of the
+organism will depend on these two fold activities of inflow and
+outflow. When there is any interference with these activities, then
+morbid symptoms appear, which ultimately must end in disaster and death.
+This is equally true of the intellectual life of a Nation. When through
+narrow conceit a Nation regards itself self-sufficient and cuts itself
+from the stimulus of the outside world, then intellectual decay must
+inevitably follow.
+
+
+SPECIAL FUNCTION OF A NATION
+
+So far as regards the receptive function. Then there is another function
+in the intellectual life of a Nation, that of spontaneous outflow, that
+giving out of its life by which the world is enriched. When the Nation
+has lost this power, when it merely receives, but cannot give out, then
+its healthy life is over, and it sinks into a degenerate existence which
+is purely parasitic.
+
+
+HOW INDIA CAN TEACH
+
+How can our Nation give out of the fulness of the life that is in it,
+and how can a new Indian University help in the realisation of this
+object? It is clear that its power of directing and inspiring will
+depend on its world status. This can be secured to it by no artificial
+means, nor by any strength in the past; and what is the weakness that
+has been paralysing her activities for the accomplishment of any great
+scientific work? There must be two different elements, and these must be
+evenly balanced. Any excess of either will injure it.
+
+
+HOW TO SECURE THIS STATUS
+
+This world status can only be won by the intrinsic value of the great
+contributions to be made by its own Indian scholars for the advancement
+of the world's knowledge. To be organic and vital our new University
+must stand primarily for self-expression, and for winning for India a
+place she has lost. Knowledge is never the exclusive possession of any
+particular race, nor does it recognise geographical limitations. The
+whole world is interdependent, and a constant stream of thought had been
+carried out throughout the ages enriching the common heritage of
+mankind. Although science was neither of the East nor of the West but
+international, certain aspects of it gained richness by reason of their
+place of origin.
+
+In any case if India need to make any contribution to the world it
+should be as great as the hope they cherished for her. Let them not
+talk of the glories of the past till they have secured for her, her true
+place among the intellectual nations of the world. Let them find out how
+she had fallen from her high estate and ruthlessly put an end to all
+that self satisfied and little-minded vanity which had been the cause of
+their fatal weakness. What was it that stood in her way? Was her mind
+paralysed by weak superstitious fears? That was not so; for her great
+thinkers, the Rishis, always stood for freedom of intellect and while
+Galileo was imprisoned and Bruno burnt for their opinions, they boldly
+declared that even the Vedas were to be rejected if they did not conform
+to truth. They urged in favour of persistent efforts for the discovery
+of physical causes yet unknown, since to them nothing was extra-physical
+but merely mysterious because of a hitherto unascertained cause. Were
+they afraid that the march of knowledge was dangerous to true faith? Not
+so. For their knowledge and religion were one.
+
+These are the hopes that animate us. For there is something in the Hindu
+culture which is possessed of extraordinary latent strength by which it
+has resisted the ravages of time and the destructive changes which have
+swept over the earth. And indeed a capacity to endure through infinite
+transformations must be innate in that mighty civilisation which has
+seen the intellectual culture of the Nile Valley, of Assyria and of
+Babylon war and wane and disappear and which to-day gazes on the future
+with the same invincible faith with which it met the past.
+
+--_Modern Review, vol. XIX, pages_ 277, 278.
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF A FAILURE THAT WAS GREAT
+
+
+At the invitation of the President and the committee of the Faridpore
+Industrial Exhibition, Dr. J. C. Bose gave a lecture on the life of his
+father, the late Babu Bhugwan Chunder Bose, who founded the Exhibition
+at Faridpore, where he was the sub-divisional officer, 50 years ago. It
+was published in the Modern Review for February 1917--volume xxi, p.
+221. In course of his address, said Dr. Bose:--
+
+It is the obvious, the insistent, the blatant that often blinds us to
+the essential. And in solving the mystery that underlies life, the
+enlightenment will come not by the study of the complex man, but through
+the simpler plant. It is the unsuspected forces, hidden to the eyes of
+men,--the forces imprisoned in the soil and the stimuli of alternating
+flash of light and the gloomings of darkness these and many others will
+be found to maintain the ceaseless activity which we know as the fulness
+of throbbing life.
+
+This is likewise true of the congeries of life which we call a society
+or a nation. The energy which moves this great mass in ceaseless effort
+to realise some common aspiration, often has its origin in the unknown
+solitudes of a village life. And thus the history of some efforts, not
+forgotten, which emanated from Faridpore, may be found not unconnected
+with which India is now meeting her problems to-day. How did these
+problems first dawn in the minds of some men who forecast themselves by
+half a century? How fared their hopes, how did their dreams become
+buried in oblivion? Where lies the secret of that potency which makes
+certain efforts apparently doomed to failure, rise renewed from beneath
+the smouldering ashes? Are these dead failures, so utterly unrelated to
+some great success that we may acclaim to day? When we look deeper we
+shall find that this is not so, that as inevitable as in the sequence of
+cause and effect, so unrelenting must be the sequence of failure and
+success. We shall find that the failure must be the antecedent power to
+lie dormant for the long subsequent dynamic expression in what we call
+success. It is then and then only that we shall begin to question
+ourselves which is the greater of the two, a noble failure or a vulgar
+success.
+
+As a concrete example, I shall relate the history of a noble failure
+which had its setting in this little corner of the earth. And if some of
+the audience thought that the speaker has been blessed with life that
+has been unusually fruitful, they will soon realise that the power and
+strength that nerved me to meet the shocks of life were in reality
+derived at this very place, where I witnessed the struggle which
+overpowered a far greater life.
+
+
+STIMULUS OF CONTACT WITH WESTERN CULTURE
+
+An impulse from outside reacts on impressionable bodies in two different
+ways, depending on whether the recipient is inert or fully alive. The
+inert is fashioned after the pattern of the impression made on it, and
+this in infinite repetition of one mechanical stamp. But when an
+organism is fully alive, the answering reaction is often of an
+altogether different character to the impinging stimulus. The outside
+shocks stir up the organism to answer feebly or to utmost in ways as
+multitudinous and varied as life itself. So the first impetus of Western
+education impressed itself on some in a dead monotony of imitation of
+things Western; while in others it awakened all that was greatest in the
+national memory. It is the release of some giant force which lay for
+long time dormant. My father was one of the earliest to receive the
+impetus characteristic of the modern epoch as derived from the West. And
+in his case it came to pass that the stimulus evoked the latent
+potentialities of his race for evolving modes of expression demanded by
+the period of transition in which he was placed. They found expression
+in great constructive work, in the restoration of quiet amidst disorder,
+in the earliest effort to spread education both among men and women, in
+questions of social welfare, in industrial efforts, in the establishment
+of people's Bank and in the foundation of industrial and technical
+schools. And behind all these efforts lay a burning love for his country
+and its nobler traditions.
+
+
+MATTERS EDUCATIONAL
+
+In educational matters he had very definite ideas which is now becoming
+more fully appreciated. English schools were at that time not only
+regarded as the only efficient medium for instruction. While my father's
+subordinates sent their children to the English schools intended for
+gentle folks, I was sent to the vernacular school where my comrades were
+hardy sons of toilers and of others who, it is now the fashion to
+regard, were belonging to the depressed classes. From these who tilled
+the ground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening
+corn, and the sons of the fisher folk, who told stories of the strange
+creatures that frequented the unknown depths of mighty rivers and
+stagnant pools, I first derived the lesson of that which constitutes
+true manhood. From them too I drew my love of nature. When I came home
+accompanied by my comrades I found my mother waiting for us. She was an
+orthodox Hindu, yet the "untouchableness" of some of my school fellows
+did not produce any misgivings in her. She welcomed and fed all these as
+her own children; for it is only true of the mother heart to go out and
+enfold in her protecting care all those who needed succour and a
+mother's affection. I now realise the object of my being sent at the
+most plastic period of my life to the vernacular school, where I was to
+learn my own language, to think my own thoughts and to receive the
+heritage of our national culture through the medium of our own
+literature. I was thus to consider myself one with the people and never
+to place myself in an equivocal position of assumed superiority. This I
+realised more particularly when later I wished to go to Europe and to
+compete for the Indian Civil Service, his refusal as regards that
+particular career was absolute. I was to rule nobody but myself, I was
+to be a scholar not an administrator.
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF A FAILURE THAT WAS GREAT
+
+There has been some complaint that the experiment of meeting out cut and
+dried moral texts as a part of school routine has not proved to be so
+effective as was expected by their promulgators. The moral education
+which we received in our childhood was very indirect and came from
+listening to stories recited by the 'Kathas' on various incidents
+connected with our great epics. Their effect on our minds was very
+great; this may be because our racial memory makes us more prone to
+respond to certain ideals that have been impressed on the consciousness
+of the nation. These early appeals to our emotions have remained
+persistent; the only difference is that which was there as a narrative
+of incidents more or less historical, is now realised as eternally true,
+being an allegory of the unending struggle of the human soul in its
+choice between what is material and that other something which
+transcends it. The only pictures now in my study are a few frescoes done
+for me by Abanindra Nath Tagore and Nanda Lal Bose. The first fresco
+represents Her, who is the Sustainer of the Universe. She stands
+pedestalled on the lotus of our heart. The world was at peace; but a
+change has come. And She under whose Veil of Compassion we had been
+protected so long, suddenly flings us to the world of conflict. Our
+great epic, the Mahabharata, deals with this great conflict, and the few
+frescoes delineate some of the fundamental incidents. The coming of the
+discord is signalled by the rattle of dice, thrown by Yudhisthira, the
+pawn at stake, being the crown. Two hostile arrays are set in motion,
+mighty Kaurava armaments meeting in shock of battle the Pandava host
+with Arjuna as the leader, and Krishna as his Divine Charioteer. At the
+supreme moment Arjuna had flung down his earthly weapon, Gandiva. It was
+then that the eternal conflict between matter and spirit was decided.
+The next panel shows the outward or the material aspect of victory.
+Behind a foreground of waving flags is seen the battle field of
+Kurukshetra with procession of white-clad mourning women seen by fitful
+lights of funeral pyres. In the last panel is seen Yudhisthira
+renouncing the fruits of his victory setting out on his last journey. In
+front of him lies the vast and sombre plain and mountain peaks, faintly
+visible by gleams of unearthly light, unlocalised but playing here and
+there. His wife and his brothers had fallen behind and dropped one by
+one. There is to be no human companion in his last journey. The only
+thing that stood by him and from which he had never been really
+separated is Dharma or the Spirit of Righteousness.
+
+
+LIFE OF ACTION
+
+Faridpur at that time enjoyed a notoriety of being the stronghold of
+desperate characters, dacoits by land and water. My father had captured
+single-handed one of the principal leaders, whom he sentenced to a long
+term of imprisonment. After release he came to my father and demanded
+some occupation, since the particular vocation in which he had
+specialised was now rendered impossible. My father took the unusual
+course to employ him as my special attendant to carry me, a child of
+four, on his back to the distant village school. No nurse could be
+tenderer than this ex-leader of lawless men, whose profession had been
+to deal out wounds and deaths. He had accepted a life of peace but he
+could not altogether wipe out his old memories. He used to fill my
+infant mind with the stories of his bold adventures, the numerous fights
+in which he had taken part, the death of his companions and his
+hair-breadth escapes. Numerous were the decorations he bore. The most
+conspicuous was an ugly mark on his breast left by an arrow and a hole
+on the thigh caused by a spear thrust. The trust imposed on this
+marauder proved to be not altogether ill placed for once in a river
+journey we were pursued by several long boats filled with armed dacoits.
+When these boats came too near for us to effect an escape the erstwhile
+dacoit leader, my attendant, stood up and gave a peculiar cry, which was
+evidently understood. For the pursuing boats vanished at the signal.
+
+
+INDUSTRIAL EFFORTS
+
+I come now to another period of his life fifty years from now, when he
+foresaw the economic danger that threatened his country. This
+Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition was one of the first means he
+thought of to avert the threatened danger. Here also he attempted to
+bring together other activities. Evening entertainments were given by
+the performances of "Jatras," which have been the expression of our
+national drama and which have constantly enriched our Bengali literature
+by the contributions of village bards and composers. There were athletic
+tournaments also and display of physical strength and endurance. He also
+established here the people's Bank, which is now in a most flourishing
+condition. He established industrial and technical schools, and it was
+there that the inventive bend of my mind received its first impetus. I
+remember the deep impression made on my mind by the form of worship
+rendered by the artisans to Viswakarma God in his aspect as the Great
+Artificer: His hand it was that was moulding the whole creation; and it
+seemed that we were the instruments in his hand, through whom he
+intended to fashion some Great Design.
+
+In practical agriculture my father was among Indians one of the first to
+start a tea industry in Assam, now regarded as one of the most
+flourishing. He gave practically everything in the starting of some
+Weaving Mills. He stood by this and many other efforts in industrial
+developments. The success of which I spoke did not come till long
+after--too late for him to see it. He had come before the country was
+ready, and it happened to him as it must happen to all pioneers. Every
+one of his efforts failed and the crash came. And a great burden fell on
+us which was only lifted by our united effects just before his work here
+was over.
+
+A failure? Yes but not ignoble or altogether futile. Since it was
+through the witnessing of this struggle that the son learned to look on
+success or failure as one, to realise that some defeat was greater than
+victory. And if my life in any way proved to be fruitful, then that came
+through the realisation of this lesson.
+
+To me his life had been one of blessing and daily thanksgiving.
+Nevertheless every one had said that he wrecked his life which was meant
+for far greater things. Few realise that out of the skeletons of myriad
+lives have been built vast continents. And it is on the wreck of a life
+like his and of many such lives there will be built the Greater India
+yet to be. We do not know why it should be so, but we do know that the
+Earth Mother is hungry for sacrifice.
+
+
+
+
+QUEST OF TRUTH AND DUTY
+
+
+Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose delivered the following Address, on the 25th
+February 1917, to the students of the Presidency College on receiving
+their _Arghya_ and congratulations on the occasion of his knighthood. It
+was published in the Modern Review for March 1917--Volume XXI, p. 343.
+
+In your congratulations for the recent honour, you have overlooked a
+still greater that came to me a year ago, when I was gazetted as your
+perpetual professor, so that the tie which binds me to you is never to
+be severed. Thirty-two years ago I sought to be your teacher. For the
+trust that you imposed on me could I do anything less than place before
+you the highest that I knew? I never appealed to your weaknesses but
+your strength. I never set before you that was easy but used all the
+compulsion for the choice of the most difficult. And perhaps as a
+reward for these years of effort I find all over India those who have
+been my pupils occupying positions of the highest trust and
+responsibility in different walks of life. I do not merely count those
+who have won fame and success but I also claim many others who have
+taken up the burden of life manfully and whose life of purity and
+unselfishness has brought gleams of joy in suffering lives.
+
+
+THE LAW UNIVERSAL
+
+Through science I was able to teach you how the seeming veils the real;
+how though the garish lights dazzle and blind us, there are lights
+invisible, which glow persistently after the brief flare burns out. One
+came to realise how all matter was one, how unified all life was. In the
+various expressions of life even in the realm of thought the same
+Universal law prevails. There was no such thing as brute matter, but
+that spirit suffused matter in which it was enshrined. One also realised
+dimly a mysterious Cyclic Law of Change, seen not merely in inorganic
+matter but also in organised life and its highest manifestations. One
+saw how inertness passes into the climax of activity and how that climax
+is perilously near its antithetic decline. This basic change puzzles us
+by its seeming caprice not merely in our physical instruments but also
+in the cycle of individual life and death and in the great cycle of the
+life and death of nations. We fail to see things in their totality and
+we erect barriers that keep kindreds apart. Even science which attempts
+to rise above common limitations, has not escaped the doom which limited
+vision imposes. We have caste in science as in religion and in politics,
+which divides one into conflicting many. The law of Cyclic change
+follows us relentlessly even in the realm of thought. When we have
+raised ourselves to the highest pinnacle, through some oversight we fall
+over the precipice. Men have offered their lives for the establishment
+of truth. A climax is reached after which the custodians of knowledge
+themselves bar further advance. Men who have fought for liberty impose
+on themselves and on others the bond of slavery. Through centuries have
+men striven to erect a mighty edifice in which Humanity might be
+enshrined; through want of vigilance the structure crumbled into dust.
+Many cycles must yet be run and defeats must yet be borne before man
+will establish a destiny which is above change.
+
+And through science I was able to teach you to seek for truth and help
+to discover it yourself. This attitude of detachment may possess some
+advantage in the proper understanding of your duties. You will have,
+besides, the heritage of great ideals that have been handed down to
+you. The question which you have to decide is duty to yourself, to the
+king and to your country. I shall speak to you of the ideals which we
+cherish about these duties.
+
+
+DUTY TO SELF
+
+As regards duty to self, can there be anything so inclusive as being
+true to your manhood? Stand upright and do not be either cringing or
+vulgarly self-assertive. Be righteous. Let your words and deeds
+correspond. Lead no double life. Proclaim what you think right.
+
+
+IDEAL OF KINGSHIP
+
+The Indian ideal of kingship will be clear to you if I recite the
+invocation with which we crowned our kings from the Vedic Times:
+
+     "Be with us. We have chosen thee
+     Let all the people wish for thee
+     Stand steadfast and immovable
+     Be like a mountain unremoved
+     And hold thy kingship in thy grasp."
+
+We have chosen thee, our prayers have consecrated thee, for all the
+wishes of the people went with thee. Thou art to stand as mountain
+unremoved, for thy throne is planted secure on the hearts of thy people.
+Stand steadfast then, for we have endowed thee with power irresistible.
+Fall therefore not away; but let thy sceptre be held firmly in thy
+grasp.
+
+Which is more potent, Matter or Spirit? Is the power with which the
+people endow their king identical with the power of wealth with which we
+enrich him by paying him his Royal dues? We make him irresistible not by
+wealth but by the strength of our lives, the strength of our mind, may,
+we have to pay him more according to our ancient Lawgivers, in as much
+as the eighth part of our deeds and virtues, and the merit we have
+ourselves acquired. We can only make him irresistible by the strength of
+our lives, the strength of our minds, and the strength that comes out of
+righteousness.
+
+
+DUTY TO OUR COUNTRY
+
+And lastly, what are our duties to our country? These are essentially to
+win honour for it and also win for it security and peace. As regards
+winning honour for our country, it is true that while India has offered
+from the earliest times welcome and hospitality to all peoples and
+nationalities her children have been subjected to intolerable
+humiliations in other countries even under the flag of our king.
+
+There can be no question of the fundamental duty of every Indian to
+stand up and uphold the honour of his country and strove for the removal
+of wrong.
+
+The general task of redressing wrong is not a problem of India alone,
+but one in which the righteous men are interested the world over. For
+wrong cries for redress everywhere, in the clashings interests of the
+rich and poor, between capital and labour, between those who hold the
+power and those from whom it has been withheld,--in a word in the
+struggle of the Disinherited.
+
+When any man is rendered unable to uphold his manhood and self-respect
+and woman are deprived of the chivalrous protection and consideration of
+men and subjected to degradation, the general level of manhood or
+womanhood in the world is lowered. It then becomes an outrage to
+humanity and a challenge to all men to safeguard the sacredness of our
+common human nature.
+
+What is the machinery which sets a going a world movement for the
+redress of wrong? For this I need not cite instances from the history of
+other countries but take one which is known to you and in which the
+living actors are still among us. In the midst of the degradation of his
+countrymen in South Africa, there stood up a man himself nurtured in
+luxury, to take up the burden of the disinherited. His wife too stood by
+him, a lady of gentle birth. We all know who that man is--he is
+Gandhi,--and what humiliations and suffering he went through. Do you
+think he suffered in vain and that his voice remained unheard? It was
+not so, for in the great vortex of passion for Justice, there were
+caught others--men like Polak and Andrews. Are they your countrymen? Not
+in the narrow sense of the word but truly in a larger sense, that these
+who choose to bear and suffer belong to one clan the clan from which
+Kshatriya Chivalry is recruited. The removal of suffering and of the
+cause of suffering is the Dharma of the strong Kshatriya. The earth is
+the wide and universal theatre of man's woeful pageant. The question is
+who is to suffer more than his share. Is the burden to fall on the weak
+or the strong? Is it to be under hopeless compulsion or of voluntary
+acceptance?
+
+
+DEFENCE OF HOMELAND
+
+In your services for your country there is no higher at the present
+moment than to ensure for her security and peace. We have so long
+enjoyed the security of peace without being called upon to maintain it.
+But this is no longer so.
+
+At no time within the recent history of India has there been so quick a
+readjustment and appreciation as regards proper understanding of the
+aspiration of the Indian people. This has been due to what India has
+been able to offer not merely in the regions of thought but also in the
+fields of battle.
+
+
+MASS RESPONSE
+
+And remember that when the world is in conflagration, this corner which
+has hitherto escaped it, will not evade the peril which threatens it.
+The march of disaster will then be terribly rapid. You have soon to
+prepare yourself against any hostile sides. You can only withstand it if
+the whole people realise the imminent danger. You can by your thought
+and by your action awaken and influence the multitude. Do not have any
+misgivings about the want of long previous preparations. Have you not
+already seen how mind triumphs over matter and have not some of you with
+only a few months' preparation stood fearless at your post in
+Mesopotamia and won recognition by your calm collectedness and true
+heroism? They may say that you are but a small handful, what of the vast
+illiterate millions? Illiterate in what sense? Have not the ballads of
+these illiterates rendered into English by our Poet touched profoundly
+the hearts of the very elect of the West? Have not the stories of their
+common life appealed to the common kinship of humanity? If you still
+have some doubts about the power of the multitude to respond instantly
+to the call of duty, I shall relate an incident which came within my own
+personal experience. I had gone on a scientific expedition to the
+borders of the Himalayan terrai of Kumaun; a narrow ravine was between
+me and the plateau on the other side. Terror prevailed among the
+villagers on the other side of the ravine; for a tigress had come down
+from the forest. And numerous had been the toll in human lives exacted.
+Petitions had been sent up to the Government and questions had been
+asked in Parliament. A reward of Rs. 500 had been offered. Various
+captains in the army with battery of guns came many a time, but the
+reward remained unclaimed. The murderess of the forest would come out
+even in broad day-light and leisurely take her victims from away their
+companions. Nothing could circumvent her demoniac cunning. When all
+hopes had nearly vanished, the villagers went to Kaloo Singh, who
+possessed an old matchlock. At the special sanction of the Magistrate he
+was allowed to buy a quantity of gunpowder; the bullets he himself made
+by melting bits of lead. With his primitive weapon with the entreaties
+of his villagers ringing in his ears Kaloo Singh started on his perilous
+journey. At midday I was startled by the groanings of some animals in
+pain. The tigress had sprung among a herd of buffalo and with successive
+strokes of its mighty paws had killed two buffaloes and left them in the
+field. Kaloo Singh waited there for the return of the tigress to the
+kill. There was not a tree near by; only there was a low bush behind
+which he lay crouched. After hours of waiting as the sun was going down
+he was taken aback by the sudden apparition of the tigress which stood
+within six feet of him. His limbs had become half paralysed from cold
+and his crouching position. Trying to raise his gun he could take no aim
+as his arm was shaking with involuntary fear. Kaloo Singh explained to
+me afterwards how he succeeded in shaking off his mortal terror. "I
+quietly said to myself, Kaloo Singh, Kaloo Singh, who sent you here? Did
+not the villagers put their trust on you! I could then no longer lie in
+hiding, and I stood up and something strange and invigorating crept up
+strength into my body. All the trembling went and I became as hard as
+steel. The tigress had seen me and with eyes blazing crouched for the
+spring lashing its tail. Only six feet lay between. She sprang and my
+gun also went off at the same time and she missed her aim and fell dead
+close to me." That was how a common villager went off to meet death at
+the call of something for which he could give no name and the mother
+and wife of Kaloo Singh had also bidden him go. There are millions of
+Kaloo Singhs with mother and sisters and wife to send them forth. And
+you too have many loved ones who would themselves bid you arm for the
+defence of your homes.
+
+
+DIFFERENCE OF TEMPERAMENT
+
+The issue is clear, and immediate action is imperative. But action is
+delayed by misunderstanding arising out of temperamental differences
+between the Governing Class and the People. Curiously enough the
+respective responsive characteristics of the Anglo Saxon and the Indians
+are paralleled by the two types of responses seen in all living matter.
+In the one type the response is slow but proportionate to the stimulus
+that excites it. The response grows with the strength of external force.
+In the other it is quite different--here it is an all-or-none principle.
+It either responds to the utmost or nothing at all. This is also
+illustrated in the different racial characteristics. The Anglo Saxon has
+even by his rights by struggle, step by step. The insignificant little
+has, by accumulation, became large, and which has been gained, has been
+gained for all time. But in the Indian the ideal and the emotional are
+the only effective stimulus. The ideal of his King is Rama, who
+renounced his kingdom and even his beloved for an idea. One day a king
+and another day a bare-footed wanderer in the forest! Who cares? All or
+nothing!
+
+The concessions made by a modern form of Government safeguarded by
+necessary limitations may appear almost as grudging gifts. The Indian
+wants something which comes with unhesitating frankness and warmth and
+strikes his ideality and imagination. But ancient and modern kingship
+are sometimes at one in direct and spontaneous pronouncement of the
+royal sympathy. Such was the Proclamation of Queen Victoria which
+stirred to its depths the popular heart.
+
+"In the Prosperity of Our subjects will be our strength, in their
+contentment Our security, in their Gratitude Our best Reward."
+
+That there are increasingly frequent reflexes in our Government to
+popular needs and wishes is happily illustrated at a most opportune
+moment from the statements in the recent _Gazette of India_ and cables
+received from London. In the former we find that the Viceroy and his
+council had recommended the abolition of the system of indentured
+labour. In the telegram from London Mr. Chamberlain states that the
+Viceroy has informed him that Indians will be eligible for commissions
+in the New Defence of India Army.
+
+
+MARCH OF WORLD TRAGEDY
+
+In the meantime the Embodiment of World Tragedy is marching with giant
+strides. Brief will be his hesitation whether he will choose to step
+first to the East or to the West. Already across the Atlantic, they are
+preparing for the dreaded visitation. In the farthest East they have
+long been prepared. We alone are not ready. Pity for our helplessness
+will not stay the impending disaster, rather provoke it. When that
+comes, as assuredly it will unless we are prepared to resist, havoc will
+be let loose and horrors perpetrated before which the imagination quails
+back in dismay.
+
+I have tried to lay before you as dispassionately as I could the issues
+involved. But some of you may cry out and say, we can not live in cold
+scientific and philosophic abstractions. Emotion is more to us than pure
+reasoning. We cannot stay in this indecision which is paralysing our
+wills and crushing the soul out of us. The world is offering their best
+and behold them marching to be immolated so that by the supreme offering
+of death they might win safety and honor for their motherland. There is
+no time for wavering. We too will throw in our lot with those who are
+fighting. They say that by our lives we shall win for our birth-land an
+honoured place in their federation. We shall trust them. We shall stand
+by their side and fight for our home and homeland. And let Providence
+shape the Issue.
+
+
+
+
+THE VOICE OF LIFE
+
+
+The following is the Inaugural Address delivered by Sir J. C. Bose, on
+the 30th November 1917, in dedicating the Bose Institute to the Nation.
+
+I dedicate to-day this Institute--not merely a Laboratory but a Temple.
+The power of physical methods applies for the establishment of that
+truth which can be realised directly through our senses, or through the
+vast expansion of the perceptive range by means of artificially created
+organs. We still gather the tremulous message when the note of the
+audible reaches the unheard. When human sight fails, we continue to
+explore the region of the invisible. The little that we can see is as
+nothing compared to the vastness of that which we cannot. Out of the
+very imperfection of his senses man has built himself a raft of thought
+by which he makes daring adventures on the great seas of the Unknown.
+But there are other truths which will remain beyond even the
+supersensitive methods known to science. For these we require faith,
+tested not in a few years but by an entire life. And a temple is erected
+as a fit memorial for the establishment of that truth for which faith
+was needed. The personal, yet general, truth and faith whose
+establishment this Institute commemorates is this: that when one
+dedicates himself wholly for a great object, the closed doors shall
+open, and the seemingly impossible will become possible for him.
+
+Thirty-two years ago I chose teaching of science as my vocation. It was
+held that by its very peculiar constitution, the Indian mind would
+always turn away from the study of Nature to metaphysical speculations.
+Even had the capacity for inquiry and accurate observation been assumed
+present, there were no opportunities for their employment; there were no
+well-equipped laboratories nor skilled mechanicians. This was all too
+true. It is for man not to quarrel with circumstances but bravely accept
+them; and we belong to that race and dynasty who had accomplished great
+things with simple means.
+
+
+FAILURE AND SUCCESS
+
+This day twenty-three years ago, I resolved that as far as the
+whole-hearted devotion and faith of one man counted, that would not be
+wanting and within six months it came about that some of the most
+difficult problems connected with Electric Waves found their solution in
+my Laboratory and received high appreciation from Lord Kelvin, Lord
+Rayleigh and other leading physicists. The Royal Society honoured me by
+publishing my discoveries and offering, of their own accord, an
+appropriation from the special Parliamentary Grant for the advancement
+of knowledge. That day the closed gates suddenly opened and I hoped that
+the torch that was then lighted would continue to burn brighter, and
+brighter. But man's faith and hope require repeated testing. For five
+years after this, the progress was interrupted; yet when the most
+generous and wide appreciation of my work had reached almost the highest
+point there came a sudden and unexpected change.
+
+
+LIVING AND NON-LIVING
+
+In the pursuit of my investigations I was unconsciously led into the
+border region of physics and physiology and was amazed to find boundary
+lines vanishing and points of contact emerge between the realms of the
+Living and Non-living. Inorganic matter was found anything but inert; it
+also was a thrill under the action of multitudinous forces that played
+on it. A universal reaction seemed to bring together metal, plant and
+animal under a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same
+phenomena of fatigue and depression, together with possibilities of
+recovery and of exaltation, yet also that of permanent irresponsiveness
+which is associated with death. I was filled with awe at this stupendous
+generalisation; and it was with great hope that I announced my results
+before the Royal Society,--results demonstrated by experiments. But the
+physiologists present advised me, after my address, to confine myself to
+physical investigations in which my success had been assured, rather
+than encroach on their preserve. I had thus unwittingly strayed into the
+domain of a new and unfamiliar caste system and so offended its
+etiquette. An unconscious theological bias was also present which
+confounds ignorance with faith. It is forgotten that He, who surrounded
+us with this ever-evolving mystery of creation, the ineffable wonder
+that lies hidden in the microcosm of the dust particle, enclosing within
+the intricacies of its atomic form all the mystery of the cosmos, has
+also implanted in us the desire to question and understand. To the
+theological bias was added the misgivings about the inherent bent of the
+Indian mind towards mysticism and unchecked imagination. But in India
+this burning imagination which can extort new order out of a mass of
+apparently contradictory facts, is also held in check by the habit of
+meditation. It is this restraint which confers the power to hold the
+mind in pursuit of truth, in infinite patience, to wait, and reconsider,
+to experimentally test and repeatedly verify.
+
+It is but natural that there should be prejudice, even in science,
+against all innovations; and I was prepared to wait till the first
+incredulity could be overcome by further cumulative evidence.
+Unfortunately there were other incidents and misrepresentations which it
+was impossible to remove from this insulating distance. Thus no
+conditions could have been more desperately hopeless than those which
+confronted me for the next twelve years. It is necessary to make this
+brief reference to this period of my life; for one who would devote
+himself to the search of truth must realise that for him there awaits no
+easy life, but one of unending struggle. It is for him to cast his life
+as an offering, regarding gain and loss, success and failure, as one.
+Yet in my case this long persisting gloom was suddenly lifted. My
+scientific deputation in 1914, from the Government of India, gave the
+opportunity of giving demonstrations of my discoveries before the
+leading scientific societies of the world. This led to the acceptance of
+my theories and results, and the recognition of the importance of the
+Indian contribution to the advancement of the world's science. My own
+experience told me how heavy, sometimes even crushing, are the
+difficulties which confront an inquirer here in India; yet it made me
+stronger in my determination, that I shall make the path of those who
+are to follow me less arduous, and that India, is never to relinquish
+what has been won for her after years of struggle.
+
+
+THE TWO IDEALS
+
+What is it that India is to win and maintain? Can anything small or
+circumscribed ever satisfy the mind of India? Has her own history and
+the teaching of the past prepared her for some temporary and quite
+subordinate gain? There are at this moment two complementary and not
+antagonistic ideals before the country. India is drawn into the vortex
+of international competition. She has to become efficient in every
+way,--through spread of education, through performance of civic duties
+and responsibilities, through activities both industrial and commercial.
+Neglect of these essentials of national duty will imperil her very
+existence; and sufficient stimulus for these will be found in success
+and satisfaction of personal ambition.
+
+But these alone do not ensure the life of a nation. Such material
+activities have brought in the West their fruit, in accession of power
+and wealth. There has been a feverish rush even in the realm of science,
+for exploiting applications of knowledge, not so often for saving as
+for destruction. In the absence of some power of restraint, civilisation
+is trembling in an unstable poise on the brink of ruin. Some
+complementary ideal there must be to save man from that mad rush which
+must end in disaster. He has followed the lure and excitement of some
+insatiable ambition, never pausing for a moment to think of the ultimate
+object for which success was to serve as a temporary incentive. He
+forgot that far more potent than competition was mutual help and
+co-operation in the scheme of life. And in this country through
+milleniums, there always have been some who, beyond the immediate and
+absorbing prize of the hour, sought for the realisation of the highest
+ideal of life--not through passive renunciation, but through active
+struggle. The weakling who has refused the conflict, having acquired
+nothing has nothing to renounce. He alone who has striven and won, can
+enrich the world by giving away the fruits of his victorious experience.
+In India such examples of constant realisation of ideals through work
+have resulted in the formation of a continuous living tradition. And by
+her latent power of rejuvenescence she has readjusted herself through
+infinite transformations. Thus while the soul of Babylon and the Nile
+Valley have transmigrated, ours still remains vital and with capacity of
+absorbing what time has brought, and making it one with itself.
+
+The ideal of giving, of enriching, in fine, of self-renunciation in
+response to the highest call of humanity is the other and complementary
+ideal. The motive power for this is not to be found in personal ambition
+but in the effacement of all littlenesses, and uprooting of that
+ignorance which regards anything as gain which is to be purchased at
+others' loss. This I know, that no vision of truth can come except in
+the absence of all sources of distraction, and when the mind has reached
+the point of rest.
+
+Public life, and the various professions will be the appropriate spheres
+of activity for many aspiring young men. But for my disciples, I call on
+those very few, who, realising inner call, will devote their whole life
+with strengthened character and determined purpose to take part in that
+infinite struggle to win knowledge for its own sake and see truth face
+to face.
+
+
+ADVANCEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE
+
+The work already carried out in my laboratory on the response of matter,
+and the unexpected revelations in plant life, foreshadowing the wonders
+of the highest animal life, have opened out very extended regions of
+inquiry in Physics, in physiology in Medicine, in Agriculture and even
+in Psychology. Problems, hitherto regarded as insoluble, have now been
+brought within the sphere of experimental investigation. These inquiries
+are obviously more extensive than those customary either among
+physicists or physiologists, since demanding interests and aptitudes
+hitherto more or less divided between them. In the study of Nature,
+there is a necessity of the dual view point, this alternating yet
+rhythmically unified interaction of biological thought with physical
+studies, and physical thought with biological studies. The future worker
+with his freshened grasp of physics, his fuller conception of the
+inorganic world, as indeed thrilling with "the promise and potency of
+life" will redouble his former energies of work and thought. Thus he
+will be in a position to win now the old knowledge with finer sieves, to
+research it with new enthusiasm and subtler instruments. And
+thus with thought and toil and time he may hope to bring fresher views
+into the old problems. His handling of these will be at once more vital
+and more kinetic, more comprehensive and unified.
+
+The farther and fuller investigation of the many and ever-opening
+problems of the nascent science which includes both Life and Non-Life
+are among the main purposes of the Institute I am opening to-day; in
+these fields I am already fortunate in having a devoted band of
+disciples, whom I have been training for the last ten years. Their
+number is very limited, but means may perhaps be forthcoming in the
+future to increase them. An enlarging field of young ability may thus be
+available, from which will emerge, with time and labour, individual
+originality of research, productive invention and some day even creative
+genius.
+
+But high success is not to be obtained without corresponding
+experimental exactitude, and this is needed to-day more than ever, and
+to-morrow yet more again. Hence the long battery of supersensitive
+instruments and apparatus, designed here, which stand before in their
+cases in our entrance hall. They will tell you of the protracted
+struggle to get behind the deceptive seeming into the reality that
+remained unseen;--of the continuous toil and persistence and of
+ingenuity called forth for overcoming human limitations. In these
+directions through the ever-increasing ingenuity of device for advancing
+science, I see at no distant future an advance of skill and of invention
+among our workers; and if this skill be assured, practical applications
+will not fail to follow in many fields of human activity.
+
+The advance of science is the principal object of this Institute and
+also the diffusion of knowledge. We are here in the largest of all the
+many chambers of this House of Knowledge--its Lecture Room. In adding
+this feature, and on a scale hitherto unprecedented in a Research
+Institute, I have sought permanently to associate the advancement of
+knowledge with the widest possible civic and public diffusion of it; and
+this without any academic limitations, henceforth to all races and
+languages, to both men and women alike, and for all time coming.
+
+The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand
+knowledge. They will announce to an audience of some fifteen hundred
+people, the new discoveries made here, which will be demonstrated for
+the first time before the public. We shall thus maintain continuously
+the highest aim of a great Seat of Learning by taking active part in the
+_advancement_ and diffusion of knowledge. Through the regular
+publication of the Transactions of the Institute, these Indian
+contributions will reach the whole world. The discoveries made will thus
+become public property. No patents will ever be taken. The spirit of our
+national culture demands that we should for ever be free from the
+desecration of utilising knowledge for personal gain. Besides the
+regular staff there will be a selected number of scholars, who by their
+work have shown special aptitude, and who would devote their whole life
+to the pursuit of research. They will require personal training and
+their number must necessarily be limited. But it is not the quantity
+but quality that is of essential importance.
+
+It is my further wish, that as far as the limited accommodation would
+permit, the facilities of this Institute should be available to workers
+from all countries. In this I am attempting to carry out the traditions
+of my country, which so far back as twenty-five centuries ago, welcomed
+all scholars from different parts of the world, within the precincts of
+its ancient seats of learning, at Nalanda and at Taxilla.
+
+
+THE SURGE OF LIFE
+
+With this widened outlook, we shall not only maintain the highest
+traditions of the past but also serve the world in nobler ways. We shall
+be at one with it in feeling the common surgings of life, the common
+love for the good, the true and the beautiful. In this Institute, this
+Study and Garden of Life, the claim of art has not been forgotten, for
+the artist has been working with us, from foundation to pinnacle, and
+from floor to ceiling of this very Hall. And beyond that arch the
+Laboratory merges imperceptibly into the garden, which is the true
+laboratory for the study of Life. There the creepers, the plants and the
+trees are played upon by their natural environments,--sunlight and wind,
+and the chill at midnight under the vault of starry space. There are
+other surroundings also, where they will be subjected to chromatic
+action of different lights, to invisible rays, to electrified ground or
+thunder-charged atmosphere. Everywhere they will transcribe in their own
+script the history of their experience. From this lofty point of
+observation, sheltered by the trees, the student will watch this
+panorama of life. Isolated from all distractions, he will learn to
+attune himself with Nature; the obscuring veil will be lifted and he
+will gradually come to see how community throughout the great ocean of
+life outweighs apparent dissimilarity. Out of discord he will realise
+the great harmony.
+
+
+THE OUTLOOK
+
+These are the dreams that wove a network round my wakeful life for many
+years past. The outlook is endless, for the goal is at infinity. The
+realisation cannot be through one life or one fortune but through the
+co-operation of many lives and many fortunes. The possibility of a
+fuller expansion will depend on very large endowments. But a beginning
+must be made, and this is the genesis of the foundation of this
+Institute. I came with nothing and shall return as I came; if something
+is accomplished in the interval, that would indeed be a privilege. What
+I have I will offer, and one who had shared with me the struggles and
+hardships that had to be faced, has wished to bequeath all that is hers
+for the same object. In all my struggling efforts I have not been
+altogether solitary while the world doubted, there had been a few, now
+in the City of Silence, who never wavered in their trust.
+
+Till a few weeks ago it seemed that I shall have to look to the future
+for securing the necessary expansion of scope and for permanence of the
+Institute. But response is being awakened in answer to the need. The
+Government have most generously intimated their desire to sanction
+grants towards placing the Institute on a permanent basis the extent of
+which will be proportionate to the public interest in this national
+undertaking. Out of many who would feel an interest in securing adequate
+Endowment, the very first donations have come from two of the merchant
+princes of Bombay, to whom I had been personally unknown.
+
+A note that touched me deeply came from some girl students of the
+Western Province, enclosing their little contribution "for the service
+of our common motherland." It is only the instinctive mother-heart that
+can truly realise the bond that draws together the nurselings of the
+common homeland. There can be no real misgiving for the future when at
+the country's call man offers the strength of his life and woman her
+active devotion, she most of all, who has the greater insight and larger
+faith because of the life of austerity and self-abnegation. Even a
+solitary wayfarer in the Himalayas has remembered to send me message of
+cheer and good hope. What is it that has bridged over the distance and
+blotted out all differences? That I will come gradually to know; till
+then it will remain enshrined as a feeling. And I go forward to my
+appointed task, undismayed by difficulties, companioned by the kind
+thoughts of my well-wishers, both far and near.
+
+
+INDIA'S SPECIAL APTITUDES IN CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE
+
+The excessive specialisation of modern science in the West has led to
+the danger of losing sight of the fundamental fact that there can be but
+one truth, one science which includes all the branches of knowledge. How
+chaotic appear the happenings in Nature? Is nature a Cosmos! in which
+the human mind is some day to realise the uniform march of sequence,
+order and law? India through her habit of mind is peculiarly fitted to
+realise the idea of unity, and to see in the phenomenal world an orderly
+universe. This trend of thought led me unconsciously to the dividing
+frontiers of different sciences and shaped the course of my work in its
+constant alternations between the theoretical and the practical, from
+the investigation of the inorganic world to that of organised life and
+its multifarious activities of growth, of movement, and even of
+sensation. On looking over a hundred and fifty different lines of
+investigations carried on during the last twenty-three years, I now
+discover in them a natural sequence. The study of Electric Waves led to
+the devising of methods for the production of the shortest electric
+waves known and these bridged over the gulf between visible and
+invisible light; from this followed accurate investigation on the
+optical properties of invisible waves, the determination of the
+Erasmus, and professor of divinity at Louvain, had, in 1514, in the name
+of his faculty, rebuked Erasmus in a letter for the audacity of the
+_Praise of Folly_, his derision of divines and also his temerity in
+correcting the text of the New Testament. Erasmus had defended himself
+elaborately. At present war was being waged in a much wider field: for
+or against Reuchlin, the great Hebrew scholar, for whom the authors of
+the _Epistolae obscurorum virorum_ had so sensationally taken up the
+cudgels. At Louvain Erasmus was regarded with the same suspicion with
+which he distrusted Dorp and the other Louvain divines. He stayed during
+the remainder of 1516 and the first half of 1517 at Antwerp, Brussels
+and Ghent, often in the house of Peter Gilles. In February 1517, there
+came tempting offers from France. Budaeus, Cop, Étienne Poncher, Bishop
+of Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would
+present him with a generous prebend if he would come to Paris. Erasmus,
+always shy of being tied down, only wrote polite, evasive answers, and
+did not go.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the meantime he received the news of the papal absolution. In
+connection with this he had, once more, to visit England, little
+dreaming that it would be the last time he should set foot on British
+soil. In Ammonius's house of Saint Stephen's Chapel at Westminster on 9
+April 1517, the ceremony of absolution took place, ridding Erasmus for
+good of the nightmare which had oppressed him since his youth. At last
+he was free!
+
+Invitations and specious promises now came to him from all sides.
+Mountjoy and Wolsey spoke of high ecclesiastical honours which awaited
+him in England. Budaeus kept pressing him to remove to France. Cardinal
+Ximenes wanted to attach him to the University of Alcalá, in Spain. The
+Duke of Saxony offered him a chair at Leipzig. Pirckheimer boasted of
+the perfections of the free imperial city of Nuremberg. Erasmus,
+meanwhile, overwhelmed again with the labour of writing and editing,
+according to his wont, did not definitely decline any of these offers;
+neither did he accept any. He always wanted to keep all his strings on
+his bow at the same time. In the early summer of 1517 he was asked to
+accompany the court of the youthful Charles, who was on the point of
+leaving the Netherlands for Spain. But he declined. His departure to
+Spain would have meant a long interruption of immediate contact with the
+great publishing centres, Basle, Louvain, Strassburg, Paris, and that,
+in turn, would have meant postponement of his life-work. When, in the
+beginning of July, the prince set out for Middelburg, there to take ship
+for Spain, Erasmus started for Louvain.
+
+He was thus destined to go to this university environment, although it
+displeased him in so many respects. There he would have academic duties,
+young latinists would follow him about to get their poems and letters
+corrected by him and all those divines, whom he distrusted, would watch
+him at close quarters. But it was only to be for a few months. 'I have
+removed to Louvain', he writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'till I
+shall decide which residence is best suited to old age, which is already
+knocking at the gate importunately.'
+
+As it turned out, he was to spend four years (1517-21) at Louvain. His
+life was now becoming more stationary, but because of outward
+circumstances rather than of inward quiet. He kept deliberating all
+those years whether he should go to England, Germany or France, hoping
+at last to find the brilliant position which he had always coveted and
+never had been able or willing to grasp.
+
+The years 1516-18 may be called the culmination of Erasmus's career.
+Applauding crowds surrounded him more and more. The minds of men were
+seemingly prepared for something great to happen and they looked to
+Erasmus as the man! At Brussels, he was continually bothered with visits
+from Spaniards, Italians and Germans who wanted to boast of their
+interviews with him. The Spaniards, with their verbose solemnity,
+particularly bored him. Most exuberant of all were the eulogies with
+which the German humanists greeted him in their letters. This had begun
+already on his first journey to Basle in 1514. 'Great Rotterdamer',
+'ornament of Germany', 'ornament of the world' were some of the simplest
+effusions. Town councils waited upon him, presents of wine and public
+banquets were of common occurrence. No one expresses himself so
+hyperbolically as the jurist Ulrich Zasius of Freiburg. 'I am pointed
+out in public', he asserts, 'as the man who has received a letter from
+Erasmus.' 'Thrice greatest hero, you great Jove' is a moderate
+apostrophe for him. 'The Swiss', Zwingli writes in 1516, 'account it a
+great glory to have seen Erasmus.' 'I know and I teach nothing but
+Erasmus now,' writes Wolfgang Capito. Ulrich von Hutten and Henry
+Glareanus both imagine themselves placed beside Erasmus, as Alcibiades
+stood beside Socrates. And Beatus Rhenanus devotes to him a life of
+earnest admiration and helpfulness that was to prove of much more value
+than these exuberant panegyrics. There is an element of national
+exaltation in this German enthusiasm for Erasmus: it is the violently
+stimulated mood into which Luther's word will fall anon.
+
+The other nations also chimed in with praise, though a little later and
+a little more soberly. Colet and Tunstall promise him immortality,
+Étienne Poncher exalts him above the celebrated Italian humanists,
+Germain de Brie declares that French scholars have ceased reading any
+authors but Erasmus, and Budaeus announces that all Western Christendom
+resounds with his name.
+
+This increase of glory manifested itself in different ways. Almost every
+year the rumour of his death was spread abroad, malignantly, as he
+himself thinks. Again, all sorts of writings were ascribed to him in
+which he had no share whatever, amongst others the _Epistolae obscurorum
+virorum_.
+
+But, above all, his correspondence increased immensely. The time was
+long since past when he asked More to procure him more correspondents.
+Letters now kept pouring in to him, from all sides, beseeching him to
+reply. A former pupil laments with tears that he cannot show a single
+note written by Erasmus. Scholars respectfully sought an introduction
+from one of his friends, before venturing to address him. In this
+respect Erasmus was a man of heroic benevolence, and tried to answer
+what he could, although so overwhelmed by letters every day that he
+hardly found time to read them. 'If I do not answer, I seem unkind,'
+says Erasmus, and that thought was intolerable.
+
+We should bear in mind that letter-writing, at that time, occupied more
+or less the place of the newspaper at present, or rather of the literary
+monthly, which arose fairly directly out of erudite correspondence. It
+was, as in antiquity--which in this respect was imitated better and more
+profitably, perhaps, than in any other sphere--an art. Even before 1500
+Erasmus had, at Paris, described that art in the treatise, _De
+conscribendis epistolis_, which was to appear in print in 1522. People
+wrote, as a rule, with a view to later publication, for a wider circle,
+or at any rate, with the certainty that the recipient would show the
+letter to others. A fine Latin letter was a gem, which a man envied his
+neighbour. Erasmus writes to Budaeus: 'Tunstall has devoured your letter
+to me and re-read it as many as three or four times; I had literally to
+tear it from his hands.'
+
+Unfortunately fate did not always take into consideration the author's
+intentions as to publicity, semi-publicity or strict secrecy. Often
+letters passed through many hands before reaching their destination, as
+did Servatius's letter to Erasmus in 1514. 'Do be careful about
+letters,' he writes more than once; 'waylayers are on the lookout to
+intercept them.' Yet, with the curious precipitation that characterizes
+him, Erasmus was often very careless as to what he wrote. From an early
+age he preserved and cared for his letters, yet nevertheless, through
+his itinerant life, many were lost. He could not control their
+publication. As early as 1509 a friend sent him a manuscript volume of
+his own (Erasmus's) letters, that he had picked up for sale at Rome.
+Erasmus had it burnt at once. Since 1515 he himself superintended the
+publication of his letters; at first only a few important ones;
+afterwards in 1516 a selection of letters from friends to him, and after
+that ever larger collections till, at the end of his life, there
+appeared a new collection almost every year. No article was so much in
+demand on the book market as letters by Erasmus, and no wonder. They
+were models of excellent style, tasteful Latin, witty expression and
+elegant erudition.
+
+The semi-private, semi-public character of the letters often made them
+compromising. What one could say to a friend in confidence might
+possibly injure when many read it. Erasmus, who never was aware how
+injuriously he expressed himself, repeatedly gave rise to
+misunderstanding and estrangement. Manners, so to say, had not yet
+adapted themselves to the new art of printing, which increased the
+publicity of the written word a thousandfold. Only gradually under this
+new influence was the separation effected between the public word,
+intended for the press, and the private communication, which remains in
+writing and is read only by the recipient.
+
+Meanwhile, with the growth of Erasmus's fame, his earlier writings, too,
+had risen in the public estimation. The great success of the
+_Enchiridion militis christiani_ had begun about 1515, when the times
+were much riper for it than eleven years before. 'The _Moria_ is
+embraced as the highest wisdom,' writes John Watson to him in 1516. In
+the same year we find a word used, for the first time, which expresses
+better than anything else how much Erasmus had become a centre of
+authority: _Erasmiani_. So his German friends called themselves,
+according to Johannes Sapidus. More than a year later Dr. Johannes Eck
+employs the word still in a rather friendly sense, as a generally
+current term: 'all scholars in Germany are Erasmians,' he says. But
+Erasmus did not like the word. 'I find nothing in myself', he replies,
+'why anyone should wish to be an Erasmicus, and, altogether, I hate
+those party names. We are all followers of Christ, and to His glory we
+all drudge, each for his part.' But he knows that now the question is:
+for or against him! From the brilliant latinist and the man of wit of
+his prime he had become the international pivot on which the
+civilization of his age hinged. He could not help beginning to feel
+himself the brain, the heart and the conscience of his times. It might
+even appear to him that he was called to speak the great redeeming word
+or, perhaps, that he had already spoken it. The faith in an easy triumph
+of pure knowledge and Christian meekness in a near future speaks from
+the preface of Erasmus's edition of the New Testament.
+
+How clear did the future look in those years! In this period Erasmus
+repeatedly reverts to the glad motif of a golden age, which is on the
+point of dawning. Perennial peace is before the door. The highest
+princes of the world, Francis I of France, Charles, King of Spain, Henry
+VIII of England, and the emperor Maximilian have ensured peace by the
+strongest ties. Uprightness and Christian piety will flourish together
+with the revival of letters and the sciences. As at a given signal the
+mightiest minds conspire to restore a high standard of culture. We may
+congratulate the age, it will be a golden one.
+
+But Erasmus does not sound this note long. It is heard for the last time
+in 1519; after which the dream of universal happiness about to dawn
+gives place to the usual complaint about the badness of the times
+everywhere.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] For a full translation of this important letter see pp. 212-18.
+
+[14] The name Grunnius may have been taken from Jerome's epistles, where
+it is a nickname for a certain Ruffinus, whom Jerome disliked very much.
+It appears again in a letter of 5 March 1531, LB. X 1590 A.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ERASMUS'S MIND
+
+    Erasmus's mind: Ethical and aesthetic tendencies, aversion to
+    all that is unreasonable, silly and cumbrous--His vision of
+    antiquity pervaded by Christian faith--Renascence of good
+    learning--The ideal life of serene harmony and happy
+    wisdom--Love of the decorous and smooth--His mind neither
+    philosophic nor historical, but strongly philological and
+    moralistic--Freedom, clearness, purity, simplicity--Faith in
+    nature--Educational and social ideas
+
+
+What made Erasmus the man from whom his contemporaries expected their
+salvation, on whose lips they hung to catch the word of deliverance? He
+seemed to them the bearer of a new liberty of the mind, a new clearness,
+purity and simplicity of knowledge, a new harmony of healthy and right
+living. He was to them as the possessor of newly discovered, untold
+wealth which he had only to distribute.
+
+What was there in the mind of the great Rotterdamer which promised so
+much to the world?
+
+The negative aspect of Erasmus's mind may be defined as a heartfelt
+aversion to everything unreasonable, insipid, purely formal, with which
+the undisturbed growth of medieval culture had overburdened and
+overcrowded the world of thought. As often as he thinks of the
+ridiculous text-books out of which Latin was taught in his youth,
+disgust rises in his mind, and he execrates them--Mammetrectus,
+Brachylogus, Ebrardus and all the rest--as a heap of rubbish which ought
+to be cleared away. But this aversion to the superannuated, which had
+become useless and soulless, extended much farther. He found society,
+and especially religious life, full of practices, ceremonies, traditions
+and conceptions, from which the spirit seemed to have departed. He does
+not reject them offhand and altogether: what revolts him is that they
+are so often performed without understanding and right feeling. But to
+his mind, highly susceptible to the foolish and ridiculous things, and
+with a delicate need of high decorum and inward dignity, all that sphere
+of ceremony and tradition displays itself as a useless, nay, a hurtful
+scene of human stupidity and selfishness. And, intellectualist as he is,
+with his contempt for ignorance, he seems unaware that those religious
+observances, after all, may contain valuable sentiments of unexpressed
+and unformulated piety.
+
+Through his treatises, his letters, his _Colloquies_ especially, there
+always passes--as if one was looking at a gallery of Brueghel's
+pictures--a procession of ignorant and covetous monks who by their
+sanctimony and humbug impose upon the trustful multitude and fare
+sumptuously themselves. As a fixed motif (such motifs are numerous with
+Erasmus) there always recurs his gibe about the superstition that a
+person was saved by dying in the gown of a Franciscan or a Dominican.
+
+Fasting, prescribed prayers, the observance of holy days, should not be
+altogether neglected, but they become displeasing to God when we repose
+our trust in them and forget charity. The same holds good of confession,
+indulgence, all sorts of blessings. Pilgrimages are worthless. The
+veneration of the Saints and of their relics is full of superstition and
+foolishness. The people think they will be preserved from disasters
+during the day if only they have looked at the painted image of Saint
+Christopher in the morning. 'We kiss the shoes of the saints and their
+dirty handkerchiefs and we leave their books, their most holy and
+efficacious relics, neglected.'
+
+Erasmus's dislike of what seemed antiquated and worn out in his days,
+went farther still. It comprised the whole intellectual scheme of
+medieval theology and philosophy. In the syllogistic system he found
+only subtlety and arid ingenuity. All symbolism and allegory were
+fundamentally alien to him and indifferent, though he occasionally tried
+his hand at an allegory; and he never was mystically inclined.
+
+Now here it is just as much the deficiencies of his own mind as the
+qualities of the system which made him unable to appreciate it. While he
+struck at the abuse of ceremonies and of Church practices both with
+noble indignation and well-aimed mockery, a proud irony to which he was
+not fully entitled preponderates in his condemnation of scholastic
+theology which he could not quite understand. It was easy always to talk
+with a sneer of the conservative divines of his time as _magistri
+nostri_.
+
+His noble indignation hurt only those who deserved castigation and
+strengthened what was valuable, but his mockery hurt the good as well as
+the bad in spite of him, assailed both the institution and persons, and
+injured without elevating them. The individualist Erasmus never
+understood what it meant to offend the honour of an office, an order, or
+an establishment, especially when that institution is the most sacred of
+all, the Church itself.
+
+Erasmus's conception of the Church was no longer purely Catholic. Of
+that glorious structure of medieval-Christian civilization with its
+mystic foundation, its strict hierarchic construction, its splendidly
+fitting symmetry he saw hardly anything but its load of outward details
+and ornament. Instead of the world which Thomas Aquinas and Dante had
+described, according to their vision, Erasmus saw another world, full of
+charm and elevated feeling, and this he held up before his compatriots.
+
+[Illustration: XV. THE HANDS OF ERASMUS]
+
+It was the world of Antiquity, but illuminated throughout by Christian
+faith. It was a world that had never existed as such. For with the
+historical reality which the times of Constantine and the great fathers
+of the Church had manifested--that of declining Latinity and
+deteriorating Hellenism, the oncoming barbarism and the oncoming
+Byzantinism--it had nothing in common. Erasmus's imagined world was an
+amalgamation of pure classicism (this meant for him, Cicero, Horace,
+Plutarch; for to the flourishing period of the Greek mind he remained
+after all a stranger) and pure, biblical Christianity. Could it be a
+union? Not really. In Erasmus's mind the light falls, just as we saw in
+the history of his career, alternately on the pagan antique and on the
+Christian. But the warp of his mind is Christian; his classicism only
+serves him as a form, and from Antiquity he only chooses those elements
+which in ethical tendency are in conformity with his Christian ideal.
+
+[Illustration: XVI. ERASMUS AT THE AGE OF 57]
+
+And because of this, Erasmus, although he appeared after a century of
+earlier Humanism, is yet new to his time. The union of Antiquity and the
+Christian spirit which had haunted the mind of Petrarch, the father of
+Humanism, which was lost sight of by his disciples, enchanted as they
+were by the irresistible brilliance of the antique beauty of form, this
+union was brought about by Erasmus.
+
+What pure Latinity and the classic spirit meant to Erasmus we cannot
+feel as he did because its realization does not mean to us, as to him, a
+difficult conquest and a glorious triumph. To feel it thus one must have
+acquired, in a hard school, the hatred of barbarism, which already
+during his first years of authorship had suggested the composition of
+the _Antibarbari_. The abusive term for all that is old and rude is
+already Gothic, Goths. The term barbarism as used by Erasmus comprised
+much of what we value most in the medieval spirit. Erasmus's conception
+of the great intellectual crisis of his day was distinctly dualistic. He
+saw it as a struggle between old and new, which, to him, meant evil and
+good. In the advocates of tradition he saw only obscurantism,
+conservatism, and ignorant opposition to _bonae literae_, that is, the
+good cause for which he and his partisans battled. Of the rise of that
+higher culture Erasmus had already formed the conception which has since
+dominated the history of the Renaissance. It was a revival, begun two or
+three hundred years before his time, in which, besides literature, all
+the plastic arts shared. Side by side with the terms restitution and
+reflorescence the word renascence crops up repeatedly in his writings.
+'The world is coming to its senses as if awaking out of a deep sleep.
+Still there are some left who recalcitrate pertinaciously, clinging
+convulsively with hands and feet to their old ignorance. They fear that
+if _bonae literae_ are reborn and the world grows wise, it will come to
+light that they have known nothing.' They do not know how pious the
+Ancients could be, what sanctity characterizes Socrates, Virgil, and
+Horace, or Plutarch's _Moralia_, how rich the history of Antiquity is in
+examples of forgiveness and true virtue. We should call nothing profane
+that is pious and conduces to good morals. No more dignified view of
+life was ever found than that which Cicero propounds in _De Senectute_.
+
+In order to understand Erasmus's mind and the charm which it had for his
+contemporaries, one must begin with the ideal of life that was present
+before his inward eye as a splendid dream. It is not his own in
+particular. The whole Renaissance cherished that wish of reposeful,
+blithe, and yet serious intercourse of good and wise friends in the cool
+shade of a house under trees, where serenity and harmony would dwell.
+The age yearned for the realization of simplicity, sincerity, truth and
+nature. Their imagination was always steeped in the essence of
+Antiquity, though, at heart, it is more nearly connected with medieval
+ideals than they themselves were aware. In the circle of the Medici it
+is the idyll of Careggi, in Rabelais it embodies itself in the fancy of
+the abbey of Thélème; it finds voice in More's _Utopia_ and in the work
+of Montaigne. In Erasmus's writings that ideal wish ever recurs in the
+shape of a friendly walk, followed by a meal in a garden-house. It is
+found as an opening scene of the _Antibarbari_, in the numerous
+descriptions of meals with Colet, and the numerous _Convivia_ of the
+_Colloquies_. Especially in the _Convivium religiosum_ Erasmus has
+elaborately pictured his dream, and it would be worth while to compare
+it, on the one hand with Thélème, and on the other with the fantastic
+design of a pleasure garden which Bernard Palissy describes. The little
+Dutch eighteenth-century country-seats and garden-houses in which the
+national spirit took great delight are the fulfilment of a purely
+Erasmian ideal. The host of the _Convivium religiosum_ says: 'To me a
+simple country-house, a nest, is pleasanter than any palace, and, if he
+be king who lives in freedom and according to his wishes, surely I am
+king here'.
+
+Life's true joy is in virtue and piety. If they are Epicureans who live
+pleasantly, then none are more truly Epicureans than they who live in
+holiness and piety.
+
+The ideal joy of life is also perfectly idyllic in so far that it
+requires an aloofness from earthly concerns and contempt for all that is
+sordid. It is foolish to be interested in all that happens in the world;
+to pride oneself on one's knowledge of the market, of the King of
+England's plans, the news from Rome, conditions in Denmark. The sensible
+old man of the _Colloquium Senile_ has an easy post of honour, a safe
+mediocrity, he judges no one and nothing and smiles upon all the world.
+Quiet for oneself, surrounded by books--that is of all things most
+desirable.
+
+On the outskirts of this ideal of serenity and harmony numerous flowers
+of aesthetic value blow, such as Erasmus's sense of decorum, his great
+need of kindly courtesy, his pleasure in gentle and obliging treatment,
+in cultured and easy manners. Close by are some of his intellectual
+peculiarities. He hates the violent and extravagant. Therefore the
+choruses of the Greek drama displease him. The merit of his own poems he
+sees in the fact that they pass passion by, they abstain from pathos
+altogether--'there is not a single storm in them, no mountain torrent
+overflowing its banks, no exaggeration whatever. There is great
+frugality in words. My poetry would rather keep within bounds than
+exceed them, rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.' In another
+place he says: 'I am always most pleased by a poem that does not differ
+too much from prose, but prose of the best sort, be it understood. As
+Philoxenus accounted those the most palatable fishes that are no true
+fishes and the most savoury meat what is no meat, the most pleasant
+voyage, that along the shores, and the most agreeable walk, that along
+the water's edge; so I take especial pleasure in a rhetorical poem and a
+poetical oration, so that poetry is tasted in prose and the reverse.'
+That is the man of half-tones, of fine shadings, of the thought that is
+never completely expressed. But he adds: 'Farfetched conceits may please
+others; to me the chief concern seems to be that we draw our speech from
+the matter itself and apply ourselves less to showing off our invention
+than to present the thing.' That is the realist.
+
+From this conception results his admirable, simple clarity, the
+excellent division and presentation of his argument. But it also causes
+his lack of depth and the prolixity by which he is characterized. His
+machine runs too smoothly. In the endless _apologiae_ of his later
+years, ever new arguments occur to him; new passages to point, or
+quotations to support, his idea. He praises laconism, but never
+practises it. Erasmus never coins a sentence which, rounded off and
+pithy, becomes a proverb and in this manner lives. There are no current
+quotations from Erasmus. The collector of the _Adagia_ has created no
+new ones of his own.
+
+The true occupation for a mind like his was paraphrasing, in which,
+indeed, he amply indulged. Soothing down and unfolding was just the work
+he liked. It is characteristic that he paraphrased the whole New
+Testament except the Apocalypse.
+
+Erasmus's mind was neither philosophic nor historic. His was neither the
+work of exact, logical discrimination, nor of grasping the deep sense of
+the way of the world in broad historical visions in which the
+particulars themselves, in their multiplicity and variegation, form the
+image. His mind is philological in the fullest sense of the word. But by
+that alone he would not have conquered and captivated the world. His
+mind was at the same time of a deeply ethical and rather strong
+aesthetic trend and those three together have made him great.
+
+The foundation of Erasmus's mind is his fervent desire of freedom,
+clearness, purity, simplicity and rest. It is an old ideal of life to
+which he gave new substance by the wealth of his mind. Without liberty,
+life is no life; and there is no liberty without repose. The fact that
+he never took sides definitely resulted from an urgent need of perfect
+independence. Each engagement, even a temporary one, was felt as a
+fetter by Erasmus. An interlocutor in the _Colloquies_, in which he so
+often, spontaneously, reveals his own ideals of life, declares himself
+determined neither to marry, nor to take holy orders, nor to enter a
+monastery, nor into any connection from which he will afterwards be
+unable to free himself--at least not before he knows himself completely.
+'When will that be? Never, perhaps.' 'On no other account do I
+congratulate myself more than on the fact that I have never attached
+myself to any party,' Erasmus says towards the end of his life.
+
+Liberty should be spiritual liberty in the first place. 'But he that is
+spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man,' is
+the word of Saint Paul. To what purpose should he require prescriptions
+who, of his own accord, does better things than human laws require? What
+arrogance it is to bind by institutions a man who is clearly led by the
+inspirations of the divine spirit!
+
+In Erasmus we already find the beginning of that optimism which judges
+upright man good enough to dispense with fixed forms and rules. As More,
+in _Utopia_, and Rabelais, Erasmus relies already on the dictates of
+nature, which produces man as inclined to good and which we may follow,
+provided we are imbued with faith and piety.
+
+In this line of confidence in what is natural and desire of the simple
+and reasonable, Erasmus's educational and social ideas lie. Here he is
+far ahead of his times. It would be an attractive undertaking to discuss
+Erasmus's educational ideals more fully. They foreshadow exactly those
+of the eighteenth century. The child should learn in playing, by means
+of things that are agreeable to its mind, from pictures. Its faults
+should be gently corrected. The flogging and abusive schoolmaster is
+Erasmus's abomination; the office itself is holy and venerable to him.
+Education should begin from the moment of birth. Probably Erasmus
+attached too much value to classicism, here as elsewhere: his friend
+Peter Gilles should implant the rudiments of the ancient languages in
+his two-year-old son, that he may greet his father with endearing
+stammerings in Greek and Latin. But what gentleness and clear good sense
+shines from all Erasmus says about instruction and education!
+
+The same holds good of his views about marriage and woman. In the
+problem of sexual relations he distinctly sides with the woman from deep
+conviction. There is a great deal of tenderness and delicate feeling in
+his conception of the position of the girl and the woman. Few characters
+of the _Colloquies_ have been drawn with so much sympathy as the girl
+with the lover and the cultured woman in the witty conversation with the
+abbot. Erasmus's ideal of marriage is truly social and hygienic. Let us
+beget children for the State and for Christ, says the lover, children
+endowed by their upright parents with a good disposition, children who
+see the good example at home which is to guide them. Again and again he
+reverts to the mother's duty to suckle the child herself. He indicates
+how the house should be arranged, in a simple and cleanly manner; he
+occupies himself with the problem of useful children's dress. Who stood
+up at that time, as he did, for the fallen girl, and for the prostitute
+compelled by necessity? Who saw so clearly the social danger of
+marriages of persons infected with the new scourge of Europe, so
+violently abhorred by Erasmus? He would wish that such a marriage should
+at once be declared null and void by the Pope. Erasmus does not hold
+with the easy social theory, still quite current in the literature of
+his time, which casts upon women all the blame of adultery and lewdness.
+With the savages who live in a state of nature, he says, the adultery of
+men is punished, but that of women is forgiven.
+
+Here it appears, at the same time, that Erasmus knew, be it half in
+jest, the conception of natural virtue and happiness of naked islanders
+in a savage state. It soon crops up again in Montaigne and the following
+centuries develop it into a literary dogma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ERASMUS'S MIND-CONTINUED
+
+    Erasmus's mind: Intellectual tendencies--The world encumbered by
+    beliefs and forms--Truth must be simple--Back to the pure
+    sources--Holy Scripture in the original languages--Biblical
+    humanism--Critical work on the texts of Scripture--Practice
+    better than dogma--Erasmus's talent and wit--Delight in words
+    and things--Prolixity--Observation of details--A veiled
+    realism--Ambiguousness--The 'Nuance'--Inscrutability of the
+    ultimate ground of all things
+
+
+Simplicity, naturalness, purity, and reasonableness, those are to
+Erasmus the dominant requirements, also when we pass from his ethical
+and aesthetic concepts to his intellectual point of view; indeed, the
+two can hardly be kept apart.
+
+The world, says Erasmus, is overloaded with human constitutions and
+opinions and scholastic dogmas, and overburdened with the tyrannical
+authority of orders, and because of all this the strength of gospel
+doctrine is flagging. Faith requires simplification, he argued. What
+would the Turks say of our scholasticism? Colet wrote to him one day:
+'There is no end to books and science. Let us, therefore, leave all
+roundabout roads and go by a short cut to the truth.'
+
+Truth must be simple. 'The language of truth is simple, says Seneca;
+well then, nothing is simpler nor truer than Christ.' 'I should wish',
+Erasmus says elsewhere, 'that this simple and pure Christ might be
+deeply impressed upon the mind of men, and that I deem best attainable
+in this way, that we, supported by our knowledge of the original
+languages, should philosophize _at the sources_ themselves.'
+
+Here a new watchword comes to the fore: back to the sources! It is not
+merely an intellectual, philological requirement; it is equally an
+ethical and aesthetic necessity of life. The original and pure, all that
+is not yet overgrown or has not passed through many hands, has such a
+potent charm. Erasmus compared it to an apple which we ourselves pick
+off the tree. To recall the world to the ancient simplicity of science,
+to lead it back from the now turbid pools to those living and most pure
+fountain-heads, those most limpid sources of gospel doctrine--thus he
+saw the task of divinity. The metaphor of the limpid water is not
+without meaning here; it reveals the psychological quality of Erasmus's
+fervent principle.
+
+'How is it', he exclaims, 'that people give themselves so much trouble
+about the details of all sorts of remote philosophical systems and
+neglect to go to the sources of Christianity itself?' 'Although this
+wisdom, which is so excellent that once for all it put the wisdom of all
+the world to shame, may be drawn from these few books, as from a
+crystalline source, with far less trouble than is the wisdom of
+Aristotle from so many thorny books and with much more fruit.... The
+equipment for that journey is simple and at everyone's immediate
+disposal. This philosophy is accessible to everybody. Christ desires
+that his mysteries shall be spread as widely as possible. I should wish
+that all good wives read the Gospel and Paul's Epistles; that they were
+translated into all languages; that out of these the husbandman sang
+while ploughing, the weaver at his loom; that with such stories the
+traveller should beguile his wayfaring.... This sort of philosophy is
+rather a matter of disposition than of syllogisms, rather of life than
+of disputation, rather of inspiration than of erudition, rather of
+transformation than of logic.... What is the philosophy of Christ, which
+he himself calls _Renascentia_, but the insaturation of Nature created
+good?--moreover, though no one has taught us this so absolutely and
+effectively as Christ, yet also in pagan books much may be found that is
+in accordance with it.'
+
+Such was the view of life of this biblical humanist. As often as Erasmus
+reverts to these matters, his voice sounds clearest. 'Let no one', he
+says in the preface to the notes to the New Testament, 'take up this
+work, as he takes up Gellius's _Noctes atticae_ or Poliziano's
+Miscellanies.... We are in the presence of holy things; here it is no
+question of eloquence, these matters are best recommended to the world
+by simplicity and purity; it would be ridiculous to display human
+erudition here, impious to pride oneself on human eloquence.' But
+Erasmus never was so eloquent himself as just then.
+
+What here raises him above his usual level of force and fervour is the
+fact that he fights a battle, the battle for the right of biblical
+criticism. It revolts him that people should study Holy Scripture in the
+Vulgate when they know that the texts show differences and are corrupt,
+although we have the Greek text by which to go back to the original form
+and primary meaning.
+
+He is now reproached because he dares, as a mere grammarian, to assail
+the text of Holy Scripture on the score of futile mistakes or
+irregularities. 'Details they are, yes, but because of these details we
+sometimes see even great divines stumble and rave.' Philological
+trifling is necessary. 'Why are we so precise as to our food, our
+clothes, our money-matters and why does this accuracy displease us in
+divine literature alone? He crawls along the ground, they say, he
+wearies himself out about words and syllables! Why do we slight any word
+of Him whom we venerate and worship under the name of the Word? But, be
+it so! Let whoever wishes imagine that I have not been able to achieve
+anything better, and out of sluggishness of mind and coldness of heart
+or lack of erudition have taken this lowest task upon myself; it is
+still a Christian idea to think all work good that is done with pious
+zeal. We bring along the bricks, but to build the temple of God.'
+
+He does not want to be intractable. Let the Vulgate be kept for use in
+the liturgy, for sermons, in schools, but he who, at home, reads our
+edition, will understand his own the better in consequence. He, Erasmus,
+is prepared to render account and acknowledge himself to have been wrong
+when convicted of error.
+
+Erasmus perhaps never quite realized how much his philological-critical
+method must shake the foundations of the Church. He was surprised at his
+adversaries 'who could not but believe that all their authority would
+perish at once when the sacred books might be read in a purified form,
+and when people tried to understand them in the original'. He did not
+feel what the unassailable authority of a sacred book meant. He rejoices
+because Holy Scripture is approached so much more closely, because all
+sorts of shadings are brought to light by considering not only what is
+said but also by whom, for whom, at what time, on what occasion, what
+precedes and what follows, in short, by the method of historical
+philological criticism. To him it seemed so especially pious when
+reading Scripture and coming across a place which seemed contrary to the
+doctrine of Christ or the divinity of his nature, to believe rather that
+one did not understand the phrase _or that the text might be corrupt_.
+Unperceived he passed from emendation of the different versions to the
+correction of the contents. The epistles were not all written by the
+apostles to whom they are attributed. The apostles themselves made
+mistakes, at times.
+
+The foundation of his spiritual life was no longer a unity to Erasmus.
+It was, on the one hand, a strong desire for an upright, simple, pure
+and homely belief, the earnest wish to be a good Christian. But it was
+also the irresistible intellectual and aesthetic need of the good taste,
+the harmony, the clear and exact expression of the Ancients, the dislike
+of what was cumbrous and involved. Erasmus thought that good learning
+might render good service for the necessary purification of the faith
+and its forms. The measure of church hymns should be corrected. That
+Christian expression and classicism were incompatible, he never
+believed. The man who in the sphere of sacred studies asked every author
+for his credentials remained unconscious of the fact that he
+acknowledged the authority of the Ancients without any evidence. How
+naïvely he appeals to Antiquity, again and again, to justify some bold
+feat! He is critical, they say? Were not the Ancients critical? He
+permits himself to insert digressions? So did the Ancients, etc.
+
+Erasmus is in profound sympathy with that revered Antiquity by his
+fundamental conviction that it is the practice of life which matters.
+Not he is the great philosopher who knows the tenets of the Stoics or
+Peripatetics by rote--but he who expresses the meaning of philosophy by
+his life and his morals, for that is its purpose. He is truly a divine
+who teaches, not by artful syllogisms, but by his disposition, by his
+face and his eyes, by his life itself, that wealth should be despised.
+To live up to that standard is what Christ himself calls _Renascentia_.
+Erasmus uses the word in the Christian sense only. But in that sense it
+is closely allied to the idea of the Renaissance as a historical
+phenomenon. The worldly and pagan sides of the Renaissance have nearly
+always been overrated. Erasmus is, much more than Aretino or
+Castiglione, the representative of the spirit of his age, one over whose
+Christian sentiment the sweet gale of Antiquity had passed. And that
+very union of strong Christian endeavour and the spirit of Antiquity is
+the explanation of Erasmus's wonderful success.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The mere intention and the contents of the mind do not influence the
+world, if the form of expression does not cooperate. In Erasmus the
+quality of his talent is a very important factor. His perfect clearness
+and ease of expression, his liveliness, wit, imagination, gusto and
+humour have lent a charm to all he wrote which to his contemporaries was
+irresistible and captivates even us, as soon as we read him. In all that
+constitutes his talent, Erasmus is perfectly and altogether a
+representative of the Renaissance. There is, in the first place, his
+eternal _à propos_. What he writes is never vague, never dark--it is
+always plausible. Everything seemingly flows of itself like a fountain.
+It always rings true as to tone, turn of phrase and accent. It has
+almost the light harmony of Ariosto. And it is, like Ariosto, never
+tragic, never truly heroic. It carries us away, indeed, but it is never
+itself truly enraptured.
+
+The more artistic aspects of Erasmus's talent come out most
+clearly--though they are everywhere in evidence--in those two
+recreations after more serious labour, the _Moriae Encomium_ and the
+_Colloquia_. But just those two have been of enormous importance for his
+influence upon his times. For while Jerome reached tens of readers and
+the New Testament hundreds, the _Moria_ and _Colloquies_ went out to
+thousands. And their importance is heightened in that Erasmus has
+nowhere else expressed himself so spontaneously.
+
+In each of the Colloquies, even in the first purely formulary ones,
+there is the sketch for a comedy, a novelette or a satire. There is
+hardly a sentence without its 'point', an expression without a vivid
+fancy. There are unrivalled niceties. The abbot of the _Abbatis et
+eruditae colloquium_ is a Molière character. It should be noticed how
+well Erasmus always sustains his characters and his scenes, because he
+_sees_ them. In 'The woman in childbed' he never forgets for a moment
+that Eutrapelus is an artist. At the end of 'The game of knucklebones',
+when the interlocutors, after having elucidated the whole nomenclature
+of the Latin game of knuckle-bones, are going to play themselves,
+Carolus says: 'but shut the door first, lest the cook should see us
+playing like two boys'.
+
+As Holbein illustrated the _Moria_, we should wish to possess the
+_Colloquia_ with illustrations by Brueghel, so closely allied is
+Erasmus's witty clear vision of incidents to that of this great master.
+The procession of drunkards on Palm Sunday, the saving of the
+shipwrecked crew, the old men waiting for the travelling cart while the
+drivers are still drinking, all these are Dutch genre pieces of the best
+sort.
+
+We like to speak of the realism of the Renaissance. Erasmus is certainly
+a realist in the sense of having an insatiable hunger for knowledge of
+the tangible world. He wants to know things and their names: the
+particulars of each thing, be it never so remote, such as those terms of
+games and rules of games of the Romans. Read carefully the description
+of the decorative painting on the garden-house of the _Convivium
+religiosum_: it is nothing but an object lesson, a graphic
+representation of the forms of reality.
+
+In its joy over the material universe and the supple, pliant word, the
+Renaissance revels in a profusion of imagery and expressions. The
+resounding enumerations of names and things, which Rabelais always
+gives, are not unknown to Erasmus, but he uses them for intellectual and
+useful purposes. In _De copia verborum ac rerum_ one feat of varied
+power of expression succeeds another--he gives fifty ways of saying:
+'Your letter has given me much pleasure,' or, 'I think that it is going
+to rain'. The aesthetic impulse is here that of a theme and variations:
+to display all the wealth and mutations of the logic of language.
+Elsewhere, too, Erasmus indulges this proclivity for accumulating the
+treasures of his genius; he and his contemporaries can never restrain
+themselves from giving all the instances instead of one: in _Ratio verae
+theologiae_, in _De pronuntiatione_, in _Lingua_, in _Ecclesiastes_. The
+collections of _Adagia_, _Parabolae_, and _Apophthegmata_ are altogether
+based on this eagerness of the Renaissance (which, by the way, was an
+inheritance of the Middle Ages themselves) to luxuriate in the wealth of
+the tangible world, to revel in words and things.
+
+The senses are open for the nice observation of the curious. Though
+Erasmus does not know that need of proving the secrets of nature, which
+inspired a Leonardo da Vinci, a Paracelsus, a Vesalius, he is also, by
+his keen observation, a child of his time. For peculiarities in the
+habits and customs of nations he has an open eye. He notices the gait of
+Swiss soldiers, how dandies sit, how Picards pronounce French. He
+notices that in old pictures the sitters are always represented with
+half-closed eyes and tightly shut lips, as signs of modesty, and how
+some Spaniards still honour this expression in life, while German art
+prefers lips pouting as for a kiss. His lively sense of anecdote, to
+which he gives the rein in all his writings, belongs here.
+
+And, in spite of all his realism, the world which Erasmus sees and
+renders, is not altogether that of the sixteenth century. Everything is
+veiled by Latin. Between the author's mind and reality intervenes his
+antique diction. At bottom the world of his mind is imaginary. It is a
+subdued and limited sixteenth-century reality which he reflects.
+Together with its coarseness he lacks all that is violent and direct in
+his times. Compared with the artists, with Luther and Calvin, with the
+statesmen, the navigators, the soldiers and the scientists, Erasmus
+confronts the world as a recluse. It is only the influence of Latin. In
+spite of all his receptiveness and sensitiveness, Erasmus is never fully
+in contact with life. All through his work not a bird sings, not a wind
+rustles.
+
+But that reserve or fear of directness is not merely a negative quality.
+It also results from a consciousness of the indefiniteness of the ground
+of all things, from the awe of the ambiguity of all that is. If Erasmus
+so often hovers over the borderline between earnestness and mockery, if
+he hardly ever gives an incisive conclusion, it is not only due to
+cautiousness, and fear to commit himself. Everywhere he sees the
+shadings, the blending of the meaning of words. The terms of things are
+no longer to him, as to the man of the Middle Ages, as crystals mounted
+in gold, or as stars in the firmament. 'I like assertions so little that
+I would easily take sides with the sceptics whereever it is allowed by
+the inviolable authority of Holy Scripture and the decrees of the
+Church.' 'What is exempt from error?' All subtle contentions of
+theological speculation arise from a dangerous curiosity and lead to
+impious audacity. What have all the great controversies about the
+Trinity and the Virgin Mary profited? 'We have defined so much that
+without danger to our salvation might have remained unknown or
+undecided.... The essentials of our religion are peace and unanimity.
+These can hardly exist unless we make definitions about as few points as
+possible and leave many questions to individual judgement. Numerous
+problems are now postponed till the oecumenical Council. It would be
+much better to put off such questions till the time when the glass shall
+be removed and the darkness cleared away, and we shall see God face to
+face.'
+
+'There are sanctuaries in the sacred studies which God has not willed
+that we should probe, and if we try to penetrate there, we grope in ever
+deeper darkness the farther we proceed, so that we recognize, in this
+manner, too, the inscrutable majesty of divine wisdom and the imbecility
+of human understanding.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ERASMUS'S CHARACTER
+
+    Erasmus's character: Need of purity and cleanliness--
+    Delicacy--Dislike of contention, need of concord and
+    friendship--Aversion to disturbance of any kind--Too much
+    concerned about other men's opinions--Need of self-
+    justification--Himself never in the wrong--Correlation
+    between inclinations and convictions--Ideal image of
+    himself--Dissatisfaction with himself--Self-centredness--A
+    solitary at heart--Fastidiousness--Suspiciousness--Morbid
+    mistrust--Unhappiness--Restlessness--Unsolved contradictions of
+    his being--Horror of lies--Reserve and insinuation
+
+
+Erasmus's powerful mind met with a great response in the heart of his
+contemporaries and had a lasting influence on the march of civilization.
+But one of the heroes of history he cannot be called. Was not his
+failure to attain to still loftier heights partly due to the fact that
+his character was not on a level with the elevation of his mind?
+
+And yet that character, a very complicated one, though he took himself
+to be the simplest man in the world, was determined by the same factors
+which determined the structure of his mind. Again and again we find in
+his inclinations the correlates of his convictions.
+
+At the root of his moral being we find--a key to the understanding of
+his character--that same profound need of purity which drove him to the
+sources of sacred science. Purity in the material and the moral sense is
+what he desires for himself and others, always and in all things. Few
+things revolt him so much as the practices of vintners who doctor wine
+and dealers who adulterate food. If he continually chastens his language
+and style, or exculpates himself from mistakes, it is the same impulse
+which prompts his passionate desire for cleanliness and brightness, of
+the home and of the body. He has a violent dislike of stuffy air and
+smelly substances. He regularly takes a roundabout way to avoid a
+malodorous lane; he loathes shambles and fishmongers' shops. Fetors
+spread infection, he thinks. Erasmus had, earlier than most people,
+antiseptic ideas about the danger of infection in the foul air of
+crowded inns, in the breath of confessants, in baptismal water. Throw
+aside common cups, he pleaded; let everybody shave himself, let us be
+cleanly as to bed-sheets, let us not kiss each other by way of greeting.
+The fear of the horrible venereal disease, imported into Europe during
+his lifetime, and of which Erasmus watched the unbridled propagation
+with solicitude, increases his desire for purity. Too little is being
+done to stop it, he thinks. He cautions against suspected inns; he wants
+to have measures taken against the marriages of syphilitic persons. In
+his undignified attitude towards Hutten his physical and moral aversion
+to the man's evil plays an unmistakable part.
+
+Erasmus is a delicate soul in all his fibres. His body forces him to be
+that. He is highly sensitive, among other things very susceptible to
+cold, 'the scholars' disorder', as he calls it. Early in life already
+the painful malady of the stone begins to torment him, which he resisted
+so bravely when his work was at stake. He always speaks in a coddling
+tone about his little body, which cannot stand fasting, which must be
+kept fit by some exercise, namely riding, and for which he carefully
+tries to select a suitable climate. He is at times circumstantial in the
+description of his ailments.[15] He has to be very careful in the matter
+of his sleep; if once he wakes up, he finds it difficult to go to sleep
+again, and because of that has often to lose the morning, the best time
+to work and which is so dear to him. He cannot stand cold, wind and fog,
+but still less overheated rooms. How he has execrated the German stoves,
+which are burned nearly all the year through and made Germany almost
+unbearable to him! Of his fear of illness we have spoken above. It is
+not only the plague which he flees--for fear of catching cold he gives
+up a journey from Louvain to Antwerp, where his friend Peter Gilles is
+in mourning. Although he realizes quite well that 'often a great deal of
+the disease is in the imagination', yet his own imagination leaves him
+no peace. Nevertheless, when he is seriously ill he does not fear death.
+
+His hygienics amount to temperance, cleanliness and fresh air, this last
+item in moderation: he takes the vicinity of the sea to be unwholesome
+and is afraid of draughts. His friend Gilles, who is ill, he advises:
+'Do not take too much medicine, keep quiet and do not get angry'. Though
+there is a 'Praise of Medicine' among his works, he does not think
+highly of physicians and satirizes them more than once in the
+_Colloquies_.
+
+Also in his outward appearance there were certain features betraying his
+delicacy. He was of medium height, well-made, of a fair complexion with
+blond hair and blue eyes, a cheerful face, a very articulate mode of
+speech, but a thin voice.
+
+In the moral sphere Erasmus's delicacy is represented by his great need
+of friendship and concord, his dislike of contention. With him peace and
+harmony rank above all other considerations, and he confesses them to be
+the guiding principles of his actions. He would, if it might be, have
+all the world as a friend. 'Wittingly I discharge no one from my
+friendship,' he says. And though he was sometimes capricious and
+exacting towards his friends, yet a truly great friend he was: witness
+the many who never forsook him, or whom he, after a temporary
+estrangement, always won back--More, Peter Gilles, Fisher, Ammonius,
+Budaeus, and others too numerous to mention. 'He was most constant in
+keeping up friendships,' says Beatus Rhenanus, whose own attachment to
+Erasmus is a proof of the strong affection he could inspire.
+
+At the root of this desire of friendship lies a great and sincere need
+of affection. Remember the effusions of almost feminine affection
+towards Servatius during his monastic period. But at the same time it is
+a sort of moral serenity that makes him so: an aversion to disturbance,
+to whatever is harsh and inharmonious. He calls it 'a certain occult
+natural sense' which makes him abhor strife. He cannot abide being at
+loggerheads with anyone. He always hoped and wanted, he says, to keep
+his pen unbloody, to attack no one, to provoke no one, even if he were
+attacked. But his enemies had not willed it, and in later years he
+became well accustomed to bitter polemics, with Lefèvre d'Étaples, with
+Lee, with Egmondanus, with Hutten, with Luther, with Beda, with the
+Spaniards, and the Italians. At first it is still noticeable how he
+suffers by it, how contention wounds him, so that he cannot bear the
+pain in silence. 'Do let us be friends again,' he begs Lefèvre, who does
+not reply. The time which he had to devote to his polemics he regards as
+lost. 'I feel myself getting more heavy every day,' he writes in 1520,
+'not so much on account of my age as because of the restless labour of
+my studies, nay more even by the weariness of disputes than by the work,
+which, in itself, is agreeable.' And how much strife was still in store
+for him then!
+
+If only Erasmus had been less concerned about public opinion! But that
+seemed impossible: he had a fear of men, or, we may call it, a fervent
+need of justification. He would always see beforehand, and usually in
+exaggerated colours, the effect his word or deed would have upon men. Of
+himself, it was certainly true as he once wrote: that the craving for
+fame has less sharp spurs than the fear of ignominy. Erasmus is with
+Rousseau among those who cannot bear the consciousness of guilt, out of
+a sort of mental cleanliness. Not to be able to repay a benefit with
+interest, makes him ashamed and sad. He cannot abide 'dunning creditors,
+unperformed duty, neglect of the need of a friend'. If he cannot
+discharge the obligation, he explains it away. The Dutch historian Fruin
+has quite correctly observed: 'Whatever Erasmus did contrary to his duty
+and his rightly understood interests was the fault of circumstances or
+wrong advice; he is never to blame himself'. And what he has thus
+justified for himself becomes with him universal law: 'God relieves
+people of pernicious vows, if only they repent of them,' says the man
+who himself had broken a vow.
+
+There is in Erasmus a dangerous fusion between inclination and
+conviction. The correlations between his idiosyncrasies and his precepts
+are undeniable. This has special reference to his point of view in the
+matter of fasting and abstinence from meat. He too frequently vents his
+own aversion to fish, or talks of his inability to postpone meals, not
+to make this connection clear to everybody. In the same way his personal
+experience in the monastery passes into his disapproval, on principle,
+of monastic life.
+
+The distortion of the image of his youth in his memory, to which we have
+referred, is based on that need of self-justification. It is all
+unconscious interpretation of the undeniable facts to suit the ideal
+which Erasmus had made of himself and to which he honestly thinks he
+answers. The chief features of that self-conceived picture are a
+remarkable, simple sincerity and frankness, which make it impossible to
+him to dissemble; inexperience and carelessness in the ordinary concerns
+of life and a total lack of ambition. All this is true in the first
+instance: there is a superficial Erasmus who answers to that image, but
+it is not the whole Erasmus; there is a deeper one who is almost the
+opposite and whom he himself does not know because he will not know him.
+Possibly because behind this there is a still deeper being, which is
+truly good.
+
+Does he not ascribe weaknesses to himself? Certainly. He is, in spite of
+his self-coddling, ever dissatisfied with himself and his work.
+_Putidulus_, he calls himself, meaning the quality of never being
+content with himself. It is that peculiarity which makes him
+dissatisfied with any work of his directly after it has appeared, so
+that he always keeps revising and supplementing. 'Pusillanimous' he
+calls himself in writing to Colet. But again he cannot help giving
+himself credit for acknowledging that quality, nay, converting that
+quality itself into a virtue: it is modesty, the opposite of boasting
+and self-love.
+
+This bashfulness about himself is the reason that he does not love his
+own physiognomy, and is only persuaded with difficulty by his friends to
+sit for a portrait. His own appearance is not heroic or dignified enough
+for him, and he is not duped by an artist who flatters him: 'Heigh-ho,'
+he exclaims, on seeing Holbein's thumbnail sketch illustrating the
+_Moria_: 'if Erasmus still looked like that, he would take a wife at
+once'. It is that deep trait of dissatisfaction that suggests the
+inscription on his portraits: 'his writings will show you a better
+image'.
+
+Erasmus's modesty and the contempt which he displays of the fame that
+fell to his lot are of a somewhat rhetorical character. But in this we
+should not so much see a personal trait of Erasmus as a general form
+common to all humanists. On the other hand, this mood cannot be called
+altogether artificial. His books, which he calls his children, have not
+turned out well. He does not think they will live. He does not set store
+by his letters: he publishes them because his friends insist upon it. He
+writes his poems to try a new pen. He hopes that geniuses will soon
+appear who will eclipse him, so that Erasmus will pass for a stammerer.
+What is fame? A pagan survival. He is fed up with it to repletion and
+would do nothing more gladly than cast it off.
+
+Sometimes another note escapes him. If Lee would help him in his
+endeavours, Erasmus would make him immortal, he had told the former in
+their first conversation. And he threatens an unknown adversary, 'If you
+go on so impudently to assail my good name, then take care that my
+gentleness does not give way and I cause you to be ranked, after a
+thousand years, among the venomous sycophants, among the idle boasters,
+among the incompetent physicians'.
+
+The self-centred element in Erasmus must needs increase accordingly as
+he in truth became a centre and objective point of ideas and culture.
+There really was a time when it must seem to him that the world hinged
+upon him, and that it awaited the redeeming word from him. What a
+widespread enthusiastic following he had, how many warm friends and
+venerators! There is something naïve in the way in which he thinks it
+requisite to treat all his friends, in an open letter, to a detailed,
+rather repellent account of an illness that attacked him on the way back
+from Basle to Louvain. _His_ part, _his_ position, _his_ name, this more
+and more becomes the aspect under which he sees world-events. Years will
+come in which his whole enormous correspondence is little more than one
+protracted self-defence.
+
+Yet this man who has so many friends is nevertheless solitary at heart.
+And in the depth of that heart he desires to be alone. He is of a most
+retiring disposition; he is _a recluse_. 'I have always wished to be
+alone, and there is nothing I hate so much as sworn partisans.' Erasmus
+is one of those whom contact with others weakens. The less he has to
+address and to consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he
+utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always
+causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry,
+reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should not
+be thought that we get to know him to the core from his letters. Natures
+like his, which all contact with men unsettles, give their best and
+deepest when they speak impersonally and to all.
+
+After the early effusions of sentimental affection he no longer opens
+his heart unreservedly to others. At bottom he feels separated from all
+and on the alert towards all. There is a great fear in him that others
+will touch his soul or disturb the image he has made of himself. The
+attitude of warding off reveals itself as fastidiousness and as
+bashfulness. Budaeus hit the mark when he exclaimed jocularly:
+'_Fastidiosule!_ You little fastidious person!' Erasmus himself
+interprets the dominating trait of his being as maidenly coyness. The
+excessive sensitiveness to the stain attaching to his birth results from
+it. But his friend Ammonius speaks of his _subrustica verecundia_, his
+somewhat rustic _gaucherie_. There is, indeed, often something of the
+small man about Erasmus, who is hampered by greatness and therefore
+shuns the great, because, at bottom, they obsess him and he feels them
+to be inimical to his being.
+
+It seems a hard thing to say that genuine loyalty and fervent
+gratefulness were strange to Erasmus. And yet such was his nature. In
+characters like his a kind of mental cramp keeps back the effusions of
+the heart. He subscribes to the adage: 'Love so, as if you may hate one
+day, and hate so, as if you may love one day'. He cannot bear benefits.
+In his inmost soul he continually retires before everybody. He who
+considers himself the pattern of simple unsuspicion, is indeed in the
+highest degree suspicious towards all his friends. The dead Ammonius,
+who had helped him so zealously in the most delicate concerns, is not
+secure from it. 'You are always unfairly distrustful towards me,'
+Budaeus complains. 'What!' exclaims Erasmus, 'you will find few people
+who are so little distrustful in friendship as myself.'
+
+When at the height of his fame the attention of the world was indeed
+fixed on all he spoke or did, there was some ground for a certain
+feeling on his part of being always watched and threatened. But when he
+was yet an unknown man of letters, in his Parisian years, we continually
+find traces in him of a mistrust of the people about him that can only
+be regarded as a morbid feeling. During the last period of his life this
+feeling attaches especially to two enemies, Eppendorf and Aleander.
+Eppendorf employs spies everywhere who watch Erasmus's correspondence
+with his friends. Aleander continually sets people to combat him, and
+lies in wait for him wherever he can. His interpretation of the
+intentions of his assailants has the ingenious self-centred element
+which passes the borderline of sanity. He sees the whole world full of
+calumny and ambuscades threatening his peace: nearly all those who once
+were his best friends have become his bitterest enemies; they wag their
+venomous tongues at banquets, in conversation, in the confessional, in
+sermons, in lectures, at court, in vehicles and ships. The minor
+enemies, like troublesome vermin, drive him to weariness of life, or to
+death by insomnia. He compares his tortures to the martyrdom of Saint
+Sebastian, pierced by arrows. But his is worse, for there is no end to
+it. For years he has daily been dying a thousand deaths and that alone;
+for his friends, if such there are, are deterred by envy.
+
+He mercilessly pillories his patrons in a row for their stinginess. Now
+and again there suddenly comes to light an undercurrent of aversion and
+hatred which we did not suspect. Where had more good things fallen to
+his lot than in England? Which country had he always praised more? But
+suddenly a bitter and unfounded reproach escapes him. England is
+responsible for his having become faithless to his monastic vows, 'for
+no other reason do I hate Britain more than for this, though it has
+always been pestilent to me'.
+
+He seldom allows himself to go so far. His expressions of hatred or
+spite are, as a rule, restricted to the feline. They are aimed at
+friends and enemies, Budaeus, Lypsius, as well as Hutten and Beda.
+Occasionally we are struck by the expression of coarse pleasure at
+another's misfortune. But in all this, as regards malice, we should not
+measure Erasmus by our ideas of delicacy and gentleness. Compared with
+most of his contemporaries he remains moderate and refined.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Erasmus never felt happy, was never content. This may perhaps surprise
+us for a moment, when we think of his cheerful, never-failing energy, of
+his gay jests and his humour. But upon reflection this unhappy feeling
+tallies very well with his character. It also proceeds from his general
+attitude of warding off. Even when in high spirits he considers himself
+in all respects an unhappy man. 'The most miserable of all men, the
+thrice-wretched Erasmus,' he calls himself in fine Greek terms. His life
+'is an Iliad of calamities, a chain of misfortunes. How can anyone envy
+_me_?' To no one has Fortune been so constantly hostile as to him. She
+has sworn his destruction, thus he sang in his youth in a poetical
+complaint addressed to Gaguin: from earliest infancy the same sad and
+hard fate has been constantly pursuing him. Pandora's whole box seems to
+have been poured out over him.
+
+This unhappy feeling takes the special form of his having been charged
+by unlucky stars with Herculean labour, without profit or pleasure to
+himself:[16] troubles and vexations without end. His life might have
+been so much easier if he had taken his chances. He should never have
+left Italy; or he ought to have stayed in England. 'But an immoderate
+love of liberty caused me to wrestle long with faithless friends and
+inveterate poverty.' Elsewhere he says more resignedly: 'But we are
+driven by fate'.
+
+That immoderate love of liberty had indeed been as fate to him. He had
+always been the great seeker of quiet and liberty who found liberty late
+and quiet never. By no means ever to bind himself, to incur no
+obligations which might become fetters--again that fear of the
+entanglements of life. Thus he remained the great restless one. He was
+never truly satisfied with anything, least of all with what he produced
+himself. 'Why, then, do you overwhelm us with so many books', someone at
+Louvain objected, 'if you do not really approve of any of them?' And
+Erasmus answers with Horace's word: 'In the first place, because I
+cannot sleep'.
+
+A sleepless energy, it was that indeed. He cannot rest. Still half
+seasick and occupied with his trunks, he is already thinking about an
+answer to Dorp's letter, just received, censuring the _Moria_. We should
+fully realize what it means that time after time Erasmus, who, by
+nature, loved quiet and was fearful, and fond of comfort, cleanliness
+and good fare, undertakes troublesome and dangerous journeys, even
+voyages, which he detests, for the sake of his work and of that alone.
+
+He is not only restless, but also precipitate. Helped by an incomparably
+retentive and capacious memory he writes at haphazard. He never becomes
+anacoluthic; his talent is too refined and sure for that; but he does
+repeat himself and is unnecessarily circumstantial. 'I rather pour out
+than write everything,' he says. He compares his publications to
+parturitions, nay, to abortions. He does not select his subjects, he
+tumbles into them, and having once taken up a subject he finishes
+without intermission. For years he has read only _tumultuarie_, up and
+down all literature; he no longer finds time really to refresh his mind
+by reading, and to work so as to please himself. On that account he
+envied Budaeus.
+
+'Do not publish too hastily,' More warns him: 'you are watched to be
+caught in inexactitudes.' Erasmus knows it: he will correct all later,
+he will ever have to revise and to polish everything. He hates the
+labour of revising and correcting, but he submits to it, and works
+passionately, 'in the treadmill of Basle', and, he says, finishes the
+work of six years in eight months.
+
+In that recklessness and precipitation with which Erasmus labours there
+is again one of the unsolved contradictions of his being. He _is_
+precipitate and careless; he _wants_ to be careful and cautious; his
+mind drives him to be the first, his nature restrains him, but usually
+only after the word has been written and published. The result is a
+continual intermingling of explosion and reserve.
+
+The way in which Erasmus always tries to shirk definite statements
+irritates us. How carefully he always tries to represent the
+_Colloquies_, in which he had spontaneously revealed so much of his
+inner convictions, as mere trifling committed to paper to please his
+friends. They are only meant to teach correct Latin! And if anything is
+said in them touching matters of faith, it is not I who say it, is it?
+As often as he censures classes or offices in the _Adagia_, princes
+above all, he warns the readers not to regard his words as aimed at
+particular persons.
+
+Erasmus was a master of reserve. He knew, even when he held definite
+views, how to avoid direct decisions, not only from caution, but also
+because he saw the eternal ambiguity of human issues.
+
+Erasmus ascribes to himself an unusual horror of lies. On seeing a liar,
+he says, he was corporeally affected. As a boy he already violently
+disliked mendacious boys, such as the little braggart of whom he tells
+in the _Colloquies_. That this reaction of aversion is genuine is not
+contradicted by the fact that we catch Erasmus himself in untruths.
+Inconsistencies, flattery, pieces of cunning, white lies, serious
+suppression of facts, simulated sentiments of respect or sorrow--they
+may all be pointed out in his letters. He once disavowed his deepest
+conviction for a gratuity from Anne of Borselen by flattering her
+bigotry. He requested his best friend Batt to tell lies in his behalf.
+He most sedulously denied his authorship of the Julius dialogue, for
+fear of the consequences, even to More, and always in such a way as to
+avoid saying outright, 'I did not write it'. Those who know other
+humanists, and know how frequently and impudently they lied, will
+perhaps think more lightly of Erasmus's sins.
+
+For the rest, even during his lifetime he did not escape punishment for
+his eternal reserve, his proficiency in semi-conclusions and veiled
+truths, insinuations and slanderous allusions. The accusation of perfidy
+was often cast in his teeth, sometimes in serious indignation. 'You are
+always engaged in bringing suspicion upon others,' Edward Lee exclaims.
+'How dare you usurp the office of a general censor, and condemn what you
+have hardly ever tasted? How dare you despise all but yourself? Falsely
+and insultingly do you expose your antagonist in the _Colloquia_.' Lee
+quotes the spiteful passage referring to himself, and then exclaims:
+'Now from these words the world may come to know its divine, its censor,
+its modest and sincere author, that Erasmian diffidence, earnest,
+decency and honesty! Erasmian modesty has long been proverbial. You are
+always using the words "false accusations". You say: if I was
+consciously guilty of the smallest of all his (Lee's) false accusations,
+I should not dare to approach the Lord's table!--O man, who are you, to
+judge another, a servant who stands or falls before his Lord?'
+
+This was the first violent attack from the conservative side, in the
+beginning of 1520, when the mighty struggle which Luther's action had
+unchained kept the world in ever greater suspense. Six months later
+followed the first serious reproaches on the part of radical reformers.
+Ulrich von Hutten, the impetuous, somewhat foggy-headed knight, who
+wanted to see Luther's cause triumph as the national cause of Germany,
+turns to Erasmus, whom, at one time, he had enthusiastically acclaimed
+as the man of the new weal, with the urgent appeal not to forsake the
+cause of the reformation or to compromise it. 'You have shown yourself
+fearful in the affair of Reuchlin; now in that of Luther you do your
+utmost to convince his adversaries that you are altogether averse from
+it, though we know better. Do not disown us. You know how triumphantly
+certain letters of yours are circulated, in which, to protect yourself
+from suspicion, you rather meanly fasten it on others ... If you are now
+afraid to incur a little hostility for _my_ sake, concede me at least
+that you will not allow yourself, out of fear for another, to be tempted
+to renounce me; rather be silent about me.'
+
+Those were bitter reproaches. In the man who had to swallow them there
+was a puny Erasmus who deserved those reproaches, who took offence at
+them, but did not take them to heart, who continued to act with prudent
+reserve till Hutten's friendship was turned to hatred. In him was also a
+great Erasmus who knew how, under the passion and infatuation with which
+the parties combated each other, the Truth he sought, and the Love he
+hoped would subdue the world, were obscured; who knew the God whom he
+professed too high to take sides. Let us try ever to see of that great
+Erasmus as much as the petty one permits.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[15] Cf. the letter to Beatus Rhenanus, pp. 227-8.
+
+[16] Ad. 2001 LB. II, 717B, 77 c. 58A. On the book which Erasmus holds
+in his hand in Holbein's portrait at Longford Castle, we read in Greek:
+The Labours of Hercules.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AT LOUVAIN
+
+1517-18
+
+    Erasmus at Louvain, 1517--He expects the renovation of the
+    Church as the fruit of good learning--Controversy with Lefèvre
+    d'Étaples--Second journey to Basle, 1518--He revises the edition
+    of the New Testament--Controversies with Latomus, Briard and
+    Lee--Erasmus regards the opposition of conservative theology
+    merely as a conspiracy against good learning
+
+
+When Erasmus established himself at Louvain in the summer of 1517 he had
+a vague presentiment that great changes were at hand. 'I fear', he
+writes in September, 'that a great subversion of affairs is being
+brought about here, if God's favour and the piety and wisdom of princes
+do not concern themselves about human matters.' But the forms which that
+great change would assume he did not in the least realize.
+
+He regarded his removal as merely temporary. It was only to last 'till
+we shall have seen which place of residence is best fit for old age,
+which is already knocking'. There is something pathetic in the man who
+desires nothing but quiet and liberty, and who through his own
+restlessness, and his inability not to concern himself about other
+people, never found a really fixed abode or true independence. Erasmus
+is one of those people who always seem to say: tomorrow, tomorrow! I
+must first deal with this, and then ... As soon as he shall be ready
+with the new edition of the New Testament and shall have extricated
+himself from troublesome and disagreeable theological controversies, in
+which he finds himself entangled against his wish, he will sleep, hide
+himself, 'sing for himself and the Muses'. But that time never came.
+
+Where to live when he shall be free? Spain, to which Cardinal Ximenes
+called him, did not appeal to him. From Germany, he says, the stoves and
+the insecurity deter him. In England the servitude which was required of
+him there revolted him. But in the Netherlands themselves, he did not
+feel at his ease, either: 'Here I am barked at a great deal, and there
+is no remuneration; though I desired it ever so much, I could not bear
+to stay there long'. Yet he remained for four years.
+
+Erasmus had good friends in the University of Louvain. At first he put
+up with his old host Johannes Paludanus, Rhetor of the University, whose
+house he exchanged that summer for quarters in the College of the Lily.
+Martin Dorp, a Dutchman like himself, had not been estranged from him by
+their polemics about the _Moria_; his good will was of great importance
+to Erasmus, because of the important place Dorp occupied in the
+theological faculty. And lastly, though his old patron, Adrian of
+Utrecht, afterwards Pope, had by that time been called away from Louvain
+to higher dignities, his influence had not diminished in consequence,
+but rather increased; for just about that time he had been made a
+cardinal.
+
+Erasmus was received with great complaisance by the Louvain divines.
+Their leader, the vice-chancellor of the University, Jean Briard of Ath,
+repeatedly expressed his approval of the edition of the New Testament,
+to Erasmus's great satisfaction. Soon Erasmus found himself a member of
+the theological faculty. Yet he did not feel at his ease among the
+Louvain theologians. The atmosphere was a great deal less congenial to
+him than that of the world of the English scholars. Here he felt a
+spirit which he did not understand and distrusted in consequence.
+
+In the years in which the Reformation began, Erasmus was the victim of a
+great misunderstanding, the result of the fact that his delicate,
+aesthetic, hovering spirit understood neither the profoundest depths of
+the faith nor the hard necessities of human society. He was neither
+mystic nor realist. Luther was both. To Erasmus the great problem of
+Church and State and society, seemed simple. Nothing was required but
+restoration and purification by a return to the original, unspoilt
+sources of Christianity. A number of accretions to the faith, rather
+ridiculous than revolting, had to be cleared away. All should be reduced
+to the nucleus of faith, Christ and the Gospel. Forms, ceremonies,
+speculations should make room for the practice of true piety. The Gospel
+was easily intelligible to everybody and within everybody's reach. And
+the means to reach all this was good learning, _bonae literae_. Had he
+not himself, by his editions of the New Testament and of Jerome, and
+even earlier by the now famous _Enchiridion_, done most of what had to
+be done? 'I hope that what now pleases the upright, will soon please
+all.' As early as the beginning of 1517 Erasmus had written to Wolfgang
+Fabricius Capito, in the tone of one who has accomplished the great
+task. 'Well then, take you the torch from us. The work will henceforth
+be a great deal easier and cause far less hatred and envy. _We_ have
+lived through the first shock.'
+
+Budaeus writes to Tunstall in May 1517: 'Was anyone born under such
+inauspicious Graces that the dull and obscure discipline (scholasticism)
+does not revolt him, since sacred literature, too, cleansed by Erasmus's
+diligence, has regained its ancient purity and brightness? But it is
+still much greater that he should have effected by the same labour the
+emergence of sacred truth itself out of that Cimmerian darkness, even
+though divinity is not yet quite free from the dirt of the sophist
+school. If that should occur one day, it will be owing to the beginnings
+made in our times.' The philologist Budaeus believed even more firmly
+than Erasmus that faith was a matter of erudition.
+
+It could not but vex Erasmus that not everyone accepted the cleansed
+truth at once. How could people continue to oppose themselves to what,
+to him, seemed as clear as daylight and so simple? He, who so sincerely
+would have liked to live in peace with all the world, found himself
+involved in a series of polemics. To let the opposition of opponents
+pass unnoticed was forbidden not only by his character, for ever
+striving to justify himself in the eyes of the world, but also by the
+custom of his time, so eager for dispute.
+
+There were, first of all, his polemics with Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples,
+or in Latinized form, Faber Stapulensis, the Parisian theologian, who as
+a preparer of the Reformation may, more than anyone else, be ranked with
+Erasmus. At the moment when Erasmus got into the travelling cart which
+was to take him to Louvain, a friend drew his attention to a passage in
+the new edition of Faber's commentary on St. Paul's epistles, in which
+he controverted Erasmus's note on the Second Epistle to the Hebrews,
+verse 7. Erasmus at once bought Faber's book, and soon published an
+_Apologia_. It concerned Christ's relation to God and the angels, but
+the dogmatic point at issue hinged, after all, on a philological
+interpretation of Erasmus.
+
+Not yet accustomed to much direct wrangling, Erasmus was violently
+agitated by the matter, the more as he esteemed Faber highly and
+considered him a congenial spirit. 'What on earth has occurred to the
+man? Have others set him on against me? All theologians agree that I am
+right,' he asserts. It makes him nervous that Faber does not reply again
+at once. Badius has told Peter Gilles that Faber is sorry about it.
+Erasmus in a dignified letter appeals to their friendship; he will
+suffer himself to be taught and censured. Then again he growls: Let him
+be careful. And he thinks that his controversy with Faber keeps the
+world in suspense: there is not a meal at which the guests do not side
+with one or the other of them. But finally the combat abated and the
+friendship was preserved.
+
+Towards Easter 1518, Erasmus contemplated a new journey to Basle, there
+to pass through the press, during a few months of hard labour, the
+corrected edition of the New Testament. He did not fail to request the
+chiefs of conservative divinity at Louvain beforehand to state their
+objections to his work. Briard of Ath declared he had found nothing
+offensive in it, after he had first been told all sorts of bad things
+about it. 'Then the new edition will please you much better,' Erasmus
+had said. His friend Dorp and James Latomus, also one of the chief
+divines, had expressed themselves in the same sense, and the Carmelite
+Nicholas of Egmond had said that he had never read Erasmus's work. Only
+a young Englishman, Edward Lee, who was studying Greek at Louvain, had
+summarized a number of criticisms into ten conclusions. Erasmus had got
+rid of the matter by writing to Lee that he had not been able to get
+hold of his conclusions and therefore could not make use of them. But
+his youthful critic had not put up with being slighted so, and worked
+out his objections in a more circumstantial treatise.
+
+[Illustration: XVII. VIEW OF BASLE, 1548]
+
+Thus Erasmus set out for Basle once more in May 1518. He had been
+obliged to ask all his English friends (of whom Ammonius had been taken
+from him by death in 1517) for support to defray the expenses of the
+journey; he kept holding out to them the prospect that, after his work
+was finished, he would return to England. In a letter to Martin Lypsius,
+as he was going up the Rhine, he answered Lee's criticism, which had
+irritated him extremely. In revising his edition he not only took it but
+little into account, but ventured, moreover, this time to print his own
+translation of the New Testament of 1506 without any alterations. At the
+same time he obtained for the new edition a letter of approval from the
+Pope, a redoubtable weapon against his cavillers.
+
+At Basle Erasmus worked again like a horse in a treadmill. But he was
+really in his element. Even before the second edition of the New
+Testament, the _Enchiridion_ and the _Institutio Principis Christiani_
+were reprinted by Froben. On his return journey, Erasmus, whose work had
+been hampered all through the summer by indisposition, and who had, on
+that account, been unable to finish it, fell seriously ill. He reached
+Louvain with difficulty (21 September 1518). It might be the pestilence,
+and Erasmus, ever much afraid of contagion himself, now took all
+precautions to safeguard his friends against it. He avoided his quarters
+in the College of the Lily, and found shelter with his most trusted
+friend, Dirck Maertensz, the printer. But in spite of rumours of the
+plague and his warnings, first Dorp and afterwards also Ath came, at
+once, to visit him. Evidently the Louvain professors did not mean so
+badly by him, after all.
+
+[Illustration: XVIII. Title-page of the New Testament printed by Froben
+in 1520]
+
+But the differences between Erasmus and the Louvain faculty were deeply
+rooted. Lee, hurt by the little attention paid by Erasmus to his
+objections, prepared a new critique, but kept it from Erasmus, for the
+present, which irritated the latter and made him nervous. In the
+meantime a new opponent arose. Directly after his return to Louvain,
+Erasmus had taken much trouble to promote the establishment of the
+_Collegium Trilingue_, projected and endowed by Jerome Busleiden, in his
+testament, to be founded in the university. The three biblical
+languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, were to be taught there. Now when
+James Latomus, a member of the theological faculty and a man whom he
+esteemed, in a dialogue about the study of those three languages and of
+theology, doubted the utility of the former, Erasmus judged himself
+concerned, and answered Latomus in an _Apologia_. About the same time
+(spring 1519) he got into trouble with the vice-chancellor himself.
+Erasmus thought that Ath had publicly censured him with regard to his
+'Praise of Marriage', which had recently appeared. Though Ath withdrew
+at once, Erasmus could not abstain from writing an _Apologia_, however
+moderate. Meanwhile the smouldering quarrel with Lee assumed ever more
+hateful forms. In vain did Erasmus's English friends attempt to restrain
+their young, ambitious compatriot. Erasmus on his part irritated him
+furtively. He reveals in this whole dispute a lack of self-control and
+dignity which shows his weakest side. Usually so anxious as to decorum
+he now lapses into invectives: The British adder, Satan, even the old
+taunt ascribing a tail to Englishmen has to serve once more. The points
+at issue disappear altogether behind the bitter mutual reproaches. In
+his unrestrained anger, Erasmus avails himself of the most unworthy
+weapons. He eggs his German friends on to write against Lee and to
+ridicule him in all his folly and brag, and then he assures all his
+English friends: 'All Germany is literally furious with Lee; I have the
+greatest trouble in keeping them back'.
+
+Alack! Germany had other causes of disturbance: it is 1520 and the three
+great polemics of Luther were setting the world on fire.
+
+Though one may excuse the violence and the petty spitefulness of Erasmus
+in this matter, as resulting from an over-sensitive heart falling
+somewhat short in really manly qualities, yet it is difficult to deny
+that he failed completely to understand both the arguments of his
+adversaries and the great movements of his time.
+
+It was very easy for Erasmus to mock the narrow-mindedness of
+conservative divines who thought that there would be an end to faith in
+Holy Scripture as soon as the emendation of the text was attempted.
+'"They correct the Holy Gospel, nay, the Pater Noster itself!" the
+preacher exclaims indignantly in the sermon before his surprised
+congregation. As if I cavilled at Matthew and Luke, and not at those
+who, out of ignorance and carelessness, have corrupted them. What do
+people wish? That the Church should possess Holy Scripture as correct as
+possible, or not?' This reasoning seemed to Erasmus, with his passionate
+need of purity, a conclusive refutation. But instinct did not deceive
+his adversaries, when it told them that doctrine itself was at stake if
+the linguistic judgement of a single individual might decide as to the
+correct version of a text. And Erasmus wished to avoid the inferences
+which assailed doctrine. He was not aware of the fact that his
+conceptions of the Church, the sacraments and the dogmas were no longer
+purely Catholic, because they had become subordinated to his
+philological insight. He could not be aware of it because, in spite of
+all his natural piety and his fervent ethical sentiments, he lacked the
+mystic insight which is the foundation of every creed.
+
+It was this personal lack in Erasmus which made him unable to understand
+the real grounds of the resistance of Catholic orthodoxy. How was it
+possible that so many, and among them men of high consideration, refused
+to accept what to him seemed so clear and irrefutable! He interpreted
+the fact in a highly personal way. He, the man who would so gladly have
+lived in peace with all the world, who so yearned for sympathy and
+recognition, and bore enmity with difficulty, saw the ranks of haters
+and opponents increase about him. He did not understand how they feared
+his mocking acrimony, how many wore the scar of a wound that the _Moria_
+had made. That real and supposed hatred troubled Erasmus. He sees his
+enemies as a sect. It is especially the Dominicans and the Carmelites
+who are ill-affected towards the new scientific theology. Just then a
+new adversary had arisen at Louvain in the person of his compatriot
+Nicholas of Egmond, prior of the Carmelites, henceforth an object of
+particular abhorrence to him. It is remarkable that at Louvain Erasmus
+found his fiercest opponents in some compatriots, in the narrower sense
+of the word: Vincent Dirks of Haarlem, William of Vianen, Ruurd Tapper.
+The persecution increases: the venom of slander spreads more and more
+every day and becomes more deadly; the greatest untruths are impudently
+preached about him; he calls in the help of Ath, the vice-chancellor,
+against them. But it is no use; the hidden enemies laugh; let him write
+for the erudite, who are few; we shall bark to stir up the people. After
+1520 he writes again and again: 'I am stoned every day'.
+
+But Erasmus, however much he might see himself, not without reason, at
+the centre, could, in 1519 and 1520, no longer be blind to the fact that
+the great struggle did not concern him alone. On all sides the battle
+was being fought. What is it, that great commotion about matters of
+spirit and of faith?
+
+The answer which Erasmus gave himself was this: it is a great and wilful
+conspiracy on the part of the conservatives to suffocate good learning
+and make the old ignorance triumph. This idea recurs innumerable times
+in his letters after the middle of 1518. 'I know quite certainly', he
+writes on 21 March 1519 to one of his German friends, 'that the
+barbarians on all sides have conspired to leave no stone unturned till
+they have suppressed _bonae literae_.' 'Here we are still fighting with
+the protectors of the old ignorance'; cannot Wolsey persuade the Pope to
+stop it here? All that appertains to ancient and cultured literature is
+called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they
+indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to
+say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole
+tragedy--under these terms he usually refers to the great theological
+struggle--originates in the hatred of _bonae literae_. 'This is the
+source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic
+study and the _bonae literae_.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it
+is impossible to conquer, though their cause is a bad one. And meanwhile
+envy harasses the _bonae literae_, which are attacked at his (Luther's)
+instigation by these gadflies. They are already nearly insufferable,
+when things do not go well with them; but who can stand them when they
+triumph? Either I am blind, or they aim at something else than Luther.
+They are preparing to conquer the phalanx of the Muses.'
+
+This was written by Erasmus to a member of the University of Leipzig in
+December 1520. This one-sided and academic conception of the great
+events, a conception which arose in the study of a recluse bending over
+his books, did more than anything else to prevent Erasmus from
+understanding the true nature and purport of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FIRST YEARS OF THE REFORMATION
+
+    Beginning of the relations between Erasmus and Luther--
+    Archbishop Albert of Mayence, 1517--Progress of the
+    Reformation--Luther tries to bring about a _rapprochement_ with
+    Erasmus, March 1519--Erasmus keeps aloof; fancies he may yet act
+    as a conciliator--His attitude becomes ambiguous--He denies ever
+    more emphatically all relations with Luther and resolves to
+    remain a spectator--He is pressed by either camp to take
+    sides--Aleander in the Netherlands--The Diet of Worms,
+    1521--Erasmus leaves Louvain to safeguard his freedom, October
+    1521
+
+
+About the close of 1516, Erasmus received a letter from the librarian
+and secretary of Frederick, elector of Saxony, George Spalatinus,
+written in the respectful and reverential tone in which the great man
+was now approached. 'We all esteem you here most highly; the elector has
+all your books in his library and intends to buy everything you may
+publish in future.' But the object of Spalatinus's letter was the
+execution of a friend's commission. An Augustinian ecclesiastic, a great
+admirer of Erasmus, had requested him to direct his attention to the
+fact that in his interpretation of St. Paul, especially in that of the
+epistle to the Romans, Erasmus had failed to conceive the idea of
+_justitia_ correctly, had paid too little attention to original sin: he
+might profit by reading Augustine.
+
+The nameless Austin Friar was Luther, then still unknown outside the
+circle of the Wittenberg University, in which he was a professor, and
+the criticism regarded the cardinal point of his hardly acquired
+conviction: justification by faith.
+
+Erasmus paid little attention to this letter. He received so many of
+that sort, containing still more praise and no criticism. If he answered
+it, the reply did not reach Spalatinus, and later Erasmus completely
+forgot the whole letter.
+
+Nine months afterwards, in September 1517, when Erasmus had been at
+Louvain for a short time, he received an honourable invitation, written
+by the first prelate of the Empire, the young Archbishop of Mayence,
+Albert of Brandenburg. The archbishop would be pleased to see him on an
+occasion: he greatly admired his work (he knew it so little as to speak
+of Erasmus's emendation of the Old Testament, instead of the New) and
+hoped that he would one day write some lives of saints in elegant style.
+
+The young Hohenzoller, advocate of the new light of classical studies,
+whose attention had probably been drawn to Erasmus by Hutten and Capito,
+who sojourned at his court, had recently become engaged in one of the
+boldest political and financial transactions of his time. His elevation
+to the see of Mayence, at the age of twenty-four, had necessitated a
+papal dispensation, as he also wished to keep the archbishopric of
+Magdeburg and the see of Halberstadt. This accumulation of
+ecclesiastical offices had to be made subservient to the Brandenburg
+policy which opposed the rival house of Saxony. The Pope granted the
+dispensation in return for a great sum of money, but to facilitate its
+payment he accorded to the archbishop a liberal indulgence for the whole
+archbishopric of Mayence, Magdeburg and the Brandenburg territories.
+Albert, to whom half the proceeds were tacitly left, raised a loan with
+the house of Fugger, and this charged itself with the indulgence
+traffic.
+
+When in December 1517, Erasmus answered the archbishop, Luther's
+propositions against indulgences, provoked by the Archbishop of
+Mayence's instructions regarding their colportage, had already been
+posted up (31 October 1517), and were circulated throughout Germany,
+rousing the whole Church. They were levelled at the same abuses which
+Erasmus combated, the mechanical, atomistical, and juridical conception
+of religion. But how different was their practical effect, as compared
+with Erasmus's pacific endeavour to purify the Church by lenient means!
+
+'Lives of saints?' Erasmus asked replying to the archbishop. 'I have
+tried in my poor way to add a little light to the prince of saints
+himself. For the rest, your endeavour, in addition to so many difficult
+matters of government, and at such an early age, to get the lives of the
+saints purged of old women's tales and disgusting style, is extremely
+laudable. For nothing should be suffered in the Church that is not
+perfectly pure or refined,' And he concludes with a magnificent eulogy
+of the excellent prelate.
+
+During the greater part of 1518, Erasmus was too much occupied by his
+own affairs--the journey to Basle and his red-hot labours there, and
+afterwards his serious illness--to concern himself much with Luther's
+business. In March he sends Luther's theses to More, without comment,
+and, in passing, complains to Colet about the impudence with which Rome
+disseminates indulgences. Luther, now declared a heretic and summoned to
+appear at Augsburg, stands before the legate Cajetanus and refuses to
+recant. Seething enthusiasm surrounds him. Just about that time Erasmus
+writes to one of Luther's partisans, John Lang, in very favourable terms
+about his work. The theses have pleased everybody. 'I see that the
+monarchy of the Pope at Rome, as it is now, is a pestilence to
+Christendom, but I do not know if it is expedient to touch that sore
+openly. That would be a matter for princes, but I fear that these will
+act in concert with the Pope to secure part of the spoils. I do not
+understand what possessed Eck to take up arms against Luther.' The
+letter did not find its way into any of the collections.
+
+The year 1519 brought the struggle attending the election of an emperor,
+after old Maximilian had died in January, and the attempt of the curia
+to regain ground with lenity. Germany was expecting the long-projected
+disputation between Johannes Eck and Andreas Karlstadt which, in truth,
+would concern Luther. How could Erasmus, who himself was involved that
+year in so many polemics, have foreseen that the Leipzig disputation,
+which was to lead Luther to the consequence of rejecting the highest
+ecclesiastical authority, would remain of lasting importance in the
+history of the world, whereas his quarrel with Lee would be forgotten?
+
+On 28 March 1519 Luther addressed himself personally to Erasmus for the
+first time. 'I speak with you so often, and you with me, Erasmus, our
+ornament and our hope; and we do not know each other as yet.' He
+rejoices to find that Erasmus displeases many, for this he regards as a
+sign that God has blessed him. Now that his, Luther's, name begins to
+get known too, a longer silence between them might be wrongly
+interpreted. 'Therefore, my Erasmus, amiable man, if you think fit,
+acknowledge also this little brother in Christ, who really admires you
+and feels friendly disposed towards you, and for the rest would deserve
+no better, because of his ignorance, than to lie, unknown, buried in a
+corner.'
+
+There was a very definite purpose in this somewhat rustically cunning
+and half ironical letter. Luther wanted, if possible, to make Erasmus
+show his colours, to win him, the powerful authority, touchstone of
+science and culture, for the cause which he advocated. In his heart
+Luther had long been aware of the deep gulf separating him from Erasmus.
+As early as March 1517, six months before his public appearance, he
+wrote about Erasmus to John Lang: 'human matters weigh heavier with him
+than divine,' an opinion that so many have pronounced about
+Erasmus--obvious, and yet unfair.
+
+The attempt, on the part of Luther, to effect a _rapprochement_ was a
+reason for Erasmus to retire at once. Now began that extremely ambiguous
+policy of Erasmus to preserve peace by his authority as a light of the
+world and to steer a middle course without committing himself. In that
+attitude the great and the petty side of his personality are
+inextricably intertwined. The error because of which most historians
+have seen Erasmus's attitude towards the Reformation either in far too
+unfavourable a light or--as for instance the German historian
+Kalkoff--much too heroic and far-seeing, is that they erroneously regard
+him as psychologically homogeneous. Just that he is not. His
+double-sidedness roots in the depths of his being. Many of his
+utterances during the struggle proceed directly from his fear and lack
+of character, also from his inveterate dislike of siding with a person
+or a cause; but behind that is always his deep and fervent conviction
+that neither of the conflicting opinions can completely express the
+truth, that human hatred and purblindness infatuate men's minds. And
+with that conviction is allied the noble illusion that it might yet be
+possible to preserve the peace by moderation, insight, and kindliness.
+
+In April 1519 Erasmus addressed himself by letter to the elector
+Frederick of Saxony, Luther's patron. He begins by alluding to his
+dedication of Suetonius two years before; but his real purpose is to say
+something about Luther. Luther's writings, he says, have given the
+Louvain obscurants plenty of reason to inveigh against the _bonae
+literae_, to decry all scholars. He himself does not know Luther and has
+glanced through his writings only cursorily as yet, but everyone praises
+his life. How little in accordance with theological gentleness it is to
+condemn him offhand, and that before the indiscreet vulgar! For has he
+not proposed a dispute, and submitted himself to everybody's judgement?
+No one has, so far, admonished, taught, convinced him. Every error is
+not at once heresy.
+
+The best of Christianity is a life worthy of Christ. Where we find that,
+we should not rashly suspect people of heresy. Why do we so uncharitably
+persecute the lapses of others, though none of us is free from error?
+Why do we rather want to conquer than cure, suppress than instruct?
+
+But he concludes with a word that could not but please Luther's friends,
+who so hoped for his support. 'May the duke prevent an innocent man from
+being surrendered under the cloak of piety to the impiety of a few. This
+is also the wish of Pope Leo, who has nothing more at heart than that
+innocence be safe.'
+
+At this same time Erasmus does his best to keep Froben back from
+publishing Luther's writings, 'that they may not fan the hatred of the
+_bonae literae_ still more'. And he keeps repeating: I do not know
+Luther, I have not read his writings. He makes this declaration to
+Luther himself, in his reply to the latter's epistle of 28 March. This
+letter of Erasmus, dated 30 May 1519, should be regarded as a newspaper
+leader[17], to acquaint the public with his attitude towards the Luther
+question. Luther does not know the tragedies which his writings have
+caused at Louvain. People here think that Erasmus has helped him in
+composing them and call him the standard bearer of the party! That
+seemed to them a fitting pretext to suppress the _bonae literae_. 'I
+have declared that you are perfectly unknown to me, that I have not yet
+read your books and therefore neither approve nor disapprove anything.'
+'I reserve myself, so far as I may, to be of use to the reviving
+studies. Discreet moderation seems likely to bring better progress than
+impetuosity. It was by this that Christ subjugated the world.'
+
+On the same day he writes to John Lang, one of Luther's friends and
+followers, a short note, not meant for publication: 'I hope that the
+endeavours of yourself and your party will be successful. Here the
+Papists rave violently.... All the best minds are rejoiced at Luther's
+boldness: I do not doubt he will be careful that things do not end in a
+quarrel of parties!... We shall never triumph over feigned Christians
+unless we first abolish the tyranny of the Roman see, and of its
+satellites, the Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Carmelites. But no
+one could attempt that without a serious tumult.'
+
+As the gulf widens, Erasmus's protestations that he has nothing to do
+with Luther become much more frequent. Relations at Louvain grow ever
+more disagreeable and the general sentiment about him ever more unkind.
+In August 1519 he turns to the Pope himself for protection against his
+opponents. He still fails to see how wide the breach is. He still takes
+it all to be quarrels of scholars. King Henry of England and King
+Francis of France in their own countries have imposed silence upon the
+quarrellers and slanderers; if only the Pope would do the same!
+
+In October he was once more reconciled with the Louvain faculty. It was
+just at this time that Colet died in London, the man who had, better
+perhaps than anyone else, understood Erasmus's standpoint. Kindred
+spirits in Germany still looked up to Erasmus as the great man who was
+on the alert to interpose at the right moment and who had made
+moderation the watchword, until the time should come to give his friends
+the signal.
+
+But in the increasing noise of the battle his voice already sounded less
+powerfully than before. A letter to Cardinal Albert of Mayence, 19
+October 1519, of about the same content as that of Frederick of Saxony
+written in the preceding spring, was at once circulated by Luther's
+friends; and by the advocates of conservatism, in spite of the usual
+protestation, 'I do not know Luther', it was made to serve against
+Erasmus.
+
+It became more and more clear that the mediating and conciliatory
+position which Erasmus wished to take up would soon be altogether
+untenable. The inquisitor Jacob Hoogstraten had come from Cologne, where
+he was a member of the University, to Louvain, to work against Luther
+there, as he had worked against Reuchlin. On 7 November 1519 the Louvain
+faculty, following the example of that of Cologne, proceeded to take the
+decisive step: the solemn condemnation of a number of Luther's opinions.
+In future no place could be less suitable to Erasmus than Louvain, the
+citadel of action against reformers. It is surprising that he remained
+there another two years.
+
+The expectation that he would be able to speak the conciliating word was
+paling. For the rest he failed to see the true proportions. During the
+first months of 1520 his attention was almost entirely taken up by his
+own polemics with Lee, a paltry incident in the great revolution. The
+desire to keep aloof got more and more the upper hand of him. In June he
+writes to Melanchthon: 'I see that matters begin to look like sedition.
+It is perhaps necessary that scandals occur, but I should prefer not to
+be the author.' He has, he thinks, by his influence with Wolsey,
+prevented the burning of Luther's writings in England, which had been
+ordered. But he was mistaken. The burning had taken place in London, as
+early as 12 May.
+
+The best proof that Erasmus had practically given up his hope to play a
+conciliatory part may be found in what follows. In the summer of 1520
+the famous meeting between the three monarchs, Henry VIII, Francis I and
+Charles V, took place at Calais. Erasmus was to go there in the train of
+his prince. How would such a congress of princes--where in peaceful
+conclave the interests of France, England, Spain, the German Empire, and
+a considerable part of Italy, were represented together--have affected
+Erasmus's imagination, if his ideal had remained unshaken! But there are
+no traces of this. Erasmus was at Calais in July 1520, had some
+conversation with Henry VIII there, and greeted More, but it does not
+appear that he attached any other importance to the journey than that of
+an opportunity, for the last time, to greet his English friends.
+
+It was awkward for Erasmus that just at this time, when the cause of
+faith took so much harsher forms, his duties as counsellor to the
+youthful Charles, now back from Spain to be crowned as emperor,
+circumscribed his liberty more than before. In the summer of 1520
+appeared, based on the incriminating material furnished by the Louvain
+faculty, the papal bull declaring Luther to be a heretic, and, unless he
+should speedily recant, excommunicating him. 'I fear the worst for the
+unfortunate Luther,' Erasmus writes, 9 September 1520, 'so does
+conspiracy rage everywhere, so are princes incensed with him on all
+sides, and, most of all, Pope Leo. Would Luther had followed my advice
+and abstained from those hostile and seditious actions!... They will not
+rest until they have quite subverted the study of languages and the good
+learning.... Out of the hatred against these and the stupidity of monks
+did this tragedy first arise.... I do not meddle with it. For the rest,
+a bishopric is waiting for me if I choose to write against Luther.'
+
+Indeed, Erasmus had become, by virtue of his enormous celebrity, as
+circumstances would have it, more and more a valuable asset in the great
+policy of emperor and pope. People wanted to use his name and make him
+choose sides. And that he would not do for any consideration. He wrote
+evasively to the Pope about his relations with Luther without altogether
+disavowing him. How zealously he defends himself from the suspicion of
+being on Luther's side as noisy monks make out in their sermons, who
+summarily link the two in their scoffing disparagement.
+
+But by the other side also he is pressed to choose sides and to speak
+out. Towards the end of October 1520 the coronation of the emperor took
+place at Aix-la-Chapelle. Erasmus was perhaps present; in any case he
+accompanied the Emperor to Cologne. There, on 5 November, he had an
+interview about Luther with the Elector Frederick of Saxony. He was
+persuaded to write down the result of that discussion in the form of
+twenty-two _Axiomata concerning Luther's cause_. Against his intention
+they were printed at once.
+
+Erasmus's hesitation in those days between the repudiation and the
+approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is the tragic
+defect running through his whole personality: his refusal or inability
+ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and
+selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long since have
+altogether forsaken Luther's cause. It is his misfortune affecting his
+fame, that he continually shows his weaknesses, whereas what is great in
+him lies deep.
+
+At Cologne Erasmus also met the man with whom, as a promising young
+humanist, fourteen years younger than himself, he had, for some months,
+shared a room in the house of Aldus's father-in-law, at Venice:
+Hieronymus Aleander, now sent to the Emperor as a papal nuncio, to
+persuade him to conform his imperial policy to that of the Pope, in the
+matter of the great ecclesiastical question, and give effect to the
+papal excommunication by the imperial ban.
+
+It must have been somewhat painful for Erasmus that his friend had so
+far surpassed him in power and position, and was now called to bring by
+diplomatic means the solution which he himself would have liked to see
+achieved by ideal harmony, good will and toleration. He had never
+trusted Aleander, and was more than ever on his guard against him. As a
+humanist, in spite of brilliant gifts, Aleander was by far Erasmus's
+inferior, and had never, like him, risen from literature to serious
+theological studies; he had simply prospered in the service of Church
+magnates (whom Erasmus had given up early). This man was now invested
+with the highest mediating powers.
+
+To what degree of exasperation Erasmus's most violent antagonists at
+Louvain had now been reduced is seen from the witty and slightly
+malicious account he gives Thomas More of his meeting with Egmondanus
+before the Rector of the university, who wanted to reconcile them. Still
+things did not look so black as Ulrich von Hutten thought, when he wrote
+to Erasmus: 'Do you think that you are still safe, now that Luther's
+books are burned? Fly, and save yourself for us!'
+
+Ever more emphatic do Erasmus's protestations become that he has nothing
+to do with Luther. Long ago he had already requested him not to mention
+his name, and Luther promised it: 'Very well, then, I shall not again
+refer to you, neither will other good friends, since it troubles you'.
+Ever louder, too, are Erasmus's complaints about the raving of the monks
+at him, and his demands that the mendicant orders be deprived of the
+right to preach.
+
+In April 1521 comes the moment in the world's history to which
+Christendom has been looking forward: Luther at the Diet of Worms,
+holding fast to his opinions, confronted by the highest authority in the
+Empire. So great is the rejoicing in Germany that for a moment it may
+seem that the Emperor's power is in danger rather than Luther and his
+adherents. 'If I had been present', writes Erasmus, 'I should have
+endeavoured that this tragedy would have been so tempered by moderate
+arguments that it could not afterwards break out again to the still
+greater detriment of the world.'
+
+The imperial sentence was pronounced: within the Empire (as in the
+Burgundian Netherlands before that time) Luther's books were to be
+burned, his adherents arrested and their goods confiscated, and Luther
+was to be given up to the authorities. Erasmus hopes that now relief
+will follow. 'The Luther tragedy is at an end with us here; would it had
+never appeared on the stage.' In these days Albrecht Dürer, on hearing
+the false news of Luther's death, wrote in the diary of his journey that
+passionate exclamation: 'O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you be?
+Hear, you knight of Christ, ride forth beside the Lord Christ, protect
+the truth, obtain the martyr's crown. For you are but an old manikin. I
+have heard you say that you have allowed yourself two more years, in
+which you are still fit to do some work; spend them well, in behalf of
+the Gospel and the true Christian faith.... O Erasmus, be on this side,
+that God may be proud of you.'
+
+It expresses confidence in Erasmus's power, but at bottom is the
+expectation that he will not do all this. Dürer had rightly understood
+Erasmus.
+
+The struggle abated nowise, least of all at Louvain. Latomus, the most
+dignified and able of Louvain divines, had now become one of the most
+serious opponents of Luther and, in so doing, touched Erasmus, too,
+indirectly. To Nicholas of Egmond, the Carmelite, another of Erasmus's
+compatriots had been added as a violent antagonist, Vincent Dirks of
+Haarlem, a Dominican. Erasmus addresses himself to the faculty, to
+defend himself against the new attacks, and to explain why he has never
+written against Luther. He will read him, he will soon take up something
+to quiet the tumult. He succeeds in getting Aleander, who arrived at
+Louvain in June, to prohibit preaching against him. The Pope still hopes
+that Aleander will succeed in bringing back Erasmus, with whom he is
+again on friendly terms, to the right track.
+
+But Erasmus began to consider the only exit which was now left to him:
+to leave Louvain and the Netherlands to regain his menaced independence.
+The occasion to depart had long ago presented itself: the third edition
+of his New Testament called him to Basle once more. It would not be a
+permanent departure, and he purposed to return to Louvain. On 28 October
+(his birthday) he left the town where he had spent four difficult years.
+His chambers in the College of the Lily were reserved for him and he
+left his books behind. On 15 November he reached Basle.
+
+Soon the rumour spread that out of fear of Aleander he had saved himself
+by flight. But the idea, revived again in our days in spite of Erasmus's
+own painstaking denial, that Aleander should have cunningly and
+expressly driven him from the Netherlands, is inherently improbable. So
+far as the Church was concerned, Erasmus would at almost any point be
+more dangerous than at Louvain, in the headquarters of conservatism,
+under immediate control of the strict Burgundian government, where, it
+seemed, he could sooner or later be pressed into the service of the
+anti-Lutheran policy.
+
+It was this contingency, as Dr. Allen has correctly pointed out, which
+he feared and evaded. Not for his bodily safety did he emigrate; Erasmus
+would not have been touched--he was far too valuable an asset for such
+measures. It was his mental independence, so dear to him above all else,
+that he felt to be threatened; and, to safeguard that, he did not return
+to Louvain.
+
+[Illustration: XIX. THE HOUSE AT ANDERLECHT WHERE ERASMUS LIVED FROM MAY
+TO NOVEMBER 1521]
+
+[Illustration: XX. ERASMUS'S STUDY AT ANDERLECHT]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] Translation on pp. 229 ff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+ERASMUS AT BASLE
+
+1521-9
+
+    Basle his dwelling-place for nearly eight years:
+    1521-9--Political thought of Erasmus--Concord and
+    peace--Anti-war writings--Opinions concerning princes and
+    government--New editions of several Fathers--The
+    _Colloquia_--Controversies with Stunica, Beda, etc.--Quarrel
+    with Hutten--Eppendorff
+
+
+It is only towards the evening of life that the picture of Erasmus
+acquires the features with which it was to go down to posterity. Only at
+Basle--delivered from the troublesome pressure of parties wanting to
+enlist him, transplanted from an environment of haters and opponents at
+Louvain to a circle of friends, kindred spirits, helpers and admirers,
+emancipated from the courts of princes, independent of the patronage of
+purifying yourself from the lust of life, you will come unto that lake
+where all desire shall be washed away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+'NOBLESSE OBLIGE'
+
+     'Sooner shall the cleft rock reunite so as to make a whole, than
+     may he who kills any living being be admitted into our
+     society.'--_Acceptance into the Monkhood._
+
+
+It is very noticeable throughout the bazaars of Burma that all the beef
+butchers are natives of India. No Burman will kill a cow or a bullock,
+and no Burman will sell its meat. It is otherwise with pork and fowls.
+Burmans may sometimes be found selling these; and fish are almost
+invariably sold by the wives of the fishermen. During the king's time,
+any man who was even found in possession of beef was liable to very
+severe punishment. The only exception, as I have explained elsewhere,
+was in the case of the queen when expecting an addition to her family,
+and it was necessary that she should be strengthened in all ways. None,
+not even foreigners, were allowed to kill beef, and this law was very
+stringently observed. Other flesh and fish might, as far as the law of
+the country went, be sold with impunity. You could not be fined for
+killing and eating goats, or fowls, or pigs, and these were sold
+occasionally. It is now ten years since King Thibaw was overthrown, and
+there is now no law against the sale of beef. And yet, as I have said,
+no respectable Burman will even now kill or sell beef. The law was
+founded on the beliefs of the people, and though the law is dead, the
+beliefs remain.
+
+It is true that the taking of life is against Buddhist commands. No life
+at all may be taken by him who adheres to Buddhistic teaching. Neither
+for sport, nor for revenge, nor for food, may any animal be deprived of
+the breath that is in it. And this is a command wonderfully well kept.
+There are a few exceptions, but they are known and accepted as breaches
+of the law, for the law itself knows no exceptions. Fish, as I have
+said, can be obtained almost everywhere. They are caught in great
+quantities in the river, and are sold in most bazaars, either fresh or
+salted. It is one of the staple foods of the Burmese. But although they
+will eat fish, they despise the fisherman. Not so much, perhaps, as if
+he killed other living things, but still, the fisherman is an outcast
+from decent society. He will have to suffer great and terrible
+punishment before he can be cleansed from the sins that he daily
+commits. Notwithstanding this, there are many fishermen in Burma.
+
+A fish is a very cold-blooded beast. One must be very hard up for
+something to love to have any affection to spare upon fishes. They
+cannot be, or at all events they never are, domesticated, and most of
+them are not beautiful. I am not aware that they have ever been known to
+display any attachment to anyone, which accounts, perhaps, for the
+comparatively lenient eye with which their destruction is contemplated.
+
+For with warm-blooded animals it is very different. Cattle, as I have
+said, can never be killed nor their meat sold by a Burman, and with
+other animals the difficulty is not much less.
+
+I was in Upper Burma for some months before the war, and many a time I
+could get no meat at all. Living in a large town among prosperous
+people, I could get no flesh at all, only fish and rice and vegetables.
+When, after much trouble, my Indian cook would get me a few fowls, he
+would often be waylaid and forced to release them. An old woman, say,
+anxious to do some deed of merit, would come to him as he returned
+triumphantly home with his fowls and tender him money, and beg him to
+release the fowls. She would give the full price or double the price of
+the fowls; she had no desire to gain merit at another person's expense,
+and the unwilling cook would be obliged to give up the fowls. Public
+opinion was so strong he dare not refuse. The money was paid, the fowls
+set free, and I dined on tinned beef.
+
+And yet the villages are full of fowls. Why they are kept I do not know.
+Certainly not for food. I do not mean to say that an accidental meeting
+between a rock and a fowl may not occasionally furnish forth a dinner,
+but this is not the object with which they are kept--of this I am sure.
+
+You would not suppose that fowls were capable of exciting much
+affection, yet I suppose they are. Certainly in one case ducks were.
+There is a Burman lady I know who is married to an Englishman. He kept
+ducks. He bought a number of ducklings, and had them fed up so that they
+might be fat and succulent when the time came for them to be served at
+table. They became very fine ducks, and my friend had promised me one. I
+took an interest in them, and always noticed their increasing fatness
+when I rode that way. Imagine, then, my disappointment when one day I
+saw that all the ducks had disappeared.
+
+I stopped to inquire. Yes, truly they were all gone, my friend told me.
+In his absence his wife had gone up the river to visit some friends, and
+had taken the ducks with her. She could not bear, she said, that they
+should be killed, so she took them away and distributed them among her
+friends, one here and one there, where she was sure they would be well
+treated and not killed. When she returned she was quite pleased at her
+success, and laughed at her husband and me.
+
+This same lady was always terribly distressed when she had to order a
+fowl to be killed for her husband's breakfast, even if she had never
+seen it before. I have seen her, after telling the cook to kill a fowl
+for breakfast, run away and sit down in the veranda with her hands over
+her ears, and her face the very picture of misery, fearing lest she
+should hear its shrieks. I think that this was the one great trouble to
+her in her marriage, that her husband would insist on eating fowls and
+ducks, and that she had to order them to be killed.
+
+As she is, so are most Burmans. If there is all this trouble about
+fowls, it can be imagined how the trouble increases when it comes to
+goats or any larger beasts. In the jungle villages meat of any kind at
+all is never seen: no animals of any kind are allowed to be killed. An
+officer travelling in the district would be reduced to what he could
+carry with him, if it were not for an Act of Government obliging
+villages to furnish--on payment, of course--supplies for officers and
+troops passing through. The mere fact of such a law being necessary is
+sufficient proof of the strength of the feeling against taking life.
+
+Of course, all shooting, either for sport or for food, is looked upon as
+disgraceful. In many jungle villages where deer abound there are one or
+two hunters who make a living by hunting. But they are disgraced men.
+They are worse than fishermen, and they will have a terrible penalty to
+pay for it all. It will take much suffering to wash from their souls the
+cruelty, the blood-thirstiness, the carelessness to suffering, the
+absence of compassion, that hunting must produce. 'Is there no food in
+the bazaar, that you must go and take the lives of animals?' has been
+said to me many a time. And when my house-roof was infested by sparrows,
+who dropped grass and eggs all over my rooms, so that I was obliged to
+shoot them with a little rifle, this was no excuse. 'You should have
+built a sparrow-cote,' they told me. 'If you had built a sparrow-cote,
+they would have gone away and left you in peace. They only wanted to
+make nests and lay eggs and have little ones, and you went and shot
+them.' There are many sparrow-cotes to be seen in the villages.
+
+I might give example after example of this sort, for they happen every
+day. We who are meat-eaters, who delight in shooting, who have a horror
+of insects and reptiles, are continually coming into collision with the
+principles of our neighbours; for even harmful reptiles they do not care
+to kill. Truly I believe it is a myth, the story of the Burmese mother
+courteously escorting out of the house the scorpion which had just
+bitten her baby. A Burmese mother worships her baby as much as the woman
+of any other nation does, and I believe there is no crime she would not
+commit in its behalf. But if she saw a scorpion walking about in the
+fields, she would not kill it as we should. She would step aside and
+pass on. 'Poor beast!' she would say, 'why should I hurt it? It never
+hurt me.'
+
+The Burman never kills insects out of sheer brutality. If a beetle drone
+annoyingly, he will catch it in a handkerchief and put it outside, and
+so with a bee. It is a great trouble often to get your Burmese servants
+to keep your house free of ants and other annoying creatures. If you
+tell them to kill the insects they will, for in that case the sin falls
+on you. Without special orders they would rather leave the ants alone.
+
+In the district in which I am now living snakes are very plentiful.
+There are cobras and keraits, but the most dreaded is the Russell's
+viper. He is a snake that averages from three to four feet long, and is
+very thick, with a big head and a stumpy tail. His body is marked very
+prettily with spots and blurs of light on a dark, grayish green, and he
+is so like the shadows of the grass and weeds in a dusty road, that you
+can walk on him quite unsuspectingly. Then he will bite you, and you
+die. He comes out usually in the evening before dark, and lies about on
+footpaths to catch the home-coming ploughman or reaper, and, contrary to
+the custom of other snakes, he will not flee on hearing a footstep. When
+anyone approaches he lies more still than ever, not even a movement of
+his head betraying him. He is so like the colour of the ground, he hopes
+he will be passed unseen; and he is slow and lethargic in his movements,
+and so is easy to kill when once detected. As a Burman said, 'If he sees
+you first, he kills you; if you see him first, you kill him.'
+
+In this district no Burman hesitates a moment in killing a viper when
+he has the chance. Usually he has to do it in self-defence. This viper
+is terribly feared, as over a hundred persons a year die here by his
+bite. He is so hated and feared that he has become an outcast from the
+law that protects all life.
+
+But with other snakes it is not so. There is the hamadryad, for
+instance. He is a great snake about ten to fourteen feet long, and he is
+the only snake that will attack you first. He is said always to do so,
+certainly he often does. One attacked me once when out quail-shooting.
+He put up his great neck and head suddenly at a distance of only five or
+six feet, and was just preparing to strike, when I literally blew his
+head off with two charges of shot.
+
+You would suppose he was vicious enough to be included with the
+Russell's viper in the category of the exceptions, but no. Perhaps he is
+too rare to excite such fierce and deadly hate as makes the Burman
+forget his law and kill the viper. However it may be, the Burman is not
+ready to kill the hamadryad. A few weeks ago a friend of mine and myself
+came across two little Burman boys carrying a jar with a piece of broken
+tile over it. The lads kept lifting up the tile and peeping in, and then
+putting the tile on again in a great hurry, and their actions excited
+our curiosity. So we called them to come to us, and we looked into the
+jar. It was full of baby hamadryads. The lads had found a nest of them
+in the absence of the mother, who would have killed them if she had
+been there, and had secured all the little snakes. There were seven of
+them.
+
+We asked the boys what they intended to do with the snakes, and they
+answered that they would show them to their friends in the village. 'And
+then?' we asked. And then they would let them go in the water. My friend
+killed all the hamadryads on the spot, and gave the boys some coppers,
+and we went on. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else? Can you
+think of any other schoolboys sparing any animal they caught, much less
+poisonous snakes? The extraordinary hold that this tenet of their
+religion has upon the Burmese must be seen to be understood. What I
+write will sound like some fairy story, I fear, to my people at home. It
+is far beneath the truth. The belief that it is wrong to take life is a
+belief with them as strong as any belief could be. I do not know
+anywhere any command, earthly or heavenly, that is acted up to with such
+earnestness as this command is amongst the Burmese. It is an abiding
+principle of their daily life.
+
+Where the command came from I do not know. I cannot find any allusion to
+it in the life of the great teacher. We know that he ate meat. It seems
+to me that it is older even than he. It has been derived both by the
+Burmese Buddhists and the Hindus from a faith whose origin is hidden in
+the mists of long ago. It is part of that far older faith on which
+Buddhism was built, as was Christianity on Judaism.
+
+But if not part of his teaching--and though it is included in the sacred
+books, we do not know how much of them are derived from the Buddha
+himself--it is in strict accordance with all his teaching. That is one
+of the most wonderful points of Buddhism, it is all in accordance; there
+are no exceptions.
+
+I have heard amongst Europeans a very curious explanation of this
+refusal of Buddhists to take life. 'Buddhists,' they say, 'believe in
+the transmigration of souls. They believe that when a man dies his soul
+may go into a beast. You could not expect him to kill a bull, when
+perchance his grandfather's soul might inhabit there.' This is their
+explanation, this is the way they put two and two together to make five.
+They know that Buddhists believe in transmigration, they know that
+Buddhists do not like to take life, and therefore one is the cause of
+the other.
+
+I have mentioned this explanation to Burmans while talking of the
+subject, and they have always laughed at it. They had never heard of it
+before. It is true that it is part of their great theory of life that
+the souls of men have risen from being souls of beasts, and that we may
+so relapse if we are not careful. Many stories are told of cases that
+have occurred where a man has been reincarnated as an animal, and where
+what is now the soul of a man used to live in a beast. But that makes no
+difference. Whatever a man may have been, or may be, he is a man now;
+whatever a beast may have been, he is a beast now. Never suppose that a
+Burman has any other idea than this. To him men are men, and animals are
+animals, and men are far the higher. But he does not deduce from this
+that man's superiority gives him permission to illtreat or to kill
+animals. It is just the reverse. It is because man is so much higher
+than the animal that he can and must observe towards animals the very
+greatest care, feel for them the very greatest compassion, be good to
+them in every way he can. The Burman's motto should be _Noblesse
+oblige_; he knows the meaning, if he knows not the words.
+
+For the Burman's compassion towards animals goes very much farther than
+a mere reluctance to kill them. Although he has no command on the
+subject, it seems to him quite as important to treat animals well during
+their lives as to refrain from taking those lives. His refusal to take
+life he shares with the Hindu; his perpetual care and tenderness to all
+living creatures is all his own. And here I may mention a very curious
+contrast, that whereas in India the Hindu will not take life and the
+Mussulman will, yet the Mussulman is by reputation far kinder to his
+beasts than the Hindu. Here the Burman combines both qualities. He has
+all the kindness to animals that the Mahommedan has, and more, and he
+has the same horror of taking life that the Hindu has.
+
+Coming from half-starved, over-driven India, it is a revelation to see
+the animals in Burma. The village ponies and cattle and dogs in India
+are enough to make the heart bleed for their sordid misery, but in Burma
+they are a delight to the eye. They are all fat, every one of them--fat
+and comfortable and impertinent; even the ownerless dogs are well fed. I
+suppose the indifference of the ordinary native of India to animal
+suffering comes from the evil of his own lot. He is so very poor, he has
+such hard work to find enough for himself and his children, that his
+sympathy is all used up. He has none to spare. He is driven into a dumb
+heartlessness, for I do not think he is actually cruel.
+
+The Burman is full of the greatest sympathy towards animals of all
+kinds, of the greatest understanding of their ways, of the most
+humorously good-natured attitude towards them. Looking at them from his
+manhood, he has no contempt for them; but the gentle toleration of a
+father to very little children who are stupid and troublesome often, but
+are very lovable. He feels himself so far above them that he can
+condescend towards them, and forbear with them.
+
+His ponies are pictures of fatness and impertinence and go. They never
+have any vice because the Burman is never cruel to them; they are never
+well trained, partly because he does not know how to train them, partly
+because they are so near the aboriginal wild pony as to be incapable of
+very much training. But they are willing; they will go for ever, and
+are very strong, and they have admirable constitutions and tempers. You
+could not make a Burman ill-use his pony if you tried, and I fancy that
+to break these little half-wild ponies to go in cabs in crowded streets
+requires severe treatment. At least, I never knew but one
+hackney-carriage driver either in Rangoon or Mandalay who was a Burman,
+and he very soon gave it up. He said that the work was too heavy either
+for a pony or a man. I think, perhaps, it was for the safety of the
+public that he resigned, for his ponies were the very reverse of
+meek--which a native of India says a hackney-carriage pony should
+be--and he drove entirely by the light of Nature.
+
+So all the drivers of gharries, as we call them, are natives of India or
+half-breeds, and it is amongst them that the work of the Society for the
+Prevention of Cruelty to Animals principally lies. While I was in
+Rangoon I tried a number of cases of over-driving, of using ponies with
+sore withers and the like. I never tried a Burman. Even in Rangoon,
+which has become almost Indianized, his natural humanity never left the
+Burman. As far as Burmans are concerned, the Society for the Prevention
+of Cruelty to Animals need not exist. They are kinder to their animals
+than even the members of the Society could be. Instances occur every
+day; here is one of the most striking that I remember.
+
+There is a town in Burma where there are some troops stationed, and
+which is the headquarters of the civil administration of the district.
+It is, or was then, some distance from a railway-station, and it was
+necessary to make some arrangement for the carriage of the mails to and
+from the town and station. The Post-Office called for tenders, and at
+length it was arranged through the civil authorities that a coach should
+run once a day each way to carry the mails and passengers. A native of
+India agreed to take the contract--for Burmans seldom or never care to
+take them--and he was to comply with certain conditions and receive a
+certain subsidy.
+
+There was a great deal of traffic between the town and station, and it
+was supposed that the passenger traffic would pay the contractor well,
+apart from his mail subsidy. For Burmans are always free with their
+money, and the road was long and hot and dusty. I often passed that
+coach as I rode. I noticed that the ponies were poor, very poor, and
+were driven a little hard, but I saw no reason for interference. It did
+not seem to me that any cruelty was committed, nor that the ponies were
+actually unfit to be driven. I noticed that the driver used his whip a
+good deal, but then some ponies require the whip. I never thought much
+about it, as I always rode my own ponies, and they always shied at the
+coach, but I should have noticed if there had been anything remarkable.
+Towards the end of the year it became necessary to renew the contract,
+and the contractor was approached on the subject. He said he was
+willing to continue the contract for another year if the mail subsidy
+was largely increased. He said he had lost money on that year's working.
+When asked how he could possibly have lost considering the large number
+of people who were always passing up and down, he said that they did not
+ride in his coach. Only the European soldiers and a few natives of India
+came with him. Officers had their own ponies and rode, and the Burmans
+either hired a bullock-cart or walked. They hardly ever came in his
+coach, but he could not say what the reason might be.
+
+So an inquiry was made, and the Burmese were asked why they did not ride
+on the coach. Were the fares too high?--was it uncomfortable? But no, it
+was for neither of these reasons that they left the coach to the
+soldiers and natives of India. It was because of the ponies. No Burman
+would care to ride behind ponies who were treated as these ponies
+were--half fed, overdriven, whipped. It was a misery to see them; it was
+twice a misery to drive behind them. 'Poor beasts!' they said; 'you can
+see their ribs, and when they come to the end of a stage they are fit to
+fall down and die. They should be turned out to graze.'
+
+The opinion was universal. The Burmans preferred to spend twice or
+thrice the money and hire a bullock-cart and go slowly, while the coach
+flashed past them in a whirl of dust, or they preferred to walk. Many
+and many times have I seen the roadside rest-houses full of travellers
+halting for a few minutes' rest. They walked while the coach came by
+empty; and nearly all of them could have afforded the fare. It was a
+very striking instance of what pure kind-heartedness will do, for there
+would have been no religious command broken by going in the coach. It
+was the pure influence of compassion towards the beasts and refusal to
+be a party to such hard-heartedness. And yet, as I have said, I do not
+think the law could have interfered with success. Surely a people who
+could act like this have the very soul of religion in their hearts,
+although the act was not done in the name of religion.
+
+All the animals--the cattle, the ponies, and the buffaloes--are so tame
+that it is almost an unknown thing for anyone to get hurt.
+
+The cattle are sometimes afraid of the white face and strange attire of
+a European, but you can walk through the herds as they come home in the
+evening with perfect confidence that they will not hurt you. Even a cow
+with a young calf will only eye you suspiciously; and with the Burmans
+even the huge water buffaloes are absolutely tame. You can see a herd of
+these great beasts, with horns six feet across, come along under the
+command of a very small boy or girl perched on one of their broad backs.
+He flourishes a little stick, and issues his commands like a general. It
+is one of the quaintest imaginable sights to see this little fellow get
+off his steed, run after a straggler, and beat him with his stick. The
+buffalo eyes his master, whom he could abolish with one shake of his
+head, submissively, and takes the beating, which he probably feels about
+as much as if a straw fell on him, good-humouredly. The children never
+seem to come to grief. Buffaloes occasionally charge Europeans, but the
+only place where I have known of Burmans being killed by buffaloes is in
+the Kalè Valley. There the buffaloes are turned out into the jungle for
+eight months in the year, and are only caught for ploughing and carting.
+Naturally they are quite wild; in fact, many of them are the offspring
+of wild bulls.
+
+The Burmans, too, are very fond of dogs. Their villages are full of
+dogs; but, as far as I know, they never use them for anything, and they
+are never trained to do anything. They are supposed to be useful as
+watch-dogs, but I do not think they are very good even at that. I have
+surrounded a village before dawn, and never a dog barked, and I have
+heard them bark all night at nothing.
+
+But when a Burman sees a fox-terrier or any English dog his delight is
+unfeigned. When we first took Upper Burma, and such sights were rare,
+half a village would turn out to see the little 'tail-less' dog trotting
+along after its master. And if the terrier would 'beg,' then he would
+win all hearts. I am not only referring to children, but to grown men
+and women; and then there is always something peculiarly childlike and
+frank in these children of the great river.
+
+Only to-day, as I was walking up the bank of the river in the early
+dawn, I heard some Burman boatmen discussing my fox-terrier. They were
+about fifteen yards from the shore, poling their boat up against the
+current, which is arduous work; and as I passed them my little dog ran
+down the bank and looked at them across the water, and they saw her.
+
+'See now,' said one man to another, pausing for a moment with his pole
+in his hand--'see the little white dog with the brown face, how wise she
+looks!'
+
+'And how pretty!' said a man steering in the stern. 'Come!' he cried,
+holding out his hand to it.
+
+But the dog only made a splash in the water with her paws, and then
+turned and ran after me. The boatmen laughed and resumed their poling,
+and I passed on. In the still morning across the still water I could
+hear every word, but I hardly took any note; I have heard it so often.
+Only now when I come to write on this subject do I remember.
+
+It has been inculcated in us from childhood that it is a manly thing to
+be indifferent to pain--not to our own pain only, but to that of all
+others. To be sorry for a hunted hare, to compassionate the wounded
+deer, to shrink from torturing the brute creation, has been accounted by
+us as namby-pamby sentimentalism, not fit for man, fit only for a
+squeamish woman. To the Burman it is one of the highest of all virtues.
+He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded on compassion
+and kindness and sympathy--that nothing of great value can exist without
+them. Do you think that a Burmese boy would be allowed to birds'-nest,
+or worry rats with a terrier, or go ferreting? Not so. These would be
+crimes.
+
+That this kindness and compassion for animals has very far-reaching
+results no one can doubt. If you are kind to animals, you will be kind,
+too, to your fellow-man. It is really the same thing, the same feeling
+in both cases. If to be superior in position to an animal justifies you
+in torturing it, so it would do with men. If you are in a better
+position than another man, richer, stronger, higher in rank, that
+would--that does often in our minds--justify ill-treatment and contempt.
+Our innate feeling towards all that we consider inferior to ourselves is
+scorn; the Burman's is compassion. You can see this spirit coming out in
+every action of their daily life, in their dealings with each other, in
+their thoughts, in their speech. 'You are so strong, have you no
+compassion for him who is weak, who is tempted, who has fallen?' How
+often have I heard this from a Burman's lips! How often have I seen him
+act up to it! It seems to them the necessary corollary of strength that
+the strong man should be sympathetic and kind. It seems to them an
+unconscious confession of weakness to be scornful, revengeful,
+inconsiderate. Courtesy, they say, is the mark of a great man,
+discourtesy of a little one. No one who feels his position secure will
+lose his temper, will persecute, will be disdainful. Their word for a
+fool and for a hasty-tempered man is the same. To them it is the same
+thing, one infers the other. And so their attitude towards animals is
+but an example of their attitude to each other. That an animal or a man
+should be lower and weaker than you is the strongest claim he can have
+on your humanity, and your courtesy and consideration for him is the
+clearest proof of your own superiority. And so in his dealings with
+animals the Buddhist considers himself, consults his own dignity, his
+own strength, and is kind and compassionate to them out of the greatness
+of his own heart. Nothing is more beautiful than the Burman in his ways
+with his children, and his beasts, with all who are lesser than himself.
+
+Even to us, who think so very differently from him on many points, there
+is a great and abiding charm in all this, to which we can find only one
+exception; for to our ideas there is one exception, and it is this: No
+Burman will take any life if he can help it, and therefore, if any
+animal injure itself, he will not kill it--not even to put it out of its
+pain, as we say. I have seen bullocks split on slippery roads, I have
+seen ponies with broken legs, I have seen goats with terrible wounds
+caused by accidental falls, and no one would kill them. If, when you are
+out shooting, your beaters pick up a wounded hare or partridge, do not
+suppose that they wring its neck; you must yourself do that, or it will
+linger on till you get home. Under no circumstances will they take the
+life even of a wounded beast. And if you ask them, they will say: 'If a
+man be sick, do you shoot him? If he injure his spine so that he will be
+a cripple for life, do you put him out of his pain?'
+
+If you reply that men and beasts are different, they will answer that in
+this point they do not recognise the difference. 'Poor beast! let him
+live out his little life.' And they will give him grass and water till
+he dies.
+
+This is the exception that I meant, but now, after I have written it, I
+am not so sure. Is it an exception?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ALL LIFE IS ONE
+
+     'I heard a voice that cried,
+     "Balder the Beautiful
+     Is dead, is dead,"
+     And through the misty air
+     Passed like the mournful cry
+     Of sunward-sailing cranes.'
+                            TEGNER'S _Drapa_.
+
+
+All romance has died out of our woods and hills in England, all our
+fairies are dead long ago. Knowledge so far has brought us only death.
+Later on it will bring us a new life. It is even now showing us how this
+may be, and is bringing us face to face again with Nature, and teaching
+us to know and understand the life that there is about us. Science is
+telling us again what we knew long ago and forgot, that our life is not
+apart from the life about us, but of it. Everything is akin to us, and
+when we are more accustomed to this knowledge, when we have ceased to
+regard it as a new, strange teaching, and know that we are but seeing
+again with clearer eyes what a half-knowledge blinded us to, then the
+world will be bright and beautiful to us as it was long ago.
+
+But now all is dark. There are no dryads in our trees, nor nymphs among
+the reeds that fringe the river; even our peaks hold for us no guardian
+spirit, that may take the reckless trespasser and bind him in a rock for
+ever. And because we have lost our belief in fairies, because we do not
+now think that there are goblins in our caves, because there is no
+spirit in the winds nor voice in the thunder, we have come to think that
+the trees and the rocks, the flowers and the storm, are all dead things.
+They are made up, we say, of materials that we know, they are governed
+by laws that we have discovered, and there is no life anywhere in
+Nature.
+
+And yet this cannot be true. Far truer is it to believe in fairies and
+in spirits than in nothing at all; for surely there is life all about
+us. Who that has lived out alone in the forest, that has lain upon the
+hillside and seen the mountains clothe themselves in lustrous shadows
+shot with crimson when the day dies, who that has heard the sigh come up
+out of the ravines where the little breezes move, that has watched the
+trees sway their leaves to and fro, beckoning to each other with wayward
+amorous gestures, but has known that these are not dead things?
+
+Watch the stream coming down the hill with a flash and a laugh in the
+sunlight, look into the dark brown pools in the deep shadows beneath
+the rocks, or voyage a whole night upon the breast of the great river,
+drifting past ghostly monasteries and silent villages, and then say if
+there be no life in the waters, if they, too, are dead things. There is
+no consolation like the consolation of Nature, no sympathy like the
+sympathy of the hills and streams; and sympathy comes from life. There
+is no sympathy with the dead.
+
+When you are alone in the forest all this life will come and talk to
+you, if you are quiet and understand. There is love deep down in the
+passionate heart of the flower, as there is in the little quivering
+honeysucker flitting after his mate, as there was in Romeo long ago.
+There is majesty in the huge brown precipice greater than ever looked
+from the face of a king. All life is one. The soul that moves within you
+when you hear the deer call to each other far above in the misty meadows
+of the night is the same soul that moves in everything about you. No
+people who have lived much with Nature have failed to descry this. They
+have recognised the life, they have felt the sympathy of the world about
+them, and to this life they have given names and forms as they would to
+friends whom they loved. Fairies and goblins, fauns and spirits, these
+are but names and personifications of a real life. But to him who has
+never felt this life, who has never been wooed by the trees and hills,
+these things are but foolishness, of course.
+
+To the Burman, not less than to the Greek of long ago, all nature is
+alive. The forest and the river and the mountains are full of spirits,
+whom the Burmans call Nats. There are all kinds of Nats, good and bad,
+great and little, male and female, now living round about us. Some of
+them live in the trees, especially in the huge fir-tree that shades half
+an acre without the village; or among the fernlike fronds of the
+tamarind; and you will often see beneath such a tree, raised upon poles
+or nestled in the branches, a little house built of bamboo and thatch,
+perhaps two feet square. You will be told when you ask that this is the
+house of the Tree-Nat. Flowers will be offered sometimes, and a little
+water or rice maybe, to the Nat, never supposing that he is in need of
+such things, but as a courteous and graceful thing to do; for it is not
+safe to offend these Nats, and many of them are very powerful. There is
+a Nat of whom I know, whose home is in a great tree at the crossing of
+two roads, and he has a house there built for him, and he is much
+feared. He is such a great Nat that it is necessary when you pass his
+house to dismount from your pony and walk to a respectful distance. If
+you haughtily ride past, trouble will befall you. A friend of mine
+riding there one day rejected all the advice of his Burmese companions
+and did not dismount, and a few days later he was taken deadly sick of
+fever. He very nearly died, and had to go away to the Straits for a
+sea-trip to take the fever out of his veins. It was a very near thing
+for him. That was in the Burmese times, of course. After that he always
+dismounted. But all Nats are not so proud nor so much to be feared as
+this one, and it is usually safe to ride past.
+
+Even as I write I am under the shadow of a tree where a Nat used to
+live, and the headman of the village has been telling me all about it.
+This is a Government rest-house on a main road between two stations, and
+is built for Government officials travelling on duty about their
+districts. To the west of it is a grand fig-tree of the kind called
+Nyaungbin by the Burmese. It is a very beautiful tree, though now a
+little bare, for it is just before the rains; but it is a great tree
+even now, and two months hence it will be glorious. It was never
+planted, the headman tells me, but came up of itself very many years
+ago, and when it was grown to full size a Nat came to live in it. The
+Nat lived in the tree for many years, and took great care of it. No one
+might injure it or any living creature near it, so jealous was the Nat
+of his abode. And the villagers built a little Nat-house, such as I have
+described, under the branches, and offered flowers and water, and all
+things went well with those who did well. But if anyone did ill the Nat
+punished him. If he cut the roots of the tree, the Nat hurt his feet;
+and if he injured the branches, the Nat injured his arms; and if he cut
+the trunk, the Nat came down out of the tree, and killed the
+sacrilegious man right off. There was no running away, because, as you
+know, the headman said, Nats can go a great deal faster than any man.
+Many men, careless strangers, who camped under the tree and then abused
+the hospitality of the Nat by hunting near his home, came to severe
+grief.
+
+But the Nat has gone now, alas! The tree is still there, but the Nat has
+fled away these many years.
+
+'I suppose he didn't care to stay,' said the headman. 'You see that the
+English Government officials came and camped here, and didn't fear the
+Nats. They had fowls killed here for their dinner, and they sang and
+shouted; and they shot the green pigeons who ate his figs, and the
+little doves that nested in his branches.'
+
+All these things were an abomination to the Nat, who hated loud, rough
+talk and abuse, and to whom all life was sacred.
+
+So the Nat went away. The headman did not know where he was gone, but
+there are plenty of trees.
+
+'He has gone somewhere to get peace,' the headman said. 'Somewhere in
+the jungle, where no one ever comes save the herd-boy and the deer, he
+will be living in a tree, though I do not think he will easily find a
+tree so beautiful as this.'
+
+The headman seemed very sorry about it, and so did several villagers who
+were with him; and I suggested that if the Nat-houses were rebuilt, and
+flowers and water offered, the Nat might know and return. I even offered
+to contribute myself, that it might be taken as an _amende honorable_ on
+behalf of the English Government. But they did not think this would be
+any use. No Nat would come where there was so much going and coming, so
+little care for life, such a disregard for pity and for peace. If we
+were to take away our rest-house, well then, perhaps, after a time,
+something could be done, but not under present circumstances.
+
+And so, besides dethroning the Burmese king, and occupying his golden
+palace, we are ousting from their pleasant homes the guardian spirits of
+the trees. They flee before the cold materialism of our belief, before
+the brutality of our manners. The headman did not say this; he did not
+mean to say this, for he is a very courteous man and a great friend of
+all of us; but that is what it came to, I think.
+
+The trunk of this tree is more than ten feet through--not a round bole,
+but like the pillar in a Gothic cathedral, as of many smaller boles
+growing together; and the roots spread out into a pedestal before
+entering the ground. The trunk does not go up very far. At perhaps
+twenty-five feet above the ground it divides into a myriad of smaller
+trunks, not branches, till it looks more like a forest than a single
+tree; it is full of life still. Though the pigeons and the doves come
+here no longer, there are a thousand other birds flitting to and fro in
+their aerial city and chirping to each other. Two tiny squirrels have
+just run along a branch nearly over my head, in a desperate hurry
+apparently, their tails cocked over their backs, and a sky blue
+chameleon is standing on the trunk near where it parts. There is always
+a breeze in this great tree; the leaves are always moving, and there is
+a continuous rustle and murmur up there. A mango-tree and tamarind near
+by are quite still. Not a breath shakes their leaves; they are as still
+as stone, but the shadow of the fig-tree is chequered with ever-changing
+lights. Is the Nat really gone? Perhaps not; perhaps he is still there,
+still caring for his tree, only shy now and distrustful, and therefore
+no more seen.
+
+Whole woods are enchanted sometimes, and no one dare enter them. Such a
+wood I know, far away north, near the hills, which is full of Nats.
+There was a great deal of game in it, for animals sought shelter there,
+and no one dared to disturb them; not the villagers to cut firewood, nor
+the girls seeking orchids, nor the hunter after his prey, dared to
+trespass upon that enchanted ground.
+
+'What would happen,' I asked once, 'if anyone went into that wood? Would
+he be killed, or what?'
+
+And I was told that no one could tell what would happen, only that he
+would never be seen again alive. 'The Nats would confiscate him,' they
+said, 'for intruding on their privacy.' But what they would do to him
+after the confiscation no one seemed to be quite sure. I asked the
+official who was with me, a fine handsome Burman who had been with us in
+many fights, whether he would go into the wood with me, but he declined
+at once. Enemies are one thing, Nats are quite another, and a very much
+more dreadful thing. You can escape from enemies, as witness my
+companion, who had been shot at times without number and had only once
+been hit, in the leg, but you cannot escape Nats. Once, he told me,
+there were two very sacrilegious men, hunters by profession, only more
+abandoned than even the majority of hunters, and they went into this
+wood to hunt 'They didn't care for Nats,' they said. They didn't care
+for anything at all apparently. 'They were absolutely without reverence,
+worse than any beast,' said my companion.
+
+So they went into the wood to shoot, and they never came out again. A
+few days later their bare bones were found, flung out upon the road near
+the enchanted wood. The Nats did not care to have even the bones of such
+scoundrels in their wood, and so thrust them out. That was what happened
+to them, and that was what might happen to us if we went in there. We
+did not go.
+
+Though the Nats of the forest will not allow even one of their beasts to
+be slain, the Nats of the rivers are not so exclusive. I do not think
+fish are ever regarded in quite the same light as animals. It is true
+that a fervent Buddhist will not kill even a fish, but a fisherman is
+not quite such a reprobate as a hunter in popular estimation. And the
+Nats think so too, for the Nat of a pool will not forbid all fishing.
+You must give him his share; you must be respectful to him, and not
+offend him; and then he will fill your nets with gleaming fish, and all
+will go well with you. If not, of course, you will come to grief; your
+nets will be torn, and your boat upset; and finally, if obstinate, you
+will be drowned. A great arm will seize you, and you will be pulled
+under and disappear for ever.
+
+A Nat is much like a human being; if you treat him well he will treat
+you well, and conversely. Courtesy is never wasted on men or Nats, at
+least, so a Burman tells me.
+
+The highest Nats live in the mountains. The higher the Nat the higher
+the mountain; and when you get to a very high peak indeed, like
+Mainthong Peak in Wuntho, you encounter very powerful Nats.
+
+They tell a story of Mainthong Peak and the Nats there, how all of a
+sudden, one day in 1885, strange noises came from the hill. High up on
+his mighty side was heard the sound of great guns firing slowly and
+continuously; there was the thunder of falling rocks, cries as of
+someone bewailing a terrible calamity, and voices calling from the
+precipices. The people living in their little hamlets about his feet
+were terrified. Something they knew had happened of most dire import to
+them, some catastrophe which they were powerless to prevent, which they
+could not even guess. But when a few weeks later there came even into
+those remote villages the news of the fall of Mandalay, of the surrender
+of the king, of the 'great treachery,' they knew that this was what the
+Nats had been sorrowing over. All the Nats everywhere seem to have been
+distressed at our arrival, to hate our presence, and to earnestly desire
+our absence. They are the spirits of the country and of the people, and
+they cannot abide a foreign domination.
+
+But the greatest place for Nats is the Popa Mountain, which is an
+extinct volcano standing all alone about midway between the river and
+the Shan Mountains. It is thus very conspicuous, having no hills near it
+to share its majesty; and being in sight from many of the old capitals,
+it is very well known in history and legend. It is covered with dense
+forest, and the villages close about are few. At the top there is a
+crater with a broken side, and a stream comes flowing out of this break
+down the mountain. Probably it was the denseness of its forests, the
+abundance of water, and its central position, more than its guardian
+Nats, that made it for so many years the last retreating-place of the
+half-robber, half-patriot bands that made life so uneasy for us. But the
+Nats of Popa Mountains are very famous.
+
+When any foreigner was taken into the service of the King of Burma he
+had to swear an oath of fidelity. He swore upon many things, and among
+them were included 'all the Nats in Popa.' No Burman would have dared to
+break an oath sworn in such a serious way as this, and they did not
+imagine that anyone else would. It was and is a very dangerous thing to
+offend the Popa Nats; for they are still there in the mountain, and
+everyone who goes there must do them reverence.
+
+A friend of mine, a police officer, who was engaged in trying to catch
+the last of the robber chiefs who hid near Popa, told me that when he
+went up the mountain shooting he, too, had to make offerings. Some way
+up there is a little valley dark with overhanging trees, and a stream
+flows slowly along it. It is an enchanted valley, and if you look
+closely you will see that the stream is not as other streams, for it
+flows uphill. It comes rushing into the valley with a great display of
+foam and froth, and it leaves in a similar way, tearing down the rocks,
+and behaving like any other boisterous hill rivulet; but in the valley
+itself it lies under a spell. It is slow and dark, and has a surface
+like a mirror, and it flows uphill. There is no doubt about it; anyone
+can see it. When they came here, my friend tells me, they made a halt,
+and the Burmese hunters with him unpacked his breakfast. He did not want
+to eat then, he said, but they explained that it was not for him, but
+for the Nats. All his food was unpacked, cold chicken and tinned meats,
+and jam and eggs and bread, and it was spread neatly on a cloth under a
+tree. Then the hunters called upon the Nats to come and take anything
+they desired, while my friend wondered what he should do if the Nats
+took all his food and left him with nothing. But no Nats came, although
+the Burmans called again and again. So they packed up the food, saying
+that now the Nats would be pleased at the courtesy shown to them, and
+that my friend would have good sport. Presently they went on, leaving,
+however, an egg or two and a little salt, in case the Nats might be
+hungry later, and true enough it was that they did have good luck. At
+other times, my friend says, when he did not observe this ceremony, he
+saw nothing to shoot at all, but on this day he did well.
+
+The former history of all Nats is not known. Whether they have had a
+previous existence in another form, and if so, what, is a secret that
+they usually keep carefully to themselves, but the history of the Popa
+Nats is well known. Everyone who lives near the great hill can tell you
+that, for it all happened not so long ago. How long exactly no one can
+say, but not so long that the details of the story have become at all
+clouded by the mists of time.
+
+They were brother and sister, these Popa Nats, and they had lived away
+up North. The brother was a blacksmith, and he was a very strong man. He
+was the strongest man in all the country; the blow of his hammer on the
+anvil made the earth tremble, and his forge was as the mouth of hell. No
+one was so much feared and so much sought after as he. And as he was
+strong, so his sister was beautiful beyond all the maidens of the time.
+Their father and mother were dead, and there was no one but those two,
+the brother and sister, so they loved each other dearly, and thought of
+no one else. The brother brought home no wife to his house by the forge.
+He wanted no one while he had his sister there, and when lovers came
+wooing to her, singing amorous songs in the amber dusk, she would have
+nothing to do with them. So they lived there together, he growing
+stronger and she more beautiful every day, till at last a change came.
+
+The old king died, and a new king came to the throne, and orders were
+sent about to all the governors of provinces and other officials that
+the most beautiful maidens were to be sent down to the Golden City to be
+wives to the great king. So the governor of that country sent for the
+blacksmith and his sister to his palace, and told them there what orders
+he had received, and asked the blacksmith to give his sister that she
+might be sent as queen to the king. We are not told what arguments the
+governor used to gain his point, but only this, that when he failed, he
+sent the girl in unto his wife, and there she was persuaded to go. There
+must have been something very tempting, to one who was but a village
+girl, in the prospect of being even one of the lesser queens, of living
+in the palace, the centre of the world. So she consented at last, and
+her brother consented, and the girl was sent down under fitting escort
+to find favour in the eyes of her king. But the blacksmith refused to
+go. It was no good the governor saying such a great man as he must come
+to high honour in the Golden City, it was useless for the girl to beg
+and pray him to come with her--he always refused. So she sailed away
+down the great river, and the blacksmith returned to his forge.
+
+As the governor had said, the girl was acceptable in the king's sight,
+and she was made at last one of the principal queens, and of all she had
+most power over the king. They say she was most beautiful, that her
+presence was as soothing as shade after heat, that her form was as
+graceful as a young tree, and the palms of her hands were like lotus
+blossoms. She had enemies, of course. Most of the other queens were her
+enemies, and tried to do her harm. But it was useless telling tales of
+her to the king, for the king never believed; and she walked so wisely
+and so well, that she never fell into any snare. But still the plots
+never ceased.
+
+There was one day when she was sitting alone in the garden pavilion,
+with the trees making moving shadows all about her, that the king came
+to her. They talked for a time, and the king began to speak to her of
+her life before she came to the palace, a thing he had never done
+before. But he seemed to know all about it, nevertheless, and he spoke
+to her of her brother, and said that he, the king, had heard how no man
+was so strong as this blacksmith, the brother of the queen. The queen
+said it was true, and she talked on and on and praised her brother, and
+babbled of the days of her childhood, when he carried her on his great
+shoulder, and threw her into the air, catching her again. She was
+delighted to talk of all these things, and in her pleasure she forgot
+her discretion, and said that her brother was wise as well as strong,
+and that all the people loved him. Never was there such a man as he. The
+king did not seem very pleased with it all, but he said only that the
+blacksmith was a great man, and that the queen must write to him to come
+down to the city, that the king might see him of whom there was such
+great report.
+
+Then the king got up and went away, and the queen began to doubt; and
+the more she thought the more she feared she had not been acting wisely
+in talking as she did, for it is not wise to praise anyone to a king.
+She went away to her own room to consider, and to try if she could hear
+of any reason why the king should act as he had done, and desire her
+brother to come to him to the city; and she found out that it was all a
+plot of her enemies. Herself they had failed to injure, so they were now
+plotting against her through her brother. They had gone to the king, and
+filled his ear with slanderous reports. They had said that the queen's
+brother was the strongest man in all the kingdom. 'He was cunning, too,'
+they said, 'and very popular among all the people; and he was so puffed
+up with pride, now that his sister was a queen, that there was nothing
+he did not think he could do.' They represented to the king how
+dangerous such a man was in a kingdom, that it would be quite easy for
+him to raise such rebellion as the king could hardly put down, and that
+he was just the man to do such a thing. Nay, it was indeed proved that
+he must be disloyally plotting something, or he would have come down
+with his sister to the city when she came. But now many months had
+passed, and he never came. Clearly he was not to be trusted. Any other
+man whose sister was a queen would have come and lived in the palace,
+and served the king and become a minister, instead of staying up there
+and pretending to be a blacksmith.
+
+The king's mind had been much disturbed by this, for it seemed to him
+that it must be in part true; and he went to the queen, as I have said,
+and his suspicions had not been lulled by what she told him, so he had
+ordered her to write to her brother to come down to the palace.
+
+The queen was terrified when she saw what a mistake she had made, and
+how she had fallen into the trap of her enemies; but she hoped that the
+king would forget, and she determined that she would send no order to
+her brother to come. But the next day the king came back to the subject,
+and asked her if she had yet sent the letter, and she said 'No!' The
+king was very angry at this disobedience to his orders, and he asked her
+how it came that she had not done as he had commanded, and sent a
+letter to her brother to call him to the palace.
+
+Then the queen fell at the king's feet and told him all her fears that
+her brother was sent for only to be imprisoned or executed, and she
+begged and prayed the king to leave him in peace up there in his
+village. She assured the king that he was loyal and good, and would do
+no evil.
+
+The king was rather abashed that his design had been discovered, but he
+was firm in his purpose. He assured the queen that the blacksmith should
+come to no harm, but rather good; and he ordered the queen to obey him,
+threatening her that if she refused he would be sure that she was
+disloyal also, and there would be no alternative but to send and arrest
+the blacksmith by force, and punish her, the queen, too. Then the queen
+said that if the king swore to her that her brother should come to no
+harm, she would write as ordered. _And the king swore._
+
+So the queen wrote to her brother, and adjured him by his love to her to
+come down to the Golden City. She said she had dire need of him, and she
+told him that the king had sworn that no harm should come to him.
+
+The letter was sent off by a king's messenger. In due time the
+blacksmith arrived, and he was immediately seized and thrown into prison
+to await his trial.
+
+When the queen saw that she had been deceived, she was in despair. She
+tried by every way, by tears and entreaties and caresses, to move the
+king, but all without avail. Then she tried by plotting and bribery to
+gain her brother's release, but it was all in vain. The day for trial
+came quickly, and the blacksmith was tried, and he was condemned and
+sentenced to be burnt alive by the river on the following day.
+
+On the evening of the day of trial the queen sent a message to the king
+to come to her; and when the king came reluctantly, fearing a renewal of
+entreaties, expecting a woman made of tears and sobs, full of grief, he
+found instead that the queen had dried her eyes and dressed herself
+still more beautifully than ever, till she seemed to the king the very
+pearl among women. And she told the king that he was right, and she was
+wrong. She said, putting her arms about him and caressing him, that she
+had discovered that it was true that her brother had been plotting
+against the king, and therefore his death was necessary. It was
+terrible, she said, to find that her brother, whom she had always held
+as a pattern, was no better than a traitor; but it was even so, and her
+king was the wisest of all kings to find it out.
+
+The king was delighted to find his queen in this mood, and he soothed
+her and talked to her kindly and sweetly, for he really loved her,
+though he had given in to bad advice about the brother. And when the
+king's suspicions were lulled, the queen said to him that she had now
+but one request to make, and that was that she might have permission to
+go down with her maids to the river-shore in the early morning, and see
+herself the execution of her traitor brother. The king, who would now
+have granted her anything--anything she asked, except just that one
+thing, the life of her brother--gave permission; and then the queen said
+that she was tired and wished to rest after all the trouble of the last
+few days, and would the king leave her. So the king left her to herself,
+and went away to his own chambers.
+
+Very early in the morning, ere the crimson flush upon the mountains had
+faded in the light of day, a vast crowd was gathered below the city, by
+the shore of the great river. Very many thousands were there, of many
+countries and peoples, crowding down to see a man die, to see a traitor
+burnt to death for his sins, for there is nothing men like so much as to
+see another man die.
+
+Upon a little headland jutting out into the river the pyre was raised,
+with brushwood and straw, to burn quickly, and an iron post in the
+middle to which the man was to be chained. At one side was a place
+reserved, and presently down from the palace in a long procession came
+the queen and her train of ladies to the place kept for her. Guards were
+put all about to prevent the people crowding; and then came the
+soldiers, and in the midst of them the blacksmith; and amid many cries
+of 'Traitor, traitor!' and shouts of derision, he was bound to the iron
+post within the wood and the straw, and the guards fell back.
+
+The queen sat and watched it all, and said never a word. Fire was put to
+the pyre, and it crept rapidly up in long red tongues with coils of
+black smoke. It went very quickly, for the wood was very dry, and a
+light breeze came laughing up the river and helped it. The flames played
+about the man chained there in the midst, and he made never a sign; only
+he looked steadily across at the purple mountain where his home lay, and
+it was clear that in a few more moments he would be dead. There was a
+deep silence everywhere.
+
+Then of a sudden, before anyone knew, before a hand could be held out to
+hinder her, the queen rose from her seat and ran to the pyre. In a
+moment she was there and had thrown herself into the flames, and with
+her arms about her brother's neck she turned and faced the myriad eyes
+that glared upon them--the queen, in all the glory of her beauty,
+glittering with gems, and the man with great shackled bare limbs,
+dressed in a few rags, his muscles already twisted with the agony of the
+fire. A great cry of horror came from the people, and there was the
+movement of guards and officers rushing to stop the fire; but it was all
+of no use. A flash of red flames came out of the logs, folding these
+twain like an imperial cloak, a whirl of sparks towered into the air,
+and when one could see again the woman and her brother were no longer
+there. They were dead and burnt, and the bodies mingled with the ashes
+of the fire. She had cost her brother his life, and she went with him
+into death.
+
+
+Some days after this a strange report was brought to the palace. By the
+landing-place near the spot where the fire had been was a great
+fig-tree. It was so near to the landing-place, and was such a
+magnificent tree, that travellers coming from the boats, or waiting for
+a boat to arrive, would rest in numbers under its shade. But the report
+said that something had happened there. To travellers sleeping beneath
+the tree at night it was stated that two Nats had appeared, very large
+and very beautiful, a man Nat and a woman Nat, and had frightened them
+very much indeed. Noises were heard in the tree, voices and cries, and a
+strange terror came upon those who approached it. Nay, it was even said
+that men had been struck by unseen hands and severely hurt, and others,
+it was said, had disappeared. Children who went to play under the tree
+were never seen again: the Nats took them, and their parents sought for
+them in vain. So the landing-place was deserted, and a petition was
+brought to the king, and the king gave orders that the tree should be
+hewn down. So the tree was cut down, and its trunk was thrown into the
+river; it floated away out of sight, and nothing happened to the men
+who cut the tree, though they were deadly afraid.
+
+The tree floated down for days, until at last it stranded near a
+landing-place that led to a large town, where the governor of these
+parts lived; and at this landing-place the portents that had frightened
+the people at the great city reappeared and terrified the travellers
+here too, and they petitioned the governor.
+
+The governor sought out a great monk, a very holy man learned in these
+matters, and sent him to inquire, and the monk came down to the tree and
+spoke. He said that if any Nats lived in the tree, they should speak to
+him and tell him what they wanted. 'It is not fit,' he said, 'for great
+Nats to terrify the poor villagers at the landing-place. Let the Nats
+speak and say what they require. All that they want shall be given.' And
+the Nats spake and said that they wanted a place to live in where they
+could be at peace, and the monk answered for the governor that all his
+land was at their disposal. 'Let the Nats choose,' he said; 'all the
+country is before them.' So the Nats chose, and said that they would
+have Popa Mountain, and the monk agreed.
+
+The Nats then left the tree and went away, far away inland, to the great
+Popa Mountain, and took up their abode there, and all the people there
+feared and reverenced them, and even made to their honour two statues
+with golden heads and set them up on the mountain.
+
+This is the story of the Popa Nats, the greatest Nats of all the
+country of Burma, the guardian spirits of the mysterious mountain. The
+golden heads of the statues are now in one of our treasuries, put there
+for safe custody during the troubles, though it is doubtful if even then
+anyone would have dared to steal them, so greatly are the Nats feared.
+And the hunters and the travellers there must offer to the Nats little
+offerings, if they would be safe in these forests, and even the young
+man must obtain permission from the Nats before he marry.
+
+I think these stories that I have told, stories selected from very many
+that I have heard, will show what sort of spirits these are that the
+Burmese have peopled their trees and rivers with; will show what sort of
+religion it is that underlies, without influencing, the creed of the
+Buddha that they follow. It is of the very poetry of superstition, free
+from brutality, from baseness, from anything repulsive, springing, as I
+have said, from their innate sympathy with Nature and recognition of the
+life that works in all things. It always seems to me that beliefs such
+as these are a great key to the nature of a people, are, apart from all
+interest in their beauty, and in their akinness to other beliefs, of
+great value in trying to understand the character of a nation.
+
+For to beings such as Nats and fairies the people who believe in them
+will attribute such qualities as are predominant in themselves, as they
+consider admirable; and, indeed, all supernatural beings are but the
+magnified shadows of man cast by the light of his imagination upon the
+mists of his ignorance.
+
+Therefore, when you find that a people make their spirits beautiful and
+fair, calm and even tempered, loving peace and the beauty of the trees
+and rivers, shrinkingly averse from loud words, from noises, and from
+the taking of life, it is because the people themselves think that these
+are great qualities. If no stress be laid upon their courage, their
+activity, their performance of great deeds, it is because the people who
+imagine them care not for such things. There is no truer guide, I am
+sure, to the heart of a young people than their superstitions; these
+they make entirely for themselves, apart from their religion, which is,
+to a certain extent, made for them. That is why I have written this
+chapter on Nats: not because I think it affects Buddhism very much one
+way or another, but because it seems to me to reveal the people
+themselves, because it helps us to understand them better, to see more
+with their eyes, to be in unison with their ideas--because it is a great
+key to the soul of the people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DEATH, THE DELIVERER
+
+     'The end of my life is near at hand; seven days hence, like a man
+     who rids himself of a heavy load, I shall be free from the burden
+     of my body.'--_Death of the Buddha._
+
+
+There is a song well known to all the Burmese, the words of which are
+taken from the sacred writings. It is called the story of Ma Pa Da, and
+it was first told to me by a Burmese monk, long ago, when I was away on
+the frontier.
+
+It runs like this:
+
+In the time of the Buddha, in the city of Thawatti, there was a certain
+rich man, a merchant, who had many slaves. Slaves in those days, and,
+indeed, generally throughout the East, were held very differently to
+slaves in Europe. They were part of the family, and were not saleable
+without good reason, and there was a law applicable to them. They were
+not _hors de la loi_, like the slaves of which we have conception. There
+are many cases quoted of sisters being slaves to sisters, and of
+brothers to brothers, quoted not for the purpose of saying that this
+was an uncommon occurrence, but merely of showing points of law in such
+cases.
+
+One day in the market the merchant bought another slave, a young man,
+handsome and well mannered, and took him to his house, and kept him
+there with his family and the other slaves. The young man was earnest
+and careful in his work, and the merchant approved of him, and his
+fellow-slaves liked him. But Ma Pa Da, the merchant's daughter, fell in
+love with him. The slave was much troubled at this, and he did his best
+to avoid her; but he was a slave and under orders, and what could he do?
+When she would come to him secretly and make love to him, and say, 'Let
+us flee together, for we love each other,' he would refuse, saying that
+he was a slave, and the merchant would be very angry. He said he could
+not do such a thing. And yet when the girl said, 'Let us flee, for we
+love each other,' he knew that it was true, and that he loved her as she
+loved him; and it was only his honour to his master that held him from
+doing as she asked.
+
+But because his heart was not of iron, and there are few men that can
+resist when a woman comes and woos them, he at last gave way; and they
+fled away one night, the girl and the slave, taking with them her jewels
+and some money. They travelled rapidly and in great fear, and did not
+rest till they came to a city far away where the merchant would never,
+they thought, think of searching for them.
+
+Here, in this city where no one knew of their history, they lived in
+great happiness, husband and wife, trading with the money they had with
+them.
+
+And in time a little child was born to them.
+
+About two or three years after this it became necessary for the husband
+to take a journey, and he started forth with his wife and child. The
+journey was a very long one, and they were unduly delayed; and so it
+happened that while still in the forest the wife fell ill, and could not
+go on any further. So the husband built a hut of branches and leaves,
+and there, in the solitude of the forest, was born to them another
+little son.
+
+The mother recovered rapidly, and in a little time she was well enough
+to go on. They were to start next morning on their way again; and in the
+evening the husband went out, as was his custom, to cut firewood, for
+the nights were cold and damp.
+
+Ma Pa Da waited and waited for him, but he never came back.
+
+The sun set and the dark rose out of the ground, and the forest became
+full of whispers, but he never came. All night she watched and waited,
+caring for her little ones, fearful to leave them alone, till at last
+the gray light came down, down from the sky to the branches, and from
+the branches to the ground, and she could see her way. Then, with her
+new-born babe in her arms and the elder little fellow trotting by her
+side, she went out to search for her husband. Soon enough she found him,
+not far off, stiff and cold beside his half-cut bundle of firewood. A
+snake had bitten him on the ankle, and he was dead.
+
+So Ma Pa Da was alone in the great forest, but a girl still, with two
+little children to care for.
+
+But she was brave, despite her trouble, and she determined to go on and
+gain some village. She took her baby in her arms and the little one by
+the hand, and started on her journey.
+
+And for a time all went well, till at last she came to a stream. It was
+not very deep, but it was too deep for the little boy to wade, for it
+came up to his neck, and his mother was not strong enough to carry both
+at once. So, after considering for a time, she told the elder boy to
+wait. She would cross and put the baby on the far side, and return for
+him.
+
+'Be good,' she said; 'be good, and stay here quietly till I come back;'
+and the boy promised.
+
+The stream was deeper and swifter than she thought; but she went with
+great care and gained the far side, and put the baby under a tree a
+little distance from the bank, to lie there while she went for the other
+boy. Then, after a few minutes' rest, she went back.
+
+She had got to the centre of the stream, and her little boy had come
+down to the margin to be ready for her, when she heard a rush and a cry
+from the side she had just left; and, looking round, she saw with terror
+a great eagle sweep down upon the baby, and carry it off in its claws.
+She turned round and waved her arms and cried out to the eagle, 'He!
+he!' hoping it would be frightened and drop the baby. But it cared
+nothing for her cries or threats, and swept on with long curves over the
+forest trees, away out of sight.
+
+Then the mother turned to gain the bank once more, and suddenly she
+missed her son who had been waiting for her. He had seen his mother wave
+her arms; he had heard her shout, and he thought she was calling him to
+come to her. So the brave little man walked down into the water, and the
+black current carried him off his feet at once. He was gone, drowned in
+the deep water below the ford, tossing on the waves towards the sea.
+
+No one can write of the despair of the girl when she threw herself under
+a tree in the forest. The song says it was very terrible.
+
+At last she said to herself, 'I will get up now and return to my father
+in Thawatti; he is all I have left. Though I have forsaken him all these
+years, yet now that my husband and his children are dead, my father will
+take me back again. Surely he will have pity on me, for I am much to be
+pitied.'
+
+So she went on, and at length, after many days, she came to the gates of
+the great city where her father lived.
+
+At the entering of the gates she met a large company of people,
+mourners, returning from a funeral, and she spoke to them and asked
+them:
+
+'Who is it that you have been burying to-day so grandly with so many
+mourners?'
+
+And the people answered her, and told her who it was. And when she
+heard, she fell down upon the road as one dead: for it was her father
+and mother who had died yesterday, and it was their funeral train that
+she saw. They were all dead now, husband and sons and father and mother;
+in all the world she was quite alone.
+
+So she went mad, for her trouble was more than she could bear. She threw
+off all her clothes, and let down her long hair and wrapped it about her
+naked body, and walked about raving.
+
+At last she came to where the Buddha was teaching, seated under a
+fig-tree. She came up to the Buddha, and told him of her losses, and how
+she had no one left; and she demanded of the Buddha that he should
+restore to her those that she had lost. And the Buddha had great
+compassion upon her, and tried to console her.
+
+'All die,' he said; 'it comes to everyone, king and peasant, animal and
+man. Only through many deaths can we obtain the Great Peace. All this
+sorrow,' he said, 'is of the earth. All this is passion which we must
+get rid of, and forget before we reach heaven. Be comforted, my
+daughter, and turn to the holy life. All suffer as you do. It is part of
+our very existence here, sorrow and trouble without any end.'
+
+But she would not be comforted, but demanded her dead of the Buddha.
+Then, because he saw it was no use talking to her, that her ears were
+deaf with grief, and her eyes blinded with tears, he said to her that he
+would restore to her those who were dead.
+
+'You must go,' he said, 'my daughter, and get some mustard-seed, a pinch
+of mustard-seed, and I can bring back their lives. Only you must get
+this seed from the garden of him near whom death has never come. Get
+this, and all will be well.'
+
+So the woman went forth with a light heart. It was so simple, only a
+pinch of mustard-seed, and mustard grew in every garden. She would get
+the seed and be back very quickly, and then the Lord Buddha would give
+her back those she loved who had died. She clothed herself again and
+tied up her hair, and went cheerfully and asked at the first house,
+'Give me a pinch of mustard-seed,' and it was given readily. So with her
+treasure in her hand she was going forth back to the Buddha full of
+delight, when she remembered.
+
+'Has ever anyone died in your household?' she asked, looking round
+wistfully.
+
+The man answered 'Yes,' that death had been with them but recently. Who
+could this woman be, he thought, to ask such a question? And the woman
+went forth, the seed dropping from her careless fingers, for it was of
+no value. So she would try again and again, but it was always the same.
+Death had taken his tribute from all. Father or mother, son or brother,
+daughter or wife, there was always a gap somewhere, a vacant place
+beside the meal. From house to house throughout the city she went, till
+at last the new hope faded away, and she learned from the world, what
+she had not believed from the Buddha, that death and life are one.
+
+So she returned, and she became a nun, poor soul! taking on her the two
+hundred and twenty-seven vows, which are so hard to keep that nowadays
+nuns keep but five of them.[1]
+
+
+This is the teaching of the Buddha, that death is inevitable; this is
+the consolation he offers, that all men must know death; no one can
+escape death; no one can escape the sorrow of the death of those whom he
+loves. Death, he says, and life are one; not antagonistic, but the same;
+and the only way to escape from one is to escape from the other too.
+Only in the Great Peace, when we have found refuge from the passion and
+tumult of life, shall we find the place where death cannot come. Life
+and death are one.
+
+This is the teaching of the Buddha, repeated over and over again to his
+disciples when they sorrowed for the death of Thariputra, when they
+were in despair at the swift-approaching end of the great teacher
+himself. Hear what he says to Ananda, the beloved disciple, who is
+mourning over Thariputra.
+
+'Ananda,' he said, 'often and often have I sought to bring shelter to
+your soul from the misery caused by such grief as this. There are two
+things alone that can separate us from father and mother, from brother
+and sister, from all those who are most cherished by us, and those two
+things are distance and death. Think not that I, though the Buddha, have
+not felt all this even as any other of you; was I not alone when I was
+seeking for wisdom in the wilderness?
+
+'And yet what would I have gained by wailing and lamenting either for
+myself or for others? Would it have brought to me any solace from my
+loneliness? Would it have been any help to those whom I had left? There
+is nothing that can happen to us, however terrible, however miserable,
+that can justify tears and lamentations and make them aught but a
+weakness.'
+
+And so, we are told, in this way the Buddha soothed the affliction of
+Ananda, and filled his soul with consolation--the consolation of
+resignation.
+
+For there is no other consolation possible but this, resignation to the
+inevitable, the conviction of the uselessness of sorrow, the vanity and
+selfishness of grief.
+
+There is no meeting again with the dead. Nowhere in the recurring
+centuries shall we meet again those whom we have loved, whom we love,
+who seem to us to be parts of our very soul. That which survives of us,
+the part which is incarnated again and again, until it be fit for
+heaven, has nothing to do with love and hate.
+
+Even if in the whirlpool of life our paths should cross again the paths
+of those whom we have loved, we are never told that we shall know them
+again and love them.
+
+A friend of mine has just lost his mother, and he is very much
+distressed. He must have been very fond of her, for although he has a
+wife and children, and is happy in his family, he is in great sorrow. He
+proposes even to build a pagoda over her remains, a testimony of respect
+which in strict Buddhism is reserved to saints. He has been telling me
+about this, and how he is trying to get a sacred relic to put in the
+pagoda, and I asked him if he never hoped again to meet the soul of his
+mother on earth or in heaven, and he answered:
+
+'No. It is very hard, but so are many things, and they have to be borne.
+Far better it is to face the truth than to escape by a pleasant
+falsehood. There is a Burmese proverb that tells us that all the world
+is one vast burial-ground; there are dead men everywhere.'
+
+'One of our great men has said the same,' I answered.
+
+He was not surprised.
+
+'As it is true,' he said, 'I suppose all great men would see it.'
+
+Thus there is no escape, no loophole for a delusive hope, only the
+cultivation of the courage of sorrow.
+
+There are never any exceptions to the laws of the Buddha. If a law is a
+law, that is the end of it. Just as we know of no exceptions to the law
+of gravitation, so there are no exceptions to the law of death.
+
+But although this may seem to be a religion of despair, it is not really
+so. This sorrow to which there is no relief is the selfishness of
+sorrow, the grief for our own loneliness; for of sorrow, of fear, of
+pity for the dead, there is no need. We know that in time all will be
+well with them. We know that, though there may be before them vast
+periods of suffering, yet that they will all at last be in Nebhan with
+us. And if we shall not know them there, still we shall know that they
+are there, all of them--not one will be wanting. Purified from the lust
+of life, white souls steeped in the Great Peace, all living things will
+attain rest at last.
+
+
+There is this remarkable fact in Buddhism, that nowhere is any fear
+expressed of death itself, nowhere any apprehension of what may happen
+to the dead. It is the sorrow of separation, the terror of death to the
+survivors, that is always dwelt upon with compassion, and the agony of
+which it is sought to soothe.
+
+That the dying man himself should require strengthening to face the King
+of Terrors is hardly ever mentioned. It seems to be taken for granted
+that men should have courage in themselves to take leave of life
+becomingly, without undue fears. Buddhism is the way to show us the
+escape from the miseries of life, not to give us hope in the hour of
+death.
+
+It is true that to all Orientals death is a less fearful thing than it
+is to us. I do not know what may be the cause of this, courage certainly
+has little to do with it; but it is certain that the purely physical
+fear of death, that horror and utter revulsion that seizes the majority
+of us at the idea of death, is absent from most Orientals. And yet this
+cannot explain it all. For fear of death, though less, is still there,
+is still a strong influence upon their lives, and it would seem that no
+religion which ignored this great fact could become a great living
+religion.
+
+Religion is made for man, to fit his necessities, not man for religion,
+and yet the faith of Buddhism is not concerned with death.
+
+Consider our faith, how much of its teaching consists of how to avoid
+the fear of death, how much of its consolation is for the death-bed. How
+we are taught all our lives that we should live so as not to fear death;
+how we have priests and sacraments to soothe the dying man, and give
+him hope and courage, and how the crown and summit of our creed is that
+we should die easily. And consider that in Buddhism all this is
+absolutely wanting. Buddhism is a creed of life, of conduct; death is
+the end of that life, that is all.
+
+We have all seen death. We have all of us watched those who, near and
+dear to us, go away out of our ken. There is no need for me to recall
+the last hours of those of our faith, to bring up again the fading eye
+and waning breath, the messages of hope we search for in our Scriptures
+to give hope to him who is going, the assurances of religion, the cross
+held before the dying eyes.
+
+Many men, we are told, turn to religion at the last after a life of
+wickedness, and a man may do so even at the eleventh hour and be saved.
+
+That is part of our belief; that is the strongest part of our belief;
+and that is the hope that all fervent Christians have, that those they
+love may be saved even at the end.
+
+I think it may truly be said that our Western creeds are all directed at
+the hour of death, as the great and final test of that creed.
+
+And now think of Buddhism; it is a creed of life. In life you must win
+your way to salvation by urgent effort, by suffering, by endurance. On
+your death-bed you can do nothing. If you have done well, then it is
+well; if ill, then you must in future life try again and again till you
+succeed. A life is not washed, a soul is not made fit for the dwelling
+of eternity, in a moment.
+
+Repentance to a Buddhist is but the opening of the eyes to see the path
+to righteousness; it has no virtue in itself. To have seen that we are
+sinners is but the first step to cleansing our sin; in itself it cannot
+purify.
+
+As well ask a robber of the poor to repent, and suppose thereby that
+those who have suffered from his guilt are compensated for the evil done
+to them by his repentance, as to ask a Buddhist to believe that a sinner
+can at the last moment make good to his own soul all the injuries caused
+to that soul by the wickedness of his life.
+
+Or suppose a man who has destroyed his constitution by excess to be by
+the very fact of acknowledging that excess restored to health.
+
+The Buddhist will not have that at all. A man is what he makes himself;
+and that making is a matter of terrible effort, of unceasing endeavour
+towards the right, of constant suppression of sin, till sin be at last
+dead within him. If a man has lived a wicked life, he dies a wicked man,
+and no wicked man can obtain the perfect rest of the sinless dead.
+Heaven is shut to him. But if heaven is shut it is not shut for ever; if
+hell may perhaps open to him it is only for a time, only till he is
+purified and washed from the stain of his sins; and then he can begin
+again, and have another chance to win heaven. If there is no immediate
+heaven there is no eternal hell, and in due time all will reach heaven;
+all will have learnt, through suffering, the wisdom the Buddha has shown
+to us, that only by a just life can men reach the Great Peace even as he
+did.
+
+So that if Buddhism has none of the consolation for the dying man that
+Christianity holds out, in the hope of heaven, so it has none of the
+threats and terrors of our faith. There is no fear of an angry Judge--of
+a Judge who is angry.
+
+And yet when I came to think over the matter, it seemed to me that
+surely there must be something to calm him in the face of death. If
+Buddhism does not furnish this consolation, he must go elsewhere for it.
+And I was not satisfied, because I could find nothing in the sacred
+books about a man's death, that therefore the creed of the people had
+ignored it. A living creed must, I was sure, provide for this somehow.
+
+So I went to a friend of mine, a Burman magistrate, and I asked him:
+
+'When a man is dying, what does he try to think of? What do you say to
+comfort him that his last moments may be peace? The monks do not come, I
+know.'
+
+'The monks!' he said, shaking his head; 'what could they do?'
+
+I did not know.
+
+'Can you do anything,' I asked, 'to cheer him? Do you speak to him of
+what may happen after death, of hopes of another life?'
+
+'No one can tell,' said my friend, 'what will happen after death. It
+depends on a man's life, if he has done good or evil, what his next
+existence will be, whether he will go a step nearer to the Peace. When
+the man is dying no monks will come, truly; but an old man, an old
+friend, father, perhaps, or an elder of the village, and he will talk to
+the dying man. He will say, "Think of your good deeds; think of all that
+you have done well in this life. Think of your good deeds."'
+
+'What is the use of that?' I asked. 'Suppose you think of your good
+deeds, what then? Will that bring peace?'
+
+The Burman seemed to think that it would.
+
+'Nothing,' he said, 'was so calming to a man's soul as to think of even
+one deed he had done well in his life.'
+
+Think of the man dying. The little house built of bamboo and thatch,
+with an outer veranda, where the friends are sitting, and the inner
+room, behind a wall of bamboo matting, where the man is lying. A pot of
+flowers is standing on a shelf on one side, and a few cloths are hung
+here and there beneath the brown rafters. The sun comes in through
+little chinks in roof and wall, making curious lights in the
+semi-darkness of the room, and it is very hot.
+
+From outside come the noises of the village, cries of children playing,
+grunts of cattle, voices of men and women clearly heard through the
+still clear air of the afternoon. There is a woman pounding rice near
+by with a steady thud, thud of the lever, and there is a clink of a loom
+where a girl is weaving ceaselessly. All these sounds come into the
+house as if there were no walls at all, but they are unheeded from long
+custom.
+
+The man lies on a low bed with a fine mat spread under him for bedding.
+His wife, his grown-up children, his sister, his brother are about him,
+for the time is short, and death comes very quickly in the East. They
+talk to him kindly and lovingly, but they read to him no sacred books;
+they give him no messages from the world to which he is bound; they
+whisper to him no hopes of heaven. He is tortured with no fears of
+everlasting hell. Yet life is sweet and death is bitter, and it is hard
+to go; and as he tosses to and fro in his fever there comes in to him an
+old friend, the headman of the village perhaps, with a white muslin
+fillet bound about his kind old head, and he sits beside the dying man
+and speaks to him.
+
+'Remember,' he says slowly and clearly, 'all those things that you have
+done well. Think of your good deeds.'
+
+And as the sick man turns wearily, trying to move his thoughts as he is
+bidden, trying to direct the wheels of memory, the old man helps him to
+remember.
+
+'Think,' he says, 'of your good deeds, of how you have given charity to
+the monks, of how you have fed the poor. Remember how you worked and
+saved to build the little rest-house in the forest where the traveller
+stays and finds water for his thirst. All these are pleasant things, and
+men will always be grateful to you. Remember your brother, how you
+helped him in his need, how you fed him and went security for him till
+he was able again to secure his own living. You did well to him, surely
+that is a pleasant thing.'
+
+I do not think it difficult to see how the sick man's face will lighten,
+how his eyes will brighten at the thoughts that come to him at the old
+man's words. And he goes on:
+
+'Remember when the squall came up the river and the boat upset when you
+were crossing here; how it seemed as if no man could live alone in such
+waves, and yet how you clung to and saved the boy who was with you,
+swimming through the water that splashed over your head and very nearly
+drowned you. The boy's father and mother have never forgotten that, and
+they are even now mourning without in the veranda. It is all due to you
+that their lives have not been full of misery and despair. Remember
+their faces when you brought their little son to them saved from death
+in the great river. Surely that is a pleasant thing. Remember your wife
+who is now with you; how you have loved her and cherished her, and kept
+faithful to her before all the world. You have been a good husband to
+her, and you have honoured her. She loves you, and you have loved her
+all your long life together. Surely that is a pleasant thing.'
+
+Yes, surely these are pleasant things to have with one at the last.
+Surely a man will die easier with such memories as these before his
+eyes, with love in those about him, and the calm of good deeds in his
+dying heart. If it be a different way of soothing a man's end from those
+which other nations use, is it the worse for that?
+
+Think of your good deeds. It seems a new idea to me that in doing well
+in our life we are making for ourselves a pleasant death, because of the
+memory of those things. And if we have none? or if evil so outnumbered
+the good deeds as to hide and overwhelm them, what then? A man's death
+will be terrible indeed if he cannot in all his days remember one good
+deed that he has done.
+
+'All a man's life comes before him at the hour of death,' said my
+informant; 'all, from the earliest memory to the latest breath. Like a
+whole landscape called by a flash of lightning out of the dark night. It
+is all there, every bit of it, good and evil, pleasure and pain, sin and
+righteousness.'
+
+A man cannot escape from his life even in death. In our acts of to-day
+we are determining what our death will be; if we have lived well, we
+shall die well; and if not, then not. As a man lives so shall he die, is
+the teaching of Buddhism as of other creeds.
+
+So what Buddhism has to offer to the dying believer is this, that if he
+live according to its tenets he will die happily, and that in the life
+that he will next enter upon he will be less and less troubled by sin,
+less and less wedded to the lust of life, until sometime, far away, he
+shall gain the great Deliverance. He shall have perfect Peace, perfect
+rest, perfect happiness, he and his, in that heaven where his teacher
+went before him long ago.
+
+And if we should say that this Deliverance from life, this Great Peace,
+is Death, what matter, if it be indeed Peace?
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[1] These five vows are:
+
+     1. Not to take life.
+     2. To be honest.
+     3. To tell the truth.
+     4. To abstain from intoxicants.
+     5. Chastity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE POTTER'S WHEEL
+
+     'Life is like a great whirlpool wherein we are dashed to and fro by
+     our passions.'--_Saying of the Buddha._
+
+
+It is a hard teaching, this of the Buddha about death. It is a teaching
+that may appeal to the reason, but not to the soul, that when life goes
+out, this thing which we call 'I' goes out with it, and that love and
+remembrance are dead for ever.
+
+It is so hard a teaching that in its purity the people cannot believe
+it. They accept it, but they have added on to it a belief which changes
+the whole form of it, a belief that is the outcome of that weakness of
+humanity which insists that death is not and cannot be all.
+
+Though to the strict Buddhist death is the end of all worldly passion,
+to the Burmese villager that is not so. He cannot grasp, he cannot
+endure that it should be so, and he has made for himself out of Buddhism
+a belief that is opposed to all Buddhism in this matter.
+
+He believes in the transmigration of souls, in the survival of the 'I.'
+The teaching that what survives is not the 'I,' but only the result of
+its action, is too deep for him to hold. True, if a flame dies the
+effects that it has caused remain, and the flame is dead for ever. A new
+flame is a new flame. But the 'I' of man cannot die, he thinks; it lives
+and loves for all time.
+
+He has made out of the teaching a new teaching that is very far from
+that of the Buddha, and the teaching is this: When a man dies his soul
+remains, his 'I' has only changed its habitation. Still it lives and
+breathes on earth, not the effect, but the soul itself. It is reborn
+among us, and it may even be recognised very often in its new abode.
+
+And that we should never forget this, that we should never doubt that
+this is true, it has been so ordered that many can remember something of
+these former lives of theirs. This belief is not to a Burman a mere
+theory, but is as true as anything he can see. For does he not daily see
+people who know of their former lives? Nay, does he not himself, often
+vaguely, have glimpses of that former life of his? No man seems to be
+quite without it, but of course it is clearer to some than others. Just
+as we tell stories in the dusk of ghosts and second sight, so do they,
+when the day's work is over, gossip of stories of second birth; only
+that they believe in them far more than we do in ghosts.
+
+A friend of mine put up for the night once at a monastery far away in
+the forest near a small village. He was travelling with an escort of
+mounted police, and there was no place else to sleep but in the
+monastery. The monk was, as usual, hospitable, and put what he had, bare
+house-room, at the officer's disposal, and he and his men settled down
+for the night.
+
+After dinner a fire was built on the ground, and the officer went and
+sat by it and talked to the headman of the village and the monk. First
+they talked of the dacoits and of crops, unfailing subjects of interest,
+and gradually they drifted from one subject to another till the
+Englishman remarked about the monastery, that it was a very large and
+fine one for such a small secluded village to have built. The monastery
+was of the best and straightest teak, and must, he thought, have taken a
+very long time and a great deal of labour to build, for the teak must
+have been brought from very far away; and in explanation he was told a
+curious story.
+
+It appeared that in the old days there used to be only a bamboo and
+grass monastery there, such a monastery as most jungle villages have;
+and the then monk was distressed at the smallness of his abode and the
+little accommodation there was for his school--a monastery is always a
+school. So one rainy season he planted with great care a number of teak
+seedlings round about, and he watered them and cared for them. 'When
+they are grown up,' he would say, 'these teak-trees shall provide
+timber for a new and proper building; and I will myself return in
+another life, and with those trees will I build a monastery more worthy
+than this.' Teak-trees take a hundred years to reach a mature size, and
+while the trees were still but saplings the monk died, and another monk
+taught in his stead. And so it went on, and the years went by, and from
+time to time new monasteries of bamboo were built and rebuilt, and the
+teak-trees grew bigger and bigger. But the village grew smaller, for the
+times were troubled, and the village was far away in the forest. So it
+happened that at last the village found itself without a monk at all:
+the last monk was dead, and no one came to take his place.
+
+It is a serious thing for a village to have no monk. To begin with,
+there is no one to teach the lads to read and write and do arithmetic;
+and there is no one to whom you can give offerings and thereby get
+merit, and there is no one to preach to you and tell you of the sacred
+teaching. So the village was in a bad way.
+
+Then at last one evening, when the girls were all out at the well
+drawing water, they were surprised by the arrival of a monk walking in
+from the forest, weary with a long journey, footsore and hungry. The
+villagers received him with enthusiasm, fearing, however, that he was
+but passing through, and they furbished up the old monastery in a hurry
+for him to sleep in. But the curious thing was that the monk seemed to
+know it all. He knew the monastery and the path to it, and the ways
+about the village, and the names of the hills and the streams. It
+seemed, indeed, as if he must once have lived there in the village, and
+yet no one knew him or recognised his face, though he was but a young
+man still, and there were villagers who had lived there for seventy
+years. Next morning, instead of going on his way, the monk came into the
+village with his begging-bowl, as monks do, and went round and collected
+his food for the day; and in the evening, when the villagers went to see
+him at the monastery, he told them he was going to stay. He recalled to
+them the monk who had planted the teak-trees, and how he had said that
+when the trees were grown he would return. 'I,' said the young monk, 'am
+he that planted these trees. Lo, they are grown up, and I am returned,
+and now we will build a monastery as I said.'
+
+When the villagers, doubting, questioned him, and old men came and
+talked to him of traditions of long-past days, he answered as one who
+knew all. He told them he had been born and educated far away in the
+South, and had grown up not knowing who he had been; and that he had
+entered a monastery, and in time became a Pongyi. The remembrance came
+to him, he went on, in a dream of how he had planted the trees and had
+promised to return to that village far away in the forest.
+
+The very next day he had started, and travelled day after day and week
+upon week, till at length he had arrived, as they saw. So the villagers
+were convinced, and they set to work and cut down the great boles, and
+built the monastery such as my friend saw. And the monk lived there all
+his life, and taught the children, and preached the marvellous teaching
+of the great Buddha, till at length his time came again and he returned;
+for of monks it is not said that they die, but that they return.
+
+This is the common belief of the people. Into this has the mystery of
+Dharma turned, in the thoughts of the Burmese Buddhists, for no one can
+believe the incomprehensible. A man has a soul, and it passes from life
+to life, as a traveller from inn to inn, till at length it is ended in
+heaven. But not till he has attained heaven in his heart will he attain
+heaven in reality.
+
+Many children, the Burmese will tell you, remember their former lives.
+As they grow older the memories die away and they forget, but to the
+young children they are very clear. I have seen many such.
+
+About fifty years ago in a village named Okshitgon were born two
+children, a boy and a girl. They were born on the same day in
+neighbouring houses, and they grew up together, and played together, and
+loved each other. And in due course they married and started a family,
+and maintained themselves by cultivating their dry, barren fields about
+the village. They were always known as devoted to each other, and they
+died as they had lived--together. The same death took them on the same
+day; so they were buried without the village and were forgotten; for the
+times were serious.
+
+It was the year after the English army had taken Mandalay, and all Burma
+was in a fury of insurrection. The country was full of armed men, the
+roads were unsafe, and the nights were lighted with the flames of
+burning villages. It was a bad time for peace-loving men, and many such,
+fleeing from their villages, took refuge in larger places nearer the
+centres of administration.
+
+Okshitgon was in the midst of one of the worst of all the distressed
+districts, and many of its people fled, and one of them, a man named
+Maung Kan, with his young wife went to the village of Kabyu and lived
+there.
+
+Now, Maung Kan's wife had born to him twin sons. They were born at
+Okshitgon shortly before their parents had to run away, and they were
+named, the eldest Maung Gyi, which is Brother Big-fellow, and the
+younger Maung Ngè, which means Brother Little-fellow. These lads grew up
+at Kabyu, and soon learned to talk; and as they grew up their parents
+were surprised to hear them calling to each other at play, and calling
+each other, not Maung Gyi and Maung Ngè, but Maung San Nyein and Ma
+Gywin. The latter is a woman's name, and the parents remembered that
+these were the names of the man and wife who had died in Okshitgon about
+the time the children were born.
+
+So the parents thought that the souls of the man and wife had entered
+into the children, and they took them to Okshitgon to try them. The
+children knew everything in Okshitgon; they knew the roads and the
+houses and the people, and they recognised the clothes they used to wear
+in a former life; there was no doubt about it. One of them, the younger,
+remembered, too, how she had borrowed two rupees once of a woman, Ma
+Thet, unknown to her husband, and left the debt unpaid. Ma Thet was
+still living, and so they asked her, and she recollected that it was
+true she had lent the money long ago.
+
+Shortly afterwards I saw these two children. They are now just over six
+years old. The elder, into whom the soul of the man entered, is a fat,
+chubby little fellow, but the younger twin is smaller, and has a curious
+dreamy look in his face, more like a girl than a boy. They told me much
+about their former lives. After they died they said they lived for some
+time without a body at all, wandering in the air and hiding in the
+trees. This was for their sins. Then, after some months, they were born
+again as twin boys. 'It used,' said the elder boy, 'to be so clear, I
+could remember everything; but it is getting duller and duller, and I
+cannot now remember as I used to do.'
+
+Of children such as this you may find any number. Only you have to look
+for them, as they are not brought forward spontaneously. The Burmese,
+like other people, hate to have their beliefs and ideas ridiculed, and
+from experience they have learned that the object of a foreigner in
+inquiring into their ways is usually to be able to show by his contempt
+how very much cleverer a man he is than they are. Therefore they are
+very shy. But once they understand that you only desire to learn and to
+see, and that you will always treat them with courtesy and
+consideration, they will tell you all that they think.
+
+A fellow officer of mine has a Burmese police orderly, a young man about
+twenty, who has been with him since he came to the district two years
+ago. Yet my friend only discovered accidentally the other day that his
+orderly remembers his former life. He is very unwilling to talk about
+it. He was a woman apparently in that former life, and lived about
+twenty miles away. He must have lived a good life, for it is a step of
+promotion to be a man in this life; but he will not talk of it. He
+forgets most of it, he says, though he remembered it when he was a
+child.
+
+Sometimes this belief leads to lawsuits of a peculiarly difficult
+nature. In 1883, two years before the annexation of Upper Burma, there
+was a case that came into the local Court of the oil district, which
+depended upon this theory of transmigration.
+
+Opposite Yenangyaung there are many large islands in the river. These
+islands during the low water months are joined to the mainland, and are
+covered with a dense high grass in which many deer live.
+
+When the river rises, it rises rapidly, communication with the mainland
+is cut off, and the islands are for a time, in the higher rises,
+entirely submerged. During the progress of the first rise some hunters
+went to one of these islands where many deer were to be found and set
+fire to the grass to drive them out of cover, shooting them as they came
+out. Some deer, fleeing before the fire, swam across and escaped, others
+fell victims, but one fawn, barely half grown, ran right down the
+island, and in its blind terror it leaped into a boat at anchor there.
+This boat was that of a fisherman who was plying his trade at some
+distance, and the only occupant of the boat was his wife. Now this woman
+had a year or so before lost her son, very much loved by her, but who
+was not quite of the best character, and when she saw the deer leaping
+into the boat, she at once fancied that she saw the soul of her erring
+son looking at her out of its great terrified eyes. So she got up and
+took the poor panting beast in her arms and soothed it, and when the
+hunters came running to her to claim it she refused. 'He is my son,' she
+said, 'he is mine. Shall I give him up to death?' The hunters clamoured
+and threatened to take the deer by force, but the woman was quite firm.
+She would never give him up except with her life. 'You can see,' she
+said, 'that it is true that he is my son. He came running straight to
+me, as he always did in his trouble when he was a boy, and he is now
+quite quiet and contented, instead of being afraid of me as an ordinary
+deer would be.' And it was quite true that the deer took to her at once,
+and remained with her willingly. So the hunters went off to the court of
+the governor and filed a suit for the deer.
+
+The case was tried in open court, and the deer was produced with a
+ribbon round its neck. Evidence there was naturally but little. The
+hunters claimed the deer because they had driven it out of the island by
+their fire. The woman resisted the claim on the ground that it was her
+son.
+
+The decision of the court was this:
+
+'The hunters are not entitled to the deer because they cannot prove that
+the woman's son's soul is not in the animal. The woman is not entitled
+to the deer because she cannot prove that it is. The deer will therefore
+remain with the court until some properly authenticated claim is put
+in.'
+
+So the two parties were turned out, the woman in bitter tears, and the
+hunters angry and vexed, and the deer remained the property of the
+judge.
+
+But this decision was against all Burmese ideas of justice. He should
+have given the deer to the woman. 'He wanted it for himself,' said a
+Burman, speaking to me of the affair. 'He probably killed it and ate it.
+Surely it is true that officials are of all the five evils the
+greatest.' Then my friend remembered that I was myself an official, and
+he looked foolish, and began to make complimentary remarks about English
+officials, that they would never give such an iniquitous decision. I
+turned it off by saying that no doubt the judge was now suffering in
+some other life for the evil wrought in the last, and the Burman said
+that probably he was now inhabiting a tiger.
+
+It is very easy to laugh at such beliefs; nothing is, indeed, easier
+than to be witty at the expense of any belief. It is also very easy to
+say that it is all self-deception, that the children merely imagine that
+they remember their former lives, or are citing conversation of their
+elders.
+
+How this may be I do not know. What is the explanation of this, perhaps
+the only belief of which we have any knowledge which is at once a living
+belief to-day and was so as far back as we can get, I do not pretend to
+say. For transmigration is no theory of Buddhism at all, but was a
+leading tenet in the far older faith of Brahmanism, of which Buddhism
+was but an offshoot, as was Christianity of Judaism.
+
+I have not, indeed, always attempted to reach the explanation of things
+I have seen. When I have satisfied myself that a belief is really held
+by the people, that I am not the subject of conscious deception, either
+by myself or others, I have conceived that my work was ended.
+
+There are those who, in investigating any foreign customs and strange
+beliefs, can put their finger here and say, 'This is where they are
+right'; and there and say, 'This belief is foolishly wrong and idiotic.'
+I am not, unfortunately, one of these writers. I have no such confident
+belief in my own infallibility of judgment as to be able to sit on high
+and say, 'Here is truth, and here is error.'
+
+I will leave my readers to make their own judgment, if they desire to do
+so; only asking them (as they would not like their own beliefs to be
+scoffed and sneered at) that they will treat with respect the sincere
+beliefs of others, even if they cannot accept them. It is only in this
+way that we can come to understand a people and to sympathize with them.
+
+It is hardly necessary to emphasize the enormous effect that a belief in
+transmigration such as this has upon the life and intercourse of the
+people. Of their kindness to animals I have spoken elsewhere, and it is
+possible this belief in transmigration has something to do with it, but
+not, I think, much. For if you wished to illtreat an animal, it would be
+quite easy, even more easy, to suppose that an enemy or a murderer
+inhabited the body of the animal, and that you were but carrying out the
+decrees of fate by ill-using it. But when you love an animal, it may
+increase that love and make it reasonable, and not a thing to be ashamed
+of; and it brings the animal world nearer to you in general, it bridges
+over the enormous void between man and beast that other religions have
+made. Nothing humanizes a man more than love of animals.
+
+I do not know if this be a paradox, I know that it is a truth.
+
+There was one point that puzzled me for a time in some of these stories
+of transmigration, such as the one I told about the man and wife being
+reborn twins. It was this: A man dies and leaves behind children, let us
+say, to whom he is devoutly attached. He is reborn in another family in
+the same village, maybe. It would be natural to suppose that he would
+love his former family as much as, or even more than, his new one.
+Complications might arise in this way which it is easy to conceive would
+cause great and frequent difficulties.
+
+I explained this to a Burman one day, and asked him what happened, and
+this is what he said: 'The affection of mother to son, of husband to
+wife, of brother to sister, belongs entirely to the body in which you
+may happen to be living. When it dies, so do these affections. New
+affections arise from the new body. The flesh of the son, being of one
+with his father, of course loves him; but as his present flesh has no
+sort of connection with his former one, he does not love those to whom
+he was related in his other lives. These affections are as much a part
+of the body as the hand or the eyesight; with one you put off the
+other.'
+
+Thus all love, to the learned, even the purest affection of daughter to
+mother, of man to his friend, is in theory a function of the body--with
+the one we put off the other; and this may explain, perhaps, something
+of what my previous chapter did not make quite clear, that in the
+hereafter[2] of Buddhism there is no affection.
+
+When we have put off all bodies, when we have attained Nirvana, love and
+hate, desire and repulsion, will have fallen from us for ever.
+
+Meanwhile, in each life, we are obliged to endure the affections of the
+body into which we may be born. It is the first duty of a monk, of him
+who is trying to lead the purer life, to kill all these affections, or
+rather to blend them into one great compassion to all the world alike.
+'Gayüna,' compassion, that is the only passion that will be left to
+us. So say the learned.
+
+I met a little girl not long ago, a wee little maiden about seven years
+old, and she told me all about her former life when she was a man. Her
+name was Maung Mon, she said, and she used to work the dolls in a
+travelling marionette show. It was through her knowledge and partiality
+for marionettes that it was first suspected, her parents told me, whom
+she had been in her former life. She could even as a sucking-child
+manipulate the strings of a marionette-doll. But the actual discovery
+came when she was about four years old, and she recognised a certain
+marionette booth and dolls as her own. She knew all about them, knew
+the name of each doll, and even some of the words they used to say in
+the plays. 'I was married four times,' she told me. 'Two wives died, one
+I divorced; one was living when I died, and is living still. I loved her
+very much indeed. The one I divorced was a dreadful woman. See,'
+pointing to a scar on her shoulder, 'this was given me once in a
+quarrel. She took up a chopper and cut me like this. Then I divorced
+her. She had a dreadful temper.'
+
+It was immensely quaint to hear this little thing discoursing like this.
+The mark was a birth-mark, and I was assured that it corresponded
+exactly with one that had been given to the man by his wife in just such
+a quarrel as the one the little girl described.
+
+The divorced wife and the much-loved wife are still alive and not yet
+old. The last wife wanted the little girl to go and live with her. I
+asked her why she did not go.
+
+'You loved her so much,' I said. 'She was such a good wife to you.
+Surely you would like to live with her again.'
+
+'But all that,' she replied, 'was in a former life.'
+
+Now she loved only her present father and mother. The last life was like
+a dream. Broken memories of it still remained, but the loves and hates,
+the passions and impulses, were all dead.
+
+Another little boy told me once that the way remembrance came to him was
+by seeing the silk he used to wear made into curtains, which are given
+to the monks and used as partitions in their monasteries, and as walls
+to temporary erections made at festival times. He was taken when some
+three years old to a feast at the making of a lad, the son of a wealthy
+merchant, into a monk. There he recognised in the curtain walling in
+part of the bamboo building his old dress. He pointed it out at once.
+
+This same little fellow told me that he passed three months between his
+death and his next incarnation without a body. This was because he had
+once accidentally killed a fowl. Had he killed it on purpose, he would
+have been punished very much more severely. Most of this three months he
+spent dwelling in the hollow shell of a palm-fruit. The nuisance was, he
+explained, that this shell was close to the cattle-path, and that the
+lads as they drove the cattle afield in the early morning would bang
+with a stick against the shell. This made things very uncomfortable for
+him inside.
+
+It is not an uncommon thing for a woman when about to be delivered of a
+baby to have a dream, and to see in that dream the spirit of someone
+asking for permission to enter the unborn child; for, to a certain
+extent, it lies within a woman's power to say who is to be the life of
+her child.
+
+There was a woman once who loved a young man, not of her village, very
+dearly. And he loved her, too, as dearly as she loved him, and he
+demanded her in marriage from her parents; but they refused. Why they
+refused I do not know, but probably because they did not consider the
+young man a proper person for their daughter to marry. Then he tried to
+run away with her, and nearly succeeded, but they were caught before
+they got clear of the village.
+
+The young man had to leave the neighbourhood. The attempted abduction of
+a girl is an offence severely punishable by law, so he fled; and in
+time, under pressure from her people, the girl married another man; but
+she never forgot. She lived with her husband quite happily; he was good
+to her, as most Burmese husbands are, and they got along well enough
+together. But there were no children.
+
+After some years, four or five, I believe, the former lover returned to
+his village. He thought that after this lapse of time he would be safe
+from prosecution, and he was, moreover, very ill.
+
+He was so ill that very soon he died, without ever seeing again the girl
+he was so fond of; and when she heard of his death she was greatly
+distressed, so that the desire of life passed away from her. It so
+happened that at this very time she found herself enceinte with her
+first child, and not long before the due time came for the child to be
+born she had a dream.
+
+She dreamt that her soul left her body, and went out into space and met
+there the soul of her lover who had died. She was rejoiced to meet him
+again, full of delight, so that the return of her soul to her body, her
+awakening to a world in which he was not, filled her with despair. So
+she prayed her lover, if it was now time for him again to be incarnated,
+that he would come to her--that his soul would enter the body of the
+little baby soon about to be born, so that they two might be together in
+life once more.
+
+And in the dream the lover consented. He would come, he said, into the
+child of the woman he loved.
+
+When the woman awoke she remembered it all, and the desire of life
+returned to her again, and all the world was changed because of the new
+life she felt within her. But she told no one then of the dream or of
+what was to happen.
+
+Only she took the greatest care of herself; she ate well, and went
+frequently to the pagoda with flowers, praying that the body in which
+her lover was about to dwell might be fair and strong, worthy of him who
+took it, worthy of her who gave it.
+
+In due time the baby was born. But alas and alas for all her hopes! The
+baby came but for a moment, to breathe a few short breaths, to cry, and
+to die; and a few hours later the woman died also. But before she went
+she told someone all about it, all about the dream and the baby, and
+that she was glad to go and follow her lover. She said that her baby's
+soul was her lover's soul, and that as he could not stay, neither would
+she; and with these words on her lips she followed him out into the
+void.
+
+The story was kept a secret until the husband died, not long
+afterwards; but when I came to the village all the people knew it.
+
+I must confess that this story is to me full of the deepest reality,
+full of pathos. It seems to me to be the unconscious protestation of
+humanity against the dogmas of religion and of the learned. However it
+may be stated that love is but one of the bodily passions that dies with
+it; however, even in some of the stories themselves, this explanation is
+used to clear certain difficulties; however opposed eternal love may be
+to one of the central doctrines of Buddhism, it seems to me that the
+very essence of this story is the belief that love does not die with the
+body, that it lives for ever and ever, through incarnation after
+incarnation. Such a story is the very cry of the agony of humanity.
+
+'Love is strong as death; many waters cannot quench love;' ay, and love
+is stronger than death. Not any dogmas of any religion, not any
+philosophy, nothing in this world, nothing in the next, shall prevent
+him who loves from the certainty of rejoining some time the soul he
+loves.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[2] The hereafter = the state to which we attain when we have
+done with earthly things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE FOREST OF TIME
+
+     'The gate of that forest was Death.'
+
+
+There was a great forest. It was full of giant trees that grew so high
+and were so thick overhead that the sunshine could not get down below.
+And there were huge creepers that ran from tree to tree climbing there,
+and throwing down great loops of rope. Under the trees, growing along
+the ground, were smaller creepers full of thorns, that tore the wayfarer
+and barred his progress. The forest, too, was full of snakes that crept
+along the ground, so like in their gray and yellow skins to the earth
+they travelled on that the traveller trod upon them unawares and was
+bitten; and some so beautiful with coral red and golden bars that men
+would pick them up as some dainty jewel till the snake turned upon them.
+
+Here and there in this forest were little glades wherein there were
+flowers. Beautiful flowers they were, with deep white cups and broad
+glossy leaves hiding the purple fruit; and some had scarlet blossoms
+that nodded to and fro like drowsy men, and there were long festoons of
+white stars. The air there was heavy with their scent. But they were all
+full of thorns, only you could not see the thorns till after you had
+plucked the blossom.
+
+This wood was pierced by roads. Many were very broad, leading through
+the forest in divers ways, some of them stopping now and then in the
+glades, others avoiding them more or less, but none of them were
+straight. Always, if you followed them, they bent and bent until after
+much travelling you were where you began; and the broader the road, the
+softer the turf beneath it; the sweeter the glades that lined it, the
+quicker did it turn.
+
+One road there was that went straight, but it was far from the others.
+It led among the rocks and cliffs that bounded one side of the valley.
+It was very rough, very far from all the glades in the lowlands. No
+flowers grew beside it, there was no moss or grass upon it, only hard
+sharp rocks. It was very narrow, bordered with precipices.
+
+There were many lights in this wood, lights that flamed out like sunsets
+and died, lights that came like lightning in the night and were gone.
+This wood was never quite dark, it was so full of these lights that
+flickered aimlessly.
+
+There were men in this wood who wandered to and fro. The wood was full
+of them.
+
+They did not know whither they went; they did not know whither they
+wished to go. Only this they knew, that they could never keep still;
+for the keeper of this wood was Time. He was armed with a keen whip, and
+kept driving them on and on; there was no rest.
+
+Many of these when they first came loved the wood. The glades, they
+said, were very beautiful, the flowers very sweet. They wandered down
+the broad roads into the glades, and tried to lie upon the moss and love
+the flowers; but Time would not let them. Just for a few moments they
+could have peace, and then they must on and on. But they did not care.
+'The forest is full of glades,' they said; 'if we cannot live in one, we
+can find another.' And so they went on finding others and others, and
+each one pleased them less.
+
+Some few there were who did not go to the glades at all. 'They are very
+beautiful,' they said, 'but these roads that pass through them, whither
+do they lead? Round and round and round again. There is no peace there.
+Time rules in those glades, Time with his whip and goad, and there is no
+peace. What we want is rest. And those lights,' they said, 'they are
+wandering lights, like the summer lightning far down in the South,
+moving hither and thither. We care not for such lights. Our light is
+firm and clear. What we desire is peace; we do not care to wander for
+ever round this forest, to see for ever those shifting lights.'
+
+And so they would not go down the winding roads, but essayed the path
+upon the cliffs. 'It is narrow,' they said, 'it has no flowers, it is
+full of rocks, but it is straight. It will lead us somewhere, not round
+and round and round again--it will take us somewhere. And there is a
+light,' they said, 'before us, the light of a star. It is very small
+now, but it is always steady; it never flickers or wanes. It is the star
+of Truth. Under that star we shall find that which we seek.'
+
+And so they went upon their road, toiling upon the rocks, falling now
+and then, bleeding with wounds from the sharp points, sore-footed, but
+strong-hearted. And ever as they went they were farther and farther from
+the forest, farther and farther from the glades and the flowers with
+deadly scents; they heard less and less the crack of the whip of Time
+falling upon the wanderers' shoulders.
+
+The star grew nearer and nearer, the light grew greater and greater, the
+false lights died behind them, until at last they came out of the
+forest, and there they found the lake that washes away all desire under
+the sun of Truth.
+
+They had won their way. Time and Life and Fight and Struggle were behind
+them, could not follow them, as they came, weary and footsore, into the
+Great Peace.
+
+And of those who were left behind, of those who stayed in the glades to
+gather the deadly flowers, to be driven ever forward by the whip of
+Time--what of them? Surely they will learn. The kindly whip of Time is
+behind: he will never let them rest in such a deadly forest; they must
+go ever forward; and as they go they grow more and more weary, the
+glades are more and more distasteful, the heavy-scented blossoms more
+and more repulsive. They will find out the thorns too. At first they
+forgot the thorns in the flowers. 'The blossoms are beautiful,' they
+said; 'what care we for the thorns? Nay, the thorns are good. It is a
+pleasure to fight with them. What would the forest be without its
+thorns? If we could gather the flowers and find no thorns, we should not
+care for them. The more the thorns, the more valuable the blossoms.'
+
+So they said, and they gathered the blossoms, and they faded. But the
+thorns did not fade; they were ever there. The more blossoms a man had
+gathered, the more thorns he had to wear, and Time was ever behind him.
+They wanted to rest in the glades, but Time willed that ever they must
+go forward; no going back, no rest, ever and ever on. So they grew very
+weary.
+
+'These flowers,' they said at last, 'are always the same. We are tired
+of them; their smell is heavy; they are dead. This forest is full of
+thorns only. How shall we escape from it? Ever as we go round and round
+we hate the flowers more, we feel the thorns more acutely. We must
+escape! We are sick of Time and his whip, our feet are very, very weary,
+our eyes are dazzled and dim. We, too, would seek the Peace. We laughed
+at those before who went along the rocky path; we did not want peace;
+but now it seems to us the most beautiful thing in the world. Will Time
+never cease to drive us on and on? Will these lights _never_ cease to
+flash to and fro?'
+
+Each man at last will turn to the straight road. He will find out. Every
+man will find out at last that the forest is hateful, that the flowers
+are deadly, that the thorns are terrible; every man will learn to fear
+Time.
+
+Then, when the longing for peace has come, he will go to the straight
+way and find it; no man will remain in the forest for ever. He will
+learn. When he is very, very weary, when his feet are full of thorns,
+and his back scarred with the lashes of Time--great, kindly Time, the
+schoolmaster of the world--he will learn.
+
+Not till he has learnt will he desire to enter into the straight road.
+
+But in the end all men will come. We at the last shall all meet together
+where Time and Life shall be no more.
+
+This is a Burman allegory of Buddhism. It was told me long ago. I trust
+I have not spoilt it in the retelling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+This is the end of my book. I have tried always as I wrote to remember
+the principles that I laid down for myself in the first chapter. Whether
+I have always done so I cannot say. It is so difficult, so very
+difficult, to understand a people--any people--to separate their beliefs
+from their assents, to discover the motives of their deeds, that I fear
+I must often have failed.
+
+My book is short. It would have been easy to make a book out of each
+chapter, to write volumes on each great subject that I have touched on;
+but I have not done so--I have always been as brief as I could.
+
+I have tried always to illustrate only the central thought, and not the
+innumerable divergencies, because only so can a great or strange thought
+be made clear. Later, when the thought is known, then it is easy to
+stray into the byways of thought, always remembering that they are
+byways, wandering from a great centre.
+
+For the Burman's life and belief is one great whole.
+
+I thought before I began to write, and I have become more and more
+certain of it as I have taken up subject after subject, that to all the
+great differences of thought between them and us there is one key. And
+this key is that they believe the world is governed by eternal laws,
+that have never changed, that will never change, that are founded on
+absolute righteousness; while we believe in a personal God, altering
+laws, and changing moralities according to His will.
+
+If I were to rewrite this book, I should do so from this standpoint of
+eternal laws, making the book an illustration of the proposition.
+
+Perhaps it is better as it is, in that I have discovered the key at the
+end of my work instead of at the beginning. I did not write the book to
+prove the proposition, but in writing the book this truth has become
+apparent to me.
+
+The more I have written, the clearer has this teaching become to me,
+until now I wonder that I did not understand long ago--nay, that it has
+not always been apparent to all men.
+
+Surely it is the beginning of all wisdom.
+
+Not until we had discarded Atlas and substituted gravity, until we had
+forgotten Enceladus and learned the laws of heat, until we had rejected
+Thor and his hammer and searched after the laws of electricity, could
+science make any strides onward.
+
+An irresponsible spirit playing with the world as his toy killed all
+science.
+
+But now science has learned a new wisdom, to look only at what it can
+see, to leave vain imaginings to children and idealists, certain always
+that the truth is inconceivably more beautiful than any dream.
+
+Science with us has gained her freedom, but the soul is still in bonds.
+
+Only in Buddhism has this soul-freedom been partly gained. How beautiful
+this is, how full of great thoughts, how very different to the barren
+materialism it has often been said to be, I have tried to show.
+
+I believe myself that in this teaching of the laws of righteousness we
+have the grandest conception, the greatest wisdom, the world has known.
+
+I believe that in accepting this conception we are opening to ourselves
+a new world of unimaginable progress, in justice, in charity, in
+sympathy, and in love.
+
+I believe that as our minds, when freed from their bonds, have grown
+more and more rapidly to heights of thought before undreamed of, to
+truths eternal, to beauty inexpressible, so shall our souls, when freed,
+as our minds now are, rise to sublimities of which now we have no
+conception.
+
+Let each man but open his eyes and see, and his own soul shall teach him
+marvellous things.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SILHOUETTES
+
+BY
+ARTHUR SYMONS
+
+SECOND EDITION
+REVISED AND ENLARGED
+
+LONDON: LEONARD SMITHERS
+EFFINGHAM HOUSE: ARUNDEL STREET
+STRAND: MDCCCXCVI
+
+TO
+KATHERINE WILLARD,
+NOW
+KATHERINE BALDWIN.
+
+
+_Paris: May,_ 1892.
+_London: February,_ 1896.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+*Preface:     
+Being a Word on Behalf of Patchouli:     p. xiii.
+
+At Dieppe:     
+After Sunset:     p. 3.
+On the Beach:     p. 4.
+Rain on the Down:     p. 5.
+Before the Squall:     p. 6.
+Under the Cliffs:     p. 7.
+Requies:     p. 8.
+
+Masks and Faces:     
+Pastel:     p. 11.
+Her Eyes:     p. 12.
+Morbidezza:     p. 13.
+Maquillage:     p. 14.
+*Impression:     p. 15.
+An Angel of Perugino:     p. 16.
+At Fontainebleau:     p. 17.
+On the Heath:     p. 18.
+In the Oratory:     p. 19.
+Pattie:     p. 20.
+In an Omnibus:     p. 21.
+On Meeting After:     p. 22.
+In Bohemia:     p. 23.
+Emmy:     p. 24.
+Emmy at the Eldorado:     p. 26.
+*At the Cavour:     p. 27.
+In the Haymarket:     p. 28.
+At the Lyceum:     p. 29.
+The Blind Beggar:     p. 30.
+The Old Labourer:     p. 31.
+The Absinthe Drinker:     p. 32.
+Javanese Dancers     p. 33.
+
+Love’s Disguises:     
+Love in Spring:     p. 37.
+Gipsy Love     p. 38.
+In Kensington Gardens:     p. 39.
+*Rewards:     p. 40.
+Perfume:     p. 41.
+Souvenir:     p. 42.
+*To Mary:     p. 43.
+To a Great Actress:     p. 44.
+Love in Dreams:     p. 45.
+Music and Memory:     p. 46.
+*Spring Twilight:     p. 47.
+In Winter:     p. 48.
+*Quest:     p. 49.
+To a Portrait:     p. 50.
+*Second Thoughts:     p. 51.
+April Midnight:     p. 52.
+During Music:     p. 53.
+On the Bridge:     p. 54.
+“I Dream of Her”:     p. 55.
+*Tears:     p. 56.
+*The Last Exit:     p. 57.
+After Love:     p. 58.
+Alla Passeretta Bruna:     p. 59.
+
+Nocturnes:     
+Nocturne:     p. 63.
+Her Street:     p. 64.
+On Judges’ Walk:     p. 65.
+In the Night:     p. 66.
+
+Fêtes Galantes:     
+*Mandoline:     p. 69.
+*Dans l’Allée     p. 70.
+*Cythère:     p. 71.
+*Les Indolents:     p. 72.
+*Fantoches:     p. 73.
+*Pantomine:     p. 74.
+*L’Amour par Terre:     p. 75.
+*A Clymène:     p. 76.
+From Romances sans Parole     p. 71.
+ 
+Moods and Memories:     
+City Nights:     p. 81.
+A White Night:     p. 82.
+In the Valley:     p. 83.
+Peace at Noon:     p. 84.
+In Fountain Court:     p. 85.
+At Burgos:     p. 86.
+At Dawn:     p. 87.
+In Autumn:     p. 88.
+On the Roads:     p. 89.
+*Pierrot in Half-Mourning:     p. 90.
+For a Picture of Watteau:     p. 91.
+
+* The Preface, and the nineteen Poems marked with an asterisk, were not
+contained in the first edition. One Poem has been omitted, and many
+completely rewritten.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE:
+
+BEING A WORD ON BEHALF OF PATCHOULI.
+
+AN ingenuous reviewer once described some verses of mine as
+“unwholesome,” because, he said, they had “a faint smell of Patchouli
+about them.” I am a little sorry he chose Patchouli, for that is not a
+particularly favourite scent with me. If he had only chosen Peau
+d’Espagne, which has a subtle meaning, or Lily of the Valley, with
+which I have associations! But Patchouli will serve. Let me ask, then,
+in republishing, with additions, a collection of little pieces, many of
+which have been objected to, at one time or another, as being somewhat
+deliberately frivolous, why art should not, if it please, concern
+itself with the artificially charming, which, I suppose, is what my
+critic means by Patchouli? All art, surely, is a form of artifice, and
+thus, to the truly devout mind, condemned already, if not as actively
+noxious, at all events as needless. That is a point of view which I
+quite understand, and its conclusion I hold to be absolutely logical. I
+have the utmost respect for the people who refuse to read a novel, to
+go to the theatre, or to learn dancing. That is to have convictions and
+to live up to them. I understand also the point of view from which a
+work of art is tolerated in so far as it is actually militant on behalf
+of a religious or a moral idea. But what I fail to understand are those
+delicate, invisible degrees by which a distinction is drawn between
+this form of art and that; the hesitations, and compromises, and
+timorous advances, and shocked retreats, of the Puritan conscience once
+emancipated, and yet afraid of liberty. However you may try to convince
+yourself to the contrary, a work of art can be judged only from two
+standpoints: the standpoint from which its art is measured entirely by
+its morality, and the standpoint from which its morality is measured
+entirely by its art.
+
+Here, for once, in connection with these “Silhouettes,” I have not, if
+my recollection serves me, been accused of actual immorality. I am but
+a fair way along the “primrose path,” not yet within singeing distance
+of the “everlasting bonfire.” In other words, I have not yet written
+“London Nights,” which, it appears (I can scarcely realize it, in my
+innocent abstraction in aesthetical matters), has no very salutary
+reputation among the blameless moralists of the press. I need not,
+therefore, on this occasion, concern myself with more than the curious
+fallacy by which there is supposed to be something inherently wrong in
+artistic work which deals frankly and lightly with the very real charm
+of the lighter emotions and the more fleeting sensations.
+
+I do not wish to assert that the kind of verse which happened to
+reflect certain moods of mine at a certain period of my life, is the
+best kind of verse in itself, or is likely to seem to me, in other
+years, when other moods may have made me their own, the best kind of
+verse for my own expression of myself. Nor do I affect to doubt that
+the creation of the supreme emotion is a higher form of art than the
+reflection of the most exquisite sensation, the evocation of the most
+magical impression. I claim only an equal liberty for the rendering of
+every mood of that variable and inexplicable and contradictory creature
+which we call ourselves, of every aspect under which we are gifted or
+condemned to apprehend the beauty and strangeness and curiosity of the
+visible world.
+
+Patchouli! Well, why not Patchouli? Is there any “reason in nature” why
+we should write exclusively about the natural blush, if the delicately
+acquired blush of rouge has any attraction for us? Both exist; both, I
+think, are charming in their way; and the latter, as a subject, has, at
+all events, more novelty. If you prefer your “new-mown hay” in the
+hayfield, and I, it may be, in a scent-bottle, why may not my
+individual caprice be allowed to find expression as well as yours?
+Probably I enjoy the hayfield as much as you do; but I enjoy quite
+other scents and sensations as well, and I take the former for granted,
+and write my poem, for a change, about the latter. There is no
+necessary difference in artistic value between a good poem about a
+flower in the hedge and a good poem about the scent in a sachet. I am
+always charmed to read beautiful poems about nature in the country.
+Only, personally, I prefer town to country; and in the town we have to
+find for ourselves, as best we may, the _décor_ which is the town
+equivalent of the great natural _décor_ of fields and hills. Here it is
+that artificiality comes in; and if any one sees no beauty in the
+effects of artificial light, in all the variable, most human, and yet
+most factitious town landscape, I can only pity him, and go on my own
+way.
+
+That is, if he will let me. But he tells me that one thing is right and
+the other is wrong; that one is good art and the other is bad; and I
+listen in amazement, sometimes not without impatience, wondering why an
+estimable personal prejudice should be thus exalted into a dogma, and
+uttered in the name of art. For in art there can be no prejudices, only
+results. If we arc to save people’s souls by the writing of verses,
+well and good. But if not, there is no choice but to admit an absolute
+freedom of choice. And if Patchouli pleases one, why not Patchouli?
+
+Arthur Symons.
+
+
+London, _February,_1896.
+
+
+
+
+AT DIEPPE.
+
+
+
+
+AFTER SUNSET.
+
+
+THE sea lies quieted beneath
+     The after-sunset flush
+That leaves upon the heaped grey clouds
+     The grape’s faint purple blush.
+
+Pale, from a little space in heaven
+     Of delicate ivory,
+The sickle-moon and one gold star
+     Look down upon the sea.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE BEACH.
+
+
+NIGHT, a grey sky, a ghostly sea,
+     The soft beginning of the rain:
+     Black on the horizon, sails that wane
+Into the distance mistily.
+
+The tide is rising, I can hear
+     The soft roar broadening far along;
+It cries and murmurs in my car
+     A sleepy old forgotten song.
+
+Softly the stealthy night descends,
+     The black sails fade into the sky:
+Is this not, where the sea-line ends,
+     The shore-line of infinity?
+
+I cannot think or dream: the grey
+     Unending waste of sea and night,
+     Dull, impotently infinite,
+Blots out the very hope of day.
+
+
+
+
+RAIN ON THE DOWN.
+
+
+NIGHT, and the down by the sea,
+     And the veil of rain on the down;
+And she came through the mist and the rain to me
+     From the safe warm lights of the town.
+
+The rain shone in her hair,
+     And her face gleamed in the rain;
+And only the night and the rain were there
+     As she came to me out of the rain.
+
+
+
+
+BEFORE THE SQUALL.
+
+
+THE wind is rising on the sea,
+     White flashes dance along the deep,
+That moans as if uneasily
+     It turned in an unquiet sleep.
+
+Ridge after rocky ridge upheaves
+     A toppling crest that falls in spray
+Where the tormented beach receives
+     The buffets of the sea’s wild play.
+
+On the horizon’s nearing line,
+     Where the sky rests, a visible wall.
+Grey in the offing, I divine
+     The sails that fly before the squall.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER THE CLIFFS.
+
+
+BRIGHT light to windward on the horizon’s verge;
+To leeward, stormy shadows, violet-black,
+And the wide sea between
+A vast unfurrowed field of windless green;
+The stormy shadows flicker on the track
+Of phantom sails that vanish and emerge.
+
+I gaze across the sea, remembering her.
+I watch the white sun walk across the sea,
+This pallid afternoon,
+With feet that tread as whitely as the moon,
+And in his fleet and shining feet I see
+The footsteps of another voyager.
+
+
+
+
+REQUIES.
+
+
+O IS it death or life
+     That sounds like something strangely known
+In this subsiding out of strife,
+     This slow sea-monotone?
+
+A sound, scarce heard through sleep,
+     Murmurous as the August bees
+That fill the forest hollows deep
+     About the roots of trees.
+
+O is it life or death,
+     O is it hope or memory,
+That quiets all things with this breath
+     Of the eternal sea?
+
+
+
+
+MASKS AND FACES.
+
+
+
+
+PASTEL.
+
+
+THE light of our cigarettes
+     Went and came in the gloom:
+     It was dark in the little room.
+
+Dark, and then, in the dark,
+     Sudden, a flash, a glow,
+     And a hand and a ring I know.
+
+And then, through the dark, a flush
+     Ruddy and vague, the grace—
+     A rose—of her lyric face.
+
+
+
+
+HER EYES.
+
+
+BENEATH the heaven of her brows’
+     Unclouded noon of peace, there lies
+A leafy heaven of hazel boughs
+     In the seclusion of her eyes;
+
+Her troubling eyes that cannot rest;
+     And there’s a little flame that dances
+(A firefly in a grassy nest)
+     In the green circle of her glances;
+
+A frolic Faun that must be hid,
+     Shyly, in some fantastic shade,
+Where pity droops a tender lid
+     On laughter of itself afraid.
+
+
+
+
+MORBIDEZZA.
+
+
+WHITE girl, your flesh is lilies
+Grown ’neath a frozen moon,
+So still is
+The rapture of your swoon
+Of whiteness, snow or lilies.
+
+The virginal revealment,
+Your bosom’s wavering slope,
+Concealment,
+’Neath fainting heliotrope,
+Of whitest white’s revealment,
+
+Is like a bed of lilies,
+A jealous-guarded row,
+Whose will is
+Simply chaste dreams:—but oh,
+The alluring scent of lilies!
+
+
+
+
+MAQUILLAGE.
+
+
+THE charm of rouge on fragile cheeks,
+     Pearl-powder, and, about the eyes,
+The dark and lustrous Eastern dyes;
+     The floating odour that bespeaks
+A scented boudoir and the doubtful night
+Of alcoves curtained close against the light
+
+Gracile and creamy white and rose,
+     Complexioned like the flower of dawn,
+Her fleeting colours are as those
+     That, from an April sky withdrawn,
+Fade in a fragrant mist of tears away
+When weeping noon leads on the altered day.
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSION.
+
+TO M. C.
+
+
+THE pink and black of silk and lace,
+     Flushed in the rosy-golden glow
+Of lamplight on her lifted face;
+Powder and wig, and pink and lace,
+
+And those pathetic eyes of hers;
+     But all the London footlights know
+The little plaintive smile that stirs
+The shadow in those eyes of hers.
+
+Outside, the dreary church-bell tolled,
+     The London Sunday faded slow;
+Ah, what is this? what wings unfold
+In this miraculous rose of gold?
+
+
+
+
+AN ANGEL OF PERUGINO.
+
+
+HAVE I not seen your face before
+     Where Perugino’s angels stand
+In those calm circles, and adore
+     With singing throat and lifted hand?
+
+So the pale hair lay crescent-wise,
+     About the placid forehead curled,
+And the pale piety of eyes
+     Was as God’s peace upon the world.
+
+And you, a simple child serene,
+     Wander upon your quiet way,
+Nor know that any eyes have seen
+     The Umbrian halo crown the day.
+
+
+
+
+AT FONTAINEBLEAU.
+
+
+IT was a day of sun and rain,
+     Uncertain as a child’s quick moods;
+And I shall never pass again
+     So blithe a day among the woods.
+
+The forest knew you and was glad,
+     And laughed for very joy to know
+Her child was with her; then, grown sad,
+     She wept, because her child must go.
+
+And you would spy and you would capture
+     The shyest flower that lit the grass:
+The joy I had to watch your rapture
+     Was keen as even your rapture was.
+
+The forest knew you and was glad,
+     And laughed and wept for joy and woe.
+This was the welcome that you had
+     Among the woods of Fontainebleau.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE HEATH.
+
+
+HER face’s wilful flash and glow
+     Turned all its light upon my face
+     One bright delirious moment’s space,
+And then she passed: I followed slow
+
+Across the heath, and up and round,
+     And watched the splendid death of day
+     Upon the summits far away,
+And in her fateful beauty found
+
+The fierce wild beauty of the light
+     That startles twilight on the hills,
+     And lightens all the mountain rills,
+And flames before the feet of night.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE ORATORY.
+
+
+THE incense mounted like a cloud,
+     A golden cloud of languid scent;
+Robed priests before the altar bowed,
+     Expecting the divine event.
+
+Then silence, like a prisoner bound,
+     Rose, by a mighty hand set free,
+And dazzlingly, in shafts of sound,
+     Thundered Beethoven’s Mass in C.
+
+She knelt in prayer; large lids serene
+     Lay heavy on the sombre eyes,
+As though to veil some vision seen
+     Upon the mounts of Paradise.
+
+Her dark face, calm as carven stone.
+     The face that twilight shows the day,
+Brooded, mysteriously alone,
+     And infinitely far away.
+
+Inexplicable eyes that drew
+     Mine eyes adoring, why from me
+Demand, new Sphinx, the fatal clue
+     That seals my doom or conquers thee?
+
+
+
+
+PATTIE.
+
+
+COOL comely country Pattie, grown
+     A daisy where the daisies grow,
+No wind of heaven has ever blown
+     Across a field-flower’s daintier snow.
+
+Gold-white among the meadow-grass
+     The humble little daisies thrive;
+I cannot see them as I pass,
+     But I am glad to be alive.
+
+And so I turn where Pattie stands,
+     A flower among the flowers at play;
+I’ll lay my heart into her hands,
+     And she will smile the clouds away.
+
+
+
+
+IN AN OMNIBUS.
+
+
+YOUR smile is like a treachery,
+     A treachery adorable;
+So smiles the siren where the sea
+     Sings to the unforgetting shell.
+
+Your fleeting Leonardo face,
+     Parisian Monna Lisa, dreams
+     Elusively, but not of streams
+Born in a shadow-haunted place.
+
+Of Paris, Paris, is your thought,
+     Of Paris robes, and when to wear
+The latest bonnet you have bought
+     To match the marvel of your hair.
+
+Yet that fine malice of your smile,
+     That faint and fluctuating glint
+     Between your eyelids, does it hint
+Alone of matters mercantile?
+
+Close lips that keep the secret in,
+     Half spoken by the stealthy eyes,
+Is there indeed no word to win,
+     No secret, from the vague replies
+
+Of lips and lids that feign to hide
+     That which they feign to render up?
+     Is there, in Tantalus’ dim cup,
+The shadow of water, nought beside?
+
+
+
+
+ON MEETING AFTER.
+
+
+HER eyes are haunted, eyes that were
+     Scarce sad when last we met.
+What thing is this has come to her
+     That she may not forget?
+
+They loved, they married: it is well!
+     But ah, what memories
+Are these whereof her eyes half tell,
+     Her haunted eyes?
+
+
+
+
+IN BOHEMIA.
+
+
+DRAWN blinds and flaring gas within,
+     And wine, and women, and cigars;
+Without, the city’s heedless din;
+     Above, the white unheeding stars.
+
+And we, alike from each remote,
+     The world that works, the heaven that waits,
+Con our brief pleasures o’er by rote,
+     The favourite pastime of the Fates.
+
+We smoke, to fancy that we dream,
+     And drink, a moment’s joy to prove,
+And fain would love, and only seem
+     To love because we cannot love.
+
+Draw back the blinds, put out the light:
+     ’Tis morning, let the daylight come.
+God! how the women’s cheeks are white,
+     And how the sunlight strikes us dumb!
+
+
+
+
+EMMY.
+
+
+EMMY’S exquisite youth and her virginal air,
+     Eyes and teeth in the flash of a musical smile,
+Come to me out of the past, and I see her there
+     As I saw her once for a while.
+
+Emmy’s laughter rings in my ears, as bright,
+     Fresh and sweet as the voice of a mountain brook,
+And still I hear her telling us tales that night,
+     Out of Boccaccio’s book.
+
+There, in the midst of the villainous dancing-hall,
+     Leaning across the table, over the beer,
+While the music maddened the whirling skirts of the ball,
+     As the midnight hour drew near,
+
+There with the women, haggard, painted and old,
+     One fresh bud in a garland withered and stale,
+She, with her innocent voice and her clear eyes, told
+     Tale after shameless tale.
+
+And ever the witching smile, to her face beguiled,
+     Paused and broadened, and broke in a ripple of fun,
+And the soul of a child looked out of the eyes of a child,
+     Or ever the tale was done.
+
+O my child, who wronged you first, and began
+     First the dance of death that you dance so well?
+Soul for soul: and I think the soul of a man
+     Shall answer for yours in hell.
+
+
+
+
+EMMY AT THE ELDORADO.
+
+
+TO meet, of all unlikely things,
+Here, after all one’s wanderings!
+But, Emmy, though we meet,
+What of this lover at your feet?
+
+For, is this Emmy that I see?
+A fragile domesticity
+I seem to half surprise
+In the evasions of those eyes.
+
+Once a child’s cloudless eyes, they seem
+Lost in the blue depths of a dream,
+As though, for innocent hours,
+To stray with love among the flowers.
+
+Without regret, without desire,
+In those old days of love on hire,
+Child, child, what will you do,
+Emmy, now love is come to you?
+
+Already, in so brief a while,
+The gleam has faded from your smile;
+This grave and tender air
+Leaves you, for all but one, less fair.
+
+Then, you were heedless, happy, gay,
+Immortally a child; to-day
+A woman, at the years’ control:
+Undine has found a soul.
+
+
+
+
+AT THE CAVOUR.
+
+
+WINE, the red coals, the flaring gas,
+     Bring out a brighter tone in cheeks
+That learn at home before the glass
+     The flush that eloquently speaks.
+
+The blue-grey smoke of cigarettes
+     Curls from the lessening ends that glow;
+The men are thinking of the bets,
+     The women of the debts, they owe.
+
+Then their eyes meet, and in their eyes
+     The accustomed smile comes up to call,
+A look half miserably wise.
+     Half heedlessly ironical.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE HAYMARKET.
+
+
+I DANCED at your ball a year ago,
+     To-night I pay for your bread and cheese,
+“And a glass of bitters, if you please,
+     For you drank my best champagne, you know!”
+
+Madcap ever, you laugh the while,
+     As you drink your bitters and munch your bread;
+The face is the same, and the same old smile
+     Came up at a word I said.
+
+A year ago I danced at your ball,
+     I sit by your side in the bar to-night;
+And the luck has changed, you say: that’s all!
+     And the luck will change, you say: all right!
+
+For the men go by, and the rent’s to pay,
+     And you haven’t a friend in the world to-day;
+And the money comes and the money goes:
+     And to-night, who cares? and to-morrow, who knows?
+
+
+
+
+AT THE LYCEUM.
+
+
+HER eyes are brands that keep the angry heat
+     Of fire that crawls and leaves an ashen path.
+     The dust of this devouring flame she hath
+Upon her cheeks and eyelids. Fresh and sweet
+In days that were, her sultry beauty now
+     Is pain transfigured, love’s impenitence,
+     The memory of a maiden innocence,
+As a crown set upon a weary brow.
+
+She sits, and fain would listen, fain forget;
+     She smiles, but with those tragic, waiting eyes,
+Those proud and piteous lips that hunger yet
+     For love’s fulfilment. Ah, when Landry cries
+“My heart is dead!” with what a wild regret
+     Her own heart feels the throb that never dies!
+
+
+
+
+THE BLIND BEGGAR.
+
+
+HE stands, a patient figure, where the crowd
+     Heaves to and fro beside him. In his ears
+     All day the Fair goes thundering, and he hears
+In darkness, as a dead man in his shroud.
+Patient he stands, with age and sorrow bowed,
+     And holds a piteous hat of ancient yean;
+     And in his face and gesture there appears
+The desperate humbleness of poor men proud.
+
+What thoughts are his, as, with the inward sight,
+     He sees those mirthful faces pass him by?
+Is the long darkness darker for that light.
+     The misery deeper when that joy is nigh?
+Patient, alone, he stands from morn to night,
+     Pleading in his reproachful misery.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD LABOURER.
+
+
+HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak,
+     His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits;
+     His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits
+Bending above the hearthstone’s feeble smoke.
+Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land;
+     He wrung his bread from out the stubborn soil;
+     He saw his masters flourish through his toil;
+He held their substance in his horny hand.
+
+Now he is old: he asks for daily bread:
+     He who has sowed the bread he may not taste
+          Begs for the crumbs: he would do no man wrong.
+The Parish Guardians, when his case is read,
+     Will grant him (yet with no unseemly haste)
+     Just seventeen pence to starve on, seven days long.
+
+
+
+
+THE ABSINTHE DRINKER.
+
+
+GENTLY I wave the visible world away.
+     Far off, I hear a roar, afar yet near,
+     Far off and strange, a voice is in my ear,
+And is the voice my own? the words I say
+Fall strangely, like a dream, across the day;
+     And the dim sunshine is a dream. How clear,
+     New as the world to lovers’ eyes, appear
+The men and women passing on their way!
+
+The world is very fair. The hours are all
+     Linked in a dance of mere forgetfulness.
+          I am at peace with God and man. O glide,
+Sands of the hour-glass that I count not, fall
+     Serenely: scarce I feel your soft caress.
+          Rocked on this dreamy and indifferent tide.
+
+
+
+
+JAVANESE DANCERS,
+
+
+TWITCHED strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums.
+     Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting;
+And now the stealthy dancer comes
+     Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling;
+
+Smiling between her painted lids a smile,
+     Motionless, unintelligible, she twines
+     Her fingers into mazy lines,
+Twining her scarves across them all the while.
+
+One, two, three, four step forth, and, to and fro,
+     Delicately and imperceptibly,
+Now swaying gently in a row,
+     Now interthreading slow and rhythmically,
+
+Still with fixed eyes, monotonously still,
+     Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate,
+     With lingering feet that undulate,
+With sinuous fingers, spectral hands that thrill,
+
+The little amber-coloured dancers move,
+     Like little painted figures on a screen,
+     Or phantom-dancers haply seen
+Among the shadows of a magic grove.
+
+
+
+
+LOVE’S DISGUISES.
+
+
+
+
+LOVE IN SPRING.
+
+
+GOOD to be loved and to love for a little, and then
+     Well to forget, be forgotten, ere loving grow life!
+Dear, you have loved me, but was I the man among men?
+Sweet, I have loved you, but scarcely as mistress or wife.
+
+Message of Spring in the hearts of a man and a maid,
+     Hearts on a holiday: ho! let us love: it is Spring.
+Joy in the birds of the air, in the buds of the glade,
+     Joy in our hearts in the joy of the hours on the wing.
+
+Well, but to-morrow? To-morrow, good-bye: it is over.
+     Scarcely with tears shall we part, with a smile who had met.
+Tears? What is this? But I thought we were playing at lover.
+     Play-time is past. I am going. And you love me yet!
+
+
+
+
+GIPSY LOVE.
+
+
+THE gipsy tents are on the down,
+     The gipsy girls are here;
+And it’s O to be off and away from the town
+     With a gipsy for my dear!
+
+We’d make our bed in the bracken
+     With the lark for a chambermaid;
+The lark would sing us awake in the mornings
+     Singing above our head.
+
+We’d drink the sunlight all day long
+     With never a house to bind us;
+And we’d only flout in a merry song
+     The world we left behind us.
+
+We would be free as birds are free
+     The livelong day, the livelong day;
+And we would lie in the sunny bracken
+     With none to say us nay.
+
+The gipsy tents are on the down,
+     The gipsy girls are here;
+And it’s O to be off and away from the town
+     With a gipsy for my dear!
+
+
+
+
+IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.
+
+
+UNDER the almond tree,
+Room for my love and me!
+     Over our heads the April blossom;
+April-hearted are we.
+
+Under the pink and white,
+Love in her eyes alight;
+     Love and the Spring and Kensington Gardens:
+Hey for the heart’s delight!
+
+
+
+
+REWARDS.
+
+
+BECAUSE you cried, I kissed you, and,
+Ah me! how should I understand
+That piteous little you were fain
+To cry and to be kissed again?
+
+Because you smiled at last, I thought
+That I had found what I had sought.
+But soon I found, without a doubt,
+No man can find a woman out.
+
+I kissed your tears, and did not stay
+Till I had kissed them all away.
+Ah, hapless me! ah, heartless child!
+She would not kiss me when she smiled.
+
+
+
+
+PERFUME.
+
+
+SHAKE out your hair about me, so,
+     That I may feel the stir and scent
+Of those vague odours come and go
+     The way our kisses went.
+
+Night gave this priceless hour of love,
+     But now the dawn steals in apace,
+And amorously bends above
+     The wonder of your face.
+
+“Farewell” between our kisses creeps,
+     You fade, a ghost, upon the air;
+Yet, ah! the vacant place still keeps
+     The odour of your hair.
+
+
+
+
+SOUVENIR.
+
+
+HOW you haunt me with your eyes!
+Still that questioning persistence,
+Sad and sweet, across the distance
+Of the days of love and laughter,
+Those old days of love and lies.
+
+Not reproaching, not reproving,
+Only, always, questioning,
+Those divinest eyes can bring
+Memories of certain summers,
+Nights of dreaming, days of loving,
+
+When I loved you, when your kiss,
+Shyer than a bird to capture,
+Lit a sudden heaven of rapture;
+When we neither dreamt that either
+Could grow old in heart like this.
+
+Do you still, in love’s December,
+Still remember, still regret
+That sweet unavailing debt?
+Ah, you haunt me, to remind me
+You remember, I forget!
+
+
+
+
+TO MARY.
+
+
+IF, Mary, that imperious face,
+     And not in dreams alone,
+Come to this shadow-haunted place
+     And claim dominion;
+
+If, for your sake, I do unqueen
+     Some well-remembered ghost,
+Forgetting much of what hath been
+     Best loved, remembered most;
+
+It is your witchery, not my will,
+     Your beauty, not my choice:
+My shadows knew me faithful, till
+     They heard your living voice.
+
+
+
+
+TO A GREAT ACTRESS.
+
+
+SHE has taken my heart, though she knows not, would care not.
+     It thrills at her voice like a reed in the wind;
+I would taste all her agonies, have her to spare not,
+          Sin deep as she sinned,
+
+To be tossed by the storm of her love, as the ocean
+     Rocks vessels to wreck; to be hers, though the cost
+Were the loss of all else: for that moment’s emotion
+          Content to be lost!
+
+To be, for a moment, the man of all men to her,
+     All the world, for one measureless moment complete;
+To possess, be possessed! To be mockery then to her,
+          Then to die at her feet!
+
+
+
+
+LOVE IN DREAMS.
+
+
+I LIE on my pallet bed,
+     And I hear the drip of the rain;
+The rain on my garret roof is falling,
+     And I am cold and in pain.
+
+I lie on my pallet bed,
+     And my heart is wild with delight;
+I hear her voice through the midnight calling,
+     As I lie awake in the night.
+
+I lie on my pallet bed,
+     And I see her bright eyes gleam;
+She smiles, she speaks, and the world is ended,
+     And made again in a dream.
+
+
+
+
+MUSIC AND MEMORY.
+
+To K.W.
+
+
+ACROSS the tides of music, in the night,
+Her magical face,
+A light upon it as the happy light
+Of dreams in some delicious place
+Under the moonlight in the night.
+
+Music, soft throbbing music in the night,
+Her memory swims
+Into the brain, a carol of delight;
+The cup of music overbrims
+With wine of memory, in the night.
+
+Her face across the music, in the night,
+Her face a refrain,
+A light that sings along the waves of light,
+A memory that returns again,
+Music in music, in the night.
+
+
+
+
+SPRING TWILIGHT.
+
+To K. W.
+
+
+THE twilight droops across the day,
+     I watch her portrait on the wall
+Palely recede into the grey
+     That palely comes and covers all.
+
+The sad Spring twilight, dull, forlorn,
+     The menace of the dreary night:
+But in her face, more fair than morn,
+     A sweet suspension of delight.
+
+
+
+
+IN WINTER.
+
+
+PALE from the watery west, with the pallor of winter a-cold,
+Rays of the afternoon sun in a glimmer across the trees;
+Glittering moist underfoot, the long alley. The firs, one by one,
+Catch and conceal, as I saunter, and flash in a dazzle of gold
+Lower and lower the vanishing disc: and the sun alone sees
+At I wait for my love in the fir-tree alley alone with the sun.
+
+
+
+
+QUEST.
+
+
+I CHASE a shadow through the night,
+     A shadow unavailing;
+Out of the dark, into the light,
+     I follow, follow: is it she?
+
+Against the wall of sea outlined,
+     Outlined against the windows lit,
+The shadow flickers, and behind
+     I follow, follow after it.
+
+The shadow leads me through the night
+     To the grey margin of the sea;
+Out of the dark, into the light,
+     I follow unavailingly.
+
+
+
+
+TO A PORTRAIT.
+
+
+A PENSIVE photograph
+     Watches me from the shelf:
+Ghost of old love, and half
+     Ghost of myself!
+
+How the dear waiting eyes
+     Watch me and love me yet:
+Sad home of memories,
+     Her waiting eyes!
+
+Ghost of old love, wronged ghost,
+     Return, though all the pain
+Of all once loved, long lost,
+     Come back again.
+
+Forget not, but forgive!
+     Alas, too late I cry.
+We are two ghosts that had their chance to live,
+     And lost it, she and I.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND THOUGHTS.
+
+
+WHEN you were here, ah foolish then!
+     I scarcely knew I loved you, dear.
+I know it now, I know it when
+     You are no longer here.
+
+When you were here, I sometimes tired,
+     Ah me! that you so loved me, dear.
+Now, in these weary days desired,
+     You are no longer here.
+
+When you were here, did either know
+     That each so loved the other, dear?
+But that was long and long ago:
+     You are no longer here.
+
+
+
+
+APRIL MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+SIDE by side through the streets at midnight,
+     Roaming together,
+Through the tumultuous night of London,
+     In the miraculous April weather.
+
+Roaming together under the gaslight,
+     Day’s work over,
+How the Spring calls to us, here in the city,
+     Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!
+
+Cool the wind blows, fresh in our faces,
+     Cleansing, entrancing,
+After the heat and the fumes and the footlights,
+     Where you dance and I watch your dancing.
+
+Good it is to be here together,
+     Good to be roaming;
+Even in London, even at midnight,
+     Lover-like in a lover’s gloaming.
+
+You the dancer and I the dreamer,
+     Children together,
+Wandering lost in the night of London,
+     In the miraculous April weather.
+
+
+
+
+DURING MUSIC.
+
+
+THE music had the heat of blood,
+     A passion that no words can reach;
+We sat together, and understood
+     Our own heart’s speech.
+
+We had no need of word or sign,
+     The music spoke for us, and said
+All that her eyes could read in mine
+     Or mine in hers had read.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE BRIDGE.
+
+
+MIDNIGHT falls across hollow gulfs of
+night
+     As a stone that falls in a sounding well;
+Under us the Seine flows through dark and light,
+     While the beat of time—hark!—is audible.
+
+Lights on bank and bridge glitter gold and red,
+     Lights upon the stream glitter red and white;
+Under us the night, and the night overhead.
+     We together, we alone together in the night.
+
+
+
+
+“I DREAM OF HER.”
+
+
+I DREAM of her the whole night long,
+     The pillows with my tears are wet.
+I wake, I seek amid the throng
+     The courage to forget.
+
+Yet still, as night comes round, I dread,
+     With unavailing fears,
+The dawn that finds, beneath my head,
+     The pillows wet with tears.
+
+
+
+
+TEARS.
+
+
+O HANDS that I have held in mine,
+     That knew my kisses and my tears,
+     Hands that in other years
+Have poured my balm, have poured my wine;
+
+Women, once loved, and always mine,
+     I call to you across the years,
+     I bring a gift of tears,
+I bring my tears to you as wine.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST EXIT.
+
+
+OUR love was all arrayed in pleasantness,
+     A tender little love that sighed and smiled
+     At little happy nothings, like a child,
+A dainty little love in fancy dress.
+
+But now the love that once was half in play
+     Has come to be this grave and piteous thing.
+     Why did you leave me all this suffering
+For all your memory when you went away?
+
+You might have played the play out, O my friend,
+     Closing upon a kiss our comedy.
+     Or is it, then, a fault of taste in me,
+Who like no tragic exit at the end?
+
+
+
+
+AFTER LOVE.
+
+
+O TO part now, and, parting now,
+     Never to meet again;
+To have done for ever, I and thou,
+     With joy, and so with pain.
+
+It is too hard, too hard to meet
+     As friends, and love no more;
+Those other meetings were too sweet
+     That went before.
+
+And I would have, now love is over,
+     An end to all, an end:
+I cannot, having been your lover,
+     Stoop to become your friend!
+
+
+
+
+ALLA PASSERETTA BRUNA.
+
+
+IF I bid you, you will come,
+     If I bid you, you will go,
+          You are mine, and so I take you
+To my heart, your home;
+     Well, ah, well I know
+          I shall not forsake you.
+
+I shall always hold you fast,
+     I shall never set you free,
+          You are mine, and I possess you
+Long as life shall last;
+     You will comfort me,
+          I shall bless you.
+
+I shall keep you as we keep
+     Flowers for memory, hid away,
+          Under many a newer token
+Buried deep,
+     Roses of a gaudier day,
+          Rings and trinkets, bright and broken.
+
+Other women I shall love,
+     Fame and fortune I may win,
+          But when fame and love forsake me
+And the light is night above,
+     You will let me in,
+          You will take me.
+
+
+
+
+NOCTURNES.
+
+
+
+
+NOCTURNE.
+
+
+ONE little cab to hold us two,
+Night, an invisible dome of cloud,
+The rattling wheels that made our whispers loud,
+As heart-beats into whispers grew;
+And, long, the Embankment with its lights,
+The pavement glittering with fallen rain,
+The magic and the mystery that are night’s,
+And human love without the pain.
+
+The river shook with wavering gleams,
+Deep buried as the glooms that lay
+Impenetrable as the grave of day,
+Near and as distant as our dreams.
+A bright train flashed with all its squares
+Of warm light where the bridge lay mistily.
+The night was all about us: we were free,
+Free of the day and all its cares!
+
+That was an hour of bliss too long,
+Too long to last where joy is brief.
+Yet one escape of souls may yield relief
+To many weary seasons’ wrong.
+“O last for ever!” my heart cried;
+It ended: heaven was done.
+I had been dreaming by her side
+That heaven was but begun.
+
+
+
+
+HER STREET.
+
+(IN ABSENCE.)
+
+
+I PASSED your street of many memories.
+     A sunset, sombre pink, the flush
+     Of inner rose-leaves idle fingers crush,
+Died softly, as the rose that dies.
+All the high heaven behind the roof lay thus,
+     Tenderly dying, touched with pain
+     A little; standing there I saw again
+The sunsets that were dear to us.
+
+I knew not if ’twere bitter or more sweet
+     To stand and watch the roofs, the sky.
+     O bitter to be there and you not nigh,
+Yet this had been that blessed street.
+How the name thrilled me, there upon the wall!
+    There was the house, the windows there
+     Against the rosy twilight high and bare,
+The pavement-stones: I knew them all!
+
+Days that have been, days that have fallen cold!
+     I stood and gazed, and thought of you,
+     Until remembrance sweet and mournful drew
+Tears to eyes smiling as of old.
+So, sad and glad, your memory visibly
+     Alive within my eyes, I turned;
+     And, through a window, met two eyes that burned,
+Tenderly questioning, on me.
+
+
+
+
+ON JUDGES’ WALK.
+
+
+THAT night on Judges’ Walk the wind
+     Was as the voice of doom;
+The heath, a lake of darkness, lay
+     As silent as the tomb.
+
+The vast night brooded, white with stars,
+     Above the world’s unrest;
+The awfulness of silence ached
+     Like a strong heart repressed.
+
+That night we walked beneath the trees,
+     Alone, beneath the trees;
+There was some word we could not say
+     Half uttered in the breeze.
+
+That night on Judges’ Walk we said
+     No word of all we had to say;
+But now there shall be no word said
+     Before the Judge’s Day.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE NIGHT.
+
+
+THE moonlight had tangled the trees
+Under our feet as we walked in the night,
+And the shadows beneath us were stirred by the breeze
+In the magical light;
+And the moon was a silver fire,
+And the stars were flickers of flame,
+Golden and violet and red;
+And the night-wind sighed my desire,
+And the wind in the tree-tops whispered and said
+In her ear her adorable name.
+
+But her heart would not hear what I heard,
+The pulse of the night as it beat,
+Love, Love, Love, the unspeakable word,
+In its murmurous repeat;
+She heard not the night-wind’s sigh,
+Nor her own name breathed in her ear,
+Nor the cry of my heart to her heart,
+A speechless, a clamorous cry:
+“Love! Love! will she hear? will she hear?”
+O heart, she will hear, by and by,
+When we part, when for ever we part.
+
+
+
+
+FÊTES GALANTES.
+
+AFTER PAUL VERLAINE.
+
+
+
+
+MANDOLINE,
+
+
+THE singers of serenades
+     Whisper their faded vows
+Unto fair listening maids
+     Under the singing boughs.
+
+Tircis, Aminte, are there,
+     Clitandre is over-long,
+And Damis for many a fair
+     Tyrant makes many a song.
+
+Their short vests, silken and bright,
+     Their long pale silken trains,
+Their elegance of delight,
+     Twine soft blue silken chains.
+
+And the mandolines and they,
+     Faintlier breathing, swoon
+Into the rose and grey
+     Ecstasy of the moon.
+
+
+
+
+DANS L’ALLÉE.
+
+
+AS in the age of shepherd king and queen,
+Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,
+Under the sombre branches, and between
+The green and mossy garden-ways she goes,
+With little mincing airs one keeps to pet
+A darling and provoking perroquet.
+Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds
+With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,
+So vaguely hints of vague erotic things
+That her eye smiles, musing among its folds.
+—Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,
+Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,
+In her divine unconscious pride of youth,
+The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.
+
+
+
+
+CYTHÈRE.
+
+
+BY favourable breezes fanned,
+     A trellised arbour is at hand
+     To shield us from the summer airs;
+
+The scent of roses, fainting sweet,
+     Afloat upon the summer heat,
+     Blends with the perfume that she wears.
+
+True to the promise her eyes gave,
+     She ventures all, and her mouth rains
+     A dainty fever through my veins;
+
+And Love, fulfilling all things, save
+     Hunger, we ’scape, with sweets and ices,
+     The folly of Love’s sacrifices.
+
+
+
+
+LES INDOLENTS.
+
+
+BAH! spite of Fate, that says us nay,
+Suppose we die together, eh?
+     —A rare conclusion you discover!
+
+—What’s rare is good. Let us die so,
+Like lovers in Boccaccio.
+     —Hi! hi! hi! you fantastic lover!
+
+—Nay, not fantastic. If you will,
+Fond, surely irreproachable.
+     Suppose, then, that we die together?
+
+—Good sir, your jests are fitlier told
+Than when you speak of love or gold.
+     Why speak at all, in this glad weather?
+
+Whereat, behold them once again,
+Tircis beside his Dorimène,
+     Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,
+
+For some caprice of idle breath
+Deferring a delicious death.
+     Hi! hi! hi! what fantastic lovers!
+
+
+
+
+FANTOCHES.
+
+
+SCARAMOUCHE waves a threatening hand
+To Pulcinella, and they stand,
+     Two shadows, black against the moon.
+
+The old doctor of Bologna pries
+For simples with impassive eyes,
+     And mutters o’er a magic rune.
+
+The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed,
+Glides slyly ’neath the trees, in quest
+     Of her bold pirate lover’s sail;
+
+Her pirate from the Spanish main,
+Whose passion thrills her in the pain
+     Of the loud languorous nightingale.
+
+
+
+
+PANTOMIME.
+
+
+PIERROT, no sentimental swain,
+Washes a pâté down again
+     With furtive flagons, white and red.
+
+
+Commerce and communication, 486.
+
+Commerce, hastens progress, 362.
+
+Common schools, 477.
+
+Constitutional liberty in England, 393.
+
+Copernicus, 461.
+
+Crete, island of, 207.
+
+Crô-Magnon, earliest ancestral type, 28; cultures of, 72.
+
+Crompton, Samuel, spinning "mule," 436.
+
+Crusades, causes of, 319, 320, 321; results of, 322-323; effect on
+monarchy, 324; intellectual development, 325; impulse to commerce, 326;
+social effect, 327.
+
+Cultures, evidence of primitive, 28; mental development and, 32; early
+European, 32.
+
+Curie, Madame, 469.
+
+Custom, 112, 288, 295.
+
+
+Dance, the, as dramatic expression, 133; economic, religious, and
+social functions of, 134.
+
+Darius I, founded Persian Empire, 168.
+
+Darwin, Charles, 467.
+
+Democracy, 342, 392, 449.
+
+Democracy in America, 418; characteristics of, 419-421; modern
+political reforms of, 421-425.
+
+Descartes, René, 461.
+
+Diogenes, 218.
+
+Discovery and invention, 362.
+
+Duruy, Victor, 363.
+
+
+Economic life, 170-180, 290, 429.
+
+Economic outlook, 495.
+
+Education and democracy, 477-482.
+
+Education, universal, 475, 478; in the United States, 476.
+
+Educational progress, 482.
+
+Egypt, 145, 146; centre of civilization, 157-160; compared with
+Babylon, 162; pyramids, 160; religion, 172; economic life, 178;
+science, 182.
+
+England, beginnings of constitutional liberty in, 345.
+
+Environment, physical, determines the character of civilization, 141;
+quality of soil, 144; climate and progress, 146; social order, 149.
+
+Equalization of opportunities, 499.
+
+Euphrates valley, seat of early civilization, 152.
+
+Evidences of man's antiquity, 69; localities of, 71-78; knowledge of,
+develops reflective thinking, 77.
+
+Evolution, 467-469.
+
+
+Family, the early, 109-112; Greek and Roman, 212-213; German, 286.
+
+Feudalism, nature of, 294-299; sources of, 294, based on land tenure,
+296; social classification under, 298; conditions of society under,
+300; individual development under, 302; influence on world progress,
+303.
+
+Fire and its economy, 88.
+
+Florence, 336.
+
+Food supply, determines progress, 83-85; increased by discovery and
+invention, 86.
+
+France, free cities of, 330; rise of popular assemblies, 338; rural
+communes, 338; place in modern civilization, 399; philosophers of, 403;
+return to monarchy, 417; character of constitutional monarchy, 418.
+
+France, in modern civilization, 399; philosophers of, 403.
+
+Franklin, Benjamin, 465.
+
+Freedom of the press, 484.
+
+Freeman, E. A., 233.
+
+French republic, triumph of, 417.
+
+French Revolution, 405-407; results of, 407.
+
+
+Galileo, 461.
+
+Gabon, Francis, 469.
+
+Geography, 312.
+
+Germans, social life of, 283; classes of society, 285; home life, 286;
+political organization, 287; social customs, 288; contribution to law,
+291; judicial system, 292.
+
+Gilbert, William, 461.
+
+Glacial epoch, 62.
+
+Greece, 148, 205, 210.
+
+Greece and Rome compared, 250.
+
+Greek equality and liberty, 229.
+
+Greek federation, 245.
+
+Greek government, an expanded family, 229; diversity of, 231; admits
+free discussion, 231; local self-government, 232; independent community
+life, 231; group selfishness, 232; city state, 239.
+
+Greek influence on Rome, 261.
+
+Greek life, early, 205; influence of, 213.
+
+Greek philosophy, observation and inquiry, 215; Ionian philosophy, 216;
+weakness of, 219; Eleatic philosophy, 220; Sophists, 221; Epicureans,
+224; influence of, 225.
+
+Greek social life, 241, 243.
+
+Greeks, origin of, 209; early social life of, 208; character of
+primitive, 209; family life of, 212; religion of, 212.
+
+Guizot, 399.
+
+
+Hargreaves, James, invents the spinning jenny, 436.
+
+Harvey, William, 461.
+
+Hebrew influence, 164.
+
+Henry VIII and the papacy, 387; defender of the faith, 396.
+
+Heraclitus, 218.
+
+Hierarchy, development of, 276.
+
+History, 312.
+
+Holy Roman Empire, 414.
+
+Human chronology, 59.
+
+Humanism, 349, 364, 366; relation of language and literature to, 367;
+effect on social manners, 371; relation to science and philosophy, 372;
+advances the study of the classics, 373; general influence on life, 373.
+
+Huss, John, 378, 379.
+
+Huxley, Thomas H., 471.
+
+
+Ice ages, the, 62, 64.
+
+Incas, culture of, 187.
+
+India, 148, 166.
+
+Individual culture and social order, 150.
+
+Industrial development, 429-433, 439; revolution, 437.
+
+Industries, radiate from land as a centre, 429; early mediaeval, 430;
+public, 497; corporate, 497.
+
+Industry and civilization, 441.
+
+International law, reorganization of, 492.
+
+Invention, 86, 362, 436.
+
+Iroquois, social organization of, 198.
+
+Italian art and architecture, 368.
+
+Italian cities, 332; popular government of, 333.
+
+
+Jesuits, the, 385.
+
+Justinian Code, 260.
+
+
+Kepler, 463.
+
+Knowledge, diffusion of, 480.
+
+Koch, 470.
+
+Koran, the, 304, 310.
+
+
+Labor, social economics of, 496.
+
+Lake dwellings, 78.
+
+Lamarck, J. P., 467.
+
+Land, use of, determines social life, 145.
+
+Language, origin of, 121; a social function, 123; development of,
+126-129; an instrument of culture, 129.
+
+Latin language and literature, 261.
+
+League for permanent peace, 489-492
+
+Licinian laws, 256.
+
+Lister, 469, 470.
+
+Locke, John, 398.
+
+Lombard League, 337.
+
+Louis XIV, the divine right of kings, 400.
+
+Luther, Martin, and the German Reformation, 382-385.
+
+Lycurgus, reforms of, 244.
+
+Lysander, 241.
+
+
+Magdalenian cultures, 72.
+
+Man, origin of, 57; primitive home of, 66, antiquity of, 73-70; and
+nature, 141; not a slave to environment, 149.
+
+Manorial system, 430.
+
+Manuscripts, discovery of, 364.
+
+Marxian socialism in Russia, 427.
+
+Maya race, 192.
+
+Medicine, 308.
+
+Medontidae, 234.
+
+Men of genius, 33.
+
+Mesopotamia, 154.
+
+Metals, discovery and use of, 100.
+
+Metaphysics, 310.
+
+Mexico, 146.
+
+Michael Angelo, 370.
+
+Milton, John, 398.
+
+Minoan civilization, 207.
+
+Monarchy, a stage of progress in Europe, 344.
+
+Monarchy versus democracy, 392.
+
+Mongolian race, 167.
+
+Montesquieu, 404.
+
+Morgan, Lewis H., beginning of civilization, 4; classification of
+social development, 49.
+
+Morton, William, T. G., 470.
+
+Mound builders, 197.
+
+Music, as language, 131; as a socializing factor, 133, 137.
+
+Mutual aid, 120; of nations, 491.
+
+
+Napier, John, 463.
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte, 417.
+
+Nationality and race, 444.
+
+Nature, aspects of, determine types of social life, 147.
+
+Neanderthal man, 29, 65.
+
+Newton, Sir Isaac, 463.
+
+Nile, valley, seat of early civilization, 152.
+
+Nobility, the French, 400.
+
+
+Occam, William of, 379.
+
+Oriental civilization, character of, 170; war for conquest and plunder,
+171; religious belief, 171-174; social condition, 175; social
+organization, 176-178; economic life, 178-180; writing, 181; science,
+182; contribution to world progress, 184.
+
+
+Parliament, rebukes King James I, 396; declaration of, 397.
+
+Pasteur, Louis, 469, 470.
+
+Peloponnesian War, 241.
+
+People, the condition of, in France, 401.
+
+Pericles, age of, 247.
+
+Petrarch, 365, 366.
+
+Philosophy, Ionian, 216; Eleatic, 220; sophist, 221; stoic, 225;
+sceptic, 225; influence of Greek on civilization, 226, 228.
+
+Phoenicians, the, become great navigators, 161; colonization by, 161.
+
+Physical needs, efforts to satisfy, 82-85.
+
+Picture writing, 126.
+
+Pithecanthropus erectus, 29.
+
+Plato, 222.
+
+Political ideas, spread of, 486-488.
+
+Political liberty in XVIII century. [Transcriber's note: no page number
+in source]
+
+Polygenesis, monogenesis, 66.
+
+Popular government, expense of, 328, 414.
+
+Power manufacture, 437.
+
+Pre-historic human types, 63, 65, 66.
+
+Pre-historic man, types of, 28,
+
+Pre-historic time, 60-61.
+
+Primitive man, social life of, 31, 32; brain capacity of, 29.
+
+Progress and individual development, 23; and race development, 22;
+influence of heredity on, 24; influence of environment on, 25; race
+interactions and, 26; early cultural evidence of, 32; mutations in, 33;
+data of, 34; increased by the implements used, 35; revival of,
+throughout Europe, 348; and revival of learning, 372-373.
+
+Progress, evidence of, 456.
+
+Public opinion, 485.
+
+Pueblo Indians, culture of, 194; social life, 195; secret societies,
+196.
+
+Pythagoras, 219.
+
+
+Race and language, 124.
+
+Races, cause of decline, 201, 202.
+
+Racial characters, 70.
+
+Recounting human progress, methods of 37-52; economic development,
+39-40.
+
+Reform measures in England, 415.
+
+Reformation, the, character of, 375; events leading to, 376-380; causes
+of, 380-382; far-reaching results of, 388-391.
+
+Religion and social order, 113-116.
+
+Religious toleration, growth of, 447.
+
+Renaissance, the, 349, 370.
+
+Republicanism, spread of, 425.
+
+Research, foundations of, 472; educational process of, 479.
+
+Revival of learning, 364.
+
+River and glacial drift, 74.
+
+Roebuck, John, the blast furnace, 436.
+
+Roman civil organization, 258.
+
+Roman empire, and its decline, 264.
+
+Roman government, 258; law, 259; imperialism, 267.
+
+Roman social life, 264.
+
+Rome a dominant city, 257; development of government, 258.
+
+Rome, political organization, 252; struggle for liberty, 243; social
+conditions, 255; invasion of the Gauls, 255; Agrarian laws, 254, 256;
+plebeians and patricians, 256; optimates, 256; influence on world
+civilization, 266.
+
+Rousseau, 404.
+
+
+Savonarola, 380.
+
+Scholastic philosophy, 353.
+
+Schools, cathedral and monastic, 356; Graeco-Roman, 357.
+
+Science, in Egypt, 182; in Spain, 306; nature of, 307, 458; and
+democracy, 464, 465.
+
+Scientific classification, 460; men, 465; progress, 470; investigation,
+trend of, 473.
+
+Scientific methods, 459.
+
+Scientific research, 463.
+
+Semites, 160.
+
+Shakespeare, 398.
+
+Shell mounds, 73.
+
+Shelters, primitive, 99.
+
+Social conditions at the beginning of the Christian era, 269.
+
+Social contacts of the Christian religion, 268.
+
+Social development, 13, 23, 49, 104, 114, 347, 443.
+
+Social evolution, depends on variation, 347; character of, 443.
+
+Social forces, balance of, 501.
+
+Social groups, interrelation of, 454.
+
+Social life, 31, 133, 145, 147, 171, 178-180, 208, 241, 243, 247, 255,
+258, 283, 285, 289, 298, 300, 327, 371.
+
+Social life of primitive man, 31, 32; development of social order,
+41-45; intellectual character of, 47; religious and moral condition of,
+46, 47; character of, 108; moral status of, 117.
+
+Social opportunities, 455.
+
+Social order, 8, 41, 122, 149, 150, 176-178, 193, 196, 444, 445.
+
+Social organization, 145, 176-178, 210, 250-252, 432, 433, 444.
+
+Social unrest, 502.
+
+Society, 5, 175, 205, 255, 256, 268-273, 285, 301, 316, 443, 445, 446,
+450, 451, 452.
+
+Society, complexity of modern, 452.
+
+Socrates, 221.
+
+Solon, constitution of, 235.
+
+Spain, attempts at popular government in, 341.
+
+Sparta, domination of, 241; character of Spartan state, 242.
+
+Spencer, Herbert, 471.
+
+Spiritual progress and material comfort, 500.
+
+State education, 482.
+
+States-general, 341.
+
+Struggle for existence develops the individual and the race, 106.
+
+Summary of progress, 503.
+
+Switzerland, democracy in cantons, 342.
+
+Symonds, J. A., 366.
+
+
+Teutonic liberty, 281; influence of, 282, 291, 292; laws, 291.
+
+Theodosian Code, 260.
+
+Toltecs, 192.
+
+Towns, in the Middle Ages, 329.
+
+Trade,434.
+
+Trade and its social Influence, 104.
+
+Transportation, 102.
+
+Tylor, E. B., Primitive Culture, 114.
+
+Tyndall, John, 471.
+
+
+Unity of the human race, 66.
+
+Universities, mediaeval, 475; English, 476; German, 476; American, 476;
+endowed, 484.
+
+Universities, rise of, 360; nature of, 361; failure in scientific
+methods, 361.
+
+
+Venice, 335.
+
+Village community, 44.
+
+Village sites, 77.
+
+Voltaire, 404.
+
+
+Waldenses, 378.
+
+Warfare and social progress, 119.
+
+Watt, James, power manufacture, 436.
+
+Weissman, A., 467.
+
+Western civilisation, important factors in its foundation, 268.
+
+Whitney, Ely, the cotton gin, 436.
+
+Wissler, Clark, culture areas, 26; trade, 104.
+
+World state, 493.
+
+World war, breaks the barriers of thought, 488.
+
+World War, iconoclastic effects of, 427.
+
+Writing, 181.
+
+Wyclif, John, and the English reformation, 378, 386.
+
+
+Zeno, 220.
+
+Zenophanes, 220.
+
+Zwingli and the reformation in Switzerland, 385.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+In the Table of Contents, the "PART III" division precedes Chapter VII,
+but in the body of the book it precedes Chapter VIII.
+
+Page numbers in this book are enclosed in curly braces.  For its Index,
+a page number has been placed only at the start of that section.  In
+the HTML version of this book, page numbers are placed in the left
+margin.
+
+Footnote numbers are enclosed in square brackets.  Each chapter's
+footnotes have been renumbered sequentially and moved to the end of
+that chapter.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Inconsistencies in the hyphenation and variations in spelling have been
+retained as in the original.
+
+
+
+
+
+  WINGS OF THE
+    WIND
+
+  BY
+
+  CREDO HARRIS
+
+  _Author of_
+  "TOBY," "SUNLIGHT PATCH,"
+  "WHERE THE SOULS OF MEN ARE CALLING,"
+  ETC.
+
+
+  BOSTON
+  SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+  PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1920
+  BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+  (INCORPORATED)
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+  S. THRUSTON BALLARD
+  WITH WHOM THE AUTHOR HAS SHARED
+  MANY A PLEASANT CAMP-FIRE
+  THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                PAGE
+
+      I. "TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"       9
+
+     II. THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR          16
+
+    III. THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ             29
+
+     IV. NIRVANA                          43
+
+      V. "TO THE VERY END!"               54
+
+     VI. A VOICE FROM THE WATER           70
+
+    VII. A BOMB AND A DISCOVERY           80
+
+   VIII. THE CHASE BEGINS                 94
+
+     IX. A SHOT FROM THE DARK            104
+
+      X. A SILENT ENEMY                  117
+
+     XI. A STRANGE FIND                  129
+
+    XII. THE HURRICANE                   140
+
+   XIII. ON TO DEATH RIVER!              153
+
+    XIV. SMILAX BRINGS NEWS              161
+
+     XV. EFAW KOTEE'S DEN                174
+
+    XVI. THE CAVE MAN SETS FORTH         190
+
+   XVII. THE RESCUE                      202
+
+  XVIII. DOLORIA                         212
+
+    XIX. ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS         228
+
+     XX. SLEEPING BENEATH GOD'S TENT     238
+
+    XXI. PLANTING A MEMORY               249
+
+   XXII. I LOVE YOU                      266
+
+  XXIII. THE ATTACK                      275
+
+   XXIV. GERMAN CRUELTY                  289
+
+    XXV. A FLYING THRONE                 304
+
+   XXVI. A TREASURE BOX                  319
+
+  XXVII. THE FINAL HOCUS-POCUS           330
+
+
+
+
+
+WINGS OF THE WIND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"TO ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE!"
+
+
+At last out of khaki, and dressed in conventional evening clothes, I
+felt as if I were indeed writing the first words of another story on the
+unmarred page of the incoming year. As I entered the library my mother,
+forgetting that it was I who owed her deference, came forward with
+outstretched arms and a sound in her voice like that of doves at nesting
+time. Dad's welcome was heartier, even though his eyes were dimmed with
+happy tears. And old Bilkins, our solemn, irreproachable butler, grinned
+benignly as he stood waiting to announce dinner. What a wealth of
+affection I had to be grateful for!
+
+I did not lack gratitude, but with the old year touching the heels of
+the new, and Time commanding me to get in step, my return to civil life
+held few inducements. Instead of a superabundance of cheer, I had
+brought from France jumpy nerves and a body lean with over
+training--natural results of physical exhaustion coupled with the mental
+reaction that must inevitably follow a year and a half of highly
+imaginative living.
+
+But there was another aspect less tangible, perhaps more permanent--and
+all members of combat divisions will understand exactly what I mean.
+When America picked up the gauntlet, an active conscience jerked me from
+a tuneful life and drove me out to war--for whether men are driven by
+conscience, or a government draft board, makes no difference in the
+effect upon those who come through. Time after time, for eighteen
+months, I made my regular trips into hell--into a hell more revolting
+than mid-Victorian evangelists ever pictured to spellbound, quaking
+sinners. Never in this world had there been a parallel to the naked
+dangers and nauseous discomforts of that western front; never so
+prolonged an agony of head-splitting noises, lacerations of human flesh,
+smells that turned the body sick, blasphemies that made the soul grow
+hard, frenzied efforts to kill, and above all a spirit, fanatical, that
+urged each man to bear more, kill more, because he was a Crusader for
+the right.
+
+Into this red crucible I had plunged, and now emerged--remolded. In one
+brief year and a half I had lived my life, dreamed the undreamable,
+accomplished the unaccomplishable. Much had gone from me, yet much had
+come--and it was this which had come that distorted my vision of future
+days; making them drab, making my fellows who had not taken the plunge
+seem purposeless and immature. Either they were out of tune, or I
+was--and I thought, of course, that they were. What freshness could I
+bring to an existence of peace when my gears would not mesh with its
+humdrum machinery!
+
+My mother, ever quick to detect the workings of my mind as well as the
+variations of my body, had noticed these changes when I disembarked the
+previous week, and had become obsessed with the idea that I stood
+tottering on the brink of abysmal wretchedness. So, while I was marking
+time the few days at camp until the hour of demobilization, she summoned
+into hasty conference my father, our family doctor, and the select near
+relatives whose advice was a matter of habit rather than value, to
+devise means of leading me out of myself.
+
+This, I afterward learned, had been a weighty conference, resulting in
+the conclusion that I must have complete rest and diversion. But as my
+more recent letters home had expressed a determination to rush headlong
+into business--as a sort of fatuous panacea for jumpy nerves, no
+doubt--and since the conferees possessed an intimate knowledge of the
+mulish streak that coursed through my blood, their plans were laid
+behind my back with the greatest secrecy. Therefore, when entering the
+library this last night in December and hurrying to my mother's arms, I
+had no suspicion that I was being drawn into a very agreeable trap,
+gilded by my father's abundant generosity.
+
+We sat late after dinner. Somewhere in the hall Bilkins hovered with
+glasses and tray to be on hand when the whistles began their screaming.
+In twenty years he had not omitted this New Year's Eve ceremony.
+
+"Your wound never troubles you?" my mother asked, her solicitation over
+a scratch I had received ten months before not disguising a light of
+pride that charmed me.
+
+"I've forgotten it, Mater. Never amounted to anything."
+
+"Still, you did leave some blood on French soil," Dad spoke up, for this
+conceit appealed to him.
+
+"Enough to grow an ugly rose, perhaps," I admitted.
+
+"I'll bet you grew pretty ones on the cheeks of those French girls," he
+chuckled.
+
+"Pretty ones don't grow any more, on cheeks or anywhere else," I
+doggedly replied. "Materialism's the keynote now--that's why I'm going
+back to work, at once."
+
+"Oh," the Mater laughed, "don't think of your father's stupid office,
+yet!"
+
+"There's nothing left to think of," I grumbled.
+
+"Isn't there?" he exclaimed. "What'd you say if Gates has the yacht in
+commission, and you take a run down to Miami----"
+
+"Or open the cottage, if you'd rather," she excitedly interrupted him.
+"I hadn't intended leaving New York this winter, but will chaperon a
+house party if you like!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks! Cruise, by all means," he spoke with good-natured
+emphasis. "Get another fellow, and go after adventures and romances and
+that kind of thing! Go after 'em hammer and tongs! By George, that's
+what I'd do if I were a boy, and had the chance!"
+
+They waited, rather expectantly.
+
+"Cruising's all right," I said, without enthusiasm. "But it's a waste of
+time to go after romance and adventure. They died with the war."
+
+"Ho!--they did, did they?" he laughed in mock derision. "What's become
+of your imagination--your vaporings? You used to be full of it!" And the
+Mater supported him by exclaiming:
+
+"Why, Jack Bronx! And I used to call you my Pantheist! Don't tell me
+your second sight for discovering the beautiful in things has failed
+you!"
+
+"It got put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with
+bitterness some of the fellows who had been with me.
+
+What was romance here to the colorful, high-tensioned thing I had seen
+in devastated areas where loves of all gradations were torn and
+scattered and trampled into the earth like chaff! Fretfully I told them
+this.
+
+They exchanged glances, yet she continued in coaxing vein:
+
+"You're such a big baby to've been such a big soldier! Don't you know
+that romance is always just over the hill, hand in hand with
+adventure--both lonely for someone to play with? Wars can't kill them!
+It's after wars, when a nation is wounded, that they become priceless!"
+
+"By George, that's right," Dad cried. "Come to think of it, that's
+exactly right! And Gates has the same crew of six--men you've always
+known! Even that rascal, Pete, cooks better 'n ever! The _Whim_, you
+can't deny, is the smartest ninety-six foot schooner yacht that sails! I
+say again that if I had the chance I'd turn her free on whatever magic
+course the wings of the wind would take her! That I would--by George!"
+
+And there was a note of deep appeal in the Mater's voice as she asked:
+
+"Why not get that boy you wrote so much about--Tommy what's-his-name,
+the Southerner? I like him!"
+
+This plan, which I now saw had been so carefully prepared--fruit of the
+secret conference--was but one in the million or so of others throughout
+America nurtured and matured by the brave army of fathers, mothers,
+wives, sisters, daughters, who stayed at home and gave their all,
+waiting with alternate hopes and fears, looking with prayerful eyes to
+the day that would bring a certain one back into their arms. What
+difference if some plans were elaborate and some as modest as a flower?
+Who would dare distinguish between the cruise on a private yacht and the
+cake endearingly made in a hot little kitchen for the husky lad just
+returned from overseas? Each was its own best expression of pride and
+love. Each said in its tenderest way: "Well done, my own!"
+
+A lump came into my throat.
+
+"It's rather decent of a fellow to have two such corking forbears," I
+murmured.
+
+The Mater turned her gentle eyes to the fire, and Dad, clearing his
+throat in a blustering way--though he was not at all a blustering
+man--replied:
+
+"Perhaps it's rather decent of us to have a son who--er, I mean,
+who--well, er----"
+
+"A cruise hits me right," I exclaimed, hurriedly coming to his rescue,
+for neither of us wanted a scene. "And I'll wire Tommy Davis, Mater--the
+chap you mentioned. He's a corking fellow! I didn't write you how the
+battalion started calling him 'Rebel' till he closed up half a dozen
+eyes, did I? You see, in the beginning, when we were rookies, the
+sergeant had us up in formation to get our names, and when he came to
+Tommy that innocent drawled: 'Mr. Thomas Jefferson Davis, suh, of
+Loui'ville, Jefferson county, Kentucky, suh.' You could have heard a pin
+drop. The sergeant, as hard-boiled as they come, stood perfectly still
+and let a cold eye bore into him for half a minute, then gasped: 'Gawd!
+What a wicked little rebel!'"
+
+They laughed.
+
+"Why didn't you bring him home with you?"
+
+"Same reason he couldn't take me home with him. There were people
+waiting, and turkey, and--but he won't want to go," I added. "He's crazy
+about a girl down there!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks," my father chuckled. "Any normal fellow'll want to
+cruise! I'll wire him myself--this very night!"
+
+Bilkins entered with the tray, wishing us a happy new year. Outside the
+whistles were beginning to blow. After we had pledged each other, and
+drunk to 1919, the Mater, a light of challenge in her eyes, looked at me
+and gave another toast:
+
+"To a cruise and an adventure, Jack!"
+
+"To romance," Dad cried, gallantly raising her fingers to his lips.
+
+There was no use being a wet blanket, so with a laugh I said:
+
+"To adventure and romance!--Mater, if they're still on earth I'll bring
+them home to you!"
+
+I knew it was a very silly toast, but let it go to please them--for why
+disillusion those who believe in the actuality of nonexistence?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE MYSTERIOUS MONSIEUR
+
+
+Ten days later Tommy and I--and Bilkins, whom I had begged of my father
+at the eleventh hour--stepped off the train at Miami, stretched our arms
+and breathed deep breaths of balmy air. Gates, his ruddy face an augury
+of good cheer, was there to meet us, and as he started off well laden
+with a portion of our bags, Tommy whispered:
+
+"Reminds me of the old chap in that picture 'The Fisherman's Daughter'!"
+
+The description did fit Gates like an old glove, yet his most dominant
+characteristic was an unfailing loyalty to our family and an honest
+bluntness, both of which had become as generally recognized as his skill
+in handling the _Whim_--"the smartest schooner yacht," he would have
+told you on a two-minute acquaintanceship, "that ever tasted salt."
+
+"We might open the cottage for a few days, Gates," I said, as we were
+getting into the motor.
+
+"Bless you, sir," he replied, caressing a weather-beaten chin with thumb
+and finger, "the _Whim_'s been tugging at her cable mighty fretful this
+parst fortnight! The crew hoped you'd be coming aboard at once, sir.
+Fact is, we're wanting to be told how you and Mr. Thomas, here, licked
+those Germans."
+
+"Angels of the Marne protect me," Tommy groaned. "Gates, I wouldn't
+resurrect those scraps for the Kaiser's scalp!"
+
+"Yes, he will," I promised, smiling at the old fellow's look of
+disappointment. "He'll probably talk you to death, though; that's the
+only trouble."
+
+"I'll tell you what," Tommy said, "we'll chuck the cottage idea and go
+aboard; then tonight, Gates, you pipe the crew--if that's the nautical
+term--whereupon I'll hold a two-hour inquest over our deceased war, on
+condition that we bury the subject forever more. We came down here to
+lose the last eighteen months of our lives, Gates, not keep 'em green.
+Maybe you don't know it, but we're after the big adventure!"
+
+His eyes twinkled as he said this, and his face was lighted by a rare
+smile that no one possessed more engagingly than Tommy. While he treated
+the probability of an adventure with tolerant amusement, such was his
+inherent love of it and so developed was his capacity for
+"playing-true," that he sometimes made me think almost anything might
+turn up. I was quite unaware that my mother had written him, or that he,
+in return, had promised to keep her fully advised of my improvement--a
+state which was already beginning.
+
+"I carn't see how you help talking of it, sir--all that gas, and liquid
+fire, and bursting shells," Gates stared at him in perplexity.
+
+"It's an effort, but I refuse to turn phonograph like some of the old
+timers--not that I love 'em any less for it, Lord knows!" Then he began
+to laugh, and turned to me, adding: "One of the first things I did after
+getting home was to drop in on a very dear gentleman who's been a friend
+of our family since the Ark. He came at me with open arms, crying:
+'Well, Thomas, sit right down and tell me about your experiences!' I
+side-tracked that--for I hate the word. We didn't go over for
+_experiences_! But he wouldn't be denied. 'Try to think,' he commanded.
+'Why, Thomas, old as I am, I remember when Stonewall Jackson struck that
+brilliant blow----' and you can shoot me for a spy, Jack, if he didn't
+keep me there five hours while he fought the entire Civil War! No
+sir-ee! After tonight, never again!"
+
+But Tommy's talk, to which the crew listened in rapt attention, consumed
+nearer six than two, or even five hours. These men were hungry for
+authentic first-hand information--being too old to have sought it for
+themselves.
+
+It must not be inferred that the _Whim's_ crew consisted of the ancient
+and decrepit. More than once my father had said that if ever he should
+get in a tight place there was no band of six he would rather have at
+his back than this one headed by Gates; nor did he except Pete, the
+prince of cooks. Yet who, by the wildest stretch of fancy, could have
+contemplated tight places or dangers as the trim yacht rode peacefully
+at anchor an eighth of a mile off our dock at smiling Miami? To every
+man aboard such things as death and the shedding of blood had ceased
+with the armistice, and Gates would have taken his oath, were it asked
+of him, that our course pointed only toward laughing waters, blue skies,
+and emerald shore-lines.
+
+Early next morning we were under way when Tommy pounded on my stateroom
+door, challenging me to a dip overboard. There was a glorious joy in his
+voice, as far reaching as reveille, that found response in the cockles
+of my heart. Gates, never happier than when standing beneath stretched
+canvas, hove-to as he saw us dash stark naked up the companionway stairs
+and clear the rail head-first, but he laid by only while we had our
+splash and continued the course southward the moment our hands grasped
+the gangway.
+
+"We're cruising, not swimming," he said bluntly, as we reached the deck.
+"But I'll say this," he called after us, "you're both in about as fine
+condition as men get to be. I'll give _that_ to the Army!" Which was
+true, except for the fact that I might have been pronounced overtrained.
+Tommy and I were as hard as nails, our skin glowed like satin--but,
+better than this, his spirit was quick with the love of living, charged
+with a contagion that had already begun to touch my own.
+
+Half an hour later he mumbled through a crumbling biscuit:
+
+"If Pete ever cooked better grub than this it was in a previous
+incarnation!"
+
+"Man achieves his greatest triumph but once in life," I admitted. "It's
+self-evident."
+
+One loses track of time while sailing in south Florida waters. There is
+a lassitude that laughs at clocks; the lotus floats over the waves even
+as over the land, and a poetic languor steals into the soul breeding an
+indifference to hours and days--wretched things, at best, that were only
+meant for slaves! Neither of us realized our passing into Barnes Sound,
+and saw only that the _Whim_, sails gracefully drawing, cut the water as
+cleanly as a knife.
+
+Another day passed during which we shot at sharks, or trawled, or lay on
+deck smoking and occasionally gazing over the side at displays of fish
+and flora twenty feet beneath us. But upon the third morning I asked:
+
+"Where are we bound, Gates?"
+
+"Mr. Thomas says Key West, sir, and then Havana."
+
+"Mr. Thomas, indeed," I laughed, for it was exactly like Tommy to take
+over the command of a ship, or anything else that struck his fancy.
+
+Before leaving Miami he had received a twenty page letter from the
+Bluegrass region of Kentucky which threw him into a state of such
+volatile ineptitude that I was well satisfied to let him give what
+orders he would, sending us to the world's end for all I cared. In a
+very large measure Tommy's happiness was my own, as I knew that mine
+would always be dear to him.
+
+During our most trying hours in France, thoughts of this wonderful girl,
+whose name was Nell, unfailingly kept his spirits high. In moments of
+confidence that come to pals on the eve of battle I saw that some day
+they might be eternal "buddies"--certainly if he had his way; and toward
+this achievement he had been, since graduating from the University of
+Virginia, directing every effort to build up a stock farm which his
+family had more or less indifferently carried for generations. Next to
+winning Nell, his greatest ambition was to raise a Derby
+winner--according to him a more notable feat than being President.
+
+The sixth of April, 1917, had caught him with a promising string of
+yearlings, each an aristocrat in the equine world of blue-bloods, each a
+hope for that most classic of American races. But he had thrown these
+upon the hands of a trainer and submerged his personal interests six
+hours after Congress declared war. At the same moment, indeed, all of
+Kentucky was turning to a greater tradition than that of "horses and
+whiskey"; and, by the time the draft became operative, the board of one
+county searched it from end to end without finding a man to
+register--because those in the fighting age, married or single, with
+dependents or otherwise, had previously rushed to the Colors. This, and
+the fact that his state, with three others, headed the nation with the
+highest percentage in physical examinations, added luster to the shield
+of his old Commonwealth--though he roundly insisted that 'twas not
+Kentucky's manhood, but her womanhood, who deserved the credit. After
+our cruise he was going back to the thoroughbreds, now within a few
+months of the required Derby age; and of course I had promised to be on
+hand at Churchill Downs when his colors flashed past the grandstand.
+
+Late in the afternoon the _Whim_ docked at Key West and, while Gates was
+ashore arranging for our clearance, Tommy and I ambled up town in search
+of daily papers. We were seated in the office of a rather seedy hotel
+when its proprietor approached, saying:
+
+"'Scuse me, gents,--are you from that boat down there?"
+
+I answered in the affirmative.
+
+"Going to Havana?"
+
+This, too, I admitted.
+
+"Well, there's a feller by the desk who missed the steamer, and he
+hoped--er----"
+
+"We'd take him over," Tommy supplied the halting words. "Where is he?"
+
+Turning, we easily distinguished the man by his timid glances in our
+direction.
+
+"Whiz-bang," Tommy whispered. "What the deuce would you call it, Jack?"
+
+Except for his age, that might have been sixty, he was most comical to
+look upon--in stature short and round, suggesting kinship with a gnome.
+His head seemed too large for the body, yet this might have been because
+it carried a plenteous shock of straw-colored hair, with mustache and
+beard to match. He was attired in "knickers" and pleated jacket, that
+looked as if he'd slept in them, and his fat legs were knock-kneed. On
+the floor about his feet lay almost every conceivable type and age of
+traveling bag, with the inevitable camera.
+
+"What's his name?" Tommy asked, not that that would have made any
+difference if his passport were in order.
+
+"Registered as 'Monsieur Dragot, of Roumania,'" the proprietor answered.
+
+"Roumania!" Tommy looked at me. "Let's go meet him, Jack."
+
+Monsieur Dragot turned out to be the original singed cat, for assuredly
+he possessed more attractive qualities inside than were exteriorly
+visible, and from a first shyness that did not lack charm he expanded
+briskly. After visiting a "dry" café, to seal this fortunate
+acquaintanceship--as he insisted upon calling it--he warmed up to us and
+we to him, with the result that his bags were soon carried down and
+stowed in our spare stateroom. Leaving him there, we went on deck.
+
+"Dragot," Tommy mused. "Speaks with a slight accent, but I can't make
+out what!"
+
+"Roumanian, possibly," I suggested, "as he comes from there."
+
+"You rather excel yourself," he smiled. "Registering from Roumania,
+however, isn't prima facie evidence that he's a Roumanian."
+
+"He's a clever little talker, all the same."
+
+"Right O! Too clever. I'm wondering if we aren't a pair of chumps to
+take him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He may be a crook, for all we know. Did you notice what he said about
+holding a commission from Azuria, and then hurrying to explain that
+Azuria isn't on the ordinary maps--just a wee bit of a kingdom up in the
+Carpathians, yet in the confines of Roumania? I call that fishy!"
+
+"Not entirely so, Tommy. When you said it might now be turning into a
+republic, did you notice how proudly he declared that the descendants of
+Basil the Wolf couldn't be humbled?--that, situated in Moldavia, and
+escaping the ravages of the Bulgarian army, they were stronger today
+than ever?"
+
+"Sounds like raving, sonny. Who the dickens is Basil the Wolf? No, Jack,
+that doesn't tell us anything."
+
+"It tells us he couldn't have been inspired like that unless the place
+and people were real to him!"
+
+"Well, pirate or priest," Tommy laughed, "he'll do if he waltzes us up
+to the big adventure. You're about fit enough to tackle one now!" During
+the past forty-eight hours he had openly rejoiced with Gates at my
+improvement and tried, with the indifferent success of an unbeliever, to
+play up at top speed that silly idea of an approaching adventure.
+
+We had strolled aft, and now stopped to watch a tall Jamaica negro--or
+so we thought him to be--asking Gates for a place in the crew. His
+clothing was too scant to hide the great muscles beneath, and Tommy
+touched my arm, saying:
+
+"There's a specimen for you!"
+
+Had he been cast in bronze a critic might have said that the sculptor,
+by over-idealizing masculine perfection, had made the waist too small,
+the hips too slender, for the powerful chest and shoulders; the wrists
+and ankles might have been thought too delicate as terminals for the
+massive sinews leading into them. He smiled continually, and spoke in a
+soft, almost timid voice.
+
+"I like that big fellow," I said. Perhaps I had been well called a
+pantheist, having always extravagantly admired the perfect in form or
+face or the wide outdoors.
+
+Feeling my interests he turned from Gates, looking at me with dog-like
+pathetic trustfulness. Among the things he told us briefly--for the crew
+stood ready to cast off--was that he once followed the sea, but in more
+recent years lived by fishing up sponges and at times supplying shark
+meat to the poorer quarter of Key West. The carcass of a water fowl tied
+to his boat, while he occupied himself with sponges, would sometimes
+attract a shark; then he would strip, take a knife in his teeth, and
+dive.
+
+I glanced at Gates, but saw no incredulity in his face.
+
+In another hour, at nearly dusk, Key West had grown small and finally
+sank below the horizon, leaving only its three skeleton-like towers
+standing against the sky--standing erect with all nerves strained,
+watch-dogs of the darkening sea; ears cocked, to catch a distressed cry
+from some waif out in the mysterious night.
+
+Looking back along our wake I imagined the big black man standing as we
+had left him on the dock, gazing after us with patient regret; and I was
+glad to have given him the handful of coins at parting, little dreaming
+how many times that loaf upon the water would come floating in to me.
+
+Monsieur Dragot revealed himself more and more to our astonished eyes as
+we sat that night on deck. He had been a professor in the University of
+Bucharest, and hinted at an intimate entente with the reigning house of
+Azuria. Besides being versed in many sciences, including medicine, he
+spoke seven languages and read several others. But these things were
+drawn from him by Tommy's artful questions, rather than being said in
+boastfulness. Indeed, Monsieur was charmingly, almost touchily, modest.
+Of his business in Havana he gave no hint, yet this happened to be the
+one piece of information that Tommy seemed most possessed to find out.
+
+"You'll be in Cuba long, Monsieur?" he asked.
+
+"No one can say. A day, a week, a month, a year--it is an elusive search
+I follow, my young friends. May I call you that?"
+
+We bowed, and I deferentially suggested:
+
+"If we can help you in any way?----"
+
+"It is the beautiful spirit of America," he sighed, "to help those in
+distress, yet there is nothing to do but watch--watch. For you have not
+yet been here long enough to see a child in these waters--no?"
+
+Tommy, perhaps because he came from the South and was on more or less
+friendly terms with superstitions, glanced over the rail as if an infant
+might be floating around almost anywhere. Our strange guest's mysterious
+hints were, indeed, rather conducive to creeps.
+
+Then, without further comment, he arose, tossed his cigar overboard, ran
+his fingers through his mass of hair, and went below.
+
+"What d'you suppose he meant?" I asked, in a guarded voice.
+
+"Simple enough," Tommy whispered. "He's got apartments to let
+upstairs."
+
+"Get out, man," I laughed. "That chap has more sense than either of us!"
+
+"Then he'd better come across with some of it. You remember the freckled
+lad at Soissons who got fuzzy-headed from too much concussion? Well, he
+saw children around everywhere, too! It's a sure sign, Jack!" But now he
+laughed, adding: "Oh, I suppose our little Roumanian's all right,
+only----"
+
+He was interrupted by Monsieur, himself, who emerged from the
+companionway door.
+
+"I come again," he smiled apologetically, "because tomorrow our journeys
+part, and I have shown scant consideration for your kindness."
+
+"It's we who feel the obligation," Tommy murmured. "Now, if we could
+only help you find the child--supposing, of course, that's what you're
+watching for!"
+
+Monsieur gave a deep sigh, appearing to be quite overcome by a secret
+grief; but after a moment he looked at us, asking ingenuously:
+
+"You think my behavior unusual?"
+
+"Well, since you make a point of it," I laughed, and hesitated.
+
+"I see, I see! But, my young friends, you must take my word that I
+cannot tell you much." He drew us nearer. "This I may say: that, after
+Roumania dropped out of the war, the new Chancellor of Azuria wired
+imploringly for me to leave my classes at the University and come to
+him--because for years I have advised with Azurian statesmen, frequently
+going on special missions. By the recent death of the old Chancellor a
+certain paper came to light. This was a secret agent's report sent from
+Havana in 1914----I may not divulge its contents. But for the war it
+would have been followed up at once. Whether the same hopes exist
+now--well, I am here to discover. Ah, my young friends," his voice
+trembled, "much depends upon this! I must--I must find the child if it
+lives!"
+
+Tommy's eyes grew round.
+
+"I can say no more," Monsieur added. "Accept my thanks and gratitude for
+the help you have given me. And now--_bon soir_."
+
+He bowed, backing himself toward the stairs as though leaving a royal
+presence, doing it so easily, so naturally, that we did not even smile.
+When he had quite disappeared we turned and faced each other.
+
+"What do you think now?" I asked.
+
+"I think he's a treasure," Tommy cried. His face had lighted with a new
+excitement. "If we want any fun on this trip, don't let him get out of
+our sight! Stick to him! I won't deny he has a screw loose, but----"
+
+"That makes it all the better," I laughed, adding: "Looks like the
+Mater's toast might come true, after all, doesn't it!"--for I had
+described our New Year's Eve to Tommy.
+
+"Sonny, I've a hunch we won't even have to tiptoe over the hill to find
+adventures with him around! He's their regular hanging-out place!"
+
+Gates came up, and seemed vastly amused when we told him of our hopes.
+
+"He doesn't look like much of an adventurer, sir, but he's certainly a
+change from the great run of people I've met. Still, I carn't see how
+we're going to keep him against his will!"
+
+"Neither can I, Tommy."
+
+"Use a little persuasion."
+
+"But suppose he won't persuade?"
+
+"What's the use of crossing bridges," Tommy grinned. "If he won't
+persuade, then sit on his head--anything, I don't care! The main thing
+is--keep him!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GIRL IN THE CAFÉ
+
+
+Next morning began the conversion, or rather the persuasion, of Monsieur
+Dragot to remain a while longer with the _Whim_. Pete started off with
+another triumphant breakfast and before our guest had gone far with it
+his face was agleam with pleasure. Tommy and I put ourselves out to be
+agreeable, telling him jokes that sometimes registered but frequently
+did not. Yet we were on most affable terms when, stuffed to repletion,
+we leaned back and lighted cigarettes.
+
+"Professor," Tommy suggested, "I think if you stay with us you'll have a
+better chance to find that child!"
+
+Our guest beamed agreeably at the appelative, then looked toward me.
+
+"I'm sure of it," I said. "We've nowhere to go but anywhere, and that
+ought to fall in with your plans."
+
+"_Pardieu_, you overwhelm me! You mean I may sail about with you,
+searching?"
+
+"Nothing simpler," I assured him. "We've rather taken a fancy to you,
+haven't we, Tommy?"
+
+"Double it," Tommy laughed. "We agreed last night that you looked like a
+million-dollar bill to us!"
+
+"Oh, my boys," Monsieur sputtered with embarrassment and pleasure, "you
+disarm my power to thank you--see, I blush!"
+
+"Damned if he isn't," Tommy grinned at me. "What d'you know about this
+little gezabo, anyhow!"
+
+Monsieur's face grew more composed as he showed his interest in a new
+word.
+
+"You say--gazebo?" he asked, blandly. "Is that not a belvedere?"
+
+"Gazebo is, yes; but I said gezabo--that's you!"
+
+"Your American Indian language?"
+
+"Sure thing. Pure talk. If you're interested in Indians, stick around.
+Why not get the Havana police to help us hunt the kiddie?"--I had known
+that before long Tommy would be using a first personal pronoun.
+
+"Bah! They are of no value! But even I have small hope of finding her.
+The report was written nearly six years ago, and she has been gone
+upwards of twenty years."
+
+"So it's a she," Tommy looked over at me and nodded. "Well, nearly six
+years, and upwards of twenty, plus what she was when she left home,
+leads me to believe the lady's almost old enough to take care of
+herself!"
+
+Monsieur considered this a great joke, exclaiming:
+
+"It is not so much as that! She is but three--to me, always three! Yet,
+as you say, I might better find her with you than anywhere! A despairing
+search, my boys!"
+
+Tommy's eyes were twinkling as he murmured sympathetically:
+
+"If it's a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called
+'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave
+kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up
+one there, as a last resort."
+
+"But--but," Monsieur began to sputter, when I threw an orange at Tommy,
+explaining to our agitated guest that he was a cut-up devoid of ideas,
+really an intellectual outcast.
+
+"Well," he cried, seeming to exude pleasure, "I will stay with you a
+while, eh? Maybe we can teach him something--this cut-upping Tommy of
+yours!"
+
+He had fallen in with our scheme most agreeably, and later Tommy
+confided to me that he was glad we wouldn't have to sit on the old
+fellow's head.
+
+Passing that afternoon beneath Morro Castle, the _Whim_ tacked prettily
+through the entrance of Havana harbor and in another scant two miles
+dropped anchor.
+
+Havana Bay is a dancing sheet of water, as bright as the skies and
+hardly less contagious than the city's laughter. But when one drops
+anchor and then hoists it up, one recoils from the black and slimy mud
+those blue waves hide; and this circumstance, slight as it may seem,
+held a potent influence on our future.
+
+Riding nearby was another yacht, in size and design very much like the
+_Whim_, except that her rigging had an old-fashioned cut. Her masts were
+checked with age and, where our craft showed polished brass, she long
+ago had resorted to white paint. At the same time, she gave the
+impression of aristocracy--broken-down aristocracy, if you choose. No
+bunting fluttered at her masthead, no country's emblem waved over her
+taffrail, and the only hint of nationality or ownership was a rather
+badly painted word _Orchid_ on her name plate. Taken altogether, she was
+rather difficult to place.
+
+These signs of poverty would have passed unobserved by us, had we not in
+coming to anchor swung between her moorings and the Machina wharf. Not
+that it made any serious difference, Gates explained, nor were we
+impertinently near, but it just missed being the scrupulously polite
+thing to have done--and Gates was a stickler on matters of yacht
+etiquette. So he felt uncomfortable about it, while at the same time
+being reluctant to hoist anchor and foul our decks with the bottom of
+Havana Bay. To be on the safe side he determined to megaphone apologies
+and consult her wishes. Twice he hailed, receiving no answer. Two
+sailors were seated forward playing cards--a surlier pair of ruffians
+would have been hard to find--but neither of them so much as glanced up.
+
+"Let the professor try in Spanish," Tommy said.
+
+Monsieur took the megaphone and did so, but with no better success. Then
+to our profound admiration he called in half a dozen languages; finally
+growling: "Lascars, likely!"--and proceeded to hail in something he
+afterwards explained was Lascar gibberish. All of which failed to
+attract the surly pair who played at cards.
+
+"Now you might try Airedale and Pekinese," Tommy suggested, but this was
+lost on the serious little man. Yet he did call in another strangely
+sounding tongue, then with a sigh laid the megaphone down, saying:
+
+"They must be stuffies!"
+
+"Dummies, sir, dummies," Tommy corrected. "Nice people don't say
+stuffies, ever!"
+
+"Your Tommy does so much cut-upping, eh!" he smiled at me. I had noticed
+that when preoccupied or excited the idioms of his various languages got
+tumbled into a rather hopeless potpourri.
+
+Quarantine and customs were passed in the leisurely fashion of Cuban
+officials, and Monsieur asked to be sent immediately ashore, promising
+to return at sundown. There was a man, the secret agent, he explained,
+who held important information.
+
+"I'll have the launch for you at Machina wharf, sir," Gates told him,
+but he refused to consider this, declaring that he could hire any of the
+boatmen thereabout to bring him out.
+
+"He's that considerate, sir," Gates later confided to me. "But I carn't
+make head nor tail of him. Bilkins says he went in to lay out his
+clothes, and the things he's got stuck in those bags would astonish
+you!"
+
+Nearing six o'clock a skiff drew alongside, being propelled by one
+oar--a method much in vogue with Havana harbormen--and when Monsieur
+came aboard we saw at once evidences of disappointment. His arms hung
+listlessly, and his large head drooped forward as if at last its weight
+had proven too great for the squat body.
+
+"What's wrong?" I asked.
+
+"How do you know there is anything wrong, my boy Jack?"
+
+"You look so killingly happy," Tommy said, joining us.
+
+Monsieur's pale eyes stared for a moment, then blinked several times
+before he murmured:
+
+"The man I went to see is dead--murdered, just after he mailed that
+report. So I have no information. These police called it suicide because
+a knife lay in his hand. Bah! I could place a knife in the hand of any
+man I kill!"
+
+"Was he a friend of yours?"
+
+"No. I have never seen him. But he knew something!"
+
+"He evidently knew too much," Tommy suggested.
+
+"You speak true, my boy. It seems to be a dangerous thing here to know
+too much of certain matters!"
+
+"Well," I laughed, trying to put a heartiness in my voice and drive away
+his depression, "let's go ashore for dinner! Then the Opera--and
+afterwards another bite where the high life eats? What-say, Professor?"
+
+As it turned out, however, neither the dinner, nor all of Tommy's
+banter, nor Madame Butterfly sung in Spanish (as if it could!) succeeded
+in restoring Monsieur to a normal temper.
+
+"We've simply got to make him laugh," I whispered to Tommy. "It's a
+matter of principle now!"
+
+"Then wait till we have supper, and get him soused," my confederate
+cautiously replied. "That'll do it. But you'd better not drink much," he
+added. "How are the nerves this evening?"
+
+"I've almost forgotten them," I answered.
+
+But Tommy was persistent at times. Unknown to me he was now preparing a
+report to wire the Mater.
+
+"Sleeping better?" he asked.
+
+"Lots."
+
+"Lying to me?"
+
+"A little," I laughed outright. "But honestly I'm in heaps better
+shape!"
+
+"Oh, I've seen you improving from day to day, but we want to put it over
+right. So don't hit the asphalt too hard tonight."
+
+And in all justice to myself and my friendship to Tommy I really did not
+intend to. What place was it that some one said is paved with good
+intentions?
+
+Leaving the Opera House we mixed with the laughing tide that flowed
+along the Prado, and by the merest chance--destinies of nations, much
+less our own, sometimes rest upon a merest chance--dropped in for supper
+at a fashionable place patronized by those who wish to see the brightest
+of Havana life. There were other places, of course, that might have
+offered quite as much, but this one happened to be on the route we had
+taken.
+
+Midnight passed, but still we lingered, seated on the latticed balcony
+that encircles an inner court where cabaret features are
+held--suggestive of a bull ring. One rather piquant Spanish girl,
+playing her accompaniment on a guitar, gazed softly up at Tommy while
+singing about some wonderful Nirvana, an enchanted island that floated
+in a sea of love. It was a pretty song, even if more intense than
+temperate, and pleased with it he tossed her a coin; whereupon she
+tilted her chin and raised a shoulder, asking in the universal language
+of cabarets if she should not come up and drink a health with the
+_imperioso Señor_. But he, whose heart was beating against a twenty-page
+letter from a nymph in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, laughed a
+negative, this time throwing her a flower that she kissed lightly and
+put in her hair.
+
+We had supped well, the mandolins were now tinkling, incessantly, and
+this, mingled with the silvery tones of glasses touched in eager
+pledges, created an ensemble of sounds dear to the heart of every true
+Bohemian. Effects were good here. The ceilings and walls of our balcony
+were lighted by vari-colored electric bulbs artfully placed amidst
+growing vines that drooped in festoons above the tables, producing a
+fairy-like enchantment. And, indeed, the café proved to be a mart not
+only of enchantments but entertainments, including a popular gambling
+salon.
+
+At last, in desperation seeing that Monsieur refused to be cheered,
+Tommy sprang up, saying:
+
+"Come, gezabo, let's court Dame Roulette! Join us, Jack?"
+
+This I declined, and watched them move off arm in arm. But a strange
+thing arrested my attention for, as they preceded down the corridor, I
+saw a man in yachting clothes--the uniform of a captain--draw quickly
+back into an alcove as if wanting to escape discovery. When they had
+passed he looked out, more fearfully than curiously, and after a moment
+of indecision slowly followed them. Urged by a suspicion that this was
+in some way associated with the professor, I arose and also followed.
+Yet upon reaching the salon the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Tommy
+and Monsieur were each buying a stack of chips, the place seemed quiet
+and orderly, so without being observed I returned to my table.
+
+Now left alone I leaned back, idly twisting the stem of my glass,
+looking over the sea of merry people who made a picture that quickened
+interest. For I am particularly fond of sitting apart and watching an
+assemblage of handsomely groomed men and women laughing, talking and
+making love. I like to guess whether fears or tears or desperate courage
+hide behind their gayety; whether the rapidly wagging tongues are
+uttering inanities or planning naughty things; whether the love-making
+will stop with coffee and liqueur, or, lighted by them, burn into
+eternity.
+
+All phases of human banality and human enigma seemed to be represented.
+There were languid beauties of the Latin type whose drooping eyes might
+have expressed _ennui_, passion, pride--anything, in fact, that one's
+humor chose to fancy; the blonde by adoption was there, with heavy
+ear-rings of jet, whose habit was that of looking slant-wise through her
+cigarette smoke and raising one black, though carefully plucked,
+eyebrow; also there were a few American women, by far the most smartly
+dressed. Great was the throb of life in this discreet and fashionable
+café. I felt its tremendous emphasis, and was content.
+
+Then, quite without warning, I caught my breath as my glance fell upon a
+girl dining with an old chap but three tables away. Among the habitués
+of the Ritzes of two continents there could not have been found another
+like her, for never had I beheld a face as exquisite--and I've seen
+many. It possessed a beauty that left me helpless--yet there was an
+indefinable sadness in it that might have suggested a haunting fear.
+
+One of the lights among the vines hung close to her, and I could see
+these things. Even could I see the color of her eyes, deep purple
+eyes--the tone the wild iris takes at twilight. When she leaned one way
+I might have thought the rich abundance of her hair contained spun
+copper or deep red gold, and again I would have sworn it matched the
+mellow brown of chestnuts; in all forming an arrangement of waves, each
+refusing to stay in place yet never really getting out of order, each
+coquetting with a subtle mischief that found an echo in her lips. Her
+neck and shoulders were of that perfection that men realize but can not
+analyze; and her mouth, laughing or in repose, was maddening.
+
+And there was an added charm quite apart from hair and eyes and lips.
+This I had never before seen in any face. Animation? Yes, and more.
+Interest in the life about her? Assuredly, to a very marked degree.
+Wildness? That was it!--a wildness, subtly blended with refinement, that
+found expression in every quick look; as if someone had put a fawn there
+from the forest and it was trying, half humorously, half confidently, to
+keep itself from running away in fright. It was this glory of wildness
+that she typified which made my cheeks grow hot with watching.
+
+But who has ever made a picture worthy of his dreams! How, then, can I
+describe this girl, when painter, sculptor, writer--all--would miserably
+fail at attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination might gaze in
+frank amazement and admit itself surpassed! Here, indeed, was all the
+vital, colorful magnetism of a type that men are quick to die for!
+
+Her gown--yet how can man describe a woman's gown? It was a very rich
+affair and added to the picture. But this I did observe distinctly, that
+in revealing her arms and shoulders there was no slightest hint of that
+abandonment of _décolleté_ which denotes the approach of feminine
+despair, nor was the color in her cheeks a result of anything less pure
+than the kiss of air and sunshine.
+
+Her _vis-à-vis_, almost too old to have been her father, was one of
+those whose nationality is difficult to place. His hair, mustache and
+Vandyke beard were gray; he was tall, thin, and perhaps seventy-five
+years old. His complexion impressed one most unpleasantly because of its
+sallow, almost yellow, hue; and although I had not yet had a full-face
+view of him I intuitively knew that his teeth were long and thin and
+yellow. A slight palsy never let his head be still, as if some
+persistent agent were making him deny, eternally deny, an inarticulate
+accusation--as accusations of the conscience perforce must be.
+
+Despite his grumpy silence he showed an air of repressed excitement,
+sending frequent, shifty glances over the room; and that he possessed
+the temper of a fiend I did not doubt after seeing him turn upon the
+waiter for some trifling omission and reduce that usually placid
+individual to a state of amazed incapacity. Then a quick, really a
+pitiful, look of terror came into the girl's eyes as she shrank back in
+her chair. It lasted but a second before she was again making herself
+agreeable--acting, of course--and I wanted to cross to him and demand:
+"Why is this lady afraid?"
+
+I hated the man; at first sight I loathed him. It was one of those
+antipathies sometimes observed in dogs that see each other from a
+distance--hair up and teeth bared. The feeling is spontaneous,
+unpredictable, and the usual result is fight.
+
+Up to this time she had not seen me, or even known of my insignificant
+existence; but suddenly, as though it were a sally of banter whose blade
+he parried in the nick of time, her laughter-bathed eyes darted past him
+and squarely met my own; her lips sobered into a half parted expression
+of interest and, some strange thought--perhaps unbidden--coming into her
+mind, sent the blood surging to her cheeks. As quickly as this happened
+it had gone, and again she seemed to be absorbing the attention of her
+_vis-à-vis_.
+
+Once, years ago in the Dolomites, I thoughtlessly struck my staff upon a
+piece of rock when, lo, a wonderful tone arose therefrom. And the memory
+of that rich, unbidden sound was re-awakened now as the contact of our
+glances stirred something which thrilled me with a maddening sense of
+harmony. As an E string vibrates when another E is struck somewhere near
+to it, so my being vibrated with each tilt of her head, each movement of
+her lips. Yet however much I conjured the magnet of my will to make her
+look again, she successfully, if coquettishly, resisted.
+
+The Spanish waiter came up softly to refill my glass; an attention I
+permitted, murmuring happily:
+
+"Right, kiddo! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with champagne, for my
+heart is faint with love!"--only Solomon didn't sing it quite like
+that, the fickle old dog, nor did my waiter understand me, which was
+just as well.
+
+Engrossed with watching her I saw a new look come into her face as she
+quickly whispered something across the table. Her _vis-à-vis_ turned
+impatiently as a man approached them, who to my surprise was the yacht
+captain--the fellow who had apparently followed Tommy and Monsieur. He
+was a well-built blond, with a bullet-shaped head, high cheek bones and
+deep set eyes--pig eyes. His right cheek bore several scars which,
+considering his type, strongly suggested a German of University dueling
+experiences. So I looked on him with a livelier suspicion, even as she
+seemed to be doing.
+
+In an undertone he now said something that brought the old man to his
+feet. With fear written on their faces they talked for several minutes,
+during which the blond jerked his head once or twice toward the gambling
+rooms. The girl had leaned forward watching them intently. Then with a
+peremptory order the old one sent him away and sank back into his chair;
+but a moment later, clutching the tablecloth, he spoke a few words that
+made her recoil in evident horror.
+
+I did not know what to do or what to think, so I merely watched with
+every sense alert. I saw him call the waiter for his settlement, I saw
+him take out a large roll of money and with trembling fingers peel off
+the outside bill--a new and crinkly fifty-dollar note. I saw the girl
+idly marking on the winecard with a small gold pencil, though her eyes
+were veiling an intense excitement; and when the waiter returned with a
+pile of change which the old man began to count, I saw her furtively
+slip the winecard to her lap. A moment later it fell to the floor as she
+arose to leave.
+
+Together they started toward the exit, but having taken a few steps she
+left him with a brief word and returned, presumably for her glove.
+Partially free from his eternal vigilance, she raised her eyes without
+dissimulation and looked quickly, appealingly into mine; then down at
+her hand, on which she leaned, whose fingers were unfolding from a
+little ball of paper. Again into my eyes she looked--a look of infinite
+appeal.
+
+Across the void from her world to my own she was signaling--trying to
+tell me what?--and frantically my fancy sprang to translate the message.
+But as the man, with growing agitation, had been watching narrowly
+throughout this--a condition of which I felt sure she must be acutely
+aware--I dared not make the slightest sign. Yet she seemed to understand
+and, joining him, they passed out.
+
+I pounced upon that crumpled ball of paper and was back in my chair
+unfolding it with nervous fingers. Feverishly pressing out the creases I
+saw that it was, indeed, a corner torn from the winecard, and written
+upon it--nothing. Absolutely nothing!
+
+Perhaps I should have laughed, but as a matter of fact I cursed. Deep in
+my soul I cursed. Her little joke, her pretty bit of acting, had left a
+stinging sense of loss. As suddenly as this ruthless comet swept into my
+orbit it had swung out and on; for one delicious moment we had touched
+across the infinite, but now my harmony was shattered, the strings of my
+harp were snapped, curled up, and could not be made to play again.
+
+But the Spanish girl was playing her guitar, once more singing her
+impassioned song of the enchanted island in its sea of love, which made
+me pity myself so much that I permitted the waiter again to fill my
+glass. What a wondrous adventure this night might have brought!
+
+Such thoughts wore not to be profaned by the companionship of Tommy and
+Monsieur, so I slipped away, hailed a cab and alighted at the Machina
+wharf. The boatman there, whom I aroused to take me out, was one of the
+most stupid fellows I've ever encountered. At any rate, someone was
+stupid.
+
+Going aboard the yacht I stood for a moment listening to the lonely
+sweep of his oar sculling shoreward through the murky night. Over the
+castellated walls of La Cabaña raced low, angry clouds. Was it a storm
+brewing, or had some supernal madness touched the night?
+
+The watch forward called in a guarded voice: "All right, sir?" to which
+I answered, "All right," then went cautiously across deck and crept down
+the companionway stairs. The cabin was dark so I felt for my stateroom,
+passed in and closed the door. Somehow my fingers could not locate the
+light jet, but what matter? In three minutes I had undressed and was
+fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+NIRVANA
+
+
+A pleasant sense of motion came over me that suggested cradling waves,
+and I was sleepily wondering why we had gone out on a day that portended
+storms, when a tapping at my stateroom door was followed by someone
+whispering:
+
+"Aren't you ever going to get up, you lazy old dear?"
+
+It was a girl's voice.
+
+Gradually and cautiously I drew the sheet about my chin, feeling no
+little confused to have a girl five feet away whispering pet names at me
+through a thin partition.
+
+"Aren't you?" she repeated, more sweetly imperious.
+
+"You bet," I stammered.
+
+"Then do hurry! It's almost ten, and I've been waiting such a long
+time!"
+
+Whereupon I heard her moving off, pressing her hands against the panels
+for steadiness, and there struck me as having been an endearing pathos
+in the way she said: "such a long time!"
+
+This was, no doubt, some of Tommy's doing. He had invited friends aboard
+for luncheon, and was now daring one of them to play this joke. But my
+glance turned to the room, to its equipment and toilette articles which
+were large and curiously shaped, and the numbing truth crept into my
+brain that the stupid boatman had put me on the wrong yacht.
+
+I had known some tight places in France, but this one simply squeezed me
+all over. There was nothing for it, of course, but go out and
+explain--yet how could a chap appear at noon draped in a sheet! The
+situation confused me, but I decided to search the wardrobe, of my
+unknown host, to borrow his razor, appropriate a new toothbrush that
+should be found in a box somewhere, and select flannels and linens in
+keeping with the hour. Still balanced between confusion and panic I must
+have done these things because, fittingly attired though with no very
+good fit, I opened my door, stepped softly along the passageway, and
+entered the cabin.
+
+On a wide couch built in at one side a girl lay reading. Her head was
+toward me, but as I advanced she arose with a low cry of gladness,
+saying:
+
+"So you're here at last----!" then with a little gasp drew back, facing
+me in the most entrancing attitude of bewilderment.
+
+It was the girl who had left that ball of paper!
+
+The sea, always my friend, at this moment did a rather decent thing; it
+gave the yacht a firm but gentle lurch and sent us into each other's
+arms. Perhaps nothing else in all the world of chances could so
+effectively have broken the ice between us, for we were laughing as I
+helped her back to the couch; and, as our eyes met, again we laughed.
+
+"I didn't know," she said, "that Father brought a guest aboard last
+night!"
+
+"Awkward of him, wasn't it?" I stammered, sparring for time.
+
+"One is apt to be awkward in weather like this," she graciously
+admitted.
+
+"You don't know how profoundly aware I am of--of how terribly true that
+is," I stumbled along. "Is he on deck?" For, oh, if I could only get to
+see him five minutes alone!
+
+"No, he's unusually lazy this morning; but I've called, him, the old
+dear!"
+
+A chill crept up my spine--crept up, crept down, and then criss-crossed.
+But she must know of her mistake before we had gone so far that putting
+me ashore would be a serious inconvenience--for I knew he would put me
+ashore at the nearest point, if not, indeed, set me adrift in an open
+boat. Therefore I suggested:
+
+"Wouldn't it be a good idea to call him again? It's rather important!"
+
+"Oh, you think we shouldn't have gone out in a storm like this? I've
+been dreadfully uneasy!"
+
+"No danger at all," I declared, with affected indifference, adding: "The
+weather isn't half as rough as 'the old dear' will be, take my word for
+it!"
+
+A shadow of mystification passed over her wonderful face, yet she smiled
+with well-bred tolerance, saying:
+
+"You are quite droll."
+
+"Drollery is the brother of good fellowship," I replied, helping her
+across the reeling cabin. As I had feared, she went directly to my room
+where the door had swung back showing an empty bunk.
+
+"Why, he's up, after all," she glanced over her shoulder at me.
+
+"I believe he is," I idiotically affirmed.
+
+"But where?"--this more to herself.
+
+"Hiding, maybe," I ventured, taking a facetious squint about.
+
+"Hiding?" she asked, in mild surprise.
+
+"Er--playing a trick on us! He's a funny old dog at tricks!"
+
+"Funny old dog?" She drew slightly away from me. "Do you mean my father,
+Mr.--er?"
+
+"Jack," I prompted, more than ever embarrassed and wishing the ocean
+would come up and swallow me; for I realized, alas, that my gods, by
+whom I was reasonably well remembered in so far as concerned physique,
+had been shamelessly remiss in their bestowal of brains.
+
+"Jack?" she slowly repeated. "What an odd name!"
+
+This made me feel queer.
+
+"Where do you live," I asked, "that you think it's an odd name? The
+States are crawling with Jacks! It's even the Democratic emblem!"
+
+Her perplexity was fast approaching alarm when we heard a muffled report
+above, followed by a trembling of the yacht. Someone called an order
+that sounded far away in the wind.
+
+"Hold tight," I said, "while I see if anything's wrong!"
+
+But I did not leave her side, knowing exactly what had happened. We had
+snapped our mainsheet, that was all; letting the boom swing out and
+putting us in the trough of the waves where we might expect a few wobbly
+minutes until the sailors could work in a new line. There was no danger
+and I reassured her at once, but she merely asked:
+
+"Was my father on deck?"
+
+"I didn't look," I answered, wondering why she thought I knew.
+
+"Won't you see?" Her patience was becoming exhausted.
+
+"I'm crazy to. But first let me help you back--you can't make it
+alone!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I can," she murmured. "I always make things alone!"
+
+I tried to fathom the meaning of this, but gave it up and started to go
+on deck. If I could take her father off to one side and explain, well
+and good. He would perhaps sympathize with my mistake when he understood
+that it was partially the result of a desire to fill Monsieur with
+spirits. Considering this, I spoiled everything by asking:
+
+"What does he look like?"
+
+"My father?" she gasped, in a wondering way.
+
+"No--yes--certainly not! I mean--oh, this is intolerable! I don't know
+your father, never saw him in my life--unless he was the one with you
+last night when you drove me frantic with that ball of paper trick! But
+what you did has nothing to do with my being here. I've not wilfully
+followed. A stupid boatman mistook your yacht for my own when I was--I
+mean to say, when I was too engrossed with the memory of you to notice
+his mistake."
+
+From alarm her look gave way to wonderment, then almost to mirth. It was
+a hard place for a girl to be in, and I expected her to leave me now,
+find the old chap and promptly have me hanged to a yard-arm. The fact
+that there are no yard-arms on schooner yachts made no difference. And I
+do believe she was considering that when a sailor passed us, looking
+enough like Tommy to have been his twin brother.
+
+"Jack," she said to him, "tell Mr. Graham to come below!"
+
+The fellow saluted and left, and I stared at her in surprise, saying:
+
+"Then my name can't seem very odd to you, Miss Graham!"
+
+She was regarding me as though trying to discover what kind of a species
+I was that had got on her father's yacht, when the sailor came back
+followed by a husky brute in uniform. Intuitively I stiffened to meet
+the crisis, but even at this eleventh hour a respite came.
+
+"He ain't aboard," the other Jack whispered, and the captain--for the
+burly one was only the captain, after all--saluted, saying:
+
+"I've just now found out, ma'am, he ain't aboard!"
+
+"Not aboard? What do you mean?"
+
+"After bringing you on last night he went ashore again to get a little
+below was the bed-chamber of as many more.
+
+Cast back upon his own thoughts, Rollo reviewed many things--his short
+life, the reckless ups-and-downs in which he had spent it--but all
+without remorse or regret.
+
+"I might have been a lawyer, and lived to a hundred!" he said to
+himself. "It is better as it is. If I have done little good, perhaps I
+have not had time to do a great deal of harm."
+
+Then very contentedly he curled himself up to sleep as best he might,
+only dreamily wondering if little Concha would be sorry when she heard.
+
+Ramon Garcia sat with his eyes fixed on the sentry who had ceased his
+to-and-fro tramp up the centre, and now leaned gloomily against the
+wall, his hands crossed about the cross-bar of his sword-bayonet.
+
+Across the granary John Mortimer reclined with his head in his hands,
+making vows never to enter Spain or trust himself under the leadership
+of a mad Scot, if this once he should get clear off.
+
+"It isn't the being shot," he moaned; "it's not being able to tell them
+that I'm not a fool, but a respectable merchant able to pay my way and
+with a balance at William Deacon's Bank. But it serves me right!" Then a
+little inconsequently he added, "By gum, if I get out of this I'll have
+a Spanish clerk in the works and learn the language!"
+
+Which was John Mortimer's way of making a vow to the gods.
+
+Etienne, having his hands comparatively free, and finding himself
+sleepless, looked enviously at Rollo's untroubled repose, and began to
+twist cigarettes for himself and the sentry who guarded his side of the
+granary.
+
+Without, the owls circled and cried. A dog barked in the village above,
+provoking a far-reaching chorus of his kind. Then blows fell, and he
+fled yelping out of earshot.
+
+Rollo was not wholly comfortable on his couch of grain. The bonds about
+his feet galled him, having been more tightly drawn than those of his
+companions in virtue of his chiefship. Nevertheless he got a good deal
+of sleep, and each time that he awoke it seemed to him that El Sarria
+was staring harder at the sentry and that the man had moved a little
+nearer.
+
+At last, turning his head a little to one side, he heard distinctly the
+low murmur of voices.
+
+"Do you remember Pancorbo?" said Ramon Garcia.
+
+Rollo could not hear the answer, but he caught the outlaw's next
+question.
+
+"And have you forgotten El Sarria, who, having a certain Miguelete under
+the point of his knife, let him go for his sweetheart's sake, because
+she was waiting for him down in the valley?"
+
+The sentry's reply was again inaudible, but Rollo was fully awake now.
+Ramon Garcia had not abandoned hope, and why should he? When there was
+anything to be done, none could be so alert as Rollo Blair.
+
+"I am El Sarria the outlaw," Ramon went on, "and these are my
+companions. We are no traitors, but good Carlists to a man. Our papers
+are----"
+
+Here the words were spoken so low that Rollo could not hear more, but
+the next moment he was nudged by Ramon on the leg.
+
+"Write a note to Concha Cabezos, telling her to bring the papers here at
+once if she would save our lives. You are sure she is faithful?"
+
+"I am sure!" said Rollo, who really had no reason for his confidence
+except the expression in her eyes.
+
+He had no paper, but catching the sentry's eye, he nodded across to
+where Etienne was still diligently rolling cigarettes.
+
+"Alcoy?" he whispered.
+
+The sentry shouldered his piece and took a turn or two across the floor,
+keeping his eye vigilantly on his fellow guard, who, having seated
+himself in the window-sill, had dozed off to sleep, the cigarette still
+drooping from the corner of his mouth. Yes, he was certainly asleep.
+
+He held out his hand to Etienne, who readily gave him the last he had
+rolled. The sentry thanked him with a quick martial salute, and after a
+turn or two more, deftly dropped the crumbled tobacco upon the floor and
+let the leaf drop on Rollo's knees with a stump of pencil rolled up in
+it.
+
+Then the young man, turning his back upon the dozing guard in the stone
+window-sill, wrote with some difficulty the following note, lying on his
+breast and using the uneven floor of the granary for a desk.
+
+     "Little Concha" (it ran), "we are General Cabrera's prisoners.
+     Bring the papers as soon as you receive this. Otherwise we are
+     to be shot at day-break.--ROLLO BLAIR."
+
+There was still a little space left upon the leaf of Alcoy paper, and
+with a half shamefaced glance at El Sarria, he added, "_And in any case
+do not wholly forget R. B._"
+
+He passed the note to the outlaw, who folded it to the size of a postage
+stamp and apparently gave directions where and to whom it was to be
+delivered.
+
+"In half an hour we shall be relieved and I will go," said the Carlist
+ex-Miguelete, and resumed his steady tramp. Presently he awoke his
+comrade so that he might not be found asleep at the change of guard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was nothing more to be done till day-break. They had played their
+last card, and now they must wait to see what cards were out against
+them, and who should win the final trick at the hour of sunrise.
+
+Rollo fell asleep again. And so soundly this time, that he only woke to
+consciousness when a soldier in a white _boina_ pulled roughly at his
+elbow, and ordered him to get up.
+
+All about the granary the Carlists were stamping feet, pulling on boots,
+and flapping arms.
+
+"It's a cold morning to be shot in," said the man, with rough
+kindliness; "but I will get you some hot chocolate in a moment. That
+will warm your blood for you, and in any case you will have a quick
+passage. I will pick you a firing party of the best shots in the three
+provinces. The general will be here in a quarter of an hour, and the sun
+will rise in another quarter. One is just as punctual as the other. A
+cigarette?--thank you. Well, you are a cool hand! I'm off to see about
+the chocolate!"
+
+And Rollo Blair, with a slight singing in his ears, and a chill
+emptiness about the pit of his stomach, stood on his feet critically
+rolling a cigarette in a leaf of Etienne's Alcoy paper.
+
+John Mortimer said nothing, but looked after the man who had gone for
+the chocolate.
+
+"I wish it had been coffee," he said; "chocolate is always bad for my
+digestion!"
+
+Then he smiled a little grimly. His sufferings from indigestion produced
+by indulgence in this particular chocolate would in all probability not
+be prolonged, seeing that the glow of the sun-rising was already
+reddening the sky to the east.
+
+Etienne was secretly fingering his beads. And El Sarria thought with
+satisfaction of the safety of Dolóres; he had given up hope of Concha a
+full hour ago. The ex-Miguelete had doubtless again played the traitor.
+He took a cigarette from Rollo without speaking and followed him across
+the uneven floor between the heaps of trodden grain.
+
+They were led down the stairway one by one, and as they passed through
+the ground floor, with its thick woolly coating of grey flour dust, a
+trumpet blew without, and they heard the trampling of horses in the
+courtyard.
+
+"Quick!" said a voice at Rollo's elbow, "here is your chocolate. Nothing
+like it for strengthening the knee-joints at a time like this. I've seen
+men die on wine and on rum and on brandy; but for me, give me a cup of
+chocolate as good as that, when my time comes!"
+
+Rollo drank the thick sweet strength-giving stuff to the accompaniment
+of clattering hoofs and jingling accoutrements.
+
+"Come!" said a voice again, "give me the cup. Do not keep the general
+waiting. He is in no good temper this morning, and we are to march
+immediately."
+
+The young man stepped out of the mill-door into the crisp chill of the
+dawn. All the east was a glory of blood-red cloud, and for the second
+time Rollo and his companions stood face to face with General Cabrera.
+
+It was within a quarter of an hour of the sun-rising.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+HIS MOTHER'S ROSARY
+
+
+It was, as the soldier had said most truly, a cold morning to be shot
+in. But the Carlists, accustomed to Cabrera's summary methods, appeared
+to think but little of the matter, and jested as the firing parties were
+selected and drawn out. Ragged and desolate they looked as they stood on
+a slight slope between the foreigners and the red dawn, biting their
+cartridges and fingering the pulls of their rifles with hands numbed
+with cold. At elbow and knee their rags of uniforms flapped like bunches
+of ribbons at a fair.
+
+"In the garden!" whispered Luis Fernandez to Cabrera.
+
+"To the garden!" commanded the general, lighting a new cigarette and
+puffing vigorously, "and at this point I may as well bid you good-bye. I
+wish our acquaintance had been pleasanter. But the fortune of war,
+gentlemen! My mother had not so long time to say her prayers at the
+hands of your friend Nogueras--and she was a woman and old, gentlemen. I
+doubt not you know as well how to die as she?"
+
+And they did. Not one of them uttered a word. John Mortimer, seeing
+there was now no chance of making his thousand pounds, set an example
+of unbending dignity. He comported himself, indeed, exactly as he would
+have done on his marriage day. That is, he knew that the eyes of many
+were upon him, and he resolved not to shame the performance. So he went
+through his part with the exact English mixture of awkward shyness and
+sulky self-respect which would have carried him creditably to the altar
+in any English church.
+
+Etienne faced his death like the son of an ancient race, and a good
+Catholic. He could not have a confessor, but he said his prayers,
+committed his soul to God and the Virgin, and faced the black muzzles
+not greatly abashed.
+
+As for El Sarria, death was his _métier_, his familiar friend. He had
+lived with him for years, as a man with a wife, rising up and lying
+down, eating and breathing in his company. "The fortune of war," as
+Cabrera said. El Sarria was ready. Dolóres and her babe were safe. He
+asked no more.
+
+And not less readily fell into line Rollo Blair. A little apart he stood
+as they made ready to march out of the presence of the Carlist general.
+John Mortimer was already on his way, carefully and conscientiously
+ordering his going, that he might not in these last things disgrace his
+nation and his upbringing. Etienne and Ramon were following him. Still
+the young Scot lingered. Cabrera, nervously fingering his accoutrement
+and signing papers at a folding table, found time to eye him with
+curiosity.
+
+"Did he mean to make a last plea for mercy?" he thought.
+
+Cabrera smiled contemptuously. A friend of Nogueras might know Ramon
+Cabrera of Tortosa better. But Rollo had no such thought. He had in his
+fingers Etienne's last slip of Alcoy paper, in which the cigarette of
+Spain, unfailing comforter, is wrapped. To fill it he had crumbled his
+last leaf of tobacco. Now it was rolled accurately and with lingering
+particularity, because it was to be the last. It lay in his palm featly
+made, a cigarette worthy to be smoked by Don Carlos himself.
+
+Almost unconsciously Rollo put it to his lips. It was a cold morning,
+and it is small wonder that his hand shook a little. He was just
+twenty-three, and his main regret was that he had not kissed little
+Concha Cabezos--with her will, or against it--all would have been one
+now. Meantime he looked about him for a light. The general noticed his
+hesitation, rose from the table, and with a low bow offered his own, as
+one gentleman to another. Rollo thanked him. The two men approached as
+if to embrace. Each drew a puff of his cigarette, till the points glowed
+red. Rollo, retreating a little, swept a proud acknowledgment of thanks
+with his _sombrero_. Cabrera bowed with his hand on his heart. The young
+Scot clicked his heels together as if on parade, and strode out with
+head erect and squared shoulders in the rear of his companions.
+
+"By God's bread, a man!" said Cabrera, as he resumed his writing, "'tis
+a thousand pities I must shoot him!"
+
+They stood all four of them in the garden of the mill-house, underneath
+the fig trees in whose shade El Sarria had once hidden himself to watch
+the midnight operations of Don Tomas.
+
+The sun was just rising. His beams red, low, and level shot across the
+mill-wheel, turning the water of the unused overshot into a myriad
+pearls and diamonds as it splashed through a side culvert into the
+gorge beneath, in which the gloom of night lingered.
+
+The four men still stood in order. Mortimer and Etienne in the middle,
+with slim Rollo and the giant Ramon towering on either flank.
+
+"_Load with ball--at six paces--make ready!_"
+
+The officer's commands rang out with a certain haste, for he could
+already hear the clattering of the horses of the general's cavalcade,
+and he knew that if upon his arrival he had not carried out his orders,
+he might expect a severe reprimand.
+
+But it was not the general's suite that rode so furiously. The sound
+came from a contrary direction. Two horses were being ridden at speed,
+and at sight of the four men set in order against the wall the foremost
+rider sank both spurs into her white mare and dashed forward with a wild
+cry.
+
+The officer already had his sword raised in the air, the falling of
+which was to be the signal for the volley of death. But it did not fall.
+Something in the aspect of the girl-rider as she swept up parallel with
+the low garden wall, her hair floating disordered about her
+shoulders--her eyes black and shining like stars--the sheaf of papers
+she waved in her hand, all compelled the Carlist to suspend that last
+irrevocable order.
+
+It was Concha Cabezos who arrived when the eleventh hour was long past,
+and leaped from her reeking horse opposite the place of execution. With
+her, wild-haired as a Mænad, rode La Giralda, cross-saddled like a man.
+
+"General Cabrera! Where is General Cabrera?" cried Concha. "I must see
+him instantly. These are no traitors. They are true men, and in the
+service of Don Carlos. Here are their papers!"
+
+"Where is Ramon Cabrera? Tell me quickly!" cried La Giralda. "I have
+news for him. I was with his mother when she died. They whipped me at
+the cross of Tortosa to tell what I knew--stripping me to the waist they
+whipped me, being old and the mother of many. Cabrera will avenge me.
+Let me but see Ramon Cabrera whom of old I suckled at my breasts!"
+
+The officer hesitated. In such circumstances one might easily do wrong.
+He might shoot these men, and after all find that they were innocent. He
+preferred to wait. The living are more easily deprived of life than the
+dead restored to it. Such was his thought.
+
+In any case he had not long to wait.
+
+Round the angle of the mill-house swept the general and his staff,
+brilliant in scarlet and white, heightened by the glitter of abundant
+gold-lace. For the ex-butcher of Tortosa was a kind of military dandy,
+and loved to surround himself with the foppery of the _matador_ and the
+brigand. At heart, indeed, he was still the _guerrillero_ of Morella,
+riding home through the streets of that little rebel city after a
+successful foray.
+
+As his eyes fell on the row of men dark against the dusty _adobe_ of the
+garden wall, and on the two pale women, a dark frown overspread his
+face.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "Why have you not obeyed your
+instructions? Why are these men not yet dead?"
+
+The officer trembled, and began an explanation, pointing to Concha and
+La Giralda, both of whom stood for a moment motionless. Then flinging
+herself over the low wall of the garden as if her years had more nearly
+approached seventeen than seventy, La Giralda caught the great man by
+the stirrup.
+
+"Little Ramon, Ramon Cabrera," she cried, "have you forgotten your old
+nurse, La Giralda of Sevilla, your mother's gossip, your own playmate?"
+
+The general turned full upon her, with the quick indignant threat of one
+who considers himself duped, in his countenance. It had gone ill with La
+Giralda if she had not been able to prove her case. But she held
+something in her hand, the sight of which brought the butcher of Tortosa
+down from his saddle as quickly as if a Cristino bullet had pierced him
+to the heart.
+
+La Giralda was holding out to him an old string of beads, simply carved
+out of some brown oriental nut, but so worn away by use that the
+stringing had almost cut through the hard and polished shell.
+
+"My mother's rosary!" he cried, and sinking on his knees, he devoutly
+received and kissed it. He abode thus a moment looking up to the
+sky--he, the man who had waded in blood during six years of bitter
+warfare. He kissed the worn beads one by one and wept. They were his
+mother's way to heaven. And he did not know a better. In which perchance
+he was right.
+
+"Whence gat you this?" cried Cabrera, rising sharply as a thought struck
+him; "my mother never would have parted with these in her life--you
+plundered it from her body after her death! Quick, out with your story,
+or you die!"
+
+"Nay, little foster-son," said La Giralda, "I was indeed with your
+mother at the last--when she was shot by Nogueras, and five minutes
+before she died she gave her rosary into my hands to convey to you.
+'Take this to my son,' she said, 'and bid him never forget his mother,
+nor to say his prayers night and morn. Bid him swear it on these sacred
+beads!' So I have brought them to you. She kissed them before she died.
+At the risk of my life have I brought it."
+
+"And these," said Cabrera--"do you know these dogs, La Giralda?"
+
+He pointed to the four men who still stood by the wall, the firing party
+at attention before them, and the eyes of all on the next wave of the
+general's hand which would mean life or death.
+
+La Giralda drew a quick breath. Would the hold she had over him be
+sufficient for what she was about to ask? He was a fierce man and a
+cruel, this Ramon Cabrera, who loved naught in the world except his
+mother, and had gained his present ascendency in the councils of Don
+Carlos by the unbending and consistent ferocity of his conduct.
+
+"These are no traitors, General," she said; "they are true men, and deep
+in the councils of the cause."
+
+She bent and whispered in his ear words which others could not hear. The
+face of the Carlist general darkened from a dull pink to purple, and
+then his colour ebbed away to a ghastly ashen white as he listened.
+
+Twice he sprang up from the stone bench where he had seated himself,
+ground his heel into the gravel brought from the river-bed beneath, and
+muttered a characteristic imprecation, "Ten for one of their women I
+have slain already--by San Vicente after this it shall be a hundred!"
+
+For La Giralda was telling him the tale of his mother's shooting by
+Nogueras.
+
+Then all suddenly he reseated himself, and beckoned to Concha.
+
+"Come hither," he said; "let me see these fellows' papers, and tell me
+how they came into your hands!"
+
+Concha was ready.
+
+"The Señor, the tall stranger, had a mission to the Lady Superior of the
+Convent," she began. "From Don Baltasar Varela it was, Prior of the
+great Carlist Monastery of Montblanch. He trusted his papers into her
+hands as a guarantee of his loyalty and good faith, and here they are!"
+
+Concha flashed them from her bosom and laid them in the general's hands.
+Usually Cabrera was blind to female charms, but upon this occasion his
+eye rested with pleasure on the quick and subtle grace of the Andaluse.
+
+"Then you are a nun?" he queried, looking sharply at her figure and
+dress.
+
+"Ah, no," replied Concha, thinking with some hopefulness that she was to
+have at least a hearing, "I am not even a lay sister. The good Lady
+Superior had need of a housekeeper--one who should be free of the
+convent and yet able to transact business without the walls. It is a
+serious thing (as your honour knows) to provision even a hundred men who
+can live rough and eat sparely--how much harder to please a
+convent-school filled from end to end with the best blood in Spain! And
+good blood needs good feeding----"
+
+"As I well knew when I was a butcher in Tortosa!" quoth Cabrera,
+smiling. "There were a couple of ducal families within the range of my
+custom, and they consumed more beef and mutton than a whole _barrio_ of
+poor pottage-eaters!"
+
+To make Cabrera smile was more than half the battle.
+
+"You are sure they had nothing to do with the slayers of my mother?" He
+was fierce again in a moment, and pulled the left flange of his
+moustache into his mouth with a quick nervous movement of the fingers.
+
+"I will undertake that no one of them hath ever been further South than
+this village of Sarria," said Concha, somewhat hastily, and without
+sufficient authority.
+
+Cabrera looked at the papers. There was a Carlist commission in the name
+of Don Rollo Blair duly made out, a letter from General Elio, chief of
+the staff, commending all the four by name and description to all good
+servants of Don Carlos, as trustworthy persons engaged on a dangerous
+and secret mission. Most of all, however, he seemed to be impressed with
+the ring belonging to Etienne, with its revolving gem and concealed
+portrait of Carlos the Fifth.
+
+He placed it on his finger and gazing intently, asked to whom it
+belonged. As soon as he understood, he summoned the little Frenchman to
+his presence. Etienne came at the word, calm as usual, and twirling his
+moustache in the manner of Rollo.
+
+"This is your ring?" he demanded of the prisoner. Concha tried to catch
+Etienne's eye to signal to him that he must give Cabrera that upon which
+his fancy had lighted. But her former lover stubbornly avoided her eye.
+
+"That is my ring," he answered dryly, after a cursory inspection of the
+article in question as it lay in the palm of the _guerillero's_ hand.
+
+"It is very precious to you?" asked the butcher of Tortosa,
+suggestively.
+
+"It was given to me by my cousin, the king," answered Etienne, briefly.
+
+"Then I presume you do not care to part with it?" said Cabrera, turning
+it about on his finger, and holding it this way and that to the light.
+
+"No," said Etienne, coolly. "You see, my cousin might not give me
+another!"
+
+But the butcher of Tortosa could be as simple and direct in his methods
+as even Rollo himself.
+
+"Will you give it to me?" he said, still admiring it as it flashed upon
+his finger.
+
+Etienne looked at the general calmly from head to foot, Concha all the
+time frowning upon him to warn him of his danger. But the young man was
+preening himself like a little bantam-cock of vanity, glad to be
+reckless under the fire of such eyes. He would not have missed the
+chance for worlds, so he replied serenely, "Do you still intend to shoot
+us?"
+
+"What has that to do with the matter?" growled Cabrera, who was losing
+his temper.
+
+"Because if you do," said Etienne, who had been waiting his opportunity,
+"you are welcome to the jewel--_after_ I am dead. But if I am to live, I
+shall require it for myself!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE BURNING OF THE MILL-HOUSE
+
+
+Cabrera bit his lip for a moment, frowned still more darkly, and then
+burst into a roar of laughter. For the moment the _gamin_ in him was
+uppermost--the same curly-pated rascal who had climbed walls and stolen
+apples from the market-women's stalls of Tortosa thirty years ago.
+
+"You are a brave fellow," cried the general, "and I would to Heaven that
+your royal cousin had more of your spirit. Are all of your company of
+the same warlike kidney?"
+
+"I trust I am afraid of no man on the field of honour," answered the
+loyal little Frenchman, throwing out his chest. "Yet I speak but the
+truth when I aver that there is not one of my companions who could not
+say grace and eat me up afterwards!"
+
+Among the letters which had formed part of Rollo's credentials there was
+one superscribed "_To be opened in the camp of General Cabrera_."
+
+Cabrera now dismissed the firing party with a wave of his hand, the
+officer in command exchanging an encouraging nod with Rollo. Then he
+summoned that young man to approach. Rollo threw away the last inch of
+his cigarette, and going up easily, saluted the general with his usual
+self-possession.
+
+"Well, colonel," said the latter, "I little thought to exchange
+civilities with you again; but for that you have to thank this young
+lady. The fortune of war once more! But if young men will entrust
+precious papers to pretty girls, they must have a fund of gratitude upon
+which to draw--that is, when the ladies arrive in time. On this occasion
+it was most exactly done. Yet you must have lived through some very
+crowded moments while you faced the muzzles of yonder rifles!"
+
+And he pointed to the lane down which the firing party was defiling.
+
+Rollo bowed, but did not reply, awaiting the general's pleasure.
+Presently Cabrera, recollecting the sealed letter in his hand, gave it
+unopened to the youth.
+
+"There," he said, "that, I see, is to be opened in the camp of General
+Cabrera. Well--where Cabrera is, there is his camp. Open it, and let us
+see what it contains."
+
+"I will, general," said the young Scot, "in so far, that is, as it
+concerns your Excellency."
+
+The Carlist general sat watching Rollo keenly as he broke the seal and
+discovered a couple of enclosures. One was sealed and the other open.
+The first he presented to Cabrera, who, observing the handwriting of the
+superscription, changed colour. Meanwhile, without paying any attention
+to him, Rollo read his own communication from beginning to end. It had
+evidently been passed on to him from a higher authority than the Abbot,
+for only the address was in the handwriting of that learned ecclesiast.
+
+It ran as follows:
+
+     "To the Man who shall be chosen by our trusted Councillor for
+     the Mission Extraordinary in the service of Carlos
+     Quinto--These:
+
+     "You will receive from General Cabrera such succour and
+     assistance as may seem to you needful in pursuance of the
+     project you have in hand, namely the capturing of the young
+     Princess Isabel together with her mother, the so-called Regent
+     Cristina. Thereafter you will bring them with diligence within
+     our lines, observing all the respect and courtesy due to their
+     exalted rank and to the sex to which they belong.
+
+     "At the same time you are held indemnified for all killings of
+     such persons as may stand in your way in the execution of the
+     duty laid upon you, and by order of the King himself you hereby
+     take rank as a full Colonel in his service."
+
+Meanwhile Cabrera had been bending his brows over the note which had
+been directed to him personally. He rose and paced the length of the
+garden-wall with the letter in his hand, while Rollo stood his ground
+with an unmoved countenance. Presently he stopped opposite the young man
+and stood regarding him intently.
+
+"I am, I understand, to furnish you with men for this venture," he said;
+"good--but I am at liberty to prove you first. That you are cool and
+brave I know. We must find out whether you are loyal as well."
+
+"I am as loyal as any Spaniard who ever drew breath," retorted Rollo,
+hotly, "and in this matter I will answer for my companions as well."
+
+"And pray in what way, Sir Spitfire?" said Cabrera, smiling.
+
+"Why, as a man should," said Rollo, "with his sword or his pistol,
+or--as is our island custom--with his fists--it is all the same to me;
+yes, even with your abominable Spanish knife, which is no true
+gentleman's weapon!"
+
+"I am no unfriend to plainness, sir, either in speech or action," said
+Cabrera; "I see you are indeed a brave fellow, and will not lessen the
+king's chances of coming to his own by letting you loose on the men
+under my command. Still for one day you will not object to ride with
+us!"
+
+Rollo coloured high.
+
+"General," he said, "I will not conceal it from you that I have wasted
+too much time already; but if you wish for our assistance in your
+designs for twenty-four hours, I am not the man to deny you."
+
+"I thought not," cried Cabrera, much pleased. "And now have you any
+business to despatch before we leave this place? If so, let it be seen
+to at once!"
+
+"None, Excellency," said Rollo, "save that if you are satisfied of our
+good faith I should like to see Luis Fernandez the miller dealt with
+according to his deserts!"
+
+"I will have him shot instantly," cried Cabrera; "he hath given false
+tidings to his Majesty's generals. He hath belied his honest servants.
+Guard, bring Luis Fernandez hither!"
+
+This was rather more than Rollo had bargained for. He was not yet
+accustomed to the summary methods of Cabrera, even though the butcher's
+hand had hardly yet unclosed from himself. He was already meditating an
+appeal in favour of milder measures, when the guard returned with the
+news that Luis Fernandez was nowhere to be found. Dwelling-house,
+strong-room, mill, garden, and gorge beneath--all had been searched. In
+vain--they were empty and void. The tumbled beds where the general and
+his staff had slept, the granary with its trampled heaps of corn ready
+for grinding, the mill-wheel with the pool beneath where the lights and
+shadows played at bo-peep, where the trout lurked and the water-boxes
+seemed to descend into an infinity of blackness--all were deserted and
+lonesome as if no man had been near them for a hundred years.
+
+"The rascal has escaped!" cried Cabrera, full of rage; "have I not told
+you a thousand times you keep no watch? I have a great mind to stand
+half a dozen of you up against that wall. Escaped with my entire command
+about the rogue's home-nest! Well, set a torch to it and see if he is
+lurking anywhere about the crevices like a centipede in a crack!"
+
+Cabrera felt that he had wasted a great deal of time on a fine morning
+without shooting somebody, and it would certainly have gone ill with Don
+Luis or his brother if either of them had been compelled by the flames
+to issue forth from the burning mill-house of Sarria.
+
+But they were not there. The cur dogs of the village and a few
+half-starved mongrels that followed the troops had great sport worrying
+the rats which darted continually from the burning granaries. But of the
+more important human rats, no sign.
+
+All the inhabitants of the village were there likewise, held back from
+plundering by the bayonets of the Carlist troops. They stood recounting
+to each other, wistfully, the stores of clothes, the silk curtains, the
+uncut pieces of broadcloth, the household linen, the great eight-day
+clocks in their gilt ormolu cases. Every woman had something to add to
+the catalogue. Every householder felt keenly the injustice of
+permitting so much wealth to be given to the crackling flames.
+
+"Yes, it was very well," they said; "doubtless the Fernandez family were
+vermin to be burned up--smoked out. But they possessed much good gear,
+the gathering of many years. These things have committed no treason
+against either Don Carlos or the Regent Cristina. Why then are we not
+permitted to enter and remove the valuables? It is monstrous. We will
+represent the matter to General Cabrera--to Don Carlos himself!"
+
+But one glance at the former, as he sat his horse, nervously twisting
+the reins and watching the destruction from under his black brows, made
+their hearts as water within them. Their pet Valiant, old Gaspar Perico,
+too, had judiciously hidden himself. Esteban the supple had accompanied
+him, and the venta of Sarria was in the hands of the silent,
+swift-footed, but exceedingly capable maid-servant who had played the
+trick upon Etienne.
+
+The Sarrians therefore watched the mill-house blaze up, and thanked God
+that it stood some way from the other dwellings of the place.
+
+Suddenly Cabrera turned upon them.
+
+"Hearken ye, villagers of Sarria," he cried, "I have burned the home of
+a traitor. If I hear of any shelter being granted to Luis Fernandez or
+his brother within your bounds, I swear by the martyred honour of my
+mother that on my return I will burn every house within your walls and
+shoot every man of you capable of bearing arms. You have heard of Ramon
+Cabrera. Let that be enough."
+
+The villagers got apprehensively behind each other, and none answered,
+each waiting for the other, till with mighty bass thunder the voice rang
+out again:
+
+"Have you no answer?" he cried, "no promise? Must I set a dozen of you
+with your backs against the wall, as I did at Espluga in Francoli, to
+stimulate those dull country wits of yours?"
+
+Then a young man gaily dressed was thrust to the front. Very unwilling
+he was to show himself, and at his appearance, with his knees knocking
+together, a merry laugh rang out from behind Cabrera.
+
+That chieftain turned quickly with wrath in his eye. For it was a sound
+of a woman's mirth that was heard, and all such were strictly forbidden
+within his lines.
+
+But at the sight of little Concha, her dark eyes full of light, her
+hands clapping together in innocent delight, her white teeth disclosed
+in gay and dainty laughter, a certain _maja_ note of daring unconvention
+in her costume, she was so exactly all that would have sent him into
+raptures twenty years before when he was an apprentice in Tortosa, that
+the grim man only smiled and turned again to the unwilling spokesman of
+the municipality of Sarria.
+
+A voice from the press before the burning house announced the delegate's
+quality.
+
+"Don Raphael de Flores, son of our _alcalde_."
+
+"Speak on, Don Raphael," cried Cabrera; "I will not shoot you unless it
+should be necessary."
+
+Thus encouraged the trembling youth began.
+
+"Your Excellency," he quavered, "we of Sarria have nothing to do with
+the family of Fernandez. We would not give any one of them a handful of
+maize or a plate of lentil broth if he were starving. We are loyal men
+and women--well-wishers to the cause of the only true and absolute King
+Carlos Quinto."
+
+"I am credibly informed that it is otherwise," said Cabrera, "and that
+you are a den of red-hot nationals. I therefore impose a fine of two
+thousand _duros_ on the municipality, and as you are the alcalde's son,
+we will keep you in durance till they be paid."
+
+Don Raphael fell on his knees. His pale face was reddened by the flames
+from the mill-house, the fate of which must have afforded a striking
+object-lesson to a costive magistracy in trouble about a forced loan.
+
+"We are undone," he cried; "I am a married man, your Excellency, and
+have not a _maravedi_ to call my own. You had better shoot me out of
+hand, and be done with it. Indeed, we cannot possibly pay."
+
+"Go and find your father," cried Cabrera; "he pocketed half of the price
+of Don Ramon Garcia's house. I cannot see my namesake suffer. Tell him
+that two thousand _duros_ is the price up till noon. After that it will
+have risen to four thousand, and by three of the afternoon, if the money
+be not paid into the treasury of the only absolute and Catholic
+sovereign (in the present instance my breeches pocket), I shall be
+reluctantly compelled to shoot one dozen of the leading citizens of the
+township of Sarria. Let a strong guard accompany this young man till he
+returns from carrying his message."
+
+In this way did Cabrera replenish the treasury of his master Don Carlos,
+and with such pleasant argument did he induce reluctant _alcaldes_ to
+discover the whereabouts of their strong boxes.
+
+For a remarkably shrewd man was General Ramon Cabrera, the butcher of
+Tortosa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+HOW TO BECOME A SOLDIER
+
+
+The change in the aspect of affairs would have made a greater difference
+to most companies of adventurers than it did to that of which Master
+Rollo Blair of Blair Castle in the shire of Fife was the leader. In the
+morning they had all risen with the expectation of being shot with the
+sun-rising. At ten of the clock they were speeding southward on good
+horses, holding acknowledged rank and position in the army of the only
+Catholic and religious sovereign.
+
+But they were a philosophic quartette. Rollo drew in the morning air and
+blew it back again through his nostrils without thinking much of how
+nearly he had come to kissing the brown earth of Luis Fernandez's garden
+with a dozen bullets through his heart. Mortimer meditated somewhat
+sulkily upon his lost onions, rustling pleasantly back there in the cool
+_patio_ of the nunnery. Etienne sorrowed for his latest love idyll
+ruthlessly cut short, and as to El Sarria, he thought of nothing save
+that Dolóres had come back to him and that he had yet to reckon with the
+Fernandez family. The next time he would attend to the whole matter
+himself, and there would be no mistakes.
+
+It was not without sadness that Rollo looked his last on the white
+walls of the convent of the Holy Innocents. He was glad indeed to have
+placed Dolóres in safety--glad that she and her child were together, and
+that the good sisters were responsible for them. Between them the four
+had made up a purse to be sent by Concha to the Mother Superior, to be
+applied for the behoof of her guests till the better days should come,
+and Ramon Garcia be able to claim his wife and first-born son.
+
+But Concha had refused point-blank.
+
+"The babe came through the wicket. The mother arrived by night, a
+fugitive asking pity, like the Virgin fleeing down to Egypt in the
+pictures," said Concha. "The convent needs no alms, nor does the Lady
+Superior sell her help. Keep the money, lads. If I am not a fool you
+will need it more than the sisterhood of the Holy Innocents before you
+come to your journey's end."
+
+And with that she blew them each a dainty kiss, distinguishing no one
+above the other, dropped a curtsey to the general, whose eyes followed
+her with more than usual interest, leaped on her white mare and rode
+off, attended by La Giralda riding astride like a man, in the same
+fashion in which she had arrived.
+
+So little Concha was gone from his sight, and duty loomed up suddenly
+gaunt and void of interest before Rollo. To risk his life was nothing.
+When he got nearer to the goal, his blood would rise, that he knew. To
+capture a queen and a regent at one coup, to upset a government, to
+bring a desolating war to an end--these were all in the day's work. But
+why, in the name of all that was sanest and most practical, did his
+heart feel like lead within him and his new dignity turn to Dead Sea
+ashes in his mouth?
+
+It was not long before Cabrera dropped back, that he might talk over
+ways and means with the young colonel. It was clear that the _guerrilla_
+chieftain did not believe greatly in the project.
+
+"I do not understand all this," he said; "it is not my way. What have we
+to do with taking women and children prisoners? Let us have no truck,
+barter, or exchange with the government at Madrid except at the point of
+the bayonet. That is my way of it, and if my advice had been taken
+before, my master would at this moment have been in the royal palace of
+his ancestors. But these secret embassies in the hands of
+foreigners--what good can come of them?"
+
+Rollo explained such things as the Abbot of Montblanch had made clear to
+him--namely, that the Regent and her daughter were by no means averse to
+Holy Church, nor yet eager to keep the true King out of his own. But,
+they were in the power of unscrupulous men--Mendizábal, Linares, and
+others, who for their own ends published edicts and compelled the ladies
+to sign them. If they were captured and sequestered for their own good,
+the ministry would break down and Don Carlos would reign undisturbed.
+
+Rollo thought the exposition a marvel of clearness and point. It was
+somewhat disappointing, therefore, when he had finished to hear from
+Cabrera the unmoved declaration: "A Cristino is a Cristino whether in
+the palace of Madrid or on the mountains of Morella. And the quickest
+way is the best way with such an one, wherever met with!"
+
+"But you do not mean to say that you would shoot the girl-Queen or the
+mother-Regent if they fell into your hands?" cried Rollo, aghast at the
+horror.
+
+The deep underlying anger leaped up fiery red into the eyes of the
+_guerrilla_ chief.
+
+"Aye, that would I," he cried, "as quickly as they slew my own old
+mother in the barrack yard of Tortosa!"
+
+And thinking of that tragedy and the guilt of Nogueras, Rollo felt there
+was something to be said for the indomitable, implacable little
+butcher-general of Don Carlos.
+
+Cabrera was silent for a while after making this speech, and then
+abruptly demanded of Rollo how many men he would require for his
+undertaking.
+
+"I am bidden to place my entire command at your service," he said with
+obvious reluctance, glancing out of his little oblique eyes at the young
+colonel.
+
+Rollo considered a while before answering.
+
+"It is my opinion that the fewer men concerned in such a venture the
+greater the chances of success," he said at last; "furnish me with one
+petty officer intimately acquainted with the country between Zaragoza
+and San Ildefonso, and I will ask no more."
+
+Cabrera drew a long breath and looked at the young man with infinitely
+more approval than he had before manifested.
+
+"You are right," he said, "three times right! If you fail, there are
+fewer to go to the gallows. In prison fewer ill-sewn wine-skins to leak
+information. If you succeed, there are also fewer to divide the credit
+and the reward. For my own part, I do not think you will succeed, but I
+will provide you with the best man in my command for your purpose and in
+addition heartily wish you well out of your adventure!"
+
+Cabrera was indeed immensely relieved to find the desires of our hero so
+moderate. He had been directed to supply him with whatever force he
+required, and he expected to be deprived of a regiment at least, at a
+most critical time in the affairs of the Absolute King.
+
+"Young man," he said, "you will certainly be shot or hanged before you
+are a month older. Nevertheless in the mean time I would desire to have
+the honour of shaking you by the hand. If you were not to die so soon,
+undoubtedly you would go far! It is a pity. And the Cristinos are bad
+shots. They will not do the job half as creditably as my fellows would
+have done it for you this morning!"
+
+The man who was chosen by Cabrera to accompany them on their mission was
+of a most remarkable appearance. Tall, almost as tall as El Sarria, he
+was yet distinguished from his fellows by a notable gauntness and
+angularity of figure.
+
+"A step-ladder with the bottom bars missing!" was Rollo's mental
+description of him, as he stood before them in a uniform jacket much too
+tight for him, through which his ribs showed not unlike the spars of a
+ladder.
+
+But in other respects Sergeant Cardono was a remarkable man. The iron
+gravity of his countenance, seamed on the right-hand side by a deep
+scar, took no new expression when he found himself detailed by his
+general for this new and dangerous mission.
+
+With a single salute he fell out and instantly attached himself to
+Rollo, whom he relieved of his knapsack and waterbottle on the spot.
+Sergeant Cardono paid no attention whatever to the other three, whom he
+evidently regarded as very subordinate members of the expedition.
+
+As soon as they arrived at the village where they were to part from the
+command of Cabrera, Sergeant Cardono promptly disappeared. He was not
+seen for several hours, during which Rollo and El Sarria wandered here
+and there endeavouring in that poor place to pick up some sustenance
+which would serve them in lieu of a dinner. They had but poor success. A
+round of black bread, a fowl of amazing age, vitality, and muscular
+development, with a few snails, were all that they could obtain by their
+best persuasions, aided by the money with which Rollo was plentifully
+supplied. John Mortimer looked disconsolately on. He had added a little
+ham on his own account, which last he had brought in his saddle-bags
+from the venta of Sarria. But everything pointed to a sparse meal, and
+even the philosophic Etienne shrugged his shoulders and departed to
+prospect at a certain house half a mile up the road where, as they had
+ridden rapidly by, a couple of pretty girls had looked out curiously at
+the tossing Carlist _boinas_.
+
+Rollo and El Sarria were carrying their scanty provend to a house where
+a decent-looking woman had agreed to cook it for them, when their gloomy
+reveries were interrupted by a sudden apparition which burst upon them
+as they stood on the crest of a deep hollow.
+
+The limestone hills had been rent asunder at the place, and from the
+bare faces of the rocks the neighbouring farmers and villagers had
+quarried and carried away such of the overhanging blocks as could easily
+be trimmed to suit their purposes.
+
+Part of what remained had been shaped into a _hornito_, or stone oven,
+under which a fire had been kindled, and a strange figure moved about,
+stirring the glowing charcoal with a long bar of iron. On a smaller
+hearth nearer at hand a second fire blazed, and the smell of fragrant
+cookery rose to the expectant and envious nostrils of the four.
+
+It was Sergeant Cardono, who moved about whistling softly, now attending
+to the steaming _olla_, now watching the rising bread in the _hornito_.
+
+Perceiving Rollo, he saluted gravely and remarked, "Dinner will be
+served in half an hour." The others, as before, he simply ignored. But
+in deference to his new commander he stopped whistling and moved about
+with his lean shoulders squared as if on parade.
+
+When the bread and the skinny chicken were placed in his hands, he
+glanced at them with somewhat of superciliousness.
+
+"The bread will serve for crumbs," he said, and immediately began to
+grate the baton-like loaf with a farrier's hoof-rasp which he used in
+his culinary operations. "But this," he added, as he turned over the
+bird, "is well stricken in years, and had better be given to the
+recruits. They have young teeth and have had practice upon dead
+artillery mules!"
+
+So saying, he went casually to the edge of the little quarry, whistled a
+peculiar note and tossed the bird downward to some person unseen, who
+appeared from nowhere in particular for the purpose of receiving it.
+
+When the dinner was ready Sergeant Cardono announced it to Rollo as if
+he had been serving a prince. And what was the young man's astonishment
+to find a table, covered with a decent white cloth, under the shelter of
+a limestone rock, spread for three, and complete even to table napkins,
+which the sergeant had tied into various curious shapes.
+
+As they filed down the slope the sergeant stood at attention, but when
+El Sarria passed he quickly beckoned him aside with a private gesture.
+
+"You and I will eat after the foreigners," he explained.
+
+El Sarria drew himself up somewhat proudly, but Sergeant Cardono
+whispered in his ear two or three words which appeared to astonish him
+so much that he did as he was bid, and stood aside while John Mortimer
+and Etienne de Saint Pierre seated themselves.
+
+But Rollo, who had no great love for eating, and considered one man just
+as much entitled to respect as another, would not sit down till El
+Sarria was accommodated also.
+
+"May it please your Excellency, Don Ramon and I have much to say to each
+other," quoth the Sergeant, with great respect, "besides your honour is
+aware--the garlic--the onions--we of this country love them?"
+
+"But so do I," cried Rollo, "and I will not have distinctions made on
+this expedition. We are all to risk our lives equally and we shall all
+fare equally, and if we are caught our dose of lead or halter-hemp will
+be just the same."
+
+Here El Sarria interrupted.
+
+"With respect," he said, "it is true that this gentleman hath some
+private matters to communicate to me which have nothing to do with the
+object of our mission. I crave your permission that for to-day I may
+dine apart with him!"
+
+After this there was no more to be said. El Sarria helped the sergeant
+to serve the meal, which was at once the proof of his foraging ability
+and his consummate genius as a cook. For though the day was Friday, the
+soup was very far from _maigre_. The stew contained both lamb and fresh
+pork cut into generous cubes with a sufficiency of savoury fat included.
+A sausage had been sliced small for seasoning and the whole had been so
+smothered in _garbanzos_, haricot beans, rice, mixed with strips of
+toothsome salt fish, that John Mortimer bent and said a well-deserved
+blessing over the viands.
+
+"I don't usually in this country," he explained, "but really this is
+what my good old father would call a manifest providence. That fellow of
+ours will prove a treasure."
+
+"It seems so," said Rollo, a little grimly, "that is, if he can scout
+and fight as well as he can cater and cook."
+
+For himself the young Scot cared little what he ate, and would have
+dined quite cheerfully on dry bread and water, if any one would have
+listened to his stories of the wonders of his past life or the yet more
+wonderful achievements of his future. He would have sat and spun yarns
+concerning the notches on Killiecrankie at a dyke-back, though he had
+not tasted food for twenty-four hours, with the utmost composure and
+relish. But his companions were of another kidney, being all valiant
+trencher-men--John Mortimer desiring chiefly quantity in his eating,
+while Etienne, no mean cook himself, desiderated rather variety and
+delicacy in the dishes which were set before him.
+
+At all events the dinner was a great success, though the Sergeant, who
+evinced the greatest partiality for Rollo, often reproached him with
+eating little, or inquired anxiously if the sauce of a certain dish
+were not to his taste. Rollo, in the height of his argument, would
+hastily affirm that it was delicious, and be off again in chase of some
+deed of arms or daring, leaving the Sergeant's _chef-d'oeuvre_
+untasted on his plate.
+
+At this the Sergeant shook his head in private to El Sarria.
+
+"It will stand in his way, I fear me," he said sententiously; "was there
+ever a notable general yet who had not a fine belly to wag before him
+upon horseback? 'Tis as necessary as the cock's feathers in his hat. Now
+there is your cut-and-thrust officer who is good for nothing but to be
+first in charges and to lead forlorn hopes--this colonel of yours is
+just the figure for him. I have seen many a dozen of them get the lead
+between their ribs and never regretted it before. But it is a devil's
+pity that this young cockerel is not fonder of his dinner. How regardeth
+he the women?"
+
+This last question was asked anxiously, yet with some hope. But this
+also El Sarria promptly scattered to the winds.
+
+"I do not think that he regards them at all! He has scarcely looked at
+one of them ever since I first knew him."
+
+Sergeant Cardono groaned, seemingly greatly perturbed in spirit.
+
+"I feared as much," he said, shaking his head; "he hath not the right
+wandering eye. Now, that young Frenchman is a devil untamed! And the
+Englishman--well, though he is deeper, he also hath it in him. But the
+colonel is all for fighting and his duty. It is easy to see that he will
+rise but little higher. When was there ever a great soldier without a
+weakness for a pretty woman and a good dinner? Why, the thing is
+against nature. Now, my father fought in the War of the Independence,
+and the tales that he told of El Gran' Lor'--he was a soldier if you
+like, worthy of the white plumes! A cook all to himself closer at his
+elbow than an aide-de-camp--and as to the women--ah----!"
+
+Sergeant Cardono nodded as one who could tell tales and he would. Yet
+the Sergeant Cardono found some reason to change his mind as to Rollo's
+qualifications for field-officership before the end of their first day
+apart from Cabrera.
+
+It was indeed with a feeling of intense relief that the little company
+of five men separated from the white and red _boinas_ of the
+butcher-general's cavalcade. Well-affected to them as Cabrera might be
+for the time being, his favour was so brief and uncertain, his affection
+so tiger-like, that even Sergeant Cardono sighed a sigh of satisfaction
+when they turned their horses' heads towards the far-away Guadarrama
+beyond which lay the goal of their adventuring.
+
+Presently the tongues of the little cavalcade were unloosed. El Sarria
+and Sergeant Cardono having found subjects of common interest, communed
+together apart like old friends. John Mortimer and Etienne, who
+generally had little to say to each other, conversed freely upon
+wine-growing and the possibility of introducing cotton-spinning into the
+South of France. For Etienne was not destitute of a certain Gascon eye
+to the main chance.
+
+Rollo alone rode gloomily apart. He was turning over the terms of his
+commission in his mind, and the more he thought, the less was he
+satisfied. It was not alone the desperateness of the venture that
+daunted Rollo, but the difficulty of providing for the Queen-Regent and
+little princess when captured. There were a couple of hundred miles to
+ride back to those northern fastnesses where they would be safe; for the
+most part without cover and through country swarming with Nationals and
+Cristino partisans.
+
+Riding thus in deep meditation, Rollo, whose gaze was usually so alert,
+did not observe away to the right a couple of horses ridden at speed and
+rapidly overtaking their more tired beasts.
+
+El Sarria, however, did not fail to note them, but, fearing a belated
+message of recall from General Cabrera, he did not communicate his
+discovery to his companions, contenting himself with keeping his eye
+upon the approaching riders.
+
+Rollo was therefore still advancing, his reins flung loosely upon his
+beast's neck and his whole attitude betokening a melancholy resignation,
+a couple of lengths before his companions, when a sudden clattering of
+hoofs startled him. He looked up, and there, on her white mare,
+well-lathered at girth and bridle, was little Concha Cabezos, sitting
+her panting beast with the grace of the true Andaluse.
+
+Her hair was a little ruffled by the wind. Her cheeks and lips were
+adorably red. There was a new and brilliant light in her eye; and after
+one curiously comprehensive glance at the company, she turned about to
+look for her companion, La Giralda, who presently cantered up on a
+lumbering Estramenian gelding. La Giralda sat astride as before, her
+lower limbs, so far as these were apparent, being closely clad in
+leather, a loose skirt over them preserving in part the appearance of
+sex.
+
+Rollo was dumb with sheer astonishment. He could only gaze at the
+flushed cheek, the tingling electric glances, the air completely
+unconscious and innocent of the girl before him.
+
+"Concha!" he cried aloud. "Concha--what do you here? I thought--I
+imagined you were safe at the Convent of the Holy Innocents!"
+
+And from behind Sergeant Cardono marked his cheek, alternately paling
+and reddening, his stammering tongue and altered demeanour, with the
+utmost satisfaction.
+
+"Good--good," he muttered under his breath to El Sarria; "he will make a
+true general yet. The saints be praised for this weakness! If only he
+were fonder of his dinner all might yet be well!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MISSION OF THE SEÑORITA CONCHA
+
+
+"I too have a mission, I would have you know," said Concha, a dangerous
+coquetry showing through her grave demeanour, "a secret mission from the
+Mother Superior of the Convent of the Holy Innocents. Do not attempt to
+penetrate the secret. I assure you it will be quite useless. And pray do
+not suppose that only you can adventure forth on perilous quests!"
+
+"I assure you," began Rollo, eagerly, "that I suppose no such thing. At
+the moment when you came up I was wishing with all my heart that the
+responsibility of the present undertaking had been laid on any other
+shoulders than mine!"
+
+Yet in spite of his modesty, certain it is that from that moment Rollo
+rode no longer with his head hanging down like a willow blown by the
+wind. The reins lay no more lax and abandoned on his horse's neck. On
+the contrary, he sat erect and looked abroad with the air of a
+commander, and his hand rested oftener on the hilt of Killiecrankie,
+with the air of pride which Concha privately thought most becoming.
+
+"And in what case left you my wife and babe?" suddenly demanded El
+Sarria, riding up, and inquiring somewhat imperiously of the new
+recruit concerning the matter which touched him most nearly.
+
+"The Señora Dolóres is safe with the good sisters, and as in former
+times I was known to have been her companion, it was judged safest that
+I should not longer be seen in the neighbourhood. Likewise I was charged
+with the tidings that Luis Fernandez with a company of Cristino
+Migueletes has been seen riding southward to cut you off from Madrid,
+whither it is supposed you are bound!"
+
+Rollo turned quickly upon her with some anger in his eye.
+
+"Why did you not tell me that at first?" he said.
+
+Concha smiled a subtle smile and turned her eyes upon the ground.
+
+"If you will remember, I had other matters to communicate to your
+Excellency," she said meekly--almost too meekly, Rollo thought. "This
+matter of Luis Fernandez slipped my memory, till it was my good fortune
+to be reminded of it by Don Ramon!"
+
+And all the while the long lean Sergeant Cardono, his elbows glued to
+his sides, sat his horse as if spiked to the saddle, and chuckled with
+quiet glee at the scene.
+
+"He will do yet," he muttered; "'twas ever thus that my father told me
+of the Gran' Lor' before Salamanca. Be he as stiff as a ramrod and as
+frigid as his own North Pole, the little one will thaw him--bend
+him--make a fool of him for his soul's good. She is not an Andaluse of
+the gipsy blood for nothing! He will make him a soldier yet, this young
+man, by the especial grace of San Vicente de Paul, only I do not think
+that either of them will deserve readmission to the Convent of the Holy
+Innocents!"
+
+More than once Rollo endeavoured to extract from Concha to what place
+her self-assumed mission was taking her, and at what point she would
+leave them. It was in vain. The lady baffled all his endeavours with the
+most consummate ease.
+
+"You have not communicated to me," she said, "the purport of your own
+adventures. How then can I tell at what place our ways divide?"
+
+"I am forbidden to reveal to any save General Cabrera alone my secret
+instructions!" said Rollo, with such dignity as he could muster at short
+notice.
+
+"And I," retorted Concha, "am as strictly forbidden to reveal mine to
+General Cabrera or even to that notable young officer, Colonel Don Rollo
+of the surname which resembles so much a _borrico's_ serenade!"
+
+That speech would have been undoubtedly rude save for the glance which
+accompanied it, given softly yet daringly from beneath a jetty fringe of
+eyelash.
+
+Nevertheless all Rollo Blair's pride of ancestry rose insurgent within
+him. Who was this Andalucian waiting-maid that she should speak lightly
+of the descendant of that Blair of Blair Castle who had stood for Bruce
+and freedom on the field of Bannockburn? It was unbearable--and yet,
+well, there was something uncommon about this girl. And after all, was
+it not the mark of a gentleman to pay no heed to the babbling of women's
+tongues? If they did not say one thing, they would another. Besides, he
+cared nothing what this girl might say. A parrot prattling in a cage
+would affect him as much.
+
+So they rode on together over the great tawny brick-dusty wastes of Old
+Castile, silent mostly, but the silence occasionally broken by speech,
+friendly enough on either side. Behind them pounded La Giralda, gaunt as
+the sergeant himself, leather-legginged, booted and spurred, watching
+them keenly out of her ancient, unfathomable gipsy eyes.
+
+And ever as they rode the Guadarrama mountains rose higher and whiter
+out of the vast and hideous plain, the only interruption to the circling
+horizon of brown and parched corn lands. But at this season scrub-oak
+and juniper were the only shrubs to be seen, and had there been a
+Cristino outpost anywhere within miles, the party must have been
+discerned riding steadily towards the northern slopes of the mountains.
+But neither man nor beast took notice of them, and a certain large
+uncanny silence brooded over the plain.
+
+At one point, indeed, they passed near enough to distinguish in the far
+north the snow-flecked buttresses of the Sierra de Moncayo. But these,
+they knew, were the haunts of their Carlist allies. The towns and
+villages of the plain, however, were invariably held by Nationals, and
+it had often gone hard with them, had not Sergeant Cardono detached
+himself from the cavalcade, and, venturing alone into the midst of the
+enemy, by methods of his own produced the materials for many an
+excellent meal. At last, one day the Sergeant came back to the party
+with an added gloom on his long, lean, leathern-textured face. He had
+brought with him an Estramaduran ham, a loaf of wheaten bread, and a
+double string of sausages. But upon his descending into the temporary
+camp which sheltered the party in the bottom of a _barranco_, or deep
+crack in the parched plateau overgrown with scented thyme and dwarf
+oak, it became obvious that he had news of the most serious import to
+communicate.
+
+He called Rollo aside, and told him how he had made his way into a
+village, as was his custom, and found all quiet--the shops open, but
+none to attend to them, the customs superintendent in his den by the
+gate, seated on his easy chair, but dead--the presbytery empty of the
+priest, the river bank dotted with its array of worn scrubbing boards,
+but not a washerwoman to be seen. Only a lame lad, furtively plundering,
+had leaped backward upon his crutch with a swift drawing of his knife
+and a wolfish gleam of teeth. He had first of all warned the Sergeant to
+keep off at his peril, but had afterwards changed his tone and confessed
+to him that the plague was abroad in the valley of the Duero, and that
+he was the only being left alive in the village save the vulture and the
+prowling dog.
+
+"The plague!" Sergeant Cardono had gasped, like every Spaniard stricken
+sick at the very sound of the word.
+
+"Yes, and I own everything in the village," asserted the imp. "If you
+want anything here you must pay me for it!"
+
+The Sergeant found it even as the cripple had said. There was not a
+single living inhabitant in the village. Here and there a shut door and
+a sickening smell betrayed the fact that some unfortunates had been left
+to die untended. Etienne and John Mortimer were for different reasons
+unwilling to taste of the ham and bread he had brought back, thinking
+that these might convey the contagion, but La Giralda and the Sergeant
+laughed their fears to scorn, and together retired to prepare the
+evening meal.
+
+As the others made their preparations for the night, watering their
+beasts and grooming them with the utmost care, the little crook-backed
+imp from the village appeared on the brink of the _barranco_, his
+sallow, weazened face peeping suspiciously out of the underbrush, and
+his crutch performing the most curious evolutions in the air.
+
+There was something unspeakably eerie in the aspect of the solitary
+survivor of so many living people, left behind to prey like a ghoul on
+the abandoned possessions of the fear-stricken living and the
+untestamented property of the dead.
+
+Concha shrank instinctively from his approach, and the boy, perceiving
+his power over her, came scuttling like a weasel through the brushwood,
+till little more than a couple of paces interposed between him and the
+girl. Frozen stiff with loathing and terror, it was not for some time
+that Concha could cry out and look round hastily for Rollo, who
+(doubtless in his capacity of leader of the expedition) was not slow in
+hastening to her assistance.
+
+"That boy--there!" she gasped, "he frightens me--oh hateful! make him go
+away!" And she clutched the young man's arm with such a quick nervous
+grasp, that a crimson flush rose quickly to Rollo's cheek.
+
+"No," muttered Etienne to himself as he watched the performance
+critically, "she was never in love with you, sir! She never did as much
+for you as that. But on the whole, with a temper like Mistress Concha's,
+I think you are well out of it, Monsieur Etienne!" Which wise dictum
+might or might not be based on the fox's opinion as to sour grapes.
+
+All unconsciously Rollo reached a protecting hand across to the little
+white fingers which gripped his arm so tightly.
+
+"Go away, boy," he commanded; "do you not see that you terrify the
+Señorita?"
+
+"I see--that is why I stay!" cried the amiable youth gleefully,
+flourishing his crutch about his head as if on the point of launching it
+at the party.
+
+Rollo laid his hand on the hilt of Killiecrankie with a threatening
+gesture.
+
+"If you come an inch nearer, I will give you plague!" cried the boy,
+showing his teeth wickedly, "and your wench also. You will grow
+black--yes, and swell! Then you will die, both of you. And there will be
+no one to bury you, like those in the houses back there. Then all you
+possess shall be mine, ha, ha!"
+
+And he laughed and danced till a fit of coughing came upon him so that
+he actually crowed in a kind of fiendish exaltation. But Rollo Blair was
+not a man to be jested with, either by devil or devil's imp. He drew a
+pistol from his belt, looked carefully to the priming, and with the
+greatest coolness in the world pointed it at the misshapen brat.
+
+"Now listen," he said, "you are old enough to know the meaning of words;
+I give you one minute to betake yourself to your own place and leave us
+alone! There is no contagion in a pistol bullet, my fine lad, but it is
+quite as deadly as any plague. So be off before a charge of powder
+catches you up!"
+
+The sound of the angry voices had attracted La Giralda, who, looking up
+hastily from her task of building the fire beneath the gipsy tripod at
+which she and the Sergeant were cooking, advanced hastily with a long
+wand in her hand.
+
+The imp wheeled about as on a pivot, and positively appeared to shrink
+into his clothing at the sight of her. He stood motionless, however,
+while La Giralda advanced threateningly towards him with the wand in her
+hand as if for the purpose of castigation. As she approached he emitted
+a cry of purely animal terror, and hastily whipping his crutch under his
+arm, betook himself, in a series of long hops, to a spot twenty yards
+higher up the bank. But La Giralda stopped him by a word or two spoken
+in an unknown tongue, harsh-sounding as Catalan, but curt and brief as a
+military order.
+
+The boy stood still and answered in the same speech, at first gruffly
+and unwillingly, with downcast looks and his bare great toe scrabbling
+in the dust of the hillside.
+
+The dialogue lasted for some time, till at last with a scornful gesture
+La Giralda released him, pointing to the upper edge of the _barranco_ as
+the place by which he was to disappear: the which he was now as eager to
+do, as he had formerly been insolently determined to remain.
+
+During this interview Rollo had stood absent-mindedly with his hand
+pressed on Concha's, as he listened to the strange speech of La Giralda.
+Even his acquaintance with the language of the gipsies of Granada had
+only enabled him to understand a word here and there. The girl's colour
+slowly returned, but the fear of the plague still ran like ice in her
+veins. She who feared nothing else on earth, was shaken as with a palsy
+by the terror of the Black Death, so paralysing was the fear that the
+very name of cholera laid upon insanitary Spain.
+
+"Well?" said Rollo, turning to La Giralda, who stood considering with
+her eyes upon the ground, after her interview with the crook-backed
+dwarf.
+
+"You must give me time to think," she said; "this boy is one of our
+people--a Gitano of Baza. He is not of this place, and he tells me
+strange things. He swears that the Queen and the court are plague-stayed
+at La Granja by fear of the cholera. They dare not return to Madrid.
+They cannot supply themselves with victuals where they are. The very
+guards forsake them. And the Gitanos of the hills--but I have no right
+to tell that to the foreigner--the Gorgio. For am not I also a Gitana?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The village where Rollo's command first stumbled upon this dreadful fact
+was called Frias, in the district of La Perla, and lies upon the eastern
+spurs of the Guadarrama. It was, therefore, likely enough then that the
+boy spoke truth, and that within a few miles of them the Court of Spain
+was enduring privations in its aerial palace of La Granja.
+
+But even when interrogated by El Sarria the old woman remained
+obstinately silent as to the news concerning her kinsfolk which she had
+heard from the crippled dwarf.
+
+"It has nothing to do with you," she repeated; "it is a matter of the
+Gitanos!"
+
+But there came up from the bottom of the ravine, the lantern-jawed
+Sergeant, long, silent, lean, parched as a Manchegan cow whose pasture
+has been burnt up by a summer sun. With one beckoning finger he summoned
+La Giralda apart, and she obeyed him as readily as the boy had obeyed
+her. They communed a long time together, the old gipsy speaking, the
+coffee-coloured Sergeant listening with his head a little to the side.
+
+At the end of the colloquy Sergeant Cardono went directly up to Rollo
+and saluted.
+
+"Is it permitted for me to speak a word to your Excellency concerning
+the objects of the expedition?" he said, with his usual deference.
+
+"Certainly!" answered Rollo; "for me, my mission is a secret one, but I
+have no instructions against listening."
+
+The Sergeant bowed his head.
+
+"Whatever be our mission you will find me do my duty," he said; "and
+since this cursed plague may interfere with all your plans, it is well
+that you should know what has befallen and what is designed. You will
+pardon me for saying that it takes no great prophet to discover that our
+purposes have to do with the movements of the court."
+
+Rollo glanced at him keenly.
+
+"Did General Cabrera reveal anything to you before your departure?" he
+asked.
+
+"Nay," said Sergeant Cardono; "but when I am required to guide a party
+secretly to San Ildefonso, where the court of the Queen-Regent is
+sojourning, it does not require great penetration to see the general
+nature of the service upon which I am engaged!"
+
+Rollo recovered himself.
+
+"You have not yet told me what you have discovered," he said,
+expectantly.
+
+"No," replied the Sergeant with great composure--"that can wait."
+
+For little Concha was approaching; and though he had limitless
+expectations of the good influence of that young lady upon the military
+career of his officer, he did not judge it prudent to communicate
+intelligence of moment in her presence. Wherein for once he was wrong,
+since that pretty head of the Andalucian beauty, for all its clustering
+curls, was full of the wisest and most far-seeing counsel--indeed, more
+to be trusted in a pinch than the _juntas_ of half-a-dozen provinces.
+
+But the Sergeant considered that when a girl was pretty and aware of it,
+she had fulfilled her destiny--save as it might be in the making of
+military geniuses. Therefore he remained silent as the grave so long as
+Concha stayed. Observing this, the girl asked a simple question and then
+moved off a little scornfully, only remarking to herself: "As if I could
+not make him tell me whenever I get him by himself!"
+
+She referred (it is needless to state) not to Sergeant Cardono, but to
+his commanding officer, Señor Don Rollo Blair of Blair Castle in the
+self-sufficient shire of Fife.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+DEEP ROMANY
+
+
+The news which Sergeant Cardono had to communicate was indeed fitted to
+shake the strongest nerves. If true, it took away from Rollo at once all
+hope of the success of his mission. He saw himself returning disgraced
+and impotent to the camp of Cabrera, either to be shot out of hand, or
+worse still, to be sent over the frontier as something too useless and
+feeble to be further employed.
+
+Briefly, the boy's news as repeated by La Giralda to the Sergeant,
+informed Rollo that though the court was presently at La Granja and many
+courtiers in the village of San Ildefonso, the royal guards through fear
+and hunger had mutinied and marched back to Madrid, and that the gipsies
+were gathering among the mountains in order to make a night attack upon
+the stranded and forsaken court of Spain.
+
+In the sergeant's opinion not a moment was to be lost. The object of the
+hill Gitanos was pure plunder, but they would think nothing of
+bloodshed, and would doubtless give the whole palace and town over to
+rapine and pillage. Themselves desperate with hunger and isolation, they
+had resolved to strike a blow which would ring from one end of Spain to
+the other.
+
+It was their intention (so the imp said) to kill the Queen-Regent and
+her daughter, to slaughter the ministers and courtiers in attendance, to
+plunder the palace from top to bottom and to give all within the
+neighbouring town of San Ildefonso to the sword.
+
+The programme, as thus baldly announced, was indeed one to strike all
+men with horror, even those who had been hardened by years of
+fratricidal warfare in which quarter was neither given nor expected.
+
+Besides the plunder of the palace and its occupants, the leaders of the
+gipsies expected that they would obtain great rewards from Don Carlos
+for thus removing the only obstacles to his undisputed possession of the
+throne of Spain.
+
+The heart of Rollo beat violently. His Scottish birth and training gave
+him a natural reverence for the sanctity of sickness and death, and the
+idea of these men plotting ghoulishly to utilise "the onlaying of the
+hand of Providence" (as his father would have phrased it) for the
+purposes of plunder and rapine, unspeakably revolted him.
+
+Immediately he called a council of war, at which, in spite of the frowns
+of Sergeant Cardono, little Concha Cabezos had her place.
+
+La Giralda was summoned also, but excused herself saying, "It is better
+that I should not know what you intend to do. I am, after all, a
+black-blooded Gitana, and might be tempted to reveal your secrets if I
+knew them. It is better therefore that I should not. Let me keep my own
+place as a servitor in your company, to cut the brushwood for your fire
+and to bring the water from the spring. In those things you will find me
+faithful. Trust the gipsy no further!"
+
+Rollo, remembering her loyalty in the matter of Dolóres at the village
+of El Sarria, was about to make an objection, but a significant gesture
+from the Sergeant restrained him in time.
+
+Whereupon Rollo addressed himself to the others, setting clearly before
+them the gravity of the situation.
+
+John Mortimer shook his head gravely. He could not approve.
+
+"How often has my father told me that the first loss is the least! This
+all comes of trying to make up my disappointment about the Abbot's
+Priorato!"
+
+Etienne shrugged his shoulders and philosophically quoted a Gascon
+proverb to the effect that who buys the flock must take the black sheep
+also.
+
+El Sarria simply recollected that his gun and pistols were in good
+order, and waited for orders.
+
+The conference therefore resolved itself into a trio of
+consultants--Rollo because he was the leader, Sergeant Cardono because
+he knew the country, and Concha--because she was Concha!
+
+They were within an hour or two's rapid march of La Granja over a pass
+in the Guadarrama. The sergeant volunteered to lead them down into the
+gardens in that time. He knew a path often travelled by smugglers on
+their way to Segovia.
+
+"It is clear that if we are to carry away the Queen-Regent and her
+daughter, we must forestall the gipsies," said Rollo.
+
+Concha clasped her hands pitifully.
+
+"Ah, the poor young Queen!" she cried. "Praise to the saints that I was
+not born a princess! It goes to my heart to make her a prisoner!"
+
+The Sergeant uttered a guttural grunt which intimated that in his
+opinion the influence of the petticoat on the career of a soldier might
+be over-done. Otherwise he maintained his gravity, speaking only when he
+was directly appealed to and giving his judgment with due submission to
+his superiors.
+
+Finally it was judged that they should make a night march over the
+mountains, find some suitable place to lie up in during the day, and in
+the morning send in La Giralda and the Sergeant to San Ildefonso in the
+guise of fagot sellers to find out if the gipsy boy of Baza had spoken
+the truth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+San Ildefonso and La Granja are two of the most strangely situated
+places in Spain. A high and generally snow-clad Sierra divides them from
+Madrid and the south. The palace is one of the most high-lying upon
+earth, having originally been one of the mountain granges of the monks
+of Segovia to which a king of Spain took a fancy, and, what is more
+remarkable, for which he was willing to pay good money.
+
+Upon the site a palace has been erected, a miniature Versailles,
+infinitely more charming than the original, with walks, fountains,
+waterfalls all fed by the cold snow water of the Guadarrama, and fanned
+by the pure airs of the mountains. This Grange has been for centuries a
+favourite resort of the Court of Spain, and specially during these last
+years of the Regent Cristina, who, when tired with the precision and
+etiquette of the Court of Madrid, retired hither that she might do as
+she pleased for at least two or three months of the year.
+
+Generally the great park-gates stood hospitably open, and the little
+town of San Ildefonso, with its lodgings and hostels, was at this season
+crowded with courtiers and hangers-on of the court. Guards circulated
+here and there, or clattered after the Queen-Regent as she drove out on
+the magnificent King's highway which stretched upwards over the
+Guadarrama towards Madrid, or whirled down towards Segovia and the
+plains of Old Castile. Bugles were never long silent in _plaza_ or
+barrack yard. Drums beat, fifes shrilled, and there was a continuous
+trampling of horses as this ambassador or that was escorted to the
+presence of Queen Cristina, widow of Fernando VII., mother of Isabel the
+Second, and Regent of Spain.
+
+A word of historical introduction is here necessary, and it shall be but
+a word. For nearly a quarter of a century Fernando, since he had been
+restored to a forfeited throne by British bayonets, had acted on the
+ancient Bourbon principle of learning nothing and forgetting nothing.
+His tyrannies became ever more tyrannical, his exactions more shameless,
+his indolent arrogance more oppressive. Twice he had to invoke the aid
+of foreign troops, and once indeed a French army marched from one end of
+Spain to the other.
+
+But with the coming of his third wife, young Maria Cristina of Naples,
+all this was changed. Under her influence Fernando promptly became meek
+and uxorious. Then he revoked the ordinance of a former King which
+ordained that no woman should reign in Spain. He recalled his
+revocation, and again promulgated it according as his hope of offspring
+waxed or waned.
+
+Finally a daughter was born to the ill-mated pair, and Don Carlos, the
+King's brother and former heir-apparent, left the country. Immediately
+upon the King's death civil war divided the state. The stricter
+legitimists who stood for Don Carlos included the church generally and
+the religious orders. To these were joined the northern parts of Navarra
+and the Basque countries whose privileges had been threatened, together
+with large districts of the ever-turbulent provinces of Aragon and
+Catalunia.
+
+Round the Queen-Regent and her little daughter collected all the liberal
+opinion of the peninsula, most of the foreign sympathy, the influence of
+the great towns and sea-ports, of the capital and the government
+officials, the regular army and police with their officers--indeed all
+the organised and stated machinery of government.
+
+But up to the time of our history these advantages had been to some
+extent neutralised by the ill-success of the governmental generalship
+and by the brilliant successes of two great Carlist leaders--Tomas
+Zumalacarregui and Ramon Cabrera.
+
+These men perfectly understood the conditions of warfare among their
+native mountains, and had inflicted defeat upon defeat on every Cristino
+general sent against them.
+
+But a cloud had of late overspread the fair prospects of the party.
+Their great general, Tomas Zumalacarregui, had been killed by a cannon
+ball at the siege of Bilbao, and Cabrera, though unsurpassed as a
+guerrilla leader, had not the swift Napoleonic judgment and breadth of
+view of his predecessor. Add to this that a new premier, Mendizábal, and
+a new general, Espartero, were directing operations from Madrid. The
+former, already half English, had begun to carry out his great scheme of
+filling the pockets of the civil and military authorities by conveying
+to the government all the property belonging to the religious orders
+throughout Spain, who, like our friend the Abbot of Montblanch, had
+resolutely and universally espoused the cause of Don Carlos.
+
+It was an early rumour of this intention which had so stirred the
+resentment of Don Baltasar Varela, and caused him to look about for some
+instrument of vengeance to prevent the accomplishment of the designs of
+"that _burro_ of the English Stock Exchange," as his enemies freely
+named Mendizábal.
+
+But Cristina of Naples was a typical woman of the Latin races, and,
+however strongly she might be determined to establish her daughter on
+the throne of Spain, she was also a good Catholic, and any oppression of
+Holy Church was abhorrent to her nature.
+
+Upon this probability, which amounted to certainty in his mind, the
+Abbot of Montblanch resolved to proceed.
+
+Moreover, it was an open secret that a few months after the death of her
+husband Fernando, Cristina had married Muñoz, one of the handsomest
+officers of her bodyguard. For this and other Bourbon delinquencies,
+conceived in the good old Neapolitan manner, the Spaniards generally had
+the greatest respect--not even being scandalized when the Queen created
+her new partner Duke of Rianzares, or when, in her _rôle_ of honorary
+colonel of dragoons, she appeared in a uniform of blue and white,
+because these were the colours of the "Immaculate Conception."
+
+But enough has been said to indicate the nature of the adventure which
+our hero had before him, when after a toilsome march the party halted in
+the grey of the dawn in a tiny dell among the wild mountains of
+Guadarrama.
+
+The air was still bleak and cold, though luckily there was no wind.
+Concha, the child of the south, shivered a little as Rollo aided her to
+dismount, and this must be the young man's excuse for taking his blue
+military cloak from its coil across his saddle-bow, and wrapping it
+carefully and tenderly about her.
+
+Concha raised her eyes once to his as he fastened its chain-catch
+beneath her chin, and Rollo, though the starlight dimmed the brilliance
+of the glance, felt more than repaid. In the background Etienne smiled
+bitterly. The damsel of the green lattice being now left far behind at
+Sarria, he would have had no scruples about returning to his allegiance
+to Concha. But the chill indifference with which his advances were
+received, joined to something softer and more appealing in her eyes when
+she looked at Rollo, warned the much-experienced youth that he had
+better for the future confine his gallantries to the most common and
+ordinary offices of courtesy.
+
+Yet it was certainly a restraint upon the young Frenchman, who, almost
+from the day he had been rid of his Jesuit tutor, had made it a maxim to
+make love to the prettiest girl of any company in which he happened to
+find himself.
+
+When, therefore, he found himself reduced to a choice between an
+inaccessible Concha and La Giralda, riding astride in her leathern
+leg-gear and sack-like smock, the youth bethought himself of his
+religious duties which he had latterly somewhat neglected; and, being
+debarred from earthly love by Concha's insensibility and La Giralda's
+ineligibility, it did not cost him a great effort to become for the
+nonce the same Brother Hilario who had left the monastery of Montblanch.
+
+So, much to the astonishment of John Mortimer, who moved a little
+farther from him, as being a kind of second cousin of the scarlet woman
+of the Seven Hills, Etienne pulled out his rosary and, falling on his
+knees, betook him to his prayers with vigour and a single mind.
+
+Sergeant Cardono had long ago abandoned all distinctive marks of his
+Carlist partisanship and military rank. Moreover, he had acquired, in
+some unexplained way, a leathern Montera cap, a short many-buttoned
+jacket, a flapped waistcoat of red plush, and leathern small-clothes of
+the same sort as those worn by La Giralda. Yet withal there remained
+something very remarkable about him. His great height, his angular
+build, the grim humour of his mouth, the beady blackness of eyes which
+twinkled with a fleck of fire in each, as a star might be reflected in a
+deep well on a moonless night--these all gave him a certain distinction
+in a country of brick-dusty men of solemn exterior and rare speech.
+
+Also there was something indescribably daring about the man, his air and
+carriage. There was the swagger as of a famous _matador_ about the way
+he carried himself. He gave a cock to his plain countryman's cap which
+betokened one of a race at once quicker and more gay--more passionate
+and more dangerous than the grave and dignified inhabitants of Old
+Castile through whose country they were presently journeying.
+
+As Cardono and La Giralda departed out of the camp, the Sergeant driving
+before him a donkey which he had picked up the night before wandering by
+the wayside, El Sarria looked after them with a sardonic smile which
+slowly melted from his face, leaving only the giant's usual placid good
+nature apparent on the surface. The mere knowledge that Dolóres was
+alive and true to him seemed to have changed the hunted and desperate
+outlaw almost beyond recognition.
+
+"Why do you smile, El Sarria?" said Concha, who stood near by, as the
+outlaw slowly rolled and lighted a _cigarrillo_. "You do not love this
+Sergeant. You do not think he is a man to be trusted?"
+
+El Sarria shrugged his shoulders, and slowly exhaled the first long
+breathing of smoke through his nostrils.
+
+"Nay," he said deliberately, "I have been both judged and misjudged
+myself, and it would ill become me in like manner to judge others. But
+if that man is not of your country and my trade, Ramon Garcia has lived
+in vain. That is all."
+
+Concha nodded a little uncertainly.
+
+"Yes," she said slowly, "yes--of my country. I believe you. He has the
+Andalucian manner of wearing his clothes. If he were a girl he would
+know how to tie a ribbon irregularly and how to place a bow-knot a
+little to the side in the right place--things which only Andalucians
+know. But what in the world do you mean by 'of your profession'?"
+
+El Sarria smoked a while in silence, inhaling the blue cigarette smoke
+luxuriously, and causing it to issue from his nostrils white and
+moisture-laden with his breath. Then he spoke.
+
+"I mean of my late profession," he explained, smiling on Concha; "it
+will not do for a man on the high-road to a commission to commit himself
+to the statement that he has practised as a bandit, or stopped a coach
+on the highway in the name of King Carlos Quinto that he might examine
+more at his ease the governmental mail bags. But our Sergeant--well, I
+am man-sworn and without honour if he hath not many a time taken
+blackmail without any such excuse!"
+
+Concha seemed to be considering deeply. Her pretty mouth was pursed up
+like a ripe strawberry, and her brows were knitted so fiercely that a
+deep line divided the delicately arched eyebrows.
+
+"And to this I can add somewhat," she began presently; "they say (I know
+not with what truth) that I have some left-handed gipsy blood in me--and
+if that man be not a Gitano--why, then I have never seen one. Besides,
+he speaks with La Giralda in a tongue which neither I nor Don Rollo
+understand."
+
+"But I thought," said El Sarria, astonished for the first time, "that
+both you and Don Rollo understood the crabbed gipsy tongue! Have I not
+heard you speak it together?"
+
+"As it is commonly spoken--yes," she replied, "we have talked many a
+time for sport. But this which is spoken by the Sergeant and La Giralda
+is deep Romany, the like of which not half a dozen in Spain understand.
+It is the old-world speech of the Rom, before it became contaminated by
+the jargon of fairs and the slang of the travelling horse-clipper."
+
+"Then," said El Sarria, slowly, "it comes to this--'tis you and not I
+who mistrust these two?"
+
+"No, that I do not," cried Concha, emphatically; "I have tried La
+Giralda for many years and at all times found her faithful, so that her
+bread be well buttered and a draught of good wine placed alongside it.
+But the Sergeant is a strong man and a secret man----"
+
+"Well worth the watching, then?" said El Sarria, looking her full in the
+face.
+
+Concha nodded.
+
+"Carlist or no, he works for his own hand," she said simply.
+
+"Shall ye mention the matter to Don Rollo?" asked El Sarria.
+
+"Nay--what good?" said Concha, quickly; "Don Rollo is brave as a bull of
+Jaen, but as rash. You and I will keep our eyes open and say nothing.
+Perhaps--perhaps we may have doubted the man somewhat over-hastily. But
+as for me, I will answer for La Giralda."
+
+"For me," said El Sarria, sententiously, "I will answer for no
+woman--save only Dolóres Garcia!"
+
+Concha looked up quickly.
+
+"I also am a woman," she said, smiling.
+
+"And quite well able to answer for yourself, Señorita!" returned El
+Sarria, grimly.
+
+For the answers of Ramon Garcia were not at all after the pattern set by
+Rollo the Scot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE SERGEANT AND LA GIRALDA
+
+
+The dust-heat of the desolate plains of Old Castile was red on the
+horizon when the Sergeant and his companion started together on their
+strange and perilous mission. Would they ever return, and when? What
+might they not find? A Court deserted and forlorn, courtiers fleeing, or
+eager to flee if only they knew whither, from the dread and terrible
+plague? A Queen and a princess without guards, a palace open to the
+plunder of any chance band of robbers? For something like this the imp
+of the deserted village had prepared them.
+
+At all events, the Sergeant and La Giralda went off calmly enough in the
+direction of the town of San Ildefonso, driving their donkey before
+them. For a minute, as they gained the crest, their figures stood out
+black and clear against the coppery sunrise. The next they had
+disappeared down the slope, the flapping peak of Cardono's Montera cap
+being the last thing to be lost sight of.
+
+The long, dragging, idle day was before the party in the dry ravine.
+
+Etienne went to his saddle-bags, and drawing his breviary from the
+leathern flap, began to peruse the lessons for the day with an attentive
+piety which was not lessened by the fact that he had forgotten most of
+the Latin he had learned at school. John Mortimer, on the other hand,
+took out his pocket-book, and was soon absorbed by calculations in which
+wine and onions shared the page with schemes for importing into Spain
+Manchester goods woven and dyed to suit the taste of the country
+housewives.
+
+El Sarria sat down with a long sigh to his never-failing resort of
+cleaning and ordering his rifle and pistols. He had a phial of oil, a
+feather, and a fine linen rag which he carried about with him for the
+purpose. Afterwards he undertook the same office for the weapons of
+Rollo. Those of the other members of the expedition might take care of
+themselves. Ramon Garcia had small belief in their ability to make much
+use of them, at any rate--the sergeant being alone excepted.
+
+These three being accounted for, there remained only Rollo and Concha.
+Now there was a double shelf a little way from the horses, from which
+the chief of the expedition could keep an eye on the whole encampment.
+The pair slowly and, as it were, unconsciously gravitated thither, and
+in a moment Rollo found himself telling "the story of his life" to a
+sympathetic listener, whose bright eyes stimulated all his capacities as
+narrator, and whose bright smile welcomed every hairbreadth escape with
+a joy which Rollo could not but feel must somehow be heartfelt and
+personal. Besides, adventures sound so well when told in Spanish and to
+a Spanish girl.
+
+Yet, strange as it may seem, the young man missed several opportunities
+of arousing the compassion of his companion.
+
+He said not a word about Peggy Ramsay, nor did he mention the broken
+heart which he had come so far afield to curé. And as for Concha,
+nothing could have been more nunlike and conventual than the expression
+with which she listened. It was as if one of the Lady Superior's
+"Holiest Innocents" had flown over the nunnery wall and settled down to
+listen to Rollo's tale in that wild gorge among the mountains of
+Guadarrama.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meantime the Sergeant and his gipsy companion pursued their way with
+little regard to the occupations or sentiments of those they had left
+behind them. Cardono's keen black eyes, twinkling hither and thither, a
+myriad crows' feet reticulating out from their corners like spiders'
+webs, took in the landscape, and every object in it.
+
+The morning was well advanced when, right across their path, a
+well-to-do farmhouse lay before them, white on the hillside, its walls
+long-drawn like fortifications, and the small slit-like windows
+counterfeiting loopholes for musketry. But instead of the hum of work
+and friendly gossip, the crying of ox-drivers yoking their teams, or
+adjusting the long blue wool over the patient eyes of their beasts,
+there reigned about the place, both dwelling and office-houses, a
+complete and solemn silence. Only in front of the door several
+she-goats, with bunching, over-full udders, waited to be milked with
+plaintive whimperings and tokens of unrest.
+
+La Giralda looked at her companion. The Sergeant looked at La Giralda.
+The same thought was in the heart of each.
+
+La Giralda went up quickly to the door, and knocked loudly. At
+farmhouses in Old Castile it is necessary to knock loudly, for the
+family lives on the second floor, while the first is given up to bundles
+of fuel, trusses of hay, household provender of the more indestructible
+sort, and one large dog which invariably answers the door first and
+expresses in an unmistakable manner his intention of making his
+breakfast off the stranger's calves.
+
+But not even the dog responded to the clang of La Giralda's oaken cudgel
+on the stout door panels. Accordingly she stepped within, and without
+ceremony ascended the stairs. In the house-place, extended on a bed, lay
+a woman of her own age, dead, her face wearing an expression of the
+utmost agony.
+
+In a low trundle-bed by the side of the other was a little girl of four.
+Her hands clasped a doll of wood tightly to her bosom. But her eyes,
+though open, were sightless. She also was dead.
+
+La Giralda turned and came down the stairs, shaking her head mournfully.
+
+"These at least are ours," she said, when she came out into the hot
+summer air, pointing to the little flock of goats. "There is none to
+hinder us."
+
+"Have the owners fled?" asked the Sergeant, quickly.
+
+"There are some of them upstairs now," she replied, "but, alas, none who
+will ever reclaim them from us! The excuse is the best that can be
+devised to introduce us into San Ildefonso, and, perhaps, if we have
+luck, inside the palisades of La Granja also."
+
+So without further parley the Sergeant proceeded, in the most
+matter-of-fact way possible, to load the ass with huge fagots of
+kindling wood till the animal showed only four feet paddling along under
+its burden, and a pair of patient orbs, black and beady like those of
+the Sergeant himself, peering out of a hay-coloured matting of hair.
+
+This done, the Sergeant turned his sharp eyes every way about the dim
+smoky horizon. He could note, as easily as on a map, the precise notch
+in the many purple-tinted gorges where they had left their party. It was
+exactly like all the others which slit and dimple the slopes of the
+Guadarrama, but in this matter it was as impossible for the Sergeant to
+make a mistake as for a town-dweller to err as to the street in which he
+has lived for years.
+
+But no one was watching them. No clump of juniper held a spy, and the
+Sergeant was at liberty to develop his plans. He turned quickly upon the
+old gipsy woman.
+
+"La Giralda," he said, "there is small use in discovering the
+disposition of the courtiers in San Ildefonso--ay, or even the defences
+of the palace, if we know nothing of the Romany who are to march
+to-night upon the place."
+
+La Giralda, who had been drawing a little milk from the udders of each
+she-goat, to ease them for their travel, suddenly sprang erect.
+
+"I do not interfere in the councils of the Gitano," she cried; "I am
+old, but not old enough to desire death!"
+
+But more grim and lack-lustre than ever, the face of Sergeant Cardono
+was turned upon her, and more starrily twinkled the sloe-like eyes
+(diamonds set in Cordovan leather) as he replied:--"The councils of the
+Rom are as an open book to me. If they are life, they are life because I
+will it; if death, then I will the death!"
+
+The old gipsy stared incredulously.
+
+"Long have I lived," she said, staring hard at the sergeant, "much have
+I seen, both of gipsy and Gorgio; but never have I seen or heard of the
+man who could both make that boast, and make it good!"
+
+She appeared to consider a moment.
+
+"Save one," she added, "and he is dead!"
+
+"How did he die?" said the Sergeant, his tanned visage like a mask, but
+never removing his eyes from her face.
+
+"By the _garrote_" she answered, in a hushed whisper. "I saw him die."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In the great _plaza_ of Salamanca," she said, her eyes fixed in a stare
+of regretful remembrance. "It was filled from side to side, and the
+balconies were peopled as for a bull-fight. Ah, he was a man!"
+
+"His name?"
+
+"José Maria, the Gitano, the prince of brigands!" murmured La Giralda.
+
+"Ah," said the Sergeant, coolly, "I have heard of him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE DEAD AND THE LIVING
+
+
+Not a word more was uttered between the two. La Giralda, for no reason
+that she would acknowledge even to herself, had conceived an infinite
+respect for Sergeant Cardono, and was ready to obey him implicitly--a
+fact which shows that our sweet Concha was over-hasty in supposing that
+one woman in any circumstances can ever answer for another when there is
+a man in the case.
+
+But on this occasion La Giralda's submission was productive of no more
+than a command to go down into the town of San Ildefonso, the white
+houses of which could clearly be seen a mile or two below, while the
+sergeant betook himself to certain haunts of the gipsy and the brigand
+known to him in the fastnesses of the Guadarrama.
+
+Like a dog La Giralda complied. She sharpened a stick with a knife which
+she took from a little concealed sheath in her leathern leggings, and
+with it she proceeded to quicken the donkey's extremely deliberate pace.
+
+Then with the characteristic cry of the goatherd, she gathered her flock
+together and drove them before her down the deeply-rutted road which led
+from the farmhouse. She had not proceeded far, however, when she
+suddenly turned back, with a quick warning cry to her cavalcade. The
+donkey instantly stood still, patient amid its fagots as an image in a
+church. The goats scattered like water poured on flat ground, and began
+to crop stray blades of grass, invisible to any eyes but their own, amid
+wastes of cracked earth and deserts of grey water-worn pebbles.
+
+As she looked back, Sergeant Cardono was disappearing up among the
+tumbled foot-hills and dry beds of winter torrents, which render the
+lower spurs of the Guadarrama such a puzzle to the stranger, and such a
+paradise for the smuggler and _guerrillero_. In another moment he had
+disappeared. With a long quiet sigh La Giralda stole back to the
+farmhouse. In spite of her race, and heathenish lack of creed, the spark
+of humanity was far from dead in her bosom. The thought of the open eyes
+of the little girl, which gazed even in death with fixed rapture upon
+her wooden treasure, remained with her.
+
+"The woman is as old as I--she can bide her time!" she muttered to
+herself. "But the child--these arms are not yet so shrunken that they
+cannot dig up a little earth to lay the babe thereunder."
+
+And at the chamber door La Giralda paused. Like her people, she was
+neither a good nor yet a bad Catholic. Consciously or unconsciously she
+held a more ancient faith, though she worshipped at no shrine, told no
+beads, and uttered no prayers.
+
+"They have not been long dead," she said to herself, as she entered;
+"the window is open and the air is sweet. Yet the plague, which snatches
+away the young and strong, may look askance at old Giralda's hold on
+life, which at the best is no stronger than the strength of a
+basting-thread!"
+
+Having said these words she advanced to the low trundle-bed, and,
+softly crooning in an unknown tongue over the poor dead babe, she
+lovingly closed its eyes, and taking a sheet from a wall-press that
+stood partially open, she began to enwrap the little girl in its crisp
+white folds. The Spaniards are like the Scottish folk in this, that they
+have universally stores of the best and finest linen.
+
+La Giralda was about to lay the wooden puppet aside as a thing of little
+worth, but something in the clutch of the small dead hands touched and
+troubled her. She altered her intention.
+
+"No, you shall not be parted!" she said, "and if there be a resurrection
+as the priests prate of--why, you shall e'en wake with the doll in your
+arms!"
+
+So the pair, in death not divided, were wrapt up together, and the gipsy
+woman prepared to carry her light burden afield. But before doing so she
+went to the bed. It was an ancient woman who lay thereon, clutching the
+bed-clothes, and drawn together with the last agony. La Giralda gazed at
+her a moment.
+
+"You I cannot carry--it is impossible," she muttered; "you must take
+your chance--even as I, if so be that the plague comes to me from this
+innocent!"
+
+Nevertheless, she cast another coverlet over the dead woman's face, and
+went down the broad stairs of red brick, carrying her burden like a
+precious thing. La Giralda might be no good Catholic, no fervent
+Protestant, but I doubt not the First Martyr of the faith, the Preacher
+of the Mount, would have admitted her to be a very fair Christian. On
+the whole I cannot think her chances in the life to come inferior to
+those of the astute Don Baltasar Varela, Prior of the Abbey of
+Montblanch, or those of many a shining light of orthodoxy in a world
+given to wickedness.
+
+Down in the shady angle of the little orchard the old gipsy found a
+little garden of flowers, geranium and white jasmine, perhaps planted to
+cast into the rude coffin of a neighbour, _Yerba Luisa_, or lemon
+verbena for the decoctions of a simple pharmacopoeia, on the outskirts
+of these a yet smaller plot had been set aside. It was edged with white
+stones from the hillside, and many coloured bits of broken crockery
+decorated it. A rose-bush in the midst had been broken down by some
+hasty human foot, or perhaps by a bullock or other large trespassing
+animal. There were nigh a score of rose-buds upon it--all now parched
+and dead, and the whole had taken on the colour of the soil.
+
+La Giralda stood a moment before laying her burden down. She had the
+strong heart of her ancient people. The weakness of tears had not
+visited her eyes for years--indeed, not since she was a girl, and had
+cried at parting from her first sweetheart, whom she never saw again. So
+she looked apparently unmoved at the pitiful little square of cracked
+earth, edged with its fragments of brown and blue pottery, and at the
+broken rose-bush lying as if also plague-stricken across it, dusty,
+desolate, and utterly forlorn. Yet, as we have said, was her heart by no
+means impervious to feeling. She had wonderful impulses, this parched
+mahogany-visaged Giralda.
+
+"It is the little one's own garden--I will lay her here!" she said to
+herself.
+
+So without another word she departed in search of mattock and spade. She
+found them easily and shortly, for the hireling servants of the house
+had fled in haste, taking nothing with them. In a quarter of an hour the
+hole was dug. The rose-tree, being in the way, was dragged out and
+thrown to one side. La Giralda, who began to think of her donkey and
+goats, hastily deposited the babe within, and upon the white linen the
+red earth fell first like thin rain, and afterwards, when the sheet was
+covered, in lumps and mattock-clods. For La Giralda desired to be gone,
+suddenly becoming mindful of the precepts of the Sergeant.
+
+"No priest has blessed the grave," she said; "I can say no prayers over
+her! Who is La Giralda that she should mutter the simplest prayer? But
+when the Master of Life awakes the little one, and when He sees the look
+she will cast on her poor puppet of wood, He will take her to His bosom
+even as La Giralda, the mother of many, would have taken her! God, the
+Good One, cannot be more cruel than a woman of the heathen!"
+
+And so with the broken pottery for a monument, and the clasp of infant
+hands about the wooden doll for a prayer to God, the dead babe was left
+alone, unblessed and unconfessed--but safe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile we must go over the hill with Sergeant Cardono. Whatever his
+thoughts may have been as he trudged up the barren glens, seamed and
+torn with the winter rains, no sign of them appeared upon his sunburnt
+weather-beaten face. Steadily and swiftly, yet without haste, he held
+his way, his eyes fixed on the ground, as though perfectly sure of his
+road, like a man on a well-beaten track which he has trod a thousand
+times.
+
+For more than an hour he went on, up and ever up, till his feet crisped
+upon the first snows of Peñalara, and the hill ramparts closed in. But
+when he had reached the narrows of a certain gorge, he looked keenly to
+either side, marking the entrance. A pile of stones roughly heaped one
+upon the other fixed his attention. He went up to them and attentively
+perused their structure and arrangement, though they appeared to have
+been thrown together at random. Then he nodded sagely twice and passed
+on his way.
+
+The glen continued to narrow overhead. The sunshine was entirely shut
+out. The jaws of the precipice closed in upon the wayfarer as if to
+crush him, but Sergeant Cardono advanced with the steady stride of a
+mountaineer, and the aplomb of one who is entirely sure of his
+reception.
+
+The mountain silence grew stiller all about. None had passed that way
+(so it seemed) since the beginning of time. None would repass till time
+should be no more.
+
+Suddenly through the utter quiet there rang out, repeated and
+reduplicated, the loud report of a rifle. The hills gave back the
+challenge. A moment before the dingy bedrabbled snow at Cardono's feet
+had been puffed upwards in a white jet, yet he neither stopped for this
+nor took the least notice. Loyal or disloyal, true or false, he was a
+brave man this Sergeant Cardono. I dare say that any one close to him
+might have discerned his beady eyes glitter and glance quickly from side
+to side, but his countenance was turned steadfastly as ever upon the
+snow at his feet.
+
+Again came the same startling challenge out of the vague emptiness of
+space, the bullet apparently bursting like a bomb among the snow. And
+again Cardono took as much notice as if some half-dozen of village
+loungers had been playing ball among the trees.
+
+Only when a third time the _whisk_ of the bullet in the snow a yard or
+two to the right preceded the sound of the shot, Cardono shook his head
+and muttered, "Too long range! The fools ought to be better taught than
+that!" Then he continued his tramp steadily, neither looking to the
+right nor to the left. The constancy of his demeanour had its effect
+upon the unseen enemy. The Sergeant was not further molested; and though
+it was obvious that he advanced each step in about as great danger of
+death as a man who is marched manacled to the garrote, he might simply
+have been going to his evening billet in some quiet Castilian village,
+for all the difference it made in his appearance.
+
+Up to this point Cardono had walked directly up the torrent bed, the
+rounded and water-worn stones rattling and slipping under his iron-shod
+half-boots, but at a certain point where was another rough cairn of
+stones, he suddenly diverged to the right, and mounted straight up the
+fell over the scented thyme and dwarf juniper of the mountain slopes.
+
+Whatever of uncertainty as to his fate the Sergeant felt was rigidly
+concealed, and even when a dozen men dropped suddenly upon him from
+various rocky hiding-places, he only shook them off with a quick gesture
+of contempt, and said something in a loud voice which brought them all
+to a halt as if turned to stone by an enchanter's spell.
+
+The men paused and looked at each other. They were all well armed, and
+every man had an open knife in his hand. They had been momentarily
+checked by the words of the Sergeant, but now they came on again as
+threateningly as before. Their dark long hair was encircled by red
+handkerchiefs knotted about their brows, and in general they possessed
+teeth extraordinarily white gleaming from the duskiest of skins. The
+beady sloe-black eyes of the Sergeant were repeated in almost every
+face, as well as that indefinable something which in all lands marks the
+gipsy race.
+
+The Sergeant spoke again in a language apparently more intelligible than
+the deep Romany password with which he had first checked their deadly
+intentions.
+
+"You have need of better marksmen," he said; "even the Migueletes could
+not do worse than that!"
+
+"Who are you?" demanded a tall grey-headed gipsy, who like the Sergeant
+had remained apparently unarmed; "what is your right to be here?"
+
+The Sergeant had by this time seated himself on a detached boulder and
+was rolling a cigarette. He did not trouble to look up as he answered
+carelessly, "To the Gitano my name is José Maria of Ronda!"
+
+The effect of his words was instantaneous. The men who had been ready to
+kill him a moment before almost fell at his feet, though here and there
+some remained apparently unconvinced.
+
+Prominent among these was the elderly man who had put the question to
+the Sergeant. Without taking his eyes from those of the Carlist soldier
+he exclaimed, "Our great José Maria you cannot be. For with these eyes I
+saw him garrotted in the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca!"
+
+The Sergeant undid his stock and pointed to a blood-red band about his
+neck, indented deeply into the skin, and more apparent at the back and
+sides than in front.
+
+"Garrotted in good faith I was in the Plaza of Salamanca, as this
+gentleman says," he remarked with great coolness. "But not to death. The
+executioner was as good a _Gitano_ as myself, and removed the spike
+which strikes inward from the back. So you see I am still José Maria of
+Ronda in the flesh, and able to strike a blow for myself!"
+
+The gipsies set up a wild yell. The name of the most celebrated and most
+lawless of their race stirred them to their souls.
+
+"Come with us," they cried; "we are here for the greatest plunder ever
+taken or dreamed of among the Romany----"
+
+"Hush, I command you," cried the elder man. "José Maria of Ronda this
+man may be, but we are _Gitanos_ of the North, and need not a man from
+Andalucia to lead us, even if he carry a scarlet cravat about his neck
+for a credential!"
+
+The Sergeant nodded approval of this sentiment and addressed the old
+gipsy in deep Romany, to which he listened with respect, and answered in
+a milder tone, shaking his head meanwhile.
+
+"I have indeed heard such sayings from my mother," he said, "and I
+gather your meaning; but we _Gitanos_ of the North have mingled too much
+with the outlander and the foreigner to have preserved the ancient
+purity of speech. But in craft and deed I wot well we are to the full as
+good Roms as ever."
+
+By this time it was clear to the Sergeant that the old man was jealous
+of his leadership; and as he himself was by no means desirous of taking
+part in a midnight raid against a plague-stricken town, he proceeded to
+make it clear that, being on his way to his own country of Andalucia and
+had been led aside by the gipsy cryptograms he had observed by the
+wayside and the casual greeting of the crook-backed imp of the village.
+
+Upon this the old man sat down beside Sergeant Cardono, or, as his new
+friends knew him to be, José Maria the brigand. He did not talk about
+the intended attack as the Sergeant hoped he would. Being impressed by
+the greatness of his guest, he entered into a minute catalogue of the
+captures he had made, the men he had slain as recorded on the butt of
+his gun or the haft of his knife, and the cargoes he had successfully
+"run" across the mountains or beached on the desolate sands of
+Catalunia.
+
+"I am no inlander," he said, "I am of the sea-coast of Tarragona. I have
+never been south of Tortosa in my life; but there does not live a man
+who has conducted more good cigars and brandy to their destination than
+old Pépe of the Eleven Wounds!"
+
+The sergeant with grave courtesy reached him a well-rolled cigarette.
+
+"I have heard of your fame, brother," he said; "even at Ronda and on the
+Madrid-Seville road your deeds are not unknown. But what of this venture
+to-night? Have you enough men, think you, to overpower the town watchmen
+and the palace-guards?"
+
+The old gipsy tossed his bony hands into the air with a gesture of
+incomparable contempt.
+
+"The palace guards are fled back to Madrid," he cried, "and as to the
+town watch they are either drunk or in their dotage!"
+
+Meantime the main body of the gipsies waited patiently in the
+background, and every few minutes their numbers were augmented by the
+arrival of others over the various passes of the mountains. These took
+their places without salutation, like men expected, and fell promptly to
+listening to the conversation of the two great men, who sat smoking
+their cigarettes each on his own stone in the wide wild corrie among the
+rocks of the Guadarrama which had been chosen as an appropriate
+rendezvous.
+
+Singularly enough, after the sergeant had shown the scarlet mark of the
+strangling ring about his neck, no one of all that company doubted for a
+moment that he was indeed the thrice-famous José Maria of Ronda. None
+asked a question as to his whence or whither. He was José Maria, and
+therefore entitled not only to be taken at once into the secrets of
+Egypt, but also, and it pleased him, to keep his own.
+
+And very desperate and bloody some of 'his own' were. In the present
+instance, plunder and bloodshed were to proceed hand in hand. No quarter
+was to be given to old or young. The plague-stricken sick man and the
+watcher by the bed, the woman feeding her fire of sticks under her
+_puchero_, the child asleep on its pillow, the Queen in the palace, the
+Princess in her nursery--all were to die, quickly and suddenly. These
+men had sworn it. The dead were no tale-tellers. That was the way of
+Egypt--the ancient way of safety. Were they not few and feeble in the
+midst of innumerable hordes of the _Busne_? Had they not been driven
+like cattle, abused like dogs, sent guiltless to the scaffold, shot in
+batches by both warring parties? Now in this one place at least, they
+would do a deed of vengeance at which the ears of the world would
+tingle.
+
+The Sergeant sat and smoked and listened. He was no stranger to such
+talk. It was the way of his double profession of Andalucian bandit and
+Carlist _guerrilero_, to devise and execute deeds of terror and death.
+But nothing so cold-blooded as this had José Maria ever imagined. He had
+indeed appropriated the governmental mails till the post-bags almost
+seemed his own property, and the guards handed them down without
+question as to a recognised official. He had, in his great days,
+captured towns and held them for either party according to the good the
+matter was likely to do himself. But there was something revolting in
+this whole business which puzzled him.
+
+"Whose idea was all this?" he asked at last. "I would give much to see
+the _Gitano_ who could devise such a stroke."
+
+The grim smile on the countenance of old Pépe of the Eleven Wounds grew
+yet more grim.
+
+"No gipsy planned it and no man!" he said sententiously. "Come hither,
+Chica!"
+
+And out from among the listening throng came a girl of thirteen or
+fourteen, dressed neatly and simply in a grey linen blouse belted at the
+waist with a leather belt. A gay plaid, striped of orange and crimson,
+hung neatly folded over her shoulder, and she rested her small sunburnt
+hand on the silver hilt of a pistol. Black elf-locks escaped from
+beneath a red silk kerchief knotted saucily after the fashion of her
+companions. But her eyes, instead of being beady and black with that
+far-away contemplative look which characterises the children of Egypt,
+were bright and sunny and blue as the Mediterranean itself in the front
+of spring.
+
+"Come hither, Chica--be not afraid," repeated old Pépe of the Eleven
+Wounds, "this is a great man--the greatest of all our race. You have
+heard of him--as who, indeed, has not!"
+
+Chica nodded with a quick elfish grin of intense pleasure and
+appreciation. "I was listening," she said, "I heard all. And I
+saw--would that I could see it again. Oh, if only the like would happen
+to me!"
+
+"Tell the noble Don José who you are, my pretty Chica," said Pépe,
+soothingly.
+
+But the child stamped her sandalled foot. It was still white at the
+instep, and the sergeant could see by the blue veins that she had not
+gone long barefoot. The marks of a child either stolen for ransom or run
+away from home owing to some wild strain in the blood were too obvious
+to be mistaken. Her liberty of movement among the gipsies made the
+latter supposition the more probable.
+
+"I am _not_ pretty Chica, and I am not little," she cried angrily. "I
+would have you remember, Pépe, that _I_ made this plan, which the folk
+of Egypt are to execute to-night. But since this is the great brigand
+Don José of Ronda, who was executed at Salamanca, I will tell him all
+about it."
+
+She looked round at the dark faces with which they were surrounded.
+
+"There are new folk among these," she said, "men I do not know. Bid them
+go away. Else I will not speak of myself, and I have much to say to Don
+José!"
+
+Pépe of the Eleven Wounds looked about him, and shook his head. Gipsydom
+is a commonwealth when it comes to a venture like this, and save in the
+presence of some undoubted leader, all Egypt has an equal right to hear
+and to speak. Pépe's authority was not sufficient for this thing. But
+that of the Sergeant was.
+
+He lifted his Montera cap and said, "I would converse a while with this
+maid on the affairs of Egypt. 'Tis doubtless no more than you know
+already, and then, having heard her story my advice is at your service.
+But she will not speak with so many ears about. It is a woman's whim,
+and such the wisest of us must sometimes humour."
+
+The gipsies smiled at the gay wave of his hand with which Cardono
+uttered this truism and quickly betook themselves out of earshot in
+groups of ten and a dozen. Cards were produced, and in a few minutes
+half a score of games were in progress at different points of the
+quarry-like cauldron which formed the outlaws' rendezvous.
+
+At once the humour of the child changed.
+
+"They obeyed you," she said; "I like you for that. I mean to have many
+men obey me when I grow up. Then I will kill many--thousands and
+thousands. Now I can do nothing--only I have it in my head--here!"
+
+The elf tapped her forehead immediately underneath the red sash which
+was tied about it. The Sergeant, though eager to hear her story and
+marvelling at such sentiments from the lips of a child, successfully
+concealed his curiosity, and said gently, "Tell me how you came to think
+of to-night----"
+
+"Of what to-night?" asked the girl quickly and suspiciously.
+
+"The deed which is to be done to-night," replied the Sergeant simply, as
+though he were acquainted with the whole.
+
+She leaped forward and caught him by the arm.
+
+"You will stay and go with us? You will lead us?" she hissed, her blue
+eyes aflame and with trembling accents, "then indeed will I be sure of
+my revenge. Then the Italian woman and her devil's brat shall not
+escape. Then I shall be sure--sure!"
+
+She repeated the last words with concentrated fury, apparently
+impossible to one of her age. The Sergeant smoked quietly and observed
+her. She seemed absolutely transfigured.
+
+"Tell me that you will," she cried, low and fierce, so that her voice
+should not reach the men around; "these, when they get there, will think
+of nothing but plunder. As if rags and diamonds and gold were worth
+venturing one's life for. But I desire death--death--death, do you hear?
+To see the Italian woman and her paramour pleading for their lives, one
+wailing over against the other, on their knees. Oh, I know them and the
+brat they call the little Queen! To-night they shall lie dead under my
+hands--with this--with this!"
+
+And the girl flashed a razor-keen blade out of her red waistband. She
+thrust the hilt forward into the Sergeant's hands as if in token of
+fealty.
+
+"See," she said, touching the edge lovingly, "is it not sharp? Will it
+not kill surely and swiftly? For months I have sharpened it--ah, and
+to-night it will give me my desire!"
+
+It was the Sergeant's belief that the girl was mad, nevertheless he
+watched her with his usual quiet scrutiny, the power of which she
+evidently felt. For she avoided his eyes and hastened on with her story
+before he had time to cross-question her.
+
+"Why do I hate them? I see the question on your lips. Because the
+Italian woman hath taken away my father and slain my mother--slain her
+as truly and with far sharper agony than she herself shall know when I
+set this knife to her throat. I am the daughter of Muñoz, and I swore
+revenge on the man and on the woman both when I closed my mother's eyes.
+My mother's heart was broken. Ah, you see, she was weak--not like me! It
+would take a hundred like the Neapolitan to break my heart; and as for
+the man, though he were thrice my father, he should beg his life in
+vain."
+
+She snatched her knife jealously out of his hand, tried its edge on the
+back of her hand with a most unchildlike gesture, and forthwith
+concealed it in her silken _faja_. Then she laid her hand once more on
+the Sergeant's arm.
+
+"You will lead us, will you not, José Maria?" she said pleadingly. "I
+can trust you. You have done many great deeds. My nurse was a woman of
+Ronda and told me of your exploits on the road from Madrid to Sevilla.
+You will lead us to-night. Only you must leave these three in the palace
+to me. If you will, you shall have also my share of the plunder. But
+what do I say, I know you are too noble to think only of that--as these
+wolves do!"
+
+She cast a haughty glance around upon the gipsies at their card-play.
+
+"I, that am of Old Castile and noble by four descents, have demeaned
+myself to mix with _Gitanos_," she said, "but it has only been that I
+might work out my revenge. I told Pépe there of my plan. I showed him
+the way. He was afraid. He told ten men, and they were afraid. Fifty,
+and they were afraid. Now there are a hundred and more, and were it not
+that they know that all lies open and unguarded, even I could not lead
+them thither. But they will follow you, because you are José Maria of
+Ronda." The Sergeant took the girl's hand in his. She was shaking as
+with an ague fit, but her eyes, blue and mild as a summer sky, had that
+within them which was deadlier than the tricksome slippery demon that
+lurks in all black orbs, whether masculine or feminine.
+
+"Chica," he said, "your wrongs are indeed bitter. I would give much to
+help you to set the balance right. Perhaps I may do so yet. But I cannot
+be the commander of these men. They are not of my folk or country. They
+have not even asked me to lead them. They are jealous of me! You see it
+as well as I!"
+
+"Ah!" cried the girl, laying her hand again on his cuff, "that is
+because they do not wish you to share their plunder. But tell them that
+you care nothing for that and they will welcome you readily enough. The
+place is plague-stricken, I tell you. The palace lies open. Little
+crook-backed Chepe brought me word. He says he adores me. He is of the
+village of Frias, back there behind the hills. I do not love him, even
+though he has a bitter heart and can hate well. Therefore I suffer him."
+
+The Sergeant rose to his feet and looked compassionately down at the
+vivid little figure before him. The hair, dense and black, the blue
+eyes, the red-knotted handkerchief, the white teeth that showed between
+the parted lips clean and sharp as those of a wild animal. Cardono had
+seen many things on his travels, but never anything like this. His soul
+was moved within him. In the deeps of his heart, the heart of a Spanish
+gipsy, there was an infinite sympathy for any one who takes up the blood
+feud, who, in the face of all difficulties, swears the _vendetta_. But
+the slim arms, the spare willowy body, the little white sandalled feet
+of the little girl--these overcame him with a pitifully amused sense of
+the disproportion of means to end.
+
+"Have you no brother, Señorita?" he said, using by instinct the title of
+respect which the little girl loved the most. She saw his point in a
+moment.
+
+"A brother--yes, Don José! But my brother is a cur, a dog that eats
+offal. Pah! I spit upon him. He hath taken favours from the woman. He
+hath handled her money. He would clean the shoes they twain leave at
+their chamber door. A brother--yes; the back of my hand to such
+brothers! But after to-night he shall have no offal to eat--no bones
+thrown under the table to pick. For in one slaying I will kill the
+Italian woman Cristina, the man Muñoz who broke my mother's heart, and
+the foisted changeling brat whom they miscall the daughter of Fernando
+and the little Queen of Spain!"
+
+She subsided on a stone, dropped her head into her hands, and took no
+further notice of the Sergeant, who stood awhile with his hand resting
+on her shoulder in deep meditation. There was, he thought, no more to be
+said or done. He knew all there was to know. The men had not asked him
+to join them, so he would venture no further questions as to the time
+and the manner of attack. They were still jealous of him with that
+easily aroused jealousy of south and north which in Spain divides even
+the clannish gipsy.
+
+Nevertheless he went the round of the men. They were mostly busy with
+their games, and some of them even snatched the stakes in to them, lest
+he should demand a percentage of the winnings after the manner of
+Sevilla. The Sergeant smiled at the reputation which distance and many
+tongues had given him. Then, with a few words of good fellowship and
+the expression of a wish for success and abundant plunder, he bade them
+farewell. It was a great deed which they designed and one worthy of his
+best days. He was now old, he said, and must needs choose easier
+courses. He did not desire twice to feel the grip of the collar of iron.
+But young blood--oh, it would have its way and run its risks!
+
+Here the Sergeant smiled and raised his Montera cap. The men as
+courteously bade him good-day, preserving, however, a certain respectful
+distance, and adding nothing to the information he had already obtained.
+
+But Chica, seated on her stone, with her scarlet-bound head on her hand,
+neither looked up nor gave him any greeting as his feet went slowly down
+the rocky glen and crunched over the begrimed patches of last year's
+snow, now wide-pored and heavy with the heat of noonday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+A LITTLE QUEEN AT HOME
+
+
+Meanwhile, leaving the grave in the shaded corner of the farm garden, La
+Giralda went out with many strange things moving in her heart. More than
+once she had seen her own children laid in the dust, with far less of
+emotion than this nameless little girl clutching her wooden puppet and
+smiling, well-pleased, in the face of the Last Terror.
+
+She found the donkey standing still and patient between his fagot
+bundles. The she-goats, on the other hand, had scattered a little this
+way or that as this blade of grass or that spray of _encina_ had allured
+them. But a sharp cry or two called them together. For it was many hours
+since any of them had been milked, and the full teats standing out every
+way ached for the pressing fingers.
+
+The Sergeant had, of course, long since completely disappeared up the
+hillside, so La Giralda, with one comprehensive look back at the
+desolate farmhouse, drove her little flock before her towards the town
+gates of San Ildefonso. Like a picture, the dustily red roofs lay
+beneath in the sunshine, spire and roof-garden, pigeon-house and terrace
+walk. Parts of the white palace of La Granja also were to be seen, but
+indistinctly, since it lay amid a pleasant distraction of greenery, and
+the woods waved and the falling waters glimmered about it like the
+landscape of a dream.
+
+From the _Colegiata_ came the tolling of a bell, slow and irregular. All
+else was silent. Presently, with her little flock before her, La Giralda
+found herself skirting the high-paled ironwork which confines the
+palace. She pursued her way towards the town, taking care, however, to
+look sharply about her so that she might miss nothing.
+
+The palace grounds seemed utterly deserted. The fountains slept; "Fame"
+drove no longer her waters fifty yards into the air; the Frogs rested
+from their ungrateful labours open-mouthed and gasping for breath. Not
+even a gardener was to be seen scratching weeds on a path, or in the
+dimmest distance passing at random across one of the deep-shaded
+avenues. An unholy quiet seemed to have settled upon the place, the
+marvel of Castile, the most elevated of earthly palaces, broken only by
+the sombre tolling of the chapel bell, which would cease for five
+minutes without apparent reason, and then, equally without cause, begin
+all over again its lugubrious chime.
+
+Down the zigzags towards the town went La Giralda, the goats taking
+advantage of the wider paths to stray further afield, and needing more
+frequently the touch of the wand, which the old woman had taken from the
+donkey's load in order to induce them to proceed.
+
+As the gipsy passed along, a small shrill voice called upon her to stop,
+and from a side walk, concealed by roses and oleander bushes, late
+flowering because of the great elevation, a richly-dressed little girl
+came running. She ran at the top of her speed towards the gilt railings
+which towered high above her head. Her age appeared to be about that of
+the little girl whom La Giralda had buried among the pottery shards in
+that other meaner garden up on the mountain side.
+
+"Stop," she cried imperiously, "I bid you stop! I am the Queen, and you
+must obey me. I have not seen any one for five days except stupid old
+Susana, who will be after me in a moment. Stop, I tell you! I want to
+see your goats milked. I love milk, and they will not give me enough,
+pretending that there is none within the palace. As if a Queen of Spain
+could not have all the milk she wanted! Ridiculous!"
+
+By this time the little girl had mounted the parapet and was clinging
+with all her might to the iron railings, while a fat motherly person had
+waddled out of the underbrush in search of her, and with many
+exclamations of pretended anger and indignation was endeavouring to
+entice her away.
+
+But the more the nurse scolded and pulled, the more firmly did the
+little maid cling to the golden bars. At last the elderly woman, quite
+out of breath, sat down on the stone ledge and addressed to her charge
+the argument which in such cases betokens unconditional surrender.
+
+"My lady Isabel, what would your noble and royal mother say," she
+gasped, "thus to forget all the counsels and commands of those put in
+authority over you and run to the railings to chatter with a gipsy wife?
+Go away, goatherdess, or I will call the attendants and have you put in
+prison!"
+
+La Giralda had stopped her flock, obedient to the wishes of the little
+maid, but now, with a low curtsey to both, she gathered them together
+with her peculiar whistling cry, and prepared to continue her way down
+into the village.
+
+But this the little girl would in nowise permit. She let go the iron
+rail, and with both hands clenched fell upon her attendant with
+concentrated fury.
+
+"Bad, wicked Susana," she cried, "I will have you whipped and sent about
+your business. Nay, I myself will beat you. I will kill you, do you
+hear? I have had nothing to eat and no one to play with for a week--not
+a gardener, not a dog, not even a soldier on guard to salute me or let
+me examine his sword-bayonet. And now when this dear, this sweet old
+Señora comes by with her lovely, lovely goats, you must perforce try to
+pull me off as if I were a village child that had played truant from the
+monks' school and must be birched for its fault!"
+
+All the while she was speaking, the young Princess directed a shower of
+harmless blows at the skirts of her attendant, which Doña Susana
+laughingly warded off, begging all the while for pity, and instancing
+the direct commands of the little girl's mother, apparently a very
+exalted personage indeed, as a reason for her interference.
+
+But Isabel of Spain was not to be appeased, and presently she had
+recourse to tears in the midst of her fury.
+
+"You hate me--I know you do--that is what it means," she cried, "you
+would not have me happy even for a moment. But one day I shall be Queen,
+and do as I like! Yes, and drink as much warm goat's milk as I want, in
+spite of all the stupid, wicked, cruel Susanas in the world. And I shall
+throw you into a dungeon with nothing but mice and rats and serpents and
+centipedes--yes, and snails that leave a white slimy trail over you
+when they crawl! Ugh! And I will have your hands tied, so that you shall
+not be able to brush them off when they tickle your neck. Yes, I will,
+Susana! I swear it, and I am growing big--so big! And soon I shall be
+old enough to have you put in prison with the mice and snails, bad
+Susana! Oh, wicked Susana!"
+
+Now, whether these childish threats actually had some effect, or whether
+the old lady was so soft-hearted as her comfortable appearance denoted,
+certain it is that she took a key from her pocket and passed it through
+the tall gilt railings to La Giralda.
+
+"Go down a hundred yards or so," she said, "and there you will find a
+gate. Open it with that key and bring over your animals to the little
+pavilion among the trees by the fountain."
+
+Upon hearing this the Princess instantly changed her tune. She had got
+her own way, and now it was "Beautiful Doña Susana! Precious and
+loveliest companion, when I am Queen you shall have the greatest and
+handsomest grandee in the kingdom to be your husband, and walk in
+diamonds and rubies at our court balls! Yes, you shall. I promise it by
+my royal oath. And now I will run to the house kitchen for basins to
+catch the goats' milk in, and my little churn to churn the butter
+in--and--and----"
+
+But before she had catalogued half the things that she meant to find and
+bring she departed at the top of her speed, making the air ring with her
+shouts of delight.
+
+Slowly, and with the meekest dignity, La Giralda did as she was bidden.
+She found the little gate, which, indeed, proved so narrow that she
+could not get her donkey to pass through with his great side-burdens of
+fagots. But as these were not at all heavy, La Giralda herself detached
+them, and, laying them carefully within the railings, she unhaltered the
+patient beast and, tying him only with a cord about his neck, left him a
+generous freedom of browsing upon the royal grass-plots and undergrowth.
+
+The goats, however, perhaps alarmed by the trim daintiness of the place
+and the unwonted spectacle of unlimited leaves and forage, kept close
+together. One or two of them, indeed, smelt doubtfully at luxuriant
+tufts, but as they had only previously seen grass in single blades, and
+amid Saharas of gravel and sand, the experiment of eating an entire
+mouthful at a time appeared too hazardous and desperate. They were of a
+cautious turn of mind, in addition to which their udders had become so
+distended that little white beads were forcing themselves from the
+teats, and they expressed their desire for relief by plaintive
+whimperings and by laying their rough heads caressingly against La
+Giralda's short and primitive skirt and leather-cased legs.
+
+In a few moments after they had reached the pavilion the Princess came
+shouting back. She was certainly a most jovial little person, Spanish at
+all points, with great dark eyes and cheeks apple-red with good health
+and the sharp airs of the Guadarrama. Doña Susana had walked a little in
+front of La Giralda and her flock, to show the superiority of her
+position, and also, it may be, to display the amplitude of her several
+chins, by holding them in the air in a manner as becoming as it was
+dignified.
+
+"Milk them! Milk them quickly! Let me see!" the Princess shouted,
+clanging the pails joyously together. The walls of the pavilion in which
+La Giralda found herself were decorated with every kind of household
+utensil, but not such as had ever been used practically. Everything was
+of silver or silver-gilt. There was indeed a complete _batterie de
+cuisine_--saucepans, patty-pans, graters, a mincing machine with the
+proper screws and handles, shining rows of lids, and a complete
+graduated series of cooking spoons stuck in a bandolier. Salad dishes of
+sparkling crystal bound with silver ornamented the sideboard, while
+various earthen pots and pans of humbler make stood on a curiously
+designed stove under whose polished top no fire had ever burned. At
+least so it appeared to La Giralda, who, much impressed by the
+magnificence of the installation, would promptly have driven her goats
+out again.
+
+But this the little Isabel would by no means permit.
+
+"Here--here!" she commanded, "this is mine--my very own. My mother has a
+dairy--I have a kitchen. Milk the goats here, I command you, nowhere but
+here!"
+
+And thrusting the bucket into the old woman's hand, she watched
+carefully and eagerly as La Giralda pressed the milk downwards in
+hissing streams. The she-goat operated upon expressed her gratitude by
+turning to lick the hand which relieved her.
+
+At this the little girl danced with delight.
+
+"It looks so easy--I could do it myself! I am sure of it. I tell you,
+Susana, I will do it. Stand still, _cabra_! Do you not know that I am
+Isabel the Second, Queen of all the Spains!"
+
+But the she-goat, having no very strong monarchial sentiments, or
+perhaps being inclined to Carlist opinions, as soon as she felt the grip
+of unaccustomed fingers promptly kicked over in the dust the Queen of
+all the Spains.
+
+The little girl had not time to gather herself up or even to emit the
+howl of disappointment and anger which hovered upon her lips, before her
+attendant rushed at her with pitiful cries:
+
+"Oh, the wicked goat! The devil-possessed emblem of Satan! Let it be
+slain! Did not your poor Susana warn you to have nothing to do with such
+evil things--thus to overturn in the dust the best, the sweetest, the
+noblest of Princesses!"
+
+But the best and sweetest of Princesses, having violent objections to
+being gathered up into the capacious embrace of her nurse, especially
+before company, vigorously objected in much the same manner as the goat
+had done, and at last compelled Doña Susana to deposit her once more on
+the paved floor of the miniature kitchen. Having arrived in which place,
+her anger completely vanished, for a tankardful of rich warm goat's milk
+was handed to her by La Giralda, and in this flowing bowl she soon
+forgot her woes.
+
+"You must come down to the palace and be paid," said the little girl;
+"we are most of us very hungry there, and those who are not hungry are
+thirsty. The waggons from Madrid have been stopped on the way, and all
+the guards have gone to bring them back!"
+
+At this Doña Susana looked quickly across to the old goatherdess and
+signalled that the little Princess was not to be informed of anything
+she might happen to know.
+
+"You have not been in the town, I trust!" said Doña Susana.
+
+Now La Giralda could conscientiously have declared that she had never
+been within the gates of San Ildefonso in her life, but thinking that in
+the circumstances the statement might appear a suspicious one, she
+modified it to a solemn declaration that she had come directly down from
+her farm on the mountain-side, as, indeed, they themselves had seen.
+
+Satisfied of her veracity, Doña Susana took her very independent and
+difficult charge by the hand and led the way towards the palace of La
+Granja, glimpses of which could be obtained through the foliage which
+was still everywhere verdant and abundant with the first freshness of
+spring--so high did the castle lie on the hill-slopes, and so enlivening
+were the waste waters downthrown from the rocky crests of Peñalara,
+whose snows glimmered through the trees, as it seemed, but a bowshot
+above their heads.
+
+The goats, each expecting their turn of milking, followed at her heels
+as obediently as well-trained dogs. Most of them were of the usual
+dark-red colour, a trifle soiled with the grey dust on which they had
+been lying. A few were white, and these were the favourites of the
+little Queen, who, though compelled to go on ahead, looked constantly
+back over her shoulder and endeavoured to imitate the shrill whistling
+call by which La Giralda kept her flock in place.
+
+When they arrived at the palace front the doors stood wide open. At Doña
+Susana's call an ancient major-domo appeared, his well-developed
+waistcoat mating ill with the pair of shrunk and spindle shanks which
+appeared beneath. The sentry boxes, striped red and gold with the
+colours of Spain, were empty. At the guard-houses there were no lounging
+sergeants or smart privates eager to rise and salute as the little Queen
+passed by.
+
+There was already indeed about the palace an air of desolation. The
+great gates in front towards the town had been closed, as if to shut off
+infection, and the Court itself, dwindled to a few faithful old
+retainers of Fernando VII., surrounded his widow and her new husband
+with a devotion which was yet far more than their due.
+
+It was not long before La Giralda had milked the remainder of the flock
+and sent the creaming white pitchers into the palace. Little Isabel
+danced with delight as one she-goat after another escaped with infinite
+tail-waggling and bleatings of pleasure. And in the dearth of other
+amusement she desired and even commanded the old woman to remain and
+pasture her herd within the precincts of the palace. But La Giralda had
+much yet to do. She must find out the state and dispositions of the town
+of San Ildefonso, and then rejoin her companions in the little corrie or
+cauldron-like _cirque_ in which she and the sergeant had left Rollo and
+the other members of the expedition.
+
+So after the small and imperious royal maid had been carried screaming
+and battling upstairs by Doña Susana and the globular major-domo, La
+Giralda, richly rewarded in golden coin of the realm, and with all the
+requisite information as to the palace, betook herself back to the gate
+by which she had left the ass. This she loaded again, and driving it
+before her she retraced her steps past the corner of the palace, and so
+to the porter's lodge by the great gate.
+
+Here she was presently ushered out by a mumbling old woman who informed
+her that her husband and son had both gone to Madrid with the troops,
+but would undoubtedly return in an hour or two, a statement which with
+her superior information the old gipsy took leave to doubt.
+
+The town of San Ildefonso lay beneath the chateâu, and to her right as
+La Giralda issued from the gates. The houses were of an aspect at once
+grave and cheerful. They had been built mostly, not for permanent
+residence, but in order to accommodate the hordes of courtiers and their
+suites who, in the summer months, followed the royal personages over the
+mountains from Madrid.
+
+As most of these had fled at the first invasion of the cholera, the
+windows, at this period of the year generally bright with flowers and
+shaded with emerald barred _jalousies_, were closely shut up, and upon
+several of the closed doors appeared the fatal black and white notices
+of the municipality, which indicated that there either was or had been a
+case of the plague within the infected walls.
+
+La Giralda went down the streets uttering the long wailing cry which
+indicated that she had firewood to sell. But though she could have
+disposed of the milk from the goats over and over again, there appeared
+but little demand for her other commodity, even though she called,
+"_Leña-a-a-a! Ah, leña-a-a-a!_" from one end of San Ildefonso to the
+other.
+
+A city watchman, with a pipe in his mouth, looked drowsily and frowsily
+out of the town-hall or _ayuntamiento_. He was retreating again to his
+settle when it suddenly struck him that this intruder had paid no duty
+upon her milk and firewood. True, he was not the functionary appointed
+by law to receive the tax; but since he was on the spot, and for lack of
+other constituted the representative of civic state, he felt he must
+undertake the duty.
+
+So, laying aside his pipe and seizing his halberd and cocked hat, he
+sallied grumblingly forth to intercept the bold contravener of municipal
+laws. But the active limbs of the old gipsy, the lightened udders of the
+she-goats, and the ass with his meek nose pointed homeward, took the
+party out of the village gate before the man in authority could
+over-take La Giralda.
+
+Soon, therefore, the roofs of San Ildefonso and the white palace again
+lay beneath her as the gipsy reascended by her track of the morning. So
+long had she occupied in her various adventures that the evening shadows
+were already lengthening when she returned to the corrie where the party
+had spent in restful indolence the burden and heat of the day. The
+Sergeant had not yet arrived, and La Giralda delayed her story till he
+should give her leave to speak. For not even to the gipsies of the
+Guadarrama was José Maria a greater personage than Sergeant Cardono to
+La Giralda of Sevilla.
+
+In the mean time she busied herself, with Concha's help, in preparing
+the evening meal, as quick upon her legs as if she had done nothing but
+lounge in the shade all day. It was almost sundown when the Sergeant
+came in, dropping unannounced over the precipice as if from the clouds.
+
+"We must be in La Granja in two hours if we are to save a soul within
+its walls," he said, "but--we have an hour for dinner first! Therefore
+let us dine. God knows when we shall taste food again!"
+
+And with this dictum John Mortimer heartily agreed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+PALACE BURGLARS
+
+
+The startling announcement of the Sergeant at once set the whole party
+in motion. Their suspicions of the morning were cast to the winds, as
+the Sergeant and La Giralda in turn related their adventures. Concha,
+having formerly vouched so strongly for the old gipsy woman, now nodded
+triumphantly across to Rollo, who on his part listened intently. As
+Sergeant Cardono proceeded the young man leaned further and further
+forward, breathing deeply and regularly. The expression on his face was
+that of fierce and keen resolution.
+
+The Sergeant told all the tale as it had happened, reserving only the
+identification of himself with the famous José Maria of Ronda, which the
+gipsies had made on the strength of the red mark about his neck, now
+once more concealed under his military stock. Cardono, however, made no
+secret that he was of the blood of Egypt, and set down to this fact all
+that he had been able to accomplish. In swift well-chosen words he told
+of the fierce little girl with the dark hair and blue eyes, who declared
+herself to be the daughter of Muñoz, sometime paramour and now reputed
+husband of the Queen-Regent--making it clear that she had indeed planned
+the wholesale slaughter, not only of those in the palace, but also of
+the inhabitants of the town of San Ildefonso.
+
+Then in her turn La Giralda told of her visit to the pavilion, of the
+little Queen, passionate, joyous, kindly natured, absolutely Spanish,
+till the hearts of her hearers melted to the tale.
+
+"Our orders are to capture her and her mother the Regent," said Rollo,
+thoughtfully. "It would therefore serve our purpose but ill if we
+permitted these two to be sacrificed to the bloodthirsty fury of a mob
+of plunderers!"
+
+"Then the sooner we find ourselves within the gates, the more chance we
+shall have of saving them both!" said the Sergeant. "Serve out the
+_puchero_, La Giralda!"
+
+Concha had taken no part in the discussion. But she had listened with
+all her ears, and now in the pause that followed she declared her
+unalterable intention of making one of the party.
+
+"I also am of Andalucia," she said with calm determination, "there are
+two others of my country here who will answer for me. You cannot leave
+me alone, and La Giralda will be needed as guide when once you reach the
+palace precincts. I shall not be in the way, I promise you, and if it
+comes to gun and pistol, there I think you will not find me wanting!"
+
+In his heart and though he made several objections, Rollo was glad
+enough to give way. For with all the unknown dangers of the night before
+them, and the certainty of bloodshed when the gipsies should attack, he
+relished still less the thought of leaving Concha alone in that pit on
+the chill side of Guadarrama.
+
+"I promise you, Colonel, the maid will be worth her billet," said the
+Sergeant, "or else she is no true Andaluse. To such an one in old days I
+have often trusted----"
+
+Thus far Cardono had proceeded when suddenly he broke off his
+reminiscence, and with a paternal gesture patted Concha's arm as she was
+bending over to transfer a second helping of the _puchero_ to his dish.
+
+The party was now in excellent marching order, well-provisioned,
+well-fed, rested, and provided with the best and most recent
+information. Even John Mortimer's slow English blood developed some
+latent Puritanic fire, and he said, "Hang me if I do not fight for the
+little girl who was willing to pay for the _whole_ of the goat-milk!"
+
+To fight for a Queen, who at the early age of five was prepared to give
+a wholesale order like that, appeared to John Mortimer a worthy and
+laudable deed of arms. He was free indeed to assist in taking her
+captive, if by so doing he could further the shipping of the Priorato he
+himself had paid for. But to make over to a set of thieves and murderers
+a girl who had about her the makings of a good customer and a woman of
+business habits, stirred every chivalric feeling within him.
+
+The night was so dark that it was resolved that the party should leave
+their horses behind them in the stables of the deserted farm. They could
+then proceed on foot more softly and with more safety to themselves. To
+this La Giralda, knowing that they must return that way, readily
+assented. For the thought of the dead woman she had left in the
+first-floor room haunted her, and even in the darkness of the night she
+could see the stark outlines of the sheet she had spread over the body.
+
+So it came to pass that once more horseshoe iron clattered, and there
+was a flashing of lights and a noise of voices about the lonely and
+stricken farmhouse. But only La Giralda gave a thought to the little
+grave in the shady corner of the garden, and only she promised herself
+to revisit it when the stern work of the night should be over and the
+dawn of a calmer morning should have arisen.
+
+Now, as soon as Sergeant Cardono returned, he placed himself as
+completely as formerly under the orders of Rollo. He was no more José
+Maria the famous gipsy, but Sergeant Cardono of the army of H.M. Carlos
+Quinto, and Señor Rollo was his colonel. Like a good scout he was ready
+to advise, but to the full as ready to hold his tongue and obey.
+
+And Rollo, though new to his position, was not above benefiting
+continually by his wisdom, and as a matter of fact it was the Sergeant
+who, in conjunction with La Giralda, led the little expedition down the
+perilous goat-track by which the old gipsy had followed her flock in the
+morning. As usual Concha kept her place beside Rollo, with Mortimer and
+Etienne a little behind, while El Sarria, taciturn but alert as usual,
+brought up the rear.
+
+It can hardly be said that they carried with them any extraordinary
+elements of success. Indeed, in one respect they were at a manifest
+disadvantage. For in an expedition of this kind there ought to be one
+leader of dignity, character, and military genius far beyond the others.
+But among this little band which stole so quietly along the
+mountain-paths of the Guadarrama, beneath the frowning snow-clad brow of
+Peñalara, there was not one who upon occasion could not have led a
+similar forlorn hope. Each member of the party possessed a character
+definite and easily to be distinguished from all the others. It was an
+army of officers without any privates.
+
+Still, since our Firebrand, Rollo the Scot, held the nominal leadership,
+and his quick imperious character made that chieftainship a reality,
+there was at least a chance that they might bring to a successful
+conclusion the complex and difficult task which was before them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They now drew near to the palace, which, as one descends the mountains,
+is approached first. The town of San Ildefonso lay further to the right,
+an indistinguishable mass of heaped roofs and turrets without a light or
+the vestige of a street apparent in the gloom. It seemed to Rollo a
+strange thing to think of this stricken town lying there with its dead
+and dying, its empty tawdry lodgings from which the rich and gay of the
+Court had fled so hastily, leaving all save their most precious
+belongings behind, the municipal notices on the door, white crosses
+chalked on a black ground, while nearer and always nearer approached the
+fell gipsy rabble intent on plunder and rapine.
+
+Even more strange, however, seemed the case of the royal palace of La
+Granja. Erected at infinite cost after the pattern of Versailles and
+Marly, the smallness of its scale and the magnificence of its natural
+surroundings caused it infinitely to surpass either of its models in
+general effect. It had, however, never been intended for defence, nor
+had the least preparation been made in case of attack. It was doubtless
+presumed that whenever the Court sojourned there, the royal personages
+would arrive with such a guard and retinue as, in that lonely place,
+would make danger a thing to be laughed at.
+
+But no such series of circumstances as this had ever been thought of;
+the plague which had fallen so heavily and as it seemed mysteriously and
+instantaneously upon the town; the precincts of the palace about to be
+invaded by a foe more fell than Frank or Moor; the guards disappeared
+like snow in the sun, and the only protection of the lives of the
+Queen-Regent and her daughter, a band of Carlists sent to capture their
+persons at all hazards.
+
+Verily the whole situation was remarkably complex.
+
+The briefest look around convinced Rollo that it would be impossible for
+so small a party to hold the long range of iron palisades which
+surrounded the palace. These were complete, indeed, but their extent was
+far too great to afford any hope of keeping out the gipsies without
+finding themselves taken in the rear. They must hold La Granja itself,
+that was clear. There remained, therefore, only the problem of finding
+entrance.
+
+Between the porter's lodge and the great gates near the _Colegiata_ they
+discovered a ladder left somewhat carelessly against a wall where
+whitewashing had been going on during the day, some ardent royal
+tradesman having ventured back, preferring the chance of the plague to
+the abandonment of his contract.
+
+This they at once appropriated, and Rollo and the Sergeant, being the
+two most agile of the company, prepared to mount.
+
+If the time had been less critical, and a disinterested observer had
+been available, it would at this moment have been interesting to observe
+the demeanour of Concha. Feeling that in a manner she was present on
+sufferance, she could not of course make any objection to the plan of
+escalade, nor could she offer to accompany Rollo and the Sergeant, but
+with clasped hands and tightly compressed lips she stood beneath,
+repeating under her breath quick-succeeding prayers for the safety of
+one (or both) of the adventurers.
+
+So patent and eager was her anxiety even in the gloom of the night that
+La Giralda, to whom her agitation was manifest, laid her hand on the
+girl's arm and whispered in her ear that she must be brave, a true
+Andaluse, and not compromise the expedition by any spoken word.
+
+Concha turned indignantly upon her, shaking off her restraining hand as
+she did so.
+
+"Do you think I am a fool?" she whispered. "I will do nothing to spoil
+their chances. But oh, Giralda, at any moment he might be shot!"
+
+"Trust José Maria. He hath taken risks far greater than this," said La
+Giralda in a low voice, wilfully mistaking her meaning. But Concha,
+quite unconsoled, did nothing but clasp her hands and quicken her
+supplications to the Virgin.
+
+The ladder was reared against the gilded iron railing and Rollo mounted,
+immediately dropping lightly down on the further side. The Sergeant
+followed, and presently both were on the ground. At a word from Rollo,
+El Sarria pushed the ladder over and the two received it and laid it
+along the parapet in a place where it would remain completely hidden
+till wanted.
+
+The two moved off together in the direction of the porter's lodge, at
+the door of which the Sergeant knocked lightly, and then, obtaining no
+answer, with more vehemence. A window was lifted and a frightened voice
+asked who came there at that time of night.
+
+The Sergeant answered with some sharpness that they wished for the key
+of the great gate.
+
+Upon this the same old woman who had ushered out La Giralda appeared
+trembling at the lattice, and was but little relieved when the Sergeant,
+putting on his most serious air, informed her that her life was in the
+utmost danger, and that she must instantly come downstairs, open the
+gate, and accompany them to the palace.
+
+"I knew it," quavered the old woman, "I knew it since ever my husband
+went away with the soldiers and left me here alone. I shall be murdered
+among you, but my blood will be on his hands. Indeed, sirs, he hath
+never treated me well, but spent his wages at the wine tavern, giving me
+but a beggarly pittance. Nay, how do I know but he had an intent in thus
+deserting me? He hath, and I can prove it, cast eyes of desire on Maria
+of the pork-shop, only because she is younger and more comely than I,
+who had grown old and wrinkled bearing him children and cooking him
+_ollas_! Aye, and small thanks have I got for either. As indeed I have
+told him hundreds of times. Such a man! A pretty fellow to be head
+porter at a Queen's gate! I declare I will inform her Royal Majesty this
+very night, if I am to go to the palace, that will I!"
+
+"Come down immediately and let us in, my good woman," said the Sergeant,
+soothingly. For it appeared as if this torrent of accusation against the
+absent might continue to flow for an indefinite period.
+
+"But how am I to know that you are not the very rogues and thieves of
+whom you tell?" persisted the old lady with some show of reason.
+
+"Well," said the Sergeant forbearingly, "as to that you must trust us,
+mother. It is the best you can do. But fear nothing, we will treat you
+gently as a cat her kitten, and you will come up to the palace with us
+to show us in what part of it dwell the Queen and her daughter."
+
+"Nay, not if it be to do harm to my lady and the sweet little maid who
+this very day brought a pail of milk to poor old Rebeca the portress,
+whose husband hath forsaken her for a pork-shop trull. I would rather
+die!"
+
+Rollo was about to speak, but the Sergeant whispered that the old lady
+was now in such good case to admit them, that she might be frighted by
+his foreign accent.
+
+In a few moments the woman could be heard stiffly and grumblingly
+descending the stairs, the door was opened, and Rebeca appeared with the
+key in her hand.
+
+"How many are there of your party?" she asked, her poor hand shaking so
+that she could scarcely fit the key in the lock, and her voice sunk to a
+quavering whisper.
+
+"There are five men of us and two women," said the Sergeant, quickly.
+"Now we are all within, pray give me the key and show us the road to the
+Queen's apartments."
+
+"Two women!" grumbled the poor old creature, whose mind appeared to be
+somewhat unhinged; "that will never suit her Royal Highness the Regent,
+especially if they are young and well-looking. She loves not such, any
+more than I love the hussy of the pork-shop. Though, indeed, my man hath
+not the roving eye in his head as her Señor Muñoz hath. Ah, the saints
+have mercy on all poor deserted women! But what am I saying? If the
+Lady Cristina heard me speak ill of him, she would set my poor old neck
+in the garrote. Then--crack--all would be over!"
+
+The party now advanced towards the palace, which in the gloom of a
+starless night was still entirely hidden from their sight, save as a
+darker mass set square against the black vault of heaven.
+
+By this time Concha and La Giralda had taken the trembling portress by
+the arms, and were bringing her along in the van, whispering comfort in
+her ears all the way. The sergeant and Rollo came next, with Mortimer
+and Etienne behind, a naked blade in the hand of each, for Rollo had
+whispered the word to draw swords. This, however, El Sarria interpreted
+to mean his faithful Manchegan knife, to which he trusted more than to
+any sword of Toledo that ever was forged.
+
+At any other time they could not have advanced a score of yards without
+being brought to a stand-still by the challenge of a sentry, the whistle
+of a rifle bullet, or the simultaneous turning out of the guard. But now
+no such danger was to be apprehended. All was still as a graveyard
+before cock-crow.
+
+It is hard, in better and wiser days, when things are beginning to be
+traced to their causes, to give any idea of the effect of the first
+appearance of Black Cholera among a population at once so simple and so
+superstitious as that of rural Spain. The inhabitants of the great
+towns, the Cristino armies in the field, the country-folk of all
+opinions were universally persuaded that the dread disease was caused by
+the monks in revenge for the despites offered to them; especially by the
+hated Jesuits, who were supposed to have thrown black cats alive into
+rivers and wells in order to produce disease by means of witchcraft and
+diabolical agency.
+
+So universal was this belief that so soon as the plague broke out in any
+city or town the neighbouring monasteries were immediately plundered,
+and the priors and brethren either put to death or compelled to flee for
+their lives.
+
+Some such panic as this had stampeded the troops stationed in and about
+the little town of San Ildefonso, when the first cases of cholera proved
+fatal little more than a week before. A part of these had rushed away to
+plunder the rich monastery of El Parral a few miles off, lying in the
+hollow beneath Segovia. Others, breaking up into parties of from a dozen
+to a hundred, had betaken themselves over the mountains in the direction
+of Madrid.
+
+So the Queen-Regent and the handsome Señor Muñoz remained perforce at La
+Granja, for the two-fold reason that the palace of Madrid was reported
+to be in the hands of a rebellious mob, and that the disbanding troops
+had removed with them every sort and kind of conveyance, robbed the
+stables of the horses, and plundered the military armoury of every
+useful weapon.
+
+They had not, however, meddled with the treasures of the palace, nor
+offered any indignity to the Queen-Regent, or to any of the inmates of
+La Granja. But as the Sergeant well knew, not thus would these be
+treated by the roving bands of gipsies, who in a few hours would be
+storming about the defenceless walls. No resource of oriental torture,
+no refinement of barbarity would be omitted to compel the Queen and her
+consort to give up the treasures without which it was well known that
+they never travelled. Obviously, therefore, there was no time to be
+lost.
+
+They went swiftly round the angle of the palace, their feet making no
+sound on the clean delicious sward of those lawns which make the place
+such a marvel in the midst of tawny, dusty, burnt-up Spain. In a brief
+space the party arrived unnoted and unchecked under the wall of the
+northern part.
+
+Lights still burnt in two or three windows on the second floor, though
+all was dark on the face which the palace turned towards the south and
+the town of San Ildefonso.
+
+"These are the windows of the rooms occupied by my lady the
+Queen-Regent," whispered the portress, Rebeca, pointing upwards; "but
+promise me to commit no murder or do any hurt to the little maid."
+
+"Be quiet, woman," muttered Rollo, more roughly than was his wont; "we
+are come to save both of them from worse than death. Sergeant Cardono,
+bring the ladder!"
+
+The Sergeant disappeared, and it was not many seconds before he was back
+again adjusting its hooks to the side of an iron balcony in front of one
+of the lighted rooms. Almost before he had finished Rollo would have
+mounted, impetuously as was his custom, but the Sergeant held him back
+by the arm.
+
+"I crave your forgiveness," he whispered, "but if you will pardon me
+saying so, I have much more experience in such matters than you. Permit
+me in this single case to precede you! We know not what or whom we may
+meet with above!"
+
+Nevertheless, though the Sergeant mounted first, Rollo followed so
+closely that his hands upon the rounds of the ladder were more than once
+in danger of being trodden upon by the Sergeant's half-boots.
+
+Presently they stood together on the iron balcony and peered within. A
+tall dark man leaned against an elaborately carved mantelpiece
+indolently stroking his glossy black whiskers. A lady arrayed in a
+dressing-gown of pink silk reaching to her feet was seated on a chair,
+and submitting restlessly enough to the hands of her maid, who was
+arranging her hair for the night, in the intervals of a violent but
+somewhat one-sided quarrel which was proceeding between the pair.
+
+Every few moments the lady would start from her seat and with her eyes
+flashing fire she would advance towards the indolent dandy by the
+mantelpiece as if with purpose of personal assault. At such seasons the
+stout old Abigail instantly remitted her attentions and stood perfectly
+well trained and motionless, with the brush and comb in her hand, till
+it pleased her lady to sit down again.
+
+All the while the gentleman said no word, but watched the development of
+the scene with the utmost composure, passing his beautiful white fingers
+through his whiskers and moustache after the fashion of a comb. The
+lady's anger waxed higher and higher, and with it her voice also rose in
+an equal ratio. What the end would have been it is difficult to
+prophesy, for the Sergeant, realising that time was passing quickly,
+produced an instrument with a broad flat blade bent at an acute angle to
+the handle, and inserting it sharply into the crack of the French
+window, opened it with a click which must have been distinctly audible
+within, even in the height of the lady's argument.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE QUEEN'S ANTE-CHAMBER
+
+
+Out of the darkness Rollo and the Sergeant stepped quickly into the
+room. Whereupon, small wonder that the lady should scream and fall back
+into her chair, the waiting-maid drop upon the floor as if she had been
+struck by a Carlist bullet, or the gentleman with the long and glossy
+whiskers suspend his caresses and gaze upon the pair with dropped jaw
+and open mouth!
+
+At his entrance Rollo had taken off his hat with a low bow. The Sergeant
+saluted and stood at attention. There was a moment's silence in the
+room, but before Rollo had time to speak the Queen-Regent recovered her
+self-possession. The daughter of the Bourbons stood erect. Her long hair
+streamed in dark glossy waves over her shoulders. Her bosom heaved
+visibly under the thin pink wrapper. Anger struggled with fear in her
+eyes. Verily Maria Cristina of Naples had plenty of courage.
+
+"Who are you," she cried, "that dare thus to break in upon the privacy
+of the Regent Queen of Spain? Duke, call the guard!"
+
+But her husband only shrugged his shoulders and continued to gaze upon
+the pair of intruders with a calm exterior.
+
+"Your Majesty," said Rollo, courteously, naturally resuming the
+leadership when anything requiring contact with gentlefolk came in the
+way, "I am here to inform you that you are in great danger--greater than
+I can for the moment make clear to you. The palace is, as I understand,
+absolutely without defence--the town is in the same position. It is
+within our knowledge that a band of two hundred gipsies are on the march
+to attack you this night in order to plunder the château, and put to
+death every soul within its walls. We have come, therefore, together
+with our companions outside, to offer our best services in your
+Majesty's defence!"
+
+"But," cried the Queen-Regent, "all this may very well be, but you have
+not yet told me who you are and what you are doing here!"
+
+"For myself," answered Rollo, "I am a Scottish gentleman, trained from
+my youth to the profession of arms. Those who wait without are for the
+present comrades and companions, whom, with your Majesty's permission, I
+shall bid to enter. For to be plain, every moment is of the utmost
+importance, that we may lose no time in putting the château into such a
+state of defence as is possible, since the attack of the gipsies may be
+expected at any moment!"
+
+Rollo stepped to the window to summon his company, but found them
+already assembled on the balcony. It was no time for formal
+introductions, yet, as each entered, Rollo, like a true herald,
+delivered himself of a brief statement of the position of the individual
+in the company. But when La Giralda entered, the stout waiting-maid rose
+with a shriek from the floor where she had been sitting.
+
+"Oh, my lady," she cried, "do not trust these wicked people. They have
+come to murder us all. That woman is the very old goatherdess with whom
+the Princess Isabel was so bewitched this morning! I knew some evil
+would come of such ongoings!"
+
+"Hush, Susana," said her mistress with severity; "when you are asked for
+any information, be ready to give it. Till then hold your peace."
+
+Which having said she turned haughtily back again to the strangers,
+without vouchsafing a glance at her husband or the trembling handmaiden.
+
+"I can well believe," she said, "that you have come here to do us a
+service in our present temporary difficulty, and for that, if I find you
+of approved fidelity, you shall not fail to be rewarded. Meantime, I
+accept your service, and I place you and the whole of your men under the
+immediate command of his Excellency the Duke of Rianzares!"
+
+She turned to the tall exquisite who still continued to comb his
+whiskers by the chimney-piece. Up till now he had not spoken a word.
+
+Rollo scarcely knew what to reply to this, and as for the Sergeant, he
+had the hardest work to keep from bursting into a loud laugh.
+
+But they were presently delivered from their difficulty by the newly
+nominated commander-in-chief himself.
+
+"This scene is painful to me," said Señor Muñoz, placidly, "it irritates
+my nerves. I have a headache. I think I shall retire and leave these
+gentlemen to make such arrangements as may be necessary till the return
+of our guards, which will doubtless take place within an hour or so. If
+you need me you can call for me!"
+
+Having made this general declaration he turned to Rollo and addressed
+himself particularly to him.
+
+"My rooms, I would have you know, are in the north wing," he continued;
+"I beg that there shall be no firing or other brutal noise on that
+side. Anything of the kind would be most annoying. So pray see to it."
+
+Then he advanced to where his wife stood, her eyes full of anger at this
+desertion.
+
+"My angel," he said, calmly, "I advise you sincerely to do the same.
+Retire to your chamber. Take a little _tisane_ for the cooling of the
+blood, and leave all other matters to these new friends of ours. I am
+sure they appear very honest gentlemen. But as you have many little
+valuables lying about, do not forget to lock your door, as I shall mine.
+Adieu, my angel!"
+
+And so from an inconceivable height of dandyism his Excellency the Duke
+of Rianzares would have stooped to bestow a good night salutation on his
+wife's cheek, had not that lady, swiftly recovering from her stupor,
+suddenly awarded him a resounding box on the ear, which so far
+discomposed the calm of his demeanour that he took from his pocket a
+handkerchief edged with lace, unfolded it, and with the most ineffable
+gesture in the world wiped the place the lady's hand had touched. Then,
+with the same abiding calm, he restored the cambric to his pocket, bowed
+low to the Queen, and lounged majestically towards the door.
+
+Maria Cristina watched him at first with a haughty and unmoved
+countenance. Her hands clenched themselves close to her side, as if she
+wished the blow had been bestowed with the shut rather than with the
+open digits.
+
+But as her husband (for so he really was, though the relationship was
+not acknowledged till many years after, and at the feet of the Holy
+Father himself in the Vatican) approached the door, opened it, and was
+on the point of departing without once turning round, Cristina suddenly
+broke into a half hysterical cry, ran after him, threw her arms tenderly
+about his neck, and burst out weeping on his broad bosom.
+
+The gentleman, without betraying the least emotion, patted her
+tolerantly on the shoulder, and murmured some words in her ear, at the
+same time looking over her head at the men of the company with a sort of
+half-comic apology.
+
+"Oh! Fernando, forgive me," she cried, "life of my life--the devil must
+have possessed me! I will cut off the wicked hand that did the deed.
+Give me a knife, good people--to strike the best and handsomest--oh, it
+was wicked--cruel, diabolical!"
+
+Whatever may have been the moral qualities of the royal blow, Rollo felt
+that in their present circumstances time enough had been given to its
+consideration, so he interposed.
+
+"Your Majesty, the gipsies may be upon us at any moment. It would be as
+well if you would summon all the servants of the palace together and arm
+them with such weapons as may be available!"
+
+Maria Cristina lifted her head from the shoulder of her Ferdinand, as if
+she did not at first comprehend Rollo's speech, and was resolved to
+resent an intrusion at such a moment. Whereupon the Scot repeated his
+words to such good purpose that the Queen-Regent threw up her hands and
+cried, "Alas! this happens most unfortunately. We have only old Eugenio
+and a couple of lads in the whole palace since the departure of the
+guards!"
+
+"Never mind," said Rollo; "let us make the best of the matter. We will
+muster them; perhaps they will be able to load and fire a musket apiece!
+If I mistake not, the fighting will be at very short range!"
+
+It was upon this occasion that Señor Fernando Muñoz showed his first
+spark of interest.
+
+"I will go and awake them," he said; "I know where the servants are wont
+to sleep."
+
+But on this occasion his fond wife would not permit him to stir.
+
+"The wicked murderers may have already penetrated to that part of the
+castle," she palpitated, her arms still about his neck, "and you must
+not risk your precious life. Let Susana go and fetch them. She is old,
+and has doubtless made her peace with religion."
+
+"Nay, it is not fitting," objected Susana with spirit. "I am a woman,
+and not so old as my lady says. I cannot go gadding about into the
+chambers of all and sundry. Besides, there has been purpose of marriage
+openly declared between me and the Señor Eugenio for upwards of thirty
+years. What then would be said if I----"
+
+"Nay, then," cried Maria Cristina, "stay where you are, Susana. For me,
+I am none so nice. I will go myself. Do not follow me, Fernando!" And
+with that she ran to the door, and her feet were heard flitting up the
+stairway which led to the servants' wing of the palace. Muñoz made as if
+to accompany her, but remembering his wife's prohibition, he did not
+proceed farther than the door, where, with a curious smile upon his
+face, he stood listening to the voice of the Queen-Regent upraised in
+alternate appeal and rebuke.
+
+During the interval, while the Sergeant and El Sarria were looking to
+their stores and munitions, Rollo approached the waiting-maid, Susana,
+and inquired of her the way to the armoury, where he expected to find
+store of arms and powder.
+
+"If this young maid will go also, I will conduct you thither, young
+man!" said Susana, primly.
+
+And holding Concha firmly by the hand, she took up a candle and led the
+way.
+
+But to Rollo's surprise they found the armoury wholly sacked. All the
+valuable guns had been removed by the deserting guards. The gun racks
+were torn down. The floor of beaten earth was strewed with flints of
+ancient pieces of last century's manufacture. The barrels of
+bell-mouthed blunderbusses leaned against the wall, the stocks, knocked
+off in mere wantonness, were piled in corners; and in all the chests and
+wall-presses there was not an ounce of powder to be found.
+
+While Rollo was searching, Señor Muñoz appeared at the door, languid and
+careless as ever. He watched the young Scot opening chests and rummaging
+in lockers for a while without speaking. Then he spoke slowly and
+deliberately.
+
+"It strikes me that when I was an officer of the bodyguard, in the
+service of the late Fernando the Seventh, my right royal namesake (and
+in some sort predecessor), there was another room used for the private
+stores and pieces of the officers. If I mistake not it was entered by
+that door to the right, but the key appears to be wanting!"
+
+He added the last clause, as he watched the frantic efforts of Rollo,
+who had immediately thrown himself upon the panels, while the Señor was
+in the act of rolling out his long-drawn Castilian elegances of
+utterance.
+
+"Hither, Cardono," cried Rollo, "open me this door! Quick, Sergeant!"
+
+"Have a care," said the Duke; "there is powder inside!"
+
+But Rollo, now keen on the scent of weapons of defence, would not admit
+a moment's delay, and the Sergeant, inserting his curiously crooked
+blade, opened that door as easily as he had done the French window.
+
+Muñoz stepped forward with some small show of eagerness and glanced
+within.
+
+"Yes," he said, "the officers' arms are there, and a liberal allowance
+of powder."
+
+"They are mostly sporting rifles," said Rollo, looking them over, "but
+there is certainly plenty of powder and ball."
+
+"And what kills ibex and bouquetin on the sierras," drawled Muñoz, "will
+surely do as much for a mountain gipsy if, as you said just now, the
+range is likely to be a short one!"
+
+Rollo began somewhat to change his opinion about the husband of the
+Queen. At first he had seemed both dandy and coward, a combination which
+Rollo held in the utmost contempt. But when Rollo had once seen him
+handle a gun, he began to have more respect for his recent Excellency
+the Duke of Rianzares.
+
+"Can you tell us, from your military experience," Rollo asked, "which is
+the most easily vulnerable part of this palace."
+
+"It is easily vulnerable in every part," answered Muñoz, carelessly
+snapping the lock of a rifle again and again.
+
+"Nay, but be good enough to listen, sir," cried Rollo, with some heat.
+"There are women and children here. You do not know the gipsies. You do
+not know by whom they are led. You do not know the oaths of death and
+torture they have sworn----"
+
+"By whom are they led?" said Muñoz, still playing carelessly with the
+rifle. "I thought such fellows were mere savages from the hills, and
+might be slaughtered like sheep."
+
+"Perhaps--at any rate they are led by your own daughter!" said Rollo,
+briefly, growing nettled at the parvenu grandee's seeming indifference.
+
+"_My daughter!_" cried Muñoz, losing in a moment his bright complexion,
+and becoming of a slaty pallor, "my daughter, that mad imp of hell--who
+thrice has tried to assassinate me!"
+
+And as he spoke, he let the gun fall upon the floor at his feet. Then he
+rallied a little.
+
+"Who has told you this lie?" he exclaimed, with a kind of indignation.
+
+"A man who does not make mistakes--or tell lies--Sergeant Cardono!" said
+Rollo. "He has both seen and spoken to her! She has sworn to attack the
+palace to-night."
+
+"Then I am as good as dead already. I must go directly to my wife!"
+answered Muñoz.
+
+But Rollo stepped before him.
+
+"Not without carrying an armful of these to where they will be of use,"
+he said, pointing to the guns. And the Duke of Rianzares, without any
+further demur, did his will. Rollo in turn took as many as he could
+carry, and the Sergeant brought up the rear carrying a wooden box of
+cartridges, which had evidently been packed ready for transportation.
+
+They returned to the large lighted room, where Mortimer, Etienne, and El
+Sarria had been left on guard. Concha and the waiting-maid seconded
+their efforts by bringing store of pistols and ammunition.
+
+On their way they passed through a hall, which by day seemed to be
+lighted only from the roof. Rollo bade them deposit the arms there, and
+bring the other candles and lamps to that place.
+
+"Every moment that a light is to be seen at an outside window adds to
+our danger," he said, and Concha ran at his bidding.
+
+Before she had time to return, however, the Queen-Regent came in with
+her usual dignity, the three serving-men following her. Rollo saw at
+once that nothing was to be expected of Eugenio, whose ancient and
+tottering limbs could hardly support the weight of his body. But there
+was more hope of the two others. They proved to be stout young fellows
+from the neighbourhood, and professed the utmost eagerness for a bout
+with the gipsies. From their youth they had been accustomed to the use
+of firearms--it is to be feared without due licence--in the royal
+hunting preserves of Peñalara and the Guadarrama.
+
+But this made no difference to Rollo, who instantly set about equipping
+them with the necessary arms, and inquiring minutely about the
+fastenings of the lower doors and windows. These it appeared were
+strong. The doors themselves were covered without with sheet-iron, while
+all the windows were protected not only by shutters but by solid
+stanchions of iron sunk in the wall.
+
+On the whole Rollo was satisfied, and next questioned the servants
+concerning the state of the town and whether any assistance was to be
+hoped for from that quarter. In this, however, he was disappointed. It
+appeared that the whole municipality of San Ildefonso was so utterly
+plague-stricken that scarce an able-bodied man remained, or so much as a
+halfling boy capable of shouldering a musket. Only the women stood still
+in the breach, true nursing mothers, not like her of Ramah, refusing to
+be comforted, but continuing rather to tend the sick and dying till they
+themselves also died--aye, even shrouding the dead and laying out the
+corpses. A faithful brother or two of the Hermitage abode to carry the
+last Sacraments of the Church through the deserted and grass-grown
+streets, though there were few or none now to fall on their knees at the
+passage of _Su Majestad_, or to uncover the head at the melancholy
+tolling of the funeral bell.
+
+With characteristic swiftness of decision Rollo made up his mind that
+the best plan for the defence of the palace would be to place his scanty
+forces along the various jutting balconies of the second floor,
+carefully darkening all the rooms in their rear, so that, till the
+moment of the attack itself, the assailants would have no idea that they
+were expected. It was his idea that the small doors on the garden side
+of the house, which led right and left to the servants' quarters, would
+be attacked first. He was the more assured of this because the Sergeant
+had recognised, in the bivouac of the gipsies, a man who had formerly
+been one of the royal grooms both at La Granja and at Aranjuez. He would
+be sure to be familiar, therefore, with that part of the interior of the
+palace. Besides, being situated upon the side most completely removed
+from the town, the assailants would have the less fear of interruption.
+
+While Rollo was thus cogitating, Concha came softly to his side,
+appearing out of the gloom with a suddenness that startled the young
+man.
+
+"I have pulled up the ladder by which we ascended and laid it across the
+balcony," she said. "Was that right?"
+
+"You--alone?" cried Rollo in astonishment.
+
+She nodded brightly.
+
+"Certainly," she answered; "women are not all so great weaklings as you
+think them--nor yet such fools!"
+
+"Indeed, you have more sense than I," Rollo responded, gloomily; "I
+ought to have remembered that before. But, as you know, I have had many
+things to think of."
+
+"I am glad," she said, more quietly and submissively than ever in her
+life, "that even in so small a matter I am permitted to think a little
+for you!"
+
+Whereupon, though the connection of idea is not obvious, Rollo
+remembered the moment when he had faced the black muzzles of Cabrera's
+muskets in the chill of the morning, and the bitter regret which had
+then arisen to his mind. Out there in the dark of the palace-garden,
+death fronted him as really though not perhaps so immediately. He
+resolved quickly that he should not have the same regret again, if the
+worst came to the worst. There was no one in the alcove where Concha had
+found him. The Queen-Regent had disappeared to her suite of rooms, and
+thither after a time Señor Muñoz had followed her. The rest were at that
+moment being placed in their various posts by the Sergeant according to
+Rollo's directions.
+
+So he stooped quickly and kissed Concha upon the mouth.
+
+It was strange. The girl's inevitable instinct on such matters seemed to
+have deserted her. In a somewhat wide experience Concha could always
+tell to a second when an attempt of this kind was due. Most women can,
+and if they are kissed it is because they want to be. (In which, sayeth
+the Wise Man, is great wisdom!) A fire-alarm rings in their brain with
+absolute certainty, giving them time to evite the conflagration by a
+healthy douche of cold water. But Rollo the Firebrand again proved
+himself the Masterly Incalculable. Or else--but who could suspect
+Concha?
+
+It is, again sayeth the Wise Man, the same with kicking a dog. The brute
+sees the kick coming before a muscle is in motion. He watches the eye of
+his opponent and is forearmed. He vanisheth into space. But when Rollo
+interviewed an animal in this fashion, he kicked first and thought
+afterwards. Hence no sign of his intention appeared in his eye, and the
+dog's yelp arrived almost as a surprise to himself.
+
+So, with greatly altered circumstance, was it in the present instance.
+Rollo kissed first and made up his mind to it some time after.
+Consequently Concha was taken absolutely by surprise. She uttered a
+little cry and stepped back indignantly into the lighted room where the
+spare muskets were piled.
+
+But again Rollo was before her. If he had attempted to make love, she
+would have scathed him with the soundest indignation, based on
+considerations of time, place, and personality.
+
+But the young Scot gave her no opportunity. In a moment he had again
+become her superior officer.
+
+"Take your piece," he said, with an air of assured command, "together
+with sufficient ammunition, and post yourself at the little staircase
+window over the great door looking towards the town. If you see any one
+approaching, do not hesitate to fire. Good-bye. God bless you! I will
+see you again on my rounds!"
+
+And Rollo passed on his way.
+
+Then with a curious constraint upon her tongue, and on her spirit a new
+and delightful feeling that she could do no other than as she was
+bidden, Concha found herself, with loaded musket and pistol, obediently
+taking her place in the general defence of the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+LIKE A FALLING STAR
+
+
+Rollo judged aright. It was indeed no time for love-making, and, to do
+the young man justice, he did not connect any idea so concrete with the
+impulsive kiss he had given to Concha.
+
+She it was who had saved his life at Sarria. She was perilling her own
+in order to accompany and assist his expedition. She had drawn up the
+ladder he had foolishly forgotten. Yet, in spite of the fact that he was
+a young man and by no means averse from love, Rollo was so clean-minded
+and so little given to think himself desirable in the eyes of women,
+that it never struck him that the presence of La Giralda and Concha
+might be interpreted upon other and more personal principles than he had
+modestly represented to himself.
+
+True, Rollo was vain as a peacock--but not of his love-conquests.
+Punctilious as any Spaniard upon the smallest point of honour, in a
+quarrel he was as ready as a Parisian _maître d'armes_ to pull out sword
+or pistol. Nevertheless when a man boasted in his presence of the
+favours of a woman, he thought him a fool and a braggart--and was in
+general nowise backward in telling him so.
+
+Thus it happened that, though Concha had received no honester or better
+intentioned kiss in her life, the giver of it went about his military
+duties with a sense of having said his prayers, or generally, having
+performed some action raising himself in his own estimation.
+
+"God bless her," he said to himself, "I will be a better man for her
+sweet sake. And, by heavens, if I had had such a sister, I might have
+been a better fellow long ere this! God bless her, I say!"
+
+But what wonder is it that little Concha, in her passionate Spanish
+fashion understanding but one way of love, and being little interested
+in brothers, felt the tears come to her eyes as Rollo's step waxed
+fainter in the distance, and said over and over to herself with smiling
+pleasure, "He loves me--he loves me! Oh, if only my mother had lived, I
+might have been worthier of him. Then I would not have played with men's
+hearts for amusement to myself, as alas, I have too often done. God
+forgive me, there was no harm, indeed. But--but--I am not worthy of
+him--I know I am not!"
+
+So Rollo's hasty kiss on the dark balcony was provocative of a healthy
+self-reproach on both sides--which at least was so much to the good.
+
+Concha peered out into the darkness towards the south where a few stars
+were blinking sleepily through the ground-mist. She could dimly discern
+the outline of the town lying piled beneath her, without a light,
+without a sound, without a sign of life. From beyond the hills came a
+weird booming as of a distant cannonade. But Concha, the careless maiden
+who had grown into a woman in an hour, did not think of these things.
+For to the Spanish girl, whose heart is touched to the core, there is
+but one subject worthy of thought. Wars, battles, sieges, the distresses
+of queens, the danger of royal princesses--all are as nothing, because
+her lips have been kissed.
+
+"All the same," she muttered to herself, "he ought not have done it--and
+when I have a little recovered I will tell him so!"
+
+But at that moment, poised upon the topmost spike of the great gate in
+front of her, she saw the silhouette of a man. He was climbing upwards,
+with his hand on the cross-bar of the railing, and cautiously
+insinuating a leg over the barrier, feeling meanwhile gingerly for a
+foothold on the palace side.
+
+"He is come to do evil to--to Rollo!" she said to herself, with a slight
+hesitation even in thought when she came for the first time upon the
+Christian name.
+
+But there was no hesitation in the swift assurance with which she set
+the rifle-stock to her shoulder, and no mistake as the keen and
+practised eye glanced along the barrel.
+
+She fired, and with a groan of pain the man fell back outside the
+enclosure.
+
+The sound of Concha's shot was the first tidings to the besieged that
+the gipsies had really arrived. Rollo, stealing lightfoot from post to
+post, pistol in hand, the Sergeant erect behind the vine-trellis on the
+balcony between the rearward doors, Etienne and John Mortimer a little
+farther along on the same side of the château, all redoubled their
+vigilance at the sound. But for the space of an hour or more nothing
+farther was seen or heard north, south, east, or west of the beleaguered
+palace of La Granja.
+
+The gipsies had not had the least idea that their intention was known.
+They expected no obstacles till the discharge of Concha's piece put them
+on their guard, and set them to concerting other and more subtle modes
+of attack. It was too dark for those in the château to see whether the
+wounded man lay where he had fallen or whether he had been removed by
+his comrades.
+
+Rollo hastened back to Concha and inquired in a low voice what it was
+she had fired at. Whereupon she told him the story of the man climbing
+the railings and how she had stayed his course so suddenly. Rollo made
+no remark, save that she had done entirely right. Then he inquired if
+she had recharged her piece, and hearing that she wanted nothing and was
+ready for all emergencies, he departed upon his rounds without the least
+leave-taking or approach to love-making. In her heart Concha respected
+him for this, but at the same time she could not help feeling that a
+Spaniard would have been somewhat warmer in his acknowledgments.
+Nevertheless she comforted herself with the thought that he had trusted
+her with one of the most important posts in the whole defence, and she
+prayed fervently to the Virgin that she might be able to do her duty
+there.
+
+She thought also that, when the morning came, perhaps he would have more
+time. For her, she could wait--here she smiled a little. Yes, she
+acknowledged it. She who had caught so many, was now taken in her own
+net. She would go to the world's end for this young Scot. Nor in her
+heart of hearts was she ashamed of it. Above and beyond all courtesies
+and sugared phrases she loved his free-handed, careless, curt-spoken,
+hectoring way. After his one kiss, he had treated her exactly like any
+other of his company. He did not make love well, but--she liked him none
+the worse for that. In such matters (sayeth the Wise Man) excellence is
+apt to come with experience.
+
+And he would learn. Yes, decidedly he might yet do credit to his
+teacher. To-morrow morning would arrive, and for the present, well--she
+would keep her finger upon the trigger and a pair of remarkably
+clear-sighted eyes upon the grey space of greensward crossed by black
+trellises of railing immediately before her. That in the mean time was
+her duty to her love and (she acknowledged it), her master.
+
+Apart from these details of his feeling for Concha, however (which gave
+him little concern), Rollo was far from satisfied with the condition of
+affairs. He would rather (so he confided to the Sergeant) have defended
+a sheepfold or a simple cottage than this many-chambered, many-passaged,
+mongrel château. His force was scattered out of sight, though for the
+most part not out of hearing of each other. It was indeed true that,
+owing to his excellent dispositions, and the fortunate situation of the
+balconies, he was able to command every part of the castle enclosure,
+and especially the doors by which it was most likely that the chief
+attempt would be made.
+
+So occupied had Rollo been with his affairs, both private and of a
+military character, that he had actually wholly forgotten the presence
+of the Queen-Regent, her daughter and husband, within the palace of La
+Granja. And this though he had come all that way across two of the
+wildest provinces of Spain for the sole purpose of securing their
+persons and transporting mother and daughter to the camp of Don Carlos.
+Nevertheless so instant was the danger which now overhung every one,
+that their intended captor had ceased to think of anything but how to
+preserve these royal lives and to keep them from the hands of the
+ruthless gipsies of the hills.
+
+But circumstances quickly recalled the young man to his primary
+purpose, and taught him that he must not trust too much to those whose
+interests were opposed to his own.
+
+Rollo, as we have said, had reserved no station for himself, but
+constantly circulated round all the posts of his little army, ready at
+any time to add himself to the effective forces of the garrison at any
+threatened point. It was while he was thus passing from balcony to
+balcony on the second or defending storey that his quick ear caught the
+sound of a door opening and shutting on the floor beneath.
+
+"Ah," thought Rollo to himself, suspiciously, "the Queen and her people
+are safe in their chambers on this floor. No person connected with the
+defence ought to be down there. This is either treachery or the enemy
+have gained admission by some secret passage!"
+
+With Rollo Blair to think was to act. So in another moment he had
+slipped off his shoes, and treading noiselessly on his stocking soles
+and with a naked sword in his hand he made his way swiftly and carefully
+down towards the place whence he had heard the noise.
+
+Descending by the grand _escalier_ he found himself in one of the narrow
+corridors which communicated by private staircases with the left wing of
+the palace. Rollo stood still in the deepest shadow. He was sure that he
+could hear persons moving near him, and once he thought that he could
+distinguish the sound of a muttered word.
+
+The Egyptian darkness about him grew more and more instinct with noises.
+There was a scuffling rustle, as of birds in a chimney, all over the
+basement of the house. A door creaked as if a slight wind had blown it.
+Then a latch clicked, and the wind, unaided, does not click latches.
+Rollo withdrew himself deeper into a niche at the foot of the narrow
+winding-stair which girdled a tower in the thickness of the wall.
+
+The young man had almost resolved to summon his whole force from above,
+so convinced was he that the enemy had gained a footing within the tower
+and were creeping up to take them in the rear, when a sound altered his
+intention. There is nothing more unmistakable to the ear than the
+rebellious whimper of an angry child compelled to do something against
+its will.
+
+Rollo instantly comprehended the whole chain of circumstances. The
+treachery touched him more nearly than he had imagined possible. Those
+for whom he and his party were imperilling their lives were in fact to
+leave them to perish as best they might in the empty shell of the
+palace. The royal birds were on the point of flying.
+
+A door opened, and through it (though dimly) Rollo could see the great
+waterfall glimmering and above the stars, chill over the snowy shoulder
+of Peñalara. He could not make out who had opened the door, but there
+was enough light to discern that a lady wrapped in a mantilla went out
+first. Then followed another, stouter and of shorter stature, apparently
+carrying a burden. Then the whole doorway was obscured by the tall
+figure of a man.
+
+"Muñoz himself, by Heaven!" thought Rollo.
+
+And with a leap he was after him, in his headlong course dashing to the
+ground some other unseen person who confronted him in the hall.
+
+In a moment more he had caught the tall man by the collar and swung him
+impetuously round back within the doorway.
+
+"Move one sole inch and your blood be on your own head!" he muttered.
+And the captive feeling Rollo's steel cold at his throat, remained
+prudently silent. Not so the lady without. She uttered a cry which rang
+about the silent château.
+
+"Muñoz! My husband! Fernando, where art thou? Oh, they have slain him,
+and I only am to blame!"
+
+She turned about and rushed back to the door, which she was about to
+enter, when a cry far more sudden and terrible rang out behind her.
+
+"_They have killed the Princess! Some one hath slain my darling!_"
+
+At the word Rollo abandoned the man whom he was holding down, and with
+shouts of "Cardono!" "El Sarria!" "To me! They are upon us!" he flung
+himself outside.
+
+There was little to be discerned clearly when he emerged into the cool
+damp darkness, only a dim heap of writhing bodies as in some combat of
+hounds or of the denizens of the midnight forest. But Rollo once and
+again saw a flash of steel and a hand uplifted to strike. Without
+waiting to think he gripped that which was topmost and therefore nearest
+to him, and finding it unexpectedly light, he swung the thing clear by
+the garment he had clutched. As he did so he felt a pain in his right
+shoulder, which at the time appeared no more than the bite of a squirrel
+or the sting of a bee. With one heave he threw the object, human or not
+he could not for the moment determine, behind him into the blackness of
+the hall.
+
+"Take hold there, somebody!" he cried, for by this time he could hear
+the clattering of the feet of his followers on the stairs and flagged
+where to find Vance and the woman. Now."
+
+"Were they responsible?"
+
+"With deepest apologies, that need not trouble you." He stood ramrod
+straight.
+
+"With deepest apologies, Sato-sama, it troubles me very much." Nogami
+examined his cigar. "This entire affair is very troublesome. In times
+past I remember a certain prejudice in favor of civility on the part of
+Tokyo. Have things really changed that much?"
+
+"The moment for soft words is past. Tonight ended that."
+
+Nogami drew on his cigar. "Assuming you locate Vance, what action do
+you propose taking?"
+
+"We have one last chance here to deal with this problem. Tomorrow the
+_oyabun's_ people arrive, and then they will be in control. The
+decisions will no longer be ours. Tonight I attempted to salvage the
+situation and failed. Surely you know what that means, for us both. But
+if you will give me Vance, perhaps we can both still be saved. If you
+refuse to cooperate, the _oyabun _will destroy you as well as Vance. We
+both know that. I am offering you a way out."
+
+"With deepest gratitude, I must tell you it is too late, Sato-sama,
+which I am sure you realize," Nogami said, drawing on his cigar and
+taking care not to disturb the ash. "So with due respect I must inquire
+concerning the purpose of this meeting."
+
+"I need to locate this man Vance. Before the _kobun _from Tokyo arrive.
+If you care about his well-being, then you should remember that his
+treatment at my hands will be more understanding than--"
+
+"When do they arrive?"
+
+"As I said, we received word that they will be here tomorrow, Nogami-
+san. With respect, you have befriended a man who is attempting to
+blackmail the Tokyo _oyabun_. That is a career decision which, I assure
+you, is most unwise."
+
+"It is made. And I am aware of the consequences. So it would appear we
+both know all there is to know about the future."
+
+"Perhaps not entirely. Someone has attempted to make us think Vance and
+the woman were kidnapped, that they are being held somewhere beyond our
+reach. Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not. But if the transaction
+for the hundred million is to take place tomorrow, then he must appear
+here. The _oyabun's _people may be here by then. If they are not, we
+will be."
+
+"But if he has been kidnapped," Nogami's brow furrowed as he studied
+his cigar, its ash still growing, "then there could be a problem with
+the transaction. Who do you suppose would want him, besides the Tokyo
+_oyabun_?"
+
+"That I could not speculate upon. The KGB seems to have a great
+interest in his activities. Perhaps they are guarding him in some more
+secure place. Or perhaps something else has happened." He bowed. "Again
+you must forgive me for this rude intrusion. It is important for you to
+be aware that the situation is not resolved. That you still have a
+chance to save yourself."
+
+"The CEO will receive his hundred million, if there is no interference.
+That much I have already arranged for. When that is completed, I will
+consider my responsibilities discharged."
+
+"Your responsibilities will never be discharged, Nogami-san. _Giri
+_lasts forever." His voice was cutting. "The sooner you realize that,
+the better."
+
+"After tomorrow, it will be over, Sato-sama." He stretched out his arm
+and tapped the inch-long ash into a trash basket beside the desk.
+
+"Tomorrow," Jiro Sato bowed, "it only begins."
+
+
+
+Wednesday 2:25 A.M.
+
+_
+
+_Yuri Andreevich Androv stood facing the bulkhead that sealed the
+forward avionics bays, feeling almost as though he were looking at a
+bank vault. As in all high-security facilities, the access doors were
+controlled electronically.
+
+Since the final retrofits were now completed, the Japanese maintenance
+crews were only working two shifts; nobody was around at this hour
+except the security guards. He'd told them he'd thought of something
+and wanted to go up and take a look at the heavy-duty EN-15 turbo
+pumps, which transferred hydrogen to the scramjets after it was
+converted from liquid to gaseous phase for combustion. He'd been
+worrying about their pulse rating and couldn't sleep.
+
+He'd gone on to explain that although static testing had shown they
+would achieve operating pressure in twenty milliseconds if they were
+fully primed in advance, that was static testing, not flight testing,
+and he'd been unable to sleep wondering about the adhesive around the
+seals.
+
+It was just technical mumbo-jumbo, although maybe he should be checking
+them, he thought grimly. But he trusted the engineering team. He had
+to. Besides, the pumps had been developed specially for the massive
+Energia booster, and they'd functioned flawlessly in routine launchings
+of those vehicles at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
+
+Of course, at Baikonur they always were initiated while the Energia was
+on the launch pad, at full atmospheric pressure. On the _Daedalus_
+they'd have to be powered in during flight, at sixty thousand feet and
+2,700 miles per hour. But still . . .
+
+The late-night security team had listened sympathetically. They had no
+objection if Androv wanted to roll a stair-truck under the fuselage of
+_Daedalus /, _then climb into the underbay and inspect turbo pumps in
+the dead of night. Everybody knew he was eccentric. No, make that
+insane. You'd have to be to want to ride a rocket. They'd just waved
+him in. After all, the classified avionics in the forward bays were
+secured.
+
+He smiled grimly to think that he'd been absolutely right. Hangar
+Control was getting lax about security in these waning days before the
+big test. It always happened after a few months of mechanics trooping
+in and out.
+
+That also explained why he now had a full set of magnetic access cards
+for all the sealed forward bays. Just as he'd figured, the mechanics
+were now leaving them stuffed in the pockets of the coveralls they kept
+in their lockers in the changing room.
+
+Time to get started.
+
+There was, naturally, double security, with a massive airlock port
+opening onto a pressure bay, where three more secure ports sealed the
+avionics bays themselves. The airlock port was like an airplane door,
+double reinforced to withstand the near vacuum of space, and in the
+center was a green metallic slot for a magnetic card.
+
+He began trying cards, slipping them into the slot. The first, the
+second, the third, the fourth, and then, payoff. The three green diodes
+above the lock handle flashed.
+
+He quickly shoved down the grip and pushed. The door eased inward, then
+rotated to the side, opening onto the pressure bay.
+
+The temperature inside was a constant 5 degrees Celsius, kept just
+above freezing to extend the life of the sensitive electronic gear in
+the next three bays. The high-voltage sodium lamps along the sides of
+the fuselage now switched on automatically as the door swung inward. He
+fleetingly thought about turning them off, then realized they weren't
+manually operated.
+
+Through the clouds of his condensing breath he could see that the
+interior of the entry bay was a pale, military green. The color
+definitely seemed appropriate, given what he now knew about this
+vehicle.
+
+He quickly turned and, after making sure the outer door could be
+reopened from the inside, closed it behind him. When it clicked secure,
+the sodium lights automatically shut off with a faint hum.
+
+Just like a damned refrigerator, he thought.
+
+But the dark was what he wanted. He withdrew a small penlight from his
+pocket and scanned the three bulkhead hatches leading to the forward
+bays. The portside bay, on the left, contained electronics for the
+multimode phased array radar scanner in the nose, radar processors,
+radar power supply, radar transmitters and receivers, Doppler
+processor, shrouded scanner tracking mechanism, and an RF oscillator.
+He knew; he'd checked the engineering diagrams.
+
+He also knew the starboard equipment bay, the one on the right,
+contained signal processors for the inertial navigation system (INS),
+the instrument landing system (ILS), the foreplane hydraulic actuator,
+the structural mode control system (SMCS), station controller, and the
+pilot's liquid-oxygen tanks and evaporator.
+
+The third forward bay, located beneath the other two and down a set of
+steel stairs, was the one he needed to penetrate. It contained all the
+computer gear: flight control, navigation, and most importantly, the
+artificial intelligence (AI) system for pilot interface and backup.
+
+He suddenly found himself thinking a strange thought. Since no air-
+breathing vehicle had ever flown hypersonic, every component in this
+plane was, in a sense, untested. To his mind, though, that was merely
+one more argument for shutting down the damned AI system's override
+functions before he went hypersonic. If something did go wrong, he
+wanted this baby on manual. He only needed the computer to alert him to
+potential problems. The solutions he'd have to work out with his own
+brain. And balls. After all, that's why he was there.
+
+As he walked down the steel steps, he thumbed through the magnetic
+cards, praying he had the one needed to open the lower bay and access
+the computers. Then he began inserting them one by one into the green
+metallic slot, trying to keep his hand steady in the freezing cold.
+
+Finally one worked. The three encoded diodes blinked, and a hydraulic
+arm automatically slid the port open. Next the interior lights came on,
+an orange high-voltage sodium glow illuminating the gray walls.
+
+This third bay, like the two above it, was big enough to stand in. As
+he stepped in, he glanced back up the stairs, then quickly resealed the
+door. Off went the lights again, so he withdrew his penlight and turned
+to start searching for what he wanted.
+
+Directly in front of him was a steel monolith with banks of toggle
+switches: electrical power controls, communications controls,
+propulsion system controls, reaction-control systems. Okay, that's the
+command console, which was preset for each flight and then monitored
+from the cockpit.
+
+Now where's the damned on-board AI module?
+
+He scanned the bay. The AI system was the key to his plan. He had to
+make certain the computer's artificial intelligence functions could be
+completely shut down, disengaged, when the crucial moment came. He
+couldn't afford for the on-board system-override to abort his planned
+revision in the hypersonic flight plan. His job tonight was to make
+sure all the surprises were his, not somebody else's. There wouldn't be
+any margin for screw-ups. Everything had to go like clockwork.
+
+He edged his way on through the freezing bay, searching the banks of
+equipment for a clue, and then he saw what he was looking for. There,
+along the portside bulkhead. It was a white, rectangular console, and
+everything about it told him immediately it was what he wanted.
+
+He studied it a second, trying to decide where to begin.
+
+At that moment he also caught himself wondering fleetingly how he'd
+ever gotten into this crazy situation. Maybe he should have quit the
+Air Force years ago and gone to engineering school like his father had
+wanted. Right now, he had to admit, a little electrical engineering
+would definitely come in handy.
+
+He took out a pocket screwdriver and began carefully removing the AI
+console's faceplate, a bronzed rectangle. Eight screws later, he lifted
+it off and settled it on the floor.
+
+The penlight revealed a line of chips connected by neat sections of
+plastic-coated wires. Somewhere in this electronic ganglia there had to
+be a crucial node where he could attach the device he'd brought.
+
+It had taken some doing, but he'd managed to assemble an item that
+should take care of his problem beautifully when the moment came. It
+was a radio-controlled, electrically operated blade that, when clamped
+onto a strand of wires, could sever them in an instant. The radio range
+was fifty meters, which would be adequate; the transmitter, no larger
+than a small tape recorder, was going to be with him in his flight
+suit. The instant he switched the turboramjets over to the scramjet
+mode, he was going to activate it and blow their fucking AI module out
+of the system. Permanently.
+
+He figured he had ten minutes before one of the security team came
+looking to see what he was doing; he'd timed this moment to coincide
+with their regular tea break. Even the Japanese didn't work around the
+clock.
+
+Now, holding the penlight and shivering from the cold, he began
+carefully checking the wires. Carefully, so very carefully. He didn't
+have a diagram of their computer linkages, and he had to make sure he
+didn't accidentally interrupt the main power source, since the one
+thing he didn't want to do was disconnect any of the other flight
+control systems. He wanted to cut in somewhere between the AI module's
+power supply and its central processor. The power source led in here .
+. . and then up the side over to there, a high-voltage transformer . .
+. and then out from . . .
+
+There. Just after the step-up transformer and before the motherboard
+with the dedicated CPU and I/O. That should avoid any shorting in the
+main power system and keep the interruption nice and localized.
+
+The line was almost half an inch thick, double-stranded, copper
+grounded with a coaxial sheath. But there was a clear section that led
+directly down to the CPU. That's where he'd place the blade, and hope
+it'd at least short- circuit the power feed even if it didn't sever the
+wires completely.
+
+He tested the radio transmitter one last time, making sure it would
+activate the blade, then reached down and clamped the mechanism onto
+the wire, tightening it with thumb screws. When it was as secure as he
+could make it, he stood back and examined his handiwork. If somebody
+decided to remove the faceplate, they'd spot it in a second, but
+otherwise . . .
+
+Quickly, hands trembling from the cold, he fitted the cover back on the
+module and began replacing the screws with the tiny screwdriver. It
+wasn't magnetized, a deliberate choice, so the small screws kept
+slipping between his bulky fingers, a problem made more acute by the
+numbing cold.
+
+Three screws to go . . . then he heard the noise. Footsteps on the
+aluminum catwalk in the pressure bay above. . . . _Shit_.
+
+He kept working as fast as he could, grimly holding the screws secure
+and fighting back the numbness and pain in his freezing fingers.
+
+Only one more. Above, he could hear the sounds of someone checking each
+of the equipment bays, methodically opening and then resecuring them.
+First the starboard side bay was opened and closed, then the portside
+bay. Now he heard footsteps advancing down the metal stairs leading to
+the computer bay. They were five seconds away from discovering him.
+
+The last screw was in.
+
+He tried to stand, and realized his knees were numb. He staggered
+backward, grabbing for something to steady himself . . . and the light
+came on.
+
+"Yuri Andreevich, so this is where you are. What are you doing here?"
+
+It was the gravel voice of his father. He felt like a child again,
+caught with his hand in his pants. What should he do? tell the truth?
+
+"I'm--I'm checking over the consoles, passing the time. I couldn't
+sleep."
+
+"Don't lie to me." Andrei Androv's ancient eyebrows gathered into the
+skeptical furrow Yuri knew so well. "You're up to something, another of
+your tricks."
+
+Yuri stared at him a moment. How had he known? A sixth sense?
+
+"_Moi otyets_, why are you here? You should be getting your sleep."
+
+"I'm an old man. An old man worries. I had a feeling you might be in
+here tonight, tinkering with the vehicle. You told me you were planning
+something. I think the time has come to tell me what it is."
+
+Yuri took a deep breath and looked him over.
+
+No, it was too risky. For them both. His secret had to be ironclad.
+
+"It's better if you don't know."
+
+"As you wish," the old man sighed. "But if you do something foolish . .
+."
+
+"I damned sure intend to try." He met his father's steely gaze.
+
+"So did you do it?" Andrei Androv examined him, his ancient face ashen
+beneath his mane of white hair. "Did you manage to sabotage the AI
+module?"
+
+He caught himself laughing out loud. Whatever else, his father was no
+fool. He'd been a Russian too long to believe anything he heard or half
+of what he saw. Intrigue was a way of life for him.
+
+"Let's go. They'll come looking for us soon. This is the wrong place to
+be found."
+
+"You're right."
+
+"Go back to the West Quadrant. Listen to a string quartet." He opened
+the port and waited for his father to step out. Then he followed,
+closing it behind them. "There's no reason for you to be involved.
+Heads are going to roll, but why should yours be one of them?"
+
+Andrei Petrovich Androv moved lightly up the metal stair, the spring in
+his step belying his age. At the top he paused and turned back.
+
+"You're acting out of principle, aren't you, Yuri? For once in your
+life."
+
+"I guess you could say that." He smiled, then moved on up the steps.
+
+"Someday, the Russian people will thank you."
+
+"Someday. Though I may not live to see it."
+
+Andrei Androv stopped, his ancient eyes tearing as his voice dropped to
+a whisper. "Of all the things you've ever done, my son, nothing could
+make me more proud of you than what you just said. I've thought it
+over, about the military uses for this vehicle, and I think the future
+of the world is about to be rewritten here. You must stop them. You're
+the only chance we have left."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+
+Wednesday 10:05 A.M.
+
+
+
+The limousine had already left the Savoy and was headed down the Strand
+when Alex Novosty broke the silence. He leaned forward, pushed the
+button on the two-way microphone linking the passenger compartment to
+the driver, and spoke in Russian.
+
+"Igor Borisovich, there's been an alteration in our plans. We will not
+be going to Westminster Union. Take us to Moscow Narodny Bank. The
+trading branch on Saint Swithins Lane."
+
+"_Shto ve skazale_?" Igor, still nursing his head from the kidnapping,
+glanced into his rearview mirror. "The bank's main office is on King
+William Street. We always--"
+
+"Just do as you're told." Novosty cut him off, then killed the mike.
+
+Vera Karanova stared at him, her dark eyes flooding with concern. "But
+you said the transaction was scheduled for Westminster Union Bank, this
+morning at ten-thirty."
+
+"That was merely a diversion." Novosty leaned back. "The actual
+arrangement is turned around. For security reasons."
+
+"I don't like this." Her displeasure was obvious, and mounting. "There
+is no reason--"
+
+"It's better, I assure you." He withdrew a white tin of Balkan Sobranie
+cigarettes from his coat, snapped it open, and withdrew one. Made of
+fine Turkish Yenidje tobacco, they were what he always smoked on
+important days. This was an important day.
+
+As he flicked his lighter and drew in the first lungful of rich smoke,
+he thought about how much he hated the dark-haired woman seated beside
+him, dressed in a gray Armani business suit, sable coat, Cartier
+jewelry. The bad blood between them traced back over five years, begin-
+ning with a T-Directorate reshuffle in which she'd moved up to the
+number three slot, cutting him out of a well-deserved promotion. The
+rumor going around Dzerzhinsky Square was that she'd done it by making
+the right connections, so to speak. It was the kind of in-house screw-
+job Alex Novosty didn't soon forget, of forgive.
+
+Their black limo was now passing the Royal Courts of Justice, on the
+left, headed onto Fleet Street. Ahead was Cannon Street, which
+intersected the end of Saint Swithins Lane. Just a few blocks more.
+After today, he fully intended never to see her again.
+
+"We've arranged for the transaction to take place through MNB's bond
+trading desk," Novosty continued, almost as though to nobody in
+particular. "Michael and I have taken care of everything."
+
+"Who approved this change?" She angrily gripped the handrest.
+
+"I did," Novosty replied sharply. "We're in charge." He masked a smile,
+pleased to see her upset. The morning traffic was now almost at a
+standstill, but they would be on time. "After all, he still has the
+money."
+
+"And for all you know he may be in Brazil by now. Perhaps that's the
+reason he and the woman disappeared last night, with the help of an
+accomplice who assaulted Igor Borisovich."
+
+"Michael will be there," Novosty said. "Have no fear. He's not going
+anywhere till this is finished."
+
+"After this is completed," she said matter-of-factly, "he will be
+finished. I hope you have planned for that."
+
+Novosty glanced over, wondering what she meant. Had all the surprises
+been covered? He hoped so, because this deal was his gateway to
+freedom. The two million commission would mean a new beginning for him.
+
+
+
+Wednesday 10:18 A.M.
+
+
+
+Kenji Nogami sat upright at his wide oak desk, waiting for the phone to
+ring. How would Michael play it? Admittedly it was smart to keep
+everything close to the chest, but still. He would have felt better if
+Michael Vance, Jr., had favored him with a little more trust.
+
+On the other hand, keeping the details of the operation under wraps as
+long as possible was probably wise. It minimized the chance for some
+inadvertent slip-up.
+
+Yes, it was definitely best. Because he was staring across his desk at
+four of Tanzan Mino's Tokyo _kobun_, all dressed in shiny black leather
+jackets. They'd arrived at the Docklands office just after dawn,
+announcing they were there to hand-deliver the money to Tokyo. Jiro
+Sato had directed them to Westminster Union.
+
+The four all carried black briefcases, which did not contain business
+papers. They intended to accomplish their mission by whatever means
+necessary. Jiro Sato, the London _oyabun_, had not been invited to send
+his people along with them this morning. He was now humiliated and dis-
+graced, officially removed from the operation, on Tokyo's orders. The
+regional office had failed, so Tokyo had sent in a _Mino-gumi_ version
+of the Delta Force. They clearly had orders concerning what to do with
+Michael Vance.
+
+He didn't like this new twist. For everything to go according to plan,
+violence had to be kept out of it. There was no way he and Michael
+could go head to head with street enforcers. If Michael was thinking of
+doing that, the man was crazy.
+
+He glanced at his gold Omega, noting that it read ten- nineteen. In
+eleven more minutes he'd know how Michael intended to run the scenario.
+
+But whatever happened, he wasn't going to be intimidated by these
+_kobun_ hoods, dark sunglasses and automatics notwithstanding. Those
+days were over. Michael had given him a perfect opportunity to start
+building a new life. He didn't care if all hell was about to break
+loose.
+
+
+
+Wednesday 10:23 A.M.
+
+
+
+"_Polovena decyat_?" She examined him with her dark eyes.
+
+"_Da_." Novosty nodded. "They will be here at ten-thirty. That is the
+schedule."
+
+He was feeling nervous, which was unusual and he didn't like it.
+Whenever he got that way, things always started going off the track.
+
+They were now in the paneled elevator, heading up to the sixth floor of
+the Moscow Narodny Bank. The hundred million had been held overnight in
+the vault of Victoria Courier Service Limited, which was scheduled to
+deliver the satchels this morning at ten-thirty sharp. The location for
+the delivery, however, was known only to him and to Michael Vance. He
+wanted to be sure and arrive there ahead of the money. He also would
+have much preferred being without the company of Vera Karanova.
+
+One thing you had to say for Michael: He'd arranged the deal with great
+finesse. He didn't trust anybody. Until he notified Victoria Courier
+this morning, nobody knew where the money would be taken, not even the
+Japanese banker Nogami. Still, the instruments were negotiable, leaving
+the possibility of trouble if the timing went sour.
+
+He intended to make sure it didn't. The planning had been split-second
+up until now; this was no moment to relax his guard.
+
+Yes, it was good he was here. As he studied Comrade Karanova, he
+realized that something about her was still making him uneasy. So far
+it was merely a hunch, but his hunches had been right more often than
+he liked to think.
+
+He tried to push the feeling aside. Probably just paranoia. She
+obviously was here today for the same reason he was, to make sure the
+Soviet money was returned safely. She probably was also still worried
+about the protocol, but that problem was hers, not his. From today on,
+the KGB would have to work out their in-fighting back home the best way
+they could. The ground rules were changing fast in Moscow.
+
+Besides, Dzerzhinsky Square was about to become part of a previous life
+for him. If he could just clear this up, get his commission, he'd be
+set. Forever. Enough was enough. Maybe he'd end up in the Caribbean
+like Michael, drinking margaritas and counting string bikinis.
+
+The elevator door opened. Facing them were Michael Vance and Eva
+Borodin.
+
+"Glad you could make it." Vance glanced coldly at Vera. "Right on time.
+The money arrives in exactly seven minutes."
+
+She nodded a silent greeting, pulling her sable coat tighter as she
+strode past. The bank officials lined up along the corridor watched her
+with nervous awe. Even in London, T-Directorate brass had clout.
+
+They moved as a group down the long carpeted hallway leading to the
+counting room. On this floor everything was high-security, with
+uniformed guards at all the doorways. Negotiable instruments weren't
+handled casually.
+
+
+
+Wednesday 10:30 A.M.
+
+
+
+An armoured van with V.C.S., Ltd. lettered on its side pulled up to the
+black marble front of Moscow Narodny Bank's financial trading branch on
+Saint Swithins Lane. Everything was on schedule.
+
+"They're here." Eva was watching from the narrow window. Saint Swithins
+Lane down below, virtually an alley, was so narrow it could accommodate
+only one vehicle at a time. Across was Banque Worms, its unicorn
+insignia staring out, its lobby chandeliers glowing. Nobody there even
+bothered to notice. Just another armored truck interrupting the view.
+
+Then three blue-uniformed guards emerged from the cab and approached
+the rear doors from both sides, .38's in unsnapped holsters.
+
+"Mr. Vance, they had better have the money, all of it." Vera stepped
+over to the window and followed Eva's gaze down.
+
+"It'll be there."
+
+"For your sake I hope so," she replied as she turned back.
+
+"Just hang around and watch," Vance said.
+
+Just one more day, he told himself. One more lousy day. We'll have
+enough of the protocol translated by tomorrow, the press package ready.
+Then we drop it on the papers and blow town.
+
+From the hallway outside a bell chimed faintly as the elevator opened,
+a private lift that came directly up from the lobby. When he heard the
+heavy footsteps of the couriers, accompanied by MNB guards, he stepped
+over and quickly glanced out. The two blue-suits were each carrying a
+large satchel handcuffed to the left wrist. Obviously the third had
+stayed downstairs, guarding the van.
+
+"This way." The heavy-jowled director of the MNB bond trading desk
+stepped out and motioned them in. The play was on.
+
+Kenji Nogami's issue of Mino Industries debentures had been registered
+with the Issuing House Association the previous day. This morning they
+would be acquired by Vance, using a wire transfer between the Moscow
+Narodny Bank on Saint Swithins Lane and Westminster Union Bank's bond
+desk. After that there would be a second transaction, whereby Sumitomo
+Bank, Limited would accept the debentures as security for a loan of one
+hundred million dollars, to be wire-transferred back to Westminster
+Union and from there to Moscow Narodny Bank. Everything had been
+prearranged. The whole transaction would require only minutes.
+
+Unless there was a glitch.
+
+Vance had fully expected that Tanzan Mino would send a welcoming
+committee to Nogami's premises, which was why he'd arranged for the
+money to be delivered here at Moscow Narodny's side-street branch. He
+figured the Soviets, at least, would play it straight. KGB wanted its
+file closed.
+
+Then too, Eva still had the protocol. Their back-up insurance policy.
+
+"Mr. Vance." Vera Karanova watched as the two security men unlatched
+their satchels and began withdrawing the bundles of open cashiers
+checks and bearer bonds. "I want to recount these securities, now."
+
+"There're double-counted tallys already prepared"--he pointed toward the
+bundles--"yesterday by the main branch of Moscow Narodny. The printouts
+are attached."
+
+"That was their count," she replied. "I intend to make my own, before
+we go any further."
+
+Which means time lost, he thought. Doesn't she realize we've got to get
+this cash recycled, those bonds purchased and in place, before Tanzan
+Mino's _kobun _have a chance to move on us? If the deal to acquire
+Ken's new Mino Industries debentures doesn't go through, giving us
+something to hold over the godfather's head . . .
+
+She's literally playing into his hands.
+
+"The instruments are all here, all negotiable, and all ready to go," he
+said, stealing a quick glance toward Eva. One look at her eyes told him
+she also sensed trouble brewing. "Now, we're damn well going to move
+and move fast. We credit the funds here, then wire them to Westminster
+Union. And by God we do it immediately."
+
+"Mr. Vance, you are no longer giving the orders," she replied sharply.
+"I'm in charge here now. As a matter of fact, I have no intention of
+wiring the money anywhere. There will be no purchase of debentures. As
+far as I'm concerned, it has now been returned." She paused for
+emphasis. "But first we will count it."
+
+"Vera, my love," Eva said, cutting her off, "if you try and double-
+cross us, you're making a very big mistake. You seem to forget we've
+got that protocol. What we didn't get around to telling you is that
+we've deciphered it."
+
+"You--?"
+
+"That's right. As it happens, I don't think you're going to like what
+it's got to say, but you might at least want to know the story before
+you read about it in The Times day after tomorrow."
+
+Alex Novosty's face had turned ashen. "Michael, Tanzan Mino's people
+are probably headed here by now. Unless they go to the main office on
+King William Street first." He was nervously glancing out the window.
+"We're running out of time."
+
+The game's about to get rough, Vance thought. Better take charge.
+
+But before he could move, Novosty was gripping a Ruger P-85, a
+lightweight 9mm automatic, pulled from a holster under the back of his
+jacket. He'd worn it where the MNB guards would miss it.
+
+The two Victoria couriers were caught flat-footed. Bankers weren't
+supposed to start drawing weapons. They stared in astonishment as he
+gestured for them to turn and face the wall.
+
+"Michael," he said as he glanced over, "would you kindly give me a hand
+and take those two .38's? We really must get this party moving."
+
+Vera Karanova was smiling a thin smile. "I don't know how far you think
+you will get with this."
+
+"We seem to be working toward different objectives," Novosty answered.
+"Michael has a solution to everybody's problem. I regret very much
+you've chosen not to help facilitate it."
+
+"The only problem he solved was yours," she shot back. "Mr. Vance
+devised what amounts to an enormous check kiting scheme. You two
+planned to perpetrate fraud. You're nothing better than criminals, both
+of you, and I intend to make sure you haven't also given us a short
+count."
+
+"Comrade, fraud is a harsh word," Vance interjected.
+
+"You are not as amusing as you think," she replied.
+
+"Humor makes the world go round."
+
+'This is not a joke. The negotiable instruments in this room are Soviet
+funds. I intend to make sure those funds are intact. There will be a
+full and complete count. Now."
+
+She's gone over the edge, he told himself. She's definitely going to
+try and screw us, either wittingly or unwittingly. But who in the room
+is going to help her? That huddled group of Russian bankers now staring
+terrified at Novosty's 9mm? Not damned likely. She's improvising, on
+her own. But her little stunt could well end up sinking the ship.
+
+The two couriers were now spread against the brown textured fabric of
+the wall, legs apart. He walked over and reached into the leather
+holsters at their hips, drawing out their revolvers. They were snub-
+nosed Smith & Wesson Bodyguards, .38 caliber. He looked them over,
+cocked them, and handed one to Eva.
+
+"How about covering the door? I think it's time we got down to business
+and traded some bonds."
+
+"With pleasure." She stepped over and glanced out. It was clear.
+
+"What do you think, Alex?" Vance turned back. "Word's going around
+there's a hot new issue of Mino Industries zero-coupons coming out
+today. What do you say we go long? In for a hundred. Just take the
+lot."
+
+"I heard the same rumor, this very morning," he smiled. "You're right.
+My instincts say it's a definite buy."
+
+"Fine." Vance turned to MNB's jowled branch chief. "We'd like to do a
+little trading here this morning. Mind getting the bond desk at
+Westminster Union on the line? Tell Nogami we're good for a hundred in
+Mino Industries debentures, the new issue. At par."
+
+"Michael." It was Eva's voice, suddenly alarmed.
+
+"What?"
+
+"We've got company. They look like field reps."
+
+"Good God." Novosty strode to the door and looked out. A group of four
+leather-jacketed Japanese were headed down the hallway, two disarmed
+MNB guards in front. Also with them was Kenji Nogami.
+
+Turning back, he looked imploringly at Vance. "What do we do?"
+
+"Figure they came prepared." He waved toward Eva. "Better lose that
+.38. Put it on the table for now. Maybe we can still talk this thing
+through."
+
+She nodded, then stepped over and laid her weapon beside the bundles of
+securities. Vance took one last look at the Smith & Wesson in his own
+hand and did the same. Even ex-archaeologists could do arithmetic.
+
+All this time Vera Karanova had said nothing. She merely stood watching
+the proceedings with a detached smile. Finally she spoke. "Now we can
+proceed with the counting," she said calmly.
+
+"Maybe you don't fully grasp the situation here, comrade." Vance stared
+at her. "Those gorillas aren't dropping in for tea. We've got to stand
+together."
+
+She burst out laughing. "Mr. Vance, you are truly naive. No, you're
+worse. You actually thought you could sabotage the most powerful new
+global alliance of the twentieth century." Her dark eyes were gradually
+turning glacial. "It will not be allowed to happen, believe me."
+
+My God, he realized, that's why she wanted to get her hands on the
+protocol. To deep-six it. She's been biding her time, stringing us
+along. And today she managed to stall us long enough for Mino's boys to
+figure out the switch. She's no longer working for T-Directorate; she's
+part of Tanzan Mino's operation. All this time she's been working with
+them.
+
+"The negotiable certificates in this room will be delivered to their
+rightful recipient by his personal jet," she continued. "Today."
+
+"Over my dead body." He found himself thinking it might well be true.
+
+"No, Mr. Vance, not exactly. Your contribution will be more substantial
+than that."
+
+He was speechless, for the first time.
+
+The Russian bankers in the room were taken totally by surprise. Double-
+dealing KGB games had always been part of the landscape, but this was
+confusing in the extreme. Whose money was it anyway?
+
+"Michael." Novosty's voice was trembling. "This cannot be allowed to
+happen."
+
+"I agree. We've definitely got a situation here."
+
+He glanced around to see the four _Mino-gumi kobun _poised in the
+doorway, all with H&K automatics now out of their briefcases. Kenji
+Nogami was standing behind them, his eyes defeated.
+
+Novosty still looked stunned. The range of options was rapidly
+narrowing to none.
+
+Vera indicated his Ruger. "You would be wise to put that away. Now."
+
+"If they take these securities, my life's not worth a _kopeck_."
+Novosty seemed to be thinking out loud. "What does it matter."
+
+It wasn't a question. It was a statement.
+
+Remembering it all later, Vance could barely recall the precise
+sequence of events. He did remember shoving Eva back against the wall
+as the fireworks began.
+
+Novosty's first round caught the lead _Mino-gumi kobun_ squarely
+between the eyes. As he pitched backward, arms flailing, he tumbled
+against the others, giving Novosty time to fire again. With deadly
+accuracy he caught another in the chest.
+
+Kenji Nogami had already thrown himself on the thick hallway carpet,
+safely avoiding the fusillade. The Russian bankers, too, had all hit
+the floor, along with the MNB guards and the two couriers.
+
+Then came a shot with a different sound--the dull thunk of a silencer.
+Novosty jerked in surprise, pain spreading through his eyes. The
+silencer thunked again, and again.
+
+It was Vera Karanova. She was holding a small .22 caliber Walther PP,
+with a specially equipped silencer. And her aim was flawless. Novosty
+had three slugs arranged neatly down the side of his head before he
+even realized what was happening. He collapsed forward, never knowing
+whose hand had been on the gun.
+
+She's probably wanted to get rid of him for years, Vance thought
+fleetingly. She finally got her golden opportunity, the double-crossing
+bitch.
+
+He briefly considered grabbing back one of the .38's and avenging Alex
+then and there, but he knew it would be suicidal.
+
+"Alex, no!" Eva's voice sobbed.
+
+"Both of you, hands on the wall." Comrade Karanova was definitely in
+charge.
+
+"Michael," Eva said, turning to comply, "what happened to our well-laid
+plans?"
+
+"Looks like too little, too late." He stretched beside her.
+
+"What did she mean just now? About our 'contribution'?"
+
+"Probably the protocol. My guess is she wants to see it destroyed.
+Let's hope that'll be the end of it. The godfather's got his money. And
+Alex's problem is solved permanently."
+
+Now Kenji Nogami was entering the room, an island of Zen-like calm
+amidst all the bedlam.
+
+"Michael, I'm so sorry." He stepped over. "When the money didn't show
+up as scheduled, they called Jiro Sato and he suggested they try here.
+There was nothing I could do."
+
+Vance nodded. "That's how I figured it'd be played. We didn't move fast
+enough on this end. It was my fault."
+
+"Too bad. We came close." He sighed. "But I'm not going to underwrite
+the rest of those bogus debentures. He'll have to kill me."
+
+"And he'll probably do just that. The hell with it. You tried, we all
+tried. Now it looks like Tanzan Mino's scam is going to go through
+whether we play or not. You might as well save your own skin. With any
+luck, we can still sort out our end, but you--you're going to have to be
+dealing with that bastard for years to come. Think about it."
+
+"I'm still deciding," he said finally. "Let's wait and see how things
+go."
+
+"Alex opted for suicide. You shouldn't follow his lead."
+
+"I'm not suicidal." He stepped back as Vera proceeded to pat them down.
+"I think very carefully about my options."
+
+"Get the money." She was directing the two remaining _Mino-gumi kobun
+_toward the table.
+
+"Gonna just rob the bank now, Comrade?" Vance turned and looked at her,
+then at the three bodies strewn on the floor. The _kobun _seemed to
+consider their late colleagues merely casualties of war. The dead men
+received almost no notice. "Pretty costly little enterprise, wouldn't
+you say. Not a very propitious start for your new era of world
+serenity."
+
+"You would be advised to shut up," she responded sharply.
+
+"I feel personally violated by all this." Nogami had turned to her and
+his voice was like steel. "As of this moment, you can put out of your
+mind any illusion I might cooperate further. This outrage is beyond
+acceptability."
+
+"We did what had to be done," Vera said. "We still expect your
+cooperation and I do not think we will be disappointed."
+
+"Then your expectation is sadly misplaced," he replied icily. His eyes
+signified he meant every word.
+
+"We will see." She dismissed him as she turned her attention to the
+money. The two _kobun_ had carefully removed their shiny black leather
+jackets now and laid them on the table. Underneath they wore tightly
+tailored white shirts, complete with underarm holsters containing 9mm
+Llamas. The automatics were back in their briefcases, positioned by the
+door. Stripped down for action, they were quickly and professionally
+tallying the certificates, one handling the open cashiers checks and
+the other the bearer bonds.
+
+Guess they intend to keep a close eye on the details, Vance thought.
+
+Well, screw them. We've still got the protocol. We've got some leverage
+left.
+
+But he was having trouble focusing on the future. He was still in shock
+from the sight of Novosty being gunned down in cold blood. Alex's
+abrupt death was a tragic end to an exceptional, if sometimes dubious,
+career. He'd really wanted Novosty to make this one last score. The man
+deserved it. He was an operator who lived at the edge, and Vance had
+always admired players who put everything on the table, no matter which
+side.
+
+Well, he told himself, the scenario had come close, damned close. But
+maybe it was doomed from the start. You only get so many chances to
+tempt the fates. Today everybody's number came up, Alex's for the last
+time.
+
+Rest in peace, Aleksei Ilyich.
+
+Then Vera turned back to them. "Now, I want the computer. We know it
+was moved to the house in Kensington, but our search this morning did
+not locate it."
+
+So they were on to us from the start, Vance realized.
+
+"Looks like you've got a problem." He strolled over and plopped down in
+one of the straight-backed chairs along the opposite wall. "Too bad."
+
+"No, you have a problem." She examined him confidently. "Because if
+those materials are not returned to us, we will be forced to take
+actions you may find harsh."
+
+"Give it your best shot," he went on, glancing at Eva and hoping they
+could keep up the bravado, "because we've got a few cards in our hand
+too. Forget the money--that's history now--but we could still be in a
+position to blow your whole project sky high."
+
+"You two are the only ones outside our organization who know about the
+protocol. That knowledge will not be allowed to go any farther."
+
+"Don't be so sure. For all you know, we've already stashed a copy
+somewhere. Left word that if anything happens to either one of us, the
+package gets sent to the papers. Made public. Think what some premature
+headlines would do for your little project."
+
+"We have thought about it, Mr. Vance. That contingency has been
+covered."
+
+"Well, if I don't know what the other player's got, I tend to trust my
+own cards."
+
+But why play at all? he suddenly found himself musing. Fold this hand
+and go for the next move.
+
+Before leaving Crete he'd transmitted a copy of the protocol, still in
+its encrypted form, to his office computer in Nassau. At the time it'd
+merely seemed like prudence; now it might turn out to be a lifeline.
+One phone call and it could be transmitted back here this very
+afternoon. The magic of satellites in space. Knock out another quick
+translation and they'd only have lost one day. What the hell. Use that
+as a fallback position. Time, that's all it would take, just a little
+more time.
+
+"But what does it matter? The game's up anyway." He nodded toward Vera,
+then turned to Eva, sending her a pointed signal.
+
+"What was it Shakespeare said about discretion and valor," she
+concurred, understanding exactly what he was thinking.
+
+"The man knew when to fish and when to cut bait."
+
+"True enough. Shall you tell them or shall I?"
+
+"You can do the honors."
+
+She walked over and picked up her briefcase. "You didn't really think
+we'd leave it, did you, Comrade? So just take it and good riddance. A
+little gift from the NSA. Who says America's getting stingy with its
+foreign aid?"
+
+Comrade Karanova motioned for the two _kobun _to take the case. "See if
+it's there."
+
+As they moved to comply, Vance found himself wondering if this really
+was going to turn off the heat. Somehow it no longer seemed adequate.
+
+"_Hai so_," he grunted through his teeth as he lifted it, "something is
+here." Vance noticed that two digits of the little finger on his left
+hand were missing, along with another digit on his ring finger. Good
+thing Ken was never a street man, he thought fleetingly. Guess bankers
+get to pay for their mistakes with something besides sections of fin-
+ger.
+
+"Then take it out," Vera commanded. "We are running out of time."
+
+You've got that right, lady, Vance thought. Three men were just killed.
+That personal Boeing of Tanzan Mino's better be warming up its Pratt &
+Whitney's right now. London's about to get too hot for you.
+
+One of the _kobun  _withdrew the Zenith. He placed it on the mahogany
+table, then unlatched the top and lifted it up, only to stare at the
+blank gray screen, unsure what he was supposed to do next.
+
+Vera knew. She reached for the switch on the side and clicked it on,
+then stood back and turned to Eva.
+
+"Call up the file. I want to see if you have really broken the
+encryption, the way you said."
+
+"Truth time," she laughed, then punched up the translation.
+
+_Project Daedalus_.
+
+And there it was.
+
+Comrade Karanova studied it a moment, as though not quite believing her
+eyes. But she plainly had seen it before. "Congratulations. We were
+sure no one would be able to break the encryption, not even you." She
+glanced around. "You are very clever."
+
+"Okay," Vance interjected, "I'm sure we all have better things to do
+this morning. So why don't you take the damned thing and get out of
+here. It's what you wanted. Just go and we'll all try and forget any of
+this ever happened."
+
+She flipped down the computer's screen, then turned back.
+"Unfortunately nothing is ever that simple. I'm sorry to have to tell
+you two that we haven't seen the last of each other." She paused, then
+continued. "In fact, we are about to become much better acquainted."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"You once told me, back when we met on the plane from Athens, you would
+welcome that. You should be happy that your wish is now about to be
+granted. You both are going to be our guests."
+
+"That's kind of you." He stared at her, startled. "But we can probably
+bear up to the separation."
+
+"No, I must insist. You were right about the difficulties. Your death
+now would be awkward, for a number of reasons. Alex will be trouble
+enough to explain, but that is purely an internal Soviet matter. Moscow
+Narodny can cover it. However, eliminating you two would raise awkward
+inquiries. On the other hand, you represent a security risk to the
+project. Consequently we have no option. Surely you understand."
+
+He understood all too well. This was the one turn he hadn't figured on.
+
+Almost eight years. It had been that long ago. But what had Ken said?
+The Tokyo _oyabun _never forgot. What this really meant was that Tanzan
+Mino wanted to settle the score first hand. What did he have planned?
+
+Vance had a sudden feeling he didn't want to know. It was going to be a
+zero-sum game. Everything on the table and winner take all.
+
+The Uzi. The goddam Uzi. Why hadn't they brought it?
+
+It was still back in Kensington, where they'd stashed it in the false
+bottom of a new suitcase. But if the _Mino-gumi_ had been searching
+only for a computer, maybe they'd missed it. So Tanzan Mino's hoods
+could still be in for a surprise. Just make an excuse to go back.
+
+Vera was aware an Uzi had been part of their deal for the limo, but
+maybe that fact had momentarily slipped her mind, what with all the
+important things she had to think about. Or maybe she'd assumed Alex
+had kept it, or maybe she thought it was still in the car. Whatever she
+thought, things were moving too fast now.
+
+"I get the picture," he said, rising from his chair. With a
+
+carefully feigned nonchalance, he strolled over to the table. "Guess
+it's time we got our toothbrushes."
+
+"You won't have to bother, Mr. Vance," Vera continued. "Your suitcases
+were sent to the plane an hour ago. We found them conveniently packed.
+Don't worry. Everything has already been taken care of."
+
+Okay, scratch the Uzi. Looks like it's now or never. Settle it here.
+
+He shot a glance at Eva, then at Ken, trying to signal them. They
+caught it, and they knew. She began strolling in the direction of Vera,
+who was now standing in the doorway, as though readying to depart.
+
+"We appreciate the snappy service," Vance said. He looked down at the
+computer, then bent over. When he came up, it was in his right hand,
+sailing in an arc. He brought it around with all his might, aimed for
+the nearest Japanese _kobun_. He was on target, catching the man
+squarely in the stomach.
+
+With a startled, disbelieving look the Japanese stumbled backward,
+crashing over a large chair positioned next to the table. The other
+_kobun_ instantly reached for his holstered Llama, but by then Kenji
+Nogami had moved, seizing him and momentarily pinning his arms with a
+powerful embrace.
+
+For her own part, Eva had lunged for Vera and her purse, to neutralize
+the Walther she carried. Comrade Karanova, however, had already
+anticipated everything. She whisked back the purse, then plunged her
+hand in. What she withdrew, though, was not a pistol but a shiny
+cylindrical object made of glass.
+
+It was three against three, a snapshot of desperation.
+
+We've got a chance, Vance thought. Keep him down. And get the Llama.
+
+As the _kobun_ tried to rise, gasping, Vance threw himself over the
+upturned chair, reaching to pin the man's arms. With a bear-like
+embrace he had him, the body small and muscular in his arms. Out of the
+corner of his eye he saw Kenji Nogami still grappling with the other
+_kobun_. The computer now lay on the floor, open and askew.
+
+Where's Eva? He tried to turn and look for her, but there was no sound
+to guide him. Then the _kobun_ wrenched free one arm and brought a fist
+against the side of his face, diverting him back to matters at hand.
+
+Hold him down. Just get the gun.
+
+He tried to crush his larger frame against the other's slim body,
+forcing the air out of him. Focus.
+
+But the wiry man was stronger than he looked. With a twist he rolled
+over and pinned Vance's shoulders against the carpet. Vance felt the
+shag, soft against his skin, and couldn't believe how chilly it felt.
+But now he had his hand on the _kobun's_ throat, holding him in a
+powerful grip while jamming a free elbow against the holster.
+
+Cut off his oxygen. Don't let him breathe.
+
+The old moves were coming back, the shortcuts that would bring a more
+powerful opponent to submission. He pressed a thumb against the man's
+windpipe, shutting off his air. A look of surprise went through the
+_kobun's_ eyes as he choked, letting his hold on Vance's shoulders
+slacken.
+
+Now.
+
+He shoved the man's arm aside and reached for the holster. Then his
+hand closed around the hard grip of the Llama. The Japanese was weaker
+now, but still forcing his arm away from the gun, preventing him from
+getting the grip he needed.
+
+He rammed an elbow against the man's chin, then tightened his finger on
+the grip of the Llama. He almost had it.
+
+With his other hand he shoved the _kobun_'s face away, clawing at his
+eyes, and again they rolled over, with the Japanese once more against
+the carpet. But now he had the gun and he was turning.
+
+He felt a sharp jab in his back, a flash of pain that seemed to come
+from nowhere. It was both intense and numbing, as though his spine had
+been caught in a vise. Then he felt his heart constrict, his
+orientation spin. He rolled to the side, flailing an arm to try and
+recover his balance, but the room was in rotation, his vision playing
+tricks.
+
+The one thing he did see was Vera Karanova standing over him, a blurred
+image his mind tried vainly to correct. Her face was faltering, the
+indistinct outlines of a desert mirage. Was she real or was he merely
+dreaming?
+
+. . . Now the room was growing serene, a slow-motion phantasmagoria of
+pastel colors and soft, muted sounds. He tried to reach out, but there
+was nothing. Instead he heard faint music, dulcet beckoning tones. The
+world had entered another dimension, a seamless void. He wanted to be
+part of its emptiness, to swathe himself in the cascade of oblivion
+lifting him up. A perfect repose was drifting through him, a wave of
+darkness. He heard his own breathing as he was buoyed into a blood-red
+mist. He was floating, on a journey he had long waited to take, to a
+place far, far away. . . .
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THREE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+
+Thursday 2:28 P.M.
+
+
+
+"The hypersonic test flight must proceed as scheduled," Tanzan Mino
+said quietly. "Now that all the financial arrangements have been
+completed, the Coordinating Committee of the LDP has agreed to bring
+the treaty before the Diet next week. A delay is unthinkable."
+
+"The problem is not technical, Mino-sama," Taro Ikeda, the project
+director, continued, his tone ripe with deference. "It is the Soviet
+pilot. Perhaps he should be replaced." He looked down, searching for
+the right words. "I'm concerned. I think he has discovered the stealth
+capabilities of the vehicle. Probably accidentally, but all the same,
+I'm convinced he is now aware of them. Two nights ago he engaged in
+certain unauthorized maneuvers I believe were intended to verify those
+capabilities."
+
+"_So deshoo_." Tanzan Mino's eyes narrowed. "But he has said nothing?"
+
+"No. Not a word. At least to me."
+
+"Then perhaps he was merely behaving erratically. It would not be the
+first time."
+
+"The maneuvers. They were too explicit," Ikeda continued. "As I said,
+two nights ago, on the last test fight, he switched off the
+transponder, then performed a snap roll and took the vehicle into a
+power dive, all the way to the deck. It was intended to be a radar-
+evasive action." The project director allowed himself a faint, ironic
+smile. "At least we now know that the technology works. The vehicle's
+radar signature immediately disappeared off the tracking monitors at
+Katsura."
+
+"It met the specifications?"
+
+Ikeda nodded. "Yesterday I ordered a computer analysis of the data
+tapes. The preliminary report suggests it may even have exceeded them."
+
+Tanzan Mino listened in silence. He was sitting at his desk in the
+command sector wing of the North Quadrant at the Hokkaido facility.
+Although the sector was underground, like the rest of the facility,
+behind his desk was a twenty-foot-long "window" with periscope double
+mirrors that showed the churning breakers of La Perouse Strait.
+
+His jet had touched down on the facility's runway at 6:48 A.M. and been
+promptly towed into the hangar. Tanzan Mino intended to be in personal
+command when _Daedalus I_ went hypersonic, in just nineteen hours. The
+video monitors in his office were hard-wired directly to the main
+console in Flight Control, replicating its data displays, and all
+decisions passed across his desk.
+
+"Leave the pilot to me," he said without emotion, revolving to gaze out
+the wide window, which displayed the mid-afternoon sun catching the
+crests of whitecaps far at sea. "What he knows or doesn't know will not
+disrupt the schedule."
+
+Once again, he thought, I've got to handle a problem personally. Why?
+Because nobody else here has the determination to make the scenario
+succeed. First the protocol, and then the money. I had to intervene to
+resolve both.
+
+But, he reflected with a smile, it turned out that handling those
+difficulties personally had produced an unexpected dividend.
+
+"As you say, _Mino-sama_," Ikeda bowed. "I merely wanted to make you
+aware of my concern about the pilot. He should be monitored more
+closely from now on."
+
+"Which is precisely what I intend to do." Tanzan Mino's silver hair
+seemed to blend with the sea beyond. "There is an obvious solution.
+When he takes the vehicle hypersonic, he will not be alone."
+
+"What are you suggesting? No one else--"
+
+"Merely a simple security precaution. If he is not reliable, then steps
+must be taken. Two of our people will be in the cockpit with him."
+
+"You mean the scientists from Tsukuba? The cockpit was designed to
+accommodate a three-man crew, but MITI hasn't yet designated the two
+researchers."
+
+"No. I mean my personal pilot and copilot. From the Boeing. Then if
+Androv deviates from the prescribed test program in any way, they will
+be there, ready to take immediate action. The problem is solved." He
+revolved back from the window. "That will be all."
+
+Ikeda bowed, then turned and hurriedly made his way toward the door. He
+didn't like last-minute improvisations, but the CEO was now fully in
+command. Preparations for two additional life-support systems would
+have to be started immediately.
+
+After Tanzan Mino watched him depart, he reached down and activated a
+line of personal video monitors beside his desk.
+
+
+
+Thursday 2:34 P.M.
+
+
+
+Vance recognized the sound immediately. It was the harp-like plucking
+of a Japanese _koto_, punctuated by the tinkling of a wind chime.
+Without opening his eyes, he reached out and touched a hard, textured
+surface. It was, he realized, a straw mat, and from the firmness of the
+weave he knew it was _tatami_. Then he felt the soft cotton of the
+padded mat beneath him and guessed he was lying on a futon. The air in
+the room was faintly spiced with Mahayana Buddhist temple incense.
+
+I'm in Japan, he told himself. Or somebody wants me to think I am.
+
+He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a rice-paper lamp on
+the floor next to his futon. Directly behind it, on the left, was a
+_tokonoma _art alcove, built next to a set of sliding doors. A small,
+round _shoji_ window in the _tokonoma  _shed a mysterious glow on its
+hanging scroll, the painting an ink sketch of a Zen monk fording a
+shallow stream.
+
+Then he noticed an insignia that had been painted on the sliding doors
+with a giant brush. He struggled to focus, and finally grasped that it
+was the Minoan double ax, logo of the Daedalus Corporation.
+
+Jesus!
+
+He lay a minute, nursing the ache in his head and trying to remember
+what had happened. All he could recall was London, money, Eva . . .
+
+Eva. Where was she?
+
+He popped erect and surveyed the room. It was traditional Jap anese,
+the standard four-and-a-half tatami in size, bare and Spartan. A
+classic.
+
+But the music. It seemed to be coming through the walls.
+
+The walls. They all looked to be rice paper. He clambered up and headed
+for the fusuma with the double-ax logo. He tested it and realized that
+the paper was actually painted steel. And it was locked. The room was
+secure as a vault.
+
+But across, opposite the _tokonoma_, was another set of sliding doors.
+As he turned to walk over, he noticed he was wearing _tabi_, light
+cotton stockings split at the toe, and he was clad in a blue-patterned
+_yukata_  robe, cinched at the waist. He'd been stripped and re-
+dressed.
+
+This door was real, and he shoved it open. A suite of rooms lay beyond,
+and there on a second futon, still in a drugged sleep, lay Eva. He
+moved across, bent down, and shook her. She jerked away, her dreaming
+disrupted, and turned over, but she didn't come out of it.
+
+"Wake up." He shook her again. "The party just got moved. Wait'll you
+get a load of the decor."
+
+"What . . ." She rolled back and cracked open her bloodshot eyes. Then
+she rose on one elbow and gazed around the room. It was appointed
+identically to his, with only the hanging scroll in the _tokonoma_
+different, hers being an angular, three-level landscape. "My God."
+
+"Welcome to the wonderful world of Tanzan Mino. I don't know where the
+hell we are, but it's definitely not Kansas, or London."
+
+"My head feels like I was at ground zero when the bomb hit. My whole
+body aches." She groaned and plopped back down on the futon. "What time
+do you think it is?"
+
+"Haven't a clue. How about starting with what day?" He felt for his
+watch and realized it was gone. "What does it matter anyway? Nobody has
+clocks in never-never land."
+
+Satisfied she was okay, he stood up and surveyed the room. Then he saw
+what he'd expected. There in the center of the ceiling, integrated into
+the pattern of light-colored woods, was the glass eye of a video
+camera.
+
+And the music. Still the faint music.
+
+He walked on down to the far end of her room and shoved aside another
+set of sliding doors, also painted with the double-ax insignia. He
+found himself looking at a third large space, this one paneled in raw
+cypress. It was vast, and in the center was a cedar hot tub, sunk into
+the floor. The water was fresh and steaming, and two tiny stools and
+rinsing pails were located conveniently nearby on the redwood decking.
+It was a traditional _o-furo_, one of the finest he'd ever seen.
+
+"You're not going to believe this." He turned back and waved her
+forward. In the soft rice-paper glow of the lamp she looked rakishly
+disheveled. Japanese architecture always made him think of lovemaking.
+"Our host probably figured we'd want to freshen up for the festivities.
+Check it out."
+
+"What?" She was shakily rising, pulling her yukata around her.
+
+"All the comforts of home. Too bad they forgot the geisha."
+
+She came over and stood beside him. "I don't believe this."
+
+"Want to see if it's real, or just a mirage?"
+
+She hesitantly stepped onto the decking, then walked out and bent down
+to test the water. "Feels wet." She glanced back. "So what the heck. I
+could use it."
+
+"I'm ready." He kicked off his tabi and walked on out.
+
+She pulled off his _yukata_, then picked up one of the pails and began
+filling it from a spigot on the wall. "Okay, exalted male," she
+laughed, "I'm going to scrub you. That's how they do it, right?" She
+stood up and reached for a sponge and soap.
+
+"They know how to live. Here, let me." He picked up a second sponge and
+began scrubbing her back in turn. "How does it feel?"
+
+"Maybe this is heaven."
+
+"Hope we didn't have to die to get here. But hang on. I've got a
+feeling the fun is just beginning."
+
+He splashed her off with one of the pails, then watched as she gingerly
+climbed down into the wooden tub.
+
+"Michael, where do you think we are?" She sighed as the steam enveloped
+her. "This has got to be Japan, but where?"
+
+"Got a funny feeling I know." He was settling into the water beside
+her. "But if I told you, you'd probably think I'm hallucinating." Above
+the tub, he suddenly noticed yet another video camera.
+
+As they lay soaking, the _koto _music around them abruptly stopped, its
+poignant twangs disappearing with an electronic click.
+
+"Are you finding the accommodations adequate?"
+
+The voice was coming from a speaker carefully integrated into the raw
+cypress ceiling.
+
+"All things considered, we'd sooner be in Philadelphia." Vance looked
+up.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that," the voice continued. "No expense has been
+spared. My own personal quarters have been placed at your disposal."
+
+"Mind telling me who's watching me bathe?" Eva splashed a handful of
+water at the lens.
+
+"You have no secrets from me, Dr. Borodin. However, in the interest of
+propriety I have switched off the monitor for the bath. I'm afraid my
+people were somewhat overly zealous, installing one there in the first
+place." The voice chuckled. "But I should think you'd know. I am CEO of
+the Daedalus Corporation, an organization not unfamiliar to you."
+
+"All right," she said, "so where are we?"
+
+"Why, you are in the corporation's Hokkaido facility. As my guests.
+Since you two have taken such an interest in this project, I thought it
+only fitting you should have an opportunity to see it first hand."
+
+"Mind giving us a preview of the upcoming agenda?" Vance leaned back.
+"We need to plan our day."
+
+"Quite simply, I thought it was time you and I got reacquainted, Dr.
+Vance. It's been a long time."
+
+"Eight years."
+
+"Yes. Eight years . . ." There was a pause. "If you would excuse me a
+moment, I must take a call."
+
+The speaker clicked off.
+
+"Michael, I've got a very bad feeling about all this." She was rising
+from the bath, her back to the camera. "What do you think he's going to
+do?"
+
+He's going to kill us, Vance realized. After he's played with us a
+while. It's really quite simple.
+
+"I don't know," he lied.
+
+Then the speaker clicked on again. "Please forgive me. There are so
+many demands on my time. However, I was hoping you, Dr. Vance, would
+consent to join me this afternoon for tea. We have some urgent matters
+to discuss."
+
+"I'll see if I can work it into my schedule."
+
+"Given the hectic goings-on here at the moment, perhaps a quiet moment
+would be useful for us both." He paused again, speaking to someone
+else, then his voice came back. "Shall we say four o'clock."
+
+"What time is it now?"
+
+"Please forgive me. I forgot. Your world is not regimented by time,
+whereas mine regrettably is measured down to seconds. It is now almost
+three in the afternoon. I shall expect you in one hour. Your clothes
+are in the closet in your room. Now, if you will allow me. Affairs . .
+."
+
+And the voice was gone.
+
+"Michael, are you really going to talk with that criminal?"
+
+"Wouldn't miss it for the world. There's a game going on here, and we
+have to stay in. Everybody's got a score to settle. We're about to see
+who settles up first."
+
+
+
+Thursday 3:29 P.M.
+
+
+
+"Zero minus eighteen hours." Yuri Andreevich Androv stared at the green
+screen, its numbers scrolling the computerized countdown. "Eighteen
+fucking hours."
+
+As he wheeled around, gazing over the beehive of activity in Flight
+Control, he could already feel the adrenaline beginning to build.
+Everything depended on him now. The vehicle was as ready as it was
+going to be: all the wind tunnel tests, all the computer simulations,
+even the supersonic test flights--everything said go. _Daedalus I_ was
+going to make history tomorrow morning.
+
+Except, he told himself, it's going to be a very different history from
+the one everybody expects.
+
+"Major Yuri Andreevich Androv, please report to Hangar Quadrant
+immediately."
+
+The stridency of the facility's paging system always annoyed him. He
+glanced at the long line of computer screens one last time, then
+shrugged and checked his watch. Who wanted him?
+
+Well, a new planeload of Soviet VIPs reportedly had flown in yesterday,
+though he hadn't seen any of them yet. He figured now that everything
+looked ready, the _nomenklatura _were flooding in to bask in triumph.
+Maybe after a day of vodka drinking and back slapping with the
+officials in Project Management, they'd sobered up and realized they
+were expected to file reports. So they were finally getting around to
+talking to the people who were doing the actual work. They'd summon in
+a few staffers who had hands-on knowledge of the project and commission
+a draft report, which they'd then file, unread, under their own names.
+Typical.
+
+He reached for his leather flight jacket, deciding on a brisk walk to
+work off the tension. The long corridor leading from the East Quadrant
+to the Hangar Quadrant took him directly past Checkpoint Central and
+the entry to West Quadrant, the Soviet sector, which also contained the
+flight simulator and the main wind tunnel, or Number One, both now
+quiet.
+
+As he walked, he thought again about the new rumor he'd heard in the
+commissary at lunch. Gossip kept the Soviet staff going--an instinct
+from the old days--but this one just might be true. Some lower-level
+staffers even claimed they'd seen him. The Chief.
+
+Word was Tanzan Mino himself--none other than the CEO of the Daedalus
+Corporation--had flown in this morning, together with his personal
+bodyguards and aides. The story was he wanted hands-on control of the
+first hypersonic test flight, wanted to be calling the shots in Flight
+Control when _Daedalus I _made history.
+
+Finally. The Big Man has decided to show his face.
+
+"Yuri Andreevich, just a minute. Slow down."
+
+He recognized the voice immediately and glanced around to see Nikolai
+Vasilevich Grishkov, the portly Soviet chief mechanic, just emerging
+from the West Quadrant. His bushy eyebrows hung like a pair of Siberian
+musk-ox horns above his gleaming dark eyes.
+
+"Have you seen her?" Grishkov was shuffling toward him.
+
+"Seen who?" He examined the mechanic's spotless white coveralls. Jesus!
+Even the support crews on this project were all sanitized, high-tech.
+
+"The new woman. _Kracevia, moi droog. Ochen kracevia_. Beautiful beyond
+words. And she is important. You can tell just by looking."
+
+"Nikolai, there's never been a woman in this facility." He laughed and
+continued on toward Security. "It's worse than a goddam troop ship.
+You've finally started hallucinating from lack of _pezdyonka_."
+
+"Yuri Andreevich, she's here and she's Soviet." The chief mechanic
+followed him. "Some believe she arrived this morning with the CEO, but
+nobody knows who she is. One rumor is she's Vera Karanova."
+
+"Who?" The name was vaguely familiar.
+
+"T-Directorate. Like I said, no one knows for sure, but that's what
+we've heard."
+
+"Impossible." He halted and turned back, frowning.
+
+"That's just it, Yuri Andreevich," he sighed. "Those KGB bastards are
+not supposed to even know about this project.
+
+That was everybody's strict understanding. We were to be free of them
+here. But now . . ." He caught the sleeve of Androv's flight jacket and
+pulled him aside, out of the flow of pedestrian traffic in the hallway.
+"My men were wondering. Maybe you could find a way to check her out?
+You have better access. Everybody wants to know what's going on."
+
+"KGB? It doesn't make any sense."
+
+"If she's really . . . I just talked to the project kurirovat, Ivan
+Semenovich, and he told me Karanova's now number three in T-
+Directorate."
+
+"Well, there's nothing we can do now, so the hell with her." He waved
+his hand and tried to move on. "We've both got better things to worry
+about."
+
+"Just keep your antenna tuned, my friend, that's all. Let me know if
+you can find out anything. Is she really Karanova? Because if she is,
+we damned well need to know the inside story."
+
+"Nikolai, if I see her, I'll be sure and ask." He winked. "And if she's
+the hot number you say, maybe I'll find time to warm her up a little.
+Get her to drop her . . . guard."
+
+"If you succeed in that, _moi droog_," he said as his heavy eyebrows
+lifted with a sly grin, "you'll be the envy of the facility. You've got
+to see her."
+
+"I can't wait." He shrugged and moved on toward the Hangar Security
+station, at the end of the long corridor. When he flashed his A-level
+priority ID for the two Japanese guards, he noticed they nervously made
+a show of scrutinizing it, even though they both knew him perfectly
+well, before saluting and authorizing entry.
+
+That nails it, he told himself. Out of nowhere we suddenly have all
+this rule-book crap. These guys are nervous as hell. No doubt about it,
+the big _nachalnik_ is on the scene.
+
+Great. Let all those assholes on the Soviet staff see the expression on
+his face when the truth comes out. That's the real history we're about
+to make here.
+
+As he walked into the glare of neon, the cavernous space had never
+seemed more vast, more imposing. He'd seen a lot of hangars, flown a
+lot of experimental planes over the years, but nothing to match this.
+Still, he always reminded himself, Daedalus was only hardware, just
+more fancy iron. What really counted was the balls of the pilot holding
+the flight stick.
+
+That's when he saw them, clustered around the vehicle and gazing up. He
+immediately recognized Colonel-General of Aviation Anatoly Savitsky,
+whose humorless face appeared almost weekly in Soviet Military Review;
+Major- General Igor Mikhailov, whose picture routinely graced the pages
+of Air Defense Herald; and also Colonel-General Pavel Ogarkov, a
+marshal of the Soviet air force before that rank was abolished by the
+general secretary.
+
+What are those Air Force neanderthals doing here? They're all notorious
+hardliners, the "bomb first, ask questions later" boys. And _Daedalus_
+is supposed to be for space research, right? Guess the bullshit is
+about to be over. We're finally getting down to the real scenario.
+
+And there in the middle, clearly the man in charge, was a tall, silver-
+haired Japanese in a charcoal silk suit. He was showing off the
+vehicles as though he owned them, and he carried himself with an
+authority that made all the hovering Soviet generals look like bellboys
+waiting for a tip.
+
+Well, Yuri Andreevich thought, for the time being he does own them.
+They're bought and paid for, just like us.
+
+"_Tovarisch_, Major Androv, _kak pazhavatye_," came a voice behind him.
+He turned and realized it belonged to General Valentin Sokolov,
+commander of the MiG 31 wing at the Dolinsk air base on Sakhalin.
+Sokolov was three star, top man in all the Soviet Far East. Flanking
+him were half a dozen colonels and lieutenant colonels.
+
+"Comrade General Sokolov." He whipped off a quick salute. Brass. Brass
+everywhere. Shit. What in hell was this all about?
+
+Now the project director, Taro Ikeda, had broken away from the Soviet
+group and was approaching. "Yuri Andreevich, thank you for coming." He
+bowed deferentially. "You are about to receive a great honor. The CEO
+has asked for a private conference with you."
+
+Yuri stared over Ikeda's shoulder at the Man-in-Charge. All this right-
+wing brass standing around kissing his ass counted for nothing. He was
+the one calling the shots. Who was everybody kidding?
+
+Now the CEO looked his way, sizing him up with a quick glance. Yuri
+Androv assessed him in turn. It was one look, but they both knew there
+was trouble ahead.
+
+Then Tanzan Mino patted a colonel-general on the shoulder and headed
+over. "Yuri Andreevich Androv, I presume," he said in flawless Russian,
+bowing lightly. "A genuine pleasure to meet you at last. There's a most
+urgent matter we have to discuss."
+
+
+
+Thursday 4:00 P.M.
+
+
+
+At the precise hour, the _tokonoma _alcove off Vance's bedroom rotated
+ninety degrees, as though moved by an unseen hand, and what awaited
+beyond was a traditional Japanese sand-and-stone garden. It was, of
+course, lit artificially, but the clusters of green shrubs seemed to be
+thriving on the fluorescents. Through the garden's grassy center was a
+curving pathway of flat stepping stones placed artfully in irregular
+curves, and situated on either side of the walkway were towering rocks
+nestled in glistening sand that had been raked to represent ocean
+waves. The rocks were reminiscent of the soaring mountains in Chinese
+Sung landscape paintings.
+
+Vance's attention, however, was riveted on what awaited at the end of
+the stony walkway. It was a traditional teahouse, set in a grove of
+flowering azaleas. And standing in the doorway was a silver-haired
+figure dressed in a formal black kimono. He was beckoning.
+
+"Did I neglect to tell you I prefer Japanese _cha-no-yu _to the usual
+British afternoon tea?" Tanzan Mino announced. "It is a ritual designed
+to renew the spirit, to cleanse the mind. It goes back hundreds of
+years. I always enjoy it in the afternoon, and I find it has
+marvelously restorative powers. This seemed the ideal occasion for us
+to meet and chat."
+
+"Don't want to slight tradition." Vance slipped on the pair of wooden
+clogs that awaited at the bottom of the path.
+
+"My feelings entirely," the CEO continued, smiling as he watched him
+approach. "You understand the Japanese way, Dr. Vance, which is one
+reason we have so much to discuss."
+
+He bowed a greeting as Vance deposited his clogs on the stepping stone
+by the teahouse door. Together they stooped to enter.
+
+A light murmur of boiling water came from a brazier set into the
+_tatami_-matted floor, but otherwise the room was caught in an ethereal
+silence. The decor was more modern than most teahouses, with fresh
+cedar and pine for the ceiling and walls rather than the customary
+reed, bark, and bamboo.
+
+Tanzan Mino gestured for him to sit opposite as he immediately began
+the formalities of ritually cleaning the bamboo scoop, then elevating
+the rugged white tea bowl like an ancient chalance and ceremonially
+wiping it. All the while his eyes were emotionless, betraying no hint
+of what was in his mind.
+
+After the utensils were ceremonially cleansed, he wordlessly scooped a
+portion of pale-green powdered tea into the bowl, then lifted a
+dipperful of boiling water from the kettle and poured it in. Finally he
+picked up a bamboo whisk and began to whip the mixture, continuing
+until it had acquired the consistency of green foam.
+
+Authority, control, and--above all--discipline. Those things, Vance knew,
+were what this was really about. As was traditional and proper, not a
+word was spoken. This was the Zen equivalent of High Mass, and Tanzan
+Mino was silently letting him know he was a true master--of himself, of
+his world.
+
+Then the _oyabun _reached over and formally presented the bowl, placing
+it on the _tatami  _in front of his guest.
+
+Vance lifted it up, rotated it a half turn in his hand, and took a
+reserved sip. As the bitter beverage assaulted his mouth, he found
+himself thinking this was probably intended to be his Last Supper. He
+hoped he remembered enough to get the moves right.
+
+He sipped one more time, then wiped the rim, formally repositioned the
+bowl on the _tatami_, and leaned back.
+
+"Perfectly done," Tanzan Mino smiled as he broke the silence. "I'm
+impressed." He nodded toward the white bowl. "Incidentally, you were
+just handling one of the finest pieces in all Japan."
+
+"Shino ware. Mino region, late sixteenth century. Remarkably fine
+glaze, considering those kilns had just started firing _chawan_."
+
+"You have a learned eye, Dr. Vance." He smiled again, glancing down to
+admire the rough, cracked surface of the rim. "The experts disagree on
+the age, some saying very early seventeenth century, but I think your
+assessment is correct. In any case, just handling it always soothes my
+spirit. The discipline of the samurai is in a _chawan_ like this. And
+in the _cha-no-yu_ ceremony itself. It's a test I frequently give my
+Western friends. To see if they can grasp its spirituality. I'm pleased
+to say that you handled the bowl exactly as you should have. You
+understand that Japanese culture is about shaping the randomness of
+human actions to a refined perfection. That's what we really should be
+discussing here this afternoon, not the world of affairs, but I'm
+afraid time is short. I often think of life in terms of a famous Haiku
+by the poet Shiki:
+
+
+
+_Hira-hira to
+
+Kaze ni nigarete
+
+Cho hitotsu.
+
+_
+
+"Sounds more like your new airplane," Vance observed, then translated:
+
+
+
+A mortal butterfly
+
+Fluttering and drifting
+
+In the wind.
+
+
+
+"A passable enough rendering, if I may say, though I don't necessarily
+accept your analogy." He reached down and lifted a bottle of warmed
+sake from beside the brazier. "By the way, I know you prefer tequila,
+one of your odd quirks, but there was no time to acquire any. Perhaps
+this will suffice."
+
+He set down two black _raku_ saucers and began to pour. "Now, alas, we
+must proceed."
+
+Post time, Vance thought.
+
+"Dr. Michael Vance." He lifted his saucer in a toast. "A scholar of the
+lost Aegean civilizations, a former operative of the Central
+Intelligence Agency, and finally a private consultant affiliated with a
+group of mercenaries. I had your file updated when I first heard you
+were involved. I see you have not been entirely idle since our last
+encounter."
+
+"You haven't done too bad yourself." Vance toasted him back. "This new
+project is a big step up from the old days. Has a lot of style."
+
+"It does indeed," he nodded. "I'm quite proud of our achievement here."
+
+"You always thought big." Vance sipped again at his sake, warm and
+soothing.
+
+"It's kind of you to have remembered." Mino drank once more, then
+settled his saucer on the _tatami _and looked up. "Of course, any
+questions you have, I would be--"
+
+"Okay, how's this. What do you expect to get out of me?"
+
+He laughed. "Why nothing at all. Our reunion here is merely intended to
+serve as a tutorial. To remind you and others how upsetting I find
+intrusions into my affairs."
+
+"Then how about starting off this 'tutorial' with a look at your new
+plane?" Vance glanced around. "Guess I should call it _Daedalus_."
+
+"_Daedalus I _and_ II. _There actually are two prototypes, although
+only one is currently certified to operate in the hypersonic regime.
+Yes, I expected the _Daedalus_ would intrigue you. You are a man of
+insatiable intellectual appetite."
+
+"I'm not sure that's necessarily a compliment."
+
+"It wasn't necessarily meant to be. Sometimes curiosity needs to be
+curbed. But if we can agree on certain matters, I shall enjoy providing
+you a personal tour, to satisfy that curiosity. You are a man who can
+well appreciate both my technological achievement and my strategic
+coup."
+
+The old boy's finally gone off the deep end, Vance told himself.
+Megalomania. "Incidentally, by 'strategic coup' I suppose you're
+referring to the fact you've got them exactly where you want them. The
+Soviets."
+
+"What do you mean?" His eyes hardened slightly.
+
+"You know what I mean. They probably don't realize it yet, but you're
+going to end up with the Soviet Far East in your wallet. For the price
+of a hot airplane, you get to plunder the region. They're even going to
+be thanking you while you reclaim Sakhalin for Japan. This _Daedalus_
+spaceship is going to cost them the ranch. Have to admit it's
+brilliant. Along with financing the whole scheme by swindling Benelux
+tax dodgers."
+
+"You are too imaginative for your own good, Dr. Vance," he said, a thin
+smile returning. "Nobody is going to believe your interpretation of the
+protocol."
+
+"You've got a point. Nobody appreciates the true brilliance of a
+criminal mind. Or maybe they just haven't known you as long as I have."
+
+"Really, I'd hoped we would not descend to trading insults." He reached
+to refill Vance's sake saucer. "It's demeaning. Instead I'd hoped we
+could proceed constructively."
+
+"Why not."
+
+"Well then, perhaps you'll forgive me if I'm somewhat blunt. I'm afraid
+my time is going to be limited over the next few hours. I may as well
+tell you now that we are about to have the first hypersonic test of the
+_Daedalus_. Tomorrow morning we will take her to Mach 25. Seventeen
+thousand miles per hour. A speed almost ten times greater than any air-
+breathing vehicle has ever before achieved."
+
+"The sky's the limit," he whistled quietly. Alex hadn't known the half
+of it. This was the ultimate plane.
+
+"Impressive, I think you'll agree." Mino smiled and poured more sake
+for himself.
+
+"Congratulations."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"That ought to grease the way in the Diet for your deal. And the
+protocol's financial grab ought to sail through the Supreme Soviet. You
+prove this marvel can work and the rest is merely laundering your
+profits."
+
+"So I would like to think," he nodded. "Of course, one never knows how
+these things will eventually turn out."
+
+"So when do I get a look at it?"
+
+"Why, that all depends on certain agreements we need to make."
+
+"Then I guess it's time I heard the bottom line."
+
+"Most assuredly." He leaned back. "Dr. Vance, you have just caused me
+considerable hardship. Nor is this the first occasion you have done so.
+Yet, I have not achieved what I have to date without becoming something
+of a judge of men. The financial arrangements you put together in
+London demonstrated, I thought, remarkable ingenuity. There could be a
+place for you in my organization, despite all that has happened between
+us."
+
+"I don't work for the mob, if that's what you're hoping."
+
+"Don't be foolhardy. Those days are well behind me," he went on calmly,
+despite the flicker of anger in his eyes. "The completion of this
+project will require financial and strategic skills well beyond those
+possessed by the people who have worked for me in the past."
+
+"All those petty criminals and hoods, you mean."
+
+"I will choose to ignore that," he continued. "Whatever you may wish to
+call them, they are not proving entirely adequate to the task at hand.
+You bested my European people repeatedly and brought me a decided
+humiliation."
+
+Speaking of which, Vance found himself suddenly wondering, a thought
+out of the blue, what's happened to Vera? She's been European point
+woman for this whole scam. Where's she now?
+
+Mino continued. "Therefore I must now either take you into my
+organization or . . ." He paused. "It's that simple. Which, I wonder,
+will it be?"
+
+Vance studied him. "A lot depends on what happens to Eva."
+
+"The fate of Dr. Borodin depends largely on your decision. So perhaps I
+should give you some time to think it over." He leaned back. "Or
+perhaps some inducement."
+
+Vance didn't know what he meant. At first. Then he turned and looked
+behind him. There waiting on the stony walkway of the garden were three
+of Tanzan Mino's personal _kobun_, two of whom he recognized from
+London. The CEO's instructions to them were in rapid-fire Japanese, but
+he needed no translation as they moved forward.
+
+
+
+ravelled round everything. Here men don't idealise women, by the looks
+of things. Here they don't make these great leering eyes, the inevitable
+yours-to-command look of Italian males. When the men from the country
+look at these women, then it is Mind-yourself, my lady. I should think
+the grovelling Madonna-worship is not much of a Sardinian feature. These
+women have to look out for themselves, keep their own back-bone stiff
+and their knuckles hard. Man is going to be male Lord if he can. And
+woman isn't going to give him too much of his own way, either. So there
+you have it, the fine old martial split between the sexes. It is tonic
+and splendid, really, after so much sticky intermingling and
+backboneless Madonna-worship. The Sardinian isn't looking for the "noble
+woman nobly planned." No, thank you. He wants that young madam over
+there, a young stiff-necked generation that she is. Far better sport
+than with the nobly-planned sort: hollow frauds that they are. Better
+sport too than with a Carmen, who gives herself away too much, In these
+women there is something shy and defiant and un-get-atable. The defiant,
+splendid split between the sexes, each absolutely determined to defend
+his side, her side, from assault. So the meeting has a certain wild,
+salty savour, each the deadly unknown to the other. And at the same
+time, each his own, her own native pride and courage, taking the
+dangerous leap and scrambling back.
+
+Give me the old, salty way of love. How I am nauseated with sentiment
+and nobility, the macaroni slithery-slobbery mess of modern adorations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One sees a few fascinating faces in Cagliari: those great dark unlighted
+eyes. There are fascinating dark eyes in Sicily, bright, big, with an
+impudent point of light, and a curious roll, and long lashes: the eyes
+of old Greece, surely. But here one sees eyes of soft, blank darkness,
+all velvet, with no imp looking out of them. And they strike a stranger,
+older note: before the soul became self-conscious: before the mentality
+of Greece appeared in the world. Remote, always remote, as if the
+intelligence lay deep within the cave, and never came forward. One
+searches into the gloom for one second, while the glance lasts. But
+without being able to penetrate to the reality. It recedes, like some
+unknown creature deeper into its lair. There is a creature, dark and
+potent. But what?
+
+Sometimes Velasquez, and sometimes Goya gives us a suggestion of these
+large, dark, unlighted eyes. And they go with fine, fleecy black
+hair--almost as fine as fur. I have not seen them north of Cagliari.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The q-b spies some of the blue-and-red stripe-and-line cotton stuff of
+which the peasants make their dress: a large roll in the doorway of a
+dark shop. In we go, and begin to feel it. It is just soft, thickish
+cotton stuff--twelve francs a metre. Like most peasant patterns, it is
+much more complicated and subtle than appears: the curious placing of
+the stripes, the subtle proportion, and a white thread left down one
+side only of each broad blue block. The stripes, moreover, run _across_
+the cloth, not lengthwise with it. But the width would be just long
+enough for a skirt--though the peasant skirts have almost all a band at
+the bottom with the stripes running round-ways.
+
+The man--he is the esquimo type, simple, frank and aimiable--says the
+stuff is made in France, and this the first roll since the war. It is
+the old, old pattern, quite correct--but the material not _quite_ so
+good. The q-b takes enough for a dress.
+
+He shows us also cashmeres, orange, scarlet, sky-blue, royal blue: good,
+pure-wool cashmeres that were being sent to India, and were captured
+from a German mercantile sub-marine. So he says. Fifty francs a
+metre--very, very wide. But they are too much trouble to carry in a
+knapsack, though their brilliance fascinates.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So we stroll and look at the shops, at the filigree gold jewelling of
+the peasants, at a good bookshop. But there is little to see and
+therefore the question is, shall we go on? Shall we go forward?
+
+There are two ways of leaving Cagliari for the north: the State railway
+that runs up the west side of the island, and the narrow-gauge secondary
+railway that pierces the centre. But we are too late for the big trains.
+So we will go by the secondary railway, wherever it goes.
+
+There is a train at 2.30, and we can get as far as Mandas, some fifty
+miles in the interior. When we tell the queer little waiter at the
+hotel, he says he comes from Mandas, and there are two inns. So after
+lunch--a strictly fish menu--we pay our bill. It comes to sixty odd
+francs--for three good meals each, with wine, and the night's lodging,
+this is cheap, as prices now are in Italy.
+
+Pleased with the simple and friendly Scala di Ferre, I shoulder my sack
+and we walk off to the second station. The sun is shining hot this
+afternoon--burning hot, by the sea. The road and the buildings look dry
+and desiccated, the harbour rather weary and end of the world.
+
+There is a great crowd of peasants at the little station. And almost
+every man has a pair of woven saddle-bags--a great flat strip of
+coarse-woven wool, with flat pockets at either end, stuffed with
+purchases. These are almost the only carrying bags. The men sling them
+over their shoulder, so that one great pocket hangs in front, one
+behind.
+
+These saddle bags are most fascinating. They are coarsely woven in bands
+of raw black-rusty wool, with varying bands of raw white wool or hemp or
+cotton--the bands and stripes of varying widths going cross-wise. And on
+the pale bands are woven sometimes flowers in most lovely colours,
+rose-red and blue and green, peasant patterns--and sometimes fantastic
+animals, beasts, in dark wool again. So that these striped zebra bags,
+some wonderful gay with flowery colours on their stripes, some weird
+with fantastic, griffin-like animals, are a whole landscape in
+themselves.
+
+The train has only first and third class. It costs about thirty francs
+for the two of us, third class to Mandas, which is some sixty miles. In
+we crowd with the joyful saddle-bags, into the wooden carriage with its
+many seats.
+
+And, wonder of wonders, punctually to the second, off we go, out of
+Cagliari. En route again.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+MANDAS.
+
+
+The coach was fairly full of people, returning from market. On these
+railways the third class coaches are not divided into compartments. They
+are left open, so that one sees everybody, as down a room. The
+attractive saddle-bags, _bercole_, were disposed anywhere, and the bulk
+of the people settled down to a lively _conversazione_. It is much
+nicest, on the whole, to travel third class on the railway. There is
+space, there is air, and it is like being in a lively inn, everybody in
+good spirits.
+
+At our end was plenty of room. Just across the gangway was an elderly
+couple, like two children, coming home very happily. He was fat, fat all
+over, with a white moustache and a little not-unamiable frown. She was a
+tall lean, brown woman, in a brown full-skirted dress and black apron,
+with huge pocket. She wore no head covering, and her iron grey hair was
+parted smoothly. They were rather pleased and excited being in the
+train. She took all her money out of her big pocket, and counted it and
+gave it to him: all the ten Lira notes, and the five Lira and the two
+and the one, peering at the dirty scraps of pink-backed one-lira notes
+to see if they were good. Then she gave him her half-pennies. And he
+stowed them away in the trouser pocket, standing up to push them down
+his fat leg. And then one saw, to one's amazement, that the whole of his
+shirt-tail was left out behind, like a sort of apron worn backwards.
+Why--a mystery. He was one of those fat, good-natured, unheeding men
+with a little masterful frown, such as usually have tall, lean,
+hard-faced, obedient wives.
+
+They were very happy. With amazement he watched us taking hot tea from
+the Thermos flask. I think he too had suspected it might be a bomb. He
+had blue eyes and standing-up white eyebrows.
+
+"Beautiful hot--!" he said, seeing the tea steam. It is the inevitable
+exclamation. "Does it do you good?"
+
+"Yes," said the q-b. "Much good." And they both nodded complacently.
+They were going home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The train was running over the malarial-looking sea-plain--past the
+down-at-heel palm trees, past the mosque-looking buildings. At a level
+crossing the woman crossing-keeper darted out vigorously with her red
+flag. And we rambled into the first village. It was built of sun-dried
+brick-adobe houses, thick adobe garden-walls, with tile ridges to keep
+off the rain. In the enclosures were dark orange trees. But the
+clay-coloured villages, clay-dry, looked foreign: the next thing to mere
+earth they seem, like fox-holes or coyote colonies.
+
+Looking back, one sees Cagliari bluff on her rock, rather fine, with the
+thin edge of the sea's blade curving round. It is rather hard to believe
+in the real sea, on this sort of clay-pale plain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But soon we begin to climb to the hills. And soon the cultivation begins
+to be intermittent. Extraordinary how the heathy, moor-like hills come
+near the sea: extraordinary how scrubby and uninhabited the great spaces
+of Sardinia are. It is wild, with heath and arbutus scrub and a sort of
+myrtle, breast-high. Sometimes one sees a few head of cattle. And then
+again come the greyish arable-patches, where the corn is grown. It is
+like Cornwall, like the Land's End region. Here and there, in the
+distance, are peasants working on the lonely landscape. Sometimes it is
+one man alone in the distance, showing so vividly in his black-and-white
+costume, small and far-off like a solitary magpie, and curiously
+distinct. All the strange magic of Sardinia is in this sight. Among the
+low, moor-like hills, away in a hollow of the wide landscape one
+solitary figure, small but vivid black-and-white, working alone, as if
+eternally. There are patches and hollows of grey arable land, good for
+corn. Sardinia was once a great granary.
+
+Usually, however, the peasants of the South have left off the costume.
+Usually it is the invisible soldiers' grey-green cloth, the Italian
+khaki. Wherever you go, wherever you be, you see this khaki, this
+grey-green war-clothing. How many millions of yards of the thick,
+excellent, but hateful material the Italian government must have
+provided I don't know: but enough to cover Italy with a felt carpet, I
+should think. It is everywhere. It cases the tiny children in stiff and
+neutral frocks and coats, it covers their extinguished fathers, and
+sometimes it even encloses the women in its warmth. It is symbolic of
+the universal grey mist that has come over men, the extinguishing of all
+bright individuality, the blotting out of all wild singleness. Oh
+democracy! Oh khaki democracy!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This is very different from Italian landscape. Italy is almost always
+dramatic, and perhaps invariably romantic. There is drama in the plains
+of Lombardy, and romance in the Venetian lagoons, and sheer scenic
+excitement in nearly all the hilly parts of the peninsula. Perhaps it is
+the natural floridity of lime-stone formations. But Italian landscape is
+really eighteenth-century landscape, to be represented in that
+romantic-classic manner which makes everything rather marvelous and very
+topical: aqueducts, and ruins upon sugar-loaf mountains, and craggy
+ravines and Wilhelm Meister water-falls: all up and down.
+
+Sardinia is another thing. Much wider, much more ordinary, not
+up-and-down at all, but running away into the distance. Unremarkable
+ridges of moor-like hills running away, perhaps to a bunch of dramatic
+peaks on the southwest. This gives a sense of space, which is so lacking
+in Italy. Lovely space about one, and traveling distances--nothing
+finished, nothing final. It is like liberty itself, after the peaky
+confinement of Sicily. Room--give me room--give me room for my spirit:
+and you can have all the toppling crags of romance.
+
+So we ran on through the gold of the afternoon, across a wide, almost
+Celtic landscape of hills, our little train winding and puffing away
+very nimbly. Only the heath and scrub, breast-high, man-high, is too big
+and brigand-like for a Celtic land. The horns of black, wild-looking
+cattle show sometimes.
+
+After a long pull, we come to a station after a stretch of loneliness.
+Each time, it looks as if there were nothing beyond--no more
+habitations. And each time we come to a station.
+
+Most of the people have left the train. And as with men driving in a
+gig, who get down at every public-house, so the passengers usually
+alight for an airing at each station. Our old fat friend stands up and
+tucks his shirt-tail comfortably in his trousers, which trousers all the
+time make one hold one's breath, for they seem at each very moment to be
+just dropping right down: and he clambers out, followed by the long,
+brown stalk of a wife.
+
+So the train sits comfortably for five or ten minutes, in the way the
+trains have. At last we hear whistles and horns, and our old fat friend
+running and clinging like a fat crab to the very end of the train as it
+sets off. At the same instant a loud shriek and a bunch of shouts from
+outside. We all jump up. There, down the line, is the long brown stork
+of a wife. She had just walked back to a house some hundred yards off,
+for a few words, and has now seen the train moving.
+
+Now behold her with her hands thrown to heaven, and hear the wild shriek
+"Madonna!" through all the hubbub. But she picks up her two skirt-knees,
+and with her thin legs in grey stockings starts with a mad rush after
+the train. In vain. The train inexorably pursues its course. Prancing,
+she reaches one end of the platform as we leave the other end. Then she
+realizes it is not going to stop for her. And then, oh horror, her long
+arms thrown out in wild supplication after the retreating train: then
+flung aloft to God: then brought down in absolute despair on her head.
+And this is the last sight we have of her, clutching her poor head in
+agony and doubling forward. She is left--she is abandoned.
+
+The poor fat husband has been all the time on the little outside
+platform at the end of the carriage, holding out his hand to her and
+shouting frenzied scolding to her and frenzied yells for the train to
+stop. And the train has not stopped. And she is left--left on that
+God-forsaken station in the waning light.
+
+So, his face all bright, his eyes round and bright as two stars,
+absolutely transfigured by dismay, chagrin, anger and distress, he comes
+and sits in his seat, ablaze, stiff, speechless. His face is almost
+beautiful in its blaze of conflicting emotions. For some time he is as
+if unconscious in the midst of his feelings. Then anger and resentment
+crop out of his consternation. He turns with a flash to the long-nosed,
+insidious, Phoenician-looking guard. Why couldn't they stop the train
+for her! And immediately, as if someone had set fire to him, off flares
+the guard. Heh!--the train can't stop for every person's convenience!
+The train is a train--the time-table is a time-table. What did the old
+woman want to take her trips down the line for? Heh! She pays the
+penalty for her own inconsiderateness. Had _she_ paid for the
+train--heh? And the fat man all the time firing off his unheeding and
+unheeded answers. One minute--only one minute--if he, the conductor had
+told the driver! if he, the conductor, had shouted! A poor woman! Not
+another train! What was she going to do! Her ticket? And no money. A
+poor woman--
+
+There was a train back to Cagliari that night, said the conductor, at
+which the fat man nearly burst out of his clothing like a bursting
+seed-pod. He bounced on his seat. What good was that? What good was a
+train back to Cagliari, when their home was in Snelli! Making matters
+worse--
+
+So they bounced and jerked and argued at one another, to their hearts'
+content. Then the conductor retired, smiling subtly, in a way they have.
+Our fat friend looked at us with hot, angry, ashamed, grieved eyes and
+said it was a shame. Yes, we chimed, it _was_ a shame. Whereupon a
+self-important miss who said she came from some Collegio at Cagliari
+advanced and asked a number of impertinent questions in a tone of pert
+sympathy. After which our fat friend, left alone, covered his clouded
+face with his hand, turned his back on the world, and gloomed.
+
+It had all been so dramatic that in spite of ourselves we laughed, even
+while the q-b shed a few tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Well, the journey lasted hours. We came to a station, and the conductor
+said we must get out: these coaches went no further. Only two coaches
+would proceed to Mandas. So we climbed out with our traps, and our fat
+friend with his saddle-bag, the picture of misery.
+
+The one coach into which we clambered was rather crowded. The only other
+coach was most of it first-class. And the rest of the train was freight.
+We were two insignificant passenger wagons at the end of a long string
+of freight-vans and trucks.
+
+There was an empty seat, so we sat on it: only to realize after about
+five minutes, that a thin old woman with two children--her
+grandchildren--was chuntering her head off because it was _her_
+seat--why she had left it she didn't say. And under my legs was her
+bundle of bread. She nearly went off her head. And over my head, on the
+little rack, was her bercola, her saddle-bag. Fat soldiers laughed at
+her good-naturedly, but she fluttered and flipped like a tart,
+featherless old hen. Since she had another seat and was quite
+comfortable, we smiled and let her chunter. So she clawed her bread
+bundle from under my legs, and, clutching it and a fat child, sat tense.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was getting quite dark. The conductor came and said that there was no
+more paraffin. If what there was in the lamps gave out, we should have
+to sit in the dark. There was no more paraffin all along the line.--So
+he climbed on the seats, and after a long struggle, with various boys
+striking matches for him, he managed to obtain a light as big as a pea.
+We sat in this _clair-obscur_, and looked at the sombre-shadowed faces
+round us: the fat soldier with a gun, the handsome soldier with huge
+saddle-bags, the weird, dark little man who kept exchanging a baby with
+a solid woman who had a white cloth tied round her head, a tall
+peasant-woman in costume, who darted out at a dark station and returned
+triumphant with a piece of chocolate: a young and interested young man,
+who told us every station. And the man who spat: there is always one.
+
+Gradually the crowd thinned. At a station we saw our fat friend go by,
+bitterly, like a betrayed soul, his bulging saddle-bag hanging before
+and after, but no comfort in it now--no comfort. The pea of light from
+the paraffin lamp grew smaller. We sat in incredible dimness, and the
+smell of sheeps-wool and peasant, with only our fat and stoic young man
+to tell us where we were. The other dusky faces began to sink into a
+dead, gloomy silence. Some took to sleep. And the little train ran on
+and on, through unknown Sardinian darkness. In despair we drained the
+last drop of tea and ate the last crusts of bread. We knew we must
+arrive some time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not much after seven when we came to Mandas. Mandas is a junction
+where these little trains sit and have a long happy chat after their
+arduous scramble over the downs. It had taken us somewhere about five
+hours to do our fifty miles. No wonder then that when the junction at
+last heaves in sight everybody bursts out of the train like seeds from
+an exploding pod, and rushes somewhere for something. To the station
+restaurant, of course. Hence there is a little station restaurant that
+does a brisk trade, and where one can have a bed.
+
+A quite pleasant woman behind the little bar: a brown woman with brown
+parted hair and brownish eyes and brownish, tanned complexion and tight
+brown velveteen bodice. She led us up a narrow winding stone stair, as
+up a fortress, leading on with her candle, and ushered us into the
+bedroom. It smelled horrid and sourish, as shutup bedrooms do. We threw
+open the window. There were big frosty stars snapping ferociously in
+heaven.
+
+The room contained a huge bed, big enough for eight people, and quite
+clean. And the table on which stood the candle actually had a cloth. But
+imagine that cloth! I think it had been originally white: now, however,
+it was such a web of time-eaten holes and mournful black inkstains and
+poor dead wine stains that it was like some 2000 B.C. mummy-cloth. I
+wonder if it could have been lifted from that table: or if it was
+mummified on to it! I for one made no attempt to try. But that
+table-cover impressed me, as showing degrees I had not imagined.--A
+table-cloth.
+
+We went down the fortress-stair to the eating-room. Here was a long
+table with soup-plates upside down and a lamp burning an uncanny naked
+acetylene flame. We sat at the cold table, and the lamp immediately
+began to wane. The room--in fact the whole of Sardinia--was stone cold,
+stone, stone cold. Outside the earth was freezing. Inside there was no
+thought of any sort of warmth: dungeon stone floors, dungeon stone walls
+and a dead, corpse-like atmosphere, too heavy and icy to move.
+
+The lamp went quite out, and the q-b gave a cry. The brown woman poked
+her head through a hole in the wall. Beyond her we saw the flames of the
+cooking, and two devil-figures stirring the pots. The brown woman came
+and shook the lamp--it was like a stodgy porcelain mantelpiece
+vase--shook it well and stirred up its innards, and started it going
+once more. Then she appeared with a bowl of smoking cabbage soup, in
+which were bits of macaroni: and would we have wine? I shuddered at the
+thought of death-cold red wine of the country, so asked what else there
+was. There was malvagia--malvoisie, the same old malmsey that did for
+the Duke of Clarence. So we had a pint of malvagia, and were comforted.
+At least we were being so, when the lamp went out again. The brown woman
+came and shook and smacked it, and started it off again. But as if to
+say "Shan't for you", it whipped out again.
+
+Then came the host with a candle and a pin, a large, genial Sicilian
+with pendulous mustaches. And he thoroughly pricked the wretch with the
+pin, shook it, and turned little screws. So up flared the flame. We were
+a little nervous. He asked us where we came from, etc. And suddenly he
+asked us, with an excited gleam, were we Socialists. Aha, he was going
+to hail us as citizens and comrades. He thought we were a pair of
+Bolshevist agents: I could see it. And as such he was prepared to
+embrace us. But no, the q-b disclaimed the honor. I merely smiled and
+shook my head. It is a pity to rob people of their exciting illusions.
+
+"Ah, there is too much socialism everywhere!" cried the q-b.
+
+"Ma--perhaps, perhaps--" said the discreet Sicilian. She saw which way
+the land lay, and added:
+
+"Si vuole un _pocchetino_ di Socialismo: one wants a tiny bit of
+socialism in the world, a tiny bit. But not much. Not much. At present
+there is too much."
+
+Our host, twinkling at this speech which treated of the sacred creed as
+if it were a pinch of salt in the broth, believing the q-b was throwing
+dust in his eyes, and thoroughly intrigued by us as a pair of deep ones,
+retired. No sooner had he gone than the lamp-flame stood up at its full
+length, and started to whistle. The q-b drew back. Not satisfied by
+this, another flame suddenly began to whip round the bottom of the
+burner, like a lion lashing its tail. Unnerved, we made room: the q-b
+cried again: in came the host with a subtle smile and a pin and an air
+of benevolence, and tamed the brute.
+
+What else was there to eat? There was a piece of fried pork for me, and
+boiled eggs for the q-b. As we were proceeding with these, in came the
+remainder of the night's entertainment: three station officials, two in
+scarlet peaked caps, one in a black-and-gold peaked cap. They sat down
+with a clamour, in their caps, as if there was a sort of invisible
+screen between us and them. They were young. The black cap had a lean
+and sardonic look: one of the red-caps was little and ruddy, very young,
+with a little mustache: we called him the _maialino_, the gay little
+black pig, he was so plump and food-nourished and frisky. The third was
+rather puffy and pale and had spectacles. They all seemed to present us
+the blank side of their cheek, and to intimate that no, they were not
+going to take their hats off, even if it were dinner-table and a strange
+_signora_. And they made rough quips with one another, still as if we
+were on the other side of the invisible screen.
+
+Determined however, to remove this invisible screen, I said
+Good-evening, and it was very cold. They muttered Good-evening, and yes,
+it was fresh. An Italian never says it is cold: it is never more than
+_fresco_. But this hint that it was cold they took as a hint at their
+caps, and they became very silent, till the woman came in with the
+soup-bowl. Then they clamoured at her, particularly the _maialino_, what
+was there to eat. She told them--beef-steaks of pork. Whereat they
+pulled faces. Or bits of boiled pork. They sighed, looked gloomy,
+cheered up, and said beef-steaks, then.
+
+And they fell on their soup. And never, from among the steam, have I
+heard a more joyful trio of soup-swilkering. They sucked it in from
+their spoons with long, gusto-rich sucks. The _maialino_ was the
+treble--he trilled his soup into his mouth with a swift, sucking
+vibration, interrupted by bits of cabbage, which made the lamp start to
+dither again. Black-cap was the baritone; good, rolling spoon-sucks. And
+the one in spectacles was the bass: he gave sudden deep gulps. All was
+led by the long trilling of the _maialino_. Then suddenly, to vary
+matters, he cocked up his spoon in one hand, chewed a huge mouthful of
+bread, and swallowed it down with a smack-smack-smack! of his tongue
+against his palate. As children we used to call this "clapping".
+
+"Mother, she's clapping!" I would yell with anger, against my sister.
+The German word is schmatzen.
+
+So the _maialino_ clapped like a pair of cymbals, while baritone and
+bass rolled on. Then in chimed the swift bright treble.
+
+At this rate however, the soup did not last long. Arrived the
+beef-steaks of pork. And now the trio was a trio of castanet smacks and
+cymbal claps. Triumphantly the _maialino_ looked around. He out-smacked
+all.
+
+The bread of the country is rather coarse and brown, with a hard, hard
+crust. A large rock of this is perched on every damp serviette. The
+_maialino_ tore his rock asunder, and grumbled at the black-cap, who had
+got a weird sort of three-cornered loaf-roll of pure white bread--starch
+white. He was a swell with this white bread.
+
+Suddenly black-cap turned to me. Where had we come from, where were we
+going, what for? But in laconic, sardonic tone.
+
+"I _like_ Sardinia," cried the q-b.
+
+"Why?" he asked sarcastically. And she tried to find out.
+
+"Yes, the Sardinians please me more than the Sicilians," said I.
+
+"Why?" he asked sarcastically.
+
+"They are more open--more honest." He seemed to turn his nose down.
+
+"The padrone is a Sicilian," said the _maialino_, stuffing a huge block
+of bread into his mouth, and rolling his insouciant eyes of a gay,
+well-fed little black pig towards the background. We weren't making much
+headway.
+
+"You've seen Cagliari?" the black-cap said to me, like a threat.
+
+"Yes! oh Cagliari pleases me--Cagliari is beautiful!" cried the q-b,
+who travels with a vial of melted butter ready for her parsnips.
+
+"Yes--Cagliari is _so-so_--Cagliari is very fair," said the black cap.
+"_Cagliari è discreto._" He was evidently proud of it.
+
+"And is Mandas nice?" asked the q-b.
+
+"In what way nice?" they asked, with immense sarcasm.
+
+"Is there anything to see?"
+
+"Hens," said the _maialino_ briefly. They all bristled when one asked if
+Mandas was nice.
+
+"What does one do here?" asked the q-b.
+
+"_Niente!_ At Mandas one does _nothing_. At Mandas one goes to bed when
+it's dark, like a chicken. At Mandas one walks down the road like a pig
+that is going nowhere. At Mandas a goat understands more than the
+inhabitants understand. At Mandas one needs socialism...."
+
+They all cried out at once. Evidently Mandas was more than flesh and
+blood could bear for another minute to these three conspirators.
+
+"Then you are very bored here?" say I.
+
+"Yes."
+
+And the quiet intensity of that naked yes spoke more than volumes.
+
+"You would like to be in Cagliari?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Silence, intense, sardonic silence had intervened. The three looked at
+one another and made a sour joke about Mandas. Then the black-cap turned
+to me.
+
+"Can you understand Sardinian?" he said.
+
+"Somewhat. More than Sicilian, anyhow."
+
+"But Sardinian is more difficult than Sicilian. It is full of words
+utterly unknown to Italian--"
+
+"Yes, but," say I, "it is spoken openly, in plain words, and Sicilian is
+spoken all stuck together, none of the words there at all."
+
+He looks at me as if I were an imposter. Yet it is true. I find it quite
+easy to understand Sardinian. As a matter of fact, it is more a question
+of human approach than of sound. Sardinian seems open and manly and
+downright. Sicilian is gluey and evasive, as if the Sicilian didn't want
+to speak straight to you. As a matter of fact, he doesn't. He is an
+over-cultured, sensitive, ancient soul, and he has so many sides to his
+mind that he hasn't got any definite one mind at all. He's got a dozen
+minds, and uneasily he's aware of it, and to commit himself to anyone of
+them is merely playing a trick on himself and his interlocutor. The
+Sardinian, on the other hand, still seems to have one downright mind. I
+bump up against a downright, smack-out belief in Socialism, for
+example. The Sicilian is much too old in our culture to swallow
+Socialism whole: much too ancient and rusé not to be sophisticated about
+any and every belief. He'll go off like a squib: and then he'll smoulder
+acridly and sceptically even against his own fire. One sympathizes with
+him in retrospect. But in daily life it is unbearable.
+
+"Where do you find such white bread?" say I to the black cap, because he
+is proud of it.
+
+"It comes from my home." And then he asks about the bread of Sicily. Is
+it any whiter than _this_--the Mandas rock. Yes, it is a little whiter.
+At which they gloom again. For it is a very sore point, this bread.
+Bread means a great deal to an Italian: it is verily his staff of life.
+He practically lives on bread. And instead of going by taste, he now,
+like all the world, goes by eye. He has got it into his head that bread
+should be white, so that every time he fancies a darker shade in the
+loaf a shadow falls on his soul. Nor is he altogether wrong. For
+although, personally, I don't like white bread any more, yet I do like
+my brown bread to be made of pure, unmixed flour. The peasants in
+Sicily, who have kept their own wheat and make their own natural brown
+bread, ah, it is amazing how fresh and sweet and _clean_ their loaf
+seems, so perfumed as home-bread used all to be before the war. Whereas
+the bread of the commune, the regulation supply, is hard, and rather
+coarse and rough, so rough and harsh on the palate. One gets tired to
+death of it. I suspect myself the maize meal mixed in. But I don't know.
+And finally the bread varies immensely from town to town, from commune
+to commune. The so-called just and equal distribution is all my-eye. One
+place has abundance of good sweet bread, another scrapes along, always
+stinted, on an allowance of harsh coarse stuff. And the poor suffer
+bitterly, really, from the bread-stinting, because they depend so on
+this one food. They say the inequality and the injustice of distribution
+comes from the Camorra--la grande Camorra--which is no more nowadays
+than a profiteering combine, which the poor hate. But for myself, I
+don't know. I only know that one town--Venice, for example--seems to
+have an endless supply of pure bread, of sugar, of tobacco, of
+salt--while Florence is in one continual ferment of irritation over the
+stinting of these supplies--which are all government monopoly, doled out
+accordingly.
+
+We said Good-night to our three railway friends, and went up to bed. We
+had only been in the room a minute or two, when the brown woman tapped:
+and if you please, the black-cap had sent us one of his little white
+loaves. We were really touched. Such delicate little generosities have
+almost disappeared from the world.
+
+It was a queer little bread--three-cornered, and almost as hard as ships
+biscuit, made of starch flour. Not strictly bread at all.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was cold, the blankets flat and heavy, but one slept quite
+well till dawn. At seven o'clock it was a clear, cold morning, the sun
+not yet up. Standing at the bedroom window looking out, I could hardly
+believe my eyes it was so like England, like Cornwall in the bleak
+parts, or Derbyshire uplands. There was a little paddock-garden at the
+back of the Station, rather tumble-down, with two sheep in it. There
+were several forlorn-looking out-buildings, very like Cornwall. And then
+the wide, forlorn country road stretched away between borders of grass
+and low, drystone walls, towards a grey stone farm with a tuft of trees,
+and a naked stone village in the distance. The sun came up yellow, the
+bleak country glimmered bluish and reluctant. The low, green hill-slopes
+were divided into fields, with low drystone walls and ditches. Here and
+there a stone barn rose alone, or with a few bare, windy trees attached.
+Two rough-coated winter horses pastured on the rough grass, a boy came
+along the naked, wide, grass-bordered high-road with a couple of milk
+cans, drifting in from nowhere: and it was all so like Cornwall, or a
+part of Ireland, that the old nostalgia for the Celtic regions began to
+spring up in me. Ah, those old, drystone walls dividing the fields--pale
+and granite-blenched! Ah, the dark, sombre grass, the naked sky! the
+forlorn horses in the wintry morning! Strange is a Celtic landscape, far
+more moving, disturbing than the lovely glamor of Italy and Greece.
+Before the curtains of history lifted, one feels the world was like
+this--this Celtic bareness and sombreness and _air_. But perhaps it is
+not Celtic at all: Iberian. Nothing is more unsatisfactory than our
+conception of what is Celtic and what is not Celtic. I believe there
+never were any Celts, as a race.--As for the Iberians--!
+
+[Illustration: TONARA]
+
+Wonderful to go out on a frozen road, to see the grass in shadow bluish
+with hoar-frost, to see the grass in the yellow winter-sunrise beams
+melting and going cold-twinkly. Wonderful the bluish, cold air, and
+things standing up in cold distance. After two southern winters, with
+roses blooming all the time, this bleakness and this touch of frost in
+the ringing morning goes to my soul like an intoxication. I am so glad,
+on this lonely naked road, I don't know what to do with myself. I walk
+down in the shallow grassy ditches under the loose stone walls, I walk
+on the little ridge of grass, the little bank on which the wall is
+built, I cross the road across the frozen cow-droppings: and it is all
+so familiar to my _feet_, my very feet in contact, that I am wild as if
+I had made a discovery. And I realize that I hate lime-stone, to live on
+lime-stone or marble or any of those limey rocks. I hate them. They are
+dead rocks, they have no life--thrills for the feet. Even sandstone is
+much better. But granite! Granite is my favorite. It is so live under
+the feet, it has a deep sparkle of its own. I like its roundnesses--and
+I hate the jaggy dryness of lime-stone, that burns in the sun, and
+withers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After coming to a deep well in a grassy plot in a wide space of the
+road, I go back, across the sunny naked upland country, towards the pink
+station and its out-buildings. An engine is steaming its white clouds in
+the new light. Away to the left there is even a row of small houses,
+like a row of railway-mens' dwellings. Strange and familiar sight. And
+the station precincts are disorderly and rather dilapidated. I think of
+our Sicilian host.
+
+The brown woman gives us coffee, and very strong, rich goats' milk, and
+bread. After which the q-b and I set off once more along the road to the
+village. She too is thrilled. She too breathes deep. She too feels
+_space_ around her, and freedom to move the limbs: such as one does not
+feel in Italy and Sicily, where all is so classic and fixed.
+
+The village itself is just a long, winding, darkish street, in shadow,
+of houses and shops and a smithy. It might almost be Cornwall: not
+quite. Something, I don't know what, suggests the stark burning glare of
+summer. And then, of course, there is none of the cosiness which
+climbing roses and lilac trees and cottage shops and haystacks would
+give to an English scene. This is harder, barer, starker, more dreary.
+An ancient man in the black-and-white costume comes out of a hovel of a
+cottage. The butcher carries a huge side of meat. The women peer at
+us--but more furtive and reticent than the howling stares of Italy.
+
+So we go on, down the rough-cobbled street through the whole length of
+the village. And emerging on the other side, past the last cottage, we
+find ourselves again facing the open country, on the gentle down-slope
+of the rolling hill. The landscape continues the same: low, rolling
+upland hills, dim under the yellow sun of the January morning: stone
+fences, fields, grey-arable land: a man slowly, slowly ploughing with a
+pony and a dark-red cow: the road trailing empty across the distance:
+and then, the one violently unfamiliar note, the enclosed cemetery lying
+outside on the gentle hill-side, closed in all round, very compact,
+with high walls: and on the inside face of the enclosure wall the marble
+slabs, like shut drawers of the sepulchres, shining white, the wall
+being like a chest of drawers, or pigeon holes to hold the dead. Tufts
+of dark and plumy cypresses rise among the flat graves of the enclosure.
+In the south, cemeteries are walled off and isolated very tight. The
+dead, as it were, are kept fast in pound. There is no spreading of
+graves over the face of the country. They are penned in a tight fold,
+with cypresses to fatten on the bones. This is the one thoroughly
+strange note in the landscape. But all-pervading there is a strangeness,
+that strange feeling as if the _depths_ were barren, which comes in the
+south and the east, sun-stricken. Sun-stricken, and the heart eaten out
+by the dryness.
+
+"I like it! I like it!" cries the q-b.
+
+"But could you live here?" She would like to say yes, but daren't.
+
+We stray back. The q-b wants to buy one of those saddle-bag
+arrangements. I say what for? She says to keep things in. Ach! but
+peeping in the shops, we see one and go in and examine it. It is quite a
+sound one, properly made: but plain, quite plain. On the white
+cross-stripes there are no lovely colored flowers of rose and green and
+magenta: the three favorite Sardinian colors: nor are there any of the
+fantastic and griffin-like beasts. So it won't do. How much does it
+cost? Forty-five francs.
+
+There is nothing to do in Mandas. So we will take the morning train and
+go to the terminus, to Sorgono. Thus, we shall cross the lower slopes of
+the great central knot of Sardinia, the mountain knot called
+Gennargentu. And Sorgono we feel will be lovely.
+
+Back at the station we make tea on the spirit lamp, fill the thermos,
+pack the knapsack and the kitchenino, and come out into the sun of the
+platform. The q-b goes to thank the black-cap for the white bread,
+whilst I settle the bill and ask for food for the journey. The brown
+woman fishes out from a huge black pot in the background sundry hunks of
+coarse boiled pork, and gives me two of these, hot, with bread and salt.
+This is the luncheon. I pay the bill: which amounts to twenty-four
+francs, for everything. (One says francs or liras, irrespective, in
+Italy.) At that moment arrives the train from Cagliari, and men rush in,
+roaring for the soup--or rather, for the broth. "Ready, ready!" she
+cries, going to the black pot.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+TO SORGONO.
+
+
+The various trains in the junction squatted side by side and had long,
+long talks before at last we were off. It was wonderful to be running in
+the bright morning towards the heart of Sardinia, in the little train
+that seemed so familiar. We were still going third class, rather to the
+disgust of the railway officials at Mandas.
+
+At first the country was rather open: always the long spurs of hills,
+steep-sided, but not high. And from our little train we looked across
+the country, across hill and dale. In the distance was a little town, on
+a low slope. But for its compact, fortified look it might have been a
+town on the English downs. A man in the carriage leaned out of the
+window holding out a white cloth, as a signal to someone in the far off
+town that he was coming. The wind blew the white cloth, the town in the
+distance glimmered small and alone in its hollow. And the little train
+pelted along.
+
+It was rather comical to see it. We were always climbing. And the line
+curved in great loops. So that as one looked out of the window, time and
+again one started, seeing a little train running in front of us, in a
+diverging direction, making big puffs of steam. But lo, it was our own
+little engine pelting off around a loop away ahead. We were quite a long
+train, but all trucks in front, only our two passenger coaches hitched
+on behind. And for this reason our own engine was always running fussily
+into sight, like some dog scampering in front and swerving about us,
+while we followed at the tail end of the thin string of trucks.
+
+I was surprised how well the small engine took the continuous steep
+slopes, how bravely it emerged on the sky-line. It is a queer railway. I
+would like to know who made it. It pelts up hill and down dale and round
+sudden bends in the most unconcerned fashion, not as proper big railways
+do, grunting inside deep cuttings and stinking their way through
+tunnels, but running up the hill like a panting, small dog, and having a
+look round, and starting off in another direction, whisking us behind
+unconcernedly. This is much more fun than the tunnel-and-cutting system.
+
+They told me that Sardinia mines her own coal: and quite enough for her
+own needs: but very soft, not fit for steam-purposes. I saw heaps of it:
+small, dull, dirty-looking stuff. Truck-loads of it too. And
+truck-loads of grain.
+
+At every station we were left ignominiously planted, while the little
+engines--they had gay gold names on their black little bodies--strolled
+about along the side-lines, and snuffed at the various trucks. There we
+sat, at every station, while some truck was discarded and some other
+sorted out like a branded sheep, from the sidings and hitched on to us.
+It took a long time, this did.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the stations so far had had wire netting over the windows. This
+means malaria-mosquitoes. The malaria climbs very high in Sardinia. The
+shallow upland valleys, moorland with their intense summer sun and the
+riverless, boggy behaviour of the water breed the pest inevitably. But
+not very terribly, as far as one can make out: August and September
+being the danger months. The natives don't like to admit there is any
+malaria: a tiny bit, they say, a tiny bit. As soon as you come to the
+_trees_ there is no more. So they say. For many miles the landscape is
+moorland and down-like, with no trees. But wait for the trees. Ah, the
+woods and forests of Gennargentu: the woods and forests higher up: no
+malaria there!
+
+The little engine whisks up and up, around its loopy curves as if it
+were going to bite its own tail: we being the tail: then suddenly dives
+over the sky-line out of sight. And the landscape changes. The famous
+woods begin to appear. At first it is only hazel-thickets, miles of
+hazel-thickets, all wild, with a few black cattle trying to peep at us
+out of the green myrtle and arbutus scrub which forms the undergrowth;
+and a couple of rare, wild peasants peering at the train. They wear the
+black sheepskin tunic, with the wool outside, and the long stocking
+caps. Like cattle they too peer out from between deep bushes. The myrtle
+scrub here rises man-high, and cattle and men are smothered in it. The
+big hazels rise bare above. It must be difficult getting about in these
+parts.
+
+Sometimes, in the distance one sees a black-and-white peasant riding
+lonely across a more open place, a tiny vivid figure. I like so much the
+proud instinct which makes a living creature distinguish itself from its
+background. I hate the rabbity khaki protection-colouration. A
+black-and-white peasant on his pony, only a dot in the distance beyond
+the foliage, still flashes and dominates the landscape. Ha-ha! proud
+mankind! There you ride! But alas, most of the men are still
+khaki-muffled, rabbit-indistinguishable, ignominious. The Italians look
+curiously rabbity in the grey-green uniform: just as our sand-colored
+khaki men look doggy. They seem to scuffle rather abased, ignominious
+on the earth. Give us back the scarlet and gold, and devil take the
+hindmost.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The landscape really begins to change. The hillsides tilt sharper and
+sharper. A man is ploughing with two small red cattle on a craggy,
+tree-hanging slope as sharp as a roof-side. He stoops at the small
+wooden plough, and jerks the ploughlines. The oxen lift their noses to
+heaven, with a strange and beseeching snake-like movement, and taking
+tiny little steps with their frail feet, move slantingly across the
+slope-face, between rocks and tree-roots. Little, frail, jerky steps the
+bullocks take, and again they put their horns back and lift their
+muzzles snakily to heaven, as the man pulls the line. And he skids his
+wooden plough round another scoop of earth. It is marvellous how they
+hang upon that steep, craggy slope. An English labourer's eyes would
+bolt out of his head at the sight.
+
+There is a stream: actually a long tress of a water-fall pouring into a
+little gorge, and a stream-bed that opens a little, and shows a
+marvellous cluster of naked poplars away below. They are like ghosts.
+They have a ghostly, almost phosphorescent luminousness in the shadow of
+the valley, by the stream of water. If not phosphorescent, then
+incandescent: a grey, goldish-pale incandescence of naked limbs and
+myriad cold-glowing twigs, gleaming strangely. If I were a painter I
+would paint them: for they seem to have living, sentient flesh. And the
+shadow envelopes them.
+
+Another naked tree I would paint is the gleaming mauve-silver fig, which
+burns its cold incandescence, tangled, like some sensitive creature
+emerged from the rock. A fig tree come forth in its nudity gleaming over
+the dark winter-earth is a sight to behold. Like some white, tangled sea
+anemone. Ah, if it could but answer! or if we had tree-speech!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yes, the steep valley sides become almost gorges, and there are trees.
+Not forests such as I had imagined, but scattered, grey, smallish oaks,
+and some lithe chestnuts. Chestnuts with their long whips, and oaks with
+their stubby boughs, scattered on steep hillsides where rocks crop out.
+The train perilously winding round, half way up. Then suddenly bolting
+over a bridge and into a completely unexpected station. What is more,
+men crowd in--the station is connected with the main railway by a post
+motor-omnibus.
+
+An unexpected irruption of men--they may be miners or navvies or
+land-workers. They all have huge sacks: some lovely saddle-bags with
+rose-coloured flowers across the darkness. One old man is in full
+black-and-white costume, but very dirty and coming to pieces. The others
+wear the tight madder-brown breeches and sleeved waistcoats. Some have
+the sheepskin tunic, and all wear the long stocking cap. And how they
+smell! of sheep-wool and of men and goat. A rank scent fills the
+carriage.
+
+They talk and are very lively. And they have mediaeval faces, _rusé_,
+never really abandoning their defences for a moment, as a badger or a
+pole-cat never abandons its defences. There is none of the brotherliness
+and civilised simplicity. Each man knows he must guard himself and his
+own: each man knows the devil is behind the next bush. They have never
+known the post-Renaissance Jesus. Which is rather an eye-opener.
+
+Not that they are suspicious or uneasy. On the contrary, noisy,
+assertive, vigorous presences. But with none of that implicit belief
+that everybody will be and ought to be good to them, which is the mark
+of our era. They don't expect people to be good to them: they don't want
+it. They remind me of half-wild dogs that will love and obey, but which
+won't be handled. They won't have their heads touched. And they won't be
+fondled. One can almost hear the half-savage growl.
+
+The long stocking caps they wear as a sort of crest, as a lizard wears
+his crest at mating time. They are always moving them, settling them on
+their heads. One fat fellow, young, with sly brown eyes and a young
+beard round his face folds his stocking-foot in three, so that it rises
+over his brow martial and handsome. The old boy brings his stocking-foot
+over the left ear. A handsome fellow with a jaw of massive teeth pushes
+his cap back and lets it hang a long way down his back. Then he shifts
+it forward over his nose, and makes it have two sticking-out points,
+like fox-ears, above his temples. It is marvellous how much expression
+these caps can take on. They say that only those born to them can wear
+them. They seem to be just long bags, nearly a yard long, of black
+stockinette stuff.
+
+The conductor comes to issue them their tickets. And they all take out
+rolls of paper money. Even a little mothy rat of a man who sits opposite
+me has quite a pad of ten-franc notes. Nobody seems short of a hundred
+francs nowadays: nobody.
+
+They shout and expostulate with the conductor. Full of coarse life they
+are: but so coarse! The handsome fellow has his sleeved waistcoat open,
+and his shirt-breast has come unbuttoned. Not looking, it seems as if he
+wears a black undervest. Then suddenly, one sees it is his own hair. He
+is quite black inside his shirt, like a black goat.
+
+But there is a gulf between oneself and them. They have no inkling of
+our crucifixion, our universal consciousness. Each of them is pivoted
+and limited to himself, as the wild animals are. They look out, and they
+see other objects, objects to ridicule or mistrust or to sniff curiously
+at. But "thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" has never entered
+their souls at all, not even the thin end of it. They might love their
+neighbour, with a hot, dark, unquestioning love. But the love would
+probably leave off abruptly. The fascination of what is beyond them has
+not seized on them. Their neighbour is a mere external. Their life is
+centripetal, pivoted inside itself, and does not run out towards others
+and mankind. One feels for the first time the real old mediaeval life,
+which is enclosed in itself and has no interest in the world outside.
+
+And so they lie about on the seats, play a game, shout, and sleep,
+and settle their long stocking-caps: and spit. It is wonderful in
+them that at this time of day they still wear the long stocking-caps
+as part of their inevitable selves. It is a sign of obstinate and
+powerful tenacity. They are not going to be broken in upon by
+world-consciousness. They are not going into the world's common clothes.
+Coarse, vigorous, determined, they will stick to their own coarse dark
+stupidity and let the big world find its own way to its own enlightened
+hell. Their hell is their own hell, they prefer it unenlightened.
+
+And one cannot help wondering whether Sardinia will resist right
+through. Will the last waves of enlightenment and world-unity break over
+them and wash away the stocking-caps? Or is the tide of enlightenment
+and world-unity already receding fast enough?
+
+Certainly a reaction is setting in, away from the old universality,
+back, away from cosmopolitanism and internationalism. Russia, with her
+Third International, is at the same time reacting most violently away
+from all other contact, back, recoiling on herself, into a fierce,
+unapproachable Russianism. Which motion will conquer? The workman's
+International, or the centripetal movement into national isolation? Are
+we going to merge into one grey proletarian homogeneity?--or are we
+going to swing back into more-or-less isolated, separate, defiant
+communities?
+
+Probably both. The workman's International movement will finally break
+the flow towards cosmopolitanism and world-assimilation, and suddenly in
+a crash the world will fly back into intense separations. The moment has
+come when America, that extremist in world-assimilation and
+world-oneness, is reacting into violent egocentricity, a truly
+Amerindian egocentricity. As sure as fate we are on the brink of
+American empire.
+
+For myself, I am glad. I am glad that the era of love and oneness is
+over: hateful homogeneous world-oneness. I am glad that Russia flies
+back into savage Russianism, Scythism, savagely self-pivoting. I am glad
+that America is doing the same. I shall be glad when men hate their
+common, world-alike clothes, when they tear them up and clothe
+themselves fiercely for distinction, savage distinction, savage
+distinction against the rest of the creeping world: when America kicks
+the billy-cock and the collar-and-tie into limbo, and takes to her own
+national costume: when men fiercely react against looking all alike and
+being all alike, and betake themselves into vivid clan or
+nation-distinctions.
+
+The era of love and oneness is over. The era of world-alike should be at
+an end. The other tide has set in. Men will set their bonnets at one
+another now, and fight themselves into separation and sharp distinction.
+The day of peace and oneness is over, the day of the great fight into
+multifariousness is at hand. Hasten the day, and save us from
+proletarian homogeneity and khaki all-alikeness.
+
+I love my indomitable coarse men from mountain Sardinia, for their
+stocking-caps and their splendid, animal-bright stupidity. If only the
+last wave of all-alikeness won't wash those superb crests, those caps,
+away.
+
+And it seemed to her as though she knew all the people who were there;
+they were the women of the village, and the girls of her own age. But
+the dog was well aware that there was something uncanny about it all.
+He made his way down to Melbustad in flying leaps, and howled and barked
+in the most lamentable manner, and gave the people no rest until they
+followed him. The young fellow who was to marry the girl took his gun,
+and climbed the hills; and when he drew near, there stood a number of
+horses around the hut, saddled and bridled. He crept up to the hut,
+looked through a loop-hole in the wall, and saw a whole company sitting
+together inside. It was quite evident that they were trolls, the people
+from underground, and therefore he discharged his gun over the roof. At
+that moment the doors flew open, and a number of balls of gray yarn, one
+larger than the other, came shooting out about his legs. When he went
+in, there sat the maiden in her bridal finery, and nothing was missing
+but the ring on her little finger, then all would have been complete.
+
+"In heaven's name, what has happened here?" he asked, as he looked
+around. All the silverware was still on the table, but all the tasty
+dishes had turned to moss and toadstools, and frogs and toads and the
+like.
+
+"What does it all mean?" said he. "You are sitting here in all your
+glory, just like a bride?"
+
+"How can you ask me?" answered the maiden. "You have been sitting here
+yourself, and talking about our wedding the whole afternoon!"
+
+"No, I have just come," said he. "It must have been some one else who
+had taken my shape!"
+
+Then she gradually came to her senses; but not until long afterward was
+she altogether herself, and she told how she had firmly believed that
+her sweetheart himself, and all their friends and relatives had been
+there. He took her straight back to the village with him, and so that
+they need fear no such deviltry in the future, they celebrated their
+wedding while she was still clad in the bridal outfit of the underground
+folk. The crown and all the ornaments were hung up in Melbustad and it
+is said that they hang there to this very day.
+
+
+    NOTE
+
+    Black jugglery and deception are practiced upon the poor
+    dairy-maid in "The Troll Wedding" (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I,
+    p. 50. From Hadeland, told by a _Signekjarring_, a kind of wise
+    woman or herb doctress). Characteristic is the belief that troll
+    magic and witchery may be nullified if a gun be fired over the
+    place where it is supposed to be taking place. Then all reverts to
+    its original form. Curious, also, is the belief that trolls like
+    to turn into skeins of yarn when disturbed, and then roll swiftly
+    away.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE HAT OF THE _HULDRES_
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a big wedding at a certain farmstead, and a
+certain cottager was on his way to the wedding-feast. As he chanced to
+cross a field, he found a milk-strainer, such as are usually made of
+cows' tails, and looking just like an old brown rag. He picked it up,
+for he thought it could be washed, and then he would give it to his
+wife for a dish-rag. But when he came to the house where they were
+celebrating the wedding, it seemed as though no one saw him. The bride
+and groom nodded to the rest of the guests, they spoke to them and
+poured for them; but he got neither greeting nor drink. Then the chief
+cook came and asked the other folk to sit down to the table; but he was
+not asked, nor did he get anything to eat. For he did not care to sit
+down of his own accord when no one had asked him. At last he grew angry
+and thought: "I might as well go home, for not a soul pays a bit of
+attention to me here." When he reached home, he said: "Good evening,
+here I am back again."
+
+"For heaven's sake, are you back again?" asked his wife.
+
+"Yes, there was no one there who paid any attention to me, or even so
+much as looked at me," said the man, "and when people show me so little
+consideration, it seems as though I have nothing to look for there."
+
+"But where are you? I can hear you, but I cannot see you!" cried his
+wife.
+
+The man was invisible, for what he had found was a _huldre_ hat.
+
+"What are you talking about? Can't you see me? Have you lost your wits?"
+asked the man. "There is an old hair strainer for you. I found it
+outside on the ground," said he, and he threw it on the bench. And
+then his wife saw him; but at the same moment the hat of the _huldres_
+disappeared, for he should only have loaned it, not given it away.
+Now the man saw how everything had come about, and went back to the
+wedding-feast. And this time he was received in right friendly fashion,
+and was asked to drink, and to seat himself at the table.
+
+
+    NOTE
+
+    A favorite jewel among the treasures of the underground world
+    plays the leading part of the tale: "The Hat of the _Huldres_"
+    (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I, p. 157; from the vicinity of
+    Eidsvold, told by an old peasant woman). Often appearing in
+    legend proper as the tarn-cap, it here finds a more humble place
+    in everyday life, neither ennobled by legendary dignity, nor
+    diversified by the rich incident of fairy-tale. The entertaining
+    picture here afforded of its powers shows them all the more
+    clearly.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE CHILD OF MARY
+
+
+Far, far from here, in a great forest, there once lived a poor couple.
+Heaven blessed them with a charming little daughter; but they were so
+poor they did not know how they were going to get her christened. So her
+father had to go forth to see whether he could not find a god-father
+to pay for the child's christening. All day long he went from one to
+another; but no one wanted to be the god-father. Toward evening, as he
+was going home, he met a very lovely lady, who wore the most splendid
+clothes, and seemed most kind and friendly, and she offered to see that
+the child was christened, if she might be allowed to keep it afterward.
+The man replied that first he must ask his wife. But when he reached
+home and asked her she gave him a flat "no." The following day the man
+set out again; but no one wanted to be the god-father if he had to pay
+for the christening himself, and no matter how hard the man begged, it
+was all of no avail. When he went home that evening, he again met the
+lovely lady, who looked so gentle, and she made him the same offer as
+before. The man again told his wife what had happened to him, and added
+that if he could not find a god-father for his child the following day,
+they would probably have to let the lady take her, since she seemed to
+be so kind and friendly. The man then went out for the third time, and
+found no god-father that day. And so, when he once more met the friendly
+lady in the evening, he promised to let her have the child, if she would
+see that it was baptized. The following morning the lady came to the
+man's hut, and with her two other men. She then took the child and went
+to church with it, and it was baptized. Then she took it with her,
+and the little girl remained with her for several years, and her
+foster-mother was always good and kind to her.
+
+Now when the girl had grown old enough to make distinctions, and had
+acquired some sense, it chanced that her foster-mother once wished to
+take a journey. "You may go into any room you wish," she said to the
+girl, "only you are not to go into these three rooms," and then she set
+out on her journey. But the girl could not resist opening the door
+to the one room a little way--and swish! out flew a star. When her
+foster-mother came home, she was much grieved to find that the star had
+flown out, and was so annoyed with her foster-child that she threatened
+to send her away. But the girl pleaded and cried, until at last she was
+allowed to remain.
+
+After a time the foster-mother wanted to take another journey, and she
+forbade the girl, above all, to go into the two rooms which, as yet, she
+had not entered. And the girl promised her that this time she would obey
+her. But when she had been alone for some time, and had had all sorts
+of thoughts as to what there might be in the second room, she could no
+longer resist opening the second door a little way--and swish! out flew
+the moon. When the foster-mother returned, and saw the moon had slipped
+out, she again grieved greatly, and told the girl she could keep her no
+longer, and that now she must go. But when the girl again began to cry
+bitterly, and pleaded with such grace that it was impossible to deny
+her, she was once more allowed to remain.
+
+After this the foster-mother wished to take another journey, and she
+told the girl, who was now more than half-grown, that she must take
+her request not to go, or even so much as peep into the third room,
+seriously to heart. But when the foster-mother had been away for some
+time, and the girl was all alone and bored, she could at last resist no
+longer. "O," thought she, "how pleasant it would be to take a peep into
+that third room!" It is true, that at first she thought she would not do
+it, because of her foster-mother; yet when the thought returned to her,
+she could not hold back, after all; but decided that she should and
+must by all means take a peep. So she opened the door the least little
+bit--and swish! out flew the sun. When the foster-mother then returned,
+and saw that the sun had flown out, she grieved greatly, and told
+the girl that now she could positively stay with her no longer. The
+foster-daughter cried and pleaded even more touchingly than before; but
+all to no avail. "No, I must now punish you," said the foster-mother.
+"But you shall have your choice of either becoming the most beautiful
+of all maidens, without the power of speech, or the most homely, yet
+able to talk. But you must leave this place." The girl said: "Then I
+would rather be the most beautiful of maidens without the power of
+speech"--and such she became, but from that time on she was dumb.
+
+Now when the girl had left her foster-mother, and had wandered for a
+time, she came to a large, large wood, and no matter how far she went
+she could not reach its end. When evening came, she climbed into a high
+tree that stood over a spring, and sat down in its branches to sleep.
+Not far from it stood a king's castle, and early the next morning a
+serving-maid came from it, to get water from the spring for the prince's
+tea. And when the serving-maid saw the lovely face in the spring, she
+thought it was her own. At once she threw down her pail and ran back
+home holding her head high, and saying: "If I am as beautiful as all
+that, I am too good to carry water in a pail!" Then another was sent to
+fetch water, but the same thing happened with her; she, too, came back
+and said she was far too handsome and too good to go to the spring and
+fetch water for the prince. Then the prince went himself, for he wanted
+to see what it all meant. And when he came to the spring, he also saw
+the picture, and at once looked up into the tree. And so he saw the
+lovely maiden who was seated among its branches. He coaxed her down,
+took her back home with him, and nothing would do but that she must be
+his bride, because she was so beautiful. But his mother, who was still
+living, objected: "She cannot speak," said she, "and, maybe, she
+belongs to the troll-folk." But the prince would not be satisfied until
+he had won her. When, after a time, heaven bestowed a child upon the
+queen, the prince set a strong guard about her. But suddenly they all
+fell asleep, and her foster-mother came, cut the child's little finger,
+rubbed some of the blood over the mouth and hands of the queen, and
+said: "Now you shall grieve just as I did when you let the star slip
+out!" And with that she disappeared with the child. When those whom the
+prince had set to keep guard opened their eyes again, they thought that
+the queen had devoured her child, and the old queen wanted to have her
+burned; but the prince loved her so very tenderly, that after much
+pleading he succeeded in having her saved from punishment, though only
+with the greatest difficulty.
+
+  [Illustration: "AND SO HE SAW THE LOVELY MAIDEN WHO WAS SEATED AMONG
+  ITS BRANCHES."
+                                                      --_Page 59_]
+
+When heaven gave her a second child, a guard of twice as many men as had
+first stood watch was again set about her; yet everything happened as
+before, only that this time the foster-mother said to her: "Now you
+shall grieve as I did when you let the moon slip out!" The queen wept
+and pleaded--for when the foster-mother was there she could speak--but
+without avail. Now the old queen insisted that she be burned. But the
+prince once more succeeded in begging her free. When heaven gave her a
+third child, a three-fold guard was set about her. The foster-mother
+came while the guard slept, took the child, cut its little finger, and
+rubbed some of the blood on the queen's mouth. "Now," said she, "you
+shall grieve just as I did when you let the sun slip out!" And now the
+prince could in no way save her, she was to be and should be burned.
+But at the very moment when they were leading her to the stake, the
+foster-mother appeared with all three children; the two older ones she
+led by the hand, the youngest she carried on her arm. She stepped up to
+the young queen and said: "Here are your children, for now I give them
+back to you. I am the Virgin Mary, and the grief that you have felt is
+the same grief that I felt aforetimes, when you had let the star, the
+moon and the sun slip out. Now you have been punished for that which you
+did, and from now on the power of speech is restored to you!"
+
+The happiness which then filled the prince and princess may be imagined,
+but cannot be described. They lived happily together ever after, and
+from that time forward even the prince's mother was very fond of the
+young queen.
+
+
+    NOTE
+
+    "The Child of Mary" (Asbjörnsen, and Moe, N.F.E., p. 34, No. 8,
+    taken from the Bresemann translation [1847]), is a pious
+    fairy-tale, which is also current in Germany; a good fairy often
+    takes the place of the Virgin Mary.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+STORM MAGIC
+
+
+The cabin-boy had been traveling around all summer long with his
+captain; but when they began to prepare to set sail in the fall, he grew
+restless and did not want to go along. The captain liked him, for though
+he was no more than a boy, he was quite at home on deck, was a big, tall
+lad, and did not mind lending a hand when need arose; then, too, he did
+as much work as an able seaman, and was so full of fun that he kept the
+whole crew in good humor. And so the captain did not like to lose him.
+But the youth said out and out that he was not minded to take to the
+blue pond in the fall; though he was willing to stay on board till
+the ship was loaded and ready to sail. One Sunday, while the crew was
+ashore, and the captain had gone to a farm-holding near the forest, in
+order to bargain for small timber and log wood--presumably on his own
+account--for a deck load, the youth had been left to guard the ship.
+But you must know that he was a Sunday child, and had found a four-leaf
+clover; and that was the reason he had the second sight. He could see
+those who are invisible, but they could not see him.
+
+And as he was sitting there in the forward cabin, he heard voices
+within the ship. He peered through a crack, and there were three
+coal-black crows sitting inside the deck-beams, and they were talking
+about their husbands. All three were tired of them, and were planning
+their death. One could see at once that they were witches, who had
+assumed another form.
+
+"But is it certain that there is no one here who can overhear us?" said
+one of the crows. And by the way she spoke the cabin-boy knew her for
+the captain's wife.
+
+"No, you can see there's not," said the others, the wives of the first
+and second quartermasters. "There is not a soul aboard."
+
+"Well, then I do not mind saying that I know of a good way to get rid of
+them," said the captain's wife once more, and hopped closer to the two
+others. "We will turn ourselves into breakers, wash them into the sea,
+and sink the ship with every man on board."
+
+That pleased the others, and they sat there a long time discussing the
+day and the fairway. "But is it certain that no one can overhear us?"
+once more asked the captain's wife.
+
+"You know that such is the case," said the two others.
+
+"Well, there is a counter-spell for what we wish to do, and if it is
+used, it will go hard with us, for it will cost us nothing less than our
+lives!"
+
+"What is the counter-spell, sister," asked the wife of the one
+quartermaster.
+
+"Is it certain that no one is listening to us? It seemed to me as though
+some one were smoking in the forward cabin."
+
+"But you know we looked in every corner. They just forgot to let the
+fire go out in the caboose, and that is why there's smoke," said the
+quartermaster's wife, "so tell away."
+
+"If they buy three cords of birch-wood," said the witch,--"but it must
+be full measure, and they must not bargain for it--and throw the first
+cord into the water, billet by billet, when the first breaker strikes,
+and the second cord, billet by billet, when the second breaker strikes,
+and the third cord, billet by billet, when the third breaker strikes,
+then it is all up with us!"
+
+"Yes, that's true, sister, then it is all up with us! Then it is all up
+with us!" said the wives of the quartermasters; "but there is no one who
+knows it," they cried, and laughed loudly, and with that they flew out
+of the hatchway, screaming and croaking like ravens.
+
+When it came time to sail, the cabin-boy would not go along for anything
+in the world; and all the captain's coaxing, and all his promises were
+useless, nothing would tempt him to go. At last they asked him whether
+he were afraid, because fall was at hand, and said he would rather hide
+behind the stove, hanging to mother's apron strings. No, said the youth,
+he was not afraid, and they could not say that they had ever seen him
+show a sign of so land-lubberly a thing as fear; and he was willing to
+prove it to them, for now he was going along with them, but he made
+it a condition that three cords of birch-wood were to be bought, full
+measure, and that on a certain day he was to have command, just as
+though he himself were the captain. The captain asked what sort of
+nonsense this might be, and whether he had ever heard of a cabin-boy's
+being entrusted with the command of a ship. But the boy answered that
+was all one to him; if they did not care to buy the three cords of
+birch-wood, and obey him, as though he were captain, for the space of a
+single day--the captain and crew should know which day it was to be in
+advance--then he would set foot on the ship no more, and far less would
+he ever dirty his hands with pitch and tar on her again. The whole thing
+seemed strange to the captain, yet he finally gave in, because he wanted
+to have the boy along with him and, no doubt, he also thought that
+he would come to his senses again when they were once under way. The
+quartermaster was of the same opinion. "Just let him command all he
+likes, and if things go wrong with him, we'll help him out," said he. So
+the birch-wood was bought, full-measure and without haggling, and they
+set sail.
+
+When the day came on which the cabin-boy was to take command, the
+weather was fair and quiet; but he drummed up the whole ship's crew, and
+with the exception of a tiny bit of canvas, had all sails reefed. The
+captain and crew laughed at him, and said: "That shows the sort of a
+captain we have now. Don't you want us to reef that last bit of sail
+this very minute?" "Not yet," answered the cabin-boy, "but before long."
+
+Suddenly a squall struck them, struck them so heavily that they thought
+they would capsize, and had they not reefed the sails they would
+undoubtedly have foundered when the first breaker roared down upon the
+ship.
+
+The boy ordered them to throw the first cord of birch-wood overboard,
+billet by billet, one at a time and never two, and he did not let them
+touch the other two cords. Now they obeyed him to the letter, and did
+not laugh; but cast out the birch-wood billet by billet. When the last
+billet fell they heard a groaning, as though some one were wrestling
+with death, and then the squall had passed.
+
+"Heaven be praised!" said the crew--and the captain added: "I am going
+to let the company know that you saved ship and cargo."
+
+"That's all very well, but we are not through yet," said the boy, "there
+is worse to come," and he told them to reef every last rag, as well as
+what had been left of the topsails. The second squall hit them with even
+greater force than the first, and was so vicious and violent that the
+whole crew was frightened. While it was at its worst, the boy told them
+to throw overboard the second cord; and they threw it over billet by
+billet, and took care not to take any from the third cord. When the last
+billet fell, they again heard a deep groan, and then all was still. "Now
+there will be one more squall, and that will be the worst," said the
+boy, and sent every one to his station. There was not a hawser loose on
+the whole ship.
+
+The last squall hit them with far more force than either of the
+preceding ones, the ship laid over on her side so that they thought she
+would not right herself again, and the breaker swept over the deck.
+
+But the boy told them to throw the last cord of wood overboard, billet
+by billet, and no two billets at once. And when the last billet of wood
+fell, they heard a deep groaning, as though some one were dying hard,
+and when all was quiet once more, the whole sea was the color of blood,
+as far as eye could reach.
+
+When they reached land, the captain and the quartermasters spoke of
+writing to their wives. "That is something you might just as well let
+be," said the cabin-boy, "seeing that you no longer have any wives."
+
+"What silly talk is this, young know-it-all! We have no wives?" said the
+captain. "Or do you happen to have done away with them?" asked the
+quartermasters.
+
+"No, all of us together did away with them," answered the boy, and told
+them what he had heard and seen that Sunday afternoon when he was on
+watch on the ship; while the crew was ashore, and the captain was buying
+his deckload of wood.
+
+And when they sailed home they learned that their wives had disappeared
+the day of the storm, and that since that time no one had seen or heard
+anything more of them.
+
+
+    NOTE
+
+    A weird tale of the sea and of witches is that of "Storm Magic"
+    (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I, p. 248. From the vicinity of
+    Christiania, told by a sailor, Rasmus Olsen). In the "Fritjof
+    Legend" the hero has a similar adventure at sea with two witches,
+    who call up a tremendous storm. It would be interesting to know
+    the inner context of the cabin-boy's counter magic, and why it is
+    that the birch-wood, cast into the sea billet by billet, had the
+    power to destroy the witches.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE FOUR-SHILLING PIECE
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a poor woman, who lived in a wretched hut far
+away from the village. She had but little to bite and less to burn, so
+she sent her little boy to the forest to gather wood. He skipped and
+leaped, and leaped and skipped, in order to keep warm, for it was a
+cold, gray autumn day, and whenever he had gathered a root or a branch
+to add to his bundle, he had to slap his arms against his shoulders, for
+the cold made his hands as red as the whortleberry bushes over which he
+walked. When he had filled his barrow, and was wandering homeward, he
+crossed a field of stubble. There he saw lying a jagged white stone. "O,
+you poor old stone, how white and pale you are! You must be freezing
+terribly!" said the boy; took off his jacket, and laid it over the
+stone. And when he came back home with his wood, his mother asked
+him how it was that he was going around in the autumn cold in his
+shirt-sleeves. He told her that he had seen a jagged old stone, quite
+white and pale with the frost, and that he had given it his jacket. "You
+fool," said the woman, "do you think a stone can freeze? And even if it
+had chattered with frost, still, charity begins at home. Your clothes
+cost enough as it is, even when you don't hang them on the stones out
+in the field!"--and with that she drove the boy out again to fetch his
+jacket. When he came to the stone, the stone had turned around, and had
+raised itself from the ground on one side. "Yes, and I'm sure it is
+because you have the jacket, poor fellow!" said the boy. But when he
+looked more closely, there was a chest full of bright silver coins under
+the stone. "That must be stolen money," thought the boy, "for no one
+lays money honestly earned under stones in the wood." And he took the
+chest, and carried it down to the pond nearby, and threw in the whole
+pile of money. But a four-shilling piece was left swimming on the top
+of the water. "Well, this one is honest, for whatever is honest will
+float," said the boy. And he took the four-shilling piece and the jacket
+home with him. He told his mother what had happened to him, that the
+stone had turned around, and that he had found a chest full of silver
+coins, and had thrown it into the pond because it was stolen money. "But
+a four-shilling piece floated, and that I took along, because it was
+honest," said the boy. "You are a fool," said the woman--for she was as
+angry as could be--"if nothing were honest save what floats on the
+water, there would be but little honesty left in the world. And if
+the money had been stolen ten times over, still you had found it, and
+charity begins at home. If you had kept the money, we might have passed
+the rest of our lives in peace and comfort. But you are a dunderhead and
+will stay a dunderhead, and I won't be tormented and burdened with you
+any longer. Now you must get out and earn your own living."
+
+So the boy had to go out into the wide world, and wandered about far
+and near looking for service. But wherever he went people found him too
+small or too weak, and said that they could make no use of him. At last
+he came to a merchant. There they kept him to work in the kitchen, and
+he had to fetch wood and water for the cook. When he had been there for
+some time, the merchant decided to journey to far countries, and asked
+all his servants what he should buy and bring back home for them.
+After all had told him what they wanted, came the turn of the little
+fellow who carried wood and water for the kitchen. He handed him his
+four-shilling piece. "Well, and what am I to buy for it?" asked the
+merchant. "It will not be a large purchase." "Buy whatever it will
+bring, it is honest money, that I know," said the boy. His master
+promised to do so, and sailed away.
+
+Now when the merchant had discharged his cargo in foreign parts and had
+reloaded, and had bought what his servants had desired, he went back to
+his ship, and was about to shove off. Not until then did he remember
+that the scullion had given him a four-shilling piece, with which to
+buy him something. "Must I go up to the city again because of this
+four-shilling piece? One only has one's troubles when one bothers with
+such truck," thought the merchant. Then along came a woman with a bag on
+her back. "What have you in your bag, granny?" asked the merchant. "O,
+it is only a cat! I can feed her no longer, and so I want to throw her
+into the sea in order to get rid of her," said the old woman. "The boy
+told me to buy whatever I could get for the four-shilling piece," said
+the merchant to himself, and asked the woman whether he could have her
+cat for four shillings. The woman agreed without delay, and the bargain
+was closed.
+
+Now when the merchant had sailed on for a while, a terrible storm broke
+loose, a thunderstorm without an equal, and he drifted and drifted, and
+did not know where or whither. At last he came to a land where he had
+never yet been, and went up into the city.
+
+In the tavern which he entered the table was set, and at every place lay
+a switch, one for each guest. This seemed strange to the merchant, for
+he could not understand what was to be done with all the switches. Yet
+he sat down and thought: "I will watch carefully, and see just what the
+rest do with them, and then I can imitate them." Yes, and when the food
+came on the table, then he knew why the switches were there: the place
+was alive with thousands of mice, and all who were sitting at the table
+had to work and fight and beat about them with their switches, and
+nothing could be heard but the slapping of the switches, one worse than
+the other. Sometimes people hit each other in the face, and then they
+had to take time to say, "Excuse me!"
+
+"Eating is hard work in this country," said the merchant. "How is it
+the folk here have no cats?" "Cats?" said the people: they did not know
+what they were. Then the merchant had the cat that he had bought for the
+scullion brought, and when the cat went over the table, the mice had to
+hurry into their holes, and not in the memory of man had the people been
+able to eat in such comfort. Then they begged and implored the merchant
+to sell them his cat. At last he said he would let them have her; but he
+wanted a hundred dollars for her, and this they paid, and thanked him
+kindly into the bargain.
+
+Then the merchant sailed on, but no sooner had he reached the high seas
+than he saw the cat sitting at the top of the main-mast. And immediately
+after another storm and tempest arose, far worse than the first one, and
+he drifted and drifted, till he came to a land where he had never yet
+been. Again the merchant went to a tavern, and here, too, the table was
+covered with switches; but they were much larger and longer than at the
+place where he had first been. And they were much needed; for there were
+a good many more mice, and they were twice the size of those he had
+first seen.
+
+Here he again sold his cat, and this time he received two hundred
+dollars for her, and that without any haggling. But when he had sailed
+off and was out at sea a way, there sat the cat up in the mast. And the
+storm at once began again, and finally he was again driven to a land in
+which he had never been. Again he turned in at a tavern, and there the
+table was also covered with switches; but every switch was a yard and a
+half long, and as thick as a small broom, and the people told him that
+they knew of nothing more disagreeable than to sit down to eat, for
+there were great, ugly rats by the thousand. Only with toil and trouble
+could one manage to shove a bite of something into one's mouth once in a
+while, so hard was it to defend oneself against the rats. Then the cat
+was again brought from the ship, and now the people could eat in peace.
+They begged and pleaded that the merchant sell them his cat; and for a
+long time he refused; but at last he promised that they should have her
+for three hundred dollars. And they paid him, and thanked him, and
+blessed him into the bargain.
+
+Now when the merchant was out at sea again, he considered how much the
+boy had gained with the four-shilling piece he had given him. "Well, he
+shall have some of the money," said the merchant to himself, "but not
+all of it. For he has to thank me for the cat, which I bought for him,
+and charity begins at home."
+
+But while the merchant was thinking these thoughts, such a storm and
+tempest arose that all thought the ship would sink. Then the merchant
+realized that there was nothing left for him to do but to promise that
+the boy should have all the money. No sooner had he made his vow, than
+the weather turned fair, and he had a favoring wind for his journey
+home. And when he landed, he gave the youth the six hundred dollars and
+his daughter to boot. For now the scullion was as rich as the merchant
+himself and richer, and thereafter he lived in splendor and happiness.
+And he took in his mother and treated her kindly. "For I do not believe
+that charity begins at home," said the youth.
+
+
+    NOTE
+
+    "The Honest Four-Shilling Piece" (Asbjörnsen and Moe, N.F.E.,
+    p. 306, No. 59) stands for the idealization of childish simplicity
+    and honesty, which after much travail, and despite the ill-will of
+    the "experienced," comes into its deserved own.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE MAGIC APPLES
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a lad who was better off than all the others.
+He was never short of money, for he had a purse which was never empty.
+He never was short of food, for he had a table-cloth on which, as soon
+as he spread it, he found all he wanted to eat and drink. And, besides,
+he had a magic wishing cap. When he put it on he could wish himself
+wherever he wanted, and there he would be that very moment.
+
+There was only one thing that he lacked: he had no wife, and he was
+gradually coming into the years when it would be necessary for him to
+make haste.
+
+As he was walking sadly along one fine day, it occurred to him to wish
+himself where he would find the most beautiful princess in the world. No
+sooner had he thought of it than he was there. And it was a land which
+he had never yet seen, and a city in which he had never yet been. And
+the king had a daughter, so handsome that he had never yet beheld her
+like, and he wanted to have her on the spot. But she would have nothing
+to do with him, and was very haughty.
+
+Finally he despaired altogether, and was so beside himself that he could
+no longer be where she was not. So he took his magic cap and wished
+himself into the castle. He wanted to say good-by, so he said. And she
+laid her hand in his. "I wish we were far beyond the end of the world!"
+said the youth, and there they were. But the king's daughter wept, and
+begged to be allowed to go home again. He could have all the gold and
+silver in the castle in return. "I have money enough for myself," said
+the youth, and he shook his purse so that money just rolled about. He
+could sit down at the royal table and eat the finest food, and drink the
+finest wines, said she. "I have enough to eat and drink myself," said
+the youth. "See, you can sit down at the table," said he, and at once he
+spread his table-cloth. And there stood a table covered with the best
+one might wish; and the king himself ate no better.
+
+After they had eaten, the king's daughter said: "O, do look at the
+handsome apples up there on the tree! If you were really kind, you would
+fetch me down a couple of them!" The youth was not lazy, and climbed up.
+But he had forgotten his table-cloth and his purse, and these she took.
+And while he was shaking down the apples his cap fell off. She at once
+put it on and wished herself back in her own room, and there she was
+that minute.
+
+"You might have known it," said the youth to himself, and hurried down
+the tree. He began to cry and did not know what to do. And as he was
+sitting there, he sampled the apples which he had thrown down. No sooner
+had he tried one than he had a strange feeling in his head, and when he
+looked more closely, he had a pair of horns. "Well, now it can do me no
+more harm," said he, and calmly went on eating the apples. But suddenly
+the horns had disappeared, and he was as before. "Good enough!" said the
+youth. And with that he put the apples in his pocket, and set out to
+search for the king's daughter.
+
+He went from city to city, and sailed from country to country; but it
+was a long journey, and lasted a year and a day, and even longer.
+
+But one day he got there after all. It was a Sunday, and he found out
+that the king's daughter was at church. Then he sat himself down with
+his apples before the church door, and pretended to be a peddler.
+"Apples of Damascus! Apples of Damascus!" he cried. And sure enough, the
+king's daughter came, and told her maidens to go and see what desirable
+things the peddler from abroad might have to offer. Yes, he had apples
+of Damascus. "What do the apples give one?" asked the maiden. "Wisdom
+and beauty!" said the peddler, and the maiden bought.
+
+When the king's daughter had eaten of the apples, she had a pair of
+horns. And then there was such a wailing in the castle that it was
+pitiful to hear. And the castle was hung with black, and in the whole
+kingdom proclamation was made from all pulpits that whoever could help
+the king's daughter should get her, and half the kingdom besides. Then
+Tom, Dick and Harry, and the best physicians in the country came along.
+But none of them could help the princess.
+
+But one day a foreign doctor from afar came to court. He was not from
+their country, he said, and had made the journey purposely just to try
+his luck here. But he must see the king's daughter alone, said he, and
+permission was granted him.
+
+The king's daughter recognized him, and grew red and pale in turn. "If
+I help you now, will you marry me?" asked the youth. Yes, indeed she
+would. Then he gave her one of the magic apples, and her horns were only
+half as large as before. "But I cannot do more until I have my cap,
+and my table-cloth, and my purse back again," said he. So she went and
+brought him the things. Then he gave her still another magic apple, and
+now the horns were no more than tiny hornlets. "But now I cannot go on
+until you have sworn that you will be true to me," said he. And she
+swore that she would. And after she had eaten the third apple, her
+forehead was quite smooth again, and she was even more beautiful than
+in days gone by.
+
+Then there was great joy in the castle. They prepared for the wedding
+with baking and brewing, and invited people from East and West to come
+to it. And they ate and drank, and were merry and of good cheer, and if
+they have not stopped, they are merry and of good cheer to this very
+day!
+
+
+    NOTE
+
+    "The Magic Apples" (_Norske Eventyr og Sagn_, optegnet av Sophus
+    Bugge og Rikard Berge, Christiania, 1909, p. 61) is probably a
+    somewhat original version of one of the cycles of tales in which
+    people acquire asses' ears, long noses, humped backs and other
+    adornments, through eating some enchanted fruit. The British Isles
+    are believed to be the home-land of this tale, and it is thought
+    to have emigrated to Scandinavia by way of France and Germany.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SELF DID IT
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a mill, in which it was impossible to grind
+flour, because such strange things kept happening there. But there was a
+poor woman who was in urgent need of a little meal one evening, and she
+asked whether they would not allow her to grind a little flour during
+the night. "For heaven's sake," said the mill-owner, "that is quite
+impossible! There are ghosts enough in the mill as it is." But the woman
+said that she must grind a little; for she did not have a pinch of flour
+in the house with which to make mush, and there was nothing for her
+children to eat. So at last he allowed her to go to the mill at night
+and grind some flour. When she came, she lit a fire under a big
+tar-barrel that was standing there; got the mill going, sat down by the
+fire, and began to knit. After a time a girl came in and nodded to her.
+"Good evening!" said she to the woman. "Good evening!" said the woman;
+kept her seat, and went on knitting. But then the girl who had come in
+began to pull apart the fire on the hearth. The woman built it up again.
+
+"What is your name?" asked the girl from underground.
+
+"Self is my name," said the woman.
+
+That seemed a curious name to the girl, and she once more began to pull
+the fire apart. Then the woman grew angry and began to scold, and built
+it all up again. Thus they went on for a good while; but at last, while
+they were in the midst of their pulling apart and building up of the
+fire, the woman upset the tar-barrel on the girl from underground. Then
+the latter screamed and ran away, crying:
+
+"Father, father! Self burned me!"
+
+"Nonsense, if self did it, then self must suffer for it!" came the
+answer from below the hill.
+
+
+    NOTE.
+
+    "Self Did It" (Asbjörnsen, _Huldreeventyr_, I, p. 10. From the
+    vicinity of Sandakar, told by a half-grown boy) belongs to the
+    cycle of the Polyphemus fairy-tales, with a possible glimmer of
+    the old belief that beings low in the mythological scale are most
+    easily controlled by fire.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE MASTER GIRL
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a king who had several sons; I do not just
+know how many there were, but the youngest was not content at home,
+and insisted on going out into the world to seek his fortune. And in
+the end the king had to give him permission to do so. After he had
+wandered for a few days, he came to a giant's castle, and took service
+with the giant. In the morning the giant wanted to go off to herd his
+goats, and when he started he told the king's son he was to clean the
+stable in the meantime. "And when you are through with that, you need
+do nothing more for to-day, for you might as well know that you have
+come to a kind master," said he. "But you must do what you are told to
+do conscientiously and, besides, you must not go into any of the rooms
+that lie behind the one in which you slept last night, else your life
+will pay the forfeit."
+
+"He surely is a kind master," said the king's son to himself, walked up
+and down the room, and whistled and sang; for, thought he, there would
+be plenty of time to clean the stable. "But it would be nice to take a
+look at the other room, there surely must be something in it that he is
+alarmed about, since I am not so much as to take a look," thought he,
+and went into the first room. There hung a kettle, and it was boiling,
+but the king's son could find no fire beneath it. "What can there be in
+it?" thought he, and dipped in a lock of his hair, and at once the hair
+grew just like copper. "That's a fine soup, and whoever tastes it will
+burn his mouth," said the youth, and went into the next room. There hung
+another kettle that bubbled and boiled; but there was no fire beneath
+it, either. "I must try this one, too," said the king's son, and again
+he dipped in a lock of his hair and it grew just like silver. "We have
+no such expensive soup at home," said the king's son, "but the main
+thing is, how does it taste?" and with that he went into the third room.
+And there hung still another kettle, a-boiling just like those in the
+two other rooms, and the king's son wanted to try this one, too. He
+dipped in a lock of his hair, and it came out like pure gold, and fairly
+shimmered.
+
+Then the king's son said: "Better and better! But if he cooks gold here,
+I wonder what he cooks inside, there?" And he wanted to see, so he went
+into the fourth room. Here there was no kettle to be seen; but a maiden
+sat on a bench who must have been a king's daughter; yet whatever she
+might be, the king's son had never seen any one so beautiful in all his
+days. "Now in heaven's name, what are you doing here?" asked the maiden.
+"I hired myself out here yesterday," said the king's son. "May God be
+your aid, for it is a fine service you have chosen!" said she. "O, the
+master is very friendly," said the king's son. "He has given me no hard
+work to do to-day. When I have cleaned out the stable, I need do nothing
+more." "Yes, but how are you going to manage it?" she went on. "If you
+do as the others have done, then for every shovelful you pitch out, ten
+fresh shovelfuls will fly in. But I'll tell you how to go about it. You
+must turn around the shovel, and work with the handle, then everything
+will fly out by itself."
+
+This he would do, said the king's son; and he sat there with her all day
+long, for they had soon agreed that they would marry, he and the king's
+daughter, and in this way his first day in the giant's service did not
+weary him at all. When evening came on, she told him that now he must
+clean out the stable before the giant came, and when he got there he
+thought he would try out her advice, and began to use the shovel as he
+had seen his father's grooms use it. And sure enough, he had to stop
+quickly, for after he had worked a little while, he hardly had room in
+which to stand. Then he did as the king's daughter had told him, turned
+the shovel around and used the handle. And in a wink the stable was as
+clean as though it had been scrubbed. When he had finished he went
+to the room that the giant had assigned him, and walked up and down,
+whistling and singing. Then the giant came home with his goats. "Have
+you cleaned out the stable?" he asked. "Yes, indeed, master, it is
+spick and span," said the king's son. "I'll have to see that," said the
+giant, and went into the stable; but it was just as the king's son had
+said. "You surely have been talking to the Master Girl, for you could
+not have done that alone," said the giant. "Master Girl? What is a
+Master Girl?" said the king's son, and pretended to be very stupid. "I'd
+like to see her, too." "You will see her in plenty of time," said the
+giant.
+
+The next morning the giant went off again with his goats. And he told
+the king's son he was to fetch his horse from the pasture, and when he
+had done this, he might rest: "For you have come to a kind master," said
+he. "But if you enter one of the rooms which I forbade you entering
+yesterday, I will tear off your head," he said, and went away with his
+herd. "Indeed, you are a kind master," said the king's son, "but in
+spite of it I'd like to have another little talk with the Master Girl,
+for she is just as much mine as yours," and with that he went in to her.
+She asked him what work he had to do that day. "O, it is not so bad
+to-day," said the king's son. "I am only to fetch his horse from the
+pasture." "And how are you going to manage that?" asked the Master Girl.
+"Surely it is no great feat to fetch a horse from pasture," said the
+king's son, "and I have ridden swift horses before." "Yet it is not an
+easy matter to ride this horse home," said the Master Girl, "but I will
+tell you how to set about it: When you see the horse, he will come
+running up, breathing fire and flame, just as though he were a burning
+pine-torch. Then you must take the bit that is hanging here on the door,
+and throw it into his mouth, for then he will grow so tame that you can
+do what you will with him." He would take good note of it, said the
+king's son, and he sat there with the Master Girl the whole day long,
+and they chatted and talked about this and that, but mainly about how
+delightful it would be, and what a pleasant time they could have, if
+they could only marry and get away from the giant. And the king's son
+would have forgotten the pasture and the horse altogether, had not the
+Master Girl reminded him of them toward evening. He took the bit that
+hung in the corner, hurried out to the pasture, and the horse at once
+ran up, breathing fire and flame; but he seized the moment when he came
+running up to him with his jaws wide open, and threw the bit into his
+mouth. Then he stood still, as gentle as a young lamb, and he had no
+trouble bringing him to the stable. Then he went to his room again, and
+began to whistle and sing. In the evening the giant came home with his
+goats. "Did you fetch the horse?" he asked. "Yes, master," said the
+king's son. "It would make a fine saddle-horse, but I just took it
+straight to the stable." "I'll have to see that," said the giant, and
+went into the stable. But there stood the horse, just as the king's son
+had said. "You surely must have spoken to my Master Girl, for you
+could not have done that alone," said the giant. "Yesterday the master
+chattered about the Master Girl, and to-day he is talking about her
+again. I wish master would show me the creature, for I surely would like
+to see her," said the king's son, and pretended to be very simple and
+stupid. "You will get to see her in plenty of time," said the giant.
+
+On the third morning the giant went off again with his goats. "To-day
+you must go to the devil, and fetch me his tribute," said he to the
+king's son. "When you have done that, you may rest for the remainder of
+the time, for you have come to a kind master, and you might as well know
+it," and with that he went off. "You may be a kind master," said the
+king's son; "yet you hand over some pretty mean jobs to me in spite of
+it, but I think I'll look after your Master Girl a bit. You claim that
+she belongs to you, but perhaps, in spite of it, she may tell me what to
+do," and with that he went in to her. And when the Master Girl asked him
+what the giant had given him to do that day, he told her he must go to
+the devil and fetch a tribute. "But how will you go about it?" asked the
+Master Girl. "You will have to tell me that," said the king's son, "for
+I have never been to the devil's place, and even though I knew the way
+there, I still would not know how much to ask for." "I will tell you
+what you must do," said the Master Girl. "You must go to the rock behind
+the pasture, and take the club that is lying there, and strike the rock
+with it. Then one will come out whose eyes flash fire, and you must tell
+him your business. And if he asks how much you want, you must tell him
+as much as you can carry." He would take good note of it, said the
+king's son, and he sat there with the Master Girl all day long until
+evening, and he might be sitting there yet, if the Master Girl had not
+reminded him that he must still go to the devil about the tribute before
+the giant came home. So he set out, and did exactly as the Master Girl
+had told him: he went to the rock, took the club and beat against it.
+Then one came out from whose eyes and nose the sparks flew. "What do you
+want?" he asked. "The giant has sent me to fetch his tribute," said the
+king's son. "How much do you want?" the other again inquired. "I never
+ask for more than I can carry," was the reply of the king's son. "It is
+lucky for you that you did not ask for a whole ton at once," said the
+one on the hill. "But come in with me, and wait a while." This the
+king's son did, and saw a great deal of gold and silver lying in the
+hill like dead rock in an ore-pile. Then as much as he could carry was
+packed up, and with it he went his way. When the giant came home in
+the evening with his goats, the king's son was running about the room,
+whistling and singing as on the two preceding evenings. "Did you go to
+the devil for the tribute?" asked the giant. "Yes, indeed, master," said
+the king's son. "Where did you put it?" asked the giant again. "I stood
+the sack of gold outside on the bench," was the reply. "I must see that
+at once," said the giant, and went over to the bench. But the sack was
+really standing there, and it was so full that the gold and silver
+rolled right out when the giant loosened the string. "You surely must
+have spoken to my Master Girl," said the giant. "If that is the case I
+will tear your head off." "With your Master Girl?" said the king's
+son. "Yesterday master talked about that Master Girl, and to-day he is
+talking about her again, and the day before yesterday he talked about
+her, too! I only wish that I might get the chance to see her sometime!"
+said he. "Well, just wait until to-morrow," said the giant, "and then I
+will lead you to her myself," he said. "A thousand thanks, master," said
+the king's son, "but I think you are only joking!" The following day the
+giant took him to the Master Girl.
+
+"Now you must slaughter him, and cook him in the big kettle, you know
+which one I mean. And when the soup is ready, you can call me," said the
+giant, and he lay down on the bench to sleep, and at once began to snore
+so that the hills shook. Then the Master Girl took a knife, and cut the
+youth's little finger, and let three drops of blood fall on the bench.
+Then she took all the old rags, and old shoes and other rubbish she
+could find, and threw them all into the kettle. And then she took a
+chest of gold-dust, and a lick-stone, and a bottle of water that hung
+over the door, and a golden apple, and two golden hens, and left the
+giant's castle together with the king's son as quickly as possible.
+After a time they came to the sea, and they sailed across; though where
+they got the ship I do not exactly know.
+
+Now when the giant had been sleeping quite a while, he began to stretch
+himself on his bench. "Is dinner ready yet?" he asked. "Just begun!"
+said the first drop of blood on the bench. Then the giant turned
+around, went to sleep again, and went on sleeping for quite some time.
+Then he again turned around a little. "Is dinner not ready yet?" he
+said, but did not open his eyes--nor had he done so the first time--for
+he was still half asleep. "It is half ready!" called out the second drop
+of blood, and then the giant thought it was the Master Girl. He turned
+around on the bench and took another nap. After he had slept a couple of
+hours longer, he once more began to move about and stretch: "Is dinner
+still not ready?" said he. "Ready!" answered the third drop of blood.
+The giant sat up and rubbed his eyes. But he could not see who had
+called him, and so he called out to the Master Girl. But no one answered
+him. "O, I suppose she has gone out for a little," thought the giant,
+and he dipped his spoon in the kettle to try the dinner; but there was
+nothing but leather soles and rags and like rubbish cooked together, and
+he did not know whether it were mush or porridge. When he noticed this
+he began to see a light, and realize how matters had come to pass, and
+he grew so angry that he hardly knew what to do, and made after the
+king's son and the Master Girl in flying haste. In a short time he came
+to the sea, and could not cross. "But I know how to help myself," said
+he. "I will fetch my sea-sucker." So the sea-sucker came, and lay down
+and took two or three swallows, and thus lowered the water so that the
+giant could see the king's son and the Master Girl out on the ship. "Now
+you must throw the lick-stone overboard," said the Master Girl, and the
+king's son did so. It turned into a tremendous large rock square across
+the sea, and the giant could not get over, and the sea-sucker could
+drink up no more of the sea. "I know quite well what I must do," said
+the giant. "I must now fetch my hill-borer." So the hill-borer came, and
+bored a hole through the rock, so the sea-sucker could get through and
+keep on sucking. But no sooner were they thus far than the Master Girl
+told the king's son to pour a drop or so of the bottle overboard, and
+the sea grew so full that they had landed before the sea-sucker could so
+much as take a single swallow.
+
+Now they wanted to go home to the father of the king's son; but he would
+not hear of the Master Girl's going afoot, since he did not think this
+fitting for either of them. "Wait here a little while, until I fetch the
+seven horses that stand in my father's stable," said the king's son. "It
+is not far, and I will soon be back; for I will not have my bride come
+marching home afoot." "No, do not do so, for when you get home to the
+castle you will forget me, I know that positively," said the Master
+Girl. "How could I forget you?" said the king's son. "We have passed
+through so many hardships together, and we love each other so dearly,"
+said he. He wanted to fetch the coach and seven horses at all costs, and
+she was to wait by the seashore. So at last the Master Girl had to give
+in.
+
+"But when you get there, you must not take time to greet a single
+person. You must at once go to the stable, harness the horses, and drive
+back as swiftly as you can. They will all come to meet you, but you
+must act as though you did not see them, and must not take a single bite
+to eat. If you do not do that, you will make both of us unhappy," said
+she. And he promised to do as she had said.
+
+But when he got home to the castle, one of his brothers was just getting
+married, and the bride and all the guests were already there. They all
+crowded around him and asked him this, and asked him that, and wanted to
+lead him in. But he acted as though he saw none of them, led out the
+horses, and began to put them to the coach. And since they could by no
+manner of means induce him to come into the castle, they came out with
+again. What th' deuce d'ye mean by shouting at me as if I were a drunken
+deck-hand! Speak to me above a whisper now--and you'll see what'll
+happen to you. That's the police-boat pulling past."
+
+The opportune plash of oars had suggested to him that plausible threat.
+Captain Dove, listening intently, crouched back against the bulkhead,
+his blinking, hot, suspicious eyes on Slyne's. The boat passed on. But
+he had found time to observe that Slyne was in evening dress, with an
+expensive fur coat to keep the cold out. And Slyne's cool contempt for
+his ill-temper would seem to have impressed him no less than Slyne's air
+of solid prosperity.
+
+He himself, it appeared, had had care and adversity for his companions
+ever since parting with his former friend. His chief aim in calling at
+Genoa had been cheap coal and cheaper repairs, and he thought that he
+was less likely to be recognised there than elsewhere in the
+Mediterranean. But coal, he had found, had risen to a ruinous price in
+consequence of a recent strike among the miners in England; and for even
+the most trifling repairs he would have to wait at least a week, because
+the dock-yard people were already working over-time to make way for a
+man-of-war. Credit of any sort was not to be had. His portage-bill bade
+fair to swamp his insufficient cash resources--even although three of
+his now scanty crew had already deserted. And who could foretell what
+might happen to him if they should get wagging their tongues too freely
+in some wine-shop ashore! While, as if for climax, the Customs'
+authorities had been displaying a most suspicious interest in him and
+his ship. Under such circumstances, even a saint might have been
+pardoned, as he pointed out, for showing a temper something short of
+seraphic.
+
+"And you've been doing me good turns--by your way of it--for some time
+past," he continued, in a stifled, vehement whisper lest his voice
+should still reach the receding boat. "Though--" He waved a claw-like
+hand about him, words again failing him to describe adequately his
+sufferings in consequence, as who should say, "See the result for
+yourself."
+
+Slyne sat down on the sofa opposite him, not even condescending to
+glance, in response to that invitation, round the squalid,
+poverty-stricken little cabin. "Never mind about some time past," he
+advised, more pacifically. "You'll never get rich quick yesterday.
+To-day's when _I'm_ going to make my pile. And I meant to let you in--"
+
+"To another hole," Captain Dove concluded sceptically. "I only wish
+you'd show me some sure way out of the one I'm in."
+
+Slyne looked his annoyance at that further interruption, and made as if
+to rise, but did no more than draw his gold cigarette-case from its
+pocket. He knew that Captain Dove was merely trying to aggravate him,
+and it would not have been politic to stray from the matter in hand. He
+lighted a cigarette at his leisure and waited for what should come next.
+He had changed his mind as to taking the old man fully into his
+confidence. He thought he could see his way to get all he wanted for a
+very great deal less than that might have cost him.
+
+"Want a drink?" Captain Dove demanded, no doubt with the idea that a
+dose of spirit might serve to stir up his visitor's temper, and looked
+surprised at Slyne's curt head-shake, still more surprised over his
+response.
+
+"I can't afford to drink at all hours of the day and night now," said
+Slyne austerely. "That sort of thing was all very well at sea, but--The
+business I have in hand isn't of the sort that can be carried out on raw
+brandy. And you'll have to taper off too, if you want to come in."
+
+"Strike--me--sky-blue!" exclaimed the old man, and Slyne held up a
+reproving hand.
+
+"I can do with a good deal less of your bad language into the bargain,"
+he mentioned coldly, "if you don't mind. In short, I want you to
+understand from the start that you've got to behave as if you were a
+reasonable human being and not a dangerous lunatic, or--I'll leave you
+to rot, in the hole you've got yourself into."
+
+Captain Dove, scarcely able to credit the evidence of his own ears but,
+none the less, apparently, thinking hard, darted a very ugly glance at
+him, and noticed the diamonds in his shirt-front. Under the strongest
+temptation to call in a couple of deck-hands and have him thrown off the
+ship, Captain Dove obviously paused to consider whether those could be
+of any intrinsic value. He was, of course, satisfied that he knew
+exactly how much--or, rather, how little money Slyne had had in his
+pockets when he went ashore. And, if Slyne had already, within four and
+twenty hours, been able to turn that over at a profit sufficient to
+provide himself with a fur coat and diamonds, it might perhaps pay
+Captain Dove to hear what he had to propose. Slyne, reading all the old
+man's thoughts, could see that he had decided to temporise.
+
+"But, I can do with a damn sight less of _your_ back-chat!" rumbled
+Captain Dove, not to be put down without protest. "If you've come back
+on board to offer me a founder's share in any new gold-brick factory,
+fire straight ahead--and be short about it. It'll save time, too, if
+you'll take it from me again that I'd rather have your room than your
+company."
+
+And at that, Slyne made his next considered move.
+
+"All right," he said in a tone of the most utter contempt. "That's
+enough. I'm off.
+
+"I came back to do you a good turn--although few men, in my position,
+would ever have looked near you again," he paused in the doorway to
+remark acridly. "But I can see now what's the matter with you--and I
+only wish I had noticed it in time to save myself all it has cost me.
+It's senile decay you're suffering from. You're far too old to be of any
+more use--even to yourself. You're in your dotage, and you'll soon be in
+an asylum--for pauper lunatics!"
+
+He had evidently lost his own temper at last. And Captain Dove was
+visibly pleased with that result of his tactics; as a rule he was better
+able to cope with Slyne on a basis of mutual abuse, heated on both
+sides; Slyne cool and collected had him at a disadvantage.
+
+"Now you're talking!" he retorted approvingly. "Say what's in your mind,
+straightforwardly, and we'll soon come to an understanding. Sit down
+again, you strutting peacock! and tell me what it is you want."
+
+Slyne did not sit down again, however; to do so would scarcely have been
+dignified. He stayed in the doorway, silent, a thin stream of
+cigarette-smoke slowly filtering from his nostrils. His cold,
+calculating eyes were once more on Captain Dove's. And it was Captain
+Dove's would-be mocking glance that at length gave way.
+
+"You offered to give me Sallie, if I paid you a hundred thousand
+dollars," said Slyne, judicially.
+
+"To see you safely married to her," Captain Dove corrected him.
+
+Slyne nodded, in grave assent.
+
+"Well, I'm going to hold you to your offer," said he. "The money's ready
+and waiting for you--just as soon as we can settle a few trifling
+formalities. I have Sallie's promise to marry me--"
+
+"The devil you have!" said Captain Dove, not slow to seize opportunity
+either. "I thought I heard her say--"
+
+Slyne's face darkened again. "And, if you'll come ashore with me now,"
+he went on, controlling his temper, "I'll prove to you that your money
+is perfectly safe."
+
+Captain Dove lay back in his bunk and laughed, most discordantly. He
+laughed till his red-rimmed eyes were adrip, while Slyne sat looking at
+him. He was still laughing when Slyne rose and, flicking the
+cigarette-end from between two nicotine-stained fingers, began to button
+his coat. He stopped laughing then, by calculated degrees.
+
+"Sit down--sit down!" said he wheezily. "What's your hurry? You haven't
+told me yet what those few 'trifling formalities' are. And how am I to
+know whether--"
+
+But Slyne was already beyond the doorway, fumbling with a last button.
+
+"If you believe I've come here to talk simply for the sake of talking,"
+said he with sombre magnificence, "I needn't waste any more breath on
+you. Good-bye."
+
+Captain Dove jumped out of his bunk. He was clearly impressed, in spite
+of himself, by the other's indomitable assurance.
+
+"Come back, you fool!" he called angrily. "Come back. I want to know--
+
+"I'll go ashore with you," he shouted, raising his voice, since Slyne
+was already on his way to the gangway. But Slyne did not seem to hear.
+
+"I'll take your offer--for Sallie," cried Captain Dove, in a slightly
+lower tone.
+
+Slyne hesitated in his stride, stopped, and turned back into the
+alleyway which led to the saloon.
+
+"What was that you said?" he demanded of Captain Dove.
+
+"Come on inside," requested Captain Dove, more curtly.
+
+"I don't believe I will," Slyne declared, inwardly elated over the
+winning of that somewhat risky move. "You don't deserve another chance.
+And, if I do give you another, you needn't suppose--"
+
+"Come on inside," begged Captain Dove, shivering, in no case to listen
+to any lecture. "Come on, and we'll talk sense. Don't waste any more
+good time."
+
+Slyne followed him in again, congratulating himself on his firmness. He
+felt that he had gained the whip-hand of the old man, and he meant to
+keep it. He curtly refused again Captain Dove's more hospitable offer of
+some refreshment, and, while his aggrieved host was clumsily getting
+into some warmer clothing, talked to him from the saloon through the
+open doorway of his cramped sleeping-quarters. It was easier to arrange
+matters so than under Captain Dove's direct observation.
+
+"You'll pay me cash, of course," Captain Dove stipulated, as though he
+had been bargaining about a charter-party.
+
+"I'll pay you cash," Slyne agreed, "the day Sallie marries me. And
+meantime I'll give you my note of hand at thirty days for the money." He
+listened intently, but Captain Dove, struggling fretfully with
+refractory buttons, maintained an ominous silence.
+
+"I'll have it backed by a London lawyer, to keep you safe," said Slyne.
+"And listen! I'm not asking you to risk anything, or even to take my
+note at its face value. I want you to come ashore with me and find out
+for yourself from my lawyer that you can depend on the money. If you
+don't feel satisfied about that after you've seen him, you needn't go
+any farther, we'll call the bargain off; you can get back on board your
+ship at once and no harm done.
+
+"And, even as regards Sallie, I'm going out of my way to keep you right.
+I'd give a great deal to get married at once, but--I'm willing to wait
+till the day I can hand you your hundred thousand in cash. Everything's
+fair, square, and above-board now. I'm not asking you to risk anything.
+
+"And where in the wide world can you expect to do better for yourself!"
+he argued. "If you go East you'll get no more for the girl--and look at
+the expense! You'll be sorry all the rest of your life, too, for I know
+you'd far sooner see her decently settled than sell her to any dog-faced
+son-of-a-gun of a mandarin!
+
+"You can say what you like," he concluded, although Captain Dove had
+said never a word. "Clean money's pleasanter to spend than dirty, any
+day. If I had been born wealthy, I'd never have needed to touch a marked
+card. And now's your chance, too, to pull out of a rotten rut that'll
+sooner or later land you among the chain-gang."
+
+Captain Dove came forth from his cabin, indifferently clad, and eyed
+Slyne with a sarcastic interest which somewhat disconcerted that
+homilist.
+
+"You don't _look_ just like a Band o' Hope!" said the old man, "but--"
+
+Slyne rose again, and bit his lip, in simulated impatience. "Oh, all
+right," said he. "If you're not interested--"
+
+Captain Dove scowled at him. "I'm interested," he said grudgingly. "I'll
+see this lawyer-fellow of yours whenever you like to bring him aboard,
+and--if the money's there, you can count me in."
+
+"He isn't the sort of lawyer you've been accustomed to, Dove," said
+Slyne. "You've got to go to him."
+
+Captain Dove did his best to out-stare him, but failed.
+
+"And what's more," said Slyne, playing a trump card with great outward
+indifference, "you can make him pay you for your time instead of you
+paying him. I told you I came back here to do you a good turn. There's
+more than a hundred thousand dollars of easy money for you in this
+deal--if you go the right way about it.
+
+"But--don't take my word for anything."
+
+Captain Dove had palpable difficulty in suppressing the obvious repartee
+to that last bit of advice. But cupidity and cunning kept him quiet for
+a space.
+
+"All right. I'll go with you," he agreed very gruffly at last. And Slyne
+heaved a silent sigh of relief; he had feared more than once that the
+contest of wills would after all go against him.
+
+"You're wise," he commented carelessly. "It will pay you.
+
+"You'd better see Sallie now, don't you think, and tell her--"
+
+"I'm not going to interfere between you and her--till I get my money
+from you," declared the old man with a crafty grin. "You must tackle her
+yourself. She'll be up by now, but breakfast won't be ready for half an
+hour. If I were you I'd take that coat off and let her have a sight of
+those diamonds of yours."
+
+Slyne did not wait to hear any more. He was already on his way aft, a
+somewhat incongruous figure on the decks of the _Olive Branch_. When he
+reached the companion-hatch on the poop he was smiling sardonically.
+
+"I do believe it was my 'diamonds' that finally fetched that old
+ruffian," said he to himself. "If they have the same effect on Sallie, I
+won't grudge the few francs I paid for them!"
+
+He tiptoed down the short stairway, and, having tapped very quietly at
+the door of the after-saloon, entered without more ado. He judged that
+he might have difficulty in gaining admission if he delayed to ask
+leave.
+
+The saloon was empty. But from an adjoining cabin came the sound of
+splashing, and from its neighbour the shuffle of heavy feet, a faint
+suggestion of deft hands busy among crisp muslin and sibilant silk.
+
+Slyne hesitated; he wanted to be very tactful and yet was unwilling to
+give up the advantage he had thus gained. He closed the door carefully
+behind him. It creaked a little.
+
+From the room whence had come the rustle of feminine garments an
+uncanny-looking figure appeared, and darted an angry, apprehensive
+glance about the saloon. The sound of splashing had ceased.
+
+"'Morning, Ambrizette," said Slyne briskly and standing his ground. "Is
+your mistress up yet? Tell her I have Captain Dove's leave to pay her a
+call."
+
+The dumb black dwarf's scowl grew darker, but her hand fell away from
+her breast and she halted as Sallie's voice sounded from within.
+
+"Is that you, Jasper!" it ejaculated. "What do you want? I thought--"
+
+"I've come back--with good news for you, Sallie--wonderful news!" said
+Slyne. "And I'm in no end of a hurry to be off again. Call Ambrizette in
+and get dressed, as quick as you can. Captain Dove's waiting breakfast
+for me and I mustn't delay him. How long will you be?"
+
+"What sort of news is it?" asked Sallie, no less dubious than her maid
+had been; and called her maid in, notwithstanding her well-founded
+doubts as to the nature of any news he could bring. For Slyne had held
+out to her the same lure that the serpent offered to Eve, and her
+womanly curiosity would not allow her to order him at once from her
+domain.
+
+Slyne smiled slightly as he sat down in a basket-chair, to look about
+him while she was still busy within. The little after-saloon which had
+been her home for so long was finely furnished; more so, perhaps, than
+was apparent to Slyne, whose taste in that respect inclined to the
+florid. But he could not help noticing how dainty and neat and feminine
+was its entire effect, with its cushioned cosy corners, snow-white
+curtains and draperies. Its purely fragrant atmosphere stirred even
+Slyne's conscience a little.
+
+He lay back in his seat, and, gazing about him, recalled to mind all he
+had been able to learn as to Sallie's strange past. It all fitted in so
+perfectly with the fabric of his wonderful new plans that he could find
+no possible flaw in them. And when Sallie herself at length came out to
+him from her cabin, he was optimistically disposed to be very generous
+in his dealings with her.
+
+Fresh from her bath and doubly bewitching in her clinging, intimate
+draperies, she met Slyne's glad, eager glance with grave, doubtful eyes,
+and ignored entirely the hand he held out to her as he sprang from his
+chair. But he affected not to notice her attitude of distrust, and,
+greeting her gaily, saved his face by laying his outstretched hand on
+another chair, which he set a little nearer his own.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" he suggested with debonair courtesy.
+
+But she shook her head; she was evidently afraid to receive him on any
+such friendly footing. She did not even care to ask him what he was
+doing in evening dress at breakfast-time and on board the _Olive
+Branch_. But in her troubled eyes he could read that unspoken inquiry.
+
+"I've been travelling all night to get back to you, Sallie," he told
+her, in a low, eager tone, "and I hadn't time to change--I was in such a
+hurry to tell you the news. I've come to take you away from the _Olive
+Branch_,--and Captain Dove. I've come to set you free."
+
+She stared at him as though she had not heard aright, her lips parted,
+her eyebrows arched, a faint, puzzled, questioning frown on her
+forehead.
+
+"I've come to set you free," he said again.
+
+"At what price?" she asked suddenly, with disconcerting directness, and
+his would-be straightforward glance wavered.
+
+"Don't put it that way!" he urged. "I ask no more than the fulfilment of
+the promise you made me. And--listen, Sallie. I've found out who you
+really are and where your home is. I'll take you there if only you--
+
+"I'm not asking you to marry me right away, either, remember. All you
+must do in the meantime is to sign without question some papers that
+will be required. Then I'll make everything quite safe for you and take
+you to your own home."
+
+The quick doubt in her eyes had given place to an expression of helpless
+amazement and growing dismay. But he did not wait to hear anything she
+might have to say.
+
+"It's like this, you see," he went on hurriedly. "Captain Dove's
+absolutely at the end of his wits for money, and now--I can pay him his
+price for you if you'll keep your promise to me by and by. Otherwise I
+can't; no matter how willing I might be, I can't, I swear to you.
+
+"He feels, too, that you owe it to him to make up in one way or another
+for some part at least of what he and I have lost through your--your
+interfering so much lately in his affairs. And, if you don't back me up
+now, he'll have to take the _Olive Branch_ East as best he can. He'll
+take you too, and--you'll never come back.
+
+"You don't understand. I'm not really trying to force you to marry me,
+but to save you from a fate far worse than the worst you could imagine.
+You don't understand that it's really freedom I'm offering you, and that
+your only option is slavery.
+
+"You'd rather have a white man--even me!--for your husband, wouldn't
+you? than a yellow one--or brown--or maybe black!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A MASTERSTROKE
+
+
+Sallie sat down quickly in a cushioned chair, and lay back, trembling
+like a captured bird.
+
+Slyne was not beyond feeling somewhat ashamed of himself, but found easy
+solace in the reflection that all he had said was for her good as well
+as his own. He could see that his last brutal argument had struck home.
+For Sallie could no longer doubt, now, in the lurid light of her recent
+experiences, that Captain Dove looked upon her as a mere chattel, to be
+turned into cash as soon as occasion should offer.
+
+In a little she looked up at him again out of pleading, desperate eyes.
+Some most unusual impulse of pity stirred him. She was only a young girl
+yet, and her helplessness spoke its own appeal, even to him. He made up
+his mind again, quite apart from any question of policy, to deal with
+her as generously as might be practicable.
+
+"Will Captain Dove let me go now if I promise to marry you, Jasper?" she
+asked. And he nodded solemnly.
+
+"And not unless I do?" she insisted. "You _know_ I didn't--before,
+although you say I did."
+
+"I swear to God, Sallie," he declared, "that I can't raise the money the
+Old Man wants any other way. And--I won't say another word about what's
+past and done with.
+
+"If you'll really promise to marry me," he said eagerly, "I'll prove to
+you that all I have told you is true before you need even leave Captain
+Dove; I won't ask you to go a step farther with me until you're
+perfectly satisfied; I'll take you safely to your own home as soon as
+you _are_ satisfied that you can trust me. And I won't ask you to keep
+your promise till--"
+
+An irrepressible light of longing had leaped up behind the despair in
+her eyes.
+
+"You say that all I must do in the meantime is to sign some papers," she
+interrupted. "You say you won't ask me to marry you right away. Will you
+wait--a year?"
+
+"A year! I couldn't, Sallie!" he cried, and her pale lips drooped
+piteously again.
+
+"How long, then?" she asked in a whisper. "Six months?"
+
+He had made up his mind to be generous, and he felt that he had not
+failed in his intention as he answered, "Three months, and not a day
+longer, Sallie."
+
+She sat still and silent for a while, considering that, and then, "All
+right, Jasper," she agreed. "Take me safe home, and I'll marry you three
+months from the day we get there--if we're both alive when the time
+comes."
+
+He turned away from her for a moment. He had won all he wanted in the
+meantime, and he could scarcely contain himself. When he presently held
+out a hand to her, she took it, to bind that bargain.
+
+"And you won't have any cause to regret it, Sallie," he assured her, his
+voice somewhat hoarse in spite of his effort to speak quite naturally.
+
+"So now, as soon as you're ready, we'll all go ashore together, and--"
+
+"I'll be ready in twenty minutes," she told him, clasping her hands at
+her heart, her eyes very eager. "And, Jasper--you must let me take
+Ambrizette with me."
+
+"You're free now to do as you like," he answered, and left her. He felt
+as if he were treading on air on his way back to the mid-ship saloon.
+
+Captain Dove, in the same _négligé_ costume, was busy at breakfast when
+Slyne walked in upon him again, but looked up from his plate for long
+enough to mumble a malicious question.
+
+"Yes, I've fixed it all up with her," Slyne answered with assumed
+nonchalance. "You can always trust me to know how to handle a woman,
+Dove."
+
+Captain Dove shot a derisive glance in his direction. "Is she willing to
+marry you after all, then?" he demanded, feigning a surprise by no means
+complimentary.
+
+"Not just at once, of course," returned his companion, and left the old
+man to infer whatever he pleased.
+
+In response to a shouted order of Captain Dove's a slatternly
+cook-steward brought Slyne a steaming platter of beans with a bit of
+bacon-rind on top, and an enamelled mug containing a brew which might,
+by courtesy, have been called coffee. There was a tray of broken ship's
+biscuits, a tin containing some peculiarly rank substitute for butter,
+upon the table, with the other equally uninviting concomitants of a
+meagre meal.
+
+"_Tchk-tchk!_" commented Slyne, and sat down to satisfy his hunger as
+best he might; while Captain Dove, having overheard that criticism, eyed
+him inimically, and proceeded to puff a peculiarly rank cigar in his
+face.
+
+"You might as well be getting dressed now," said Slyne indifferently.
+"By the time I'm through here, Sallie will be ready to go ashore."
+
+Captain Dove looked very fiercely at him, but without effect.
+
+"Sallie won't stir a step from the ship," the old man affirmed, "till
+you've handed over the cash."
+
+Slyne looked up, in mild surprise.
+
+"But, dear me! Dove," he remarked, "you don't expect that the London
+lawyer's going to take my word for a girl he's never even seen? Until
+he's satisfied on that point, he won't endorse my note to you. So we've
+_got_ to take her along with us. I'm doing my best to give you a square
+deal; and all I ask in return is a square deal from you."
+
+"You'd better not try any crooked games with me," growled Captain Dove,
+and sat for a time sunk in obviously aggravating reflections.
+
+"If we get on his soft side," suggested Slyne insidiously, "there's no
+saying how much more we might both make."
+
+Captain Dove rose and retired into his sleeping-cabin without further
+words; while Slyne, picking out with a two-pronged fork the cleanest of
+the beans on his plate, smiled sneeringly to himself.
+
+"What's the latest long-shore fashion, Slyne?" the old man asked after
+an interval. Slyne knew by his tone that he had dismissed dull care from
+his mind and was prepared to be quarrelsome again.
+
+"It wouldn't suit a figure like yours," he answered coolly, and was
+gratified to hear another hoarse growl. For, strange though it may seem,
+Captain Dove was not without vanity. "All you really need to worry about
+is how to keep sober. And I want it to be understood from the start--"
+
+"Not so much of it now!" snarled Captain Dove from his cabin. "You
+attend to your own business--and I'll attend to mine. I know how to
+behave myself--among gentlemen. And, don't you forget, either, that I'm
+going ashore to play my own hand. I've a card or two up my sleeve,
+Mister Slyne, that will maybe euchre your game for you--if you try to
+bluff too high."
+
+Slyne swore hotly, under his breath. He would have given a great deal to
+know exactly what the old man meant by that mysterious threat, and only
+knew that it would be useless to ask him. There was nothing for it but
+to put up with his capricious humours, as patiently as might
+be--although Slyne shivered in anticipation of the strain that might
+entail--till he could be dispensed with or got rid of altogether.
+
+Nor, as it presently appeared, were his fears at all ill-founded. For
+Captain Dove emerged from his cabin got up for shore-going in a guise at
+sight of which Slyne could by no means suppress an involuntary groan.
+
+"I'm all ready now," Captain Dove announced. "Will you pay for a cab if
+I call one?"
+
+"My car's waiting," Slyne returned, and, as the old man whistled
+amazedly over that further and unexpected proof that his former
+accomplice's fortunes had changed for the better, "You look like a fool
+in that outfit," said Slyne. "The right rig-out for motoring is a tweed
+suit and a soft cap."
+
+Captain Dove was very visibly annoyed. He had been at particular pains
+to array himself properly. "You want to be the only swell in the party,
+of course!" he grunted. "You're jealous, that's what's the matter with
+you." And he fell to polishing his furry, old-fashioned top-hat with a
+tail of the scanty, ill-fitting frock-coat he had donned along with a
+noisome waistcoat in honour of the occasion.
+
+Slyne shrugged his shoulders, despairingly, and, having made an end of
+his unappetising meal, prepared for the road. Then he lighted a cigar
+very much at his leisure, while Captain Dove regarded him grimly, and
+led the way on deck without further words.
+
+Sallie was ready and waiting at the companion-hatch on the poop, as
+pretty as a picture in the sables Captain Dove had given her a year
+before--after a very lucrative season of poaching on the Siberian coast.
+As soon as she caught sight of them she came forward, followed by
+Ambrizette, whose appearance, in cloak and turban, was even a worse
+offence to Slyne's fastidious taste than Captain Dove's had been.
+
+"What a calamitous circus!" he muttered between set teeth. "I must get
+rid of those two somehow--and soon. But till then--
+
+"My car's at the back of those coal-wagons there," he told Captain Dove
+with great dignity, and Captain Dove turned to the engine-room hatch.
+
+"Below there!" he called down. "Is that Mr. Brasse? I'm off now, Brasse.
+You'll carry out all my instructions, eh? And--don't quarrel with Da
+Costa, d'ye hear?"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," answered a dreary voice from the depths below, and
+Captain Dove faced about again to find Sallie, flushed and anxious,
+waiting with Ambrizette at the gangway.
+
+"Come on," he ordered irascibly, and Sallie followed him down the
+plank. Ambrizette shuffled fearfully after her, and Slyne came last, his
+chin in the air, triumphant.
+
+He led the way to his car, and was gratified to observe its salutary
+effect on Captain Dove's somewhat contemptuous demeanour. The little
+policeman in charge of it pending its opulent owner's return, came
+forward, touching his képi, which further impressed Captain Dove,
+uncomfortably. Slyne handed Sallie into the tonneau, and Ambrizette
+after her, tossed the policeman a further tip which secured his
+everlasting esteem, took his own seat at the wheel, and was hastily
+followed by Captain Dove.
+
+"Where are we bound for?" asked Captain Dove, holding his top-hat on
+with both hands, as Slyne took the road toward Sampierdarena at a round
+pace.
+
+"Don't talk to the man at the wheel," answered Slyne, and laughed.
+"We've a hundred miles or so ahead of us. Better chuck that old tile of
+yours away and tie a handkerchief round your head; you'll find that less
+uncomfortable."
+
+The old man, at a loss for any more effective retort, pulled his
+antiquated beaver down almost to his ears, folded his long arms across
+the chest of his flapping frock-coat, and sat silent, scowling at the
+baggy umbrella between his knees. Nor did he open his mouth again during
+the swift journey.
+
+But when they at length reached their destination and Slyne stopped the
+car quietly before the imposing pile that forms the Hôtel de Paris,
+Captain Dove's jaw dropped and his mouth opened mechanically.
+
+A resplendent porter came hurrying forward and bowed most humbly to the
+magnificent Slyne.
+
+"Take this lady and her maid straight up to the suite next mine,"
+ordered Slyne as Sallie alighted, while Captain Dove listened, all ears.
+"And ask Mr. Jobling to join me in my sitting-room. He's still here, I
+suppose?"
+
+He gave vent to a heartfelt sigh of relief as the man, already preceding
+his charges indoors, paused to answer in the affirmative.
+
+"I needn't book a room for you," he told Captain Dove, with calculated
+indifference. "But Sallie must have somewhere to leave Ambrizette.
+
+"Hey! you. Call my chauffeur to take the car round to the garage."
+
+Captain Dove followed him toward the bureau, attracting not a few
+glances of mingled surprise and amusement from the elaborate idlers in
+its neighbourhood. Slyne was furious.
+
+"I can't have him tagging about after me in that ghastly get-up!" he
+told himself on the way to the elevator; and cuffed the elevator-boy's
+ears at the sound of a mirthful sneeze with which that unfortunate youth
+had become afflicted. "Though how the deuce I'm to help myself I don't
+know."
+
+In the corridor at which they got out he caught sight of Mr. Jobling
+approaching, and hurried Captain Dove into the sitting-room of his
+suite.
+
+"Give me five minutes to change my clothes," he requested of the old
+man. "And don't get straying about, or you'll lose yourself."
+
+Mr. Jobling met him on the threshold as he shut the door. That gentleman
+had marvellously recovered from his over-night's nervous break-down. A
+sound sleep, a visit from the barber, a bath and a liberal breakfast had
+all helped to alter him outwardly and inwardly for the better. He was
+once more the respectably prosperous, self-confident solicitor.
+
+"I believe you've been out all night," he observed in a jocular tone of
+reproof, a waggish forefinger uplifted.
+
+"I've covered a couple of hundred miles in the car while you've been
+asleep," answered Slyne, turning into his dressing-room. "I've brought
+the girl back with me--and the old man, her guardian. We're going to
+have trouble with him unless we're very careful. So listen, and I'll
+tell you how things stand."
+
+Mr. Jobling composed his features into their most professional aspect,
+but that gave place by degrees to a variety of other expressions, while
+Slyne, busy changing his clothes, related all he himself knew as to
+Sallie's past history.
+
+"And now the old man thinks he is entitled to put a price on her," Slyne
+concluded. "She's promised to marry me, but he won't let her go till I
+hand him a hundred thousand dollars."
+
+Mr. Jobling lay back limply in his chair. In all his career he had
+never, he asserted, heard a more scandalous suggestion.
+
+"Never mind about that," Slyne cut him short. "The money's no object to
+me. But you can understand what a difficult fellow he is to deal with.
+And what I'm going to do, merely as a precaution against his playing us
+false in the end, is to give him my note of hand for the amount he
+demands, endorsed by you, and payable the day I marry his adopted
+daughter."
+
+Mr. Jobling sank still lower in his seat.
+
+"In return for that," Slyne went on, "he must sign a clear deliverance
+from any further claim on any of us, subject, of course, to due payment
+of the note.
+
+"Then, I want a document drawn up to confirm my engagement to the girl
+and granting me the fullest possible power of attorney on her behalf
+both before and after our marriage. She's so simple and inexperienced
+that I must do everything for her.
+
+"And, lastly, you'd better make out a brief private agreement between
+yourself and me--just as a matter of form, you know--to the effect that
+you are willing to act in my interests throughout, in return for a
+commission of ten per cent. on the accumulated revenues of the Jura
+estates at the date of my marriage."
+
+Mr. Jobling looked at him for a time as a man suddenly bereft of his
+spine might.
+
+"There's no time to spare," Slyne mentioned. "I want all that sort of
+thing settled right off the reel--before lunch.
+
+"If the old man makes any kick about anything, you must back me up in
+all I say. Although if he tries to raise his price by a few thousand
+dollars, we needn't stick at that. The great thing is to get him to sign
+the deliverance in return for our note. The girl has already agreed--"
+
+"And what if _I_ refuse?" croaked his companion with the courage of
+desperation. It was evident that Mr. Jobling saw through his daring
+scheme. "What if I insist on my fair share? What if I--"
+
+Slyne silenced him with a contemptuous gesture.
+
+"Whatever you do will make no difference to anyone in the wide world but
+yourself," said Slyne. "If you do what you're told you'll get a great
+deal more than you deserve out of it. If you don't--D'ye think I'd have
+taken you into the team if I didn't know how to drive you!" he asked,
+his eyes beginning to blaze. "Why, my good fellow, if you refuse, if
+you don't travel up to your collar, if you so much as shy at anything
+you see or hear--I won't even hurt you; I'll just hand you over to the
+police.
+
+"So make up your mind now, quick!"
+
+"You've nothing against me," quavered the lawyer.
+
+"No, I've nothing--not very much, at least, yet," Slyne agreed, knotting
+his tie neatly before the glass. "But--that may be because you haven't
+embezzled any of my money--yet." He had most opportunely recalled what
+the detective Dubois had told him about his new friend.
+
+Mr. Jobling's face was almost green. He got up with an evident effort.
+
+"I was only joking," he declared with a most ghastly grin. "I'll be
+quite satisfied with ten per cent. of the accumulated income--in fact,
+we'll call it a couple of hundred thousand pounds, if you like."
+
+"All right," Slyne agreed imperturbably. "Make it that amount if you'd
+rather. How long will it take you to get the papers drawn out? It's
+nearly one o'clock. And--you won't be safe till they're signed."
+
+"An hour," said Mr. Jobling. "I'm a quick writer."
+
+"All right," Slyne repeated. "We'll lunch at two--after they're all
+signed. So--off you go, and get busy."
+
+The stout solicitor hurried away, cowed and obedient again, and Slyne,
+very smart in an almost new flannel suit, rejoined Captain Dove.
+
+"I'm _too_ fashionable, that's what's the matter with me!" declared
+Captain Dove with sudden conviction at sight of him, and gazed very
+bitterly at his own image in an inconvenient mirror.
+
+"Never mind about that," Slyne advised soothingly. "It's not as if you
+were staying here, you know. You'll be back on board your ship by
+supper-time. And now, I must tell you how we've got to handle this
+lawyer-fellow when he fetches in the raft of papers he'll want us all to
+sign."
+
+Captain Dove listened gloomily while he went on to explain, at
+considerable length, and in his most convincing manner, that they must
+match their combined wits against the lawyer's for their own profit.
+
+"It's not that I don't trust him," said Slyne, "but--I'll feel more
+secure after everything's settled in writing and signed. He can't go
+back on us then."
+
+"He'd better not!" Captain Dove commented. "I'll wring his neck for him
+if he tries--"
+
+"And, as for Sallie," Slyne cut him short, "I've made things quite--"
+
+"Sallie will do whatever I tell her," growled Captain Dove. "And don't
+you attempt to interfere between me and her--till you've paid me my
+money, Slyne. Where is she? Fetch her in here."
+
+Slyne had no farther to go to do that than to the next room, where he
+found Sallie at the window, gazing pensively out at the sea. But he
+delayed there for some time to make it still more clear to her that her
+only hope of helping herself lay in abetting him blindly.
+
+When he at length returned to his own sitting-room with her, he found
+Captain Dove staring fixedly at another arrival there, an overwhelmingly
+up-to-date if rather imbecile-looking young man, whose general
+gorgeousness, combined with a very vacant, fish-like eye much magnified
+by a monocle, had evidently reduced the would-be fashionable seaman to a
+stricken silence.
+
+Slyne, who had at first shot a most malevolent glance at the intruder,
+was stepping forward to greet him just as Mr. Jobling put in an
+appearance with a sheaf of papers in one hand.
+
+"How d'ye do, Lord Ingoldsby?" said Slyne quite suavely to the young man
+with the eye-glass. He had caught sight of Mr. Jobling in the doorway,
+and turned to Sallie, his quick mind bent on a masterstroke.
+
+"May I introduce to you the Marquis of Ingoldsby," he remarked to her in
+the monotone of convention; and, as she bowed slightly in response to
+that very modern young gentleman's ingratiating wriggle and grin, Slyne,
+one eye on Captain Dove's astonished countenance, completed the
+formality.
+
+"This is Lady Josceline Justice," said he to his smirking lordship, and
+breathed delicately into a somewhat extensive ear the further
+information, "the late Earl of Jura's daughter, you know--and my
+_fiancée_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"SALLIE HARRIS"
+
+
+Sallie's first startled impulse was to deny the new identity Slyne had
+so glibly bestowed on her. It seemed too preposterous to be believable;
+and she was very suspicious of him. A little flushed, more than a little
+afraid, and yet in some sense convinced in spite of herself by the
+outward and visible signs about her that all these strange happenings
+must have at least some foundation of fact, she sought to read the
+others' thoughts in their faces.
+
+The Marquis of Ingoldsby was gaping at her, in open wonder and
+admiration. Slyne's features wore a subdued expression of triumph, and
+Captain Dove's a dazed, incredulous frown. Mr. Jobling was beaming about
+him, so apparently satisfied with her, so respectably prosperous-looking
+himself that her doubts as to Slyne's good faith began to give way. When
+the lawyer was in turn presented to her and also addressed her by that
+new name, she could scarcely disclaim it.
+
+"You'll stay and have luncheon with us, Lord Ingoldsby?" Slyne remarked,
+touching the bell; and his lordship left off gaping at Sallie to look
+him over with all the solemn sagacity of a young owl in broad daylight.
+
+"Er--all right," his lordship at length agreed. "Don't mind if I do.
+
+"Though I have some--er--friends waitin' for me," he added as an
+afterthought, "that I promised to take for a run in your car, if--"
+
+"You'll have time enough after lunch," Slyne suggested, and drew the
+noble marquis toward the window.
+
+"The Marquis of Ingoldsby!" muttered Captain Dove. "A run in Slyne's
+car! And--_Lady Josceline Justice!_" He dug his knuckles forcibly into
+his blinking eyes, and, "I seem to be wide enough awake," said he in a
+stage aside as several waiters arrived on the scene.
+
+While they were setting the table Sallie tried to collect her thoughts.
+Slyne had told her nothing till then, but that he had found out who her
+folk were. And she had come away from the _Olive Branch_ blindly, only a
+little less distrustful of him than of Captain Dove's cruel intentions
+toward her if she had remained on board. Even now, she scarcely dared to
+believe--
+
+In response to a sign from Slyne she took her place at the flower-decked
+table. The Marquis of Ingoldsby immediately settled himself at her side;
+he also was obviously a young man who knew what he wanted, and meant to
+have that at all hazards and, while the others were seating themselves,
+he ogled her killingly.
+
+Slyne had sat down at her other hand, leaving Mr. Jobling and Captain
+Dove to keep one another company behind the great silver centre-piece
+which adorned the circular table. The marquis, leaning on one elbow, had
+turned his back on Mr. Jobling, and Slyne turned his on Captain Dove.
+
+"This is a little bit of all right!" his lordship remarked to Sallie,
+with a confidential grin. "Only--I wish--How is it that we haven't met
+before, Lady Josephine? But never mind that. Let's be pals now. Shall
+we, eh?"
+
+"I don't know," Sallie answered at random and since he seemed to expect
+some reply to that fatuity. She had met a good many men in her time, but
+never one quite like this Lord Ingoldsby--who actually seemed anxious to
+look and act like a cunning fool.
+
+A waiter intervened between them. But his lordship waved that
+functionary away.
+
+"Do let's," he implored with child-like insistence. "It would be so
+deevy to be pals with you. And I'm beastly dull here, all by myself,
+don't y'know. So--
+
+"Eh?" He glared at Slyne, who had bluntly interrupted his _tête-à-tête_.
+"No, I _don't_ want any oysters--I told that waiter-chap so. And I
+_don't_ know any 'lady of the camellias.' I can't imagine what you're
+talkin' about at all, I'm sure."
+
+"I saw her again last night, at the Casino," said Slyne, imperturbably,
+and went on to entertain Sallie with a long if not over-truthful account
+of his own over-night's doings there. So that, for all his lordship's
+lack of manners, it was some time before that spoiled youth again
+succeeded in monopolising her attention. At every turn Slyne was ready
+to balk him, and, but for his native self-conceit coupled with a certain
+blind obstinacy, he must very soon have understood what was perfectly
+plain to Sallie, that he was there merely on sufferance, to serve some
+purpose of Slyne's.
+
+"Goin' to be here long, Lady Josephine?" he managed to break in at last.
+Slyne had turned to give a departing waiter some order.
+
+"I don't know," Sallie answered again, since she could say nothing else.
+
+"Hope to goodness you are," declared his lordship. "Stay for a week or
+two, anyhow: and,"--he lowered his voice to a husky whisper, leaning
+toward her--"let _me_ trot you about a bit, eh? You'll maybe see more
+than enough of _him_ by and by!" He indicated Slyne with an eloquent
+elbow, and further expressed his sentiments by means of an ardent sigh.
+
+Beyond the blossom-laden épergne, Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove, almost
+cut off from other intercourse by that barrier, were exchanging coldly
+critical glances. Neither seemed to be quite at his ease with the other,
+and both had, of course, a great many urgent questions to put to Slyne
+as soon as the Marquis of Ingoldsby should be gone. So that the
+luncheon-party must have proved a very dull affair to them, and they
+were no doubt glad when it was over.
+
+Slyne signalled to Sallie as soon as coffee was served, and she rose to
+leave the room. She was quite accustomed to being promptly dispensed
+with whenever her company might have been inconvenient.
+
+"Oh, I say!" protested Lord Ingoldsby. "You're not goin' yet, Lady J.
+Half a mo'. Won't you come for a spin with me now that the car's mine?
+Just say the word and I'll drop my other engagement. And then we could
+dine at--"
+
+"Lady Josceline will be engaged with her lawyer all afternoon," Slyne
+cut him short with the utmost coolness, "and she's leaving Monte Carlo
+again to-night."
+
+The Marquis of Ingoldsby glowered at him.
+
+"I'll see you in Paris, then, Lady J.," he went on, pointedly ignoring
+Slyne, "or in London, at least, later on. Well, good-bye--if you must be
+goin'."
+
+He bowed her out of the room, and then, snatching up his hat and cane
+with very visible annoyance, included the others in a curt nod of
+farewell and made off himself.
+
+He passed her before she had closed her own door--and would gladly have
+paused there.
+
+"You won't forget me, will you?" she heard him ask eagerly from behind
+her. But she did not delay to answer that question.
+
+A few minutes later, Slyne knocked at her door and entered, followed by
+the other two men. He had brought with him the papers which Mr. Jobling
+had prepared. Mr. Jobling carried an inkstand, and Captain Dove a
+decanter of brandy. Slyne seated himself at the table and waved Sallie
+back to her chair by the window.
+
+"We're going to talk business for a few minutes," he told her, "and then
+get everything settled in writing--to keep you safe.
+
+"Fire ahead now, Dove. You want to know--"
+
+"Is Sallie really--"
+
+"_I_ don't know anyone of that name now. D'you mean Lady Josceline?"
+
+Captain Dove glared at him, and then at the lawyer, and then at Sallie
+herself.
+
+"Is that really who I am now, Jasper?" she asked, a most wistful
+inflection in her low voice.
+
+"You needn't believe _me_," he answered her. "Ask Mr. Jobling. He'll
+tell you."
+
+Mr. Jobling coughed importantly. "I'll tell you all I know myself, Lady
+Josceline," he promised her, and proceeded to repeat in part what he had
+told Slyne on the terrace the night before concerning the Jura family,
+but without a single word of the fortune awaiting the next of kin.
+Captain Dove's face expressed the extreme of astonishment as he too sat
+listening with the closest attention.
+
+"That's as far as my present knowledge goes," the lawyer finished
+blandly. "And now--I understand that Captain Dove is prepared to supply
+the proof required in conclusion.
+
+"How long have you known Lady Josceline, Captain Dove?"
+
+Captain Dove frowned as if in deep thought, and Slyne looked very
+crossly at him.
+
+"About three quarters of an hour," the old man answered, and, glancing
+at Slyne, chuckled hoarsely. "She's only been Lady Josceline for so
+long."
+
+Mr. Jobling nodded understanding and the creases on his fleshy forehead
+disappeared again.
+
+"And before that--?" he suggested, politely patient.
+
+"Before that she was--what she still is so far's I'm concerned--Saleh
+Harez, my adopted daughter."
+
+"Sallie--_Harris!_" Mr. Jobling ejaculated. "Dear me! Did you say
+Sallie--er--Harris?"
+
+"I said Saleh Harez," affirmed Captain Dove, and filled the glass at his
+elbow again. "But all that concerns you, so far's I can see, is that
+I've known her ever since she was knee-high to me. I've been a father to
+her all those years, and she's my adopted daughter. So now, you can take
+it from me, Mr. Jobling, that I'm the joker, and both bowers too, in
+this merry little game."
+
+"Which makes it all the more unfortunate for you that you haven't a
+single penny to stake on your hand," Slyne put in, while the lawyer
+looked somewhat blankly from one to the other of them. "So--don't waste
+any more time bluffing, but tell Jobling how you found Sal--Lady
+Josceline."
+
+Captain Dove darted a very evil look at his friendly adviser. "And what
+if I refuse?" he asked.
+
+Slyne almost smiled. "Why cut off your own nose to spite your face?" he
+returned. "You won't refuse, because it would cost you a hundred
+thousand dollars to do so."
+
+Captain Dove stroked his chin contemplatively, and his face slowly
+cleared.
+
+"A hundred and fifty thousand, you mean," he said in a most malevolent
+tone.
+
+Slyne got up from the table as if in anger, and for some time the two
+wrangled over that point, the stout solicitor gazing at them with
+evident dismay, while Sallie awaited the upshot of it all with bated
+breath. She knew it was over the price to be paid for her that they were
+disputing, but that knowledge had ceased to be any novelty. The wrathful
+voices of the two disputants seemed to come from a great distance. She
+felt as if the whole affair were a dream from which she might at any
+moment awake on board the _Olive Branch_ again.
+
+"There isn't money enough in it to pay you so much for a mere
+affidavit," she heard Slyne say, and Mr. Jobling, under his glance,
+confirmed that statement emphatically.
+
+"A hundred and twenty-one thousand is the last limit--a thousand down,
+to bind the bargain, and the balance the day of my wedding with Sallie,"
+Slyne declared. "If that doesn't satisfy you--there's nothing more to be
+said. And I'll maybe find other means--"
+
+"Show me even the first thousand," requested Captain Dove, and Slyne
+counted out on to the table, at a safe distance from the old man's
+twitching fingers, five thousand francs of the amount Lord Ingoldsby had
+paid him for his car.
+
+"All right," said Captain Dove gruffly, and snatched at the notes. But
+Slyne picked them up again.
+
+"As soon as you've given Jobling your statement," he said, "and signed
+whatever other documents he may think necessary, I'll hand you these and
+my note of hand, endorsed by him, for the balance remaining due you."
+
+Mr. Jobling picked up a pen and Slyne pushed a sheet of foolscap toward
+him. Captain Dove, with a grunt of disgust, sat back in his chair and,
+while the lawyer wrote rapidly, related how he had found Sallie.
+
+When he had finished, Mr. Jobling read his statement over aloud, and
+chuckled ecstatically. His own eyes were shining.
+
+"That settles it, Lady Josceline," said he triumphantly, turning to
+Sallie. "I'll stake my professional reputation on your identity now. You
+need have no further doubt--"
+
+"And just to clinch the matter," growled Captain Dove, "you'd better add
+this to your affidavy:--The clothes the kid was wearing when I fetched
+her off that dhow were all marked with the moniker 'J. J.' and some sort
+of crest. But--they were all lost when the ship I commanded then
+was--went down at sea."
+
+Mr. Jobling groaned. "How _very_ unfortunate!" he remarked before he
+resumed his writing. And Slyne stared fixedly at the old man until the
+lawyer had finished.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Jobling, adjusting his pince-nez and beaming about him
+again, "we can call in a couple of witnesses and--"
+
+"We'll witness each other's signatures." Slyne disagreed. "Better not
+bring in any outsiders."
+
+The stout solicitor frowned over that, but finally nodded concurrence.
+And Captain Dove took the pen from him, only to hand it to Slyne.
+
+"Gimme my thousand dollars and your joint note for the balance first,"
+he requested unamiably.
+
+Slyne signed the new note Mr. Jobling pushed across the table, and Mr.
+Jobling endorsed it. Captain Dove read it over carefully before he
+pocketed it, and also counted with great caution the bills Slyne tossed
+to him. Then he in his turn signed, without reading it, the statement
+the lawyer had drawn up from his dictation, and the more lengthy
+agreement between Sallie and Jasper Slyne.
+
+Slyne and Jobling added their names to that, and Slyne attached his
+careful signature to a promise to pay the solicitor the percentage
+agreed upon. Captain Dove witnessed it and then called Sallie from her
+seat in the window-alcove, and she came forward with anxious eyes, to
+fulfil the undertaking she had finally had to give Jasper Slyne as the
+price of his help in her most unhappy predicament.
+
+She did not know--nor did she greatly care then--what was contained in
+the contract he laid before her without a word. She took from him
+without demur the pen he held out to her. She had promised to do all he
+told her and give him whatever he asked--except, for the present,
+herself.
+
+"Sign 'Josceline Justice' at the foot of each page," he said gently, and
+she did so without a word. For she would not for all the world contained
+have broken any promise she had given. Then Mr. Jobling desired her to
+witness the two other men's signatures.
+
+As she handed him back the pen she had a final question to ask him.
+
+"You said my father and mother are both dead, and my step-brother too.
+Is there no one else--"
+
+"No one you need worry about in the least," he assured her,
+misunderstanding. "There was a beggarly American who lodged a claim to
+the title and--to the title; his name was Carthew, I think--yes, Justin
+Carthew. But even if I--if he hadn't gone and got lost while looking for
+you, his claim would be quite ineffectual now. You're your father's
+daughter, Lady Josceline. Justin Carthew was a dozen or more degrees
+removed from the trunk of your family tree. He had only the faintest
+tinge of blue blood in his veins. He was an absolute outsider. We'll
+hear no more about _him_ now."
+
+"You mean that it's an absolutely sure thing for her," Captain Dove
+suggested, and Mr. Jobling looked pained.
+
+"I can't afford to risk anything on uncertainties, sir," he answered
+stiffly. "And I'll stake my professional reputation on--"
+
+"Oh, never mind about all that," Slyne broke in, folding his share of
+the papers together and pocketing them. "The syndicate's safely floated.
+And now--as to our next move.
+
+"You'd better get away back to Genoa by the five o'clock train, Dove.
+And you must take Ambrizette with you; I'll get Sal--Lady Josceline
+another maid in Paris--one who won't attract quite so much attention to
+us as that damned dwarf would.
+
+"Jobling and I will go on there by the night-mail, on our way to London
+with--Lady Josceline. You can take the _Olive Branch_ round to some safe
+English port and lay her up there in the meantime. As soon as you land,
+you can rejoin us--at Jobling's address. By that time we'll probably be
+ready to redeem our note to you."
+
+"By that time," Captain Dove returned with concentrated bitterness,
+"you'll have found some way to give me the slip altogether. D'ye take me
+for a blind idiot, Slyne? D'ye think I'm going to let Sallie out of my
+sight, with you?"
+
+Slyne was visibly disconcerted. "But--aren't you going to take your ship
+round to England?" he asked, in genuine surprise. "You can't very well
+leave her lying in Genoa!"
+
+"I'll attend to my own end of the business," said Captain Dove with
+angry decision. "If you're going to London by train to-night, so am I.
+If you like to come back on board with me, I'll sail you round. But I'm
+not the only man on the _Olive Branch_ who can sail a ship. Why, I've
+half a dozen broken captains--and most of 'em with extra masters'
+certificates, too--among my crew.
+
+"I've left Brasse and Da Costa in charge, and they'll work her across
+the Bay if I tell them to. I've only to send them a wire. And all you
+have to do now is to say which way you want to travel--with me; for I'm
+going to stick to you like a leech till the day you pay me off."
+
+Slyne walked to the window, humming a tune. But it was obviously costing
+him all of his refreshed fortitude to refrain from expressing his real
+sentiments toward Captain Dove. His face, as he stood glaring blindly
+out at the beautiful scene before him, was like that of a wild beast
+balked of its fair prey. But from between his bared, set teeth the
+careless hum came unbroken.
+
+"I think you're foolish," was all he said when he turned again,
+convinced that it would be a waste of time to argue the matter with the
+old man, "but--suit yourself. Jobling and I _must_ get to London with
+Sal--Lady Josceline at the earliest possible moment. If you insist on
+travelling with us to-night--so be it. All I want you to understand is
+that there's to be no more drinking, and that you must be advised by me
+in every other particular. This isn't really the sort of game you're
+liable to shine in. It would be far better for all of us if you'd stay
+on board your ship."
+
+Captain Dove's weather-beaten countenance was turning slowly purple. He
+was striving after speech. Slyne, outwardly cool and contemptuous of his
+visible fury, stood gazing down at him, hands in pockets. Mr. Jobling
+was wriggling restlessly in his chair, glancing from one to the other,
+prepared to flee from the coming storm.
+
+Still without a word, Captain Dove reached again for the
+brandy-decanter, directly defying Slyne. Slyne stepped forward and
+snatched it out of his hand.
+
+Simultaneously, the old man and Mr. Jobling sprang from their seats, the
+former making for Slyne and the latter for the door, which opened just
+as he reached it, so that he all but fell over a boy in buttons who had
+knocked and entered carrying a telegram on a tray.
+
+Slyne had not moved. Captain Dove, almost at his throat, spun round on
+one heel.
+
+"For me?" Mr. Jobling exclaimed anxiously as he ripped the envelope
+open. And a slow pallor overspread his puffy pink features while he was
+perusing its contents.
+
+"From Mullins, my managing clerk," he mumbled as he passed the message
+to Slyne, who looked it over indifferently, and then re-read it aloud in
+a low but very ominous voice: "'_American claimant landed at Genoa
+yesterday. Now on way to London. Court granted decree in his favour._'
+Handed in at Chancery Lane, in London,"--he pulled out his watch--"fifty
+minutes ago."
+
+The page-boy had disappeared. Slyne pushed suddenly past Mr. Jobling and
+set his back against the door. Captain Dove was approaching the
+terrified solicitor softly, on tiptoe, his fists clenched, all his
+tobacco-stained fangs displayed in a grin of fury. One of his long arms
+shot out just as the door opened behind Slyne's back and a voice
+announced:
+
+"M. Dubois."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE LAW--AND THE PROFITS
+
+
+Sallie saw how Jasper Slyne's face blanched at sight of that very
+untimely intruder, whose keen eyes seemed to take in the situation there
+at a glance.
+
+Mr. Jobling had fallen backward into a convenient armchair and, with
+both hands clapped to his nose, was moaning most piteously. Captain Dove
+was standing over him, with features inflamed, in a very bellicose
+posture and glaring at the new-comer, toward whom Slyne had turned
+inquiringly.
+
+"You're--looking for some one, M. Dubois?" Slyne asked, in a tone of
+polite surprise, which, Sallie knew, was assumed.
+
+"A thousand pardons," returned that individual. "I am indeed looking for
+some one--whom I thought to find here. I had no intention, however, of
+intruding upon a lady--" He bowed profusely to Sallie. "It may be," he
+suggested, "that I have mistaken the number. Is not this the suite 161?"
+
+"One hundred and sixty," Slyne told him, and evidently did not think it
+worth while to add that the next suite was his own.
+
+"A thousand pardons," repeated M. Dubois, very penitently. "I am too
+stupid! But mademoiselle will perhaps be so gracious as to forgive me
+this time."
+
+He bowed to Sallie again and to Slyne, and disappeared, sharply scanning
+the latter's face to the last.
+
+"Who's that son of a sea-cook?" snapped Captain Dove, and Mr. Jobling
+looked wanly up out of one eye.
+
+"A French detective," Slyne answered reflectively. But Sallie felt sure
+that he was afraid of M. Dubois, and wondered why.
+
+"Well, he has nothing against me that I'm aware of," the old man
+declared. "And now--what about this wire? Does it mean that some other
+fellow has scooped the pool--and that I've had all my trouble for
+nothing, eh?" He clenched his fist again and shook it in the lawyer's
+face.
+
+"No, no," gasped Mr. Jobling. "Don't be so hasty. It makes no difference
+at all, now that we have Lady Josceline with us. I told you that the
+American, Carthew, is of no account against her--and how he has ever
+cropped up again I can't conceive. In any case--"
+
+"In any case, you'd better be off to your room and ring for a bit of
+beefsteak to doctor that eye with," Slyne interposed in a tone of
+intense annoyance.
+
+"And I wish to goodness, Dove!" he added savagely, "that you would
+behave a little more like a reasonable human being and less--"
+
+"Less of your lip, now!" snarled the old man. "And _don't_ keep on
+saying that. Just take it from me again, both of you, that you'd better
+not be so slow again in telling me--"
+
+"You didn't give me time," Mr. Jobling protested.
+
+Slyne opened the door. "Come on," he urged. "You've got to get your kit
+packed, Jobling. We'll be leaving before very long now."
+
+"Have you made up your mind to come with us, Dove?"
+
+Captain Dove nodded, most emphatically. "I'll send word to Brasse and Da
+Costa at once," he remarked, "and then I'll be ready to start whenever
+you are."
+
+He left the room after Mr. Jobling, and Slyne, in the doorway, looked
+back at Sallie, the reassuring smile on his lips belied by his cold,
+calculating eyes.
+
+"And how about you, Sallie?" he asked. "Have you made up your mind? Are
+you satisfied--so far? Or--would you rather go back to the _Olive
+Branch_?
+
+"If you would--I'll let you off your promise, even now! And don't forget
+that this will be your last chance to recall it."
+
+"You know I can't go back to the _Olive Branch_, Jasper," she answered
+slowly. "But--"
+
+He did not give her time to say more. "That's settled for good, then,"
+he asserted. "Your promise stands, and I know you'll keep it when the
+time comes--after I've done my part.
+
+"I'm only sorry I haven't been able to get rid of Captain Dove right
+away, but it won't be long now till--You needn't worry any more about
+him. I'll see that he behaves better.
+
+"If there's anything else I can do for your comfort, you must let me
+know. And now, I'll leave you to your own devices until it's time to
+start on our travels. Better get a rest while you can, eh? We've a very
+busy week ahead of us."
+
+She saw that he did not intend to tell her any more in the meantime, and
+was glad to see him go. Then she called Ambrizette in for company, and
+sat down by the window again, to try to sort out for herself the
+bewildering tangle that life had once more become within a few hours.
+
+Gazing out across the familiar sea with wistful, far-away eyes, she
+mused for a time over what Captain Dove had told Mr. Jobling of her
+history, and strove to piece together with that all she herself could
+recall of that dim and always more mysterious past out of which she had
+come to be Captain Dove's property, bought and paid for, at a high
+price, as he had repeated several times.
+
+Her own earliest vague, disconnected, ineffectual memories were all of
+some dark, savage mountain-country; of endless days of travel; of
+camp-fires in the cold, and hungry camels squealing for fodder; of the
+fragrant cinnamon-smell of the steam that came from the cooking-pots.
+
+Before, or, it might have been, after that, she had surely lived on some
+seashore, in a shimmering white village with narrow, crooked lanes for
+streets and little flat-roofed houses huddled together among hot
+sandhills where the _suddra_ grew and lean goats bleated always for
+their kids.
+
+Then, as if in a very vexing dream, she could almost but never quite
+see, through the thickening mist of the years, once-familiar
+faces--white men, with swords, in ragged uniforms, and big brown ones
+with wicked eyes and long, thin guns, glaring down at her over a high
+wall, through smoke and fire, and fighting, and the acrid reek of
+powder....
+
+And there remembrance grew blank altogether, until it connected with
+Captain Dove, on the deck of a slaving-dhow far out of sight of any
+land. She had been only a little child when he had carried her up the
+side of his own ship in his arms, while she laughed gleefully in his
+face and pulled at his shaggy moustache, but she could still remember
+some of the incidents of that day.
+
+She had lived on board his successive ships ever since. And ever since,
+until recently, he had always been very good to her, in his own queer,
+gruff way. He had always treated her as though she were a child of his
+own, shielding her, in so far as he could, from even the knowledge of
+all the evil which he had done up and down the world. She had grown up
+in the belief that his despotic guardianship was altogether for her good
+and not to be disputed.
+
+But now--she was no longer a child. And all her old, unquestioning faith
+in his inherent good intentions, toward her at least, was finally
+shattered. She knew now that he really looked upon her as a mere
+chattel, with a cash value--just as if she had been one of the hapless
+cargo of human cattle confined in the pestiferous hold of the dhow on
+whose deck he had found her at play. She knew now that he had bought and
+paid for them as well as her, and sold them again at a fat profit, far
+across the seas--all but the dumb, deformed black woman whom he had
+picked from among them to act as her nurse.
+
+And if it did not occur to her to question either his power or his
+perfect right to dispose of her future also as he might see fit, had not
+all her experience gone to prove that might is right everywhere, that
+law and justice are merely additional pretexts devised by the strong for
+oppressing the weak? She had had to choose between remaining on board
+the _Olive Branch_, or paying Jasper Slyne his price for the chance of
+escape he had offered her in pursuance of his own aims.
+
+She disliked and distrusted Slyne scarcely less than before. But she did
+not see how she could have chosen otherwise. And, in any case,--it was
+too late now to revoke the promise she had made him.
+
+She was still afraid to place any faith in the promises he had made
+her. She had no idea how he had come at his alleged discovery of her
+real identity. But Mr. Jobling's obvious belief in that recurred to her
+mind, and she fell to wondering timidly what life would be like as Lady
+Josceline Justice.
+
+Her impressions on that point were very hazy, however, and she had still
+to puzzle out the problem added by Justin Carthew. But she finally gave
+up the attempt to solve that at the moment, contenting herself with the
+tremulous hope that she might soon be on her way toward that dear,
+unknown, dream-home for which her hungry heart had so often ached.
+
+Of the exorbitant price so soon to be paid for the brief glimpse of
+happiness Slyne had agreed to allow her, she took no further thought at
+all. She had already made up her mind to meet that without complaint.
+
+An hour or more later, when Slyne looked in to tell her that it was time
+to start, she was still seated at the window, gazing out over the
+steel-grey sea with wistful, far-away eyes.
+
+At his instigation she veiled herself very closely. And he had brought
+with him a hooded cloak for Ambrizette. No one took any particular
+notice of the inconspicuous party which presently left the Hôtel de
+Paris in a hired car, as if for an excursion along the coast.
+
+At a station fifty miles away they left the car and caught the
+night-mail for Paris. Slyne's baggage was on board it, in the care of a
+sullen chauffeur, and there were also berths reserved for them all.
+
+"Did you see any more of Dubois?" Sallie heard Slyne ask the man, who
+shook his head indifferently in reply.
+
+The long night-journey passed without other incident than a dispute
+between Captain Dove and the sleeping-car attendant, which raged until
+Slyne threatened to have the train stopped at the next station and send
+for the police. And the sun was shining brightly when they reached
+Paris.
+
+Mr. Jobling went straight on to London, but Slyne took Sallie and
+Captain Dove to a quiet but expensive hotel, where they remained for a
+few days, which passed in a perfect whirl of novelty and excitement for
+her. And when they in their turn crossed the Channel, she had for
+baggage at least a dozen new trunks containing the choicest spoils of
+the Rue de la Paix. Slyne had pooh-poohed all her timid protests against
+his lavish expenditure on her account, and had also provided for Captain
+Dove and Ambrizette in their degree. He had evidently a fortune at his
+disposal, and was bent on showing her how generous he could be.
+
+He was also unostentatiously displaying other good qualities which had
+all gone to make those days pass very pleasantly for her. She could not
+fail to appreciate the courtesy and consideration which he consistently
+showed her now. His patience with Captain Dove, a trying companion at
+the best of times and doubly troublesome idle, more than once made her
+wonder whether he could be the same Jasper Slyne she had known on the
+_Olive Branch_. Prosperity seemed to have improved him almost beyond
+recognition.
+
+He had a cabin at her disposal on the Calais-Dover steamer but she
+stayed on deck throughout the brief passage, glad to breathe the salt
+sea-air again, while he entertained her with descriptions of London and
+she watched the twinkling lights that were guiding her home.
+
+And then came London itself, at last, somewhat grey, and cold, and
+disconsolate-looking on a wet winter morning.
+
+But after breakfast in a cosy suite at the Savoy, a blink of sunshine
+along the Embankment helped to better that first hasty impression. And
+then Slyne took Captain Dove and her in a taxicab along the thronged and
+bustling Strand to Mr. Jobling's office in Chancery Lane.
+
+They got out in front of a dingy building not very far from Cursitor
+Street. It was raining again, and Sallie, looking up and down the
+narrow, turbid thoroughfare, felt glad that she did not need to live
+there.
+
+Indoors, the atmosphere was scarcely less depressing. A dismal passage
+led toward a dark stairway, up which they had to climb flight after
+flight to reach at last a dusty, ill-smelling, gas-lighted room,
+inhabited only by a shabby, shock-headed hobbledehoy of uncertain age
+and unprepossessing appearance, perched on a preposterously high stool
+at a still higher desk, behind a cage-like partition.
+
+"I want to see Mr. Jobling, at once," Slyne announced to him. And Mr.
+Jobling's "managing clerk" looked slowly round, with a snake-like and
+disconcerting effect due to a very long neck and a very low collar.
+
+"Show Mr. Slyne in immediately, Mullins," ordered a pompous voice from
+within; and Mr. Jobling himself, a blackcoated, portly, important
+personage there, came bustling out from his private office to welcome
+his visitors.
+
+"How d'ye do, how d'ye do, Lady Josceline!" he exclaimed, and cocked an
+arch eyebrow at Sallie's most becoming costume; although the effect he
+intended was somewhat impaired by the fact that he was still suffering
+from a black eye, painted over in haste--and by an incompetent artist.
+
+"I can see now what's been keeping _you_ in Paris!" he added
+facetiously, and, having shaken hands with Slyne, who seemed to think
+that superfluous, turned to receive Captain Dove with the same
+politeness.
+
+"Phew!" whistled Mr. Jobling and drew back and stared at the old man.
+"I'd _never_ have recognised you in that rig-out."
+
+Captain Dove pulled off a pair of smoked glasses he had been wearing,
+the better to look him, with offensive intent, in his injured eye. For
+Captain Dove was still enduring much mental as well as physical
+discomfort in a disguise which he had only been induced to adopt a
+couple of days before, and after an embittered quarrel with Slyne. The
+stiff white collar round his corded neck was still threatening to choke
+him and then cut his throat. He had been infinitely more at his ease in
+his scanty, short-tailed frock-coat and furry top-hat than he was in the
+somewhat baggy if more becoming black garb he had donned in its place,
+with a soft wide-awake always flapping about his ears.
+
+"Come inside," Mr. Jobling begged hurriedly, and, looking round as he
+followed them into his sanctum, "Mullins!" he snapped, "don't stand
+there staring. Get on with your work, at once.
+
+"You're later than I expected," he remarked to Slyne as he closed the
+door, "but just in time. The Court's closed, of course, for the
+Christmas vacation, but I've filed an application for a hearing in
+Chambers, and--"
+
+He paused as a telephone-bell rang shrilly outside, and a moment later
+the shock head of his "managing clerk" protruded into the room, almost
+as if it did not belong to a body at all.
+
+"Mr. Spettigrew says that our application in Chambers will be heard by
+Mr. Justice Gaunt, in 57B, at eleven-thirty sharp this forenoon,"
+announced that youth and, with a final wriggle of his long neck,
+withdrew.
+
+"Devil take him!" exclaimed Captain Dove, somewhat startled and much
+incensed. "I wouldn't keep a crested cobra like that about me for--"
+
+"Let's see those accounts of yours, now," said Slyne, disregarding that
+interruption, and Mr. Jobling, having first looked at his watch,
+produced from another drawer a great sheaf of papers, all carefully
+docketed. He slipped off the top one and somewhat reluctantly handed
+that to his friend.
+
+Slyne took it from him eagerly, and sat for a time gloating over it with
+eyes which presently began to glow.
+
+But when Captain Dove, growing restless, would have glanced over his
+shoulder to see what was tickling his fancy so, he frowned and folded
+that document up and returned it to Mr. Jobling.
+
+"Give it here, now!" growled Captain Dove, menacing Mr. Jobling with a
+clenched fist; and the lawyer, after an appealing, impotent glance at
+Slyne, had no recourse but to comply with that peremptory order.
+
+"Are you quite sure of your figures?" Slyne asked, with a scowl. He
+seemed conscious that he, in his haste, had made a false step. And Mr.
+Jobling nodded with nervous assurance.
+
+"I have inside sources of information as to the revenue of the estates,"
+he replied, "and a note of all the investments. I've allowed a wide
+margin for all sorts of incidentals. I think you'll find, in fact, that
+Lady Josceline's inheritance will amount to even more than I've
+estimated."
+
+Slyne smiled again, more contentedly. Nor was his complaisance overcome
+even when Mr. Jobling put to him a half-whispered petition for a
+further small cash advance to account of expenses.
+
+"I wasn't even able to pay Mullins' wages with what you gave me in
+Paris," said the stout solicitor vexedly. "Fees and so on swallowed it
+all up, and--I'm actually short of cab-fares!"
+
+"Why don't you fire Mullins, then?" demanded Slyne with a shade of
+impatience. "I've just got rid of my chauffeur because he was costing me
+more than he was worth."
+
+"But I can't afford to get rid of Mullins. Just at the moment he's very
+useful to me. It would create a bad impression if I had to run my own
+errands. And--the fact is, he knows far too much. I'll pay him off and
+shut his mouth by and by, when I have more time to attend to such
+matters."
+
+"How much do you want?" Slyne inquired with a frown evidently meant to
+warn his friend to be modest.
+
+"Can you spare twenty pounds--to go on with?"
+
+Slyne hesitated, but only for a few seconds. Then he pulled out a
+pocket-book and surreptitiously passed that sum to the penniless man of
+law, who accepted it with no more than a nod of thanks.
+
+"I'll pay Mullins now," he remarked, and immediately hurried out of the
+room. Captain Dove was gasping for breath and showed every other symptom
+of a forthcoming explosion.
+
+As soon as the door shut behind him, the old man gave open vent to his
+wrath. And a most furious quarrel followed between Slyne and him.
+Sallie, too, learned then, for the first time, of the vast inheritance
+which would be hers, of Slyne's cunning plan to buy Captain Dove out for
+a mere pittance, and how he himself expected to profit through marrying
+her.
+
+But she was not overwhelmed with surprise by that belated discovery. She
+had almost anticipated the final disclosure of some such latent motive
+behind all Slyne's professions to her. The only difference it might make
+would be to Captain Dove. Slyne and he were still snarling at each other
+when Mr. Jobling walked jauntily in again. But at sight of him Captain
+Dove began to subside.
+
+"We mustn't be late. Mr. Spettigrew will be expecting us now. I've sent
+Mullins on ahead with my papers," observed Mr. Jobling breezily, and
+went on to explain that Mr. Justice Gaunt, by nature a somewhat
+cross-grained old limb of the law, had been very ill-pleased over being
+bothered again, and at a moment when most of his colleagues were
+enjoying a holiday, about any such apparently endless case as that of
+the Jura succession, which had been cropping up before him, at more or
+less lengthy intervals, for quite a number of years, and concerning
+which he had, only a few days before, made an order of court in favour
+of Justin Carthew.
+
+Captain Dove clapped his soft felt hat on his head with a very
+devil-may-care expression.
+
+"Come on, then," said he grimly, and Mr. Jobling was not slow to lead
+the way. So that they reached Mr. Justice Gaunt's chambers punctually at
+the hour appointed, and were ushered into his lordship's presence by Mr.
+Spettigrew, the learned counsel retained by Mr. Jobling on Sallie's
+behalf, a long, lifeless-looking gentleman in a wig and gown and
+spectacles. And his lordship smiled very pleasantly as Sallie raised her
+heavy veil at counsel's crafty request.
+
+"Pray be seated, my dear young lady," his lordship begged with fatherly,
+old-fashioned kindness, and indicated a chair meant for counsel, much
+nearer his own than the rest. Nor did he often take his eyes from her
+face throughout the course of a long and convincing dissertation by Mr.
+Spettigrew, on her past history, present position in life, and claims on
+the future, with some reference to the rival claims of Mr. Justin
+Carthew.
+
+"And I have full proof to place before you, at once, if you wish it,
+m'lud," concluded Mr. Spettigrew in his most professional drone, "in
+support of the fact that the lady before you is the lawful daughter of
+the late earl and the countess, his second wife, who died in the desert.
+Mr. Justin Carthew, on the other hand, is related to the family in a
+very different and distant degree, and there are, as y'r ludship has
+been good enough to agree, no other survivors.
+
+"I beg leave now to request that y'r ludship will rescind the authority
+granted to Mr. Justin Carthew, and admit my client's petition _ad
+referendum_."
+
+"Produce your proofs," ordered his lordship, and Mr. Spettigrew
+extracted from a capacious black bag a pile of papers at which Mr.
+Justice Gaunt looked with no little disgust.
+
+"What are they, in chief?" asked Mr. Justice Gaunt, turning over page
+after page of closely written law-script, as gingerly as if he believed
+that one might perhaps explode and blow him to pieces. And Mr.
+Spettigrew launched forth again into a long list of certificates,
+records, researches, findings, orders of court, sworn statements and
+affidavits, by Captain Dove--"Then trading in his own ship, m'lud, now
+retired and devoting his time to mission-work among deep-sea sailors;"
+by Mr. Jasper Slyne, gentleman; by Mr. Jobling, whom he did not pause
+to describe; by a couple of dozen other people, living or dead, at home
+or abroad; all in due legal form and not to be controverted.
+
+"I think you'll find them in perfect order, and absolutely conclusive,
+m'lud," counsel came to a finish triumphantly, and sat down, greatly to
+the relief of all present.
+
+"H'm!" said his lordship, still gravely regarding Sallie: whose eyes had
+nothing to conceal from him. "And so this is the long-lost Lady
+Josceline!"
+
+His searching glance travelled slowly to Captain Dove's face, and then
+to Slyne's; both of whom met it without winking, although Captain Dove
+was no doubt glad of the protection of his smoked glasses.
+
+"I'll have to go through the proofs, of course," said his lordship
+reflectively and let his gaze rest on Sallie again. "But--if
+everything's as you say, I don't think it will be long before Lady
+Josceline finds herself in full enjoyment of all her rights and
+privileges. If everything's as you say, I'll do whatever lies in my
+power to expedite matters; I think I can promise you that the case will
+be called immediately the vacation is over. Meanwhile, however, and till
+I have looked through the proofs, I can make no further order."
+
+He rose, and they also got up from their chairs as he came round from
+behind his desk and confronted Sallie, a tall, stooping old man with a
+wrinkled face and tired but kindly eyes.
+
+She looked up into them frankly, and he laid a hand on her shoulder.
+
+"Yours has been a very sad history so far, my dear young lady," he said,
+his head on one side, still studying her. "I hope it will be all the
+brighter henceforth. I knew--the last Earl of Jura--when we were both
+young men--before he married. You remind me of him, as he was then, in
+many respects. Good day to you now; my time here is not my own, you
+know. But some day, perhaps you will allow me to pay my respects to
+you--at Justicehall, since we're to be neighbours; my own home isn't
+very far from yours."
+
+Outside in the corridor, Mr. Jobling shook hands rapturously with every
+one, even with Captain Dove.
+
+"We've turned the trick already," he declared. "You heard what his
+lordship said. With him on our side, the whole thing's as good as
+settled. All we have to do now is to wait until the Courts take up again
+and confirm--"
+
+"How long will that be?" Slyne inquired. He, too, was smiling
+ecstatically.
+
+"Not much more than a fortnight," the lawyer informed him. "It will soon
+pass. We must just be patient."
+
+"We must keep very quiet, too," said Slyne, "unless we want to give the
+whole show away to the enemy in advance. We must clear off out of London
+till then. I'll tell you what, Jobling! Why shouldn't we all go down to
+Scotland to-night?"
+
+Mr. Jobling nodded agreement. "An excellent idea," he declared. "There's
+nothing to keep us here."
+
+"That's settled, then," Slyne asserted. "And we'll all dine together at
+the Savoy before we start. I think we can afford to celebrate the
+occasion, eh! And I want to show Lady Josceline a few of her future
+friends."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"PLEASURES AND PALACES"
+
+
+The Duchess of Dawn was dining a number of notabilities at the Savoy, on
+her way to a command performance at the Gaiety; a fact of which the
+fashionable world was well aware, because the young duchess is a great
+lady in London as well as elsewhere, and all her doings are chronicled
+in advance. The fashionable world had promptly decided to dine there
+too, and telephoned in breathless haste for tables. It filled the
+restaurant at an unusually early hour, and a disappointed overflow
+displayed itself in the _foyer_.
+
+The Duchess of Dawn is one of the most beautiful women in England. The
+eyes of the fashionable world were focussed on her and her guests, among
+whom were a minor European prince and a famous field-marshal who had not
+been on show in London for long, until there appeared from the crowded
+_foyer_, upon the arm of an old-young man of distinguished appearance
+and faultless _tenue_, a tall, slender girl, at whom, as she passed,
+every one turned to gaze, with undisguised admiration or envy, according
+to sex and temperament.
+
+She was gowned to distraction, and by an artist in women's wear. Her
+beautiful bare arms and shoulders and bosom were free of superfluous
+ornament. Her pure, proud, sensitive features were faintly flushed,--as
+though, if that were conceivable, she was wearing evening dress for the
+first time, and found it trying,--but her curved crimson lips were
+slightly parted in a most bewitching smile, and, from under their
+drooping lashes, her radiant eyes looked a demure, amused, impersonal
+defiance at the frankly curious faces upturned toward her. The shaded
+lights made most enchanting lights and shadows among her hair, red-gold
+and heaped about her head in heavy coils, as she moved modestly through
+the thronged room toward a corner where, about a beautifully decorated
+table, four motionless waiters were standing guard over four empty
+chairs.
+
+She sat down there, her back to the bulk of the company, and her escort
+took the seat opposite. A portly, prosperous-looking, elderly man, with
+something a little suspicious about one of his eyes, and a squat,
+queerly-shaped old fellow in semi-clerical garb and wearing smoked
+glasses, completed the party. Their waiters began to hover about them,
+and the fashionable world went on with its dinner.
+
+"Who was that _lovely_ girl?" the Duchess of Dawn demanded of her
+_vis-à-vis_, the veteran soldier, and he, reputed among women to have no
+heart at all, recalled himself with an evident start from the reverie
+into which he had fallen. He almost blushed, indeed, under the duchess's
+blandly discerning smile.
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure, duchess," he returned, smiling also, in spite
+of himself, and beckoned to a servant behind him, whom he despatched on
+some errand.
+
+"She's registered as Miss Harris, your lordship," the man announced in
+an undertone when he returned.
+
+"Miss Harris!" echoed the prince, who was also a soldier. He had
+overheard. And, as he in turn caught the duchess's eyes, he lay back
+laughing, a little ruefully. But the man opposite him, the master of
+armies, was not amused.
+
+"I'd like to know who and what those three fellows with Miss Harris may
+be," said he.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At their table in the corner, they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying
+themselves. The three men were toasting Sallie and each other with equal
+good-will. And even Sallie had dismissed from her mind the last of her
+lingering doubts as to the reality and endurance of her part in that
+most amazing new life, had put the past with all its horrors resolutely
+behind her, was too much interested in the entertaining present to
+trouble about the future at the moment.
+
+Captain Dove had seemingly forgotten, for the time being at any rate,
+his grievance against Slyne, and was in his most lamb-like mood. While
+Slyne did not even demur against the quantities of expensive wine the
+old man consumed during dinner. Mr. Jobling, too, was displaying
+symptoms of convivial hilarity when they at length left the restaurant.
+But most of the other tables were empty by then.
+
+Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove, arm in arm, affectionately maintained each
+other as far as their sitting-room, while Slyne accompanied Sallie to
+her own door. He had been making himself most agreeable to her, and had
+pointed out a number of the notorieties and one or two of the
+celebrities present; although it had somewhat startled her to be told
+that she would very soon be on familiar terms with them all.
+
+"Aren't you glad now that you agreed to the bargain we made on the
+_Olive Branch_--and in Monte Carlo?" he asked by the way. He was smiling
+gaily.
+
+She smiled back at him, and, "I'm not sorry--so far, Jasper," she
+answered, looking deep into his eyes.
+
+He nodded, as if quite satisfied, and turned away to escape that
+embarrassing scrutiny.
+
+"We'll be starting in half an hour or so," he informed her from a safe
+distance, and, "I'll be all ready," she called cheerfully after him.
+
+A little before eleven he came in again and they all set out for the
+station to catch their train.
+
+It was a cold, clear, frosty night, and the Strand was at its busiest as
+Sallie looked out at it from the taxi into which Slyne and Ambrizette
+had followed her at the hotel portico. Another, containing Captain Dove
+and their legal adviser, still on the most amicable terms, although
+Captain Dove as a rule could not stand anyone afflicted with hiccough,
+crawled close behind them through the turmoil until, at the Gaiety
+corner, a policeman delayed it to let the cross-traffic through.
+
+A crowd had gathered there to gaze at the royalties who would presently
+be coming out of the theatre. Slyne drew Sallie back from the open
+window at sight of two men, one of whom seemed all shirt-front, looking
+down at the congested street from the empty steps of the principal
+entrance.
+
+"That ass Ingoldsby!" he explained to Sallie, and was evidently a good
+deal disturbed. "And--Dubois, as well," he added. "I thought I had
+shaken him off in Paris. I'm sure he saw me, too."
+
+A little farther on he stopped the taxi and beckoned to one of those
+street-arabs who make a living about the kerb.
+
+"Go to the gentleman with the beard, on the steps of the Gaiety," he
+instructed that very alert messenger, "and say to him that a friend
+wants a word with him here."
+
+Sallie observed the suppressed grimace of surprise on the face of the
+individual who almost at once arrived in the wake of his ragged Mercury:
+and Slyne, having tossed the latter a shilling, held out his hand to M.
+Dubois.
+
+"Charmed to see you in London, _mon confrère_," said he. "Have you yet
+discovered your man?"
+
+"I am hard at his heels," the detective answered, his eyes searching
+Slyne's as if, Sallie thought, for some sign that that shaft had hit
+home.
+
+But Slyne's expression was one of ingenuous simplicity. He bowed, as if
+with deep respect.
+
+"I caught a glimpse of some one most amazingly like myself, one day on
+the Faubourg St. Honoré, as I was passing through Paris," he mentioned
+reflectively.
+
+"Thanks," returned Dubois. "It was he, no doubt. And--he's in London
+now."
+
+Slyne did not wince, even at that.
+
+"He was dining at the Savoy to-night," said Dubois indifferently. "How
+does your own affair progress?"
+
+"_Assez bien_," Slyne answered in an even voice. "I have followed my
+quarry home and am awaiting developments."
+
+"You will be in London for a little, then?"
+
+"For the next week or ten days, I expect," Slyne lied with perfect
+aplomb.
+
+"We shall meet again, in that case," declared the detective, glancing at
+Sallie; and, "_Au plaisir de vous revoir, monsieur_," Slyne returned
+deferentially.
+
+"To Grosvenor Square now--and hurry along," he directed the driver in a
+voice his enemy could not fail to hear. And the taxicab swung into Drury
+Lane, on its way west.
+
+For a few minutes he sat silent, with bent head, biting at his
+moustache. Then he looked round at Sallie.
+
+"That fellow takes me for another man," he told her querulously. "He's
+been dogging me ever since he first saw me at Monte Carlo. You've no
+idea, Sallie, what a dangerous risk I had to run there--for your sake."
+
+"You haven't told me much about--anything, Jasper," she reminded him.
+And he proceeded to describe in lurid detail the fate which would
+undoubtedly have befallen him had M. Dubois been able then to fasten on
+him responsibility for the misdeeds of that criminal whom he so
+unfortunately resembled.
+
+Sallie listened in silence. She had been wondering whether M. Dubois
+could be in any way concerned with her affairs. She gathered that he was
+interested only in Slyne. The latter's story of grave risk run for her
+sake fell somewhat flat, since it seemed to rest on the mere possibility
+of his having been mistaken for somebody else. She could scarcely
+believe that his fear of M. Dubois had no other foundation. She even
+ventured to suggest that he could easily have proved the detective in
+the wrong.
+
+"He wouldn't have paid the slightest attention to anything I could say,"
+Slyne assured her tartly. "He wouldn't have asked any questions or
+listened to any statement of mine. You don't know anything about the
+outrages that are committed every day by fellows like that on men like
+myself who have no fixed residence, Sallie; and no powerful friends to
+whom to appeal against such infernal injustice. I can't tell you how
+thankful I'll be, on your account as well as my own, when we're married
+and safely settled down, with a home of our own to feel safe in!
+
+"Look, there's where we'll live when we're in London."
+
+Sallie looked out. They were whirling past one of the most imposing
+houses in Grosvenor Square. "Is it an hotel?" she asked, and observed
+that all but one or two of its topmost windows were dark.
+
+"It's the Earl of Jura's town house," said Slyne, apparently somewhat
+piqued by her seeming indifference. "It's yours now--or will be as soon
+as the Chancery Court wakes up again."
+
+Sallie glanced back and caught another glimpse of it as the taxicab
+slowed again to take the corner of the square. Slyne had picked up the
+speaking-tube.
+
+"Get us to the station now, as fast as you can," he told the driver: and
+then, having glanced at his watch, lighted a cigarette. He seemed to
+have no more to say at the moment, and Sallie was busy with thoughts of
+her own. She was wondering whether Justin Carthew could be living in
+that great house. She could not understand.... But she did not dare to
+ask Jasper Slyne for any information, since he had shown her more than
+once already that he did not intend to tell her any more than he thought
+fit.
+
+When they finally reached the station they found Mr. Jobling awaiting
+them there and very anxious over their late arrival.
+
+"We drove round by Grosvenor Square," Slyne told the lawyer
+nonchalantly. "And--we're in lots of time."
+
+Mr. Jobling looked cross. "Five minutes more would have lost you the
+train," he remarked somewhat sourly. "And where would Captain Dove and I
+have been then!"
+
+As it was, however, they found Captain Dove in his berth, sound asleep,
+although still fully dressed. And, as Slyne ushered Sallie into the
+double compartment reserved for her and Ambrizette, "Don't go to bed
+just yet," he begged. "I want to show you something by and by. You'll
+have lots of time for a long sleep before we arrive."
+
+"All right, Jasper," she agreed. "I'll wait up till you come for me."
+
+When he at length knocked at her door again, Mr. Jobling was still with
+her. She came out between them into the narrow corridor. Slyne rubbed
+clear one steamy window to let her see the wintry landscape through
+which they were travelling at express speed. And Sallie looked out
+delighted, at the sleeping English countryside as its broad grass-lands
+and bare brown acres, coverts and coppices, hedgerows and lanes, with
+here and there a grange or a group of cottages, all still and silent,
+flashed into sight and so disappeared; until, overlooking them all from
+a knoll on the near bank of a broad, winding river, there loomed up a
+most magnificent mansion, embedded, in lordly seclusion, among many
+gnarled and age-old oaks, with gardens terrace on terrace about it, tall
+fountains among their empty flower-beds, a moss-grown sun-dial at the
+edge of a quiet, silver lake.
+
+The moon was shining full on its innumerable windows, so that it seemed
+to be lighted up from within, although, in reality, all were shuttered
+and dark. Aloof and very stately it stood on that windless night, an
+empty palace which came and went in a few moments, wing after wing, with
+and Francesco loosened the sword in the scabbard anticipating an
+ambush, when he pushed it back with a puzzled look. Before a wayside
+shrine, almost entirely concealed by weeds, there knelt a grotesque
+figure at orisons. He either had not heard the tramp of Francesco's
+steed, or ignored it on purpose, for not until the latter called to
+him did he turn, and with much relief Francesco recognized his former
+guide from the camp of the Duke of Spoleto.
+
+"Where is the camp of the duke?" he queried curtly, impatient with the
+man's exhibition of secular godliness.
+
+"Many miles away," replied he of the goat's-beard, as he arose and
+kissed a little holly-wood cross that he carried.
+
+"Lead me to it!"
+
+The godly little man flopped again, scraped some dust together with
+his two hands, spat upon it, then smeared his forehead with the stuff,
+uttering the names of sundry saints.
+
+Francesco had come to the end of his patience.
+
+"Get up, my friend," he said, "we have had enough praying for one
+day!"
+
+The goatherd offered to anoint him with dust and spittle, pointing a
+stumpy forefinger, but Francesco was filled with disgust. He caught
+the man by the girdle and lifted him to his feet.
+
+"Enough of this!" he said. "Is the devil so much your master?"
+
+The goatherd blinked red-lidded and pious eyes, while he scanned the
+horizon. Then he pointed with his holly staff to a blue hill that rose
+against the eastern sky.
+
+"How far?" queried Francesco.
+
+The goatherd was anointing himself with spittle.
+
+"Each mile in these parts grows more evil," he said, tracing the sign
+of the cross. "It behooves a Christian to be circumspect!"
+
+Francesco prodded him with his scabbard.
+
+"How far?"
+
+"Some ten leagues," replied the gnome. "The day is clear, and the
+place looks nearer than it is!"
+
+It occurred to Francesco that there must be some human abode close by,
+as the goatherd, entirely familiar with the region, would not wander
+too far from habitations of the living. And upon having made known his
+request, the little man preceded him at a lively pace. At a lodge in
+the forest deeps they halted, and here Francesco and his guide rested
+during the hot hours of noon, partaking of such food as the liberality
+of their host, an old anchorite, set before them.
+
+After men and steed had rested, they set out anew.
+
+The goatherd's inclination to invoke untold saints, whenever there
+seemed occasion and whenever there was not, was curbed by a hard line
+round Francesco's lips, and they plunged into the great silence. A
+sense of green mystery encompassed them, as they traversed the green
+forest-aisles. The sky seemed to have receded to a greater distance.
+Everywhere the smooth dark trunks converged upon one another, sending
+up a tangle of boughs that glittered in the soft sheen of the
+sunlight. Withered bracken stood in thin silence, and here and there a
+dead bough lay like a snake with its head raised to strike.
+
+The silence was immense, and yet it was a stillness that suggested
+sounds. It resembled the silence of a huge cavern, out of which came
+strange whisperings; innumerable crepitations seemed to come from the
+dead leaves. Francesco fancied he could hear the trees breathing, and
+from afar he caught the wild note of a bird.
+
+The sun was low when they came at last to the edge of the forest and
+saw a hill rise steeply against the sky. It was covered with silver
+birches, whose stems looked like white threads in the level light of
+the setting sun. And rising against the sky-line from amidst the
+fretwork of birch-boughs Francesco saw the well-remembered outlines of
+the ruined tower wherein he had spent a memorable night.
+
+The valley before them was flooded with golden light, and, as they
+crossed it, Francesco felt a curious desire for physical pain,
+something fierce and tangible to struggle with, to drown the
+ever-pulsing memory of the woman who had gone from him.
+
+As the dusk deepened they went scrambling up the hillside amid the
+birches, whose white stems glimmered upwards into the blue gloom of
+the twilight. Francesco's thoughts climbed ahead of him, hurrying to
+deal with the unknown dangers that might be awaiting him. He had to
+dismount, pull his steed after him; but the scramble upwards gave him
+the sense of effort and struggle that he needed. It was like scaling a
+wall to come to grips with an enemy, whose wild eyes and sword-points
+showed between the crenelations.
+
+At last they had reached the high plateau. A dog barked. The wood
+suddenly swarmed with bearded and grotesque forms. They did not
+recognize in Francesco the monk who had spent a night in their midst.
+The goatherd had maliciously disappeared, as if to revenge himself for
+his interrupted orisons. With glowering faces they thronged around
+Francesco, a babel of voices shouting questions and threatening the
+intruder.
+
+He waved them contemptuously aside, and his demeanor seemed to raise
+him in their regards.
+
+At his request to be forthwith conducted into the presence of the
+duke, one pointed to a low building at the edge of the plateau. Wisps
+of smoke curled out of it and vanished into the night.
+
+"The duke and the Abbot are at orisons," the man said with a grimace,
+the meaning of which was lost upon Francesco. "He will not return
+before midnight."
+
+"I will await him here," said the newcomer, dismounting and leading
+his steed to a small plot of pasture, where the grass was tall and
+untrodden. Then, spent as he was, he requested food and drink, and as
+he joined the band of outlaws, listening to their jokes and banter, he
+thought he could discern among them many a one whom Fate had, like
+himself, buffeted into a life, not of his forming, not of his choice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ABBEY OF FARFA
+
+
+The great vaults of the Abbey of Farfa resounded with glee and
+merriment.
+
+Before a low, massive stone table, resembling a druidical altar,
+surrounded by giant casks filled with the choicest wines of Italy,
+Greece and Spain, there sat the Duke of Spoleto and the Abbot
+Hilarius, discoursing largely upon the vanities of the world, and
+touching incidentally upon questions pertaining to the welfare of
+Church and State. A single cresset shed an unsteady light over the
+twain, while a lean, cadaverous friar glided noiselessly in and out
+the transepts, obsequiously replenishing the beverage as it
+disappeared with astounding swiftness in the feasters' capacious
+stomachs. And each time he replenished the vessels, he refilled his
+own with grim impartiality, watching the Abbot and his guest from a
+low settle in a dark recess.
+
+The vault was of singular construction and considerable extent. The
+roof was of solid stone masonry and rose in a wide semicircular arch
+to the height of about twelve feet, measured from the centre of the
+ceiling to the ground floor.
+
+The transepts were divided by obtusely pointed arches, resting on
+slender granite pillars, and the intervening space was filled up with
+drinking vessels of every conceivable shape and size.
+
+The Abbot of Farfa was a discriminating drinker, boasting of an
+ancestral thirst of uncommonly high degree, the legacy of a Teutonic
+ancestor who had served the Church with much credit in his time.
+
+They had been carousing since sunset.
+
+The spectral custodian had refilled the tankards with amber liquid.
+Thereof the Abbot sipped understandingly.
+
+"Lacrymae Christi," he turned to the duke. "Vestrae salubritati bibo!"
+
+The duke raised his goblet.
+
+"Waes Hael!" and he drained its contents with a huge gulp.
+
+"I would chant twenty psalms for that beverage," he mused after a
+while.
+
+The Abbot suggested "Attendite Populi!"--"It is one of the longest,"
+he said, with meaning.
+
+"Don't trifle with a thirsty belly," growled the duke. "In these
+troublous times it behooves men to be circumspect!"
+
+"Probatum est," said the Abbot. "It is a noble vocation! Jubilate
+Deo!"
+
+And he raised his goblet.
+
+The Duke of Spoleto laid a heavy hand upon his arm.
+
+"It is a Vigil of the Church!"
+
+The Abbot gave himself absolution on account of the great company.
+
+"There's no fast on the drink!" he said with meaning. "Nor is there
+better wine between here and Salamanca!"
+
+The duke regarded his host out of half-shut watery eyes.
+
+"My own choice is Chianti!"
+
+"A difference of five years in purgatory!"
+
+Thereupon the duke blew the froth of his wine in the Abbot's face.
+
+"Purgatory!--A mere figure of speech!"
+
+The Abbot emptied his tankard.
+
+"The figures of speech are the pillars of the Church!"
+
+He beckoned to the custodian.
+
+"Poculum alterum imple!"
+
+The lean friar came and disappeared noiselessly.
+
+They drank for a time in heavy silence. After a time the Abbot
+sneezed, which caused Beelzebub, the Abbot's black he-goat, who had
+been browsing outside, to peer through the crescent-shaped aperture in
+the casement and regard him quizzically.
+
+The duke, who chanced to look up at that precise moment, saw the red
+inflamed eyes of the Abbot's tutelar genius, and, mistaking the goat
+for another presence, turned to his host.
+
+"Do you not fear," he whispered, "lest Satan may pay you a visit
+during some of your uncanonical pastimes?"
+
+"Uncanonical!" roared the Abbot. "I scorn the charge! I
+scorn it with my heels! Two masses daily,--morning and
+evening--Primes,--Nones,--Vespers,--Aves,--Credos,--Paters--"
+
+"Excepting on moonlight nights," the duke blinked.
+
+"Exceptis excipiendis," replied the Abbot.
+
+"Sheer heresy!" roared the duke. "The devil is apt to keep an eye on
+such exceptions. Does he not go about like a roaring lion?"
+
+"Let him roar!" shouted the Abbot, bringing his fist down upon the
+table, and looking about in canonical ire, when the door opened
+noiselessly and in its dark frame stood Francesco.
+
+He had waited at the camp for the return of the duke until his misery
+and restlessness had mastered every other sensation. Sleep, he felt,
+would not come to his eyes, and he craved for action. He should have
+liked nothing better than to mount his steed on the spot, ride
+single-handed into Anjou's camp and redeem his honor in the eyes of
+those who regarded him a bought instrument of the Church. The memory
+of Ilaria wailed through the dark chambers of his heart. He felt at
+this moment, more than ever, what she had been to him, and to himself
+he appeared as a derelict, tossed on a vast and shoreless sea.
+
+For a moment he gazed as one spellbound at the drinkers, then he
+strode up to the duke and shook him soundly.
+
+"To the rescue, my lord duke!" he shouted, in the excess of his
+frenzy, till the vaults re-echoed his cry from their farthest
+recesses. "Conradino has been betrayed by the Frangipani!"
+
+At the sound of the name he hated above all on earth, the duke's
+nebulous haze fell from him like a mantle.
+
+With a great oath he arose.
+
+"Where is the King?"
+
+"They have taken him to Rome,--or Naples,--or to some fortress near
+the coast," Francesco replied.
+
+"Into whose hands was he delivered?"
+
+"Anjou's admiral,--Robert of Lavenna!"
+
+The duke paused a moment, as if endeavoring to bring order into the
+chaos of his thoughts. He scanned Francesco from head to toe, as if
+there was something about the latter's personality which he could not
+reconcile with his previous acquaintance.
+
+At last Francesco's worldly habit flashed upon him.
+
+"What of the Cross?" he flashed abruptly.
+
+"There is blood upon it!" retorted Francesco.
+
+"All is blood in these days," the duke said musingly. "Are you with
+us?"--
+
+"I have broken the rosary!"--
+
+The duke extended his broad hand, in which Francesco's almost
+disappeared as he closed upon it.
+
+There was a great wrath in his eyes.
+
+"We ride at sun-rise!"
+
+"Our goal?"--
+
+"To Naples!"--
+
+The dawn was streaking the east with faint gold, and transient
+sunshafts touched the woods, when Francesco stood before the doorway
+of his lodge of pine boughs. The men of the Duke of Spoleto were
+gathering in on every side, some girding their swords, others
+tightening their shield-straps, as they came.
+
+The duke ordered a single horn to sound the rally.
+
+The glade was full of stir and action. Companies were forming up,
+shoulder to shoulder; spears danced and swayed; horses steamed in the
+brisk morning air.
+
+At last the tents sank down, and, as the sun cleared the trees, the
+armed array rolled out from the woods into a stretch of open land,
+that sloped towards the bold curves of a river.
+
+On that morning Francesco felt almost happy, as his fingers gripped
+his sword and he cantered along by the side of the duke. The great
+heart of the world seemed to beat with his.
+
+"The day of reckoning has come at last!" he said to the leader of the
+free lances.
+
+The duke's features were hard as steel. Yet he read the other's humor
+and joined him with the zest of the hour.
+
+"You smile once more!" said the grim lord of the woods, turning to the
+slender form in the saddle.
+
+"I shall smile in the hour when the Frangipani lies at my feet,"
+Francesco replied with heaving chest. "It is good to be strong!"
+
+The duke's horsemen were scouring ahead, keeping cover, scanning the
+horizon for the Provencals. By noon they had left the open land,
+plunged up hills covered thick with woods. The duke's squadrons sifted
+through, and he halted them in the woods under the brow of the hill.
+
+Below lay a broad valley running north and south, chequered with
+pine-thickets and patches of brushwood. On a hill in the centre stood
+a ruined tower. Towards the south a broad loop of the river closed the
+valley, while all around on the misty hills shimmered the giants of
+the forest, mysterious and silent. The duke's outriders had fallen
+back and taken cover in the thickets. Down the valley could be seen a
+line of spears, glittering snake-like towards the tower on the hill.
+Companies of horse were crossing the river, pushing up the slopes,
+mass on mass. In the midst of the flickering shields and spears blew a
+great banner with the Fleur-de-Lis.
+
+It was a contingent of Charles of Anjou, which had been on the march
+since dawn. They had thrown their advance guard across the river and
+were straggling up the green slopes, while the main host crossed the
+ford.
+
+The sound of a clarion re-echoed from crag to crag: and down towards
+the river played the whirlwind, with dust and clangor and the shriek
+of steel. Spears went down like trampled corn. The battle streamed
+down the bloody slope, for nothing could stand that furious charge.
+
+The river shut in the broken host, for the ford was narrow, not easy
+of passage. From the north came the thundering ranks of horse, and on
+the south the waters were calm and clear. The Provencals, streaming
+like smoke blown from a fire by a boisterous wind, were hurled in rout
+upon the water. They were hurled over the banks, slain in the
+shallows, drowned in struggling to cross at the ford. Some few hundred
+reached the southern bank, and scattered fast for the sanctuary of the
+woods.
+
+In less than half an hour from the first charge the duke's men had won
+the day. They gave no quarter; slew all who stood.
+
+The duke rode back up the hill, Francesco by his side, amid the cheers
+of his men.
+
+Southwest they rode towards the sea, their hundred lances aslant under
+the autumnal sky. They were as men challenging a kingdom with their
+swords, and they tossed their shields in the face of fate. The
+audacity of the venture set the hot blood spinning in their hearts.
+To free Conradino from Anjou's clutches; to hurl damnation in the
+mouth of the Provencals.
+
+As for Francesco, he was as a hound in leash. His sword thirsted in
+its scabbard; he had tasted blood, and was hot for the conflict.
+
+On the fourth day they came upon the ruins of Ninfa, a town set upon a
+hill in a wooded valley. Vultures flapped heavenward as they rode into
+the gate; lean, red-eyed curs snarled and slinked about the streets.
+Francesco smote one brute through with his spear, as it was feeding in
+the gutter on the carcass of a child. In the market square the
+Provencals had made such another massacre as they had perpetrated in
+Alba. The horrible obscenity of the scene struck the duke's men dumb
+as the dead. The towns-folk had been stripped, bound face to face,
+left slain in many a hideous and ribald pose. The vultures' beaks had
+emulated the sword. The stench from the place was as the breath of a
+charnel house, and the duke and his men turned back with grim faces
+from the brutal silence of that ghastly town.
+
+Near one of the gates a wild, tattered figure darted out from a
+half-wrecked house, stood blinking at them in the sun, then sped away,
+screaming and whimpering at the sight of the duke, as though possessed
+with a demon. It was a woman, still retaining the traces of her former
+great beauty, gone mad, yet the only live thing they found in the
+town.
+
+The duke had reined in his steed at the sight, gone white to the roots
+of his hair. Then he covered his face with his hands, and Francesco
+heard him utter a heart-rending moan.
+
+When his hands fell, after a lapse of time, he seemed to have aged
+years in this brief space.
+
+"Forward, my men," he shouted with iron mouth. "The Frangipani shall
+not complain of our swords!"
+
+They passed out of Ninfa through the opposite gate. At dark they
+reached the moors, and soon the entire host swept silently into the
+ebony gloom of the great forests, which seemed sealed up against the
+moon and stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+RETRIBUTION
+
+
+Beneath the dark cornices of a thicket of wind-stunted pines stood a
+small company of men, looking out into the hastening night. The
+half-light of evening lay over the scene, rolling wood and valley into
+a misty mass, while the horizon stood curbed by a belt of heavy
+thunder-clouds. In the western vault, a vast rent in the wall of gray
+shot out a blaze of translucent gold that slanted like a spear shaft
+to a sullen sea.
+
+The walls of Astura shone white and ghostly athwart the plains.
+Sea-gulls came screaming to the cliffs. Presently out of the blue
+bosom of an unearthly twilight a vague wind arose. Gusts came,
+clamored, and died into nothingness. The world seemed to shudder. A
+red sword flashed sudden out of the skies and smote the hills. Thunder
+followed, growling over the world. The lurid crater of Vesuvius poured
+gold upon the sea, whose hoarse underchant mingled with the fitful
+wind.
+
+A storm came creeping black out of the west. The sea grew dark. The
+forests began to weave the twilight into their columned halls. A
+sudden gust came clamoring through the woods. The myriad boughs tossed
+and jerked against the sky, while a mysterious gloom of trees rolled
+back against the oncoming night.
+
+The men upon the hill strained their eyes towards the sea, where the
+white patch of a sail showed vaguely through the gathering gloom.
+Their black armor stood out ghostly against the ascetic trunks of the
+trees. Grim silence prevailed, and so immobile was their attitude,
+that they might have been taken for stone images of a dead, gone age.
+
+The wind cried restlessly amid the trees, gusty at intervals, but
+tuning its mood to a desolate and constant moan. The woods seemed full
+of a vague woe and of troubled breathings. The trees seemed to sway to
+one another, to fling strange words with the tossing of hair and
+outstretched hands. The furze in the valley, swept and harrowed,
+undulated like a green lagoon.
+
+Between the hills and the cliff lay the marshes, threaded by a meagre
+stream that quavered through the green. A poison mist hung over them
+despite the wind. The mournful clangor of a bell came up from the
+valley, with a vague sound as of voices chanting.
+
+After a time the bell ceased pulsing. In its stead sounded a faint
+eerie whimper, an occasional shrill cry that startled the moorlands,
+leaped out of silence like a bubble from a pool where death has been.
+
+The men were shaken from their strained vigilance as by a wind. The
+utter gray of the hour seemed to stifle them, then a sound stumbled
+out of the silence and set them listening. It dwindled and grew again,
+came nearer: it was the smite of hoofs in the wood-ways. The rider
+dismounted, tethered his foam-flecked steed to a tree and stumbled up
+to where the Duke of Spoleto and Francesco stood, their gaze riveted
+upon the ghostly masonry of Astura.
+
+Panting and exhausted he faced the twain.
+
+"They have all died on the scaffold," he said with a hoarse, rasping
+voice. "The Swabian dynasty is no more."
+
+With a cry and a sob that shook his whole being, Francesco covered his
+face with his hands.
+
+For a moment the duke stared blankly at the speaker.
+
+"And the Frangipani?" he asked, his features ashen-gray and drawn.
+
+The messenger pointed to Astura.
+
+"There is feasting and high glee: the Pontiff's bribe was large."--
+
+Francesco trembled in every limb.
+
+"Such a day was never seen in Naples," the messenger concluded with a
+shudder. "To a man they died under the axe--the soil was dyed crimson
+with their blood."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+The messenger pointed to the sea, which had melted into the indefinite
+background of the night.
+
+Dim and distant, like a pearl over the purple deeps, one sail after
+another struck out of the vague west. They came heading for the land,
+the black hulls rising and falling against the tumultuous blackness of
+the clouds.
+
+A red gleam started suddenly from the waves. A quick flame leaped up
+like a red finger above the cliff.
+
+The duke ignited a pine-wood torch. The blue resinous light spluttered
+in the wind.
+
+Three times he circled it above his head, then he flung it into the
+sea.
+
+"Bernardo Sarriano and the Pisan galleys," he turned to Francesco.
+"They are heading for the Cape of Circé."
+
+A shout of command rang through the woods.
+
+As with phantom cohorts the forest-aisles teemed with moving shadows.
+
+A ride of some five miles lay between them and the Cape of Circé. Much
+of that region was wild forest land and moor; bleak rocky wastes let
+into woods and gloom. Great oaks, gnarled, vast, terrible, held giant
+sway amid the huddled masses of the underbrush. Here the wild boar
+lurked and the wolf hunted. But for the most it was dark and
+calamitous, a ghostly wilderness forsaken by man.
+
+As they rode along they struck the occasional trail of the Crusaders
+of the Church. A burnt hamlet, a smoking farmhouse with a dun mist
+hanging over it like a shroud, and once they stumbled upon the body of
+a dead girl. They halted for a brief space to give her burial. The
+duke's men dug a shallow grave under an oak and they left her there
+and went on their way with greater caution.
+
+"There is one man on earth to whom I owe a debt," the duke, leading
+the van beside Francesco, turned to the latter, "a debt that shall be
+paid this night, principal and interest."
+
+Francesco looked up into the duke's face, and by the glare of the now
+more frequent lightnings he saw that it was drawn and gray.
+
+"There lies his lair," the duke pointed to the white masonry of
+Astura, as it loomed out of the night, menacing and spectral, as a
+thunderbolt hissed into the sea, and again lapsed into gloom.
+"Betrayer of God and man,--his hour is at hand!"--
+
+The duke's beard fairly bristled as he uttered these words, and he
+gripped the hilt of his sword as if he anticipated a conflict with
+some wild beast of the forest, some mythical monster born of night and
+crime.
+
+Francesco made no reply. He was bowed down beneath the gloom of the
+hour, oppressed with unutterable forebodings. He too had an account to
+settle: yet, whichever way the tongue inclined in the scales, life
+stretched out from him as a sea at night. He dared not think of
+Ilaria, far away in the convent of San Nicandro by the sea; yet her
+memory had haunted him all day, knocked at the gates of his
+consciousness, dominated the hours. Compared with the ever present
+sense of her loss, all in life seemed utterly trifling, and he longed
+for annihilation only.
+
+Yet a kindred note which he sounded in the duke's soul found him in a
+more receptive mood for the latter's confidences; once life had
+seemed good to him; he had thought men heroes, the world a faerie
+place. Thoughts had changed with time, and that for which he once
+hungered he now despised. Cursed with perversities, baffled and
+mocked, the eternal trivialities of life made the soul sink within
+him. Not all are mild earth, to be smitten and make no moan. There are
+sea spirits that lash and foam, fire spirits that leap and burn,--was
+he to be cursed because he was born with a soul of fire?
+
+They were now in the midst of the great wilderness. On all sides
+myriads of trees, interminably pillared; through their tops the wind
+sighed and pined like the soft breath of a sleeping world. Away on
+every hand stretched oblivious vistas, black under multitudinous green
+spires.
+
+The interminable trees seemed to vex the duke's spirit, as their
+trunks crowded the winding track and seemed to shut in the twain as
+with a never ending barrier. And behind them, with the muffled tread
+of a phantom army, came the duke's armed array striding through the
+night.
+
+"Have you too suffered a wrong at the hands of the Frangipani?"
+Francesco at last broke the silence, turning to his companion.
+
+The latter jerked the bridle of his charger so viciously that the
+terrified animal reared on its haunches and neighed in protest.
+
+"Man, know you whereof you speak?" the duke snarled, as he came closer
+to Francesco. "He has made the one woman the Duke of Spoleto ever
+loved--a wanton!"--
+
+They pushed uphill through the solemn shadows of the forest. A sound
+like the raging of a wind through a wood came down to them faintly
+from afar. It was a sullen sound, deep and mysterious as the hoarse
+babel of the sea, smitten through with the shrill scream of trumpets,
+like the cry of gulls above a storm. Yet in the aisles of the pine
+forest it was still as death.
+
+Then, like a spark struck from flint and steel falling upon tinder, a
+red glare blazed out against the background of the night. A horn
+blared across the moorlands; the castle bell began to ring, jerkily,
+wildly, a bell in terror. Yellow gleams streaked the fretted waters,
+and again the trumpet challenged the dark walls, like the cry of a
+sea-bird driven by the storm.
+
+The duke and Francesco looked meaningly at each other. The sound
+needed no words to christen it; they knew that the Pisans had
+attacked. They heard the roar and the cries from the rampart, the
+cataractine thunder of a distant battle.
+
+Pushing on more swiftly as the woods thinned, the din grew more
+definite, more human, more sinister in detail. It stirred the blood,
+challenged the courage, racked conjecture with the infinite chaos it
+portended. Victory and despair were trammelled up together in its
+sullen roar; life and death seemed to swell it with the wind sound of
+their wings. It was stupendous, chaotic, a tempest cry of steel and
+passions inflamed.
+
+The duke's face kindled to the sound as he shouted to his men to
+gallop on. Yet another furlong, and the spectral trunks dwindled, the
+sombre boughs seemed to mingle with the clouds, while gray, indefinite
+before them, engulfing the lightnings of heaven, loomed the great
+swell of the Tyrrhene, dark and restless under the thunderclouds, that
+came nearer and nearer. Ghostly the plains of Torre del Greco
+stretched towards the Promontory of Circé, and, solitary and
+impregnable, the Castello of Astura rose upon its chalk-cliffs, white
+in the lightnings which hissed around its summit.
+
+The duke's men had come up, forming a wide semicircle around the
+leaders. At their feet opened a deep ravine, leading into the plain;
+half a furlong beyond, although it seemed less than a lance's throw
+across, rose the castle of the Frangipani, washed by the waves of the
+Tyrrhene. The Pisans had attacked the southern acclivity, and the
+defenders, roused from their feast of blood, had poured all their
+defences towards the point of attack, leaving the northern slope to
+look to itself.
+
+As they rode down the ravine there came from the bottom of the valley
+the sharp yelp of a dog. It was instantly answered by a similar bark
+from the very top of the castello.
+
+"No two dogs ever had the same voice," the duke turned to Francesco.
+"They must be hell-hounds, whom the fiend has trained to one tune. But
+what is that yonder? A goat picking its way?"
+
+"A goat walking on its hind legs!"
+
+"Are there horns on its head?"
+
+"No!"--
+
+"Then it is not the Evil One! Forward, my men!"
+
+The pause that preceded the breaking of the storm had been unnaturally
+long. Save for the gleam of the lightnings, the waters had grown to an
+inky blackness. There came one long moment, when the atmosphere sank
+under the weight of a sudden heat. Then the ever increasing thunder
+rushed upon the silence with a mighty roar and out of the west, driven
+by the hurricane, came a long line of white waves, that rose as they
+advanced, till the very Tritons beat their heads and the nymphs
+scurried down to greener depths.
+
+And now a sudden streak of fire hissed from the clouds, followed by a
+crash as if all the bolts of heaven had been let off at once. From the
+ramparts of Astura came cries of alarm, the din of battle, the blaring
+of horns, the shouting of commands.
+
+The duke and Francesco had dismounted and were gazing up towards the
+storm-swept ramparts. Shrieks and curses rolled down upon them like
+the tumbling of a cascade.
+
+Then they began to scale the ledge, the path dwindling to a goat's
+highway.
+
+Above them rose a sheer wall on which there appeared not clinging
+space for a lizard. The abyss below was ready to welcome them to
+perdition if their feet slipped.
+
+After a brief respite they continued, the duke's men scrambling up
+behind them, looking like so many ants on the white chalk-cliffs. The
+air was hot to suffocation; the storm roared, the thunder bellowed in
+deafening echoes through the skies, and the heavens seemed one blazing
+cataract of fire, reflected in the throbbing mirror of the sea.
+
+They had reached a seam in the rock, where they paused for a moment to
+let their brains rest. There was hardly room for the duke and
+Francesco on the ledge, so narrow was the rocky shelf, and the latter
+was pushing close against the wall when he was suddenly forced to look
+up. He heard the din of the encounter above. The Pisans, having
+attacked the Frangipani from the south, were driving them out at the
+north. Suddenly two bodies whizzed by him, thrust over the ramparts in
+the fierceness of the assault. Another came; he seemed to have jumped
+for life, for he kept feet foremost for a distance through the air,
+before he began to whirl. These fell clear of the scaling party, and
+were impaled on the broken tops of the stunted trees, that bossed the
+side of the precipice. One came so near the duke that his flight
+downward almost blew him off his narrow perch. His head struck the
+ledge, while his body caught in the bushes, hung a moment, then dashed
+after its comrades below.
+
+Just then the end of a rope fell dangling by their side, let down from
+the ramparts above. The duke tried to grasp it, but it shifted beyond
+the gap. Down the rope came a man, then another; they both gained a
+foothold on the narrow ledge. No sooner were their feet on it, than
+the duke sent them headlong to the bottom. Then grasping the rope
+without waiting to see if a third or fourth were coming down, he
+shouted to Francesco to follow. Perilous as was the task, it was no
+more so than to follow the steep and narrow goat's trail, and in a
+brief space of time they swung into a courtyard which was deserted.
+Anticipating no attack on this side, the defenders of Astura had
+turned their whole attention to the southern slope, where the Pisans
+were scaling the walls. The roar of the conflict seemed to grow with
+the roar of the hurricane, and, as one by one the duke's men leaped
+into the dark square, and the muster was complete, Count Rupert turned
+to Francesco.
+
+"I feared lest they might clean out the nest before our arrival," he
+said, then, pointing to a distant glare of torches, he gave the word.
+They caught the unwary defenders in the rear. No quarter was to be
+given; the robber brood of Astura was to be exterminated.
+
+"Conradino!" was the password, and above the taunts and cries of
+Frangipani's hirelings it filled the night with its clamor, rode on
+the wings of the storm, like the war-cry of a thousand demons.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that a few of the most daring among the Pisan
+admiral's men had scaled the ramparts and, leaping into the
+Frangipani's stronghold, had tried to pave a way for those lagging
+behind, their companions-in-arms were in dire straits. For those of
+Astura poured boiling pitch upon the heads of the attacking party,
+hurled rocks of huge dimensions down upon them which crushed into a
+mangled mass scores of men, unable to retain the vantage they had
+gained under the avalanche of arrows, rocks and fire.
+
+In a moment's time the situation was changed.
+
+Noiselessly as leopards, the duke's men fell upon their rear, raising
+their war-cry as they leaped from the shadows. Those on the ramparts,
+forced to grapple with the nearer enemy, abandoned their tasks. The
+Pisans, profiting by the lull, swarmed over the walls. Taken between
+two parties, a deadly hand-to-hand conflict ensued. Above the din and
+the roar of the hurricane, of the clashing of arms, above the cries
+of the wounded, the death-rattle of the dying, sounded the voice of
+the Duke of Spoleto.
+
+"Onward, my men! Kill and slay!"
+
+Side by side the duke and Francesco leaped into the thickest of the
+fray, both animated by the same desire to come face to face with the
+lords of Astura, spurning a lesser enemy.
+
+For a time they seemed doomed to disappointment. Had the Frangipani
+been slain?
+
+The zest of the conflict pointed rather to their directing the
+defence. Else their mercenaries would have left Astura to its fate.
+
+Suddenly an unearthly voice startled the combatants.
+
+"Guard, devil, guard!"
+
+There was the upflashing of a sword, and a hoarse challenge frightened
+the night.
+
+Giovanni Frangipani saw a furious face glaring dead white from under
+the shadow of a shield.
+
+He stopped in his onward rush, blinked at the duke as one gone mad.
+
+"Damnation, what have we here?"
+
+"By the love of God, I have you now!"
+
+"Fool, are you mad?"
+
+The hoarse voice echoed him, the eyes flashed fire.
+
+"Guard, ravisher,--guard!"
+
+"Ten thousand devils! Who are you?"
+
+"Your obedient servant,--the Duke of Spoleto!"
+
+The Frangipani growled like a trapped bear.
+
+He raised his sword, put forward his shield.
+
+"On with you, dog!" he roared. "Join your wanton under the sod!"
+
+"Ha, say you so?" cried the duke, closing in.
+
+Their swords flashed, yelped, twisted in the air. A down cut hewed the
+dexter cantrel from the Frangipani's shield. His face with a gashed
+cheek glared at the duke from under his upreared arm. So close were
+they that blood spattered in the duke's face as the Frangipani blew
+the red stream from his mouth and beard.
+
+[Illustration: "'They lied,' he cried. 'Give me but life.'"]
+
+The duke broke away, wheeled and came again. He lashed home, split the
+Frangipani's collar-bone even through the rags of his hauberk. The
+Frangipani yelped like a gored hound. Rabid, dazed, he began to make
+blind rushes that boded ill for him. The swords began to leap and to
+sing, while blinding flashes of lightning followed each other in quick
+succession and thunder rolled in deafening echoes through the heavens.
+Cut and counter-cut rang through the night, like the cry of axes,
+whirled by woodmen's hands.
+
+Suddenly the Frangipani parried an upper cut and stabbed at the duke.
+The sword point missed him a hair's breadth. Before he could guard the
+duke was upon him like a leopard. Both men smote together, both swords
+met with a sound that seemed to shake the rocks. The Frangipani's
+blade snapped at the hilt.
+
+He stood still for a moment as one dazed, then plucked out his poniard
+and made a spring. A merciless down cut beat him back. His courage,
+his assurance seemed to ebb from him on a sudden, as though the blow
+had broken his soul. He fell on his knees and held up his hands, with
+a thick, choking cry.
+
+"Mercy! God's mercy!"
+
+"Curse you! Had you pity on your victims?"
+
+Thunder crashed overhead; the girdles of the sky were loosed. A
+torrent of rain beat upon the Frangipani's streaming face; he tottered
+on his knees, but still held his hands to the heavens.
+
+"They lied," he cried. "Give me but life."--
+
+The duke looked at him and heaved up his sword.
+
+Giovanni Frangipani saw the white face above him, gave a great cry and
+cowered behind his hands. It was all ended in a moment. The rain
+washed his gilded harness as he lay with his blood soaking into the
+crevices of the rocks.--
+
+Francesco had witnessed neither the fight nor the ending. Impelled by
+an insensate desire to find Raniero, to have a final reckoning for all
+the baseness and insults he had heaped upon him in the past, for his
+treachery and cruelty to Ilaria, he had made his way to the great
+hall.
+
+The door was closed and locked from within.
+
+Francesco dealt it a terrific blow. Its shattered framework heaved
+inward and toppled against the wall.
+
+In the doorway stood Raniero and looked out at his opponent. He did
+not recognize Francesco. His face was sullen; the glitter of his
+little eyes mimicked the ring gleams of his hauberk. He put out the
+tip of a tongue and moistened his lips.
+
+Francesco's face was as the face of a man who has but one purpose left
+in life and, that accomplished, cares not what happens. Raising his
+vizor, he said:
+
+"I wait for you!"
+
+Raniero broke into a boisterous laugh.
+
+"The bastard! The monk! Go home, Francesco, and don your lady's
+attire! What would you with a sword?"
+
+Francesco's mouth was a hard line. He breathed through hungry
+nostrils, as he went step by step toward Raniero.
+
+Then with a swift shifting of his sword from right to left he smote
+him on each cheek, then, lowering his vizor, he put up his guard.
+
+With an oath Raniero's sword flashed, feinted, turned with a cunning
+twist, and swept low for Francesco's thigh.
+
+Francesco leaped back, but was slashed by the point a hair's breadth
+above the knee. It was a mere skin wound, but the pain of it seemed to
+snap something that had been twisted to a breaking point within him.
+He gave a great cry and charged down Raniero's second blow.
+
+Their shields met and clashed, and Raniero staggered. Francesco rushed
+him across the hall as a bull drives a rival about a yard. Raniero
+crashed against the wall, and Francesco sprang back to use his sword.
+The blow hewed the top from Raniero's shield and smote him slant-wise
+across the face.
+
+Raniero gathered himself and struck back, but the blow was caught on
+Francesco's shield. Francesco thrust at him, before he could recover,
+and the point slipped under the edge of Raniero's gorget. He twisted
+free and blundered forward into a fierce exchange of half-arm blows.
+Once he struck Francesco upon the mouth with the pommel of his sword,
+and was smitten in turn by the beak of Francesco's shield.
+
+Again Francesco rushed Raniero to the wall, leaped back and got in his
+blow. Raniero's face was a red blur. He dropped his shield, put both
+his hands to his sword and swung great blows at Francesco, with the
+huge rage of a desperate and tiring man. Francesco led him up and down
+the hall. Raniero's breath came in gasps, and his strength began to
+wane.
+
+Francesco bided his chance and seized it. He ran in, after Raniero had
+missed him with one of his savage sweeping blows, and rushed him
+against the wall. Then he struck and struck again, without uttering a
+word, playing so fast upon Raniero that he had his man smothered,
+blundering and dazed. The end came with a blow that cut the crown of
+Raniero's helmet. He threw up his hands with a spasmodic gesture,
+lurched forward, fell, rolled over on his back and lay still.
+
+For a moment Francesco stood over him, the point of his sword on
+Raniero's throat. He seemed to waver; then all the misery the
+Frangipani had inflicted on Ilaria rushed over him as in a blinding
+cloud.
+
+His sword went home. A strange cry passed through the hall, then all
+was still. The torch spluttered once more and went out. Francesco was
+in the darkness beside the dead body of Raniero.--
+
+Meanwhile the Pisans had succeeded in scaling the walls. The clamor of
+the fight grew less and less, as one by one the defenders of Astura
+were relentlessly struck down and hurled over the ramparts. The storm
+had increased in violence, the heavens were cataracts of fire.--
+
+In the blood-drenched court the duke and the Pisan admiral shook
+hands. Everything living had been slain. Astura was a castle of the
+dead.
+
+"God! What work!" exclaimed the Pisan. It was the testimony wrung from
+him by the stress of sheer hard fighting.
+
+"One of the viper-brood still lives," the duke turned to his
+companion, kicking with the tip of his steel boot the lifeless form of
+Giovanni Frangipani.
+
+The Pisan turned to a man-at-arms.
+
+"Take twenty men! Scour the lair from vault to pinnacle! We must have
+that other,--dead or alive!"
+
+The rain had ceased for the time. New thunder-clouds came rolling out
+of the west. Flambeaux flared in the court. Black shadows danced along
+the ghostly walls. The wind moaned about the crenelated turrets;
+sentinels of the Pisans stood everywhere, alert for ambush.
+
+The duke and his companions approached the door leading into the great
+hall. It lay in splinters. Stygian darkness held sway within.
+
+Suddenly the duke paused, as if turned to stone, at the same time
+plucking his companion back by the sleeve of his surcoat.
+
+Noiselessly as a ghost out of the door came the form of a woman. She
+was tall, exquisitely proportioned, and young. For a moment she paused
+on the threshold and looked out into the night. Almost immediately a
+second form followed, and paused near the first: that of a man. The
+woman seemed to stare blindly at the duke, with wide, unseeing eyes,
+as one who walks in a sleep.
+
+With a choked, inarticulate outcry the duke snatched bow and arrow
+from the nearest sentry, and ere the Pisan could grasp the meaning of
+what he saw, or prevent, he set and sped the bolt. A moan died on the
+stillness. A form collapsed, shuddered and lay still.
+
+The duke dropped bow and arrow, staring like a madman, then rushed
+towards the prostrate form.
+
+Bending over it, a moan broke from his lips, as he threw his arms
+about the lifeless clay of her he had loved in the days of yore, ere
+the honeyed treachery of the Frangipani had sundered and broken their
+lives. The woman of the Red Tower had expiated her guilt.
+
+He saw at once that no human agency might here avail. Death had been
+instantaneous. The arrow had pierced the heart.
+
+The duke knelt long by her side, and the strong man's frame heaved
+with convulsive sobs, as he closed the eyes and muttered an Ave for
+her untimely departed soul.
+
+When he arose, he looked into the pale face of Francesco, whose
+blood-stained sword and garments told a tale his lips would not. He
+understood without a word. Silently he extended his hand to the duke,
+then, taking off his own mantle, he covered therewith the woman's
+body.
+
+It was midnight when the Pisans and the duke's men groped their way
+cautiously down the steep winding path to the shore. The Pisans made
+for their ships and Spoleto's men for the dusk of their native woods,
+carrying on a hurriedly constructed bier the body of the woman of the
+Red Tower.
+
+Not many minutes had passed after their perilous descent when a sphere
+of fire shot from the clouds, followed by a crash as if the earth had
+been rent in twain, and the western tower of Astura was seen toppling
+into the sea.
+
+Bye and bye sea and land reflected a crimson glow, which steadily
+increased, fanned by the gale, until it shone far out upon the sea.
+
+Astura was in flames, the funeral pyre of the Frangipani.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE QUEST
+
+
+As the world grew gray with waking light, Francesco came from the
+woods and heard the noise of the sea in the hush that breathed in the
+dawn. The storm had passed over the sea and a vast calm hung upon the
+lips of the day. In the east a green streak shone above the hills. The
+sky was still aglitter with sparse stars. An immensity of gloom
+brooded over the sea.
+
+Gaunt, wounded, triumphant, Francesco rode up beneath the banners of
+the dawn, eager yet fearful, inspired and strong of purpose. Wood and
+hill slept in a haze of mist. The birds were only beginning in the
+thickets, like the souls of children yet unborn, calling to eternity.
+Beyond in the cliffs, San Nicandro, wrapped round with night, stood
+silent and sombre athwart the west.
+
+Francesco climbed from the valley as the day came with splendor, a
+glow of molten gold streaming from the east. Wood and hillside
+glimmered in a smoking mist, dew-bespangled, wonderful. As the sun
+rose, the sea stretched sudden into the arch of the west, a great
+expanse of liquid gold. A mysterious lustre hovered over the cliffs,
+waves of light bent like saffron mist upon San Nicandro.
+
+The dawn-light found an echo in Francesco's face. He came that
+morning the ransomer, the champion, defeated in life and hope and
+happiness, yet with head erect, as if defying Fate. His manhood smote
+him like the deep-throated cry of a great bell, majestic and solemn.
+The towers on the cliff were haloed with magic hues. Life, glory, joy,
+lay locked in the gray stone walls. His heart sang in him; his eyes
+were afire.
+
+As he walked his horse with a hollow thunder of hoof over the narrow
+bridge, he took his horn and blew a blast thereon. There was a sense
+of desolation, a lifelessness about the place that smote his senses
+with a strange fear. The walls stared void against the sky. There was
+no stir, no sound within, no watchful faces at portal or wicket. Only
+the gulls circled from the cliffs and the sea made its moan along the
+strand.
+
+Francesco sat in the saddle and looked from wall to belfry, from tower
+to gate. There was something tragic about the place, the silence of a
+sacked town, the ghostliness of a ship sailing the seas with a dead
+crew upon her decks. Francesco's glance rested on the open postern, an
+empty gash in the great gate. His face darkened and his eyes lost
+their sanguine glow. There was something betwixt death and worse than
+death in all this calm.
+
+He dismounted and left his steed on the bridge. The postern beckoned
+to him. He went in like a man nerved for peril, with sword drawn and
+shield in readiness. Again he blew his horn. No living being answered,
+no voice broke the silence.
+
+The refectory was open, the door standing half ajar. Francesco thrust
+it full open with the point of his sword and looked in. A gray light
+filtered through the narrow windows. The nuns lay huddled on benches
+and on the floor. Some lay fallen across the settles, others sat with
+their heads fallen forward upon the table; a few had crawled towards
+the door and had died in the attempt to escape. The shadow of death
+was over the whole.
+
+Francesco's face was as gray as the faces of the dead. There was
+something here, a horror, a mystery, that hurled back the warm courage
+of the heart.
+
+With frantic despair he rushed from one body to the other, turning the
+dead faces to the light, fearing every one must be that of his own
+Ilaria. But Ilaria was not among them; the mystery grew deeper, grew
+more unfathomable. For a moment, Francesco stood among the dead nuns
+as if every nerve in his body had been suddenly paralyzed, when his
+eyes fell upon a crystal chalice, half overturned on the floor. It
+contained the remnants of a clear fluid. He picked it up and held it
+to his nostrils. It fell from his nerveless fingers upon the stone and
+broke into a thousand fragments, a thin stream creeping over the
+granite towards the fallen dead. It was a preparation of hemlock and
+bitter almonds. He stared aghast, afraid to move, afraid to call. The
+nuns had poisoned themselves.
+
+Like a madman he rushed out into the adjoining corridor, hither and
+thither, in the frantic endeavor to find a trace of Ilaria. Yet not a
+trace of her did he find. But what he did discover solved the mystery
+of the grewsome feast of death which he had just witnessed. In a
+corner where he had dropped it, there lay a silken banderol belonging
+to a man-at-arms of Anjou's Provencals. They had been here, and the
+nuns, to escape the violation of their bodies, had died, thus cheating
+the fiends out of the gratification of their lusts.
+
+The terrible discovery unnerved Francesco so completely that for a
+time he stood as if turned to stone, looking about him like a
+traveller who has stumbled blindly into a charnel house. Urged by
+manifold forebodings, he then rushed from room to room, from cell to
+cell. The same silence met him everywhere. Of Ilaria he found not a
+trace. Had the fiends of Anjou carried her away, or had she, in
+endeavoring to escape, found her death outside of the walls of San
+Nicandro?
+
+He dared not think out the thought.
+
+The shadows of the place, the staring faces, the stiff hands clawing
+at things inanimate, were like the phantasms of the night. Francesco
+took the sea-air into his nostrils and looked up into the blue
+radiance of the sky. All about him the garden glistened in the dawn;
+the cypresses shimmered with dew. The late roses made very death more
+apparent to his soul.
+
+As he stood in deep thought, half dreading what he but half knew, a
+voice called to him, breaking suddenly the ponderous silence of the
+place. Guided by its sound, Francesco unlatched the door and found
+himself face to face with the Duke of Spoleto.
+
+For a moment they faced each other in silence.
+
+Then he gave a great cry.
+
+"Ever, ever night!" he said, stretching out his hands despairingly as
+to an eternal void.
+
+The duke's eyes seemed to look leagues away over moor and valley and
+hill, where the blackened ruins of Astura rose beneath a dun smoke
+against the calm of the morning sky.
+
+A strange tenderness played upon his lips, as if with the extinction
+of the Frangipani brood peace had entered his soul.
+
+"A man is a mystery to himself," he said.
+
+"But to God?"
+
+"I know no God, save the God, my own soul! Let me live and
+die,--nothing more! Why curse one's life with a 'to be?'"
+
+Francesco sighed heavily.
+
+"It is a kind of Fate to me!" he said, "inevitable as the setting of
+the sun, natural as sleep. Not for myself do I fear it alone,--but I
+should not like to think that I should never see her again."
+
+The duke's eyes had caught life on the distant hillside, life surging
+from the valleys, life and the glory of it. Harness, helm and shield
+shone in the sun. Gold, azure, silver, scarlet were creeping from the
+bronzed green of the wilds. Silent and solemn the host rolled slowly
+into the full splendor of the day.
+
+The duke's face had kindled.
+
+"Grapple the days to come!" he said. "Let Scripture and ethics rot! My
+men are at your command! Let them ride by stream and forest, moor and
+mere! Let them ride in quest of your lost one, ride like the wind!"
+
+Francesco looked at the duke through a mist of tears.
+
+"You know?" he faltered.
+
+"For this I came!" replied the duke, extending his hand. "You will
+find her whom your heart seeks. Like a golden dawn shall she rise out
+of the past. Blow your horn! Let us not tarry!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ANCHORESS OF NARNI
+
+
+Six days had passed. Once more the sun had tossed night from the sky
+and kindled hope in the hymning east. The bleak wilderness barriered
+by sea and crag had mellowed into the golden silence of the autumnal
+woods. The very trees seemed tongued with prophetic flame. The world
+leaped radiant out of the dawn.
+
+Through the reddened woods rode Francesco, the Duke of Spoleto silent
+by his side. Gloom still reigned on the pale, haggard face and there
+was no lustre in the eyes that challenged ever the lurking shade of
+Death. Six nights and six days had the quest been baffled. Near and
+far armor glimmered in the reddened sanctuaries of the woods. Not a
+trumpet brayed, though a host had scattered in search of a woman's
+face.
+
+On the seventh day, the trees drew back before Francesco where the
+shimmering waters of the Nera streaked the meads. Peace dwelled there
+and calm eternal, as of the Spirit that heals the throes of men. Rare
+and golden lay the dawn-light on the valleys. The songs of the birds
+came glad and multitudinous as in the burgeoning dawn of a glorious
+day.
+
+Francesco had halted under a great oak. His head was bare in the
+sun-steeped shadows, his face was the face of one weary with long
+watching under the voiceless stars. Great dread possessed him. He
+dared not question his own soul.
+
+A horn sounded in the woods, wild, clamorous and exultant. It was as
+the voice of a prophet, clearing the despair of a godless world. Even
+the trees stood listening. Far below, in the green shadows of the
+valley, a horseman spurred his steed.
+
+Francesco's eyes were upon him. Yet he dared not hope, gripped by a
+great fear.
+
+"I am even as a child," he said.
+
+The duke's lips quivered.
+
+"The dawn breaks,--the night is past. Tidings come to us. Let us ride
+out!"
+
+Francesco seemed lost in thought. He bowed his head and looked long
+into the valley.
+
+"Am I he who slew Raniero Frangipani?"
+
+"Courage!" said the duke.
+
+"My blood is as water, my heart as wax. Death and destiny are over my
+head!"
+
+"Speak not to me of destiny and look not to the skies! I have closed
+my account with Heaven! In himself is man's power! You have broken the
+crucifix! Now trust your own soul. So long as you did serve a
+superstition had you lost your true heaven!"
+
+"And yet--"
+
+"You have played the god, and the Father in Heaven must love you for
+your strength! God does not love a coward! He will let you rule your
+destiny--not destiny your soul!"
+
+"Strange words--"
+
+"But true! Were I God, should I love the monk puling prayers in a den?
+Nay--that man should I choose who dared to follow the dictates of his
+own soul and strangle Fate with the grip of truth. Great deeds are
+better than mumbled prayers!"
+
+The horseman in the valley had swept at a gallop through a sea of
+sun-bronzed fern. His eyes were full of a restless glitter, as the
+eyes of a man, whose heart is troubled. He sprang from the saddle,
+and, leading his horse by the bridle, bent low before the twain.
+
+"Tidings, my lord!"
+
+"I listen!"--
+
+The horseman looked for a moment in Francesco's face but, hardened as
+he was, he dared not abide the trial. There was such a stare of
+desperate calm in the dark eyes, that his courage failed and quailed
+from the truth. He hung his head and stood mute.
+
+"I listen--"
+
+"My lord--"
+
+"For God's sake, speak out!"
+
+"My lord--"
+
+"The truth!"--
+
+"She lives--"
+
+A great silence fell within the hearts of the three, an ecstasy of
+silence, such as comes after the wail of a storm. The duke's lips were
+compressed, as if he feared to give expression to his feelings.
+Francesco's face was as the face of one who thrusts back hope out of
+his soul. He sat rigid on his horse, a stone image fronting Fate,
+grim-eyed and steadfast. All his life had been one long sacrifice, one
+long denial,--had it all been in vain?
+
+There were tears in the eyes of the man-at-arms.
+
+"What more?"
+
+The horseman leaned against his horse, his arm hooked over its neck.
+
+He pointed to the valley.
+
+"Yonder lies Narni. Beyond the Campanile of St. Juvenal is a
+sanctuary. You can see it yonder by the ford. Two holy women dwell
+therein. To them, my lord, I commend you!"
+
+"You know more!"
+
+The voice that spoke was terrible.
+
+"Spare me, my lord! The words are for women's lips, not for mine!"
+
+"So be it!"
+
+The three rode in silence, Francesco and the duke together, looking
+mutely into each other's face. Francesco's head was bowed to his
+breast. The reins lay loose on his horse's neck.
+
+A gray cell of roughly hewn stone showed amidst the green boughs
+beyond the water. At its door stood a woman in a black mantle. A cross
+hung from her neck and a white kerchief bound her hair. She stood
+motionless, half in the shadow, watching the horsemen as they rode
+down to the rippling fords.
+
+Autumn had touched the sanctuary garden, and Francesco's eyes beheld
+ruin as he climbed the slope. The woman had come from the cell, and
+now stood at the wicket-gate with her hands folded as if in prayer.
+
+The horseman took Francesco's bridle. The latter went on foot alone to
+speak with the anchoress.
+
+"My lord," she said, kneeling at his feet, "God save and comfort
+you!"--
+
+The man's brow was twisted into furrows. His right hand clasped his
+left wrist. He looked over the woman's head into the woods, and
+breathed fast through clenched teeth.
+
+"Speak!" he said.
+
+"My lord, the woman lives!"
+
+"I can bear the truth!"
+
+The anchoress made the sign of the cross.
+
+"She came to us here in the valley, my lord, tall and white as a lily,
+her hair loose upon her neck. Her feet were bare and bleeding, her
+soles rent with thorns. And as she came, she sang wild snatches of a
+song, such as tells of love, and of Proserpina, Goddess of Shades. We
+took her, my lord, gave her meat and drink, bathed her torn feet, and
+gave her raiment. She abode with us, ever gentle and lovely, yet
+speaking like one who had suffered, even to the death. And yet,--even
+as we slept, she stole away from us last night, and now is gone!"--
+
+The woman had never so much as raised her eyes to the man's face. Her
+hands held her crucifix, and she was ashen pale, even as new-hewn
+stone.
+
+"And is this all?"
+
+The man's voice trembled in his throat. His face was terrible to
+behold in the sun.
+
+"Not all, my lord!"
+
+"Say on!"
+
+The anchoress had buried her face in her black mantle. Her voice was
+husky with tears.
+
+"My lord, you seek one bereft of reason!"
+
+"Mad!"
+
+"Alas!"
+
+A great cry came from Francesco's lips.
+
+"My God! This, then, is the end!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE DAWN
+
+
+An undefined melancholy overshadowed the world. Autumn breathed in the
+wind. The year, red-bosomed, was rushing to its doom.
+
+On the summit of a wood-crowned hill, rising like a pyramid above moor
+and forest, stood two men silent under the shadows of an oak. In the
+distance glimmered the sea, and by a rock upon the hillside, armed
+men, a knot of spears, shone like spirit sentinels athwart the west.
+Mists were creeping up the valleys, as the sun went down into the sea.
+A few sparse stars gleamed out like souls still tortured by the
+mysteries of life. An inevitable pessimism seemed to challenge the
+universe, taking for its parable the weird afterglow of the west.
+
+Deep in the woods a voice sang wild and solitary in the gathering
+gloom. Like the cry of a ghost, it seemed to set the silence
+quivering, the leaves quaking with windless awe. The men who looked
+towards the sea heard it, a song that echoed in the heart like woe.
+
+The duke pointed into the darkening wood.
+
+"Trust your own heart: self is the man! Through a mistaken sense of
+duty have you been brought nigh unto death and despair! Trust not in
+sophistry: the laws of men are carven upon stone, the laws of Heaven
+upon the heart! Be strong! From henceforth, scorn mere words! Trample
+tradition in the dust! Trust yourself, and the God in your heart!"
+
+The distant voice had sunk into silence. Francesco listened for it
+with hands aloft.
+
+"I must go," he said.
+
+"Go!"--
+
+"I must be near her through the night!"
+
+"The moon stands full upon the hills! I will await you here!"
+
+Dim were the woods that autumn evening, dim and deep with an ecstasy
+of gloom. Stars flickered in the heavens; the moon came and enveloped
+the trees with silver flame. A primeval calm lay heavy upon the bosom
+of the night. The spectral branches of the trees pointed rigid and
+motionless towards the sky.
+
+Francesco had left the duke gazing out upon the shimmering sea. The
+voice called to him from the woods with plaintive peals of song. The
+man followed it, holding to a grass-grown track that curled at random
+into the gloom. Moonlight and shadow lay alternate upon his armor.
+Hope and despair battled in his face. His soul leaped voiceless and
+inarticulate into the darkened shrine of prayer.
+
+The voice came to him clearer in the forest calm. The gulf had
+narrowed, the words flew as over the waters of Death. They were pure,
+yet meaningless, passionate, yet void; words barbed with an utter
+pathos, that silenced desire.
+
+For an hour Francesco roamed in the woods, drawing ever nearer, the
+fear in him increasing with every step. Anon the voice failed him by a
+little stream that quivered dimly through the grass. A stillness that
+was ghostly held the woods. The moonlight seemed to shudder on the
+trees. A stupendous silence weighed upon the world.
+
+A hollow glade opened suddenly in the woods, a white gulf in a forest
+gloom. Water shone there, a mere rush-ringed and full of mysterious
+shadows, girded by the bronzed foliage of a thousand oaks. Moss grew
+thick about the roots, dead leaves covered the grass.
+
+And ever and anon a dead leaf dropped silently to earth, like a hope
+that has died on the Tree of Life.
+
+Francesco knelt in a patch of bracken and looked out over the glades.
+A figure went to and fro by the water's brim, a figure pale in the
+moonlight, as the form of the restless dead. The man kneeling in the
+bracken pressed his hands over his breast; his face seemed to start
+out of the gloom as the face of one who struggles in the sea,
+submerged, yet desperate.
+
+Francesco saw the woman halt beside the mere. He saw her bend, take
+water in her palms and dash it in her face. Standing in the moonlight,
+she smoothed her hair between her fingers, her hands shining white as
+ivory against the dark bosom of her dress. She seemed to murmur to
+herself the while, words wistful and full of woe. Once she thrust her
+hands to the sky and cried: "Francesco! Francesco!" The man kneeling
+in the shadows quivered like a wind-shaken reed.
+
+The moon climbed higher and the woman by the mere spread her cloak
+upon a patch of heather and laid herself thereon. Not a sound broke
+the silence; the woods were mute, the air lifeless as the steely
+water. An hour passed. The figure on the heather lay still as an
+effigy on a tomb. The man in the bracken cast one look at the stars,
+then crossed himself and crept out into the moonlight.
+
+Holding the scabbard of his sword, he skirted the mere with shimmering
+armor, went down upon his knees and crawled slowly over the grass.
+Hours seemed to elapse before the black patch of heather spread crisp
+and dry beneath his hands. Breathing through dilated nostrils, he
+trembled like one who creeps to stab a sleeping friend. The moonlight
+seemed to shower sparks upon him, as with supernatural glory. Tense
+anguish seemed to fill the night with sound.
+
+Two more paces and he was close at the woman's side. The heather
+crackled beneath his knees. He held his breath, crept nearer, and
+knelt so near that he could have kissed Ilaria's face. Her head lay
+pillowed on her arm. Her hair spread as in a dusky halo beneath it.
+Her bosom moved with the rhythmic calm of dreamless sleep. Her lips
+were parted in a smile. One hand was hid in the dark folds of her
+robe.
+
+Francesco knelt with upturned face, his eyes shut to the sky. He
+seemed like one faint with pain; his lips moved as in prayer. A
+hundred inarticulate pleadings surged heavenward from his heart.
+
+Again he bent over her and watched the pure girlish face as she slept.
+A strange calm fell for a time upon him; his eyes never wavered from
+the white arm and the glimmering hair. Vast awe held him in thrall. He
+was as one who broods tearless and amazed over the dead, calm face of
+one beloved above all on earth.
+
+Hours passed and Francesco found no sustenance, save in prayer. The
+unuttered yearnings of a world seemed molten in his soul. The moon
+waned. The stars grew dim. Strange sounds stirred in the forest-deeps;
+the mysterious breathing of a thousand trees. Life ebbed and flowed
+with the sigh of a moon-stupored sea. Visions blazed in the night-sky
+and faded away.
+
+Hours passed. Neither sleeper nor watcher stirred. The night grew
+faint. The water flickered in the mere. The very stars seemed to gaze
+upon the destinies of two wearied souls.
+
+Far and faint came the quaver of a bird's note. Gray and mysterious
+stood the forest spires. Light! Light at last! Spears of amber darting
+in the east. A shudder seemed to shake the universe. The great vault
+kindled. The sky grew luminous with gold.
+
+It was the dawn.
+
+Ilaria stirred in her sleep. Her mouth quivered, her hair stirred
+sudden under the heather, like tendrils of gold shivering in the sun.
+
+Even as the light increased, Francesco knelt and looked down upon her.
+Hope and life, glorious, sudden, seemed to fall out of the east, a
+radiant faith begotten of spirit-power. Banners of gold were streaming
+in the sky. The gloom fled. A vast expectancy hung solemn, breathless,
+upon the red lips of the day.
+
+A sigh, and the long, silken lashes quivered. The lips moved, the eyes
+opened.
+
+"Ilaria! Ilaria!"
+
+Sudden silence followed, a vast hush as of undreamed hope. The woman's
+eyes were silently searching the man's face. He bent and cowered over
+her as one who weeps. His hands touched her body, yet she did not
+stir.
+
+"Ilaria! Ilaria!"
+
+It was a hoarse, passionate outcry that broke the golden stupor of the
+dawn. A sudden light leaped lustrous into the woman's eyes, her face
+shone radiant in its etherealized beauty.
+
+"Francesco!"
+
+"Ah! At last!"
+
+A great shudder passed through her body. Her eyes grew big with fear.
+
+"Speak to me!"
+
+"Ilaria!"
+
+"Raniero?"
+
+"Dead!"
+
+A great silence held for a moment. The woman's head sank upon the
+man's shoulder. Madness had passed. Her eyes were fixed upon his with
+a wonderful earnestness, a splendid calm.
+
+"Is this a dream?"
+
+"It is the truth!"
+
+Through the forest aisles rode the Duke of Spoleto.
+
+He saw and paused.
+
+"I return beyond the Alps to join the forces of Rudolf of Hapsburg. My
+men are at your disposal. I shall wait for you on yonder hillock."
+
+He wheeled about and was gone.
+
+Again silence held for a pace.
+
+Presently Ilaria gave a great sigh and looked strangely at the sun.
+
+"I have dreamed a dream," she crooned, "and all was dark and fearful.
+Death seemed near; lurid phantoms,--things from hell! I knew not what
+I did, nor where I wandered, nor what strange stupor held my soul. All
+my being cried out to you--yet all was dark about me, horrible
+midnight, peopled with foul forms! Oh, that night,--that night--"
+
+Shivering, she covered her eyes as if trying to banish the memory.
+
+"It has passed," she breathed after a pause, during which Francesco
+had taken her in his arms, kissing her eyes, her lips, and the
+sylph-like, flower-soft face. "I see the dawn!"
+
+"Our dawn!"--Francesco replied, pointing to the hillock beyond.
+
+For a time there was a great silence, as if the fates of two souls
+were being weighed in the scales of destiny.
+
+It was Francesco who spoke.
+
+"How you have suffered!"
+
+She crept very close to him, smiling up at him with the old-time smile
+through tear-dimmed eyes.
+
+"It counts for naught now! Are not you with me?"
+
+The sky burned azure above the tree-tops. Transient sunshafts quivered
+through the vaulted dome of breathless leaves, as slowly Francesco and
+Ilaria strode towards the camp of the Duke of Spoleto on the
+sun-bathed hillock above the Nera.
+
+
+                    The End.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+POLLYANNA
+
+_By Eleanor H. Porter_
+
+Author of "Miss Billy," "Miss Billy's Decision," etc.
+
+_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, net $1.25; postpaid $1.40_
+
+"Enter Pollyanna! She is the daintiest, dearest, most irresistible
+maid you have met in all your journeyings through Bookland. And you
+forget she is a story girl, for Pollyanna is so real that after your
+first introduction you will feel the inner circle of your friends has
+admitted a new member. A brave, winsome, modern American girl,
+Pollyanna walks into print to take her place in the hearts of all
+members of the family."
+
+_Of "Miss Billy" the critics have written as follows:_
+
+     "To say of any story that it makes the reader's heart feel warm
+     and happy is to pay it praise of sorts, undoubtedly. Well,
+     that's the very praise one gives 'Miss Billy.'"--_Edwin L.
+     Shuman in the Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+     "The story is delightful and as for Billy herself--she's _all
+     right_!"--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+     "There is a fine humor in the book, some good revelation of
+     character and plenty of romance of the most unusual
+     order."--_The Philadelphia Inquirer._
+
+     "There is something altogether fascinating about 'Miss Billy,'
+     some inexplicable feminine characteristic that seems to demand
+     the individual attention of the reader from the moment we open
+     the book until we reluctantly turn the last page."--_Boston
+     Transcript._
+
+     "The book is a wholesome story, as fresh in tone as it is
+     graceful in expression, and one may predict for it a wide
+     audience."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
+
+     "Miss Billy is so carefree, so original and charming, that she
+     lives in the reader's memory long after the book has been laid
+     aside."--_Boston Globe._
+
+     "You cannot help but love dear 'Billy;' she is winsome and
+     attractive and you will be only too glad to introduce her to
+     your friends."--_Brooklyn Eagle._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE CAREER OF DR. WEAVER
+
+_By Mrs. Henry W. Backus_
+
+_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, net $1.25; postpaid $1.40_
+
+A big and purposeful story interwoven about the responsibilities and
+problems in the medical profession of the present day. Dr. Weaver, a
+noted specialist, and head of a private hospital, had allowed himself
+to drift away from the standards of his youth in his desire for wealth
+and social and scientific prestige. When an exposé of the methods
+employed by him in furthering his schemes for the glorifying of the
+name of "Weaver" in the medical world is threatened, it is frustrated
+through the efforts of the famous doctor's younger brother, Dr. Jim.
+The story is powerful and compelling, even if it uncovers the problems
+and temptations of a physician's career. Perhaps the most important
+character, not even excepting Dr. Weaver and Dr. Jim, is "The Girl,"
+who plays such an important part in the lives of both men.
+
+     "The story becomes one of those absorbing tales of to-day which
+     the reader literally devours in an evening, unwilling to leave
+     the book until the last page is reached, and constantly alert,
+     through the skill of the author, in following the characters
+     through the twisted ways of their career."--_Boston Journal._
+
+     "The story is well-written, unique, quite out of the usual
+     order, and is most captivating."--_Christian Intelligencer._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE HILL OF VENUS
+
+_By Nathan Gallizier_
+
+Author of "Castel del Monte," "The Sorceress of Rome," "The Court of
+Lucifer," etc.
+
+_12mo, cloth decorative, with four illustrations in color, net $1.35;
+postpaid $1.50_
+
+This is a vivid and powerful romance of the thirteenth century in the
+times of the great Ghibelline wars, and deals with the fortunes of
+Francesco Villani, a monk, who has been coerced by his dying father to
+bind himself to the Church through a mistaken sense of duty, but who
+loves Ilaria, one of the famous beauties of the Court at Avellino. The
+excitement, splendor and stir of those days of activity in Rome are
+told with a vividness and daring, which give a singular fascination to
+the story.
+
+_The Press has commented as follows on the author's previous books_:
+
+     "The author displays many of the talents that made Scott
+     famous."--_The Index._
+
+     "The book is breathless reading, as much for the adventures,
+     the pageants, the midnight excursions of the minor characters,
+     as for the love story of the prince and Donna
+     Lucrezia."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+     "Mr. Gallizier daringly and vividly paints in glowing word and
+     phrases, in sparkling dialogue and colorful narrative, the
+     splendor, glamor and stir in those days of excitement,
+     intrigue, tragedy, suspicion and intellectual activity in
+     Rome."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+     "A splendid bit of old Roman mosaic, or a gorgeous piece of
+     tapestry. Otto is a striking and pathetic figure. Description
+     of the city, the gorgeous ceremonials of the court and the
+     revels are a series of wonderful pictures."--_Cincinnati
+     Enquirer._
+
+     "The martial spirit of these stirring times, weird beliefs in
+     magic and religion are most admirably presented by the author,
+     who knows his subject thoroughly. It belongs to the class of
+     Bulwer-Lytton's romances; carefully studied, well wrought, and
+     full of exciting incident."--_Cleveland Enquirer._
+
+     "Romance at its best."--_Boston Herald._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE WHAT-SHALL-I-DO GIRL
+
+Or, The Career of Joy Kent
+
+_By Isabel Woodman Waitt_
+
+_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by Jessie Gillespie. Net $1.25;
+postpaid $1.40_
+
+When Joy Kent finds herself alone in the world, thrown on her own
+resources, after the death of her father, she looks about her, as do
+so many young girls, fresh from the public schools, wondering how she
+can support herself and earn a place in the great business world about
+her. Still wondering, she sends a letter to a number of girls she had
+known in school days, asking that each one tell her just how she had
+equipped herself for a salary-earning career, and once equipped, how
+she had found it possible to start on that career. In reply come
+letters from the milliner, the stenographer, the librarian, the
+salesgirl, the newspaper woman, the teacher, the nurse, and from girls
+who had adopted all sorts of vocations as a means of livelihood. Real
+friendly girl letters they are, too, not of the type that preach, but
+of the kind which give sound and helpful advice in a bright and
+interesting manner. Of course there is a splendid young man who also
+gives advice. Any "What-shall-I-do" young girl can read of the careers
+suggested for Joy Kent with profit and pleasure, and, perhaps, with
+surprise!
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE HARBOR MASTER
+
+_By Theodore Goodridge Roberts_
+
+Author of "Comrades of the Trails," "Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery,"
+etc.
+
+_12mo, cloth decorative, with a frontispiece in full color by John
+Goss. Net $1.25; postpaid $1.40_
+
+The scene of the story is Newfoundland. The story deals with the love
+of Black Dennis Nolan, a young giant and self-appointed skipper of the
+little fishing hamlet of Chance Along, for Flora Lockhart, a beautiful
+professional singer, who is rescued by Dennis from a wreck on the
+treacherous coast of Newfoundland, when on her way from England to the
+United States. The story is a strong one all through, with a mystery
+that grips, plenty of excitement and action, and the author presents
+life in the open in all its strength and vigor. Mr. Roberts is one of
+the younger writers whom the critics have been watching with interest.
+In "The Harbor Master" he has surely arrived.
+
+_Of Mr. Roberts' previous books the critics have written as follows_:
+
+     "The action is always swift and romantic and the love is of the
+     kind that thrills the reader. The characters are admirably
+     drawn and the reader follows with deep interest the adventures
+     of the two young people."--_Baltimore Sun._
+
+     "Mr. Roberts' pen has lost none of its cunning, while his style
+     is easier and breezier than ever."--_Buffalo Express._
+
+     "It is a romance of clean, warm-hearted devotion to friends and
+     duty. The characters are admirable each in his own or her own
+     way, and the author has made each fit the case in excellent
+     fashion."--_Salt Lake City Tribune._
+
+     "In this book Mr. Roberts has well maintained his reputation
+     for the vivid coloring of his descriptive pictures, which are
+     full of stirring action, and in which love and fighting hold
+     chief place."--_Boston Times._
+
+     "Its ease of style, its rapidity, its interest from page to
+     page, are admirable; and it shows that inimitable power--the
+     story-teller's gift of verisimilitude. Its sureness and
+     clearness are excellent, and its portraiture clear and
+     pleasing."--_The Reader._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+AT THE SIGN OF THE TOWN PUMP
+
+The Further Adventures of Peggy of Spinster Farm
+
+_By Helen M. Winslow_
+
+_12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, net $1.25; postpaid $ 1.40_
+
+Miss Winslow calls us again away from the strenuous and noisy
+confusion of modern cities to the charm and contentment of life "under
+the greenwood tree." Peggy's adventures had only just begun in the
+first book. In this new record of life at Spinster Farm and "Elysium,"
+"At the Sign of the Town Pump," there is plenty of romantic adventure
+of the kind that proves truth to be stranger sometimes than fiction.
+There is humor, too, in even greater quantities than in the preceding
+book, sparkling humor that places the author well up in the list of
+our New England humorists. "At the Sign of the Town Pump" will be
+welcomed not only by those who enjoyed making the acquaintance of
+Spinster Farm, but by thousands of new readers who appreciate a clever
+story and a fascinating heroine.
+
+_On "Peggy at Spinster Farm" the Press opinions are as follows_:
+
+     "Very alluring are the pictures she draws of the old-fashioned
+     house, the splendid old trees, the pleasant walks, the gorgeous
+     sunsets, and--or it would not be Helen Winslow--the
+     cats."--_The Boston Transcript._
+
+     "'Peggy at Spinster Farm' is a rewarding volume, original and
+     personal in its point of view, redolent of unfeigned love for
+     the country and the sane, satisfying pleasures of country
+     life."--_Milwaukee Free Press._
+
+     "It is an alluring, wholesome tale."--_Schenectady Star._
+
+     "Is a story remarkably interesting, and no book will be found
+     more entertaining than this one, especially for those who enjoy
+     light-hearted character sketches, and startling and unexpected
+     happenings."--_Northampton Gazette._
+
+     "An exceptionally well-written book."--_Milwaukee Evening
+     Wisconsin._
+
+     "The Spinster and Peggy have a quiet sense of humor of their
+     own and they convey their experiences with a quaint enjoyment
+     that holds us irresistibly."--_The Argonaut._
+
+     "This is a thoroughly enjoyable story. Mary Wilkins at her best
+     was never more interesting, and she has never produced a book
+     more normal and as wholesome as this."--_Journal of Education._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Selections from L. C. Page and Company's List of Fiction
+
+
+ WORKS OF ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS
+
+ _Each one vol., library 12mo, cloth decorative_ $1.50
+
+
+ THE FLIGHT OF GEORGIANA
+
+ A ROMANCE OF THE DAYS OF THE YOUNG PRETENDER. Illustrated by H.
+ C. Edwards.
+
+ "A love-story in the highest degree, a dashing story, and a
+ remarkably well finished piece of work."--_Chicago
+ Record-Herald._
+
+
+ THE BRIGHT FACE OF DANGER
+
+ Being an account of some adventures of Henri de Launay, son of
+ the Sieur de la Tournoire. Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+ "Mr. Stephens has fairly outdone himself. We thank him
+ heartily. The story is nothing if not spirited and
+ entertaining, rational and convincing."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+
+ THE MYSTERY OF MURRAY DAVENPORT
+
+ (40th thousand.)
+
+ "This is easily the best thing that Mr. Stephens has yet done.
+ Those familiar with his other novels can best judge the measure
+ of this praise, which is generous."--_Buffalo News._
+
+
+ CAPTAIN RAVENSHAW
+
+ OR, THE MAID OF CHEAPSIDE. (52d thousand.) A romance of
+ Elizabethan London. Illustrations by Howard Pyle and other
+ artists.
+
+ Not since the absorbing adventures of D'Artagnan have we had
+ anything so good in the blended vein of romance and comedy.
+
+
+ THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON
+
+ A ROMANCE OF PHILIPSE MANOR HOUSE IN 1778. (53d thousand.)
+ Illustrated by H. C. Edwards.
+
+ A stirring romance of the Revolution, with its scenes laid on
+ neutral territory.
+
+
+ PHILIP WINWOOD
+
+ (70th thousand.) A Sketch of the Domestic History of an
+ American Captain in the War of Independence, embracing events
+ that occurred between and during the years 1763 and 1785 in New
+ York and London. Illustrated by E. W. D. Hamilton.
+
+
+ AN ENEMY TO THE KING
+
+ (70th thousand.) Illustrated by H. De M. Young.
+
+ An historical romance of the sixteenth century, describing the
+ adventures of a young French nobleman at the court of Henry
+ III., and on the field with Henry IV.
+
+
+ THE ROAD TO PARIS
+
+ A STORY OF ADVENTURE. (35th thousand.) Illustrated by H. C.
+ Edwards.
+
+ An historical romance of the eighteenth century, being an
+ account of the life of an American gentleman adventurer.
+
+
+ A GENTLEMAN PLAYER
+
+ HIS ADVENTURES ON A SECRET MISSION FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH. (48th
+ thousand.) Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+ The story of a young gentleman who joins Shakespeare's company
+ of players, and becomes a protégé of the great poet.
+
+
+ CLEMENTINA'S HIGHWAYMAN
+
+ Illustrated by A. Everhart.
+
+ The story is laid in the mid-Georgian period. It is a dashing,
+ sparkling, vivacious comedy.
+
+
+ TALES FROM BOHEMIA
+
+ Illustrated by Wallace Goldsmith.
+
+ These bright and clever tales deal with people of the theatre
+ and odd characters in other walks of life which fringe on
+ Bohemia.
+
+
+ A SOLDIER OF VALLEY FORGE
+
+ By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS AND THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS.
+
+ With frontispiece by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+ "The plot shows invention and is developed with originality,
+ and there is incident in abundance."--_Brooklyn Times._
+
+
+ THE SWORD OF BUSSY
+
+ By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS AND HERMAN NICKERSON.
+
+ With frontispiece by Edmund H. Garrett.
+  (2) Any person, being a British subject, who, without the license
+  of Her Majesty, is about to quit Her Majesty's dominions with the
+  intent to accept any commission or engagement in the military or
+  naval service of any foreign state at war with a friendly state:
+
+  (3) Any person who has been induced to embark under a
+  misrepresentation or false representation of the service in which
+  such person is to be engaged, with the intent or in order that
+  such person may accept or agree to accept any commission or
+  engagement in the military or naval service of any foreign state
+  at war with a friendly state:
+
+Such master or owner shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and
+the following consequences shall ensue; that is to say,--
+
+  (1) The offender shall be punishable by fine and imprisonment, or
+  either of such punishments, at the discretion of the court before
+  which the offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may
+  be either with or without hard labour: and
+
+  (2) Such ship shall be detained until the trial and conviction or
+  acquittal of the master or owner, and until all penalties
+  inflicted on the master or owner have been paid, or the master or
+  owner has given security for the payment of such penalties to the
+  satisfaction of two justices of the peace, or other magistrate or
+  magistrates having the authority of two justices of the peace: and
+
+  (3) All illegally enlisted persons shall immediately on the
+  discovery of the offence be taken on shore, and shall not be
+  allowed to return to the ship.
+
+
+_Illegal Shipbuilding and Illegal Expeditions._
+
+[Sidenote: Penalty on illegal Shipbuilding and illegal Expeditions.]
+
+8. If any person within Her Majesty's dominions, without the license of
+Her Majesty, does any of the following acts; that is to say,--
+
+  (1) Builds or agrees to build, or causes to be built any ship with
+  intent or knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe that
+  the same shall or will be employed in the military or naval
+  service of any foreign state at war with any friendly state: or
+
+  (2) Issues or delivers any commission for any ship with intent or
+  knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe that the same
+  shall or will be employed in the military or naval service of any
+  foreign state at war with any friendly state: or
+
+  (3) Equips any ship with intent or knowledge, or having reasonable
+  cause to believe that the same shall or will be employed in the
+  military or naval service of any foreign state at war with any
+  friendly state: or
+
+  (4) Despatches, or causes or allows to be despatched, any ship
+  with intent or knowledge, or having reasonable cause to believe
+  that the same shall or will be employed in the military or naval
+  service of any foreign state at war with any friendly state:
+
+Such person shall be deemed to have committed an offence against this
+Act, and the following consequences shall ensue:
+
+  (1) The offender shall be punishable by fine and imprisonment or
+  either of such punishments, at the discretion of the court before
+  which the offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may
+  be either with or without hard labour.
+
+  (2) The ship in respect of which any such offence is committed,
+  and her equipment, shall be forfeited to Her Majesty.
+
+Provided that a person building, causing to be built, or equipping a
+ship in any of the cases aforesaid, in pursuance of a contract made
+before the commencement of such war as aforesaid, shall not be liable to
+any of the penalties imposed by this section in respect of such building
+or equipping if he satisfies the conditions following; (that is to say,)
+
+  (1) If forthwith upon a proclamation of neutrality being issued by
+  Her Majesty he gives notice to the Secretary of State that he is
+  so building, causing to be built, or equipping such ship, and
+  furnishes such particulars of the contract and of any matters
+  relating to, or done, or to be done under the contract as may be
+  required by the Secretary of State:
+
+  (2) If he gives such security, and takes and permits to be taken
+  such other measures, if any, as the Secretary of State may
+  prescribe for ensuring that such ship shall not be despatched,
+  delivered, or removed without the license of Her Majesty until the
+  termination of such war as aforesaid.
+
+[Sidenote: Presumption as to Evidence in case of Illegal Ship.]
+
+9. Where any ship is built by order of or on behalf of any foreign state
+when at war with a friendly state, or is delivered to or to the order of
+such foreign state, or any person who to the knowledge of the person
+building is an agent of such foreign state, or is paid for by such
+foreign state or such agent, and is employed in the military or naval
+service of such foreign state, such ship shall, until the contrary is
+proved, be deemed to have been built with a view to being so employed,
+and the burden shall lie on the builder of such ship of proving that he
+did not know that the ship was intended to be so employed in the
+military or naval service of such foreign state.
+
+[Sidenote: Penalty on aiding the Warlike Equipment of Foreign ships.]
+
+10. If any person within the dominions of Her Majesty, and without the
+license of Her Majesty,--
+
+By adding to the number of guns, or by changing those on board for other
+guns, or by the addition of any equipment for war, increases or
+augments, or procures to be increased or augmented, or is knowingly
+concerned in increasing or augmenting the warlike force of any ship
+which at the time of her being within the dominions of Her Majesty was a
+ship in the military or naval service of any foreign state at war with
+any friendly state,--
+
+  Such person shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and
+  shall be punishable by fine and imprisonment, or either of such
+  punishments, at the discretion of the court before which the
+  offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may be either
+  with or without hard labour.
+
+[Sidenote: Penalty on fitting out Naval or Military Expeditions without
+License.]
+
+11. If any person within the limits of Her Majesty's dominions, and
+without the license of Her Majesty,--
+
+Prepares or fits out any naval or military expedition to proceed against
+the dominions of any friendly state, the following consequences shall
+ensue:
+
+  (1) Every person engaged in such preparation or fitting out, or
+  assisting therein, or employed in any capacity in such expedition,
+  shall be guilty of an offence against this Act, and shall be
+  punishable by fine and imprisonment, or either of such
+  punishments, at the discretion of the court before which the
+  offender is convicted; and imprisonment, if awarded, may be either
+  with or without hard labour.
+
+  (2) All ships, and their equipments, and all arms and munitions of
+  war, used in or forming part of such expedition, shall be
+  forfeited to Her Majesty.
+
+[Sidenote: Punishment of Accessories.]
+
+12. Any person who aids, abets, counsels, or procures the commission of
+any offence against this Act shall be liable to be tried and punished as
+a principal offender.
+
+[Sidenote: Limitation of Term of Imprisonment.]
+
+13. The term of imprisonment to be awarded in respect of any offence
+against this Act shall not exceed two years.
+
+
+_Illegal Prize._
+
+[Sidenote: Illegal Prize brought into British Ports restored.]
+
+14. If during the continuance of any war in which Her Majesty may be
+neutral, any ship, goods, or merchandize captured as prize of war within
+the territorial jurisdiction of Her Majesty, in violation of the
+neutrality of this realm, or captured by any ship which may have been
+built, equipped, commissioned, or despatched, or the force of which may
+have been augmented, contrary to the provisions of this Act are brought
+within the limits of Her Majesty's dominions by the captor, or any agent
+of the captor, or by any person having come into possession thereof with
+the knowledge that the same was prize of war so captured as aforesaid,
+it shall be lawful for the original owner of such prize, or his agent,
+or for any person authorised in that behalf by the Government of the
+foreign state to which such owner belongs, to make application to the
+Court of Admiralty for seizure and detention of such prize, and the
+court shall, on due proof of the facts, order such prize to be restored.
+
+Every such order shall be executed and carried into effect in the same
+manner, and subject to the same right of appeal as in the case of any
+order made in the exercise of the ordinary jurisdiction of such court;
+and in the meantime and until a final order has been made on such
+application the court shall have power to make all such provisional and
+other orders as to the care or custody of such captured ship, goods, or
+merchandize, and (if the same be of perishable nature, or incurring risk
+of deterioration) for the sale thereof, and with respect to the deposit
+or investment of the proceeds of any such sale, as may be made by such
+court in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction.
+
+
+_General Provision._
+
+[Sidenote: License by Her Majesty, how granted.]
+
+15. For the purpose of this Act, a license by Her Majesty shall be under
+the sign manual of Her Majesty, or be signified by Order in Council or
+by proclamation of Her Majesty.
+
+
+_Legal Procedure._
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in respect of Offences by Persons against Act.]
+
+16. Any offence against this Act shall, for all purposes of and
+incidental to the trial and punishment of any person guilty of any such
+offence, be deemed to have been committed either in the place in which
+the offence was wholly or partly committed, or in any place within Her
+Majesty's dominions in which the person who committed such offence may
+be.
+
+[Sidenote: Venue in respect of Offences by Persons. 24 & 25 Vict. c.
+97.]
+
+17. Any offence against this Act may be described in any indictment or
+other document relating to such offence, in cases where the mode of
+trial requires such a description, as having been committed at the place
+where it was wholly or partly committed, or it may be averred generally
+to have been committed within Her Majesty's dominions, and the venue or
+local description in the margin may be that of the county, city, or
+place in which the trial is held.
+
+[Sidenote: Power to remove Offenders for Trial.]
+
+18. The following authorities, that is to say, in the United Kingdom any
+judge of a superior court, in any other place within the jurisdiction of
+any British court of justice, such court, or, if there are more courts
+than one, the court having the highest criminal jurisdiction in that
+place, may, by warrant or instrument in the nature of a warrant in this
+section included in the term "warrant," direct that any offender charged
+with an offence against this Act shall be removed to some other place in
+Her Majesty's dominions for trial in cases where it appears to the
+authority granting the warrant that the removal of such offender would
+be conducive to the interests of justice, and any prisoner so removed
+shall be triable at the place to which he is removed, in the same manner
+as if his offence had been committed at such place.
+
+Any warrant for the purposes of this section may be addressed to the
+master of any ship or to any other person or persons, and the person or
+persons to whom such warrant is addressed shall have power to convey the
+prisoner therein named to any place or places named in such warrant, and
+to deliver him, when arrived at such place or places, into the custody
+of any authority designated by such warrant.
+
+Every prisoner shall, during the time of his removal under any such
+warrant as aforesaid, be deemed to be in the legal custody of the person
+or persons empowered to remove him.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in respect of Forfeiture of Ships for Offences
+against Act.]
+
+19. All proceedings for the condemnation and forfeiture of a ship, or
+ship and equipment, or arms and munitions of war, in pursuance of this
+Act shall require the sanction of the Secretary of State or such chief
+executive authority as is in this Act mentioned, and shall be had in the
+Court of Admiralty, and not in any other court; and the Court of
+Admiralty shall, in addition to any power given to the court by this
+Act, have in respect of any ship or other matter brought before it in
+pursuance of this Act all powers which it has in the case of a ship or
+matter brought before it in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction.
+
+[Sidenote: Regulations as to Proceedings against the Offender and the
+Ship.]
+
+20. Where any offence against this Act has been committed by any person
+by reason whereof a ship, or ship and equipment, or arms and munitions
+of war, has or have become liable to forfeiture, proceedings may be
+instituted contemporaneously or not, as may be thought fit, against the
+offender in any court having jurisdiction of the offence, and against
+the ship, or ship and equipment, or arms and munitions of war, for the
+forfeiture in the Court of Admiralty; but it shall not be necessary to
+take proceedings against the offender because proceedings are instituted
+for the forfeiture, or to take proceedings for the forfeiture because
+proceedings are taken against the offender.
+
+[Sidenote: Officer authorised to seize offending Ships.]
+
+21. The following officers, that is to say,--
+
+  (1) Any officer of customs in the United Kingdom, subject
+  nevertheless to any special or general instructions from the
+  Commissioners of Customs or any officer of the Board of Trade,
+  subject nevertheless to any special or general instructions from
+  the Board of Trade;
+
+  (2) Any officer of customs or public officer in any British
+  possession, subject nevertheless to any special or general
+  instructions from the governor of such possession;
+
+  (3) Any commissioned officer on full pay in the military service
+  of the Crown, subject nevertheless to any special or general
+  instructions from his commanding officer;
+
+  (4) Any commissioned officer on full pay in the naval service of
+  the Crown, subject nevertheless to any special or general
+  instructions from the Admiralty or his superior officer, may seize
+  or detain any ship liable to be seized or detained in pursuance of
+  this Act, and such officers are in this Act referred to as the
+  "local authority"; but nothing in this Act contained shall
+  derogate from the power of the Court of Admiralty to direct any
+  ship to be seized or detained by any officer by whom such court
+  may have power under its ordinary jurisdiction to direct a ship to
+  be seized or detained.
+
+[Sidenote: Powers of Officers authorised to seize Ships.]
+
+22. Any officer authorised to seize or detain any ship in respect of any
+offence against this Act may, for the purpose of enforcing such seizure
+or detention, call to his aid any constable or officers of police, or
+any officers of Her Majesty's army or navy or marines, or any excise
+officer or officers of customs, or any harbour-master or dock-master, or
+any officers having authority by law to make seizures of ships, and may
+put on board any ship so seized or detained any one or more of such
+officers to take charge of the same, and to enforce the provisions of
+this Act, and any officer seizing or detaining any ship under this Act
+may use force, if necessary, for the purpose of enforcing seizure or
+detention, and if any person is killed or maimed by reason of his
+resisting such officer in the execution of his duties, or any person
+acting under his orders, such officer so seizing or detaining the ship,
+or other person, shall be freely and fully indemnified as well against
+the Queen's Majesty, Her heirs and successors, as against all persons so
+killed, maimed, or hurt.
+
+[Sidenote: Special Power of Secretary of State or Chief Executive
+Authority to detain Ship.]
+
+23. If the Secretary of State or the chief executive authority is
+satisfied that there is a reasonable and probable cause for believing
+that a ship within Her Majesty's dominions has been or is being built,
+commissioned, or equipped contrary to this Act, and is about to be taken
+beyond the limits of such dominions, or that a ship is about to be
+despatched contrary to this Act, such Secretary of State or chief
+executive authority shall have power to issue a warrant stating that
+there is reasonable and probable cause for believing as aforesaid, and
+upon such warrant the local authority shall have power to seize and
+search such ship, and to detain the same until it has been either
+condemned or released by process of law, or in manner herein-after
+mentioned.
+
+The owner of the ship so detained, or his agent, may apply to the Court
+of Admiralty for its release, and the court shall as soon as possible
+put the matter of such seizure and detention in course of trial between
+the applicant and the Crown.
+
+If the applicant establish to the satisfaction of the court that the
+ship was not and is not being built, commissioned, or equipped or
+intended to be despatched contrary to this Act, the ship shall be
+released and restored.
+
+If the applicant fail to establish to the satisfaction of the court that
+the ship was not and is not being built, commissioned, or equipped, or
+intended to be despatched contrary to this Act, then the ship shall be
+detained till released by order of the Secretary of State or chief
+executive authority.
+
+The court may in cases where no proceedings are pending for its
+condemnation release any ship detained under this section on the owner
+giving security to the satisfaction of the court that the ship shall not
+be employed contrary to this Act, notwithstanding that the applicant may
+have failed to establish to the satisfaction of the court that the ship
+was not and is not being built, commissioned, or intended to be
+despatched contrary to this Act. The Secretary of State or the chief
+executive authority may likewise release any ship detained under this
+section on the owner giving security to the satisfaction of such
+Secretary of State or chief executive authority that the ship shall not
+be employed contrary to this Act, or may release the ship without such
+security if the Secretary of State or chief executive authority think
+fit so to release the same.
+
+If the court be of opinion that there was not reasonable and probable
+cause for the detention, and if no such cause appear in the course of
+the proceedings, the court shall have power to declare that the owner is
+to be indemnified by the payment of costs and damages in respect of the
+detention, the amount thereof to be assessed by the court, and any
+amount so assessed shall be payable by the Commissioners of the Treasury
+out of any moneys legally applicable for that purpose. The Court of
+Admiralty shall also have power to make a like order for the indemnity
+of the owner, on the application of such owner to the court, in a
+summary way, in cases where the ship is released by the order of the
+Secretary of State or the chief executive authority, before any
+application is made by the owner or his agent to the court for such
+release.
+
+Nothing in this section contained shall affect any proceedings
+instituted or to be instituted for the condemnation of any ship detained
+under this section where such ship is liable to forfeiture subject to
+this provision, that if such ship is restored in pursuance of this
+section all proceedings for such condemnation shall be stayed; and where
+the court declares that the owner is to be indemnified by the payment of
+costs and damages for the detainer, all costs, charges, and expenses
+incurred by such owner in or about any proceedings for the condemnation
+of such ship shall be added to the costs and damages payable to him in
+respect of the detention of the ship.
+
+Nothing in this section contained shall apply to any foreign
+non-commissioned ship despatched from any part of Her Majesty's
+dominions after having come within them under stress of weather or in
+the course of a peaceful voyage, and upon which ship no fitting out or
+equipping of a warlike character has taken place in this country.
+
+[Sidenote: Special Power of Local Authority to detain Ship.]
+
+24. Where it is represented to any local authority, as defined by this
+Act, and such local authority believes the representation, that there is
+a reasonable and probable cause for believing that a ship within Her
+Majesty's dominions has been or is being built, commissioned, or
+equipped contrary to this Act, and is about to be taken beyond the
+limits of such dominions, or that a ship is about to be despatched
+contrary to this Act, it shall be the duty of such local authority to
+detain such ship, and forthwith to communicate the fact of such
+detention to the Secretary of State or chief executive authority.
+
+Upon the receipt of such communication the Secretary of State or chief
+executive authority may order the ship to be released if he thinks there
+is no cause for detaining her, but if satisfied that there is reasonable
+and probable cause for believing that such ship was built, commissioned,
+or equipped or intended to be despatched in contravention of this Act,
+he shall issue his warrant stating that there is reasonable and probable
+cause for believing as aforesaid, and upon such warrant being issued
+further proceedings shall be had as in cases where the seizure or
+detention has taken place on a warrant issued by the Secretary of State
+without any communication from the local authority.
+
+Where the Secretary of State or chief executive authority orders the
+ship to be released on the receipt of a communication from the local
+authority without issuing his warrant, the owner of the ship shall be
+indemnified by the payment of costs and damages in respect of the
+detention upon application to the Court of Admiralty in a summary way in
+like manner as he is entitled to be indemnified where the Secretary of
+State having issued his warrant under this Act releases the ship before
+any application is made by the owner or his agent to the court for such
+release.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of Secretary of State or Executive Authority to grant
+Search Warrant.]
+
+25. The Secretary of State or the chief executive authority may, by
+warrant, empower any person to enter any dockyard or other place within
+Her Majesty's dominions and inquire as to the destination of any ship
+which may appear to him to be intended to be employed in the naval or
+military service of any foreign state at war with a friendly state, and
+to search such ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Exercise of Powers of Secretary of State or Chief Executive
+Authority.]
+
+26. Any powers or jurisdiction by this Act given to the Secretary of
+State may be exercised by him throughout the dominions of Her Majesty,
+and such powers and jurisdiction may also be exercised by any of the
+following officers, in this Act referred to as the chief executive
+authority, within their respective jurisdictions; that is to say,
+
+  (1) In Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant or other the chief governor
+  or governors of Ireland for the time being, or the chief
+  secretary to the Lord Lieutenant:
+
+  (2) In Jersey by the Lieutenant Governor:
+
+  (3) In Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, and the dependent islands by
+  the Lieutenant Governor:
+
+  (4) In the Isle of Man by the Lieutenant Governor:
+
+  (5) In any British possession by the Governor:
+
+A copy of any warrant issued by a Secretary of State or by any officer
+authorised in pursuance of this Act to issue such warrant in Ireland,
+the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man shall be laid before Parliament.
+
+[Sidenote: Appeal from Court of Admiralty.]
+
+27. An appeal may be had from any decision of a Court of Admiralty under
+this Act to the same tribunal and in the same manner to and in which an
+appeal may be had in cases within the ordinary jurisdiction of the court
+as a Court of Admiralty.
+
+[Sidenote: Indemnity to Officers.]
+
+28. Subject to the provisions of this Act providing for the award of
+damages in certain cases in respect of the seizure or detention of a
+ship by the Court of Admiralty no damages shall be payable, and no
+officer or local authority shall be responsible, either civilly or
+criminally, in respect of the seizure or detention of any ship in
+pursuance of this Act.
+
+[Sidenote: Indemnity to Secretary of State or Chief Executive
+Authority.]
+
+29. The Secretary of State shall not, nor shall the chief executive
+authority, be responsible in any action or other legal proceedings
+whatsoever for any warrant issued by him in pursuance of this Act, or be
+examinable as a witness, except at his own request, in any court of
+justice in respect of the circumstances which led to the issue of the
+warrant.
+
+
+_Interpretation Clause._
+
+[Sidenote: Interpretation of Terms.]
+
+30. In this Act, if not inconsistent with the context, the following
+terms have the meanings herein-after respectively assigned to them; that
+is to say,
+
+[Sidenote: "Foreign State:"]
+
+  "Foreign state" includes any foreign prince, colony, province, or
+  part of any province or people, or any person or persons
+  exercising or assuming to exercise the powers of government in or
+  over any foreign country, colony, province, or part of any
+  province or people:
+
+[Sidenote: "Military Service:"]
+
+  "Military service" shall include military telegraphy and any other
+  employment whatever, in or in connection with any military
+  operation:
+
+[Sidenote: "Naval Service:"]
+
+  "Naval service" shall, as respects a person, include service as a
+  marine, employment as a pilot in piloting or directing the course
+  of a ship of war or other ship when such ship of war or other ship
+  is being used in any  military or naval operation, and any
+  employment whatever on board a ship of war, transport, store ship,
+  privateer or ship under letters of marque; and as respects a ship,
+  include any user of a ship as a transport, store ship, privateer
+  or ship under letters of marque:
+
+[Sidenote: "United Kingdom:"]
+
+  "United Kingdom" includes the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands,
+  and other adjacent islands:
+
+[Sidenote: "British Possessions:"]
+
+  "British possession" means any territory, colony, or place being
+  part of Her Majesty's dominions, and not part of the United
+  Kingdom, as defined by this Act:
+
+[Sidenote: "The Secretary of State:"]
+
+  "The Secretary of State" shall mean any one of Her Majesty's
+  Principal Secretaries of State:
+
+[Sidenote: "Governor:"]
+
+  "The Governor" shall as respects India mean the Governor General
+  or the Governor of any presidency, and where a British possession
+  consists of several constituent colonies, mean the Governor
+  General of the whole possession or the Governor of any of the
+  constituent colonies, and as respects any other British possession
+  it shall mean the officer for the time being administering the
+  government of such possession; also any person acting for or in
+  the capacity of a governor shall be included under the term
+  "Governor":
+
+[Sidenote: "Court of Admiralty:"]
+
+  "Court of Admiralty" shall mean the High Court of Admiralty of
+  England or Ireland, the Court of Session of Scotland, or any
+  Vice-Admiralty Court within Her Majesty's dominions:
+
+[Sidenote: "Ship:"]
+
+  "Ship" shall include any description of boat, vessel, floating
+  battery, or floating craft; also any description of boat, vessel,
+  or other craft or battery, made to move either on the surface of
+  or under water, or sometimes on the surface of and sometimes under
+  water:
+
+[Sidenote: "Building:"]
+
+  "Building" in relation to a ship shall include the doing any act
+  towards or incidental to the construction of a ship, and all words
+  having relation to building shall be construed accordingly:
+
+[Sidenote: "Equipping:"]
+
+  "Equipping" in relation to a ship shall include the furnishing a
+  ship with any tackle, apparel, furniture, provisions, arms,
+  munitions, or stores, or any other thing which is used in or about
+  a ship for the purpose of fitting or adapting her for the sea or
+  for naval service, and all words relating to equipping shall be
+  construed accordingly:
+
+[Sidenote: "Ship and Equipment:"]
+
+  "Ship and equipment" shall include a ship and everything in or
+  belonging to a ship:
+
+[Sidenote: "Master:"]
+
+  "Master" shall include any person having the charge or command of
+  a ship.
+
+_Repeal of Acts, and Saving Clauses._
+
+[Sidenote: Repeal of Foreign Enlistment Act. 59 G. 3, c. 69.]
+
+31. From and after the commencement of this Act, an Act passed in the
+fifty-ninth year of the reign of His late Majesty King George the Third,
+chapter sixty-nine, intituled "An Act to prevent the enlisting or
+engagement of His Majesty's subjects to serve in foreign service, and
+the fitting out or equipping, in His Majesty's dominions, vessels for
+warlike purposes, without His Majesty's license," shall be repealed:
+Provided that such repeal shall not affect any penalty, forfeiture, or
+other punishment incurred or to be incurred in respect of any offence
+committed before this Act comes into operation, nor the institution of
+any investigation or legal proceeding, or any other remedy for enforcing
+any such penalty, forfeiture, or punishment as aforesaid.
+
+[Sidenote: Saving as to Commissioned Foreign Ships.]
+
+32. Nothing in this Act contained shall subject to forfeiture any
+commissioned ship of any foreign state, or give to any British court
+over or in respect of any ship entitled to recognition as a commissioned
+ship of any foreign state any jurisdiction which it would not have had
+if this Act had not passed.
+
+[Sidenote: Penalties not to extend to Persons entering into Military
+Service in Asia. 59 G. 3, c. 69, s. 12.]
+
+33. Nothing in this Act contained shall extend or be construed to extend
+to subject to any penalty any person who enters into the military
+service of any prince, state, or potentate in Asia, with such leave or
+license as is for the time being required by law in the case of subjects
+of Her Majesty entering into the military services of princes, states,
+or potentates of Asia.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX X
+
+      THE NAVAL PRIZE ACT, 1864
+      27 & 28 VICT., CHAPTER 25
+      An Act for regulating Naval Prize of War.
+      [_23rd June 1864._]
+
+
+Whereas it is expedient to enact permanently, with Amendments, such
+Provisions concerning Naval Prize, and Matters connected therewith, as
+have heretofore been usually passed at the Beginning of a War:
+
+Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and
+with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
+Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of
+the same, as follows:
+
+_Preliminary._
+
+[Sidenote: Short Title.]
+
+1. This Act may be cited as the Naval Prize Act, 1864.
+
+2. In this Act--
+
+[Sidenote: Interpretation of Terms.]
+
+  The Term "the Lords of the Admiralty" means the Lord High Admiral
+  of the United Kingdom, or the Commissioners for executing the
+  Office of Lord High Admiral:
+
+  The Term "the High Court of Admiralty" means the High Court of
+  Admiralty of _England_:
+
+  The Term "any of Her Majesty's Ships of War" includes any of Her
+  Majesty's Vessels of War, and any hired armed Ship or Vessel in
+  Her Majesty's Service:
+
+  The Term "Officers and Crew" includes Flag Officers, Commanders,
+  and other Officers, Engineers, Seamen, Marines, Soldiers, and
+  others on board any of Her Majesty's Ships of War:
+
+  The Term "Ship" includes Vessel and Boat, with the Tackle,
+  Furniture, and Apparel of the Ship, Vessel, or Boat:
+
+  The Term "Ship Papers" includes all Books, Passes, Sea Briefs,
+  Charter Parties, Bills of Lading, Cockets, Letters, and other
+  Documents and Writings delivered up or found on board a captured
+  Ship:
+
+  The Term "Goods" includes all such Things as are by the Course of
+  Admiralty and Law of Nations the Subject of Adjudication as Prize
+  (other than Ships).
+
+
+I.--Prize Courts.
+
+[Sidenote: High Court of Admiralty and other Courts to be Prize Courts
+for Purposes of Act.]
+
+3. The High Court of Admiralty, and every Court of Admiralty or of
+Vice-Admiralty, or other Court exercising Admiralty Jurisdiction in Her
+Majesty's Dominions, for the Time being authorised to take cognizance of
+and judicially proceed in Matters of Prize, shall be a Prize Court
+within the Meaning of this Act.
+
+Every such Court, other than the High Court of Admiralty, is comprised
+in the Term "Vice-Admiralty Prize Court," when hereafter used in this
+Act.
+
+_High Court of Admiralty._
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of High Court of Admiralty.]
+
+4. The High Court of Admiralty shall have Jurisdiction throughout Her
+Majesty's Dominions as a Prize Court.
+
+The High Court of Admiralty as a Prize Court shall have Power to enforce
+any Order or Decree of a Vice-Admiralty Prize Court, and any Order or
+Decree of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in a Prize Appeal.
+
+_Appeal; Judicial Committee._
+
+[Sidenote: Appeal to Queen in Council, in what Cases.]
+
+5. An Appeal shall lie to Her Majesty in Council from any Order or
+Decree of a Prize Court, as of Right in case of a Final Decree, and in
+other Cases with the Leave of the Court making the Order or Decree.
+
+Every Appeal shall be made in such Manner and Form and subject to such
+Regulations (including Regulations as to Fees, Costs, Charges, and
+Expenses) as may for the Time being be directed by Order in Council, and
+in the Absence of any such Order, or so far as any such Order does not
+extend, then in such Manner and Form and subject to such Regulations as
+are for the Time being prescribed or in force respecting Maritime Causes
+of Appeal.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of Judicial Committee in Prize Appeals.]
+
+6. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council shall have Jurisdiction
+to hear and report on any such Appeal, and may therein exercise all such
+Powers as for the Time being appertain to them in respect of Appeals
+from any Court of Admiralty Jurisdiction, and all such Powers as are
+under this Act vested in the High Court of Admiralty, and all such
+Powers as were wont to be exercised by the Commissioners of Appeal in
+Prize Causes.
+
+[Sidenote: Custody of Processes, Papers, &c.]
+
+7. All Processes and Documents required for the Purposes of any such
+Appeal shall be transmitted to and shall remain in the Custody of the
+Registrar of Her Majesty in Prize Appeals.
+
+[Sidenote: Limit of Time for Appeal.]
+
+8. In every such Appeal the usual Inhibition shall be extracted from the
+Registry of Her Majesty in Prize Appeals within Three Months after the
+Date of the Order or Decree appealed from if the Appeal be from the High
+Court of Admiralty, and within Six Months after that Date if it be from
+a Vice-Admiralty Prize Court.
+
+The Judicial Committee may, nevertheless, on sufficient Cause shown,
+allow the Inhibition to be extracted and the Appeal to be prosecuted
+after the Expiration of the respective Periods aforesaid.
+
+_Vice-Admiralty Prize Courts._
+
+[Sidenote: Enforcement of Orders of High Court, &c.]
+
+9. Every Vice-Admiralty Prize Court shall enforce within its
+Jurisdiction all Orders and Decrees of the Judicial Committee in Prize
+Appeals and of the High Court of Admiralty in Prize Causes.
+
+[Sidenote: Salaries of Judges of Vice-Admiralty Prize Courts.]
+
+10. Her Majesty in Council may grant to the Judge of any Vice-Admiralty
+Prize Court a Salary not exceeding Five Hundred Pounds a Year, payable
+out of Money provided by Parliament, subject to such Regulations as seem
+meet.
+
+A Judge to whom a Salary is so granted shall not be entitled to any
+further Emolument, arising from Fees or otherwise, in respect of Prize
+Business transacted in his Court.
+
+An Account of all such Fees shall be kept by the Registrar of the Court,
+and the Amount thereof shall be carried to and form Part of the
+Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Retiring Pensions of Judges, as in 22 & 23 Vict. c. 26.]
+
+11. In accordance, as far as Circumstances admit, with the Principles
+and Regulations laid down in the Superannuation Act, 1859, Her Majesty
+in Council may grant to the Judge of any Vice-Admiralty Prize Court an
+annual or other Allowance, to take effect on the Termination of his
+Service, and to be payable out of Money provided by Parliament.
+
+[Sidenote: Returns from Vice-Admiralty Prize Courts.]
+
+12. The Registrar of every Vice-Admiralty Prize Court shall, on the
+First Day of _January_ and First Day of _July_ in every year, make out a
+Return (in such Form as the Lords of the Admiralty from Time to Time
+direct) of all cases adjudged in the Court since the last half-yearly
+Return, and shall with all convenient Speed send the same to the
+Registrar of the High Court of Admiralty, who shall keep the same in the
+Registry of that Court, and who shall, as soon as conveniently may be,
+send a Copy of the Returns of each Half Year to the Lords of the
+Admiralty, who shall lay the same before both Houses of Parliament.
+
+_General._
+
+[Sidenote: General Orders for Prize Courts.]
+
+13. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, with the Judge of the
+High Court of Admiralty, may from Time to Time frame General Orders for
+regulating (subject to the Provisions of this Act) the Procedure and
+Practice of Prize Courts, and the Duties and Conduct of the Officers
+thereof and of the Practitioners therein, and for regulating the Fees to
+be taken by the Officers of the Courts, and the Costs, Charges, and
+Expenses to be allowed to the Practitioners therein.
+
+Any such General Orders shall have full Effect, if and when approved by
+Her Majesty in Council, but not sooner or otherwise.
+
+Every Order in Council made under this Section shall be laid before both
+Houses of Parliament.
+
+Every such Order in Council shall be kept exhibited in a conspicuous
+Place in each Court to which it relates.
+
+[Sidenote: Prohibition of Officer of Prize Court acting as Proctor, &c.]
+
+14. It shall not be lawful for any Registrar, Marshal, or other Officer
+of any Prize Court, or for the Registrar of Her Majesty in Prize
+Appeals, directly or indirectly to act or be in any manner concerned as
+Advocate, Proctor, Solicitor, or Agent, or otherwise, in any Prize Cause
+or Appeal, on pain of Dismissal or Suspension from Office, by Order of
+the Court or of the Judicial Committee (as the Case may require).
+
+[Sidenote: Prohibition of Proctors being concerned for adverse Parties
+in a Cause.]
+
+15. It shall not be lawful for any Proctor or Solicitor, or Person
+practising as a Proctor or Solicitor, being employed by a Party in a
+Prize Cause or Appeal, to be employed or concerned, by himself or his
+Partner, or by any other Person, directly or indirectly by or on behalf
+of any adverse Party in that Cause or Appeal, on pain of Exclusion or
+Suspension from Practice in Prize Matters, by Order of the Court or of
+the Judicial Committee (as the Case may require).
+
+
+II.--PROCEDURE IN PRIZE CAUSES.
+
+_Proceedings by Captors._
+
+[Sidenote: Custody of Prize Ship.]
+
+16. Every Ship taken as Prize, and brought into Port within the
+Jurisdiction of a Prize Court, shall forthwith and without Bulk broken,
+be delivered up to the Marshal of the Court.
+
+If there is no such Marshal, then the Ship shall be in like Manner
+delivered up to the Principal Officer of Customs at the Port.
+
+The Ship shall remain in the Custody of the Marshal, or of such Officer,
+subject to the Orders of the Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Bringing in of Ship Papers.]
+
+17. The Captors shall, with all practicable Speed after the Ship is
+brought into Port, bring the Ship Papers into the Registry of the Court.
+
+The Officer in Command, or One of the Chief Officers of the Capturing
+Ship, or some other Person who was present at the Capture, and saw the
+Ship Papers delivered up or found on board, shall make Oath that they
+are brought in as they were taken, without Fraud, Addition, Subduction,
+or Alteration, or else shall account on Oath to the Satisfaction of the
+Court for the Absence or altered Condition of the Ship Papers or any of
+them.
+
+Where no Ship Papers are delivered up or found on board the captured
+Ship, the Officer in Command, or One of the Chief Officers of the
+capturing Ship, or some other Person who was present at the Capture,
+shall make Oath to that Effect.
+
+[Sidenote: Issue of Monition.]
+
+18. As soon as the Affidavit as to Ship Papers is filed, a Monition
+shall issue, returnable within Twenty Days from the Service thereof,
+citing all Persons in general to show Cause why the captured Ship should
+not be condemned.
+
+[Sidenote: Examinations on Standing Interrogatories.]
+
+19. The Captors shall, with all practicable Speed after the captured
+Ship is brought into Port, bring Three or Four of the Principal Persons
+belonging to the captured Ship before the Judge of the Court or some
+Person authorised in this behalf, by whom they shall be examined on Oath
+on the Standing Interrogatories.
+
+The Preparatory Examinations on the Standing Interrogatories shall, if
+possible, be concluded within Five Days from the Commencement thereof.
+
+[Sidenote: Adjudication by Court.]
+
+20. After the Return of the Monition, the Court shall, on Production of
+the Preparatory Examinations and Ship Papers, proceed with all
+convenient Speed either to condemn or to release the captured Ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Further Proof.]
+
+21. Where, on Production of the Preparatory Examinations and Ship
+Papers, it appears to the Court doubtful whether the captured Ship is
+good Prize or not, the Court may direct further Proof to be adduced,
+either by Affidavit or by Examination of Witnesses, with or without
+Pleadings, or by Production of further Documents; and on such further
+Proof being adduced the Court shall with all convenient Speed proceed to
+Adjudication.
+
+[Sidenote: Custody, &c. of Ships of War.]
+
+22. The foregoing Provisions, as far as they relate to the Custody of
+the Ship, and to Examination on the Standing Interrogatories, shall not
+apply to Ships of War taken as Prize.
+
+_Claim._
+
+[Sidenote: Entry of Claim; Security for Costs.]
+
+23. At any Time before Final Decree made in the Cause, any Person
+claiming an Interest in the Ship may enter in the Registry of the Court
+a Claim, verified on Oath.
+
+Within Five Days after entering the Claim, the Claimant shall give
+Security for Costs in the Sum of Sixty Pounds; but the Court shall have
+Power to enlarge the Time for giving Security, or to direct Security to
+be given in a larger Sum, if the Circumstances appear to require it.
+
+_Appraisement._
+
+[Sidenote: Power to Court to direct Appraisement.]
+
+24. The Court may, if it thinks fit, at any Time direct that the
+captured Ship be appraised.
+
+Every Appraisement shall be made by competent Persons sworn to make the
+same according to the best of their Skill and Knowledge.
+
+_Delivery on Bail._
+
+[Sidenote: Power to Court to direct Delivery to Claimant on Bail.]
+
+25. After Appraisement, the Court may, if it thinks fit, direct that the
+captured Ship be delivered up to the Claimant, on his giving Security to
+the Satisfaction of the Court to pay to the Captors the appraised Value
+thereof in case of Condemnation.
+
+_Sale._
+
+[Sidenote: Power to Court to order Sale.]
+
+26. The Court may at any Time, if it thinks fit, on account of the
+Condition of the captured Ship, or on the Application of a Claimant,
+order that the captured Ship be appraised as aforesaid (if not already
+appraised), and be sold.
+
+[Sidenote: Sale on Condemnation.]
+
+27. On or after Condemnation the Court may, if it thinks fit, order that
+the Ship be appraised as aforesaid (if not already appraised), and be
+sold.
+
+[Sidenote: How Sales to be made.]
+
+28. Every Sale shall be made by or under the Superintendence of the
+Marshal of the Court or of the Officer having the Custody of the
+captured Ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Payment of Proceeds to Paymaster General or Official
+Accountant.]
+
+29. The Proceeds of any Sale, made either before or after Condemnation,
+and after Condemnation the appraised Value of the captured Ship, in case
+she has been delivered up to a Claimant on Bail, shall be paid under an
+Order of the Court either into the Bank of _England_ to the Credit of
+Her Majesty's Paymaster General, or into the Hands of an Official
+Accountant (belonging to the Commissariat or some other Department)
+appointed for this Purpose by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's
+Treasury or by the Lords of the Admiralty, subject in either case to
+such Regulations as may from Time to Time be made, by order in Council,
+as to the Custody and Disposal of Money so paid.
+
+_Small armed Ships._
+
+[Sidenote: One Adjudication as to several small Ships.]
+
+30. The Captors may include in One Adjudication any Number, not
+exceeding Six, of armed Ships not exceeding One hundred Tons each, taken
+within Three Months next before Institution of Proceedings.
+
+_Goods._
+
+[Sidenote: Application of foregoing Provisions to Prize Goods.]
+
+31. The foregoing Provisions relating to Ships shall extend and apply,
+_mutatis mutandis_, to goods taken as Prize on board Ship; and the Court
+may direct such goods to be unladen, inventoried, and warehoused.
+
+_Monition to Captors to proceed._
+
+[Sidenote: Power to Court to call on Captors to proceed to
+Adjudication.]
+
+32. If the Captors fail to institute or to prosecute with Effect
+Proceedings for Adjudication, a Monition shall, on the Application of a
+Claimant, issue against the Captors, returnable within Six Days from the
+Service thereof, citing them to appear and proceed to Adjudication; and
+on the Return thereof the Court shall either forthwith proceed to
+Adjudication or direct further Proof to be adduced as aforesaid and then
+proceed to Adjudication.
+
+_Claim on Appeal._
+
+[Sidenote: Person intervening on Appeal to enter Claim.]
+
+33. Where any Person, not an original Party in the Cause, intervenes on
+Appeal, he shall enter a Claim, verified on Oath, and shall give
+Security for Costs.
+
+
+III.--SPECIAL CASES OF CAPTURE.
+
+_Land Expeditions._
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of Prize Court in case of Capture in Land
+Expedition.]
+
+34. Where, in an Expedition of any of Her Majesty's Naval or Naval and
+Military Forces against a Fortress or Possession on Land, Goods
+belonging to the State of the Enemy or to a Public Trading Company of
+the Enemy exercising Powers of Government are taken in the Fortress or
+Possession, or a Ship is taken in Waters defended by or belonging to the
+Fortress or Possession, a Prize Court shall have Jurisdiction as to the
+Goods or Ship so taken, and any Goods taken on board the Ship as in case
+of Prize.
+
+_Conjunct Capture with Ally._
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of Prize Court in case of Expedition with Ally.]
+
+35. Where any Ship or Goods is or are taken by any of Her Majesty's
+Naval or Naval and Military Forces while acting in conjunction with any
+Forces of any of Her Majesty's Allies, a Prize Court shall have
+Jurisdiction as to the same as in the case of Prize, and shall have
+Power, after Condemnation, to apportion the due share of the Proceeds to
+Her Majesty's Ally, the proportionate Amount and the Disposition of
+which Share shall be such as may from Time to Time be agreed between Her
+Majesty and Her Majesty's Ally.
+
+_Joint Capture._
+
+[Sidenote: Restriction on Petitions by asserted joint Captors.]
+
+36. Before Condemnation, a Petition on behalf of asserted joint Captors
+shall not (except by special Leave of the Court) be admitted, unless and
+until they give Security to the Satisfaction of the Court to contribute
+to the actual Captors a just Proportion of any Costs, Charges, and
+Expenses or Damages that may be incurred by or awarded against the
+actual Captors on account of the Capture and Detention of the Prize.
+
+After Condemnation, such a Petition shall not (except by special Leave
+of the Court) be admitted unless and until the asserted joint Captors
+pay to the actual Captors a just Proportion of the Costs, Charges, and
+Expenses incurred by the actual Captors in the Case, and give such
+Security as aforesaid, and show sufficient Cause to the Court why their
+Petition was not presented before Condemnation.
+
+Provided, that nothing in the present Section shall extend to the
+asserted Interest of a Flag Officer claiming to share by virtue of his
+Flag.
+
+_Offences against Law of Prize._
+
+[Sidenote: In case of Offence by Captors, Prize to be reserved for
+Crown.]
+
+37. A Prize Court, on Proof of any Offence against the Law of Nations,
+or against this Act, or any Act relating to Naval Discipline, or against
+any Order in Council or Royal Proclamation, or of any Breach of Her
+Majesty's Instructions relating to Prize, or of any Act of Disobedience
+to the Orders of the Lords of the Admiralty, or to the Command of a
+Superior Officer, committed by the Captors in relation to any Ship or
+Goods taken as Prize, or in relation to any Person on Board any such
+Ship, may, on Condemnation, reserve the Prize to Her Majesty's Disposal,
+notwithstanding any Grant that may have been made by Her Majesty in
+favour of Captors.
+
+_Pre-emption._
+
+[Sidenote: Purchase by Admiralty for Public Service of Stores on board
+Foreign Ships.]
+
+38. Where a Ship of a Foreign Nation passing the Seas laden with Naval
+or Victualling Stores intended to be carried to a Port of any Enemy of
+Her Majesty is taken and brought into a Port of the United Kingdom, and
+the Purchase for the Service of Her Majesty of the Stores on board the
+Ship appears to the Lords of the Admiralty expedient without the
+Condemnation thereof in a Prize Court, in that Case the Lords of the
+Admiralty may purchase, on the Account or for the Service of Her
+Majesty, all or any of the Stores on board the Ship; and the
+Commissioners of Customs may permit the Stores purchased to be entered
+and landed within any Port.
+
+_Capture by Ship other than a Ship of War._
+
+[Sidenote: Prizes taken by Ships other than Ships of War to be Droits of
+Admiralty.]
+
+39. Any Ship or Goods taken as Prize by any of the Officers and Crew of
+a Ship other than a Ship of War of Her Majesty shall, on Condemnation,
+belong to Her Majesty in Her Office of Admiralty.
+
+
+IV.--PRIZE SALVAGE.
+
+[Sidenote: Salvage to Re-captors of British Ship or Goods from Enemy.]
+
+40. Where any Ship or Goods belonging to any of Her Majesty's Subjects,
+after being taken as Prize by the Enemy, is or are retaken from the
+Enemy by any of Her Majesty's Ships of War, the same shall be restored
+by Decree of a Prize Court to the Owner, on his paying as Prize Salvage
+One Eighth Part of the Value of the Prize to be decreed and ascertained
+by the Court, or such Sum not exceeding One Eighth Part of the estimated
+Value of the Prize as may be agreed on between the Owner and the
+Re-captors, and approved by Order of the Court; Provided, that where the
+Re-capture is made under circumstances of Special Difficulty or Danger,
+the Prize Court may, if it thinks fit, award to the Re-captors as Prize
+Salvage a larger Part than One Eighth Part, but not exceeding in any
+Case One Fourth Part, of the Value of the Prize.
+
+Provided also, that where a Ship after being so taken is set forth or
+used by any of Her Majesty's Enemies as a Ship of War, this Provision
+for Restitution shall not apply, and the Ship shall be adjudicated on as
+in other Cases of Prize.
+
+[Sidenote: Permission to re-captured Ship to proceed on Voyage.]
+
+41. Where a Ship belonging to any of Her Majesty's Subjects, after being
+taken as Prize by the Enemy, is retaken from the Enemy by any of Her
+Majesty's Ships of War, she may, with the Consent of the Re-captors,
+prosecute her Voyage, and it shall not be necessary for the Re-captors
+to proceed to Adjudication till her Return to a Port of the United
+Kingdom.
+
+The Master or Owner, or his Agent, may, with the Consent of the
+Re-captors, unload and dispose of the Goods on board the Ship before
+Adjudication.
+
+In case the Ship does not, within Six Months, return to a Port of the
+United Kingdom, the Re-captors may nevertheless institute Proceedings
+against the Ship or Goods in the High Court of Admiralty, and the Court
+may thereupon award Prize Salvage as aforesaid to the Re-captors, and
+may enforce Payment thereof, either by Warrant of Arrest against the
+Ship or Goods, or by Monition and Attachment against the Owner.
+
+
+V.--PRIZE BOUNTY.
+
+[Sidenote: Prize Bounty to Officers and Crew present at Engagement with
+an Enemy.]
+
+42. If, in relation to any War, Her Majesty is pleased to declare, by
+Proclamation or Order in Council, Her Intention to grant Prize Bounty to
+the Officers and Crews of Her Ships of War, then such of the Officers
+and Crew of any of Her Majesty's Ships of War as are actually present at
+the taking or destroying of any armed Ship of any of Her Majesty's
+Enemies shall be entitled to have distributed among them as Prize Bounty
+a Sum calculated at the Rate of Five Pounds for each Person on board the
+Enemy's Ship at the Beginning of the Engagement.
+
+[Sidenote: Ascertainment of Amount of Prize Bounty by Decree of Prize
+Court.]
+
+43. The Number of the Persons so on board the Enemy's Ship shall be
+proved in a Prize Court, either by the Examinations on Oath of the
+Survivors of them, or of any Three or more of the Survivors, or if there
+is no Survivor by the Papers of the Enemy's Ship, or by the Examinations
+on Oath of Three or more of the Officers and Crew of Her Majesty's Ship,
+or by such other Evidence as may seem to the Court sufficient in the
+Circumstances.
+
+The Court shall make a Decree declaring the Title of the Officers and
+Crew of Her Majesty's Ship to the Prize Bounty, and stating the Amount
+thereof.
+
+The Decree shall be subject to Appeal as other Decrees of the Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Payment of Prize Bounty awarded.]
+
+44. On Production of an official Copy of the Decree the Commissioners of
+Her Majesty's Treasury shall, out of Money provided by Parliament, pay
+the Amount of Prize Bounty decreed, in such Manner as any Order in
+Council may from Time to Time direct.
+
+
+VI.--MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS.
+
+_Ransom._
+
+[Sidenote: Power for regulating Ransom by Order in Council.]
+
+45. Her Majesty in Council may from Time to Time, in relation to any
+War, make such Orders as may seem expedient, according to Circumstances,
+for prohibiting or allowing, wholly or in certain Cases, or subject to
+any Conditions or Regulations or otherwise, as may from Time to Time
+seem meet, the ransoming or the entering into any contract or Agreement
+for the ransoming of any Ship or Goods belonging to any of Her Majesty's
+Subjects, and taken as Prize by any of Her Majesty's Enemies.
+
+Any Contract or Agreement entered into, and any Bill, Bond, or other
+Security given for Ransom of any Ship or Goods, shall be under the
+exclusive Jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty as a Prize Court
+(subject to Appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council), and
+if entered into or given in contravention of any such Order in Council
+shall be deemed to have been entered into or given for an illegal
+Consideration.
+
+If any Person ransoms or enters into any Contract or Agreement for
+Ransoming any Ship or Goods, in contravention of any such Order in
+Council, he shall for every such Offence be liable to be proceeded
+against in the High Court of Admiralty at the Suit of Her Majesty in Her
+Office of Admiralty, and on Conviction to be fined, in the Discretion of
+the Court, any Sum not exceeding Five hundred Pounds.
+
+_Convoy._
+
+[Sidenote: Punishment of Masters of Merchant Vessels under Convoy
+disobeying Orders or deserting Convoy.]
+
+46. If the Master or other Person having the Command of any Ship of any
+of Her Majesty's Subjects, under the Convoy of any of Her Majesty's
+Ships of War, wilfully disobeys any lawful Signal, Instruction, or
+Command of the Commander of the Convoy, or without Leave deserts the
+Convoy, he shall be liable to be proceeded against in the High Court of
+Admiralty at the Suit of Her Majesty in Her Office of Admiralty, and
+upon Conviction to be fined, in the Discretion of the Court, any Sum not
+exceeding Five hundred Pounds, and to suffer Imprisonment for such Time,
+not exceeding One Year, as the Court may adjudge.
+
+_Customs Duties and Regulations._
+
+[Sidenote: Prize Ships and Goods liable to Duties and Forfeiture.]
+
+47. All Ships and Goods taken as Prize and brought into a Port of the
+United Kingdom shall be liable to and be charged with the same Rates and
+Charges and Duties of Customs as under any Act relating to the Customs
+may be chargeable on other Ships and Goods of the like Description; and
+
+All Goods brought in as Prize which would on the voluntary Importation
+thereof be liable to Forfeiture or subject to any Restriction under the
+Laws relating to the Customs, shall be deemed to be so liable and
+subject, unless the Commissioners of Customs see fit to authorise the
+Sale or Delivery thereof for Home Use or Exportation, unconditionally or
+subject to such Conditions and Regulations as they may direct.
+
+[Sidenote: Regulations of Customs to be observed as to Prize Ships and
+Goods.]
+
+48. Where any Ship or Goods taken as Prize is or are brought into a Port
+of the United Kingdom, the Master or other Person in charge or command
+of the Ship which has been taken or in which the Goods are brought
+shall, on Arrival at such Port, bring to at the proper Place of
+Discharge, and shall, when required by any Officer of Customs, deliver
+an Account in Writing under his Hand concerning such Ship and Goods,
+giving such Particulars relating thereto as may be in his Power, and
+shall truly answer all Questions concerning such Ship or Goods asked by
+any such Officer, and in default shall forfeit a Sum not exceeding One
+hundred Pounds, such Forfeiture to be enforced as Forfeitures for
+Offences against the Laws relating to the Customs are enforced, and
+every such Ship shall be liable to such Searches as other Ships are
+liable to, and the Officers of the Customs may freely go on board such
+Ship and bring to the Queen's Warehouse any Goods on board the same,
+subject, nevertheless, to such Regulations in respect of Ships of War
+belonging to Her Majesty as shall from Time to Time be issued by the
+Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.
+
+[Sidenote: Power for Treasury to remit Customs Duties in certain cases.]
+
+49. Goods taken as Prize may be sold either for Home Consumption or for
+Exportation; and if in the former Case the Proceeds thereof, after
+payment of Duties of Customs, are insufficient to satisfy the just and
+reasonable claims thereon, the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury
+may remit the whole or such Part of the said Duties as they see fit.
+
+_Perjury._
+
+[Sidenote: Punishment of Persons guilty of Perjury.]
+
+50. If any Person wilfully and corruptly swears, declares, or affirms
+falsely in any Prize Cause or Appeal, or in any Proceeding under this
+Act, or in respect of any Matter required by this Act to be verified on
+Oath, or suborns any other Person to do so, he shall be deemed guilty of
+Perjury, or of Subornation of Perjury (as the Case may be), and shall be
+liable to be punished accordingly.
+
+_Limitation of Actions, &c._
+
+[Sidenote: Actions against Persons executing Act not to be brought
+without Notice, &c.]
+
+51. Any Action or Proceeding shall not lie in any Part of Her Majesty's
+Dominions against any Person acting under the Authority or in the
+Execution or intended Execution or in pursuance of this Act for any
+alleged Irregularity or Trespass, or other Act or Thing done or omitted
+by him under this Act, unless Notice in Writing (specifying the Cause of
+the Action or Proceeding) is given by the intending Plaintiff or
+Prosecutor to the intended Defendant One Month at least before the
+Commencement of the Action or Proceeding, nor unless the Action or
+Proceeding is commenced within Six Months next after the Act or Thing
+complained of is done or omitted, or, in case of a Continuation of
+Damage, within Six Months next after the doing of such Damage has
+ceased.
+
+In any such action the Defendant may plead generally that the Act or
+Thing complained of was done or omitted by him when acting under the
+authority or in the Execution or intended Execution or in pursuance of
+this Act, and may give all special Matter in Evidence; and the Plaintiff
+shall not succeed if Tender of sufficient Amends is made by the
+Defendant before the Commencement of the Action; and in case no Tender
+has been made, the Defendant may, by Leave of the Court in which the
+Action is brought, at any Time pay into Court such Sum of Money as he
+thinks fit, whereupon such Proceeding and Order shall be had and made in
+and by the Court as may be had and made on the Payment of Money into
+Court in an ordinary Action; and if the Plaintiff does not succeed in
+the Action, the Defendant shall receive such full and reasonable
+Indemnity as to all Costs, Charges, and Expenses incurred in and about
+the Action as may be taxed and allowed by the proper Officer, subject to
+Review; and though a Verdict is given for the Plaintiff in the Action he
+shall not have Costs against the Defendant, unless the Judge before whom
+the Trial is had certifies his Approval of the Action.
+
+Any such Action or Proceeding against any Person in Her Majesty's Naval
+Service, or in the Employment of the Lords of the Admiralty, shall not
+be brought or instituted elsewhere than in the United Kingdom.
+
+_Petitions of Right._
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of High Court of Admiralty on Petitions of Right
+in certain Cases, as in 23 & 24 Vict. c. 34.]
+
+52. A Petition of Right, under The Petitions of Right Act, 1860, may, if
+the Suppliant thinks fit, be intituled in the High Court of Admiralty,
+in case the Subject Matter of the Petition or any material part thereof
+arises out of the Exercise of any Belligerent Right on behalf of the
+Crown, or would be cognizable in a Prize Court within Her Majesty's
+Dominions if the same were a Matter in dispute between private Persons.
+
+Any Petition of Right under the last-mentioned Act, whether intituled in
+the High Court of Admiralty or not, may be prosecuted in that Court, if
+the Lord Chancellor thinks fit so to direct.
+
+The Provisions of this Act relative to Appeal, and to the framing and
+Approval of General Orders for regulating the Procedure and Practice of
+the High Court of Admiralty, shall extend to the Case of any such
+Petition of Right intituled or directed to be prosecuted in that Court;
+and, subject thereto, all the Provisions of The Petitions of Right Act,
+1860, shall apply, _mutatis mutandis_, in the Case of any such Petition
+of Right; and for the Purposes of the present Section the Terms "Court"
+and "Judge" in that Act shall respectively be understood to include and
+to mean the High Court of Admiralty and the Judge thereof, and other
+Terms shall have the respective Meanings given to them in that Act.
+
+_Orders in Council._
+
+[Sidenote: Power to make Orders in Council.]
+
+53. Her Majesty in Council may from Time to Time make such Orders in
+Council as seem meet for the better Execution of this Act.
+
+[Sidenote: Order in Council to be gazetted, &c.]
+
+54. Every Order in Council under this Act shall be published in the
+_London Gazette_, and shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament
+within Thirty Days after the making thereof, if Parliament is then
+sitting, and, if not, then within Thirty Days after the next Meeting of
+Parliament.
+
+_Savings._
+
+[Sidenote: Not to affect Rights of Crown; Effect of Treaties, &c.]
+
+55. Nothing in this Act shall--
+
+  (1) give to the Officers and Crew of any of Her Majesty's Ships of
+  War any Right or Claim in or to any Ship or Goods taken as Prize
+  or the Proceeds thereof, it being the intent of this Act that such
+  Officers and Crews shall continue to take only such Interest (if
+  any) in the Proceeds of Prizes as may be from Time to Time granted
+  to them by the Crown; or
+
+  (2) affect the Operation of any existing Treaty or Convention with
+  any Foreign Power; or
+
+  (3) take away or abridge the Power of the Crown to enter into any
+  Treaty or Convention with any Foreign Power containing any
+  Stipulation that may seem meet concerning any Matter to which
+  this Act relates; or
+
+  (4) take away, abridge, or control, further or otherwise than as
+  expressly provided by this Act, any Right, Power, or Prerogative
+  of Her Majesty the Queen in right of Her Crown, or in right of Her
+  Office of Admiralty, or any Right or Power of the Lord High
+  Admiral of the United Kingdom, or of the Commissioners for
+  executing the Office of Lord High Admiral; or
+
+  (5) take away, abridge, or control, further or otherwise than as
+  expressly provided by this Act, the Jurisdiction or Authority of
+  a Prize Court to take cognizance of and judicially proceed upon
+  any Capture, Seizure, Prize, or Reprisal of any Ship or Goods, or
+  to hear and determine the same, and, according to the Course of
+  Admiralty and the Law of Nations, to adjudge and condemn any Ship
+  or Goods, or any other Jurisdiction or Authority of or
+  exerciseable by a Prize Court.
+
+_Commencement._
+
+[Sidenote: Commencement of Act.]
+
+56. This Act shall commence on the Commencement of The Naval Agency and
+Distribution Act, 1864.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX XI
+
+      THE PRIZE COURTS ACTS, 1894
+      57 & 58 VICT., CHAPTER 39
+      An Act to make further provision for the establishment of
+      Prize Courts, and for other purposes connected therewith.
+      [_17th August 1894._]
+
+
+Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the
+advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in
+this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as
+follows:
+
+[Sidenote: Short Title.]
+
+1. This Act may be cited as the Prize Courts Act, 1894.
+
+[Sidenote: Constitution of Prize Courts in British Possessions.]
+
+2.--(1) Any commission, warrant, or instructions from Her Majesty the
+Queen or the Admiralty for the purpose of commissioning or regulating
+the procedure of a prize court at any place in a British possession may,
+notwithstanding the existence of peace, be issued at any time, with a
+direction that the court shall act only upon such proclamation as
+herein-after mentioned being made in the possession.
+
+(2) Where any such commission, warrant, or instructions have been
+issued, then, subject to instructions from Her Majesty, the Vice-Admiral
+of such possession may, when satisfied, by information from a Secretary
+of State or otherwise, that war has broken out between Her Majesty and
+any foreign State, proclaim that war has so broken out, and thereupon
+the said commission, warrant, and instructions shall take effect as if
+the same had been issued after the breaking out of such war and such
+foreign State were named therein.
+
+[Sidenote: 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.]
+
+(3) The said commission and warrant may authorise either a
+Vice-Admiralty Court or a Colonial Court of Admiralty, within the
+meaning of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, to act as a prize
+court, and may establish a Vice-Admiralty Court for that purpose.
+
+(4) Any such commission, warrant, or instructions may be revoked or
+altered from time to time.
+
+(5) A court duly authorised to act as a prize court during any war
+shall after the conclusion of the war continue so to act in relation to,
+and finally dispose of, all matters and things which arose during the
+war, including all penalties and forfeitures incurred during the war.
+
+[Sidenote: Rules of Court for and Fees in Prize Courts. 27 & 28 Vict. c.
+25.]
+
+3.--(1) Her Majesty the Queen in Council may make rules of court for
+regulating, subject to the provisions of the Naval Prize Act, 1864, and
+this Act, the procedure and practice of prize courts within the meaning
+of that Act, and the duties and conduct of the officers thereof, and of
+the practitioners therein, and for regulating the fees to be taken by
+the officers of the courts, and the costs, charges, and expenses to be
+allowed to the practitioners therein.
+
+(2) Every rule so made shall, whenever made, take effect at the time
+therein mentioned, and shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament,
+and shall be kept exhibited in a conspicuous place in each court to
+which it relates.
+
+[Sidenote: 27 & 28 Vict. c. 25.]
+
+(3) This section shall be substituted for section thirteen of the Naval
+Prize Act, 1864, which section is hereby repealed.
+
+[Sidenote: 53 & 54 Vict c. 27.]
+
+(4) If any Colonial Court of Admiralty within the meaning of the
+Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, is authorised under this Act or
+otherwise to act as a prize court, all fees arising in respect of prize
+business transacted in the court shall be fixed, collected, and applied
+in like manner as the fees arising in respect of the Admiralty business
+of the court under the said Act.
+
+[Sidenote: As to Vice-Admiralty Courts.]
+
+4. Her Majesty the Queen in Council may make rules of court for
+regulating the procedure and practice, including fees and costs, in a
+Vice-Admiralty Court, whether under this Act or otherwise.
+
+[Sidenote: Repeal of 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 79, s. 25.]
+
+5. Section twenty-five of the Government of India Act, 1800, is hereby
+repealed.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX XII
+
+      NAVAL PRIZE BILL OF 1911
+      _Passed by the House of Commons, but thrown out by the House
+      of Lords_
+      A Bill to Consolidate, with Amendments, the Enactments
+      relating to Naval Prize of War.
+
+
+Whereas at the Second Peace Conference held at The Hague in the year
+nineteen hundred and seven a Convention, the English translation whereof
+is set forth in the First Schedule to this Act, was drawn up, but it is
+desirable that the same should not be ratified by His Majesty until such
+amendments have been made in the law relating to naval prize of war as
+will enable effect to be given to the Convention:
+
+And whereas for the purpose aforesaid it is expedient to consolidate the
+law relating to naval prize of war with such amendments as aforesaid and
+with certain other minor amendments:
+
+Be it therefore enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and
+with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
+Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of
+the same, as follows:--
+
+
+PART I.--COURTS AND OFFICERS.
+
+_The Prize Court in England._
+
+[Sidenote: The High Court. [54 & 55 Vict. c. 53, s. 4.]]
+
+1.--(1) The High Court shall, without special warrant, be a prize court,
+and shall, on the high seas, and throughout His Majesty's Dominions, and
+in every place where His Majesty has jurisdiction, have all such
+jurisdiction as the High Court of Admiralty possessed when acting as a
+prize court, and generally have jurisdiction to determine all questions
+as to the validity of the capture of a ship or goods, the legality of
+the destruction of a captured ship or goods, and as to the payment of
+compensation in respect of such a capture or destruction.
+
+For the purposes of this Act the expression "capture" shall include
+seizure for the purpose of the detention, requisition, or destruction of
+any ship or goods which, but for any convention, would be liable to
+condemnation, and the expressions "captured" and "taken as prize" shall
+be construed accordingly, and where any ship or goods have been so
+seized the court may make an order for the detention, requisition, or
+destruction of the ship or goods and for the payment of compensation in
+respect thereof.
+
+(2) Subject to rules of court, all causes and matters within the
+jurisdiction of the High Court as a prize court shall be assigned to the
+Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of High Court to enforce decrees of other courts. [27 &
+28 Vict. c. 25. s. 4.]]
+
+2. The High Court as a prize court shall have power to enforce any order
+or decree of a prize court in a British possession, and any order of the
+Supreme Prize Court constituted under this Act in a prize appeal.
+
+_Prize Courts in British Possessions._
+
+[Sidenote: Prize courts in British possessions. [57 & 58 Vict. c. 39. s.
+2 (1) and (3). 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27, s. 2 (3) and s. 9.] 53 & 54 Vict. c.
+27.]
+
+3. His Majesty may, by commission addressed to the Admiralty, empower
+the Admiralty to authorise, and the Admiralty may thereupon by warrant
+authorise, either a Vice-Admiralty court or a Colonial Court of
+Admiralty, within the meaning of the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act,
+1890, to act as a prize court in a British possession, or may in like
+manner establish a Vice-Admiralty court for the purpose of so acting;
+and any court so authorised shall, subject to the terms of the warrant
+from the Admiralty, have all such jurisdiction as is by this Act
+conferred on the High Court as a prize court.
+
+Commissions. [57 & 58 Vict. c. 39, s. 2 (1), (2).]
+
+4.--(1) Any commission, warrant, or instructions from His Majesty the
+King or the Admiralty for the purpose of commissioning a prize court at
+any place in a British possession may, notwithstanding the existence of
+peace, be issued at any time, with a direction that the court shall act
+only upon such proclamation as herein-after mentioned being made in the
+possession.
+
+(2) Where any such commission, warrant, or instructions have been
+issued, then, subject to instructions from His Majesty the Vice-Admiral
+of such possession may, when satisfied by information from a Secretary
+of State or otherwise that war has broken out between His Majesty and
+any foreign State, proclaim that war has so broken out, and thereupon
+the said commission, warrant, and instructions shall take effect as if
+the same had been issued after the breaking out of such war and such
+foreign State were named therein.
+
+(3) Any such commission, warrant, or instructions may be revoked or
+altered from time to time.
+
+[Sidenote: Enforcement of orders.]
+
+5. Every prize court in a British possession shall enforce within its
+jurisdiction all orders and decrees of the High Court and of any other
+prize court in a British possession in prize causes, and all orders of
+the Supreme Prize Court constituted under this Act in prize appeals.
+
+[Sidenote: Remuneration of certain judges of prize courts in a British
+possession. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, ss. 10, 11.] 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.]
+
+6.--(1) His Majesty in Council may, with the concurrence of the
+Treasury, grant to the judge of any prize court in a British possession,
+other than a Colonial Court of Admiralty within the meaning of the
+Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, remuneration, at a rate not
+exceeding five hundred pounds a year, payable out of money provided by
+Parliament, subject to such regulations as seem meet.
+
+(2) A judge to whom remuneration is so granted shall not be entitled to
+any further emolument, arising from fees or otherwise, in respect of
+prize business transacted in his court.
+
+(3) An account of all such fees shall be kept by the registrar of the
+court, and the amount thereof shall be carried to and form part of the
+Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.
+
+[Sidenote: Returns from prize courts in British possessions. [27 & 28
+Vict. c. 25, s. 12.]]
+
+7. The registrar of every prize court in a British possession shall, on
+the first day of January and first day of July in every year, make out a
+return (in such form as the Admiralty from time to time direct) of all
+cases adjudged in the court since the last half-yearly return, and shall
+with all convenient speed send the same to the Admiralty registrar of
+the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court, who
+shall keep the same in the Admiralty registry of that Division, and who
+shall as soon as conveniently may be, send a copy of the returns of each
+half year to the Admiralty, and the Admiralty shall lay the same before
+both houses of Parliament.
+
+[Sidenote: Fees. [57 & 58 Vict. c. 39 s. 3 (4).] 53 & 54 Vict. c. 27.]
+
+8. If any Colonial Court of Admiralty within the meaning of the Colonial
+Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, is authorised under this Act or otherwise
+to act as a prize court, all fees arising in respect of prize business
+transacted in the court shall be fixed, collected, and applied in like
+manner as the fees arising in respect of the Admiralty business of the
+court under the first-mentioned Act.
+
+_Appeals._
+
+[Sidenote: Appeals to Supreme Prize Court. [54 & 55 Vict. c. 53, s. 4
+(3).]]
+
+9.--(1) Any appeal from the High Court when acting as a prize court, or
+from a prize court in a British possession, shall lie only to a court
+(to be called the Supreme Prize Court) consisting of such members for
+the time being of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as may be
+nominated by His Majesty for that purpose.
+
+(2) The Supreme Prize Court shall be a court of record with power to
+take evidence on oath, and the seal of the court shall be such as the
+Lord Chancellor may from time to time direct.
+
+(3) Every appeal to the Supreme Prize Court shall be heard before not
+less than three members of the court sitting together.
+
+(4) The registrar and other officers for the time being of the Judicial
+Committee of the Privy Council shall be registrar and officers of the
+Supreme Prize Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Procedure on, and conditions of, appeals. [27 & 28 Vict. c.
+25, s. 5.]]
+
+10.--(1) An appeal shall lie to the Supreme Prize Court from any order
+or decree of a prize court, as of right in case of a final decree, and
+in other cases with the leave of the court making the order or decree or
+of the Supreme Prize Court.
+
+(2) Every appeal shall be made in such manner and form and subject to
+such conditions and regulations (including regulations as to fees,
+costs, charges, and expenses) as may for the time being be directed by
+order in Council.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of the Supreme Prize Court in prize appeals. [27
+& 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 6; 54 & 55 Vict. c. 53, s. 4 (3).]]
+
+11. The Supreme Prize Court shall have jurisdiction to hear and
+determine any such appeal, and may therein exercise all such powers as
+are under this Act vested in the High Court, and all such powers as were
+wont to be exercised by the Commissioners of Appeal or by the Judicial
+Committee of the Privy Council in prize causes.
+
+_Rules of Court._
+
+[Sidenote: Rules of court. [57 & 58 Vict c. 39, s. 3.]]
+
+12. His Majesty in Council may make rules of court for regulating,
+subject to the provisions of this Act, the procedure and practice of the
+Supreme Prize Court and of the Prize Courts within the meaning of this
+Act, and the duties and conduct of the officers thereof, and of the
+practitioners therein, and for regulating the fees to be taken by the
+officers of the courts, and the costs, charges, and expenses to be
+allowed to the practitioners therein.
+
+_Officers of Prize Courts._
+
+[Sidenote: Prohibition of officer of prize court acting as advocate, &c.
+[27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, ss. 14, 15.]]
+
+13. It shall not be lawful for any registrar, marshal, or other officer
+of the Supreme Prize Court or of any other prize court, directly or
+indirectly to act or be in any manner concerned as advocate, proctor,
+solicitor, or agent, or otherwise, in any prize appeal or cause.
+
+[Sidenote: Protection of persons acting in execution of Act. [27 & 28
+Vict. c. 25, s. 51.]]
+
+14. The Public Authorities Protection Act, 1893, shall apply to any
+action, prosecution, or other proceeding against any person for any act
+done in pursuance or execution or intended execution of this Act or in
+respect of any alleged neglect or default in the execution of this Act
+whether commenced in the United Kingdom or elsewhere within His
+Majesty's dominions.
+
+_Continuance of Proceedings._
+
+[Sidenote: Continuance of proceedings after conclusion of war. [57 & 58
+Vict. c. 39, s. 2 (5).]]
+
+15. A court duly authorised to act as a prize court during any war shall
+after the conclusion of the war continue so to act in relation to, and
+finally dispose of, all matters and things which arose during the war,
+including all penalties, liabilities and forfeitures incurred during the
+war.
+
+
+Part II.--PROCEDURE IN PRIZE CAUSES.
+
+[Sidenote: Custody of ships taken as prize. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s.
+16.]]
+
+16. Where a ship (not being a ship of war) is taken as prize, and is or
+is brought within the jurisdiction of a prize court, she shall forthwith
+be delivered up to the marshal of the court, or, if there is no such
+marshal, to the principal officer of customs at the port, and shall
+remain in his custody, subject to the orders of the court.
+
+[Sidenote: Bringing in of ship papers. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 17.]]
+
+17.--(1) The captors shall in all cases, with all practicable speed,
+bring the ship papers into the registry of the court.
+
+(2) The officer in command, or one of the chief officers of the
+capturing ship, or some other person who was present at the capture and
+saw the ship papers delivered up or found on board, shall make oath that
+they are brought in as they were taken, without fraud, addition,
+subduction, or alteration, or else shall account on oath to the
+satisfaction of the court for the absence or altered condition of the
+ship papers or any of them.
+
+(3) Where no ship papers are delivered up or found on board the captured
+ship, the officer in command, or one of the chief officers of the
+capturing ship, or some other person who was present at the capture,
+shall make oath to that effect.
+
+[Sidenote: Examination of persons from captured ship. [27 & 28 Vict. c.
+25, s. 19.]]
+
+18. The captors shall also, unless the court otherwise directs, with all
+practicable speed after the captured ship is brought into port, bring a
+convenient number of the principal persons belonging to the captured
+ship before the judge of the court or some person authorised in this
+behalf, by whom they shall be examined on oath.
+
+[Sidenote: Delivery of ship on bail. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 25.]]
+
+19. The court may, if it thinks fit, at any time after a captured ship
+has been appraised direct that the ship be delivered up to the claimant
+on his giving security to the satisfaction of the court to pay to the
+captors the appraised value thereof in case of condemnation.
+
+[Sidenote: Power to order sale. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, ss. 26 & 27.]]
+
+20. The court may at any time, if it thinks fit, on account of the
+condition of the captured ship, or on the application of a claimant, or
+on or after condemnation, order that the captured ship be appraised (if
+not already appraised), and be sold.
+
+[Sidenote: Power to award compensation notwithstanding release of ship.]
+
+21. Where a ship has been taken as prize, a prize court may award
+compensation in respect of the capture notwithstanding that the ship has
+been released, whether before or after the institution of any
+proceedings in the court in relation to the ship.
+
+[Sidenote: Application and effect of Part II. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s.
+31.]]
+
+22.--(1) The provisions of this Part of this Act relating to ships shall
+extend and apply, with the necessary adaptations, to goods taken as
+prize.
+
+(2) The provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect subject to
+any rules of court dealing with the subject-matter thereof.
+
+
+Part III.--INTERNATIONAL PRIZE COURT.
+
+[Sidenote: Appointment of British judge and deputy judge of
+International Court. [_See_ 39 & 40 Vict. c. 59, s. 6.]]
+
+23.--(1) In the event of an International Prize Court being constituted
+in accordance with the said Convention or with any Convention entered
+into for the purpose of enabling any power to become a party to the said
+Convention or for the purpose of amending the said Convention in matters
+subsidiary or incidental thereto (hereinafter referred to as the
+International Prize Court), it shall be lawful for His Majesty from time
+to time to appoint a judge and deputy judge of the court.
+
+(2) A person shall not be qualified to be appointed by His Majesty a
+judge or deputy judge of the court unless he has been, at or before the
+time of his appointment, the holder, for a period of not less than two
+years, of some one or more of the offices described as high judicial
+offices by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, as amended by any
+subsequent enactment.
+
+[Sidenote: Payment of contribution towards expenses of International
+Prize Court.]
+
+24. Any sums required for the payment of any contribution towards the
+general expenses of the International Prize Court payable by His Majesty
+under the said Convention shall be charged on and paid out of the
+Consolidated Fund and the growing proceeds thereof.
+
+[Sidenote: Appeals to International Prize Court.]
+
+25. In cases to which this Part of this Act applies an appeal from the
+Supreme Prize Court shall lie to the International Prize Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Transfer of cases to the International Prize Court.]
+
+26. If in any case to which this Part of this Act applies final judgment
+is not given by the prize court, or on appeal by the Supreme Prize
+Court, within two years from the date of the capture, the case may be
+transferred to the International Prize Court.
+
+[Sidenote: Rules as to appeals and transfers to International Prize
+Court.]
+
+27. His Majesty in Council may make rules regulating the manner in which
+appeals and transfers under this Part of this Act may be made and with
+respect to all such matters (including fees, costs, charges, and
+expenses) as appear to His Majesty to be necessary for the purpose of
+such appeals and transfers, or to be incidental thereto or consequential
+thereon.
+
+[Sidenote: Enforcement of orders of International Prize Court.]
+
+28. The High Court and every prize court in a British possession shall
+enforce within its jurisdiction all orders and decrees of the
+International Prize Court in appeals and cases transferred to the Court
+under this Part of this Act.
+
+[Sidenote: Application of Part III.]
+
+29. This part of this Act shall apply only to such cases and during such
+period as may for the time being be directed by Order in Council, and
+His Majesty may by the same or any other Order in Council apply this
+Part of this Act subject to such conditions, exceptions and
+qualifications as may be deemed expedient.
+
+
+Part IV.--PRIZE SALVAGE AND PRIZE BOUNTY.
+
+_Prize Salvage._
+
+[Sidenote: Salvage to re-captors of British ship or goods from enemy.]
+
+30. Where any ship or goods belonging to any of His Majesty's subjects,
+after being taken as prize by the enemy, is or are retaken from the
+enemy by any of His Majesty's ships of war, the same shall be restored
+by decree of a prize court to the owner.
+
+[Sidenote: Permission to recaptured ship to proceed on voyage and
+postponement of proceedings. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 41.]]
+
+31.--(1) Where a ship belonging to any of his Majesty's subjects, after
+being taken as prize by the enemy, is retaken from the enemy by any of
+His Majesty's ships of war, she may, with the consent of the
+re-captors, prosecute her voyage, and it shall not be necessary for the
+re-captors to proceed to adjudication till her return to a port of His
+Majesty's dominions.
+
+(2) The master or owner, or his agent, may, with the consent of the
+re-captors, unload and dispose of the goods on board the ship before
+adjudication.
+
+(3) If the ship does not, within six months, return to a port of His
+Majesty's dominions, the re-captors may nevertheless institute
+proceedings against the ship or goods in the High Court, or in any prize
+court in a British possession, and the court may thereupon award prize
+salvage as aforesaid to the re-captors, and may enforce payment thereof,
+either by warrant of arrest against the ship or goods, or in the same
+manner as a judgment of the court in which the proceedings are
+instituted may be enforced.
+
+_Prize Bounty._
+
+[Sidenote: Prize bounty to officers and crew present in case of capture
+or destruction of enemy's ship. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 42.]]
+
+32. If, in relation to any war, His Majesty is pleased to declare, by
+proclamation or Order in Council, his intention to grant prize bounty to
+the officers and crews of his ships of war, then such of the officers
+and crew of any of His Majesty's ships of war as are actually present at
+the taking or destroying of any armed ship of any of His Majesty's
+enemies shall be entitled to have distributed among them as prize bounty
+a sum calculated at such rates and in such manner as may be specified in
+the proclamation or Order in Council.
+
+[Sidenote: Ascertainment of amount of prize bounty. [27 & 28 Vict. c.
+25, s. 43.]]
+
+33.--(1) A prize court shall make a decree declaring the title of the
+officers and crew of His Majesty's ship to the prize bounty, and stating
+the amount thereof.
+
+(2) The decree shall be subject to appeal as other decrees of the court.
+
+
+Part V.--SPECIAL CASES OF JURISDICTION.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in case of capture in land expedition. [27 & 28
+Vict. c. 25, s. 34.]]
+
+34. Where, in an expedition of any of His Majesty's naval or naval and
+military forces against a fortress or possession on land goods belonging
+to the state of the enemy, or to a public trading company of the enemy
+exercising powers of government, are taken in the fortress or
+possession, or a ship is taken in waters defended by or belonging to the
+fortress or possession, a prize court shall have jurisdiction as to the
+goods or ships so taken, and any goods taken on board the ship, as in
+case of prize.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction in case of prize taken in expedition with ally.
+[27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 35.]]
+
+35. Where any ship or goods is or are taken by any of His Majesty's
+naval or naval and military forces while acting in conjunction with any
+forces of any of His Majesty's allies, a prize court shall have
+jurisdiction as to the same as in case of prize, and shall have power,
+after condemnation, to apportion the due share of the proceeds to His
+Majesty's ally, the proportionate amount and the disposition of which
+share shall be such as may from time to time be agreed between His
+Majesty and His Majesty's ally.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisdiction of High Court on petitions of right as under 23
+& 24 Vict. c. 34. [27 & 28 Vict. c. 25, s. 52.]]
+
+36.--(1) In any case where a petition of right under the Petitions of
+Right Act, 1860, is presented and the subject-matter of the petition or
+any material part thereof arises out of the exercise of any belligerent
+right on behalf of the Crown, or would be cognizable in a prize court
+within His Majesty's dominions if the same were a matter in dispute
+between private persons, the petition may, if the subject thinks fit, be
+intituled in the High Court as a prize court.
+
+(2) Any petition of right under the last-mentioned Act, whether
+intituled in the High Court or not, may be prosecuted in that court if
+the Lord Chancellor thinks fit so to direct.
+
+(3) The provisions of this Act relative to appeal, and to the making of
+orders for regulating the procedure and practice of the High Court as a
+prize court, shall extend to the case of any such petition of right
+intituled or directed to be prosecuted in that court; and, subject
+thereto, all the provisions of the Petitions of Right Act, 1860, shall
+apply with such adaptations as may be necessary in the case of any such
+petition of right; and for the purposes of this section the terms
+"court" and "judge" in that Act shall respectively be understood to
+include the High Court as a prize court and the judges thereof, and
+other terms shall have the respective meanings given to them in that
+Act.
+
+
+Part VI.--OFFENCES.
+
+her eyes.  It was the first he had ever seen bent on him, and he was
+struck afresh with the pure unsullied beauty of this girl’s face.  Truth
+to tell, his first attraction towards her had been the rumour of her
+fortune, for he was more deeply in debt than he wished the world to
+know; but something in the remoteness and isolation in which she seemed
+to wrap herself piqued and interested him; for his jaded palate required
+fresh food when it was to be had, and the vein of manliness and strength
+which his life had never altogether warped or destroyed responded to the
+sincerity he read in Lady Geraldine’s fair face.
+
+The curtain was down now.  For a few minutes he spoke of the play and
+the water apparatus, worked by a windmill on the roof, which was
+exciting so much interest in London.  Geraldine’s eyes meantime
+travelled round the box.  She saw her mother engrossed in gay talk with
+a small circle of admirers; but one of these edged himself somewhat away
+from the rest, and finally stood apart, leaning against the wall of the
+box and surveying the house from that vantage point.
+
+Geraldine’s eyes were riveted with some interest upon this newcomer,
+whom she was certain she had never seen before.  In some indefinable way
+he was different from the men she had been used to meet at such places.
+For one thing, he wore his own hair; and the floating brown curls, like
+Cavalier love-locks, seemed to her infinitely more becoming than the
+mass of false hair which was so much in vogue in all ranks save the
+lowest.  His dress, too, though far more simple than that of the beaux
+fluttering round her mother, seemed to her far more graceful and
+distinguished.  His stockings, breeches, and vest were all of white,
+with a little silver frosting.  His coat was of pale blue, with silver
+buttons; and his lace cravat, though small and unostentatious, was rich
+in quality, and fastened by a beautiful pearl.  He carried neither muff
+nor snuff-box, cane nor toothpick.  He did not simper nor ogle, nor look
+as though he desired to attract the eyes of the house upon himself.  But
+he was, notwithstanding, a rather notable figure as he stood looking
+gravely and thoughtfully downwards; there was something very graceful in
+his attitude, and in the carriage of his head, and his features were so
+remarkably handsome that Lady Romaine turned her eyes upon him many
+times, and exerted all her artifices to draw him back to her immediate
+neighbourhood.  But he was perfectly unconscious of this, not hearing
+the chatter which went on about him, lost in some reverie of his own,
+which brought a peculiar dreamy softness into his eyes.
+
+Lord Sandford, following the direction of Geraldine’s glance, looked at
+this motionless figure, then back at the girl, and laughed.
+
+"Lady Geraldine, pray permit me to present to you my newly-made friend
+and comrade, Sir Grey Dumaresq, who, I doubt not, is dying to make his
+bow to so fair a lady."
+
+She flashed him a glance half merry, half reproachful, and he suddenly
+laid his hand upon his lips, a laugh rolling from them hearty and full.
+
+"I’ faith I had forgot!  How shall I teach my rebel tongue a new
+language?  But Sir Grey will atone for all my defects.—Here is a lady,
+if you will believe it, O friend, who loves not the sugared and honeyed
+phrase of adulation, but seeks in all things truth, virtue, and I know
+not what else beside.  It is whispered to me that she is a mistress of
+all the _belles lettres_, and perchance a poetess herself."
+
+"Nay, my lord," answered Geraldine, with a blush and a smile—"only one
+who loves the poesy of those who have lived before, and left their
+treasures for us who come after, and would fain drink in all the beauty
+of their thoughts and of their lives."
+
+Lord Sandford good-naturedly yielded his seat to Grey, whose sensitive
+face had lighted at the girl’s words.
+
+"Methought I had come to a world where naught was dreamed of save
+fashion and frippery, false adulation and falser scorn.  I am well-nigh
+stunned by the clamour of tongues, the strife of parties, the bustle of
+this gay life of fashion."
+
+"Oh, and I too—I too!" breathed the girl softly: and he flashed at her a
+quick, keen glance of sympathy and interest.
+
+"I was bred in the country; my grandam brought me up.  I lived with my
+books, amid silvan solitudes, the songs of birds, the scent of flowers.
+This great glittering world of folly and fashion is like a fiery wheel
+going round in my head.  Ofttimes I could cry aloud for mercy, the pain
+and bewilderment are so great.  I know there must be noble men and good
+in this strange Pandemonium; but I know not where to find them, and my
+heart grows sick.  Would that I could go back to my books and my dreams!
+But alas! a maiden may not choose for herself."
+
+"Still there is life here," spoke Grey quickly, "and it behoves us to
+know men as well as books.  I have studied both.  I will study them
+again.  I would fain learn all that life has to teach, whether for weal
+or woe.  No hermit-monk was ever truly a man. Yet there be times when
+one shrinks in amaze from all one sees and hears."
+
+The chord of sympathy was struck.  They passed from one thing to
+another.  She found one at last who knew and loved the poets of her
+childhood’s dreams—who could talk of Spenser and Sidney, of Watson,
+Greville, and Drayton, quoting their verses, and often lighting upon her
+favourite passages.  Here was a man who knew Milton and Clarendon,
+Hobbes, Herbert, Lovelace and Suckling, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and
+Izaak Walton.  He had read eagerly, like herself, poetry and prose,
+drama and epic, lyric and sonnet.  He could speak of Poetry as one who
+had loved and courted her as a mistress.  The girl longed to ask him if
+he had written himself, but maiden shyness withheld her.  Yet her eyes
+brightened as she talked, and the peach-like colour rose and deepened in
+her cheeks; and Lord Sandford, turning back once again from the mother
+to look at the daughter, was struck dumb with admiration and delight.
+
+"There is a rose worth winning and wearing, though the stem may not be
+free from a sharp thorn," he said to himself; and Lady Romaine, who
+chanced to catch sight of Geraldine during a shifting of the admirers
+who surrounded her, gave something very like a start, and felt a curious
+thrill run through her in which pride and envy were blended.
+
+"Gracious!  I did not know I had so handsome a daughter!  I must wed her
+as fast as may be, else shall I find my beaux going from me to her," was
+her unspoken thought; and aloud she said, tapping Lord Sandford with her
+fan, "Pray tell my daughter that I am about to depart.  We have had
+enough of the naiads and dryads, and I am tired and hungry.  Who will
+come home with me to supper—to take pot-luck with us?"
+
+There was an eager clamour in response; but when the supper-party
+assembled round Lady Romaine’s chocolate tables in her favourite private
+parlour, she noted that Geraldine had disappeared to bed, and that Sir
+Grey Dumaresq had not availed himself of her open invitation.
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER VII.*
+
+                             *A FAIR FACE.*
+
+
+If Grey Dumaresq was a man who craved a variety of experiences, and
+wished to see life under different aspects, he was getting his wish now;
+for the gay world of fashion, into which he suddenly found himself
+plunged, differed _in toto_ from any of his former experiences; and so
+swift was the pace, and so shifting the throng amid which he moved, that
+he often felt as though his breath were fairly taken away, and as though
+he had suddenly stepped into a new existence.
+
+Lord Sandford had chanced upon the young baronet at a moment when a
+blank had been made in his own life by the sudden and violent death of
+one who had been his boon companion and friend.  The gay young man, who
+had fallen in a foolish duel a few weeks before, had been the inmate of
+his house and the companion in all his freaks and follies; so much so,
+that without him the young nobleman felt for the moment bewildered and
+lost, and had absented himself from town with a view to "getting over
+it," as he hoped: for he despised himself for any sign of weakness, and
+would not for worlds have had his comrades and boon companions know how
+the loss had affected him.
+
+Then, as it seemed just by a lucky chance, this young and attractive man
+had fallen as from the very skies at his feet.  Grey Dumaresq, new to
+the world of London, curious and speculative, willing to see all, learn
+all, participate in all, seemed exactly the person to fill the gap in
+his life.  Grey had no place of abode; why, then, should he not occupy
+the vacant chambers in the wing of the great mansion in the Strand which
+Lord Sandford used as his customary lodging, when he was not spending
+his time with friends, or making one of a gay party elsewhere?  Grey had
+no valid reason for declining the invitation pressed upon him. Lord
+Sandford was a masterful man, and his strong personality impressed
+itself upon Grey with something between attraction and repulsion.  But,
+on the whole, attraction seemed the stronger power, and curiosity to
+know more of this man and his life held Grey’s soul in thrall.  He had
+always experienced a vivid curiosity to taste life in its various forms,
+to know and understand the thoughts, the feelings, the aspirations, the
+ambitions of other men.  His travels had given him insight into many
+matters; but he felt that these new experiences were likely to be more
+searching, more exciting, more full of keen personal interest.  He had
+been, as it were, a spectator heretofore; now he was to be a
+participator.
+
+He had not meant to be any man’s guest; he had meant to take a modest
+lodging of his own, and look about him for something in the way of
+employment, but Lord Sandford had roared with laughter over such a
+notion.
+
+"What!  Sir Grey Dumaresq going cap in hand to some proud place-giver to
+ask for patronage, or I know not what!  Gadzooks, man, with that face,
+that figure, that horse, and a purse full of guineas, you can do better
+than that!  Trust yourself to me. I’ll show you where fame and fortune
+lie.  You shall redeem your rat-infested old house in a very brief
+while, if you will but trust yourself to my guidance.  You be Damon to
+my Pythias—or is it t’other way round, eh?—and I’ll show you the royal
+road to the goal you want."
+
+For lack of any definite plans, Grey had consented for the nonce to
+accept Lord Sandford’s advice, and had quickly found himself installed
+in some gloomy and stately yet luxurious chambers in a vast house, of
+which only a portion was open for use, and the rest given over to a
+neglect and decay that Hartsbourne itself could scarcely rival.
+
+"But we shall change all that some day," spoke Lord Sandford, with a
+careless laugh, as Grey expressed his surprise at the vast rooms and
+long galleries shut up and infested by rats and spiders. "Oh yes, we
+shall change all that some day; but what does a bachelor want with such
+a house as this?  What should I be the better for a crowd of liveried
+servants, eating off their heads, idling away their time dicing and
+drinking?  What have I to give an army of scullions and cooks to do—I
+who seldom take a meal at home after my morning chocolate?  No, no; I
+know a trick worth two of that. I don’t ruin myself to keep a crew of
+fat, lazy rogues about me, cheating me at every turn.  Half a dozen
+fellows and a few kitchen wenches do well enow for me; but when Lady
+Sandford comes to her husband’s home—ah well! then we shall see the
+difference."
+
+But though he talked jestingly from time to time of the Lady Sandford
+that was to be, he gave Grey no hint as to whether his fancy inclined
+more to one or another of the many gay maidens with whom he chatted and
+flirted, danced and romped, in the fashion of the day; and so
+bewildering and dazzling were these young madams and their surroundings
+that the newcomer was lost in a maze of wonder and bewilderment, and
+found it hard to distinguish one face from another, until he met one,
+different from all the rest.
+
+But Grey was not left idle; he had small time for musing.  The very
+first day of his sojourn in London he was surrounded by a fluttering
+crowd of tailors, glove-sellers, barbers, fencers, sellers and purveyors
+of every imaginable ware, who all professed their eagerness to serve
+him, and quoted Lord Sandford as a patron who could swear to their
+honesty and the excellence of their goods.
+
+Into the midst of this motley throng Lord Sandford thrust himself,
+laughing his great hearty laugh, and quickly sent to the right-about
+two-thirds of the importunate crowd—a jest here, a keen thrust there, a
+slap on back or shoulder in another quarter, emphasizing his forcible
+hints.  And when the room was cleared of all but the lucky few, he flung
+himself into an armchair with another laugh, telling Grey he was sorry
+his knaves of servants, who looked for perquisites everywhere, had let
+in this flood of rogues upon him, but added that he must needs have the
+wherewithal to cut a proper figure in London town, and forthwith set
+about the business of ordering an outfit for the young man which almost
+took his guest’s breath away.
+
+"Poof!" he cried, when the latter strove to remonstrate, "you have
+plenty of money; and these rascals can wait if it suits your pleasure.
+Father’s memory!  Oh, be hanged to all such mawkish sentiment!  You need
+not think less of your father because you wear a blue coat in lieu of a
+black! Rabbit me! but you are of a different world from this if you keep
+alive your father’s memory for six months after his decease!  No, no;
+you must cut a figure.  Sir Hugh’s name is clean forgot by now. I’ll eat
+my boots if ’tis not so.  I’ll have you as gay as my fancy paints you.
+No black—no sables for the gentleman, I tell you.  Let us see those
+other patterns.  Ah! here is something more like."
+
+Grey submitted.  In sooth, he cared but little for the colour of his
+clothes, or the set of his hat, or the cut of his coat.  He let Lord
+Sandford have his way for the most part, only insisting here and there
+upon soft and tender tints, and showing a predilection for white, which
+his friend quite approved.
+
+"You shall be a foil to me, not a rival.  I have learned that art from
+the ladies.  I like to blaze like old Sol in his strength; you shall
+rather recall gentle Luna amid her galaxy of stars.  Faugh! One’s tongue
+gets into this silly trick of speech, so that one cannot drop it even
+betwixt man and man!  But you are right to think that white becomes you
+well.  You will look a pretty fellow, in all conscience, when you have
+added a peruke to your other adornments."
+
+But here Grey stood firm.  Nothing would induce him to cumber his head
+with one of those mountains of hair.  In vain the perruquiers displayed
+their wares; in vain Lord Sandford bantered and laughed, and made out
+that he would be reckoned as a mad fellow by the young bloods of the
+city.  Grey would not yield an inch.  He had always found his own hair
+sufficient and comfortable, and he would wear it to the end.  And as the
+discomfited perruquier at last departed, Lord Sandford broke into
+another of his great laughs.
+
+"I’ faith you are right, man.  I like you the better that you have the
+courage of your opinions, and care no whit for fashion.  You’ll be a
+match for more than the perruquiers yet.  There’s a fighting strain in
+your blood.  I can see it in the glint of your eye. Well, you shall not
+lack opportunity to fight as well as to laugh here in London town; but
+we’ll not have cold steel or hot lead again.  I’ve seen enough of that
+cursed duelling to last me for a lifetime."
+
+Grey was quickly to discover the nature of the battles in which he was
+to take a part, and at the first he shrank from them with an instinctive
+aversion he could not well have defined, being no grave moralist or
+philosopher.  Contests of skill or of luck at the gaming tables were all
+the rage of the day with the young dandies of the town, and the man who
+could keep a steady head, and in some cases a steady hand, was certain
+in the long run to obtain advantage over his fellows.  At one club a
+game something like our modern billiards was all the rage; and, of
+course, a man who was moderate in his cups could score heavily over the
+reckless, dissipated bloods, who were seldom sober after sundown.  Dice
+and cards had their vogue at other places; and though some of the games
+played were those purely of chance, others required no small skill and a
+clear head to ensure success, and it was here that Lord Sandford’s
+strong head and Grey’s cool blood and temperate habits gave them the
+advantage.
+
+The young man had not been a fortnight in town before finding his
+capital doubled, as well as all bills paid to the astonished tradesmen,
+who seldom looked to receive their money within a twelvemonth.  He was
+disposed to be troubled at this easy fashion of making money; but Lord
+Sandford laughed him to scorn.
+
+"Zounds, man, what does it matter?  Those young popinjays are bound to
+lose their money to some one. Why not then to honest fellows like you
+and me, who pay our bills and do good to the community with the money?
+Scruples!  Faugh! you must rid yourself of them!  Sir Hugh Dumaresq’s
+son need not trouble himself thus.  Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
+we die.  Isn’t that good Scripture?"  But the reckless young lord paled
+a little at the sound of his own words.  He had seen sudden death once
+too often for his peace of mind of late.
+
+In sooth, Grey felt but little scruple in taking his winnings.  The
+young man was not greatly in advance of his age, although he was indued
+with a nature more finely strung and aspirations more lofty than
+belonged to most.  Gambling was so much a matter of course both in this
+and in other lands, and the devotees of the amusement so numerous and so
+bent upon their sport, that it would have needed stronger convictions
+than Grey as yet possessed to make any stand on such a point.  He took
+the same risks as the others, and if his coolness of head, steadiness of
+hand, and quick observation and memory served to make for success in his
+case, he rather regarded this as a witness to his superiority, and felt
+only a small sense of reluctance in pocketing his gains; which
+reluctance he could only attribute to a lingering memory of words spoken
+by his mother when he was a growing boy, and news came to them from time
+to time of Sir Hugh’s losses over cards, and the necessity for further
+retrenchments upon the already impoverished estate.
+
+But the cases being so dissimilar, Grey did not see that he need debar
+himself from this easy highroad to fortunes, as it then seemed.  Nobody
+was dependent upon him.  Nobody was there to grieve over his troubles or
+to rejoice over his success.  His honest serving-man was in sooth the
+only being in any way deeply attached to him; and Dick was as delighted
+at his master’s brave appearance, and at the golden stream running into
+his pocket, as though he had achieved some great success or triumph.
+
+There was one way by which Grey had pocketed considerable sums of money
+that was very congenial to him, and had given him some very happy hours.
+This was the speed and strength of his horse, which Lord Sandford had
+made boast of, vowing in the hearing of some of the smartest dandies of
+the town that Don Carlos would beat any steed against whom he was
+pitted—a challenge eagerly taken up by the young bloods, proud of their
+own horses and horsemanship, to whom trials of skill and strength, and
+contests over which wagers might freely be exchanged, were as the very
+salt of life.
+
+So either out at Hampstead, or at Richmond or Hampton Court, Don Carlos
+had been set to show the metal of which he was made, and had come off
+easy victor in every race and every match, whether flat running, or
+leaping, or a course of the nature of a steeplechase had been elected.
+His strength and speed, sagacity and endurance, had never once failed
+him, and already he was the talk of the town, and Grey could have sold
+him for a great price had he been willing to part with his favourite.
+
+Many bright eyes had smiled upon the young centaur, many languishing
+glances had been cast at him.  He had been called up again and again to
+be presented to some high-born dame, or some bevy of laughing maidens,
+and he had bowed with courtly grace, and received their sugared
+compliments with suitable acknowledgments.  But no face had attracted
+him as that face he had seen once at the water theatre, almost upon his
+first appearance in the gay world. He knew that it belonged to Lady
+Geraldine Romaine; and often his eyes roved round some gay assemblage,
+searching half unconsciously for a sight of her tall and graceful
+figure, and the sweet, earnest face, so different from the laughing and
+grimacing crowd in which he now moved.  Grey had not known much of
+women, so far.  His college life first, and then his roving career of
+adventure, had hindered him from making friendships save with those of
+his own sex; and his deep love for his mother had preserved as a living
+power his chivalrous belief in women, and a resolute determination to
+disbelieve the idle, malicious, and vicious tales he heard of them on
+all sides.  Womanhood was sacred to him, and should be sacred to the
+world.  That was his inalienable conviction; and he had striven to be
+blind and deaf to much of what had often been passing around him, that
+he might not sink to the level of the men he met, who would tear to
+tatters a woman’s reputation for an evening’s pastime, or revel in every
+ugly bit of scandal or tittle-tattle that the young beaux’ valets
+learned from the lackeys of other fine folk, and retailed with additions
+at the door of the theatre, the gates of the Park, or on the staircases
+of the fashionable houses whither their masters and mistresses flocked
+for amusement, unconscious or heedless of the gossip spread abroad about
+them by their servants at the doors.
+
+Grey took no pleasure in the society of these fashionable dames.  His
+tongue had not learned the trick of the artificial language then in
+vogue.  He was disgusted by the gross flattery every lady looked to
+receive, and the lisping platitudes of the attendant beaux filled him
+with scorn.  It was small wonder that he chose rather the society of men
+of more virility and stronger fibre, such as Lord Sandford and his
+chosen friends; for though many of them were wild young rakes, and not a
+few had a very doubtful record, yet Grey knew little enough about that,
+and found them not without attraction, although the higher part of his
+nature revolted from much that he saw and heard.  Nevertheless, he
+regarded it all as a part of the experience in life which he craved, and
+he might have become in a short while just such another as these, had it
+not been for an incident which suddenly arrested him in his career of
+dissipation, and turned his thoughts into different channels.
+
+It had been early June when he came to town, and now July had come, with
+its sultry suns and breathless nights, when Grey ofttimes felt after an
+evening over cards that it was mockery to go to bed, and lounged away
+the residue of the night at his open window, enjoying the only coolness
+and freshness that was to be had, as the wind came whispering from the
+river charged with refreshing moisture.
+
+Sometimes the river seemed to call him; and at such times he would lay
+aside his finery, clothe himself in some plainer habit, and betake
+himself through the silent house, where the night watchman was always
+found slumbering at his post, out through the big courts and down to the
+river steps, where a few light wherries were always kept moored, one of
+which he would select, and shoot out upon the glimmering river to meet
+the new day there.
+
+Some of his happiest hours were spent thus; and at such times as these
+he felt rising within him a vague sense of unrest and of disgust.  He
+had come to the world of London to conquer fate, to make for himself a
+name and a career; and here he was wasting day after day in
+coffee-houses or clubs, with a crowd of idlers whose thoughts never rose
+above the fancy of the hour, whose only ambition was to kill time as
+easily and pleasantly as possible, and to line their pockets with gold,
+that they might have more to throw away on the morrow.
+
+Was this what he would come to?  Was this what he was made for?  Would
+he become like unto them, a mere roisterer and boon companion, a man
+without aspirations and without ambition?  His cheeks burned at the
+thought; and he sent his light craft spinning rapidly up the stream as
+the questions formed themselves.
+
+It was an exquisite summer morning.  The bells in the many towers and
+steeples of the city had chimed the hour of five.  The sun had long been
+up, yet the glamour and glory of the new-born day still lay upon the
+sleeping city and the dewy meadows of the opposite shore.  Grey rowed on
+rapidly, yet drinking in the beauty of all he saw.  He knew not how far
+he had rowed; he had lost count of his surroundings; he was absorbed in
+a deep reverie, when he was suddenly brought up breathless and wondering
+by the sound of a voice singing—a voice so clear and sweet and true that
+he asked himself whether it could be any creature of earth that sang, or
+whether it might be some nymph or mermaid such as sailors spoke of in
+their wondrous tales.
+
+He gazed about him.  He saw that he was passing a garden, and that a
+group of weeping willows overhung the water at this spot.  The singing
+seemed to come from thence.  Burning curiosity possessed him, and he
+very slowly and softly rowed himself onwards, till the prow of his boat
+met the drooping boughs with a soft rustle.  The song ceased suddenly.
+Grey turned in his seat, and drew himself within the sheltering shade;
+as he did so, a quick exclamation broke from him.  He dropped his oars
+as he exclaimed,—
+
+"The Lady Geraldine!"
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+How had it come about?  Grey never could have said.  But now it was all
+told—the story of his chequered life.  She had been silent at the
+first—not exactly resentful of his intrusion, not unwilling to let him
+have speech of her again, but quiet, with a maidenly reserve and dignity
+which had acted upon him like a charm.  It brought back to him the
+memory of his mother, and her noble dignity.  The look in her eyes
+recalled those things that he had learned at her knee, and those
+aspirations after true greatness of life which she had cherished and
+fostered. Suddenly his present life looked to him utterly sordid, mean,
+and unworthy; and in a burst of confidence, for which he could have
+given no reason, he told her all his tale, encouraged by the soft and
+earnest glances of her beautiful eyes, although she scarcely spoke a
+word from beginning to end.
+
+And now she looked at him with a great compassion in her face.
+
+"Oh, it is sad, it is sad!" she said in her earnest musical tones.  "I
+know a little how sad it is.  I see it too.  But you are a man.  You are
+strong, you are your own master.  Why do you let yourself be made the
+sport and plaything of fate?  Oh, do not do it! Rise to your calling as
+a man, as a gentleman, as a Christian!  You can—I know you can!  I read
+it in your face!  What is Lord Sandford to you? The acquaintance of a
+few weeks.  What are his comrades to you?  You know that in your heart
+you despise them.  Then will you make yourself as one of them?  Will you
+sink to their level?  Oh no, no, no!  Break the fetters; they cannot be
+fast riveted yet.  Break them, and stand a free man, and then see what
+the world has to offer you."
+
+She was gazing at him now, not shyly, not as a maiden archly coquetting
+with a handsome young swain, but as a woman yearning to reclaim one
+whose footsteps had well-nigh slipped in the mire, and whose whole soul
+was stirred by the effort.
+
+Grey listened like a man who dreams; and yet his eyes were on fire, and
+his heart was kindled to a great flame—shame at his own weakness,
+yearnings after vanished memories and half-forgotten aspirations
+struggling together with some new and utterly unknown emotion which
+seemed to come surging over him like a flood, leaving him speechless,
+motionless.
+
+She had risen, and now held out her hand.
+
+"You will triumph yet.  I am assured of it.  And I shall pray God to
+give you His strength and grace. Farewell, sir; we may meet again
+sometimes.  I shall hear of you.  I shall listen to hear naught but
+good. Your mother’s voice shall plead through mine.  Give up evil
+companions; give up idle dissipation, and all that it brings in its
+train.  Lead the higher life of the Courteous Knight, the Spotless
+Knight, the Knight of the Holy Grail.  Did we not speak of them all when
+first we met, and methought you looked such a one yourself?  Be true to
+that better self; and so I say farewell again.  May God be with you!"
+
+She was gone, and Grey stood looking after her as a man who sees a
+vision.
+
+
+
+
+                            *CHAPTER VIII.*
+
+                        *A STARTLING DISCOVERY.*
+
+
+As Grey Dumaresq drifted downstream with the tide that sunny July
+morning, he felt as though something new and wonderful had come into his
+life, as though some great and marvellous change had fallen upon him,
+which, for good or ill, must leave its mark upon his life.
+
+He did not try to analyze the strange feelings which possessed him.  For
+a time he did not even consciously think.  He seemed to be drifting
+along a shining pathway—drifting, he scarce knew whither, and did not
+care to ask.  His heart was strangely heavy, and yet strangely light.  A
+curious loathing and shame at himself was blended with a sense of
+exultant triumph, which held him in a mood of ecstasy.  For a long while
+he drifted onwards, scarce thinking or knowing whither he went, till a
+sudden consciousness that he was passing Lord Sandford’s house brought
+him to himself with a sense of shock. He had left that house only two
+hours before; yet it might have been as many years that had rolled over
+his head, so different were his feelings, so changed was his outlook
+upon life.
+
+He moored his boat, and went up to his room. Before long he would be
+expected to drink coffee or chocolate at his friend’s levee, meet all
+those of his comrades who had energy to pay their customary _devoirs_ to
+their patron, and discuss the plans for the ensuing day and night.  Grey
+dashed some cold water over his hot head, and sat down to think.
+
+What would Lord Sandford say if he suddenly expressed his intention of
+giving up gambling in all its many insidious forms, in order to enter
+upon a life totally different from that of the past weeks? It was not as
+though he had any alternative plan to unfold to him.  He was as ignorant
+how his fortune was to be made now, after several weeks in gay London
+town, as he had been on his first approach to that city.  He could
+almost hear the great guffaw of laughter with which Lord Sandford would
+greet his confession.  He half feared the powerful personality and the
+imperious temper of the man who had been a good friend to him, and who
+had the reputation of being a dangerous enemy when his will was crossed.
+Grey knew that this man liked him—went near to loving him—would not
+easily let him go.  He knew that he would appear both ungrateful and
+capricious; and the young man writhed at the thought of seeming either
+the one or the other.  But yet he must break away.  Pacing up and down
+the room, he seemed to see the soft earnest eyes of the Lady Geraldine
+bent upon him.  He had pledged his word to her, and in spirit to his
+dead mother.  From that pledge there was no drawing back.  Yet how could
+the break best be made?
+
+He thought over the engagements already entered into.  Was it needful
+that these should be kept? He thought not—at least not those which were
+but promises to meet at such and such clubs or coffee-houses for the
+purposes of card-playing and similar recreations.  But there was one
+engagement that Grey did not see his way honourably to break. He had
+promised to ride Don Carlos the following Saturday in a course against
+three other picked horses, and heavy wagers, he knew, had been laid upon
+or against his steed.  This engagement he felt he could not break; but
+the rest he would.  He might even make the excuse that Don Carlos wanted
+attention, and that he was going to take him into the country for
+purposes of training; and, once away from Sandford House, he ought to be
+able to pen a letter to the master which might excuse his return, and
+explain the nature of the change which had come over him.
+
+Yes, that would be the way.  He would not go open-mouthed to him this
+morning, to be perhaps scoffed or cajoled into some rash compromise.
+Grey knew that his ability to see both sides of a question often led him
+into difficulties and the appearance of vacillation.  Surely he could
+keep his pledge if he made the break with a certain diplomatic skill.
+Not only would it be easier to himself, but it might prove the safer
+method also.
+
+When he saw Lord Sandford in the midst of his friends, laughing at the
+last bit of scandal, passing jokes over the latest repartee of the
+redoubtable Duchess of Marlborough to the meek Queen, discussing the
+rivalries of the ministers, and the other rivalries (to them more
+important) of the reigning beauties of the gay world, Grey felt that it
+would indeed be impossible to speak in this company of any of those
+things which were in his mind.  He contented himself by standing aloof,
+looking out of the window and sipping his chocolate, whilst the gay
+flood of talk surged around him, and he caught a word here and a phrase
+there, but always heard when Lord Sandford’s resonant tones dominated
+those of all others.
+
+"Talk of rival beauties; we shall see sport to-night.  Lady Romaine and
+Lady Saltire—dearest friends and dearest foes—are to go to Vauxhall
+Gardens to-night, each in a new toilet specially designed and ordered
+for the occasion.  It will be a ladies’ battle, in very truth; and
+public opinion must needs decide which of the rival queens is fairest to
+look upon.  I have promised both the dear creatures to be there, to give
+my admiration to both alike. Shall I risk the undying enmity of either
+by giving the palm to one?  No such fool, gentlemen—no such fool is
+Sandford.  I vow I will have ready such a pretty speech or couplet for
+each that she shall go away with a better opinion of me than ever!  Ha,
+ha, ha!  I love to see the pretty dears, tricked out in their finery,
+and ready to tear each other’s eyes out!  So, gentlemen, I cancel all
+previous engagements for to-night.  I am for Vauxhall, and Heaven only
+knows how late we shall be detained there by the battle of beauty."
+
+"We will all be there!" cried the young bloods, who were at all times
+ready to follow Lord Sandford to whatever place of entertainment he
+elected to go; and one voice followed with a laughing question,—
+
+"Will the snow maiden be there in the train of her mother?"
+
+Grey felt himself start, and was glad his face was turned away.  He
+would not for worlds that the sharp mocking eyes of Lord Sandford should
+see him at this moment, albeit he had no notion of any sort that he had
+special interest in his spotless Lady Geraldine.
+
+[Illustration: He stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the
+fair Geraldine (page 155).]
+
+"I trow so," was the carelessly-spoken reply of Lord Sandford, as he
+adjusted his wig and suffered his valet to spray some delicate perfume
+over his person, as a finishing touch to his toilet.  "The Lady
+Geraldine is no longer to lead the life of a nun.  It has been decreed
+that she is to show her lovely face abroad, and add thereby a lustre to
+her mother’s charms."
+
+"A lustre her ladyship would well dispense with," laughed another.  "She
+would sooner pose as the stepmother than the mother of a grown-up
+daughter—ha, ha!  How comes it that this young beauty hath never been
+shown before to the world?  Other damsels make their _début_ at sixteen;
+but the Lady Geraldine can scarce be less than twenty, and has the
+dignity of matronhood."
+
+"A vast deal more dignity than the most part of our matrons do show
+forth," spoke Lord Sandford incisively.  "Doubtless she learned it from
+her grandam, her mother’s mother and her father’s aunt; for my Lord and
+my Lady Romaine are cousins, and Mrs. Adair was trusted and revered by
+both.  Young children are in the way of such gay ladies of fashion,
+wherefore the babe was sent to its grandam, and remained with her till
+the virtuous and discreet old lady died, having bequeathed her store of
+wisdom and discretion to the beautiful maid she had reared."
+
+"And her fortune too," sniggered one gay dandy. "Do not forget that
+item, my lord.  It is whispered that it will make the biggest of her
+charms.  What is the figure?  Doth anybody know?"
+
+All disclaimed any precise information, and Lord Sandford spoke no word;
+his brow was slightly furrowed, and there was a subdued gleam in his eye
+which warned those who saw it that something in the conversation was not
+to his mind.  They therefore hastened to change it, and many of them
+said adieu and sauntered away.  Only a small knot remained with their
+patron, discussing the plans for the day; and Grey stood still in the
+embrasure of the window, his heart still beating with curious violence
+and rapidity.  When those men were speaking of Geraldine, he had scarce
+been able to keep his fingers from their throats.  What business had
+they taking her pure name upon their lips?  And why had they spoken of
+her fortune?  Could it be true that she was so great an heiress?  He
+hated to believe it; yet what was it to him?  He was wakened from his
+reverie by a quick question from Lord Sandford, which he heard as
+through the mists of a dream, and answered,—
+
+"’Tis true I am not quite myself.  I slept not at all last night, and
+have been on the river well-nigh since sunrise to rid me of the vapours.
+Methinks I will seek some sleep in mine own rooms ere night. Reckon not
+on me for to-day’s pastime."
+
+"Ay, you have the air of a man squeamish and in need of rest.  Go get
+thee a good sleep, friend Grey, for we must keep you in fettle for the
+match on Saturday.  Man and beast must come to the field strong and
+robust, with nerve and wind and muscle true and taut.  But you must make
+one of our party to Vauxhall to-night.  There will be many bright eyes
+on the lookout for the gay cavalier, as the ladies call you for your
+love-locks.  You must not fail us there."
+
+For a moment Grey hesitated, prudence and passion fighting together for
+mastery.  But the overwhelming desire to see Geraldine again—perhaps to
+speak a word of farewell—overcame him, and he answered briefly as he
+strolled through the room on his way out,—
+
+"I shall be ready enough for that; you can reckon on me."
+
+How the day passed Grey never knew, and it was still broad daylight when
+he and his comrades started for the gardens of Vauxhall, where it was
+the fashion to spend the evening hours when nothing more attractive
+offered, and where such music and such illuminations as the times had to
+offer were to be enjoyed, and where ladies and their attendant beaux
+fluttered about like so many gay butterflies, and found opportunity as
+the dusk fell for walks and talks of a more private nature in the bosky
+alleys and shady paths than they could hope to gain in crowded routs and
+card-parties.  Supper could be obtained too, and pleasant little parties
+made up; and the fashionable world found it agreeable on these hot
+summer nights to take their pleasure out in the open air.
+
+Grey detached himself from his friends upon the first opportunity, and
+wandered alone through the gardens, avoiding encounters with persons he
+knew, though often accosted with laugh and jest and challenge by masked
+ladies, or young bloods eager to make friends with one whose face and
+figure began to be known, owing to his successes in horsemanship with
+Don Carlos, and his friendship with Lord Sandford.  But Grey made small
+response to overtures, quickly shook himself free, and pursued his
+solitary ramble, till at length a sound of gay voices, laughter, and
+almost uproarious mirth, in which the tones of Lord Sandford could
+plainly be heard, drew him to a wide open space where an illuminated
+fountain seemed to have drawn a great concourse of people; and there,
+amid a tossing crowd of gaudy gallants, and ladies with towering heads,
+mincing, giggling, uttering little shrieks, little jests, or playing off
+an infinitude of coquetries and artifices to attract admiration, he
+beheld the stately white-robed figure around which his thoughts and
+fancies had been playing all through the long hours of the day.
+
+He saw not the rival queens of beauty in their gorgeous apparel.  He saw
+not the surging crowd that eddied around them, appraising, flattering,
+admiring, laughing.  He only saw one white figure, standing aloof and
+for the moment alone, the moonbeams glimmering upon the shining
+whiteness of her dress, the fair face bent, as though in some sort of
+sorrow or shame.  He saw it, and he was instantly at her side.
+
+Whether or not he spoke, he knew not.  He offered his arm, and the next
+moment he was leading her away from that giddy, mocking crowd; and he
+felt the clinging clasp of her fingers thrilling him to his heart’s
+core.  He heard the breath of relief as the chorus of flippant merriment
+died away in the distance. He paused, and a quick exclamation escaped
+his lips.
+
+"This is no place for you, Lady Geraldine.  Why do they bring you
+hither?"
+
+She answered not, but turned her gaze for a moment towards him, and then
+dropped her eyes. With an impulse for which he could not account, he
+covered the fingers which lay upon his arm with his own disengaged hand,
+and passionate words sprang to his lips.
+
+"Give me only the right, fair lady, and I will save you from them all.
+I ask only to live and die as your knight—your champion—without
+wages—without reward!"
+
+Then he was silent.  His breath came thick and fast.  He felt the quiver
+of the hand he held.  He knew not how long the silence lasted, it was so
+strangely sweet, so full of mysterious meaning.
+
+"I thank you, sir.  I trow that you speak truth, and that your words are
+not idle froth—gone in a moment—as the words of so many of yonder
+gallants. But it may not be.  I may not give you such a right. A maiden
+is not free to choose her friends; and the knights of chivalry are long
+since vanished from the earth.  I would that I might call you friend,
+that sometimes we might meet and hold converse together. I trust that I
+may learn a good report of you, that one day I may speak with pride of
+having known you in your youth.  But that must suffice us.  Let it be
+enough for both.  I may not—"
+
+She hesitated, and her voice died into silence. She spoke with a
+repressed emotion which he scarcely understood.  The tumult of his own
+heart was such that he could not seek to gauge the depths of her
+feelings.
+
+"If I may not be your knight, let me at least be your friend—your
+servant!" he pleaded.  "And if there is anything wherein I can serve
+you—"
+
+She seemed struck by the phrase.  She lifted her bent head and gazed
+earnestly at him; but the words she spoke seemed strange.
+
+"You are the friend of Lord Sandford; is it not so?"
+
+"I have been his comrade these many weeks.  He has shown me much
+kindness and good-fellowship. I owe him gratitude."
+
+"And you must know him well, I doubt not.  Tell me, Sir Grey—and I pray
+you deceive me not—what kind of a man is this same Lord Sandford?  Is he
+leal and true, faithful, loving, and loyal?  Is he better than the crowd
+who follow at his heels and ape his manners, use his name as a
+watchword, and fawn upon his favour?  Tell me, what think you of him?  A
+friend must needs speak sooth."
+
+"Lady, you have asked a hard question, inasmuch as I know but little of
+the man, albeit I have lived with him above a month.  He attracts me,
+and yet there be moments when he repels me too.  He is a good friend—I
+would not speak a word against him; yet it is said that he can be a
+bitter and an unscrupulous enemy; and those who have lost his favour
+withdraw themselves as speedily as possible from his notice, fearful
+lest some evil may befall them."
+
+"Is he then cruel and rancorous?"
+
+"I can believe that he might be, were his passions roused.  He has that
+forceful nature which tends to vehement liking and bitter hatred.  I
+have experienced the one; I have not tasted of the other.  For the rest,
+he is a man of parts, and can do all well to which he puts his hand.
+Methinks he would be strong enough to break off his reckless and vicious
+habits, had he but motive sufficient to make him! desire to do so.  But
+for the nonce he floats with the current, and lives as the world lives.
+More I cannot say."
+
+At that moment a swift, firm tread was heard approaching along the dim
+alley; and Geraldine looked hastily round, her hand dropping from Grey’s
+arm.
+
+"It is he!" she whispered, and there was a catch in her voice which the
+young man heard without understanding.  He faced round, and beheld the
+towering figure of Lord Sandford beside them.
+
+"Well chanced upon!" quoth he in his resonant tones.  "I was sent by
+your mother in search of you, Lady Geraldine.  The court of beauty has
+sat.  To her has been adjudged the prize.  She now desires the presence
+of her daughter, to share her triumph. We shall sup anon, and the table
+will not be complete without one gracious and lovely presence. Lady
+Geraldine, honour me by accepting my escort.—Grey, will you join us?"
+
+He spoke the last words over his shoulder, and there was a note in his
+voice which the young man had never heard before, and which he did not
+fully understand.  It seemed to sting him, but he knew not why.
+
+"I thank you—no," he answered.  "I am going home."
+
+And then he stood quite still to watch Lord Sandford lead away the fair
+Geraldine, who threw him one strange, half-appealing glance over her
+shoulder, but spoke no word of farewell.
+
+Grey had meant to go home, but somehow he could not bring himself to do
+so.  His brain seemed on fire, and his heart with it.  He knew not what
+ailed him, but a fever was consuming him.  He left the gardens, but
+walked on and on, not knowing or caring whither he went.  The night was
+far spent, and the dawn was beginning to blush in the eastern sky,
+before he found himself in the region of Sandford House again.
+
+The place was still and deserted.  The revellers and roisterers seemed
+all at home.  A watchman dozed at his post, thankful for the peace of
+the streets, and Grey met no interruption, till suddenly, round a
+corner, he came face to face with his host, who gave him a look, uttered
+a short laugh, and linked his arm within his.
+
+"Well met, friend Grey!  You too have had no desire to woo the somnolent
+god?  We find metal more attractive elsewhere.  Say now, what think you
+of the future Lady Sandford?  Methought you had eyes but for her
+to-night.  Will she not queen it right royally here—the beautiful
+stately creature? You have taste, Grey, and I am well pleased that you
+have.  Those painted, patched, and powdered Jezebels, smirking and
+ogling and running all over the town for the adulation of the crowd, are
+as little to your mind as to mine.  We can flatter and fool and make
+mock with the best; but when it comes to marriage!  Faugh! one’s soul
+sickens at the thought.  What man in his senses would trust his
+happiness or his honour in the hands of that tawdry crew?  Gilt and
+tinsel do very well to play with; but when one desires to purchase, one
+asks for gold."
+
+Grey’s heart seemed to stand still within him.  He felt growing numb and
+cold.  As they passed beneath the gateway, and the lamp shone upon his
+face, Lord Sandford saw that it was white as death, and a strange gleam
+came into his own eyes.
+
+"Come, my friend, you do not answer.  What think you of the wife that I
+have chosen?  What think you of the Lady Geraldine Adair?  Is she not a
+matchless creature?  Who would have believed such a sport could come
+from such a tree?"
+
+Grey commanded himself by a great effort.
+
+"Is the Lady Geraldine Adair, then, your affianced wife?"
+
+"That, or next door to it.  My suit is approved of her parents.  We
+shall be betrothed ere long.  I thought you might be learning as much
+from her own lips to-night.  Did I not hear my name pass between you
+twain?"
+
+"She did ask some question anent you," answered Grey, who had no desire
+to fence or parry—he felt too stunned and bewildered; "but she spoke not
+of any troth-plight.  Why should she?"
+
+"True, why should she?  She is not one of your empty-headed chatterers.
+She wears not her heart upon her sleeve.  And your acquaintance is of
+the slightest; is it not so?  Have you met before, since that evening in
+the water theatre when I did first present you to each other?"
+
+"I have seen her but once between," answered Grey, still in the same
+quiet, stunned fashion; and when they had entered the house, he made
+excuse to go at once to his room, declining all proffer of refreshment
+or further converse.
+
+Lord Sandford looked after him with an intent look upon his face, which
+slowly clouded over, till there was something almost malignant and
+ferocious in his aspect.
+
+"So it is as I thought.  He has been hit, and hard hit.  Where can he
+have seen her in the interim?  They would not have been standing thus,
+talking thus, if some bond had not been established between them.  Yet I
+thought I had kept an eye upon him.  I knew there might be danger.  I
+saw it the first moment that they met.  There is something akin in their
+natures.  They feel it themselves. Hr-r-r-rr! that must be put a stop
+to.  I will have no rival in Geraldine’s heart.  She does not love me
+yet; but she fears me a little, and she thinks of me. That is no bad
+basis to build upon.  I shall win her yet, if I have a fair field.  But
+a rival—no, that must not be!  And yet I read somewhat in her eyes
+to-night which had not been there before.  The fiend take all false
+friends!  I must rid myself of this one, and that speedily.  I have
+liked him; but he shall not stand in my way.  Well, ’tis I have made
+him: I can quickly unmake him.  Let me but think of the way and the
+means.  Grey Dumaresq, you are a pretty fellow and a pleasant comrade;
+but you shall never be suffered to stand in the light of Sandford’s
+hopes and plans and desires.  Look to yourself, my friend; for evil is
+abroad for you!"
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER IX.*
+
+                      *"A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS."*
+
+
+"Master, master, wake up!  What ails you? Have you forgot the day, and
+what has to be done?"
+
+Dick, with an expression of uneasiness and determination upon his face,
+was shaking Grey somewhat vehemently by the shoulder.  The latter seemed
+to find it hard to wake; and when his eyes opened at last, there was a
+lack-lustre expression in them that was strange and unnatural.  Dick’s
+honest face clouded over yet more.
+
+"I was certain there was some devilry afoot when they all came here last
+night.  I have never seen my master in such a mad mood of merriment," he
+muttered half aloud, as he turned away to get a brimming glass of pure
+cold water from the table.  "What has come over them, I don’t know.  But
+I like not the change. I liked not the look in Lord Sandford’s eyes.  He
+is a great man, I doubt it not; but I wish my master had chanced upon
+another as a friend and comrade in this great Babylon of a city.  There
+is more going on here than I well understand."
+
+"What are you grumbling over there to yourself, Dicon?" asked Grey from
+his bed, and his voice sounded more natural and quiet than his servant
+had heard it yet; "and where am I?  For sure this room is strange to
+mine eyes, nor have I any recollection of it overnight; and how come you
+to be here, for that matter, honest Dicon?  Methought you were at
+Hampstead, watching over Don Carlos, that he might be ready for
+Saturday’s race."
+
+"Yes, master, and so I am; and this is the hostelry at Hampstead where I
+have taken up my quarters with the horse; and hither it was that you
+came yestere’en, with Lord Sandford and his friends, to be ready for the
+match to-day.  But beshrew me if I did think yesterday you would be fit
+for the saddle to-day!  Is it strange I should mutter and grumble to
+myself when such things happen?"
+
+"Nay now, what things, good Dicon?  I pray you tell me," spoke Grey, as
+he drained at one draught the ice-cold water, and drew a long breath of
+relief. "I feel like a man waking from a strange and fevered dream; for,
+in sooth, I know but little of what has been passing these last days.
+Some strange madness seems to have possessed me.  I had meant to say
+farewell to Lord Sandford and his world, and seek mine own fortunes in
+some other field.  Yet methinks I have not made the break.  I have
+visions of wild orgies and furious gaming—such as I held aloof from
+before.  Dicon, I fear me I have made a desperate fool of myself, and of
+my fortunes too.  Tell me, what money have I with me now?"
+
+"Not much, master.  I took what you had—a matter of some twenty guineas
+perhaps.  I have it safe in a bag.  But surely that is not all.  You had
+won a fortune, you did tell me—"
+
+"Ay, and now I have lost it.  I can recollect how the guineas flew, and
+how the stakes were doubled, and how I lost again and yet again.  I take
+it I am a ruined man, good Dicon.  These twenty guineas saved from the
+wreck are all the fortune I possess, and belike it is better so—better
+so."
+
+"Better!" echoed the dismayed Dick; "nay, my master.  But you will win
+it back again.  The luck cannot always be against you.  Think how it was
+at the first!"
+
+"Yes, Dicon, and perchance it had been better had the luck been worse.
+I love not such gains as these. Besides, there is somewhat in this
+beyond my ken. Lord Sandford desired my friendship and company then, and
+luck was with me.  Now that he desires it no more, the luck has changed,
+and that so strangely and desperately that one might almost say there
+was magic in it."
+
+Dick’s jaw dropped; he longed to know more, but feared to intrude too
+much upon his master’s secrets. Grey, however, knew how faithful and
+attached was his stanch henchman, and as he went through his morning
+toilet he told him a little of the events of the past three days, in as
+far as he himself could remember them.
+
+"I have offended Lord Sandford doubly," he said, "though he will not
+openly admit it.  But I know—I feel the change.  I trow that he is my
+enemy. Nay, Dicon, look not so aghast; it will matter little in the
+future, since to-day I take my leave of him, and most like in this great
+whirling world our paths will not again cross, either for weal or woe."
+
+"But how?—what?  He did seem to love you well."
+
+"I think he did; but a mischance befell.  He did not tell me of his
+troth-plight to a fair lady—a lady of surpassing beauty, and of a virtue
+and purity which make her like a bright particular star amid the painted
+dames and mincing damsels of this giddy London town. Twice or thrice did
+I meet her and pay homage to her wondrous beauty and goodness.  It was
+words she spoke to me that decided me, ere ever any ill-blood had been
+aroused, to leave off from this life of pleasure-seeking and
+distraction, and seek a nobler career than that of the butterfly dandy
+fluttering round the town.  But Lord Sandford thought that there was
+somewhat more than this betwixt us.  Of that I am assured.  A flame of
+jealousy swept over him; and when I told him of my resolution, I trow
+that his suspicions received confirmation.  I did not see it then, but I
+see it now.  He thought I left him to pursue my ends alone, and,
+perchance, to seek to win the lady of his choice.  But he spoke nothing
+of this—only insisted that for this week my engagements should be kept,
+and that after to-day’s race I might go my own way, an I was so
+resolved.  He was not unkindly; yet there was something strange and
+stern in his bearing and language, and you have seen how his imperious
+temper and will sweep all before them.  I myself was strangely dazed and
+something sorrowful.  I scarce do know why my heart was so heavy within
+me.  I let him have his way; and you behold what that way has been.  I
+am a ruined man, beggared of all my winnings; and methinks my Lord
+Sandford has plotted for this very thing."
+
+"It is a shame!  Would I could take my horsewhip to him—"
+
+"Nay, nay, good Dicon; be not so wroth," spoke Grey calmly and quietly.
+"In sooth, I know not that I owe him aught but thanks.  When all is said
+and done, it was but ill-gotten gain.  I would sooner face life with
+none of it upon me.  I had a few guineas to start with—well, it was more
+than a few; yet had I spent my time in London, I should have had but
+little left by now.  I have learned many lessons, and I shall start
+clear of debt, and without my pockets filled with other men’s gold."
+
+Dick was scarce moralist enough to understand or appreciate his master’s
+scruples—scruples new, indeed, to Grey himself—but the faithful fellow
+was ready to accept any verdict and any decision made by the man he
+loved and served; and as he put the finishing touches to the workmanlike
+riding toilet which he had in readiness, he remarked with a short
+laugh,—
+
+"Faith, master, you and I betwixt us, with Don Carlos and my good nag
+for company, and a few guineas in our pockets, need not fear the future;
+and I trow it will be well for you to be quit for ever of my Lord
+Sandford’s company.  I liked him not greatly for your friend; I hate him
+with a goodly hatred since he shows himself your foe.  Shall we turn our
+backs upon him and upon London town, and seek our fortunes with the army
+over the water, where his Grace of Marlborough will give you welcome?"
+
+"I scarce know what the future will bring for me, Dicon," was the reply,
+spoken gravely, yet with a certain listless indifference not lost upon
+the servant; "I have made no plans as yet.  Let us see what this day
+brings forth first."
+
+"I wager it will fill our pockets anew with gold!"
+
+"I will not touch their gold!" spoke Grey with eyes that suddenly
+flashed fire.  "I have cancelled all my wagers.  I will take nothing at
+their hands. I will ride Don Carlos and ride my best for mine own honour
+and that of the good steed I shall bestride; but their money will I not
+touch.  I have done with all that.  Nay, stare not in such amaze, good
+Dicon.  I have not taken leave of my senses; rather, I trow, I have come
+to my better mind.  Now get me somewhat to eat here, and then we will to
+the stables to see my beauty. This match once over, we turn a new page
+in our life’s story.  Who knows what the next will be?"
+
+It was not much that Grey could eat.  The three days which had passed
+since he and Lord Sandford had come to an understanding, which was
+well-nigh a rupture, had left a mark upon him.  Moreover there was a
+weary ache at his heart which he did not fully understand, and which was
+harder to bear than aught beside.  Dimly he knew that it had some
+connection with the Lady Geraldine Adair; but he feared to search too
+deeply into that matter.  She was as far removed from him as the moon in
+the heavens, and he believed her plighted to another, and that one a man
+who had stood his friend, even though suspicion, jealousy, and an
+imperious temper had changed friendship into something very like enmity.
+Grey never for a moment dreamed of regarding himself as an aspirant for
+that fair hand; but he knew that the motive which was urging him to
+change the manner of his life and become a worthier and a better man was
+the hope that she might watch his career, and hear a whisper of his fame
+or his success; or that he might win some laurels in the fields of
+literature, art, or politics, which he might perchance in some sort lay
+at her feet.
+
+This, however, lurked in the background of his thoughts.  He scarcely
+owned to himself that he expected ever to look upon that fair face
+again; hence the sensation of heart sickness which had rendered him
+well-nigh desperate for a few days, and had helped him to squander
+without a qualm the hoard which his previous successes had accumulated.
+And now the end of this mad life of gay folly had come. He had drained
+the cup to the dregs, and found it bitter to the taste.  He had neither
+liking nor respect for the companions with whom he had associated.
+Towards Lord Sandford his feelings were very mixed. The power of the man
+was too great to be shaken off entirely, nor could he despise or dislike
+him.  But the tie of friendship had snapped asunder.  A chasm had opened
+between them, and he felt that he was regarded, if not as a foe, yet as
+something akin, and it needed not Dick’s words of warning to tell him
+that the less he saw of this man in the future the better it would be
+for himself.
+
+Sounds of laughter and revelry greeted his ears as he slipped quietly
+out towards the paddock and shed where his horse had been stabled these
+past weeks, tended and exercised by Dick, and ready for whatever demand
+might be made upon him.  He greeted his master with a neigh of
+recognition, dropped his nose in the extended hand, and stood tranquil
+and content under Grey’s quiet caresses.  The glossy coat was satin
+smooth, the delicate tracery of veins could be distinctly seen, and each
+muscle stood out hard and taut; there was no superfluous flesh, but a
+firmness and excellence of condition that brought a smile of
+satisfaction to Grey’s face.  He turned with a smile to Dick, who stood
+by beaming.
+
+"Not much fear of him to-day, eh, Dicon?"
+
+"He would jump the moon, master, if you asked it of him," was the proud
+and confident answer.
+
+"How do the others look?  Have you seen them?"
+
+"Pretty bits of horseflesh every one; and there is a black stallion of
+Mr. Artheret’s that will take some beating.  But he’s too heavy for some
+of the jumps. He don’t take off fast enough.  And he’s a nasty temper
+too.  There’s a gray Arab with pace; but he falls away behind, as they
+all do.  I don’t think Don Carlos will be troubled long by him.  None of
+the others will take much beating.  Pretty to look at, but not trained
+for what they’ve got to do.  Lord Sandford was here yesterday early,
+looking at the jumps, and he had several of them made stiffer; but
+there’s nothing Don Carlos cannot sail over like a bird!"
+
+"Let us go and see," said Grey.  "I will take a canter on the turf to
+warm myself to the saddle. Soh, boy, soh!" as he lightly vaulted to his
+seat, and the horse curveted beneath him.  "We will take a look at these
+obstructions.  The stiffer they are, the better you and I will be
+pleased—eh, my beauty?"
+
+Dick mounted his nag, and rode beside his master to the course, where
+the horses were to be matched against each other when Lord Sandford and
+his friends should have finished their merry meal, and be ready to
+witness the exhibition.  It was a fine stretch of ground which had been
+chosen—nearly a mile in length, and with several natural obstacles,
+which had been increased in some cases artificially, to test better the
+strength and skill of horse and rider.  A stream of water with rather
+awkward banks ran across the course in one place, and in another was a
+dip in the ground filled with gorse bushes—a nasty place to get
+entangled in, if the horse could not be persuaded to clear the whole
+thing with a flying leap.  A broken stone wall with a ditch in front was
+another obstacle; and the last was a barrier entirely artificial, made
+of hurdles and bushes high enough to tax the mettle of any horse, though
+not absolutely insurmountable. Still it was a formidable object enough,
+and Grey looked at it critically, walking Don Carlos up and down, to let
+the creature take his own observations with regard to the leap he was to
+make.
+
+"It was here they were busy yesterday, but I could not see all they did.
+I was afraid to leave Don Carlos with so many strangers about.  Some of
+the grooms with the other horses looked up to mischief. But I heard them
+say afterwards that Lord Sandford had not been satisfied with the field
+as it was.  He said they must have something that really would be a
+test, or the black stallion and Don Carlos were like to come in
+together."
+
+But now a horn blew gaily, and horsemen were seen approaching from many
+quarters.  In the neighbourhood of the inn all was bustle and
+excitement, whilst from all sides there appeared streams of people
+converging to this spot.  Some fine carriages had been driven out from
+London, with bedecked ladies eager to witness the contest.  Others had
+stayed the night in the neighbourhood to be ready; and all the natives
+of the place who could get a holiday had come to gape at the fine folks,
+and see the grand gentlemen racing their own horses.
+
+Indeed the hour for the contest had well-nigh come.  Grey could see that
+the other horses were assembling, their riders decked in every colour of
+the rainbow, quite eclipsing the quiet and workmanlike suit of buff
+which he wore.  But Grey’s taste had always disinclined him to gaudy
+colours.  The soft leather, finely chased and stamped in gold, pleased
+his eye more than rich-hued cloths or velvets.  His breeches were of
+white buckskin cut by Lord Sandford’s own tailor, and he wore long boots
+fitted with silver spurs, albeit he scarcely ever had need of the latter
+when he bestrode Don Carlos.  His scarf was of white silk fringed with
+gold, and his only adornment was a cravat of fine lace, fastened with a
+diamond clasp.  His cocked hat matched his buff coat, and was adorned
+with a white plume.  Altogether, as he rode forward to his place, it
+would have been hard to find a fault with his dress or person; and the
+ladies behind their fans audibly praised his elegant figure, graceful
+seat, and distinguished and handsome face.
+
+Grey, all unconscious of the favour bestowed upon him, rode up and
+saluted courteously the gentlemen who were to meet him and each other in
+rivalry. Lord Sandford, splendidly mounted, was to act as judge at the
+winning post.  Another of his friends was to be starter; and gentlemen
+were posted at various points along the course to see that all the rules
+laid down were observed, and that no rider deviated from the
+well-pegged-out route prescribed for all.  The spectators scattered
+hither and thither, taking up stations wherever their fancy prompted.
+The course seemed marked out by a glittering border extending down both
+sides.  The sun shone brilliantly in the sky, and all nature seemed in
+gladsome mood.
+
+Grey cast a keen look at the seven rival steeds as they were brought
+into line for the start.  He picked out in a moment the two of whom
+Dicon had spoken, and saw that he had judged well.  Then he gave his
+whole mind to the task in hand, checked with hand and voice the prancing
+of the excited Don Carlos, and brought him up to his appointed place
+docile and motionless.
+
+The word was given, but the black stallion had bounded off a few seconds
+too soon, and had to be recalled.  A second start was spoiled by two
+other competitors, who suddenly reared at each other, and strove to
+fight.  One iron hoof, indeed, inflicted such a wound upon the shoulder
+of his neighbour that that horse had to be taken away limping and
+bleeding.
+
+It was trying to all, horses and riders alike; but at the third start
+all got off, though Grey saw that again the black stallion had made his
+bound a second too soon.  This gave him a few yards the advantage,
+which, as his rider pressed him hard from the first, and his temper was
+evidently up, he increased in the next minute to more than a length.
+The Arab and Don Carlos were neck and neck, and sailed over the first
+easy jump side by side, the stallion having cleared it with a tremendous
+bound a couple of seconds earlier.
+
+The water jump was next, and it was obvious that one spot offered
+greater advantages to the horse than any other.  The stallion made for
+this spot with a rush, took off and bounded clear over, just as Don
+Carlos and the Arab came rushing up neck and neck, each rider desirous
+of the advantage of the sound bank.  Grey set his teeth and glanced at
+his adversary.  A collision at the leap might be fatal to one or both,
+so far as the race went.  His rival would not budge an inch—that he saw.
+With a muttered oath between his teeth, he pulled his left rein, and
+used his knees.  Don Carlos felt, and instantly understood: swerving
+slightly, he gathered himself together, and rose magnificently where the
+water was wider and the bank less safe; but he landed safely, and with a
+hardly perceptible scramble found his feet again, and amid the plaudits
+of the people raced on after the Arab, who, having got a momentary
+advantage, was now slightly in advance.
+
+The black stallion had just reached the downward dip leading to the deep
+ditch filled with gorse bushes. His rider had had perforce to pull him
+up somewhat, lest he should slip and fall, for the ground was sandy and
+treacherous.  But Don Carlos had been born and bred to this sort of wild
+work, and dashing onwards and downwards with the agility of a deer, came
+neck and neck with his rival, and having passed the Arab, cleared with a
+bound the treacherous gully, landing true and safe upon the opposite
+side.  The Arab followed in his tracks, his rider taking advantage of
+the lead given; but the black stallion slipped and snorted, could not be
+made to try the leap till another of the horses came up and took it,
+after which he sprang across with a vicious energy which tried the
+horsemanship of his rider, and tore like a wild thing after the leading
+pair.
+
+These had cleared one after the other the wall and ditch; but the Arab
+was showing signs of distress, whilst Don Carlos looked fresh and eager
+as at the start.  There now remained only a quarter of a mile of smooth
+sward, and then the last critical jump; and Grey, knowing himself first,
+and not knowing what had betided his rivals, sailed happily onward,
+secure of victory, though he heard behind him the thud of flying horse
+hoofs, and knew that the black stallion was not beaten yet.  It was he
+who snorted with such excitement and fury, and seemed to awaken thunders
+with his iron-shod hoofs.
+
+One glance over his shoulder, and Grey passed his whip very lightly
+across the neck of Don Carlos. The gallant animal sprang forward like an
+arrow from a bow, showing how well within himself he had been travelling
+so far.  The sound of other beating hoofs was fainter now.  Grey looked
+keenly at the great obstacle looming up in his path, and measured the
+height at various places, deciding where the leap could best be taken.
+
+He felt the tension of the muscles beneath him. Don Carlos was gathering
+himself together for the leap.  He would not fail, falter, or refuse.
+The great mass seemed rushing up against him.  He felt the slackening
+with which Don Carlos faced his task, the motion of his flanks as he
+took off and rose. Then what was it happened?  The sound of a click,
+sharp and clear—a sickening sensation of falling, sinking, struggling,
+plunging.  Grey felt for a moment as though the end had come.  He and
+his horse seemed falling into the very bowels of the earth. A black
+shadow almost overhead showed him that the stallion had cleared the
+barrier, and the air was full of shouts, screams, cheers, and cries.
+
+Next moment he felt strong hands lifting and dragging him upwards.
+Dick’s white face looked into his own, and the first words he heard were
+hissed in his ear by his faithful henchman.
+
+"Foul play, foul play, my master.  That ditch was dug and concealed—ay,
+and more than concealed; it has been an old well at some time, and it
+will open with a spring.  You have been grossly tricked and cozened.  It
+has been a trap cleverly laid and baited. But let me only get at them—my
+Lord Sandford—"
+
+Dick almost choked in his fury; but Grey was now on his feet, and his
+one thought was for the good horse, who had dropped downwards into this
+unseen, unsuspected pit, and was gasping in affright, but might possibly
+have escaped serious injury.  He himself felt little ill effects, having
+had a marvellous escape.  But his soul was stirred within him, and in
+getting out the horse he saw plainly that Dick had been right, and that
+some sort of old trap-door concealed an opening into the ground which
+might have been at one time a well, but was now silted up with sand.  By
+luring the foremost rider to this particular spot to take the leap, any
+astute enemy aware of the nature of the ground could almost certainly
+ensure his overthrow and defeat; and Grey had his suspicions that Lord
+Sandford had hoped that he might then and there break his neck—a thing
+which might very well have happened.
+
+There was a crowd round the spot now, and great horror was expressed by
+many at sight of the unsuspected well, no voice being louder than Lord
+Sandford’s in proclaiming astonishment and indignation. But Grey took no
+notice of the clamour, only busying himself about his horse; and
+presently, with some difficulty, the sagacious and docile creature was
+got out, and it appeared that no limb was broken, though one hock was
+deeply cut, and one shoulder badly strained.
+
+Grey stood in silent thought awhile, his hand upon the neck of his
+favourite, who stood with drooping head and dejected mien, as though
+wondering whether he would ever be whole and sound again.  Dick was
+binding up the wound, his face like a thunder-cloud. A knot of persons
+of all ranks stood watching at a little distance; but Grey had
+courteously waved away all proffers of help, and indicated that he
+desired no attentions.
+
+"Dicon," he said in a low tone, "we must now part for a while.  Don
+Carlos will need you more than I.  He is now my sole fortune, and must
+be respected as such.  Take him and your own nag, and walk them both by
+easy stages to Hartsbourne. There are paddocks enough and to spare, and
+I surely have the right to pasture my horse in one; but if the thing
+should come to my kinsman’s ears, give him what is due in money, and I
+will repay you.  Old Jock Jarvis will be your friend.  He will rejoice
+in your company and give you house-room with him, and it is not so far
+but that I can get news of you from time to time.  Your good horse will
+bring you to London in three hours or less any day you have a mind to
+come; and you can watch for me what goes on yonder, and bring me word
+again."
+
+It was a grief to Dick to part from his master; but he saw the need, and
+he loved the horse only second to Grey himself.
+
+"I will do your behest, master.  Nay, I want no money; I have plenty for
+all my needs.  I too have made some modest wealth here in this great
+city. Only tell me where I may find you, and I will be gone, and do what
+can be done for the poor beast."
+
+"You shall always get news of me at Wills’ Coffee House, good Dicon,"
+was the answer.  "Where I go and how I live, I know not yet; but I will
+leave word there for you.  So now, farewell.  I turn a new page in my
+life from this day forth."
+
+
+
+
+                              *CHAPTER X.*
+
+                           *"THE OLD LION."*
+
+
+Grey Dumaresq, having settled matters with his servant, and adjusted the
+disarray of his own dress and person, turned towards a group of men who
+were standing round Lord Sandford, making believe to laugh and jest, but
+showing some vague symptoms of uneasiness as they cast sidelong glances
+in the direction of their erstwhile comrade.
+
+Grey walked straight up to Lord Sandford, and looked him full in the
+eyes.  Did the glance of the other quail ever so little before his?  He
+thought so, but could scarce be certain.
+
+"My lord," he said, "I have to thank you for many acts of kindness and
+courtesy, and a certain liberality of treatment which I have received at
+your hands and within your doors.  In taking my farewell, I wish freely
+to acknowledge all this debt.  But other matters which I need not
+specify, yet which are well understood by your lordship, have transpired
+to change the relations betwixt us; and I wish to add that I desire to
+be beholden to no man.  In the rooms allotted to me in your lordship’s
+house there is a quantity of wearing apparel, jewels, trinkets, for
+which I have no more use.  I pray you have them sold, and the amount
+thus realized will reimburse you for all charges you have been at in my
+maintenance during the time I have dwelt beneath your roof. That is all
+I have to say.—Gentlemen, I wish you a very good day."
+
+And lifting his hat with quiet dignity and grace, Grey made them a
+general salute and turned upon his heel.
+
+But Lord Sandford’s voice came thundering after him. "Do you desire to
+insult me, sir?  Am I a beggarly inn-keeper, that I should sell a
+guest’s belongings to pay my bill?  What do you mean by such words?  Do
+you desire that I should demand satisfaction for them at your hands?"
+
+Grey did not know whether this man desired to fasten a quarrel upon him
+or not, and, truth to tell, he did not care.  He just turned his head
+over his shoulder, and threw back an answer in tones of scarcely veiled
+contempt.
+
+"That is for your lordship to decide.  I shall have pleasure in giving
+any satisfaction demanded at any time, and in any place appointed.  For
+the rest, a man who has sought to compass the death of a comrade by a
+foul trick need scarcely fear to soil his hands by the touch of his
+gold.  Again I wish you good-day, my lord."
+
+And without so much as turning his head again, Grey Dumaresq walked off,
+his head held high, neither observing nor returning the many salutes and
+bright arch glances shot at him from the lane of bystanders through
+which he needs must pass, but walking like a man in a dream, and so
+disappearing from view along the white road which led Londonwards.
+
+Round Lord Sandford men were buzzing like bees disturbed.
+
+"Insolent young jackanapes!"  "What did he mean?"  "What was his motive
+in such an insult?"  "What will you do, my lord?"  "Whither has he gone?
+Whither will he go?"  "Is it true that he is ruined?"  "He has lost his
+horse, at least. None will give him a score of guineas for the beast
+now."  "How did it chance?"  "Was it an accident?"  "What meant he by
+his words?"  All were pouring out these and like questions; but there
+was none to answer them, till Lord Sandford himself spoke.
+
+"The fellow’s wits are gone astray," he cried in his loud, dominating
+tones.  "It is the Dumaresq blood.  Sir Hugh was just such another—mad
+as a March hare half his time, flinging his gold to the winds, and
+quarrelling with every man he met.  Like father, like son.  It has been
+coming on for days. I misdoubted me if ever he would ride this race. He
+came and told me he must reform.  That was ever his father’s cry, and he
+would disappear into the country for a while, and reappear again as gay
+as ever.  ’Tis the same with the son.  I saw it then, and I strove to
+combat the madness; but ’tis ill dealing with the lunatic.  You see what
+we get for our pains!  Tush! let the fellow alone.  I did wrong to
+answer him.  Let him go his own way, and we will think of him no more."
+
+And Lord Sandford, with a heavy cloud upon his brow, and a look about
+the corners of his mouth which warned those about him to say no more,
+but leave matters as they were, flung away from them, and made his way
+back alone to the inn, from which he was presently seen to issue forth
+in his gorgeous chariot, driving furiously along the road which led to
+St. Albans.
+
+His boon companions, thus left to their own devices, went over to the
+spot where the strange thing had befallen at the race, and where the
+country folk had gathered with shakings of the head and questionings
+beneath their breath; and there, plain for all men to see, was the
+yawning hole with the open trap hanging down, and the marks of the heavy
+fall of the good horse, whose escape with whole bones was little short
+of a miracle.
+
+An old countryman was holding forth to a knot of eager questioners, now
+swelled by Lord Sandford’s friends.
+
+"I mind well when there was a house here; ’twas pulled down when I were
+a young chap.  And the well must ha’ bin hereabouts.  That old trap has
+been in the ground ever since I can mind; but there be no water now, and
+the sand has pretty nigh silted it up.  I’ve a-looked in many a time,
+and the hole gets less and less deep.  When I saw them setting up the
+brushwood and things here, I made sure they had covered the trap well.
+I walked about it, but never saw sign of it.  If I’d a thought of
+danger, I’d ha’ told one of the fine folks.  I suppose they never seed
+it.  The grass and stuff do grow long and rank this time o’ year.  And
+so the gentleman’s horse trod on it, and it gave way with him.  Mercy
+me, but ’tis a wonder he didn’t break his neck then and there!"
+
+Lord Sandford’s comrades looked each other in the eyes, and drew a
+little away.  All knew that something strange had passed upon him of
+late, and that there was some rupture betwixt him and the man who had
+but lately accused him of seeking to compass his death.
+
+"Did he know?"  "Was it plot or plan of his?" whispered one and another;
+but none could give the answer.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+A wild, wet September day was drawing to its close, amid pelting squalls
+of cold rain, when a tall young man, gaunt and hollow-eyed, pushed his
+way into a small coffee-house in an obscure thoroughfare somewhere in
+the region of Drury Lane, and took a seat in a dark corner as near to
+the stove as he could get, for he looked pinched with cold, and his
+plain and rather threadbare black suit was pretty well wet through.  As
+soon as he was seated, he drew from his breast a roll of paper, which he
+regarded with solicitude.  That at least was dry, and he heaved a sigh
+that sounded like one of satisfaction.
+
+In this narrow street the daylight had completely faded, though it was
+not yet six o’clock.  The room was furthermore darkened by clouds of
+tobacco smoke which the guests were puffing forth.  The smell of coffee
+mingled with the ranker fumes of the tobacco, and the clink of cup and
+spoon made ceaseless accompaniment to the talk, which went on in a
+continuous stream.
+
+Grey (for it was he) leaned his head on his hand wearily, and fell into
+something like a doze as he sat in his shadowy corner.  He was exhausted
+in mind and in body.  He was faint with hunger, and yet half afraid to
+order food; for his funds were dwindling almost to the vanishing point,
+and as yet he had found no means of replenishing his exchequer. But he
+had not been able to resist the temptation to escape from the buffetings
+of the tempest, and when the boy in attendance upon the guests came to
+ask his pleasure, he ordered some coffee and bread, and devoured it with
+a ravenous appetite when it was set before him.
+
+The pangs of hunger stayed, if not appeased, he began to look about him,
+and to wonder into what manner of company he had thrust himself.  He had
+never before been inside this house, though he had, in the first days of
+his new career, taken his meals in some of the numerous coffee or
+chocolate houses, or the taverns which abounded throughout the town.
+Latterly he had generally bought his food at the cheapest market, and
+had eaten it in the attic to which he had removed himself and his few
+belongings.  He was beginning to wonder how long he should be able even
+to retain that humble abode as his own.  Dame Fortune’s smiles seemed
+quite to have deserted him, and abject poverty stared him grimly in the
+face.
+
+A smoking lamp had been brought in, and hung overhead, lighting up the
+faces of the company with its yellow glare.  There was something strange
+and Rembrandt-like in the effect of the picture upon which Grey’s eyes
+rested.  Leaning back dreamily with his head against the wall, he could
+almost fancy himself back in one of those foreign picture galleries, in
+which heretofore he had delighted, and where so many hours of his time
+had been spent.
+
+But this was a living picture, shifting, changing, breaking up into
+groups and re-forming again; and the hum of talk went on unceasingly, as
+one after another took up the word and launched forth his opinions,
+generally in florid and flowery language, and with much gesticulation
+and indignation.
+
+What first struck Grey as strange was the anger which seemed to possess
+all these men.  That they were in no good case was well-nigh proved by
+the shabbiness of their dress, and by the fact of their being gathered
+in this very humble and cheap place of resort, which would not tempt any
+but those in adverse circumstances.  But over and above their poverty,
+they seemed to be railing at neglect or injustice of some sort, and ever
+and anon would break out into virulent abuse of some person or persons,
+whose names were unknown to Grey, but who evidently were characters well
+known to the others of the company.
+
+"There is no such thing as justice left, or purity of taste, or any such
+thing!" shouted a handsome, well-proportioned fellow, whose face had
+attracted Grey’s notice several times, and seemed dimly familiar to him.
+"Look at the mouthing mountebanks that walk the boards now!  They strut
+like peacocks, they gibber like apes.  They have neither voice, nor
+figure, nor talent, nor grace.  But, forsooth, because some fine dame
+has smiled upon them, or they are backed by a nobleman’s patronage, they
+can crow it over the rest of us like a cock upon his dunghill, and we,
+who have the talent and the gifts, may rot like rats in our holes!"
+
+"Shame! shame! shame!" cried an admiring chorus.
+
+"Look at me!" thundered the young man, his eyes flashing.  "Who dares
+say I cannot act?  Have I not held spellbound, hanging on my lips, whole
+houses of beauty and fashion?  Have I lost my skill or cunning?  Has my
+voice or has my grace departed from me?  Wherefore, then, do I sit here
+idle and hungry, whilst men not fit to black my boots hold the boards
+and fill their pouches with gold?  Why such injustice, I say?"
+
+A chorus of indignation again arose; but out of the shadows came a deep
+voice.
+
+"The answer is easy, friend Lionel; arrogance and drink have been the
+cause of your downfall.  How could any manager continue to engage you?
+How many times has it happened that you have come to the theatre sodden
+with drink?  How many representations have you spoiled by your bestial
+folly? They were patient with you.  Oh yes, they were very patient; for
+they knew your gifts and recognized them.  But you met friendly rebuke
+or warning with haughtiness and scorn.  You would listen to no counsel;
+you would heed no warnings.  The end should have been plain to you from
+the beginning, an you would not mend your ways.  I told you how it needs
+must be; and now the time has come when you see it for yourself.  Worse
+men are put in the parts that you excelled in, because they can be
+depended upon.  No drunkard can ever become great.  Put that in your
+pipe and smoke it, Lionel Field."
+
+At the sound of this new voice, speaking out of the shadows of the
+ingle-nook, a great hush had fallen upon the room.  Grey leaned forward
+to obtain a view of the speaker, and the firelight played upon the
+striking features and iron-gray hair of a very remarkable-looking old
+man of leonine aspect, whose voice was of that penetrating quality which
+makes itself heard without being raised; and it was plain that something
+in the personality of the man lifted him above his fellows, for all
+listened in silence whilst he spoke, and even the arrogant young actor
+looked for the moment abashed.
+
+"Who is it?" whispered Grey to the man next him; and the answer came
+readily, though spoken in a cautious whisper.
+
+"His name is Jonathan Wylde.  Once he, too, was a famous actor; but long
+illness crippled his limbs, and he has fallen into poverty.  He is
+always called the Old Lion, and methinks the name suits him well.  He is
+a very lion for courage, else would he not dare to rebuke Master Lionel
+Field.  For he is one who is ready with his fist, or with knife or
+bludgeon, and it is ill work meeting him when he is in his cups."
+
+Grey looked with interest and attention at the old man in the shadows;
+but he was leaning back again, and spoke no more.  The talk surged round
+him again from the rest; they spoke of the plays that were being enacted
+at the various theatres, and of those who were playing the various
+_rôles_.  Some of them stood up and rolled forth bits of Congreve’s
+witty and sparkling dramas, and disputed as to whether the "Old
+Bachelor" or the "Way of the World" were his happiest effort; whilst
+some declared that the "Double Dealer" was the best of all.  They talked
+excitedly of the revival at Drury Lane of Farquhar’s "Love and a
+Bottle," which had scored such a success some fourteen or fifteen years
+previously.  And there were some who lauded and some who depreciated
+Colley Cibber and his "Careless Husband" and "Love’s Last Shift," which
+were favourites throughout the town.
+
+It was a new world to Grey; but he listened with a certain fascination,
+for the drama had always attracted him, and he watched the gestures of
+the actors and listened to their mouthing periods with something between
+wonder and amusement.  He could understand that these men had been
+failures. Only Lionel Field appeared to have any true histrionic gift,
+and the cause of his downfall was plain to be read after the speech of
+the "Old Lion."  From time to time, as the light flickered upon the
+striking face in the ingle, Grey caught a fine-lipped smile upon it, and
+once or twice he thought the old actor’s eyes met his in a gleam of
+humour.  But of that he could not be sure—it might be but the trick of
+the firelight; and presently wearied nature asserted itself, and the
+young man passed from drowsiness to actual sleep, and knew nothing more
+till a sharp grip upon his arm roused him to a sense of his
+surroundings.
+
+It was the tapster who thus shook him; and when he opened his eyes, Grey
+saw—or thought, at least—that the room was empty.  What the time was he
+had no idea; but it must be late, and he rose hastily to his feet with a
+muttered apology at having overstayed the closing time.
+
+At that moment there emerged out of the shadows of the ingle-nook a bent
+figure, dignified even in its infirmity, and the voice which Grey had
+heard before spoke in quietly authoritative accents.
+
+"Bring hither coffee and a dish of eggs for two. The wind and rain yet
+howl around the house.  This gentleman will sup with me ere we go home.
+Go and serve us quickly, for we have both a good stomach, and would eat
+ere we depart hence."
+
+The tapster vanished quickly to do the bidding of the guests, and Grey
+turned a wondering glance upon the Old Lion, whose face, framed in its
+shaggy gray hair, looked more leonine than ever, the bright eyes shining
+out of deep caverns from under bushy brows, the rugged features full of
+power, not unmixed with a curious underlying ferocity.  But the glance
+bent upon Grey was kindly enough.
+
+"Sit down, young man; I would know more of you.  I have a gift for
+reading faces.  I have marked yours ever since you entered this room.
+Tell me your name.  Tell me of yourself, for you were not born to the
+state to which you have now fallen."
+
+"My name is Grey," was the ready answer.  Grey had dropped his title and
+patronymic with his fallen fortunes, and used his mother’s name alone.
+"My father was a country gentleman.  I was gently reared, and was at one
+time a scholar at Oxford, where I dreamed many dreams.  Afterwards I
+travelled abroad, returning to find my father dead and my home in the
+hands of a kinsman to whom it was mortgaged by my father.  The small
+fortune I received I squandered foolishly in a few weeks of gay living
+with young bloods of the town.  I wakened from my dream to find myself
+well-nigh penniless, disgusted alike with myself and those I had called
+my friends. I have ever been something ambitious.  I misdoubt me I am a
+fool; but I did think that I might win laurels upon the field of
+literature.  I have never lost the trick of rhyming, and jotting down
+such things as pleased my fancy, whether in prose or in verse. Do I
+weary you with my tale?"
+
+"No, sir—far from it.  Let me hear you to the end.  I did see you take
+forth a roll of paper from your breast as you came in.  That action,
+together with your face, told me much.  You have the gift of a creative
+fancy.  You have written a poem or a play."
+
+"Neither the one nor the other, but a romance," answered Grey, the
+colour flushing his face as it flushes that of a maiden when the love of
+her heart is named by her.  "I scarce know how to call it, but methinks
+it savours more of a romance than of aught besides.  When I was rudely
+awakened from my pleasure-loving life, saw the folly and futility
+thereof, and desired to amend, I did take a quiet lodging high up in a
+building off Holborn, and there I did set myself to the task, and right
+happy was I in it.  I had a score of gold pieces still left me, and my
+needs I did think modest; though, looking back, they seem many to me
+now.  The weeks fled by, and my work reached its close.  When my romance
+was finished, my money was all but spent.  For the past week or more I
+have been seeking a publisher for it.  In my folly I did think that it
+would bring me gold as fast as I wanted.  My eyes have been rudely
+opened these last days."
+
+The Old Lion nodded his head many times.
+
+"You made a mistake in seeking a publisher, young sir.  You should first
+have sought a patron."
+
+Grey’s face flushed slightly, and he hesitated before he spoke.
+
+"Others have said the same to me; but there are difficulties.  I have
+not learned to go cap in hand to cringe for patronage to the great ones
+of the earth."  But, as Grey saw a slight smile flicker in the old man’s
+eyes, he added rather hastily, "And then I desire not to be known and
+recognized by those whom I did know ha my former life.  There is scarce
+an antechamber in those fine houses where patrons dwell where I might
+not meet the curious and impertinent regard of those who would know me
+again. That I will not brook."  And now Grey’s eyes flashed, thinking of
+Lord Sandford, and how he would chuckle to hear how low his rival had
+fallen.  "No; if I am to succeed at all, I must needs do so without a
+patron. If I fail, there is one resource left.  Able-bodied paupers are
+sent to the wars.  I can go thither and fight."
+
+Again a smile flickered over the Old Lion’s face; but the tapster was
+entering with the smoking viands, and the gleam in Grey’s eyes bespoke
+the wolf within him.
+
+"Set to, my friend, and make a good meal.  When we have cleared the
+trenchers, you shall come with me to my lodging.  I would hear the end
+of your tale; but that can wait till after supper."
+
+
+
+
+                             *CHAPTER XI.*
+
+                           *THE LION’S DEN.*
+
+
+"Welcome to the Lion’s Den!" spoke the man Wylde, as he threw open the
+door of a room which he had unlocked, and kicking a smouldering log upon
+the hearth, evoked a cheery blaze, by the aid of which he lighted a lamp
+that swung over a table littered with books, papers, and quills.
+
+Grey stepped within the threshold, and looked about him with curious
+eyes.  The house they had entered a few minutes before was a tall and
+narrow one in Harpe Alley, leading from Shoe Lane.  It was not an old
+house, for it came within the area of the great fire of fifty years
+back, and had been rebuilt, like the whole of the surrounding buildings,
+with greater speed than discretion.  Grey had once come across Sir
+Christopher Wren in his other life, and had talked with him of the
+short-sighted policy observed in the rebuilding of the city.  The great
+architect declared that had his plans been carried out, London would
+have been the finest city in the world: but the haste and false economy
+of the citizens and city companies had thwarted his plans, and the old
+lines of narrow and crooked streets were kept as before, to the cost of
+succeeding generations.
+
+This house had been hastily run up, like those surrounding it, and the
+tempest from without rattled and shook the walls and windows as though
+to drive them in.  But the room itself, though no more than an attic,
+bore an air of comfort very pleasant to the eyes of the homeless Grey,
+whose own quarters only contained the barest necessities of life; for
+there were some rough shelves full of books in one corner, and a rug
+before the fire gave a look of comfort to the place.  Two armchairs of
+rude pattern, but furnished with down cushions, seemed to invite repose;
+and everything was scrupulously clean, even to the boards of the floor.
+
+"’A poor thing, but mine own,’" spoke the Old Lion, with his grim smile,
+as he motioned to Grey to take one chair, and he himself pulled up the
+other. "I have dwelt here two years and more now, and I have not been
+unhappy; albeit I never thought to end my days in a garret, as belike I
+shall do now."
+
+"Fortune has been hard upon you," spoke Grey earnestly.  "You have the
+gifts and the powers; it is cruel that your limbs should have become
+crippled."
+
+"We must take the rough and the smooth of life as we find it," answered
+the other.  "I have had my moments of rebellion—I have them still; but I
+seek the consolations of philosophy; and I have never yet wanted for
+bread or shelter.  But there be times when the future looks dark before
+me.  Those who remember me, and pity my misfortunes, drop away one by
+one.  I lacked not for patrons at the first. When I could not longer
+tread the boards, I was ofttimes engaged to make men laugh or weep at
+some gay rout at a nobleman’s house.  Then, too, my jests and quips were
+in request at gay supper-parties, and I was paid to set the table in a
+roar, which in all sooth was not difficult when the wine-bottle was
+going round and round.  Oh, I knew gay times for many a year after my
+stage career closed. But patrons have died off one by one.  I am more
+crippled than I was, and the young wits are pushing to the front, whilst
+the Old Lion has been crowded out.  My pen still serves me in a measure.
+I can turn an epigram, or write a couplet, or even make shift to pen a
+sonnet that lacks not the true ring.  Grist yet comes to the mill, but
+more and more slowly.  There come moments when I wonder what will be the
+end of the Old Lion’s career—the poorhouse, or a death by slow
+starvation in some garret!"
+
+"No, no," cried Grey almost fiercely; "that would be shame indeed.
+Surely, if nothing better turn up, there must be places of refuge for
+fallen genius. Have not almshouses been built, again and again, by the
+well-disposed for such men as sickness has laid aside?  You smile, but
+in sooth it is so."
+
+"Ay, and how many are there to claim the benefits of pious founders?
+Yet no matter.  I brought you not here to talk of my troubles, but of
+yours.  That romance of which you speak—"
+
+"It would seem the world cares little for such things.  I did hear the
+same tale everywhere.  Was it a pamphlet I had to give them, a lampoon
+upon some great man, an attack against the Tories, the Whigs, the
+Dissenters?  If so, they would read it; for there was great eagerness
+amongst the people to read such things, and no matter what side was
+attacked, there were hundreds eager to buy and to read.  But a
+romance—no; that was a mistake altogether.  A writer of successful
+pamphlets might perhaps find readers for a merry tale, or even a
+romance; but for an unknown aspirant to fame—no, that was another
+matter.  No one would buy it; no one would even read it; though there
+were one or two who took it and glanced through some pages, praised the
+style and the easy flow of words, and advised me to take to
+pamphleteering, promising that they would read anything like that."
+
+"That is it, that is it!" cried the Old Lion, rising and pacing up and
+down the room with his halting stride.  "Write a filthy lampoon, a
+scurrilous libel, a fiery diatribe against any great or notable man, and
+all the world will read and set themselves agog to know the writer.
+Look at Swift, with his ’Tale of a Tub;’ look at De Foe, with his crowd
+of pamphlets—men of talent, I do not doubt or deny, but full of gall and
+bitterness.  Yet they are read by all the world.  Fame, if not fortune,
+has come to them, and fortune will doubtless follow.  The late King,
+they say, would have made Swift a bishop.  The Queen will not: his
+ribald wit disgusts her; but he has admirers and patrons everywhere.  It
+is the bold and unscrupulous who flourish like the grass of the field.
+True poetry and literary beauty are not asked, or even desired.  A pen
+dipped in gall is a pen dipped in gold in these days of party strife.
+And the genius that wields not this bitter pen sits in dust and ashes,
+asking bread, and that well-nigh in vain."
+
+"How should I write these party diatribes—I who know little of their
+cries?  Whig or Tory, Tory or Whig—what care I?  The Tory of one
+Parliament is the Whig of the next.  Have not Lords Marlborough and
+Godolphin gone over to the Whigs? The Queen herself, they say, is
+changing slowly."
+
+"Nay, the Queen herself will never change!" cried Wylde, with an
+emphatic gesture.  "The Duchess has changed, and she seeks to use her
+influence with the Queen to make her change also, and give up her Tory
+advisers altogether.  But she will not succeed.  The Queen may be timid
+and gentle, but she has all her father’s tenacity and obstinacy.  Let my
+Lady of Marlborough look to it!  She may strain the cord to breaking
+point.  Already they say that the new favourite, Mrs. Masham, is ousting
+her kinswoman, the Duchess, from the foremost place in the Queen’s
+affections.  Favourites have fallen ere this through too great
+arrogance.  The victories of Ramillies and Oudenarde, and the successes
+that have followed, make the Duke the idol of the nation and the
+favourite of the Queen yet; but the day may come when this may change,
+and then the high Tories may come in once more with a rush."
+
+"I should be sorry for the Duke to lose favour," spoke Grey
+thoughtfully.  "I did see him once, and had speech with him after the
+battle of Ramillies, and a more gracious and courtly gentleman it has
+never been my lot to meet."
+
+Suddenly the Old Lion’s eyes flashed fire.
+
+"You have seen and had speech with the Duke on the field of Ramillies?
+You saw the battle, or something of it?  Speak!  Tell me all!  I must
+hear this tale.  It may mean much to us both."
+
+"In sooth it is little I can tell you of the battle, for I was in the
+thick of it myself.  It was by accident that my servant and I came upon
+the rival armies; and another happy accident gave me the chance of doing
+a small service for the Duke.  After the battle, when we were hard by
+Louvain, he called me to him, and spoke many gracious words. I would
+fain hope that some day I may see him again."
+
+"You had speech with him?  You saw his manner and his port?  Tell
+me—show me—how did he carry himself?"
+
+Grey rose to his feet, laughing.  He humoured the whim of the old actor.
+He was not lacking in the histrionic gift, and threw himself into his
+part with good will.  He uttered quick commands, as though to his
+officers; he threw out his arms, as though directing one man here,
+another there.  He recalled numbers of words spoken by the General, and
+these he reproduced faithfully and with an excellent imitation of
+Marlborough’s polished, courteous, yet commanding air.  Then he let his
+face soften, and addressed the old man as he himself had been addressed,
+with words of thanks and with promises of friendship.  Finally, throwing
+off the mask, he broke into a laugh, and was astonished at the eager
+change which had come upon the Old Lion.
+
+"Boy!" he cried, with a new access of energy, "I trow I see for both of
+us a way to fame and fortune."
+
+Grey’s eyes lighted as he eagerly asked his meaning.
+
+"That is soon told.  Have you heard how, after the victory of Blenheim,
+none could be found to hymn the praises of the great General till the
+poet Addison was introduced to notice, and penned his immortal lines?
+Now, since the victory of Ramillies, I have burned with desire to show
+the world by somewhat more than verse alone the power and genius of
+England’s mighty soldier.  See here!"
+
+The old man rose and crossed to his table, where he fetched from a
+drawer a scroll covered with writing, which he put in the hands of his
+companion.  Grey saw that it was a dialogue cast in dramatic form, and
+though he could not read it then and there, he could see, by casting his
+eyes over it, that there were many very fine periods in it, and that it
+was filled with descriptive passages of some great battle, and the
+energy and glory of the General in command. He raised his eyes
+inquiringly to the impassioned face of the author, which was working
+with excitement.
+
+"See you not something of the form?  It is a dramatic interlude.  It
+should be played upon the stage during the intervals of the play.  Time
+sits aloft, aged and grim, his scythe in his hand, his hour-glass beside
+him, and he speaks of the decay of mankind—that the world’s greatness is
+vanishing, its men of genius growing ever fewer and fewer.  That is my
+part.  I take the _rôle_ of Time.  To him then enters one in the guise
+of youth—one in the flush of manhood’s prime—one who has seen great and
+doughty deeds, and comes to rehearse the same in the ears of old Time,
+to bid him change his tune, to tell him that giants yet live upon the
+earth.  This youth comes with songs of victory; he speaks of what he has
+seen; he describes in burning words and glowing colours that last great
+fight wherein England’s General put to flight the hosts of the haughty
+monarch of France.  For months has this been written; for months have I
+gone about seeking the man to take the part of youth and manhood. But I
+have sought in vain.  All those whom I would have chosen have other work
+to do, and did but laugh at me.  Those who would gladly do my bidding, I
+will none of.  You saw how they did mouth and rant to-night, thinking to
+show their talent, when they only displayed their imbecile folly. But
+here have I found the very man for whom I have long waited.  You have
+youth, beauty—that manly beauty which transcends, to my thinking, the
+ephemeral loveliness of woman; you have the gift; you have seen the
+great hero: you have caught the very trick of his words and speech.  Oh,
+I know it!  Once did I hear him address the House of Lords, and when you
+spoke I seemed to see and hear him again.  The great world of fashion
+will go mad over you.  We shall draw full houses; we shall succeed.  I
+know it!  I feel it!  The Old Lion is not dead yet!  He shall roar again
+in his native forest.  Say, boy, will you be my helper in this thing?
+And in the gains which we shall make we will share and share alike."
+
+It was a very different sort of fame from anything Grey had pictured for
+himself, and for a moment he hesitated; for he realized that were this
+dramatic sketch to take hold of the imagination of the town, and draw
+fashionable audiences, he could scarcely avoid recognition, disguise
+himself as he might.  But as against this there was the pressing need of
+the moment.  He was well-nigh penniless; his romance seemed likely to be
+but so much waste paper.  He was hiding now even from Dick, who
+periodically visited London to see him, lest the honest fellow should
+insist upon maintaining him from his own small hoard.  Here was an
+opening, as it seemed, to something like prosperity; and the alternative
+of being drafted into the army as a pauper recruit was scarcely
+sufficiently attractive to weigh in the balance.  Moreover, there was
+something so earnest and pathetic in the glance bent upon him by the Old
+Lion that he had not the heart to say him nay, and he held out his hand
+with a smile.
+
+"I will be your helper; and as for the gains, let them be yours, and you
+shall give me what wage I merit.  The play is yours, the thought is
+yours: it is for you to reap the harvest.  I am but the labourer—worthy
+of his hire, and no more."
+
+The compact was sealed, and the old man then insisted that Grey should
+take his bed for the night, as he must sit up and remodel his play upon
+lines indicated by the young man, who had seen the field of Ramillies
+and the disposition of troops.  Grey furnished him with sundry diagrams
+and notes, and left him perfectly happy at his task, which would
+doubtless occupy him during the night, whilst the weary guest slumbered
+peacefully upon the humble bed in the little alcove beyond the larger
+room.
+
+When Grey awoke next morning, the sun was shining; a frugal but
+sufficient meal was spread upon the table; a fire was blazing cheerily
+upon the hearth; and there was the Old Lion, with his manuscript before
+him, muttering beneath his breath, and throwing out his hand in telling
+gesture, making so fine a picture with his leonine face and shaggy mane
+of hair that Grey watched him awhile in silence before advancing.
+
+"Good-morrow, and welcome to you, my son," was the greeting be received.
+"I have had a beautiful night.  The muse was hot upon me.  The rounded
+periods seemed to flow from my pen without effort. Let us to breakfast
+first; then shall you read what I have written, and together we will
+amend it, if need be.  But first shall you remove hither from that
+unsavoury lodging of which you did speak. Here is money: pay your
+reckoning, and bring hither any goods and chattels you may value.  We
+must dwell together these next weeks.  We will work hard, and before the
+week closes I will have some manager here to listen to our rendering of
+this scene.  We will have the world crowding to see and hear us
+yet!—King Fortune, I salute thee, and I thank thee from my heart that
+thou didst send this goodly youth to me, and didst prompt my heart from
+the first to take note of him and seek his friendship."
+
+The removal of Grey’s simple belongings took but little time, and lucky
+did he feel himself to be able to call this comfortable abode his home.
+A small attic upon the same floor of the house made him a sleeping
+chamber at very small cost, and his days were spent in the sunny south
+garret, which was called the Lion’s Den; and there they studied, and
+wrote, and rehearsed this eulogy upon the Duke, and the prowess of the
+English arms, the old man introducing here and there allusions and
+innuendoes which Grey scarcely understood, but which Wylde declared
+would bring down thunders of applause from the house—as, indeed, proved
+to be the case.
+
+Grey had a faint misgiving at the first that no manager might be
+forthcoming to admit the dialogue to his boards; but there the old actor
+knew his ground.  He succeeded in inviting two of the most successful
+managers to listen to a performance in the attic, without the
+accessories which would add much to the effect upon the stage; and even
+so the scene proved so telling, the acting of the Old Lion was so superb
+in its quiet dignity, and Grey (who had learned and studied patiently
+and diligently) went through his part with such spirit, such power, such
+dramatic energy, that even his instructor was surprised at his success,
+and the managers exchanged glances of astonishment and pleasure.
+
+It was just the sort of piece to catch the public favour at this
+juncture.  Marlborough was still the idol of the nation, and might be
+expected home some time before the winter closed—perhaps before
+Christmas itself.  The nation was discussing how to do him honour, and
+would flock to see a piece wherein his praises were so ably sung.
+
+"With a wig such as the Duke wears, and with military dress, Mr. Grey
+could be made to look the very image of the great General," cried one.
+
+"He has something the same class of face—handsome, regular features,
+grace of action and bearing. He does but want to be transformed from
+fair to dark, and his acting of the Duke will bring down veritable
+thunders of applause from all."
+
+And then began a gratifying rivalry as to terms, in which the Old Lion
+sustained his part with dignity and firmness.  Both managers desired to
+secure this interlude for their respective theatres, and at the last it
+was settled that the performance was to be given two nights a week at
+Drury Lane, and two at Sadler’s Wells, the astute old actor retaining
+the right to make his own terms at private houses upon the two remaining
+nights of the working week. The costumes were to be provided by the
+managers, but were to be the property of the actors, who would undertake
+to replace them should any harm befall them at private representations.
+
+When these matters had been satisfactorily settled, and certain other
+details arranged, the great men took their leave in high good humour;
+and the Old Lion, shaking back his mane of shaggy hair, grasped Grey by
+the hands, his eyes sparkling in his head.
+
+"Your fortune is made, young man! your fortune is made!  You will never
+need to fear poverty again. What life so grand as that of the man who
+can sway the multitude, make men laugh or weep at his bidding, hold them
+suspended breathless upon his lips, move them to mirth, or rouse them to
+the highest realm of passion?  Ah, that is life! that is life! Have I
+not tasted it?  Do I not know?  And that life lies before you, my son.
+What the principles of Wycliffe have done for England, the principles
+of Savonarola may yet do for Italy. At any rate, his work for Italy is
+not done yet.
+
+
+  _December 19, 1902._
+
+[Sidenote: Pisa's Four Monuments.]
+
+The four chief objects of interest at Pisa are all in a group at the
+northern end of the town, and a wonderfully effective group it is: the
+cloistered cemetery, or Camp Santo, with its fifty-five shiploads of
+earth from the Holy Land; the Baptistery, with its remarkable echo;
+the Cathedral, with the pendent lamp in the nave which suggested to
+Galileo the idea of the pendulum; and that wonder of the world, the
+white marble Tower, which leans thirteen feet out of the perpendicular.
+We all tried in vain to stand with heels and back to the inside of the
+north wall on the ground floor--it cannot be done; one falls forward
+at once. From the top there is a magnificent view of the city and the
+surrounding plain, of the mountains on the east and the sea on the
+west, of the city of Leghorn and the island of Elba.
+
+From the windows of our hotel at Pisa we saw for the first time the
+red gold of ripe oranges shining amid their dark green leaves in the
+gardens, and rejoiced to think that at last we had reached a somewhat
+milder climate, and were now leaving rigorous winter behind us.
+
+The journey from Pisa to Rome is a long one, and the schedule was such
+that we did not arrive till late at night. From the car windows we had
+some impressive views of the Mediterranean by moonlight, and of the
+solemn campagna, and, thus prepared, we crossed the Tiber at midnight,
+and passed through the breach in the walls which has been made for the
+railway, feeling, perhaps even more deeply than is usual, the thrill
+with which all travellers except those who are utterly devoid of
+imagination first enter the Eternal City.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+SOME LITTLE ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
+
+
+  _December 21, 1902._
+
+[Sidenote: Conditions Unfavorable to Letter-writing Abroad.]
+
+The margin of leisure left to a traveller in Europe for the writing of
+letters is, after all, a very narrow one, as those of my readers who
+have been abroad will readily remember. One generally moves from place
+to place in such rapid succession that the feeling of being settled,
+which is essential to the most satisfactory writing, is almost unknown.
+Then, when one does stop for a few days in a historic city, each day
+is so full of interest, and the golden opportunity to see its sights
+seems so fleeting, that one hesitates to take any part of such time for
+writing, to say nothing of the weariness and drowsiness of an evening
+that follows a day of sightseeing.
+
+Add to this the amount of time required of one who acts as general
+director of the tour, and has to take account of all manner of business
+details, and the number of questions to be answered when there are
+three or four young people in the party who have read just enough
+general history to make their minds bristle with interrogations at
+every interesting place, and who have to be read to daily _en masse_
+on the spot in order to improve the psychological moment of excited
+curiosity; add also the physician's injunction to take abundance of
+exercise in the open air, in order to the full recovery of health and
+the laying up of strength for future work, and his earnest counsel not
+to linger much at a writing desk or a study table--and it will be seen
+that if the continuity of this series of letters suffers an occasional
+break, it is but the natural result of the conditions of tourist life.
+
+[Sidenote: An American Baby in Europe.]
+
+It may interest some of my younger readers to know that the member
+of our party who receives the most attention is a little blue-eyed
+girl, just two years old to-day, who is the most extraordinary
+traveller of her age that I ever saw or ever heard of, accepting all
+the irregularities, inconveniences and discomforts of this migratory
+mode of life with the serene indifference of a veteran. We naturally
+supposed that, being so young, she would give us more or less trouble
+on so long a journey, and this proved to be true on the cold and rough
+sea voyage, but, from the day that we landed on this side of the ocean,
+she has been a delight to our whole party, a maker of friends wherever
+we have gone, and an immensely interesting object to the populace of
+the cities through which we have passed. At Leyden, in Holland, as we
+passed along the streets, we were followed all over town by an admiring
+throng of Dutch children, just out of school, to whom our baby's bright
+red coat and cap were no less interesting than their wooden shoes were
+to us; and so we found out how the elephants and monkeys and musicians
+and other people who make up the street parade of a circus may be
+supposed to feel when they pass through a town followed by the motley
+gang of school boys, ragamuffins, and general miscellanies of humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: Something New in Venice.]
+
+At Wiesbaden, in Germany, we bought one of those odd little German
+baby carts with two wheels and two handles, like plow handles, between
+which the person who pushes it walks, the baby really riding backwards,
+instead of forwards, as in our American baby carriages. You will see
+from this description that German baby carriages are like the German
+language--all turned the wrong way, though it must be said for this
+arrangement that the baby is not so likely to be lonesome as when
+riding face forward, since she always has some one to look at. Well,
+at Venice, which is almost a dead town now, so far as business is
+concerned, and which has perhaps as large a leisure class--that is,
+street loafers--as any city of equal size on this terraqueous planet,
+a lady of our party essayed to take the baby out for an airing in her
+German cart. It would appear that it was the first time since the
+foundation of that pile-driven city in the sea that a pair of wheels
+was ever seen on her streets. At any rate, from the moment that the
+lady and the baby and the cart emerged from the hotel door they were
+attended by an ever-increasing throng of unwashed Venetians, whose
+interest could not have been keener had Santos Dumont's air-ship or a
+Japanese jinriksha suddenly appeared in their gondola-ridden town, and
+who commented in shrill Italian on this wheeled apparition. The lady is
+not easily beaten when she decides to do anything, but, after standing
+that for half a block or so, she made a hasty retreat to the hotel, and
+wheels disappeared, probably forever, from the streets of Venice.
+
+[Sidenote: Gondolas and Gondoliers.]
+
+Although Venice, with its population of one hundred and sixty-three
+thousand, is seven miles in circumference, and is divided by one
+hundred and forty-six canals into one hundred and seventeen islands,
+yet these are so joined together by means of four hundred bridges that
+it is possible to walk all over the city. But the bridges are built in
+steps, and cannot be used by wheeled vehicles. There are no horses or
+carriages of any kind. The funereal-looking gondola, always painted
+black, is the only conveyance upon these streets of water, and does
+duty for cab, omnibus, wagon, cart, wheelbarrow and hearse. It is used
+for pleasure riding, shopping, church-going, theatre-going, visiting,
+carrying prisoners to jail, carrying the dead to the cemetery--in
+short, for everything.
+
+In propelling this black but graceful and easy-going boat, the
+gondolier does not sit. He stands, on a sort of deck platform towards
+the stern, and to balance his weight there is affixed to the prow a
+heavy piece of shining steel, which rears itself at the front almost
+like a figure-head, only this is always of the same pattern, simply
+a broad, upright blade of steel, notched deeply on the front edge.
+The gondolier does not pull the oar, he pushes it--there is only one
+oar--and he does not change it from side to side, as in paddling a
+canoe, but makes all the strokes on one side, a thing that looks very
+easy, but is in fact extremely difficult. The dexterity of these men
+with their long single oar is wonderful. They glide in and out among
+scores of gondolas on the crowded canals without collision or jerking,
+and they turn a corner within an inch.
+
+[Sidenote: Baggage Smashing in Europe.]
+
+These remarks upon the skill of the gondoliers, and the ease and safety
+of the gondolas, remind me, by contrast, of the destructive bungling
+of a porter in Cologne, who undertook to cart a load of trunks and
+handbags and shawl-straps down from our hotel to the Rhine steamer, and
+who, in turning a corner on a down grade, made the turn too short, and
+hurled the whole lot of our belongings into the muddy street with such
+violence that many of them were defaced, some permanently damaged, and
+one valise broken to pieces and utterly ruined.
+
+That German baby carriage had an exciting adventure also on the night
+of our arrival in Rome. As usual, it was made the apex of the pyramid
+of trunks and grip-sacks which constitute our sign manual, so to
+speak, on the top of every omnibus that takes us from the station to
+the hotel; but in this instance it was carelessly left untied, so
+that as we went steeply down one of the seven hills of Rome, the cart
+tumbled from its high perch to the stone-paved street, snapping off one
+of the handles, and suffering sundry other shattering experiences. A
+few days after we had the pleasure of paying a fraudulent cabinetmaker
+more for repairing it than it cost in the first instance. The Italian
+workmen and shopkeepers uniformly charge you more than their work and
+goods are worth. I think I have had more counterfeit money passed on me
+in the short time I have been in Italy than I have had in all the rest
+of my life before, and the very first swindle of this kind to which I
+was subjected was in a church, when the sacristan gave me a counterfeit
+two-franc piece in change as I paid the admission fees to see certain
+paintings and sculptures behind the high altar.
+
+However, I am wandering from my subject; I may conclude my eulogy
+on the baby above mentioned by saying that, young as she is, she
+sits through the seventy or eighty minutes of the customary tedious
+European dinner almost as circumspectly as a graven image might, but
+reminding us of one of Raphael's cherubs in her blue-eyed combination
+of sweetness, archness and dignity.
+
+Next time we will resume our account of matters of more general
+interest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+RELICS IN GENERAL, AND THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY IN PARTICULAR.
+
+
+  ROME, _December 23, 1902_.
+
+I had heard of relics before. Years ago I had read Mark Twain's account
+of the large piece of the true cross which he had seen in a church in
+the Azores; and of another piece which he had seen in the Cathedral
+of Notre Dame in Paris, besides some nails of the true cross and a
+part of the crown of thorns; and of the marble chest in the Cathedral
+of San Lorenzo at Genoa, which he was told contained the ashes of St.
+John, and was wound about with the chain that had confined St. John
+when he was in prison; and of the interesting collection shown him in
+the Cathedral of Milan, including two of St. Paul's fingers and one
+of St. Peter's, a bone of Judas Iscariot (black, not white), and also
+bones of all the other disciples (presumably of the normal color), a
+handkerchief in which the Saviour had left the impression of his face,
+part of the crown of thorns, a fragment of the purple robe worn by
+Christ, a picture of the Virgin and Child painted by St. Luke, and a
+nail from the cross--adding in another place that he thought he had
+seen in all not less than a keg of these nails.
+
+But I had hardly taken Mark Twain seriously in these statements, not
+knowing at the time that his _Innocents Abroad_ was, notwithstanding
+its broad humor, really one of the best guide-books to Europe that was
+ever written.
+
+[Sidenote: The Palladium of Venice.]
+
+I had read repeatedly the story of the bringing of St. Mark's bones
+from Alexandria, in Egypt, to their present resting-place in St. Mark's
+Cathedral at Venice--a story which is related as follows in that same
+lively volume:
+
+"St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was martyred, I think.
+However, that has nothing to do with my legend. About the founding of
+the city of Venice--say four hundred and fifty years after Christ--(for
+Venice is much younger than any other Italian city), a priest dreamed
+that an angel told him that until the remains of St. Mark were brought
+to Venice, the city could never rise to high distinction among the
+nations; that the body must be captured, brought to the city, and
+a magnificent church built over it; and that if ever the Venetians
+allowed the Saint to be removed from his new resting-place, in that
+day Venice would perish from off the face of the earth. The priest
+proclaimed his dream, and forthwith Venice set about procuring the
+corpse of St. Mark. One expedition after another tried and failed, but
+the project was never abandoned during four hundred years. At last it
+was secured by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and something.
+The commander of the Venetian expedition disguised himself, stole the
+bones, separated them, and packed them in vessels filled with lard. The
+religion of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor anything in the nature
+of pork, and so when the Christian was stopped at the gate of the city,
+they only glanced once into the precious baskets, then turned up their
+noses at the unholy lard, and let him go. The bones were buried in
+the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been waiting long years
+to receive them, and thus the safety and the greatness of Venice were
+secured. And to this day there be those in Venice who believe that if
+those holy ashes were stolen away, the ancient city would vanish like a
+dream, and its foundation be buried forever in the unremembering sea."
+
+[Sidenote: The Gift of Leo XIII. to London.]
+
+More recently I had read of what has been well called the burlesque
+enacted at Arundel Castle no longer ago than in July, 1902, in which
+the Duke of Norfolk, Cardinal Vaughan, and many lesser ornaments and
+dignitaries of the Romish Church, took part.
+
+"Pope Leo XIII., in order to show his 'good-will to England,'
+sent from Rome the remains of St. Edmund to garnish the new Roman
+Catholic cathedral at Westminster. It was an appropriate gift, for
+such buildings are usually garnished with 'dead men's bones and all
+uncleanness.' But as the cathedral is not yet finished, as a further
+token of good-will, the relics were committed to the care of no less
+a personage than the Earl Marshal of England. They arrived at Arundel
+on the evening of July 25th, and were placed for the night in Fitzalen
+Chapel. The next morning the whole castle was astir betimes, for the
+great event of the day, the transference of the bones to the castle
+chapel, was to take place. This was accomplished in a solemn and
+befitting manner. A procession was formed, and, to the measured tread
+of the Earl Marshal of England, Cardinal Vaughan, several archbishops
+and bishops, and a mixed company of priests and acolytes and a numerous
+train of household servants and dependents, carrying banners, crosses,
+crucifixes, censers, lamps, candles, torches, and other ecclesiastical
+stage paraphernalia, the remains of St. Edmund were borne to their
+resting-place. All went off well, and at last the curtain fell on
+the finished play, to the satisfaction of every one. Unfortunately,
+however, the Pope and all concerned had to reckon with English
+common-sense and with English love of truth, and it was not very long
+before it was proved to the world that the bones, like most relics of
+the kind, were counterfeit--whoever else's bones they were, they were
+not those of St. Edmund."[7]
+
+[Sidenote: The Blood of St. Januarius.]
+
+I had read with cordial approval Mark Twain's animadversions upon the
+fraud which is regularly practiced on the people of Naples by the
+priests in the Cathedral:
+
+"In this city of Naples they believe in and support one of the
+wretchedest of all religious impostures one can find in Italy--the
+miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Twice a year
+the priests assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and get out
+this phial of clotted blood, and let them see it slowly dissolve
+and become liquid; and every day for eight days this dismal farce
+is repeated, while the priests go among the crowd and collect money
+for the exhibition. The first day the blood liquefies in forty-seven
+minutes--the church is full then, and time must be allowed the
+collectors to get around; after a while it liquefies a little quicker
+and a little quicker every day, as the houses grow smaller, till on
+the eighth day, with only a few dozen present to see the miracle, it
+liquefies in four minutes.[8]
+
+"And here, also, they used to have a grand procession
+of priests, citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the high dignitaries
+of the city government, once a year, to shave the head of a made-up
+Madonna--a stuffed and painted image, like the milliner's dummy--whose
+hair miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve months. They
+still kept up this shaving procession as late as four or five years
+ago. It was a source of great profit to the church that possessed the
+remarkable effigy, and the public barbering of her was always carried
+out with the greatest _éclat_ and display--the more the better, because
+the more excitement there was about it the larger the crowds it drew
+and the heavier the revenues it produced--but at last the day came
+when the Pope and his servants were unpopular in Naples, and the city
+government stopped the Madonna's annual show.
+
+"There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans--two of the silliest
+possible frauds, which half the population religiously and faithfully
+believed, and the other half either believed or else said nothing
+about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the imposture."
+
+[Sidenote: The House of the Virgin at Loretto.]
+
+I had read the story of the _Casa Santa_, or Holy House, the little
+stone building, thirteen and one-half feet high and twenty-eight feet
+long, in which the Virgin Mary had lived at Nazareth. In 336 the
+Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, made a pilgrimage
+to Nazareth and built a church over the Holy House. This church fell
+into decay when the Saracens again got the upper hand in Palestine,
+and when the Christians lost Ptolemais the Holy House was carried by
+angels through the air from Nazareth to the coast of Dalmatia. This
+miraculous transportation took place in 1291. A few years later it
+was again removed by angels during the night, and set down in the
+Province of Ancona, near the eastern coast of Italy, on the ground
+of a widow named _Laureta_. Hence the name, _Loretto_, given to the
+town which sprang up around it for the accommodation of the thousands
+of pilgrims who flocked thither, and which is now a place of some six
+thousand inhabitants, whose principal business is begging and the sale
+of rosaries, medals and images. In a niche inside the Casa Santa is a
+small black image of the Virgin and Child, of cedar, attributed, of
+course, to St. Luke. We did not visit Loretto, but at Bologna we had
+the satisfaction of seeing a _fac-simile_ of the Casa Santa, with its
+little window and fireplace, and the replica of St. Luke's handi-work
+in the niche above. A large number of women, some of them handsomely
+dressed, were saying their prayers and counting their beads before
+the altar that had been erected in front of these images and the Holy
+House, and a few were kneeling in the narrow space behind the altar,
+close to the fireplace of the house. As we passed, one of these women,
+in plainer garb, interrupted her devotions long enough to hold out her
+hand to us, begging for pennies, but without rising from her knees.
+There was nothing unusual about this, except that this beggar made her
+appeal to us while actually on her knees to the image of the Virgin,
+for nothing is more common in Italy than for visitors to a Roman
+Catholic church to pass through such "an avenue of palms" when leaving
+it.
+
+[Sidenote: The Wonder-working Bones of St. Anne in Canada.]
+
+I had even seen a few relics, not mere reproductions like that of the
+Casa Santa at Bologna, but the relics themselves. For instance, three
+summers ago, when in Quebec, I had made a special trip to the Church
+of St. Anne Beaupre, some twenty miles below the city, for the purpose
+of seeing the wonder-working relics of St. Anne, the alleged mother
+of the Virgin Mary--a bit of her finger bone and a bit of her wrist
+bone--which are devoutly kissed and adored by thousands of pilgrims
+to this magnificent church from all the French and Irish portions of
+Canada, and which are said to have wrought miraculous cures of all
+manner of maladies, cures which are attested by two immense stacks
+of canes, crutches, wooden legs, and the like, which rise from the
+floor almost to the roof on either side of the entrance. In the store
+in another part of the church I had got a clue to it all by seeing
+the poor pilgrims buying all sorts of cheap, tawdry, worthless little
+images and pictures, and especially little vials of oil of remarkable
+curative virtue because it had stood for a while before the image of
+St. Anne, and for which they paid probably five times as much as the
+oil had cost the priests who were selling it.
+
+[Sidenote: The Iron Crown of Lombardy.]
+
+These, then, are potent bones and images and oils, but by far the
+most interesting relic I had seen before reaching Rome itself was the
+Iron Crown of Lombardy, at Monza, a little town in Northern Italy.
+This is the place where the good King Humbert was assassinated on the
+29th of July, 1900, and it is not without interest for other reasons.
+For instance, it has a cathedral built of black and white marble
+in horizontal stripes, and containing, besides the tomb of Queen
+Theodolinda and other interesting objects in the nave and its chapels,
+a great number of costly articles of gold and silver, set with precious
+stones, in the treasury, as well as various relics, such as some of the
+baskets carried by the apostles, a piece of the Virgin Mary's veil,
+and one of John the Baptist's teeth. But we should never have made a
+special trip to Monza in such weather as we were having at the time of
+our visit, last November, had it not been for our intense desire to see
+its chief treasure, the Iron Crown, the most sacred and most celebrated
+diadem in the world, a relic possessing real historical interest, not
+because of any probability whatever in the story of its origin, but
+because of the extraordinary uses and associations of it within the
+last thousand years.
+
+[Sidenote: A Winter Trip to Monza.]
+
+So, regardless of the wet, cold, foggy weather that we found in
+Milan, and the rivers of mud and slush that were then doing duty for
+streets, and the splotches of snow that lay here and there in the
+forlorn-looking olive orchards, we took the electric tram, which was
+comfortably heated, and ran out to Monza, a distance of some ten miles.
+When we stepped into the chilly cathedral and looked about us, we could
+not at first see anybody to show us around, though there were a good
+many poor people saying their prayers there. Evidently the custodians
+were not expecting tourists at such a season and in such weather.
+But presently, in an apartment to the left, we found a number of the
+priests warming their hands over a dish of twig coals covered with a
+light layer of white ashes, which they kindly stirred a little to make
+them give forth more heat as they saw us stretch our cold hands also
+towards the grateful warmth.
+
+[Sidenote: The Treasury of the Cathedral.]
+
+When we asked if we could see the Iron Crown, they said we could; but
+instead of going at once to the chapel in which it is kept, they got a
+great bag of keys, large keys, thirty-seven in number, as the observant
+statistician of our party ascertained, and led us into the treasury and
+unlocked a great number of doors (one of which had seven locks), and
+showed us the costly objects and precious relics above mentioned. We
+were only mildly interested in these--even in the apostolic baskets,
+the Virgin's veil, and John the Baptist's tooth--partly because we were
+so cold and partly because of our greater interest in the more famous
+relic which we had come especially to see.
+
+[Sidenote: The Chapel of the Great Relic.]
+
+At last one of the priests, attended by an acolyte, took up a censer,
+placed a little incense on the coals with a teaspoon, and, swinging it
+in his hand by the chain, led us back into the cathedral, turned to
+a chapel on the left, unlocked an iron gate in a tall railing which
+separated this chapel from the body of the building, closed the gate
+again when our party had come inside, and, while a dozen or so of
+the people who had been at their devotions crowded up to the railing
+and peered curiously through, he and his attendant began to kneel
+repeatedly before the altar and to swing the smoking censer on every
+side. Above the altar was a strong, square steel box, over which, in
+plain view, was suspended a _fac-simile_ of the Iron Crown, made of
+cheaper materials, while the real crown was still concealed within the
+steel safe.
+
+[Sidenote: The Great Relic itself.]
+
+Handing the censer to his attendant, that it might be kept swinging
+without intermission, the priest produced another series of keys and
+proceeded to unlock a succession of small doors in the side of the
+metal safe, which proved to be a "nest" of caskets, one within another,
+the last of which was a glass case. Drawing this out, he brought into
+full view the venerated crown of the Lombard kings, and told us to step
+up on the stool by the altar so as to see it better. It is made of six
+plates of gold, joined end to end, richly chased, and set with splendid
+jewels. But one would see at a glance that neither the material, nor
+the workmanship, nor the gems, could account for the unique reverence
+with which it has been regarded for centuries, and an indication of
+which we had just seen in the service conducted by the priest. Among
+the regalia in the Tower of London, and at several other places in
+Europe, we had seen crowns which far surpassed this one in costliness
+and beauty, but none of which, nor all of which combined, had ever
+excited a thousandth part of the interest attaching to this old crown
+in Monza.
+
+[Sidenote: Why the Crown is so Sacred.]
+
+The explanation is this: within that ring of jointed plates of gold
+runs a thin band of iron, which priestly tradition says was made of one
+of the spikes that fastened the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ to the
+cross. It was this band of iron that we tiptoed to see, hardly noticing
+the bejewelled rim of gold around it. It was on account of this band of
+iron that the priest and his attendant swung their censer and performed
+their ceremony as we entered. It was this band of iron that gave to the
+crown its sacred place above the altar. It was for the safe keeping of
+this band of iron that the steel case, with its numerous locks, was
+made. It was from this band of iron that the diadem received its name,
+the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
+
+[Sidenote: How it was Used by Charlemagne and Napoleon.]
+
+And what were the historical uses of it, referred to above, which made
+it so much more interesting to us than the many other so-called nails
+of the true cross elsewhere? Well, this among others: on the last
+Christmas day of the eighth century, while Charlemagne was kneeling
+with uncovered head before the high altar of St. Peter's in Rome,
+the Pope approached him from behind, and, placing the Iron Crown of
+Lombardy on his head, hailed him as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+A thousand years later on the 26th of May, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte,
+"watched by an apparently invincible army which adored him and a world
+which feared him," standing in the vast marble cathedral at Milan,
+with fifteen thousand of his soldiers around him, lifted this same
+Iron Crown of Lombardy into their view, and placed it upon his brow,
+saying, "God has given it to me, let him touch it who dares!"
+
+[Sidenote: High Reflections and Hard Cash.]
+
+That men who, like Charlemagne and Napoleon, had reached the highest
+pinnacle of human power, should seek to enhance their influence by
+crowning their heads with one of the nails which, as their followers
+believed, had pierced the Galilean's foot, is a richly suggestive fact.
+But we must keep our tempted thoughts to another and less edifying line
+at present.
+
+When we had examined all the parts of the famous crown to our
+satisfaction, we stepped to the desk in the ante-room and paid our five
+francs (one dollar), the regular price for the exhibition of the Iron
+Crown, then left the cathedral, bought one or two post-card pictures of
+the crown, and took the tram through the dreary weather back to Milan,
+well pleased with the results of our first pilgrimage to the shrine of
+a real Roman Catholic relic in Italy.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome Caps the Climax.]
+
+But on our arrival at Rome, a month later, we found that, interesting
+as were the relics which we had seen or read of elsewhere, they were
+nothing to those in the Eternal City itself. In this, as in everything
+else except such little matters as cleanliness and morality and
+truthfulness and honesty, Rome outvies all her rivals. It is only fair
+to add, however, that, since the overthrow of the papal sovereignty and
+the establishment of a capable government, Rome has improved immensely
+in the matter of cleanliness, and even her immorality is not so
+flaunting as it was. This is attested by the Hon. Guiseppe Zanardelli,
+the present Premier of Italy, who says:
+
+"The church appears better than it once was. I no longer see in Rome
+what I used often to see in my young days, ladies driving about its
+streets with their coachmen and footmen in the liveries of their
+respective cardinals. Has this improvement come about because the
+church is really growing better? Nothing of the kind. It is because the
+strong arm of the law checks the villainy of the priests." That is the
+testimony of the Prime Minister of Italy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: Do American Roman Catholics Believe in the Relics?]
+
+A few weeks after my return from Italy, while driving one afternoon
+with a friend of mine, a lawyer of high intelligence and wide
+information, our conversation turned to the subject of the recent death
+of Pope Leo XIII., and from that drifted to the alleged liquefaction
+of the blood of St. Januarius, and from that to relics in general. I
+mentioned some of the facts above stated concerning the numerous pieces
+of the true cross and the miracle-working bones and oils to be seen in
+Roman Catholic churches in Europe. "But," he said, "surely the Roman
+Catholics in America do not believe in such mediæval superstitions."
+I happened to have in hand a couple of copies of a daily newspaper,
+published in one of our Southern towns, dated August 9, 1903, and
+August 17, 1903, respectively, containing extracts from the letters of
+a Roman Catholic bishop, the highest dignitary of his church in that
+State; and, for answer to my friend's remark, I cited the following
+passage from the bishop's letter of July 10th, written from Munich,
+concerning the abbey church of Scheyern:
+
+"The chapel of the Holy Cross is specially sacred, as within is
+preserved a very large piece of the true cross upon which Christ was
+crucified, brought to Scheyern in 1156 by Count Conrad, the Crusader,
+who afterwards entered the monastery as lay-brother, and lies buried
+near the altar upon which the sacred relic is preserved."
+
+Also the following passage from his letter of July 12th, written from
+Eichstadt:
+
+"I remained the guest of Prince Ahrenberg for the night, and early
+in the morning, accompanied by some Benedictine students, I made a
+pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Walburg. Above the altar is the large
+silver receptacle into which flows the miraculous oil from her sacred
+relics, which is known the world over."
+
+[Sidenote: What America Needs is Some Relics.]
+
+Writing from Vienna, July 20, 1903, concerning the imperial palaces,
+he says, "They are awfully big and grand, and cost a lot of good
+people's money," but adds that "the pride and glory of Vienna" is the
+Cathedral, and then exclaims: "How often have I wished we could have
+some such church in ----, so that our good people who cannot visit the
+achievements of Catholic life in Europe could form some idea of the
+greatness of the religion of their fathers!"
+
+One hesitates to differ from so good an authority on such matters as
+this bishop, but really would he not agree, on reflection, that what
+this benighted and decaying country of ours needs to bring it up to a
+level with Italy and Austria and Spain is not a big church, but some
+relics? Would not some miraculous oil, or some wonder-working bones, or
+a piece of the true cross, or one of the nails, if placed on exhibition
+here attract far more attention than a big church, and enable "our good
+people who cannot visit the achievements of Catholic life in Europe"
+to form a much better "idea of the greatness of the religion of their
+fathers"? Does it not seem strange that so many hundreds of these
+relics should be kept in those enlightened and happy countries like
+Italy, where "the achievements of Catholic life" are so well known,
+and where Mother Church has for centuries had full sway, and that none
+of them should be brought to these benighted Protestant regions, where
+they could effect such a salutary change in the faith of the people?
+But, seriously, as I added to my friend in the conversation referred
+to, I have a better opinion of the intelligence of our good Roman
+Catholic people in America than to believe that they put the slightest
+credence in these childish superstitions. Whatever the bishop above
+quoted may believe, I am confident that the intelligent Roman Catholic
+people of our country have no more faith in many of these alleged
+relics than we have.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[7] _The Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, Alexander Robertson, pp. 203,
+204.
+
+[8] In July of this year, 1903, while the Roman Catholic world was
+greatly exercised over the grave illness of the late Pope, Leo XIII.,
+the Associated Press dispatches from Naples reported that the blood of
+St. Januarius had miraculously liquefied at that unusual time in token
+that the prayers offered for the Pope's recovery had been answered.
+The Archbishop of Naples has up to the present time vouchsafed
+no explanation of the fact that the Pope died a few days later,
+notwithstanding this miraculous assurance that he would recover.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+ROMAN CATHOLIC RELICS AT ROME.
+
+
+We reached Rome at a good time for seeing relics, as the special
+services of the Christmas season were just beginning. One of the most
+splendid of these ceremonies is the procession in honor of the _Santa
+Culla_; that is, the cradle in which the priestly tradition says the
+infant Jesus was carried into Egypt. This is the great relic and chief
+distinction of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, though it contains
+a number of others, such as the bodies of St. Matthew and St. Jerome,
+and two little bags of the brains of Thomas á Becket, and "one of the
+pictures attributed to St. Luke (and announced to be such in a papal
+bull attached to the walls!), much revered for the belief that it
+stayed the plague which decimated the city during the reign of Pelagius
+II., and that (after its intercession had been sought by a procession
+by order of Innocent VIII.) it brought about the overthrow of the
+Moorish dominion in Spain."
+
+[Sidenote: The Miraculous Snow in Summertime.]
+
+Moreover, this church of Santa Maria Maggiore is by no means lacking
+in legendary and architectural interest. It was founded A. D. 352, by
+Pope Liberius and John, a Roman patrician, to commemorate an alleged
+miraculous fall of snow, which covered this spot of ground and no
+other, on the 5th of August, and an alleged appearance of the Virgin
+Mary, in a vision, at the same time, showing them that she had thus
+appropriated the site of a new temple, all of which is duly represented
+in a fine painting on the wall of the church, and in two of Murillo's
+most beautiful pictures in the Academy at Madrid, and commemorated
+every year on the 5th of August by a solemn high mass, and by showers
+of white rose leaves thrown down constantly through two holes in the
+ceiling, "like a leafy mist between the priests and the worshippers."
+
+[Sidenote: A Splendid Church.]
+
+The worshippers of the Virgin have not been lacking in their efforts to
+erect a suitably sumptuous building on the site of this "miracle." The
+magnificent nave, with its avenue of forty-two columns of Greek marble,
+surmounted by a frieze of mosaic pictures; the glorious pavement of
+_opus Alexandrinum_, whose "crimson and violet hues temper the white
+and gold of the walls"; the grand _baldacchino_, with its four porphyry
+columns wreathed with gilt leaves; and the splendid tomb chamber of
+Pius IX. (predecessor of the late Pope Leo XIII.), with its riot of
+rich marbles and alabaster, in front of the high altar--to say nothing
+of the almost incredibly costly chapels opening into the nave--combine
+to give S. Maria Maggiore a proud place among the very finest of the
+fine basilicas of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: A Dazzling Scene.]
+
+But not all the splendors of the building, nor all the fascination of
+its "miracles" and legends, nor all the spell of its other relics, can
+equal the interest attaching to the "SANTA CULLA," the holy cradle. On
+the afternoon of Christmas Day, we walked through the wet streets to
+the front of the church, pushed back the heavy, dirty screen of padded
+canvas, such as hangs at the door of every great church in Italy,
+however fine, and, stepping within, found ourselves in the midst of
+a scene of the most dazzling splendor. The building was brilliantly
+illuminated with hundreds of electric lights and huge candles, which
+were sharply reflected by the glistening marbles on every hand; the
+air was heavy with clouds of incense, through the blue smoke of which
+the lofty ceiling looked higher than ever, and the organ and choir
+were pouring forth the richest music, while a dense crowd of people,
+many thousands, all standing, watched with eager interest a small,
+crate-like object, made of slats of dark wood, which rested on the
+high altar, enclosed in a glass case, with a gold baby on top and gold
+ornaments round about.
+
+[Sidenote: The Holy Cradle.]
+
+We pushed our way through the crowd, so as to get a satisfactory view
+of it while the service was in progress--the genuflections, the robing
+and disrobing of the archbishop, the chanting, and the rest--after
+which six men, dressed in pure white from head to foot (white gloves
+included), except for a red circle and cross on the breast, knelt
+before the cradle, then lifted it from the altar, with its gold and
+glass setting, and placing it on a kind of litter on their shoulders,
+under a gilt and white canopy borne by other attendants, marched with
+it thus, in procession around the church, along with a large crucifix
+under another canopy, and followed by a long line of cardinals,
+bishops, priests and acolytes, carrying it back finally to its place in
+the sacristy, where it will remain till next Christmas Day.
+
+[Sidenote: The Christ of Rome a Babe or a Corpse.]
+
+We squeezed our way through the great crowd at the door, and walked
+back to our hotel, wondering to what extent the usual Roman Catholic
+conception of Christ had deprived that organization of real spiritual
+energy; for, almost invariably, Roman Catholic art represents him
+either as a dead Christ on the cross, or a babe in his mother's arms,
+and hardly ever as the risen and glorified Lord, the Conqueror of
+death, the Leader of his people, to whom all power is given in heaven
+and on earth--the more usual Protestant conception. And we asked
+ourselves whether this difference did not help to explain the greater
+hopefulness, vigor and growth of Protestant Christianity in these
+strenuous latter days.
+
+[Sidenote: The Little Doll that Owns a Large Carriage.]
+
+But we were soon to learn that the Roman Catholics did not think of the
+infant Christ as lacking in power of a certain sort; on the contrary
+they ascribe miraculous agency even to an image of the divine babe. On
+the afternoon of December 29th, as two of our party were returning to
+our hotel, they passed at the foot of the Capitoline Hill a carriage,
+out of the window of which hung a ribbon or sash of cloth of gold, and
+they were not a little astonished to observe that, as this carriage
+rolled along, people knelt reverently before it on the street. Inside
+they saw two bareheaded men holding a child on a pillow with a wealth
+of lace about it. They thought perhaps it was the royal carriage with
+the baby princess, but they could not imagine why _men_ should be
+nursing the baby, as that is usually the employment of women, nor why
+the people should kneel so reverently before the young princess, a
+thing which they never did even for the king himself. The fact is that,
+as they learned on the following afternoon when visiting the Church of
+Ara Coeli, on the Capitoline Hill, the carriage in question belonged to
+a far more important personage in Rome than any princess, though that
+personage was not even a living baby, but only a doll. It was the coach
+of the famous Bambino--_Il Santissimo Bambino_--which with its dress
+of gold and silver tissue and its magnificent diamonds, emeralds and
+rubies, is the chief attraction of this church.
+
+[Illustration: THE BAMBINO.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Wealth and Power of the Miraculous Bambino.]
+
+Dr. Alexander Robertson, in his book on _The Roman Catholic Church in
+Italy_, says: "The Bambino is a doll about three feet high, and it
+stands on a cushion in a glass case. It is clad in rich robes with
+a crown on its head, a regal order across its breast, and embroidered
+slippers on its feet. From head to foot it is one mass of dazzling
+jewelry, gold chains, strings of pearls, and diamond bracelets and
+rings, which not only cover the neck, arms and fingers, but are
+suspended, intermixed with crosses, stars, hearts, monograms, and
+every kind of precious stone, to all parts of its body. The only part
+unweighted with gems is its round, priest-like, wax face. But all this
+display of wealth, great in itself, is really only suggestive of that
+untold quantity which it has brought, and is still daily bringing,
+into the coffers of the church. People are continually kneeling before
+this dumb idol, offering petitions and leaving gifts, whilst letters
+containing requests, accompanied with post-office orders and checks to
+pay for the granting of the same, arrive by post for it from various
+parts of the globe."
+
+Hare's _Walks in Rome_ gives the following account of the Bambino and
+one of its most remarkable experiences:
+
+"It has servants of its own, and a carriage in which it drives
+out with its attendants, and goes to visit the sick; for, though
+an infant, it is the oldest medical practitioner in Rome. Devout
+peasants always kneel as the blessed infant passes. Formerly it was
+taken to sick persons and left on their beds for some hours, in the
+hope that it would work a miracle. Now it is never left alone. In
+explanation of this, it is said that an audacious woman formed the
+design of appropriating to herself the holy image and its benefits.
+She had another doll prepared of the same size and appearance as the
+Santissimo, and having feigned sickness and obtained permission to have
+it left with her, she dressed the false image in its clothes, and sent
+it back to Ara Coeli. The fraud was not discovered till night, when the
+Franciscan monks were awakened by the most furious ringing of bells
+and by thundering knocks at the west door of the church, and hastening
+thither, could see nothing but a wee naked pink foot peeping in from
+under the door; but when they opened the door, without stood the little
+naked figure of the true Bambino of Ara Coeli, shivering in the wind
+and rain--so the false baby was sent back in disgrace, and the real
+baby restored to its home, never to be trusted away alone any more."
+
+[Sidenote: The Communion Table Used by Christ.]
+
+But if I dwell on all these interesting relics and images as I have
+done on the Holy Cradle and the miraculous Bambino, I shall never
+finish even the brief list of them which I had in mind when I began. I
+must hasten on, contenting myself with a bare mention of a few of the
+more notable relics at the other churches.
+
+On the 8th of January we paid our first visit to the great Church of
+St. John Lateran,[9] and here also the relics interested us more than
+anything else. Under the canopy in the centre the skulls of St. Peter
+and St. Paul are preserved. Beneath the altar we saw the wooden table
+on which the Apostle Peter is said to have "celebrated mass" in the
+house of Pudens. The interest of this relic, however, is completely
+eclipsed by that of another relic over an altar at a little distance
+in the same church, viz: the cedar table used by our Lord and his
+disciples in the Last Supper. This table is concealed behind a bronze
+relief representing that solemn scene in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.
+
+[Sidenote: Other Relics at St. John Lateran.]
+
+"The Basilica claims to possess many valuable relics. Amongst these are
+some portions of the manger in which Christ was cradled, the shirt and
+seamless coat made for him by the Virgin; some of the barley loaves
+and small fishes miraculously multiplied to feed the five thousand;
+the linen cloth with which he dried the feet of his apostles; also
+Aaron's rod, the rod with which Moses smote the Red Sea," etc., etc.
+(_Cook's Southern Italy_, p. 114.) We did not see these, but in the
+cloister behind this church we were shown a marble slab on pillars
+which was once an altar, "at which the officiating priest doubted of
+the Real Presence, when the wafer fell from his hand through the stone,
+leaving a round hole, which still remains." Here, too, we were shown
+a larger slab resting on pillars, more than six feet from the ground,
+which marks the height of our Saviour; also a porphyry slab, upon which
+the soldiers cast lots for his seamless robe; and some columns from
+Pilate's house in Jerusalem, which were rent by the earthquake of the
+crucifixion.
+
+[Illustration: THE SCALA SANTA, ROME.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Holy Stairs from Pilate's Palace.]
+
+But the great relic of Pilate's House, and one of the most interesting
+of all the relics in Rome, is across the street from St. John Lateran,
+viz., the world-renowned _Scala Santa_, or Holy Stairway, a flight of
+twenty-eight marble steps, once ascended by our Saviour in the palace
+of Pilate, and brought from Jerusalem to Rome in 326 by the Empress
+Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. They are covered with a wooden
+casing, but holes have been left through which the marble steps can be
+seen. Two of them are stained with the Saviour's blood. These spots
+are covered with glass. The light was rather dim, and as we entered a
+gentleman struck a match and held it over one of these glass-covered
+stains to show it to his little girl, so that, passing just at that
+moment, we also had a good view.
+
+[Sidenote: The Man who Crawled Up and Walked Down.]
+
+No foot is allowed to touch the _Scala Santa_; it must be ascended
+on the knees. A number of people were going up in this way when
+we entered, pausing on each step to repeat a prayer, for which
+indulgences are granted by the Pope. There are stairways on each
+side, by which those who have thus crawled up may walk down. The
+only man I know of that ever walked down the Holy Stairs themselves,
+and the most illustrious man that ever crawled up them on his knees,
+was Martin Luther. When he had mounted slowly half way up, step by
+step on his knees, he seemed to hear a voice saying, "The just shall
+live by faith." Martin Luther rose from his knees, walked down the
+staircase, and left the place a free man so far as this superstition
+was concerned, and shortly afterwards became the most formidable foe
+that ever assailed the falsehood and corruption of the Romish Church.
+
+[Sidenote: The Miraculous Portrait and the Shoes of Christ.]
+
+At the top of the Scala Santa we saw through a grating the beautiful
+silver tabernacle containing the great relic which has given to this
+chapel the name of _Sancta Sanctorum_, viz.: the portrait of Christ,
+held by the Romish Church to be authentic, having been drawn in outline
+by St. Luke and finished by an angel, whence its name "Acheiropoëton,"
+_i. e._, the picture made without hands. The relic chamber here
+contains fragments of the true cross, the sandals of Christ, and "the
+iron bar of Hades which he brought away with him from that doleful
+region,"[10] but we did not see these.
+
+[Sidenote: The Inscription on the Cross, and the Finger of Thomas.]
+
+A short walk beyond the Scala Santa and the Lateran brings us to the
+Church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, which is specially rich in relics.
+Here our party was shown a piece of the true cross of Christ and the
+original plank bearing the inscription, "_Jesus, Nazarene King_," in
+Hebrew, Greek and Latin, which was placed over his head; also one
+of the nails used in his crucifixion, and two of the thorns of his
+crown; besides a large piece of the cross of the penitent thief who was
+executed with him; and, most interesting of all in some respects, the
+finger used by Thomas to resolve his doubts as to the resurrection of
+Christ (John xx. 24-28).
+
+[Sidenote: A Bottle of The Blood of Christ.]
+
+In Percy's _Romanism_ it is said that "the list of relics on the right
+of the apsis of S. Croce includes the finger of S. Thomas, apostle,
+with which he touched the most holy side of our Lord Jesus Christ; one
+of the pieces of money with which the Jews paid the treachery of Judas;
+great part of the veil and of the hair of the most blessed Virgin; a
+mass of cinders and charcoal united in the form of a loaf, with the fat
+of S. Lawrence, martyr; one bottle of the most precious blood of our
+Lord Jesus Christ; another of the milk of the most blessed Virgin; a
+little piece of the stone where Christ was born; a little piece of the
+stone where our Lord sat when he pardoned Mary Magdalene; of the stone
+where our Lord wrote the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai; of the
+stone where reposed SS. Peter and Paul; of the cotton which collected
+the blood of Christ; of the manna which fed the Israelites; of the rod
+of Aaron which flourished in the desert; of the relics of the eleven
+prophets!"[11]
+
+But our party saw none of these except the finger of Thomas. It is
+to be hoped that the others have been withdrawn from exhibition, for
+surely superstition and vulgarity can no further go. I fear, however,
+that those who are willing to pay enough can still see "one bottle of
+the most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ," and "another of the
+milk of the most blessed Virgin"! There is also "_una ampulla lactis
+Beatae Mariae Virginis_" among the many relics to be seen in the
+Church of SS. Cosmo and Damiano, near the Forum.
+
+[Sidenote: No Women Admitted.]
+
+It is a curious illustration of Romish wrong-headedness that women
+are never allowed to enter the Chapel of St. Helena, in the Church
+of S. Croce, except on the festival of the Saint, August 18th,
+notwithstanding the fact that St. Helena herself was a woman, and that
+the church owes its existence to her and is also indebted to her for
+the piece of the true cross which it boasts, and which has given it its
+name. So while men are permitted to go inside the chapel of St. Helena,
+women are stopped at the entrance and only allowed to peer through the
+railing. The same degrading discrimination is made in the Church of S.
+Prassede (who also was a woman) as to entering the splendid chapel,
+Orto del Paradiso, which contains the column of blood jasper to which
+Christ was bound, and which was "given by the Saracens to Giovanni
+Colonna, cardinal of this church, and legate of the Crusade, because
+when he had fallen into their hands and was about to be put to death,
+he was rescued by a marvellous intervention of celestial light."
+Females are never allowed to enter this chapel except upon Sundays in
+Lent, but are permitted to look at the relic through a grating.[12]
+
+[Sidenote: Four Other Stones of Great Interest.]
+
+The mention of this column reminds me of the two columns in the Church
+of S. Maria Transpontina, on the other side of the Tiber, near St.
+Peter's, which bear inscriptions stating that they were the pillars to
+which St. Peter and St. Paul were fastened, respectively, when they
+suffered flagellation by order of Nero. A little farther on towards
+St. Peter's is the Piazza Scossa Cavalli, with a pretty fountain.
+"Its name bears witness to a curious legend, which tells how when S.
+Helena returned from Palestine, bringing with her the stone on which
+Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, and that on which the Virgin Mary
+sat down at the time of the presentation of the Saviour in the temple,
+the horses drawing these precious relics stood still at this spot,
+and refused every effort to make them move. Then Christian people,
+'recognizing the finger of God,' erected a church on this spot--_S.
+Giacomo Scossa Cavalli_--where the stones are still to be seen."
+
+[Sidenote: The Hardness of St. Peter's Knees.]
+
+While speaking of interesting stones, I must not omit to mention those
+in the Church of S. Francesca Romana, near the Forum, containing the
+marks of the knees of St. Peter--(which show, by the way, that this
+apostle was a giant in size)--when he knelt to pray that Simon Magus
+might be dropped by the demons he had invoked to support him in the
+air in fulfilment of his promise to fly. One of these stones used to
+lie in the _Via Sacra_, and the water which collected in the two holes
+or knee prints was looked upon as so potent a remedy of disease that
+groups of infirm people used to gather around them on the approach of
+a shower. According to the legend, the place where Peter knelt when
+he thus effected the discomfiture of Simon Magus and brought him to
+the ground with such force that his thigh was fractured, never to be
+healed, was the ancient _Via Sacra_. But, after the priests had removed
+the stone from the roadway into the church, the inconsiderate and
+iconoclastic explorers of our day, who have made so many discoveries in
+their excavations about the Forum, proved that the roadway from which
+this relic was taken was not the ancient _Via Sacra_ at all, but a more
+modern roadway which had been mistaken for it!
+
+[Sidenote: The Hardness of St. Peter's Head.]
+
+In the Mamertine Prisons, which are also quite close to the Forum, a
+depression on the stone wall by which we descend to the lower dungeon
+is shown as the spot against which St. Peter's head rested, though our
+guide had just told us that these stairs were not in existence then and
+prisoners were let down into the dungeon through the hole in the middle
+of the stone floor. Such trifling discrepancies do not seem to trouble
+the average Italian mind.
+
+St. Peter and St. Paul are said to have been bound in this prison for
+nine months to a pillar, which is shown here. "A fountain of excellent
+water beneath the floor of the prison is attributed to the prayers
+of St. Peter, that he might have wherewith to baptize his gaolers,
+Processus and Martinianus; but, unfortunately for this ecclesiastical
+tradition, the fountain is described by Plutarch as having existed at
+the time of Jugurtha's imprisonment" here, long before the time of St.
+Peter.
+
+Another miraculous spring, still flowing, is shown in the Church of SS.
+Cosmo and Damiano as that which burst forth in answer to the prayers of
+Felix IV., that he might have water to baptize his disciples.
+
+[Sidenote: What the Head of St. Paul Did.]
+
+But the most interesting of all the miraculous springs in or around
+Rome are the three fountains, about two miles from the city, where the
+Apostle Paul was executed. When his head was severed from his body it
+bounded from the earth three times, crying out thrice, "Jesus! Jesus!
+Jesus!" A fountain burst from the ground at each of the three spots
+where the severed head struck. It is asserted, in proof of this origin
+of the fountains, that the water of the first is still warm, of the
+second tepid, and of the third cold, but we drank of them one after
+another without being able to detect any difference in temperature. The
+apostle's head is shown in bas relief upon the three altars above the
+fountains. In the church which has been built over them we were shown
+the pillar to which he was bound, and the block of marble upon which
+he was decapitated, and, in the vault of another church hard by, the
+prison in which he was placed just before his execution.
+
+We could not help asking the priest who was our escort whether this
+extraordinary story was still believed. His answer was: "Certainly!
+There is no reason whatever to doubt it. The facts have been handed
+down in an unbroken succession from eye-witnesses," a position which
+he proceeded to defend at length and with great warmth when one of our
+party in particular manifested much slowness to believe.
+
+[Sidenote: St. Paul's Use of Plautilla's Veil.]
+
+Furthermore, the opening of these three fountains was not the only
+miracle wrought by the apostle after his death. Mrs. Jameson says:
+"The legend of his death relates that a certain Roman matron named
+Plautilla, one of the converts of S. Peter, placed herself on the road
+by which S. Paul passed to his martyrdom, to behold him for the last
+time; and when she saw him she wept greatly and besought his blessing.
+The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she
+would give him her veil to blind his eyes when he should be beheaded,
+promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked
+at such a promise; but Plautilla, with a woman's faith and charity,
+taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, S. Paul
+appeared to her and restored the veil, stained with his blood. In the
+ancient representations of the martyrdom of S. Paul, the legend of
+Plautilla is seldom omitted. In the picture by Giotto in the Sacristy
+of S. Peter's, Plautilla is seen on an eminence in the background,
+receiving the veil from the hands of S. Paul, who appears in the
+clouds above; the same representation, but little varied, is executed
+in bas-relief on the bronze doors of St. Peter's."
+
+[Sidenote: The Footprints of Christ in Stone.]
+
+About two miles northeast of the Three Fountains, and the same distance
+from the city, on the Appian Way, stands the Church of St. Sebastian.
+Over an altar on the right, as you enter, the attendant priest, drawing
+aside a curtain, shows you a slab of dark red stone with two enormous
+footprints on it. These, we are told, were made by the feet of Christ
+during an interview with Peter which took place near here, on the site
+of the small Church of Domine Quo Vadis. The story is as follows: After
+the burning of Rome, Nero charged the Christians with having fired
+the city. Straightway the first persecution broke forth, and many of
+the Christians were put to death with dreadful torture. The survivors
+besought Peter not to expose his life. As he fled along the Appian Way,
+Christ appeared to him travelling towards the city. The fleeing apostle
+exclaimed in amazement, "_Domine, quo vadis?_" (Lord, whither goest
+thou?), to which, with a look of mild sadness, the Saviour replied,
+"_Venio iterum crucifigi_" (I come to be crucified a second time), then
+vanished, whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness, returned to
+Rome, and shortly afterwards was crucified there himself.
+
+[Sidenote: The Chains of St. Peter.]
+
+Another relic of great interest connected with the same apostle is
+shown in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome, and indeed gives
+the church its name. The church is not without interest for other
+reasons. For instance, it possesses portions of the crosses of St.
+Peter and St. Andrew, and we are told that the high altar covers the
+remains of the seven Maccabean brothers. But the basilica is specially
+famous for the possession of the greatest masterpiece of sculpture
+since the time of the Greeks--the majestic "Moses" of Michelangelo,
+which draws thousands of sightseers who might otherwise never set foot
+in the building. Nevertheless, its chief attraction, to the devout
+Roman Catholic mind, is neither the bones of the Maccabees nor the
+statue of Moses, but the chains referred to in the following familiar
+passage of Scripture: "Peter therefore was kept in prison; but prayer
+was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod
+would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between
+two soldiers bound with two chains; and the keepers before the door
+kept the prison. And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a
+light shined in the prison; and he smote Peter on the side, and raised
+him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his
+hands." (Acts xii. 5-7.) These two chains were presented by Juvenal,
+Bishop of Jerusalem, to the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius the
+younger, who placed one of them in the Basilica of the apostles in
+Constantinople and sent the other to Rome, where this church was
+erected as its special shrine. This was about the middle of the fifth
+century. "But the Romans could not rest satisfied with the possession
+of half the relic; and within the walls of this very basilica, Leo
+I. beheld in a vision the miraculous and mystical uniting of the two
+chains, since which they have both been exhibited here, and the day of
+their being soldered together by invisible power, August 1st, has been
+kept sacred in the Latin church!" "They are of unequal size, owing to
+many fragments of one of them (first whole links, then only filings)
+having been removed in the course of centuries by various popes and
+sent to Christian princes who have been esteemed worthy of the favor!
+The longest is about five feet in length. At the end of one of them is
+a collar, which is said to have encircled the neck of St. Peter. They
+are exposed on the day of the 'station' (the first Monday in Lent) in a
+reliquary presented by Pius IX., adorned with statuettes of St. Peter
+and the Angel--to whom he is represented as saying, '_Ecce nunc scio
+vere_' (Acts xii. II). On the following day a priest gives the chains
+to be kissed by the pilgrims, and touches their foreheads with them,
+saying, 'By the intercession of the blessed Apostle Peter, may God
+preserve you from evil. Amen.'"[13]
+
+[Sidenote: The Benefits of Buying a Fac-simile of the Chains.]
+
+In the sacristy we found a young priest doing a thriving business in
+copies of the relic. We bought from him "an iron _fac-simile_ of the
+chains (about the size of an ordinary watch-chain), authenticated by a
+certificate testifying to its having touched the original chains. On
+the back of this certificate was printed an extract from the Rules of
+the Confraternity of the chains of St. Peter, from which we learned
+that all associates in this brotherhood must wear such a _fac-simile_
+as we had just bought, that the objects of the Confraternity are "The
+propagation of the veneration of the chains of St. Peter, an increase
+of devotion to the Holy See, prayers for the Pope's intention, for the
+needs of Holy Church, the conversion of infidels and sinners, and the
+extirpation of heresy and blasphemy," and that Pius IX. had granted to
+the members of the Confraternity various indulgences, one of which is
+"_A plenary indulgence and remission of all sins_[14] if one visits the
+Church of San Pietro in Vincoli on January 18th[15] and June 29th,[16]
+between the first vespers of the feast and sunset of the said days,
+or on August 1st, or any one of the seven days following it. The usual
+prayers for the Holy Father's intention," etc., are comprised in these
+visits. We are told also that "the foregoing indulgences are applicable
+to the souls in purgatory."
+
+[Sidenote: The Relics in St. Peter's Cathedral.]
+
+We may close this running account of the relics at Rome with a brief
+mention of those that are to be seen in St. Peter's itself, the largest
+and costliest church in the world. The construction of it extended
+over one hundred and seventy-six years. The cost of the main building
+alone was fifty million dollars. The annual outlay for repairs is
+thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars. But it cost the Romish Church
+far more than money--it cost her the loss of all the leading nations
+of the world, which had been under her dominion till that time. For
+the expense of the vast structure, with its "insolent opulence of
+marbles," was so great that Julius II. and Leo X. were obliged to meet
+the enormous outlay by the sale of indulgences, and that, as is well
+known, precipitated the Reformation. So that Protestants may well feel
+a peculiar interest in this mighty cathedral.
+
+[Sidenote: The Column against which Christ Leaned in the Temple.]
+
+It goes without saying that the popes would not allow the chief church
+of Roman Catholicism to go begging in the matter of relics. And, sure
+enough, we have no sooner pushed aside the heavy padded screen and
+stepped within than we find on our right the Chapel of the Holy Column,
+so called because it contains a pillar which is declared to have been
+that against which our Lord leaned when he prayed and taught in the
+temple at Jerusalem. The pillar contains this inscription: "Haec est
+illa columna in qua DNS N{r} Jesus XPS appodiatus dum populo prædicabat
+et Deo pno preces in templo effundebat adhaerendo, stabatque una
+cum aliis undecim hic circumstantibus. De Salomonis templo in
+triumphum hujus Basilicæ hic locata fuit: demones expellit et immundis
+spiritibus vexatos liberos reddit et multa miracula cotidie facit.
+P. reverendissimum prem et Dominum Dominum Card. de Ursinis. A. D.
+MDCCCXXVIII."
+
+[Sidenote: The Chair of St. Peter.]
+
+At the other end of the church we are shown an ancient wooden chair,
+encrusted with ivory, which we are told was the Cathedra Petri,
+the episcopal throne of St. Peter and his immediate successors.
+A magnificent festival in honor of this chair has been annually
+celebrated here for hundreds of years.
+
+My party seems to be made up of very determined Protestants. At any
+rate, the sight of this relic leads an inquisitive person in the party
+to ask whether the Bible does not say that "Peter's wife's mother lay
+sick of a fever."
+
+"Yes," replies the unfortunate gentleman to whose lot it falls to
+answer all questions of all kinds.
+
+"Then," continues the Inquisitive Person, "Peter was married?"
+
+Unfortunate Gentleman: "Yes."
+
+I. P.: "Do the Popes still marry?"
+
+U. G.: "No."
+
+I. P.: "If 'the first Pope' was married, why should not his successors
+be married, and why should they insist upon a celibate clergy in every
+age, in every country, and under all circumstances?"
+
+[Sidenote: The Bones of St. Peter.]
+
+U. G.: "These questions are becoming too hard for me. Come, let me
+show you the tomb which contains the bones of St. Peter and St. Paul.
+Only half of their bodies are preserved here, the other portion of St.
+Peter's being in the Church of St. John Lateran and the other portion
+of St. Paul's at the magnificent basilica of St. Paul's without the
+walls."
+
+"A circle of eighty-six gold lamps is always burning around the tomb of
+the poor fisherman of Galilee.... Hence one can gaze up into the dome,
+with its huge letters in purple-blue mosaic upon a gold ground (each
+six feet long)--Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam
+meam, et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum.' Above this are four colossal
+mosaics of the Evangelists.... The pen of St. Luke is seven feet in
+length."
+
+But we must not permit ourselves to be diverted from our proper subject
+by the vastness and splendor of the building, natural as it is to do
+so when standing under this matchless dome. The four huge piers which
+support the dome are used as shrines for the four great relics of the
+church, viz.: 1. The lance of St. Longinus, the soldier who pierced the
+Saviour's side; 2. A portion of the true cross; 3. The napkin of St.
+Veronica, containing the miraculous impression of our Lord's face; and
+4. The head of the apostle Andrew.
+
+I did not see these relics myself, as I was in the East when they were
+exhibited, but on April 11th, the day before Easter, other members of
+my party did, that is, they saw all of them but Andrew's head, and
+from a letter written me by the youngest of my correspondents in my
+own family, giving not only description, but drawings of the spear
+head, the cross and the handkerchief in their several frames, I infer
+that, notwithstanding the great height of the Veronica balcony from
+which they are exhibited, my young correspondent and his companions
+fared better in the matter of a good view than Fritz in _Chronicles
+of the Schönberg Cotta Family_, who says: "To-day we gazed on the
+Veronica--the holy impression left by our Saviour's face on the cloth
+S. Veronica presented to him to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight
+of the cross. We had looked forward to this sight for days, for seven
+thousand years of indulgence from penance are attached to it. But when
+the moment came we could see nothing but a black board hung with a
+cloth, before which another white cloth was held. In a few minutes this
+was withdrawn, and the great moment was over, the glimpse of the sacred
+thing on which hung the fate of seven thousand years."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[9] _Later._--This is the church in which the late Pope Leo XIII. is to
+be buried.
+
+[10] _The Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, Alexander Robertson, p. 113.
+
+[11] Hare, II., 93.
+
+[12] Hare's _Walks in Rome_, II., pp. 166, 167.
+
+[13] Hare, II., 45.
+
+[14] Italics not mine, but so printed in the extract.
+
+[15] Feast of St. Peter's Chair.
+
+[16] Feast of St. Peter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+THE LEGENDS, THE POPES, AND THE PASQUINADES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Manufacture of St. Philomena.]
+
+Before quitting the subject of the relics at Rome, I must give my
+readers what Hare calls "the extraordinary history of the manufacture
+of S. Filomena, now one of the most popular saints in Italy, and one
+towards whom idolatry is carried out with frantic enthusiasm both at
+Domo d'Ossola and in some of the Neapolitan States."
+
+"In the year 1802, while some excavations were going forward in the
+Catacombs of Priscilla, a sepulchre was discovered containing the
+skeleton of a young female; on the exterior were rudely painted some
+of the symbols constantly recurring in these chambers of the dead--an
+anchor, an olive branch (emblems of Hope and Peace), a scourge, two
+arrows, and a javelin; above them the following inscription, of which
+the beginning and end were destroyed:
+
+  --"LUMENA PAX TE CUM FI"--
+
+The remains, reasonably supposed to be those of one of the early
+martyrs for the faith, were sealed up and deposited in the treasury
+of relics in the Lateran; here they remained for some years unthought
+of. On the return of Pius VII. from France, a Neapolitan prelate was
+sent to congratulate him. One of the priests in his train, who wished
+to create a sensation in his district, where the long residence of the
+French had probably caused some decay of piety, begged for a few relics
+to carry home, and these recently discovered remains were bestowed on
+him; the inscription was translated somewhat freely to signify _Santa
+Philomena, rest in peace_. Another priest, whose name is suppressed,
+_because of his great humility_, was favored by a vision in the broad
+noonday, in which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was
+pleased to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring
+the Christian faith and her vow of chastity to the addresses of the
+emperor, who wished to make her his wife. This vision leaving much
+of her history obscure, a certain young artist, whose name is also
+suppressed, perhaps because of his great humility, was informed in a
+vision that the emperor alluded to was Diocletian, and at the same
+time the torments and persecutions suffered by the Christian virgin
+Filomena, as well as her wonderful constancy, were also revealed to
+him. There were some difficulties in the way of the Emperor Diocletian,
+which _incline_ the writer of the _historical_ account to incline
+to the opinion that the young artist in his wisdom _may_ have made
+a mistake, and that the emperor may have been not Diocletian, but
+Maximian. The facts, however, now admitted of no doubt; the relics
+were carried by the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples; they were
+enclosed in a case of wood resembling in form the human body; this
+figure was habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a crimson
+tunic after the Greek fashion; the face was painted to represent
+nature, a garland of flowers was placed on the head, and in the hands
+a lily and a javelin with the point reversed, to express her purity
+and her martyrdom; then she was laid in a half-sitting posture in a
+sarcophagus, of which the sides were glass, and, after lying for some
+time in state in the chapel of the Torres family in the Church of Sant'
+Angiolo, she was carried in grand procession to Mugnano, a little town
+about twenty miles from Naples, amid the acclamations of the people,
+working many and surprising miracles by the way.... Such is the legend
+of S. Filomena, and such the authority on which she has become within
+the last twenty years one of the most popular saints in Italy."--_Mrs.
+Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art_, p. 671.
+
+But, after all, the most extraordinary case of saint-manufacture is
+not that of Philomena, but that of _Buddha_! I have not room for the
+story here, but if any one wishes to know how the papacy made Buddha a
+Christian saint, he will find the whole story, with the proofs, in _A
+History of the Warfare of Science and Theology_, by Andrew D. White,
+LL. D., late President and Professor of History at Cornell University,
+and until recently United States Ambassador to Germany.
+
+[Sidenote: "The Courteous Spaniard."]
+
+A few days ago we visited the Church of St. Laurence Without the Walls,
+where in a silver shrine under the high altar, the remains of St.
+Laurence and St. Stephen are said to rest. The walls of the portico of
+the church are covered with a series of frescoes, lately repainted. One
+series represents the story of St. Stephen and that of the translation
+of his relics to this church. "The relics of St. Stephen were preserved
+at Constantinople, whither they had been transported from Jerusalem by
+the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius II. Hearing that her daughter,
+Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian II., Emperor of the West, was afflicted
+with a devil, she begged her to come to Constantinople, that her demon
+might be driven out by the touch of the relics. The younger Eudoxia
+wished to comply, but the devil refused to leave her unless St. Stephen
+was brought to Rome. An agreement was therefore made that the relics
+of St. Stephen should be exchanged for those of St. Laurence. St.
+Stephen arrived, and the Empress was immediately relieved of her devil;
+but when the persons who had brought the relics of St. Stephen from
+Constantinople were about to take those of St. Laurence back with them,
+they all fell down dead! Pope Pelagius prayed for their restoration
+to life, which was granted for a short time, to prove the efficacy of
+prayer, but they all died again ten days later! Thus the Romans knew
+that it would be criminal to fulfil their promise, and part with the
+relics of St. Laurence, and the bodies of the two martyrs were laid in
+the same sarcophagus." And thus we know how much more the Romans think
+of relics than of honor and truth. "It is related that when they opened
+the sarcophagus, and lowered into it the body of St. Stephen, St.
+Laurence moved on one side, giving the place of honor on the right hand
+to St. Stephen; hence, the common people of Rome have conferred on St.
+Laurence the title of '_Il cortese Spagnuolo_'--the courteous Spaniard."
+
+Another series of these pictures in the portico represents the story
+of a sacristan who, coming to pray in this church before day, found it
+filled with worshippers, and was told by St. Laurence himself that they
+were the Apostle Peter, the first martyr, Stephen, and other apostles,
+martyrs and virgins from paradise, and was ordered to go and tell the
+Pope what he had seen, and bid him come and celebrate a solemn mass.
+The sacristan objected that the Pope would not believe him, and asked
+for some visible sign. Then St. Laurence ungirt his robe and gave him
+his girdle. When the Pope was accompanying him back to the basilica
+they met a funeral procession. To test the powers of the girdle, the
+Pope laid it on the bier, and at once the dead arose and walked.
+
+[Sidenote: The Miracles of St. Dominic.]
+
+That is not the only miracle of resurrection offered to our credulity
+by these ecclesiastical legends. The three principal frescoes in the
+chapter house of the church of St. Sisto, recently painted by the
+Padre Besson, represent three miracles of St. Dominic--in each case of
+raising from the dead--the subjects being a mason who had fallen from
+a scaffold when building this monastery, a child, and the young Lord
+Napoleone Orsini, who had been thrown from his horse and instantly
+killed, and who was brought to life by St. Dominic on this spot, as
+is further commemorated by an inscription on the wall. But miracles
+were nothing uncommon in the history of the founder of the powerful
+Dominican Order. In the refectory of St. Marco, at Florence, we had
+seen the fine fresco which represents the miraculous provision made
+for him and his forty friars at a time of scarcity by two angels. The
+refectory in which this miracle took place is at the Church of St.
+Sabina, on the Aventine, in Rome; but there are three other things at
+this church which interested us hardly less than the scene of that
+miracle. One of them is the huge, pumpkin-shaped, black stone, two or
+three times as big as a man's head, which the devil is said to have
+hurled at St. Dominic one day when he found him lying prostrate in
+prayer. This stone is the most conspicuous object in the church, being
+set up on a pillar about three feet high, right in the middle of the
+nave. Not far away is the marble slab on which the saint was lying at
+the time that the formidable missile was thrown. The adversary's aim
+was not good, and the saint was not harmed. The second thing of chief
+interest here is the Chapel of the Rosary, at the other end of the same
+aisle in which the marble slab lies, built on the very spot where St.
+Dominic had the vision in which he received the rosary from the hands
+of the Virgin. The supernatural gift is commemorated in a beautiful
+painting by Sassoferato. It is hardly necessary to explain to any of my
+readers that a rosary is a string of beads used by Roman Catholics to
+keep the count of the number of _Pater-nosters_ and _Ave-Marias_ which
+they repeat, and that this manner of "vain repetitions" was first used
+by the Dominicans among Roman Catholics, though the custom was really
+borrowed from the Mohammedans and Brahmins, who still use rosaries. The
+third object is the famous orange tree, now six hundred and seventy
+years old, which is said to have been brought from Spain and planted
+in the court here by St. Dominic himself, orange trees having been
+unknown in Rome before that time, and "which still lives, and is firmly
+believed to flourish or fail with the fortunes of the Dominican Order."
+Ladies are not allowed to approach this tree, so, as there were ladies
+in our party, we all contented ourselves with a look at it through a
+window. Hard by, of course, there is a room where things are sold to
+pilgrims and visitors. There we bought a rosary, the beads of which
+are made of the fruit of the plant called the Thorn of Christ, with
+the exception of the bead next to the cross, which is a tiny dried
+orange from St. Dominic's tree. Enclosed in the cross are a little
+piece of the wood of the tree, and some earth from the catacombs where
+the bodies of Sts. Peter and Paul, and of the holy virgin martyrs,
+Sts. Agnes and Cecilia, reposed for some time. The printed leaflet
+which accompanies our purchase tells us that "these rosaries, when
+sold or ordered, are blessed and enriched with the indulgences of the
+Rosary Confraternity and the papal blessing. When blessed they may be
+distributed; _but if resold they lose all the indulgences_." (Italics
+ours.)
+
+Still another relic of great interest in this convent of St. Sabina
+is the crucifix of Michele Ghislieri (afterwards Pope Pius V.). "One
+day, as Ghislieri was about to kiss his crucifix, in the eagerness
+of prayer, the image of Christ, says the legend, retired of its own
+accord from his touch, for it had been poisoned by an enemy, and a kiss
+would have been death."
+
+[Sidenote: Sundry Miracles by Other Saints, and Images.]
+
+In the Church of St. Gregory, on the C[oe]lian Hill, the thing that
+interested us most was the picture by Badalocchi, "commemorating a
+miracle on this spot, when, at the moment of elevation, the Host
+is said to have bled in the hands of St. Gregory, to convince an
+unbeliever of the truth of transubstantiation." This is the same
+Gregory who presented certain foreign ambassadors with a handful of
+earth from the arena of the Coliseum as a relic for their sovereigns,
+so many martyrs having suffered death there, and "upon their receiving
+the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the
+soil."
+
+Not far from the Church of St. Gregory we were shown the hermitage
+where St. Giovanni de Matha lived. "Before he came to reside here he
+had been miraculously brought from Tunis (whither he had gone on a
+mission) to Ostia, in a boat without helm or sail, in which he knelt
+without ceasing before the crucifix throughout the whole of his voyage!"
+
+Time would fail me to tell of the miraculous surgical operation
+performed by Sts. Cosmo and Damian upon a man who was praying in the
+church dedicated to them, and who had a diseased leg amputated without
+pain by the good saints while he slept; and not only so, but had a
+sound leg, which they had taken from the body of a man just buried,
+substituted for the diseased one. Nor can I dwell on the miraculous
+blindness with which the guard sent to seize Pope St. Martin I. was
+stricken the moment he caught sight of the pontiff in St. Maria
+Maggiore, or the miraculous tears shed by an image of the Virgin
+attached to a neighboring wall when she saw a cruel murder committed in
+the street below, or the madonnas and crucifixes that spoke to saints
+on various occasions. One of these, however, is too significant to be
+omitted altogether. There is in the Church of St. Agostino a sculptured
+image of the Madonna and child. "It is not long since the report was
+spread that one day a poor woman called upon this image of the Madonna
+for help; it began to speak, and replied, 'If I had only something,
+then I could help thee, but I myself am so poor!' This story was
+circulated, and very soon throngs of credulous people hastened hither
+to kiss the foot of the Madonna, _and to present her with all kinds of
+gifts_." (Italics mine.)
+
+[Sidenote: How the Papal Treasury was Filled, and how it was Emptied.]
+
+The evil methods employed at various times to replenish the papal
+treasury are known to all readers of history. The best known, perhaps,
+is the shameless traffic in indulgences by Tetzel, which helped to
+precipitate the Reformation. Hare closes his account of the execution
+of Beatrice Cenci for complicity in the murder of her father with the
+statement that "sympathy will always follow one who sinned under the
+most terrible of provocations, and whose cruel death was due to the
+avarice of Clement VIII. for the riches which the church acquired by
+the confiscation of the Cenci property," and cites the petition of
+Gaspare Guizza (1601), in which he claims a reward from the Pope for
+his service in apprehending one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci,
+on the ground that thus "the other accomplices and their confessions
+were secured, and _so many thousands of crowns brought into the
+papal treasury_." The venality of Pope Alexander VI., Rodrigo Borgia
+(1492-1503), "the wicked and avaricious father of Cæsar and Lucretia,
+who is believed to have died of the poison which he intended for one
+of his cardinals," is thus hit off by Pasquino:
+
+    "Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum;
+    Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."
+
+Of Innocent X. (1644-'55), Pasquino says, "Magis amat Olympiam quam
+Olympium," referring to the shameful relations existing between this
+Pope and his avaricious sister-in-law, Olympia Maidalchini, who made
+it her business to secure the profits of the papacy in hard cash.
+Trollope, in his _Life of Olympia_, says: "No appointment to office of
+any kind was made except in consideration of a proportionable sum paid
+down into her own coffers. This often amounted to three or four years'
+revenue of the place to be granted. Bishoprics and benefices were sold
+as fast as they became vacant. One story is told of an unlucky disciple
+of Simon, who in treating with the Pope for a valuable see, just fallen
+vacant, and hearing from her a price at which it might be his, far
+exceeding all he could command, persuaded the members of his family to
+sell all they had for the purpose of making this profitable investment.
+The price was paid, and the bishopric was given him, but, with a
+fearful resemblance to the case of Ananias, he died within the year,
+and his ruined family saw the see a second time sold by the insatiable
+and incorrigible Olympia.... During the last year of Innocent's life,
+Olympia literally hardly ever quitted him. Once a week, we read, she
+left the Vatican, secretly by night, accompanied by several porters
+carrying sacks of coins, the proceeds of the week's extortions and
+sales, to her own palace. And during these short absences she used to
+lock the Pope into his chamber, and take the key with her!" She finally
+"deserted him on his death-bed, making off with the accumulated spoils
+of his ten years' papacy, which enabled her son, Don Camillo, to build
+the Palazzo Doria Pamfili, in the Corso, and the beautiful Villa Doria
+Pamfili," west of the Janiculan Hill. This villa, with its casino,
+garden, lake, fountain, pine-shaded lawns and woods, and its fine view
+of St. Peter's standing out against the green Campagna beyond, and
+the blue Sabine mountains in the distance, is to this day one of the
+loveliest villas in Italy, and the favorite resort of the latter-day
+Romans and visitors to their city on the two afternoons of the week on
+which it is open to pedestrians and two-horse carriages.
+
+The notorious Simony practiced by the popes, in which, as we have just
+seen, Olympia became such an adept, gave rise to the biting Latin
+couplet--
+
+    "An Petrus Romæ fuerit, sub judice lis est;
+    Simonem Romæ nemo fuisse negat."
+
+Some of the modern methods of making use of the Pope for purposes
+of gain are less objectionable than those of Olympia. Dr. Alexander
+Robertson, in his _Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, just published,
+says: "One of the very latest novelties of the 'Pope's Shop' is a
+penny-in-the-slot blessing machine. Specimens of this were lately to be
+seen in the Corso, Rome, about half way between the Piazza Colonna and
+the Piazza del Popolo. A penny is dropped into it. The cinematograph,
+or wheel of life, goes round, when, lo! there appears a long procession
+of richly clothed cardinals and monsignori, and then the Pope in a
+sedan chair, accompanied by his Swiss Guards. As he is carried past
+the spectator, he turns towards the window of his chair, a smile
+overspreads his face, he raises his hands, and gives his blessing. On
+these machines there is an inscription to the effect that the blessing
+thus given and received is equivalent to that given by the Pope in
+person in St. Peter's. Truly a novel way of turning an honest penny!"
+We hear that a rash churchman, not liking the facts just stated,
+undertook to deny them in the public prints, when up spoke some English
+gentlemen, who had been in Rome recently, and bowled the churchman over
+with the statement that they had themselves seen this blessing machine
+on the Corso.
+
+One never touches this subject of the vast wealth of the papacy without
+calling to mind the well-known rejoinder of the great theologian,
+Thomas Aquinas, when the Pope was showing him all his money and riches,
+and said, "You see, Thomas, the church cannot now say what it said in
+early times, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" "No," answered Aquinas,
+"nor can it say, 'Rise up and walk'" (Acts iii. 6). This loss of
+spiritual power, this loss of ability to minister salvation to others,
+is one of the most melancholy results of the corruption of the papacy.
+
+[Sidenote: Some Ugly Things in the Lives of the Popes.]
+
+Dr. Alexander Robertson, in his recent book on _The Roman Catholic
+Church in Italy_, which has received the hearty approval of the King
+of Italy and his Prime Minister, says: "There are few, I daresay,
+who have looked into the history of the popes, no matter what their
+religious faith may be, who will not agree with me when I say that it
+does not afford pleasant reading. One's intellect rebels against their
+preposterous claims and pretensions, and one's moral sense against
+their character and lives. Amongst them there were some good men, some
+learned men, and some really able men; but, taking them all in all,
+they were, beyond doubt, amongst the lowest class of men to be found
+on the pages of history. To wade through their lives is to cross a
+pestiferous moral swamp of worldliness, simony, nepotism, concubinage,
+personal animosities, sanguinary feuds, forged decretals, plunderings,
+poisonings, assassinations, massacres, death."[17]
+
+One may smile at such papal peccadilloes as the vanity of Paul II.,
+who was chiefly remarkable for his personal beauty, and was so vain
+of his appearance that, when he was elected Pope, he wished to take
+the name of Formosus. One may be amused at the intense self-esteem of
+Urban VIII., of whose spoliation of ancient Rome Pasquino says, "Quod
+non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini," and who, in the Barberini
+palace, had the Virgin and angels represented as bringing in the
+ornaments of the papacy at his coronation, and in another room a number
+of the Barberini bees (the family crest) flocking against the sun, and
+eclipsing it--to symbolize the splendor of the family. But our feeling
+changes when we read that "he issued a bull by which the name, estates
+and privileges of his house might pass to any living male descendant,
+legitimate or illegitimate, whether child of prince or priest," lest
+the family of Barberini might become absorbed in that of Colonna. And
+we do not go far in our reading about such popes before the feeling of
+amusement yields to one of sadness, indignation and horror. We need
+not insist upon the story of the female Pope Joan, who is said to have
+secured her election to the papal throne disguised as a man, and to
+have reigned two years as John VIII., and then to have died a shameful
+death; for, notwithstanding the indisputable fact that till 1600 her
+head was included among the terra cotta representations of the other
+popes in the Cathedral of Sienna, and was inscribed "Johannes VIII.,
+Femina de Anglia," and that it was then changed into a head of Pope
+Zacharias by the Grand Duke, at the request of Pope Clement VIII.,
+the story is now generally discredited. But there are many other
+facts, established beyond controversy, which explain fully the feeling
+of the great majority of the Italian people and the verdict of the
+accredited historians of the world. When the penitential Pope, Adrian
+VI. (1522-'23), died of drinking too much beer, "the house of his
+physician was hung with garlands by midnight revellers, and decorated
+with the inscription, Liberatori Patriæ, S. P. Q. R.'" The nepotism of
+the learned, brilliant and witty Paul III. "induced him to form Parma
+into a duchy for his natural son Pierluigui, to build the Farnese
+Palace, and to marry his grandson Ottavio to Marguerite, natural
+daughter of Charles V." John XII., the first Pope who took a new name,
+"scandalized Christendom by a life of murder, robbery, adultery and
+incest." Of the tombs of the eighty-seven popes who were buried in the
+old basilica of St. Peter's, only two were replaced when the present
+building was erected, those of the two popes who lived in the time and
+excited the indignation of Savonarola--"Sixtus IV., with whose cordial
+concurrence the assassination of Lorenzo de' Medici was attempted,
+and Innocent VIII., the main object of whose policy was to secure
+place and power for his illegitimate children," sixteen in number, and
+who is represented on his tomb as holding in his hand the spear of
+"St. Longinus," which had pierced the side of Christ. This spear was
+sent to Innocent VIII. by the Sultan Bajazet, nearly fifteen hundred
+years after the crucifixion, and, as we have already seen, is now
+preserved in St. Peter's as one of its four chief relics. Guicciardini
+says of the death of Alexander VI.: "All Rome ran with indescribable
+gladness to visit the corpse. Men could not satiate their eyes with
+feeding on the carcase of the serpent who, by his unbounded ambition
+and pestiferous perfidy, by every demonstration of horrible cruelty,
+monstrous lust and unheard-of avarice, selling without distinction
+things sacred and profane, had filled the world with venom."
+
+"Pope Paul V. granted dispensations and pensions to any persons who
+would assassinate Fra Paolo Sarpi; Pope Pius V. offered, as Mr. Froude
+tells us, 'remission of sin to them and their heirs, with annuities,
+honors and promotions, to any cook, brewer, baker, vintner, physician,
+grocer, surgeon, or others,' who would make away with Queen Elizabeth;
+and Pope Gregory XIII. offered a high place in heaven to any one who
+would murder the Prince of Orange; and the poor wretch, Balthazar
+Gerard, who did the infamous deed, actually told his judges 'that he
+would soon be a saint in heaven, and would have the first place there
+next to God,' whilst his family received a patent of nobility, and
+entered into the possession of the estate of the Prince in the Franche
+Comté--rewards promised for the commission of the crime by Cardinal
+Granvelle." (Dr. Alexander Robertson's _Roman Catholic Church in
+Italy_, p. 94.)
+
+These are some of the things that help to explain not only the tone
+of the pasquinades, not only the indictments of the world's leading
+historians, which are to be presently cited, but also the present
+attitude of something like twenty millions of the thirty-odd millions
+of Italy's inhabitants, who have forsaken the church altogether.
+
+What idea the people have of the Jesuits in particular is well shown
+by the legend connected with the Piazza del Gesu, the great open space
+in front of the Jesuit church, which is considered the windiest place
+in Rome. The story is that the devil and the wind were one day taking a
+walk together. "When they came to this square, the devil, who seemed to
+be very devout, said to the wind, 'Just wait a minute, mio caro, while
+I go into this church.' So the wind promised, and the devil went into
+the Gesu, and has never come out again--and the wind is blowing about
+in the Piazza del Gesu to this day."
+
+[Sidenote: Pasquino's View of the Pope.]
+
+One of the interesting objects in Rome is a mutilated statue called
+Pasquino, which stands at the corner of the Orsini Palace, one of
+the most central and public places in the city. The reason for the
+interest attaching to this almost shapeless piece of marble is that
+for centuries it was used for placarding those satires upon the popes
+which, by their exceeding cleverness and biting truth, have made the
+name of pasquinade famous the world over. No squib that was ever
+affixed to that column had a keener edge than the one known as "The
+Antithesis of Christ," which appeared at the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, and runs as follows:
+
+    Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world."
+    The Pope conquers cities by force.
+
+    Christ had a crown of thorns:
+    The Pope wears a triple diadem.
+
+    Christ washed the feet of his disciples:
+    The Pope has his kissed by kings.
+
+    Christ paid tribute:
+    The Pope takes it.
+
+    Christ fed the sheep:
+    The Pope wishes to be master of the world.
+
+
+    Christ carried on his shoulders the cross:
+    The Pope is carried on the shoulders of his servants in liveries
+          of gold.
+
+    Christ despised riches:
+    The Pope has no other passion than for gold.
+
+    Christ drove out the merchants from the temple:
+    The Pope welcomes them.
+
+    Christ preached peace:
+    The Pope is the torch of war.
+
+    Christ was meekness:
+    The Pope is pride personified.
+
+    Christ promulgated the laws that the Pope tramples under foot.
+
+[Sidenote: What the Italians now Think about it.]
+
+"But," some one may say, "the pasquinades were written long ago, and,
+while they are doubtless true descriptions of the papacy of the past,
+surely no one would take the same view now." For answer I may quote
+the statement of Dr. Raffaelle Mariano, Professor of Philosophy in the
+University of Naples, who is not a Protestant, but, as he tells us, was
+"born in the Roman Catholic Church," and was "a fervent Catholic from
+infancy." Speaking of the vast difference which he found between the
+teachings of the church and those of the New Testament as to what is
+necessary to salvation, he says, "Therefore, Roman Catholicism is not
+only not Christianity, but it is the very antithesis of Christianity,"
+a statement every whit as strong as Pasquino's. Some American
+Protestants, especially those who have personal friends in the Roman
+Catholic Church whom they honor and love--and there are many people in
+that church who are richly worthy of honor and love, and who do not
+approve of the evils we have been describing any more than we do--are
+sometimes disposed to think that Protestant writers are too severe in
+their condemnation of the Romish Church as a system. A visit to Italy,
+the centre of Romanism, would quickly disabuse these overcharitable
+Protestants of that impression. We have all read of such things as
+are described above in connection with the relics and legends, but
+they seem far away and unreal, and almost impossible, until we come
+to the home of Romanism and find them all around us. Then it ceases
+to surprise us that so large a proportion of the most intelligent men
+in Italy occupy a position of indifference and unbelief, or hostility
+and scorn, towards the Christian religion, for Romanism is the only
+Christianity that most of them know. Let it be remembered, too, that
+the King, able, conscientious, patriotic, devoted to the welfare of
+his people, and the Prime Minister, Zanardelli, like his predecessor,
+Crispi, and the members of Parliament, and the army and navy, and the
+whole government which has given Italy such wonderful stability and
+prosperity since the overthrow of the papal dominion and opened before
+the nation a future of so much promise, are all standing aloof from
+the Pope. Let any one see one of the great pilgrimages from every
+part of the country to the tomb of Victor Emmanuel, who freed Italy,
+as we saw it the other day, and observe the immense popularity of the
+great liberator and his successors of the house of Savoy, and let him
+note the firm opposition of Italy's leading men to the papacy, and he
+will see that the view of the Pope which the secular newspapers so
+persistently seek to force upon the people of the English-speaking
+world simply cannot be that of the thoughtful men of Italy.
+
+By the way, I see plenty of women confessing to the priests, but
+very, very few men. The textbook used in the training of priests
+as father-confessors, and the standard work of the church on that
+subject, approved by Pope Leo XIII., is Liguori's _Moral Philosophy_.
+"On July 14, 1901, the _Asino_, a daily newspaper published in Rome,
+printed in its columns, and also in the form of large bills, which it
+caused to be posted up in public places in the chief cities of Italy, a
+challenge offering one thousand francs to any Roman Catholic newspaper
+which would have the courage to print the Latin text, with an Italian
+translation, of two passages in Liguori's book, which it specified.
+The challenge was never taken up, and it never will be, for any one
+daring to publish the passages named would certainly be prosecuted for
+outraging public decency" (Dr. Alexander Robertson, _Roman Catholic
+Church in Italy_, p. 149). Hare says, "It was a curious characteristic
+of the laxity of morals in the time of Julius II. (1503-'13), that her
+friends did not hesitate to bury the famous Aspasia of that age in
+this church (St. Gregorio), and to inscribe upon her tomb: 'Imperia,
+cortisana Romana, quæ digna tanto nomine, raræ inter homines formæ
+specimen dedit.'... But this monument has now been removed."[18]
+
+Most of the facts above cited, especially those concerning the legends
+and the Popes, except where specific acknowledgment is made to other
+writers, have been drawn from Hare's invaluable _Walks in Rome_. Let us
+conclude the list with the testimonies of a few eminent men of
+unimpeachable competence and veracity as to the character and influence
+of the Roman Catholic Church as a system.
+
+[Sidenote: Macaulay, Dickens and Gladstone on the Influence of
+Romanism.]
+
+In the first chapter of his _History of England_, Lord Macaulay says:
+"From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to the
+time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome
+had been generally favorable to science, to civilization, to good
+government. But during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth
+of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom,
+whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth,
+and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has
+everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and
+most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in
+poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while
+Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism,
+have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of
+a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever,
+knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred
+years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome
+with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment
+as to the tendency of papal domination. The descent of Spain, once
+the first among the monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation,
+the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to
+a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach
+the same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to
+a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a
+Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant
+county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of
+civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails.
+The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the
+Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of
+Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is
+in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French
+have doubtless shown an energy and intelligence which, even when
+misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a great people.
+But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm
+the rule, for in no country that is called Roman Catholic has the
+Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little
+authority as in France."
+
+Charles Dickens, in a letter written from Switzerland, in 1845, to
+his friend and biographer, Forster, says: "In the Simplon, hard
+by here, where (at the bridge of St. Maurice over the Rhone) the
+Protestant canton ends and a Catholic canton begins, you might
+separate two perfectly distinct and different conditions of humanity
+by drawing a line with your stick in the dust on the ground. On the
+Protestant side--neatness, cheerfulness, industry, education, continued
+aspiration, at least, after better things. On the Catholic side--dirt,
+disease, ignorance, squalor and misery. I have so constantly observed
+the like of this since I came abroad that I have a sad misgiving that
+the religion of Ireland lies at the root of all its sorrows." Writing
+from Genoa, in 1846, Dickens says, "If I were a Swiss, with a hundred
+thousand pounds, I would be as steady against the Catholic canons and
+the propagation of Jesuitism as any Radical among them; believing the
+dissemination of Catholicity to be the most horrible means of political
+and social degradation left in the world."
+
+In connection with Dickens' remark about Ireland, we may quote the
+remarkable statement of Mr. Michael McCarthy, himself a Roman Catholic,
+in his book, _Five Years in Ireland_, pp. 65 and 66, where, after
+describing the welcome of the Belfast Corporation to Lord Cadogan on
+his first visit, in 1895, to the Protestant North of Ireland, and
+their glowing statements about the peaceful and prosperous condition
+of their city and district, he contrasts this happy condition with
+the unhappy state of the "rest of Ireland," meaning by that the
+Roman Catholic parts. "In the rest of Ireland there is no social or
+industrial progress to record. The man who would say of it that it
+was 'progressing and prospering,' or that 'its work people were fully
+employed,' or that there existed 'a continued development of its
+industries,' or that its towns 'had increased in value and population,'
+would be set down as a madman. It is in this seven-eighths of Ireland
+that the growing and great organization of the Catholic Church has
+taken root."
+
+Mr. Gladstone, in an article on "Italy and her Church," in the _Church
+Quarterly Review_ for October, 1875, says: "Profligacy, corruption and
+ambition, continued for ages, unitedly and severally, their destructive
+work upon the country, through the Curia and the papal chair; and in
+doing it they of course have heavily tainted the faith of which that
+chair was the guardian." Elsewhere he says, "There has never been any
+more cunning blade devised against the freedom, the virtue and the
+happiness of a people than Romanism."
+
+Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his _Marble Faun_, which, by the way, contains
+the most charming of all the descriptive writing about Rome, put
+the case none too strongly when he spoke of being "disgusted with
+the pretense of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally
+omnipresent" in the city of the popes. The new government has wrought
+a great change in this respect, and Rome is in many parts of it now
+quite a clean city.
+
+There, then, are the facts as to the influence of the Roman Catholic
+Church. I am, of course, very far from saying that there are no good
+people in that church. As I have already stated, I believe that there
+are many good people in it, but my own observation has satisfied me
+that the verdict of history as to the baleful influence of the system
+is absolutely correct.
+
+"What, then," some one may ask, "do the good people in that church
+think of all the immoralities and frauds that it has condoned and
+fostered?" The answer is that the really good people in that church
+must grieve over them and deplore them just as the good people in other
+churches do.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_P. S._--It is generally believed, and apparently with good reason,
+that the new Pope, Pius X., is a better man than many of his
+predecessors, and that he cannot be charged with the immoralities or
+the ambition and avarice which characterized them. Let us hope that he
+will have the courage to attempt some real reform in the lives of many
+of his clergy.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] It was a bad day for the cause of truth when Foxe's _Book of
+Martyrs_ was allowed to go out of general circulation. When I was a boy
+it was no uncommon thing to see copies of it in American homes. Now it
+is rarely seen. A new and corrected edition of it ought to be brought
+out and given wide circulation. There have been not a few indications
+this year that our people are forgetting some of the most instructive
+history of all the past, and those who seem to be most oblivious of it
+are the editors of some of the secular newspapers.
+
+[18] There are other indications of some improvement in this matter,
+but an Anglican resident in Italy, quoted by the _Review of Reviews_ as
+"a painstaking and fair-minded" witness, says, "People are not shocked
+by clerical immorality, but regard it as natural and inevitable." To an
+Anglican friend a Roman prelate lamented that a certain cardinal was
+not elected at the late conclave. But the Anglican replied, "He is a
+man of conspicuous immorality." "No doubt," was the answer, "but you
+Americans seem to think there is no virtue but chastity. The Cardinal
+has not that, but he is an honest man."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE OLD FORCES AND THE NEW IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: An Audience with the Pope.]
+
+Well, we have seen the Pope. Hearing that a body of Italian pilgrims
+were to be received by the pontiff at the Vatican, and having assured
+ourselves that the function was one which would involve no official
+recognition of the Pope on our part, and that we should be merely
+Protestant spectators, we gladly accepted the offer of tickets for the
+audience, and, supposing in our simplicity that, as the reception was
+set for noon, we should be sufficiently early if we went at eleven
+o'clock, we drove up to the main entrance of the Vatican at that hour.
+There was a great throng of people about the door, but our tickets
+obtained for us immediate entrance along with a stream of other ladies
+and gentlemen. The regulation attire for these functions is full
+evening dress for gentlemen, while ladies wear black, with no hat, but
+with a lace mantilla on the head. We first passed through a double line
+of the famous Swiss Guards, in their extraordinary uniform of crimson,
+yellow and black, designed by no less a person than Michael Angelo.
+Then we were shown up the great stairway, and passing through a couple
+of large rooms, one of which was adorned with Raphael's frescoes, we
+found ourselves at the entrance of a long and spacious hall, already
+densely crowded, as it seemed to us, but with a space kept open down
+the centre between the rows of seats on either side. Looking down
+this open space, we could see at the other end, on a slightly raised
+platform, the pontifical throne, upholstered in red velvet, with
+golden back and arms, effectively set in the midst of crimson hangings,
+which swept in rich masses from the lofty ceiling to the floor.
+Preceded by guards, we travelled the whole length of the hall, and
+found, to our great gratification, that our seats were quite close to
+the throne, so that we had an excellent position for seeing and hearing
+all that was going on. We soon noticed that many of the hundreds of
+people present, like some of us, had not observed the regulations as
+to dress. Many others had. Mingled with the soberer attire of the
+spectators, pilgrims and priests, we saw now and then a violet cassock,
+as one bishop after another drifted in. Apart from these vestments,
+there was no semblance of a religious gathering. It was more like a
+social function, and the people were chatting gaily, the jolliest and
+noisiest crowd being a group of young seminarians, prospective priests,
+who occupied the same bench with us and the two or three nearest to
+it. After we had been there an hour the great clock of St. Peter's
+struck twelve. Instantly all the noisy young seminarians rose to their
+feet and began to recite, in a lower, humming tone, their _Ave-Marias_
+and _Pater-Nosters_. As soon as the reciting and counting of beads
+was over, as it was in a minute, they struck in again with their gay
+conversation. We had plenty of time to take it all in. The Pope is
+always late, and it was an hour after the time fixed for the audience
+when he appeared; but at last he did, and instantly everybody, men and
+women, sprang up on the benches and chairs, frantically waving their
+handkerchiefs and shouting at the top of their voices, "_Evviva il
+Papa-Re! Evviva il Papa-Re!_"--"Long live the Pope-King! Long live the
+Pope-King!"--the ablest performer in this part of the ceremony being a
+leather-lunged young priest at my elbow, with a voice as powerful and
+persistent as that of a hungry calf, and who made known his desire
+for the restoration of the temporal power to the Pope with such energy
+that the perspiration rolled down his fat face in shining rivulets.
+I never heard anything like it except in a political convention or a
+stock exchange. Accompanied by the Noble Guard, a body of picked men
+renowned for their superb physique and clad in resplendent uniform, the
+Holy Father was borne in on an arm-chair, carried by twelve men, also
+in uniform. Occasionally he would rise to his feet with evident effort,
+leaning on, or rather grasping, one arm of his chair, and bless the
+people he was passing, with two fingers outstretched in the familiar
+attitude that we have seen in the pictures. At such times the furious
+acclamations, and waving of handkerchiefs, and clapping of hands,
+would be redoubled. He passed within arm's length of us, a little knot
+of Protestants, silent amid the uproar. It was a pitiful spectacle.
+A pallid, feeble, tottering old man, with slender, shrunken neck,
+and excessively sharp and prominent features, nose and chin almost
+meeting--we now understood Zola's description: "The simious ugliness of
+
+Accordingly, within four hours of receiving his appointment, Terence
+bade his parent farewell and proceeded by rail to Devonport, where
+the "Sunderland" was lying. It was nearly dark when he alighted at
+Millbay station. Here he called a taxi and was whirled off to the
+Dockyard, whence a picquet boat conveyed him to the cruiser, which
+was lying at a buoy in the Hamoaze.
+
+"We're off under sealed orders at six o'clock tomorrow morning,"
+announced one of his new shipmates, a junior lieutenant, Teddy
+Barracombe by name. "Of course, we are quite in the dark, but there's
+a strong idea floating around that the ship's off to the Near East.
+Just my mark! According to all accounts we'll be pretty busy in the
+Dardanelles."
+
+"That's all very fine for you," commented Oswestry, the torpedo
+lieutenant, "but where do I come in? We can't use torpedoes against
+fortifications, you know, and there's precious little floating about
+for us to go for."
+
+"Don't take on, Torps," said Barracombe cheerfully. "You never know
+your luck. Wait and see."
+
+"I'd rather t'were the other way about," corrected Torps. "Seeing
+your torpedo leave the tube and waiting for the enemy ship to be
+blown up. No Dardanelles for me. So I hope to goodness it's the North
+Sea. By Jove, I do!"
+
+As soon as the "Sunderland" was clear of the breakwater the momentous
+orders were opened. It was not to the Near East; the cruiser had to
+proceed to Dover and await further instructions.
+
+All the way up Channel a rigorous watch was maintained, for hostile
+submarines had made their presence unpleasantly felt off Prawle
+Point, the Bill of Portland, and south of the Royal Sovereign
+Lightship. The cruiser pelted under forced draught, steering a
+zig-zag course in order to baffle the carefully-planned calculations
+of the lurking tigers of the deep, while the guns were manned and
+trained abeam ready to be laid upon the first suspicious object
+resembling a periscope.
+
+Being the first day of the month the ship's company was to be paid,
+and soon after six bells final preparations for the solemn rite were
+in progress.
+
+At a quarter to one two "G's"--the officers' call--sounded, and the
+first hundred men, mustering by open list, assembled in the Port
+Battery. On the quarter-deck tables were placed in position, on each
+of which were teak trays divided into small compartments by brass
+strips. In each of these divisions a man's monthly pay and allowance
+money had already been placed and checked by the paymaster and his
+staff.
+
+Owing to the conditions of war-time the captain was not present, his
+duty of superintending the payment being taken by the commander. At
+the tables stood the staff-paymaster, the R.N.R. assistant-paymaster,
+and the chief writer.
+
+The staff-paymaster glanced at the commander, indicating that all was
+in readiness. The commander gave the word to carry on, and the
+disbursing of coin began.
+
+The assistant-paymaster called the men's names from a book. Each
+seaman stepped briskly forward to the chalk line, removed his cap,
+and, according to instructions, looked the accountant officer
+squarely in the face and gave his name and rating. Then, receiving
+his money in the crown of his cap, the recipient saluted and moved
+away to make room for the next man.
+
+All was proceeding smoothly and with the regularity of clockwork when
+suddenly a diversion occurred.
+
+The ship's company had a mascot in the shape of a young African
+monkey, that had been presented to the "Sunderland" by a French
+cruiser during a visit to an Algerian port. Although usually
+good-tempered "Mephisto" could and did exhibit fits of sulkiness and
+outbursts of insubordination that would have earned a lower deck man
+ninety days' "confined to detention quarters." But the monkey being a
+sort of chartered libertine, was idolized by the ship's company and
+mildly tolerated by the officers.
+
+Mephisto was lazily sunning himself under the lee of the quarter-deck
+6-in gun shield when his eye caught sight of the chief writer's
+silver watch, which that petty officer had occasion to consult.
+
+Probably the monkey imagined that it was one of the tins of condensed
+milk for which he had great partiality.
+
+Getting on his four feet Mephisto ambled across the quarter-deck,
+past the line of men drawn up at attention. Before he could cross the
+chalk line, a symbol for which he had no respect, the chief writer
+had replaced his timepiece.
+
+Foiled in that direction the monkey made a grab at a pile of brand
+new copper coins, and before any of the officers and men could
+prevent, had made a rush for the weather-shrouds.
+
+"Stop him!" yelled the commander.
+
+A dozen men hastened to comply, jolting against each other in their
+alacrity to pursue the animal, which with marvellous agility had
+gained the extremity of the signal yard-arm.
+
+Here he perched, hanging on with his hind paws while he tasted each
+coin with his teeth--at first with an expression of hopefulness upon
+his features that rapidly changed into one of profound disgust.
+
+Holding the rest of the coins against his chest Mephisto hurled one
+on to the sacred precincts of the quarter-deck. It landed in one of
+the compartments of the pay-table, displacing a sovereign, that
+rolled between the staff-paymaster and the assistant-paymaster.
+
+Both officers simultaneously stooped to recover the errant piece of
+gold. The result was that their heads met with a thud in spite of the
+protection afforded by their peaked caps.
+
+Several of the men could not conceal a grin. One broke into a laugh,
+and meeting the stern glance of the commander tried to side-track
+into a painful cough.
+
+Fortunately for the culprit the commander was inwardly affected by a
+similar complaint, for he, too, saw the humour of the business.
+
+"Confound you!" shouted the staff-paymaster, removing his cap and
+rubbing his bald head. "Confound you, you brute! Throwing away the
+money from the public chest!"
+
+The only reply from Mephisto was another penny that, thrown with
+splendid aim, rebounded from the staff-paymaster's shiny pate.
+
+"The ship's company will have to make up the loss," he muttered.
+"They're responsible for their confounded pet."
+
+"But you're responsible for the money, Staggles," remarked the
+commander drily. "At any rate, Mephisto is paying you back by
+instalments."
+
+It wanted all the self-control at their command to keep the lookout
+men's attention from the comic scene to a duty of a serious nature,
+while the gun's crews temporarily forgot their duties to watch the
+encounter between the mascot and the staff-paymaster.
+
+"Catch it--oh, you rotten butterfingers!" groaned the accountant
+officer to the assistant-paymaster, who, missing a coin thrown by the
+animal, allowed the sum of one penny to be committed to the deep.
+"Here, ship's steward, nip below and open a tin of condensed. That
+may tempt the brute below."
+
+"You're condoning an offence, Staggles," said the commander in an
+undertone, with a humorous gleam in his eye.
+
+Another coin tinkled on the deck. The commander promptly placed his
+foot on it to check its career towards the side.
+
+"Where did that go?" asked the staff-paymaster, who, curiously
+enough, had a miserly regard for any money except his own, which he
+spent liberally.
+
+The commander shifted his foot and pointed to the retrieved coin; as
+he did so, another penny, hurtling through the air, hit him smartly
+on his bent neck and promptly slithered inside his collar and down
+his back.
+
+Unfortunately the commander was a man of a most ticklish temperament.
+The contact of the metal disc with his back caused him to writhe like
+a lost soul in torment. He had recently unflinchingly faced death in
+a hotly-contested engagement in the North Sea, but this rear attack
+completely unnerved him. His grotesque efforts to capture the elusive
+coin was too much for the rest of the officers and men. They were
+unable to conceal their amusement. Finally the commander dived down
+below and divested himself of his uniform.
+
+Just then the ship's steward appeared with the tin of condensed milk,
+and handed the unopened can to a seaman. Away aloft the man made his
+way till he gained the cross-trees. Owing to the "Sunderland"
+altering her course she was swinging considerably to starboard, and
+the motion made the man advance cautiously, his feet sliding along
+the foot-ropes while he held on grimly with his free hand to the
+spar.
+
+Mephisto eyed the approaching delicacy with marked approval. Letting
+the remaining coins drop, some of which tinkled on deck although most
+of them fell overboard, he whisked along the yard-arm, and before the
+seaman realized the brute's intention, snatched the can from his
+grasp.
+
+A snarl warned the bluejacket that if he advanced it would be at his
+peril, and unwilling to risk an encounter with an agile monkey on the
+swaying yard, he followed the precept of discretion being the better
+part of valour, and regained the deck, leaving the spoils in the
+hands of the elated ape.
+
+Presently the monkey had another disappointment. The intact tin
+baffled him. He tried his teeth upon it--but unavailingly, so he
+began to batter it upon the metal eye of a band encircling the spar.
+
+"There'll be an unholy mess, by Jove!" ejaculated the commander, who
+had now reappeared upon the scene, for the tin showed signs of
+capitulating to the strenuous frontal attacks on the part of
+Mephisto.
+
+"Bring up another tin--and take care to open it this time," ordered
+the staff-paymaster recklessly, who had now taken the precaution of
+covering the pay-tables with a green baize cloth.
+
+"Bang, bang, bang!" went the tin under the muscular efforts of
+Mephisto. Already large drops of the viscous fluid were descending
+upon the hallowed quarter-deck, bespattering officers and men
+indiscriminately, for owing to the ship's speed a strong current of
+air was drifting aft and spraying the stuff far and wide.
+
+"Clear the quarter-deck," ordered the commander. "Up aloft a couple
+of hands and collar the brute. By Jove! if it gives much more
+trouble, I'll have it shot."
+
+Suddenly, above the scuffling of feet as the men doubled for'ard,
+came the shout: "Submarine on the port quarter."
+
+Sharply the bugle sounded "Action," and as the "Sunderland" began to
+circle to starboard in answer to a quick movement of her helm, the
+quick-firers began to bark at a pole-like object four hundred yards
+off.
+
+The unexpected detonation, as a gun was discharged fifty feet under
+his nose, completed Mephisto's brief spell of unalloyed liberty.
+Temporarily stunned by the terrific concussion the monkey relaxed his
+grip and fell.
+
+Just at that moment the staff-paymaster, who was scurrying below with
+one of the pay-trays, happened to be passing in the direct line of
+Mephisto's descent. The next instant the portly officer was rolling
+on the deck in a puddle of condensed milk with the monkey's paws
+clutching at his scanty crop of hair, while to complete the
+staff-paymaster's discomfiture most of the money he was carrying
+rolled overboard.
+
+Regaining his feet Staff-paymaster Staggles contrived to reach the
+companion, and with Mephisto still firmly attached to him,
+disappeared below.
+
+But the men's attention was now directed towards more serious
+matters. An ever-diverging line that rippled the placid water denoted
+the approach of a deadly torpedo. Now it was heading as if about to
+hit the bows of the "Sunderland," a second later and the arrow-like
+ripples seemed to be approaching directly abeam; then, as the cruiser
+swung almost on her heel the wake of the formidable missile was
+merged into the churning froth astern. It had missed by a bare yard.
+
+From the fire-control platform telephone bells were clanging and men
+shouting through the voice-tubes. From their elevated position the
+watchers could discern a long, dark shadow that marked the position
+of the submarine.
+
+Completely circling the "Sunderland" was steadied on her helm and
+steered straight for the spot. In vain the submerged craft attempted
+to dive to a depth greater than that of her enemy's draught.
+
+Terence, who was stationed on the after-bridge, felt a faint shock as
+the five thousand tons vessel literally cut the luckless submarine in
+twain. For a brief instant the lieutenant caught sight of the
+after-portion of the "U" boat, as, rendered buoyant by the trapped
+air, it drifted past. Then amidst a smother of foam and oil the
+wreckage vanished.
+
+"The eleventh to my certain knowledge," remarked the commander, as
+coolly as if he were reckoning up the score at an athletic meeting.
+
+"Any damage for'ard, Mr. Black?"
+
+"No, sir; all as tight as a bottle as far as I can see," replied the
+carpenter, who immediately after the impact had hurried below to see
+if any plates had been "started."
+
+A little later in the afternoon several of the ward-room officers
+were enjoying their cups of tea and biscuits, when the
+staff-paymaster entered.
+
+"Well, Staggles, what's the shortage?" asked the commander
+facetiously.
+
+The accountant officer eyed his tormentor reproachfully, as if that
+officer were responsible for his former discomfiture.
+
+"One pound three shillings and threepence--and two tins of condensed
+milk," he announced stiffly. "According to paragraph 445 of the
+Admiralty Instructions there will have to be two separate reports on
+the shortage."
+
+The staff-paymaster spoke seriously. The man was heart and soul in
+his work, and his mental horizon was bounded by official forms and
+other red-tapeism connected with the accountant branch of H.M.
+Service.
+
+"By the by," interposed Oswestry, "Staggles ought to be recommended
+for the V.C."
+
+"What's that, Torps?" asked Barracombe. "Our staff-paymaster the
+V.C.?"
+
+"What for?" inquired the staff-paymaster innocently.
+
+The commander entrenched himself behind a double number of an
+illustrated periodical.
+
+"For bringing Mephisto in out of action," he replied with a chuckle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+THE FOILED AIR RAID.
+
+
+LATE that evening the "Sunderland" brought up in the Admiralty
+Harbour at Dover, in company with three other light cruisers, two
+monitors, and a flotilla of destroyers. All night long the men slept
+at their guns, while the cruiser's searchlights aided those of the
+forts both ashore and on the breakwater in sweeping the approach to
+the sheltered harbour.
+
+"Nothing to report," announced Barracombe, as Aubyn relieved him as
+officer of the watch. "A jolly fine night. I shouldn't wonder if we
+were favoured by a visit from a Zeppelin or two."
+
+"A pretty jamb in the harbour," said Terence, giving a quick glance
+at the maze of vessels. "Fortunately, I hear, we've several seaplanes
+at our disposal."
+
+Barracombe wished his relief good-night and descended the ladder to
+retire to the seclusion of his cabin and sleep the sleep of
+exhaustion, for he had had a strenuous time before the cruiser left
+Devonport.
+
+During the first hour nothing unusual occurred. The midshipman of the
+watch reported "Rounds all correct, sir," to which Aubyn replied with
+the stereotyped "Very good." Across the harbour came the faint hail
+of the Night Guard as the picquet boat studiously visited every
+vessel within the limits of the breakwater.
+
+The masthead light of the flagship began to blink. A signalman on the
+"Sunderland's" bridge snatched up a slate.
+
+"General call, sir," he announced.
+
+Deftly the man took down the message, then hurried to the chart-room
+to decipher the code.
+
+"Submarine E27 reports three hostile aeroplanes passing S.W. by W.
+Position eleven miles N.N.E. of North Goodwin."
+
+The warning was a brief one, for hardly had the ship's company been
+called to their action stations when a faint buzzing, immediately
+becoming louder and louder, announced that the raiders were
+approaching the town and harbour of Dover.
+
+Searchlights flashed skywards, while from beneath the old castle on
+the lofty chalk cliffs half a dozen intrepid British airmen ascended
+to meet the foe. Already the anti-aerial guns were stabbing the
+darkness with lurid spurts of flame, while their shells, bursting
+perilously close to the hostile aeroplanes, caused the calculating
+Teutons to think better of the attempt.
+
+It was an easy matter to steal over an unfortified town or village
+and drop explosives; but for once the Germans were to learn the
+wisdom of discrimination. Higher and higher they banked, until
+catching a glimpse of the British seaplanes as they passed through
+the path of one of the searchlights they precipitately turned tail.
+
+"'Sunderland' and destroyer flotilla to proceed in support of
+seaplanes," came the signal.
+
+Hastily the pins of the mooring shackle were knocked out. Steam was
+already raised, and in a very few minutes the light cruiser and her
+attendant destroyers were slipping between the heads of the detached
+breakwater and the Admiralty Pier.
+
+But swift as were the light cruisers the seaplanes were quicker.
+Already they were five or six miles out to sea, their position being
+revealed by the flashes of the light guns as they exchanged shots
+with the fugitive Taubes.
+
+Suddenly with a dazzling flash a bomb exploded hardly twenty feet
+from the "Sunderland's" starboard quarter. Five seconds later another
+struck the water almost under the cruiser's bows, and a waft of
+evil-smelling gas drifted across the navigation bridge, causing
+officers and men to cough and gasp for breath.
+
+The captain tried to give an order, but was unable to utter a sound.
+Mutely he signed for the helm to be put hard over.
+
+Terence understood. Literally groping his way through the thick
+vapour, that even in the darkness showed an unmistakable greenish
+hue, he found the quartermaster, who was clutching his throat and
+struggling for breath.
+
+Pushing the man aside Aubyn rapidly revolved the steam steering-gear.
+Obediently the cruiser swung round, narrowly escaping a high
+explosive missile that, had she maintained her course, would have
+played havoc with her fo'c'sle.
+
+All around the "Sunderland" the destroyers were dodging hither and
+thither in order to attempt to avoid the hail of bombs that rained
+from the sky. It was little short of a miracle that collisions did
+not take place, for owing to the darkness, the suffocating fumes from
+the missiles, and to the fact that most of the helmsmen were
+temporarily blinded and choked, all attempt at formation was out of
+the question.
+
+From the after-bridge of the cruiser a searchlight flashed skywards.
+For a few seconds even its powerful rays failed to penetrate the pall
+of smoke, till an eddying gust freed the "Sunderland" from the
+noxious fumes.
+
+Then the source of the mysterious missiles was revealed. At a height
+of over two thousand feet were a couple of Zeppelins. Taking
+advantage of the fact that the attention of the British seaplanes and
+destroyers was centred on the fugitive Taubes, these giant airships,
+by reason of their altitude, were able to manoeuvre immediately above
+the flotilla.
+
+It was an opportunity too good to be missed, for although the
+objective of the Zeppelins was a raid on London--they having decided
+upon a circuitous course over Kent and Sussex borders in order to
+avoid the air-stations at the Isle of Grain--the chance of raining a
+shower of bombs upon the British cruiser and her attendant destroyers
+was too tempting.
+
+For once, at least, the German Admiralty had not been kept well
+posted as to the details of armament of the cruisers of the "Town
+Class," for the "Sunderland" and her consorts had recently been
+equipped with a couple of 12-pounder anti-aircraft guns. These
+weapons fired a shell of unique character. Somewhat resembling a
+shrapnel, the missile was packed with short lengths of chain and
+charged with a high explosive.
+
+Almost as soon as the Zeppelins were discovered both guns barked
+venomously. From the point of view of the observers on the
+"Sunderland's" bridge the shells appeared to burst close to the frail
+targets. Both airships were observed to pitch violently, while one,
+with her nose tilted downwards, began to descend.
+
+"She's done for!" exclaimed Terence.
+
+A round of cheering burst from the throats of the crew. It seemed as
+if nothing could arrest the seaward plunge of one of the Kaiser's
+gas-bags. Not only had her bow compartments been holed but the
+nacelle containing the propelling machinery was completely wrecked.
+
+Both Zeppelins began to throw out ballast with frantic haste. They
+also released the whole of their remaining supply of bombs, which
+fell with a rapid series of deafening detonations more than half a
+mile from the nearest destroyer.
+
+With the release of the ballast the undamaged Zeppelin shot skywards
+until her altitude was not less than ten thousand feet. Comparatively
+safe for the time being from the effect of the anti-aircraft shells,
+she floated, a mere speck in the concentrated yet diminished glare of
+a dozen searchlights, and awaited events.
+
+Meanwhile, the damaged Zeppelin had checked her plunge, and, in spite
+of a hot fire, was slowly rising. By dint of strenuous efforts her
+crew succeeded in shifting aft the travelling weight that served to
+trim the unwieldy craft. Even then her longitudinal axis was sharply
+inclined to the horizontal.
+
+Everything that could be jettisoned was thrown overboard. Guns,
+ammunition, stores, and the metal framework of the wrecked car were
+sacrificed, till without being hit by the British guns, she rose to a
+terrific height.
+
+"We've lost her!" exclaimed Oswestry savagely.
+
+"One thing, she won't trouble us again," added the commander. "And
+I'm not so certain that she will get clear. We've wirelessed the
+seaplanes, and they'll have a chip in. Hullo! What's the game now?"
+
+A searchlight flashed from the undamaged Zeppelin and played in
+ever-widening circles until it picked up her damaged consort. The
+latter was consequently more plainly discernible to the crew of the
+"Sunderland" than it had hitherto been, since the distance between
+the two airships was less than a thousand yards and was visibly
+decreasing.
+
+"They're going to take her in tow, by Jove!" ejaculated Aubyn, who
+had brought his binoculars to play upon the scene.
+
+Oswestry gave a snort that implied disbelief in his brother-officer's
+assertion, but presently he exclaimed:--
+
+"Well, blest if you aren't right, old man. And a deuced smart move,"
+he added, with a true sailor's admiration for a smart manoeuvre,
+whether executed by friend or foe.
+
+"What a chance for our seaplanes!" said the torpedo lieutenant.
+"They ought to have been on the spot before this."
+
+"They're on the way all right, Torps," declared the commander. "I
+wouldn't mind betting a month's pay that they've spotted their
+quarry. By Jove, they've established communication!"
+
+The undamaged Zeppelin had circled round her consort and was now
+forging gently ahead. An upward jerk of the other's bows announced
+that the strain on the towing hawser was beginning to be felt.
+Gradually the hitherto uncontrollable airship began to gather way,
+both vessels rolling sluggishly in the light air-currents.
+
+The aerial searchlight had now been switched off, but by means of the
+rays directed from the British ships the progress of the two
+Zeppelins could be followed as their huge shapes, showing ghost-like
+in the silvery light, moved slowly in a north-easterly direction.
+
+Having resumed their respective stations the cruiser and the
+destroyer flotilla followed. Owing to the greatly reduced speed of
+the hostile aircraft it was an easy matter to maintain a fixed
+relative distance between them and the British vessels, whose
+attention was divided between the prospect of an aerial meeting with
+seaplanes and the risk of being intercepted by the torpedo of a
+German submarine, to say nothing of floating mines.
+
+"She's cast off!" shouted a dozen voices.
+
+Such was the case. The two Zeppelins had parted company, one flying
+off at a terrific speed, rising rapidly as she did so, while the
+other, being without means of propulsion, drifted at the mercy of the
+winds.
+
+It was now dawn. The grey light of morning was already overcoming the
+strength of the searchlights and it was already possible to discern
+the outlines of the abandoned Zeppelin by the natural light of day.
+
+Pelting up from the eastward came the air squadron of seaplanes. Half
+a dozen circled and started off in pursuit of the fugitive airship,
+which, travelling at high speed, was now but a faint speck against
+the ruddy sky.
+
+The rest advanced boldly upon the disabled Zeppelin, although
+ignorant of the fact that she had jettisoned her guns, and, save for
+a few rifles, was without means of defence.
+
+The seaplanes' automatic guns spat viciously, and as the range
+decreased almost every shot began to tell. The huge fabric once more
+began to drop, as the small projectile ripped through the flimsy
+aluminium envelope.
+
+Presently the seaplanes ceased firing and circled triumphantly over
+their vanquished foe. They knew that the Zeppelin was doomed, and
+instincts of humanity forbade them to take undue advantage of the
+plight of her crew.
+
+"Away, boats!" ordered the "Sunderland's" captain.
+
+Instantly there was a rush to man the boats and to stand by the
+falls. With an alacrity that was part of his nature, Jack Tar
+prepared to rescue his enemy, in spite of the fact that that enemy
+had sallied forth with the deliberate intention of hurling bombs with
+the utmost indiscrimination upon combatants and non-combatants alike,
+not excepting helpless women and children.
+
+Before the boats could be lowered a lurid blaze of light rolled out,
+rivalling the rays of the rising sun. Where the Zeppelin had been
+only a cloud of flame-tinged smoke remained, while from the
+mushroomed pall of vapour that marked a funereal pyre of yet another
+unit of the Kaiser's air-fleet, scorched and twisted girders and
+other débris streamed seawards.
+
+Whether by accident or design the only remaining petrol tank had
+exploded, and the flames instantly igniting the huge volume of
+hydrogen had in the twinkling of an eye completed the work of
+destruction.
+
+For ten minutes the destroyers cruised over the spot where the
+débris had disappeared, but there were no signs of survivors, not
+even of wreckage. The remains of the Zeppelin had been swallowed up
+by the insatiable sea, and no visible trophy remained in the hands of
+the men who had baulked an attempted raid on the largest city of the
+world.
+
+Before the flotilla regained Dover Harbour the remaining seaplanes
+came in sight. Unfortunately their efforts at pursuit were futile.
+The Zeppelin developing a turn of speed far in excess of which she
+had been credited by her detractors, had shaken off the British
+aircraft, and when last seen she was high over the Belgian coast.
+
+Nevertheless, her wings had been clipped, although she survived to
+tell the tale that the hated English were still able vigorously and
+successfully to dispute the mastery of the air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+"LIEUTENANT AUBYN, R.N., D.S.O."
+
+
+ON the evening following the return of the "Sunderland" to Dover,
+Terence obtained leave to go ashore in order to visit a
+brother-officer who, owing to his ship being under repairs, was
+temporarily installed in the Lord Warden Hotel.
+
+Aubyn was proceeding along the Admiralty Pier when his progress was
+barred by a tall, bronzed young fellow in the uniform of a
+flight-lieutenant of the Naval Air Service.
+
+"Hullo, Aubyn, old man!" exclaimed the latter cordially, as he
+extended his hand. "Forgotten me already?"
+
+"Waynsford, by Jove!" ejaculated Terence. "Bless you, Dick, I never
+expected to see you here and in this rig. What has happened?"
+
+"Oh, I chucked the Motor Boat Reserve," declared Waynsford. "It was a
+bit too dull. They sent me to Southampton, and that was the limit. A
+superannuated postman could have done my job, which was delivering
+letters to transports. So I applied for the Naval Air Service. It's
+more in my line."
+
+"Been across yet?" asked Terence, indicating the twenty odd mile
+strip of water that separated Great Britain from the scene of land
+hostilities.
+
+"Dunkirk twice," replied Waynsford. "Was there when the Germans
+started shelling the place. But we're off again early to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"Yes, I heard," said Aubyn. "Big operations. We are to engage the
+Zeebrugge and Ostend batteries while the Allied airmen play with the
+German lines of communication. So I may see something of you."
+
+"I hope so--after the fun is over," replied the young airman. "Well,
+I must be moving. Early hours and a good night's rest are essential
+to this sort of work."
+
+The two friends parted, Terence making for the hotel, while Waynsford
+walked off in the direction of the castle, in which the airmen
+detailed for the great raid were temporarily quartered.
+
+Precisely at one hour before sunrise the first British waterplane
+rose from the surface of Dover Harbour. Almost simultaneously an Army
+aeroplane "kicked off" from the sloping ground beyond the chalk
+cliffs. Each was followed at regular intervals, until a double row of
+swift air-craft flying with methodical precision headed towards the
+Flanders shore.
+
+Already the "Sunderland" and three other light cruisers, accompanied
+by a torpedo-boat destroyer flotilla, were shaping a course for the
+Belgian coast.
+
+Off the East Goodwins they were joined by two monitors and three
+pre-Dreadnought battleships, and the battle line was formed. Away
+steamed the destroyers to act as screens to the heavier vessels, and
+to guard them from submarine attack. The monitors led the main
+division, the cruisers acting as links between them and the
+battleships, which, owing to their greater draught, could not
+approach the coast nearer than a distance of from four to seven
+miles.
+
+From Aubyn's point of view the forthcoming operations were entirely
+new. For the first time in his experience he was to take part in an
+action between ships and shore batteries, the latter being both fixed
+and mobile. It was a comparatively easy matter to plant shells into
+forts the position of which were known, but the Germans had brought
+up heavy guns mounted on travelling platforms, which could be moved
+with considerable celerity behind the long, low-lying sand dunes
+between Nieuport and Zeebrugge.
+
+It was partly to locate the latter that the airmen had preceded the
+bombarding ships, and also to harass the enemy's lines of
+communication. Moreover, hostile submarines were reported to have
+been brought in sections to Zeebrugge, where they were being bolted
+together ready to take the offensive against the British vessels
+operating off the Belgian coast.
+
+The "Sunderland," like her consorts, was already cleared for action.
+All the crew were behind the protected portions of the ship, but the
+captain and seven of the officers elected to fight the ship not from
+the armoured conning-tower but from the fore-bridge.
+
+"By Jove! They're at it already," exclaimed Oswestry, as a series of
+rapid detonations came from across the dunes.
+
+By the aid of their glasses the officers could discern the fleecy
+mushrooms of smoke caused by the bursting of the anti-aerial guns
+directed against the British airmen. Viewed from a distance it seemed
+impossible that a frail aeroplane could exist amid that tornado of
+shell.
+
+"Wireless reports mobile battery three hundred yards sou'-sou'-east
+of Clemskercke church, sir," reported a signalman.
+
+Promptly the news was transmitted to the fire-control platform. In
+his lofty perch a gunnery-lieutenant was busy with a complication of
+instruments, assisted by a midshipman and three seamen.
+
+"Fire-control to for'ard 6-inch gun: stand by!" came the telephonic
+order. "Fire-control to port battery stand by."
+
+Round swung the guns, "laid" by the master hand of the
+gunnery-lieutenant on the fire-control platform. Docilely obedient to
+the delicate mechanism they reared their muzzles high in the air.
+
+Then, with a crash that shook the ship, five of the 6-inch guns spoke
+simultaneously. To the accompaniment of a long-drawn shriek the
+100-pound missiles hurtled through space.
+
+"Eighty yards short," came the wireless report of the observing
+seaplane that, hovering a bare five hundred feet above the German
+mobile battery, had marked the point of impact of the shells.
+
+Again a salvo was let loose. This time came the encouraging statement
+that the hostile guns were knocked clean out of action, and that
+swarms of artillerymen and infantry were scurrying across the dunes.
+
+The next discharge practically annihilated the fugitives. In one
+minute and twenty-five seconds the "Sunderland's" particular task was
+accomplished. It was but the beginning, for acting upon orders from
+the flagship she was ordered to engage a battery at close range.
+
+Meanwhile, the rest of the battleships and cruisers had not been
+idle. A perfect tornado of shell was being directed upon the Belgian
+shore.
+
+"Hard aport!" shouted the captain of the "Sunderland."
+
+Round swung the cruiser, only just avoiding the tell-tale line of
+bubbles that marked the track of a torpedo. With consummate daring a
+German submarine had dived under a part of the torpedo-boat destroyer
+flotilla, and had discharged a weapon at the British cruiser. The
+torpedo, having missed the "Sunderland," was tearing straight for one
+of the monitors, which, having to go full speed astern to avoid a
+collision with a couple of damaged destroyers, was now practically
+stationary.
+
+Owing to the light draught the weapon passed six feet beneath her
+keel, and finishing its run rose to the surface three hundred yards
+beyond; for, instead of the torpedo sinking at the end of its course,
+the Germans, in direct contravention of the laws of naval warfare,
+had closed the sinking valve so that the torpedo virtually became a
+floating mine.
+
+In this instance the trick did not avail, for a well-directed shot
+from one of the monitor's quick-firers exploded the war-head and sent
+the missile into a thousand fragments.
+
+"A feeble reply," observed Oswestry to Terence. "These fellows seem
+afraid to stand to their guns."
+
+Even as he spoke the air was torn by a terrific salvo of shells from
+powerful batteries hitherto well concealed in the dunes. The
+"Sunderland," being fairly close, seemed the special mark, for in six
+seconds she received as many direct hits. One of her funnels showed a
+jagged gash ten feet in length and was only prevented from toppling
+overboard by the steel-wire guys. A three-pounder gun, that
+fortunately was not manned, was blown completely from its mountings,
+while the rest of the shells passed clean through the unprotected
+parts of the ship, totally wrecking the ward-room and the stokers'
+mess-deck.
+
+Terence felt a strong desire to make a hasty rush for the shelter of
+the conning-tower, for splinters were flying and wafts of pungent
+smoke from the hostile shells were drifting over the bridge, but the
+sight of his captain standing cool and collected and without a
+vestige of protection tended to restore his confidence.
+
+With unabated fury her guns replied to the German fire. The
+"Sunderland" proved that she could receive as well as give hard
+knocks.
+
+It was time to give the almost overheated starboard guns a chance to
+cool, so orders were given for the helm to be starboarded. Seeing the
+cruiser in the act of turning, a destroyer tore across her bows,
+purposely throwing out huge volumes of black smoke from her four
+funnels in order to mask the "Sunderland" as she circled.
+
+Terence recognized the destroyer as his old ship the "Livingstone,"
+as she darted swiftly round the turning cruiser, then, leaving a
+thick pall of smoke in her wake, hastened off to assist another
+destroyer that was evidently in difficulties.
+
+The "Livingstone's" manoeuvre undoubtedly saved the "Sunderland" from
+destruction, for a fifty-two centimetre shell, aimed to hit the exact
+position where the cruiser would have been had she not altered
+course, struck the water with a tremendous splash not fifty yards on
+her beam.
+
+Before the "Sunderland" had drawn clear of the friendly cloud of
+smoke she had increased her distance from shore by nearly five
+cables' lengths; while, until the German gunners had found the range
+anew, she was able to enjoy a brief respite.
+
+"Seaplanes returning," announced the gunnery-lieutenant on the
+fire-control platform, who from his elevated post could command a
+wide and almost uninterrupted view.
+
+Their task done, the seaplanes, which had been engaged in dropping
+bombs on the railway stations in the rear of the German batteries,
+were on their homeward way. Anxiously Terence counted them. Thank
+heaven! Not one was missing.
+
+Apparently the last but one of the aerial procession was in
+difficulties, for the seaplane was rocking violently, and in spite of
+a dangerous tilt of the elevating planes was appreciably descending.
+
+Suddenly the frail craft plunged, literally on end, towards the sea,
+the force of gravity, acting with the pull of the propeller, greatly
+increasing its velocity.
+
+When within two hundred feet of the surface the seaplane made a
+complete loop, then after climbing a hundred feet or so, began to
+side-slip.
+
+"By Jove! He'll be drowned for a dead cert," exclaimed Terence, for
+he knew for a fact that the aviator had not been thrown from the
+chassis when the seaplane "looped the loop," and in consequence must
+be strapped to his seat.
+
+"Away sea-boat," ordered the captain, at the same time giving
+directions for both engines to be reversed.
+
+The "Sunderland" was considerably the nearest warship to the
+descending airman. Already the "Livingstone" and her two sister-ship
+destroyers were a mile or so away, and wearing at full speed to
+investigate a suspicious swirl in the water.
+
+Shells were again dropping unpleasantly near to the cruiser as Aubyn
+hurried towards the boat which was, owing to being cleared for
+action, secured inboard, abreast the after funnel.
+
+Before he reached this spot the seaplane had struck the surface of
+the water. Falling obliquely and at a sharp angle, the impact had
+shattered one of the floats. When the cascade of spray had subsided
+the wrecked craft could be seen still afloat but listing acutely. The
+aviator had survived the shock and was hurriedly unbuckling the strap
+that held him to his seat.
+
+"Boat's done for, sir," announced one of the would-be crew. Such was
+the case. The explosion of a shell had wrenched her keel and
+garboards out of her.
+
+"Then overboard with that!" ordered Terence, indicating a Carley
+life-buoy, which, though scorched by the blast of the shells, was
+still practically intact.
+
+The Carley life-buoy is a "new departure" in life-saving appliances
+on board ships of the Royal Navy. It is a glorified edition of an
+ordinary buoy, but elongated in shape and provided with gratings, and
+capable of being propelled by oars.
+
+Half a dozen bluejackets seized the huge buoy and slung it overboard.
+Held by means of a line it floated alongside the cruiser until
+Terence and three men clambered into it.
+
+Although the rate of propulsion was not by any means so rapid as that
+of a boat the progress of the rescuers was far from slow. More than
+once they were splashed by the spray thrown up by a ricochetting
+projectile, as the German gunlayers were gradually correcting their
+aim, yet unscathed the rescue party came alongside the gradually
+sinking seaplane.
+
+"Hullo, Aubyn!" shouted a well-known voice.
+
+The airman was Waynsford. In his pneumatic helmet and huge goggles he
+was unrecognizable, but his voice proclaimed his identity.
+
+"Hurt, old man?" asked Terence.
+
+"Not a bit," replied Waynsford coolly. "They clipped a couple of
+stays just as I was getting out of range. But we did the trick, by
+Jove! Blew the railway station to Jericho."
+
+"Hurry up," interposed Terence. "She's going."
+
+The young airman methodically gathered together several important
+instruments, and giving a final look round at the aircraft that had
+served him so faithfully, stepped into the waiting "Carley."
+
+Before the men had pulled five yards the wrecked machine gave a lurch
+and capsized completely. Supported by trapped air in the partially
+intact float the seaplane sank slowly, and with hardly a ripple
+disappeared from view.
+
+With the least possible delay rescuers and rescued were taken on
+board the cruiser. Gathering way the "Sunderland" steamed in a
+westerly direction in order to baffle the range of the shore
+batteries, using her after guns with terrific speed.
+
+Somewhat unceremoniously leaving his friend Terence hastened towards
+the bridge. Just as he was abreast of the wreckage of the shattered
+funnel a deafening detonation, that completely surpassed the roar of
+the cruiser's guns, seemed to burst over his head. Staggering under
+the blast of the explosion and temporarily blinded by the pungent
+smoke, the lieutenant groped his way until his progress was checked
+by a jagged mass of plating rendered almost red-hot by the impact of
+a huge shell.
+
+Recoiling, he stood stock still for quite thirty seconds, his senses
+numbed by the nerve-racking concussion. Then, as the smoke drifted
+away, he could discern the débris of the bridge. Charthouse,
+stanchions, semaphore, signal-lockers--all had vanished, and with
+them the captain and those of the officers and men who had dared fate
+by rejecting the shelter afforded by the conning-tower, which,
+stripped of its surroundings, stood out a gaunt, fire-pitted steel
+box.
+
+The shell, a 42-centimetre, had literally cleared the forepart of the
+ship, from the for'ard 6-inch gun to the second funnel. Everything in
+its path had been literally pulverized, with the exception of the
+conning-tower. Had the projectile burst on or below the main deck the
+fate of the "Sunderland" would have been sealed; as it was, she was
+still intact under the waterline.
+
+Instinctively Aubyn realized that the ship was not under control.
+Steaming rapidly she was heading towards the "Bradford"--her sister
+ship--which was steering in a north-easterly direction at about five
+cables' distance on her port bow.
+
+With a tremendous effort of will-power Terence cleared at a bound the
+formidable glowing plate of metal that obstructed his path. Making
+his way across the scorched and splintered planks, some of which gave
+under his weight, he reached the entrance to the conning-tower.
+
+The steel citadel was full of acrid-smelling smoke that eddied in the
+air-currents which drifted in through the observation slits.
+
+Bending, and holding his left hand over his mouth and nostrils,
+Terence entered. As he did so he stumbled over the body of the
+quartermaster.
+
+Propped against the circular walls were the first lieutenant and two
+seamen. All the occupants of the conning-tower had been overcome by
+the noxious fumes from the highly-charged projectile.
+
+Gasping for fresh air Terence flung himself upon the steam-steering
+gear and put the helm hard over. A glimpse through one of the slits
+revealed the fact that the cruiser was answering to her helm. Yet so
+narrowly had a collision been averted that the "Sunderland's"
+starboard side was within twenty feet of the "Bradford's" port
+quarter as the two vessels swung apart.
+
+The guns were now silent, for with the destruction of the foremast
+the fire-control platform and its occupants had been swept out of
+existence. The cruiser was temporarily out of action.
+
+Terence was beginning to feel dizzy and faint. Why, he knew not.
+Perhaps it was the pungent fumes. Leaning over the mouthpiece of the
+speaking tube he ordered a couple of quartermasters to be sent to the
+conning-tower. He could hardly recognize the sound of his own voice.
+It seemed miles away.
+
+Again he looked ahead. The cruiser was still drawing further and
+further out of range. Having satisfied himself on that score and that
+there was no fresh danger of colliding with any of the rest of the
+fleet, he staggered into the open air and leaned heavily against the
+outer wall of the conning-tower, He was barely conscious that the
+metal was still hot.
+
+Up came the quartermasters. At their heels was a sub-lieutenant, his
+face grimed with smoke and his uniform torn.
+
+"Take over, Garboard," ordered the lieutenant brokenly. "Report to
+the flagship and ask instructions. I'm feeling deucedly queer."
+
+"Why, you're wounded!" exclaimed the sub-lieutenant, noticing a dark
+and increasing patch upon Aubyn's coat.
+
+"Am I?" asked Terence incredulously.
+
+Turning his head to ascertain the nature of his injury, of which
+hitherto he was unconscious, his shoulder slipped along the curved
+steel wall. Garboard was only just in time to save him from
+collapsing inertly upon the deck of the ship he had brought safely
+out of action.
+
+
+
+"Congratulations, old man. You'll have to get your tailor to make
+some alteration in your uniform."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Terence.
+
+Two months had elapsed since the day on which Lieutenant Aubyn had
+received a dangerous wound in his right side in the fight off Ostend.
+
+He was sitting in the grounds of the Royal Naval Hospital at Chatham,
+having made a fairly rapid recovery.
+
+The officer who offered his congratulations was Oswestry, the
+torpedo-lieutenant of the "Sunderland," who was also a convalescent,
+having managed to intercept a flying fragment of metal during the
+momentous engagement.
+
+"Torps" flourished a newspaper with his left hand, for his right arm
+was in a sling.
+
+"Stop press--Latest news and appointments," he read. "The Admiralty
+has approved of the following transfer. From R.N.R. to R.N.:
+Lieutenant Terence Aubyn, to date 3rd of June, 1915."
+
+For a moment Terence looked incredulously at the torpedo-lieutenant.
+"Torps," he knew, was fond of a practical joke, but if he were
+playing a prank it was carrying the game a little too far.
+
+"Here you are," continued Oswestry, noting the expression on
+Terence's face. "Read it for yourself."
+
+"It's worth getting this," said Aubyn, indicating the position of his
+wound. "All I want now is to be afloat again."
+
+"Young fire-eater!" exclaimed "Torps" facetiously. "Don't you
+worry--you'll have a look-in before The Day comes. By Jove, Aubyn,
+you'll have to ask the surgeon if he'll allow you to hold a
+fête----"
+
+The crunching of boots upon the gravel path caused both officers to
+turn. Standing at attention was a Marine orderly; behind him a
+telegraph boy.
+
+"Congratulations pouring in already," remarked "Torps."
+
+Terence took the buff envelope and opened it.
+
+"Great Scott!" he exclaimed brokenly, and without another word he
+handed the telegram to his companion.
+
+"It never rains but it pours," quoted "Torps." "You'll attain
+Flag-rank in another fifteen years, mark my words. Lieutenant Aubyn,
+D.S.O."
+
+The "wire" was a private tip from a personal friend at the Admiralty,
+informing Terence that His Majesty had been graciously pleased to
+bestow upon him the Distinguished Service Order for gallantry in
+bringing H.M.S. "Sunderland" out of action during operations off the
+Belgian coast.
+
+"Torps" was not far short of the mark, for a D.S.O. almost invariably
+means a rapid promotion to the fortunate and heroic recipient.
+
+"Flag-rank," echoed Terence. "There's plenty of time for that.
+Meanwhile, that's where duty calls," and with a wave of his hand he
+indicated the distant North Sea, on which the supreme contest for the
+supremacy of the waves will prove that the heritage of Nelson is
+still worthily upheld by Britannia's sons.
+
+
+
+
+ABERDEEN: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+
+
+
+  [Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    This book contains a number of misprints.
+    The following misprints have been corrected:
+
+    [the prisoner nonchalently.] -> [the prisoner nonchalantly.]
+    [to commuicate with wireless] -> [to communicate with wireless]
+    [was calculated to be from] -> [was calculated to be seen from]
+    [of what had occured,] -> [of what had occurred,]
+    [hostilites as a godsend] -> [hostilities as a godsend]
+    [a courtesey that the captain] -> [a courtesy that the captain]
+    [its horribly slippery] -> [it's horribly slippery]
+    [the concusion had caused] -> [the concussion had caused]
+    [with the laudible intention] -> [with the laudable intention]
+    [he crosssd the line] -> [he crossed the line]
+    [a stragetic point of view] -> [a strategic point of view]
+    [the faintest attenion to] -> [the faintest attention to]
+
+    A few cases of punctuation errors were corrected, but are not
+    mentioned here.
+
+    A list of illustrations has been added.
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+GALSWORTHY PLAYS--SERIES 3
+
+By John Galsworthy
+
+
+     Contents:
+          The Fugitive
+          The Pigeon
+          The Mob
+
+
+
+
+THE FUGITIVE
+
+A Play in Four Acts
+
+
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE PLAY
+
+GEORGE DEDMOND, a civilian
+CLARE, his wife
+GENERAL SIR CHARLES DEDMOND, K.C.B., his father.
+LADY DEDMOND, his mother
+REGINALD HUNTINGDON, Clare's brother
+EDWARD FULLARTON, her friend
+DOROTHY FULLARTON, her friend
+PAYNTER, a manservant
+BURNEY, a maid
+TWISDEN, a solicitor
+HAYWOOD, a tobacconist
+MALISE, a writer
+MRS. MILER, his caretaker
+THE PORTER at his lodgings
+A BOY messenger
+ARNAUD, a waiter at "The Gascony"
+MR. VARLEY, manager of "The Gascony"
+TWO LADIES WITH LARGE HATS, A LADY AND GENTLEMAN, A LANGUID LORD,
+     HIS COMPANION, A YOUNG MAN, A BLOND GENTLEMAN, A DARK GENTLEMAN.
+
+
+
+
+ACT I.  George Dedmond's Flat.  Evening.
+
+ACT II.  The rooms of Malise.  Morning.
+
+ACT III.  SCENE I.  The rooms of Malice.  Late afternoon.
+
+          SCENE II.      The rooms of Malise.  Early Afternoon.
+
+ACT IV. A small supper room at "The Gascony."
+
+
+
+
+Between Acts I and II three nights elapse.
+
+Between Acts II and Act III, Scene I, three months.
+
+Between Act III, Scene I, and Act III, Scene II, three months.
+
+Between Act III, Scene II, and Act IV, six months.
+
+
+
+
+  "With a hey-ho chivy
+  Hark forrard, hark forrard, tantivy!"
+
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+     The SCENE is the pretty drawing-room of a flat.  There are two
+     doors, one open into the hall, the other shut and curtained.
+     Through a large bay window, the curtains of which are not yet
+     drawn, the towers of Westminster can be seen darkening in a
+     summer sunset; a grand piano stands across one corner.  The
+     man-servant PAYNTER, clean-shaven and discreet, is arranging two
+     tables for Bridge.
+
+     BURNEY, the maid, a girl with one of those flowery Botticellian
+     faces only met with in England, comes in through the curtained
+     door, which she leaves open, disclosing the glimpse of a white
+     wall.  PAYNTER looks up at her; she shakes her head, with an
+     expression of concern.
+
+PAYNTER.  Where's she gone?
+
+BURNEY.  Just walks about, I fancy.
+
+PAYNTER.  She and the Governor don't hit it!  One of these days
+she'll flit--you'll see.  I like her--she's a lady; but these
+thoroughbred 'uns--it's their skin and their mouths.  They'll go till
+they drop if they like the job, and if they don't, it's nothing but
+jib--jib--jib.  How was it down there before she married him?
+
+BURNEY.  Oh!  Quiet, of course.
+
+PAYNTER.  Country homes--I know 'em.  What's her father, the old
+Rector, like?
+
+BURNEY.  Oh! very steady old man.  The mother dead long before I took
+the place.
+
+PAYNTER.  Not a penny, I suppose?
+
+BURNEY.  [Shaking her head]  No; and seven of them.
+
+PAYNTER.  [At sound of the hall door]  The Governor!
+
+     BURNEY withdraws through the curtained door.
+
+     GEORGE DEDMOND enters from the hall.  He is in evening dress,
+     opera hat, and overcoat; his face is broad, comely, glossily
+     shaved, but with neat moustaches.  His eyes, clear, small, and
+     blue-grey, have little speculation.  His hair is well brushed.
+
+GEORGE.  [Handing PAYNTER his coat and hat]  Look here, Paynter!
+When I send up from the Club for my dress things, always put in a
+black waistcoat as well.
+
+PAYNTER.  I asked the mistress, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  In future--see?
+
+PAYNTER.  Yes, sir.  [Signing towards the window]  Shall I leave the
+sunset, sir?
+
+     But GEORGE has crossed to the curtained door; he opens it and
+     says: "Clare!"  Receiving no answer, he goes in.  PAYNTER
+     switches up the electric light.  His face, turned towards the
+     curtained door, is apprehensive.
+
+GEORGE.  [Re-entering]  Where's Mrs. Dedmond?
+
+PAYNTER.  I hardly know, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  Dined in?
+
+PAYNTER.  She had a mere nothing at seven, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  Has she gone out, since?
+
+PAYNTER.  Yes, sir--that is, yes.  The--er--mistress was not dressed
+at all.  A little matter of fresh air, I think; sir.
+
+GEORGE.  What time did my mother say they'd be here for Bridge?
+
+PAYNTER.  Sir Charles and Lady Dedmond were coming at half-past nine;
+and Captain Huntingdon, too--Mr. and Mrs.  Fullarton might be a bit
+late, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  It's that now.  Your mistress said nothing?
+
+PAYNTER.  Not to me, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  Send Burney.
+
+PAYNTER.  Very good, sir.  [He withdraws.]
+
+     GEORGE stares gloomily at the card tables.  BURNEY comes in
+     front the hall.
+
+GEORGE.  Did your mistress say anything before she went out?
+
+BURNEY.  Yes, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  Well?
+
+BURNEY.  I don't think she meant it, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  I don't want to know what you don't think, I want the fact.
+
+BURNEY.  Yes, sir.  The mistress said: "I hope it'll be a pleasant
+evening, Burney!"
+
+GEORGE.  Oh!--Thanks.
+
+BURNEY.  I've put out the mistress's things, sir.
+
+GEORGE.  Ah!
+
+BURNEY.  Thank you, sir.  [She withdraws.]
+
+GEORGE.  Damn!
+
+     He again goes to the curtained door, and passes through.
+     PAYNTER, coming in from the hall, announces: "General Sir
+     Charles and Lady Dedmond."  SIR CHARLES is an upright,
+     well-groomed, grey-moustached, red-faced man of sixty-seven, with
+     a keen eye for molehills, and none at all for mountains.  LADY
+     DEDMOND has a firm, thin face, full of capability and decision,
+     not without kindliness; and faintly weathered, as if she had
+     faced many situations in many parts of the world.  She is fifty
+     five.
+
+     PAYNTER withdraws.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Hullo!  Where are they?  H'm!
+
+     As he speaks, GEORGE re-enters.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [Kissing her son]  Well, George.  Where's Clare?
+
+GEORGE.  Afraid she's late.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Are we early?
+
+GEORGE.  As a matter of fact, she's not in.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Oh?
+
+SIR CHARLES.  H'm!  Not--not had a rumpus?
+
+GEORGE.  Not particularly.  [With the first real sign of feeling]
+What I can't stand is being made a fool of before other people.
+Ordinary friction one can put up with.  But that----
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Gone out on purpose?  What!
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  What was the trouble?
+
+GEORGE.  I told her this morning you were coming in to Bridge.
+Appears she'd asked that fellow Malise, for music.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Without letting you know?
+
+GEORGE.  I believe she did tell me.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  But surely----
+
+GEORGE.  I don't want to discuss it.  There's never anything in
+particular.  We're all anyhow, as you know.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  I see.  [She looks shrewdly at her son]  My dear,
+I should be rather careful about him, I think.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Who's that?
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  That Mr. Malise.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Oh!  That chap!
+
+GEORGE.  Clare isn't that sort.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  I know.  But she catches up notions very easily.  I
+think it's a great pity you ever came across him.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Where did you pick him up?
+
+GEORGE.  Italy--this Spring--some place or other where they couldn't
+speak English.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Um!  That's the worst of travellin'.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  I think you ought to have dropped him.  These literary
+people---[Quietly]  From exchanging ideas to something else, isn't
+very far, George.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  We'll make him play Bridge.  Do him good, if he's that
+sort of fellow.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Is anyone else coming?
+
+GEORGE.  Reggie Huntingdon, and the Fullartons.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [Softly]  You know, my dear boy, I've been meaning to
+speak to you for a long time.  It is such a pity you and Clare--What
+is it?
+
+GEORGE.  God knows!  I try, and I believe she does.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  It's distressin'--for us, you know, my dear fellow--
+distressin'.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  I know it's been going on for a long time.
+
+GEORGE.  Oh!  leave it alone, mother.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  But, George, I'm afraid this man has brought it to a
+point--put ideas into her head.
+
+GEORGE.  You can't dislike him more than I do.  But there's nothing
+one can object to.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Could Reggie Huntingdon do anything, now he's home?
+Brothers sometimes----
+
+GEORGE.  I can't bear my affairs being messed about----
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Well! it would be better for you and Clare to be
+supposed to be out together, than for her to be out alone.  Go
+quietly into the dining-room and wait for her.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Good!  Leave your mother to make up something.  She'll
+do it!
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  That may be he.  Quick!
+
+     [A bell sounds.]
+
+     GEORGE goes out into the hall, leaving the door open in his
+     haste.  LADY DEDMOND, following, calls "Paynter!"  PAYNTER
+     enters.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Don't say anything about your master and mistress
+being out.  I'll explain.
+
+PAYNTER.  The master, my lady?
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Yes, I know.  But you needn't say so.  Do you
+understand?
+
+PAYNTER.  [In polite dudgeon]  Just so, my lady.
+
+     [He goes out.]
+
+SIR CHARLES.  By Jove!  That fellow smells a rat!
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Be careful, Charles!
+
+SIR CHARLES.  I should think so.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  I shall simply say they're dining out, and that we're
+not to wait Bridge for them.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  [Listening]  He's having a palaver with that man of
+George's.
+
+     PAYNTER, reappearing, announces: "Captain Huntingdon."  SIR
+     CHARLES and LADY DEDMOND turn to him with relief.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Ah!  It's you, Reginald!
+
+HUNTINGDON.  [A tall, fair soldier, of thirty] How d'you do?  How are
+you, sir?  What's the matter with their man?
+
+SHE CHARLES.  What!
+
+HUNTINGDON.  I was going into the dining-room to get rid of my cigar;
+and he said: "Not in there, sir.  The master's there, but my
+instructions are to the effect that he's not."
+
+SHE CHARLES.  I knew that fellow----
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  The fact is, Reginald, Clare's out, and George is
+waiting for her.  It's so important people shouldn't----
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Rather!
+
+     They draw together, as people do, discussing the misfortunes of
+     members of their families.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  It's getting serious, Reginald.  I don't know what's
+to become of them.  You don't think the Rector--you don't think your
+father would speak to Clare?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Afraid the Governor's hardly well enough.  He takes
+anything of that sort to heart so--especially Clare.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Can't you put in a word yourself?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Don't know where the mischief lies.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  I'm sure George doesn't gallop her on the road.  Very
+steady-goin' fellow, old George.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Oh, yes; George is all right, sir.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  They ought to have had children.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Expect they're pretty glad now they haven't.  I really
+don't know what to say, ma'am.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Saving your presence, you know, Reginald, I've often
+noticed parsons' daughters grow up queer.  Get too much morality and
+rice puddin'.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [With a clear look]  Charles!
+
+SIR CHARLES.  What was she like when you were kids?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Oh, all right.  Could be rather a little devil, of
+course, when her monkey was up.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  I'm fond of her.  Nothing she wants that she hasn't
+got, is there?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Never heard her say so.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  [Dimly]  I don't know whether old George is a bit too
+matter of fact for her.  H'm?
+
+     [A short silence.]
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  There's a Mr. Malise coming here to-night.  I forget
+if you know him.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Yes.  Rather a thorough-bred mongrel.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  He's literary.  [With hesitation]  You--you don't
+think he--puts--er--ideas into her head?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  I asked Greyman, the novelist, about him; seems he's a
+bit of an Ishmaelite, even among those fellows.  Can't see Clare----
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  No.  Only, the great thing is that she shouldn't be
+encouraged.  Listen!--It is her-coming in.  I can hear their voices.
+Gone to her room.  What a blessing that man isn't here yet!  [The
+door bell rings] Tt!  There he is, I expect.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  What are we goin' to say?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Say they're dining out, and we're not to wait Bridge for
+them.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Good!
+
+     The door is opened, and PAYNTER announces "Mr. Kenneth Malise."
+     MALISE enters.  He is a tall man, about thirty-five, with a
+     strongly marked, dark, irregular, ironic face, and eyes which
+     seem to have needles in their pupils.  His thick hair is rather
+     untidy, and his dress clothes not too new.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  How do you do?  My son and daughter-in-law are so very
+sorry.  They'll be here directly.
+
+     [MALISE bows with a queer, curly smile.]
+
+SIR CHARLES.  [Shaking hands] How d'you do, sir?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  We've met, I think.
+
+     He gives MALISE that peculiar smiling stare, which seems to warn
+     the person bowed to of the sort of person he is.  MALISE'S eyes
+     sparkle.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Clare will be so grieved.  One of those invitations
+
+MALISE.  On the spur of the moment.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  You play Bridge, sir?
+
+MALISE.  Afraid not!
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Don't mean that?  Then we shall have to wait for 'em.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  I forget, Mr. Malise--you write, don't you?
+
+MALISE.  Such is my weakness.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Delightful profession.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Doesn't tie you!  What!
+
+MALISE.  Only by the head.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  I'm always thinkin' of writin' my experiences.
+
+MALISE.  Indeed!
+
+[There is the sound of a door banged.]
+
+SIR CHARLES.  [Hastily]  You smoke, Mr.  MALISE?
+
+MALISE.  Too much.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Ah!  Must smoke when you think a lot.
+
+MALISE.  Or think when you smoke a lot.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  [Genially]  Don't know that I find that.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [With her clear look at him]  Charles!
+
+     The door is opened.  CLARE DEDMOND in a cream-coloured evening
+     frock comes in from the hall, followed by GEORGE.  She is rather
+     pale, of middle height, with a beautiful figure, wavy brown
+     hair, full, smiling lips, and large grey mesmeric eyes, one of
+     those women all vibration, iced over with a trained stoicism of
+     voice and manner.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  Well, my dear!
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Ah!  George.  Good dinner?
+
+GEORGE.  [Giving his hand to MALISE]  How are you?  Clare!  Mr.
+MALISE!
+
+CLARE.  [Smiling-in a clear voice with the faintest possible lisp]
+Yes, we met on the door-mat.  [Pause.]
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Deuce you did!  [An awkward pause.]
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [Acidly]  Mr. Malise doesn't play Bridge, it appears.
+Afraid we shall be rather in the way of music.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  What!  Aren't we goin' to get a game?  [PAYNTER has
+entered with a tray.]
+
+GEORGE.  Paynter!  Take that table into the dining room.
+
+PAYNTER.  [Putting down the tray on a table behind the door]  Yes,
+sir.
+
+MALISE.  Let me give you a hand.
+
+     PAYNTER and MALISE carry one of the Bridge tables out, GEORGE
+     making a half-hearted attempt to relieve MALISE.
+
+SIR CHARLES.  Very fine sunset!
+
+     Quite softly CLARE begins to laugh.  All look at her first with
+     surprise, then with offence, then almost with horror.  GEORGE is
+     about to go up to her, but HUNTINGDON heads him off.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Bring the tray along, old man.
+
+     GEORGE takes up the tray, stops to look at CLARE, then allows
+     HUNTINGDON to shepherd him out.
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [Without looking at CLARE]  Well, if we're going to
+play, Charles? [She jerks his sleeve.]
+
+SIR CHARLES.  What?  [He marches out.]
+
+LADY DEDMOND.  [Meeting MALISE in the doorway]  Now you will be able
+to have your music.
+
+     [She follows the GENERAL out]
+
+     [CLARE stands perfectly still, with her eyes closed.]
+
+MALISE.  Delicious!
+
+CLARE.  [In her level, clipped voice]  Perfectly beastly of me!  I'm
+so sorry.  I simply can't help running amok to-night.
+
+MALISE.  Never apologize for being fey.  It's much too rare.
+
+CLARE.  On the door-mat!  And they'd whitewashed me so beautifully!
+Poor dears!  I wonder if I ought----[She looks towards the door.]
+
+MALISE.  Don't spoil it!
+
+CLARE.  I'd been walking up and down the Embankment for about three
+hours.  One does get desperate sometimes.
+
+MALISE.  Thank God for that!
+
+CLARE.  Only makes it worse afterwards.  It seems so frightful to
+them, too.
+
+MALISE.  [Softly and suddenly, but with a difficulty in finding the
+right words]  Blessed be the respectable!  May they dream of--me!
+And blessed be all men of the world!  May they perish of a surfeit
+of--good form!
+
+CLARE.  I like that.  Oh, won't there be a row!  [With a faint
+movement of her shoulders]  And the usual reconciliation.
+
+MALISE.  Mrs. Dedmond, there's a whole world outside yours.  Why
+don't you spread your wings?
+
+CLARE.  My dear father's a saint, and he's getting old and frail; and
+I've got a sister engaged; and three little sisters to whom I'm
+supposed to set a good example.  Then, I've no money, and I can't do
+anything for a living, except serve in a shop.  I shouldn't be free,
+either; so what's the good?  Besides, I oughtn't to have married if I
+wasn't going to be happy.  You see, I'm not a bit misunderstood or
+ill-treated.  It's only----
+
+MALISE.  Prison.  Break out!
+
+CLARE.  [Turning to the window]  Did you see the sunset?  That white
+cloud trying to fly up?
+
+     [She holds up her bare arms, with a motion of flight.]
+
+MALISE.  [Admiring her] Ah-h-h!  [Then, as she drops her arms
+suddenly]  Play me something.
+
+CLARE.  [Going to the piano]  I'm awfully grateful to you.  You don't
+make me feel just an attractive female.  I wanted somebody like that.
+[Letting her hands rest on the notes]  All the same, I'm glad not to
+be ugly.
+
+MALISE.  Thank God for beauty!
+
+PAYNTER.  [Opening the door]  Mr. and Mrs. Fullarton.
+
+MALISE.  Who are they?
+
+CLARE.  [Rising]  She's my chief pal.  He was in the Navy.
+
+     She goes forward.  MRS.  FULLERTON is a rather tall woman, with
+     dark hair and a quick eye.  He, one of those clean-shaven naval
+     men of good presence who have retired from the sea, but not from
+     their susceptibility.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  [Kissing CLARE, and taking in both MALISE and her
+husband's look at CLARE]  We've only come for a minute.
+
+CLARE.  They're playing Bridge in the dining-room.  Mr. Malise
+doesn't play.  Mr. Malise--Mrs. Fullarton, Mr. Fullarton.
+
+     [They greet.]
+
+FULLARTON.  Most awfully jolly dress, Mrs. Dedmond.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  Yes, lovely, Clare.  [FULLARTON abases eyes which
+mechanically readjust themselves]  We can't stay for Bridge, my dear;
+I just wanted to see you a minute, that's all.  [Seeing HUNTINGDON
+coming in she speaks in a low voice to her husband]  Edward, I want
+to speak to Clare.  How d'you do, Captain Huntingdon?
+
+MALISE.  I'll say good-night.
+
+     He shakes hands with CLARE, bows to MRS. FULLARTON, and makes
+     his way out.  HUNTINGDON and FULLERTON foregather in the
+     doorway.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  How are things, Clare?  [CLARE just moves her
+shoulders]  Have you done what I suggested?  Your room?
+
+CLARE.  No.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  Why not?
+
+CLARE.  I don't want to torture him.  If I strike--I'll go clean.  I
+expect I shall strike.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  My dear!  You'll have the whole world against you.
+
+CLARE.  Even you won't back me, Dolly?
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  Of course I'll back you, all that's possible, but I
+can't invent things.
+
+CLARE.  You wouldn't let me come to you for a bit, till I could find
+my feet?
+
+     MRS. FULLARTON, taken aback, cannot refrain from her glance at
+     FULLARTON automatically gazing at CLARE while he talks with
+     HUNTINGDON.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  Of course--the only thing is that----
+
+CLARE.  [With a faint smile]  It's all right, Dolly.  I'm not coming.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  Oh!  don't do anything desperate, Clare--you are so
+desperate sometimes.  You ought to make terms--not tracks.
+
+CLARE.  Haggle?  [She shakes her head]  What have I got to make terms
+with?  What he still wants is just what I hate giving.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  But, Clare----
+
+CLARE.  No, Dolly; even you don't understand.  All day and every day
+--just as far apart as we can be--and still--Jolly, isn't it?  If
+you've got a soul at all.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  It's awful, really.
+
+CLARE.  I suppose there are lots of women who feel as I do, and go on
+with it; only, you see, I happen to have something in me that--comes
+to an end.  Can't endure beyond a certain time, ever.
+
+     She has taken a flower from her dress, and suddenly tears it to
+     bits.  It is the only sign of emotion she has given.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  [Watching]  Look here, my child; this won't do.  You
+must get a rest.  Can't Reggie take you with him to India for a bit?
+
+CLARE.  [Shaking her head]  Reggie lives on his pay.
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  [With one of her quick looks]  That was Mr. Malise,
+then?
+
+FULLARTON.  [Coming towards them]  I say, Mrs. Dedmond, you wouldn't
+sing me that little song you sang the other night,  [He hums]  "If I
+might be the falling bee and kiss thee all the day"?  Remember?
+
+MRS. FULLARTON.  "The falling dew," Edward.  We simply must go,
+Clare.  Good-night.  [She kisses her.]
+
+FULLARTON.  [Taking half-cover between his wife and CLARE]  It suits
+you down to the ground-that dress.
+
+CLARE.  Good-night.
+
+     HUNTINGDON sees them out.  Left alone CLARE clenches her hands,
+     moves swiftly across to the window, and stands looking out.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  [Returning]  Look here, Clare!
+
+CLARE.  Well, Reggie?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  This is working up for a mess, old girl.  You can't do
+this kind of thing with impunity.  No man'll put up with it.  If
+you've got anything against George, better tell me.  [CLARE shakes
+her head]  You ought to know I should stick by you.  What is it?
+Come?
+
+CLARE.  Get married, and find out after a year that she's the wrong
+person; so wrong that you can't exchange a single real thought; that
+your blood runs cold when she kisses you--then you'll know.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  My dear old girl, I don't want to be a brute; but it's a
+bit difficult to believe in that, except in novels.
+
+CLARE.  Yes, incredible, when you haven't tried.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  I mean, you--you chose him yourself.  No one forced you
+to marry him.
+
+CLARE.  It does seem monstrous, doesn't it?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  My dear child, do give us a reason.
+
+CLARE.  Look!  [She points out at the night and the darkening towers]
+If George saw that for the first time he'd just say, "Ah,
+Westminster!  Clock Tower!  Can you see the time by it?"  As if one
+cared where or what it was--beautiful like that!  Apply that to every
+--every--everything.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  [Staring] George may be a bit prosaic.  But, my dear old
+girl, if that's all----
+
+CLARE.  It's not all--it's nothing.  I can't explain, Reggie--it's
+not reason, at all; it's--it's like being underground in a damp cell;
+it's like knowing you'll never get out.  Nothing coming--never
+anything coming again-never anything.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  [Moved and puzzled]  My dear old thing; you mustn't get
+into fantods like this.  If it's like that, don't think about it.
+
+CLARE.  When every day and every night!--Oh!  I know it's my fault
+for having married him, but that doesn't help.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Look here!  It's not as if George wasn't quite a decent
+chap.  And it's no use blinking things; you are absolutely dependent
+on him.  At home they've got every bit as much as they can do to keep
+going.
+
+CLARE.  I know.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  And you've got to think of the girls.  Any trouble would
+be very beastly for them.  And the poor old Governor would feel it
+awfully.
+
+CLARE.  If I didn't know all that, Reggie, I should have gone home
+long ago.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Well, what's to be done?  If my pay would run to it--but
+it simply won't.
+
+CLARE.  Thanks, old boy, of course not.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Can't you try to see George's side of it a bit?
+
+CLARE.  I do.  Oh!  don't let's talk about it.
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Well, my child, there's just one thing you won't go
+sailing near the wind, will you?  I mean, there are fellows always on
+the lookout.
+
+CLARE.  "That chap, Malise, you'd better avoid him!"  Why?
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Well!  I don't know him.  He may be all right, but he's
+not our sort.  And you're too pretty to go on the tack of the New
+Woman and that kind of thing--haven't been brought up to it.
+
+CLARE.  British home-made summer goods, light and attractive--don't
+wear long.  [At the sound of voices in the hall]  They seem 'to be
+going, Reggie.
+
+     [HUNTINGDON looks at her, vexed, unhappy.]
+
+HUNTINGDON.  Don't head for trouble, old girl.  Take a pull.  Bless
+you!  Good-night.
+
+     CLARE kisses him, and when he has gone turns away from the door,
+     holding herself in, refusing to give rein to some outburst of
+     emotion.  Suddenly she sits down at the untouched Bridge table,
+     leaning her bare elbows on it and her chin on her hands, quite
+     calm.  GEORGE is coming in.  PAYNTER follows him.
+
+CLARE.  Nothing more wanted, thank you, Paynter.  You can go home,
+and the maids can go to bed.
+
+PAYNTER.  We are much obliged, ma'am.
+
+CLARE.  I ran over a dog, and had to get it seen to.
+
+PAYNTER.  Naturally, ma'am!
+
+CLARE.  Good-night.
+
+PAYNTER.  I couldn't get you a little anything, ma'am?
+
+CLARE.  No, thank you.
+
+PAYNTER.  No, ma'am.  Good-night, ma'am.
+
+     [He withdraws.]
+
+GEORGE.  You needn't have gone out of your way to tell a lie that
+wouldn't deceive a guinea-pig.  [Going up to her]  Pleased with
+yourself to-night?  [CLARE shakes her head]  Before that fellow
+MALISE; as if our own people weren't enough!
+
+CLARE.  Is it worth while to rag me?  I know I've behaved badly, but
+I couldn't help it, really!
+
+GEORGE.  Couldn't help behaving like a shop-girl?  My God!  You were
+brought up as well as I was.
+
+CLARE.  Alas!
+
+GEORGE.  To let everybody see that we don't get on--there's only one
+word for it--Disgusting!
+
+CLARE.  I know.
+
+GEORGE.  Then why do you do it?  I've always kept my end up.  Why in
+heaven's name do you behave in this crazy way?
+
+CLARE.  I'm sorry.
+
+GEORGE.  [With intense feeling]  You like making a fool of me!
+
+CLARE.  No--Really!  Only--I must break out sometimes.
+
+GEORGE.  There are things one does not do.
+
+CLARE.  I came in because I was sorry.
+
+GEORGE.  And at once began to do it again!  It seems to me you
+delight in rows.
+
+CLARE.  You'd miss your--reconciliations.
+
+GEORGE.  For God's sake, Clare, drop cynicism!
+
+CLARE.  And truth?
+
+GEORGE.  You are my wife, I suppose.
+
+CLARE.  And they twain shall be one--spirit.
+
+GEORGE.  Don't talk wild nonsense!
+
+     [There is silence.]
+
+CLARE.  [Softly]  I don't give satisfaction.  Please give me notice!
+
+GEORGE.  Pish!
+
+CLARE.  Five years, and four of them like this!  I'm sure we've
+served our time.  Don't you really think we might get on better
+together--if I went away?
+
+GEORGE.  I've told you I won't stand a separation for no real reason,
+and have your name bandied about all over London.  I have some
+primitive sense of honour.
+
+CLARE.  You mean your name, don't you?
+
+GEORGE.  Look here.  Did that fellow Malise put all this into your
+head?
+
+CLARE.  No; my own evil nature.
+
+GEORGE.  I wish the deuce we'd never met him.  Comes of picking up
+people you know nothing of.  I distrust him--and his looks--and his
+infernal satiric way.  He can't even 'dress decently.  He's not--good
+form.
+
+CLARE.  [With a touch of rapture]  Ah-h!
+
+GEORGE.  Why do you let him come?  What d'you find interesting in
+him?
+
+CLARE.  A mind.
+
+GEORGE.  Deuced funny one!  To have a mind--as you call it--it's not
+necessary to talk about Art and Literature.
+
+CLARE.  We don't.
+
+GEORGE.  Then what do you talk about--your minds?  [CLARE looks at
+him]  Will you answer a straight question?  Is he falling in love
+with you?
+
+CLARE.  You had better ask him.
+
+GEORGE.  I tell you plainly, as a man of the world, I don't believe
+in the guide, philosopher and friend business.
+
+CLARE.  Thank you.
+
+     A silence.  CLARE suddenly clasps her hands behind her head.
+
+CLARE.  Let me go!  You'd be much happier with any other woman.
+
+GEORGE.  Clare!
+
+CLARE.  I believe--I'm sure I could earn my living.  Quite serious.
+
+GEORGE.  Are you mad?
+
+CLARE.  It has been done.
+
+Moulton was a handsome man of past fifty with a youthful face against
+his iron gray hair and mustache, well dressed, genial, a man who seemed
+keenly in love with the good things of life.
+
+“It is rumored,” began Kennedy, “that an attempt was made on your safe
+here at the office last night.”
+
+“Yes,” he admitted, taking off his glasses and polishing them
+carefully. “I suppose there is no need of concealment, especially as I
+hear that a somewhat similar attempt was made on the safe of my friend
+Herman Schloss in Maiden Lane.”
+
+“You lost nothing?”
+
+Moulton put his glasses on and looked Kennedy in the face frankly.
+
+“Nothing, fortunately,” he said, then went on slowly. “You see, in my
+later years, I have been something of a collector of precious stones
+myself. I don’t wear them, but I have always taken the keenest pleasure
+in owning them and when I was married it gave me a great deal more
+pleasure to have them set in rings, pendants, tiaras, necklaces, and
+other forms for my wife.”
+
+He had risen, with the air of a busy man who had given the subject all
+the consideration he could afford and whose work proceeded almost by
+schedule. “This morning I found my safe tampered with, but, as I said,
+fortunately something must have scared off the burglars.”
+
+He bowed us out politely. What was the explanation, I wondered. It
+seemed, on the face of things, that Antoinette Moulton feared her
+husband. Did he know something else already, and did she know he knew?
+To all appearances he took it very calmly, if he did know. Perhaps that
+was what she feared, his very calmness.
+
+“I must see Mrs. Moulton again,” remarked Kennedy, as we left.
+
+The Moultons lived, we found, in one of the largest suites of a new
+apartment hotel, the Deluxe, and in spite of the fact that our arrival
+had been announced some minutes before we saw Mrs. Moulton, it was
+evident that she had been crying hysterically over the loss of the
+paste jewels and what it implied.
+
+“I missed it this morning, after my return from seeing you,” she
+replied in answer to Craig’s inquiry, then added, wide-eyed with alarm,
+“What shall I do? He must have opened the wall safe and found the
+replica. I don’t dare ask him point-blank.”
+
+“Are you sure he did it?” asked Kennedy, more, I felt, for its moral
+effect on her than through any doubt in his own mind.
+
+“Not sure. But then the wall safe shows no marks, and the replica is
+gone.”
+
+“Might I see your jewel case?” he asked.
+
+“Surely. I’ll get it. The wall safe is in Lynn’s room. I shall probably
+have to fuss a long time with the combination.”
+
+In fact she could not have been very familiar with it for it took
+several minutes before she returned. Meanwhile, Kennedy, who had been
+drumming absently on the arms of his chair, suddenly rose and walked
+quietly over to a scrap basket that stood beside an escritoire. It had
+evidently just been emptied, for the rooms must have been cleaned
+several hours before. He bent down over it and picked up two scraps of
+paper adhering to the wicker work. The rest had evidently been thrown
+away.
+
+I bent over to read them. One was:
+
+—rest Nettie—
+—dying to see—
+
+
+The other read:
+
+—cherche to-d
+—love and ma
+—rman.
+
+
+What did it mean? Hastily, I could fill in “Dearest Nettie,” and “I am
+dying to see you.” Kennedy added, “The Recherche to-day,” that being
+the name of a new apartment uptown, as well as “love and many kisses.”
+But “—rman”—what did that mean? Could it be Herman—Herman Schloss?
+
+She was returning and we resumed our seats quickly.
+
+Kennedy took the jewel case from her and examined it carefully. There
+was not a mark on it.
+
+“Mrs. Moulton,” he said slowly, rising and handing it back to her,
+“have you told me all?”
+
+“Why—yes,” she answered.
+
+Kennedy shook his head gravely.
+
+“I’m afraid not. You must tell me everything.”
+
+“No—no,” she cried vehemently, “there is nothing more.”
+
+We left and outside the Deluxe he paused, looked about, caught sight of
+a taxicab and hailed it.
+
+“Where?” asked the driver.
+
+“Across the street,” he said, “and wait. Put the window in back of you
+down so I can talk. I’ll tell you where to go presently. Now, Walter,
+sit back as far as you can. This may seem like an underhand thing to
+do, but we’ve got to get what that woman won’t tell us or give up the
+case.”
+
+Perhaps half an hour we waited, still puzzling over the scraps of
+paper. Suddenly I felt a nudge from Kennedy. Antoinette Moulton was
+standing in the doorway across the street. Evidently she preferred not
+to ride in her own car, for a moment later she entered a taxicab.
+
+“Follow that black cab,” said Kennedy to our driver.
+
+Sure enough, it stopped in front of the Recherche Apartments and Mrs.
+Moulton stepped out and almost ran in.
+
+We waited a moment, then Kennedy followed. The elevator that had taken
+her up had just returned to the ground floor.
+
+“The same floor again,” remarked Kennedy, jauntily stepping in and
+nodding familiarly to the elevator boy.
+
+Then he paused suddenly, looked at his watch, fixed his gaze
+thoughtfully on me an instant, and exclaimed. “By George—no. I can’t go
+up yet. I clean forgot that engagement at the hotel. One moment, son.
+Let us out. We’ll be back again.”
+
+Considerably mystified, I followed him to the sidewalk.
+
+“You’re entitled to an explanation,” he laughed catching my bewildered
+look as he opened the cab door. “I didn’t want to go up now while she
+is there, but I wanted to get on good terms with that boy. We’ll wait
+until she comes down, then go up.”
+
+“Where?” I asked.
+
+“That’s what I am going through all this elaborate preparation to find
+out. I have no more idea than you have.”
+
+It could not have been more than twenty minutes later when Mrs. Moulton
+emerged rather hurriedly, and drove away.
+
+While we had been waiting I had observed a man on the other side of the
+street who seemed unduly interested in the Recherche, too, for he had
+walked up and down the block no less than six times. Kennedy saw him,
+and as he made no effort to follow Mrs. Moulton, Kennedy did not do so
+either. In fact a little quick glance which she had given at our cab
+had raised a fear that she might have discovered that she was being
+followed.
+
+Kennedy and I paid off our cabman and sauntered into the Recherche in
+the most debonair manner we could assume.
+
+“Now, son, we’ll go up,” he said to the boy who, remembering us, and
+now not at all clear in his mind that he might not have seen us before
+that, whisked us to the tenth floor.
+
+“Let me see,” said Kennedy, “it’s number one hundred and—er——”
+
+“Three,” prompted the boy.
+
+He pressed the buzzer and a neatly dressed colored maid responded.
+
+“I had an appointment here with Mrs. Moulton this morning,” remarked
+Kennedy.
+
+“She has just gone,” replied the maid, off her guard.
+
+“And was to meet Mr. Schloss here in half an hour,” he added quickly.
+
+It was the maid’s turn to look surprised.
+
+“I didn’t think he was to be here,” she said. “He’s had some—”
+
+“Trouble at the office,” supplied Kennedy. “That’s what it was about.
+Perhaps he hasn’t been able to get away yet. But I had the appointment.
+Ah, I see a telephone in the hall. May I?”
+
+He had stepped politely in, and by dint of cleverly keeping his finger
+on the hook in the half light, he carried on a one-sided conversation
+with himself long enough to get a good chance to look about.
+
+There was an air of quiet and refinement about the apartment in the
+Recherche. It was darkened to give the little glowing electric bulbs in
+their silken shades a full chance to simulate right. The deep velvety
+carpets were noiseless to the foot, and the draperies, the pictures,
+the bronzes, all bespoke taste.
+
+But the chief objects of interest to Craig were the little square green
+baize-covered tables on one of which lay neatly stacked a pile of
+gilt-edged cards and a mahogany box full of ivory chips of red, white
+and blue.
+
+It was none of the old-time gambling places, like Danfield’s, with its
+steel door which Craig had once cut through with an oxyacetylene
+blowpipe in order to rescue a young spendthrift from himself.
+
+Kennedy seemed perfectly well satisfied merely with a cursory view of
+the place, as he hung up the receiver and thanked the maid politely for
+allowing him to use it.
+
+“This is up-to-date gambling in cleaned-up New York,” he remarked as we
+waited for the elevator to return for us. “And the worst of it all is
+that it gets the women as well as the men. Once they are caught in the
+net, they are the most powerful lure to men that the gamblers have yet
+devised.”
+
+We rode down in silence, and as we went down the steps to the street, I
+noticed the man whom we had seen watching the place, lurking down at
+the lower corner. Kennedy quickened his pace and came up behind him.
+
+“Why, Winters!” exclaimed Craig. “You here?”
+
+“I might say the same to you,” grinned the detective not displeased
+evidently that our trail had crossed his. “I suppose you are looking
+for Schloss, too. He’s up in the Recherche a great deal, playing poker.
+I understand he owns an interest in the game up there.”
+
+Kennedy nodded, but said nothing.
+
+“I just saw one of the cappers for the place go out before you went
+in.”
+
+“Capper?” repeated Kennedy surprised. “Antoinette Moulton a steerer for
+a gambling joint? What can a rich society woman have to do with a place
+like that or a man like Schloss?”
+
+Winters smiled sardonically. “Society ladies to-day often get into
+scrapes of which their husbands know nothing,” he remarked. “You didn’t
+know before that Antoinette Moulton, like many of her friends in the
+smart set, was a gambler—and loser—did you?”
+
+Craig shook his head. He had more of human than scientific interest in
+a case of a woman of her caliber gone wrong.
+
+“But you must have read of the famous Moulton diamonds?”
+
+“Yes,” said Craig, blankly, as if it were all news to him.
+
+“Schloss has them—or at least had them. The jewels she wore at the
+opera this winter were paste, I understand.”
+
+“Does Moulton play?” he asked.
+
+“I think so—but not here, naturally. In a way, I suppose, it is his
+fault. They all do it. The example of one drives on another.”
+
+Instantly there flashed over my mind a host of possibilities. Perhaps,
+after all, Winters had been right. Schloss had taken this way to make
+sure of the jewels so that she could not redeem them. Suddenly another
+explanation crowded that out. Had Mrs. Moulton robbed the safe herself,
+or hired some one else to do it for her, and had that person gone back
+on her?
+
+Then a horrid possibility occurred to me. Whatever Antoinette Moulton
+may have been and done, some one must have her in his power. What a
+situation for the woman! My sympathy went out to her in her supreme
+struggle. Even if it had been a real robbery, Schloss might easily
+recover from it. But for her every event spelled ruin and seemed only
+to be bringing that ruin closer.
+
+We left Winters, still watching on the trail of Schloss, and went on
+uptown to the laboratory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+THE BURGLAR’S MICROPHONE
+
+
+That night I was sitting, brooding over the case, while Craig was
+studying a photograph which he made of the smudge on the glass door
+down at Schloss’. He paused in his scrutiny of the print to answer the
+telephone.
+
+“Something has happened to Schloss,” he exclaimed seizing his hat and
+coat. “Winters has been watching him. He didn’t go to the Recherche.
+Winters wants me to meet him at a place several blocks below it Come
+on. He wouldn’t say over the wire what it was. Hurry.”
+
+We met Winters in less than ten minutes at the address he had given, a
+bachelor apartment in the neighborhood of the Recherche.
+
+“Schloss kept rooms here,” explained Winters, hurrying us quickly
+upstairs. “I wanted you to see before anyone else.”
+
+As we entered the large and luxuriously furnished living room of the
+jeweler’s suite, a gruesome sight greeted us.
+
+There lay Schloss on the floor, face down, in a horribly contorted
+position. In one hand, clenched under him partly, the torn sleeve of a
+woman’s dress was grasped convulsively. The room bore unmistakable
+traces of a violent struggle, but except for the hideous object on the
+floor was vacant.
+
+Kennedy bent down over him. Schloss was dead. In a corner, by the door,
+stood a pile of grips, stacked up, packed, and undisturbed.
+
+Winters who had been studying the room while we got our bearings picked
+up a queer-looking revolver from the floor. As he held it up I could
+see that along the top of the barrel was a long cylinder with a ratchet
+or catch at the butt end. He turned it over and over carefully.
+
+“By George,” he muttered, “it has been fired off.”
+
+Kennedy glanced more minutely at the body. There was not a mark on it.
+I stared about vacantly at the place where Winters had picked the thing
+up.
+
+“Look,” I cried, my eye catching a little hole in the baseboard of the
+woodwork near it.
+
+“It must have fallen and exploded on the floor,” remarked Kennedy. “Let
+me see it, Winters.”
+
+Craig held it at arm’s length and pulled the catch. Instead of an
+explosion, there came a cone of light from the top of the gun. As
+Kennedy moved it over the wall, I saw in the center of the circle of
+light a dark spot.
+
+“A new invention,” Craig explained. “All you need to do is to move it
+so that little dark spot falls directly on an object. Pull the
+trigger—the bullet strikes the dark spot. Even a nervous and unskilled
+marksman becomes a good shot in the dark. He can even shoot from behind
+the protection of something—and hit accurately.”
+
+It was too much for me. I could only stand and watch Kennedy as he
+deftly bent over Schloss again and placed a piece of chemically
+prepared paper flat on the forehead of the dead man.
+
+When he withdrew it, I could see that it bore marks of the lines on his
+head. Without a word, Kennedy drew from his pocket a print of the
+photograph of the smudge on Schloss’ door.
+
+“It is possible,” he said, half to himself, “to identify a person by
+means of the arrangement of the sweat glands or pores. Poroscopy, Dr.
+Edmond Locard, director of the Police Laboratory at Lyons, calls it.
+The shape, arrangement, number per square centimeter, all vary in
+different individuals. Besides, here we have added the lines of the
+forehead.”
+
+He was studying the two impressions intensely. When he looked up from
+his examination, his face wore a peculiar expression.
+
+“This is not the head which was placed so close to the glass of the
+door of Schloss’ office, peering through, on the night of the robbery,
+in order to see before picking the lock whether the office was empty
+and everything ready for the hasty attack on the safe.”
+
+“That disposes of my theory that Schloss robbed himself,” remarked
+Winters reluctantly. “But the struggle here, the sleeve of the dress,
+the pistol—could he have been shot?”
+
+“No, I think not,” considered Kennedy. “It looks to me more like a case
+of apoplexy.”
+
+“What shall we do?” asked Winters. “Far from clearing anything up, this
+complicates it.”
+
+“Where’s Muller?” asked Kennedy. “Does he know? Perhaps he can shed
+some light on it.”
+
+The clang of an ambulance bell outside told that the aid summoned by
+Winters had arrived.
+
+We left the body in charge of the surgeon and of a policeman who
+arrived about the same time, and followed Winters.
+
+Muller lived in a cheap boarding house in a shabbily respectable street
+downtown, and without announcing ourselves we climbed the stairs to his
+room. He looked up surprised but not disconcerted as we entered.
+
+“What’s the matter?” he asked.
+
+“Muller,” shot out Winters, “we have just found Mr. Schloss dead!”
+
+“D-dead!” he stammered.
+
+The man seemed speechless with horror.
+
+“Yes, and with his grips packed as if to run away.”
+
+Muller looked dazedly from one of us to the other, but shut up like a
+clam.
+
+“I think you had better come along with us as a material witness,”
+burst out Winters roughly.
+
+Kennedy said nothing, leaving that sort of third degree work to the
+detective. But he was not idle, as Winters tried to extract more than
+the monosyllables, “I don’t know,” in answer to every inquiry of Muller
+about his employer’s life and business.
+
+A low exclamation from Craig attracted my attention from Winters. In a
+corner he had discovered a small box and had opened it. Inside was a
+dry battery and a most peculiar instrument, something like a little
+flat telephone transmitter yet attached by wires to earpieces that
+fitted over the head after the manner of those of a wireless detector.
+
+“What’s this?” asked Kennedy, dangling it before Muller.
+
+He looked at it phlegmatically. “A deaf instrument I have been working
+on,” replied the jeweler. “My hearing is getting poor.”
+
+Kennedy looked hastily from the instrument to the man.
+
+“I think I’ll take it along with us,” he said quietly.
+
+Winters, true to his instincts, had been searching Muller in the
+meantime. Besides the various assortment that a man carries in his
+pockets usually, including pens, pencils, notebooks, a watch, a
+handkerchief, a bunch of keys, one of which was large enough to open a
+castle, there was a bunch of blank and unissued pawn-tickets bearing
+the name, “Stein’s One Per Cent. a Month Loans,” and an address on the
+Bowery.
+
+Was Muller the “fence” we were seeking, or only a tool for the “fence”
+higher up? Who was this Stein?
+
+What it all meant I could only guess. It was a far cry from the wealth
+of Diamond Lane to a dingy Bowery pawnshop, even though pawnbroking at
+one per cent. a month—and more, on the side—pays. I knew, too, that
+diamonds are hoarded on the East Side as nowhere else in the world,
+outside of India. It was no uncommon thing, I had heard, for a
+pawnbroker whose shop seemed dirty and greasy to the casual visitor to
+have stored away in his vault gems running into the hundreds of
+thousands of dollars.
+
+“Mrs. Moulton must know of this,” remarked Kennedy. “Winters, you and
+Jameson bring Muller along. I am going up to the Deluxe.”
+
+I must say that I was surprised at finding Mrs. Moulton there. Outside
+the suite Winters and I waited with the unresisting Muller, while
+Kennedy entered. But through the door which he left ajar I could hear
+what passed.
+
+“Mrs. Moulton,” he began, “something terrible has happened—”
+
+He broke off, and I gathered that her pale face and agitated manner
+told him that she knew already.
+
+“Where is Mr. Moulton?” he went on, changing his question.
+
+“Mr. Moulton is at his office,” she answered tremulously. “He
+telephoned while I was out that he had to work to-night. Oh, Mr.
+Kennedy—he knows—he knows. I know it. He has avoided me ever since I
+missed the replica from-”
+
+“Sh!” cautioned Craig. He had risen and gone to the door.
+
+“Winters,” he whispered, “I want you to go down to Lynn Moulton’s
+office. Meanwhile Jameson can take care of Muller. I am going over to
+that place of Stein’s presently. Bring Moulton up there. You will wait
+here, Walter, for the present,” he nodded.
+
+He returned to the room where I could hear her crying softly.
+
+“Now, Mrs. Moulton,” he said gently, “I’m afraid I must trouble you to
+go with me. I am going over to a pawnbroker’s on the Bowery.”
+
+“The Bowery?” she repeated, with a genuinely surprised shudder. “Oh,
+no, Mr. Kennedy. Don’t ask me to go anywhere to-night. I am—I am in no
+condition to go anywhere—to do anything—I—”
+
+“But you must,” said Kennedy in a low voice.
+
+“I can’t. Oh—have mercy on me. I am terribly upset. You—”
+
+“It is your duty to go, Mrs. Moulton,” he repeated.
+
+“I don’t understand.” she murmured. “A pawnbroker’s?”
+
+“Come,” urged Kennedy, not harshly but firmly, then, as she held back,
+added, playing a trump card, “We must work quickly. In his hands we
+found the fragments of a torn dress. When the police—”
+
+She uttered a shriek. A glance had told her, if she had deceived
+herself before, that Kennedy knew her secret.
+
+Antoinette Moulton was standing before him, talking rapidly.
+
+“Some one has told Lynn. I know it. There is nothing now that I can
+conceal. If you had come half an hour later you would not have found
+me. He had written to Mr. Schloss, threatening him that if he did not
+leave the country he would shoot him at sight. Mr. Schloss showed me
+the letter.
+
+“It had come to this. I must either elope with Schloss, or lose his
+aid. The thought of either was unendurable. I hated him—yet was
+dependent on him.
+
+“To-night I met him, in his empty apartment, alone. I knew that he had
+what was left of his money with him, that everything was packed up. I
+went prepared. I would not elope. My plan was no less than to make him
+pay the balance on the necklace that he had lost—or to murder him.
+
+“I carried a new pistol in my muff, one which Lynn had just bought. I
+don’t know how I did it. I was desperate.
+
+“He told me he loved me, that Lynn did not, never had—that Lynn had
+married me only to show off his wealth and diamonds, to give him a
+social! position—that I was merely a—a piece of property—a dummy.
+
+“He tried to kiss me. It was revolting. I struggled away from him.
+
+“And in the struggle, the revolver fell from my muff and exploded on
+the floor.
+
+“At once he was aflame with suspicion.
+
+“‘So—it’s murder you want!’ he shouted. ‘Well, murder it shall be!’
+
+“I saw death in his eye as he seized my arm. I was defenseless now. The
+old passion came over him. Before he killed—he—would have his way with
+me.
+
+“I screamed. With a wild effort I twisted away from him.
+
+“He raised his hand to strike me, I saw his eyes, glassy. Then he sank
+back—fell to the floor—dead of apoplexy—dead of his furious emotions.
+
+“I fled.
+
+“And now you have found me.”
+
+She had turned, hastily, to leave the room. Kennedy blocked the door.
+
+“Mrs. Moulton,” he said firmly, “listen to me. What was the first
+question you asked me? ‘Can I trust you?’ And I told you you could.
+This is no time for—for suicide.” He shot the word out bluntly. “All
+may not be lost. I have sent for your husband. Muller is outside.”
+
+“Muller?” she cried. “He made the replica.”
+
+“Very well. I am going to clear this thing up. Come. You _must_.”
+
+It was all confused to me, the dash in a car to the little pawnbroker’s
+on the first floor of a five-story tenement, the quick entry into the
+place by one of Muller’s keys.
+
+Over the safe in back was a framework like that which had covered
+Schloss’ safe. Kennedy tore it away, regardless of the alarm which it
+must have sounded. In a moment he was down before it on his knees.
+
+“This is how Schloss’ safe was opened so quickly,” he muttered, working
+feverishly. “Here is some of their own medicine.”
+
+He had placed the peculiar telephone-like transmitter close to the
+combination lock and was turning the combination rapidly.
+
+Suddenly he rose, gave the bolts a twist, and the ponderous doors swung
+open.
+
+“What is it?” I asked eagerly.
+
+“A burglar’s microphone,” he answered, hastily looking over the
+contents of the safe. “The microphone is now used by burglars for
+picking combination locks. When you turn the lock, a slight sound is
+made when the proper number comes opposite the working point. It can be
+heard sometimes by a sensitive ear, although it is imperceptible to
+most persons. But by using a microphone it is an easy matter to hear
+the sounds which allow of opening the lock.”
+
+He had taken a yellow chamois bag out of the safe and opened it.
+
+Inside sparkled the famous Moulton diamonds. He held them up—in all
+their wicked brilliancy. No one spoke.
+
+Then he took another yellow bag, more dirty and worn than the first. As
+he opened it, Mrs. Moulton could restrain herself no longer.
+
+“The replica!” she cried. “The replica!”
+
+Without a word, Craig handed the real necklace to her. Then he slipped
+the paste jewels into the newer of the bags and restored both it and
+the empty one to their places, banged shut the door of the safe, and
+replaced the wooden screen.
+
+“Quick!” he said to her, “you have still a minute to get away.
+Hurry—anywhere—away—only away!”
+
+The look of gratitude that came over her face, as she understood the
+full meaning of it was such as I had never seen before.
+
+“Quick!” he repeated.
+
+It was too late.
+
+“For God’s sake, Kennedy,” shouted a voice at the street door, “what
+are you doing here?”
+
+It was McLear himself. He had come with the Hale patrol, on his mettle
+now to take care of the epidemic of robberies.
+
+Before Craig could reply a cab drew up with a rush at the curb and two
+men, half fighting, half cursing, catapulted themselves into the shop.
+
+They were Winters and Moulton.
+
+Without a word, taking advantage of the first shock of surprise,
+Kennedy had clapped a piece of chemical paper on the foreheads of Mrs.
+Moulton, then of Moulton, and on Muller’s. Oblivious to the rest of us,
+he studied the impressions in the full light of the counter.
+
+Moulton was facing his wife with a scornful curl of the lip.
+
+“I’ve been told of the paste replica—and I wrote Schloss that I’d shoot
+him down like the dog he is, you—you traitress,” he hissed.
+
+She drew herself up scornfully.
+
+“And I have been told why you married me—to show off your wicked jewels
+and help you in your—”
+
+“You lie!” he cried fiercely. “Muller—some one—open this safe—whosever
+it is. If what I have been told is true, there is in it one new bag
+containing the necklace. It was stolen from Schloss to whom you sold
+_my_ jewels. The other old bag, stolen from me, contains the paste
+replica you had made to deceive me.”
+
+It was all so confused that I do not know how it happened. I think it
+was Muller who opened the safe.
+
+“There is the new yellow bag,” cried Moulton, “from Schloss’ own safe.
+Open it.”
+
+McLear had taken it. He did so. There sparkled not the real gems, but
+the replica.
+
+“The devil!” Moulton exclaimed, breaking from Winters and seizing the
+old bag.
+
+He tore it open and—it was empty.
+
+“One moment,” interrupted Kennedy, looking up quietly from the counter.
+“Seal that safe again, McLear. In it are the Schloss jewels and the
+products of half a dozen other robberies which the dupe Muller—or
+Stein, as you please—pulled off, some as a blind to conceal the real
+criminal. You may have shown him how to leave no finger prints, but you
+yourself have left what is just as good—your own forehead print.
+McLear—you were right. There’s your criminal—Lynn Moulton, professional
+fence, the brains of the thing.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+THE GERM LETTER
+
+
+Lynn Moulton made no fight and Kennedy did not pursue the case, for,
+with the rescue of Antoinette Moulton, his interest ceased.
+
+Blackmail takes various forms, and the Moulton affair was only one
+phase of it. It was not long before we had to meet a much stranger
+attempt.
+
+“Read the letter, Professor Kennedy. Then I will tell you the sequel.”
+
+Mrs. Hunter Blake lay back in the cushions of her invalid chair in the
+sun parlor of the great Blake mansion on Riverside Drive, facing the
+Hudson with its continuous reel of maritime life framed against the
+green-hilled background of the Jersey shore.
+
+Her nurse, Miss Dora Sears, gently smoothed out the pillows and
+adjusted them so that the invalid could more easily watch us. Mrs.
+Blake, wealthy, known as a philanthropist, was not an old woman, but
+had been for years a great sufferer from rheumatism.
+
+I watched Miss Sears eagerly. Full-bosomed, fine of face and figure,
+she was something more than a nurse; she was a companion. She had
+bright, sparkling black eyes and an expression about her well-cut mouth
+which made one want to laugh with her. It seemed to say that the world
+was a huge joke and she invited you to enjoy the joke with her.
+
+Kennedy took the letter which Miss Sears proffered him, and as he did
+so I could not help noticing her full, plump forearm on which gleamed a
+handsome plain gold bracelet. He spread the letter out on a dainty
+wicker table in such a way that we both could see it.
+
+We had been summoned over the telephone to the Blake mansion by
+Reginald Blake, Mrs. Blake’s eldest son. Reginald had been very
+reticent over the reason, but had seemed very anxious and insistent
+that Kennedy should come immediately.
+
+Craig read quickly and I followed him, fascinated by the letter from
+its very opening paragraph.
+
+“Dear Madam,” it began. “Having received my diploma as doctor of
+medicine and bacteriology at Heidelberg in 1909, I came to the United
+States to study a most serious disease which is prevalent in several of
+the western mountain states.”
+
+So far, I reflected, it looked like an ordinary appeal for aid. The
+next words, however, were queer: “I have four hundred persons of wealth
+on my list. Your name was—”
+
+Kennedy turned the page. On the next leaf of the letter sheet was
+pasted a strip of gelatine. The first page had adhered slightly to the
+gelatine.
+
+“Chosen by fate,” went on the sentence ominously.
+
+“By opening this letter,” I read, “you have liberated millions of the
+virulent bacteria of this disease. Without a doubt you are infected by
+this time, for no human body is impervious to them, and up to the
+present only one in one hundred has fully recovered after going through
+all its stages.”
+
+I gasped. The gelatine had evidently been arranged so that when the two
+sheets were pulled apart, the germs would be thrown into the air about
+the person opening the letter. It was a very ingenious device.
+
+The letter continued, “I am happy to say, however, that I have a
+prophylactic which will destroy any number of these germs if used up to
+the ninth day. It is necessary only that you should place five thousand
+dollars in an envelope and leave it for me to be called for at the desk
+of the Prince Henry Hotel. When the messenger delivers the money to me,
+the prophylactic will be sent immediately.
+
+“First of all, take a match and burn this letter to avoid spreading the
+disease. Then change your clothes and burn the old ones. Enclosed you
+will find in a germ-proof envelope an exact copy of this letter. The
+room should then be thoroughly fumigated. Do not come into close
+contact with anyone near and dear to you until you have used the
+prophylactic. Tell no one. In case you do, the prophylactic will not be
+sent under any circumstances. Very truly yours, DR. HANS HOPF.”
+
+“Blackmail!” exclaimed Kennedy, looking intently again at the gelatine
+on the second page, as I involuntarily backed away and held my breath.
+
+“Yes, I know,” responded Mrs. Blake anxiously, “but is it true?”
+
+There could be no doubt from the tone of her voice that she more than
+half believed that it was true.
+
+“I cannot say—yet,” replied Craig, still cautiously scanning the
+apparently innocent piece of gelatine on the original letter which Mrs.
+Blake had not destroyed. “I shall have to keep it and examine it.”
+
+On the gelatine I could see a dark mass which evidently was supposed to
+contain the germs.
+
+“I opened the letter here in this room,” she went on. “At first I
+thought nothing of it. But this morning, when Buster, my prize
+Pekinese, who had been with me, sitting on my lap at the time, and
+closer to the letter even than I was, when Buster was taken suddenly
+ill, I—well, I began to worry.”
+
+She finished with a little nervous laugh, as people will to hide their
+real feelings.
+
+“I should like to see the dog,” remarked Kennedy simply.
+
+“Miss Sears,” asked her mistress, “will you get Buster, please?”
+
+The nurse left the room. No longer was there the laughing look on her
+face. This was serious business.
+
+A few minutes later she reappeared, carrying gingerly a small dog
+basket. Mrs. Blake lifted the lid. Inside was a beautiful little
+“Peke,” and it was easy to see that Buster was indeed ill.
+
+“Who is your doctor?” asked Craig, considering.
+
+“Dr. Rae Wilson, a very well-known woman physician.”
+
+Kennedy nodded recognition of the name. “What does she say?” he asked,
+observing the dog narrowly.
+
+“We haven’t told anyone, outside, of it yet,” replied Mrs. Blake. “In
+fact until Buster fell sick, I thought it was a hoax.”
+
+“You haven’t told anyone?”
+
+“Only Reginald and my daughter Betty. Betty is frantic—not with fear
+for herself, but with fear for me. No one can reassure her. In fact it
+was as much for her sake as anyone’s that I sent for you. Reginald has
+tried to trace the thing down himself, but has not succeeded.”
+
+She paused. The door opened and Reginald Blake entered. He was a young
+fellow, self confident and no doubt very efficient at the new dances,
+though scarcely fitted to rub elbows with a cold world which, outside
+of his own immediate circle, knew not the name of Blake. He stood for a
+moment regarding us through the smoke of his cigarette.
+
+“Tell me just what you have done,” asked Kennedy of him as his mother
+introduced him, although he had done the talking for her over the
+telephone.
+
+“Done?” he drawled. “Why, as soon as mother told me of the letter, I
+left an envelope up at the Prince Henry, as it directed.”
+
+“With the money?” put in Craig quickly.
+
+“Oh, no—just as a decoy.”
+
+“Yes. What happened?”
+
+“Well, I waited around a long time. It was far along in the day when a
+woman appeared at the desk. I had instructed the clerk to be on the
+watch for anyone who asked for mail addressed to a Dr. Hopf. The clerk
+slammed the register. That was the signal. I moved up closer.”
+
+“What did she look like?” asked Kennedy keenly.
+
+“I couldn’t see her face. But she was beautifully dressed, with a long
+light flowing linen duster, a veil that hid her features and on her
+hands and arms a long pair of motoring doeskin gloves. By George, she
+was a winner—in general looks, though. Well, something about the clerk,
+I suppose, must have aroused her suspicions. For, a moment later, she
+was gone in the crowd. Evidently she had thought of the danger and had
+picked out a time when the lobby would be full and everybody busy. But
+she did not leave by the front entrance through which she entered. I
+concluded that she must have left by one of the side street carriage
+doors.”
+
+“And she got away?”
+
+“Yes. I found that she asked one of the boys at the door to crank up a
+car standing at the curb. She slid into the seat, and was off in a
+minute.”
+
+Kennedy said nothing. But I knew that he was making a mighty effort to
+restrain comment on the bungling amateur detective work of the son of
+our client.
+
+Reginald saw the look on his face. “Still,” he hastened, “I got the
+number of the car. It was 200859 New York.”
+
+“You have looked it up?” queried Kennedy quickly.
+
+“I didn’t need to do it. A few minutes later Dr. Rae Wilson herself
+came out—storming like mad. Her car had been stolen at the very door of
+the hotel by this woman with the innocent aid of the hotel employees.”
+
+Kennedy was evidently keenly interested. The mention of the stolen car
+had apparently at once suggested an idea to him.
+
+“Mrs. Blake,” he said, as he rose to go, “I shall take this letter with
+me. Will you see that Buster is sent up to my laboratory immediately?”
+
+She nodded. It was evident that Buster was a great pet with her and
+that it was with difficulty she kept from smoothing his silky coat.
+
+“You—you won’t hurt Buster?” she pleaded.
+
+“No. Trust me. More than that, if there is any possible way of
+untangling this mystery, I shall do it.”
+
+Mrs. Blake looked rather than spoke her thanks. As we went downstairs,
+accompanied by Miss Sears, we could see in the music room a very
+interesting couple, chatting earnestly over the piano.
+
+Betty Blake, a slip of a girl in her first season, was dividing her
+attention between her visitor and the door by which we were passing.
+
+She rose as she heard us, leaving the young man standing alone at the
+piano. He was of an age perhaps a year or two older than Reginald
+Blake. It was evident that, whatever Miss Betty might think, he had
+eyes for no one else but the pretty debutante. He even seemed to be
+regarding Kennedy sullenly, as if he were a possible rival.
+
+“You—you don’t think it is serious?” whispered Betty in an undertone,
+scarcely waiting to be introduced. She had evidently known of our
+visit, but had been unable to get away to be present upstairs.
+
+“Really, Miss Blake,” reassured Kennedy, “I can’t say. All I can do is
+to repeat what I have already said to your mother. Keep up a good heart
+and trust me to work it out.”
+
+“Thank you,” she murmured, and then, impulsively extending her small
+hand to Craig, she added, “Mr. Kennedy, if there is anything I can do
+to help you, I beg that you will call on me.”
+
+“I shall not forget,” he answered, relinquishing the hand reluctantly.
+Then, as she thanked him, and turned again to her guest, he added in a
+low tone to me, “A remarkable girl, Walter, a girl that can be depended
+on.”
+
+We followed Miss Sears down the hall.
+
+“Who was that young man in the music room?” asked Kennedy, when we were
+out of earshot.
+
+“Duncan Baldwin,” she answered. “A friend and bosom companion of
+Reginald.”
+
+“He seems to think more of Betty than of her brother,” Craig remarked
+dryly.
+
+Miss Sears smiled. “Sometimes, we think they are secretly engaged,” she
+returned. We had almost reached the door. “By the way,” she asked
+anxiously, “do you think there are any precautions that I should take
+for Mrs. Blake—and the rest?”
+
+“Hardly,” answered Kennedy, after a moment’s consideration, “as long as
+you have taken none in particular already. Still, I suppose it will do
+no harm to be as antiseptic as possible.”
+
+“I shall try,” she promised, her face showing that she considered the
+affair now in a much more serious light than she had before our visit.
+
+“And keep me informed of anything that turns up,” added Kennedy handing
+her a card with the telephone number of the laboratory.
+
+As we left the Blake mansion, Kennedy remarked, “We must trace that car
+somehow—at least we must get someone working on that.”
+
+Half an hour later we were in a towering office building on Liberty
+Street, the home of various kinds of insurance. Kennedy stopped before
+a door which bore the name, “Douglas Garwood: Insurance Adjuster.”
+
+Briefly, Craig told the story of the stolen car, omitting the account
+of the dastardly method taken to blackmail Mrs. Blake. As he proceeded
+a light seemed to break on the face of Garwood, a heavyset man, whose
+very gaze was inquisitorial.
+
+“Yes, the theft has been reported to us already by Dr. Wilson herself,”
+he interrupted. “The car was insured in a company I represent.”
+
+“I had hoped so,” remarked Kennedy, “Do you know the woman?” he added,
+watching the insurance adjuster who had been listening intently as he
+told about the fair motor car thief.
+
+“Know her?” repeated Garwood emphatically. “Why, man, we have been so
+close to that woman that I feel almost intimate with her. The
+descriptions are those of a lady, well-dressed, and with a voice and
+manner that would carry her through any of the fashionable hotels,
+perhaps into society itself.”
+
+“One of a gang of blackmailers, then,” I hazarded.
+
+Garwood shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps,” he acquiesced. “It is
+automobile thieving that interests me, though. Why,” he went on, rising
+excitedly, “the gangs of these thieves are getting away with half a
+million dollars’ worth of high-priced cars every year. The police seem
+to be powerless to stop it. We appeal to them, but with no result. So,
+now we have taken things into our own hands.”
+
+“What are you doing in this case?” asked Kennedy.
+
+“What the insurance companies have to do to recover stolen
+automobiles,” Garwood replied. “For, with all deference to your friend,
+Deputy O’Connor, it is the insurance companies rather than the police
+who get stolen cars back.”
+
+He had pulled out a postal card from a pigeon hole in his desk,
+selecting it from several apparently similar. We read:
+
+$250.00 REWARD
+
+
+We will pay $100.00 for car, $150.00 additional for information which
+will convict the thief. When last seen, driven by a woman, name not
+known, who is described as dark-haired, well-dressed, slight,
+apparently thirty years old. The car is a Dixon, 1912, seven-passenger,
+touring, No. 193,222, license No. 200,859, New York; dark red body,
+mohair top, brass lamps, has no wind shield; rear axle brake band
+device has extra nut on turnbuckle not painted. Car last seen near
+Prince Henry Hotel, New York City, Friday, the 10th.
+
+Communicate by telegraph or telephone, after notifying nearest police
+department, with Douglas Garwood, New York City.
+
+“The secret of it is,” explained Garwood, as we finished reading, “that
+there are innumerable people who keep their eyes open and like to earn
+money easily. Thus we have several hundreds of amateur and enthusiastic
+detectives watching all over the city and country for any car that
+looks suspicious.”
+
+Kennedy thanked him for his courtesy, and we rose to go. “I shall be
+glad to keep you informed of anything that turns up,” he promised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY
+
+
+In the laboratory, Kennedy quietly set to work. He began by tearing
+from the germ letter the piece of gelatine and first examining it with
+a pocket lens. Then, with a sterile platinum wire, he picked out
+several minute sections of the black spot on the gelatine and placed
+them in agar, blood serum, and other media on which they would be
+likely to grow.
+
+“I shall have to wait until to-morrow to examine them properly,” he
+remarked. “There are colonies of something there, all right, but I must
+have them more fully developed.”
+
+WHAT to read. This is like giving a loaded gun to a boy and saying,
+'Shoot away! ... No matter in which direction you point your aim, . .
+shoot yourself if you like, and others too,--anyhow, you've GOT the
+gun!' Of course there are a few fellows who have occasionally drawn up
+a list of books as suitable for everybody's perusal,--but then these
+lists cannot be taken as true criterions, as they all differ from one
+another as much as church sects. One would-be instructor in the art of
+reading says we ought all to study 'Tom Jones'--now I don't see the
+necessity of THAT! And, oddly enough, these lists scarcely ever include
+the name of a poet,--which is the absurdest mistake ever made. A
+liberal education in the highest works of poesy is absolutely necessary
+to the thinking abilities of man. But, Alwyn, YOU need not trouble
+yourself about what is good for the million and what isn't, . .
+whatever you write is sure to be read NOW--you've got the ear of the
+public,--the 'fair, large ear' of the ass's head which disguises Bottom
+the Weaver, who frankly says of himself, 'I am such a tender ass, if my
+hair do but tickle me, I must scratch!'"
+
+Alwyn smiled. He was thinking of what his Shadow-Self had said on this
+very subject--"A book or poem, to be great, and keep its greatness
+hereafter, must be judged by the natural instinct of PEOPLES. This
+world-wide decision has never yet been, and never will be, hastened by
+any amount of written criticism,--it is the responsive beat of the
+enormous Pulse of Life that thrills through all mankind, high and low,
+gentle and simple,--its great throbs are slow and solemnly measured,
+yet if once it answers to a Poet's touch, that Poet's name is made
+glorious forever!" He.. in the character of Sah-luma.. had seemed to
+utter these sentiments many ages ago,--and now the words repeated
+themselves in his thoughts with a new and deep intensity of meaning.
+
+"Of course," added Villiers suddenly--"you must expect plenty of
+adverse criticism now, as it is known beyond all doubt that you are
+alive and able to read what is written concerning you,--but if you once
+pay attention to critics, you may as well put aside pen altogether, as
+it is the business of these worthies never to be entirely satisfied
+with anything. Even Shelley and Byron, in the critical capacity, abused
+Keats, till the poor, suffering youth, who promised to be greater then
+either of them, died of a broken heart as much as disease. This sort of
+injustice will go on to the end of time, or till men become more
+Christianized than Paul's version of Christianity has ever yet made
+them."
+
+Here a knock at the door interrupted the conversation. The servant
+entered, bringing a note gorgeously crested and coroneted in gold.
+Villiers, to whom it was addressed, opened and read it.
+
+"What shall we do about this?" he asked, when his man had retired. "It
+is an invitation from the Duchess de la Santoisie. She asks us to go
+and dine with her next week,--a party of twenty--reception afterward. I
+think we'd better accept,--what do you say?"
+
+Alwyn roused himself from his reverie. "Anything to please you, my dear
+boy!" he answered cheerfully--"But I haven't the faintest idea who the
+Duchess de la Santoisie is!"
+
+"No? ... Well, she's an Englishwoman who has married a French Duke. He
+is a delightful old fellow, the pink of courtesy, and the model of
+perfect egotism. A true Parisian, and of course an atheist,--a very
+polished atheist, too, with a most charming reliance on his own
+infallibility. His wife writes novels which have a SLIGHT leaning
+toward Zolaism,--she is an extremely witty woman sarcastic, and
+cold-blooded enough to be a female Robespierre, yet, on the whole,
+amusing as a study of what curious nondescript forms the feminine
+nature can adopt unto itself, if it chooses. She has an immense respect
+for GENIUS,--mind, I say genius advisedly, because she really is one of
+those rare few who cannot endure mediocrity. Everything at her house is
+the best of its kind, and the people she entertains are the best of
+theirs. Her welcome of you will be at any rate a sincerely admiring
+one,--and as I think, in spite of your desire for quiet, you will have
+to show yourself somewhere, it may as well be there."
+
+Alwyn looked dubious, and not at all resigned to the prospect of
+"showing himself."
+
+"Your description of her does not strike me as particularly
+attractive,"--he said--"I cannot endure that nineteenth-century
+hermaphroditic production, a mannish woman."
+
+"Oh but she isn't altogether mannish,"--declared Villiers, . .
+"Besides, I mustn't forget to add, that she is extremely beautiful."
+
+Alwyn shrugged his shoulders indifferently. His friend noticed the
+gesture and laughed.
+
+"Still impervious to beauty, old boy?"--he said gayly--"You always
+were, I remember!"
+
+Alwyn flushed a little, and rose from his chair.
+
+"Not always,"--he answered steadily,--"There have been times in my life
+when the beauty of women,--mere physical beauty--has exercised great
+influence over me. But I have lately learned how a fair face may
+sometimes mask a foul mind,--and unless I can see the SUBSTANCE of Soul
+looking through the SEMBLANCE of Body, then I know that the beauty I
+SEEM to behold is mere Appearance, and not Reality. Hence, unless your
+beautiful Duchess be like the 'King's daughter' of David's psalm, 'all
+glorious WITHIN'--her APPARENT loveliness will have no charm for
+me!--Now"--and he smiled, and spoke in a less serious tone.. "if you
+have no objection, I am off to my room to scribble for an hour or so.
+Come for me if you want me--you know I don't in the least mind being
+disturbed."
+
+But Villiers detained him a moment, and looked inquisitively at him
+full in the eyes.
+
+"You've got some singular new attraction about you, Alwyn,"--he said,
+with a strange sense of keen inward excitement as he met his friend's
+calm yet flashing glance,--"Something mysterious, . . something that
+COMPELS! What is it? ... I believe that visit of yours to the Ruins of
+Babylon had a more important motive than you will admit, . . moreover..
+I believe you are in love!"
+
+"IN love!"--Alwyn laughed a little as he repeated the words.. "What a
+foolish term that is when you come to think of it! For to be IN love
+suggests the possibility of getting OUT again,--which, if love be true,
+can never happen. Say that I LOVE!--and you will be nearer the mark!
+Now don't look so mystified, and don't ask me any more questions just
+now--to-night, when we are sitting together in the library, I'll tell
+you the whole story of my Babylonian adventure!"
+
+And with a light parting wave of the hand he left the room, and
+Villiers heard him humming a tune softly to himself as he ascended the
+stairs to his own apartments, where, ever since he arrived, he had made
+it his custom to do two or three hours' steady writing every morning.
+For a moment or so after he had gone Villiers stood lost in thought,
+with knitted brows and meditative eyes, then, rousing himself, he went
+on to his study, and sitting down at his desk wrote an answer to the
+Duchess de la Santoisie accepting her invitation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+REWARDS OF FAME.
+
+
+An habitual resident in London who is gifted with a keen faculty of
+hearing and observation, will soon learn to know instinctively the
+various characteristics of the people who call upon him, by the
+particular manner in which each one handles his door-bell or knocker.
+He will recognize the timid from the bold, the modest from the
+arrogant, the meditative thinker from the bustling man of fashion, the
+familiar friend from the formal acquaintance. Every individual's method
+of announcing his or her arrival to the household is distinctly
+different,--and Villiers, who studied a little of everything, had not
+failed to take note of the curiously diversified degrees of single and
+double rapping by means of which his visitors sought admittance to his
+abode. In fact, he rather prided himself on being able to guess with
+almost invariable correctness what special type of man or woman was at
+his door, provided he could hear the whole diapason of their knock from
+beginning to end. When he was shut in his "den," however, the sounds
+were muffled by distance, and he could form no just
+judgment,--sometimes, indeed, he did not hear them at all, especially
+if he happened to be playing his 'cello at the time. So that this
+morning he was considerably startled, when, having finished his letter
+to the Duchess de la Santoisie, a long and persistent rat-tat-tatting
+echoed noisily through the house, like the smart, quick blows of a
+carpenter's hammer--a species of knock that was entirely unfamiliar to
+him, and that, while so emphatic in character, suggested to his mind
+neither friend nor foe. He laid down his pen, listened and waited. In a
+minute or two his servant entered the room.
+
+"If you please, sir, a lady to see Mr. Alwyn. Shall I show her up?"
+
+Villiers rose slowly out of his chair, and stood eyeing his man in
+blank bewilderment.
+
+"A LADY! ... To see Mr. Alwyn!"--he repeated, his thoughts instantly
+reverting to his friend's vaguely hinted love-affair,--"What name?"
+
+"She gives no name, sir. She says it isn't needed,--Mr. Alwyn will know
+who she is."
+
+"Mr. Alwyn will know who she is, will he?" murmured Villiers
+dubiously.--"What is she like? Young and pretty?"
+
+Over the man-servant's staid countenance came the glimmer of a demure,
+respectful smile.
+
+"Oh no, sir,--not young, sir! A person about fifty, I should say."
+
+This was mystifying. A person about fifty! Who could she be? Villiers
+hastily considered,--there must be some mistake, he thought,--at any
+rate, he would see the unknown intruder himself first, and find out
+what her business was, before breaking in upon Alwyn's peaceful studies
+upstairs.
+
+"Show the lady in here"--he said--"I can't disturb Mr. Alwyn just now."
+
+The servant retired, and soon re-appeared, ushering in a tall, gaunt,
+black-robed female, who walked with the stride of a dragoon and the
+demeanor of a police-inspector, and who, merely nodding briskly in
+response to Villiers's amazed bow, selected with one comprehensive
+glance the most comfortable chair in the room, and seated herself at
+ease therein. She then put up her veil, displaying a long, narrow face,
+cold, pale, arrogant eyes, a nose inclined to redness at the tip, and a
+thin, close-set mouth lined with little sarcastic wrinkles, which came
+into prominent and unbecoming play as soon as she began to speak, which
+she did almost immediately.
+
+"I suppose I had better introduce myself to you, Mr. Alwyn"--she said
+with a condescending and confident air--"Though really we know each
+other so well by reputation that there seems scarcely any necessity for
+it! Of course you have heard of 'Tiger-Lily!'"
+
+Villiers gazed at her helplessly,--he had never felt so uncomfortable
+in all his life. Here was a strange woman, who had actually taken
+bodily possession of his apartment as though it were her own,--who had
+settled herself down in his particular pet Louis Quatorze chair,--who
+stared at him with the scrutinizing complacency of a professional
+physiognomist,--and who seemed to think no explanation of her
+extraordinary conduct was necessary, inasmuch as "of course" he,
+Villiers, had heard of "TIGER-LILY!" It was very singular! ... almost
+like madness! ... Perhaps she WAS mad! How could he tell? She had a
+remarkably high, knobby brow,--a brow with an unpleasantly bald
+appearance, owing to the uncompromising way in which her hair was
+brushed well off it--he had seen such brows before in certain
+"spiritualists" who believed, or pretended to believe, in the suddenly
+willed dematerialization of matter, and THEY were mad, he knew, or else
+very foolishly feigning madness!
+
+Endeavoring to compose his bewildered mind, he fixed glass in eye, and
+regarded her through it with an inquiring solemnity,--he would have
+spoken, but before he could utter a word, she went on rapidly:
+
+"You are not in the least like the person I imagined you to be! ...
+However, that doesn't matter. Literary celebrities are always so
+different to what we expect!"
+
+"Pardon me, madam,"--began Villiers politely.. "You are making a slight
+error,--my servant probably did not explain. I am not Mr. Alwyn, . . my
+name is Villiers. Mr. Alwyn is my guest,--but he is at present very
+much occupied,--and unless your business is extremely urgent..."
+
+"Certainly it is urgent"--said the lady decisively.. "otherwise I
+should not have come. And so you are NOT Mr. Alwyn! Well, I thought you
+couldn't be! Now then, will you have the kindness to tell Mr. Alwyn I
+am here?"
+
+By this time Villiers had recovered his customary self-possession, and
+he met her commanding glance with a somewhat defiant coolness.
+
+"I am not aware to whom I have the honor of speaking," he said
+frigidly. "Perhaps you will oblige me with your name?"
+
+"My name doesn't in the least matter," she replied calmly--"though I
+will tell you afterward if you wish. But you don't seem to understand
+I..._I_ am 'Tiger-Lily'!"
+
+The situation was becoming ludicrous. Villiers felt strongly disposed
+to laugh.
+
+"I'm afraid I am very ignorant!"--he said, with a humorous sparkle in
+his blue eyes,--"But really I am quite in the dark as to your meaning.
+Will you explain?"
+
+The lady's nose grew deeper of tint, and the look she shot at him had
+quite a killing vindictiveness. With evident difficulty she forced a
+smile.
+
+"Oh, you MUST have heard of me!"--she declared, with a ponderous
+attempt at playfulness--"You read the papers, don't you?"
+
+"Some of them," returned Villiers cautiously--"Not all. Not the Sunday
+ones, for instance."
+
+"Still, you can't possibly have helped seeing my descriptions of famous
+people 'At Home,' you know! I write for ever so many journals. I
+think"--and she became complacently reflective--"I think I may say with
+perfect truth that I have interviewed everybody who has ever done
+anything worth noting, from our biggest provision dealer to our latest
+sensational novelist! And all my articles are signed 'Tiger-Lily.' NOW
+do you remember? Oh, you MUST remember? ... I am so VERY well known!"
+
+There was a touch of genuine anxiety in her voice that was almost
+pathetic, but Villiers made no attempt to soothe her wounded vanity.
+
+"I have no recollection whatever of the name," he said bluntly--"But
+that is easily accounted for, as I never read newspaper descriptions of
+celebrities. So you are an 'interviewer' for the Press?"
+
+"Exactly!" and the lady leaned back more comfortably in the Louis
+Quatorze fauteuil--"And of course I want to interview Mr. Alwyn. I
+want..." here drawing out a business looking note-book from her pocket
+she opened it and glanced at the different headings therein
+enumerated,--"I want to describe his personal appearance,--to know when
+he was born, and where he was educated,--whether his father or mother
+had literary tastes,--whether he had, or has, brothers or sisters, or
+both,--whether he is married, or likely to be, and how much money he
+has made by his book." She paused and gave an upward glance at
+Villiers, who returned it with a blank and stony stare.
+
+"Then,"--she resumed energetically--"I wish to know what are his
+methods of work;--WHERE he gets his ideas and HOW he elaborates
+them,--how many hours he writes at a time, and whether he is an early
+riser,--also what he usually takes for dinner,--whether he drinks wine
+or is a total abstainer, and at what hour he retires to rest. All this
+is so INTENSELY interesting to the public! Perhaps he might be inclined
+to give me a few notes of his recent tour in the East, and of course I
+should be very glad if he will state his opinions on the climate,
+customs, and governments of the countries through which he has passed.
+It's a great pity this is not his own house,--it is a pretty place and
+a description of it would read well. Let me see!"--and she
+meditated,--" I think I could manage to insert a few lines about this
+apartment, . . it would be easy to say 'the picturesque library in the
+house of the Honble. Francis Villiers, where Mr. Alwyn received me,'
+etc.,--Yes! that would do very well!--very well indeed! I should like
+to know whether he has a residence of his own anywhere, and if not,
+whether he intends to take one in London, because in the latter case it
+would be as well to ascertain by whom he intends to have it furnished.
+A little discussion on upholstery is so specially fascinating to my
+readers! Then, naturally, I am desirous to learn how the erroneous
+rumor of his death was first started, . . whether in the course of his
+travels he met with some serious accident, or illness, which gave rise
+to the report. Now,"--and she shut her note-book and folded her
+hands,--"I don't mind waiting an hour or more if necessary,--but I am
+sure if you will tell Mr. Alwyn who I am, and what I have come for, he
+will be only too delighted to see me with as little delay as possible."
+
+She ceased. Villiers drew a long breath,--his compressed lips parted in
+a slightly sarcastic smile. Squaring his shoulders with that peculiar
+pugnacious gesture of his which always indicated to those who knew him
+well that his mind was made up, and that nothing would induce him to
+alter it, he said in a tone of stiff civility:
+
+"I am sorry, madam, . . very sorry! ... but I am compelled to inform
+you that your visit here is entirely useless! Were I to tell my friend
+of the purpose you have in view concerning him, he would not feel so
+much flattered as you seem to imagine, but rather insulted! Excuse my
+frankness,--you have spoken plainly,--I must speak plainly too.
+Provision dealers and sensational story writers may find that it serves
+their purpose to be interviewed, if only as a means of gaining extra
+advertisement, but a truly great and conscientious author like Theos
+Alwyn is quite above all that sort of thing."
+
+The lady raised her pale eyebrows with an expression of interrogative
+scorn.
+
+"ABOVE all that sort of thing!" she echoed incredulously--"Dear me! How
+very extraordinary! I have always found all our celebrities so
+exceedingly pleased to be given a little additional notoriety! ... and
+I should have thought a POET," this with much depreciative
+emphasis--"would have been particularly glad of the chance! Because, of
+course you know that unless a very astonishing success is made, as in
+the case of Mr. Alwyn's 'Nourhalma,' people really take such slight
+interest in writers of verse, that it is hardly ever worth while
+interviewing them!"
+
+"Precisely!" agreed Villiers ironically,--"The private history of a
+prize-fighter would naturally be much more thrilling!" He paused,--his
+temper was fast rising, but, quickly reflecting that, after all, the
+indignation he felt was not so much against his visitor as against the
+system she represented, he resumed quietly, "May I ask you, madam,
+whether you have ever 'interviewed' Her Majesty the Queen?"
+
+Her glance swept slightingly over him.
+
+"Certainly not! Such a thing would be impossible!"
+
+"Then you have never thought," went on Villiers, with a thrill of
+earnestness in his manly, vibrating voice--"that it might be quite as
+impossible to 'interview' a great Poet?--who, if great indeed, is in
+every way as royal as any Sovereign that ever adorned a throne! I do
+not speak of petty verse-writers,--I say a great Poet, by which term I
+imply a great creative genius who is honestly faithful to his high
+vocation. Such an one could no more tell you his methods of work than a
+rainbow could prattle about the way it shines,--and as for his personal
+history, I should like to know by what right society is entitled to pry
+into the sacred matters of a man's private life, simply because he
+happens to be famous? I consider the modern love of prying and probing
+into other people's affairs a most degrading and abominable sign of the
+times,--it is morbid, unwholesome, and utterly contemptible. Moreover,
+I think that writers who consent to be 'interviewed' condemn themselves
+as literary charlatans, unworthy of the profession they have wrongfully
+adopted. You see I have the courage of my opinions on this matter,--in
+fact, I believe, if every one were to speak their honest mind openly, a
+better state of things might be the result, and 'interviewing' would
+gradually come to be considered in its true light, namely, as a vulgar
+and illegitimate method of advertisement. I mean no disrespect to you,
+madam,"--this, as the lady suddenly put down her veil, thrust her
+note-book in her pocket, and rose somewhat bouncingly from her
+chair--"I am only sorry you should find such an occupation as that of
+the 'interviewer' open to you. I can scarcely imagine such work to be
+congenial to a lady's feelings, as, in the case of really distinguished
+personages, she must assuredly meet with many a rebuff! I hope I have
+not offended you by my bluntness, ... "--here he trailed off into
+inaudible polite murmurs, while the "Tiger-Lily" marched steadily
+toward the door.
+
+"Oh dear, no, I am not in the least offended!" she retorted
+contemptuously,--"On the contrary, this has been a most amusing
+experience!--most amusing, I assure you! and quite unique! Why--" and
+suddenly stopping short, she turned smartly round and gesticulated with
+one hand ... "I have interviewed all the favorite actors and actresses
+in London! The biggest brewers in Great Britain have received me at
+their country mansions, and have given me all the particulars of their
+lives from earliest childhood! The author of 'Hugger Mugger's Curse'
+took the greatest pains to explain to me how he first collected the
+materials for his design. The author of that most popular story,
+'Darling's Twins,' gave me a description of all the houses he has ever
+lived in,--he even told me where he purchased his writing-paper, pens,
+and ink! And to think that a POET should be too grand to be
+interrogated! Oh, the idea is really very funny! ... quite too funny
+for anything! "She gave a short laugh,--then relapsing into severity,
+she added ... "You will, I hope, tell Mr. Alwyn I called?"
+
+Villiers bowed. "Assuredly!"
+
+"Thank you! Because it is possible he may have different opinions to
+yours,--in that case, if he writes me a line, fixing an appointment, I
+shall be very pleased to call again. I will leave my card,--and if Mr.
+Alwyn is a sensible man, he will certainly hold broader ideas on the
+subject of 'interviewing' than YOU appear to entertain. You are QUITE
+sure I cannot see him?"
+
+"Quite!"--There was no mistake about the firm emphasis of this reply.
+
+"Oh, very well!"--here she opened the door, rattling the handle with
+rather an unnecessary violence,--"I'm sorry to have taken up any of
+your time, Mr. Villiers. Good-morning!"
+
+"Good-morning!" ... returned Villiers calmly, touching the bell that
+his servant might be in readiness to show her out. But the baffled
+"Tiger-Lily" was not altogether gone. She looked back, her face
+wrinkling into one of those strangely unbecoming expressions of grim
+playfulness.
+
+"I've half a mind to make an 'At Home' out of YOU!" she said, nodding
+at him energetically. "Only you're not important enough!"
+
+Villiers burst out laughing. He was not proof against this touch of
+humor, and on a sudden good-natured impulse, sprang to the door and
+shook hands with her.
+
+"No, indeed, I am not!" he said, with a charming smile--"Think of
+it!--I haven't even invented a new biscuit! Come, let me see you into
+the hall,--I'm really sorry if I've spoken roughly, but I assure you
+Alwyn's not at all the sort of man you want for interviewing,--he's far
+too modest and noble-hearted. Believe me!--I'm not romancing a
+bit--I'm in earnest. There ARE some few fine, manly, gifted fellows
+left in the world, who do their work for the love of the work alone,
+and not for the sake of notoriety, and he is one of them. Now I'm not
+certain, if you were quite candid with me, you'd admit that you
+yourself don't think much of the people who actually LIKE to be
+interviewed?"
+
+His amiable glance, his kindly manner, took the gaunt female by
+surprise, and threw her quite off her guard. She laughed,--a natural,
+unforced laugh in which there was not a trace of bitterness. He was
+really a delightful young man, she thought, in spite of his
+old-fashioned, out-of-the-way notions!
+
+"Well, perhaps I don't!" she replied frankly--"But you see it is not my
+business to think about them at all. I simply 'interview' them,--and I
+generally find they are very willing, and often eager, to tell me all
+about themselves, even to quite trifling and unnecessary details. And,
+of course, each one thinks himself or herself the ONLY or the chief
+'celebrity' in London, or, for that matter, in the world. I have always
+to tone down the egotistical part of it a little, especially with
+authors, for if I were to write out exactly what THEY separately say of
+their contemporaries, it would be simply frightful! They would be all
+at daggers drawn in no time! I assure you 'interviewing' is often a
+most delicate and difficult business!"
+
+"Would it were altogether impossible!" said Villiers heartily--"But as
+long as there is a plethora of little authors, and a scarcity of great
+ones, so long, I suppose, must it continue--for little men love
+notoriety, and great ones shrink from it, just in the same way that
+good women like flattery, while bad ones court it. I hope you don't
+bear me any grudge because I consider my friend Alwyn both good and
+great, and resent the idea of his being placed, no matter with what
+excellent intention soever, on the level of the small and mean?"
+
+The lady surveyed him with a twinkle of latent approval in her
+pale-colored eyes.
+
+"Not in the least!" she replied in a tone of perfect good-humor. "On
+the contrary, I rather admire your frankness! Still, I think, that as
+matters stand nowadays, you are very odd,--and I suppose your friend is
+odd too,--but, of course, there must be exceptions to every rule. At
+the same time, you should recollect that, in many people's opinion, to
+be 'interviewed' is one of the chiefest rewards of fame!--" Villiers
+shrugged his shoulders expressively. "Oh, yes, it seems a poor reward
+to you, no doubt,"--she continued smilingly,--"but there are no end of
+authors who would do anything to secure the notoriety of it! Now,
+suppose that, after all, Mr. Alwyn DOES care to submit to the
+operation, you will let me know, won't you?"
+
+"Certainly I will!"--and Villiers, accepting her card, on which was
+inscribed her own private name and address, shook hands once more, and
+bowed her courteously out. No sooner had the door closed upon her than
+he sprang upstairs, three steps at a time, and broke impetuously in
+upon Alwyn, who, seated at a table covered with papers, looked up with
+a surprised smile at the abrupt fashion of his entrance. In a few
+minutes he had disburdened himself of the whole story of the
+"Tiger-Lily's" visit, telling it in a whimsical way of his own, much to
+the amusement of his friend, who listened, pen in hand, with a
+half-laughing, half-perplexed light in his fine, poetic eyes.
+
+"Now did I express the proper opinion?" he demanded in conclusion. "Was
+I not right in thinking you would never consent to be interviewed?"
+
+"Right? Why of course you were!"--responded Alwyn quickly. "Can you
+imagine me calmly stating the details of my personal life and history
+to a strange woman, and allowing her to turn it into a half-guinea
+article for some society journal! But, Villiers, what an extraordinary
+state of things we are coming to, if the Press can actually condescend
+to employ a sort of spy, or literary detective, to inquire into the
+private experience of each man or woman who comes honorably to the
+front!"
+
+"Honorably or DIShonorably,--it doesn't matter which,"--said Villiers,
+"That is just the worst of it. One day it is an author who is
+'interviewed,' the next it is a murderer,--now a statesman,--then a
+ballet dancer,--the same honor is paid to all who have won any distinct
+notoriety. And what is so absurd is, that the reading million don't
+seem able to distinguish between 'notoriety' and 'fame.' The two things
+are so widely, utterly apart! Byron's reputation, for instance, was
+much more notoriety during his life than fame--while Keats had actually
+laid hold on fame while as yet deeming himself unfamous. It's curious,
+but true, nevertheless, that very often the writers who thought least
+of themselves during their lifetime have become the most universally
+renowned after their deaths. Shakespeare, I dare say, had no very
+exaggerated idea of the beauty of his own plays,--he seems to have
+written just the best that was in him, without caring what anybody
+thought of it. And I believe that is the only way to succeed in the
+end."
+
+"In the end!" repeated Alwyn dreamily--"In the end, no worldly success
+is worth attaining,--a few thousand years and the greatest are
+forgotten!"
+
+"Not the GREATEST,"--said Villiers warmly--"The greatest must always be
+remembered."
+
+"No, my friend!--Not even the greatest! Do you not think there must
+have been great and wise and gifted men in Tyre, in Sidon, in Carthage,
+in Babylon?--There are five men mentioned in Scripture, as being 'ready
+to write swiftly'--Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ecanus, and Ariel--where is
+the no doubt admirable work done by these? Perhaps ... who knows? ...
+one of them was as great as Homer in genius,--we cannot tell!"
+
+"True,--we cannot tell!" responded Villiers meditatively--"But, Alwyn,
+if you persist in viewing things through such tremendous vistas of
+time, and in measuring the Future by the Past, then one may ask what is
+the use of anything?"
+
+"There IS no use in anything, except in the making of a strong,
+persistent, steady effort after good," said Alwyn earnestly ... "We men
+are cast, as it were, between two swift currents, Wrong and
+Right,--Self and God,--and it seems more easy to shut our eyes and
+drift into Self and Wrong, than to strike out brave arms, and swim,
+despite all difficulty, toward God and Right, yet if we once take the
+latter course, we shall find it the most natural and the least
+fatiguing. And with every separate stroke of high endeavor we carry
+others with us,--we raise our race,--we bear it onward,--upward! And
+the true reward, or best result of fame, is, that having succeeded in
+winning brief attention from the multitude, a man may be able to
+pronounce one of God's lightning messages of inspired Truth plainly to
+them, while they are yet willing to stand and listen. This momentary
+hearing from the people is, as I take it, the sole reward any writer
+can dare to hope for,--and when he obtains it, he should remember that
+his audience remains with him but a very short while,--so that it is
+his duty to see that he employ his chance WELL, not to win applause for
+himself, but to cheer and lift others to noble thought, and still more
+noble fulfilment."
+
+Villiers regarded him wistfully.
+
+"Alwyn, my dear fellow, do you want to be the Sisyphus of this
+era?--You will find the stone of Evil heavy to roll upward,--moreover,
+it will exhibit the usually painful tendency to slip back and crush
+you!"
+
+"How can it crush me?" asked his friend with a serene smile. "My heart
+cannot be broken, or my spirit dismayed, and as for my body, it can but
+die,--and death comes to every man! I would rather try to roll up the
+stone, however fruitless the task, than sit idly looking at it, and
+doing nothing!"
+
+"Your heart cannot be broken? Ah! how do you know" ... and Villiers
+shook his head dubiously--"What man can be certain of his own destiny?"
+
+"Everyman can WILL his own destiny,"--returned Alwyn firmly. "That is
+just it. But here we are getting into a serious discussion, and I had
+determined to talk no more on such subjects till to-night."
+
+"And to-night we are to go in for them thoroughly, I
+suppose?"--inquired Villiers with a quick look. "To-night, my dear boy,
+you will have to decide whether you consider me mad or sane," said
+Alwyn cheerfully--"I shall tell you truths that seem like romances--and
+facts that sound like fables,--moreover, I shall have to assure you
+that miracles DO happen whenever God chooses, in spite of all human
+denial of their possibility. Do you remember Whately's clever
+skit--'Historical Doubts of Napoleon I'?--showing how easy it was to
+logically prove that Napoleon never existed?--That ought to enlighten
+people as to the very precise and convincing manner in which we can, if
+we choose, argue away what is nevertheless an incontestible FACT. Thus
+do skeptics deny miracles--yet we live surrounded by miracles! ... do
+you think me crazed for saying so?"
+
+Villiers laughed. "Crazed! No, indeed!--I wish every man in London were
+as sane and sound as you are!"
+
+"Ah, but wait till to-night!" and Alwyn's eyes sparkled
+mirthfully--"Perhaps you will alter your opinion then!"--Here,
+collecting his scattered manuscripts, he put them by--"I've done work
+for the present,"--he said--"Shall we go for a walk somewhere?"
+
+Villiers assented, and they left the room together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+ONE AGAINST MANY.
+
+
+The beautiful and socially popular Duchess de la Santoisie sat her at
+brilliantly appointed dinner-table, and flashed her bright eyes
+comprehensively round the board,--her party was complete. She had
+secured twenty of the best-known men and women of letters in all
+London, and yet she was not quite satisfied with the result attained.
+One dark, splendid face on her right hand had taken the lustre out of
+all the rest,--one quiet, courteous smile on a mouth haughty, yet
+sweet, had somehow or other made the entertainment of little worth in
+her own estimation. She was very fair to look upon, very witty, very
+worldly-wise,--but for once her beauty seemed to herself defective and
+powerless to charm, while the graceful cloak of social hypocrisy she
+was always accustomed to wear would not adapt itself to her manner
+tonight so well as usual. The author of "Nourhalma" the successful poet
+whose acquaintance she had very eagerly sought to make, was not at all
+the kind of man she had expected,--and now, when he was beside her as
+her guest, she did not quite know what to do with him.
+
+She had met plenty of poets, so called, before,--and had, for the most
+part, found them insignificant looking men with an enormous opinion of
+themselves, and a suave, condescending contempt for all others of their
+craft; but this being,--this stately, kingly creature with the noble
+head, and far-gazing, luminous eyes,--this man, whose every gesture was
+graceful, whose demeanor was more royal than that of many a crowned
+monarch,--whose voice had such a singular soft thrill of music in its
+tone,--he was a personage for whom she had not been prepared,--and in
+whose presence she felt curiously embarrassed and almost ill at ease.
+And she was not the only one present who experienced these odd
+sensations. Alwyn's appearance, when, with his friend Villiers, he had
+first entered the Duchess's drawing-room that evening, and had there
+been introduced to his hostess, had been a sort of revelation to the
+languid, fashionable guests assembled; sudden quick whispers were
+exchanged--surprised glances,--how unlike he was to the general type of
+the nervous, fagged, dyspeptic "literary" man!
+
+And now that every one was seated at dinner, the same impression
+remained on all,--an impression that was to some disagreeable and
+humiliating, and that yet could not be got over,--namely, that this
+"poet," whom, in a way, the Duchess and her friends had intended to
+patronize, was distinctly superior to them all. Nature, as though proud
+of her handiwork, proclaimed him as such,--while he, quite unconscious
+of the effect he produced, wondered why this bevy of human beings, most
+of whom were more or less distinguished in the world of art and
+literature, had so little to say for themselves. Their conversation was
+BANAL,--tame,--ordinary; they might have been well-behaved, elegantly
+dressed peasants for aught they said of wise, cheerful, or witty. The
+weather,--the parks,--the theatres,--the newest actress, and the newest
+remedies for indigestion,--these sort of subjects were bandied about
+from one to the other with a vaguely tame persistence that was really
+irritating,--the question of remedies for indigestion seemed to hold
+ground longest, owing to the variety of opinions expressed thereon.
+
+The Duchess grew more and more inwardly vexed, and her little foot beat
+an impatient tattoo under the table, as she replied with careless
+brevity to a few of the commonplace observations addressed to her, and
+cast an occasional annoyed glance at her lord, M le Duc, a thin,
+military-looking individual, with a well waxed and pointed mustache,
+whose countenance suggested an admirably executed mask. It was a face
+that said absolutely nothing,--yet beneath its cold impassiveness
+linked the satyr-like, complex, half civilized, half brutish mind of
+the born and bred Parisian,--the goblin-creature with whom pure
+virtues, whether in man or woman, are no more sacred than nuts to a
+monkey. The suave charm of a polished civility sat on M le Due's smooth
+brow, and beamed in his urbane smile,--his manners were exquisite, his
+courtesy irreproachable, his whole demeanor that of a very precise and
+elegant master of deportment. Yet, notwithstanding his calm and
+perfectly self-possessed exterior, he was, oddly enough, the frequent
+prey of certain extraordinary and ungovernable passions; there were
+times when he became impossible to himself,--and when, to escape from
+his own horrible thoughts, he would plunge headlong into an orgie of
+wild riot and debauchery, such as might have made the hair of his
+respectable English acquaintances stand on end, had they known to what
+an extent he carried his excesses. But at these seasons of moral
+attack, he "went abroad for his health," as he said, delicately
+touching his chest in order to suggest some interesting latent weakness
+there, and in these migratory excursions his wife never accompanied
+him, nor did she complain of his absence. When he returned, after two
+or three months, he looked more the "chevalier sans peur et sans
+reproche" than ever; and neither he, nor the fair partner of his joys
+and sorrows, even committed such a breach of politeness as to inquire
+into each other's doings during the time of their separation. So they
+jogged on together, presenting the most delightful outward show of
+wedded harmony to the world,--and only a few were found to hazard the
+remark, that the "racy" novels Madame la Duchesse wrote to wile away
+her duller hours were singularly "bitter" in tone, for a woman whose
+lot in life was so extremely enviable!
+
+On this particular evening, the Duke affected to be utterly unconscious
+of the meaning looks his beautiful spouse shot at him every now and
+then,--looks which plainly said--"Why don't you start some interesting
+subject of conversation, and stop these people from talking such
+every-day twaddle?" He was a clever man in his way, and his present
+mood was malign and mischievous; therefore he went on eating daintily,
+and discussing mild platitudes in the most languidly amiable manner
+imaginable, enjoying to the full the mental confusion and discomfort of
+his guests,--confusion and discomfort which, as he very well knew, was
+the psychological result of their having one in their midst whose life
+and character were totally opposite to, and distinctly separate from,
+their own. As Emerson truly says, "Let the world beware when a Thinker
+comes into it!".. and here WAS this Thinker,--this type of the Godlike
+in Man,--this uncomfortably sincere personage, whose eyes were clear of
+falsehood, whose genius was incontestable, whose fame had taken society
+by assault, and who, therefore, was entitled to receive every attention
+and consideration.
+
+Everybody had desired to see him, and here he was,--the great man, the
+new "celebrity"--and now that he was actually present, no one knew what
+to say to him; moreover, there was a very general tendency in the
+company to avoid his direct gaze. People fidgeted on their chairs and
+looked aside or downward, whenever his glance accidentally fell on
+them,--and to the analytical Voltairean mind of M. le Duc there was
+something grimly humorous in the whole situation. He was a great
+admirer of physical strength and beauty, and Alwyn's noble face and
+fine figure had won his respect, though of the genius of the poet he
+knew nothing, and cared less. It was enough for all the purposes of
+social usage that the author of "Nourhalma" was CONSIDERED
+illustrious,--no matter whether he deserved the appellation or not. And
+so the Duke, satirically amused at the obvious embarrassment of the
+other "notabilities" assembled, did nothing whatsoever to relieve or to
+lighten the conversation, which remained so utterly dull and inane that
+Alwyn, who had been compelled, for politeness' sake, to appear
+interested in the account of a bicycle race detailed to him by a very
+masculine looking lady-doctor whose seat at table was next his own,
+began to feel a little weary, and to wonder dismally how long this
+"feast of reason and flow of soul" was going to last.
+
+Villiers, too, whose easy, good-natured, and clever talk generally gave
+some sparkle and animation to the dreariest social gathering, was
+to-night unusually taciturn:--he was bored by his partner, a
+middle-aged woman with a mania for philology, and, moreover, his
+thoughts, like those of most of the persons present, were centered on
+Alwyn, whom every now and then he regarded with a certain wistful
+wonder and reverence. He had heard the whole story of the Field of
+Ardath; and he knew not how much to accept of it as true, or how much
+to set down to his friend's ardent imagination. He had come to a fairly
+logical explanation of the whole matter,--namely, that as the City of
+Al-Kyris had been proved a dream, so surely the visit of the
+Angel-maiden Edris must have been a dream likewise,--that the trance at
+the Monastery of Dariel, followed by the constant reading of the
+passages from Esdras, and the treatise of Algazzali, had produced a
+vivid impression on Alwyn's susceptible brain, which had resolved
+itself into the visionary result narrated.
+
+He found in this the most practical and probable view of what must
+otherwise be deemed by mortal minds incredible; and, being a frank and
+honest fellow, he had not scrupled to openly tell his friend what he
+thought. Alwyn had received his remarks with the most perfect sweetness
+and equanimity,--but, all the same, had remained unchanged in his
+opinion as to the REALITY of his betrothal to his Angel-love in Heaven.
+And one or two points had certainly baffled Villiers, and perplexed him
+in his would-be precise analysis of the circumstances: first, there was
+the remarkable change in Alwyn's own nature. From an embittered,
+sarcastic, disappointed, violently ambitious man, he had become
+softened, gracious, kindly,--showing the greatest tenderness and
+forethought for others, even in small, every-day trifles; while for
+himself he took no care. He wore his fame as lightly as a child might
+wear a flower, just plucked and soon to fade,--his intelligence seemed
+to expand itself into a broad, loving, sympathetic comprehension of the
+wants and afflictions of human-kind; and he was writing a new poem, of
+which Villiers had seen some lines that had fairly amazed him by their
+grandeur of conception and clear passion of utterance. Thus it was
+evident there was no morbidness in him,--no obscurity,--nothing
+eccentric,--nothing that removed him in any way from his fellows,
+except that royal personality of his,--that strong, beautiful,
+well-balanced Spirit in him, which exercised such a bewildering spell
+on all who came within its influence, He believed himself loved by an
+Angel! Well,--if there WERE angels, why not? Villiers argued the
+proposition thus:
+
+"Whether we are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, or Mahometans, we are
+supposed to accept angels as forming part of the system of our Faith.
+If we are nothing,--then, of course, we believe in nothing. But granted
+we are SOMETHING, then we are bound in honor, if consistent, to
+acknowledge that angels help to guide our destinies. And if, as we are
+assured by Holy Writ, such loftier beings DO exist, why should they not
+communicate with, and even love, human creatures, provided those human
+creatures are worthy of their tenderness? Certainly, viewed by all the
+chief religions of the world, there is nothing new or outrageous in the
+idea of an angel descending to the help of man."
+
+Such thoughts as these were in his mind now, as he ever and anon
+glanced across the glittering table, with its profusion of lights and
+flowers, to where his poet-friend sat, slightly leaning back in his
+chair, with a certain half-perplexed, half-disappointed expression on
+his handsome features, though his eyes brightened into a smile as he
+caught Villiers's look, and he gave the smallest, scarcely perceptible
+shrug, as who should say, "Is this your brilliant Duchess?--your witty
+and cultured society?"
+
+Villiers flashed back an amused, responsive glance, and then
+conscientiously strove to pay more attention to the irrepressible
+feminine philologist beside him, determining to take her, as he said to
+himself, by way of penance for his unremembered sins. After a while
+there came one of those extraordinary, sudden rushes of gabble that
+often occur at even the stiffest dinner-party,--a galloping race of
+tongues, in which nothing really distinct is heard, but in which each
+talks to the other as though moved by an impulse of sheer desperation.
+This burst of noise was a relief after the strained murmurs of trite
+commonplaces that had hitherto been the order of the hour, and the fair
+Duchess, somewhat easier in her mind, turned anew to Alwyn, with
+greater grace and gentleness of manner than she had yet shown.
+
+"I am afraid," she said smilingly, "you must find us all very stupid
+after your travels abroad? In England we ARE dull,--our tristesse
+cannot be denied. But, really, the climate is responsible,--we want
+more sunshine. I suppose in the East, where the sun is so warm and
+bright, the people are always cheerful?"
+
+"On the contrary, I have found them rather serious and contemplative
+than otherwise," returned Alwyn,--"yet their gravity is certainly of a
+pleasant, and not of a forbidding type. I don't myself think the sun
+has much to do with the disposition of man, after all,--I fancy his
+temperament is chiefly moulded by the life he leads. In the East, for
+instance, men accept their existence as a sort of divine command, which
+they obey cheerfully, yet with a consciousness of high
+responsibility:--on the Continent they take it as a bagatelle, lightly
+won, lightly lost, hence their indifferent, almost childish,
+gayety;--but in Great Britain"--and he smiled,--"it looks nowadays as
+if it were viewed very generally as a personal injury and bore,--a kind
+of title bestowed without the necessary money to keep it up! And this
+money people set themselves steadily to obtain, with many a weary grunt
+and groan, while they are, for the most part, forgetful of anything
+else life may have to offer."
+
+"But what IS life without plenty of money?" inquired the Duchess
+carelessly--"Surely, not worth the trouble of living!"
+
+Alwyn looked at her steadily, and a swift flush colored her smooth
+cheek. She toyed with the magnificent diamond spray at her breast, and
+wondered what strange spell was in this man's brilliant gray-black
+eyes!--did he guess that she--even she--had sold herself to the Duc de
+la Santoisie for the sake of his money and title as easily and
+unresistingly as though she were a mere purchasable animal?
+
+"That is an argument I would rather not enter into," he said
+gently--"It would lead us too far. But I am convinced, that whether
+dire poverty or great riches be our portion, life, considered apart
+from its worldly appendages, is always worth living, if lived WELL."
+
+"Pray, how can you separate life from its worldly
+appendages?"--inquired a satirical-looking gentleman opposite--"Life IS
+the world, and the things of the world; when we lose sight of the
+world, we lose ourselves,--in short, we die,--and the world is at an
+end, and we with it. That's plain practical philosophy."
+
+"Possibly it may be called philosophy"--returned Alwyn--"It is not
+Christianity."
+
+"Oh, Christianity!"--and the gentleman gave a portentous sniff of
+contempt--"That is a system of faith that is rapidly dying out; fast
+falling into contempt!--In fact, with the scientific and cultured
+classes, it is already an exploded doctrine."
+
+"Indeed!"--Alwyn's glance swept over him with a faint, cold scorn
+--"And what religion do the scientific and cultured classes propose to
+invent as a substitute?"
+
+"There's no necessity for any substitute,"--said the gentleman rather
+impatiently.. For those who want to believe in something supernatural,
+there are plenty of different ideas afloat, Esoteric Buddhism for
+example,--and what is called Scientific Religion and Natural
+Religion,--any, or all, of these are sufficient to gratify the
+imaginative cravings of the majority, till they have been educated out
+of imagination altogether:--but, for advanced thinkers, religion is
+really not required at all." [Footnote: The world is indebted to Mr.
+Andrew Lang for the newest "logical" explanation of the Religious
+Instinct in Man:--namely, that the very idea of God first arose from
+the terror and amazement of an ape at the sound of the thunder! So
+choice and soul-moving a definition of Deity needs no comment!]
+
+"Nay, I think we must worship SOMETHING!" retorted Alwyn, a fine satire
+in his rich voice, "if it be only SELF!--Self is an excellent
+deity!--accommodating, and always ready to excuse sin,--why should we
+not build temples, raise altars, and institute services to the glory
+and honor of SELF?--Perhaps the time is ripe for a public proclamation
+of this creed?--It will be easily propagated, for the beginnings of it
+are in the heart of every man, and need very little fostering!"
+
+His thrilling tone, together with the calm, half-ironical
+persuasiveness of his manner, sent a sudden hush down the table. Every
+one turned eagerly toward him,--some amused, some wondering, some
+admiring, while Villiers felt his heart beating with uncomfortable
+quickness,--he hated religious discussions, and always avoided them,
+and now here was Alwyn beginning one, and he the centre of a company of
+persons who were for the most part avowed agnostics, to whose opinions
+his must necessarily be in direct and absolute opposition! At the same
+time, he remembered that those who were sure of their faith never lost
+their temper about it,--and as he glanced at his friend's perfectly
+serene and coldly smiling countenance, he saw there was no danger of
+his letting slip, even for a moment, his admirable power of
+self-command. The Duc de la Santoisie, meanwhile, settling his
+mustache, and gracefully waving one hand, on which sparkled a large
+diamond ring, bent forward a little with a courteous, deprecatory
+gesture.
+
+"I think"--he said, in soft, purring accents,--"that my friend, Dr.
+Mudley"--here he bowed toward the saturnine looking individual who had
+entered into conversation with Alwyn--"takes a very proper, and indeed
+a very lofty, view of the whole question. The moral sense"--and he laid
+a severely weighty emphasis on these words,--"the moral sense of each
+man, if properly trained, is quite sufficient to guide him through
+existence, without any such weakness as reliance on a merely
+supposititious Deity."
+
+The Duke's French way of speaking English was charming; he gave an
+expressive roll to his r's, especially when he said "the moral sense,"
+that of itself almost carried conviction. His wife smiled as she heard
+him, and her smile was not altogether pleasant. Perhaps she wondered by
+what criterion of excellence he measured his own "moral sense," or
+whether, despite his education and culture, he had any "moral sense" at
+all, higher than that of the pig, who eats to be eaten! But Alwyn
+spoke, and she listened intently, finding a singular fascination in the
+soft and quiet modulation of his voice, which gave a vaguely delicious
+suggestion of music underlying speech.
+
+"To guide people by their moral sense alone"--he said--"you must first
+prove plainly to them that the moral sense exists, together with moral
+responsibility. You will find this difficult,--as the virtue implied is
+intangible, unseeable;--one cannot say of it, lo here!--or lo
+there!--it is as complicated and subtle as any other of the
+manifestations of pure Spirit. Then you must decide on one universal
+standard, or reasonable conception of what 'morality' is. Again, you
+are met by a crowd of perplexities,--as every nation, and every tribe,
+has a totally different idea of the same thing. In some countries it is
+'moral' to have many wives; in others, to drown female children; in
+others, to solemnly roast one's grandparents for dinner! Supposing,
+however, that you succeed, with the aid of all the philosophers,
+teachers, and scientists, in drawing up a practical Code of
+Morality--do you not think an enormous majority will be found to ask
+you by whose authority you set forth this Code?--and by what right you
+deem it necessary to enforce it? You may say, 'By the authority of
+Knowledge and by the right of Morality'--but since you admit to there
+being no spiritual or divine inspiration for your law, you will be
+confronted by a legion of opponents who will assure you, and probably
+with perfect justice, that their idea of morality is as good as yours,
+and their knowledge as excellent,--that your Code appears to them
+faulty in many respects, and that, therefore, they purpose making
+another one, more suited to their liking. Thus, out of your one famous
+Moral System would spring thousands of others, formed to gratify the
+various tastes of different individuals, precisely in the same manner
+as sects have sprung out of the wholly unnecessary and foolish human
+arguments on Christianity;--only that there would lack the one
+indestructible, pure Selfless Example that even the most quarrelsome
+bigot must inwardly respect,--namely, Christ Himself. And 'morality'
+would remain exactly where it is:--neither better nor worse for all the
+trouble taken concerning it. It needs something more than the 'moral'
+sense to rightly ennoble man,--it needs the SPIRITUAL sense;--the
+fostering of the INSTINCTIVE IMMORTAL ASPIRATION OF THE CREATURE, to
+make him comprehend the responsibility of his present life, as a
+preparation for his higher and better destiny. The cultured, the
+scholarly, the ultra-refined, may live well and uprightly by their
+'moral sense,'--if they so choose, provided they have some great ideal
+to measure themselves by,--but even these, without faith in God, may
+sometimes slip, and fall into deeper depths of ruin than they dreamed
+of, when self-centred on those heights of virtue where they fancied
+themselves exempt from danger."
+
+He paused,--there was a curious stillness in the room,--many eyes were
+lowered, and M. le Duc's composure was evidently not quite so absolute
+as usual.
+
+"Taken at its best"--he continued--"the world alone is certainly not
+worth fighting for;--we see the fact exemplified every day in the cases
+of those who, surrounded by all that a fair fortune can bestow upon
+them, deliberately hurl themselves out of existence by their own free
+will and act,--indeed, suicide is a very general accompaniment of
+Agnosticism. And self-slaughter, though it may be called madness, is
+far more often the result of intellectual misery."
+
+"Of course, too much learning breeds brain disease"--remarked Dr.
+Mudley sententiously--"but only in weak subjects,--and in my opinion
+the weak are better out of the world. We've no room for them nowadays."
+
+"You say truly, sir,"--replied Alwyn--"we have no room for them, and no
+patience! They show themselves feeble, and forthwith the strong oppress
+them;--they can hope for little comfort here, and less help. It is
+well, therefore, that some of these 'weak' should still believe in God,
+since they can certainly pin no faith on the justice of their
+fellow-man! But I cannot agree with you that much learning breeds brain
+disease. Provided the learning be accompanied by a belief in the
+Supreme Wisdom,--provided every step of study be taken upward toward
+and
+
+     "his skyward notes
+     Have drenched the summer with the dews of song! ..."
+
+this last line being certainly one of the most suggestive and beautiful
+in all poetical literature. Such expressions have the intrinsic quality
+of COMPLETENESS,--once said, we feel that they can never be said
+again;--they belong to the centuries, rather than the seasons, and any
+imitation of them we immediately and instinctively resent as an outrage.
+
+And Theos Alwyn was essentially, and above all things, faithful to the
+lofty purpose of his calling,--he dealt with his art reverently, and
+not in rough haste and scrambling carelessness,--if he worked out any
+idea in rhyme, the idea was distinct and the rhyme was perfect,--he was
+not content, like Browning, to jumble together such hideous and
+ludicrous combinations as "high;--Humph!" and "triumph,"--moreover, he
+knew that what he had to tell his public must be told comprehensively,
+yet grandly, with all the authority and persuasiveness of incisive
+rhetoric, yet also with all the sweetness and fascination of a
+passioned love-song. Occupied with such work as this, London, with its
+myriad mad noises and vulgar distractions, became impossible to
+him,--and Villiers, his fidus Achates, who had read portions of his
+great poem and was impatient to see it finished, knowing, as he did,
+what an enormous sensation it would create when published, warmly
+seconded his own desire to gain a couple of months complete seclusion
+and tranquillity.
+
+He left town, therefore, about the middle of May and started across the
+Channel, resolving to make for Switzerland by the leisurely and
+delightful way of the Rhine, in order to visit Bonn, the scene of his
+old student days. What days they had been!--days of dreaming, more than
+action, for he had always regarded learning as a pastime rather than a
+drudgery, and so had easily distanced his comrades in the race for
+knowledge. While they were flirting with the Lischen or Gretchen of the
+hour, he had willingly absorbed himself in study--thus he had attained
+the head of his classes with scarce an effort, and, in fact, had often
+found time hanging heavily on his hands for want of something more to
+do. He had astonished the university professors--but he had not
+astonished himself, inasmuch as no special branch of learning presented
+any difficulties to him, and the more he mastered the more dissatisfied
+he became. It had seemed such a little thing to win the honors of
+scholarship! for at that time his ambition was always climbing up the
+apparently inaccessible heights of fame,--fame, that he then imagined
+was the greatest glory any human being could aspire to. He smiled as he
+recollected this, and thought how changed he was since then! What a
+difference between the former discontented mutability of his nature,
+and the deep, unswerving calm of patience that characterized it now!
+Learning and scholarship? these were the mere child's alphabet of
+things,--and fame was a passing breath that ruffled for one brief
+moment the on-rushing flood of time--a bubble blown in the air to break
+into nothingness. Thus much wisdom he had acquired,--and what more? A
+great deal more! he had won the difficult comprehension of HIMSELF; he
+had grasped the priceless knowledge that man has no enemy save THAT
+WHICH IS WITHIN HIM, and that the pride of a rebellious Will is the
+parent Sin from which all others are generated. The old Scriptural
+saying is true for all time, that through pride the angels fell; and it
+is only through humility that they will ever rise again. Pride! the
+proud Will that is left FREE by Divine Law, to work for itself and
+answer for itself, and wreak upon its own head the punishment of its
+own errors,--the Will that once voluntarily crushed down, in the dust
+at the Cross of Christ, with these words truly drawn from the depths of
+penitence, "Lord, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!" is straightway
+lifted up from its humiliation, a supreme, stately Force, resistless,
+miraculous, world-commanding;--smoothing the way for all greatness and
+all goodness, and guiding the happy Soul from joy to joy, from glory to
+glory, till Heaven itself is reached and the perfection of all love and
+life begins. For true humility is not slavish, as some people imagine,
+but rather royal, since, while acknowledging the supremacy of God, it
+claims close kindred with Him, and is at once invested with all the
+diviner virtues. Fame and wealth, the two perishable prizes for which
+men struggle with one another in ceaseless and cruel combat, bring no
+absolute satisfaction in the end--they are toys that please for a time
+and then grow wearisome. But the conquering of Self is a battle in
+which each fresh victory bestows a deeper content, a larger happiness,
+a more perfect peace,--and neither poverty, sickness, nor misfortune
+can quench the courage, or abate the ardor, of the warrior who is
+absorbed in a crusade against his own worser passions. Egotism is the
+vice of this age,--the maxim of modern society is "each man for
+himself, and no one for his neighbor"--and in such a state of things,
+when personal interest or advantage is the chief boon desired, we
+cannot look for honesty in either religion, politics, or commerce. Nor
+can we expect any grand work to be done in art or literature. When
+pictures are painted and books are written for money only,--when
+laborers take no pleasure in labor save for the wage it brings,--when
+no real enthusiasm is shown in anything except the accumulation of
+wealth,--and when all the finer sentiments and nobler instincts of men
+are made subject to Mammon worship, is any one so mad and blind as to
+think that good can come of it? Nothing but evil upon evil can accrue
+from such a system,--and those who have prophetic eyes to see through
+the veil of events can perceive, even now, the not far distant
+end--namely, the ruin of the country that has permitted itself to
+degenerate into a mere nation of shopkeepers,--and something worse
+than ruin,--degradation!
+
+It was past eight in the evening when Alwyn, after having spent a
+couple of days in bright little Brussels, arrived at Cologne. Most
+travelers know to their cost how noisy, narrow, and unattractive are
+the streets of this ancient Colonia Agrippina of the Romans,--how
+persistent and wearying is the rattle of the vehicles over the rough,
+cobbly stones--how irritating to the nerves is the incessant shrieking
+whistle and clank of the Rhine steamboats as they glide in, or glide
+out, from the cheerless and dirty pier. But at night, when these
+unpleasant sounds have partially subsided, and the lights twinkle in
+the shop-windows, and the majestic mass of the Cathedral casts its
+broad shadow on the moonlit Dom-Platz, and a few soldiers, with
+clanking swords and glittering spurs, come marching out from some dark
+stone archway, and the green gleam of the river sparkles along in
+luminous ripples,--then it is that a something weird and mystical
+creeps over the town, and the glamour of ancient historical memories
+begins to cling about its irregular buildings,--one thinks of the
+legendary Three Kings, and believes in them, too,--of St. Ursula and
+her company of virgins; of Marie de Medicis dying alone in that
+tumbled-down house in the Stern-gasse,--of Rubens, who, it is said,
+here first saw the light of this world,--of an angry Satan flinging his
+Teufelstein from the Seven Mountains in an impotent attempt to destroy
+the Dom; and gradually, the indestructible romantic spell of the Rhine
+steals into the spirit of common things that were unlovely by day, and
+makes the old city beautiful under the sacred glory of the stars.
+
+Alwyn dined at his hotel, and then, finding it still too early to
+retire to rest, strolled slowly across the Platz, looking up at the
+sublime God's Temple above him, the stately Cathedral, with its
+wondrously delicate carvings and flying buttresses, on which the
+moonlight glittered like little points of pale flame. He knew it of
+old; many and many a time had he taken train from Bonn, for the sole
+pleasure of spending an hour in gazing on that splendid "sermon in
+stone,"--one of the grandest testimonies in the world of man's
+instinctive desire to acknowledge and honor, by his noblest design and
+work, the unseen but felt majesty of the Creator. He had a great
+longing to enter it now, and ascended the steps with that intention;
+but, much to his vexation, the doors were shut. He walked from the side
+to the principal entrance; that superb western frontage which is so
+cruelly blocked in by a dwarfish street of the commonest shops and
+meanest houses,--and found that also closed against him. Disappointed
+and sorry, he went back again to the side of the colossal structure,
+and stood on the top of the steps, close to the central barred doors,
+studying the sculptured saints in the niches, and feeling a sudden,
+singular impression of extreme LONELINESS,--a sense of being shut out,
+as it were, from some high festival in which he would gladly have taken
+part.
+
+Not a cloud was in the sky, ... the evening was one of the most
+absolute calm, and a delicious warmth pervaded the air,--the warmth of
+a fully declared and balmy spring. The Platz was almost deserted,--only
+a few persons crossed it now and then, like flitting shadows,--and
+somewhere down in one of the opposite streets a long way off, there was
+a sound of men's voices singing a part-song. Presently, however, this
+distant music ceased, and a deep silence followed. Alwyn still remained
+in the sombre shade of the cathedral archway, arguing with himself
+against the foolish and unaccountable depression that had seized him,
+and watching the brilliant May moon soar up higher and higher in the
+heavens; when,--all at once, the throbbing murmur of the great organ
+inside the Dom startled him from pensive dreaminess into swift
+attention. He listened,--the rich, round notes thundered through the
+stillness with forceful and majestic harmony; anon, wierd tones, like
+the passionate lament of Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen" floated around and
+above him: then, a silvery chorus of young voices broke forth in solemn
+unison:
+
+"Kyrie Eleison! Christe Eleison! Kyrie Eleison!"
+
+A faint cold tremor crept through his veins,--his heart beat
+violently,--again he vainly strove to open the great door. Was there a
+choir practising inside at this hour of the night? Surely not!
+Then,--from whence had this music its origin? Stooping, he bent his ear
+to the crevice of the closed portal,--but, as suddenly as they had
+begun, the harmonies ceased; and all was once more profoundly still.
+
+Drawing a long, deep breath, he stood for a moment amazed and lost in
+thought--these sounds, he felt sure, were not of earth but of heaven!
+they had the same ringing sweetness as those he had heard on the Field
+of Ardath! What might they mean to him, here and now? Quick as a flash
+the answer came--DEATH! God had taken pity upon his solitary earth
+wanderings,--and the prayers of Edris had shortened his world-exile and
+probation! He was to die! and that solemn singing was the warning,--or
+the promise,--of his approaching end!
+
+Yes! it must be so, he decided, as, with a strange, half-sad peace at
+his heart, he quietly descended the steps of the Dom,-he would perhaps
+be permitted to finish the work he was at present doing,--and
+then,--then, the poet-pen would be laid aside forever, chains would be
+undone, and he would be set at liberty! Such was his fixed idea. Was he
+glad of the prospect, he asked himself? Yes, and No! For himself he was
+glad; but in these latter days he had come to understand the thousand
+wordless wants and aspirations of mankind,--wants and aspirations to
+which only the Poet can give fitting speech; he had begun to see how
+much can be done to cheer and raise and ennoble the world by even ONE
+true, brave, earnest, and unselfish worker,--and he had attained to
+such a height in sympathetic comprehension of the difficulties and
+drawbacks of others, that he had ceased to consider himself at all in
+the question, either with regard to the Present or the immortal
+Future,--he was, without knowing it, in the simple, unconsciously
+perfect attitude of a Soul that is absolutely at one with God, and that
+thus, in involuntary God-likeness, is only happy in the engendering of
+happiness. He believed that, with the Divine help, he could do a
+lasting good for his fellow-men,--and to this cause he was willing to
+sacrifice everything that pertained to his own mere personal advantage.
+But now,--now,--or so he imagined,--he was not to be allowed to pursue
+his labors of love,--his trial was to end suddenly,--and he, so long
+banished from his higher heritage, was to be restored to it without
+delay,--restored and drawn back to the land of perfect loveliness where
+Edris, his Angel, waited for him, his saint, his queen, his bride!
+
+A thrill of ecstatic joy rushed through him,--joy intermingled with an
+almost supernal pain. For he had not as yet said enough to the
+world,--the world of many afflictions,--the little Sorrowful Star
+covered with toiling, anxious, deluded God-forgetting millions, in
+every unit of which was a spark of Heavenly flame, a germ of the
+spiritual essence that makes the angel, if only fostered aright.
+
+Lost in a deep reverie, his footsteps had led him unconsciously to the
+Rhine bridge,--paying the customary fee, he walked about half-way
+across it, and stood for a while listening to the incessant swift rush
+of the river beneath him. Lights twinkled from the boats moored on
+either side,--the moon poured down a wide shower of white beams on the
+rapid flood,--the city, dusky and dream-like, crowned with the majestic
+towers of the Dom, looked picturesquely calm and grand--it was a night
+of perfect beauty and wondrous peace. And he was to die!--to die and
+leave all this, the present fairness of the world,--he was to depart,
+with, as he felt, his message half unspoken,--he was to be made
+eternally happy, while many of the thousands he left behind were,
+through ignorance, wilfully electing to be eternally miserable! A
+great, almost divine longing to save ONE,--only ONE downward drifting
+soul, possessed him,--and the comprehension of Christ's Sacrifice was
+no longer a mystery! Yet he was so certain that death, sudden and
+speedy closely, awaited him that he seemed to feel it in the very
+air,--not like a coming chill of dread, but like the soft approach of
+some holy seraph bringing benediction. It mattered little to him that
+he was actually in the very plenitude of health and strength,--that
+perhaps in all his life he had never felt such a keen delight in the
+physical perfection of his manhood as now,--death, without warning and
+at a touch, could smite down the most vigorous, and to be so smitten,
+he believed, was his imminent destiny. And while he lingered on the
+bridge, fancy-perplexed between grief and joy, a small window opened in
+a quaint house that bent its bulging gables crookedly over the gleaming
+water, and a girl, holding a small lamp, looked out for a moment. Her
+face, fresh and smiling, was fair to see against the background of
+dense shadow,--the light she carried flashed like a star,--and leaning
+down from the lattice she sang half-timidly, half mischievously, the
+first two or three bars of the old song.. "Du, du, liegst in mein
+Herzen ... !" "Ah! Gute Nacht, Liebchen!" said a man's voice below.
+
+"Gute Nacht! Schlafen sie wohl!"
+
+A light laugh, and the window closed, "Good-night! Sleep well!" Love's
+best wish!--and for some sad souls life's last hope,--a "good-night and
+sleep well!" Poor tired World, for whose weary inhabitants oftentimes
+the greatest blessing is sleep! Good-night! sleep well! but the sleep
+implies waking.--waking to a morning of pleasure or sorrow,--or labor
+that is only lightened by,--Love! Love!--love divine,--love
+human,--and, sweetest love of all for us, as Christ has taught when
+both divine and human are mingled in one!
+
+Alwyn, glancing up at the clustering stars, hanging like pendent
+fire-jewels above him, thought of this marvel-glory of Love,--this
+celestial visitant who, on noiseless pinions, comes flying divinely
+into the poorest homes, transfiguring common life with ethereal
+radiance, making toil easy, giving beauty to the plainest faces and
+poetry to the dullest brains. Love! its tremulous hand-clasp,--its
+rapturous kiss,--the speechless eloquence it gives to gentle eyes!--the
+grace it bestows on even the smallest gift from lover to beloved, were
+such gift but a handful of meadow blossoms tied with some silken
+threads of hair!
+
+Not for the poet creator of "Nourhulma" such love any more,--had he not
+drained the cup of Passion to the dregs in the far Past, and tasted its
+mixed sweetness and bitterness to no purpose save self-indulgence? All
+that was over;--and yet, as he walked away from the bridge, back to his
+hotel in the quiet moonlight, he thought what a transcendent thing Love
+might be, even on earth, between two whose spirits were SPIRITUALLY
+AKIN,--whose lives were like two notes played in tuneful
+concord,--whose hearts beat echoing faith and tenderness to one
+another,--and who held their love as a sacred bond of union--a gift
+from God, not to be despoiled by that rough familiarity which surely
+brings contempt. And then before his fancy appeared to float the
+radiant visage of Edris, half-child, half-angel,--he seemed to see her
+beautiful eyes, so pure, so clear, so unshadowed by any knowledge of
+sin,--and the exquisite lines of a poet-contemporary, whose work he
+specially admired, occurred to him with singular suggestiveness:
+
+   "Oh, thou'lt confess that love from man to maid
+    Is more than kingdoms,--more than light and shade
+    In sky-built gardens where the minstrels dwell,
+    And more than ransom from the bonds of Hell.
+    Thou wilt, I say, admit the truth of this,
+    And half relent that, shrinking from a kiss,
+    Thou didst consign me to mine own disdain,
+    Athwart the raptures of a vision'd bliss.
+
+   "I'll seek no joy that is not linked with thine,
+    No touch of hope, no taste of holy wine,
+    And after death, no home in any star,
+    That is not shared by thee, supreme, afar
+
+    As here thou'rt first and foremost of all things!
+    Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings
+    That wait on thought, when, in thy spirit-sway,
+    Thou dost invest a realm unknown to kings!"
+
+Had not she, Edris, consigned him to his "own disdain, Athwart the
+raptures of a visioned bliss?" Ay! truly and deservedly!--and this
+disdain of himself had now reached its culminating point,--namely, that
+he did not consider himself worthy of her love,--or worthy to do aught
+than sink again into far spaces of darkness and perpetually
+retrospective Memory, there to explore the uttermost depths of anguish,
+and count up his errors one by one from the very beginning of life, in
+every separate phase he had passed through, till he had penitently
+striven his best to atone for them all! Christ had atoned! yes,--but
+was it not almost base on his part to shield himself with that Divine
+Light and do nothing further? He could not yet thoroughly grasp the
+amazing truth that ONE ABSOLUTELY PURE act of faith in Christ, blots
+out Past Sin forever,--it seemed too marvellous and great a boon!
+
+When he retired to rest that night he was fully and firmly PREPARED TO
+DIE. With this expectation upon him he was nevertheless happy and
+tranquil. The line--"Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings"
+haunted him, and he repeated it over and over again without knowing
+why. Wings! the brilliant shafts of radiance that part angels from
+mortals,--wings, that, after all, are not really wings, but lambent
+rays of living lightning, of which neither painter nor poet has any
+true conception, . . long, dazzling rays such as encircled God's
+maiden, Edris, with an arch of roseate effulgence, so that the very air
+was sunset-colored in the splendor of her presence! How if she were a
+wingless angel,--made woman?
+
+"Glory is thine, and gladness, and the wings!" And with the name of his
+angel-love upon his lips he closed his eyes and sank into a deep and
+dreamless slumber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+IN THE CATHEDRAL.
+
+
+A booming, thunderous, yet mellow sound! a grand, solemn, sonorous
+swing of full and weighty rhythm, striking the air with deep, slowly
+measured resonance like the rolling of close cannon! Awake, all ye
+people!--Awake to prayer and praise! for the Night is past and sweet
+Morning reddens in the east, ... another Day is born,--a day in which
+to win God's grace and pardon,--another wonder of Light, Movement,
+Creation, Beauty, Love! Awake, awake! Be glad and grateful for the
+present joy of life,--this life, dear harbinger of life to come! open
+your eyes, ye drowsy mortals, to the divine blue of the beneficent sky,
+the golden beams of the sun, the color of flowers, the foliage of
+trees, the flash of sparkling waters!--open your ears to the singing of
+birds, the whispering of winds, the gay ripple of children's laughter,
+the soft murmurs of home affection,--for all these things are freely
+bestowed upon you with each breaking dawn, and will you offer unto God
+NO thanksgiving?--Awake! Awake! the Voice you have yourselves set in
+your high Cathedral towers reproaches your lack of love with its iron
+tongue, and summons you all to worship Him the Ever-Glorious, through
+whose mercy alone you live!
+
+To and fro,--to and fro,--gravely persistent, sublimely eloquent, the
+huge, sustained, and heavy monotone went thudding through the
+stillness,--till, startled from his profound sleep by such loud, lofty,
+and incessant clangor, Alwyn turned on his pillow and listened,
+half-aroused, half-bewildered,--then, remembering where he was, he
+understood; it was the great Bell of the Dom pealing forth its first
+summons to the earliest Mass. He lay quiet for a little while, dreamily
+counting the number of reverberations each separate stroke sent
+quivering on the air,--but presently, finding it impossible to sleep
+again, he got up, and drawing aside the curtain looked out of the
+window of his room, which fronted on the Platz. Though it was not yet
+six o'clock, the city was all astir,--the Rhinelanders are an early
+working people, and to see the sun rise is not with them a mere fiction
+of poesy, but a daily fact. It was one of the loveliest of lovely
+spring mornings--the sky was clear as a pale, polished sapphire, and
+every little bib of delicate carving and sculpture on the Dom stood out
+from its groundwork with microscopically beautiful distinctness. And as
+his gaze rested on the perfect fairness of the day, a strange and
+sudden sense of rapturous anticipation possessed his mind,--he felt as
+one prepared for some high and exquisite happiness,--some great and
+wondrous celebration or feast of joy! The thoughts of death, on which
+he had brooded so persistently during the past yester-eve, had fled,
+leaving no trace behind,--only a keen and vigorous delight in life
+absorbed him now. It was good to be alive, even on this present earth!
+it was good to see, to feel, to know! and there was much to be thankful
+for in the mere capability of easy and healthful breathing!
+
+Full of a singular light-heartedness, he hummed a soft tune to himself
+as he moved about his room,--his desire to view the interior of the
+Cathedral had not abated with sleep, but had rather augmented,--and he
+resolved to visit it now, while he had the chance of beholding it in
+all the impressive splendor of uncrowded tranquillity. For he knew that
+by the time he was dressed, the first Mass would be over,--the priests
+and people would be gone,--and he would be alone to enjoy the
+magnificence of the place in full poet-luxury,--the luxury of silence
+and solitude. He attired himself quickly, and with a vaguely nervous
+eagerness,--he was in almost as great a hurry to enter the Dom as he
+had been to arrive at the Field of Ardath! The same feverish impatience
+was upon him--impatience that he was conscious of, yet could not
+account for,--his fancy busied itself with a whole host of memories,
+and fragments of half-forgotten love-songs he had written in his youth,
+came back to him without his wish or will,--songs that he instinctively
+felt belonged to his Past, when as "Sah-luma" he had won golden
+opinions in Al-Kyris. And though they were but echoes, they seemed this
+morning to touch him with half-pleasing, half-tender
+suggestiveness,--two lines especially from the Idyl of Roses he had
+penned so long,--ah! so very long ago,--came floating through his brain
+like a message sent from some other world,--
+
+   "By the pureness of love shall our glory in loving increase,
+    And the roses of passion for us are the lilies of peace."
+
+The "lilies of peace" and the flowers of Ardath,--the "roses of
+passion" and the love of Edris, these were all mingled almost
+unconsciously in his thoughts, as with an inexplicable, happy sense of
+tremulous expectation,--expectation of he knew not what-he went,
+walking as one in haste, across the broad Platz and ascended the steps
+of the Cathedral. But the side-entrance was fast shut, as on the
+previous night,--he therefore made his rapid way round to the great
+western door. That stood open,--the bell had long ago ceased,--Mass was
+over,--and all was profoundly still.
+
+Out of the warm sunlit air he stepped into the vast, cool,
+clear-obscure, white glory of the stately shrine,--with bared head and
+noiseless, reverent feet, he advanced a little way up the nave, and
+then stood motionless, every artistic perception in him satisfied,
+soothed, and entranced anew, as in his student-days, by the tranquil
+grandeur of the scene. What majestic silence! What hallowed peace! How
+jewel-like the radiance of the sun pouring through the rich stained
+glass on those superb carved pillars, that, like petrified stems of
+forest-trees, bear lightly up the lofty, vaulted roof to that vast
+height suggestive of a white sky rather than stone!
+
+Moving on slowly further toward the altar, he was suddenly seized by an
+overpowering impression,--a memory that rushed upon him with a sort of
+shock, albeit it was only the memory of a tune!--a wild melody,
+haunting and passionate, rang in his eras,--the melody that Sarasate,
+the Orpheus of Spain, had evoked from the heart of his speaking
+violin,--the sobbing love-lament of the "Zigeunerweisen"--the weird
+minor-music that had so forcibly suggested--What? THIS VERY
+PLACE!--these snowy columns,--this sculptured sanctity--this flashing
+light of rose and blue and amber,--this wondrous hush of consecrated
+calm! What next? Dear God! Sweet Christ! what next? The face of
+Edris?--Would that heavenly countenance shine suddenly though those
+rainbow-colored beams that struck slantwise down toward him?--and
+should he presently hear her dulcet voice charming the silence into
+deeper ecstasy?
+
+Overcome by a sensation that was something like fear, he stopped
+abruptly, and leaning against one of the quaint old oaken benches,
+strove to control the quick, excited throbbing of his heart,--then
+gradually, very gradually he become conscious that HE WAS NOT
+ALONE,--another besides himself was in the church,--another, whom it
+was necessary for him to see!
+
+He could not tell how he first grew to be certain of this,--but he was
+soon so completely possessed by the idea, that for a moment he dared
+not raise his eyes, or move! Some invincible force held him there
+spell-bound, yet trembling in every limb,--and while he thus waited
+hesitatingly, the great organ woke up in a glory of tuneful
+utterance,--wave after wave of richest harmony rolled through the
+stately aisles and ... "Kyrie eleison! Kyrie eleison!" rang forth in
+loud, full, and golden-toned chorus!
+
+Lifting his head, he stared wonderingly around him; not a living
+creature was visible in all the spacious width and length of the
+cathedral! His lips parted,--he felt as though he could scarcely
+breathe,--strong shudders ran through him, and he was penetrated by a
+pleasing terror that was almost a physical pang,--an agonized
+entrancement, like death or the desire of love! Presently, mastering
+himself by a determined effort, he advanced steadily with the absorbed
+air of one who is drawn along by magnetic power ... steadily and slowly
+up the nave, ... and as he went, the music surged more tumultuously
+among the vaulted arches,--there was a faint echo afar off, as of
+tinkling crystal bells; and at each onward step he gained a new access
+of courage, strength, firmness, and untrammelled ease, till every
+timorous doubt and fear had fled away, and he stood directly in front
+of the altar railing, gazing at the enshrined Cross, and seeing for the
+moment nothing save that Divine Symbol alone. And still the organ
+played, and still the voices sang,--he knew these sounds were not of
+earth, and he also knew that they were intended to convey a meaning to
+him,--but WHAT meaning?
+
+All at once, moved by a sudden impulse, he turned toward the right hand
+side of the altar, where the great statue of St. Christopher stands,
+and where one of the loveliest windows in the world gleams like a great
+carven gem aloft, filtering the light through a myriad marvellous
+shades of color, and there he beheld, kneeling on the stone pavement,
+one solitary worshipper,--a girl. Her hands were clasped, and her face
+was bent upon them so that her features were not visible,--but the
+radiance from the window fell on her uncovered golden hair, encircling
+it with the glistening splendor of a heavenly nimbus,--and round her
+slight, devotional figure, rays of azure and rose jasper and emerald,
+flickered in wide and lustrous patterns, like the glow of the setting
+sun on a translucent sea. How very still she was! ... how fervently
+absorbed in prayer!
+
+Vaguely startled, and thrilled by an electric, indefinable instinct,
+Alwyn went toward her with hushed and reverential tread, his eyes
+dwelling upon the drooping, delicate outline of her form with
+fascinated and eager attention. She was clad in gray,--a soft, silken,
+dove-like gray, that clung about her in picturesque, daintily draped
+folds,--he approached her still more nearly, and then could scarcely
+refrain from a loud cry of amazement! What flowers were those she wore
+at her breast!--so white, so star-like, so suggestive of paradise
+lilies new-gathered? Were they not the flowers of ARDATH? Dizzy with
+the sudden tumult of his own emotions, he dropped on his knees beside
+her,--she did not stir! Was she REAL?--or a phantom? Trembling
+violently, he touched her garment--it was of tangible, smooth texture,
+actual enough, if the sense of touch could be relied upon. In an agony
+of excitement and suspense he lost all remembrance of time, place, or
+custom,--her bewildering presence must be explained,--he must know who
+she was,--he must speak to her,--speak, if he died for it!
+
+"Pardon me!" he whispered faintly, scarcely conscious of his own words;
+"I fancy,--I think,--we have met,--before! May I, . . dare I, . . ask
+your name?"
+
+Slowly she unclasped her gently folded hands; slowly, very slowly, she
+lifted her bent head, and smiled at him! Oh, the lovely light upon her
+face! Oh, the angel glory of those strange, sweet eyes!
+
+"My name is EDRIS!"--she said, and as the pure bell-like tone of her
+voice smote the air with its silvery sound, the mysterious music of the
+organ and the invisible singers throbbed away,--away,--away,--into
+softer and softer echoes, that died at last tremulously and with a
+sigh, as of farewell, into the deepest silence.
+
+"EDRIS!"--In a trance of passionate awe and rapture he caught her
+hand,--the warm, delicate hand that yielded to his strong clasp in
+submissive tenderness,--pulsations of terror, pain, and wild joy, all
+commingled, rushed through him,--with adoring, wistful gaze he scanned
+every feature of that love-smiling countenance,--a countenance no
+longer lustrous with Heaven's blinding glory, but only most maiden-like
+and innocently fair,--dazzled, perplexed, and half afraid, he could not
+at once grasp the true comprehension of his ineffable delight! He had
+no doubt of her identity--he knew her well! she was his own
+heartworshipped Angel,--but on what errand had she wandered out of
+paradise? Had she come once more, as on the Field of Ardath, to comfort
+him for a brief space with the beauty of her visible existence, or did
+she bring from Heaven the warrant for his death?
+
+"Edris!" he said, as softly as one may murmur a prayer, "Edris, my
+life, my love! Speak to me again! make me sure that I am not dreaming!
+Tell me where I have failed in my sworn faith since we parted; teach me
+how I must still further atone! Is this the hour appointed for my
+spirit's ransom?--has this dear and sacred hand I hold, brought me my
+quittance of earth?--and have I so soon won the privilege to die?"
+
+As he spoke, she rose and stood erect, with all the glistening light of
+the stained window falling royally about her,--and he obeying her mute
+gesture, rose also and faced her in wondering ecstasy, half expecting
+to see her vanish suddenly in the sun-rays that poured through the
+Cathedral, even as she had vanished before like a white cloud absorbed
+in clear space. But no! She remained quiet as a tame bird,--her eyes
+met his with beautiful trust and tenderness,--and when she answered
+him, her low, sweet accents thrilled to his heart with a pathetic note
+of HUMAN affection, as well as of angelic sympathy!
+
+"Theos, my Beloved, I am ALL THINE!" she said, a holy rapture vibrating
+through her exquisite voice.--"Thine now, in mortal life as in
+immortal!--one with thee in nature and condition,--pent up in
+perishable clay, even as thou art,--subject to sorrow, and pain, and
+weariness,--willing to share with thee thine earthly lot,--ready to
+take my part in thy grief or joy! By mine own choice have I come
+hither,--sinless, yet not exempt from sin, but safe in Christ! Every
+time thou hast renounced the desire of thine own happiness, so much the
+nearer hast thou drawn me to thee; every time thou hast prayed God for
+my peace, rather than thine own, so much the closer has my existence
+been linked with thine! And now, O my Poet, my lord, my king!--we are
+together forever more,--together in the brief Present, as in the
+eternal Future!--the solitary heaven-days of Edris are past, and her
+mission is not Death, but Love!"
+
+Oh, the transcendent beauty of that warm flush upon her face!--the
+splendid hope, faith, and triumph of her attitude! What strange miracle
+was here accomplished!--an Angel had become human for the sake of love,
+even as light substantiates itself in the colors of flowers!--the Eden
+lily had consented to be gathered,--the paradise dove had fluttered
+down to earth! Breathless, bewildered, lifted to a height of transport
+beyond all words, Alwyn gazed upon her in entranced, devout
+silence,--the vast cathedral seemed to swing round and round in great
+glittering circles, and nothing was real, nothing steadfast, but that
+slight, sweet maiden in her soft gray robes, with the Ardath-blossoms
+gleaming white against her breast! Angel she was,--angel she ever would
+be,--and yet--what did she SEEM? Naught but:
+
+   "A child-like woman, wise and very fair,
+    Crowned with the garland of her golden hair!"
+
+This, and no more,--and yet in this was all earth and all heaven
+comprised!--He gazed and gazed, overwhelmed by the amazement of his own
+bliss,--he could have gazed upon her so in speechless ravishment for
+hours, when, with a gesture of infinite grace and appeal, she stretched
+out her hands toward him:
+
+"Speak to me, dearest one!" she murmured wistfully--"Tell me,--am I
+welcome?"
+
+"O exquisite humility!--O beautiful maiden-timid hesitation! Was
+she,--even she, God's Angel, so far removed from pride, as to be
+uncertain of her lover's reception of such a gift of love? Roused from
+his half-swooning sense of wonder, he caught those gentle hands, and
+laid them tenderly against his breast,--tremblingly, and all devoutly,
+he drew the lovely, yielding form into his arms, close to his
+heart,--with dazzled sight he gazed down into that pure, perfect face,
+those clear and holy eyes shining like new-created stars beneath the
+soft cloud of clustering fair hair!
+
+"Welcome!" he echoed, in a tone that thrilled with passionate awe and
+ecstasy;--"My Edris! My Saint! My Queen! Welcome, more welcome than the
+first flowers seen after winter snows!--welcome, more welcome than
+swift rescue to one in dire peril!--welcome, my Angel, into the
+darkness of mortal things, which haply so sweet a Presence shall make
+bright! O sacred innocence that I am not worthy to shield! ... O
+sinless beauty that I am all unfitted to claim or possess! Welcome to
+my life, my heart, my soul! Welcome, sweet Trust, sweet Hope, sweet
+Love, that as Christ lives, I will never wrong, betray, or resign again
+through all the glory spaces of far Eternity!"
+
+As he spoke, his arms closed more surely about her,--his lips met
+hers,--and in the mingled human and divine rapture of that moment,
+there came a rushing noise, as of thousands of wings beating the air,
+followed by a mighty wave of music that rolled approachingly and then
+departingly through and through the Cathedral arches--and a Voice,
+clear and resonant as a silver clarion, proclaimed aloud:
+
+"Those whom GOD hath joined together, let no MAN put asunder!"
+
+Then, with a surging, jubilant sound, like the sea in a storm, the
+music seemed to tread past in a measured march of stately harmony,--and
+presently there was silence once more,--the silence and sunshine of the
+morning pouring through the rose windows of the church and sparkling on
+the Cross above the Altar,--the silence of a love made perfect,--of
+twin souls made ONE!
+
+And then Edris drew herself gently from her lover's embrace and raised
+her head,--putting her hand confidingly in his, a lovely smile played
+on her sweetly parted lips:
+
+"Take me, Theos," she said softly, "Lead me,--into the World!"
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Slowly the great side-doors of the Cathedral swung back on their
+hinges,--and out on the steps in a glorious blaze of sunlight came Poet
+and Angel together. The one, a man in the full prime of splendid and
+vigorous manhood,--the other, a maiden, timid and sweet, robed in gray
+attire with a posy of white flowers at her throat. A simple girl, and
+most distinctly human,--the fresh, pure color reddened in her
+cheeks,--the soft springtide wind fanned her gold hair, and the
+sunbeams seemed to dance about her in a bright revel of amaze and
+curiosity. Her lustrous eyes dwelt on the busy Platz below with a
+vaguely compassionate wonder--a look that suggested some far
+foreknowledge of things, that at the same time were strangely
+unfamiliar. Hand in hand with her companion she stood,--while he,
+holding her fast, drunk in the pureness of her beauty, the love-light
+of her glance, the holy radiance of her smile, till every sense in him
+was spiritualized anew by the passionate faith and reverence in his
+heart, the marvellous glory that had fallen upon his life, the nameless
+rapture that possessed his soul!--To have knelt at her feet, and bowed
+his head before her in worshipping silence, would have been to follow
+the strongest impulse in him,--but she had given him a higher duty than
+this. He was to "LEAD HER,"--lead her "into the world!"--the dreary,
+dark world, so unfitted to receive such brightness,--she had come to
+him clad in all the sacred weakness of womanhood; and it was his proud
+privilege to guard and shelter her from evil,--from the evil in others,
+but chiefly from the evil in himself. No taint must touch that spotless
+life with which God had entrusted him!--sorrow might come--nay, MUST
+come, since, so long as humanity errs, so long must angels
+grieve,--sorrow, but not sin! A grand, awed sense of responsibility
+filled him,--a responsibility that he accepted with passionate
+gratitude and joy ... he had attained a vaster dignity than any king on
+any throne, ... and all the visible Universe was transfigured into a
+golden pageant of loveliness and light, fairer than the fabled Valley
+of Avilion!
+
+Yet still he kept her close beside him on the steps of the mighty Dom,
+half-longing, half-hesitating to take her further, and ever and anon
+assailed by a dreamy doubt as to whether she might not even now pass
+away from him suddenly and swiftly, as a mist fading into heaven,--when
+all at once the sound of beating drums and martial trumpets struck
+loudly on the quiet morning air. A brilliant regiment of mounted Uhlans
+emerged from an opposite street, and cantered sharply across the Platz
+and over the Rhine-bridge, with streaming pennons, burnished helmets
+and accoutrements glistening in a long compact line of silvery white,
+that vanished as speedily as it had appeared, like a winding flash of
+meteor flame. Alwyn drew a deep, quick breath; the sight of those armed
+soldiers roused him to the fact that he was actually in the turmoil of
+present daily events,--that his supernal happiness was no vision, but
+REALITY,--that Edris, his Spirit-love, was with him in tangible human
+guise of flesh and blood,--though how such a mysterious marvel had been
+accomplished, he knew no more than scientists know how the lovely life
+of green leaf and perfect flower can still be existent in seeds that
+have lain dormant and dry in old tombs for thousands of years! And as
+he looked at her proudly,--adoringly,--she raised her beautiful,
+innocent, questioning eyes to his.
+
+"This is a city?" she asked--"a city of men who labor for good, and
+serve each other?"
+
+"Alas, not so, my sweet!" he answered, his voice trembling with its own
+infinite tenderness; "there is no city on the sad Earth where men do
+not labor for mere vanity's sake, and oppose each other!"
+
+Her inquiring gaze softened into a celestial compassion.
+
+"Come,--let us go!" she said gently. "We twain, made one in love and
+faith, must hasten to begin our work!--darkness gathers and deepens
+over the Sorrowful Star,--but we, perchance, with Christ's most holy
+Blessing, may help to lift the Shadows into Light!"
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+Away in a sheltered mountainous retreat, apart from the louder clamor
+of the world, the Poet and his heavenly companion dwell in peace
+together. Their love, their wondrous happiness, no mortal language can
+define,--for spiritual love perfected as far exceeds material passion
+as the steadfast glory of the sun outshines the nickering of an earthly
+taper. Few, very few, there are who recognize, or who attain, such
+joy,--for men chiefly occupy themselves with the SEMBLANCES of things,
+and therefore fail to grasp all high realities. Perishable
+beauty,--perishable fame,--these are mere appearances; imperishable
+Worth is the only positive and lasting good, and in the search for
+imperishable Worth alone, the seeker must needs encounter Angels
+unawares!
+
+But for those whose pleasure it is to doubt and deny all spiritual life
+and being, the history of Theos Alwyn can be disposed of with much
+languid ease and cold logic, as a foolish chimera scarce worth
+narrating. Practically viewed, there is nothing wonderful in it, since
+it can all be traced to a powerful exertion of magnetic skill. Tranced
+into a dream bewilderment by the arts of the mystic Chaldean,
+Heliobas,--tricked into visiting the Field of Ardath, what more likely
+than that a real earth-born maiden, trained to her part, should have
+met the dreamer there, and, with the secret aid of the hermit Elezar,
+continued his strange delusion? What more fitting as a sequel to the
+whole, than that the same maiden should have been sent to him again in
+the great Rhine Cathedral, to complete the deception and satisfy his
+imagination by linking her life finally with his?--It is a perfectly
+simple explanation of what some credulous souls might be inclined to
+consider a mystery,--and let the dear, wise, oracular people who cannot
+admit any mystery in anything, and who love to trace all seeming
+miracles to clever imposture, accept this elucidation by all
+means,--they will be able to fit every incident of the story into such
+an hypothesis, with most admirable and consecutive neatness! Al-Kyris
+was truly a Vision,--the rest was,--What? Merely the working of a
+poetic imagination under mesmeric influence!
+
+So be it! The Poet knows the truth,--but what are Poets? Only the
+Prophets and Seers! Only the Eyes of Time, which clearly behold
+Heaven's Fact beyond this world's Fable. Let them sing if they choose,
+and we will hear them in our idle hours,--we will give them a little of
+our gold,--a little of our grudging praise, together with much of our
+private practical contempt and misprisal! So say the unthinking and
+foolish--so will they ever say,--and hence it is, that though the fame
+of Theos Alwyn widens year by year, and his sweet clarion harp of Song
+rings loud warning, promise, hope, and consolation above the noisy
+tumult of the whirling age, people listen to him merely in vague
+wonderment and awe, doubting his prophet utterance, and loth to put
+away their sin. But he, never weary in well-doing, works on, ... ever
+regardless of Self, caring nothing for Fame, but giving all the riches
+of his thought for Love. Clear, grand, pure, and musical, his writings
+fill the time with hope and passionate faith and courage,--his
+inspiration fails not, and can never fail, since Edris is his fount of
+ecstasy,--his name, made glorious by God's blessing, shall never, as in
+his perished Past, be again forgotten!
+
+And what of Edris? What of the "Flower-crowned Wonder" of the Field of
+Ardath, strayed for a while out of her native Heaven? Does the world
+know her marvellous origin? Perhaps the mystic Heliobas knows,--perhaps
+even good Frank Villiers has hazarded a reverent guess at his friend's
+great secret--but to the uninstructed, what does she seem?
+
+Nothing but a WOMAN, MOST PURE WOMANLY; a woman whose influence on all
+is strangely sweet and lasting,--whose spirit overflows with tenderest
+sympathy for the many wants and sorrows of mankind,--whose voice charms
+away care,--whose smile engenders peace,--whose eyes, lustrous and
+thoughtful, are unclouded by any shadow of sin,--and on whose serene
+beauty the passing of years leaves no visible trace. That she is fair
+and wise, joyous, radiant, and holy is apparent to all,--but only the
+Poet, her lover and lord, her subject and servant, can tell how truly
+his Edris is not so much sweet woman as most perfect Angel! A Dream of
+Heaven made human! ... Let some of us hesitate ere we doubt the
+Miracle; for we are sleepers and dreamers all,--and the hour is close
+at hand when--we shall Wake.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        Venus Is a Man's World
+
+                            BY WILLIAM TENN
+
+                     Illustrated by GENE FAWCETTE
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                   Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+     Actually, there wouldn't be too much difference if women took
+    over the Earth altogether. But not for some men and most boys!
+
+
+I've always said that even if Sis is seven years older than me--and a
+girl besides--she don't always know what's best. Put me on a spaceship
+jam-packed with three hundred females just aching to get themselves
+husbands in the one place they're still to be had--the planet
+Venus--and you know I'll be in trouble.
+
+Bad trouble. With the law, which is the worst a boy can get into.
+
+Twenty minutes after we lifted from the Sahara Spaceport, I wriggled
+out of my acceleration hammock and started for the door of our cabin.
+
+"Now you be careful, Ferdinand," Sis called after me as she opened a
+book called _Family Problems of the Frontier Woman_. "Remember you're
+a nice boy. Don't make me ashamed of you."
+
+I tore down the corridor. Most of the cabins had purple lights on in
+front of the doors, showing that the girls were still inside their
+hammocks. That meant only the ship's crew was up and about. Ship's
+crews are men; women are too busy with important things like government
+to run ships. I felt free all over--and happy. Now was my chance to
+really see the _Eleanor Roosevelt_!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was hard to believe I was traveling in space at last. Ahead and
+behind me, all the way up to where the companionway curved in out
+of sight, there was nothing but smooth black wall and smooth white
+doors--on and on and on. _Gee_, I thought excitedly, this is _one big
+ship_!
+
+Of course, every once in a while I would run across a big scene of
+stars in the void set in the wall; but they were only pictures. Nothing
+that gave the feel of great empty space like I'd read about in _The Boy
+Rocketeers_, no portholes, no visiplates, nothing.
+
+So when I came to the crossway, I stopped for a second, then turned
+left. To the right, see, there was Deck Four, then Deck Three, leading
+inward past the engine fo'c'sle to the main jets and the grav helix
+going _purr-purr-purrty-purr_ in the comforting way big machinery has
+when it's happy and oiled. But to the left, the crossway led all the
+way to the outside level which ran just under the hull. There were
+portholes on the hull.
+
+I'd studied all that out in our cabin, long before we'd lifted, on
+the transparent model of the ship hanging like a big cigar from the
+ceiling. Sis had studied it too, but she was looking for places like
+the dining salon and the library and Lifeboat 68 where we should go in
+case of emergency. I looked for the _important_ things.
+
+As I trotted along the crossway, I sort of wished that Sis hadn't
+decided to go after a husband on a luxury liner. On a cargo ship, now,
+I'd be climbing from deck to deck on a ladder instead of having gravity
+underfoot all the time just like I was home on the bottom of the Gulf
+of Mexico. But women always know what's right, and a boy can only make
+faces and do what they say, same as the men have to do.
+
+Still, it was pretty exciting to press my nose against the slots in the
+wall and see the sliding panels that could come charging out and block
+the crossway into an airtight fit in case a meteor or something smashed
+into the ship. And all along there were glass cases with spacesuits
+standing in them, like those knights they used to have back in the
+Middle Ages.
+
+"In the event of disaster affecting the oxygen content of
+companionway," they had the words etched into the glass, "break glass
+with hammer upon wall, remove spacesuit and proceed to don it in the
+following fashion."
+
+I read the "following fashion" until I knew it by heart. _Boy_, I said
+to myself, _I hope we have that kind of disaster. I'd sure like to get
+into one of those! Bet it would be more fun than those diving suits
+back in Undersea!_
+
+And all the time I was alone. That was the best part.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then I passed Deck Twelve and there was a big sign. "Notice! Passengers
+not permitted past this point!" A big sign in red.
+
+I peeked around the corner. I knew it--the next deck was the hull. I
+could see the portholes. Every twelve feet, they were, filled with the
+velvet of space and the dancing of more stars than I'd ever dreamed
+existed in the Universe.
+
+There wasn't anyone on the deck, as far as I could see. And this
+distance from the grav helix, the ship seemed mighty quiet and lonely.
+If I just took one quick look....
+
+But I thought of what Sis would say and I turned around obediently.
+Then I saw the big red sign again. "Passengers not permitted--"
+
+Well! Didn't I know from my civics class that only women could be Earth
+Citizens these days? Sure, ever since the Male Desuffrage Act. And
+didn't I know that you had to be a citizen of a planet in order to
+get an interplanetary passport? Sis had explained it all to me in the
+careful, patient way she always talks politics and things like that to
+men.
+
+"Technically, Ferdinand, I'm the only passenger in our family. You
+can't be one, because, not being a citizen, you can't acquire an Earth
+Passport. However, you'll be going to Venus on the strength of this
+clause--'Miss Evelyn Sparling and all dependent male members of family,
+this number not to exceed the registered quota of sub-regulations
+pertaining'--and so on. I want you to understand these matters, so that
+you will grow into a man who takes an active interest in world affairs.
+No matter what you hear, women really like and appreciate such men."
+
+Of course, I never pay much attention to Sis when she says such dumb
+things. I'm old enough, I guess, to know that it isn't what _Women_
+like and appreciate that counts when it comes to people getting
+married. If it were, Sis and three hundred other pretty girls like her
+wouldn't be on their way to Venus to hook husbands.
+
+Still, if I wasn't a passenger, the sign didn't have anything to do
+with me. I knew what Sis could say to _that_, but at least it was an
+argument I could use if it ever came up. So I broke the law.
+
+I was glad I did. The stars were exciting enough, but away off to
+the left, about five times as big as I'd ever seen it, except in the
+movies, was the Moon, a great blob of gray and white pockmarks holding
+off the black of space. I was hoping to see the Earth, but I figured it
+must be on the other side of the ship or behind us. I pressed my nose
+against the port and saw the tiny flicker of a spaceliner taking off,
+Marsbound. I wished I was on that one!
+
+Then I noticed, a little farther down the companionway, a stretch of
+blank wall where there should have been portholes. High up on the
+wall in glowing red letters were the words, "Lifeboat 47. Passengers:
+Thirty-two. Crew: Eleven. Unauthorized personnel keep away!"
+
+Another one of those signs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I crept up to the porthole nearest it and could just barely make out
+the stern jets where it was plastered against the hull. Then I walked
+under the sign and tried to figure the way you were supposed to get
+into it. There was a very thin line going around in a big circle that I
+knew must be the door. But I couldn't see any knobs or switches to open
+it with. Not even a button you could press.
+
+That meant it was a sonic lock like the kind we had on the outer keeps
+back home in Undersea. But knock or voice? I tried the two knock
+combinations I knew, and nothing happened. I only remembered one voice
+key--might as well see if that's it, I figured.
+
+"Twenty, Twenty-three. Open Sesame."
+
+For a second, I thought I'd hit it just right out of all the million
+possible combinations--The door clicked inward toward a black hole, and
+a hairy hand as broad as my shoulders shot out of the hole. It closed
+around my throat and plucked me inside as if I'd been a baby sardine.
+
+I bounced once on the hard lifeboat floor. Before I got my breath and
+sat up, the door had been shut again. When the light came on, I found
+myself staring up the muzzle of a highly polished blaster and into the
+cold blue eyes of the biggest man I'd ever seen.
+
+He was wearing a one-piece suit made of some scaly green stuff that
+looked hard and soft at the same time.
+
+His boots were made of it too, and so was the hood hanging down his
+back.
+
+And his face was brown. Not just ordinary tan, you understand, but the
+deep, dark, burned-all-the-way-in brown I'd seen on the lifeguards
+in New Orleans whenever we took a surface vacation--the kind of tan
+that comes from day after broiling day under a really hot Sun. His
+hair looked as if it had once been blond, but now there were just long
+combed-out waves with a yellowish tinge that boiled all the way down
+to his shoulders.
+
+I hadn't seen hair like that on a man except maybe in history books;
+every man I'd ever known had his hair cropped in the fashionable
+soup-bowl style. I was staring at his hair, almost forgetting about the
+blaster which I knew it was against the law for him to have at all,
+when I suddenly got scared right through.
+
+His eyes.
+
+They didn't blink and there seemed to be no expression around them.
+Just coldness. Maybe it was the kind of clothes he was wearing that did
+it, but all of a sudden I was reminded of a crocodile I'd seen in a
+surface zoo that had stared quietly at me for twenty minutes until it
+opened two long tooth-studded jaws.
+
+"Green shatas!" he said suddenly. "Only a tadpole. I must be getting
+jumpy enough to splash."
+
+Then he shoved the blaster away in a holster made of the same scaly
+leather, crossed his arms on his chest and began to study me. I grunted
+to my feet, feeling a lot better. The coldness had gone out of his eyes.
+
+I held out my hand the way Sis had taught me. "My name is Ferdinand
+Sparling. I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr.--Mr.--"
+
+"Hope for your sake," he said to me, "that you aren't what you
+seem--tadpole brother to one of them husbandless anura."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"A 'nuran is a female looking to nest. Anura is a herd of same. Come
+from Flatfolk ways."
+
+"Flatfolk are the Venusian natives, aren't they? Are you a Venusian?
+What part of Venus do you come from? Why did you say you hope--"
+
+He chuckled and swung me up into one of the bunks that lined the
+lifeboat. "Questions you ask," he said in his soft voice. "Venus is a
+sharp enough place for a dryhorn, let alone a tadpole dryhorn with a
+boss-minded sister."
+
+"I'm not a dryleg," I told him proudly. "_We're_ from Undersea."
+
+"_Dryhorn_, I said, not dryleg. And what's Undersea?"
+
+"Well, in Undersea we called foreigners and newcomers drylegs. Just
+like on Venus, I guess, you call them dryhorns." And then I told him
+how Undersea had been built on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, when
+the mineral resources of the land began to give out and engineers
+figured that a lot could still be reached from the sea bottoms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He nodded. He'd heard about the sea-bottom mining cities that were
+bubbling under protective domes in every one of the Earth's oceans just
+about the same time settlements were springing up on the planets.
+
+He looked impressed when I told him about Mom and Pop being one of the
+first couples to get married in Undersea. He looked thoughtful when I
+told him how Sis and I had been born there and spent half our childhood
+listening to the pressure pumps. He raised his eyebrows and looked
+disgusted when I told how Mom, as Undersea representative on the World
+Council, had been one of the framers of the Male Desuffrage Act after
+the Third Atomic War had resulted in the Maternal Revolution.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He almost squeezed my arm when I got to the time Mom and Pop were blown
+up in a surfacing boat.
+
+"Well, after the funeral, there was a little money, so Sis decided we
+might as well use it to migrate. There was no future for her on Earth,
+she figured. You know, the three-out-of-four."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"The three-out-of-four. No more than three women out of every four on
+Earth can expect to find husbands. Not enough men to go around. Way
+back in the Twentieth Century, it began to be felt, Sis says, what with
+the wars and all. Then the wars went on and a lot more men began to die
+or get no good from the radioactivity. Then the best men went to the
+planets, Sis says, until by now even if a woman can scrounge a personal
+husband, he's not much to boast about."
+
+The stranger nodded violently. "Not on Earth, he isn't. Those busybody
+anura make sure of that. What a place! Suffering gridniks, I had a
+bellyful!"
+
+He told me about it. Women were scarce on Venus, and he hadn't been
+able to find any who were willing to come out to his lonely little
+islands; he had decided to go to Earth where there was supposed to be a
+surplus. Naturally, having been born and brought up on a very primitive
+planet, he didn't know "it's a woman's world," like the older boys in
+school used to say.
+
+The moment he landed on Earth he was in trouble. He didn't know he had
+to register at a government-operated hotel for transient males; he
+threw a bartender through a thick plastic window for saying something
+nasty about the length of his hair; and _imagine_!--he not only
+resisted arrest, resulting in three hospitalized policemen, but he
+sassed the judge in open court!
+
+"Told me a man wasn't supposed to say anything except through female
+attorneys. Told _her_ that where _I_ came from, a man spoke his piece
+when he'd a mind to, and his woman walked by his side."
+
+"What happened?" I asked breathlessly.
+
+"Oh, Guilty of This and Contempt of That. That blown-up brinosaur took
+my last munit for fines, then explained that she was remitting the
+rest because I was a foreigner and uneducated." His eyes grew dark for
+a moment. He chuckled again. "But I wasn't going to serve all those
+fancy little prison sentences. Forcible Citizenship Indoctrination,
+they call it? Shook the dead-dry dust of the misbegotten, God forsaken
+mother world from my feet forever. The women on it deserve their men.
+My pockets were folded from the fines, and the paddlefeet were looking
+for me so close I didn't dare radio for more munit. So I stowed away."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a moment, I didn't understand him. When I did, I was almost ill.
+"Y-you mean," I choked, "th-that you're b-breaking the law right now?
+And I'm with you while you're doing it?"
+
+He leaned over the edge of the bunk and stared at me very seriously.
+"What breed of tadpole are they turning out these days? Besides, what
+business do _you_ have this close to the hull?"
+
+After a moment of sober reflection, I nodded. "You're right. I've also
+become a male outside the law. We're in this together."
+
+He guffawed. Then he sat up and began cleaning his blaster. I found
+myself drawn to the bright killer-tube with exactly the fascination Sis
+insists such things have always had for men.
+
+"Ferdinand your label? That's not right for a sprouting tadpole. I'll
+call you Ford. My name's Butt. Butt Lee Brown."
+
+I liked the sound of Ford. "Is Butt a nickname, too?"
+
+"Yeah. Short for Alberta, but I haven't found a man who can draw a
+blaster fast enough to call me that. You see, Pop came over in the
+eighties--the big wave of immigrants when they evacuated Ontario. Named
+all us boys after Canadian provinces. I was the youngest, so I got the
+name they were saving for a girl."
+
+"You had a lot of brothers, Mr. Butt?"
+
+He grinned with a mighty set of teeth. "Oh, a nestful. Of course, they
+were all killed in the Blue Chicago Rising by the MacGregor boys--all
+except me and Saskatchewan. Then Sas and me hunted the MacGregors down.
+Took a heap of time; we didn't float Jock MacGregor's ugly face down
+the Tuscany till both of us were pretty near grown up."
+
+I walked up close to where I could see the tiny bright copper coils of
+the blaster above the firing button. "Have you killed a lot of men with
+that, Mr. Butt?"
+
+"Butt. Just plain Butt to you, Ford." He frowned and sighted at
+the light globe. "No more'n twelve--not counting five government
+paddlefeet, of course. I'm a peaceable planter. Way I figure it,
+violence never accomplishes much that's important. My brother Sas,
+now--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had just begun to work into a wonderful anecdote about his brother
+when the dinner gong rang. Butt told me to scat. He said I was a
+growing tadpole and needed my vitamins. And he mentioned, very
+off-hand, that he wouldn't at all object if I brought him some fresh
+fruit. It seemed there was nothing but processed foods in the lifeboat
+and Butt was used to a farmer's diet.
+
+Trouble was, he was a special kind of farmer. Ordinary fruit would have
+been pretty easy to sneak into my pockets at meals. I even found a way
+to handle the kelp and giant watercress Mr. Brown liked, but things
+like seaweed salt and Venusian mud-grapes just had too strong a smell.
+Twice, the mechanical hamper refused to accept my jacket for laundering
+and I had to wash it myself. But I learned so many wonderful things
+about Venus every time I visited that stowaway....
+
+I learned three wild-wave songs of the Flatfolk and what it is that the
+native Venusians hate so much; I learned how you tell the difference
+between a lousy government paddlefoot from New Kalamazoo and the
+slaptoe slinker who is the planter's friend. After a lot of begging,
+Butt Lee Brown explained the workings of his blaster, explained it
+so carefully that I could name every part and tell what it did from
+the tiny round electrodes to the long spirals of transformer. But no
+matter what, he would never let me hold it.
+
+"Sorry, Ford, old tad," he would drawl, spinning around and around in
+the control swivel-chair at the nose of the lifeboat. "But way I look
+at it, a man who lets somebody else handle his blaster is like the
+giant whose heart was in an egg that an enemy found. When you've grown
+enough so's your pop feels you ought to have a weapon, why, then's the
+time to learn it and you might's well learn fast. Before then, you're
+plain too young to be even near it."
+
+"I don't have a father to give me one when I come of age. I don't even
+have an older brother as head of my family like your brother Labrador.
+All I have is Sis. And _she_--"
+
+"She'll marry some fancy dryhorn who's never been farther South than
+the Polar Coast. And she'll stay head of the family, if I know her
+breed of green shata. _Bossy, opinionated._ By the way, Fordie," he
+said, rising and stretching so the fish-leather bounced and rippled off
+his biceps, "that sister. She ever...."
+
+And he'd be off again, cross-examining me about Evelyn. I sat in the
+swivel chair he'd vacated and tried to answer his questions. But there
+was a lot of stuff I didn't know. Evelyn was a healthy girl, for
+instance; how healthy, exactly, I had no way of finding out. Yes, I'd
+tell him, my aunts on both sides of my family each had had more than
+the average number of children. No, we'd never done any farming to
+speak of, back in Undersea, but--yes, I'd guess Evelyn knew about as
+much as any girl there when it came to diving equipment and pressure
+pump regulation.
+
+How would I know that stuff would lead to trouble for me?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sis had insisted I come along to the geography lecture. Most of the
+other girls who were going to Venus for husbands talked to each other
+during the lecture, but not _my_ sister! She hung on every word, took
+notes even, and asked enough questions to make the perspiring purser
+really work in those orientation periods.
+
+"I am very sorry, Miss Sparling," he said with pretty heavy sarcasm,
+"but I cannot remember any of the agricultural products of the Macro
+Continent. Since the human population is well below one per thousand
+square miles, it can readily be understood that the quantity of
+tilled soil, land or sub-surface, is so small that--Wait, I remember
+something. The Macro Continent exports a fruit though not exactly an
+edible one. The wild _dunging_ drug is harvested there by criminal
+speculators. Contrary to belief on Earth, the traffic has been growing
+in recent years. In fact--"
+
+"Pardon me, sir," I broke in, "but doesn't _dunging_ come only from
+Leif Erickson Island off the Moscow Peninsula of the Macro Continent?
+You remember, purser--Wang Li's third exploration, where he proved the
+island and the peninsula didn't meet for most of the year?"
+
+The purser nodded slowly. "I forgot," he admitted. "Sorry, ladies, but
+the boy's right. Please make the correction in your notes."
+
+But Sis was the only one who took notes, and she didn't take that one.
+She stared at me for a moment, biting her lower lip thoughtfully, while
+I got sicker and sicker. Then she shut her pad with the final gesture
+of the right hand that Mom used to use just before challenging the
+opposition to come right down on the Council floor and debate it out
+with her.
+
+"Ferdinand," Sis said, "let's go back to our cabin."
+
+The moment she sat me down and walked slowly around me, I knew I was
+in for it. "I've been reading up on Venusian geography in the ship's
+library," I told her in a hurry.
+
+"No doubt," she said drily. She shook her night-black hair out. "But
+you aren't going to tell me that you read about _dunging_ in the ship's
+library. The books there have been censored by a government agent of
+Earth against the possibility that they might be read by susceptible
+young male minds like yours. She would not have allowed--this Terran
+Agent--"
+
+"Paddlefoot," I sneered.
+
+Sis sat down hard in our zoom-air chair. "Now that's a term," she said
+carefully, "that is used only by Venusian riffraff."
+
+"They're not!"
+
+"Not what?"
+
+"Riffraff," I had to answer, knowing I was getting in deeper all the
+time and not being able to help it. I mustn't give Mr. Brown away!
+"They're trappers and farmers, pioneers and explorers, who're building
+Venus. And it takes a real man to build on a hot, hungry hell like
+Venus."
+
+"Does it, now?" she said, looking at me as if I were beginning to grow
+a second pair of ears. "Tell me more."
+
+"You can't have meek, law-abiding, women-ruled men when you start
+civilization on a new planet. You've got to have men who aren't afraid
+to make their own law if necessary--with their own guns. That's where
+law begins; the books get written up later."
+
+"You're going to _tell_, Ferdinand, what evil, criminal male is
+speaking through your mouth!"
+
+"Nobody!" I insisted. "They're my own ideas!"
+
+"They are remarkably well-organized for a young boy's ideas. A boy
+who, I might add, has previously shown a ridiculous but nonetheless
+entirely masculine boredom with political philosophy. I plan to have a
+government career on that new planet you talk about, Ferdinand--after
+I have found a good, steady husband, of course--and I don't look
+forward to a masculinist radical in the family. Now, who has been
+filling your head with all this nonsense?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was sweating. Sis has that deadly bulldog approach when she feels
+someone is lying. I pulled my pulpast handkerchief from my pocket to
+wipe my face. Something rattled to the floor.
+
+"What is this picture of me doing in your pocket, Ferdinand?"
+
+A trap seemed to be hinging noisily into place. "One of the passengers
+wanted to see how you looked in a bathing suit."
+
+"The passengers on this ship are all female. I can't imagine any of
+them that curious about my appearance. Ferdinand, it's a man who has
+been giving you these anti-social ideas, isn't it? A war-mongering
+masculinist like all the frustrated men who want to engage in
+government and don't have the vaguest idea how to. Except, of course,
+in their ancient, bloody ways. Ferdinand, who has been perverting that
+sunny and carefree soul of yours?"
+
+"Nobody! _Nobody!_"
+
+"Ferdinand, there's no point in lying! I demand--"
+
+"I told you, Sis. I told you! And don't call me Ferdinand. Call me
+Ford."
+
+"Ford? _Ford?_ Now, you listen to me, Ferdinand...."
+
+After that it was all over but the confession. That came in a few
+moments. I couldn't fool Sis. She just knew me too well, I decided
+miserably. Besides, she was a girl.
+
+All the same, I wouldn't get Mr. Butt Lee Brown into trouble if I could
+help it. I made Sis promise she wouldn't turn him in if I took her to
+him. And the quick, nodding way she said she would made me feel just a
+little better.
+
+The door opened on the signal, "Sesame." When Butt saw somebody was
+with me, he jumped and the ten-inch blaster barrel grew out of his
+fingers. Then he recognized Sis from the pictures.
+
+He stepped to one side and, with the same sweeping gesture, holstered
+his blaster and pushed his green hood off. It was Sis's turn to jump
+when she saw the wild mass of hair rolling down his back.
+
+"An honor, Miss Sparling," he said in that rumbly voice. "Please come
+right in. There's a hurry-up draft."
+
+So Sis went in and I followed right after her. Mr. Brown closed the
+door. I tried to catch his eye so I could give him some kind of hint or
+explanation, but he had taken a couple of his big strides and was in
+the control section with Sis. She didn't give ground, though; I'll say
+that for her. She only came to his chest, but she had her arms crossed
+sternly.
+
+"First, Mr. Brown," she began, like talking to a cluck of a kid in
+class, "you realize that you are not only committing the political
+crime of traveling without a visa, and the criminal one of stowing away
+without paying your fare, but the moral delinquency of consuming stores
+intended for the personnel of this ship solely in emergency?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He opened his mouth to its maximum width and raised an enormous hand.
+Then he let the air out and dropped his arm.
+
+"I take it you either have no defense or care to make none," Sis added
+caustically.
+
+Butt laughed slowly and carefully as if he were going over each word.
+"Wonder if all the anura talk like that. And _you_ want to foul up
+Venus."
+
+"We haven't done so badly on Earth, after the mess you men made of
+politics. It needed a revolution of the mothers before--"
+
+"Needed nothing. Everyone wanted peace. Earth is a weary old world."
+
+"It's a world of strong moral fiber compared to yours, Mr. Alberta Lee
+Brown." Hearing his rightful name made him move suddenly and tower over
+her. Sis said with a certain amount of hurry and change of tone, "What
+_do_ you have to say about stowing away and using up lifeboat stores?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He cocked his head and considered a moment. "Look," he said finally,
+"I have more than enough munit to pay for round trip tickets, but I
+couldn't get a return visa because of that brinosaur judge and all
+the charges she hung on me. Had to stow away. Picked the _Eleanor
+Roosevelt_ because a couple of the boys in the crew are friends of mine
+and they were willing to help. But this lifeboat--don't you know that
+every passenger ship carries four times as many lifeboats as it needs?
+Not to mention the food I didn't eat because it stuck in my throat?"
+
+"Yes," she said bitterly. "You had this boy steal fresh fruit for you.
+I suppose you didn't know that under space regulations that makes him
+equally guilty?"
+
+"No, Sis, he didn't," I was beginning to argue. "All he wanted--"
+
+"Sure I knew. Also know that if I'm picked up as a stowaway, I'll be
+sent back to Earth to serve out those fancy little sentences."
+
+"Well, you're guilty of them, aren't you?"
+
+He waved his hands at her impatiently. "I'm not talking law, female;
+I'm talking sense. Listen! I'm in trouble because I went to Earth to
+look for a wife. You're standing here right now because you're on your
+way to Venus for a husband. So let's."
+
+Sis actually staggered back. "Let's? Let's _what_? Are--are you daring
+to suggest that--that--"
+
+"Now, Miss Sparling, no hoopla. I'm saying let's get married, and you
+know it. You figured out from what the boy told you that I was chewing
+on you for a wife. You're healthy and strong, got good heredity, you
+know how to operate sub-surface machinery, you've lived underwater, and
+your disposition's no worse than most of the anura I've seen. Prolific
+stock, too."
+
+I was so excited I just had to yell: "Gee, Sis, say _yes_!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My sister's voice was steaming with scorn. "And what makes you think
+that I'd consider you a desirable husband?"
+
+He spread his hands genially. "Figure if you wanted a poodle, you're
+pretty enough to pick one up on Earth. Figure if you charge off to
+Venus, you don't want a poodle, you want a man. I'm one. I own three
+islands in the Galertan Archipelago that'll be good oozing mudgrape
+land when they're cleared. Not to mention the rich berzeliot beds
+offshore. I got no bad habits outside of having my own way. I'm also
+passable good-looking for a slaptoe planter. Besides, if you marry
+me you'll be the first mated on this ship--and that's a splash most
+nesting females like to make."
+
+There was a longish stretch of quiet. Sis stepped back and measured him
+slowly with her eyes; there was a lot to look at. He waited patiently
+while she covered the distance from his peculiar green boots to that
+head of hair. I was so excited I was gulping instead of breathing.
+Imagine having Butt for a brother-in-law and living on a wet-plantation
+in Flatfolk country!
+
+But then I remembered Sis's level head and I didn't have much hope any
+more.
+
+"You know," she began, "there's more to marriage than just--"
+
+"So there is," he cut in. "Well, we can try each other for taste." And
+he pulled her in, both of his great hands practically covering her
+slim, straight back.
+
+Neither of them said anything for a bit after he let go. Butt spoke up
+first.
+
+"Now, me," he said, "I'd vote yes."
+
+Sis ran the tip of her tongue kind of delicately from side to side
+of her mouth. Then she stepped back slowly and looked at him as if
+she were figuring out how many feet high he was. She kept on moving
+backward, tapping her chin, while Butt and I got more and more
+impatient. When she touched the lifeboat door, she pushed it open and
+jumped out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Butt ran over and looked down the crossway. After a while, he shut the
+door and came back beside me. "Well," he said, swinging to a bunk,
+"that's sort of it."
+
+"You're better off, Butt," I burst out. "You shouldn't have a woman
+like Sis for a wife. She looks small and helpless, but don't forget
+she was trained to run an underwater city!"
+
+"Wasn't worrying about that," he grinned. "_I_ grew up in the fifteen
+long years of the Blue Chicago Rising. Nope." He turned over on his
+back and clicked his teeth at the ceiling. "Think we'd have nested out
+nicely."
+
+I hitched myself up to him and we sat on the bunk, glooming away at
+each other. Then we heard the tramp of feet in the crossway.
+
+Butt swung down and headed for the control compartment in the
+nose of the lifeboat. He had his blaster out and was cursing very
+interestingly. I started after him, but he picked me up by the seat
+of my jumper and tossed me toward the door. The Captain came in and
+tripped over me.
+
+I got all tangled up in his gold braid and million-mile space buttons.
+When we finally got to our feet and sorted out right, he was breathing
+very hard. The Captain was a round little man with a plump, golden face
+and a very scared look on it. He _humphed_ at me, just the way Sis
+does, and lifted me by the scruff of my neck. The Chief Mate picked me
+up and passed me to the Second Assistant Engineer.
+
+Sis was there, being held by the purser on one side and the Chief
+Computer's Mate on the other. Behind them, I could see a flock of
+wide-eyed female passengers.
+
+"You cowards!" Sis was raging. "Letting your Captain face a dangerous
+outlaw all by himself!"
+
+"I dunno, Miss Sparling," the Computer's Mate said, scratching the
+miniature slide-rule insignia on his visor with his free hand. "The Old
+Man would've been willing to let it go with a log entry, figuring the
+spaceport paddlefeet could pry out the stowaway when we landed. But you
+had to quote the Mother Anita Law at him, and he's in there doing his
+duty. He figures the rest of us are family men, too, and there's no
+sense making orphans."
+
+"You promised, Sis," I told her through my teeth. "You promised you
+wouldn't get Butt into trouble!"
+
+She tossed her spiral curls at me and ground a heel into the purser's
+instep. He screwed up his face and howled, but he didn't let go of her
+arm.
+
+"_Shush_, Ferdinand, this is serious!"
+
+It was. I heard the Captain say, "I'm not carrying a weapon, Brown."
+
+"Then _get_ one," Butt's low, lazy voice floated out.
+
+"No, thanks. You're as handy with that thing as I am with a
+rocketboard." The Captain's words got a little fainter as he walked
+forward. Butt growled like a gusher about to blow.
+
+"I'm counting on your being a good guy, Brown." The Captain's
+voice quavered just a bit. "I'm banking on what I heard about the
+blast-happy Browns every time I lifted gravs in New Kalamazoo; they
+have a code, they don't burn unarmed men."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Just about this time, events in the lifeboat went down to a mumble. The
+top of my head got wet and I looked up. There was sweat rolling down
+the Second Assistant's forehead; it converged at his nose and bounced
+off the tip in a sizable stream. I twisted out of the way.
+
+"What's happening?" Sis gritted, straining toward the lock.
+
+"Butt's trying to decide whether he wants him fried or scrambled," the
+Computer's Mate said, pulling her back. "Hey, purse, remember when the
+whole family with their pop at the head went into Heatwave to argue
+with Colonel Leclerc?"
+
+"Eleven dead, sixty-four injured," the purser answered mechanically.
+"And no more army stationed south of Icebox." His right ear twitched
+irritably. "But what're they saying?"
+
+Suddenly we heard. "By authority vested in me under the Pomona College
+Treaty," the Captain was saying very loudly, "I arrest you for
+violation of Articles Sixteen to Twenty-one inclusive of the Space
+Transport Code, and order your person and belongings impounded for
+the duration of this voyage as set forth in Sections Forty-one and
+Forty-five--"
+
+"Forty-three and Forty-five," Sis groaned. "Sections Forty-three and
+Forty-five, I told him. I even made him repeat it after me!"
+
+"--of the Mother Anita Law, SC 2136, Emergency Interplanetary
+Directives."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We all waited breathlessly for Butt's reply. The seconds ambled on and
+there was no clatter of electrostatic discharge, no smell of burning
+flesh.
+
+Then we heard some feet walking. A big man in a green suit swung out
+into the crossway. That was Butt. Behind him came the Captain, holding
+the blaster gingerly with both hands. Butt had a funny, thoughtful look
+on his face.
+
+The girls surged forward when they saw him, scattering the crew to one
+side. They were like a school of sharks that had just caught sight of a
+dying whale.
+
+"M-m-m-m! Are all Venusians built like that?"
+
+"Men like that are worth the mileage!"
+
+"_I want him!" "I want him!" "I want him!_"
+
+Sis had been let go. She grabbed my free hand and pulled me away. She
+was trying to look only annoyed, but her eyes had bright little bubbles
+of fury popping in them.
+
+"The cheap extroverts! And they call themselves responsible women!"
+
+I was angry, too. And I let her know, once we were in our cabin.
+"What about that promise, Sis? You said you wouldn't turn him in. You
+_promised_!"
+
+She stopped walking around the room as if she had been expecting to get
+to Venus on foot. "I know I did, Ferdinand, but he forced me."
+
+"My name is Ford and I don't understand."
+
+"Your name is Ferdinand and stop trying to act forcefully like a girl.
+It doesn't become you. In just a few days, you'll forget all this and
+be your simple, carefree self again. I really truly meant to keep my
+word. From what you'd told me, Mr. Brown seemed to be a fundamentally
+decent chap despite his barbaric notions on equality between the
+sexes--or worse. I was positive I could shame him into a more rational
+social behavior and make him give himself up. Then he--he--"
+
+She pressed her fingernails into her palms and let out a long, glaring
+sigh at the door. "Then he kissed me! Oh, it was a good enough
+kiss--Mr. Brown has evidently had a varied and colorful background--but
+the galling idiocy of the man, trying that! I was just getting over the
+colossal impudence involved in _his_ proposing marriage--as if _he_ had
+to bear the children!--and was considering the offer seriously, on its
+merits, as one should consider _all_ suggestions, when he deliberately
+dropped the pretense of reason. He appealed to me as most of the savage
+ancients appealed to their women, as an emotional machine. Throw the
+correct sexual switches, says this theory, and the female surrenders
+herself ecstatically to the doubtful and bloody murk of masculine
+plans."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a double knock on the door and the Captain walked in without
+waiting for an invitation. He was still holding Butt's blaster. He
+pointed it at me. "Get your hands up, Ferdinand Sparling," he said.
+
+I did.
+
+"I hereby order your detention for the duration of this voyage, for
+aiding and abetting a stowaway, as set forth in Sections Forty-one and
+Forty-five--"
+
+"Forty-three and Forty-five," Sis interrupted him, her eyes getting
+larger and rounder. "But you gave me your word of honor that no charges
+would be lodged against the boy!"
+
+"Forty-one and Forty-five," he corrected her courteously, still staring
+fiercely at me. "I looked it up. Of the Anita Mason Law, Emergency
+Interplanetary Directives. That was the usual promise one makes to an
+informer, but I made it before I knew it was Butt Lee Brown you were
+talking about. I didn't want to arrest Butt Lee Brown. You forced
+me. So I'm breaking my promise to you, just as, I understand, you
+broke your promise to your brother. They'll both be picked up at New
+Kalamazoo Spaceport and sent Terraward for trial."
+
+"But I used all of our money to buy passage," Sis wailed.
+
+"And now you'll have to return with the boy. I'm sorry, Miss Sparling.
+But as you explained to me, a man who has been honored with an
+important official position should stay close to the letter of the law
+for the sake of other men who are trying to break down terrestrial
+anti-male prejudice. Of course, there's a way out."
+
+"There is? Tell me, please!"
+
+"Can I lower my hands a minute?" I asked.
+
+"No, you can't, son--not according to the armed surveillance provisions
+of the Mother Anita Law. Miss Sparling, if you'd marry Brown--now,
+now, don't look at me like that!--we could let the whole matter drop.
+A shipboard wedding and he goes on your passport as a 'dependent male
+member of family,' which means, so far as the law is concerned, that he
+had a regulation passport from the beginning of this voyage. And once
+we touch Venusian soil he can contact his bank and pay for passage. On
+the record, no crime was ever committed. He's free, the boy's free, and
+you--"
+
+"--Are married to an uncombed desperado who doesn't know enough to sit
+back and let a woman run things. Oh, you should be ashamed!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Captain shrugged and spread his arms wide.
+
+"Perhaps I should be, but that's what comes of putting men into
+responsible positions, as you would say. See here, Miss Sparling, _I_
+didn't want to arrest Brown, and, if it's at all possible, I'd still
+prefer not to. The crew, officers and men, all go along with me. We
+may be legal residents of Earth, but our work requires us to be on
+Venus several times a year. We don't want to be disliked by any members
+of the highly irritable Brown clan or its collateral branches. Butt
+Lee Brown himself, for all of his savage appearance in your civilized
+eyes, is a man of much influence on the Polar Continent. In his own
+bailiwick, the Galertan Archipelago, he makes, breaks and occasionally
+readjusts officials. Then there's his brother Saskatchewan who
+considers Butt a helpless, put-upon youngster--"
+
+"Much influence, you say? Mr. Brown has?" Sis was suddenly thoughtful.
+
+"_Power_, actually. The kind a strong man usually wields in a newly
+settled community. Besides, Miss Sparling, you're going to Venus for a
+husband because the male-female ratio on Earth is reversed. Well, not
+only is Butt Lee Brown a first class catch, but you can't afford to be
+too particular in any case. While you're fairly pretty, you won't bring
+any wealth into a marriage and your high degree of opinionation is not
+likely to be well-received on a backward, masculinist world. Then, too,
+the woman-hunger is not so great any more, what with the _Marie Curie_
+and the _Fatima_ having already deposited their cargoes, the _Mme. Sun
+Yat Sen_ due to arrive next month...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sis nodded to herself, waved the door open, and walked out.
+
+"Let's hope," the Captain said. "Like any father used to say, a man who
+knows how to handle women, how to get around them without their knowing
+it, doesn't need to know anything else in this life. I'm plain wasted
+in space. You can lower your hands now, son."
+
+We sat down and I explained the blaster to him. He was very interested.
+He said all Butt had told him--in the lifeboat when they decided to
+use my arrest as a club over Sis--was to keep the safety catch all the
+way up against his thumb. I could see he really had been excited about
+carrying a lethal weapon around. He told me that back in the old days,
+captains--sea captains, that is--actually had the right to keep guns
+in their cabins all the time to put down mutinies and other things our
+ancestors did.
+
+The telewall flickered, and we turned it on. Sis smiled down.
+"Everything's all right, Captain. Come up and marry us, please."
+
+"What did you stick him for?" he asked. "What was the price?"
+
+Sis's full lips went thin and hard, the way Mom's used to. Then she
+thought better of it and laughed. "Mr. Brown is going to see that I'm
+elected sheriff of the Galertan Archipelago."
+
+"And I thought she'd settle for a county clerkship!" the Captain
+muttered as we spun up to the brig.
+
+The doors were open and girls were chattering in every corner. Sis came
+up to the Captain to discuss arrangements. I slipped away and found
+Butt sitting with folded arms in a corner of the brig. He grinned at
+me. "Hi, tadpole. Like the splash?"
+
+I shook my head unhappily. "Butt, why did you do it? I'd sure love to
+be your brother-in-law, but, gosh, you didn't have to marry Sis." I
+pointed at some of the bustling females. Sis was going to have three
+hundred bridesmaids. "Any one of them would have jumped at the chance
+to be your wife. And once on any woman's passport, you'd be free. Why
+Sis?"
+
+"That's what the Captain said in the lifeboat. Told him same thing I'm
+telling you. I'm stubborn. What I like at first, I keep on liking. What
+I want at first, I keep on wanting until I get."
+
+"Yes, but making Sis sheriff! And you'll have to back her up with your
+blaster. What'll happen to that man's world?"
+
+"Wait'll after we nest and go out to my islands." He produced a
+hard-lipped, smug grin, sighting it at Sis's slender back. "She'll
+find herself sheriff over a bunch of natives and exactly two Earth
+males--you and me. I got a hunch that'll keep her pretty busy, though."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        Appointment in Tomorrow
+
+                            BY FRITZ LEIBER
+
+                      Illustrated by ED ALEXANDER
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                   Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+
+
+         Is it possible to have a world without moral values?
+         Or does lack of morality become a moral value, also?
+
+
+The first angry rays of the sun--which, startlingly enough, still rose
+in the east at 24 hour intervals--pierced the lacy tops of Atlantic
+combers and touched thousands of sleeping Americans with unconscious
+fear, because of their unpleasant similarity to the rays from World War
+III's atomic bombs.
+
+They turned to blood the witch-circle of rusty steel skeletons around
+Inferno in Manhattan. Without comment, they pointed a cosmic finger at
+the tarnished brass plaque commemorating the martyrdom of the Three
+Physicists after the dropping of the Hell Bomb. They tenderly touched
+the rosy skin and strawberry bruises on the naked shoulders of a
+girl sleeping off a drunk on the furry and radiantly heated floor of
+a nearby roof garden. They struck green magic from the glassy blot
+that was Old Washington. Twelve hours before, they had revealed things
+as eerily beautiful, and as ravaged, in Asia and Russia. They pinked
+the white walls of the Colonial dwelling of Morton Opperly near the
+Institute for Advanced Studies; upstairs they slanted impartially
+across the Pharoahlike and open-eyed face of the elderly physicist and
+the ugly, sleep-surly one of young Willard Farquar in the next room.
+And in nearby New Washington they made of the spire of the Thinkers'
+Foundation a blue and optimistic glory that outshone White House, Jr.
+
+It was America approaching the end of the Twentieth Century. America
+of juke-box burlesque and your local radiation hospital. America
+of the mask-fad for women and Mystic Christianity. America of the
+off-the-bosom dress and the New Blue Laws. America of the Endless War
+and the loyalty detector. America of marvelous Maizie and the monthly
+rocket to Mars. America of the Thinkers and (a few remembered) the
+Institute. "Knock on titanium," "Whadya do for black-outs," "Please,
+lover, don't think when I'm around," America, as combat-shocked and
+crippled as the rest of the bomb-shattered planet.
+
+Not one impudent photon of the sunlight penetrated the triple-paned,
+polarizing windows of Jorj Helmuth's bedroom in the Thinker's
+Foundation, yet the clock in his brain awakened him to the minute,
+or almost. Switching off the Educational Sandman in the midst of the
+phrase, "... applying tensor calculus to the nucleus," he took a
+deep, even breath and cast his mind to the limits of the world and
+his knowledge. It was a somewhat shadowy vision, but, he noted with
+impartial approval, definitely less shadowy than yesterday morning.
+
+Employing a rapid mental scanning technique, he next cleared his memory
+chains of false associations, including those acquired while asleep.
+These chores completed, he held his finger on a bedside button, which
+rotated the polarizing window panes until the room slowly filled with a
+muted daylight. Then, still flat on his back, he turned his head until
+he could look at the remarkably beautiful blonde girl asleep beside him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Remembering last night, he felt a pang of exasperation, which he
+instantly quelled by taking his mind to a higher and dispassionate
+level from which he could look down on the girl and even himself as
+quaint, clumsy animals. Still, he grumbled silently, Caddy might have
+had enough consideration to clear out before he awoke. He wondered
+if he shouldn't have used his hypnotic control of the girl to smooth
+their relationship last night, and for a moment the word that would
+send her into deep trance trembled on the tip of his tongue. But no,
+that special power of his over her was reserved for far more important
+purposes.
+
+Pumping dynamic tension into his 20-year-old muscles and confidence
+into his 60-year-old mind, the 40-year-old Thinker rose from bed.
+No covers had to be thrown off; the nuclear heating unit made them
+unnecessary. He stepped into his clothing--the severe tunic, tights and
+sockassins of the modern business man. Next he glanced at the message
+tape beside his phone, washed down with ginger ale a vita-amino-enzyme
+tablet, and walked to the window. There, gazing along the rows of newly
+planted mutant oaks lining Decontamination Avenue, his smooth face
+broke into a smile.
+
+It had come to him, the next big move in the intricate game making
+up his life--and mankind's. Come to him during sleep, as so many of
+his best decisions did, because he regularly employed the time-saving
+technique of somno-thought, which could function at the same time as
+somno-learning.
+
+He set his who?-where? robot for "Rocket Physicist" and "Genius Class."
+While it worked, he dictated to his steno-robot the following brief
+message:
+
+    Dear Fellow Scientist:
+
+    A project is contemplated that will have a crucial bearing on man's
+    future in deep space. Ample non-military Government funds are
+    available. There was a time when professional men scoffed at the
+    Thinkers. Then there was a time when the Thinkers perforce neglected
+    the professional men. Now both times are past. May they never
+    return! I would like to consult you this afternoon, three o'clock
+    sharp, Thinkers' Foundation I.
+
+    Jorj Helmuth
+
+Meanwhile the who?-where? had tossed out a dozen cards. He glanced
+through them, hesitated at the name "Willard Farquar," looked at the
+sleeping girl, then quickly tossed them all into the addresso-robot and
+plugged in the steno-robot.
+
+The buzz-light blinked green and he switched the phone to audio.
+
+"The President is waiting to see Maizie, sir," a clear feminine voice
+announced. "He has the general staff with him."
+
+"Martian peace to him," Jorj Helmuth said. "Tell him I'll be down in a
+few minutes."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Huge as a primitive nuclear reactor, the great electronic brain loomed
+above the knot of hush-voiced men. It almost filled a two-story room in
+the Thinkers' Foundation. Its front was an orderly expanse of controls,
+indicators, telltales, and terminals, the upper ones reached by a chair
+on a boom.
+
+Although, as far as anyone knew, it could sense only the information
+and questions fed into it on a tape, the human visitors could not
+resist the impulse to talk in whispers and glance uneasily at the great
+cryptic cube. After all, it had lately taken to moving some of its
+own controls--the permissible ones--and could doubtless improvise a
+hearing apparatus if it wanted to.
+
+For this was the thinking machine beside which the Marks and Eniacs and
+Maniacs and Maddidas and Minervas and Mimirs were less than Morons.
+This was the machine with a million times as many synapses as the human
+brain, the machine that remembered by cutting delicate notches in the
+rims of molecules (instead of kindergarten paper-punching or the Coney
+Island shimmying of columns of mercury). This was the machine that had
+given instructions on building the last three-quarters of itself. This
+was the goal, perhaps, toward which fallible human reasoning and biased
+human judgment and feeble human ambition had evolved.
+
+_This was the machine that really thought--a million-plus!_
+
+This was the machine that the timid cyberneticists and stuffy
+professional scientists had said could not be built. Yet this was the
+machine that the Thinkers, with characteristic Yankee push, _had_
+built. And nicknamed, with characteristic Yankee irreverence and
+girl-fondness, "Maizie."
+
+Gazing up at it, the President of the United States felt a chord
+plucked within him that hadn't been sounded for decades, the dark and
+shivery organ chord of his Baptist childhood. Here, in a strange sense,
+although his reason rejected it, he felt he stood face to face with
+the living God: infinitely stern with the sternness of reality, yet
+infinitely just. No tiniest error or wilful misstep could ever escape
+the scrutiny of this vast mentality. He shivered.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The grizzled general--there was also one who was gray--was thinking
+that this was a very odd link in the chain of command. Some shadowy and
+usually well-controlled memories from World War II faintly stirred his
+ire. Here he was giving orders to a being immeasurably more intelligent
+than himself. And always orders of the "Tell me how to kill that man"
+rather than the "Kill that man" sort. The distinction bothered him
+obscurely. It relieved him to know that Maizie had built-in controls
+which made her always the servant of humanity, or of humanity's
+right-minded leaders--even the Thinkers weren't certain which.
+
+The gray general was thinking uneasily, and, like the President, at a
+more turbid level, of the resemblance between Papal infallibility and
+the dictates of the machine. Suddenly his bony wrists began to tremble.
+He asked himself: Was this the Second Coming? Mightn't an incarnation
+be in metal rather than flesh?
+
+The austere Secretary of State was remembering what he'd taken such
+pains to make everyone forget: his youthful flirtation at Lake Success
+with Buddhism. Sitting before his _guru_, his teacher, feeling the
+Occidental's awe at the wisdom of the East, or its pretense, he had
+felt a little like this.
+
+The burly Secretary of Space, who had come up through United Rockets,
+was thanking his stars that at any rate the professional scientists
+weren't responsible for this job. Like the grizzled general, he'd
+always felt suspicious of men who kept telling you how to do things,
+rather than doing them themselves. In World War III he'd had his fill
+of the professional physicists, with their eternal taint of a misty
+sort of radicalism and free-thinking. The Thinkers were better--more
+disciplined, more human. They'd called their brain-machine Maizie,
+which helped take the curse off her. Somewhat.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The President's Secretary, a paunchy veteran of party caucuses, was
+also glad that it was the Thinkers who had created the machine, though
+he trembled at the power that it gave them over the Administration.
+Still, you could do business with the Thinkers. And nobody (not even
+the Thinkers) could do business (that sort of business) with Maizie!
+
+Before that great square face with its thousands of tiny metal
+features, only Jorj Helmuth seemed at ease, busily entering on the
+tape the complex Questions of the Day that the high officials had
+handed him: logistics for the Endless War in Pakistan, optimum size for
+next year's sugar-corn crop, current thought trends in average Soviet
+minds--profound questions, yet many of them phrased with surprising
+simplicity. For figures, technical jargon, and layman's language were
+alike to Maizie; there was no need to translate into mathematical
+shorthand, as with the lesser brain-machines.
+
+The click of the taper went on until the Secretary of State had twice
+nervously fired a cigaret with his ultrasonic lighter and twice quickly
+put it away. No one spoke.
+
+Jorj looked up at the Secretary of Space. "Section Five, Question
+Four--whom would that come from?"
+
+The burly man frowned. "That would be the physics boys, Opperly's
+group. Is anything wrong?"
+
+Jorj did not answer. A bit later he quit taping and began to adjust
+controls, going up on the boom-chair to reach some of them. Eventually
+he came down and touched a few more, then stood waiting.
+
+From the great cube came a profound, steady purring. Involuntarily the
+six officials backed off a bit. Somehow it was impossible for a man to
+get used to the sound of Maizie starting to think.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jorj turned, smiling. "And now, gentlemen, while we wait for Maizie
+In the preparation of copy, consistency of spelling and punctuation is
+strongly urged, as it not only simplifies the problem for the printer,
+but also prevents possible misunderstanding of copy and consequent
+necessity for resetting.
+
+All paragraphs should be clearly indicated in the copy.
+
+All directions written upon the manuscript, which are not intended as
+"copy," should be enclosed in a circle.
+
+The author should punctuate each sentence as he writes it, for in this
+way the marks are indicative of the natural pauses, and better express
+his meaning.
+
+Foot-notes should always be clearly indicated.
+
+Unusual words, proper names, and figures should be written out with the
+greatest care and distinctness by the author.
+
+It is for the common advantage of the author, the publisher, and the
+printer that the author or the editor read all proofs promptly.
+
+
+ESTIMATING THE MANUSCRIPT
+
+The usual procedure in making a book is as follows: When the publisher
+sends the manuscript to the printer, a request goes with it for a
+sample page, set to a size and in a type which will make a volume of
+the desired number of pages. A novel is supposed to run from 320 pages
+to 400 pages. The first thing to be done is to estimate the number of
+words in the manuscript, and this is accomplished by averaging the
+number of words in say thirty lines, and then multiplying by the number
+of lines on a page. No allowance is made for fractional lines, as these
+also occur in the printed page. If the manuscript is carefully written,
+each page will contain the same number of lines, so the total number
+of words may be found by multiplying the number of words on the page,
+as arrived at above, by the total number of pages in the manuscript.
+This explains the importance of having a standard number of lines on
+each page.[32] No allowance is made for fractional pages at the end of
+chapters, as there are also fractional pages in the printed book, and
+it averages up.
+
+The front matter has to be estimated separately, with allowance for
+the blanks on the reverse of bastard-title, dedication, etc.,[33] but
+the usual number of pages is eight. Then, again, an allowance of half
+a page for each chapter sinkage[34] has to be made. Suppose we have a
+manuscript of 90,000 words, with 24 chapters: A type page of 280 words
+gives us 322 pages, to which we add 8 pages for front and 12 pages
+for chapter sinkages, giving us a volume of about 344 pages. As the
+presswork is usually done in forms of 32 pages, an effort is always
+made not to exceed even forms by a small number of pages. Striking out
+the bastard-title will often save a form of press-work.
+
+Various short-cuts have been suggested for estimating the number of
+words in a printed page, but the old-fashioned method of counting is
+the safest. Here is a table which is as accurate as any short-cut can
+be:
+
+                                  Words in
+                                   sq. in.
+
+  18-Point (Great Primer), solid     7
+  14-Point (English), solid         10
+  12-Point (Pica), solid            14
+  12-Point (Pica), leaded[35]       11
+  11-Point (Small Pica), solid      17
+  11-Point (Small Pica), leaded     14
+  10-Point (Long Primer), solid     21
+  10-Point (Long Primer), leaded    16
+  9-Point (Bourgeois), solid        26
+  9-Point (Bourgeois), leaded       20
+  8-Point (Brevier), solid          30
+  8-Point (Brevier), leaded         21
+  7-Point (Minion), solid           38
+  7-Point (Minion), leaded          27
+  6-Point (Nonpareil), solid        47
+  6-Point (Nonpareil), leaded       33
+  5-Point (Pearl), solid            69
+  5-Point (Pearl), leaded           50
+
+In cases where the number of lines to the inch of certain sizes of type
+is desired, the following table may be employed up to 18-point body:
+
+                                        No. lines
+                       No. lines       leaded with
+  Size of type         set solid      2-point leads
+
+   5-pt.                  14               10
+   5½-pt. (agate)         13+               9+
+   6-pt.                  12                9
+   8 "                     9                7+
+  10 "                     7+               6
+  12 "                     6+               5+
+  14 "                     5+               4+
+  18 "                     4                3+
+
+
+THE SAMPLE PAGE
+
+With these details settled, the sample page is next in order. Knowing
+that the book is to be a 12mo (size of leaf 5⅛ × 7⅝) or a 10mo (size
+of leaf 5½ × 8¼), the printer must "lay out" the page so as to leave
+margins of proper size and proportion. A 12mo type page may vary from
+3 × 5¼ inches to 4 × 6¾ inches. Somewhere within this area, in the
+given example, the page must contain about 280 words. If the manuscript
+is long, then the type page must be large, the type itself small (never
+smaller than long primer[36] nor larger than pica[36]), the leads[36]
+reduced or omitted altogether. This is where the printer's taste and
+skill is given an opportunity for expression: he is the architect
+of the book, and must not combine types or decorations which are
+inharmonious, and his proportions must be kept correct.
+
+For his sample page for the given novel, the printer would select from
+these standard faces:
+
+[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT OLD STYLE
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLM
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmno_]
+
+[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT CASLON OLD STYLE
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
+  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890_
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVW_]
+
+[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT SCOTCH
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
+  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890_
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVW_]
+
+[Illustration: PICA OR 12-POINT MODERN
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLM ABCDEFGHIJKLMN
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLM abcdefghijklmnop_]
+
+[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT OLD STYLE
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabc 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmnopq_]
+
+[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT CASLON OLD STYLE
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMN ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
+  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890&_
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY_]
+
+[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT SCOTCH
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKL
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO abcdefghijklmnop_]
+
+[Illustration: SMALL PICA OR 11-POINT MODERN
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyz 1234567890
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO ABCDEFGHIJKLM
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMN abcdefghijklmnopq_]
+
+[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT OLD STYLE
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abcde
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmnopqrstu_]
+
+[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT CASLON OLD STYLE
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
+  _abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 & abc_
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZIS_]
+
+[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT SCOTCH
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO& abcdefghijklmnopqr_]
+
+[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT MODERN
+
+  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
+  _ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP abcdefghijklmnopqr_]
+
+Type sizes in the present day are determined by the point system, the
+fundamental unit of which is the point. This is obtained by dividing
+a length of 13⅘ inches into 996 equal parts, each one being called a
+point. One point is therefore .0138 of an inch or 72.46 points are
+equal to 1 inch.
+
+For purposes of convenience, a point is expressed as being 1/72 of an
+inch. Thus 6-point type occupies 6/72 of an inch of space, 12-point
+12/72 and so on. This does not mean, however, that the actual printed
+face occupies six points on the paper, but that it is six points from
+the base to the top of the body carrying the face.
+
+In other words, one may say that it is 12 points from the bottom of
+one line of 12-point type to the _bottom_ of the next line of 12-point
+type, etc.
+
+The pica is the standard of measurement of the old system, and is equal
+to 12 points of the new system; thus six picas are equal to 1 inch or
+72 points. Printers still estimate the length and width of a page or a
+column by the pica; thus a page 4 inches wide is 24 picas.
+
+The "em" is the square of a type body. Thus a "12-point em" is 12
+points wide and 12 points long, or 1 pica long and 1 pica wide. A
+"10-point em" is a 10 point square, etc. The em used in measuring
+newspaper column widths, magazine columns, etc., is known as the em
+pica, which is 12 points square.
+
+In using larger faces for headings and display, or smaller faces for
+footnotes or quoted matter, the printer will select from the same
+family to which the type belongs, or from some family which combines
+with it harmoniously. Old-style faces should not be used with modern
+faces, but the Scotch face, which is a cross between old-style and
+modern, combines well with either.
+
+As to leading, this volume is leaded with a 1-point lead; between the
+first and second lines of the preceding paragraph there is no leading
+(technically, "set solid"); between the second and third, a 2-point
+lead, and between the third and fourth, a 3-point lead.
+
+In technical volumes and schoolbooks the Old Style Antique type is
+largely used for subject-headings and side-notes:
+
+[Illustration: LONG PRIMER OR 10-POINT OLD STYLE ANTIQUE
+
+  =abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 1234567890 abc
+  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&AJ=]
+
+
+THE TYPESETTING
+
+With the sample page accepted by the publisher or author, or both,
+the printer is authorized to proceed with the typesetting. Setting
+type by hand is now almost entirely superseded by machine-composition,
+except for the display pages (such as the title) and where the type
+itself runs larger than the English (14-point) size, this being the
+limit of the machines. Linotype[37] composition is cheaper than
+monotype,[37] but as the type is cast all in one line, instead of in
+separate characters, the cost of corrections is much higher. To change
+even a mark of punctuation requires recasting the entire line. If the
+manuscript is reasonably final in its form, the publisher is likely to
+order linotype composition; otherwise, monotype will be selected. Both
+machines carry the standard faces and sizes of type.
+
+
+THE PROOFS
+
+The first proofs sent out by the printer are called "galley-slips,"
+or "galleys."[38] These are supposed to give the author opportunity
+to make such changes as are absolutely necessary. When returned to
+the printer, these galleys are made up into "page-proofs,"[38] and
+frequently go again to the author, or the type may be "cast" (made
+into electrotype plates) at this point. When page-proofs are submitted
+to the author, the publisher expects him to revise them, making sure
+that all his galley corrections have been properly made, rather than
+to make further corrections, as changes in the pages are still more
+expensive than in the galleys. If changes must be made, the author
+should endeavor to have the correction occupy exactly the same space as
+the matter cut out, or to cut out further matter to make room for the
+addition. Otherwise, the page so corrected will contain more than the
+standard number of lines, which must be thrown forward, and the make-up
+of each page changed to the end of the chapter.
+
+Competent proofreaders in the best offices frequently call the
+attention of the author to errors in dates, figures, or proper names,
+but this should always be regarded by the author as a courtesy
+rather than as something which the printer is expected to do. The
+proofreader, on the other hand, is supposed to have corrected every
+typographical error, and for the author to mark corrections which have
+been overlooked is a courtesy on the part of the author. The fact that
+the author or editor has passed over typographical errors in no way
+relieves the proofreader of his responsibility.
+
+The proofreader is expected to correct any obvious error without
+hesitation, but to make no other changes. If he thinks a change should
+be made, it will take the form of a query in the margin to the author.
+The author should carefully note all such queries, and answer them
+or strike them out, bearing in mind that if he accepts the query the
+change necessitated in the type becomes an author's correction, the
+expense of which falls upon the publisher.
+
+Any marks on the proofs for correction should be made distinct by
+drawing a short line through the letter to be changed, etc., placing in
+the margin the recognized sign indicating the change, _exactly opposite
+the line in which the change is to be made, and in the order in which
+the necessary alterations occur_. In doing this be sure to write
+legibly, and do not cover the proof with lines and counter-lines.
+
+The author should familiarize himself with the standard proofreading
+marks, and employ these in marking all corrections upon the proofs
+which are sent him. These marks are as follows:
+
+[Illustration: PROOF MARKS
+
+THE above marks are the ones most generally used in proofreading. There
+are many others that are required in different classes of work, but
+these are in the main self-explanatory. This display of proof marks and
+their meanings has been prepared for THE GRAPHIC ARTS and endorsed by
+the Boston Proofreaders Association.
+
+    THE GRAPHIC ARTS, Boston]
+
+When the page-proofs are returned to the printer, they are carefully
+"read for foundry" by the proofreader, and all final changes in the
+type are then made. "Bearers"[39] are placed around pages, which are
+imposed[39] in chases[39] and sent to foundry.[39] Foundry-proofs are
+taken at this point.
+
+
+THE PLATES
+
+The process of electrotyping is one of the most interesting steps in
+the making of a book, and authors will find it well worth while to
+brave the grime of the black-lead in order to become familiar with the
+detail. In brief, the type form is pressed down into a tablet made of
+wax or similar substance, in which it leaves an impression. This wax
+tablet is then allowed to remain in a galvanic bath, through which it
+becomes covered with a coating of copper. When separated from the wax,
+the thin, copper replica of the composed type is backed up by an alloy,
+and, after passing through various stages in finishing, finally becomes
+an electrotype plate.[39]
+
+
+COVER DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+While the printer has been engaged in putting the manuscript into
+type, the publisher has had a designer at work upon a cover sketch,
+and an artist upon such illustrations as the book requires. All this
+has to fall in with the publisher's general scheme for the book as a
+whole. The designer must know what limits are placed upon him as to
+the number of inks or foils, or the amount of gold-leaf which he may
+employ. The artist must know whether his pictures are to be drawn for
+full color, two-color or one-color plates. In deciding these questions,
+the publisher is influenced by what he believes the book to require in
+its appeal to the public, and how great an expense is warranted by the
+probability of its success.
+
+
+ENGRAVING
+
+The illustrations in all except the most pretentious volumes are either
+halftone or lineplate photo-engravings. In making a halftone plate, the
+picture or object to be reproduced is photographed through a screen
+consisting of a glass plate, diagonally ruled at right angles in two
+directions with lines numbering from fifty to four hundred to the
+inch. This screen is placed inside of the camera and in front of, and
+very near, the chemically sensitized plate. The light reflected from
+the object to be photographed, varying in intensity according to the
+lights and shadows of the object, is focused on the sensitized plate
+through the intervening line screen, and affects the sensitized film
+more or less according to its intensity. This causes a chemical change
+of such nature that the next following operations, the development
+and the intensification of the picture, result in producing it in the
+form of dots and stipples varying in size, and consequently in the
+respective light and shade effects, according to the varying lights
+and shadows of the original. Inasmuch as the lights show dark and the
+darks light, the picture on the glass makes a negative of the subject.
+This negative is placed in a printing frame, in close contact with a
+polished copper plate prepared with a film sensitive to the light. A
+few minutes' exposure to the light renders insoluble in water those
+parts of the film which the light has reached through the negative, and
+when the other parts of the film, which remain soluble in water, are
+washed away, the picture appears clear on the surface of the plate. The
+dots and the stipples forming the picture are then further treated to
+enable them to resist the action of the solution of iron perchloride to
+which the plate is next subjected, which etches out the spaces between
+the dots, and leaves the latter in relief. As the etching on the
+copper must be in reverse as regards right and left, in order that it
+may appear in proper relation when printed on the paper, the negative
+must be produced through a reflecting prism, or the finished negative,
+properly toughened, must be stripped from the glass on which it has
+been produced, and turned over. In ordinary practice, a number of such
+turned negatives are placed together on a single large glass, and
+exposed together on a large copper plate, to be cut apart afterwards
+and mounted separately. The primary etching is usually supplemented by
+further processes, such as re-etching, vignetting, hand-tooling and
+routing. The finished plate is finally mounted on a wooden block to the
+height of type.
+
+Illustrations in full color are reproduced from corresponding
+originals, usually paintings in oil or water-color, by means of the
+three-[40] or four-color[40] process of reproduction. The plates for
+this purpose are usually all halftone, but are sometimes a combination
+of halftones and Benday[40] plates. Two-color halftones have either
+a tint background, or secondary plate in tint, the latter forming
+the underground upon which the keyplate is printed in black. In the
+three-color process, the respective plates are printed in yellow, red
+and blue successively over one another. In the four-color process a
+fourth plate is used to emphasize the blacks of the picture, the plate
+being virtually a keyplate, combining all the features of the subject,
+printed on top of the other three colors, usually in black or dark gray.
+
+It is of particular importance that the engraver who is to make the
+halftone plates should be informed as to the kind of paper they are to
+be printed on. A 50-line halftone plate will print on almost anything,
+but is too coarse to render the details of the picture, and is usually
+applied only for newspaper use. It would be entirely too coarse for the
+purpose of book illustration. On the other hand, a halftone plate made
+through a screen of 400 lines to the inch can be printed satisfactorily
+only upon paper of the highest surface, and with correspondingly
+careful presswork. For super-calendered or English-finish paper, plates
+made through a 133-line screen are most advisable, while the average
+coated or enameled paper will take 150-line halftones to best advantage.
+
+Lineplates are etchings in relief on plates of zinc or copper,
+reproduced from pen-and-ink-drawings, or diagrams, by photo-mechanical
+process. The method in general is the same as that for halftone work,
+but without the intervention of the screen. In lineplates, the light
+and shade effects are produced by gradations of thick and thin lines,
+in distinction from the effects of wash-drawings and photographs, which
+are produced by gradations of tone. The latter require the intervention
+of the screen to convert the full tone gradations into the halftone
+of the dots and stipples, while the former may, as already noted, be
+reproduced directly.
+
+Other classes of engravings, of a more costly kind, and which are
+therefore used only in books of more expensive character, are the
+various forms of engraving in intaglio; that is to say, in effects
+produced by cutting or etching the design into and below the surface
+of the plate, instead of cutting or etching away the ground, and
+leaving the design in relief. Examples of this order are the old-time
+copperplate engraving, the more modern steel-engraving,[41] in the
+form of line or mezzotint effects,[41] photogravure,[41] and the yet
+more recent photo-intaglio process known as rotogravure,[41] and
+photo-mezzotint.
+
+
+DIE CUTTING
+
+Dies,[41] generally required for stamping the covers of books in gilt
+letters and designs, are cut in brass by hand or by finely adjusted
+routing-machines, the design being drawn upon the metal by an artist,
+or transferred to it by photography. In the case of very elaborate
+designs, the dies are first etched by nitric acid or iron perchloride,
+and the more open or less intricate spaces then deepened by hand, or by
+the routing-machines.
+
+
+THE PAPER
+
+In selecting the paper for the book, the publisher must consider the
+surface required by his plates, the weight necessary to give a proper
+bulk in proportion to the size of his volume, and the quality as
+regulated by the price. The average book, with no text illustrations,
+is printed on wove[42] paper of antique finish, which is a fairly rough
+surface, giving a maximum bulk. A 12mo[42] book should bulk 1 to 1⅛
+inches, a 10mo[42] book, 1⅛ to 1¼ inches. If the book runs more than an
+average length, a medium-or a plate-finish paper may be used, and the
+weight per ream is regulated by the number of pages in each volume and
+the bulk required.
+
+Lineplates print satisfactorily on medium-finish paper, and even
+on antique-finish if the lines are not too fine. Halftones require
+English-finish,[42] super-calendered[42] or coated[42] paper.
+Inserts[42] are almost always printed upon coated paper.
+
+Laid[42] paper is used in more expensive books, as, from its nature,
+better and more costly stock is required in its making.
+
+
+THE PRESSWORK
+
+Books are printed in forms[42] of 4 pages and multiples of 4 pages,
+depending upon the size of the paper leaf. The usual form is 32 pages,
+so the publisher tries to plan his volume to make approximately even
+forms. To print any number of pages over an even form is as expensive
+as to print the complete 32 pages.[43]
+
+
+THE BINDING
+
+In binding, the questions to be settled include the style of
+back,--flat, half-round, or round; plain or gilt-top; headband[45]
+or not; trimmed or uncut edges;[44] kind of cloth,--T pattern,[45]
+silk,[45] vellum,[45] etc.; color and shade of cloth; location of dies;
+stamping,--ink, foil, gold or Oriental tissue, etc.; jacket,--glassine,
+manila, or printed.
+
+
+
+
+THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE BOOK
+
+
+THE proper layout for an ordinary volume, arranged in accord with the
+best usage, is as follows:
+
+  Bastard-Title (_right hand_).
+  Blank Page or Advertising Card (_left hand_).
+  Title-Page (_right hand_).
+  Copyright Page and the Printer's Imprint (_left hand_).
+  Dedication (_right hand_).
+  Blank Page (_left hand_).
+  Preface (_begins on right hand_).
+  Table of Contents (_begins on right hand_).
+  List of Illustrations (_begins on right hand_).
+  Introduction (_begins on right hand_).
+  Half-Title (_right hand_).
+  Blank Page (_left hand_).
+  First Page of Text (_begins on right hand_).
+
+In limited editions, the limit notice is placed upon the reverse of the
+bastard-title, or on a left-hand page facing the bastard-title.
+
+Following the text may be:
+
+  Appendix (_begins on right hand_).
+  Glossary (_begins on right hand_).
+  Bibliography (_begins on right hand_).
+  Index (_begins on right hand_).
+
+Considering these various divisions more at length:
+
+
+BASTARD-TITLE
+
+The bastard-title, which is often wrongly called the half-title,
+is a modern evolution in its present application. Originally, this
+single-line title was the only title which existed, but as time went
+on the demand of the public, on the one hand, for a decorated page at
+the beginning of the book, together with the printer's desire, on the
+other hand, to advertise himself, developed the bastard-title into the
+dimensions of the title-page which we now know, containing the name
+of the book, the name of the author, the publisher's device, and the
+publisher's name and address. At the present time the bastard-title is
+used more to add elegance to the appearance of the volume than for any
+practical purpose, it being pleasanter for the eye to rest first upon
+this page rather than at once upon the title-page, which extends over
+the full dimensions of the type area.
+
+
+ADVERTISING CARD
+
+If an advertising card or limit notice is required, this page of
+display should be set up with careful consideration of the page it is
+to face, and of the typography of the book of which it is to be a part.
+Too frequently advertising cards are looked upon as separate jobs, and
+are set in types which do not harmonize with the typography of the rest
+of the book.
+
+
+TITLE-PAGE
+
+The title-page offers the printer and the publisher a tempting
+opportunity for display and for artistic typography, and too few
+realize the value of restraint. Cobden-Sanderson once remarked, as
+explaining the high prices which he secures for his work, that he
+always charges more for what he leaves out than for what he puts in.
+
+The earliest volumes lacked the title-page, because vellum and
+linen paper were held so high that the expense of an extra leaf was
+considered an unnecessary luxury. In these books that which took the
+place of the title was at the end, the colophon being in evidence,
+indicating the name of the illuminator, if not always that of the
+printer. As was the case with the manuscript book, the volume began
+with the phrase, "Here beginneth...." Later came piratical reprints,
+which resulted in making the critical reader insist upon having each
+volume stamped with the printer's name or mark, as a guarantee of
+reliable workmanship.
+
+The first definite step in the direction of the title-page is marked
+by bibliographers in a little volume printed by Arnold Ther Hoernen,
+of Cologne, in 1470. It consisted of an introduction at the head of
+a page, the major part of which was left blank. Whether the printer
+forgot to place the usual introduction at the head of the first page,
+and took this way to remedy his error, is not known.
+
+In general, different faces of type should never be combined upon the
+title-page, the variations being secured by using smaller sizes of the
+same face, or harmonizing fonts. Capitals and lower-case letters can be
+successfully combined on the title-page only as a result of care and
+thought, the best title-pages usually being all in lower-case or all in
+caps and small caps. A two-color title-page is rarely a success unless
+it was originally composed with two colors in mind, instead of being
+set up in black and arbitrarily split up for colors.
+
+The decoration should never overbalance the type, and this applies
+as well to the question of borders on decorated books. No matter how
+beautiful, if the decoration overbalances the type, the volume or the
+title-page ceases to be an example of typography and becomes something
+answerable only to itself.
+
+
+COPYRIGHT
+
+On the reverse of the title-page is ordinarily placed the copyright
+notice of the volume,[46] usually a little above the center, set in
+caps and small caps, or in small caps alone. At the foot of this same
+page the printer usually places his imprint.[47]
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+The dedication is a page set in the monumental style, generally in
+small capitals. This must always be a right-hand page, and the reverse
+must always be blank.
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Ordinarily the preface is set in the same size of type as the body. If
+it is written by some one other than the author, it is frequently set
+in italic to mark the distinction. This is particularly true in case
+the book contains an introduction as well. If the preface is of unusual
+importance, it is sometimes customary to have it set in type one size
+larger than the body, or double-leaded.
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+After the preface and before the list of illustrations comes the
+contents, occupying whatever number of pages may be necessary. The
+style of its composition is dependent entirely upon the subject-matter
+and the typographical arrangement of the volume.
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+This follows the contents, and is always set in a style conforming to
+the contents page or pages.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+See remarks under "Preface."
+
+
+HALF-TITLE
+
+The half-title ordinarily consists of a single line, standing by
+itself on the first page of the leaf immediately preceding the first
+page of the text, and carries the title of the book as at the top of
+the first page of text. It is frequently confused with the bastard or
+false-title, which always precedes the title-page. Half-titles may also
+run through the book before various divisions, but the bastard-title
+never moves from its one position at the beginning of the volume.
+
+
+LIMIT NOTICE
+
+If an edition be limited in number, the notice of such limit should be
+placed either on the page facing the bastard-title or on the reverse of
+the bastard-title.
+
+
+IN GENERAL
+
+The front matter is often put into type after the composition of
+the body has been completed, so that the number of pages is rarely
+definitely determined at the beginning of the work. For this reason,
+publishers have favored the expedient of numbering the preliminary
+pages with roman folios, using the arabic folios for the text itself.
+The front matter and the chapter pages running through the book
+offer opportunities for embellishment and distinctive typographical
+treatment, and therefore should be kept in exact accord, whether
+elaborate decorations are used or the severest form of typographical
+simplicity.
+
+
+BASIC SIZES OF BOOKS
+
+The following list gives the size of leaf to which the various standard
+names and proportions naturally fold:
+
+  ========+============+=====================+==============
+  No. pp. |   Size of  |        Name         | Size of leaf
+  to form |    sheet   |                     |
+  --------+------------+---------------------+--------------
+     32   |    19 × 25 |Thirty-two mo (32mo) | 3⅛ × 4¾
+     32   |    22 × 29 |Twenty-four mo (24mo)| 3⅝ × 5½
+     32   |    24 × 32 |Eighteen mo (18mo)   | 4  × 6
+     32   |    27 × 34 |Sixteen mo (16mo)    | 4½ × 6¾
+     32   |    30½ × 41|Duodecimo (12mo)     | 5⅛ × 7⅝
+     32   |    33 × 44 |Decimo (10mo)        | 5½ × 8¼
+     16   |    24 × 36 |Octavo (8vo)         | 6  × 9
+      4   |    18 × 24 |Quarto (4to)         | 9  × 12
+      2   |    18 × 24 |Folio                |12  × 18
+  --------+------------+---------------------+--------------
+
+
+ENGLISH PAPER SIZES
+
+  =====================================================
+                    | Abbreviated | Pages  | Watermarks
+        Name        |     to      | to one |     in
+                    |             | sheet  | hand-made
+  ------------------+-------------+--------+-----------
+  Folio             |    Fo.      |    4   | Vertical
+  Quarto            |    4to      |    8   | Horizontal
+  Octavo            |    8vo      |   16   | Vertical
+  Duodecimo         |    12mo     |   24   | Horizontal
+  Sextodecimo       |    16mo     |   32   | Horizontal
+  Octodecimo        |    18mo     |   36   | Vertical
+  Vigesimo-quarto   |    24mo     |   48   | Vertical
+  Trigesimo-secundo |    32mo     |   64   | Vertical
+  ------------------+-------------+--------+-----------
+
+OCTAVOS
+
+  Foolscap 6¾ × 4¼ may become Crown 7½ × 5 inches
+  Crown 7½ × 5      "     "   Demy 8¾ × 5⅝
+  Post 8 × 5        "     "   Medium 9½ × 6
+  Demy 8¾ × 5⅝      "     "   Royal 10 × 6¼
+  Medium 9½ × 6     "     "   Super Royal 10¼ × 6⅞
+  Royal 10 × 6¼     "     "   Imperial 11 × 7½
+
+QUARTOS
+
+  Foolscap 8½ × 6¾ may become Crown 10 × 7½ inches
+  Crown 10 × 7½     "     "   Demy 11¼ × 8¾
+  Post 10 × 8       "     "   Medium 12 × 9½
+  Demy 11¼ × 8¾     "     "   Royal 12½ × 10
+  Medium 12 × 9½    "     "   Super Royal 13¾ × 10¼
+  Royal 12½ × 10    "     "   Imperial 15 × 11
+
+  Pott              15½ × 12½
+  Foolscap          17  × 13½
+  Crown             20  × 15
+  Post              20  × 16
+  Demy              22½ × 17½
+  Medium            24  × 19
+  Double Pott       25  × 15½
+  Royal             25  × 20
+  Double Foolscap   27  × 17
+  Super Royal       27½ × 20½
+  Double Crown      30  × 20
+  Imperial          30  × 22
+  Double Post       32  × 20
+  Columbia          34½ × 23½
+  Atlas             36  × 26
+
+                 Octavo      Quarto
+  Pott           6¼ × 3⅞     7¾ ×  6¼
+  Foolscap       6¾ × 4¼     8½ ×  6¾
+  Crown          7½ × 5     10  ×  7½
+  Post           8  × 5     10  ×  8
+  Demy           8¾ × 5⅝    11¼ ×  8¾
+  Medium         9½ × 6     12  ×  9½
+  Royal         10  × 6¼    12¼ × 10
+  Super Royal   10¼ × 6⅞    13¾ × 10¼
+  Imperial      11  × 7½    15  × 11
+
+
+MARGINS
+
+A feature not to be overlooked in the appearance of a well-printed
+book is that of the margins. The perfect type-page is supposed to be
+proportioned in such a way that its diagonal is twice its width. With
+this page as a basis, the location of the type upon the paper leaf is
+to be studied carefully. In general, the two pages, right and left,
+should be considered as a unit, and the top margin and the inside
+margin of each page should be approximately the same. Doing this, the
+total blank between the two pages is supposed approximately to equal
+the outside and the bottom margins.
+
+The proportion of margin is, to a certain extent, dependent upon the
+size of the book, the margins becoming greater as the volume increases
+from the thirty-two mo size up to the folio. A student of typography
+has ingeniously estimated that, taking the height of the paper leaf
+as 100 units, the height of the type page of the ordinary trade book
+should be from 72% to 75%; that of a library edition, from 66% to 71%;
+that of a de luxe volume, from 60% to 65%.
+
+
+
+
+MAKING THE INDEX
+
+
+EVERY book of a permanent nature, or intended as a work of reference,
+requires an index. The length of the Index, or its minuteness, depends
+upon the nature of the subject treated, and the importance of making it
+easily available to the reader. The Index belongs to the same family
+as the Table of Contents, and the Topical Analyses often placed at the
+beginning of each chapter: the Contents gives a general idea of the
+divisions into which the author has separated his subject; the Topical
+Analyses still further divide each chapter; and the Index is ordinarily
+still more minute, with the further advantage of having its references
+arranged in alphabetical order.
+
+The proper person to make an index is, first of all, the author of the
+book, provided that he possesses the natural characteristics. It does
+not at all naturally follow, however, that all authors are competent to
+do this, for the art of indexing is not as simple as many superficially
+suppose. The author should be the one best fitted, because he knows
+better than any reader the exact meaning each of his sentences is
+intended to convey,--and this meaning should be expressed in the
+index. The ideal index is that which gives every topic, thought, or
+reference contained in the book itself, without a single superfluous
+word, and with no description or comment.
+
+To make an index requires a quick grasp of the idea contained in each
+sentence or paragraph, an immediate discernment of the main thought,
+an instinctive classification, absolute accuracy in translating this
+thought into its briefest expression, ability to condense, and a
+sensing of the reader's needs in adequate cross-references. All this
+demands a mind more logical and more sensitive to codified detail
+than is possessed by many able writers. Under these circumstances,
+it is desirable to place the making of the index in the hands of one
+possessing these qualifications, either instinctively or as a result of
+experience.
+
+Every publishing-house and most printing establishments of any
+consequence are in a position to have indexes prepared when required,
+but the danger is always present that the indexer, approaching his
+subject from the outside, will fail to place himself sufficiently in
+the author's attitude, and thus lessen the value of his work. It is
+most desirable, in order to prevent this, that the author carefully
+inspect the index while in manuscript. He can thus detect possible
+departures in the indexer's condensed expression of his own thought.
+
+The following rules and suggestions are given with a twofold object
+in mind: _first_, to prevent those authors who possess the necessary
+qualifications from avoiding the preparation of their own indexes
+because of unfamiliarity with the technical details; _second_, to
+enable authors intelligently to criticize the form as well as the
+matter of those indexes which are prepared for their volumes by other
+hands.
+
+
+WHAT TO INDEX
+
+The closeness with which a book is to be indexed depends partly upon
+the nature of its contents and partly upon the ideas of the author
+or publisher. Some indexes contain only the page references; some
+are so analytical that a reader can gain an excellent idea of the
+subject-matter itself. These, however, represent the two extremes. The
+ordinary index aims to give every reference necessary to enable the
+reader to locate easily the subject-matter for which he searches, but
+not a synopsis of that subject-matter. The entries should cover, then,
+with more or less minuteness, as desired, the following:
+
+  (_a_) Proper names, whether of persons, places, religious or political
+  bodies, etc.
+  (_b_) Events and periods.
+  (_c_) Titles of books to which reference is made.
+  (_d_) Specific topics or subjects.
+  (_e_) Definitions.
+  (_f_) Vital statements.
+
+
+PLAN
+
+The indexer should decide definitely in his mind just what his
+procedure is to be before actually beginning work. At first, it is well
+to make the index too full rather than the reverse, as it is easier to
+cut out than to fill in. Most important of all, he must be sure that
+the matter to be indexed is clearly understood before he attempts to
+transcribe the idea. The character of the book to be indexed must be
+carefully considered, taking into account the class of people who will
+probably consult it, and the lines on which they will probably seek
+information.
+
+Judgment is required in deciding whether it is wise to choose the
+exact words of the author or to condense the idea into other words.
+In technical books, the exact wording is sometimes essential, but
+otherwise it is more important to express the _idea_ than the exact
+terms in which it is expressed.
+
+Always prefer simple words and expressions to those which are unusual
+and cumbersome.
+
+Omit every unessential word.
+
+When the book being indexed is one written upon a specific subject,
+this main subject should not be indexed unless necessary to indicate
+some reference for which a searcher would look. Ordinarily, the
+Contents covers this point rather than the Index.
+
+Bear in mind particularly the two extremes: the importance of
+including every reference necessary to enable the searcher to find what
+he wishes without delay or confusion, the mistake of overloading the
+index with useless entries.
+
+Use ink, as pencil entries often become illegible.
+
+Write plainly, and do not try to economize space in preparing the copy.
+
+
+DEFINITION OF TERMS
+
+=Subject=: includes events, places, persons, facts, definitions or
+topics: e.g., _Boston, 7_; _Bonnet, Father, 155_; _Huron Mission,
+plans for, 129_; _Onontio, meaning of, 102_; _Absolutism, contest with
+liberty, 274._
+
+=Heading=: the word or words used by the indexer to express the subject
+or idea. In the examples above, the headings are _Boston_, _Bonnet_,
+_Father_, _Onontio_, etc.
+
+=Entry=: the amplification of the Heading, with the addition of the
+supplementary phrase. In the example above, the entry is _Absolutism,
+contest with liberty_, the supplementary phrase being _contest with
+liberty_.
+
+=Cross-reference=: a heading referring to an entry: e.g., _Michabou._
+See _Manabozho_.
+
+
+PROCEDURE
+
+Having settled upon a definite plan, the indexer seats himself at a
+good-sized table, and lays out his materials in front of him. After
+testing every possible method, the present writer strongly urges the
+use of individual slips of paper, about 2½ inches by 4 inches. Arranged
+within easy reach in front of the indexer, but leaving room for the
+proof-sheets, should be twenty small pasteboard boxes,[48] a little
+larger than the slips themselves.[48] On the inside bottom of each
+box mark a letter of the alphabet, combining O and Q, U and V, and X
+Y Z. As soon as a slip is written, throw it into its proper box, and
+continue throughout the work. It is a false economy to search out the
+slips for subsequent entries, unless they can be easily found, as it is
+a simple matter at the end to combine the several slips which belong to
+the same heading.
+
+Here are sample slips, showing a heading which requires full entries
+and one to which the text contains fewer references. The first shows a
+slip on which the various entries have been combined:
+
+  +-------------------------------------------------------+
+  | Andastes, the, 5; location and characteristics of,    |
+  |   36; synonyms of, 36; plans for converting, 130;     |
+  |   war with Mohawks, 147; Hurons ask aid from,         |
+  |   162; mortal quarrel with Mohawks, 163; promise      |
+  |   to aid Hurons, 163; Huron fugitives try to reach,   |
+  |   240, 250; Mohawks first to bear brunt of war        |
+  |   with, 268; receive aid from Swedish colonists, 268; |
+  |   attack Senecas, 269; courage their only strength    |
+  |   270; finally overborne by Senecas, 270.             |
+  +-------------------------------------------------------+
+
+This slip shows the method of indexing a work in more than one volume:
+
+  +-------------------------------------------------+
+  | James, Edwin, gives account of Nanabush, i. 67; |
+  |   on Indian ideas of another life, ii. 79.      |
+  |                                                 |
+  |                                                 |
+  +-------------------------------------------------+
+
+In the rules which follow, the basis adopted is "Cutter's Rules for
+a Dictionary Catalogue,"[49] prepared for library cataloguing. Such
+portion as applies to book indexing has been freely drawn upon, adapted
+and added to from the present writer's experience.
+
+
+ARRANGEMENT
+
+When, under a single entry, there are both subject-references and
+references by folios only, place the folio-references together at the
+end of the entry, following the subject-references.
+
+Arrange entries according to the English alphabet, whatever the order
+of the alphabet in which a foreign name might have been entered in its
+original language.
+
+Arrange German names spelled with the vowels ä, ö, ü as if spelled ae,
+oe, ue, but retain the form employed by the author.
+
+When the same word serves for several kinds of entries, the order
+should be as follows: person, place, subject, title: e.g., (1) _Brown,
+G. F._ (person). (2) _Brown Village_ (place). (3) _Brown-tail Moth_
+(subject). (4) _Brown Family, the_ (title).
+
+Forenames precede surnames: e.g., _Francis I_ precedes _Francis,
+Charles_.
+
+
+ADJECTIVE-HEADINGS
+
+In general, a noun or a substantive phrase should be selected for the
+heading, but when an adjective forms part of a name or well-known
+term, the entry should include it: e.g., _Alimentary canal, hereditary
+genius, perpetual motion_, etc.
+
+
+SUBJECT-MATTER
+
+It is not possible to formulate rules for indexing subject-matter
+as definitely as has already been done with names, places, etc. The
+judgment of the indexer and his analytical skill will be called fully
+into play. The effort should be to express in the index, in the
+clearest yet briefest form, the _idea_ which the author has amplified
+in his text. As an aid to the nature and form of the entries, a page of
+text is shown on the opposite page, and the entries which would appear
+in the index from this page, are given below. This is what would be
+considered as a medium full index:
+
+    Bressani, Joseph, tortured by Iroquois, 73; life spared by Iroquois,
+  73; sent to Fort Orange, 73; ransomed by Dutch, 73; sent to Rochelle,
+  73.
+
+  Dutch, the, ransom Bressani, 73.
+
+  Indian Torture, See _Torture, Indian_.
+
+     Iroquois Indians, the, torture Bressani, 73; spare Bressani's
+  life, 73.
+
+  Jogues, Isaac, referred to, 73.
+
+  Orange, Fort, Bressani sent to, 73.
+
+  Rochelle, Bressani sent to, 73.
+
+  Torture, Indian, Bressani by the Iroquois, 73.
+
+                      ESCAPE OF BRESSANI                           73
+
+    march of several days,--during which Bressani, in wading a rocky
+    stream, fell from exhaustion and was nearly drowned,--they reached
+    an Iroquois town. It is needless to follow the revolting details
+    of the new torments that succeeded. They hung him by the feet
+    with chains; placed food for their dogs on his naked body, that
+    they might lacerate him as they ate; and at last had reduced his
+    emaciated frame to such a condition that even they themselves stood
+    in horror of him. "I could not have believed," he writes to his
+    Superior, "that a man was so hard to kill." He found among them
+    those who, from compassion or from a refinement of cruelty, fed
+    him, for he could not feed himself. They told him jestingly that
+    they wished to fatten him before putting him to death.
+
+    The council that was to decide his fate met on the nineteenth of
+    June, when to the prisoner's amazement, and, as it seemed, to their
+    own surprise, they resolved to spare his life. He was given, with
+    due ceremony, to an old woman, to take the place of a deceased
+    relative; but since he was as repulsive, in his mangled condition
+    as, by the Indian standard, he was useless, she sent her son
+    with him to Fort Orange, to sell him to the Dutch. With the same
+    humanity which they had shown in the case of Jogues, they gave a
+    generous ransom for him, supplied him with clothing, kept him until
+    his strength was in some degree recruited, and then placed him on
+    board a vessel bound for Rochelle. Here he
+
+    PAGE FROM PARKMAN'S WORKS. BY PERMISSION LITTLE, BROWN, & CO.
+
+
+RULES AND EXAMPLES
+
+=Names:=
+
+Index under the Christian name or forename:
+
+(_a_) Sovereigns, popes, queens, princes and princesses. _Exceptions_:
+Greek or Roman sovereigns, princes of the French Empire.
+
+(_b_) Persons canonized: e.g., _Thomas a Becket, Saint_.
+
+Also make cross-reference: e.g., _Becket, Thomas a._ See _Thomas a
+Becket_.
+
+(_c_) Friars required by the constitution of their order to relinquish
+their surname: e.g., _Paolino da S. Bartolomeo_.
+
+Also make cross-reference under family name: e.g., _Wesdin, J.P._ See
+_Paolino da S. Bartolomeo_.
+
+(_d_) Persons known only by their first names, whether or not their
+profession, rank or native place be added: e.g., _Michelangelo
+Buonarroti_, _Rembrandt van Rhijn_.
+
+Cross-reference under family name is optional, dependent upon closeness
+of indexing.
+
+(_e_) Oriental authors, including Jewish rabbis: e.g., _Abu Bakr ibn
+Badr_.
+
+This rule has many exceptions. Some Oriental writers are known and
+should be entered under other parts of their name than the first, as
+"_Abu-l-Kasim, Khalaf ibn Abbas_," _Firdusi, Abul Kasim_, etc., _known
+as_, or under some appellation as "_al-Masudi_," "_at-Tabari_."
+
+In Arabic names, the words of relationship _Abu_ (father), _Umm_
+(mother), _Ibn_, _Bin_ (son), _Ahu_ (brother), though not to be treated
+as names by themselves, are yet not to be disregarded. They form a
+name in conjunction with the word following (e.g., _Abu Bakr_), and
+determine the alphabetical place of the entry. But the article _al_
+(changed by assonance to _ad_-, _ar_-, _as_-, _at_-, _az_-, according
+to the letter it precedes) is neglected (al- _Masudi_).
+
+In all Oriental names, the indexer must be careful not to take titles,
+as _Emir, Bey, Pasha, Sri, Babu, Pundit_, for names.
+
+In regard to East Indian names, Dr. Feigl gives the rule: If there are
+two names, enter under the first, which is the individual name, with
+a cross-reference from the second; if there are three or more, enter
+under the third, which is the family name, with a cross-reference under
+the first or individual name; the second may be neglected.
+
+
+Index under the surname:
+
+(_a_) In general, all persons not included under previous rules.
+
+In a few cases, chiefly of artists, a universally-used sobriquet
+is to be taken in place of the family or forename, as _Tintoretto_
+(whose real name was Giacomo _Robusti_). Similar cases are _Canaletto_
+(Antonio _Canale_ and also B. _Belotto_), _Correggio_ (Ant. _Allegri_),
+_Garofalo_ (Benvenuto Piero _Tisi_), Il _Sodoma_ (Giov. Ant. _Bazzi_),
+_Spagnoletto_ (Jusepe _Ribera_, now however oftener called _Ribera_),
+_Uccello_ (Paolo _Doni_). Always cross-reference from the family name.
+
+(_b_) In particular, ecclesiastical dignitaries: e.g., _Kaye_, John,
+Bishop of Lincoln. _Lincoln_, John, Bishop of. See _Kaye_.
+
+Bishops usually omit their family name, canons their forename: e.g.,
+_Canon Liddon_, _Bishop of Ripon, Henry Edward_, _Archbishop of
+Westminster_, i.e., _H. E. Manning_. Care must be taken not to treat
+Canon as a forename or Edward as a family name.
+
+(_c_) Married women, using the known form:
+
+Wives often continue writing, and are known in literature only under
+their maiden names (as _Miss Freer_ or _Fanny Lewald_), or after a
+second marriage retain for literary purposes the first husband's name.
+Enclose the maiden name in parenthesis: e.g., _Ward, Mrs. Elizabeth
+(Phelps)_. Use the form _White, Mrs. Julia Charlotte, wife of J. C._,
+when the husband's name is used: e.g., _Hopkins, Mrs Sarah (Drake)
+Garretson_. _Stowe, Mrs. Emily Howard (Jennings)_. _Soyaux, Frau Frieda
+(Schanz)_. _Gasparin, Valérie (Boissier) Comtesse de_.
+
+Women known under their husbands' names are to be entered as follows:
+_Hinkson, Mrs. Katherine (Tynan), Mrs. H. A. Hinkson_. Cross-reference
+to be made from the latter form.
+
+
+Index under the highest title:
+
+British and foreign noblemen, with cross-reference from earlier titles
+by which they have been known, and, in the case of British noblemen,
+from the family name: e.g., _Chesterfield, 4th Earl of (Philip
+Dormer Stanhope)_. _Chesterfield, 5th Earl of (Philip Stanhope)_.
+Cross-reference from _Stanhope_. _Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroi, Duc
+de_.
+
+Authors should be put under their names. The definition of a name is
+"that by which a person or thing is known." Noblemen are known by their
+titles, not by their family names.
+
+  In the few cases in which the family name[50] or a lower title is
+    decidedly better known, index under that and cross-reference from
+    the title: e.g., _Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam_; _Robert Curzon,
+    14th Baron Zouche_; _John Napier, Baron of Merchiston_; _Horace
+    Walpole, 4th Earl of Oxford_; likewise the military nobles and
+    princes of the French Empire: e.g., _Lucien Bonaparte, Prince de
+    Canino_; _McMahon, Duc de Magenta_.
+
+  Englishwomen's titles-of-honor are to be treated by the following
+    rules. In the matter of titles an Englishwoman in marrying has
+    everything to gain and nothing to lose. If she marries above her
+    own rank she takes her husband's title in exchange for her own,
+    if below her own rank she keeps her own title.
+
+(_a_) The wife of a peer takes her husband's style.
+
+That is, she is Baroness, Viscountess, Marchioness, etc. In indexing,
+say _Brassey, Annie (Allnutt), Baroness_; not _Brassey, Annie
+(Allnutt), Lady_.
+
+(_b_) The wife of a knight or baronet is _Lady_. Whether this title
+precedes or follows her forename depends upon whether she had a title
+before her marriage.
+
+That is, if Lady Mary Smith marries Sir John Brown (either knight or
+baronet), she is _Lady Mary Brown_, also if Hon. Mary Smith marries
+Sir John Brown (knight or baronet) she is _Lady Mary Brown_; but if
+Miss Mary Smith marries Sir John Brown (knight or baronet), she becomes
+_Mary, Lady Brown_.
+
+(_c_) A maid of honor retains her _Hon._ after marriage, unless, of
+course, it is merged into a higher title.
+
+Thus, if she marries a baronet she is the _Honᵇˡᵉ Lady Brown_; if a
+peer, the _Lady So and So_. In either case as though she had been a
+peer's daughter.
+
+(_d_) The wife of an earl's (or higher peer's) younger son is never the
+_Honᵇˡᵉ Lady_; if she used the _Lady_ before marriage in her own right
+she does not, of course, add anything by such marriage, but the wife
+of a younger son of a lower peer than an earl is _Honᵇˡᵉ Mrs._ (not
+_Lady_)--the younger children of all peers using, of course, the family
+name, with or without their forenames, according to their rank.
+
+(_e_) If the lady to whom the title _Hon._ belongs in virtue of her
+father's rank marries a commoner, she retains her title, becoming
+_Hon. Lady_ if she marries a knight or baronet, and _Hon. Mrs._ if her
+husband has no title.
+
+None of these courtesy titles is inherited by the children of those who
+bear them, the third generation of even the highest peer being simply
+commoners unless raised in rank by marriage or merit.
+
+(_f_) The title _Lady_ belongs to daughters of all noblemen not lower
+than earl.
+
+(_g_) The title _Hon._ belongs to daughters of viscounts and barons;
+also to an untitled woman who becomes a maid-of-honor to the Queen,
+and this title is retained after she leaves the service. If a woman who
+has the title _Lady_ becomes maid-of-honor she does not acquire the
+title _Hon._
+
+
+  Index compound names according to the usage of the author's
+    fatherland, though if it is known that his practice differs from
+    this usage, his preference should be followed. Compound names
+    then go:
+
+(_a_) If English, under the last part of the name, when the first has
+not been used alone by the author: e.g., _Gould, Sabine Baring-_;
+but _Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillipps), J. O._, and _Locker
+(afterwards Locker-Lampson)_, because they are well-known under the
+first names.
+
+(_b_) If foreign, under the first part.
+
+Both such compound names as _Gentil-Bernard_ and such as _Gentil de
+Chavagnac_. There are various exceptions, when a name has been more
+known under the last part, as _Fénelon_, not _Salignac de Lamothe
+Fénelon_; _Voltaire_, not _Arouet de Voltaire_; _Sternberg_, not
+_Ungern-Sternberg_. Moreover, it is not always easy to determine
+what is a compound surname in French. Cross-references are necessary
+whichever way one decides each case, especially when the second part
+of a foreign compound name has been used alone, as _Merle d'Aubigné_
+(index under _Merle_ with a cross-reference from _Aubigné_).
+
+In French, a forename is sometimes joined to a surname by a hyphen. In
+such cases make the entry under the family name, with a cross-reference
+from the forename: e.g., entry, _Rochette, Désiré Raoul_;
+cross-reference, _Raoul-Rochette, Désiré_. See _Rochette_.
+
+(_c_) In foreign compound names of women also, although the first part
+is usually the maiden name and the second the husband's name, the entry
+should generally be under the first, with a cross-reference from the
+second[51]: e.g., _Rivé-King_, with cross-reference from _King, born
+Rivé_.
+
+
+Index surnames preceded by prefixes:
+
+(_a_) In French and Belgian, under the prefix when it is or contains
+an article, _Le, La, L', Du, Des_; under the word following when the
+prefix is a preposition, _de, d'_: e.g., _Des Essarts, Du Cange,
+La Fontaine, Le Sage, L'Estoille_; but _Charlevoix, P. F. X. de_;
+_Estrées, Mme d'_.
+
+_La_ and _Le_ are often, _Des_ is usually, and _Les_ is almost without
+exception printed as one word with the name following, as _Lafontaine,
+Lesage, Lesdiguières_; _de_ and _d'_ are sometimes so printed; when
+they are, enter under the _D_: e.g., _Debucourt, Decamps, Delisle_; but
+_Bucourt, A. de_, _Camps, C. de_, _Lisle, J. de_.
+
+(_b_) In English, under the prefix, no matter from what language the
+name is derived, with cross-references when necessary: e.g., _De
+Quincey_, _Van Buren_.
+
+(_c_) In all other languages, under the name following the prefix, with
+cross-references whenever the name has been commonly used in English
+with the prefix, as _Del Rio_, _Vandyck, Van Ess_: e.g. _Gama, Vasco
+da_, _Goethe, J. W. von_.
+
+But when the name is printed as one word, entry is made under the
+prefix, as _Vanderhaeghen_.
+
+(_d_) Naturalized names with prefixes are to be treated by the rules of
+the nation adopting them.
+
+Thus German names preceded by _von_, when belonging to Russians, are to
+be entered under _Von_, as this is the Russian custom. So when Dutch
+names compounded with _van_ are adopted into French or English (as _Van
+Laun_) the _Van_ is treated as part of the family name.
+
+Prefixes are _d', de, de La_ (the name goes under _La_ not _de_),
+_Des, Du, L', La, Le, Les, St, Ste_ (to be arranged as if written
+_Saint, Sainte_), _da, dal, dalla, dalle, dai, dagli, del, della,
+delle, dei_ (_dé_ or _de_), _degli, da, dos_, _das, ten, ter, thor,
+Van, vander, van't, ver, am, auf, auf'm, aus, aus'm, in, im, von, vom,
+zu, zum, zur, A', Ap, O', Fitz, Mac_ (which is to be printed as it is
+in the title, whether _M'_, or _Mc_, or _Mac_, but to be arranged as if
+written _Mac_).
+
+
+  Index names of capes, lakes, mountains, rivers, forts, etc.,
+    beginning with _Cape_, _Lake_, _Mt._, etc., under the word
+    following the prefix, but when the name is itself used as a
+    prefix, do not transpose _Cape_, etc., nor in such names as _Isle
+    of the Woods_, _Isles of Shoals_; but there is more reason for
+    writing _France, Isle de_; _Man, Isle of_; _Wight, Isle of_:
+    e.g., _Cod, Cape_; _George, Lake_; _Washington, Mt._; _Moultrie,
+    Fort_; but _Cape Breton Island_. When the name of a fort becomes
+    the name of a city, of course the inversion must be abandoned, as
+    _Fort Wayne_.
+
+  Forenames are to be used in the form employed by their owners,
+    however unusual, as _Will Carleton, Sally (Pratt) McLean, Hans
+    Droysen, Fritz Reuter_.
+
+  Give names of places in the English form. (Cross-reference from
+    the vernacular, if necessary): e.g., _Munich_ not _Muenchen_ or
+    _München_, _Vienna_ not _Wien_, _Austria_ not _Oesterreich_.
+
+  But if both the English and the foreign forms are used by English
+    writers, prefer the foreign form: e.g., _Dauphiné_ rather than
+    _Dauphiny_.
+
+  Use the modern name of a city and cross-reference to it from the
+    ancient, provided its existence has been continuous and there is
+    no doubt as to the identity.
+
+  Distinctive epithets are to be in the same language as the name:
+    e.g.,
+
+_Kniaz, fürst von, Freiherr zu, duc de Magenta, Bishop of Lincoln,
+évêque de Meaux_; but _Emperor of Germany, King of France_, not
+_kaiser_ and _roi_, when names of sovereign princes are given in
+English. Treat in the same way patronymics habitually joined with a
+person's name; as, _Clemens Alexandrinus_.
+
+
+  Prefixes (i.e., titles which in speaking come before the name), as
+    _Hon., Mrs., Rev._, etc., should in the heading be placed before
+    the Christian name (as _Smith, Capt. John_), and suffixes as
+    _Jr., D.D., LL.D._, after it (as _Channing, James Ellery, D.D._).
+
+Hereditary titles generally follow the Christian name, as _Derby,
+Thomas Stanley, 1st earl of_; but British courtesy titles (i.e.,
+those given to the younger sons of dukes and marquesses) precede,
+as _Wellesley, Lord Charles (2d son of the Duke of Wellington)_. In
+other languages than English, French, and German the title usually
+precedes the forename; as, _Alfieri, Conte Vittorio_. Occasionally a
+French nobleman uniformly places his title before his forenames; as,
+_Gasparin, Comte Agénor de_.
+
+_Lord_ should be replaced by the exact title in the names of English
+noblemen: e.g., Lord Macaulay should be entered as _Macaulay, 1st
+baron_. _Lord_ in the title of Scotch judges follows the family name;
+as, _Kames, H. Home, afterwards Lord_.
+
+The title Baronet is given in the form _Scott, Sir Walter, bart._
+
+Patronymic phrases, as _of Dedham_, follow all the names; but they must
+immediately follow the family name when they are always used in close
+connection with it, as _Girault de St. Farjeau, Eusèbe_; similarly
+_aîné_, _fils_, _jeune_, as _Dumas fils, Alexandre_; _Didot fils,
+Ambroise_. Latin appellatives should not in general be separated from
+their nouns by a comma; as, _Caesar Heisterbacensis_.
+
+The name of a king's wife should be written thus: _Charlotte, Queen,
+consort of George III of England_. _Anne Boleyn Queen, 2d consort of
+Henry VIII of England._
+
+
+=Countries and places:=
+
+  Index under countries or places important events relating to them:
+    e.g., _Montreal, Cartier's description of houses at_. Also make
+    reference under name: e.g., _Cartier, description of houses at
+    Montreal_.
+
+  Enter congresses of several nations under the name of the place
+    of meeting (as that usually gives them their name), with
+    cross-references from the nations taking part in them, and from
+    any name by which they are popularly known: e.g., the _Congress
+    of London, of Paris, of Verona, International Peace Congress
+    at the Hague_.
+
+  Enter treaties under the name of each of the contracting parties,
+    with a cross-reference from the name of the place of negotiation,
+    when the treaty is commonly called by that name, and from any
+    other usual appellation: e.g., treaty of _Versailles_, _Barrier_
+    treaty, _Jay's_ treaty.
+
+
+=Parties and sects:=
+
+  Enter the official publications of any political party or
+    religious denomination or order, under the name of the party, or
+    denomination, or order: e.g.,
+
+Platforms, manifestoes, addresses, etc., go under _Democratic Party,
+Republican Party_, etc.
+
+Confessions of faith, creeds, catechisms, liturgies, breviaries,
+missals, hours, offices, prayer books, etc., go under _Baptists,
+Benedictines, Catholic Church, Church of England, Friends_, etc.
+
+That part of a body which belongs to any place should be entered
+under the name of the body, not the place: e.g., _Congregationalists
+in New England_, _Congregationalists in Massachusetts_, not _New
+England Congregationalists_, _Massachusetts Congregationalists_. But
+cross-references must be made from the place (indeed in cases like
+_Massachusetts Convention_, _Essex Conference_, it may be doubted
+whether those well-known names should not be the headings).
+
+  Enter corporations and quasi corporations, both English and
+    foreign, under their names as they read, neglecting an initial
+    article or serial number when there is one.
+
+  Enter orders of knighthood, both those of medieval times and their
+    honorary modern equivalents, under the significant word of the
+    English title: e.g., _Garter, Order of the_; _Malta, Knights
+    of_; _Templars, Knights_; _Teutonic Order_; _Freemasons_. But
+    the American Knights Templars, being merely a division of the
+    Freemasons, belong under _Freemasons_; so of other regular
+    masonic bodies.
+
+  The colleges of an English university and the unnamed professional
+    schools of an American university go under the university's
+    name. Such professional schools, if they have a distinctive
+    name, particularly if at a distance from the university, or for
+    any other reason less closely connected with it, go under their
+    own name: e.g., _Oxford University, Magdalen College_; _Harvard
+    University, Veterinary School_; but _Barnard College, Columbia
+    University_; _Radcliffe College, Harvard University_; _Sheffield
+    Scientific School of Yale University_.
+
+  College libraries go under the name of the college: e.g., _Harvard
+    College, University Library_. But the Bodleian Library may be put
+    under _Bodleian_.
+
+  Local college societies go under the name of the college;
+    intercollegiate societies and Greek letter fraternities under
+    their own names: e.g., Φ B K _A, of Harvard_.
+
+  Alumni and Alumnæ associations go under the name of the school or
+    college: e.g., _Harvard Alumni Association of New York_.
+
+  Schools supported by public taxation go under the name of the city
+    or town maintaining them, whether they have an individual name or
+    not.
+
+  When a corporation is much less known by the first words of its
+    name than by a later part, enter under the later part: e.g.,
+    _Christian Endeavor, Young People's Society of_.
+
+  Enter guilds under the name of the trade: e.g., _Stationers
+    Company_, not _Master and Keepers or Wardens and Commonality of
+    the Mystery and Art of Stationers of the City of London_, which
+    is the corporate title.
+
+  Enter bodies whose legal name begins with such words as _Board_,
+    _Corporation_, _Trustees_ under that part of the name by
+    which they are usually known: e.g., Trustees of the _Eastern
+    Dispensary_; President and Fellows of _Harvard College_;
+    Proprietors of the _Boston Athenæum_; Contributors to the
+    _Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of their Reason_.
+    Cross-reference from the first word of the legal name.
+
+  Enter the name of a firm under the family name rather than the
+    forename, and do not fill out the forenames: e.g., _Friedlander
+    und Sohn, Raphael_, not under _Raphael_; _Stokes, F. A. Co._, not
+    _Stokes, Frederick A. Co._
+
+The consulter is much more likely to remember the family than the
+Christian name. Whether the Christian name is written at the end
+or thus, _Town (John)_ and _Bowers (Henry)_, all firms should be
+arranged after all the other entries of the first family name, i.e.,
+_Friedlander und Sohn_ after all the _Friedlanders_.
+
+This rule might be extended to include corporations, colleges,
+libraries, etc., whose legal names include forenames. Entry under a
+forename, as _Silas Bronson Library_, and especially under initials, as
+_T. B. Scott Public Library_, is awkward. But the public habit is not
+yet sufficiently settled to justify an exception.
+
+  Enter the universities of the European continent and of Central and
+    South America under the name of the place; all other societies
+    under _Königliche_, _Herzogliche_, etc.
+
+Cross-reference from the first word in the university names and from
+the place of societies.
+
+A few learned academies, commonly called by the names of the cities
+where they are established, may be entered under the place with a
+cross-reference from the name. These are _Berlin, Göttingen, Leipzig,
+Lisbon, Madrid, Munich, St. Petersburg, Vienna_.
+
+  Enter national libraries, museums, and galleries, as well as
+    libraries, museums, and galleries instituted or supported by a
+    city, under the place, provided they have not a distinctive name.
+
+Example of place: _Paris Bibliothèque Nationale_. _Boston Public
+Library._
+
+Example of name: _Berkshire Athenæum_; _Boston Athenæum_; _British
+Museum_; _Forbes Library_; _Marucceliana, Biblioteca_; _Reuben Hoar
+Public Library_.
+
+  Enter observatories under the name of the place: e.g., _Greenwich,
+    Observatory_. _Pulkowa, Sternwarte_; except that:
+
+(_a_) University observatories go under the university: e.g., _Harvard
+College. Astronomical Observatory, at Cambridge._ (Cross-reference from
+_Cambridge_.)
+
+(_b_) Any observatory having an individual name may go under that:
+e.g., _Lick Observatory_, _Yerkes Observatory_.
+
+  Enter expositions under the place where they were held: e.g.,
+
+_Buffalo, Pan-American Exposition, 1901_; _Chicago, World's Columbian
+Exposition, 1893_; _New Orleans, World's Industrial and Cotton
+Centennial Exhibition, 1884-85_; _Philadelphia, Centennial Exhibition,
+1876_.
+
+Cross-reference from an individual name.
+
+  Enter American State universities and State historical,
+    agricultural and medical societies, whether supported by the
+    State or not, under the name of the State, unless they are better
+    known by a distinctive name. The State's name usually enters into
+    the name of these societies and they are known outside of the
+    State by its name. Cross-reference when necessary.
+
+  Enter churches under the name of the place.
+
+Single churches have usually been entered under the place, a practice
+which arose in American indexes from our way of naming churches "The
+First Church in----," "The Second Church of----," etc., and applies
+very well to a majority of English churches, whose name generally
+includes the name of the parish. It is more in accordance with indexing
+principles to limit the local entry of churches to _First Church_,
+etc., and those which have only the name of the town or parish, and to
+put all others (as _St. Sepulchre's_, _St. Mary Aldermansbury_) under
+their names, as they read, and to treat convents and monasteries in the
+same way; but the convenience of having a single definite rule has been
+held to outweigh in this case the claims of consistency.
+
+The parishes of London (as _Kensington_, _Marylebone_, _Southwark_),
+like the parts of Boston (_Dorchester_, _Roxbury_, etc.), or of any
+other composite city, would be put under their own names, not under the
+name of the city.
+
+  A few cathedrals generally known by some other name may be entered
+    under it: e.g., _St. Paul's, London; Notre Dame, Paris; St.
+    Peter's, Rome; St. Sophia, Constantinople_.
+
+  Put monasteries and convents, like churches, under the place,
+    unless better known by the name.
+
+  National banks designated merely by number (as _First National Bank
+    of Boston_) go under the name of the place.
+
+  Young men's Christian associations, mercantile library
+    associations, and the like, should have local entry.
+
+  Private schools having no distinctive name go under the name of the
+    proprietor.
+
+  Private libraries, galleries and museums go under the name of the
+    proprietor.
+
+  Buildings are for the most part provided for in the above rules, as
+    museums, galleries, libraries, churches, etc. Any others should
+    be entered under their names, with a cross-reference from the
+    city.
+
+  Headings like _Charles_, _George_, _Henry_, when very numerous,
+    must be divided into classes, in this order: Saints, Popes,
+    Emperors, Kings, Princes, and Noblemen, others. The Saints are
+    sub-arranged by their usual appellatives, the Popes by their
+    number, Sovereigns and Sovereign princes in alphabetical order
+    of countries, and under countries numerically. Other persons
+    are sub-arranged by their usual appellatives, neglecting the
+    prepositions:[52] e.g.,
+
+  _Peter_, Saint.
+  _Peter_, Pope.
+  _Peter_, the Great, Emperor of Russia.
+  _Peter II_, of Aragon.
+  _Peter III_, of Aragon.
+  _Peter I_, of Portugal.
+  _Peter_, Duke of Newcastle.
+  _Peter_, of Groningen, enthusiast. See _Pieter_.
+  _Peter_, John Henry.
+  _Peter, Lake._
+  _Peter, Mt._
+  _Peter-Hansen_, Erik.
+  _Peter_ Lewis, a true tale.
+
+When there are two appellatives coming in different parts of
+the alphabet, cross-reference from the rejected one, as _Thomas
+Cantuariensis_. See _Thomas Becket_.
+
+  Arrange in two alphabets names that differ slightly in spelling and
+    come close together in the alphabet: e.g.,
+
+_Brown_ and _Browne_, and the French names beginning with _Saint_ and
+_Sainte_. As readers may not always know the spelling of the author's
+name, cross-references should be made: e.g., _Brown_. See also _Browne_.
+
+  Arrange by the forename headings in which the family name is the
+    same.
+
+No attention is to be paid to prefixes, as _Bp., Capt., Dr., Hon., Sir,
+Fräulein, Miss, Mlle., Mme., Mrs._, or to suffixes, as _D.D., F.R.S.,
+LL.D._, etc.
+
+  When the forenames are the same, arrange chronologically.
+
+No attention is to be paid to the titles _Sir_, etc.: e.g., _Bart, T.
+L._, comes before _Bart, Thomas_, for the same reason that _Bart_ comes
+before _Barta_.
+
+  Forenames not generally used should be neglected in the arrangement.
+
+When an author is generally known by one of several forenames he will
+be looked for by that alone, and that alone should determine the
+arrangement. The form should be _Harte, Bret_ (in full _Francis Bret_),
+or _Harte, Bret_ (i.e., _Francis Bret_).
+
+Make cross-references whenever the omission of a name will change the
+alphabetical arrangement, as from _Müller, F. Max_, to _Müller, Max_.
+
+  When there are two names exactly the same, add dates if available:
+    e.g., _Franklin, John (d. 1759)_; _Franklin, John (d. 1863)_.
+
+  If an author uses both the shorter and the longer forms in
+    different works, and yet is decidedly better known by the
+    shorter, arrange by that.
+
+  Arrange a nobleman's title, under which entry is made, and the name
+    of a bishop's see, from which reference is made to the family
+    name, among the personal names, not with the places: e.g.,
+
+      _London_, Alfred.
+      _London_, David, bp. of.
+      _London_, John.
+      _London_, Conn.
+      _London_, Eng.
+  not _London_, John.
+      _London_, David, bp. of.
+      _London_, Conn.
+  nor _London_, John.
+      _London_, Conn.
+      _London_, David, bp. of.
+      _London_, Eng.
+
+      _Danby_, John.
+      _Danby_, Thomas _Osborne_, earl of.
+      _Danby_, Wm.
+      _Danby_, Eng.
+      _Holland_, C.
+      _Holland_, 3d baron (H: R. Vassal Fox).
+      _Holland_, 4th baron (H: E. Vassal Fox).
+      _Holland_ (the country).
+
+  The possessive case singular should be arranged with the plural: e.g.,
+
+  _Bride_ of Lammermoor.
+  _Brides_ and bridals.
+  _Bride's_ choice.
+  _Boys'_ and girls' book.
+  _Boy's_ King Arthur.
+  _Boys_ of '76.
+
+  Arrange Greek and Latin personal names by their patronymics or other
+    appellatives: e.g.,
+
+  _Dionysius._
+  _Dionysius_ Areopagita.
+  _Dionysius_ Chalcidensis.
+  _Dionysius_ Genuensis.
+
+  Arrange English personal and place names compounded with prefixes as
+    single words; also those foreign names in which the prefix is not
+    transposed: e.g.,
+
+  _Demonstration._
+  _De Montfort._
+  _Demophilus._
+  _De Morgan._
+  _Demosthenes._
+
+Other such names are _Ap Thomas, Des Barres, Du Chaillu, Fitz Allen, La
+Motte Fouqué, Le Sage, Mac Fingal, O'Neal, Saint-Réal, Sainte-Beuve,
+Van Buren_.
+
+This is the universal custom, founded on the fact that the prefixes are
+often not separated in printing from the following part of the name.
+It would, of course, be wrong to have _Demorgan_ in one place and _De
+Morgan_ in another.
+
+  Arrange proper names beginning with _M', Mc, St., Ste._ as if spelled
+    _Mac, Saint, Sainte_.
+
+Because they are so pronounced. But _L'_ is not arranged as _La_
+or _Le_, nor _O'_ as if it stood for _Of_, because they are not so
+pronounced.
+
+  Arrange compound names of places as separate words, except those
+    beginning with prefixes: e.g.,
+
+      _New_, John.
+      _New Hampshire._
+      _New_ legion of Satan.
+      _New Sydenham Society._
+      _New York._
+      _Newark._
+      _Newfoundland._
+      _Newspapers._
+  not _New_, John.
+      _New_ legion of Satan.
+      _Newark._
+      _Newfoundland._
+      _New Hampshire._
+      _Newspapers._
+      _New Sydenham Society._
+      _New York._
+
+  Arrange personal names compounded of two names with or without a
+    hyphen after the first name, but before the next longer word: e.g.,
+
+  _Fonte_, Bart. de.
+  _Fonte Resbecq_, Auguste.
+  _Fontenay_, Louis.
+  _Fontenay Mareuil_, François.
+
+  Arrange names of societies as separate words.
+
+See _New Sydenham Society_ in the list above.
+
+  Arrange hyphened words as if separate: e.g.,
+
+  _Happy_ home.
+  _Happy-Thought_ Hall.
+  _Happy_ thoughts.
+  _Home_ and hearth.
+  _Home_ rule.
+  _Homely_ traits.
+  _Homer._
+  _Sing_, pseud.
+  _Sing_, James.
+  _Sing_, James, pseud.
+  _Sing-Sing Prison._
+  _Singapore._
+  _Singing._
+  _Grave and Reverend Club._
+  _Grave County._
+  _Grave Creek._
+  _Grave-digger._
+  _Grave-mounds._
+  _Grave_ objections.
+  _Grave de Mézeray_, Antoine.
+  _Gravel._
+  _Gravestone._
+  _Graveyard._
+  _Out_ and about.
+  _Out_ in the cold, a song.
+  _Out-of-door_ Parliament.
+  _Outer_ darkness, The.
+
+  Arrange pseudonyms after the corresponding real name: e.g.,
+
+  _Andrew_, pseud.
+  _Andrew_, St.
+  _Andrew_, St., pseud.
+  _Andrew_, John.
+  _Andrew_, John, pseud.
+  _Andrew_, John Albion.
+
+  Arrange incomplete names by the letters. When the same letters
+    are followed by different signs, if there are no forenames,
+    arrange in the order of the complexity of signs; but if there
+    are forenames, arrange by them: i.e., put a dot before a line, a
+    line before a star (three lines crossing), etc.: e.g.,
+
+  _Far_ from the world.
+  _Far_ ...
+  _Far_ ***
+  _Far_, *** B. F.
+  _Far_ ..., J. B.
+  _Farr_, John.
+
+  The arrangement of title-entries is first by the heading words; if
+    they are the same, then by the next word; if that is the same,
+    by the next; and so on. Every word, articles and prepositions
+    included, is to be regarded, but not a transposed article: e.g.,
+
+  _Uncovenanted_ Mercies.
+  _Under_ a Cloud.
+  _Under_ the Ban.
+  _Under_ the Greenwood Tree; a novel.
+  _Under_ the Greenwood Tree; a poem.
+  _Under_ Which King.
+  _Undone_ Task, The.
+  _Undone_ Task Done.[53]
+
+It makes no difference whether the words are connected with one another
+in sense or not; the searcher should not be compelled to think of that.
+Let the arrangement be by words as ordinarily printed. Thus _Home Rule_
+is one idea but it is two words, and its place must be determined
+primarily by its first word _Home_, which brings it before _Homeless_.
+If it were printed _Homerule_ it would come after _Homeless_. Similarly
+_Art Amateur_ is one phrase, but as the first word _Art_ is followed by
+a word beginning with _am_, it must come before _Art_ and _Artists_,
+although its parts are more closely connected than the parts of the
+latter phrase.
+
+The French _d'_ and _l'_ are not to be treated as part of the following
+word: e.g.,
+
+      _Art d'économiser._
+      _Art d'être grandpère._
+      _Art d'instruire._
+      _Art de faire._
+      _Art de l'instruction._
+      _Art de linguistique._
+      _Art des mines._
+      _Art digne._
+  not _Art de faire._
+      _Art de linguistique._
+      _Art de l'instruction._
+      _Art d'économiser._
+      _Art des mines._
+      _Art d'être grandpère._
+      _Art digne._
+      _Art d'instruire._
+
+  Arrange titles beginning with numeral figures as if the figures
+    were written out in the language of the rest of the title: e.g.,
+
+100 deutscher Männer--Ein hundert deutsche Männer; 1812--Mil huit cent
+douze.
+
+  Arrange abbreviations as if spelled in full, but elisions as they
+    are printed: e.g.,
+
+_Dr., M., Mlle., Mme., Mr., Mrs., St., as Doctor, Monsieur,
+Mademoiselle, Madame, Mister, Mistress, Saint_.
+
+  But _Who'd be a king?_
+      _Who killed Cock Robin?_
+      _Who's to blame?_
+
+  Care must be taken not to mix two subjects together because their
+    names are spelled in the same way.
+
+Thus _Grace_ before meals, _Grace_ of body, _Grace_ the musical term,
+and _Grace_ the theological term, must be four distinct headings.
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY OF TERMS
+
+
+NOTE.--_(b) Signifies terms used in connection with binding only. (c)
+Terms usually employed in connection with the composing-room. (e) Terms
+used in engraving. (el) Terms used in electrotyping. (g) Terms used
+with general significance. (p) Terms used in connection with presswork._
+
+=Accents= (_g_).--Small marks placed over, under, or through particular
+letters, used to indicate pronunciation.
+
+=Adams Press= (_p_).--A large platen printing-machine, used for
+bookwork.
+
+=Agate= (_c_).--A small size of type equal to 5½ points. See _Point_.
+
+=Alignment= (_c_).--The arrangement of type in straight lines, also
+the adjustment of the lines of type so that their ends appear in line,
+vertically.
+
+=All-along= (_b_).--In sewing a book, when the thread is passed from
+kettle-stitch to kettle-stitch, or from end to end in each sheet, it is
+sewed all-along.
+
+=Alley= (_c_).--The floor space between stands where compositors work.
+
+=American Russia= (_b_).--See _Cowhide_.
+
+=Antique Type= (_c_).--Fonts of type of an old or medieval character.
+The lines of all the characters are nearly uniform as to thickness; the
+corners square and bold.
+
+=Aquatint= (_e_).--A peculiar style of etching on copper or steel in
+imitation of drawings in sepia or India ink.
+
+=Arabic Numbers= (_c_).--The numeral figures as distinguished from
+Roman characters.
+
+=Art Canvas= (_b_).--A book cloth known both as Art Canvas and Buckram.
+
+=Art Work= (_e_).--See _Retouching_.
+
+=Ascending Letters= (_c_).--Letters that ascend to the upper shoulder
+of the type body; as, _b_, _d_, _f_, _h_, _l_, etc.
+
+=Author's Proof= (_c_).--Proof sent to the author for inspection and
+approval.
+
+=Azure Tools= (_b_).--Used in binding, where the heavy and wide marks,
+instead of being a solid mass, are made with horizontal lines.
+
+
+=Backing= (_b_).--The process of forming the back in preparing the
+book for the cover or case, commonly called Rounding and Backing.
+It is done in three ways; viz. (1) by hand with a hammer, (2) by a
+hand rounding-and-backing machine, (3) by a steam- or electric-driven
+machine.
+
+=Backing Up= (_p_).--Printing the second side of a sheet.
+
+=Band Driver and Nippers= (_b_).--Tools used in forwarding, to correct
+irregularities in the bands of flexible backs.
+
+=Bands= (_b_).--The cords on which the sheets of a volume are sewed.
+When sewed "flexible," the bands show on the back of the book; when
+bands are let in the back by sawing grooves, narrow strips of leather
+are glued across the back to look like raised bands.
+
+=Bank= (_c_).--A high table or bench with a sloping top; when used for
+type only it is called a _standing galley_.
+
+=Basket Cloth= (_b_).--This is a fancy weave of cloth, of construction
+similar to the weaving of wickerwork baskets. It is a novelty binding.
+
+=Bastard-Title= (_c_).--The title of a book printed upon a page by
+itself and preceding the regular title-page.
+
+=Battered= (_c_).--Type, electrotype, or engraving accidentally injured.
+
+=Bead= (_b_).--An old-time term meaning the head-band, _q. v._
+
+=Bearers= (_p_).--Strips of metal or wood, type-high, made up with type
+to sustain impression while proving, or to bear off the impression on
+light parts, and to carry the rollers evenly over a form in printing.
+
+    (_c_).--Type-high pieces of metal placed around pages or forms to
+    be electrotyped, to prevent injury to the face of the type or the
+    plates in the subsequent processes, and cut away from the plates
+    before printing.
+
+=Bed= (_p_).--The flat part of a press upon which the type or form is
+placed. The part on which the sheet is placed is called the platen, or
+the cylinder.
+
+=Benday Plates= (_e_).--Plates made by laying shaded tints on copper or
+zinc, and etching them to produce colors or combination of colors when
+printed.
+
+=Beveled Sticks= (_c_).--Strips of furniture wider at one end than the
+other; they are used with wooden quoins in locking up on galleys and in
+chases.
+
+=Bible India Paper= (_g_).--The thinnest paper made for books, formerly
+only made in England and Italy; now made in America. A very high-grade
+stock. See _Oxford Bible Paper_.
+
+=Binder= (_b_).--A temporary cover for periodicals and pamphlets,
+usually arranged so that it may be taken off and attached to subsequent
+copies of a publication. A bookbinder.
+
+=Black Letters= (_c_).--A style of letter or type characterized by
+black face and angular outlines. It was designed by the early printers
+from a current form of manuscript letter.
+
+=Blank= (_g_).--A page upon which no printing appears.
+
+=Blank Books= (_b_).--Applied to a large variety of books which are
+bound with blank leaves, or leaves having ruled lines and little or no
+printing: account books, memorandum books, ledgers, etc.
+
+=Blanking= (_b_).--Term employed in reference to stamping. Impression
+made on cloth or leather by heated brass die.
+
+=Bleed= (_b_).--When the margins of a book or a pad of printed sheets
+have been trimmed so as to cut into the printing, they are said to
+bleed.
+
+=Blind Tooling or Stamping= (_b_).--Impressions of finisher's tools or
+book-dies without ink or gold-leaf. Sometimes called _antique_.
+
+=Blocking Press= (_b_).--A stamping press for impressing blocks or dies
+on covers.
+
+=Blocks= (_c_).--The wood or metal bases on which electrotypes and
+engravings are mounted.
+
+    (_p_).--Mechanical devices used on printing-presses for the purpose
+    of holding plates in their proper positions in the form.
+
+=Board Papers= (_b_).--The part of the end-papers pasted on the board
+covers.
+
+=Boards= (_b_).--Applied generally to many kinds of heavy cardboard.
+A book with stiff sides covered with paper of any color is said to be
+bound in paper boards.
+
+=Bock Morocco= (_b_).--A term given to a leather made of Persian
+Risca than Risca saw into him. He did not answer the question, for he
+penetrated, through the fuliginous vapours whence it proceeded, into the
+crystal regions of the man's spirit. It was he, after a while, who held
+Risca with his eyes, and it was all that was beautiful and spiritual
+in Risca that was held. And then Herold reached out his hand slowly and
+touched him.
+
+“We go down to Southcliff together.”
+
+Risca drew a deep breath.
+
+“Let us go this evening,” said he.
+
+A few hours afterward when the open cab taking them from the station
+to the Channel House came by the sharp turn of the road abruptly to the
+foot of the cliff, and the gusty southwest wind brought the haunting
+smell of the seaweed into his nostrils, and he saw the beacon-light in
+the high west window shining like a star, a gossamer feather from the
+wings of Peace fell upon the man's tortured soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+IT will be remembered that Stellamaris was a young person of bountiful
+fortune. She had stocks and shares and mortgages and landed property
+faithfully administered under a deed of trust. The Channel House and
+all that therein was, except Sir Oliver and Lady Blount's grievances,
+belonged to her. She knew it; she had known it almost since infancy.
+The sense of ownership in which she had grown up had its effect on her
+character, giving her the equipoise of a young reigning princess, calm
+and serene in her undisputed position. In her childish days her material
+kingdom was limited to the walls of her sea-chamber but as the child
+expanded into the young girl, so expanded her conception of the limits
+of her kingdom. And with this widening view came gradually and curiously
+the consciousness that though her uncle and aunt were exquisitely
+honoured and beloved agents who looked to the welfare of her realm,
+yet they could not relieve her of certain gracious responsibilities.
+Instinctively, and with imperceptible gradations, she began to make
+her influence felt in the house itself. But it was an influence in the
+spiritual and not material sense of the word; the hovering presence and
+not the controlling hand.
+
+When, shortly after the arrival of the two men, Walter Herold went up to
+his room, he found a great vase of daffodils on his dressing-table and
+a pencilled note from Stella in her unformed handwriting, for one cannot
+learn to write copper-plate when one lies forever on the flat of one's
+back.
+
+_Great High Favourite: Here are some daffodils, because they laugh and
+dance like you. Stellamaris._
+
+And on his dressing-table John Risca found a mass of snowdrops and a
+note:
+
+_Great High Belovedest: A beautiful white silver cloud came to my window
+to-day, and I wished I could tear it in half and save you a bit for the
+palace. But snowdrops are the nearest things I could think of instead.
+Your telegram was a joy. Love. S._
+
+Beside the bowl of flowers was another note:
+
+_I heard the wheels of your chariot, but Her Serene High-and-Mightiness
+[her trained nurse] says I am tucked up for the night and can have no
+receptions, levees, or interviews. I tell her she will lose her title
+and become the Kommon Kat; but she does n't seem to mind. Oh, it's just
+lovely to feel that you 're in the house again. S._
+
+Risca looked round the dainty room, his whenever he chose to occupy it,
+and knew how much, especially of late, it held of Stellamaris. It had
+been redecorated a short while before, and the colours and the patterns
+and all had been her choice and specification.
+
+The castle architect, a young and fervent soul called Wratislaw, a
+member of the Art Workers' Guild, and a friend of Herold's, who had
+settled in Southcliff-on-Sea, and was building, for the sake of a
+precarious livelihood, hideous bungalows which made his own heart sick,
+but his clients' hearts rejoice, had been called in to advise. With
+Stellamaris, sovereign lady of the house, aged fifteen, he had spent
+hours of stupefied and aesthetic delight. He had brought her armfuls of
+designs, cartloads of illustrated books; and the result of it all was
+that, with certain other redecorations in the house with which for
+the moment we have no concern, Risca's room was transformed from
+late-Victorian solidity into early-Georgian elegance. The Adam Brothers
+reigned in ceiling and cornice, and the authentic spirit of Sheraton,
+thanks to the infatuated enterprise of Wratislaw, pervaded the
+furniture. Yet, despite Wratislaw, although through him she had spoken,
+the presence of Stellamaris pervaded the room. On the writing-table lay
+a leather-covered blotter, with his initials, J. R., stamped in gold. In
+desperate answer to a childish question long ago, he had described the
+bedspread on his Parian marble bed in the palace as a thing of rosebuds
+and crinkly ribbons tied up in true-lovers' knots. On his bed in
+Stella's house lay a spread exquisitely Louis XV in design.
+
+Risca looked about the room. Yes, everything was Stella. And behold
+there was one new thing, essentially Stella, which he had not noticed
+before. Surely it had been put there since his last visit.
+
+In her own bedroom had hung since her imprisonment a fine reproduction
+of Watt's “Hope,” and, child though she was, she had divined, in a
+child's unformulative way, the simple yet poignant symbolism of the
+blindfold figure seated on this orb of land and sea, with meek head
+bowed over a broken lyre, and with ear strained to the vibration of
+the one remaining string. She loved the picture, and with unconscious
+intuition and without consultation with Wratislaw, who would have
+been horrified at its domination of his Adam room, had ordained that a
+similar copy should be hung on the wall facing the pillow of her Great
+High Belovedest's bed.
+
+The application of the allegory to his present state of being was
+startlingly obvious. Risca knitted a puzzled brow. The new thing was
+essentially Stella, yet why had she caused it to be put in his room this
+day of all disastrous days? Was it not rather his cousin Julia's doing?
+But such delicate conveyance of sympathy was scarcely Julia's way.
+A sudden dread stabbed him. Had Stella herself heard rumours of the
+tragedy? He summoned Herold, who had a prescriptive right to the
+adjoining room.
+
+“If any senseless fools have told her, I 'll murder them,” he cried.
+
+“The creatures of the sunset told her--at least as much as it was good
+for her to know,” said Herold.
+
+“Do you mean that she did it in pure ignorance?”
+
+“In the vulgar acceptance of the word, yes,” smiled Herold. “Do you
+think that the human brain is always aware of the working of the divine
+spirit?”
+
+“If it's as you say, it's uncanny,” said Risca, unconvinced.
+
+Yet when Sir Oliver and Julia both assured him that Stella never doubted
+his luxurious happiness, and that the ordering of the picture was due to
+no subtle suggestion, he had to believe them.
+
+“You always make the mistake, John, of thinking Stellamaris mortal,”
+ said Herold, at the supper-table, for, on receipt of the young men's
+telegram, the Blounts had deferred their dinner to the later hour of
+supper. “You are utterly wrong,” said he. “How can she be mortal when
+she talks all day to winds and clouds and the sea-children in their cups
+of foam? She's as elemental as Ariel. When she sleeps, she's really away
+on a sea-gull's back to the Isles of Magic. That's why she laughs at the
+dull, clumsy old world from which she is cut off in her mortal guise.
+What are railway-trains and omnibuses to her? What would they be to
+you, John, if you could have a sea-gull's back whenever you wanted to go
+anywhere? And she goes to places worth going to, by George! What could
+she want with Charing Cross or the Boulevard des Italians? Fancy the
+nymph Syrinx at a woman writers' dinner!”
+
+“I don't know what you 're talking about, Walter,” said Lady Blount,
+whose mind was practical.
+
+“Syrinx,” said Sir Oliver, oracularly (he was a little, shrivelled man,
+to whose weak face a white moustache and an imperial gave a false air
+of distinction)--“Syrinx,” said he, “was a nymph beloved of Pan,--it's a
+common legend in Greek mythology,--and Pan turned her into a reed.”
+
+“And then cut the reed up into Pan-pipes,” cried Herold, eagerly, “and
+made immortal music out of them--just as he makes immortal music out of
+Stellamaris. You see, John, it all comes to the same thing. Whether you
+call her Ariel, or Syrinx, or a Sprite of the Sea, or a Wunderkind whose
+original trail of glory-cloud has not faded into the light of common
+day, she belongs to the Other People. You must believe in the Other
+People, Julia; you can't help it.”
+
+Lady Blount turned to him severely. Despite her affection for him,
+she more than suspected him of a pagan pantheism, which she termed
+atheistical. His talk about belief in spirits and hobgoblins irritated
+her. She kept a limited intelligence together by means of formulas, as
+she kept her scanty reddish-gray hair together by means of a rigid false
+front.
+
+“I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost,” she
+said, with an air of cutting reproof.
+
+Sir Oliver pushed his plate from him, but not the fraction of a
+millimetre beyond that caused by the impatient push sanctioned by good
+manners.
+
+“Don't be a fool, Julia!”
+
+“I don't see how a Christian woman declaring the elements of her faith
+can be a fool,” said Lady Blount, drawing herself up.
+
+“There are times and seasons for everything,” said Sir Oliver. “If you
+were having a political argument, and any one asked you whether you
+believed in tariff reform, and you glared at him and said, I believe in
+Pontius Pilate,' you'd be professing Christianity, but showing yourself
+an idiot.”
+
+“But I don't believe in Pontius Pilate,” retorted Lady Blount.
+
+“Oh, don't you?” cried Sir Oliver, in sinister exultation. “Then your
+whole historical fabric of the Crucifixion must fall to the ground.”
+
+“I don't see why you need be irreverent and blasphemous,” said Lady
+Blount.
+
+Herold laid his hand on Lady Blount's and looked at her, with his head
+on one side.
+
+“But do you believe in Stellamaris, Julia.”
+
+His smile was so winning, with its touch of mockery, that she grew
+mollified.
+
+“I believe she has bewitched all of us,” she said.
+
+Which shows how any woman may be made to eat her words just by a little
+kindness.
+
+So the talk went back to Stella and her ways and her oddities, and the
+question of faith in Pontius Pilate being necessary for salvation was
+forgotten. A maid, Stella's own maid, came in with a message. Miss
+Stella's compliments, and were Mr. Risca and Mr. Herold having a good
+supper? She herself was about to drink her egg beaten up in sherry, and
+would be glad if the gentlemen would take a glass of wine with her.
+The young men, accordingly, raised their glasses toward the ceiling and
+drank to Stella, in the presence of the maid, and gave her appropriate
+messages to take back to her mistress.
+
+[Illustration: 0046]
+
+It was a customary little ceremony, but in Risca's eyes it never lost
+its grace and charm. To-night it seemed to have a deeper significance,
+bringing Stella with her elfin charm into the midst of them, and thus
+exorcising the spirits of evil that held him in their torturing grip.
+He spoke but little at the meal, content to listen to the talk about
+Stella, and curiously impatient when the conversation drifted into other
+channels. Of his own tragedy no one spoke. On his arrival, Lady Blount,
+with unwonted demonstration of affection, had thrown her arms round his
+neck, and Sir Oliver had wrung his hand and mumbled the stiff Briton's
+incoherences of sympathy. He had not yet told them of his decision to go
+to Australia.
+
+He broke the news later, in the drawing-room, abruptly and apropos of
+nothing, as was his manner, firing his bombshell with the defiant air of
+one who says, “There, what do you think of it?”
+
+“I'm going to Australia next week, never to come back again,” said he.
+
+There was a discussion. Sir Oliver commended him. The great dependencies
+of the empire were the finest field in the world for a young man,
+provided he kept himself outside the radius of the venomous blight of
+the Colonial Office. To that atrophied branch of the imperial service
+the white administrator was merely a pigeon-holed automaton; the native,
+black or bronze or yellow, a lion-hearted human creature. All the
+murder, riot, rapine, arson, and other heterogeneous devilry that
+the latter cared to indulge in proceeded naturally from the noble
+indignation of his generous nature. If the sensible man who was
+appointed by the Government to rule over this scum of the planet called
+out the military and wiped out a few dozen of them for the greater glory
+and safety of the empire, the pusillanimous ineptitudes in second-rate
+purple and cheap linen of the Colonial Office, for the sake of currying
+favour with Labour members and Socialists and Radicals and Methodists
+and Anti-vivisectionists and Vegetarians and other miserable
+Little-Englanders, denounced him as a Turk, an assassin, a
+seventeenth-century Spanish _conquistador_ of the bloodiest type, and
+held him up to popular execration, and recalled him, and put him on a
+beggarly pension years before he had reached his age limit. He could
+tell them stories which seemed (and in truth deserved to be) incredible.
+
+“John,” said Lady Blount, “has heard all this a thousand times,”--as
+indeed he had,--“and must be sick to death of it. He is not going out to
+Australia as governor-general.”
+
+“Who said he was, my dear?” said Sir Oliver.
+
+“If you did n't imply it, you were talking nonsense, Oliver,” Lady
+Blount retorted.
+
+“Anyhow, Oliver, do you think John is taking a wise step?” Herold
+hastily interposed.
+
+“I do,” said he; “a very wise step.”
+
+“I don't agree with you at all,” said Lady Blount, with a snap of
+finality.
+
+“Your remark, my dear,” replied Sir Oliver, “does not impress me in the
+least. When did you ever agree with me?”
+
+“Never, my dear Oliver,” said Lady Blount, with the facial smile of
+the secretly hostile fencer. “And I thank Heaven for it. I may not be a
+brilliant woman, but I am endowed with common sense.”
+
+Sir Oliver looked at her for a moment, with lips parted, as if to
+speak; but finding nothing epigrammatic enough to say--and an epigram
+alone would have saved the situation--he planted a carefully cut cigar
+between the parted lips aforesaid, and deliberately struck a match.
+
+“Your idea, John,” said Lady Blount, aware of victory, “is preposterous.
+What would Stella do without you?”
+
+“Yes,” said Sir Oliver, after lighting his cigar; “Stella has to be
+considered before everything.”
+
+Risca frowned on the unblushing turncoat. Stella! Stella! Everything
+was Stella. Here were three ordinary, sane, grown-up people seriously
+putting forward the proposition that he had no right to go and mend his
+own broken life in his own fashion because he happened to be the favored
+playmate of a little invalid girl!
+
+On the one side was the driving force of Furies of a myriad hell-power,
+and on the other the disappointment of Stella Blount. It was ludicrous.
+Even Walter Herold, who had a sense of humour, did not see the grotesque
+incongruity. Risca frowned upon each in turn--upon three serene faces
+smilingly aware of the absurd. Was it worth while trying to convince
+them?
+
+“Our dear friends are quite right, John,” said Herold. “What would
+become of Stella if you went away?”
+
+“None of you seems to consider what would happen to me if I stayed,”
+ said John, in the quiet tone of a man who is talking to charming but
+unreasonable children. “It will go to my heart to leave Stella, more
+than any of you can realize; but to Australia I go, and there's an end
+of it.”
+
+Lady Blount sighed. What with imperial governments that wrecked the
+career of men for shooting a few murderous and fire-raising blacks, and
+with lowborn vixens of women who ruined men's careers in other ways,
+life was a desperate puzzle. She was fond of her cousin John Risca. She,
+too, before she married Sir Oliver, had borne the name, and the disgrace
+that had fallen upon it affected her deeply. It was horrible to think
+of John's wife, locked up that night in the stone cell of a gaol. She
+leaned back in her chair in silence while the men talked--Sir Oliver,
+by way of giving Risca hints on the conduct of life in Melbourne, was
+narrating his experiences of forty years ago in the West Indies--and
+stared into the fire. Her face, beneath the front of red hair that
+accused so pitifully the reddish gray that was her own, looked very old
+and faded. What was a prison like? She shuddered. As governor's wife,
+she had once or twice had occasion to visit a colonial prison. But the
+captives were black, and they grinned cheerily; their raiment, save for
+the unæsthetic decoration of the black arrow, was not so very different
+from that which they wore in a state of freedom; neither were food,
+bedding, and surroundings so very different; and the place was flooded
+with air and blazing sunshine. She could never realize that it was
+a real prison. It might have been a prison of musical comedy. But an
+English prison was the real, unimaginable abode of grim, gray horror.
+She had heard of the prison taint. She conceived it as a smell--that of
+mingled quicklime and the corruption it was to destroy--which lingered
+physically forever after about the persons of those who had been
+confined within prison-walls. A gaol was a place of eternal twilight,
+eternal chill, eternal degradation for the white man or woman; and a
+white woman, the wife of one of her own race, was there. It was almost
+as if the taint hung about her own lavender-scented self. She shivered,
+and drew her chair a few inches nearer the fire.
+
+Was it so preposterous, after all, on John Risca's part to fly from the
+shame into a wider, purer air? Her cry had been unthinking, instinctive,
+almost a cry for help. She was growing old and soured and worn by
+perpetual conjugal wranglings. John, her kinsman, counted for a great
+deal in a life none too rich. John and Stella were nearest to her in the
+world--first Stella, naturally, then John. To the woman of over fifty
+the man of under thirty is still a boy. For many years she had nursed
+the two together in her heart. And now he was going from her. What
+would she, what would Stella, do without him? Her husband's direct
+interpellation aroused her from her reverie.
+
+“Julia, what was the name of the chap we met in St. Kitts who had been
+sheep-farming in Queensland?”
+
+They had sailed away from St. Kitts in 1878. Lady Blount reminded
+him tartly of the fact while professing her oblivion of the man from
+Queensland. They sparred for a few moments. Then she rose wearily and
+said she was going to bed. Sir Oliver looked at his watch.
+
+“Nearly twelve. Time for us all to go.”
+
+“As soon as I' ve written my morning letter to Stellamaris,” said
+Herold.
+
+“I must write, too,” said Risca.
+
+For it was a rule of the house that every visitor should write
+Stellamaris a note overnight, to be delivered into her hands the first
+thing in the morning. The origin of the rule was wrapped in the mists of
+history.
+
+So John Risca sat down at Sir Oliver's study-table in order to indite
+his letter to Stellamaris. But for a long time he stared at the white
+paper. He, the practised journalist, who could dash off his thousand
+words on any subject as fast as pen could travel, no matter what torture
+burned his brain, could not find a foolish message for a sick child. At
+last he wrote like a school-boy:
+
+_Darling: The flowers were beautiful, and so is the new picture, and I
+want to see you early in the morning. I hope you are well. John Risca._
+
+And he had to tear the letter out of its envelope and put it into a
+fresh one because he had omitted to add the magic initials “G. H. B.” to
+his name. Compared with his usual imaginative feats of correspondence,
+this was a poverty-stricken epistle. She would wonder at the change.
+Perhaps his demand for an immediate interview would startle her, and
+shocks were dangerous. He tore up the letter and envelope, and went to
+his own room. It was past two o'clock when he crept downstairs again to
+lay his letter on the hall table.
+
+At the sight of him the next morning the color deepened in the delicate
+cheeks of Stellamaris, and her dark eyes grew bright. She held out a
+welcoming hand.
+
+“Ah, Belovedest, I 've been longing to see you ever since dawn. I woke
+up then and could n't go to sleep again because I was so excited.”
+
+He took the chair by her bedside, and her fingers tapped affectionately
+on the back of the great hand that lay on the coverlid.
+
+“I suppose I was excited, too,” said he, “for I was awake at dawn.”
+
+“Did you look out of window?”
+
+“Yes,” said John.
+
+“Then we both saw the light creeping over the sea like a monstrous
+ghost. And it all lay so pallid and still,--did n't it?--as if it were
+a sea in a land of death. And then a cheeky little thrush began to
+twitter.”
+
+“I heard the thrush,” replied John. “He said, 'Any old thing! Any old
+thing!' ”
+
+He mimicked the bird's note. Stella laughed. “That's just what he
+said--as though a sea in a land of death or the English Channel was all
+the same to him. I suppose it was.”
+
+“It must be good to be a thrush,” said Risca. “There 's a _je m'en
+fich'isme_ about his philosophy which must be very consoling.”
+
+“I know what that is in English,” cried Stellamaris. “It is
+'don't-care-a-damativeness.' “ Her lips rounded roguishly over the
+naughty syllable.
+
+“Where did you learn that?”
+
+“Walter told me.”
+
+“Walter must be clapped into irons, and fed on bread and water, and
+seriously spoken to.”
+
+Unconsciously he had drifted into his usual manner of speech with her.
+She laughed with a child's easy gaiety.
+
+“It's delightful to be wicked, is n't it?”
+
+“Why?” he asked.
+
+“It must be such an adventure. It must make you hold your breath and
+your heart beat.”
+
+John wondered grimly whether a certain doer of wickedness had felt this
+ecstatic rapture. She, too, must have seen the gray dawn, but creeping
+through prison-bars into her cell. God of Inscrutability! Was it
+possible that these two co-watchers of the dawn, both so dominant in his
+life, were of the same race of beings? If the one was a woman born of
+woman, what in the name of mystery was Stellamaris?
+
+“Don't look so grave, Great High Belovedest,” she said, squeezing a
+finger. “I only spoke in fun. It must really be horrid to be wicked.
+When I was little I had a book about Cruel Frederick--I think it
+belonged to grandmama. It had awful pictures, and there were rhymes--
+
+               He tore the wings off little flies,
+
+               And then poked out their little eyes.
+
+And there was a picture of his doing so. I used to think him a
+detestable boy. It made me unhappy and kept me awake when I was quite
+small, but now I know it's all nonsense. People don't do such things, do
+they?”
+
+Risca twisted his glum face into a smile, remembering the Unwritten Law.
+“Of course not, Stellamaris,” said he. “Cruel Frederick is just as much
+of a mythical personage as the Giant Fee-fo-fum, who said:
+
+               I smell the blood of an Englishman,
+
+               And be he alive or be he dead,
+
+               I 'll grind his bones to make my bread.”
+
+“Why do people frighten children with stories of ogres and wicked
+fairies and all the rest of it, when the real world they live in is so
+beautiful?”
+
+“Pure cussedness,” answered John, unable otherwise to give a
+satisfactory explanation.
+
+“Cussedness is silly,” said Stellamaris.
+
+There was a little pause. Then she put both her hands on his and pressed
+it.
+
+“Oh, it's lovely to have you here again, Great High Belovedest; and I
+have n't thanked you for your letter. It's the most heavenly one you've
+ever written to me.”
+
+It might well have been. He had taken two hours to write it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE most heavenly of all letters,” Stellamaris repeated, as Risca made
+no reply. “I loved it because it showed me you were very happy.”
+
+“Have you ever doubted it?” he asked.
+
+The Great Dane, the Lord High Constable, who was stretched out on
+his side, with relaxed, enormous limbs, on the hearth-rug, lifted his
+massive head for a second and glanced at John. Then with a half-grunt,
+half-sigh, he dropped his head, and twitched his limbs and went to sleep
+again.
+
+“Now and then when you 're not looking at me,” said Stellamaris, “there
+is a strange look in your eyes: it is when you 're not speaking and you
+stare out of window without seeming to see anything.”
+
+For a moment Risca was assailed by a temptation to break the Unwritten
+Law and tell her something of his misery. She, with her superfine
+intelligence, would understand, and her sympathy would be sweet. But he
+put the temptation roughly from him.
+
+“I am the happiest fellow in the world, Stellamaris,” said he.
+
+“It would be difficult not to be happy in such a world.”
+
+She pointed out to sea. The blustering wind of the day before had
+fallen, and a light breeze shook the tips of the waves to the
+morning sunshine, which turned them into diamonds. The sails of the
+fishing-fleet of the tiny port flashed merrily against the kindly blue.
+On the horizon a great steamer was visible steaming up Channel. The
+salt air came in through the open windows. The laughter of fishermen's
+children rose faintly from the beach far below.
+
+“And there's spring, too, dancing over everything,” she said. “Don't you
+feel it?”
+
+He acknowledged the vernal influence, and, careful lest his eyes should
+betray him, talked of the many things she loved. He had not seen her for
+a fortnight, so there were the apocryphal doings of Lilias and Niphetos
+to record,--Cleopatras of cats, whom age could not wither, and whose
+infinite variety custom could not stale,--and there was the approaching
+marriage of Arachne with a duke to report. And he told her of his
+gay, bright life in London and of the beautiful Belinda Molyneux, an
+imaginary Egeria, who sometimes lunched with the queen. The effort of
+artistic creation absorbed him, as it always had done, under the spell
+of Stellamaris's shining eyes. The foolish world of his imagination
+became real, and for the moment hung like a veil before his actual world
+of tragedy. It was in the nature of a shock to him when Stella's maid
+entered and asked him if he could speak to Mr. Herold outside the door..
+
+“Tell him to come in,” said Stellamaris.
+
+“He says he will, Miss, after he has seen Mr. Risca.”
+
+Risca found Herold on the landing.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well?” said John.
+
+“What has happened? How did she take it?”
+
+John looked away, and thrust his hands into his pockets.
+
+“I 've not told her yet.”
+
+Walter drew a breath. “But you 're going to?”
+
+“Of course,” said John. “Do you think it 's so damned easy?”
+
+“You had better be quick, if you 're coming back to town with me. I'm
+due at rehearsal at twelve.”
+
+“I'll go and tell her now,” said John.
+
+“Let me just say how d' ye do to her first. I won't stay a minute.”
+
+The two men entered the sea-chamber together. Stella welcomed her Great
+High Favourite and chatted gaily for a while. Then she commanded him to
+sit down.
+
+“I 'm afraid I can't stay, Stellamaris. I have to go back to London.”
+
+Stella glanced at the clock. “Your train does n't go for an hour.” She
+was jealously learned in trains.
+
+“I think John wants to talk to you.”
+
+“He has been talking to me quite beautifully for a long time,” said
+Stella, “and I want to talk to you.”
+
+“He has something very particular to say, Stellamaris.”
+
+“What is it, Belovedest?” Her eyes sparkled, and she clasped her hands
+over her childish bosom. “You are not going to marry Belinda Molyneux?”
+
+“No, dear,” said John; “I'm not going to marry anybody.”
+
+“I'm so glad.” She turned to Herold. “Are you going to get married?”
+
+“No,” smiled Herold.
+
+Stella laughed. “What a relief! People do get married, you know, and I
+suppose both of you will have to one of these days, when you get older;
+but I don't like to think of it.”
+
+“I don't believe I shall ever marry, Stellamaris,” said Herold.
+
+“Why?”
+
+Herold looked out to sea for a wistful instant. “Because one can't marry
+a dream, my dear.”
+
+“I've married hundreds,” said Stella, softly.
+
+If they had been alone together, they would have talked dreams and
+visions and starshine and moonshine, and their conversation would
+have been about as sensible and as satisfactory to each other and as
+intelligible to a third party as that of a couple of elves sitting on
+adjacent toadstools; but elves don't talk in the presence of a third
+party, even though he be John Risca and Great High Belovedest. And
+Stellamaris, recognizing this instinctively, turned her eyes quickly to
+Risca.
+
+“And you, dear--will you ever marry?”
+
+“Never, by Heaven!” cried John, with startling fervency.
+
+Stella reached out both her hands to the two men who incorporated the
+all in all of her little life, and each man took a hand and kissed it.
+
+“I don't want to be horrid and selfish,” she said; “but if I lost either
+of you, I think it would break my heart.”
+
+The men exchanged glances. John repeated his query: “Do you think it's
+so damned easy?”
+
+“Tell us why you say that, Stellamaris,” said Herold.
+
+John rose suddenly and stood by the west window, which was closed.
+Stella's high bed had been drawn next to the window open to the south.
+The room was warm, for a great fire blazed in the tall chimneypiece. He
+rose to hide his eyes from Stella, confounding Herold for a marplot. Was
+this the way to make his task easier? He heard Stella say in her sweet
+contralto:
+
+“Do you imagine it 's just for silly foolishness I call you Great High
+Belovedest and Great High Favourite? You see, Walter dear, I gave John
+his title before I knew you, so I had to make some difference in yours.
+But they mean everything to me. I live in the sky such a lot, and it's
+a beautiful life; but I know there 's another life in the great world--a
+beautiful life, too.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, it 's so difficult
+to explain! It's so hard to talk about feelings, because the moment you
+begin to talk about them, the feelings become so vague. It's like trying
+to tell any one the shape of a sunset.” She paused for a moment or two;
+Herold smiled at her and nodded encouragingly. Presently she went on:
+“I 'll try to put it this way. Often a gull, you see, comes hovering
+outside here and looks in at me, oh, for a long time, with his round,
+yellow eyes; and my heart beats, and I love him, for he tells me all
+about the sea and sky and clouds, where I'll never go,--not really,--and
+I live the sky life through him, and more than ever since you sent me
+that poem--I know it by heart--about the sea-gull. Who wrote it?”
+
+“Swinburne,” said Herold.
+
+“Did he write anything else?”
+
+“One or two other little things,” replied Herold, judiciously. “I 'll
+copy them out and bring them to you. But go on.”
+
+“Well,” she said, “yesterday afternoon a little bird--I don't know what
+kind of bird it was--came and sat on the window-sill, and turned his
+head this way and looked at me, and turned his head that way and looked
+at me, and I did n't move hand or foot, and I said, 'Cheep, cheep!' And
+he hopped on the bed and stayed there such a long time. And I talked
+to him, and he hopped about and looked at me and seemed to tell me all
+sorts of wonderful things. But he did n't somehow, although he came from
+the sky, and was a perfect dear. He must have known all about it, but he
+did n't know how to tell me. Now, you and John come from the beautiful
+world and tell me wonderful things about it; and I shall never go there
+really, but I can live in it through you.”
+
+Constable, the Great Dane, known by this abbreviated title in familiar
+life, rose, stretched himself, and went and snuggled his head beneath
+John's arm. John turned, his arm round the hound's neck.
+
+“But you can live in it through anybody, dear,” said he--“your Uncle
+Oliver, your Aunt Julia, or anybody who comes to see you.”
+
+Stellamaris looked at Herold for a characteristically sympathetic
+moment, and then at John. She sighed.
+
+“I told you it was hard to explain. But don't you see, Belovedest? You
+and Walter are like my gull. Everybody else is like the little bird. You
+know how to tell me and make me live. The others are darlings, but they
+don't seem to know how to do it.”
+
+John scratched his head.
+
+“I see what you mean,” said he.
+
+“I should hope so,” said Herold.
+
+He looked at his watch and jumped to his feet. “Star of the Sea,” said
+he, “to talk with you is the most fascinating occupation on earth; but
+managers are desperate fellows, and I 'll get into boiling water if I
+miss my rehearsal.” He turned to John. “I don't see how you are going to
+catch this train.”
+
+“Neither do I,” said John. “I shall go by the one after.”
+
+Herold took his leave, promising to run down for the week-end. Constable
+accompanied him to the door in a dignified way, and this ceremony of
+politeness accomplished, stalked back to the hearth-rug, where he threw
+himself down, his head on his paws, and his faithful eyes fixed on his
+mistress. John sat down again by the bedside. There was a short silence
+during which Stellamaris smiled at him and he smiled at Stellamaris.
+
+“Does n't the Great High Belovedest want to smoke?”
+
+“Badly,” said John.
+
+She held out her hand for the pipe and tobacco-pouch. He gave them to
+her, and she filled the pipe. For a while he smoked peacefully. From
+where he sat all he could see of the outside world was the waste of
+sun-kissed waters stretching away and melting into a band of pearly
+cloud on the horizon. He might have been out at sea. Possibly this time
+next week he would be, and the salt air would be playing, as now, about
+his head. But on board that ship would be no spacious sea-chamber like
+this, so gracious in its appointments--its old oak and silver, its
+bright chintzes, its quiet old engravings, its dainty dressing-table
+covered with fairy-like toilet-articles, its blue delft bowls full of
+flowers, its atmosphere so dearly English, yet English of the days when
+Sir Bedivere threw Excalibur into the mere. In no other spot on the
+globe could be found such a sea-chamber, with its high bed, on which lay
+the sweet, elfin face, half child's, half woman's, framed in the soft,
+brown hair.
+
+Risca smoked on, and Stellamaris, seeing him disinclined to talk, gazed
+happily out to her beloved Channel, and dreamed her dreams. They had
+often sat like this for an hour together, both feeling that they were
+talking to each other all the time; and often Stella would break the
+silence by telling him to listen. At such times, so people said,
+an angel was passing. And he would listen, but could not hear. He
+remembered Walter Herold once agreeing with her, and saying:
+
+“There's a special little angel told off to come here every day and
+beat his wings about the room so as to clear the air of all troubling
+things.”
+
+In no other spot on the globe could be found such a sea-chamber,
+wing-swept, spirit-haunted, where pain ceased magically and the burden
+of intolerable suffering grew light. No other haven along all the coasts
+of the earth was a haven of rest such as this.
+
+And the Furies were driving him from it! But here the Furies ceased from
+driving. Here he had delicious ease. Here a pair of ridiculously frail
+hands held him a lotus-fed prisoner. He smoked on. At last he resisted
+the spell. The whole thing was nonsensical. His pipe, only lightly
+packed by the frail hands, went out. He stuffed it in his pocket, and
+cleared his throat. He would say then and there what he had come to say.
+
+Stellamaris turned her head and laughed; and when Stellamaris laughed,
+the sea outside and the flowers in the delft bowl laughed, too.
+
+“The angel has been having a good time.”
+
+John cleared his throat again.
+
+“My dear,” said he, and then he stopped short. All the carefully
+prepared exordiums went out of his head. How now to break the news to
+her he did not know.
+
+“Are you very tired?” she asked.
+
+“Not a bit,” said John.
+
+“Then be a dear, and read me something. Read me 'Elaine.' ”
+
+The elevated and sophisticated and very highly educated may learn
+with surprise that “The Idylls of the King” still appeal to ingenuous
+fifteen. Thank God there are yet remaining also some sentimentalists of
+fifty who can read them with pleasure and profit!
+
+“But that is so sad, Stellamaris,” said John. “You don't want to be sad
+this beautiful spring morning.”
+
+Which was a very inconsistent remark to make, seeing that he was about
+to dash the young sun from her sky altogether.
+
+“I like being sad sometimes, especially when the world is bright.
+And Lancelot was such a dear,”--here spoke ingenuous fifteen,--“and
+Elaine--oh, do read it!”
+
+So John, secretly glad of a respite, drew from the bookcase which held
+her scrupulously selected and daintily bound library the volume of
+Tennyson and read aloud the idyll of Lancelot and Elaine. And the
+sea-wind blew about his head and fluttered the brown hair on the pillow,
+and the log-fire blazed in the chimney, and the great dog slept, and a
+noontide hush was over all things. And Risca read the simple poem with
+the heart of the girl of fifteen, and forgot everything else in the
+world.
+
+When he had finished, the foolish eyes of both were moist. “The dead
+oar'd by the dumb,” with the lily in her hand,--dead for the love of
+Lancelot,--affected them both profoundly.
+
+“I think I should die, too, like that, Great High; Belovedest,” said
+Stellamaris, “if any one I loved left me.”
+
+“But what Lancelot is going to leave you, dear?” said John.
+
+She shook the thistledown of sadness from her brow and laughed.
+
+“You and Walter are the only Lancelots I've got.”
+
+“The devil 's in the child to-day,” said Risca to himself.
+
+There was a short pause. Then Stella said:
+
+“Belovedest dear, what was the particular thing that Walter said you had
+to tell me?”
+
+“It 's of no consequence,” said John. “It will do to-morrow or the day
+after.”
+
+Stella started joyously,--as much as the rigid discipline of years would
+allow her,--and great gladness lit her face.
+
+“Darling! Are you going to stay here to-day and to-morrow and the next
+day?”
+
+“My dear,” said John, “I've got to get up to town this morning.”
+
+“You won't do that,” said Stella. “Look at the clock.”
+
+It was a quarter to one. He had spent the whole morning with her, and
+the hours had flown by like minutes.
+
+“Why did n't you tell me that I ought to be catching my train?”
+
+She regarded him in demure mischief.
+
+“I had no object in making you catch your train.”
+
+And then Her Serene High-and-Mightiness, the nurse (who had been called
+in for Stella when first she was put to bed in the sea-chamber, and,
+falling under her spell, had stayed on until she had grown as much
+involved in the web of her life as Sir Oliver and Lady Julia and
+Constable and Herold and Risca), came into the room and decreed the end
+of the morning interview.
+
+Risca went down-stairs, his purpose unaccomplished. He walked about the
+garden and argued with himself. Now, when a man argues with himself, he,
+being only the extraneous eidolon of himself, invariably gets the worst
+of the argument, and this makes him angry. John was angry; to such a
+point that, coming across Sir Oliver, who had just returned from an
+inexplicably disastrous game of golf and began to pour a story of
+bunkered gloom into his ear, he gnashed his teeth and tore his hair and
+told Sir Oliver to go to the devil with his lugubrious and rotten game,
+and dashed away to the solitude of the beach until the luncheon-bell
+summoned him back.
+
+“I'm going by the 3:50,” said he at the luncheon-table.
+
+At three o'clock Stella was free to see him again. He went up to her
+room distinctly determined to shut his heart against folly. The sun
+had crept round toward the west and flooded the head and shoulders of
+Stellamaris and the dainty bedspread with pale gold, just as it flooded
+the now still and smiling sea. Again paralysis fell upon John. The words
+he was to speak were to him, as well as to her, the words of doom, and
+he could not utter them. They talked of vain, childish things. Then
+Stellamaris's clock chimed the three-quarters. There are some chimes
+that are brutal, others ironic; but Stellamaris's chimes (the clock was
+a gift from John himself) were soft, and pealed a soothing mystery, like
+a bell swung in a deep sea-cave.
+
+It was a quarter to four, and he had missed his train once more. Well,
+the train could go to--to London, as good a synonym for Tophet as any
+other. So he stayed, recklessly surrendering himself to the pale, sunlit
+peace of the sea-chamber, till he was dislodged by Lady Blount.
+
+An attempt to catch a six o'clock train was equally unsuccessful. He did
+not return to town that night. Why should a sorely bruised man reject
+the balm that healed? To-morrow he would be stronger and more serene,
+abler to control the driving force of the Furies, and therefore fitted
+to announce in gentler wise the decrees of destiny. So Risca went to bed
+and slept easier, and the room which Stellamaris had made for him became
+the enchanted bower of a Fair Lady of All Mercy.
+
+In their simple human way Sir Oliver and Lady Blount besought him to
+stay for his health's sake in the fresh sea-air; and when he yielded,
+they prided themselves, after the manner of humans, on their own powers
+of persuasion. One morning Sir Oliver asked him point-blank:
+
+“When are you going to Australia?”
+
+“I don't know,” said John. “There 's no immediate hurry.”
+
+“I hope, dear,” said Julia, “you 'll give up the idea altogether.”
+
+“Have n't I told you that I've made up my mind?” said John, in his gruff
+tone of finality.
+
+“When are you going to break the news to Stella?” asked Sir Oliver.
+
+“Now,” said John, who had begun to loathe the mention of the doomful
+subject; and he stalked away--the three were strolling in the garden
+after breakfast--and went to Stella's room, and of course made no
+mention of it whatsoever.
+
+Then Herold came down for the week-end, and when he heard of Risca's
+pusillanimity he threw back his head and laughed for joy; for he knew
+that John would never go to Australia without telling Stellamaris, and
+also that if he could not tell Stellamaris in the first madness of his
+agony, he would never be able to tell her at all.
+
+And so, in fact, the fantastically absurd prevailed. Before the
+Unwritten Law, mainly promulgated and enforced by Risca himself, which
+guarded the sea-chamber against pain and sorrow, the driving Furies
+slunk with limp wing and nerveless claw. And one day Risca was surprised
+at finding himself undriven. Indeed, he was somewhat disconcerted. He
+fell into a bad temper. The Furies are highly aristocratic divinities
+who don't worry about Tom, Dick, or Harry, but choose an Orestes at
+least for their tormenting; so that, when they give up their pursuit
+of a Risca, he may excusably regard it as a personal slight. It was the
+morose and gloomy nature of the man.
+
+“I know I 'm a fool,” he said to Herold, when every one had gone to bed,
+“but I can't help it. Any normal person would regard me as insane if
+I told him I was stopped from saving the wreck of my career by
+consideration for the temporary comfort of a bedridden chit of a girl
+half my age, who is absolutely nothing to me in the world (her uncle
+married my first cousin. If that is anything of a family tie, I'm weak
+on family feeling); but that's God's truth. I'm tied by her to this
+accursed country. She just holds me down in the hell of London, and I
+can't wriggle away. It's senseless, I know it is. Sometimes when I 'm
+away from her, walking on the beach, I feel I 'd like to throw the whole
+of this confounded house into the sea; and then I look up and see the
+light in her room, and--I--I just begin to wonder whether she 's asleep
+and what she's dreaming of. There 's some infernal witchcraft about the
+child.”
+
+“There is,” said Herold.
+
+“Rot!” said Risca, his pugnacious instincts awakened by the check on
+his dithyrambics. “The whole truth of the matter is that I'm simply a
+sentimental fool.”
+
+“All honour to you, John,” said Herold.
+
+“If you talk like that, I 'll wring your neck,” said Risca, pausing for
+à second in his walk up and down Sir Oliver's library, and glaring down
+at his friend, who reclined on the sofa and regarded him with a smile
+exasperatingly wise. “You know I'm a fool, and why can't you say it? A
+man at my time of life! Do you realize that I am twice her age?”
+
+And he went on, inveighing now against the pitifully human conventions
+that restrained him from hurting the chit of a child, and now against
+the sorcery with which she contrived to invest the chamber wherein she
+dwelt.
+
+“And at my age, too, when I 've run the whole gamut of human misery,
+the whole discordant thing--_toute la lyre_--when I've finished with the
+blighting illusion that men call life; when, confound it! I 'm thirty.”
+
+Sir Oliver, unable to sleep, came into the room in dressing-gown and
+slippers. He looked very fragile and broken.
+
+“Here 's John,” laughed Herold, “saying that he 's thirty, and an old,
+withered man, and he 's not thirty. He 's nine-and-twenty.”
+
+Sir Oliver looked at John, as only age, with awful wistfulness, can
+look at youth, and came and laid his hand upon the young man's broad
+shoulders.
+
+“My lad,” said he, “you've had a bad time; but you 're young. You've
+the whole of your life before you. Time, my dear boy, is a marvellous
+solvent of human perplexity. Once in a new world, once in that
+astonishing continent of Australia--”
+
+John threw a half-finished cigar angrily into the fire.
+
+“I'm not going to the damned continent,” said he.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THUS it came to pass that, for the sake of Stellamaris, Risca remained
+in London and fought with beasts in Fenton Square. Sometimes he got the
+better of the beasts, and sometimes the beasts got the better of him. On
+the former occasions he celebrated the victory by doing an extra turn of
+work; on the latter he sat idly growling at defeat.
+
+At this period of his career he was assistant-editor of a weekly review,
+in charge of the book-column of an evening newspaper, the contributor of
+a signed weekly article on general subjects to the “Daily Herald,” and
+of a weekly London letter to an American syndicate. From this it will
+be seen that for a man not yet thirty he had achieved a position in
+journalism envied by many who had grown gray-headed in the game. But as
+Risca had written three or four novels which had all been rejected by
+all the publishers in London, he chose to regard himself as a man foiled
+in his ambitions. He saw himself doomed to failure. For him was the
+eternal toil of ploughing the sand; the Garden of Delight cultivated by
+the happy Blest--such as Fawcus of the club, who boasted of making over
+a thousand pounds for every novel he wrote, and of being able to take
+as much holiday as he chose--had its gilded gates closed against him
+forever. That the man of nine-and-twenty should grow embittered because
+he was not accepted by the world as a brilliant novelist is a matter for
+the derision of the middle-aged and for the pitying smile of the hoary;
+but it is a matter of woeful concern to twenty-nine, especially if
+twenty-nine be a young man of a saturnine temperament whom fate has
+driven to take himself seriously. In Risca's life there were misfortunes
+the reality of the pain of which was independent of age; others which
+were relative, as inseparable from youth as the tears for a bumped head
+are inseparable from childhood. Yet to the man they were all equally
+absolute. It is only in after-years, when one looks back down the vista,
+that one can differentiate.
+
+For all that he ought to have given himself another decade before crying
+himself a failure, yet a brilliant young journalist who has not found
+a publisher for one of four novels has reasonable excuse for serious
+cogitation. There are scores of brilliant young journalists who have
+published masterpieces of fiction before they are thirty, and at forty
+have gone on their knees and thanked kind, gentle Time for his effacing
+fingers; yet the novels have had some quality of the novel warranting
+their publication. At any rate, the brilliant young journalists have
+believed in them. They have looked upon their Creation and found that
+it was good. But Risca, looking on his Creation, found that it was
+wood. His people were as wooden as Mr. and Mrs. Ham in a Noah's Ark; his
+scenery was as wooden as the trees and mountain in a toy Swiss
+village; his dialogue as wooden as the conversation-blocks used by
+the philosophers of Laputa. He had said, in an outburst of wrathful
+resentment, that he found his one artistic outlet in aiding to create
+Stella's Land of Illusion; and he was right. He was despairingly
+aware of the lack of the quick fancy; the power of visualization; the
+sublimated faculty of the child's make-believe, creating out of trumpery
+bits and pieces a glowing world of romance; the keen, instinctive
+knowledge of the general motives of human action; the uncanny insight
+into the hearts and feelings of beings of a sex, class, or type
+different from his own; the gift of evolving from a tiny broken bone of
+fact a perfect creature indisputably real, colouring it with the hues of
+actuality and breathing into it the breath of life--the lack, indeed, of
+all the essential qualities, artistic and therefore usually instinctive,
+that go to the making of a novelist. Yet Risca was doggedly determined
+to be a novelist and a poet. It was pathetic. How can a man who cannot
+distinguish between “God Save the King” and “Yankee Doodle” hope to
+write a world-shaking sonata? Risca knew that he was crying for the
+moon, and it is only because he cried so hard for it that he deserved
+any serious commiseration.
+
+When he did come to death-grapple with the absolute, the beasts above
+mentioned, he stood out a tragic young figure, fiercely alone in the
+arena, save for Herold.
+
+His name, uncommon and arresting, had one connotation in London--the
+Case, the appalling and abominable Case. Even Ferguson of the “Daily
+Herald,” who had evinced such sympathy for him at first, shrank from the
+name at the head of the weekly column and suggested the temporary use of
+a pseudonym. Had it not been for Herold's intervention, Risca would have
+told Ferguson to go to the devil and would have refused to work for his
+Philistine paper. He swallowed the insult, which did him no good. He
+refused to carry the accursed name into the haunts of men.
+
+“Come to the club, at any rate,” Herold urged. “Every man there is loyal
+to you.”
+
+“And every man as he looks at me will have on his retina not a picture
+of me, but a picture of what went on in that house in Smith Street.”
+
+“Oh, go and buy a serviceable epidermis,” cried Herold. Argument was
+useless.
+
+So Risca worked like a mole at anonymous journalism in his shabby
+lodgings where Lilias and Niphetos were suggested only by a mangy tabby
+who occasionally prowled into his sitting-room, and Arachne presided,
+indeed, but in the cobwebs about the ceiling in the guise which she had
+been compelled to take by the angry god when the world was young. Only
+when his attendance at the office of the weekly review was necessary,
+such as on the day when it went to press, did he mingle with the busy
+world.
+
+“If you go on in this way,” said Herold, “you 'll soon have as much idea
+of what's going on in London as a lonely dog tied up in a kennel.”
+
+“What does it matter,” growled John, “to any of the besotted fools who
+read newspapers, provided I bark loud enough?”
+
+There was one thing going on in London, however, in which he took a grim
+interest, and that was the convalescence of the little maid-of-all-work
+who had been taken back, a maimed lamb, to the cheerless fold where
+she had been reared. Thither he went to make inquiries as soon as he
+returned from Southcliff-on-Sea. He found the Orphanage of St. Martha
+at Willesden, a poverty-stricken building, a hopeless parallelogram of
+dingy, yellow brick, standing within a walled inclosure. There were no
+trees or flowers, for the yard was paved. His ring at the front door was
+answered by an orphan in a light print dress, her meagre hair clutched
+up tight in a knob at the back. He asked for the superintendent and
+handed his card. The orphan conducted him to a depressing parlour, and
+vanished. Presently appeared a thin, weary woman, dressed in the black
+robes of a Sister of Mercy, who, holding the card tight in nervous
+fingers, regarded him with an air of mingled fright and defiance.
+
+“Your business?” she asked.
+
+Despite the torture of it all, John could not help smiling. If he had
+been armed with a knout, his reception could not have been more hostile.
+
+“I must beg of you to believe,” said he, “that I come as a friend and
+not as an enemy.”
+
+She pointed to a straight-backed chair.
+
+“Will you be seated?”
+
+“It is only human,” said he, “to call and see you, and ask after that
+unhappy child.”
+
+“She is getting on,” said the Sister superintendent, frostily, “as well
+as can be expected.”
+
+“Which means? Please tell me. I am here to know.”
+
+“She will take some time to recover from her injuries, and of course her
+nerve is broken.”
+
+“I'm afraid,” said John, “your institution can't afford many invalid's
+luxuries.”
+
+“None at all,” replied the weary-faced woman. “She gets proper care and
+attention, however.”
+
+John drew out a five-pound note. “Can you buy her any little things
+with this? When you have spent it, if you will tell me, I 'll send you
+another.”
+
+“It's against our rules,” said the Sister, eying the money. “If you like
+to give it as a subscription to the general funds, I will accept it.”
+
+“Are you badly off?” asked John.
+
+“We are very slenderly endowed.”
+
+John pushed the note across the small table near which they were
+sitting.
+
+“In return,” said he, “I hope you will allow me to send in some jellies
+and fruits, or appliances, or whatever may be of pleasure or comfort to
+the child.”
+
+“Whatever you send her that is practical shall be applied to her use,”
+ said the Sister superintendent.
+
+She was cold, unemotional; no smile, no ghost even of departed smiles,
+seemed ever to visit the tired, gray eyes or the corners of the rigid
+mouth; coif and face and thin hands were spotless. She did not even
+thank him for his forced gift to the orphanage.
+
+“I should like to know,” said John, regarding her beneath frowning
+brows, “whether any one here loves the unhappy little wretch.”
+
+“These children,” replied the Sister superintendent, “have naturally a
+hard battle to fight when they go from here into the world. They come
+mostly from vicious classes. Their training is uniformly kind, but it
+has to be austere.”
+
+John rose. “I will bring what things I can think of to-morrow.”
+
+The Sister superintendent rose, too, and bowed icily. “You are at
+liberty to do so, Mr. Risca; but I assure you there is no reason for
+your putting yourself to the trouble. In the circumstances I can readily
+understand your solicitude; but again I say you have no cause for it.”
+
+“Madam,” said he, “I see that I have more cause than ever.”
+
+The next day he drove to the orphanage in a cab, with a hamper of
+delicacies and a down pillow. The latter the Sister superintendent
+rejected. Generally, it was against the regulations and, particularly,
+it was injudicious. Down pillows would not be a factor in Unity Blake's
+after-life.
+
+“Besides,” she remarked, “she is not the only orphan in the infirmary.”
+
+“Why not call it a sick-room or sick-ward instead of that prison term?”
+ asked John.
+
+“It's the name given to it by the governing body,” she replied.
+
+After this John became a regular visitor. Every time he kicked his heels
+for ten minutes in the shabby and depressing parlour and every time he
+was received with glacial politeness by the Sister superintendent.
+By blunt questioning he learned the history of the institution. The
+Sisterhood of Saint Martha was an Angelican body with headquarters in
+Kent, which existed for meditation and not for philanthropic purposes.
+The creation and conduct of the orphanage had been thrust upon the
+sisterhood by the will of a member long since deceased. It was unpopular
+with the sisterhood, who resented it as an excrescence, but bore it as
+an affliction decreed by divine Providence. Among the cloistered inmates
+of the Kentish manor-house there was no fanatical impulse towards
+Willesden.
+
+They were good, religious women; but they craved retirement, and not
+action, for the satisfying of their spiritual needs. Otherwise they
+would have joined some other sisterhood in which noble lives are spent
+in deeds of charity and love. But there are angels of wrath, angels of
+mercy, and mere angels. These were mere angels. The possibility of being
+chosen by the Mother Superior to go out into the world again and take
+charge of the education, health, and morals of twenty sturdy and squalid
+little female orphans lived an abiding terror in their gentle breasts. A
+shipwrecked crew casting lots for the next occupant of the kettle could
+suffer no greater pangs of apprehension than did the Sisters of Saint
+Martha on the imminence of an appointment to the orphanage. They had
+taken vows of obedience. The Mother Superior's selection was final.
+The unfortunate nominee had to pack up her slender belongings and go
+to Willesden. Being a faulty human being (and none but a faulty,
+unpractical, unsympathetic human being can want, in these days of
+enlightenment, to shut herself up in a nunnery for the rest of her life,
+with the avowed intention of never doing a hand's turn for any one of
+God's creatures until the day of her death), she invariably regarded
+herself as a holy martyr and ruled the poor little devils of orphans for
+the greater glory of God (magnified entirely, be it understood, by her
+own martyrdom) than for the greater happiness of the poor little devils.
+
+Sister Theophila--in entering into religion the Protestant Sisters
+changed the names by which they were known in the world, according to
+the time-honoured tradition of an alien church--Sister Theophila, with
+the temperament of the recluse, had been thrust into this position
+of responsibility against her will. She performed her duties with
+scrupulous exactitude and pious resignation. Her ideal of life was the
+ascetic, and to this ideal the twenty orphans had to conform. She did
+not love the orphans.
+
+Her staff consisted of one matron, a married woman of a much humbler
+class than her own. Possibly she might have loved the orphans had
+she not seen such a succession of them, and her own work been less
+harassing. Twenty female London orphans from disreputable homes are
+a tough handful. When you insist on their conformity with the ascetic
+ideal, they become tougher. They will not allow themselves to be loved.
+
+“And ungrateful!” exclaimed the matron, one day when she was taking
+Risca round the institution. He had expressed to Sister Theophila his
+desire to visit it, and she, finding him entirely unsympathetic, had
+handed him over to her subordinate. “None of them know what gratitude
+is. As soon as they get out of here, they forget everything that has
+been done for them; and as for coming back to pay their respects, or
+writing a letter even, they never think of it.”
+
+Kitchen, utensils, floors, walls, dormitory, orphans--all were
+spotlessly clean, the orphans sluiced and scrubbed from morning to
+night; but of things that might give a little hint of the joy of life
+there was no sign.
+
+“This is the infirmary,” said the matron, with her hand on the
+door-knob.
+
+“I should like to see it,” said John.
+
+They entered. An almost full-grown orphan, doing duty as nurse, rose
+from her task of plain sewing and bobbed a curtsy. The room was clean,
+comfortless, dark, and cold. Two pictures, prints of the Crucifixion
+and the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, hung on the walls. There were three
+narrow, hard beds, two of which were occupied. Some grapes on a chair
+beside one of them marked the patient in whom he was interested. John
+noticed angrily that some flowers which he had sent the day before had
+been confiscated.
+
+“This is the gentleman who has been so kind to you,” said the matron.
+
+Unity Blake looked wonderingly into the dark, rugged face of the man who
+stood over her and regarded her with mingled pain and pity. They had not
+told her his name. This, then, was the unknown benefactor whose image,
+like that of some elusive Apollo, Giver of Things Beautiful, had haunted
+her poor dreams.
+
+“Can't you say, 'Thank you?' “ said the matron.
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said Unity Blake.
+
+Even in those three words her accent was unmistakably cockney--as
+unmistakably cockney as the coarse-featured, snub-nosed, common little
+face. In happier, freer conditions she would have done her skimpy hair
+up in patent curlers and worn a hat with a purple feather, and joined
+heartily in the raucous merriment of her comrades at the pickle-factory.
+Here, however, she was lying, poor little devil, thought Risca, warped
+from childhood by the ascetic ideal, and wrecked body and spirit by
+unutterable cruelty. In her eyes flickered the patient apprehension of
+the ill-treated dog.
+
+“I hope you will soon get better,” he said, with sickening knowledge of
+that which lay hidden beneath the rough bedclothes.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Unity.
+
+“It 's chiefly her nerves now,” said the matron. “She hollers out of
+nights, so she can't be put into the dormitory.”
+
+“Do you like the things I send you?” asked John.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Is there anything special you'd like to have?”
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+But he caught a certain wistfulness in her glance.
+
+“She does n't want anything at all,” said the matron, and the girl's
+eyelids fluttered. “She's being spoiled too much as it is already.”
+
+John bent his heavy brows on the woman. She spoke not shrewishly, not
+unkindly, merely with lack of love and understanding. He repressed the
+bitter retort that rose to his lips. But at the same time a picture rose
+before him of another sick-room, a dainty sea-chamber open to sun
+and sky, where pillows of down were not forbidden, where flowers and
+exquisite colours and shapes gladdened the eye, where Love, great and
+warm and fulfilling, hovered over the bed. No gulls with round, yellow
+eyes came to the windows of this whitewashed prison with messages
+from the world of air and sea; no Exquisite Auntship, no Great High
+Favourite, no Lord High Constable, executed their high appointed
+functions; no clock with chimes like a bell swung in a sea-cave told
+the hours to this orphan child of misery. He realized in an odd way
+that Stellamaris, too, was an orphan. And he remembered, from the awful
+evidence, that this child was just over fifteen--Stella's age.
+Again rose the picture of the cherished one in her daintily ribboned
+dressing-jacket, as filmy and unsubstantial as if made of sea-foam,
+with her pure, happy face, her mysterious, brown pools of eyes, her
+hair lovingly brushed to caressing softness; and he looked down on Unity
+Blake. Man though he was, the bit of clean sail-cloth that did duty as a
+nightgown moved his compassion.
+
+He did his best to talk with her awhile; but it was a one-sided
+conversation, as the child could reply only in monosyllables. The matron
+fidgeted impatiently, and he said good-bye. Her wistful glance followed
+him to the door. Outside he turned.
+
+“There is just one thing I want to say to her.”
+
+He left the matron and darted back into the room.
+
+“I'm sure there must be something you would like me to bring you,” he
+whispered. “Don't be afraid. Any mortal thing.”
+
+The child's lips twitched and she looked nervously from side to side.
+
+“What is it? Tell me.”
+
+“Oh, sir,” she pleaded breathlessly, “might I have some peppermint
+bull's-eyes.”
+
+
+
+When Herold returned to his dressing-room after the first act,--the
+piece for which he had been rehearsing had started a successful
+career,--he found Risca sitting in a straight-backed chair and smoking a
+pipe.
+
+“Hallo, John! I did n't know you were in front. Why did n't you tell me?
+It's going splendidly, is n't it?”
+
+He glowed with the actor's excited delight in an audience's enthusiastic
+reception of a new play. His glow sat rather oddly upon him, for he was
+made up as a decrepit old man, with bald wig, and heavy, blue patches
+beneath his eyes.
+
+“No, I'm not in front,” said John.
+
+“I see now,” smiled Herold, glancing at his friend's loose tweed suit.
+No clothes morning or evening ever fitted Risca. Herold called him “The
+Tailors' Terror.”
+
+“I want to talk to you, Wallie,” said he.
+
+“Have a drink? No? I sha' n't want anything, Perkins,” said he to
+the waiting dresser. “Call me when I 'm on in the second act. I don't
+change,” he explained.
+
+“I know,” said John. “That 's why I 've come now.”
+
+“What's the matter?” Herold asked, sitting in the chair before the
+dressing-table, bright with mirrors and electric lights and sticks of
+grease paint and silver-topped pots and other paraphernalia.
+
+“Nothing particular. Only hell, just as usual. I saw that child to-day.”
+
+Herold lit a cigarette.
+
+“Have you ever speculated on what becomes of the victims in cases of
+this kind?” asked John.
+
+“Not particularly,” said Herold, seeing that John wanted to talk.
+
+“What do you think can become of a human creature in the circumstances
+of this poor little wretch? Her childhood is one vista of bleak
+ugliness. Never a toy, never a kiss, not even the freedom of the gutter.
+Unless you 've been there, you can't conceive the soul-crushing despair
+of that infernal orphanage. She leaves it and goes into the world.
+She goes out of a kind of dreary Greek hades into a Christian hell. It
+lasted for months. She was too ignorant and spiritless to complain, and
+to whom was she to complain? Now she's sent back again, just like a sick
+animal, to hades. Fancy, they would n't let her have a few flowers in'
+the room! It makes me mad to think of it. And when she gets well again,
+she 'll have to earn her living as a little slave in some squalid
+Household. But what's going to become of that human creature morally and
+spiritually? That's what I want to know.”
+
+“It's an interesting problem,” said Herold. “She may be either a
+benumbed half-idiot or a vicious, vindictive she-brute.”
+
+“Just so,” said John. “That is, if she goes to slave in some squalid
+household. But suppose she were transferred to different surroundings
+altogether? Suppose she had ease of life, loving care, and all the rest
+of it?”
+
+The senile travesty of Herold laughed.
+
+“You want me to say that she may develop into some sort of flower of
+womanhood.”
+
+“Do you think she might?” John asked seriously. “My dear fellow,” said
+Herold, “there are Heaven knows how many hundred million human beings
+on the face of the earth, and every one of them is different from the
+others. How can one tell what any particular young woman whom one does
+n't know might or might not do in given circumstances? But if you want
+me to say whether I think it right for you to step in and look after the
+poor little devil's future, then I do say it's right. It 's stunning of
+you. It's the very best thing you can do. It will give the poor little
+wretch a chance, at any rate, and will give you something outside
+yourself to think of.”
+
+“I was going to do it whether you thought it right or not,” said Risca.
+
+Herold laughed again. “For a great, hulking bull of a man you 're
+sometimes very feminine, John.”
+
+“I wanted to tell you about it, that 's all,” said Risca. “I made up my
+mind this afternoon. The only thing is what the deuce am I to do with a
+child of fifteen in Fenton Square?”
+
+“Is she pretty?”
+
+“Lord, no. Coarse, undersized little cockney, ugly as sin.”
+
+“Anyhow,” said Herold, extinguishing his cigarette in the ash-tray,
+“it's out of the question.” He rose from his chair. “Look here,” he
+cried with an air of inspiration, “why not send her down to The Channel
+House?”
+
+“I'm not going to shift responsibilities on to other people's
+shoulders,” John growled in his obstinate way. “This child 's my
+responsibility. I 'm going to see her through somehow. As to Southcliff,
+you must be crazy to suggest it. What's to prevent her, one fine
+day, from getting into Stella's room and talking? My God! it would be
+appalling!”
+
+Herold agreed. He had spoken thoughtlessly.
+
+“I should just think so,” said Risca. “The idea of such a tale of horror
+being told in that room--”
+
+The dresser entered. “Miss Mercier has just gone on, sir.”
+
+“Well, just think out something else till I come back,” said Herold. “At
+any rate, Fenton Square won't do.”
+
+He left John to smoke and meditate among the clothes hanging up on pegs
+and the framed photographs on the walls and the array of grease paints
+on the dressing-table. John walked up and down the narrow space in great
+perplexity of mind. Herold was right. He could not introduce Unity Blake
+into lodgings, saying that he had adopted her. Landladies would not
+stand it. Even if they would, what in the world could he do with her?
+Could he move into a house or a flat and persuade a registry-office
+to provide him with a paragon of a housekeeper? That would be more
+practicable. But, even then, what did he know of the training, moral and
+spiritual, necessary for a girl of fifteen? He was not going to employ
+her as a servant. On that he was decided. What sort of a position she
+should have he did not know; but her floor-scrubbing, dish-scraping days
+were over. She should have ease of life and loving care--his own phrase
+stuck in his head--especially loving care; and he was the only person in
+the world who could see that she got it. She must live under his roof.
+That was indisputable. But how? In lodgings or a flat? He went angrily
+round and round the vicious circle.
+
+When Herold returned, he dragged him round and round, too, until Perkins
+appeared to help him to change for the third act. Then John had to stop.
+He clapped on his hat. He must go and work.
+
+“And you have n't a single suggestion to make?” he asked.
+
+“I have one,” said Herold, fastening his shirt-studs while Perkins was
+buttoning his boots. “But it's so commonplace and unromantic that you 'd
+wreck the dressing-room if I made it.”
+
+“Well, what is it?” He stood, his hand on the door-knob.
+
+“You 've got a maiden aunt somewhere, have n't you?”
+
+“Oh, don't talk rot!” said John. “I'm dead serious.”
+
+And he went out and banged the door behind him. He walked the streets
+furiously angry with Herold. He had gone to consult him on a baffling
+problem. Herold had suggested a maiden aunt as a solution. He had but
+one, his mother's sister. Her name was Gladys. What was a woman of over
+fifty doing with such an idiot name? His Aunt Gladys lived at Croydon
+and spent her time solving puzzles and following the newspaper accounts
+of the doings of the royal family. She knew nothing. He remembered when
+he was a boy at school coming home for the holidays cock-a-whoop at
+having won the high jump in the school athletics sports. His Aunt
+Gladys, while professing great interest, had said, “But what I don't
+understand, dear, is--what do you get on to jump down from?” He had
+smiled and explained, but he had felt cold in the pit of his stomach. A
+futile lady. His opinion of her had not changed. In these days John was
+rather an intolerant fellow.
+
+Chance willed it, however, that when he reached Fenton Square he found
+a letter which began “My dearest John” and ended “Your loving Aunt
+Gladys.” And it was the letter of a very sweet-natured gentlewoman.
+
+John sat down at his desk to work, but ideas would not come. At last
+he lit his pipe, threw himself into a chair in front of the fire, and
+smoked till past midnight, with his heavy brows knitted in a tremendous
+frown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE same frown darkened Risca's brow the next day as he waited for
+admittance at his Aunt Gladys's door. It was such a futile little door
+to such a futile little house; he could have smashed in the former with
+a blow of his fist, and he could have jumped into the latter through the
+first-floor windows. With his great bulk he felt himself absurdly out
+of scale. The tragedy looming huge in his mind was also absurdly out
+of scale with his errand. The house was one of a row of twenty
+perky, gabled, two-storied little villas, each coyly shrinking to
+the farthermost limit of its tiny front garden, and each guarding the
+privacy of its interior by means of muslin curtains at the windows, tied
+back by ribbons, the resultant triangle of transparency being obscured
+by a fat-leafed plant. The terrace bore the name of “Tregarthion
+Villas,” and the one inhabited by Miss Lindon was called “The Oaks.” It
+was a sham little terrace full of sham little gentilities. John hated
+it. What could have induced his mother's sister to inhabit such a sphere
+of flimsiness?
+
+Flimsiness, also, met him inside, when he was shown through a
+bamboo-furnished passage into a gimcrack little drawing-room. He tried
+several chairs dubiously with his hand, shook his head, and seated
+himself on a couch. Everything in the room seemed flimsy and futile.
+He had the impression that everything save a sham spinning-wheel and a
+half-solved jig-saw puzzle on the little table was draped in muslin and
+tied up with pink ribbons. A decrepit black-and-tan terrier, disturbed
+in his slumbers in front of the fire, barked violently. A canary in a
+cage by the window sang in discordant emulation. John poised his hat and
+stick on the curved and slippery satin-covered couch, and they fell with
+a clatter to the floor. The frown deepened on his brow. Why had he come
+to this distracting abode of mindlessness? He wished he had brought
+Herold gyved and manacled. What with the dog and the canary and the
+doll's-house furniture, the sensitive and fastidious one would have gone
+mad. He would have gloated over his ravings. It would have served him
+right.
+
+The door opened suddenly, the draught blowing down a fan and a
+photograph-frame, and Miss Lindon entered.
+
+“My dear John, how good of you to come and see me!”
+
+She was a fat, dumpy woman of fifty, lymphatic and, at first sight,
+characterless. She lacked colour. Her eyes were light, but neither blue
+nor green nor hazel; her straight hair was of the nondescript hue of
+light-brown hair turning gray. Her face was fleshy and sallow, marked by
+singularly few lines. She had lived a contented life, unscarred by care
+and unruffled by desire. Her dreams of the possibilities of existence
+did not pierce beyond the gimcrackeries of Tregarthion Villas. As
+for the doings of the great world,--wars, politics, art, social
+upheavals,--she bestowed on them, when they were obtruded on her notice,
+the same polite and unintelligent interest as she had bestowed on her
+nephew's athletic feats in the days gone by.
+
+However, she smiled very amiably at John, and reached up to kiss him
+on both cheeks, her flabby, white hands lightly resting on each
+coat-sleeve. Having done this, she caught up the barking dog, who
+continued to growl from the soft shelter of arm and bosom with the
+vindictiveness of pampered old age.
+
+“Naughty Dandy! I hope you were n't frightened at him, John. He never
+really does bite.”
+
+“What does he do then? Sting?” John asked with gruff sarcasm.
+
+“Oh, no,” said Miss Lindon, round-eyed; “he 's quite harmless, I assure
+you. Don't you remember Dandy? But it's a long time since you 've been
+to see me, John. It must be three or four years. What have you been
+doing all this time?”
+
+Her complacency irritated him. The canary never ceased his ear-splitting
+noise. The canary is a beautiful, gentle bird--stuffed; alive, he is
+pestilence made vocal. Risca lost his temper.
+
+“Surely you must know, Aunt Gladys. I 've been wandering through hell
+with a pack of little devils at my heels.”
+
+Startled, she lifted up her arms and dropped Dandy, who slithered down
+her dress and sought a morose shelter under the table.
+
+“My dear John!” she exclaimed.
+
+“I'm very sorry; I did n't mean to use strong language,” said he,
+putting his hands to his ears. “It's all that infernal canary.”
+
+“Oh, poor Dickie! Don't you like to hear Dickie sing? He sings so
+beautifully. The gas-man was here the other day and said that, if I
+liked, he would enter him for a competition, and he was sure he would
+get first prize. But if you don't like to hear him, dear--though I
+really can't understand why--I can easily make him stop.” She drew a
+white napkin from the drawer of the table on which the cage was placed
+and threw it over the top. The feathered steam-whistle swallowed his din
+in an angry gurgle or two and became silent “Poor Dickie, he thinks it
+'s a snowstorm! What were we talking about, John? Do sit down.”
+
+John resumed his seat on the slippery couch, and Miss Lindon, having
+snatched Dandy from his lair, sat by his side, depositing the dog
+between them.
+
+“You asked me what I had been doing for the last few years,” said he.
+
+“Ah, yes. That 's why I wrote to you yesterday, dear.”
+
+She had written to him, in fact, every month for many years, long,
+foolish letters in which everything was futile save the genuine
+affection underlying them, and more often than not John had taken
+them as read and pitched them into the waste-paper basket. His few
+perfunctory replies, however, had been treasured and neatly docketed and
+pigeon-holed in the bureau in her bedroom, together with the rest of her
+family archives and other precious documents. Among them was a famous
+recipe for taking mulberry stains out of satin. That she prized
+inordinately.
+
+“I should n't like to drift apart from dear Ellen's boy,” she said with
+a smile.
+
+“And I should n't like to lose touch with you, my dear aunt,” said John,
+with more graciousness. “And that is why I've come to see you to-day.
+I've had rather a bad time lately.”
+
+“I know--that awful case in the papers.” She shivered. “Don't let us
+talk of it. You must try to forget it. I wrote to you how shocked I was.
+I asked you to come and stay with me, and said I would do what I could
+to comfort you. I believe in the ties of kinship, my dear, and I did n't
+like to think of you bearing your trouble alone.”
+
+“That was very kind indeed of you,” said John, who had missed the
+invitation hidden away in the wilderness of the hastily scanned
+sixteen-page letter. He flushed beneath his dark skin, aware of
+rudeness. After all, when a lady invites you to her house, it is boorish
+to ignore the offered hospitality. It is a slight for which one can
+scarcely apologize. But she evidently bore him no malice.
+
+“It was only natural on my part,” she said amiably. “I shall never
+forget when poor Flossie died. You remember Flossie, don't you? She used
+to look so pretty, with her blue bow in her hair, and no one will ever
+persuade me that she was n't poisoned by the people next door; they were
+dreadful people. I wish I could remember their name; it was something
+like Blunks. Anyhow, I was inconsolable, and Mrs. Tawley asked me to
+stay with her to get over it. I shall never forget how grateful I
+was. I'm sure you 're looking quite poorly, John,” she added in her
+inconsequent way. “Let me get you a cup of tea. It will do you good.”
+
+John declined. He wanted to accomplish his errand, but the longer he
+remained in the company of this lady devoid of the sense of values, the
+more absurd did that errand seem. A less obstinate man than he would
+have abandoned it, but John had made up his mind to act on Herold's
+suggestion, although he mentally bespattered the suggester with varied
+malediction. He rose and, making his way between the flimsy chairs and
+tables, stood on the hearth-rug, his hands in his pockets. Unconsciously
+he scowled at his placid and smiling aunt, who remained seated on the
+couch, her helpless hands loosely folded on her lap.
+
+“Did you ever hear of a child called Unity Blake?”
+
+“Was that the girl--”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What an outlandish name! I often wonder how people come to give such
+names to children.”
+
+“Never mind her name, my dear aunt,” said John, gruffly. “I want to tell
+you about her.”
+
+He told her--he told her all he knew. She listened, horror-stricken,
+regarding him with open mouth and streaming eyes.
+
+“And what do you think is my duty?” asked John, abruptly.
+
+Miss Lindon shook her head. “I 'm sure I don't know what to advise
+you, dear. I 'll try to find out some kind Christian people who want a
+servant.”
+
+“I don't want any kind Christian people at all,” said John. “I'm going
+to make up in ease and happiness for all the wrongs that humanity has
+inflicted on her. I am going to adopt her, educate her, fill her up with
+the good things of life.”
+
+“That's very fine of you, John,” said Miss Lindon. “Some people are
+as fond of their adopted children as of their own. I remember Miss
+Engleshaw adopted a little child. She was four, if I remember right,
+and she used to dress her so prettily. I used to go and help her choose
+frocks. Really they were quite expensive. Now I come to think of
+it, John, I could help you that way with little Unity. I don't think
+gentlemen have much experience in choosing little girls' frocks. How old
+is she?”
+
+“Nearly sixteen,” said John.
+
+“That's rather old,” said Miss Lindon, from whose mind this new interest
+seemed to have driven the tragic side of the question. “It's a pity you
+could n't have begun when she was four.”
+
+“It is,” said John.
+
+“Only if you had begun with her at four, you would n't be wanting to
+adopt her now,” said Miss Lindon, with an illuminating flash of logic.
+
+“Quite so,” replied John.
+
+There was a span of silence. John mechanically drew his pipe from his
+pocket, eyed it with longing, and replaced it. Miss Lindon took the aged
+black-and-tan terrier in her arms and whispered to it in baby language.
+She was a million leagues from divining the object of her nephew's
+visit. John looked at her despairingly. Had she not a single grain of
+common sense? At last he strode across the room, a Gulliver in a new
+Lilliput, and sat down again by her side.
+
+“Look here, 'Aunt Gladys,” he said desperately, “if I adopt a young
+woman of sixteen, I must have another woman in the house--a lady, one
+of my own family. I could n't have people saying horrid things about her
+and me.”
+
+Miss Lindon assented to the proposition. John was far too young and
+good-looking (“Oh, Lord!” cried John)--yes, he was--to pose as the
+father of a pretty, grown-up young woman.
+
+“The poor child is n't pretty,” said he.
+
+“It does n't matter,” replied Miss Lindon. “Beauty is only skin deep,
+and I 've known plain people who are quite fascinating. There was
+Captain Brownlow's wife--do you remember the Brownlows? Your poor mother
+was so fond of them--”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said John, impatiently. “He had wet hands, and used to mess
+my face about when I was a kid. I hated it. The question is, however,
+whom am I going to get to help me with Unity Blake?”
+
+“Ah, yes, to be sure. Poor little Unity! You must bring her to see me
+sometimes. Give me notice, and I 'll make her some of my cream-puffs.
+Children are always so fond of them. _You_ ought to remember my
+cream-puffs.”
+
+“Good heavens!” he cried, with a gesture that set the dog barking.
+“There 's no question of cream-puffs. Can't you see what I'm driving at?
+I want you to come and keep house for me and help me to look after the
+child.”
+
+He rose, and his great form towered so threateningly over her that Dandy
+barked at him with a toy terrier's furious and impotent rage.
+
+“I come and live with you?” gasped Miss Lindon.
+
+[Illustration: 0094]
+
+“Yes,” said John, turning away and lumbering back to the fireplace. The
+dog, perceiving that he had struck terror into the heart of his enemy,
+dismissed him with a scornful snarl, and curled himself up by the side
+of his stupefied mistress.
+
+It was done; the proposal had been made, according to the demands of his
+pig-headedness. Now that he had made it, he realized its insanity. He
+contrasted this home of flim-flammeries and its lap-dogs and canaries
+and old-maidish futilities with his own tobacco-saturated and
+paper-littered den; this life of trivialities with his own fighting
+career; this incapacity to grasp essentials with his own realization of
+the conflict of world-forces. The ludicrous incongruity of a partnership
+between the two of them in so fateful a business as the healing of a
+human soul appealed to his somewhat dull sense of humour. The whole idea
+was preposterous. In his saturnine way he laughed.
+
+“It's rather a mad notion, is n't it?”
+
+“I don't think so at all,” replied Miss Lindon in a most disconcertingly
+matter-of-fact tone. “The only thing is that since poor papa died I've
+had so little to do with gentlemen, and have forgotten their ways.
+You see, dear, you have put me quite in a flutter. How do I know, for
+instance, what you would like to have for breakfast? Your dear
+grandpapa used to have only one egg boiled for two minutes--he was
+most particular--and a piece of dry toast; whereas I well remember
+Mrs. Brownlow telling me that her husband used to eat a hearty meal of
+porridge and eggs and bacon, with an underdone beefsteak to follow. So
+you see, dear, I have no rule which I could follow; you would have to
+tell me.”
+
+“That's quite a detail,” said John, rather touched by her unselfish,
+if tangential, dealing with the proposal. “The main point is,” said he,
+moving a step or two forward, “would you care to come and play propriety
+for me and this daughter of misery?”
+
+“Do you really want me to?”
+
+“Naturally, since I 've asked you.”
+
+She rose and came up to him. “My dear boy,” she said with wet eyes, “I
+know I'm not a clever woman, and often when clever people like you talk,
+I don't in the least understand what they 're talking about; but I did
+love your dear mother with all my heart, and I would do anything in the
+wide world for her son.”
+
+John took her hand and looked down into her foolish, kind face, which
+wore for the moment the dignity of love. “I'm afraid it will mean an
+uprooting of all your habits,” said he, in a softened voice.
+
+She smiled. “I can bring them with me,” she said cheerfully. “You won't
+mind Dandy, will you? He'll soon get used to you. And as for Dickie,”
+ she added, with a touch of wistfulness, “I 'm sure I can find a nice
+home for him.”
+
+John put his arm round her shoulder and gave her the kiss of a shy bear.
+
+“My good soul,” he cried, “bring fifty million Dickies if you like.” He
+laughed. “There's nothing like the song of birds for the humanizing of
+the cockney child.”
+
+He looked around and beheld the little, gimcrack room with a new vision.
+After all, it was as much an expression of her individuality, and as
+genuine in the eyes of the high gods, as Herold's exquisitely furnished
+abode was of Herold's, or the untidy jumble of the room in Fenton Square
+was of his own. And all she had to live upon was a hundred and fifty
+pounds a year, and no artistic instincts or antecedents whatsoever.
+
+“I feel a brute in asking you to give up this little place now that
+you've made it so pretty,” he said.
+
+Her face brightened at the praise. “It is pretty, is n't it?” Then she
+sighed as her eyes rested fondly on her possessions. “I suppose it would
+be too tiny for us all to live here.”
+
+“I'm afraid it would,” said John. “Besides, we must live in London, on
+account of my work.”
+
+“In London?”
+
+Miss Lindon's heart sank. She had lived in suburbs all her life, and
+found Croydon--the Lord knows why--the most delectable of them all. She
+had sat under Mr. Moneyfeather of Saint Michael's for many years--such
+a dear, good man who preached such eloquent sermons! You could always
+understand him, too, which was a great comfort. And the church was just
+round the corner. In London folks had to go to church by omnibus, a most
+unpleasant and possibly irreverent prelude to divine worship. Besides,
+when you did get to the sacred edifice, you found yourself in a
+confusing land where all the clergy, even to the humblest deacon,
+were austere and remote strangers, who looked at members of their
+congregation with glassy and unsympathetic eyes when they passed them
+in the street. Here, in Croydon, on the contrary, when she met Mr.
+Moneyfeather in public places, he held her hand and patted it and
+inquired affectionately after Dandy's health. With a London vicar she
+could not conceive the possibility of such privileged terms of intimacy.
+London, where you did not know your next-door neighbor, and where you
+took no interest in the births of babies over the way; where no one
+ran in for a gossip in the mornings; where every street was a clashing,
+dashing High Street.
+
+But though her face pictured her dismay, she was too generous to
+translate it into words. John never guessed her sacrifice.
+
+“We 'll go somewhere quiet,” said he, after a while.
+
+“We 'll go wherever you like, dear,” replied Miss Lindon, meekly, and
+she rang the bell for tea.
+
+The main point decided, they proceeded to discuss the details of the
+scheme, the minds of each suffused in a misty wonder. If John had told
+the simple lady that she could serve him by taking command of a cavalry
+regiment, she would have agreed in her unselfish fashion, but she would
+have been not a whit more perplexed at the prospect. As for John he had
+the sensation of living in a fantastic dream. A child of six would have
+been a more practical ally. In the course of befogged conversation,
+however, it was arranged that Miss Lindon should transfer to the new
+house her worldly belongings, of which she was to give him an inventory,
+including Dandy and Dickie and her maid Phoebe, a most respectable
+girl of Baptist upbringing, who had been cruelly jilted by a prosperous
+undertaker in the neighborhood, whom, if you had seen him conducting a
+funeral, you would have thought as serious and God-fearing a man as the
+clergyman himself; which showed how hypocritical men could be, and how
+you ought never to trust to appearances. It was also settled that, as
+soon as Unity could be rescued from the guardianship of the orphanage
+authorities and comfortably installed in a convalescent home by the
+seaside, Miss Lindon would journey thither in order to make her ward's
+acquaintance. In the meanwhile John would go house-hunting.
+
+“Walter Herold will help me,” said John.
+
+“That's your friend who acts, is n't it?” said Miss Lindon. “I have n't
+any objection to theatres myself. In fact, I often used to go to see
+Irving when I was young. You meet quite a nice class of people in the
+dress-circle. But I don't think ladies ought to go on the stage. I hope
+Mr. Herold won't put such an idea into Unity's head.”
+
+“I don't think he will,” said John.
+
+“Young girls are sometimes so flighty. My old friend Mrs. Willcox had
+a daughter who went on the stage, and she married an actor, and now has
+twelve children, and lives in Cheshire. I was hearing about her only the
+other day. I suppose Unity will have to be taught music and drawing and
+French like any other young lady.”
+
+“We might begin,” replied John, “with more elementary accomplishments.”
+
+“I could teach her botany,” said Miss Lindon, pensively. “I got first
+prize for it at school. I still have the book in a cupboard, and I
+could read it up. And I'm so glad I have kept my two volumes of pressed
+flowers. It's quite easy to learn, I assure you.”
+
+“I'm afraid, my dear,” said John, “you 'll first have to teach her to
+eat and drink like a Christian, and blow her nose, and keep her face
+clean.”
+
+“Ah, that reminds me. My head's in a maze, and I can't think of
+everything at once, like some clever people. What kind of soap do
+gentlemen use? I 'll have to know, so as to supply you with what you
+like.”
+
+“Any old stuff that will make a lather,” said John, rising.
+
+“But some soaps are so bad for the skin,” she objected anxiously.
+
+“Vitriol would n't hurt my rhinoceros hide.”
+
+He laughed, and held out his hand. Further discussion was useless.
+
+Miss Lindon accompanied him to the front gate and watched him stride
+down the perky terrace until he disappeared round the corner. Then she
+went slowly into the house and uncovered the canary, who blinked at her
+in oblique sullenness, and did not respond to her friendly “cheep” and
+the scratching of her finger against the rails of his cage. She turned
+to Dandy, who, snoring loud, was equally unresponsive. Feeling lonely
+and upset, she rang the bell.
+
+“Phoebe,” she said, when the angular and jilted maid appeared, “we are
+going to keep house for my nephew, Mr. Risca, and a young lady whom
+he has adopted. Will you tell me one thing? Is the lady of the house
+supposed to clean the gentlemen's pipes?”
+
+“My father is a non-smoker, as well as a teetotaler, miss,” replied
+Phoebe.
+
+“Dear me!” murmured Miss Lindon. “It's going to be a great puzzle.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IT was a puzzle to John as much as to the palpitating lady, and in the
+maze of his puzzledom the gleam of humour that visited him during
+their interview lost its way. Walter Herold's eyes, however, twinkled
+maliciously when he heard John's account at once rueful and pig-headed.
+Then he grew serious.
+
+“It will be comic opera all the time. It can't be done.”
+
+“It 's going to be done,” said John, obstinately. “There's nothing else
+to do. If I were a rich man, I could work wonders with a scratch in my
+cheque-book. I could hire an unexceptionable colonel's or clergyman's
+widow to do the business. But I'm not. How I'm going to get the house
+together, as it is, I don't know. Besides,” he added, turning with some
+savageness on his friend, “if you think it a comic-opera idea, kindly
+remember it was you who started it.”
+
+Though Herold was silenced for the moment, to the back of his mind still
+clung the first suggestion he had made. It was the common-sense
+idea that, given a knowledge of John's relations with the Southcliff
+household, would have occurred to anybody. John had it in his power to
+befriend the unhappy child without trying the rash experiment of raising
+her social status. Wherein lay the advantage of bringing her up as
+a lady? A pampered maid in a luxurious home does not drag out the
+existence of a downtrodden slave. Such have been known to smile and
+sing, even to bless their stars, and finally to marry a prince in
+grocer's disguise, and to live happy ever afterwards. With John's
+description of the girl's dog-like eyes in his memory, Herold pictured
+her as a devoted handmaiden to Stellamaris, a romantic, mediaeval
+appanage of the sea-chamber. What more amazingly exquisite destiny could
+await not only one bred in the gutter, but any damsel far more highly
+born? Her silence as to the past could be insured under ghastly
+penalties which would have no need of imagination for their appeal. That
+of course would be an ultimate measure. He felt certain that a couple
+presented in their relations as completing the cycle of living reality,
+in contrast with that reality which the mind postulates outside its
+living self, and which the system reduces to a complex practical
+product of the mind, a collection of material helps subservient to the
+essential forms of its activity. Knowledge and action, reciprocally
+implicated, are the substance of reality; and both knowledge and
+action, rising, the first, from the intuition to the concept, the
+second, from the economic to the ethical will, attain the universal,
+all-including values which we express by the words Beautiful, True,
+Useful and Good, but only and in so far as they realize themselves
+in the concrete and individual. A universal more universal than that
+which is present in the individual act is inexistent, or exists only
+as an impotent abstraction renouncing the concreteness and reality of
+the individual, and therefore also that true universality which has
+no being outside this action, this thought, this life. The soul of
+the system, slowly extricating itself from the traces of naturalism
+or intellectualism, which are still visible in the _Estetica_, is the
+logic of the pure concept, which resolves in the concrete universal the
+dualisms of nature and spirit, of fact and value, of life and thought,
+and, finally, of history and philosophy. But while this logic can be
+seen at work in all the parts of the system, and is, in fact, the form
+towards which all Croce's thoughts seem to have constantly tended from
+the time of his earliest philosophical essays, yet, to an attentive
+eye, it is possible to discover the successive stages by which it
+actually incorporated itself in the system. In particular, we have been
+able to point to the effects of the later meditations on the philosophy
+of will, on one side, on a more intimate understanding of the pure
+intuition as the lyrical intuition, on the other, on the identification
+of the definition with the individual judgment, and thereby on the
+relations between history and philosophy. On the whole it can be said
+that two apparently contrasting directions were at work within the
+system itself: one reflecting Croce's mental need for clear and fine
+distinctions, the other, that deep consciousness of the unity of the
+real, without which all distinctions tend to solidify themselves into
+dead abstractions.
+
+If we imagine two students of Croce's philosophy, endowed with
+antagonistic philosophical temperaments, the one a dialectician,
+the other a mystic, we can easily conceive them as the founders of
+two diametrically opposed schools of thought. The first would have
+emphasized the rigorous distinctions, the formal character, the
+intellectual precision of the system; he might have retained the
+identification of philosophy and history, but to him these words would
+have stood only for the names of two formal disciplines, and not for
+the concrete life of the human spirit which is present in them. The
+second would have passed lightly over the distinctions, and probably
+considered them as partaking of the same unreality which belongs to
+scientific or legal abstractions; and by obliterating the logical
+processes without which the mind of man is unable to grasp and to
+express itself, he would have taken refuge in an ineffable, though
+not necessarily silent, contemplation of the underlying unity. This
+hypothesis is not a criticism of Croce's philosophy; it is merely the
+indication of the fact that, when the system appeared as completed,
+new problems, and therefore new errors or new truths, were bound to
+grow out of the elements of the system itself. And nobody was more
+conscious of this fact than Croce himself, who concluded his volume on
+the _Filosofia della Pratica_ by expressly warning his readers of the
+inexhaustibility of thought, which is one with the infinity of reality
+and of life. No philosophical system is final, because life itself
+has no end. Every system of philosophy, being conditioned by life,
+can do no more than solve a group of problems historically given, and
+prepare the conditions for new problems and new systems. Of his own
+work in relation to his readers, he conceived as of nothing more than
+an instrument of work.
+
+In these last few chapters we shall see Croce himself at work on
+the new problems generated by his own system, trying "more rigidly
+to eliminate the last remnants of naturalism, and to put a stronger
+accent on the spiritual unity,"[1] yet constantly defending his
+conception of the spirit as the unity of distinctions, especially
+against the mystical tendencies of the new actual idealism. While
+never, in the course of his whole life, has he limited his activity to
+mere systematic thinking, during the last eleven years he has shown
+a more marked tendency to return from a philosophy, which is all a
+meditation of the formal problems of history, to those concrete works
+of history, by which he was started on his philosophical career; to
+return to them, however, with a mind in which the original uncertainty
+and obscurity has given place to a definite consciousness of the nature
+and purpose of history. The passage from the more philosophical to the
+more historical stage is marked by the publication of a fourth volume
+of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_, in which, under the title of _Teoria
+e Storia della Storiografia_, he collected a number of essays written
+between 1912 and 1913, containing an elaboration of the theory of
+history already expounded in the _Logica_. This volume does not form
+a new part of the system, but rather the natural conclusion of the
+whole work, since the problem which it discusses is the one towards
+which tended all his former inquiries into the forms of the spirit,
+into their concrete life which is development and history, and the
+consciousness of which is historical thought. But before proceeding to
+analyze this final form of Croce's theory of history, we shall give a
+rapid account of the rest of his intellectual activity from 1910 onward.
+
+As during the preceding eight years, the _Critica_ continues to this
+day to be the main organ of Croce's work and influence, and in the
+Critica the greatest part of his writings are still published for
+the first time. The general features of the Critica have remained
+practically unchanged, except that his series of essays on the Italian
+literature of the last fifty years (which he collected in 1914-15 in
+the four volumes of _La Letteratura della Nuova Italia_) has been
+followed by studies on Italian historiography from the beginning of the
+nineteenth century to our day (since 1914), by essays on some of the
+greatest European poets (since 1917), by notes on modern Italian and
+foreign literature (since 1917), and by the Frammenti di Etica (since
+1913), containing discussions of particular problems of contemporary
+morality. But practically all the reviews and essays published in
+the Critica and elsewhere are now being collected in the edition of
+his complete works, of which a full list will be found at the end of
+this volume. In 1912, for the inauguration of the Rice Institute in
+Houston, Texas, he wrote his _Breviario di Estetica_, which we have
+partly utilized in our exposition of his æsthetic doctrine, and which
+he reprinted in 1920 in his _Nuovi Saggi di Estetica_, which also
+contains his most significant philosophical essays of the last four or
+five years. His _Contributo alla critica di me stesso_ ("Contribution
+to the Criticism of Myself") was written in April, 1915, on the eve of
+Italy's entrance into the war, and is the best essay in existence on
+the development of his thought.
+
+Of Croce's attitude during the war we shall say but a few words. He
+was one of the very few European philosophers or scholars who did not
+transform themselves into improvised statesmen, or into passionate
+defenders of national prejudices and proclaimers of national hatreds.
+Differing from the Germanized philologist, who was the type prevailing
+in most universities before the war, in that he had not waited for
+the war to become aware of the many weaknesses and imperfections
+of modern German culture, while on the other hand he had lived for
+years in true and intimate contact with the great spirits of German
+Romanticism, he resisted with all his power the universal tendency of
+the time to make of the contingent issues of the war a criterion of
+intellectual truth and of scientific conduct. At the same time, his
+temper and education reacted violently against the false ideologies of
+the war, the superstructure of verbal ideals with which on all sides
+cunning statesmen and naïve philosophers attempted to veil the true
+nature of the conflict. Against these, he reasserted his conception
+of the political life and struggles of states as manifestations of
+the economic, amoral or pre-moral, activity, and of life itself as a
+perpetual struggle, finding its reason and its rest in the struggle
+itself. The theory of the state as justice appeared to him merely as
+a theoretical error, the fortune of which lay in the opportunity it
+afforded to give a convenient mask of morality to particular interests,
+either of individuals or of states. The intrinsic morality of the
+war he conceived as resting on its tragic reality, as reflected in
+a severely historical thought, to which it appears as a moment of
+that historical fate which crushes and destroys states as well as
+individuals, to create from their ruins always new forms of life.
+
+It is needless to say that for a time at least Croce shared with
+Bertrand Russell and with Romain Rolland, two thinkers in many respects
+very distant from him, and yet as impervious as he was to the rhetoric
+of the war, the privilege of a vast unpopularity. Looking back now on
+his writings which were later collected in the volume _Pagine sulla
+guerra_, it is possible to discover among them many attitudes which
+were justified and useful only as a reaction against the current
+fallacies of the time; and also to realize that the man who speaks to
+us through them is not always and only a pure philosopher, but a man
+with a given complex of moral and political tastes and passions. But
+this is, in a way, as it should be; in the same way, between Croce the
+philosopher of æsthetics and Croce the critic of poetry, there is a
+difference which is inherent in the nature of the two different forms
+of intellectual activity; the philosopher is a man of understanding,
+the critic a man of tastes and passions. In both cases, his ideal
+has always been to make the critic or the moralist worthy of the
+philosopher, his particular comprehension of history adequate to his
+concept of the universal. To say that the equation is never perfect,
+is only another way of saying that every particular historical problem
+continually raises new problems of thought, and that Croce's thought
+finds therefore in itself the motives of its own development, the
+springs of its own life. Where passion and reason ultimately coincide,
+the roots of the development are taken away, and death takes the place
+of life.
+
+Yet, notwithstanding these limitations, I know of no man whose thought
+on the war is on the whole more acceptable to those among us who lived
+through the war not as spectators, looking on it as on a vast moral
+abstraction, but as humble actors, in the midst of its human reality. A
+sense of collaboration between one side and the other, of being, here
+as there, employed in a common task, whose meaning was much deeper
+than any that had been offered to us by the national rhetoricians,--a
+collaboration which happened to take the aspect of a struggle, and
+imposed duties antagonistic, but of the same nature--was probably the
+most usual frame of mind among the soldiers who could think; and it
+existed, subconsciously, even among the unthinking ones, provided that
+their duties were of a definite, concrete kind, touched them in the
+deepest chords of their beings, involved the fundamental issues of life
+and death. To the man who consciously faces death, there is no comfort
+in wilful error; only this realization of an end that transcends all
+particular ideals, because it is the end of life itself, can be worthy
+of that price. You cannot willingly die for fourteen points any more
+than for one point, but death which is loathsome in the drama of mere
+circumstance, however adorned with brilliant rhetoric, is no longer
+death but an act of life in the tragedy in which the hero is conscious
+of his fate. There was no war, probably, that was ever more full than
+the last one of what might be called the material of tragedy; but what
+have the official celebrators done with it, they who have not feared
+to desecrate, in all our countries, one at least of the concrete,
+individual tragedies, in order to make of it an empty symbol, to
+transform an unknown hero into abstract heroism? In some of Croce's
+pages, there is a more concrete realization of the ideal tragedy of
+the war than in any poem or oration that I have seen to this day.
+
+The last years of the war found Croce at work on some of the greatest
+poetical spirits of modern Europe, Ariosto, Goethe, Corneille,
+Shakespeare, bringing to the understanding of their work, to this task
+of concrete history, the deep consciousness of the nature of poetry,
+and of the relations of poetry with life, acquired in twenty years of
+philosophical meditations. Even his functions as Minister of Public
+Education during the last two years did not distract him entirely from
+his studies, and this year of the sixth centenary of Dante's death
+was celebrated by him with the publication of _La Poesia di Dante_,
+which will certainly remain as the most lasting monument raised to the
+memory of the poet on this occasion. This troubled peace cannot make
+him deviate from the path of his appointed labour any more than the war
+could; in peace as in war, his duty is his daily task, here and to-day,
+and his confidence in the morality and usefulness of that work which is
+his work is as little shaken by the prophets of despair in peace, as
+it was by the messiahs of the promised land who were so loud above the
+turmoil of war. He is probably now noting with a smile that the same
+men who talked of the war to end all wars, are now very busy preventing
+our civilization from dying away; that is, building a peace in the
+abstract, with programs and words, as they fought a war which was not
+the war, but a phantasm of their imagination.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: _Contributo_, p. 74.]
+
+
+
+
+II. THE THEORY OF HISTORY
+
+
+Two meanings of the word history--History as contemporary history--
+History and chronicle--The spirit as history--Philology, and
+philological history--Poetical and rhetorical history--Universal
+history--The universality of history: history and philosophy--The
+unity of thought--Philosophy as methodology--The positivity of
+history--The humanity of history--Distinctions and divisions--The
+history of nature.
+
+
+There are two meanings to the word history, in English as well as in
+other European languages; on one hand it denotes the actual doing, the
+immediacy of life, on the other, the thinking that seems to follow
+the doing, the consciousness of life. In a rough, approximate way, we
+speak of men who make history, and of other men who think or write
+history--though we are all perfectly aware of the fact that we cannot
+make history without first thinking history, that the action, in other
+words, follows a judgment of the situation, which is an elementary form
+of historical thought, and is accompanied by its own consciousness,
+which is its immediate history. In this sense, the action cannot be
+materially severed from its history: the distinction between the two
+is a purely formal and ideal one. And again, the thinking of history,
+in the second meaning of the word, consists in making present to our
+spirit, in re-living, an action or group of actions, which thus
+become as actual an experience as any practical doing, a fragment
+of our own life, and, ultimately, the consciousness of our own
+individual experience. Thus the two meanings which stand out as sharply
+contrasting when we objectify and solidify them, as an external,
+chronological series of happenings, and as a formal discipline
+attempting to give, in innumerable books, a description and as it were
+a verbal duplicate of that series, once we examine them in the light
+of our consciousness, reveal themselves merely as different aspects or
+moments of the same spiritual process.
+
+Croce's latest writings on history may be puzzling to the average
+reader because this ambiguity cannot be overcome by him unless he is
+willing to penetrate to the heart of Croce's doctrine, in which the
+word history acquires a more pregnant and fundamental meaning. In
+many of us there is a tendency to balk at any attempt at filling old
+words with deeper and more precise connotations; but philosophy is
+not a matter of words. A new thought will in any case alter the whole
+physiognomy of our vocabulary, and to stand up for the old meanings
+is as much as to refuse to think, or rather, to refuse to live. For
+history as a formal discipline, for the actual writing of history,
+Croce uses the word Historiography; but in his _Teoria e Storia
+della Storiografia_ (Theory and History of the writing of History),
+history still means both the doing and the thinking, life and the
+consciousness of life, though not in the abstract distinction in which
+these meanings are generally apprehended. In Croce the distinction is
+also unity, and there is no doing which is not also a thinking, no life
+which is not also the consciousness of life, no consciousness which is
+not also the consciousness of itself. The ambiguity, some traces of
+which could still be seen in the _Logica_, entirely disappears in this
+fourth volume of the system, at least for the reader who has followed
+the whole development of Croce's thought.
+
+We call contemporary history the history that is being made, rather
+loosely including in it a more or less extended stretch of time up
+to the actual present. But contemporary history rigorously ought
+to be only history in the actual making, the immediate present and
+the consciousness of the immediate present. All history, however,
+is contemporary history in this rigorous and precise sense; it is a
+condition of all history that it should live, be present in the mind
+of the historian; all history springs directly from present life,
+since only an interest of our present life can induce us to inquire
+into the past, which, by being made history, is no longer a past but
+a present. If, Croce says, "contemporaneity is not the characteristic
+of one class of histories (as it is held to be, and with good reasons,
+in an empirical classification), but the intrinsic character of all
+history, the relation between history and life must be conceived of
+as a relation of unity: not certainly in the sense of an abstract
+identity, but in that of a synthetic unity, which implies both the
+unity and the distinction of the terms. To speak of a history, of
+which we do not possess the documents, will then seem as absurd as
+to speak of the existence of a certain thing, of which we should at
+the same time affirm that one of the essential conditions for its
+existence is lacking. A history without relation with the document
+would be an inverifiable history; and since the reality of history
+lies in this verifiability, and the historical narrative in which it
+realizes itself is an historical narrative only in so far as it is the
+critical exposition of the document, a history of that kind, without
+meaning and without truth, would be inexistent as history. How could
+ever a history of painting be composed by a man who should not see and
+enjoy the works of which he intends to describe critically the origin
+and development? How, a history of philosophy, without the works, or
+at least the fragments of the works of the philosophers? How, the
+history of a feeling or a custom, for instance, of Christian humility
+or of chivalresque honour, without the capacity to re-live, or rather,
+without actually re-living those particular states of mind? On the
+other hand, having established the indissoluble connection of life
+and thought in history, the doubts that have been advanced about the
+certainty and utility of history suddenly and totally disappear, and
+it becomes almost impossible to understand them. How could that ever
+be uncertain, which is a present product of our spirit? How could a
+knowledge be useless, which solves a problem rising from the womb of
+life?"[1]
+
+If history is thus regarded not as an object but as an activity, not as
+the irrevocable past but as the living present, the difference between
+history and chronicle, which is one of the puzzles of historical
+thought, becomes an important and significant distinction. We are used
+to think that the original form of historical writing is the chronicle,
+and history a later and maturer development. Now if history is the
+consciousness of a present, it follows that history is contemporary
+with the event; that, therefore, the most meagre chronicle, in the mind
+of its writer, moved by the actuality of the facts which he records,
+is already a history in the full sense of the word. And the records of
+the past, whether appearing to us, from a literary point of view, as
+mere chronicles or as true histories, become history again whenever
+they are apprehended by a new mind as an answer to a present problem,
+partaking of the activity of the mind that thinks them anew. The same
+records, on the other hand, are a mere chronicle, an empty narrative,
+a truly irrevocable past, whenever they are not re-lived by a living
+mind, either because they do not correspond to any interest of present
+life, or because the essential conditions for the recreation of that
+past, the documents which enable us to revive within ourselves the
+original experience, are irrevocably lost. The true distinction between
+history and chronicle is not, therefore, a literary or material one,
+but a distinction between forms of spiritual activity: history is the
+living consciousness, and, therefore, an act of thought or knowledge;
+chronicle is the dead record, which we preserve by a mere act of will,
+because we know that some day the dead record itself may come back to
+life, transform itself again, under an impulse rooted not in the past
+but in the present, into a living thought.
+
+"These revivals have purely inward motives; and no amount of narratives
+or documents can produce them; on the contrary, it is the inner motive
+that gathers and brings before itself documents and narratives,
+which, without it, would remain dispersed and inert. And it will be
+for ever impossible to understand the effectual process of historical
+thought, unless one starts from the principle that the spirit itself
+is history, and, in every one of its moments, the maker of history
+and at the same time the result of all foregoing history; so that the
+spirit carries within itself the whole of its history, which in fact
+coincides with the spirit itself. To forget one aspect of history
+and to remember another is nothing but the rhythm of the life of the
+spirit, which works by determining and individualizing itself, and by
+in-determining and dis-individualizing the preceding determinations
+and individualizations, in order to create new and richer ones. The
+spirit would live over again, so to speak, its history, even without
+those external objects which we call narratives and documents; but
+those external objects are instruments that it fashions for itself, and
+preparatory acts that it accomplishes, in order to effect that vital
+interior evocation, in whose process they resolve themselves. And for
+this purpose the spirit asserts and jealously preserves the 'memories
+of the past.'"[2]
+
+This practical function of the preservation of the dead documents
+and records is the work of the pure scholar, of the erudite, the
+archivist, the archæologist, or what might be termed philology in the
+strict sense of the word. And it is a legitimate and useful function,
+provided that it does not pretend to be other than it actually is, and
+to substitute itself for the true process of history, by attempting to
+make history with the external objects that have been confided to its
+care. Philological histories are never anything but mere compilations,
+learned chronicles, useful repertories; and as such, blameless; but
+as histories they lack the living spirit, the creative impulse, which
+alone can transform the document into history. We have only to turn our
+attention to the greatest part of our modern histories of literature,
+whether written by a single philologist or by a learned society, to
+realize that that which is philology in them is not history, but
+repertory; and the rest, which is history, is not philology, but a
+vivid reaction, an act of present life, by which some at least of the
+documents of the past (since some philologists are men) have suddenly
+become part of the actual experience of the writer, answered his
+spiritual need, stirred that which is still human in his soul. And if
+a further confirmation of the philological error is needed, and of the
+further errors in which it involves the philological historian, it is
+sufficient to open those same literary histories at the pages in which
+they attempt to explain the origins of the Renaissance. Because as
+those writers make history from the sources, so they imagine that life
+itself springs from material sources; and the Renaissance finds its
+_causes_ in the discovery of monuments and documents of the classical
+world, in the lives and travels of humanists, in the munificence of
+popes and princes. It does not seem to occur to them that monuments
+and manuscripts, which materially had existed in Europe during all the
+so-called Dark and Middle Ages, could not have been discovered unless,
+at a certain moment in the development of European civilization, the
+spirit of the Western nations had not craved those particular helps
+to its own life, because of motives and impulses generated by its own
+actual experience; and that the mediæval clericus was not less of a
+traveller than the humanist, and that the economic aspect of life can
+never be intelligibly conceived as a cause of that life of which it is
+but a moment. For the philological historian, the Renaissance begins
+between the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth
+century; but the historian _tout court_ knows that the fundamental
+impulses and motives by which we empirically ally characterize that
+period in the history of the human spirit were already present in the
+Italy of the thirteenth century, and slowly maturing in the other
+European countries long before any of the Italian humanists had come to
+them as the apostles of a new creed.
+
+If philological history is not history but pseudo-history, so are also
+two other forms of so-called historical thought, poetical history and
+rhetorical history. The first substitutes for the value of history,
+which is thought, a purely immediate and sentimental, or æsthetic
+value; it presents itself very often as a reaction to philological
+history, but it falls into the opposite error, which is that of putting
+the imagination in the place of the document. Rhetorical history is
+that which is animated by practical ends (moralistic, nationalistic,
+or other), and it really consists of two distinct elements, history
+itself, and the particular end towards which the recitation of history
+is directed, converging into a single practical act. Both partake of
+life much more intensely than philological history; but the life of
+the one is poetry, that of the other is economic or moral action. They
+are, therefore, legitimate as poetry and as action, and become errors
+only in so far as they are presented as history. It is important to
+make this distinction as clear as possible: the actual interest which
+makes history is not for Croce a sentimental or practical interest,
+but an interest of thought. In the distinction of the various forms of
+spiritual activity, history is not the sentimental or practical moment,
+but the moment of ultimate consciousness, the reflection and not either
+the intuition or the action, the thought which is consciousness of
+life and not life immediate; neither art nor morality, in a word, but
+philosophy, if by philosophy, we mean not a formal discipline, but
+all knowledge _sub specie universalis_. The defenders of rhetorical
+history have become more frequent during and after the war than they
+were before it, it being only too natural that in times of exceptional
+stress truth should be made subservient to practical ends, and the man
+of knowledge should be unwittingly transmogrified into a man of action;
+and they insist more than ever on the moral efficacy of history as its
+proper educational value. But "if by history we mean both that history
+which is thought, and those that are poetry, philology or moral will,
+it is clear that 'history' will enter into the educational process not
+under one only, but under all these forms; though as history proper,
+under one only, which is not that of moral education, exclusively
+and abstractly considered, but of the education or development of
+thought."[3]
+
+The conception of history as contemporary history, or present thought,
+helps us to discard that form of historical scepticism, or agnosticism,
+which affirms that all we can know of history is but one part, and
+a very small part, of the whole. If we should imagine that infinite
+whole, in its infinite detail, as present for one moment to our mind,
+all we could do, would be instantly to proceed to forget it, in order
+to concentrate our attention on that detail only which answers to
+a problem and, therefore, constitutes a living and active history.
+That whole is not something of which we can affirm the existence at
+any given moment, but the eternal phantasm of the thing in itself,
+the limiting concept of the infinity of our doing and knowing: a
+naturalistic construction similar to the external and material reality
+of physical science. It is this naturalistic process that gives birth
+to agnosticism, in history as in science; that is, to the affirmation
+of the impossibility of knowing that which has no reality outside our
+own thought, which has created, or rather posited it, for its own
+purposes. A further consequence is that we must renounce the knowledge
+of universal history, not as a fact, because as such it has never
+existed, but as a pretence under which, in fact, we are given something
+quite different. The pretence consists (and it will be well to recall
+Croce's own words, written long before some recent attempts, which in
+those words find their precise valuation) in "reducing within a single
+frame all the facts of mankind, from its origins on earth to the
+present day; or rather, since in this way history would not be truly
+universal, from the origins of things or from the Creation to the end
+of the world; hence a tendency to fill the abysm of prehistory or of
+the origins with theological or naturalistic novels, and somehow to
+outline the future, either with revelations or with prophecies, as in
+the Christian universal history (which extended to the Anti-Christ and
+to the universal judgment), or with forecasts, as in the universal
+histories of positivism, democraticism, and socialism. Such is the
+pretence; but the fact turns out to be different from the intention,
+and what we get is either a more or less heterogeneous chronicle, or
+a poetical history expressing some aspiration of the heart, or even a
+true history, which is not universal but particular, though embracing
+the life of many nations and of many epochs; and, more often, in the
+same literary body we discern these divers elements, one by the side of
+the other."[4]
+
+Universal history is a utopian ideal similar to those of a universal
+language, or of universal art, or of a law that should be valid for
+all times; the only useful meaning of the word universal when applied
+to history is that of a recommendation to enlarge the sphere of our
+historical interests, and to turn from the knowledge of one time and
+one people to that of the great facts and currents of history. But a
+denial of the validity of universal history must not be understood as
+withdrawing from history the knowledge of the universal. The reader who
+has followed us through the preceding chapters, and especially through
+our analysis of the historical judgment, knows how the concreteness
+and individuality of history is determined by thought, and therefore
+known as a universal. History is thought, and, as such, the thought
+of the universal in its concrete and particular determinations. The
+object of history is never this or that poet, but poetry; not this or
+that nation or epoch, but culture, civilization, progress, freedom, or
+a similar word which denotes the development of the human spirit as a
+whole, and is therefore a universal. It is of history, thus conceived,
+of contemporary history, as opposed to the naturalistic moment
+(chronicle, or philological history), that Croce asserts the identity
+with philosophy: history as, the knowledge of the eternal present being
+one with the thought of the eternal present, which is philosophy.
+History renounces the pretence of an objective universality in the same
+way as philosophy, immanent in and identical with history, abolishes
+the idea of a universal philosophy: the two negations are but one,
+since the closed system, the final truth, is as much a cosmological
+novel as universal history is. "This tendency was implicit in Hegel's
+philosophy, but contrasted within it by old prejudices, and wholly
+betrayed in the execution, so that even that philosophy converted
+itself into a cosmological novel; we can therefore say that that which
+at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a mere presentiment,
+only at the beginning of the twentieth is transforming itself into a
+firm consciousness, which defies the fears of the timid, that in this
+way we endanger the knowledge of the universal; maintaining that, on
+the contrary, in this way only this knowledge is obtained truly and
+for ever, because in a dynamic mode. History becoming actual history,
+and philosophy becoming historical philosophy, have freed themselves,
+one from the dread of not being able to know that which is not known
+only because either it was or it will be known, and the other, from the
+despair of never attaining the final truth: that is, both have freed
+themselves from the phantasm of the 'thing in itself.'"[5]
+
+This final affirmation of the unity of human thought, this
+qualification of all thought as at the same time historical and
+philosophical, is the last answer given by Croce to the problem
+which had occupied him for the last twenty years, ever since his
+first speculations on history as art. From the consideration of the
+individual moment which is essential to history, he had slowly raised
+himself to the contemplation of the pure universal, only to return
+finally to the individual moment in which only the universal realizes
+itself. And while this answer can be regarded, on the whole, as the
+natural conclusion of the idealistic movement in philosophy, yet it
+differs from Kant in its ultimate repudiation of the _noumenon_, from
+Hegel, in that it makes it impossible to build, side by side with a
+dynamic logic, a mythology of the Idea, a philosophy of history and of
+nature, in which the transcendental element, eliminated already from
+the logic, should find its ultimate refuge. It is to be hoped that
+Croce's critics will not level against him those same criticisms that
+are generally employed against Kant or Hegel, because they would be for
+the most part ineffectual against a Kantian and Hegelian philosopher
+who has discarded the whole of Kantian and Hegelian metaphysics.
+From this standpoint, Croce is not only the heir of the idealistic,
+but also of the positivistic or realistic tradition, which he has
+constantly opposed, not because of its anti-metaphysical character,
+but because in the external reality of the realist, in the natural or
+historical philosophy of the positivist, he is unable to see anything
+but naturalistic disguises of the old metaphysical entities. A realist
+who should not in principle refuse to become acquainted with Croce's
+thought, but honestly attempt to understand it, would probably find his
+own realism purified and made more truly realistic by the experience.
+
+A material distinction, as of formal disciplines, between history and
+philosophy still survives in Croce's theory, philosophy proper being
+considered as the categoric or methodological moment of history--a
+distinction roughly corresponding to the one he made in his logic
+between the individual judgment and the definition. But philosophy
+itself is profoundly modified once we fully realize that its historical
+character implies the abandonment of certain features which are
+constantly associated in our minds with the idea of philosophy, because
+of its early associations with mythology and the positive religions
+ions. To these belong the belief in the existence of a fundamental
+problem of philosophy, which remains the same throughout the history of
+human thought, and of which the various philosophies are but successive
+approximations to an answer; the consequent stress laid on the unity
+of the system rather than on the fine and clear distinctions; the
+research of an ultimate truth; and finally, the prejudice by which
+the philosopher is regarded as a Buddha or priest, freed from human
+passions and human illusions, resting in the pure contemplation of
+a truth, which, by being tom from the soil of active life that has
+borne it, cannot but wither away and become as empty and unreal as the
+Buddha's own Nirvana frankly professes to be. Metaphysics to Croce is
+the last incarnation of theology; and the professor of philosophy in
+our universities, with a culture formed exclusively on the books of the
+great philosophers of the past, unmoved by the passions and problems
+of life, is but the heir of the mediæval master of theology. "A strong
+advancement of philosophical culture ought to tend towards this result:
+that all the students of human things, jurists, economists, moralists,
+men of letters, that is, all the students of historical matters,
+should become conscious and well-disciplined philosophers; and the
+philosopher in general, the _purus philosophus_, should no longer find
+place among the professional specifications of knowledge."[6]
+
+We shall not follow our author in all his developments of the theory
+of history. It suffices to say that these developments are obviously
+but new presentations, made here and there more precise and more
+coherent, of the various problems already discussed in the preceding
+volumes of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_. We shall thus recognise in
+Croce's criticism of the philosophy of history as a special discipline,
+distinct both from history as such and from a so-called general
+philosophy, his polemic against transcendence, either metaphysical
+or naturalistic; and in his claim for the positivity of history, his
+theory of value, by which the only real values are the positive ones,
+coinciding with the fact, while negative values are but expressions
+of feelings and desires. In the light of this theory, since history
+is obviously concerned with that which is, and not with that which is
+not, the limits of historical judgment are clearly established, in the
+way in which we saw them established for literary criticism. As the
+literary critic is never concerned with anything but with expression,
+or art, or beauty, non-expression, non-art, non-beauty being as such
+inexistent, and truly existent only as manifestations of the logical
+or practical activity of man; so the historian at large will never
+meet negative values, but positive facts only, which assume the aspect
+of ugliness, or error, or immorality, only in the dialectic process of
+reality, in the creation of a higher form of life. His affirmation of
+the positive fact is sufficient judgment, and it becomes an implicit
+moral judgment whenever the consciousness of the historian is a moral
+consciousness, without any need for him to usurp the function of the
+moralist or of the judge in apportioning praise or blame on the objects
+of his history.
+
+Against the humanistic or pragmatic conception of history, which finds
+the reasons and motives of history in the abstract individual, as
+against the opposite view, for which the true history is only that
+of the collectivity, of the institutions, of the human values, Croce
+reasserts his concept of the actuality of the spirit, in regard to
+which the individual is as much of an abstraction as the society or
+the value which does not entirely realize itself in the fact. The
+object of history is neither Pericles nor Politics, neither Sophocles
+nor Tragedy, neither Plato nor Philosophy; but the universal in the
+individual, that is, Politics, Tragedy, Philosophy, as Pericles,
+Sophocles, and Plato, or Pericles, Sophocles, and Plato as particular
+moments of Politics, of Tragedy, and of Philosophy.
+
+As there are no special philosophical sciences, and then a general
+philosophy, which should be outside or above them, but whenever we
+think of reality under one of its aspects or distinctions, we think
+of the whole of reality in one of its determinations, so there are no
+special histories, the limits of which can be definitely stated, and
+above them a general history, which would in a new form revive the myth
+of universal history. We have seen how literary history, for instance,
+tends inevitably to become the whole spiritual history of a nation;
+and the same applies to all special histories, whether political or
+moral, or philosophical. There are divisions of history, according
+to the quality of the objects, to time and space, but such divisions
+are mere empirical classifications, practical instruments or literary
+expedients; and we can use as the foundation of such divisions even the
+ideal distinctions of the fundamental forms of spiritual activity. But
+when these distinctions are understood as actual distinctions of the
+aspects of the spiritual life, of which we make history, then all the
+other aspects will inevitably be present in the particular distinction,
+once we truly apprehend it in the fulness of its relations. In this
+sense, history is always special or particular, because it is only in
+the special and particular that we can grasp the effectual and concrete
+universality, the effectual and concrete unity.
+
+Finally, the difference between the history of man and the history of
+nature is not a difference in the object but in the method of history.
+The whole of reality is spiritual reality, and nature apprehended
+in its concreteness and actuality, if we are able to recreate it
+within ourselves, becomes actual, concrete, contemporary history as
+much as any part of human history. On the other hand, the application
+of empirical and abstract concepts, the practical manipulation of
+the data of human history, transforms the history of man into mere
+natural history. This difference in method we have already analyzed in
+studying Croce's logic, and we shall only add here that the reader of
+Croce may often be tempted to regard Croce's conception of reality as
+limited to the human spirit only, and therefore to give a metaphysical
+interpretation to his exclusion of "nature." The correct interpretation
+is a purely epistemological one, and again and again Croce insists that
+in the whole of reality, which is development or life, man and nature
+are but empirical and abstract distinctions. On the other hand, Croce's
+interests are certainly more human than natural, and not only in the
+sense in which this is true of every man; in the more precise sense
+also that the effort to recreate within himself the consciousness of a
+blade of grass, which he advises the historian of nature to perform,
+clearly appeals to him so little, that he may even seem doubtful of its
+success. The accent is continually laid, in Croce's thought, on the
+history of man, and on the thought of man; to many of us, our dealings
+with nature (not the dead nature of Linnæus, but the living nature of
+Virgil and Shelley) would probably suggest a shifting of the accent
+by which the spirituality of nature, the continuity of the dynamic
+process from nature to man would become more emphatically affirmed
+than it is in any of Croce's writings. We are probably touching here
+on one of the possible, and probable, lines of development of Croce's
+philosophy; which, however, will not become actual until the historical
+problems of the living nature shall not urge Croce himself, or one of
+his successors, as powerfully as the problems of human history have
+moved him. At present, with very rare exceptions, the students of
+the history of nature are occupied in transforming their historical
+experience into classes and types and laws; but a time may come when
+from the naturalistic constructions we shall be able more frequently
+to recreate the life of which these are but the dead spoils, the
+accumulated vestiges, by the same process by which history re-kindles
+the old chronicles into new, contemporary life. That such a development
+is implied in Croce's own theory of history can hardly be questioned,
+though, when realized, it will undoubtedly react on more than one point
+of Croce's logic.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 5-6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 15-16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 35-6.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Teoria e Storia_, p. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Teoria e Storia_, pp. 51-2.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Teoria e Storia_, p. 145.]
+
+
+
+
+III. CRITICISM AND HISTORY
+
+
+Beyond the system--The universality of art--The discipline of
+art--Poetry, prose and oratory--Classicism and impressionism--
+Practical personality and poetical personality--The monographic
+method in criticism--The reform of æsthetic history--Criticism as
+philosophy--Sensibility and intelligence.
+
+
+The identification of history and philosophy, in the form in which
+we have expounded it in the preceding chapter, is the turning point
+of Croce's thought; the system which in the first three volumes of
+the _Filosofia dello Spirito_ had still a somewhat static and rigid
+appearance, is really set to movement, animated as if by a new and
+intenser life, since its implicit dynamism is made explicit in the
+fourth and concluding volume. To Croce himself, the whole of his work
+appears no longer as a system, but as "a series of systematizations,"
+and his _Filosofia dello Spirito_, as a series of "volumes on the
+problems slowly gathering in his mind since the years of his youth."
+No wonder, therefore, that his later work should contain "thoughts
+that break the bars of the so-called system, and give, to a close
+scrutiny, new systems or new 'systematizations,' since always the whole
+moves with every one of our steps." No wonder that he should feel that
+he will continue to philosophize even if one day he shall abandon
+"philosophy," "as this is what the unity of philosophy and history
+implies: that we philosophize whenever we think, and of whatever object
+and in whatever form we may think."[1] And in fact, in these last few
+years, Croce has given many a severe shock to the faithful worshippers
+of his system, sometimes by extending his tolerance, or even his
+approval, to types of speculation apparently remote from his own, but
+in which he recognises, under a radically different aspect, some of
+the living impulses, and spiritual interests by which his own thought
+is moved; and sometimes by developing new theories, through which
+intellectual positions criticised by him at an earlier stage of his
+work were reëstablished as having a new meaning and value, once they
+were approached from a new and higher standpoint, partly reached by
+means of that same critical process which had previously revealed them
+as errors. Croce's conception of the function of error in the history
+of human thought, while making him violently intolerant of actual
+negative error, leads him to search painstakingly for that element of
+truth which is the reality of every error; and in this respect too, his
+philosophical career is as it were roughly divided into two periods,
+one of critical dissolution, and the other of critical reconstruction,
+respectively corresponding to the building up of the system, and to the
+successive liberation from the shackles of the system itself. Croce's
+name will certainly be remembered in the future, if on no other
+account, as that of the only philosopher who never became the slave
+of his dead thought. His coherence is never of the letter, but of the
+spirit.
+
+This last phase of Croce's thought offers greater difficulties to the
+expositor than the preceding ones, partly because it is still in the
+making, and therefore lacks the necessary perspective, and partly
+because it is embodied not only in purely philosophical essays, but in
+every page of Croce's historical and critical writings; so that very
+often it would be impossible to give a clear account of it without
+ample and minute reference to the underlying historical material.
+The whole of Croce's thought could indeed be restated through an
+exposition of Croce's historical views, and it would be an alluring
+task to extract from his writings a kind of outline of the history
+of mankind, considered especially in its æsthetic and philosophical
+cal manifestations, and indirectly also in its moral and economic
+activities; but it would take us much beyond the limits which we have
+set to our labour. We shall therefore confine ourselves to examining,
+in this chapter, the latest developments of Croce's æsthetics,
+especially in relation with the history of art and poetry; and, in the
+following and concluding one, to considering his theory of truth or of
+the function of thought, in relation to other types of contemporary
+thought.
+
+We have followed the evolution, or rather the deepening, of Croce's
+concept of art as pure intuition, into lyrical intuition, through
+which the movement and life which might seem to have been denied to
+the products of the æsthetic activity considered as a mere form of
+knowledge, were recognised as intrinsically belonging to them by reason
+of the very nature of that cognitive activity, and of its relations
+with the practical sphere of the spirit, the states of mind, which can
+be abstracted as the matter or content of the æsthetic form. Another
+difficulty, however, still persisted in Croce's theory, due to the
+sharp distinction between the æsthetic and the logical activity, which
+reserved to the first the field of individual, to the second that of
+universal knowledge--constituting a double-grade relation, in which the
+æsthetic was implied by the logic activity, but not vice-versa. The
+corresponding distinction of the two forms of the practical spirit,
+the economic and the ethic, evolved by Croce at a maturer stage of his
+speculation, establishes not only a double-grade relation, but also
+a reciprocal implication. Croce's essay on _Il carattere di totalità
+della espressione artistica_ (1917) is an attempt at interpreting his
+first distinction in the light of the second, thereby recognising the
+universal or cosmic character of art. That universality which becomes
+explicit in the logical judgment is implicit in the intuition, already
+identified with the category of feeling, with the concrete states of
+mind, on which it imposes its form: "Since, what is a feeling or a
+state of mind? is it something that can be detached from the universe
+and developed by itself? have the part and the whole, the individual
+and the cosmos, the finite and the infinite, any reality, one outside
+the other? One may be inclined to grant that every severance and
+isolation of the two terms of the relation could not be anything
+but the work of abstraction, for which only there is an abstract
+individuality and an abstract finite, an abstract unity and an abstract
+infinite. But the pure intuition, or artistic representation, abhors
+abstraction; or rather it does not even abhor it, since it knows it
+not, because of its naïve or auroral cognitive character. In it, the
+individual lives by the life of the whole, and the whole is in the life
+of the individual; and every true artistic representation is itself and
+the universe, the universe in that individual form, and that individual
+form as the universe. In every accent of a poet, in every creature of
+his phantasy, there is the whole of human destiny, all the hopes, the
+illusions, the sorrows and the joys, all human greatness and all human
+misery, the entire drama of reality, which perpetually becomes and
+grows upon itself, suffering and rejoicing."[2]
+
+This recognition of the implicit universality of the æsthetic
+expression does not abolish, as it might seem to a superficial
+observer, the distinction between æsthetic and logical knowledge; it
+rather makes it clearer and truer. An imperfect recognition may lead
+to an intellectualistic or mystic theory of art; and intellectualism
+and mysticism in æsthetics remain for Croce as typical forms of error,
+whether they are directed towards a confusion between intuition and
+judgment, or towards a symbolical or allegorical interpretation of
+art, or towards a semi-religious theory of art as the revelation of
+the _Deus absconditus_. But the truth that those errors tried to
+express in their imperfect formulas, is finally understood by him to
+be that character of universality which belongs to every aspect and
+to every fragment of the living reality. Feeling itself, or a state
+of mind, partakes in its actuality of that universal character, but
+when expressed in art, it retains its universality only by losing its
+practical nature, and subjecting itself entirely to the form which
+expresses it. Thus the æsthetic activity, because bent on realizing
+its own universality, which is the perfection of its form, imposes on
+the artist a morality and a discipline which cannot be identified with
+practical morality, with the discipline of life. The sincerity of the'
+artist is of another order than that of the practical man, though (we
+can never repeat it too often) æsthetic virtues being incommensurable
+with moral values, his work as an artist does not exempt him from his
+duties as a man.
+
+This further determination of the concept of expression is used by
+Croce to clarify a distinction which had already been adumbrated
+in the Estetica; the distinction between poetic, intellectual, and
+practical expression, between the word in which the pure intuition
+embodies itself, the word which is a sign or symbol of thought, and
+the word which is an instrument for the awakening of the emotions, a
+preparation for action. Thus the old categories of poetry, prose, and
+oratory reappear, but no longer as criteria of material classification,
+no longer to be identified with classes or genres of expression. They
+become synonyms, respectively, of the æsthetic, the logical, and the
+practical activity; to be used as instruments of literary and artistic
+criticism, if the critic is willing to renounce all external helps and
+material standards, and to penetrate into the "individuality of the
+act, where only it is given to him to discern the different spiritual
+dispositions, and what is poetry from what is not poetry. Under the
+semblance of prose, in a comedy or in a novel, we may find a true and
+deeply felt lyric; as under that of verse, in a tragedy or in a poem,
+nothing but reflection and oratory."[3] It is easy to perceive how this
+distinction will also react on Croce's theory of language as intuition
+and expression, not by altering its initial position, but by offering
+new means for the empirical analysis of the facts of language, the
+nature of which is obviously determined by the kind of impulse which
+man obeys in the individual act of expression. By the employment of
+such a method, the history of language as æsthetic expression can be
+qualified and illumined through the consideration of the moments in
+which language ceases to be a pure act of æsthetic creation, and is
+subordinated, as a symbol or instrument, to the purposes of the logical
+and practical mind.
+
+Similarly, in the history of poetry or of art, the consideration of
+the logical and practical moments in the expression will help to
+define and isolate that which is purely æsthetic expression, that is,
+poetry and art. Croce's expressionistic theory, when thus understood,
+differs both from other expressionistic theories and from the narrow
+interpretations of Croce's own theory that have been given by some of
+his followers and by all his adversaries. It does not, in fact, attempt
+to give an æsthetic justification of art as the mere passive reception
+of the transient mood; it has no sympathy for that impressionism which
+transforms the artist into a reed shaken by all winds of circumstance,
+legitimizing every intrusion of the practical personality in the
+æsthetic production. It reduces this modern æsthetics of the immediate
+feeling to an expression, not of the true spirit of what art and poetry
+is being produced to-day, but of that disease, or passivity, of the
+times, the first solemn document of which can be traced in Rousseau's
+_Confessions_. Against it, Croce appeals to the example and the word
+of a Goethe or a Leopardi, who diagnosed the disease in its inception,
+and contrasted the classical naturalness and simplicity of the ancients
+with the affectation and tumidity of the moderns. But the classicism
+which Croce invokes is not a formal and literal ideal, limited to
+certain models or standards: it is that complete idealization, which
+the immediate practical data, in all times and climates, will undergo
+at the hands of the true poet and artist, whether he calls himself a
+romanticist or a classicist, an idealist or a realist.
+
+Closely related with this line of thought is Croce's distinction of
+the practical from the poetical personality of the artist, and of
+biography from æsthetic criticism, as we find it in the essay of
+_Alcune massime critiche_, and in the first chapter of his study on
+Shakespeare (1919). The knowledge of the facts of an artist's life is
+undoubtedly required for the purposes of biographical or practical
+history; but their relation with the æsthetic personality of the artist
+is not, as it is generally assumed, a relation of cause and effect.
+They may have an indirect utility for the definition of the æsthetic
+personality, and especially for the recognition of that which in the
+works of art themselves is still purely practical, not yet stamped
+with the seal of the æsthetic activity. But in the apprehension of
+art, the critic must prescind from the biographical elements, because
+"the artist himself has prescinded from them in the act of creation of
+his work of art, which is a work of art inasmuch as it is the opposite
+of the practical life, and is accomplished by the artist raising
+himself above the practical plane, abandoning the greatest part of
+his practical feelings, and transfiguring those even that he seems
+to preserve, because putting them into new relations. The artist, as
+we say, 'transcends time,' that is, the 'practical time,' and enters
+the 'ideal time,' where actions do not follow actions, but the eternal
+lives in the present. And he who pretends to explain the ideal time by
+the practical time, the imaginative creation by the practical action,
+art by biography, unwittingly denies art itself, and reduces it to
+a practical business, of the same kind as eating and making love,
+producing goods or fighting for a political cause."[4]
+
+This concept of the æsthetic personality, which we find clearly
+defined in Croce's most recent essays, was the guiding principle
+of all his literary criticism, since the time when he started his
+series of studies on modern Italian literature. He had inherited
+it from De Sanctis, whose work, in so far as it is æsthetic and
+not moral or political history, can be regarded as a collection of
+powerful characterizations of æsthetic personalities. But, in his
+first attempts in literary criticism, Croce employed it tentatively
+in what then appeared to him only as the preparatory stage of his
+work; beyond the individual characterizations, and once these had
+been sufficiently determined, he still thought of the possibility of
+a general literary history, in which these should find their place as
+parts of a more complex organism of critical thought. But when he had
+completed his task, in a series of remarkable essays, some of which
+will have fixed for a long time to come the physiognomy of the most
+notable Italian writers of the last half-century, he perceived that
+he had practically exhausted the æsthetic problems which the work of
+those writers presented to his mind: a general literary history of
+the period could have been nothing but a new arrangement of the same
+ideas and valuations contained in the individual essays. Thus the
+monographic method .which he had originally adopted for convenience'
+sake, justified itself in the practice of his work, or rather proved
+to be the only legitimate method of literary and general artistic
+history. All the vague abstractions with which modern nationalistic or
+sociological histories of art and poetry are crammed, reveal themselves
+ultimately as either generalizations of individual characteristics, or
+concepts borrowed from the economic and moral history of a nation or
+people, more or less irrelevant to the purposes of æsthetic criticism.
+The true unity in the consideration of the history of art cannot be
+reached by the establishment of purely external and material relations
+between work and work, between artist and artist, but only by making
+one's critical estimate of the individual work or artist sufficiently
+vast and sufficiently deep. "Contemporaries, related or opposed to the
+individual poet, his more or less partial and remote forerunners, the
+moral and intellectual life of his time, and that of the times which
+preceded and prepared it, these and other things are all present (now
+expressed, now unexpressed) in our spirit, when we reconstruct the
+dialectic of a given artistic personality. Undoubtedly, in considering
+a given personality we cannot, in the same act, consider another or
+many others or all others, each for itself; and psychologists call this
+lack of ubiquity the 'narrowness of the threshold of consciousness,'
+while they ought to call it the highest energy of the human spirit,
+which sinks itself in the object that in a given moment interests it,
+and does not allow itself under any condition to be diverted from it,
+because in the individual it finds all that interests it, and, in a
+word, the Whole."[5]
+
+This is the purport of the essay on _La Riforma della Storia artistica
+e letteraria_ (1917), and this is the method deliberately followed by
+Croce in his recent essays on Ariosto, Goethe, Shakespeare, Corneille
+and Dante, which ought to be studied not only as characterizations of
+the various poets, of the feeling or tonality which is peculiar to each
+of them and constitutes their æsthetic personality, but also as sources
+for the methodology of literary criticism. To his theory Croce brings
+a two-fold corroboration, first, from the observation of the fact that
+it coincides with a more and more widespread tendency in both literary
+and artistic history towards the monographic form, the individual
+essay, as the most effectual type of criticism; and second, from the
+analogy with other forms of history. All history, and not æsthetic
+history only, is essentially monographic; all history is the history
+of a given event or of a given custom or of a given doctrine, and all
+history reaches the universal only in and through the individual. The
+only obstacles to a general acceptation of this view are, on one side,
+a persistent inability to distinguish art from the practical and moral
+life and from philosophy, and on the other, a lack of scientific sense,
+through which science is regarded not as critical research, but as a
+material gathering of facts. Prospectuses, handbooks, dictionaries
+and encyclopedias are not the ideal of history: they are instruments
+of which we shall always make use as practical helps for the critical
+research; but what is living and real thought in them is but an echo of
+the actual thinking of individual problems.
+
+All æsthetic criticism, and therefore all æsthetic history, is this
+thinking of logical problems, rooted in the concrete ground of the
+works of art, which are in their turn solutions of æsthetic problems.
+For this the dynamic conception of the human spirit imports that every
+one of its acts is a creation, or a doing, in the particular form
+in which the spirit realizes itself; art, a creation, in respect to
+which all spiritual antecedents assume the aspect of a given æsthetic
+problem; history or philosophy, a creation on the substance of reality
+presenting itself as a logical problem; and the whole sphere of the
+theoretical spirit, "a theoretical _doings_ which is the perpetual
+antecedent and the perpetual consequent of the practical doing."[6]
+The mere recreation of the æsthetic impression given by a work of art
+is not yet criticism; the critic as a mere _artifex additus artifici_
+is not yet a critic, but still an artist. Criticism, like all other
+history, is not feeling or intuition, but intelligence and thought.
+Every history of criticism will therefore ultimately coincide with the
+history of æsthetic theories, with the philosophy of art. We thus reach
+again, by a new path, the identification of history with philosophy; to
+which, in this particular case, the most common objection is that what
+is required in a critic is much more an exquisite æsthetic sensibility
+than an elaborate concept of what art is as a category of the human
+mind. But the objection rests on a misunderstanding of the proper
+function of criticism. What sensibility can give is but the immediate
+apprehension or taste of the work of art, critically dumb in itself;
+on the other hand, it is impossible to conceive of a true intelligence
+of art, "without the conjoined capacity to understand the individual
+works of art, because philosophy does not develop in the abstract,
+but is stimulated by the acts of life and imagination, rises for the
+purpose of comprehending them, and understands them by understanding
+itself."[7] The mere æsthetic sensibility makes but a new artist; what
+makes the critic is his philosophy. Here also, however, as during the
+whole course of our inquiry, we must not identify philosophy with the
+official history of philosophical disciplines, which offers a large
+number of theories of æsthetics only remotely related to the concrete
+works of art, to the concrete processes of æsthetic creation, but with
+the whole history of human thought, with the working out of particular
+problems successively presented to the intelligence of man by the
+actual developments of poetry and art. The æsthetic judgment, like
+every other judgment, is a synthesis of the individual intuition, or
+subject, and of the universal category, or predicate; and this is but
+another way of stating the identity of æsthetic criticism, as of all
+forms of history, with philosophy. The critic must be endowed with a
+power to give new life, within his own mind, to the intuitions of the
+artist, but this is for him but the soil in which his thought must
+spread its roots; it is true that without that power, no criticism
+is possible, but it is equally true that no philosophy of art can
+grow on any but that same soil. The ultimate test of the validity of
+æsthetic thought is in its capacity to expand our sphere of æsthetic
+apprehension; and pure æsthetics is but the methodological moment of
+æsthetic history or criticism.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: _Contributo_, pp. 79-81.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Nuovi Saggi, di Estetica_, p. 126.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 142. Also _Conversazioni Critiche_, I,
+pp. 58-63.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 231.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 181.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _L'arte come Creazione_ (1918), in _Nuovi Saggi_, p. 160.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _La Critica Letteraria come Filosofia_ (1918), in _Nuovi
+Saggi_, p. 217.]
+
+
+
+
+IV. VERITAS FILIA TEMPORIS
+
+
+_Quid est veritas?_--Platonism, or transcendental idealism--Naturalism,
+or transcendental realism--The idea of progress--Progress and truth:
+evolutionism--Pragmatism--Croce's new pragmatism--The immanence of
+value--The actuality of Truth--Truth as history: the function of error
+and of evil--The foundations of Croce's thought.
+
+
+There is one problem in the history of human thought, which, however
+conscious we might be of the multiplicity and historical contingency
+of philosophical problems, yet can appear to us as the ultimate or
+central one, if only because it is an abstract interrogation describing
+the attitude of the philosopher, and to which every concrete logical
+research, every act of thought, can be reduced. It is Pilate's
+question: _Quid est veritas?_ What is truth?
+
+The question itself has no definite meaning, until it receives from the
+individual thinker a definite content, which is history or experience,
+and the infinite variety of the answers it has received is due to the
+infinite variability of that content. But at all times man has been
+urged by a passionate desire to lift his own individual answer from the
+flux of life, to put it as it were over and against that experience
+from which it had emerged, not as the truth of his particular problem,
+but as an abstractly universal truth. It is by violently breaking the
+process of thought, and hypostatizing in essence the subject of his
+thought, abstracted from its object, or the object from its subject,
+and both from the creative activity which produces truth, that man has
+created, both in philosophy proper and in the minds of the multitude,
+a double transcendence, of pure ideas, on one side, of brute matter on
+the other, from which the two most common meanings of the word truth
+are derived.
+
+The Platonic idealist, for whom the actual processes of life and
+thought are but shadows and remembrances of the Eternal Ideas in
+the hyper-uranian space, can be assumed here as the symbol of the
+transcendental idealist, for whom truth is adequation to an ideal model
+existing outside the mind. The most disparate types of philosophers
+belong to this herd, and among them many that commonly go under the
+name of realists, since the idealist who has fixed and objectified
+his ideas cannot help considering them as real essences, and dealing
+with them accordingly. The Aristotelian realist, the theologian,
+Hegel himself when postulating an original Logos, of which Spirit and
+Nature are the temporal explication, all can be gathered together
+in the goodly company of Platonists; and Platonists are to-day both
+the literal followers of German idealism, and the less barbarous
+among contemporary realists, who are in the habit of attributing
+an independent, absolute existence to logical or mathematical
+abstractions. But neither the ones nor the others seem to be in very
+close contact with the spirit of the age: what they mean by truth is
+not what is generally meant by truth to-day, except among those who
+still cling to the myths in which that form of transcendence expressed
+itself in past ages. The sturdiest, though hardly recognizable,
+survivals of Platonism are relics of formalistic logic, still very
+frequent in contemporary culture, and a belief in what might be called
+average truth, mechanically extracted from an external and material
+consensus of opinions. But with this conception of truth, we touch the
+border line between idealistic and naturalistic transcendentalism.
+
+The most common attitude of contemporary thought (and the one that is
+therefore usually designated as common sense, and as such opposed to
+philosophy) is a naively naturalistic one. But it would be a mistake
+to regard it as a simple and spontaneous attitude, and to identify it,
+for instance, with the naïve intuition of the artist, with a first
+grade of knowledge as yet untroubled by logical problems. The artist's
+vision is more distant from naturalism than the philosopher's concept,
+since common sense, however unreflected and illogical, is in itself
+a philosophy, and, though it may sound paradoxical, a transcendental
+one. The artist constantly identifies himself with his object; in his
+consciousness, the distinction between subject and object has not
+yet arisen. But the naïve naturalism of which we are now speaking
+is posterior to the logical judgment, in which that distinction
+first appears; and is obtained by keeping separate the two terms of
+the judgment, each of which exists only in relation to the other,
+and by transforming that relation into a quality of the object. The
+unity thus disrupted is artificially reconstituted by abolishing the
+subject, that is, by treating the subject itself as merely an object
+among many objects, or as a mere abstract intersection of objects. It
+is with this form of naturalism that realism generally coincides, and
+its abstracting process is the one that has been recently systematized
+by the New Realists. The justification of the naturalistic conception
+of truth, as truth of description, and the motive of its present
+popularity, is that it rests on a method of knowledge which is
+indispensable to the natural and mathematical sciences, and that the
+sciences have come to usurp, in modern times, for reasons which are
+obvious to every one, the place of science. It is not the less true,
+however, that wherever that method is applied, it reduces the living
+reality of life and thought to a heap of dead, immovable abstractions.
+There is no real danger in this as long as the abstractions are taken
+for what they are, and used as instruments for the purposes of our
+doing and understanding; but when they are considered as a complete
+equivalent of the living reality, then we become their prisoners, and
+are shut out by them from all possibility of true understanding.
+It is especially from the misuses of this method in the historical
+and moral sciences, from the degenerations of sociology, psychology,
+and philology, that we must be constantly on guard; lest in the very
+sciences of the human spirit we should miss that which is their true
+object, the human activity which creates the world of history and the
+values of life.
+
+Modern thought, at the end of the Renaissance, begins with an attempt
+at eliminating that static conception of truth, in which both Platonism
+and naturalism find the roots of their transcendence. This is the
+origin of the idea of Progress, first established by Bruno, by Bacon,
+by Pascal, by Vico, in the form of a correlation between truth and
+time. Mediæval thought had been shackled for centuries by the authority
+of the ancients; the new thinkers invoked the authority of antiquity,
+of old age, and, therefore, of wisdom, not for the distant ages, in
+which the world could be said to be still young and inexperienced, but
+for their own times, in which it was possible to add a perpetually
+new experience and thought to that which had been bequeathed by the
+thinkers of Greece and Rome. The consequence of this attitude was the
+discovery of the immanence of truth in life, the liberation from the
+principle of authority (which had been the characteristic mediæval
+form of transcendence), and a vigorous impulse towards the recognition
+of the dynamic nature of reality, of what an American philosopher
+called the continuity of the ideal with the real. The thought that
+was contained in germ in those early polemics, vaguely and mythically
+in Bruno, and much more consciously in Vico, is substantially that of
+Croce's identification of philosophy with history.
+
+We do not expect of a new philosophy that it should suddenly, as a
+revelation or illumination, give us a key to all the problems of
+reality, and resolve, once and forever, the so-called mystery of the
+universe. If such a thing should ever happen, it would mean the end of
+life, which cannot be conceived, in its ultimate essence, otherwise
+than as a perpetual positing and solution of problems. It must not be
+forgotten that a philosophy is the work of one man, and, therefore,
+contains only the answers to the problems that are real to him.
+But if we stop to consider the whole course of thought in the last
+two centuries, we shall realize that the idea of Progress, in many
+different and even in contrasting forms, is the one around which all
+our life, theoretical and practical, has centred in modern times. And
+of that idea, Croce's philosophy is the most powerful and coherent
+expression that has ever appeared. It is only by considering the
+whole of reality as activity, and the values of reality as coinciding
+with the forms of that activity, that Progress acquires a definite
+meaning: a progress which should be a constant approximation towards
+a preëxistent ideal, or a material process external to ourselves,
+would be a purely illusory one. In one case, our whole life would tend
+towards making a duplicate of that which already is--a work, therefore,
+without intrinsic worth, and without a real end; in the other, there
+would be no work at all, no activity, no life.
+
+But nothing seems more difficult to our mind than to keep together
+the two ideas of progress and of truth. The natural sciences have
+made a gallant attempt at assimilating the idea of progress, and at
+transforming themselves, ultimately, into history. But the static
+concepts of naturalism resist that assimilation, and scientific
+evolutionism offers but the mechanical outline, the external processes
+of progress, the evolved and not the evolving reality; that is, it
+keeps its truth at the expense of its progress. This same evolutionism,
+when applied to the human sciences, is obviously unable to grasp the
+actuality of spiritual growth and life, and it only reproduces, in
+aggravated form, the evils inherent in all naturalistic interpretations
+of the spirit. Bergson's philosophy is a new evolutionism, which
+succeeds much better than the old one in retaining the idea of
+progress, and is, therefore, a further step towards the transformation
+of science into history; but what it gains in this respect, it loses
+in relation to its principle of truth, which is mythically represented
+as the lowest form of consciousness, or rather as that which is below
+consciousness itself.
+
+What is vital in Bergson is his criticism of the scientific, or
+naturalistic, intellect; but the intellect of man has other functions
+besides those of dissecting and classifying. From a similar beginning,
+that is, from the economic theory of science, derives another attempt
+at conciliating progress and truth, pragmatism. In pragmatism also, the
+critical element is more or less sound, but the constructive one is
+weak and arbitrary. Pragmatism does not reject the truth of science,
+because of its practical character; on the contrary, having recognized
+that the foundation of scientific truth is economic, it proceeds
+to deduce all truth from the will, and to verify it in action. The
+result of this deduction is a closer connection between truth and life
+than has been ever reached by any system of philosophy; but a merely
+apparent one, since truth itself is thus submerged and annulled in the
+immediacy of practical and passional life. The solution of the problem
+of truth is obtained only by putting truth out of the question at the
+beginning of the inquiry; as it is dear that for a rigid pragmatist,
+there is but one truth left, and that is the truth of his theory,
+which, however, cannot be verified by the theory itself, since its
+usefulness is, to say the least, very doubtful.
+
+By some of his adversaries Croce himself has been classed as a
+pragmatist. It is no wonder that certain distinctions should escape
+the attention of men who live to-day as exiles from distant centuries,
+and whose critical sight is, therefore, not clearer then that of an
+owl fluttering in the noonday sun. But the only relation that I
+can think of between Croce and the pragmatists is that he advocates
+an economic theory not of truth, but of error; that he finds in the
+passions and practical interests of men the root of intellectual
+error. The problem of the positive relations between life and thought
+has been treated by him, as we know, in a very different spirit from
+that of the pragmatists; and in the circle of the human spirit, the
+ideal precedence is given by him, not to the practical but to the
+theoretical. On the other hand, in the actual process of time, all
+forms of human activity are reciprocally conditioned, and under
+this respect Croce's thought can be called, and has been called by
+himself, a new pragmatism, but "of a kind of which pragmatists have
+never thought, or at least which they have never been able to discern
+from the others, and to bring out in full relief. If life conditions
+thought, we have in this fact the clearly established demonstration of
+the always historically conditioned form of every thought: and not of
+art only, which is always the art of a time, of a soul, of a moment,
+but of philosophy also, which can solve but the problems that life
+proposes. Every philosophy reflects, and cannot help reflecting, the
+preoccupations, as they are called, of a determined historical moment;
+not, however, in the quality of its solutions (because in this case it
+would be a bad philosophy, a partisan or passional philosophy), but in
+the quality of its problems. And because the problem is historical,
+and the solution eternal, philosophy is at the same time contingent and
+eternal, mortal and immortal, temporary and extratemporary."[1] Croce's
+conception of truth is his philosophy, and it is not my intention to
+summarize here what this book presents in what is already so rapid a
+survey. I wish only to point again at those doctrines of his, through
+which progress and truth are reconciled, without any sacrifice of the
+one to the other. Truth is for Croce a universal value or category of
+consciousness: its absoluteness rests on its character of universality,
+but, as a universal has no real being outside its concrete actuality,
+truth is nowhere if not in the individual judgment, that is, in the
+mind that creates it. It is strange that this mode of its manifestation
+should be considered to impair the quality of truth, while a similar
+objection would hardly be raised to-day in regard to other forms of
+spiritual activity. That the Beautiful is the value of the concrete,
+historical productions of the æsthetic spirit, or the Good that of the
+concrete, historically determined moral activity, these are concepts
+common to all contemporary thought, though no one, perhaps, has as
+yet expressed them as clearly as Croce. To the artist or to the
+saint, reality appears at a given moment as an æsthetic or an ethical
+problem; the terms of the problem are always particular, contingent,
+historical; yet when the artist or the saint impresses on that reality
+the seal of his own deepest personality, when he creatively reacts to
+it, then the Beautiful and the Good realize themselves, as universal
+values, in the individual work of art or of mercy. Our belief in the
+absoluteness of the æsthetic or of the moral value is not weakened
+but strengthened by our inability to fix them in formulas or codes or
+standards; we see them perpetually transcending the reality in which
+they express themselves, by the same process by which that reality,
+which is all growth and life, transcends itself in the infinite
+course of its realization. We cannot think of any number of works
+of art or of mercy as exhausting the categories of the Beautiful or
+of the Good. The identification of these values with the infinite
+series of their individual expressions fills the soul with a sense of
+reverence and responsibility towards life, that cannot be equalled
+by any faith in static, immovable ideals, by which a term, however
+high and remote, is set to the living spirit, no longer recognised
+as the creator of its own æsthetic and moral world. To the mind that
+has grasped this relation of the universal to the individual, of the
+eternal to the present (and the artist or the saint grasps it in his
+own unphilosophical way, to which his work or his action is witness),
+the whole of reality, human and natural, appears as linked by a bond of
+spiritual solidarity, moving towards the same end, engaged in the same
+sacred task.
+
+Truth is the value of the logical activity, and therefore it coincides
+with the positive history of human thought. Its actuality is an
+infinite progress or development, but not in the sense that the value
+itself may be subject to increase or change from century to century.
+At no particular point in that history is it possible to point to a
+conversion from error to truth, to a total illumination or revelation.
+Every single affirmation of truth, from the simplest and humblest
+to the most elaborate and complex, takes possession of the whole of
+reality, in the fulness of its relations; since it is manifestly
+impossible to affirm the truth of one individual subject, without
+implicitly determining its position in the universe. Truth, as all
+other values, has no extension; it is incommensurable either with space
+or with time, it is not augmented by accumulation. Degrees in truth,
+and a more and a less, are inconceivable; but each act that affirms
+it contains its whole, since truth itself does not live except in the
+spirit that perpetually creates and recreates it. Truth belongs to the
+thinking mind, that is, to reality as a logical consciousness, as life
+belongs to the living body. It belongs to us, individually, in relation
+to that universal consciousness, in the mode and measure of our
+partaking of it: which means that however much of it we may conquer,
+however constant, laborious, honest, intense our efforts towards
+truth may be, yet our duty towards it will always remain infinite,
+inexhaustible. The conquered truth is dead in the mind that rests in
+it, that ceases its effort, as life gives place to death in the body
+that no longer functions.
+
+In a wider sense, truth belongs to every form of spiritual activity.
+Beauty, utility, goodness are the truths of the artistic, the
+practical, the moral mind. And in the actual life of the spirit, each
+of these values represents all the others in the particular act in
+which it realizes itself. This is what Croce means by his circular
+conception of the spirit. And this is why what is said of one value
+seems to apply without any change to the others; why, as we said
+elsewhere, all universals are but one universal. Whether we call this
+one Progress or Development, Spirit or Reality, Mind or Nature, we
+know that our thought is grasping Life itself, not in its abstract
+identity, but in its infinite actuality, that is, each time, this
+life, this beauty, this action, this truth. What we aim at is not an
+ecstatic absorption into the undifferentiated unity, but the finding
+within ourselves of a centre of consciousness, capable of introducing
+order and reason into the variegated spectacle of the natural and human
+world, not from outside and from above, but from its very heart. The
+truth that we seek is therefore never external to ourselves, but our
+own activity, our own life, our own history.
+
+This concept of truth as activity and as history, this activistic and
+energetic philosophy, truly positive in that the course of history
+appears to it as a succession of only positive acts and positive
+values, is not however a blind and fatuous optimism. If it is true
+that nowhere positive error or positive evil can interrupt the process
+of life, that death itself does not end but fulfil it, yet from the
+relations and implications of the various forms of activity arises
+a real dialectic of good and evil, of truth and error, which is the
+spring and motive of life. What to the purely utilitarian conscience
+is the good of now and of to-day, the same conscience, awakened to a
+greater light, repudiates as evil. The imaginative vision of the poet,
+in which truth expresses itself, sensuous and finite, and yet pregnant
+of its infinity, dissolves like mist in the sun in the clearness
+of the logical concept, and is then restored in its right by the
+historical and critical consciousness to which that truth is poetry.
+The myths and superstitions of the old religions, dead in the letter,
+are revived in the thought itself that seems to destroy them. History
+is but this perpetual cycle of death and resurrection, in which what
+is concrete distinction in the act transforms itself into opposition
+in the process, producing the terms of a new problem and becoming the
+source of the new creation. Thus the whole method of Croce's philosophy
+reveals itself as directed towards a realistic conception of life, and
+the distinctions within the concept are not abstract forms, but the
+very structure of reality.
+
+The professional philosopher moves always and only in the rarefied
+atmosphere of the pure concept. Croce came to philosophy from art and
+from economics, and he never lost contact with the elementary forms
+of knowledge and of action. What might be termed as his fundamental
+discoveries are his definitions of the æsthetic and of the economic
+principle. On this basis the whole of his thought rests. Without a
+conception of a truth which is sufficient unto itself, and yet is not
+logical truth, and of a good which has its own justification, and yet
+is not moral good, he would have been compelled to maintain by the side
+of the concepts of truth and of goodness, error and evil as positive
+realities, or to include the whole of reality within what would have
+been truth and goodness in a purely verbal sense. In both cases, he
+would have been unable to make his philosophy immediately adherent to
+all grades of active consciousness, from the lowest to the highest,
+and thereby to history. Of these discoveries the one that until now
+has attracted the greatest attention is that of the pure intuition,
+and of art and language as expression. But the establishment of the
+economic principle, that is of the world of nature, of feeling, of
+passion, as a positive grade of the spiritual process, will probably
+be counted as Croce's greatest achievement, by those who shall be able
+to look back on his work with an ampler perspective. It is through
+it that his philosophy of the spirit, and in this philosophy, the
+consciousness of our day, has taken possession of that other world, of
+that persistent transcendance, which we call nature. In this direction
+lies, undoubtedly, the future course of the thought of an age, to
+which, in this afterglow of a great conflagration, all problems seem to
+gather into the one of the subjection to its better and higher self,
+the utilization for its purer purposes, of its own cumbersome economic
+body, of its nature and of its passions.
+
+
+[Footnote 1: Filosofia della Pratica, p. 208.]
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Croce's Complete Works form a collection of twenty-eight volumes, in
+four distinct series, published by Laterza e Figli, of Bari, who are
+also the publishers of _La Critica_, and of the following collections
+initiated or directed by Croce: _Scrittori d'Italia, Scrittori
+Stranieri, Classici della Filosofia Moderna._
+
+We give here a full list of the _Opere di Benedetto Croce_, adding to
+the title of each volume the year of the last available edition, the
+years of their composition having already been indicated in the text:
+
+_Filosofia dello Spirito_ ("Philosophy of the Spirit"):
+
+Vol. I, _Estetica_, 1912. (Translated under the tide of "_Æsthetic_.")
+
+Vol. II, _Logica_, 1917. (Translated under the tide of "_Logic_.")
+
+Vol. III, _Filosofia della Pratica_, 1915. (Translated under the tide
+of "_The Philosophy of the Practical: Economics and Ethics._")
+
+Vol. IV, _Teoria e Storia della Storiografia_, 1920. (Translated under
+the tide of "_Theory and History of Historiography_" in England, and
+under the ride of "_History: Its Theory and Practice_" in the United
+States.)
+
+
+Saggi filosofici ("_Philosophical Essays_"):
+
+Vol. I, _Problemi di Estetica_, 1910 ("_Problems of Æsthetics._")
+
+Vol. II, _La Filosofia di Giambattista Fico_, 1911. (Translated under
+the title of "_The Philosophy of Vico._")
+
+Vol. III, _Saggio sullo Hegel_, 1913. ("_Essay on Hegel_," followed
+by essays on the history of philosophy; the essay on Hegel translated
+under the tide of "What Is Living and What Is Dead in the Philosophy of
+Hegel.")
+
+Vol. IV, _Materialismo Storico ed economia marxistica_, 1918.
+(Translated under the title of "Historical Materialism and Marxian
+Economics.")
+
+Vol. V, _Nuovi Saggi di Estetica_, 1920. ("New Essays on Æsthetics";
+contains the _Breviario di Estetica_, translated under the title of
+"The Essence of Æsthetics.")
+
+Vol. VI, _Frammenti di Etica_, 1922. ("Fragments of Ethics.")
+
+Scritti di Storia letteraria e politica. ("Writings on Literary and
+Political History"):
+
+Vol. I, _Saggi sulla Letteratura italiana del Seicento_, 1911. ("Essays
+on Italian Literature in the Seventeenth Century.")
+
+Vol. II, _La Rivoluzione napoletana del_ 1799, 1912. ("The Neapolitan
+Revolution of 1799.")
+
+Vols. III-VI, _La Letteratura della nuova Italia_, 1914-15. "(The
+Literature of the New Italy.")
+
+Vol. VII, _I Teatri di Napoli_, 1916. ("The Theatres of Naples.")
+
+Vol. VIII, _La Spagna nella Vita italiana durante la Rinascenza_, 1917.
+("Spain in Italian Life during the Renaissance.")
+
+Vols. IX-X, _Conversazioni critiche_, 1918. ("Critical Conversations.")
+
+Vol. XI, _Storie e leggende napoletane_, 1919. ("Historical Tales and
+Legends of Naples.")
+
+Vol. XII, Goethe, 1919.
+
+Vol. XIII, _Una Famiglia di Patrioti_, 1919. ("A Family of Patriots";
+includes essays on Francesco de Sanctis.)
+
+Vol. XIV, _Ariosto, Shakespeare e Corneille_, 1920. (Translated under
+the title of "Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille.")
+
+Vols. XV-XVI, _Storia della Storiografia italiana_, 1920. ("The History
+of Italian Historiography.")
+
+Vol. XVII, _La Poesia di Dante_, 1921. ("The Poetry of Dante.")
+
+
+_Scritti varii_. ("Miscellaneous Writings"):
+
+Vol. I, _Primi Saggi_, 1919. ("Early Essays.")
+
+The following volumes are not included in the Laterza edition of
+Croce's works:
+
+_Cultura e vita morale_, Bari, 1914. ("Culture and Moral Life.")
+_Aneddoti e profili settecenteschi_, Palermo, 1914. ("Anecdotes and
+Profiles of the Eighteenth Century.")
+
+_Contributo alla critica di me stesso_, Naples, 1918. ("Contribution
+to a Criticism of Myself"; one hundred copies printed for private
+distribution.)
+
+_Curiosità storiche_, Naples, 1920. ("Historical Curiosities.")
+
+_Pagine Sparse_, edited by G. Castellano, Naples, 1919-1920.
+("Scattered Pages," consisting of _Pagine di letteratura e di cultura_,
+2 vols.; _Pagine sulla guerra_; and _Memorie, scritti biografici e
+appunti storici_.)
+
+
+A complete bibliography, cataloguing the whole of Croce's multifarious
+activity, is outside the scope of this note. The nearest approach to it
+can be found in G. Castellano's _Introduzione alle opere di B. Croce_,
+Bari, 1920, which contains, besides, a full list of translations in
+eight languages, a bibliography of the Italian and foreign critical
+literature on Croce, and a very useful series of abstracts of
+discussions and judgments on Croce's work.
+
+Besides articles and essays in American and English magazines and
+reviews, the following works of Croce have been translated into
+English: the four volumes of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_, the essay
+on Hegel, the _Essence of Æsthetics_, and the essays on _Ariosto,
+Shakespeare, and Corneille_, by Douglas Ainslie; the essay on Vico, by
+R. G. Collingwood, and the essays on Historical Materialism, by C. M.
+Meredith. But the English or American student of Croce ought to rely
+as little as possible on translations; the reading of the Italian text
+will be found comparatively easy, on the basis of a good acquaintance
+with Latin or with French. The labour entailed by the surmounting
+of the first difficulties will be largely repaid by the advantages
+gained in coming into direct contact with Croce's thought, and by the
+acquisition of at least a reading knowledge of Italian.
+
+For the vast critical literature on Croce, scattered through the
+literary and philosophical reviews of Europe and of America during
+the last twenty years, we are compelled again to refer the reader to
+Castellano's book. We shall only mark out Croce's own autobiographical
+notes, the Contributo listed above, which, however, having been printed
+for private circulation only, is not generally accessible except in
+the French translation printed in the _Revue de Métaphysique et de
+Morale_, XXVI, pp. 1-40. The following are the only books which give
+a general view of Croce's thought: G. Prezzolini, _Benedetto Croce_,
+Naples, 1909; E. Chiocchetti, _La filosofia di B. Croce_, Florence,
+1915; H. Wildon Carr, _The Philosophy of B. Croce_, London, 1917. The
+first is an able, but very cursory sketch; the second examines Croce's
+philosophy from the standpoint of neoscholasticism; the third is an
+ample summary written by a distinguished writer well acquainted with
+the various currents of modern thought. Each of them ought to be read
+with a critical and discriminating eye.
+
+In the English-speaking world, Croce's fame rests emphatically on his
+æsthetics, and its applications to literary criticism. His influence
+on English and American critical thought has already gone much deeper
+than a mere list of writings on his theories would show; especially in
+England, his ideas are, so to speak, in the air, and appear in many
+writers who have no direct knowledge of his work. The best exposition
+of this phase of his philosophy is to be found in E. F. Carritt's
+book, _The Theory of Beauty_, 1914, chap. XIV. The writings of A. B.
+Walkley, and of J. E. Spingam, contain the most vigorous prosecution
+of his thought as applied, respectively, to English and to American
+scholarship and criticism.
+
+For the general history of Italian thought, to which many a reference
+is made in the course of this book, the best helps, besides Croce's
+essay on Vico, and B. Spaventa, _La filosofia italiana_, recently
+reprinted, Bari, 1909, are the historical works of Giovanni Gentile,
+and especially his _Storia della filosofia italiana_, Milano, n.
+d. Gentile is one of the most profound and earnest modern European
+thinkers, and it is desirable that his theoretical works, similar in
+tendency to, but widely divergent in temper from those of Croce, should
+become better known to the Anglo-Saxon world. Two of his books, _La
+Riforma dell' Educazione_ and _Teoria generale dello Spirito_, are soon
+to appear in English. Croce's judgment on Gentile's Actual Idealism is
+expressed in _Una discussione tra filosofi amici_, in _Conversazioni
+Critiche_, II, pp. 67-95. But a complete understanding of the vital
+relations between the two thinkers can be gathered only through an
+adequate knowledge of both Croce's and Gentile's work.
+
+
+
+
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
+available by the Google Books Library Project (https://books.google.com)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      the Google Books Library Project. See
+      https://books.google.com/books?id=eK4wRqfBsaUC&hl=en
+
+
+
+
+
+MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+By BENNET COPPLESTONE
+
+THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS
+THE LAST OF THE GRENVILLES
+JITNY AND THE BOYS
+THE SILENT WATCHERS
+
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL
+
+by
+
+BENNET COPPLESTONE
+
+Author of "The Lost Naval Papers," etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Logo]
+
+New York
+E. P. Dutton & Company
+681 Fifth Avenue
+
+Copyright, 1920
+By E. P. Dutton & Company
+
+All rights reserved
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+    I. HIS LORDSHIP                          1
+
+   II. MADAME TAKES CHARGE                  19
+
+  III. THE "HUMMING TOP"                    35
+
+   IV. IN THE SOUTH SEAS                    50
+
+    V. WILLATOPY: PILOT                     60
+
+   VI. A NIGHT IN THE STRAITS               79
+
+  VII. FATHER AND SON                       94
+
+ VIII. TOPS ISLAND                         112
+
+   IX. WILLATOPY: SPORTSMAN                125
+
+    X. THE COMING OF THE HEDGE LAWYER      155
+
+   XI. THE CAMPAIGN OPENS                  167
+
+  XII. THE SAILING OF THE YAWL             183
+
+ XIII. WHITE BLOOD                         200
+
+  XIV. MARIE LAMBERT                       215
+
+   XV. TURTLE                              229
+
+  XVI. WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS           246
+
+ XVII. FAREWELL TO TOPS ISLAND             263
+
+XVIII. THE HAND OF MADAME GILBERT          279
+
+  XIX. IN THE STRAITS OF SUNDA             296
+
+   XX. MADAME REFUSES THE "HUMMING TOP"    304
+
+
+
+
+MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+HIS LORDSHIP
+
+
+Madame Gilbert's war service ended when Austria fell out. She had been
+in Italy busied with those obscure intrigues for the confounding of an
+enemy which are excused, and dignified, as patriotic propaganda. She is
+satisfied that on the Italian Front she, and those who worked with her,
+really won the war.
+
+The war satisfactorily won, Madame Gilbert sped home to revel in the
+first holiday which she had known since August, 1914. She always seems
+to travel with fewer restrictions and at greater speed than any except
+Prime Ministers and commanding Generals. In Italy she is an Italian and
+in France a Frenchwoman--a dazzling Italian and a very winning
+Frenchwoman. The police of both countries make smooth her path with
+their humble bodies upon which Madame is graciously pleased to trample.
+"I never trouble much about passports or credentials," says she, "though
+I carry them just as I do my .25 automatic pistol; in practice I find
+that I need draw my papers as rarely as I draw my gun. Most of the
+police and officials who have seen me once know me when I come again,
+and rush to my assistance." She is never grateful for service. I do not
+believe she knows the sentiment of gratitude. A poor man renders her aid
+in defiance of regulations, and maybe at the risk of his neck; she
+smiles upon him, and the debt is instantly discharged. He is dismissed
+until perchance Madame may again have occasion for his devotion. Then
+she reveals the royal accomplishment of never forgetting a face. Imagine
+a harassed, weary _chef du train_, before whose official unseeing eyes
+travellers flit like figures on a cinema screen, imagine such a one
+addressed by name and rank by the most beautiful and gracious of mortal
+women, by a woman who remembers all those little family confidences
+which he had poured into her sympathetic ears some twelve months before,
+by a woman who enquires sweetly after his good wife--using her pet
+name--laments that the brave son--also accurately named--is still
+missing beyond those impenetrable Boche lines. Will not the _chef du
+train_, cooed over thus and softly patted as one pats butter, break
+every French rule the most iron-bound to speed Madame upon her way? Of
+course he will. In war time, as in peace time, that is the royal manner
+of Madame Gilbert. She does not travel; she makes a progress.
+
+Madame came home after the armistice with Austria, and, being discharged
+of liability to the propagandist headquarters, found herself a free and
+idle woman. The first time for more than four years.
+
+She had a little money from her late husband (the real one), and had
+been lavishly paid for her services during the war. War prices in London
+seemed quite moderate to her after the extortions of France and Italy.
+She re-occupied her old rooms near Shaftesbury Avenue--and incidentally
+made homeless a pair of exiled Belgians--and fed after the fashion that
+she loved in the restaurants of Soho. Madame enjoyed her food. She
+always scoffed at Beauty Specialists. "Look at me," she would say. "Look
+closely at my skin, at my hair, at my teeth if you like. What you see is
+God's gift improved by exact care for my health. I do physical exercises
+for twenty minutes every night and morning. I plunge all over into cold
+water whenever I can get together enough to cover me, and I eat and
+drink whatever I like. I shall go on living for just as long as I am
+beautiful and healthy. When I have to think of my digestion or of the
+colour of my skin, I shall say Good-bye and go West in a dream of
+morphia." Superficially, Madame is a Roman Catholic; at heart she is a
+Greek Pagan.
+
+It was at La Grande Patisserie Belge that Madame stumbled across the
+lawyer who was fated to introduce her to the Cannibal of whom she told
+me in Whitehall.
+
+It was a melancholy afternoon in January, peace had not brought
+plenty--especially of coal--and Madame was fortifying herself against
+the damp chills of London by long draughts of the hottest coffee and the
+sweetest and stickiest confectionery which even she could relish. About
+six feet distant, on what one may describe as her port quarter, sat a
+middle-aged Englishman whose bagging clothes showed that war rations
+had dealt sorely with his once ample person. Madame, who without turning
+her head examined him in critical detail, judged that his loss in weight
+was three stone. He had the clean, shaven face and alert aspect of a
+lawyer or doctor. In fancied security a little to the left and rear of
+Madame Gilbert the stranger stared openly at her cheek and ear and the
+coils of bright copper hair. Madame knew that he was watching her, and
+rather liked the scrutiny. She had recognized him at once, and would
+have been slightly humiliated if he had failed to be interested in her.
+It is true that she had met him but once before in her life, and that
+some four years since, but as Madame had condescended to recollect
+him--I have said that her memory for faces was royal--a failure on his
+part to remember her would have been an offence unpardonable.
+
+Madame continued to munch sweet stuff, and the man, his tea completed,
+rose, paid his bill, and then passed slowly in front of her. He needed
+encouragement before he would speak. So Madame gave it, a quick look and
+a smile of invitation. He bowed.
+
+"Have I not the honour to meet again the Signora Guilberti?" said he.
+
+"The Signora Guilberti," assented Madame, "or Madame Guilbert, or Madame
+Gilbert, as rendered by the rough English tongue. I have stooped to
+anglicise my name," she went on, "though I hate the clipped English
+version." She indicated a chair, and the lawyer--he was a lawyer--sat
+down.
+
+"Is it possible that Madame honours me with remembrance?"
+
+"Let me place you," said she, happy in the display of her
+accomplishments, "and don't seek to guide my memory. It was in the
+Spring of 1915, at a reception in the garden of Devonshire House. You
+were in attendance upon Her Majesty the Queen-Mother of Portugal. There
+were present representatives of the Italian Red Cross, for Italy, the
+land of my late husband, had ranged herself with the Allies. You are a
+lawyer of the _haute noblesse_. Your clients are peers and princes, of
+old princes in exile and of new peers in possession. I recall you most
+distinctly, though at that time, my poor friend, you were not a little
+portly, and now you are a man shrunken."
+
+"And my name?" he asked, flattered that a beautiful woman should recall
+him so distinctly.
+
+"It is a strange name--Gatepath. An old English name redolent of the
+soil. Roger Gatepath. Your firm bears no prefix of initials and no
+suffix of company. You call yourselves Gatepaths. Just Gatepaths, as
+though your status were territorial."
+
+He crowed with pleasure. By an exercise in memory, Madame Gilbert had
+tied him to her chariot wheels.
+
+"Right!" cried he. "Right in every particular. You are the most
+wonderful of women. For two minutes I spoke with you, and that was
+nearly four years ago. I was one of a large party, an insignificant
+lawyer lost in a dazzling company of titles. Yet you have remembered."
+
+Madame left the sense of flattery to soak in. She did not spoil the
+impression that she had made by explaining that she would have
+remembered a lackey with just the same accuracy.
+
+"And you, Madame?" he asked. "Have you been all these years doing war
+work with the Italian Red Cross? The years have passed and left no mark
+upon your face and figure. I, who comfortably filled out my clothes, am
+shrunken, yet time and sorrow have spared you."
+
+"Nevertheless, I have been pretty hard at work," said Madame briskly. "I
+was present at that party ostensibly as an official of the Italian Red
+Cross. In fact I was there to see that no harm befell the Royal
+Personages who were in my charge. While we moved about those pleasant
+grounds, chatting and sipping tea, I was watching, watching. And my hand
+was never far from the butt of the Webley automatic which, slung from my
+waist, was hidden in a bag of silk."
+
+"Heavens!" he cried out. "You are...."
+
+"Hush," interposed Madame. "A lawyer and a Gatepath should be more
+discreet. The war is over, and I can tell you now that I fought every
+minute of it in the Secret Service, the Civil branch. I was the head
+woman, the bright particular star, in Dawson's Secret Corps."
+
+"Is it discreet to tell me this?" he asked, countering her reproof of a
+moment earlier.
+
+She smiled rather wickedly. "Are you not a lawyer and a Gatepath? And
+can one not tell anything to a lawyer and a Gatepath? Besides, I have
+sent in my resignation, and am now a free woman. It has been a good
+time, a very good time. I have fought devils and mastered devils in
+England and France and Italy for four long years, and now I would rest.
+You say that time and sorrow have spared me. Yet I have known both time
+and sorrow. Have I not lost...."
+
+He broke into a babble of apologies. "I did not know.... I did not
+realise...."
+
+She waved a hand, and he fell silent. "I do not wear the trappings of
+woe, for though I am eternally widowed, I glory in my loss. It was in
+the rearguard at Caporetto, when all less gallant souls had fled, that
+my Guilberti fell."
+
+Of course from that moment Gatepath was her slave. She had flattered him
+and humbugged him as she flattered and humbugged all of us. Madame had
+no designs against Gatepath, yet she could not forbear to triumph over
+him. "One never knows," she said, "when one may need a devoted friend,
+and need him badly. I always look forward."
+
+Two or three weeks later Madame found a letter at her club signed
+"Gatepaths." It was the club in Dover Street with those steep steps down
+which the members tumble helplessly in frosty weather. Madame calls it
+"The Club of Falling Women."
+
+It appears that Gatepath, hunting for an adviser of ripe wisdom, had
+sought out the Chief of Dawson and lately of Madame, and laid bare his
+pressing troubles. The Chief is one of those rare men to whom all his
+friends, and they are as the stars in number, go seeking counsel in
+their crimes and follies. Nothing shocks him, nothing surprises him. And
+from the depths of his wise, humorous, sympathetic mind, he will almost
+always draw waters of comfort. Suppose, for example, one had slain a man
+and urgently sought to dispose of the corpse--a not uncommon problem in
+crowded cities--to whom could one more profitably turn than to the
+Chief of His Majesty's Detective Service? Or if, in a passing fit of
+absence of mind, one had wedded three wives, and the junior in rank
+began to suspect the existence of one or more seniors; do we not all
+suffer from lapses of memory? One does not put these problems before the
+Chief as one's own--there is a decent convention in these matters--but,
+of course, he knows. To know all is to pardon all, and there is very
+little that the Chief does not know about you or me.
+
+The family solicitor of peers and princes poured into the Chief's ear
+the fantastic cause of his present distresses. He delivered himself of
+the story in all seriousness, for it was dreadfully serious to him.
+Never in all his experience, and in that of his century-old firm, had
+anything so dreadfully serious occurred. The Chief controlled himself
+until the end was reached, and then exploded in a yell of laughter.
+
+"It is nothing to laugh at," grumbled Gatepath.
+
+"Not for you, perhaps. But to my mind the situation is gorgeous. Has
+this man the legal right of succession?"
+
+"Beyond a doubt," groaned Gatepath. "His father saw to that."
+
+"Then why not leave matters to take their legal course?" asked the
+Chief, still laughing. "The House of Lords will be the better for a
+shock. They are a dull lot. And your lively friend will administer the
+shock all right."
+
+Roger Gatepath spread out his hands in agony. "But it is one of the
+oldest peerages in the country, as old almost as the Barony of Arundel.
+Can't you see how frightful it will be for the family if this--this
+person--is allowed to succeed?"
+
+"There is no question of allowing him. If he is the legal heir he must
+succeed. The family must just put him in their pipe and smoke him. What
+else can they do?"
+
+"I thought that you, with all your experience of the South, might
+suggest something. Would it not be possible to buy the man off--or might
+he not----"
+
+"How can you buy him off when he is the heir? You people are nothing but
+trustees, who must account to him for every penny. If he claims the
+peerage and estates, you must accept him. You admit that legally he is
+the heir. I can see what is in your mind, but it won't do, Gatepath, it
+won't do. If you try any hanky-panky, that pretty neck of yours will
+find itself in a hempen collar. Now if it was only a case for judicious
+kidnapping----"
+
+Gatepath looked around anxiously. The men were alone in a recess of the
+club smoking-room. "Yes," he whispered eagerly. "Yes, go on."
+
+"I shall not do anything of the sort. You are a nice sort of family
+solicitor, Gatepath. Apart from the personal danger of playing tricks,
+can't you see that your interest lies with the bouncing heir, not with
+the snuffy old family? Don't be an ass. Bring him home, give the House
+of Lords the sensation of their placid lives, and let the good old
+British public enjoy a week of laughter. How they will bellow with joy.
+And the newspapers! I can see, Gatepath, that your agreeable young heir
+is going to be the Success of the Season."
+
+"You are not very helpful," groaned Gatepath. "There must be a
+solution; there must be some way of shielding the Family from this
+frightful humiliation."
+
+The interview with the Chief was a complete failure, and Gatepath parted
+from his old friend both hurt and angry. He had not expected ribald
+laughter in so grave a social crisis. The Chief must be a Radical, a
+Socialist, even a Bolshevik, one empty of all decent political
+principles.
+
+It was on his way home that Gatepath bethought him of Madame Gilbert.
+She, that beautiful, loyal-hearted woman, would not laugh. He remembered
+the glitter of unshed tears in the violet eyes when she had bade him
+farewell. It was his tactless hand upon the open wound of Caporetto
+which had aroused those tears. He remembered also that Madame was free,
+and that she had been trained to do the ruthless, unscrupulous work of
+the Secret Service. She did not look either ruthless or unscrupulous,
+and it was in a strictly professional sense that Gatepath connected her
+will trade them with the Sinaketans. Thus the hosts from the Kula
+community act as intermediaries in any trading relations between the
+Sinaketans and the inhabitants of more remote districts.
+
+To sum up the sociology of these transactions, we may say that
+the visitor enters into a threefold relation with the Dobuan
+natives. First, there is his partner, with whom he exchanges general
+gifts on the basis of free give and take, a type of transaction,
+running side by side with the Kula proper. Then there is the local
+resident, not his personal Kula partner, with whom he carries on
+gimwali. Finally there is the stranger with whom an indirect exchange
+is carried on through the intermediation of the local men. With
+all this, it must not be imagined that the commercial aspect of
+the gathering is at all conspicuous. The concourse of the natives
+is great, mainly owing to their curiosity, to see the ceremonial
+reception of the uvalaku party. But if I say that every visitor from
+Boyowa, brings and carries away about half-a-dozen articles, I do
+not under-state the case. Some of these articles the Sinaketan has
+acquired in the industrial districts of Boyowa during his preliminary
+trading expedition (see Chapter VI, Division III). On these he scores
+a definite gain. A few samples of the prices paid in Boyowa and those
+received in Dobu will indicate the amount of this gain.
+
+
+  Kuboma to Sinaketa.                Dobu to Sinaketa.
+
+  1 tanepopo basket = 12 coco-nuts = 12 coco-nuts + sago + 1 belt
+  1 comb            =  4 coco-nuts =  4 coco-nuts + 1 bunch of betel
+  1 armlet          =  8 coco-nuts =  8 coco-nuts + 2 bundles of betel
+  1 lime pot        = 12 coco-nuts = 12 coco-nuts + 2 pieces of sago
+
+
+This table shows in its second column the prices paid by the
+Sinaketans to the industrial villages of Kuboma, a district in the
+Northern Trobriands. In the third column what they receive in Dobu
+is recorded. The table has been obtained from a Sinaketan informant,
+and it probably is far from accurate, and the transactions are sure
+to vary greatly in the gain which they afford. There is no doubt,
+however, that for each article, the Sinaketan would ask the price
+which he paid for them as well as some extra article.
+
+Thus we see that there is in this transaction a definite gain obtained
+by the middlemen. The natives of Sinaketa act as intermediaries
+between the industrial centres of the Trobriands and Dobu, whereas
+their hosts play the same rôle between the Sinaketans and the men
+from the outlying districts.
+
+Besides trading and obtaining of Kula valuables, the natives of
+Sinaketa visit their friends and their distant relatives, who, as we
+saw before, are to be found in this district owing to migrations. The
+visitors walk across the flat, fertile plain from one hamlet to the
+other, enjoying some of the marvellous and unknown sights of this
+district. They are shown the hot springs of Numanuma and of Deyde'i,
+which are in constant eruption. Every few minutes, the water boils up
+in one spring after another of each group, throwing up jets of spray
+a few metres high. The plain around these springs is barren, with
+nothing but here and there a stunted kind of eucalyptus tree. This
+is the only place in the whole of Eastern New Guinea where as far
+as I know, eucalyptus trees are to be found. This was at least the
+information of some intelligent natives, in whose company I visited
+the springs, and who had travelled all over the Eastern islands and
+the East end of the mainland.
+
+The land-locked bays and lagoons, the Northern end of Dawson Strait,
+enclosed like a lake by mountains and volcanic cones, all this must
+also appear strange and beautiful to the Trobrianders. In the villages,
+they are entertained by their male friends, the language spoken by both
+parties being that of Dobu, which differs completely from Kiriwinian,
+but which the Sinaketans learn in early youth. It is remarkable that
+no one in Dobu speaks Kiriwinian.
+
+As said above, no sexual relations of any description take place
+between the visitors and the women of Dobu. As one of the informants
+told me:
+
+
+    "We do not sleep with women of Dobu, for Dobu is the final mountain
+    (Koyaviguna Dobu); it is a taboo of the mwasila magic."
+
+
+But when I enquired, whether the results of breaking this taboo would
+be baneful to their success in Kula only, the reply was that they were
+afraid of breaking it, and that it was ordained of old (tokunabogwo
+ayguri) that no man should interfere with the women of Dobu. As a
+matter of fact, the Sinaketans are altogether afraid of the Dobuans,
+and they would take good care not to offend them in any way.
+
+After some three or four days' sojourn in Dobu, the Sinaketan
+fleet starts on its return journey. There is no special ceremony of
+farewell. In the early morning, they receive their talo'i (farewell
+gifts) of food, betel-nut, objects of use and sometimes also a Kula
+valuable is enclosed amongst the the talo'i. Heavily laden as they
+are, they lighten their canoes by means of a magic called kaylupa,
+and sail away northwards once more.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE JOURNEY HOME--THE FISHING AND WORKING OF THE KALOMA SHELL
+
+
+I
+
+The return journey of the Sinaketan fleet is made by following exactly
+the same route as the one by which they came to Dobu. In each inhabited
+island, in every village, where a halt had previously been made,
+they stop again, for a day or a few hours. In the hamlets of Sanaroa,
+in Tewara and in the Amphletts, the partners are revisited. Some
+Kula valuables are received on the way back, and all the talo'i
+gifts from those intermediate partners are also collected on the
+return journey. In each of these villages people are eager to hear
+about the reception which the uvalaku party have received in Dobu;
+the yield in valuables is discussed, and comparisons are drawn between
+the present occasion and previous records.
+
+No magic is performed now, no ceremonial takes place, and there
+would be very little indeed to say about the return journey but for
+two important incidents; the fishing for spondylus shell (kaloma)
+in Sanaroa Lagoon, and the display and comparison of the yield of
+Kula valuables on Muwa beach.
+
+The natives of Sinaketa, as we have seen in the last chapter, acquire
+a certain amount of the Koya produce by means of trade. There are,
+however, certain articles, useful yet unobtainable in the Trobriands,
+and freely accessible in the Koya, and to these the Trobrianders
+help themselves. The glassy forms of lava, known as obsidian, can be
+found in great quantities over the slopes of the hills in Sanaroa
+and Dobu. This article, in olden days, served the Trobrianders
+as material for razors, scrapers, and sharp, delicate, cutting
+instruments. Pumice-stone abounding in this district is collected
+and carried to the Trobriands, where it is used for polishing. Red
+ochre is also procured there by the visitors, and so are the hard,
+basaltic stones (binabina) used for hammering and pounding and for
+magical purposes. Finally, very fine silica sand, called maya, is
+collected on some of the beaches, and imported into the Trobriands,
+where it is used for polishing stone blades, of the kind which serve
+as tokens of value and which are manufactured up to the present day.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+But by far the most important of the articles which the Trobrianders
+collect for themselves are the spondylus shells. These are freely,
+though by no means easily, accessible in the coral outcrops of Sanaroa
+Lagoon. It is from this shell that the small circular perforated
+discs (kaloma) are made, out of which the necklaces of the Kula
+are composed, and which also serve for ornamenting almost all the
+articles of value or of artistic finish which are used within the
+Kula district. But, only in two localities within the district are
+these discs manufactured, in Sinaketa and in Vakuta, both villages in
+Southern Boyowa. The shell can be found also in the Trobriand Lagoon,
+facing these two villages. But the specimens found in Sanaroa are
+much better in colour, and I think more easily procured. The fishing
+in this latter locality, however, is done by the Sinaketans only.
+
+Whether the fishing is done in their own Lagoon, near an uninhabited
+island called Nanoula, or in Sanaroa, it is always a big, ceremonial
+affair, in which the whole community takes part in a body. The
+magic, or at least part of it, is done for the whole community by
+the magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma), who also fixes the
+dates, and conducts the ceremonial part of the proceedings. As the
+spondylus shell furnishes one of the essential episodes of a Kula
+expedition, a detailed account both of fishing and of manufacturing
+must be here given. The native name, kaloma (in the Southern Massim
+districts the word sapi-sapi is used) describes both the shell and
+the manufactured discs. The shell is the large spondylus shell,
+containing a crystalline layer of a red colour, varying from dirty
+brick-red to a soft, raspberry pink, the latter being by far the most
+prized. It lives in the cavities of coral outcrop, scattered among
+shallow mud-bottomed lagoons.
+
+This shell is, according to tradition, associated with the village
+of Sinaketa. According to a Sinaketan legend, once upon a time, three
+guya'u (chief) women, belonging to the Tabalu sub-clan of the Malasi
+clan, wandered along, each choosing her place to settle in. The eldest
+selected the village of Omarakana; the second went to Gumilababa;
+the youngest settled in Sinaketa. She had kaloma discs in her basket,
+and they were threaded on a long, thin stick, called viduna, such
+as is used in the final stage of manufacture. She remained first
+in a place called Kaybwa'u, but a dog howled, and she moved further
+on. She heard again a dog howling, and she took a kaboma (wooden plate)
+and went on to the fringing reef to collect shells. She found there
+the momoka (white spondylus), and she exclaimed: "Oh, this is the
+kaloma!" She looked closer, and said: "Oh no, you are not red. Your
+name is momoka." She took then the stick with the kaloma discs and
+thrust it into a hole of the reef. It stood there, but when she looked
+at it, she said: "Oh, the people from inland would come and see you
+and pluck you off." She went, she pulled out the stick; she went into
+a canoe, and she paddled. She paddled out into the sea. She anchored
+there, pulled the discs off the stick, and she threw them into the
+sea so that they might come into the coral outcrop. She said: "It
+is forbidden that the inland natives should take the valuables. The
+people of Sinaketa only must dive." Thus only the Sinaketa people
+know the magic, and how to dive.
+
+This myth presents certain remarkable characteristics. I shall not
+enter into its sociology, though it differs in that respect from
+the Kiriwinian myths, in which the equality of the Sinaketan and the
+Gumilababan chiefs with those of Omarakana is not acknowledged. It is
+characteristic that the Malasi woman in this myth shows an aversion to
+the dog, the totem animal of the Lukuba clan, a clan which according
+to mythical and historical data had to recede before and yield its
+priority to the Malasi (compare Chapter XII, Division IV). Another
+detail of interest is that she brings the kaloma on their sticks,
+as they appear in the final stage of manufacturing. In this form,
+also, she tries to plant them on the reef. The finished kaloma,
+however, to use the words of one of my informants, "looked at her,
+the water swinging it to and fro; flashing its red eyes." And the
+woman, seeing it, pulls out the too accessible and too inviting
+kaloma and scatters them over the deep sea. Thus she makes them
+inaccessible to the uninitiated inland villagers, and monopolises them
+for Sinaketa. There can be no doubt that the villages of Vakuta have
+learnt this industry from the Sinaketans. The myth is hardly known in
+Vakuta, only a few are experts in diving and manufacturing; there is
+a tradition about a late transference of this industry there; finally
+the Vakutans have never fished for kaloma in the Sanaroa Lagoon.
+
+Now let us describe the technicalities and the ceremonial connected
+with the fishing for kaloma. It will be better to give an account
+of how this is done in the Lagoon of Sinaketa, round the sandbank
+of Nanoula, as this is the normal and typical form of kaloma
+fishing. Moreover, when the Sinaketans do it in Sanaroa, the
+proceedings are very much the same, with just one or two phases
+missed out.
+
+The office of magician of the kaloma (towosina kaloma) is hereditary in
+two sub-clans, belonging to the Malasi clan, and one of them is that
+of the main chief of Kasi'etana. After the Monsoon season is over,
+that is, some time in March or April, ogibukuvi (i.e., in the season
+of the new yams) the magician gives the order for preparations. The
+community give him a gift called sousula, one or two bringing a
+vaygu'a, the rest supplying gugu'a (ordinary chattels), and some
+food. Then they prepare the canoes, and get ready the binabina stones,
+with which the spondylus shell will be knocked off the reef.
+
+Next day, in the morning, the magician performs a rite called
+'kaykwa'una la'i,' 'the attracting of the reef,' for, as in the
+case of several other marine beings, the main seat of the kaloma is
+far away. Its dwelling place is the reef Ketabu, somewhere between
+Sanaroa and Dobu. In order to make it move and come towards Nanoula,
+it is necessary to recite the above-named spell. This is done by the
+magician as he walks up and down on the Sinaketa beach and casts
+his words into the open, over the sea, towards the distant seat
+of the kaloma. The kaloma then 'stand up' (itolise) that is start
+from their original coral outcrop (vatu) and come into the Lagoon of
+Sinaketa. This spell, I obtained from To'udavada, the present chief
+of Kasi'etana, and descendant of the original giver of this shell,
+the woman of the myth. It begins with a long list of ancestral names;
+then follows a boastful picture of how the whole fleet admires the
+magical success of the magician's spell. The key-word in the main part
+is the word 'itolo': 'it stands up,' i.e., 'it starts,' and with this,
+there are enumerated all the various classes of the kaloma shell,
+differentiated according to size, colour and quality. It ends up with
+another boast; "My canoe is overloaded with shell so that it sinks,"
+which is repeated with varying phraseology.
+
+This spell the magician may utter once only, or he may repeat it
+several times on successive days. He fixes then the final date for the
+fishing expedition. On the evening before that date, the men perform
+some private magic, every one in his own house. The hammering stone,
+the gabila, which is always a binabina (it is a stone imported from
+the Koya), is charmed over. As a rule it is put on a piece of dried
+banana leaf with some red hibiscus blossoms and leaves or flowers
+of red colour. A formula is uttered over it, and the whole is then
+wrapped up in the banana leaf and kept there until it is used. This
+will make the stone a lucky one in hitting off many shells, and it
+will make the shells very red.
+
+Another rite of private magic consists in charming a large mussel
+shell, with which, on the next morning, the body of the canoe will
+be scraped. This makes the sea clear, so that the diver may easily
+see and frequently find his spondylus shells.
+
+Next morning the whole fleet starts on the expedition. Some food has
+been taken into the canoes, as the fishing usually lasts for a few
+days, the nights being spent on the beach of Nanoula. When the canoes
+arrive at a certain point, about half-way between Sinaketa and Nanoula,
+they all range themselves in a row. The canoe of the magician is at the
+right flank, and he medicates a bunch of red hibiscus flowers, some
+red croton leaves, and the leaves of the red-blossomed mangrove--red
+coloured substances being used to make the shell red, magically. Then,
+passing in front of all the other canoes, he rubs their prows with
+the bundle of leaves. After that, the canoes at both ends of the
+row begin to punt along, the row evolving into a circle, through
+which presently the canoe of the magician passes, punting along its
+diameter. At this place in the Lagoon, there is a small vatu (coral
+outcrop) called Vitukwayla'i. This is called the vatu of the baloma
+(spirits). At this vatu the magician's canoe stops, and he orders some
+of its crew to dive down and here to begin the gathering of shells.
+
+Some more private magic is performed later on by each canoe on its own
+account. The anchor stone is charmed with some red hibiscus flowers,
+in order to make the spondylus shell red. There is another private
+magic called 'sweeping of the sea,' which, like the magic of the mussel
+shell, mentioned above, makes the sea clear and transparent. Finally,
+there is an evil magic called 'besprinkling with salt water.' If a
+man does it over the others, he will annul the effects of their magic,
+and frustrate their efforts, while he himself would arouse astonishment
+and suspicion by the amount of shell collected. Such a man would dive
+down into the water, take some brine into his mouth, and emerging,
+spray it towards the other canoes, while he utters the evil charm.
+
+So much for the magic and the ceremonial associated with the
+spondylus fishing in the Trobriand Lagoon. In Sanaroa, exactly the
+same proceedings take place, except that there is no attracting of
+the reef, probably because they are already at the original seat
+of the kaloma. Again I was told that some of the private magic
+would be performed in Sinaketa before the fleet sailed on the Kula
+expedition. The objects medicated would be then kept, well wrapped
+in dried leaves.
+
+It may be added that neither in the one Lagoon nor in the other are
+there any private, proprietary rights to coral outcrops. The whole
+community of Sinaketa have their fishing grounds in the Lagoon,
+within which every man may hunt for his spondylus shell, and catch
+his fish at times. If the other spondylus fishing community, the
+Vakutans, encroached upon their grounds, there would be trouble,
+and in olden days, fighting. Private ownership in coral outcrops
+exists in the Northern villages of the Lagoon, that is in Kavataria,
+and the villages on the island of Kayleula.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+We must now follow the later stages of the kaloma industry. The
+technology of the proceedings is so mixed up with remarkable
+sociological and economic arrangements that it will be better to
+indicate it first in its main outlines. The spondylus consists of a
+shell, the size and shape of a hollowed out half of a pear, and of a
+flat, small lid. It is only the first part which is worked. First
+it has to be broken into pieces with a binabina or an utukema
+(green stone imported from Woodlark Island) as shown on Plate L
+(A). On each piece, then, can be seen the stratification of the
+shell: the outside layer of soft, chalky substance; under this, the
+layer of red, hard, calcareous material, and then the inmost, white,
+crystalline stratum. Both the outside and inside have to be rubbed
+off, but first each piece has to be roughly rounded up, so as to form
+a thick circular lump. Such a lump (see foregrounds of Plates L (A),
+L (B)) is then put in the hole of a cylindrical piece of wood. This
+latter serves as a handle with which the lumps are rubbed on a piece
+of flat sandstone (see Plate L (B)). The rubbing is carried on so far
+till the outside and inside layers are gone, and there remains only a
+red, flat tablet, polished on both sides. In the middle of it, a hole
+is drilled through by means of a pump drill--gigi'u--(see Plate LI),
+and a number of such perforated discs are then threaded on a thin,
+but tough stick (see Plate LII), with which we have already met in
+the myth. Then the cylindrical roll is rubbed round and round on
+the flat sandstone, until its form becomes perfectly symmetrical
+(see Plate LII). Thus a number of flat, circular discs, polished
+all round and perforated in the middle, are produced. The breaking
+and the drilling, like the diving are done exclusively by men. The
+polishing is as a rule woman's work.
+
+This technology is associated with an interesting sociological relation
+between the maker and the man for whom the article is made. As has
+been stated in Chapter II, one of the main features of the Trobriand
+organisation consists of the mutual duties between a man and his
+wife's maternal kinsmen. They have to supply him regularly with yams
+at harvest time, while he gives them the present of a valuable now and
+then. The manufacture of kaloma valuables in Sinaketa is very often
+associated with this relationship. The Sinaketan manufacturer makes his
+kutadababile (necklace of large beads) for one of his relatives-in-law,
+while this latter pays him in food. In accordance with this custom, it
+happens very frequently that a Sinaketan man marries a woman from one
+of the agricultural inland villages, or even a woman of Kiriwina. Of
+course, if he has no relatives-in-law in one of these villages, he
+will have friends or distant relatives, and he will make the string
+for one or the other of them. Or else he will produce one for himself,
+and launch it into the Kula. But the most typical and interesting
+case is, when the necklace is produced to order for a man who repays
+it according to a remarkable economic system, a system similar to
+the payments in instalments, which I have mentioned with regard to
+canoe making. I shall give here, following closely the native text,
+a translation of an account of the payments for kaloma making.
+
+
+                      ACCOUNT OF THE KALOMA MAKING
+
+    Supposing some man from inland lives in Kiriwina or in Luba
+    or in one of the villages nearby; he wants a katudababile. He
+    would request an expert fisherman who knows how to dive for
+    kaloma. This man agrees; he dives, he dives ... till it is
+    sufficient; his vataga (large folding basket) is already full,
+    this man (the inlander) hears the rumour; he, the master of the
+    kaloma (that is, the man for whom the necklace will be made) says:
+    "Good! I shall just have a look!" He would come, he would see,
+    he would not give any vakapula payment. He (here the Sinaketan
+    diver is meant) would say: "Go, tomorrow, I shall break the shell,
+    come here, give me vakapula." Next day, he (the inlander) would
+    cook food, he would bring, he would give vakapula; he (the diver)
+    would break the shell. Next day, the same. He (the inlander) would
+    give the vakapula, he (the diver) would break the shell. Supposing
+    the breaking is already finished, he (the diver) would say:
+    "Good! already the breaking is finished, I shall polish." Next
+    day, he (the inlander) would cook food, would bring bananas,
+    coco-nut, betel-nut, sugar cane, would give it as vakapula;
+    this man (the diver) polishes. The polishing already finished,
+    he would speak: "Good! To-morrow I shall drill." This man (the
+    inlander) would bring food, bananas, coco-nuts, sugar cane,
+    he would give it as vakapula: it would be abundant, for soon
+    already the necklace will be finished. The same, he would give a
+    big vakapula on the occasion of the rounding up of the cylinder,
+    for soon everything will be finished. When finished, we thread it
+    on a string, we wash it. (Note the change from the third singular
+    into the first plural). We give it to our wife, we blow the conch
+    shell; she would go, she would carry his valuable to this man,
+    our relative-in-law. Next day, he would yomelu; he would catch
+    a pig, he would break off a bunch of betel-nut, he would cut
+    sugar cane, bananas, he would fill the baskets with food, and
+    spike the coco-nut on a multi-forked piece of wood. By-and-by
+    he would bring it. Our house would be filled up. Later on we
+    would make a distribution of the bananas, of the sugar cane, of
+    the betel-nut. We give it to our helpers. We sit, we sit (i.e.,
+    we wait); at harvest time he brings yams, he karibudaboda (he
+    gives the payment of that name), the necklace. He would bring
+    the food and fill out our yam house.
+
+
+This narrative, like many pieces of native information, needs certain
+corrections of perspective. In the first place, events here succeed one
+another with a rapidity quite foreign to the extremely leisurely way in
+which natives usually accomplish such a lengthy process as the making
+of a katudababile. The amount of food which, in the usual manner,
+is enumerated over and over again in this narrative would probably
+not be exaggerated, for--such is native economy--a man who makes a
+necklace to order would get about twice as much or even more for it
+than it would fetch in any other transaction. On the other hand,
+it must be remembered that what is represented here as the final
+payment, the karibudaboda, is nothing else but the normal filling up
+of the yam house, always done by a man's relations-in-law. None the
+less, in a year in which a katudababile would be made, the ordinary
+yearly harvest gift would be styled the 'karibudaboda payment for
+the necklace.' The giving of the necklace to the wife, who afterwards
+carries it to her brother or kinsman, is also characteristic of the
+relation between relatives-in-law.
+
+In Sinaketa and Vakuta only the necklaces made of bigger shell and
+tapering towards the end are made. The real Kula article, in which
+the discs are much thinner, smaller in diameter and even in size from
+one end of the necklace to the other, these were introduced into the
+Kula at other points, and I shall speak about this subject in one
+of the following chapters (Chapter XXI), where the other branches of
+the Kula are described.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Now, having come to an end of this digression on kaloma, let us return
+for another short while to our Sinaketan party, whom we have left
+on the Lagoon of Sanaroa. Having obtained a sufficient amount of the
+shells, they set sail, and re-visiting Tewara and Gumasila, stopping
+perhaps for a night on one of the sandbanks of Pilolu, they arrive at
+last in their home Lagoon. But before rejoining their people in their
+villages, they stop for the last halt on Muwa. Here they make what is
+called tanarere, a comparison and display of the valuables obtained
+on this trip. From each canoe, a mat or two are spread on the sand
+beach, and the men put their necklaces on the mat. Thus a long row of
+valuables lies on the beach, and the members of the expedition walk
+up and down, admire, and count them. The chiefs would, of course,
+have always the greatest haul, more especially the one who has been
+the toli'uvalaku on that expedition.
+
+After this is over, they return to the village. Each canoe blows its
+conch shell, a blast for each valuable that it contains. When a canoe
+has obtained no vaygu'a at all, this means great shame and distress
+for its members, and especially for the toliwaga. Such a canoe is
+said to bisikureya, which means literally 'to keep a fast.'
+
+On the beach all the villagers are astir. The women, who have put on
+their new grass petticoats (sevata'i) specially made for this occasion,
+enter the water and approach the canoes to unload them. No special
+greetings pass between them and their husbands. They are interested
+in the food brought from Dobu, more especially in the sago.
+
+People from other villages assemble also in great numbers to greet the
+incoming party. Those who have supplied their friends or relatives
+with provisions for their journey, receive now sago, betel-nuts and
+coco-nuts in repayment. Some of the welcoming crowd have come in order
+to make Kula. Even from the distant districts of Luba and Kiriwina
+natives will travel to Sinaketa, having a fair idea of the date of
+the arrival of the Kula party from Dobu. The expedition will be talked
+over, the yield counted, the recent history of the important valuables
+described. But this stage leads us already into the subject of inland
+Kula, which will form the subject of one of the following chapters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RETURN VISIT OF THE DOBUANS TO SINAKETA
+
+
+I
+
+In the twelve preceding chapters, we have followed an expedition
+from Sinaketa to Dobu. But branching off at almost every step from
+its straight track, we studied the various associated institutions
+and underlying beliefs; we quoted magical formulæ, and told
+mythical stories, and thus we broke up the continuous thread of the
+narrative. In this chapter, as we are already acquainted with the
+customs, beliefs and institutions implied in the Kula, we are ready
+to follow a straight and consecutive tale of an expedition in the
+inverse direction, from Dobu to Sinaketa.
+
+As I have seen, indeed followed, a big uvalaku expedition from
+the South to the Trobriands, I shall be able to give some of the
+scenes from direct impression, and not from reconstruction. Such
+a reconstruction for one who has seen much of the natives' tribal
+life and has a good grip over intelligent informants is neither very
+difficult nor need it be fanciful at all. Indeed, towards the end
+of my second visit, I had several times opportunities to check such
+a reconstruction by witnessing the actual occurrence, for after my
+first year's stay in the Trobriands I had written out already some
+of my material. As a rule, even in minute details, my reconstructions
+hardly differed from reality, as the tests have shown. None the less,
+it is possible for an Ethnographer to enter into concrete details
+with more conviction when he describes things actually seen.
+
+In September, 1917, an uvalaku expedition was led by Kouta'uya
+from Sinaketa to Dobu. The Vakutans joining them on the way, and the
+canoes of the Amphletts following them also, some forty canoes finally
+arrived at the western shore of Dawson Straits. It was arranged then
+and there that a return expedition from that district should visit
+Sinaketa in about six months' time. Kauyaporu, the esa'esa (headman)
+of Kesora'i hamlet in the village of Bwayowa, had a pig with circular
+tusks. He decided therefore to arrange an uvalaku expedition, at the
+beginning of which the pig was to be killed and feasted upon and its
+tusks turned into ornaments.
+
+When, in November, 1917, I passed through the district, the preparing
+of the canoes was already afoot. All of those, which still could be
+repaired, had been taken to pieces and were being relashed, recaulked
+and repainted. In some hamlets, new dug-outs were being scooped. After
+a few months stay in the Trobriands, I went South again in March, 1918,
+intending to spend some time in the Amphletts. Landing there is always
+difficult, as there are no anchorages near the shore, and it is quite
+impossible to disembark in rough weather at night. I arrived late in a
+small cutter, and had to cruise between Gumasila and Domdom, intending
+to wait till daybreak and then effect a landing. In the middle of
+the night, however, a violent north-westerly squall came down, and
+making a split in the main-sail, forced us to run before the wind,
+southwards towards Dobu. It was on this night that the native boys
+employed in the boat, saw the mulukwausi flaming up at the head of
+the mast. The wind dropped before daybreak, and we entered the Lagoon
+of Sanaroa, in order to repair the sail. During the three days we
+stopped there, I roamed over the country, climbing its volcanic cones,
+paddling up the creeks and visiting the villages scattered on the
+coral plain. Everywhere I saw signs of the approaching departure for
+Boyowa; the natives preparing their canoes on the beach to be loaded,
+collecting food in the gardens and making sago in the jungle. At the
+head of one of the creeks, in the midst of a sago swamp, there was a
+long, low shelter which serves as a dwelling to Dobuan natives from
+the main Island when they come to gather sago. This swamp was said
+to be reserved to a certain community of Tu'utauna.
+
+Another day I came upon a party of local natives from Sanaroa, who
+were pounding sago pulp out of a palm, and sluicing it with water. A
+big tree had been felled, its bark stripped in the middle of the trunk
+in a large square, and the soft, fleshy interior laid open. There were
+three men standing in a row before it and pounding away at it. A few
+more men waited to relieve the tired ones. The pounding instruments,
+half club, half adzes, had thick but not very broad blades of green
+stone, of the same type as I have seen among the Mailu natives of
+the South Coast. [79]
+
+The pulp was then carried in baskets to a neighbouring stream. At
+this spot there was a natural trough, one of the big, convex scales,
+which form the basis of the sago leaf. In the middle of it, a sieve
+was made of a piece of coco-nut spathing, a fibre which covers the
+root of a coco-nut leaf, and looks at first sight exactly like a
+piece of roughly woven material. Water was directed so that it flowed
+into the trough at its broad end, coming out at the narrow one. The
+sago pulp was put at the top, the water carried away with it the
+powdered sago starch, while the wooden, husky fibres were retained
+by the sieve. The starch was then carried with the water into a big
+wooden canoe-shaped trough; there the heavier starch settled down,
+while the water welled over the brim. When there is plenty of starch,
+the water is drained off carefully and the starch is placed into
+another of the trough-shaped, sago leaf bases, where it is allowed to
+dry. In such receptacles it is then carried on a trading expedition,
+and is thus counted as one unit of sago.
+
+I watched the proceedings for a long time with great interest. There is
+something fascinating about the big, antideluvian-looking sago palm,
+so malignant and unapproachable in its unhealthy, prickly swamp,
+being turned by man into food by such simple and direct methods. The
+sago produced and eaten by the natives is a tough, starchy stuff, of
+dirty white colour, very unpalatable. It has the consistency of rubber,
+and the taste of very poor, unleavened bread. It is not clear, like
+the article which is sold under the name of sago in our groceries, but
+is mealy, tough, and almost elastic. The natives consider it a great
+delicacy, and bake it into little cakes, or boil it into dumplings.
+
+The main fleet of the Dobuans started some time in the second half of
+March from their villages, and went first to the beach of Sarubwoyna,
+where they held a ceremonial distribution of food, eguya'i, as it is
+called in Dobu. Then, offering the pokala to Aturamo'a and Atu'a'ine,
+they sailed by way of Sanaroa and Tewara, passing the tabooed rock
+of Gurewaya to the Amphletts. The wind was light and changeable,
+weak S.W. breezes prevailing. The progress of this stage of the
+journey must have been very slow. The natives must have spent a
+few nights on the intermediate islands and sandbanks, a few canoes'
+crews camping at one spot.
+
+At that time I had already succeeded in reaching the Amphletts, and
+had been busy for two or three weeks doing ethnographic work, though
+not very successfully; for, as I have already once or twice remarked,
+the natives here are very bad informants. I knew of course that the
+Dobuan fleet was soon to come, but as my experience had taught me to
+mistrust native time-tables and fixtures of date, I did not expect
+them to be punctual. In this, however, I was mistaken. On a Kula
+expedition, when the dates are once fixed, the natives make real and
+strenuous efforts to keep to them. In the Amphletts the people were
+busy preparing for the expedition, because they had the intention of
+joining the Dobuans and proceeding with them to the Trobriands. A few
+canoes went to the mainland to fetch sago, pots were being mustered and
+made ready for stowing away, canoes were overhauled. When the small
+expedition returned from the mainland with sago, after a week or so,
+a sagali (in Amphlettan: madare), that is, a ceremonial distribution
+of food was held on the neighbouring island, Nabwageta.
+
+My arrival was a very untoward event to the natives, and complicated
+matters, causing great annoyance to Tovasana, the main headman. I had
+landed in his own little village, Nu'agasi, on the island of Gumasila,
+for it was impossible to anchor near the big village, nor would there
+have been room for pitching a tent. Now, in the Amphletts, a white
+man is an exceedingly rare occurrence, and to my knowledge, only once
+before, a white trader remained there for a few weeks. To leave me
+alone with the women and one or two old men was impossible, according
+to their ideas and fears, and none of the younger men wanted to forgo
+the privilege and pleasure of taking part in the expedition. At last,
+I promised them to move to the neighbouring island of Nabwageta,
+as soon as the men were gone, and with this they were satisfied.
+
+As the date fixed for the arrival of the Dobuans approached, the
+excitement grew. Little by little the news arrived, and was eagerly
+received and conveyed to me: "Some sixty canoes of the Dobuans are
+coming," "the fleet is anchored off Tewara," "each canoe is heavily
+laden with food and gifts," "Kauyaporu sails in his canoe, he is
+toli'uvalaku, and has a big pandanus streamer attached to the prow." A
+string of other names followed which had very little meaning for me,
+since I was not acquainted with the Dobuan natives. From another part
+of the world, from the Trobriands, the goal of the whole expedition,
+news reached us again: "To'uluwa, the chief of Kiriwina has gone
+to Kitava--he will soon come back, bringing plenty of mwali." "The
+Sinaketans are going there to fetch some of the mwali." "The Vakutans
+have been in Kitava and brought back great numbers of mwali." It
+was astonishing to hear all this news, arriving at a small island,
+apparently completely isolated with its tiny population, within
+these savage and little navigated seas; news only a few days old,
+yet reporting events which had occurred at a travelling distance of
+some hundred miles.
+
+It was interesting to follow up the way it had come. The earlier news
+about the Dobuans had been brought by the canoes, which had fetched
+the sago to Gumasila from the main island. A few days later, a canoe
+from one of the main island villages had arrived here, and on its
+way had passed the Dobuans in Tewara. The news from the Trobriands
+in the North had been brought by the Kuyawa canoe which had arrived a
+couple of days before in Nabwageta (and whose visit to Nu'agasi I have
+described in Chapter XI). All these movements were not accidental,
+but connected with the uvalaku expedition. To show the complexity,
+as well as the precise timing of the various movements and events,
+so perfectly synchronised over a vast area, in connection with the
+uvalaku, I have tabulated them in the Chart, facing this page, in
+which almost all the dates are quite exact, being based on my own
+observations. This Chart also gives a clear, synoptic picture of an
+uvalaku, and it will be useful to refer to it, in reading this Chapter.
+
+In olden days, not less than now, there must have been an ebullition
+in the inter-tribal relations, and a great stirring from one place
+to another, whenever an uvalaku Kula was afoot. Thus, news would
+be carried rapidly over great distances, the movements of the vast
+numbers of natives would be co-ordinated, and dates fixed. As has been
+said already, a culminating event of an expedition, in this case the
+arrival of the Dobuan fleet in Sinaketa, would be always so timed
+as to happen on, or just before, a full moon, and this would serve
+as a general orientation for the preliminary movements, such as in
+this case, the visits of the single canoes.
+
+
+                          THE PREVIOUS UVALAKU
+
+Date
+
+September, 1917         The expedition, led by Kouta'uya from
+                        Sinaketa to Dobu.
+
+                           PREPARATORY STAGE
+
+Oct., 1917-Feb., 1918   Building of new canoes and repairing of old
+                        ones, in the district of N.W. Dobu.
+Feb.-March, 1918        Sago making, collecting of trade and food.
+Middle of March         Launching, fitting and loading of the canoes;
+                        preliminary magic.
+
+                              THE SAILING
+
+About 25th March        The Dobuan canoes start on their overseas
+                        trip.
+About same time         [In Boyowa: the Vakutans return from Kitava
+                        with a good haul of mwali].
+Same time               [In the Amphletts: preparations to sail;
+                        collecting food; repairing canoes.]
+About 28th March        [In Boyowa: To'uluwa returns from Kitava
+                        bringing mwali.]
+Same time               [In the Amphletts: news reach of the
+                        approaching fleet from Dobu; of the doings in
+                        Boyowa.]
+29th March              [In the Amphletts: part of the canoes sail
+                        ahead to Vakuta.]
+31st March              The Dobuan fleet arrives in the Amphletts.
+1st April               They proceed on their journey to Boyowa.
+2nd April               [In the Amphletts: rest of local canoes sail
+                        to Boyowa.]
+Same day                [In Boyowa: the Sinaketans go to Kiriwina.]
+3rd April               [In Boyowa: they return with the armshells.]
+
+                  THE ARRIVAL OF THE DOBUANS IN BOYOWA
+
+3rd April               The Dobuan fleet appears in Vakuta.
+3rd-5th April           They receive Kula gifts, exchange presents
+                        and trade in Vakuta.
+6th April               Arrival of the Dobuan fleet in Sinaketa,
+                        magic at the beach of Kaykuyawa, ceremonial
+                        reception.
+6th-10th April          The Dobuans (as well as the Amphlettans)
+                        remain in Sinaketa, receiving Kula presents,
+                        giving pari gifts and trading.
+10th April              They all leave Sinaketa, receiving talo'i
+                        (farewell) gifts. The Dobuans sail south (and
+                        the Amphlettans to Kayleula and the smaller
+                        Western Trobriand Islands).
+10th-14th April         The Dobuans are engaged in fishing in the S.
+                        Lagoon.
+
+                             RETURN JOURNEY
+
+14th April              They reappear in Vakuta, and receive their
+                        talo'i (farewell) gifts.
+15th April              They leave Vakuta.
+About 20th or 21st      Tanarere (competitive display and comparison)
+                        on the beach of Sarubwoyna, and return to
+                        Dobu.
+
+
+Indeed, from that moment, the events on and about the Amphlett Islands
+moved rapidly. The day after the visit from the Kuyawan canoes, the
+canoes of the main village of Gumasila sailed off to the Trobriands,
+starting therefore a few days ahead of the Dobuan uvalaku fleet. I
+rowed over in a dinghy to the big village, and watched the loading and
+departing of the canoes. There was a bustle in the village, and even a
+few old women could be seen helping the men in their tasks. The large
+canoes were being pushed into the water from their supports, on which
+they were beached. They had been already prepared for the journey
+there, their platforms covered with plaited palm leaves, frames put
+in their bottoms to support the cargo, boards placed crossways within
+the canoe to serve as seats for the crew, the mast, rigging and sail
+laid handy. The loading, however, begins only after the canoe is in
+water. The large, trough-shaped chunks of sago were put at the bottom,
+while men and women carefully brought out the big clay pots, stowing
+them away with many precautions in special places in the middle
+(see Plate XLVII). Then, one after the other, the canoes went off,
+paddling round the southern end of the island towards the West. At
+about ten o'clock in the morning, the last canoe disappeared round the
+promontory, and the village remained practically empty. There was no
+saying of farewells, not a trace of any emotion on the part of those
+leaving or those remaining. But it must be remembered that, owing to
+my presence, no women except one or two old hags, were visible on the
+shore. All my best informants gone, I intended to move to Nabwageta
+next morning. At sunset, I made a long excursion in my dinghy round
+the western shores of Gumasila, and it was on that occasion that I
+discovered all those who had left that morning on the Kula sitting on
+Giyasila beach, in accordance with the Kula custom of a preliminary
+halt, such as the one on Muwa described in Chapter VII.
+
+Next morning, I left for the neighbouring island and village of
+Nabwageta, and only after he saw me safely off, Tovasana and his party
+left in his canoe, following the others to Vakuta. In Nabwageta, the
+whole community were in the midst of their final preparations for
+departure, for they intended to wait for the Dobuans and sail with
+them to Kiriwina. All their canoes were being painted and renovated,
+a sail was being repaired on the beach (see Plate LIII). There were
+some minor distributions of food taking place in the village, the stuff
+being over and over again allotted and re-allotted, smaller pieces
+carved out of the big chunks and put into special wrappings. This
+constant handling of food is one of the most prominent features of
+tribal life in that part of the world. As I arrived, a sail for one of
+the canoes was just being finished by a group of men. In another canoe,
+I saw them mending the outrigger by attaching the small log of light,
+dry wood to make the old, waterlogged float more buoyant. I could
+also watch in detail the final trimming of the canoes, the putting
+up of the additional frames, of the coco-nut mats, the making of the
+little cage in the central part for the pots and for the lilava (the
+sacred bundle), I was, nevertheless, not on sufficiently intimate
+terms with these Nabwageta natives to be allowed to witness any of
+the magic. Their system of mwasila is identical with that of Boyowa,
+in fact, it is borrowed from there.
+
+Next day--in this village again I had difficulty in finding any good
+informants, a difficulty increased by the feverish occupation of all
+the men--I went for a long row in the afternoon with my two 'boys,'
+hoping to reach the island of Domdom. A strong current, which in this
+part is at places so pronounced that it breaks out into steep, tidal
+waves, made it impossible to reach our goal. Returning in the dark,
+my boys suddenly grew alert and excited, like hounds picking up a
+scent. I could perceive nothing in the dark, but they had discerned
+two canoes moving westwards. Within about half-an-hour, a fire became
+visible, twinkling on the beach of a small, deserted island South
+of Domdom; evidently some Dobuans were camping there. The excitement
+and intense interest shown by my boys, one a Dobuan, the other from
+Sariba (Southern Massim), gave me an inkling of the magnitude of
+this event--the vanguard of a big Kula fleet slowly creeping up
+towards one of its intermediate halting places. It also brought
+home to me vividly the inter-tribal character of this institution,
+which unites in one common and strongly emotional interest so many
+scattered communities. That night, as we learnt afterwards, a good
+number of canoes had anchored on the outlying deserted islands of the
+Amphletts, waiting for the rest of the fleet to arrive. When we came
+that evening to Nabwageta, the news had already been received of the
+important event, and the whole village was astir.
+
+Next day, the weather was particularly fine and clear, with the distant
+mountains wreathed only in light cumuli, their alluring outlines
+designed in transparent blue. Early in the afternoon, with a blast of
+conch shell, a Dobuan waga, in full paint and decoration, and with the
+rich pandanus mat of the sail glowing like gold against the blue sea,
+came sailing round the promontory. One after the other, at intervals
+of a few minutes each, other canoes came along, all sailing up to
+some hundred yards from the beach, and then, after furling the sail,
+paddling towards the shore (see Plate XL). This was not a ceremonial
+approach, as the aim of the expedition this time did not embrace the
+Amphletts, but was directed towards the Trobriands only, Vakuta,
+and Sinaketa; these canoes had put in only for an intermediate
+halt. Nevertheless, it was a great event, especially as the canoes
+of Nabwageta were going to join with the fleet later on. Out of the
+sixty or so Dobuan canoes, only about twenty-five with some 250 men in
+them had come to Nabwageta, the others having gone to the big village
+of Gumasila. In any case, there were about five times as many men
+gathered in the village as one usually sees. There was no Kula done
+at all, no conch-shells were blown on the shore, nor do I think were
+any presents given or received by either party. The men sat in groups
+round their friends' houses, the most distinguished visitors collected
+about the dwelling of Tobwa'ina, the main headman of Nabwageta.
+
+Many canoes were anchored along the coast beyond the village beach,
+some tucked away into small coves, others moored in sheltered
+shallows. The men sat on the shore round fires, preparing their food,
+which they took out of the provisions carried on the canoes. Only the
+water did they obtain from the island, filling their coco-nut-made
+water vessels from the springs. About a dozen canoes were actually
+moored at the village beach. Late at night, I walked along the shore
+to observe their sleeping arrangements. In the clear, moonlit night,
+the small fires burnt with a red, subdued glow; there was always one
+of them between each two sleepers, consisting of three burning sticks,
+gradually pushed in as they were consumed. The men slept with the big,
+stiff pandanus mats over them; each mat is folded in the middle, and
+when put on the ground, forms a kind of miniature prismatic tent. All
+along the beach, it was almost a continuous row of man alternating with
+fire, the dun-coloured mats being nearly invisible against the sand in
+the full moonlight. It must have been a very light sleep for every now
+and then, a man stirred, peeping up from under his shell, re-adjusting
+the fire, and casting a searching glance over the surroundings. It
+would be difficult to say whether mosquitoes or cold wind or fear of
+sorcery disturbed their sleep most, but I should say the last.
+
+The next morning, early, and without any warning, the whole fleet
+sailed away. At about 8 o'clock the last canoe punted towards the
+offing, where they stepped their mast and hoisted their sail. There
+were no farewell gifts, no conch shell blowing, and the Dobuans this
+time left their resting place as they had come, without ceremony or
+display. The morning after, the Nabwagetans followed them. I was left
+in the village with a few cripples, the women and one or two men who
+had remained perhaps to look after the village, perhaps specially to
+keep watch over me and see that I did no mischief. Not one of them was
+a good informant. Through a mistake of mine, I had missed the cutter
+which had come two days before to the island of Gumasila and left
+without me. With bad luck and bad weather, I might have had to wait
+a few weeks, if not months in Nabwageta. I could perhaps have sailed
+in a native canoe, but this could only be done without bedding, tent,
+or even writing outfit and photographic apparatus, and so my travelling
+would have been quite useless. It was a piece of great good luck that
+a day or two afterwards, a motor launch, whose owner had heard about
+my staying in the Amphletts, anchored in front of Nabwageta village,
+and within an hour I was speeding towards the Trobriands again,
+following the tracks of the Kula fleet.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+On the next morning, as we slowly made our way along the channels
+in the opalescent, green lagoon, and as I watched a fleet of small,
+local canoes fishing in their muddy waters, and could recognise on
+the surrounding flat shores a dozen well-known villages, my spirits
+rose, and I felt well pleased to have left the picturesque, but
+ethnographically barren Amphletts for the Trobriands, with their
+scores of excellent informants.
+
+Moreover, the Amphletts, in the persons of their male inhabitants
+were soon to join me here. I went ashore in Sinaketa, where everybody
+was full of the great moment which was soon to arrive. For the Dobuan
+fleet was known to be coming, though on that morning, so far, no news
+had reached them of its whereabouts. As a matter of fact, the Dobuans,
+who had left Nabwageta forty-eight hours ahead of me, had made a slow
+journey with light winds, and sailing a course to the East of mine,
+had arrived that morning only in Vakuta.
+
+All the rumours which had been reported to me in the Amphletts about
+the previous movements of the Trobriand natives had been correct. Thus
+the natives of Vakuta had really been to the East, to Kitava, and
+had brought with them a big haul of armshells. To'uluwa, the chief of
+Kiriwina, had visited Kitava later, and about five or six days before
+had returned from there, bringing with him 213 pairs of armshells. The
+Sinaketans then had gone to Kiriwina, and out of the 213 pairs had
+succeeded in securing 154. As there had been previously 150 pairs
+in Sinaketa, a total of 304 was awaiting the Dobuans. On the morning
+of my arrival, the Sinaketan party had just returned from Kiriwina,
+hurrying home so as to have everything ready for the reception of the
+Dobuans. Of these, we got the news that very afternoon--news which
+travelled overland from one village to another, and reached us from
+Vakuta with great rapidity. We were also told that the uvalaku fleet
+would be at Sinaketa within two or three days.
+
+This period I utilised in refurbishing my information about that phase
+of the Kula, which I was going to witness, and trying to get a clear
+outline of every detail of all that was going soon to happen. It is
+extremely important in sociological work to know well beforehand
+the underlying rules and the fundamental ideas of an occurrence,
+especially if big masses of natives are concerned in it. Otherwise,
+the really important events may be obliterated by quite irrelevant and
+accidental movements of the crowd, and thus the significance of what
+he sees may be lost to the observer. No doubt if one could repeat
+one's observations on the same phenomenon over and over again, the
+essential and relevant features would stand out by their regularity
+and permanence. If, however, as it often happens in ethnographic
+field-work, one gets the opportunity only once of witnessing a
+public ceremony, it is necessary to have its anatomy well dissected
+beforehand, and then concentrate upon observing how these outlines are
+followed up concretely, gauge the tone of the general behaviour, the
+touches of emotion or passion, many small yet significant details which
+nothing but actual observation can reveal, and which throw much light
+upon the real, inner relation of the native to his institution. So I
+was busy going over my old entries and checking them and putting my
+material into shape in a detailed and concrete manner.
+
+On the third day, as I was sitting and taking notes in the afternoon,
+word ran all round the villages that the Dobuan canoes had been
+sighted. And indeed, as I hastened towards the shore, there could be
+seen, far away, like small petals floating on the horizon, the sails
+of the advancing fleet. I jumped at once into a canoe, and was punted
+along towards the promontory of Kaykuyawa, about a mile to the South of
+Sinaketa. There, one after the other, the Dobuan canoes were arriving,
+dropping their sails and undoing the mast as they moored, until the
+whole fleet, numbering now over eighty canoes, were assembled before
+me (see Plate XLVIII). From each a few men waded ashore, returning
+with big bunches of leaves. I saw them wash and smear themselves and
+perform the successive stages of native, festive adornment (see Plate
+XLIX). Each article was medicated by some man or another in the canoe
+before it was used or put on. The most carefully handled articles
+of ornamentation were the ineffective looking, dried up herbs, taken
+out of their little receptacles, where they had remained since they
+had been becharmed in Dobu, and now stuck into the armlets. The whole
+thing went on quickly, almost feverishly, making more the impression
+of a piece of technical business being expeditiously performed, than
+of a solemn and elaborate ceremony taking place. But the ceremonial
+element was soon to show itself.
+
+After the preparations were finished, the whole fleet formed itself
+into a compact body, not quite regular, but with a certain order, about
+four or five canoes being in a row, and one row behind the other. In
+this formation they punted along over the Lagoon, too shallow for
+paddling, towards the beach of Sinaketa. When they were within about
+ten minutes of the shore, all the conch shells began to be sounded,
+and the murmur of recited magic rose from the canoes. I could not come
+sufficiently near the canoes, for reason of etiquette, to be able to
+see the exact arrangement of the reciters, but I was told that it was
+the same as that observed by the Trobrianders on their approach to
+Dobu, described in Chapter XIII. The general effect was powerful, when
+this wonderfully painted and fully decorated fleet was gliding swiftly
+good citizens, as well as the undesirable class, would either attend the
+hearings or familiarize themselves with the quarterly reports. Thus a
+general steal would be impossible. A single Commissioner cannot make all
+of his business public, and much that he does never reaches the light of
+publicity. In fact, I believe that because the Commissioner cannot take
+the public into his confidence, abuses are bound to occur. Often it
+remains for the Indian Rights Association, or other organizations, to
+appeal to the public and do that which the Indian Office should
+establish without outside influence. There would be far less incentive
+to dishonesty, were covetous white men compelled to deal with a
+Commission instead of an individual. The publication of the Board’s
+hearings and findings would have a deterrent effect on certain men who
+otherwise appeal to Senators or Congressmen.
+
+I have often contrasted the work of Dr. W. T. Grenfell in Labrador with
+that of organizations laboring among our Indians. We are not responsible
+for the condition of the fishermen in Labrador, and they are numerically
+but a fraction as compared with our total Indian population. Yet Dr.
+Grenfell, through his lectures and publications has aroused such an
+interest in this country that he can collect for his Labrador work a sum
+far greater than that expended in support of six Indian missions. People
+are interested in him and his work because of the appeal he makes. The
+Labrador fishermen suffer no wrongs compared with our Indians, and their
+condition is far better than that of the average aborigine. Similar
+publicity given to Indian affairs through the reports and hearings of a
+National Commission, would arouse the American people, and a brighter
+day for the Indian would certainly dawn.
+
+No matter what is said, the Commissioner must fight alone and
+single-handed with the members of Congress. His is a great
+responsibility. Both Mr. Leupp and Mr. Valentine, in conversations with
+me, have admitted that the chief difficulty in handling the Indian
+problem is found in the word “politics”. The Commissioner is dependent
+on Congress for his appropriations. He may be sustained or opposed by
+members of Congress, and the public will remain in ignorance. He may not
+appeal save to the Secretary of the Interior. He must keep in mind the
+wishes of his political party. He will not admit political pressure when
+in office, but after leaving the Service, he may tell his story of
+trouble with politicians, as Mr. Leupp has in his book. Mr. Valentine
+could enlighten us further on “The Indian Office in Politics”, did he
+care to speak. A paid National Commission would be dominated by _no_
+political party. Ten years’ service would enable it to become entirely
+familiar with the needs of the Indians, whereas the average
+Commissioner, serving less than three years, barely becomes acquainted
+with the problem when he is succeeded by a new appointee.
+
+I recommend to the earnest consideration of the American people the
+Commission idea, as the only means of salvation of the American Indian.
+It will be said by critics that many of the tribes are making
+satisfactory progress and need no Commission; that the present
+organization of the Indian Office is sufficient. This is partly true,
+but a study of the table of statistics, and reference to the testimony
+submitted in this book, establishes the sad fact, that the majority of
+the Indians must lose unless we make a radical change in our policy. It
+is useless to blind our eyes to hard facts; and these are that we
+develop a certain area after painstaking labor, and then through unwise
+acts (or legislation) we destroy the very tracts we have improved.
+
+The Indian must ultimately be merged into the body politic, as has been
+affirmed. But in bringing about this desideratum, it is not necessary to
+crush all happiness out of his life. For fifty years the Indian has
+followed a devious and uncertain trail, in the fond hope that he might
+reach his journey’s end. If men and women, who through unintentional
+ignorance have given no heed to the welfare of our red Americans, will
+interest their Representatives in Congress, and also help to crystallize
+public opinion against further harmful legislation, it is quite possible
+that the National Commission plan may be carried into effect. After many
+years of study of the subject, I firmly believe that the welfare of the
+Indian depends upon the creation of such a Commission as has been
+indicated—one composed not of those interested in political parties, but
+on the contrary of competent men who understand Indians and their needs,
+of men who are willing to devote the best years of their lives to
+transforming the rough, uncertain trail along which the Indian has
+toiled, into a broad highway, upon which the Red Man may safely travel
+to his ultimate destination—the civilized community. And having reached
+the end of his journey, the Indian will live henceforth peacefully, and
+enjoy to the full the blessings of liberty, equality and justice.
+
+
+
+
+                                 INDEX
+
+
+ Abbott, F.H., 13, 242, 247, 248, 291, 359, 384, 424.
+
+ Affidavits, 71, 74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 83, 84, 90, 91.
+
+ Agricultural lands cultivated, 24, 27, 29, 66.
+
+ Ah-bow-we-ge-shig, 93, 94.
+
+ Ali-yah-baince, 81.
+
+ Alabama, 33.
+
+ Alaska Indians, 283.
+
+ Allen, Edgar A., 13, 204.
+
+ Allen, C. W., 174.
+
+ Allen, J. Weston, 13, 74, 95, 149, 157, 247, 249, 251, 252.
+
+ Allotting, 27, 28, 33, 59, 62, 70, 71, 73, 76, 133, 248, 333, 337, 338,
+    389.
+
+ American Horse, 125, 128, 184.
+
+ Andrus, Miss Caroline W., 13, 209.
+
+ Anundensen, Mr., 77.
+
+ Apache, 26, 43, 44, 219, 222, 223, 233, 237, 238, 311, 314, 373, 404,
+    427.
+
+ Appropriations, 26, 27, 63, 64, 363.
+
+ Arapaho, 31, 102, 311, 314, 317.
+
+ Arizona, 219, 221, 222, 223, 225, 233, 235, 237, 241, 242, 250, 265,
+    282, 291, 373.
+
+ Arkansas, 43.
+
+ Armstrong, Gen. C. S., 205.
+
+ Art and industries, 10, 28, 29, 35, 37, 227, 229, 232, 241, 244, 256,
+    359–366.
+
+ Ayer, E. E., 13, 31, 36, 40, 41.
+
+ Ay-nah-me-ay-gah-bow, 56.
+
+
+ Bad River Reservation, 41, 42.
+
+ Bannock Indians, 253.
+
+ Ballinger, Secretary, 424.
+
+ Barbour, Hon. Geo. W., 329.
+
+ Barnard, Kate, 11, 13, 137, 150, 151, 154, 160, 163, 167, 168, 170,
+    426, 427.
+
+ Bartlett, George E., 101, 102, 112, 118, 132.
+
+ Barrett, S. M., 233, 238.
+
+ Bassett, Jim, 58.
+
+ Bay-bah-dwun-gay-aush, 66, 81, 95, 399.
+
+ Beaulieu, Clement, 55, 91.
+
+ Beaulieu, Gus, 65, 67, 71, 79, 91, 93, 424.
+
+ Bear, John T., 418.
+
+ Beum, Lawyer, 80.
+
+ Bibliography, 14, 98, 171, 172, 217, 277, 340.
+
+ Big Foot, 127, 128.
+
+ Big Head, 152.
+
+ Blackfeet, 253.
+
+ Blackmore, Hon. Wm., 179.
+
+ Blue Whirlwind, 127.
+
+ Board of Indian Commissioners, 36, 68, 69, 149, 224, 240, 288, 291,
+    326, 327, 332, 336, 340, 417, 431, 432.
+
+ Boston Indian Citizenship Committee, 74, 149, 247, 249.
+
+ Brennan, Major John R., 13, 100, 105, 342, 418.
+
+ Bright Eyes (Susette LaFlesche), 402.
+
+ Bristow (Senator), 246.
+
+ Brooke, Major John R., 122, 125.
+
+ Brown, Capt. Frederick H., 177.
+
+ Brown, John B., 133, 379.
+
+ Browning, D. W., 384.
+
+ Brulé, 99, 401.
+
+ Budrow, Ephraim, 84.
+
+ Buffalo, 299–310.
+
+ Bull Head, 123, 124.
+
+ Burch, Judge Marsden C., 57, 59, 66, 68, 90.
+
+ Bureau of Catholic Missions, 93, 282.
+
+ Bureau of Ethnology, 15, 20, 100, 184, 229, 271.
+
+ Bureau of Indian Affairs, 25, 76, 264, 329.
+
+ Burke, Hon. Charles H., 137, 155, 428.
+
+
+ California, 28, 33, 70, 174, 213, 219, 241, 253, 267, 270, 274, 282,
+    283, 291, 297, 325–340.
+
+ California Indian Association, 282, 327, 335, 336, 337.
+
+ California Indians, 325–340, 372, 375.
+
+ Canada, 18, 33, 54, 179, 191, 192, 197, 198, 199, 310, 321, 371, 418.
+
+ Carl, John, 91.
+
+ Carlisle Indian School, 29, 38, 39, 79, 203, 204, 210, 212, 215, 267,
+    268, 366, 412, 416.
+
+ Carter Code Bill, 285.
+
+ Carrington, Col. H. B., 177, 178, 192.
+
+ Carrier Pigeon (Journal), 31.
+
+ Century of Dishonor, 94, 183.
+
+ Chapin, A. R., 125.
+
+ Cass Lake, 45, 47, 51, 57.
+
+ Cattle, 24, 29, 44, 237, 271, 359, 361.
+
+ Catch-the-Bear, 124.
+
+ Cherokees, 33, 133, 135, 140, 143, 153, 159, 274, 372, 431.
+
+ Cheyenne, 31, 102, 178, 185, 253, 254, 286, 308, 311, 314, 317, 318,
+    372, 380, 400.
+
+ Chickasaws, 133, 140, 143, 159, 164.
+
+ Chief Joseph, 253, 402.
+
+ Chilocco Indian School, 37, 204, 208.
+
+ Chilocco School Journal, 29.
+
+ Chippewa (see Ojibwa)
+
+ Chippewa Music, 20, 86.
+
+ Choctaws, 133, 140, 143, 152, 153, 159, 164, 165, 167, 276.
+
+ Choctaw Investment Company, 167.
+
+ Citizenship, Indian, 33.
+
+ Civil Service Commission, 359.
+
+ Clapp Amendment, 59, 60, 67.
+
+ Clapp, Senator Moses E., 67, 68, 93.
+
+ Cleveland, President, 133.
+
+ Cliff-Dwellers, 291.
+
+ Cochise, 220, 237.
+
+ Cody, Col. Wm. F., 199, 301, 303.
+
+ Colorado, 43.
+
+ Comanches, 43, 44, 235, 236, 291, 304, 311, 314.
+
+ Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 41, 50, 68, 93, 96,
+    136, 183, 260, 265, 337, 341, 367, 384, 428, 431, 433.
+
+ Commissioner of the Five Civilized Tribes, 11, 28, 139, 157.
+
+ Communistic Life, 399, 400.
+
+ Congressional Committees, 49, 185, 193, 194.
+
+ Coolidge, Rev. Sherman, 201, 278, 284.
+
+ Coronado, 233.
+
+ Correspondents (data), 213, 214, 216, 260–264, 274–277, 387–397.
+
+ Court of Claims, 286.
+
+ Crazy Horse, 184, 402.
+
+ Creek Council, 143.
+
+ Creeks, 133, 137, 140, 143, 148, 155, 162, 214, 276, 414.
+
+ Crops, 24, 29.
+
+ Crow, 26, 174, 190, 191, 253, 254, 294, 308, 380, 427.
+
+ Crow Dog, 120, 121.
+
+ Crow Foot, 123, 124.
+
+ Crook, Gen. G. H., 222, 223, 238, 239, 308.
+
+ Curtis, Miss Nathalie, 15.
+
+ Cushing, Frank Hamilton, 229.
+
+ Custer, General, 103, 184, 185, 190, 303, 308, 316.
+
+
+ Dagenett, Charles E., 13, 201.
+
+ Dances, 111, 305, 400, 404, 405.
+
+ Darr, John, 112.
+
+ Dartmouth College, 200, 207.
+
+ Dawes Commission, 133, 135.
+
+ Day-cah-me-ge-shig, 81.
+
+ Dennis, C. E., 85.
+
+ Densmore, Miss Frances, 20, 66, 86, 280.
+
+ Denver Conference, 285.
+
+ Department of Agriculture, 28, 359.
+
+ Department of Charities and Corrections, 137, 150, 170.
+
+ Department of Justice, 12, 57, 60, 70, 90, 95, 96, 139, 394, 413.
+
+ Department of the Interior, 25, 70, 141, 147, 168, 185, 200, 212, 225.
+
+ Diagram Indian Service, 32.
+
+ Dickenson, Judge J. T., 166.
+
+ Dixon, Dr. Joseph K., 12, 248.
+
+ Dodge City, Kas., 182, 299, 300, 304, 311, 319.
+
+ Dodge, Gen. (Col.), 174, 175, 177, 179, 236, 281, 300, 376.
+
+ Doubleday Page Co., 12.
+
+ Drunkenness, 31, 53, 54, 61, 62, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 276, 363, 422.
+
+ Dull Knife, 319.
+
+
+ Eastman, Dr. Charles A., 13, 15, 102, 185, 199, 201, 202, 279, 284,
+    402, 403.
+
+ Education, 27, 30, 37, 40, 50, 200–217, 231, 251, 282, 335, 338.
+
+ Eldridge, Mrs. Mary L., 250.
+
+ Eliot, Rev. Samuel A., 224, 229, 242, 248.
+
+ Ellis, Mrs. Rose, 78, 407.
+
+ Espinosa Pedro, 236.
+
+
+ Fairs, 256, 361, 363.
+
+ Fairbanks, Albert, 55.
+
+ Fairbanks, Ben, 55, 91.
+
+ Farms, 359–366.
+
+ Farrell, F. E., 31.
+
+ Fasler, Addie B., 165, 166.
+
+ Federal Government, 331.
+
+ Fetterman, Col. Wm. J., 177, 315.
+
+ Few Tails, 129, 130.
+
+ Fewkes, Dr. J. Walter, 229.
+
+ Fisher, Secretary W. L., 424.
+
+ Five Civilized Tribes, 11, 28, 29, 133–172, 204, 209, 276, 277, 379,
+    415, 417, 427.
+
+ Flammand, Joe, 80.
+
+ Flat Hip, 185.
+
+ Fletcher, Miss Alice C., 307.
+
+ Florida, 35, 240, 265.
+
+ Foreman, Grant, 13, 137, 139, 160, 168.
+
+ Forrest, E. R., 13, 231, 246, 259.
+
+ Forsythe, Col., 125.
+
+ Fort Belknap Reservation, 34.
+
+ Fort Fetterman, 310.
+
+ Fort Laramie, 177.
+
+ Fort Phil. Kearney, 177, 286.
+
+ Fort Robinson, 180.
+
+ Foster, Charles, 103.
+
+ Fourteen Confederated Tribes, 257.
+
+ Four Important Books, 367–377.
+
+ Franciscan Fathers, 225, 241, 274.
+
+ French Mission, 36.
+
+ Friedman, Moses, 201.
+
+ Frost, A. N., 13, 139, 163, 413, 427.
+
+ Full-blood Indians, 57, 68, 71, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 84, 140, 161, 168,
+    271, 274, 277, 352–358, 432.
+
+
+ Galagher, H. G., 107, 108.
+
+ Garfield, James, 143, 254, 424.
+
+ Gay-me-wah-nah-na-quoit, 81.
+
+ George, Jr., Henry, 419.
+
+ Georgia, 33.
+
+ Geronimo, 198, 220, 221, 233, 234, 235–240, 373.
+
+ Ghost Dance, (See Messiah Craze).
+
+ Ghost Dance Music, 115.
+
+ “Ghost Dance Religion”, 100.
+
+ Gilfillan, Rev. Joseph A., 48, 49, 50, 54, 66, 420.
+
+ Graham, Hon. James M., 49, 98, 419, 428.
+
+ Graham Investigating Committee, 66, 88, 93.
+
+ Grayson, Capt. G. W., 135, 148, 162, 163.
+
+ Greeley, Horace, 300.
+
+ Grenfell, Dr. W. T., 403, 433.
+
+ Gresham, J. E., 139, 163, 427.
+
+
+ Hall, Darwin S., 67, 93.
+
+ Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, 205, 209, 211, 212.
+
+ Handbook of American Indians, 15, 45, 173, 190, 217, 219, 233, 245,
+    291, 307, 325, 401.
+
+ Harjo Fixico, 135.
+
+ Haskell Institute, 13, 29.
+
+ Hauke, C. F., 25.
+
+ Hawk Man, 124.
+
+ Health of the Indians, 54, 61, 66, 227, 230, 266–277, 345–351.
+
+ Heckewelder, Rev., 421.
+
+ Henderson, D. B., 65.
+
+ Henry, Robert, 71.
+
+ Hermanutz, Rev. Aloysius, 66, 68.
+
+ Hinton, John H., 90.
+
+ Hodge, Dr. F. W., 219, 291.
+
+ Hole-in-the-Day, 54, 55, 56, 63, 407, 408.
+
+ Holmes, E. G., 77.
+
+ Homar, Father Roman, 13, 85.
+
+ Hospitals, 27, 85, 250, 266, 275, 277.
+
+ Hornaday, Prof. Wm. T., 301, 303.
+
+ Horses, 24, 29, 359.
+
+ Horse Indians, 99, 174, 311.
+
+ House Committee on Indian Affairs, 142, 258.
+
+ Howard, Major John R., 13, 47, 70, 95.
+
+ Hrdlicka, Dr. Ales, 265, 268, 271.
+
+ Humphrey, Seth K., 13, 224, 367, 368, 372, 373, 376, 421.
+
+ Hunter, Henry (See Weasel).
+
+ Hurley, P. J., 164.
+
+ Huson, H., 13, 151, 170.
+
+
+ Indian Domination, 18.
+
+ Indian Industries League, 283.
+
+ Indian Labor, 24, 27, 29, 32, 33, 34, 37, 47, 66, 261.
+
+ Indian Office (See Indian Service).
+
+ Indian Population, 20, 21, 22, 23, 33, 40, 43, 45, 232.
+
+ Indian Publications, 29, 30, 31, 203.
+
+ Indian Rights Association, 12, 68, 240, 241, 254, 282, 291, 385, 433.
+
+ Indian Service, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 42, 66, 68, 69, 70, 87, 90, 97,
+    150, 151, 167, 226, 230, 252, 255, 291, 327, 331, 340, 360, 363,
+    366, 424, 428, 431, 433, 434.
+
+ Indian Territory, 134, 301, 417.
+
+ Inspection Service, 25, 97.
+
+ Iroquois, 33, 35.
+
+ Irrigation, 27, 219, 226, 230, 257, 291–298, 337, 374.
+
+
+ Jackson, Helen Hunt, 94, 183, 224, 237, 326, 334, 367, 372, 373.
+
+ James, George Wharton, 12, 15, 241, 290.
+
+ Jesus Christ, 102.
+
+ Johnson, Governor John A., 68.
+
+ Johnson, Rev. W. R., 242, 247, 343.
+
+ Jones Bill, 257.
+
+ Jones, Col. W. A., 303.
+
+ Jones, Hon. William, 50, 384.
+
+
+ Keeps-the-Battle, 107.
+
+ Kelsey, C. E., 13, 282, 327, 336, 337.
+
+ Kelsey, Dana H., 13, 133, 139, 149, 150, 159, 160, 161, 168, 427.
+
+ Keshena, 36, 37.
+
+ Ketcham, Rev. Wm. H., 224, 229, 242, 248.
+
+ Ke-way-din, 72.
+
+ Kicking Bear, 125.
+
+ Kiowa, 311, 314, 315.
+
+ Kolb, M. J., 82.
+
+ Kraft, Father, 128.
+
+ Kroeber, Dr. A. L., 325, 329.
+
+
+ Lacy, Georgia, 81.
+
+ Lake Superior, 18.
+
+ Lane, Franklin K., 13, 163, 424, 429.
+
+ Leasing, 28.
+
+ Leecy, John, 81.
+
+ Leech Lake, 45, 47, 51, 55, 57, 59.
+
+ Leupp, Francis E., 12, 35, 206, 207, 245, 267, 287, 288, 359, 367, 369,
+    371, 384, 402, 424, 433.
+
+ Lewis and Clark, 402.
+
+ Lincoln, President, 211.
+
+ Linnen, E. B., 13, 25, 47, 64, 69, 70, 81, 87, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 97,
+    385.
+
+ Lipps, Oscar H., 13, 201, 209, 241, 243, 379.
+
+ Little Crow, 175, 401.
+
+ Little Horse, 116.
+
+ Little Wound, 113, 125.
+
+ Livestock, 24, 29, 365.
+
+ Locke, Victor, 428.
+
+ Logan, Gen., 197.
+
+ Louisiana, 43.
+
+ Lufkins, William, 80, 83.
+
+ Lufkins, John, 94, 407.
+
+ Lusk, Charles S., 93.
+
+ Lummis, Chas. F., 14, 210, 267, 327, 336.
+
+
+ Mah-een-gonce, 66, 94.
+
+ Mah-een-gonce’s Story, 409.
+
+ Maine, 31, 32, 33.
+
+ Malecite Indians, 33.
+
+ Mangus-Colorado, 233, 238.
+
+ Maps, 20, 21, 22, 25, 35.
+
+ Maricopa, 291.
+
+ Marriages, Indian, 26, 243.
+
+ Marsh, Prof., 176, 180.
+
+ May-dway-we-mind, 56.
+
+ McGillicuddy, Dr., 128.
+
+ McCumber, Senator, 141.
+
+ McKee, Hon. Redick, 329.
+
+ McLaughlin, Supt. (Maj., Hon.), J., 102, 121, 122, 123, 191, 279, 367,
+    368.
+
+ McMurray Contracts, 164.
+
+ McWhorter, L. V., 13, 255, 257, 258, 262.
+
+ Medal of Red Cloud, 419.
+
+ Menominee, 35, 36, 40, 41, 43, 268.
+
+ Mercer, Maj. Wm. A., 201.
+
+ Meritt, Edgar B., 12, 25, 360, 384, 432.
+
+ Merriam, C. Hart, 327, 328, 332.
+
+ Messiah Craze, 99, 100–107, 121, 185, 199, 283.
+
+ Mexico, 220, 221, 223, 235, 237, 239, 325, 326, 373.
+
+ Me-zhuck-ke-ge-shig, 55, 66, 68, 81.
+
+ Me-zhuck-ke-gway-abe, 77.
+
+ Michelet, Simon, 59, 64, 68, 70, 71, 97.
+
+ Michigan, 35.
+
+ Miles, Gen., 128, 130, 180, 191, 192, 240, 308.
+
+ Miller, Okoskee, 135.
+
+ Mille Lac Indians, 63, 65, 93.
+
+ Mission Indians, 297.
+
+ Missionary Denominations, 33, 93, 281, 225.
+
+ Missionaries, 33, 49, 85.
+
+ Minnesota, 33, 265, 366.
+
+ Minnesota Historical Collections, 175.
+
+ Mixed-blood Indians, 21, 26, 47, 48, 53, 57, 66, 68, 71, 74, 75, 77,
+    79, 80, 84, 140, 168, 352–358, 432.
+
+ Modocs, 253, 254.
+
+ Moffett, Rev. Thomas C., 282.
+
+ Mohonk Conference, 50, 97, 151, 284, 326, 368, 384, 385, 413, 418, 425.
+
+ Money belonging to Indians, 26, 40, 42, 47, 62.
+
+ Montana, 34, 260, 261, 264.
+
+ Montezuma, Dr. Carlos, 203, 403.
+
+ Monument at Wounded Knee, 130, 131.
+
+ Mooney, James, 100, 101, 102, 127, 128, 129, 191.
+
+ Moorehead, W. K., 64, 81, 83, 87, 90, 96, 149, 428.
+
+ Morality, 53, 61, 62, 66, 73, 74, 352–358, 380, 381, 404–405.
+
+ Morgan, T. J., 12, 384.
+
+ Morrison, Robert, 77.
+
+ Mormons, 243, 261, 417.
+
+ Moty Tiger, Chief, 162.
+
+ Mott, Hon. M. L., 11, 13, 137, 140, 141, 143, 150, 155, 160, 162, 167,
+    170, 414, 427.
+
+ Murphy, Dr. Joseph A., 14, 273.
+
+ Murray, W. N., 428.
+
+ Murrow, Rev. J. S., 137.
+
+
+ National Commission (new), 431–434.
+
+ National Indian Association, 250, 281, 327, 335.
+
+ Navaho, 21, 24, 26, 31, 44, 47, 219, 241–252, 279, 280, 342, 343, 420,
+    423, 427.
+
+ Negro, 23, 132, 205, 401.
+
+ Nelles, Rev. Felix, 68, 85.
+
+ Nelson Act, 59, 64.
+
+ Nelson, Senator Knute, 68.
+
+ New Brunswick, 31, 33.
+
+ New Mexico, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 241, 249, 265, 267, 268, 283, 291.
+
+ Newton, Mrs. Elsie E., 97, 216, 379, 404.
+
+ New York, 21, 33, 35, 265, 415.
+
+ Nez Perce, 253, 372, 430.
+
+ Nez Perce War, 253.
+
+ Nichols-Chisolm Lumber Co., 61, 71.
+
+ No Neck, 120, 121.
+
+ North Carolina, 33.
+
+ No Water, 109, 110, 111, 114.
+
+
+ O’Brien, E. C., 14, 56, 90.
+
+ Official Views of Indian Conditions, 378–385.
+
+ Oglala, 99, 100, 113, 173, 270, 271.
+
+ Ojibwa, 35, 36, 41, 43, 45–56, 57–65, 66–76, 77–88, 89–98, 99, 204,
+    308, 342, 361, 373, 399, 427.
+
+ Ojibwa Music, 86.
+
+ Ojibwa’s Story, 407.
+
+ Oklahoma, 133–172, 205, 214, 265, 273, 277, 281, 283, 284, 318, 342,
+    413–415, 425, 427, 428, 431.
+
+ Oklahoma Delegation, 145.
+
+ O-mo-du-yea-quay, 80.
+
+ O-nah-yah-wah-be-tung, 80.
+
+ One Feather, 129, 130.
+
+ Oneida, 35.
+
+ Onondaga Reservation, 21.
+
+ Oregon, 260.
+
+ Ottawa, 43.
+
+ Out West (Land of Sunshine), 327.
+
+ Owen, Hon. Sen. Robert L., 203, 413, 414.
+
+
+ Pagan Whites, 289
+
+ Paiutes, 253.
+
+ Papago, 31, 219, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 291.
+
+ Parker, Arthur C., 14, 19, 201.
+
+ Parker, Gabe E., 11, 46.
+
+ Park Rapids Lumber Co., 61.
+
+ Parquette, Peter, 252.
+
+ Passamaquoddy, 31, 33.
+
+ Pawnees, 204, 400.
+
+ Peabody, Dr. Charles, 14.
+
+ Peace Commissions, 175, 179, 253.
+
+ Peairs, H. B., 14, 378.
+
+ Peirce, Chas. F., 14, 381.
+
+ Penobscot, 31, 32, 33.
+
+ Pepper, Dr. George W., 241.
+
+ Pereault, Joe, 89.
+
+ Philanthropic Organizations, 281–289.
+
+ Phillips Academy, Andover, 211, 245.
+
+ Pillagers, 63, 81, 97, 399.
+
+ Pimas, 219, 222, 223, 224, 291, 374, 382, 383.
+
+ Pine Ridge, 99–109, 111, 117, 122, 125, 128, 132, 174, 270, 309, 418,
+    420.
+
+ Plains Indians, 99, 174, 177, 187, 304, 308, 309, 311–324.
+
+ Politicians, 26, 50, 376, 395.
+
+ Politics and Indians, 139, 144, 376.
+
+ Poncas, 204, 372, 373, 402.
+
+ Potawatomie, 35, 43.
+
+ Powell, Maj. James, 99, 178, 179.
+
+ Pratt, Capt. R. H., 200, 201.
+
+ Prominent Indian Men and Women, 201, 203, 401, 402.
+
+ Property (Lands, Timber, Minerals), 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 37, 40, 41,
+    42, 47, 50, 51, 57, 59, 61, 62, 73, 103, 157, 159, 229, 250, 343.
+
+ Property valuation, 26, 27.
+
+ Public Domain, 31.
+
+ Public Health and Marine Hospital Service, 265.
+
+ Pueblo, 219, 229, 230–232, 267, 268, 291.
+
+
+ Recommendations, 40, 387–397.
+
+ Red Cloud, 99, 121, 173–189, 281, 318, 402.
+
+ Red Cloud, Jack, 186, 419.
+
+ Red Lake, 45, 47, 51, 57, 59, 62.
+
+ Red Man, The (Journal), 29.
+
+ Red Tomahawk, 123, 124.
+
+ Religion, 279–289.
+
+ Report of cases, 155, 156.
+
+ Riggs Missions, 409.
+
+ Robinson, Senator Joe, 432.
+
+ Rock, Grace, 77.
+
+ Rock, Mrs. John, 77.
+
+ Roe Cloud, Henry, 201, 207, 403.
+
+ Roosevelt, President, 140, 143, 144, 233.
+
+ Rosebud, 104, 107.
+
+ Royer, Doctor D. F., 105, 108.
+
+
+ Sacagawea, 402.
+
+ St. Luke, John, 71.
+
+ San Carlos, 222.
+
+ Santa Fe Trail, 174.
+
+ Sauk and Fox, 36.
+
+ Saunders, Fred, 77.
+
+ Schools, 27, 37, 38, 39, 48, 87, 106, 138, 146, 213–217, 227, 266.
+
+ Scott, Duncan C., 418, 419.
+
+ Secretary of the Interior, 54, 55, 91, 96, 136, 143, 149, 162, 163,
+    258, 433.
+
+ Seger, John H., 14, 417, 418.
+
+ Sells, Commissioner, 12, 16, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 151, 167, 267, 283,
+    341, 359, 360, 363, 378, 384, 423, 424, 432.
+
+ Seminoles, 35, 133, 140, 143, 276.
+
+ Sequoya, 402.
+
+ Seventh Cavalry, 125, 128.
+
+ Shangraux, Louis, 118, 119, 120, 121.
+
+ Shave Head, 123, 124, 125.
+
+ Shearman, James T., 54, 55, 56.
+
+ Sherman, Jas. S., 429.
+
+ Sheep, 24, 29, 44, 250, 364, 395.
+
+ Shelton, Maj. W. T., 247, 252, 343.
+
+ Short Bull, 119, 120, 121, 125.
+
+ Sioux, 26, 47, 63, 99–117, 131, 132, 173, 177, 178, 181, 268, 270, 304,
+    308, 322, 372, 400, 407.
+
+ Sioux Music, 189.
+
+ Sitting Bull, 99, 102, 121, 122, 123–132, 173, 179, 180, 184, 190–199,
+    402.
+
+ Smiley Commission. 334.
+
+ Smiley, Hon. Albert K., 284, 326.
+
+ Smiley, Hon. Daniel, 284.
+
+ Smith, Rev. Wilkins, 85.
+waking life. It may be worth while to bring forward a few dreams which
+incidentally illustrate the moral attitude of the dreamer.
+
+A lady narrated the following dream immediately on awakening: 'I had
+murdered a woman from some moral or political motive--I forget what--and
+had come in great agony to my husband with her shoes and watch-chain. He
+promised to help me, and while I was wondering what could be done for
+the benefit of the woman's family, some one came in and announced that a
+lecture was about to be given on the beauty of nakedness. I then went,
+with several prim and respectable ladies of my acquaintance [the names
+were given], into a crowded hall. The lecturer who--so far as appearance
+is concerned--was a well-known Member of Parliament, then entered and
+gave a most eloquent address on Whitman, nakedness, ugly figures, etc.
+He especially emphasised the fact that the reason people are shocked at
+nakedness is that they usually only see unbeautiful bodies which repel
+them because they are unlike their ideals. Then he put out his hand, and
+a naked woman entered the room. Her loveliness was extreme; her form was
+perfectly rounded, but without suggestion of voluptuousness, though she
+was not an animated statue, but had all the characters of humanity; she
+walked with undulating thighs, head slightly drooping, and hair falling
+down and framing a face that expressed wonderful spiritual beauty and
+innocence. The lecturer led her round, saying, "This is beauty; now, if
+you can look at this and be ashamed----" and he waved his arm. She went
+away, and a beautiful Apollo-like youth, slender but athletic, entered the
+room, also completely naked. He walked round the room alone, with an air
+of majestic virility. I applauded, clapping my hands, but a shiver went
+through the ladies present; their skin became like goose-flesh, and their
+lips quivered with horror as though they were about to be outraged. The
+youth went out, and the lecturer continued. At the climax of his oratory,
+the Apollo-like youth entered, dressed as a common soldier, with no
+appearance of beauty, and in a rough tone said: "'Ere! I want a shilling
+for this job." (And I sighed to myself: "It is always so.") No one had a
+shilling, and the lecturer proceeded to explain to the man that what he
+had done was for the sake of art and beauty, and for the moral good of
+the world. "What do I care for that?" he returned, "I want a drink." Then
+a lady among the audience produced a collar, wrote on it a testimonial
+expressing the gratitude of those present for the man's services on this
+occasion, and handed it to me to present to him. "Damn it," he said, "this
+is only worth twopence halfpenny; I want my shilling!" Then I awoke.'
+The idea of murder with which this dream began seems to suggest that it
+may have had its origin in some slight visceral disturbance of which
+the subject was unconscious, but nothing had occurred to suggest the
+details of the episode. The interesting feature about it is the presence
+throughout of moral notions and sentiments substantially true to the
+dreamer's waking ideas.
+
+In another dream of the same dreamer's the sense of responsibility is
+clearly present: 'Mrs. F. and Miss R. had called to see me, and I was
+sitting in my room talking to them, when a knock came at the door, and
+I found there a poor woman belonging to the neighbourhood, but who also
+combined in my dream the page-boy at a dear friend's house. From this
+friend, whom I had not heard from for some time, the woman bore a large
+letter. She tore it open in my presence, saying, "It says here that the
+bearer is to open this," and produced from it another letter, a large
+document of a legal character in my friend's handwriting. When the woman
+began to open the second letter I remonstrated; I was sure that there was
+some mistake, that that letter was private, and that no one else ought to
+see it. The woman, however, firmly insisted that she must carry out her
+instructions; so we had a long discussion. After a time I called Mrs. F.
+and appealed to her. She agreed with me that the instructions must only
+mean that the bearer was to open the outer envelope, not the inner letter.
+At last I took out five shillings and gave it to the woman, telling her
+that I would assume all the responsibility for opening the letter myself.
+With this she went away well satisfied, saying (as she would in real
+life), "All right, Mrs. ----, you're a lady, and you know. All right,
+my dear." Then at last I was able to tear open my letter and read these
+words: "_Always use Sunlight Soap_." My vexation was extreme.'
+
+On another occasion the same dreamer experienced remorse. She imagined she
+was in a restaurant, and the girl behind the counter pointed to a barrel
+of beer--a golden barrel, she said, with a magic key--which could only be
+opened by the owner. The dreamer declared, however, that she could open
+it, and, producing a key, proceeded to do so, handing round beer to the
+bystanders. Then she realised that she had been stealing, and was full of
+remorse. She asked a friend if she ought to tell the owner, but the friend
+replied, 'By no means.' This conclusion of the dream seems to indicate
+that the moral sense, though present in dreams, is apt to be impaired.
+
+In yet another dream this dreamer exhibited a curious combination of moral
+sensibility and criminal indifference. She imagined that, while walking
+with a man, a friend, she revealed to him a secret of a woman friend's.
+Then, realising her betrayal of confidence, she decided that the best
+thing she could do would be to kill the man. On reflection, however,
+she thought that it would, after all, be unkind to do so since he was a
+friend, and so told him that if he ever repeated the secret she would have
+him torn to pieces. It will be seen that the betrayal of a secret was
+felt as a far more serious offence than murder. The facility with which,
+in such dreams as this, the suggestion of murder presents itself, even to
+dreamers who, when awake, cherish no bloodthirsty or revengeful ideas, is
+certainly remarkable.
+
+It is often said that in dreams erotic suggestions present themselves with
+extreme facility, and are eagerly accepted by the dreamer. To some extent
+there is truth in this statement, but it is by no means always true. This
+may be illustrated by the following dream, the sources of which could
+be easily traced; two days before I had seen the gambols of East Enders
+at Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, and the day before I had visited
+a picture gallery, the two sets of impressions becoming ingeniously
+combined, according to the usual rule of dream confusion. I thought that
+when walking along a country lane a sudden turn brought me to a broader
+part of the road covered with grass, into the midst of a crowd of women,
+large and well-proportioned persons, mostly in a state of complete
+nudity, and engaged in romping together, more especially in tugs-of-war;
+some of them were on horseback. My appearance slightly disturbed them, I
+heard one cry out my name, and to some extent they drew back, and partly
+desisted from their games, but only to a very slight degree, and with
+no overpowering embarrassment. I was myself rather embarrassed, and,
+glancing at them again, turned back. Afterwards my walk again brought
+me in view of them, and it occurred to me that women are somewhat
+changing their customs, a very wholesome change, it seemed to me. But I
+remonstrated with one or two of them that they ought to keep in constant
+movement to avoid catching cold. No erotic suggestions were present,
+although the dream might be said to lend itself to such suggestions.
+
+The idea of moral retribution and eternal punishment may also be present
+in dreams. This may be illustrated by the dream of a lady who had an ill
+and restless girl companion sleeping with her, and was disturbed as well
+by a yelping and howling terrier outside. She had also lately heard that
+a friend had brought over a python from Africa. 'I dreamed last night I
+had a basket of cold squirming snakes beside me; they just touched me all
+over, but did not hurt; I felt mad with loathing and hate of them, and
+the beasts would not kill me. That, I thought, was my eternal punishment
+for my sins.' In her waking moments the dreamer was not apprehensive of
+eternal punishment, and it may be in such a case that, as Freud suggests,
+an unfamiliar moral idea emerges in sleep in much the same way as an
+unfamiliar or 'forgotten' fact may emerge.
+
+On the whole, it may be said that while the moral attitude of the dreaming
+state is not usually identical with that of the waking state, there still
+nearly always is a moral attitude. It could not well be otherwise. Our
+emotional states are intimately bound up with moral relationships; we
+could not display such highly emotional states as we experience in dreams,
+with all their tragic accompaniments, in the absence of any sense of
+morality.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 75: The dependence of sleeping imagination on emotion of organic
+origin was long ago clearly seen and set forth by the acute introspective
+psychologist, Maine de Biran (_Œuvres Inédites_, 'Fondements de la
+Psychologie,' p. 102).]
+
+[Footnote 76: Jastrow (_The Subconscious_, p. 206) relates a similar case
+observed in a girl student.]
+
+[Footnote 77: Herbert Wright, who finds that in children night-terrors
+are apt to be associated with somnambulism, points out that when the
+somnambulism replaces the night-terrors it leaves no memory behind
+(_British Medical Journal_, 19th August 1899, p. 465). An interesting
+study of movement in normal and morbid sleep has been contributed by
+Segre ('Contributo alla Conoscenza dei Movimenti del Sonno,' _Archivio di
+Psichiatria_, 1907, fasc. 1.).]
+
+[Footnote 78: This question is, for instance, asked by F. H. Bradley ('On
+the Failure of Movement in Dreams,' _Mind_, 1894, p. 373). The explanation
+he prefers is that the dream vision is out of relation to the very dimly
+conscious actual position of the body, so that the information necessary
+to complete the idea of the movement is wanting. Only as regards the less
+complicated movements of lips, tongue, or finger, when the motor idea is
+in harmony with the actual position of the body movements, does movement
+take place. We have no means of distinguishing the real world from the
+world of our vision; 'our images thus move naturally to realise themselves
+in the world of our real limbs. But the world and its arrangement is for
+the moment out of connection with our ideas, and hence the attempt at
+motion for the most part must fail.' It is quite true that this conflict
+is an important factor in dreaming, but it fails to apply to the large
+number of movements which we dream of actually doing.]
+
+[Footnote 79: The action of some drugs produces a state in this respect
+resembling that which prevails in dreams. 'Under the influence of a large
+dose of haschisch,' Professor Stout remarks (_Analytic Psychology_, vol.
+i. p. 14), 'I found myself totally unable to distinguish between what
+I actually did and saw, and what I merely thought about.' Not only are
+the motor and sensory activities relatively dormant, but the central
+activity is perfectly able, and content, to dispense with their services.
+'Thought,' as Jastrow says (_Fact and Fable in Psychology_, p. 386), 'is
+but more or less successfully suppressed action.']
+
+[Footnote 80: This seems to me to be the answer to the question, asked
+by Freud, (_Die Traumdeutung_, p. 227), why we do not always dream of
+inhibited movement. Freud considers that the idea of inhibited movement,
+when it occurs in dreams, has no relation to the actual condition of the
+dreamer's nervous system, but is simply an ideatory symbol of an erotic
+wish that is no longer capable of fulfilment. But it is certain that
+sleep is not always at the same depth and that the various nervous groups
+are not always equally asleep. A dream arising on the basis of partial
+and imperfect sleep can scarcely fail to lead to the attempt at actual
+movement and the more or less complete inhibition of that movement,
+presenting a struggle which is often visible to the onlooker, and is not
+purely ideatory.]
+
+[Footnote 81: This explanation, based on the depth and kind of the sleep,
+is entirely distinct from the theory of Aliotta (_Il Pensiero e la
+Personalità nei Sogni_, 1905), who believes that dreamers differ according
+to their nervous type, the person of visual type assisting passively at
+the spectacle of his dreams, while the person of motor type takes actual
+part in them. I have no evidence of this, though I believe that dreams
+differ in accordance with the dreamer's personal type.]
+
+[Footnote 82: Dugald Stewart argued that there is loss of control over
+the muscular system during sleep, and the body, therefore, is not subject
+to our command; volition is present but it cannot influence the limbs.
+Hammond argued, on the contrary, that Stewart was quite wrong; the reason
+why voluntary movements are not performed during sleep is, he said, that
+volition is suspended. 'We do not will our actions when we are asleep. We
+imagine that we do, and that is all' (_Treatise on Insanity_, p. 205).
+Dugald Stewart and Hammond, though their phraseology may have been too
+metaphysical, were, from the standpoint I have adopted, both maintaining
+tenable positions. In one type of dream, we imagine we easily achieve all
+sorts of difficult and complicated actions, but in reality we make no
+movement; the ease and rapidity with which the mental machine moves is due
+to the fact that it is ungeared, and is effecting no work at all. In the
+other type of dream we make violent but inadequate efforts at movement
+and only partially succeed; the machine is partially geared, in a state
+intermediate between deep sleep and the waking condition.]
+
+[Footnote 83: Jacques le Lorrain, _Revue Philosophique_, July 1895.]
+
+[Footnote 84: The systematic megalomania of insanity can, however, have
+its rise in dreams; Régis and Lalanne (_International Medical Congress_,
+1900; _Proceedings, Section de Psychiatrie_, p. 227) met within a short
+period with four cases in which this had taken place.]
+
+[Footnote 85: This indeed seems to have been recognised by Wundt, who
+regards a 'functional rest of the sensory centres and of the apperception
+centre,' resulting in heightened latent energy which lends unusual
+strength to excitations, as a secondary condition of the dream state.
+Külpe (_Outline of Psychology_, p. 212) argues that the existence of
+vivid dreams shows that fatigue with its diminished associability fails
+to affect the central sensations themselves; this increased excitability
+resulting from dissociation may itself, however, be regarded as a symptom
+of fatigue; hyperaesthesia and anaesthesia are alike signs of exhaustion.]
+
+[Footnote 86: The exhaustion sometimes felt on awaking from a dream
+perhaps testifies to its emotional potency. Delboeuf states that a friend
+of his experienced a dream so terrible in its emotional strain that on
+awaking his black hair was found to have turned completely white.]
+
+[Footnote 87: The fundamental character of emotion in dreams has been
+more or less clearly recognised by various investigators. Thus C. L.
+Herrick, who studied his own dreams for many months, found that the
+essential element is the emotional, and not the ideational, and that,
+indeed, when recalled _at once_, with closed eyes and before moving,
+they were nearly devoid of intellectual content (_Journal of Comparative
+Neurology_, vol. iii. p. 17, 1893). R. MacDougall considers that dreaming
+is 'a succession of intense states of feeling supported by a minimum of
+ideational content,' or, as he says again, more accurately, 'the feeling
+is primary; the idea-content is the inferred thing' (_Psychological
+Review_, vol. v. p. 2). Grace Andrews, who kept a record of her dreams
+(_American Journal of Psychology_, October 1900), found that dream
+emotions are often stronger and more vivid than those of waking life; 'the
+dream emotion seems to me the most real element of the dream life.' P.
+Meunier, again ('Des Rêves Stéreotypés,' _Journal de Psychologie Normale
+et Pathologique_, September-October 1905), states that 'the substratum of
+a dream consists of a cœnæsthesia or an emotional state. The intellectual
+operation which translates to the sleeper's consciousness, while he is
+asleep, this cœnæsthesia or emotional state is what we call a dream.']
+
+[Footnote 88: The night-terrors of children have frequently been found
+to have their origin in gastric or intestinal disturbance. Graham Little
+brings together the opinions of various authorities on this point,
+though he is himself inclined to give chief importance to heart disease
+producing slight disturbances of breathing, since he has found that
+in nearly two-thirds of his cases (17 out of 30) night-terrors were
+associated with early heart disease (Graham Little, 'The Causation of
+Night-Terrors,' _British Medical Journal_, 19th August 1899). It should
+be added that night-terrors are more usually divided into two classes:
+(1) idiopathic (purely cerebral in origin), and (2) symptomatic (due to
+reflex disturbance caused by various local disorders); see _e.g._ Guthrie,
+'On Night-Terrors,' _Clinical Journal_, 7th January 1899. J. A. Symonds
+has well described his own night-terrors as a child (Horatio Brown, _J.
+A. Symonds_, vol. i.). Lafcadio Hearn (in a paper on 'Nightmare-Touch'
+in _Shadowings_) also gives a vivid account of his own childish
+night-terrors.]
+
+[Footnote 89: It has not, I believe, been pointed out that such dreams
+might be invoked in support of the James-Lange or physiological theory of
+emotion, according to which the element of bodily change in emotion is the
+cause and not the result of the emotion.]
+
+[Footnote 90: This physiological symbolism was clearly apprehended long
+ago by Hobbes: 'As anger causeth heat in some parts of the body when we
+are awake; so when we sleep the overheating of the same parts causeth
+anger, and raiseth up in the brain the imagination of an enemy. In the
+same manner as natural kindness, when we are awake, causeth desire and
+desire makes heat in certain other parts of the body; so also, too much
+heat in those parts, while we sleep, raiseth in the brain an imagination
+of some kindness shown. In sum, our dreams are the reverse of our waking
+imaginations; the motion, when we are awake, beginning at one end, and
+when we dream at another' (_Leviathan_, Part 1. ch. 2).]
+
+[Footnote 91: 'The pains of disappointment, of anxiety, of unsuccess, of
+all displeasing emotions,' remarks Mercier (art. 'Consciousness,' Tuke's
+_Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_), 'are attended by a definite
+feeling of misery which is referred in every case to the epigastrium.' He
+adds that the pleasures of success and good repute, aesthetic enjoyment,
+etc., are also attended by a definite feeling in the same region. This
+fact indicates the extreme vagueness of organic sensation. There is in
+fact much uncertainty and great difference of opinion as to the nature,
+and even the existence, of organic sensation; see _e.g._ a careful summary
+of the chief views by Dr. Elsie Murray, 'Organic Sensation,' _American
+Journal of Psychology_, July 1909.]
+
+[Footnote 92: More than ten years later, the same dreamer, who had
+entirely forgotten the circumstances of this dream, again had a vivid
+dream of murder after eating pheasant at night; this time it was she
+herself who was to be killed, and she awoke imagining that she was
+struggling with the would-be murderer.]
+
+[Footnote 93: F. Greenwood, _Imagination in Dreams_, p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Dreams of railway travelling, and especially of losing
+trains, are not always associated with headache or any other recognisable
+condition. They constitute a very common type of dream not quite easy to
+explain. Dr. Savage mentions, for instance, that in his own case scarcely
+a week passes without such a dream, though in real life he scarcely ever
+loses a train and never worries about it. Wundt considers that the dreams
+in which we seek something we cannot find or have left something behind
+are due to indefinite coenaesthesic disturbances involving feelings of
+the same emotional tone, such as an uncomfortable position or a slight
+irregularity of respiration. I have myself independently observed the same
+connection, though it is not invariably traceable.]
+
+[Footnote 95: E. H. Clarke, _Visions_, p. 294.]
+
+[Footnote 96: An amusing, though solemn, interpretation of an ordinary
+dream of murder, railway travelling, and impending death, as experienced
+by Anna Kingsford, is furnished by her friend and biographer, Edward
+Maitland, _Anna Kingsford_, vol. i. p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 97: Various opinions in regard to morality in dreams are brought
+together by Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, pp. 45 _et seq._]
+
+[Footnote 98: Head ('Mental Changes that Accompany Visceral Diseases,'
+_Brain_, 1902, p. 802) refers to the association between visceral pain and
+the anti-social impulses, and thinks that the viscera, being part of the
+oldest and most autonomic system of the body, appear in consciousness as
+'an intrusion from without, an inexplicable obsession.']
+
+[Footnote 99: 'In my dreams,' W. D. Howells remarks, 'I am always less
+sorry for my misdeeds than for their possible discovery' ('True I talk of
+Dreams,' _Harper's Magazine_, May 1895).]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AVIATION IN DREAMS
+
+    Dreams of Flying and Falling--Their Peculiar Vividness--Dreams of
+    Flying an Alleged Survival of Primeval Experiences--Best explained
+    as based on Respiratory Sensations combined with Cutaneous
+    Anaesthesia--The Explanation of Dreams of Falling--The Sensation
+    of Levitation sometimes experienced by Ecstatic Saints--Also
+    experienced at the Moment of Death.
+
+
+Dreams of flying, with the dreams of falling they are sometimes associated
+with, may fairly be considered the best known and most frequent type of
+dream. They were among the earliest dreams to attract attention. Ruths
+argues that the Greek conception of the flying Hermes, the god who
+possessed special authority over dreams, was based on such experiences.
+Lucretius, in his interesting passage on the psychology of dreaming,
+speaks of falling from heights in dreams;[100] Cicero appears to refer
+to dreams of flying; St. Jerome mentions that he was subject to them;
+Synesius remarked that in dreams we fly with wings and view the world
+from afar; Cervantes accurately described the dream of falling.[101] From
+the inventors of the legend of Icarus onwards, men have firmly cherished
+the belief that under some circumstances they could fly, and we may well
+suppose that that belief partly owes its conviction, and the resolve to
+make it practical, to the experiences that have been gained in dreams.
+
+No dreams, indeed, are so vivid and so convincing as dreams of flying;
+none leave behind them so strong a sense of the reality of the experience.
+Raffaelli, the eminent French painter, who is subject to the dreaming
+experience of floating in the air, confesses that it is so convincing that
+he has jumped out of bed on awaking and attempted to repeat it. 'I need
+not tell you,' he adds, 'that I have never been able to succeed.'[102]
+Herbert Spencer mentions that in a company of a dozen persons, three
+testified that in early life they had had such vivid dreams of flying
+downstairs, and were so strongly impressed by the reality of the
+experience, that they actually made the attempt, one of them suffering in
+consequence from an injured ankle.[103] The case is recorded of an old
+French lady who always maintained that on one occasion she actually had
+succeeded for a few instants in supporting herself on the air.[104] No
+one who is familiar with these dreaming experiences will be inclined to
+laugh at that old lady. It was during one of these dreams of levitation,
+in which one finds oneself leaping into the air and able to stay there,
+that it occurred to me that I would write a paper on the subject, for
+I thought in my dream that this power I found myself possessed of was
+probably much more widespread than was commonly supposed, and that in any
+case it ought to be generally known.
+
+People who dabble in the occult have been so impressed by such dreams
+that they have sometimes believed that these flights represented a
+real excursion of the 'astral body.' This is the belief of Colonel de
+Rochas.[105] César de Vesme, the editor of the French edition of the
+_Annals of Psychical Research_, has thought it worth while to investigate
+the matter; and after summarising the results of a _questionnaire_
+concerning dreams of flying, he comes to the conclusion that 'the
+sensation of aerial flight in dreams is simply a hallucinatory phenomenon
+of an exclusively physiological [he means 'psychological'] kind,' and
+not evidence of the existence of the 'astral body.'[106] The fact,
+nevertheless, that so many people are found who believe such dreams to
+possess some kind of reality, clearly indicates the powerful impression
+they make.
+
+All my life, it seems to me, certainly from an early age, until recently,
+I have at intervals had dreams in which I imagined myself rhythmically
+bounding into the air, and supported on the air, remaining there for
+a perceptible interval; at other times I have felt myself gliding
+downstairs, but not supported by the stairs. In my case the experience
+is nearly always agreeable, involving a certain sense of power, and it
+usually evokes no marked surprise, occurring as a familiar and accustomed
+pleasure. On awaking I do not usually remember these dreams immediately,
+which seems to indicate that they are not due to causes specially
+operative at the end of sleep, or liable to bring sleep to a conclusion.
+But they leave behind them a vague yet profound sense of belief in their
+reality and reasonableness.
+
+Dream-flight, it is necessary to note, is not usually the sustained flight
+of a bird or an insect, and the dreamer rarely or never imagines that he
+is borne high into the air. Hutchinson states that of all those whom he
+has asked about the matter 'hardly one has ever known himself to make any
+high flights in his dreams. One almost always flies low, with a skimming
+manner, slightly, but only slightly, above the heads of pedestrians.'[107]
+
+Beaunis, from his own experience, describes what I should consider a
+typical kind of dream-flight as a series of light bounds, at one or two
+yards above the earth, each bound clearing from ten to twenty yards,
+the dream being accompanied by a delicious sensation of easy movement,
+as well as a lively satisfaction at being able to solve the problem of
+aerial locomotion by virtue of superior organisation alone.[108] Lafcadio
+Hearn, somewhat similarly, describes, in his _Shadowings_, a typical and
+frequent dream of his own as a series of bounds in long parabolic curves,
+rising to a height of some twenty-five feet, and always accompanied by the
+sense that a new power had been revealed which for the future would be a
+permanent possession.
+
+The attempt to explain dreams of flying has led to some bold hypotheses.
+Freud characteristically affirms that the dream of flying is the bridge to
+a concealed wish.[109] I have already mentioned the notion that dreams of
+flight are excursions of the 'astral body.' Professor Stanley Hall, who
+has himself, from childhood, had dreams of flying, argues, with scarcely
+less boldness, that we have here 'some faint reminiscent atavistic echo
+from the primeval sea'; and that such dreams are really survivals--psychic
+vestigial remains comparable to the rudimentary gill-slits not uncommonly
+found in man and other mammals--taking us back to the far past when man's
+ancestors needed no feet to swim or float.[110] Such a theory may accord
+with the profound conviction of reality that accompanies these dreams,
+though that may be more easily accounted for; but it has the very serious
+weakness that it offers an explanation which will not fit the facts. Our
+dreams are of flying, not of swimming; but the ancestors of the mammals
+probably lived in the water, not in the air. In preference to so hazardous
+a theory, it seems infinitely more reasonable to regard these dreams as an
+interpretation--a misinterpretation from the standpoint of waking life--of
+actual internal sensations. If we can find the adequate explanation of a
+psychic state in conditions actually existing within the organism itself
+at the time, it is needless to seek an explanation in conditions that
+ceased to exist untold millenniums ago.
+
+My own explanation was immediately suggested by the following dream. I
+dreamed that I was watching a girl acrobat, in appropriate costume, who
+was rhythmically rising to a great height in the air and then falling,
+without touching the floor, though each time she approached quite close
+to it. At last she ceased, exhausted and perspiring, and I had to lead
+her away. Her movements were not controlled by mechanism, and apparently
+I did not regard mechanism as necessary. It was a vivid dream, and I
+awoke with a distinct sensation of oppression in the chest. In trying
+to account for this dream, which was not founded on any memory, it
+occurred to me that probably I had here the key to a great group of
+dreams. The rhythmic rising and falling of the acrobat was simply the
+objectivation of the rhythmic rising and falling of my own respiratory
+muscles--in some dreams, perhaps, of the systole and diastole of the
+heart's muscles--under the influence of some slight and unknown physical
+oppression, and this oppression was further translated into a condition
+of perspiring exhaustion in the girl, just as men with heart disease may
+dream of sweating and panting horses climbing uphill, in accordance with
+that tendency to magnification which marks dreams generally.[111] We may
+recall also the curious sensation as of the body being transformed into
+a vast bellows or steam engine, which is often the last sensation felt
+before the unconsciousness produced by nitrous oxide gas.[112] When we
+are lying down there is a real rhythmic rising and falling of the chest
+and abdomen, centring in the diaphragm, a series of oscillations which at
+both extremes are only limited by the air. Moreover, in this position we
+have to recognise that the circulatory, nervous, and other systems of
+the whole internal organism, are differently balanced from what they are
+in the upright position, and that a disturbance of internal equilibrium
+always accompanies falling.
+
+It is also noteworthy (as, indeed, Wundt has briefly remarked) that the
+modifications produced by sleep in the respiratory process itself tend
+to facilitate its interpretation as a process of flying. Mosso showed
+that respiration in sleep is more thoracic than when awake, that it is
+lengthened, and that the respiratory pause is less marked.[113] That is to
+say that both the aerial element and the actual rhythmic movement of the
+ribs become accentuated during sleep.
+
+That the respiratory element is the chief factor in dreams of flying is
+clearly indicated by the fact that many persons subject to such dreams
+are conscious on awaking from them of a sense of respiratory or cardiac
+disturbance. I am acquainted with a psychologist who, though not a
+frequent dreamer, is subject to dreams of flying, which do not affect
+him disagreeably, but on awaking from them he always perceives a slight
+flutter of the heart. Any such sensation is by no means constant with me,
+but I have occasionally noted it down in exactly the same words after this
+kind of dream.[114] It is worth while to observe, in this connection, how
+large a number of people, and especially very young people, associate
+their dreams of flying with staircases. The most frequent cause of cardiac
+and respiratory stimulation, especially in children, who constantly run up
+and down them, is furnished by staircases, and though in health this fact
+may not be obvious, it is undoubtedly registered unconsciously, and may
+thus be utilised by dreaming intelligence.
+
+There is, however, another element entering into the problem of nocturnal
+aviation: the state of the skin sensations. Respiratory activity alone
+would scarcely suffice to produce the imagery of flight if sensations of
+tactile pressure remained to suggest contact with the earth. In dreams,
+however, the sense of movement suggested by respiratory activity is
+unaccompanied by the tactile pressure produced by boots or the contact
+of the ground with the soles of the feet. In addition, also, there is
+probably, as Bergson also has suggested, a numbness due to pressure on
+the parts supporting the weight of the body. Sleep is not a constant and
+uniform state of consciousness; a heightened consciousness of respiration
+may easily co-exist with a diminished consciousness of tactile pressure
+due to anaesthesia of the skin.[115] In normal sleep it may, indeed, be
+said that the conditions are probably often favourable to the production
+of this combination, and any slight thoracic disturbance even in healthy
+persons, arising from heart or stomach, and acting on the respiration,
+serves to bring these conditions to sleeping consciousness and to
+determine the dream of flying.
+
+Dreams of flying are sometimes associated with dreams of falling, the
+falling sensation occurring either at the beginning or at the end of
+the dream; such a dream may be said to be of the Icarus type.[116]
+Jewell considers that the two kinds of dream have the same causation,
+the difference being merely a difference of apperception. The frequent
+connection between the two dreams indicates that the causation is
+allied, but it scarcely seems to be identical. If it were identical,
+we should scarcely find that while the emotional tone of the dream of
+flying is usually agreeable, that of the dream of falling is usually
+disagreeable.[117]
+
+I have no personal experience of the sensation of falling in normal
+dreaming, although Jewell and Hutchinson have found that it is more
+common than flying, the latter regarding it, indeed, as the most common
+kind of dream, the dream of flying coming next in frequency. A friend
+who has no dreams of flying, but has experienced dreams of falling
+from his earliest years, tells me that they are always associated with
+feelings of terror. This suggests an organic cause, and the fact that the
+sensation of falling may occur in epileptic fits during sleep,[118] seems
+further to suggest the presence of circulatory and nervous disturbance.
+It would seem probable that while the same two factors--respiratory and
+tactile--are operative in both types of dream, they are not of equal
+force in each. In the dream of flying, respiratory activity is excited,
+and in response to excitation it works at a high level adequate to the
+needs of the organism. In the dream of falling it may be that respiratory
+activity is depressed, while concomitantly, perhaps, the anaesthetic state
+of the skin is increased. In the first state the abnormal activity of
+respiration triumphs in consciousness over the accompanying dulness of
+tactile sensation; in the second state the respiratory breathlessness is
+less influential than a numbness of the skin unconscious of any external
+pressure. This difference is rendered possible by the fact that in dreams
+of flying we are not usually far from the earth, and seem able to touch
+it lightly at intervals; that is to say that tactile sensitiveness is
+impaired, but is not entirely absent as it is in a dream of falling.[119]
+
+In my own experience the sensation of falling only occurs in illness or
+under the influence of drugs, sometimes when sleep seems incomplete, and
+it is an unpleasant, though not terrifying, sensation. I once experienced
+it in the most marked and persistent manner after taking a large dose
+of chlorodyne to subdue pain. Under such circumstances the sensation is
+probably due to the fact that the morphia in chlorodyne both weakens
+respiratory action and produces anaesthesia of the peripheral nerves, so
+that the skin becomes abnormally insensitive to the contact and pressure
+of the bed, and the sensation of descent is necessarily aroused.[120] It
+is possible that persons liable to the dream of falling are predisposed
+to a stage of sleep unconsciousness, in which cutaneous insensibility is
+marked. It is also possible that there is a contributory element of slight
+cardiac or respiratory disturbance.[121]
+
+In a dream belonging to this group, I imagined I was being rhythmically
+swung up and down in the air by a young woman, my feet never touching
+the ground; and then that I was swinging her similarly. At one time
+she seemed to be swinging me in too jerky and hurried a manner, and
+I explained to her that it must be done in a slower and more regular
+manner, though I was not conscious of the precise words I used. There had
+been some dyspepsia on the previous day, and on awaking I felt slight
+discomfort in the region of the heart. The symbolism into which slightly
+disturbed respiratory or cardiac action is here transformed seems very
+clear in this dream, because it shows the actual transition from the
+subjective sensation to the objective imagery of flying. By means of this
+symbolic imagery we find sleeping consciousness commanding the hurried
+heart to beat in a more healthy manner.
+
+Although, in youth, my dreams of flying were of what may be considered
+normal type, after the age of about thirty-five they tended, as
+illustrated by the example I have given, to take on a somewhat objective
+form. A further stage in this direction, the swinging movement being
+transformed to an inanimate object, is illustrated by a dream of
+comparatively recent date, in which I seemed to see an athlete of the
+music-hall, a graceful and muscular man, who was manipulating a large
+elastic ball, making it bound up from the floor. On awaking there was a
+distinct sensation of cardaic tremor and nervousness.[122]
+
+It may seem strange that dreams of flying, if so often due to organic
+disturbances, should usually be agreeable in character. It is not,
+however, necessary to assume that they are caused by serious interference
+with physiological functions; often, indeed, they may simply be due to
+the presence of a stage of consciousness in which respiration has become
+unduly prominent, as it is apt to be in the early stage of nitrous oxide
+anaesthesia, that is to say, to a relative wakefulness of the respiratory
+centres. It would seem that the disturbance is frequently almost, or
+quite, imperceptible on waking, and by no means to be compared with the
+more acute organic disturbances which result in dreams of murder, although
+it may be of nervous origin.[123] In some cases, however, it appears
+that dreams of flying are accompanied by circumstances of terror. Thus a
+medical correspondent, who describes his health as fairly good, writes
+in regard to dreams of flying: 'I have often had such dreams, and have
+wondered if others have them. Mine, however, are not so much dreams of
+flying, as dreams of being entirely devoid of weight, and of rising and
+falling at will. A singular feature of these levitation dreams is that
+they are always accompanied by an intense and agonising fear of an evil
+presence, a presence that I do not see but seem to feel, and my greatest
+terror is that I _shall_ see it. The presence is ill-defined, but very
+real, and it seems to suggest the potentiality of all possible moral,
+mental, and physical evil. In these dreams it always occurs to me that
+if this evil presence shall ever become embodied into a something that I
+could _see_, the sight of it would be so ineffably horrible as to drive me
+mad. So vivid has this fear been that on several occasions I have awakened
+in a cold sweat or a nameless fear that would persist for some minutes
+after I realised that I had only been dreaming.' This seems to be an
+abnormal type of the dream of flight.
+
+It is somewhat surprising that while dreams of floating in the air are so
+common and clearly indicate the respiratory source of the dream, dreams
+of floating on water seem to be rare, for as the actual experience of
+floating on water is fairly familiar, we might have expected that sleeping
+consciousness would have found here rather than in the never experienced
+idea of floating in air the explanation of its sensations. The dream of
+floating on water is, however, by no means unknown; thus Rachilde (Mme.
+Vallette), the French novelist and critic, whose dream life is vivid and
+remarkable, states that her most agreeable dream is that of floating on
+the surface of warm and transparent lakes or rivers.[124] One of the
+correspondents of _L'intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux_[125]
+also states that he has often dreamed of walking on the water.
+
+It is not only in sleep that the sensation of flying is experienced. In
+hysteria a sense of peculiar lightness of the body, and the idea of the
+soul's power to fly, may occur incidentally,[126] and may certainly be
+connected both with the vigilambulism, as Sollier terms the sleep-like
+tendencies of such cases, and the anaesthetic conditions found in the
+hysterical. It is noteworthy that Janet found that in an ecstatic person
+who experienced the sensation of rising in the air there was anaesthesia
+of the soles of the feet. In such hysterical ecstasy, which has always
+played so large a part in religious manifestations, it is well known
+that the sense of rising and floating in the air has often prominently
+appeared. St. Theresa occasionally felt herself lifted above the ground,
+and was fearful that this sign of divine favour would attract attention
+(though we are not told that that was the case), while St. Joseph of
+Cupertino, Christina the Wonderful, St. Ida of Louvain, with many another
+saint enshrined in the _Acta Sanctorum_, were permitted to experience this
+sensation; and since its reality is as convincing in the ecstatic state as
+it is in dreams, the saints have often been able to declare, in perfect
+good faith, that their levitation was real.[127] In all great religious
+movements among primitive peoples, similar phenomena occur, together
+with other nervous and hallucinatory manifestations. They occurred, for
+instance, in the great Russian religious movement which took place among
+the peasants in the province of Kief during the winter of 1891-2. The
+leader of the movement, a devout member of the Stundist sect, a man with
+alcoholic heredity, who had received the revelation that he was saviour
+of the world, used not only to perceive perfumes so exquisite that they
+could only, as he was convinced, emanate from the Holy Ghost, but during
+prayer, together with a feeling of joy, he also had a sensation of bodily
+lightness and of floating in the air. His followers in many cases had
+the same experiences, and they delighted in jumping up into the air and
+shouting. In these cases the reality of the sensory obtuseness of the skin
+as an element in the manifestations was demonstrated, for Ssikorski, who
+had an opportunity of investigating these people, found that many of them,
+when in the ecstatic condition, were completely insensible to pain.
+
+The sensation of flying is one of the earliest to appear in the dreams
+of childhood.[128] It is sometimes the last sensation at the moment of
+death. To rise, to fall, to glide away, has often been the last conscious
+sensation recalled by those who seemed to be dying, but have afterwards
+been brought back to life. Those rescued from drowning, for instance, have
+sometimes found that the last conscious sensation was a beatific feeling
+of being borne upwards. Piéron has also noted this sensation at the moment
+of death from disease in a number of cases, usually accompanied by a sense
+of well-being.[129] The cases he describes were mostly tuberculous, and
+included individuals of both sexes, and of atheistic as well as religious
+belief. In all, the last sensation to which expression was given was
+one of flying, of moving upwards. In some death was peaceful, in others
+painful. In one case a girl died clasping the iron bars of the bed, in
+horror of being borne upwards. Piéron, no doubt rightly, associates this
+sensation with the similar sensation of rising and floating common in
+dreams, and with the feeling of moving upwards and resting on the air
+experienced by persons in the ecstatic state. In all these cases alike
+life is being concentrated in the brain and central organs, while the
+outlying districts of the body are becoming numb and dead.
+
+In this way it comes about that out of dreams and of dream-like waking
+states, one of the most permanent of human spiritual conceptions has been
+evolved. To float, to rise into the air, to fly up to heaven, has always
+seemed to man to be the final climax of spiritual activity. The angel is
+the most ethereal creature the human imagination can conceive. Browning's
+cry to his 'lyric love, half angel and half bird,' pathetically crude as
+poetry, is sound as psychology. The prophets and divine heroes of the race
+have constantly seemed to their devout followers to disappear at last by
+floating up into the sky, like Elijah, who went up 'by a whirlwind into
+heaven.' St. Peter once thought he saw his Master walking on the waves,
+and the last vision of Jesus in the Gospels reveals him rising into
+the air. For it is in the world of dreams that the human soul has its
+indestructible home, and in the attempt to realise these dreams lies a
+large part of our business in life.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 100: Bk. IV. 1014-15:
+
+              'de montibus altis
+    Se quasi præcipitent ad terram corpore toto.'
+]
+
+[Footnote 101: 'It has many times happened to me,' says the innkeeper's
+daughter in _Don Quixote_ (Part I. ch. xvi.), 'to dream that I was falling
+down from a tower and never coming to the ground, and when I awoke from
+the dream to find myself as weak and shaken as if I had really fallen.']
+
+[Footnote 102: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient_, p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 103: Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, 3rd ed., vol.
+i. p. 773.]
+
+[Footnote 104: _L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des Curieux_, May 31,
+1906.]
+
+[Footnote 105: De Rochas describes the phenomenon as 'a property of the
+human organism, more or less developed in different individuals, when the
+soul, disengaging itself from the bonds of the body, enters the domain,
+still so mysterious, of dreams' (_L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et des
+Curieux_, May 10, 1906). In subsequent numbers of the _Intermédiaire_
+various correspondents describe their own experiences of such dreams. In
+_Luce e Ombra_ for June 1906, and in the _Echo du Merveilleux_ for the
+same date, neither of which I have seen, are given other experiences.]
+
+[Footnote 106: _Annals of Psychical Research_, November 1896.]
+
+[Footnote 107: Horace Hutchinson, _Dreams and their Meanings_, p. 76.]
+
+[Footnote 108: _American Journal of Psychology_, July-October 1903, p. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 109: 'The wish to be able to fly,' he declares (_Eine
+Kindheitserinnerung des Leonardo da Vinci_, p. 59), 'signifies in dreaming
+nothing else but the desire to be capable of sexual activities. It is a
+wish of early childhood.']
+
+[Footnote 110: Stanley Hall, _American Journal of Psychology_, January
+1879, p. 158; also F. E. Bolton, 'Hydro-Psychoses,' _ib._, January 1899,
+p. 183; as regards rudimentary gill-slits, Bland Sutton, _Evolution and
+Disease_, pp. 48 _et seq._ Lafcadio Hearn travels still further along
+this road in search for an explanation of dreams of flight, and evokes a
+'memory of vanished planets with fainter powers of gravitation,' but he
+fails to state when the ancestors of man inhabited these problematical
+planets.]
+
+[Footnote 111: I retain this statement of my explanation in almost the
+same words as first written down in 1895. I was not then aware that
+several psychologists had offered very similar explanations. Scherner
+(_Das Leben des Traumes_, 1861) seems to have been the first to connect
+the lungs with dreams of flying, though he put forward the explanation
+in too fanciful a form and failed to realise that other factors, notably
+a change in skin pressure, are also involved. Strümpell at a later date
+recognised this explanation, as well as Wundt.]
+
+[Footnote 112: It is the same with chloroform. 'There are marked
+sensations in the vicinity of the heart,' says Elmer Jones ('The Waning
+of Consciousness under Chloroform,' _Psychological Review_, January
+1909). 'The musculature of that organ seems thoroughly stimulated, and
+the contractions become violent and accelerated. The palpitations are
+as strong as would be experienced at the close of some violent bodily
+exertion.' It is significant, also, as bearing on the interpretation of
+the dream of flying, that under chloroform 'all movements made appeared to
+be much longer than they actually were. A slight movement of the tongue
+appeared to be magnified at least ten times. Clinching the fingers and
+opening them again produced the feeling of their moving through a space of
+several feet.']
+
+[Footnote 113: See _e.g._ Marie de Manacéïne, _Sleep_, p. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 114: Horace Hutchinson, who in his _Dreams and their Meanings_
+(1901), has independently suggested that 'this flying dream is caused by
+some action of the breathing organs,' mentions the significant fact (p.
+128) that the idea of filling the lungs as a help in levitation occurs in
+the flying dreams of many persons.]
+
+[Footnote 115: We have an analogous state of tactile anaesthesia in the
+early stages of chloroform intoxication. Thus Elmer Jones found that this
+sense is, after hearing, the first to disappear. 'With the disappearance
+of the tactile sense and hearing,' he remarks, 'the body has completely
+lost its orientation. It appears to be nowhere, simply floating in space.
+It is a most ecstatic feeling.']
+
+[Footnote 116: Lafcadio Hearn describes the fall as coming at the
+beginning of the dream. Dr. Guthrie (_Clinical Journal_, June 7, 1899),
+in his own case, describes the flying sensations as coming first and the
+falling as coming afterwards, and apparently due to sudden failure of the
+power of flight; the first part of the dream is agreeable but after the
+fall the dreamer awakes shaken, shocked, and breathless.]
+
+[Footnote 117: The disagreeable nature of falling in dreams may probably
+be connected with the absence of rhythm usually present in dreams of
+flying. Most of the psychologists who have occupied themselves with rhythm
+have insisted on its pleasurable emotional tone, as leading to a state
+bordering on ecstasy (see _e.g._ J. B. Miner, 'Motor, Visual, and Applied
+Rhythms,' Monograph Supplement to _Psychological Review_, June 1903). The
+pleasure is especially marked, as MacDougall remarks, when there is 'a
+coincidence of subjective and objective change.' In dreams of flying we
+have this coincidence, the real subjective rhythm being transformed in
+consciousness to an objective rhythm.]
+
+[Footnote 118: Féré, 'Note sur les Rêves Epileptiques,' _Revue de
+Médecine_, September 10, 1905.]
+
+[Footnote 119: Sir W. R. Gowers has on several occasions (_e.g._ 'The
+Borderland of Epilepsy,' _British Medical Journal_, July 21, 1906) argued
+that dreams of falling have an aural origin, and are caused by contraction
+of the stapedius muscle, leading to a change in the ampullae which might
+suggest descent; he has himself suddenly awakened from such a dream and
+caught the sound of the muscular contraction. The opinion of so acute an
+investigator deserves consideration.]
+
+[Footnote 120: Such sensations are, indeed, a recognised result of
+morphia. Morphinomaniacs, Goron remarks (_Les Parias de l'Amour_, p. 125),
+are apt to feel that they are flying or floating over the world.]
+
+[Footnote 121: Jewell states that 'certain observers, peculiarly liable
+to dreams of falling or flying, ascribe these distinctly to faulty
+circulation, and say their physicians, to regulate the heart's action,
+have given them medicines which always relieve them and prevent such
+dreams' (_American Journal of Psychology_, January 1905, p. 8).]
+
+[Footnote 122: Interesting evidence in favour of the respiratory origin
+of such visions is furnished by Silberer's observations on his own
+symbolic hypnagogic visions which are certainly allied to dream visions.
+He found (_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1., 1909, p.
+523) that on drawing a deep breath, and so raising the chest wall, the
+representation came to him of attempting with another person to raise a
+table in the air.]
+
+[Footnote 123: J. de Goncourt (_Journal des Goncourt_, vol. iii. p. 3)
+mentions that after drinking port wine, to which he was unaccustomed, he
+had a dream in which he observed on his counterpane grotesque images in
+relief which rose and fell.]
+
+[Footnote 124: Chabaneix, _Le Subconscient_, p. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 125: May 30, 1906.]
+
+[Footnote 126: L. Binswanger, 'Versuch einer Hysterieanalyse,' _Jahrbuch
+für Psychoanalytische Forschungen_, Bd. 1. 1909.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Their word has often been accepted. Levitation as
+experienced by the saints has been studied by Colonel A. de Rochas,
+_Les Frontières de la Science_, 1904; also in _Annales des Sciences
+Psychiques_, January-February 1901. 'Levitation is a perfectly real
+phenomena,' he concludes, 'and much more common than we might at first be
+tempted to believe.']
+
+[Footnote 128: It seems to become less frequent after middle age. Beaunis
+states that in his case it ceased at the age of fifty. I found it
+disappear, or become rare, at a somewhat earlier age.]
+
+[Footnote 129: H. Piéron, 'Contribution à la Psychologie des Mourants,'
+_Revue Philosophique_, December 1902.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+SYMBOLISM IN DREAMS
+
+    The Dramatisation of Subjective Feelings Based on
+    Dissociation--Analogies in Waking Life--The Synaesthesias and
+    Number-forms--Symbolism in Language--In Music--The Organic Basis
+    of Dream Symbolism--The Omnipotence of Symbolism--Oneiromancy--The
+    Scientific Interpretation of Dreams--Why Symbolism prevails
+    in Dreaming--Freud's Theory of Dreaming--Dreams as Fulfilled
+    Wishes--Why this Theory cannot be applied to all Dreaming--The
+    Complete Form of Symbolism in Dreams--Splitting up of
+    Personality--Self-objectivation in Imaginary Personalities--The
+    Dramatic Element in Dreams--Hallucinations--Multiple
+    Personality--Insanity--Self-objectivation a Primitive Tendency--Its
+    Survival in Civilisation.
+
+
+In discussing dreams of flying I have referred to a dream in which a
+slight disturbance of the heart's action was transformed by sleeping
+consciousness into the image of an athlete manipulating an elastic ball.
+This objectivation of what are really the dreamer's subjective sensations,
+although he is not conscious of them as subjective, is, indeed, a
+phenomenon which we have encountered many times. It is, however, so
+important a feature of dream psychology, and probably of such significant
+weight in its influence on waking life, that it is worth while to deal
+with it separately.
+
+The dramatisation of subjective elements of the personality, which
+contributes so largely to render our dreams vivid and interesting, rests
+on that dissociation, or falling apart of the constituent groups of
+psychic centres, which is so fundamental a fact of dream life. That is to
+say, that the usually coherent elements of our mental life are split up,
+and some of them--often, it is curious to note, precisely those which are
+at that very moment the most prominent and poignant--are reconstituted
+into what seems to us an outside and objective world, of which we are the
+interested or the merely curious spectators, but in neither case realise
+that we are ourselves the origin of.
+
+An elementary source of this tendency to objectivation is to be found,
+it may be noted, in the automatic impulse towards symbolism by which all
+sorts of feelings experienced by the dreamer become transformed into
+concrete visible images. When objectivation is thus attained, dissociation
+may be said to be secondary. So far indeed as I am able to dissect the
+dream-process, the tendency to symbolism seems nearly always to precede
+the dissociation in consciousness, though it may well be that the
+dissociation of the mental elements is a necessary subconscious condition
+for the symbolism.
+
+Sensory symbolism rests on a very fundamental psychic tendency. On the
+abnormal side we find it in the synaesthesias which, since Galton first
+drew attention to them in 1883, in his _Inquiries into Human Faculty_,
+have become well known, and are found among between six to over twelve per
+cent. of people. Galton investigated chiefly those kinds of synaesthesias
+which he called 'number-forms' and 'colour associations.' The number-form
+is characteristic of those people who almost invariably think of
+numerals in some more or less constant form of visual imagery, the
+number instantaneously calling up the picture. In persons who experience
+colour-associations, or coloured-hearing, there is a similar instantaneous
+manifestation of particular colours in connection with particular sounds,
+the different vowel sounds, for instance, each constantly and persistently
+evolving a definite tint, as _a_ white, _e_ vermilion, _i_ yellow,
+etc., no two persons, however, having exactly the same colour scheme of
+sounds.[130] These phenomena are not so very rare, and, though they must
+be regarded as abnormal, they occur in persons who are perfectly healthy
+and sane.
+
+It will be seen that a synaesthesia--which may involve taste, smell,
+and other senses besides hearing and sight--causes an impression of one
+sensory order to be automatically and involuntarily linked on to an
+impression of another totally different order. In other words, we may say
+that the one impression becomes the _symbol_ of the other impression, for
+a symbol--which is literally a throwing together--means that two things
+of different orders have become so associated that one of them may be
+regarded as the sign and representative of the other.
+
+There is, however, another still more natural and fundamental form of
+symbolism which is entirely normal, and almost, indeed, physiological.
+This is the tendency by which qualities of one order become symbols of
+qualities of a totally different order, because they instinctively seem
+to have a similar effect on us. In this way, things in the physical
+order become symbols of things in the spiritual order. This symbolism
+penetrates indeed the whole of language; we cannot escape from it. The
+sea is _deep_, and so also may thoughts be; ice is _cold_, and we say
+the same of some hearts; sugar is _sweet_, as the lover finds also the
+presence of the beloved; quinine is _bitter_, and so is remorse. Not only
+our adjectives, but our substantives and our verbs are equally symbolical.
+To the etymological eye every sentence is full of metaphor, of symbol,
+of images that, strictly and originally, express sensory impressions of
+one order, but, as we use them to-day, express impressions of a totally
+different order. Language is largely the utilisation of symbols. This is a
+well-recognised fact which it is unnecessary to elaborate.[131]
+
+An interesting example of the natural tendency to symbolism, which may
+be compared to the allied tendency in dreaming, is furnished by another
+language, the language of music. Music is a representation of the
+world--the internal or the external world--which, except in so far as
+it may seek to reproduce the actual sounds of the world, can only be
+expressive by its symbolism. And the symbolism of music is so pronounced
+that it is even expressed in the elementary fact of musical pitch. Our
+minds are so constructed that the bass always seems _deep_ to us and the
+treble _high_. We feel it incongruous to speak of a _high_ bass voice or
+a _deep_ soprano. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this and
+the like associations are fundamentally based, that there are, as an acute
+French philosophic student of music, Dauriac (in an essay 'Des Images
+Suggérées par l'Audition musicale'[132]), has expressed it, 'sensorial
+correspondences,' as, indeed, Baudelaire had long since divined[133]; that
+the motor image is that which demands from the listener the minimum of
+effort; and that music almost constantly evokes motor imagery.[134]
+
+The association between high notes and physical ascent, between low
+notes and physical descent, is certainly in any case very fixed.[135]
+In Wagner's _Lohengrin_, the ascent and descent of the angelic chorus
+is thus indicated. Even if we go back to the early composers, the same
+correspondence is found. In Purcell it is very definite. In Bach--pure and
+abstract as his music is generally considered--not only this elementary
+association, but an immense amount of motor imagery is to be found; Bach
+shows, indeed, a curious pre-occupation in translating the definite sense
+of the words he is musically illustrating into corresponding musical
+terms; the skill and subtlety with which he accomplishes this, can often,
+as Pirro and Schweitzer have shown, be appreciated only by musicians.[136]
+It is sometimes said that this is 'realism' in music. That is a mistake.
+When the impressions derived from one sense are translated into those of
+another sense, there can be no question of realism. A composer may attempt
+a realistic representation of thunder, but his representation of lightning
+can only be symbolical; audible lightning can never be realistic.
+
+Not only is there an instinctive and direct association between sounds
+and motor imagery, but there is an indirect but equally instinctive
+association between sounds and visual imagery which, though not itself
+motor, has motor associations. Thus Bleuler considers it well established
+that among colour-hearers there is a tendency for photisms that are light
+in colour (and belonging, we may say, to the 'high' part of the spectrum)
+to be produced by sounds of high quality, and dark photisms by sounds
+of low quality; and, in the same way, sharply-defined pains or tactile
+sensations, as well as pointed forms, produce light photisms. Similarly,
+bright lights and pointed forms produce high photisms, whole low photisms
+are produced by opposite conditions. Urbantschitsch, again, by examining a
+large number of people who were not colour-hearers, found that a high note
+of a tuning-fork seems higher when looking at red, yellow, green, or blue,
+but lower if looking at violet. Thus two sensory qualities that are both
+symbolic of a third quality are symbolic to each other.
+
+This symbolism, we are justified in believing, is based on fundamental
+organic tendencies. Piderit, nearly half a century ago, forcibly argued
+that there is a real relationship of our most spiritual feelings and
+ideas to particular bodily movements and facial expressions. In a similar
+manner, he pointed out that bitter tastes and bitter thoughts tend to
+produce the same physical expression.[137] He also argued that the
+character of a man's looks--his _fixed_ or _dreamy_ eyes, his _lively_
+or _stiff_ movements--correspond to real psychic characters. If this
+is so we have a physiological, almost anatomical, basis for symbolism.
+Cleland,[138] again, in an essay, 'On the Element of Symbolic Correlation
+in Expression,' argued that the key to a great part of expression is
+the correlation of movements and positions with ideas, so that there
+are, for instance, a host of associations in the human mind by which
+'upward' represents the good, the great, and the living, while 'downward'
+represents the evil and the dead. Such associations are so fundamental
+that they are found even in animals, whose gestures are, as Féré[139]
+remarked, often metaphorical, so that a cat, for instance, will shake its
+paw, as if in contact with water, after any disagreeable experiences.
+
+The symbolism that to-day interpenetrates our language, and indeed our
+life generally, has mostly been inherited by us, with the traditions of
+civilisation, from an antiquity so primitive that we usually fail to
+interpret it. The rare additions we make to it in our ordinary normal
+life are for the most part deliberately conscious. But so soon as we
+fall below, or rise above, that ordinary normal level--to insanity and
+hallucination, to childhood, to savagery, to folk-lore and legend, to
+poetry and religion--we are at once plunged into a sea of symbolism.[140]
+There is even a normal sphere in which symbolism has free scope, and that
+is in the world of dreams.
+
+Oneiromancy, the symbolical interpretation of dreams, more especially as
+a method of divining the future, is a widespread art in early stages of
+culture. The discerning of dreams is represented in the Old Testament as
+a very serious and anxious matter (as in regard to Pharaoh's dream of the
+fat and lean cattle), and, nearer to our time, the dreams of great heroes,
+especially Charlemagne, are represented as highly important events in the
+mediæval European epics. Little manuals on the interpretation of dreams
+have always been much valued by the uncultured classes, and among our
+current popular sayings there are many dicta concerning the significance,
+or the good or ill luck, of particular kinds of dreams.
+
+Oneiromancy has thus slowly degenerated to folk-lore and superstition.
+But at the outset it possessed something of the combined dignities of
+religion and of science. Not only were the old dream interpreters careful
+of the significance and results of individual dreams, in order to build
+up a body of doctrine, but they held that not every dream contained
+in it a divine message; thus they would not condescend to interpret
+dreams following on the drinking of wine, for only to the temperate,
+they declared, do the gods reveal their secrets.[141] The serious and
+elaborate way in which the interpretation of dreams was dealt with is well
+seen in the treatise on this subject by Artemidorus of Daldi, a native
+of Ephesus, and contemporary of Marcus Aurelius.[142] He divided dreams
+into two classes: _theorematic_ dreams, which come literally true, and
+_allegorical_ dreams. The first group may be said to correspond to the
+modern groups of prophetic and proleptic or prodromic dreams, while the
+second group includes the symbolical dreams which have of recent years
+again attracted attention. Synesius, who lived in the fourth century,
+and eventually became a Christian bishop without altogether ceasing to
+be a Greek pagan, wrote a very notable treatise on dreaming, in which,
+with a genuinely Greek alertness of mind, he contrived to rationalise and
+almost to modernise the ancient doctrine of dream symbolism. He admits
+that it is in their obscurity that the truth of dreams resides, and that
+we must not expect to find any general rules in regard to dreams; no two
+people are alike, so that the same dream cannot have the same significance
+for every one, and we have to find out the rules of our own dreams. He
+had himself (like Galen) often been aided in his writings by his dreams,
+in this way getting his ideas into order, improving his style, and
+receiving criticisms of extravagant phrases. Once, too, in the days when
+he hunted, he invented a trap as a result of a dream. Synesius declares
+that attention to divination by dreams is good on moral grounds alone. For
+he who makes his bed a Delphian tripod will be careful to live a pure and
+noble life. In that way he will reach an end higher than that he aimed
+at.[143]
+
+It seems to-day by no means improbable that, amid the absurdities of
+this popular oneiromancy, there are some items of real significance.
+Until recent years, however, the absurdities have frightened away the
+scientific investigator. Almost the only investigator of the psychology
+of dreaming who ventured to admit a real symbolism in the dream world was
+Scherner,[144] and his arguments were not usually accepted nor even easy
+to accept. When we are faced by the question of definite and constant
+symbols it still remains true that scepticism is often called for. But
+there can be no manner of doubt that our dreams are full of symbolism.[145]
+
+The conditions of dream life, indeed, lend themselves with a peculiar
+facility to the formation of symbolism, that is to say, of images
+which, while evoked by a definite stimulus, are themselves of a totally
+different order from that stimulus. The very fact that we _sleep_, that
+is to say, that the avenues of sense which would normally supply the real
+image of corresponding order to the stimulus are more or less closed,
+renders symbolism inevitable.[146] The direct channels being thus largely
+choked, other allied and parallel associations come into play, and since
+the control of attention and apperception is diminished, such play is
+often unimpeded. Symbolism is the natural and inevitable result of these
+conditions.[147]
+
+It might still be asked why we do not in dreams more often recognise the
+actual source of the stimuli applied to us. If a dreamer's feet are in
+contact with something hot, it might seem more natural that he should
+think of the actual hot-water bottle, rather than of an imaginary Etna,
+and that, if he hears a singing in his ears, he should argue the presence
+of the real bird he has often heard rather than a performance of Haydn's
+_Creation_, which he has never heard. Here, however, we have to remember
+the tendency to magnification in dream imagery, a tendency which rests
+on the emotionality of dreams. Emotion is normally heightened in dreams.
+Every impression reaches sleeping consciousness through this emotional
+atmosphere, in an enlarged form, vaguer it may be, but more massive. The
+sleeping brain is thus not dealing with actual impressions--if we are
+justified in speaking of the impressions of waking life as 'actual'--even
+when actual impressions are being made upon it, but with transformed
+impressions. The problem before it is to find an adequate cause, not for
+the actual impression, but for the transformed and enlarged impression.
+Under these circumstances symbolism is quite inevitable. Even when the
+nature of an excitation is rightly perceived its quality cannot be
+rightly perceived. The dreamer may be able to perceive that he is being
+bitten, but the massive and profound impression of a bite which reaches
+his dreaming consciousness would not be adequately accounted for by
+the supposition of the real mosquito that is the cause of it; the only
+adequate explanation of the transformed impression received is to be found
+(as in a dream already narrated) in a creature as large as a lobster.
+This creature is the symbol of the real mosquito.[148] We have the same
+phenomenon under somewhat similar conditions in the intoxication of
+chloroform and nitrous oxide.
+
+The obscuration during sleep of the external sensory channels, with
+the checks on false conclusions they furnish, is not alone sufficient
+to explain the symbolism of dreams. The dissociation of thought during
+sleep, with the diminished attention and apperception involved, is also
+a factor. The magnification of special isolated sensory impressions in
+dreaming consciousness is associated with a general bluntness, even an
+absolute quiescence, of the external sensory mechanism. One part of the
+organism, and it seems usually a visceral part, is thus apt to magnify its
+place in consciousness at the expense of the rest. As Vaschide and Piéron
+say, during sleep 'the internal sensations develop at the expense of the
+peripheral sensations.' That indeed seems to be the secret of the immense
+emotional turmoil of our dreams. Yet it is very rare for these internal
+sensations to reach the sleeping brain as what they are. They become
+conscious, not as literal messages, but as symbolical transformations.
+The excited or labouring heart recalls to the brain no memory of itself,
+but some symbolical image of excitement or labour. There is association,
+indeed, but it is association not along the matter-of-fact lines of our
+ordinary waking civilised life, but along much more fundamental and
+primitive channels, which in waking life we have now abandoned or never
+knew.
+
+There is another consideration which may be put forward to account for
+one group of dream-symbolisms. It has been found that certain hysterical
+subjects of old standing when in the hypnotic state are able to receive
+mental pictures of their own viscera, even though they may be quite
+ignorant of any knowledge of the shape of these viscera. This _autoscopy_,
+as it has been called, has been specially studied by Féré, Comar, and
+Sollier.[149] Hysteria is a condition which is in many respects closely
+allied to sleep, and if it is to be accepted as a real fact that autoscopy
+occasionally occurs in the abnormal psychic state of hypnotic sleep in
+hysterical persons, it is possible to ask whether it may not sometimes
+occur normally in the allied state of sleep. In the hypnotic state it
+is known that parts of the organism normally involuntary may become
+subject to the will; it is not incredible that similarly parts normally
+insensitive may become sufficiently sensitive to reveal their own shape
+or condition. We may thus, indeed, the more easily understand those
+premonitory dreams in which the dreamer becomes conscious of morbid
+conditions which are not perceptible to waking consciousness until they
+have attained a greater degree of intensity.[150]
+
+The recognition of the transformation in dream life of internal
+sensations into symbolic motor imagery is ancient. Hippocrates said that
+to dream, for instance, of springs and wells denoted some disturbance of
+the bladder. In such a case a disturbed bladder sends to the brain, not
+the naked message of its own needs, but a symbolic message of those needs
+in motor imagery, as (in one case known to me) of a large cistern with
+a stream of water flowing from it.[151] Sometimes the symbolism aroused
+by visceral processes remains physiological; thus indigestion frequently
+leads to dreams of eating, as of chewing all sorts of inedible and
+repulsive substances, and occasionally--it would seem more abnormally--to
+agreeable dreams of food.
+
+It is due to the genius of Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna--to-day
+the most daring and original psychologist in the field of morbid psychic
+phenomena--that we owe the long-neglected recognition of the large place
+of symbolism in dreaming. Scherner had argued in favour of this aspect of
+dreams, but he was an undistinguished and unreliable psychologist, and
+his arguments failed to be influential. Freud avows himself a partisan of
+Scherner's theory of dreaming and opponent of all other theories,[152] but
+his treatment of the matter is incomparably more searching and profound.
+Freud, however, goes far beyond the fundamental--and, as I believe,
+undeniable--proposition that dream-imagery is largely symbolic. He holds
+that behind the symbolism of dreams there lies ultimately a _wish;_ he
+believes, moreover, that this wish tends to be really of more or less
+sexual character, and, further, that it is tinged by elements that go back
+to the dreamer's infantile days. As Freud views the mechanism of dreams,
+it is far from exhibiting mere disordered mental activity, but is (much
+as he has also argued hysteria to be[153]) the outcome of a desire, which
+is driven back by a kind of inhibition or censure (_i.e._, that kind
+of moral check which is still more alert in the waking state), and is
+seeking new forms of expression. There is first in the dream the process
+of what Freud calls condensation (_Verdichtung_), a process which is that
+fusion of separate elements which must be recognised at the outset of
+every discussion of dreaming, but Freud maintains that in this fusion all
+the elements have a point in common, and overlie one another like the
+pictures in a Galtonian composite photograph. Then there comes the process
+of displacement or transference (_Verschiebung_), a process by which the
+really central and emotional basis of the dream is concealed beneath
+trifles. Then there is the process of dramatisation or transformation
+into a concrete situation of which the elements have a symbolic value.
+Thus, as Maeder puts it, summarising Freud's views, 'behind the apparently
+insignificant events of the day utilised in the dream there is always an
+important idea or event hidden. We only dream of things that are worth
+while. What at first sight seems to be a trifle is a grey wall which
+hides a great palace. The significance of the dream is not so much held
+in the dream itself as in that substratum of it which has not passed the
+threshold and which analysis alone can bring to light.'
+
+'We only dream of things that are worth while.' That is the point at
+which many of us are no longer able to follow Freud. That dreams of the
+type studied by Freud do actually occur may be accepted; it may even be
+considered proved. But to assert that all dreams must be made to fit
+into this one formula is to make far too large a demand. As regards the
+presentative element in dreams--the element that is based on actual
+sensory stimulation--it is in most cases unreasonable to invoke Freud's
+formula at all. If, when I am asleep, the actual song of a bird causes me
+to dream that I am at a concert, that picture may be regarded as a natural
+symbol of the actual sensation, and it is unreasonable to expect that
+psycho-analysis could reveal any hidden personal reason why the symbol
+should take the form of a concert. And, if so, then Freud's formula fails
+to hold good for phenomena which cover one of the two main divisions of
+dreams, even on a superficial classification, and perhaps enter into all
+dreams.
+
+But even if we take dreams of the remaining or representative class--the
+dreams made up of images not directly dependent on actual sensation--we
+still have to maintain a cautious attitude. A very large proportion of the
+dreams in this class seem to be, so far as the personal life is concerned,
+in no sense 'worth while.' It would, indeed, be surprising if they were.
+It seems to be fairly clear that in sleep, as certainly in the hypnagogic
+state, attention is diminished, and apperceptive power weakened. That
+alone seems to involve a relaxation of the tension by which we will and
+desire our personal ends. At the same time, by no longer concentrating our
+psychic activities at the focus of desire it enables indifferent images to
+enter more easily the field of sleeping consciousness. It might even be
+argued that the activity of desire, when it manifests itself in sleep and
+follows the course indicated by Freud, corresponds to a special form of
+sleep in which attention and apperception, though in modified forms, are
+more active than in ordinary sleep.[154] Such dreams seem to occur with
+special frequency, or in more definitely marked forms, in the neurotic and
+especially the hysterical, and if it is true that the hysterical are to
+some extent asleep even when they are awake, it may also be said that they
+are to some extent awake even when they are asleep. Freud certainly holds,
+probably with truth, that there is no fundamental distinction between
+normal people and psychoneurotic people, and that there is, for instance,
+as Ferenczi says, emphasising this point, 'a streak of hysterical
+disposition in everybody.' Freud has, indeed, made interesting analytic
+studies of his own dreams, but the great body of material accumulated
+by him and his school is derived from the dreams of the neurotic. Thus
+Stekel states that he has analysed many thousand dreams, but his lengthy
+study on the interpretation of dreams deals exclusively with the dreams
+of the neurotic.[155] Stekel believes, moreover, that from the structure
+of the dream life conclusions may be drawn, not only as to the life and
+character of the dreamer, but also as to his neurosis, the hysterical
+person dreaming differently from the obsessed person, and so on. If that
+is the case we are certainly justified in doubting whether conclusions
+drawn from the study of the dreams of neurotic people can be safely held
+to represent the normal dream life, even though it may be true that there
+is no definite frontier between them. Whatever may be the case among the
+neurotic, in ordinary normal sleep the images that drift across the field
+of consciousness, though they have a logic of their own, seem in a large
+proportion of cases to be quite explicable without resort to the theory
+that they stand in vital but concealed relationship to our most intimate
+self.
+
+Even in waking life, and at normal moments which are not those of
+reverie, it seems possible to trace the appearance in the field of
+consciousness of images which are evoked neither by any known mental or
+physical circumstance of the moment, or any hidden desire, images that
+are as disconnected from the immediate claims of desire and even of
+association as those of dreams seem so largely to be. It sometimes occurs
+to me--as doubtless it occurs to other people--that at some moment when
+my thoughts are normally occupied with the work immediately before me,
+there suddenly appears on the surface of consciousness a totally unrelated
+picture. A scene arises, vague but usually recognisable, of some city
+or landscape--Australian, Russian, Spanish, it matters not what--seen
+casually long years ago, and possibly never thought of since, and
+possessing no kind of known association either with the matter in hand or
+with my personal life generally. It comes to the surface of consciousness
+as softly, as unexpectedly, as disconnectedly, as a minute bubble might
+arise and break on the surface of an actual stream from ancient organic
+material silently disintegrating in the depths beneath.[156] Every one who
+has travelled much cannot fail to possess, hidden in his psychic depths,
+a practically infinite number of such forgotten pictures, devoid of all
+personal emotion. It is possible to maintain, as a matter of theory, that
+when they come up to consciousness, they are evoked by some real, though
+untraceable, resemblance which they possess to the psychic or physical
+state existing when they reappear. But that theory cannot be demonstrated.
+Nor, it may be added, is it more plausible than the simple but equally
+unprovable theory that such scenes do really come to the surface of
+consciousness as the result of some slight spontaneous disintegration in
+a minute cerebral centre, and have no more immediately preceding psychic
+cause than my psychic realisation of the emergence of the sun from behind
+a cloud has any psychic preceding cause.
+
+Similarly, in insanity, Liepmann, in his study _Ueber Ideenflucht_, has
+forcibly argued that ordinary logorrhœa--the incontinence of ideas linked
+together by superficial associations of resemblance or contiguity--is a
+linking _without direction_, that is, corresponding to no interest, either
+practical or theoretical, of the individual. Or, as Claparède puts it,
+logorrhœa is a trouble in the reaction of _interest_ in life. It seems
+most reasonable to believe that in ordinary sleep the flow of imagery
+follows, for the most part, the same easy course. That course may to
+waking consciousness often seem peculiar, but to waking consciousness the
+conditions of dreaming life are peculiar. Under these conditions, however,
+we may well believe that the tendency to movement in the direction of
+least resistance still prevails. And as attention and will are weakened
+and loosened during sleep, the tense concentration on personal ends must
+also be relaxed. We become more disinterested. Personal desire tends
+for the most part rather to fall into the background than to become
+more prominent. If it were not a period in which desire were ordinarily
+relaxed, sleep would cease to be a period of rest and recuperation.
+
+Sleeping consciousness is a vast world, a world scarcely less vast than
+that of waking consciousness. It is futile to imagine that a single
+formula can cover all its manifold varieties and all its degrees of depth.
+Those who imagine that all dreaming is a symbolism which a single cypher
+will serve to interpret must not be surprised if, however unjustly, they
+are thought to resemble those persons who claim to find on every page of
+Shakespeare a cypher revealing the authorship of Bacon. In the case of
+Freud's theory of dream interpretation, I hold the cypher to be real, but
+I believe that it is impossible to regard so narrow and exclusive an
+interpretation as adequate to explain the whole world of dreams. It would,
+_a priori_, be incomprehensible that sleeping consciousness should exert
+so extraordinary a selective power among the variegated elements of waking
+life, and, experientially, there seems no adequate ground to suppose that
+it does exert such selective action. On the contrary, it is, for the
+most part, supremely impartial in bringing forward and combining all the
+manifestations, the most trivial as well as the most intimate, of our
+waking life. There is a symptom of mental disorder called _extrospection_,
+in which the patient fastens his attention so minutely on events that
+he comes to interpret the most trifling signs and incidents as full of
+hidden significance, and may so build up a systematised delusion.[157] The
+investigator of dreams must always bear in mind the risk of falling into
+morbid extrospection.
+
+Such considerations seem to indicate that it is not true that every
+dream, every mental image, is 'worth while,' though at the same time they
+by no means diminish the validity of special and purposive methods of
+investigating dream consciousness. Freud and those who are following him
+have shown, by the expenditure of much patience and skill, that his method
+of dream-interpretation may in many cases yield coherent results which it
+is not easy to account for by chance. It is quite possible, however, to
+recognise Freud's service in vindicating the large place of symbolism in
+dreams, and to welcome the application of his psycho-analytic method to
+dreams, while yet denying that this is the only method of interpreting
+dreams. Freud argues that all dreaming is purposive and significant,
+and that we must put aside the belief that dreams are the mere trivial
+outcome of the dissociated activity of brain centres. It remains true,
+however, that, while reason plays a larger part in dreams than most
+people realise, the activity of dissociated brain centres furnishes one
+of the best keys to the explanation of psychic phenomena during sleep.
+It would be difficult to believe in any case that in the relaxation of
+sleep our thoughts are still pursuing a deliberately purposeful direction
+under the control of our waking impulses. Many facts indicate--though
+Freud's school may certainly claim that such facts have not been
+thoroughly interpreted--that, as a matter of fact, this control is often
+conspicuously lacking. There is, for instance, the well-known fact that
+our most recent and acute emotional experiences--precisely those which
+might most ardently formulate themselves in a wish--are rarely mirrored
+in our dreams, though recent occurrences of more trivial nature, as well
+as older events of more serious import, easily find place there. That
+is easily accounted for by the supposition--not quite in a line with a
+generalised wish-theory--that the exhausted emotions of the day find rest
+at night.
+
+It must also be said that even when we admit that a strong emotion may
+symbolically construct an elaborate dream edifice which needs analysis to
+be interpreted, we narrow the process unduly if we assert that the emotion
+is necessarily a wish. Desire is certainly very fundamental in life and
+very primitive. But there is another equally fundamental and primitive
+emotion--fear.[158] We may very well expect to find this emotion, as well
+as desire, subjacent to dream phenomena.[159]
+
+The infantile form of the wish-dream, alike in adults and children, is
+thus, there can be little doubt, extremely common, and, even in its
+symbolic forms, it is a real and not rare phenomenon. But it is impossible
+to follow Freud when he declares that all dreams fall into the group of
+wish-dreams. The world of psychic life during sleep is, like the waking
+world, rich and varied; it cannot be covered by a single formula. Freud's
+subtle and searching analytic genius has greatly contributed to enlarge
+our knowledge of this world of sleep. We may recognise the value of his
+contribution to the psychology of dreams while refusing to accept a
+premature and narrow generalisation.
+
+The wish-dream of the kind elaborately investigated by Freud may be
+accepted as one type of dreaming, and a very interesting type, but it
+seems evident that it is only one type. There are even other types which
+seem closely related to it, and yet are quite distinct. This is, for
+instance, the case with the contrast-dream. The contrast-dream of Näcke's
+type represents the emergence of characteristics which are distinctly
+opposed to the dreamer's character and habits. Thus, in the course of four
+consecutive nights, I have dreamed in much detail that (1) I was the mayor
+of a large northern city about to take the chair at a local meeting of the
+Bible Society; (2) that I was a soldier in the heat of battle; and (3)
+that I was meditating the step of going on the stage as a comedian--the
+only rôle of the three which seemed to cause me any nervousness or
+misgiving. In contrast-dreams of this type we are not concerned with
+the eruption of concealed and repressed wishes. They are merely based
+on vestigial possibilities, entirely alien to our temperament as it has
+developed in life, and only a part of our complex personalities in the
+sense that, as Schopenhauer said, whatever path we take in life there
+are latent germs within us which could only have developed in an exactly
+opposite path. Even the very same dream may be due to quite different
+causes. To take a very simple dream, for we may best argue on the simplest
+facts: the dream of eating. We dream of eating when we are hungry, but
+sometimes we also dream of eating when the stomach is suffering from
+repletion. The dream is the same, but the psychological mechanism is
+entirely different, in the one case emotional, in the other intellectual.
+In the first case the picture of eating is built up in response to an
+organic visceral craving, and we have an elementary wish-dream of what
+Freud would call infantile type; in the second case the same dream is a
+theory, embodied in a concrete picture, to account for the existence of
+the repletion experienced.
+
+There cannot be the slightest doubt that the wish-dream, in its simple or
+what Freud calls its infantile form, represents an extremely common type
+of dream.[160] A large number of the dreams of children are concerned with
+wishes and their fulfilments. Those dreams of adults which are aroused by
+actual organic sensations also tend to fall, though not invariably, into
+the same form. Again, we chance to want a thing when we are awake; when
+we are asleep we dream we have found it. It may also be said, almost with
+certainty, that in some cases our dreams are the fulfilment of unexpressed
+and unconscious waking wishes. Even the best people, it is probable, may
+occasionally dream of events which represent the fulfilment of wishes they
+have never consciously formulated. Archbishop Laud was accustomed to note
+down his dreams in his Diary. On one occasion we find him setting down
+a disturbing dream, in which he saw the Lord Keeper dead, and 'rotten
+already.' A little later we find that Laud is 'much concerned at the
+envy and undeserved hatred borne to me by the Lord Keeper.'[161] It is
+not difficult to see in the Archbishop's relations to the Lord Keeper an
+explanation of his dream.
+
+If, however, wishes, conscious or unconscious, are often fulfilled
+in dreams, and if, as we have seen reason to conclude, symbolism is
+a fundamental tendency of dreaming activity, it is inevitable that
+wish-dreams should sometimes take on a symbolic form. It is thus, for
+instance, that I interpret my dream of being in an English cathedral and
+seeing on the wall a notice to the effect that at evensong on such a day
+the edifice will not be illuminated, in order to avoid attracting moths;
+I awake with a slight headache, and the unilluminated cathedral was
+the symbol of the coolness and absence of glare which one desires when
+suffering from headache.
+
+There cannot, also, be any doubt that erotic wishes frequently make
+themselves felt as dreams, both in the infantile and the symbolic form.
+It is sufficient to bring forward one illustration. It is furnished
+by a young lady of somewhat neurotic tendencies and heredity, aged
+twenty-three, musical and intelligent, who was in love with her
+music-master, the organist at her church. The dream was written down at
+the time. 'I was at the school of my childhood, and I was told that I
+was St. Agnes Virgin and Martyr, and in five minutes' time I was to be
+beheaded with a large knife. The sheen of the blade frightened me so much
+that I asked if instead I might be strangled by the man I was in love
+with. Permission was given if I could induce him to come in time. I ran
+to our church (saying to myself that I knew it was a dream, but that I
+_must_ see what he would say) over huge stones that cut my bare feet, and
+wondered what age I was living in, longing to meet some women in order to
+find out. When I did, they all wore crinolines. I rushed up the central
+aisle, which was full of people, thinking that, as I was going to be
+killed, nothing could matter. Mr. T. (the organist) was giving a choir
+practice in the vestry. I ran up to him and said: "Come at once, I am
+going to be killed." He became very angry, and said: "Do go away; you are
+always interrupting my choir practice." I said: "Don't you understand? I
+am going to be killed at once; there is a knife hanging over my head, but
+I would rather be strangled by you, and they said I could if I fetched you
+in time." As soon as he understood that he came at once. Then it seemed
+in the dream that we were married, and had a son, who was to be a musical
+composer. I said I must say goodbye to this son first, and told the nurse
+to bring him to me. When he came I said: "Good-bye, I am going to be
+killed." He said, "Mother, am I a boy or a girl? When I am with boys I
+don't seem like them, and they call me a girl, and yet I don't look like
+a girl." I replied: "You are both in one, because you are going to be a
+perfect musical genius."' In this dream, which represents the fulfilment
+in sleep of an affection unsatisfied in life, we see side by side the
+infantile and the symbolic fulfilments of the erotic wish, culminating in
+a gifted musical child. The wish to be strangled is an undoubted erotic
+symbol,[162] and it is significant that in the course of the dream the
+accepted death by strangulation became fused with marriage, although the
+idea of death still inconsistently survives, doubtless because dream
+consciousness failed to realise that the accepted form of death was a
+subconsciously furnished symbol of the consummation of marriage.
+
+The wish-dream of Freud's type has presented itself for consideration
+here, because it is a special and elaborate illustration of symbolism
+in dreaming. The important place of symbols in dreaming is by no means
+dependent on the validity of this particular type of dream, and we may now
+proceed to continue the discussion of the significance of the symbolic
+tendency during sleep in its most important form.
+
+The symbols we have so far been mainly concerned with have been the
+result of a tendency of dreaming consciousness to objectify feelings and
+affections within the organism in concrete objects or processes outside
+the organism. In its complete form this symbolic tendency becomes the
+objectivation of part of the dreamer's feelings or personality in a
+distinct imaginary personality. A process of dramatisation occurs, and
+the dreamer finds himself in action and reaction, friendly or hostile or
+indifferent, with seemingly external personalities which, by the light
+of the analysis possible on awakening, are demonstrably created out of
+split-off portions of his own personality.[163] A common and simple form
+of such objectivation, closely allied to some of the symbolisms already
+brought forward, occurs when the dreamer sees the image of a person
+suffering from some affection of a part of the body and finds on awakening
+that he is himself experiencing pain or discomfort in that part. Thus a
+medical man dreams he is examining a tumour in a patient's groin, and on
+awakening finds slight irritation in the same region of his own body. And
+similarly, just as our bodily needs, when experienced during sleep, may
+be symbolised by inanimate natural objects and processes, so they may
+also become objective in the image of another person who is occupied in
+gratifying the need which we are ourselves unconsciously experiencing.
+
+An interesting and significant group of cases is furnished by those
+dreams in which--as the result of some compression or effort--the tactile
+and muscular sensations of our own limbs are split off from sleeping
+consciousness and built up into an imaginary personality. Thus a medical
+friend, shortly after an attack of influenza, dreamed that in conversation
+with a lady patient his hand rested on her knee; she requested him to
+remove it, but his efforts to do so were fruitless, and he awoke in horror
+from this unprofessional situation to find that his hand was firmly
+clasped between his own knees. His body had thus been divided in dreaming
+consciousness between himself and an imaginary other person; the knee
+had become the other person's, while the hand remained his own, the hand
+being claimed in preference to the knee no doubt on account of its greater
+tactile sensibility and more complexly intimate association with the
+brain. In the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) state such dream sensations may
+almost reach the intensity of hallucination. Thus, after an indigestible
+supper, I awake with the vivid feeling that some one is lying on me
+and attempting to drag off the bedclothes, and I find myself violently
+attempting, but apparently in vain, to articulate: 'Who is there?' In a
+dream of similar type, which occurred when lying on my back (and possibly
+with slight indigestion due to an unusually late dinner), I awoke making
+a kind of inarticulate exclamation which awakened my wife. I had dreamed
+that I was lying in bed, and that some unseen creature--more supernatural
+than human, it seemed--was violently dragging the bedclothes off me, while
+I shouted to it, very distinctly it seemed to me, 'Avaunt, avaunt!'
+
+It is evident that my own sense of oppression, my own unconscious and
+involuntary movements in disturbing the bedclothes, were reconstructed by
+sleeping consciousness as the actions of an external person, in the second
+case, a supernatural creature, which, it is interesting to note, I duly
+accepted as such and addressed in the conventionally appropriate manner
+of old romance. The illusion may persist for some moments after waking. A
+lady, after breathing rather loudly and convulsively for a few seconds,
+wakes up, saying 'There is a rat or a mouse on the bed, shaking it up
+and down.' 'You were asleep,' her husband replied, 'as I knew by your
+breathing.' 'Oh, I was breathing like that,' she said, 'to make it jump
+off.' Here we see that, somewhat as in the previous cases, the dreamer's
+own muscular activity is, during sleep, reconstructed into the image of an
+external force; but when she is in the semi-waking hypnagogic stage, she
+recognises that the activity was her own, though still unable to dismiss
+the delusion based on the theory formed during sleep.
+
+At this point we reach the threshold of hallucination, and the next
+case to be brought forward may be said to lie on the threshold, for an
+impression received in the hypnagogic (or hypnopompic) stage is accepted
+in its illusional form, even when the dreamer is fully awake. A farmer's
+daughter--a bright girl of twenty-one, with quick nervous reactions,
+but untrained mind--dreamed that she saw her brother (dead some years
+previously) with blood streaming from his fingers. She awoke in a fright,
+and was comforting herself with the thought that it was only a dream when
+she felt a hand grip her shoulder three times in succession. There was no
+one in the room, the door was locked, and no explanation seemed possible
+to her. She was very frightened, got up at once, dressed, and spent
+the rest of the night downstairs working. She was so convinced that a
+real hand had touched her that, although it seemed impossible, she asked
+her brothers if they had not been playing a trick on her. The nervous
+shock was considerable, and she was unable to sleep well for some weeks
+afterwards. She naturally knew nothing about abnormal psychic phenomena,
+and was utterly puzzled to explain the experience, except by supposing
+that it may have been a ghost. The explanation is really very simple. It
+is well recognised that involuntary muscular twitches may occur in the
+shoulder, especially after it has been subjected to pressure, and that in
+some cases such contractions may simulate a touch.[164] The dream of a
+bleeding hand indicates, when we bear in mind the tendency to objectify
+sensations symbolically, now familiar to us in dreaming, that the
+dreamer's arm was probably pressed beneath her in a cramped position.[165]
+This pressure would account, not only for the dream, but for the muscular
+twitches occurring on awakening. The nature of the dream, the terrified
+emotional state it produced, and the mental obscurity of the hypnagogic
+state, naturally combined, in a subject unaccustomed to self-analysis, to
+create an illusion which reflection is unable to dispel, though in the
+normal waking state she would probably have given no attention at all
+to such muscular twitches. Strictly speaking, such an experience is an
+illusion--that is to say, a misinterpretation of a real sensation--and
+not a hallucination--or perception without known objective causation--but
+there is no clear line of demarcation. In any case it may now be taken as
+proved that hallucinations tend to occur in the neighbourhood of sleep,
+and therefore to partake of the nature of dreams.[166]
+
+So far we have been concerned with the tendency in dreams to objectify
+portions of the body by constructing out of them new personalities.
+But precisely the same process goes on in sleep with regard to our
+thoughts and feelings. We split off portions of these also and construct
+other personalities out of them, and sometimes even endow the persons
+thus formed with thoughts and feelings more native to our own normal
+personality than those which we reserve for ourselves. Thus a lady who
+dreamed that when walking with a friend she discovered a species of
+animal fruit, a kind of damson containing a snail, expressed her delight
+at finding a combination so admirably adapted to culinary purposes; it
+was the friend who, retaining the attitude of her own waking moments,
+uttered an exclamation of disgust. Most of the dreams in which there is
+any dramatic element are due to this splitting up of personality; in
+our dreams we may experience shame or confusion from the rebukes or the
+arguments of other persons, but the persons who administer the rebuke or
+apply the argument are still ourselves.[167]
+
+Some writers on dreaming have marvelled greatly at this tendency of
+the sleeping mind to objectify portions of itself, and so to create
+imaginary personalities and evolve dramatic situations. It has seemed
+to them quite unaccountable except as the outcome of a special gift of
+imagination appertaining to sleep. Yet, remarkable as it is, this process
+is simply the inevitable outcome of the conditions under which psychic
+life exists during sleep. If we realise that a more or less pronounced
+degree of dissociation of the contents of the mind occurs during sleep,
+and if we also realise that, sleeping fully as much as waking, mind is
+a thing that instinctively reasons, and cannot refrain from building up
+hypotheses, then we may easily see how the personages and situations of
+dreams develop. Much the same process might, under some circumstances,
+occur in waking life. If, for instance, we heard an unknown voice speaking
+behind a curtain, we could not fail to build up an imaginary person in
+connection with that voice, the characteristics of the imaginary person
+being largely determined by the nature of the voice and of the things it
+uttered: it would, further, be quite easy to enter into conversation with
+the person we had thus constructed. That is what seems to occur in dreams.
+We hear a voice behind the curtain of darkness, and to fit that voice and
+the things it utters we instinctively form a picture which, in virtue of
+the hallucinatory aptitude of sleep, is thrown against the curtain; it is
+then quite easy to enter into conversation with the person we have thus
+constructed. It no more occurs to us during sleep to suppose that the
+voice we hear is only a voice and nothing more, than it would occur to us
+awake to suppose that the voice behind the curtain is only a voice and
+nothing more. The process is the same; the difference is that in dreams we
+are, without knowing it, living among what from the waking point of view
+are called hallucinations.
+
+This process by which dreams are formed in sleeping consciousness
+through the splitting of the dreamer's personality for the construction
+of other personalities has been recognised ever since dreams began to
+be seriously studied. Maury referred to the scission of personality in
+dreams.[168] Delboeuf dealt with what he termed the altruising by the
+dreamer of part of his representations.[169] Foucault terms the same
+process personalisation.[170] Giessler attempts elaborately to explain
+the enigma of self-diremption--the formation of a secondary self--in
+dreams; if, he argues, a touch or other sensation exceeds the dream-body's
+capacity of adaptation--_i.e._, if the state of stimulus is above the
+apperceptive threshold--only one part of the perception is referred to the
+dream-body and the other is transferred to a secondary self.[171] This
+explanation, while it very fairly covers the presentative class of dreams,
+directly connected with sensory stimuli, cannot so easily be applied to
+the dramatisation of our representative dreams, which are not obviously
+traceable to direct bodily stimulation.
+
+The splitting up of personality is indeed a very pronounced and widely
+extended tendency of the mind, and has, during recent years, been
+elaborately studied. We thus have the basis of that psychic phenomenon
+which is variously termed secondary personality, double personality,
+duplex personality, multiple personality, alternation of personality,
+etc.,[172] and in earlier ages was regarded as due to possession by
+demons. Such conditions seem to be usually associated with hysteria.
+The essential fact about hysteria is, according to Janet, its lack of
+synthetising power, which is at the same time a lack of attention and
+of apperception, and has as its result a disintegration of the field of
+consciousness into mutually exclusive parts; that is to say, there is a
+process of dissociation. Now that is a condition resembling, as we have
+seen, the condition found in dreaming. It is not, therefore, difficult to
+accept the view of Sollier and others, that hysteria is a condition allied
+to sleep, a condition of vigilambulism in which the patients are often
+unable to obtain normal sleep, simply because they are all the time in a
+state of abnormal sleep; as one said to Sollier: 'I cannot sleep because I
+am asleep all the time.' It may thus be the case that hysterical multiple
+personalities[173] furnish a pathological analogue of that tendency to the
+dramatic objectivation of portions of our personality which is normal and
+healthy in dreams.
+
+Similarly in insanity we have an even more constant and pronounced
+tendency for the subject to attribute his own sensations to imaginary
+individuals, and to create personalities out of portions of the real
+personality. All the illusions, delusions, and hallucinations of the
+insane are merely the manifold manifestations of this tendency. Without it
+the insanity would not exist. It is not because he is subjected to unusual
+sensations--visionary, auditory, tactile, olfactory, visceral, etc.--that
+a man is insane. It is because he creates imaginary personalities to
+account for these sensations; if his food tastes strange some one has
+given him poison if he hears a strange voice it is some one communicating
+with him by telephones or microphones or hypnotism; if he feels a strange
+internal sensation it is perhaps because he has another person inside
+him. The case has even been recorded of a man who attributed any feeling
+he experienced, even the most normal sensations of hunger and thirst, to
+the people around him. It is exactly the same process as goes on in our
+dreams. The sane man, the normal waking man, may experience all these
+strange sensations, but he recognises that they are the spontaneous
+outcome of his own organisation.
+
+We may, however, advance a step beyond this position. This
+self-objectivation, this dramatisation of our experiences, is not
+confined to sleep and to pathological conditions which resemble sleep.
+It is natural and primitive in a far wider sense. The infant will gaze
+inquisitively at its own feet, watch their movements, play with them,
+'punish' them; consciousness has not absorbed them as part of the
+self.[174] The infant really acts and feels towards the remote parts of
+his own body as the adult acts and feels in dreaming. We are reminded of
+the generalisation of Giessler that dream consciousness corresponds to
+the normal psychic state in childhood, while sleeping subconsciousness
+corresponds to the embryonic psychic state; so that the dream state
+represents the renascence of the ego disentangling itself from the
+impersonal sensations and indistinct images of the embryonic stage of
+life. That sleeping consciousness is the primitive embryonic consciousness
+is, indeed, indicated, it has often seemed to me, by the fact that in
+many animals the embryonic position is the position of rest and sleep.
+Ducklings and chicks in the shell have their heads beneath their wing. The
+dog lies with his feet together, head flexed, and hind-quarters drawn up.
+Man, alike in the womb and asleep, tends to be curled up, with the flexors
+predominating over the extensors.
+
+The savage has gone beyond the infant in ability to assimilate the
+impressions of his own limbs, but on the psychic side he still
+constantly tends to objectify his own feelings and ideas, re-creating
+them as external beings. Primitive man has done so from the first, and
+this impulse has struck its roots into all our most fundamental human
+traditions even as they survive in civilisation to-day. The man of
+the early world moves, like the dreamer, among a sea of emotions and
+ideas which he cannot recognise the origin of, and, like the dreamer,
+he instinctively dramatises them. But, unlike the dreamer, he gives
+stability to the images he has thus created and in good faith mistaken
+for independent beings. Thus we have the animistic stages of culture, and
+early man peoples his world with gods and spirits and demons and fairies
+and ghosts which enter into the traditions of his race, and are more or
+less accepted even by a later race which no longer creates them for itself.
+
+In our more advanced civilisations we are still struggling with later
+forms of that Protean tendency to objectify the self and to animate the
+things and even the people around us with our own spirit. The impatient
+and imperfectly bred child, or even man, kicks viciously the object he
+stumbles against, animate or inanimate, in order to revenge a wrong which
+exists only in himself. On a slightly higher plane, the men of mediæval
+times brought actions in the law courts against offending animals and
+solemnly pronounced sentence against them as 'criminals,'[175] while
+even to-day society still 'punishes' the human criminal because it has
+imaginatively re-created him in the image of an ordinary normal person,
+and lacks the intelligence to perceive that he has been moulded by the
+laws of his nature and environment into a creature which we do well to
+protect ourselves against, but have no right to 'punish.'[176] Everywhere
+we still see around us the surviving relics of this primitive tendency
+of men to project their own personalities into external objects. A fine
+civilisation lies largely in the due subordination of this tendency, in
+the realisation and control of our own emotional possibilities, and in the
+resultant growth of personal responsibility.
+
+It is thus impossible to over-estimate the immense importance of the
+primitive symbolic tendency to objectify the subjective. Men have taken
+out of their own hearts their best feelings and their worst feelings,
+and have personalised and dramatised them, bowed down to them or stamped
+on them, unable to hear the voice with which each of their images spoke:
+'I am thyself.' Our conceptions of religion, of morals, of many of the
+mightiest phenomena of life, especially the more exceptional phenomena,
+have grown up under this influence, which still serves to support many
+movements of to-day by some people imagined to be modern.
+
+Dreaming, as we have seen, is not the sole source of such conceptions.
+But they could scarcely have been found convincing, and possibly could
+not even have arisen, among races which were wholly devoid of dream
+experiences. A large part of all progress in psychological knowledge,
+and, indeed, a large part of civilisation itself, lies in realising that
+the apparently objective is really subjective, that the angels and demons
+and geniuses of all sorts that once seemed to be external forces taking
+possession of feeble and vacant individualities are themselves but modes
+of action of marvellously rich and varied personalities. In our dreams we
+are brought back into the magic circle of early culture, and we shrink and
+shudder in the presence of imaginative phantoms that are built up of our
+own thoughts and emotions, and are really our own flesh.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 130: See _e.g._ Galton, _Inquiries_ (Everyman's Library
+edition), pp. 79-112. Among more recent writings on this subject may
+be mentioned Bleuler, art. 'Secondary Sensations,' Tuke's _Dictionary
+of Psychological Medicine;_ Suarez de Mendoza, _L'Audition Colorée;_
+Jules Millet, _Audition Colorée;_ and especially a useful summary by
+Clavière, 'L'Audition Colorée,' _L'Année Psychologique_, fifth year,
+1899. A case of auditory gustation is recorded by A. M. Pierce, _American
+Journal of Psychology_, 1907. It may be noted that Boris Sidis has argued
+(_Psychological Review_, January 1904) that all hallucinations are of the
+nature of secondary sensations.]
+
+[Footnote 131: Ferrero, in his _Lois Psychologiques du Symbolisme_ (1895),
+deals broadly with symbolism in human thought and life.]
+
+[Footnote 132: _Revue Philosophique_, November 1902.]
+
+[Footnote 133: 'Richard Wagner et Tannhauser' in _L'Art Romantique_.]
+
+[Footnote 134: The motor imagery suggested by music is in some persons
+profuse and apparently capricious, and may be regarded as an anomaly
+comparable to a synaesthesia. Heine was an example of this, and he has
+described in _Florentine Nights_ the visions aroused by the playing of
+Paganini, and elsewhere the visions evoked in him by the music of Berlioz.
+Though I do not myself experience this phenomenon, I have found that there
+is sometimes a tendency for music to arouse ideas of motor imagery; thus
+some melodies of Handel suggest a giant painting frescoes on a vast wall
+space. The most elementary motor relationship of music is seen in the
+tendency of many people to sway portions of their body--to 'beat time'--in
+sympathy with the music. (This phenomenon has been experimentally studied
+by J. B. Miner, 'Motor, Visual, and Applied Rhythms,' Monograph Supplement
+to the _Psychological Review_, vol. v., No. 4, June 1903). Music is
+fundamentally an audible dance, and the most primitive music is dance
+music.]
+
+[Footnote 135: The instinctive nature of this tendency is shown by the
+fact that it persists even in sleep. Thus Weygandt relates that he once
+fell asleep in the theatre during one of the last scenes of _Cavalleria
+Rusticana_, when the tenor was singing in ever higher and higher tones,
+and dreamed that in order to reach the notes the performer was climbing up
+ladders and stairs on the stage.]
+
+[Footnote 136: See, especially the attractive book of André Pirro,
+_L'Esthétique de J. S. Bach_ (1907), and also Albert Schweitzer, _J. S.
+Bach_ (1908), especially chapters xix.-xxiii. 'Concrete things,' says
+Ernest Newman, summarising some of these results (_Nation_, December 25,
+1909), 'incessantly suggested abstract ideas or inward moods to Bach, and
+_vice versâ_. He would time after time use the same musical formula for
+the same word or idea. He first suggests the external concepts of "high"
+and "low," as other composers have done, by high or low notes, and motion
+up or down by ascending or descending themes. But Bach correlates with
+the outward, objective thing a whole series of things that are purely
+subjective. Thus moods of elation or of depression are to him the mental
+equivalents of the physical acts of going up or down. So he gives us a
+whole series of ascending themes to words that express "mounting" states
+of mind, as it were--such as pride, courage, strength, resolution--and
+descending themes to words that express "declining" states of mind--such
+as prostration, adoration, depression, discouragement, grief at sin,
+humility, poverty, fatigue, and illness. For the two sets of concepts,
+internal and external, he will use the same musical symbols. To represent
+the physical concept of "surrounding," again, he adopts the device of
+a circling or undulating theme. A crown or a garland suggests the same
+idea to him, so for this, too, he uses the same kind of theme. But
+the correspondence goes still further; for when he comes to the word
+"considering," he uses the same curving musical symbol once more--his
+notion of "considering" being that of looking round on all sides. Again, a
+word of purely external signification that suggests something twisted will
+have an appropriately twisted theme. Then come the subjective applications
+of the theme--the same disordered melodic outline is used to express a
+frame of mind like anxiety or confusion, or to depict the wiles of Satan.
+Careful study of the vocal works of Bach, and especially of the cantatas,
+has revealed a host of these curious symbols.' The whole subject, it may
+be added, has been briefly and suggestively discussed by Goblot, 'La
+Musique Descriptive,' _Revue Philosophique_, July 1901.]
+
+[Footnote 137: T. Piderit, _Mimik und Physiognomik_, 1867, p. 73.]
+
+[Footnote 138: J. Cleland, _Evolution, Expression and Sensation_, 1881.]
+
+[Footnote 139: Féré, 'La Physiologie dans les Métaphores,' _Revue
+Philosophique_, October 1895.]
+
+[Footnote 140: Maeder discusses symbolism in some of these fields in
+his 'Die Symbolik in den Legenden, Märchen, Gebräuchen und Träumen,'
+_Psychiatrisch-Neurologische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 6 and 7, May 1908.]
+
+[Footnote 141: So Philostratus, and Pliny (_Natural History_, Bk. X. ch.
+CCXI.) puts the same point on somewhat more natural grounds.]
+
+[Footnote 142: It has been translated by F. S. Krauss, _Symbolik der
+Träume_, 1881.]
+
+[Footnote 143: A translation of Synesius's 'Treatise on Dreams' is
+included in Druon's _Œuvres de Synésius_, pp. 347 _et seq._ Synesius is
+probably best known to modern English readers through Charles Kingsley's
+novel, _Hypatia_. His treatise on dreams has been unduly neglected, though
+it commended itself mightily to the pioneering mind of Lord Monboddo, who
+even says (_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. ii., 1782, p. 217) in reference
+to this treatise: 'Indeed it appears to me that since the days of Plato
+and Aristotle there has not been a philosopher of greater depth than
+Synesius.']
+
+[Footnote 144: K. A. Scherner, _Das Leben des Traumes_, 1861. In France
+Hervey de Saint-Denis, in a remarkable anonymous work which I have
+not seen (_Les Rêves et les Moyens de les Diriger_, p. 356, quoted by
+Vaschide and Piéron, _Psychologie du Rêve_, p. 26), tentatively put
+forward a symbolic theory of dreams, as a possible rival to the theory
+that permanent associations are set up as the result of a first chance
+coincidence. 'Do there exist,' he asked, 'bizarre analogies of internal
+sensations in virtue of which certain vibrations of the nerves, certain
+instinctive movements of our viscera, correspond to sensations apparently
+quite different? According to this hypothesis experience would bring
+to light mysterious affinities, the knowledge of which might become a
+genuine science;... and a real key to dreams would not be an unrealisable
+achievement if we could bring together and compare a sufficient number of
+observations.']
+
+[Footnote 145: It is interesting to note that hallucinations may
+also be symbolic. Thus the Psychical Research Society's Committee on
+Hallucinations recognised a symbolic group, and recorded, for instance,
+the case of a man who, when his child lies dying, sees a blue flame in the
+air and hears a voice say, 'That's his soul' (_Proceedings Society for
+Psychical Research_, August 1894, p. 125).]
+
+[Footnote 146: Maeder states that the tendency to symbolism in dreams and
+similar modes of psychic activity is due to 'vague thinking in a condition
+of diminished attention.' This is, however, an inadequate statement and
+misses the central point.]
+
+[Footnote 147: In the other spheres in which symbolism most tends to
+appear, the same or allied conditions exist. In hallucinations, which (as
+Parish and others have shown) tend to occur in hypnagogic or sleep-like
+states, the conditions are clearly the same. The symbolism of an art, and
+notably music, is due to the very conditions of the art, which exclude
+any appeal to other senses. The primitive mind reaches symbolism through
+a similar condition of things, coming as the result of ignorance and
+undeveloped powers of apperception. In insanity these powers are morbidly
+disturbed or destroyed, with the same result.]
+
+[Footnote 148: The magnification we experience in dreams is manifested
+in their emotional aspects and in the emotional transformation of
+actual sensory stimuli, from without or from within the organism. The
+size of objects recalled by dreaming memory usually remains unchanged,
+and if changed it seems to be more usually diminished. 'Lilliputian
+hallucinations,' as they are termed by Leroy, who has studied them (_Revue
+de Psychiatrie_, 1909, No. 8), in which diminutive, and frequently
+coloured, people are observed, may also occasionally occur in alcoholic
+and chloral intoxication, in circular insanity, and in various other
+morbid mental conditions. They are usually agreeable in character.]
+
+[Footnote 149: Sollier, 'L'Autoscopie Interne,' _Revue Philosophique_,
+January 1903. Sollier deals with the objections made to the reality of the
+phenomenon.]
+
+[Footnote 150: 'Many people,' writes Dr. Marie de Manacéïne (_Sleep_,
+1897, p. 294), 'when threatened by a gastric or intestinal attack dream
+of seeing fish. The late Professor Sergius Botkine told me that he had
+found this coincidence in his own case, and I have myself several times
+found it in the case of a young girl who is well known to me. Some have
+supposed that the sleeping consciousness receives an impression of the
+elongated shape of the stomach or intestine; but such a supposition is
+easier to make than to prove.' Scherner associated dreams of fish with
+sensations arising from the bladder, and here also it may be said that we
+are concerned with a fish-like viscus. Greenwood (_Imagination in Dreams_,
+p. 195) stated that he had always been subject, at intervals of months
+or years, to a recurrent dream in which he would see a river swarming
+with fish that were finally piled in a horrible sweltering mass; this
+dream always left a feeling of 'squalid horror,' but he was never able to
+ascertain its cause and significance.]
+
+[Footnote 151: Freud states (_Die Traumdeutung_, p. 233) that he knows a
+case in which (as in the _Song of Songs_) columns and pillars appear in
+dreams as symbols of the legs, and doors as symbols of the openings of the
+body.]
+
+[Footnote 152: Freud, _Die Traumdeutung_, p. 66. This work, published
+in 1900, is the chief and most extensive statement of Freud's views. A
+shorter statement is embodied in a little volume of the 'Grenzfrägen'
+Series, _Ueber den Traum_, 1901. A brief exposition of Freud's position
+is given by Dr. A. Maeder of Zurich in 'Essai d'Interpretation de
+Quelques Rêves,' _Archives de Psychologie_, April 1907; as also by
+Ernest Jones ('Freud's Theory of Dreams,' _Review of Neurology and
+Psychiatry_, March 1910, and _American Journal of Psychology_, April
+1910). For Freud's general psychological doctrine, see Brill's translation
+of 'Freud's Selected Papers on Hysteria,' 1909. There have been many
+serious criticisms of Freud's methods. As an example of such criticism,
+accompanying an exposition of the methods, reference may be made to Max
+Isserlin's 'Die Psychoanalytische Methode Freuds,' _Zeitschrift für die
+Gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie_, Bd. 1. Heft i. 1910. A judicious
+and qualified criticism of Freud's psychotherapeutic methods is given by
+Löwenfeld ('Zum gegenwärtigen Stande der Psychotherapeutie,' _Münchener
+medizinische Wochenschrift_, Nos. 3 and 4, 1910).]
+
+[Footnote 153: I have set forth Freud's views of hysteria, now regarded as
+almost epoch-making in character, in _Studies of the Psychology of Sex_,
+vol. i. 3rd ed. pp. 219 _et seq._]
+
+[Footnote 154: This is supported by the fact that in waking reverie, or
+day-dreams, wishes are obviously the motor force in building up visionary
+structures. Freud attaches great importance to reverie, for he considers
+that it furnishes the key to the comprehension of dreams (_e.g._ _Sammlung
+disturbances Captain Peasley made his way shoreward from the ship to
+scan the scene, and the sight of his uniform excited the ire of the
+strikers afresh. After a glance over the mob, he remarked to Emerson:
+
+"Bli'me! It looks like a bloody riot already, doesn't it? Four hundred
+pounds to those dock wallopers! Huh! You know if I allowed them to
+bleed me that way--"
+
+At that instant, from some quarter, a railroad spike whizzed past the
+Captain's head, banging against the boards behind him with such a thump
+that the dignified Englishman ducked quickly amid a shout of derision.
+He began to curse them roundly in his own particular style.
+
+"You'd better keep under cover, Captain," advised Emerson. "They don't
+seem to care for you."
+
+"So it would appear," he agreed. "They're getting nawsty, aren't they?
+I hope it doesn't lawst."
+
+"Well, I hope it does," said George Balt. "If they'll only keep at it
+and beat up some of our boys at quitting-time the whole gang will be
+here in the morning."
+
+It seemed that his wishes bade fair to be realized, for, as the day
+wore on, instead of diminishing, the excitement increased. By evening
+it became so menacing that Boyd was forced to send in an urgent demand
+for a squadron of bluecoats to escort his men to their lodgings, and it
+was only by the most vigorous efforts that a serious clash was averted.
+Nor was this task the easier since it did not meet with the approval of
+the fishermen themselves, who keenly resented protection of any sort.
+
+True to George's prediction, the next morning found the non union men
+out in such force that they were divided into a night and a day crew,
+half of them being sent back to report later, while among the mountains
+of freight the work went forward faster than ever. But the night had
+served to point the anger of the strikers, and the dock owners,
+becoming alarmed for the safety of their property, joined with Emerson
+in establishing a force of a dozen able-bodied guards, armed with
+clubs, to assist the police in disputing the shore line with the
+rioters. The police themselves had proved ineffective, even betraying a
+half-hearted sympathy with the union men, who were not slow to profit
+by it. Even so, the day passed rather quietly, as did the next. But in
+time the agitation became so general as to paralyze a wide section of
+the water-front, and the city awoke to the realization that a serious
+conflict was in progress. The handful of fishermen, hidden under the
+roof of the great warehouse, outnumbered twenty to one, and guarded
+only by a thin line of pickets, became a centre of general interest.
+
+As the violence of the mob, stimulated rather than checked by the
+indifference of the police, became more openly daring, so likewise did
+the reprisals of the fishermen, goaded now to a stubborn rage. They
+would not hear to having their food brought to them, but insisted daily
+on emerging in a body at noon and spending the hour in combat. Not to
+speak of the physical disabilities they incurred in these affrays, the
+excitement distracted them and affected their work disastrously, to the
+great concern of their employer.
+
+It was on the fourth day that Boyd espied the man in the gray suit
+among the strikers and pointed him out to his three companions, Clyde
+and Fraser having joined him and George in a spirit of curiosity. Clyde
+was for immediately executing a sally to capture the fellow, explaining
+that once they had him inside the dock-house they could beat him until
+he confessed that Marsh was behind the strike, but his valor shrank
+amazingly when Fraser maliciously suggested that he himself lead the
+dash.
+
+"No!" he exclaimed. "I'm not a fighting man, but I'm a good general.
+You know, Napoleon was about my size."
+
+"I never noticed the resemblance," remarked Fraser.
+
+"All the same, your idea ain't so bad," said Balt. "There's somebody
+stirring those fellows up, and I think it's that detective. I wouldn't
+mind getting my hands on him, and if you'll all stick with me I'll go
+out after him."
+
+"Not for mine," hastily declared "Fingerless" Fraser. "I don't want to
+fight anybody. I'm here as a spectator."
+
+"You're not afraid?" questioned Emerson.
+
+"Not exactly afraid, but what's the use of my getting mixed up in this
+row? It ain't _my_ cannery."
+
+Now, while a mob is by nature noisy and threatening, there is little
+real danger in it until its diffusive violence is directed into one
+channel by a leader. Then, indeed, it becomes a terrible thing, and to
+the watchers at the dock it became evident, in time, that a guiding
+influence was at work among their enemies. Sure enough, late in the
+afternoon of the fourth day, without a moment's warning, the strikers
+rushed in a body, bearing down the guards like reeds. They came so
+unexpectedly that there was no time to muster reinforcements at the
+gate; almost before the fishermen could drop their tasks, their enemies
+were inside the building and pandemonium had broken loose. The
+structure rocked to the tumult of pounding heels, of yells and
+imprecations, the lofty roof serving to toss back and magnify the
+uproar.
+
+Emerson and his companions found themselves carried away before the
+onslaught like chips in the surf, then sucked into a maelstrom where
+the first duty was self-preservation. Behind locked doors and shivering
+glass a terrified office-clerk, receiver to ear, was calling madly for
+Police Headquarters, while in the main building itself the crowd
+bellowed and roared and the hollow floor reverberated to the thunder of
+trampling feet and the crash of tumbling freight-piles.
+
+Boyd succeeded in keeping his footing and eventually fought his way to
+a backing of crated machinery, where he stooped and ripped a cleat
+loose; then, laying about him with this weapon, he cleared a space. It
+was already difficult to distinguish friend from foe, but he saw Alton
+Clyde go down a short distance away and made a rush to rescue him. His
+pine slat splintered against a head, he dodged a missile, then struck
+with the fragment in his hand, and, snatching Clyde by the arm, dragged
+him out from under foot. Battered and bruised, the two won back to
+Emerson's first position, and watched the tide surge past.
+
+At the first alarm the fishermen had armed themselves with bale-hooks
+and bludgeons, and for a time worked havoc among their assailants; but
+as the fight became more general they were forced apart and drawn into
+the crowd, whereupon the combatants split up into groups, milling about
+like frightened cattle. Men broke out from these struggling clusters to
+nurse their injuries or beat a retreat, only to be overrun and
+swallowed up again in a new commotion.
+
+Emerson saw the big, barefooted fisherman in the red underclothes,
+armed with a sledge-hammer, go through the ranks of his enemies like a
+tornado, only to be struck by some missile hurled from a distance. With
+a shout of rage the fellow turned and flung his own weapon at his
+assailant, felling him like an ox, then he in turn was blotted out by a
+surge of rioters. But there was little time for observation, as the
+scene was changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity and there was the
+ever-present necessity of self-protection. Seeing Clyde's helpless
+condition, Emerson shouted:
+
+"Come on! I'll help you aboard the ship." He found a hardwood club
+beneath his feet--one of those cudgels that are used in pounding
+rope-slings and hawsers--and with it cleared a pathway for Clyde and
+himself. But while still at a distance from the ship's gangway, he
+suddenly spied the man in the gray suit, who had climbed upon one of
+the freight-piles, whence he was scanning the crowd. The man likewise
+recognized Emerson, and pointed him out, crying something
+unintelligible in the tumult, then leaped down from his vantage-point.
+The next instant Boyd saw him approaching, followed by several others.
+He endeavored to hustle Clyde to the big doors ahead of the oncomers,
+but being intercepted, backed against the shed wall barely in time to
+beat off the foremost.
+
+His nearest assailant had armed himself with an iron bar and endeavored
+to guard the first blow with this instrument, but it flew from his
+grasp, and he sustained the main force of the impact on his forearm.
+Then, though Boyd fell back farther, the others rushed in and he found
+himself hard beset. What happened thereafter neither he nor Alton
+Clyde, who was half-dazed to begin with, ever clearly remembered, for
+in such over-charged instants the mental photograph is wont to be
+either unusually distinct or else fogged to such a blur that only the
+high-lights stand out clearly in retrospect.
+
+Before he had recognized the personal nature of the assault, Emerson
+found himself engaged in a furious hand-to-hand struggle where a want
+of room hampered the free use of his cudgel, and he was forced to rely
+mainly upon his fists. Blows were rained upon him from unguarded
+quarters, he was kicked, battered, and flung about, his blind instinct
+finally leading him to clinch with whomsoever his hands encountered.
+Then a sudden blackness swallowed him up, after which he found himself
+upon his knees, his arms loosely encircling a pair of legs, and
+realized that he had been half-stunned by a blow from behind. The legs
+he was clutching tried to kick him loose, at which he summoned all his
+strength, knowing that he must go down no further; but as he struggled
+upward, something smote him in the side with sickening force, and he
+went to his knees again.
+
+Close beside him he saw the club he had dropped, and endeavored to
+reach it; but before he could do so, a hand snatched it away and he
+heard a voice cursing above him. A second time he tried to rise, but
+his shocked nerves failed to transmit the impulse to his muscles; he
+could only raise his shoulder and fling an arm weakly above his head in
+anticipation of the crushing blow he knew was coming. But it did not
+descend, Instead, he heard a gun shot--that sound for which his ears
+had been strained from the first--and then for an instant he wondered
+if it had been directed at himself. A weight sank across his calves,
+the legs he had been holding broke away from his grasp; then, with a
+final effort, he pulled himself free and staggered to his feet, his
+head rocking, his knees sagging. He saw a man's figure facing him, and
+lunged at it, to bring up in the arms of "Fingerless" Fraser, who cried
+sharply:
+
+"Are you hurt, Bo?"
+
+Too dazed to answer, he turned and beheld the body of a man stretched
+face downward on the floor. Beyond, the fellow in the gray suit was
+disappearing into the crowd. Even yet Boyd did not realize whence the
+shot had come, although the smell of powder was sharp in his nostrils.
+Then he saw a gleam of blue metal in Fraser's hands.
+
+"Give me that gun!" he panted, but his deliverer held him off.
+
+"I may need it myself, and I ain't got but the one here! Let's get
+Clyde out of this."
+
+Stepping over the motionless form at his feet, Fraser lifted the young
+club-man, who was huddled in a formless heap as if he had fallen from a
+great height, and together the two dragged him toward _The Bedford
+Castle_. As they went aboard, they were nearly run down by a body of
+reinforcements that Captain Peasley had finally mustered from between
+decks. Down the gang-plank and over the side they poured, grimy
+stokers, greasy oilers, and swearing deckhands, equipped with
+capstan-bars, wrenches, and marlin-spikes. Without waiting to observe
+the effect of these new-comers, Boyd and Fraser bundled Alton into the
+first cabin at hand, then turned back.
+
+"Better stay here and look after him. You're all in, yourself," the
+adventurer advised. "I'm going to hunt up George."
+
+He was away on the instant, with Boyd staggering after him, still weak
+and shaking, the vague discomfort of running blood at the back of his
+neck, muttering thickly as he went: "Give me your gun, Fraser! Give me
+your gun!"
+
+The battle was still raging when the police arrived, after an
+interminable delay, and it ceased only at the rough play of
+night-sticks, and after repeated charges of the uniformed men had
+broken up the ranks of the strikers. The dock was cleared at length,
+and wagon-loads of bleeding, struggling combatants rolled away to jail,
+union and non-union men bundled in together. But work was not resumed
+that day, despite the fact that Big George, bruised, ragged, and torn,
+doubled his force of pickets and took personal charge of them.
+
+That night, under glaring headlines, the evening papers told the story,
+reporting one fisherman fatally hurt, one striker dead of a gunshot
+wound, and many others injured.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+WILLIS MARSH SPRINGS A TRAP
+
+
+The ensuing days were strenuous ones for the partners, working as they
+did, with a crippled force and under constant guard. Riot was in the
+air, and violence on every side. By the police, whose apathy
+disappeared only when an opportunity occurred of arresting the men they
+were supposed to protect, they were more handicapped than helped. The
+appearance of a fisherman at any point along the water-front became a
+sure signal for strife.
+
+Day by day the feeling on both sides grew stronger, till the non-union
+men were cemented together in a spirit of bitterest indignation, which
+materially lessened their zeal for work. Every act of violence
+intensified their rage. They armed themselves, in defiance of orders,
+tossed restraint to the winds, and sought the slightest opportunity of
+wreaking vengeance upon their enemies. Nor were the rioters less
+determined. Authority, after all, is but a hollow shell, which, once
+broken, is quickly disintegrated. Fierce engagements took place,
+populating the hospitals. It became necessary to guard all property in
+the warehouse districts, and men ceased to venture there alone after
+dark.
+
+One circumstance caused Boyd no little surprise and uneasiness--the
+fact that no vigorous effort had been made to fix the blame for the
+striker's death on that riotous afternoon. Surely, he reasoned, Marsh's
+detective must have witnessed the killing, and must recognize the ease
+with which the act could now be saddled upon him. If delay were their
+object, Emerson could not understand why they did not seek to have him
+arrested. The consequences might well be serious if Marsh's money were
+used; but, as the days slipped past and nothing occurred, he decided
+that he had been overfearful on this score, or else that the manager of
+the Packers' Trust had limits beyond which he would not push his
+persecution.
+
+A half-mile from Captain Peasley's ship, the rival Company tenders were
+loading rapidly with union labor, and it seemed that in spite of Boyd's
+plan to be first at Kalvik, Marsh's force would beat him to the ground
+unless greater efforts were made. When he communicated these fears to
+Big George, the fisherman suddenly became a slave-driver. He passed
+among his men, cajoling, threatening, bribing, and they began to work
+like demons, with the result that when the twentieth arrived he was
+able to announce to his partner that the work would be finished some
+time during the following morning.
+
+The next day Emerson and Clyde drove down to the dock with Cherry in a
+closed carriage, experiencing no annoyance beyond some jeers and
+insults as they passed through the picket line. Boyd had barely seen
+them comfortably established on board, when up the ship's gangway came
+"Fingerless" Fraser radiantly attired, three heavily laden hotel
+porters groaning at his back, the customary thick-waisted cigar between
+his teeth.
+
+"Are you going with us?" Boyd inquired.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"See here. Is life one long succession of surprise parties with you?"
+
+"Why, I've figgered on this right along."
+
+"But the ship is jammed now. There is no room."
+
+"Oh, I fixed that up long ago. I am going to bunk with the steward."
+
+"Well, why in the world didn't you let us know you were coming?"
+
+"Say, don't kid yourself. You knew I couldn't stay behind." Fraser blew
+a cloud of smoke airily. "I never start anything I can't finish, I keep
+telling you, and I'm going to put this deal through, now that I've got
+it started." With a half-embarrassed laugh and a complete change of
+manner, he laid his hand upon Boyd's shoulder, saying: "Pal, I ain't
+much good to myself or anybody else, but I like you and I want to stick
+around. Maybe I'll come in useful yet--you can't tell."
+
+Emerson had never glimpsed this side of the man's nature, and it rather
+surprised him.
+
+"Of course you can come along, old man," he responded, heartily. "We're
+glad to have you."
+
+To one who has never witnessed the spring sailing of a Northern
+cannery-tender, the event is well worth seeing; it is one of the
+curiosities of the Seattle water-front. Not only is there the
+inevitable confusion involved in the departure of an overloaded craft,
+but likewise there is all the noisy excitement that attends a shipment
+of Oriental troops.
+
+The Chinese maintain such a clatter as to drown the hoarse cries of the
+stevedores, the complaint of the creaking tackle, and the rumble of the
+winches. They scurry hither and yon like a distracted army, forever in
+the way, shouting, clacking, squealing in senseless turmoil. They are
+timid as to the water, and for them a voyage is at all times beset with
+many alarms. It is no more possible to restrain them than to calm a
+frightened herd of wild pigs, nor will they embark at all until their
+frenzy has run its course and died of its own exhaustion. To discipline
+them according to the seamen's standard is inadvisable, for many of
+them are "cutters," big, evil, saffron-hued fellows, whose trade it is
+to butcher and in whose dextrous hands a knife becomes a frightful
+weapon.
+
+The Japs, ordinarily so noiseless and submissive, yield to the
+contagion and add their share to the uproar. Each man carries a few
+pounds of baggage in bundles or packs or valises, and these scanty
+belongings he guards with shrieking solicitude.
+
+While the pandemonium of the Orientals who gathered to board _The
+Bedford Castle_ was sufficient in itself to cause consternation, it was
+as nothing to that which broke loose when the fishermen began to
+assemble. To a man they were drunk, belligerent and, declamatory. A
+few, to be sure, were still busy with the tag ends of the cargo, but
+the majority had gone to their lodgings for their packs, and now
+reappeared in a state of the wildest exuberance; for this would be
+their last spree of the season, and before them lay a period of long,
+sleepless nights, exposure, and unceasing labor, wherein a year's work
+must be crowded into three months. They, therefore, inaugurated the
+change in befitting style.
+
+On the whole, no explosive has ever been invented that is so noisy in
+its effect, so furiously expansive in its action, as the fumes of cheap
+whiskey. The great dock-shed soon began to reverberate to the wildest
+clamor, which added to the fury of the crowd outside. The strikers,
+unable to enter the building, flowed down upon the adjoining wharf, or
+clambered to the roofs nearby, whence they jeered insultingly. Among
+them was a newspaper photographer, bent on securing an unusual picture
+for his publication, and in truth the scene from this point of view was
+sufficiently novel and striking.
+
+The decks of the big, low-lying tramp steamer were piled high with gear
+of every description. A trio of stout tow-boats were blocked up
+amidships, long piles of lumber rose higher than a man's head, and the
+roofs of the deck-houses were jammed with fishing-boats nested, one
+inside the other, like pots in a kitchen. Every available inch was
+crowded with cases of gasoline, of groceries, and of the varied
+provisions required on an expedition of this magnitude. Aft, on rows of
+hooks, were suspended the carcasses of sheep and bullocks and hogs;
+there seemed to be nowhere another foot of available room. The red
+water-line of the ship was already submerged, yet notwithstanding this
+fact her derricks clanged noisily, her booms swung back and forth, and
+her gaping hatches swallowed momentary loads. Those fishermen who had
+come aboard early had settled like flies in the rigging, whence they
+taunted their enemies, hurling back insult for insult.
+
+It was much like the departure of a gold steamer during the early
+famine stages of the northward stampede, save that now there were no
+women, while the confusion was immeasurably greater, and through it all
+might be felt a certain strained and angry menace. All the long
+afternoon _The Bedford Castle_ lay at her moorings subjected to the
+customary eleventh-hour delays. As the time dragged on, and the liquor
+died in the fishermen, it became a herculean task to prevent them from
+issuing forth into the street, while the crowds outside seemed
+possessed of a desperate determination to force an entrance and bring
+the issue to a final settlement. But across the shore end of the dock a
+double cordon was drawn which hurled back the intruders at every
+advance.
+
+The fishermen who remained inside the barnlike structure, unable to
+come at their enemies, fought among themselves, bidding fair to wreck
+the building in the extravagance of their delirium, while outside the
+rival faction kept up a fire of missiles and execrations. As the hours
+crept onward the tension increased, and at last Boyd turned to Captain
+Peasley saying, "You'd better be ready to pull out at any minute, for
+if the mob breaks in we'll never be able to hold these maniacs." He
+pointed to the black swarm aloft, whence issued hoarse waves of sound.
+"I don't like the look of things, a little bit."
+
+"They are a trifle strained, to be sure," the Captain acknowledged.
+"I'll stand by to cast off at your signal, so you'd better pass the
+word around."
+
+Boyd left the ship and went to the dock-office, for there still
+remained one thing to be done: he could not leave without sounding a
+final note of triumph for Mildred. How sweet it would be to her ears he
+knew full well, yet he could not help wondering if she would feel the
+thrill that mastered him at this moment. As he saw the empty spaces
+where had stood those masses of freight which he had gathered at such
+cost, as he heard his own men bellowing defiance at his enemies and
+realized that his first long stride toward success had been taken, his
+heart swelled with gladness and the breath caught momentarily in his
+throat. After all, he was going to win! Out of the shimmering distance
+of his desire, the lady of his dreams drew closer to him; and ere long
+he could lay at her feet the burden of his travail, and then--.
+Oblivious to the turmoil all about, he wrote rapidly, almost
+incoherently, to Mildred, transcribing the mood of mingled tenderness
+and exultation which possessed him.
+
+"Outside the building," he concluded, "there is a raging mob. They
+would ruin me if they could, but they can't do it, they can't do it. We
+have beaten them all, my lady. We have won!"
+
+He was sealing his letter, when, without warning, "Fingerless" Fraser
+appeared at his side, his fishlike eyes agleam, his colorless face
+drawn with anxiety.
+
+"They've come to grab you for killing that striker," he began,
+breathlessly; "there's a couple of 'square-toes' on the dock now.
+Better take it on the 'lam'--quick!"
+
+"God!" So Marsh had withheld this stroke until the last moment, when
+the least delay would be fatal. Boyd knew that if he were brought into
+court he would have hard shift to clear himself against the mass of
+perjured testimony that his rival had doubtless gathered; but even this
+seemed as nothing in comparison with the main issue. For one wild
+instant he considered sending George Balt on with the ship. That would
+be folly, no doubt; yet plainly he could not hold _The Bedford Castle_
+and keep together that raging army of fishermen while he fought his way
+through the tedious vexations of a trial. He saw that he had
+under-estimated his enemy's cunning, and he realized that, if Marsh had
+planned this move, he would press his advantage to the full.
+
+"There's two plain-clothes men," he heard Fraser running on. "I 'made'
+'em as they were talking to Peasley. You'd better 'beat' it, quick!"
+
+"How? I couldn't get through that crowd. They know me. Listen!" Outside
+the street broke into a roar at some taunt of the fishermen high up in
+the rigging. "I can't run away, and if those detectives get me I'm
+ruined."
+
+"Well! What's to be done?" demanded Fraser, sharply. "If you say the
+word, we'll shoot it out with them, and get away on the ship before--"
+
+"We can't do that--there are a dozen policemen in front here."
+
+"Well, you'll have to move quick, or they'll 'cop' you, sure."
+
+Boyd clinched his hands in desperation. "I guess they've got me," he
+said, bitterly. "There's no way out."
+
+His eyes fell upon the letter containing his boastful assurance of
+victory. What a mockery!
+
+"From what they said I don't think they know you," Fraser continued.
+"Anyhow, they wanted Peasley to point you out. When they come off,
+maybe you can slip 'em."
+
+"But how?" Boyd seized eagerly upon the suggestion. "The wharf is
+empty--see! I'll have to cross it in plain sight."
+
+Through the rear door of the office that opened upon the dock proper
+they beheld the great floor almost entirely clear. Save for a few tons
+of freight at which Big George's men were working, it was as
+unobstructed as a lawn; and, although it was nearly the size of a city
+block, it afforded no more means of concealment than did the little
+office itself, with its glass doors, its counter, and its long desk, at
+the farther end of which a bill-clerk was poring over his task.
+Iron-barred windows at the front of the room looked out upon the
+street; other windows and a door at the right opened upon the driveway
+and railroad track, while at the rear the glass-panelled door through
+which they had just been peering gave egress only to the dock itself,
+up which the two officers were likely to come at any instant. Even as
+Emerson, with a last desperate glance, summed up the possible places of
+concealment, Fraser exclaimed, softly:
+
+"There they are now!" and they saw at the foot of the gang-plank two
+men talking with Big George. They saw Balt point the strangers
+carelessly to the office, whence he had seen Boyd disappearing a few
+moments before, and turn back to his stevedores; then they saw the
+plain-clothes men approaching.
+
+"Here! Gimme your coat and hat, quick!" cried Fraser in a low voice,
+his eyes blazing at a sudden, thought. He stripped his own garments
+from his back with feverish haste. "Put mine on. There! I'll stall for
+you. When they grab me, take it on the run. Understand!"
+
+"That won't do. Everybody knows me." Boyd cast an apprehensive glance
+at the arched back of the bill-clerk, but Fraser, quick of resource in
+such a situation, forced him swiftly to make the change, saying:
+
+"Nix. It's your only 'out.' Stand here, see!" He indicated a position
+beside the rear door. "I'll step out the other way where they can see
+me," he continued, pointing to the wagon-way at the right. "Savvy? When
+they grab me, you beat it, and don't wait for nothing."
+
+"But you--"
+
+Already they could hear the footsteps of the officers.
+
+"I'll take a chance. Good-bye."
+
+There was no time even for a hand-shake; Fraser stepped swiftly to the
+door, then strolled quietly out into the view of the two men, who an
+instant later accosted him.
+
+"Are you Mr. Boyd Emerson?"
+
+The adventurer answered brusquely, "Yes, but I can't talk to you now."
+
+"You are under arrest, Mr. Emerson."
+
+Boyd waited to hear no more. The glass door swung open noiselessly
+under his hand, and he stepped out just as the bill-clerk looked up
+from his work, staring out through the other entrance.
+
+"Fingerless" Fraser's voice was louder now, as if for a signal. "Arrest
+me? What do you mean? Get out of my way."
+
+"You'd better come peaceably."
+
+Boyd heard a sharp exclamation--"Get him, Bill!" And then the sound of
+men struggling. He ran, followed by a roar from the strikers, in whose
+full view Fraser's encounter with the plain-clothes men was taking
+place. A backward glance showed him that Fraser had drawn his pursuers
+to the street. He had broken away and dodged out into the open, where
+the other officers responded at a call and seized him as he apparently
+undertook to break through the cordon. This diversion served an
+unexpected purpose. Not only did it draw attention from Emerson's
+retreat, but it also gave the mob its long-awaited opportunity.
+Recognizing in the officers' quarry the supposed figure of Emerson, the
+hated cause of all this strife, the strikers gave vent to a great shout
+of rage and triumph, and surged forward across the wide street,
+carrying the police before them with irresistible force.
+
+In a moment it became not a question of keeping the entrance to the
+wharf, but of protecting the life of the prisoner, and the policemen
+rallied with their backs to the wall, their clubs working havoc with
+the heads that came within striking distance.
+
+Scarcely had Boyd reached Big George, when a wing of the besieging army
+swept in through the unguarded entrance and down the dock like an
+avalanche, leaving behind them the battling officers and the hungry
+pack clamoring for the prisoner.
+
+"Drop that freight, and get aboard the best way you can!" Boyd yelled
+at the fishermen, and with a bound was out into the open crying to
+Captain Peasley on the bridge:
+
+"Here they come! Cast off, for God's sake!"
+
+Instantly a wild cry of rage and defiance rose from the clotted rigging
+and upper works of _The Bedford Castle_. Down the fishermen swarmed,
+ready to over-flow the sides of the ship, but, with a sharp order to
+George, Boyd ran up the gang-plank and rushed along the rail to a
+commanding position in the path of his men, where, drawing his
+revolver, he roared at them to keep back, threatening the first to go
+ashore. His lungs were bursting from his sprint, and it was with
+difficulty that his voice rose above the turmoil; but he presented such
+a figure of determination that the men paused, and then the steamship
+whistle interrupted opportunely, with a deafening blast.
+
+The dozen men who had been slinging freight on the dock hastened up the
+gang-plank or climbed the fenders, while the signal-man clung to the
+lifting tackle, and, at the piping cry of his whistle, was swung aloft
+out of the very arms of the rioters.
+
+Above, on the flying bridge, Captain Peasley was bellowing orders; a
+quartermaster was running up the iron steps to the pilot-house; on deck
+the sailors were fighting their way to their posts through the ranks of
+the raging fishermen and the shrieking confusion of the Orientals; the
+last men aboard, with a "Heave Ho!" in unison, slid the gang-plank
+upward and out of reach. The neighboring roofs, lately so black, were
+emptying now, the onlookers hastening to join in the attack.
+
+Big George alone remained upon the wharf. As he saw the rush coming he
+had ordered his men to abandon their load; then he ran to the
+after-mooring, and, taking slack from a deck hand, cast it off. Back up
+the dock he went to the forward hawser, where, at a signal, he did the
+same, moving, toward the last, without excessive hurry, as if in a
+spirit of bravado. The ship was clear, and he had not cut a hawser. He
+had done his work; all but a ton or two of the cargo was stowed. There
+was no longer cause for delay.
+
+"Get aboard! Are you mad?" Emerson shouted, but the cry never reached
+him. Back he came slowly, in front of the press, secure in his
+tremendous strength, defiance in his every move, a smouldering
+challenge in his eyes; and noting that gigantic frame with its
+square-hewn, flaming face, not one of his enemies dared oppose him. But
+as he passed they yapped and snarled and jostled at his heels, hungry
+to rend him and only lacking courage.
+
+As yet the ship, although throbbing to the first pulsations of her
+engines, lay snug along the piling, but gradually her stern swung off
+and a wedge of clearance showed. Almost imperceptibly she drew back and
+rubbed against the timbers. A fender began to squeeze and complain. The
+dock planking creaked. Sixty seconds more and she would be out of
+arm's-reach, and still George made no haste. Again Boyd shouted at him,
+and then with one farewell glower over his shoulder the big fellow
+mounted a pile, stretched his arms upward to the bulwarks, and swung
+himself lightly aboard.
+
+Even yet Emerson's anxiety was of the keenest; for, notwithstanding the
+stress of these dragging moments, he had not forgotten Fraser, the
+vagabond, the morally twisted rascal, to whose courage and
+resourcefulness he owed so much. He strained his eyes for a glimpse of
+the fellow, at the same time dreading the sight of a uniform. Would the
+ship never get under way and out of hailing distance? If those officers
+had discovered their mistake, they might yet have time to stop him. He
+vowed desperately that he would not let them, not if he had to take
+_The Bedford Castle_ to sea with a gun at the back of her helmsman. He
+made his way hurriedly to the bridge, where he hastily explained to
+Captain Peasley his evasion of the officers; and here he found Cherry,
+her face flushed, her eyes sparkling with excitement, but far too wise
+to speak to him in his present state of mind.
+
+A scattered shower of missiles came aboard as the strikers kept pace
+with the steamer to the end of the slip, exciting the fishermen, who
+had again mounted the rigging, to a simian frenzy. Oaths, insults, and
+jeers were hurled back and forth; but as the big steamer gathered
+momentum and slid out of her berth, they grew gradually more
+indistinct, until at last they became muffled, broken, and meaningless.
+Even then the rival ranks continued to volley profanely at each other,
+while the Captain, with hand on the whistle-rope, blew taunting blasts;
+nor did the fishermen descend from their perches until the forms on the
+dock had blurred together and the city lay massed in the distance, tier
+upon tier, against the gorgeous evening sky.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN WHICH A MUTINY IS THREATENED
+
+
+Even after they were miles down the Sound, Boyd remained at his post,
+sweeping the waters astern in an anxious search for some swift harbor
+craft, the appearance of which would signal that his escape had been
+discovered.
+
+"I won't feel safe until we are past Port Townsend," he confessed to
+Cherry, who maintained a position at his side.
+
+"Why Port Townsend? We don't stop there."
+
+"No. But the police can wire on from Seattle to stop us and take me off
+at that point."
+
+"If they find out their mistake."
+
+"They must have found it out long ago. That's why I've got Peasley
+forcing this old tub; she's doing ten knots, and that's a breakneck
+speed for her. Once we're through the Straits, I'll be satisfied. But
+meanwhile--" Emerson lowered his glasses with a sigh of fatigue, and in
+the soft twilight the girl saw that his face was lined and careworn.
+The yearning at her heart lent poignant sympathy to her words, as she
+said:
+
+"You deserve to win, Boyd; you have made a good fight."
+
+"Oh, I'll win!" he declared, wearily. "I've got to win; only I wish we
+were past Port Townsend."
+
+"What will happen to Fraser?" she queried.
+
+"Nothing serious, I am sure. You see, they wanted me, and nobody else;
+once they find they have the wrong man I rather believe they will free
+him in disgust."
+
+A moment later he went on: "Just the same, it makes me feel depressed
+and guilty to leave him--I--I wouldn't desert a comrade for anything if
+the choice lay with me."
+
+"You did quite right," Cherry warmly assured him.
+
+"You see, I am not working for myself; I am doing this for another."
+
+It was the girl's turn to sigh softly, while the eyes she turned toward
+the west were strangely sad and dreamy. To her companion she seemed not
+at all like the buoyant creature who had kindled his courage when it
+was so low, the brave girl who had stood so steadfastly at his shoulder
+and kept his hopes alive during these last, trying weeks. It struck him
+suddenly that she had grown very quiet of late. It was the first time
+he had had the leisure to notice it, but now, when he came to reflect
+on it, he remembered that she had never seemed quite the same since his
+interview with her on that day when Hilliard had so unexpectedly come
+to his rescue. He wondered if in reality this change might not be due
+to some reflected alteration in himself. Well! He could not help it.
+
+Her strange behavior at that time had affected him more deeply than he
+would have thought possible; and while he had purposely avoided
+thinking much about the banker's sudden change of front, back of his
+devout thankfulness for the miracle was a vague suspicion, a curious
+feeling that made him uncomfortable in the girl's presence. He could
+not repent his determination to win at any price; yet he shrank, with a
+moral cowardice which made him inwardly writhe, from owning that Cherry
+had made the sacrifice at which Clyde and the others had hinted. If it
+were indeed true, it placed him in an intolerable position, wherein he
+could express neither his gratitude nor his censure. No doubt she had
+read the signs of his mental confusion, and her own delicate
+sensibility had responded to it.
+
+They remained side by side on the bridge while the day died amidst a
+wondrous panoply of color, each busied with thoughts that might not be
+spoken, in their hearts emotions oddly at variance. The sky ahead of
+them was wide-streaked with gold, as if for a symbol, interlaid with
+sooty clouds in silhouette; on either side the mountains rose from
+penumbral darkness to clear-cut heights still bright from the slanting
+radiance. Here and there along the shadowy shore-line a light was born;
+the smell of the salt sea was in the air. Above the rhythmic pulse of
+the steamer rose the voices of men singing between decks, while the
+parting waters at the prow played a soft accompaniment. A steward
+summoned them to supper, but Boyd refused, saying he could not eat, and
+the girl stayed with him while the miles slowly slipped past and the
+night encompassed them.
+
+"Two hours more," he told her, as the ship's bell sounded. "Then I can
+eat and sleep--and sing."
+
+Captain Peasley was pacing the bridge when later they breasted the
+glare of Port Townsend and saw in the distance the flashing
+searchlights of the forts that guard the Straits. They saw him stop
+suddenly, and raise his night-glasses; Boyd laid his hand on Cherry's
+arm. Presently the Captain crossed to them and said:
+
+"Yonder seems to be a launch making out. See? I wonder what's up."
+Almost in their path a tiny light was violently agitated. "By Jove!
+They're signalling."
+
+"You won't stop, will you?" questioned Emerson.
+
+"I don't know, I am sure. I may have to."
+
+The two boats were drawing together rapidly, and soon those on the
+bridge heard the faint but increasing patter of a gasoline exhaust.
+Carrying the same speed as _The Bedford Castle_, the launch shortly
+came within hailing distance. The cyclopean eye of the ship's
+searchlight blazed up, and the next instant, out from the gloom leaped
+a little craft, on the deck of which a man stood waving a lantern. She
+held steadfastly to her course, and a voice floated up to them:
+
+"Ahoy! What ship?"
+
+"_The Bedford Castle_, cannery-tender for Bristol Bay," Peasley shouted
+back.
+
+The man on the launch relinquished his lantern, and using both palms
+for a funnel, cried, more clearly now: "Heave to! We want to come
+aboard."
+
+With an exclamation of impatience, the commanding officer stepped to
+the telegraph, but Emerson forestalled him.
+
+"Wait, they're after me, Captain; it's the Port Townsend police, and if
+you let them aboard they'll take me off."
+
+"What makes you think so?" demanded Peasley.
+
+"Ask them."
+
+Turning, the skipper bellowed down the gleaming electric pathway, "Who
+are you?"
+
+"Police! We want to come aboard."
+
+"What did I tell you?" cried Emerson.
+
+Once more the Captain shouted: "What do you want?"
+
+"One of your passengers--Emerson. Heave to. You're passing us."
+
+"That's bloody hard luck, Mr. Emerson; I can't help myself," the
+Captain declared. But again Boyd blocked him as he started for the
+telegraph.
+
+"I won't stand it, sir. It's a conspiracy to ruin me."
+
+"But, my dear young man--"
+
+"Don't touch that instrument!"
+
+From the launch came cries of growing vehemence, and a startled murmur
+of voices rose from somewhere in the darkness of the deck beneath.
+
+"Stand aside," Peasley ordered, gruffly; but the other held his ground,
+saying, quietly:
+
+"I warn you. I am desperate."
+
+"Shall I stop her, sir?" the quartermaster asked from the shadows of
+the wheel-house.
+
+"No!" Emerson commanded, sharply, and in the glow from the
+binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant
+up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt,
+a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light.
+Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps,
+wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the
+helmsman from his post, panting,
+
+"Keep her going, Cap', or I'll run them down!"
+
+"We stood by you, old man," Emerson urged; "you stand by us. They can't
+make you stop. They can't come aboard."
+
+The launch was abreast of them now, and skimming along so close that
+one might have tossed a biscuit aboard of her. For an instant Captain
+Peasley hesitated; then Emerson saw the ends of his bristly mustache
+rise above an expansive grin as he winked portentously. But his voice
+was convincingly loud and wrathful as he replied:
+
+"What do you mean, sir? I'll have my blooming ship libelled for this."
+
+"I'll make good your losses," Emerson volunteered, quickly, realizing
+that other ears were open.
+
+"Why, it's mutiny, sir."
+
+"Exactly! You can say you went out under duress."
+
+"I never heard of such a thing," stormed the skipper. Then, more
+quietly, "But I don't seem to have any choice in the matter; do I?"
+
+"None whatever."
+
+"Tell them to go to hell!" growled Balt from the open window above
+their head.
+
+A blasphemous outcry floated up from the launch, while heads protruded
+from the deck-house openings, the faces white in the slanting glare.
+"Why don't you heave to?" demanded a voice.
+
+Peasley stepped to the end of the bridge and called down: "I can't
+stop, my good man, they won't allow it, y' know. You'll have to bloody
+well come aboard yourself." Then, obedient to his command, the
+search-light traced an arc through the darkness and died out, leaving
+the little craft in darkness, save for its dim lantern.
+
+Unseen by the amazed quartermaster, who was startled out of speech and
+action, Emerson gripped the Captain's shoulder and whispered his
+thanks, while the Britisher grumbled under his breath:
+
+"Bli' me! Won't that labor crowd be hot? They nearly bashed in my head
+with that iron spike. Four hundred pounds! My word!"
+
+The sputter of the craft alongside was now punctuated by such a volley
+of curses that he raised his voice again: "Belay that chatter, will
+you? There's a lady aboard."
+
+The police launch sheered off, and the sound of her exhaust grew
+rapidly fainter and fainter. But not until it had wholly ceased did Big
+George give over his post at the wheel. Even then he went down the
+ladder reluctantly, and without a word of thanks, of explanation, or of
+apology. With him this had been but a part of the day's work. He saw
+neither sentiment nor humor in the episode. The clang of the
+deep-throated ship's bell spoke the hour, and, taking Cherry's arm,
+Boyd helped her to the deck.
+
+"Now let's eat something," said she.
+
+"Yes," he agreed, relief and triumph in his tone, "and drink something,
+too."
+
+"We'll drink to the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser."
+
+"To the health of 'Fingerless' Fraser," he echoed. "We will drink that
+standing."
+
+A week later, after an uneventful voyage across a sea of glass, _The
+Bedford Castle_ made up through a swirling tide-rip and into the
+fog-bound harbor of Unalaska. The soaring "goonies" that had followed
+them from Flattery had dropped astern at first sight of the volcanic
+headlands, and now countless thousands of sea-parrots fled from the
+ship's path, squattering away in comic terror, dragging their fat
+bodies across the sea as a boy skips a flat rock. It had been Captain
+Peasley's hope, here at the gateway of the Misty Sea, to learn
+something about the lay of the big ice-floes to the northward, but he
+was disappointed, for the season was yet too young for the
+revenue-cutters, and the local hunters knew nothing. Forced to rely on
+luck and his own skill, he steamed out again the next day, this time
+doubling back to the eastward and laying a cautious course along the
+second leg of the journey.
+
+Once through the ragged barrier that separates the North Pacific from
+her sister sea, the dank breath of the Arctic smote them fairly. The
+breeze that wafted out from the north brought with it the chill of
+limitless ice-fields, and the first night found them hove-to among the
+outposts of that shifting desert of death which debouches out of
+Behring Straits with the first approach of autumn, to retreat again
+only at the coming of reluctant summer. From the crow's-nest the
+lookout stared down upon a white expanse that stretched beyond the
+horizon. At dawn they began their careful search, feeling their way
+eastward through the open lanes and tortuous passages that separated
+the floes, now laying-to for the northward set of the fields to clear a
+path before them, now stealing through some narrow lead that opened
+into freer waters.
+
+_The Bedford Castle_ was a steel hull whose sides, opposed to the jaws
+of the ponderous masses, would have been crushed like an eggshell in a
+vise. Unlike a wooden ship, the gentlest contact would have sprung her
+plates, while any considerable collision would have pierced her as if
+she had been built of paper. Appreciating to the full the peril of his
+slow advance, Captain Peasley did all the navigating in person; but
+eventually they were hemmed in so closely that for a day and a night
+they could do nothing but drift with the pack. In time, however, the
+winds opened a crevice through which they retreated to follow the outer
+limits farther eastward, until they were balked again.
+
+Opposed to them were the forces of Nature, and they were wholly
+dependent upon her fickle favor. It might be a day, a week, a month
+before she would let them through, and, even when the barrier began to
+yield, another ship, a league distant, might profit by an opening which
+to them was barred. For a long, dull period the voyagers lay as
+helpless as if in dry-dock, while wandering herds of seals barked at
+them or bands of walruses ceased their fishing and crept out upon the
+ice-pans to observe these invaders of their peace. When an opportunity
+at last presented itself, they threaded their way southward, there to
+try another approach, and another, and another, until the first of May
+had come and gone, leaving them but little closer to their goal than
+when they first hove-to. Late one evening they discerned smoke on the
+horizon, and the next morning's light showed a three-masted steamship
+fast in the ice, a few miles to the westward.
+
+"That's _The Juliet_," Big George informed his companions, "one of the
+North American Packers' Association tenders."
+
+"She was loading when we left Seattle," Boyd remarked.
+
+"It is Willis Marsh's ship, so he must be aboard," supplemented Cherry.
+"She's a wooden ship, and built for this business. If we don't look out
+he'll beat us in, after all."
+
+"What good will that do him?" Clyde questioned. "The fish don't bite--I
+mean run--for sixty days yet."
+
+Emerson and Balt merely shrugged.
+
+To Cherry Malotte this had been a voyage of dreams; for once away from
+land, Boyd had become his real self again--that genial, irrepressible
+self she had seen but rarely--and his manner had lost the restraint and
+coolness which recently had disturbed their relations. Of necessity
+their cramped environment had thrown them much together, and their
+companionship had been most pleasant. She and Boyd had spent long hours
+together, during which his light-heartedness had rivalled that of Alton
+Clyde--hours wherein she had come to know him more intimately and to
+feel that he was growing to a truer understanding of herself. She
+realized beyond all doubt that for him there was but one woman in all
+the world, yet the mere pleasure of being near him was an anodyne for
+her secret distress. Womanlike, she took what was offered her and
+strove unceasingly for more.
+
+Two days after sighting _The Juliet_ they raised another ship, one of
+the sailing fleet which they knew to be hovering in the offing, and
+then on the fifth of the month the capricious current opened a way for
+them. Slowly at first they pushed on between the floes into a vast area
+of slush-ice, thence to a stretch as open and placid as a country
+mill-pond. The lookout pointed a path out of this, into which they
+steamed, coming at length to clear water, with the low shores of the
+mainland twenty miles away.
+
+At sundown they anchored in the wide estuary of the Kalvik River, the
+noisy rumble of their chains breaking the silence that for months had
+lain like a smother upon the port. The Indian village gave sign of life
+only in thin, azure wisps of smoke that rose from the dirt roofs; the
+cannery buildings stood as naked and uninviting as when Boyd had last
+seen them. The Greek cross crowning the little white church was gilded
+by the evening sun. Through the glasses Cherry spied a figure in the
+door of her house which she declared was Constantine, but with
+commendable caution the big breed forebore to join the fleet of kyaks
+now rapidly mustering. Taking Clyde with them, she and Boyd were soon
+on their way to the land, leaving George to begin discharging his
+cargo. The long voyage that had maddened the fishermen was at last at
+an end, and they were eager to begin their tasks.
+
+A three-mile pull brought the ship's boat to Cherry's landing, where
+Constantine and Chakawana met them, the latter hysterical with joy, the
+former showing his delight in a rare display of white teeth and a flow
+of unintelligible English. Even the sledge-dogs, now fat from idleness,
+greeted their mistress with a fierce clamor that dismayed Alton Clyde,
+to whom all was utterly new and strange.
+
+"Glory be!" he exclaimed. "They're nothing but wolves. Won't they bite?
+And the house--ain't it a hit! Why, it looks like a stage setting! Oh,
+say, I'm for this! I'm getting rough and primitive and brutal already!"
+
+When they passed from the store, with its shelves sadly naked now, to
+the cozy living quarters behind, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. Leaving
+Chakawana and her mistress to chatter and clack in their patois, he
+inspected the premises inside and out, peering into all sorts of
+corners, collecting souvenirs, and making friends with the saturnine
+breed.
+
+Cherry would not return to the ship, but Emerson and Clyde re-embarked
+and were rowed down to the cannery site, abreast of which lay _The
+Bedford Castle_, where they lingered until the creeping twilight forced
+them to the boat again. When they reached the ship the cool Arctic
+night had descended, but its quiet was broken by the halting nimble of
+steam-winches, the creak of tackle, the cries of men, and the sounds of
+a great activity. Baring his head to the breezes Boyd filled his lungs
+full of the bracing air, sweet with the flavor of spring, vowing
+secretly that no music that he had ever heard was the equal of this. He
+turned his face to the southward and smiled, while his thoughts sped a
+message of love and hope into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+WHEREIN "FINGERLESS" FRASER RETURNS
+
+
+Big George had lost no time, and already the tow-boats were overboard,
+while a raft of timber was taking form alongside the ship. As soon as
+it was completed, it was loaded with crates and boxes and paraphernalia
+of all sorts, then towed ashore as the tide served. Another took its
+place, and another and another. All that night the torches flared and
+the decks drummed to a ceaseless activity. In the morning Boyd sent a
+squad of fishermen ashore to clear the ground for his buildings, and
+all day new rafts of lumber and material helped to increase the pile at
+the water's edge.
+
+His early training as an engineer now stood him in good stead, for a
+thousand details demanded expert supervision; but he was as completely
+at home at this work as was Big George in his own part of the
+undertaking, and it was not long before order began to emerge from what
+seemed a hopeless chaos. Never did men have more willing hands to do
+their bidding than did he and George; and when a week later _The
+Juliet_, with Willis Marsh on board, came to anchor, the bunk-houses
+were up and peopled, while the new site had become a beehive of
+activity.
+
+The mouth of the Kalvik River is several miles wide, yet it contains
+but a small anchorage suitable for deep-draught ships, the rest of the
+harbor being underlaid with mud-bars and tide-flats over which none but
+small boats may pass; and as the canneries are distributed up and down
+the stream for a considerable distance, it is necessary to transport
+all supplies to and from the ships by means of tugs and lighters. Owing
+to the narrowness of the channel, _The Juliet_ came to her moorings not
+far from _The Bedford Castle_.
+
+To Marsh, already furious at the trick the ice had played him, this
+forced proximity to his rival brought home with added irony the fact
+that he had been forestalled, while it emphasized his knowledge that
+henceforth the conflict would be carried on at closer quarters. It
+would be a contest between two men, both determined to win by fair
+means or foul.
+
+Emerson was a dream-dazzled youth, striving like a knight-errant for
+the love of a lady and the glory of conquest, but he was also a born
+fighter, and in every emergency he had shown himself as able as his
+experienced opponent.
+
+As Marsh looked about and saw how much Boyd's well-directed energy was
+accomplishing, he was conscious of a slight disheartenment. Still, he
+was on his own ground, he had the advantage of superior force, and
+though he was humiliated by his failure to throttle the hostile
+enterprise in its beginning, he was by no means at the end of his
+expedients. He was curious to see his rival in action, and he decided
+to visit him and test his temper.
+
+It was on the afternoon following his arrival that Marsh, after a tour
+of inspection, landed from his launch and strolled up to where Boyd
+Emerson was at work. He was greeted courteously, if a bit coolly, and
+found, as on their last meeting, that his own bearing was reflected
+exactly in that of Boyd. Both men, beneath the scant politeness of
+their outward manner, were aware that the time for ceremony had passed.
+Here in the Northland they faced each other at last as man to man.
+
+"I see you have a number of my old fishermen," Marsh observed.
+
+"Yes, we were fortunate in getting such good ones."
+
+"You were fortunate in many ways. In fact you are a very lucky young
+man."
+
+"Indeed! How?"
+
+"Well, don't you think you were lucky to beat that strike?"
+
+"It wasn't altogether luck. However, I do consider myself fortunate in
+escaping at the last moment," Boyd laughed easily. "By the way, what
+happened to the man they mistook for me?"
+
+"Let him go, I believe. I didn't pay much attention to the matter."
+Marsh had been using his eyes to good advantage, and, seeing the work
+even better in hand than he had supposed, he was moved by irritation
+and the desire to goad his opponent to say more than he had intended:
+"I rather think you will have a lot to explain, one of these days," he
+said, with deliberate menace.
+
+"With fifty thousand cases of salmon aboard _The Bedford Castle_ I will
+explain anything. Meanwhile the police may go to the devil!" The cool
+assurance of the young man's tone roused his would-be tormentor like a
+personal affront.
+
+"You got away from Seattle, but there is a commissioner at Dutch
+Harbor, also a deputy marshal, who may have better success with a
+warrant than those policemen had." The Trust's manager could not keep
+down the angry tremor in his voice, and the other, perceiving it,
+replied in a manner designed to inflame him still more:
+
+"Yes, I have heard of those officers. I understand they are both in
+your employ."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I hear you have bought them."
+
+"Do you mean to insinuate--"
+
+"I don't mean to insinuate anything. Listen! We are where we can talk
+plainly, Marsh, and I am tired of all this subterfuge. You did what you
+could to stop me, you even tried to have me killed--"
+
+"You dare to--"
+
+"But I guess it never occurred to you that I may be just as desperate
+as you are."
+
+The men stared at each other with hostile eyes, but the accusation had
+come so suddenly and with such boldness as to rob Marsh of words.
+Emerson went on in the same level voice: "I broke through in spite of
+you, and I'm on the job. If you want to cry quits, I'm willing; but, by
+God! I won't be balked, and if any of your hired marshals try to take
+me before I put up my catch I'll put you away. Understand?"
+
+Willis Marsh recoiled involuntarily before the sudden ferocity that
+blazed up in the speaker's face. "You are insane," he cried.
+
+"Am I?" Emerson laughed, harshly. "Well, I'm just crazy enough to do
+what I say. I don't think you're the kind that wants hand-to-hand
+trouble, so let's each attend to his own affair. I'm doing well, thank
+you, and I think I can get along better if yon don't come back here
+until I send for you. Something might fall on you."
+
+Marsh's full, red lips went pallid with rage as he said "Then it is to
+be war, eh?"
+
+"Suit yourself." Boyd pointed to the shore. "Your boatman is waiting
+for you."
+
+As Marsh made his way to the water's edge he stumbled like a blind man;
+his lips were bleeding where his small, sharp teeth had bitten them,
+and he panted like an hysterical woman.
+
+During the next fortnight the sailing-ships began to assemble, standing
+in under a great spread of canvas to berth close alongside the two
+steamships; for, once the ice had moved north, there was no further
+obstacle to their coming, and the harbor was soon livened with puffing
+tugs, unwieldy lighters, and fleets of smaller vessels. Where, but a
+short time before, the brooding silence had been undisturbed save for
+the plaint of wolf-dogs and the lazy voices of natives, a noisy army
+was now at work. The bustle of a great preparation arose; languid
+smoke-wreaths began to unfurl above the stacks of the canneries; the
+stamp and clank of tin-machines re-echoed; hammer and saw maintained a
+never-ceasing hubbub. Down at the new plant scows were being launched
+while yet the pitch was warm on their seams; buildings were rising
+rapidly, and a crew had gone up the river to get out a raft of piles.
+
+On the morning after the arrival of the last ship, Emerson and his
+companions were treated to a genuine surprise. Cherry had come down to
+the site as usual--she could not let a day go by without visiting the
+place--and Clyde, after a tardy breakfast, had just come ashore. They
+were watching Big George direct the launching of a scow, when all of a
+sudden they heard a familiar voice behind them cry, cheerfully:
+
+"Hello, white folks! Here we are, all together again."
+
+They turned to behold a villanous-looking man beaming benignly upon
+them. He was dirty, his clothes were in rags, and through a riotous
+bristle of beard that hid his thin features a mangy patch showed on
+either cheek. It was undeniably "Fingerless" Fraser, but how changed,
+how altered from that radiant flower of indolence they had known! He
+was pallid, emaciated, and bedraggled; his attitude showed hunger and
+abuse, and his bony joints seemed about to pierce through their
+tattered covering. As they stood speechless with amazement, he made his
+identification complete by protruding his tongue from the corner of his
+mouth and gravely closing one eye in a wink of exceeding wisdom.
+
+"Fraser!" they cried in chorus, then fell upon him noisily, shaking his
+grimy hands and slapping his back until he coughed weakly. Summoned by
+their shouts, Big George broke in upon the incoherent greeting, and at
+sight of his late comrade began to laugh hoarsely.
+
+"Glad to see you, old man!" he cried, "but how did you get here?"
+
+Fraser drew himself up with injured dignity, then spoke in dramatic
+accents. "I worked my way!" He showed the whites of his eyes,
+tragically.
+
+"You look like you'd walked in from Kansas," George declared.
+
+"Yes, sir, I _worked! Me!"_
+
+"How? Where?"
+
+"On that bloody wind-jammer." He stretched a long arm toward the harbor
+in a theatrical gesture.
+
+"But the police?" queried Boyd.
+
+"Oh, I squared them easy. It's you they want. Yes, sir, I _worked_."
+Again he scanned their faces anxiously. "I'm a scullery-maid."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That's what I said. I've rustled garbage-cans till the smell of food
+gives me a cold sweat. I'm as hungry as a starving Cuban, and yet the
+sight of a knife and fork turns my stomach." He wheeled suddenly upon
+Alton Clyde, whose burst of shrill laughter offended him. "Don't cry.
+Your sympathy unmans me."
+
+"Tell us about it," urged Cherry.
+
+"What's the use?" he demanded, with a glare at Clyde. "That bone-head
+wouldn't understand."
+
+"Go ahead," Boyd seconded, with twitching lips. "You look as if you had
+worked, and worked hard."
+
+"Hard? I'm the only man in the world who knows what hard work is!"
+
+"Start at the beginning--when you were arrested."
+
+"Well, I didn't care nothing about the sneeze," he took up the tale,
+"for I figure it out that they can't slough me without clearing you, so
+I never take no sleeping-powders, and, sure enough, about third
+drink-time the bulls spring me, and I screw down the main stem to the
+drink and get Jerry to your fade--"
+
+"Tell it straight," interrupted Cherry. "They don't understand you."
+
+"Well, there ain't any Pullmans running to this resort, so I stow away
+on a coal-burner, but somebody flags me. Then I try to hire out as a
+fisherman, but I ain't there with the gang talk and my stuff drags, so
+I fix it for a hide-away on _The Blessed Isle_--that's her name. Can
+you beat that for a monaker? This sailor of mine goes good to grub me,
+but he never shows for forty-eight hours--or years, I forget which.
+Anyhow, I stand it as long as I can, then I dig my way up to a hatch
+and mew like a house-cat. It seems they were hep from the start, and
+battened me down on purpose, then made book on how long I'd stay hid.
+Oh, it's a funny joke, and they all get a stomach laugh when I show.
+When I offer to pay my way they're insulted. Nix! that ain't their
+graft. They wouldn't take money from a stranger. Oh, no! They permit me
+to _work_ my way. The scullion has quit, see? So they promote me to his
+job. It's the only job I ever held, and I held it because it wouldn't
+let go of me, savvy? There's only three hundred men aboard _The Blessed
+Isle_, so all I have to do, regular, is to understudy the cooks, carry
+the grub, wait on table, wash the dishes, mop the floors, make the
+officers' beds, peel six bushels of potatoes a day, and do the laundry.
+Then, of course, there's some odd tasks. Oh, it was a swell job--more
+like a pastime. When a mop sees me coming now it dances a hornpipe, and
+I can't look a dish-rag in the face. All I see in my dreams is
+potato-parings and meat-rinds. I've got dish-water in my veins, and the
+whole universe looks greasy to me. Naturally it was my luck to pick the
+slowest ship in the harbor. We lay three weeks in the ice, that's all,
+and nobody worked but me and the sea-gulls."
+
+"You deserted this morning, eh?"
+
+"I did. I beat the barrier, and now I want a bath and some clean
+clothes and a whole lot of sleep. You don't need to disturb me till
+fall."
+
+He showed no interest whatever in the new plant, refusing even to look
+it over or to express an opinion upon the progress of the work; so they
+sent him out to the ship, where for days he remained in a toad-like
+lethargy, basking in the sun, sleeping three-fourths of the time and
+spending his waking hours in repeating the awful tale of his
+disgraceful peonage.
+
+To unload the machinery, particularly the heavier pieces, was by no
+means a simple matter, owing to the furious tides that set in and out
+of the Kalvik River. The first mishap occurred during the trip on which
+the boilers were towed in, and it looked to Boyd less like an accident
+than a carefully planned move to cripple him at one stroke. The other
+ships were busily discharging and the roadstead was alive with small
+craft of various kinds, when the huge boilers were swung over the side
+of _The Bedford Castle_ and blocked into position for the journey to
+the shore. George and a half-dozen of his men went along with the load
+while Emerson remained on the ship. They were just well under way when,
+either by the merest chance or by malicious design, several of the
+rival Company's towboats moored to the neighboring ships cast off. The
+anchorage was crowded and a boiling six-mile tide made it difficult at
+best to avoid collision.
+
+Hearing a confused shouting to shoreward, Boyd ran to the rail in time
+to see one of the Company tugs at the head of a string of towboats
+bearing down ahead of the current directly upon his own slow-moving
+lighter. Already it was so close at hand as to make disaster seem
+inevitable. He saw Balt wave his arms furiously and heard him bellow
+profane warnings while the fishermen scurried about excitedly, but
+still the tug held to its course. Boyd raised his voice in a wild
+alarm, but had they heard him there was nothing they could have done.
+Then suddenly the affair altered its complexion.
+
+The oncoming tug was barely twice its length from the scow when Boyd
+saw Big George cease his violent antics and level a revolver directly
+at the wheel-house of the opposing craft. Two puffs of smoke issued
+from weapon, then out from the glass-encased structure the steersman
+plunged, scrambled down the deck and into the shelter of the house.
+Instantly the bow of the tug swung off, and she came on sidewise,
+striking Balt's scow a glancing blow, the sound of which rose above the
+shouts, while its force threw the big fellow and his companions to
+their knees and shattered the glass in the pilot-house windows. The
+boats behind fouled each other, then drifted down upon the scow, and
+the tide, seizing the whole flotilla, began to spin it slowly. Rushing
+to the ladder, Emerson leaped into another launch which fortunately was
+at hand, and the next instant as the little craft sped out from the
+side of _The Bedford Castle_, he saw that a fight was in progress on
+the lighter. It was over quickly, and before he reached the scene the
+current had drifted the tows apart. George, it seemed, had boarded the
+tug, dragged the captain off, and beaten him half insensible before the
+man's companions had come to his rescue.
+
+"Is the scow damaged?" Emerson cried, as he came alongside.
+
+"She's leaking, but I guess we can make it," George reassured him.
+
+They directed the second launch to make fast, and, towed by both tugs,
+they succeeded in beaching their cargo a mile below the landing.
+
+"We'll calk her at low tide," George declared, well satisfied at this
+outcome of the misadventure. Then he fell to reviling the men who had
+caused it.
+
+"Don't waste your breath on them," Boyd advised. "We're lucky enough as
+it is. If that tug hadn't sheered off she would have cut us down, sure."
+
+"That fellow done it a-purpose," George swore. "Seamen ain't that
+careless. He tried to tell me he was rattled, but I rattled _him_."
+
+"If that's the case they may try it again," said the younger man.
+
+"Huh! I'll pack a 'thirty-thirty' from now on, and I bet they don't get
+within hailing distance without an iron-clad."
+
+The more calmly Emerson regarded the incident, the more he marvelled at
+the good-fortune that had saved him. "We had better wake up," he said.
+"We have been asleep so far. If Marsh planned this, he will plan
+something more."
+
+"Yes, and if he puts one wallop over we're done for," George agreed,
+pessimistically. "I'll keep a watchman aboard the scows hereafter.
+That's our vital spot."
+
+But the days sped past without further interference, and the
+construction of the plant progressed by leaps and bounds, while _The
+Bedford Castle_, having discharged her cargo, steamed away to return in
+August.
+
+The middle of June brought the first king salmon, scouts sent on ahead
+of the "sockeyes;" but Boyd made no effort to take advantage of this
+run, laboring manfully to prepare for the advance of the main army,
+that terrific horde that was soon to come from the mysterious depths,
+either to make or ruin him. Once the run proper started, there would be
+no more opportunity for building or for setting up machinery. He must
+be ready and waiting by the first of July.
+
+For some time his tin-machines had been busy, night and day, turning
+out great heaps of gleaming cans, while the carpenters and machinists
+completed their tasks. The gill-netters were overhauling their gear,
+the beach was lined with fishing-boats. On the dock great piles of
+seines and drift-nets were being inspected. Three miles below, Big
+George, with a picked crew and a pile-driver, was building the
+fish-trap. It consisted of half-mile "leads," or rows of piling, capped
+with stringers, upon which netting was hung, and terminated in
+"hearts," "corrals," and "spillers," the intricate arrangements of
+webbing and timbers out of which the fish were to be taken.
+
+It was for the title to the ground where his present operations were
+going forward that George had been so cruelly disciplined by the
+"interests;" and while he had held stubbornly to his rights for years
+in spite of the bitterest persecution, he was now for the first time
+able to utilize his site. Accordingly his exultation was tremendous.
+
+As for Boyd, the fever in his veins mounted daily as he saw his dream
+assuming concrete form. The many problems arising as the work advanced
+afforded him unceasing activity; the unforeseen obstacles which were
+encountered hourly required swift and certain judgment, taxing his
+ingenuity to the utmost. He became so filled with it all, so steeped
+with the spirit of his surroundings, that he had thought for nothing
+else. Every dawn marked the beginning of a new battle, every twilight
+heralded another council. His duties swamped him; he was worried,
+exultant, happy. Always he found Cherry at his shoulder, unobtrusive
+and silent for the most part, yet intensely observant and keenly alive
+to every action. She seemed to have the faculty of divination, knowing
+when to be silent and when to join her mood with his, and she gave him
+valuable help; for she possessed a practical mind and a masculine
+aptitude for details that surprised both him and George. But, rapidly
+as the work progressed, it seemed that good-fortune would never smile
+upon them for long. One day, when their preparations were nearly
+completed, a foreman came to Boyd, and said excitedly:
+
+"Boss, I'd like you to look at the Iron Chinks right away."
+
+"What's up?"
+
+"I don't know, but something is wrong." A hurried examination showed
+the machines to be cunningly crippled; certain parts were entirely
+missing, while others were broken.
+
+"They were all right when we brought them ashore," the man declared.
+"Somebody's been at them lately."
+
+"When? How?" questioned Boyd. "We have had watchmen on guard all the
+time. Have any strangers been about?"
+
+"Nobody seems to know. When we got ready to set 'em just now, I saw
+this."
+
+The Iron Chink, or mechanical cleaner, is perhaps the most ingenious of
+the many labor-saving devices used in the salmon fisheries. It is an
+awkward-looking, yet very effective contrivance of revolving knives and
+conveyors which seizes the fish whole and delivers it cleaned, clipped,
+cut, and ready to be washed. With superhuman dexterity it does the work
+of twenty lightning-like butchers. Without the aid of these Iron
+Chinks, Boyd knew that his fish would spoil before they could be
+handled. In a panic, he pursued his investigation far enough to realize
+that the machines were beyond repair; that what had seemed at first a
+trivial mishap was in fact an appalling disaster. Then, since his own
+experience left him without resource, he hastened straightway to George
+Balt. A half-hour's run down the bay and he clambered from his launch
+to the pile-driver, where, amid the confusion and noise, he made known
+his tidings. The big fellow's calmness amazed him.
+
+"What are you going to do now?"
+
+"Butcher by hand," said the fisherman.
+
+"But how? That takes skilled labor--lots of it."
+
+George grinned. "I'm too old a bird to be caught like this. I figured
+on accidents from the start, and when I hired my Chinamen I included a
+crew of cutters."
+
+"By Jove, you never told me!"
+
+"There wasn't no use. We ain't licked yet, not by a damned sight.
+Willis Marsh will have to try again."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A HAND IN THE DARK
+
+
+While they were talking a tug-boat towing a pile-driver came into view.
+Boyd asked the meaning of its presence in this part of the river.
+
+"I don't know," answered Big George, staring intently. "Yonder looks
+like another one behind it, with a raft of piles."
+
+"I thought all the Company traps were up-stream."
+
+"So they are. I can't tell what they're up to."
+
+A half-hour later, when the new flotilla had come to anchor a short
+distance below, Emerson's companion began to swear.
+
+"I might have known it."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Marsh aims to 'cork' us."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"He's going to build a trap on each side of this one and cut off our
+fish."
+
+"Good Lord! Can he do that?"
+
+"Sure. Why not? The law gives us six hundred yards both ways. As long
+as he stays outside of that limit he can do anything he wants to."
+
+"Then of what use is our trap? The salmon follow definite courses close
+to the shore, and if he intercepts them before they reach us--why, then
+we'll get only what he lets through."
+
+"That's his plan," said Big George, sourly, "It's an old game, but it
+don't always work. You can't tell what salmon will do till they do it.
+I've studied this point of land for five years, and I know more about
+it than anybody else except God 'lmighty. If the fish hug the shore,
+then we're up against it, but I think they strike in about here; that's
+why I chose this site. We can't tell, though, till the run starts. All
+we can do now is see that them people keep their distance."
+
+The "lead" of a salmon-trap consists of a row of web-hung piling that
+runs out from the shore for many hundred feet, forming a high, stout
+fence that turns the schools of fish and leads them into cunningly
+contrived enclosures, or "pounds," at the outer extremity, from which
+they are "brailed" as needed. These corrals are so built that once the
+fish are inside they cannot escape. The entire structure is devised
+upon the principle that the salmon will not make a short turn, but will
+swim as nearly as possible in a straight line. It looked to Boyd as if
+Marsh, by blocking the line of progress above and below, had virtually
+destroyed the efficiency of the new trap, rendering the cost of its
+construction a total loss.
+
+"Sometimes you can cork a trap and sometimes you can't," Balt went on.
+"It all depends on the currents, the lay of the bars, and a lot of
+things we don't know nothing about. I've spent years in trying to
+locate the point where them fish strike in, and I think it's just below
+here. It'll all depend on how good I guessed."
+
+"Exactly! And if you guessed wrong--"
+
+"Then we'll fish with nets, like we used to before there was any traps."
+
+That evening, when he had seen the night-shift started, Emerson decided
+to walk up to Cherry's house, for he was worried over the day's
+developments and felt that an hour of the girl's society might serve to
+clear his thoughts. His nerves were high-strung from the tension of the
+past weeks, and he knew himself in the condition of an athlete trained
+to the minute. In his earlier days he had frequently felt the same
+nervousness, the same intense mental activity, just prior to an
+important race or game, and he was familiar with those disquieting,
+panicky moments when, for no apparent reason, his heart thumped and a
+physical sickness mastered him. He knew that the fever would leave him,
+once the salmon began to run, just as it had always vanished at the
+crack of the starter's pistol or the shrill note of the referee's
+whistle. He was eager for action, eager to find himself possessed of
+that gloating, gruelling fury that drives men through to the finish
+line. Meanwhile, he was anxious to divert his mind into other channels.
+
+Cherry's house was situated a short distance above the cannery which
+served as Willis Marsh's headquarters, and Boyd's path necessarily took
+him past his enemy's very stronghold. Finding the tide too high to
+permit of passing beneath the dock, he turned up among the buildings,
+where, to his surprise, he encountered his own day-foreman talking
+earnestly with a stranger.
+
+The fisherman started guiltily as he saw him, and Boyd questioned him
+sharply.
+
+"What are you doing here, Larsen?"
+
+"I just walked up after supper to have a talk with an old mate."
+
+"Who is he?" Boyd glanced suspiciously at Larsen's companion.
+
+"He's Mr. Marsh's foreman."
+
+Emerson spoke out bluntly: "See here. I don't like this. These people
+have caused me a lot of trouble already, and I don't want my men
+hanging around here."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Larsen, carelessly. "Him and me used to
+fish together." And as if this were a sufficient explanation, he turned
+back to his conversation, leaving Emerson to proceed on his way,
+vaguely displeased at the episode, yet reflecting that heretofore he
+had never had occasion to doubt Larsen's loyalty.
+
+He found Cherry at home, and, flinging himself into one of her
+easy-chairs, relieved his mind of the day's occurrences.
+
+"Marsh is building those traps purely out of spite," she declared,
+indignantly, when he had finished. "He doesn't need any more fish--he
+has plenty of traps farther up the river."
+
+"To be sure! It looks as if we might have to depend upon the
+gill-netters."
+
+"We will know before long. If the fish strike in where George expects,
+Marsh will be out a pretty penny."
+
+"And if they don't strike in where George expects, we will be out all
+the expense of building that trap."
+
+"Exactly! It's a fascinating business, isn't it? It's a business in
+which the unexpected is forever happening. But the stakes are high
+and--I know you will succeed."
+
+Boyd smiled at her comforting assurance, her belief in him was always
+stimulating.
+
+"By-the-way," she continued, "have you heard the historic story about
+the pink salmon?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Well, there was a certain shrewd old cannery-man in Washington State
+whose catch consisted almost wholly of pink fish. As you know, that
+variety does not bring as high a price as red salmon, like these. Well,
+finding that he could not sell his catch, owing to the popular
+prejudice about color, this man printed a lot of striking can-labels,
+which read, 'Best Grade Pink Salmon, Warranted not to Turn Red in the
+Can.' They tell me it worked like a charm."
+
+"No wonder!" Boyd laughed, beginning to feel the tension of his nerves
+relax at the restfulness of her influence. As usual, he fell at once
+into the mood she desired for him. He saw that her brows were furrowed
+and her rosy lips drawn into an unconscious pout as she said, more to
+herself than to him:
+
+"I wish I were a man. I'd like to engage in a business of this sort,
+something that would require ingenuity and daring. I'd like to handle
+big affairs."
+
+"It seems to me that you are in a business of that sort. You are one of
+us."
+
+"Oh, but you and George are doing it all."
+
+"There is your copper-mine. You surely handled that very cleverly."
+
+Cherry's expression altered, and she shot a quick glance at him as he
+went on:
+
+"How is it coming along, by-the-way? I haven't heard you mention it
+lately?"
+
+"Very well, I believe. The men were down the other day, and told me it
+was a big thing."
+
+"I'm delighted. How does it seem, to be rich?"
+
+There was the slightest hint of constraint in the girl's voice as she
+stared out at the slowly gathering twilight, murmuring:
+
+"I--I hardly know. Rich! That has always been my dream, and yet--"
+
+"The wonderful feature about dreams," he took advantage of her pause to
+say, "is that they come true."
+
+"Not all of them--not the real, wonderful dreams," she returned.
+
+"Oh yes! My dream is coming true, and so is yours."
+
+"I have given up hoping for that," she said, without turning.
+
+"But you shouldn't give up. Remember that all the great things ever
+accomplished were only dreams at first, and the greater the
+accomplishments, the more impossible they seemed to begin with."
+
+Something in the girl's attitude and in her silence made him feel that
+his words rang hollow and commonplace. While they had talked, an
+unaccustomed excitement had been mounting in his brain, and it held him
+now in a kind of delicious embarrassment. It was as if both had been
+suddenly enfolded in a new and mysterious understanding, without the
+need of speech. He did not tell himself that Cherry loved him; but he
+roused to a fresh perception of her beauty, and felt himself privileged
+in her nearness. At the same time he was seized with the old,
+half-resentful curiosity to learn her history. What wealth of romance
+lay shadowed in her eyes, what tragic story was concealed by her
+consistent silence, he could only guess; for she was a woman who spoke
+rarely of herself and lived wholly in the present. Her very reticence
+inspired confidence, and Boyd felt sure that here was a girl to whom
+one might confess the inmost secrets of a wretched soul and rest secure
+in the knowledge that his confession would be inviolate as if locked in
+the heart of mountains. He knew her for a steadfast friend, and he
+t'elt that she was beautiful, not only in face and form, but in all
+those little indescribable mannerisms which stamp the individual. And
+this girl was here alone with him, so close that by stretching out his
+arms he might enfold her. She allowed him to come and go at will; her
+intimacy with him was almost like that of an unspoiled boy--yet
+different, so different that he thrilled at the thought, and the blood
+pounded up into his throat.
+
+It may have been the unusual ardor of his gaze that warmed her cheeks
+and brought her eyes back from the world outside. At any rate, she
+turned, flashing him a startled glance that caused his pulse to leap
+anew. Her eyes widened and a flush spread slowly upward to her hair,
+then her lids drooped, as if weighted by unwonted shyness, and rising
+silently, she went past him to the piano. Never before had she
+surprised that look in his eyes, and at the realization a wave of
+confusion surged over her. She strove to calm herself through her
+music, which shielded while it gave expression to her mood, and neither
+spoke as the evening shadows crept in upon them. But the girl's
+exaltation was short-lived; the thought came that Boyd's feeling was
+but transitory; he was not the sort to burn lasting incense before more
+than one shrine. Nevertheless, at this moment he was hers, and in the
+joy of that certainty she let the moments slip.
+
+He stopped her at last, and they talked in the half-light, floating
+along together half dreamily, as if upon the bosom of some great
+current that bore them into strange regions which they dreaded yet
+longed to explore.
+
+They heard a child crying somewhere in the rear of the house, and
+Chakawana's voice soothing, then in a moment the Indian girl appeared
+in the doorway saying something about going out with Constantine.
+Cherry acquiesced half consciously, impatient of the intrusion.
+
+For a long time they talked, so completely in concord that for the most
+part their voices were low and their sentences so incomplete that they
+would have sounded incoherent and foolish to other ears. They were
+roused finally by the appreciation that it had grown very late and a
+storm was brewing. Boyd rose, and going to the door, saw that the sky
+was deeply overcast, rendering the night as dark as in a far lower
+latitude.
+
+"I've overstayed my welcome," he ventured, and smiled at her answering
+laugh.
+
+With a trace of solicitude, she said:
+
+"Wait! I'll get you a rain-coat," but he reached out a detaining hand.
+In the darkness it encountered the bare flesh of her arm.
+
+"Please don't! You'd have to strike a light to find it, and I don't
+want a light now."
+
+He was standing on the steps, with her slightly above him, and so close
+that he heard her sharp-drawn breath.
+
+"It _has_ been a pleasant evening," she said, inanely.
+
+"I saw you for the first time to-night, Cherry. I think I have begun to
+know you."
+
+Again she felt her heart leap. Reaching out to say good-bye, his hand
+slipped down over her arm, like a caress, until her palm lay in his.
+
+With trembling, gentle hands she pushed him from her; but even when the
+sound of his footsteps had died away, she stood with eyes straining
+into the gloom, in her breast a gladness so stifling that she raised
+her hands to still its tumult.
+
+Emerson, with the glow still upon him, felt a deep contentment which he
+did not trouble to analyze. It has been said that two opposite impulses
+may exist side by side in a man's mind, like two hostile armies which
+have camped close together in the night, unrevealed to each other until
+the morning. To Emerson the dawn had not yet come. He had no thought of
+disloyalty to Mildred, but, after his fashion, took the feeling of the
+moment unreflectively. His mood was averse to thought, and, moreover,
+the darkness forced him to give instant attention to his path. While
+the waters of the bay out to his right showed a ghostly gray, objects
+beneath the bluff where he walked were cloaked in impenetrable shadow.
+The air was damp with the breath of coming rain, and at rare intervals
+he caught a glimpse of the torn edges of clouds hurrying ahead of a
+wind that was yet unfelt.
+
+When the black bulk of Marsh's cannery loomed ahead of him, he left the
+gravel beach and turned up among the buildings, seeking to retrace his
+former course. He noticed that once he had left the noisy shingle, his
+feet made no sound in the soft moss. Thus it was that, as he turned the
+corner of the first building, he nearly ran against a man who was
+standing motionless against the wall. The fellow seemed as startled at
+the encounter as Emerson, and with a sharp exclamation leaped away and
+vanished into the gloom. Boyd lost no time in gaining the plank runway
+that led to the dock, and finding an angle in the building, backed into
+it and waited, half-suspecting that he had stumbled into a trap. He
+reflected that both the hour and the circumstances were unpropitious;
+for in case he should meet with foul play, Marsh might plausibly claim
+that he had been mistaken for a marauder. He determined, therefore, to
+proceed with the greatest caution. From his momentary glimpse of the
+man as he made off, he knew that he was tall and active--just the sort
+of person to prove dangerous in an encounter. But if his suspicions
+were correct there must be others close by, and Boyd wondered why he
+had heard no signal. After a breathless wait of a moment or two, he
+stole cautiously out, and, selecting the darkest shadows, slipped from
+one to another till he was caught by the sound of voices issuing from
+the yawning entrance of the main building on his right. The next moment
+his tension relaxed; one of the speakers was a woman. Evidently his
+alarm had been needless, for these people, whoever they were, made no
+effort to conceal their presence. On the contrary, the woman had raised
+her tone to a louder pitch, although her words were still
+undistinguishable.
+
+Greatly relieved, Boyd was about to go on, when a sharp cry, like a
+signal, came in the woman's voice, a cry which turned to a genuine wail
+of distress. The listener heard a man's voice cursing in answer, and
+then the sound of a scuffle, followed at length by a choking cry, that
+brought him bounding into the building. He ran forward, recklessly, but
+before he had covered half the distance he collided violently with a
+piece of machinery and went sprawling to the floor. A glance upward
+revealed the dim outlines of a "topper," and showed him farther down
+the building, silhouetted briefly against the lesser darkness of the
+windows, two struggling figures. As he regained his footing, something
+rushed past him--man or animal he could not tell which, for its feet
+made no more sound upon the floor than those of a wolf-dog. Then, as he
+bolted forward, he heard a man cry out, and found himself in the midst
+of turmoil. His hands encountered a human body, and he seized it, only
+to be hurled aside as if with a giant's strength. Again he clinched
+with a man's form, and bore it to the floor, cursing at the darkness
+and reaching for its throat. His antagonist raised his voice in wild
+clamor, while Boyd braced himself for another assault from those huge
+hands he had met a moment before. But it did not come. Instead, he
+heard a cry from the woman, an answer in a deeper voice, and then
+swift, pattering footsteps growing fainter. Meanwhile the man with whom
+he was locked was fighting desperately, with hands and feet and teeth,
+shouting hoarsely. Other footsteps sounded now, this time approaching,
+then at the door a lantern flared. A watchman came running down between
+the lines of machinery, followed by other figures half revealed.
+
+Boyd had pinned his antagonist against the cold sides of a retort at
+last, and with fingers clutched about his throat was beating his head
+violently against the iron, when by the lantern's gleam he caught one
+glimpse of the fat, purple face in front of him, and loosed his hold
+with a startled exclamation. Released from the grip that had nearly
+made an end of him, Willis Marsh staggered to his feet, then lurched
+forward as if about to fall from weakness. His eyes were staring, his
+blackened tongue protruded, while his head, battered and bleeding,
+lolled grotesquely from side to side as if in hideous merriment. His
+clothes were torn and soiled from the litter underfoot, and he
+presented a frightful picture of distress. But it was not this that
+caused Emerson the greatest astonishment. The man was wounded, badly
+wounded, as he saw by the red stream which gushed down over his breast.
+Boyd cast his eyes about for the other participants in the encounter,
+but they were nowhere visible; only an open door in the shadows close
+by hinted at the mode of their disappearance.
+
+There was a brief, noisy interval, during which Emerson was too
+astounded to attempt an answer to the questions hurled broadcast by the
+new-comers; then Marsh levelled a trembling finger at him and cried,
+hysterically:
+
+"There he is, men. He tried to murder me. I--I'm hurt. I'll have him
+arrested."
+
+The seriousness of the accusation struck the young man on the instant;
+he turned upon the group.
+
+"I didn't do that. I heard a fight going on and ran in here--"
+
+"He's a liar," the wounded man interrupted, shrilly. "He stabbed me!
+See?" He tried to strip the shirt from his wounds, then fell to
+chattering and shaking. "Oh, God! I'm hurt." He staggered to a
+packing-case and sank upon it weakly fumbling at his sodden shoulder.
+
+"I didn't do that," repeated Boyd. "I don't know who stabbed him. I
+didn't."
+
+"Then who did?" some one demanded.
+
+"What are you doing in here? You'd a killed him in a minute," said the
+man with the lantern.
+
+"We'll fix you for this," a third voice threatened.
+
+"Listen," Boyd said, in a tone to make them pause. "There has been a
+mistake here. I was passing the building when I heard a woman scream,
+and I rushed in to prevent Marsh from choking her to death."
+
+"A woman!" chorused the group.
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"Where is she now?"
+
+"I don't know. I didn't see her at all. I grappled with the first
+person I ran into. She must have gone out as you came in." Boyd
+indicated the side door, which was still ajar.
+
+"It's a lie," screamed Marsh.
+
+"It's the truth," stoutly maintained Emerson, "and there was a man with
+her, too. Who was she, Marsh? Who was the man?"
+
+"She--she--I don't know."
+
+"Don't lie."
+
+"I'm hurt," reiterated the stricken man, feebly. Then, seeing the
+bewilderment in the faces about him, he burst out anew: "Don't stand
+there like a lot of fools. Why don't you get him?"
+
+"If I stabbed him I must have had a knife," Emerson said, again
+checking the forward movement. "You may search me if you like. See?" He
+opened his coat and displayed his belt.
+
+"He's got a six-shooter," some one said.
+
+"Yes, and I may use it," said Emerson, quietly.
+
+"Maybe he dropped the knife," said the watchman, and began to search
+about the floor, followed by the others.
+
+"It may have been the woman herself who stabbed Mr. Marsh," offered
+Emerson. "He was strangling her when I arrived."
+
+Roused by this statement to a fresh denial, Marsh cried out:
+
+"I tell you there wasn't any woman."
+
+"And there isn't any knife either," Emerson sneered.
+
+The men paused uncertainly. Seeing that they were undecided whether to
+believe him or his assailant, Marsh went on:
+
+"If he hasn't a knife, then he must have had a friend with him--"
+
+"Then tell your men what we were doing in here and how you came to be
+alone with us in the dark." Emerson stared at his accuser curiously,
+but the Trust's manager seemed at a loss. "See here, Marsh, if you will
+tell us whom you were choking, maybe we can get at the truth of this
+affair."
+
+Without answering, Marsh rose, and, leaning upon the watchman's arm,
+said:
+
+"Help me up to the house. I'm hurt. Send the launch to the upper plant
+for John; he knows something about medicine." With no further word, he
+made his way out of the building, followed by the mystified fishermen.
+
+No one undertook to detain Emerson, and he went his way, wondering what
+lay back of the night's adventure. He racked his brain for a hint as to
+the identity of the woman and the reason of her presence alone with
+Marsh in such a place. Again he thought of that mysterious third person
+whose movements had been so swift and furious, but his conjectures left
+him more at sea than ever. Of one thing he felt sure. It was not enmity
+alone that prompted Marsh to accuse him of the stabbing. The man was
+concealing something, in deadly fear of the truth, for rather than
+submit to questioning he had let his enemy go scot-free.
+
+Suddenly Boyd paused in his walk, recalling again the shadowy outlines
+of the figure with whom he had so nearly collided on his way up from
+the beach. There was something familiar about it, he mused; then, with
+a low whistle of surprise, he smote his palms together. He began to see
+dimly.
+
+For more than an hour the young man paced back and forth before the
+door of his sleeping-quarters, so deeply immersed in thought that only
+the breaking storm drove him within. When at last he retired, it was
+with the certainty that this night had placed a new weapon in his hand;
+but of what tremendous value it was destined to prove, he little knew.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE SILVER HORDE
+
+
+The main body of salmon struck into the Kalvik River on the first day
+of July. For a week past the run had been slowly growing, while the
+canneries tested themselves, but on the opening day of the new month
+the horde issued boldly forth from the depths of the sea, and the
+battle began in earnest. They came during the hush of the dawn, a mad,
+crowding throng from No Man's Land, to wake the tide-rips and people
+the shimmering reaches of the bay, lashing them to sudden life and
+fury. Outside, the languorous ocean heaved as smiling and serene as
+ever, but within the harbor a wondrous change occurred.
+
+As if in answer to some deep-sea signal, the tides were quickened by a
+coursing multitude, steadfast and unafraid, yet foredoomed to die by
+the hand of man, or else more surely by the serving of their destiny.
+Clad in their argent mail of blue and green, they worked the bay to
+madness; they overwhelmed the waters, surging forward in great droves
+and columns, hesitating only long enough to frolic with the shifting
+currents, as if rejoicing in their strength and beauty.
+
+At times they swam with cleaving fins exposed: again they churned the
+placid waters until swift combers raced across the shallow bars like
+tidal waves while the deeper channels were shot through with shadowy
+forms or pierced by the lightning glint of silvered bellies. They
+streamed in with the flood tide to retreat again with the ebb, but
+there was neither haste nor caution in their progress; they had come in
+answer to the breeding call of the sea, and its exultation was upon
+them, driving them relentlessly onward. They had no voice against its
+overmastering spell.
+
+Mustering in the early light like a swarm of giant white-winged moths,
+the fishing-boats raced forth with the flowing tide, urged by sweep and
+sail and lusty sinews. Paying out their hundred-fathom nets, they
+drifted over the banks like flocks of resting sea-gulls, only to come
+ploughing back again deep laden with their spoils. Grimy tugboats lay
+beside the traps, shrilling the air with creaking winches as they
+"brailed" the struggling fish, a half-ton at a time, from the "pounds,"
+now churned to milky foam by the ever-growing throng of prisoners; and
+all the time the big plants gulped the sea harvest, faster and faster,
+clanking and gnashing their metal jaws, while the mounds of salmon lay
+hip-deep to the crews that fed the butchering machines.
+
+The time had come for man to take his toll.
+
+Now dawned a period of feverish activity wherein no one might rest
+short of actual exhaustion. Haste became the cry, and comfort fled.
+
+At Emerson's cannery there fell a sudden panic, for fifty fishermen
+quit. Returning from the banks on the night before the run started,
+they stacked their gear and notified Boyd Emerson of their
+determination. Then, despite his utmost efforts to dissuade them, they
+took their packs upon their shoulders and marched up the beach to
+Willis Marsh's plant. Larsen, the day-foreman, acted as their
+So the real size and bounds of the Republic must be set down as somewhat
+indeterminate.
+
+The circumstances under which Panama became an independent nation have
+been set forth in an earlier chapter. It is safe to say that with the
+heavy investment made by the United States in the Canal Zone, on the
+strength of a treaty with the infant republic, the sovereignty of Panama
+will be forever maintained against all comers--except the United States
+itself. There are political philosophers who think that the Isthmus
+state may yet be the southern boundary of the Great Republic of the
+North. For the present however Uncle Sam is quite content with the Canal
+Zone and a certain amount of diplomatic influence over the government of
+Panama.
+
+[Illustration: THE GORGE OF SALAMANCA]
+
+Panama is divided into seven provinces, Bocas del Toro, Cocle, Colon,
+Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama and Veragua. Its total population by the
+census of 1911 was 386,749, a trifle more than the District of Columbia
+which has about one five-thousandth of its area, and almost precisely
+the same population as Montana which has less than half its size. So it
+is clearly not over-populated. Of its population 51,323 are set down by
+its own census takers as white, 191,933 as mestizo, or a cross between
+white and Indian, 48,967 as negro; 2313 Mongol, and 14,128 Indian. The
+census takers estimated that other Indians, living in barbarism remote
+from civilization and unapproachable by the enumerators, numbered
+36,138.
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE FAMILY IN CHORRERA]
+
+All these figures have to be qualified somewhat. The mestizos are
+theoretically a cross between whites and Indians, but the negro blood is
+very generally present. It is doubtful, too, whether those classed as
+white are not often of mixed blood.
+
+A singularly large proportion of the population lives in the towns. In
+12 towns, exceeding 7000 inhabitants each, are more than 150,000 people.
+More than one-third of the people therefore are town dwellers, which is
+to say they are unproductive citizens. Meanwhile more than five-eighths
+of the arable land in the country is not under cultivation.
+
+The five chief towns of Panama with their population in 1911 are:
+
+  Panama             37,505
+  Colon              17,748
+  David              15,059
+  Santiago           13,081
+  Bocas del Toro      9,759
+
+Of these towns David is the capital of the Chiriqui province, the
+portion of the republic in which cattle growing and agriculture have
+been most developed. Bocas del Toro is a banana port, dependent upon
+that nutritious fruit for its very existence, and the center of the
+business of the United Fruit Company in Panama. At present the former
+town is reached by a 300 mile water trip from Panama City; the latter by
+boat from Colon. The government has under way plans for a railroad from
+Panama to David which give every indication of being consummated.
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN PENENOME]
+
+The soil of the Republic differs widely in its varying sections, from
+the rich vegetable loam of the lowlands along the Atlantic Coast, the
+outcome of years of falling leaves and twigs from the trees to the swamp
+below, to the high dry lands of the savannas and the hillsides of the
+Chiriqui province. All are undeniably fertile, that is demonstrated by
+the rapid and rank growth of the jungle. But opinions differ as to the
+extent to which they are available for useful agriculture. Some hold
+that the jungle soil is so rich that the plants run to wood and leaves
+to the exclusion of fruits. Others declare that on the hillsides the
+heavy rains of the rainy seasons wash away the surface soil leaving only
+the harsh and arid substratum. This theory seems to be overthrown by the
+fact that it is rare to see a hillside in all Panama not covered with
+dense vegetation. A fact that is well worth bearing in mind is that
+there has never been a systematic and scientific effort to utilize any
+part of the soil of Panama for productive purposes that has not been a
+success. The United Fruit Company in its plantations about Bocas del
+Toro has developed a fruitful province and created a prosperous town. In
+the province of Cocle a German company has set out about 75,000 cacao
+trees, 50,000 coffee bushes and 25,000 rubber trees, all of which have
+made good progress.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOTEL AT DAVID]
+
+The obstacles in the path of the fuller development of the national
+resources of Panama have sprung wholly from the nature of its
+population. The Indian is, of course, not primarily an agriculturist,
+not a developer of the possibilities of the land he inhabits. The
+Spanish infusion brought to the native population no qualities of
+energy, of well-directed effort, of the laborious determination to build
+up a new and thriving commonwealth. Spanish ideals run directly counter
+to those involved in empire building. Such energy, such determination as
+built up our great northwest and is building in British Columbia the
+greatest agricultural empire in the world, despite seven months annually
+of drifting snow and frozen ground, would make of the Panama savannas
+and valleys the garden spot of the world. That will never be
+accomplished by the present agrarian population, but it is incredible
+that with population absorbing and overrunning the available
+agricultural lands of other zones, the tropics should long be left
+dormant in control of a lethargic and indolent people.
+
+[Illustration: VIEW OF BOCAS DEL TORO]
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Critchlow_
+
+VISTA ON THE RIO GRANDE]
+
+Benjamin Kidd, in his stimulative book, “Social Evolution”, says on this
+subject:
+
+“With the filling up to the full limit of the remaining territories
+suitable for European occupation, and the growing pressure of population
+therein, it may be expected that the inexpediency of allowing a great
+extent of territory in the richest region of the globe--that comprised
+within the tropics--to remain undeveloped, with its resources running
+largely to waste under the management of races of low social efficiency,
+will be brought home with ever-growing force to the minds of the Western
+(Northern) peoples. The day is probably not far distant when, with the
+advance science is making, we shall recognize that it is in the tropics
+and not in the temperate zones we have the greatest food-producing and
+material-producing regions of the earth; that the natural highways of
+commerce in the world are those which run north and south; and that we
+have the highest possible interest in the proper development and
+efficient administration of the tropical regions, and in an exchange of
+products therewith on a far larger scale than has yet been attempted or
+imagined.... It will probably be made clear, and that at no distant
+date, that the last thing our civilization is likely to permanently
+tolerate is the wasting of the resources of the richest regions of the
+earth through lack of the elementary qualities of social efficiency in
+the races possessing them”.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_
+
+AT THE CATTLE PORT OF AGUADULCE
+
+This is one of the chief shipping points for the cattle ranches of
+Chiriqui. The industry is one little developed]
+
+Some of the modern psychologists who are so expert in solving the
+riddles of human consciousness that they hardly hesitate to approach the
+supreme problem of life after death may perhaps determine whether the
+indolence of the Panamanian is racial, climatic, or merely bred of
+consciousness that he does not have to work hard in order to get all the
+comforts of which he has knowledge. The life-story of an imaginary
+couple will serve as the short and simple annals of tens of thousands of
+Panama’s poor:
+
+[Illustration: THE ROYAL ROAD NEAR PANAMA]
+
+Miguel lived on the banks of the Chagres River, about half way between
+Cruces and Alhajuela. To him Cruces was a city. Were there not at least
+thirty huts of bamboo and clay thatched with palmetto like the one in
+which he lived? Was there not a church of sawn boards, with an altar to
+which a priest came twice a month to say mass, and a school where a
+gringo taught the children strange things in the hated English tongue?
+Where he lived there was no other hut within two or three hours poling
+up the river, but down at Cruces the houses were so close together you
+could almost reach one while sitting in the shade of another. At home
+after dark you only heard the cry of the whippoorwill, or occasionally
+the wail of a tiger cat in the jungle, but at Cruces there was always
+the loud talk of the men in the cantina, and a tom-tom dance at least
+once a week, when everybody sat up till dawn dancing to the beat of the
+drums and drinking the good rum that made them all so jolly.
+
+But greater than Cruces was the Yankee town of Matachin down on the
+banks of the river where the crazy Americans said there was going to be
+a lake that some day would cover all the country, and drown out Cruces
+and even his father’s house. They were paying all the natives along the
+river for their lands that would be sunken, and the people were taking
+the pesos gladly and spending them gaily. They did not trouble to move
+away. Many years ago the French too said there would be a lake, but it
+never came and the French suddenly disappeared. The Americans would
+vanish the same way, and a good thing, too, for their thunderous noises
+where they were working frightened away all the good game, and you could
+hardly find an iguana, or a wild hog in a day’s hunting.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_
+
+THE MEETING PLACE OF THE CAYUCAS]
+
+Once a week Miguel’s father went down to market at Matachin, and
+sometimes the boy went along. The long, narrow cayuca was loaded with
+oranges, bananas and yams, all covered with big banana leaves, and with
+Miguel in the bow and his father in the stern the voyage commenced.
+Going down stream was easy enough, and the canoists plied their paddles
+idly, trusting chiefly to the current to carry them along. But coming
+back would be the real work, then they would have to bend to their poles
+and push savagely to force the boat along. At places they would have to
+get overboard and fairly carry the boat through the swift, shallow
+rapids. But Miguel welcomed the work for it showed him the wonders of
+Matachin, where great iron machines rushed along like horses, drawing
+long trains of cars; where more people worked with shovels tending queer
+machines than there were in ten towns like Cruces; where folk gave pesos
+for bananas and gave cloth, powder and shot, things to eat in cans, and
+rum in big bottles for the pesos again. It was an exciting place this
+Matachin and made Miguel understand what the gringoes meant when they
+talked about New York, Chicago and other cities like it.
+
+[Illustration: BANANA MARKET AT MATACHIN]
+
+When he grew older Miguel worked awhile for the men who were digging
+away all this dirt, and earned enough to buy himself a machete and a gun
+and a few ornaments for a girl named Maria who lived in another hut near
+the river. But what was the use of working in that mad way--picking up
+your shovel when a whistle blew and toiling away until it blew again,
+with a boss always scolding at you and ready with a kick if you tried to
+take a little siesta. The pesos once a week were good, that was true. If
+you worked long enough you might get enough to buy one of those boxes
+that made music, but _quien sabe?_ It might get broken anyway, and the
+iguanas in the jungle, the fish in the river and the yams and bananas in
+the clearing needed no silver to come to his table. Besides he was
+preparing to become a man of family. Maria was quite willing, and so one
+day they strolled off together hand in hand to a clearing Miguel had
+made with his machete on the river bank. With that same useful tool he
+cut some wooden posts, set them erect in the ground and covered them
+with a heavy thatch of palmetto leaves impervious to sun or rain. The
+sides of the shelter were left open during the first months of wedded
+life. Later perhaps, when they had time they would go to Cruces at the
+period of the priest’s regular visit and get regularly married. When the
+rainy season came on and walls were as necessary as a roof against the
+driving rain, they would build a little better. When that time came he
+would set ten stout uprights of bamboo in the ground in the shape of an
+oblong, and across the tops would fasten six cross pieces of girders
+with withes of vine well soaked to make them pliable. This would make
+the frame of the first floor of his house. The walls he would make by
+weaving reeds, or young bamboo stalks in and out betwixt the posts until
+a fairly tight basketwork filled the space. This was then plastered
+outside with clay. The dirt, which in time would be stamped down hard,
+formed the floor. For his second story a tent-shaped frame of lighter
+bamboo tightly tied together was fastened to the posts, and cane was
+tied to each of the rafters as we nail laths to scantling. Thus a strong
+peaked roof, about eight feet high from the second floor to the
+ridgepole was constructed, and thatched with palm leaves. Its angle
+being exceedingly steep it sheds water in the fierce tropic rain storms.
+The floor of the second story is made of bamboo poles laid transversely,
+and covered heavily with rushes and palmetto. This is used only as the
+family sleeping apartment, and to give access to it Miguel takes an
+8-inch bamboo and cuts notches in it, into which the prehensile toes of
+his family may fit as they clamber up to the land of Nod. Furniture to
+the chamber floor there is none. The family herd together like so many
+squirrels, and with the bamboo climbing pole drawn up there is no danger
+of intrusion by the beasts of the field.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE CHIRIQUI COUNTRY]
+
+In the typical Indian hut there is no furniture on the ground floor
+other than a rough hewn bench, a few pieces of pottery and gourds, iron
+cooking vessels and what they call a kitchen, which is in fact a large
+flat box with raised edges, about eight square feet in surface and about
+as high from the floor as a table. This is filled with sand and slabs of
+stone. In it a little fire is built of wood or charcoal, the stones laid
+about the fire support the pots and pans and cooking goes on as gaily as
+in any modern electric kitchen. The contrivance sounds primitive, but I
+have eaten a number of excellent meals cooked on just such an apparatus.
+
+[Illustration: BANANA PLANT; NOTE SIZE OF MAN]
+
+Now it will be noticed that in all this habitation, sufficient for the
+needs of an Indian, there is nothing except the iron pots and possibly
+some pottery for which money was needed, and there are thousands of
+families living in just this fashion in Panama today. True, luxury
+approaches in its insidious fashion and here and there you will see a
+$1.25 white iron bed on the main floor, real chairs, canned goods on the
+shelves and--final evidence of Indian prosperity!--a crayon portrait of
+the head of the family and a phonograph, of a make usually discarded at
+home. But when Miguel and Maria start out on the journey of life a
+machete, a gun and the good will of their neighbors who will lend them
+yams until their own planting begins to yield forms a quite sufficient
+capital on which to establish their family. Therefore, why work?
+
+[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHT
+
+A TYPICAL NATIVE HUT
+
+While native architecture is not stately it is artistic in that it
+harmonizes with its natural surroundings and is eminently adapted to the
+needs of the people who inhabit the huts.]
+
+It is beyond doubt to the ease with which life can be sustained, and the
+torpidity of the native imagination which depicts no joys to spur one on
+to effort that the unwillingness of the native to do systematic work is
+due. And from this difficulty in getting labor follows the fact that
+not one quarter of the natural resources of Panama are developed.
+Whether the labor problem will be solved by the distribution throughout
+the republic of the Caribbean blacks who have worked so well on the Zone
+is yet to be seen. It may be possible that because of this the fertile
+lands of Panama, or the savannas so admirably fitted for grazing, can
+only be utilized by great corporations who will do things on so great a
+scale as to justify the importation of labor. Today the man who should
+take up a large tract of land in the Chiriqui country with a view to
+tilling it would be risking disaster because of the uncertainty of the
+labor supply.
+
+[Illustration: CONSTRUCTION OF ROOF OF A NATIVE HOUSE
+
+The photograph is taken looking directly upward from the ground floor]
+
+Another obstacle in the way of foreign settlement of Panama has been the
+uncertainty of land titles. Early surveyors seem to have been in the
+habit of noting as the identification marks of their lines such volatile
+objects as a blackbird in a tree, or such perishable ones as an ant hill
+or a decaying stump. Facilities for recording titles also have been ill
+arranged. One of the first tasks of the new Republic was to take up this
+matter and it has been reduced to fairly systematic form. The Republic
+is offering for sale great quantities of public lands long held as
+commons by various municipalities. Much of this land lies along the line
+of the railroad from Panama to David, and is of varying grades suitable
+for grazing, forestry or agriculture. A fixed price of 50 cents per
+hectare is charged, a hectare being practically 2¹⁄₂ acres. The
+government has gone quite efficiently into the task of disposing of
+these lands, and pamphlets explanatory of methods of securing titles,
+terms, etc., can be obtained by addressing the Administrator-General at
+Panama. The Pan-American Union, of Washington, D. C., has issued a
+pamphlet giving a summary in English of the Panamanian law bearing upon
+the subject.
+
+[Illustration: A NATIVE LIVING ROOM AND STAIRWAY
+
+By pulling up the bamboo ladder, or turning it, communication with the
+upper floor is closed]
+
+With the lack of labor, and the uncertainty of land titles, the final
+impediment to the general development of the interior of Panama is to be
+found in the lack of roads. It is not that the roads are bad--that is
+the case in many of our own commonwealths. But in a great part of Panama
+there are literally no roads at all. Trails, choked by the jungle and so
+washed by the rains that they are merely lanes floored with boulders,
+are the rule. The heavy ox-cart is the only vehicle that will stand the
+going, and our light American farm wagons would be speedily racked to
+pieces. In the Canal Zone the Commission has built some of the best
+roads in the world, utilizing the labor of employees convicted of minor
+offenses. Stimulated by this example the Panama government has built one
+excellent road from the chief city across the savannas to Old Panama and
+thence onward into the interior. It is hoped that the spectacle of the
+admirable roads in the Zone will encourage the authorities of the
+Republic to go into road building on a large scale in their own country.
+In no other way can its possibilities be realized. At present the rivers
+afford the surest highways and land abutting them brings higher prices.
+
+[Illustration: RUBBER PLANTATION NEAR COCLE
+
+The planter’s original hut in the foreground. The board cabin with
+corrugated iron roof shows prosperity]
+
+David, the largest interior town of Panama, is the central point of the
+cattle industry. All around it are woods, or jungles, plentifully
+interspersed with broad prairies, or llanos, covered with grass, and on
+which no trees grow save here and there a wild fig or a ceibo. Cattle
+graze on the llanos, sleek reddish beasts with spreading horns like our
+Texas cattle. There are no huge herds as on our western ranges. Droves
+of from ten to twenty are about the average among the small owners who
+rely on the public range for subsistence. The grass is not sufficiently
+nutritious to bring the cattle up to market form, so the small owners
+sell to the owners of big ranches who maintain potreros, or fattening
+ground sown with better grasses. A range fed steer will fetch $15 to
+$18, and after six or eight months on the potrero it will bring $30 to
+$35 from the cattle shipper at David. Since the cost of feeding a beeve
+for that period is only about one dollar, and as the demand is fairly
+steady the profit of the ranchman is a good one. But like all other
+industries in Panama, this one is pursued in only a retail way. The
+market is great enough to enrich ranchmen who would go into the business
+on a large scale, but for some reason none do.
+
+[Illustration: BOLIVAR PARK AT BOCAS DEL TORO]
+
+Passing from llano to llano the road cuts through the forest which
+towers dense and impenetrable on either side, broken only here and
+there by small clearings made by some native with the indispensable
+machete. These in the main are less than four acres. The average
+Panamanian farmer will never incur the scriptural curse laid upon them
+that lay field unto field. He farms just enough for his daily needs, no
+more. The ambition that leads our northern farmer to always covet the
+lands on the other side of his boundary fence does not operate in
+Panama. One reason is, of course, the aggressiveness of the jungle.
+Stubborn to clear away, it is determined in its efforts to regain the
+land from which it has been ousted. Such a thing as allowing a field to
+lie fallow for two or three years is unknown in Panama. There would be
+no field visible for the new jungle growth.
+
+[Illustration: A FORD NEAR ANCON]
+
+Agriculture therefore is conducted in a small way only, except for the
+great corporations that have just begun the exploitation of Panama.
+Whether the country affords a hopeful field for the individual settler
+is at least doubtful. Its climate is excellent. The days are warm but
+never scorchingly hot as are customary in Washington and frequent in New
+York. The nights are cool. From December to May a steady trade wind
+blows over the Isthmus from north to south, carrying away the clouds so
+that there is no rain. In this dry season the fruits mature, so that it
+corresponds to the northern summer; on the other hand such vegetation as
+sheds its leaves, or dies down annually, does so at this season, giving
+it a seeming correspondence to the northern winter. In a temperature
+sense there is neither summer nor winter, and the variation of the
+thermometer is within narrow limits. The highest temperature in years at
+Culebra, a typical inland point, was 96 degrees; the lowest 61.
+
+The list of natural products of the Isthmus is impressive in its length
+and variety, but for most of them even the home demand is not met or
+supplied by the production. Only where some stimulating force from the
+outside has intervened, like the United Fruit Company with the banana,
+has production been brought up to anything like its possibility. In the
+Chiriqui country you can see sugar cane fields that have gone on
+producing practically without attention for fifteen seasons. Cornfields
+have been worked for half a century without fertilizing or rotation of
+crops. The soil there is volcanic detritus washed down during past ages
+from the mountainsides, and lies from six to twenty feet thick. It will
+grow anything that needs no frost, but the province supports less than
+four people to the square mile, nine-tenths of the land is unbroken and
+Panama imports fruit from Jamaica, sugar from Cuba and tobacco and food
+stuffs from the United States.
+
+[Illustration: OLD BANANA TREES]
+
+[Illustration: PINEAPPLES IN THE FIELD]
+
+The fruits of Panama are the orange, which grows wild and for the proper
+cultivation of which no effort has been made, which is equally the case
+with the lemon and the lime; the banana, which plays so large a part in
+the economic development of the country that I shall treat of it at
+length later; the pineapple, cultivated in a haphazard way, still
+attains so high an order of excellence that Taboga pines are the
+standard for lusciousness; the mango, which grows in clusters so dense
+that the very trees bend under their weight, but for which as yet little
+market has been found, as they require an acquired taste; the mamei,
+hard to ship and difficult to eat because of its construction but withal
+a toothsome fruit; the paypaya, a melon not unlike our cantaloupe which
+has the eccentricity of growing on trees; the sapodillo, a fruit of
+excellent flavor tasting not unlike a ripe persimmon, but containing no
+pit. With cultivation all of these fruits could be grown in great
+quantities in all parts of the Republic, but to give them any economic
+importance some special arrangement for their regular and speedy
+marketing would have to be made, as with the banana, most of them being
+by nature extremely perishable.
+
+Northern companies are finding some profit in exploiting such natural
+resources of Panama as are available in their wild state. Of these the
+most promising is rubber, the tree being found in practically every part
+of the country. One concern, the Boston-Panama Company, has an estate
+approximating 400 square miles on which are about 100,000 wild rubber
+trees, and which is being further developed by the planting of bananas,
+pineapples, cocoanuts and other tropical fruits.
+
+[Illustration: WAITING FOR THE BOAT]
+
+Coffee, sugar and cacao are raised on the Isthmus, but of the two former
+not enough to supply the local demand. The development of the cacao
+industry to large proportions seems probable, as several foreign
+corporations are experimenting on a considerable scale. Cocoanuts are
+easily grown along both coasts of the Isthmus. A new grove takes about
+five years to come into bearing, costing an average of about three
+dollars a tree. Once established the trees bring in a revenue of about
+one dollar each at present prices and, as the demand for Panama
+cocoanuts is steady, the industry seems to offer attractive
+possibilities. The groves must be near the coast, as the cocoanut tree
+needs salt air to reach its best estate. Given the right atmospheric
+conditions they will thrive where no other plant will take root. Growing
+at the edge of the sea, water transportation is easy.
+
+[Illustration: COUNTRY HOUSE OF A CACAO PLANTER AT CHORIA
+
+This industry is in its infancy in Panama, but promises to be a
+considerable resource]
+
+[Illustration: STARTED FOR MARKET]
+
+There is still much land available for cocoanut planting, though but
+little of it is government land. Both coasts are fit for this industry,
+unlike the banana industry, which thrives only on the Atlantic shore.
+Panama is outside of the hurricane belt, which gives an added advantage
+to the cocoanut planter. Elsewhere in the Caribbean the trees suffer
+severely from the high winds.
+
+The lumber of Panama will in time come to be one of its richest assets.
+In the dense forests hardwoods of a dozen varieties or more are to be
+found, but as yet the cost of getting it out is prohibitive in most
+sections. Only those forests adjacent to streams are economically
+valuable and such activity as is shown is mainly along the Bayano,
+Chucunaque, and Tuyra Rivers. The list of woods is almost interminable.
+The prospectus of one of the companies with an extended territory on the
+Bayano River notes eighteen varieties of timber, commercially valuable
+on its territory. Among those the names of which are unfamiliar are the
+espavé (sometimes spelled espevé), the cocobolo, the espinosa cedar, the
+zoro and the sangre. All are hard woods serviceable in cabinet making.
+The espavé is as hard as mahogany and of similar color and marking. The
+trees will run four to five feet thick at the stump with saw timber 60
+to 70 feet in length. Espinosa trees are of the cedar type, growing to
+enormous size, frequently exceeding 16 feet in circumference. The
+cocobolo is a hard wood, but without the beauty to fit it for cabinet
+work. The sangre derives its name from its red sap which exudes from a
+gash like blood. It takes a high polish, and is in its general
+characteristics not unlike our cherry.
+
+For the casual tourist the lumber district most easy of access is that
+along the Bayano River reached by a motor boat or steam launch in a few
+hours from Panama. The trip is frequently made by pleasure seekers, for
+perhaps nowhere in the world is the beauty of a phosphorescent sea at
+night so marvelously shown, and few places easily found by man show such
+a horde of alligators or crocodiles, as are seen in Crocodile Creek, one
+of the affluents of the Bayano. This river, which empties into the Gulf
+of Panama, is in its lower reaches a tide-water stream and perhaps
+because of the mingling of the salt and the fresh the water is densely
+filled with the microscopic infusoria which at night blaze forth in
+coldly phosphorescent gleams suggestive of the sparkling of a spray of
+diamonds. Put your hand into the stream, lift it and let the water
+trickle through your fingers. Every drop gleams and glistens as it falls
+with a radiance comparable with nothing in nature unless it be the great
+fire-flies of the tropics. Even diamonds have to pass through the hands
+of the cutter before they will blaze with any such effulgence as the
+trickling waters of this tropical stream. One who has passed a night
+upon it may well feel that he has lived with one of the world’s marvels,
+and can but wonder at the matter-of-fact manner in which the natives go
+about their tasks unmoved by the contact with so much shining glory.
+
+[Illustration: LOADING CATTLE AT AGUADULCE]
+
+There is always controversy on the Isthmus over the question whether the
+gigantic saurians of Crocodile Creek are in fact crocodiles or
+alligators. Whether expert scientific opinion has ever been called upon
+to settle the problem I do not know, but I rather suspect that crocodile
+was determined upon because it gave to the name of Crocodile Creek in
+which they are so plentifully found “apt alliteration’s artful aid” to
+make it picturesque. Whatever the precise zoological classification
+given to the huge lizards may be is likely to be relatively unimportant
+before long, because the greatest joy of every tourist is found in
+killing them. The fascination which slaughter possesses for men is
+always hard to understand, but just what gives the killing of alligators
+its peculiar zest I could never understand. The beasts are slow, torpid
+and do not afford a peculiarly difficult test of marksmanship, even
+though the vulnerable part of their bodies is small. They are timid and
+will not fight for their lives. There is nothing of the sporting
+proposition in pursuing them that is to be found in hunting the tiger or
+the grizzly. They are practically harmless, and in the Bayano region
+wholly so, as there are no domestic animals upon which they can prey. It
+is true their teeth and skins have a certain value in the market, but it
+is not for these the tourist kills them. Most of those slain for “sport”
+sink instantly and cannot be recovered.
+
+[Illustration: DOLEGA IN THE CHIRIQUI PROVINCE]
+
+However if you visit Crocodile Creek with a typical party you will be
+given a very fair imitation of a lively skirmish in actual war. From
+every part of the deck, from the roof of the cabin, and from the pilot
+house shots ring out from repeating rifles in a fierce desire to kill.
+The Emersonian doctrine of compensation is often given illustration by
+the killing of one of the hunters in the eagerness to get at the quarry.
+In fact that is one of the commonest accidents of the tourist season in
+Panama.
+
+[Illustration: MAHOGANY TREES WITH ORCHIDS]
+
+Crocodile Creek is a deep, sluggish black stream, almost arched over by
+the boughs of the thick forest along the shores. Here and there the
+jungle is broken by a broad shelving beach on which the ungainly beasts
+love to sun themselves, and to which the females resort to deposit their
+eggs. At the sound of a voice or a paddle in the stream the awkward
+brutes take to the water in terror, for there are few animals more
+timid than they. When in the water the crocodile floats lazily,
+displaying only three small bumps above the surface--the nostrils and
+the horny protruberances above the eyes. Once the pool in which they
+float is disturbed they sink to the bottom and lurk there for hours.
+Alligator hunting for business purposes is not as yet generally pursued
+on the Isthmus, though one hunter and trapper is said to have secured as
+many as 60,000 in a year. But as the demand for the skins, and to a
+lesser degree for the teeth, of the animals is a constant one, it is
+probable that with the aid of the tourists they will be exterminated
+there as thoroughly as they have been in the settled parts of Florida.
+While on the subject of slaughter and the extermination of game it may
+be noted that the Canal Commission has already established very
+stringent game laws on the Zone, particularly for the protection of
+plumed birds like the egret, and it is seriously proposed to make of
+that part of Gatun Lake within the Zone a refuge for birds in which no
+shooting shall be permitted. Such action would stop mere wanton
+slaughter from the decks of passing steamers, and in the end would
+greatly enhance the beauty and interest of the trip through the lake
+which would be fairly alive with birds and other animal life.
+
+[Illustration: BAYANO CEDAR, EIGHT FEET DIAMETER]
+
+[Illustration: THE CACAO TREE]
+
+[Illustration: STREET IN DAVID]
+
+The Bayano River region beside being the center of such lumbering
+activities as the Zone knows at present is the section in which are
+found the curious vegetable ivory nuts which, though growing wild, have
+become one of the principal products of Panama. Only a few years ago
+they were looked upon merely as curiosities but are now a useful new
+material. They are gathered by the natives and sold to dealers in
+Panama who ship them north to be made into buttons and other articles
+of general use. Nobody has yet experimented with the cultivation of the
+tree, and there is reason to believe that with cultivation larger nuts
+could be obtained, and, by planting, considerable groves established.
+The trees grow well in every part of the Darien, and the demand, with
+the rapid diminution in the supply of real ivory, should be a growing
+one.
+
+Indeed, the more one studies Panama and its resources the more one is
+convinced that all that is necessary to make the country a rich and
+prosperous one, or at any rate to cause it to create riches and
+prosperity for investors, is the application of capital, labor and
+systematic management to the resources it already possesses. In its 400
+years of Spanish and mestizo control these three factors have been
+continuously lacking. There are men in Panama, of native birth and of
+Spanish origin, who have undertaken to develop certain of the land’s
+resources and have moderately enriched themselves. But the most striking
+evidence of the success to be obtained from attacking the industrial
+problem in Panama systematically and in a big way is that furnished by
+the operations of the United Fruit Company, the biggest business fact in
+the tropics.
+
+Panama is, of course, only one link in the colossal chain of the
+operations of this company in the tropics. The rapidly increasing
+prosperity of many of the Central Republics is due largely to the
+sweeping scope of the United Fruit Company, and its impress is in
+evidence all along the north coast of South America and throughout the
+West Indies. Its interests in Jamaica are enormous. Cuba put Jamaica off
+the sugar map, but the United Fruit Company came to her rescue with an
+offer to purchase all the bananas her planters could furnish, and
+Jamaica now leads the American tropics with 17,000,000 bunches annually,
+of which the United Fruit Company obtains nearly half, the balance being
+handled by its competitors. The company also owns the famous Titchfield
+Hotel of Port Antonio, and operates the Myrtle Bank Hotel of Kingston.
+In Cuba the company owns 60,000 acres of sugar plantations and its two
+great sugar mills will this year add to the world’s product an amount
+with a market value in excess of $10,000,000. Its scores of white
+steamships, amazingly well contrived and fitted for tropical service,
+constitute one of the pleasantest features of travel on these sunlit
+seas.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BANANA COUNTRY]
+
+[Illustration: MARKET PLACE AT ANCON]
+
+[Illustration: FRUIT COMPANY STEAMER AT WHARF]
+
+The United Fruit Company is by far the greatest agricultural enterprise
+the world has ever known. Its fruit plantations constitute a farm half a
+mile wide and more than seven hundred miles long. All of its farm lands
+exceed in area the 1332 square miles which constitute the sovereign
+State of Rhode Island. On these farms are more than 25,000 head of live
+stock. This agricultural empire is traversed by nearly 1000 miles of
+railroad. To carry the fruits from the plantations to the seaports there
+are employed 100 locomotives and 3000 freight cars. An army of nearly
+40,000 men is employed in this new and mammoth industry. The republics
+of Central America were inland nations before the United Fruit Company
+made gardens of the low Caribbean coast lands and created from the
+virgin wilderness such ports as Barrios, Cortez, Limon and Bocas del
+Toro.
+
+[Illustration: UNITED FRUIT COMPANY TRAIN
+
+This narrow gauge railroad carries no freight except bananas. Nearly
+1000 miles of such road are maintained]
+
+[Illustration: SANITARY OFFICE, BOCAS DEL TORO]
+
+This Yankee enterprise has erected and maintains at its own expense many
+of the lighthouses which serve its own great fleet and the ships of all
+the world. It has dredged new channels and marked them with buoys. It
+has installed along the Central and South American coasts a wireless
+telegraph service of the highest power and efficiency. It has
+constructed hundreds of miles of public roads, maintains public schools,
+and in other ways renders at its own expense the services which are
+presumed to fall on governments. The American financiers associated with
+it are now pushing to completion the Pan-American railroad which soon
+will connect New York with Panama by an all-rail route, and thus realize
+what once was esteemed an impractical dream.
+
+But it is the United Fruit Company’s activities in Panama only that are
+pertinent to this book. They demonstrate strikingly how readily one
+natural opportunity afforded by this land responded to the call of
+systematic effort, and there are a dozen products beside the banana
+which might thus be exploited.
+
+[Illustration: A PILE OF REJECTED BANANAS
+
+The fruit is thrown out by the company’s inspectors for scarcely visible
+flaws]
+
+On the Atlantic coast, only a night’s sail from Colon, is the port of
+Bocas del Toro (The Mouths of the Bull), a town of about 9000
+inhabitants, built and largely maintained by the banana trade. Here is
+the largest and most beautiful natural harbor in the American tropics,
+and here some day will be established a winter resort to which will
+flock people from all parts of the world. Almirante Bay and the Chiriqui
+Lagoon extend thirty or forty miles, dotted with thousands of islands
+decked with tropical verdure, and flanked to the north and west by
+superb mountain ranges with peaks of from seven to ten thousand feet in
+height.
+
+[Illustration: A PERFECT BUNCH OF BANANAS]
+
+The towns of Bocas del Toro and Almirante are maintained almost entirely
+by the banana trade. Other companies than the United Fruit raise and buy
+bananas here, but it was the initiative of the leading company which by
+systematic work put the prosperity of this section on a firm basis.
+Lands that a few years ago were miasmatic swamps are now improved and
+planted with bananas. Over 4,000,000 bunches were exported from this
+plantation in 1911, and 35,000 acres are under cultivation there. A
+narrow gauge railway carries bananas exclusively. The great white
+steamships sail almost daily carrying away little except bananas. The
+money spent over the counters of the stores in Bocas del Toro comes from
+natives who have no way of getting money except by raising bananas and
+selling them, mostly to the United Fruit Company. It has its
+competitors, but it invented the business and has brought it to its
+highest development. At this Panama town, and for that matter in the
+other territories it controls, the company has established and enforces
+the sanitary reforms which Col. Gorgas applied so effectively in Colon
+and Panama. Its officials proudly claim that they were the pioneers in
+inventing and applying the methods which have conquered tropical
+diseases. At Bocas del Toro the company maintains a hospital which lacks
+nothing of the equipment of the Ancon Hospital, though of course not so
+large. It has successfully adopted the commissary system established on
+the Canal Zone. Labor has always been the troublesome factor in
+industrial enterprises in Central America. The Fruit Company has joined
+with the Isthmian Commission in the systematic endeavor to keep labor
+contented and therefore efficient.
+
+[Illustration: THE ASTOR YACHT AT CRISTOBAL]
+
+Probably it will be the policy which any corporation attempting to do
+work on a large scale will be compelled to adopt.
+
+To my mind the United Fruit Company, next to the Panama Canal, is the
+great phenomenon of the Caribbean world today. Some day some one with
+knowledge will write a book about it as men have written the history of
+the British East India Company, or the Worshipful Company of Hudson Bay
+Adventurers, for this distinctly American enterprise has accomplished a
+creative work so wonderful and so romantic as to entitle it to equal
+literary consideration. Its coöperation with the Republic of Panama and
+the manner in which it has followed the plans formulated by the Isthmian
+Commission entitles it to attention in a book treating of Panama.
+
+[Illustration: THE BAY OF BOCAS
+
+This harbor of the chief banana port of Panama would accommodate a navy]
+
+The banana business is the great trade of the tropics, and one that
+cannot be reduced in volume by new competition, as cane sugar was
+checked by beet sugar. But it is a business which requires special
+machinery of distribution for its success. From the day the banana is
+picked until it is in the stomach of the ultimate consumer the time
+should not exceed three weeks. The fruit must be picked green, as, if
+allowed to ripen on the trees, it splits open and the tropical insects
+infect it. This same condition, by the way, affects all tropical fruits.
+All must be gathered while still unripe. The nearest wholesale market
+for bananas is New Orleans, five days’ steaming. New York is seven days
+away. That means that once landed the fruit must be distributed to
+commission houses and agents all over the United States with the utmost
+expedition lest it spoil in transit. There can be no holding it in
+storage, cold or otherwise, for a stronger demand or a higher market.
+This means that the corporation must deal with agents who can be relied
+upon to absorb the cargoes of the ships as regularly as they arrive.
+From its budding near the Panama Canal to its finish in the alimentary
+canal of its final purchaser the banana has to be handled systematically
+and swiftly.
+
+[Illustration: BRINGING HOME THE CROCODILE]
+
+[Illustration: A MORNING’S SHOOTING]
+
+To establish this machinery the United Fruit Company has invested more
+than $190,000,000 in the tropics--doubtless the greatest investment next
+to the Panama Canal made in that Zone. How much of this is properly a
+Panama investment can hardly be told, since for example the Fruit
+Company’s ships which ply to Colon and Bocas del Toro call at other
+banana ports as well. These ships are peculiarly attractive in design
+and in their clothing of snowy white, and I do not think there is any
+American who, seeing them in Caribbean ports, does not wonder at the
+sight of the British flag flying at the stern. His astonishment is not
+allayed when he learns that the company has in all more than 100 ships
+of various sizes, and nearly all of British registry. The transfer of
+that fleet alone to American registry would be a notable and most
+desirable step.
+
+[Illustration: ON CROCODILE CREEK
+
+Each spot looking like a leaf on the water is the nose of a submerged
+saurian]
+
+From officials of the company I learned that they would welcome the
+opportunity to transfer their ships to American registry, except for
+certain requirements of the navigation laws which make such a change
+hazardous. Practically all the ownership of the ships is vested in
+Americans, but to fly the British flag is for them a business necessity.
+Chief among the objections is the clause which would give the United
+States authority to seize the vessels in time of war. It is quite
+evident that this power might be employed to the complete destruction of
+the Fruit Company’s trade; in fact to its practical extinction as a
+business concern. A like power existing in England or Germany would not
+be of equal menace to any single company flying the flag of that nation,
+for there the government’s needs could be fully supplied by a proper
+apportionment of requisitions for ships among the many companies. But
+with the exceedingly restricted merchant marine of the United States the
+danger of the enforcement of this right would be an ever-present menace.
+It is for this reason that the Fruit Company steamers fly the British
+flag, and the American in Colon may see, as I did one day, nine great
+ocean ships in the port with only one flying the stars and stripes. The
+opening of the canal will not wholly remedy this.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Carl Hayden_
+
+THE END OF THE CROCODILE]
+
+In all respects save the registry of its ships, however, the Fruit
+Company is a thoroughly American concern and to its operations in the
+Caribbean is due much of the good feeling toward the United States which
+is observable there. In 1912 it carried 1,113,741 tons of freight, of
+which 359,686 was general freight, carried for the public in addition
+to company freight. This is a notable public service, profitable no
+doubt but vital to the interests of the American tropics. It owns or
+holds under leases 852,650 acres, and in 1912 carried to the United
+States about 25,000,000 bunches of bananas, and 16,000,000 bunches to
+Great Britain and the Continent. Viewed from the standpoint of the
+consumer its work certainly has operated to cheapen bananas and to place
+them on sale at points where they were never before seen. The banana has
+not participated in the high cost of living nor has one company
+monopolized the market, for the trade statistics show 17,000,000 bunches
+of bananas imported by rival companies in 1912. As for its stimulation
+of the business of the ports of New Orleans, Galveston and Mobile, and
+its revivifying of trade along the Caribbean, both are matters of common
+knowledge.
+
+[Illustration: ABOVE THE CLOUDS, CHIRIQUI VOLCANO]
+
+The banana thrives best in rich soil covered with alluvial deposits and
+in a climate of great humidity where the temperature never falls below
+75 degrees Fahrenheit. Once established the plantation needs little
+attention, the plant being self-propagating from suckers which shoot off
+from the “mat,” the tangled roots of the mother plant. It begins to bear
+fruit at the age of ten or eleven months, and with the maturing of one
+bunch of fruit the parent plant is at once cut down so that the strength
+of the soil may go into the suckers that succeed it. Perhaps the most
+technical work of the cultivator is to select the suckers so that the
+plantation will not bring all its fruit to maturity in one season, but
+rather yield a regular succession of crops, month after month. It was
+interesting to learn from a representative of the United Fruit Company
+at Bocas del Toro, that the banana has its dull season--not in
+production but in the demand for it which falls off heavily in winter,
+though one would suppose that summer, when our own fruits are in the
+market, would be the period of its eclipse.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHIRIQUI VOLCANO]
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE MARKET BOAT AT CHORRERA]
+
+While most of the fruit gathered in the neighborhood of Bocas del Toro
+is grown on land owned and tilled by the Company, there are hundreds of
+small individual growers with plantations of from half an acre to fifty
+acres or even more. All fruit is delivered along the railway lines, and
+the larger growers have tramways, the cars drawn by oxen or mules, to
+carry their fruit to the stipulated point. Notice is given the growers
+of the date on which the fruit will be called for, and within twelve to
+eighteen hours after it has been cut it is in the hold of the vessel. It
+is subjected to a rigid inspection at the docks, and the flaws for which
+whole bunches are rejected would often be quite undiscernible to the
+ordinary observer.
+
+[Illustration: IN BOUQUETTE VALLEY, THE MOST FERTILE PART OF CHIRIQUI]
+
+The banana is one of the few fruits which are free from insect pests,
+being protected by its thick, bitter skin. If allowed to ripen in the
+open, however, it speedily falls a prey to a multitude of egg-laying
+insects. The tree itself is not so immune. Lately a small rodent,
+something like the gopher of our American states, has discovered that
+banana roots are good to eat. From time immemorial he lived in the
+jungle, burrowing and nibbling the roots of the plants there, but in an
+unlucky moment for the fruit companies he discovered that tunneling in
+soil that had been worked was easier and the roots of the cultivated
+banana more succulent than his normal diet. Therefore a large
+importation of scientists from Europe and the United States to find some
+way of eradicating the industrious pest that has attacked the chief
+industry of the tropics at the root, so to speak.
+
+[Illustration: COFFEE PLANT AT BOUQUETTE]
+
+Baron Humboldt is said to have first called the attention of civilized
+people to the food value of the banana, but it was one of the founders
+of the United Fruit Company, a New England sea captain trading to Colon,
+who first introduced it to the general market in the United States. For
+a time he carried home a few bunches in the cabin of his schooner for
+his family and friends, but, finding a certain demand for the fruit,
+later began to import it systematically. From this casual start the
+United Fruit Company and its hustling competitors have grown. The whole
+business is the development of a few decades and people still young can
+remember when bananas were sold, each wrapped in tissue paper, for five
+or ten cents, while today ten or fifteen cents a dozen is a fair price.
+The fruit can be prepared in a multitude of fashions, particularly the
+coarser varieties of plantains, and the Fruit Company has compiled a
+banana cook book but has taken little pains to circulate it, the demand
+for the fruit being at times still in excess of the supply. There seems
+every indication that the demand is constant and new banana territory is
+being steadily developed.
+
+[Illustration: DRYING THE COFFEE BEANS]
+
+Several companies share with the United Fruit Company the Panama market.
+The methods of gathering and marketing the crop employed by all are
+practically the same, but the United Fruit Company is used as an
+illustration here because its business is the largest and because it has
+so closely followed the Isthmian Canal Commission in its welfare work.
+
+The banana country lies close to the ocean and mainly on the Atlantic
+side of the Isthmus. The lumber industry nestles close to the rivers,
+mainly in the Bayano region. Cocoanuts need the beaches and the sea
+breezes. Native rubber is found in every part of the Republic, though at
+present it is collected mainly in the Darien, which is true also of
+vegetable ivory. The only gold which is mined on a large scale is taken
+from the neighborhood of the Tuyra River in the Darien. But for products
+requiring cultivation like cacao and coffee the high lands in the
+Chiriqui province offer the best opportunity.
+
+[Illustration: DRYING CLOTHS FOR COFFEE
+
+Where the planter has no regular drying floor, cloths are spread on
+which the berries are exposed]
+
+David is really the center of this territory. It is a typical Central
+American town of about 15,000 people, with a plaza, a cathedral, a hotel
+and all the appurtenances of metropolitan life in Panama. The place is
+attractive in its way, with its streets of white-walled, red-tiled
+dwellings, with blue or green doors and shutters. It seems to have grown
+with some steadiness, for though the Panama census for 1912 gave it
+15,000 inhabitants, travelers like Mr. Forbes Lindsay and Albert
+Edwards, who visited it only a year or two earlier, gave it only from
+5000 to 8000 people. Its growth, however, is natural and healthy, for
+the country round it is developing rapidly. You reach David now by boats
+of the Pacific Mail and the National Navigation Company from Panama. The
+quickest trip takes thirty hours. When the government railroad is built,
+about which there is some slight doubt, the whole country will be opened
+and should be quickly settled. The road in all probability will be
+continued to Bocas del Toro on the Atlantic coast.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_
+
+BREADFRUIT TREE]
+
+While the cattle business of the Chiriqui region is its chief mainstay,
+it is far from being developed to its natural extent. The Commissary
+officials of the Canal organization tried to interest cattle growers to
+the extent of raising enough beef for the need of the Canal workers, but
+failed. Practically all of the meat thus used is furnished by the
+so-called “Beef Trust” of the United States. It is believed that there
+are not more than 50,000 head of cattle all told in Panama. I was told
+on the Isthmus that agents of a large Chicago firm had traveled through
+Chiriqui with a view to establishing a packing house there, but
+reported that the supply of cattle was inadequate for even the smallest
+establishment. Yet the country is admirably adapted for cattle raising.
+
+[Illustration: PRIMITIVE SUGAR MILL]
+
+The climate of this region is equable, both as to temperature and
+humidity. Epidemic diseases are practically unknown among either men or
+beasts. Should irrigation in future seem needful to agriculture the
+multitude of streams furnish an ample water supply and innumerable sites
+for reservoirs.
+
+Westward from David the face of the country rises gently until you come
+to the Caldera Valley which lies at the foot of the Chiriqui Peak, an
+extinct volcano perhaps 8000 feet high. Nowhere in Panama do the
+mountains rise very high, though the range is clearly a connection of
+the Cordilleras of North and South America. The Chiriqui Peak has not in
+the memory of man been in eruption, but the traces of its volcanic
+character are unmistakable. Its crater is a circular plain about half a
+mile in diameter surrounded by a densely wooded precipitous ridge. As
+the ascent is continued the woods give way to grass and rocks. While
+there is a distinct timber line, no snow line is attained. At the foot
+of the mountain is El Bouquette, much esteemed by the Panamanians as a
+health resort. Thither go Canal workers who, not being permitted to
+remain on the Zone during their vacations, wish to avoid the long voyage
+to North American ports.
+
+[Illustration: CHIRIQUI NATIVES IN AN OX-CART]
+
+This neighborhood is the center of the coffee-growing industry which
+should be profitable in Panama if a heavy protective tariff could make
+it so. But not even enough of the fragrant berries are grown to supply
+home needs, and the industry is as yet largely prosecuted in an
+unsystematic and haphazard manner. It is claimed that sample shipments
+of coffee brought high prices in New York, but as yet not enough is
+grown to permit exportation. Cacao, which thrives, is grown chiefly by
+English and German planters, but as yet in a small way only. Cotton,
+tobacco and fiber plants also grow readily in this region but are little
+cultivated.
+
+[Illustration: PROCLAIMING A LAW AT DAVID
+
+There being a dearth of newspapers and readers, new laws are promulgated
+by being read aloud]
+
+A curious industry of the Chiriqui country, now nearly abandoned, was
+the collection of gold ornaments which the Guaymi Indians formerly
+buried with their dead. These images sometimes in human form, more often
+in that of a fish, sometimes like frogs and alligators, jointed and
+flexible, were at one time found in great quantities and formed a
+conspicuous feature of the Panama curiosity shops. In seeking these the
+hunters walked back and forth over the grounds known to be Indian burial
+places, tapping the ground with rods. When the earth gave forth a hollow
+sound the spade was resorted to, and usually a grave was uncovered. Jars
+which had contained wine and food were usually found in the graves,
+which were in fact subterranean tombs carefully built with flat stones.
+The diggers tell of finding skulls perfectly preserved apparently but
+which crumbled to pieces at a touch. Evidently the burial places which
+can be identified through local tradition have been nearly exhausted,
+for the ancient trinkets cannot longer be readily found in the Panama
+shops.
+
+[Illustration: THE CATTLE RANGE NEAR DAVID
+
+In Chiriqui province there is much of this open savanna or prairie land
+bordered by thick jungle]
+
+Another Panamanian product which the tourists buy eagerly but which is
+rapidly becoming rare is the pearl. In the Gulf of Panama are a group of
+islands which have been known as Las Islas des Perlas--the Pearl
+Islands. This archipelago is about thirty miles long, with sixteen big
+islands and a quantity of small ones, and lies about sixty miles south
+of Panama City. Balboa saw them from the shore and intended to visit
+them but never did. Pizarro stopped there on his way to Peru and
+plundered them to his heart’s content. Otherwise their history has been
+uneventful. Saboga on the island of the same name is a beautiful little
+tropical village of about 300 huts, on a high bluff bordering a bay
+that affords excellent anchorage. Whales are plentiful in these waters
+and Pacific whalers are often seen in port. San Miguel, the largest town
+of the archipelago, is on Rey Island and has about 1000 inhabitants. The
+tower of its old church is thickly inlaid with glistening, pearly shell.
+
+[Illustration: DESPOILING OLD GUAYMI GRAVES]
+
+The pearl fisheries have been overworked for years, perhaps centuries,
+and begin to show signs of being exhausted. Nevertheless the tourist who
+takes the trip to the islands from the City of Panama will find himself
+beset by children as he lands offering seed pearls in quantities.
+Occasionally real bargains may be had from “beach combers” not only at
+Rey Island, but even at Taboga, where I knew an American visitor to pick
+up for eleven dollars three pearls valued at ten or twelve times as much
+when shown in the United States. There are stories of lucky finds among
+divers that vie with the tales of nuggets among gold prospectors. Once a
+native boy diving for sport in one of the channels near Naos Island
+brought up an oyster in which was a black pearl that was sold in Panama
+for $3000. The report does not say how much of this the boy got, but as
+the pearl was afterward sold in Paris for $12,000 it is quite evident
+that the share of the middleman, of whom political economists just now
+talk so much, was heavy. The Panama pearls are sometimes of beautiful
+colors, green, pale blue and a delicate pink. On the Chiriqui coast a
+year or two ago a pearl weighing about forty-two carats, about the size
+and shape of a partridge egg, greenish black at the base and shading to
+a steel gray at the tip, was found. It was sold in Paris for $5000.
+
+[Illustration: A DAY’S SHOOTING, GAME MOSTLY MONKEYS]
+
+It is a curious fact that the use of mussels from our western rivers is
+one cause for the decadence of the Panama pearl industry. For years the
+actual expense of maintaining these fisheries was met by the sale of the
+shell for use in making buttons and mother-of-pearl ornaments. The
+pearls represented the profit of the enterprise, which was always
+therefore more or less of a gamble--but a game in which it was
+impossible to lose, though the winnings might be great or small
+according to luck. Now that the demand for pearl oyster shells has
+fallen off, owing to the competition of mussels, the chances in the game
+are rather against the player and the sport languishes.
+
+[Illustration: THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF HAT MAKING]
+
+[Illustration: BEGINNING A PANAMA HAT]
+
+The authorities of the Republic are making some effort to establish a
+system of industrial schools which may lead to the fuller utilization of
+the natural resources of the country. Every tourist who visits the
+Isthmus is immediately taught by one who has been there a day or two
+longer than he that Panama hats are not made in Panama. This seems to
+be the most precious information that anyone on the Zone has to impart.
+Most of the hats there sold are indeed made in Ecuador and the name
+“Panama” was first attached to them years ago, because their chief
+market was found in Panama City, whence they were distributed to more
+northern countries. The palm of which they are made however grows
+generally in Panama and the government has established in the Chiriqui
+province a school in which native boys are taught the art of hat making.
+In the National Institute at Panama City there is also a government
+trades school where boys are given a three years’ course in the elements
+of the carpenters’ and machinists’ trades. Indeed the rulers of the
+Republic, which was so abruptly created, deserve great credit for the
+steps they are taking for the creation of a general system of public
+education, both literary and practical. The school system is not yet on
+a par with that of states of longer existence, nor will it in all
+probability ever quite conform to more northern ideas of an educational
+establishment. For example, the National Institute is closed to girls,
+who for their higher education are limited to the schools maintained by
+the church. A normal school, however, in which girls are prepared for
+teaching in the primary grades is maintained with about 125 students.
+The school system of Panama must be regarded merely as a nucleus from
+which a larger organism may grow. Yet when one recalls the state of
+society which has resulted from revolutions in other Central American
+states, one is impelled to a certain admiration for the promptitude with
+which the men who erected the Republic of Panama gave thought to the
+educational needs of people. They were suddenly put in authority over an
+infant state which had no debt, but, on the contrary, possessed a
+capital of $10,000,000 equivalent to about $30 for every man, woman and
+child of its population. Instead of creating an army, buying a navy and
+thus wasting the money on mere militarism which appeals so strongly to
+the Latin-American mind, they organized a civil government, equipped it
+with the necessary buildings, established a university and laid the
+foundation of a national system of education.
+
+[Illustration: COFFEE PLANTATION AT BOUQUETTE]
+
+The thoughtful traveler will concede to the Republic of Panama great
+natural resources and a most happy entrance to the family of nations. It
+is the especial protégé of the United States and under the watchful care
+of its patron will be free from the apprehension of misuse, revolution
+or invasion from without which has kept other Central American
+governments in a constant state of unrest. About the international
+morality of the proceedings which created the relations now existing
+between the United States and Panama perhaps the least said the better.
+But even if we reprobate the sale of Joseph by his brethren, in the
+scripture story, we must at least admit that he did better in Egypt than
+in his father’s house and that the protection and favor of the mighty
+Pharaoh was of the highest advantage to him, and in time to his
+unnatural brethren as well.
+
+[Illustration: WORK OF INDIAN STUDENTS IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE]
+
+At present the Republic suffers not only from its own checkered past,
+but from the varied failings of its neighbors. Its monetary system
+affords one illustration. The highest coin of the land is the peso, a
+piece the size of our silver dollar but circulating at a value of fifty
+cents. If a man should want to pay a debt of $500 he would have to
+deliver 1000 pesos unless he was possessed of a bank account and could
+settle by check. No paper money is issued. “Who would take paper money
+issued by a Central American republic?” ask the knowing ones scornfully
+when you inquire about this seeming lack in the monetary system. Yet the
+Republic of Panama is the most solvent of nations, having no national
+debt and with money in bank.
+
+[Illustration: THE CRATER OF THE CHIRIQUI VOLCANO]
+
+Probably the one obstacle to the progress of the Republic to greatness
+is the one common to all tropical countries on which Benjamin Kidd laid
+an unerring finger when he referred to the unwisdom of longer permitting
+the riches of the tropics to “remain undeveloped with resources running
+to waste under the management of races of low social efficiency”. The
+Panamanian authorities are making apparently sincere endeavors to
+attract new settlers of greater efficiency. In proportion to the success
+that attends the efforts the future of Panama will be bright.
+
+[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY F. E. WRIGHT
+
+VENDOR OF FRUIT AND POTTERY
+
+Like all tropical towns Panama displays interesting bits of outdoor life
+in its street markets and vendors. The sidewalks are the true shops and
+almost the homes of the people.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE INDIANS OF PANAMA
+
+
+While that portion of the Panama territory that lies along the border of
+Colombia known as the Darien is rather ill-defined as to area and to
+boundaries, it is known to be rich in timber and is believed to possess
+gold mines of great richness. But it is practically impenetrable by the
+white man. Through this country Balboa led his force on his expedition
+to the unknown Pacific, and was followed by the bloodthirsty Pedrarias
+who bred up in the Indians a hatred of the white man that has grown as
+the ages passed. No expedition can enter this region even today except
+as an armed force ready to fight for the right of passage. In 1786 the
+Spaniards sought to subdue the territory, built forts on both the
+Atlantic and Pacific coasts and established a line of trading posts
+connecting them. But the effort failed. The posts were abandoned. Today
+the white man who tries to enter the Darien does so at the risk of his
+life.
+
+In 1854 a navy exploring expedition of twenty-seven men, under command
+of Lieutenant Isaac C. Strain, entered the jungle of the Darien at
+Caledonia Bay, on the Atlantic side, the site of Patterson’s ill-fated
+colony. They purposed crossing the Isthmus and making a survey for a
+canal route, as an English adventurer not long before had
+asserted--falsely as it proved--that he had discovered a route by which
+a canal could be built with but three or four miles of cutting. The
+party carried ten days’ provisions and forty rounds of ball cartridge
+per man. They expected to have to traverse about forty or fifty miles,
+for which the supply of provisions seemed wholly adequate. But when
+they had cut their way through the jungle, waded through swamps and
+climbed hills until their muscles were exhausted and their clothing torn
+to tatters, they found themselves lost in the very interior of the
+Isthmus with all their food gone. Diaries kept by members of the party
+show that they lived in constant terror of the Indians. But no attack
+was made upon them. The inhabitants contented themselves with
+disappearing before the white men’s advance, sweeping their huts and
+fields clear of any sort of food. The jungle not its people fought the
+invaders. For food they had mainly nuts with a few birds and the diet
+disturbed their stomachs, caused sores and loosened their teeth. The
+bite of a certain insect deposited under the skin a kind of larva, or
+worm, which grew to the length of an inch and caused the most frightful
+torments. Despairing of getting his full party out alive, after they had
+been twenty-three days fighting with the jungle, Strain took three men
+and pushed ahead to secure and send back relief. It was thirty-nine days
+before the men left behind saw him again.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_
+
+TRAPPING AN ABORIGINE
+
+In houses and clothing the Darien Indians are decidedly primitive]
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE ON PANAMA BAY]
+
+Death came fast to those in the jungle. The agonies they suffered from
+starvation, exposure and insect pests baffle description. “Truxton in
+casting his eyes on the ground saw a toad”, wrote the historian.
+“Instantly snatching it up, he bit off the head and, spitting it away,
+devoured the body. Maury looked at him a moment, and then picked up the
+rejected head, saying, ‘Well, Truxton, you are getting quite particular.
+Something of an epicure, eh’? With these words he quietly devoured the
+head himself.”
+
+Nine of the twenty-seven men who entered the Darien with Strain died.
+When the leader returned with the relief party they were found, like
+Greely at Camp Starvation, unable to move and slowly dying. Those who
+retained life never fully regained strength. Every condition which
+brought such frightful disaster upon the Strain party exists in the
+Darien today. The Indians are as hostile, the trails as faintly
+outlined, the jungle as dense, the insects as savage. Only along the
+banks of the rivers has civilization made some little headway, but the
+richest gold field twenty miles back in the interior is as safe from
+civilized workings as though it were walled in with steel and guarded by
+dragons. Every speculative man you meet in Panama will assure you that
+the gold is there but all agree that conditions must be radically
+changed before it can be gotten out unless a regiment and a subsistence
+train shall follow the miners.
+
+[Illustration: A RIVER LANDING PLACE]
+
+The authorities of Panama estimate that there are about 36,000 tribal
+Indians, that is to say aborigines, still holding their tribal
+organizations and acknowledging fealty to no other government now in the
+Isthmus. The estimate is of course largely guesswork, for few of the
+wild Indians leave the jungle and fewer still of the census enumerators
+enter it. Most of these Indians live in the mountains of the provinces
+of Bocas del Toro, Chiriqui and Veragua, or in the Darien. Their tribes
+are many and the sources of information concerning them but few. The
+most accessible and complete record of the various tribes is in a
+pamphlet issued by the Smithsonian Institution, and now obtainable only
+through public libraries, as the edition for distribution has been
+exhausted. The author, Miss Eleanor Yorke Bell, beside studies made at
+first hand has diligently examined the authorities on the subject and
+has presented the only considerable treatise on the subject of which I
+have knowledge.
+
+[Illustration: THE FALLS AT CHORRERA]
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by Underwood, & Underwood_
+
+ON THE RIO GRANDE]
+
+Of life among the more civilized natives she says:
+
+“The natives of the Isthmus in general, even in the larger towns, live
+together without any marriage ceremony, separating at will and dividing
+the children. As there is little or no personal property, this is
+accomplished amicably as a rule, though should disputes arise the
+alcalde of the district is appealed to, who settles the matter. This
+informal system is always stoutly defended by the women, even more than
+by the men, for, as among all people low in the scale of civilization,
+it is generally held that the women receive better treatment when not
+bound and therefore free to depart at any time. Recently an effort has
+been made to bring more of the inhabitants under the marriage laws, with
+rather amusing results in many instances. The majority of the population
+is nominally Catholic, but the teachings of the church are only vaguely
+understood, and its practices consist in the adoration of a few battered
+images of saints whose particular degree of sanctity is not even guessed
+at and who, when their owners are displeased with them, receive rather
+harsh treatment, as these people have usually no real idea of
+Christianity beyond a few distorted and superstitious beliefs. After the
+widespread surveys of the French engineers, a sincere effort was made to
+re-Christianize the inhabitants of the towns in Darien as well as
+elsewhere, for, until this time, nothing had been done toward their
+spiritual welfare since the days of the early Jesuits. In the last
+thirty years spasmodic efforts have been made to reach the people with
+little result, and, excepting at Penonome, David, and Santiago, there
+are few churches where services are held outside of Panama and the towns
+along the railroad.
+
+[Illustration: OLD SPANISH CHURCH, CHORRERA]
+
+“The chief amusements of the Isthmian are gambling, cock-fighting, and
+dancing, the latter assisted by the music of the tom-tom and by dried
+beans rattled in a calabash. After feasts or burials, when much bad rum
+and whisky is consumed, the hilarity keeps up all night and can be heard
+for miles, increased by the incessant howls of the cur dogs lying under
+every shack. Seldom does an opportunity come to the stranger to witness
+the really characteristic dances, as the natives do not care to perform
+before them, though a little money will sometimes work wonders.
+Occasionally, their dancing is really remarkably interesting, when a
+large amount of pantomime enters into it and they develop the story of
+some primitive action, as, for instance, the drawing of the water,
+cutting the wood, making the fire, cooking the food, etc., ending in a
+burst of song symbolizing the joys of the new prepared feast. In an
+extremely crude form it reminds one of the old opera ballets and seems
+to be a composite of the original African and the ancient Spanish, which
+is very probably the case.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHURCH AT ANCON]
+
+“The Orientals of the Isthmus deserve a word in passing. They are
+chiefly Chinese coolies and form a large part of the small merchant
+class. Others, in the hill districts, cultivate large truck gardens,
+bringing their produce swinging over the shoulders on poles to the city
+markets. Their houses and grounds are very attractive, built of reed or
+bamboo in the eastern fashion and marked everywhere by extreme neatness,
+contrasting so strikingly with the homes and surroundings of their negro
+neighbors. Many cultivate fields of cane or rice as well, and amidst the
+silvery greens, stretching for some distance, the quaint blue figures of
+the workmen in their huge hats make a charming picture. Through the
+rubber sections Chinese ‘middlemen’ are of late frequently found buying
+that valuable commodity for their fellow countrymen in Panama City, who
+are now doing quite a large business in rubber. These people live much
+as in their native land, seldom learning more than a few words of
+Spanish (except those living in the towns), and they form a very
+substantial and good element of the population”.
+
+[Illustration: THE PEARL ISLAND VILLAGE OF SABOGA]
+
+To enumerate even by names the aboriginal tribes would be tedious and
+unavailing. Among the more notable are the Doracho-Changuina, of
+Chiriqui, light of color, believing that the Great Spirit lived in the
+volcano of Chiriqui, and occasionally showing their displeasure with him
+by shooting arrows at the mountain. The Guaymies, of whom perhaps 6000
+are left, are the tribe that buried with their dead the curious golden
+images that were once plentiful in the bazaars of Panama, but are now
+hard to find. They have a pleasant practice of putting a calabash of
+water and some plantains by a man they think dying and leaving him to
+his fate, usually in some lonesome part of the jungle. The Cunas or
+Caribs are the tribes inhabiting the Darien. All were, and some are,
+believed still to be cannibals. Eleven lesser tribes are grouped under
+this general name. As a rule they are small and muscular. Most of them
+have abandoned their ancient gaudy dress, and so far as they are clothed
+at all wear ordinary cotton clothing. Painting the face and body is
+still practiced. The dead often are swung in hammocks from trees and
+supplied with fresh provisions until the cords rot and the body falls to
+the ground. Then the spirit’s journey to the promised land is held to be
+ended and provisions are no longer needed. Sorcery and soothsaying are
+much in vogue, and the sorcerers who correspond to the medicine men of
+our North American Indians will sometimes shut themselves up in a small
+hut shrieking, beating tom-toms and imitating the cries of wild animals.
+When they emerge in a sort of self-hypnotized state they are held to be
+peculiarly fit for prophesying.
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE AT CAPERA]
+
+All the Indians drink heavily, and the white man’s rum is to some extent
+displacing the native drink of chica. This is manufactured by the women,
+usually the old ones, who sit in a circle chewing yam roots or cassava
+and expectorating the saliva into a large bowl in the center. This
+ferments and is made the basis of a highly intoxicating drink. Curiously
+enough the same drink is similarly made in far-away Samoa. The dutiful
+wives after thus manufacturing the material upon which their spouses get
+drunk complete their service by swinging their hammocks, sprinkling them
+with cold water and fanning them as they lie in a stupor. Smoking is
+another social custom, but the cigars are mere hollow rolls of tobacco
+and the lighted end is held in the mouth. Among some of the tribes in
+Comagre the bodies of the caciques, or chief men, were preserved after
+death by surrounding them with a ring of fire built at a sufficient
+distance to gradually dry the body until skin and bone alone remained.
+
+The Indians with whom the visitor to Panama most frequently comes into
+contact are those of the San Blas or Manzanillo country. These Indians
+hover curiously about the bounds of civilization, and approach without
+actually crossing them. They are fishermen and sailors, and many of
+their young men ship on the vessels touching at Colon, and, after
+visiting the chief seaports of the United States, and even of France and
+England, are swallowed up again in their tribe without affecting its
+customs to any appreciable degree. If in their wanderings they gain new
+ideas or new desires they are not apparent. The man who silently offers
+you fish, fruits or vegetables from his cayuca on the beach at Colon may
+have trod the docks at Havre or Liverpool, the levee at New Orleans or
+wandered along South Street in New York. Not a word of that can you coax
+from him. Even in proffering his wares he does so with the fewest
+possible words, and an air of lofty indifference. Uncas of the
+Leather-Stocking Tales was no more silent and self-possessed a red-skin
+than he.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_
+
+A CHOCO INDIAN IN FULL COSTUME
+
+His cuffs are silver; his head adorned with flowers]
+
+In physiognomy the San Blas Indians are heavy of feature and stocky of
+frame. Their color is dark olive, with no trace of the negro apparent,
+for it has been their unceasing study for centuries to retain their
+racial purity. Their features are regular and pleasing and, among the
+children particularly, a high order of beauty is often found. To get a
+glimpse of their women is almost impossible, and a photograph of one is
+practically unknown. If overtaken on the water, to which they often
+resort in their cayucas, the women will wrap their clothing about their
+faces, rather heedless of what other portions of their bodies may be
+exposed, and make all speed for the shore. These women paint their faces
+in glaring colors, wear nose rings, and always blacken their teeth on
+being married. Among them more pains is taken with clothing than among
+most of the savage Indians, many of their garments being made of a sort
+of appliqué work in gaudy colors, with figures, often in representation
+of the human form, cut out and inset in the garment.
+
+So determined are the men of this tribe to maintain its blood
+untarnished by any admixture whatsoever, that they long made it an
+invariable rule to expel every white man from their territory at
+nightfall. Of late years there has been a very slight relaxation of this
+severity. Dr. Henri Pittier of the United States Department of
+Agriculture, one of the best-equipped scientific explorers in the
+tropics, several of whose photographs elucidate this volume, has lived
+much among the San Blas and the Cuna-Cuna Indians and won their
+friendship.
+
+[Illustration: SOME SAN BLAS GIRLS
+
+The dresses are covered with elaborate designs in appliqué work]
+
+It was the ancestors of these Indians who made welcome Patterson and his
+luckless Scotchmen, and in the 200 years that have elapsed they have
+clung to the tradition of friendship for the Briton and hatred for the
+Spaniard. Dr. Pittier reports having found that Queen Victoria occupied
+in their villages the position of a patron saint, and that they refused
+to believe his assertion that she was dead. His account of the attitude
+of these Indians toward outsiders, recently printed in the National
+Geographic Magazine, is an authoritative statement on the subject:
+
+“The often circulated reports of the difficulty of penetrating into the
+territory of the Cuna-Cuna are true only in part”, he says. “The
+backwoods aborigines, in the valleys of the Bayano and Chucunaque
+rivers, have nourished to this day their hatred for all strangers,
+especially those of Spanish blood. That feeling is not a reasoned one:
+it is the instinctive distrust of the savage for the unknown or
+inexplicable, intensified in this particular case by the tradition of a
+long series of wrongs at the hands of the hated Spaniards.
+
+“So they feel that isolation is their best policy, and it would not be
+safe for anybody to penetrate into their forests without a strong escort
+and continual watchfulness. Many instances of murders, some confirmed
+and others only suspected, are on record, and even the natives of the
+San Blas coast are not a little afraid of their brothers of the
+mountains.
+
+“Of late, however, conditions seem to have bettered, owing to a more
+frequent intercourse with the surrounding settlements. A negro of La
+Palma, at the mouth of the Tuyra River, told me of his crossing, some
+time ago, from the latter place to Chepo, through the Chucunaque and
+Bayano territories, gathering rubber as he went along with his party. At
+the headwaters of the Canaza River he and his companions were held up by
+the ‘bravos’, who contented themselves with taking away the rubber and
+part of the equipment and then let their prisoners go with the warning
+not to come again.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy of National Geographic Magazine_
+
+CHIEF DON CARLOS OF THE CHOCOES AND HIS SON]
+
+“The narrative of that expedition was supplemented by the reflection of
+an old man among the hearers that twenty years ago none of the party
+would have come out alive.
+
+[Illustration: _Courtesy of National Geographic Magazine_
+
+THE VILLAGE OF PLAYON GRAND, EIGHTY-FIVE MILES EAST OF THE CANAL
+
+The houses are about 150 x 50 feet and each shelters 16 to 20 families.
+The members of each family herd together in a single room]
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy Nat’l Geographic Magazine_
+
+SAN BLAS WOMAN IN DAILY GARB]
+
+“Among the San Blas Indians, who are at a far higher level of
+civilization, the exclusion of aliens is the result of well-founded
+political reasons. Their respected traditions are a long record of proud
+independence; they have maintained the purity of their race and enjoyed
+freely for hundreds of years every inch of their territory. They feel
+that the day the negro or the white man acquires a foothold in their
+midst these privileges will become a thing of the past. This is why,
+without undue hostility to strangers, they discourage their incursions.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy Nat’l Geographic Magazine_
+
+A GIRL OF THE CHOCO TRIBE]
+
+“Their means of persuasion are adjusted to the importance of the
+intruder. They do not hesitate to shoot at any negro of the nearby
+settlements poaching on their cocoanuts or other products; the trader or
+any occasional visitor is very seldom allowed to stay ashore at night;
+the adventurers who try to go prospecting into Indian territory are
+invariably caught and shipped back to the next Panamanian port”.
+
+Among the men of the San Blas tribe the land held by their people is
+regarded as a sacred trust, bequeathed to them by their ancestors and to
+be handed down by them to the remotest posterity. During the early days
+of the Canal project it was desired to dig sand from a beach in the San
+Blas country. A small United States man-of-war was sent thither to
+broach the subject to the Indians, and the Captain held parley with the
+chief. After hearing the plea and all the arguments and promises with
+which it was strengthened the old Indian courteously refused the
+privilege:
+
+“He who made this land”, said he, “made it for Cuna-Cuna who live no
+longer, for those who are here today and also for the ones to come. So
+it is not ours only and we could not sell it”.
+
+To this decision the tribe adhered, and the wishes of the aborigines
+have been respected. It has been the policy of the United States to
+avoid any possibility of giving offense to the native population of the
+Isthmus, and even a request from the chief that the war vessel that
+brought the negotiator on his fruitless errand should leave was acceded
+to. It is quite unlikely, however, that the Indians will be able to
+maintain their isolation much longer. Already there are signs of its
+breaking down. While I was in Panama they sent a request that a
+missionary, a woman it is true, who had been much among them, should
+come and live with them permanently. They also expressed a desire that
+she should bring her melodeon, thus giving new illustration to the
+poetic adage, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast”. Perhaps
+the phonograph may in time prove the open sesame to many savage bosoms.
+Among this people it is the women who cling most tenaciously to the
+primitive customs, as might be expected, since they have been so
+assiduously guarded against the wiles of the world. But Catholic
+missionaries have made some headway in the country, and at Narganá
+schools for girls have been opened under auspices of the church. It is
+probably due to the feminine influence that the San Blas men return so
+unfailingly to primitive customs after the voyages that have made them
+familiar with civilization. If the women yield to the desire for novelty
+the splendid isolation of the San Blas will not long endure. Perhaps
+that would be unfortunate, for all other primitive peoples who have
+surrendered to the wiles of the white men have suffered and disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_
+
+DAUGHTER OF CHIEF DON CARLOS
+
+This young girl is merry, plump and fond of finger rings]
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE BRIDGE OVER THE CALDERA RIVER]
+
+In their present state the San Blas are relatively rich. All the land
+belongs to all the people--that is why the old chief declined to sell
+the sandy beach. There is a sort of private property in improvements. A
+banana plantation, a cocoanut grove or an orange tree planted and cared
+for, becomes a positive possession handed down to descendants of the
+owner through the female line. Perhaps one reason for keeping the women
+so shut off from the world is that they are the real owners of all
+individual property. Ownership does not, however, attach to trees or
+plants growing wild; they are as much communal as the land. So the
+vegetable ivory, balata and cocoanuts which form the marketable products
+are gathered by whomsoever may take the trouble. Land that has been
+tilled belongs to the one who improved it. If he let it lapse into
+wilderness it reverts to the community. The San Blas Indians have the
+essence of the single tax theory without the tax.
+
+They have a hazily defined religious system, and have curiously reversed
+the position held by their priests or sorcerers. These influential
+persons are not representatives of the spirit of good, but of the bad
+spirit. Very logically the San Blas savages hold that any one may
+represent the good spirit by being himself good, and that the
+unsupported prayers of such a one are sure to be heard. But to reach the
+devil, to induce that malicious practitioner of evil to rest from his
+persecutions and to abandon the pursuit of the unfortunate, it is
+desirable to have as intermediary some one who possesses his confidence
+and high regard. Hence the strong position of the sorcerers in the
+villages. The people defer to them on the principle that it is well to
+make friends with “the Mammon of Unrighteousness”.
+
+Polygamy is permitted among these Indians, but little practiced. Even
+the chiefs whose high estate gives them the right to more than one wife
+seldom avail themselves of the privilege. The women, as in most
+primitive tribes, are the hewers of wood and drawers of water. Dress is
+rather a more serious matter with them than among some of the other
+Indians, the Chocoes for example. They wear as a rule blouses and two
+skirts, where other denizens of the Darien dispense with clothing above
+the waist altogether. Their hair is usually kept short. The nose ring is
+looked upon as indispensable, and other ornaments of both gold and
+silver are worn by both sexes. Americans who have had much to do with
+the Indians of the Darien always comment on the extreme reticence shown
+by them in speaking of their golden ornaments, or the spot whence they
+were obtained. It is as though vague traditions had kept alive the story
+of the pestilence of fire and sword which ravaged their land when the
+Spaniards swept over it in search of the yellow metal. Gold is in the
+Darien in plenty. Everybody knows that, and the one or two mines near
+the rivers now being worked afford sufficient proof that the region is
+auriferous. But no Indian will tell of the existence of these mines, nor
+will any guide a white man to the spot where it is rumored gold is to be
+found. Seemingly ineradicably fixed in the inner consciousness of the
+Indian is the conviction that the white man’s lust for the yellow metal
+is the greatest menace that confronts the well-being of himself and his
+people.
+
+The San Blas are decidedly a town-dwelling tribe. They seem to hate
+solitude and even today, in their comparatively reduced state, build
+villages of a size that make understandable Balboa’s records of the size
+and state of the chief with whom he first fought, and then made friends.
+At Narganá are two large islands, fairly covered with spacious houses
+about 150 feet long by 50 broad. The ridge pole of the palm-thatched
+roof is 30 to 40 feet from the ground. A long corridor runs through the
+house longitudinally, and on either side the space is divided by upright
+posts into square compartments, each of which is supposed to house an
+entire family. The side walls are made of wattled reeds caked with clay.
+One of these houses holds from sixteen to twenty families, and the
+edifices are packed so closely together as to leave scarce room between
+for a razor-back hog to browse. The people within must be packed about
+as closely and the precise parental relationship sustained to each other
+by the various members of the family would be an interesting study.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_
+
+GUAYMI INDIAN MAN
+
+Note the tattoed marking of face and the negroid lips]
+
+The Choco Indians are one of the smaller and least known tribes of the
+Darien. Prof. Pittier--who may without disrespect be described as the
+most seasoned “tropical tramp” of all Central America--described them so
+vividly that extracts from his article in the National Geographic
+Magazine will be of interest:
+
+“Never, in our twenty-five years of tropical experience, have we met
+with such a sun-loving, bright and trusting people, living nearest to
+nature and ignoring the most elementary wiles of so-called civilization.
+They are several hundred in number and their dwellings are scattered
+along the meandrous Sambu and its main reaches, always at short
+distance, but never near enough to each other to form real villages.
+Like their houses, their small plantations are close to the river, but
+mostly far enough to escape the eye of the casual passer-by.
+
+“Dugouts drawn up on the beach and a narrow trail breaking the reed wall
+at the edge of the bank are the only visible signs of human presence,
+except at the morning hours and near sunset, when a crowd of women and
+children will be seen playing in the water, and the men, armed with
+their bows and long harpooned arrows, scrutinizing the deeper places for
+fish or looking for iguanas and crabs hidden in the holes of the banks.
+
+“Physically the Chocoes are a fine and healthy race. They are tall, as
+compared with the Cuna-Cuna, well proportioned, and with a graceful
+bearing. The men have wiry limbs and faces that are at once kind and
+energetic, while as a rule the girls are plump, fat, and full of
+mischief. The grown women preserve their good looks and attractiveness
+much longer than is generally the case in primitive peoples, in which
+their sex bears the heaviest share of every day’s work.
+
+“Both males and females have unusually fine white teeth, which they
+sometimes dye black by chewing the shoots of one of the numerous wild
+peppers growing in the forests. The skin is of a rich olive-brown color
+and, as usual, a little lighter in women and children. Though all go
+almost naked, they look fairer than the San Blas Cunas, and some of the
+women would compare advantageously in this respect with certain
+Mediterranean types of the white race.
+
+“The hair is left by all to grow to its natural length, except in a few
+cases, in which the men have it cropped at the neck. It is coarse and
+not jet black, as reported of most Indians, but with a reddish hue,
+which is better noticed when the sun is playing through the thick mass.
+
+“In young children it decidedly turns at times to a blond color, the
+only difference from the Caucasian hair being the pronounced coarseness
+of the former. As there are no white people living within a radius of
+fifty miles, but only negroes, mulattoes and zambos, this peculiarity
+cannot be explained by miscegenation, and may therefore be considered as
+a racial feature of the Choco tribe.
+
+“In men the every-day dress consists of a scanty clout, made of a strip
+of red calico about one foot broad and five feet long. This clout is
+passed in front and back of the body over a string tied around the hips,
+the forward extremity being left longer and flowing like an apron. On
+feast days the string is replaced by a broad band of white beads. Around
+the neck and chest they wear thick cords of the same beads and on their
+wrists broad silver cuffs. Hats are not used; the hair is usually tied
+with a red ribbon and often adorned with the bright flowers of the
+forest.
+
+“The female outfit is not less simple, consisting of a piece of calico
+less than three feet wide and about nine feet long, wrapped around the
+lower part of the body and reaching a little below the knees. This is
+all, except that the neck is more or less loaded with beads or silver
+coins. But for this the women display less coquetry than the men, which
+may be because they feel sufficiently adorned with their mere natural
+charms. Fondness for cheap rings is, however, common to both sexes, and
+little children often wear earrings or pendants.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_
+
+INDIAN GIRL OF THE DARIEN]
+
+“The scantiness of the clothing is remedied very effectually by face and
+body painting, in which black and red colors are used, the first
+exclusively for daily wear. At times men and women are painted black
+from the waist down; at other times it is the whole body or only the
+hands and feet, etc., all according to the day’s fashion, as was
+explained by one of our guides. For feast days the paintings are an
+elaborate and artistic affair, consisting of elegantly drawn lines and
+patterns--red and black or simply black--which clothe the body as
+effectually as any costly dress.
+
+“From the above one might conclude that cleanliness and modesty are not
+the rule among the Chocos. As a matter of fact, the first thing they do
+in the morning is to jump into the near-by river, and these ablutions
+are repeated several times in the course of the day.
+
+“The kitchen utensils are always thoroughly washed before using, and,
+contrary to our former experience, their simple dishes, prepared mostly
+in our presence, looked almost always inviting. During our stay among
+these good people nothing was noticed that would hurt the most delicate
+sense of decency.
+
+“The Chocoes seem to be exclusively monogamist, and both parents
+surround their babies with tender care, being mindful, however, to
+prepare them early for the hard and struggling life ahead of them.
+Small bows and arrows, dexterously handled by tiny hands, are the
+favorite toys of the boys, while the girls spend more time in the water
+playing with miniature dugouts, washing, and swimming. The only dolls
+seen among them were imported ones, and they seemed to be as much in
+favor among grown women as among children. These latter go naked until
+they are about five years old, when the girls receive a large
+handkerchief to be used as a ‘paruma’, or skirt, and the boys a strip of
+some old maternal dress for an ‘antia’ or clout.
+
+“The Chocoes are very industrious. During the dry spells their life, of
+course, is an out-of-door one, planting and watching their crops,
+hunting, fishing and canoeing. But when the heavy rains come they stay
+at home, weaving baskets of all kinds--a work in which the women are
+proficient--making ropes and hammocks, carving dishes, mortars, stools,
+and other objects out of tree trunks”.
+
+In the country which will be traversed by the Panama-David Railroad are
+found the Guaymies, the only primitive people living in large numbers
+outside the Darien. There are about 5000 of them, living for the most
+part in the valley of Mirando which lies high up in the Cordilleras, and
+in a region cut off from the plains. Here they have successfully
+defended their independence against the assaults of both whites and
+blacks. To remain in their country without consent of the Great Chief is
+practically impossible, for they are savage fighters and in earlier days
+it was rare to see a man whose body was not covered with scars. It is
+apparent that in some ways progress has destroyed their industries and
+made the people less rather than more civilized, for they now buy cloth,
+arms, tools, and utensils which they were once able to make. At one time
+they were much under the influence of the Catholic missionaries, but of
+late mission work has languished in wild Panama and perhaps the chief
+relic of that earlier religious influence is the fact that the women go
+clothed in a single garment. This simple raiment, not needed for warmth,
+seems to be prized, for if caught in a rainstorm the women will quickly
+strip off their clothing, wrap it in a large banana or palm leaf that it
+may not get wet, and continue their work, or their play, in nature’s
+garb.
+
+It is said, too, that when strangers are not near clothes are never
+thought of. The men follow a like custom, and invariably when pursuing a
+quarry strip off their trousers, tying their shirts about their loins.
+Trousers seem to impede their movements, and if a lone traveler in
+Chiriqui comes on a row of blue cotton trousers tied to the bushes he
+may be sure that a band of Guaymies is somewhere in the neighborhood
+pursuing an ant bear or a deer.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_
+
+CHOCO INDIAN OF SAMBU VALLEY
+
+Silver beads about his neck and leg. Face painted in glaring colors]
+
+As a rule these Indians--men or women--are not pleasing to the eye. The
+lips are thick, the nose flat and broad, the hair coarse and always jet
+black. Yet the children are not infrequently really beautiful. Any
+traveler in Panama who forsakes the beaten track up and down the Canal
+Zone will be impressed by the wide extent to which beauty is found among
+the children, whatever their race or combination of races. But the charm
+soon fades. It is seldom that one sees a mature woman who is attractive
+to Caucasian eyes. Among the women of the Guaymies face painting is
+practiced only on great occasions, black, red and white being the usual
+colors. The men go painted at all times, the invariable pattern being a
+sort of inverted V, with the apex between the eyes, and the two arms
+extending to points, half an inch or so from the corners of the mouth.
+The lips are colored to make them seem thicker than normal, and heavy
+shadows are painted in under the eyes.
+
+Among some tribes the wealth of a man is reckoned by the number of his
+cattle; among the Guaymies by the number of his wives. For this reason,
+perhaps, the attainment of marriageable age is an occasion of much
+festivity for children of both sexes. The boy is exposed to tests of his
+manly and war-like qualities, and, in company with his fellows of equal
+age, is taken by the wisemen of the tribe into the solitude of the
+forest that by performing tasks assigned to him he may prove himself a
+man. There, too, they learn from the elders, who go masked and crowned
+with wreaths, the traditions of their tribes told in rude chants like
+the Norse sagas. Until this ceremony has been fulfilled the youth has no
+name whatsoever. After it he is named and celebrates his first birthday.
+
+The ceremonies in which the girls play the chief part are less
+elaborate, but one would think rather painful, since they include the
+breaking of a front tooth in sign that they are ready for marriage. They
+marry young and mothers at twelve years are not uncommon.
+
+Once a year the Guaymies have a great tribal feast--“balceria” the
+Spaniards call it. Word is sent to all outlying huts and villages by a
+mystic symbol of knotted rags, which is also tied to the branches of the
+trees along the more frequented trails. On the appointed day several
+hundred will gather on the banks of some river in which a general bath
+is taken, with much frolicking and horseplay. Then the women employ
+several hours in painting the men with red and blue colors, following
+the figures still to be seen on the old pottery, after which the men
+garb themselves uncouthly in bark or in pelts like children “dressing
+up” for a frolic. At night is a curious ceremonial dance and game called
+balsa, in which the Indians strike each other with heavy sticks, and are
+knocked down amid the pile of broken boughs. The music--if it could be
+so called--the incantations of the wisemen, the frenzy of the dancers,
+all combine to produce a sort of self-hypnotism, during which the
+Indians feel no pain from injuries which a day later often prove to be
+very serious.
+
+[Illustration: PANAMANIAN FATHER AND CHILD]
+
+There are a multitude of distinct Indian tribes on the Isthmus, each
+with its own tribal government, its distinctive customs and its allotted
+territory, though boundaries are, of course, exceedingly vague and the
+territories overlap. The Smithsonian pamphlet enumerates 21 such tribes
+in the Darien region alone. But there seems to be among them no such
+condition of continual tribal warfare as existed between our North
+American Indians as long as they survived in any considerable numbers
+the aggressions of the white settlers. It is true that the historian of
+Balboa’s expedition records that the great leader was besought by
+chieftains to assist them in their affrays with rival tribes, and made
+more than one alliance by giving such assistance. But the later
+atrocities perpetrated by the Spaniards seem to have had the effect of
+uniting the Indians in a tacit peaceful bond against the whites.
+Picturesque and graphic as are the writings of men like Esquemeling, the
+Fray d’Acosta and Wafer, who saw the Indians in the days of their
+earliest experience with the sort of civilization that Pedrarias and
+Pizarro brought to their villages, they do not bear more convincing
+evidence of the savagery of the invaders, than is afforded by the sullen
+aloofness with which the Darien Indians of today regard white men of any
+race. More than the third and fourth generation have passed away but the
+sins of the Spaniards are still recalled among a people who have no
+written records whatsoever, and the memory or tradition causes them to
+withhold their friendship from the remotest descendants of the historic
+oppressors.
+
+There seems to have been no written language, nor even any system of
+hieroglyphics among the tribes of Panama, a fact that places them far
+below our North American Indians in the scale of mental development. On
+the other hand in weaving and in fashioning articles for domestic use
+they were in advance of the North American aborigines. Their domestic
+architecture was more substantial, and they were less nomadic, the
+latter fact being probably due to the slight encouragement given to
+wandering by the jungle. The great houses of the San Blas Indians in
+their villages recall the “Long houses” of the Iroquois as described by
+Parkman.
+
+[Illustration: _Photo by H. Pittier_
+
+_Courtesy National Geographic Magazine_
+
+CHOCO INDIAN IN EVERY-DAY DRESS]
+
+Thus far what we call civilization has dealt less harshly with the
+Indians of the Isthmus than with our own. They have at least survived it
+and kept a great part of their territory for their own. The “squaw-man”
+who figures so largely in our own southwestern Indian country is unknown
+there. Unquestionably during the feverish days of the Spaniards’ hunt
+for gold the tribes were frightfully thinned out, and even today
+sections of the country which writers of Balboa’s time describe as
+thickly populated are desert and untenanted. Yet much land is still held
+by its aboriginal owners, and unless the operation of the Canal shall
+turn American settlement that way will continue so to be held. The
+Panamanian has not the energy to dislodge the Indians nor to till their
+lands if he should possess them.
+
+Many studies of the Panama Indians as a body, or of isolated tribes,
+have been made by explorers or scientists, and mainly by French or
+Spanish students. The Smithsonian Institution catalogues forty-seven
+publications dealing with the subject. But there is an immense mine of
+anthropological information yet to be worked in the Isthmus. It is not
+to be acquired readily or without heavy expenditure of energy, patience
+and money. A thoroughly scientific exploring expedition to unravel the
+riddle of the Darien, to count and describe the Indian tribes of the
+Isthmus, and to record and authenticate traditions dating back to the
+Spanish days, would be well worth the while of a geographical society, a
+university or some patron of exploring enterprises.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOCIAL LIFE ON THE CANAL ZONE
+
+
+From ocean to ocean the territory which is called the Canal Zone is
+about forty-three miles long, ten miles wide and contains about 436
+square miles, about ninety-five of which are under the waters of the
+Canal, and Miraflores and Gatun Lakes. It is bounded on the north by the
+Caribbean Sea, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, and on the east and
+west by the Republic of Panama. It traverses the narrowest part of
+Panama, the waist so to speak, and has been taken out of that body
+politic by the diplomatic surgeons as neatly as though it had been an
+obnoxious vermiform appendix. Its territory does not terminate at low
+water-mark, but extends three marine miles out to sea, and, as I write,
+a question of jurisdiction has arisen between the two Republics--hardly
+twin Republics--of Panama and the United States concerning jurisdiction
+over three malefactors captured by the Zone police in a motor boat out
+at sea. It may be noted in passing that Panama is properly tenacious of
+its rights and dignity, and that cases of conflicting jurisdiction are
+continually arising when any offender has only to foot it a mile or two
+to be out of the territory in which his offense was committed. The
+police officials of the Zone affect to think that the Panama authorities
+are inclined to deal lightly with native offenders who commit robbery or
+murder on the Zone and then stroll across the line to be arrested in
+their native State.
+
+[Illustration: A SQUAD OF CANAL ZONE POLICE OFFICERS]
+
+There was a quarrel on while I was on the Zone over the custody of a
+Panamanian who killed his wife, with attendant circumstances of
+peculiar brutality, and then balked the vengeance of the Zone criminal
+authorities by getting himself arrested in Panama. “We want to show
+these fellows”, remarked a high police official of the Zone, “that if
+they do murder in our territory we are going to do the hanging”. That
+seemed a laudable purpose--that is if hanging is ever laudable--but the
+Panama officials are quite as determined to keep the wheels of their
+criminal law moving. The proprietors of machines like to see them
+run--which is one of the reasons why too many battleships are not good
+for a nation.
+
+[Illustration: A PRIMITIVE SUGAR MILL]
+
+To return, however, to the statistics of the Zone. Its population is
+shifting, of course, and varies somewhat in its size according to the
+extent to which labor is in demand. The completion of a part of the work
+occasionally reduces the force. In January, 1912, the total population
+of the Zone, according to the official census, was 62,810; at the same
+time, by the same authority, there were employed by the Canal Commission
+and the Panama Railroad 36,600 men. These figures emphasize the fact
+that the working force on the Zone is made up mainly of unmarried men,
+for a working population of 36,600 would, under the conditions existing
+in the ordinary American community, give a population of well over
+100,000. Though statistics are not on hand, and would probably be
+impossible to compile among the foreign laborers, it is probable that
+not more than one man in four on the Zone is married. From this
+situation it results that the average maiden who visits the Zone for a
+brief holiday goes rushing home to get her trousseau ready before some
+young engineer’s next annual vacation shall give him time to go like a
+young Lochinvar in search of his bride. Indeed, the life of the Zone for
+many reasons has been singularly conducive to matrimony, and as a game
+preserve for the exciting sport of husband-hunting, it has been
+unexcelled.
+
+[Illustration: VINE-CLAD FAMILY QUARTERS]
+
+[Illustration: QUARTERS OF A BACHELOR TEACHER]
+
+Perhaps it may be as well to turn aside from the orderly and informative
+discussion of the statistics of the Zone to expand a little further here
+upon the remarkable matrimonial phenomena it presented in its halcyon
+days--for it must be remembered that even as I am writing, that society,
+which I found so hospitable and so admirable, has begun to disintegrate.
+Marriage, it must be admitted, is a somewhat cosmopolitan passion. It
+attacks spiggotty and gringo alike. In an earlier chapter I have
+described how the low cost of living enabled Miguel of the Chagres
+country to set up a home of his own. Let us consider how the benevolent
+arrangements made by the Isthmian Canal Commission impelled a typical
+American boy to the same step.
+
+Probably it was more a desire for experience and adventure than any idea
+of increased financial returns that led young Jack Maxon to seek a job
+in engineering on the Canal. Graduated from the engineering department
+of a State university, with two years or so of active experience in the
+field, Jack was a fair type of young American--clean, wholesome,
+healthy, technically trained, ambitious for his future but quite
+solicitious about the pleasures of the present, as becomes a youth of
+twenty-three.
+
+[Illustration: MAIN STREET AT GORGONA]
+
+The job he obtained seemed at the outset quite ideal. In the States he
+could earn about $225 a month. The day he took his number on the Canal
+Zone he began to draw $250 a month. And that $250 was quite as good as
+$300 at home. To begin with he had no room-rent to pay, but was assigned
+comfortable if not elegant quarters, which he shared with one other man;
+carefully screened and protected from all insects by netting, lighted by
+electricity, with a shower-bath handy and all janitor or chambermaid
+service free. Instead of a boarding-house table or a cheap city
+Easter lamb, and while it is still a-cooking experience the inevitable
+effects of plentiful wine on an empty stomach. Again, just as the rites
+of Eleusis were nocturnal, so the chief services of Holy Week are those
+of the Friday night and the Saturday night; and it may be that the
+torch-light processions which close the services on those two nights
+are related to the δᾳδουχία of Eleusis. But these are minor details;
+it is in the actual services of Good Friday and Easter that the most
+striking resemblance to the Eleusinian mysteries is found, and the
+spirit in which the worshippers approach may still be the same now as
+then. Let me briefly describe the festival as I saw it in the island
+of Santorini, or, to give it the old name which has revived in modern
+times, Thera.
+
+The Lenten fast was drawing to a close when I arrived. For the first
+week it is strictly observed, meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, and
+even olive-oil being prohibited, so that the ordinary diet is reduced
+to bread and water, to which is sometimes added a nauseous soup made
+from dried cuttle-fish or octopus; for these along with shellfish
+are not reckoned to be animal food, as being bloodless. During the
+next four weeks some relaxation is allowed; but no one with any
+pretensions to piety would even then partake of fish, meat, or eggs;
+the last-mentioned are stored up until Easter and then, being dyed
+red, are either eaten or--more wisely--offered to visitors. Then comes
+‘the Great Week’ (ἡ μεγάλη ἑβδομάδα), and with it the same strict
+regulations come into force as during the first week of Lent. It was
+not hard to perceive that for most of the villagers the fast had been
+a real and painful abstinence. Work had almost ceased; for there was
+little energy left. Leisure was not enjoyed; for there was little
+spirit even for chatting. Everywhere white, sharp-featured faces told
+of real hunger; and the silence was most often broken by an outburst
+of irritability. In a few days time I could understand it; for I too
+perforce fasted; and I must own that a daily diet of dry bread for
+_déjeuner_ and of dry bread and octopus soup for dinner soon changed my
+outlook upon life. Little wonder then if these folk after six weeks of
+such treatment were nervous and excitable.
+
+Such was the condition of body and mind in which they attended the
+long service of Good Friday night. Service I have said, but drama
+were a more fitting word, a funeral-drama. At the top of the nave,
+just below the chancel-step, stood a bier and upon it lay the figure
+of the Christ, all too death-like in the dim light. The congregation
+gaze upon him, reverently hushed, while the priests’ voices rise in
+prayer and chant as it were in lamentation for the dead God lying
+there in state. Hour after hour passes. The women have kissed the
+dead form, and are gone. The moment has come for carrying the Christ
+out to burial. The procession moves forward--in front, the priests
+with candles and torches and, guarded by them, the open bier borne
+shoulder-high--behind, a reverent, bare-headed crowd. The night is
+dark and gusty. It rains, and the rugged, tortuous alleys of the town
+are slippery. It is late, but none are sleeping. Unheeding of wind
+and rain, the women kneel at open door or window, praying, swinging
+censers, sprinkling perfume on the passing bier. Slowly, haltingly, led
+by the dirge of priests, now in darkness, now lighted by the torches’
+flare and intermittent beams from cottage doorways, groping at corners,
+stumbling in ill-paved by-ways, the mourners follow their God to his
+grave. The circuit of the town is done. All have taken their last look
+upon the dead. The sepulchre is reached--a vault beneath the church
+from which the funeral started. The priests alone enter with the bier.
+There is a pause. The crowd waits. The silence is deep as the darkness,
+only broken here and there by a deep-drawn sigh. Is it the last depth
+of anguish, or is it well-nigh relief that the long strain is over?
+The priests return. In silence the crowd have waited, in silence they
+disperse. It is finished.
+
+But there is a sequel on the morrow. Soon after dark on Easter-eve
+the same weary yet excited faces may be seen gathered in the church.
+But there is a change too; there is a feeling abroad of anxiety, of
+expectancy. Hours must yet pass ere midnight, and not till then is
+there hope of the announcement, ‘Christ is risen!’ The suspense seems
+long. To-night there is restlessness rather than silence. Some go to
+and fro between the church and their homes; others join discordantly
+in the chants and misplace the responses; anything to cheat the long
+hours of waiting. Midnight draws near; from hand to hand are passed
+the tapers and candles which shall light the joyful procession, if
+only the longed-for announcement be made. What is happening there now
+behind those curtains which veil the chancel from the expectant throng?
+Midnight strikes. The curtains are drawn back. Yes, there is the
+bier, borne but yesternight to the grave. It is empty. That is only
+the shroud upon it. The words of the priest ring out true, ‘Christ is
+risen!’ And there behind the chancel, see, a second veil is drawn back.
+There in the sanctuary, on the altar-steps, bright with a blaze of
+light stands erect the figure of the Christ who, so short and yet so
+long a while ago, was borne lifeless to the tomb. A miracle, a miracle!
+Quickly from the priest’s lighted candle the flame is passed. In a
+moment the dim building is illumined by a lighted taper in every hand.
+A procession forms, a joyful procession now. Everywhere are light and
+glad voices and the embraces of friends, crying aloud the news ‘Christ
+is risen’ and answering ‘He is risen indeed.’ In every home the lamb is
+prepared with haste, the wine flows freely; in the streets is the flash
+of torches, the din of fire-arms, and all the exuberance of simple
+joy. The fast is over; the dead has been restored to life before men’s
+eyes; well may they rejoice even to ecstasy. For have they not felt the
+ecstasy of sorrow? This was no tableau on which they looked, no drama
+in which they played a part. It was all true, all real. The figure on
+the bier was indeed the dead Christ; the figure on the altar-steps was
+indeed the risen Christ. In these simple folk religion has transcended
+reason; they have reached the heights of spiritual exaltation; they
+have seen and felt as minds more calm and rational can never see nor
+feel.
+
+And the ancient Greeks, had not they too the gift of ecstasy, the
+faculty to soar above facts on the wings of imagination? When the drama
+of Demeter and Kore was played before the eyes of the initiated at
+Eleusis, were not they too uplifted in mind until amid the magic of
+night they were no longer spectators of a drama but themselves had a
+share in Demeter’s sorrow and wandering and joy? For the pagan story
+is not unlike the Christian story in its power to move both tears and
+gladness. As now men mourn beside the bier of Christ, so in old time
+may men have shared Demeter’s mourning for her child who though divine
+had suffered the lot of men and passed away to the House of Hades. As
+now men rejoice when they behold the risen Christ, so in old time may
+men have shared Demeter’s joy when her child returned from beneath the
+earth, proving that there is life beyond the grave. But the old story
+taught more than this. Not only did Kore live in the lower world, but
+her passing thither was not death but wedding. Therefore just as now
+the resurrection of Christ, who though divine is the representative of
+mankind, is held to be an earnest of man’s resurrection, so the wedded
+life of Kore in the nether world may have been to the initiated an
+assurance of the same bliss to be vouchsafed to them hereafter.
+
+What was there then in this drama of Demeter and Kore at which the
+Christian writers could take offence or cavil? We do not of course
+know in what detail the story was represented; but the pivot on which
+the whole plot turned was necessarily the rape of Kore. Now it appears
+that in the play the part of Aïdoneus was taken by an hierophant and
+the part of Kore by a priestess; and it was the alleged indecency
+resulting therefrom which the fathers of the Church most severely
+censured. Asterius, after defending the Christians from the charge of
+worshipping saints as if they had been not human but divine, seeks to
+turn the tables on his pagan opponents by accusing them of deifying
+Demeter and Kore, whom he evidently regards as having once been human
+figures in mythology. Then he continues, ‘Is not Eleusis the scene
+of the descent into darkness, and of the solemn acts of intercourse
+between the hierophant and the priestess, alone together? Are not the
+torches extinguished, and does not the large, the numberless assembly
+of common people believe that their salvation lies in that which is
+being done by the two in the darkness[1445]?’ Again it was objected
+against the Valentinians by Tertullian that they copied ‘the whoredoms
+of Eleusis[1446],’ and from another authority we learn that part of the
+ceremonies of these heretics consisted in ‘preparing a nuptial chamber’
+and celebrating ‘a spiritual marriage[1447].’ These two statements,
+read in conjunction, form a strong corroboration of the information
+given by Asterius; and we are bound to conclude that the scene of the
+rape of Kore was represented at Eleusis by the descent of the priest
+and priestess who played the chief parts into a dark nuptial chamber.
+
+Now it is easy enough to suppose, as Sainte-Croix suggests[1448],
+that public morals were safeguarded by assigning the chief _rôles_
+in the drama to persons of advanced age, or, as one ancient author
+states[1449], by temporarily and partially paralysing the hierophant
+with a small dose of hemlock. Whether each of the initiated was at any
+time conducted through the same ritual is uncertain. In the formulary
+of the Eleusinian rites, as recorded by Clement of Alexandria--‘I
+fasted; I drank the sacred potion (κυκεῶνα); I took out of the chest;
+having wrought (ἐργασάμενος) I put back into the basket and from the
+basket into the chest[1450]’--the expression ‘having wrought’ has been
+taken to be an euphemism denoting the same mystic union as between
+hierophant and priestess[1451]. If this view is correct, it would imply
+no doubt that full initiation required the candidate to go through the
+whole ritual in person; in this case it must be presumed that some
+precaution such as the dose of hemlock was taken in the interests of
+morality.
+
+But the mere fact that a scene of rape should form any part of a
+religious rite, was to the Christians a stumbling-block. This was their
+insurmountable objection to the mysteries, and they were only too prone
+to exaggerate a ceremony, which with reverent and delicate treatment
+need have been in no way morally deleterious, into a sensual and
+noxious orgy. The story, how Demeter’s beautiful and innocent daughter
+was suddenly carried off from the meadow where she was gathering
+flowers into the depths of the dark under-world, spoke to them only
+of the violence and lust of her ravisher Aïdoneus. But the legend
+might bear another complexion. Kore, as representative of mankind or
+at least of the initiated among mankind, suffers what seems the most
+cruel lot, a sudden departure from this life in the midst of youth and
+beauty and spring-time; and Demeter searches for her awhile in vain,
+and mourns for her as men mourn their dead. Yet afterward it is found
+that there is no cruelty in Kore’s lot, for she is the honoured bride
+of the king of that world to which she was borne away; and Demeter is
+comforted, for her child is not dead nor lost to her, but is allowed
+to return in living form to visit her. What then must have been the
+‘happier hopes’ held out to those who had looked on the great drama
+of Eleusis? What was meant by that prospect of being ‘god-beloved
+and sharing the life of gods’? How came it that the assembly of the
+initiated believed their salvation to lie in the union of Hades and
+Persephone, represented in the persons of hierophant and priestess, in
+the subterranean nuptial-chamber? What was the bearing of the legend
+dramatically enacted upon these hopes and prospects and beliefs? Surely
+it taught that not only was there physical life beyond death, but a
+life of wedded happiness with the gods.
+
+And the same doctrine seems to be the _motif_ of many other popular
+legends and of mysteries founded thereon; its settings and its
+harmonies may be different, but the essential melody is the same. At
+Eleusis Demeter’s daughter was the representative of mankind, for she
+went down to the house of Hades as is the lot of men. But Crete had
+another legend wherein Demeter was the representative deity with whom
+mankind might hope for union. Was it not told how Iasion even in this
+life found such favour in the goddess’ eyes that she was ‘wed with
+him in sweet love mid the fresh-turned furrows of the fat land of
+Crete[1452]’? And happiness such as was granted to him here was laid
+up for all the initiated hereafter; else would there be no meaning in
+those lines, ‘Blessed, methinks, is the lot of him that sleeps, and
+tosses not, nor turns, even Endymion; and, dearest maiden, blessed I
+call Iasion, whom such things befell, as ye that be profane shall never
+come to know[1453].’ Surely that which is withheld from the profane is
+by implication reserved to the sanctified, and to them it is promised
+that they shall know by their own experience hereafter the bliss which
+Iasion even here obtained. It was, I think, in this spirit and this
+belief that the Athenians in old time called their dead Δημητρεῖοι
+‘Demeter’s folk[1454]’; for the popular belief in the condescension
+of the Mistress, great and reverend goddess though she was, was so
+firmly rooted, it would seem, that even to this day the folk-stories,
+as we have seen, still tell how the ‘Mistress of the earth and of the
+sea,’ she whom men still call Despoina and reverence for her love
+of righteousness and for her stern punishment of iniquity, has yet
+admitted brave heroes to her embrace in the mountain-cavern where, as
+of old in Arcady, she still dwells[1455].
+
+Nor did the cults of Demeter and Kore monopolise these hopes and
+beliefs. In the religious drama of Aphrodite and Adonis, in the
+Sabazian mysteries, in the holiest rites of Dionysus, in the wild
+worship of Cybele, the same thought seems ever to recur. It matters
+little whether these gods and their rites were foreign or Hellenic in
+origin. If they were not native, at least they were soon naturalised,
+and that for the simple reason that they satisfied the religious
+cravings of the Greek race. The essential spirit of their worship,
+whatever the accidents of form and expression, was the spirit of the
+old Pelasgian worship of Demeter; and therefore, though Dionysus may
+have been an immigrant from northern barbarous peoples, the Greeks did
+not hesitate to give him room and honour beside Demeter in the very
+sanctuary of Eleusis. Similar, we may well believe, was the lot of
+other foreign gods and rites. Whencesoever derived, they owed their
+reception in Greece to the fact that their character appealed to
+certain native religious instincts of the Greek folk. Once transplanted
+to Hellenic soil, they were soon completely Hellenized; those elements
+which were foreign or distasteful to Greek religion were quickly
+eradicated or of themselves faded into oblivion, while all that
+accorded with the Hellenic spirit throve into fuller perfection; for
+the character of a deity and of a cult depends ultimately upon the
+character of the worshippers.
+
+It is fair therefore to treat of Aphrodite as of a genuinely Greek
+deity; for, though she may have entered Greece from Eastern lands,
+doubtless long before the Homeric age her worship no less than her
+personality was permeated with the spirit of genuinely Greek religion.
+Too well known to need re-telling here is the story of how--to use the
+words of Theocritus once more--‘the beautiful Cytherea was brought by
+Adonis, as he pastured his flock upon the mountain-side, so far beyond
+the verge of frenzy, that not even in his death doth she put him from
+her bosom[1456].’ Such was the plot of one of the most famous religious
+dramas of old time. And what was its moral for those who had ears to
+hear? Surely that the beloved of the gods may hope for wedlock with
+them in death.
+
+It was certainly in this sense that Clement of Alexandria understood
+certain other mysteries of Aphrodite, though, needless to say, he
+puts upon them the most obscene construction. After relating in
+terms unnecessarily disgusting the legend of how by the very act of
+Uranus’ self-mutilation the sea became pregnant and gave birth from
+among its foam to the goddess Aphrodite, he states that ‘in the rites
+which celebrate this voluptuousness of the sea, as a token of the
+goddess’ birth there are handed to those that are being initiated
+into the lore of adultery (τοῖς μυουμένοις τὴν τέχνην τὴν μοιχικήν)
+a lump of salt and a phallus; and they for their part present her
+with a coin, as if they were her lovers and she their mistress (ὡς
+ἑταίρας ἐρασταί)[1457].’ Thus Clement; but those who are willing
+to see in the mysteries of the Greek religion something more than
+organised sensuality will do well to reflect whether that which
+Clement calls ‘being initiated into the lore of adultery’ was not
+really an initiation into those hopes of marriage with the gods of
+which we have already found evidence in the popular religion, and
+whether the goddess’ symbolic acceptance of her worshippers as lovers
+does not fit in exactly with that bold conception of man’s future
+bliss. The symbolism indeed, if Clement’s statement is accurate, was
+crude and even repellent, but its significance is clear; and those
+who approached these mysteries of Aphrodite in reverent mood need not
+have been repelled by that which modern taste would account indecent
+in the ritual. Greek feeling never erred on the side of prudery; men
+were familiar with the _Hermae_ erected in the streets and with the
+symbolism of the _phallus_ in religious ceremonies, and tolerated
+the publication of literature--be it the comedy of Aristophanes or
+Clement’s own exhortation to the heathen--which neither as a source of
+amusement nor of instruction would be tolerated now.
+
+The particular mysteries to which Clement alludes in this passage
+seem to have been concerned with the story of Aphrodite’s birth, and
+though it is difficult to conjecture how that story can have been made
+to illustrate and to inculcate the doctrine of the marriage of men
+and gods, the information given by Clement with respect to the ritual
+makes it clear that such was their object. But in that other rite of
+the same goddess, that namely which celebrated the story of Adonis,
+the whole _motif_ of the drama was the continuance of Aphrodite’s love
+for him after his death, a love so strong that it prevailed upon the
+gods of the lower world to let him return for half of every year to
+the upper world and the arms of his mistress. Here, though expressed
+in different imagery, is the same doctrine as that which underlay the
+drama of Eleusis. Here again is an illustration, or rather, for those
+who were capable of religious ecstasy, a proof, of the doctrine that
+the dead yet lived, and in that life were both in body and in soul one
+with their gods. For ‘thrice-beloved Adonis who even in Acheron is
+beloved[1458]’ was the type and forerunner of all those who had part in
+his mysteries.
+
+In another version this legend of Adonis is brought into even closer
+relation with the Eleusinian mysteries by the introduction of
+Persephone[1459]. To her is assigned the part of a rival to Aphrodite,
+and being equally enamoured of the beautiful Adonis she is glad of his
+death whereby he is torn from the arms of Aphrodite in the upper world,
+and enters the chamber of the nether world where her love in turn may
+have its will; but in the end Aphrodite descends to the house of Hades,
+and a compact is arranged between the two goddesses by which each in
+turn may possess Adonis for half the year. This version of the story is
+cruder, but its teaching is obviously the same--Adonis, the favourite
+of heaven in this life, and the precursor of all who by initiation in
+the mysteries win heaven’s favour, survives in the lower world with
+both body and soul unimpaired by death, and is admitted to wedlock with
+the great goddess of the dead.
+
+The same doctrine again seems to have been the basis of certain
+mystic rites associated with Dionysus. From the speech against Neaera
+attributed to Demosthenes we learn that at Athens there was annually
+celebrated a marriage between the wife of the chief magistrate
+(ἄρχων βασιλεύς) and Dionysus. The solemnity was reckoned among
+things ‘unspeakable’; foreigners were not permitted to see or to
+hear anything of it; and even Athenian citizens, it seems, might not
+enter the innermost sanctuary in which the union of Dionysus with the
+‘queen’ (βασίλιννα) was celebrated[1460]. There were however present
+and assisting in some way fourteen priestesses (γεραραί), dedicated to
+the service of the god and bound by special vows of chastity. These
+priestesses, we are told, corresponded in number to the altars of
+Dionysus[1461], and they were appointed by the archon whose wife was
+wed with Dionysus[1462]. There our actual knowledge of the facts ends;
+but there is material enough on which to base a rational surmise. The
+correspondence between the number of priestesses bound by vows of
+purity and the number of the altars suggests that in this custom is to
+be sought a relic of human sacrifice. The selection of the priestesses
+by the magistrate who held the title of ‘king’ suggests that in bygone
+times it had been the duty of the king, as being also chief priest, to
+select fourteen virgins who should be sacrificed on Dionysus’ altars
+and thereby sent to him as wives. Subsequently maybe, as humanity
+gradually mitigated the wilder rites of religion, the number of victims
+was reduced to one; and later still the human sacrifice was altogether
+abolished, and, instead of sending to Dionysus his wife by the road
+of death, the still pious but now more humane worshippers of the god
+contented themselves with a symbolic marriage between him and the wife
+of their chief magistrate.
+
+The conception of human sacrifice as a means of sending a messenger
+from this world to some power above, which receives clear expression in
+that modern story from Santorini which I have narrated in an earlier
+chapter[1463], was, I have there argued, known also to the ancient
+Greeks; and the same means of communication may equally well have been
+employed for the despatch of a human wife to some god. Plutarch appears
+to have been actually familiar with this idea. In a passage in which
+he is attempting to vindicate the purity and goodness of the gods and,
+it must be added withal, their aloofness from human affairs, he claims
+that all the religious rites and means of communion are concerned, not
+with the great gods (θεοί), but with lesser deities (δαίμονες) who
+are of varying character, some good, others evil, and that the rites
+also vary accordingly. “As regards the mysteries,” he says, “wherein
+are given the greatest manifestations or representations (ἐμφάσεις καὶ
+διαφάσεις) of the truth concerning ‘daemons,’ let my lips be reverently
+sealed, as Herodotus has it”; but the wilder orgies of religion, he
+argues, are to be set down as a means of appeasing evil ‘daemons’ and
+of averting their wrath; the human sacrifices of old time, for example,
+were not demanded nor accepted by gods, but were performed to satisfy
+either the vindictive anger of cruel and tormenting ‘daemons,’ or in
+some cases “the wild and despotic passions (ἔρωτας) of ‘daemons’ who
+could not and would not have carnal intercourse with carnal beings.
+Just as Heracles besieged Oechalia to win a girl, so these strong and
+violent ‘daemons,’ demanding a human soul that is shut up within a
+body, and being unable to have bodily intercourse therewith, bring
+pestilences and famines upon cities and stir up wars and tumults,
+until they get and enjoy the object of their love.” And reversely,
+he continues, some ‘daemons’ have punished with death men who have
+forced their love upon them; and he refers to the story of a man who
+violated a nymph and was found afterwards with his head severed from
+his body[1464]. The whole passage betrays clearly enough what was the
+popular belief which Plutarch here set himself so to explain as to
+safeguard the goodness of the gods; but perhaps the end of it is the
+most significant of all. Plutarch forgets that a nymph, if she is a
+‘daemon,’ is by his own hypothesis incapable of bodily intercourse; in
+this case then his attempted explanation is not even logically sound,
+and his conception of a purely spiritual ‘daemon’ is a failure; but at
+the same time, save for this invention, he is following the popular
+belief of both ancient and modern Greece that carnal intercourse
+between man and nymph is possible but is fraught with grave peril to
+the man[1465]. It is impossible then to doubt that in the earlier part
+of the passage he was explaining away a popular belief by means of
+the same hypothesis. He himself would hold that spiritual ‘daemons’
+demanded human sacrifice because they lusted after a soul or spirit
+confined out of their reach in a body until death severed it therefrom;
+but the popular belief, which he is at pains to emend, was that
+corporeal gods demanded human sacrifice because they lusted after the
+person who, by death, would be sent, body and soul, to be wed with them.
+
+There is good reason then to suppose that in old time death may have
+been even inflicted as the means of effecting wedlock between men and
+gods; and that the mystic rite of union between Dionysus and the wife
+of the Athenian magistrate was based on the same fundamental idea as
+the mysteries of Demeter and Persephone or of Aphrodite. Though in this
+instance, when once human sacrifice had been given up, all suggestion
+of death was, so far as we know, removed from the solemnity, yet the
+repetition year by year of a ceremony of marriage between the god and
+a mortal woman representing his worshippers might still keep bright
+in their minds those ‘happier hopes’ of the like bliss laid up for
+themselves hereafter.
+
+This particular rite escaped the notice, or at any rate the malice,
+of Clement; but Dionysus does not for all that go unscathed. Clement
+fastens upon a legend concerning him, which, however widely ancient
+Greek feeling in the matter of sex differed from modern, cannot but
+have seemed to some of the ancients[1466] themselves to be a reproach
+and stain upon the honour of their god. The story of Dionysus and
+Prosymnus, as told by Clement[1467], must be taken as read. But those
+who will investigate it for themselves will see that the same idea of
+death being followed by close intercourse with the gods is present
+there also. That this was the inner meaning of the peculiarly offensive
+story is shown by a curious comment of Heraclitus upon it, which
+Clement quotes--ωὐτὸς δε Ἀίδης καὶ Διόνυσος[1468], ‘Hades and Dionysus
+are one’; whence it follows that union with Dionysus is a synonym for
+that ‘marriage with Hades’ which elsewhere, in both ancient and modern
+times, is a common presentment of death.
+
+Again in the Sabazian mysteries, which some connect with Dionysus and
+others with Zeus, the little that is known of the ritual favours the
+view that here also the _motif_ was the marriage of the deity with his
+worshippers. According to Clement[1469], the subject-matter of these
+mysteries was a story that Zeus, having become by Demeter the father
+of Persephone, seduced in turn his own daughter, having as a means to
+that end transformed himself into a snake. That story, it may safely be
+said, is presented by Clement in its worst light; but the statement,
+that in the ritual the deity was represented by a snake, obtains some
+corroboration from Theophrastus, who says of the superstitious man,
+that if he see a red snake in his house he will invoke Sabazius[1470].
+Now the token of these mysteries for those who were being initiated
+in them was, according to Clement[1471] again, ‘the god pressed to
+the bosom’ (ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός); which phrase he explains by saying
+that the god was represented as a snake, which was passed under the
+clothing and drawn over the bosom of the initiated ‘as a proof of the
+incontinence of Zeus.’ Clearly then the act of initiation was the
+symbolic wedding of the worshipper with the deity worshipped; and it is
+probable that the union which was symbolized in this life was expected
+to be realised in the next.
+
+Finally in the orgiastic worship of Cybele the same religious doctrine
+is revealed. Here to Attis seems to be assigned the same part as to
+Adonis in the mysteries of Aphrodite. He is the beloved of the goddess;
+he is lost and mourned for as dead; he is restored again from the
+grave to the goddess who loved him. And in all this he appears to be
+the representative of all Cybele’s worshippers; for the ritual of
+initiation into her rites, if once again we may avail ourselves of
+Clement’s statements, is strongly imbued with the idea of marriage
+between the goddess and her worshipper. The several acts or stages of
+initiation are summarised in four phrases: ‘I ate out of the drum; I
+drank out of the cymbal; I carried the sacred vessel; I entered privily
+the bed-chamber--ἐκ τυμπάνου ἔφαγον· ἐκ κυμβάλου ἔπιον· ἐκερνοφόρησα·
+ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν[1472]. In the passage from which these phrases
+are culled there appears to be a certain confusion between the rites
+of Cybele and those of Demeter; but the fact that Clement shortly
+afterwards gives another formulary of Demeter’s ritual is sufficient
+proof that he meant this present formulary, as indeed the mention of
+kettle-drum and cymbal[1473] suggests, to apply to the mysteries of
+Cybele[1474]. It appears then that the final act or stage of initiation
+consisted in the secret admission of the worshipper to the bed-chamber
+of the goddess. Such ritual can have borne only one interpretation. It
+clearly constituted a promise of wedded union between the initiated
+and their deity. Viewed in this light even the emasculation of the
+priests of Cybele may more readily be understood; it may have been the
+consecration of their virility to the service of the goddess, a final
+and convincing pledge of celibacy in this life, in return for which
+they aspired to be blest by wedlock with their goddess hereafter.
+
+The mention of the goddess’ bed-chamber in the above passage is of
+considerable interest. The παστός (or παστάς) in relation to a temple
+meant the same thing as it often meant in relation to an ordinary
+house, an inner room or recess screened off, and in particular a
+bridal chamber. Such provision for the physical comfort of the deity
+was probably not rare. Pausanias tells us that on the right of
+the vestibule in the Argive Heraeum there was a couch (κλίνη) for
+Hera[1475], and he seems to speak of it as if it were a common enough
+piece of temple furniture. So too at Phlya in Attica, where were held
+the very ancient mystic rites ‘of her who is called the Great,’ there
+was a bridal chamber (παστάς), where, it has rightly been argued, there
+‘must have been enacted a mimetic marriage[1476].’ Again Clement of
+Alexandria speaks of a παστός of Athena in the Parthenon, and makes
+it quite clear by the story which he relates that he understood the
+word in the sense of bed-chamber. The story is also for other reasons
+worth recalling, because it shows how the religious conception of
+marriage between men and gods was readily extended to the worship of
+other deities than those whose mysteries we have sought to unravel,
+and at the same time furnishes the only case known to me in which
+that mystic belief was prostituted to the base uses of flattery. The
+occasion was the reception accorded by the Athenians to Demetrius
+Poliorcetes. Not content with hailing him as a god in name, they went
+so far in their mean-spirited subjection as to set up a temple, at
+the place where he dismounted from his horse on entering their city,
+to Demetrius the Descender (Καταιβάτης)[1477], while on every side
+altars were erected to him. But their grossest piece of flattery was
+a master-piece of grotesque impiety, and met with a fitting reward. A
+marriage was arranged between him (the most notorious profligate of his
+age) and Athena. ‘He however,’ we are told, ‘disdained the goddess,
+being unable to embrace the statue, but took with him to the Acropolis
+the courtesan Lamia, and polluted the bed-chamber of Athena, exhibiting
+to the old virgin the postures of the young courtesan[1478].’ Even that
+contemptuous response to the Athenians’ flattery did not abash them,
+but, finding that he did not favour their acknowledged deity, they
+determined to deify his acknowledged favourite, and erected a temple to
+Lamia Aphrodite[1479].
+
+But such travesties of holy things were rare; and this one notorious
+case excited the contempt alike of the man[1480] to whom the flattery
+was paid and of all posterity--a contempt which teaches, hardly less
+clearly than the indignation excited a century earlier by the supposed
+profanation of the mysteries, in what reverence and high esteem the
+idea of marriage between men and gods was generally held.
+
+Even Lucian, in whom reverence was a less pronounced characteristic
+than humour, condemns seriously enough a parody of the mysteries
+of Eleusis which occurred in his own day; and his account of it at
+the same time shows once more that the marriage of men and gods was
+the very essence of the mysteries. The impostor Alexander, he says,
+instituted rites with carrying of torches (δᾳδουχία) and exposition
+of the sacred ceremonies (ἱεροφαντία) lasting for three days. “On
+the first there was a proclamation, as at Athens, as follows: ‘If
+any atheist, Christian, or Epicurean hath come to spy upon the holy
+rites, let him begone, and let the faithful be initiated with heaven’s
+blessing.’ Then first of all there was an expulsion of intruders.
+Alexander himself led the way, crying ‘Out with Christians,’ and the
+whole multitude shouted in answer ‘Out with Epicureans.’ Then was
+enacted the story of Leto in child-bed and the birth of Apollo, and his
+marriage with Coronis and the birth of Asclepius; and on the second day
+the manifestation of Glycon and the god’s birth[1481]. And on the third
+day was the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander’s mother; this was
+called the Torch-day, for torches were burnt. And finally there was the
+love of Selene and Alexander, and the birth of his daughter now married
+to Rutilianus[1482]. Our Endymion-Alexander was now torch-bearer and
+exponent of the rites. And he lay as it were sleeping in the view of
+all, and there came down to him from the roof--as it were Selene from
+heaven--a certain Rutilia, a very beautiful woman, the wife of one of
+Caesar’s household-officers, who was really in love with Alexander
+and was loved by him, and she kissed the rascal’s eyes and embraced
+him in the view of all, and, if there had not been so many torches,
+worse would perhaps have followed (τάχα ἄν τι καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ κόλπου
+ἐπράττετο)[1483].”
+
+The inferences which may be drawn from this narrative are, first, that
+the mysteries in general, while reproducing in some dramatic form the
+whole story of the deities concerned, culminated in the representation
+of a mystic marriage between men and gods; (the birth of a child was
+also represented or announced in this parody, as we know that it
+was at Eleusis[1484], but it had, I am inclined to think, no mystic
+significance otherwise than as proof of the consummation of that
+marriage;) and, secondly, that the wild charges of indecency brought by
+early Christian writers against the mysteries are baseless; for Lucian
+condemns a much lesser license in this parody than that which they
+attributed to the genuine rites.
+
+Thus our examination of the mysteries, so far as they are known to us,
+tends to prove that the doctrines revealed in them to the initiated
+were simply a development of certain vaguer popular ideas which have
+been prevalent among the Greek folk from the classical age down to our
+own day. The people entertained hopes that this physical life would
+continue in a similar form after death; the mysteries gave definite
+assurance of that immortality by exhibiting to the initiated Persephone
+or Adonis or Attis restored from the lower world in bodily form; and
+though that exhibition was in fact merely a dramatic representation,
+yet to the eyes of religious ecstasy it seemed just as much a living
+reality as does the risen Christ in the modern celebration of Easter.
+The people again were wont to think and to speak of death as a marriage
+into the lower world; the mysteries showed to the initiated certain
+representatives of mankind who by death, or even in life, had been
+admitted to the felicity of wedlock with deities, and thereby confirmed
+the faithful in their happier hopes of being in like manner themselves
+god-beloved and of sharing the life of gods.
+
+Since then there is good reason to believe that this was in effect the
+secret teaching of the mysteries, it would naturally be expected that
+human marriage should have been reckoned as it were a foretaste of
+that union with the divine which was promised hereafter, and also that
+death should have been counted the hour of its approaching fulfilment;
+in other words, if my view of the mysteries is correct, it would
+almost inevitably follow that the mysteries should have been brought
+into close association both with weddings and with funerals. This
+expectation is confirmed by the facts.
+
+An ordinary wedding was treated as something akin to initiation into
+the mysteries. An inscription of Cos[1485], relating to the appointment
+of priestesses of Demeter, mentions among other duties certain services
+on the occasion of weddings; and the brides, who are the recipients
+of these services, are divided into two classes, αἱ τελεύμεναι and αἱ
+ἐπινυμφευόμεναι, the maidens who, are being ‘initiated,’ and the widows
+who are being married again; a woman’s first marriage in fact is called
+by a religious document her initiation, and Demeter’s priestesses
+are charged therewith. Nor was this usage or idea confined to Cos;
+Plutarch speaks of services rendered by the priestess of Demeter in
+the solemnisation of matrimony as part of an ‘ancestral rite[1486]’;
+while the term τέλος was commonly used both of the mystic rites and of
+marriage, and τέλειοι might denote the newly-wed[1487].
+
+The same thought seems also to have inspired another custom
+associated with marriage. The newly-wed, we hear, sometimes attended
+a representation of the marriage of Zeus and Hera[1488], an ἱερὸς
+γάμος which formed the subject of mystic drama or legend all over
+Greece[1489]. The widely extended cults of Hera under the titles of
+Maiden (παρθένος or παῖς) and of Bride (τελεία or νυμφευομένη) appear
+to have been closely interwoven; indeed for a full appreciation of the
+Greek conception of the goddess they must be treated as complementary.
+They are well interpreted by Farnell. Rejecting the theory of physical
+symbolism, he suggests ‘a more human explanation. Hera was essentially
+the goddess of women, and the life of women was reflected in her;
+their maidenhood and marriage were solemnised by the cults of Hera
+Παρθένος and Hera Τελεία or Νυμφευομένη, and the very rare worship of
+Hera Χήρα might allude to the not infrequent custom of divorce and
+separation[1490].’ With, Hera the Widow we are not here concerned,
+but only with the higher conceptions of Zeus and Hera as expressed in
+the representation of the ‘sacred marriage’; the bride and bridegroom
+who looked upon that saw in it, we may be sure, not a symbolical
+representation of the seasons and the productive powers of the earth,
+but rather the divine prototype of human marriage. It reminded them
+that deities, like mortals, were married and given in marriage, and it
+imparted to their wedding a sacramental character, making it at once a
+foretaste and a gage of that close communion with the gods which, when
+death the dividing line between mortals and immortals should once be
+passed, awaited the blessed among mankind.
+
+Other small points too suggest the same trend of thought. The
+preliminaries of a wedding often comprised a sacrifice to Zeus
+Teleios and Hera Teleia[1491], and were called προτέλεια being the
+‘preliminaries of initiation’ into that mystery, of which the
+sacred marriage, enacted before the now wedded pair, was the full
+revelation[1492]. Again these preliminaries always included the
+solemn ablution[1493] of which I have spoken above, and in this
+resembled the preparations for admittance to the mysteries. Moreover
+an instance is recorded in which this ablution was itself invested
+with the significance of a wedding between the human and the divine.
+The maidens of the Troad before marriage were wont to unrobe and bathe
+themselves in the Scamander; and the prayer which they made to the
+river-god, whose bed they entered, was, ‘Receive thou, Scamander, my
+virginity[1494].’ Finally the first night on which the wedded pair came
+together was known as the ‘mystic night’ (νὺξ μυστική)[1495], a term
+not a little suggestive of the great night of Demeter’s mysteries when
+to the eyes of the initiated was displayed the secret proof and promise
+of wedlock between men and gods hereafter. In short the ceremonies
+of a wedding by one means or another proclaimed it to be a form of
+initiation, and the estate of marriage was to the Greeks, as our
+prayer-book calls it, ‘an excellent mystery.’
+
+Hence naturally followed the belief that the unmarried and the
+uninitiated shared the same fate in the future life. One conception
+of the punishment of the uninitiated was, according to Plato[1496],
+that they should carry water in a sieve to a broken jar; and this, as
+is well known, was also the lot of the Danaids in the nether world.
+Commenting on these facts Dr Frazer says, ‘It is possible that the
+original reason why the Danaids were believed to be condemned to this
+punishment in hell was not so much that they murdered, as that they did
+not marry, the sons of Aegyptus. According to one tradition indeed they
+afterwards married other husbands (Paus. III. 12. 2); but according
+to another legend they were murdered by Lynceus, apparently before
+marriage (Schol. on Euripides, _Hecuba_, 886). They may therefore have
+been chosen as types of unmarried women, and their punishment need
+not have been peculiar to them but may have been the one supposed to
+await all unmarried persons in the nether world[1497].’ A passage of
+Lucian, which appears to have been overlooked in this connexion[1498],
+converts the view of the Danaids which Dr Frazer considers possible
+into a practical certainty. The passage in point forms the conclusion
+of that dialogue in which Poseidon with the aid of Triton plots and
+carries out the rape of Amymone, the Danaid. She has just been seized
+and is protesting against her abduction and threatening to call her
+father, when Triton intervenes: ‘Keep quiet, Amymone,’ he says, ‘it
+is Poseidon.’ And the girl rejoins, ‘Oh, Poseidon you call him, do
+you?’ and then turning to her ravisher, ‘What do you mean, sirrah, by
+handling me so roughly, and dragging me down into the sea? I shall
+go under and be drowned, miserable girl.’ And Poseidon answers, ‘Do
+not be frightened, you shall come to no harm; no, I will strike the
+rock here, near where the waves break, with my trident, and will let
+a spring burst up which shall bear your name, and you yourself shall
+be blessed and, unlike your sisters, shall not carry water when you
+are dead (καὶ σὺ εὐδαίμων ἔσῃ καὶ μόνη τῶν ἀδελφῶν οὐχ ὑδροφορήσεις
+ἀποθανοῦσα)[1499].’ The whole point of Poseidon’s answer clearly
+depends upon the existence of a well-known belief that the Danaids were
+punished hereafter for remaining unmarried and that the punishment took
+the form of vainly fetching water for that bridal bath which was a
+necessary preliminary to a wedding; Amymone shall have a very thorough
+bridal bath, and the spring that bears her name shall be a monument
+of it, while she herself shall be ‘blessed’ by wedlock with Poseidon;
+thus shall she escape the fate of the unmarried. Clearly then there was
+no distinction between the uninitiated and the unmarried; both alike
+were doomed vainly to fetch water for those ablutions which preceded
+initiation into the mysteries or into matrimony; and once again the
+conception of marriage as a mystic and sacramental rite akin to the
+rites of Eleusis is clearly revealed.
+
+It may further be noted here that this idea of the punishment of the
+unmarried completely explains the custom, on which I have already
+touched, of erecting a water-pitcher (λουτροφόρος) over the grave of
+unmarried persons. This intimated, according to Eustathius[1500], that
+the person there buried had never taken the bath which both bride and
+bridegroom were wont to take before marriage. But this must not be
+taken to mean that the water-pitcher was erected as a symbol of the
+punishment which the dead person was supposed to be undergoing; this
+was not an idea which his relatives and friends, even if they had held
+it, would have wished to blazon abroad. One might as soon expect to
+find depicted on a modern tombstone the worm that dieth not and the
+fire that is not quenched. No; the water-pitcher was not a symbol, it
+was an instrument; for my part I have little faith in the existence
+of any symbols in popular religion which are not in origin at least
+instruments; and the purpose to which this instrument was put was to
+supply the dead person with that wedding-bath which he had not taken
+in life, and without which he would vainly strive in the under-world
+to prepare himself for divine wedlock. The water-pitcher was not
+commemorative, but preventive, of future punishment. Its erection was
+not a warning to the living, but a service to the dead.
+
+Thus then the evidence for the intimate association of the mysteries,
+or of the main idea which runs through them, with human weddings is
+complete and, I hope, convincing; and the custom of the water-pitcher,
+which concludes it, fitly introduces at the same time the evidence
+for the association of the same idea with funerals. This is equally
+plentiful. The vague conception of death as a wedding, which as I have
+shown was elaborated in the mysteries, has of course already been
+exemplified in all those passages of ancient literature and modern
+folk-songs which I have adduced, and I have found in it also the motive
+for the assimilation of funeral-customs to the customs of marriage.
+But the evidence that the actual doctrines of the mysteries, in which
+more definite expression was given to that vague idea, were closely
+associated with death and funeral-custom is to be found rather in
+epitaphs and sepulchral monuments.
+The tone of the epitaphs may be sufficiently illustrated by a single
+couplet:
+
+    Οὐκ ἐπιδὼν νύμφεια λέχη κατέβην τὸν ἄφυκτον
+      Γόργιππος ξανθῆς Φερσεφόνης θάλαμον[1501].
+
+‘I, Gorgippus, lived not to look upon a bridal bed ere I went down
+to the chamber of bright-haired Persephone which none may escape.’
+There is naturally here a note of lament, as befits any epitaph, and
+more especially that of one who dies young and unmarried; but none
+the less there is an anticipation--justified, we may think, if we
+will, by some ceremony of bridal ablution performed for the dead man
+by his friends--that his death is a wedding with the goddess of the
+under-world; and indeed the phrase Φερσεφόνης θάλαμος, ‘the bridal
+chamber of Persephone,’ recurs with some frequency in this class of
+epitaphs[1502].
+
+Considered collectively, such epitaphs would suggest a distinctly
+offensive conception of Persephone; but in each taken separately, as
+it was composed, it will be allowed, I think, that if there is supreme
+audacity, there is equal sublimity. It is just these qualities which
+give pungency to a blasphemous parody of such epitaphs, in which the
+wit of Ausonius exposes the worst possible aspect of a religious
+conception which to the pure-minded was wholly pure. My apology for
+quoting lines which I will not translate must be the fact that a
+caricature is often no less instructive than a true portrait. The mock
+epitaph concludes as follows:
+
+    Sed neque functorum socius miscebere vulgo
+      Nec metues Stygios flebilis umbra lacus:
+    Verum aut Persephonae Cinyreius ibis Adonis,
+      Aut Jovis Elysii tu catamitus eris[1503].
+
+Ausonius in jest bears an unpleasant resemblance to Clement in earnest;
+both perverted to their uttermost a doctrine which commanded nothing
+but reverence from faithful participants in the mysteries.
+
+Akin to these epitaphs are certain tablets which recently have been
+fully discussed by Miss Jane Harrison[1504], and have been shown to
+be of Orphic origin. They were buried with the dead, and for this
+reason were more outspoken in their references to the mystic doctrines
+than was permissible in epitaphs exposed to the vulgar gaze. The most
+complete of these tablets is one which was found near Sybaris, and,
+with the exception of the last sentence of all, the inscription is in
+hexameter verse. Miss Harrison, to whose work I am wholly indebted for
+this valuable evidence, translates as follows[1505]:
+
+    ‘Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below,
+    Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal.
+    For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race,
+    But Fate laid me low and the other Gods immortal
+                              ... starflung thunderbolt.
+    I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel.
+    I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired.
+    I have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.
+    I have passed with eager feet from the Circle desired.
+    Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.
+            A kid I have fallen into milk.’
+
+The gist of the document which the dead man takes with him is then
+briefly this. He claims to have been pure originally and of the same
+race as his gods; but as a man he was mortal and exposed to death,
+and in this respect differed from his gods. He states however that he
+has performed certain ritual acts which entitle him to be re-admitted
+to the pure fellowship of the gods now that death is passed. And the
+answer comes, ‘Thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’
+
+Now here I wish to consider one only of these ritual acts--that one of
+which the meaning is clearest--Δεσποίνας δ’ ὑπὸ κόλπον ἔδυν χθονίας
+βασιλείας, which means, if I may give my own rendering, ‘I was admitted
+to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the under-world.’ The phrase
+is one which repeats the idea which we have already seen expressed
+in the formulary of Cybele’s rites, ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν[1506], ‘I
+was privily admitted to the bridal chamber,’ and in the token of the
+Sabazian mysteries, ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός[1507], ‘the god pressed to
+the bosom’; and Lucian’s final phrase in his account of Alexander’s
+mock-mysteries shows a kindred phrase, τὰ ὑπὸ κόλπου[1508], as an
+euphemism of the same kind[1509]. The Orphic therefore no less than
+others based his claim to future happiness on the fact that he had
+performed a ritual act, of the nature of a sacrament, which constituted
+a pledge that the wedlock between him and his goddess foreshadowed here
+should be consummated hereafter.
+
+Even more abundant evidence is furnished by sepulchral monuments;
+and in support of my views I cannot do better than quote two high
+authorities who coincide in their verdict upon the meaning of the
+scenes represented. In reference to those scenes ‘in which death
+is conceived in the guise of a marriage’ Furtwängler writes: ‘The
+monuments belonging to this class are extraordinarily numerous, and
+exhibit very different methods of treating the idea which they carry
+out. A relief upon a sarcophagus from the Villa Borghese shows the God
+of the dead in the act of carrying down the fair Kore to be his bride
+in the lower world. Above the steeds of his chariot, which are already
+disappearing into the depths of the earth, flies Eros as guide. The
+bride however appears to be going only under compulsion and after some
+struggle; the look of the bridegroom expresses sternness rather than
+gentleness; and the mother who sits with face averted seems to exclude
+all thoughts of the daughter’s return. Only in the torches which the
+guide carries in his hand, in the snakes which are looking upward, and
+in the observant attitude of Hecate, can a suggestion of the return be
+found.
+
+‘On another sarcophagus--from Nazzara--which represents the same
+marriage-journey, Eros is not merely the guide of the steeds, but aids
+the bridegroom in carrying off Kore, so that in this case the struggle
+with death takes purely the form of a struggle with love. At the same
+time the mother is driving along with her chariot, thereby signifying
+the renewal of life, which is yet more clearly betokened in the
+ploughman and the sower at her side.
+
+‘In a yet gentler spirit we see the same journey conceived in a
+vase-painting from lower Italy. Here there is a look of gentleness
+on Hades’ face; the bride accompanies him gladly, and even takes an
+affectionate farewell of her mother, who appears to acquiesce in her
+departure. In this case too Eros is flying above the horses, and is
+turned towards the lovers, while in front of him there flies a dove,
+the bird sacred to the goddess of love. Hecate with torches guides the
+steeds; near at hand waits Hermes to escort the procession; and above
+the whole scene the stars are shining, as if to indicate the new life
+in the region of death.
+
+‘In another form, exalted to a yet higher holiness, the same marriage
+is repeated in the sphere of Dionysus-worship. Thus on a cameo in the
+Vatican, Dionysus is represented driving with his bride, Ariadne, in
+a brightly-decked triumphal car. Holy rapture is manifested on the
+features of both, and on top of the chariot stands a Cupid directing
+it. Dionysus is arrayed in the doe-skin, and holds in his left hand
+a _thyrsus_, in his right a goblet; Ariadne is carrying ears of corn
+and poppy-heads, and has her hair wreathed with vine-leaves. The car
+is drawn by Centaurs of both sexes, with torches, drinking-horns,
+and musical instruments. The idea which underlies this scene is the
+reproduction of Life out of Death; Hades has issued forth again for
+a new marriage-bond with Kore in the realm of light, appearing now
+rejuvenated in the form of Dionysus, just as his bride assumes the form
+of Ariadne, and because the power of death is broken behind him, his
+car likewise becomes a triumphal car.
+
+‘Just as the marriage of Zeus in the realm of light became a type for
+men in this life, so the marriage of Hades, or of Dionysus representing
+him, developed into a similar prototype for the dead. Since that which
+is true of Death bears directly upon the actual dead, it was quite
+natural that gradually the process of death came to be considered in
+general as a wedding with the deities of death. With this conception
+too harmonize those wedding-scenes which are so common and conspicuous
+on funeral monuments, as well as the often-recurring scenes from the
+joyous cycle of Dionysus-myths[1510].’
+Two brief comments may be made upon this passage. First, Furtwängler
+clearly recognises in Dionysus a mere substitute for Hades, and thus
+confirms my interpretation of the strange legend concerning Dionysus
+and Prosymnus[1511]. We noticed that the somewhat obscure observation
+of Heraclitus (as quoted by Clement) upon that story contained the
+words ‘Dionysus and Hades are one and the same’; and we now see that
+in art too the same identification was made, and that the marriage of
+a mortal with Dionysus was used to typify the future marriage of the
+dead with their gods. The reason for this identification seems simply
+to be that the cults in which the two gods figured, although differing
+in outward form, were felt to express one and the same idea--namely the
+conception of death as a form of marriage; and the tendency to identify
+in such cases was carried so far that the god Dionysus was even, we are
+told, identified with the mortal Adonis[1512], presumably because the
+worship of each, as I have shown above, turned upon this one cardinal
+doctrine.
+
+Secondly, Furtwängler points out that the marriage of Zeus and Hera
+represented for living men the same doctrine as the marriage of Hades
+and Persephone (or of Dionysus and Ariadne) represented for the dead.
+The truth of this is well illustrated by the close resemblance between
+Aristophanes’ picture of Hera’s wedding and those funeral monuments
+and vases which Furtwängler describes; for there too ‘golden-winged
+Eros held firm the reins, and drave the wedding-car of Zeus and blessed
+Hera[1513].’ In other words, this Olympian marriage was only one among
+several mystic marriages which all conveyed, though in diverse form,
+the same lesson, that marriage was the perfection of divine life no
+less than of human life, and therefore that hereafter when men, or at
+any rate the blessed and initiated among men, should come to dwell with
+their gods, no bond of communion between gods and men could be perfect
+short of the marriage-bond.
+
+It was natural enough that the drama of Hera’s wedding with Zeus should
+most often have been chosen to be played at an ordinary wedding,
+because it would not obtrude thoughts of death upon a joyous event
+with such insistence as most of the other religious legends which
+reposed upon the same fundamental doctrine; but sometimes, we know, it
+was the priestesses of Demeter who officiated at wedding-ceremonies,
+and in those cases it cannot be doubted that it was Persephone and not
+Hera who was the divine prototype of the bride, and the thought that
+her wedding was a wedding with the god of death could not have been
+excluded. At funerals, on the other hand, the story of Zeus and Hera
+which was preferred at weddings owing to its less obvious allusion to
+death, would for that same reason have found less favour than those
+other marriage-legends in which the identity of death with marriage
+was more clearly enunciated; and of these, owing to the exceptional
+reverence in which the Eleusinian mysteries were held, the story of
+Persephone seems to have been among the most frequent. Yet in the
+picture drawn by Aristophanes at which we have just glanced, for one
+subtle touch which suggests the connexion of Hera’s wedding with human
+weddings, there is another subtle touch which suggests its relation
+with human death. The first is an epithet applied to Eros who drove the
+wedding-car--the epithet ἀμφιθαλής, used of one who has both parents
+living[1514]. The allusion to human weddings is clear. It was no doubt
+imperative in old time, as it still is, in Greece, that anyone who
+attended upon a bride or bridegroom, as for instance the bearer of
+water for the bridal bath, should have both parents living; and the
+use of the same term in reference to Eros, the attendant upon Zeus
+and Hera, marks the intimate connexion between the divine marriage
+and the marriage of living men and women. But another epithet in the
+passage conveys no less clear an allusion to the marriage of those,
+whom men call dead, with their deities. Hera is named εὐδαίμων, a word
+which, meaning ‘favoured by God,’ may seem strangely applied to one
+who herself was divine[1515]. But it was selected by Aristophanes for
+a good reason; by the word εὐδαιμονία was commonly denoted that future
+bliss which the initiated believed to consist in wedlock with their
+deities. Like θεοφιλής, ‘god-beloved,’ the term εὐδαίμων, ‘blessed,’
+was, so to speak, a catch-word of the mysteries[1516]; and the
+application of it to Hera in Aristophanes’ ode brings the legend of
+Hera’s marriage into rank with those other wedding-stories whose actual
+plot hinged upon the identity of death and marriage. Thus though one
+legend might be more appropriate in its externals to one occasion, and
+another legend to another occasion, the ultimate and fundamental idea
+of them all was single and the same.
+
+This view is boldly championed by the second authority whom I proposed
+to quote upon the subject of mystic marriage-scenes depicted on
+funeral-monuments. ‘The idea,’ says Lenormant, ‘of mystic union
+in death is frequently indicated in the scenes represented upon
+_sarcophagi_ and painted vases. But for the most part the idea is
+expressed there only in an allusive manner, which depends upon the
+identification which this marriage-scene established between the dead
+person and the deity, by means of such subjects as the carrying off
+of Cephalus by Aurora, or Orithyia by Boreas, or the love-story of
+Aphrodite and Adonis[1517].’ ‘Thus,’ he explains, ‘a girl carried
+off (by death) from her parents was simply a bride betrothed to the
+infernal god, and was identified with Demeter’s maiden daughter, the
+victim of the passion and violence of Hades; a young man cut off by an
+early fate figured as the beautiful Adonis, snatched away by Persephone
+from the love of Aphrodite, and brought, in spite of himself, to the
+bed of the queen of the lower world[1518].’ The identification which
+Lenormant sees in these several instances is an identification, I
+suppose, not of personalities but of destinies. The popular religion
+of ancient Greece shows little trace of any pantheistic view which
+would have contemplated the absorption of the personality of the dead
+man or woman into that of any god or goddess. Indeed the very number
+of the personally distinct deities with whom, on such an hypothesis,
+the dead would have been identified, as well as that continuance of
+sexual difference in the future life which is postulated by the very
+doctrine before us, precludes all thought of personal identification.
+Rather it is the future destiny of the dead person which was identified
+with the destiny of the deity or hero whose marriage was represented on
+sarcophagus or _cippus_ or commemorative vase[1519]. The lot of Kore or
+Ariadne or Orithyia prefigured the lot of mortal women hereafter; the
+fortunes of Adonis or Cephalus typified those of mortal men; and all
+the marriage-scenes alike, whatever the differences of presentation,
+revealed the hope and the promise of wedlock hereafter between mankind
+and their deities.
+
+But Lenormant mentions one vase-painting[1520] in which this
+fundamental doctrine is taught not by parables of mythology, but more
+overtly and directly. The scene depicted is the marriage of a youth,
+whose name, Polyetes, is in pathetic contrast with his short span of
+years spent upon earth, with a goddess Eudaemonia (or ‘Bliss’) in the
+lower world. In this deity Lenormant sees ‘the infernal goddess under
+an euphemistic name.’ Nor could any more significant name have been
+used. It has already been pointed out that εὐδαιμονία was a term much
+favoured by the initiated in the mysteries, and was openly used by them
+to denote that future bliss which secretly was understood to consist in
+divine wedlock. Hence the scene upon this vase would at once suggest to
+those who were familiar with the doctrines of the mysteries, that the
+youth, being presumably of the number of the initiated, had found in
+death the realisation of his happy hopes and had entered into blissful
+union with the goddess of the lower world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To sum up briefly: we have seen alike in the literature of ancient
+Greece and in the folk-songs of modern Greece that death has commonly
+been conceived by the Hellenic race in the guise of a wedding; a review
+of marriage-customs and funeral-customs both ancient and modern has
+re-affirmed the constant association of death and marriage, and has
+shown how deep-rooted in the minds of the common people that idea must
+have been which produced a deliberate assimilation of funeral-rites
+to the ceremonies of marriage. Next we investigated the connexion
+of the mysteries with the popular religion, and saw reason to hold
+that, far from being subversive of it or alien to it, they inculcated
+doctrines which were wholly evolved from vaguer popular ideas always
+current in Greece. Finally we traced in many of those legends, on which
+the dramatic representations of the mysteries are known to have been
+based, a common _motif_, the idea that death is the entrance for men
+into a blissful estate of wedded union with their deities. And this
+religious ideal not only satisfies the condition of agreement with,
+and evolution from, those popular views in which death figured somewhat
+vaguely as a form of wedding, but also proves to be the natural and
+necessary outcome of two religious sentiments with which earlier
+chapters have dealt; first, the ardent desire for close communion with
+the gods, and secondly, the belief that men’s bodies as well as their
+souls survived death and dissolution; for if the body by means of its
+disintegration rejoined the soul in the nether world, and the human
+entity was then complete, enjoying the same substantial existence,
+the same physical no less than mental powers, which it had enjoyed in
+the upper world, and which the immortal gods enjoyed uninterrupted by
+death, then, since the same rite of marriage was the consummation both
+of divine life and of human life, men’s yearning for close communion
+with their gods required for its ideal and perfect satisfaction the
+full union of wedlock; and the sacrament which assured men of this
+consummation was the highest development of the whole Greek religion,
+the mysteries.
+
+Such a sacrament and such aspirations might well have offended even
+those Christians of early days, if such there were, who were willing to
+deal sympathetically with paganism; that those who were its declared
+enemies, and were ready to use against it the weapons of perversion and
+vituperation, found in this conception a vulnerable point, is readily
+understood. It is true indeed that in the very idea which they most
+vilified there was a certain curious analogy between the new religion
+and the old. Just as paganism allowed to each man or woman individually
+the hope of becoming the bridegroom or the bride of one of their many
+deities, so Christianity represented the Church, the whole body of the
+faithful collectively, as the bride of its sole deity. But the analogy
+is superficial only. The bond of feeling which united the Church with
+God was very differently conceived from that which drew together the
+pagans and their deities. The chastened ‘charity’ (ἀγάπη) of the
+Christians had little in common with the passionate love (ἔρως) with
+which the Greeks of old time had dared look upon their gods. Theirs
+was the Love that ‘held firm the reins and drave the wedding-car of
+Zeus and blessed Hera[1521]’; the Love that hovered above the steeds
+of Hades and changed for Persephone the road of death into a road to
+bliss; the Love whom ‘no immortal may escape nor any of mankind whose
+life passeth it as a day, but whoso hath him is as one mad[1522]’; and
+the only true consummation of such love was wedlock.
+
+This conception necessarily implied the equality of men with their gods
+in the future life; and that future equality was sometimes represented
+as no more than a return to that which was in the beginning. ‘One is
+the race of men with the race of gods; for one is the mother that gave
+to both our breath; yet are they sundered by powers wholly diverse, in
+that mankind is as naught, but heaven is builded of brass that abideth
+ever unshaken[1523].’ So sang Pindar of the past and of the present;
+but the Orphic tablet which has been already quoted carries on the
+thought into the future:
+
+    ‘Out of the pure I come, Pure Queen of Them Below,
+    Eukles and Eubouleus and the other Gods immortal.
+    For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race,
+    But Fate laid me low....’
+
+So far with Pindar. But the dead man’s claims do not end there: ‘I was
+admitted to the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld’; already
+had he received a foretaste of that divine wedlock which implied
+equality with the gods; and so there comes the answer, ‘Happy and
+Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’
+
+This idea commended itself even to thinkers who did not believe in
+bodily survival after death. Plato, in the _Phaedo_, where above all
+things is taught the perishable nature of the body and the immortality
+of the soul alone, yet avails himself of the belief that the pure among
+mankind shall attain even to godhead hereafter. To him the pure are
+not the initiated indeed, but the earnest strivers after wisdom. In
+his theory of retributive metempsychosis he surmises that those who
+have followed the lusts of the flesh shall hereafter enter the ranks of
+asses and other lustful beasts; that those who have wrought violence
+shall enter the ranks of wolves and hawks and kites; that those who
+have practised what is popularly accounted virtue, but without true
+understanding, shall enter the ranks of harmless and social creatures,
+bees, wasps, and ants, or even the ranks of men once more. ‘But
+into the ranks of gods none may enter without having followed after
+wisdom and so departing hence wholly pure--none save the lover of
+knowledge[1524].’ What precise meaning Plato attached to his phrase
+‘to enter the ranks’ (εἰς γένος ἐνδύεσθαι or ἀφικνεῖσθαι), to which
+he adheres throughout the passage, is a question which agitated the
+Neoplatonists[1525] somewhat needlessly. The phrase is intended either
+literally throughout or allegorically throughout. If it be allegorical,
+the meaning must be that all human souls shall enter again into human
+bodies, but that they shall start this new phase of existence with the
+qualities of lust, violence, respectability, or real virtue and purity,
+acquired in the previous life--merely resembling, as nearly as men may,
+asses, wolves, bees, or gods. Now as regards the first three classes,
+this allegorical interpretation, if a little forced, is feasible
+enough; but what of the fourth class? Shall the soul which has attained
+purity, the very negation of fleshliness in Plato’s view, suffer
+re-incarnation and struggle once more against the flesh? Surely the
+allegorical explanation is at once condemned. The phrase was intended
+literally[1526]. Plato signified the re-incarnation of the lustful,
+the violent, and the merely respectable, in the forms of animals of
+like character, and he signified--I must not say the re-incarnation,
+for Plato’s gods were spiritual and not carnal--but the regeneration
+of the pure in the form of gods. And in the same spirit Plutarch too
+contemplated the possibility of some men’s souls becoming first heroes,
+and from heroes rising to the rank of ‘daemons,’ and from ‘daemons’
+coming to share, albeit but rarely, in real godhead[1527].
+
+Thus even the highest aspirations of the most spiritually-minded of
+pagan thinkers owed much to the purely popular religion. The Orphic
+tablet links up the popular conception of death as a wedding with the
+Platonic conception of the deification of the soul. ‘I was admitted to
+the embrace of Despoina, Queen of the underworld’: ‘Happy and Blessed
+One, thou shalt be God instead of mortal.’
+
+But if Plato, even in his conception of a purely spiritual life
+hereafter, owed something to the popular religion, he drew upon it
+far more freely in his conception of Love. In the _Symposium_ one
+speech after another culminates in the assertion of that belief which
+found its highest expression in the mysteries. ‘So then I say,’ says
+Phaedrus, ‘that Love is the most venerable of the gods, the most
+worthy of honour, the most powerful to grant virtue and blessedness
+unto mankind both in life and after death[1528].’ And in the same tone
+too Eryximachus: ‘He it is that wields the mightiest power and is
+the source for us of all blessedness and of our power to have loving
+fellowship both with one another and with the gods that are stronger
+than we[1529].’ And finally Aristophanes: It is Love, ‘who in this
+present life gives us most joys by drawing like unto like, and for our
+hereafter displays hopes most high, if we for our part display piety
+towards the gods, that he will restore us to our erstwhile nature and
+will heal us and will make us happy and blessed[1530].’
+
+This is not Platonic philosophy but popular religion. Phrase after
+phrase reveals the origin of this conception of Love. The hopes most
+high were the hopes held forth by the mysteries; the blessedness and
+the loving fellowship with gods were the fulfilment of those hopes.
+In such language did men ever hint at the joys to which their mystic
+sacraments gave access. And Plato here ventures yet further. The author
+of those high hopes, the founder of that blessedness, he proclaims, is
+none other than Love--Love that appealed not to the soul only of the
+initiated, but to the whole man, both soul and body--Love that meant
+not only the yearning after wisdom and holiness and spiritual equality
+with the gods, but that same passion which drew together man and woman,
+god and goddess--the passion of mankind for their deities, fed in this
+life by manifold means of communion and even by sacramental union,
+satisfied hereafter in the full fruition of wedded bliss.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1358] _Il._ XI. 241.
+
+[1359] Hes. _W. and D._ 116.
+
+[1360] e.g. Hom. _Il._ XVI. 454 and 672; XIV. 231.
+
+[1361] Hes. _Theog._ 212, 756.
+
+[1362] See Preller, _Griech. Myth._ I. 690 ff.
+
+[1363] Paus. V. 18. 1. Cf. III. 18. 1.
+
+[1364] Passow, _Popul. Carm._ CCCXCVI.
+
+[1365] Hom. _Od._ XXIV. 1.
+
+[1366] Virg. _Aen._ IV. 242 ff.
+
+[1367] See above, pp. 96 ff. and pp. 134 ff.
+
+[1368] Paus. VIII. 2. 5.
+
+[1369] Paus. _ibid._ § 4.
+
+[1370] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 364.
+
+[1371] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 374.
+
+[1372] The word χαρὰ, (‘joy’), as I have pointed out elsewhere, is
+indeed often used technically of marriage.
+
+[1373] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 38 (ll. 13-18) and also nos. 65, 152,
+180.
+
+[1374] See above, pp. 255 ff.
+
+[1375] Abbott, _Macedon. Folklore_, p. 255.
+
+[1376] Passow, _Pop. Carm._ no. 370. The phrase κάνει χαρὰ, which I
+have inadequately rendered as ‘maketh glad,’ is technically used of
+marriage. See above, p. 127.
+
+[1377] For authorities see Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ I. pp. 76 ff.
+
+[1378] Soph. _Antig._ 574-5. I do not know how much stress may be laid
+on the repetition of the pronoun ὅδε in these two lines (viz. στερήσεις
+τῆσδε and τούσδε τοὺς γάμους); but the lines follow closely on that
+in which Creon bids Ismene speak no more of Antigone as ἥδε, and an
+ironical stress might well be laid by Creon on the word τούσδε as he
+uses it, which would suggest to his audience its antithesis τοὺς ἐκεὶ
+γάμους.
+
+[1379] Soph. _Antig._ 804-5.
+
+[1380] _ibid._ 810-16.
+
+[1381] _ibid._ 891-2.
+
+[1382] _ibid._ 1203-7.
+
+[1383] _ibid._ 1240-1.
+
+[1384] Pindar, _Fragm._ 139 (Bergk).
+
+[1385] Aesch. _Prom._ 940 ff.
+
+[1386] _Oneirocr._ II. 49. The word τέλη denotes here not merely a
+‘rite,’ but a ‘consummation’ by which a man becomes τέλειος. See below,
+p. 591.
+
+[1387] _ibid._ I. 80. To translate the passage more fully is not
+convenient; I append the original: θεῷ δὲ ἢ θεᾷ μιγῆναι ἢ ὑπὸ θεοῦ
+περανθῆναι νοσοῦντι μὲν θάνατον σημαίνει· τότε γὰρ ἡ ψυχὴ τὰς τῶν θεῶν
+συνόδους τε καὶ μίξεις μαντεύεται, ὅταν ἐγγὺς ᾖ τοῦ καταλιπεῖν τὸ σῶμα
+ᾧ ἐνοικεῖ.
+
+[1388] _ibid._ II. 65.
+
+[1389] _Oneirocr._ II. 49.
+
+[1390] The majority of the references to ancient usage given below are
+borrowed from Becker’s _Charicles_.
+
+[1391] Thuc. II. 15.
+
+[1392] Eur. _Phoen._ 347.
+
+[1393] Aeschines, _Epist._ X. p. 680.
+
+[1394] Cf. Pollux, III. 43.
+
+[1395] Soph. _Antig._ 901.
+
+[1396] _De Luctu_, 11.
+
+[1397] Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, p. 193.
+
+[1398] For a discussion of this point see Becker, _Charicles_ pp. 483-4.
+
+[1399] Harpocrat. s.v. λουτροφόρος. ἔθος δὲ ἦν καὶ τοῖς ἀγάμοις
+ἀποθανοῦσι λουτροφορεῖν, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ μνῆμα ἐφίστασθαι. τοῦτο δὲ ἦν παῖς
+ὑδρίαν ἔχων. The same words are repeated by Photius and Suidas. With
+ἐφίστασθαι it appears necessary to supply λουτροφόρον. Cf. Pollux VIII.
+66 τῶν δ’ ἀγάμων λουτροφόρος τῷ μνήματι ἐφίστατο, κόρη ἀγγεῖον ἔχουσα
+ὑδροφόρον.... For other references see Becker, _Charicles_ p. 484. This
+information, as regards the emblem used, is held to be incorrect. The
+λουτροφόρος was not a boy bearing a pitcher, but the pitcher itself.
+See Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. V. p. 388.
+
+[1400] For this view see Frazer, _Pausanias_, vol. V. p. 389. ‘It may
+be suggested that originally the custom of placing a water-pitcher on
+the grave of unmarried persons ... may have been meant to help them to
+obtain in another world the happiness they had missed in this. In fact
+it may have been part of a ceremony designed to provide the dead maiden
+or bachelor with a spouse in the spirit land. Such ceremonies have
+been observed in various parts of the world by peoples, who, like the
+Greeks, esteemed it a great misfortune to die unmarried.’
+
+[1401] _Plut._ 529.
+
+[1402] Cf. Lucian, _de Luctu_ 11.
+
+[1403] For a discussion of the point in relation to funerals see
+Becker, _Charicles_ pp. 385 f. and in relation to marriage pp. 486 f.
+
+[1404] Lucian, _de Luctu_ 11.
+
+[1405] I. 6.
+
+[1406] Cf. Passow, _Popul. Carm. Graec. Recent._ no. 415, and
+Tournefort, _Voyage du Levant_, I. p. 153, who describes a dead woman,
+whose funeral he witnessed, as ‘parée à la Gréque de ses habits de
+nôces.’
+
+[1407] Passow, _Popul. Carm._ 378.
+
+[1408] _Charicles_ p. 487.
+
+[1409] Lucian, _de Luctu_ 11. Aristoph. _Lysist._ 602 etc.
+
+[1410] The influence of the Church was against the use of garlands in
+early times and perhaps suppressed it in some districts. Cf. Minucius,
+p. 109 ‘Nec mortuos coronamus. Ergo vos (the heathen) in hoc magis
+miror, quemadmodum tribuatis exanimi aut [non] sentienti facem aut
+non sentienti coronam: cum et beatus non egeat, et miser non gaudeat
+floribus.’ The first _non_ is clearly to be deleted.
+
+[1411] Cf. Abbott, _Macedonian Folklore_, p. 193.
+
+[1412] Cf. _ibid._ p. 197.
+
+[1413] Hom. _Hymn. in Demet._ 372 ff. Hence the pomegranate was treated
+as ‘an accursed thing’ in the worship of Demeter at Lycosura, Paus.
+VIII. 37. 7.
+
+[1414] Paus. II. 17. 4.
+
+[1415] See above, p. 548.
+
+[1416] See above, p. 80.
+
+[1417] The following references are in the main taken from Lobeck,
+_Aglaophamus_.
+
+[1418] Soph. _Fragm._ 719 (Dind.).
+
+[1419] Hom. _Hymn. ad Cer._ 480 ff.
+
+[1420] Pind. _Fragm._ 137 (Bergk).
+
+[1421] Id. _Fragm._ 129. See above, p. 518.
+
+[1422] Aristoph. _Ranae_ 440-459.
+
+[1423] Isocr. _Paneg._ p. 46.
+
+[1424] _Aglaoph._ I. p. 70.
+
+[1425] περὶ εἰρήνης, p. 166.
+
+[1426] Aristid. _Eleusin._ 259 (454).
+
+[1427] Julian. _Or._ VII. 238. The same story in similar words recurs
+in Diog. Laert. VI. 39 and Plut. _de Aud. Poet._ II. p. 21 F.
+
+[1428] Crinagoras, _Ep._ XXX.
+
+[1429] Cic. _de Leg._ II. § 36.
+
+[1430] _Mathem._ I. p. 18, ed. Buller.
+
+[1431] _Aglaoph._ I. pp. 39 f.
+
+[1432] See Lobeck, _Aglaoph._ I. pp. 6 ff.
+
+[1433] Diodorus, v. 77. Cf. Miss Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of
+Greek Religion_, p. 567.
+
+[1434] For references on this point, see Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_, I. 14
+ff.
+
+[1435] For the evidence that the Achaeans adopted the language of the
+Pelasgians, and not _vice versâ_, see Ridgeway, _Early Age of Greece_,
+vol. I. p. 631 ff.
+
+[1436] _Protrept._ § 55.
+
+[1437] Hom. _Il._ I. 221 f.
+
+[1438] Euseb. _Demonstr. Evang._ V. 1, 268 E.
+
+[1439] _Praep. Evang._ XV. 1, 788 C.
+
+[1440] Προτρεπτ. § 61.
+
+[1441] Synes. _de Prov._ II. 124 B.
+
+[1442] Cf. Artemid. _Oneirocr._ Bk III. cap. 61.
+
+[1443] In Thera, as I myself witnessed, and until recently at Delphi.
+Greeks with whom I have spoken of this custom have often seen or heard
+of it somewhere.
+
+[1444] I regret that my notes contain no mention of my informant’s
+name. I must apologise to him for the omission.
+
+[1445] Asterius, _Encom. in SS. Martyr._ in Migne, _Patrolog.
+Graeco-Lat._ vol. XL. p. 324.
+
+[1446] _Adv. Valentin._ cap. I.
+
+[1447] Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._ IV. 11. Cf. Sainte-Croix, _Recherches
+sur les Mystères_, 2nd ed., I. p. 366.
+
+[1448] _loc. cit._
+
+[1449] [Origen] _Philosophumena_, p. 115 (ed. Miller), p. 170 (ed.
+Cruice). Cf. Miss J. Harrison, _Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig._ p. 549.
+
+[1450] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ II. 18.
+
+[1451] Dieterich, _Eine Mithras-Liturgie_, p. 125, cited by Miss J.
+Harrison, _Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig._ p. 155, note 3.
+
+[1452] Hesiod, _Theog._ 970 f. Cf. Hom. _Od._ V. 125.
+
+[1453] Theocr. _Id._ III. 49 ff. (A. Lang’s translation).
+
+[1454] Plutarch, _de fac. in orb. lun._ 28, cited by Miss Harrison,
+_Proleg. to Study of Gk Relig._ p. 267.
+
+[1455] See above, pp. 91 f. and 96 ff.
+
+[1456] Theocr. _Id._ III. 46 ff.
+
+[1457] _Protrept._ § 14.
+
+[1458] Theocr. _Id._ XV. 86.
+
+[1459] _Orph. Hymn._ LVI.; Bion, _Id._ I. 5. 54; Lucian, _Dial. deor._
+XI. 1; Macrob. _Saturn._ I. 21; Procop. _in Esai._ XVIII. p. 258. Cf.
+Lenormant, _Monogr. de la voie sacrée éleusin._, where many other
+references are given.
+
+[1460] Dem. Κατὰ Νεαίρας, pp. 1369-1371 _et passim_. Cf. Arist. Ἀθην.
+Πολ. 3.
+
+[1461] _Etymol. Mag._ 227. 36.
+
+[1462] Hesych. s.v. γεραραί.
+
+[1463] See above, pp. 339 ff.
+
+[1464] Plutarch, _de defectu orac._ cap. 14 (p. 417).
+
+[1465] See above, p. 139.
+
+[1466] Not so, however, to Artemidorus. Cf. _Oneirocr._ I. 80.
+
+[1467] _Protrept._ § 34.
+
+[1468] _l. c._
+
+[1469] _Protrept._ § 16.
+
+[1470] Theophr. _Char._ 28 (ed. Jebb).
+
+[1471] _l. c._
+
+[1472] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ II. 15.
+
+[1473] The cymbal certainly belonged to Demeter also (see Miss
+Harrison, _op. cit._ p. 562) but not, I think, the kettle-drum.
+
+[1474] Psellus (_Quaenam sunt Graecorum opiniones de daemonibus_, 3,
+ed. Migne) refers the formulary to the rites of Demeter and Kore. But
+I cannot agree with Miss J. Harrison (_Prolegomena to the Study of
+Greek Religion_, p. 569) as to the importance of Psellus’ testimony
+in any respect. He appears to me to give no more than a _résumé_ of
+information derived from Clement’s _Protreptica_, misunderstood and
+even more confused.
+
+[1475] Paus. II. 17. 3.
+
+[1476] Miss J. Harrison, _op. cit._ p. 536, commenting on
+_Philosophumena_, ed. Cruice, v. 3.
+
+[1477] A title under which both Zeus and Hermes were known; see
+Aristoph. _Pax_, 42, and Schol. _ibid._ 649.
+
+[1478] Clem. Alex. _Protrept._ § 54.
+
+[1479] Athen. VI. p. 253 A. Shortly afterwards he quotes a song (253
+D) in which it is the name of Demeter which is coupled with that of
+Demetrius.
+
+[1480] Athen. VI. 253 A, and 261 B.
+
+[1481] Glycon was Alexander’s new god, a re-incarnation of Asclepius,
+born in the form of a snake out of an egg discovered by Alexander.
+
+[1482] A superstitious old Roman entrapped by Alexander.
+
+[1483] Lucian, _Alexander seu Pseudomantis_, cap. 38-39 (II. 244 ff.).
+
+[1484] See Miss J. Harrison, _op. cit._ pp. 549 ff.
+
+[1485] Paton, _Inscr. of Cos_, 386, cited by Rouse, _Greek Votive
+Offerings_, p. 246.
+
+[1486] Plutarch, _Conjug. Praec. ad init._
+
+[1487] Schol. _ad Soph. Antig._ 1241.
+
+[1488] Photius, _Lex. Rhet._ Vol. II. p. 670 (ed. Porson), cited by
+Farnell, _Cults of the Greek States_, I. p. 245.
+
+[1489] For the chief references, see Farnell, _loc. cit._
+
+[1490] Farnell, _op. cit._ p. 191.
+
+[1491] Diod. Sic. V. 73; Pollux III. 38. Cf. Farnell, _op. cit._ p. 246.
+
+[1492] Pollux, _l. c._ ταύτῃ (τῇ Ἤρᾳ) τοῖς προτελείοις προὐτέλουν τὰς
+κόρας.
+
+[1493] Cf. Plutarch, _Amator. Narrat._ 1, where the girls of Haliartus
+are said to have bathed themselves in the spring Cissoessa immediately
+before making the sacrifices just mentioned, and evidently as part of
+the same ritual.
+
+[1494] [Aeschines] _Epist._ 10, p. 680.
+
+[1495] Chariton IV. 4.
+
+[1496] _Gorgias_, p. 493 B.
+
+[1497] Frazer, _ad Pausan._ X. 31. 9 (vol. V. p. 389).
+
+[1498] I cannot pretend to have gone into the whole literature of the
+subject, but I find no reference to this passage either in Dr Frazer’s
+_Pausanias_, _l. c._, or in Miss Harrison’s _Proleg. to Study of Gk
+Relig._ pp. 614 ff., where the same topic is fully discussed.
+
+[1499] Lucian, _Dial. Marin._ 6. 3.
+
+[1500] Eustath. _ad Hom. Il._ XXIII. 141.
+
+[1501] _Anthol. Pal._ VII. 507.
+
+[1502] For other examples see Lenormant, _Monographie de la voie sacrée
+éleusinienne_, pp. 50 f., where also the above example is quoted.
+
+[1503] Auson. _Epitaph._ no. 33.
+
+[1504] _Prolegomena to Study of Gk Religion_, pp. 573 ff.
+
+[1505] _op. cit._ p. 586; Kaibel, _C.I.G.I.S._, 641.
+
+[1506] See above, p. 586.
+
+[1507] See above, p. 586.
+
+[1508] See above, p. 589.
+
+[1509] I am forced by these considerations to dissent from Miss
+Harrison’s view as expressed _op. cit._ p. 594, ‘Here the symbolism
+seems to be of birth rather than of marriage,’ and again ‘this rite of
+birth or adoption ...’: and indeed this view seems hardly to tally with
+that which she suggests later (p. 600), “Burial itself may well have
+been to them (the Pythagoreans) as to Antigone a mystic marriage: ‘I
+have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of the Underworld.’”
+
+[1510] Furtwängler, _Die Idee des Todes_, p. 293.
+
+[1511] See above, p. 585.
+
+[1512] Plutarch, _Sympos._ IV. 5. 3.
+
+[1513] Aristoph. _Aves_, 1737.
+
+[1514] Cf. Schol. _ad Aristoph._ _l. c._
+
+[1515] This, I am aware, is not an unique case. Plato applies the same
+epithet to the gods as a whole, but above all to Eros, clearly, I
+think, with something of the same significance. See Plato, _Sympos._ §
+21, p. 195 A.
+
+[1516] Cf. Theo Smyrnaeus, _Math._ I. 18; Aristid. _Eleusin._ p. 415;
+Plato, _Phaedrus_, p. 48.
+
+[1517] Lenormant, _Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne_, p. 54.
+
+[1518] _l. c._
+
+[1519] For a long list of such monuments dealing with the story of
+Persephone, see Clarac, _Musée de Sculpt. anc. at mod._--‘Bas-reliefs
+Grecs et Romains,’ pp. 209-10.
+
+[1520] _Monographie de la voie sacrée éleusinienne_, p. 56.
+
+[1521] Aristoph. _Aves_, 1737.
+
+[1522] Soph. _Antig._ 787 ff.
+
+[1523] Pind. _Nem._ VI. _init._
+
+[1524] Plato, _Phaedo_, cap. 32, p. 82 B, C.
+
+[1525] See Geddes’ notes _ad loc._
+
+[1526] For other evidence confirming this view, see Geddes’ notes _ad
+loc._
+
+[1527] Plutarch, _de defect. orac._ cap. 10, p. 415.
+
+[1528] Plato, _Symp._ § 7, p. 180.
+
+[1529] _ibid._ § 15, p. 188.
+
+[1530] _ibid._ § 19, p. 193.
+
+
+
+
+GENERAL INDEX
+
+
+  Ablutions, at weddings and at funerals, 555
+
+  Aborigines, regarded as wizards, 248;
+    their relations with invaders, 244
+
+  Absolution, and dissolution, 401;
+    of the dead, 396 ff.
+
+  Achaeans, religion of, 521 f.
+
+  Adonis, story of, 582;
+    story of, how interpreted, 580;
+    as type of the initiated, 582
+
+  Aeschylus, popular beliefs utilised by, 437 ff., 459 f.;
+    religious sympathies of, 523
+
+  Aetolus, story of, 273
+
+  Agamemnon, as _revenant_, 438
+
+  Alastor, application of word, 465 ff.;
+    as proper name (in Homer), 473;
+    as term of abuse, 477;
+    derivation of word, 471;
+    development of meaning of word, 475 f.;
+    meaning of, 476;
+    original meaning of, 472
+
+  Alastores, 462 ff.;
+    not originally deities, 467 ff.
+
+  Allatius, on _vrykolakes_, 364 ff.
+
+  Amorgos, oracle of, 332
+
+  Amulets, 12-13, 21, 140
+
+  Amymone, story of, 593
+
+  Ancient language, attempted revival of, 30
+
+  Angels, exorcism of, 68;
+    good and bad, 288;
+    worship of, 42
+
+  Animals, unlucky species of, 307
+
+  Anointing, of the dead, 557
+
+  Anthropomorphic conception of God, 52
+
+  Antigone, as ‘bride of Acheron,’ 551
+
+  Antiphon, on blood-guilt, 443
+
+  Aphrodite, 117-120;
+    ‘eldest of the Fates,’ 120;
+    mystic rites of, 580
+
+  Apis, story of, 459
+
+  Apollonius of Tyana, 257
+
+  Apostasy, 409
+
+  Apple, symbolic usage of, 558
+
+  ‘Arabs’ (a class of demons), 211, 276 f.;
+    identified with _vrykolakes_ (q.v.), 277
+
+  Ariadne, story of, how represented on sepulchral monuments, 598
+
+  Aristomenes, 76
+
+  Arrogance of Greeks, 29
+
+  Art, in relation to religion, 1
+
+  Artemidorus, on death and marriage, 553 ff.
+
+  Artemis, 163-171;
+    as huntress, 165;
+    as the Moon, 165;
+    bathing of, 164-5;
+    displaced by S. Artemidos, 44;
+    modern character of, 169;
+    offerings to, 170
+
+  Asclepius, in serpent-form, 274 f.;
+    re-incarnation of, in mock-mysteries, 589
+
+  Ass-centaurs, 235 and 237 f.
+
+  Athene, and the owl, 207;
+    succeeded by Virgin Mary, 45
+
+  Athenians, religious sympathies of, 523
+
+  Attis, 586
+
+  Augury (_see_ Auspices)
+
+  August, certain days sacred to Nymphs, 152
+
+  Auspices, 308 ff.;
+    affected by number, 313;
+    from any movement of birds, 311;
+    from cry of birds, 311;
+    from flight of birds, 311;
+    from posture of birds, 311;
+    modified by position of observer, 312
+
+  Avengers, dead persons as, 438
+
+  Avengers of Blood, ancient names for, 462 ff.;
+    their resemblance to modern _vrykolakes_, 458
+
+  Axe, double-headed, as religious symbol, 72
+
+
+  ‘Baboutzicarios,’ 217
+
+  Bacchic rites, 38
+
+  Baptism, exorcisms at, 15;
+    neglect of, 409
+
+  Beast-dances, 224 ff.
+
+  Bed-chambers, in temples, 587
+
+  Beehive tombs, original use of, 94
+
+  Bells, worn at popular festivals, 224 ff.
+
+  ‘Binding’ and ‘loosing,’ 397
+
+  Binding-spells, 19;
+    means of loosing, 19
+
+  Birds, as messengers, in modern ballads, 316 f.;
+    as messengers of particular gods, 309;
+    colloquial application of word, 315;
+    in popular ballads, 315;
+    still acknowledged as messengers of heaven, 315;
+    which classes observed for auspices (q.v.), 308 f.;
+    why selected for divination, 308
+
+  Black-handled knife, as charm, 286
+
+  Blessing the waters, 197
+
+  Blood-guilt, ancient conception of, 451;
+    Attic law concerning, 443;
+    penalties for, 453;
+    Plato’s legislation concerning, 444
+
+  Blue beads, as amulets, 12
+
+  Body and soul, relation of, 361 ff., 526 ff.;
+    re-union of, 538
+
+  Bones of the dead, how treated after exhumation, 540 f.
+
+  Boreas, 52
+
+  Breast-bone of fowl, divination from, 327
+
+  Bridal customs (_see_ Wedding, Marriage)
+
+  ‘Bridge of Arta,’ The, 262 f.
+
+  _Brumalia_ (in Greece), 221
+
+  Burial (_see also_ Cremation, Inhumation);
+    demanded by ghosts, 431;
+    lack of, 407 f., 427, 449;
+    lack of, as punishment, 457
+
+  Buzzing in ear, as omen, 329
+
+
+  Callicantzari, 190-255;
+    afraid of fire, 202;
+    beast-like elements in, 203;
+    compared with Centaurs, 253;
+    demons or men?, 207-211;
+    description of, 191;
+    description of smaller species of, 193;
+    development of superstition concerning, 254;
+    dialectic forms of name, 211 ff.;
+    footgear of, 221; general habits of, 194;
+    how outwitted, 196-200;
+    identified with Centaurs, 235;
+    identified with were-wolves, 208;
+    offerings to, 201, 232;
+    originally anthropomorphic, 206;
+    origin of name, 211 ff.;
+    power of transformation possessed by, 204, 240;
+    precautions against, 200-202;
+    resembling Satyrs and Centaurs, 192;
+    sources of their features and attributes, 237 ff.;
+    stories concerning, 196-200;
+    their activity limited to Christmastide, 221;
+    their relation to Satyrs, etc., 229 ff.;
+    two main classes of, 191;
+    variously represented, 190;
+    whether demons or men originally, 209 ff.;
+    wives of, 200
+
+  Callicantzaros, The Great, 195
+
+  Callirrhoë, as sacred spring, 555
+
+  Candles, thrown into grave at funeral, 512
+
+  ‘Captain Thirteen,’ a folk-story, 75
+
+  Carnival, celebrations of, 224 ff.
+
+  Cat, jumping over dead person, 410;
+    omens drawn from, 328
+
+  Caves, haunted by Nymphs, 160
+
+  Cenotaphs, 490
+
+  Centauros, son of Ixion, 242
+
+  Centaurs (_see_ Callicantzari), 190-255;
+    and Lapithae, 242;
+    as wizards, 248 f.;
+    compared with Callicantzari, 253;
+    general character of, 246;
+    Heracles’ fight with, 253;
+    how represented in Art, 247;
+    in Hesiod, 242;
+    in Homer, 243;
+    in Pindar, 241;
+    popular conception of, how affected by Art, 252;
+    Prof. Ridgeway’s view of, 244 ff.;
+    various species of, 235, 237;
+    whether human or divine in origin, 241 ff.;
+    why called ‘Beasts,’ 245 ff.
+
+  Cephalus, 601
+
+  Cerberus, 97, 99
+
+  Character of modern Greeks, 28 ff.
+
+  Charms, 286
+
+  Charon, 98-117;
+    addressed as ‘Saint,’ 53;
+    ancient literary presentation of, 106;
+    as ferryman, earliest mention of, 114;
+    brother to Uranos, 116;
+    identified with Death, 114
+
+  Charon’s obol, 108, 285;
+    as charm to prevent soul from re-entering body, 434;
+    custom of, how interpreted, 405 f.
+
+  Charos, appearance of, 100;
+    as agent of God, 101-4;
+    as archer, 105;
+    as ferryman, 107;
+    as godfather, story of, 102;
+    as horseman, 105;
+    as pirate, 107-8;
+    as warrior, 105;
+    as wrestler, 104, 105;
+    Christianised character of, 101;
+    coin as fee for, 109;
+    functions of, 101;
+    household of, 99;
+    in connexion with Christianity, 101;
+    originally Pelasgian deity, 116;
+    pagan character of, 105
+
+  Charun, Etruscan god, 116
+
+  Child-birth, precautions against Nereids observed at, 140;
+    precautions at, 10-11
+
+  Children, conceived or born on Church-festivals, how afflicted, 408;
+    liable to lycanthropy, 208;
+    preyed upon by Gelloudes, 177;
+    preyed upon by Striges, 181;
+    stricken by Nereids, how treated, 145;
+    suspected of lycanthropy, how treated, 210
+
+  Chiron, 241 ff., 248;
+    as magician and prophet, 248 f.
+
+  Cholera, personified, 22
+
+  Christ, accepted as new deity by pagans, 41
+
+  ‘Christian,’ popular usage of word, 66
+
+  Christianity, became polytheistic, 42;
+    and paganism, 36
+
+  Church, influenced by paganism, 572 f.
+
+  Churching of women, 20
+
+  Clement of Alexandria, on the Mysteries, 570, 572;
+    on rites of Aphrodite, 581
+
+  Clytemnestra, ghost of, 474
+
+  Cock, as victim, 326
+
+  Cocks, superstitions concerning, 195
+
+  Coin, as charm, 111;
+    placed in mouth of dead persons, 108, 405;
+    placed in mouth of dead persons, various substitutes for, 112
+
+  ‘Comforting,’ feast of, 533
+
+  Common origin of gods and men, 65
+
+  Communion with gods, philosophers’ views of, 296
+
+  Conquering and conquered races, relations of, 244
+
+  Conservatism, religious, 95, 295, 337
+
+  ‘Constantine and Areté’ (ballad), 391 f.
+
+  Continuity of Greek life and thought, 552
+
+  Convention, literary, 429
+
+  Corpse, re-animation of, 112 (_see_ Re-animation, Resuscitation)
+
+  Corycian cave, 161
+
+  Courage of Greeks, 28
+
+  Cremation (_see also_ Funeral-rites), 485 ff.;
+    ceremonial, 496, 512;
+    ceremonial substitute for, 491;
+    Christian attitude towards, 501;
+    combined with inhumation, 494;
+    disuse of, 501 f.;
+    for disposing of _revenants_ in Ancient Greece, 416;
+    for disposing of _vrykolakes_, 411;
+    in theory preferable to inhumation, 488 f.;
+    in recent times, 503;
+    introduced by Achaeans, 491;
+    motives for, 502 f.;
+    preferred to inhumation, 500 f.;
+    revival of, 502;
+    serving same religious end as inhumation, 491 ff.
+
+  Crockery broken at funerals, 520
+
+  Crow, 309;
+    exception to ordinary rules of divination, 310
+
+  Curses, 387 ff., 409;
+    diagnosed by their effects, 396;
+    executed by demonic agents, 448;
+    fixity of, 417;
+    in Euripides, 418;
+    in Sophocles, 419;
+    operation of, 447;
+    parental, 391 ff.;
+    revoking of, 388 f.
+
+  Custom-dues, for passage of soul to other world, 285
+
+  Customs-officers, celestial, 284
+
+  Cybele, rites of, 586
+
+
+  Daemons, Plutarch’s theory of, 583 f.
+
+  Danaids, as types of unmarried women, 592
+
+  Dances, 34
+
+  Dead, messages to the, 345;
+    worship of the, 529 note 1
+
+
+
+
+Creatures that once were Men.
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+In front of you is the main street, with two rows of miserable looking
+huts with shuttered windows and old walls pressing on each other and
+leaning forward.  The roofs of these time-worn habitations are full of
+holes, and have been patched here and there with laths; from underneath
+them project mildewed beams, which are shaded by the dusty-leaved
+elder-trees and crooked white willows--pitiable flora of those suburbs
+inhabited by the poor.
+
+The dull green time-stained panes of the windows look upon each other
+with the cowardly glances of cheats. Through the street and towards the
+adjacent mountain, runs the sinuous path, winding through the deep
+ditches filled with rain-water.  Here and there are piled heaps of dust
+and other rubbish--either refuse or else put there purposely to keep
+the rain-water from flooding the houses. On the top of the mountain,
+among green gardens with dense foliage, beautiful stone houses lie
+hidden; the belfries of the churches rise proudly towards the sky, and
+their gilded crosses shine beneath the rays of the sun. During the
+rainy weather the neighbouring town pours its water into this main
+road, which, at other times, is full of its dust, and all these
+miserable houses seem, as it were, thrown by some powerful hand into
+that heap of dust, rubbish, and rain-water.  They cling to the ground
+beneath the high mountain, exposed to the sun, surrounded by decaying
+refuse, and their sodden appearance impresses one with the same feeling
+as would the half-rotten trunk of an old tree.
+
+At the end of the main street, as if thrown out of the town, stood a
+two-storied house, which had been rented from Petunikoff, a merchant
+and resident of the town.  It was in comparatively good order, being
+further from the mountain, while near it were the open fields, and
+about half-a-mile away the river ran its winding course.
+
+This large old house had the most dismal aspect amidst its
+surroundings.  The walls bent outwards and there was hardly a pane of
+glass in any of the windows, except some of the fragments which looked
+like the water of the marshes--dull green.  The spaces of wall between
+the windows were covered with spots, as if time were trying to write
+there in hieroglyphics the history of the old house, and the tottering
+roof added still more to its pitiable condition. It seemed as if the
+whole building bent towards the ground, to await the last stroke of
+that fate which should transform it into a chaos of rotting remains,
+and finally into dust.
+
+The gates were open, one half of them displaced and lying on the ground
+at the entrance, while between its bars had grown the grass, which also
+covered the large and empty court-yard.  In the depths of this yard
+stood a low, iron-roofed, smoke-begrimed building.  The house itself
+was of course unoccupied, but this shed, formerly a blacksmith's forge,
+was now turned into a "dosshouse," kept by a retired Captain named
+Aristid Fomich Kuvalda.
+
+In the interior of the dosshouse was a long, wide and grimy board,
+measuring some 28 by 70 feet.  The room was lighted on one side by four
+small square windows, and on the other by a wide door.  The unpainted
+brick walls were black with smoke, and the ceiling, which was built of
+timber, was almost black.  In the middle stood a large stove, the
+furnace of which served as its foundation, and around this stove and
+along the walls were also long, wide boards, which served as beds for
+the lodgers.  The walls smelt of smoke, the earthen floor of dampness,
+and the long wide board of rotting rags.
+
+The place of the proprietor was on the top of the stove, while the
+boards surrounding it were intended for those who were on good terms
+with the owner and who were honoured by his friendship.  During the day
+the captain passed most of his time sitting on a kind of bench, made by
+himself by placing bricks against the wall of the courtyard, or else in
+the eating house of Egor Vavilovitch, which was opposite the house,
+where he took all his meals and where he also drank vodki.
+
+Before renting this house, Aristid Kuvalda had kept a registry office
+for servants in the town.  If we look further back into his former
+life, we shall find that he once owned printing works, and previous to
+this, in his own words, he "just lived!  And lived well too, Devil take
+it, and like one who knew how!"
+
+He was a tall, broad-shouldered man of fifty, with a rawlooking face,
+swollen with drunkenness, and with a dirty yellowish beard. His eyes
+were large and grey, with an insolent expression of happiness.  He
+spoke in a bass voice and with a sort of grumbling sound in his throat,
+and he almost always held between his teeth a German china pipe with a
+long bowl.  When he was angry the nostrils of his big crooked red nose
+swelled, and his lips trembled, exposing to view two rows of large and
+wolf-like yellow teeth.  He had long arms, was lame, and always dressed
+in an old officer's uniform, with a dirty, greasy cap with a red band,
+a hat without a brim, and ragged felt boots which reached almost to his
+knees.  In the morning, as a rule, he had a heavy drunken headache, and
+in the evening he caroused.  However much he drank, he was never drunk,
+and so was always merry.
+
+In the evenings he received lodgers, sitting on his brickmade bench
+with his pipe in his mouth.
+
+"Whom have we here?" he would ask the ragged and tattered object
+approaching him, who had probably been chucked out of the town for
+drunkenness, or perhaps for some other reason not quite so simple.  And
+after the man had answered him, he would say, "Let me see legal papers
+in confirmation of your lies."  And if there were such papers they were
+shown.  The Captain would then put them in his bosom, seldom taking any
+interest in them, and would say:
+
+"Everything is in order.  Two kopecks for the night, ten kopecks for
+the week, and thirty kopecks for the month.  Go and get a place for
+yourself, and see that it is not other people's, or else they will blow
+you up.  The people that live here are particular."
+
+"Don't you sell tea, bread, or anything to eat?"
+
+"I trade only in walls and roofs, for which I pay to the swindling
+proprietor of this hole--Judas Petunikoff, merchant of the second
+guild--five roubles a month," explained Kuvalda in a business-like
+tone.  "Only those come to me who are not accustomed to comfort and
+luxuries .... but if you are accustomed to eat every day, then there is
+the eating-house opposite.  But it would be better for you if you left
+off that habit.  You see you are not a gentleman.  What do you eat?
+You eat yourself!"
+
+For such speeches, delivered in a strictly business-like manner, and
+always with smiling eyes, and also for the attention he paid to his
+lodgers the Captain was very popular among the poor of the town.  It
+very often happened that a former client of his would appear, not in
+rags, but in something more respectable and with a slightly happier
+face.
+
+"Good-day, your honour, and how do you do?"
+
+"Alive, in good health!  Go on."
+
+"Don't you know me?"
+
+"I did not know you."
+
+"Do you remember that I lived with you last winter for nearly a month
+.... when the fight with the police took place, and three were taken
+away?"
+
+"My brother, that is so.  The police do come even under my hospitable
+roof!"
+
+"My God!  You gave a piece of your mind to the police inspector of this
+district!"
+
+"Wouldn't you accept some small hospitality from me?  When I lived with
+you, you were ..."
+
+"Gratitude must be encouraged because it is seldom met with.  You seem
+to be a good man, and, though I don't remember you, still I will go
+with you into the public-house and drink to your success and future
+prospects with the greatest pleasure."
+
+"You seem always the same ...  Are you always joking?"
+
+"What else can one do, living among you unfortunate men?"
+
+They went.  Sometimes the Captain's former customer, uplifted and
+unsettled by the entertainment, returned to the dosshouse, and on the
+following morning they would again begin treating each other till the
+Captain's companion would wake up to realise that he had spent all his
+money in drink.
+
+"Your honour, do you see that I have again fallen into your hands?
+What shall we do now?"
+
+"The position, no doubt, is not a very good one, but still you need not
+trouble about it," reasoned the Captain.  "You must, my friend, treat
+everything indifferently, without spoiling yourself by philosophy, and
+without asking yourself any question.  To philosophise is always
+foolish; to philosophise with a drunken headache, ineffably so.
+Drunken headaches require vodki and not the remorse of conscience or
+gnashing of teeth ... save your teeth, or else you will not be able to
+protect yourself.  Here are twenty kopecks.  Go and buy a bottle of
+vodki for five kopecks, hot tripe or lungs, one pound of bread and two
+cucumbers.  When we have lived off our drunken headache we will think
+of the condition of affairs ..."
+
+As a rule the consideration of the "condition of affairs" lasted some
+two or three days, and only when the Captain had not a farthing left of
+the three roubles or five roubles given him by his grateful customer
+did he say:
+
+"You came!  Do you see?  Now that we have drunk everything with you,
+you fool, try again to regain the path of virtue and soberness.  It has
+been truly said that if you do not sin, you will not repent, and, if
+you do not repent, you shall not be saved.  We have done the first, and
+to repent is useless.  Let us make direct for salvation.  Go to the
+river and work, and if you think you cannot control yourself, tell the
+contractor, your employer, to keep your money, or else give it to me.
+When you get sufficient capital, I will get you a pair of trousers and
+other things necessary to make you seem a respectable and hard-working
+man, persecuted by fate.  With decent-looking trousers you can go far.
+Now then, be off!"
+
+Then the client would go to the river to work as a porter, smiling the
+while over the Captain's long and wise speeches. He did not distinctly
+understand them, but only saw in front of him two merry eyes, felt
+their encouraging influence, and knew that in the loquacious Captain he
+had an arm that would assist him in time of need.
+
+And really it happened very often that, for a month or so, some
+ticket-of-leave client, under the strict surveillance of the Captain,
+had the opportunity of raising himself to a condition better than that
+to which, thanks to the Captain's co-operation, he had fallen.
+
+"Now, then, my friend!" said the Captain, glancing critically at the
+restored client, "we have a coat and jacket.  When I had respectable
+trousers I lived in town like a respectable man.  But when the trousers
+wore out, I too fell off in the opinion of my fellow-men and had to
+come down here from the town.  Men, my fine mannikin, judge everything
+by the outward appearance, while, owing to their foolishness, the
+actual reality of things is incomprehensible to them.  Make a note of
+this on your nose, and pay me at least half your debt.  Go in peace;
+seek, and you may find."
+
+"How much do I owe you, Aristid Fomich?" asks the client, in confusion.
+
+"One rouble and 70 kopecks....  Now, give me only one rouble, or, if
+you like, 70 kopecks, and as for the rest, I shall wait until you have
+earned more than you have now by stealing or by hard work, it does not
+matter to me."
+
+"I thank you humbly for your kindness!" says the client, touched to the
+heart.  "Truly you are a kind man....; Life has persecuted you in
+vain....  What an eagle you would have been in your own place!"
+
+The Captain could not live without eloquent speeches.
+
+"What does 'in my own place' mean?  No one really knows his own place
+in life, and every one of us crawls into his harness.  The place of the
+merchant Judas Petunikoff ought to be in penal servitude, but he still
+walks through the streets in daylight, and even intends to build a
+factory. The place of our teacher ought to be beside a wife and
+half-a-dozen children, but he is loitering in the public-house of
+Vaviloff.  And then, there is yourself.  You are going to seek a
+situation as a hall porter or waiter, but I can see that you ought to
+be a soldier in the army, because you are no fool, are patient and
+understand discipline. Life shuffles us like cards, you see, and it is
+only accidentally, and only for a time, that we fall into our own
+places!"
+
+Such farewell speeches often served as a preface to the continuation of
+their acquaintance, which again began with drinking and went so far
+that the client would spend his last farthing.  Then the Captain would
+stand him treat, and they would drink all they had.
+
+A repetition of similar doings did not affect in the least the good
+relations of the parties.
+
+The teacher mentioned by the Captain was another of those customers who
+were thus reformed only in order that they should sin again.  Thanks to
+his intellect, he was the nearest in rank to the Captain, and this was
+probably the cause of his falling so low as dosshouse life, and of his
+inability to rise again.  It was only with him that Aristid Kuvalda
+could philosophise with the certainty of being understood.  He valued
+this, and when the reformed teacher prepared to leave the dosshouse in
+order to get a corner in town for himself, then Aristid Kuvalda
+accompanied him so sorrowfully and sadly that it ended, as a rule, in
+their both getting drunk and spending all their money.  Probably
+Kuvalda arranged the matter intentionally so that the teacher could not
+leave the dosshouse, though he desired to do so with all his heart.
+Was it possible for Aristid Kuvalda, a nobleman (as was evident from
+his speeches), one who was accustomed to think, though the turn of fate
+may have changed his position, was it possible for him not to desire to
+have close to him a man like himself?  We can pity our own faults in
+others.
+
+This teacher had once taught at an institution in one of the towns on
+the Volga, but in consequence of some story was dismissed.  After this
+he was a clerk in a tannery, but again had to leave.  Then he became a
+librarian in some private library, subsequently following other
+professions.  Finally, after passing examinations in law he became a
+lawyer, but drink reduced him to the Captain's dosshouse.  He was tall,
+round-shouldered, with a long sharp nose and bald head.  In his bony
+and yellow face, on which grew a wedge-shaped beard, shone large,
+restless eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, and the corners of his
+mouth drooped sadly down.  He earned his bread, or rather his drink, by
+reporting for the local papers.  He sometimes earned as much as fifteen
+roubles.  These he gave to the Captain and said:
+
+"It is enough.  I am going back into the bosom of culture. Another
+week's hard work and I shall dress respectably, and then Addio, mio
+caro!"
+
+"Very exemplary!  As I heartily sympathise with your decision, Philip,
+I shall not give you another glass all this week," the Captain warned
+him sternly.
+
+"I shall be thankful! .... You will not give me one drop?"
+
+The Captain heard in his voice a beseeching note to which he turned a
+deaf ear.
+
+"Even though you roar, I shall not give it you!"
+
+"As you like, then," sighed the teacher, and went away to continue his
+reporting.  But after a day or two he would return tired and thirsty,
+and would look at the Captain with a beseeching glance out of the
+corners of his eyes, hoping that his friend's heart would soften.
+
+The Captain in such cases put on a serious face and began speaking with
+killing irony on the theme of weakness of character, of the animal
+delight of intoxication, and on such subjects as suited the occasion.
+One must do him justice: he was captivated by his role of mentor and
+moralist, but the lodgers dogged him, and, listening sceptically to his
+exhortations to repentance, would whisper aside to each other:
+
+"Cunning, skilful, shifty rogue!  I told you so, but you would not
+listen.  It's your own fault!"
+
+"His honour is really a good soldier.  He goes first and examines the
+road behind him!"
+
+The teacher then hunted here and there till he found his friend again
+in some corner, and grasping his dirty coat, trembling and licking his
+dry lips, looked into his face with a deep, tragic glance, without
+articulate words.
+
+"Can't you?" asked the Captain sullenly.
+
+The teacher answered by bowing his head and letting it fall on his
+breast, his tall, thin body trembling the while.
+
+"Wait another day ... perhaps you will be all right then," proposed
+Kuvalda.  The teacher sighed, and shook his head hopelessly.
+
+The Captain saw that his friend's thin body trembled with the thirst
+for the poison, and took some money from his pocket.
+
+"In the majority of cases it is impossible to fight against fate," said
+he, as if trying to justify himself before someone. But if the teacher
+controlled himself for a whole week then there was a touching farewell
+scene between the two friends, which ended as a rule in the
+eating-house of Vaviloff.  The teacher did not spend all his money, but
+spent at least half on the children of the main street.  The poor are
+always rich in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street
+there were groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and
+dirty.  Children are the living flowers of the earth, but these had the
+appearance of flowers that have faded prematurely, because they grew in
+ground where there was no healthy nourishment.  Often the teacher would
+gather them round him, would buy them bread, eggs, apples and nuts, and
+take them into the fields by the river side.  There they would sit and
+greedily eat everything he offered them, after which they would begin
+to play, filling the fields for a mile around with careless noise and
+laughter.  The tall, thin figure of the drunkard towered above these
+small people, who treated him familiarly, as if he were one of their
+own age.  They called him "Philip," and did not trouble to prefix
+"Uncle" to his name. Playing around him, like little wild animals, they
+pushed him, jumped upon his back, beat him upon his bald head, and
+caught hold of his nose. All this must have pleased him, as he did not
+protest against such liberties.  He spoke very little to them, and when
+he did so he did it cautiously as if afraid that his words would hurt
+or contaminate them.  He passed many hours thus as their companion and
+plaything, watching their lively faces with his gloomy eyes.  Then he
+would thoughtfully and slowly direct his steps to the eatinghouse of
+Vaviloff, where he would drink silently and quickly till all his senses
+left him.
+
+                    *      *      *      *      *
+
+Almost every day after his reporting he would bring a newspaper, and
+then gather round him all these creatures that once were men.
+
+On seeing him, they would come forward from all corners of the
+court-yard, drunk, or suffering from drunken headache, dishevelled,
+tattered, miserable, and pitiable.  Then would come the barrel-like,
+stout Aleksei Maksimovitch Simtsoff, formerly Inspector of Woods and
+Forests, under the Department of Appendages, but now trading in
+matches, ink, blacking, and lemons. He was an old man of sixty, in a
+canvas overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat, the greasy borders of which hid
+his stout fat red face.  He had a thick white beard, out of which a
+small red nose turned gaily heavenwards.  He had thick, crimson lips
+and watery, cynical eyes.  They called him "Kubar," a name which well
+described his round figure and buzzing speech.  After him, Kanets
+appeared from some corner--a dark, sad-looking, silent drunkard: then
+the former governor of the prison, Luka Antonovitch Martyanoff, a man
+who existed on "remeshok," "trilistika," and "bankovka,"* and many such
+cunning games, not much appreciated by the police.  He would throw his
+hard and oft-scourged body on the grass beside the teacher, and,
+turning his eyes round and scratching his head, would ask in a hoarse,
+bass voice, "May I?"
+
+*Note by translator.--Well-known games of chance, played by the lower
+classes.  The police specially endeavour to stop them, but
+unsuccessfully.
+
+Then appeared Pavel Solntseff, a man of thirty years of age, suffering
+from consumption.  The ribs of his left side had been broken in a
+quarrel, and the sharp, yellow face, like that of a fox, always wore a
+malicious smile.  The thin lips, when opened, exposed two rows of
+decayed black teeth, and the rags on his shoulders swayed backwards and
+forwards as if they were hung on a clothes pole.  They called him
+"Abyedok."  He hawked brushes and bath brooms of his own manufacture,
+good strong brushes made from a peculiar kind of grass.
+
+Then followed a lean and bony man of whom no one knew anything, with a
+frightened expression in his eyes, the left one of which had a squint.
+He was silent and timid, and had been imprisoned three times for theft
+by the High Court of Justice and the Magisterial Courts.  His family
+name was Kiselnikoff, but they called him Paltara Taras, because he was
+a head and shoulders taller than his friend, Deacon Taras, who had been
+degraded from his office for drunkenness and immorality.  The Deacon
+was a short, thick-set person, with the chest of an athlete and a
+round, strong head.  He danced skilfully, and was still more skilful at
+swearing.  He and Paltara Taras worked in the wood on the banks of the
+river, and in free hours he told his friend or any one who would
+listen, "Tales of my own composition," as he used to say.  On hearing
+these stories, the heroes of which always seemed to be saints, kings,
+priests, or generals, even the inmates of the dosshouse spat and rubbed
+their eyes in astonishment at the imagination of the Deacon, who told
+them shameless tales of lewd, fantastic adventures, with blinking eyes
+and a passionless expression of countenance.  The imagination of this
+man was powerful and inexhaustible; he could go on relating and
+composing all day, from morning to night, without once repeating what
+he had said before.  In his expression you sometimes saw the poet gone
+astray, sometimes the romancer, and he always succeeded in making his
+tales realistic by the effective and powerful words in which he told
+them.
+
+There was also a foolish young man called Kuvalda Meteor.  One night he
+came to sleep in the dosshouse and had remained ever since among these
+men, much to their astonishment.  At first they did not take much
+notice of him.  In the daytime, like all the others, he went away to
+find something to eat, but at nights he always loitered around this
+friendly company till at last the Captain took notice of him.
+
+"Boy!  What business have you here on this earth?"
+
+The boy answered boldly and stoutly:
+
+"I am a barefooted tramp ...."
+
+The Captain looked critically at him.  This youngster had long hair and
+a weak face, with prominent cheek-bones and a turned-up nose.  He was
+dressed in a blue blouse without a waistband, and on his head he wore
+the remains of a straw hat, while his feet were bare.
+
+"You are a fool!" decided Aristid Kuvalda.  "What are you knocking
+about here for?  You are of absolutely no use to us ...  Do you drink
+vodki? ...  No? ...  Well, then, can you steal?"  Again, "No."  "Go
+away, learn, and come back again when you know something, and are a man
+..."
+
+The youngster smiled.
+
+"No.  I shall live with you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Just because ..."
+
+"Oh you ... Meteor!" said the Captain.
+
+"I will break his teeth for him," said Martyanoff.
+
+"And why?" asked the youngster.
+
+"Just because...."
+
+"And I will take a stone and hit you on the head," the young man
+answered respectfully.
+
+Martyanoff would have broken his bones, had not Kuvalda interrupted
+with:
+
+"Leave him alone....  Is this a home to you or even to us? You have no
+sufficient reason to break his teeth for him.  You have no better
+reason than he for living with us."
+
+"Well, then, Devil take him! ...  We all live in the world without
+sufficient reason....  We live, and why?  Because!  He also because ...
+let him alone...."
+
+"But it is better for you, young man, to go away from us," the teacher
+advised him, looking him up and down with his sad eyes. He made no
+answer, but remained.  And they soon became accustomed to his presence,
+and ceased to take any notice of him.  But he lived among them, and
+observed everything.
+
+The above were the chief members of the Captain's company, and he
+called them with kind-hearted sarcasm "Creatures that once were men."
+For though there were men who had experienced as much of the bitter
+irony of fate as these men, yet they were not fallen so low.  Not
+infrequently, respectable men belonging to the cultured classes are
+inferior to those belonging to the peasantry, and it is always a fact
+that the depraved man from the city is immeasurably worse than the
+depraved man from the village.  This fact was strikingly illustrated by
+the contrast between the formerly well-educated men and the mujiks who
+were living in Kuvalda's shelter.
+
+The representative of the latter class was an old mujik called Tyapa.
+Tall and angular, he kept his head in such a position that his chin
+touched his breast.  He was the Captain's first lodger, and it was said
+of him that he had a great deal of money hidden somewhere, and for its
+sake had nearly had his throat cut some two years ago: ever since then
+he carried his head thus. Over his eyes hung greyish eyebrows, and,
+looked at in profile, only his crooked nose was to be seen.  His shadow
+reminded one of a poker.  He denied that he had money, and said that
+they "only tried to cut his throat out of malice," and from that day he
+took to collecting rags, and that is why his head was always bent as if
+incessantly looking on the ground.  When he went about shaking his
+head, and minus a walking-stick in his hand, and a bag on his back--the
+signs of his profession--he seemed to be thinking almost to madness,
+and, at such times, Kuvalda spoke thus, pointing to him with his finger:
+
+"Look, there is the conscience of Merchant Judas Petunikoff.  See how
+disorderly, dirty, and low is the escaped conscience."
+
+Tyapa, as a rule, spoke in a hoarse and hardly audible voice, and that
+is why he spoke very little, and loved to be alone.  But whenever a
+stranger, compelled to leave the village, appeared in the dosshouse,
+Tyapa seemed sadder and angrier, and followed the unfortunate about
+with biting jeers and a wicked chuckling in his throat. He either put
+some beggar against him, or himself threatened to rob and beat him,
+till the frightened mujik would disappear from the dosshouse and never
+more be seen.  Then Tyapa was quiet again, and would sit in some corner
+mending his rags, or else reading his Bible, which was as dirty, worn,
+and old as himself.  Only when the teacher brought a newspaper and
+began reading did he come from his corner once more.  As a rule, Tyapa
+listened to what was read silently and sighed often, without asking
+anything of anyone.  But once when the teacher, having read the paper,
+wanted to put it away, Tyapa stretched out his bony hand, and said,
+"Give it to me ..."
+
+"What do you want it for?"
+
+"Give it to me ...  Perhaps there is something in it about us ..."
+
+"About whom?"
+
+"About the village."
+
+They laughed at him, and threw him the paper.  He took it, and read in
+it how in the village the hail had destroyed the cornfields, how in
+another village fire destroyed thirty houses, and that in a third a
+woman had poisoned her family,--in fact, everything that it is
+customary to write of,--everything, that is to say, which is bad, and
+which depicts only the worst side of the unfortunate village.  Tyapa
+read all this silently and roared, perhaps from sympathy, perhaps from
+delight at the sad news.
+
+He passed the whole Sunday in reading his Bible, and never went out
+collecting rags on that day.  While reading, he groaned and sighed
+continually.  He kept the book close to his breast, and was angry with
+any one who interrupted him or who touched his Bible.
+
+"Oh, you drunken blackguard," said Kuvalda to him, "what do you
+understand of it?"
+
+"Nothing, wizard!  I don't understand anything, and I do not read any
+books ...  But I read ..."
+
+"Therefore you are a fool ..." said the Captain, decidedly. "When there
+are insects in your head, you know it is uncomfortable, but if some
+thoughts enter there too, how will you live then, you old toad?"
+
+"I have not long to live," said Tyapa, quietly.
+
+Once the teacher asked how he had learned to read.
+
+"In prison," answered Tyapa, shortly.
+
+"Have you been there?"
+
+"I was there...."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"Just so....  It was a mistake....  But I brought the Bible out with me
+from there.  A lady gave it to me....  It is good in prison, brother."
+
+"Is that so?  And why?"
+
+"It teaches one....  I learned to read there....  I also got this
+book....  And all these you see, free...."
+
+When the teacher appeared in the dosshouse, Tyapa had already lived
+there for some time.  He looked long into the teacher's face, as if to
+discover what kind of a man he was.  Tyapa often listened to his
+conversation, and once, sitting down beside him, said:
+
+"I see you are very learned.... Have you read the Bible?"
+
+"I have read it...."
+
+"I see; I see.... Can you remember it?"
+
+"Yes.... I remember it...."
+
+Then the old man leaned to one side and gazed at the other with a
+serious, suspicious glance.
+
+"There were the Amalekites, do you remember?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Where are they now?"
+
+"Disappeared ... Tyapa ... died out ..."
+
+The old man was silent, then asked again: "And where are the
+Philistines?"
+
+"These also ..."
+
+"Have all these died out?"
+
+"Yes ... all ..."
+
+"And so ... we also will die out?"
+
+"There will come a time when we also will die," said the teacher
+indifferently.
+
+"And to what tribe of Israel do we belong?"
+
+The teacher looked at him, and began telling him about Scythians and
+Slavs....
+
+The old man became all the more frightened, and glanced at his face.
+
+"You are lying!" he said scornfully, when the teacher had finished.
+
+"What lie have I told?" asked the teacher.
+
+"You mentioned tribes that are not mentioned in the Bible."
+
+He got up and walked away, angry and deeply insulted.
+
+"You will go mad, Tyapa," called the teacher after him with conviction.
+
+Then the old man came back again, and stretching out his hand,
+threatened him with his crooked and dirty finger.
+
+"God made Adam--from Adam were descended the Jews, that means that all
+people are descended from Jews ... and we also ..."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Tartars are descended from Ishmael, but he also came of the Jews ..."
+
+"What do you want to tell me all this for?"
+
+"Nothing!  Only why do you tell lies?"  Then he walked away, leaving
+his companion in perplexity.  But after two days he came again and sat
+by him.
+
+"You are learned ...  Tell me, then, whose descendants are we? Are we
+Babylonians, or who are we?"
+
+"We are Slavs, Tyapa," said the teacher, and attentively awaited his
+answer, wishing to understand him.
+
+"Speak to me from the Bible.  There are no such men there."
+
+Then the teacher began criticising the Bible.  The old man listened,
+and interrupted him after a long while.
+
+"Stop ...  Wait!  That means that among people known to God there are
+no Russians?  We are not known to God?  Is it so?  God knew all those
+who are mentioned in the Bible ... He destroyed them by sword and fire,
+He destroyed their cities; but He also sent prophets to teach them.
+That means that He also pitied them.  He scattered the Jews and the
+Tartars ...  But what about us?  Why have we prophets no longer?"
+
+"Well, I don't know!" replied the teacher, trying to understand the old
+man.  But the latter put his hand on the teacher's shoulder, and slowly
+pushed him backwards and forwards, and his throat made a noise as if he
+were swallowing something....
+
+"Tell me!  You speak so much ... as if you knew everything.  It makes
+me sick to listen to you ... you darken my soul....  I should be better
+pleased if you were silent.  Who are we, eh? Why have we no prophets?
+Ha, ha! ...  Where were we when Christ walked on this earth?  Do you
+see?  And you too, you are lying....  Do you think that all die out?
+The Russian people will never disappear....  You are lying....  It has
+been written in the Bible, only it is not known what name the Russians
+are given.  Do you see what kind of people they are?  They are
+numberless....  How many villages are there on the earth? Think of all
+the people who live on it, so strong, so numerous! And you say that
+they will die out; men shall die, but God wants the people, God the
+Creator of the earth!  The Amalekites did not die out.  They are either
+German or French....  But you, eh, you!  Now then, tell me why we are
+abandoned by God?  Have we no punishments nor prophets from the Lord?
+Who then will teach us?" Tyapa spoke strongly and plainly, and there
+was faith in his words.  He had been speaking a long time, and the
+teacher, who was generally drunk and in a speechless condition, could
+not stand it any longer.  He looked at the dry, wrinkled old man, felt
+the great force of these words, and suddenly began to pity himself.  He
+wished to say something so strong and convincing to the old man that
+Tyapa would be disposed in his favour; he did not wish to speak in such
+a serious, earnest way, but in a soft and fatherly tone.  And the
+teacher felt as if something were rising from his breast into his
+throat ...  But he could not find any powerful words.
+
+"What kind of a man are you? ...  Your soul seems to be torn away--and
+you still continue speaking ... as if you knew something ...  It would
+be better if you were silent."
+
+"Ah, Tyapa, what you say is true," replied the teacher, sadly. "The
+people ... you are right ... they are numberless ... but I am a
+stranger to them ... and they are strangers to me ... Do you see where
+the tragedy of my life is hidden? ... But let me alone!  I shall suffer
+... and there are no prophets also ...  No.  You are right, I speak a
+great deal ...  But it is no good to anyone.  I shall be always silent
+...  Only don't speak with me like this ...  Ah, old man, you do not
+know ...  You do not know ...  And you cannot understand."
+
+And in the end the teacher cried.  He cried so easily and so freely,
+with such torrents of flowing tears, that he soon found relief.
+
+"You ought to go into a village ... become a clerk or a teacher ...
+You would be well fed there.  What are you crying for?" asked Tyapa,
+sadly.
+
+But the teacher was crying as if the tears quieted and comforted him.
+
+From this day they became friends, and the "creatures that once were
+men," seeing them together, said: "The teacher is friendly with Tyapa
+...  He wishes his money. Kuvalda must have put this into his head ...
+To look about to see where the old man's fortune is ..."
+
+Probably they did not believe what they said.  There was one strange
+thing about these men, namely, that they painted themselves to others
+worse than they actually were.  A man who has good in him does not mind
+sometimes showing his worse nature.
+
+          *      *      *      *      *
+
+When all these people were gathered round the teacher, then the reading
+of the newspaper would begin.
+
+"Well, what does the newspaper discuss to-day?  Is there any
+feuilleton?"
+
+"No," the teacher informs him.
+
+"Your publisher seems greedy ... but is there any leader?"
+
+"There is one to-day....  It appears to be by Gulyaeff."
+
+"Aha!  Come, out with it.  He writes cleverly, the rascal."
+
+"'The taxation of immovable property,'" reads the teacher, "'was
+introduced some fifteen years ago, and up to the present it has served
+as the basis for collecting these taxes in aid of the city revenue ...'"
+
+"That is simple," comments Captain Kuvalda.  "It continues to serve.
+That is ridiculous.  To the merchant who is moving about in the city,
+it is profitable that it should continue to serve. Therefore it does
+continue."
+
+"The article, in fact, is written on the subject," says the teacher.
+
+"Is it?  That is strange, it is more a subject for a feuilleton..."
+
+"Such a subject must be treated with plenty of pepper...."
+
+Then a short discussion begins.  The people listen attentively, as only
+one bottle of vodki has been drunk.
+
+After the leader, they read the local events, then the court
+proceedings, and, if in the police court it reports that the defendant
+or plaintiff is a merchant, then Aristid Kuvalda sincerely rejoices.
+If someone has robbed the merchant, "That is good," says he.  "Only it
+is a pity they robbed him of so little."  If his horses have broken
+down, "It is sad that he is still alive."  If the merchant has lost his
+suit in court, "It is a pity that the costs were not double the amount."
+
+"That would have been illegal," remarks the teacher
+
+"Illegal!  But is the merchant himself legal?" inquires Kuvalda,
+bitterly.  "What is the merchant?  Let us investigate this rough and
+uncouth phenomenon.  First of all, every merchant is a mujik. He comes
+from a village, and in course of time becomes a merchant.  In order to
+be a merchant, one must have money.  Where can the mujik get the money
+from?  It is well known that he does not get it by honest hard work,
+and that means that the mujik, somehow or other, has been swindling.
+That is to say, a merchant is simply a dishonest mujik."
+
+"Splendid!" cry the people, approving the orator's deduction, and Tyapa
+bellows all the time, scratching his breast.  He always bellows like
+this as he drinks his first glass of vodki, when he has a drunken
+headache.  The Captain beams with joy.  They next read the
+correspondence.  This is, for the Captain, "an abundance of drinks," as
+he himself calls it.  He always notices how the merchants make this
+life abominable, and how cleverly they spoil everything.  His speeches
+thunder at and annihilate merchants. His audience listens to him with
+the greatest pleasure, because he swears atrociously.  "If I wrote for
+the papers," he shouts, "I would show up the merchant in his true
+colours ...  I would show that he is a beast, playing for a time the
+role of a man. I understand him!  He is a rough boor, does not know the
+meaning of the words 'good taste,' has no notion of patriotism, and his
+knowledge is not worth five kopecks."
+
+Abyedok, knowing the Captain's weak point, and fond of making other
+people angry, cunningly adds:
+
+"Yes, since the nobility began to make acquaintance with hunger, men
+have disappeared from the world ..."
+
+"You are right, you son of a spider and a toad.  Yes, from the time
+that the noblemen fell, there have been no men.  There are only
+merchants, and I hate them."
+
+"That is easy to understand, brother, because you, too, have been
+brought down by them ..."
+
+"I?  I was ruined by love of life ...  Fool that I was, I loved life,
+but the merchant spoils it, and I cannot bear it, simply for this
+reason, and not because I am a nobleman. But if you want to know the
+truth, I was once a man, though I was not noble.  I care now for
+nothing and nobody ... and all my life has been tame--a sweetheart who
+has jilted me--therefore I despise life, and am indifferent to it."
+
+"You lie!" says Abyedok.
+
+"I lie?" roars Aristid Kuvalda, almost crimson with anger.
+
+"Why shout?" comes in the cold sad voice of Martyanoff.
+
+"Why judge others?  Merchants, noblemen ... what have we to do with
+them?"
+
+"Seeing that we are" ... puts in Deacon Taras.
+
+"Be quiet, Abyedok," says the teacher, goodnaturedly.
+
+"Why do you provoke him?"  He does not love either discussion or noise,
+and when they quarrel all around him his lips form into a sickly
+grimace, and he endeavours quietly and reasonably to reconcile each
+with the other, and if he does not succeed in this he leaves the
+company. Knowing this, the Captain, if he is not very drunk, controls
+himself, not wishing to lose, in the person of the teacher, one of the
+best of his listeners.
+
+"I repeat," he continues, in a quieter tone, "that I see life in the
+hands of enemies, not only enemies of the noble but of everything good,
+avaricious and incapable of adorning existence in any way."
+
+"But all the same," says the teacher, "merchants, so to speak, created
+Genoa, Venice, Holland--and all these were merchants, merchants from
+England, India, the Stroyanoff merchants ..."
+
+"I do not speak of these men, I am thinking of Judas Petunikoff, who is
+one of them...."
+
+"And you say you have nothing to do with them?" asks the teacher,
+quietly.
+
+"But do you think that I do not live?  Aha!  I do live, but I suppose I
+ought not to be angry at the fact that life is desecrated and robbed of
+all freedom by these men."
+
+"And they dare to laugh at the kindly anger of the Captain, a man
+living in retirement?" says Abyedok, teasingly.
+
+"Very well!  I agree with you that I am foolish.  Being a creature who
+was once a man, I ought to blot out from my heart all those feelings
+that once were mine.  You may be right, but then how could I or any of
+you defend ourselves if we did away with all these feelings?"
+
+"Now then, you are talking sense," says the teacher, encouragingly.
+
+"We want other feelings and other views on life.... We want something
+new ... because we ourselves are a novelty in this life...."
+
+"Doubtless this is most important for us," remarks the teacher.
+
+"Why?" asks Kanets.  "Is it not all the same whatever we say or think?
+We have not got long to live ...  I am forty, you are fifty ... there
+is no one among us younger than thirty, and even at twenty one cannot
+live such a life long."
+
+"And what kind of novelty are we?" asked Abyedok, mockingly.
+
+"Since nakedness has always existed ..."
+
+"Yes, and it created Rome," said the teacher.
+
+"Yes, of course," says the Captain, beaming with joy. "Romulus and
+Remus, eh?  We also shall create when our time comes ..."
+
+"Violation of public peace," interrupts Abyedok.  He laughs in a
+self-satisfied way.  His laughter is impudent and insolent, and is
+echoed by Simtsoff, the Deacon and Paltara Taras.  The naive eyes of
+young Meteor light up, and his cheeks flush crimson.
+
+Kanets speaks, and it seems as if he were hammering their heads.
+
+"All these are foolish illusions ... fiddle-sticks!"
+
+It was strange to see them reasoning in this manner, these outcasts
+from life, tattered, drunken with vodki and wickedness, filthy and
+forlorn.  Such conversations rejoiced the Captain's heart.  They gave
+him an opportunity of speaking more, and therefore he thought himself
+better than the rest.  However low he may fall, a man can never deny
+himself the delight of feeling cleverer, more powerful, or even better
+fed than his companions. Aristid Kuvalda abused this pleasure, and
+never could have enough of it, much to the disgust of Abyedok, Kubar,
+and others of these creatures that once were men, who were less
+interested in such things.
+
+Politics, however, were more to the popular taste.  The discussions as
+to the necessity of taking India or of subduing England were lengthy
+and protracted.  Nor did they speak with less enthusiasm of the radical
+measure of clearing Jews off the face of the earth.  On this subject
+Abyedok was always the first to propose dreadful plans to effect the
+desired end, but the Captain, always first in every other argument, did
+not join in this one.  They also spoke much and impudently about women,
+but the teacher always defended them, and sometimes was very angry when
+they went so far as to pass the limits of decency.  They all, as a
+rule, gave in to him, because they did not look upon him as a common
+person, and also because they wished to borrow from him on Saturdays
+the money which he had earned during the week.  He had many privileges.
+They never beat him, for instance, on these occasions when the
+conversation ended in a free fight.  He had the right to bring women
+into the dosshouse; a privilege accorded to no one else, as the Captain
+had previously warned them.
+
+"No bringing of women to my house," he had said. "Women, merchants and
+philosophers, these are the three causes of my ruin.  I will horsewhip
+anyone bringing in women.  I will horsewhip the woman also....  And as
+to the philosopher I'll knock his head off for him."  And
+notwithstanding his age he could have knocked anyone's head off, for he
+possessed wonderful strength.  Besides that, whenever he fought or
+quarrelled, he was assisted by Martyanoff, who was accustomed during a
+general fight to stand silently and sadly back to back with Kuvalda,
+when he became an all-destroying and impregnable engine of war.  Once
+when Simtsoff was drunk, he rushed at the teacher for no reason
+whatever, and getting hold of his head tore out a bunch of hair.
+Kuvalda, with one stroke of his fist in the other's chest sent him
+spinning, and he fell to the ground.  He was unconscious for almost
+half-an-hour, and when he came to himself, Kuvalda compelled him to eat
+the hair he had torn from the teacher's head. He ate it, preferring
+this to being beaten to death.
+
+Besides reading newspapers, fighting and indulging in general
+conversation, they amused themselves by playing cards.  They played
+without Martyanoff because he could not play honestly. After cheating
+several times, he openly confessed:
+
+"I cannot play without cheating ... it is a habit of mine."
+
+"Habits do get the better of you," assented Deacon Taras.  "I always
+used to beat my wife every Sunday after Mass, and when she died I
+cannot describe how extremely dull I felt every Sunday.  I lived
+through one Sunday--it was dreadful, the second I still controlled
+myself, the third Sunday I struck my Asok....  She was angry and
+threatened to summon me.  Just imagine if she had done so!  On the
+fourth Sunday, I beat her just as if she were my own wife!  After that
+I gave her ten roubles, and beat her according to my own rules till I
+married again!" ...
+
+"You are lying, Deacon!  How could you marry a second time?"
+interrupted Abyedok.
+
+"Ay, just so...  She looked after my house...."
+
+"Did you have any children?" asked the teacher.
+
+"Five of them....  One was drowned ... the oldest ... he was an amusing
+boy!  Two died of diphtheria ...  One of the daughters married a
+student and went with him to Siberia.  The other went to the University
+of St. Petersburg and died there ... of consumption they say. Ye--es,
+there were five of them.... Ecclesiastics are prolific, you know."  He
+began explaining why this was so, and they laughed till they nearly
+burst at his tales. When the laughter stopped, Aleksei Maksimovitch
+Simtsoff remembered that he too had once had a daughter.
+
+"Her name was Lidka ... she was very stout ..."  More than this he did
+not seem to remember, for he looked at them all, was silent and smiled
+... in a guilty way. Those men spoke very little to each other about
+their past, and they recalled it very seldom and then only its general
+outlines.  When they did mention it, it was in a cynical tone.
+Probably, this was just as well, since, in many people, remembrance of
+the past kills all present energy and deadens all hope for the future.
+
+          *      *      *      *      *
+
+On rainy, cold, or dull days in the late autumn, these "creatures that
+once were men" gathered in the eatinghouse of Vaviloff. They were well
+known there, where some feared them as thieves and rogues, and some
+looked upon them contemptuously as hard drinkers, although they
+respected them, thinking that they were clever.
+
+The eating-house of Vaviloff was the club of the main street, and the
+"creatures that once were men" were its most intellectual members.  On
+Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings, when the eating-house was packed,
+the "creatures that once were men" were only too welcome guests.  They
+brought with them, besides the forgotten and poverty-stricken
+inhabitants of the street, their own spirit, in which there was
+something that brightened the lives of men exhausted and worn out in
+the struggle for existence, as great drunkards as the inhabitants of
+Kuvalda's shelter, and, like them, outcasts from the town.  Their
+ability to speak on all subjects, their freedom of opinion, skill in
+repartee, courage in the presence of those of whom the whole street was
+in terror, together with their daring demeanour, could not but be
+pleasing to their companions.  Then, too, they were well versed in law,
+and could advise, write petitions, and help to swindle without
+incurring the risk of punishment.  For all this they were paid with
+vodki and flattering admiration of their talents.
+
+The inhabitants of the street were divided into two parties according
+to their sympathies.  One was in favour of Kuvalda, who was thought "a
+good soldier, clever, and courageous," the other was convinced of the
+fact that the teacher was "superior" to Kuvalda.  The latter's admirers
+were those who were known to be drunkards, thieves, and murderers, for
+whom the road from beggary to prison was inevitable.  But those who
+respected the teacher were men who still had expectations, still hoped
+for better things, who were eternally occupied with nothing, and who
+were nearly always hungry.
+
+The nature of the teacher's and Kuvalda's relations towards the street
+may be gathered from the following:
+
+Once in the eating-house they were discussing the resolution passed by
+the Corporation regarding the main street, viz., that the inhabitants
+were to fill up the pits and ditches in the street, and that neither
+manure nor the dead bodies of domestic animals should be used for the
+purpose, but only broken tiles, etc., from the ruins of other houses.
+
+"Where am I going to get these same broken tiles and bricks?  I could
+not get sufficient bricks together to build a hen-house," plaintively
+said Mokei Anisimoff, a man who hawked kalaches (a sort of white bread)
+which were baked by his wife.
+
+"Where can you get broken bricks and lime rubbish?  Take bags with you,
+and go and remove them from the Corporation buildings. They are so old
+that they are of no use to anyone, and you will thus be doing two good
+deeds; firstly, by repairing the main street; and secondly, by adorning
+the city with a new Corporation building."
+
+"If you want horses get them from the Lord Mayor, and take his three
+daughters, who seem quite fit for harness. Then destroy the house of
+Judas Petunikoff and pave the street with its timbers. By the way,
+Mokei, I know out of what your wife baked to-day's kalaches; out of the
+frames of the third window and the two steps from the roof of Judas'
+house."
+
+When those present had laughed and joked sufficiently over the
+Captain's proposal, the sober market gardener, Pavlyugus asked:
+
+"But seriously, what are we to do, your honour? ... Eh?  What do you
+think?"
+
+"I?  I shall neither move hand nor foot.  If they wish to clean the
+street let them do it."
+
+"Some of the houses are almost coming down...."
+
+"Let them fall; don't interfere; and when they fall ask help from the
+city.  If they don't give it you, then bring a suit in court against
+them!  Where does the water come from?  From the city! Therefore let
+the city be responsible for the destruction of the houses."
+
+"They will say it is rain-water."
+
+"Does it destroy the houses in the city?  Eh?  They take taxes from you
+but they do not permit you to speak!  They destroy your property and at
+the same time compel you to repair it!"  And half the radicals in the
+street, convinced by the words of Kuvalda, decided to wait till the
+rain-water came down in huge streams and swept away their houses.  The
+others, more sensible, found in the teacher a man who composed for them
+an excellent and convincing report for the Corporation.  In this report
+the refusal of the street's inhabitants to comply with the resolution
+of the Corporation was so well explained that the Corporation actually
+entertained it.  It was decided that the rubbish left after some
+repairs had been done to the barracks should be used for mending and
+filling up the ditches in their street, and for the transport of this
+five horses were given by the fire brigade.  Still more, they even saw
+the necessity of laying a drain-pipe through the street.  This and many
+other things vastly increased the popularity of the teacher.  He wrote
+petitions for them and published various remarks in the newspapers.
+For instance, on one occasion Vaviloff's customers noticed that the
+herrings and other provisions of the eating-house were not what they
+should be, and after a day or two they saw Vaviloff standing at the bar
+with the newspaper in his hand making a public apology.
+
+"It is true, I must acknowledge, that I bought old and not very good
+herrings, and the cabbage ... also ... was old.  It is only too well
+known that anyone can put many a five-kopeck piece in his pocket in
+this way.  And what is the result?  It has not been a success; I was
+greedy, I own, but the cleverer man has exposed me, so we are quits ..."
+
+This confession made a very good impression on the people, and it also
+gave Vaviloff the opportunity of still feeding them with herrings and
+cabbages which were not good, though they failed to notice it, so much
+were they impressed.
+
+This incident was very significant, because it increased not only the
+teacher's popularity, but also the effect of press opinion.
+
+It often happened, too, that the teacher read lectures on practical
+morality in the eating-house.
+
+"I saw you," he said to the painter Yashka Tyarin, "I saw you, Yakov,
+beating your wife ..."
+
+Yashka was "touched with paint" after two glasses of vodki, and was in
+a slightly uplifted condition.
+
+The people looked at him, expecting him to make a row, and all were
+silent.
+
+"Did you see me?  And how did it please you?" asks Yashka.
+
+The people control their laughter.
+
+"No; it did not please me," replies the teacher.  His tone is so
+serious that the people are silent.
+
+"You see I was just trying it," said Yashka, with bravado, fearing that
+the teacher would rebuke him. "The wife is satisfied....  She has not
+got up yet to-day...."
+
+The teacher, who was drawing absently with his fingers on the table,
+said, "Do you see, Yakov, why this did not please me? ... Let us go
+into the matter thoroughly, and understand what you are really doing,
+and what the result may be.  Your wife is pregnant.  You struck her
+last night on her sides and breast. That means that you beat not only
+her but the child too.  You may have killed him, and your wife might
+have died or else have become seriously ill.  To have the trouble of
+looking after a sick woman is not pleasant.  It is wearing, and would
+cost you dear, because illness requires medicine, and medicine money.
+If you have not killed the child, you may have crippled him, and he
+will be born deformed, lop-sided, or hunch-backed.  That means that he
+will not be able to work, and it is only too important to you that he
+should be a good workman.  Even if he be born ill, it will be bad
+enough, because he will keep his mother from work, and will require
+medicine.  Do you see what you are doing to yourself?  Men who live by
+hard work must be strong and healthy, and they should have strong and
+healthy children....  Do I speak truly?"
+
+"Yes," assented the listeners.
+
+"But all this will never happen," says Yashka, becoming rather
+frightened at the prospect held out to him by the teacher.  "She is
+healthy, and I cannot have reached the child ...  She is a devil--a
+hag!" he shouts angrily.  "I would ...  She will eat me away as rust
+eats iron."
+
+"I understand, Yakov, that you cannot help beating your wife," the
+teacher's sad and thoughtful voice again breaks in.  "You have many
+reasons for doing so ... It is your wife's character that causes you to
+beat her so incautiously ...  But your own dark and sad life ..."
+
+"You are right!" shouts Yakov.  "We live in darkness, like the
+chimney-sweep when he is in the chimney!"
+
+"You are angry with your life, but your wife is patient; the closest
+relation to you--your wife, and you make her suffer for this, simply
+because you are stronger than she.  She is always with you, and cannot
+get away.  Don't you see how absurd you are?"
+
+"That is so....  Devil take it!  But what shall I do?  Am I not a man?"
+
+"Just so!  You are a man....  I only wish to tell you that if you
+cannot help beating her, then beat her carefully and always remember
+that you may injure her health or that of the child.  It is not good to
+beat pregnant women ... on their belly or on their sides and chests....
+Beat her, say, on the neck ... or else take a rope and beat her on some
+soft place ..."
+
+The orator finished his speech and looked upon his hearers with his
+dark, pathetic eyes, seeming to apologise to them for some unknown
+crime.
+
+The public understands it.  They understand the morale of the creature
+who was once a man, the morale of the public-house and much misfortune.
+
+"Well, brother Yashka, did you understand?  See how true it is!"
+
+Yakov understood that to beat her incautiously might be injurious to
+his wife.  He is silent, replying to his companions' jokes with
+confused smiles.
+
+"Then again, what is a wife?" philosophises the baker, Mokei Anisimoff.
+"A wife ... is a friend ... if we look at the matter in that way.  She
+is like a chain, chained to you for life ... and you are both just like
+galley slaves.  And if you try to get away from her, you cannot, you
+feel the chain ..."
+
+"Wait," says Yakovleff; "but you beat your wife too."
+
+"Did I say that I did not?  I beat her...  There is nothing else
+handy...  Do you expect me to beat the wall with my fist when my
+patience is exhausted?"
+
+"I feel just like that too..." says Yakov.
+
+"How hard and difficult our life is, my brothers!  There is no real
+rest for us anywhere!"
+
+"And even you beat your wife by mistake," some one remarks humorously.
+And thus they speak till far on in the night or till they have
+quarrelled, the usual result of drink or of passions engendered by such
+discussions.
+
+The rain beats on the windows, and outside the cold wind is blowing.
+The eating-house is close with tobacco smoke, but it is warm, while the
+street is cold and wet.  Now and then, the wind beats threateningly on
+the windows of the eating-house, as if bidding these men to come out
+and be scattered like dust over the face of the earth.  Sometimes a
+stifled and hopeless groan is heard in its howling which again is
+drowned by cold, cruel laughter.  This music fills one with dark, sad
+thoughts of the approaching winter, with its accursed short, sunless
+days and long nights, of the necessity of possessing warm garments and
+plenty to eat.  It is hard to sleep through the long winter nights on
+an empty stomach.  Winter is approaching.  Yes, it is approaching...
+How to live?
+
+These gloomy forebodings created a strong thirst among the inhabitants
+of the main street, and the sighs of the "creatures that once were men"
+increased with the wrinkles on their brows, their voices became thick
+and their behaviour to each other more blunt.  And brutal crimes were
+committed among them, and the roughness of these poor unfortunate
+outcasts was apt to increase at the approach of that inexorable enemy,
+who transformed all their lives into one cruel farce.  But this enemy
+could not be captured because it was invisible.
+
+Then they began beating each other brutally, and drank till they had
+drunk everything which they could pawn to the indulgent Vaviloff.  And
+thus they passed the autumn days in open wickedness, in suffering which
+was eating their hearts out, unable to rise out of this vicious life
+and in dread of the still crueller days of winter.
+
+Kuvalda in such cases came to their assistance with his philosophy.
+
+"Don't lose your temper, brothers, everything has an end, this is the
+chief characteristic of life.  The winter will pass, summer will follow
+... a glorious time, when the very sparrows are filled with rejoicing."
+But his speeches did not have any effect--a mouthful of even the
+freshest and purest water will not satisfy a hungry man.
+
+Deacon Taras also tried to amuse the people by singing his songs and
+relating his tales.  He was more successful, and sometimes his
+endeavours ended in a wild and glorious orgy at the eating-house.  They
+sang, laughed and danced, and for hours behaved like madmen.  After
+this they again fell into a despairing mood, sitting at the tables of
+the eating-house, in the black smoke of the lamp and the tobacco; sad
+and tattered, speaking lazily to each other, listening to the wild
+howling of the wind, and thinking how they could get enough vodki to
+deaden their senses.
+
+And their hand was against every man, and every man's hand against them.
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+All things are relative in this world, and a man cannot sink into any
+condition so bad that it could not be worse. One day, towards the end
+of September, Captain Aristid Kuvalda was sitting, as was his custom,
+on the bench near the door of the dosshouse, looking at the stone
+building built by the merchant Petunikoff close to Vaviloff's
+eatinghouse, and thinking deeply.  This building, which was partly
+surrounded by woods, served the purpose of a candle factory.
+
+Painted red, as if with blood, it looked like a cruel machine which,
+though not working, opened a row of deep, hungry, gaping jaws, as if
+ready to devour and swallow anything.  The grey wooden eating-house of
+Vaviloff, with its bent roof covered with patches, leaned against one
+of the brick walls of the factory, and seemed as if it were some large
+form of parasite clinging to it.  The Captain was thinking that they
+would very soon be making new houses to replace the old building.
+"They will destroy the dosshouse even," he reflected.  "It will be
+necessary to look out for another, but such a cheap one is not to be
+found.  It seems a great pity to have to leave a place to which one is
+accustomed, though it will be necessary to go, simply because some
+merchant or other thinks of manufacturing candles and soap."  And the
+Captain felt that if he could only make the life of such an enemy
+miserable, even temporarily, oh! with what pleasure he would do it!
+
+Yesterday, Ivan Andreyevitch Petunikoff was in the dosshouse yard with
+his son and an architect.  They measured the yard and put small wooden
+sticks in various places, which, after the exit of Petunikoff and at
+the order of the Captain, Meteor took out and threw away.  To the eyes
+of the Captain this merchant appeared small and thin.  He wore a long
+garment like a frock-coat, a velvet cap, and high, well-cleaned boots.
+He had a thin face with prominent cheekbones, a wedge-shaped greyish
+beard, and a high forehead seamed with wrinkles from beneath which
+shone two narrow, blinking, and observant grey eyes ... a sharp,
+gristly nose, a small mouth with thin lips ... altogether his
+appearance was pious, rapacious, and respectably wicked. "Cursed
+cross-bred fox and pig!" swore the Captain under his breath, recalling
+his first meeting with Petunikoff. The merchant came with one of the
+town councillors to buy the house, and seeing the Captain asked his
+companion:
+
+"Is this your lodger?"
+
+And from that day, a year and a half ago, there has been keen
+competition among the inhabitants of the dosshouse as to which can
+swear the hardest at the merchant.  And last night there was a "slight
+skirmish with hot words," as the Captain called it, between Petunikoff
+and himself.  Having dismissed the architect the merchant approached
+the Captain.
+
+"What are you hatching?" asked he, putting his hand to his cap, perhaps
+to adjust it, perhaps as a salutation.
+
+"What are you plotting?" answered the Captain in the same tone. He
+moved his chin so that his beard trembled a little; a non-exacting
+person might have taken it for a bow; otherwise it only expressed the
+desire of the Captain to move his pipe from one corner of his mouth to
+the other.  "You see, having plenty of money, I can afford to sit
+hatching it.  Money is a good thing, and I possess it," the Captain
+chaffed the merchant, casting cunning glances at him.  "It means that
+you serve money, and not money you," went on Kuvalda, desiring at the
+same time to punch the merchant's belly.
+
+"Isn't it all the same?  Money makes life comfortable, but no money,"
+... and the merchant looked at the Captain with a feigned expression of
+suffering.  The other's upper lip curled, and exposed large, wolf-like
+teeth.
+
+"With brains and a conscience, it is possible to live without it. Men
+only acquire riches when they cease to listen to their conscience ...
+the less conscience the more money!"
+
+"Just so; but then there are men who have neither money nor conscience."
+
+"Were you just like what you are now when you were young?" asked
+Kuvalda simply.  The other's nostrils twitched.  Ivan Andreyevitch
+sighed, passed his hand over his eyes and said:
+
+"Oh!  When I was young I had to undergo a great many difficulties ...
+Work!  Oh!  I did work!"
+
+"And you cheated, too, I suppose?"
+
+"People like you?  Nobles?  I should just think so! They used to grovel
+at my feet!"
+
+"You only went in for robbing, not murder, I suppose?" asked the
+Captain.  Petunikoff turned pale, and hastily changed the subject.
+
+"You are a bad host.  You sit while your guest stands."
+
+"Let him sit, too," said Kuvalda.
+
+"But what am I to sit on?"
+
+"On the earth ... it will take any rubbish ..."
+
+"You are the proof of that," said Petunikoff quietly, while his eyes
+shot forth poisonous glances.
+
+And he went away, leaving Kuvalda under the pleasant impression that
+the merchant was afraid of him.  If he were not afraid of him he would
+long ago have evicted him from the dosshouse.  But then he would think
+twice before turning him out, because of the five roubles a month. And
+the Captain gazed with pleasure at Petunikoff's back as he slowly
+retreated from the courtyard. Following him with his eyes, he noticed
+how the merchant passed the factory and disappeared into the wood, and
+he wished very much that he might fall and break all his bones.  He sat
+imagining many horrible forms of disaster while watching Petunikoff,
+who was descending the hill into the wood like a spider going into its
+web.  Last night he even imagined that the wood gave way before the
+merchant and he fell ... but afterwards he found that he had only been
+dreaming.
+
+And to-day, as always, the red building stands out before the eyes of
+Aristid Kuvalda, so plain, so massive, and clinging so strongly to the
+earth, that it seems to be sucking away all its life.  It appears to be
+laughing coldly at the Captain with its gaping walls.  The sun pours
+its rays on them as generously as it does on the miserable hovels of
+the main street.
+
+"Devil take the thing!" exclaimed the Captain, thoughtfully measuring
+the walls of the factory with his eyes. "If only ..."
+
+Trembling with excitement at the thought that had just entered his
+mind, Aristid Kuvalda jumped up and ran to Vaviloff's eating-house,
+muttering to himself all the time.
+
+Vaviloff met him at the bar, and gave him a friendly welcome.
+
+"I wish your honour good health!"  He was of middle height, and had a
+bald head, grey hair, and straight moustaches like tooth-brushes.
+Upright and neat in his clean jacket, he showed by every movement that
+he was an old soldier.
+
+"Egorka, show me the lease and plan of your house," demanded Kuvalda,
+impatiently.
+
+"I have shown it you before."  Vaviloff looked up suspiciously and
+closely scanned the Captain's face.
+
+"Show it me!" shouted the Captain, striking the bar with his fist and
+sitting down on a stool close by.
+
+"But why?" asked Vaviloff, knowing that it was better to keep his wits
+about him when Kuvalda got excited.
+
+"You fool!  Bring it at once."
+
+Vaviloff rubbed his forehead, and turned his eyes to the ceiling in a
+tired way.
+
+"Where are those papers of yours?"
+
+There was no answer to this on the ceiling, so the old sergeant looked
+down at the floor, and began drumming with his fingers on the bar in a
+worried and thoughtful manner.
+
+"It's no good your making wry faces!" shouted the Captain, for he had
+no great affection for him, thinking that a former soldier should
+rather have become a thief than an eating-house keeper.
+
+"Oh!  Yes!  Aristid Fomich, I remember now.  They were left at the High
+Court of Justice at the time when I came into possession."
+
+"Get along, Egorka!  It is to your own interest to show me the plan,
+the title-deeds, and everything you have immediately.  You will
+probably clear at least a hundred roubles over this, do you understand?"
+
+Vaviloff did not understand at all; but the Captain spoke in such a
+serious and convincing tone that the sergeant's eyes burned with
+curiosity, and, telling him that he would see if the papers were in his
+desk, he went through the door behind the bar.  Two minutes later he
+returned with the papers in his hand, and an expression of extreme
+astonishment on his face.
+
+"Here they are; the deeds about the damned houses!"
+
+"Ah!  You ... vagabond!  And you pretend to have been a soldier, too!"
+And Kuvalda did not cease to belabour him with his tongue, as he
+snatched the blue parchment from his hands. Then, spreading the papers
+out in front of him, and excited all the more by Vaviloff's
+inquisitiveness, the Captain began reading and bellowing at the same
+time.  At last he got up resolutely, and went to the door, leaving all
+the papers on the bar, and saying to Vaviloff:
+
+"Wait!  Don't lift them!"
+
+Vaviloff gathered them up, put them into the cash-box, and locked it,
+then felt the lock with his hand, to see if it were secure. After that,
+he scratched his bald head, thoughtfully, and went up on the roof of
+the eating-house.  There he saw the Captain measuring the front of the
+house, and watched him anxiously, as he snapped his fingers, and began
+measuring the same line over again. Vaviloff's face lit up suddenly,
+and he smiled happily.
+
+"Aristid Fomich, is it possible?" he shouted, when the Captain came
+opposite to him.
+
+"Of course it is possible.  There is more than one short in the front
+alone, and as to the depth I shall see immediately."
+
+"The depth ... seventy-three feet."
+
+"What?  Have you guessed, you shaved ugly face?"
+
+"Of course, Aristid Fomich!  If you have eyes you can see a thing or
+two," shouted Vaviloff, joyfully.
+
+A few minutes afterwards they sat side by side in Vaviloff's parlour,
+and the Captain was engaged in drinking large quantities of beer.
+
+"And so all the walls of the factory stand on your ground," said he to
+the eating-house keeper.  "Now, mind you show no mercy! The teacher
+will be here presently, and we will get him to draw up a petition to
+the court.  As to the amount of the damages you will name a very
+moderate sum in order not to waste money in deed stamps, but we will
+ask to have the factory knocked down.  This, you see, donkey, is the
+result of trespassing on other people's property.  It is a splendid
+piece of luck for you. We will force him to have the place smashed, and
+I can tell you it will be an expensive job for him.  Off with you to
+the court.  Bring pressure to bear on Judas.  We will calculate how
+much it will take to break the factory down to its very foundations.
+We will make an estimate of it all, counting the time it will take too,
+and we will make honest Judas pay two thousand roubles besides."
+
+"He will never give it!" cried Vaviloff, but his eyes shone with a
+greedy light.
+
+"You lie!  He will give it ...  Use your brains... What else can he do?
+But look here, Egorka, mind you don't go in for doing it on the cheap.
+They are sure to try to buy you off.  Don't sell yourself cheap.  They
+will probably use threats, but rely upon us..."
+
+The Captain's eyes were alight with happiness, and his face red with
+excitement.  He worked upon Vaviloff's greed, and urging upon him the
+importance of immediate action in the matter, went away in a very
+joyful and happy frame of mind.
+
+          *      *      *      *      *
+
+In the evening everyone was told of the Captain's discovery, and they
+all began to discuss Petunikoff's future predicament, painting in vivid
+colours his excitement and astonishment on the day the court messenger
+handed him the copy of the summons.  The Captain felt himself quite a
+hero.  He was happy and all his friends highly pleased. The heap of
+dark and tattered figures that lay in the courtyard made noisy
+demonstrations of pleasure. They all knew the merchant, Petunikoff, who
+passed them very often, contemptuously turning up his eyes and giving
+them no more attention than he bestowed on the other heaps of rubbish
+lying on the ground.  He was well fed, and that exasperated them still
+more; and now how splendid it was that one of themselves had struck a
+hard blow at the selfish merchant's purse!  It gave them all the
+greatest pleasure.  The Captain's discovery was a powerful instrument
+in their hands.  Every one of them felt keen animosity towards all
+those who were well fed and well dressed, but in some of them this
+feeling was only beginning to develop. Burning interest was felt by
+those "creatures that once were men" in the prospective fight between
+Kuvalda and Petunikoff, which they already saw in imagination.
+
+For a fortnight the inhabitants of the dosshouse awaited the further
+development of events, but Petunikoff never once visited the building.
+It was known that he was not in town and that the copy of the petition
+had not yet been handed to him.  Kuvalda raged at the delays of the
+civil court.  It is improbable that anyone had ever awaited the
+merchant with such impatience as did this bare-footed brigade.
+
+"He isn't even thinking of coming, the wretch! ..."
+
+"That means that he does not love me!" sang Deacon Taras, leaning his
+chin on his hand and casting a humorous glance towards the mountain.
+
+At last Petunikoff appeared.  He came in a respectable cart with his
+son playing the role of groom.  The latter was a red-checked,
+nice-looking youngster, in a long square-cut overcoat.  He wore smoked
+eyeglasses.  They tied the horse to an adjoining tree, the son took the
+measuring instrument out of his pocket and gave it to his father, and
+they began to measure the ground.  Both were silent and worried.
+
+"Aha!" shouted the Captain, gleefully.
+
+All those who were in the dosshouse at the moment came out to look at
+them and expressed themselves loudly and freely in reference to the
+matter.
+
+"What does the habit of thieving mean?  A man may sometimes make a big
+mistake when he steals, standing to lose more than he gets," said the
+Captain, causing much laughter among his staff and eliciting various
+murmurs of assent.
+
+"Take care, you devil!" shouted Petunikoff, "lest I have you in the
+police court for your words!"
+
+"You can do nothing to me without witnesses ...  Your son cannot give
+evidence on your side" ... the Captain warned him.
+
+"Look out all the same, you old wretch, you may be found guilty too!"
+And Petunikoff shook his fist at him. His son, deeply engrossed in his
+calculations, took no notice of the dark group of men, who were taking
+such a wicked delight in adding to his father's discomfiture.  He did
+not even once look in their direction.
+
+"The young spider has himself well in hand," remarked Abyedok, watching
+young Petunikoff's every movement and action.  Having taken all the
+measurements he desired, Ivan Andreyevitch knit his brows, got into the
+cart, and drove away.  His son went with a firm step into Vaviloff's
+eating-house, and disappeared behind the door.
+
+"Ho, ho!  That's a determined young thief! ...  What will happen next,
+I wonder ...?" asked Kuvalda.
+
+"Next?  Young Petunikoff will buy out Egor Vaviloff," said Abyedok with
+conviction, and smacked his lips as if the idea gave him great pleasure.
+
+"And you are glad of that?" Kuvalda asked him, gravely.
+
+"I am always pleased to see human calculations miscarry," explained
+Abyedok, rolling his eyes and rubbing his hands with delight.  The
+Captain spat angrily on the ground and was silent. They all stood in
+front of the tumble-down building, and silently watched the doors of
+the eating-house.  More than an hour passed thus.  Then the doors
+opened and Petunikoff came out as silently as he had entered.  He
+stopped for a moment, coughed, turned up the collar of his coat,
+glanced at the men, who were following all his movements with their
+eyes, and then went up the street towards the town.
+
+The Captain watched him for a moment, and turning to Abyedok said,
+smilingly:
+
+"Probably you were right after all, you son of a scorpion and a
+wood-louse!  You nose out every evil thing.  Yes, the face of that
+young swindler shows that he has got what he wanted...  I wonder how
+much Egorka has got out of them.  He has evidently taken something...
+He is just the same sort of rogue that they are ... they are all tarred
+with the same brush.  He has got some money, and I'm damned if I did
+not arrange the whole thing for him!  It is best to own my folly...
+Yes, life is against us all, brothers ... and even when you spit upon
+those nearest to you, the spittle rebounds and hits your own face."
+
+Having satisfied himself with this reflection, the worthy Captain
+looked round upon his staff.  Every one of them was disappointed,
+because they all knew that something they did not expect had taken
+place between Petunikoff and Vaviloff, and they all felt that they had
+been insulted.  The feeling that one is unable to injure anyone is
+worse than the feeling that one is unable to do good, because to do
+harm is far easier and simpler.
+
+"Well, why are we loitering here?  We have nothing more to wait for ...
+except the reward that I shall get out--out of Egorka,..." said the
+Captain, looking angrily at the eating-house. "So our peaceful life
+under the roof of Judas has come to an end. Judas will now turn us
+out....  So do not say that I have not warned you."
+
+Kanets smiled sadly.
+
+"What are you laughing at, jailer?" Kuvalda asked.
+
+"Where shall I go then?"
+
+"That, my soul, is a question that fate will settle for you, so do not
+worry," said the Captain, thoughtfully, entering the dosshouse.  "The
+creatures that once were men" followed him.
+
+"We can do nothing but await the critical moment," said the Captain,
+walking about among them.  "When they turn us out we shall seek a new
+place for ourselves, but at present there is no use spoiling our life
+by thinking of it ...  In times of crisis one becomes energetic ... and
+if life were fuller of them and every moment of it so arranged that we
+were compelled to tremble for our lives all the time ...  By God! life
+would be livelier and even fuller of interest and energy than it is!"
+
+"That means that people would all go about cutting one another's
+throats," explained Abyedok, smilingly.
+
+"Well, what about it?" asked the Captain, angrily.  He did not like to
+hear his thoughts illustrated.
+
+"Oh!  Nothing!  When a person wants to get anywhere quickly he whips up
+the horses, but of course it needs fire to make engines go ..."
+
+"Well, let everything go to the Devil as quickly as possible. I'm sure
+I should be pleased if the earth suddenly opened up or was burned or
+destroyed somehow .. only I were left to the last in order to see the
+others consumed ..."
+
+"Ferocious creature!" smiled Abyedok.
+
+"Well, what of that?  I ... I was once a man .. now I am an outcast ...
+that means I have no obligations. It means that I am free to spit on
+everyone.  The nature of my present life means the rejection of my past
+... giving up all relations towards men who are well fed and well
+dressed, and who look upon me with contempt because I am inferior to
+them in the matter of feeding or dressing. I must develop something new
+within myself, do you understand?  Something that will make Judas
+Petunikoff and his kind tremble and perspire before me!"
+
+"Ah!  You have a courageous tongue!" jeered Abyedok.
+
+"Yes ...  You miser!"  And Kuvalda looked at him contemptuously.  "What
+do you understand?  What do you know?  Are you able to think?  But I
+have thought and I have read ... books of which you could not have
+understood one word."
+
+"Of course!  One cannot eat soup out of one's hand ... But though you
+have read and thought, and I have not done that or anything else, we
+both seem to have got into pretty much the same condition, don't we?"
+
+"Go to the Devil!" shouted Kuvalda.  His conversations with Abyedok
+always ended thus.  When the teacher was absent his speeches, as a
+rule, fell on the empty air, and received no attention, and he knew
+this, but still he could not help speaking.  And now, having quarrelled
+with his companion, he felt rather deserted; but, still longing for
+conversation, he turned to Simtsoff with the following question: "And
+you, Aleksei Maksimovitch, where will you lay your grey head?"
+
+The old man smiled good-humouredly, rubbed his hands, and replied, "I
+do not know ...  I will see.  One does not require much, just a little
+drink."
+
+"Plain but honourable fare!" the Captain said.  Simtsoff was silent,
+only adding that he would find a place sooner than any of them, because
+women loved him.  This was true.  The old man had, as a rule, two or
+three prostitutes, who kept him on their very scant earnings.  They
+very often beat him, but he took this stoically.  They somehow never
+beat him too much, probably because they pitied him.  He was a great
+lover of women, and said they were the cause of all his misfortunes.
+The character of his relations towards them was confirmed by the
+appearance of his clothes, which, as a rule, were tidy, and cleaner
+than those of his companions.  And now, sitting at the door of the
+dosshouse, he boastingly related that for a long time past Redka had
+been asking him to go and live with her, but he had not gone because he
+did not want to part with the company.  They heard this with jealous
+interest.  They all knew Redka.  She lived very near the town, almost
+below the mountain.  Not long ago, she had been in prison for theft.
+She was a retired nurse; a tall, stout peasant woman, with a face
+marked by smallpox, but with very pretty, though always drunken, eyes.
+
+"Just look at the old devil!" swore Abyedok, looking at Simtsoff, who
+was smiling in a self-satisfied way.
+
+"And do you know why they love me?  Because I know how to cheer up
+their souls."
+
+"Do you?" inquired Kuvalda.
+
+"And I can make them pity me....  And a woman, when she pities!  Go and
+weep to her, and ask her to kill you ... she will pity you--and she
+will kill you."
+
+"I feel inclined to commit a murder," declared Martyanoff, laughing his
+dull laugh.
+
+"Upon whom?" asked Abyedok, edging away from him.
+
+"It's all the same to me ... Petunikoff ... Egorka ... or even you!"
+
+"And why?" inquired Kuvalda.
+
+"I want to go to Siberia ...  I have had enough of this vile life ...
+one learns how to live there!"
+
+"Yes, they have a particularly good way of teaching in Siberia," agreed
+the Captain, sadly.
+
+They spoke no more of Petunikoff, or of the turning out of the
+inhabitants of the dosshouse.  They all knew that they would have to
+leave soon, therefore they did not think the matter worth discussion.
+It would do no good, and besides the weather was not very cold though
+the rains had begun ... and it would be possible to sleep on the ground
+anywhere outside the town.  They sat in a circle on the grass and
+conversed about all sorts of things, discussing one subject after
+another, and listening attentively even to the poor speakers in order
+to make the time pass; keeping quiet was as dull as listening.  This
+society of "creatures that once were men" had one fine
+characteristic--no one of them endeavoured to make out that he was
+better than the others, nor compelled the others to acknowledge his
+superiority.
+
+The August sun seemed to set their tatters on fire as they sat with
+their backs and uncovered heads exposed to it ... a chaotic mixture of
+the vegetable, mineral, and animal kingdoms. In the corners of the yard
+the tall steppe grass grew luxuriantly....  Nothing else grew there but
+some dingy vegetables, not even attractive to those who nearly always
+felt the pangs of hunger.
+
+          *      *      *      *      *
+
+The following was the scene that took place in Vaviloff's eating-house.
+
+Young Petunikoff entered slowly, took off his hat, looked around him,
+and said to the eating-house keeper:
+
+"Egor Terentievitch Vaviloff?  Are you he?"
+
+"I am," answered the sergeant, leaning on the bar with both arms as if
+intending to jump over it.
+
+"I have some business with you," said Petunikoff.
+
+"Delighted.  Please come this way to my private room."
+
+They went in and sat down, the guest on the couch and his host on the
+chair opposite to him.  In one corner a lamp was burning before a
+gigantic icon, and on the wall at the other side there were several oil
+lamps.  They were well kept and shone as if they were new.  The room,
+which contained a number of boxes and a variety of furniture, smelt of
+tobacco, sour cabbage, and olive oil.  Petunikoff looked around him and
+made a face.  Vaviloff looked at the icon, and then they looked
+simultaneously at one another, and both seemed to be favourably
+impressed.  Petunikoff liked Vaviloff's frankly thievish eyes, and
+Vaviloff was pleased with the open, cold, determined face of
+Petunikoff, with its large cheeks and white teeth.
+
+"Of course you already know me, and I presume you guess what I am going
+to say to you," began Petunikoff.
+
+"About the lawsuit? ... I presume?" remarked the ex-sergeant,
+respectfully.
+
+"Exactly!  I am glad to see that you are not beating about the bush,
+but going straight to the point like a business man," said Petunikoff,
+encouragingly.
+
+"I am a soldier," answered Vaviloff, with a modest air.
+
+"That is easily seen, and I am sure we shall be able to finish this job
+without much trouble."
+
+"Just so."
+
+"Good!  You have the law on your side, and will, of course, win your
+case.  I want to tell you this at the very beginning."
+
+"I thank you most humbly," said the sergeant, rubbing his eyes in order
+to hide the smile in them.
+
+"But tell me, why did you make the acquaintance of your future
+neighbours like this through the law courts?"
+
+Vaviloff shrugged his shoulders and did not answer.
+
+"It would have been better to come straight to us and settle the matter
+peacefully, eh?  What do you think?"
+
+"That would have been better, of course, but you see there is a
+difficulty ...  I did not follow my own wishes, but those of others ...
+I learned afterwards that it would have been better if ... but it was
+too late."
+
+"Oh!  I suppose some lawyer taught you this?"
+
+"Someone of that sort."
+
+"Aha!  Do you wish to settle the affair peacefully?"
+
+"With all my heart!" cried the soldier.
+
+Petunikoff was silent for a moment, then looked at him, and suddenly
+asked, coldly and drily, "And why do you wish to do so?"
+
+Vaviloff did not expect such a question, and therefore had no reply
+ready.  In his opinion the question was quite unworthy of any
+attention, and so he laughed at young Petunikoff.
+
+"That is easy to understand.  Men like to live peacefully with one
+another."
+
+"But," interrupted Petunikoff, "that is not exactly the reason why.  As
+far as I can see, you do not distinctly understand why you wish to be
+reconciled to us ...  I will tell you."
+
+The soldier was a little surprised.  This youngster, dressed in a check
+suit, in which he looked ridiculous, spoke as if he were Colonel
+Rakshin, who used to knock three of the unfortunate soldier's teeth out
+every time he was angry.
+
+"You want to be friends with us because we should be such useful
+neighbours to you ... because there will be not less than a hundred and
+fifty workmen in our factory, and in course of time even more.  If a
+hundred men come and drink one glass at your place, after receiving
+their weekly wages, that means that you will sell every month four
+hundred glasses more than you sell at present.  This is, of course, the
+lowest estimate ... and then you have the eating-house besides.  You
+are not a fool, and you can understand for yourself what profitable
+neighbours we shall be."
+
+"That is true," Vaviloff nodded, "I knew that before."
+
+"Well, what then?" asked the merchant, loudly.
+
+"Nothing ...  Let us be friends!"
+
+"It is nice to see that you have decided so quickly. Look here, I have
+already prepared a notification to the court of the withdrawal of the
+summons against my father. Here it is; read it, and sign it."
+
+Vaviloff looked at his companion with his round eyes and shivered, as
+if experiencing an unpleasant sensation.
+
+"Pardon me ... sign it?  And why?"
+
+"There is no difficulty about it ... write your Christian name and
+surname and nothing more," explained Petunikoff, pointing obligingly
+with his finger to the place for the signature.
+
+"Oh!  It is not that ...  I was alluding to the compensation I was to
+get for my ground."
+
+"But then this ground is of no use to you," said Petunikoff, calmly.
+
+"But it is mine!" exclaimed the soldier.
+
+"Of course, and how much do you want for it?"
+
+"Well, say the amount stated in the document," said Vaviloff, boldly.
+
+"Six hundred!" and Petunikoff smiled softly.  "You are a funny fellow!"
+
+"The law is on my side...  I can even demand two thousand.  I can
+insist on your pulling down the building ... and enforce it too.  That
+is why my claim is so small. I demand that you should pull it down!"
+
+"Very well.  Probably we shall do so ... after three years, and after
+having dragged you into enormous law expenses.  And then, having paid
+up, we shall open our public-house and you will be ruined ...
+annihilated like the Swedes at Poltava.  We shall see that you are
+ruined ... we will take good care of that.  We could have begun to
+arrange about a public-house now, but you see our time is valuable, and
+besides we are sorry for you.  Why should we take the bread out of your
+mouth without any reason?"
+
+Egor Terentievitch looked at his guest, clenching his teeth, and felt
+that he was master of the situation, and held his fate in his hands.
+Vaviloff was full of pity for himself at having to deal with this calm,
+cruel figure in the checked suit.
+
+"And being such a near neighbour you might have gained a good deal by
+helping us, and we should have remembered it too.  Even now, for
+instance, I should advise you to open a small shop for tobacco, you
+know, bread, cucumbers, and so on...  All these are sure to be in great
+demand."
+
+Vaviloff listened, and being a clever man, knew that to throw himself
+upon the enemy's generosity was the better plan.  It was as well to
+begin from the beginning, and, not knowing what else to do to relieve
+his mind, the soldier began to swear at Kuvalda.
+
+"Curses be upon your head, you drunken rascal!  May the Devil take you!"
+
+"Do you mean the lawyer who composed your petition?" asked Petunikoff,
+calmly, and added, with a sigh, "I have no doubt he would have landed
+you in rather an awkward fix ... had we not taken pity upon you."
+
+"Ah!"  And the angry soldier raised his hand.  "There are two of them
+...  One of them discovered it, the other wrote the petition, the
+accursed reporter!"
+
+"Why the reporter?"
+
+"He writes for the papers ...  He is one of your lodgers ... there they
+all are outside ...  Clear them away, for Christ's sake!  The robbers!
+They disturb and annoy everyone in the street.  One cannot live for
+them ... And they are all desperate fellows ...  You had better take
+care, or else they will rob or burn you ..."
+
+"And this reporter, who is he?" asked Petunikoff, with interest.
+
+"He?  A drunkard.  He was a teacher but was dismissed.  He drank
+everything he possessed ... and now he writes for the papers and
+composes petitions.  He is a very wicked man!"
+
+"H'm!  And did he write your petition, too?  I suppose it was he who
+discovered the flaws in the building.  The beams were not rightly put
+in?"
+
+"He did!  I know it for a fact!  The dog!  He read it aloud in here and
+boasted, 'Now I have caused Petunikoff some loss!'"
+
+"Ye--es...  Well, then, do you want to be reconciled?"
+
+"To be reconciled?"  The soldier lowered his head and thought. "Ah!
+This is a hard life!" said he, in a querulous voice, scratching his
+head.
+
+"One must learn by experience," Petunikoff reassured him, lighting a
+cigarette.
+
+"Learn ...  It is not that, my dear sir; but don't you see there is no
+freedom?  Don't you see what a life I lead?  I live in fear and
+trembling ...  I am refused the freedom so desirable to me in my
+movements, and I fear this ghost of a teacher will write about me in
+the papers.  Sanitary inspectors will be called for ... fines will have
+to be paid ... or else your lodgers will set fire to the place or rob
+and kill me ... I am powerless against them.  They are not the least
+afraid of the police, and they like going to prison, because they get
+their food for nothing there."
+
+"But then we will have them turned out if we come to terms with you,"
+promised Petunikoff.
+
+"What shall we arrange, then?" asked Vaviloff, sadly and seriously.
+
+"Tell me your terms."
+
+"Well, give me the six hundred mentioned in the claim."
+
+"Won't you take a hundred roubles?" asked the merchant, calmly, looking
+attentively at his companion, and smiling softly.  "I will not give you
+one rouble more," ... he added.
+
+After this, he took out his eye-glasses, and began cleaning them with
+his handkerchief.  Vaviloff looked at him sadly and respectfully.  The
+calm face of Petunikoff, his grey eyes and clear complexion, every line
+of his thickset body betokened self-confidence and a well-balanced
+mind.  Vaviloff also liked Petunikoff's straightforward manner of
+addressing him without any pretensions, as if he were his own brother,
+though Vaviloff understood well enough that he was his superior, he
+being only a soldier.  Looking at him, he grew fonder and fonder of
+him, and, forgetting for a moment the matter in hand, respectfully
+asked Petunikoff:
+
+"Where did you study?"
+
+"In the technological institute.  Why?" answered the other, smiling:
+
+"Nothing.  Only ... excuse me!"  The soldier lowered his head, and then
+suddenly exclaimed, "What a splendid thing education is!
+Science--light.  My brother, I am as stupid as an owl before the sun
+...  Your honour, let us finish this job."
+
+With an air of decision he stretched out his hand to Petunikoff and
+said:
+
+"Well, five hundred?"
+
+"Not more than one hundred roubles, Egor Terentievitch." Petunikoff
+shrugged his shoulders as if sorry at being unable to give more, and
+touched the soldier's hairy hand with his long white fingers.  They
+soon ended the matter, for the soldier gave in quickly and met
+Petunikoff's wishes.  And when Vaviloff had received the hundred
+roubles and signed the paper, he threw the pen down on the table and
+said, bitterly:
+
+"Now I will have a nice time!  They will laugh at me, they will cry
+shame on me, the devils!"
+
+"I don't know. I'm not a spaceman, responsible for the lives of three
+people--at a hundred clams an hour."
+
+"Some day I'm going to shove those hundred fish down your throat."
+
+"Do. And I'll spit 'em back at you!"
+
+Norton roughly took her shoulders in his hands. He twisted her to face
+him, clamped down on her soft shoulders until she turned her face up
+to complain with welling eyes. He put his lips on hers and tried to
+force some warmth into them. She submitted calmly, and when he found no
+response and opened his eyes, she was staring at him vacantly.
+
+Abruptly he let her go. She relaxed in the seat.
+
+"I'm not afraid to work," he said in a hollow voice.
+
+"Prove it," she replied flatly.
+
+He got up, left her there, and went below.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Wilson sat in the Information Center and eyed the search grid glumly.
+It stretched stereoscopically out in the room, a lot of its vacant
+network of gleaming white lines frosted over with white shading, to
+mark where the search had covered.
+
+There were a lot of untouched spaces--a horde, a myriad. On the side
+wall was a chart, showing that nine squadrons of twenty-five spacecraft
+each were patrolling back and forth through the uncharted wastes,
+seeking the space-wrecked lifeships.
+
+The maddening part was the hourly report from both lifeships. It was
+like someone hiding in the dark and calling for aid, invisible and
+alone. And not really calling for aid, but only making whimpering
+noises. For the signaling equipment on the lifeships was not equipped
+with the complicated infrawave phone, but only with the simple
+signal-emitter, coded to transmit the identification call of the unit.
+
+On the hour they came in, calling three times, "Lifeship Seventy-nine,
+Seventy-nine, Number Three." Number Two had not been heard from.
+Presumably it was not in use, or hadn't made the grade.
+
+Wilson chewed his fingernails and fretted. Was Alice on Number One or
+Number Three, or was she on Number Two and it had foundered?
+
+If she were still alive, what kind of fellow survivors were with her?
+
+He hoped she was with a group. If she had blown out in a lifeship with
+only one other--well, Ted Wilson did not like the idea. Of course, it
+was more customary than not for a young woman to love lightly before
+she mated permanently. There was a lot less chance of wading into
+matrimony wide-eyed and ignorant of what it was all about.
+
+But Wilson, if willing to face such transient loving at all, would
+have preferred that Alice have her chance to pick and choose, rather
+than have the matter thrust upon her in the middle of a threatening
+situation. The passion that comes with the shadow of death is only the
+instinct of racial preservation, and it mates men and women unsuited to
+one another during subsequent peace and quiet.
+
+Above all, he did not want Alice to emerge from this moment of personal
+danger morally bound to some unsuitable mate because of a child
+conceived under the shadow of the sword!
+
+Hourly, after the coded signals came in, Ted Wilson took the microphone
+himself and called out into space in the infrawave. He called messages
+of hope, and explained how many spacecraft were scouring the deep black
+void. He could only pray that he would be heard, that his voice would
+give Alice some firm foundation for hope.
+
+He could not be sure the passengers from the wrecked spaceship even had
+their receivers turned on, because infrawave receivers drink up a lot
+of power and lifeships are not equipped with any vast reserve. There
+just was not the room in a lifeship for anything more than the bare
+necessities of living.
+
+The search grid was a truncated cone, and the whitened areas of
+finished search had finally filled the smaller end of the cone. There
+was the flared skirt of the cone yet to be combed, and this provided
+more volume than the cylinder taken out of the middle. It also provided
+a shorter search path as the searching spacecraft built out the volume,
+ring after ring around the first pass along the line of flight.
+
+Far, far to one side a detector registered, and brought every man
+in the fleet to the alert. Then they relaxed unhappily again as the
+scooter returned with another report of a small gas cloud. Wilson
+thought glumly that they had discovered enough space meteors, gas
+clouds, and unawakened comets to make up a small sun.
+
+Then his attention was taken from his own personal troubles by the
+arrival of another squadron from Centauri. He found himself busy
+readjusting the search pattern to accommodate this new contingent.
+
+He eyed the pattern in the stereo and hoped it was good enough.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was the basic aggregate of nine full squadrons spread out flat in
+a space lattice that ran back and forth from narrow end to wide end of
+the cone of probability. There was one full squadron of roving ships
+that went aimlessly back and forth across the pattern, just to cope
+with the happenstance factor.
+
+One squadron was parked at either end of the search grid as space
+markers, with a computer ship at either end to maintain a constant
+check on their space coordinates. The big search pattern shuttled from
+one end to the other, and if they came back to miss the marker ships,
+they retraced their path so that no space went uncombed.
+
+The infrawave chattered and Space Admiral Stone was calling for
+Commodore Theodore Wilson.
+
+"How're you coming?"
+
+Wilson replied, "We're still at it, Admiral. So far we haven't seen
+her."
+
+"Don't forget, Wilson, there's more lost out there than the woman you
+want."
+
+Ted wanted to snap back angrily, but all he said was, "You don't mind
+if I take this search personally, do you, Admiral Stone? I'm not
+overlooking any bets, but I do admit that Miss Hemingway is a bit more
+important to me than any of the rest."
+
+"No, I suppose no one could blame you for that. Just keep it up,
+Wilson."
+
+"Sure," Ted said wearily. "After all, this is a black and white job I'm
+on. Either we'll be successful--or we won't."
+
+"Luck."
+
+"Spaceman's luck, Admiral."
+
+Wilson went back to his brooding....
+
+Charles Andrews came back into the salon with a brisk air. He
+flexed his arms, took a deep breath, and mopped his forehead with a
+handkerchief. He sat down beside Alice and smiled at her warmly.
+
+"That thing is a wonder worker," he said, breathing deeply. "Nothing
+like exercise to make a man feel fine and fit."
+
+Alice looked up at him with some amusement. "Mr. Andrews, tell me. Are
+you the kind of man who opens the window on a winter morning about six
+o'clock, and takes deep lungsful of icy air?"
+
+"Not quite that bad, my dear. Not quite. But brisk living does keep a
+man sharp and hard. I daresay I acquitted myself well on that pedal
+generator despite my fifty years."
+
+"No doubt."
+
+Andrews chuckled. "I'll do better than our young pilot friend. The man
+is big, and should be muscular, but he is soft from lack of exercise.
+Yet he'll attempt to stay there longer than I did, I guess."
+
+"No doubt."
+
+He eyed her sharply, not missing her repetitious dry reply.
+
+"Which, incidentally," he said, "gives me my first chance to speak with
+you alone since we took off from Earth."
+
+"That's so. But--"
+
+"Miss Hemingway, you are an exceedingly brisk young woman, attractive
+and intelligent. May I ask if you have ever taken a lover?"
+
+"Why, no."
+
+"Never considered it?"
+
+She smiled thinly. "Naturally. All women think about it. Most do.
+I--er--"
+
+Alice let her voice trail away uncertainly. The direct, frontal attack
+had put her off-balance, but she realized that this was Andrews' direct
+way.
+
+He had smiled at her uncertainty, and said swiftly, "Then may I be the
+first--" when he noted the fading amusement in her face and glibly ad
+libbed--"to congratulate you on your choice of young men? The space
+commodore to whom you bade farewell in Chicago was an up and coming
+man, I'd assume."
+
+"I rather imagine he's out here somewhere in the search group," she
+said.
+
+"He may even be directing it," Andrews said carefully.
+
+One thing he knew well--never run down a rival. It always brought on
+a defensive attitude. Build the rival up, and the return might be
+sympathetic. A clever course could be traveled between build-up and
+tear-down.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking at Alice thoughtfully, Andrews got up and began to rummage
+through a few lockers. Eventually he found a blanket and brought it to
+her.
+
+"I'm not too familiar with these life cans," he told her, with a
+disarming smile. "I hope I remain in ignorance of them. But I found
+what I was after. Now, Miss Hemingway, if you'll stretch out, I'll tuck
+you in, and you can get some shut-eye."
+
+"That I can use," she said honestly.
+
+The blanket felt good. So did his hands, smoothing out the blanket, but
+being carefully tender and proper. Andrews was a smooth operator of
+many years' experience.
+
+Eventually she slept.
+
+Andrews found another cigar, and smoked it languidly, his eyes roaming
+around the metal walls of the cabin. He was thinking that he disliked
+Jack Norton immensely, although he knew that chances of survival were
+better with Norton's boorish, interfering presence than without. He was
+bored, he was angry, he was above all resentful of the time wasted in
+this spacewreck business....
+
+An orderly tapped Commodore Wilson on the shoulder. "Message from
+Terra," he said.
+
+Wilson groaned and reached for the telephone beside his bunk. "Wilson
+here," he said. "Go ahead!"
+
+"Admiral Stone. Wilson, a new ship is on the way. I want you to get
+into this thing fully, so I'm briefing you now."
+
+"New type of ship?"
+
+"Well, not a new ship, but some new equipment. The Infrawave Section of
+the Space Department Radiation Laboratory has some experimental gear
+they want to try in actual service."
+
+"Experimental gear?"
+
+"Sheer experiment, Wilson. It's supposed to be an infrawave detecting
+and ranging device. It's shown low grade response so far, and it may
+be entirely useless to you. But Radiation feels that even something
+incomplete and erratic may be better than going it blind."
+
+Wilson sat up, interested. "How does it work?"
+
+"Darned if I know. It took a whole cruiser class to carry the junk
+that makes it tick. It's piled in with twine and baling wire, and when
+the crate took off the advanced techs were still connecting cables and
+adjusting the guts. Er--how're you feeling?"
+
+"Tired and frustrated."
+
+"Mind a bad joke?"
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Go on and have a laugh, Wilson. This gizmo reminded me of the new
+machine that made shoes so fast that it put twelve shoemakers out of
+work--and it took only eighteen men to run it."
+
+A silence ensued. Then Stone said:
+
+"Well, Wilson, I thought you'd like to know we're pouring the best
+we've got into space for you. Ship should be along in another hour or
+two."
+
+"Yeah--thanks, Admiral Stone. And the joke was funny, at least the
+first time I heard it, it was. I'll get on the cubes and wait for the
+ship."
+
+Wearily Commodore Ted Wilson climbed out of his bunk and began to
+dress....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Viggon Sarri said, "Now we know more about this race. They definitely
+are of the class where the individual is of extreme importance to
+the whole. This belies both the communal, or insect type and the
+anarchistic, or individualistic type. The quantity of men and machinery
+they are pouring into this search is amazing."
+
+"They aren't much closer to success," offered Regin Naylo. "And we're
+wasting time."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"We both think so," Faren Twill said firmly.
+
+"Oh?" Viggon Sarri looked at them in surprise. "Then maybe I have the
+wrong idea. Let me hear your suggestions."
+
+Twill and Naylo looked at one another, fencing with their eyes. Finally
+Twill nodded and said, "You say it, Regin."
+
+"It's already been said." Regin Naylo looked pointedly at Linus Brein.
+"A day or so ago you claimed that you'd picked up some primitive
+infrawave emission that looked as though someone might be trying to
+develop a detecting and ranging device."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then it is my contention that any moves we make against this race
+should be made before anybody down there gets such a detector and
+ranger working."
+
+"Why?" demanded Viggon Sarri.
+
+Regin Naylo looked at his commander. "We're losing a technical
+advantage. Whether we go in with a benign and peaceful-looking air and
+show them how big and fast we are, or whether we plunge in and hit 'em
+with every battery we've got and reduce 'em to submission, we've got to
+do it before anybody succeeds in making an infrawave space detector.
+Understand?"
+
+Viggon Sarri looked from one to the other, grimly. "You believe I'm
+wasting time? Is that it?"
+
+The two aides answered together, "Yes!" and "Absolutely!"
+
+Viggon Sarri said, "I am still in command of this force. We'll continue
+to observe until I am satisfied. You two officers have one common
+idea--that of moving in fast. You have differing ideas of how we are
+to move in. Until you can settle your difference and provide me with a
+good logical basis for your decision--whichever way--then we'll follow
+my plan. And my plan is to move in just as soon as we have enough data
+on the character and strength of this race to provide us with the
+correct way to take them."
+
+"Then you are going to continue stalling?" demanded Naylo.
+
+"Yes, if you wish to call it stalling. Maybe another man might call it
+planning."
+
+"We'll be just wasting time, as I've already said. We have enough stuff
+to take 'em right now."
+
+Viggon Sarri shrugged. "Yes. We could swoop in and take them like
+mowing down a wheat field. Tell me, young men, what happens when you
+mow down a wheat field."
+
+They looked at him blankly.
+
+Viggon smiled in a superior manner. "One of two things, depending upon
+how you operate. If you mow it down and let it lay, you drop seeds and
+next year it comes up thicker. If you mow it down, remove the seeds,
+sow it with salt and kill the field, you have a useless plot of land, a
+worthless territory. Then some day up comes weed and briar--which then
+must be removed root and branch before the land is plantable again.
+Just remember, we are after a profitable exchange of economy, not
+another stellar system to list as a conquest for the sake of history
+our children will read. I want my reward now, or next week. Having my
+name on a monument does not have much appeal."
+
+He was half standing with his hands closed into fists, his knuckles on
+the table supporting him as he leaned forward to drive his facts home.
+
+"Or," he added scathingly, "are you two firebrands so youthful that you
+don't know that a man has only one single lone chance at this business
+of living? And that your finest reward at eventide is knowing you have
+lived a full and eventful life without screwing it up somewhere along
+the line by making a lot of idiotic moves?"
+
+Viggon Sarri turned on a heel and walked out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Naylo and Twill turned to Linus Brein.
+
+"What do you think?" Twill asked.
+
+Linus Brein shrugged. "He is undoubtedly right. Besides, we don't know
+all there is to know about the strange race out there yet."
+
+"Oh, faugh! What else--"
+
+Linus Brein smiled. He said slowly. "We don't even know whether or not
+they are oxygen-breathing."
+
+"We can assume from the stellar type of their primaries that they are."
+
+Linus nodded. "Probably, but not positively."
+
+Regin Naylo said, "And what's second, Linus?"
+
+"They may be contraterrene."
+
+"Seetee?"
+
+Linus Brein nodded. "In which case from both sides we must watch our
+steps. Get involved with a seetee race the wrong way and you have two
+cultures with absolutely nothing in common but a life-factor, busy
+tossing chunks of their own kind of matter at one another in a fight
+to exterminate. So before either of you start making half-baked plans,
+you'd better get your heads together and plan something that sounds
+reasonable to the Big Boss. Right?"
+
+
+
+
+                                  VI
+
+
+Commodore Wilson eyed the spacecraft full of hastily assembled
+instruments with a grimace. The ship was swarming with techs who were
+peering into oscilloscopes, watching meters, and tinkering with signal
+generators. A huge concave hemispherical dome above was a splatter of
+little flickering green pinpoints and dark patches.
+
+"This idea is hopelessly haywire," Wilson said unhappily.
+
+"It sure is," said Space-Tech Maury Allison. "But everything is, at
+first."
+
+"You hope to make something out of it?"
+
+"We hope," replied Allison. "We can't be sure."
+
+"But surely this pile of junk has been tested before?"
+
+Allison nodded.
+
+"Any results?"
+
+"Some. We've had as much as five minutes of constant operation out of
+it."
+
+As he spoke, the hemisphere over their heads flashed a full bright
+green, then went black. A bell tinkled somewhere and a couple of techs
+dropped their tools and headed for the back room on the double. A
+couple of others stood up from their work and lit cigarettes because
+their instruments had gone dead. Some of the rest continued to nurse
+their particular circuits because that section was still running.
+
+[Illustration: The dome became a riot of flaming green.]
+
+After scanning the operation to see which section had gone blooey,
+Allison went on. "We've never tested this outfit under anything
+but ideal conditions. We've had spacecraft sent out to specified
+distances, fired up the gizmo and found fragments of response right
+where there should be a response."
+
+"That's hardly fair, is it?" commented Wilson.
+
+"It's a start. You have to start somewhere. Radio--know its start?
+The first message was sent across the ocean a few hundred years ago
+from one man to the other after they had made a complete plan as to
+time, date, location and frequency, and also the transmitted message.
+Sure enough, they got through. That, too, was under the ideal test
+conditions. So when we finally assembled the half-a-hundred separate
+circuits and devices that made it look as though we might have a space
+detector, we put up targets, aimed our equipment, and looked for a
+response where there should be one."
+
+"We don't know where our target is," objected Wilson.
+
+"And we haven't yet fired up this equipment to seek a target of unknown
+position and range," admitted Allison. "But this gear is better than
+nothing."
+
+Again the green spots flickered in the dome over their heads.
+
+"What do all those spots mean?" asked Wilson.
+
+"Those are false targets, probably caused by background noise. Although
+the infrawave is noiseless, we still seem to be getting it. Dr.
+Friedrich disagrees. He claims this is not noise, but interferences.
+However, the good doctor is not at all certain that the so-called
+interferences come from localized conditions within the equipment or
+from external sources."
+
+Wilson shrugged. "I don't see how it's done with a radiation type that
+has neither a directional quality nor a velocity of propagation."
+
+"Do you understand Accum?"
+
+"I stopped shortly before Matrix. Accumulative Math is so much pothooks
+on a sheet of paper to me."
+
+"Um. Then I'd find it hard to explain. The theory seems to be
+demonstrable, and the accumulative mathematics upholds the
+experimental evidence. But there hasn't yet been an acceptable verbal
+description of what happens."
+
+"I've often wondered, leaving the nondirectional quality out of it,
+why we couldn't cut our emitting power and somehow compute range by
+observing the incoming power from a distant infrawave transmitter."
+
+Allison shook his head. "Oddly enough, the matrix mathematics that
+deal with radiation shows that for any hypothetical radiation with an
+infinite velocity of propagation, there can be no attenuation with
+distance."
+
+"Meaning that we should be able to transmit all the way from here to
+hell and back."
+
+"Not exactly. Infrawave radiation comes in quanta, you know. A kilowatt
+covers two point one, seven nine three six plus parsecs. Two kilowatts
+covers twice that distance minus the ninth root of two point, seven
+nine three six plus. Three kilowatts covers three times two point et
+cetera, minus two times the ninth root." Allison shrugged and spread
+his hands.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"And so on it goes," he said, "indicating that at some devilish
+distance--I've forgotten the figure but we had the master computer chew
+it out on the big machine at Radiation once--an additional kilowatt
+just shoves the signal coverage distance out by a micron. But if you
+don't put in your honest kilowatt, you don't excite the infraspace that
+carries infrawaves. And if you put in a kilowatt and a half, you have
+to dissipate the half."
+
+Wilson grunted. "Nice to have things come out even. Who'd have thunk
+that the Creator wanted the Terran kilowatt to equal one quanta of
+infrawave distance?"
+
+Allison laughed. "Poor argument, Commodore Wilson. Actually, the figure
+is point nine, eight three four plus. Close, but no cigar. We've
+just come to accept the figure as a kilowatt, just as for everyday
+calculation we accept the less refined figure of two point, one eight
+parsecs, or even two point, two. At any rate--"
+
+There was a puff of something, and a sound like the puncture of a tire.
+The green speckles on the dome merged with one another and became
+a riot of flaming green. There were shouts and cries and a lot of
+haphazard orders and several techs scrambled to snap toggle switches.
+
+Down the room one of the techs went head-first into a rack with a pair
+of pliers and a soldering iron. He backed out carrying a smoking little
+shapeless thing that had lost any character it once possessed. The tech
+picked up a nice, shiny new doodad from a small box and went into the
+rack again. When he came out this time he gave a hoarse cheer. Toggles
+were snapped back and the spreckles reappeared.
+
+One of the techs came up to Allison and said, "See that spot up there,
+sir? The one just this side of the eighty-one degree longitude circle,
+and a little below the forty-five latitude ring?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was a small round disc no more than an inch in diameter.
+
+"We think that may be a response."
+
+Wilson said, "You mean a target? Possibly one of the lifeships?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll have a scooter go out and see. What's its spacial position?"
+
+The tech took another look. "I'd say eighty-one plus longitude and
+forty-three latitude."
+
+"From what?" demanded Wilson.
+
+"From ship's axis, sir."
+
+"Distance?"
+
+"Oh, about half a parsec."
+
+Wilson groaned. "Haven't you determined any spacial attitude?"
+
+"Attitude, sir?"
+
+"The angle of the ship's axis with respect to the stellar positions.
+So you've a blotch out there at half a parsec. It's an inch or so in
+diameter. Have one of your juniors run off some trig on the calculator
+and then tell me how much probable space volume that so-called response
+represents."
+
+The tech thought a minute. "We've never run this gear anywhere
+but at Radiation, right at Mojave labs, on Earth. Our spacial
+coordinates--well, I'm afraid we--" His voice trailed away unhappily.
+
+Wilson picked up the interphone and barked a call.
+
+"Weston? Look, Hugh, can you get over here quick with a couple of your
+top astrogators? We've got a bunch of longhairs with a fancy infrawave
+detector and ranger, but the damned coordinates are set axially with
+the ship."
+
+He listened to Hugh Weston's reply.
+
+"Yeah," he said then. "We know where the target is with respect to the
+ship, but we don't know the spacial attitude of the ship with respect
+to the galactic check points. Right over? Good."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As Wilson hung up the dome flickered, then went into a regular
+_flash-flash-flash_ until something else came unglued and the dome
+went blank. There was shouting and rather heart-felt cussing, and some
+running around again before the dome light came back.
+
+A tech--not the one that had come up before--moved into place alongside
+the commodore.
+
+"Mr. Wilson, sir," he said, "I wonder if--er--That is, sir--er--"
+
+"Take it easy," said Wilson, half-smiling.
+
+"Well, sir, we've been getting a lot of interference."
+
+Wilson looked up at the flickering dome. He merely nodded.
+
+"Well, sir--er--I was wondering if you could issue some--er--order to
+have the other ships move away? I'm sure we could find those lifeships
+if the rest of space were clear. But you've got three hundred--"
+
+Wilson stared the youngster down coldly. "Somewhere out there," he said
+sourly, "are two lifeships in which men, and a woman, are waiting for
+us to come and collect 'em. I'm combing space almost inch by inch. I
+can hardly give up my squadron for a half-finished flash in the dome
+like this, can I?"
+
+"No sir--ah--I suppose not."
+
+"Then you live with the responses tossed back by my squadron. It'll be
+good training for you. Er--get the hell out of my way!"
+
+The junior tech melted out of sight and went back to his control panel.
+
+Weston came over within the hour. Ted Wilson explained the situation
+and told Hugh to set up and measure the coordinates with respect to
+the stellar centers. Then he told him to send a space scooter out to
+investigate that spot.
+
+Wilson went back to his own flagship wondering whether that fancy
+infrawave detector would turn out to be anything. An untried doodad.
+But now and then--
+
+Wearily again, Commodore Wilson called Commander Hatch, who skippered
+one of the scout carriers. He told Hatch to make himself available
+either to Hugh Weston or Maury Allison, to investigate infrawave
+response targets as they saw fit.
+
+Then Wilson hit the sack to finish his off-duty.
+
+He dozed fitfully, but he did not sleep worth a damn. He would have
+been better off if he could have taken the controls of one of the
+spacers and gone out himself. Then, at least, he would have something
+to fill his mind and idle hands....
+
+Alice Hemingway awoke from a rather pleasant dream that had something
+to do with either ice skating or skiing, or it might have been
+tobogganing--the dream had faded so fast she could not be sure--to face
+the fact that she was feeling on the chill side.
+
+Her blanket had slipped. She caught it around her, and in minutes
+felt fairly warm again. It was not so much, she thought, the actual
+temperature in the lifeship, but the whole damned attitude of people,
+and everything else that was so chilling.
+
+The lights were running all right, and from deep below she could hear
+the ragged throb of the pedal generator. She wondered which of the two
+men was pumping it this time.
+
+When Jock Norton came in, she knew. He was mopping his face with a
+towel. He looked clean and bright, freshly shaved.
+
+She looked at him and wished she could have a hot shower herself, and a
+change of clothing. She wanted a ten-hour sleep in a nice soft bed with
+clean sheets, too, and wearing a silk-soft nightgown.
+
+"Awake, Alice?" Norton asked brightly.
+
+"Awake again," she said unhappily. "For.... What is it? The ninth day?"
+
+"Eighth," he said. "Can't go on much longer."
+
+"I hope not."
+
+"You look all in," he said softly. He sat down on the edge of the
+divan, beside her, and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Take it
+easy, m'lady. They're really scouring space for us. We'll be all right.
+You'll see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unexpectedly he bent and kissed her chastely on the forehead. Alice
+tensed at first, but relaxed almost immediately because the warmth of
+that honest affection made her feel less alone and cold, in the depths
+of uncharted space. Some of the worry and concern was erased, at least.
+She stretched warmly as he rubbed her forehead with his cheek.
+
+Then he sat up and looked down at her. He put his hand on her cheek
+gently and said, "We'll be all right, kid."
+
+"Eight days," she said in a hoarse whisper.
+
+He nodded solemnly. "Every hour means they must be coming closer and
+closer. Every lonely hour means that it can't be many more, because
+they've covered all the places where we weren't. Follow me, Alice?"
+
+She shook her head unhappily.
+
+Doggedly he tried to explain. "They know that we must lie within a
+certain truncated conical volume of space. They comb this space bit by
+bit and chart it. Since the volume is known, and since it takes so many
+hours of work to comb a given volume, that means that at the end of a
+given time all the predicted volume of space has been covered. Since we
+must lie within that, we are bound to be picked up before they cover
+the last cubic mile."
+
+"But how long?" she breathed.
+
+"I wouldn't know," he told her honestly. "I have no possible way of
+computing it. They've got the best of computers and plotters, and
+they've got the law of probabilities on their side. But it's dead
+certain we'll be found."
+
+"I hope."
+
+"I know," he said.
+
+"You've changed, Jock Norton."
+
+"Changed?"
+
+"You looked on this as a lark, before."
+
+"Not exactly," he objected.
+
+"But you did."
+
+Slowly he shook his head. "Not exactly," he repeated. "I don't think
+I've changed at all. I still think that when you're faced with
+something inevitable you might as well look at it from the more
+cheerful side. After all, there was the chance that we might not have
+made it this far, you know. Now, tell me honestly, does it make sense
+getting all worried-up by thinking of how horrible it would have been
+if we'd been caught back there when Seventy-nine blew up?"
+
+"I suppose not."
+
+"Well, then," he said in a semi-cheerful tone, "since we did make it
+out safely, and are still waiting after eight days, we might as well
+expect to be collected soon."
+
+Charles Andrews said, from behind him, "At a hundred dollars an hour,
+Norton?"
+
+Norton turned around angrily. "So it's the hundred clams per," he
+snapped back. "That's damned poor payment for having to live with the
+likes of you in a space can this cramped."
+
+Andrews eyed the pilot with distaste. "Tell me," he said smoothly,
+"did my last effort on the pedal generator go for power storage, or
+for a couple of gallons of hot water for that shave and shower you've
+enjoyed?"
+
+Norton stretched and stood up. "I figured that having a clean face
+might help morale," he said pointedly.
+
+"You're a cheap, chiseling--"
+
+"Easy, Andrews! Easy. There's a lady present. Besides, I might forget
+my easy-going nature and take a swing at you."
+
+Andrews said scornfully, "Without a doubt, a man of your age and build
+could wipe up the lifeship with me."
+
+Norton chuckled. "Don't count on your age being good protection,
+Andrews. You may push me far enough to make me forget that you're a
+decrepit old man who has to buy what your physique can't get you."
+
+"Now see here!" roared Andrews.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was stopped short by Norton who took one long step forward to grasp
+him by the coat lapels. Andrews' face went white, because he was
+looking into the face of dark anger. Norton's other hand was clenched
+in a large, tight fist. He eyed the older man sourly for a minute, then
+shoved him backward to collapse in a chair.
+
+"What are you trying to do?" sneered Norton. "Make me mad enough to
+clip you so you can yell 'Foul!'? I know as well as you do that the law
+doesn't even recognize taunts and tongue-lashings as contributory to
+assault."
+
+Alice got up from her couch and stood between them. "Stop it, both of
+you!" she cried. "Stop it!"
+
+Norton's anger subsided. "All right," he said to Andrews. "Now that
+we've all had our lungs exercised, I'll go below and pedal that
+generator. Alice, you can have the bathroom first. Andrews, you take it
+with what she leaves. Is that okay?"
+
+"Aren't you the hard-working little Boy Scout?"
+
+"Sure." Norton grinned. "I am that." He disappeared down the ladder
+towards the generator room.
+
+Andrews turned to Alice. "You're not going to go for that fancy
+routine, are you?" he demanded crossly.
+
+"What routine?"
+
+"First he uses power for hot water, power that I was storing up. Now
+he's going to pedal that thing to waste more power."
+
+Alice shrugged. "He's the spaceman," she said simply. "If he thinks we
+can spare the power for a bath, I could certainly use one."
+
+"How can you trust the likes of him?"
+
+"We've got to," she said. "We've got to."
+
+"I wouldn't," said Andrews. "I can't."
+
+She looked at her employer seriously. "We've both got to trust him,"
+she said quietly. "Because, right or wrong, he is the only one who
+knows anything about space and what's likely to happen next."
+
+"At a hundred an hour," Andrews said for the ninetieth time or so,
+scathingly.
+
+Alice nodded soberly. "But you mustn't forget that isn't going to do
+him any good unless he gets us all home so that he can use it."
+
+Reluctantly, Andrews nodded. "I suppose you're right."
+
+Then Alice added, "And even if it weren't for the hundred per, he isn't
+the kind to kill himself."
+
+Andrews grunted, "No, he isn't. But Alice, I'm not at all sure that
+Norton knows whether he's doing the right thing or not."
+
+She shook her head. There was no answer to that argument. Furthermore,
+it was the kind of unresolvable argument that could go on and on until
+the answer was supplied from the outside. There could be no end to it
+until they were either picked up safely or died in lonely space.
+
+She decided to drop the discussion as pointless, so headed for the
+bathroom. A hot shower and a quick tubbing of her underclothing were
+on her mind. Her garments, of course, would dry instantly. She had
+to smile a little. To think that a hundred years ago women thought
+something they called nylon was wonderful because it was fairly
+quick-drying! Not instantaneous, of course, as was the material of
+which her lingerie was made.
+
+Anyhow, getting it clean now, and having a bath herself would make
+her feel better. And she would be better equipped to face the
+nerve-gruelling business of just sitting there watching the clock go
+around and around, with nothing to do but wait.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+Regin Naylo faced his superior with a scowl. "That rips it wide open,"
+he said.
+
+Viggon Sarri smiled confidently. He glanced at Linus Brein and asked,
+"Just how competent do you think this new thing is?"
+
+Linus shrugged. "We've analyzed the infrawave pattern they've
+developed. It is obvious that this is their first prototype of an
+infrawave space detector. The pattern is of the primitive absorptive
+type, which is both inefficient as a detector and is also inclined to
+produce spurious responses. From our observations, their equipment
+must be extremely complex too. It must be loaded to the scuppers with
+fragile circuits and components, because the search pattern keeps
+breaking down, or becoming irregular. An efficient detector cannot
+be made of the infrawave bands until the third order of reflective
+response is discovered. I doubt that any research team, no matter how
+big, can start with the primitive absorption phase of the infrawaves
+and leap to the higher orders of infrawave radiation in less than a
+lifetime of study."
+
+"So, gentlemen?" asked Viggon of his two aides. "Can you predict
+whether or not their new detector will deliver the goods?"
+
+All looked expectantly at Linus Brein.
+
+"We've been recalculating our probabilities at the introduction of each
+new phase of their behaviour," Linus Brein said seriously. "From their
+actions, I would say that they do not know, grasp, or perhaps even
+guess that space has flaws and warps in the continuum. They have been
+going at their search in a pattern of solid geometrical precision, but
+have been paying no attention to those rifts, small as they are, that
+actually make a straight course bend aside for a distance. So due to
+the fact that their search pattern has already passed over one of these
+rifts in which the one lifeship lies, and passed beyond in their line
+of search, we have produced a nine-nines probability that they will not
+locate this lifeship."
+
+"And the other?" prompted Viggon Sarri, with interest.
+
+"I'm not done with the first yet," Linus Brein said quietly. "There
+remains the random search group. Therein lies the eight-oughts-one
+positive probability."
+
+Viggon snorted. "I call ten to the minus ten chances rather hopeless.
+But go on, Linus."
+
+"The other has a sixty-forty chance," he said. "If the infrawave
+detector locates the space rift that lies along our coordinate three
+seventy-six, when the ship is near seven sixty-seven, then the scout
+craft will pass within magnetic detection range of the lifeship. That's
+a lot of 'ifs', I know, but they add up to a sixty-forty chance. I
+say this because space rifts tend to produce strong responses in any
+of the primitive detecting gear. They've certainly been busy running
+down space warps, which indicates that they've been getting a lot
+of spurious responses." He smiled. "If space were entirely clear of
+foreign matter and space rifts, they'd find their new detector vaguely
+inefficient. I--"
+
+Viggon waved a hand to indicate he had heard enough.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I've been criticized for waiting, but
+what one man calls study the other man calls timidity. We'll continue
+to wait for the final factor. Then we'll know...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stereo pattern in the Information Center of Commodore Ted Wilson's
+flagship was slowly being filled with the hazy white that indicated
+that these volumes had been combed carefully. As he watched, he could
+see how the search was progressing, and it was painfully obvious that
+the search was not going good at all.
+
+The flights of spacecraft in set patterns back and forth through the
+stereo had covered nearly all of the truncated space cone. The random
+search ships were slowly cutting secondary lines through the regions
+already covered. There was a green sphere combing the stereo pattern
+now, indicating the new infrawave detector ship and its expected volume
+of detector coverage.
+
+Space was filled to overflowing with the fast patter of the
+communications officers, using infrawave for talks between flights, and
+ordinary radio for talks between ships of the same flight.
+
+Wilson had appointed Chief Communications Officer Haggerty to police
+the bands. Haggerty had done a fine job, removing the howling confusion
+and interference caused from too many calls on the same channel. But
+the result was still a high degree of constant call and reply and
+cross talk. Most of the chatter came from the infrawave detector ship,
+sending the scout craft flitting hither and thither on the trail of
+spurious responses.
+
+It was almost impossible to grasp the extent of the operation. Only in
+the stereo pattern could anybody begin to follow the complex operation,
+and those who watched the stereo knew that their pattern was only an
+idealized space map of what they hoped was going on.
+
+It was worse than combing the area of an ocean from maps that contained
+a neat grid of cross rules. Much worse. For the uncharted ocean is
+gridded with radio location finders so accurate that the position of
+two ships a hundred yards apart shows a hundred yards of difference in
+absolute position in the loran.
+
+Some day in the distant future space would be solid-gridded with
+infrawave navigation signals. Then the space coordinates of any
+spacecraft could be found to a fine degree of precision. But now all
+that Wilson and his nav-techs could do was to keep sighting the fixed
+stars, and from them compute their position.
+
+This sort of space navigation was good enough to keep a ship on course,
+but far from precise enough to pinprick a true position. But, after
+all, a crude positioning in the middle of interstellar space is good
+enough. One literally has cubic light years to float around in. Once
+the spacecraft begins to approach a destination, the space positioning
+can be made.
+
+Again, few spacecraft pause in mid-flight between stars long enough to
+care about their interstellar position. After all, space flight does
+provide a mode of travel where the destination lies within eyesight.
+Or rather, it has lain within eyesight ever since it became commonly
+accepted that these ultimate destinations were places, instead of holes
+poked in an inverted ceramic bowl.
+
+Then, in the middle of the communications confusion, came a call from
+one of Commander Hatch's scout flights.
+
+"Pilot Logan, Flight Eighteen, to Commander Hatch. Report."
+
+"Hatch to Logan. Go ahead. Find something, Will?"
+
+Will Logan said, "Solid target detected on radar, Commander. Approached
+and found. I am now within five thousand yards of what appears to be
+Lifeship One."
+
+The entire fleet went silent, except for the detector ship, the scout
+craft, and Wilson's flagship.
+
+Allison asked, "Was that our target, Logan?"
+
+the habits of a lifetime which keeps the mind clear and the nerve
+firm. Lois went on quietly preparing some sandwiches, which in all
+probability would never be eaten, and Mrs. Carmichael resigned martial
+occupation for the cutting-out of a baby's pinafore for an East-end
+child whom she had under her special patronage. But her mind was
+active and, stern, self-opinionated martinet that she was, she could
+not altogether crush the regrets that swarmed up in this last
+reckoning up of her life's activity. Better had her charity and
+interest been centered on the dirty little children whom she had
+indignantly tolerated on her compound! Better for them all would it
+have been had each one of them sought to win the love and respect of
+the subject race! Then, perhaps, they would not have been deserted in
+this last hour of peril.
+
+Mrs. Carmichael glanced at Beatrice Cary with a fresh pricking of
+conscience. What, after all, had she done to deserve the chief
+condemnation? She had played with fire. Had they not all played with
+fire? She had looked upon a native as a toy fit to play with, to break
+and throw away. Did they not all, behind their seeming tolerance and
+Christian principles, hide an equal depreciation? Was she even as bad
+as some? How many men revealed to their syces their darkest moods,
+their lowest passions? How many women were to their ayahs subjects for
+contemptuous Bazaar gossip. They were all to blame, and this was the
+harvest, the punishment for the neglect of a heavy responsibility. The
+thought that she had been unjust was iron through Mrs. Carmichael's
+soul, for above all things she prided herself on her fairness. She
+pushed her work away and went over to Beatrice's side. Mrs. Cary's
+head still rested against the aching shoulder, and Mrs. Carmichael
+made a sign to let her improvize a cushion substitute. Beatrice shook
+her head.
+
+"No, thank you," she whispered, glancing down at the flushed, sleeping
+face. "We have done each other so little real service that I am glad
+to be able to do even this much. I don't suppose it will be for long.
+How quiet everything is!"
+
+Mrs. Carmichael looked at the clock on the writing-table.
+
+"It is not yet midnight," she said. "Probably the Rajah is keeping his
+promise." Her expression relaxed a little. "Don't tire yourself," she
+added bruskly to Mrs. Berry, who had been fanning the unconscious
+woman's face with an improvized paper fan. "I don't think she feels
+the heat."
+
+The missionary's wife continued her good work with redoubled energy.
+It was perhaps one of the few really unselfish things which she had
+ever done in the course of a pious but fundamentally selfish life, and
+it gave her pleasure and courage. The knowledge that some one was
+weaker than herself and needed her was new strength to her new-born
+heroism.
+
+"It is so frightfully hot," she said half apologetically. "Why isn't
+the punkah-man at work?"
+
+"The 'punkah-man' has bolted with the rest of them," Mrs. Carmichael
+answered. "I dare say I could work it, though I have never tried."
+
+"It is hardly worth while to begin now," Beatrice observed, and this
+simple acknowledgment that the end was at hand received no
+contradiction.
+
+Once again the silence was unbroken, save for the soft swish of the
+fan and Mrs. Cary's heavy, irregular breathing. Yet the five women who
+in the full swing of their life had been diametrically opposed to one
+another were now united in a common sympathy. Death, far more than a
+leveler of class, is the melting-pot into which are thrown all
+antagonisms, all violent discords of character. The one great fact
+overshadows everything, and the petty stumbling-blocks of daily life
+are forgotten. More than that still--it is the supreme moment in man's
+existence when the innermost treasures or unsuspected hells are
+revealed beyond all denial. And in these five women, hidden in two
+cases at least beneath a mass of meanness, selfishness and
+indifference, there lay an unusual power of self-sacrifice and pity.
+Death was drawing near to them all, and their one thought was how to
+make his coming easier for the other. When the silence grew
+unbearable, it was Mrs. Carmichael who had the courage to break it
+with a trivial criticism respecting the manner in which Lois was
+making the sandwiches.
+
+"You should put the butter on before you cut them," she said tartly,
+"and as little as possible. I'm quite sure it has gone rancid, and
+then George won't touch them. He is so fussy about the butter."
+
+Mrs. Berry looked up. The perspiration of physical fear stood on her
+cold forehead, but her roused will-power fought heroically and
+conquered.
+
+"And, please, would you mind making one or two without butter?" she
+said. "Percy says all Indian butter is bad. Of course, it's only an
+idea of his, but men are such faddy creatures, don't you think?"
+
+"They wouldn't be men if they weren't--" Mrs. Carmichael had begun,
+when she broke off, and the scissors that had been snipping their way
+steadily through the rough linen jagged and dropped on the table. She
+picked them up immediately and went on with an impatient exclamation
+at her own carelessness. But the involuntary start had coincided with
+a loud report from outside in the darkness, and a smothered scream.
+
+Lois put down her knife.
+
+"Won't you come and help me?" she said to Beatrice. "Your mother will
+not notice that you have gone."
+
+Beatrice nodded, and letting the heavy head sink back among the
+cushions, came over to Lois' side.
+
+"How brave you are!" she said in a whisper. "You seem so cool and
+collected, just as though you believed your sandwiches would ever be
+eaten!"
+
+"I am not braver than you are. Look how steady your hand is--much
+steadier than mine."
+
+Beatrice held out her white hand and studied it thoughtfully.
+
+"I am not afraid," she said, "but not because I am brave. There is no
+room for fear, that is all." She paused an instant, and then suddenly
+the hand fell on Lois'. The two women looked at each other. "Lois, I
+am so sorry."
+
+"For me?"
+
+"For you and every one. I have hurt so many. It has all been my fault.
+I would give ten lives if I had them to see the harm undone. But that
+isn't possible. Oh, Lois, there is surely nothing worse than helpless
+remorse!"
+
+The hand within her own tightened in its clasp.
+
+"Is it ever helpless, though?"
+
+"I can't give the dead life--I can't give back a man's faith, can I?"
+
+The light of understanding deepened in Lois' eyes.
+
+"Beatrice--I believe I know!"
+
+"Yes, I see you do. Do you despise me? What does it matter if you do?
+It has been my fear of the world and its opinion that helped to lead
+me wrong. Isn't it a just punishment? I have ruined both our lives.
+Lois, I couldn't help hearing what Captain Nicholson said to you. It
+explained what you said to me about building on the ruins of the past.
+That was what he did--he built a beautiful palace on me--and I wrecked
+it. I failed him."
+
+"Have you really failed him?"
+
+"Lois, I don't know--I am beginning to believe not. But it is too
+late. I meant to clear away the rubbish--and build. But there is no
+time."
+
+"You have done your best."
+
+"Oh, if I could only save him, Lois! He was the first man I had ever
+met whom I trusted, the first to trust me. I owe him everything, the
+little that is good in me. It had to come to life when he believed in
+it so implicitly. And he owes me ruin, outward and inward ruin."
+
+Lois made no answer. With a warm, impulsive gesture she put her arms
+about the taller woman's neck and, drawing the beautiful face down to
+her own, kissed her. Beatrice responded, and thus a friendship was
+sealed--not for life but for death, whose grim cordon was with every
+moment being drawn closer about them.
+
+The sound of firing had now grown incessant. One report followed
+another at swift, irregular intervals, and each sounded like a clap of
+thunder in the silent room. Mrs. Cary stirred uneasily in her sleep, a
+low, scarcely audible groan escaped the parted lips, as though even in
+her dreams she was being pursued by fear's pitiless phantom. Her
+self-appointed nurse continued to fan her with the energy of despair,
+the poor livid face twitching at every fresh threatening sound. Mrs.
+Carmichael still pretended to be absorbed in her pinafore, but the
+revolver lay on the table, ready to hand, and there was a look in the
+steady eyes which boded ill for the first enemy who should confront
+her. Lois and Beatrice continued their fruitless task.
+
+A woman's courage is the supreme victory of mind over matter. It is no
+easy thing for a hero to sit still and helpless while death rattles
+his bullet fingers against the walls and screams in voices of hate and
+fury from a distance which every minute diminishes. For a woman
+burdened with the disability of a high-strung nervous system, it is a
+martyrdom. Yet these women, brought up on the froth of an enervating,
+pleasure-seeking society, held out--held out with a martyr's courage
+and constancy--against the torture of inactivity, of an imagination
+which penetrated the sheltering walls out into the night where fifty
+men writhed in a death-struggle with hundreds--saw every bleeding
+wound, heard every smothered moan of pain, felt already the cold iron
+pierce their own breasts. The hours passed, and they did not yield.
+They had ceased from their incongruous tasks, and stood and waited,
+wordless and tearless.
+
+As the first grey lights of dawn crept into the stifling room they
+heard footsteps hurrying across the adjacent room, and each drew
+herself upright to meet the end. Mrs. Carmichael's hand tightened over
+the revolver, but it was only Mr. Berry who entered. The little
+missionary, a shy, society-shunning man, noted for doing more harm
+than good among the natives by his zealous bigotry and ignorance of
+their prejudices, stood revealed in a new light. His face was grimed
+with dirt and powder, his clothes disordered, his weak eyes bright
+with the fire of battle.
+
+"Do not be afraid," he said quickly. "There is no immediate danger. I
+have only been sent to warn you to be ready to leave the bungalow. The
+front wall is shot-riddled, and the place may become indefensible at
+any moment. When that time comes, you must slip out to the old
+bungalow. Nicholson believes he can hold out there."
+
+"My husband--?" interrupted Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+"Your husband is safe. In fact, all three were well when I left. If I
+wasn't against such things, I should say it was a splendid fight--and
+every man a hero. The Rajah--"
+
+"The Rajah--?"
+
+Mr. Berry looked in stern surprise at the pale face of the speaker.
+
+"The Rajah has a charmed life," he said somberly. "He is always in the
+front of his men--we can recognize him by his dress and figure--he is
+always within range, but we can't hit him. Not that I ought to wish
+his death, though it's our only chance." He put his hands distractedly
+to his head. "Heaven knows, it's too hard for a Christian man! Every
+time I see an enemy fall, I rejoice--and then I remember that it is my
+brother--" He stopped, the expression on his face of profound trouble
+giving way to active alarm. "Hush! Some one is coming!"
+
+A second time the door opened, and Travers rushed in. Lois saw his
+face, and something in her recoiled in sick disgust. Fear, an almost
+imbecilic fear, was written on the wide-open, staring eyes, and the
+hand that held the revolver trembled like that of an old man.
+
+"Quick--out by the back way!" he stammered incoherently. "I will lock
+the door--so. That will keep them off a minute. They are bound to look
+for us here first. Nicholson is retiring with his men--they are going
+to have a try to bring down the Rajah. It's our one chance. It may
+frighten the devils--they think he's a god. I believe he is, curse
+him!" All the time, he had been piling furniture against the door with
+a mad and feverish energy. "Help me! Help me!" he screamed. "Why don't
+you help? Do you want to be killed like sheep?"
+
+Lois drew him back by the arm.
+
+"You are wasting time," she said firmly. "Come with us! Why, you are
+hurt!"
+
+He looked at the thin stream which trickled down the soiled white of
+his coat. A silly smile flickered over his big face.
+
+"Oh, yes, a scratch. I hardly feel it. It isn't anything. It can't be
+anything. There's nothing vital thereabouts, is there, Berry?"
+
+The missionary shrugged his shoulders. He had flung open the glass
+doors which led on to the verandah, and the brightening dawn flooded
+in upon them.
+
+"Come and help me carry this poor lady," he said. "We have not a
+minute to lose."
+
+Travers tried to obey, but he had no strength, and the other thrust
+him impatiently on one side.
+
+"Mrs. Carmichael, you are a strong woman," he appealed. Between them
+they managed to bring Mrs. Cary's heavy, unconscious frame down the
+steps. It was a nerve-trying task, for their progress was of necessity
+a slow one, and the sound of the desperate fighting seemed to surround
+them on every side. It was with a feeling of intense relief that the
+little party saw Nicholson appear from amidst the trees and run toward
+them.
+
+"That's right!" he cried. "Only be quick! They are at us on all sides
+now, but my men are keeping them off until you are out of the
+bungalow. The old ruin at the back of the garden is our last stand.
+Carmichael is there already with a detachment, and is keeping off a
+rear attack. I shall remain here."
+
+"Alone?" Berry asked anxiously.
+
+"Yes. I believe they will ransack the bungalow first. When they come,
+the Rajah is sure to be at their head, and--well, it's going to be
+diamond cut diamond between us two when we meet. I know the beggars
+and their superstition. If I get in the first shot, they will bolt. If
+_he_ does--"
+
+"You are going to shoot him down like a rat in a trap!" Beatrice burst
+out passionately.
+
+The others had already hurried on. With a gentle force he urged her to
+follow them.
+
+"Or be shot down myself," he said. "Leave me to do my duty as I think
+best."
+
+She met his grave eyes defiantly, but perhaps some instinct told her
+that he was risking his life for a poor chance--for their last chance,
+for without a word she turned away, apparently in the direction which
+her companions had already taken.
+
+As soon as she was out of sight, Nicholson recharged his smoking
+revolver, and stood there quietly waiting. His trained ear heard the
+firing in front of the bungalow cease. He knew then that his men were
+retiring to join Colonel Carmichael, and that he stood alone, the last
+barrier between death and those he loved. The sound of triumphant
+shouting drew nearer; he heard the wrenching and tearing of doors
+crashing down before an impetuous onslaught, the cling of steel, a
+howl of sudden satisfaction. His hand tightened upon his revolver; he
+stood ready to meet his enemy single-handed, to fight out the duel
+between man and man. But no one came. A bewildering silence had
+followed upon the last bloodthirsty cry. It was as though the hand of
+death had fallen and with one annihilating blow beaten down the
+approaching horde in the high tide of their victory. But of the two
+this strange stillness was the more terrible. It penetrated to the
+little waiting group in the old bungalow and filled them with the
+chill horror of the unknown. Something had happened--that they felt.
+
+Lois crept to the doorway and peered out into the gathering daylight.
+Here and there, half hidden behind the shelter of the trees, she could
+see the khaki-clad figures of the Gurkhas, some kneeling, some
+standing, their rifles raised to their dark faces, waiting like
+statues for the enemy that never came. A dead, petrified world, the
+only living thing the sunshine, which played in peaceful indifference
+upon the scene of an old and a new tragedy! Lois thought of her
+mother. By the power of an overwrought imagination she looked back
+through a quarter of a century to a day of which this present was a
+strange and horrible repetition. For a moment she lived her mother's
+life, lived through the hours of torturing doubt and fear, and when a
+stifled cry called her back to the reality and forced her to turn from
+the sunlight to the dark room, it was as though the dead had risen, as
+though her dreams had taken substance. She saw pale faces staring at
+her; she saw on the rusty truckle-bed a figure which rose up and held
+out frantic, desperate arms toward her. But it was no dream--no
+phantom. Mrs. Cary, wild-eyed and distraught, struggled to rise to her
+feet and come toward her.
+
+"Where is Beatrice?" she cried hysterically. "Where is Beatrice? I
+dreamed she was dead!--It isn't true! Say it isn't true!"
+
+Lois hurried back. In the confusion of their retreat she had lost
+sight of Beatrice, and now a cold fear froze her blood. She called her
+name, adding her voice to the half-delirious mother's appeal; but
+there was no answer, and as she prepared to leave the shelter of the
+bungalow to go in search of the lost girl, a pair of strong hands
+grasped her by the shoulders and forced her back.
+
+"Lois, stand back! They are coming!"
+
+Colonel Carmichael thrust her behind him, and an instant later she
+heard the report of his revolver. There was no answering volley. A
+dark, scantily-clad figure sprang through the trees, waving one hand
+as though in imperative appeal.
+
+"Don't fire--don't fire! It's me!"
+
+The Colonel's still smoking revolver sank, and the supposed native
+swayed toward him, only to sink a few yards farther on to the ground.
+Carmichael ran to his side and lifted the fainting head against his
+shoulder.
+
+"Good God, Geoffries! Don't say I've hit you! How on earth was I to
+know!"
+
+"That's all right, Colonel. Only winded--don't you know--never hurried
+so much in life. Have been in the midst of the beggars--just managed
+to slip through. O Lor', give me something to drink, will you?"
+Colonel Carmichael put his flask to the parched and broken lips.
+"Thanks, that's better. We got your message, and are coming on like
+fun. The regiment's only an hour off. You never saw Saunders in such a
+fluster--it's his first big job, you know." He took another deep
+draft, and wiped his mouth with the corner of his ragged tunic. "I
+say--don't look at me, Miss Lois. I'm not fit to be seen." He laughed
+hoarsely. "These clothes weren't made in Bond Street, and Webb assured
+me that the fewer I had the more genuine I looked. I say, Colonel,
+this is a lively business!"
+
+Colonel Carmichael nodded as he helped the gasping and exhausted man
+into the bungalow.
+
+"Too lively to be talked about," he said. "I doubt if the regiment
+isn't going to add itself to the general disaster."
+
+"Oh, rot!" was the young officer's forgetful lapse into disrespect.
+"The regiment will do for the beggars all right. They didn't expect us
+so soon, I fancy. Just listen! I believe I've frightened them away
+already. There isn't a sound."
+
+Colonel Carmichael lifted his head. True enough, no living thing
+seemed to move. A profound hush hung in the air, broken only by Mrs.
+Cary's pitiful meanings.
+
+"Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, where are you?"
+
+Geoffries turned his stained face to the Colonel's.
+
+"Beatrice! That's Miss Cary, isn't it? Anything happened to her?"
+
+Colonel Carmichael shrugged his shoulders with the impatience of a man
+whose nerves are overstrained by anxiety.
+
+"I don't know--we've lost her," he said. "We must do something at
+once. Heaven alone knows what has happened."
+
+No one indeed knew what had happened--not even the lonely man who
+waited, revolver in hand, for the final encounter on whose issue hung
+the fortunes of them all.
+
+Only one knew, and that was Beatrice herself as she stood before the
+shattered doorway of the Colonel's drawing-room, amidst the debris of
+wrecked, shot-riddled furniture, face to face with Nehal Singh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HALF-LIGHT
+
+
+Once before she had placed herself in his path, trusting to her skill,
+her daring, above all, her beauty. With laughter in her heart and
+cold-blooded coquetry she had chosen out the spot before the altar
+where the sunlight struck burnished gold from her waving hair and lent
+deeper, softening shades to her eyes. With cruel satisfaction, not
+unmixed with admiration, she had seen her power successful and the
+awe-struck wonder and veneration creep into his face. In the silence
+and peace of the temple she had plunged reckless hands into the woven
+threads of his life. Amidst the shriek of war, face to face with
+death, she sought to save him. It was another woman who stood opposite
+the yielding, cracking door, past whose head a half-spent bullet spat
+its way, burying itself in the wall behind her,--another woman,
+disheveled, forgetful of her wan beauty, trusting to no power but that
+which her heart gave her to face the man she had betrayed and ruined.
+Yet both in an instantaneous flash remembered that first meeting. The
+drawn sword sank, point downward. He stood motionless in the shattered
+doorway, holding out a hand which commanded, and obtained, a
+petrified, waiting silence from the armed horde whose faces glared
+hatred and the lust of slaughter in the narrow space behind. Whatever
+had been his resolution, whatever the detestation and contempt which
+had filled him, all sank now into an ocean of reborn pain.
+
+"Why are you here?" he asked sternly. "Why have you not fled?"
+
+"We are all here," she answered. "None of us has fled. Did you not
+know that?"
+
+He looked about him. A flash of scorn rekindled in his somber eyes.
+
+"You are alone. Have they deserted you?"
+
+"They do not know that I am here. I crept back of my own free will--to
+speak with you, Nehal."
+
+Both hands clasped upon his sword-hilt, erect, a proud figure of
+misfortune, he stood there and studied her, half-wonderingly,
+half-contemptuously. The restless forces at his back were forgotten.
+They were no more to him than the pawns with which his will played
+life and death. He was their god and their faith. They waited for his
+word to sweep out of his path the white-faced Englishwoman who held
+him checked in the full course of his victory. But he did not speak to
+them, but to her, in a low voice in which scorn still trembled.
+
+"You are here, no doubt, to intercede for those others--or for
+yourself. You see, I have learned something in these two years. It is
+useless. No one can stop me now."
+
+"No one?"
+
+He smiled, and for the first time she saw a sneer disfigure his lips.
+
+"Not even you, Miss Cary. You have done a great deal with me--enough
+perhaps to justify your wildest hopes--but you have touched the limits
+of your powers and of my gullibility. Or did you think there were no
+limits?"
+
+"I do not recognize you when you talk like that!" she exclaimed.
+
+"That is surprising, seeing that you have made me what I am," he
+answered. Then he made a quick gesture of apology. "Forgive me, that
+sounded like a reproach or a complaint. I make neither. That is not my
+purpose."
+
+"And yet you have the right," she said, drawing a deep breath, "you
+have every right, Nehal. It does not matter what the others did to
+you. I know that does not count an atom in comparison to my
+responsibilities. You trusted me as you trusted no one else, and I
+deceived you. So you have the right to hate me as you hate no one
+else. And yet--is it not something, does it not mitigate my fault a
+little, that I deceived myself far, far more than I ever deceived
+you?" He raised his eyebrows. There was mockery in the movement, and
+she went on, desperately resolute: "I played at loving you, Nehal. I
+played a comedy with you for my own purposes. And one day it ceased to
+be a comedy. I did not know it. I did not know what was driving me to
+tell the truth, and reveal myself to you in the ugliest light I could.
+I only knew it was something in me stronger than any other impulse of
+my life. I know what it is now, and you must know, too. Can't you
+understand? If it had been no more than a comedy, you must have found
+me out--months ago. But you never found me out. It was _I_ who told
+you what I had done and who I was--"
+
+"Why did you tell me?" He took an involuntary step toward her.
+Something in his face relaxed beneath the force of an uncontrollable
+emotion. He was asking a question which had hammered at the gates of
+his mind day after day and in every waking hour. "Why?" he repeated.
+
+"I have told you--because I had to. I had to speak the truth. I
+couldn't build up my new life on an old lie. You had to know. I had
+won your love by a trick. I had to show you the lowest and worst part
+of myself before the best in me could grow--the best in me, which is
+yours."
+
+"You are raving!"
+
+"I am not raving. You must see I am not. Look at me. I am calmer than
+you, though I face certain death. I knew when I came here that the
+chances were I should be killed before I even saw you, but I had to
+risk that. I had to win your trust back somehow, honestly and fairly.
+I can not live without your trust."
+
+"Beatrice!" The name escaped him almost without his knowledge. He saw
+tears spring to her eyes.
+
+"It is true. Your love and your trust have become my life. Then I was
+unworthy of both. I tried to make myself worthy. I did what I could. I
+told you the truth--I threw away the only thing that mattered to me. I
+could not hold your love any longer by a lie--I loved you too much!"
+
+For that moment the passionate energy of her words, the sincerity and
+eloquence of her glance, swept back every thought of suspicion. He
+stood stupefied, almost overwhelmed. Mechanically his lips formed
+themselves to a few broken sentences.
+
+"You can not know what you are saying. You are beside yourself. Once,
+in my ignorance, I believed it possible, but now I know that it could
+never be. Your race despises mine--"
+
+"I do not care what you are nor to whom you belong!" she broke in,
+exulting. "You are the man who taught me to believe that there is
+something in this world that is good, that is worthy of veneration;
+who awoke in me what little good I have. I love you. If I could win
+you back--"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I would follow you to the world's end!"
+
+"As my wife?"
+
+"As your wife!"
+
+He held out his arms toward her, impulse rising like the sun high and
+splendid above the mists of distrust. It was an instant's
+forgetfulness, which passed as rapidly as it had come. His arms sank
+heavily to his side.
+
+"Have you thought what that means? If you go with me, you must leave
+your people for ever."
+
+"I would follow you gladly."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"You do not understand. You must leave them now--now when I go against
+them."
+
+"No!" she broke in roughly. "You can't, Nehal, you can't. You have the
+right to be bitter and angry; you have not the right to commit a
+crime. And it would be a crime. You are plunging thousands into
+bloodshed and ruin--" He lifted his hand, and the expression in his
+eyes checked her.
+
+"So it is, after all, a bargain that you offer me!" he said. "You are
+trying to save them. You offer a high price, but I am not a merchant.
+I can not buy you, Beatrice."
+
+"It is not a bargain!" For the first time she faltered, taken aback by
+the pitiless logic of his words. "Can't you see that? Can't you see
+that, however much I loved you, I could not act otherwise than implore
+you to turn back from a step that means destruction for those bound to
+me by blood and country? Could I do less?"
+
+"No," he said slowly.
+
+She held out her hands to him.
+
+"Oh, Nehal, turn back while there is yet time! For my sake, for yours,
+for us all, turn back from a bloody, cruel revenge. The power is
+yours. Be generous. If we have wronged you, we have suffered and are
+ready to atone. _I_ am ready to atone. I _can_ atone, because I love
+you. I have spoken the truth to you. I have laid my soul bare to you
+as I have done to no other being. Won't you trust me?"
+
+His eyes met hers with a somber, hopeless significance which cut her
+to the heart.
+
+"I can't," he said. "I can't. That is what you have taught me--to
+distrust you--and every one."
+
+She stood silent now, paralyzed by the finality of his words and
+gesture. It was as though the shadow of her heartless folly had risen
+before her and become an iron wall of unrelenting, measured
+retribution against which she beat herself in vain. He lifted his head
+higher, seeming to gather together his shaken powers of self-control.
+
+"I can not trust you," he said again, "nor can I turn back. But there
+is one thing from the past which can not be changed. I love you. It
+seems that must remain through all my life. And because of that love I
+must save you from the death that awaits your countrymen." He smiled
+in faint self-contempt. "It is not for your sake that I shall save
+you; it is because I am too great a coward, and can not face the
+thought that anything so horrible should come near you." He turned to
+two native soldiers behind him and gave an order. When he faced
+Beatrice again he saw that she held a revolver in her hand.
+
+"You do not understand," she said. "You say you mean to save me, but
+that is not in your power. It is in your power to save us all, but not
+one alone. I know what my people have resolved to do. There are weak,
+frightened women among them, but not one of them will fall into your
+hands alive. Whatever happens, I shall share their fate."
+
+Though her tone was quiet and free from all bravado, he knew that she
+was not boasting. He knew, too, that she was desperate.
+
+"You can not force me to kill you," he said sternly.
+
+"I think it possible," she answered. She was breathing quickly, and
+her eyes were bright with a reckless, feverish excitement. But the
+hand that held the revolver pointed at the men behind him was
+steady--steadier than his own.
+
+Nehal Singh motioned back the two natives who had advanced at his
+order.
+
+"You play a dangerous game," he said, "and, as before, your strength
+lies in my weakness--in my folly. But this time you can not win. My
+word is given--to my people."
+
+"I shall not plead with you," she returned steadily, "and you may be
+sure I shall not waver. I am not afraid to die. I had hoped to atone
+for all the wrong that has been done you with my love for you, Nehal.
+I had hoped that then you would turn away from this madness and become
+once more our friend. To this end I have not hesitated to trample on
+my dignity and pride. I have not spared myself. But you will not
+listen, you are determined to go on, and I"--she caught her breath
+sharply--"surely you can understand? I love you, and you have made
+yourself the enemy of my country. Death is the easiest, the kindest
+solution to it all."
+
+Nehal Singh's brows knitted themselves in the anguish of a man who
+finds himself thwarted by his own nature. He tried not to believe her,
+and indeed, in all her words, though they had rung like music, his
+ear, tuned to suspicion, had heard the mocking undercurrent of
+laughter. She had laughed at him secretly through all those months
+when he had offered up to her the incense of an absolute faith, an
+unshared devotion. Even now she might be laughing at him, playing on
+that in him which nothing could destroy or conceal--his love for her.
+And yet--! Behind him he heard the uneasy stir of impatient feet, the
+hushed clash of arms. He stood between her and a certain, terrible
+death. One word from him, and it would be over--his path clear. But he
+could not speak that word. Treacherous and cruel as she had been, the
+halo of her first glory still hung about her. He saw her as he had
+first seen her--the golden image of pure womanhood--and, strange,
+unreasoning contradiction of the human heart, beneath the ashes of his
+old faith a new fire had kindled and with every moment burned more
+brightly. Unquenchable trust fought out a death struggle with
+distrust, and in that conflict her words recurred to him with poignant
+significance: "Death is the easiest, the kindest solution to it all."
+For him also there seemed no other escape. He pointed to the revolver.
+
+"For whom is that?" he asked.
+
+"I do not know--but I will make them kill me."
+
+"Why do you not shoot me, then?" he demanded, between despair and
+bitterness. "That would save you all. If I fell, they would turn and
+fly. They think I am Vishnu. Haven't you thought of that? I am in your
+power. Why don't you make yourself the benefactress of your country?
+Why don't you shoot her enemy?"
+
+She made no answer, but her eyes met his steadily and calmly. He
+turned away, groaning. In vain he fought against it, in vain stung
+himself to action by the memory of all that she had done to him. His
+love remained triumphant. In that supreme moment his faith burst
+through the darkness, and again he believed in her, believed in her
+against reason, against the world, against the ineffaceable past, and
+against himself. And it was too late. He no longer stood alone. His
+word was given.
+
+"Have pity on me!" he said, once more facing her. "Let me save you!"
+
+"I should despise myself, and you would despise me--even more than you
+do now. I can not do less than share the fate of those whose lives my
+folly has jeopardized."
+
+"At least go back to them--do not stay here. Beatrice, for God's
+sake!--I can not turn back. You have made me suffer enough--." He
+stood before her now as an incoherent pleader, and her heart burned
+with an exultation in which the thought of life and death played no
+part. She knew that he still loved her. It seemed for the moment all
+that mattered.
+
+"I can not," she said.
+
+"Beatrice, do not deceive yourself. Though my life is nothing to
+me--though I would give it a dozen times to save you--I can not do
+otherwise than go on. I may be weak, but I shall be stronger than my
+weakness. My word is given!"
+
+He spoke with the tempestuous energy of despair. The minutes were
+passing with terrible swiftness, and any moment the sea behind him
+might burst its dam and sweep her and him to destruction. Already in
+the distance he heard the dull clamour of voices raised in angry
+remonstrance at the delay. Only those immediately about him were held
+in awed silence by the power of his personality. Again Beatrice shook
+her head. She stood in the doorway which opened out into the garden
+where the besieged had taken refuge. There was no other way. He
+advanced toward her. Instantly she raised her revolver and pointed it
+at the first man behind him.
+
+"If I fire," she said, "not even you will be able to hold them back."
+
+It seemed to her that she stood like a frail wall between two
+overwhelming forces--on the one side, Nehal with his thousands; on the
+other, Nicholson--alone, truly, but armed with a set and pitiless
+resolve. A single sentence, which had fallen upon her ears months
+before, rose now out of an ocean of half-forgotten memories:
+"Nicholson is the best shot in India," some one had said: "he never
+misses." And still Nehal advanced. His jaws were locked, his eyes had
+a red fire in them. She knew then that the hour of hesitation was
+over, and that in that desperate struggle she had indeed lost.
+Uncontrollable words of warning rushed to her lips.
+
+"Nehal--turn back! Turn back!"
+
+He did not understand her. He thought she was still pleading with him.
+
+"I can not--God have pity on us both!"
+
+Then she too set her lips. She could not betray the last hope of that
+heroic handful of men and women behind her. He must go to his
+death--and she to hers. She fired,--whether with success or not, she
+never knew. In that same instant another sound broke upon their
+ears--the sound of distant firing, the rattle of drums and the high
+clear call of a trumpet. Nehal Singh swung around. She caught a
+glimpse of his face through the smoke, and she saw something written
+there which she could not understand. She only knew that his features
+seemed to bear a new familiarity, as though a mask had been torn from
+them, revealing the face of another man, of a man whom she had seen
+before, when and where she could not tell. She had no time to analyze
+her emotions nor the sense of violent shock which passed over her. She
+heard Nehal Singh giving sharp, rapid orders in Hindustani. The room
+emptied. She saw him follow the retreating natives. At the door he
+turned and looked back at her. At no time had his love for her
+revealed itself more clearly than in that last glance.
+
+"The English regiment has come to help you," he said. "Fate has
+intervened between us this time. May we never meet again!"
+
+He passed out through the shattered doorway, but she stood where he
+had left her, motionless, almost unconscious. It was thus Nicholson
+and the Colonel found her when, a moment later, they entered the room
+by the verandah. Colonel Carmichael's passionate reproaches died away
+as he saw her face.
+
+"You must not stop here," he said. "You have frightened us all
+terribly. The regiment has come and is attacking. There will be some
+desperate fighting. We must all stick together."
+
+She caught Nicholson's eyes resting on her. She thought she read pity
+and sympathy in their steady depths, and wondered if he guessed what
+she had tried to do. But he said nothing, and she followed the two men
+blindly and indifferently back to the bungalow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TRAVERS
+
+
+They had no light. They talked in whispers, and now and again, when
+the darkness grew too oppressive, they stretched out groping hands and
+touched each other. They did this without explanation. Though none
+complained or spoke of fear, each needed the consolation of the
+other's company, and a touch was worth more than words. Mrs. Cary
+alone needed nothing. She lay on the rough truckle-bed and slept. Thus
+she had been for a week--a whole week of nerve-wrecking struggle
+against odds which marked hope as vain. Bullets had beaten like rain
+upon the walls about her, the moaning of wounded men on the other side
+of the hastily constructed partition mingled unceasingly with the
+cries of the ever-nearing enemy. And she had lain there quiet and
+indifferent. Martins, the regiment's doctor, had looked in once at her
+and had shaken his head. "In all probability she will never wake," he
+had said. "Perhaps it is the kindest thing that could happen to her."
+And then he had gone his way to those who needed him more.
+
+Mrs. Berry knelt by the bedside. Her hands were folded. She had been
+praying, but exhaustion had overcome her, and her quiet, peaceful
+breathing contrasted strangely with the other sounds that filled the
+bungalow. Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice sat huddled close together,
+listening. They could do nothing--not even help the wounded men who
+lay so close to them. Everything was in pitch darkness, and no lights
+were allowed. They could not go out and help in the stern, relentless
+struggle that was going on about them. They bore the woman's harder
+lot of waiting, inactive, powerless, fighting the harder battle
+against uncertainty and all the horrors of the imagination.
+
+"I am sorry the regiment has come," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "There
+is no doubt they will be massacred with the rest of us. What are a few
+hundreds against thousands? It is a pity. They are such fine fellows."
+
+Her rough, tired voice had a ring of unconquerable pride in it. She
+was thinking of the gallant charge her husband's men had made only two
+weeks before; how they had broken through the wall of the enemy, and,
+cheering, had rushed to meet the besieged garrison. That had been a
+moment of rejoicing, transitory and deceptive. Then the wall closed in
+about them again, and they knew that they were trapped.
+
+"Perhaps we can hold out till help comes," Beatrice said.
+
+She tried not to be indifferent. For the sake of her companions she
+would gladly have felt some desire for life, but in truth it had no
+value for her. She could think of nothing but the evil she had done
+and of the atonement that had been denied her. It was to no purpose
+that she worked unceasingly for the wounded. The sense of
+responsibility never left her. Each moan, each death-sigh brought the
+same meaning to her ear: "You have helped to do this--this is your
+work."
+
+"No help will come," Mrs. Carmichael said, shaking her head at the
+darkness. "When a whole province rises as this has done, it takes
+months to organize a sufficient force, and we shan't last out many
+days. I wonder what people in England are saying. How well I can see
+them over their breakfast cups! Oh, dear, I mustn't think of breakfast
+cups, or I shall lose my nerve." She laughed under her breath, and
+there was a long silence.
+
+Presently the door of the bungalow opened, letting in a stream of
+moonlight. It was closed instantly, and soft footfalls came over the
+boarded floor.
+
+"Who is it?" Mrs. Carmichael whispered.
+
+"I--Lois," was the answer. The new-comer crept down by Beatrice's side
+and leaned her head against the warm shoulder. "I am so tired," she
+said faintly. "I have been with Archibald. He has been moaning so. Mr.
+Berry says he is afraid mortification has set in. It is terrible."
+
+"Poor little woman!" Beatrice put her arm about the slender figure and
+drew her closer. "Lay your head on my lap and sleep a little. You can
+do no good just now."
+
+"Thank you. I will, if you don't mind. You will wake me if anything
+happens, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I promise." It gave Beatrice a sense of comfort to have Lois
+near her. Very gently she passed her hand over the aching forehead,
+and presently Lois fell into a sleep of absolute exhaustion.
+
+By mutual consent, Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice ceased to talk, but
+when suddenly there was a movement close to them, and a dim light
+flashed over the partition, they exchanged a glance of meaning.
+
+"That is my husband," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "Something is going
+to happen. Listen!"
+
+She was not wrong in her supposition. The Colonel had entered the next
+room, followed by Nicholson and Saunders, and had closed the door
+carefully after him. All three men carried lanterns. They glanced
+instinctively at the wooden partition which divided them from the four
+women, but Carmichael shook his head.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "They must be fast asleep, poor souls.
+Let's have a look at these fellows." He went over to a huddled-up
+figure lying in the shadow. The corner of a military cloak had been
+thrown over the face. He drew it on one side and then let it drop.
+"Gone!" he said laconically. He passed on to the next. There were in
+all three men ranged against the wall. Two of them were dead. "Martins
+told me they couldn't last," Colonel Carmichael muttered. "It is
+better for them. They are out of it a little sooner, that's all." The
+third man was Travers. He lay on his back, his face turned slightly
+toward the wall, his eyes closed. He seemed asleep. The Colonel nodded
+somberly. "Another ten hours," he calculated.
+
+He came back to the table, where the others waited, and drew out a
+paper from his pocket.
+
+"Give me your light a moment, Nicholson," he said.
+
+No one spoke while he examined the list before him. All around them
+was a curious hush--a new thing in their struggle, and one that seemed
+surcharged with calamity. After a moment Colonel Carmichael looked up.
+He was many years the senior of his companions, but just then there
+seemed no difference in years between them. They were three wan,
+haggard men, weakened with hunger, exhausted with sleepless watching.
+That week had killed the youth in two of them.
+
+"Geoffries has just given me this," Carmichael said. "It is a list of
+our provisions. We have enough food, but there is no fresh water. The
+enemy has cut off the supply. We could not expect them to do
+otherwise." He waited, and then, as neither spoke, he went on: "I have
+spoken with the others. You know, gentlemen, we can not go on another
+twenty-four hours without water. We have made a good fight for it, but
+this is the end. We must look the fact in the face."
+
+"Surely they must know at headquarters what a state we are in--"
+Saunders began.
+
+The Colonel shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"No doubt they know, but they can not help in time. This is not a
+petty frontier business. It is something worse--a rising with a leader.
+A rising with a leader is a lengthy business to tackle, and it
+requires its victims. In this case we are the victims." He smiled
+grimly. "We have only one thing left to do--make a dash for it while we
+have the strength. You must know as well as I do that there is
+scarcely anything worth calling a hope, but it's a more agreeable way
+of dying than being starved out like rats and then butchered like
+sheep. I know these devils." He glanced around the shadowy room with a
+curious light in his eyes. "My best friend was murdered in this room,"
+he added. "Personally, I prefer a fair fight in the open."
+
+"When do you propose to make the start, Colonel?" Nicholson asked.
+
+"Within an hour. The night favors us. The women must be kept in the
+center as much as possible. I have given Geoffries special charge over
+them. They will be told at the last moment. There is no use in
+spoiling what little rest they have had." He drew out a pencil and
+began to scribble a despatch on the back of an old letter. "I advise
+you gentlemen to do likewise," he said. "Very often a piece of paper
+gets through where a man can not, and it is our bounden duty to supply
+the morning periodicals with as much news as possible."
+
+For some minutes there was no sound save that of the pencils scrawling
+the last messages of men with the seal of death already stamped upon
+their foreheads. All three had forgotten Travers, and yet from the
+moment they had begun to speak he had been awake and listening. He sat
+up now, leaning upon his elbow.
+
+"Nicholson!" he said faintly.
+
+Nicholson turned and came to his side.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "Awake, are you? How are you?"
+
+Travers made no immediate answer; he took Nicholson's hand in a
+feverish clasp and drew him nearer.
+
+"I am in great pain," he said. "You don't need to pretend. I know. The
+fear of death has been on me all day. Just now I am not afraid. Is
+there no hope?"
+
+"You mean--for us? None."
+
+Travers nodded.
+
+"I heard you talking, but I wanted to make sure. It has all been my
+fault--every bit of it. It's decent of you not to make me feel it
+more. You are not to blame--her. You know I tempted her, I made her
+help me. She isn't responsible. At any rate, she made a clean breast
+of it--that's something to her credit. I didn't want to--I never meant
+to. I am not the sort that repents. But this last week you have been
+so decent, and Lois such a plucky little soul--she ought to hate
+me--and perhaps she does--but she has done her best. Nicholson, are
+you listening? Can you hear what I say? It's so damned hard for me to
+talk."
+
+"I can hear," Nicholson said kindly. "Don't worry about what can't be
+helped." In spite of everything, he pitied the man, and his tone
+showed it.
+
+Travers lifted himself higher, clinging to the other's shoulder. His
+voice began to come in rough, uneven jerks.
+
+"But it can be helped--it must be helped! Don't you see--I came
+between you and Lois purposely. From the first moment you spoke of her
+I knew that you loved her--and I wanted her. I never gave your
+message. I didn't dare. You are the sort of man a woman cares for--a
+woman like Lois. I couldn't risk it. But now--well, I'm done, and
+afterward she will be free--"
+
+Nicholson drew back stiffly.
+
+"You are talking nonsense," he said, in a colder tone. "No one wants
+you to die--and in any case, you know very well we have no chance of
+getting through this alive."
+
+Travers seized his arm. His eyes shone with a painful excitement.
+
+"Yes--yes!" he stammered. "You have a chance--a sure hope. I can save
+you; I can--atone. That's what I want. Only you must help me. I am a
+dying man. I want you to bring me to the Rajah--at once. Only five
+minutes with him--that will be enough. Then he will let you go--he
+must!"
+
+Nicholson freed himself resolutely from the clinging hands.
+
+"You exaggerate your power," he said, "and, besides, what you ask is
+an impossibility."
+
+He turned away, but Travers caught his arm and held him with a
+frantic, desperate strength.
+little given to humiliating your neighbours, male or female....”
+
+“Yes, yes; but we are not so conceited or such play-actors as you are.
+A woman may think herself pretty and amiable and sweet, and not be so.
+That is true; but on the other hand, every man thinks himself braver
+than the Cid, even if he is afraid of a fly, and more talented than
+Seneca, even if he is a dolt.”
+
+“To sum up, men are a calamity.”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“And women spend their lives fishing for these calamities.”
+
+“They need them; there are inferior things which still are necessary.”
+
+“And there are superior things which are good for nothing.”
+
+“Will you come and take a drive with me, philosopher brother?”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Let’s go to the Villa Borghese. The carriage will be here in a moment.”
+
+“All right. Let us go there.”
+
+A two-horse victoria with rubber tires was waiting at the door, and
+Laura and Cæsar got in. The carriage went past the Treasury, and out
+the Porta Salaria, and entered the gardens of the Villa Borghese.
+
+The morning had been rainy; the ground was damp; the wind waved the
+tree-tops gently and caused a murmur like the tide. The carriage rolled
+slowly along the avenues. Laura was very gay and chatty. Cæsar listened
+to her as one listens to a bird warbling.
+
+Many times while listening he thought: “What is there inside this head?
+What is the master idea of her life? Has she really any idea about life,
+or has she none?”
+
+After several rounds they crossed the viaduct that unites the Villa
+Borghese with the Pincio gardens.
+
+
+
+_FROM THE PINCIO TERRACE_
+
+They approached the great terrace of the gardens by an avenue that has
+busts of celebrated men along both sides.
+
+“Poor great men!” exclaimed Cæsar. “Their statues serve only to
+decorate a public garden.” “They had their lives,” replied Laura, gaily;
+“now we have ours.”
+
+Laura ordered the coachman to stop a moment. The air was still murmuring
+in the foliage, the birds singing, and the clouds flying slowly across
+the sky.
+
+A man with a black box approached the carriage to offer them postcards.
+
+“Buy two or three,” said Laura.
+
+Cæsar bought a few and put them into his pocket. The vendor withdrew
+and Laura continued to look at Rome with enthusiasm.
+
+“Oh, how beautiful, how lovely it is! I never get tired of looking at
+it. It is my favourite city. ‘_O fior d’ogni cittá, donna del mondo_.’”
+
+“She is no longer mistress of the world, little sister.”
+
+“For me she is. Look at St. Peter’s. It looks like a shred of cloud.”
+
+“Yes, that’s so. It’s of a blue shade that seems transparent.”
+
+Bells were ringing and great majestic white clouds kept moving along the
+horizon; on the Janiculum the statue of Garibaldi rose up gallantly into
+the air, like a bird ready to take wing.
+
+“When I look at Rome this way,” murmured Laura, “I feel a pang, a pang
+of grief.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because I remember that I must die, and then I shall not come back
+to see Rome. She will be here still, century after century, full of
+sunlight, and I shall be dead.... It is horrible, horrible!”
+
+“And your religion?”
+
+“Yes, I know. I believe I shall see other things; but not these things
+that are so beautiful.”
+
+“You are an Epicurean.”
+
+“It is so beautiful to be alive!”
+
+They stayed there looking at the panorama. Below, in the Piazza del
+Popólo, they saw a red tram slipping along, which looked, at that
+distance, like a toy.
+
+A tilbury, driven by a woman, stopped near their carriage. The woman was
+blond with green eyes, prominent cheek-bones, and a little fur cap. At
+her feet lay an enormous dog with long flame-coloured hair.
+
+“She must be a Russian,” said Cæsar.
+
+“Yes. Do you like that type?”
+
+“She has a lot of character. She looks like one of the women that would
+order servants to be whipped.”
+
+The Russian was smiling vaguely. Laura told the coachman to drive on.
+They made a few rounds in the avenues of the Pincio. The music was
+beginning; a few carriages, and groups of soldiers and seminarians,
+crowded around the bandstand; Laura didn’t care for brass bands, they
+were too noisy for her, and she gave the coachman orders to drive to the
+Corso.
+
+
+
+_MEETING MARCHMONT_
+
+They passed in front of the Villa Medici, and when they got near the
+Piazza, della Trinitá de’ Monti they met a man on horseback, who, on
+seeing them, immediately approached the carriage. It was Archibald
+Marchmont, who had just arrived in Rome.
+
+“I thought you had forgotten us,” said Laura.
+
+“I forget you, Marchesa! Never.”
+
+“You say you came to Rome....”
+
+“From Nice I had to return to London, because my father was seriously
+ill with an attack of gout.”
+
+“He is well again?”
+
+“Yes, thank you. You are coming back from a drive?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Don’t you want to come and have tea with my wife and me?”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“At the Hotel Excelsior. We are staying there. Will you come?” “All
+right.”
+
+Laura accepted, and they went to the Via Veneto with the Englishman
+riding beside them.
+
+They went into the hotel and passed through to the “hall” full of
+people, Marchmont sent word to his wife by a servant, to come down.
+Laura and Cæsar seated themselves with the Englishman.
+
+“This hotel is unbearable,” exclaimed Marchmont; “there is nothing here
+but Americans.”
+
+“Your wife, however, must like that,” said Cæsar.
+
+“No. Susanna is more European every day, and she doesn’t care for the
+shrieking elegance of her compatriots. Besides, her father is here, and
+that makes her feel less American.”
+
+“It is an odd form of filial enthusiasm,” remarked Cæsar.
+
+“It doesn’t shock me. I almost think it’s the rule,” replied Marchmont;
+“at home I could see that my brothers and sisters hated one another
+cordially, and that every member of the family wanted to get away from
+the others. You two who are so fond of each other are a very rare
+instance. Is it frequent in Spain that brothers and sisters like one
+another?”
+
+“Yes, there are instances of it,” answered Cæsar, laughing.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont arrived, accompanied by an old man who evidently was her
+father, and two other men. Susanna was most smart; she greeted Laura and
+Cæsar very affably, and presented her father, Mr. Russell; then she
+presented an English author, tall, skinny, with blue eyes, a white
+beard, and hair like a halo; and then a young Englishman from the
+Embassy, a very distinguished person named Kennedy, who was a Catholic.
+
+
+
+_TEA_
+
+After the introductions they passed into the dining-room, which was
+most impressive. It was an exhibition of very smart women, some of
+them ideally beautiful, and idle men. All about them resounded a nasal
+English of the American sort.
+
+Susanna Marchmont served the tea and did the honours to her guests.
+They all talked French, excepting Mr. Russell, who once in a long while
+uttered some categorical monosyllable in his own language.
+
+Mr. Russell was not of the classic Yankee type; he looked like a vulgar
+Englishman. He was a serious man, with a short moustache, grey-headed,
+with three or four gold teeth.
+
+What to Cæsar seemed wonderful in this gentleman was his economy of
+words. There was not one useless expression in his vocabulary, and
+not the slightest redundancy; whatever partook of merit, prestige, or
+nobility was condensed, for him, to the idea of value; whatever partook
+of arrangement, cleanliness, order, was condensed to the word “comfort”;
+so that Mr. Russell, with a very few words, had everything specified.
+
+To Susanna, imbued with her preoccupation in supreme _chic_, her father
+no doubt did not seem a completely decorative father; but he gave Cæsar
+the impression of a forceful man.
+
+Near them, at a table close by, was a little blond man, with a hooked
+nose and a scanty imperial, in company with a fat lady. They bowed to
+Marchmont and his wife.
+
+“That gentleman looks like a Jew,” said Cæsar.
+
+“He is,” replied Marchmont, “that is Señor Pereyra, a rich Jew; of
+Portuguese origin, I think.”
+
+“How quickly you saw it!” exclaimed Susanna.
+
+“He has that air of a sick goat, so frequent in Jews.”
+
+“His wife has nothing sickly about her, or thin either,” remarked Laura.
+
+“No,” said Cæsar; “his wife represents another Biblical type; one of
+the fat kine of somebody’s dream, which foretold abundance and a good
+harvest.”
+
+The Englishman, Kennedy, had also little liking for Jews.
+
+“I do not hate a Jew as anti-Christian,” said Cæsar; “but as
+super-Christian. Nor do I hate the race, but the tendency they have
+never to be producers, but always middlemen, and because they incarnate
+so well for our era the love of money, and of joy and pleasure.”
+
+The English author was a great partisan of Jews, and he asserted that
+they were more distinguished in science and the arts than any other
+race. The Jewish question was dropped in an instant, when they saw a
+smart lady come in accompanied by a pale man with a black shock of hair
+and an uneasy eye.
+
+“That is the Hungarian violinist Kolozsvar,” said Susanna.
+
+“Kolozsvar, Kolozsvar!” they heard everybody saying.
+
+“Is he a great virtuoso?” Cæsar asked Kennedy.
+
+“No, I think not,” answered Kennedy. “It seems that this Hungarian’s
+speciality is playing the waltzes and folk-songs of his own country,
+which is certainly not anything great; but his successes are not
+obtained with the violin, but among the women. The ladies in London
+fight for him. His game is to pass himself off as a fallen man,
+depraved, worn-out. There you have his phraseology.... They see a man to
+save, to raise up, and convert into a great artist, and almost all of
+them yield to this temptation.”
+
+“That is comical,” said Cæsar, looking curiously at the fiddler and his
+lady.
+
+“To a Spaniard,” replied Kennedy, “it is comical; and probably it would
+be to an Italian too; but in England there are many women that have a
+purely imaginative idealism, a romanticism fed on ridiculous novels, and
+they fall into traps like these, which seem clumsy and grotesque to you
+here in the South, where people are more clear-sighted and realistic.”
+
+Cæsar watched the brave fiddler, who played the role of a man used up,
+to great perfection.
+
+After tea, Susanna invited them to go up to her rooms, and Laura and her
+brother and Kennedy and Mr. Russell went.
+
+The English author had met a colleague, with whom he stayed behind
+talking, and Marchmont remained in the “hall,” as if it did not seem to
+him proper for him to go to his wife’s rooms.
+
+Susanna’s rooms were very high, had balconies on the Via Veneto, and
+were almost opposite Queen Margherita’s palace. One overlooked the
+garden and could see the Queen Mother taking her walks, which is not
+without its importance for persons who live in a republic.
+
+Susanna was most amiable to Laura; repeated to all of them her
+invitation to come and see her again; and after they had all promised
+to see one another frequently, Cæsar and Laura went down to their
+carriage, and took a turn on the Corso by twilight.
+
+
+
+
+XIII. ESTHETICS AND DEMAGOGY
+
+_SUSANNA AND THE YOUNGSTERS_
+
+
+From this meeting on, Cæsar noticed that Marchmont paid court to Laura
+with much persistence. A light-hearted, coquettish woman, it pleased
+Laura to be pursued by a person like this Englishman, young,
+distinguished, and rich; but she was not prepared to yield. Her
+bringing-up, her class-feelings impelled her to consider adultery a
+heinous thing. Nor was divorce a solution for her, since accepting it
+would oblige her to cease being a Catholic and to quarrel irrevocably
+with the Cardinal. Marchmont showed no discretion in the way he paid
+court to Laura; he cared nothing about his wife, and talked of her with
+profound contempt....
+
+Laura found herself besieged by the Englishman; she couldn’t decide to
+discourage him entirely, and at critical moments she would take the
+train, go off to Naples, and come back two or three days later,
+doubtless with more strength for withstanding the siege.
+
+“As a matter of reciprocal justice, since he makes love to my sister,
+I ought to make love to his wife,” thought Cæsar, and he went several
+times to the Hotel Excelsior to call on Susanna.
+
+The Yankee wife was full of complaints against her husband. Her father
+had advised her simply to get a divorce, but she didn’t want to.
+She found such a solution lacking in distinction, and no doubt she
+considered the advice of an author in her own country very true, who had
+given this triple injunction to the students of a woman’s college: “Do
+not drink, that is, do not drink too much; do not smoke, that is, do not
+smoke too much; and do not get married, that is, do not get married too
+much.”
+
+It did not seem quite right to Susanna to get married too much. Besides
+she had a desire to become a Catholic. One day she questioned Cæsar
+about it:
+
+“You want to change your religion!” exclaimed Cæsar, “What for? I don’t
+believe you are going to find your lost faith by becoming a Catholic.”
+
+“And what do you think about it, Kennedy?” Susanna asked the young
+Englishman, who was there too.
+
+“To me a Catholic woman seems doubly enchanting.”
+
+“You would not marry a woman who wasn’t a Catholic?”
+
+“No, indeed,” the Englishman proclaimed.
+
+Cæsar and Kennedy disagreed about everything.
+
+Susanna discussed her plans, and constantly referred to Paul Bourget’s
+novel _Cosmopolis_, which had obviously influenced her in her
+inclination for Catholicism.
+
+“Are there many Jewish ladies who aspire to be baptized and become
+Catholics, as Bourget says?” asked Susanna.
+
+“Bah!” exclaimed Cæsar.
+
+“You do not believe that either?”
+
+“No, it strikes me as a piece of naïvety in this good soul of a
+novelist. To become a Catholic, I don’t believe requires more than some
+few pesetas.”
+
+“You are detestable, as a Cardinal’s nephew.”
+
+“I mean that I don’t perceive that there are any obstacles to prevent
+anybody from becoming a Catholic, as there are to prevent his becoming
+rich. What a high ambition, to aspire to be a Catholic! While nobody
+anywhere does anything but laugh at Catholics; and it has become an
+axiom: ‘A Catholic country is a country bound for certain ruin.’”
+
+Kennedy burst out laughing.
+
+Susanna said that she had no real faith, but that she did have a great
+enthusiasm for churches and for choirs, for the smell of incense and
+religious music.
+
+“Spain is the place for all that,” said Kennedy. “Here in Italy the
+Church ceremonies are too gay. Not so in Spain; at Toledo, at Burgos,
+there is an austerity in the cathedrals, an unworldliness....”
+
+“Yes,” said Cæsar; “unhappily we have nothing left there but
+ceremonies. At the same time, the people are dying of hunger.”
+
+They discussed whether it is better to live in a decorative, esthetic
+sphere, or in a more humble and practical one; and Susanna and Kennedy
+stood up for the superiority of an esthetic life.
+
+As they left the hotel Cæsar said to Kennedy:
+
+“Allow me a question. Have you any intentions concerning Mrs.
+Marchmont?”
+
+“Why do you ask?”
+
+“Simply because I shouldn’t go to see her often, so as not to be in the
+way.”
+
+“Thank you ever so much. But I have no intentions in relation to her.
+She is too beautiful and too rich a woman for a modest employee like me
+to fix his eyes on.”
+
+“Bah! A modest diplomat! That is absurd. It is merely that you don’t
+take to her.”
+
+“No. It’s because she is a queen. There ought to be some defect in her
+face to make her human.”
+
+“Yes; that’s true. She is too much of a prize beauty.”
+
+“That is the defect in the Yankee women; they have no character. The
+weight of tradition might be fatal to industry and modern life, but it
+is the one thing that creates the spirituality of the old countries.
+Beyond contradiction American women have intelligence, beauty, energy,
+attractive flashes, but they lack that particular thing created by
+centuries: character. At times they have very charming impulses. Have
+you heard the story about Prince Torlonia’s wife?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, Torlonia’s present wife was an American girl worth millions, who
+came with letters to the prince. He took her about Rome, and at the end
+of some days he said to her, supposing that the beautiful American had
+the intention of marrying: ‘I will introduce some young noblemen to
+you’; and she answered: ‘Don’t introduce anybody to me; because you
+please me more than anybody’; and she married him.”
+
+“It was a pretty impulse.”
+
+“Yes, Americans do things like that on the spur of the moment. But if
+you saw a Spanish woman behave that way, it would seem wrong to you.”
+
+Chattering amicably they came to the Piazza Esedra.
+
+“Would you care to have lunch with me?” said Kennedy.
+
+“Just what I was going to propose to you.”
+
+“I eat alone.”
+
+“I do not. I eat with my sister.”
+
+“The Marchesa di Vaccarone?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then you must pardon me if I accept your invitation, for I am very
+anxious to meet her.”
+
+“Then come along.”
+
+
+
+_RUSKIN AND THE PHILISTINES_
+
+They reached the hotel and Cæsar introduced his friend to Laura.
+
+“He is an admirer of yours.”
+
+“A respectful admirer... from a distance,” explained Kennedy.
+
+“But are there admirers of that sort?” asked Laura, laughing.
+
+“Here you have one,” said the Englishman. “I have known you by sight
+ever since I came to Rome, and have never had the pleasure of speaking
+to you until today.”
+
+“And have you been here a long time?”
+
+“Nearly two years.”
+
+“And do you like Rome; eh?”
+
+“I should say so! At first, I didn’t, I must admit. It was a
+disappointment to me. I had dreamed so much about Rome!” and Kennedy
+talked of the books and guides he had read about the Eternal City.
+
+“I must admit that I had never dreamed about Rome,” said Cæsar. “And
+you boast of that?” asked Laura.
+
+“No, I don’t boast of it, I merely state it. I understand how agreeable
+it is to know things. Cæsar died here! Cicero made speeches here! Saint
+Peter stumbled over this stone! It is fine! But not knowing things
+is also very comfortable. I am rather like a barbarian walking
+indifferently among monuments he knows nothing about.”
+
+“Doesn’t such an idea make you ashamed?”
+
+“No, why? It would be a bother to me to know a lot of things offhand. To
+pass by a mountain and know how it was thrown up, what it is composed
+of, what its flora and fauna are; to get to a town and know its history
+in detail.... What things to be interested in! It’s tiresome! I hate
+history too much. I far prefer to be ignorant of everything, and
+especially the past, and from time to time to offer myself a capricious,
+arbitrary explanation.”
+
+“But I think that knowing things not only is not tiresome,” said
+Kennedy, “but is a great satisfaction.”
+
+“You think even learning things is a satisfaction?”
+
+“Thousands of years ago one could know things almost without learning
+them; nowadays in order to know, one has to learn. That is natural and
+logical.”
+
+“Yes, certainly. And the effort to learn about useful things seems
+natural and logical to me too, but not to learn about merely agreeable
+things. To learn medicine and mechanics is logical; but to learn to look
+at a picture or to hear a symphony is an absurdity.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“At any rate the neophytes that go to see a Rafael picture or to hear
+a Bach sonata and have an exclamation all ready, give me the sad
+impression of a flock of lambs. As for your sublime pedagogues of the
+Ruskin type, they seem to me to be the fine flower of priggishness, of
+pedantry, of the most objectionable bourgeoisie.”
+
+“What things your brother is saying!” exclaimed Kennedy.
+
+“You shouldn’t notice him,” said Laura.
+
+“Those artistic pedagogues enrage me; they remind me of Protestant
+pastors and of the friars that go around dressed like peasants, and who
+I think are called Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. The pedagogues
+are Brothers of the Esthetic Doctrine, one of the stupidest inventions
+that ever occurred to the English. I don’t know which I find more
+ridiculous, the Salvation Army or Ruskin’s books.”
+
+“Why have you this hatred for Ruskin?”
+
+“I find him an idiot. I only skimmed through a book of his called _The
+Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and the first thing I read was a paragraph
+in which he said that to use an imitation diamond or any other imitation
+stone was a lie, an imposition, and a sin. I immediately said: ‘This man
+who thinks a diamond is the truth and paste a lie, is a stupid fool who
+doesn’t deserve to be read.’”
+
+“Yes, all right: you take one point of view and he takes another. I
+understand why Ruskin wouldn’t please you. What I do not understand is
+why you find it absurd that if a person has a desire to penetrate into
+the beauties of a symphony or a picture, he should do so. What is there
+strange in that?”
+
+“You are right,” said Cæsar; “whoever wants to learn, should. I have
+done so about financial questions.”
+
+“Is it true that your brother knows all about questions of money?”
+ Kennedy asked Laura.
+
+“He says so.”
+
+“I haven’t much belief in his financial knowledge.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“No, I have not. You are a sort of dilettante, half nihilist, half
+financier. You would like to pass for a tranquil, well-balanced man, for
+what is called a philistine, but you cannot compass it.”
+
+“I will compass it. It is true that I want to be a philistine, but a
+philistine out in the real world. All those great artists you people
+admire, Goethe, Ruskin, were really philistines, who were in the
+business of being interested in poetry and statues and pictures.”
+
+“Moncada, you are a sophist,” said Kennedy. “Possibly I am wrong in this
+discussion,” retorted Cæsar, “but the feeling I have is right. Artists
+irritate me; they seem to me like old ladies with a flatulency that
+prevents their breathing freely.”
+
+Kennedy laughed at the definition.
+
+
+
+_CHIC AND THE REVOLUTION_
+
+“I understand hating bad kings and conquerors; but artists! What harm do
+they do?” said Laura.
+
+“Artists are always doing harm to the whole of humanity. They have
+invented an esthetic system for the use of the rich, and they have
+killed the Revolution. The _chic_ put an end to the Revolution. And
+now everything is coming back; enthusiasm for the aristocracy, for the
+Church; the cult of kings. People look backward and the Revolutionary
+movement is paralysed. The people that irritate me most are those
+esthetes of the Ruskin school, for whom everything is religious: having
+money, buying jewels, blowing one’s nose... everything is religious.
+Vulgar creatures, lackeys that they are!”
+
+“My brother is a demagogue,” said Laura ironically.
+
+“Yes,” added Kennedy; “he doesn’t like categories.”
+
+“But each thing has its value whether he likes it or not.”
+
+“I do not deny different values, or even categories. There are things of
+great value in life; some natural, like youth, beauty, strength;
+others more artificial, like money, social position; but this idea of
+distinction, of aristocratic fineness, is a farce. It is a literary
+legend in the same style as the one current in novels, which tells
+us that the aristocrats of old families close their doors to rich
+Americans, or like that other story Mrs. Marchmont was talking to us of,
+about the Jewish ladies who were crazy to become Catholics.”
+
+“I don’t see what you are trying to prove by all this,” said Laura.
+
+“I am trying to prove that all there is underneath distinguished society
+is money, for which reason it doesn’t matter if it is destroyed. The
+cleverest and finest man, if he has no money, will die of hunger in a
+corner. Smart society, which thinks itself superior, will never receive
+him, because being really superior and intelligent is of no value on
+the market. On the other hand, when it is a question of some very rich
+brute, he will succeed in being accepted and fêted by the aristocrats,
+because money has a real value, a quotable value, or I’d better say, it
+is the only thing that has a quotable value.”
+
+“What you are saying isn’t true. A man doesn’t go with the best people
+merely because he is rich.”
+
+“No, certainly; not immediately. There is a preparatory process. He
+begins by robbing people in some miserable little shop, and feels
+himself democratic. Then he robs in a bank, and at that period he feels
+that he is a Liberal and begins to experience vaguely aristocratic
+ideas. If business goes splendidly, the aristocratic ideas get
+crystallized. Then he can come to Rome and go into ecstasies over
+all the humbugs of Catholicism; and after that, one is authorized to
+acknowledge that the religion of our fathers is a beautiful religion,
+and one finishes by giving a tip to the Pope, and another to Cardinal
+Verry, so that they will make him Prince of the Ecumenical Council or
+Marquis of the Holy Crusade.”
+
+“What very stupid and false ideas,” exclaimed Laura. “Really I
+appreciate having a brother who talks in such a vulgar way.”
+
+“You are an aristocrat and the truth doesn’t please you. But such are
+the facts. I can see the chief of the bureau of Papal titles. What fun
+he must have thinking up the most appropriate title for a magnate of
+Yankee tinned beef or for an illustrious Andean general! How magnificent
+it would be to gather all the Bishops _in partibus infidelium_ and all
+the people with Papal titles in one drawing-room! The Bishop of Nicaea
+discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire; the Marchioness of
+Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop of Sion, while the Patriarchs
+of Thebes, Damascus, and Trebizond played bridge with the sausage
+manufacturer, Mr. Smiles, the pork king, or with the illustrious General
+Pérez, the hero of Guachinanguito. What a moving spectacle it would be!”
+
+“You are a clown!” said Laura.
+
+“He is a finished satirist,” added Kennedy.
+
+
+
+_CÆSAR’S PLAN_
+
+After lunch, Laura, Kennedy, and Cæsar went into the salon, and Laura
+introduced the Englishman to the San Martino girls and the Countess
+Brenda. They stayed there chatting until four o’clock, at which time the
+San Martinos got ready to go out in a motor car, and Laura, with the
+Countess and her daughter, in a carriage.
+
+Cæsar and Kennedy went into the street together.
+
+“You are awfully well fixed here,” said Kennedy, “with no Americans, no
+Germans, or any other barbarians.”
+
+“Yes, this hotel is a hive of petty aristocrats.”
+
+“Your sister was telling me that you might pick out a very rich wife
+here, among the girls.”
+
+“Yes, my sister would like me to live here, in a foreign country, in
+cowlike tranquillity, looking at pictures and statues, and travelling
+pointlessly. That wouldn’t be living for me; I am not a society man. I
+require excitement, danger.... Though I warn you that I am not in the
+least courageous.”
+
+“You’re not?”
+
+“Not at all. Not now. At moments I believe I could control myself and
+take a trench without wavering.”
+
+“But you have some fixed plan, haven’t you?”
+
+“Yes, I expect to go back to Spain, and work there.”
+
+“At what?”
+
+“In politics.”
+
+“Are you patriotic?”
+
+“Yes, up to a certain point. I have no transcendental idea of patriotism
+at all. Patriotism, as I interpret it, is a matter of curiosity. I
+believe that there is strength in Spain. If this strength could be
+led in a given direction, where would it get to? That is my form of
+patriotism; as I say, it is an experimental form.”
+
+Kennedy looked at Cæsar with curiosity.
+
+“And how can it help you with your plans to stay here in Rome?” he
+asked.
+
+“It can help me. In Spain nobody knows me. This is the only place where
+I have a certain position, through being the nephew of a Cardinal. I am
+trying to build on that. How am I going to arrange it? I don’t know. I
+am feeling out my future course, taking soundings.”
+
+“But the support you could find here would be all of a clerical nature,”
+ said Kennedy.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“But you are not Clerical!”
+
+“No; but it is necessary for me to climb. Afterwards there will be time
+to change.”
+
+“You are not taking it into account, my dear Cæsar, that the Church is
+still powerful and that it doesn’t pardon people who impose upon it.”
+
+“Bah! I am not afraid of it.”
+
+“And you were just saying you are not courageous! You are courageous, my
+dear man.... After this, I don’t doubt of your success.”
+
+“I need data.”
+
+“If I can furnish you with any....”
+
+“Wouldn’t it be disagreeable for you to help a man who is your enemy, so
+far as ideas go?”
+
+“No; because I am beginning to have some curiosity too, as to whether
+you will succeed in doing something. If I can be of any use, let me
+know.”
+
+“I will let you know.”
+
+Cæsar and Kennedy took a walk about the streets, and at twilight they
+took leave of each other affectionately.
+
+
+
+
+XIV. NEW ATTEMPTS, NEW RAMBLES
+
+_CARDINAL SPADA_
+
+
+“I have arranged two interesting conferences for you,” said Kennedy, a
+few days later.
+
+“My dear man!”
+
+“Yes; one with Cardinal Spada, the other with the Abbé Tardieu. I have
+spoken to them both about you.”
+
+“Splendid! What kind of people are they?”
+
+“Cardinal Spada is a very intelligent man and a very amiable one. At
+heart he is a Liberal and fond of the French. As to the Abbé Tardieu, he
+is a very influential priest at the church of San Luigi.”
+
+After lunch they went direct to a solitary street in the old part of
+Rome. At the door of the big, sad palace where Cardinal Spada lived, a
+porter with a cocked hat, a grey greatcoat, and a staff with a silver
+knob, was watching the few passers-by.
+
+They went in by the broad entry-way, as far as a dark colonnaded court,
+paved with big flags which had grass between them.
+
+In the middle of the court a fountain shot up a little way and fell into
+a stone basin covered with moss.
+
+Kennedy and Cæsar mounted the wide monumental stairway; on the first
+floor a handsome glassed-in gallery ran around the court. The whole
+house had an air of solemnity and sadness. They entered the Cardinal’s
+office, which was a large, sad, severe room.
+
+Monsignor Spada was a vigorous man, despite his age. He looked frank
+and intelligent, but one guessed that there was a hidden bitterness and
+desolation in him. He wore a black cassock with red edges and buttons.
+
+Kennedy went close and was about to kneel to the Cardinal, but he
+prevented him.
+
+Cæsar explained his ideas to the Cardinal with modesty. He felt that
+this man was worthy of all his respect.
+
+Monsignor Spada listened attentively, and then said that he understood
+nothing about financial matters, but that on principle he was in favour
+of having the administration of all the Church’s property kept entirely
+at home, as in the time of Pius IX. Leo XIII had preferred to replace
+this paternal method by a trained bureaucracy, but the Church had not
+gained anything by it, and they had lost credit through unfortunate
+negotiations, buying land and taking mortgages.
+
+Cæsar realized that it was useless to attempt to convince a man of
+the intelligence and austerity of the Cardinal, and he listened to him
+respectfully.
+
+Monsignor Spada conversed amiably, he escorted them as far as the door,
+and shook hands when they said good-bye.
+
+
+
+THE ABBÉ TARDIEU
+
+Then they went to see the Abbé Tardieu. The abbé lived in the Piazza.
+Navona. His office, furnished in modern style, produced the effect of a
+violent contrast with Cardinal Spada’s sumptuous study, and yet brought
+it to mind. The Abbé Tardieu’s work-room was small, worldly, full of
+books and photographs.
+
+The abbé, a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long nose, and a
+mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an astute but jolly person,
+and laughed at everything said to him. He was liveliness personified.
+When they entered his office he was writing and smoking.
+
+Cæsar explained about his financial knowledge, and how he had gone on
+acquiring it, until he got to the point where he could discern a law, a
+system, in things where others saw nothing more than chance. The Abbé
+Tardieu promised that if he knew a way to utilize Cæsar’s knowledge, he
+would send him word. In respect to giving him letters of introduction to
+influential persons in Spain, he had no objection.
+
+They took leave of the abbé.
+
+“All this has to go slowly,” said Kennedy.
+
+“Of course. One cannot insist that it should happen all at once.”
+
+
+
+_BERNINI_
+
+“If you have nothing to do, let’s take a walk,” said the Englishman.
+
+“If you like.”
+
+“Have you noticed the fountains in this square?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“They are worth looking at.”
+
+Cæsar contemplated the central obelisk. It is set on top of a rock
+hollowed out like a cavern, in the mouth of which a lion is seen.
+Afterwards they looked at the fountains at the ends of the square.
+
+“The sculptures are by Bernini,” explained Kennedy. “Bernini belonged to
+an epoch that has been very much abused by the critics, but nowadays he
+is much praised. He enchants me.”
+
+“It is rather a mixed style, don’t you think?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The artist is not living?”
+
+“For heaven’s sake, man! No.”
+
+“Well, if he were alive today they would employ him to make those
+gewgaws some people present to leading ladies and to the deputies of
+their district. He would be the king of the manufacturers of ornate
+barometers.”
+
+“It is undeniable that Bernini had a baroque taste.”
+
+“He gives the impression of a rather pretentious and affected person.”
+
+“Yes, he does. He was an exuberant, luxuriant Neapolitan; but when he
+chose he could produce marvels. Haven’t you seen his Saint Teresa?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then you must see it. Let’s take a carriage.”
+
+They drove to the Piazza San Bernardo, a little square containing three
+churches and a fountain, and went into Santa Maria della Vittoria.
+
+Kennedy went straight toward the high altar, and stopped to the left of
+it.
+
+In an altar of the transept is to be seen a group carved in marble,
+representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Cæsar gazed at it absorbed.
+The saint is an attractive young girl, falling backward in a sensual
+spasm; her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her jaw a bit
+dislocated. In front of the swooning saint is a little angel who
+smilingly threatens her with an arrow.
+
+“Well, what do you think of it?” said Kennedy.
+
+“It is wonderful,” exclaimed Cæsar. “But it is a bedroom scene, only
+the lover has slipped away.”
+
+“Yes, that is true.”
+
+“It really is pretty; you seem to see the pallor of the saint’s face,
+the circles under her eyes, the relaxation of all her muscles. Then the
+angel is a little joker who stands there smiling at the ecstasy of the
+saint.”
+
+“Yes, that’s true,” said Kennedy; “it is all the more admirable for the
+very reason that it is tender, sensual, and charming, all at once.”
+
+“However, this sort of thing is not healthy,” murmured Cæsar, “this
+kind of vision depletes your life-force. One wants to find the same
+things represented in works of art that one ought to look for in life,
+even if they are not to be found in life.”
+
+“Good! Here enters the moralist. You talk like an Englishman,” exclaimed
+Kennedy. “Let us go along.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“I have to stop in at the French Embassy a moment; then we can go where
+you like.”
+
+
+
+_CORNERS OF ROME_
+
+They went back to the carriage, and having crossed through the centre of
+Rome, got out in front of the Farnese Palace.
+
+“I will be out inside of ten minutes,” said Kennedy.
+
+The Farnese Palace aroused great admiration in Cæsar; he had never
+passed it before. By one of the fountains in the _piazza,_ he stood
+gazing at the huge square edifice, which seemed to him like a die cut
+from an immense block of stone.
+
+“This really gives me an impression of grandeur and force,” he said to
+himself. “What a splendid palace! It looks like an ancient knight in
+full armour, looking indifferently at everything, sure of his own
+worth.”
+
+Cæsar walked from one end of the _piazza_ to the other, absorbed in the
+majestic pile of stone.
+
+Kennedy surprised him in his contemplation.
+
+“Now will you say that you are a good philistine?”
+
+“Ah, well, this palace is magnificent. Here are grandeur, strength,
+overwhelming force.”
+
+“Yes, it is magnificent; but very uncomfortable, my French colleagues
+tell me.”
+
+Kennedy related the history of the Farnese Palace to Cæsar. They went
+through the Via del Mascherone and came out into the Via Giulia.
+
+“This Via Giulia is a street in a provincial capital,” said Kennedy;
+“always sad and deserted; a Cardinal or two who like isolation are still
+living here.”
+
+At the entrance to the Via dei Farnesi, Cæsar stopped to look at two
+marble tablets set into the wall at the two sides of a chapel door.
+
+Cut on the tablets were skeletons painted black; on one, the words:
+“Alms for the poor dead bodies found in the fields,” and on the other:
+“Alms for the perpetual lamp in the cemetery.”
+
+“What does this mean?” said Cæsar.
+
+“That is the Church of the Orison of the Confraternity of Death. The
+tablets are modern.”
+
+They passed by the “Mascherone” again, and went rambling on until they
+reached the Synagogue and the Theatre of Marcellus.
+
+They went through narrow streets without sidewalks; they passed across
+tiny squares; and it seemed like a dead city, or like the outskirts of a
+village. In certain streets towered high dark palaces of blackish stone.
+These mysterious palaces looked uninhabited; the gratings were eaten
+with rust, all sorts of weeds grew on the roofs, and the balconies were
+covered with climbing plants. At corners, set into the wall, one saw
+niches with glass fronts. A painted madonna, black now, with silver
+jewels and a crown, could be guessed at inside, and in front a little
+lantern swung on a cord.
+
+Suddenly a cart would come down one of these narrow streets without
+sidewalks, driving very quickly and scattering the women and children
+seated by the gutter.
+
+In all these poor quarters there were lanes crossed by ropes loaded with
+torn washing; there were wretched black shops from which an odour of
+grease exhaled; there were narrow streets with mounds of garbage in the
+middle. In the very palaces, now shorn of their grandeur, appeared
+the same decoration of rags waving in the breeze. In the Theatre of
+Marcellus one’s gaze got lost in the depths of black caves, where smiths
+stood out against flames.
+
+This mixture of sumptuousness and squalor, of beauty and ugliness, was
+reflected in the people; young and most beautiful women were side by
+side with fat, filthy old ones covered with rags, their eyes gloomy, and
+of a type that recalled old African Jewesses.
+
+
+
+_WHAT CAN BE READ ON WALLS_
+
+Cæsar and Kennedy went on toward the Temple of Vesta and followed the
+river bank until the Tiber Embankment ended.
+
+Here the banks were green and the river clearer and more poetic. To the
+left rose the Aventine with its villas; in the harbour two or three tugs
+were tied up; and here and there along the pier stood a crane. Evening
+was falling and the sky was filling with pink clouds.
+
+They sat down awhile on the side of the road, and Cæsar entertained
+himself deciphering the inscriptions written in charcoal on a mud-wall.
+
+“Do you go in for modern epigraphy?” asked Kennedy.
+
+“Yes. It is one of the things I take pleasure in reading, in the towns
+I go to; the advertisements in the newspapers and the writings on the
+wall.”
+
+“It’s a good kind of curiosity.”
+
+“Yes, I believe one learns more about the real life in a town from such
+inscriptions than from the guide- and text-books.”
+
+“That’s possible. And what conclusions have you drawn from your
+observations?”
+
+“They are not of much value. I haven’t constructed a science of
+wall-inscriptions, as that fake Lambroso would have done.”
+
+“But you will construct it surely, when you have lighted on the
+underlying system.”
+
+“You think my epigraphical science is on the same level as my financial
+science. What a mistake!”
+
+“All right. But tell me what you have discovered about different towns.”
+
+“London, for instance, I have found, is childish in its inscriptions and
+somewhat clownish. When some sentimental foolishness doesn’t occur to a
+Londoner of the people, some brutality or rough joke occurs to him.”
+
+“You are very kind,” said Kennedy, laughing.
+
+“Paris has a vulgar, cruel taste; in the Frenchman of the people you
+find the tiger alternating with the monkey. There the dominant note on
+the walls is the patriotic note, insults to politicians, calling them
+assassins and thieves, and also sentiments of revenge expressed by
+an _‘A mort Dupin!’_ or _‘A mort Duval!’_ Moreover, there is a great
+enthusiasm for the guillotine.”
+
+“And Madrid?”
+
+“Madrid is at heart a rude, moral town with little imagination, and
+the epigraphs on the walls and benches are primitive.”
+
+“And in Rome what do you find?”
+
+“Here one finds a mixture of pornography, romanticism, and politics.
+A heart pierced by an arrow and poetic phrases, alternate with some
+enormous piece of filthiness and with hurrahs for Anarchy or for the
+_‘Papa-re.’_”
+
+“Well done!” said Kennedy; “I can see that the branch of epigraphy you
+practise amounts to something. It should be systematized and given a
+name.”
+
+“What do you think we should name it? Wallography?”
+
+“Very good.”
+
+“And one of these fine days we can systematize it. Now we might go and
+get dinner.”
+
+They took a tram which was coming back from St. Paul’s beyond the Walls,
+and returned to the heart of the city.
+
+
+
+_THE MONK WITH THE RED NOSE_
+
+The next day Cæsar was finishing dressing when the servant told him
+that a gentleman was waiting for him.
+
+“Who is it?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“It’s a monk.”
+
+Cæsar went to the salon and there found a tall monk with an evil face,
+a red nose, and a worn habit.
+
+Cæsar recalled having seen him, but didn’t know where.
+
+“What can I do for you?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“I come from His Eminence, Cardinal Fort. I must speak with you.”
+
+“Let’s go into the dining-room. We shall be alone there.”
+
+“It would be better to talk in your room.”
+
+“No, there is no one here. Besides, I have to eat breakfast. Will you
+join me?”
+
+“No, thanks,” said the monk.
+
+Cæsar remembered having seen that face in the Altemps palace. He was
+doubtless one of the domestic monks who had been with the Abbé Preciozi.
+
+The waiter came bringing Cæsar’s breakfast. “Will you tell me what it
+is?” said Cæsar to the ecclesiastic, while he filled his cup.
+
+The monk waited until the waiter was gone, and then said in a hard
+voice:
+
+“His Eminence the Cardinal sent me to bid you not to present yourself
+anywhere again, giving his name.”
+
+“What? What does this mean?” asked Cæsar, calmly.
+
+“It means that His Eminence has found out about your intrigues and
+machinations.”
+
+“Intrigues? What intrigues were those?”
+
+“You know perfectly well. And His Eminence forbids you to continue in
+that direction.”
+
+“His Eminence forbids me to pay calls? And for what reason?”
+
+“Because you have used his name to introduce yourself into certain
+places.”
+
+“It is not true.”
+
+“You have told people you went to that you are Cardinal Fort’s nephew.”
+
+“And I am not?” asked Cæsar, after taking a swallow of coffee.
+
+“You are trying to make use of the relationship, we don’t know with what
+end in view.”
+
+“I am trying to make use of my relationship to Cardinal Fort? Why
+shouldn’t I?”
+
+“You admit it?”
+
+“Yes, I admit it. People are such imbeciles that they think it is an
+honour to have a Cardinal in the family; I take advantage of this stupid
+idea, although I do not share it, because for me a Cardinal is merely an
+object of curiosity, an object for an archeological museum....”
+
+Cæsar paused, because the monk’s countenance was growing dark. In the
+twilight of his pallid face, his nose looked like a comet portending
+some public calamity.
+
+“Poor wretch!” murmured the monk. “You do not know what you are saying.
+You are blaspheming. You are offending God.” “Do you really believe that
+God has any relation to my uncle?” asked Cæsar, paying more attention
+to his toast than to his visitor.
+
+And then he added:
+
+“The truth is that it would be extravagant behaviour on the part of
+God.”
+
+The monk looked at Cæsar with terrible eyes. Those grey eyes of his,
+under their long, black, thick brows, shot lightning.
+
+“Poor wretch!” repeated the monk. “You ought to have more respect for
+things above you.”
+
+Cæsar arose.
+
+“You are bothering me and preventing me from drinking my coffee,” he
+said, with exquisite politeness, and touched the bell.
+
+“Be careful!” exclaimed the monk, seizing Cæsar’s arm with violence.
+
+“Don’t you touch me again,” said Cæsar, pulling away violently, his
+face pale and his eyes flashing. “If you do, I have a revolver here with
+five chambers, and I shall take pleasure in emptying them one by one,
+taking that lighthouse you carry about for a nose, as my target.”
+
+“Fire it if you dare.”
+
+Fortunately the waiter had come in on hearing the bell.
+
+“Do you wish anything, sir?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, please escort this clerical gentleman to the door, and tell him on
+the way not to come back here.”
+
+Days later Cæsar found out that there had been a great disturbance at
+the Altemps palace in consequence of the calls he had made. Preciozi
+had been punished and sent away from Rome, and the various Spanish
+monasteries and colleges warned not to receive Cæsar.
+
+
+
+
+XV. GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN
+
+
+“My dear Cæsar,” said Kennedy, “I believe it will be very difficult for
+you to find what you want by looking for it. You ought to leave it a
+little to chance.”
+
+“Abandon myself to events as they arrive? All right, it seems a good
+idea.”
+
+“Then if you find something practicable, utilize it.”
+
+Kennedy took his friend to a statue-shop where he used to pass some of
+his hours. The shop was in a lane near the Forum, and its stock was in
+antiques, majolicas, and plaster casts of pagan gods.
+
+The shop was dark and rather gloomy, with a small court at the back
+covered with vines. The proprietor was an old man, with a moustache,
+an imperial, and a shock of white hair. His name was Giovanni Battista
+Lanza. He professed revolutionary ideas and had great enthusiasm about
+Mazzini. He expressed himself in an ironical and malicious manner.
+
+Signora Vittoria, his wife, was a grumbling old woman, rather devoted to
+wine. She spoke like a Roman of the lowest class, was olive-coloured and
+wrinkled, and of her former beauty there remained only her very black
+eyes and hair that was still black.
+
+The daughter, Simonetta, a girl who resembled her father, blond, with
+the build of a goddess, was the one that waited on customers and kept
+the accounts.
+
+Simonetta, being the manager, divided up the profits; the elder son was
+head of the workshop and he made the most money; then came two workmen
+from outside; and then the father who still got his day’s wages, out
+of consideration for his age; and finally the younger son, twelve or
+fourteen years old, who was an apprentice.
+
+Simonetta gave her mother what was indispensable for household expenses
+and managed the rest herself.
+
+Kennedy retailed this information the first day they went to Giovanni
+Battista Lanza’s house. Cæsar could see Simonetta keeping the books,
+while the small brother, in a white blouse that came to his heels, was
+chasing a dog, holding a pipe in his hand by the thick part, as if it
+were a pistol, the dog barking and hanging on to the blouse, the small
+boy shrieking and laughing, when Signora Vittoria came bawling out.
+
+Kennedy presented Simonetta to his friend Cæsar, and she smiled and
+gave her hand.
+
+“Is Signore Giovanni Battista here?” Kennedy asked Signora Vittoria.
+
+“Yes, he is in the court.” she answered in her gloomy way.
+
+“Is something wrong with your mamma?” said Kennedy to Simonetta.
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+They went into the court and Giovanni Battista arose, very dignified,
+and bowed to Cæsar. The elder son and the two workmen in white blouses
+and paper caps were busy with water and wires, cleaning a plaster mould
+they had just emptied.
+
+The mould was a big has-relief of the Way of the Cross. Giovanni
+Battista permitted himself various jocose remarks about the Way of
+the Cross, which his son and the other two workmen heard with
+great indifference; but while he was still emptying his store of
+anti-Christian irony, the voice of Signora Vittoria was heard, crying
+domineeringly:
+
+“Giovanni Battista!”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“That’s enough, that’s enough! I can hear you from here.”
+
+“That’s my wife,” said Giovanni Battista, “she doesn’t like me to be
+lacking in respect for plaster saints.” “You are a pagan!” screamed the
+old woman. “You shall see, you shall see what will happen to you.”
+
+“What do you expect to have happen to me, darling?”
+
+“Leave her alone,” exclaimed the elder son, ill at ease; “you always
+have to be making mother fly into a rage.”
+
+“No, my boy, no; she is the one who makes me fly into a rage.”
+
+“Giovanni Battista is used to living among gods,” said Kennedy, “and he
+despises saints.”
+
+“No, no,” replied the cast-maker; “some saints are all right. If all
+the churches had figures by Donatello or Robbia, I would go to church
+oftener; but to go and look at those statues in the Jesuit churches,
+those figures with their arms spread and their eyes rolling.... Oh, no!
+I cannot look at such things.”
+
+Cæsar could see that Giovanni Battista expressed himself very well;
+but that he was not precisely a star when it came to working. After the
+mould for the bas-relief was cleaned and fixed, the cast-maker invited
+Cæsar and Kennedy to have a glass of wine in a wine-shop near by.
+
+“How’s this, are you leaving already, father?” said Simonetta, as he
+went through the shop to get to the street.
+
+“I’m coming back, I’m coming back right away.”
+
+
+
+_SUPERSTITIONS_
+
+The three of them went to a rather dirty tavern in the same lane,
+and settled themselves by the window. This post was a good point of
+observation for that narrow street, so crowded and so picturesque.
+
+Workmen went by, and itinerant vendors, women with kerchiefs, half
+head-dress and half muffler, and with black eyes and expressive faces.
+Opposite was a booth of coloured candies, dried figs strung on a reed,
+and various kinds of sweets.
+
+A wine-cart passed, and Kennedy made Cæsar observe how decorative it
+was with its big arm-seat in the middle and its hood above, like a
+prompter’s box.
+
+Giovanni Battista ordered a flask of wine for the three of them. While
+he chatted and drank, friends of his came to greet them. They were men
+with beards, long hair, and soft hats, of the Garbaldi and Verdi type so
+abundant in Italy.
+
+Among them were two serious old men; one was a model, a native of
+Frascati, with the face of a venerable apostle; the other, for contrast,
+looked like a buffoon and was the possessor of a grotesque nose, long,
+thin at the end and adorned with a red wart.
+
+“My wife has a deadly hatred for all of them,” said Giovanni Battista,
+laughing.
+
+“And why so?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“Because we talk politics and sometimes they ask me for a few
+pennies....”
+
+“Your wife must have a lively temper,...” said Cæsar.
+
+“Yes, an unhappy disposition; good, awfully good; but very
+superstitious. Christianity has produced nothing but superstitions.”
+
+“Giovanni Battista is a pagan, as his wife well says,” asserted Kennedy.
+
+“What superstitions has your wife?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“All of them. Romans are very superstitious and my wife is a Roman. If
+you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you see three, then your luck
+is magnificent and you have to swallow your saliva three times; on the
+other hand, if you see a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must
+spit on the ground to keep away the _jettatura_. Three priests together
+is a very good sign. We ought all to get along very well in Rome,
+because we see three and up to thirty priests together.”
+
+“A spider is also very significant,” said Kennedy; “in the morning it is
+of bad augury, and in the evening good.”
+
+“And at noon?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“At noon,” answered Lanza, laughing, “it means nothing to speak of. But
+if you wish to make sure whether it is a good auspice or a bad, you kill
+the spider and count its legs. If they are an even number, it is a good
+omen; if uneven, bad.”
+
+“But I believe spiders always have an even number of legs,” said Cæsar.
+
+“Certainly,” responded the old man; “but my wife swears they do not;
+that she has seen many with seven and nine legs. It is religious
+unreasonableness.”
+
+“Are there many people like that, so credulous?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“Oh, lots,” replied Lanza; “in the shops you will find amulets, horns,
+hands made of coral or horseshoes, all to keep away bad luck. My wife
+and the neighbour women play the lottery, by combining the numbers of
+their birthdays, and the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their
+children. When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of
+the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and buy a lottery
+ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing that their systems
+are of no avail, they say that they omitted to count in the number of
+letters in the name or something of that sort. It is comical, so much
+religion and so much superstition.”
+
+“But you confuse religion and superstition, my friend,” said Kennedy.
+
+“It’s all the same,” answered the old man, smiling his suavely ironical
+smile. “There is nothing except Nature.”
+
+“You do not believe in miracles, Giovanni Battista?” asked the
+Englishman.
+
+“Yes, I believe in the earth’s miracles, making trees and flowers grow,
+and the miracle of children’s being born from their mothers. The other
+miracles I do not believe in. What for? They are so insignificant beside
+the works of Nature!”
+
+“He is a pagan,” Kennedy again stated.
+
+
+
+_YOUNG PAINTERS_
+
+They were chatting, when three young lads came into the tavern, all
+three having the air of artists, black clothes, soft hats, flowing
+cravats, long hair, and pipes. “Two of them are fellow-countrymen of
+yours,” Kennedy told Cæsar.
+
+“They are Spanish painters,” the old man added. “The other is a sculptor
+who has been in the Argentine, and he talks Spanish too.”
+
+The three entered and sat down at the same table and were introduced to
+Cæsar. Everybody chattered. Buonacossi, the Italian, was a real type.
+Of very low stature, he had a giant’s torso and strong little legs. His
+head was like a woe-begone eagle, his nose hooked, thin, and reddish,
+eyes round, and hair black.
+
+Buonacossi proved to be gay, exuberant, changeable, and full of
+vehemence.
+
+He explained his artistic ideas with picturesque warmth, mingling them
+with blasphemies and curses. Things struck him as the best or the worst
+in the world. For him there doubtless were no middle terms.
+
+One of the two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, sour-visaged,
+and named Cortés; the other, large, ordinary, fleshy, and coarse, seemed
+rather a bully.
+
+Giovanni Battista was not able to be long outside the workshop, no doubt
+because his conscience troubled him, and though with difficulty, he got
+up and left. Kennedy, Cæsar, and the two Spaniards went toward the
+Piazza, del Campidoglio, and Buonacossi marched off in the opposite
+direction.
+
+On reaching the Via Nazionale, Kennedy took his leave and Cæsar
+remained with the two Spaniards. The red, fleshy one, who had the air of
+a bully, started in to make fun of the Italians, and to mimic their bows
+and salutes; then he said that he had an engagement with a woman and
+made haste to take his leave.
+
+When he had gone, the grave Spaniard with the sour face, said to Cæsar:
+
+“That chap is like the dandies here; that’s why he imitates them so
+well.”
+
+Afterwards Cortés talked about his studies in painting; he didn’t get
+on well, he had no money, and anyway Rome didn’t please him at all.
+Everything seemed wrong to him, absurd, ridiculous.
+
+Cæsar, after he had said good-bye to him, murmured: “The truth is that
+we Spaniards are impossible people.”
+
+
+
+
+XVI. THE PORTRAIT OF A POPE
+
+
+Two or three days later Cæsar met the Spaniard Cortés in the Piazza
+Colonna. They bowed. The thin, sour-looking painter was walking with a
+beardless young German, red and snub-nosed. This young man was a painter
+too, Cortés said; he wore a green hat with a cock’s feather, a blue
+cape, thick eyeglasses, big boots, and had a certain air of being a
+blond Chinaman.
+
+“Would you like to come to the Doria gallery with us?” asked Cortés.
+
+“What is there to see there?”
+
+“A stupendous portrait by Velázquez.”
+
+“I warn you that I know nothing about pictures.”
+
+“Nobody does,” Cortés declared roundly. “Everybody says what he thinks.”
+
+“Is the gallery near here?”
+
+“Yes, just a step.”
+
+In company with Cortés and the German with the green hat with the cock’s
+feather, Cæsar went to the Piazza del Collegio Romano, where the Doria
+palace is. They saw a lot of pictures which didn’t seem any better to
+Cæsar than those in the antique shops and the pawnbrokers’, but which
+drew learned commentaries from the German. Then Cortés took them to a
+cabinet hung in green and lighted by a skylight. There was nothing to
+be seen in the cabinet except the portrait of the Pope. In order that
+people might look at it comfortably, a sofa had been installed facing
+it.
+
+“Is this the Velázquez portrait?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“This is it.”
+
+Cæsar looked at it carefully. “That man had eaten and drunk well before
+his portrait was painted,” said Cæsar; “his face is congested.”
+
+“It is extraordinary!” exclaimed Cortés. “It is something to see, the
+way this is done. What boldness! Everything is red, the cape, the cap,
+the curtains in the background.... What a man!”
+
+The German aired his opinions in his own language, and took out a
+notebook and pencil and wrote some notes.
+
+“What sort of man was this?” asked Cæsar, whom the technical side of
+painting did not preoccupy, as it did Cortés.
+
+“They say he was a dull man, who lived under a woman’s domination.”
+
+“The great thing is,” murmured Cæsar, “how the painter has left him
+here alive. It seems as if we had come in here to salute him, and he
+was waiting for us to speak. Those clear eyes are questioning us. It is
+curious.”
+
+“Not curious,” exclaimed Cortés, “but admirable.”
+
+“For me it is more curious than admirable. There is something brutal in
+this Pope; through his grey beard, which is so thin, you can see his
+projecting chin. The good gentleman was of a marked prognathism, a type
+of degeneration, indifference, intellectual torpor, and nevertheless, he
+reached the top. Perhaps in the Church it’s the same as in water, only
+corks float.”
+
+
+
+_LEGEND AND HISTORY_
+
+
+Cæsar went out of the cabinet, leaving the German and Cortés seated on
+the sofa, absorbed in the picture; he looked at various paintings in the
+gallery, went back, and sat down, beside the artists.
+
+“This portrait,” he said presently, “is like history by the side of
+legend. All the other paintings in the gallery are legend, ‘folk-lore,’
+as I believe one calls it. This one is history.”
+
+“That’s what it is. It is truth,” agreed Cortés.
+
+“Yes, but there are people who do not like the truth, my friend. I tell
+you: this is a man of flesh, somewhat enigmatic, like nature herself,
+and with arteries in which blood flows; this is a man who breathes and
+digests, and not merely a pleasant abstraction; you, who understand such
+things, will tell me that the drawing is perfect, and the colour such
+as it was in reality; but how about the person who doesn’t ask for
+reality?”
+
+“Stendhal, the writer, was affected that way by this picture,” said
+Cortés; “he was shocked at its being hung among masterpieces.”
+
+“He found it bad, no doubt.”
+
+“Very bad?”
+
+“Was this Stendhal English?”
+
+“No, French.”
+
+“Ah, then, you needn’t be surprised. A Frenchman has no obligation to
+understand anything that’s not French.”
+
+“Nevertheless he was an intelligent man.”
+
+“Did he perhaps have a good deal of veneration?”
+
+“No, he boasted of not having any.”
+
+“Doubtless he did have without suspecting it. With a man who had no
+veneration, what difference would it make whether there was one bad
+thing among a lot of good ones?”
+
+The German with the green hat, who understood something of the
+conversation, was indignant at Cæsar’s irreverent ideas. He asked him
+if he understood Latin, and Cæsar told him no, and then, in a strange
+gibberish, half Latin and half Italian, he let loose a series of facts,
+dates, and numbers. Then he asserted that all artistic things of great
+merit were German: Greece. Rome, Gothic architecture, the Italian
+Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, Velázquez, all German.
+
+The snub-nosed young person, with his cape and his green hat with its
+cock-feather, did not let a mouse escape from his German mouse-trap.
+
+The data of the befeathered German were too much for Cæsar, and he took
+his leave of the painters.
+
+
+
+
+XVII. EVIL DAYS
+
+
+Accompanied by Kennedy, Cæsar called repeatedly on the most auspicious
+members of the French clerical element living in Rome, and found persons
+more cultivated than among the rough Spanish monks; but, as was natural,
+nobody gave him any useful information offering the possibility of his
+putting his financial talents to the proof.
+
+“Something must turn up,” he used to say to himself, “and at the least
+opening we will dive into the work.”
+
+Cæsar kept gathering notes about people who had connections in Spain
+with the Black party in Rome; he called several times on Father
+Herreros, despite his uncle’s prohibition, and succeeded in getting the
+monk to write to the Marquesa de Montsagro, asking if there were no
+means of making Cæsar Moneada, Cardinal Fort’s nephew, Conservative
+Deputy for her district.
+
+The Marquesa wrote back that it was impossible; the Conservative Deputy
+for the district was very popular and a man with large properties there.
+
+When Holy Week was over, Laura and the Countess Brenda and her daughter
+decided to spend a while at Florence, and invited Cæsar to accompany
+them; but he was quite out of harmony with the Brenda lady, and said
+that he had to stay on in Rome.
+
+A few days later Mme. Dawson and her daughters left, and the San
+Martinos and the Marchesa Sciacca; and an avalanche of English people
+and Germans, armed with their red Baedekers, took the hotel by storm.
+Susanna Marchmont had gone to spend some days at Corfu.
+
+In less than a week Cæsar remained alone, knowing nobody in the hotel,
+and despite his believing that he was going to be perfectly indifferent
+about this, he felt deserted and sad. The influence of the springtime
+also affected him. The deep blue sky, cloudless, dense, dark, made him
+languish. Instead of entertaining himself with something or other, he
+did scarcely anything all day long but walk.
+
+
+
+_TWO ABSURD MEN_
+
+
+“I have continually near me in the hotel,” wrote Cæsar to Alzugaray,
+“two absurd fellows: one is one of those stout red Germans with a square
+head; the other a fine slim Norwegian. The German, who is a captain in
+some service or other, is a restless man, always busy about what the
+devil I don’t know. He is constantly carrying about trunks and boxes,
+with the aid of a sorrowful valet, dressed in black, who appears to
+detest his position. The captain must devote the morning to doing
+gymnastics, for I hear him from my room, which is next to his, jumping
+and dropping weights on the floor, each of which must weigh half a ton,
+to judge by the noise they make.
+
+“He does all this to vocal commands, and when some feat doesn’t go right
+he reprimands himself.
+
+“This German isn’t still a moment; he opens the salon door, crosses the
+room, stands at the window, takes up a paper, puts it down. He is a type
+that makes me nervous.
+
+“The Norwegian at first appeared to be a reasonable man, somewhat
+sullen. He looked frowningly at me, and I watched him equally
+frowningly, and took him for a thinker, an Ibsenite whose imagination
+was lost among the ice of his own country. Now and then I would see
+him walking up and down the corridor, rubbing his hands together so
+continuously and so frantically that they made a noise like bones.
+
+“Suddenly, this gentleman is transformed as if by magic; he begins to
+joke with the servants, he seizes a chair and dances with it, and the
+other day I saw him alone in the salon marching around with a paper hat
+on his head, like children playing soldiers, and blowing on a cornet,
+also made of paper.” I stared at him in amazement, he smiled like a
+child, and asked if he was disturbing me.
+
+“‘No, no, not in the least,’ I told him.
+
+“I have asked in the hotel if this man is crazy, and they have told me
+that he is not, but is a professor, a man of science, who is known to
+have these strange fits of gaiety.
+
+“Another of the Norwegian’s doings has been to compose a serenade, with
+a vulgar melody that would disgust you, and which he has dedicated ‘_A
+la bella Italia_.’ He wrote the Italian words himself, but as he knows
+no music, he had a pianist come here and write out his serenade. What
+he especially wants is that it should be full of sentiment; and so the
+pianist arranged it with directions and many pauses, which satisfied
+the Norwegian. Almost every night the serenade ‘_A la bella Italia_’
+is sung. Somebody who wants to amuse himself goes to the piano, the
+Norwegian strikes a languid attitude and chants his serenade. Sometimes
+he goes in front of the piano, sometimes behind, but invariably he hears
+the storm of applause when it ends, and he bows with great gusto.
+
+“I don’t know whether it’s the other people who are laughing at him, or
+he who is laughing at the others.
+
+“The other day he said to me in his macaronic Italian:
+
+“‘Mr. Spaniard, I have good eyesight, good hearing, a good sense of
+smell, and... lots of sentiment.’
+
+“I didn’t exactly understand what he meant me to think, and I didn’t pay
+any attention to him.
+
+“It seems that the Norwegian is going away soon, and as the day of his
+departure approaches, he grows funereal.”
+
+
+_THE SADNESS OF LIFE_
+
+“I don’t know why I don’t go away,” Cæsar wrote to his friend another
+time. “When I go out in the evening and see the ochre-coloured houses on
+both sides and the blue sky above, a horrible sadness takes me. These
+spring days oppress me, make me want to weep; it seems to me it would
+be better to be dead, leaving no tomb or name or other ridiculous and
+disagreeable thing, but disappearing into the air or the sea. It
+doesn’t seem natural; but I have never been so happy as one time when I
+was in Paris sick, alone and with a fever. I was in an hotel room and
+my window looked into the garden of a fine house, where I could see the
+tops of the trees; and I transformed them into a virgin forest, wherein
+marvellous adventures happened to me.
+
+“Since then I have often thought that things are probably neither good
+nor bad, neither sad nor happy, in themselves; he who has sound, normal
+nerves, and a brain equally sound, reflects the things around him like a
+good mirror, and feels with comfort the impression of his conformity to
+nature; nowadays we who have nerves all upset and brains probably upset
+too, form deceptive reflections. And so, that time in Paris, sick and
+shut in, I was happy; and here, sound and strong, when toward nightfall,
+I look at the splendid skies, the palaces, the yellow walls that take an
+extraordinary tone, I feel that I am one of the most miserable men on
+the planet....”
+
+
+
+_ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON_
+
+His lack of tranquillity led Cæsar to make absurd resolutions which he
+didn’t carry out.
+
+One Sunday in the beginning of April, he went out into the street,
+disposed to take a walk outside of Rome, following the road anywhere it
+led. A hard, fine rain was falling, the sky was grey, the air mild, the
+streets were full of puddles, the shops closed; a few flower merchants
+were offering branches of almond in blossom.
+
+Cæsar was very depressed. He went into a church to get out of the rain.
+The church was full; there were many people in the centre of it; he
+didn’t know what they were doing. Doubtless they were gathered there for
+some reason, although Cæsar didn’t understand what. Cæsar sat down on
+a bench, worn out; he would have liked to listen to organ music, to a
+boy choir. No ideas occurred to him but sentimental ones. Some time
+passed, and a priest began to preach. Cæsar got up and went into the
+street.
+
+“I must get rid of these miserable impressions, get back to noble ideas.
+I must fight this sentimental leprosy.”
+
+He started to walk with long strides through the sad, empty streets.
+
+He went toward the river and met Kennedy, who was coming back, he told
+him, from the studio of a sculptor friend of his.
+
+“You look like desolation. What has happened to you?”
+
+“Nothing, but I am in a perfectly hellish humour.”
+
+“I am melancholy too. It must be the weather. Let’s take a walk.”
+
+They went along the bank of the Tiber. Full of clay, more turbid than
+ever, and very high between the white embankments hemming it in, the
+river looked like a big sewer.
+
+“This is not the ‘coeruleus Tibris’ that Virgil speaks of in the
+Aeneld, which presented itself to Aeneas in the form of an ancient man
+with his head crowned with roses,” said Kennedy.
+
+“No. This is a horrible river,” Cæsar opined.
+
+They followed the shore, passed the Castel Sant’ Angelo and the bridge
+with the statues.
+
+From the embankment, to the right, they could now see narrow lanes, sunk
+almost below the level of the river. On the other bank a new, white
+edifice towered in the rain.
+
+They went as far as the Piazza d’Armi, and then came back at nightfall
+to Rome. The rain was gradually ceasing and the sky looked less
+threatening. A file of greenish gaslights followed the river-wall and
+then crossed over the bridge.
+
+They walked to the Piazza del Popólo and through the Via Babuino to the
+Piazza di Spagna.
+
+“Would you like to go to a Benedictine abbey tomorrow?” asked Kennedy.
+
+“All right.”
+
+“And if you are still melancholy, we will leave you there.”
+
+
+
+_THE ABBEY_
+
+The next day, after lunch, Kennedy and Cæsar went to visit the abbey of
+Sant’ Anselmo on the Aventine. The abbot, Hildebrand, was a friend
+of Kennedy’s, and like him an Englishman.
+
+They took a carriage and Kennedy told it to stop at the church of Santa
+Sabina.
+
+“It is still too early to go to the abbey. Let us look at this church,
+which is the best preserved of all the old Roman ones.”
+
+They entered the church; but it was so cold there that Cæsar went out
+again directly and waited in the porch. There was a man there selling
+rosaries and photographs who spoke scarcely any Italian or French, but
+did speak Spanish. Probably he was a Jew.
+
+Cæsar asked him where they manufactured those religious toys, and the
+pedlar told him in Westphalia.
+
+Kennedy went to look at a picture by Sassoferrato, which is in one of
+the chapels, and meanwhile the rosary-seller showed the church door to
+Cæsar and explained the different bas-reliefs, cut in cypress wood by
+Greek artists of the V Century, and representing scenes from the Old and
+New Testaments.
+
+Kennedy came back, they got into the carriage again, and they drove to
+the Benedictine abbey.
+
+“Is the abbot Hildebrandus here?” asked Kennedy.
+
+Out came the abbot, a man of about fifty, with a gold cross on his
+breast. They exchanged a few friendly words, and the superior showed
+them the convent.
+
+The refectory was clean and very spacious; the long table of shining
+wood; the floor made of mosaic. The crypt held a statue, which Cæsar
+assumed must be of Sant’ Anselmo. The church was severe, without
+ornaments, without pictures; it had a primitive air, with its columns of
+fine granite that looked like marble. A monk was playing the harmonium,
+and in the opaque veiled light, the thin music gave a strange impression
+of something quite outside this life.
+
+Afterwards they crossed a large court with palm-trees. They went up to
+the second story, and down a corridor with cells, each of which had on
+the lintel the name of the patron saint of the respective monk. Each
+door had a card with the name of the occupant of the room.
+
+It looked more like a bath-house than a monastery. The cells were
+comfortable inside, without any air of sadness; each held a bed, a
+divan, and a small bookcase.
+
+By a window at the end of the passage, one could see, far away, the
+Alban Hills, looking like a blue mountain-range, half hidden in white
+haze, and nearby one could see the trees in the Protestant cemetery and
+the pyramid of Caïus Cestius close to them.
+
+Cæsar felt a sort of deep repugnance for the people shut up here,
+remote from life and protected from it by a lot of things.
+
+“The man who is playing the harmonium in this church with its opaque
+light, is a coward,” he said to himself. “One must live and struggle in
+the open air, among men, in the midst of their passions and hatreds,
+even though one’s miserable nerves quiver and tremble.”
+
+After showing them the monastery, the abbot Hildebrand took them to his
+study, where he worked at revising ancient translations of the Bible. He
+had photographic copies of all the Latin texts and he was collating them
+with the original.
+
+They talked of the progress of the Church, and the abbot commented with
+some contempt on the worldly success of the Jesuit churches, with their
+saints who serve as well to get husbands and rich wives as to bring
+winning numbers in the lottery.
+
+Before going out, they went to a window, at the other end of the
+corridor from where they had looked out before. Below them they could
+see the Tiber as far as the Ripa harbour; opposite, the heights of the
+Janiculum, and further, Saint Peter’s.
+
+When they went out, Kennedy said to Cæsar:
+
+“What devilish effect has the abbey produced in you, that you are so
+much gayer than when we went in?”
+
+“It has confirmed me in my idea, which I had lost for a few days.”
+
+“What idea is that?”
+
+“That we must not defend ourselves in this life, but attack, always
+attack.”
+
+“And now you are contented at having found it again?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+
+_PIRANESI’S GARDEN_
+
+
+“I am glad, because you have such a pitiable air when you are sad. Would
+you like to go to the Priory of Malta, which is only a step from here?”
+
+“Good.”
+
+They went down in the carriage to the Priory of Malta. They knocked at
+the gate and a woman came out who knew Kennedy, and who told them to
+wait a moment and she would open the church.
+
+“Here,” said Kennedy, “you have all that remains of the famous Order of
+Saint John of Jerusalem. That anti-historic man Bonaparte rooted it
+out of Malta. The Order attempted to establish itself in Catania, and
+afterwards at Ferrara, and finally took refuge here. Now it has no
+property left, and all that remains are its memories and its archives.”
+
+“That is how our descendants will see our Holy Mother the Church. In
+Chicago or Boston some traveller will find an abandoned chapel, and will
+ask: ‘What is this? ‘And they will tell him: ‘This is what remains of
+the Catholic Church.’”
+
+“Don’t talk like an Homais,” said Kennedy.
+
+“I don’t know who Homais is,” retorted Cæsar.
+
+“An atheistical druggist in Flaubert’s novel, _Madame Bovary_. Haven’t
+you read it?”
+
+“Yes; I have a vague idea that I have read it. A very heavy thing; yes,
+... I think I have read it.”
+
+The woman opened the door and they went into the church. It was small,
+overcharged with ornaments. They saw the tomb of Bishop Spinelli and
+Giotto’s Virgin, and then went into a hall gay with red flags with a
+white cross, on whose walls they could read the names of the Grand
+Masters of the Order of Malta. The majority of the names were French and
+Polish. Two or three were Spanish, and among them that of Cæsar Borgia.
+
+“Your countryman and namesake was also a Grand Master of Malta,” said
+Kennedy.
+
+“So it seems,” replied Cæsar with indifference. “I see that you speak
+with contempt of that extraordinary man. Is he not congenial to you?”
+
+“The fact is I don’t know his history.”
+
+“Really?”
+
+“Yes, really.”
+
+“How strange! We must go tomorrow to the Borgia Apartment in the
+Vatican.”
+
+“Good.”
+
+They saw the model of an ancient galley which was in the same hall, and
+went out through the church into the garden planned by Piranesi.
+The woman showed them a very old palm, with a hole in it made by a
+hand-grenade in the year ‘49. It had remained that way more than half
+a century, and it was only a few days since the trunk of the palm had
+broken.
+
+From the garden they went, by a path between trees, to the bastion of
+Paul III, a little terrace, from which they could see the Tiber at their
+feet, and opposite the panorama of Rome and its environs, in the light
+of a beautiful spring sunshine....
+
+
+
+
+XVIII. CÆSAR BORGIA’S MOTTO, “AUT CÆSAR, AUT NIHIL”
+
+_THE BORGIAS_
+
+
+The next day was one of the days for visiting the Borgia Apartment.
+Cæsar and Kennedy met in the Piazza di San Pietro, went into the
+Vatican museum, and walked by a series of stairs and passageways to the
+Gallery of Inscriptions.
+
+Then they went down to a hall, at whose door there were guards dressed
+in slashed clothes, which were parti-coloured, red, yellow, and black.
+Some of them carried lances and others swords.
+
+“Why are the guards here dressed differently?” asked Cæsar.
+
+“Because this belongs to the Dominions of the Pope.”
+
+“And what kind of guards are these?”
+
+“These are pontifical Swiss guards.”
+
+“They look comic-opera enough,” said Cæsar.
+
+“My dear man, don’t say that. This costume was designed by no one less
+than Michelangelo.”
+
+“All right. At that time they probably looked very well, but now they
+have a theatrical effect.”
+
+“It is because you have no veneration. If you were reverential, they
+would look wonderful to you.”
+
+“Very well, let us wait and see whether reverence will not spring up in
+me. Now, you go on and explain what there is here.”
+
+“This first room, the Hall of Audience, or of the Popes, does not
+contain anything notable, as you see,” said Kennedy; “the five we are
+coming to later, have been restored, but are still the same as at the
+time when your countryman Alexander VI was Pope. All five were decorated
+by Pinturicchio and his pupils, and all with reference to the Borgias.
+The Borgias have their history, not well known in all its details, and
+their legend, which is more extensive and more picturesque. Really, it
+unconquerable.
+
+"I should have climbed that peak long ago if you, Miss Torsen, hadn't
+forbidden me," said the lawyer.
+
+"You'd never have made it," said Mrs. Molie in an indifferent tone. This
+was probably her revenge. She turned to the Dane again as though ready to
+believe him capable of anything.
+
+"I shouldn't want anyone to think of climbing that peak," said Miss
+Torsen. "It's as bare as a ship's mast."
+
+"What if I tried it, Gerda?" the manufacturer asked his wife with a smile.
+"After all, I'm an old sailor."
+
+"Nonsense," she said, smiling a little.
+
+"Well, I climbed the mast of a schooner last spring."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In Iceland."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't know, though--all this mountain climbing--I haven't much use for
+it," said the manufacturer.
+
+"What did you do it for? What did you climb the mast for?" his wife
+repeated nervously.
+
+The manufacturer laughed.
+
+"The curiosity of the female sex--!"
+
+"How can you do a thing like that! And what about me and the children if
+you--"
+
+She broke off. Her husband grew serious and took her hand.
+
+"It was stormy, my dear; the sails were flapping, and it was a question of
+life and death. But I shouldn't have told you. Well--we'd better say good
+night now, Gerda."
+
+The manufacturer and his wife got up.
+
+Then the first man from Bergen made another speech.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The manufacturer stayed with us for the promised three days, and then made
+ready to travel again. His mood never changed; he was contented and
+entertaining the whole time. Every evening one whisky and soda was brought
+him--no more. Before their bedtime, his little girls had a wildly
+hilarious half-hour with him. At night a tremendous snoring could be heard
+from his cottage. Before his arrival, the little girls had spent a good
+deal of time with me, but now they no longer knew I existed, so taken up
+with their father were they. He hung a swing for them between the two
+rowan trees in the field, taking care to pack plenty of rag under the rope
+so as not to injure the tree.
+
+He also had a talk with Paul; there were rumors that he was intending to
+take his money out of the Tore Peak resort. Paul's head was bent now, but
+he seemed even more hurt that the manufacturer should have paid a visit to
+the cotters to see how they were getting on.
+
+"So that's where he's gone?" he said. "Well, let him stay there, for all I
+care!"
+
+The manufacturer cracked jokes to the very end. Of course he was a little
+depressed by the farewells, too, but he had to keep his family's courage
+up. His wife stood holding one of his arms with both hands, and the
+children clung to his other arm.
+
+"I can't salute you," the manufacturer said to us, smiling. "I'm not
+allowed to say good-bye."
+
+The children rejoiced at this and cried, "No, he can't have his arm back;
+Mummy, you hold him tight, too!"
+
+"Come, come!" the father said. "I've got to go to Scotland, just a short
+trip. And when you come home from the mountains, I'll be there, too."
+
+"Scotland? What are you going to Scotland for?" the children asked.
+
+He twisted round and nodded to us.
+
+"These women! All curiosity!" he said.
+
+But none of his family laughed.
+
+He continued to us:
+
+"I was telling my wife a story about a rich man who was curious, too. He
+shot himself just to find out what comes after death. Ha, ha, ha! That's
+the height of curiosity, isn't it? Shooting yourself to find out what
+comes after death!"
+
+But he could not make his family laugh at this tale, either. His wife
+stood still; her face was beautiful.
+
+"So you're leaving now," was all she said.
+
+Mr. Brede's porter came out with his luggage; he had stayed at the farm
+for these three days in order to be at hand.
+
+Then the manufacturer walked down through the field, accompanied by his
+wife and children.
+
+I don't know--this man with his good humor and kindliness and money and
+everything, fond of his children, all in all to his wife--
+
+Was he really everything to his wife?
+
+The first evening he wasted time on a party, and every night he wasted
+time in snoring. And so the three days and nights went by....
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+It is very pleasant here at harvest time. Scythes are being sharpened in
+the field, men and women are at work; they go thinly clad and bareheaded,
+and call to one another and laugh; sometimes they drink from a bucket of
+whey, then set to work again. There is the familiar fragrance of hay,
+which penetrates my senses like a song of home, drawing me home, home,
+though I am not abroad. But perhaps I am abroad after all, far away from
+the soil where I have my roots.
+
+Why, indeed, do I stay here any longer, at a resort full of
+schoolmistresses, with a host who has once more said farewell to sobriety?
+Nothing is happening to me; I do not grow here. The others go out and lie
+on their backs; I steal off and find relish in myself, and feel poetry
+within me for the night. The world wants no, poetry; it wants only verses
+that have not been sung before.
+
+And Norway wants no red-hot irons; only village smiths forge irons now,
+for the needs of the mob and the honor of the country.
+
+No one came; the stream of tourists went up and down Stordalen and left
+our little Reisa valley deserted. If only the Northern Railway could have
+come to Reisa with Cook's and Bennett's tours--then Stordalen in its turn
+would have lain deserted. Meanwhile, the cotters who are cultivating the
+soil will probably go on harvesting half the crop of the outlying fields
+for the rest of time. There is every reason to think so--unless our
+descendants are more intelligent than we, and refuse to be smitten with
+the demoralizing effects of the tourist traffic.
+
+Now, my friend, you mustn't believe me; this is the point where you must
+shake your head. There is a professor scuttling about the country, a born
+mediocrity with a little school knowledge about history; you had better
+ask him. He'll give you just as much mediocre information, my friend, as
+your vision can grasp and your brain endure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hardly had Manufacturer Brede left when Paul began to live a most
+irregular life again. More and more all roads were closed to him; he saw
+no way out and therefore preferred to make himself blind, which gave him
+an excuse for not seeing. Seven of our permanent guests now left together:
+the telephone operators, Tradesman Batt, Schoolmistresses Johnsen and
+Palm, and two men who were in some sort of business, I don't quite know
+what. This whole party went across the fjeld to Stordalen to be driven
+about in cars.
+
+Cases of various kinds of foodstuffs arrived for Paul; they were carried
+up one evening by a man from the village. He had to make several journeys
+with the side of his cart let down, and bring the cases over the roughest
+spots one by one. That was the kind of road it was. Josephine received the
+consignment, and noticed that one of the cases gave forth the sound of a
+liquid splashing inside. That had come to the wrong place, she said, and
+writing another address on it, she told the man to take it back. It was
+sirup that had come too late, she said; she had got sirup elsewhere in the
+meantime.
+
+Later in the evening we heard them discussing it in the kitchen; the sirup
+had not come too late, Paul said angrily.
+
+"And I've told you to clear these newspapers away!" he cried. We heard the
+sound of paper and glass being swept to the floor.
+
+Well, things were not too easy for Paul; the days went by dull and empty,
+nor had he any children to give him pleasant thoughts at times. Though he
+wanted to build still more houses, he could not use half those he had
+already. There was Mrs. Brede living alone with her children in one of
+them, and since seven of the guests had left, Miss Torsen was also alone
+in the south wing. Paul wanted at all costs to build roads and share in
+the development of the tourist traffic; he even wanted to run a fleet of
+motor cars. But since he had not the power to do this alone and could get
+no assistance, nothing was left him but to resign himself. And now to make
+matters worse Manufacturer Brede had said he would withdraw his money....
+
+Paul's careworn face looked out of the kitchen door. Before going out
+himself he wanted to make sure there was no one about, but he was
+disappointed in this, for the lawyer at once greeted him loudly: "Good
+evening, Paul!" and drew him outside.
+
+They strolled down the field in the dusk.
+
+Assuredly there is little to be gained by "having a good talk" with a man
+about his drinking; such matters are too vital to be settled by talking.
+But Paul seems to have admitted that the lawyer was right in all he said,
+and probably left him with good resolutions.
+
+Paul went down to the village again. He was going to the post office; the
+money he had from the seven departed guests would be scattered to all
+quarters of the globe. And yet it was not enough to cover everything--in
+fact not enough for anything, for interest, repayments, taxes, and
+repairs. It paid only for a few cases of food from the city. And of course
+he stopped the case of sirup from going back.
+
+Paul returned blind-drunk because he no longer wished to see. It was the
+same thing all over again. But his brain seemed in its own way to go on
+searching for a solution, and one day he asked the lawyer:
+
+"What do you call those square glass jars for keeping small fish
+in--goldfish?"
+
+"Do you mean an aquarium?"
+
+"That's it," said Paul. "Are they dear?"
+
+"I don't know. Why?"
+
+"I wonder if I could get one."
+
+"What do you want it for?"
+
+"Don't you think it might attract people to the place? Oh, well, perhaps
+it wouldn't."
+
+And Paul withdrew.
+
+Madder than ever. Some people see flies. Paul saw goldfish.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+The lawyer is constantly in Miss Torsen's company; he even swings her in
+the children's swing, and puts his arm around her to steady her when the
+swing stops. Solem watches all this from the field where he is working,
+and begins to sing a ribald song. Certainly these two have so ill-used him
+that if he is going to sing improper songs in self-defense, this is the
+time to do it; no one will gainsay that. So he sang his song very loud,
+and then began to yodel.
+
+But Miss Torsen went on swinging, and the lawyer went on putting his arm
+round her and stopping her....
+
+It was a Saturday evening. I stood talking to the lawyer in the garden; he
+didn't like the place, and wanted to leave, but Miss Torsen would not go
+with him, and going alone was such a bore. He did not conceal that the
+young woman meant something to him.
+
+Solem approached, and lifted his cap in greeting. Then he looked round
+quickly and began to talk to the lawyer--politely, as became his position
+of a servant:
+
+"The Danish gentleman is going to climb the peak tomorrow. I'm to take a
+rope and go with him."
+
+The lawyer was startled.
+
+"Is he--?"
+
+The blankness of the lawyer's face was a remarkable sight. His small,
+athletic brain failed him. A moment passed in silence.
+
+"Yes, early tomorrow morning," said Solem. "I thought I'd tell you.
+Because after all it was your idea first."
+
+"Yes, so it was," said the lawyer. "You're quite right. But now he'll be
+ahead of me."
+
+Solem knew how to get round that.
+
+"No, I didn't promise to go," he said. "I told him I had to go to the
+village tomorrow."
+
+"But we can't deceive him. I don't want to do that."
+
+"Pity," said Solem. "Everybody says the first one to climb the Blue Peak
+will be in all the papers."
+
+"He'll take offense," the lawyer murmured, considering the matter.
+
+But Solem urged him on:
+
+"I don't think so. Anyhow, you were the first one to talk about it."
+
+"Everybody here will know, and I'll be prevented," said the lawyer.
+
+"We can go at dawn," said Solem.
+
+In the end they came to an agreement.
+
+"You won't tell anyone?" the lawyer said to me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The lawyer was missed in the course of the morning; he was not in his
+room, and not in the garden.
+
+"Perhaps the Danish mountaineer can tell us where he is," I said. But it
+transpired that the Dane had not even thought of climbing the Blue Peak
+that day, and knew nothing whatever about the expedition.
+
+This surprised me greatly.
+
+I looked at the clock; it was eleven. I had been watching the peak through
+my field glasses from the moment I got up, but there was nothing to be
+seen. It was five hours since the two men had left.
+
+At half-past eleven Solem came running back; he was drenched in sweat and
+exhausted.
+
+"Come and help us!" he called excitedly to the group of guests.
+
+"What's happened?" somebody asked.
+
+"He fell off."
+
+How tired Solem was and drenched to the skin! But what could we do? Rush
+up the mountainside and look at the accident too?
+
+"Can't he walk?" somebody asked.
+
+"No, he's dead," said Solem, looking from one to another of us as though
+to read in our faces whether his message seemed credible. "He fell off; he
+didn't want me to help him."
+
+A few more questions and answers. Josephine was already halfway across the
+field; she was going to the village to telephone for the doctor.
+
+"We shall have to get him down," said the Danish mountaineer.
+
+So he and I improvised a stretcher; Solem was instructed to take brandy
+and bandages to the site of the accident, and the Bergensians, the
+Associate Master, Miss Torsen, and Mrs. Molie went with him.
+
+"Did you really say nothing to Solem about climbing the peak today?" I
+asked the Dane.
+
+"No," he replied. "I never said a word about it. If I had meant to go, I
+should certainly not have wanted company...."
+
+Later that afternoon we returned with the lawyer on the stretcher. Solem
+kept explaining all the way home how the accident had happened, what he
+had said and what the lawyer had said, pointing to objects on the way as
+though this stone represented the lawyer and that the abyss into which he
+had plunged.... Solem still carried the rope he had not had a chance to
+use. Miss Torsen asked no more than anyone else, and made purely
+conventional comments: "I advised him against it, I begged him not to
+go...."
+
+But however much we talked, we could not bring the lawyer back to life.
+Strange--his watch was still going, but he himself was dead. The doctor
+could do nothing here, and returned to his village.
+
+There followed a depressing evening. Solem went to the village to send a
+telegram to the lawyer's family, and the rest of us did what we thought
+decent under the circumstances: we all sat in the living room with books
+in our hands. Now and again, some reference would be made to the accident:
+it was a reminder, we said, how small we mortals were! And the Associate
+Master, who had not the soul of a tourist, greatly feared that this
+disaster would injure the resort and make things still more difficult for
+Paul; people would shun a place where they were likely to fall off and be
+killed.
+
+No, the Associate Master was no tourist, and did not understand the
+Anglo-Saxon mind.
+
+Paul himself seemed to sense that the accident might benefit him rather
+than do him harm. He brought out a bottle of brandy to console us on this
+mournful evening.
+
+And since it was a death to which we owed this attention, one of the men
+from Bergen made a speech.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The accident became widely known. Newspapermen came from the city, and
+Solem had to pilot them up the mountain and show them the spot where it
+had taken place. If the body had not been removed at once, they would have
+written about that, too.
+
+Children and ignoramuses might be inclined to think it foolish that Solem
+should be taken from the work in the fields at harvest time, but must not
+the business of the tourist resort go before all else?
+
+"Solem, tourists!" someone called to him. And Solem left his work. A flock
+of reporters surrounded him, asked him questions, made him take them to
+the mountains, to the river. A phrase was coined at the farm for Solem's
+absences:
+
+"Solem's with death."
+
+But Solem was by no means with death; on the contrary, he was in the very
+midst of life, enjoying himself, thriving. Once again he was an important
+personage, listened to by strangers, doling out information. Nor did his
+audience now consist of ladies only--indeed, no; this was something new, a
+change; these were keen, alert gentlemen from the city.
+
+To me, Solem said:
+
+"Funny the accident should have happened just when the scratch on my nail
+has grown out, isn't it?"
+
+He showed me his thumbnail; there was no mark on it.
+
+The newspaper reporters wrote articles and sent telegrams, not only about
+the Blue Peak and the dreadful death, but about the locality, and about
+the Tore Peak resort, that haven for the weary, with its wonderful
+buildings set like jewels in the mountains. What a surprise to come here:
+gargoyles, living room, piano, all the latest books, timber outside ready
+for new jewels in their setting, altogether a magnificent picture of
+Norway's modern farming.
+
+Yes, indeed, the newspapermen appreciated it. And they did their
+advertising.
+
+The English arrived.
+
+"Where is Solem?" they asked, and "Where is the Blue Peak?" they asked.
+
+"We ought to get the hay in," said Josephine and the wife at the farm.
+"There'll be rain, and fifty cartloads are still out!"
+
+That was all very well, but "Where is Solem?" asked the English. So Solem
+had to go with them. The two casual laborers began to cart away the hay,
+but then the women had no one to help them rake. Confusion was rife.
+Everyone rushed wildly hither and thither because there was no one to lead
+them.
+
+The weather stayed fine overnight; it was patient, slow-moving weather. As
+soon as the dew dried up, more hay would be brought in, perhaps all the
+hay. Oh, we should manage all right.
+
+More English appeared; and "Solem--the Blue Peak?" they said. Their
+perverse, sportsmen's brains tingled and thrilled; they had successfully
+eluded all the resorts on the way, and arrived here without being caught.
+There was the Blue Peak, like a mast against the sky! They hurried up so
+fast that Solem was hardly able to keep pace with them. They would have
+felt for ever disgraced if they had neglected to stand on this admirable
+site of a disaster, this most excellent abyss. Some said it would be a
+lifelong source of regret to them if they did not climb the Blue Peak
+forthwith; others had no desire but to gloat over the lawyer's death fall,
+and to shout down the abyss, gaping at the echo, and advancing so far out
+on the ledge that they stood with their toes on death.
+
+But it's an ill wind that blows good to none, and the resort earned a
+great deal of money. Paul began to revive again, and the furrows in his
+face were smoothed out. A man of worth grows strong and active with good
+fortune; in adversity he is defiant. One who is not defiant in adversity
+is worth nothing; let him be destroyed! Paul stopped drinking; he even
+began to take an interest in the harvesting, and worked in the field in
+Solem's place. If only he had begun when the weather was still slow and
+patient!
+
+But at least Paul began to tackle things in the right spirit again; he
+only regretted that he had set aside for the cotters those outlying fields
+from which they were used to getting half the hay; this year he would have
+liked to keep it himself. But he had given his word, and there was nothing
+to be done about it.
+
+Besides, it was raining now. Haymaking had to stop; they could not even
+stack what had already been gathered. Outside, three cartloads of fodder
+were going to waste.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before long the novelty of the Tore Peak resort wore off again. The
+newspapermen wrote and sent telegrams about other gratifying misfortunes,
+the death on the Blue Peak having lost its news value. It had been an
+intoxication; now came the morning after.
+
+The Danish mountaineer quite simply deserted. He strapped on his knapsack
+and walked across the field like one of the villagers, caring no more for
+the Blue Peak. The commotion he had witnessed in the last week had taught
+him a lesson.
+
+And the tourists swarmed on to other places.
+
+"What harm have I done them," Paul probably
+thought, "that they should be going again? Have I been
+too much in the fields and too little with them? But I
+greeted them humbly and took my man out of the
+harvesting work to help them...."
+
+Then two young men arrived, sprouts off the Norwegian tree, sportsmen to
+their finger tips, who talked of nothing but sailing, cycling, and
+football; they were going to be civil engineers--the young Norway. They,
+too, wanted to see the Blue Peak to the best of their ability; after all,
+one must keep pace with modern life. But they were so young that when they
+looked up at the peak, they were afraid. Solem had learned more than one
+trick in tourist company; craftily he led them on, and then extorted money
+from them in return for a promise not to expose their foolishness. So all
+was well; the young sprouts came down the mountain again, bragging and
+showing off their sportsmanship. One of them brought down a bloodstained
+rag which he flung on the ground, saying,
+
+"There's what's left of your lawyer that fell off."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha, ha!" laughed the other sprout.
+
+Yes, truly, they had acquired dashing ways among their sporting
+acquaintances.
+
+It rained for three weeks; then came two fine days, and then rain again
+for a fortnight. The sun was not to be seen, the sky was invisible, the
+mountain tops had disappeared; we saw nothing but rain. The roofs at the
+Tore Peak resort began to leak more and more.
+
+The hay that still lay spread on the ground was black and rotting, and the
+stacks had gone moldy.
+
+The cotters had got their hay indoors during the patient spell. They had
+carried it, man, woman, and child, on their backs.
+
+The men from Bergen and Mrs. Brede with her children have left for home.
+The little girls curtsied and thanked me for taking them walking in the
+hills and telling them stories. The house is empty now. Associate Master
+Höy and Mrs. Molie were the last to go; they left last week, traveling
+separately, though both were going to the same small town.
+
+He went by way of the village--a very roundabout route--while she crossed
+the field. It is very quiet now, but Miss Torsen is still here.
+
+Why do I not leave? Don't know. Why ask? I'm here. Have you ever heard
+anyone ask: "How much is a northern light?" Hold your tongue.
+
+Where should I go if I did leave? Do you imagine I want to go to the town
+again? Or do you think I'm longing for my old hut and the winter, and
+Madame? I'm not longing for any specific place; I am simply longing.
+
+Of course I ought to be old enough to understand what all sensible
+Norwegians know, that our country is once more on the right road. The
+papers are all writing about the splendid progress the tourist traffic has
+made in Stordalen since the motor road was opened--ought I not to go there
+and feel gratified?
+
+From old habit, I still take an interest in the few of us who are left;
+Miss Torsen is still here.
+
+Miss Torsen--what more is there to be said about her? Well, she does not
+leave; she stays here to complete the picture of the woman Torsen, child
+of the middle class who has read schoolbooks all through her formative
+years, who has learned all about _Artemis cotula_, but undernourished
+her soul. That is what she is doing here.
+
+I remember a few weeks ago, when we were infested with Englishmen, a young
+sprout coming down from the mountain top with a bloodstained rag which he
+threw on the ground, saying, "Here's what's left of your lawyer that fell
+off!" Miss Torsen heard it, and never moved a muscle. No, she never
+mourned the death of the lawyer very keenly; on the contrary, she wrote
+off at once to ask another friend to come. When he came, he turned out to
+be a swaggering scatterbrain--a "free lance," he called himself in the
+visitors' book. I have not mentioned him before because he was less
+important than she; less important, in fact, than any of us. He was
+beardless and wore his collar open; heaven knows if he wasn't employed at
+a theater or in the films. Miss Torsen went to meet him when he came, and
+said, "Welcome to our mountains," and "Thanks for coming." So evidently
+she had sent for him. But why did she not leave? Why did she seem to
+strike root in the place, and even ask others to come here? Yet she had
+been the first to want to leave last summer! There was something behind
+this.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+I muse on all this, and understand that her staying here is somehow
+connected with her carnal desires, with the fact that Solem is still here.
+How muddled it all is, and how this handsome girl has been spoiled! I saw
+her not long ago, tall and proud, upright, untouched, walking
+intentionally close to Solem, yet not replying to his greeting. Did she
+suspect him of complicity in the death of the lawyer and avoid him for
+that reason? Not in the least; she avoided him less than before, even
+letting him take her letters to the post office, which she had not done
+previously. But she was unbalanced, a poor thing that had lost her
+bearings. Whenever she could, she secretly defiled herself with pitch,
+with dung; she sniffed at foulness and was not repelled.
+
+One day, when Solem swore a needlessly strong oath at a horse that was
+restless, she looked at him, shivered, and went a deep red. But she
+mastered herself at once, and asked Josephine:
+
+"Isn't that man leaving soon?"
+
+"Yes," Josephine replied, "in a few days."
+
+Though she had seized this opportunity to ask her question with a great
+show of indifference, I am certain it was an important one to her. She
+went away in silence.
+
+Yes, Miss Torsen stayed, for she was sexually bound to Solem. Solem's
+despair, Solem's rough passion that she herself had inflamed, his
+brutality, his masculinity, his greedy hands, his looks--she sniffed at
+all this and was excited by it. She had grown so unnatural that her sexual
+needs were satisfied by keeping this man at a distance. The Torsen type no
+doubt lies in her solitary bed at night, reveling in the sensation that in
+another house a man lies writhing for her.
+
+But her friend, the actor? He was in no sense the other's equal. There was
+nothing of the bull in him, nothing of action, only the braggadocio of the
+theater....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here am I, growing small and petty with this life. I question Solem about
+the accident. We are alone together in the woodshed.
+
+Why had he lied and said the Dane wanted to climb the Blue Peak that
+unfortunate Sunday morning?
+
+Solem looked at me, pretending not to understand.
+
+I repeated my question.
+
+Solem denied he had said any such thing.
+
+"I heard you," I said.
+
+"No, you didn't," he said.
+
+A pause.
+
+Suddenly he dropped to the floor of the shed, convulsed, without shape, an
+outline merely; a few minutes passed before he got up again. When he was
+on his feet once more, pulling his clothes to rights, we looked at each
+other. I had no wish to speak to him further, and left him. Besides, he
+was going away soon.
+
+After this, everything was dull and empty again. I went out alone, aping
+myself and shouting: "Bricks for the palace! The calf is much stronger
+today!" And when this was done, I did other nothings, and when my money
+began to run out, I wrote to my publisher, pretending I would soon send
+him an unbelievably remarkable manuscript. In short, I behaved like a man
+in love. These were the typical symptoms.
+
+And to take the bull by the horns: no doubt you suspect me of dwelling on
+the subject of Miss Torsen out of self-interest? In that case I must have
+concealed well in these pages that I never think of her except as an
+object, as a theme; turn back the pages and you will see! At my age, one
+does not fall in love without becoming grotesque, without making even the
+Pharaohs laugh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Finis._
+
+But there is one thing I cannot finish doing, and that is withdrawing to
+my room, and sitting alone with the good darkness round me. This, after
+all, is the last pleasure.
+
+An interlude:
+
+Miss Torsen and her actor are walking this way; I hear their footsteps and
+their voices; but since I am sitting in the dark of the evening, I cannot
+see them. They stop outside my open window, leaning against it, and the
+actor says something, asks her to do something she does not want to do,
+tries to draw her with him; but she resists.
+
+Then he grows angry.
+
+"What the devil did you send for me for?" he asks roughly.
+
+And she begins to weep and says:
+
+"So that's all you've come for! Oh, oh! But I'm not like that at all. Why
+can't you leave me alone? I'm not hurting you."
+
+Am I one who understands women? Self-deception. Vain boasting. I made my
+presence known then because her weeping sounded so wretched; I moved a
+chair and cleared my throat.
+
+The sound caught his attention at once, and he hushed her, trying to
+listen; but she said:
+
+"No, it was nothing...."
+
+But she knew very well this was not true; she knew what the sound was. It
+was not the first time Miss Torsen used this trick with me; she had often
+pretended that she thought I was not within hearing, and then created some
+such delicate situation. Each time I had promised myself not to intervene;
+but she had not wept before; now she wept.
+
+Why did she use these wiles? To clear herself in my eyes--mine, the eyes
+of a settled man--to make me believe how good she was, how well-behaved!
+But, dear child, I knew that before; I could see it from your hands! You
+are so unnatural that in your seven and twentieth year, you walk
+unmarried, barren and unopen!
+
+The pair drifted away.
+
+And there is something else I cannot finish doing: withdrawing into
+solitude in the woods, alone with the good darkness round me. This is the
+last pleasure.
+
+One needs solitude and darkness, not because one flees the company of
+others and can endure only one's own, but because of their quality of
+loftiness and religion. Strange how all things pass distantly, yet all is
+near; we sit in an omnipresence. It must be God. It must be ourselves as a
+part of all things.
+
+  What would my heart, where would I stray?
+  Shall I leave the forest behind me?
+  It was my home but yesterday;
+  now toward the city I wend my way;
+  to the darkness of night I've resigned me.
+
+  The world round me sleeps as I tarry, alone,
+  soothing my ear with its quiet.
+  How large and gray is the city of stone
+  in which the many all hopes enthrone!
+  Shall I, too, accept their fiat?
+
+  Hark! Do the bells ring on the hillside?
+
+  Back to the peace of the forest I turn
+  in the nightly hour that's hoarest.
+  There's a sweet-smelling hedgerow to which I yearn;
+  I shall rest my head on heather and fern,
+  and sleep in the depths of the forest.
+
+  Hark, how the bells ring on the hillside!
+
+Romantic? Yes. Mere sentimentality, mood, rhyme--nothing? Yes.
+
+It is the last happiness.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+The sun has returned. Not darkly glowing and regal--more than that:
+imperial, because it is flaming. This you do not understand, my friend,
+whatever the language in which it is dished up for you. But I say there is
+an imperial sun in the sky.
+
+It's a good day for going to the woods; it is sweeping time, for the woods
+are full of yellow things that have come suddenly into being. A short time
+ago they were not there, or I did not see them, or they had the earth's
+own complexion. There is something unborn about them, like embryos in an
+early stage. But if I whirl them about, they are miracles of fulfillment.
+
+Here are fungi of every sort, mushrooms and puffballs. How close is the
+poisonous mushroom to the happy family of the edible mushroom, and how
+innocently it stands there! Yet it is deadly. What magnificent cunning! A
+spurious fruit, a criminal, habitual vice itself, but preening in splendor
+and brilliance, a very cardinal of fungi. I break off a morsel to chew; it
+is good and soft on the tongue, but I am a coward and spit it out again.
+Was it not the poisonous mushroom that drove men berserker? But in the
+dawn of our own day, we die of a hair in the throat.
+
+The sun is already setting. Far up the mountainside are the cattle, but
+they are moving homeward now; I can hear by their bells that they are
+moving. Tinkling bells and deep-mouthed bells, sometimes sounding together
+as though there were a meaning in it, a pattern of tones, a rapture.
+
+And rapture, too, to see all the blades of grass and the tiny flowers and
+plants. Beside me where I lie is a small pod plant, wonderfully meek, with
+tiny seeds pushing out of the pod--God bless it, it's becoming a mother!
+It has got caught in a dry twig and I liberate it. Life quivers within it;
+the sun has warmed it today and called it to its destiny. A tiny, gigantic
+miracle.
+
+Now it is sunset, and the woods bend under a rustling that passes
+through them sweet and heavy; it is the evening.
+
+I lie for another hour or two; the birds have long since gone to rest, and
+darkness falls thick and soft.... As I walk homeward, my feet feel their
+way and I hold my hands before me till I reach the field, where it is a
+little lighter. I walk on the hay that has been left outdoors; it is tough
+and black, and I slip on it because it is already rotting. As I approach
+the houses, bats fly noiselessly past me, as though on wings of foam. A
+slight shudder convulses me whenever they pass.
+
+Suddenly I stop.
+
+A man is walking here. I can see him against the wall of the new house. He
+has on a coat that looks like the actor's raincoat, but it is not the
+little comedian himself. There he goes, into the house, right into the
+house. It is Solem.
+
+"Why, that's where she sleeps!" I think. "Ah, well. Alone in the building,
+in the south wing, Miss Torsen alone--yes, quite alone. And Solem has just
+gone in."
+
+I stand there waiting to be at hand, to rush in to the rescue, for after
+all I am a human being, not a brute. Several minutes pass. He has not even
+bothered to be very quiet, for I hear him clicking the key in the lock.
+Surely I ought to hear a cry now? I hear nothing, nothing; a chair
+scraping across the floor, that is all.
+
+"But good heavens, he may do her some harm! He may injure her; he may
+overpower her with rape! Ought I not to tap on the window? I--what for?
+But at the very first cry, I shall be on the spot, take my word for it."
+
+Not a single cry.
+
+The hours pass; I have settled down to wait. Of course I cannot go my way
+and desert a helpless woman. But the hours wear on. A very thorough
+business in there, nothing niggardly about this; it is almost dawn. It
+occurs to me that he may be killing her, perhaps has killed her already; I
+am alarmed and about to get up--when the key clicks in the lock again and
+Solem emerges. He does not run, but walks back the way he came, down to
+the veranda of my own house. There he hangs the actor's raincoat where it
+hung before, and emerges again. But this time he is naked. He has been
+naked under the coat all this time. Is it possible? Why not? No
+inhibitions, no restraint, no covering; Solem has thought it all out. Now,
+stark naked, he stalks to his room.
+
+What a man!
+
+I sit thinking and collecting myself and regaining my wits. What has
+happened? The south wing is still wrapped in silence, but the lady is not
+dead; I can see that from Solem's fearless manner as he goes to his room,
+lights the lamp, and goes to bed.
+
+It relieves me to know she is alive, revives me, and makes me
+superlatively brave: if he has dared to kill her, I will report it at
+once. I shall not spare him. I shall accuse him of both her death and the
+lawyer's. I shall go further: I shall accuse others--the thief of last
+winter, the man that stole the sides of bacon from a tradesman and sold me
+rolls of tobacco out of his bag. No, I shall not keep silence about
+anything then....
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+When it grew light, Solem went to the kitchen, had his breakfast, settled
+his business with Paul and the women, and returned to his room. He was in
+no hurry; though it was no longer early in the day, he took his time about
+tying his bundles, preparatory to leaving. Lingeringly he looked into the
+windows of the south wing as he passed.
+
+Then Solem was gone.
+
+A little later Miss Torsen came in to breakfast. She asked at once about
+Solem. And why might she be so interested in Solem? She had certainly
+stopped in her room intentionally so as to give him time to leave; if she
+wanted to see him she could have been here long ago. But was it not safest
+to seem a little angry? Supposing, night owl that I was, that I had seen
+something!
+
+"Where is Solem?" she asked indignantly.
+
+"Solem has gone now," Josephine replied.
+
+"Lucky for him!"
+
+"Why?" asked Josephine.
+
+"Oh, he's a dreadful creature!"
+
+How agitated she was! But in the course of the day she calmed down. Her
+anger dissolved, and there was neither weeping nor a scene; only she did
+not walk proudly, as was her habit, but preferred to sit in silence.
+
+That passed too; she roused herself briskly soon after Solem's departure,
+and in a few days she was the same as ever. She took walks, she talked and
+laughed with us, she made the actor swing her in the children's swing, as
+in the lawyer's day....
+
+I went out one evening, for there was good weather and darkness for
+walking; there was neither a moon nor stars. The gentle ripple of the
+little Reisa river was all the sound I heard; there were God and Goethe
+and _über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh'_ that night. On my return, I was in
+the mood to walk softly and on tiptoe, so I undressed and went to bed in
+the dark.
+
+Then they came again to my window, those two lunatics, the lady and the
+actor. What next? But it was not he that chose this spot; of that I was
+sure. She chose it because she was convinced I had returned. There was
+something she _wanted_ me to hear.
+
+Why should I listen to him still pleading with her?
+
+"I've had enough of this," he said. "I'm leaving tomorrow."
+
+"Oh, well...." she said. "No, let's not tonight," she added suddenly;
+"some other time. Yes? In a few days? We'll talk about it tomorrow. Good
+night."
+
+For the first time it struck me: she wants to rouse you, too, settled man
+though you are; she wants to make you as mad as the others! That's what
+she's after!
+
+And now I remember, before the lawyer arrived, when there was Tradesman
+Batt--I remember how during his first few days here, she would give me a
+kind word or a look that was quite out of the picture, and as unmistakable
+as her pride would permit. No, she had no objections to seeing old age
+wriggle. And listen to this: before this she had been intent to show a
+well-behaved indifference to sex, but that was finished; was she not at
+this moment resisting only faintly, and raising definite hopes? "Not
+tonight, but some other time," she had said. Yes, a half-refusal, a mere
+postponement, that I was meant to hear. She was corrupt, but she was also
+cunning, with the cunning of a madman. So corrupt.
+
+Dear child, Pharaoh laughs before his pyramids; standing before his
+pyramids he laughs. He would laugh at me, too.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day we three remaining guests were sitting in the living room. The
+lady and the actor read one book; I read another.
+
+"Will you," she says to him, "do me a great favor?"
+
+"With pleasure."
+
+"Would you go out in the grounds where we sat yesterday and fetch my
+galoshes?"
+
+So he went out to do her this great favor. He sang a well-known popular
+song as he crossed the yard, cheerful in his own peculiar way.
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"You seem silent."
+
+"Do I?"
+
+"Yes, you're very silent."
+
+"Listen to this," I said, and began to read to her from the book I held in
+my hands. I read a longish bit.
+
+She tried to interrupt me several times, and at length said impatiently:
+
+"What is this you want me to listen to?"
+
+"The _Musketeers_. You must admit it's entertaining."
+
+"I've read it," she said. And then she began to clasp her hands and drag
+them apart again.
+
+"Then you must hear something you haven't read before," I replied, and
+went across to my room to fetch a few pages I had written. They were only
+a few poems--nothing special, just a few small verses. Not that I am in
+the habit of reading such things aloud, but I seized on this for the
+moment because I wanted to prevent her from humbling herself, and telling
+me anything more.
+
+While I was reading the poems to her, the actor returned.
+
+"I couldn't find any galoshes there," he said.
+
+"No?" she replied absently.
+
+"No, I really looked everywhere, but...."
+
+She got up and left the room.
+
+He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a moment. Then it
+occurred to him.
+
+"I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he said, and
+hurried after her.
+
+I sat back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as
+she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my
+pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the
+fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some
+practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love,
+because they find it so agreeable; I have never practiced sport of any
+kind. I have loved and raged and suffered and stormed according to my
+nature--that is all; I am an old-fashioned man. And here I sit in the
+shadow of evening, the shadow of the half-century. Let me have done!
+
+The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She had
+turned him out; she had wept.
+
+I was not surprised, for it was the mode of expression of her type.
+
+"Have you ever heard the like of it? She told me to get out! I shall leave
+tomorrow."
+
+"Have you found the galoshes?" I asked.
+
+"Of course," he replied. "They were right in the passage. 'Here they are,'
+I said to her. 'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Right under your nose,' I said.
+'Yes, yes, go away,' she said, and began to cry. So I went away."
+
+"She'll get over it."
+
+"Do you think so? Yes, I expect she will. Oh, well, it's my opinion nobody
+can understand women, anyhow. But they're a mighty sex, the women, a
+mighty sex. They certainly are."
+
+He sat on a while, but he had no peace of mind, and soon went out again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening the lady was in the dining room before us; she was there when
+we came in, and we all nodded slightly in greeting. To the actor she was
+very kind, quite making up for her petulance of the afternoon.
+
+When he sat down he found a letter in his table napkin: a written note
+folded into the napkin. He was so surprised that he dropped everything he
+was doing to unfold and read it. With an exclamation and a smile, his
+blue, delighted eyes splashed over her; but she was looking down into her
+lap with her forehead wrinkled, so he put the note away in his vest
+pocket.
+
+Then it probably dawned on him that he had betrayed her, and he tried to
+cover it up somehow.
+
+"Well, here goes for food!" he said, as though he were going to require
+all his energy for the task of eating.
+
+Why had she written? There was nothing to prevent her speaking to him. He
+had, after all, been sitting on the doorstep when she emerged from her
+room and passed him. Had she foreseen that the good comedian could not
+contain himself, but would surely let a third person into the secret?
+
+Why probe or question further? The actor did not eat much, but he looked
+very happy. So the note must have said yes, must have been a promise;
+perhaps she would not tantalize him further.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+A few days later, they were going to leave. They would travel together,
+and that would be the end.
+
+I might have pitied them both, for though life is good, life is stern. One
+result at any rate was accomplished. She had not sent for him in vain, nor
+had he come in vain.
+
+That was the end of the act. But there were more acts to come--many more.
+
+She had lost much: having been ravished, she gave herself away; why be
+niggardly now? And this is the destiny of her type, that they lose
+increasingly much, retaining ever less; what need to hold back now? The
+ground has been completely shifted: from half-measures to the immolation
+of all virtue. The type is well-known, and can be found at resorts and
+boarding-houses, where it grows and flourishes.
+
+In spite of her wasted adolescence, her examination and her
+"independence," she has been coming home from her office stool or her
+teacher's desk more or less exhausted; suddenly she finds herself in the
+midst of a sweet and unlimited idleness, with quantities of tinned food
+for her meals. The company round her is continually changing, tourists
+come and go, and she passes from hand to hand for walks and talks; the
+tone is "country informality." This is sheer loose living; this is a life
+stripped of all purpose. She does not even sleep enough because she hears
+through the thin wall every sound made by her neighbor in the next room,
+while arriving or departing Englishmen bang doors all night. In a short
+time she has become a neurotic, sated with company, surfeited with herself
+and the place. She is ready to go off with the next halfway respectable
+organ grinder that happens along. And so she pairs off with the most
+casual visitors, flirts with the guide, hovering about him and making
+bandages for his fingers, and at last throws herself into the arms of a
+nameless nobody who has arrived at the house today.
+
+This is the Torsen type.
+
+And now, at this very moment, she retires to her room to collect the
+fragments of herself, in preparation for her departure--at the end of the
+summer. It takes time; there are so many fragments, one in every corner.
+But perhaps it consoles her to think that she knows the genitive of
+_mensa_.
+
+Things are not quite so bad for the actor. He has staked nothing, is
+committed to nothing. No part of his life is destroyed, nor anything
+within him. As he came, so he goes, cheerful, empty, nice. In fact he is
+even something more of a man because he has really made a conquest. He has
+no wish but to spend some pleasant hours with the Torsen type.
+
+He strolled about the garden waiting for her to get ready. Once she was
+visible through the doorway, and he called to her:
+
+"Aren't you coming soon? Don't forget we've got to cross the mountain!"
+
+"Well, I can't go bareheaded," she replied.
+
+He was impatient.
+
+"No, you've got to put your hat on, and what a lot of time that takes!
+Ugh!"
+
+She measured him coldly and said:
+
+"You're very--familiar."
+
+If he had paid her back in the same coin there would have been weeping and
+gnashing of teeth and cries of "Go away! Go alone!" and an hour's delay,
+and reconciliation and embraces. But the actor's manner changed at once,
+and he replied docilely, as his nature was,
+
+"Familiar? Well--perhaps. Sorry!"
+
+Then he strolled about the garden again, humming occasionally and swinging
+his stick. I took note of the oddly feminine shape of his knees, and the
+unusual plumpness of his thighs; there was something unnatural about this
+plumpness, as though it did not belong to his sex.
+
+His shoes were down at the heel, and his collar was open. His raincoat
+hung regally from his shoulders and flapped in the wind, though it was not
+raining. He was a proud and comical sight. But why speak harsh words about
+a raincoat? It was not he, the owner, that had abused it, and it hung from
+his shoulders as innocently as a bridal veil.
+
+Why speak harsh words about anyone? Life is good, but life is stern.
+Perhaps when she comes out, I think to myself, the following scene will
+take place: I stand here waiting only for this departure. So she gives me
+her hand and says good-bye.
+
+"Why don't you say something?" she asks in order to seem bright and easy
+in her mind.
+
+"Because I don't want to hurt you in the great error of your ways."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha," she laughs, too loudly and in a forced tone; "the great
+error of my ways! Well, really!"
+
+And her anger grows, while I am assured and fatherly, standing on the firm
+ground of conscious virtue. Yet I say an unworthy thing like this:
+
+"Don't throw yourself away, Miss Torsen!"
+
+She raises her head then; yes, the Torsen type would raise her head and
+reply, pale and offended:
+
+"Throw myself away?--I don't understand you."
+
+But it is possible, too, that Miss Torsen, at heart a fine, proud girl,
+would have a lucid moment and see things in their true light:
+
+"Why not, why shouldn't I throw myself away? What is there to keep? I am
+thrown away, wasted ever since my school days, and now I am seven and
+twenty...."
+
+My own thoughts run away with me as I stand there wishing I were somewhere
+else. Perhaps she, too, in her room wishes me far away.
+
+"Good-bye," I say to the actor. "Will you remember me to Miss Torsen? I
+must go now."
+
+"Good-bye," says he, shaking hands in some surprise. "Can't you wait a few
+minutes? Well, all right, I'll give her your greeting. Good-bye,
+good-bye."
+
+I take a short cut to get out of the way, and as I know every nook and
+corner, I am soon outside the farm, and find a good shelter. From here I
+shall see when these two leave. She has only to say good-bye now to the
+people of the farm.
+
+It struck me that yesterday was the last time I spoke to her. We spoke
+only a few insignificant words that I have forgotten, and today I have not
+spoken to her....
+
+Here they come.
+
+Curious--they seemed somehow to have become welded together; though they
+walked separately up the mountain track, yet they belonged together. They
+did not speak; the essential things had probably already been said. Life
+had grown ordinary for them; it still remained to them to be of use to
+each other. He walked first, while she followed many paces behind; it was
+lonely to look at against the rugged background of the mountain. Where had
+her tall figure gone to? She seemed to have grown shorter because she had
+hitched up her skirt and was carrying her knapsack on her back. They each
+carried one, but he carried hers and she his, probably because, owing to
+the greater number of her clothes, hers was the heavier sack. Thus had
+they shifted their burdens; what burdens would they carry in the future?
+She was, after all, no longer a schoolmistress, and perhaps he was no
+longer with the theater or the films.
+
+I watched those two crossing rocky, mountainous ground, bare ground, with
+not a tree anywhere except a few stunted junipers; far away near the ridge
+murmured the little Reisa. Those two had put their possessions together,
+were walking together; at the next halt they would be man and wife, and
+take only one room because it was cheaper.
+
+Suddenly I started up and, moved by some impulse of human sympathy--nay,
+of duty--I wanted to run across to her, talk to her, say a word of
+warning: "Don't go on!" I could have done it in a few minutes--a good
+deed, a duty....
+
+They disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill.
+
+Her name was Ingeborg.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+And now I, too, must wander on again, for I am the last at the Tore Peak
+farm. The season is wearing on, and this morning it snowed for the first
+time--wet, sad snow.
+
+It is very quiet at the farm now, and Josephine might have played the
+piano again and been friendly to the last guest; but now I am leaving,
+too. Besides, Josephine has little to play and be cheerful for; things
+have gone badly this year, and may grow worse as time goes on. The
+prospect is not a good one. "But something will turn up," says Josephine.
+She need not worry, for she has money in the bank, and no doubt there is a
+young man in the offing, on the other side of the fjeld.
+
+Oh, yes, Josephine will always manage; she thinks of everything. The other
+day, for instance--when Miss Torsen and her friend left. The friend could
+not pay his bill, and all he said was that he had expected money, but it
+hadn't come, and he couldn't stay any longer because of his private
+affairs. That was all very well, but when would the bill be paid? Why, he
+would send it from the town, of course; that was where he had his money!
+
+"But how do we know we'll get the money?--from him, anyway," said
+Josephine. "We've had these actor-people here before. And I didn't like
+the way he swanked about outside, thinking he was as good as anybody, and
+throwing his stick up in the air and catching it again. And then when Miss
+Torsen came in to say good-bye, I told her, and I wondered if she couldn't
+let me have the money for him. Miss Torsen was shocked, and said, 'Hasn't
+he paid himself?' 'No,' I said, 'he hasn't, and this year being such a bad
+one, we need every penny.' So then Miss Torsen said of course we should
+get the money; how much was it? And I told her, and she said she couldn't
+pay for him now, but she would see the money was sent; we could trust her
+for that. And I think we can, too. We'll get the money all right, if not
+from him. I daresay she'll send it herself...."
+
+And Josephine went off to serve me my dinner.
+
+Paul is on his feet now, too. Not that his step is always very steady, but
+at least he puts his feet to the ground. But he takes no interest in
+things; he does little more than feeding the horses and chopping some
+wood. He ought to be clearing the manure out of the summer cow houses for
+autumn use, but he keeps putting it off, and probably it will not be done
+at all. So far it hasn't mattered, but this morning's first wet snow has
+covered the hay outdoors and the maltreated land. And so it will remain
+till next spring. Poor Paul! He is an easygoing man at heart, but he
+pushes doggedly on against a whirlwind; sometimes he smiles to himself,
+knowing how useless it is to struggle--a distorted smile.
+
+His father, the old man alone in his room, stands sometimes on his
+threshold, as he used to do, and reflects. He is lost in memories, for he
+has ninety years behind him. The many houses on the farm confuse him a
+little; the roofs are all too big for him, and he is afraid they might
+come down and carry him off. Once he asked Josephine if it was right that
+his hands and fingers should run away from him every day across the
+fields. So they put mittens on his hands, but he took to chewing them; in
+fact he ate everything he was given, and enjoyed a good digestion. So they
+must be thankful he had his health, Josephine said, and could be up and
+about.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I did not follow the others across the field, but returned the way I had
+come last spring, down toward the woods and the sea. It is fitting that I
+should go back, always back, never forward again.
+
+I passed the hut where Solem and I had lived together, and then the
+Lapps--the two old people and Olga, this strange cross between a human
+being and a dwarf birch. A stove stood against the peat wall, and a
+paraffin lamp hung from the roof of their stone-age dwelling. Olga was
+kind and helpful, but she looked tiny and pathetic, like a ruffled hen; it
+pained me to watch her flit about the room, tiny and crooked, as she
+looked for a pair of reindeer cheeses for me.
+
+Then I reached my own hut of last winter where I had passed so many lonely
+months. I did not enter it.
+
+Or rather, I did enter it, for I had to spend the night there. But I shall
+skip this, so for the sake of brevity, I call it not entering. This
+morning I wrote something playful about Madame, the mouse I left here last
+spring; but tonight I am taking it out again because I am no longer in the
+mood, and because there is no point in it. Perhaps it would have amused
+you to read it, my friend; but there is no point in amusing you now. I
+must deject you now and make you listen to me; there is not much more to
+hear.
+
+Am I moralizing? I am explaining. No, I am not moralizing; I am
+explaining. If it is moralizing to see the truth and tell it to you, then
+I am moralizing. Can I help that? Intuitively I see into what is distant;
+you do not, for this is something you cannot learn from your little
+schoolbooks. Do not let this rouse your hatred for me. I shall be merry
+again with you later, when my strings are tuned to merriment. I have no
+power over them. Now they are tuned to a chorale....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At dawn, in the bright moonlight, I leave the hut and push on quickly in
+order to reach the village as soon as possible. But I must have started
+too early or walked too fast, for at this rate I shall reach the village
+at high noon. What am I chasing after? Perhaps it is feeling the nearness
+of the sea that drives me forward. And as I stand on the last high ridge,
+with the glitter and roar of the sea far beneath, a sweetness darts
+through me like a greeting from another world. "_Thalatta!_" I cry;
+and I wipe my eyeglasses tremblingly. The roar from below is sleepless and
+fierce, a tone of jungle passion, a savage litany. I descend the ridge as
+though in a trance and reach the first house.
+
+There was no one about, and a few children's faces at a window suddenly
+disappeared. Everything here was small and poor, though only the barn was
+of peat; the house was a timbered fisherman's home. As I entered the
+house, I saw that though it was as poor within as without, the floor was
+clean and covered with pine twigs. There were many children here. The
+mother was busy cooking something over the fire.
+
+I was offered a chair, and sitting down, began to chat with a couple of
+small boys. As I was in no hurry and asked for nothing, the woman said:
+
+"I expect you want a boat?"
+
+"A boat?" I said in my turn, for I had not come by boat on my last visit;
+I had walked instead over fjelds and valleys many miles from the sea.
+"Yes, why not?" I said. "But where does it go?"
+
+"I thought you wanted a boat to go to the trading center," she replied,
+"because that's where the steamer stops. We've rowed over lots of people
+this year."
+
+Great changes here; the motor traffic in Stordalen must have completely
+altered all the other traffic since my last visit ten months ago.
+
+"Where can I stop for a few days?" I asked.
+
+"At the trading center, the other side of the islands. Or there's Eilert
+and Olaus; they're both on this side. You could go there; they've got big
+houses."
+
+She showed me the two places on this side of the water, close to the
+shore, and I proceeded thither.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+A large house, with and upper story of planks built on later, displayed a
+new signboard on the wall: Room and Board. The barn, as usual, was a peat
+hut.
+
+As I did not know which was Eilert and which Olaus, and had stopped to
+consider which road to take, a man came hurrying toward me. Ah, well, the
+world is a small place; we meet friends and acquaintances everywhere. Here
+am I, meeting an old acquaintance, the thief of last winter, the pork
+thief. What luck, what a satisfaction!
+
+This was Eilert. He took in paying guests now.
+
+At first he pretended not to recognize me, but he soon gave that up. Once
+he had done so, however, he carried the thing off in style:
+
+"Well, well," he said, "what a nice surprise! You are most welcome under
+my humble roof, and such it is!"
+
+My own response was rather less jaunty, and I stood still collecting my
+thoughts. When I had asked a few questions, he explained that since the
+motor traffic had started in Stordalen, many visitors came through this
+way, and sometimes they wanted to stop over at his house before being
+rowed across to the steamer. They always came down in the evenings, and it
+might be fine, or it might not, and at night the fjord was often wild. He
+had therefore had to arrange to house them, because after all, you can't
+expect people to spend the night outdoors.
+
+"So you've turned into a hotelkeeper," I said.
+
+"Well, you can joke about it," he returned, "but all I do is to give
+shelter to the people who come here. That's all the hotel there is to it.
+My neighbor Olaus can't do any more either, even if he builds a place
+that's ten times as big. Look over there--now he's building another
+house--a shed, I'd call it--and he's got three grown men working on it so
+he can get it done by next summer. But it won't be much bigger than my
+place at that, and anyhow, the gentry don't want to be bothered walking
+all that distance to his place when here's my house right at the car stop.
+And besides it was me that started it, and if I was Olaus I wouldn't have
+wanted to imitate me like a regular monkey and started keeping boarders
+which I didn't know the first thing about. But he can't make himself any
+different from what he is, so he puts up a few old bits of canvas and rugs
+and cardboard inside his barn and gets people to sleep there. But I'd
+never ask the gentry to sleep in a barn, a storehouse for fodder and hay
+for dumb beasts, if you'll excuse my mentioning it! But of course if
+you've no shame in you and don't know how to behave in company--"
+
+"Lucky I've met you," I said. "Why, I might have gone on down the road to
+his place!"
+
+We walked on together, with Eilert talking and explaining all the way, and
+assuring me over and over again that Olaus was a good-for-nothing for
+copying him as he did.
+
+If I had known what was awaiting me, I should certainly have passed by
+Eilert's house. But I did not know. I was innocent, though I may not have
+appeared so. It cannot be helped.
+
+"It's too bad I've got somebody in the best room," said Eilert. "They're
+gentlefolk from the city. They came down here through Stordalen, and they
+had to walk because the cars have stopped for the season. They've been in
+my house for quite some days, and I think they'll be staying on a while
+yet. I think they're out now, but of course it means I can't let you have
+my best room."
+
+I looked up, and saw a face in the window. A shiver ran through me--no, of
+course not a shiver, far from it, but certainly this was a fresh surprise.
+What a coincidence! As we were about to enter the door, there was the
+actor, too--standing there looking at me: the actor from the Tore Peak
+resort. It was his knees, his coat, and his stick. So I was right--I
+_had_ recognized her face at an upper window. Yes, indeed, the world
+is small.
+
+The actor and I greeted each other and began to talk. How nice to see me
+again! And how was Paul, the good fellow--still soaking himself in liquor,
+he supposed? Funny effect it has sometimes; Paul seemed to think the whole
+inn was an aquarium and we visitors the goldfish! "Ha, ha, ha, goldfish; I
+wish we were, I must say!--Well, Eilert, are we getting some fresh haddock
+for supper? Good!--Really, we like it here very much; we've already been
+here several days; we want to stay and get a good rest."
+
+As we stood there, a rather stout girl came down from the loft and
+addressed the actor:
+
+"The missis wants you to come right upstairs."
+
+"Oh? Very well, at once.... Well, see you later. You'll be stopping here,
+too, I expect?"
+
+He hurried up the stairs.
+
+Eilert and I followed to my room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As a matter of fact, I went out again with Eilert at once. He had a great
+deal to tell me and explain to me, and I was not unwilling to listen to
+him then. Really, Eilert was not too bad, a fine fellow with four ragged,
+magnificent youngsters by his first wife, who had died two years before,
+and another child by his second wife. He must have forgotten, as he told
+me this, the yarn about the sick wife and the ailing children that he had
+spun for me last winter. The girl who had come down the stairs with the
+message from the "missis" was no servant, but Eilert's young wife. And
+she, too, was all right--strong and good, handy about the stables, and
+pregnant again.
+
+It all looks good to me, Eilert: your wife and everything you tell me
+about your family.
+
+No one will understand my strange contentment, then; I had been full of an
+obscure happiness from the moment I came to this house. Probably a mere
+coincidence, but that did not detract from my satisfactory state of mind;
+I was pleased with everything, and all things added to my cheerful frame
+of mind. There were some pigs by the barn, very affectionate pigs, because
+they were used to the children playing with them and kissing them and
+riding on their backs. And there was one of the goats, up on the roof of
+course, standing so far out along the edge that it was a wonder he didn't
+grow dizzy. Seagulls flew criss-cross over the fields, screaming their
+own language to one another, and being friends or enemies to the best of
+their ability. Down by the mouth of the river, just beneath the sunset,
+began the great road that winds up through the woods and the valley. There
+is something of the friendliness of a living being about such a forest
+road.
+
+Eilert was going out in his boat to fish haddock, and I went with him.
+Actually he should have been getting some meat for us; but he had promised
+the gentry from the city some fish, and fish was one of the gifts of God.
+Besides, if he lacked meat, he could always slaughter one of the pigs.
+
+There was a slight wind; but then we wanted some wind, Eilert said, as
+long as there was not too much of it.
+
+"Not reliable tonight though," he said, looking up into the sky; "the
+bigger the wind, the stronger the current."
+
+At first I was very brave, and sat on the thwart thinking of Eilert's
+French words: _travali, prekevary, sutinary, mankémang_, and many
+others. They've had a long way to travel, coming here by ancient routes
+via Bergen, and now they're common property.
+
+And then suddenly I lost all interest in French words, and felt extremely
+ill. It was much too windy, and we got no haddock.
+
+"Pity she's come up so quick," said Eilert; "let's try inshore for a
+while."
+
+But we got nothing there either, and as the wind increased and the sea
+rose, "We'd better go home," said Eilert.
+
+The sea had been just right before, remarkably so, but now there was
+entirely too much of it. Why on earth did I feel so bad? An inner
+exhaustion, some emotional excitement, would have explained it. But I had
+experienced no emotional excitement.
+
+We rowed in the foam and feathery jets of spray. "She's rising fast!"
+cried Eilert, rowing with all his might.
+
+I felt so wretched that Eilert told me to ship my oars; he would manage by
+himself. But for all my wretchedness, I remembered that they could see me
+from the shore, and I would not put down my oars. Eilert's wife might see
+me and laugh at me.
+
+What a revolting business, this seasickness that forced me to put my head
+over the gunwale and make a pig of myself! I had a moment's relief, and
+then it began all over again. Charming! I felt as though I were in labor;
+the wrong way up, of course, through my throat, but it was a delivery
+nonetheless. It moved up, then stopped, came on again and stopped, came on
+and stopped once more. It was a lump of iron--iron, did I say? No, steel;
+I had never felt anything like it before; it was not something I was born
+with. All my internal mechanism was stopped by it. Then I took a running
+start far down inside me and began, strangely, to howl with all my
+strength; but a howl, however successful, cannot break down a lump of
+steel. The pains continued. My mouth filled with bile. Soon, thank heaven,
+my chest would burst. O--oh--oh.... Then we rowed inside the islands that
+served as a breakwater, and I was saved.
+
+Quite suddenly I was well again, and began to play the clown, imitating my
+own behavior in order to deceive the people ashore. And I assured Eilert,
+too, that this was the first time I had ever been seasick, so that he
+should understand it was nothing to gossip about. After all, he had not
+heard about the great seas I had sailed without the slightest discomfort;
+once I had been four-and-twenty days on the ocean, with most of the
+passengers in bed, and even the captain sick in cascades; but not me!
+
+"Yes, I get seasick sometimes, too," says Eilert.
+
+That evening I sat eating alone in the dining room. Since we had not
+brought back any haddock, the visitors upstairs had no desire to come
+down. All they wanted, Eilert's wife said, was some bread and butter and
+milk to be sent up.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Next morning they had gone.
+
+Yes, indeed, they left at four in the morning, at dawn; I heard them
+perfectly well, for my room was near the stairs. The knight of the plump
+thighs came first, clumping heavily down the stairs. She hushed him, and
+her voice sounded angry.
+
+Eilert had just risen too, and they stood outside for some minutes,
+negotiating with him for the boat--yes, at once; they had changed their
+minds and wanted to leave, immediately. Then they went down to the boat,
+Eilert with them. I could see them through the window, chilled by the cold
+of early morning and short-tempered with each other. There had been a
+frost during the night; ice lay on the water in the buckets, and the
+ground was harsh to walk on. Poor things--no food, no coffee; a windy
+morning, with the sea still running rather high. There they go with their
+knapsacks on their backs; she is still wearing her red hat.
+
+Well, it was no concern of mine, and I lay down again, intending to sleep
+till about noon. Nothing was any concern of mine, except myself. I could
+not see the boat from my bed, so I got up again--just to while the time
+away--to see how far they had gone. Not very far, though both men were
+rowing. A little later I got up and looked again--oh, yes, they were
+getting on. I took up my post by the window. It was really quite
+interesting to watch the boat getting smaller and smaller; finally I
+opened the window, even looked through my field-glasses. As it was not yet
+quite light, I could not see them very clearly, but the red hat was still
+discernible. Then the boat disappeared behind an island. I dressed and
+went down. The children were all still in bed, but the wife, Regine, was
+up. How calmly and naturally she took everything!
+
+"Do you know where your husband is?" I asked her.
+
+"Yes--funny, aren't they?" she replied. "I never saw them till after
+they'd left--gone down to the fjord. Where do you suppose they're going?
+Haddock fishing?"
+
+"Maybe," was all I said. But I thought to myself: "They're leaving, all
+right. They had their knapsacks on their backs."
+
+"Funny couple," Regine resumed. "Nothing to eat, no coffee, not a thing!
+And the missis not wanting anything to eat last night, neither!"
+
+I merely shook my head and went out. Regine called to me that coffee was
+nearly ready, so if I'd like a cup--
+
+Of course the only thing I could do in the face of such foolishness was to
+shake my head and go away. One must take the sensible view. How was it
+possible to understand such behavior? Nevertheless I, the undersigned,
+should have gone on to Olaus yesterday, instead of going fishing. That
+would have been still more sensible. What business had I at this house?
+Very likely she found it embarrassing to be called the "missis," and this
+was why she could neither eat last night nor stay here today. So she had
+beaten a retreat, with her friend and her knapsack.
+
+Well, it was not much to go away with, but perhaps that doesn't matter. As
+long as one has a reason to go away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later in the forenoon Eilert returned home. He was alone, but he came up
+the path carrying one of the knapsacks--the larger one. He was in a
+furious temper, and kept saying they'd better not try it on him--no,
+they'd just better not.
+
+Of course it was the bill again.
+
+"She'll probably have a good deal of this sort of trouble," I thought to
+myself, "but no doubt she'll get used to it, and take it as nonchalantly
+as it should be taken. There are worse things."
+
+But the fact remains that it was I that upset them, I that had driven them
+away without their clothes; perhaps they had really expected some money to
+be sent here--who knows?
+
+I got hold of Eilert. How big was the bill? What, was that all? "Good
+heavens! Here you are, here's your money; now row across to them at once
+with their clothes!"
+
+But it all proved in vain, for the strangers had gone; they had arrived
+just in time for the boat, and were aboard it at that very moment.
+
+Well, there was no help for it.
+
+"Here's their address," says Eilert. "We can send the clothes next
+Thursday; that's the next trip the boat goes south again."
+
+I took down the address, but I was most ungracious to Eilert. Why couldn't
+he have kept the other knapsack--why this particular one?
+
+Eilert replied that it was true the gentleman had offered him the other
+one, but he could see from the outside that it was not so good as this
+one. And I should remember that the money the missis had paid him hadn't
+covered more than the bill for one of them. So it was only reasonable that
+he should take the fullest knapsack. As a matter of fact, he had behaved
+very well, and that was the truth. Because when she gave him the larger
+knapsack, and wrote the address, she had scolded, but he had kept quiet,
+and said not another word. And anyway, nobody had better try it on
+him--they'd better not, or he'd know the reason why!
+
+Eilert shook a long-armed fist at the sky.
+
+When he had eaten, drunk his coffee, and rested for a while, he was not so
+lively and talkative as on the previous day. He had been brooding and
+speculating ever since last summer, when the motor traffic started, and
+did I think it would be a good idea for him to hire three grown men, too,
+and build a much bigger house than Olaus's?
+
+So he had caught it, too--the great, modern Norwegian disease!
+
+The knapsack was back in her room again; yes, these were her clothes; I
+recognized her blouses, her skirts and her shoes. I hardly looked at them,
+of course; just unpacked them, folded them neatly, and put them back in
+the bag again; because no doubt Eilert had had them all out in a heap.
+This was really my only reason for unpacking them.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Once more I was run into a party of English, the last for this year.
+
+They arrived by steamer in the morning and stopped at the trading station
+for a few hours, meanwhile sending up a detachment through the valley to
+order a car to meet them. Stordalen, Stordalen, they said. So they had
+apparently not yet seen Stordalen--an omission they must repair at once.
+
+And what a sensation they made!
+
+They came across by rowboat from the trading station; we could hear them a
+long way off, an old man's voice drowning out all the others. Eilert
+dropped everything he had in hand, and ran down to the landing place in
+order to be the first on the spot. From Olaus's house, too, a man and a
+few half-grown boys went down, and from all the houses round swarmed
+curious and helpful crowds. There were so many spectators at the landing
+place that the old man with the loud voice drew himself up to his full
+height in the boat and majestically shouted his English at us, as though
+his language must of course be ours as well:
+
+"Where's the car? Bring the car down!"
+
+Olaus, who was sharp, guessed what he meant and at once sent his two boys
+up the valley to meet the car and hurry it on, for the Englishmen had
+arrived.
+
+They disembarked, they were in a great hurry, they could not understand
+why the car had not come to meet them: "What was the meaning of this?"
+There were four of them. "Stordalen!" they said. As they came up past
+Eilert's house, they looked at their watches and swore because so many
+minutes were being wasted. Where the devil was the car? The populace
+followed at some distance, gazing with reverence on these dressed-up
+fools.
+
+I remember a couple of them: an old man--the one with the loud voice--who
+wore a pleated kilt on each thigh and a jacket of green canvas with braid
+and buckles and straps and innumerable pockets all over it. What a man,
+what a power! His beard, streaming out from under his nose like the
+northern lights, was greenish-white, and he swore like a madman. Another
+of the party was tall and bent, a flagpole of sorts, astonishing,
+stupendous, with sloping shoulders, a tiny cap perched above extravagantly
+arched eyebrows; he was an upended Roman battering ram, a man on stilts. I
+measured him with my eyes, and still there was something left over. Yet he
+was bent and broken, old before his time, quite bald; but his mouth was
+tight as a tiger's, and he had a madness in his head that kept him on the
+move.
+
+"Stordalen!" he cried.
+
+England will soon have to open old people's homes for her sons. She
+desexes her people with sport and obsessive ideas: were not other
+countries keeping her in perpetual unrest, she would in a couple of
+generations be converted to pederasty....
+
+Then the horn of the car was heard tooting in the woods, and everyone
+raced to meet it.
+
+Of course Olaus's two boys had done an honest day's work in meeting the
+car so far up the road, and urging the driver to hurry; were they not to
+get any reward? True, they were allowed to sit in the back seat for their
+return journey and thus enjoyed the drive of a lifetime; but money! They
+had acquired enough brazenness in the course of the summer not to
+hesitate, and approached the loud-voiced old man, holding out their palms
+and clamoring: "Money!" But that did not suit the old man, who entered the
+car forthwith, urging his companions to hurry. The driver, no doubt
+thinking of his own tips, felt he would serve his passengers best by
+driving off with them at once. So off he went. A toot of the horn, and a
+rapid fanfare--tara-ra-boom-de-ay!
+
+The spectators turned homeward, talking about the illustrious visitors.
+Foreign lands--ah, no, this country will not bear comparison with them!
+"Did you see how tall the younger lord was?" "And did you see the other
+one, the one with the skirts and the northern lights?"
+
+But some of the homeward-turning bumpkins, such as the Olaus family, had
+more serious matters on their minds. Olaus for the first time understood
+what he had read in the paper so many times, that the Norwegian elementary
+school is a worthless institution because it does not teach English to the
+children of the lower orders. Here were his boys, losing a handsome tip
+merely because they could not swear back intelligibly at the gentleman
+with the northern lights. The boys themselves had also something to think
+about: "That driver, that scoundrel, that southerner! But just wait!" They
+had heard that bits of broken bottle were very good for tires....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I return to her knapsack and her clothes, and the reason why I do so is
+that Eilert is so little to be trusted. I want to count her clothes to
+make sure none of them disappear; it was a mistake not to have done so at
+once.
+
+It may seem as though I kept returning to these clothes and thinking about
+them; but why should I do that? At any rate it is now evident that I was
+right in suspecting Eilert, for I heard him going upstairs, and when I
+came in, he was turning out the bag and going through the clothes.
+
+"What are you doing?" I said.
+
+At first he tried to brazen it out.
+
+"Never you mind," he replied. But my knowing something about him was so
+much to my advantage that he soon drew in his horns. How I wronged him, he
+complained, and exploited him:
+
+"You haven't bought these clothes," he said. "I could have got more for
+them if I'd sold them." He had been paid, but he still wanted more, like
+the stomach, which goes on digesting after death. That was Eilert. Yet he
+was not too bad; he had never been any better, and he certainly had grown
+no worse with his new livelihood.
+
+May no one ever grow worse with a new livelihood!
+
+So I moved the knapsack and the clothes into my own room in order to take
+better care of them. It was a slow job to tidy everything up for the
+second time, but it had to be done. Later that evening I would resume my
+journey, taking the knapsack with me. I had done with the place, and the
+nights were moonlit again.
+
+Enough of these clothes!
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+Once again I am at an age when I walk in the moonlight. Thirty years ago I
+walked in the moonlight, too, walked on crackling, snowy roads, on bare,
+frozen ground, round unlocked barns, on the hunt for love. How well I
+remember it! But it is no longer the same moonlight. I could even read by
+it the letter she gave me. But there are no such letters any more.
+
+Everything is changed. The tale is told, and tonight I walk abroad on an
+errand of the head, not of the heart: I shall go across to the trading
+center and dispatch a knapsack by the steamer; after that I shall wander
+on. And that requires nothing but a little ordinary training in walking,
+and the light of the moon to see by. But in those old days, those young
+days, we studied the almanac in the autumn to find out if there would be a
+moon on Twelfth Night, for we could use it then.
+
+Everything is changed; I am changed. The tale lies within the teller.
+
+They say that old age has other pleasures which youth has not: deeper
+pleasures, more lasting pleasures. That is a lie. Yes, you have read
+right: that is a lie. Only old age itself says this, in a self-interest
+that flaunts its very rags. The old man has forgotten when he stood on the
+summit, forgotten his own self, his own _alias_, red and white,
+blowing a golden horn. Now he stands no longer--no, he sits--it is less of
+a strain to sit. But now there comes to him, slow and halting, fat and
+stupid, the honor of old age. What can a sitting man do with honor? A man
+on his feet can use it; to a sitting man it is only a possession. But
+honor is meant to be used, not to be sat with.
+
+Let sitting men wear warm stockings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What a coincidence: another barn on my road, just as in the days of the
+golden horn! It offers me plenty of straw and shelter for the night; but
+where is the girl who gave me the letter? How warm her breath was, coming
+between lips a little parted! She will come again, of course; let us wait,
+we have plenty of time, another twenty years--oh, yes, she will come....
+
+I must be on my guard against such traps. I have entered upon the
+honorable years; I am weak and quite capable of believing that a barn is a
+gift from above: thou well-deserving old man, here is a barn for thee!
+
+No, thank you, I'm only just in my seventies.
+
+And so in my errand of the head I pass by the barn.
+
+Toward morning I find shelter under a projecting crag. It is fitting that
+I should live under crags hereafter, and I lie down in a huddle, small and
+invisible. Anything else you please, as long as you don't flaunt your
+selfishness and your rags!
+
+I am comfortable now, lying with my head on another person's knapsack full
+of used clothes; I am doing this solely because it is just the right size.
+But sleep will not come; there are only thoughts and dreams and lines of
+poetry and sentimentality. The sack smells human, and I fling it away,
+laying my head on my arm. My arm smells of wood--not even wood.
+
+But the slip of paper with the address--have I got the address? And I
+scratch a match to read it through and know it by heart tomorrow. Just a
+line in pencil, nothing; but perhaps there is a softness in the letters, a
+womanliness--I don't know.
+
+It doesn't matter.
+
+I manage to reach the trading center at midday, when everyone is up and
+about, and the post office open. They give me a large sheet of wrapping
+paper and string and sealing wax; I wrap the parcel and seal it and write
+on the outside. There!
+
+Oh--I forgot the slip of paper with the address--to put it inside, I mean.
+Stupid! But otherwise I have done what I should. As I continue on my way,
+I feel strangely void and deserted; no doubt because the knapsack was
+quite heavy after all, and now I am well rid of it. "The last pleasure!" I
+think suddenly. And as I walk on I think irrelevantly: "The last country,
+the last island, the last pleasure...."
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+What now?
+
+I didn't know at first. The winter stood before me, my summer behind
+me--no task, no yearning, no ambition. As it made no difference where I
+stayed, I remembered a town I knew, and thought I might as well go
+there--why not? A man cannot forever sit by the sea, and it is not
+necessary to misunderstand him if he decides to leave it. So he leaves
+his solitude--others have done so before him--and a mild curiosity drives
+him to see the ships and the horses and the tiny frostbitten gardens of a
+certain town. When he arrives there, he begins to wonder in his idleness
+if he does not know someone in this town, in this terrifyingly large town.
+The moonlight is bright now, and it amuses him to give himself a certain
+address to visit evening after evening, and to take up his post there as
+though something depended on it. He is not expected anywhere else, so he
+has the time. Then one evening someone finds him reading under a lamppost,
+stops suddenly and stares, takes a few steps toward him, and bends
+forward searchingly.
+
+"Isn't it--? Oh, no, excuse me, I thought--"
+
+"Yes, it is. Good evening, Miss Torsen."
+
+"Why, good evening. I thought it looked like you. Good evening. Yes, thank
+you, very well. And thanks for the knapsack; I understood all at once--I
+quite understand--"
+
+"Do you live here? What a strange coincidence!"
+
+"Yes, I live here; those are my windows. You wouldn't like to come up,
+would you? No, perhaps you wouldn't."
+
+"But I know where there are some benches down by the shore. Unless you're
+cold?" I suggested.
+
+"No, I'm not cold. Yes, thank you, I'd like to."
+
+We went down to a bench, looking like a father and daughter out walking.
+There was nothing striking about us, and we sat the whole evening
+undisturbed. Later we sat undisturbed on other evenings all through a cold
+autumn month.
+
+Then she told me first the short chapter of her journey home, some of it
+only hinted, suggested, and some of it in full; sometimes with her head
+deeply bowed, sometimes, when I asked a question, replying by a brief word
+or a shake of the head. I write it down from memory; it was important to
+her, and it became important for others as well.
+
+Besides--in a hundred years it will all be forgotten. Why do we struggle?
+In a hundred years someone will read about it in memoirs and letters and
+think: "How she wriggled, how she fussed--dear me!" There are others about
+whom nothing at all will be written or read; life will close over them
+like a grave. Either way....
+
+What sorrows she had--dear, dear, what sorrows! The day she had been
+unable to pay the bill, she thought herself the center of the universe;
+everybody stared at her, and she was at her wits' end. Then she heard a
+man's voice outside saying: "Haven't you watered Blakka yet?" That was
+_his_ preoccupation. So she was not the center of the universe after
+all.
+
+Then she and her companion had left the house, and set out on their tour.
+The center? Not at all. Day after day they walked across fields, and
+through valleys, had meals in houses by the way, and water from the
+brooks. If they met other travelers, they greeted them, or they did not
+greet them; no one was less a center of attention than they, and no one
+more. Her companion walked in vacant thoughtlessness, whistling as he
+went.
+
+At one place they stopped for food.
+
+"Will you pay for mine for the time being?" he said.
+
+She hesitated and then said briefly that she could not pay "for the time
+being" all the way.
+
+"Of course not, by no means," said he. "Just for the moment. Perhaps we
+can get a loan further down the valley."
+
+"I don't borrow."
+
+"Ingeborg!" said he, pretending playfully to whimper.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Nothing. Can't I say 'Ingeborg' to my own wife?"
+
+"I'm not your own wife," she said, getting up.
+
+"Pish! We were man and wife last night. It says so in the visitors' book."
+
+She was silent at this. Yes, last night they had been man and wife; that
+was to save getting two rooms, and travel economically. But she had been
+very foolish to agree to it.
+
+"'Miss Torsen,' then?" he whimpered.
+
+And to put an end to the game, she paid for both of them and took her
+knapsack on her back.
+
+They walked again. At the next stop she paid for them both without
+discussion--for the evening meal, for bed and breakfast. It grew to be a
+habit. They walked on once more. They reached the end of the valley by the
+sea, and here she revolted again.
+
+"Go away--go on by yourself; I don't want you in my room any more!"
+
+The old argument no longer held good. When he repeated that they saved
+money by it, she replied that she for her part required no more than one
+room, and was quite able to pay for it. He joked again, whimpered,
+"Ingeborg!" and left her. He was beaten, and his back was bent.
+
+She ate alone that evening.
+
+"Isn't your husband coming in?" asked the woman of the house.
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't want anything," she replied.
+
+There he stood, away by the tiny barn pretending to be interested in the
+roof, in the style of building, and walked round looking at it, pursing
+his lips and whistling. But she could see perfectly well from the window
+that his face was blue and dejected. When she had eaten, she walked down
+to the shore, calling as she passed him:
+
+"Go in and eat!"
+
+But he had not sunk quite so low; he would not go in to eat, and slept
+towards the papers in the seed-tray.
+
+“You have great strength of character. You will marry a red-haired man
+and have three children. Beware of a blonde woman.” Look out! Look out!
+A motor-car driven by a fat chauffeur comes rushing down the hill.
+Inside there a blonde woman, pouting, leaning forward—rushing through
+your life—beware! beware!
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen, I am an auctioneer by profession, and if what I
+tell you is not the truth I am liable to have my licence taken away
+from me and a heavy imprisonment.” He holds the licence across his
+chest; the sweat pours down his face into his paper collar; his eyes
+look glazed. When he takes off his hat there is a deep pucker of angry
+flesh on his forehead. Nobody buys a watch.
+
+Look out again! A huge barouche comes swinging down the hill with two
+old, old babies inside. She holds up a lace parasol; he sucks the knob
+of his cane, and the fat old bodies roll together as the cradle rocks,
+and the steaming horse leaves a trail of manure as it ambles down the
+hill.
+
+Under a tree, Professor Leonard, in cap and gown, stands beside his
+banner. He is here “for one day,” from the London, Paris and Brussels
+Exhibition, to tell your fortune from your face. And he stands, smiling
+encouragement, like a clumsy dentist. When the big men, romping and
+swearing a moment before, hand across their sixpence, and stand before
+him, they are suddenly serious, dumb, timid, almost blushing as the
+Professor’s quick hand notches the printed card. They are like little
+children caught playing in a forbidden garden by the owner, stepping
+from behind a tree.
+
+The top of the hill is reached. How hot it is! How fine it is! The
+public-house is open, and the crowd presses in. The mother sits on the
+pavement edge with her baby, and the father brings her out a glass of
+dark, brownish stuff, and then savagely elbows his way in again. A reek
+of beer floats from the public-house, and a loud clatter and rattle of
+voices.
+
+The wind has dropped, and the sun burns more fiercely than ever.
+Outside the two swing-doors there is a thick mass of children like
+flies at the mouth of a sweet-jar.
+
+And up, up the hill come the people, with ticklers and golliwogs, and
+roses and feathers. Up, up they thrust into the light and heat,
+shouting, laughing, squealing, as though they were being pushed by
+something, far below, and by the sun, far ahead of them—drawn up into
+the full, bright, dazzling radiance to... what?
+
+
+
+
+An Ideal Family
+
+
+That evening for the first time in his life, as he pressed through the
+swing door and descended the three broad steps to the pavement, old Mr.
+Neave felt he was too old for the spring. Spring—warm, eager,
+restless—was there, waiting for him in the golden light, ready in front
+of everybody to run up, to blow in his white beard, to drag sweetly on
+his arm. And he couldn’t meet her, no; he couldn’t square up once more
+and stride off, jaunty as a young man. He was tired and, although the
+late sun was still shining, curiously cold, with a numbed feeling all
+over. Quite suddenly he hadn’t the energy, he hadn’t the heart to stand
+this gaiety and bright movement any longer; it confused him. He wanted
+to stand still, to wave it away with his stick, to say, “Be off with
+you!” Suddenly it was a terrible effort to greet as usual—tipping his
+wide-awake with his stick—all the people whom he knew, the friends,
+acquaintances, shopkeepers, postmen, drivers. But the gay glance that
+went with the gesture, the kindly twinkle that seemed to say, “I’m a
+match and more for any of you”—that old Mr. Neave could not manage at
+all. He stumped along, lifting his knees high as if he were walking
+through air that had somehow grown heavy and solid like water. And the
+homeward-looking crowd hurried by, the trams clanked, the light carts
+clattered, the big swinging cabs bowled along with that reckless,
+defiant indifference that one knows only in dreams....
+
+It had been a day like other days at the office. Nothing special had
+happened. Harold hadn’t come back from lunch until close on four. Where
+had he been? What had he been up to? He wasn’t going to let his father
+know. Old Mr. Neave had happened to be in the vestibule, saying
+good-bye to a caller, when Harold sauntered in, perfectly turned out as
+usual, cool, suave, smiling that peculiar little half-smile that women
+found so fascinating.
+
+Ah, Harold was too handsome, too handsome by far; that had been the
+trouble all along. No man had a right to such eyes, such lashes, and
+such lips; it was uncanny. As for his mother, his sisters, and the
+servants, it was not too much to say they made a young god of him; they
+worshipped Harold, they forgave him everything; and he had needed some
+forgiving ever since the time when he was thirteen and he had stolen
+his mother’s purse, taken the money, and hidden the purse in the cook’s
+bedroom. Old Mr. Neave struck sharply with his stick upon the pavement
+edge. But it wasn’t only his family who spoiled Harold, he reflected,
+it was everybody; he had only to look and to smile, and down they went
+before him. So perhaps it wasn’t to be wondered at that he expected the
+office to carry on the tradition. H’m, h’m! But it couldn’t be done. No
+business—not even a successful, established, big paying concern—could
+be played with. A man had either to put his whole heart and soul into
+it, or it went all to pieces before his eyes....
+
+And then Charlotte and the girls were always at him to make the whole
+thing over to Harold, to retire, and to spend his time enjoying
+himself. Enjoying himself! Old Mr. Neave stopped dead under a group of
+ancient cabbage palms outside the Government buildings! Enjoying
+himself! The wind of evening shook the dark leaves to a thin airy
+cackle. Sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs, conscious all the while
+that his life’s work was slipping away, dissolving, disappearing
+through Harold’s fine fingers, while Harold smiled....
+
+“Why will you be so unreasonable, father? There’s absolutely no need
+for you to go to the office. It only makes it very awkward for us when
+people persist in saying how tired you’re looking. Here’s this huge
+house and garden. Surely you could be happy in—in—appreciating it for a
+change. Or you could take up some hobby.”
+
+And Lola the baby had chimed in loftily, “All men ought to have
+hobbies. It makes life impossible if they haven’t.”
+
+Well, well! He couldn’t help a grim smile as painfully he began to
+climb the hill that led into Harcourt Avenue. Where would Lola and her
+sisters and Charlotte be if he’d gone in for hobbies, he’d like to
+know? Hobbies couldn’t pay for the town house and the seaside bungalow,
+and their horses, and their golf, and the sixty-guinea gramophone in
+the music-room for them to dance to. Not that he grudged them these
+things. No, they were smart, good-looking girls, and Charlotte was a
+remarkable woman; it was natural for them to be in the swim. As a
+matter of fact, no other house in the town was as popular as theirs; no
+other family entertained so much. And how many times old Mr. Neave,
+pushing the cigar box across the smoking-room table, had listened to
+praises of his wife, his girls, of himself even.
+
+“You’re an ideal family, sir, an ideal family. It’s like something one
+reads about or sees on the stage.”
+
+“That’s all right, my boy,” old Mr. Neave would reply. “Try one of
+those; I think you’ll like them. And if you care to smoke in the
+garden, you’ll find the girls on the lawn, I dare say.”
+
+That was why the girls had never married, so people said. They could
+have married anybody. But they had too good a time at home. They were
+too happy together, the girls and Charlotte. H’m, h’m! Well, well.
+Perhaps so....
+
+By this time he had walked the length of fashionable Harcourt Avenue;
+he had reached the corner house, their house. The carriage gates were
+pushed back; there were fresh marks of wheels on the drive. And then he
+faced the big white-painted house, with its wide-open windows, its
+tulle curtains floating outwards, its blue jars of hyacinths on the
+broad sills. On either side of the carriage porch their
+hydrangeas—famous in the town—were coming into flower; the pinkish,
+bluish masses of flower lay like light among the spreading leaves. And
+somehow, it seemed to old Mr. Neave that the house and the flowers, and
+even the fresh marks on the drive, were saying, “There is young life
+here. There are girls—”
+
+The hall, as always, was dusky with wraps, parasols, gloves, piled on
+the oak chests. From the music-room sounded the piano, quick, loud and
+impatient. Through the drawing-room door that was ajar voices floated.
+
+“And were there ices?” came from Charlotte. Then the creak, creak of
+her rocker.
+
+“Ices!” cried Ethel. “My dear mother, you never saw such ices. Only two
+kinds. And one a common little strawberry shop ice, in a sopping wet
+frill.”
+
+“The food altogether was too appalling,” came from Marion.
+
+“Still, it’s rather early for ices,” said Charlotte easily.
+
+“But why, if one has them at all....” began Ethel.
+
+“Oh, quite so, darling,” crooned Charlotte.
+
+Suddenly the music-room door opened and Lola dashed out. She started,
+she nearly screamed, at the sight of old Mr. Neave.
+
+“Gracious, father! What a fright you gave me! Have you just come home?
+Why isn’t Charles here to help you off with your coat?”
+
+Her cheeks were crimson from playing, her eyes glittered, the hair fell
+over her forehead. And she breathed as though she had come running
+through the dark and was frightened. Old Mr. Neave stared at his
+youngest daughter; he felt he had never seen her before. So that was
+Lola, was it? But she seemed to have forgotten her father; it was not
+for him that she was waiting there. Now she put the tip of her crumpled
+handkerchief between her teeth and tugged at it angrily. The telephone
+rang. A-ah! Lola gave a cry like a sob and dashed past him. The door of
+the telephone-room slammed, and at the same moment Charlotte called,
+“Is that you, father?”
+
+“You’re tired again,” said Charlotte reproachfully, and she stopped the
+rocker and offered her warm plum-like cheek. Bright-haired Ethel pecked
+his beard, Marion’s lips brushed his ear.
+
+“Did you walk back, father?” asked Charlotte.
+
+“Yes, I walked home,” said old Mr. Neave, and he sank into one of the
+immense drawing-room chairs.
+
+“But why didn’t you take a cab?” said Ethel. “There are hundreds of
+cabs about at that time.”
+
+“My dear Ethel,” cried Marion, “if father prefers to tire himself out,
+I really don’t see what business of ours it is to interfere.”
+
+“Children, children?” coaxed Charlotte.
+
+But Marion wouldn’t be stopped. “No, mother, you spoil father, and it’s
+not right. You ought to be stricter with him. He’s very naughty.” She
+laughed her hard, bright laugh and patted her hair in a mirror.
+Strange! When she was a little girl she had such a soft, hesitating
+voice; she had even stuttered, and now, whatever she said—even if it
+was only “Jam, please, father”—it rang out as though she were on the
+stage.
+
+“Did Harold leave the office before you, dear?” asked Charlotte,
+beginning to rock again.
+
+“I’m not sure,” said Old Mr. Neave. “I’m not sure. I didn’t see him
+after four o’clock.”
+
+“He said—” began Charlotte.
+
+But at that moment Ethel, who was twitching over the leaves of some
+paper or other, ran to her mother and sank down beside her chair.
+
+“There, you see,” she cried. “That’s what I mean, mummy. Yellow, with
+touches of silver. Don’t you agree?”
+
+“Give it to me, love,” said Charlotte. She fumbled for her
+tortoise-shell spectacles and put them on, gave the page a little dab
+with her plump small fingers, and pursed up her lips. “Very sweet!” she
+crooned vaguely; she looked at Ethel over her spectacles. “But I
+shouldn’t have the train.”
+
+“Not the train!” wailed Ethel tragically. “But the train’s the whole
+point.”
+
+“Here, mother, let me decide.” Marion snatched the paper playfully from
+Charlotte. “I agree with mother,” she cried triumphantly. “The train
+overweights it.”
+
+Old Mr. Neave, forgotten, sank into the broad lap of his chair, and,
+dozing, heard them as though he dreamed. There was no doubt about it,
+he was tired out; he had lost his hold. Even Charlotte and the girls
+were too much for him to-night. They were too... too.... But all his
+drowsing brain could think of was—too _rich_ for him. And somewhere at
+the back of everything he was watching a little withered ancient man
+climbing up endless flights of stairs. Who was he?
+
+“I shan’t dress to-night,” he muttered.
+
+“What do you say, father?”
+
+“Eh, what, what?” Old Mr. Neave woke with a start and stared across at
+them. “I shan’t dress to-night,” he repeated.
+
+“But, father, we’ve got Lucile coming, and Henry Davenport, and Mrs.
+Teddie Walker.”
+
+“It will look so _very_ out of the picture.”
+
+“Don’t you feel well, dear?”
+
+“You needn’t make any effort. What is Charles _for_?”
+
+“But if you’re really not up to it,” Charlotte wavered.
+
+“Very well! Very well!” Old Mr. Neave got up and went to join that
+little old climbing fellow just as far as his dressing-room....
+
+There young Charles was waiting for him. Carefully, as though
+everything depended on it, he was tucking a towel round the hot-water
+can. Young Charles had been a favourite of his ever since as a little
+red-faced boy he had come into the house to look after the fires. Old
+Mr. Neave lowered himself into the cane lounge by the window, stretched
+out his legs, and made his little evening joke, “Dress him up,
+Charles!” And Charles, breathing intensely and frowning, bent forward
+to take the pin out of his tie.
+
+H’m, h’m! Well, well! It was pleasant by the open window, very
+pleasant—a fine mild evening. They were cutting the grass on the tennis
+court below; he heard the soft churr of the mower. Soon the girls would
+begin their tennis parties again. And at the thought he seemed to hear
+Marion’s voice ring out, “Good for you, partner.... Oh, _played_,
+partner.... Oh, _very_ nice indeed.” Then Charlotte calling from the
+veranda, “Where is Harold?” And Ethel, “He’s certainly not here,
+mother.” And Charlotte’s vague, “He said—”
+
+Old Mr. Neave sighed, got up, and putting one hand under his beard, he
+took the comb from young Charles, and carefully combed the white beard
+over. Charles gave him a folded handkerchief, his watch and seals, and
+spectacle case.
+
+“That will do, my lad.” The door shut, he sank back, he was alone....
+
+And now that little ancient fellow was climbing down endless flights
+that led to a glittering, gay dining-room. What legs he had! They were
+like a spider’s—thin, withered.
+
+“You’re an ideal family, sir, an ideal family.”
+
+But if that were true, why didn’t Charlotte or the girls stop him? Why
+was he all alone, climbing up and down? Where was Harold? Ah, it was no
+good expecting anything from Harold. Down, down went the little old
+spider, and then, to his horror, old Mr. Neave saw him slip past the
+dining-room and make for the porch, the dark drive, the carriage gates,
+the office. Stop him, stop him, somebody!
+
+Old Mr. Neave started up. It was dark in his dressing-room; the window
+shone pale. How long had he been asleep? He listened, and through the
+big, airy, darkened house there floated far-away voices, far-away
+sounds. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, he had been asleep for a long
+time. He’d been forgotten. What had all this to do with him—this house
+and Charlotte, the girls and Harold—what did he know about them? They
+were strangers to him. Life had passed him by. Charlotte was not his
+wife. His wife!
+
+... A dark porch, half hidden by a passion-vine, that drooped
+sorrowful, mournful, as though it understood. Small, warm arms were
+round his neck. A face, little and pale, lifted to his, and a voice
+breathed, “Good-bye, my treasure.”
+
+My treasure! “Good-bye, my treasure!” Which of them had spoken? Why had
+they said good-bye? There had been some terrible mistake. _She_ was his
+wife, that little pale girl, and all the rest of his life had been a
+dream.
+
+Then the door opened, and young Charles, standing in the light, put his
+hands by his side and shouted like a young soldier, “Dinner is on the
+table, sir!”
+
+“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said old Mr. Neave.
+
+
+
+
+The Lady’s Maid
+
+
+_Eleven o’clock. A knock at the door._
+
+... I hope I haven’t disturbed you, madam. You weren’t asleep—were you?
+But I’ve just given my lady her tea, and there was such a nice cup
+over, I thought, perhaps....
+
+... Not at all, madam. I always make a cup of tea last thing. She
+drinks it in bed after her prayers to warm her up. I put the kettle on
+when she kneels down and I say to it, “Now you needn’t be in too much
+of a hurry to say _your_ prayers.” But it’s always boiling before my
+lady is half through. You see, madam, we know such a lot of people, and
+they’ve all got to be prayed for—every one. My lady keeps a list of the
+names in a little red book. Oh dear! whenever some one new has been to
+see us and my lady says afterwards, “Ellen, give me my little red
+book,” I feel quite wild, I do. “There’s another,” I think, “keeping
+her out of her bed in all weathers.” And she won’t have a cushion, you
+know, madam; she kneels on the hard carpet. It fidgets me something
+dreadful to see her, knowing her as I do. I’ve tried to cheat her; I’ve
+spread out the eiderdown. But the first time I did it—oh, she gave me
+such a look—holy it was, madam. “Did our Lord have an eiderdown,
+Ellen?” she said. But—I was younger at the time—I felt inclined to say,
+“No, but our Lord wasn’t your age, and he didn’t know what it was to
+have your lumbago.” Wicked—wasn’t it? But she’s _too_ good, you know,
+madam. When I tucked her up just now and seen—saw her lying back, her
+hands outside and her head on the pillow—so pretty—I couldn’t help
+thinking, “Now you look just like your dear mother when I laid her
+out!”
+
+... Yes, madam, it was all left to me. Oh, she did look sweet. I did
+her hair, soft-like, round her forehead, all in dainty curls, and just
+to one side of her neck I put a bunch of most beautiful purple pansies.
+Those pansies made a picture of her, madam! I shall never forget them.
+I thought to-night, when I looked at my lady, “Now, if only the pansies
+was there no one could tell the difference.”
+
+... Only the last year, madam. Only after she’d got a
+little—well—feeble as you might say. Of course, she was never
+dangerous; she was the sweetest old lady. But how it took her was—she
+thought she’d lost something. She couldn’t keep still, she couldn’t
+settle. All day long she’d be up and down, up and down; you’d meet her
+everywhere,—on the stairs, in the porch, making for the kitchen. And
+she’d look up at you, and she’d say—just like a child, “I’ve lost it,
+I’ve lost it.” “Come along,” I’d say, “come along, and I’ll lay out
+your patience for you.” But she’d catch me by the hand—I was a
+favourite of hers—and whisper, “Find it for me, Ellen. Find it for me.”
+Sad, wasn’t it?
+
+... No, she never recovered, madam. She had a stroke at the end. Last
+words she ever said was—very slow, “Look in—the—Look—in—” And then she
+was gone.
+
+... No, madam, I can’t say I noticed it. Perhaps some girls. But you
+see, it’s like this, I’ve got nobody but my lady. My mother died of
+consumption when I was four, and I lived with my grandfather, who kept
+a hair-dresser’s shop. I used to spend all my time in the shop under a
+table dressing my doll’s hair—copying the assistants, I suppose. They
+were ever so kind to me. Used to make me little wigs, all colours, the
+latest fashions and all. And there I’d sit all day, quiet as quiet—the
+customers never knew. Only now and again I’d take my peep from under
+the table-cloth.
+
+... But one day I managed to get a pair of scissors and—would you
+believe it, madam? I cut off all my hair; snipped it off all in bits,
+like the little monkey I was. Grandfather was _furious_! He caught hold
+of the tongs—I shall never forget it—grabbed me by the hand and shut my
+fingers in them. “That’ll teach you!” he said. It was a fearful burn.
+I’ve got the mark of it to-day.
+
+... Well, you see, madam, he’d taken such pride in my hair. He used to
+sit me up on the counter, before the customers came, and do it
+something beautiful—big, soft curls and waved over the top. I remember
+the assistants standing round, and me ever so solemn with the penny
+grandfather gave me to hold while it was being done.... But he always
+took the penny back afterwards. Poor grandfather! Wild, he was, at the
+fright I’d made of myself. But he frightened me that time. Do you know
+what I did, madam? I ran away. Yes, I did, round the corners, in and
+out, I don’t know how far I didn’t run. Oh, dear, I must have looked a
+sight, with my hand rolled up in my pinny and my hair sticking out.
+People must have laughed when they saw me....
+
+... No, madam, grandfather never got over it. He couldn’t bear the
+sight of me after. Couldn’t eat his dinner, even, if I was there. So my
+aunt took me. She was a cripple, an upholstress. Tiny! She had to stand
+on the sofas when she wanted to cut out the backs. And it was helping
+her I met my lady....
+
+... Not so very, madam. I was thirteen, turned. And I don’t remember
+ever feeling—well—a child, as you might say. You see there was my
+uniform, and one thing and another. My lady put me into collars and
+cuffs from the first. Oh yes—once I did! That was—funny! It was like
+this. My lady had her two little nieces staying with her—we were at
+Sheldon at the time—and there was a fair on the common.
+
+“Now, Ellen,” she said, “I want you to take the two young ladies for a
+ride on the donkeys.” Off we went; solemn little loves they were; each
+had a hand. But when we came to the donkeys they were too shy to go on.
+So we stood and watched instead. Beautiful those donkeys were! They
+were the first I’d seen out of a cart—for pleasure as you might say.
+They were a lovely silver-grey, with little red saddles and blue
+bridles and bells jing-a-jingling on their ears. And quite big
+girls—older than me, even—were riding them, ever so gay. Not at all
+common, I don’t mean, madam, just enjoying themselves. And I don’t know
+what it was, but the way the little feet went, and the eyes—so
+gentle—and the soft ears—made me want to go on a donkey more than
+anything in the world!
+
+... Of course, I couldn’t. I had my young ladies. And what would I have
+looked like perched up there in my uniform? But all the rest of the day
+it was donkeys—donkeys on the brain with me. I felt I should have burst
+if I didn’t tell some one; and who was there to tell? But when I went
+to bed—I was sleeping in Mrs. James’s bedroom, our cook that was, at
+the time—as soon as the lights was out, there they were, my donkeys,
+jingling along, with their neat little feet and sad eyes.... Well,
+madam, would you believe it, I waited for a long time and pretended to
+be asleep, and then suddenly I sat up and called out as loud as I
+could, “_I do want to go on a donkey. I do want a donkey-ride!_” You
+see, I had to say it, and I thought they wouldn’t laugh at me if they
+knew I was only dreaming. Artful—wasn’t it? Just what a silly child
+would think....
+
+... No, madam, never now. Of course, I did think of it at one time. But
+it wasn’t to be. He had a little flower-shop just down the road and
+across from where we was living. Funny—wasn’t it? And me such a one for
+flowers. We were having a lot of company at the time, and I was in and
+out of the shop more often than not, as the saying is. And Harry and I
+(his name was Harry) got to quarrelling about how things ought to be
+arranged—and that began it. Flowers! you wouldn’t believe it, madam,
+the flowers he used to bring me. He’d stop at nothing. It was
+lilies-of-the-valley more than once, and I’m not exaggerating! Well, of
+course, we were going to be married and live over the shop, and it was
+all going to be just so, and I was to have the window to arrange....
+Oh, how I’ve done that window of a Saturday! Not really, of course,
+madam, just dreaming, as you might say. I’ve done it for
+Christmas—motto in holly, and all—and I’ve had my Easter lilies with a
+gorgeous star all daffodils in the middle. I’ve hung—well, that’s
+enough of that. The day came he was to call for me to choose the
+furniture. Shall I ever forget it? It was a Tuesday. My lady wasn’t
+quite herself that afternoon. Not that she’d said anything, of course;
+she never does or will. But I knew by the way that she kept wrapping
+herself up and asking me if it was cold—and her little nose looked...
+pinched. I didn’t like leaving her; I knew I’d be worrying all the
+time. At last I asked her if she’d rather I put it off. “Oh no, Ellen,”
+she said, “you mustn’t mind about me. You mustn’t disappoint your young
+man.” And so cheerful, you know, madam, never thinking about herself.
+It made me feel worse than ever. I began to wonder... then she dropped
+her handkerchief and began to stoop down to pick it up herself—a thing
+she never did. “Whatever are you doing!” I cried, running to stop her.
+“Well,” she said, smiling, you know, madam, “I shall have to begin to
+practise.” Oh, it was all I could do not to burst out crying. I went
+over to the dressing-table and made believe to rub up the silver, and I
+couldn’t keep myself in, and I asked her if she’d rather I... didn’t
+get married. “No, Ellen,” she said—that was her voice, madam, like I’m
+giving you—“No, Ellen, not for the _wide world_!” But while she said
+it, madam—I was looking in her glass; of course, she didn’t know I
+could see her—she put her little hand on her heart just like her dear
+mother used to, and lifted her eyes... Oh, _madam_!
+
+When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky
+little brooch he’d given me—a silver bird it was, with a chain in its
+beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger. Quite the
+thing! I opened the door to him. I never gave him time for a word.
+“There you are,” I said. “Take them all back,” I said, “it’s all over.
+I’m not going to marry you,” I said, “I can’t leave my lady.” White! he
+turned as white as a woman. I had to slam the door, and there I stood,
+all of a tremble, till I knew he had gone. When I opened the
+door—believe me or not, madam—that man _was_ gone! I ran out into the
+road just as I was, in my apron and my house-shoes, and there I stayed
+in the middle of the road... staring. People must have laughed if they
+saw me....
+
+... Goodness gracious!—What’s that? It’s the clock striking! And here
+I’ve been keeping you awake. Oh, madam, you ought to have stopped
+me.... Can I tuck in your feet? I always tuck in my lady’s feet, every
+night, just the same. And she says, “Good night, Ellen. Sleep sound and
+wake early!” I don’t know what I should do if she didn’t say that, now.
+
+... Oh dear, I sometimes think... whatever should I do if anything were
+to.... But, there, thinking’s no good to anyone—is it, madam? Thinking
+won’t help. Not that I do it often. And if ever I do I pull myself up
+sharp, “Now, then, Ellen. At it again—you silly girl! If you can’t find
+anything better to do than to start thinking!...”
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  LONDON: G. BELL & SONS, LIMITED,
+  PORTUGAL STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.
+  CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
+  NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
+  BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER & CO
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I
+
+  INCLUDING NEW MATERIALS FROM THE BRITISH OFFICIAL RECORDS
+
+
+
+  BY JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, LITT.D.
+  LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE,
+  CAMBRIDGE
+
+
+
+   "Let my son often read and reflect on history: this is the only
+   true philosophy."--_Napoleon's last Instructions for the King of
+    Rome_.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
+  1910
+
+POST 8VO EDITION, ILLUSTRATED
+First Published, December 1901.
+Second Edition, revised, March 1902.
+Third Edition, revised, January 1903.
+Fourth Edition, revised, September 1907.
+Reprinted, January 1910.
+
+
+CROWN 8VO EDITION
+First Published, September 1904.
+Reprinted, October 1907; July 1910.
+
+
+DEDICATED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ACTON,
+K.C.V.O., D.C.L., LL.D. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE
+UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN ADMIRATION OF HIS PROFOUND HISTORICAL
+LEARNING, AND IN GRATITUDE FOR ADVICE AND HELP GENEROUSLY GIVEN.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+An apology seems to be called for from anyone who gives to the world a
+new Life of Napoleon I. My excuse must be that for many years I have
+sought to revise the traditional story of his career in the light of
+facts gleaned from the British Archives and of the many valuable
+materials that have recently been published by continental historians.
+To explain my manner of dealing with these sources would require an
+elaborate critical Introduction; but, as the limits of my space
+absolutely preclude any such attempt, I can only briefly refer to the
+most important topics.
+
+To deal with the published sources first, I would name as of chief
+importance the works of MM. Aulard, Chuquet, Houssaye, Sorel, and
+Vandal in France; of Herren Beer, Delbrück, Fournier, Lehmann, Oncken,
+and Wertheimer in Germany and Austria; and of Baron Lumbroso in Italy.
+I have also profited largely by the scholarly monographs or
+collections of documents due to the labours of the "Société d'Histoire
+Contemporaine," the General Staff of the French Army, of MM. Bouvier,
+Caudrillier, Capitaine "J.G.," Lévy, Madelin, Sagnac, Sciout, Zivy,
+and others in France; and of Herren Bailleu, Demelitsch, Hansing,
+Klinkowstrom, Luckwaldt, Ulmann, and others in Germany. Some of the
+recently published French Memoirs dealing with those times are not
+devoid of value, though this class of literature is to be used with
+caution. The new letters of Napoleon published by M. Léon Lecestre and
+M. Léonce de Brotonne have also opened up fresh vistas into the life
+of the great man; and the time seems to have come when we may safely
+revise our judgments on many of its episodes.
+
+But I should not have ventured on this great undertaking, had I not
+been able to contribute something new to Napoleonic literature. During
+a study of this period for an earlier work published in the "Cambridge
+Historical Series," I ascertained the great value of the British
+records for the years 1795-1815. It is surely discreditable to our
+historical research that, apart from the fruitful labours of the Navy
+Records Society, of Messrs. Oscar Browning and Hereford George, and of
+Mr. Bowman of Toronto, scarcely any English work has appeared that is
+based on the official records of this period. Yet they are of great
+interest and value. Our diplomatic agents then had the knack of
+getting at State secrets in most foreign capitals, even when we were
+at war with their Governments; and our War Office and Admiralty
+Records have also yielded me some interesting "finds." M. Lévy, in the
+preface to his "Napoléon intime" (1893), has well remarked that "the
+documentary history of the wars of the Empire has not yet been
+written. To write it accurately, it will be more important thoroughly
+to know foreign archives than those of France." Those of Russia,
+Austria, and Prussia have now for the most part been examined; and I
+think that I may claim to have searched all the important parts of our
+Foreign Office Archives for the years in question, as well as for part
+of the St. Helena period. I have striven to embody the results of this
+search in the present volumes as far as was compatible with limits of
+space and with the narrative form at which, in my judgment, history
+ought always to aim.
+
+On the whole, British policy comes out the better the more fully it is
+known. Though often feeble and vacillating, it finally attained to
+firmness and dignity; and Ministers closed the cycle of war with acts
+of magnanimity towards the French people which are studiously ignored
+by those who bid us shed tears over the martyrdom of St. Helena.
+Nevertheless, the splendour of the finale must not blind us to the
+flaccid eccentricities that made British statesmanship the laughing
+stock of Europe in 1801-3, 1806-7, and 1809. Indeed, it is
+questionable whether the renewal of war between England and Napoleon
+in 1803 was due more to his innate forcefulness or to the contempt
+which he felt for the Addington Cabinet. When one also remembers our
+extraordinary blunders in the war of the Third Coalition, it seems a
+miracle that the British Empire survived that life and death struggle
+against a man of superhuman genius who was determined to effect its
+overthrow. I have called special attention to the extent and
+pertinacity of Napoleon's schemes for the foundation of a French
+Colonial Empire in India, Egypt, South Africa, and Australia; and
+there can be no doubt that the events of the years 1803-13 determined,
+not only the destinies of Europe and Napoleon, but the general trend
+of the world's colonization.
+
+As it has been necessary to condense the story of Napoleon's life in
+some parts, I have chosen to treat with special brevity the years
+1809-11, which may be called the _constans aetas_ of his career, in
+order to have more space for the decisive events that followed; but
+even in these less eventful years I have striven to show how his
+Continental System was setting at work mighty economic forces that
+made for his overthrow, so that after the _débâcle_ of 1812 it came to
+be a struggle of Napoleon and France _contra mundum_.
+
+While not neglecting the personal details of the great man's life, I
+have dwelt mainly on his public career. Apart from his brilliant
+conversations, his private life has few features of abiding interest,
+perhaps because he early tired of the shallowness of Josephine and the
+Corsican angularity of his brothers and sisters. But the cause also
+lay in his own disposition. He once said to M. Gallois: "Je n'aime pas
+beaucoup les femmes, ni le jeu--enfin rien: _je suis tout à fait un
+être politique_." In dealing with him as a warrior and statesman, and
+in sparing my readers details as to his bolting his food, sleeping at
+concerts, and indulging in amours where for him there was no glamour
+of romance, I am laying stress on what interested him most--in a word,
+I am taking him at his best.
+
+I could not have accomplished this task, even in the present
+inadequate way, but for the help generously accorded from many
+quarters. My heartfelt thanks are due to Lord Acton, Regius Professor
+of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, for advice of the
+highest importance; to Mr. Hubert Hall of the Public Record Office,
+for guidance in my researches there; to Baron Lumbroso of Rome,
+editor of the "Bibliografia ragionata dell' Epoca Napoleonica," for
+hints on Italian and other affairs; to Dr. Luckwaldt, Privat Docent of
+the University of Bonn, and author of "Oesterreich und die Anfänge des
+Befreiungs-Krieges," for his very scholarly revision of the chapters
+on German affairs; to Mr. F.H.E. Cunliffe, M.A., Fellow of All Souls'
+College, Oxford, for valuable advice on the campaigns of 1800, 1805,
+and 1806; to Professor Caudrillier of Grenoble, author of "Pichegru,"
+for information respecting the royalist plot; and to Messrs. J.E.
+Morris, M.A., and E.L.S. Horsburgh, B.A., for detailed communications
+concerning Waterloo, The nieces of the late Professor Westwood of
+Oxford most kindly allowed the facsimile of the new Napoleon letter,
+printed opposite p. 156 of vol. i., to be made from the original in
+their possession; and Miss Lowe courteously placed at my disposal the
+papers of her father relating to the years 1813-15, as well as to the
+St. Helena period. I wish here to record my grateful obligations for
+all these friendly courtesies, which have given value to the book,
+besides saving me from many of the pitfalls with which the subject
+abounds. That I have escaped them altogether is not to be imagined;
+but I can honestly say, in the words of the late Bishop of London,
+that "I have tried to write true history."
+
+J.H.R.
+
+[NOTE.--The references to Napoleon's "Correspondence" in the notes are
+to the official French edition, published under the auspices of
+Napoleon III. The "New Letters of Napoleon" are those edited by Léon
+Lecestre, and translated into English by Lady Mary Loyd, except in a
+very few cases where M. Léonce de Brotonne's still more recent edition
+is cited under his name. By "F.O.," France, No.----, and "F.O.,"
+Prussia, No.----, are meant the volumes of _our_ Foreign Office
+despatches relating to France and Prussia. For the sake of brevity I
+have called Napoleon's Marshals and high officials by their names, not
+by their titles: but a list of these is given at the close of vol.
+ii.]
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
+
+
+The demand for this work so far exceeded my expectations that I was
+unable to make any considerable changes in the second edition, issued
+in March, 1902; and circumstances again make it impossible for me to
+give the work that thorough recension which I should desire. I have,
+however, carefully considered the suggestions offered by critics, and
+have adopted them in some cases. Professor Fournier of Vienna has most
+kindly furnished me with details which seem to relegate to the domain
+of legend the famous ice catastrophe at Austerlitz; and I have added a
+note to this effect on p. 50 of vol. ii. On the other hand, I may
+justly claim that the publication of Count Balmain's reports relating
+to St. Helena has served to corroborate, in all important details, my
+account of Napoleon's captivity.
+
+It only remains to add that I much regret the omission of Mr. Oman's
+name from II. 12-13 of page viii of the Preface, an omission rendered
+all the more conspicuous by the appearance of the first volume of his
+"History of the Peninsular War" in the spring of this year.
+
+J.H.R.
+
+_October, 1902._
+
+Notes have been added at the end of ch. v., vol. i.; chs. xxii.,
+xxiii., xxviii., xxix., xxxv., vol. ii.; and an Appendix on the Battle
+of Waterloo has been added on p. 577, vol. ii.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+
+VOL. I
+
+
+         NOTE ON THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR
+
+      I. PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
+
+     II. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND CORSICA
+
+    III. TOULON
+
+     IV. VENDÉMIAIRE
+
+      V. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN (1796)
+
+     VI. THE FIGHTS FOR MANTUA
+
+    VII. LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO
+
+   VIII. EGYPT
+
+     IX. SYRIA
+
+      X. BRUMAIRE
+
+     XI. MARENGO: LUNÉVILLE
+
+    XII. THE NEW INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE
+
+   XIII. THE CONSULATE FOR LIFE
+
+    XIV. THE PEACE OF AMIENS
+
+     XV. A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE: ST.
+         DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA
+
+    XVI. NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS
+
+   XVII. THE RENEWAL OF WAR
+
+  XVIII. EUROPE AND THE BONAPARTES
+
+    XIX. THE ROYALIST PLOT
+
+     XX. THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE
+
+    XXI. THE BOULOGNE FLOTILLA
+
+    APPENDIX: REPORTS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED
+     ON
+    (_a_) THE SALE OF LOUISIANA;
+    (_b_) THE IRISH DIVISION IN NAPOLEON'S SERVICE
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND PLANS
+
+  THE SIEGE OF TOULON, 1793
+
+  MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH ITALY
+
+  PLAN TO ILLUSTRATE THE VICTORY OF ARCOLA
+
+  THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF RIVOLI
+
+  FACSIMILE OF A LETTER OF NAPOLEON TO "LA CITOYENNE
+  TALLIEN," 1797
+
+  CENTRAL EUROPE, after the Peace of Campo Formio, 1797
+
+  PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE, from a contemporary sketch
+
+  THE BATTLE OF MARENGO, to illustrate Kellermann's charge
+
+  FRENCH MAP OF THE SOUTH OF AUSTRALIA, 1807
+
+
+VOL. II
+
+
+     XXII. ULM AND TRAFALGAR
+    XXIII. AUSTERLITZ
+     XXIV. PRUSSIA AND THE NEW CHARLEMAGNE
+      XXV. THE FALL OF PRUSSIA
+     XXVI. THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: FRIEDLAND
+    XXVII. TILSIT
+   XXVIII. THE SPANISH RISING
+     XXIX. ERFURT
+      XXX. NAPOLEON AND AUSTRIA
+     XXXI. THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT
+    XXXII. THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN
+   XXXIII. THE FIRST SAXON CAMPAIGN
+    XXXIV. VITTORIA AND THE ARMISTICE
+     XXXV. DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG
+    XXXVI. FROM THE RHINE TO THE SEINE
+   XXXVII. THE FIRST ABDICATION
+  XXXVIII. ELBA AND PARIS
+    XXXIX. LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS
+       XL. WATERLOO
+      XLI. FROM THE ELYSÉE TO ST. HELENA
+     XLII. CLOSING YEARS
+
+           APPENDIX I: LIST OF THE CHIEF APPOINTMENTS
+             AND DIGNITIES BESTOWED BY NAPOLEON
+
+           APPENDIX II: THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
+
+           INDEX
+
+
+MAPS AND PLANS
+
+  BATTLE OF ULM
+  BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ
+  BATTLE OF JENA
+  BATTLE OF FRIEDLAND
+  BATTLE OF WAGRAM
+  CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER 1810
+  CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA
+  BATTLE OF VITTORIA
+  THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813
+  BATTLE OF DRESDEN
+  BATTLE OF LEIPZIG
+  THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814                              _to face_
+  PLAN OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
+  BATTLE OF LIGNY
+  BATTLE OF WATERLOO, about 11 o'clock a.m.    _to face_
+  ST. HELENA
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTE ON THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR
+
+
+The republican calendar consisted of twelve months of thirty days
+each, each month being divided into three "decades" of ten days. Five
+days (in leap years six) were added at the end of the year to bring it
+into coincidence with the solar year.
+
+  An    I began Sept. 22, 1792.
+  "    II  "      "       1793.
+  "   III  "      "       1794.
+  "    IV (leap year)     1795.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "  VIII began Sept. 22, 1799.
+  "    IX   "   Sept. 23, 1800.
+  "     X   "      "      1801.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "   XIV   "      "      1805.
+
+The new computation, though reckoned from Sept. 22, 1792, was not
+introduced until Nov. 26, 1793 (An II). It ceased after Dec. 31, 1805.
+
+The months are as follows:
+
+    Vendémiaire              Sept. 22 to Oct. 21.
+    Brumaire                 Oct. 22  "  Nov. 20.
+    Frimaire                 Nov. 21  "  Dec. 20.
+    Nivôse                   Dec. 21  "  Jan. 19.
+    Pluviôse                 Jan. 20  "  Feb. 18.
+    Ventôse                  Feb. 19  "  Mar. 20.
+    Germinal                 Mar. 21  "  April 19.
+    Floréal                  April 20 "  May 19.
+    Prairial                 May 20   "  June 18.
+    Messidor                 June 19  "  July 18.
+    Thermidor                July 19  "  Aug. 17.
+    Fructidor                Aug. 18  "  Sept. 16.
+
+Add five (in leap years six) "Sansculottides" or "Jours
+complémentaires."
+
+In 1796 (leap year) the numbers in the table of months, so far as
+concerns all dates between Feb. 28 and Sept. 22, will have to be
+_reduced by one_, owing to the intercalation of Feb. 29, which is not
+compensated for until the end of the republican year.
+
+The matter is further complicated by the fact that the republicans
+reckoned An VIII as a leap year, though it is not one in the Gregorian
+Calendar. Hence that year ended on Sept. 22, and An IX and succeeding
+years began on Sept. 23. Consequently in the above table of months the
+numbers of all days from Vendémiaire 1, An IX (Sept. 23, 1800), to
+Nivôse 10, An XIV (Dec. 31, 1805), inclusive, will have to be
+_increased by one_, except only in the next leap year between Ventôse
+9, An XII, and Vendémiaire 1, An XIII (Feb. 28-Sept, 23, 1804), when
+the two Revolutionary aberrations happen to neutralize each other.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
+
+
+"I was born when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand French
+vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of
+blood, such was the sight which struck my eyes." This passionate
+utterance, penned by Napoleon Buonaparte at the beginning of the
+French Revolution, describes the state of Corsica in his natal year.
+The words are instinct with the vehemence of the youth and the
+extravagant sentiment of the age: they strike the keynote of his
+career. His life was one of strain and stress from his cradle to his
+grave.
+
+In his temperament as in the circumstances of his time the young
+Buonaparte was destined for an extraordinary career. Into a tottering
+civilization he burst with all the masterful force of an Alaric. But
+he was an Alaric of the south, uniting the untamed strength of his
+island kindred with the mental powers of his Italian ancestry. In his
+personality there is a complex blending of force and grace, of animal
+passion and mental clearness, of northern common sense with the
+promptings of an oriental imagination; and this union in his nature of
+seeming opposites explains many of the mysteries of his life.
+Fortunately for lovers of romance, genius cannot be wholly analyzed,
+even by the most adroit historical philosophizer or the most exacting
+champion of heredity. But in so far as the sources of Napoleon's power
+can be measured, they may be traced to the unexampled needs of mankind
+in the revolutionary epoch and to his own exceptional endowments.
+Evidently, then, the characteristics of his family claim some
+attention from all who would understand the man and the influence
+which he was to wield over modern Europe.
+
+It has been the fortune of his House to be the subject of dispute from
+first to last. Some writers have endeavoured to trace its descent back
+to the Cæsars of Rome, others to the Byzantine Emperors; one
+genealogical explorer has tracked the family to Majorca, and, altering
+its name to Bonpart, has discovered its progenitor in the Man of the
+Iron Mask; while the Duchesse d'Abrantès, voyaging eastwards in quest
+of its ancestors, has confidently claimed for the family a Greek
+origin. Painstaking research has dispelled these romancings of
+historical _trouveurs_, and has connected this enigmatic stock with a
+Florentine named "William, who in the year 1261 took the surname of
+_Bonaparte_ or _Buonaparte_. The name seems to have been assumed when,
+amidst the unceasing strifes between Guelfs and Ghibellines that rent
+the civic life of Florence, William's party, the Ghibellines, for a
+brief space gained the ascendancy. But perpetuity was not to be found
+in Florentine politics; and in a short time he was a fugitive at a
+Tuscan village, Sarzana, beyond the reach of the victorious Guelfs.
+Here the family seems to have lived for well nigh three centuries,
+maintaining its Ghibelline and aristocratic principles with surprising
+tenacity. The age was not remarkable for the virtue of constancy, or
+any other virtue. Politics and private life were alike demoralized by
+unceasing intrigues; and amidst strifes of Pope and Emperor, duchies
+and republics, cities and autocrats, there was formed that type of
+Italian character which is delineated in the pages of Macchiavelli.
+From the depths of debasement of that cynical age the Buonapartes
+were saved by their poverty, and by the isolation of their life at
+Sarzana. Yet the embassies discharged at intervals by the more
+talented members of the family showed that the gifts for intrigue were
+only dormant; and they were certainly transmitted in their intensity
+to the greatest scion of the race.
+
+In the year 1529 Francis Buonaparte, whether pressed by poverty or
+distracted by despair at the misfortunes which then overwhelmed Italy,
+migrated to Corsica. There the family was grafted upon a tougher
+branch of the Italian race. To the vulpine characteristics developed
+under the shadow of the Medici there were now added qualities of a
+more virile stamp. Though dominated in turn by the masters of the
+Mediterranean, by Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, by the men of Pisa,
+and finally by the Genoese Republic, the islanders retained a striking
+individuality. The rock-bound coast and mountainous interior helped to
+preserve the essential features of primitive life. Foreign Powers
+might affect the towns on the sea-board, but they left the clans of
+the interior comparatively untouched. Their life centred around the
+family. The Government counted for little or nothing; for was it not
+the symbol of the detested foreign rule? Its laws were therefore as
+naught when they conflicted with the unwritten but omnipotent code of
+family honour. A slight inflicted on a neighbour would call forth the
+warning words--"Guard thyself: I am on my guard." Forthwith there
+began a blood feud, a vendetta, which frequently dragged on its dreary
+course through generations of conspiracy and murder, until, the
+principals having vanished, the collateral branches of the families
+were involved. No Corsican was so loathed as the laggard who shrank
+from avenging the family honour, even on a distant relative of the
+first offender. The murder of the Duc d'Enghien by Napoleon in 1804
+sent a thrill of horror through the Continent. To the Corsicans it
+seemed little more than an autocratic version of the _vendetta
+traversale_.[1]
+
+The vendetta was the chief law of Corsican society up to comparatively
+recent times; and its effects are still visible in the life of the
+stern islanders. In his charming romance, "Colomba," M. Prosper
+Mérimée has depicted the typical Corsican, even of the towns, as
+preoccupied, gloomy, suspicious, ever on the alert, hovering about his
+dwelling, like a falcon over his nest, seemingly in preparation for
+attack or defence. Laughter, the song, the dance, were rarely heard in
+the streets; for the women, after acting as the drudges of the
+household, were kept jealously at home, while their lords smoked and
+watched. If a game at hazard were ventured upon, it ran its course in
+silence, which not seldom was broken by the shot or the stab--first
+warning that there had been underhand play. The deed always preceded
+the word.
+
+In such a life, where commerce and agriculture were despised, where
+woman was mainly a drudge and man a conspirator, there grew up the
+typical Corsican temperament, moody and exacting, but withal keen,
+brave, and constant, which looked on the world as a fencing-school for
+the glorification of the family and the clan[2]. Of this type Napoleon
+was to be the supreme exemplar; and the fates granted him as an arena
+a chaotic France and a distracted Europe.
+
+Amidst that grim Corsican existence the Buonapartes passed their lives
+during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Occupied as advocates
+and lawyers with such details of the law as were of any practical
+importance, they must have been involved in family feuds and the
+oft-recurring disputes between Corsica and the suzerain Power, Genoa.
+As became dignitaries in the municipality of Ajaccio, several of the
+Buonapartes espoused the Genoese side; and the Genoese Senate in a
+document of the year 1652 styled one of them, Jérome, "Egregius
+Hieronimus di Buonaparte, procurator Nobilium." These distinctions
+they seem to have little coveted. Very few families belonged to the
+Corsican _noblesse_, and their fiefs were unimportant. In Corsica, as
+in the Forest Cantons of Switzerland and the Highlands of Scotland,
+class distinctions were by no means so coveted as in lands that had
+been thoroughly feudalized; and the Buonapartes, content with their
+civic dignities at Ajaccio and the attachment of their partisans on
+their country estates, seem rarely to have used the prefix which
+implied nobility. Their life was not unlike that of many an old
+Scottish laird, who, though possibly _bourgeois_ in origin, yet by
+courtesy ranked as chieftain among his tenants, and was ennobled by
+the parlance of the countryside, perhaps all the more readily because
+he refused to wear the honours that came from over the Border.
+
+But a new influence was now to call forth all the powers of this tough
+stock. In the middle of the eighteenth century we find the head of the
+family, Charles Marie Buonaparte, aglow with the flame of Corsican
+patriotism then being kindled by the noble career of Paoli. This
+gifted patriot, the champion of the islanders, first against the
+Genoese and later against the French, desired to cement by education
+the framework of the Corsican Commonwealth and founded a university.
+It was here that the father of the future French Emperor received a
+training in law, and a mental stimulus which was to lift his family
+above the level of the _caporali_ and attorneys with whom its lot had
+for centuries been cast. His ambition is seen in the endeavour,
+successfully carried out by his uncle, Lucien, Archdeacon of Ajaccio,
+to obtain recognition of kinship with the Buonapartes of Tuscany who
+had been ennobled by the Grand Duke. His patriotism is evinced in his
+ardent support of Paoli, by whose valour and energy the Genoese were
+finally driven from the island. Amidst these patriotic triumphs
+Charles confronted his destiny in the person of Letizia Ramolino, a
+beautiful girl, descended from an honourable Florentine family which
+had for centuries been settled in Corsica. The wedding took place in
+1764, the bridegroom being then eighteen, and the bride fifteen years
+of age. The union, if rashly undertaken in the midst of civil strifes,
+was yet well assorted. Both parties to it were of patrician, if not
+definitely noble descent, and came of families which combined the
+intellectual gifts of Tuscany with the vigour of their later island
+home[3]. From her mother's race, the Pietra Santa family, Letizia
+imbibed the habits of the most backward and savage part of Corsica,
+where vendettas were rife and education was almost unknown. Left in
+ignorance in her early days, she yet was accustomed to hardships, and
+often showed the fertility of resource which such a life always
+develops. Hence, at the time of her marriage, she possessed a firmness
+of will far beyond her years; and her strength and fortitude enabled
+her to survive the terrible adversities of her early days, as also to
+meet with quiet matronly dignity the extraordinary honours showered on
+her as the mother of the French Emperor. She was inured to habits of
+frugality, which reappeared in the personal tastes of her son. In
+fact, she so far retained her old parsimonious habits, even amidst the
+splendours of the French Imperial Court, as to expose herself to the
+charge of avarice. But there is a touching side to all this. She seems
+ever to have felt that after the splendour there would come again the
+old days of adversity, and her instincts were in one sense correct.
+She lived on to the advanced age of eighty-six, and died twenty-one
+years after the break-up of her son's empire--a striking proof of the
+vitality and tenacity of her powers.
+
+A kindly Providence veiled the future from the young couple. Troubles
+fell swiftly upon them both in private and in public life. Their first
+two children died in infancy. The third, Joseph, was born in 1768,
+when the Corsican patriots were making their last successful efforts
+against their new French oppressors: the fourth, the famous Napoleon,
+saw the light on August 15th, 1769, when the liberties of Corsica were
+being finally extinguished. Nine other children were born before the
+outbreak of the French Revolution reawakened civil strifes, amidst
+which the then fatherless family was tossed to and fro and finally
+whirled away to France.
+
+Destiny had already linked the fortunes of the young Napoleon
+Buonaparte with those of France. After the downfall of Genoese rule in
+Corsica, France had taken over, for empty promises, the claims of the
+hard-pressed Italian republic to its troublesome island possession. It
+was a cheap and practical way of restoring, at least in the
+Mediterranean the shattered prestige of the French Bourbons. They had
+previously intervened in Corsican affairs on the side of the Genoese.
+Yet in 1764 Paoli appealed to Louis XV. for protection. It was
+granted, in the form of troops that proceeded quietly to occupy the
+coast towns of the island under cover of friendly assurances. In 1768,
+before the expiration of an informal truce, Marbeuf, the French
+commander, commenced hostilities against the patriots[4]. In vain did
+Rousseau and many other champions of popular liberty protest against
+this bartering away of insular freedom: in vain did Paoli rouse his
+compatriots to another and more unequal struggle, and seek to hold the
+mountainous interior. Poor, badly equipped, rent by family feuds and
+clan schisms, his followers were no match for the French troops; and
+after the utter break-up of his forces Paoli fled to England, taking
+with him three hundred and forty of the most determined patriots. With
+these irreconcilables Charles Buonaparte did not cast in his lot, but
+accepted the pardon offered to those who should recognize the French
+sway. With his wife and their little child Joseph he returned to
+Ajaccio; and there, shortly afterwards, Napoleon was born. As the
+patriotic historian, Jacobi, has finely said, "The Corsican people,
+when exhausted by producing martyrs to the cause of liberty, produced
+Napoleon Buonaparte[5]."
+
+Seeing that Charles Buonaparte had been an ardent adherent of Paoli,
+his sudden change of front has exposed him to keen censure. He
+certainly had not the grit of which heroes are made. His seems to have
+been an ill-balanced nature, soon buoyed up by enthusiasms, and as
+speedily depressed by their evaporation; endowed with enough of
+learning and culture to be a Voltairean and write second-rate
+verses; and with a talent for intrigue which sufficed to embarrass
+his never very affluent fortunes. Napoleon certainly derived no
+world-compelling qualities from his father: for these he was indebted
+to the wilder strain which ran in his mother's blood. The father
+doubtless saw in the French connection a chance of worldly advancement
+and of liberation from pecuniary difficulties; for the new rulers now
+sought to gain over the patrician families of the island. Many of them
+had resented the dictatorship of Paoli; and they now gladly accepted
+the connection with France, which promised to enrich their country and
+to open up a brilliant career in the French army, where commissions
+were limited to the scions of nobility.
+
+Much may be said in excuse of Charles Buonaparte's decision, and no
+one can deny that Corsica has ultimately gained much by her connection
+with France. But his change of front was open to the charge that it
+was prompted by self-interest rather than by philosophic foresight. At
+any rate, his second son throughout his boyhood nursed a deep
+resentment against his father for his desertion of the patriots'
+cause. The youth's sympathies were with the peasants, whose allegiance
+was not to be bought by baubles, whose constancy and bravery long held
+out against the French in a hopeless guerilla warfare. His hot
+Corsican blood boiled at the stories of oppression and insult which he
+heard from his humbler compatriots. When, at eleven years of age, he
+saw in the military college at Brienne the portrait of Choiseul, the
+French Minister who had urged on the conquest of Corsica, his passion
+burst forth in a torrent of imprecations against the traitor; and,
+even after the death of his father in 1785, he exclaimed that he could
+never forgive him for not following Paoli into exile.
+
+What trifles seem, at times, to alter the current of human affairs!
+Had his father acted thus, the young Napoleon would in all probability
+have entered the military or naval service of Great Britain; he might
+have shared Paoli's enthusiasm for the land of his adoption, and have
+followed the Corsican hero in his enterprises against the French
+Revolution, thenceforth figuring in history merely as a greater
+Marlborough, crushing the military efforts of democratic France, and
+luring England into a career of Continental conquest. Monarchy and
+aristocracy would have gone unchallenged, except within the "natural
+limits" of France; and the other nations, never shaken to their
+inmost depths, would have dragged on their old inert fragmentary
+existence.
+
+The decision of Charles Buonaparte altered the destiny of Europe. He
+determined that his eldest boy, Joseph, should enter the Church, and
+that Napoleon should be a soldier. His perception of the characters of
+his boys was correct. An anecdote, for which the elder brother is
+responsible, throws a flood of light on their temperaments. The master
+of their school arranged a mimic combat for his pupils--Romans against
+Carthaginians. Joseph, as the elder was ranged under the banner of
+Rome, while Napoleon was told off among the Carthaginians; but, piqued
+at being chosen for the losing side, the child fretted, begged, and
+stormed until the less bellicose Joseph agreed to change places with
+his exacting junior. The incident is prophetic of much in the later
+history of the family.
+
+Its imperial future was opened up by the deft complaisance now shown
+by Charles Buonaparte. The reward for his speedy submission to France
+was soon forthcoming. The French commander in Corsica used his
+influence to secure the admission of the young Napoleon to the
+military school of Brienne in Champagne; and as the father was able to
+satisfy the authorities not only that he was without fortune, but also
+that his family had been noble for four generations, Napoleon was
+admitted to this school to be educated at the charges of the King of
+France (April, 1779). He was now, at the tender age of nine, a
+stranger in a strange land, among a people whom he detested as the
+oppressors of his countrymen. Worst of all, he had to endure the taunt
+of belonging to a subject race. What a position for a proud and
+exacting child! Little wonder that the official report represented him
+as silent and obstinate; but, strange to say, it added the word
+"imperious." It was a tough character which could defy repression
+amidst such surroundings. As to his studies, little need be said. In
+his French history he read of the glories of the distant past (when
+"Germany was part of the French Empire"), the splendours of the reign
+of Louis XIV., the disasters of France in the Seven Years' War, and
+the "prodigious conquests of the English in India." But his
+imagination was kindled from other sources. Boys of pronounced
+character have always owed far more to their private reading than to
+their set studies; and the young Buonaparte, while grudgingly learning
+Latin and French grammar, was feeding his mind on Plutarch's
+"Lives"--in a French translation. The artful intermingling of the
+actual and the romantic, the historic and the personal, in those vivid
+sketches of ancient worthies and heroes, has endeared them to many
+minds. Rousseau derived unceasing profit from their perusal; and
+Madame Roland found in them "the pasture of great souls." It was so
+with the lonely Corsican youth. Holding aloof from his comrades in
+gloomy isolation, he caught in the exploits of Greeks and Romans a
+distant echo of the tragic romance of his beloved island home. The
+librarian of the school asserted that even then the young soldier had
+modelled his future career on that of the heroes of antiquity; and we
+may well believe that, in reading of the exploits of Leonidas,
+Curtius, and Cincinnatus, he saw the figure of his own antique
+republican hero, Paoli. To fight side by side with Paoli against the
+French was his constant dream. "Paoli will return," he once exclaimed,
+"and as soon as I have strength, I will go to help him: and perhaps
+together we shall be able to shake the odious yoke from off the neck
+of Corsica."
+
+But there was another work which exercised a great influence on his
+young mind--the "Gallic War" of Cæsar. To the young Italian the
+conquest of Gaul by a man of his own race must have been a congenial
+topic, and in Cæsar himself the future conqueror may dimly have
+recognized a kindred spirit. The masterful energy and all-conquering
+will of the old Roman, his keen insight into the heart of a problem,
+the wide sweep of his mental vision, ranging over the intrigues of the
+Roman Senate, the shifting politics of a score of tribes, and the
+myriad administrative details of a great army and a mighty
+province--these were the qualities that furnished the chief mental
+training to the young cadet. Indeed, the career of Cæsar was destined
+to exert a singular fascination over the Napoleonic dynasty, not only
+on its founder, but also on Napoleon III.; and the change in the
+character and career of Napoleon the Great may be registered mentally
+in the effacement of the portraits of Leonidas and Paoli by those of
+Cæsar and Alexander. Later on, during his sojourn at Ajaccio in 1790,
+when the first shadows were flitting across his hitherto unclouded
+love for Paoli, we hear that he spent whole nights poring over Cæsar's
+history, committing many passages to memory in his passionate
+admiration of those wondrous exploits. Eagerly he took Cæsar's side as
+against Pompey, and no less warmly defended him from the charge of
+plotting against the liberties of the commonwealth[6]. It was a
+perilous study for a republican youth in whom the military instincts
+were as ingrained as the genius for rule.
+
+Concerning the young Buonaparte's life at Brienne there exist few
+authentic records and many questionable anecdotes. Of these last, that
+which is the most credible and suggestive relates his proposal to his
+schoolfellows to construct ramparts of snow during the sharp winter of
+1783-4. According to his schoolfellow, Bourrienne, these mimic
+fortifications were planned by Buonaparte, who also directed the
+methods of attack and defence: or, as others say, he reconstructed
+the walls according to the needs of modern war. In either case, the
+incident bespeaks for him great power of organization and control. But
+there were in general few outlets for his originality and vigour. He
+seems to have disliked all his comrades, except Bourrienne, as much as
+they detested him for his moody humours and fierce outbreaks of
+temper. He is even reported to have vowed that he would do as much
+harm as possible to the French people; but the remark smacks of the
+story-book. Equally doubtful are the two letters in which he prays to
+be removed from the indignities to which he was subjected at
+Brienne[7]. In other letters which are undoubtedly genuine, he refers
+to his future career with ardour, and writes not a word as to the
+bullying to which his Corsican zeal subjected him. Particularly
+noteworthy is the letter to his uncle begging him to intervene so as
+to prevent Joseph Buonaparte from taking up a military career. Joseph,
+writes the younger brother, would make a good garrison officer, as he
+was well formed and clever at frivolous compliments--"good therefore
+for society, but for a fight--?"
+
+Napoleon's determination had been noticed by his teachers. They had
+failed to bend his will, at least on important points. In lesser
+details his Italian adroitness seems to have been of service; for the
+officer who inspected the school reported of him: "Constitution,
+health excellent: character submissive, sweet, honest, grateful:
+conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his
+application to mathematics: knows history and geography passably: very
+weak in accomplishments. He will be an excellent seaman: is worthy to
+enter the School at Paris." To the military school at Paris he was
+accordingly sent in due course, entering there in October, 1784. The
+change from the semi-monastic life at Brienne to the splendid edifice
+which fronts the Champ de Mars had less effect than might have
+been expected in a youth of fifteen years. Not yet did he become
+French in sympathy. His love of Corsica and hatred of the French
+monarchy steeled him against the luxuries of his new surroundings.
+Perhaps it was an added sting that he was educated at the expense of
+the monarchy which had conquered his kith and kin. He nevertheless
+applied himself with energy to his favourite studies, especially
+mathematics. Defective in languages he still was, and ever remained;
+for his critical acumen in literature ever fastened on the matter
+rather than on style. To the end of his days he could never write
+Italian, much less French, with accuracy; and his tutor at Paris not
+inaptly described his boyish composition as resembling molten granite.
+The same qualities of directness and impetuosity were also fatal to
+his efforts at mastering the movements of the dance. In spite of
+lessons at Paris and private lessons which he afterwards took at
+Valence, he was never a dancer: his bent was obviously for the exact
+sciences rather than the arts, for the geometrical rather than the
+rhythmical: he thought, as he moved, in straight lines, never in
+curves.
+
+The death of his father during the year which the youth spent at Paris
+sharpened his sense of responsibility towards his seven younger
+brothers and sisters. His own poverty must have inspired him with
+disgust at the luxury which he saw around him; but there are good
+reasons for doubting the genuineness of the memorial which he is
+alleged to have sent from Paris to the second master at Brienne on
+this subject. The letters of the scholars at Paris were subject to
+strict surveillance; and, if he had taken the trouble to draw up a
+list of criticisms on his present training, most assuredly it would
+have been destroyed. Undoubtedly, however, he would have sympathized
+with the unknown critic in his complaint of the unsuitableness of
+sumptuous meals to youths who were destined for the hardships of the
+camp. At Brienne he had been dubbed "the Spartan," an instance of that
+almost uncanny faculty of schoolboys to dash off in a nickname the
+salient features of character. The phrase was correct, almost for
+Napoleon's whole life. At any rate, the pomp of Paris served but to
+root his youthful affections more tenaciously in the rocks of Corsica.
+
+In September, 1785, that is, at the age of sixteen, Buonaparte was
+nominated for a commission as junior lieutenant in La Fère regiment of
+artillery quartered at Valence on the Rhone. This was his first close
+contact with real life. The rules of the service required him to
+spend three months of rigorous drill before he was admitted to his
+commission. The work was exacting: the pay was small, viz., 1,120
+francs, or less than £45, a year; but all reports agree as to his keen
+zest for his profession and the recognition of his transcendent
+abilities by his superior officers.[8] There it was that he mastered
+the rudiments of war, for lack of which many generals of noble birth
+have quickly closed in disaster careers that began with promise:
+there, too, he learnt that hardest and best of all lessons, prompt
+obedience. "To learn obeying is the fundamental art of governing,"
+says Carlyle. It was so with Napoleon: at Valence he served his
+apprenticeship in the art of conquering and the art of governing.
+
+This spring-time of his life is of interest and importance in many
+ways: it reveals many amiable qualities, which had hitherto been
+blighted by the real or fancied scorn of the wealthy cadets. At
+Valence, while shrinking from his brother officers, he sought society
+more congenial to his simple tastes and restrained demeanour. In a few
+of the best bourgeois families of Valence he found happiness. There,
+too, blossomed the tenderest, purest idyll of his life. At the country
+house of a cultured lady who had befriended him in his solitude, he
+saw his first love, Caroline de Colombier. It was a passing fancy;
+but to her all the passion of his southern nature welled forth. She
+seems to have returned his love; for in the stormy sunset of his life
+at St. Helena he recalled some delicious walks at dawn when Caroline
+and he had--eaten cherries together. One lingers fondly over these
+scenes of his otherwise stern career, for they reveal his capacity for
+social joys and for deep and tender affection, had his lot been
+otherwise cast. How different might have been his life, had France
+never conquered Corsica, and had the Revolution never burst forth! But
+Corsica was still his dominant passion. When he was called away from
+Valence to repress a riot at Lyons, his feelings, distracted for a
+time by Caroline, swerved back towards his island home; and in
+September, 1786, he had the joy of revisiting the scenes of his
+childhood. Warmly though he greeted his mother, brothers and sisters,
+after an absence of nearly eight years, his chief delight was in the
+rocky shores, the verdant dales and mountain heights of Corsica. The
+odour of the forests, the setting of the sun in the sea "as in the
+bosom of the infinite," the quiet proud independence of the
+mountaineers themselves, all enchanted him. His delight reveals almost
+Wertherian powers of "sensibility." Even the family troubles could not
+damp his ardour. His father had embarked on questionable speculations,
+which now threatened the Buonapartes with bankruptcy, unless the
+French Government proved to be complacent and generous. With the hope
+of pressing one of the family claims on the royal exchequer, the
+second son procured an extension of furlough and sped to Paris. There
+at the close of 1787 he spent several weeks, hopefully endeavouring to
+extract money from the bankrupt Government. It was a season of
+disillusionment in more senses than one; for there he saw for himself
+the seamy side of Parisian life, and drifted for a brief space about
+the giddy vortex of the Palais Royal. What a contrast to the limpid
+life of Corsica was that turbid frothy existence--already swirling
+towards its mighty plunge!
+
+After a furlough of twenty-one months he rejoined his regiment, now at
+Auxonne. There his health suffered considerably, not only from the
+miasma of the marshes of the river Saône, but also from family
+anxieties and arduous literary toils. To these last it is now needful
+to refer. Indeed, the external events of his early life are of value
+only as they reveal the many-sidedness of his nature and the growth of
+his mental powers.
+
+How came he to outgrow the insular patriotism of his early years? The
+foregoing recital of facts must have already suggested one obvious
+explanation. Nature had dowered him so prodigally with diverse gifts,
+mainly of an imperious order, that he could scarcely have limited his
+sphere of action to Corsica. Profoundly as he loved his island, it
+offered no sphere commensurate with his varied powers and masterful
+will. It was no empty vaunt which his father had uttered on his
+deathbed that his Napoleon would one day overthrow the old monarchies
+and conquer Europe.[9] Neither did the great commander himself
+overstate the peculiarity of his temperament, when he confessed that
+his instincts had ever prompted him that his will must prevail, and
+that what pleased him must of necessity belong to him. Most spoilt
+children harbour the same illusion, for a brief space. But all the
+buffetings of fortune failed to drive it from the young Buonaparte;
+and when despair as to his future might have impaired the vigour of
+his domineering instincts, his mind and will acquired a fresh rigidity
+by coming under the spell of that philosophizing doctrinaire,
+Rousseau.
+
+There was every reason why he should early be attracted by this
+fantastic thinker. In that notable work, "Le Contrat Social" (1762),
+Rousseau called attention to the antique energy shown by the Corsicans
+in defence of their liberties, and in a startlingly prophetic phrase
+he exclaimed that the little island would one day astonish Europe. The
+source of this predilection of Rousseau for Corsica is patent. Born
+and reared at Geneva, he felt a Switzer's love for a people which was<
+"neither rich nor poor but self-sufficing "; and in the simple life
+and fierce love of liberty of the hardy islanders he saw traces of
+that social contract which he postulated as the basis of society.
+According to him, the beginnings of all social and political
+institutions are to be found in some agreement or contract between
+men. Thus arise the clan, the tribe, the nation. The nation may
+delegate many of its powers to a ruler; but if he abuse such powers,
+the contract between him and his people is at an end, and they may
+return to the primitive state, which is founded on an agreement of
+equals with equals. Herein lay the attractiveness of Rousseau for all
+who were discontented with their surroundings. He seemed infallibly
+to demonstrate the absurdity of tyranny and the need of returning to
+the primitive bliss of the social contract. It mattered not that the
+said contract was utterly unhistorical and that his argument teemed
+with fallacies. He inspired a whole generation with detestation of the
+present and with longings for the golden age. Poets had sung of it,
+but Rousseau seemed to bring it within the grasp of long-suffering
+mortals.
+
+The first extant manuscript of Napoleon, written at Valence in April,
+1786, shows that he sought in Rousseau's armoury the logical weapons
+for demonstrating the "right" of the Corsicans to rebel against the
+French. The young hero-worshipper begins by noting that it is the
+birthday of Paoli. He plunges into a panegyric on the Corsican
+patriots, when he is arrested by the thought that many censure them
+for rebelling at all. "The divine laws forbid revolt. But what have
+divine laws to do with a purely human affair? Just think of the
+absurdity--divine laws universally forbidding the casting off of a
+usurping yoke! ... As for human laws, there cannot be any after the
+prince violates them." He then postulates two origins for government
+as alone possible. Either the people has established laws and
+submitted itself to the prince, or the prince has established laws. In
+the first case, the prince is engaged by the very nature of his office
+to execute the covenants. In the second case, the laws tend, or do not
+tend, to the welfare of the people, which is the aim of all
+government: if they do not, the contract with the prince dissolves of
+itself, for the people then enters again into its primitive state.
+Having thus proved the sovereignty of the people, Buonaparte uses his
+doctrine to justify Corsican revolt against France, and thus concludes
+his curious medley: "The Corsicans, following all the laws of justice,
+have been able to shake off the yoke of the Genoese, and may do the
+same with that of the French. Amen."
+
+Five days later he again gives the reins to his melancholy. "Always
+alone, though in the midst of men," he faces the thought of suicide.
+With an innate power of summarizing and balancing thoughts and
+sensations, he draws up arguments for and against this act. He is in
+the dawn of his days and in four months' time he will see "la patrie,"
+which he has not seen since childhood. What joy! And yet--how men have
+fallen away from nature: how cringing are his compatriots to their
+conquerors: they are no longer the enemies of tyrants, of luxury, of
+vile courtiers: the French have corrupted their morals, and when "la
+patrie" no longer survives, a good patriot ought to die. Life among
+the French is odious: their modes of life differ from his as much as
+the light of the moon differs from that of the sun.--A strange
+effusion this for a youth of seventeen living amidst the full glories
+of the spring in Dauphiné. It was only a few weeks before the ripening
+of cherries. Did that cherry-idyll with Mdlle. de Colombier lure him
+back to life? Or did the hope of striking a blow for Corsica stay his
+suicidal hand? Probably the latter; for we find him shortly afterwards
+tilting against a Protestant minister of Geneva who had ventured to
+criticise one of the dogmas of Rousseau's evangel.
+
+The Genevan philosopher had asserted that Christianity, by enthroning
+in the hearts of Christians the idea of a Kingdom not of this world,
+broke the unity of civil society, because it detached the hearts of
+its converts from the State, as from all earthly things. To this the
+Genevan minister had successfully replied by quoting Christian
+teachings on the subject at issue. But Buonaparte fiercely accuses
+the pastor of neither having understood, nor even read, "Le Contrat
+Social": he hurls at his opponent texts of Scripture which enjoin
+obedience to the laws: he accuses Christianity of rendering men slaves
+to an anti-social tyranny, because its priests set up an authority in
+opposition to civil laws; and as for Protestantism, it propagated
+discords between its followers, and thereby violated civic unity.
+Christianity, he argues, is a foe to civil government, for it aims at
+making men happy in this life by inspiring them with hope of a future
+life; while the aim of civil government is "to lend assistance to the
+feeble against the strong, and by this means to allow everyone to
+enjoy a sweet tranquillity, the road of happiness." He therefore
+concludes that Christianity and civil government are diametrically
+opposed.
+
+In this tirade we see the youth's spirit of revolt flinging him not
+only against French law, but against the religion which sanctions it.
+He sees none of the beauty of the Gospels which Rousseau had
+admitted. His views are more rigid than those of his teacher.
+Scarcely can he conceive of two influences, the spiritual and the
+governmental, working on parallel lines, on different parts of man's
+nature. His conception of human society is that of an indivisible,
+indistinguishable whole, wherein materialism, tinged now and again by
+religious sentiment and personal honour, is the sole noteworthy
+influence. He finds no worth in a religion which seeks to work from
+within to without, which aims at transforming character, and thus
+transforming the world. In its headlong quest of tangible results his
+eager spirit scorns so tardy a method: he will "compel men to be
+happy," and for this result there is but one practicable means, the
+Social Contract, the State. Everything which mars the unity of the
+Social Contract shall be shattered, so that the State may have a clear
+field for the exercise of its beneficent despotism. Such is
+Buonaparte's political and religious creed at the age of seventeen,
+and such it remained (with many reservations suggested by maturer
+thought and self-interest) to the end of his days. It reappears in his
+policy anent the Concordat of 1802, by which religion was reduced to
+the level of handmaid to the State, as also in his frequent assertions
+that he would never have quite the same power as the Czar and the
+Sultan, because he had not undivided sway over the consciences of his
+people.[10] In this boyish essay we may perhaps discern the
+fundamental reason of his later failures. He never completely
+understood religion, or the enthusiasm which it can evoke; neither did
+he ever fully realize the complexity of human nature, the
+many-sidedness of social life, and the limitations that beset the
+action even of the most intelligent law-maker.[11]
+
+His reading of Rousseau having equipped him for the study of human
+society and government, he now, during his first sojourn at Auxonne
+(June, 1788--September, 1789), proceeds to ransack the records of the
+ancient and modern world. Despite ill-health, family troubles, and the
+outbreak of the French Revolution, he grapples with this portentous
+task. The history, geography, religion, and social customs of the
+ancient Persians, Scythians, Thracians, Athenians, Spartans,
+Egyptians, and Carthaginians--all furnished materials for his
+encyclopædic note-books. Nothing came amiss to his summarizing genius.
+Here it was that he gained that knowledge of the past which was to
+astonish his contemporaries. Side by side with suggestions on
+regimental discipline and improvements in artillery, we find notes on
+the opening episodes of Plato's "Republic," and a systematic summary
+of English history from the earliest times down to the Revolution of
+1688. This last event inspired him with special interest, because the
+Whigs and their philosophic champion, Locke, maintained that James II.
+had violated the original contract between prince and people.
+Everywhere in his notes Napoleon emphasizes the incidents which led to
+conflicts between dynasties or between rival principles. In fact,
+through all these voracious studies there appear signs of his
+determination to write a history of Corsica; and, while inspiriting
+his kinsmen by recalling the glorious past, he sought to weaken the
+French monarchy by inditing a "Dissertation sur l'Autorité Royale."
+His first sketch of this work runs as follows:
+
+     "23 October, 1788. Auxonne.
+
+     "This work will begin with general ideas as to the origin and the
+     enhanced prestige of the name of king. Military rule is favourable
+     to it: this work will afterwards enter into the details of the
+     usurped authority enjoyed by the Kings of the twelve Kingdoms of
+     Europe.
+
+     "There are very few Kings who have not deserved dethronement[12]."
+
+This curt pronouncement is all that remains of the projected work. It
+sufficiently indicates, however, the aim of Napoleon's studies. One
+and all they were designed to equip him for the great task of
+re-awakening the spirit of the Corsicans and of sapping the base of
+the French monarchy.
+
+But these reams of manuscript notes and crude literary efforts have an
+even wider source of interest. They show how narrow was his outlook on
+life. It all turned on the regeneration of Corsica by methods which he
+himself prescribed. We are therefore able to understand why, when his
+own methods of salvation for Corsica were rejected, he tore himself
+away and threw his undivided energies into the Revolution.
+
+Yet the records of his early life show that in his character there was
+a strain of true sentiment and affection. In him Nature carved out a
+character of rock-like firmness, but she adorned it with flowers of
+human sympathy and tendrils of family love. At his first parting from
+his brother Joseph at Autun, when the elder brother was weeping
+passionately, the little Napoleon dropped a tear: but that, said the
+tutor, meant as much as the flood of tears from Joseph. Love of his
+relatives was a potent factor of his policy in later life; and slander
+has never been able wholly to blacken the character of a man who loved
+and honoured his mother, who asserted that her advice had often been
+of the highest service to him, and that her justice and firmness of
+spirit marked her out as a natural ruler of men. But when these
+admissions are freely granted, it still remains true that his
+character was naturally hard; that his sense of personal superiority
+made him, even as a child, exacting and domineering; and the sequel
+was to show that even the strongest passion of his youth, his
+determination to free Corsica from France, could be abjured if
+occasion demanded, all the force of his nature being thenceforth
+concentrated on vaster adventures.
+
+       *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND CORSICA
+
+
+"They seek to destroy the Revolution by attacking my person: I will
+defend it, for I am the Revolution." Such were the words uttered by
+Buonaparte after the failure of the royalist plot of 1804. They are a
+daring transcript of Louis XIV.'s "L'état, c'est moi." That was a bold
+claim, even for an age attuned to the whims of autocrats: but this of
+the young Corsican is even more daring, for he thereby equated himself
+with a movement which claimed to be wide as humanity and infinite as
+truth. And yet when he spoke these words, they were not scouted as
+presumptuous folly: to most Frenchmen they seemed sober truth and
+practical good sense. How came it, one asks in wonder, that after the
+short space of fifteen years a world-wide movement depended on a
+single life, that the infinitudes of 1789 lived on only in the form,
+and by the pleasure, of the First Consul? Here surely is a political
+incarnation unparalleled in the whole course of human history. The
+riddle cannot be solved by history alone. It belongs in part to the
+domain of psychology, when that science shall undertake the study, not
+merely of man as a unit, but of the aspirations, moods, and whims of
+communities and nations. Meanwhile it will be our far humbler task to
+strive to point out the relation of Buonaparte to the Revolution, and
+to show how the mighty force of his will dragged it to earth.
+
+The first questions that confront us are obviously these. Were the
+lofty aims and aspirations of the Revolution attainable? And, if so,
+did the men of 1789 follow them by practical methods? To the former of
+these questions the present chapter will, in part at least, serve as
+an answer. On the latter part of the problem the events described in
+later chapters will throw some light: in them we shall see that the
+great popular upheaval let loose mighty forces that bore Buonaparte on
+to fortune.
+
+Here we may notice that the Revolution was not a simple and therefore
+solid movement. It was complex and contained the seeds of discord
+which lurk in many-sided and militant creeds. The theories of its
+intellectual champions were as diverse as the motives which spurred on
+their followers to the attack on the outworn abuses of the age.
+
+Discontent and faith were the ultimate motive powers of the
+Revolution. Faith prepared the Revolution and discontent accomplished
+it. Idealists who, in varied planes of thought, preached the doctrine
+of human perfectibility, succeeded in slowly permeating the dull
+toiling masses of France with hope. Omitting here any notice of
+philosophic speculation as such, we may briefly notice the teachings
+of three writers whose influence on revolutionary politics was to be
+definite and practical. These were Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
+Rousseau. The first was by no means a revolutionist, for he decided in
+favour of a mixed form of government, like that of England, which
+guaranteed the State against the dangers of autocracy, oligarchy, and
+mob-rule. Only by a ricochet did he assail the French monarchy. But he
+re-awakened critical inquiry; and any inquiry was certain to sap the
+base of the _ancien régime_ in France. Montesquieu's teaching inspired
+the group of moderate reformers who in 1789 desired to re-fashion the
+institutions of France on the model of those of England. But popular
+sentiment speedily swept past these Anglophils towards the more
+attractive aims set forth by Voltaire.
+
+This keen thinker subjected the privileged classes, especially the
+titled clergy, to a searching fire of philosophic bombs and barbed
+witticisms. Never was there a more dazzling succession of literary
+triumphs over a tottering system. The satirized classes winced and
+laughed, and the intellect of France was conquered, for the
+Revolution. Thenceforth it was impossible that peasants who were
+nominally free should toil to satisfy the exacting needs of the
+State, and to support the brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily
+round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is
+true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength
+of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the
+nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State. Thus, down to
+1789, the middle classes and peasants bore nearly all the weight of
+taxation, while the peasants were also encumbered by feudal dues and
+tolls. These were the crying grievances which united in a solid
+phalanx both thinkers and practical men, and thereby gave an immense
+impetus to the levelling doctrines of Rousseau.
+
+Two only of his political teachings concern us here, namely, social
+equality and the unquestioned supremacy of the State; for to these
+dogmas, when they seemed doomed to political bankruptcy, Napoleon
+Buonaparte was to act as residuary legatee. According to Rousseau,
+society and government originated in a social contract, whereby all
+members of the community have equal rights. It matters not that the
+spirit of the contract may have evaporated amidst the miasma of
+luxury. That is a violation of civil society; and members are
+justified in reverting at once to the primitive ideal. If the
+existence of the body politic be endangered, force may be used:
+"Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do
+so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be
+forced to be free." Equally plausible and dangerous was his teaching
+as to the indivisibility of the general will. Deriving every public
+power from his social contract, he finds it easy to prove that the
+sovereign power, vested in all the citizens, must be incorruptible,
+inalienable, unrepresentable, indivisible, and indestructible.
+Englishmen may now find it difficult to understand the enthusiasm
+called forth by this quintessence of negations; but to Frenchman
+recently escaped from the age of privilege and warring against the
+coalition of kings, the cry of the Republic one and indivisible was a
+trumpet call to death or victory. Any shifts, even that of a
+dictatorship, were to be borne, provided that social equality could be
+saved. As republican Rome had saved her early liberties by intrusting
+unlimited powers to a temporary dictator, so, claimed Rousseau, a
+young commonwealth must by a similar device consult Nature's first law
+of self-preservation. The dictator saves liberty by temporarily
+abrogating it: by momentary gagging of the legislative power he
+renders it truly vocal.
+
+The events of the French Revolution form a tragic commentary on these
+theories. In the first stage of that great movement we see the
+followers of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau marching in an
+undivided host against the ramparts of privilege. The walls of the
+Bastille fall down even at the blast of their trumpets. Odious feudal
+privileges disappear in a single sitting of the National Assembly; and
+the _Parlements_, or supreme law courts of the provinces, are swept
+away. The old provinces themselves are abolished, and at the beginning
+of 1790 France gains social and political unity by her new system of
+Departments, which grants full freedom of action in local affairs,
+though in all national concerns it binds France closely to the new
+popular government at Paris. But discords soon begin to divide the
+reformers: hatred of clerical privilege and the desire to fill the
+empty coffers of the State dictate the first acts of spoliation.
+Tithes are abolished: the lands of the Church are confiscated to the
+service of the State; monastic orders are suppressed; and the
+Government undertakes to pay the stipends of bishops and priests.
+Furthermore, their subjection to the State is definitely secured by
+the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July, 1790) which invalidates
+their allegiance to the Pope. Most of the clergy refuse: these are
+termed non-jurors or orthodox priests, while their more complaisant
+colleagues are known as constitutional priests. Hence arises a serious
+schism in the Church, which distracts the religious life of the land,
+and separates the friends of liberty from the champions of the
+rigorous equality preached by Rousseau.
+
+The new constitution of 1791 was also a source of discord. In its
+jealousy of the royal authority, the National Assembly seized very
+many of the executive functions of government. The results were
+disastrous. Laws remained without force, taxes went uncollected, the
+army was distracted by mutinies, and the monarchy sank slowly into the
+gulf of bankruptcy and anarchy. Thus, in the course of three years,
+the revolutionists goaded the clergy to desperation, they were about
+to overthrow the monarchy, every month was proving their local
+self-government to be unworkable, and they themselves split into
+factions that plunged France into war and drenched her soil by
+organized massacres.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We know very little about the impression made on the young Buonaparte
+by the first events of the Revolution. His note-book seems even to
+show that he regarded them as an inconvenient interference with his
+plans for Corsica. But gradually the Revolution excites his interest.
+In September, 1789, we find him on furlough in Corsica sharing the
+hopes of the islanders that their representatives in the French
+National Assembly will obtain the boon of independence. He exhorts
+his compatriots to favour the democratic cause, which promises a
+speedy deliverance from official abuses. He urges them to don the new
+tricolour cockade, symbol of Parisian triumph over the old monarchy;
+to form a club; above all, to organize a National Guard. The young
+officer knew that military power was passing from the royal army, now
+honeycombed with discontent, to the National Guard. Here surely was
+Corsica's means of salvation. But the French governor of Corsica
+intervenes. The club is closed, and the National Guard is dispersed.
+Thereupon Buonaparte launches a vigorous protest against the tyranny
+of the governor and appeals to the National Assembly of France for
+some guarantee of civil liberty. His name is at the head of this
+petition, a sufficiently daring step for a junior lieutenant on
+furlough. But his patriotism and audacity carry him still further. He
+journeys to Bastia, the official capital of his island, and is
+concerned in an affray between the populace and the royal troops
+(November 5th, 1789). The French authorities, fortunately for him, are
+nearly powerless: he is merely requested to return to Ajaccio; and
+there he organizes anew the civic force, and sets the dissident
+islanders an example of good discipline by mounting guard outside the
+house of a personal opponent.
+
+Other events now transpired which began to assuage his opposition to
+France. Thanks to the eloquent efforts of Mirabeau, the Corsican
+patriots who had remained in exile since 1768 were allowed to return
+and enjoy the full rights of citizenship. Little could the friends of
+liberty at Paris, or even the statesman himself, have foreseen all the
+consequences of this action: it softened the feelings of many
+Corsicans towards their conquerors; above all, it caused the heart of
+Napoleon Buonaparte for the first time to throb in accord with that of
+the French nation. His feelings towards Paoli also began to cool. The
+conduct of this illustrious exile exposed him to the charge of
+ingratitude towards France. The decree of the French National
+Assembly, which restored him to Corsican citizenship, was graced by
+acts of courtesy such as the generous French nature can so winningly
+dispense. Louis XVI. and the National Assembly warmly greeted him, and
+recognized him as head of the National Guard of the island. Yet,
+amidst all the congratulations, Paoli saw the approach of anarchy, and
+behaved with some reserve. Outwardly, however, concord seemed to be
+assured, when on July 14th, 1790, he landed in Corsica; but the hatred
+long nursed by the mountaineers and fisherfolk against France was not
+to be exorcised by a few demonstrations. In truth, the island was
+deeply agitated. The priests were rousing the people against the newly
+decreed Civil Constitution of the Clergy; and one of these
+disturbances endangered the life of Napoleon himself. He and his
+brother Joseph chanced to pass by when one of the processions of
+priests and devotees was exciting the pity and indignation of the
+townsfolk. The two brothers, who were now well known as partisans of
+the Revolution, were threatened with violence, and were saved only by
+their own firm demeanour and the intervention of peacemakers.
+
+Then again, the concession of local self-government to the island, as
+one of the Departments of France, revealed unexpected difficulties.
+Bastia and Ajaccio struggled hard for the honour of being the official
+capital. Paoli favoured the claims of Bastia, thereby annoying the
+champions of Ajaccio, among whom the Buonapartes were prominent. The
+schism was widened by the dictatorial tone of Paoli, a demeanour which
+ill became the chief of a civic force. In fact, it soon became
+apparent that Corsica was too small a sphere for natures so able and
+masterful as those of Paoli and Napoleon Buonaparte.
+
+The first meeting of these two men must have been a scene of deep
+interest. It was on the fatal field of Ponte Nuovo. Napoleon doubtless
+came there in the spirit of true hero-worship. But hero-worship which
+can stand the strain of actual converse is rare indeed, especially
+when the expectant devotee is endowed with keen insight and habits of
+trenchant expression. One phrase has come down to us as a result of
+the interview; but this phrase contains a volume of meaning. After
+Paoli had explained the disposition of his troops against the French
+at Ponte Nuovo, Buonaparte drily remarked to his brother Joseph, "The
+result of these dispositions was what was inevitable." [13]
+
+For the present, Buonaparte and other Corsican democrats were closely
+concerned with the delinquencies of the Comte de Buttafuoco, the
+deputy for the twelve nobles of the island to the National Assembly of
+France. In a letter written on January 23rd, 1791, Buonaparte
+overwhelms this man with a torrent of invective.--He it was who had
+betrayed his country to France in 1768. Self-interest and that alone
+prompted his action then, and always. French rule was a cloak for his
+design of subjecting Corsica to "the absurd feudal _régime_" of the
+barons. In his selfish royalism he had protested against the new
+French constitution as being unsuited to Corsica, "though it was
+exactly the same as that which brought us so much good and was wrested
+from us only amidst streams of blood."--The letter is remarkable for
+the southern intensity of its passion, and for a certain hardening of
+tone towards Paoli. Buonaparte writes of Paoli as having been ever
+"surrounded by enthusiasts, and as failing to understand in a man any
+other passion than fanaticism for liberty and independence," and as
+duped by Buttafuoco in 1768.[14] The phrase has an obvious reference
+to the Paoli of 1791, surrounded by men who had shared his long exile
+and regarded the English constitution as their model. Buonaparte, on
+the contrary, is the accredited champion of French democracy, his
+furious epistle being printed by the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio.
+
+After firing off this tirade Buonaparte returned to his regiment at
+Auxonne (February, 1791). It was high time; for his furlough, though
+prolonged on the plea of ill-health, had expired in the preceding
+October, and he was therefore liable to six months' imprisonment. But
+the young officer rightly gauged the weakness of the moribund
+monarchy; and the officers of his almost mutinous regiment were glad
+to get him back on any terms. Everywhere in his journey through
+Provence and Dauphiné, Buonaparte saw the triumph of revolutionary
+principles. He notes that the peasants are to a man for the
+Revolution; so are the rank and file of the regiment. The officers
+are aristocrats, along with three-fourths of those who belong to "good
+society": so are all the women, for "Liberty is fairer than they, and
+eclipses them." The Revolution was evidently gaining completer hold
+over his mind and was somewhat blurring his insular sentiments, when a
+rebuff from Paoli further weakened his ties to Corsica. Buonaparte had
+dedicated to him his work on Corsica, and had sent him the manuscript
+for his approval. After keeping it an unconscionable time, the old man
+now coldly replied that he did not desire the honour of Buonaparte's
+panegyric, though he thanked him heartily for it; that the
+consciousness of having done his duty sufficed for him in his old age;
+and, for the rest, history should not be written in youth. A further
+request from Joseph Buonaparte for the return of the slighted
+manuscript brought the answer that he, Paoli, had no time to search
+his papers. After this, how could hero-worship subsist?
+
+The four months spent by Buonaparte at Auxonne were, indeed, a time of
+disappointment and hardship. Out of his slender funds he paid for the
+education of his younger brother, Louis, who shared his otherwise
+desolate lodging. A room almost bare but for a curtainless bed, a
+table heaped with books and papers, and two chairs--such were the
+surroundings of the lieutenant in the spring of 1791. He lived on
+bread that he might rear his brother for the army, and that he might
+buy books, overjoyed when his savings mounted to the price of some
+coveted volume.
+
+Perhaps the depressing conditions of his life at Auxonne may account
+for the acrid tone of an essay which he there wrote in competition for
+a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on the subject--"What truths
+and sentiments ought to be inculcated to men for their happiness." It
+was unsuccessful; and modern readers will agree with the verdict of
+one of the judges that it was incongruous in arrangement and of a bad
+and ragged style. The thoughts are set forth in jerky, vehement
+clauses; and, in place of the _sensibilité_ of some of his earlier
+effusions, we feel here the icy breath of materialism. He regards an
+ideal human society as a geometrical structure based on certain
+well-defined postulates. All men ought to be able to satisfy certain
+elementary needs of their nature; but all that is beyond is
+questionable or harmful. The ideal legislator will curtail wealth so
+as to restore the wealthy to their true nature--and so forth. Of any
+generous outlook on the wider possibilities of human life there is
+scarcely a trace. His essay is the apotheosis of social mediocrity. By
+Procrustean methods he would have forced mankind back to the dull
+levels of Sparta: the opalescent glow of Athenian life was beyond his
+ken. But perhaps the most curious passage is that in which he preaches
+against the sin and folly of ambition. He pictures Ambition as a
+figure with pallid cheeks, wild eyes, hasty step, jerky movements and
+sardonic smile, for whom crimes are a sport, while lies and calumnies
+are merely arguments and figures of speech. Then, in words that recall
+Juvenal's satire on Hannibal's career, he continues: "What is
+Alexander doing when he rushes from Thebes into Persia and thence into
+India? He is ever restless, he loses his wits, he believes himself
+God. What is the end of Cromwell? He governs England. But is he not
+tormented by all the daggers of the furies?"--The words ring false,
+even for this period of Buonaparte's life; and one can readily
+understand his keen wish in later years to burn every copy of these
+youthful essays. But they have nearly all survived; and the diatribe
+against ambition itself supplies the feather wherewith history may
+wing her shaft at the towering flight of the imperial eagle.[15]
+
+At midsummer he is transferred, as first lieutenant, to another
+regiment which happened to be quartered at Valence; but his second
+sojourn there is remarkable only for signs of increasing devotion to
+the revolutionary cause. In the autumn of 1791 he is again in Corsica
+on furlough, and remains there until the month of May following. He
+finds the island rent by strifes which it would be tedious to
+describe. Suffice it to say that the breach between Paoli and the
+Vivie's health gradually recovered from the effects of the forcible
+feeding; the prison fare, supplemented by the weekly parcels, suited
+her digestion; the peace of the prison life and the regular work at
+interesting trades soothed her nerves. She enjoyed the respite from
+the worries of her complicated toilettes, the perplexity of what to
+wear and how to wear it; in short, she was finding a spell of prison
+life quite bearable, except for the cold and the attentions of the
+chaplain. She gathered from the fortnightly letter which her
+industry and good conduct allowed her to receive, and to answer,
+that unwearied efforts were being made by her friends outside to
+shorten her sentence. Mrs. Warren through Bertie Adams had found out
+the cases where jockeys and stable lads had lost their effects in
+the fires or explosions which had followed Vivie's visits to their
+employers' premises, and had made good their losses. As to their
+employers, they had all been heavily insured, and recovered the
+value of their buildings; and as to the insurance companies _they_
+had all been so enriched by Mr. Lloyd George's legislation that the
+one-or-two hundred thousand pounds they had lost, through Vivie's
+revenge for the seemingly-fruitless death of Emily Wilding Davison,
+was a bagatelle not worth bothering about. But all attempts to get
+the Home Office to reconsider Miss Warren's case or to shorten her
+imprisonment (except by the abridgment that could be earned in the
+prison itself) were unavailing. So long as the Cabinet held Vivie
+under lock and key, the Suffrage movement--they foolishly
+believed--was hamstrung.
+
+So the months went by, and Vivie almost lost count of time and
+almost became content to wait. Till War was declared on August 4th,
+1914. A few days afterwards followed the amnesty to Suffragist
+prisoners. From this the Home Office strove at first to exclude
+Vivien Warren on the plea that her crime was an ordinary crime and
+admitted of no political justification; but at this the wrath of
+Rossiter and the indignation of the W.S.P.U. became so alarming that
+the agitated Secretary of State--not at all sure how we were going
+to come out of the War--gave way, and an order was signed for
+Vivie's release on the 11th of August; on the understanding that she
+would immediately proceed abroad; an understanding to which she
+would not subscribe but which in her slowly-formed hatred of the
+British Government she resolved to carry out.
+
+Mrs. Warren, assured by Praed and Rossiter that Vivie's release was
+a mere matter of a few days, had left for Brussels on the 5th of
+August. If--as was then hoped--the French and Belgian armies would
+suffice to keep the Germans at bay on the frontier of Belgium, she
+would prefer to resume her life there in the Villa de Beau-séjour.
+If however Belgium was going to be invaded it was better she should
+secure her property as far as possible, transfer her funds, and make
+her way somehow to a safe part of France. Vivie would join her as
+soon as she could leave the prison.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+BRUSSELS AND THE WAR: 1914
+
+
+The Lilacs in Victoria Road had been disposed of--through
+Honoria--as soon as possible, after the sentence of Three years'
+imprisonment had been pronounced on Vivie; and the faithful
+Suffragette maid had passed into Honoria's employ at Petworth, a
+fact that was not fully understood by Colonel Armstrong until he had
+become General Armstrong and perfectly indifferent to the Suffrage
+agitation which had by that time attained its end. So when Vivie had
+come out of prison and had promised to write to all the wardresses
+and to meet them some day on non-professional ground; had found
+Rossiter waiting for her in his motor and Honoria in hers; had
+thanked them both for their never-to-be-forgotten kindness, and had
+insisted on walking away in her rather creased and rumpled clothes
+of the previous year with Bertie Adams; she sought the hospitality
+of Praddy at Hans Place. The parlour-maid received her sumptuously,
+and Praddy's eyes watered with senile tears.
+
+But Vivie would have no melancholy. "Oh Praddy! If you only knew.
+It's worth going to prison to know the joy of coming out of it! I'm
+so happy at thinking this is my last day in England for ever so
+long. When the War is over, I think I shall settle in Switzerland
+with mother--or perhaps all three of us--you with us, I mean--in
+Italy. We'll only come back here when the Women have got the Vote.
+Now to-night you shall take me to the theatre--or rather I'll take
+_you_. I've thought it all out beforehand, and Bertie Adams has
+secured the seats. It's _The Chocolate Soldier_ at the Adelphi, the
+only war piece they had ready; there are two stalls for us and
+Bertie and his wife are going to the Dress Circle. My Cook's ticket
+is taken for Brussels and I leave to-morrow by the Ostende route."
+
+"To-morrow" was the 12th of August, and Dora was not yet in being to
+interpose every possible obstacle in the way of the civilian
+traveller. Down to the Battle of the Marne in September, 1914, very
+little difficulty was made about crossing the Channel, especially
+off the main Dover-Calais route.
+
+So in the radiant noon of that August day Vivie looked her last on
+the brown-white promontories, cliffs and grey castle of Dover,
+scarcely troubling about any anticipations one way or the other, and
+certainly having no prevision she would not recross the Channel for
+four years and four months, and not see Dover again for five or six
+years.
+
+British war vessels were off the port and inside it. But there was
+not much excitement or crowding on the Ostende steamer or any of
+those sensational precautions against being torpedoed or mined,
+which soon afterwards oppressed the spirits of cross-Channel
+passengers. Vessels arriving from Belgium were full of passengers of
+the superior refugee class, American and British tourists, or
+wealthy people who though they preferred living abroad had begun to
+think that the Continent just now was not very healthy and England
+the securest refuge for those who wished to be comfortable.
+
+Vivie being a good sailor and economical by nature, never thought of
+securing a cabin for the four or five hours' sea-journey. She sat on
+the upper deck with her scanty luggage round her. A nice-looking
+young man who had a cabin the door of which he locked, was walking
+up and down on the level deck and scrutinizing her discreetly. And
+when at last they worked their way backwards into Ostende--the
+harbour was full of vessels, chiefly mine-dredgers and torpedo
+boats--she noticed the obsequiousness of the steamer people and how
+he left the ship before any one else.
+
+She followed soon afterwards, having little encumbrances in the way
+of luggage; but she observed that he just showed a glimpse of some
+paper and was allowed to walk straight through the Douane with
+unexamined luggage, and so, on to the Brussels train.
+
+But she herself had little difficulty. She put her hand luggage--she
+had no other--into a first-class compartment, and having an hour and
+a half to wait walked out to look at Ostende.
+
+Summer tourists were still there; the Casino was full of people, the
+shops were doing an active trade; the restaurants were crowded with
+English, Americans, Belgians taking tea, chocolate, or liqueurs at
+little tables and creating a babel of talk. Newspapers were being
+sold everywhere by ragamuffin boys who shouted their head-lines in
+French, Flemish, and quite understandable English. A fort or two at
+Liége had fallen, but it was of no consequence. General Léman could
+hold out indefinitely, and the mere fact that German soldiers had
+entered the town of Liége counted for nothing. Belgium had virtually
+won the war by holding up the immense German army. France was
+overrunning Alsace, Russia was invading East Prussia and also
+sending uncountable thousands of soldiers, via Archangel, to
+England, whence they were being despatched to Calais for the relief
+of Belgium.
+
+"It looks," thought Vivie, after glancing at the _Indépendance
+Belge_, "As though Belgium were going to be extremely interesting
+during the next few weeks; I may be privileged to witness--from a
+safe distance--another Waterloo."
+
+Then she returned to the train which in her absence had been so
+crowded with soldiers and civilian passengers that she had great
+difficulty in finding her place and seating herself. The young man
+whom she had seen pacing the deck of the steamer approached her and
+said: "There is more room in my compartment; in fact I have
+selfishly got one all to myself. Won't you share it?"
+
+She thanked him and moved in there with her suit case and rugs.
+When the train had started and she had parried one or two polite
+enquiries as to place and ventilation, she said: "I think I ought to
+tell you who I am, in case you would not like to be seen speaking to
+me--I imagine you are in diplomacy, as I noticed you went through
+with a Red passport.--I am Vivien Warren, just out of prison, and an
+outlaw, more or less."
+
+"'The outlaws of to-day are the in-laws of to-morrow,' as the
+English barrister said when he married the Boer general's daughter.
+I have thought I recognized you. I have heard you speak at Lady
+Maud's and also at Lady Feenix's Suffrage parties. My name is Hawk.
+I suppose you've been in prison for some Suffrage offence? So has my
+aunt, for the matter of that."
+
+_Vivie_: "Yes, but in her case they only sentenced her to the First
+Division; whereas _I_ have been doing nine months' hard."
+
+_Hawk_: "What was your crime?"
+
+_Vivie_: "I admit nothing, it is always wisest. But I was accused of
+burning down Mr. ----'s racing stables--and other things..."
+
+_Hawk_: "_That_ beast. Well, I suppose it was very wrong. Can't
+quite make up my mind about militancy, one way or the other. But
+here we are up against the biggest war in history, and such
+peccadilloes as yours sink into insignificance. By the bye, my aunt
+was amnestied and so I suppose were you?"
+
+_Vivie_: "Yes, but not so handsomely. I was requested to go away
+from England for a time, so here I am, about to join my mother in
+Brussels--or in a little country place near Brussels."
+
+_Hawk_: "Well, I've been Secretary of Legation there. I'm just going
+back to--to--well I'm just going back."
+
+At Bruges they were told that the train would not leave for Ghent
+and Brussels for another two hours--some mobilization delay; so Hawk
+proposed they should go and see the Memlings and then have some
+dinner.
+
+
+"Don't you think they're perfectly wonderful?"--_àpropos_ of the
+pictures in the Hospital of St. Jean.
+
+_Vivie_: "It depends on what you mean by 'wonderful.' If you admire
+the fidelity of the reproduction in colour and texture of the
+Flemish costumes of the fifteenth century, I agree with you. It is
+also interesting to see the revelations of their domestic
+architecture and furniture of that time, and the types of domestic
+dog, cow and horse. But if you admire them as being true pictures of
+life in Palestine in the time of Christ, or in the Rhineland of the
+fifth century, then I think they--like most Old Masters--are
+perfectly rotten. And have you ever remarked another thing about all
+paintings prior to the seventeenth century: how _plain_, how _ugly_
+all the people are? You never see a single good-looking man or
+woman. Do let's go and have that dinner you spoke of. I've got a
+prison appetite."
+
+
+At Ghent another delay and a few uneasy rumours. The Court was said
+to be removing from Brussels and establishing itself at Antwerp. The
+train at last drew into the main station at Brussels half an hour
+after midnight. Vivie's mother was nowhere to be seen. She had
+evidently gone back to the Villa Beau-séjour while she could. It was
+too late for any tram in the direction of Tervueren. There were no
+taxis owing to the drivers being called up. Leaving most of her
+luggage at the cloak-room--it took her about three-quarters of an
+hour even to approach the receiving counter--Vivie walked across to
+the _Palace Hotel_ and asked the night porter to get her a room. But
+every room was occupied, they said--Americans, British, wealthy war
+refugees from southern Belgium, military officers of the Allies. The
+only concession made to her--for the porter could hold out little
+hope of any neighbouring hotel having an empty room--was to allow
+her to sit and sleep in one of the comfortable basket chairs in the
+long atrium. At six o'clock a compassionate waiter who knew the name
+of Mrs. Warren gave her daughter some coffee and milk and a
+_brioche_. At seven she managed to get her luggage taken to one of
+the trams at the corner of the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique. The
+train service to Tervueren was suspended--and at the Porte de Namur
+she would be transferred to the No. 45 tram which would take her out
+to Tervueren.
+
+Even at an early hour Brussels seemed crowded and as the tram passed
+along the handsome boulevards the shops were being opened and
+tourists were on their way to Waterloo in brakes. Every one seemed
+to think in mid-August, 1914, that Germany was destined to receive
+her _coup-de-grâce_ on the field of Waterloo. It would be so
+appropriate. And no one--at any rate of those who spoke their
+thoughts aloud--seemed to consider that Brussels was menaced.
+
+Leaving her luggage at the tram terminus, Vivie sped on foot through
+forest roads, where the dew still glistened, to the Villa
+Beau-séjour. Mrs. Warren was not yet dressed, but was rapturous in
+her greeting. Her chauffeur had been called up, so the auto could
+not go out, but a farm cart would be sent for the luggage.
+
+"I believe, mother, I'm going to enjoy myself enormously," said
+Vivie as she sat in the verandah in the morning sunshine, making a
+delicious _petit déjeuner_ out of fresh rolls, the butter of the
+farm, a few slices of sausage, and a big cup of frothing chocolate
+topped with whipped cream. The scene that spread before her was
+idyllic, from a bucolic point of view. The beech woods of Tervueren
+shut out any horizon of town activity; black and white cows were
+being driven out to pasture, a flock of geese with necks raised
+vertically waggled sedately along their own chosen path, a little
+disturbed and querulous over the arrival of a stranger; turkey hens
+and their half-grown poults and a swelling, strutting turkey cock, a
+peacock that had already lost nearly all his tail and therefore
+declined combat with the turkey and was, moreover, an isolated
+bachelor; guinea-fowls scratching and running about alternately; and
+plump cocks and hens of mixed breed covered most of the ground in
+the adjacent farm yard and the turf of an apple orchard, where the
+fruit was already reddening under the August sun. Pigeons circled
+against the sky with the distinct musical notes struck out by their
+wings, or cooed and cooed round the dove cots. The dairy women of
+the farm laughed and sang and called out to one another in Flemish
+and Wallon rough chaff about their men-folk who were called to the
+Colours. There was nothing suggestive here of any coming tragedy.
+
+This was the morning of the 13th of August. For three more days
+Vivie lived deliriously, isolated from the world. She took new books
+to the shade of the forest, and a rug on which she could repose, and
+read there with avidity, read also all the newspapers her mother had
+brought over from England, tried to master the events which had so
+rapidly and irresistibly plunged Europe into War. Were the Germans
+to blame, she asked herself? Of course they were, technically, in
+invading Belgium and in forcing this war on France. But were they
+not being surrounded by a hostile Alliance? Was not this hostility
+on the part of Servia towards Austria stimulated by Russia in order
+to forestal the Central Powers by a Russian occupation of
+Constantinople? Why should the Russian Empire be allowed to stretch
+for nine millions of square miles over half Asia, much of Persia,
+and now claim to control the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor? If
+England might claim a large section of Persia as her sphere of
+influence, and Egypt likewise and a fourth part of Africa, much of
+Arabia, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, why might not Germany and
+Austria expect to have their little spheres of influence in the
+Balkans, in Asia Minor, in Mesopotamia? We had helped France to
+Morocco and Italy to Tripoli; why should we bother about Servia? It
+might be unkind, but then were we not unkind towards her father's
+country, Ireland? Were we very tender towards national independence
+in Egypt, in Persia?
+
+Yet this brutal invasion of France, this unprovoked attack on Liège
+were ugly things. France had shown no disposition to egg Servia on
+against Austria, and Sir Edward Grey in the last days of June--she
+now learnt for the first time, for she had seen no newspapers in
+prison, where it is part of the dehumanizing policy of the Home
+Office to prevent their entry, or the dissemination of any
+information about current events--Sir Edward Grey had clearly shown
+Great Britain did not approve of Servian intrigues in Bosnia. Well:
+let the best man win. Germany was just as likely to give the Vote to
+her women as was Britain. The Germans were first in Music and in
+Science. She for her part didn't wish to become a German subject,
+but once the War was over she would willingly naturalize herself
+Belgian or Swiss.
+
+And the War must soon be over. Europe as a whole could not allow
+this devastation of resources. America would intervene. Already the
+Germans realized their gigantic blunder in starting the attack.
+Their men were said to be--she read--much less brave than people had
+expected. The mighty German Armies had been held up for ten days by
+a puny Belgian force and the forts of Liège and Namur. There would
+presently be an armistice and Germany would have to make peace with
+perhaps the cession to France of Metz as a _solatium_, while Germany
+was given a little bit more of Africa, and Austria got nothing....
+
+Meantime the Villa Beau-séjour seemed after Holloway Prison a
+paradise upon earth. Why quarrel with her fate? Why not drop
+politics and take up philosophy? She felt herself capable of writing
+a Universal History which would be far truer if more cynical than
+any previous attempt to show civilized man the route he had followed
+and the martyrdom he had undergone.
+
+On the 17th of August she took the tram into Brussels. It seemed
+however as if it would never get there, and when she reached the
+Porte de Namur she was too impatient to wait for the connection. She
+could not find any gendarme, but at a superior-looking flower-shop
+she obtained the address of the British Legation.
+
+She asked at the lodge for Mr. Hawk; but there was only a Belgian
+coachman in charge, and he told her the Minister and his staff had
+followed the Court to Antwerp. Mr. Hawk had only left that morning.
+"What a nuisance," said Vivie to herself. "I might have found out
+from him whether there is any truth in the rumours that are flying
+about Tervueren."
+
+These rumours were to the effect that the Germans had captured all
+the forts of Liège and their brave defender, General Léman; that
+they were in Namur and were advancing on Louvain. "I wonder what we
+had better do?" pondered Vivie.
+
+In her bewilderment she took the bold step of calling at the Hotel
+de Ville, gave her name and nationality, and asked the advice of
+the municipal employé who saw her as to what course she and her
+mother had better pursue: leave Tervueren and seek a lodging in
+Brussels; or retreat as far as Ghent or Bruges or even Holland? The
+clerk reassured her. The Germans had certainly occupied the
+south-east of Belgium, but dared not push as far to the west and
+north as Brussels. They risked otherwise being nipped between the
+Belgian army of Antwerp and the British force marching on Mons....
+He directed her attention to the last _communiqué_ of the Ministry
+of War: "La situation n'a jamais été meilleure. Bruxelles, à l'abri
+d'un coup de main, est défendue par vingt mille gardes civiques
+armés d'un excellent fusil," etc.
+
+Vivie returned therefore a trifle reassured. At the same time she
+and her mother spent some hours in packing up and posting valuable
+securities to London, via Ostende, in packing for deposit in the
+strong rooms of a Brussels bank Mrs. Warren's jewellery and plate.
+The tram service from Tervueren had ceased to run. So they induced a
+neighbour to drive them into Brussels in a chaise: a slow and
+wearisome journey under a broiling sun. Arrived in Brussels they
+found the town in consternation. Placarded on the walls was a notice
+signed by the Burgomaster--the celebrated Adolphe Max--informing the
+Bruxellois that in spite of the resistances of the Belgian army it
+was to be feared the enemy might soon be in occupation of Brussels.
+In such an event he adjured the citizens to avoid all panic, to give
+no legitimate cause of offence to the Germans, to renounce any idea
+of resorting to arms! The Germans on their part were bound
+by the laws of war to respect private property, the lives of
+non-combatants, the honour of women, and the exercise of religion.
+
+Vivie and her mother found the banks closed and likewise the railway
+station. They now had but one thought: to get back as quickly as
+possible to Villa Beau-séjour, and fortunately for their dry-mouthed
+impatience their farmer friend was of the same mind. Along the
+Tervueren road they met numbers of peasant refugees in carts and on
+foot, driving cattle, geese or pigs towards the capital; urging on
+the tugging dogs with small carts and barrows loaded with personal
+effects, trade-goods, farm produce, or crying children. All of them
+had a distraught, haggard appearance and were constantly looking
+behind them. From the east, indeed, came the distant sounds of
+explosions and intermittent rifle firing. Mrs. Warren was blanched
+with fear, her cheeks a dull peach colour. She questioned the people
+in French and Flemish, but they only answered vaguely in raucous
+voices: "Les Allemands!" "De Duitscher."
+
+One old woman, however, had flung herself down by the roadside,
+while her patient dog lay between the shafts of the little cart till
+she should be pleased to go on. She was more communicative and told
+Mrs. Warren a tale too horrible to be believed, about husband, son,
+son-in-law all killed, daughter violated and killed too, cottage in
+flames, livestock driven off. Recovering from her exhaustion she
+rose and shook herself. "I've no business to be here. I should be
+with _them_. I was just packing this cart for the market when it
+happened. Why did I go away? Oh for shame! I'll go back--to
+_them_..." And forthwith she turned the dog round and trudged the
+same way they were going.
+
+At last they came opposite the courtyard of the Villa and saw the
+lawn and gravel sweep full of helmeted soldiers in green-grey
+uniform, their bodies hung with equipment--bags, great-coats,
+rolled-up blankets, trench spades, cartridge bandoliers. Vivie
+jumped down quickly, said to her mother in a low firm voice: "Leave
+everything to me. Say as little as possible." Then to the farmer:
+"Nous vous remercions infiniment. Vous aurez mille choses à faire
+chez vous, je n'en doute. Nous réglerons notre compte tout-à
+l'heure.... Pour le moment, adieu." She clutched the handbags of
+valuables, slung them somehow on her left arm, while with her other
+she piloted the nearly swooning Mrs. Warren into the court.
+
+They were at once stopped by a non-commissioned officer who asked
+them in abrupt, scarcely understandable German what they wanted.
+Vivie guessing his meaning said in English--she scarcely knew any
+German: "This is our house. We have been absent in Brussels. We want
+to see the officer in command." The soldier knew no English, but
+likewise guessed at their meaning. He ordered them to wait where
+they were. Presently he came out of the Villa and said the Herr
+Oberst would see them. Vivie led her mother into the gay little
+hall--how pleasant and cool it had looked in the early morning! It
+was now full of surly-looking soldiers. Without hesitating she took
+a chair from one soldier and placed her mother in it. "You rest
+there a moment, dearest, while I go in and see the officer in
+command." The corporal she had first spoken with beckoned her into
+the pretty sitting-room at the back where they had had their early
+breakfast that morning.
+
+Here she saw seated at a table consulting plans of Brussels and
+other papers a tall, handsome man of early middle age, who might
+indeed have passed for a young man, had he not looked very tired and
+care-worn and exhibited a bald patch at the back of his head,
+rendered the more apparent because the brown-gold curls round it
+were dank with perspiration. He rose to his feet, clicked his heels
+together and saluted. "An English young lady, I am told, rather ...
+a ... surprise ... on ... the ... outskirts ... of Brussels..." (His
+English was excellent, if rather staccato and spaced.) "It ... is
+... not ... usual ... for ... Englishwomen ... to ... be owners ...
+of chateaux ... in Belgium. But I ... hear ... it ... is ... your
+mother ... who is the owner ... from long time, and you are her
+daughter newly arrived from England? Nicht wahr? Sie verstehen nicht
+Deutsch, gnädiges Fraulein?"
+
+"No," said Vivie, "I don't speak much German, and fortunately you
+speak such perfect English that it is not necessary."
+
+"I have stayed some time in England," was the reply; "I was once
+military attaché in London. Both your voice and your face seem--what
+should one say? Familiar to me. Are you of London?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose I may say I am a Londoner, though I believe I was
+born in Brussels. But I don't want to beat about the bush: there is
+so much to be said and explained, and all this time I am very
+anxious about my mother. She is in the hall outside--feels a little
+faint I think with shock--might she--might I?"--
+
+"But my dear Miss--?"
+
+"Miss Warren--"
+
+"My dear Miss Warren, of course. We are enemies--pour le moment--but
+we Germans are not monsters. ("What about those peasants' stories?"
+said Vivie to herself.) Your lady mother must come in here and take
+that fauteuil. Then we can talk better at our ease."
+
+Vivie got up and brought her mother in.
+
+"Now you shall tell me everything--is it not so? Better to be quite
+frank. À la guerre comme à la guerre. First, you are English?"
+
+"Yes. My mother is Mrs. Warren, I am her daughter, Vivien Warren. My
+mother has lived many years in Belgium, though also in other places,
+in Germany, Austria and France. Of late, however, she has lived
+entirely here. This place belongs to her."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I? I have just been released from prison in London, Holloway
+Prison..."
+
+"My dear young lady! You are surely joking--what do you say? You
+pull my leg? But no; I see! You have been Suffragette. Aha! _I_
+understand you are _the_ Miss Warren, the Miss Warren who make the
+English Government afraid, nicht wahr? You set fire to Houses of
+Parliament..."
+
+_Vivie_ (interrupting): "No, no! Only to some racing stables..."
+
+_Oberst_: "I understand. But you are rebel?"
+
+_Vivie_: "I hate the present British Government--the most
+hypocritical, the most..."
+
+_Oberst_: "But we are in agreement, you and I! This is splendid. But
+now we must be praktisch. We are at war, though we hope here for a
+peaceful occupation of Belgium. You will see how the Flämisch--Ah,
+you say the Fleming?--the Flemish part of Belgium will receive us
+with such pleasure. It is only with the Wälsch, the Wallon part we
+disagree.... But there is so much for me to do--we must talk of all
+these things some other time. Let us begin our business. I must
+first introduce myself. I am Oberst Gottlieb von Giesselin of the
+Saxon Army. (He rose, clicked heels, bowed, and sat down.) I see you
+have three heavy bags you look at often. What is it?"
+
+_Vivie_ (taking courage): "It is my mother's jewellery and some
+plate. She fears--"
+
+_Von G._: "I understand! We have a dr-r-eadful reputation, we poor
+Germans! The French stuff you up with lies. But we are better than
+you think. You shall take them in two--three days to Brussels when
+things are quiet, and put them in some bank. Here I fear I must
+stay. I must intrude myself on your hospitality. But better for you
+perhaps if I stay here at present. I will put a few of my men in
+your--your--buildings. Most of them shall go with their officers to
+Tervueren for billet." (Turning to Mrs. Warren.) "Madam, you must
+cheer up. I foresee your daughter and I will be great friends. Let
+us now look through the rooms and see what disposition we can make.
+I think I will have to take this room for my writing, for my work. I
+see you have telephone here. _Gut_!"
+
+Leaving Mrs. Warren still seated, but a little less stertorous in
+breathing, a little reassured, Vivie and Oberst von Giesselin then
+went over the Villa, apportioning the rooms. The Colonel and his
+orderly would be lodged in two of the bedrooms. Vivie and her mother
+would share Mrs. Warren's large bedroom and retain the salon for
+their exclusive occupation. They would use the dining-room in common
+with their guest.
+
+Vivie looking out of the windows occasionally, as they passed from
+room to room, saw the remainder of the soldiery strolling off to be
+lodged at their nearest neighbour's, the farmer who had driven them
+in to Brussels that morning. There were perhaps thirty, accompanying
+a young lieutenant. How would he find room for them, poor man? They
+were more fortunate in being asked only to lodge six or seven in
+addition to the Colonel's orderly and soldier-clerk. Before sunset,
+the Villa Beau-séjour was clear of soldiers, except the few that had
+gone to the barn and the outhouses. The morning room had been fitted
+up with a typewriter at which the military clerk sat tapping. The
+Colonel's personal luggage had been placed in his bedroom. A soldier
+was even sweeping up all traces of the invasion of armed men and
+making everything tidy. It all seemed like a horrid dream that was
+going to end up happily after all. Presently Vivie would wake up
+completely and there would even be no Oberst, no orderly; only the
+peaceful life of the farm that was going on yesterday. Here a sound
+of angry voices interrupted her musings. The cows returning by
+themselves from the pasture were being intercepted by soldiers who
+were trying to secure them. Vivie in her indignation ran out and
+ordered the soldiers off, in English. To her surprise they obeyed
+silently, but as they sauntered away to their quarters she was
+saddened at seeing them carrying the bodies of most of the turkeys
+and fowls and even the corpse of the poor tailless peacock. They had
+waited for sundown to rob the hen-roosts.
+
+Very much disillusioned she ran to the morning room and burst in on
+the Colonel's dictation to his clerk. "Excuse me, but if you don't
+keep your soldiers in better order you will have very little to eat
+whilst you are here. They are killing and carrying off all our
+poultry."
+
+The Colonel flushed a little at the peremptory way in which she
+spoke, but without replying went out and shouted a lot of orders in
+German. His orderly summoned soldiers from the barn and together
+they drove the cows into the cow-sheds. All the Flemish servants
+having disappeared in a panic, the Germans had to milk the cows that
+evening; and Vivie, assisted by the orderly, cooked the evening
+meal in the kitchen. He was, like his Colonel, a Saxon, a
+pleasant-featured, domesticated man, who explained civilly in the
+Thuringian dialect--though to Vivie there could be no discrimination
+between varieties of High German--that the Sachsen folk were "Eines
+gütes leute" and that all would go smoothly in time.
+
+Nevertheless the next morning when she could take stock she found
+nearly all the poultry except the pigeons had disappeared; and most
+of the apples, ripe and unripe, had vanished from the orchard trees.
+The female servants of the farm, however, came back; and finding no
+violence was offered took up their work again. Two days afterwards,
+von Giesselin sent Vivie into Brussels in his motor, with his
+orderly to escort her, so that she might deposit her valuables at a
+bank. She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with
+grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent.
+Those who were on the march, thinking Vivie must be the wife of some
+German officer of high rank, struck up a dismal chant from dry
+throats with a refrain of "Gloria, Viktoria, Hoch! Deutschland,
+Hoch!" At the bank the Belgian officials received her with
+deference. Apart from being the daughter of the well-to-do Mrs.
+Warren, she was English, and seemed to impose respect even on the
+Germans. They took over her valuables, made out a receipt, and
+cashed a fairly large cheque in ready money. Vivie then ventured to
+ask the bank clerk who had seen to her business if he had any news.
+Looking cautiously round, he said the rumours going through the town
+were that the Queen of Holland, enraged that her Prince Consort
+should have facilitated the crossing of Limburg by German armies,
+had shot him dead with a revolver; that the Crown Prince of Germany,
+despairing of a successful end of the War, had committed suicide at
+his father's feet; that the American Consul General in Brussels--to
+whom, by the bye, Vivie ought to report herself and her mother, in
+order to come under his protection--had notified General Sixt von
+Arnim, commanding the army in Brussels, that, _unless he vacated the
+Belgian capital immediately_, England would bombard Hamburg and the
+United States would declare war on the Kaiser. Alluring stories like
+these flitted through despairing Brussels during the first two
+months of German occupation, though Vivie, in her solitude at
+Tervueren, seldom heard them.
+
+After her business at the bank she walked about the town. No one
+took any notice of her or annoyed her in any way. The restaurants
+seemed crowded with Belgians as well as Germans, and the Belgians
+did not seem to have lost their appetites. The Palace Hotel had
+become a German officers' club. On all the public buildings the
+German Imperial flag hung alongside the Belgian. Only a few of the
+trams were running. Yet you could still buy, without much difficulty
+at the kiosques, Belgian and even French and British newspapers.
+From these she gathered that the German forces were in imminent
+peril between the Belgian Antwerp army on the north and the British
+army advancing from the south; and that in the plains of Alsace the
+French had given the first public exhibition of the new "Turpin"
+explosive. The results had been _foudroyant_ ... and simple.
+Complete regiments of German soldiers had been destroyed in _one
+minute_. It seemed curious, she thought, that with such an arm as
+this the French command did not at once come irresistibly to the
+rescue of Brussels....
+
+However, it was four o'clock, and there was her friend the enemy's
+automobile drawn up outside the bank, awaiting her. She got in, and
+the soldier chauffeur whirled her away to the Villa Beau-séjour,
+beyond Tervueren.
+
+On her return she found her mother prostrate with bad news. Their
+nearest neighbour, Farmer Oudekens who had driven them into Brussels
+the preceding day had been executed in his own orchard only an hour
+ago. It seemed that the lieutenant in charge of the soldiers
+billeted there had disappeared in the night, leaving his uniform and
+watch and chain behind him. The farmer's story was that in the night
+the lieutenant had appeared in his room with a revolver and had
+threatened to shoot him unless he produced a suit of civilian
+clothes. Thus coerced he had given him his eldest son's Sunday
+clothes left behind when the said son went off to join the Belgian
+army. The lieutenant, grateful for the assistance, had given him as
+a present his watch and chain.
+
+On the other hand the German non-commissioned officers insisted
+their lieutenant had been made away with in the night. The farmer's
+allegation that he had deserted (as in fact he had) only enhanced
+his crime. The finding of the court after a very summary trial was
+"guilty," and despite the frantic appeals of the wife, reinforced
+later on by Mrs. Warren, the farmer had been taken out and shot.
+
+The evening meal consequently was one of strained relations. Colonel
+von Giesselin came to supper punctually and was very spruce in
+appearance. But he was gravely polite and uncommunicative. And after
+dessert the two ladies asked permission to retire. They lay long
+awake afterwards, debating in whispers what terror might be in store
+for them. Mrs. Warren cried a good deal and lamented futilely her
+indolent languor of a few days previously. _Why_ had she not, while
+there was yet time, cleared out of Brussels, gone to Holland, and
+thence regained England with Vivie, and from England the south of
+France? Vivie, more stoical, pointed out it was no use crying over
+lost opportunities. Here they were, and they must sharpen their wits
+to get away at the first opportunity. Perhaps the American Consul
+might help them?
+
+The next morning, however, their guest, who had insensibly turned
+host, told Vivie the tram service to Brussels, like the train
+service, was suspended indefinitely, and that he feared they must
+resign themselves to staying where they were. Under his protection
+they had nothing to fear. He was sorry the soldiers had helped
+themselves so freely to the livestock; but everything had now
+settled down. Henceforth they would be sure of something to eat, as
+he himself had got to be fed. And all he asked of them was their
+agreeable society.
+
+Two months went by of this strange life. Two months, in which Vivie
+only saw German newspapers--which she read with the aid of von
+Giesselin. Their contents filled her with despair. They made very
+little of the Marne rebuff, much of the capture of Antwerp and
+Ostende, and the occupation of all Belgium (as they put it). Vivie
+noted that the German Emperor's heart had bled for the punishment
+inflicted on Louvain. (She wondered how that strange personality,
+her father, had fared in the destruction of monastic buildings.) But
+she had then no true idea of what had taken place, and the
+far-reaching harm this crime had done to the German reputation. She
+noted that the German Press expressed disappointment that the cause
+of Germany, the crusade against Albion, had received no support from
+the Irish Nationalists, or from the "revolting" women, the
+Suffragettes, who had been so cruelly maltreated by the
+administration of Asquith and Sir Grey.
+
+This point was discussed by the Colonel, but Vivie found herself
+speaking as a patriot. How _could_ the Germans expect British women
+to turn against their own country in its hour of danger?
+
+"Then you would not," said von Giesselin, "consent to write some
+letters to your friends, if I said I could have them sent safely to
+their destination?--only letters," he added hastily, seeing her
+nostrils quiver and a look come into her eyes--"to ask your Suffrage
+friends to bring pressure to bear on their Government to bring this
+d-r-r-eadful War to a just peace. That is all we ask." But Vivie
+said "with all her own private grudge against the present ministry
+she felt _au fond_ she was _British_; she must range herself in time
+of war with her own people."
+
+Mrs. Warren went much farther. She was not very voluble nowadays.
+The German occupation of her villa had given her a mental and
+physical shock from which she never recovered. She often sat quite
+silent and rather huddled at meal times and looked the old woman
+now. In such a conversation as this she roused herself and her voice
+took an aggressive tone. "My daughter write to her friends to ask
+them to obstruct the government at such a time as this? _Never!_ I'd
+disown her if she did, I'd repudiate her! She may have had her own
+turn-up with 'em. I was quite with her there. But that, so to
+speak, was only a domestic quarrel. We're British all through, and
+don't you forget it--sir--(she added deprecatingly): British _all
+through_ and we're goin' to beat Germany yet, _you'll_ see. The
+British navy never _has_ been licked nor won't be, this time."
+
+Colonel von Giesselin did not insist. He seemed depressed himself at
+times, and far from elated at the victories announced in his own
+newspapers. He would in the dreary autumn evenings show them the
+photographs of his wife--a sweet-looking woman--and his two
+solid-looking, handsome children, and talk with rapture of his home
+life. Why, indeed, was there this War! His heart like his Emperor's
+bled for these unhappy Belgians. But it was all due to the
+Macchiavellian policy of "Sir Grey and Asquiss." If Germany had not
+felt herself surrounded and barred from all future expansion of
+trade and influence she would not have felt forced to attack France
+and invade Belgium. Why, see! All the time they were talking,
+barbarous Russia, egged on by England, was ravaging East Prussia!
+
+Then, in other moods, he would lament the war and the policy of
+Prussia. How he had loved England in the days when he was military
+attaché there. He had once wanted to marry an Englishwoman, a Miss
+Fraser, a so handsome daughter of a Court Physician.
+
+"Why, that must have been Honoria, my former partner," said Vivie,
+finding an intense joy in this link of memory. And she told much of
+her history to the sentimental Colonel, who was conceiving for her a
+sincere friendship and camaraderie. They opened up other veins of
+memory, talked of Lady Feenix, of the musical parties at the Parrys,
+of Emily Daymond's playing, of this, that and the other hostess, of
+such-and-such an actress or singer.
+
+The Colonel of course was often absent all day on military duties.
+He advised Vivie strongly on such occasions not to go far from Mrs.
+Warren's little domain. "I am obliged to remind you, dear young
+lady, that you and your mother are my prisoners in a sense. Many bad
+things are going on--things we cannot help in war--outside this
+quiet place..."
+
+In November, however, there was a change of scene, which in many
+ways came to Vivie and her mother with a sense of great relief.
+Colonel von Giesselin told them one morning he had been appointed
+Secretary to the German Governor of Brussels, and must reside in the
+town not far from the Rue de la Loi. He proposed that the ladies
+should move into Brussels likewise; in fact he delicately insisted
+on it. Their pleasant relations could thus continue--perhaps--who
+knows?--to the end of this War, "to that peace which will make us
+friends once more?" It would in any case be most unsafe if, without
+his protection, they continued to reside at this secluded farm, on
+the edge of the great woods. In fact it could not be thought of, and
+another officer was coming here in his place with a considerable
+suite. Eventually compensation would be paid to Mrs. Warren for any
+damage done to her property.
+
+The two women readily agreed. In the curtailment of their movements
+and the absence of normal means of communication their life at Villa
+Beau-séjour was belying its name. Their supply of money was coming
+to an end; attempts must be made to regularize that position by
+drawing on Mrs. Warren's German investments and the capital she
+still had in Belgian stock--if that were negotiable at all.
+
+Where should they go? Mrs. Warren still had some lien on the Hotel
+Édouard-Sept (the name, out of deference to the Germans, had been
+changed to Hotel Impérial). With the influence of the Government
+Secretary behind her she might turn out some of its occupants and
+regain the use of the old "appartement." This would accommodate
+Vivie too. And there was no reason why their friend should not place
+his own lodging and office at the same hotel, which was situated
+conveniently on the Rue Royale not far from the Governor's residence
+in the Rue de la Loi.
+
+So this plan was carried out. And in December, 1914, Mrs. Warren had
+some brief flicker of happiness once more, and even Vivie felt the
+nightmare had lifted a little. It was life again. Residence at the
+Villa Beau-séjour had almost seemed an entombment of the living.
+Here, in the heart of Brussels, at any rate, you got some news every
+day, even if much of it was false. The food supply was more certain,
+there were 700,000 people all about you. True, the streets were very
+badly lit at night and fuel was scarce and dear. But you were in
+contact with people.
+
+In January, Vivie tried to get into touch with the American
+Legation, not only to send news of their condition to England but to
+ascertain whether permission might not be obtained for them to leave
+Belgium for Holland. But this last plea was said by the American
+representative to be unsustainable. For various reasons, the German
+Government would not permit it, and he was afraid neither Vivie nor
+her mother would get enough backing from the British authorities to
+strengthen the American demand. She must stop on in Brussels till
+the War came to an end.
+
+"But how are we to live?" asked Vivie, with a catch in her throat.
+"Our supply of Belgian money is coming to an end. My mother has
+considerable funds invested in England. These she can't touch. She
+has other sums in German securities, but soon after the War they
+stopped sending her the interest on the plea that she was an
+'enemy.' As to the money we have in Belgium, the bank in Brussels
+can tell me nothing. What are we to do?" The rather cold-mannered
+American diplomatist--it was one of the Secretaries of Legation and
+he knew all about Mrs. Warren's past, and regarded Vivie as an
+outlaw--said he would try to communicate with her friends in England
+and see if through the American Relief organization, funds could be
+transmitted for their maintenance. She gave him the addresses of
+Rossiter, Praed, and her mother's London bankers.
+
+Vivie now tried to settle down to a life of usefulness. To increase
+their resources she gave lessons in English to Belgians and even to
+German officers. She offered herself to various groups of Belgian
+ladies who had taken up such charities as the Germans permitted. She
+also asked to be taken on as a Red Cross helper. But in all these
+directions she had many snubs to meet and little encouragement.
+Scandal had been busy with her name--the unhappy reputation of her
+mother, the peculiar circumstances under which she had left England,
+the two or three months shut up at Tervueren with Colonel von
+Giesselin, and the very protection he now accorded her and her
+mother at the Hotel Impérial. She felt herself looked upon almost as
+a pariah, except among the poor of Brussels in the Quartier des
+Marolles. Here she was only regarded as a kind Englishwoman,
+unwearied in her efforts to alleviate suffering, mental and bodily.
+
+
+And meantime, silence, a wall of silence as regarded
+England--England which she was beginning to look upon as the
+paradise from which she had been chased. Not a word had come through
+from Rossiter, from Honoria, Bertie Adams, or any of her Suffrage
+friends. I can supply briefly what she did not know.
+
+Rossiter at the very outbreak of War had offered his services as one
+deeply versed in anatomy and in physiology to the Army Medical
+Service, and especially to a great person at the War Office; but had
+been told quite cavalierly that they had no need of him. As he
+persisted, he had been asked--in the hope that it might get rid of
+him--to go over to the United States in company with a writer of
+comic stories, a retired actor and a music-hall singer, and lecture
+on the causes of the War in the hope of bringing America in. This he
+had declined to do, and being rich and happening to know personally
+General Armstrong (Honoria's husband) he had been allowed to
+accompany him to the vicinity of the front and there put his
+theories of grafting flesh and bone to the test; with the ultimate
+results that his work became of enormous beneficial importance and
+he was given rank in the R.A.M.C. Honoria, racked with anxiety about
+her dear "Army," and very sad as to Vivie's disappearance, slaved at
+War work as much as her children's demands on her permitted; or even
+put her children on one side to help the sick and wounded. Vivie's
+Suffrage friends forgot she had ever existed and turned their
+attention to propaganda, to recruiting for the Voluntary Army which
+our ministers still hoped might suffice to win the War, to the
+making of munitions, or aeroplane parts, to land work and to any
+other work which might help their country in its need.
+
+And Bertie Adams?
+
+When he realized that his beloved and revered Miss Warren was shut
+off from escape in Belgium, could not be heard of, could not be got
+at and rescued, he went nearly off his nut.... He reviewed during a
+succession of sleepless nights what course he might best pursue. His
+age was about thirty-two. He might of course enlist in the army. But
+though very patriotic, his allegiance lay first at the feet of Vivie
+Warren. If he entered the army, he might be sent anywhere but to the
+Belgian frontier; and even if he got near Belgium he could not dart
+off to rescue Vivie without becoming a deserter. So he came speedily
+to the conclusion that the most promising career he could adopt,
+having regard to his position in life and lack of resources, was to
+volunteer for foreign service under the Y.M.C.A., and express the
+strongest possible wish to be employed as near Belgium as was
+practicable. So that by the end of September, 1914, Bertie was
+serving out cocoa and biscuits, writing paper and cigarettes, hot
+coffee and sausages and cups of bovril to exhausted or resting
+soldiers in the huts of the Y.M.C.A., near Ypres. Alternating with
+these services, he was, like other Y.M.C.A. men in the same district
+and at the same time, acting as stretcher bearer to bring in the
+wounded, as amateur chaplain with the dying, as amateur surgeon with
+the wounded, as secretary to some distraught officer in high command
+whose clerks had all been killed; and in any other capacity if
+called upon. But always with the stedfast hope and purpose that he
+might somehow reach and rescue Vivie Warren.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE GERMANS IN BRUSSELS: 1915-1916
+
+
+In the early spring of 1915, Vivie, anxious not to see her mother in
+utter penury, and despairing of any effective assistance from the
+Americans (very much prejudiced against her for the reasons already
+mentioned), took her mother's German and Belgian securities of a
+face value amounting to about £18,000 and sold them at her Belgian
+bank for a hundred thousand francs (£4,000) in Belgian or German
+bank notes. She consulted no one, except her mother. Who was there
+to consult? She did not like to confide too much to Colonel von
+Giesselin, a little too prone in any case to "protect" them. But as
+she argued with Mrs. Warren, what else were they to do in their
+cruel situation? If the Allies were eventually victorious, Mrs.
+Warren could return to England. There at least she had in safe
+investments £40,000, ample for the remainder of their lives. If
+Germany lost the War, the German securities nominally worth two
+hundred thousand marks might become simply waste paper; even now
+they were only computed by the bank at a purchase value of about one
+fifth what they had stood at before the War. If Germany were
+victorious or agreed to a compromise peace, her mother's shares in
+Belgian companies might be unsaleable. Better to secure now a lump
+sum of four thousand pounds in bank notes that would be legal
+currency, at any rate as long as the German occupation lasted. And
+as one never knew what might happen, it was safer still to have all
+this money (equivalent to a hundred thousand francs), in their own
+keeping. They could live even in war time, on such a sum as this
+for four, perhaps five years, as they would be very economical and
+Vivie would try to earn all she could by teaching. It was useless to
+hope they would be able to return to Villa Beau-séjour so long as
+the German occupation lasted, or during that time receive a penny in
+compensation for the sequestration of the property.
+
+The notes for the hundred thousand francs therefore were carefully
+concealed in Mrs. Warren's bedroom at the Hotel Impérial and Vivie
+for a few months afterwards felt slightly easier in her mind as to
+the immediate future; for, as a further resource, there were also
+the jewels and plate at the bank.
+
+They dared hope for nothing from Villa Beau-séjour. Von Giesselin,
+after more entreaty than Vivie cared to make, had allowed them with
+a special pass and his orderly as escort to go in a military motor
+to the Villa in the month of April in order that they might bring
+away the rest of their clothes and personal effects of an easily
+transportable nature. But the visit was a heart-breaking
+disappointment. Their reception was surly; the place was little else
+than a barrack of disorderly soldiers and insolent officers. Any
+search for clothes or books was a mockery. Nothing was to be found
+in the chests of drawers that belonged to them; only stale food and
+unnameable horrors or military equipment articles. The garden was
+trampled out of recognition. There had been a beautiful vine in the
+greenhouse. It was still there, but the first foliage of spring hung
+withered and russet coloured. The soldiers, grinning when Vivie
+noticed this, pointed to the base of the far spreading branches. It
+had been sawn through, and much of the glass of the greenhouse
+deliberately smashed.
+
+On their way back, Mrs. Warren, who was constantly in tears,
+descried waiting by the side of the road the widow of their
+farmer-neighbour, Madame Oudekens. She asked the orderly that they
+might stop and greet her. She approached. Mrs. Warren got out of the
+car so that she might more privately talk to her in Flemish. Since
+her husband's execution, the woman said, she had had to become the
+mistress of the sergeant-major who resided with her as the only
+means, seemingly, of saving her one remaining young son from exile
+in Germany and her daughters from unbearably brutal treatment;
+though she added, "As to their virtue, _that_ has long since
+vanished; all I ask is that they be not half-killed whenever the
+soldiers get drunk. Oh Madame! If you could only say a word to that
+Colonel with whom you are living?"
+
+Mrs. Warren dared not translate this last sentence to Vivie, for
+fear her daughter forced her at all costs to leave the Hotel
+Impérial. Where, if she did, were they to go?
+
+The winter of 1914 had witnessed an appalling degree of
+frightfulness in eastern Belgium, the Wallon or French-speaking part
+of the country more especially. The Germans seemed to bear a special
+grudge against this region, regarding it as doggedly opposed to
+absorption into a Greater Germany; whereas they hoped the Flemish
+half of the country would receive them as fellow Teutons and even as
+deliverers from their former French oppressors. Thousands of old men
+and youths, of women and children in the provinces south of the
+Meuse had been shot in cold blood; village after village had been
+burnt. Scenes of nearly equal horror had taken place between
+Brussels and Antwerp, especially around Malines. Von Bissing's
+arrival as Governor General was soon signalized by those dreaded Red
+Placards on the walls of Brussels, announcing the verdicts of
+courts-martial, the condemnation to death of men and women who had
+contravened some military regulation.
+
+Yet in spite of this, life went on in Brussels once more--by von
+Bissing's stern command--as though the country were not under the
+heel of the invader. The theatres opened their doors; the cinemas
+had continuous performances; there was Grand Opera; there were
+exhibitions of toys, or pictures, and charitable bazaars. Ten days
+after the fall of Antwerp _char-à-bancs_ packed with Belgians drove
+out of Brussels to visit the scenes of the battles and those
+shattered forts, so fatuously deemed impregnable, so feeble in their
+resistance to German artillery.
+
+Vivie, even had she wished to do so, could not have joined the
+sight-seers. As the subjects of an enemy power she and her mother
+had had early in January to register themselves at the Kommandantur
+and were there warned that without a special passport they might not
+pass beyond the limits of Brussels and its suburbs. Except in the
+matter of the farewell visit to the farm at Tervueren, Vivie was
+reluctant to ask for any such favour from von Giesselin, though she
+was curious to see the condition of Louvain and to ascertain whether
+her father still inhabited the monastic house of his order--she had
+an idea that he was away in Germany in connection with his schemes
+for raising the Irish against the British Government. Von Giesselin
+however was becoming sentimentally inclined towards her and she saw
+no more of him than was necessary to maintain polite relations. Frau
+von Giesselin, for various reasons of health or children, could not
+join him at Brussels as so many German wives had done with other of
+the high functionaries (to the great embitterment of Brussels
+society); and there were times when von Giesselin's protestations of
+his loneliness alarmed her.
+
+The King of Saxony had paid a visit to Brussels in the late autumn
+of 1914 and had invited this Colonel of his Army to a fastuous
+banquet given at the Palace Hotel. The King--whom the still defiant
+Brussels Press, especially that unkillable _La Libre Belgique_,
+reminded ironically of his domestic infelicity, by enquiring
+whether he had brought Signor Toselli to conduct his orchestra--was
+gratified that a subject of his should be performing the important
+duties of Secretary to the Brussels Government, and his notice of
+von Giesselin gave the latter considerable prestige, for a time; an
+influence which he certainly exercised as far as he was able in
+softening the edicts and the intolerable desire to annoy and
+exasperate on the part of the Prussian Governors of province and
+kingdom. He even interceded at times for unfortunate British or
+French subjects, stranded in Brussels, and sometimes asked Vivie
+about fellow-countrymen who sought this intervention.
+
+This caused her complicated annoyances. Seeing there was some hope
+in interesting her in their cases, these English governesses,
+tutors, clerks, tailors' assistants and cutters, music-hall singers,
+grooms appealed to Vivie to support their petitions. They paid her
+or her mother a kind of base court, on the tacit assumption that
+she--Vivie--had placed Colonel von Giesselin under special
+obligations. If in rare instances, out of sheer pity, she took up a
+case and von Giesselin granted the petition or had it done in a
+higher quarter, his action was clearly a personal favour to her; and
+the very petitioners went away, with the ingratitude common in such
+cases, and spread the news of Vivie's privileged position at the
+Hotel Impérial. It was not surprising therefore that in the small
+circles of influential British or American people in Brussels she
+was viewed with suspicion or contempt. She supported this odious
+position at the Hotel Impérial as long as possible, in the hope that
+Colonel von Giesselin when he had realized the impossibility of
+using herself or her mother in any kind of intrigue against the
+British Government would do what the American Consul General
+professed himself unable or unwilling to do: obtain for them
+passports to proceed to Holland.
+
+Von Giesselin, from December, 1914, took up among other duties that
+of Press Censor and officer in charge of Publicity. After the
+occupation of Brussels and the fall of Antwerp, the "patriotic"
+Belgian Press had withdrawn itself to France and England or had
+stopped publication. Its newspapers had been invited to continue
+their functions as organs of news-distribution and public opinion,
+but of course under the German Censorate and martial law. As one
+editor said to a polite German official: "If I were to continue the
+publication of my paper under such conditions, my staff and I would
+all be shot in a week."
+
+But the large towns of Belgium could not be left without a Press.
+Public Opinion must be guided, and might very well be guided in a
+direction favourable to German policy. The German Government had
+already introduced the German hour into Belgian time, the German
+coinage, the German police system, and German music; but it had no
+intention, seemingly, of forcing the German speech on the old
+dominions of the House of Burgundy. On the contrary, in their tenure
+of Belgium or of North-east France, the Germans seemed desirous of
+showing how well they wrote the French language, how ready they were
+under a German regime to give it a new literature. Whether or not
+they enlisted a few recreants, or made use of Alsatians or
+Lorrainers to help them, it is never-the-less remarkable how free as
+a rule their written and printed French was from mistakes or German
+idioms; though their spoken French always remained Alsatian. It
+suffered from that extraordinary misplacement and exchange in the
+upper and lower consonants which has distinguished the German
+people--that nation of great philologists--since the death of the
+Roman Empire. German officers still said "Barton, die fous brie,"
+instead of "Pardon, je vous prie" (if they were polite), but they
+were quite able to contribute _articles de fond_ to a pretended
+national Belgian press. Besides there was a sufficiency of Belgian
+"Sans-Patries" ready to come to their assistance: Belgian nationals
+of German-Jewish or Dutch-Jewish descent, who in the present
+generation had become Catholic Christians as it ranged them with the
+best people. They were worthy and wealthy Belgian citizens, but
+presumably would not have deeply regretted a change in the political
+destinies of Belgium, provided international finance was not
+adversely affected. There were also a few Belgian Socialists--a few,
+but enough--who took posts under the German provisional government,
+on the plea that until you could be purely socialistic it did not
+matter under what flag you drew your salary.
+
+Von Giesselin was most benevolently intentioned, in reality a
+kind-hearted man, a sentimentalist. Not quite prepared to go to the
+stake himself in place of any other victim of Prussian cruelty, but
+ready to make some effort to soften hardships and reduce sentences.
+(There were others like him--Saxon, Thuringian, Hanoverian,
+Württembergisch--or the German occupation of Belgium might have
+ended in a vast Sicilian Vespers, a boiling-over of a maddened
+people reckless at last of whether they died or not, so long as they
+slew their oppressors.) He hoped through the pieces played at the
+theatres and through his censored, subsidized press to bring the
+Belgians round to a reasonable frame of mind, to a toleration of
+existence under the German Empire. But his efforts brought down on
+him the unsparing ridicule of the Parisian-minded Bruxellois. They
+were prompt to detect his attempts to modify the text of French
+operettas so that these, while delighting the lovers of light music,
+need not at the same time excite a military spirit or convey the
+least allusion of an impertinent or contemptuous kind towards the
+Central Powers. Thus the couplets
+
+          "Dans le service de l'Autriche
+           Le militaire n'est pas riche"
+
+were changed to
+
+          "Dans le service de la Suisse
+           Le militaire n'est pas riche."
+
+These passionate lines of a political exile:
+
+          "A l'étranger un pacte impie
+           Vendait mon sang, liait ma foi,
+           Mais à present, o ma patrie
+           Je pourrai done mourir pour toi!"
+
+were rendered harmless as
+
+          "A l'étranger, en réverie
+           Chaque jour je pleurais sur toi
+           Mais à present, o ma patrie
+           Je penserai sans cesse à toi!"
+
+The pleasure he took in recasting this doggerel--calling in Vivie to
+help him as presumably a good scholar in French--got on her nerves,
+and she was hard put to it to keep her temper.
+
+Sometimes he proposed that she should take a hand, even become a
+salaried subordinate; compose articles for his subsidized paper,
+"_L'Ami de l'Ordre_" (nicknamed "L'Ami de L'Ordure" by the
+Belgians), "_La Belgique_," "_Le Bruxellois_," "_Vers la Paix_."
+He would allow her a very free hand, so long as she did not attack
+the Germans or their allies or put in any false news about military
+or naval successes of the foes of Central Europe. She might, for
+instance, dilate on the cruel manner in which the Woman Suffragists
+had been persecuted in England; give a description of forcible
+feeding or of police ferocity on Black Friday.
+
+Vivie declined any such propositions. "I have told you already, and
+often," she said, "I am deeply grateful for all you have done for
+my mother and me. We might have been in a far more uncomfortable
+position but for your kindness. But I cannot in any way associate
+myself with the German policy here. I cannot pretend for a moment to
+condone what you do in this country. If I were a Belgian woman I
+should probably have been shot long ago for assassinating some
+Prussian official--I can hardly see von Bissing pass in his
+automobile, as it is, without wishing I had a bomb. But there it is.
+It is no business of mine. As I can't get away, as you won't let us
+go out of the country--Switzerland, Holland--and as I don't want to
+go mad by brooding, find something for me to do that will occupy my
+thoughts: and yet not implicate me with the Germans. Can't I go and
+help every day in your hospitals? If you'll continue your kindness
+to mother--and believe me"--she broke off--"I _do_ appreciate what
+you have done for us. I shall _never_ forget I have met _one true
+German gentleman_--if you'll continue to be as kind as before, you
+will simply give instructions that mother is in no way disturbed or
+annoyed. There are Germans staying here who are odious beyond
+belief. If they meet my mother outside her room they ask her
+insulting questions--whether she can give them the addresses
+of--of--light women ... you know the sort of thing. I have always
+been outspoken with you. All I ask is that mother shall be allowed
+to stay in her own room while I am out, and have her meals served
+there. But the hotel people are beginning to make a fuss about the
+trouble, the lack of waiters. A word from you--And then if my mind
+was at ease about her I could go out and do some good with the poor
+people. They are getting very restive in the Marolles quarter--the
+shocking bad bread, the lack of fuel--Most of all I should like to
+help in the hospitals. My own countrywomen will not have me in
+theirs. They suspect me of being a spy in German pay. Besides, your
+von Bissing has ordered now that all Belgian, British, and French
+wounded shall be taken to the German Red Cross. Well: if you want
+to be kind, give me an introduction there. Surely it would be bare
+humanity on your part to let an Englishwoman be with some of those
+poor lads who are sorely wounded, dying perhaps"--she broke
+down--"The other day I followed two of the motor ambulances along
+the Boulevard d'Anspach. Blood dripped from them as they passed, and
+I could hear some English boy trying to sing 'Tipperary--'"
+
+"My _tear_ Miss Warren--I will try to do all that you want--You will
+not do _anything I_ want, but never mind. I will show you that
+Germans can be generous. I will speak about your mother. I am sorry
+that there are bad-mannered Germans in the hotel. There are
+some--what-you-call 'bounders'--among us, as there are with you. It
+is to be regretted. As to our Red Cross hospitals, I know of a
+person who can make things easy for you. I will write a letter to my
+cousin--like me she is a Saxon and comes from Leipzig--Minna von
+Stachelberg. She is but a few months widow, widow of a Saxon
+officer, Graf von Stachelberg who was killed at Namur. Oh! it was
+very sad; they were but six months married. Afterwards she came here
+to work in our Red Cross--I think now she is in charge of a ward..."
+
+So Vivie found a few months' reprieve from acute sorrow and bitter
+humiliation. Gräfin von Stachelberg was as kind in her way as her
+cousin the Colonel, but much less sentimental. In fact she was of
+that type of New German woman, taken all too little into account by
+our Press at the time of the War. There were many like her of the
+upper middle class, the professorial class, the lesser nobility to
+be found not only in Leipzig but in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort,
+Halle, Bonn, München, Hannover, Bremen, Jena, Stuttgart,
+Cologne--nice to look at, extremely modern in education and good
+manners, tasteful in dress, speaking English marvellously well,
+highly accomplished in music or with some other art, advocates of
+the enfranchisement of women. The War came just too soon. Had Heaven
+struck down that epilept Emperor and a few of his ministers, had
+time been given for the New German Woman to assert herself in
+politics, there would have been no invasion of Belgium, no
+maltreatment of Servia. Germany would have ranged herself with the
+Western powers and Western culture.
+
+Minna von Stachelberg read her cousin's note and received the worn
+and anxious-looking Vivie like a sister ... like a comrade, she
+said, in the War for the Vote ... "which we will resume, my dear, as
+soon as this dreadful Man's war is over, only we won't fight with
+the same weapons."
+
+But though kind, she was not gushing and she soon told Vivie that in
+nursing she was a novice and had much to learn. She introduced her
+to the German and Belgian surgeons, and then put her to a series of
+entirely menial tasks from which she was to work her way up by
+degrees. But if any English soldier were there and wanted sympathy,
+she should be called in to his ward ... From that interview Vivie
+returned almost happy.
+
+In the hot summer months she would sometimes be allowed to accompany
+Red Cross surgeons and nurses to the station, when convoys of
+wounded were expected, if there was likelihood that British soldiers
+would be amongst them. These would cheer up at the sound of her
+pleasant voice speaking their tongue. Yet she would witness on such
+occasions incongruous incidents of German brutality. Once there came
+out of the train an English and a French soldier, great friends
+evidently. They were only slightly wounded and the English soldier
+stretched his limbs cautiously to relieve himself of cramp. At that
+moment a German soldier on leave came up and spat in his face. The
+Frenchman felled the German with a resounding box on the ear.
+Alarums! Excursions! A German officer rushed up to enquire while the
+Frenchman was struggling with two colossal German military policemen
+and the Englishman was striving to free him. Vivie explained to the
+officer what had occurred. He bowed and saluted: seized the
+soldier-spitter by the collar and kicked him so frightfully that
+Vivie had to implore him to cease.
+
+Moreover the Red Placards of von Bissing were of increasing
+frequency. As a rule Vivie only heard what other people said of
+them, and that wasn't very much, for German spies were everywhere,
+inviting you to follow them to the dreaded Kommandantur in the Rue
+de la Loi--a scene of as much in the way of horror and mental
+anguish as the Conciergerie of Paris in the days of the Red Terror.
+But some cheek-blanching rumour she had heard on a certain Monday in
+October caused her to look next day on her way home at a fresh Red
+Placard which had been posted up in a public place. The daylight had
+almost faded, but there was a gas lamp which made the notice
+legible. It ran:
+
+                        CONDAMNATIONS
+
+     Par jugement du 9 Octobre, 1915, le tribunal de campagne a
+     prononcé les condamnations suivantes pour trahison commise
+     pendant l'état de guerre (pour avoir fait passer des recrues
+     à l'ennemi):
+
+     1° Philippe BAUCQ, architecte à Bruxelles;
+
+     2° Louise THULIEZ, professeur à Lille;
+
+     3° Edith CAVELL, directrice d'un institut médical à
+     Bruxelles;
+
+     4° Louis SEVERIN, pharmacien à Bruxelles;
+
+     5° Comtesse JEANNE DE BELLEVILLE, à Montignies.
+
+                       À LA PEINE DE MORT
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vivie then went on to read with eyes that could hardly take in the
+words a list of other names of men and women condemned to long terms
+of hard labour for the same offence--assisting young Belgians to
+leave the Belgium that was under German occupation. And further,
+the information that of the five condemned to death, _Philip Bauck_
+and _Edith Cavell_ had already been _executed_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The monsters! Oh that von Bissing. How gladly she would die if she
+might first have the pleasure of killing him! That pompous old man
+of seventy-one with the blotched face, who had issued orders that
+wherever he passed in his magnificent motor he was to be saluted
+with Eastern servility, who boasted of his "tender heart," so that
+he issued placards about this time punishing severely all who split
+the tongues of finches to make them sing better. Edith Cavell--she
+did not pause to consider the fate of patriotic Belgian women--but
+Edith Cavell, directress of a nursing home in Brussels, known far
+and wide for her goodness of heart. She had held aloof from Vivie,
+but was that to be wondered at when there was so much to make her
+suspect--living, seemingly, under the protection of a German
+official? But the very German nurses and doctors at the Red Cross
+hospital had spoken of her having given free treatment in her Home
+to Germans who needed immediate operations, and for whom there was
+no room in the military hospitals--And for such a trivial offence as
+_that_--and to kill her before there could be any appeal for
+reconsideration or clemency. Oh _what_ a nation! She would tend
+their sick and wounded no more.
+
+She hurried on up the ascent of the Boulevard of the Botanic Garden
+on her way to the Rue Royale. She burst into von Giesselin's office.
+He was not there. A clerk looking at her rather closely said that
+the Herr Oberst was packing, was going away. Vivie scarcely took in
+the meaning of his German phrases. She waited there, her eyes
+ablaze, feeling she must tell her former friend and protector what
+she thought of his people before she renounced any further
+relations with him.
+
+Presently he entered, his usually rather florid face pale with
+intense sorrow or worry, his manner preoccupied. She burst out:
+"_Have_ you seen the Red Placard they have just put up?"
+
+"What about?" he said wearily.
+
+"The assassination by your Government of Edith Cavell, a crime for
+which England--yes, and America--will _never_ forgive you.... From
+this moment I--"
+
+"But have you not heard what has happened to _me_? I am _dismissed_
+from my post as Secretary, I am ordered to rejoin my regiment in
+Lorraine--It is very sad about your Miss Cavell. I knew nothing of
+it till this morning when I received my own dismissal--And _oh_ my
+dear Miss, I fear we shall never meet again."
+
+"Why are they sending you away?" asked Vivie drily, compelled to
+interest herself in his affairs since they so closely affected her
+own and her mother's.
+
+"Because of this," said von Giesselin, nearly in tears, pulling from
+a small portfolio a press cutting. "Do you remember a fortnight ago
+I told you some one, some Belgian had written a beautiful poem and
+sent it to me for one of our newspapers? I showed it to you at the
+time and you said--you said 'it was well enough, but it did not seem
+to have much point.'" Vivie did remember having glanced very
+perfunctorily at some effusion in typewriting which had seemed
+unobjectionable piffle. She hadn't cared two straws whether he
+accepted it or not, only did not want to be too markedly
+indifferent. Now she took it up and still read it through
+uncomprehendingly, her thoughts absent with the fate of Miss Cavell.
+"Well! what is all the fuss about? I still see nothing in it. It is
+just simply the ordinary sentimental flip-flap that a French
+versifier can turn out by the yard."
+
+"It is _far_ worse than that! It is a horrible--what the French
+call 'acrostiche,' a deadly insult to our people. And I never saw
+it, the Editor never saw it, and you, even, never guessed its real
+meaning![1] The original, as you say, was in typewriting, and at the
+bottom was the name and address of a very well-known homme de
+lettres: and the words: 'Offert à la rédaction de l'Ami de L'Ordre.'
+He say now, _never never_ did he send it. It was a forgery. When we
+came to understand what it meant all the blame fall on me. I am sent
+back to the Army--I shall be killed before Verdun, so good-bye dear
+Miss--We have been good friends. Oh this War: this d-r-r-eadful
+War--It has spoilt everything. Now we can never be friends with
+England again."
+
+  [Footnote 1: I have obtained a copy and give it here as it had an
+  almost historical importance in the events of the German occupation.
+  But the reader must interpret its meaning for himself.
+
+        LA GUERRE
+
+        Ma soeur, vous souvient-il qu'aux jours de notre enfance,
+        En lisant les hauts fails de l'histoire de France,
+        Remplis d'admiration pour nos frères Gaulois,
+        Des généraux fameux nous vantions les exploits?
+
+        En nos âmes d'enfants, les seuls noms des victoires
+        Prenaient un sens mystique evocateur de gloires;
+        On ne rêvait qu'assauts et combats; a nos yeux
+        Un général vainqueur etait l'égal des dieux.
+
+        Rien ne semblait ternir l'éclat de ces conquétes.
+        Les batailles prenaient des allures de fêtes
+        Et nous ne songions pas qu'aux hurrahs triomphants
+        Se mêlaient les sanglots des mères, des enfants.
+
+        Ah! nous la connaissons, hélas, l'horrible guerre:
+        Le fléau qui punit les crimes de la terre,
+        Le mot qui fait trembler les mères à genoux
+        Et qui seme le deuil et la mort parmi nous!
+
+        Mais ou sqnt les lauriers que réserve l'Histoire
+        A celui qui demain forcera la Victoire?
+        Nul ne les cueillira: les lauriers sont flétris
+        Seul un cypres s'élève aux torubes de nos fils.]
+
+
+
+He gave way to much emotion. Vivie, though still dazed with the
+reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain
+her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them.
+But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be
+undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected
+that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by
+their own exile to some other lodging. They would share in his
+disgrace.
+
+The next morning in fact the Belgian manager of the hotel with many
+regrets gave them a month's warning. The hotel would be required for
+some undefined need of the German Government and he had been told no
+one could be lodged there who was not furnished with a permit from
+the Kommandantur.
+
+For three weeks Vivie sought in vain for rooms. Every suitable place
+was either full or else for reasons not given they were refused. She
+was reduced to eating humble pie, to writing once more to Gräfin von
+Stachelberg and imparting the dilemma in which they were placed. Did
+this kind lady know where a lodging could be obtained? She herself
+could put up with any discomfort, but her mother was ill. If she
+could help them, Vivie would humbly beg her pardon for her angry
+letter of three weeks ago and resume her hospital work. Minna von
+Stachelberg made haste to reply that there were some things better
+not discussed in writing: if Vivie could come and see her at six one
+evening, when she had a slight remission from work--
+
+Vivie went. Out of hearing, Gräfin von Stachelberg--who, however, to
+facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"--"We may
+all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from
+your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter--" said
+very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes
+me think of Talleyrand--was it not?--who said 'It is a blunder;
+worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know
+nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb
+von Giesselin--"Really dear, if in this time of horrors one _dare_
+laugh at anything, I feel--oh it is too funny, but also, too
+'schokking,' as we suppose all English women say. Yet of course I am
+sad about him, because he is a good, kind man, and I know his wife
+will be very very unhappy when she hears--And it means he will die,
+for certain. He must risk his life to--to--regain his position, and
+he will be shot before Verdun in one of those dreadful assaults."
+Then she told Vivie where she might find rooms, where at any rate
+she could use her name as a reference. Also: "Stay away at present
+and look after your mother. When she is quite comfortably settled,
+come back and work with me--here--it is at any rate the only way in
+which you can see and help your countrymen."
+
+One day in November when their notice at the hotel was nearly
+expired, Vivie proposed an expedition to her mother. They would walk
+slowly--because Mrs. Warren now got easily out of breath--up to the
+Jardin Bontanique; Vivie would leave her there in the Palm House. It
+was warm; it was little frequented; there were seats and the
+Belgians in charge knew Mrs. Warren of old time. Vivie would then go
+on along the inner Boulevards by tram and look at some rooms
+recommended by Minna von Stachelberg in the Quartier St. Gilles.
+
+Mrs. Warren did as she was told. Vivie left her seated in one of the
+long series of glass houses overlooking Brussels from a terrace,
+wherein are assembled many glories of the tropics: palms, dracaenas,
+yuccas, aloes, tree-ferns, cycads, screw-pines, and bananas:
+promising to be back in an hour's time.
+
+Somehow as she sat there it seemed to Mrs. Warren it was going for
+her to be the last hour of fully conscious life--fully conscious and
+yet a curious mingling in it of the past and present. She had sat
+here in the middle of the 'seventies with Vivie's father, the young
+Irish seminarist, her lover for six months. He had a vague interest
+in botany, and during his convalescence after his typhoid fever,
+when she was still his nurse, not yet his mistress, she used to
+bring him here to rest and to enjoy the aspect of these ferns and
+palms. What a strange variety of men she had known. Some she had
+loved, more or less; some she had exploited frankly. Some--like
+George Crofts and Baxendale Strangeways--she had feared, though in
+her manner she had tried to conceal her dread of their violence.
+Well! she had taken a lot of money off the rich, but she had never
+plundered the poor. Her greatest conquest--and that when she was a
+woman of forty--was the monarch of this very country which now lay
+crushed under the Kaiser's heel. For a few months he had taken a
+whimsical liking to her handsome face, well-preserved figure, and
+amusing cockney talk. But he had employed her rather as the mistress
+of his menus plaisirs, as his recruiting agent. He had rewarded her
+handsomely. Now it was all in the dust: her beautiful Villa
+Beau-séjour a befouled barrack for German soldiers. She herself a
+homeless woman, repudiated by the respectable British and Americans
+more or less interned in this unhappy city.
+
+Not much more than a year ago she had been one of the most respected
+persons in Brussels, with a large income derived from safe
+investments. Now all she had for certain was something over three
+thousand pounds in bank notes that might turn out next month to be
+worthless paper. And was she certain even of them? Had Vivie before
+they left the hotel remembered to put some, at least, of this
+precious sum on her person? Suppose, whilst they were out, looking
+for a fresh dwelling place, the hotel servants or the police raided
+her bedroom and found the little hoard of notes? This imagined
+danger made her want to cry. They were so friendless now, she in
+particular felt so completely deserted. Had she deserved this
+punishment by Fate? Was there after all a God who minded much about
+the sex foolishnesses and punished you for irregularities--for
+having lovers in your youth, for selling your virtue and inducing
+other women to sell theirs? Was she going to die soon and was there
+a hereafter?' She burst out crying in an abandonment of grief.
+
+An elderly gardener who had been snipping and sweeping in the next
+house came up and vaguely recognized her as a well-known
+Bruxelloise, a good-natured lady, a foreigner who, strange to say,
+spoke Flemish. "Ach," he said, looking out where he thought lay the
+source of her tears, at the dim view of beautiful Brussels through
+the steamy glass, "Onze arme, oude Brüssel." Mrs. Warren wept
+unrestrainedly. "Madame is ill?" he enquired. Mrs. Warren
+nodded--she felt indeed very ill and giddy. He left her and returned
+shortly with a small glass of Schnapps. "If Madame is faint--?" She
+sipped the cordial and presently felt better. Then they talked of
+old times. Madame had kept the Hotel Leopold II in the Rue
+Royale? Ah, _now_ he placed her. A _superb_ establishment, always
+well-spoken of. Her self-respect returned a little. "Yes," she said,
+"never a complaint! I looked after those girls like a mother, indeed
+I did. Many a one married well from there." The gardener
+corroborated her statement, and added that her _clientèle_ had been
+of the most chic. He had a private florist's business of his own and
+he had been privileged often to send bouquets to the pensionnaires
+of Madame. But Madame was not alone surely in these sad times. Had
+he not seen her come here with a handsome English lady who was said
+to have been--to have been--fortunately--_au mieux_ with one of the
+German officials?
+
+"_That_ was my daughter," Mrs. Warren informed him with pride....
+"She is a lady who has taken a high degree at an English University.
+She has been an important person in the English feminist movement.
+When this dreadful war is over, I and my daughter will--"
+
+At this juncture Vivie entered. "_Mother_, I hope you haven't
+missed me, haven't been unwell?" she said, looking rather
+questioningly at the little glass of Schnapps, only half of which
+had been drunk.
+
+"Well yes, dear, I have. _Terrible_ low spirits and all swimmy-like.
+Thought I was going to faint. But this man here has been so kind
+"--her tears flowed afresh--"We've bin talking of old times; he used
+to know me before--"
+
+_Vivie_: "Quite so. But I think, dear, we had better be going back.
+I want to talk to you about the new rooms I've seen. Are you equal
+to walking? If not perhaps this kind man would try to get us a
+cab...?"
+
+But Mrs. Warren said it was no distance, only round the corner, and
+she could well walk. When they got back she would go and lie down.
+Vivie, reading her mother's thoughts, pressed a five-franc note into
+the gardener's not reluctant palm, and they regained the Rue Royale.
+
+But just as they were passing through the revolving door of the
+Hotel Impérial, a German who had been installed as manager came up
+with two soldiers and said explosively: "Heraus! Foutez-nous le
+camp! Aout you go! Don't show your face here again!"
+
+"But," said Vivie, "our notice doesn't expire till the end of this
+week...!"
+
+"Das macht nichts. The rooms are wanted and I won't have you on the
+premises. Off you go, or these soldiers shall take you both round to
+the Kommandantur."
+
+"But our luggage? _Surely_ you will let me go up to our room and
+pack it--and take it away? We..."
+
+"Your luggage has been packed and is in the corridor. If you send
+round for it, it shall be delivered to your messenger. But you are
+not to stop on the premises another minute. You understand?" he
+almost shrieked.
+
+"But--"
+
+For answer, the soldiers took them by the shoulders and whirled
+them through the revolving door on to the pavement, where a crowd
+began to collect, as it does in peace or war if you cough twice or
+sneeze three times in Brussels. "Englische Hure! Englische
+Küpplerin," shouted the soldiers as they retreated and locked the
+revolving door. Mrs. Warren turned purple and swayed. Vivie caught
+her round the waist with her strong arm.... Thus was Mrs. Warren
+ejected from the once homely inn which she had converted by her
+energy, management and capital into the second most magnificent
+hostelry of Brussels; thus was Vivie expelled from the place of her
+birth....
+
+Hearing the shouting and seeing the crowd a Belgian gendarme came
+up. To him Vivie said, "Si vous êtes Chrétien et pas Allemand--"
+"Prenez garde, Madame," he said warningly--"Vous m'aiderez à porter
+ma mère à quelqu' endroit ou elle peut se remettre..."
+
+He assisted her to carry the inert old woman across the street and a
+short distance along the opposite pavement. Here, there was a
+pleasant, modest-looking tea-shop with the name of Walcker over the
+front, and embedded in the plate glass were the words "Tea Rooms."
+These of course dated from long before the war, when the best
+Chinese tea was only four francs the demi-kilo and the fashion for
+afternoon tea had become established in Brussels. Vivie and her
+mother had often entered Walcker's shop in happier days for a cup of
+tea and delicious forms of home-made pastry. Besides the cakes,
+which in pre-war times were of an excellence rarely equalled, they
+had been drawn to the pleasant-looking serving woman. She was so
+English in appearance, though she only spoke French and Flemish.
+Behind the shop was a cosy little room where the more intimate
+clients were served with tea; a room with a look-out into a little
+square of garden. Thither Mrs. Warren was carried or supported. She
+regained consciousness slightly as she was placed on a chair,
+opened her eyes, and said "Thank you, my dears." Then her head fell
+over to one side and she was dead--seemingly....
+
+The _agent de police_ went away to fetch a doctor and to disperse
+the crowd of _ketjes_[1] and loafers which had transferred itself
+from the hotel to the tea-shop. The shop woman, who was one of those
+angels of kindness that turn up unexpectedly in the paths of unhappy
+people, called in a stout serving wench from the kitchen, and the
+three of them carried Mrs. Warren out of the inner tea-room into the
+back premises and a spare bedroom. Here she was laid on the bed,
+partially undressed and all available and likely restoratives
+applied.
+
+  [Footnote 1: Street urchins of Brussels. How they harassed the
+  Germans and maddened them by mimicking their military manoeuvres!]
+
+The doctor when he came pronounced her dead, thought it was probably
+an effusion of blood on the brain but couldn't be certain till he
+had made an autopsy.
+
+"What _am_ I to do?" said Vivie thinking aloud....
+
+"Why, stay here till all the formalities are over and you can find
+rooms elsewhere," said Mme. Trouessart, the owner-servant of the
+tea-shop. "I have another spare room. For the moment my locataires
+are gone. I know you both very well by sight, you were clients of
+ours in the happy days before the War. Madame votre mère was, I
+think, the gérante of the Hotel Édouard-Sept when I first came to
+manage here. Since then, you have often drunk my tea. Je me nomme
+'Trouessart' c'est le nom de mon mari qui est ... qui est--Vous
+pouvez diviner où il est, où est à present tout Belge loyal qui peut
+servir. Le nom Walcker? C'était le nom de nom père, et de plus est,
+c'était un nom Anglais transformé un peu en Flamand. Mon
+arrière-grand-père etait soldat Anglais. Il se battait à Waterloo.
+For me, I spik no English--or ver' leetle."
+
+She went on to explain, whilst the doctors occupied themselves with
+their gruesome task, and Vivie was being persuaded to take some
+nourishment, that her great grandfather had been a soldier servant
+who had married a Belgian woman and settled down on the site of this
+very shop a hundred years ago. He and his wife had even then
+made a specialty of tea for English tourists. She, his great
+grand-daughter, had after her marriage to Monsieur Trouessart
+carried on the business under the old name--Walker, made to look
+Flemish as Walcker.
+
+Vivie when left alone suddenly thought of the money question. She
+remembered then that before going out to look for rooms she had
+transferred half the notes from their hiding-place to an inner
+pocket. They were still there. But what about her luggage and her
+mother's, and the remainder of the money? In her distress she wrote
+to Gräfin von Stachelberg. Minna came over from her hospital at half
+past six in the evening. By that time the doctor had given the
+necessary certificate of the cause of death, and an undertaker had
+come on the scene to make his preparations.
+
+Minna went over to the Hotel Impérial with Vivie. Appearing in her
+Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Gräfin
+von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager
+could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English
+ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady.
+The manager replied that inasmuch as the All Highest himself was to
+arrive that very evening to take up his abode at the Hotel Impérial,
+the hotel premises had been requisitioned, etc., etc. He still
+refused absolutely to allow Vivie to proceed to her room and look
+for her money. She might perhaps be allowed to do so when the
+Emperor was gone. As to her luggage he would have it sent over to
+the tea-shop. (The money, it might be noted, she never recovered.
+There were many things also missing from her mother's trunks and no
+satisfaction was ever obtained.)
+
+So there was Vivie, one dismal, rainy November evening in 1915;
+homeless, her mother lying dead in a room of this tea-shop, and in
+her own pocket only a matter of thirty thousand francs to provide
+for her till the War was over. A thousand pounds in fluctuating
+value was all that was left of a nominal twenty thousand of the year
+before.
+
+But the financial aspect of the case for the time being did not
+concern her. The death of her mother had been a stunning shock, and
+when she crossed over to the hotel--what irony, by the bye, to think
+she had been born there thirty-nine years ago, in the old inn that
+had preceded the twice rebuilt hotel!--when she crossed the street
+with Minna, it had been with blazing, tearless eyes and the desire
+to take the hotel manager and his minions by the coat collar, fling
+_them_ into the street, and assert her right to go up to her room.
+But now her violence was spent and she was a broken, weeping woman
+as she sat all night by the bedside of her dead mother, holding the
+cold hand, imprinting kisses on the dead face which was now that of
+a saintly person with nothing of the reprobate in its lineaments.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The burial for various reasons had to take place in the Cemetery of
+St. Josse-ten-Noode, near the shuddery National Shooting Range where
+Edith Cavell and numerous Belgian patriots had recently been
+executed. Minna von Stachelberg left her hospital, with some one
+else in charge, and insisted on accompanying Vivie to the interment.
+This might have been purely "laïc"; not on account of any harsh
+dislike to the religious ceremony on Vivie's part; only due to the
+fact that she knew no priest or pastor. But there appeared at the
+grave-side to make a very suitable and touching discourse and to
+utter one or two heartfelt prayers, a Belgian Baptist minister, a
+relation of Mme. Trouessart.
+
+Waterloo left many curious things behind it. Not only a tea-shop or
+two; but a Nonconformist nucleus, that intermarried, as Sergeant
+Walker or Walcker had done, with Belgian women and left descendants
+who in the third generation--and by inherent vigour, thrift,
+matrimony and conversion--had built up quite a numerous
+congregation, which even grew large enough and rich enough to
+maintain a mission of its own in Congoland. Kind Mme. Trouessart
+(née Walcker), distressed and unusually moved at the sad
+circumstances of Mrs. Warren's death, had called in her uncle the
+Baptist pastor (who also in some unexplained way seemed to hold a
+brief for the Salvation Army). He prayed silently by the death-bed
+which, under the circumstances, was more tactful than open
+intercession. He helped greatly over all the formalities of the
+funeral, and he took upon himself the arrangement of the ceremony,
+so that everything was done decorously, and certainly to the
+satisfaction of the Belgians, who attended. Such people would be
+large-minded in religion--you might be Protestant, if you were not
+Catholic, or you might be Jewish; but a funeral without some outward
+sign of faith and hope would have puzzled and distressed them.
+
+To Vivie's great surprise, there was a considerable attendance at
+the ceremony. She had expected no more than the company of Minna--an
+unprofessing but real Christian, if ever there were one, and the
+equally Christian if equally hedonist Mme. Trouessart. But there
+came in addition quite a number of shopkeepers from the Rue Royale,
+the Rues de Schaerbeek, du Marais, de Lione, and de l'Association,
+with whom Mrs. Warren had dealt in years gone by. "C'etait une dame
+_très_ convenable," said one purveyor, and the others agreed. "Elle
+me paya écus sonnants," said another, "et toujours sans
+marchander." There was even present a more distinguished
+acquaintance of the past: a long-retired Commissaire de Police of
+the Quartier in which Mrs. Warren's hotel was situated.
+
+He appeared in the tightly-buttoned frock-coat of civil life, with a
+minute disc of some civic decoration in his button hole, and an
+incredibly tall chimney-pot hat. He came to render his _respectueux
+hommages_ to the maîtresse-femme who had conducted her business
+within the four corners of the law, "sans avoir maille à partir avec
+la police des moeurs."
+
+Mrs. Warren at least died with the reputation of one who promptly
+paid her bills; and the whole _assistance_, as it walked slowly back
+to Brussels, recalled many a deed of kindness and jovial charity on
+the part of the dead Englishwoman.
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vivie, on sizing up her affairs, got Monsieur Walcker, the Baptist
+pasteur, to convey a letter to the American Consulate General.
+Walcker was used to such missions as these, of which the German
+Government was more or less cognizant. The Germans, among their many
+contradictory features, had a great respect for religion, a great
+tolerance as to its forms. They not only appreciated the difference
+between Jews and Christians, Catholics and Lutherans, but between
+the Church of England and the various Free Churches of Britain and
+America. The many people whom they sentenced to death must all have
+their appropriate religious consolation before facing the firing
+party. Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists were all provided for;
+there was a Church of England chaplain for the avowed Anglicans; but
+what was to be done for the Free Churches and Nonconformist sects of
+the Anglo-Saxons? They were not represented by any captive pastor;
+so in default this much respected Monsieur Walcker, the Belgian
+Baptist, was called in to minister to the Nonconformist mind in its
+last agony. He therefore held a quasi-official position and was
+often entrusted with missions which would have been dealt with
+punitorily on the part of any one else. Consequently he was able to
+deliver Vivie's communication to the American Consul-General with
+some probability of its being sent on. It contained no further
+appeal to American intervention than this: that the Consul-General
+would try to convey to England the news of her mother's death to
+such-and-such solicitors, and to Lewis Maitland Praed A.R.A. in Hans
+Place.
+
+She went to the Brussels bank a fortnight after her mother's death
+whilst still availing herself of the hospitality of Madame
+Trouessart: to withdraw the jewellery and plate which she had
+deposited there on her mother's account. But there she found herself
+confronted with the red tape of the Latin which is more formidable,
+even, than that of the land of Dora at the present day. These
+deposited articles were held on the order of Mrs. Warren; they could
+not be given up till her will was proved and letters of
+administration had been granted. So _that_ small resource in funds
+was withheld, at any rate till some time after peace had been
+declared. However she had a thousand pounds (in notes) between her
+and penury, and the friendship of Minna von Stachelberg. She would
+resume her evening lessons in English--Madame Trouessart had found
+her several pupils--and she would lodge--as they kindly invited her
+to do--with the Baptist pastor and his wife in the Rue Haute. And
+she would help Minna at the hospital, and hope to be rewarded with
+the opportunity of bringing comfort and consolation to the wounded
+British prisoners.
+
+Thus, with no unbearable misery, she passed the year 1916. There
+were short commons in the way of food, and the cold was sometimes
+cruel. But Madame Walcker was a wonderful cook and could make soup
+from a sausage skewer, and heaped _édredons_ on Vivie's bed. Vivie
+sighed a little over the Blue Placards which announced endless
+German victories by land and sea; and she gasped over the dreadful
+Red Placards with their lists of victims sentenced to death by the
+military courts. She ground her teeth over the announcement of
+Gabrielle Petit's condemnation, and behind the shut door of Minna's
+small sitting-room--and she only shut the door not to compromise
+Minna--she raved over the judicial murder of this Belgian heroine,
+who was shot, as was Edith Cavell, for nothing more than assisting
+young Belgians to escape from German-occupied Belgium.
+
+She witnessed the air-raids of the Allies, when only comforting
+papers were dropped on Brussels city, but bombs on the German
+aerodromes outside; and she also saw the Germans turn their guns
+from the aeroplanes--which soared high out of their reach or skimmed
+below range--on to thickly-inhabited streets of the poorer quarters,
+to teach them to cheer the air-craft of the Allies!
+
+She beheld--or she was told of--many acts of rapine, considered
+cruelty and unreasoning ferocity on the part of German officials or
+soldiers; yet saw or heard of acts and episodes of unlooked-for
+kindness, forbearance and sympathy from the same hated people. Von
+Giesselin, after all, was a not uncommon type; and as to Minna von
+Stachelberg, she was a saint of the New Religion, the Service of
+Man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE BOMB IN PORTLAND PLACE
+
+
+Mrs. Rossiter said to herself in 1915 that she had scarcely known a
+happy day, or even hour, since the War began. In the first place
+Michael had again shown violence of temper with ministers of state
+over the release from prison of "that" Miss Warren--"a convict doing
+a sentence of hard labour." And then, when he had got her released,
+and gone himself with their beautiful new motor--whatever _could_
+the chauffeur have thought?--to meet her at the prison gates,
+_there_ he was, afterwards, worrying himself over the War: not
+content as she was, as most of her friends were, as the newspapers
+were, to leave it all to Lord Kitchener and Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward
+Grey, and even Mr. Lloyd George--though the latter had made some
+rather foolish and exaggerated speeches about Alcohol. Michael, if
+he went on like this, would _never_ get his knighthood!
+
+Then when Michael had at last, thanks to General Armstrong, found
+his right place and was accomplishing marvels--the papers said--as a
+"mender of the maimed"--here was she left alone in Portland Place
+with hardly any one to speak to, and all her acquaintances--she now
+realized they were scarcely her friends--too much occupied with war
+work to spend an afternoon in discussing nothing very important over
+a sumptuous tea, still served by a butler and footman.
+
+Presently, too, the butler left to join the Professor in France and
+the footman enlisted, and the tea had to be served by a _distraite_
+parlour-maid, with her eye on a munitions factory--so that she
+might be "in it"--and her heart in the keeping of the footman, who,
+since he had gone into khaki, was irresistible.
+
+Mrs. Rossiter of course said, in 1914, that she would take up war
+work. She subscribed most handsomely to the Soldiers' and Sailors'
+Families' Association, to the Red Cross, to the Prince of Wales's
+Fund (one of the unsolved war-time mysteries ... what's become of
+it?), to the Cigarette Fund, the 1914 Christmas Plum Pudding Fund,
+the Blue Cross, the Purple Cross, the Green Cross funds; to the
+outstandingly good work at St. Dunstan's and at Petersham--(I am
+glad she gave a Hundred pounds each to _them_); and to the
+French, Belgian, Russian, Italian, Serbian, Portuguese and Japanese
+Flag Days and to Our Own Day; besides enriching a number of
+semi-fraudulent war charities which had alluring titles.
+
+But if, from paying handsomely to all these praise-worthy endeavours
+to mitigate the horrors of war, she proceeded to render personal
+service, she became the despair of the paid organizers and
+business-like workers. She couldn't add and she couldn't subtract or
+divide with any certainty of a correct result; she couldn't spell
+the more difficult words or remember the right letters to put after
+distinguished persons' names when she addressed envelopes in her
+large, childish handwriting; she couldn't be trusted to make
+enquiries or to detect fraudulent appeals. She lost receipts and
+never grasped the importance of vouchers; she forgot to fill up
+counterfoils, or if reminded filled them up "from memory" so that
+they didn't tally; she signed her name, if there was any choice of
+blank spaces, in quite the wrong place.
+
+So, invariably, tactful secretaries or assistant secretaries were
+told off to explain to her--ever so nicely--that "she was no
+business woman" (this, to the daughter of wholesale manufacturers,
+sounded rather flattering), and that though she was invaluable as a
+"name," as a patroness, or one of eighteen Vice Presidents, she was
+of no use whatever as a worker.
+
+She had no country house to place at the disposal of the Government
+as a convalescent home. Michael after a few experiments forbade her
+offering any hospitality at No. 1 Park Crescent to invalid officers.
+Such as were entrusted to her in the spring of 1915 soon found that
+she was--as they phrased it--"a pompous little, middle-class fool,"
+wielding no authority. They larked in the laboratory with Red Cross
+nurses, broke specimens, and did very unkind and noisy things ...
+besides smoking in both the large _and_ the small dining-rooms. So,
+after the summer of 1915, she lived very much alone, except that she
+had the Adams children from Marylebone to spend the day with her
+occasionally.
+
+Poor Mrs. Adams, though a valiant worker, was very downcast and
+unhappy. She confided to Mrs. Rossiter that although she dearly
+loved her Bert--"and a better husband I defy you to find"--he never
+seemed all hers. "Always so wrapped up in that Miss Warren or 'er
+cousin the barrister." And no sooner had war broken out than off he
+was to France, as a kind of missionary, she believed--the Young
+Men's Christian Something or other; "though before the War he didn't
+seem particular stuck on religion, and it was all she could do to
+get him sometimes to church on a Sunday morning. Oh yes: she got 'er
+money all right; and she couldn't say too much of Mr. and Mrs.
+Rossiter's kindness. There was Bert, not doin' a stroke of work for
+the Professor, and yet his pay going on all the same. Indeed she was
+putting money by, because Bert was kep' out there, and all found."
+
+However his two pretty children were some consolation to Mrs.
+Rossiter, whom they considered as a very grand lady and one that was
+lavishly kind.
+
+Mrs. Rossiter tried sometimes in 1915 having working parties in her
+house or in the studio; and if she could attract workers gave them
+such elaborate lunches and plethoric teas that very little work was
+done, especially as she herself loved a long, aimless gossip about
+the Royal Family or whether Lord Kitchener had ever _really_ been in
+love. Or she tried, since she was a poor worker herself--her only
+jersey and muffler were really finished by her maid--reading aloud
+to the knitters or stitchers, preferably from the works of Miss
+Charlotte Yonge or some similar novelist of a later date. But that
+was found to be too disturbing to their sense of the ludicrous. For
+she read very stiltedly, with a strange exotic accent for the love
+passages or the death scenes. As Lady Victoria Freebooter said, she
+would have been _priceless_ at a music-hall matinée which was
+raising funds for war charities, if only she could have been induced
+to read passages from Miss Yonge in _that_ voice for a quarter of an
+hour. Even the Queen would have had to laugh.
+
+But as that could not be brought off, it was decided that working
+parties at her house led to too much giddiness from suppressed
+giggles or torpor from too much food. So she relapsed once more into
+loneliness. Unfortunately air-raids were now becoming events of
+occasional fright and anxiety in London, and this deterred Cousin
+Sophie from Darlington, Cousin Matty from Leeds, Joseph's wife from
+Northallerton or old, married schoolfellows from other northern or
+midland towns coming to partake of her fastuous hospitality. Also,
+they all seemed to be busy, either over their absent husbands'
+business, or their sons', or because they were plunged in war work
+themselves. "And really, in these times, I couldn't stand Linda for
+more than five minutes," one of them said.
+
+As to the air-raids, she was not greatly alarmed at them. Of course
+it was very uncomfortable having London so dark at night, but then
+she only went out in the afternoon, and never in the evening. And
+the Germans seemed to be content and discriminating enough not to
+bomb what she called "the resi_den_tial" parts of London. The
+nearest to Portland Place of their attentions was Hampstead or
+Bloomsbury. "We are protected, my dear, by the open spaces of
+Regent's Park. They wouldn't like to waste their bombs on poor me!"
+
+However her maid didn't altogether like the off chance of the
+Germans or our air-craft guns making a mistake and trespassing on
+the residential parts of London, so she persuaded her mistress to
+spend part of the winter of 1915-16 at Bournemouth. Here she was not
+happy and far lonelier even than in London. She did not like to send
+all that way for the Adams children, she had a parlour suite all to
+herself at the hotel, and was timid about making acquaintances
+outside, since everybody now-a-days wanted you to subscribe to
+something, and it was so disagreeable having to say "no." She was
+not a great walker so she could not enjoy the Talbot woods; the sea
+made her feel sad, remembering that Michael was the other side and
+the submarines increasingly active: in short, air-raids or no
+air-raids, she returned home in March, and her maid, who had been
+with her ten years, gave her warning.
+
+But then she had an inspiration! She engaged Mrs. Albert Adams to
+take her place, and although the parlour-maid at this took offence
+and cut the painter of domestic service, went off to the munitions
+till Sergeant Frederick Summers should get leave to come home and
+
+A number of British soldiers gathered round the entrance of the
+waiting-room, curious to see the prisoners and hear what they had to
+say.
+
+"Ask 'em if they're glad to be out of it."
+
+I put the question and there was a chorus of fervent "Ja's" and "Gott
+sei Dank's."
+
+They were all glad to be out of it. No more fighting for them, Gott sei
+Dank! War was no good, at least not for the common soldier.
+
+"Ask him what he thinks of Hindenburg."
+
+A cheerful youngster from East Prussia answered: "Der's' nicht besser
+als wir--He's no better than we are!"
+
+"Did you ever see him?"
+
+"Yes, he came into the trenches a week ago and gave us cakes and
+cigars."
+
+"But that was jolly sporting of him, wasn't it?"
+
+"He can keep his cigars--_he_ doesn't have to lie in shell holes for
+days on end."
+
+"War's no good," said a small man with a protruding forehead and keen
+eyes and wearing a red-cross on his arm. "Ich danke meinem Gott--I thank
+my God that I've never taken up a rifle during the whole war, and I've
+been in it since the beginning. No human being has lost his life through
+me, thank God."
+
+"Was für'n Zweck hat es--What's the good of shooting each other like
+this? The heads ought to come and fight it out amongst themselves."
+
+"It's good for politicians and profiteers--für die ist's gut."
+
+"Ask them what they think of the submarines."
+
+A Lieutenant of the Prussian Guard answered contemptuously that he
+didn't think much of them. He didn't believe stories of food-shortage in
+England, he didn't believe anything the papers said, they were all full
+of lies.
+
+"Ask them if they're satisfied with their treatment."
+
+Yes, they were all satisfied. The Lieutenant pronounced it "blendend"
+(dazzling). They had not eaten so much and such good food for months and
+months. Oh it was good to be out of the fighting. Yes, their treatment
+was perfect--except for the thieving. Why were British soldiers allowed
+to steal the buttons, caps, rings, and watches belonging to their
+prisoners?
+
+A German private, a tall thin man with bushy eyebrows, who had not
+spoken hitherto, said he didn't mind losing a few buttons--but to rob a
+man of his marriage ring, that was very mean--eine Gemeinheit--his
+marriage ring had been taken from him: he would have lost anything
+rather than that, for it always reminded him of home.
+
+The boy from East Prussia said he didn't care what they took from him as
+long as they didn't take his life. He was safe now and nothing else
+mattered. He spoke with a Polish accent.
+
+I asked him what town he came from.
+
+"Allenstein."
+
+"Did you see anything of the Russians in 1914?"
+
+"Jawohl"--he had seen plenty of Russian troops. They behaved very well.
+"Die sind besser als die Deutschen--They're better than the Germans...."
+
+But the theatre orderly interrupted us and asked us to "send two or
+three across."
+
+I went to the Prep. to see if there were any new arrivals. It was full
+once again and the wounded were streaming into the station.
+
+It was quite dark outside. The duckboards were lit up by rows of
+hurricane lamps. The bombardment was still going on.
+
+When I got back to the waiting-room all the prisoners were gone and
+English wounded were taking their places. Soon the benches round the
+stove were crowded with dark figures whose hands and faces were lit up
+by the glow.
+
+A man with haggard features and a bandage round his head began to talk
+in a mournful voice:
+
+"Oh, it's 'ard ter lose yer mates. There was three of us--we was always
+together--we couldn't bear the idea o' separatin'. One of us copped a
+packet [got wounded] about three months ago an' went inter dock
+[hospital]--'e wasn't 'alf upset when 'e left us, though 'e was a sure
+Blighty--'e was afeard they'd send 'im to another mob when 'e got well
+agin. But 'e came back to us arter all--we didn't 'alf 'ave a bust up
+that evenin'. The two of us was absolutely canned to the wide [dead
+drunk]--'e wasn't though, 'e didn' drink much--'e was better'n what we
+was--well-spoken like--didn' go arter no tarts--didn' do no swearin'.
+Yer never came acrorst a better mate'n what 'e was! We was goin' over
+the top when a shell busted in front of us. It blinded me for a moment
+and then when I could see agin--gorblimy--it must 'a' copped 'im in the
+stomach an' ripped it open--ugh!--'e was rollin' over wi' all 'is guts
+'angin' out--ugh!--yer should 'a' 'eard 'im groan. 'Me own mate,' I says
+ter 'im, but 'e didn't rekkernize nothin' and then we 'ad to go on--yer
+can't stop when yer goin' over! Soon arter me other mate copped it too.
+Somethin' bowled 'im clean over, but 'e gets up again an' shows me 'is
+arm. 'There's a bastard,' 'e says, as cool as yer like--'is 'and was
+blown clean orf at the wrist! He just turned round an' was walkin' orf
+to the dressin' station when a shell busted atween us. It copped me in
+the 'ead an' knocked me senseless. Arterwards I 'eard me mate 'ad bin
+blowed ter bits. Oh, it's 'ard when yer've bin together all the time an'
+shared everythink."
+
+He buried his face in his hands and made no further sound except an
+occasional sniff and a hasty drawing in of the breath through trembling
+lips.
+
+"It's bloody murder up the line," said a full Corporal. "We were in a
+trench four feet deep and up to our waist in water. A Jerry sniper
+spotted us and one man got biffed, [killed] and then the next, and then the
+next all along the trench. We were packed together like sardines and had
+no cover at all for our heads and shoulders. I got the wind up terribly
+'cause I knew my turn was coming. He only gave me a Blighty though--I
+reckon I'm bloody lucky!"
+
+"We was ready for to go over the top an' waitin' for the whistle to
+blow. We didn't 'alf 'ave the wind up. You could 'ear the teeth
+chatterin' all along the trench. I was shiverin' all over, I...."
+
+"Next man!" The conversation stopped while the next man went across, but
+having once begun to tell their experiences, the men would not stop
+altogether, and after a brief silence an elderly little man with a
+bandaged foot said:
+
+"What I couldn't get over was insomnia. I could never sleep at the
+right time and I was always dead tired on duty. Once I worked
+forty-three hours at a stretch and after that I had to do a guard in our
+trench. I felt sleepy all of a sudden. I pinched myself and banged the
+butt of my rifle on my toes, but everything seemed to swim round me.
+Then, I don't know how, I went off to sleep. I was awakened by an
+officer who shook me and swore at me. I was a bit dazed at first and
+then suddenly it struck me what had happened. I never had the wind up so
+much in all my life and I implored him not to report me. I don't
+remember what happened next, I was in such a state. But he did report
+me. I got a court martial and was sentenced to death for sleeping at my
+post. They put me into the guard-room and I expected to be shot the next
+day. It was a rotten feeling, I can tell you. I didn't think about
+myself so much as about the wife and the little boy. I wouldn't go
+through a night like that again for anything. But I went to sleep all
+the same. I woke up the next morning when someone came into the
+guard-room. I didn't know where I was for a second or two, and then in a
+flash I realized I'd got to die. I don't mind admitting that I rested my
+face against the wall and blubbered like a kid. Anyone would have done
+the same, I don't care what you say. But the man who'd just come in
+said:
+
+"'Pull yourself together, old chap--you're all right for to-day,
+anyhow.' I sat bolt upright and stared at him.
+
+"'They're not going to shoot me?'
+
+"'Not to-day,' he answered. 'Cheer up, all sorts of things might happen
+before to-morrow.'
+
+"The joy I felt was so big that I can't tell you how big it was. But I
+soon felt miserable again. I couldn't understand what had happened. I
+didn't know whether I was going to die or live. The uncertainty became
+so terrible that I wished I'd been shot that morning--all would have
+been over then. They brought me a meal, but I couldn't eat. I asked
+them what was going to happen, but they didn't know. Another night came,
+but I didn't get any sleep at all. I lay tossing about on my bed, now
+hoping, now despairing. I thought of home mostly, but once or twice I
+thought of the kids in the school where I taught--to die like this after
+the send-off they gave me! Still, they wouldn't know, they'd think I was
+killed in an accident, and that was some consolation to me. And the next
+morning--I can't bear to think of it--nothing happened: that was just
+the terrible thing about it--nothing happened. The day passed and then
+another day. At times I longed to be taken out and shot, and once or
+twice I felt I didn't care about anything. I didn't care whether I died
+or not. A week passed and then another week. I don't know how I lived
+through it. Then, one day, I was told to pack up and rejoin my unit. I
+don't know exactly what I did, but I think I must have gone hysterical.
+I remember some N.C.O. saying I ought to stay a bit because I wasn't
+well enough to go up the line. He said he'd speak to the officer and get
+me a few days' rest. But the thought of staying in that place made me
+shiver. I said I was absolutely all right and went back to my unit.
+
+"But I never found out what had happened--you see, I was only a common
+soldier, so they didn't trouble to tell me--until I got a letter from
+the Captain who was in charge of me when I was on that forty-three hour
+job. He said he'd heard I was in for a court martial for sleeping when
+on guard, so he wrote to our headquarters to tell them I'd worked
+forty-three hours on end and wasn't fit to do a guard after a spell like
+that. Then they must have made a lot of inquiries--I expect there's a
+whole file of papers about me at headquarters. Anyhow, that's how I got
+off--it's more than a month ago now. Well, yesterday morning I was put
+on guard again. I tried to get out of it, but the officer said I was
+swinging the lead and he wouldn't listen to any excuses. I told him I'd
+had insomnia overnight and could hardly keep my eyes open. I said I'd do
+anything rather than a guard--a fatigue job or a patrol, no matter how
+dangerous, as long as it kept me on the move. The very thought of doing
+a guard made me tremble all over. He swore at me and said he'd heard
+these tales before and told me to shut up and get on with it. Well, I
+had to stand in the trench in front of a steel plate with holes in it
+through which I had to peer. It was just about daybreak. There was a
+tree growing about fifty yards off. It had been knocked about pretty
+badly, but there were plenty of leaves left on it. I stared at it,
+trying hard to keep awake. But soon the trunk began to quiver, then it
+wobbled with a wavy motion like a snake. Then the leafy part seemed to
+shoot out in all directions until there was nothing but a green blur,
+and I fell back against the trench wall and my rifle clattered down. I
+pulled myself together, absolutely mad with fear, because I kept on
+thinking of the last time I went on guard and the court martial and the
+death sentence. I ground my teeth and stared at the tree again. But the
+trunk began to wobble with snaky undulations and the green blur grew
+bigger and bigger in sudden jerks, while I tried frantically and
+desperately to keep it small. But it got the better of me and all at
+once it obscured everything with a rush and I dropped forward and
+knocked my forehead against the steel plate. I pulled myself together
+and prayed for a Blighty or something that would get me out of this
+misery. I looked at my watch--O God, only five minutes had gone,
+one-twelfth of my time! I had a kind of panic then and I dashed my head
+wildly against the trench wall and I bit my lips--I almost enjoyed the
+pain. I looked through the hole. The tree was steady at first, but it
+soon began to wobble again. Then I said to myself: 'I don't care, I'll
+risk it, I won't look out, I'll just keep awake. I don't suppose any
+Fritzes will come along--I'll just peep through the holes from time to
+time so as to make sure.' I stamped on the duckboard and kicked the
+sides of the trench and jerked my rifle up and down just to keep myself
+awake. It was all right at first and I was beginning to think I would
+get over it somehow, but my feet soon felt as heavy as lead and my head
+began to swim until I fell forward once again. Jesus Christ--I didn't
+know what to do. I thought of looking at my watch, but I hadn't the
+courage at first. Besides, I felt the seconds would slip by while I was
+hesitating and so I'd gain at least a little time. I counted the
+seconds--one, two, three ... four ... five ... six ... my head dropped
+forward and I nearly fell over. I looked at my watch--fourteen minutes
+had gone, nearly a quarter of an hour! That wasn't so bad. I felt a
+little relieved, but drowsiness came on again. I fought against it with
+all my strength, but with an agony no words can describe I realized that
+it was too strong for me. I pulled myself together with another
+despairing effort. I noticed that my clothing felt cold and clammy--I
+had been sweating all over...."
+
+The theatre orderly burst into the waiting-room and shouted: "Are you
+all deaf? I've been yelling out 'Next man' the last five minutes, but
+you won't take no bloody notice. Send us two or three. The Colonel's in
+the theatre--he'll kick up a hell of a row if you don't get a move on."
+
+We were scared and sent three men across. When they had gone, we asked
+to hear the end of the story.
+
+"Well, I was absolutely desperate. I kept on looking at my watch, but
+the minutes crawled along. I believe I must have started crying once,
+but I don't know for certain, I was so sleepy that I don't remember half
+of what I did and what I dreamt--I know I did dream, it's funny how you
+can start dreaming even when you're standing up or moving about. I
+couldn't keep my eyes open and I kept on dropping off and pulling myself
+together. Suddenly, there was a terrific crash and a shell burst, it
+must have been forty or fifty yards off. I thought, bitterly, that
+there'd be no Blighty for me--no such luck. Then, high up in the air, I
+saw a big shell-fragment sailing along in a wide curve, spinning and
+turning. I looked at it--it was coming my way--Jesus Christ, perhaps I'd
+have some luck after all--and in any case a few more seconds would have
+passed by. It descended like a flash, I started back in spite of myself
+and held one hand out in front of my face. I felt a kind of numb pain in
+my right foot--nothing very bad. I looked down and, oh joy, I saw a big,
+jagged bit of shell imbedded in my foot. I tried to move it, but the
+pain was too great. Joy seemed to catch me by the throat, I began to
+dance, but such a pang shot through my leg that I had to stop. I dropped
+my rifle and hopped towards the dressing-station. I think it was the
+happiest moment in my life. I lost the sensation of weariness for the
+time being. But my foot began to hurt very badly and I got someone to
+help me along. My wound was dressed. I got on to a stretcher and I
+didn't know anything more until I was taken out of the motor ambulance
+here at the C.C.S. Anyhow, I'm all right now and I'm going to try and
+get across to Blighty and swing the lead as long as I can."
+
+There was silence for a while. It had grown dark outside. But the call
+from the theatre sounded again. Gradually the waiting-room emptied
+itself until at last there were only two men left sitting in front of
+the fire. They both seemed depressed and gloomy. Then one of them broke
+the silence and said:
+
+"We was goin' over when a 'eavy one burst. I didn't 'alf cop a packet in
+me shoulder. It's the third time too, an' I've got the wind up about
+goin' up the line agin when I'm out o' dock. The third time's yer last,
+yer know. Fritz'll send one over with me number on it, that's a bloody
+cert!"
+
+"If yer number's up it's up," said the other, who had a big patch over
+his right ear. "If yer've got ter die yer've got ter die, an' it's no
+use worryin' about it."
+
+Their turn came before long and I helped each one to get on to a table.
+Then I went over to the Prep. to see if any more walking wounded had
+arrived, but there were none at all.
+
+I stood out in the open for a few minutes in order to breathe the fresh
+air. There was a roar and rumble of distant drum-fire. The trees behind
+the C.C.S. stood out blackly against the pallid flashes that lit up the
+entire horizon.
+
+The mortuary attendant came walking along the duckboards.
+
+As he passed by me he growled:
+
+"There's a 'ell of a stunt on--there'll be umpteen slabs for the
+mortuary."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+AIR-RAIDS
+
+
+It was a warm, sunny afternoon. About a dozen of us were pitching a
+marquee in leisurely fashion, when suddenly there was a shout of "Fritz
+up!"
+
+We gazed at the sky, and, after searching for a while, saw a tiny white
+speck moving slowly across the blue at an immense height. Then, at some
+distance from it, a small white puff, like a little ball of cotton-wool,
+appeared. A few seconds passed and we heard a faint pop. More puffs
+appeared around the moving speck, each one followed by a pop. All at
+once, behind us, a bright tongue of flame flashed out above a group of
+bushes. There was a sharp report and a whizzing, rustling noise that
+died down gradually. Then another puff and another pop. The bright
+flames flashed out again in rapid succession. The little speck moved on
+and on. Grouped closely round it were compact little balls of
+cotton-wool, but trailing behind were thin wisps and semi-transparent
+whitish blurs. Above a belt of trees in the distance we observed a
+series of rapid flashes followed by an equal number of detonations. The
+upper air was filled with a blending of high notes--a whizzing, droning,
+and sibilant buzzing, and pipings that died down in faint wails. The
+little white speck moved on. It entered a film of straggling cloud, but
+soon re-emerged. It grew smaller and smaller. Our eyes lost it for a
+moment and found it again. Then they lost it altogether and nothing
+remained save the whitish blurs in the blue sky and a hardly audible
+booming in the far distance.
+
+"I bet 'e's took some photographs--'e'll be over to-night. I reckon
+we're bloody lucky to be at a C.C.S."
+
+"D'yer think 'e wouldn't bomb a C.C.S.?"
+
+"Course 'e wouldn't--'e knows as well as what we do that there's some of
+'is own wounded at C.C.S.'s."
+
+"Yer've got some bleed'n' 'opes--do anythink, 'e would. Didn't yer see
+it in the papers? 'E bombed a French C.C.S. at Verd'n an' knocked out
+umpteen wounded."
+
+"I bet that's all bloody lies--yer can't believe nothin' what's in the
+papers."
+
+"Can't yer! If yer don't it's because yer don't want ter. I believe yer
+a bleed'n' Fritz yerself, always stickin' up fer the bastard. Everythink
+what's in the papers is true--the Government wouldn't allow it if it
+wasn't! That's got yer, ain't it?"
+
+"Yer want ter look at it a bit more broad-minded. Course 'e makes
+mistakes sometimes like anybody else--'ow do 'e know it's a C.C.S.--'e
+can't see no Red Crorss at night?"
+
+"Mistakes be blowed--'e knows what's what, you take my word for it ..."
+
+We gathered idly round the disputants, glad of a distraction that would
+help to pass the time. A third person joined in the argument:
+
+"If 'e bombs 'orspitals an' C.C.S.'s it's our own bloody fault. Look at
+our C.C.S. 'ere. There's a ordnance park and a R.E. dump up the road.
+There's a railway in front an' a sidin' where troops is always
+detrainin'. Then there's a gas dump over yonder. An' if we're bloody
+fools an' leave the lights on at night, 'ow can 'e tell what's what when
+everything's mixed up together? Why the bloody 'ell don't they put
+C.C.S.'s away from dumps an' railways? Why don't they stick 'em right in
+the fields somewhere? I bet we'll cop it one o' these nights, an' serve
+us right too."
+
+German aeroplanes had passed overhead almost every clear windless
+night, but the buzz of propellers, that often went on for hours, and the
+dull boom of bombs exploding far away had never caused anything more
+than slight uneasiness and apprehension.
+
+One night, after we had been at the C.C.S. for about a month, we heard
+the uproar of a distant air-raid. Early the next morning a number of
+motor-ambulances arrived with their loads of wounded men. A camp, a mile
+or two from the station, had been bombed and fifty men had been killed
+and many more wounded. One of the "cases" brought into the theatre had
+been hit on the forehead. The bomb-fragment had not penetrated the
+skull, but had passed along its surface. The scalp hung over the
+forehead loosely like an enormous flap, the red, jagged edge nearly
+touching the eyebrows. Since then I thought of this man every time there
+was an air-raid.
+
+The event increased our uneasiness. After each "bombing-stunt" we
+thought: "We were lucky this time--it will be our turn next though."
+Moreover, we began to realize our helplessness. We were compelled to
+remain in our tents during a raid and there was no possibility of taking
+shelter. We could have put on our steel helmets--they would at least
+have afforded some head protection, but hardly any of us had the courage
+to do anything that might be regarded by the others as a sign of fear.
+
+The discussion about the bombing of hospitals had made us all think of
+air-raids. We had nearly finished our day's work when we noticed a few
+clouds on the horizon. We felt relieved. Perhaps the sky would be
+overcast and we would have an undisturbed night.
+
+"I can't stick night raids," said one of our number. "They don't put my
+wind up a bit, but they interfere with my sleep and make me feel tired
+in the mornings."
+
+A man who had been in the war from the beginning answered:
+
+"I can see you haven't been out here long, and have never been in a
+proper raid. I'll never forget the last time we were bombed. We were out
+on rest about fifteen miles behind the line. Fritz came over and I had
+the wind up so badly that I left the tent to go into the open fields.
+(I'd had a taste of it before, you know, and that makes all the
+difference.) Then he bombed us before I knew where I was. I ran for my
+life. There was a hell of a crash behind me and a bit caught me in the
+shoulder and knocked me down. When it was all over I got up and went
+back, although my shoulder hurt like anything. A lot of our fellows were
+running about and shouting. Where my tent used to be, there was a big
+bomb-hole and my mates were lying dead all round--fourteen of them. I
+didn't recognize most of them, they were so smashed up. Fritz had
+dropped one right on the tent. I reckon I was lucky to get off with a
+Blighty! I was in hospital six weeks and then I got ten days' sick leave
+in London. Fritz came over one night--Christ, I didn't half have the
+wind up! We were sitting in the kitchen, mother and father didn't seem
+to mind much--they didn't know what it meant. Fritz had never dropped
+any our way before. I never heard such a barrage, at least not for
+aeroplanes. It wasn't so bad as out here all the same--you could take
+shelter, anyhow. Air-raids are bloody awful things, they put my wind up
+much more than shell-fire."
+
+We finished our work as the sun was setting. The clouds on the horizon
+had vanished. One by one the stars came out. It was "an ideal night for
+a raid."
+
+Soon after dark a man was brought into the station with a crushed knee.
+Immediate operation was necessary. He was carried into the theatre and
+laid on to one of the tables. He received an anæsthetic and became
+unconscious. With his scalpel the surgeon made a deep cut in the
+knee-joint and searched the cavity with his finger. There was a Sister
+standing by. Also an orderly who had won the Military Medal for bravery
+in an air-raid some months before. Suddenly there was an outburst of
+anti-aircraft firing and a tumultuous whistling of shells overhead. It
+lasted for several seconds and then with a deafening, reverberating
+thunder-clap that shook the entire theatre, the first bomb fell. Before
+our ears had ceased drumming another bomb exploded and then another. The
+orderly, who had held his hands in front of his face, now gave way to
+fear. He darted madly to and fro and then scuttled beneath a table. The
+Sister, who had remained quite calm, said in an amused voice: "Pull
+yourself together, it's all over now." The orderly got up trembling, his
+face very white. The surgeon had not moved away. He had just grasped the
+edge of the table tightly and had bent his head forward, while his
+muscles seemed stiff with a violent but successful effort at
+self-control. The anæsthetist, too, had remained on his stool, but was
+leaning right over his patient. I had been conscious of a powerful
+impulse to duck down, but I grasped the table and gave way to the
+impulse so far as to lean slightly forward. This compromise saved me
+from any violent expression of fear. The Sister was the only one of us
+who showed no sign of fear at all.
+
+The surgeon went on with his work and extracted several fragments of
+bone from the injured limb. A few seconds passed and suddenly the
+electric light went out in accordance with the orders that decreed that
+all lights should be extinguished on the approach of hostile aeroplanes.
+The surgeon cursed loudly and the Sister fetched an electric torch which
+she held over the knee. The operation continued, but it was not long
+before anti-aircraft fire broke out once more. Then there was a weird
+bustling, rushing sound, followed by a roar that again shook the theatre
+and rattled the windows. Six explosions followed in rapid succession.
+This time the orderly controlled himself, for he knew the Sister was
+watching. Nevertheless, his knees trembled violently. The Sister held
+the torch steadily and the surgeon paused for a moment and went on with
+the operation as soon as all was quiet.
+
+In a few minutes it was finished. The wound was dressed and bandaged and
+the patient carried away.
+
+I stepped out into the clear night. The sky was thronged with glittering
+stars. Everything seemed strangely peaceful. I walked round the station,
+trying to find out where the bombs had fallen, but nobody knew. I went
+to the marquee and found Private Trotter sitting there, breathless and
+white. The neighbouring C.C.S. a few hundred yards away had been hit. A
+Sister and an orderly had been killed and several patients wounded.
+
+"It didn't 'alf put me wind up," said Trotter, excitedly. "When the
+first'n drops I lays down flat on the duckboards and one bursts just
+aside o' me an' smothers me with earth. Then another'n bursts an' I
+'ears a man 'oller out--krikey, 'e didn't 'alf scream. I gets up and
+another'n bursts, so I flops down agin, but it didn't come so near that
+time. I waits a bit an' then I gets up an' goes to see what they done. I
+couldn't see nothin' at first, but I sees some fellers runnin' about wi'
+lights. There was a noise in one o' the wards, so I goes in. A bomb must
+'a' burst on the roof--there was a big 'ole in the canvas. The bed
+underneath was all twisted an' torn, but there wasn't nobody in it.
+There was some wounded lyin' in beds at the fur end of the ward, an' one
+of 'em was cryin' somethin' chronic. Then someone brings a light an' I
+sees an orderly lyin' by the side o' the bed with a big 'ole in 'is face
+an' the blood pourin' out. I goes roun' to the other side--gorblimy--an'
+there I sees the Sister lyin' on the floor with 'er 'ead blown clean
+off--I dunno where it was blown to, I couldn't see it nowhere. Krikey,
+it wasn't 'alf a sight to see 'er body without a 'ead lyin' in a pool o'
+blood. It made me feel sick, so I ran orf an' came 'ere."
+
+Private Trotter was trembling in every limb. He was the pluckiest man I
+ever knew and capable of any piece of foolhardy daring. But this time he
+was near a nervous breakdown.
+
+We went to bed full of anxiety. For a long while we lay awake, straining
+our ears to catch the sound of firing or the drone of German propellers.
+But no sound broke the stillness of the night, and one by one we dropped
+off to sleep.
+
+The next morning was clear and sunny. The sky remained blue all day. Not
+a cloud could be seen. "Our turn next"--that was the thought in
+everybody's mind.
+
+The evening was starlit once again. As we lay on the floor of the
+marquee, wrapped up in our blankets, we heard the sound of bombing and
+firing in the distance.
+
+Clear days and clear nights followed each other. Sometimes a train would
+stop in front of the C.C.S., hissing and puffing, and throwing up a
+great shaft of light. We would curse it, fearing that it would attract
+German raiders.
+
+If only the fine weather would come to an end! Give us wind and rain so
+that we could lie in bed without being oppressed by anxiety! But the sun
+continued to shine and the stars to glitter.
+
+The disaster that had befallen the adjoining C.C.S., which had been
+brilliantly lit up during the raid, had acted as a warning example to
+us. At nightfall the windows of the theatre were screened with blankets
+and no lights were allowed to show in the wards or on the duckboards.
+
+If only the trains would halt somewhere else at night-time!
+
+One day a number of Flemish peasants began to collect hop-refuse in the
+surrounding fields. They made three great heaps of it and set fire to
+them. In the evening the heaps were burning brightly, but no one took
+any notice.
+
+The canteen was crowded. All the benches were occupied and men who were
+unable to find seats stood around in groups. There was noisy
+conversation and singing and shouting. Nearly everyone was drinking
+beer. Those who sat at the tables were playing cards. The air was thick
+with tobacco-smoke. Two or three candles were burning on every table.
+And all at once, without any warning, the thunder was loosened upon us.
+There was an ear-splitting roar and in a moment candles were swept away,
+benches and tables overturned, and the whole crowd of men was down on
+the floor, trembling and panic-stricken. Another detonation, and then
+another, shaking the ground and reverberating, and sending up showers of
+stones and loose earth that came rattling down on to the canteen-roof,
+while the huddled, sprawling mass of human bodies shook and squirmed
+with terror. The droning of propellers could be plainly heard, then it
+grew weaker and weaker, until it passed away. One by one the men got up.
+Someone lit a candle. Tables, benches, and prostrate bodies had been
+thrown into confusion. Cards and coins and overturned beer-mugs littered
+the floor. The smell of spilt beer mingled with the smell of stale
+tobacco. A few of us stepped out into the open air. We inhaled a
+pungent, sulphurous stench. We were sure our camp had been bombed this
+time and were fearful lest any of our friends had been hit. We walked
+past the Church tent--it was full of rents and holes. And just beyond it
+was a huge pit with fresh soil heaped up in a ring around it. Loose
+earth and stones and sods were scattered everywhere. Then we saw
+something move in the darkness--it was a man on all fours, dragging
+himself painfully along and uttering a groan with every breath. Two
+bearers arrived with a stretcher. They put it down by his side and
+helped him on to it. Then they picked it up and disappeared in the
+gloom. We had hardly walked a few yards further when we saw a light
+approaching us. We went towards it. A man was staggering slowly along
+and leaning on the shoulder of a comrade who was carrying a lantern. He
+supported his right elbow with his left hand, down the back of which
+two thin streams of blood were winding. His left sleeve was darkly
+stained and the blood was dripping from it. His face was very pale and
+the corners of his mouth were slightly turned down.
+
+Suddenly the broad white beam of a searchlight swung across the
+darkness. For a time it seemed to paw the sky in a hesitating fashion
+and then it remained fixed on one spot.
+
+"There 'e is! There 'e is!" someone shouted in an excited voice.
+
+In the white track was a brilliant silver object travelling along at a
+great speed. A number of anti-aircraft guns opened fire simultaneously,
+and all around the shining fugitive innumerable stars of pale, liquid
+gold flashed out and melted away again.
+
+"I bet they're puttin' 'is bloody wind up! Rotten bastard, bombin' a lot
+o' wounded! If I get 'old of a Fritz up the line, I'll murder 'im. Yer
+won't catch me takin' no more pris'ners, I tell yer."
+
+A flashing star suddenly seemed to envelop the aeroplane.
+
+"Got 'im that time--bloody good shot--'e's comin' down, look, look, 'e's
+comin' down! Look, 'e's all in flames!"
+
+But the aeroplane sped on, growing smaller and smaller. Then the white
+beam swung back and was extinguished, while the guns ceased firing.
+
+"Fine lot o' gunners we got--couldn't 'it a Zep 'alf a yard orf! They
+ain't worth the grub they get!"
+
+We returned to our marquee and sat down on our kits. My friend Private
+Black came in after us, smiling ruefully. I asked him what was the
+matter.
+
+"I was playing the piano in the Sergeants' Mess when the first one
+dropped. We all jumped up together and rushed out. Then the second one
+burst and I lost my head and didn't know where I was going. I darted to
+and fro, tripping over tent-ropes and dashing up against revetments. I
+never had the wind up so much in all my life. I couldn't get my breath,
+there was a kind of weight on my stomach and a tightness round my chest
+and throat, and my knees kept on giving way all the time. The third one
+burst and I fell down and crawled under some ropes and lay flat against
+some sand-bags, trembling all over and feeling as though I was going to
+choke. I waited for a long time, but nothing happened, so I got up and
+looked round. Lucky escape for us! There's a terrific hole by the Red
+Cross and another one behind the bath-house. The third's in the next
+field. Only two men hit. O'Neil's got it in the elbow--he's all right
+for Blighty. Poor old Hartog's badly hurt--a frightful gash in the thigh
+with the piece still in it. I hope he won't have to lose his leg.
+Christ, I'm glad it's all over--I wouldn't like to go through that
+again."
+
+There was silence for a while, but soon the silence was broken by the
+distant muttering of anti-aircraft fire.
+
+"Jesus Christ Almighty--'e's comin' again--O God, why can't 'e leave us
+alone."
+
+We stood outside the marquee and anxiously watched the horizon. We heard
+a faint humming noise. It grew louder and louder until it became a deep,
+droning buzz that rose and fell in regular pulsation. Then
+boom--boom--boom--three times the sullen roar of distant explosions
+sounded. Then there came the familiar rushing, whistling noise of a
+descending bomb. We flung ourselves down in the wet grass. I felt every
+muscle in my body contract as though I were trying to make myself as
+small as a pin point in expectation of the terrible moment. There was a
+dull thud close by and I felt the earth vibrate. The bomb had fallen a
+few yards away, but had merely buried itself in the earth without
+exploding.
+
+There was no anti-aircraft fire, but the droning noise continued loudly,
+rising and falling. Private Trotter, who was lying beside me, was
+drawing his breath in sharply between his lips. Our fear of impending
+disaster was prolonged intolerably. The droning propeller seemed to be
+directly above us. I tried to analyse my feelings. If one finger is held
+close to the middle of the forehead a curious sensation of strain seems
+to gather in that spot. That was precisely the sensation I had at the
+back of my head and neck, only with far greater intensity. It was the
+concentrated, agonizing consciousness of the swift descent of a huge
+iron mass that will strike the base of the head and blow the whole body
+to pieces. In the region of the solar-plexus I had a feeling of
+oppression such as one often has before an examination, before jumping
+into an icy river, before opening a letter that may contain bad news. I
+also breathed more heavily than usual. I made no attempt to master these
+sensations. It occurred to me that fear is merely a physical reaction
+that cannot be avoided. If a man reacts so violently that he is overcome
+and rushes about as though he were demented, it is no more his fault
+than if he shivers with cold. A man can stop shivering by an effort of
+the will, but only to a certain extent. And no effort of the will can
+prevent him from feeling cold. In the same way, no effort of the will
+can prevent him from feeling fear, and only to a limited extent can the
+will control the outward manifestations of fear. Nevertheless, some
+distraction may enable a man to forget his fear for a while, just as it
+may enable him to forget the cold. I was so intent upon self-analysis
+that I lost consciousness of everything except my mental concentration,
+even of those sensations I was trying to analyse, for the very act of
+analysis was destroying them. As they grew weaker, the effort of my will
+increased. It became so great that I grew conscious of great mental
+tension and at the same time I realized that my fear had vanished
+altogether. For a brief space I had a sensation of vacuity as though I
+could neither think nor feel. Then my mental effort suddenly collapsed,
+I once more became aware of the droning overhead, and with a rush my
+former fears were upon me again. I pressed myself flat to earth. I heard
+the descent of a bomb. I trembled and tried to shrink to nothing. There
+was a deafening thunder-clap and the ground shook. A quantity of loose
+earth came down upon us. Another bomb descended--every muscle in my body
+tightened and I stopped breathing altogether. But the explosion that
+followed was fainter than the last. Then there was another, still
+further off. All my muscles gradually relaxed and a delicious feeling of
+relief pervaded my whole being. The buzzing noise became more and more
+feeble. I got up and walked back to the marquee, trembling and weak at
+the knees. The others followed.
+
+Most of us went to bed, but a few continued to pace up and down in great
+agitation. One man picked up his blankets in a bundle and went off in
+order to sleep in the open fields, far away from the camp.
+
+An hour had hardly passed before distant anti-aircraft fire broke out
+again. Anxiety began to renew its tortures. We heard the dull, sullen
+roar of bombs exploding at intervals. Then fourteen burst in rapid
+succession as though a gigantic ball of solid iron had bounced fourteen
+times with thundering reverberations on a resonant surface. But the
+sound of firing died down and soon all was quiet. And then sleep came
+upon us and our troubles were over for a time.
+
+The next morning was windless and clear. All day we kept looking at the
+sky, but not a cloud was to be seen.
+
+The evening approached, darkness fell, and the stars shone. "Lights Out"
+was sounded and we extinguished our candles. None of us said a word, but
+everybody knew what everybody else was thinking of. And soon we heard
+the familiar buzz. At first it only came from one propeller, but others
+arrived and the sound multiplied and increased in volume, and at the
+same time it rose and fell in irregular gusts and regular pulsations.
+Anti-aircraft firing burst out suddenly and for a few minutes there was
+a blending of whining, whistling, rushing sounds overhead punctuated by
+faint reports. The firing ceased, but the droning noises continued
+louder than ever. The German aeroplanes seemed to be above us like a
+swarm of angry wasps, and above us they seemed to remain, hovering and
+circling. We awaited the downward rush and the deafening thunder-clap
+that would destroy us all. One man was groaning loudly. Another
+shivered. I could hear the chattering of many teeth. My neighbour
+trembled violently and cowered beneath his blankets. But his fear grew
+so strong that he could not bear it any longer. He got up and said in a
+strained voice, trying to appear calm, "I'm goin' to 'ave a look at
+'em." He ran out of the marquee and disappeared. I found my powers of
+resistance ebbing. I was unable to control my imagination. I saw my
+comrades and myself blown to pieces. I saw the clerk in the office of
+the C.C.S. write out the death-intimations on a buff slip and filling in
+a form. I saw a telegraph boy taking the telegram to my home. He stopped
+on the way in order to talk to a friend. Then he whistled and threw a
+stone at a dog. He sauntered through the garden gate and knocked at the
+front door. The door opened ... but I could not face the rest, and with
+a tremendous mental impulse I turned my mind away to other things. But
+my terrible thoughts lay in wait for me like tigers ready to rush upon
+me as soon as my will relaxed its efforts. I tried to compromise, and I
+imagined myself killed and invented all the details of a post-mortem
+examination and burial. I found some relief in these imaginings, but
+soon that implacable telegram claimed my attention once more and drew me
+on to what I dared not face. I sought distraction by muttering some
+verses of poetry to myself. They had no meaning to me, they were just
+empty sound and their rhythm had a hideous pulsation like that other
+pulsation overhead:
+
+    "He above the rest
+    In shape and gesture proudly eminent
+    Stood like a tower...."
+
+and so on, line after line. The dreariness of the verses grew so intense
+as to be almost intolerable. At the same time I was dimly conscious of
+the fact that at one time I thought this passage beautiful. But the beat
+of the blank verse carried me on. Sometimes it seemed to blend with the
+buzzing of those angry wasps above and sometimes the two rhythms would
+vie with each other for speed, so that they hurried along each
+alternately ahead of the other. I came to a line where my memory failed
+me. I faltered for a moment, but the droning sound seemed to grow into
+an enormous roar, and I leapt back to the beginning:
+
+    "He above the rest...."
+
+and then on and on a second time until my head throbbed with the double
+pulsation.
+
+Suddenly a man who had been lying on the far side of the marquee got up
+and said:
+
+"I've had enough of this, I'm going to sleep in a ditch."
+
+He went off. The wasps were still buzzing, but the interruption had
+broken the spell. I felt a sense of relief. I became conscious of
+intense weariness and felt ashamed of my fears. I cursed the German
+aeroplanes and thought, "Let them do their worst, I don't care." I made
+up my mind to go to sleep and resolutely buried my face in my pillow.
+Then it occurred to me that I would never be able to enjoy _Paradise
+Lost_ again, and I was half-amused and agreeably distracted by the
+trivial thought.
+
+But the wasps were still buzzing. Another man began to groan loudly:
+
+"Gawd--this is bloody awful--why the bloody 'ell can't they leave us
+alone!"
+
+Thereupon his neighbour tried to create an impression by appearing calm
+and philosophical. He said in a strained, breaking voice:
+
+"Think of all the waste in life and treasure this frightful war
+involves. Think of the moral degradation. Think of the widows and
+orphans. Think of the...." He was unequal to the effort and his voice
+trailed away and then seemed to catch in his throat. But he recovered
+and with a kind of gasp he squeezed out a few more words: "Bill, forgive
+me for insulting you to-day--I didn't mean it, Bill. Forget it, Bill,
+forget it! If you get killed without forgiving me, my conscience will
+always torture...."
+
+"For Christ's sake shut up, yer bleed'n' 'ypocrite," interrupted the
+gruff voice of "Bill" somewhere out of the darkness. "Yer always
+bleed'n' well preachin'--it's bad enough 'avin' Fritz over us without
+you bloody well rubbin' it in. If yer don't shut yer mouth, I'll come
+over an' shut it for yer, 'struth I will."
+
+The philosopher said no more, but another voice made itself heard, that
+of a good-natured, elderly bachelor, who said with melancholy
+resignation:
+
+"It's jolly hard, all the same, to be knocked out like this. You're so
+helpless--no dug-outs, no shelters anywhere...."
+
+"It's doubly hard when you're married," said another. "I haven't got the
+wind up about myself at all, but I can't help thinking about my wife....
+They're going away now, thank the Lord. You never know when they won't
+be coming back though--that's just the worst of it."
+
+The noise of the propellers was indeed dying away.
+
+Several voices muttered "Thank God," but one man's teeth were still
+chattering as though he was so absorbed by his own fear that he had not
+noticed the disappearance of its cause. Soon there was complete silence
+and one by one we fell asleep.
+
+Another clear day and another clear night. We lay awake listening
+anxiously to the bursting of bombs and the muttering of anti-aircraft
+fire. But we went to sleep in the end and felt drowsy all the following
+day--a clear day. Casualties came in from a camp that had been bombed
+overnight, and we saw shattered limbs, smashed heads, and lacerated
+flesh. Several of our men were looking pale through lack of sleep and
+had dark rings round their eyes.
+
+Another clear night. The agonizing vigil began again, but I was so weary
+that I went to sleep a few minutes after lights out. Sullen thunders
+mingled with my dreams and did not wake me up.
+
+Another clear day. Would the fine weather never end? Late in the
+afternoon, however, a few clouds collected on the horizon. In the
+evening the entire sky was overcast and not a star was to be seen. And
+as we went to bed we heard the rain swishing down upon the canvas roof.
+The unspeakable joy we all felt at the prospect of an untroubled night!
+
+"Bloody fine, this rain: we'll get some proper sleep now, thank God. I
+never had the wind up so much in all my life, and I've been out here
+since '15 and in some pretty hot places too."
+
+"I reckon the longer yer out 'ere the windier yer get. I joined up in
+'14 like a bloody fool. At first I didn't care a damn for anything. Then
+I was wounded on the Somme an' sent across to Blighty. I dreaded comin'
+back agin. I only 'ad a little wound in me 'and, an' I used ter plug it
+wi' dubbin' an' boot-polish ter keep it raw. It didn't 'alf 'urt, but it
+gave me a extra week or two in 'orspittle. I 'ad to go in the end
+though--the M.O. didn't 'alf give me a tellin' orf. Jesus Christ, didn't
+I 'ave the wind up when we went up the line! An' now I'm scared at the
+slightest sound, an' I sometimes wake up out o' me sleep shiverin' all
+over. When I was on leave a motor-car backfired in the street--it didn't
+'alf make me jump; me mate 'oo was with me said I looked as white as a
+sheet. The longer yer out 'ere the worse yer get--it's yer nerves, yer
+know, they can't stand it. In the line it's always the new men what's
+the most reliable...."
+
+"That's a bloody fact. When we first come out, I thought all the Belgian
+civvies a lot o' bloody cowards takin' cover whenever Fritz came over.
+_We_ used to stand an' look at 'im. They wasn't cowards, it was us who
+was bloody fools. They knew summat about it, we didn't. All the same, I
+know one or two old reg'lars 'oo was in it from the first an' never 'ad
+the wind up any time--there's not many like that though, generally it's
+the old soldiers what's the worst o' the lot for wanglin' out o' risky
+jobs."
+
+"Napoleon was right," observed a small, red-haired lance-corporal, whose
+remarks generally had a sardonic touch, "when he said the worse the man
+the better the soldier. It's only people who have no imagination and no
+intelligence who are courageous in modern war. Nobody with any sense
+would expose himself unnecessarily and rush a machine-gun position or do
+the sort of thing they give you a V.C. for. Of course, there are a few
+cases where it's deserved, and it isn't always the one who deserves it
+that gets it. I'm quite certain the refined, sensitive, imaginative kind
+of man is no good as a soldier. He may be able to control himself better
+than the others at first--educated people are used to self-control--but
+in the long run his nerves will give way sooner. Moral courage is a
+thing I admire more than anything, but there's no use for it in the
+army, in fact it's worse than useless in the army. The man who's too
+servile to be capable of feeling humiliation and too stupid to
+understand what danger is--that's the man who makes a good, steady
+soldier. We've seen men so horribly smashed up by bombs that it makes
+you sick to look at them, and then people expect us not to be afraid of
+air-raids. The civvies haven't seen that sort of thing, so they may well
+show plenty of pluck, although I believe there are a good many with
+enough imagination to have the wind up when there's an air-raid on."
+
+"Bloody true. You know, if there was a lot o' civvies an' a lot of
+Tommies in a Blighty air-raid, I reckon the civvies'd show more pluck
+than the Tommies. My mate who's workin' on munitions told me 'e saw
+'underds o' soldiers rushin' to take shelter in the last raid on London.
+O' course there was crowds o' civvies doin' the same, but 'e says there
+was a lot what didn't seem to care a damn. The other day we 'ad a bloody
+parson spoutin' to us--'e said war brings out a man's pluck an' makes an
+'ero of 'im. I reckon that's all bloody tosh! War makes cowards of yer,
+that's the 'ole truth o' the matter, I don't care what yer say. I didn't
+know what fear was afore I joined the army. I know now, you bet! I'm a
+bloody coward now--I don't mind admittin' it. There's things I used ter
+do what I wouldn't dare do now. When we go up the line I'm in a blue
+funk from the time I 'ears the first shell burst to the time we goes
+over the top. An' when we goes over I forgets everythink an' don't know
+what I'm doin'. P'raps I'll get a V.C. some day wi'out knowin' what I
+done ter get it. And I'm not the only one like that. Anyone 'oo's bin
+out 'ere a few months an' says 'e ain't windy up the line's a bloody
+liar, there now...."
+
+"By the way," I interrupted, "how did that orderly who works in the
+theatre get his Military Medal--he had the wind up more than any of us
+the other night?"
+
+"I know whom you mean," answered a private of the R.A.M.C. "He got it
+that bombing-stunt a few months ago. It was bloody awful too--the worst
+thing I've ever been in. I was standing next to him when the first one
+exploded. He flopped down and lay flat on the ground, but I rushed away
+into the fields with a lot of others. When it was all over we went back
+and heard the wounded crying out in a way that was dreadful to hear.
+This fellow was still lying on the ground by the duckboards, trembling
+all over and paralysed with fear. We went to help the wounded, but he
+was in such a state that he could not come with us, so we left him
+behind. There was an inquiry afterwards and _we_ got into a frightful
+row for running away. He got the M.M. for sticking to his post!"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE GERMAN PUSH
+
+
+     "What madness there is in this arithmetic that counts men by the
+     millions like grains of corn in a bushel.... A newspaper has just
+     written about an encounter with the enemy: 'Our losses were
+     insignificant, one dead and five wounded.' It would be interesting
+     to know for whom these losses are insignificant? For the one who
+     was killed?... If he were to rise from his grave, would he think
+     the loss 'insignificant'? If only he could think of everything from
+     the very beginning, of his childhood, his family, his beloved wife,
+     and how he went to the war and how, seized by the most conflicting
+     thoughts and emotions, he felt afraid, and how it all ended in
+     death and horror.... But they try to convince us that 'our losses
+     are insignificant.' Think of it, godless writer! Go to your master
+     the Devil with your clever arithmetic.... How this man revolts
+     me--may the Devil take him!"
+
+     (ANDREYEFF.)
+
+
+Throughout the winter one question above all others was discussed by the
+few who took an interest in the war: "What were the Germans going to
+do?" It was clear that they had been able to withdraw many divisions
+from their Eastern Front. Would they be numerically equal or superior to
+the Allies on the Western Front?
+
+On the whole we were of opinion that, whatever happened, our positions
+would prove impregnable, although we observed with some astonishment
+that there were no extensive trench systems or fortified places behind
+our lines. I doubted whether the Germans would even attempt to break
+through--I thought they would merely hold the Western Front and throw
+the Allies out of Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
+
+The winter was over and the fine weather had set in. For several months
+we had been working in a wood-yard and saw-mills. Our lives had become
+unspeakably monotonous, but the coming of warm days banished much of our
+dreariness. The hazy blue sky was an object of real delight. I often
+contrived to slip away from my work and lean idly against a wall in the
+mild sunshine. At times I was so filled with the sense of physical
+well-being, and so penetrated by the sensuous enjoyment of warmth and
+colour, that I even forgot the war.
+
+At the bottom of the wood-yard was a little stream, and on the far bank
+clusters of oxlips were in bloom. Here we would lie down during the
+midday interval and surrender to the charm of the spring weather. It
+seemed unnatural and almost uncanny that we should be happy, but there
+were moments when we felt something very much like happiness. Moreover,
+it was rumoured that leave was going to start. How glorious it would be
+to spend a sunny May or June in England!
+
+Once a fortnight we paraded for our pay outside one of the bigger sheds
+of the yard. As a rule, I was filled with impatience and irritation at
+having to wait in a long queue and move forward step by step, but now it
+had become pleasant to tarry in the sunshine. One day, when we were
+lined up between two large huts, a deep Yellow Brimstone butterfly came
+floating idly past. It gave me inexpressible delight, a delight tempered
+by sadness and a longing for better times. I drew my pay and saluted
+perfunctorily, being unable and unwilling to think of anything but the
+beauty of the sky, the sun, and the wonderful insect.
+
+I held my three ten-franc notes in my hand and thought: "I _will_ enjoy
+this lovely day to the full. When we get back to camp I will do without
+the repulsive army fare, I will dine at the St. Martin and buy a bottle
+of the best French wine, even if it costs me twenty francs. And then
+I'll walk to the little wood on the hill-slope and there I'll lie all
+the evening and dream or read a book."
+
+The whistle sounded. It was time to go back to work. But I cursed the
+work and decided to take the small risk and remain idle for an hour or
+two. I went to an outlying part of the yard and sat down on a patch of
+long grass and leant back against a shed. The air was hot and several
+bees flew by. Their buzzing reminded me of summer holidays spent in
+southern France before the war. I thought of vineyards and orchards, of
+skies intensely blue, of scorching sunshine, of the tumultuous chirping
+of cicadas and grasshoppers, and then of the tepid nights crowded with
+glittering stars and hushed except for the piping of tree-frogs.
+
+Before the war--before the war--I repeated the words to myself. They
+conveyed a sense of immeasurable remoteness, of something gone and lost
+for ever. But I _wouldn't_ think about it. I _would_ enjoy the present.
+But the calm waters of happiness had been ruffled and it was beyond my
+power to restore their tranquillity. I began to think of many things, of
+the war itself, of the possible offensive, and soon the fretful
+rebellious discontent, that obsessed all those of us who had not lost
+their souls, began to reassert itself.
+
+But why not desert? Why not escape to the south of France? Why not enjoy
+a week, a fortnight, a month of freedom? I would be caught in the end--I
+would be punished. I would receive Number 1 Field Punishment, and I
+would be tied to a wheel or post, but nevertheless it would be worth
+it! I imagined myself slipping out of camp at night and walking until
+dawn. Then I would sleep in some wood or copse and then walk on again,
+calling at remote farms to buy bread and eggs and milk. I would reach
+the little village, the main street winding between white houses and
+flooded with brilliant moonlight. I would climb the wall and drop into
+the familiar garden and await the morning. Then I would knock at the
+door and I would be welcomed by an old peasant woman, and she would ask:
+"Tu viens en perme?" How could I answer that question? It worried me, I
+felt it was spoiling my dream. But I dreamt on and at the same time
+battled against increasing depression. Even a few days of freedom would
+be a break, a change from routine. And would the little village be the
+same as when I saw it last? No, it would be different, it would be at
+war. I might escape from the army, but I could never escape from the
+war. My dream had vanished.
+
+But I _would_ make the best of things. I _would_ enjoy the immediate
+present--was I not losing hours of sheer pleasure by harbouring these
+thoughts and ignoring the beauty of the day?
+
+Some distance ahead was a farm of the usual Flemish type--a thatched
+roof, whitewashed walls, and green shutters. Near by was a little pond
+with willows growing round it. In the field beyond, a cow was grazing
+peacefully. The sky seemed a deeper blue through the willow-branches.
+The tender green of the grass was wonderfully refreshing to the eyes.
+The cow had a beautiful coat of glossy brown that shone in the sunlight.
+I abandoned myself to the charm of the little idyll that was spread out
+before me and forgot the war once again.
+
+And then all at once a gigantic, plume-shaped, sepia coloured mass rose
+towering out of the ground. There was a rending, deafening, double
+thunder-clap that seemed to split my head. For a moment I was dazed and
+my ears sang. Then I looked up--the black mass was thinning and
+collapsing. The cow had disappeared.
+
+I walked into the yard full of rage and bitterness. All the men had left
+the sheds and were flocking into the road. Some were strolling along in
+leisurely fashion, some were walking with hurried steps, some were
+running, some were laughing and talking, some looked startled, some
+looked anxious, and some were very pale.
+
+We crossed the road and the railway. Then, traversing several fields, we
+came to a halt and waited. We waited for nearly an hour, but nothing
+happened and we gradually straggled back to the yard.
+
+Some of us walked to the spot where the shell had burst. There was a
+huge hole, edged by a ring of heaped-up earth, and loose mould and
+grassy sods lay scattered all round. Here and there lay big lumps of
+bleeding flesh. The cow had been blown to bits. The larger pieces had
+already been collected by the farmer, who had covered them with a
+tarpaulin sheet from which a hoof protruded.
+
+The next day, at about the same hour, the dark cloud again rose from the
+ground and the double explosion followed. We again abandoned the yard
+and waited in the field. But this time there were several further
+shell-bursts. No dull boom in the distance followed by a long-drawn
+whine, but only the earth and smoke thrown darkly up and then the
+deafening double detonation.
+
+The next day more shells came over, and the next day also.
+
+The big holes with their earthen rims began to dot the fields in many
+places. No damage of "military importance" had been done. Not even a
+soldier had been killed, but only an inoffensive cow.
+
+At night the sky was alive with the whirr of propellers, and shells
+whistled overhead and burst a long way off.
+
+One Sunday, toward the end of March, when we had a half-holiday, I
+walked up the hill that was crowned by a large monastery and sat down
+on the slope by a group of sallows. They were in full bloom. A swarm of
+bees and flies were buzzing round. Peacock and Tortoiseshell butterflies
+were flitting to and fro. The sunlight filtered down through the bluish
+haze. I rested and let an hour or two slip by. Then I got up and crossed
+a little brook and strolled along a narrow path that wound its way
+through a copse. The ground was starred with wood-anemones, oxlips,
+violets, cuckoo-flowers, and in damp places with green-golden saxifrage.
+I came to a small cottage that had pots of flowers in every window. I
+sat down while a hospitable old woman made coffee and chattered volubly
+in Flemish. Another soldier arrived soon after. Had I heard the news?
+The Germans had broken through on the Somme and had captured Bapaume. I
+asked him if he had seen it in print. No, he had heard it from an A.S.C.
+driver. He hoped it wasn't true, but he feared it was.
+
+I returned to camp full of suppressed excitement.
+
+Something was wrong. The shelling of the back-areas continued; air-raids
+became more and more frequent. These were ominous signs.
+
+Then the newspapers arrived. The Somme front had collapsed. The Fifth
+Army was in full retreat. The Germans had taken Bapaume and Peronne and
+were threatening Amiens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Had I been living in Germany during the war I would have felt a powerful
+tendency to defend the cause of the Allies, to excuse their misdeeds, to
+overrate their ability, while being highly critical and censorious of
+every German shortcoming.
+
+A nation at war is a mob whose very blatancy, injustice and cruelty
+drive one to hatred and opposition. The enemy mob seems less detestable
+because it is out of sight and one thinks almost involuntarily: "It
+cannot be as bad as our own."
+
+I could not bear to hear a victory joyfully announced. The jubilation
+and the self-glorification of the crowd filled me with loathing, and I
+could only think of the intensified slaughter and misery that are the
+price of every victory. They who pay the price, they alone have the
+right to rejoice, but they do not rejoice. The German mob revealed its
+depravity when it hung out flags in the streets to celebrate the first
+German victories. And, when the first battle of Cambrai was won, London
+jeered at the bereaved and mocked the dead by ringing the joy-bells.
+
+Every genuine patriot is called a traitor in his own country. But
+patriotism, however genuine, is a thing that must be surmounted. There
+is only one good that war can bring to a nation--defeat. A patriot,
+loving his own country, would therefore wish his country defeat in war.
+But he who has surmounted his patriotism and has attained complete
+impartiality would not selfishly claim the only benefit of war entirely
+for his own country, but would desire all to share it alike, and would
+therefore wish defeat for every warring nation.
+
+If a horde of British and a horde of German soldiers engage in mutual
+butchery, and if the maimed, broken remnants of the British horde have
+just enough order left to drive back the remnants of the German horde,
+leaving innumerable dead and wounded and for ever darkening the lives of
+countless friends and wives--in other words, if the British army wins
+what our infamous Press would call a "glorious victory"--then all that
+is evil in the life of the nation is encouraged and justified. It is
+then that the diplomatists who lied and schemed to bring on the
+monstrous event, that all the politicians who exploit and foster the
+nation's madness and misery to enhance their own reputations, that those
+who batten on the slaughter, and that those who glorify the carnage at
+a safe distance and fight the enemy with their lying tongues, are
+justified. They all are justified. But if, instead of victory, there is
+defeat, then they tremble lest they should be disgraced and lose their
+places, lest they should be victims of a disillusioned people's anger,
+lest they should forfeit their plunder, lest they should be called to
+account for the lies with which they fooled the masses. Defeat is the
+defeat of evil, victory is the victory of evil.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A second batch of papers arrived. The German advance was continuing. The
+British reverse was becoming catastrophic. At first I felt a kind of
+grimness, and then I was thrilled by the thought that perhaps the end of
+the war might be near. We might not have a good peace, but peace of any
+kind was preferable to war. The mendacious Press talked much about a
+"dishonourable peace," as though any peace could be as dishonourable as
+a prolonged war.
+
+But the immediate reality became too overwhelming. Grey multitudes were
+sweeping khaki multitudes before them. High-explosives, shrapnel,
+grenades, bombs, bullets were rending, piercing, and shattering the
+living flesh and muscle and bone. Towns and villages were being turned
+into heaps of brick and wreckage. Hordes of old men, women, and children
+were thronging the roads, and fleeing from approaching disaster.
+
+We went to work as usual although we worked less than usual, for we now
+had something to talk about. Would the Germans reach the coast? If they
+did, then the northern armies would be cut off and destroyed. A general
+retreat from our front might be ordered at any moment. We stood in
+groups and discussed these problems hour by hour.
+
+One day we were returning from work and passing through the village. A
+crowd of civilians was standing round the window of the Mairie, where a
+written notice was exposed. An old woman dressed in black was moaning,
+"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, mon Dieu." The '19, '20, and '21 classes had been
+called up.
+
+Then the German advance came to an end. A French army had arrived and
+saved the situation. The shelling of the back areas had ceased. The
+danger was over for a time.
+
+Had the Germans assembled all their strength for one supreme attempt at
+breaking through the Western Front? Or was it only the beginning of a
+whole series of operations?
+
+One morning, as we woke up, we heard the roar and rumble of a
+bombardment. We did not take much notice of it, for we had heard the
+sound so often.
+
+We paraded, and marched off to work. The continuous roar gradually gave
+place to irregular, though frequent, outbursts of firing along the
+entire front.
+
+The next day the sound seemed to have come nearer. Rumours began to
+circulate--it was said that Armentières had fallen, that the Portuguese
+had been annihilated at Merville, that the British had counter-attacked
+and taken Lille.
+
+Rations, newspapers and letters were delayed. Large bodies of troops
+passed through the village. We got no definite or official news, and
+nobody had any clear notion of what was happening.
+
+But the sound of firing grew louder and louder and our anxiety deepened.
+There could no longer be any doubt about it--the Germans were advancing
+on our front.
+
+The sickening certainty transcended all other considerations. A few
+miles from us thousands were being slaughtered. I ceased to ponder the
+problems of failure and success. I forgot the politicians and was
+conscious of only one despairing wish, that the terrible thing might
+come to an end. Victory and defeat seemed irrelevant considerations. If
+only the end would come quickly--nothing else really mattered.
+
+I often wondered what was in the minds of the other men. Many of them
+looked anxious, but on the whole they were normal in their behaviour.
+They grumbled and quarrelled much as usual and talked rather more than
+usual--but so did I, in spite of my intense mental agitation.
+
+The sound of firing grew louder.
+
+We marched to an extensive R.E. park and saw-mill near a railway siding.
+We had to dismantle the machinery and load everything of any value on to
+a train. For several hours five of us dragged a huge cylinder and piston
+along the ground. We toiled and perspired. We made a ramp of heavy
+wooden beams in front of the train and then we slowly pushed the iron
+mass into a truck. We went back and, raising a big fly-wheel on its edge
+and supporting it with a wooden beam under each axle, we rolled it
+painfully along, swaying from side to side.
+
+Then there came the long-drawn familiar whine, and the black smoke arose
+behind some trees a hundred yards away and the thunder-clap followed. A
+jagged piece of steel came whizzing by and lodged in a stack of timber
+behind us.
+
+We pushed the wheel up the ramp and returned to fetch heavy coils of
+wire, bundles of picks and shovels, sacks and barrels of nails. Our
+backs and shoulders ached, our hands and finger-tips were sore.
+
+Another shell came whining over. It burst by a little cottage. Its
+thunder made our ears sing. The fragments of flying metal made us duck
+or scatter behind the stacks.
+
+We worked until we almost dropped with sheer fatigue. Iron rods and bars
+for reinforcing pill-boxes, bags of cement, boxes of tools, parts of
+machinery, all went on to the train. Then we entered a big shed, where
+a number of tar-barrels stood in a row. We rolled them out and placed
+them by the timber stacks. We laid a pick beside each barrel so that it
+could be broached, the tar set alight, and the entire park destroyed at
+a moment's notice.
+
+It was dark when we stopped work. We reached camp after an hour's
+wearisome marching. We waited in a long queue outside the cook-house.
+The cooks served out the greasy stew as quickly as they could, but we
+were so tired and ill-tempered that we shouted abuse at them without
+reason and without being provoked, and banged our plates and tins. The
+war, the advance, the slaughter were forgotten. We were conscious of
+nothing but weariness, stiffness, and petty irritation.
+
+The following day we marched to a ration dump. The wooden cases of
+rations were piled up in gigantic cubes, so that the entire dump looked
+like a town of windowless, wooden buildings. We formed one long file
+that circled slowly past the stacks, each man taking one case on to his
+shoulder or back and carrying it to the train. And so we circled round
+and round throughout the monotonous day.
+
+In the evening I did not wait in the dinner queue, but went to the St.
+Martin. It was kept by an old woman and her two daughters. They were
+tortured by anxiety:
+
+"Les Allemands vont venir ici--de Shermans come heer?" they asked. But I
+knew no more than they did. I told them, against my own conviction, that
+the German advance would be held up, but they remained anxious. The
+uproar of the cannonade was louder than ever. All the windows of the
+building shook and rattled. The old woman muttered: "'Tis niet goet,
+'tis niet goet," and the elder daughter echoed: "Oh, 'tiss no bon, 'tiss
+no bon."
+
+Two British officers entered. They looked round and saw that private
+soldiers were sitting at the tables. But the St. Martin was the biggest
+estaminet in the village and provided the best wines and coffees, so
+they stood in the doorway, undecided what to do. They asked one of the
+girls if there was a restaurant for officers in the neighbourhood. She
+answered: "No--no restaurant for officeerss--you come heer--privates,
+zey no hurt you--privates, officeerss, all same."
+
+Encouraged by these assurances, one of the newcomers said to the other:
+
+"Come on, let's sit down here and have a coffee--we needn't stop long."
+
+All the smaller tables were occupied, but there was one long table that
+stretched across the room and only a few men were sitting at the far end
+of it. The officers sat down at the near end and ordered coffee. They
+seemed a little embarrassed at first, but they soon began to talk freely
+to each other:
+
+"I wonder if there's a war on in these parts--I hear the Huns have made
+a bit of a push."
+
+"Curse the blighters--they'll mess up my leave, it's due in a week's
+time."
+
+"Jolly good coffee, this! Here, Marie, bring us another two cups--der
+coop der caffay--that's right, isn't it?"
+
+"Dat's right," said the girl, "you speak goot French--vous avez tout a
+fait l'accent parisien."
+
+Suddenly her sister came running into the room, sobbing loudly:
+
+"English soldier come round from Commandant--he tell us Shermans
+come--ve got to go 'vay at once, ve got to leave everysing--ve go 'vay
+and English troops steal everysing and shellss come and smash everysing
+and ve looss everysing."
+
+The civilians of the village had received orders to leave immediately.
+Through the window we could see groups of people standing in the street
+and talking together. They were greatly agitated.
+
+The old woman sniffed and wiped her eyes. The elder daughter was
+packing a few things in a bundle. One of the officers asked: "What about
+our coffee?" but she took no notice. Her sister had gone out in search
+of further information.
+
+She soon returned. Yes, they would all have to leave at once, but, if
+they liked to take the risk, they could come back to-morrow with a
+wagon, if they could get one, and fetch their belongings.
+
+They were comforted. They knew where they would be able to get a wagon.
+They would cart their stock and their household property away on the
+morrow. They would start another estaminet somewhere. They would suffer
+loss and inconvenience, but they would not be ruined--their valuable
+stock of wines would save them from that.
+
+The bundle was made up and they prepared to leave. We paid our bill and
+went out into the street. Numbers of soldiers were straggling past. They
+looked wretched and exhausted. Their boots and puttees were caked with
+mud. They had neither rifles nor packs. Three men were lying up against
+a garden wall. We asked them for news. They could not tell us much,
+except that the Germans were still advancing.
+
+"We was at Dickebusch when 'e started slingin' stuff over--gorblimy, 'e
+don't 'alf wallop yer--umpteen of our mates got bleed'n' well biffed. We
+cleared out afore it got too 'ot."
+
+Several famished "battle-stragglers" had entered our camp in order to
+beg for food. They sat round the cook-house and ate in gloomy silence.
+
+In the adjoining field a number of tents had sprung up. Blue figures
+were moving in and out amongst them. The French had arrived.
+
+The next morning, about breakfast time, the first shell burst near the
+camp--a short rapid squeal followed by a sharp report. The second shell
+burst a few minutes after, throwing up earth and smoke. A steel fragment
+came sailing over in a wide parabola and struck the foot of a man
+standing in the breakfast queue. He limped to the first-aid hut, looking
+very pale. When he got there, he had some difficulty in finding his
+wound, it was so slight.
+
+We paraded and marched off. Several shells burst in the neighbouring
+fields. We reached the ration dump and began to load the train. A
+civilian arrived with the newspapers. Our N.C.O.'s were powerless to
+stop the general stampede that surged towards the paper-vendor.
+
+The Germans had advanced on a wide front ... Armentières had fallen. The
+news was several days old and much might have happened since.
+
+We went back to our work and discussed events. We were bullied and
+threatened with arrest, but we talked in groups while we carried cases
+of rations. Would we be involved in the advance? We might even be
+captured--that would at least be an experience and a change.
+
+In the evening a few of us went to the St. Martin to see if the old
+woman and her daughter had been able to fetch their property away. We
+observed that the windows, where tinned fruit, chocolate, cakes, soap,
+postcards, and other articles used to be exhibited, had been cleared
+completely. We entered and found one of the girls in tears:
+
+"All gone--all gone--I show you--you come into de cellar--all de wine
+gone--bottles all, all broken. English soldiers come in de night and
+take everysing 'vay--ve nussing left--it's de soldiers in de camp over
+zair in de field--zey plenty drunk dis morning--ve lose everysing--ve
+poor now."
+
+Besides the windows, the till and the shelves had been cleared, and
+empty drawers and boxes had been thrown on to the floor. We went down
+into the cellar. All the cases had been opened and the stone floor was
+littered with empty and broken bottles. The girl began to sob again when
+she saw the ruin that had been inflicted:
+
+"All gone, all gone--ve poor now."
+
+"Why don't you complain to the Town Major?" one of us suggested.
+
+"Complain?--vat's de use complain?--de Town Major, he nice man, he kind
+to us, but he no find de soldiers dat come, and if he find zem he punish
+zem but ve get nussing. Vat's de use punish zem if ve get nussing? All
+gone, ve poor now--oh, dis var, dis var--dis de second time ve
+refugeess--ve lose eversing 1914, ve come here from Zandvoorde and ve
+start again--ve do business vis soldiers, soldiers plenty money, ve do
+goot business, and now ve refugeess again and ve novair to go. If de
+Shermans come, ve do business vis de Shermans--but de shells come first
+and ve all killed--ah, dis var, dis var! Vat's de use fighting? All for
+nussing! Var over, me plenty dance!"
+
+We ascended the cellar stairs. The mother was in the main room, wiping
+her eyes. We said good-bye to her and her daughter, feeling ashamed of
+our uniforms, and walked out into the street.
+
+A mass of French cavalry were galloping past. It was growing dark. The
+cannonade had become deafening. Over the town a few miles off there was
+a crimson glare in the sky.
+
+A horde of civilians was thronging the main street of the village. Old
+men and women were carrying all that was left to them of their property
+on their backs. Others were pushing wheelbarrows heaped up with clothes
+and household utensils. Girls were carrying heavy bundles under their
+arms and dragging tired, tearful children along. White-faced, sorrowful
+mothers were carrying peevish babies. Great wagons, loaded with
+furniture and bedding, and whole families sitting on top, were drawn by
+lank and bony horses. A little cart, with a pallid, aged woman cowering
+inside, was drawn painfully along by a white-haired man. They passed by
+us in the gathering gloom, and there seemed to be no end to these
+straggling multitudes of ruined, homeless people who were wandering
+westwards to escape the disaster that threatened to engulf us all.
+
+The eastern sky flickered with vivid gun-flashes and scintillated with
+brilliant shell-bursts. The night was full of rustling noises and sullen
+thunder-claps, while a more distant roaring and rumbling seemed to break
+against some invisible shore like the breakers of a stormy sea.
+
+We retired to our huts and tents. Soon after lights-out the Police
+Corporal came round and shouted:
+
+"Parade at 4.45 to-morrow morning in marching order."
+
+The tumult increased as though the surge were coming nearer and nearer.
+Shells of small calibre passed overhead with a prolonged whistle and
+burst with a hardly audible report. The thunder of bigger explosions
+shook the huts and caused the ground to tremble.
+
+As I woke the next morning the din of the cannonade broke in upon my
+senses with a sudden impact. Rumbling, thundering, bellowing, rushing,
+whistling, and whining, the tumult seemed all around and above us.
+Sudden flashes lit up the whole camp so that for fractions of seconds
+every hut and tent was brilliantly illuminated. Multitudes of dazzling
+stars appeared and disappeared.
+
+We drew our breakfast and packed up our belongings. All was confusion in
+the hut.
+
+We paraded, the roll was called, and as the day began to dawn we marched
+off.
+
+We passed down the main road in long, swaying columns of fours. We left
+the woodyard behind us and hoped it would be destroyed--how we hated the
+place for the dreary months we had spent there! The westward stream of
+refugees had ceased, but an eastward stream of French infantry and field
+artillery thronged the roads. The artillerymen were mostly tall and
+powerfully built. The infantry were nearly all elderly men of poor
+physique. They looked desperately miserable. We exchanged greetings:
+
+"It's a good war!"
+
+"C'est une bonne guerre!"
+
+And then we broke into song:
+
+"Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, _Oh_ it's a lovely war!"
+
+The French did not sing, but we, who were escaping destruction, passed
+from one song to another:
+
+    "I don't want to fight the Germans,
+    I don't want to go to war,
+    I'd sooner be in London,
+    Dear old dirty London."
+
+And
+
+    "Far, far from Ypers,
+    I'd like to be,
+    Where German snipers
+    Can't get at me."
+
+And
+
+    "When this bloody war is over,
+    O how happy I shall be,
+    When I get my civvy clothes on,
+    No more soldiering for me."
+
+and all the other songs familiar to every soldier in the British army.
+
+We marched all day along straight roads running in between flat fields
+and past ugly little villages. As we grew tired and footsore our
+rollicking spirit abated and the singing died down.
+
+Towards nightfall we halted in a large meadow with a pond in one corner.
+Several lorries loaded with tents were waiting for us. We unloaded them,
+pitched the tents, crept into them, and went to bed.
+
+The rumble of the cannonade sounded faintly in the far distance.
+
+"I reckon it's a bloody shame to let the other Tommies and the
+Frenchies...."
+
+The voice seemed to die away into a drawl as weariness overcame me. I
+continued to hear the sound of words for a little while, but they
+conveyed no meaning. And then sleep descended and brought entire
+oblivion.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+HOME ON LEAVE
+
+
+     "I have several times expressed the thought that in our day the
+     feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful
+     feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind
+     is suffering; and that, consequently, this feeling should not be
+     cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be
+     suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men."
+
+     (TOLSTOY.)
+
+A change had come over us all. Instead of long spells of dreary silence
+interrupted by outbursts of irritability, by grumbling and by violent
+quarrels over nothing, there was animated conversations and sometimes
+even gaiety. Our talk was all about one subject--not about peace, for we
+had abandoned all hope of peace and hardly ever thought of it--but about
+leave. We had been waiting for seventeen months when, without warning, a
+leave allotment was assigned to our unit. About half a dozen men were
+going every day and no one knew whose turn would come next. We were full
+of intense excitement and glad expectation, but also of anxiety in case
+something should happen to stop our leave altogether.
+
+I made up my mind to enjoy myself thoroughly. I would see parents and
+friends and forget all about the army and the war. I would be gay and
+frivolous and go to theatres, music-halls and cafés. And one day I would
+spend in the British Museum and lose myself in books--that would be
+just like old times! Of course, our leave would not last for ever and
+the return journey would be terrible. No doubt the fortnight would pass
+very quickly, but I determined to enjoy every single hour with
+deliberation and understanding, and to squeeze every drop of pleasure
+out of it. How many hours were there in a fortnight? More than three
+hundred! Many would be wasted in sleep, but still, there would be many
+left and by dwelling upon each one, the fortnight would seem an age.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An afternoon and an evening in a train that travelled all too slowly. A
+night and half a day at Calais Rest Camp. How terrible was the rankling
+impatience that gnawed our hearts as the hours dragged on.
+
+But at last we were on the leave boat. There was another long delay, and
+then, with a feeling of immense relief, we heard the engines throb and
+the paddle-wheels begin to turn. I looked overboard and saw white foam
+hissing along the surface of water rapidly widening between us and the
+quay.
+
+Seventeen months of exile and slavery had come to an end and before us
+lay a wonderful fortnight of freedom and happiness. And at the end of
+the fortnight? There was no need to think of that now.
+
+The sea was blue and smooth and a cool breeze was blowing. We saw the
+cliffs of England grow larger and larger. Soon we were able to
+distinguish the town of Dover, the houses clustered round the harbour,
+and the Castle up on the cliff. It was there that I had begun my career
+as a soldier more than two years before. How much had happened since
+then! I felt that I had become a different being altogether.
+
+The boat entered the harbour and ran alongside the quay. A train was
+waiting for us. We poured out of the ship in two streams that spread out
+fan-wise and flowed into the carriages.
+
+It was good to sit by the window in a comfortable compartment and lean
+back against soft cushions.
+
+Glad anticipation and barely suppressed excitement were visible on
+everybody's face.
+
+The train sped through familiar country: meadows, pastures, cornfields,
+orchards and woodlands. People waved their handkerchiefs at us from
+cottage windows.
+
+It was growing dark as the first rows of drab suburban houses began to
+glide past.
+
+So this was London. I stared out of the window and tried to grasp the
+tremendous, wonderful fact with all the power of my mind. Somehow or
+other it did not seem real, but I felt I could make it real by an effort
+of the will.
+
+Streets and houses and moving people soon crowded the whole view. The
+people filled me with intense curiosity. I longed to talk to them and
+find out what they felt and thought about the war.
+
+We entered Victoria Station. I opened the door of the compartment with
+hasty, trembling hands. I did not wait to change my French money, but
+hurried out into a street and got on to a 'bus.
+
+London, with its subdued lights, lay all around me. It had not changed
+since I saw it last, and yet I felt it ought to have changed. The reason
+was that I had changed. And then I began to fear that I had changed
+beyond the power of recovery. The oppressive sensation that I was in a
+dream forced itself upon me. I felt that there was only one reality in
+the whole world--the war. Would I ever escape from the war? It would
+come to an end some day, and I would leave the army, but would not the
+war obsess me until the end of my life? Would I ever be myself again?
+
+But this was not the way to enjoy my leave! I began to feel
+disappointed at not being so happy as I had expected to be. Why was I
+not full of rapture? Why did not every object fill me with delight? But
+I ought to have known that habitual discontent and bitterness and revolt
+are not shaken off in a few hours or a few days, and that they persist
+even after their immediate cause has been removed.
+
+I looked round at the other people sitting on the 'bus. I had visited
+foreign countries in former years, but never before had I felt that I
+was amongst complete strangers. There are moments when a dog, a horse,
+or a bird fills us with a sense of the uncanny--its mind is an insoluble
+mystery, with depths so dark and inscrutable that one feels something
+that approaches fear and horror. And so it was as I sat on the 'bus. The
+civilians around me seemed like animals of a different species. They
+were not human at all--or was it I who was not human?
+
+I went to another seat in order to listen to a man and woman who were
+talking together. I felt that if they were to talk about the war, the
+uncanny spell would be broken, the dream would dissolve and I would be
+restored to my own fellow creatures. But they spoke about trivial
+domestic matters and about a flower show. If they had only mentioned the
+word "war" I would have felt relieved by its familiarity, but they did
+not mention it once.
+
+And then, in great mental agony, I said to myself: "I _will_ be happy, I
+_will_ enjoy my leave." But a number of invisible cobwebs hung between
+myself and the world around me. I tried to brush them away, but they
+were so impalpable that the movement of my hand did not disturb them at
+all.
+
+I gave up the attempt. I would wait until I got home. Then I would talk
+and forget myself--only by forgetting myself would I enjoy the present.
+Only those who forget themselves are happy. The obsession of self is
+the most oppressive of all burdens.
+
+I descended from a 'bus and took a train. A girl sitting opposite me
+stared at my blue chevrons and whispered to her fellow passenger: "He's
+just come from the front." So I too was regarded as a strange kind of
+animal. I got out at my home-station. I showed my leave-warrant to the
+ticket collector. He was a benevolent looking old man. He smiled and
+wished me good luck. Things began to seem a little less foreign. And
+then the thought of being home in a few minutes absorbed me entirely.
+
+I hurried down the street. I knocked at the door, and it opened. The
+long yearned-for meeting took place at last.
+
+I threw my pack, equipment and steel helmet contemptuously into a
+corner. I took an infantile delight in clean, furnished rooms, in the
+white table-cloth, the shining silver, the cut flowers, and the
+oil-paintings on the wall. And we talked until late into the night.
+
+It was good to wake up the next morning and to know that the first day
+of my leave was still before me. I felt encouraged to face my new
+surroundings boldly. I would understand them and identify myself with
+them. If the sensation that I was dreaming came upon me again, I would
+welcome it and then I would destroy it once and for all. I would enjoy
+my leave at any cost. It would become my only reality, and when it was
+over it would be a reality which I would take back to the front. I would
+hoard it and always think of it out there, so that the war would seem
+like a dream, the end of which I could await with patience and
+resignation.
+
+I went out to seek friends and acquaintances. I also hoped to meet some
+war enthusiasts. I would tell them something about the war. How would
+their theories be able to stand before my actual experiences!
+
+I was soon disillusioned.
+
+I dined with a wealthy kinsman. The slaughter of millions had brought
+him prosperity. He had never done any fighting except with his mouth,
+but it is precisely that kind of fighting that infuriates the spirit,
+engenders heroic ardour, and causes the nostrils to dilate. He was so
+bellicose that he even desired to do some _real_ righting, not
+understanding the difference between the two. He thought of joining an
+infantry unit--the artillery were not good enough, he did not want to
+fire at an enemy he could not see, he wanted to use the bayonet and
+murder his fellow men in hand-to-hand encounters.
+
+I began to understand why many men I had met were glad to come back from
+leave.
+
+I tried to dissuade him, although I felt it would do him good to see
+something of the war and he would learn a much-needed lesson. And yet I
+did not want him killed or horribly mutilated, although I knew that he
+and those like him were alone responsible for the entire war, both at
+its origins and its continuance.
+
+But he would not be persuaded. He said he was _dying_ to go out and see
+the fun.
+
+At the word "fun" I felt a sudden and violent contraction of all my
+muscles. I had an almost irresistible impulse to stand up and strike him
+across the face. But I was in a public restaurant and I controlled
+myself. He did not seem to notice anything.
+
+The conversation drifted away from the war and became commonplace. I
+tried to relate a few of my experiences, but somehow or other they
+seemed unsuited to the occasion.
+
+I had set out with the intention of destroying a mouldering, tottering
+edifice built up of illusions and ignorant prejudices, and I found
+myself face to face with towering, strong, unshakable walls, strong and
+unshakable precisely because it was built of illusions, lies, and
+prejudices.
+
+I felt the burden of war descending upon me with all its crushing,
+annihilating weight. I fought a losing fight against the conviction
+that for the rest of my leave I would be able to talk of nothing else
+and think of nothing else but the war. If only I could talk to someone
+who would understand, that at least would bring relief!
+
+I longed to see my two friends, although I felt some anxiety lest they
+might have changed, or rather lest they might not have changed with me.
+
+It was in the evening of my first day that we met. At first the one
+embarrassed me a little by his apparent cold aloofness. But his caustic
+observations on the war soon made it clear that he had stood the test. I
+realized, from the hatred that lay behind them, that he had suffered as
+much as many a soldier in the trenches.
+
+Then the other said to me:
+
+"This is a thing I have never told anyone yet, but I will tell it to you
+now. There are times when I almost wish I could see German troops
+marching victoriously through the streets of London. It is not my reason
+that is speaking now, but my bitterness, which has become stronger than
+my reason."
+
+I understood him far too well to make any comment.
+
+And then after a long silence, I said: "I wonder if anybody else thinks
+like that."
+
+And he answered: "Yes, there are many--more than you would believe."
+
+But the first added: "We must remain neutral--that is our one and only
+duty. The more malevolent our neutrality the better, but it must be
+neutrality. Remember that there are Germans whose bitterness prompts
+them to wish that British troops were marching through the streets of
+Berlin. I think their wish is juster than yours, but both wishes cannot
+be fulfilled, and it is therefore desirable that the next best thing
+should happen, namely, that both the Allies and their enemies should be
+entirely deprived of victory."
+
+I agreed, but added:
+
+"Yes, fundamentally one must remain neutral, but in relation to present
+circumstances one cannot remain neutral. It is our business to arraign
+England, our own country, and not Germany. It is for every nation to
+discover its own faults. There are many Germans of courage and honesty
+who will condemn their country for the crimes she has committed. But
+condemnation from outside is useless and is always discredited. In all
+probability the Allies and the Central Powers are both equally bad, and
+to denounce the enemy only is mere yelping with the rest of the savage,
+vindictive pack."
+
+"That is true, but what is the good of saying it, or thinking it!
+Ignorance, prejudice, and intellectual dishonesty are far stronger than
+you are. The depravity of mankind is such that only failure and
+humiliation will carry conviction. Mere words are only wasted. If any
+nation is completely defeated in this war, then its people will rise
+against its rulers, whether they are guilty or not, and they will fix
+all the responsibility of war upon them and upon themselves. There will
+be a frenzy of self-accusation--whether just or unjust it doesn't
+matter--and as for the victors, they will say: 'Our enemies admit their
+guilt, so what further proof is needed?' Where the _real_ guilt is, that
+is an irrelevant and trivial question. Success or failure will be the
+sole ultimate criterion. There is only one hope for the world--that
+failure will be so evenly distributed that there will be anxious
+heart-searchings in every country. Failure alone makes ignorant people
+think. Success is taken for granted. Even after a single battle lost,
+the Press is full of explanations and excuses, but after a battle won,
+there is only complacency and self-glorification, and questions as to
+the why and wherefore are considered out of place or even treasonable."
+
+When we parted I was seized with a feeling of intense loneliness, but
+nevertheless I realized with satisfaction that I was not entirely alone.
+I also gave up the idea of enjoying my leave and conceived a deep
+aversion for all pleasures and amusements.
+
+The next day I wandered into the British Museum. The 600,000 volumes
+that surrounded me on the shelves of the reading-room had a depressing
+effect. I took out a few books, but was too distracted for serious
+study.
+
+I almost smiled with self-contempt when I thought how I had set out the
+previous morning in order to conquer my old world, and how it was now
+receding further and further from me. I looked at the other readers.
+They were mostly old men, engrossed in their studies, just as they had
+been in peace time. I wondered what they thought about the war. I knew
+they would not allow it to disturb them much or interfere with their
+studies and their sleep. And after all, why should they care? It was
+only youth that was being slaughtered on the battlefields and not old
+age.
+
+The sleepy dullness of the museum became unbearable and I walked out
+into the street.
+
+I spent the evening with a member of the National Liberal Club, an
+intimate family friend, whose intellectual arrogance was one of the evil
+memories of my childhood, when many eager impulses and aspirations had
+been turned to bitterness by his lofty depreciation and his
+imperturbable assumption of superiority based on maturer years and
+experience. Having at different times received material kindnesses at
+his hands, I knew I could not tell him what I really thought, and the
+prospect of meeting him filled me with uneasiness. Moreover, in his
+presence I felt a kind of pride which I did not usually feel in the
+presence of others--a pride that forbade me to express any sentiment or
+to reveal my inner mind. And yet my inner mind was clamouring
+intolerably for revelation. I realized the advantage he would derive
+from his simple attitude and from his lack of mental integrity, which
+enabled him to ignore any considerations that did not conform to his
+preconceived notions, and I realized the disadvantage of my complex
+attitude, made up as it was of so many conflicting impulses, at war with
+each other and with the world around me.
+
+My fears were justified.
+
+At first the conversation was commonplace, and I related various
+experiences in a desultory fashion. Those that were mildly amusing were
+most appreciated. But gradually we drifted towards more vital issues and
+then the long and futile argument began. The weapons of sarcasm and
+denunciation were denied to me by the laws of politeness and etiquette.
+I beat in vain against the solid walls of obstinate prejudice and
+superficiality. His statements were uttered with dogmatic emphasis. They
+expressed beliefs held with all the self-assurance born of ignorance.
+They were based on no independent reasoning or observation, but had been
+assimilated either directly from the daily Press or from a circle of
+acquaintances whose entire political outlook was the creation of the
+Press. It was only then that I realized the immense power of newspapers.
+
+For most people "thinking" is just the discovery of convenient phrases
+or labels, such as "pessimist," or "socialist," or "pacifist" or
+"Bolshevik." When any puzzling mental attitude comes before their
+notice, they pin one of their labels to it, and, having labelled it,
+they think they understand it. The Press supplies them with these
+labels, and, consciously or unconsciously, they store them up in their
+minds and always have a few ready for immediate use.
+
+So familiar and commonplace were the phrases which my opponent selected
+from his store in order to reply to my every utterance, that I could
+almost tell what he was going to say before he said it. Moreover, the
+fact that he had travelled abroad and had associated with foreigners,
+instead of widening his view had only narrowed it. Had he never
+travelled he might have been sufficiently modest to admit that he knew
+nothing of foreign countries and he might have suspended judgment about
+them; but the mere fact that he had travelled filled him with a deep
+conviction that he knew all about the places he had visited, and this
+conviction, enunciated with pompous emphasis, supplanted the real
+knowledge and understanding derived from honest observation. Like so
+many people who do not possess the faculty of experiencing, he
+continually appealed to his own experience and continually referred to
+his maturer years, as though old age of itself brought wisdom.
+
+As for the war itself he took no deep interest in it, although he
+glanced at the war news every day. But to understand it, to analyse its
+causes, to grasp its significance, to realize its true nature, that he
+never attempted to do. His labels and his alleged experiences and his
+years were sufficient to cope with the entire question and answer it
+satisfactorily for himself. I almost envied him for his
+self-sufficiency. He would never suffer acutely from any mental strife
+or agitation due to any but immediate and personal causes. Perhaps such
+a stable mentality that can without effort reject all inconvenient data
+is the most desirable of all and the most conducive to happiness.
+Certain it is that the stability of society and the very existence of
+civilization itself depend upon the preponderance of that particular
+type.
+
+I knew that the argument was hopeless. Indeed, it was no argument. It
+was no exchange of ideas. It was no mutual attempt at discovering truths
+by an impartial comparison of two different attitudes.
+
+At times there were signs of heat on both sides. My opponent spoke of
+"our democratic army" (familiar phrase!) and the overbearing manner in
+which he connected this dictum with a number of false, irrelevant or
+arbitrary generalizations made me feel a momentary pang of anger and I
+wished he could experience a term of military service. Nevertheless,
+there was no actual display of bad temper or emotion and we parted with
+all the habitual formulae imposed by social decorum.
+
+I knew I had come into contact with the truly representative man. His
+opinion and the opinions of those like him, they all made up popular
+opinion. All other opinion was abnormal and negligible. It was with
+despair that I realized the hopelessness of my own position and that of
+my friends.
+
+The public did not understand the war and did not want to understand it.
+It was far away from them and they did not realize the amount of
+suffering caused by it. It also brought wealth to many who would
+therefore have regretted its sudden termination. This seems a hard thing
+to say, but nevertheless it is true. The so-called "working-classes" had
+developed an appetite for wealth and power that nothing could satisfy.
+This appetite was being fed continually, but the more it devoured the
+more voracious it became. Nor did the shameless profiteering of the
+wealthy tend to allay it in any way. Protests against the war never went
+beyond the passing of mere resolutions. Those who had sufficient
+humanity and imagination to hate the war in its entirety and to suffer
+from it, although not necessarily taking any part in it, were too few
+and too scattered and isolated to take any effective action.
+
+The extent to which a man can suffer is the precise measure of his
+merit, and thus it was that our patriots and war-enthusiasts being
+incapable, by reason of their grossness and vulgarity, of suffering in a
+spiritual sense, were immune from the misery caused by the war and yet
+it was they above all others upon whose support the continuance of the
+war depended.
+
+This was the terrible fatality. The more a man suffered from the war the
+smaller was his control over it.
+
+Everywhere, those who deserved to suffer did not suffer and those who
+did not deserve to suffer suffered. And that was why the war went on.
+Most people were so indifferent that it was impossible to talk to them
+without anger. I could think of nothing else but the war. I could not
+escape from its invisible presence. The streets and houses seemed the
+immaterial creations of some dream, and somewhere behind them the
+slaughter was going on, and amid the noise of the traffic the throbbing
+of the bombardment was plainly audible.
+
+Sometimes I felt an impulse to shout from the house-tops like a Hebrew
+prophet and denounce this most wicked of generations. But the very
+futility of the idea filled me with mortification.
+
+Our enlightened twentieth century has no use for prophets. Christ
+Himself would have been arrested as a pacifist or a lunatic if He had
+spoken His mind in the streets of London. And the clergy would have
+applauded the imprisonment of a dangerous "pro-German." The scribes and
+Pharisees were more numerous and more powerful than ever before.
+
+Particularly the scribes.
+
+There never was in all the world an infamy as great as the infamy of our
+war-time Press. A horde of unscrupulous liars and hirelings spat hatred
+and malice from safe and comfortable positions. They played the hero
+when no danger threatened. They defied an enemy who could not reach
+them. They boasted of the deeds they had not done. They gloried in the
+victories they did not win. They mouthed frantic protestations of
+injured innocence when they should have felt the burden of guilty shame.
+They were mawkishly sentimental when they should have felt keen grief
+and horror. They denounced murder and they urged others to commit
+murder. They spewed their venomous slime into every spring of healing
+water. At a time when clear thinking and balanced judgments were needed
+more desperately than ever before, they squirted into the air thick
+clouds of lies, and half-truths, and misleading phrases, and judgments
+distorted by hatred and warped by malice. And as for those who were
+either lured on to perpetrate the great iniquity by grandiose and
+seductive falsehoods or were dragged from their homes and families and
+sent unwilling to the slaughter, these miserable slaves the Press of all
+countries urged on, one against the other, brutally deaf to their
+misery, representing them as glad and cheerful when they had reached the
+extreme of human suffering, magnifying them into heroes of epic
+proportions (before they donned their dingy garb of war they were "lice"
+that had to be "combed out"), endowing them with absurdly impossible
+virtues--when they were just ordinary human beings in misfortune with no
+ambition except to live in peace and comfort--and at the same time
+bestowing lofty patronage upon them and calling them "Tommies" and
+sending them cigarettes, chocolates and advice, as though they were
+children to be petted, with no will or intelligence of their own.
+
+The Press, the cinema, the atrocity placards, and propagandist leaflets,
+they all practised the same deliberate and colossal deceit and kindled
+hatred against the enemy. And so successful was this diabolical
+conspiracy that hatred became second nature to vast masses of people. To
+think evil of the enemy was an article of national faith, and to
+question this faith, or still more to repudiate it, that was heresy of
+the most heinous kind. Religion died long ago, but the cult of
+nationalism that replaced it was infinitely more pernicious in its
+intolerance and cruelty than religion at its very worst.
+
+Individually men are often good, but collectively men are always bad.
+The national mob had never been so powerful, nor had it ever been so
+servile, and that was why its passions were those of the coward and not
+of the brave man; that was why chivalry and generosity and
+fair-mindedness were execrated, and only hatred and boastfulness and
+vindictive malice were allowed to live.
+
+Entman's little eyes shone with affection. "I can only wish you good
+luck."
+
+"Thanks. I'll need it."
+
+"And one more thing I was wondering."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Why do you suppose the tenth android killed the one in the Village?"
+
+"Another case of taking one reason for want of a better one. I think it
+was his way of delivering the creature to us for research. He couldn't
+know for sure that we already had his 'brothers.'"
+
+"You're right--you must be," Entman agreed.
+
+"Small consolation. I'd like a few facts to go on for a change instead
+of having to depend on logic all the time," Taber growled.
+
+"What are you referring to?"
+
+"The data. I'm assuming, _if_ that's what's important, that the tenth
+creature has a way of getting the stuff back up there."
+
+"I can help a little on that," Entman said. "I can assure you that from
+what I've found in those brains, the data could, most likely, be sent
+mentally."
+
+"You're sure of that?"
+
+"I've found a certain part of those brains developed in a peculiar
+way--"
+
+Taber smiled. "You're sure of that?"
+
+"Well ... that's my theory. It would appear logical that--"
+
+Taber leaned forward suddenly and extended his glass, the grin on his
+face showing some genuine humor. "Let's have another drink, Doctor. Then
+I'll go. I love the factual way this Scotch of yours hits my stomach."
+
+
+
+
+12
+
+
+Frank Corson entered the office of Wilson Maynard, Superintendent of
+Park Hill Hospital. Maynard looked out over the tops of his
+old-fashioned pince-nez glasses and said, "Oh, Doctor Corson. You phoned
+for a chat."
+
+It was the rather pompous superintendent's way of saying he was happy to
+give Frank Corson a little time. He considered all the doctors and
+nurses at Park Hill his "boys and girls," and he did the "father" bit
+very well.
+
+"Yes, I--"
+
+Maynard peered even harder. "You don't look well, Frank. Pale. You've
+been working too hard."
+
+"Nothing important, Doctor Maynard."
+
+"Sit down. Will you have a cigarette?"
+
+"No, thank you. I just wanted to ask you about a transfer."
+
+"A transfer!" This was amazing. "Aren't you happy at Park Hill?"
+
+"I've been very happy."
+
+Maynard went swiftly through a card file on his desk. "You have--let's
+see--five more months of internship. Then--"
+
+"Then I'd planned to enter private practice. But something personal has
+come up and I think a change is for the best."
+
+"I'm certainly sorry to hear that."
+
+"One of the men I graduated with went to a hospital in a small Minnesota
+town. We've corresponded and he's given me a pretty clear picture--a
+nice town, a need for doctors and physicians--"
+
+"But we need them here in the East, too."
+
+"I realize that, and I'm making the move with some regret. But, frankly,
+New York City no longer appeals to me. I think perhaps a small hospital
+is more suited to my temperament."
+
+"I'm certainly sorry to hear this, Corson. But I won't try to dissuade
+you. Normally, I might bring a little more personal pressure to bear,
+but I sense that your mind is made up. We're sorry to see you go, but
+the best of luck to you."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+After Frank Corson left, Superintendent Maynard sorted a memo out of the
+pile on his desk. The memo concerned Frank Corson. Superintendent
+Maynard reread it and thought how well things usually worked out. Now it
+wouldn't be necessary to have that talk with Corson about sloppy work.
+Obviously there had been something on the young intern's mind for weeks
+now. Too bad. But let the Minnesota hospital, wherever it was, worry
+about the trouble and perhaps put Corson on the right track again.
+
+He was their baby now.
+
+Maynard took Corson's card from the files and wrote across it: _Transfer
+approved with regret._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brent Taber stood in the shelter of a doorway on the Lower East Side of
+Manhattan and watched an entrance across the street. He had been there
+for over an hour.
+
+Another hour passed and Taber shifted from one aching foot to the other
+as a man in a blue suit emerged from the entrance and moved off down the
+street.
+
+When the man had turned a corner, Taber crossed over and looked up at
+the brownstone. It was a perfect place to hide--one of the many rooming
+houses in the city where, if you paid your rent and kept your peace, no
+one cared who you were or where you came from.
+
+Not even, Taber reflected, if you had been born in a laboratory and had
+come from someplace among the stars.
+
+He climbed the steps of the brownstone and tried the knob. The door
+opened. He went inside and found himself in a drab, dark hall furnished
+with an umbrella stand, a worn carpet, and a table spread with mail.
+
+There was a bell on the table. He tapped it and, after a lazy length of
+time, a shapeless woman came through a door on the right and regarded
+him with no great show of cordiality.
+
+"Nothing vacant, mister. Everything I've got is rented."
+
+"I wasn't looking for a room. I'm just doing a little checking."
+
+"My license is okay," the woman said belligerently. "The place is clean
+and orderly."
+
+"That's not what I'm checking about. There's been some counterfeit money
+passed in this neighborhood and we're trying to trace it down."
+
+The woman had a pronounced mustache that quivered at this news.
+"Counterfeit! My roomers are honest."
+
+"I'm sure they are. But some people carry counterfeit money without
+knowing it. Do they all pay in cash?"
+
+"Only two of them."
+
+"Men or women?"
+
+"One girl--Katy Wynn."
+
+"Where does she work?"
+
+"Down in Wall Street."
+
+"Not much chance we're interested. This money has been turning up around
+Times Square."
+
+"The other's a man--quiet, no trouble, pays his rent right on the dot
+every week. John Dennis his name is and he doesn't look like no
+counterfeiter."
+
+Taber took a forward step. "What's his room number?"
+
+"Six--on the second floor. But he isn't in now. He just went out."
+
+"Okay. Maybe I'll be back. As I said, we don't suspect anybody. We're
+just checking for sources."
+
+Taber turned toward the door. The woman vanished back into her own
+quarters as Taber snapped the lock. He stood in the vestibule for a
+minute or two, studying some cards he took from his pocket, and when she
+did not reappear, he opened the door, went back in, and climbed the
+stairs.
+
+The door to number six was not locked. Taber went inside. The window was
+small and gave on an areaway. He could see nothing until he turned on
+the light. Even then, he could see nothing of interest--the room was
+ordinary in every sense.
+
+But as Brent Taber checked it out, some unusual aspects became apparent.
+There were two pieces of luggage in the closet. One, an oversized
+suitcase, stood on end.
+
+And jammed neatly down behind it was the body of Les King. His throat
+had been cut.
+
+Brent Taber stared down into the closet for what seemed like an
+interminable time. His eyes were bleak and his mouth was grim and stiff
+as he passed a slow hand along his jaw.
+
+He took a long, backward step and closed his eyes for a moment as though
+hoping the whole improbable mess would go away. But it was still there
+when he opened them again.
+
+He turned, went downstairs, and took the receiver off the phone on the
+wall by the front door.
+
+The shapeless landlady came out again. She scowled at Taber. "What are
+you doing here?"
+
+He regarded her with a kind of affectionate weariness. "Have you got a
+dime, lady?"
+
+Gaping, she pawed into her apron pocket and handed him a coin.
+
+"Thanks much." He dialed. "Is Captain Abrams there?"
+
+There was a wait, during which Brent Taber asked the oddly bemused
+landlady: "Are you afraid of the dead?"
+
+But before she could decide whether she was or not, Taber turned to the
+phone. "Captain?.... That's right, Brent Taber ... No, right, here in
+Manhattan. There's been a little trouble. You'd better come over
+personally."
+
+He turned to the landlady. "What's the address here, sister?"
+
+And later, with the landlady back in her lair, Brent Taber sat down on
+the stairs to wait; sat there with surprise at the feeling of relief
+that filled his mind. He had no feeling of triumph about it; no sense of
+a job well done. But there was no great guilt at having failed, either.
+
+Mostly, he thought, it was the simplification that had come about. There
+had been so many confusing and bewildering complications in the affair;
+improbability piled on the impossible; the ridiculous coupled with the
+incredible.
+
+But now, with one stroke of a knife, it had been simplified and brought
+into terms everyone could understand; into terms Captain Abrams of the
+New York Police Department would grasp in an instant.
+
+A killer was on the loose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of Senator Crane's priceless gifts was a sense of timing. Much of
+his success had sprung from the instinctive knowledge of when to act. He
+had a sense of the dramatic which never deserted him. As a result, he
+had been known to turn in an instant from one subject to another--to
+dodge defeats and score triumphs with bewildering agility.
+
+His preoccupation on this particular day was with a home-state
+issue--the location of a government plant. After he obtained the floor,
+he counted the house and noted that only a bare quorum was present.
+Gradually, the members of the Senate of the United States would drift to
+their seats. So Crane began reading letters which tended to support his
+state's claim to the new plant and the benefits that would accrue
+therefrom.
+
+Crane droned on. The Vice-President of the United States looked down on
+the top of Senator Crane's massive head and became fruitfully
+preoccupied with thoughts of his own.
+
+Then, quite suddenly, the line of Crane's exposition changed. The
+Vice-President wasn't quite sure at what precise point this had come
+about. He wasn't aware of the change until some very strange words
+penetrated:
+
+" ... so, therefore, it has become starkly apparent that the American
+people have been denied the information which would have made them
+aware of their own deadly danger. Invasion from space is now imminent."
+
+The Vice-President tensed. Had the stupid idiot gone mad? Or had he, the
+Vice-President, been in a fog when vital, top-secret information had
+been made public?
+
+He banged the gavel down hard, for want of a better gesture, and was
+grateful when a tall, dignified man with a look of deepest concern on
+his face rose from behind his desk out on the floor.
+
+"Will the Senator yield to his distinguished colleague from
+Pennsylvania?"
+
+Crane turned, scowling. "I will yield to no man on matters of grave
+import." With that he turned and continued with his revelations. "The
+people of this nation have been deprived of the knowledge that the
+invasion from space has already begun. A vanguard of hideous, half-human
+creatures have even now achieved a beach-head on our planet. Even now,
+the evil hordes from beyond the stars ..."
+
+The Vice-President looked around in a daze. Had someone forgotten to
+brief him? Had that project come to a head overnight? The last he'd
+heard there had been much doubt as to--
+
+" ... The injustice perpetrated on the American people in this matter
+has been monstrous. And this is not because of any lack of knowledge on
+the part of the government. It has been because of the petty natures of
+the men to whom this secret has been entrusted. Jealousies have dictated
+policy where selfless public service was of the most vital importance
+..."
+
+The floor was filling up. The visitor's gallery was wrapped in hushed
+silence. Newsmen, informed of sensational developments, were rushing
+down corridors.
+
+And the Vice-President was wondering why he hadn't had the good sense to
+refuse the nomination.
+
+" ... These invaders from another planet are not strangers to the men in
+power. It is on record that they are inhuman monsters capable of killing
+without mercy--yet they are quite ordinary in appearance. They walk the
+streets, unsuspected, among us. It is on record right here in Washington
+that these creatures are not human but, rather, soulless androids,
+manufactured to destroy us, by a race so far ahead of us in scientific
+knowledge that we are like children by comparison ..."
+
+"Will the Senator yield to the Senator from Alabama?"
+
+"I will not. I refuse to be gagged in the process of acquainting the
+American people with facts upon which their very survival depends."
+
+The floor was crowded now. The press and the visitors' galleries were
+packed as Senator Crane's words continued to boom forth.
+
+And in the press gallery a reporter from the Sioux City _Clarion_ looked
+at a representative of the London _Times_, and said, "Good God! He's
+gone off his rocker!"
+
+The Englishman, aloof but definitely enthralled, touched his mustache
+delicately and answered, "Quite."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frank Corson rang the bell and waited at the door of Rhoda Kane's
+apartment. The door opened. She wore a pale blue brunch coat. Her hair
+glowed in the light of midmorning, but her face was pale and a little
+drawn.
+
+Her eyes were slightly red, as though she might have been crying.
+
+"Hello, Rhoda."
+
+"Hello, Frank."
+
+"I really didn't expect to find you. I was going to write a note and
+slip it under the door."
+
+"I didn't feel well today so I didn't go to work."
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Inside, a shadow of concern moved like a quick cloud across her
+beautiful face. "You don't look well, Frank."
+
+"I'm quite all right, really. Haven't been sleeping too well, but
+there's been a lot on my mind."
+
+"I've been hoping you'd phone."
+
+"I wanted to but there didn't seem to be anything to say. Nothing except
+that I'm sorry I let you down so miserably."
+
+"Frank! You didn't. You really didn't. It was just that--oh, it's not
+important any more."
+
+"No. It's not important now."
+
+"Would you like a drink?"
+
+"Thanks, no. I've come to say good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye?"
+
+"Yes. I'm leaving Park Hill--leaving New York. I'm going into a small
+Minnesota hospital to finish my internship. Then I'll probably practice
+out there somewhere."
+
+Behind the new glitter of her eyes there was stark misery.
+"Frank--Frank--what went wrong with us?"
+
+The appeal was a labored whisper.
+
+"I don't know, Rhoda. I should know but I don't. I should have known
+what was wrong so I could have done something about it. It just went
+sour, I guess."
+
+She turned and walked to the window. He wondered if there were tears in
+her eyes.
+
+"Good-bye, Rhoda."
+
+"Good-bye, Frank. I'm sorry."
+
+The door hadn't quite closed. Now, as Frank Corson turned, he found it
+open. A man stood there--a man in a blue suit with empty eyes.
+
+Frank stared at the man for long seconds. His eyes went toward the
+window. Rhoda had turned. She was watching the man in the doorway,
+looking past Frank at the creature from somewhere in space who was
+neither man nor machine. _But how--?_ Frank Corson asked himself the
+question. _Good God! How had this thing come about?_
+
+"Not--not _him_," he finally exploded.
+
+Rhoda was walking forward. The look of fevered excitement was in her
+eyes. "Please leave, Frank." She did not look at him as she spoke. She
+kept her eyes on the man in the blue suit.
+
+"Not him!"
+
+"Please leave, Frank."
+
+But it was too late. The door had closed. The man was looking at Frank.
+"Sit down," he said.
+
+Frank Corson sat down. He saw the man and he saw Rhoda, but they seemed
+unimportant. Something had happened to his mind and he was busy
+struggling with it. That was all that was important.
+
+The strange lethargy that came like a cloud over his mind was beyond
+understanding.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Captain Abrams looked into the closet and back at Brent Taber. His lips
+were back a little off his teeth. With Abrams, this indicated anger.
+
+"All right. What does Washington do about this one? Does Washington tell
+us to be good little boys and go hand out parking tickets?"
+
+"It wasn't like that," Taber said.
+
+"It doesn't much matter how it was. The thing is--how is it going to be
+now?"
+
+"You got a murder, friend. Plain and simple. What do the New York police
+do when they get a murder?"
+
+Abrams spoke bitterly. "Sometimes they let a panel truck drive in and
+haul the body away and that's that."
+
+"Let's save the sarcasm until later. I called you in. It's your case.
+What do you want me to do?"
+
+"Talk a little, maybe. The other one--now this one. The same killer?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"What does he look like?"
+
+"Medium height. One-eighty. Around forty. And dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous, he says," Abrams muttered. "Any idea where we might go to
+have a little talk with him?"
+
+"No, can't say that I have."
+
+"Try the streets of Manhattan--is that it?"
+
+"I guess that's about it." Taber paused. "Wait a minute. If he's looking
+for a spot to hide in he wouldn't come back here and he certainly
+wouldn't try King's room. There's just a wide-open chance he might have
+another location. Wait a minute while I look up an address."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour after he'd finished delivering his speech on the floor of the
+Senate, Crane held a press conference in one of Washington's most
+important hotels. The place was crowded. He stood on a platform, looked
+out over a sea of heads, and pointed at an upraised hand for the first
+question.
+
+"Senator, have you gotten any reaction from the people of your state on
+the revelations contained in your speech?"
+
+"There has been very little time, but telegrams have been pouring in."
+
+"What is the reaction?"
+
+"Frankly, I haven't had time to read them. However, I think there is
+little doubt as to the mood of my people. They will be indignant and
+angry at Washington bungling."
+
+He pointed to another hand.
+
+"Senator, granting the details you outlined are accurate, have you any
+knowledge as to--"
+
+"Young man. _Every_ detail I outlined was completely accurate." Senator
+Crane withered the reporter with a hostile look and pointed elsewhere.
+
+"Senator, did you consult with the people responsible for handling the
+situation before making your speech?"
+
+"I tried. I was willing to co-operate in every way, but my patience ran
+out. Also, I was alarmed at the bungling and inefficiency I saw. For
+that reason I went straight to the people with my story."
+
+"Senator, I have a wire from the governor of your state. It just arrived
+in response to my query as to his attitude on this affair. The governor
+says, quote, _No comment_, unquote. Would _you_ care to comment on his
+statement?"
+
+Senator Crane thought he heard a faint ripple of mirth drift across the
+room. But, of course, he had to be mistaken. "I think the governor
+replied wisely. I expect to return home and confer with him as soon as
+possible."
+
+"Senator, can you explain why, out of all the able, sincere officials in
+Washington, D.C., elected or otherwise, you were the only one with
+enough wisdom and courage to put this matter before the people?"
+
+"Young man, I am not going to pass judgment on anyone in Washington or
+elsewhere. Each of us, I'm sure, does his duty as he sees it."
+
+Again it seemed to Senator Crane that he heard a ripple of mirth--louder
+this time. It had to be something to do with the acoustics. Except that
+he was suddenly aware of smiles, too. The next question had to do with
+possible consultation with Russia on the matter of the coming space
+invasion.
+
+Senator Crane agreed that such consultation should be made and then
+retired hastily into seclusion. A touch of panic hit him. He felt like a
+man who was far out in the water without a boat, with the closest land a
+few hundred feet straight down. Good God! Had he miscalculated? Of
+course not. He had only to await the verdict of the nation's top
+newspapers before proceeding with the publicity program that might well
+make him presidential timber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John Dennis, for the first time since Rhoda had known him, seemed
+nervous. He kept licking his lips and shifting his eyes from Rhoda to
+Frank Corson.
+
+Frank Corson sat quietly, keeping his thoughts to himself. Rhoda crossed
+to the liquor cabinet and poured a double Scotch. She went to the sofa
+and sat down a little uncertainly.
+
+"I guess you two haven't met. John, this is Frank Corson."
+
+John Dennis paid no attention. He walked to the sofa, sat down, and took
+a sheaf of notes from his jacket pocket.
+
+"I've known Mr. Dennis for quite some time," Frank commented wryly.
+
+"Be quiet."
+
+John Dennis' tone was neither hostile nor friendly. They were the words
+of a person whose mind was on other things. They watched him as his eyes
+scanned the notes.
+
+He appeared to be memorizing them.
+
+The air became somewhat electric, the silence so deep it seemed to
+scream. Rhoda looked across at Frank Corson. Frank's expression was
+empty, as though he'd suffered some traumatic emotional blow and was
+struggling to recover.
+
+John Dennis stirred. He also appeared to be struggling. He turned his
+eyes on the drink Rhoda was holding. He took it out of her hand and
+downed it in a single gulp.
+
+They watched as he went back to work, leafing through the notes, one at
+a time. As he came close to the end, he lifted his head and shook it
+violently, as though from sudden pain. He scowled at the empty glass
+he'd handed back to Rhoda.
+
+"Do you want another?" she inquired.
+
+"Give me another."
+
+She poured a second Scotch and handed it to him. He drank it like so
+much water.
+
+The last sheet of notations was covered. Then John Dennis sat motionless
+for a minute, his frown and uncertainty returning. "It's hard to project
+the details," he said. "All this detail. Difficult."
+
+He dropped the last sheet and got up and poured himself another Scotch.
+"They will make an army now," he said. The Scotch went down smoothly. He
+went to the window and looked out. "This planet is different. The sun
+there is blue and the air is very thin. Their bodies are nothing, but
+their heads are very big. Now they will create an army and take this
+planet."
+
+Frank Corson was shaking his head slowly like a groggy fighter. Rhoda
+sat huddled on the sofa, her mind such a mixture of tumbling emotions
+that it seemed to be trying to tear itself out of her head. John Dennis
+came back and stood in the middle of the room. He swayed drunkenly. "So
+many things I don't understand. I see people I know--or I should know.
+I--" He turned his eyes--eyes no longer empty--on Rhoda.
+
+"I want to make love!"
+
+Frank Corson got up from his chair and hurled himself on Dennis.
+
+Rhoda screamed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Senator Crane sat at his desk. There were a pile of newspapers in front
+of him. The first one carried a front page story with the headline:
+
+  SENATOR CRANE WARNS OF SPACE INVASION
+
+  SHADES OF ORSON WELLS' MARTIAN
+  SCARE STALKS CAPITOL CORRIDORS.
+
+Crane tossed the paper aside listlessly and picked up the second one:
+
+  SENATORS VOICE CONCERN FOR SANITY
+  OF COLLEAGUE
+
+  CRANE IN STUNNING TIRADE
+  WARNS OF SCIENCE-FICTION
+  DISASTER.
+
+The third paper featured an internationally syndicated columnist, famous
+for his biting wit:
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Senator Crane today launched a one-man campaign to make America
+space-conscious. If there was any Madison Avenue thinking behind the
+launching it was certainly lower Madison Avenue.
+
+In order to make his point--exactly what this was confused a vast
+roomful of newspapermen--the Senator invented a race of creatures called
+androids. These androids, it seems, look exactly like Tom Smith down the
+block except that they'd just as soon cut your throat as not.
+
+We fear the Senator must have been watching the wrong television
+shows--knives yet, ugh!--possibly _Jim Bowie_, because there wasn't a
+ray gun nor a disintegrator in his whole bag of exhibits.
+
+All in all, it would appear that the project was pointed toward making
+the people Senator Crane-conscious rather than aiming their attention at
+the deadly heavens.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Senator Crane put that paper aside and looked at the next. This one,
+more so than all the rest, was completely factual:
+
+  SENATOR CRANE DELUGED WITH WIRES
+  FROM HOME
+
+  CONSTITUENTS CLAIM WASHINGTON RIDICULE
+  HEAPED ON SENATOR REFLECTS AGAINST STATE.
+
+  Crane dropped the paper and got up from the desk.
+  That son-of-a-bitch Taber was to blame for this. Shaping
+  up a goddamn hoax and feeding it out piecemeal. By
+  God--!
+
+He went to the desk and dialed, and when the answer came he said,
+"Halliday? Senator Crane here. I want to have a little talk with you
+about that damned tape. It's pretty obvious now that Taber planted it in
+a deliberate attempt to ... What's that? An appointment! Why, goddamn
+it, who the hell do you think you are?.... Fifteen minutes next
+Wednesday? You're talking to a United States Senator--"
+
+But Crane was no longer talking to Halliday. He had hung up.
+
+Crane dialed another number. A pleasant female voice said, "Matthew
+Porter's office."
+
+"This is Senator Crane. Put Porter on."
+
+"Just a moment."
+
+Crane waited. He waited for what seemed like ages, but a glance at his
+watch told him it had been less than five minutes. He disconnected and
+dialed again.
+
+"This is Crane. We got cut off. I want to talk to Porter."
+
+"I'm sorry but Mr. Porter has gone for the day."
+
+"Well, where can I reach him? It's important."
+
+"I'm sorry. Mr. Porter left no number."
+
+"When will he be back?"
+
+"He didn't say."
+
+Crane slammed the phone down. "The bastards!" he snarled. "The lousy,
+crummy bastards. Running like a pack of scared rats. Bureaucrats!
+Damned, cowardly, self-appointed opportunists!"
+
+He stopped cursing and sat for a while.
+
+When he got up and left the office he looked and felt old but he had
+faced a truth. It would not be necessary to campaign next year.
+
+It wouldn't be of any use.
+
+
+
+
+13
+
+
+John Dennis showed human surprise as Frank Corson lunged at him. He had
+either been lax in using the controlling power he'd been given, or else
+Frank Corson had an exceptional resistance.
+
+Dennis released Rhoda, swayed drunkenly under Frank Corson's clumsy
+football-type tackle, and swung his arm like a pivoting beam. The blow
+was a lucky one. His fist smashed low on Corson's jaw, numbing the
+nerves of his neck on the left side.
+
+Corson went down and, as he lay helpless, Dennis kicked him twice--once
+in the side and once, viciously effectively, in the head. Corson rolled
+over and lay still.
+
+Dennis looked down at him in a drunken daze. "They will make an army and
+bring it here."
+
+Rhoda, standing in the center of an emotional maelstrom, watched the
+struggle from the prison of her own horror. At that moment she was
+physically, mentally and spiritually ill; a human being caught in the
+midst of forces beyond her knowledge and control.
+
+Dennis laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "I want to make love."
+
+"No--no. Please--"
+
+The drunkenness ebbed slightly and his eyes emptied. They looked into
+Rhoda's. She shivered. He took the neck of her brunch coat in his fist
+and jerked downward. She had just come from the shower when she'd first
+opened the door for Frank Corson, and the vicious denuding gesture left
+her completely naked.
+
+Dennis went clumsily to his knees, his arms around her, and he pulled
+her to the floor. She sobbed, but the tears were gone now and they were
+dry, wracking sobs.
+
+"Undress me."
+
+She fumbled with his jacket and pulled it off while he knelt there in
+anticipation of he knew not what; wondering, wanting, knowing only an
+urge he could not understand but which had become a compulsion.
+
+She took off his necktie and unbuttoned his shirt. Frank Corson stirred
+but did not regain consciousness. "Please," Rhoda said, "let me help
+him."
+
+In answer, Dennis put his arms around her and drew her to him. "We will
+make love."
+
+"Yes--yes, we will make love--"
+
+The ring of the doorbell was like thunder in the room. Dennis tensed,
+his eyes widened, and he got to his feet and stood swaying. Looking up
+at him, Rhoda saw a trapped animal, but the excitement was still there
+and she wanted to take him in her arms and hold him and protect him from
+the world.
+
+But he had forgotten her. A cunning sneer took the place of the
+slavering animal look and he ran to the kitchen to reappear moments
+later with a butcher knife in his hand.
+
+The bell rang again. Dennis snarled at the door and, in some kind of
+sheer ecstatic bravado, emitted a Tarzan roar.
+
+Instantly a weight hit the door from the outside. It shuddered but did
+not give. Dennis crouched, gripping his knife. Frank Corson staggered to
+his feet and hurled himself groggily at the android. Dennis roared
+again, pushed away and arced the knife at his throat.
+
+Rhoda screamed and lunged at Dennis' legs. "No! No! Stop it! Please!"
+
+Dennis teetered under her weight and the knife slanted downward across
+Frank's chest. It ripped a red gash as the door shuddered a third time.
+
+Dennis turned in that direction and crouched. The door splintered and
+flew open. Dennis lunged, like a line-bucking football player. He hit
+both Brent Taber and Captain Abrams simultaneously, sprawling them both
+and sending Abrams' gun spinning out of his hand.
+
+He leaped over them and dashed down the hall where the elevator man
+waited uncertainly, not sure whether to dispute the right of way or not.
+His indecision was fatal. Dennis wrapped an arm around his neck, pulled
+his head back and cut his throat with one slash of the knife.
+
+Captain Abrams' head had hit a doorjamb opposite the entrance to Rhoda's
+apartment. He stirred and tried to come erect but he was unable to make
+it.
+
+Brent Taber clawed the gun off the floor and came to one knee. He got
+off one shot as the elevator door was closing and saw the android spin
+away from the controls as the impact of the slug smashed the bone of his
+shoulder.
+
+Taber lunged to his feet and went for the stairs.
+
+There was no one in the lobby when he arrived there--no dead bodies,
+either. But on the sidewalk, in front of the building, a woman lay dead
+in a pool of blood.
+
+In a sick rage, Taber looked in both directions and saw the android dive
+through a group of people half a block away. He tipped them over like
+tenpins and ran on. Taber gripped the gun tight and started in pursuit.
+
+He could not fire because there was enough sidewalk traffic to make it
+dangerous. On ahead, the android's path was blocked by a man. He sought
+to get clear but the android passed him close enough to jam the knife
+into his neck and send him screaming to the sidewalk.
+
+A uniformed patrolman appeared on the other side of the street, further
+down. He took the situation in and understood Taber's frantic gesture. A
+car screamed to a halt as the patrolman raced across the street, drawing
+his gun.
+
+The android, seeing his escape cut off, veered into an areaway. The
+patrolman got there first and plunged in after him.
+
+Taber, gasps tearing at his lungs, arrived thirty seconds later. During
+that time, he'd expected the sound of shots from the patrolman's gun.
+But there was silence.
+
+He braked on his heels, skidded into the areaway, and saw the android
+advancing on the patrolman. The latter stood motionless, the gun hanging
+useless at his side.
+
+"Drop! Drop!" Taber yelled. He cursed as he tried to angle in the narrow
+areaway in order to get a clear shot.
+
+The android advanced with his knife raised. In desperation, Taber fired
+at the lethal fist that held the weapon. And he was lucky. The hand
+snapped open under the ripping impact of the bullet and the knife rang
+sharply against the wall as it ricocheted to the ground.
+
+Only then, did the patrolman obey the order to drop. He went to one knee
+and Brent Taber fired three shots into the chest of the android.
+
+He hesitated. There was only one slug left in the revolver. If the three
+didn't spot the android, he planned to wait for closer contact and put
+the sixth slug into the forehead.
+
+The android shuddered. The fire and frenzy went out of him. He tried to
+lift a leg and was surprised when it didn't move. He looked down at it.
+Completely bemused, he peered down at his crimson chest. He looked up at
+Taber without anger, only with surprise. A distinct expression of
+wistful regret crossed his face as he sank to the ground.
+
+The tenth android was dead.
+
+The patrolman came shakily to his feet. His face was as pale as death.
+"I--I don't know what happened. Buck fever. Pure buck fever, and I've
+been on the force for ten years."
+
+"Don't worry about it," Taber said.
+
+"Don't _worry_. All of a sudden I freeze under pressure and he says,
+'Don't worry.'"
+
+"I meant it. This is no ordinary man. It wasn't buck fever at all. I
+couldn't have faced him myself if I hadn't rattled him with that lucky
+shot."
+
+The patrolman wanted to believe. He most pathetically wanted to believe.
+"Honest?"
+
+"It's the God's honest truth. No man could have stood in front of that
+killer and pulled a trigger. He's a master hypnotist. You're all right.
+We won't say a word about what happened in here. And you'll have no
+trouble in the future."
+
+The patrolman shook his head. "Still, I gotta do something about it."
+
+"Talk to your psychiatrist," Taber said. "In the meantime, keep that
+crowd out there from spilling in here."
+
+Taber pushed out through the choked entrance to the areaway and went
+back up the street. It was alive with activity now and he passed
+unnoticed. No one recognized him as the man who had given chase in the
+bloody business that would make headlines that evening in every New York
+newspaper.
+
+And yet the radio and TV news commentators gave it no special attention.
+It went in along with other items of the day's news as a more or less
+routine big-city happening.
+
+One national-hookup headliner stated: "In New York City today, a man
+identified as John Dennis, address unknown, went berserk in a
+fashionable Upper East Side apartment. Dennis, wielding a knife, killed
+a man and a woman, and seriously wounded another man before he was cut
+down by police bullets.
+
+"A jet airliner, down in the North Atlantic today, imperiled the lives
+of seventy-six ..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frank Corson lay propped on two pillows in a private room of the Park
+Hill Hospital. Rhoda Kane sat in a chair beside the bed. She was pale
+and very beautiful. The fire was now gone from her body and the fever
+from her eyes.
+
+"They say he wasn't human. They say he was an android." She shuddered,
+looked down quickly, then slowly raised her head.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I'll--I'll never understand. I get sick thinking about it. I'll just
+never understand."
+
+"He was human and yet not human. He had extraordinary powers that we
+don't begin to understand, so that what happened to you is no disgrace."
+
+"It's a terrible disgrace."
+
+"It happened to me, too. When he told me to sit down I had to do it. I
+was helpless."
+
+"But you fought! You overcame it."
+
+Frank Corson smiled wryly. "No, I didn't. It was just that he'd had
+little time to work on me. It was a single mental blow, so to speak,
+that laid me out. Like one punch in the ring. Gradually, I came out of
+it."
+
+"I think I _tried_ to fight."
+
+"Of course, you did. The disgrace was mine. I acted like a child. I
+should have realized that something extraordinary had happened. But I
+nursed my miserable little ego like a three-year-old."
+
+"How could you know? My cruelty to you--"
+
+"Don't talk like that! I knew about the ninth android, and I met the
+tenth one in front of your apartment that second morning. I should have
+associated. Brent Taber did, otherwise we might both be dead."
+
+"It's all over now. It doesn't make any difference."
+
+"No, it doesn't make any difference."
+
+She looked at him in silence for several moments. "You've changed,
+Frank."
+
+"Yes, I guess I have. I guess we all grow up eventually. We all face
+reality and live with it."
+
+"Frank--I think I'm going to cry."
+
+He could not turn his eyes in her direction. He looked straight ahead
+but his voice was soft. "Go ahead, Rhoda. I understand."
+
+They were silent for a time, then Rhoda began to cry quietly into her
+handkerchief. After a while even that sound was stilled.
+
+He turned to look at her. She was standing beside the bed. He almost
+reached out and took her hand, but drew his own back at the last minute.
+
+"How soon will you be leaving?" she asked.
+
+"The wound was superficial. I really didn't need to be hospitalized. I'm
+being released tomorrow morning. I'll probably leave immediately."
+
+"You'll make a fine doctor, Frank."
+
+"Thank you, I'll try."
+
+"Good-bye, Frank."
+
+"Good-bye--darling."
+
+She turned and fled.
+
+And judging by the deep sadness in his soul, he knew he had hit bottom.
+
+There was no place to go but up.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brent Taber's phone rang.
+
+"Hello, Taber. Halliday here."
+
+"How are you, Halliday."
+
+"Tops, old man. Ragged by the stress of it all, of course, but tops."
+
+Taber waited. Halliday waited. Seeing that he would get no help, he
+said, "By the way, that little ... misunderstanding we had, the Senator
+Crane thing, I'm sure you realized that our talk was ... well, the words
+were put into my mouth. I felt the same way about the oaf as you did.
+But sometimes, in the line of duty, old man ... well, I know you were
+reading between my lines all the time."
+
+"I'm pretty good at that."
+
+"I knew we understood each other."
+
+"Is that what you called about?"
+
+"Yes, but I've got a little tip for you. They want to see you upstairs.
+I happen to know they liked the way things turned out. Just between you
+and me, the humiliation of Crane made certain high officials pretty
+happy. I was queried and I gave you all the credit."
+
+"Before or after the good Senator fell on his face?"
+
+Halliday laughed. "Okay, pal. You're entitled to your little dig. But
+you know this--I'm with you and I always will be."
+
+"And I'm with you, too, pal," Brent said wearily and hung up.
+
+The phone rang again. Automatically, Brent picked up the receiver.
+
+"Brent? Porter on this end. How is it with you, old man?"
+
+"Ducky. Just ducky."
+
+Porter laughed. "Just called to say, 'Good job well done.'"
+
+"Thanks."
+
+"Want to give you a little tip, too. They want you upstairs. A
+commendation. Not generally known, though. And you deserve it. You'll be
+called up tomorrow."
+
+"You never know the day or the hour."
+
+The laugh came again. "You're humor is priceless, old man."
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+"Another thing--I got pretty hot when I got wind of how the ground was
+being cut out from under you. I made it my business to do something
+about it. I hate to see a good man pushed around. Of course I okayed the
+orders cutting you down--a matter of routine--I had to follow through.
+But then I got busy. A thing like that won't happen again."
+
+"Thanks, Porter. It warms a man to know he's got a friend--a friend like
+you."
+
+"Just between us, old man, I'm one of your admirers." Porter laughed and
+sprayed charm through the phone like perfume from an atomizer. "But if
+you quote me, I'll deny it."
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't think of quoting you, old man," Taber replied in a
+kindly voice and put down the phone.
+
+He sat back and closed his eyes. Three people dead. One person maimed.
+Blood in the streets.
+
+Good job well done.
+
+He opened a drawer of his desk and reached for the Scotch bottle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the Newark Airport he would not trust his suitcase to a porter
+because the leather loop holding one side of the handle was very thin
+and he was afraid it would break.
+
+Once he had been ashamed of the shabbiness of the bag and had planned to
+buy a new one, but now there was an affinity between them, a kind of
+warmth.
+
+Were they companions in misery?
+
+He asked the question with a quick smile and then realized he was not
+miserable. A little bleak of mind, perhaps, with Minnesota and what lay
+ahead affording no glow of anticipation in his mind. But that would
+pass. No, he had relegated the hurt to a mental pigeonhole; maybe he
+would bring it out and look at it once in a while, after enough time had
+passed.
+
+But he was not miserable.
+
+He went to the counter, checked in, and they told him his plane would
+take off on time. He glanced at his watch. Thirty-two minutes.
+
+He went back to the bench and found Rhoda Kane sitting beside his
+suitcase.
+
+She wore a plain, black suit with a ridiculous little black hat and she
+was so beautiful he was angry with her. He hated her. This good-bye
+wasn't necessary. Why had she come?
+
+Her face was pale and drawn; her smile was as abstract as the mystery on
+the lips of the Mona Lisa. She laid a hand on the suitcase.
+
+"We had our first quarrel over it, remember? We went to Puerto Rico for
+that week and I wanted to use mine but you said, 'Goddamn it, if you're
+ashamed of my suitcase you're ashamed of me, so the hell with it.'"
+
+"I remember."
+
+He sat down beside her, lit a cigarette, and then dropped it on the
+floor and stepped on it. They both looked straight ahead.
+
+"Take me with you, Frank."
+
+"That's impossible."
+
+"I know, but take me with you."
+
+"There will be no money. I'll live in a stuffy room somewhere."
+
+"What difference does that make? Take me."
+
+"You have your job. You're on the way up. It would be unthinkable."
+
+"I don't have any job. I quit. I was halfway through a piece of
+copy--very important copy--and I got up and walked into Mr. Frankel's
+office. I said, 'Mr. Frankel, it's been very nice working for you. I
+appreciate all you've done but I'm leaving now. The pencils are all
+sharpened on my desk and the next girl can have the new leather-bound
+address book in the lower right hand drawer that I bought but never
+used! That was a silly thing to say, wasn't it?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"And the way I phrased it. I actually said I'd bought the lower right
+hand drawer and hadn't used it--take me with you, Frank."
+
+"Rhoda, I was so wrong in--"
+
+"_I_ was wrong, Frank. I was trying to mold you into my way of life. I
+wanted you, but only as a part of my own eager little world. I had money
+so I furnished my apartment. I put this here and that there, and hung a
+toothbrush over the sink as necessarily functional, and then I decided I
+needed a man in the same way and so I picked you.
+
+"But I found out that the man in the bed was the most important part of
+it and without him there wasn't anything. Without him I didn't want any
+of the other. Now ... I want to be a wife. A wife is a person who goes
+where her husband goes and lives where he lives and shares what he has.
+You don't barter and trade--this for that--give up this part to get
+that. You give up everything and yet it isn't like that at all because
+you're really getting everything."
+
+He took out another cigarette.
+
+"Oh, Frank, it's all mixed up and I'm going to cry, I think."
+
+"It's not mixed up at all," he said quietly. He turned to look at her,
+half frowning, half smiling. "Now why in the hell couldn't you have
+given me a little notice? Twenty minutes to plane time and I've got to
+get another reservation."
+
+"I'm sorry, Frank."
+
+"Maybe there isn't a seat."
+
+"Wouldn't that be terrible?"
+
+"Then we'll have to wait over."
+
+"Why don't you go and see?"
+
+Five minutes later they were walking down the west tunnel to gate
+twenty-six.
+
+Frank Corson grinned. "Come on, woman, I'm going to take you across
+state lines for immoral purposes."
+
+"How wonderful," she breathed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brent Taber was human and his triumph had been a thing of satisfaction
+to him--but only momentarily. Now it had a slightly sour taste.
+
+Not that he was unhappy. He was content and almost relaxed as he sat in
+Doctor Entman's patio and worked on a Scotch and soda.
+
+"A nice night," Entman said.
+
+"Beautiful. Those stars are about ready to fall into our laps."
+
+"Menace out there? It seems unthinkable."
+
+"Doesn't it?"
+
+"The human animal is a strange creature. He's so capable of refusing to
+believe what he doesn't want to believe."
+
+"Maybe he's smarter than we think. Maybe there's no point in looking at
+a pending disaster from every angle. The what-will-be-will-be attitude
+isn't necessarily like that of the ostrich which sticks its head in the
+sand."
+
+"Do the people inside really believe?" Entman asked.
+
+"It's pretty difficult to tell. Sometimes I wonder what my own real
+feelings are."
+
+"I wasn't completely briefed on how it ended," Entman said delicately.
+
+"I think the phony specifications got through."
+
+"If they did--if things are really as they appear--"
+
+Taber smiled in the darkness. "Are _you_ beginning to doubt, Doctor?"
+
+"Oh, be quiet," Entman said with friendly petulance. "I was going to say
+that I was rather proud of those details. If our hostiles out there
+follow my specifications, they'll create androids with much smaller
+lungs and non-porous skin that will give them no end of trouble when
+they start chasing frightened householders down the streets of the
+world."
+
+Taber chuckled. "I remember a story about the Japanese Navy. They were
+supposed to have built some ships to specifications stolen in England.
+When launched, they slid out into the bay and tipped over."
+
+Entman sighed. "I wish I could get some of the data those creatures
+used in the construction of the androids."
+
+"You'd like to make one of your own?"
+
+"It would solve the servant problem. Terrible here in Washington."
+
+"Labor unions would holler bloody murder."
+
+"You can't stop progress."
+
+Suddenly Entman got to his feet. He walked to the edge of the patio and
+looked upward. Taber saw his face in the light streaming from the living
+room--he seemed frightened.
+
+"Brent! It's such a helpless feeling. What do we do?"
+
+Brent Taber got up and went over and stood beside Entman. He, too,
+looked up into the velvet night; the beautiful, quiet, impersonal night.
+
+The sinister night.
+
+"We watch the stars," Brent said. "And we wait."
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+  MS2 THE BERLIN CRISIS by Deane and David Heller 50¢
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+  K54 JACQUELINE KENNEDY by Deane and David Heller 35¢
+      The fascinating story of America's glamorous First Lady.
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+  MB528 MEDICAL PROBLEMS OF WOMEN by Martin James, M.D.
+                          (A Monarch Select Book) 50¢
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+_A Terrifying Tale Of Horror In The Skies_
+
+THE FLYING EYES
+
+By J. Hunter Holly
+
+Author of ENCOUNTER and THE GREEN PLANET
+
+Linc Hosler was sitting in a packed football stadium when the Flying
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+
+Linc used every resource of the Space Research Lab and the National
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+
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+
+If you are unable to secure this book at your local dealer, you may
+obtain a copy by sending 35¢ plus 5¢ for handling to Monarch Books,
+Inc., Mail Order Department, Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut.
+
+_A Destroyer From Another Planet--Bent On Mastery Of The World_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ENCOUNTER
+
+By J. Hunter Holly Author of THE GREEN PLANET
+
+It came plummeting out of the sky--a soundless, streaking, purple glow,
+moving faster and faster until it ripped at the trees, crashed through
+them and struck sickeningly against a hill. Momentarily it flared
+brightly, then went out.
+
+It was not long after that the murders began--strange, inexplicable
+deaths, all the victims found with their heads crushed as if their
+skulls had exploded outward.
+
+The trail of victims lead from Arkansas to Tennessee, to Kentucky,
+Illinois and Michigan--sixteen unrelated people who had only one thing
+in common: All of their brains were withered, as if sucked dry of their
+contents ...
+
+And somewhere wandered an evil stranger from another planet, his
+personality expanding, his brain power increasing, preparing for the
+inevitable encounter that could make him master of the world!
+
+A Science Fiction Thriller From
+
+MONARCH BOOKS, INC.
+
+Available at all newsstands and bookstores 35¢
+
+If you are unable to secure this book at your local dealer, you may
+obtain a copy by sending 35¢ plus 5¢ for handling to Monarch Books,
+Inc., Mail Order Division, Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE POWER OF EVIL
+
+"You might call it a fight," Elizabeth said, "but they never actually
+laid a hand on each other."
+
+Dr. Carew stared at her in puzzlement as she went on. "They threw every
+hard thing in the room at each other, without ever touching anything. It
+was like some ghastly, murderous game. A clock flew through the air like
+a cannonball, straight at Joseph's head, and some unseen force seemed to
+stop it. For a second it hung there and trembled in the air--_with
+nothing under it_; then it turned and flew like lightning at Quincy; he
+barely dodged it.
+
+"Finally a vase did find its mark and Quincy fell to the floor. Joseph
+stepped over him and came toward me. I ran, slamming the door in his
+face, locking him in. He laughed evilly and called after me, 'Why waste
+time running away, Elizabeth? I'll come to get you, and you won't be
+able to resist me now!'"
+
+This is one of the unforgettable scenes from MONARCH BOOKS' new fiction
+thriller--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WITCH HOUSE
+
+By Evangeline Walton
+
+A spine-tingling tale of a group of tormented men and women forced to
+live in a house saturated with evil.
+
+On sale at all newsstands and bookstores 35¢
+
+If you are unable to secure this book at your local dealer, you may
+obtain a copy by sending 35¢ plus 5¢ for handling to Monarch Books,
+Inc., Mail Order Department, Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+REVENGE IN AN ALIEN WORLD
+
+When Gail Loring chose Bill Drake to be her husband--in name only--for
+the duration of the flight to Mars, she didn't know that she had just
+signed his death warrant.
+
+Jealous Dr. Spartan, leader of the expedition, swore to get revenge and
+force Gail to share his maniacal plan for power.
+
+Bound together in space, five men and a woman strained against the
+powerful tug of twisted emotions and secret ambitions.
+
+But all plans were forgotten when they landed on the Red Planet and
+encountered the Martians--half animal, half vegetable, with acid for
+blood and radar for sight.
+
+When the Martians launched an assault against the space ship, linking
+their electrical energy in an awesome display of power, Spartan realized
+that this was the perfect moment for personal revenge--and touched off
+his own diabolical plan of destruction against his fellow crewmen ...
+
+This is the exciting plot of the new MONARCH BOOKS science-fiction
+thriller--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE RED PLANET
+
+By Russ Winterbotham
+
+A tense novel of violence and intrigue--a million miles in space.
+
+On sale at all newsstands and bookstores 35¢
+
+If you are unable to secure this book at your local dealer, you may
+obtain a copy by sending 35¢ plus 5¢ for handling to Monarch Books,
+Inc., Mail Order Department, Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut.
+
+_It Spread A New Electrical Virus That Turned Men Into Ruthless
+Monsters_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SPACE EGG
+
+By Russ Winterbotham
+
+Flying forty-two miles above Kansas, something phenomenal had happened
+to Test Pilot Fayburn. A space egg had smashed through the cockpit
+Plexi-glass and then pierced his pressurized suit.
+
+Blood on the pilot's seat indicated that he had been injured, but there
+was no wound. The loss of pressure in the cockpit and in his suit should
+have killed him instantly--yet here he was, alive and unharmed, but
+definitely a changed man.
+
+Always a mild, considerate person he had, in a matter of minutes, become
+a madman. What had brought about the change? Was he still human or was
+he now OUT OF THIS WORLD?
+
+Only time would tell as he daringly laid siege to an important air base
+and began using his frightening power to force men and women to serve
+his evil purpose.
+
+A MONARCH SCIENCE-FICTION CLASSIC
+
+Available at all newsstands and bookstores 35¢
+
+If you are unable to secure this book at your local dealer, you may
+obtain a copy by sending 35¢ plus 5¢ for handling to Monarch Books,
+Inc., Mail Order Department, Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TEN FROM INFINITY
+
+Ten men walked Earth--ten men in different cities in the United States.
+Each one was the exact replica of the other--from the tips of his
+fingers down to the beating of his twin hearts.
+
+Where they came from, they were called androids--synthetic men,
+conditioned by their masters to complete their deadly purpose on Earth
+as advance agents for an invasion from space.
+
+The only man who knew of their existence was Brent Taber, secret agent,
+specially commissioned to find out their plans and avert the world's
+destruction.
+
+The big problem was to figure out a way to appeal to the mindless,
+soulless creatures who knew no emotion--pleasure or pain. But every move
+he had made so far had ended in failure and time was running out--for
+him and everyone on the face of the Earth ...
+
+Published By MONARCH BOOKS, INC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+_Beginning a thrilling New Serial of Interplanetary Life and Travel by
+Edward E. Smith, Ph.D._
+
+_Author of "Skylark of Space" and "Skylark Three"_
+
+
+
+
+Spacehounds of IPC
+
+
+    _A good many of us, who are now certain beyond a doubt that space
+    travel will forever remain in the realm of the impossible, probably
+    would, if a rocket that were shot to the moon, for instance, did
+    arrive, and perhaps return to give proof of its safe arrival on our
+    satellite, accept the phenomenon in a perfectly blasé, twentieth
+    century manner. Dr. Smith, that phenomenal writer of classic
+    scientific fiction, seems to have become so thoroughly convinced of
+    the advent of interplanetary travel that it is difficult for the
+    reader to feel, after finishing "Spacehounds of IPC," that travel
+    in the great spaces is not already an established fact. Dr. Smith,
+    as a professional chemist, is kept fairly busy. As a writer, he is
+    satisfied with nothing less than perfection. For that reason, a
+    masterpiece from his pen has become almost an annual event. We know
+    you will like "Spacehounds" even better than the "Skylark" series._
+
+
+Illustrated by WESSO
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The IPV _Arcturus_ Sets Out for Mars
+
+
+A narrow football of steel, the Interplanetary Vessel _Arcturus_ stood
+upright in her berth in the dock like an egg in its cup. A hundred feet
+across and a hundred and seventy feet deep was that gigantic bowl, its
+walls supported by the structural steel and concrete of the dock and
+lined with hard-packed bumper-layers of hemp and fibre. High into the
+air extended the upper half of the ship of space--a sullen gray expanse
+of fifty-inch hardened steel armor, curving smoothly upward to a needle
+prow. Countless hundred of fine vertical scratches marred every inch
+of her surface, and here and there the stubborn metal was grooved and
+scored to a depth of inches--each scratch and score the record of an
+attempt of some wandering cosmic body to argue the right-of-way with
+the stupendous mass of that man-made cruiser of the void.
+
+A burly young man made his way through the throng about the entrance,
+nodded unconcernedly to the gatekeeper, and joined the stream of
+passengers flowing through the triple doors of the double air-lock
+and down a corridor to the center of the vessel. However, instead of
+entering one of the elevators which were whisking the passengers up to
+their staterooms in the upper half of the enormous football, he in some
+way caused an opening to appear in an apparently blank steel wall and
+stepped through it into the control room.
+
+"Hi, Breck!" the burly one called, as he strode up to the instrument-desk
+of the chief pilot and tossed his bag carelessly into a corner. "Behold
+your computer in the flesh! What's all this howl and fuss about poor
+computation?"
+
+"Hello, Steve!" The chief pilot smiled as he shook hands cordially.
+"Glad to see you again--but don't try to kid the old man. I'm simple
+enough to believe almost anything, but some things just aren't being
+done. We have been yelling, and yelling hard, for trained computers
+ever since they started riding us about every one centimeter change in
+acceleration, but I know that you're no more an I-P computer than I am
+a Digger Indian. They don't shoot sparrows with coast-defense guns!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Thanks for the compliment, Breck, but I'm your computer for this trip,
+anyway. Newton, the good old egg, knows what you fellows are up against
+and is going to do something about it, if he has to lick all the rest of
+the directors to do it. He knew that I was loose for a couple of weeks
+and asked me to come along this trip to see what I could see. I'm to
+check the observatory data--they don't know I'm aboard--take the peaks
+and valleys off your acceleration curve, if possible, and report to
+Newton just what I find out and what I think should be done about it.
+How early am I?" While the newcomer was talking, he had stripped the
+covers from a precise scale model of the solar system and from a large
+and complicated calculating machine and had set to work without a wasted
+motion or instant--scaling off upon the model the positions of the
+various check-stations and setting up long and involved integrals and
+equations upon the calculator.
+
+The older man studied the broad back of the younger, bent over his
+computations, and a tender, almost fatherly smile came over his careworn
+face as he replied:
+
+"Early? You? Just like you always were--plus fifteen seconds on the
+deadline. The final dope is due right now." He plugged the automatic
+recorder and speaker into a circuit marked "Observatory," waited until
+a tiny light above the plug flashed green, and spoke.
+
+"IPV _Arcturus_; Breckenridge, Chief Pilot; trip number forty-three
+twenty-nine. Ready for final supplementary route and flight data, Tellus
+to Mars."
+
+"Meteoric swarms still too numerous for safe travel along the scheduled
+route," came promptly from the speaker. "You must stay further away from
+the plane of the ecliptic. The ether will be clear for you along route
+E2-P6-W41-K3-R19-S7-M14. You will hold a constant acceleration of 981.27
+centimeters between initial and final check stations. Your take-off
+will be practically unobstructed, but you will have to use the utmost
+caution in landing upon Mars, because in order to avoid a weightless
+detour and a loss of thirty-one minutes, you must pass very close
+to both the Martian satellites. To do so safely you must pass the
+last meteorological station, M14, on schedule time plus or minus five
+seconds, at scheduled velocity plus or minus ten meters, with exactly
+the given negative acceleration of 981.27 centimeters, and exactly upon
+the pilot ray M14 will have set for you."
+
+"All x." Breckenridge studied his triplex chronometer intently, then
+unplugged and glanced around the control room, in various parts of which
+half a dozen assistants were loafing at their stations.
+
+"Control and power check-out--Hipe!" he barked. "Driving converters and
+projectors!"
+
+The first assistant scanned his meters narrowly as he swung a
+multi-point switch in a flashing arc. "Converter efficiency 100,
+projector reactivity 100; on each of numbers one to forty-five
+inclusive. All x."
+
+"Dirigible projectors!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two more gleaming switches leaped from point to point. "Converter
+efficiency 100, projector reactivity 100, dirigibility 100, on each of
+numbers one to thirty-two, inclusive, of upper band; and numbers one to
+thirty-two, inclusive, of lower band. All x."
+
+"Gyroscopes!"
+
+"35,000. Drivers in equilibrium at ten degrees plus. All x."
+
+"Upper lights and lookout plates!"
+
+The second assistant was galvanized into activity, and upon a screen
+before him there appeared a view as though he were looking directly
+upward from the prow of the great vessel. The air above them was full of
+aircraft of all shapes and sizes, and occasionally the image of one of
+that flying horde flared into violet splendor upon the screen as it was
+caught in the mighty, roving beam of one of the twelve ultra-light
+projectors under test.
+
+"Upper lights and lookout plates--all x," the second assistant reported,
+and other assistants came to attention as the check-out went on.
+
+"Lower lights and lookout plates!"
+
+"All x," was the report, after each of the twelve ultra-lights of the
+stern had swung around in its supporting brackets, illuminating every
+recess of the dark depths of the bottom well of the berth and throwing
+the picture upon another screen in lurid violet relief.
+
+"Lateral and vertical detectors!"
+
+"Laterals XP2710--all x. Verticals AJ4290--all x."
+
+"Receptors!"
+
+"15,270 kilofranks--all x."
+
+"Accumulators!"
+
+"700,000 kilofrank-hours--all x."
+
+Having thus checked and tested every function of his department,
+Breckenridge plugged into "Captain," and when the green light went on:
+
+"Chief pilot check-out--all x," he reported briefly.
+
+"All x," acknowledged the speaker, and the chief pilot unplugged.
+Fifteen minutes remained, during which time one department head after
+another would report to the captain of the liner that everything in his
+charge was ready for the stupendous flight.
+
+"All x, Steve?" Breckenridge turned to the computer. "How do you check
+acceleration and power with the observatory?"
+
+"Not so good, old bean," the younger man frowned in thought. "They
+figure like astronomers, not navigators. They've made no allowances for
+anything, not even the reversal--and I figure four thousands for that
+and for minor detours. Then there's check station errors...."
+
+"Check-station errors! Why, they're always right--that's what they're
+for!"
+
+"Don't fool yourself--they've got troubles of their own, the same as
+anybody else. In fact, from a study of the charts of the last few weeks,
+I'm pretty sure that E2 is at least four thousand kilometers this side
+of where he thinks he is, that W41 is ten or twelve thousand beyond his
+station, and that they've both got a lateral displacement that's simply
+fierce. I'm going to check up, and argue with them about it as we pass.
+Then there's another thing--they figure to only two places, and we've
+got to have the third place almost solid if we expect to get a smooth
+curve. A hundredth of a centimeter of acceleration means a lot on a long
+trip when they're holding us as close as they are doing now. We'll ride
+this trip on 981.286 centimeters--with our scheduled mass, that means
+thirty six points of four seven kilofranks _plus_ equilibrium power. All
+set to go," the computer stated, as he changed, by fractions of arc, the
+course-plotters of the automatic integrating goniometer.
+
+"You're the doctor--but I'm glad it's you that'll have to explain to the
+observatory," and Breckenridge set his exceedingly delicate excess power
+potentiometer exactly upon the indicated figure. "Well, we've got a few
+minutes left for a chin-chin before we lift her off."
+
+"What's all this commotion about? Dish out the low-down."
+
+"Well, it's like this, Steve. We pilots are having one sweet
+time--we're being growled at on every trip. The management squawks if
+we're thirty seconds plus or minus at the terminals, and the passenger
+department squalls if we change acceleration five centimeters total en
+route--claims it upsets the dainty customers and loses business for
+the road. They're tightening up on us all the time. A couple of years
+ago, you remember, it didn't make any difference what we did with the
+acceleration as long as we checked in somewhere near zero time--we used
+to spin 'em dizzy when we reversed at the half-way station--but that
+kind of stuff doesn't go any more. We've got to hold the acceleration
+constant and close to normal, got to hold our schedule on zero, _plus_
+or _minus_ ten seconds, and yet we've got to make any detours they
+tell us to, such as this seven-million kilometer thing they handed
+us just now. To make things worse, we've got to take orders at every
+check-station, and yet _we_ get the blame for everything that happens
+as a consequence of obeying those orders! Of course, I know as well
+as you do that it's rotten technique to change acceleration at every
+check-station; but we've told 'em over and over that we can't do any
+better until they put a real computer on every ship and tell the
+check-stations to report meteorites and other obstructions to us and
+then to let us alone. So you'd better recommend us some computers!"
+
+"You're getting rotten computation, that's a sure thing, and I don't
+blame you pilots for yelling, but I don't believe that you've got the
+right answer. I can't help but think that the astronomers are lying down
+on the job. They are so sure that you pilots are to blame that it hasn't
+occurred to them to check up on themselves very carefully. However,
+we'll know pretty quick, and then we'll take steps."
+
+"I hope so--but say, Steve, I'm worried about using that much plus
+equilibrium power. Remember, we've got to hit M14 in absolutely good
+shape, or plenty heads will drop."
+
+"I'll say they will. I know just how the passengers will howl if we
+hold them weightless for half an hour, waiting for those two moons to get
+out of the way, and I know just what the manager will do if we check in
+minus thirty-one minutes. Wow! He'll swell up and bust, sure. But don't
+worry, Breck--if we don't check in all right, anybody can have my head
+that wants it, and I'm taking full responsibility, you know."
+
+"You're welcome to it." Breckenridge shrugged and turned the
+conversation into a lighter vein. "Speaking of weightlessness,
+it's funny how many weight-fiends there are in the world, isn't
+it? You'd think the passengers would enjoy a little weightlessness
+occasionally--especially the fat ones--but they don't. But say, while
+I think of it, how come you were here and loose to make this check-up?
+I thought you were out with the other two of the Big Three, solving
+all the mysteries of the Universe?"
+
+"Had to stay in this last trip--been doing some work on the ether,
+force-field theory, and other advanced stuff that I had to go to Mars
+and Venus to get. Just got back last week. As for solving mysteries,
+laugh while you can, old hyena. You and a lot of other dim bulbs think
+that Roeser's Rays are the last word--that there's nothing left to
+discover--are going to get jarred loose from your hinges one of these
+days. When I came in nine months ago they were hot on the trail of
+something big, and I'll bet they bring it in...."
+
+Out upon the dock an insistent siren blared a crescendo and diminuendo
+blast of sound, and two minutes remained. In every stateroom and in
+every lounge and saloon speakers sounded a warning:
+
+"For a short time, while we are pulling clear of the gravitational field
+of the Earth, walking will be somewhat difficult, as everything on board
+will apparently increase in weight by about one-fifth of its present
+amount. Please remain seated, or move about with caution. In about an
+hour weight will gradually return to normal. We start in one minute."
+
+"Hipe!" barked the chief pilot as a flaring purple light sprang into
+being upon his board, and the assistants came to attention at their
+stations. "Seconds! Four! Three! Two! One! LIFT!" He touched a
+button and a set of plunger switches drove home, releasing into the
+forty-five enormous driving projectors the equilibrium power--the
+fifteen-thousand-and-odd kilofranks of energy that exactly
+counterbalanced the pull of gravity upon the mass of the cruiser.
+Simultaneously there was added from the potentiometer, already set
+to the exact figure given by the computer, the _plus_-equilibrium
+power--which would not be changed throughout the journey if the ideal
+acceleration curve were to be registered upon the recorders--and the
+immense mass of the cruiser of the void wafted vertically upward at a
+low and constant velocity. The bellowing, shrieking siren had cleared
+the air magically of the swarm of aircraft in her path, and quietly,
+calmly, majestically, the _Arcturus_ floated upward.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Breckenridge, sixty seconds after the initial lift, actuated the system
+of magnetic relays which would gradually cut in the precisely measured
+"starting power," which it would be necessary to employ for sixty-nine
+minutes--for, without the acceleration given by this additional power,
+they would lose many precious hours of time in covering merely the
+few thousands of miles during which Earth's attraction would operate
+powerfully against their progress.
+
+Faster and faster the great cruiser shot upward as more and more of the
+starting power was released, and heavier and heavier the passengers
+felt themselves become. Soon the full calculated power was on and the
+acceleration became constant. Weight no longer increased, but remained
+constant at a value of plus twenty three and six-tenths percent. For a
+few moments there had been uneasy stomachs among the passengers--perhaps
+a few of the first-trippers had been made ill--but it was not much worse
+than riding in a high-speed elevator, particularly since there was no
+change from positive to negative acceleration such as is experienced in
+express elevators.
+
+The computer, his calculations complete, watched the pilot with
+interest, for, accustomed as he was to traversing the depths of space,
+there was a never-failing thrill to his scientific mind in the delicacy
+and precision of the work which Breckenridge was doing--work which could
+be done only by a man who had had long training in the profession and
+who was possessed of instantaneous nervous reaction and of the highest
+degree of manual dexterity and control. Under his right and left hands
+were the double-series potentiometers actuating the variable-speed
+drives of the flight-angle directors in the hour and declination ranges;
+before his eyes was the finely marked micrometer screen upon which the
+guiding goniometer threw its needle-point of light; powerful optical
+systems of prisms and lenses revealed to his sight the director-angles,
+down to fractional seconds of arc. It was the task of the chief pilot
+to hold the screened image of the cross-hairs of the two directors in
+such position relative to the ever-moving point of light as to hold the
+mighty vessel precisely upon its course, in spite of the complex system
+of forces acting upon it.
+
+For almost an hour Breckenridge sat motionless, his eyes flashing from
+micrometer screen to signal panel, his sensitive fingers moving the
+potentiometers through minute arcs because of what he saw upon the
+screen and in instantaneous response to the flashing, multi-colored
+lights and tinkling signals of his board. Finally, far from earth, the
+moon's attraction and other perturbing forces comparatively slight, the
+signals no longer sounded and the point of light ceased its irregular
+motion, becoming almost stationary. The chief pilot brought both
+cross-hairs directly upon the brilliant point, which for some time they
+had been approaching more and more nearly, adjusted the photo-cells
+and amplifiers which would hold them immovably upon it, and at the
+calculated second of time, cut out the starting power by means of
+another set of automatically timed relays. When only the regular driving
+power was left, and the acceleration had been checked and found to be
+exactly the designated value of 981.286 centimeters, he stood up and
+heaved a profound sigh of relief.
+
+"Well, Steve, that's over with--we're on our way. I'm always glad when
+this part of it is done."
+
+"It's a ticklish job, no fooling--even for an expert," the mathematician
+agreed. "No wonder the astronomers think you birds are the ones who are
+gumming up their dope. Well, it's about time to plug in on E2. Here's
+where the fireworks start!" He closed the connections which transferred
+the central portion of the upper lookout screen to a small micrometer
+screen at Breckenridge's desk and plugged it into the first
+check-station. Instantly a point of red light, surrounded by a vivid
+orange circle, appeared upon the screen, low down and to the left of
+center, and the timing galvanometer showed a wide positive deflection.
+
+"Hashed again!" growled Breckenridge. "I must be losing my grip,
+I guess. I put everything I had on that sight, and missed it ten
+divisions. I think I'll turn in my badge--I've cocked our perfect curve
+already, before we got to the first check-station!" His hands moved
+toward the controls, to correct their course and acceleration.
+
+"As you were--hold everything! Lay off those controls!" snapped the
+computer. "There's something screwy, just as I thought--and it isn't
+you, either. I'm no pilot, of course, but I do know good compensation
+when I see it, and if you weren't compensating that point I never saw it
+done. Besides, with your skill and my figures I know darn well that we
+aren't off more than a tenth of one division. He's cuckoo! Don't call
+him--let him start it, and refer him to me."
+
+"All x--I'll be only too glad to pass the buck. But I still think,
+Steve, that you're playing with dynamite. Who ever heard of an
+astronomer being wrong?"
+
+"You'd be surprised," grinned the physicist, "Since this fuss has
+just started, nobody has tried to find out whether they were wrong
+or not...."
+
+"IPV _Arcturus_, attention!" came from the speaker curtly.
+
+"IPV _Arcturus_, Breckenridge," from the chief pilot.
+
+"You have been on my ray almost a minute. Why are you not correcting
+course and acceleration?"
+
+"Doctor Stevens is computing us and has full control of course and
+acceleration," replied Breckenridge. "He will answer you."
+
+"I am changing neither course nor acceleration because you are not
+in position," declared Stevens, crisply, "Please give me your present
+supposed location, and your latest precision goniometer bearings on the
+sun, the moon, Mars, Venus, and your Tellurian reference limb, with
+exact time of observations, gyroscope zero-planes, and goniometer
+factors!"
+
+"Correct at once or I shall report you to the Observatory," E2 answered
+loftily, paying no attention to the demand for proof of position.
+
+"Be sure you do that, guy--and while you're at it report that your
+station hasn't taken a precision bearing in a month. Report that you've
+been muddling along on radio loop bearings, and that you don't know
+where you are, within seven thousand kilometers. And speaking of
+reporting--I know already that a lot of you astronomical guessers
+have only the faintest possible idea of where you really are, _plus_,
+_minus_, or lateral; and if you don't get yourselves straightened out
+before we get to W41, I'm going to make a report on my own account that
+will jar some of you birds loose from your upper teeth!" He unplugged
+with a vicious jerk, and turned to the pilot with a grin.
+
+"Guess that'll hold him for a while, won't it?"
+
+"He'll report us, sure," remonstrated Breckenridge. The older man was
+plainly ill at ease at this open defiance of the supposedly infallible
+check-stations.
+
+"Not that baby," returned the computer confidently. "I'll bet you a
+small farm against a plugged nickel that right now he's working his
+goniometer so hard that it's pivots are getting hot. He'll sneak back
+into position as soon as he can calculate his results, and pretend he's
+always been there."
+
+"The others will be all right, then, probably, by the time we get to
+them?"
+
+"Gosh, no--you're unusually dumb today, Breck. He won't tell anybody
+anything--he doesn't want to be the only goat, does he?"
+
+"Oh, I see. How could you dope this out, with only the recorder charts?"
+
+"Because I know the kind of stuff you pilots are--and those humps are
+altogether too big to be accounted for by anything I know about you.
+Another thing--the next station, P6, I think is keeping himself all x.
+If so, when you corrected for E2, which was wrong, it'd throw you all
+off on P6, which was right, and so on--a bad hump at almost every
+check-station. See?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+True to prediction, the pilot ray of P6 came in almost upon the exact
+center of the micrometer screen, and Breckenridge smiled in relief as he
+began really to enjoy the trip.
+
+"How do we check on chronometers?" asked P6 when Stevens had been
+introduced. "By my time you seem to be about two and a half seconds
+_plus_?"
+
+"All x--two points four seconds plus--we're riding on 981.286
+centimeters, to allow for the reversal and for minor detours. Bye."
+
+"All this may have been coincidence, Breck, but we'll find out pretty
+quick now," the computer remarked when the flying vessel was nearing
+the third check-station. "Unless I'm all out of control we'll check in
+almost fourteen seconds minus on W41, and we may not even find him on
+the center block of the screen."
+
+When he plugged in W41 was on the block, but was in the extreme upper
+right corner. They checked in thirteen and eight-tenths seconds minus on
+the station, and a fiery dialogue ensued when the computer questioned
+the accuracy of the location of the station and refused point-blank to
+correct his course.
+"Not I, my friend, I have robbed you enough."
+
+"And about time for the luck to turn, isn't it? Well, I don't care! What
+shall we do?"
+
+"What you will," answered the Frenchman absently.
+
+Benham pulled his beard, then leant forward and put a question with an
+intoxicated leer. A laugh of feigned reproof burst from Gaspard. Benham
+seemed to urge him, and at last he said,
+
+"Oh, if you're bent on it, I can be your guide."
+
+The two men left the house arm-in-arm, went down the street, and crossed
+Digby Square. It was late, and few people were about, but Gaspard saw
+one acquaintance. The doorkeeper was strolling along on his way home,
+and Gaspard bade him good-night in a cheery voice as they passed him.
+The doorkeeper stood and watched the pair for a minute as they left the
+Square and turned down a narrow street which led to the poorer part of
+the town, and thence to the quays. He heard Gaspard's high-pitched voice
+and shrill laughter, and, in answer, Benham's thick tones and heavy
+shout of drunken mirth. Once or twice these sounds repeated themselves,
+then they ceased; the footsteps of the Frenchman and his companion died
+away in the distance. The doorkeeper went on his way, thinking with
+relief that Mr. Gaspard, for all his tall talk, was more at home with a
+bottle than with a knife or a bomb.
+
+Notwithstanding his dissipation, Gaspard was afoot very early in the
+morning. It was hardly light, and the deep scratch of finger-nails on
+his face--it is so awkward when drunken fools wake at the wrong
+minute--attracted no attention from the few people he encountered. He
+did not give them long to look at him, for he hurried swiftly through
+the streets, towards the quays where the ships lay loading their
+cargoes. He seemed to have urgent business to transact down there,
+business that would brook no delay, and that was, if one might guess
+from his uneasy glances over his shoulder, of a private nature. With one
+hand he held tight hold of something in his trousers pocket, the other
+rested on his belt, hard by a little revolver. In his business it is
+necessary to be ready for everything.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Benham, having no affairs to trouble him, and no more
+business to transact, stayed where he was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+LAST CHANCES.
+
+
+At an early hour on Sunday all Kirton seemed astir. The streets were
+alive with thronging people, with banners, with inchoate and still
+amorphous processions, with vendors of meat, drink, and newspapers.
+According to the official arrangements, the proceedings were not to
+begin till one o'clock, and, in theory, the forenoon hours were left
+undisturbed; but, what with the people who were taking part in the
+demonstration, and those who were going to look on, and those who hoped
+to suck some profit to themselves out of the day's work, the ordinary
+duties and observances of a Sunday were largely neglected, and Mr.
+Puttock, passing on his way to chapel at the head of his family, did not
+lack material for reprobation in the temporary superseding of religious
+obligations.
+
+The Governor and his family drove to the Cathedral, according to their
+custom, Eleanor Scaife having pleaded in vain for leave to walk about
+the streets instead. Lady Eynesford declined to recognise the occasion,
+and Eleanor had to content herself with stealthy glances to right and
+left till the church doors engulfed her. The only absentee was Alicia
+Derosne, and she was not walking about the streets, but sitting under
+the verandah, with a book unopened on her knees, and her eyes set in
+empty fixedness on the horizon. The luxuriant growth of a southern
+summer filled her nostrils with sweet scents, and the wind, blowing off
+the sea, tempered the heat to a fresh and balmy warmth; the waves
+sparkled in the sun, and the world was loud in boast of its own beauty;
+but poor Alicia, like many a maid before, was wondering how long this
+wretched life was to last, and how any one was ever happy. Faith bruised
+and trust misplaced blotted out for her the joy of living and the
+exultation of youth. If these things were true, why did the sun shine,
+and how could the world be merry? If these things were true, for her the
+sun shone no more, and the merriment was stilled for ever. So she
+thought, and, if she were not right, it needed a philosopher to tell her
+so; and then she would not have believed him, but caught her woe closer
+to her heart, and nursed it with fiercer tenderness against his shallow
+prating. Perhaps he might have told her too, that it is cruel kindness
+unasked to set people on a pinnacle, and, when they cannot keep foothold
+on that slippery height, to scorn their fall. Other things such an one
+might well have said, but more wisely left unsaid; for cool reason is a
+blister to heartache, and heartache is not best cured by blisters. Never
+yet did a child stop crying for being told its pain was nought and would
+soon be gone. Yet this prescription had been Lady Eynesford's--although
+she was no philosopher, to her knowledge--for Alicia, and it had left
+the patient protesting that she felt no pain at all, and yet feeling it
+all the more.
+
+"What do you accuse me of? Why do you speak to me?" she had burst out.
+"What is it to me what he has done or not done? What do you mean, Mary?"
+
+Before this torrent of questions Lady Eynesford tactfully retreated a
+little way. A warning against hasty love dwindled to an appeal whether
+so much friendliness, such constant meetings, either with daughter or
+with father, were desirable.
+
+"I'm sure I'm sorry for the poor child," she said; "but in this
+world----"
+
+"Suppose it's all a slander!"
+
+"My dear Alicia, do they say such things about a man in his position
+unless there's something in them?"
+
+"It's nothing to me," said Alicia again.
+
+"Of course, you can do nothing abrupt; but you'll gradually withdraw
+from their acquaintance, won't you?"
+
+Alicia had escaped without a promise, pleading for time to think in the
+same breath that she denied any concern in the matter. She was by way of
+thinking now, and all that Lady Eynesford had said repeated itself in
+her mind as she looked out on the garden and the glimpses of the town
+beyond. She understood now Dick's banishment, her sister-in-law's
+unresting hostility to the Medlands, and the reason why she had been
+pressed to go to Australia. She spared a minute to grief for Daisy, but
+her own sorrow would not be denied, and engrossed her again. In the
+solitude she had sought, she cried to herself, "Why didn't they tell me
+before? What's the use of telling me now?" Then she would fly back to
+the hope that the thing was not true, that her friends had clutched too
+hastily at anything which would save her from what they dreaded, and,
+she confessed to herself, rightly dreaded. No, she would not believe it
+yet; and, if it were not true, why should she not be happy? Why should
+she not, even though she did what Dick had not dared to do, and what,
+when Coxon asked her, she had laughed at for an absurdity?
+
+There began to be more movement outside the gates. The first note of
+band-music was wafted to her ear, and the roll of wheels announced the
+return of the church-goers. She roused herself and went to meet them.
+They were agog with excitement, partly about the meeting, partly about
+the murder. While Eleanor was trying to tell her of the state of
+popular feeling, the Governor seized her arm and began to detail the
+story of the discovery.
+
+"You remember the man?" he asked. "He was at our flower-show--had a sort
+of row with Medland, you know. Well, he's been found murdered (so the
+police think) in a low part of the town! The woman who keeps the house
+found him. He didn't come down in the morning, and, as she couldn't make
+him hear, she forced the door, and found him with his throat cut."
+
+"Awful!" shuddered Lady Eynesford. "He looked such a respectable man
+too."
+
+"Ah, I fancy he'd gone a bit to the bad lately--taken to drinking and so
+on."
+
+"He was a friend of Mr. Kilshaw's, wasn't he?" asked Alicia.
+
+"A sort of hanger-on, I think. Anyhow, there he was dead, and with his
+pockets empty."
+
+"Perhaps he killed himself," she suggested.
+
+"They think not. They've arrested the woman, but she declares she knows
+nothing about it!"
+
+"Poor man!" said Alicia; and, at another time, she might have thought a
+good deal about the horrible end of a man whom she had known as an
+acquaintance. But, as it was, she soon forgot him again, and, leaving
+the rest, returned to her solitary seat.
+
+In the town, the news of the murder was but one ruffle more on the wave
+of excitement, and not a very marked one. Few people knew Benham's
+name, and when the first agitation following on the discovery of the
+body died away and the onlookers found there was no news to be had, they
+turned away to join the processions or to stare at them. The police were
+left to pursue their investigations in peace, and they soon reached a
+conclusion. The landlady of the house where Benham died lived alone,
+save for the occasional presence of her son: he was away at work in an
+outlying district, and she had been the only person in the house that
+night. She let beds to single men, she said, and the night before two
+men had arrived, one the worse for drink. They had asked for adjoining
+rooms. As they went up-stairs, she had heard the one who had been
+drinking say to the other, "What are you bringing me here for? This
+isn't the place for what I want." His companion, the shorter of the two,
+whom she thought she would know again, had answered--"All in good time;
+you go and lie down, and I'll fetch what you want." Soon after, the
+short one came down and asked if she had any brandy; she gave him a
+bottle half full and he went up-stairs again. She heard voices raised as
+if in dispute for a few minutes, and one of them--she could not say
+which--said something which sounded like "Well, finish the drink first,
+and then I'll go." Silence followed, at least she could not hear any
+more talking; and presently, it not being her business to spy on
+gentlemen, she went to bed, and knew nothing more till she woke at
+seven o'clock. Going up-stairs, she found one door open and the room
+empty, not the room the two men had been in together, but the other. The
+second door was locked, and she did not knock; gentlemen often slept
+late. At half-past ten she ventured to knock, got no answer, knocked
+again and again, and finally, with the help of the man from next door,
+broke the lock and found the taller of the two men dead on the bed. She
+had at once summoned the police; and that, she concluded, was all she
+knew about the matter, and she was a respectable, hard-working woman, a
+widow who could produce her marriage certificate in case any person
+present desired to inspect it.
+
+The Superintendent listened to her protestations of virtue with an
+ironical smile, told her the police knew her house very well, frightened
+her wholesomely, took down her very vague description of the missing
+man, and kept her in custody; but he did not seriously doubt the truth
+of her story, and, if it were true, the man he wanted was evidently the
+sober man, the shorter man, who had introduced his friend to the house
+on a pretext, had called for drink, and vanished in the early morning,
+leaving a dead man behind him. Who was this man? Where did he come from?
+Had he been missing since last night? On these inquiries the
+Superintendent launched several intelligent men, and then was forced for
+the time to turn his attention to the business of the day.
+
+To search a large town for a missing man takes time, and the searchers
+did not happen to fall in with Company B of Procession 3, which at one
+o'clock had mustered in Digby Square, prepared to march to the Public
+Park. Had they done so, it might or might not have seemed to them worth
+noticing that Company B of Procession 3, which was composed of
+carpenters and joiners, had missed some one, namely the officer whom
+they called their "Marshal," and who was to have ordered their ranks and
+marched at their head; and the name of their Marshal was none other than
+François Gaspard. The Superintendent himself was keeping watch over
+Company B, but, in a professionally Olympian scorn of processions, he
+was far from asking or caring to know who the Marshal was, and indeed,
+if he had known, he would scarcely have drawn such a lightning-quick
+inference as that the missing Marshal and the missing murderer were one
+and the same. So Mr. Gaspard's absence was passed over with a few curses
+on his laziness, or, from the more charitable, a surmise that there had
+been a misunderstanding, and Company B, having appointed a new Marshal,
+went on its way.
+
+One demonstration of the public will is much like another in the shape
+it takes and the incidents it produces. This Sunday's was, however, as
+friends and foes agreed, remarkable not only for the numbers who took
+part, but still more for the spirit which animated it, and when the
+Premier and his colleagues made their appearance on the great platform
+there was no room to doubt that somehow, by his gifts or his faults, his
+policy or his demagogic arts, his love of humanity or his adroit wooing
+of popularity, Medland held a position in the eyes of the common people
+of the capital which had seldom or never been equalled in the history of
+the Colony. He had caused them to be called together in order to raise
+their enthusiasm, and to elicit from them a visible, unmistakable pledge
+of support. But, when he stood before them, bareheaded, in vain
+beckoning for silence, their cries and cheers told him that his task was
+rather to moderate than to stir up, and the first part of his speech was
+a somewhat laboured proof of the consistency of gatherings of that
+nature with the proper independence of representative assemblies. The
+people heard him through this argument in respectful silence, clapping
+their hands when, at the end of it, he paused before he passed to the
+second part of his speech. At the first sign of attack, at the first
+quietly drawn contrast between what the seceders had promised and what
+they were doing, his audience was a changed one. Fierce murmurs of
+assent and groans became audible now, and when Medland, caught by the
+contagion that spread to him from his listeners, gave rein to his
+feelings, and launched into a passionate declaration that, to his mind,
+the liberty claimed for members did not mean liberty to betray those
+who had trusted them, the murmurs and groans rose into one tumult of
+savage applause, and men raised both hands over their heads and shook
+them, as though they would have clenched every word that fell from him
+with a blow of the fist.
+
+Daisy Medland sat just behind her father, exulting in his triumph, and,
+at every happy stroke, glancing at Norburn, and by sharing her joy with
+him doubling his. When the Premier had finished, and the last resolution
+had been carried, she ran to him, crying, "Splendid! I never heard you
+so good. Wasn't he splendid?" and looking so completely joyful that
+Medland was sure she must quite have forgotten Dick Derosne. She took
+his arm, and they made their way together to a carriage which was in
+waiting. An escort of police surrounded it, to save the Premier from his
+friends, and he, with Daisy, Norburn, and Mr. Floyd, the Treasurer, got
+in without disturbance. The coachman drove off rapidly down the main
+avenue, distancing the enthusiasts who would have had the horses out of
+the shafts. They passed a long row of carriages, belonging to people who
+had not feared to come and look on from a distance, and at last, knowing
+the procession would go back another way, Medland bade his driver stop
+under the trees, and lit a cigar.
+
+"And I wonder if it will all make any difference!" said he, puffing
+delightedly. He had all an old political organiser's love for a big
+meeting, which does not exclude scepticism as to its value.
+
+"Oh, you gave it 'em finely," said the Treasurer.
+
+"I believe it'll frighten two or three anyhow," observed Norburn.
+
+"I _know_ we shall win to-morrow," cried Daisy, squeezing her father's
+arm.
+
+"Ah! here's a special Sunday evening paper--how we encourage
+wickedness!" said the Premier, seeing a newsvendor approaching. "Let's
+see what they say of us!"
+
+"I've seen it all for myself," remarked Daisy, and she went on
+chattering to the other two, who were ready to talk over every incident
+of the meeting, as people who have been to meetings ever are. On they
+went, reminding one another of the bald man in the third row who cheered
+so lustily, of the fat woman who had somehow got into the front row and
+fanned herself all the time, of rude things shouted about Messrs.
+Puttock and Coxon, and so forth. The Premier, listening with one ear,
+opened his paper; but the first thing he saw was not about his
+procession. He started and looked closer, then gave a sudden, covert
+glance at his companions; they were busy in talk, and, with breathless
+haste, he devoured the meagre details of Benham's wretched death. The
+end reached, he let the paper fall on his knees, lay back, and took a
+long pull at his cigar. He was shocked--yes, he supposed he was
+shocked. He had known the man, and it was shocking to think of his
+throat being cut; yes, he had known him, and he didn't like to think of
+that. But--The Premier gave a long-drawn sigh of relief. That unknown
+murderer's hand had done great things for him. His daughter was safe
+now--anyhow, she was safe. She could never be subject to the degradation
+the dead man had once hinted at; and when he thought of what the man had
+threatened, pity for him died out of Medland's heart. More--although
+Kilshaw no doubt knew something--there was a chance that Benham had kept
+his own counsel, and that his employer would be helpless without his
+aid. Medland's sanguine mind caught eagerly at the chance, and in a
+moment turned it into a hope--almost a conviction. Then the whole thing
+would go down to the grave with the unlucky man, and not even its
+spectre survive to trouble him. For if no one had certain knowledge, if
+there were never more than gossip, growing, as time passed, fainter and
+fainter from having no food to feed on, would not utter silence follow
+at last, so that the things that had been might be as if they had never
+been?
+
+"Well, what do they say about us?" asked the Treasurer.
+
+"Oh, nothing much," he answered, thrusting the paper behind him with a
+careless air. He did not want to discuss what the paper had told him.
+
+"What's happened to-day," said Daisy, "ought to make all the difference,
+oughtn't it, father?"
+
+"I hope it will," replied the Premier; but, for once in his life, he was
+not thinking most about political affairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE LAW _VERSUS_ RULE 3.
+
+
+Among the many tired but satisfied lovers of liberty who sought their
+houses that night, while an enthusiastic remnant was still parading the
+streets, illuminations yet shining from windows, and weary police
+treading their unending beats, was the doorkeeper, who had borne a
+banner in Company A of Procession 1. His friend the watchmaker came with
+him, to have a bit of supper and exchange congratulations and
+fulminations. Hardly, however, had the doorkeeper pledged the cause in a
+first draught when his wife broke in on his oration by handing him a
+letter, which she said a boy in a blue jersey had left for him about ten
+o'clock in the morning, just after he had started to join his company.
+The envelope was cheap and coarse; there was no direction outside. The
+doorkeeper opened it. It was addressed to no named person and it bore no
+signature. It was very brief, being confined to these simple words--"You
+did not see me last night. Remember Rule 3."
+
+The doorkeeper laid the letter down, with a hurried glance at his
+friend, whose face was buried in a mug. He knew the handwriting; he knew
+who it was that he had not seen; he remembered Rule 3, the rule that
+said--"The only and inevitable penalty of treachery is death." He turned
+white and took a hasty gulp at his liquor.
+
+"Who brought this?" he asked.
+
+"I told you," answered his wife; "a lad in a blue jersey; he looked as
+if he might be from the harbour." She put food before them, adding as
+she did so--"I suppose you've been too full of your politics to hear
+much about the murder?"
+
+"The murder?" exclaimed the watchmaker. The doorkeeper crumpled up his
+letter and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, while his wife read
+to them the story of the discovery. The watchmaker listened with
+interest.
+
+"Benham!" he remarked. "I never heard the name, did you?"
+
+"You know him, Ned," said the doorkeeper's wife; "him as Mr. Gaspard
+used to go about with."
+
+By a sudden common impulse, the eyes of the two men met; the woman went
+off to brew them a pot of tea, and left them fearfully gazing at one
+another.
+
+"What stuff!" said the watchmaker uneasily. "It was only his blow. What
+reason had he--?" He paused and added, "Seen him to-day, Ned?"
+
+"No," answered Ned, fingering his note.
+
+"Wasn't he in the procession?"
+
+"I didn't see him."
+
+"When did you see him last?"
+
+The doorkeeper hesitated.
+
+"Night of our last committee," he whispered finally.
+
+"Oh, there's nothing in it," said the watchmaker reassuringly. He had
+not a letter in his pocket.
+
+The doorkeeper opened his mouth to speak, but seeing his wife
+approaching, he shut it again and busied himself with his meal.
+
+"What was the letter, Ned?"
+
+"Oh, about the procession," he answered.
+
+"Then you got it too late. Who was it from?"
+
+"If you'd give us the tea," he broke out roughly, "and let the damned
+letter alone, it 'ud be a deal better."
+
+"La, you needn't fly out at a woman so," said Mrs. Evans. "It ain't the
+way to treat his wife, is it, mister?"
+
+"Mister" gallantly reproved his friend, but pleaded that they were both
+weary, and weary legs made short tempers. Giving them the tea, she left
+them to themselves; her work was not finished till three small children
+were safely in bed.
+
+The sensation of having one's neck for the first time within measurable
+distance of a rope must needs be somewhat disquieting. The doorkeeper,
+in spite of his secret society doings, was a timid man, with a vastly
+respectful fear of the law. To talk about things, to vapour idly about
+them over the cups, is very different from being actually, even though
+remotely, mixed up in them. Ned Evans was a man of some education: he
+read the papers, accounts of crimes and reports of trials; he had heard
+of accessories after and before the fact. Was he not an accessory after
+the fact? He fancied they did not hang such; but if they caught him, and
+all that about Gaspard and the society came out, would they not call him
+an accessory before the fact? The noose seemed really rather near, and
+in his frightened fancy, as he lay sleepless beside his snoring wife,
+the rope dangled over his head. The poor wretch was between the devil
+and the deep sea--between stern law and cruel Rule 3. He dared not toss
+about, his wife would ask him what ailed him; he lay as still as he
+could, bitterly cursing his folly for mingling in such affairs, bitterly
+cursing the Frenchman who led him on into the trap and left him fast
+there. How could he save his neck? And he restlessly rent the band of
+his coarse night-shirt, that pressed on his throat with a horrible
+suggestion of what might be. Where was that Gaspard? Had he fled over
+the sea? Ah, if he could be sure of that, and sure that the dreaded man
+would not return! Or was he lurking in some secret hole, ready to steal
+out and avenge a violation of Rule 3? The doorkeeper had always feared
+the man; in the lurid light of this deed, Gaspard's image grew into a
+monster of horror, threatening sudden and swift revenge for disobedience
+or treachery. No; he must stand firm. But what of the police? Well, men
+sleep somehow, and at last he fell asleep, holding the band of the
+night-shirt away from his throat: if he fell asleep with that pressing
+on him, God knew what he might dream.
+
+"It's very lucky," remarked the Superintendent of Police, who had a
+happy habit of looking at the bright side of things, to one of his
+subordinates, "that this Benham seems to have had no relations and
+precious few friends."
+
+"No widows coming crying about," observed the subordinate, with an
+assenting nod.
+
+"Nothing known of him except that he came to Kirton a few months back,
+did nothing, seemed to have plenty of money, took his liquor, played a
+hand at cards, hurt nobody, seemingly knew nobody."
+
+"Why, I saw him with Mr. Puttock."
+
+"Yes; but Mr. Puttock knows nothing of him, except that he said he came
+from Shepherdstown. That's why Puttock was civil to him. The place is in
+his constituency."
+
+"Got any idea, sir?" the subordinate ventured to ask.
+
+The Superintendent was about to answer in the negative, when a detective
+entered the room.
+
+"Well, I've found one missing man for you," he said, in a satisfied
+tone.
+
+"One missing man!" echoed his superior, scornfully. "In a place o' this
+size I'd always find you twenty."
+
+The sergeant went on, unperturbed,
+
+"François Gaspard, known as politician and agitator, didn't go home to
+his lodgings in Kettle Street last night, was to have acted as Marshal
+in Company B of Procession 3 to-day, didn't turn up, hasn't turned up
+to-night, don't owe any rent, hasn't taken any clothes."
+
+"Oh!" said the Superintendent morosely. "Left an address?"
+
+"Left no address, sir."
+
+"How did he go, and where?"
+
+"Not known, sir."
+
+"Good Lord!" moaned the Superintendent, "and what's your salary?"
+
+The sergeant's good-humour was impregnable.
+
+"Give me time," he said, and the sentence was almost drowned in a loud
+knock at the door. An instant later Kilshaw rushed in.
+
+"What's this, Dawson?" he cried to the Superintendent; "what's this
+about the murder?"
+
+"You haven't heard, sir?"
+
+"I went out of town to avoid this infernal row to-day, and am only just
+back."
+
+Dawson smiled discreetly. He could understand that the proceedings of
+the day would not attract Mr. Kilshaw.
+
+"But is it true," Kilshaw went on eagerly, "that Mr. Benham has been
+murdered?"
+
+"Well, it looks like it, sir," and Dawson gave a full account of the
+circumstances.
+
+"And the motive?" asked Kilshaw.
+
+"Robbery, I suppose. His pockets were empty, and according to our
+information he was generally flush of money; where he got it, I don't
+know."
+
+"Ah!" said Kilshaw meditatively; "his pockets empty! And have you no
+clue?"
+
+"Not what you'd call a clue. Did you know the gentleman, sir?"
+
+Kilshaw replied by saying that Mr. Puttock had introduced Benham to him
+and the acquaintance had continued--it was a political acquaintance
+purely.
+
+"You don't know anything about him before he came here?"
+
+Kilshaw suddenly perceived that he was being questioned, whereas his
+object had been to question.
+
+"You say," he observed, "that you haven't got what you'd call a clue.
+What do you mean?"
+
+"You can tell Mr. Kilshaw, if you like," said the Superintendent to the
+sergeant, who repeated his information.
+
+"Gaspard! why that's the fellow the Premier--" and Mr. Kilshaw stopped
+short. After a moment, he asked abruptly, "Were there any papers on the
+body?"
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"I suppose there's nothing really to connect this man Gaspard with it?"
+
+"Oh, nothing at present, sir. Did you say you'd known the deceased
+before he--?"
+
+"If I'm called at the inquest, I shall tell all I know," said Kilshaw,
+rising. "It's not much."
+
+"Happen to know if he had any relations, sir?"
+
+"H'm. He was a widower, I believe."
+
+"Children?"
+
+"Really," said Mr. Kilshaw, with a faint smile, "I don't know."
+
+And he escaped from pertinacious Mr. Dawson with some alacrity. When he
+was outside, he stopped suddenly. "Shall I tell 'em to apply to
+Medland?" he asked himself, with a malicious chuckle. "No, I'll wait a
+bit yet," and he walked on, wondering whether by any chance Mr. Benham
+had been done to death to save the Premier. This fanciful idea he soon
+dismissed with a laugh; it never entered his head, prejudiced as he was,
+to think that Medland himself had any hand in the matter. After all, he
+was a man of common sense, and he quickly arrived at a conclusion which
+he expressed by exclaiming,
+
+"The poor fool's been showing his money. Who's got my five hundred now,
+I wonder?"
+
+His wonderings would have been satisfied, had Aladdin's carpet or other
+magical contrivance transported him to where the steamship _Pride of the
+South_ was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San
+Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A
+thick-set, short man, shipped at the last moment as cook's mate, in
+substitution for a truant, was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette,
+looking up at the bright stars, and ever and again gently pressing his
+hand on a little lump inside his shirt. He seemed at peace with all the
+world, though he was ready to be at war, if need be, and his knife,
+burnished and clean, lay handy to his fingers. He turned on his side and
+composed himself to sleep, his chest rising and falling with regular,
+uninterrupted breathing. Once he smiled: he was thinking of Ned Evans,
+the doorkeeper; then he gave himself a little shake, closed his eyes,
+and forgot all the troubles of this weary world. So sleep children,
+so--we are told--the just: so slept M. François Gaspard, on his way to
+seek fresh woods and pastures new.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+ALL THERE WAS TO TELL.
+
+
+The custom in New Lindsey was that every Monday during the session of
+Parliament the Executive Council should meet at Government House, and,
+under the presidency of the Governor, formally ratify and adopt the
+arrangements as to the business of the coming week which its members had
+decided upon at their Cabinet meetings. It is to be hoped that, in these
+days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that
+the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of
+that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet,
+consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that
+the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent
+when it is of the Cabinet--a difference of less moment than it sounds,
+seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but
+listen to what is going to be done. However, forms doubtless have their
+value, and at any rate they must be observed, so on this Monday morning
+the Executive Council was to meet as usual, although nobody knew where
+the Cabinet would be that time twenty-four hours. Lady Eynesford, who
+wanted her husband to drive her out, thought the meeting under the
+circumstances mere nonsense--which it very likely was--and said so,
+which betrayed inexperience, and Alicia Derosne asked what time it took
+place.
+
+"Eleven sharp," said the Governor, and returned to the account of the
+murder.
+
+Time after time in the last few days Alicia had told herself that she
+could bear it no longer. At one moment she believed nothing, the next,
+nothing was too terrible for her to believe; now she would fly to
+Australia, or home, or anywhere out of New Lindsey; now a
+straightforward challenge to Medland alone would serve her turn.
+Sometimes she felt as if she could put the whole thing on one side; five
+minutes later found her pinning her whole life on the issue of it. Under
+her guarded face and calm demeanour, the storm of divided and
+conflicting instincts and passions raged, and long solitary rambles
+became a necessary outlet for what she dared show to none. She shrank
+from seeing Medland, and yet longed to speak with him; she felt that to
+mention the topic to him was impossible, and yet, if they met,
+inevitable; that she would not have strength to face him, and yet could
+not let him go without clearing up the mystery. She told herself at one
+moment that she hardly knew him, at the next that between them nothing
+could be too secret for utterance.
+
+What she hoped and feared befell her that morning. She went out for a
+walk in the Park, and before long she met the Premier, with his daughter
+and Norburn. The two last were laughing and talking--their quarrel was
+quite forgotten now--and Medland himself, she thought, looked as though
+his load of care were a little less heavy. The two men explained that
+they were on their way--a roundabout way, they confessed--to the
+Council, and had seized the chance of some fresh air, while Daisy was
+full of stories about yesterday's triumph, that left room only for a
+passing reference to yesterday's tragedy.
+
+"I didn't like him at all," she said; "but still it's dreadful--a man
+one knew ever so slightly!"
+
+Alicia agreed, and the next instant she found herself practically alone
+with Medland; for Daisy ran off to pick a wild-flower that caught her
+eye in the wood, and Norburn followed her. Not knowing whether to be
+glad or sorry, she made no effort to escape, and was silent while
+Medland began to speak of his prospects in that evening's division.
+
+Suddenly she paused in her walk and lifted her eyes to his.
+
+"You look happier," she said.
+
+Medland's conscience smote him: he was looking happier because the man
+was dead.
+
+"It's at the prospect of being a free man to-morrow," he answered, with
+a smile. "You know, Cincinnatus was very happy."
+
+"But you're not like that."
+
+"No, I suppose not. Say it's----"
+
+"Never mind."
+
+After a pause she made another attempt.
+
+"Mr. Medland!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You've been very good to me--yes, very good."
+
+He turned to her with a gesture of disclaimer. She thought he was going
+to speak, but he did not.
+
+"Whatever happens, I shall always remember that with--with deep
+gratitude."
+
+"What is going to happen?" he asked, with an uneasy smile.
+
+"Oh, how can I?" she burst out. "How can I say it? How can I ask you?"
+
+As she spoke she stopped, and he followed her example. They stood facing
+one another now, as he replied gravely,
+
+"Whatever you ask--let it be what it will--I will answer, truthfully." A
+pause before the last word perhaps betrayed a momentary struggle.
+
+"What right have I? Why should you?"
+
+"The right my--my desire to have your regard gives you. How can I ask
+for that, unless I am ready to tell you all you can wish to know?"
+
+"I have heard," she began falteringly, "I have been told by--by people
+who, I suppose, were right to tell me----"
+
+In a moment he understood her. A slight twitch of his mouth betrayed his
+trouble, but he came to her rescue.
+
+"I don't know how it reached you," he said. "Perhaps I think you might
+have been--you need not have known it. But there is only one thing you
+can have heard, that it would distress you to speak of."
+
+She said nothing, but fixed her eyes on his.
+
+"I am right?" he asked. "It is about--my wife?"
+
+She bowed her head. He stood silent for a moment, and she cried,
+
+"It was only gossip--a woman's gossip; I did wrong to listen to it."
+
+"Gossip," he said, "is often true. This is true," and he set his lips.
+
+The worst often finds or makes people calm. She had flushed at first,
+but the colour went again, and she said quietly,
+
+"If you have time and don't mind, I should like to hear it all."
+
+She had forgotten what this request must mean to him, or perhaps she
+thought the time for pretence had gone by. If so, he understood, for he
+answered,
+
+"It's your right."
+
+Her eyes sank to the ground, but she did not quarrel with his words. She
+stood motionless while he told his story. He spoke with wilful brevity
+and dryness.
+
+"I was a young man when I met her. She was married, and I went to the
+house. Her husband----"
+
+"Did he ill-treat her?"
+
+"No. In his way, I suppose he was fond of her. But--she didn't like his
+way. She was very beautiful, and I fell in love with her, and she with
+me. And we ran away."
+
+"Is--is that all? Is there no----?"
+
+"No excuse? No, I suppose, none. And I lived with her till she died four
+years ago. And--Daisy is our daughter."
+
+"And he--the husband?"
+
+"He did not divorce her. I don't know why not, perhaps because she asked
+him to--anyhow he didn't. And he outlived her: so she died--as she had
+lived."
+
+"And is he still alive?"
+
+"No; he is dead now." He was about to go on, but checked himself. Why
+add that horror? How the man died was nothing between her and him.
+
+"Have you no--nothing to say?" she burst out, almost angrily. "You just
+tell me that and stop!"
+
+"What is there to say? I have told you all there is to tell. I loved her
+very much. I did what I could to make her happy, and I try to make up
+for it to Daisy. But there is nothing more to say."
+
+She was angry that he would not defend himself. She was ready--ah, so
+ready!--to listen to his pleading. But he would not say a word for
+himself. Instead, he went on,
+
+"She didn't want to come, but I made her. She repented, poor girl, all
+her life; she was never quite happy. It was all my doing. Still, I think
+she was happier with me, in spite of it."
+
+A movement of impatience escaped from Alicia. Seeing it he added,
+
+"I beg your pardon. I didn't want you to think hardly of her."
+
+"I don't want to think of her at all. Was she--was she like Daisy?"
+
+"Yes; but prettier."
+
+"I don't know what you expect me to say," she exclaimed. "I know--I
+suppose some men don't think much of--of a thing like that. To me it is
+horrible. You simply followed your-- Ah, I can't speak of it!" and she
+seemed to put him from her with a gesture of disgust.
+
+He walked beside her in silence, his face set in the bitter smile it
+always wore when fate dealt hardly with him.
+
+"I think I'll go straight home," she said, stopping suddenly. "You can
+join the others."
+
+"Yes, that will be best. I'm not due at the Council just yet."
+
+"I suppose I ought to thank you for telling me the truth. I--" Her false
+composure suddenly gave way. With a sob she stretched out her hands
+towards him, crying, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" and before he
+could answer her she turned and walked swiftly away, leaving him
+standing still on the pathway.
+
+She was hardly inside the gates of Government House when she saw Eleanor
+Scaife, who hurried to meet her.
+
+"Only think, Alicia!" she cried. "Dick is on his way home, and with such
+good news. We've just had a cable from him."
+
+"Coming back!"
+
+"Yes. He's engaged! He met the Grangers on their tour round the
+world--you know them, the great cotton people?--at Sydney, and he's
+engaged to the youngest girl, Violet--you remember her? It all happened
+in a fortnight. Mary and Lord Eynesford are delighted. It's just
+perfect. She's very pretty, and tremendously well off. I do declare, I
+never thought Dick would end so well! What a happy thought it was
+sending him away! Aren't you delighted?"
+
+"It sounds very nice, doesn't it? I don't think I knew her more than
+just to speak to."
+
+"Dick'll be here in four days. I've been looking for you to tell you for
+the last hour. Where have you been?"
+
+"In the Park."
+
+"Alone, as usual, you hermit?"
+
+"Well, I met the Medlands and Mr. Norburn, and talked to them for a
+little while."
+
+"Alicia! But it's no use talking to you. Come and find Mary."
+
+"No, Eleanor, I'm tired, and--and hot. I'll go to my room."
+
+"Oh, you must come and see her first."
+
+"I can't."
+
+"She'll be hurt, Alicia. She'll think you don't care. Come, dear."
+
+"Tell her--tell her I'm coming directly. Eleanor, you must let me go,"
+and breaking away she fled into the house.
+
+Eleanor went alone to seek Lady Eynesford. Somehow Alicia's words had
+quenched her high spirits for the moment.
+
+"Poor child! I do hope she hasn't been foolish," she mused. "Surely
+after what Mary told her--! Oh dear, I'm afraid it isn't all as happy as
+it is about Dick!"
+
+And then she indulged in some very cynical meditations on the advantages
+of being a person of shallow emotions and changeful fancies, until she
+was roused by the sight of Medland and Norburn walking up to the house,
+to attend the Executive Council. From the window she closely watched
+the Premier as he approached; her mood wavered to and fro, but at last
+she summed up her impressions by remarking,
+
+"Well, I suppose one might."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE STORY OF A PHOTOGRAPH.
+
+
+Mr. Coxon may be forgiven for being, on this same important Monday, in a
+state of some nervous excitement. He had a severe attack of what are
+vulgarly called "the fidgets," and Sir John, who was spending the
+morning at the Club (for his court was not sitting), glanced at him over
+his eye-glasses with an irritated look. The ex-Attorney-General would
+not sit still, but flitted continually from window to table, and back
+from table to window, taking up and putting down journal after journal.
+Much depended, in Mr. Coxon's view, on the event of that day, for Sir
+John spoke openly of his approaching retirement, and an appointment
+sometimes thought worthy of a Premier's acceptance might be in Coxon's
+grasp before many weeks were past, if only Medland and his noxious idea
+of getting a first-class man out from England could be swept together
+into limbo.
+
+"What's the betting about to-night?" asked the Chief Justice, as in one
+of his restless turns the brooding politician passed near.
+
+"We reckon to beat him by five," answered Coxon.
+
+"Unless any of your men turn tail, that is? I hear Fenton's very
+wobbly--says he daren't show his face in the North-east Ward if he
+throws Medland over."
+
+"Oh, he's all right."
+
+"Been promised something?"
+
+"You might allow some of us to have consciences, Chief Justice," said
+Coxon, with an attempt at geniality.
+
+"Oh, some of you, yes. But I'll pick my men, please," remarked Sir John,
+with a pleasant smile. "Perry's got a conscience, and Kilshaw--well,
+Kilshaw's got a gadfly that does instead, and of course, Coxon, I add
+you to the list."
+
+"Much obliged for your testimonial," said Coxon sourly.
+
+"I add any man I'm talking to, to the list," continued the Chief
+Justice. "I expect him to do the same by me. But, honestly, I add you
+even in your absence. You're not a man who puts party ties above
+everything."
+
+Mr. Coxon darted a suspicious glance at the head of his profession, but
+the Chief Justice's air was blandly innocent.
+
+"My party's my party," he remarked, "just so long as it carries out my
+principles. I don't say either party does it perfectly."
+
+"I dare say not; but of course you're right to act with the one that
+does most for you."
+
+Again the Chief Justice had hit on a somewhat ambiguous expression.
+Coxon detected a grin on the face of Captain Heseltine, who was sitting
+near, but he could not hold Sir John's grave face guilty of the
+Captain's grin.
+
+"I see," remarked the Captain, perhaps in order to cover the retreat of
+his grin, "that they've discharged the woman who was arrested last night
+for the murder."
+
+"Really no evidence against her," said the Chief Justice. "But,
+Heseltine, wasn't this man Benham the fellow Medland had a sort of
+shindy with at that flower-show?"
+
+"Yes, he was. Kilshaw seemed to know all about him."
+
+"He was talking to Miss Medland."
+
+"And the Premier had her away from him in no time. Queer start, Sir
+John?"
+
+"Oh, well, he seems to have been a loose fellow, and I suppose was
+murdered for the money he had on him. But I mustn't talk about it. I may
+have to try it."
+
+"Gad! you'll be committing contempt of yourself," suggested the Captain.
+
+"Like that snake that swallows itself, eh?"
+
+"What snake?" asked the Captain, with interest.
+
+"The snake in the story," answered the Chief Justice; and he added in an
+undertone--"Why can't that fellow sit still?"
+
+Mr. Coxon had wandered to the window again, and was thrumming on the
+panes. He turned on hearing some one enter. It was Sir Robert Perry.
+
+"Well," he began, "I bring news of the event of the day."
+
+"About to-night?" asked Coxon eagerly.
+
+"To-night! That's not the event of the day. Ministers are a deal
+commoner than murders. No, last night."
+
+Coxon turned away disappointed.
+
+"The murder!" exclaimed the Captain.
+
+"Don't talk to me about it, Perry," the Chief Justice requested, opening
+a paper in front of his face. He did not, however, withdraw out of
+earshot.
+
+"They've got a sort of a clue. A wretched hobbledehoy of a fellow,
+something in the bookseller's shop at the corner of Kettle Street, has
+come with a rigmarole about a society that he and a few more belonged
+to, including this François Gaspard, who is missing. He protests that
+the thing was legal, and all that--only a Radical inner ring--but he
+says that at the last meeting this fellow was dropping hints about
+putting somebody out of the way. Dyer--that's the lad's name--swears the
+rest of them disowned him and said they'd have nothing to do with it,
+and hoped he'd given up the idea."
+
+"I suppose he's in a blue funk?" asked the Captain.
+
+"He is no doubt alarmed," said Sir Robert. "He gave the police the names
+of the rest of their precious society, and, oddly enough, Ned Evans, of
+the House--you know him, Coxon?--was one."
+
+"Heard such an awful lot of debates, poor chap," observed Captain
+Heseltine.
+
+"Well, they went to Evans' and collared him. For a time he stuck out
+that he knew nothing about it, but they threatened him with heaven knows
+what, and at last he confessed to having seen this Gaspard in company
+with the murdered man in Digby Square a little before twelve on the
+night."
+
+"By Jove! That's awkward!" said the Captain.
+
+Coxon showed more interest now, and remarked,
+
+"Why, Gaspard was one of Medland's organisers. I saw him with both
+Medland and Norburn on Saturday."
+
+"I don't suppose they were planning to murder this Benham. Indeed, I
+don't see that the thing can have been political at all. What did it
+matter whether Benham lived or died?"
+
+"I don't see that it did, except to Benham," assented the Captain. "But
+what's become of Gaspard?"
+
+"Ah, that they don't know. He's supposed to have taken ship, and they've
+cabled to search all ships that left the port that morning."
+
+"He'll find the man in blue--or the local equivalent--on the wharf,"
+said the Captain. "Rather a jar that, Sir Robert, when you're in from a
+voyage. What are they doing now?"
+
+"Well, the Superintendent said they were going to have a thorough search
+through the dead man's lodgings, to see if they could find out anything
+about him which would throw light on the motive. The police don't think
+much of the political theory of the crime."
+
+"Dashed nonsense, _I_ should think," said the Captain, and he sauntered
+off to play billiards.
+
+"That young man," said the Chief Justice, "is really not a fool, though
+he does his best to look like one."
+
+"That queer conduct seems to me rather common in young men at home. I
+noticed it when I was over."
+
+"Is it meant to imply independent means?"
+
+"I dare say that idea may be dormant under it somewhere. My wife says
+the girls like it."
+
+"Then your wife, Perry, is a traitor to her sex to make such
+confessions. Besides, they didn't in my time."
+
+"Come, you know, you're a forlorn bachelor. What can you know about it?"
+
+"Bachelors, Perry, are the men who know. Which gathers most knowledge
+from a vivisection, the attentive student or the writhing frog?"
+
+"The operator, most of all."
+
+"Doubtless."
+
+"And that's the woman. Therefore, Oakapple, you're wrong and my wife's
+right."
+
+"The deuce!" said the Chief Justice. "I wonder how I ever got any
+briefs."
+
+In the afternoon, when these idlers had one and all set out for the
+Legislative Assembly, some to work, others still to idle, Mr. Kilshaw
+felt interest enough in the fate of his late henchman to drop in at the
+police office on his way to the same destination. He was well known, and
+no one objected to his walking in and making for the door of the
+Superintendent's room. An officer to whom he spoke told him that Ned
+Evans was in custody, and that it was rumoured that some startling
+discoveries had been made at Benham's lodgings.
+
+"Indeed, sir," said the man, "I believe the Superintendent wished to see
+you."
+
+"Ah, I dare say," said Kilshaw. "Tell him I'm here."
+
+When he was ushered into the inner room, the Superintendent confirmed
+the officer's surmise.
+
+"I was going to send a message to ask you to step round, sir," he
+remarked.
+
+"Here I am, but don't be long. I don't want to miss the Premier's
+speech."
+
+"Mr. Medland speaking to-day?"
+
+"Of course. It's a great day with us at the House."
+
+"I think it looks like being a great day all round. Well, Mr. Kilshaw,
+you told me you knew the deceased."
+
+"Yes, I knew Benham."
+
+"Benyon," corrected the Superintendent.
+
+"Yes, that was his real name," assented Kilshaw.
+
+"At his lodgings there was found a packet. That's the wrapper," and he
+handed a piece of brown paper to Kilshaw.
+
+"In case," Kilshaw read, "of my death or disappearance, please deliver
+this parcel to Mr. Kilshaw, Legislative Assembly, Kirton."
+
+"I'm sorry to say, sir," said the Superintendent, "that the detective
+sergeant conducting the search took upon him to open this packet in the
+presence of one or two persons. It ought to have been opened by no one
+but----"
+
+"Myself."
+
+"Pardon me, but myself," said the Superintendent, with a slight smile.
+"Owing to the inexcusable blunder, I'm afraid something about what it
+contains may leak out prematurely. Those pests, the reporters, are
+everywhere; you can't keep 'em out."
+
+"Well, what does it contain?" asked Kilshaw. He was annoyed at this
+unsought publicity, but he saw at once that he must show no sign of
+vexation.
+
+"That, for one thing," and the Superintendent handed Kilshaw a
+photograph of two persons, a young woman and a young man. "Look at the
+back," he added.
+
+Kilshaw looked, and read--"My wife and M."
+
+"That's the deceased's handwriting?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you know the persons?"
+
+"I've no doubt about them. It's the Premier--and--and Mrs. Medland."
+
+"Exactly. Now read this," and he gave him the copy of a certificate of
+marriage between George Benyon and Margaret Aspland.
+
+"Quite so," nodded Kilshaw.
+
+"And this."
+
+Kilshaw took the slip of newspaper, old and yellow. It contained a few
+lines, briefly recording that Mrs. Benyon had left her home secretly by
+night, in her husband's absence, and could not be found.
+
+Kilshaw nodded again.
+
+"It doesn't surprise me," he said. "I knew all this. I was in Mr.
+Benyon's confidence."
+
+"Perhaps you can tell us how he lived?" hazarded the Superintendent,
+with a shrewd look.
+
+Mr. Kilshaw looked doubtful.
+
+"The inquest is fixed for to-morrow. The more we know now, the less it
+will be necessary to protract it."
+
+"I have been helping him lately," admitted Kilshaw; and he added, "Look
+here, Superintendent, I don't want that more talked about than
+necessary."
+
+"You needn't say a word to me now unless you like, sir; but I only want
+to make things as comfortable as I can. You see, the coroner is bound to
+look into it a bit. Had you given him money lately?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Much?"
+
+Kilshaw leant forward and answered, almost in a whisper,
+
+"Five hundred on Friday night," and in spite of himself he avoided the
+Superintendent's shrewd eye. But that officer's business was not to pass
+moral judgments. Law is one thing, morality another.
+
+"Then the thing's as plain as a pikestaff. This Gaspard got to know
+about the money, and murdered him to get it. We needn't look further for
+a motive."
+
+"I suppose all this will have to come out? I wonder if Gaspard knew who
+Benham was?"
+
+"It's not necessary to suppose that, unless we believe all Evans says.
+Certainly, if we trust Evans, Gaspard hinted designs on some one before
+he could have known Benyon had this money. Could he have known he was
+going to have it?"
+
+"Benyon may have told him I had promised to help him."
+
+"Well, sir, we must see about that. We shall want you at the inquest,
+sir."
+
+"I suppose you will, confound you! And I should think you'd want a
+greater man than I am, too."
+
+The Superintendent looked grave.
+
+"I am going up to try and see the Premier at the House to-day," he said.
+"I think we shall have to trouble him. You see, he knew Gaspard as well
+as the deceased."
+
+"I'll give you a lift. You can keep out of the way till he's at
+leisure."
+
+At this moment one of the police entered, and handed the Superintendent
+a copy of the _Evening Mail_.
+
+"It's as you feared, sir," he remarked as he went out.
+
+The Superintendent opened the paper, looked at it for an instant, and
+then indicated a passage with his forefinger.
+
+"It is rumoured," read Mr. Kilshaw, "that certain very startling facts
+have come to light regarding the identity of the deceased man Benham,
+and that the name of a very prominent politician, now holding an exalted
+office, is likely to be introduced into the case. As the matter will be
+public property to-morrow, we may be allowed to state that trustworthy
+reports point to the fact of the Premier being in a position to give
+some important information as to the past life of the deceased. It is
+said that a photograph of two persons, one of whom is Mr. Medland, has
+been discovered among the papers at Mr. Benham's (or we should say
+Benyon's) lodgings. Further developments of this strange affair will be
+awaited with interest."
+
+"I wish," commented the Superintendent grimly, "that my men could keep a
+secret as well as their man can sniff one out."
+
+But Mr. Kilshaw was too excited to listen.
+
+"By Jove," he cried, "the news'll be at the House by now! Come along,
+man, come along!"
+
+And, as they went, they read the rest; for the paper had it all--even a
+copy of that marriage certificate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+AN ORATOR'S RIVAL.
+
+
+The House was crowded, and every gallery full. Lady Eynesford and
+Eleanor Scaife, attended by Captain Heseltine, occupied their appointed
+seats; the members of the Legislative Council overflowed from their
+proper pen and mingled with humbler folk in the public galleries;
+reporters wrote furiously, and an endless line of boys bearing their
+slips came and went. The great hour had arrived: the battle-field was
+reached at last. Sir Robert Perry sat and smiled; Puttock played with
+the hair chain that wandered across his broad waistcoat; Coxon
+restlessly bit his nails; Norburn's face was pale with excitement, and
+he twisted his hands in his lap; the determined partisans cheered or
+groaned; the waverers looked important and felt unhappy; all eyes were
+steadily fixed on the Premier, and all ears intent on his words.
+
+For the moment he had forgotten everything but the fight he was
+fighting. No thought of the wretched Benham, who lay dead, no thought of
+his daughter, who watched him as he spoke, no thought of Alicia
+Derosne, who stayed away that she might not see him, crossed his brain
+now, or turned his ideas from the task before him. It was no ordinary
+speech, and no ordinary occasion. He spoke only to five men out of all
+his audience--the rest were his, or were beyond the power of his charm;
+on those five important-looking, unhappy-feeling men he bent every
+effort of his will, and played every device of his mind and his tongue.
+Now and then he distantly threatened them, oftener he made as though to
+convince their cool judgment; again he would invoke the sentiment of old
+alliance in them, or stir their pity for the men whose cause he pleaded.
+Once he flashed out in bitter mockery at Coxon, then jested in mild
+irony at Puttock and his "rich man's revolution." Returning to his text,
+he minutely dissected his own measure, insisting on its promise,
+extenuating its fancied danger, claiming for it the merits of a
+courageous and well-conceived scheme. Through all the changes that he
+rang, he was heard with close attention, broken only by demonstrations
+of approval or of dissent. At last one of his periods extorted a cheer
+from a waverer. It acted on him as a spur to fresh exertions. He raised
+his voice till it filled the chamber, and began his last and most
+elaborate appeal.
+
+Suddenly a change came over his hearers. The breathless silence of
+engrossed attention gave place to a subdued stir; whispers were heard
+here and there. Men were handing a newspaper about, accompanying its
+transfer with meaning looks. He was not surprised, for members made no
+scruple of reading their papers or writing their letters in the House,
+but he was vexed to see that he had not gripped them closer. He went on,
+but that ever-circulating paper had half his attention now. He noticed
+Kilshaw come in with it and press it on Sir Robert's notice. Sir Robert
+at first refused, but when Kilshaw urged, he read and glanced up at him,
+so Medland thought, with a look of sadness. Coxon had got a paper now,
+and left biting his nails to pore over it; he passed it to Puttock, and
+the fat man bulged his cheeks in seeming wonder. Even his waverer, the
+one who had cheered, was deep in it. Only Norburn was unconscious of it.
+And, when they had read, they all looked at him again, not as they had
+looked before, but, it seemed to him, with a curious wonder, half
+mocking, half pitying, as one looks at a man who does not know the thing
+that touches him most nearly. He glanced up at the galleries: there too
+was the ubiquitous sheet; the Chief Justice and the President of the
+Legislative Council were cheek by jowl over it, and it fell lightly from
+Lady Eynesford's slim fingers, to be caught at eagerly by Eleanor
+Scaife.
+
+"What is it?" he whispered impatiently to Norburn; but his absorbed
+disciple only bewilderedly murmured "What?" and the Premier could not
+pause to tell him.
+
+Now followed what Sir Robert maintained was the greatest feat of oratory
+he had ever witnessed. Gathering his wandering wits together, Medland
+plunged again whole-heartedly into his speech, and slowly, gradually,
+almost, it seemed, step by step and man by man, he won back the thoughts
+of his audience. He wrestled with that strange paper rival and overthrew
+it. Man after man dropped it; its course was stayed; it fell underfoot
+or fluttered idly down the gangways. The nods ceased, the whispers were
+hushed, the stir fell and rose no more. Once again he had them, and,
+inspired by that knowledge, the surest spur of eloquence, there rang
+from his lips the last burning words, the picture of the vision that
+ruled his life, the hope for the days that he might not see.
+
+"Believe!" he cried, in passionate entreaty, "believe, and your sons
+shall surely see!"
+
+He sank in his seat, and the last echo of his resonant voice died away.
+First came silence, and then a thunder of applause. Men stood up and
+waved what they had in their hands, hats or handkerchiefs or papers;
+women sat with their eyes still on him, or, with a gasp, leant back and
+closed their lids. He sat with his head sunk on his breast, till the
+tumult died away. No one rose. The Speaker looked round once and again.
+Could it be that no one----? Slowly he began to rise. The movement
+caught Sir Robert's attention: he signed to Puttock, who sprang heavily
+to his feet. Puttock was no favourite as a speaker, and generally his
+rising was a signal for the House to thin. He began his speech with his
+stolid deliberation. Not a man stirred. They waited for something still.
+
+"And now," whispered Medland to the Treasurer, who sat by him, "let's
+see what it was in that infernal paper."
+
+The Treasurer handed him what he asked.
+
+"You ought to see it," he whispered back.
+
+Mr. Puttock's voice droned on, and his sheaf of notes rustled in his
+hand. No one looked at him or listened to him. Their eyes were still on
+Medland. The Premier read--it seemed so slowly--put the paper down, and
+gazed first up at the ceiling; then he glanced round, and found all the
+attentive eyes on him: he smiled--it was just a visible smile, no
+more--and his head fell again on his breast, while his hand idly twisted
+a button on his coat.
+
+The show was over, or had never come, and the deferred rush to the doors
+began. They almost tumbled over one another now in their haste to reach
+where their tongues could play freely. Kilshaw and Perry, the Treasurer
+and the waverers, all slipped out, and Norburn, knowing nothing but
+simply wearied of Puttock, followed them. Scarce twenty were left in the
+House, and the galleries had poured half their contents into the great
+room which served for a lobby outside. There the talk ran swift and
+eager. The very name of "Benyon" was enough for many, who remembered
+that it had always been said to be the maiden name of Medland's wife.
+Could any one doubt who the other person in that strangely revealed
+photograph was, or fail to guess the relation between the man they had
+been listening to and the man who was dead? A few had known Benyon, more
+Gaspard, all Medland--the three figures of this drama; many remembered
+the fourth, the central character, who had not tarried for the end of
+it: the man was rare who did not spend a thought on the bright girl,
+whose face was so familiar in these walls, and who must be dragged into
+it. Where was she? asked one. She was gone. Norburn, with rapid
+instinct, as soon as he had read, had run to her and forced her to go
+home. He was back from escorting her now, and walked up and down with
+hands behind him, speaking to no one among all the busily babbling
+throng.
+
+The waverers stood in a little group by themselves, talking earnestly in
+undertones, while men wondered whether the paper would undo what the
+speech had done, and whether the Premier's words had won a victory, only
+for his deeds to leap to light and rob it from him again.
+
+Inside, the debate lagged on, surely the dullest, emptiest, most
+neglected debate that had ever decided the fate of a Government. The men
+who had been set down to speak came in and spoke and went out again; a
+House was kept, but with little to spare. Sir Robert went in and took
+his place, opposite Medland, who never stirred through all the hours.
+Presently Sir Robert wrote a note, twisted it, and flung it to the
+Premier. "A splendid performance of yours, _mes compliments_," it said,
+and, when Medland looked across to acknowledge it, Sir Robert smiled
+kindly, and nodded his silver head, and the Premier answered him with a
+glad gleam in his deep-set eyes. These two men, who were always
+fighting, knew one another, and liked one another for what they knew.
+And this little episode done, Sir Robert rose and pricked and pinked the
+Premier's points, making sharp fun of his heroics, and weightily
+criticising his proposals. Now the House did fill a little, for after
+all the debate was important, and the hour of the division drew near;
+and when the question was put and the bell rang, nearly half the House
+trooped out with virtuous air to join the other half, persistently
+gossiping in the lobby, and, with them, decide the fateful question.
+
+One more strange thing was to happen at that sitting.
+
+It was not strange that the Government were beaten by three votes, that
+only one of those wavering men voted with his old party at last, but it
+was strange that when this result was announced, and Medland's followers
+settled sturdily in their seats to endure the celebration of the
+triumph, the celebration did not come. There was hardly a cheer, and
+Medland himself, whom the result seemed hardly to have roused, woke with
+a start to the unwonted silence. It struck to his heart: it seemed like
+a tribute of respect to a dead enemy. But he rose and briefly said that
+on the next day an announcement of the Government's intentions would be
+made by himself--he paused here a moment--or one of his colleagues. He
+sat down again. The sitting was at an end, and the House adjourned.
+Members began to go out, but, as the Premier rose, they drew back and
+left a path for him down the middle of the House. As he went, one or two
+thrust out their hands to him, and one honest fellow shouted in his
+rough voice--he was a labouring-man member--"You're not done yet,
+Jimmy!"
+
+The shout touched him, he lifted his head, looked round with a smile,
+and, just raising again the hat he had put on as he neared the door,
+took Norburn's arm and passed out of the House.
+
+When Sir Robert followed, he found the Chief Justice waiting for him,
+and they walked off together. For a long while neither spoke, but at
+last Sir Robert said peevishly,
+
+"I wish this confounded thing hadn't happened. It spoils our win."
+
+The Chief Justice nodded, and whistled a bar or two of some sad ditty.
+
+"I'm glad she's dead, poor soul, Perry," he said.
+
+"There's the girl," said Sir Robert.
+
+"Ay, there's the girl."
+
+They did not speak again till they were just parting, when the Chief
+Justice broke out,
+
+"Why the deuce couldn't the fellow take his beastly photograph with
+him?"
+
+"It's very absurd," answered Sir Robert, "but I feel just the same about
+it."
+
+"I'm hanged if you're not a gentleman, Perry," said the Chief Justice,
+and he hastened away, blowing his nose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THREE AGAINST THE WORLD.
+
+
+Though the House had risen early that evening, the Central Club sat very
+late. The smoking-room was crowded, and tongues wagged briskly. Every
+man had a hare to hunt; no one lacked irrefragable arguments to prove
+what must happen; no one knew exactly what was going to happen. The
+elder men gathered round Puttock and Jewell, and listened to a
+demonstration that the Premier's public life was at an end; the younger
+rallied Coxon, whose premature stateliness sometimes invited this
+treatment, dubbing him "Kingmaker Coxon," and hilariously repudiating
+the idea that he did not enjoy the title. Captain Heseltine dropped in
+about eleven; cross-questioning drew from him the news that
+communications had passed, informal communications, he insisted, from
+the Governor to Sir Robert, as well as to the Premier.
+
+"In fact," he said, "poor old Flemyng's cutting up and down all over
+the place. Glad it's his night on duty."
+
+Presently Mr. Flemyng himself appeared, clamorous for cigars and drink,
+but mighty discreet and vexatiously reticent. Yes, he had taken a letter
+to Medland; yes, and another to Perry; no, he had no idea what the
+missives were about. He believed Medland was to see the Governor
+to-morrow, but it was beyond him to conjecture the precise object of the
+interview. Was it resignation or dissolution? Really, he knew no more
+than that waiter--and so forth; very likely his ignorance was real, but
+he diffused an atmosphere of suppressed knowledge which whetted the
+curiosity of his audience to the sharpest edge.
+
+A messenger entered and delivered a note to Puttock and another to
+Coxon. The two compared their notes for a moment, and went out together.
+The arguments rose furiously again, some maintaining that Medland must
+disappear altogether, others vehemently denying it, a third party
+preferring to await the disclosures at the inquest before committing
+themselves to an opinion. An hour passed; the noise in the streets began
+to abate, and the clock of the Roman Catholic cathedral hard by struck
+twelve. Captain Heseltine yawned, stretched, and rose to his feet.
+
+"Come along, Flemyng," he said. "The show's over for to-night."
+
+He seemed to express the general feeling, but men were reluctant to
+acknowledge so disappointing a conclusion, and the preparations for
+departure were slow and lingering. They had not fairly begun before Mr.
+Kilshaw's entrance abruptly checked them. Instantly he became the centre
+of a crowd.
+
+"Now, Kilshaw," they cried, "you know all about it. Oh, come now! Of
+course you do! Secret? Nonsense! Out with it!" and one or two of his
+intimates added imploringly, "Don't be an ass, Kilshaw."
+
+Kilshaw flung himself into a chair.
+
+"They resign," he said.
+
+"At once?"
+
+"Yes. Perry's to be sent for. Medland, I'm told, insists on going. For
+my own part, I think he's right."
+
+"Of course," said somebody sapiently, "he doesn't want to dissolve with
+this affair hanging over him."
+
+"It comes to the same thing," observed Kilshaw. "Perry will dissolve;
+the Governor has promised to do it, if he likes."
+
+"Perry dissolve!"
+
+"Yes," nodded Kilshaw. "You see--" He paused and added, "Our present
+position isn't very independent."
+
+Everybody understood what he hinted. Sir Robert did not care to depend
+on the will of Coxon and his seceders.
+
+"And what about Coxon and Puttock?" was the next question.
+
+"Haven't I been indiscreet enough?"
+
+"Well, what are you going to do yourself?"
+
+"My duty," answered Mr. Kilshaw, with a smile, and the throng, failing
+to extract any more from him, did at last set about the task of getting
+home to bed in good earnest.
+
+They could rest sooner than the man who occupied so much of their
+interest. It had been a busy evening for the defeated Minister; he had
+colleagues to see, letters to write, messages to send, conferences to
+hold. No doubt there was much to do, and yet Norburn, who watched him
+closely, doubted whether he did not make work for himself, perhaps as a
+means of distraction, perhaps as a device for postponing an interview
+with his daughter. He had seen her for a minute when he came in, and
+told her he would tell her all there was to tell some time that night;
+but the moment for it was slow in coming. Norburn had been struck with
+Daisy's composure. She had seen the _Evening Mail_, and, without
+attempting to discuss the matter with him, she expressed her conviction
+that there could be nothing distressing behind the mysterious paragraph.
+Norburn did not know what to say to her. He felt that in a case of this
+sort a girl's mind was a closed book to him. He had himself, on the way
+back from the House, heard a brief account of the whole matter from the
+Premier's lips; it seemed to him, in the light of his ideas and
+theories, a matter of very little moment. He was of course aware how
+widely the judgment of many would differ from his, and when his mind was
+directed to the political aspect of the situation, he acknowledged the
+gravity of the disclosure. But honestly he could not pretend to think it
+a thing which should alter or lessen the esteem or love in which
+Medland's friends held him. And even if the original act were seriously
+worthy of blame, the lapse of years made present severity as
+unreasonable as it would be unkind. In vain Medland reminded him that,
+let the act be as old and long past as it would, the consequences
+remained.
+
+"What!" Norburn cried, "would any one think the worse of Daisy? The more
+fools they!" and he laughed cheerfully, adding, "I only wish she'd let
+me show her I think none the worse of her. Why, it's preposterous, sir!"
+
+"Preposterous or not," answered Medland, "half the people in the place
+will let her know the difference. I may agree with you--God knows how I
+should like to be able to!--but there's no blinking the fact. Well, I
+must tell her."
+
+He recollected telling the same story to the other woman he loved, and
+he shrank in sudden dread, lest his daughter should say what Alicia had
+said, "To me it is--horrible!" The words echoed in his brain. "Ah, I
+can't speak of it," she had cried, and the gesture of her hand as she
+repelled him lived before his eyes again. Surely Daisy would not do that
+to him!
+
+"I should be like Lear--without a grievance," he said to himself, with
+a wry smile. "The very height of tragedy!"
+
+It was near midnight before he put away his work. Norburn had left him
+alone two hours before, and he rose now, laid down his pipe, and went to
+look for his daughter in her little sitting-room. His heart was very
+heavy; he must make her understand now why a man who made love to her
+should be hastily sent away by his friends, what her father had
+condemned her to, what manner of man he was; he must seem to destroy or
+impair the perfect sweetness of memory wherein she held her mother.
+
+He opened the door softly. She was sitting in a large armchair, over a
+little bit of bright fire; save for gleams suddenly coming and going, as
+a coal blazed and died down again, the room was in darkness. He walked
+up to her and knelt by the chair, his head almost on a level with hers.
+
+"Well, Daisy, what are you doing?"
+
+She put out a hand and laid it on his with a gentle pressure.
+
+"I'm thinking," she said. "Do you want a light?"
+
+"No, I like it dark best--best for what I have to say."
+
+Suddenly she threw her arms round his neck, drawing him to her and
+kissing his face.
+
+"I'd do the same if you'd killed him yourself," she whispered in the
+extravagance of her love, and kissed him again.
+
+"But, Daisy, you don't know."
+
+"Yes, I do. He told me. He's been here."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Jack Norburn. He said you would hate telling me, so he did. You mustn't
+mind, dear, you mustn't mind. Oh, you didn't think it would make any
+difference to me, dear, did you? What do I care? Mrs. Puttock may care,
+and Lady Eynesford, and all the rest, but what do I care if I have you
+and him?"
+
+"Me and him, Daisy?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, smiling boldly. "He's asked me to marry him--just
+to show he didn't mind--and I think I will, father. We three against the
+world! What need we care? Father, we'll beat Sir Robert!" and she seized
+his two hands and laughed.
+
+In vain Medland tried to tell her what he had come to say. Mighty as his
+relief and joy were, he still felt a burden lay on him. She would not
+hear.
+
+"Don't you see I'm happy?" she cried. "It can't be your duty to make me
+unhappy. Jack doesn't mind, I don't mind!" Her voice sank a little and
+she added, "It can't hurt mother now. Oh, don't be unhappy about it,
+dear--don't, don't!"
+
+They were standing now, and his arm was about her. Looking up at him,
+she went on,
+
+"They shan't beat us! They shan't say they beat us. We three, father!"
+
+He stooped and kissed her. There is love that lies beyond the realm of
+giving or taking, of harm or good, of wrong, or even of forgiveness.
+With all his faults, this love he had won from his daughter, and it
+stood him in stead that night. He drew himself up to his height, and the
+air of despondency fell from him. The girl's brave love braced him to
+meet the world again.
+
+"No, by Jove, we're not beat yet, Daisy!" he said, and she kissed him
+again and laughed softly as she made him sit, and herself sat upon his
+knee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE TRUTH TOO LATE.
+
+
+By four o'clock the next afternoon the Club had gathered ample materials
+for fresh gossip. The formalities attendant on the change of government,
+the composition of the new Cabinet, the prospects of the election--these
+alone would have supplied many hours, and besides them, indeed
+supplanting them temporarily by virtue of an intenser interest, there
+was the account of the inquest on Benyon's body. Medland had gone to it,
+almost direct from his final interview with the Governor, and Kilshaw
+had been there, fresh from a conference with Perry. The inquiry had
+ended, as was foreseen directly Ned Evans' evidence was forthcoming, in
+a verdict of murder against Gaspard; but the interest lay in the course
+of the investigation, not in its issue. Mr. Duncombe, a famous comedian,
+who was then on tour in New Lindsey and had been made an honorary member
+of the Club, smacked his lips over the dramatic moment when the
+ex-Premier, calmly and in a clear voice, had identified the person in
+the photograph, declared the deceased man to have been Benyon, and very
+briefly stated how he had been connected with him in old days.
+
+"The lady," he said, "is Mrs. Benyon. The other figure is that of
+myself. I had not seen the deceased for many years."
+
+"You were not on terms with him?" asked the coroner, who, in common with
+half the listeners, had known the lady as Mrs. Medland.
+
+"No," said Mr. Medland; "I lost sight of him."
+
+"You did not hear from--from any one about him?"
+
+"No."
+
+He gave the dates when he had last seen Benyon in old days. Asked
+whether he had communicated with him between that date and the dead
+man's reappearance, he answered,
+
+"Once, about four years ago. I wrote to tell him of that lady's death,"
+and he pointed again to the picture, and went on to tell the details of
+Benyon's subsequent application to him for a post under Government.
+
+"You refused it?" he was asked.
+
+"Yes, I refused it. I spoke to him once again, when we met on a social
+occasion. We had a sort of dispute then. I never saw him again to speak
+to."
+
+"It was all done," said Mr. Duncombe, describing the scene, "in a
+repressed way that was very effective--to a house that knew the
+circumstances most effective. And the other fellow--Kilshaw--he gave
+some sport too. The coroner (they told me he was one of Medland's men,
+and I noticed he spared Medland all he could) was inclined to be a bit
+down on Kilshaw. Kilshaw was cool and handy in his answers, but, Lord
+love you! his game came out pretty plain. A monkey! You don't give a man
+a monkey unless there's value received! So people saw, and Mr. Kilshaw
+looked a bit uncomfortable when he caught Medland's eye. He looked at
+him like that," and Mr. Duncombe assumed the finest wronged-hero glance
+in his repertory.
+
+"Oh, come, old chap, I bet he didn't," observed Captain Heseltine.
+"We've seen him, you know."
+
+Duncombe laughed good-humouredly.
+
+"At any rate he made Kilshaw look a little green, and some of the people
+behind called out 'Shame!' and got themselves sat upon. Then they had
+Medland up again and twisted him a bit about his acquaintance with
+Gaspard; but the coroner didn't seem to think there was anything in it,
+and they found murder against Gaspard, and rang down the curtain. And
+when we got outside there was a bit of a rumpus. They hooted Kilshaw and
+cheered Medland, and yelled like mad when a dashed pretty girl drove up
+in a pony-cart and carried him off. Altogether it wasn't half bad."
+
+"Glad you enjoyed yourself," observed Captain Heseltine. "If it amuses
+strangers to see our leading celebrities mixed up in a murder and other
+distressing affairs, it's the least we can do to see that they get it."
+
+The Captain's facetiousness fell on unappreciative ears. Most of Mr.
+Duncombe's audience were too alive to the serious side of the matter to
+enjoy it. To them it was another and a very striking scene in the fight
+which had long gone on between Medland and Kilshaw, and had taken a
+fresh and fiercer impetus from the well-remembered day when Medland had
+spoken his words about Kilshaw and his race-horses. Nobody doubted that
+Kilshaw had kept this man Benyon, or Benham, as a secret weapon, and
+that the murder had only made the disclosure come earlier. Kilshaw's
+reputation suffered somewhat in the minds of the scrupulous, but his
+partisans would hear of no condemnation. They said, as he had said, that
+in dealing with a man like Medland it would have been folly not to use
+the weapons fate, or the foe himself by his own misdeeds, offered. As
+for the disapprobation of the Kirton mob, they held that in high scorn.
+
+"They'd cheer burglary, if Medland did it," said one.
+
+"Well, he wants to, pretty nearly," added a capitalist.
+
+"But the country will take a very different view. Puttock'll rub it into
+all his people: _they_'ll not vote for him. What do you say, Coxon?"
+
+"I think we shall beat him badly," said that gentleman, as he rose and
+went out.
+
+Captain Heseltine soon followed, and was surprised to see Coxon's figure
+just ahead of him as he entered the gates of Government House.
+
+"Hang the fellow! What does he want here?" asked the Captain.
+
+Mr. Coxon asked for Lady Eynesford. When he entered, she rose with a
+newspaper in her hand.
+
+"What a shocking, shameful thing this is!" she said. "What a blessing it
+is that the Government was beaten!"
+
+Coxon acquiesced in both these opinions.
+
+"I never thought well of him," continued the lady. "Now everybody sees
+him in his true colours. And it's you we have chiefly to thank for our
+deliverance."
+
+Coxon murmured a modest depreciation of his services, and said,
+
+"I hope Miss Derosne is well?"
+
+Something in his tones brought to his hostess one of those swift fits of
+repentance that were apt to wait for her whenever she allowed herself to
+treat this visitor with friendliness. He was so very prompt in
+responding!
+
+"She is not very well," she answered, rather coldly.
+
+"I--I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing her?"
+
+Mr. Coxon's wishes were fulfilled to the moment. The door opened and
+Alicia came in. On seeing him she stopped.
+
+"Come in, Alicia," said Lady Eynesford. "Here's Mr. Coxon come to be
+congratulated."
+
+Coxon stood up with a propitiatory smile.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Coxon?" said Alicia, giving him a limp hand. "Shall
+I ring for tea, Mary?"
+
+"They'll bring it. You haven't wished him joy."
+
+"Oh, are you in the new Ministry?"
+
+"I have that honour, Miss Derosne. I hope you are on our side?"
+
+"I don't quite know which side you are on--now," observed Alicia, in
+slow but distinct tones.
+
+Coxon grew red.
+
+"I--I have joined Sir Robert Perry's Ministry," he answered.
+
+"Of course he has, Alicia," interposed Lady Eynesford hastily.
+
+Alicia seated herself on the sofa, remarking as she did so,
+
+"Well, you do change a good deal, don't you?"
+
+"Really, Miss Derosne," he stammered, "I don't understand you."
+
+"Oh, I only mean that you were first with Sir Robert, then with Mr.
+Medland, and now with Sir Robert again! And presently with Mr. Medland
+again, I suppose?"
+
+"She doesn't appreciate the political reasons," began Lady Eynesford,
+with troubled brow and smiling lips; but Coxon, frowning angrily, broke
+in,
+
+"Not the last, I promise you, anyhow, Miss Derosne."
+
+"What, you think he's finally beaten then?"
+
+"That's not the question. Beaten or not, he is discredited, and no
+respectable man would act with him."
+
+"We needn't discuss--" began Lady Eynesford again, but this time Alicia
+was the interrupter. She spoke in a cold, hard way, very unlike her own.
+
+"If he won, you would all be at his feet."
+
+Coxon was justified in being angry at her almost savage scorn of him;
+regardless of anything except his wrong, he struck back the sharpest
+blow he could.
+
+"I know some people are very ready to be at his feet," he said, with a
+sneering smile.
+
+His shaft hit the mark. Alicia flushed and sat speechless. A glance at
+Lady Eynesford's face told him the scene had lasted too long: he rose
+and took his leave, paying Alicia the homage of a bow, but not seeking
+her hand. She took no notice of his salute, and Lady Eynesford only
+gasped "Good-bye."
+
+The two sat silent for some moments after he had gone; then Lady
+Eynesford remarked,
+
+"Were you mad, Alicia? See what you laid yourself open to! Oh, of course
+a gentleman wouldn't have said it, but you yourself didn't treat him as
+if he was a gentleman. Really, I can make a great deal of allowance for
+him. Your manner was inexcusable."
+
+Alicia did not attempt to defend herself.
+
+"You are out of temper," continued her sister-in-law, "and you choose to
+hit the first person within reach; if you can do that you care nothing
+for my dignity or your own self-respect. You parade your--your interest
+in this man----"
+
+"I shall never speak to him again."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it, and, if you come into my drawing-room, I will
+thank you to behave yourself properly and be civil to my guests," and
+Lady Eynesford walked out of the room.
+
+Alicia huddled herself in a heap on the sofa, turning her face to the
+wall. She felt Lady Eynesford's scornful rebuke like the stroke of a
+whip. She had descended to a vulgar wrangle, and had been worsted in it:
+the one thing of all which it concerned her to hide had by her own act
+been opened to the jeer of a stranger; she had violated every rule of
+good breeding and self-respect. No words--not even Lady
+Eynesford's--were too strong to describe what she had done. Yet she
+could not help it; she could not hear a creature like that abuse or
+condemn a man like Medland--though all that he had said she had said,
+and more, to Medland himself. She was too miserable to think; she lay
+with closed eyes and parted lips, breathing quickly, and restlessly
+moving her limbs in that strange physical discomfort which great
+unhappiness brings with it.
+
+A footstep roused her; she sat up, hurriedly smoothing her hair and
+clutching at a book that lay on the table by her. The intruder was her
+brother, and fortunately he was too intent on the tidings he brought to
+notice her confusion.
+
+"Great news, Al!" he cried. "They've offered me Ireland. We shall start
+home in a month."
+
+"Home in a month?" she echoed.
+
+"Yes. Splendid, isn't it?"
+
+"You're pleased, Willie?"
+
+The Governor was very pleased. He liked the promotion, he liked going
+home; and finally, pleasant as his stay in New Lindsey had been on the
+whole, there were features in the present position which made him not
+sorry to depart.
+
+"I shall just see the elections through, and Perry well started--at
+least, I suppose it'll be Perry--and then we'll be off. Shan't you be
+glad to see the old home again, Al?"
+
+"It's so sudden," she said. "I shall be sorry to leave here."
+
+"Oh, so shall I--very sorry to leave some of the people too. Still, it's
+a good thing. Where's Eleanor? I must tell her. I say, Dick gets here
+to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad."
+
+The Governor hurried out again, and Alicia returned to the sofa. The
+knot of her troubles had been rudely cut. Perhaps this summary ending
+was best. She herself would not, she knew, have had the strength to tear
+herself away from that place, but if fate tore her--perhaps well and
+good. Nothing but unhappiness waited there for her; it seemed to her
+that nothing but unhappiness waited anywhere now; but at least, over at
+home, she would not have to fear the discovery of her secret, the secret
+she herself kept so badly, nor to endure the torture of gossip, hints,
+and clumsy pity. No one, over at home, would think of Medland; they
+might just know his name, might perhaps have heard him rumoured for a
+dangerous man and a vexatious opponent of good Sir Robert. Certainly
+they would never think of him as the cause of bruising of heart to a
+young lady in fashionable society. So he would pass out of her life; she
+would leave him to his busy, strenuous, happy-unhappy life, so full of
+triumphs and defeats, of ups and downs, of the love of many and the hate
+of many. Perhaps she, like the rest, would read his name in the _Times_
+now and then, unless indeed he were utterly vanquished. No, he was not
+finally beaten. Of that she was sure. His name would be read often in
+cold print, but the glow of the life he lived would be henceforth
+unknown to her. She would go back to the old world and the old circle of
+it. What would happen after that she was too listless to think. It was
+summed up in negations; and these again melted into one great want, the
+absence of the man to whom her imagination and her heart blindly and
+obstinately clung.
+
+Lady Eynesford had left her newspaper, and Alicia found her hand upon
+it. Taking it up, she read Medland's evidence at the inquest. A sudden
+revulsion of feeling seized her. Was this the man she was dreaming
+about, a man who calmly, coolly, as though caring nothing, told that
+story in the face of all the world? Was she never to get rid of the
+spell he had cast on her before she knew what he really was? For a man
+like this she had sacrificed her self-respect, bandied insults with a
+vulgar upstart, and brought on her head a reproach more fitting for an
+ill-mannered child. She threw the paper from her and rose to her feet.
+She would think no more of him; he might be what he would; he was no fit
+subject for her thoughts, and he and the place where he lived and all
+this wretched country deserved nothing better than to be forgotten,
+resolutely, utterly, soon.
+
+"I am very sorry, Mary," she was saying, ten minutes later; "I deserved
+all you said. I don't know what foolishness possessed me. See, I have
+written and apologised to Mr. Coxon."
+
+And Lady Eynesford kissed her and thanked heaven that they would soon
+have done with Mr. Coxon and--all the rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+THE UNCLEAN THING.
+
+
+A few days later, Mr. Dick Derosne was walking in the Park at noon. He
+had been down to the Club and found no one there. Everybody except
+himself was at work: the politicians were scattered all over the colony,
+conducting their election campaign. Medland himself had gone to his
+constituency: his seat was very unsafe there, and he was determined to
+keep it if he could, although, as a precaution, he was also a candidate
+for the North-east ward of Kirton, where his success was beyond doubt.
+His friends and his foes had followed him out of town, and the few who
+were left were busy in the capital itself. Such men as these when at the
+Club would talk of nothing but the crisis, and, after he had heard all
+there was to hear about the Benyon affair, the crisis began to bore
+Dick. After all, it mattered very little to him; he would be out of it
+all in a month, and the Medlands were not, when he came to think of it,
+people of great importance. Why, the Grangers had never heard of them!
+Decidedly, he had had enough and to spare of the Medlands.
+
+Nevertheless, he was to have a little more of them, for at this instant
+he saw Daisy Medland approaching him. Escape was impossible, and Dick
+had the grace to shrink from appearing to avoid her.
+
+"The deuce!" he thought, "this is awkward. I hope she won't--" He raised
+his hat with elaborate politeness.
+
+Daisy stopped and greeted him with much effusion and without any
+embarrassment. Dick thought that odd.
+
+"I was afraid," she said, "we were not going to see you again before you
+disappeared finally with the Governor."
+
+their deceased god and later, after he had revived, celebrated with
+exultation his birth to a new life. Or else they joined in the passion of
+Mithra, condemned to create the world in suffering. This common grief and
+joy were often expressed with savage violence, by bloody mutilations, long
+wails of despair, and extravagant acclamations. The manifestations of the
+extreme fanaticism of those barbarian races that had not been touched by
+Greek skepticism and the very ardor of their faith inflamed the souls of
+the multitudes attracted by the exotic gods.
+
+The Oriental religions touched every chord of sensibility and satisfied the
+thirst for religious emotion that the austere Roman creed had been unable
+to quench. {31} But at the same time they satisfied the intellect more
+fully, and this is my second point.
+
+In very early times Greece--later imitated by Rome--became resolutely
+rationalistic: her greatest originality lies here. Her philosophy was
+purely laical; thought was unrestrained by any sacred tradition; it even
+pretended to pass judgment upon these traditions and condemned or approved
+of them. Being sometimes hostile, sometimes indifferent and some times
+conciliatory, it always remained independent of faith. But while Greece
+thus freed herself from the fetters of a superannuated mythology, and
+openly and boldly constructed those systems of metaphysics by means of
+which she claimed to solve the enigmas of the universe, her religion lost
+its vitality and dried up because it lacked the strengthening nourishment
+of reflection. It became a thing devoid of sense, whose _raison d'être_ was
+no longer understood; it embodied dead ideas and an obsolete conception of
+the world. In Greece as well as at Rome it was reduced to a collection of
+unintelligible rites, scrupulously and mechanically reproduced without
+addition or omission because they had been practised by the ancestors of
+long ago, and formulas hallowed by the _mos maiorum_, that were no longer
+understood or sincerely cherished. Never did a people of advanced culture
+have a more infantile religion.
+
+The Oriental civilizations on the contrary were sacerdotal in character. As
+in medieval Europe, the scholars of Asia and Egypt were priests. In the
+temples the nature of the gods and of man were not the only subjects of
+discussion; mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philology and history were
+also studied. The successors of Berosus, a priest from Babylonia, and {32}
+Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, were considered deeply versed in all
+intellectual disciplines as late as the time of Strabo.[13]
+
+This state of affairs proved detrimental to the progress of science.
+Researches were conducted according to preconceived ideas and were
+perverted through strange prejudices. Astrology and magic were the
+monstrous fruit of a hybrid union. But all this certainly gave religion a
+power it had never possessed either in Greece or Rome.
+
+All results of observation, all conquests of thought, were used by an
+erudite clergy to attain the principal object of their activities, the
+solution of the problem of the destiny of man and matter, and of the
+relations of heaven and earth. An ever enlarging conception of the universe
+kept transforming the modes of belief. Faith presumed to enslave both
+physics and metaphysics. The credit of every discovery was given to the
+gods. Thoth in Egypt and Bel in Chaldea were the revealers not only of
+theology and the ritual, but of all human knowledge.[14] The names of the
+Oriental Hipparchi and Euclids who solved the first problems of astronomy
+and geometry were unknown; but a confused and grotesque literature made use
+of the name and authority of Hermes Trismegistus. The doctrines of the
+planetary spheres and the opposition of the four elements were made to
+support systems of anthropology and of morality; the theorems of astronomy
+were used to establish an alleged method of divination; formulas of
+incantation, supposed to subject divine powers to the magician, were
+combined with chemical experiments and medical prescriptions.
+
+This intimate union of erudition and faith continued {33} in the Latin
+world. Theology became more and more a process of deification of the
+principles or agents discovered by science and a worship of time regarded
+as the first cause, the stars whose course determined the events of this
+world, the four elements whose innumerable combinations produced the
+natural phenomena, and especially the sun which preserved heat, fertility
+and life. The dogmas of the mysteries of Mithra were, to a certain extent,
+the religious expression of Roman physics and astronomy. In all forms of
+pantheism the knowledge of nature appears to be inseparable from that of
+God.[15] Art itself complied more and more with the tendency to express
+erudite ideas by subtle symbolism, and it represented in allegorical
+figures the relations of divine powers and cosmic forces, like the sky, the
+earth, the ocean, the planets, the constellations and the winds. The
+sculptors engraved on stone everything man thought and taught. In a general
+way the belief prevailed that redemption and salvation depended on the
+revelation of certain truths, on a knowledge of the gods, of the world and
+of our person, and piety became gnosis.[16]
+
+But, you will say, since in the classic age philosophy also claimed to lead
+to morality through instruction and to acquaint man with the supreme good,
+why did it yield to Oriental religions that were in reality neither
+original nor innovating? Quite right, and if a powerful rationalist school,
+possessed of a good critical method, had led the minds, we may believe that
+it would have checked the invasion of the barbarian mysteries or at least
+limited their field of action. However, as has frequently been pointed out,
+even in ancient Greece the philosophic critics had very little hold on {34}
+popular religion obstinately faithful to its inherited superstitious forms.
+But how many second century minds shared Lucian's skepticism in regard to
+the dogmatic systems! The various sects were fighting each other for ever
+so long without convincing one another of their alleged error. The satirist
+of Samosata enjoyed opposing their exclusive pretensions while he himself
+reclined on the "soft pillow of doubt." But only intelligent minds could
+delight in doubt or surrender to it; the masses wanted certainties. There
+was nothing to revive confidence in the power of a decrepit and threadbare
+science. No great discovery transformed the conception of the universe.
+Nature no longer betrayed her secrets, the earth remained unexplored and
+the past inscrutable. Every branch of knowledge was forgotten. The world
+cursed with sterility, could but repeat itself; it had the poignant
+appreciation of its own decay and impotence. Tired of fruitless researches,
+the mind surrendered to the necessity of believing. Since the intellect was
+unable to formulate a consistent rule of life faith alone could supply it,
+and the multitudes gravitated toward the temples, where the truths taught
+to man in earlier days by the Oriental gods were revealed. The stanch
+adherence of past generations to beliefs and rites of unlimited antiquity
+seemed to guarantee their truth and efficacy. This current was so strong
+that philosophy itself was swept toward mysticism and the neo-Platonist
+school became a theurgy.
+
+The Oriental mysteries, then, could stir the soul by arousing admiration
+and terror, pity and enthusiasm in turn. They gave the intellect the
+illusion of learned depth and absolute certainty and finally--our third
+{35} point--they satisfied conscience as well as passion and reason. Among
+the complex causes that guaranteed their domination, this was without doubt
+the most effective.
+
+In every period of their history the Romans, unlike the Greeks in this
+respect, judged theories and institutions especially by their practical
+results. They always had a soldier's and business man's contempt for
+metaphysicians. It is a matter of frequent observation that the philosophy
+of the Latin world neglected metaphysical speculations and concentrated its
+attention on morals, just as later the Roman church left to the subtle
+Hellenes the interminable controversies over the essence of the divine
+logos and the double nature of Christ. Questions that could rouse and
+divide her were those having a direct application to life, like the
+doctrine of grace.
+
+The old religion of the Romans had to respond to this demand of their
+genius. Its poverty was honest.[17] Its mythology did not possess the
+poetic charm of that of Greece, nor did its gods have the imperishable
+beauty of the Olympians, but they were more moral, or at least pretended to
+be. A large number were simply personified qualities, like chastity and
+piety. With the aid of the censors they imposed the practice of the
+national virtues, that is to say of the qualities useful to society,
+temperance, courage, chastity, obedience to parents and magistrates,
+reverence for the oath and the law, in fact, the practice of every form of
+patriotism. During the last century of the republic the pontiff Scaevola,
+one of the foremost men of his time, rejected as futile the divinities of
+fable and poetry, as superfluous or obnoxious those of the philosophers and
+the exegetists, {36} and reserved all his favors for those of the
+statesmen, as the only ones fit for the people.[18] These were the ones
+protecting the old customs, traditions and frequently even the old
+privileges. But in the perpetual flux of things conservatism ever carries
+with it a germ of death. Just as the law failed to maintain the integrity
+of ancient principles, like the absolute power of the father of the family,
+principles that were no longer in keeping with the social realities, so
+religion witnessed the foundering of a system of ethics contrary to the
+moral code that had slowly been established. The idea of collective
+responsibility contained in a number of beliefs is one instance. If a
+vestal violated her vow of chastity the divinity sent a pest that ceased
+only on the day the culprit was punished. Sometimes the angry heavens
+granted victory to the army only on condition that a general or soldier
+dedicate himself to the infernal gods as an expiatory victim. However,
+through the influence of the philosophers and the jurists the conviction
+slowly gained ground that each one was responsible for his own misdeeds,
+and that it was not equitable to make a whole city suffer for the crime of
+an individual. People ceased to admit that the gods crushed the good as
+well as the wicked in one punishment. Often, also, the divine anger was
+thought to be as ridiculous in its manifestations as in its cause. The
+rural superstitions of the country districts of Latium continued to live in
+the pontifical code of the Roman people. If a lamb with two heads or a colt
+with five legs was born, solemn supplications were prescribed to avert the
+misfortunes foreboded by those terrifying prodigies.[19]
+
+All these puerile and monstrous beliefs that burdened {37} the religion of
+the Latins had thrown it into disrepute. Its morality no longer responded
+to the new conception of justice beginning to prevail. As a rule Rome
+remedied the poverty of her theology and ritual by taking what she needed
+from the Greeks. But here this resource failed her because the poetic,
+artistic and even intellectual religion of the Greeks was hardly moral. And
+the fables of a mythology jeered at by the philosophers, parodied on the
+stage and put to verse by libertine poets were anything but edifying.
+
+Moreover--this was its second weakness--whatever morality it demanded of a
+pious man went unrewarded. People no longer believed that the gods
+continually intervened in the affairs of men to reveal hidden crimes and to
+punish triumphant vice, or that Jupiter would hurl his thunderbolt to crush
+the perjurer. At the time of the proscriptions and the civil wars under
+Nero or Commodus it was more than plain that power and possessions were for
+the strongest, the ablest or even the luckiest, and not for the wisest or
+the most pious. The idea of reward or punishment beyond the grave found
+little credit. The notions of future life were hazy, uncertain, doubtful
+and contradictory. Everybody knows Juvenal's famous lines: "That there are
+manes, a subterranean kingdom, a ferryman with a long pole, and black frogs
+in the whirlpools of the Styx; that so many thousand men could cross the
+waves in a single boat, to-day even children refuse to believe."[20]
+
+After the fall of the republic indifference spread, the temples were
+abandoned and threatened to tumble into ruins, the clergy found it
+difficult to recruit members, the festivities, once so popular, fell into
+desuetude, and {38} Varro, at the beginning of his _Antiquities_, expressed
+his fear lest "the gods might perish, not from the blows of foreign
+enemies, but from very neglect on the part of the citizens."[21] It is well
+known that Augustus, prompted by political rather than by religious
+reasons, attempted to revive the dying religion. His religious reforms
+stood in close relation to his moral legislation and the establishment of
+the imperial dignity. Their tendency was to bring the people back to the
+pious practice of ancient virtues but also to chain them to the new
+political order. The alliance of throne and altar in Europe dates from that
+time.
+
+This attempted reform failed entirely. Making religion an auxiliary to
+moral policing is not a means of establishing its empire over souls. Formal
+reverence for the official gods is not incompatible with absolute and
+practical skepticism. The restoration attempted by Augustus is nevertheless
+very characteristic because it is so consistent with the Roman spirit which
+by temperament and tradition demanded that religion should support morality
+and the state.
+
+The Asiatic religions fulfilled the requirements. The change of régime,
+although unwelcome, brought about a change of religion. The increasing
+tendency of Cæsarism toward absolute monarchy made it lean more and more
+upon the Oriental clergy. True to the traditions of the Achemenides and the
+Pharaohs, those priests preached doctrines tending to elevate the sovereign
+above humanity, and they supplied the emperors with dogmatic justification
+for their despotism.[22]
+
+It is a noteworthy fact that the rulers who most loudly proclaimed their
+autocratic pretentions, like {39} Domitian and Commodus, were also those
+that favored foreign creeds most openly.
+
+But his selfish support merely sanctioned a power already established. The
+propaganda of the Oriental religions was originally democratic and
+sometimes even revolutionary like the Isis worship. Step by step they
+advanced, always reaching higher social classes and appealing to popular
+conscience rather than to the zeal of functionaries.
+
+As a matter of fact all these religions, except that of Mithra, seem at
+first sight to be far less austere than the Roman creed. We shall have
+occasion to note that they contained coarse and immodest fables and
+atrocious or vile rites. The Egyptian gods were expelled from Rome by
+Augustus and Tiberius on the charge of being immoral, but they were called
+immoral principally because they opposed a certain conception of the social
+order. They gave little attention to the public interest but attached
+considerable importance to the inner life and consequently to the value of
+the individual. Two new things, in particular, were brought to Italy by the
+Oriental priests: mysterious methods of purification, by which they claimed
+to wash away the impurities of the soul, and the assurance that a blessed
+immortality would be the reward of piety.[23]
+
+These religions pretended to restore lost purity[24] to the soul either
+through the performance of ritual ceremonies or through mortifications and
+penance. They had a series of ablutions and lustrations supposed to restore
+original innocence to the mystic. He had to wash himself in the sacred
+water according to certain prescribed forms. This was really a magic rite,
+because bodily purity acted sympathetically upon the soul, or {40} else it
+was a real spiritual disinfection with the water driving out the evil
+spirits that had caused pollution. The votary, again, might drink or
+besprinkle himself with the blood of a slaughtered victim or of the priests
+themselves, in which case the prevailing idea was that the liquid
+circulating in the veins was a vivifying principle capable of imparting a
+new existence.[25] These and similar rites[26] used in the mysteries were
+supposed to regenerate the initiated person and to restore him to an
+immaculate and incorruptible life.[27]
+
+Purgation of the soul was not effected solely by liturgic acts but also by
+self-denial and suffering.[28] The meaning of the term _expiatio_ changed.
+Expiation, or atonement, was no longer accomplished by the exact
+performance of certain ceremonies pleasing to the gods and required by a
+sacred code like a penalty for damages, but by privation and personal
+suffering. Abstinence, which prevented the introduction of deadly elements
+into the system, and chastity, which preserved man from pollution and
+debility, became means of getting rid of the domination of the evil powers
+and of regaining heavenly favor.[29] Macerations, laborious pilgrimages,
+public confessions, sometimes flagellations and mutilations, in fact all
+forms of penance and mortifications uplifted the fallen man and brought him
+nearer to the gods. In Phrygia a sinner would write his sin and the
+punishment he suffered upon a stela for every one to see and would return
+thanks to heaven that his prayer of repentance had been heard.[30] The
+Syrian, who had offended his goddess by eating her sacred fish, dressed in
+sordid rags, covered himself with a sack and sat in the public highway
+humbly to proclaim his misdeed in order to obtain forgiveness.[31] {41}
+"Three times, in the depths of winter," says Juvenal, "the devotee of Isis
+will dive into the chilly waters of the Tiber, and shivering with cold,
+will drag herself around the temple upon her bleeding knees; if the goddess
+commands, she will go to the outskirts of Egypt to take water from the Nile
+and empty it within the sanctuary."[32] This shows the introduction into
+Europe of Oriental asceticism.
+
+But there were impious acts and impure passions that contaminated and
+defiled the soul. Since this infection could be destroyed only by
+expiations prescribed by the gods, the extent of the sin and the character
+of the necessary penance had to be estimated. It was the priest's
+prerogative to judge the misdeeds and to impose the penalties. This
+circumstance gave the clergy a very different character from the one it had
+at Rome. The priest was no longer simply the guardian of sacred traditions,
+the intermediary between man or the state and the gods, but also a
+spiritual guide. He taught his flock the long series of obligations and
+restrictions for shielding their weakness from the attacks of evil spirits.
+He knew how to quiet remorse and scruples, and to restore the sinner to
+spiritual calm. Being versed in sacred knowledge, he had the power of
+reconciling the gods. Frequent sacred repasts maintained a spirit of
+fellowship among the mystics of Cybele, Mithra or the Baals,[33] and a
+daily service unceasingly revived the faith of the Isis worshipers. In
+consequence, the clergy were entirely absorbed in their holy office and
+lived only for and by their temples. Unlike the sacerdotal colleges of Rome
+in which the secular and religious functions were not yet clearly
+differentiated,[34] they were not an {42} administrative commission ruling
+the sacred affairs of the state under the supervision of the senate; they
+formed what might almost be called a caste of recluses distinguished from
+ordinary men by their insignia, garb, habits and food, and constituting an
+independent body with a hierarchy, formulary and even councils of their
+own.[35] They did not return to every-day duties as private citizens or to
+the direction of public affairs as magistrates as the ancient pontiffs had
+done after the solemn festival service.
+
+We can readily understand that these beliefs and institutions were bound to
+establish the Oriental religions and their priests on a strong basis. Their
+influence must have been especially powerful at the time of the Cæsars. The
+laxity of morals at the beginning of our era has been exaggerated but it
+was real. Many unhealthy symptoms told of a profound moral anarchy weighing
+on a weakened and irresolute society. The farther we go toward the end of
+the empire the more its energy seems to fail and the character of men to
+weaken. The number of strong healthy minds incapable of a lasting
+aberration and without need of guidance or comfort was growing ever
+smaller. We note the spread of that feeling of exhaustion and debility
+which follows the aberrations of passion, and the same weakness that led to
+crime impelled men to seek absolution in the formal practices of
+asceticism. They applied to the Oriental priests for spiritual remedies.
+
+People flattered themselves that by performing the rites they would attain
+a condition of felicity after death. All barbarian mysteries pretended to
+reveal to their adherents the secret of blessed immortality. Participation
+in the occult ceremonies of the sect was a {43} chief means of
+salvation.[36] The vague and disheartening beliefs of ancient paganism in
+regard to life after death were transformed into the firm hope of a
+well-defined form of happiness.[37]
+
+This faith in a personal survival of the soul and even of the body was
+based upon a strong instinct of human nature, the instinct of
+self-preservation. Social and moral conditions in the empire during its
+decline gave it greater strength than it had ever possessed before.[38] The
+third century saw so much suffering, anguish and violence, so much
+unnecessary ruin and so many unpunished crimes, that the Roman world took
+refuge in the expectation of a better existence in which all the iniquity
+of this world would be retrieved. No earthly hope brightened life. The
+tyranny of a corrupt bureaucracy choked all disposition for political
+progress. Science stagnated and revealed no more unknown truths. Growing
+poverty discouraged the spirit of enterprise. The idea gained ground that
+humanity was afflicted with incurable decay, that nature was approaching
+her doom and that the end of world was near.[39] We must remember all these
+causes of discouragement and despondency to understand the power of the
+idea, expressed so frequently, that the spirit animating man was forced by
+bitter necessity to imprison itself in matter and that it was delivered
+from its carnal captivity by death. In the heavy atmosphere of a period of
+oppression and impotence the dejected soul longed with incredible ardor to
+fly to the radiant abode of heaven.
+
+To recapitulate, the Oriental religions acted upon the senses, the
+intellect and the conscience at the same time, and therefore gained a hold
+on the entire man. {44} Compared with the ancient creeds, they appear to
+have offered greater beauty of ritual, greater truth of doctrine and a far
+superior morality. The imposing ceremonial of their festivities and the
+alternating pomp and sensuality, gloom and exaltation of their services
+appealed especially to the simple and the humble, while the progressive
+revelation of ancient wisdom, inherited from the old and distant Orient,
+captivated the cultured mind. The emotions excited by these religions and
+the consolations offered strongly attracted the women, who were the most
+fervent and generous followers and most passionate propagandists[40] of the
+religions of Isis and Cybele. Mithra was worshiped almost exclusively by
+men, whom he subjected to a rigid moral discipline. Thus souls were gained
+by the promise of spiritual purification and the prospect of eternal
+happiness.
+
+The worship of the Roman gods was a civic duty, the worship of the foreign
+gods the expression of a personal belief. The latter were the objects of
+the thoughts, feelings and intimate aspirations of the individual, not
+merely of the traditional and, one might say, functional adoration of the
+citizen. The ancient municipal devotions were connected with a number of
+earthly interests that helped to support each other. They were one of
+various forms of family spirit and patriotism and guaranteed the prosperity
+of the community. The Oriental mysteries, directing the will toward an
+ideal goal and exalting the inner spirit, were less mindful of economic
+utility, but they could produce that vibration of the moral being that
+caused emotions, stronger than any rational faculty, to gush forth from the
+depths of the soul. Through a sudden illumination {45} they furnished the
+intuition of a spiritual life whose intensity made all material happiness
+appear insipid and contemptible. This stirring appeal of supernatural life
+made the propaganda irresistible. The same ardent enthusiasm guaranteed at
+the same time the uncontested domination of neo-Platonism among the
+philosophers. Antiquity expired and a new era was born.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{46}
+
+ASIA MINOR.
+
+The first Oriental religion adopted by the Romans was that of the goddess
+of Phrygia, whom the people of Pessinus and Mount Ida worshiped, and who
+received the name of _Magna Mater deum Idea_ in the Occident. Its history
+in Italy covers six centuries, and we can trace each phase of the
+transformation that changed it in the course of time from a collection of
+very primitive nature beliefs into a system of spiritualized mysteries used
+by some as a weapon against Christianity. We shall now endeavor to outline
+the successive phases of that slow metamorphosis.
+
+This religion is the only one whose success in the Latin world was caused
+originally by a mere chance circumstance. In 205 B. C, when Hannibal,
+vanquished but still threatening, made his last stand in the mountains of
+Bruttium, repeated torrents of stones frightened the Roman people. When the
+books were officially consulted in regard to this prodigy they promised
+that the enemy would be driven from Italy if the Great Mother of Ida could
+be brought to Rome. Nobody but the Sibyls themselves had the power of
+averting the evils prophesied by them. They had come to Italy from Asia
+Minor, and in this critical situation their sacred poem recommended the
+practice of their native religion as a remedy. In token of his {47}
+friendship, King Attalus presented the ambassadors of the senate with the
+black aerolite, supposed to be the abode of the goddess, that this ruler
+had shortly before transferred from Pessinus to Pergamum. According to the
+mandate of the oracle the stone was received at Ostia by the best citizen
+of the land, an honor accorded to Scipio Nasica--and carried by the most
+esteemed matrons to the Palatine, where, hailed by the cheers of the
+multitude and surrounded by fumes of incense, it was solemnly installed
+(Nones of April, 204). This triumphal entry was later glorified by
+marvelous legends, and the poets told of edifying miracles that had
+occurred during Cybele's voyage. In the same year Scipio transferred the
+seat of war to Africa, and Hannibal, compelled to meet him there, was
+beaten at Zama. The prediction of the Sybils had come true and Rome was rid
+of the long Punic terror. The foreign goddess was honored in recognition of
+the service she had rendered. A temple was erected to her on the summit of
+the Palatine, and every year a celebration enhanced by scenic plays, the
+_ludi Megalenses_, commemorated the date of dedication of the sanctuary and
+the arrival of the goddess (April 4th-10th).
+
+What was this Asiatic religion that had suddenly been transferred into the
+heart of Rome by an extraordinary circumstance? Even then it could look
+back upon a long period of development. It combined beliefs of various
+origin. It contained primitive usages of the religion of Anatolia, some of
+which have survived to this day in spite of Christianity and Islam. Like
+the Kizil-Bash peasants of to-day, the ancient inhabitants of the peninsula
+met on the summits of mountains covered with woods no ax had desecrated,
+and {48} celebrated their festal days.[1] They believed that Cybele resided
+on the high summits of Ida and Berecyntus, and the perennial pines, in
+conjunction with the prolific and early maturing almond tree, were the
+sacred trees of Attis. Besides trees, the country people worshiped stones,
+rocks or meteors that had fallen from the sky like the one taken from
+Pessinus to Pergamum and thence to Rome. They also venerated certain
+animals, especially the most powerful of them all, the lion, who may at one
+time have been the totem of savage tribes.[2] In mythology as well as in
+art the lion remained the riding or driving animal of the Great Mother.
+Their conception of the divinity was indistinct and impersonal. A goddess
+of the earth, called Mâ or Cybele, was revered as the fecund mother of all
+things, the "mistress of the wild beasts"[3] that inhabit the woods. A god
+Attis, or Papas, was regarded as her husband, but the first place in this
+divine household belonged to the woman, a reminiscence of the period of
+matriarchy.[4]
+
+When the Phrygians at a very early period came from Thrace and inserted
+themselves like a wedge in the old Anatolian races, they adopted the vague
+deities of their new country by identifying them with their own, after the
+habit of pagan nations. Thus Attis became one with the Dionysus-Sabazius of
+the conquerors, or at least assumed some of his characteristics. This
+Thracian Dionysus was a god of vegetation. Foucart has thus admirably
+pictured his savage nature: "Wooded summits, deep oak and pine forests,
+ivy-clad caverns were at all times his favorite haunts. Mortals who were
+anxious to know the powerful divinity ruling these solitudes had to observe
+the life of his kingdom, {49} and to guess the god's nature from the
+phenomena through which he manifested his power. Seeing the creeks descend
+in noisy foaming cascades, or hearing the roaring of steers in the uplands
+and the strange sounds of the wind-beaten forests, the Thracians thought
+they heard the voice and the calls of the lord of that empire, and imagined
+a god who was fond of extravagant leaps and of wild roaming over the wooded
+mountains. This conception inspired their religion, for the surest way for
+mortals to ingratiate themselves with a divinity was to imitate him, and as
+far as possible to make their lives resemble his. For this reason the
+Thracians endeavored to attain the divine delirium that transported their
+Dionysus, and hoped to realize their purpose by following their invisible
+yet ever-present lord in his chase over the mountains."[5]
+
+In the Phrygian religion we find the same beliefs and rites, scarcely
+modified at all, with the one difference that Attis, the god of vegetation,
+was united to the goddess of the earth instead of living "in sullen
+loneliness." When the tempest was beating the forests of the Berecyntus or
+Ida, it was Cybele traveling about in her car drawn by roaring lions
+mourning her lover's death. A crowd of worshipers followed her through
+woods and thickets, mingling their shouts with the shrill sound of flutes,
+with the dull beat of tambourines, with the rattling of castanets and the
+dissonance of brass cymbals. Intoxicated with shouting and with uproar of
+the instruments, excited by their impetuous advance, breathless and
+panting, they surrendered to the raptures of a sacred enthusiasm. Catullus
+has left us a dramatic description of this divine ecstasy.[6] {50}
+
+The religion of Phrygia was perhaps even more violent than that of Thrace.
+The climate of the Anatolian uplands is one of extremes. Its winters are
+rough, long and cold, the spring rains suddenly develop a vigorous
+vegetation that is scorched by the hot summer sun. The abrupt contrasts of
+a nature generous and sterile, radiant and bleak in turn, caused excesses
+of sadness and joy that were unknown in temperate and smiling regions,
+where the ground was never buried under snow nor scorched by the sun. The
+Phrygians mourned the long agony and death of the vegetation, but when the
+verdure reappeared in March they surrendered to the excitement of a
+tumultuous joy. In Asia savage rites that had been unknown in Thrace or
+practiced in milder form expressed the vehemence of those opposing
+feelings. In the midst of their orgies, and after wild dances, some of the
+worshipers voluntarily wounded themselves and, becoming intoxicated with
+the view of the blood, with which they besprinkled their altars, they
+believed they were uniting themselves with their divinity. Or else,
+arriving at a paroxysm of frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to the
+gods as certain Russian dissenters still do to-day. These men became
+priests of Cybele and were called Galli. Violent ecstasis was always an
+endemic disease in Phrygia. As late as the Antonines, montanist prophets
+that arose in that country attempted to introduce it into Christianity.
+
+All these excessive and degrading demonstrations of an extreme worship must
+not cause us to slight the power of the feeling that inspired it. The
+sacred ecstasy, the voluntary mutilations and the eagerly sought sufferings
+manifested an ardent longing for {51} deliverance from subjection to carnal
+instincts, and a fervent desire to free the soul from the bonds of matter.
+The ascetic tendencies went so far as to create a kind of begging
+monachism--the _métragyrtes_. They also harmonized with some of the ideas
+of renunciation taught by Greek philosophy, and at an early period Hellenic
+theologians took an interest in this devotion that attracted and repelled
+them at the same time. Timotheus the Eumolpid, who was one of the founders
+of the Alexandrian religion of Serapis, derived the inspiration for his
+essays on religious reform, among other sources, from the ancient Phrygian
+myths. Those thinkers undoubtedly succeeded in making the priests of
+Pessinus themselves admit many speculations quite foreign to the old
+Anatolian nature worship. The votaries of Cybele began at a very remote
+period to practise "mysteries"[7] in which the initiates were made
+acquainted, by degrees, with a wisdom that was always considered divine,
+but underwent peculiar variations in the course of time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such is the religion which the rough Romans of the Punic wars accepted and
+adopted. Hidden under theological and cosmological doctrines it contained
+an ancient stock of very primitive and coarse religious ideas, such as the
+worship of trees, stones and animals. Besides this superstitious fetichism
+it involved ceremonies that were both sensual and ribald, including all the
+wild and mystic rites of the bacchanalia which the public authorities were
+to prohibit a few years later.
+
+When the senate became better acquainted with the divinity imposed upon it
+by the Sibyls, it must have been quite embarrassed by the present of King
+Attalus. {52} The enthusiastic transports and the somber fanaticism of the
+Phrygian worship contrasted violently with the calm dignity and respectable
+reserve of the official religion, and excited the minds of the people to a
+dangerous degree. The emasculated Galli were the objects of contempt and
+disgust and what in their own eyes was a meritorious act was made a crime
+punishable by law, at least under the empire.[8] The authorities hesitated
+between the respect due to the powerful goddess that had delivered Rome
+from the Carthaginians and the reverence for the _mos maiorum_. They solved
+the difficulty by completely isolating the new religion in order to prevent
+its contagion. All citizens were forbidden to join the priesthood of the
+foreign goddess or to participate in her sacred orgies. The barbarous rites
+according to which the Great Mother was to be worshiped were performed by
+Phrygian priests and priestesses. The holidays celebrated in her honor by
+the entire nation, the _Megalensia_, contained no Oriental feature and were
+organized in conformity with Roman traditions.
+
+A characteristic anecdote told by Diodorus[9] shows what the public feeling
+was towards this Asiatic worship at the end of the republic. In Pompey's
+time a high priest from Pessinus came to Rome, presented himself at the
+forum in his sacerdotal garb, a golden diadem and a long embroidered
+robe--and pretending that the statue of his goddess had been profaned
+demanded public expiation. But a tribune forbade him to wear the royal
+crown, and the populace rose against him in a mob and compelled him to seek
+refuge in his house. Although apologies were made later, this story shows
+how little the people of that period felt {53} the veneration that attached
+to Cybele and her clergy after a century had passed.
+
+Kept closely under control, the Phrygian worship led an obscure existence
+until the establishment of the empire. That closed the first period of its
+history at Rome. It attracted attention only on certain holidays, when its
+priests marched the streets in procession, dressed in motley costumes,
+loaded with heavy jewelry, and beating tambourines. On those days the
+senate granted them the right to go from house to house to collect funds
+for their temples. The remainder of the year they confined themselves to
+the sacred enclosure of the Palatine, celebrating foreign ceremonies in a
+foreign language. They aroused so little notice during this period that
+almost nothing is known of their practices or of their creed. It has even
+been maintained that Attis was not worshiped together with his companion,
+the Great Mother, during the times of the republic, but this is undoubtedly
+wrong, because the two persons of this divine couple must have been as
+inseparable in the ritual as they were in the myths.[10]
+
+But the Phrygian religion kept alive in spite of police surveillance, in
+spite of precautions and prejudices; a breach had been made in the cracked
+wall of the old Roman principles, through which the entire Orient finally
+gained ingress.
+
+Directly after the fall of the republic a second divinity from Asia Minor,
+closely related to the Great Mother, became established in the capital.
+During the wars against Mithridates the Roman soldiers learned to revere
+Mâ, the great goddess of the two Comanas, who was worshiped by a whole
+people of hierodules in the ravines of the Taurus and along the banks of
+the {54} Iris. Like Cybele she was an ancient Anatolian divinity and
+personified fertile nature. Her worship, however, had not felt the
+influence of Thrace, but rather that of the Semites and the Persians,[11]
+like the entire religion of Cappadocia. It is certain that she was
+identical with the Anâhita of the Mazdeans, who was of much the same
+nature.
+
+The rites of her cult were even more sanguinary and savage than those of
+Pessinus, and she had assumed or preserved a warlike character that gave
+her a resemblance to the Italian Bellona. The dictator Sulla, to whom this
+invincible goddess of combats had appeared in a dream, was prompted by his
+superstition to introduce her worship into Rome. The terrible ceremonies
+connected with it produced a deep impression. Clad in black robes, her
+"fanatics," as they were called, would turn round and round to the sound of
+drums and trumpets, with their long, loose hair streaming, and when vertigo
+seized them and a state of anesthesia was attained, they would strike their
+arms and bodies great blows with swords and axes. The view of the running
+blood excited them, and they besprinkled the statue of the goddess and her
+votaries with it, or even drank it. Finally a prophetic delirium would
+overcome them, and they foretold the future.
+
+This ferocious worship aroused curiosity at first, but it never gained
+great consideration. It appears that the Cappadocian Bellona joined the
+number of divinities that were subordinated to the _Magna Mater_ and, as
+the texts put it, became her follower (_pedisequa_).[12] The brief
+popularity enjoyed by this exotic _Mâ_ at the beginning of our era shows,
+nevertheless, the growing {55} influence of the Orient, and of the
+religions of Asia Minor in particular.
+
+After the establishment of the empire the apprehensive distrust in which
+the worship of Cybele and Attis had been held gave way to marked favor and
+the original restrictions were withdrawn. Thereafter Roman citizens were
+chosen for _archigalli_, and the holidays of the Phrygian deities were
+solemnly and officially celebrated in Italy with even more pomp than had
+been displayed at Pessinus.
+
+According to Johannes Lydus, the Emperor Claudius was the author of this
+change. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of the statement
+made by this second-rate compiler, and it has been claimed that the
+transformation in question took place under the Antonines. This is
+erroneous. The testimony of inscriptions corroborates that of the Byzantine
+writer.[13] In spite of his love of archaism, it was Claudius who permitted
+this innovation to be made, and we believe that we can divine the motives
+of his action.
+
+Under his predecessor, Caligula, the worship of Isis had been authorized
+after a long resistance. Its stirring festivities and imposing processions
+gained considerable popularity. This competition must have been disastrous
+to the priests of the _Magna Mater_, who were secluded in their temple on
+the Palatine, and Caligula's successor could not but grant to the Phrygian
+goddess, so long established in the city, the favor accorded the Egyptian
+divinity who had been admitted into Rome but very recently. In this way
+Claudius prevented too great an ascendency in Italy of this second stranger
+and supplied a distributary to the current of popular superstition. Isis
+must have been held under great {56} suspicion by a ruler who clung to old
+national institutions.[14]
+
+The Emperor Claudius introduced a new cycle of holidays that were
+celebrated from March 15th to March 27th, the beginning of spring at the
+time of the revival of vegetation, personified in Attis. The various acts
+of this grand mystic drama are tolerably well known. The prelude was a
+procession of _cannophori_ or reed-bearers on the fifteenth; undoubtedly
+they commemorated Cybele's discovery of Attis, who, according to the
+legends, had been exposed while a child on the banks of the Sangarius, the
+largest river of Phrygia, or else this ceremony may have been the
+transformation of an ancient phallephory intended to guarantee the
+fertility of the fields.[15] The ceremonies proper began with the equinox.
+A pine was felled and transferred to the temple of the Palatine by a
+brotherhood that owed to this function its name of "tree-bearers"
+(_dendrophori_). Wrapped like a corpse in woolen bands and garlands of
+violets, this pine represented Attis dead. This god was originally only the
+spirit of the plants, and the honors given to the "March-tree"[16] in front
+of the imperial palace perpetuated a very ancient agrarian rite of the
+Phrygian peasants. The next day was a day of sadness and abstinence on
+which the believers fasted and mourned the defunct god. The twenty-fourth
+bore the significant name of _Sanguis_ in the calendars. We know that it
+was the celebration of the funeral of Attis, whose manes were appeased by
+means of libations of blood, as was done for any mortal. Mingling their
+piercing cries with the shrill sound of flutes, the Galli flagellated
+themselves and cut their flesh, and neophytes performed the supreme {57}
+sacrifice with the aid of a sharp stone, being insensible to pain in their
+frenzy.[17] Then followed a mysterious vigil during which the mystic was
+supposed to be united as a new Attis with the great goddess.[18] On March
+25th there was a sudden transition from the shouts of despair to a
+delirious jubilation, the _Hilaria_. With springtime Attis awoke from his
+sleep of death, and the joy created by his resurrection burst out in wild
+merry-making, wanton masquerades, and luxurious banquets. After twenty-four
+hours of an indispensable rest (_requietio_), the festivities wound up, on
+the twenty-seventh, with a long and gorgeous procession through the streets
+of Rome and surrounding country districts. Under a constant rain of flowers
+the silver statue of Cybele was taken to the river Almo and bathed and
+purified according to an ancient rite (_lavatio_).
+
+The worship of the Mother of the Gods had penetrated into the Hellenic
+countries long before it was received at Rome, but in Greece it assumed a
+peculiar form and lost most of its barbarous character. The Greek mind felt
+an unconquerable aversion to the dubious nature of Attis. The _Magna
+Mater_, who is thoroughly different from her Hellenized sister, penetrated
+into all Latin provinces and imposed herself upon them with the Roman
+religion. This was the case in Spain, Brittany, the Danubian countries,
+Africa and especially in Gaul.[19] As late as the fourth century the car of
+the goddess drawn by steers was led in great state through the fields and
+vineyards of Autun in order to stimulate their fertility.[20] In the
+provinces the _dendrophori_, who carried the sacred pine in the spring
+festivities, formed associations recognized by the state. These
+associations had charge of the work of our {58} modern fire departments,
+besides their religious mission. In case of necessity these woodcutters and
+carpenters, who knew how to fell the divine tree of Attis, were also able
+to cut down the timbers of burning buildings. All over the empire religion
+and the brotherhoods connected with it were under the high supervision of
+the quindecimvirs of the capital, who gave the priests their insignia. The
+sacerdotal hierarchy and the rights granted to the priesthood and believers
+were minutely defined in a series of senate decrees. These Phrygian
+divinities who had achieved full naturalization and had been placed on the
+official list of gods, were adopted by the populations of the Occident as
+Roman gods together with the rest. This propagation was clearly different
+from that of any other Oriental religion, for here the action of the
+government aided the tendencies that attracted the devout masses to these
+Asiatic divinities.
+
+This popular zeal was the result of various causes. Ancient authors
+describe the impression produced upon the masses by those magnificent
+processions in which Cybele passed along on her car, preceded by musicians
+playing captivating melodies, by priests wearing gorgeous costumes covered
+with amulets, and by the long line of votaries and members of the
+fraternities, all barefoot and wearing their insignia. All this, however,
+created only a fleeting and exterior impression upon the neophyte, but as
+soon as he entered the temple a deeper sensation took hold of him. He heard
+the pathetic story of the goddess seeking the body of her lover cut down in
+the prime of his life like the grass of the fields. He saw the bloody
+funeral services in which the cruel death of the young man was mourned,
+{59} and heard the joyful hymns of triumph, and the gay songs that greeted
+his return to life. By a skilfully arranged gradation of feelings the
+onlookers were uplifted to a state of rapturous ecstasy. Feminine devotion
+in particular found encouragement and enjoyment in these ceremonies, and
+the Great Mother, the fecund and generous goddess, was always especially
+worshiped by the women.
+
+Moreover, people founded great hopes on the pious practice of this
+religion. Like the Thracians, the Phrygians began very early to believe in
+the immortality of the soul. Just as Attis died and came to life again
+every year, these believers were to be born to new life after their death.
+One of the sacred hymns said: "Take courage, oh mystics, because the god is
+saved; and for you also will come salvation from your trials."[21] Even the
+funeral ceremonies were affected by the strength of that belief. In some
+cities, especially at Amphipolis in Macedonia, graves have been found
+adorned with earthenware statuettes representing the shepherd Attis;[22]
+and even in Germany the gravestones are frequently decorated with the
+figure of a young man in Oriental costume, leaning dejectedly upon a
+knotted stick (_pedum_), who represented the same Attis. We are ignorant of
+the conception of immortality held by the Oriental disciples of the
+Phrygian priests. Maybe, like the votaries of Sabazius, they believed that
+the blessed ones were permitted to participate with Hermes Psychopompos in
+a great celestial feast, for which they were prepared by the sacred repasts
+of the mysteries.[23] {60}
+
+Another agent in favor of this imported religion was, as we have stated
+above, the fact of its official recognition. This placed it in a privileged
+position among Oriental religions, at least at the beginning of the
+imperial régime. It enjoyed a toleration that was neither precarious nor
+limited; it was not subjected to arbitrary police measures nor to coercion
+on the part of magistrates; its fraternities were not continually
+threatened with dissolution, nor its priests with expulsion. It was
+publicly authorized and endowed, its holidays were marked in the calendars
+of the pontiffs, its associations of dendrophori were organs of municipal
+life in Italy and in the provinces, and had a corporate entity.
+
+Therefore it is not surprising that other foreign religions, after being
+transferred to Rome, sought to avert the dangers of an illicit existence by
+an alliance with the Great Mother. The religion of the latter frequently
+consented to agreements and compromises, from which it gained in reality as
+much as it gave up. In exchange for material advantages it acquired
+complete moral authority over the gods that accepted its protection. Thus
+Cybele and Attis absorbed a majority of the divinities from Asia Minor that
+had crossed the Ionian Sea. Their clergy undoubtedly intended to establish
+a religion complex enough to enable the emigrants from every part of the
+vast peninsula, slaves, merchants, soldiers, functionaries, scholars, in
+short, people of all classes of society, to find their national and
+favorite devotions in it. As a matter of fact no other Anatolian god could
+maintain his independence side by side with the deities of Pessinus.[24]
+
+We do not know the internal development of the {61} Phrygian mysteries
+sufficiently to give details of the addition of each individual part. But
+we can prove that in the course of time certain religions were added to the
+one that had been practised in the temple of the Palatine ever since the
+republic.
+
+In the inscriptions of the fourth century, Attis bears the cognomen of
+_menotyrannus_. At that time this name was undoubtedly understood to mean
+"lord of the months," because Attis represented the sun who entered a new
+sign of the zodiac every month.[25] But that was not the original meaning
+of the term. "_Mèn tyrannus_" appears with quite a different meaning in
+many inscriptions found in Asia Minor. _Tyrannos_ ([Greek: Turannos]),
+"lord," is a word taken by the Greeks from the Lydian, and the honorable
+title of "tyrant" was given to Mèn, an old barbarian divinity worshiped by
+all Phrygia and surrounding regions.[26] The Anatolian tribes from Caria to
+the remotest mountains of Pontus worshiped a lunar god under that name who
+was supposed to rule not only the heavens but also the underworld, because
+the moon was frequently brought into connection with the somber kingdom of
+the dead. The growth of plants and the increase of cattle and poultry were
+ascribed to his celestial influence, and the villagers invoked his
+protection for their farms and their district. They also placed their rural
+burial grounds under the safeguard of this king of shadows. No god enjoyed
+greater popularity in the country districts.
+
+This powerful divinity penetrated into Greece at an early period. Among the
+mixed populations of the Ægean seaports, in the Piræus, at Rhodes, Delos
+and Thasos, religious associations for his worship were {62} founded. In
+Attica the presence of the cult can be traced back to the fourth century,
+and its monuments rival those of Cybele in number and variety. In the Latin
+Occident, however, no trace of it can be found, because it had been
+absorbed by the worship of _Magna Mater_. In Asia itself, Attis and Mèn
+were sometimes considered identical, and this involved the Roman world in a
+complete confusion of those two persons, who in reality were very
+different. A marble statue discovered at Ostia represents Attis holding the
+lunar crescent, which was the characteristic emblem of Mèn. His
+assimilation to the "tyrant" of the infernal regions transformed the
+shepherd of Ida into a master of the underworld, an office that he combined
+with his former one as author of resurrection.
+
+A second title that was given to him reveals another influence. A certain
+Roman inscription is dedicated to Attis the Supreme ([Greek: Attei
+hupsistôi]).[27] This epithet is very significant. In Asia Minor
+"Hypsistos" was the appellation used to designate the god of Israel.[28] A
+number of pagan thiasi had arisen who, though not exactly submitting to the
+practice of the synagogue, yet worshiped none but the Most High, the
+Supreme God, the Eternal God, God the Creator, to whom every mortal owed
+service. These must have been the attributes ascribed to Cybele's companion
+by the author of the inscription, because the verse continues: ([Greek: kai
+sunechonti to pan]) "To thee, who containest and maintainest all
+things."[29] Must we then believe that Hebraic monotheism had some
+influence upon the mysteries of the Great Mother? This is not at all
+improbable. We know that numerous Jewish colonies were established in
+Phrygia by the Seleucides, and that {63} these expatriated Jews agreed to
+certain compromises in order to conciliate their hereditary faith with that
+of the pagans in whose midst they lived. It is also possible that the
+clergy of Pessinus suffered the ascendancy of the Biblical theology. Under
+the empire Attis and Cybele became the "almighty gods" (_omnipotentes_)
+_par excellence_, and it is easy to see in this new conception a leaning
+upon Semitic or Christian doctrines, more probably upon Semitic ones.[30]
+
+We shall now take up the difficult question of the influence of Judaism
+upon the mysteries during the Alexandrian period and at the beginning of
+the empire. Many scholars have endeavored to define the influence exercised
+by the pagan beliefs on those of the Jews; it has been shown how the
+Israelitic monotheism became Hellenized at Alexandria and how the Jewish
+propaganda attracted proselytes who revered the one God, without, however,
+observing all the prescriptions of the Mosaic law. But no successful
+researches have been made to ascertain how far paganism was modified
+through an infiltration of Biblical ideas. Such a modification must
+necessarily have taken place to some extent. A great number of Jewish
+colonies were scattered everywhere on the Mediterranean, and these were
+long animated with such an ardent spirit of proselytism that they were
+bound to impose some of their conceptions on the pagans that surrounded
+them. The magical texts which are almost the only original literary
+documents of paganism we possess, clearly reveal this mixture of Israelitic
+theology with that of other peoples. In them we frequently find names like
+Iao (Yahveh), Sabaoth, or the names of angels side by side with those of
+Egyptian or Greek divinities. Especially in Asia {64} Minor, where the
+Israelites formed a considerable and influential element of the population,
+an intermingling of the old native traditions and the religion of the
+strangers from the other side of the Taurus must have occurred.
+
+This mixture certainly took place in the mysteries of Sabazius, the
+Phrygian Jupiter or Dionysus.[31] They were very similar to those of Attis,
+with whom he was frequently confounded. By means of an audacious etymology
+that dates back to the Hellenistic period, this old Thraco-Phrygian
+divinity has been identified with "Yahveh Zebaoth," the Biblical "Lord of
+Hosts." The corresponding expression ([Greek: kurios Sabaôth]) in the
+Septuagint has been regarded as the equivalent of the _kurios Sabazios_
+([Greek: kurios Sabazios]) of the barbarians. The latter was worshiped as
+the supreme, almighty and holy Lord. In the light of a new interpretation
+the purifications practised in the mysteries were believed to wipe out the
+hereditary impurity of a guilty ancestor who had aroused the wrath of
+heaven against his posterity, much as the original sin with which Adam's
+disobedience had stained the human race was to be wiped out. The custom
+observed by the votaries of Sabazius of dedicating votive hands which made
+the liturgic sign of benediction with the first three fingers extended (the
+_benedictio latina_ of the church) was probably taken from the ritual of
+the Semitic temples through the agency of the Jews. The initiates believed,
+again like the Jews, that after death their good angel (_angelus bonus_)
+would lead them to the banquet of the eternally happy, and the everlasting
+joys of these banquets were anticipated on earth by the liturgic repasts.
+This celestial feast can {65} be seen in a fresco painting on the grave of
+a priest of Sabazius called Vincentius, who was buried in the Christian
+catacomb of Prætextatus, a strange fact for which no satisfactory
+explanation has as yet been furnished. Undoubtedly he belonged to a
+Jewish-pagan sect that admitted neophytes of every race to its mystic
+ceremonies. In fact, the church itself formed a kind of secret society
+sprung from the synagogue but distinct from it, in which Gentiles and the
+Children of Israel joined in a common adoration.
+
+If it is a fact, then, that Judaism influenced the worship of Sabazius, it
+is very probable that it influenced the cult of Cybele also, although in
+this case the influence cannot be discerned with the same degree of
+certainty. The religion of the Great Mother did not receive rejuvenating
+germs from Palestine only, but it was greatly changed after the gods of
+more distant Persia came and joined it. In the ancient religion of the
+Achemenides, Mithra, the genius of light, was coupled with Anâhita, the
+goddess of the fertilizing waters. In Asia Minor the latter was assimilated
+with the fecund Great Mother, worshiped all over the peninsula,[32] and
+when at the end of the first century of our era the mysteries of Mithra
+spread over the Latin provinces, its votaries built their sacred crypts in
+the shadow of the temples of the _Magna Mater_.
+
+Everywhere in the empire the two religions lived in intimate communion. By
+ingratiating themselves with the Phrygian priests, the priests of Mithra
+obtained the support of an official institution and shared in the
+protection granted by the state. Moreover, men alone could participate in
+the secret ceremonies of the Persian liturgy, at least in the Occident.
+Other {66} mysteries, to which women could be admitted, had therefore to be
+added in order to complete them, and so the mysteries of Cybele received
+the wives and daughters of the Mithraists.
+
+This union had even more important consequences for the old religion of
+Pessinus than the partial infusion of Judaic beliefs had had. Its theology
+gained a deeper meaning and an elevation hitherto unknown, after it had
+adopted some of the conceptions of Mazdaism.
+
+The introduction of the taurobolium in the ritual of the _Magna Mater_,
+where it appeared after the middle of the first century, was probably
+connected with this transformation. We know the nature of this sacrifice,
+of which Prudentius gives a stirring description based on personal
+recollection of the proceeding. On an open platform a steer was killed, and
+the blood dropped down upon the mystic, who was standing in an excavation
+below. "Through the thousand crevices in the wood," says the poet, "the
+bloody dew runs down into the pit. The neophyte receives the falling drops
+on his head, clothes and body. He leans backward to have his cheeks, his
+ears, his lips and his nostrils wetted; he pours the liquid over his eyes,
+and does not even spare his palate, for he moistens his tongue with blood
+and drinks it eagerly."[33] After submitting to this repulsive sprinkling
+he offered himself to the veneration of the crowd. They believed that he
+was purified of his faults, and had become the equal of the deity through
+his red baptism.
+
+Although the origin of this sacrifice that took place in the mysteries of
+Cybele at Rome is as yet shrouded in obscurity, recent discoveries enable
+us to trace back {67} very closely the various phases of its development.
+In accordance with a custom prevalent in the entire Orient at the beginning
+of history, the Anatolian lords were fond of pursuing and lassoing wild
+buffalos, which they afterwards sacrificed to the gods. Beasts caught
+during a hunt were immolated, and frequently also prisoners of war.
+Gradually the savagery of this primitive rite was modified until finally
+nothing but a circus play was left. During the Alexandrian period people
+were satisfied with organizing a _corrida_ in the arena, in the course of
+which the victim intended for immolation was seized. This is the proper
+meaning of the terms taurobolium and criobolium ([Greek: taurobolion,
+kriobolion.]), which had long been enigmas,[34] and which denoted the act
+of catching a steer or a ram by means of a hurled weapon, probably the
+thong of a lasso. Without doubt even this act was finally reduced to a mere
+sham under the Roman empire, but the weapon with which the animal was slain
+always remained a hunting weapon, a sacred boar spear.[35]
+
+The ideas on which the immolation was based were originally just as
+barbarous as the sacrifice itself. It is a matter of general belief among
+savage peoples that one acquires the qualities of an enemy slain in battle
+or of a beast killed in the chase by drinking or washing in the blood, or
+by eating some of the viscera of the body. The blood especially has often
+been considered as the seat of vital energy. By moistening his body with
+the blood of the slaughtered steer, the neophyte believed that he was
+transfusing the strength of the formidable beast into his own limbs.
+
+This naive and purely material conception was soon {68} modified and
+refined. The Thracians brought into Phrygia, and the Persian magi into
+Cappadocia, the fast spreading belief in the immortality of mankind. Under
+their influence, especially under that of Mazdaism, which made the mythical
+steer the author of creation and of resurrection, the old savage practice
+assumed a more spiritual and more elevated meaning. By complying with it,
+people no longer thought they were acquiring the buffalo's strength; the
+blood, as the principle of life, was no longer supposed to renew physical
+energy, but to cause a temporary or even an eternal rebirth of the soul.
+The descent into the pit was regarded as burial, a melancholy dirge
+accompanied the burial of the old man who had died. When he emerged
+purified of all his crimes by the sprinkling of blood and raised to a new
+life, he was regarded as the equal of a god, and the crowd worshiped him
+from a respectful distance.[36]
+
+The vogue obtained in the Roman empire by the practice of this repugnant
+rite can only be explained by the extraordinary power ascribed to it. He
+who submitted to it was _in aeternum renatus_,[37] according to the
+inscriptions.
+
+We could also outline the transformation of other Phrygian ceremonies, of
+which the spirit and sometimes the letter slowly changed under the
+influence of more advanced moral ideas. This is true of the sacred feasts
+attended by the initiates. One of the few liturgic formulas antiquity has
+left us refers to these Phrygian banquets. One hymn says: "I have eaten
+from the tambourine, I have drunk from the cymbal, I have become a mystic
+of Attis." The banquet, which is found in several Oriental religions, was
+sometimes simply the {69} external sign indicating that the votaries of the
+same divinity formed one large family. Admitted to the sacred table, the
+neophyte was received as the guest of the community and became a brother
+among brothers. The religious bond of the thiasus or _sodalicium_ took the
+place of the natural relationship of the family, the gens or the clan, just
+as the foreign religion replaced the worship of the domestic hearth.
+
+Sometimes other effects were expected of the food eaten in common. When the
+flesh of some animal supposed to be of a divine nature was eaten, the
+votary believed that he became identified with the god and that he shared
+in his substance and qualities. In the beginning the Phrygian priests
+probably attributed the first of these two meanings to their barbarous
+communions.[38] Towards the end of the empire, moral ideas were
+particularly connected with the assimilation of sacred liquor and meats
+taken from the tambourine and cymbal of Attis. They became the staff of the
+spiritual life and were to sustain the votary in his trials; at that period
+he considered the gods as especially "the guardians of his soul and
+thoughts."[39]
+
+As we see, every modification of the conception of the world and of man in
+the society of the empire had its reflection in the doctrine of the
+mysteries. Even the conception of the old deities of Pessinus was
+constantly changing. When astrology and the Semitic religions caused the
+establishment of a solar henotheism as the leading religion at Rome, Attis
+was considered as the sun, "the shepherd of the twinkling stars." He was
+identified with Adonis, Bacchus, Pan, Osiris and Mithra; he was made a
+"polymorphous"[40] being in which all celestial powers manifested {70}
+themselves in turn; a _pantheos_ who wore the crown of rays and the lunar
+crescent at the same time, and whose various emblems expressed an infinite
+multiplicity of functions.
+
+When neo-Platonism was triumphing, the Phrygian fable became the
+traditional mould into which subtle exegetists boldly poured their
+philosophic speculations on the creative and stimulating forces that were
+the principles of all material forms, and on the deliverance of the divine
+soul that was submerged in the corruption of this earthly world. In his
+hazy oration on the Mother of the Gods, Julian lost all notion of reality
+on account of his excessive use of allegory and was swept away by an
+extravagant symbolism.[41]
+
+Any religion as susceptible to outside influences as this one was bound to
+yield to the ascendancy of Christianity. From the explicit testimony of
+ecclesiastical writers we know that attempts were made to oppose the
+Phrygian mysteries to those of the church. It was maintained that the
+sanguinary purification imparted by the taurobolium was more efficacious
+than baptism. The food that was taken during the mystic feasts was likened
+to the bread and wine of the communion; the Mother of the Gods was
+undoubtedly placed above the Mother of God, whose son also had risen again.
+A Christian author, writing at Rome about the year 375, furnishes some
+remarkable information on this subject. As we have seen, a mournful
+ceremony was celebrated on March 24th, the _dies sanguinis_ in the course
+of which the _galli_ shed their blood and sometimes mutilated themselves in
+commemoration of the wound that had caused Attis's death, ascribing an
+expiatory and atoning power to the blood thus shed. The pagans {71} claimed
+that the church had copied their most sacred rites by placing her Holy Week
+at the vernal equinox in commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross on
+which the divine Lamb, according to the church, had redeemed the human
+race. Indignant at these blasphemous pretensions, St. Augustine tells of
+having known a priest of Cybele who kept saying: _Et ipse Pileatus
+christianus est_--"and even the god with the Phrygian cap [i. e., Attis] is
+a Christian."[42]
+
+But all efforts to maintain a barbarian religion stricken with moral
+decadence were in vain. On the very spot on which the last taurobolia took
+place at the end of the fourth century, in the _Phrygianum_, stands to-day
+the basilica of the Vatican.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is no Oriental religion whose progressive evolution we could follow
+at Rome so closely as the cult of Cybele and Attis, none that shows so
+plainly one of the reasons that caused their common decay and
+disappearance. They all dated back to a remote period of barbarism, and
+from that savage past they inherited a number of myths the odium of which
+could be masked but not eradicated by philosophical symbolism, and
+practices whose fundamental coarseness had survived from a period of rude
+nature worship, and could never be completely disguised by means of mystic
+interpretations. Never was the lack of harmony greater between the
+moralizing tendencies of theologians and the cruel shamelessness of
+tradition. A god held up as the august lord of the universe was the pitiful
+and abject hero of an obscene love affair; the taurobolium, performed to
+satisfy man's most exalted aspirations for spiritual purification and
+immortality, looked like a {72} shower bath of blood and recalled
+cannibalistic orgies. The men of letters and senators attending those
+mysteries saw them performed by painted eunuchs, ill reputed for their
+infamous morals, who went through dizzy dances similar to those of the
+dancing dervishes and the Aissaouas. We can imagine the repugnance these
+ceremonies caused in everybody whose judgment had not been destroyed by a
+fanatical devotion. Of no other pagan superstition do the Christian
+polemicists speak with such profound contempt, and there is undoubtedly a
+reason for their attitude. But they were in a more fortunate position than
+their pagan antagonists; their doctrine was not burdened with barbarous
+traditions dating back to times of savagery; and all the ignominies that
+stained the old Phrygian religion must not prejudice us against it nor
+cause us to slight the long continued efforts that were made to refine it
+gradually and to mould it into a form that would fulfil the new demands of
+morality and enable it to follow the laborious march of Roman society on
+the road of religious progress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{73}
+
+EGYPT.
+
+We know more about the religion of the early Egyptians than about any other
+ancient religion. Its development can be traced back three or four thousand
+years; we can read its sacred texts, mythical narratives, hymns, rituals,
+and the Book of the Dead in the original, and we can ascertain its various
+ideas as to the nature of the divine powers and of future life. A great
+number of monuments have preserved for our inspection the pictures of
+divinities and representations of liturgic scenes, while numerous
+inscriptions and papyri enlighten us in regard to the sacerdotal
+organization of the principal temples. It would seem that the enormous
+quantity of documents of all kinds that have been deciphered in the course
+of nearly an entire century should have dispelled every uncertainty about
+the creed of ancient Egypt, and should have furnished exact information
+with regard to the sources and original character of the worship which the
+Greeks and the Romans borrowed from the subjects of the Ptolemies.
+
+And yet, this is not the case. While of the four great Oriental religions
+which were transplanted into the Occident, the religion of Isis and Serapis
+is the one whose relation to the ancient belief of the mother country we
+can establish with greatest accuracy, we {74} know very little of its first
+form and of its nature before the imperial period, when it was held in high
+esteem.
+
+One fact, however, appears to be certain. The Egyptian worship that spread
+over the Greco-Roman world came from the Serapeum founded at Alexandria by
+Ptolemy Soter, somewhat in the manner of Judaism that emanated from the
+temple of Jerusalem. But the earliest history of that famous sanctuary is
+surrounded by such a thick growth of pious legends, that the most sagacious
+investigators have lost their way in it. Was Serapis of native origin, or
+was he imported from Sinope or Seleucia, or even from Babylon? Each of
+these opinions has found supporters very recently. Is his name derived from
+that of the Egyptian god Osiris-Apis, or from that of the Chaldean deity
+Sar-Apsi? _Grammatici certant_.[1]
+
+Whichever solution we may adopt, one fact remains, namely, that Serapis and
+Osiris were either immediately identified or else were identical from the
+beginning. The divinity whose worship was started at Alexandria by Ptolemy
+was the god that ruled the dead and shared his immortality with them. He
+was fundamentally an Egyptian god, and the most popular of the deities of
+the Nile. Herodotus says that Isis and Osiris were revered by every
+inhabitant of the country, and their traditional holidays involved secret
+ceremonies whose sacred meaning the Greek writer dared not reveal.[2]
+
+Recognizing their Osiris in Serapis, the Egyptians readily accepted the new
+cult. There was a tradition that a new dynasty should introduce a new god
+or give a sort of preeminence to the god of its own district. From time
+immemorial politics had changed the {75} government of heaven when changing
+that of earth. Under the Ptolemies the Serapis of Alexandria naturally
+became one of the principal divinities of the country, just as the Ammon of
+Thebes had been the chief of the celestial hierarchy under the Pharaohs of
+that city, or as, under the sovereigns from Sais, the local Neith had the
+primacy. At the time of the Antonines there were forty-two Serapeums in
+Egypt.[3]
+
+But the purpose of the Ptolemies was not to add one more Egyptian god to
+the countless number already worshiped by their subjects. They wanted this
+god to unite in one common worship the two races inhabiting the kingdom,
+and thus to further a complete fusion. The Greeks were obliged to worship
+him side by side with the natives. It was a clever political idea to
+institute a Hellenized Egyptian religion at Alexandria. A tradition
+mentioned by Plutarch[4] has it that Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, a
+man of advanced ideas, together with Timotheus, a Eumolpid from Eleusis,
+thought out the character that would best suit the newcomer. The result was
+that the composite religion founded by the Lagides became a combination of
+the old creed of the Pharaohs and the Greek mysteries.
+
+First of all, the liturgic language was no longer the native idiom but
+Greek. This was a radical change. The philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum,
+who had been cured of blindness by Serapis, composed poems in honor of the
+god that were still sung under the Cæsars several centuries later.[5] We
+can easily imagine that the poets, who lived on the bounty of the
+Ptolemies, vied with each other in their efforts to celebrate their
+benefactors' god, and the old rituals that were translated from the
+Egyptian were also enriched with {76} edifying bits of original
+inspiration. A hymn to Isis, found on a marble monument in the island of
+Andros,[6] gives us some idea of these sacred compositions, although it is
+of more recent date.
+
+In the second place, the artists replaced the old hieratic idols by more
+attractive images and gave them the beauty of the immortals. It is not
+known who created the figure of Isis draped in a linen gown with a fringed
+cloak fastened over the breast, whose sweet meditative, graciously maternal
+face is a combination of the ideals imagined for Hera and Aphrodite. But we
+know the sculptor of the first statue of Serapis that stood in the great
+sanctuary of Alexandria until the end of paganism. This statue, the
+prototype of all the copies that have been preserved, is a colossal work of
+art made of precious materials by a famous Athenian sculptor named Bryaxis,
+a contemporary of Scopas. It was one of the last divine creations of
+Hellenic genius. The majestic head, with its somber and yet benevolent
+expression, with its abundance of hair, and with a crown in the shape of a
+bushel, bespoke the double character of a god ruling at the same time both
+the fertile earth and the dismal realm of the dead.[7]
+
+As we see, the Ptolemies had given their new religion a literary and
+artistic shape that was capable of attracting the most refined and cultured
+minds. But the adaptation to the Hellenic feeling and thinking was not
+exclusively external. Osiris, the god whose worship was thus renewed, was
+more adapted than any other to lend his authority to the formation of a
+syncretic faith. At a very early period, in fact before the time of
+Herodotus, Osiris had been identified with Dionysus, and Isis with Demeter.
+M. Foucart has {77} endeavored to prove in an ingenious essay that this
+assimilation was not arbitrary, that Osiris and Isis came into Crete and
+Attica during the prehistoric period, and that they were mistaken for
+Dionysus and Demeter[8] by the people of those regions. Without going back
+to those remote ages, we shall merely say with him that the mysteries of
+Dionysus were connected with those of Osiris by far-reaching affinities,
+not simply by superficial and fortuitous resemblances. Each commemorated
+the history of a god governing both vegetation and the underworld at the
+same time, who was put to death and torn to pieces by an enemy, and whose
+scattered limbs were collected by a goddess, after which he was
+miraculously revived. The Greeks must have been very willing to adopt a
+worship in which they found their own divinities and their own myths again
+with something more poignant and more magnificent added. It is a very
+remarkable fact that of all the many deities worshiped by the Egyptian
+districts those of the immediate neighborhood, or if you like, the cycle of
+Osiris, his wife Isis, their son Harpocrates and their faithful servant
+Anubis, were the only ones that were adopted by the Hellenic populations.
+All other heavenly or infernal spirits worshiped by the Egyptians remained
+strangers to Greece.[9]
+
+In the Greco-Latin literature we notice two opposing attitudes toward the
+Egyptian religion. It was regarded as the highest and the lowest of
+religions at the same time, and as a matter of fact there was an abyss
+between the always ardent popular beliefs and the enlightened faith of the
+official priests. The Greeks and Romans gazed with admiration upon the
+splendor of the temples and ceremonial, upon the fabulous {78} antiquity of
+the sacred traditions and upon the erudition of a clergy possessed of a
+wisdom that had been revealed by divinity. In becoming the disciples of
+that clergy, they imagined they were drinking from the pure fountain whence
+their own myths had sprung. They were overawed by the pretensions of a
+clergy that prided itself on a past in which it kept on living, and they
+strongly felt the attraction of a marvelous country where everything was
+mysterious, from the Nile that had created it to the hieroglyphs engraved
+upon the walls of its gigantic edifices.[10] At the same time they were
+shocked by the coarseness of its fetichism and by the absurdity of its
+superstitions. Above all they felt an unconquerable repulsion at the
+worship of animals and plants, which had always been the most striking
+feature of the vulgar Egyptian religion and which, like all other archaic
+devotions, seems to have been practised with renewed fervor after the
+accession of the Saite dynasty. The comic writers and the satirists never
+tired of scoffing at the adorers of the cat, the crocodile, the leek and
+the onion. Juvenal says ironically: "O holy people, whose very
+kitchen-gardens produce gods."[11] In a general way, this strange people,
+entirely separated from the remainder of the world, were regarded with
+about the same kind of feeling that Europeans entertained toward the
+Chinese for a long time.
+
+A purely Egyptian worship would not have been acceptable to the Greco-Latin
+world. The main merit of the mixed creation of the political genius of the
+Ptolemies consisted in the rejection or modification of everything
+repugnant or monstrous like the phallophories of Abydos, and in the
+retention of none but {79} stirring or attractive elements. It was the most
+civilized of all barbarian religions; it retained enough of the exotic
+element to arouse the curiosity of the Greeks, but not enough to offend
+their delicate sense of proportion, and its success was remarkable.
+
+It was adopted wherever the authority or the prestige of the Lagides was
+felt, and wherever the relations of Alexandria, the great commercial
+metropolis, extended. The Lagides induced the rulers and the nations with
+whom they concluded alliances to accept it. King Nicocreon introduced it
+into Cyprus after having consulted the oracle of the Serapeum,[12] and
+Agathocles introduced it into Sicily, at the time of his marriage with the
+daughter-in-law of Ptolemy I (298).[13] At Antioch, Seleucus Callinicus
+built a sanctuary for the statue of Isis sent to him from Memphis by
+Ptolemy Euergetes.[14] In token of his friendship Ptolemy Soter introduced
+his god Serapis into Athens, where the latter had a temple at the foot of
+the Acropolis[15] ever after, and Arsinoë, his mother or wife, founded
+another at Halicarnassus, about the year 307.[16] In this manner the
+political activity of the Egyptian dynasty was directed toward having the
+divinities, whose glory was in a certain measure connected with that of
+their house, recognized everywhere. Through Apuleius we know that under the
+empire the priests of Isis mentioned the ruling sovereign first of all in
+their prayers.[17] And this was simply an imitation of the grateful
+devotion which their predecessors had felt toward the Ptolemies.
+
+Protected by the Egyptian squadrons, sailors and merchants propagated the
+worship of Isis, the goddess of navigators, simultaneously on the coasts of
+Syria, {80} Asia Minor and Greece, in the islands of the Archipelago,[18]
+and as far as the Hellespont and Thrace.[19] At Delos, where the
+inscriptions enable us to study this worship somewhat in detail, it was not
+merely practised by strangers, but the very sacerdotal functions were
+performed by members of the Athenian aristocracy. A number of funereal
+bas-reliefs, in which the deified dead wears the _calathos_ of Serapis on
+his head, prove the popularity of the belief in future life propagated by
+these mysteries. According to the Egyptian faith he was identified with the
+god of the dead.[20]
+
+Even after the splendor of the court of Alexandria had faded and vanished;
+even after the wars against Mithridates and the growth of piracy had ruined
+the traffic of the Ægean Sea, the Alexandrian worship was too deeply rooted
+in the soil of Greece to perish, although it became endangered in certain
+seaports like Delos. Of all the gods of the Orient, Isis and Serapis were
+the only ones that retained a place among the great divinities of the
+Hellenic world until the end of paganism.[21]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was this syncretic religion that came to Rome after having enjoyed
+popularity in the eastern Mediterranean. Sicily and the south of Italy were
+more than half Hellenized, and the Ptolemies had diplomatic relations with
+these countries, just as the merchants of Alexandria had commercial
+relations with them. For this reason the worship of Isis spread as rapidly
+in those regions as on the coasts of Ionia or in the Cyclades.[22] It was
+introduced into Syracuse and Catana during the earliest years of the third
+century by {81} Agathocles. The Serapeum of Pozzuoli, at that time the
+busiest seaport of Campania, was mentioned in a city ordinance of the year
+105 B. C.[23] About the same time an Iseum was founded at Pompeii, where
+the decorative frescos attest to this day the power of expansion possessed
+by the Alexandrian culture.
+
+After its adoption by the southern part of the Italian peninsula, this
+religion was bound to penetrate rapidly to Rome. Ever since the second
+century before our era, it could not help but find adepts in the chequered
+multitude of slaves and freedmen. Under the Antonines the college of the
+_pastophori_ recalled that it had been founded in the time of Sulla.[24] In
+vain did the authorities try to check the invasion of the Alexandrian gods.
+Five different times, in 59, 58, 53, and 48 B. C., the senate ordered their
+altars and statues torn down,[25] but these violent measures did not stop
+the diffusion of the new beliefs. The Egyptian mysteries were the first
+example at Rome of an essentially popular religious movement that was
+triumphant over the continued resistance of the public authorities and the
+official clergy.
+
+Why was this Egyptian worship the only one of all Oriental religions to
+suffer repeated persecutions? There were two motives, one religious and one
+political.
+
+In the first place, this cult was said to exercise a corrupting influence
+perversive of piety. Its morals were loose, and the mystery surrounding it
+excited the worst suspicions. Moreover, it appealed violently to the
+emotions and senses. All these factors offended the grave decency that a
+Roman was wont to {82} maintain in the presence of the gods. The innovators
+had every defender of the _mos maiorum_ for an adversary.
+
+In the second place, this religion had been founded, supported and
+propagated by the Ptolemies; it came from a country that was almost hostile
+to Italy during the last period of the republic;[26] it issued from
+Alexandria, whose superiority Rome felt and feared. Its secret societies,
+made up chiefly of people of the lower classes, might easily become clubs
+of agitators and haunts of spies. All these motives for suspicion and
+hatred were undoubtedly more potent in exciting persecution than the purely
+theological reasons, and persecution was stopped or renewed according to
+the vicissitudes of general politics.
+
+As we have stated, the chapels consecrated to Isis were demolished in the
+year 48 B. C. After Cæsar's death, the triumvirs decided in 43 B. C. to
+erect a temple in her honor out of the public funds, undoubtedly to gain
+the favor of the masses. This action would have implied official
+recognition, but the project appears never to have been executed. If Antony
+had succeeded at Actium, Isis and Serapis would have entered Rome in
+triumph, but they were vanquished with Cleopatra; and when Augustus had
+become the master of the empire, he professed a deep aversion for the gods
+of his former enemies. Moreover, he could not have suffered the intrusion
+of the Egyptian clergy into the Roman sacerdotal class, whose guardian,
+restorer and chief he was. In 28 B. C. an ordinance was issued forbidding
+the erecting of altars to the Alexandrian divinities inside the sacred
+enclosure of the _pomerium_, and seven years later Agrippa extended this
+prohibitive regulation to a radius of a thousand paces around the {83}
+city. Tiberius acted on the same principle and in 19 A. D. instituted the
+bloodiest persecution against the priests of Isis that they ever suffered,
+in consequence of a scandalous affair in which a matron, a noble and some
+priests of Isis were implicated.
+
+All these police measures, however, were strangely ineffectual. The
+Egyptian worship was excluded from Rome and her immediate neighborhood in
+theory if not in fact, but the rest of the world remained open to its
+propaganda.[27]
+
+With the beginning of the empire it slowly invaded the center and the north
+of Italy and spread into the provinces. Merchants, sailors, slaves,
+artisans, Egyptian men of letters, even the discharged soldiers of the
+three legions cantoned in the valley of the Nile contributed to its
+diffusion. It entered Africa by way of Carthage, and the Danubian countries
+through the great emporium of Aquileia. The new province of Gaul was
+invaded through the valley of the Rhone. At that period many Oriental
+emigrants went to seek their fortunes in these new countries. Intimate
+relations existed between the cities of Arles and Alexandria, and we know
+that a colony of Egyptian Greeks, established at Nimes by Augustus, took
+the gods of their native country thither.[28] At the beginning of our era
+there set in that great movement of conversion that soon established the
+worship of Isis and Serapis from the outskirts of the Sahara to the vallum
+of Britain, and from the mountains of Asturias to the mouths of the Danube.
+
+The resistance still offered by the central power could not last much
+longer. It was impossible to dam in this overflowing stream whose
+thundering waves struck the {84} shaking walls of the _pomerium_ from every
+side. The prestige of Alexandria seemed invincible. At that period the city
+was more beautiful, more learned, and better policed than Rome. She was the
+model capital, a standard to which the Latins strove to rise. They
+translated the works of the scholars of Alexandria, imitated her authors,
+invited her artists and copied her institutions. It is plain that they had
+also to undergo the ascendancy of her religion. As a matter of fact, her
+fervent believers maintained her sanctuaries, despite the law, on the very
+Capitol. Under Cæsar, Alexandrian astronomers had reformed the calendar of
+the pontiffs, and Alexandrian priests soon marked the dates of Isis
+holidays upon it.
+
+The decisive step was taken soon after the death of Tiberius. Caligula
+erected the great temple of Isis Campensis on the Campus Martius probably
+in the year 38.[29] In order to spare the sacerdotal susceptibilities, he
+founded it outside of the sacred enclosure of the city of Servius. Later
+Domitian made one of Rome's most splendid monuments of that temple. From
+that time Isis and Serapis enjoyed the favor of every imperial dynasty, the
+Flavians as well as the Antonines and the Severi. About the year 215
+Caracalla built an Isis temple, even more magnificent than that of
+Domitian, on the Quirinal, in the heart of the city, and perhaps another
+one on the Coelian. As the apologist Minucius Felix states, the Egyptian
+gods had become entirely Roman.[30]
+
+The climax of their power seems to have been reached at the beginning of
+the third century; later on the popular vogue and official support went to
+other divinities, like the Syrian Baals and the Persian {85} Mithras. The
+progress of Christianity also deprived them of their power, which was,
+however, still considerable until the end of the ancient world. The Isis
+processions that marched the streets of Rome were described by an eye
+witness as late as the year 394,[31] but in 391 the patriarch Theophilus
+had consigned the Serapeum of Alexandria to the flames, having himself
+struck the first blow with an ax against the colossal statue of the god
+that had so long been the object of a superstitious veneration. Thus the
+prelate destroyed the "very head of idolatry," as Rufinus put it.[32]
+
+As a matter of fact, idolatry received its death blow. The worship of the
+gods of the Ptolemies died out completely between the reigns of Theodosius
+and Justinian,[33] and in accordance with the sad prophecy of Hermes
+Trismegistus[34] Egypt, Egypt herself, lost her divinities and became a
+land of the dead. Of her religions nothing remained but fables that were no
+longer believed, and the only thing that reminded the barbarians who came
+to inhabit the country of its former piety, were words engraved on stone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This rapid sketch of the history of Isis and Serapis shows that these
+divinities were worshiped in the Latin world for more than five centuries.
+The task of pointing out the transformations of the cult during that long
+period, and the local differences there may have been in the various
+provinces, is reserved for future researches. These will undoubtedly find
+that the Alexandrian worship did not become Latinized under the empire, but
+that its Oriental character became more and more pronounced. When Domitian
+restored the Iseum of the Campus Martius and that of Beneventum, he {86}
+transferred from the valley of the Nile sphinxes, cynocephali and obelisks
+of black or pink granite bearing borders of hieroglyphics of Amasis,
+Nectanebos or even Rameses II. On other obelisks that were erected in the
+propyleums even the inscriptions of the emperors were written in
+hieroglyphics.[35] Half a century later that true dilettante, Hadrian,
+caused the luxuries of Canopus to be reproduced, along with the vale of
+Tempe, in his immense villa at Tibur, to enable him to celebrate his
+voluptuous feasts under the friendly eyes of Serapis. He extolled the
+merits of the deified Antinous in inscriptions couched in the ancient
+language of the Pharaohs, and set the fashion of statues hewn out of black
+basalt in the Egyptian style.[36] The amateurs of that period affected to
+prefer the hieratic rigidity of the barbarian idols to the elegant freedom
+of Alexandrian art. Those esthetic manifestations probably corresponded to
+religious prejudices, and the Latin worship always endeavored to imitate
+the art of temples in the Nile valley more closely than did the Greek. This
+evolution was in conformity with all the tendencies of the imperial period.
+
+By what secret virtue did the Egyptian religion exercise this irresistible
+influence over the Roman world? What new elements did those priests, who
+made proselytes in every province, give the Roman world? Did the success of
+their preaching mean progress or retrogression from the standard of the
+ancient Roman faith? These are complex and delicate questions that would
+require minute analysis and cautious treatment with a constant and exact
+observation of shades. I am compelled to limit myself to a rapid sketch,
+which, I {87} fear, will appear rather dry and arbitrary, like every
+generalization.
+
+The particular doctrines of the mysteries of Isis and Serapis in regard to
+the nature and power of the gods were not, or were but incidentally, the
+reasons for the triumph of these mysteries. It has been said that the
+Egyptian theology always remained in a "fluid state,"[37] or better in a
+state of chaos. It consisted of an amalgamation of disparate legends, of an
+aggregate of particular cults, as Egypt herself was an aggregate of a
+number of districts. This religion never formulated a coherent system of
+generally accepted dogmas. It permitted the coexistence of conflicting
+conceptions and traditions, and all the subtlety of its clergy never
+accomplished, or rather never began, the task of fusing those
+irreconcilable elements into one harmonious synthesis.[38] For the
+Egyptians there was no principle of contradiction. All the heterogeneous
+beliefs that ever obtained in the various districts during the different
+periods of a very long history, were maintained concurrently and formed an
+inextricable confusion in the sacred books.
+
+About the same state of affairs prevailed in the Occidental worship of the
+Alexandrian divinities. In the Occident, just as in Egypt, there were
+"prophets" in the first rank of the clergy, who learnedly discussed
+religion, but never taught a theological system that found universal
+acceptance. The sacred scribe Cheremon, who became Nero's tutor, recognized
+the stoical theories in the sacerdotal traditions of his country.[39] When
+the eclectic Plutarch speaks of the character of the Egyptian gods, he
+finds it agrees surprisingly with his own philosophy,[40] and when the
+neo-Platonist {88} Iamblichus examines them, their character seems to agree
+with his doctrines. The hazy ideas of the Oriental priests enabled every
+one to see in them the phantoms he was pursuing. The individual imagination
+was given ample scope, and the dilettantic men of letters rejoiced in
+molding these malleable doctrines at will. They were not outlined sharply
+enough, nor were they formulated with sufficient precision to appeal to the
+multitude. The gods were everything and nothing; they got lost in a
+_sfumato_. A disconcerting anarchy and confusion prevailed among them. By
+means of a scientific mixture of Greek, Egyptian and Semitic elements
+"Hermetism"[41] endeavored to create a theological system that would be
+acceptable to all minds, but it seems never to have imposed itself
+generally on the Alexandrian mysteries which were older than itself, and
+furthermore it could not escape the contradictions of Egyptian thought. The
+religion of Isis did not gain a hold on the soul by its dogmatism.
+
+It must be admitted, however, that, owing to its extreme flexibility, this
+religion was easily adapted to the various centers to which it was
+transferred, and that it enjoyed the valuable advantage of being always in
+perfect harmony with the prevailing philosophy. Moreover, the syncretic
+tendencies of Egypt responded admirably to those that began to obtain at
+Rome. At a very early period henotheistic theories had been favorably
+received in sacerdotal circles, and while crediting the god of their own
+temple with supremacy, the priests admitted that he might have a number of
+different personalities, under which he was worshiped simultaneously. In
+this way the unity of the supreme being was affirmed for the thinkers, and
+polytheism with its {89} intangible traditions maintained for the masses.
+In the same manner Isis and Osiris had absorbed several local divinities
+under the Pharaohs, and had assumed a complex character that was capable of
+indefinite extension. The same process continued under the Ptolemies when
+the religion of Egypt came into contact with Greece. Isis was identified
+simultaneously with Demeter, Aphrodite, Hera, Semele, Io, Tyche, and
+others. She was considered the queen of heaven and hell, of earth and sea.
+She was "the past, the present and the future,"[42] "nature the mother of
+things, the mistress of the elements, born at the beginning of the
+centuries."[43] She had numberless names, an infinity of different aspects
+and an inexhaustible treasure of virtues. In short, she became a
+pantheistic power that was everything in one, _una quae est omnia_.[44]
+
+The authority of Serapis was no less exalted, and his field no less
+extensive. He also was regarded as a universal god of whom men liked to say
+that he was "unique." ([Greek: Heis Zeus Sarapis]) In him all energies were
+centered, although the functions of Zeus, of Pluto or of Helios were
+especially ascribed to him. For many centuries Osiris had been worshiped at
+Abydos both as author of fecundity and lord of the underworld,[45] and this
+double character early caused him to be identified with the sun, which
+fertilizes the earth during its diurnal course and travels through the
+subterranean realms at night. Thus the conception of this nature divinity,
+that had already prevailed along the Nile, accorded without difficulty with
+the solar pantheism that was the last form of Roman paganism. This
+theological system, which did not gain the upper hand in the Occident until
+the {90} second century of our era, was not brought in by Egypt. It did not
+have the exclusive predominance there that it had held under the empire,
+and even in Plutarch's time it was only one creed among many.[46] The
+deciding influence in this matter was exercised by the Syrian Baals and the
+Chaldean astrology.
+
+The theology of the Egyptian mysteries, then, followed rather than led the
+general influx of ideas. The same may be said of their ethics. It did not
+force itself upon the world by lofty moral precepts, nor by a sublime ideal
+of holiness. Many have admired the edifying list in the Book of the Dead,
+that rightfully or otherwise sets forth the virtues which the deceased
+claims to have practised in order to obtain a favorable judgment from
+Osiris. If one considers the period in which it appears, this ethics is
+undoubtedly very elevated, but it seems rudimentary and even childish if
+one compares it with the principles formulated by the Roman jurists, to say
+nothing of the minute psychological analyses of the Stoic casuists. In this
+range of ideas also, the maintenance of the most striking contrasts
+characterizes Egyptian mentality, which was never shocked by the cruelties
+and obscenities that sullied the mythology and the ritual. Like Epicurus at
+Athens, some of the sacred texts actually invited the believers to enjoy
+life before the sadness of death.[47]
+
+Isis was not a very austere goddess at the time she entered Italy.
+Identified with Venus, as Harpocrates was with Eros, she was honored
+especially by the women with whom love was a profession. In Alexandria, the
+city of pleasure, she had lost all severity, and at Rome this good goddess
+remained very indulgent to human weaknesses. Juvenal harshly refers to {91}
+her as a procuress,[48] and her temples had a more than doubtful
+reputation, for they were frequented by young men in quest of gallant
+adventures. Apuleius himself chose a lewd tale in which to display his
+fervor as an initiate.
+
+But we have said that Egypt was full of contradictions, and when a more
+exacting morality demanded that the gods should make man virtuous, the
+Alexandrian mysteries offered to satisfy that demand.
+
+At all times the Egyptian ritual attributed considerable importance to
+purity, or, to use a more adequate term, to cleanliness. Before every
+ceremony the officiating priest had to submit to ablutions, sometimes to
+fumigations or anointing, and to abstain from certain foods and from
+incontinence for a certain time. Originally no moral idea was connected
+with this purification. It was considered a means of exorcising malevolent
+demons or of putting the priest into a state in which the sacrifice
+performed by him could have the expected effect. It was similar to the
+diet, shower-baths and massage prescribed by physicians for physical
+health. The internal status of the officiating person was a matter of as
+much indifference to the celestial spirits as the actual worth of the
+deceased was to Osiris, the judge of the underworld. All that was necessary
+to have him open the fields of Aalu to the soul was to pronounce the
+liturgic formulas, and if the soul declared its innocence in the prescribed
+terms its word was readily accepted.
+
+But in the Egyptian religion, as in all the religions of antiquity,[49] the
+original conception was gradually transformed and a new idea slowly took
+its place. The sacramental acts of purification were now {92} expected to
+wipe out moral stains, and people became convinced that they made man
+better. The devout female votaries of Isis, whom Juvenal[50] pictures as
+breaking the ice to bathe in the Tiber, and crawling around the temple on
+their bleeding knees, hoped to atone for their sins and to make up for
+their shortcomings by means of these sufferings.
+
+When a new ideal grew up in the popular conscience during the second
+century, when the magicians themselves became pious and serious people,
+free from passions and appetites, and were honored because of the dignity
+of their lives more than for their white linen robes,[51] then the virtues
+of which the Egyptian priests enjoined the practice also became less
+external. Purity of the heart rather than cleanliness of the body was
+demanded. Renunciation of sensual pleasures was the indispensable condition
+for the knowledge of divinity, which was the supreme good.[52] No longer
+did Isis favor illicit love. In the novel by Xenophon of Ephesus (about 280
+A. D.) she protects the heroine's chastity against all pitfalls and assures
+its triumph. According to the ancient belief man's entire existence was a
+preparation for the formidable judgment held by Serapis after death, but to
+have him decide in favor of the mystic, it was not enough to know the rites
+of the sect; the individual life had to be free from crime; and the master
+of the infernal regions assigned everybody a place according to his
+deserts.[53] The doctrine of future retribution was beginning to develop.
+
+However, in this regard, as in their conception of the divinity, the
+Egyptian mysteries followed the general progress of ideas more than they
+directed it. {93} Philosophy transformed them, but found in them little
+inspiration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How could a religion, of which neither the theology nor the ethics was
+really new, stir up at the same time so much hostility and fervor among the
+Romans? To many minds of to-day theology and ethics constitute religion,
+but during the classical period it was different, and the priests of Isis
+and Serapis conquered souls mainly by other means. They seduced them by the
+powerful attraction of the ritual and retained them by the marvelous
+promises of their doctrine of immortality.
+
+To the Egyptians ritual had a value far superior to that we ascribe to it
+to-day. It had an operative strength of its own that was independent of the
+intentions of the officiating priest. The efficacy of prayer depended not
+on the inner disposition of the believer, but on the correctness of the
+words, gestures and intonation. Religion was not clearly differentiated
+from magic. If a divinity was invoked according to the correct forms,
+especially if one knew how to pronounce its real name, it was compelled to
+act in conformity to the will of its priest. The sacred words were an
+incantation that compelled the superior powers to obey the officiating
+person, no matter what purpose he had in view. With the knowledge of the
+liturgy men acquired an immense power over the world of spirits. Porphyry
+was surprised and indignant because the Egyptians sometimes dared to
+threaten the gods in their orations.[54] In the consecrations the priest's
+summons compelled the gods to come and animate their {94} statues, and thus
+his voice created divinities,[55] as originally the almighty voice of Thoth
+had created the world.[56]
+
+The ritual that conferred such superhuman power[57] developed in Egypt into
+a state of perfection, completeness and splendor unknown in the Occident.
+It possessed a unity, a precision and a permanency that stood in striking
+contrast to the variety of the myths, the uncertainty of the dogmas and the
+arbitrariness of the interpretations. The sacred books of the Greco-Roman
+period are a faithful reproduction of the texts that were engraved upon the
+walls of the pyramids at the dawn of history, notwithstanding the centuries
+that had passed. Even under the Cæsars the ancient ceremonies dating back
+to the first ages of Egypt, were scrupulously performed because the
+smallest word and the least gesture had their importance.
+
+This ritual and the attitude toward it found their way for the most part
+into the Latin temples of Isis and Serapis. This fact has long been
+ignored, but there can be no doubt about it. A first proof is that the
+clergy of those temples were organized just like those of Egypt during the
+period of the Ptolemies.[58] There was a hierarchy presided over by a high
+priest, which consisted of _prophetes_ skilled in the sacred science,
+_stolistes_, or _ornatrices_,[59] whose office it was to dress the statues
+of the gods, _pastophori_ who carried the sacred temple plates in the
+processions, and so on, just as in Egypt. As in their native country, the
+priests were distinguished from common mortals by a tonsure, by a linen
+tunic, and by their habits as well as by their garb. They devoted
+themselves entirely to their ministry and had no other profession. This
+{95} sacerdotal body always remained Egyptian in character, if not in
+nationality, because the liturgy it had to perform remained so. In a
+similar manner the priests of the Baals were Syrians,[60] because they were
+the only ones that knew how to honor the gods of Syria.
+
+In the first place a daily service had to be held just as in the Nile
+valley. The Egyptian gods enjoyed a precarious immortality, for they were
+liable to destruction and dependent on necessities. According to a very
+primitive conception that always remained alive, they had to be fed,
+clothed and refreshed every day or else perish. From this fact arose the
+necessity of a liturgy that was practically the same in every district. It
+was practised for thousands of years and opposed its unaltering form to the
+multiplicity of legends and local beliefs.[61]
+
+This daily liturgy was translated into Greek, perhaps later into Latin
+also; it was adapted to the new requirements by the founders of the
+Serapeum, and faithfully observed in the Roman temples of the Alexandrian
+gods. The essential ceremony always was the opening (_apertio_)[62] of the
+sanctuary. At dawn the statue of the divinity was uncovered and shown to
+the community in the _naos_, that had been closed and sealed during the
+night.[63] Then, again as in Egypt, the priest lit the sacred fire and
+offered libations of water supposed to be from the deified Nile,[64] while
+he chanted the usual hymns to the sound of flutes. Finally, "erect upon the
+threshold"--I translate literally from Porphyry--"he awakens the god by
+calling to him in the Egyptian language."[65] As we see, the god was
+revived by the sacrifice and, as under the Pharaohs, awoke from his slumber
+at the calling of {96} his name. As a matter of fact the name was
+indissolubly connected with the personality; he who could pronounce the
+exact name of an individual or of a divinity was obeyed as a master by his
+slave.[66] This fact made it necessary to maintain the original form of
+that mysterious word. There was no other motive for the introduction of a
+number of barbarian appellatives into the magical incantations.
+
+It is also probable that the toilet of the statue was made every day, that
+its body and head were dressed,[67] as in the Egyptian ritual. We have seen
+that the _ornatrices_ or _stolistes_ were especially entrusted with these
+duties. The idol was covered with sumptuous raiment and ornamented with
+jewels and gems. An inscription furnishes us with an inventory of the
+jewels worn by an Isis of ancient Cadiz;[68] her ornaments were more
+brilliant than those of a Spanish madonna.
+
+During the entire forenoon, from the moment that a noisy acclamation had
+greeted the rising of the sun, the images of the gods were exposed to the
+silent adoration of the initiates.[69] Egypt is the country whence
+contemplative devotion penetrated into Europe. Then, in the afternoon, a
+second service was held to close the sanctuary.[70]
+
+The daily liturgy must have been very absorbing. This innovation in the
+Roman paganism was full of consequences. No longer were sacrifices offered
+to the god on certain occasions only, but twice a day elaborate services
+were held. As with the Egyptians, whom Herodotus had termed the most
+religious of all peoples,[71] devotion assumed a tendency to fill out the
+whole existence and to dominate private and public interests. The constant
+repetition of the same prayers {97} kept up and renewed faith, and, we
+might say, people lived continually under the eyes of the gods.
+
+Besides the daily rites of the Abydos liturgy the holidays marking the
+beginning of the different seasons were celebrated at the same date every
+year.[72] It was the same in Italy. The calendars have preserved the names
+of several of them, and of one, the _Navigium Isidis_, the rhetorician
+Apuleius[73] has left us a brilliant description on which, to speak with
+the ancients, he emptied all his color tubes. On March 5th, when navigation
+reopened after the winter months, a gorgeous procession[74] marched to the
+coast, and a ship consecrated to Isis, the protectress of sailors, was
+launched. A burlesque group of masked persons opened the procession, then
+came the women in white gowns strewing flowers, the _stolistes_ waving the
+garments of the goddess and the _dadophori_ with lighted torches. After
+these came the _hymnodes_, whose songs mingled in turn with the sharp sound
+of the cross-flutes and the ringing of the brass timbrels; then the throngs
+of the initiates, and finally the priests, with shaven heads and clad in
+linen robes of a dazzling white, bearing the images of animal-faced gods
+and strange symbols, as for instance a golden urn containing the sacred
+water of the Nile. The procession stopped in front of altars[75] erected
+along the road, and on these altars the sacred objects were uncovered for
+the veneration of the faithful. The strange and sumptuous magnificence of
+these celebrations made a deep impression on the common people who loved
+public entertainments.
+
+But of all the celebrations connected with the worship of Isis the most
+stirring and the most suggestive {98} was the commemoration of the "Finding
+of Osiris" (_Inventio_, [Greek: Heuresis]). Its antecedents date back to
+remote antiquity. Since the time of the twelfth dynasty, and probably much
+earlier, there had been held at Abydos and elsewhere a sacred performance
+similar to the mysteries of our Middle Ages, in which the events of
+Osiris's passion and resurrection were reproduced. We are in possession of
+the ritual of those performances.[76] Issuing from the temple, the god fell
+under Set's blows; around his body funeral lamentations were simulated, and
+he was buried according to the rites; then Set was vanquished by Horus, and
+Osiris, restored to life, reentered his temple triumphant over death.
+
+The same myth was represented in almost the same manner at Rome at the
+beginning of each November.[77] While the priests and the believers moaned
+and lamented, Isis in great distress sought the divine body of Osiris,
+whose limbs had been scattered by Typhon. Then, after the corpse had been
+found, rehabilitated and revived, there was a long outburst of joy, an
+exuberant jubilation that rang through the temples and the streets so
+loudly that it annoyed the passers-by.
+
+This mingled despair and enthusiasm acted as strongly upon the feelings of
+the believers as did the spring-holiday ceremony in the Phrygian religion,
+and it acted through the same means. Moreover, there was an esoteric
+meaning attached to it that none but the pious elect understood. Besides
+the public ceremonies there was a secret worship to which one was admitted
+only after a gradual initiation. The hero of Apuleius had to submit to the
+ordeal three times in order to obtain the whole revelation. In Egypt the
+{99} clergy communicated certain rites and interpretations only upon a
+promise not to reveal them. In fact this was the case in the worship of
+Isis at Abydos and elsewhere.[78] When the Ptolemies regulated the Greek
+ritual of their new religion, it assumed the form of the mysteries spread
+over the Hellenic world and became very like those of Eleusis. The hand of
+the Eumolpid Timotheus is noticeable in this connection.[79]
+
+But while the ceremonial of the initiations and even the production of the
+liturgic drama were thus adapted to the religious habits of the Greeks, the
+doctrinal contents of the Alexandrian mysteries remained purely Egyptian.
+The old belief that immortality could be secured by means of an
+identification of the deceased with Osiris or Serapis never died out.
+
+Perhaps in no other people did the epigram of Fustel de Coulanges find so
+complete a verification as in the Egyptians: "Death was the first mystery;
+it started man on the road to the other mysteries."[80] Nowhere else was
+life so completely dominated by preoccupation with life after death;
+nowhere else was such minute and complicated care taken to secure and
+perpetuate another existence for the deceased. The funeral literature, of
+which we have found a very great number of documents, had acquired a
+development equaled by no other, and the architecture of no other nation
+can exhibit tombs comparable with the pyramids or the rock-built sepulchers
+of Thebes.
+
+This constant endeavor to secure an after-existence for one's self and
+relatives manifested itself in various ways, but it finally assumed a
+concrete form in the worship of Osiris. The fate of Osiris, the god who
+died and returned to life, became the prototype of the {100} fate of every
+human being that observed the funeral rites. "As truly as Osiris lives,"
+says an Egyptian text, "he also shall live; as truly as Osiris is not dead,
+shall he not die; as truly as Osiris is not annihilated, shall he not be
+annihilated."[81]
+
+If, then, the deceased had piously served Osiris-Serapis, he was
+assimilated to that god, and shared his immortality in the underworld,
+where the judge of the dead held forth. He lived not as a tenuous shade or
+as a subtle spirit, but in full possession of his body as well as of his
+soul. That was the Egyptian doctrine, and that certainly was also the
+doctrine of the Greco-Latin mysteries.[82]
+
+Through the initiation the mystic was born again, but to a superhuman life,
+and became the equal of the immortals.[83] In his ecstasy he imagined that
+he was crossing the threshold of death and contemplating the gods of heaven
+and hell face to face.[84] If he had accurately followed the prescriptions
+imposed upon him by Isis and Serapis through their priests, those gods
+prolonged his life after his decease beyond the duration assigned to it by
+destiny, and he participated eternally in their beatitude and offered them
+his homage in their realm.[85] The "unspeakable pleasure" he felt when
+contemplating the sacred images in the temple[86] became perpetual rapture
+when he was in the divine presence instead of in the presence of the image,
+and drawn close to divinity his thirsting soul enjoyed the delights of that
+ineffable beauty.[87]
+
+When the Alexandrian mysteries spread over Italy under the republic, no
+religion had ever brought to mankind so formal a promise of blest
+immortality as these, and this, more than anything else, lent them an {101}
+irresistible power of attraction. Instead of the vague and contradictory
+opinions of the philosophers in regard to the destiny of the soul, Serapis
+offered certainty founded on divine revelation corroborated by the faith of
+the countless generations that had adhered to it. What the votaries of
+Orpheus had confusedly discovered through the veil of the legends, and
+taught to Magna Grecia,[88] namely, that this earthly life was a trial, a
+preparation for a higher and purer life, that the happiness of an
+after-life could be secured by means of rites and observances revealed by
+the gods themselves, all this was now preached with a firmness and
+precision hitherto unknown. These eschatological doctrines in particular,
+helped Egypt to conquer the Latin world and especially the miserable
+masses, on whom the weight of all the iniquities of Roman society rested
+heavily.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The power and popularity of that belief in future life has left traces even
+in the French language, and in concluding this study, from which I have
+been compelled to exclude every picturesque detail, I would like to point
+out how a French word of to-day dimly perpetuates the memory of the old
+Egyptian ideas.
+
+During the cold nights of their long winters the Scandinavians dreamed of a
+Walhalla where the deceased warriors sat in well-closed brilliantly
+illuminated halls, warming themselves and drinking the strong liquor served
+by the Valkyries; but under the burning sky of Egypt, near the arid sand
+where thirst kills the traveler, people wished that their dead might find a
+limpid spring in their future wanderings to assuage the heat that devoured
+them, and that they might be {102} refreshed by the breezes of the north
+wind.[89] Even at Rome the adherents of the Alexandrian gods frequently
+inscribed the following wish on their tombs: "May Osiris give you fresh
+water."[90] Soon this water became, in a figurative sense, the fountain of
+life pouring out immortality to thirsting souls. The metaphor obtained such
+popularity that in Latin _refrigerium_ became synonymous with comfort and
+happiness. The term retained this meaning in the liturgy of the church,[91]
+and for that reason people continue to pray for spiritual
+_rafraîchissement_ of the dead although the Christian paradise has very
+little resemblance to the fields of Aalu.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+{103}
+
+SYRIA.
+
+The religions of Syria never had the same solidarity in the Occident as
+those from Egypt or Asia Minor. From the coasts of Phoenicia and the
+valleys of Lebanon, from the borders of the Euphrates and the oases of the
+desert, they came at various periods, like the successive waves of the
+incoming tide, and existed side by side in the Roman world without uniting,
+in spite of their similarities. The isolation in which they remained and
+the persistent adherence of their believers to their particular rites were
+a consequence and reflection of the disunited condition of Syria herself,
+where the different tribes and districts remained more distinct than
+anywhere else, even after they had been brought together under the
+domination of Rome. They doggedly preserved their local gods and Semitic
+dialects.
+
+It would be impossible to outline each one of these religions in detail at
+this time and to reconstruct their history, because our meager information
+would not permit it, but we can indicate, in a general way, how they
+penetrated into the Occidental countries at various periods, and we can try
+to define their common characteristics by showing what new elements the
+Syrian paganism brought to the Romans.
+
+The first Semitic divinity to enter Italy was {104} _Atargatis_, frequently
+mistaken for the Phoenician Astarte, who had a famous temple at Bambyce or
+Hierapolis, not far from the Euphrates, and was worshiped with her husband,
+Hadad, in a considerable part of Syria besides. The Greeks considered her
+as the principal Syrian goddess ([Greek: Suria thea]), and in the Latin
+countries she was commonly known as _dea Syria_, a name corrupted into
+_Iasura_ by popular use.
+
+We all remember the unedifying descriptions of her itinerant priests that
+Lucian and Apuleius[1] have left. Led by an old eunuch of dubious habits, a
+crowd of painted young men marched along the highways with an ass that bore
+an elaborately adorned image of the goddess. Whenever they passed through a
+village or by some rich villa, they went through their sacred exercises. To
+the shrill accompaniment of their Syrian flutes they turned round and
+round, and with their heads thrown back fluttered about and gave vent to
+hoarse clamors until vertigo seized them and insensibility was complete.
+Then they flagellated themselves wildly, struck themselves with swords and
+shed their blood in front of a rustic crowd which pressed closely about
+them, and finally they took up a profitable collection from the wondering
+spectators. They received jars of milk and wine, cheeses, flour, bronze
+coins of small denominations and even some silver pieces, all of which
+disappeared in the folds of their capacious robes. If opportunity presented
+they knew how to increase their profits by means of clever thefts or by
+making commonplace predictions for a moderate consideration.
+
+This picturesque description, based on a novel by {105} Lucius of Patras,
+is undoubtedly extreme. It is difficult to believe that the sacerdotal
+corps of the goddess of Hierapolis should have consisted only of charlatans
+and thieves. But how can the presence in the Occident of that begging and
+low nomadic clergy be explained?
+
+It is certain that the first worshipers of the Syrian goddess in the Latin
+world were slaves. During the wars against Antiochus the Great a number of
+prisoners were sent to Italy to be sold at public auction, as was the
+custom, and the first appearance in Italy of the _Chaldaei_[2] has been
+connected with that event. The _Chaldaei_ were Oriental fortune-tellers who
+asserted that their predictions were based on the Chaldean astrology. They
+found credulous clients among the farm laborers, and Cato gravely exhorts
+the good landlord to oust them from his estate.[3]
+
+Beginning with the second century before Christ, merchants began to import
+Syrian slaves. At that time Delos was the great trade center in this human
+commodity, and in that island especially Atargatis was worshiped by
+citizens of Athens and Rome.[4] Trade spread her worship in the
+Occident.[5] We know that the great slave revolution that devastated Sicily
+in 134 B. C. was started by a slave from Apamea, a votary of the Syrian
+goddess. Simulating divine madness, he called his companions to arms,
+pretending to act in accordance with orders from heaven.[6] This detail,
+which we know by chance, shows how considerable a proportion of Semites
+there was in the gangs working the fields, and how much authority Atargatis
+enjoyed in the rural centers. Being too poor to build temples for their
+national goddess, those agricultural laborers {106} waited with their
+devotions until a band of itinerant _galli_ passed through the distant
+hamlet where the lot of the auction had sent them. The existence of those
+wandering priests depended, therefore, on the number of fellow-countrymen
+they met in the rural districts, who supported them by sacrificing a part
+of their poor savings.
+
+Towards the end of the republic those diviners appear to have enjoyed
+rather serious consideration at Rome. It was a pythoness from Syria that
+advised Marius on the sacrifices he was to perform.[7]
+
+Under the empire the importation of slaves increased. Depopulated Italy
+needed more and more foreign hands, and Syria furnished a large quota of
+the forced immigration of cultivators. But those Syrians, quick and
+intelligent as they were strong and industrious, performed many other
+functions. They filled the countless domestic positions in the palaces of
+the aristocracy and were especially appreciated as litter-bearers.[8] The
+imperial and municipal administrations, as well as the big contractors to
+whom customs and the mines were farmed out, hired or bought them in large
+numbers, and even in the remotest border provinces the _Syrus_ was found
+serving princes, cities or private individuals. The worship of the Syrian
+goddess profited considerably by the economic current that continually
+brought new worshipers. We find her mentioned in the first century of our
+era in a Roman inscription referring in precise terms to the slave market,
+and we know that Nero took a devout fancy to the stranger that did not,
+however, last very long.[9] In the popular Trastevere quarter she had a
+temple until the end of paganism.[10] {107}
+
+During the imperial period, however, the slaves were no longer the only
+missionaries that came from Syria, and Atargatis was no longer the only
+divinity from that country to be worshiped in the Occident. The propagation
+of the Semitic worship progressed for the most part in a different manner
+under the empire.
+
+At the beginning of our era the Syrian merchants, _Syri negotiatores_,
+undertook a veritable colonization of the Latin provinces.[11] During the
+second century before Christ the traders of that nation had established
+settlements along the coast of Asia Minor, on the Piraeus, and in the
+Archipelago. At Delos, a small island but a large commercial center, they
+maintained several associations that worshiped their national gods, in
+particular Hadad and Atargatis. But the wars that shook the Orient at the
+end of the republic, and above all the growth of piracy, ruined maritime
+commerce and stopped emigration. This began again with renewed vigor when
+the establishment of the empire guaranteed the safety of the seas and when
+the Levantine traffic attained a development previously unknown. We can
+trace the history of the Syrian establishments in the Latin provinces from
+the first to the seventh century, and recently we have begun to appreciate
+their economic, social and religious importance at its true value.
+
+The Syrians' love of lucre was proverbial. Active, compliant and able,
+frequently little scrupulous, they knew how to conclude first small deals,
+then larger ones, everywhere. Using the special talents of their race to
+advantage, they succeeded in establishing themselves on all coasts of the
+Mediterranean, even in {108} Spain.[12] At Malaga an inscription mentions a
+corporation formed by them. The Italian ports where business was especially
+active, Pozzuoli, Ostia, later Naples, attracted them in great numbers. But
+they did not confine themselves to the seashore; they penetrated far into
+the interior of the countries, wherever they hoped to find profitable
+trade. They followed the commercial highways and traveled up the big
+rivers. By way of the Danube they went as far as Pannonia, by way of the
+Rhone they reached Lyons. In Gaul they were especially numerous. In this
+new country that had just been opened to commerce fortunes could be made
+rapidly. A rescript discovered on the range of the Lebanon is addressed to
+sailors from Arles, who had charge of the transportation of grain, and in
+of his relinquished hopes—and cried aloud profane words of holy
+rapture.
+
+From the middle upper window blossomed in the dusk a waving, snowy,
+fluttering, wonderful, divine emblem of forgiveness and promised joy.
+
+By came a citizen, rotund, comfortable, home-hurrying, unknowing of the
+delights of waving silken scarfs on the borders of dimly-lit parks.
+
+“Will you oblige me with the time, sir?” asked the young man; and the
+citizen, shrewdly conjecturing his watch to be safe, dragged it out and
+announced:
+
+“Twenty-nine and a half minutes past eight, sir.”
+
+And then, from habit, he glanced at the clock in the tower, and made
+further oration.
+
+“By George! that clock’s half an hour fast! First time in ten years
+I’ve known it to be off. This watch of mine never varies a—”
+
+But the citizen was talking to vacancy. He turned and saw his hearer, a
+fast receding black shadow, flying in the direction of a house with
+three lighted upper windows.
+
+And in the morning came along two policemen on their way to the beats
+they owned. The park was deserted save for one dilapidated figure that
+sprawled, asleep, on a bench. They stopped and gazed upon it.
+
+“It’s Dopy Mike,” said one. “He hits the pipe every night. Park bum for
+twenty years. On his last legs, I guess.”
+
+The other policeman stooped and looked at something crumpled and crisp
+in the hand of the sleeper.
+
+“Gee!” he remarked. “He’s doped out a fifty-dollar bill, anyway. Wish I
+knew the brand of hop that he smokes.”
+
+And then “Rap, rap, rap!” went the club of realism against the shoe
+soles of Prince Michael, of the Electorate of Valleluna.
+
+
+
+
+SISTERS OF THE GOLDEN CIRCLE
+
+
+The Rubberneck Auto was about ready to start. The merry top-riders had
+been assigned to their seats by the gentlemanly conductor. The sidewalk
+was blockaded with sightseers who had gathered to stare at sightseers,
+justifying the natural law that every creature on earth is preyed upon
+by some other creature.
+
+The megaphone man raised his instrument of torture; the inside of the
+great automobile began to thump and throb like the heart of a coffee
+drinker. The top-riders nervously clung to the seats; the old lady from
+Valparaiso, Indiana, shrieked to be put ashore. But, before a wheel
+turns, listen to a brief preamble through the cardiaphone, which shall
+point out to you an object of interest on life’s sightseeing tour.
+
+Swift and comprehensive is the recognition of white man for white man
+in African wilds; instant and sure is the spiritual greeting between
+mother and babe; unhesitatingly do master and dog commune across the
+slight gulf between animal and man; immeasurably quick and sapient are
+the brief messages between one and one’s beloved. But all these
+instances set forth only slow and groping interchange of sympathy and
+thought beside one other instance which the Rubberneck coach shall
+disclose. You shall learn (if you have not learned already) what two
+beings of all earth’s living inhabitants most quickly look into each
+other’s hearts and souls when they meet face to face.
+
+The gong whirred, and the Glaring-at-Gotham car moved majestically upon
+its instructive tour.
+
+On the highest, rear seat was James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri,
+and his Bride.
+
+Capitalise it, friend typo—that last word—word of words in the epiphany
+of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the
+primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of
+lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the
+wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride
+is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in
+when man is married to mortality.
+
+The car glided up the Golden Way. On the bridge of the great cruiser
+the captain stood, trumpeting the sights of the big city to his
+passengers. Wide-mouthed and open-eared, they heard the sights of the
+metropolis thundered forth to their eyes. Confused, delirious with
+excitement and provincial longings, they tried to make ocular responses
+to the megaphonic ritual. In the solemn spires of spreading cathedrals
+they saw the home of the Vanderbilts; in the busy bulk of the Grand
+Central depot they viewed, wonderingly, the frugal cot of Russell Sage.
+Bidden to observe the highlands of the Hudson, they gaped,
+unsuspecting, at the upturned mountains of a new-laid sewer. To many
+the elevated railroad was the Rialto, on the stations of which
+uniformed men sat and made chop suey of your tickets. And to this day
+in the outlying districts many have it that Chuck Connors, with his
+hand on his heart, leads reform; and that but for the noble municipal
+efforts of one Parkhurst, a district attorney, the notorious “Bishop”
+Potter gang would have destroyed law and order from the Bowery to the
+Harlem River.
+
+But I beg you to observe Mrs. James Williams—Hattie Chalmers that
+was—once the belle of Cloverdale. Pale-blue is the bride’s, if she
+will; and this colour she had honoured. Willingly had the moss rosebud
+loaned to her cheeks of its pink—and as for the violet!—her eyes will
+do very well as they are, thank you. A useless strip of white chaf—oh,
+no, he was guiding the auto car—of white chiffon—or perhaps it was
+grenadine or tulle—was tied beneath her chin, pretending to hold her
+bonnet in place. But you know as well as I do that the hatpins did the
+work.
+
+And on Mrs. James Williams’s face was recorded a little library of the
+world’s best thoughts in three volumes. Volume No. 1 contained the
+belief that James Williams was about the right sort of thing. Volume
+No. 2 was an essay on the world, declaring it to be a very excellent
+place. Volume No. 3 disclosed the belief that in occupying the highest
+seat in a Rubberneck auto they were travelling the pace that passes all
+understanding.
+
+James Williams, you would have guessed, was about twenty-four. It will
+gratify you to know that your estimate was so accurate. He was exactly
+twenty-three years, eleven months and twenty-nine days old. He was well
+built, active, strong-jawed, good-natured and rising. He was on his
+wedding trip.
+
+Dear kind fairy, please cut out those orders for money and 40 H. P.
+touring cars and fame and a new growth of hair and the presidency of
+the boat club. Instead of any of them turn backward—oh, turn backward
+and give us just a teeny-weeny bit of our wedding trip over again. Just
+an hour, dear fairy, so we can remember how the grass and poplar trees
+looked, and the bow of those bonnet strings tied beneath her chin—even
+if it was the hatpins that did the work. Can’t do it? Very well; hurry
+up with that touring car and the oil stock, then.
+
+Just in front of Mrs. James Williams sat a girl in a loose tan jacket
+and a straw hat adorned with grapes and roses. Only in dreams and
+milliners’ shops do we, alas! gather grapes and roses at one swipe.
+This girl gazed with large blue eyes, credulous, when the megaphone man
+roared his doctrine that millionaires were things about which we should
+be concerned. Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in
+the form of pepsin chewing gum.
+
+At this girl’s right hand sat a young man about twenty-four. He was
+well-built, active, strong-jawed and good-natured. But if his
+description seems to follow that of James Williams, divest it of
+anything Cloverdalian. This man belonged to hard streets and sharp
+corners. He looked keenly about him, seeming to begrudge the asphalt
+under the feet of those upon whom he looked down from his perch.
+
+While the megaphone barks at a famous hostelry, let me whisper you
+through the low-tuned cardiaphone to sit tight; for now things are
+about to happen, and the great city will close over them again as over
+a scrap of ticker tape floating down from the den of a Broad street
+bear.
+
+The girl in the tan jacket twisted around to view the pilgrims on the
+last seat. The other passengers she had absorbed; the seat behind her
+was her Bluebeard’s chamber.
+
+Her eyes met those of Mrs. James Williams. Between two ticks of a watch
+they exchanged their life’s experiences, histories, hopes and fancies.
+And all, mind you, with the eye, before two men could have decided
+whether to draw steel or borrow a match.
+
+The bride leaned forward low. She and the girl spoke rapidly together,
+their tongues moving quickly like those of two serpents—a comparison
+that is not meant to go further. Two smiles and a dozen nods closed the
+conference.
+
+And now in the broad, quiet avenue in front of the Rubberneck car a man
+in dark clothes stood with uplifted hand. From the sidewalk another
+hurried to join him.
+
+The girl in the fruitful hat quickly seized her companion by the arm
+and whispered in his ear. That young man exhibited proof of ability to
+act promptly. Crouching low, he slid over the edge of the car, hung
+lightly for an instant, and then disappeared. Half a dozen of the
+top-riders observed his feat, wonderingly, but made no comment, deeming
+it prudent not to express surprise at what might be the conventional
+manner of alighting in this bewildering city. The truant passenger
+dodged a hansom and then floated past, like a leaf on a stream between
+a furniture van and a florist’s delivery wagon.
+
+The girl in the tan jacket turned again, and looked in the eyes of Mrs.
+James Williams. Then she faced about and sat still while the Rubberneck
+auto stopped at the flash of the badge under the coat of the
+plainclothes man.
+
+“What’s eatin’ you?” demanded the megaphonist, abandoning his
+professional discourse for pure English.
+
+“Keep her at anchor for a minute,” ordered the officer. “There’s a man
+on board we want—a Philadelphia burglar called ‘Pinky’ McGuire. There
+he is on the back seat. Look out for the side, Donovan.”
+
+Donovan went to the hind wheel and looked up at James Williams.
+
+“Come down, old sport,” he said, pleasantly. “We’ve got you. Back to
+Sleepytown for yours. It ain’t a bad idea, hidin’ on a Rubberneck,
+though. I’ll remember that.”
+
+Softly through the megaphone came the advice of the conductor:
+
+“Better step off, sir, and explain. The car must proceed on its tour.”
+
+James Williams belonged among the level heads. With necessary slowness
+he picked his way through the passengers down to the steps at the front
+of the car. His wife followed, but she first turned her eyes and saw
+the escaped tourist glide from behind the furniture van and slip behind
+a tree on the edge of the little park, not fifty feet away.
+
+Descended to the ground, James Williams faced his captors with a smile.
+He was thinking what a good story he would have to tell in Cloverdale
+about having been mistaken for a burglar. The Rubberneck coach
+lingered, out of respect for its patrons. What could be a more
+interesting sight than this?
+
+“My name is James Williams, of Cloverdale, Missouri,” he said kindly,
+so that they would not be too greatly mortified. “I have letters here
+that will show—”
+
+“You’ll come with us, please,” announced the plainclothes man. “‘Pinky’
+McGuire’s description fits you like flannel washed in hot suds. A
+detective saw you on the Rubberneck up at Central Park and ’phoned down
+to take you in. Do your explaining at the station-house.”
+
+James Williams’s wife—his bride of two weeks—looked him in the face
+with a strange, soft radiance in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks,
+looked him in the face and said:
+
+“Go with ’em quietly, ‘Pinky,’ and maybe it’ll be in your favour.”
+
+And then as the Glaring-at-Gotham car rolled away she turned and threw
+a kiss—his wife threw a kiss—at some one high up on the seats of the
+Rubberneck.
+
+“Your girl gives you good advice, McGuire,” said Donovan. “Come on,
+now.”
+
+And then madness descended upon and occupied James Williams. He pushed
+his hat far upon the back of his head.
+
+“My wife seems to think I am a burglar,” he said, recklessly. “I never
+heard of her being crazy; therefore I must be. And if I’m crazy, they
+can’t do anything to me for killing you two fools in my madness.”
+
+Whereupon he resisted arrest so cheerfully and industriously that cops
+had to be whistled for, and afterwards the reserves, to disperse a few
+thousand delighted spectators.
+
+At the station-house the desk sergeant asked for his name.
+
+“McDoodle, the Pink, or Pinky the Brute, I forget which,” was James
+Williams’s answer. “But you can bet I’m a burglar; don’t leave that
+out. And you might add that it took five of ’em to pluck the Pink. I’d
+especially like to have that in the records.”
+
+In an hour came Mrs. James Williams, with Uncle Thomas, of Madison
+Avenue, in a respect-compelling motor car and proofs of the hero’s
+innocence—for all the world like the third act of a drama backed by an
+automobile mfg. co.
+
+After the police had sternly reprimanded James Williams for imitating a
+copyrighted burglar and given him as honourable a discharge as the
+department was capable of, Mrs. Williams rearrested him and swept him
+into an angle of the station-house. James Williams regarded her with
+one eye. He always said that Donovan closed the other while somebody
+was holding his good right hand. Never before had he given her a word
+of reproach or of reproof.
+
+“If you can explain,” he began rather stiffly, “why you—”
+
+“Dear,” she interrupted, “listen. It was an hour’s pain and trial to
+you. I did it for her—I mean the girl who spoke to me on the coach. I
+was so happy, Jim—so happy with you that I didn’t dare to refuse that
+happiness to another. Jim, they were married only this morning—those
+two; and I wanted him to get away. While they were struggling with you
+I saw him slip from behind his tree and hurry across the park. That’s
+all of it, dear—I had to do it.”
+
+Thus does one sister of the plain gold band know another who stands in
+the enchanted light that shines but once and briefly for each one. By
+rice and satin bows does mere man become aware of weddings. But bride
+knoweth bride at the glance of an eye. And between them swiftly passes
+comfort and meaning in a language that man and widows wot not of.
+
+
+
+
+THE ROMANCE OF A BUSY BROKER
+
+
+Pitcher, confidential clerk in the office of Harvey Maxwell, broker,
+allowed a look of mild interest and surprise to visit his usually
+expressionless countenance when his employer briskly entered at half
+past nine in company with his young lady stenographer. With a snappy
+“Good-morning, Pitcher,” Maxwell dashed at his desk as though he were
+intending to leap over it, and then plunged into the great heap of
+letters and telegrams waiting there for him.
+
+The young lady had been Maxwell’s stenographer for a year. She was
+beautiful in a way that was decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the
+pomp of the alluring pompadour. She wore no chains, bracelets or
+lockets. She had not the air of being about to accept an invitation to
+luncheon. Her dress was grey and plain, but it fitted her figure with
+fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban hat was the
+gold-green wing of a macaw. On this morning she was softly and shyly
+radiant. Her eyes were dreamily bright, her cheeks genuine peachblow,
+her expression a happy one, tinged with reminiscence.
+
+Pitcher, still mildly curious, noticed a difference in her ways this
+morning. Instead of going straight into the adjoining room, where her
+desk was, she lingered, slightly irresolute, in the outer office. Once
+she moved over by Maxwell’s desk, near enough for him to be aware of
+her presence.
+
+The machine sitting at that desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New
+York broker, moved by buzzing wheels and uncoiling springs.
+
+“Well—what is it? Anything?” asked Maxwell sharply. His opened mail lay
+like a bank of stage snow on his crowded desk. His keen grey eye,
+impersonal and brusque, flashed upon her half impatiently.
+
+“Nothing,” answered the stenographer, moving away with a little smile.
+
+“Mr. Pitcher,” she said to the confidential clerk, “did Mr. Maxwell say
+anything yesterday about engaging another stenographer?”
+
+“He did,” answered Pitcher. “He told me to get another one. I notified
+the agency yesterday afternoon to send over a few samples this morning.
+It’s 9.45 o’clock, and not a single picture hat or piece of pineapple
+chewing gum has showed up yet.”
+
+“I will do the work as usual, then,” said the young lady, “until some
+one comes to fill the place.” And she went to her desk at once and hung
+the black turban hat with the gold-green macaw wing in its accustomed
+place.
+
+He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during
+a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology.
+The poet sings of the “crowded hour of glorious life.” The broker’s
+hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are hanging to
+all the straps and packing both front and rear platforms.
+
+And this day was Harvey Maxwell’s busy day. The ticker began to reel
+out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the desk telephone had a chronic
+attack of buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call at him
+over the railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger
+boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The clerks in the
+office jumped about like sailors during a storm. Even Pitcher’s face
+relaxed into something resembling animation.
+
+On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and
+glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were
+reproduced in miniature in the broker’s offices. Maxwell shoved his
+chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a
+toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to ’phone, from desk to door with the
+trained agility of a harlequin.
+
+In the midst of this growing and important stress the broker became
+suddenly aware of a high-rolled fringe of golden hair under a nodding
+canopy of velvet and ostrich tips, an imitation sealskin sacque and a
+string of beads as large as hickory nuts, ending near the floor with a
+silver heart. There was a self-possessed young lady connected with
+these accessories; and Pitcher was there to construe her.
+
+“Lady from the Stenographer’s Agency to see about the position,” said
+Pitcher.
+
+Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of papers and ticker
+tape.
+
+“What position?” he asked, with a frown.
+
+“Position of stenographer,” said Pitcher. “You told me yesterday to
+call them up and have one sent over this morning.”
+
+“You are losing your mind, Pitcher,” said Maxwell. “Why should I have
+given you any such instructions? Miss Leslie has given perfect
+satisfaction during the year she has been here. The place is hers as
+long as she chooses to retain it. There’s no place open here, madam.
+Countermand that order with the agency, Pitcher, and don’t bring any
+more of ’em in here.”
+
+The silver heart left the office, swinging and banging itself
+independently against the office furniture as it indignantly departed.
+Pitcher seized a moment to remark to the bookkeeper that the “old man”
+seemed to get more absent-minded and forgetful every day of the world.
+
+The rush and pace of business grew fiercer and faster. On the floor
+they were pounding half a dozen stocks in which Maxwell’s customers
+were heavy investors. Orders to buy and sell were coming and going as
+swift as the flight of swallows. Some of his own holdings were
+imperilled, and the man was working like some high-geared, delicate,
+strong machine—strung to full tension, going at full speed, accurate,
+never hesitating, with the proper word and decision and act ready and
+prompt as clockwork. Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and
+securities—here was a world of finance, and there was no room in it for
+the human world or the world of nature.
+
+When the luncheon hour drew near there came a slight lull in the
+uproar.
+
+Maxwell stood by his desk with his hands full of telegrams and
+memoranda, with a fountain pen over his right ear and his hair hanging
+in disorderly strings over his forehead. His window was open, for the
+beloved janitress Spring had turned on a little warmth through the
+waking registers of the earth.
+
+And through the window came a wandering—perhaps a lost—odour—a
+delicate, sweet odour of lilac that fixed the broker for a moment
+immovable. For this odour belonged to Miss Leslie; it was her own, and
+hers only.
+
+The odour brought her vividly, almost tangibly before him. The world of
+finance dwindled suddenly to a speck. And she was in the next
+room—twenty steps away.
+
+“By George, I’ll do it now,” said Maxwell, half aloud. “I’ll ask her
+now. I wonder I didn’t do it long ago.”
+
+He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a short trying to
+cover. He charged upon the desk of the stenographer.
+
+She looked up at him with a smile. A soft pink crept over her cheek,
+and her eyes were kind and frank. Maxwell leaned one elbow on her desk.
+He still clutched fluttering papers with both hands and the pen was
+above his ear.
+
+“Miss Leslie,” he began hurriedly, “I have but a moment to spare. I
+want to say something in that moment. Will you be my wife? I haven’t
+had time to make love to you in the ordinary way, but I really do love
+you. Talk quick, please—those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of
+Union Pacific.”
+
+“Oh, what are you talking about?” exclaimed the young lady. She rose to
+her feet and gazed upon him, round-eyed.
+
+“Don’t you understand?” said Maxwell, restively. “I want you to marry
+me. I love you, Miss Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a
+minute when things had slackened up a bit. They’re calling me for the
+’phone now. Tell ’em to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won’t you, Miss
+Leslie?”
+
+The stenographer acted very queerly. At first she seemed overcome with
+amazement; then tears flowed from her wondering eyes; and then she
+smiled sunnily through them, and one of her arms slid tenderly about
+the broker’s neck.
+
+“I know now,” she said, softly. “It’s this old business that has driven
+everything else out of your head for the time. I was frightened at
+first. Don’t you remember, Harvey? We were married last evening at 8
+o’clock in the Little Church Around the Corner.”
+
+
+
+
+AFTER TWENTY YEARS
+
+
+The policeman on the beat moved up the avenue impressively. The
+impressiveness was habitual and not for show, for spectators were few.
+The time was barely 10 o’clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with
+a taste of rain in them had well nigh de-peopled the streets.
+
+Trying doors as he went, twirling his club with many intricate and
+artful movements, turning now and then to cast his watchful eye adown
+the pacific thoroughfare, the officer, with his stalwart form and
+slight swagger, made a fine picture of a guardian of the peace. The
+vicinity was one that kept early hours. Now and then you might see the
+lights of a cigar store or of an all-night lunch counter; but the
+majority of the doors belonged to business places that had long since
+been closed.
+
+When about midway of a certain block the policeman suddenly slowed his
+walk. In the doorway of a darkened hardware store a man leaned, with an
+unlighted cigar in his mouth. As the policeman walked up to him the man
+spoke up quickly.
+
+“It’s all right, officer,” he said, reassuringly. “I’m just waiting for
+a friend. It’s an appointment made twenty years ago. Sounds a little
+funny to you, doesn’t it? Well, I’ll explain if you’d like to make
+certain it’s all straight. About that long ago there used to be a
+restaurant where this store stands—‘Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant.”
+
+“Until five years ago,” said the policeman. “It was torn down then.”
+
+The man in the doorway struck a match and lit his cigar. The light
+showed a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes, and a little white
+scar near his right eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large diamond, oddly
+set.
+
+“Twenty years ago to-night,” said the man, “I dined here at ‘Big Joe’
+Brady’s with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the
+world. He and I were raised here in New York, just like two brothers,
+together. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. The next morning I was
+to start for the West to make my fortune. You couldn’t have dragged
+Jimmy out of New York; he thought it was the only place on earth. Well,
+we agreed that night that we would meet here again exactly twenty years
+from that date and time, no matter what our conditions might be or from
+what distance we might have to come. We figured that in twenty years
+each of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made,
+whatever they were going to be.”
+
+“It sounds pretty interesting,” said the policeman. “Rather a long time
+between meets, though, it seems to me. Haven’t you heard from your
+friend since you left?”
+
+“Well, yes, for a time we corresponded,” said the other. “But after a
+year or two we lost track of each other. You see, the West is a pretty
+big proposition, and I kept hustling around over it pretty lively. But
+I know Jimmy will meet me here if he’s alive, for he always was the
+truest, stanchest old chap in the world. He’ll never forget. I came a
+thousand miles to stand in this door to-night, and it’s worth it if my
+old partner turns up.”
+
+The waiting man pulled out a handsome watch, the lids of it set with
+small diamonds.
+
+“Three minutes to ten,” he announced. “It was exactly ten o’clock when
+we parted here at the restaurant door.”
+
+“Did pretty well out West, didn’t you?” asked the policeman.
+
+“You bet! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a kind of plodder,
+though, good fellow as he was. I’ve had to compete with some of the
+sharpest wits going to get my pile. A man gets in a groove in New York.
+It takes the West to put a razor-edge on him.”
+
+The policeman twirled his club and took a step or two.
+
+“I’ll be on my way. Hope your friend comes around all right. Going to
+call time on him sharp?”
+
+“I should say not!” said the other. “I’ll give him half an hour at
+least. If Jimmy is alive on earth he’ll be here by that time. So long,
+officer.”
+
+“Good-night, sir,” said the policeman, passing on along his beat,
+trying doors as he went.
+
+There was now a fine, cold drizzle falling, and the wind had risen from
+its uncertain puffs into a steady blow. The few foot passengers astir
+in that quarter hurried dismally and silently along with coat collars
+turned high and pocketed hands. And in the door of the hardware store
+the man who had come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain
+almost to absurdity, with the friend of his youth, smoked his cigar and
+waited.
+
+About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a long overcoat,
+with collar turned up to his ears, hurried across from the opposite
+side of the street. He went directly to the waiting man.
+
+“Is that you, Bob?” he asked, doubtfully.
+
+“Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” cried the man in the door.
+
+“Bless my heart!” exclaimed the new arrival, grasping both the other’s
+hands with his own. “It’s Bob, sure as fate. I was certain I’d find you
+here if you were still in existence. Well, well, well!—twenty years is
+a long time. The old restaurant’s gone, Bob; I wish it had lasted, so
+we could have had another dinner there. How has the West treated you,
+old man?”
+
+“Bully; it has given me everything I asked it for. You’ve changed lots,
+Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall by two or three inches.”
+
+“Oh, I grew a bit after I was twenty.”
+
+“Doing well in New York, Jimmy?”
+
+“Moderately. I have a position in one of the city departments. Come on,
+Bob; we’ll go around to a place I know of, and have a good long talk
+about old times.”
+
+The two men started up the street, arm in arm. The man from the West,
+his egotism enlarged by success, was beginning to outline the history
+of his career. The other, submerged in his overcoat, listened with
+interest.
+
+At the corner stood a drug store, brilliant with electric lights. When
+they came into this glare each of them turned simultaneously to gaze
+upon the other’s face.
+
+The man from the West stopped suddenly and released his arm.
+
+“You’re not Jimmy Wells,” he snapped. “Twenty years is a long time, but
+not long enough to change a man’s nose from a Roman to a pug.”
+
+“It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man.
+“You’ve been under arrest for ten minutes, ‘Silky’ Bob. Chicago thinks
+you may have dropped over our way and wires us she wants to have a chat
+with you. Going quietly, are you? That’s sensible. Now, before we go on
+to the station here’s a note I was asked to hand you. You may read it
+here at the window. It’s from Patrolman Wells.”
+
+The man from the West unfolded the little piece of paper handed him.
+His hand was steady when he began to read, but it trembled a little by
+the time he had finished. The note was rather short.
+
+
+_Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match
+to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago.
+Somehow I couldn’t do it myself, so I went around and got a plain
+clothes man to do the job.
+
+JIMMY._
+
+
+
+
+LOST ON DRESS PARADE
+
+
+Mr. Towers Chandler was pressing his evening suit in his hall bedroom.
+One iron was heating on a small gas stove; the other was being pushed
+vigorously back and forth to make the desirable crease that would be
+seen later on extending in straight lines from Mr. Chandler’s patent
+leather shoes to the edge of his low-cut vest. So much of the hero’s
+toilet may be intrusted to our confidence. The remainder may be guessed
+by those whom genteel poverty has driven to ignoble expedient. Our next
+view of him shall be as he descends the steps of his lodging-house
+immaculately and correctly clothed; calm, assured, handsome—in
+appearance the typical New York young clubman setting out, slightly
+bored, to inaugurate the pleasures of the evening.
+
+Chandler’s honorarium was $18 per week. He was employed in the office
+of an architect. He was twenty-two years old; he considered
+architecture to be truly an art; and he honestly believed—though he
+would not have dared to admit it in New York—that the Flatiron Building
+was inferior in design to the great cathedral in Milan.
+
+Out of each week’s earnings Chandler set aside $1. At the end of each
+ten weeks with the extra capital thus accumulated, he purchased one
+gentleman’s evening from the bargain counter of stingy old Father Time.
+He arrayed himself in the regalia of millionaires and presidents; he
+took himself to the quarter where life is brightest and showiest, and
+there dined with taste and luxury. With ten dollars a man may, for a
+few hours, play the wealthy idler to perfection. The sum is ample for a
+well-considered meal, a bottle bearing a respectable label,
+commensurate tips, a smoke, cab fare and the ordinary etceteras.
+
+This one delectable evening culled from each dull seventy was to
+Chandler a source of renascent bliss. To the society bud comes but one
+début; it stands alone sweet in her memory when her hair has whitened;
+but to Chandler each ten weeks brought a joy as keen, as thrilling, as
+new as the first had been. To sit among _bon vivants_ under palms in
+the swirl of concealed music, to look upon the _habitués_ of such a
+paradise and to be looked upon by them—what is a girl’s first dance and
+short-sleeved tulle compared with this?
+
+Up Broadway Chandler moved with the vespertine dress parade. For this
+evening he was an exhibit as well as a gazer. For the next sixty-nine
+evenings he would be dining in cheviot and worsted at dubious _table
+d’hôtes_, at whirlwind lunch counters, on sandwiches and beer in his
+hall-bedroom. He was willing to do that, for he was a true son of the
+great city of razzle-dazzle, and to him one evening in the limelight
+made up for many dark ones.
+
+Chandler protracted his walk until the Forties began to intersect the
+great and glittering primrose way, for the evening was yet young, and
+when one is of the _beau monde_ only one day in seventy, one loves to
+protract the pleasure. Eyes bright, sinister, curious, admiring,
+provocative, alluring were bent upon him, for his garb and air
+proclaimed him a devotee to the hour of solace and pleasure.
+
+At a certain corner he came to a standstill, proposing to himself the
+question of turning back toward the showy and fashionable restaurant in
+which he usually dined on the evenings of his especial luxury. Just
+then a girl scuddled lightly around the corner, slipped on a patch of
+icy snow and fell plump upon the sidewalk.
+
+Chandler assisted her to her feet with instant and solicitous courtesy.
+The girl hobbled to the wall of the building, leaned against it, and
+thanked him demurely.
+
+“I think my ankle is strained,” she said. “It twisted when I fell.”
+
+“Does it pain you much?” inquired Chandler.
+
+“Only when I rest my weight upon it. I think I will be able to walk in
+a minute or two.”
+
+“If I can be of any further service,” suggested the young man, “I will
+call a cab, or—”
+
+“Thank you,” said the girl, softly but heartily. “I am sure you need
+not trouble yourself any further. It was so awkward of me. And my shoe
+heels are horridly common-sense; I can’t blame them at all.”
+
+Chandler looked at the girl and found her swiftly drawing his interest.
+She was pretty in a refined way; and her eye was both merry and kind.
+She was inexpensively clothed in a plain black dress that suggested a
+sort of uniform such as shop girls wear. Her glossy dark-brown hair
+showed its coils beneath a cheap hat of black straw whose only ornament
+was a velvet ribbon and bow. She could have posed as a model for the
+self-respecting working girl of the best type.
+
+A sudden idea came into the head of the young architect. He would ask
+this girl to dine with him. Here was the element that his splendid but
+solitary periodic feasts had lacked. His brief season of elegant luxury
+would be doubly enjoyable if he could add to it a lady’s society. This
+girl was a lady, he was sure—her manner and speech settled that. And in
+spite of her extremely plain attire he felt that he would be pleased to
+sit at table with her.
+
+These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind, and he decided to ask
+her. It was a breach of etiquette, of course, but oftentimes
+wage-earning girls waived formalities in matters of this kind. They
+were generally shrewd judges of men; and thought better of their own
+judgment than they did of useless conventions. His ten dollars,
+discreetly expended, would enable the two to dine very well indeed. The
+dinner would no doubt be a wonderful experience thrown into the dull
+routine of the girl’s life; and her lively appreciation of it would add
+to his own triumph and pleasure.
+
+“I think,” he said to her, with frank gravity, “that your foot needs a
+longer rest than you suppose. Now, I am going to suggest a way in which
+you can give it that and at the same time do me a favour. I was on my
+way to dine all by my lonely self when you came tumbling around the
+corner. You come with me and we’ll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant
+talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home
+very nicely, I am sure.”
+
+The girl looked quickly up into Chandler’s clear, pleasant countenance.
+Her eyes twinkled once very brightly, and then she smiled ingenuously.
+
+“But we don’t know each other—it wouldn’t be right, would it?” she
+said, doubtfully.
+
+“There is nothing wrong about it,” said the young man, candidly. “I’ll
+introduce myself—permit me—Mr. Towers Chandler. After our dinner, which
+I will try to make as pleasant as possible, I will bid you
+good-evening, or attend you safely to your door, whichever you prefer.”
+
+“But, dear me!” said the girl, with a glance at Chandler’s faultless
+attire. “In this old dress and hat!”
+
+“Never mind that,” said Chandler, cheerfully. “I’m sure you look more
+charming in them than any one we shall see in the most elaborate dinner
+toilette.”
+
+“My ankle does hurt yet,” admitted the girl, attempting a limping step.
+“I think I will accept your invitation, Mr. Chandler. You may call
+me—Miss Marian.”
+
+“Come then, Miss Marian,” said the young architect, gaily, but with
+perfect courtesy; “you will not have far to walk. There is a very
+respectable and good restaurant in the next block. You will have to
+lean on my arm—so—and walk slowly. It is lonely dining all by one’s
+self. I’m just a little bit glad that you slipped on the ice.”
+
+When the two were established at a well-appointed table, with a
+promising waiter hovering in attendance, Chandler began to experience
+the real joy that his regular outing always brought to him.
+
+The restaurant was not so showy or pretentious as the one further down
+Broadway, which he always preferred, but it was nearly so. The tables
+were well filled with prosperous-looking diners, there was a good
+orchestra, playing softly enough to make conversation a possible
+pleasure, and the cuisine and service were beyond criticism. His
+companion, even in her cheap hat and dress, held herself with an air
+that added distinction to the natural beauty of her face and figure.
+And it is certain that she looked at Chandler, with his animated but
+self-possessed manner and his kindling and frank blue eyes, with
+something not far from admiration in her own charming face.
+
+Then it was that the Madness of Manhattan, the frenzy of Fuss and
+Feathers, the Bacillus of Brag, the Provincial Plague of Pose seized
+upon Towers Chandler. He was on Broadway, surrounded by pomp and style,
+and there were eyes to look at him. On the stage of that comedy he had
+assumed to play the one-night part of a butterfly of fashion and an
+idler of means and taste. He was dressed for the part, and all his good
+angels had not the power to prevent him from acting it.
+
+So he began to prate to Miss Marian of clubs, of teas, of golf and
+riding and kennels and cotillions and tours abroad and threw out hints
+of a yacht lying at Larchmont. He could see that she was vastly
+impressed by this vague talk, so he endorsed his pose by random
+insinuations concerning great wealth, and mentioned familiarly a few
+names that are handled reverently by the proletariat. It was Chandler’s
+short little day, and he was wringing from it the best that could be
+had, as he saw it. And yet once or twice he saw the pure gold of this
+girl shine through the mist that his egotism had raised between him and
+all objects.
+
+“This way of living that you speak of,” she said, “sounds so futile and
+purposeless. Haven’t you any work to do in the world that might
+interest you more?”
+
+“My dear Miss Marian,” he exclaimed—“work! Think of dressing every day
+for dinner, of making half a dozen calls in an afternoon—with a
+policeman at every corner ready to jump into your auto and take you to
+the station, if you get up any greater speed than a donkey cart’s gait.
+We do-nothings are the hardest workers in the land.”
+
+The dinner was concluded, the waiter generously fed, and the two walked
+out to the corner where they had met. Miss Marian walked very well now;
+her limp was scarcely noticeable.
+
+“Thank you for a nice time,” she said, frankly. “I must run home now. I
+liked the dinner very much, Mr. Chandler.”
+
+He shook hands with her, smiling cordially, and said something about a
+game of bridge at his club. He watched her for a moment, walking rather
+rapidly eastward, and then he found a cab to drive him slowly homeward.
+
+In his chilly bedroom Chandler laid away his evening clothes for a
+sixty-nine days’ rest. He went about it thoughtfully.
+
+“That was a stunning girl,” he said to himself. “She’s all right, too,
+I’d be sworn, even if she does have to work. Perhaps if I’d told her
+the truth instead of all that razzle-dazzle we might—but, confound it!
+I had to play up to my clothes.”
+
+Thus spoke the brave who was born and reared in the wigwams of the
+tribe of the Manhattans.
+
+The girl, after leaving her entertainer, sped swiftly cross-town until
+she arrived at a handsome and sedate mansion two squares to the east,
+facing on that avenue which is the highway of Mammon and the auxiliary
+gods. Here she entered hurriedly and ascended to a room where a
+handsome young lady in an elaborate house dress was looking anxiously
+out the window.
+
+“Oh, you madcap!” exclaimed the elder girl, when the other entered.
+“When will you quit frightening us this way? It is two hours since you
+ran out in that rag of an old dress and Marie’s hat. Mamma has been so
+alarmed. She sent Louis in the auto to try to find you. You are a bad,
+thoughtless Puss.”
+
+The elder girl touched a button, and a maid came in a moment.
+
+“Marie, tell mamma that Miss Marian has returned.”
+
+“Don’t scold, sister. I only ran down to Mme. Theo’s to tell her to use
+mauve insertion instead of pink. My costume and Marie’s hat were just
+what I needed. Every one thought I was a shopgirl, I am sure.”
+
+“Dinner is over, dear; you stayed so late.”
+
+“I know. I slipped on the sidewalk and turned my ankle. I could not
+walk, so I hobbled into a restaurant and sat there until I was better.
+That is why I was so long.”
+
+The two girls sat in the window seat, looking out at the lights and the
+stream of hurrying vehicles in the avenue. The younger one cuddled down
+with her head in her sister’s lap.
+
+“We will have to marry some day,” she said dreamily—“both of us. We
+have so much money that we will not be allowed to disappoint the
+public. Do you want me to tell you the kind of a man I could love,
+Sis?”
+
+“Go on, you scatterbrain,” smiled the other.
+
+“I could love a man with dark and kind blue eyes, who is gentle and
+respectful to poor girls, who is handsome and good and does not try to
+flirt. But I could love him only if he had an ambition, an object, some
+work to do in the world. I would not care how poor he was if I could
+help him build his way up. But, sister dear, the kind of man we always
+meet—the man who lives an idle life between society and his clubs—I
+could not love a man like that, even if his eyes were blue and he were
+ever so kind to poor girls whom he met in the street.”
+
+
+
+
+BY COURIER
+
+
+It was neither the season nor the hour when the Park had frequenters;
+and it is likely that the young lady, who was seated on one of the
+benches at the side of the walk, had merely obeyed a sudden impulse to
+sit for a while and enjoy a foretaste of coming Spring.
+
+She rested there, pensive and still. A certain melancholy that touched
+her countenance must have been of recent birth, for it had not yet
+altered the fine and youthful contours of her cheek, nor subdued the
+arch though resolute curve of her lips.
+
+A tall young man came striding through the park along the path near
+which she sat. Behind him tagged a boy carrying a suit-case. At sight
+of the young lady, the man’s face changed to red and back to pale
+again. He watched her countenance as he drew nearer, with hope and
+anxiety mingled on his own. He passed within a few yards of her, but he
+saw no evidence that she was aware of his presence or existence.
+
+Some fifty yards further on he suddenly stopped and sat on a bench at
+one side. The boy dropped the suit-case and stared at him with
+wondering, shrewd eyes. The young man took out his handkerchief and
+wiped his brow. It was a good handkerchief, a good brow, and the young
+man was good to look at. He said to the boy:
+
+“I want you to take a message to that young lady on that bench. Tell
+her I am on my way to the station, to leave for San Francisco, where I
+shall join that Alaska moose-hunting expedition. Tell her that, since
+she has commanded me neither to speak nor to write to her, I take this
+means of making one last appeal to her sense of justice, for the sake
+of what has been. Tell her that to condemn and discard one who has not
+deserved such treatment, without giving him her reasons or a chance to
+explain is contrary to her nature as I believe it to be. Tell her that
+I have thus, to a certain degree, disobeyed her injunctions, in the
+hope that she may yet be inclined to see justice done. Go, and tell her
+that.”
+
+The young man dropped a half-dollar into the boy’s hand. The boy looked
+at him for a moment with bright, canny eyes out of a dirty, intelligent
+face, and then set off at a run. He approached the lady on the bench a
+little doubtfully, but unembarrassed. He touched the brim of the old
+plaid bicycle cap perched on the back of his head. The lady looked at
+him coolly, without prejudice or favour.
+
+“Lady,” he said, “dat gent on de oder bench sent yer a song and dance
+by me. If yer don’t know de guy, and he’s tryin’ to do de Johnny act,
+say de word, and I’ll call a cop in t’ree minutes. If yer does know
+him, and he’s on de square, w’y I’ll spiel yer de bunch of hot air he
+sent yer.”
+
+The young lady betrayed a faint interest.
+
+“A song and dance!” she said, in a deliberate sweet voice that seemed
+to clothe her words in a diaphanous garment of impalpable irony. “A new
+idea—in the troubadour line, I suppose. I—used to know the gentleman
+who sent you, so I think it will hardly be necessary to call the
+police. You may execute your song and dance, but do not sing too
+loudly. It is a little early yet for open-air vaudeville, and we might
+attract attention.”
+
+“Awe,” said the boy, with a shrug down the length of him, “yer know
+what I mean, lady. ’Tain’t a turn, it’s wind. He told me to tell yer
+he’s got his collars and cuffs in dat grip for a scoot clean out to
+’Frisco. Den he’s goin’ to shoot snow-birds in de Klondike. He says yer
+told him not to send ’round no more pink notes nor come hangin’ over de
+garden gate, and he takes dis means of puttin’ yer wise. He says yer
+refereed him out like a has-been, and never give him no chance to kick
+at de decision. He says yer swiped him, and never said why.”
+
+The slightly awakened interest in the young lady’s eyes did not abate.
+Perhaps it was caused by either the originality or the audacity of the
+snow-bird hunter, in thus circumventing her express commands against
+the ordinary modes of communication. She fixed her eye on a statue
+standing disconsolate in the dishevelled park, and spoke into the
+transmitter:
+
+“Tell the gentleman that I need not repeat to him a description of my
+ideals. He knows what they have been and what they still are. So far as
+they touch on this case, absolute loyalty and truth are the ones
+paramount. Tell him that I have studied my own heart as well as one
+can, and I know its weakness as well as I do its needs. That is why I
+decline to hear his pleas, whatever they may be. I did not condemn him
+through hearsay or doubtful evidence, and that is why I made no charge.
+But, since he persists in hearing what he already well knows, you may
+convey the matter.
+
+“Tell him that I entered the conservatory that evening from the rear,
+to cut a rose for my mother. Tell him I saw him and Miss Ashburton
+beneath the pink oleander. The tableau was pretty, but the pose and
+juxtaposition were too eloquent and evident to require explanation. I
+left the conservatory, and, at the same time, the rose and my ideal.
+You may carry that song and dance to your impresario.”
+
+“I’m shy on one word, lady. Jux—jux—put me wise on dat, will yer?”
+
+“Juxtaposition—or you may call it propinquity—or, if you like, being
+rather too near for one maintaining the position of an ideal.”
+
+The gravel spun from beneath the boy’s feet. He stood by the other
+bench. The man’s eyes interrogated him, hungrily. The boy’s were
+shining with the impersonal zeal of the translator.
+
+“De lady says dat she’s on to de fact dat gals is dead easy when a
+feller comes spielin’ ghost stories and tryin’ to make up, and dat’s
+why she won’t listen to no soft-soap. She says she caught yer dead to
+rights, huggin’ a bunch o’ calico in de hot-house. She side-stepped in
+to pull some posies and yer was squeezin’ de oder gal to beat de band.
+She says it looked cute, all right all right, but it made her sick. She
+says yer better git busy, and make a sneak for de train.”
+
+The young man gave a low whistle and his eyes flashed with a sudden
+thought. His hand flew to the inside pocket of his coat, and drew out a
+handful of letters. Selecting one, he handed it to the boy, following
+it with a silver dollar from his vest-pocket.
+
+“Give that letter to the lady,” he said, “and ask her to read it. Tell
+her that it should explain the situation. Tell her that, if she had
+mingled a little trust with her conception of the ideal, much heartache
+might have been avoided. Tell her that the loyalty she prizes so much
+has never wavered. Tell her I am waiting for an answer.”
+
+The messenger stood before the lady.
+
+“De gent says he’s had de ski-bunk put on him widout no cause. He says
+he’s no bum guy; and, lady, yer read dat letter, and I’ll bet yer he’s
+a white sport, all right.”
+
+The young lady unfolded the letter; somewhat doubtfully, and read it.
+
+
+Dear Dr. Arnold:   I want to thank you for your most kind and opportune
+aid to my daughter last Friday evening, when she was overcome by an
+attack of her old heart-trouble in the conservatory at Mrs. Waldron’s
+reception. Had you not been near to catch her as she fell and to render
+proper attention, we might have lost her. I would be glad if you would
+call and undertake the treatment of her case.
+
+  Gratefully yours,
+
+Robert Ashburton.
+
+
+The young lady refolded the letter, and handed it to the boy.
+
+“De gent wants an answer,” said the messenger. “Wot’s de word?”
+
+The lady’s eyes suddenly flashed on him, bright, smiling and wet.
+
+“Tell that guy on the other bench,” she said, with a happy, tremulous
+laugh, “that his girl wants him.”
+
+
+
+
+THE FURNISHED ROOM
+
+
+Restless, shifting, fugacious as time itself is a certain vast bulk of
+the population of the red brick district of the lower West Side.
+Homeless, they have a hundred homes. They flit from furnished room to
+furnished room, transients forever—transients in abode, transients in
+heart and mind. They sing “Home, Sweet Home” in ragtime; they carry
+their _lares et penates_ in a bandbox; their vine is entwined about a
+picture hat; a rubber plant is their fig tree.
+
+Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers,
+should have a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but
+it would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two in the
+wake of all these vagrant guests.
+
+One evening after dark a young man prowled among these crumbling red
+mansions, ringing their bells. At the twelfth he rested his lean
+hand-baggage upon the step and wiped the dust from his hatband and
+forehead. The bell sounded faint and far away in some remote, hollow
+depths.
+
+To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a
+housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that
+had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy
+with edible lodgers.
+
+He asked if there was a room to let.
+
+“Come in,” said the housekeeper. Her voice came from her throat; her
+throat seemed lined with fur. “I have the third floor back, vacant
+since a week back. Should you wish to look at it?”
+
+The young man followed her up the stairs. A faint light from no
+particular source mitigated the shadows of the halls. They trod
+noiselessly upon a stair carpet that its own loom would have forsworn.
+It seemed to have become vegetable; to have degenerated in that rank,
+sunless air to lush lichen or spreading moss that grew in patches to
+the staircase and was viscid under the foot like organic matter. At
+each turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the wall. Perhaps plants
+had once been set within them. If so they had died in that foul and
+tainted air. It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but
+it was not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them
+forth in the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished
+pit below.
+
+“This is the room,” said the housekeeper, from her furry throat. “It’s
+a nice room. It ain’t often vacant. I had some most elegant people in
+it last summer—no trouble at all, and paid in advance to the minute.
+The water’s at the end of the hall. Sprowls and Mooney kept it three
+months. They done a vaudeville sketch. Miss B’retta Sprowls—you may
+have heard of her—Oh, that was just the stage names—right there over
+the dresser is where the marriage certificate hung, framed. The gas is
+here, and you see there is plenty of closet room. It’s a room everybody
+likes. It never stays idle long.”
+
+“Do you have many theatrical people rooming here?” asked the young man.
+
+“They comes and goes. A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with
+the theatres. Yes, sir, this is the theatrical district. Actor people
+never stays long anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes and they
+goes.”
+
+He engaged the room, paying for a week in advance. He was tired, he
+said, and would take possession at once. He counted out the money. The
+room had been made ready, she said, even to towels and water. As the
+housekeeper moved away he put, for the thousandth time, the question
+that he carried at the end of his tongue.
+
+“A young girl—Miss Vashner—Miss Eloise Vashner—do you remember such a
+one among your lodgers? She would be singing on the stage, most likely.
+A fair girl, of medium height and slender, with reddish, gold hair and
+a dark mole near her left eyebrow.”
+
+“No, I don’t remember the name. Them stage people has names they change
+as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes. No, I don’t call
+that one to mind.”
+
+No. Always no. Five months of ceaseless interrogation and the
+inevitable negative. So much time spent by day in questioning managers,
+agents, schools and choruses; by night among the audiences of theatres
+from all-star casts down to music halls so low that he dreaded to find
+what he most hoped for. He who had loved her best had tried to find
+her. He was sure that since her disappearance from home this great,
+water-girt city held her somewhere, but it was like a monstrous
+quicksand, shifting its particles constantly, with no foundation, its
+upper granules of to-day buried to-morrow in ooze and slime.
+
+The furnished room received its latest guest with a first glow of
+pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome like the
+specious smile of a demirep. The sophistical comfort came in reflected
+gleams from the decayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a
+couch and two chairs, a foot-wide cheap pier glass between the two
+windows, from one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead in a
+corner.
+
+The guest reclined, inert, upon a chair, while the room, confused in
+speech as though it were an apartment in Babel, tried to discourse to
+him of its divers tenantry.
+
+A polychromatic rug like some brilliant-flowered rectangular, tropical
+islet lay surrounded by a billowy sea of soiled matting. Upon the
+gay-papered wall were those pictures that pursue the homeless one from
+house to house—The Huguenot Lovers, The First Quarrel, The Wedding
+Breakfast, Psyche at the Fountain. The mantel’s chastely severe outline
+was ingloriously veiled behind some pert drapery drawn rakishly askew
+like the sashes of the Amazonian ballet. Upon it was some desolate
+flotsam cast aside by the room’s marooned when a lucky sail had borne
+them to a fresh port—a trifling vase or two, pictures of actresses, a
+medicine bottle, some stray cards out of a deck.
+
+One by one, as the characters of a cryptograph become explicit, the
+little signs left by the furnished room’s procession of guests
+developed a significance. The threadbare space in the rug in front of
+the dresser told that lovely woman had marched in the throng. Tiny
+finger prints on the wall spoke of little prisoners trying to feel
+their way to sun and air. A splattered stain, raying like the shadow of
+a bursting bomb, witnessed where a hurled glass or bottle had
+splintered with its contents against the wall. Across the pier glass
+had been scrawled with a diamond in staggering letters the name
+“Marie.” It seemed that the succession of dwellers in the furnished
+room had turned in fury—perhaps tempted beyond forbearance by its
+garish coldness—and wreaked upon it their passions. The furniture was
+chipped and bruised; the couch, distorted by bursting springs, seemed a
+horrible monster that had been slain during the stress of some
+grotesque convulsion. Some more potent upheaval had cloven a great
+slice from the marble mantel. Each plank in the floor owned its
+particular cant and shriek as from a separate and individual agony. It
+seemed incredible that all this malice and injury had been wrought upon
+the room by those who had called it for a time their home; and yet it
+may have been the cheated home instinct surviving blindly, the
+resentful rage at false household gods that had kindled their wrath. A
+hut that is our own we can sweep and adorn and cherish.
+
+The young tenant in the chair allowed these thoughts to file,
+soft-shod, through his mind, while there drifted into the room
+furnished sounds and furnished scents. He heard in one room a tittering
+and incontinent, slack laughter; in others the monologue of a scold,
+the rattling of dice, a lullaby, and one crying dully; above him a
+banjo tinkled with spirit. Doors banged somewhere; the elevated trains
+roared intermittently; a cat yowled miserably upon a back fence. And he
+breathed the breath of the house—a dank savour rather than a smell—a
+cold, musty effluvium as from underground vaults mingled with the
+reeking exhalations of linoleum and mildewed and rotten woodwork.
+
+Then, suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the
+strong, sweet odour of mignonette. It came as upon a single buffet of
+wind with such sureness and fragrance and emphasis that it almost
+seemed a living visitant. And the man cried aloud: “What, dear?” as if
+he had been called, and sprang up and faced about. The rich odour clung
+to him and wrapped him around. He reached out his arms for it, all his
+senses for the time confused and commingled. How could one be
+peremptorily called by an odour? Surely it must have been a sound. But,
+was it not the sound that had touched, that had caressed him?
+
+“She has been in this room,” he cried, and he sprang to wrest from it a
+token, for he knew he would recognize the smallest thing that had
+belonged to her or that she had touched. This enveloping scent of
+mignonette, the odour that she had loved and made her own—whence came
+it?
+
+The room had been but carelessly set in order. Scattered upon the
+flimsy dresser scarf were half a dozen hairpins—those discreet,
+indistinguishable friends of womankind, feminine of gender, infinite of
+mood and uncommunicative of tense. These he ignored, conscious of their
+triumphant lack of identity. Ransacking the drawers of the dresser he
+came upon a discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He pressed it to his
+face. It was racy and insolent with heliotrope; he hurled it to the
+floor. In another drawer he found odd buttons, a theatre programme, a
+pawnbroker’s card, two lost marshmallows, a book on the divination of
+dreams. In the last was a woman’s black satin hair bow, which halted
+him, poised between ice and fire. But the black satin hair-bow also is
+femininity’s demure, impersonal, common ornament, and tells no tales.
+
+And then he traversed the room like a hound on the scent, skimming the
+walls, considering the corners of the bulging matting on his hands and
+knees, rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hangings, the
+drunken cabinet in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive
+that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, clinging
+to him, wooing him, calling him so poignantly through the finer senses
+that even his grosser ones became cognisant of the call. Once again he
+answered loudly: “Yes, dear!” and turned, wild-eyed, to gaze on
+vacancy, for he could not yet discern form and colour and love and
+outstretched arms in the odour of mignonette. Oh, God! whence that
+odour, and since when have odours had a voice to call? Thus he groped.
+
+He burrowed in crevices and corners, and found corks and cigarettes.
+These he passed in passive contempt. But once he found in a fold of the
+matting a half-smoked cigar, and this he ground beneath his heel with a
+green and trenchant oath. He sifted the room from end to end. He found
+dreary and ignoble small records of many a peripatetic tenant; but of
+her whom he sought, and who may have lodged there, and whose spirit
+seemed to hover there, he found no trace.
+
+And then he thought of the housekeeper.
+
+He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to a door that showed a
+crack of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement
+as best he could.
+
+“Will you tell me, madam,” he besought her, “who occupied the room I
+have before I came?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I can tell you again. ’Twas Sprowls and Mooney, as I said.
+Miss B’retta Sprowls it was in the theatres, but Missis Mooney she was.
+My house is well known for respectability. The marriage certificate
+hung, framed, on a nail over—”
+
+“What kind of a lady was Miss Sprowls—in looks, I mean?”
+
+“Why, black-haired, sir, short, and stout, with a comical face. They
+left a week ago Tuesday.”
+
+“And before they occupied it?”
+
+“Why, there was a single gentleman connected with the draying business.
+He left owing me a week. Before him was Missis Crowder and her two
+children, that stayed four months; and back of them was old Mr. Doyle,
+whose sons paid for him. He kept the room six months. That goes back a
+year, sir, and further I do not remember.”
+
+He thanked her and crept back to his room. The room was dead. The
+essence that had vivified it was gone. The perfume of mignonette had
+departed. In its place was the old, stale odour of mouldy house
+furniture, of atmosphere in storage.
+
+The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat staring at the yellow,
+singing gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the
+sheets into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly
+into every crevice around windows and door. When all was snug and taut
+he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himself
+gratefully upon the bed.
+
+
+It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched
+it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where
+house-keepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.
+
+“I rented out my third floor, back, this evening,” said Mrs. Purdy,
+across a fine circle of foam. “A young man took it. He went up to bed
+two hours ago.”
+
+“Now, did ye, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am?” said Mrs. McCool, with intense
+admiration. “You do be a wonder for rentin’ rooms of that kind. And did
+ye tell him, then?” she concluded in a husky whisper, laden with
+mystery.
+
+“Rooms,” said Mrs. Purdy, in her furriest tones, “are furnished for to
+rent. I did not tell him, Mrs. McCool.”
+
+“’Tis right ye are, ma’am; ’tis by renting rooms we kape alive. Ye have
+the rale sense for business, ma’am. There be many people will rayjict
+the rentin’ of a room if they be tould a suicide has been after dyin’
+in the bed of it.”
+
+“As you say, we has our living to be making,” remarked Mrs. Purdy.
+
+“Yis, ma’am; ’tis true. ’Tis just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay
+out the third floor, back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be
+killin’ herself wid the gas—a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy,
+ma’am.”
+
+“She’d a-been called handsome, as you say,” said Mrs. Purdy, assenting
+but critical, “but for that mole she had a-growin’ by her left eyebrow.
+Do fill up your glass again, Mrs. McCool.”
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIEF DÉBUT OF TILDY
+
+
+If you do not know Bogle’s Chop House and Family Restaurant it is your
+loss. For if you are one of the fortunate ones who dine expensively you
+should be interested to know how the other half consumes provisions.
+And if you belong to the half to whom waiters’ checks are things of
+moment, you should know Bogle’s, for there you get your money’s
+worth—in quantity, at least.
+
+Bogle’s is situated in that highway of _bourgeoisie_, that boulevard of
+Brown-Jones-and-Robinson, Eighth Avenue. There are two rows of tables
+in the room, six in each row. On each table is a caster-stand,
+containing cruets of condiments and seasons. From the pepper cruet you
+may shake a cloud of something tasteless and melancholy, like volcanic
+dust. From the salt cruet you may expect nothing. Though a man should
+extract a sanguinary stream from the pallid turnip, yet will his
+prowess be balked when he comes to wrest salt from Bogle’s cruets. Also
+upon each table stands the counterfeit of that benign sauce made “from
+the recipe of a nobleman in India.”
+
+At the cashier’s desk sits Bogle, cold, sordid, slow, smouldering, and
+takes your money. Behind a mountain of toothpicks he makes your change,
+files your check, and ejects at you, like a toad, a word about the
+weather. Beyond a corroboration of his meteorological statement you
+would better not venture. You are not Bogle’s friend; you are a fed,
+transient customer, and you and he may not meet again until the blowing
+of Gabriel’s dinner horn. So take your change and go—to the devil if
+you like. There you have Bogle’s sentiments.
+
+The needs of Bogle’s customers were supplied by two waitresses and a
+Voice. One of the waitresses was named Aileen. She was tall, beautiful,
+lively, gracious and learned in persiflage. Her other name? There was
+no more necessity for another name at Bogle’s than there was for
+finger-bowls.
+
+The name of the other waitress was Tildy. Why do you suggest Matilda?
+Please listen this time—Tildy—Tildy. Tildy was dumpy, plain-faced, and
+too anxious to please to please. Repeat the last clause to yourself
+once or twice, and make the acquaintance of the duplicate infinite.
+
+The Voice at Bogle’s was invisible. It came from the kitchen, and did
+not shine in the way of originality. It was a heathen Voice, and
+contented itself with vain repetitions of exclamations emitted by the
+waitresses concerning food.
+
+Will it tire you to be told again that Aileen was beautiful? Had she
+donned a few hundred dollars’ worth of clothes and joined the Easter
+parade, and had you seen her, you would have hastened to say so
+yourself.
+
+The customers at Bogle’s were her slaves. Six tables full she could
+wait upon at once. They who were in a hurry restrained their impatience
+for the joy of merely gazing upon her swiftly moving, graceful figure.
+They who had finished eating ate more that they might continue in the
+light of her smiles. Every man there—and they were mostly men—tried to
+make his impression upon her.
+
+Aileen could successfully exchange repartee against a dozen at once.
+And every smile that she sent forth lodged, like pellets from a
+scatter-gun, in as many hearts. And all this while she would be
+performing astounding feats with orders of pork and beans, pot roasts,
+ham-and, sausage-and-the-wheats, and any quantity of things on the iron
+and in the pan and straight up and on the side. With all this feasting
+and flirting and merry exchange of wit Bogle’s came mighty near being a
+salon, with Aileen for its Madame Récamier.
+
+If the transients were entranced by the fascinating Aileen, the
+regulars were her adorers. There was much rivalry among many of the
+steady customers. Aileen could have had an engagement every evening. At
+least twice a week some one took her to a theatre or to a dance. One
+stout gentleman whom she and Tildy had privately christened “The Hog”
+presented her with a turquoise ring. Another one known as “Freshy,” who
+rode on the Traction Company’s repair wagon, was going to give her a
+poodle as soon as his brother got the hauling contract in the Ninth.
+And the man who always ate spareribs and spinach and said he was a
+stock broker asked her to go to “Parsifal” with him.
+
+“I don’t know where this place is,” said Aileen while talking it over
+with Tildy, “but the wedding-ring’s got to be on before I put a stitch
+into a travelling dress—ain’t that right? Well, I guess!”
+
+But, Tildy!
+
+In steaming, chattering, cabbage-scented Bogle’s there was almost a
+heart tragedy. Tildy with the blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the
+freckled skin, the bag-o’-meal figure, had never had an admirer. Not a
+man followed her with his eyes when she went to and fro in the
+restaurant save now and then when they glared with the beast-hunger for
+food. None of them bantered her gaily to coquettish interchanges of
+wit. None of them loudly “jollied” her of mornings as they did Aileen,
+accusing her, when the eggs were slow in coming, of late hours in the
+company of envied swains. No one had ever given her a turquoise ring or
+invited her upon a voyage to mysterious, distant “Parsifal.”
+
+Tildy was a good waitress, and the men tolerated her. They who sat at
+her tables spoke to her briefly with quotations from the bill of fare;
+and then raised their voices in honeyed and otherwise-flavoured
+accents, eloquently addressed to the fair Aileen. They writhed in their
+chairs to gaze around and over the impending form of Tildy, that
+Aileen’s pulchritude might season and make ambrosia of their bacon and
+eggs.
+
+And Tildy was content to be the unwooed drudge if Aileen could receive
+the flattery and the homage. The blunt nose was loyal to the short
+Grecian. She was Aileen’s friend; and she was glad to see her rule
+hearts and wean the attention of men from smoking pot-pie and lemon
+meringue. But deep below our freckles and hay-coloured hair the
+unhandsomest of us dream of a prince or a princess, not vicarious, but
+coming to us alone.
+
+There was a morning when Aileen tripped in to work with a slightly
+bruised eye; and Tildy’s solicitude was almost enough to heal any
+optic.
+
+“Fresh guy,” explained Aileen, “last night as I was going home at
+Twenty-third and Sixth. Sashayed up, so he did, and made a break. I
+turned him down, cold, and he made a sneak; but followed me down to
+Eighteenth, and tried his hot air again. Gee! but I slapped him a good
+one, side of the face. Then he give me that eye. Does it look real
+awful, Til? I should hate that Mr. Nicholson should see it when he
+comes in for his tea and toast at ten.”
+
+Tildy listened to the adventure with breathless admiration. No man had
+ever tried to follow her. She was safe abroad at any hour of the
+twenty-four. What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one
+and black one’s eye for love!
+
+Among the customers at Bogle’s was a young man named Seeders, who
+worked in a laundry office. Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair,
+and appeared to have been recently rough-dried and starched. He was too
+diffident to aspire to Aileen’s notice; so he usually sat at one of
+Tildy’s tables, where he devoted himself to silence and boiled
+weakfish.
+
+One day when Mr. Seeders came in to dinner he had been drinking beer.
+There were only two or three customers in the restaurant. When Mr.
+Seeders had finished his weakfish he got up, put his arm around Tildy’s
+waist, kissed her loudly and impudently, walked out upon the street,
+snapped his fingers in the direction of the laundry, and hied himself
+to play pennies in the slot machines at the Amusement Arcade.
+
+For a few moments Tildy stood petrified. Then she was aware of Aileen
+shaking at her an arch forefinger, and saying:
+
+“Why, Til, you naughty girl! Ain’t you getting to be awful, Miss
+Slyboots! First thing I know you’ll be stealing some of my fellows. I
+must keep an eye on you, my lady.”
+
+Another thing dawned upon Tildy’s recovering wits. In a moment she had
+advanced from a hopeless, lowly admirer to be an Eve-sister of the
+potent Aileen. She herself was now a man-charmer, a mark for Cupid, a
+Sabine who must be coy when the Romans were at their banquet boards.
+Man had found her waist achievable and her lips desirable. The sudden
+and amatory Seeders had, as it were, performed for her a miraculous
+piece of one-day laundry work. He had taken the sackcloth of her
+uncomeliness, had washed, dried, starched and ironed it, and returned
+it to her sheer embroidered lawn—the robe of Venus herself.
+
+The freckles on Tildy’s cheeks merged into a rosy flush. Now both Circe
+and Psyche peeped from her brightened eyes. Not even Aileen herself had
+been publicly embraced and kissed in the restaurant.
+
+Tildy could not keep the delightful secret. When trade was slack she
+went and stood at Bogle’s desk. Her eyes were shining; she tried not to
+let her words sound proud and boastful.
+
+“A gentleman insulted me to-day,” she said. “He hugged me around the
+waist and kissed me.”
+
+“That so?” said Bogle, cracking open his business armour. “After this
+week you get a dollar a week more.”
+
+At the next regular meal when Tildy set food before customers with whom
+she had acquaintance she said to each of them modestly, as one whose
+merit needed no bolstering:
+
+“A gentleman insulted me to-day in the restaurant. He put his arm
+around my waist and kissed me.”
+
+The diners accepted the revelation in various ways—some incredulously,
+some with congratulations; others turned upon her the stream of
+badinage that had hitherto been directed at Aileen alone. And Tildy’s
+heart swelled in her bosom, for she saw at last the towers of Romance
+rise above the horizon of the grey plain in which she had for so long
+travelled.
+
+For two days Mr. Seeders came not again. During that time Tildy
+established herself firmly as a woman to be wooed. She bought ribbons,
+and arranged her hair like Aileen’s, and tightened her waist two
+inches. She had a thrilling but delightful fear that Mr. Seeders would
+rush in suddenly and shoot her with a pistol. He must have loved her
+desperately; and impulsive lovers are always blindly jealous.
+
+Even Aileen had not been shot at with a pistol. And then Tildy rather
+hoped that he would not shoot at her, for she was always loyal to
+Aileen; and she did not want to overshadow her friend.
+
+At 4 o’clock on the afternoon of the third day Mr. Seeders came in.
+There were no customers at the tables. At the back end of the
+restaurant Tildy was refilling the mustard pots and Aileen was
+quartering pies. Mr. Seeders walked back to where they stood.
+
+Tildy looked up and saw him, gasped, and pressed the mustard spoon
+against her heart. A red hair-bow was in her hair; she wore Venus’s
+Eighth Avenue badge, the blue bead necklace with the swinging silver
+symbolic heart.
+
+Mr. Seeders was flushed and embarrassed. He plunged one hand into his
+hip pocket and the other into a fresh pumpkin pie.
+
+“Miss Tildy,” said he, “I want to apologise for what I done the other
+evenin’. Tell you the truth, I was pretty well tanked up or I wouldn’t
+of done it. I wouldn’t do no lady that a-way when I was sober. So I
+hope, Miss Tildy, you’ll accept my ’pology, and believe that I wouldn’t
+of done it if I’d known what I was doin’ and hadn’t of been drunk.”
+
+With this handsome plea Mr. Seeders backed away, and departed, feeling
+that reparation had been made.
+
+But behind the convenient screen Tildy had thrown herself flat upon a
+table among the butter chips and the coffee cups, and was sobbing her
+heart out—out and back again to the grey plain wherein travel they with
+blunt noses and hay-coloured hair. From her knot she had torn the red
+hair-bow and cast it upon the floor. Seeders she despised utterly; she
+had but taken his kiss as that of a pioneer and prophetic prince who
+might have set the clocks going and the pages to running in fairyland.
+But the kiss had been maudlin and unmeant; the court had not stirred at
+the false alarm; she must forevermore remain the Sleeping Beauty.
+
+Yet not all was lost. Aileen’s arm was around her; and Tildy’s red hand
+groped among the butter chips till it found the warm clasp of her
+friend’s.
+
+“Don’t you fret, Til,” said Aileen, who did not understand entirely.
+“That turnip-faced little clothespin of a Seeders ain’t worth it. He
+ain’t anything of a gentleman or he wouldn’t ever of apologised.”
+
+
+
+archive.org
+<http://www.archive.org/details/onceontime00miln> and
+edited by Padraig O hIceadha.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+This text was typed for Project Gutenberg by K Hindall
+<kkh2_AT_cornell.edu> from a PDF at archive.org
+<http://www.archive.org/details/onceontime00miln> and edited by
+Padraig O hIceadha.
+
+
+
+
+ONCE ON A TIME
+
+_By_
+
+A.A. Milne
+
+
+
+DECORATED
+
+BY CHARLES
+
+ROBINSON
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+Publishers           New York
+
+By Arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1922
+
+by
+
+A. A. Milne
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book was written in 1915, for the amusement of my wife and myself
+at a time when life was not very amusing; it was published at the end
+of 1917; was reviewed, if at all, as one of a parcel, by some brisk
+uncle from the Tiny Tots Department; and died quietly, without
+seriously detracting from the interest which was being taken in the
+World War, then in progress.
+
+It may be that the circumstances in which the book was written have
+made me unduly fond of it.  When, as sometimes happens, I am
+introduced to a stranger who starts the conversation on the right
+lines by praising, however insincerely, my books, I always say, "But
+you have not read the best one." Nine times out of ten it is so.  The
+tenth takes a place in the family calendar; St. Michael or St. Agatha,
+as the case may be, a red-letter or black-letter saint, according to
+whether the book was bought or borrowed.  But there are few such
+saints, and both my publisher and I have the feeling (so common to
+publishers and authors) that there ought to be more.  So here comes
+the book again, in a new dress, with new decorations, yet much, as far
+as I am concerned, the same book, making the same appeal to me; but,
+let us hope, a new appeal, this time, to others.
+
+For whom, then, is the book intended?  That is the trouble.  Unless I
+can say, "For those, young or old, who like the things which I like,"
+I find it difficult to answer.  Is it a children's book?  Well, what
+do we mean by that?  Is _The Wind in the Willows_ a children's book?
+Is _Alice in Wonderland?_  Is _Treasure Island?_  These are
+masterpieces which we read with pleasure as children, but with how
+much more pleasure when we are grown-up.  In any case what do we mean
+by "children"?  A boy of three, a girl of six, a boy of ten, a girl of
+fourteen--are they all to like the same thing?  And is a book
+"suitable for a boy of twelve" any more likely to please a boy of
+twelve than a modern novel is likely to please a man of thirty-seven;
+even if the novel be described truly as "suitable for a man of
+thirty-seven"?  I confess that I cannot grapple with these difficult
+problems.
+
+But I am very sure of this: that no one can write a book which
+children will like, unless he write it for himself first.  That being
+so, I shall say boldly that this is a story for grown-ups.  How
+grown-up I did not realise until I received a letter from an unknown
+reader a few weeks after its first publication; a letter which said
+that he was delighted with my clever satires of the Kaiser, Mr. Lloyd
+George and Mr. Asquith, but he could not be sure which of the
+characters were meant to be Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Bonar Law.
+Would I tell him on the enclosed postcard?  I replied that they were
+thinly disguised on the title-page as Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton.  In
+fact, it is not that sort of book.
+
+But, as you see, I am still finding it difficult to explain just what
+sort of book it is.  Perhaps no explanation is necessary.  Read in it
+what you like; read it to whomever you like; be of what age you like;
+it can only fall into one of two classes.  Either you will enjoy it,
+or you won't.
+
+It is that sort of book.
+
+A. A. Milne.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+I.--The King of Euralia has a Visitor to Breakfast
+
+II.--The Chancellor of Barodia has a Long Walk Home
+
+III.--The King of Euralia Draws his Sword
+
+IV.--The Princess Hyacinth Leaves it to the Countess
+
+V.--Belvane Indulges her Hobby
+
+VI.--There are no Wizards in Barodia
+
+VII.--The Princess Receives a Letter and Writes One
+
+VIII.--Prince Udo Sleeps Badly
+
+IX.--They are Afraid of Udo
+
+X.--Charlotte Patacake Astonishes the Critics
+
+XI.--Watercress Seems to go with the Ears
+
+XII.--We Decide to Write to Udo's Father
+
+XIII.--"Pink" Rhymes with "Think"
+
+XIV.--"Why Can't you be like Wiggs?"
+
+XV.--There is a Lover Waiting for Hyacinth
+
+XVI.--Belvane Enjoys Herself
+
+XVII.--The King of Barodia Drops the Whisker Habit
+
+XVIII.--The Veteran of the Forest Entertains Two Very Young People
+
+XIX.--Udo Behaves Like a Gentleman
+
+XX.--Coronel Knows a Good Story when he Hears it
+
+XXI.--A Serpent Coming after Udo
+
+XXII.--The Seventeen Volumes go back Again
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+A Map of Euralia showing the Adjacent Country of Barodia and the
+far-distant Araby
+
+He was a Man of Simple Tastes
+
+"Most extraordinary," said the King
+
+He found the King nursing a Bent Whisker and in the very Vilest of
+Tempers
+
+"Try it on me," cried the Countess
+
+Five Times he had come back to give her his Last Instructions
+
+Armed to the Teeth, Amazon after Amazon marched by
+
+When the Respective Armies returned to Camp they found Their Majesties
+asleep
+
+The Rabbit was gone, and there was a Fairy in front of her
+
+As Evening fell they came to a Woodman's Cottage at the Foot of a High
+Hill
+
+"Coronel, here I am," said Udo pathetically, and he stepped out
+
+Twenty-one Minutes later Henrietta Crossbuns was acknowledging a Bag
+of Gold
+
+Princess Hyacinth gave a Shriek and faltered slowly backwards
+
+"Now we can talk," said Hyacinth
+
+He forgot his Manners, and made a Jump towards her
+
+She glided gracefully behind the Sundial in a Pretty Affectation of
+Alarm
+
+When anybody of Superior Station or Age came into the Room she rose
+and curtsied
+
+And then she danced
+
+"Good Morning," said Belvane
+
+The Tent seemed to swim before his Eyes, and he knew no more
+
+She turned round and went off daintily down the Hill
+
+Let me present to you my friend the Duke Coronel
+
+As the Towers of the Castle came in sight, Merriwig drew a Deep Breath
+of Happiness
+
+Belvane leading the Way with her Finger to her Lips
+
+Merriwig following with an Exaggerated Caution
+
+He was a Pleasant-looking Person, with a Round Clean-shaven Face
+
+Roger Scurvilegs
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: A Map of Euralia showing the Adjacent Country of
+Barodia and the far-distant Araby]
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE KING OF EURALIA HAS A VISITOR TO BREAKFAST
+
+[Illustration: _He was a Man of Simple Tastes_]
+
+King Merriwig of Euralia sat at breakfast on his castle walls.  He
+lifted the gold cover from the gold dish in front of him, selected a
+trout and conveyed it carefully to his gold plate.  He was a man of
+simple tastes, but when you have an aunt with the newly acquired gift
+of turning anything she touches to gold, you must let her practise
+sometimes.  In another age it might have been fretwork.
+
+"Ah," said the King, "here you are, my dear."  He searched for his
+napkin, but the Princess had already kissed him lightly on the top of
+the head, and was sitting in her place opposite to him.
+
+"Good morning, Father," she said; "I'm a little late, aren't I?  I've
+been riding in the forest."
+
+"Any adventures?" asked the King casually.
+
+"Nothing, except it's a beautiful morning."
+
+"Ah, well, perhaps the country isn't what it was.  Now when I was a
+young man, you simply couldn't go into the forest without an adventure
+of some sort.  The extraordinary things one encountered!  Witches,
+giants, dwarfs----.  It was there that I first met your mother," he
+added thoughtfully.
+
+"I wish I remembered my mother," said Hyacinth.
+
+The King coughed and looked at her a little nervously.
+
+"Seventeen years ago she died, Hyacinth, when you were only six months
+old.  I have been wondering lately whether I haven't been a little
+remiss in leaving you motherless so long."
+
+The Princess looked puzzled.  "But it wasn't your fault, dear, that
+mother died."
+
+"Oh, no, no, I'm not saying that.  As you know, a dragon carried her
+off and--well, there it was.  But supposing"--he looked at her
+shyly--"I had married again."
+
+The Princess was startled.
+
+"Who?" she asked.
+
+The King peered into his flagon.  "Well," he said, "there _are_
+people."
+
+"If it had been somebody _very_ nice," said the Princess wistfully,
+"it might have been rather lovely."
+
+The King gazed earnestly at the outside of his flagon.
+
+"Why 'might have been?'" he said.
+
+The Princess was still puzzled.  "But I'm grown up," she said; "I
+don't want a mother so much now."
+
+The King turned his flagon round and studied the other side of it.
+
+"A mother's--er--tender hand," he said, "is--er--never----" and then
+the outrageous thing happened.
+
+It was all because of a birthday present to the King of Barodia, and
+the present was nothing less than a pair of seven-league boots.  The
+King being a busy man, it was a week or more before he had an
+opportunity of trying those boots. Meanwhile he used to talk about
+them at meals, and he would polish them up every night before he went
+to bed.  When the great day came for the first trial of them to be
+made, he took a patronising farewell of his wife and family, ignored
+the many eager noses pressed against the upper windows of the Palace,
+and sailed off.  The motion, as perhaps you know, is a little
+disquieting at first, but one soon gets used to it.  After that it is
+fascinating. He had gone some two thousand miles before he realised
+that there might be a difficulty about finding his way back.  The
+difficulty proved at least as great as he had anticipated. For the
+rest of that day he toured backwards and forwards across the country;
+and it was by the merest accident that a very angry King shot in
+through an open pantry window in the early hours of the morning.  He
+removed his boots and went softly to bed. . . .
+
+It was, of course, a lesson to him.  He decided that in the future he
+must proceed by a recognised route, sailing lightly from landmark to
+landmark.  Such a route his Geographers prepared for him--an early
+morning constitutional, of three hundred miles or so, to be taken ten
+times before breakfast.  He gave himself a week in which to recover
+his nerve and then started out on the first of them.
+
+[Illustration: _"Most extraordinary," said the King_]
+
+Now the Kingdom of Euralia adjoined that of Barodia, but whereas
+Barodia was a flat country, Euralia was a land of hills.  It was
+natural then that the Court Geographers, in search of landmarks,
+should have looked towards Euralia; and over Euralia accordingly,
+about the time when cottage and castle alike were breakfasting, the
+King of Barodia soared and dipped and soared and dipped again.
+
+     * * * * *
+
+"A mother's tender hand," said the King of Euralia,
+"is--er--never--good gracious!  What's that?"
+
+There was a sudden rush of air; something came for a moment between
+his Majesty and the sun; and then all was quiet again.
+
+"What was it?" asked Hyacinth, slightly alarmed.
+
+"Most extraordinary," said the King.  "It left in my mind an
+impression of ginger whiskers and large boots.  Do we know anybody
+like that?"
+
+"The King of Barodia," said Hyacinth, "has red whiskers, but I don't
+know about his boots."
+
+"But what could he have been doing up there?  Unless----"
+
+There was another rush of wind in the opposite direction; once more
+the sun was obscured, and this time, plain for a moment for all to
+see, appeared the rapidly dwindling back view of the King of Barodia
+on his way home to breakfast.
+
+Merriwig rose with dignity.
+
+"You're quite right, Hyacinth," he said sternly; "it _was_ the King of
+Barodia."
+
+Hyacinth looked troubled.
+
+"He oughtn't to come over anybody's breakfast table quite so quickly
+as that.  Ought he, Father?"
+
+"A lamentable display of manners, my dear.  I shall withdraw now and
+compose a stiff note to him.  The amenities must be observed."
+
+Looking as severe as a naturally jovial face would permit him, and
+wondering a little if he had pronounced "amenities" right, he strode
+to the library.
+
+The library was his Majesty's favourite apartment.  Here in the
+mornings he would discuss affairs of state with his Chancellor, or
+receive any distinguished visitors who were to come to his kingdom in
+search of adventure.  Here in the afternoon, with a copy of _What to
+say to a Wizard_ or some such book taken at random from the shelves,
+he would give himself up to meditation.
+
+And it was the distinguished visitors of the morning who gave him most
+to think about in the afternoon.  There were at this moment no fewer
+than seven different Princes engaged upon seven different enterprises,
+to whom, in the event of a successful conclusion, he had promised the
+hand of Hyacinth and half his kingdom.  No wonder he felt that she
+needed the guiding hand of a mother.
+
+The stiff note to Barodia was not destined to be written.  He was
+still hesitating between two different kinds of nib, when the door was
+flung open and the fateful name of the Countess Belvane was announced.
+
+The Countess Belvane!  What can I say which will bring home to you
+that wonderful, terrible, fascinating woman? Mastered as she was by
+overweening ambition, utterly unscrupulous in her methods of achieving
+her purpose, none the less her adorable humanity betrayed itself in a
+passion for diary-keeping and a devotion to the simpler forms of
+lyrical verse.  That she is the villain of the piece I know well; in
+his _Euralia Past and Present_ the eminent historian, Roger
+Scurvilegs, does not spare her; but that she had her great qualities I
+should be the last to deny.
+
+She had been writing poetry that morning, and she wore green.  She
+always wore green when the Muse was upon her: a pleasing habit which,
+whether as a warning or an inspiration, modern poets might do well to
+imitate.  She carried an enormous diary under her arm; and in her mind
+several alternative ways of putting down her reflections on her way to
+the Palace.
+
+"Good morning, dear Countess," said the King, rising only too gladly
+from his nibs; "an early visit."
+
+"You don't mind, your Majesty?" said the Countess anxiously.  "There
+was a point in our conversation yesterday about which I was not quite
+certain----"
+
+"What _were_ we talking about yesterday?"
+
+"Oh, your Majesty," said the Countess, "affairs of state," and she
+gave him that wicked, innocent, impudent, and entirely scandalous look
+which he never could resist, and you couldn't either for that matter.
+
+"Affairs of state, of course," smiled the King.
+
+"Why, I made a special note of it in my diary."
+
+She laid down the enormous volume and turned lightly over the pages.
+
+"Here we are! '_Thursday._  His Majesty did me the honour to consult
+me about the future of his daughter, the Princess Hyacinth.  Remained
+to tea and was very----'  I can't quite make this word out."
+
+"Let _me_ look," said the King, his rubicund face becoming yet more
+rubicund.  "It looks like 'charming,'" he said casually.
+
+"Fancy!" said Belvane.  "Fancy my writing that!  I put down just what
+comes into my head at the time, you know."  She made a gesture with
+her hand indicative of some one who puts down just what comes into her
+head at the time, and returned to her diary.  "'Remained to tea, and
+was very charming.  Mused afterwards on the mutability of life!'" She
+looked up at him with wide-open eyes.  "I often muse when I'm alone,"
+she said.
+
+The King still hovered over the diary.
+
+"Have you any more entries like--like that last one?  May I look?"
+
+"Oh, your Majesty!  I'm afraid it's _quite_ private."  She closed the
+book quickly.
+
+"I just thought I saw some poetry," said the King.
+
+"Just a little ode to a favourite linnet.  It wouldn't interest your
+Majesty."
+
+"I adore poetry," said the King, who had himself written a rhymed
+couplet which could be said either forwards or backwards, and in the
+latter position was useful for removing enchantments.  According to
+the eminent historian, Roger Scurvilegs, it had some vogue in Euralia
+and went like this:
+
+          "_Bo, boll, bill, bole._
+
+But fortunately for women, Infidels are more numerous than they ever
+were before, and the power of the Church is dying of dry rot, or as Col.
+Ingersoll wittily says, of the combined influence of softening of the
+brain and ossification of the heart.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix O.
+
+"St. Gregory the Great describes the virtue of a priest, _who through
+motives of piety had discarded his wife_... Their wives, in _immense
+numbers_, were driven forth with hatred and with scorn... Pope Urban II.
+_gave license_ to the nobles _to reduce to slavery the wives_ of priests
+who refused to abandon them."--Lecky.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix P.
+
+1. "Hallam denies that respect for women is due to Christianity.
+"--Buckle.
+
+2. "In England, wives are still occasionally led to the market by
+a halter around the neck to be sold by the husband to the highest
+bidder."--Ibid.
+
+"The sale of a wife with a halter around her neck is still a legal
+transaction in England. The sale must be made in the cattle market, as
+if she were a mare, all women being considered as mares by old English
+law, and indeed _called_ 'mares' in certain counties where genuine old
+English law is still preserved."--Borrow.
+
+3. "Contempt for woman, _the result of clerical teaching_, is shown in
+myriad forms."--Gage.
+
+4. "The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself,
+_and is now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement_."--John
+Stuart Mill.
+
+5. "I have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine,
+that what is mine is yours, but what is yours is not mine; and I should
+prefer to decline entering into such a compact with anyone, _though I
+were myself_ the person to profit by it."--Ibid.
+
+It will take a long time for that sort of morality to filter into the
+skull of the Church, and when it does the skull will burst.
+
+6. "Certain beliefs have been inculcated, certain crimes invented, in
+order to intimidate the masses. Hence the Church made free thought the
+worst of sins, and the spirit of inquiry the worst of blasphemies.... As
+late as the time of Bunyan the chief doctrine inculcated from the pulpit
+was obedience to the temporal power.... All these influences fell with
+crushing weight on woman."--_Matilda Joslyn Gage_ in "Hist. Woman
+Suffrage."
+
+7. "Taught that education for her was indelicate and irreligious, she
+has been kept in such gross ignorance as to fall a prey to superstition,
+and to glory in her own degradation... Such was the prejudice against a
+liberal education for woman, that the first public examination of a girl
+in geometry (1829) created as bitter a storm of ridicule as has since
+assailed women who have entered the law, the pulpit, or the medical
+profession."--Ibid.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix Q.
+
+1. "The five writers to whose genius we owe the first attempt at
+comprehensive views of history were Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, Voltaire,
+Hume, and Gibbon. Of these the second was but a cold believer in
+Christianity, if, indeed, he believed in it at all; and the other four
+were avowed and notorious infidels."--Buckle.
+
+2 "Here, then, we have the starting-point of progress--_scepticism_....
+All, therefore, that men want is _no hindrance_ from their political and
+religious rulers.... Until common minds doubt respecting religion they
+can never receive any new scientific conclusion at variance with it--as
+Joshua and Copernicus."--Ibid.
+
+3. "The immortal work of Gibbon, of which the sagacity is, if possible,
+equal to the learning, did find readers, but the illustrious author
+was so cruelly reviled by men who called themselves Christians, that
+it seemed doubtful if, after such an example, subsequent writers would
+hazard their comfort and happiness by attempting to write philosophic
+history. Middleton wrote in 1750.... As long as the theological spirit
+was alive nothing could be effected."--Ibid.
+
+4. "The questions which presented themselves to the acuter minds of a
+hundred years ago were present to the acuter minds who lived hundreds
+of years before that.... But the Church had known how to deal with
+intellectual insurgents, from Abelard in the twelfth century down to
+Bruno and Vanini in the seventeenth. They were isolated, and for the
+most part submissive; and _if they were not_, the arm of the Church was
+very long and her grasp mortal.... They [the thinkers] could have taught
+Europe _earlier than the Church allowed it to learn_, that the sun does
+not go round the earth, and that it is the earth which goes round the
+sun.... After the middle of the last century the insurrection against
+the pretensions of the Church and against the doctrines of Christianity
+was marked in one of its most important phases by a new, and most
+significant, feature.... It was an advance both in knowledge and
+in moral motive.... The philosophical movement was represented by
+"Diderot" [leading the Encyclopaedist circle.]... Broadly stated the
+great central moral of it was this: that human nature is good, that the
+world is capable of being made a desirable abiding-place, and that the
+evil of the world _is the fruit of bad education and bad institutions_.
+This cheerful doctrine now strikes on the ear as a commonplace and a
+truism. A hundred years ago in France it was a wonderful gospel, _and
+the beginning of a new dispensation.... Into what fresh and unwelcome
+sunlight it brought the articles of the old theology... Every social
+improvement since has been the outcome of that new doctrine in one form
+or another_.... The teaching of the Church paints men as fallen and
+depraved. The deadly chagrin with which churchmen saw the new fabric
+rising was very natural.... The new secular knowledge clashed at
+a thousand points, alike in letter and spirit, with the old sacred
+lore.... A hundred years ago this perception was vague and indefinite,
+but there was an unmistakable apprehension that _the Catholic ideal
+of womanhood_ was no more adequate to the facts of life, than Catholic
+views about science, or popery, or labor, or political order and
+authority."--Morley.
+
+And it took the rising infidels to discover the fact. See Morley,
+"Diderot," p. 76.
+
+"The greatest fact in the intellectual history of the eighteenth century
+is the decisive revolution that overtook the sustaining conviction of
+the Church. The central conception, that the universe was called into
+existence only to further its Creator's purpose toward man, became
+incredible (by the light of the new thought). What seems to careless
+observers a mere metaphysical dispute was in truth, _and still is, the
+decisive quarter of the great battle between theology and a philosophy
+reconcilable with science_."--Morley.
+
+"The man _who ventured to use his mind_ [Diderot] was thrown into the
+dungeon at Vincennes."--Ibid.
+
+5. "Those thinkers [Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot] taught men to
+reason; reasoning well leads to acting well; justness in the mind
+becomes justice in the heart. Those toilers for progress labored
+usefully.... The French Revolution was their soul. It was their radiant
+manifestation. It came from them; we find them everywhere in that blest
+and superb catastrophe, which formed the conclusion of the past and the
+opening of the future.... The new society, the desire for equality
+and concession, and that beginning of fraternity which called itself
+tolerance, reciprocal good-will, the just accord of men and rights,
+reason recognized as the supreme law, the annihilation of prejudices and
+fixed opinions, the serenity of souls, the spirit of indulgence and of
+pardon, harmony, peace--behold what has come from them!"--Victor Hugo,
+"Oration on Voltaire."
+
+
+
+
+Appendix R.
+
+"He [Mohammed] promulgated a mass of fables, which he pretended to
+have received from heaven.... After enjoying for _twenty years_ a
+power without bounds, and _of which there exists no other example_, he
+announced publicly, that, if he had committed any act of injustice,
+he was ready to make reparation. All were silent.... He died; and the
+enthusiasm which he communicated to his people will be seen to change
+the face of three-quarters of the globe.... I shall add that the
+religion of Mohammed is the most simple in its dogmas, the least
+absurd in its practices, above all others tolerant in its
+principles."--_Condorcet_.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix S.
+
+The claim is so often and so boldly made that Infidelity produces crime,
+and that Christianity, or belief, or faith, makes people good, that the
+following statistics usually produce a rather chilly sensation in the
+believer when presented in the midst of an argument based upon the above
+mentioned claim. I have used it with effect. The person upon whom it
+is used will never offer that argument to you again. The following
+statistics were taken from the British Parliamentary reports, made on
+the instance of Sir John Trelawney, in 1873:
+
+ENGLAND AND WALES.
+
+Criminals in England and Wales in 1873.................... 146,146
+
+
+SECTARIAN AND INFIDEL POPULATION OF THE SAME.
+
+Church of England...............................................
+6,933,935
+
+Dissenters............................................................
+7,235,158
+
+Catholics..............................................................
+1,500,000
+
+
+Jews....................................................................
+57,000
+
+
+Infidels................................................................
+7,000,000
+
+
+RELIGIOUS PERSUASIONS OF CRIMINALS OF THE SAME.
+
+Church of England.............................................. 96,097
+
+Catholics..............................................................
+35,581
+
+Dissenters............................................................
+10,648
+
+Jews...................................................................
+256
+
+
+Infidels................................................................
+296
+
+
+CRIMINALS TO 100,000 POPULATION.
+
+Catholics..............................................................
+2,500
+
+Church of England............................................... 1,400
+
+Dissenters............................................................
+150
+
+
+Infidels................................................................
+5
+
+
+These statistics are taken from the report of the British Parliament,
+which, for learning and intelligence, as a deliberative body, has not
+its superior, if it has its equal, in the world, and it is surely a
+sufficiently Christian body to be accepted as authority in this matter,
+since a large number of its members are clergymen. These statistics
+hardly sustain the allegation that "Infidelity is coupled with
+impurity."
+
+We are willing to stand upon our record. But, lest it be claimed that
+this is a British peculiarity, allow me to defer to the patriotic
+sentiment of my readers by one other little set of tables which, while
+not complete, is equally as suggestive.
+
+"In sixty-six different prisons, jails, reformatories, refuges,
+penitentiaries, and lock-ups there were, for the years given in reports,
+41,335 men and boys, women and girls, of the following religious sects:
+
+
+Catholics..................................................................
+16,431
+
+Church of England....................................................
+9,975
+
+Eighteen other Protestant denominations.................... 14,811
+
+
+Universalists.............................................................
+5
+
+Jews, Chinese, and Mormons..................................... 110
+
+Infidels (two so-called, one avowed)............................ 3
+
+
+"These included the prisons of Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee, New York,
+Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and Canada."
+
+Present these two tables to those who assure you that crime follows in
+the wake of Infidelity, and you will have time to take a comfortable nap
+before your Christian friend returns to the attack or braces up after
+the shock sustained by his sentiments and inflicted by these two small
+but truly suggestive tables.
+
+One cold fact like this will inoculate one of the faithful with more
+modesty than an hour of usual argument based upon the assumptions of the
+clergy and the ignorance of his hearers.
+
+Infidels are not perfect. Many of them need reconstruction sadly, but
+the above data seem to indicate that they compare rather favorably with
+their fellow-men in the matter of good citizenship.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix T.
+
+"Moreover, as Goethe has already shown, the celebrated Mosaic moral
+precepts, the so-called Ten Commandments, were _not_ upon the tables
+upon which Moses wrote the laws of the covenant which God made with his
+people.
+
+"Even the extraordinary diversity of the many religions diffused over
+the surface of the earth suffices to show that they can stand in no
+necessary connection with morals, as it is well known that wherever
+tolerably well-ordered political and social conditions exist, the moral
+precepts in their essential principles are the same, whilst when such
+conditions are wanting, a wild and irregular confusion, or even an
+entire deficiency of moral notions is met with.* History also shows
+incontrovertibly that religion and morality have by no means gone hand
+in hand in strength and development, but that even contrariwise the
+most religious times and countries have produced the greatest number
+of crimes and sins against the laws of morality, and indeed, as daily
+experience teaches, still produce them. The history of nearly all
+religions is filled with such horrible abominations, massacres, and
+boundless wickednesses of every kind that at the mere recollection of
+them the heart of a philanthropist seems to stand still, and we turn
+with disgust and horror from a mental aberration which could produce
+such deeds. If it is urged in vindication of religion that it has
+advanced and elevated human civilization, even this merit appears very
+doubtful in presence of the facts of history, and at least as very
+rarely or isolatedly the case. In general, however, it cannot be denied
+that most systems of religion have proved rather inimical than friendly
+to civilization. For religion, as already stated, tolerates no doubt, no
+discussion, no contradiction, no investigations, those eternal pioneers
+of the future of science and intellect! Even the simple circumstance
+that our present state of culture has already long since left far
+behind it all and even the highest intellectual ideals established and
+elaborated by former religions may show how little intellectual progress
+is influenced by religion. Mankind is perpetually being thrown to and
+fro between science, and religion, but it advances moro intellectually,
+morally and physically in proportion as it turns away from religion and
+to science.
+
+     * "In China, where people are, as is well-known, very
+     indifferent or tolerant in religious matters, this fine
+     proverb is current: Religions are various, but reason is
+     one, and we are all brothers.'"
+
+"It is therefore clear that for our present age and for the future a
+foundation must be sought and found for culture and morality, different
+from that which can be furnished to us by religion. It is not the fear
+of God that acts amelioratingly or ennoblingly upon manners, of which
+the middle ages furnish us with a striking proof; but the ennobling of
+the conception of the world in general which goes hand in hand with
+the advance of civilization. Let us then give up making a show of the
+profession of hypocritical words of faith, the only purpose of which
+seems to be that they may be continually shown to be lies by the actions
+and deeds of their professors! The man of the future will feel far more
+happy and contented when he has not to contend at every step of his
+intellectual forward development with those tormenting contradictions
+between knowledge and faith which plague his youth, and occupy his
+mature age unnecessarily with the slow renunciation of the notions which
+he imbibed in his youth. What we sacrifice to God, we take away from
+mankind, and absorb a great part of his best intellectual powers in
+the pursuit of an unattainable goal. At any rate, the least that we can
+expect in this respect from the state and society of the future is a
+complete separation between ecclesiastical and worldly affairs, or
+an absolute emancipation of the state and the school from every
+ecclesiastical influence.
+
+"Education must be founded upon _knowledge_, not upon _faith_; and
+religion itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious
+history and as an objective or scientific exposition of the different
+religious systems prevailing among mankind. Any one who, after such an
+education, still experiences the need of a definite law or rule of faith
+may then attach himself to any religious sect that may seem good to him,
+but cannot claim that the community should bear the cost of this special
+fancy!
+
+"As regards Christianity, or the _Paulinism_ which is falsely called
+Christianity, it stands, by its dogmatic portion or contents, in such
+striking and irreconcilable, nay absolutely absurd contradiction with
+all the acquisitions and principles of modern science that its future
+tragical fate can only be a question of time. But even its ethical
+contents or its moral principles are in no way essentially distinguished
+above those of other peoples, and were equally well and in part better
+known to mankind even _before_ its appearance. Not only in this respect,
+but also in its supposed character as the _world-religion_, it is
+excelled by the much older and probably most widely diffused religious
+system in the world, the celebrated _Buddhism_, which recognizes
+neither the idea of a personal God, nor that of a personal duration,
+and nevertheless teaches an extremely pure, amiable, and even ascetic
+morality. The doctrine of Zoroaster or Zarathrustra also, 1800 years
+B. C, taught the principles of humanity and toleration for those of
+different modes of thinking in a manner and purity which were unknown
+to the Semitic religions and especially to Christianity. Christianity
+originated and spread, as is well-known, at a time of general decline
+of manners, and of very great moral and national corruption; and its
+extraordinary success must be partly explained by the prevalence of a
+sort of intellectual and moral disease which had overpowered the
+spirits of men after the fall of the ancient civilization and under
+the demoralizing influence of the gradual collapse of the great Roman
+empire. But even at that time those who stood intellectually high and
+looked deeply into things recognized the whole danger of this new turn
+of mind, and it is very remarkable that the best and most benevolent of
+the Roman emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius, Julian, etc., were the most
+zealous persecutors of Christianity, whilst it was tolerated by the
+bad ones, such as Commodus, Heliogabalus, etc. When it had gradually
+attained the superiority, one of its first sins against intellectual
+progress consisted in the destruction by Christian fanaticism of the
+celebrated Library of Alexandria, which contained all the intellectual
+treasures of antiquity--an incalculable loss to science, which can never
+be replaced. It is usually asserted in praise of Christianity that in
+the middle ages the Christian monasteries were the preservers of science
+and literature, but even this is correct only in a very limited sense,
+since boundless ignorance and rudeness generally prevailed in the
+monasteries, and innumerable ecclesiastics could not even read. Valuable
+literary treasures on parchment contained in the libraries of the
+monasteries were destroyed, the monks when they wanted money selling the
+books as parchment, or tearing out the leaves and writing psalms upon
+them. Frequently they entirely effaced the ancient classics, to make
+room for their foolish legends and homilies; nay, the reading of the
+classics, such as Aristotle for example, was directly forbidden by papal
+decrees.
+
+"In New Spain Christian fanaticism immediately destroyed whatever of
+arts and civilization existed among the natives, and that this was not
+inconsiderable is shown by the numerous monuments now in ruins which
+place beyond a doubt the former existence of a tolerably high degree of
+culture. But in the place of this not a trace of Christian civilization
+is now to be observed among the existing Indians, and the resident
+Catholic clergy keep the Indians purposely in a state of the greatest
+ignorance and stupidity (see Richthofen, Die Zustande der Republic
+Mexico, Berlin, 1854).
+
+"Thus Christianity has always acted consistently in accordance with the
+principles of one of the fathers of the Church, Tertullian, who says:
+'_Desire of knowledge is no longer necessary since Jesus Christ, nor is
+investigation necessary since the Gospel._' If the civilization of the
+European and especially of Christian Nations has notwithstanding made
+such enormous progress in the course of centuries, an unprejudiced
+consideration of history can only tell us that this has taken place not
+by means of Christianity, but in spite of it. And this is a sufficient
+indication to what an extent this civilization must still be capable
+of development when once it shall be completely freed from the narrow
+bounds of old superstitious and religious embarrassments!"
+
+"We must therefore endeavor to form convictions which are not to stand
+once and for all, as philosophers and theologians usually do, but such
+as may change and become improved with the advance of knowledge. Whoever
+does not recognize this and gives himself up once for all to a belief
+which he regards as final truth, whether it be of a theological or
+philosophical kind, is of course incapable of accepting a conviction
+supported upon scientific grounds. Unfortunately our whole education is
+founded upon an early systematic curbing and fettering of the intellect
+in the direction of dogmatic (philosophical or theological) doctrines of
+faith, and only a comparatively small number of strong minds succeed
+in after years in freeing themselves by their own powers from these
+fetters, whilst the majority remain captive in the accustomed bonds and
+form their judgment in accordance with the celebrated saying of Bishop
+Berkeley: 'Few men think; but all will have opinions.'"--Buchner, "Man
+in the Past, Present, and Future."
+
+
+
+
+Appendix U.
+
+"And here it may be remarked, once for all, that no man who has
+subscribed to creeds and formulas, whether in theology or philosophy,
+can be an unbiased investigator of the truth or an unprejudiced judge
+of the opinions of others. His sworn preconceptions warping his
+discernment, adherence to his sect or party engenders intolerance to the
+honest convictions of other inquirer? Beliefs we may and must have,
+but a belief to be changed with new and advancing knowledge impedes no
+progress, while a creed subscribed to as _ultimate truth, and sworn
+to be defended_, not only puts a bar to further research, but as a
+consequence throws the odium of distrust on all that may seem to oppose
+it.
+
+"Even when such odium cannot deter, it annoys and irritates; hence the
+frequent unwillingness of men of science to come prominently forward
+with the avowal of their beliefs.
+
+"It is time this delicacy were thrown aside, and such theologians
+plainly told that the skepticism and Infidelity--if skepticism and
+Infidelity there be--lies all on their own side.
+
+"There is no skepticism so offensive as that which doubts the facts of
+honest and careful observation; no Infidelity so gross as that which
+disbelieves the deductions of competent and unbiased judgments."--David
+Page, "Man," etc., Edinburgh, 1867.
+
+
+
+
+Appendix V.
+
+Since I have recorded this incident of my lecture in Chicago, it is
+peculiarly fitting and pleasant to be able to give the following
+extract from the review of the first edition of this book printed in the
+_Chicago Times_. No great daily paper would have dared to print such a
+comment a few years ago. To-day it is stated as a matter quite beyond
+controversy:
+
+"She takes considerable pains to show _what one would think
+need scarcely be insisted upon in our day_, that the morals of
+civilization--morals in general, indeed--are not at all based in or
+dependent upon religion, certainly not on Christianity, since the
+so-called 'golden rule' the highest principle of morality, antedates
+Christianity a thousand years."
+
+
+
+
+ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY AND OTHERS.
+
+Up to the present time I have tried to reply personally to each one
+who has favored me with a letter of thanks, criticism, or praise of the
+little book, "Men, Women, and Gods, and Other Lectures," just published,
+but I find that if I continue to do this I shall have but little time
+for anything else.
+
+The very unexpected welcome which the book has received prompts me to
+take this plan and means of replying to many who have honored me by
+writing me personal letters. First, permit me to thank those who have
+written letters of praise and gratitude, and to say that, although I may
+be unable to reply in a private letter, I am not indifferent to these
+evidences of your interest, and am greatly helped in my work by your
+sympathy and encouragement. I have also received most courteous letters
+from various clergymen who, disagreeing with me, desire to convert me
+either by mail or personal (private) interviews.
+
+It is wholly impossible for me to grant these requests, since my time
+and strength are demanded in other work, but I wish to say here what I
+have written to several of my clerical correspondents, and desire to say
+to them all.
+
+Although I cannot enter into private correspondence with, nor grant
+personal interviews to, such a number of your body, I am entirely
+willing to respond in a public way to any replies to my arguments which
+come under the following conditions:
+
+1. On page fourteen of the introduction to my book Col. Ingersoll says:
+"No human being can answer her arguments. There is no answer. All the
+priests in the world cannot explain away her objections. There is no
+explanation. They should remain dumb unless they can show that the
+impossible is the probable, that slavery is better than freedom, that
+polygamy is the friend of woman, that the innocent can justly suffer for
+the guilty, and that to persecute for opinion's sake is an act of love
+and worship."
+
+Now, whenever any one of these gentlemen who wish to convert me will
+show that the Colonel is wrong in this brief paragraph; whenever they
+will, in print or in public, refute the arguments to which he refers,
+and to which they object, I shall not be slow to respond.
+
+2. It must be argument, not personal abuse, and it must be conducted in
+a courteous manner and tone.
+
+3. It must proceed upon the basis that I am as honest, as earnest, and
+as virtuous in my motives and intentions as they are in theirs.
+
+Now, surely these gentlemen cannot object to these simple requirements;
+and since some of them are men whose names are preceded by a title
+and followed by several capital letters (ranging from D.D. to
+O.S.F.----which last I, in my ignorance, guess at as meaning Order of
+St. Francis, but shall like to be corrected if I am wrong) they must
+believe that to answer the arguments themselves is both simple and easy.
+
+If they do not so believe they surely have no right to occupy the
+positions which they do occupy. If they do so believe it will do much
+more good to answer them publicly, since they have been made publicly,
+and are already in the hands of several thousand people, who could not
+be reached by any amount of eloquence poured out on ray devoted head in
+the privacy of my own parlor (or writing-desk).
+
+Therefore, gentlemen, permit me to say to you all that which I have
+already written to several of you personally--that Col. Ingersoll's
+paragraph, quoted above, expresses my own views and those of a great
+many other people, and will continue so to do so long as your efforts to
+show that he is wrong are only whispered to me behind a fan, or in the
+strict seclusion of a letter marked "private and personal."
+
+The arguments I have given against the prevailing Christian dogmas and
+usages, which you uphold, are neither private nor personal, nor shall I
+allow them to take that phase. Life is too short for me to spend hours
+day after day in sustaining, in private, a public argument which has
+never been (and, in my opinion, never will be), refuted. And it would
+do no good to the thousands whom you are pleased to say you fear will
+be led astray by my position. You have a magnificent opportunity to lead
+them back again by honest public letters, or lectures, or sermons, not
+by an afternoon's chat with me.
+
+And, while I recognize the courtesy of your pressing requests (made,
+without exception, in the most gentlemanly terms) to permit you to meet
+me personally and refute my arguments, I feel compelled to say that,
+unless you are willing to show the courage of your convictions, _and
+the quality of your defense_, to the public, I fear they would have no
+weight with me, and I should have wasted your precious time as well as
+my own, which I should feel I had no right to do, nor to allow you to
+do, without this frank statement of the case.
+
+Now, do not suppose that I have the slightest objection to meeting the
+clergy personally and socially. Upon the contrary, many of my friends
+are clergymen--even bishops--but candor compels me to state that up to
+the present time not one of them has (either privately or otherwise)
+been able to answer either of the first two lectures in that little
+book, and as to the third one, no one of them, in my opinion, will ever
+try to answer it.
+
+Time will show whether I am right in this.
+
+In the mean time accept my thanks for your interest, and believe me,
+
+Sincerely,
+
+Helen H. Gardener.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER TO THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS OF FREETHINKERS, OCTOBER, 1885.
+
+I send my greetings to the Congress of Freethinkers assembled at
+Cleveland, and regret, more than I can express, that I am unable to
+be there and hear all the good things you will hear, and see all the
+earnest workers you will see.
+
+The Freethinkers of America ought to be a very proud and enthusiastic
+body, when they have in their presidential chair the ablest orator
+of modern times, and the broadest, bravest, and most comprehensive
+intellect that has ever been called "Mr. President" in this land of
+bravery and presidents. Washington was a patriot of whom we are all
+justly proud. He was liberal in his religion and progressive in his
+views of personal rights. And yet he had his limitations. To him liberty
+and personal rights were modified by the words, "free, white, adult,
+males." He got no farther. He who fought for freedom upheld slavery! And
+yet we are all proud and glad to pay honor and respect to the memory of
+Washington.
+
+Abraham Lincoln we place still higher on the roll of honor; for, added
+to his still more liberal religious views, in his conceptions of freedom
+and justice he had at least two fewer limitations than had the patriot
+of 1776. He struck both "free" and "white" from his mental black list,
+and gave once more an impulse to liberty that thrilled a nation and gave
+fresh dignity to the human race.
+
+But what shall we say of our president--Ingersoll? A man who in
+ten short years has carried mental liberty into every household in
+America--who is without limitations in religion, and modifies justice by
+no prefix. A man who, with unequaled oratory, champions Freedom--not the
+"free, white, adult, male" freedom of Washington. A man who has breasted
+a whirlwind of detraction and abuse for Justice--not the "male, adult"
+justice of Lincoln, but the freedom and justice, without limitation, for
+"man, woman, and child."
+
+With such a leader, what should not be achieved? With such a champion,
+what cause could fail? If the people ever place such a man in the White
+House, the nations of this earth will know, for the first time, the real
+meaning of a free government under secular administration.
+
+"A government of the people, for the people, by the people," will be
+more than simply a high-sounding phrase, which, read by the light of the
+past, was only a bitter mockery to a race in chains; and, read by the
+light of the present, is a choice bit of grim humor to half of a nation
+in petticoats. But so long as the taste of the voter is such that he
+prefers to place in the executive chair a type of man so eminently
+fitted for private life that when you want to find him you have to
+_shake the chair_ to see if he is in it, just so long will there be no
+danger that the lightning will strike so as to deprive the Freethinkers
+of one man in America who could fill the national executive chair
+_full_, and strain the back and sides a little getting in.
+
+Once more I send greetings to the Convention, with the hope that you may
+have as grand a time as you ought to have, and that Free thought will
+receive a new impulse from the harmony and enthusiasm of this meeting.
+Sincerely,
+
+Helen H. Gardener.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+    This etext was produced from Astounding Stories October 1931.
+    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+    copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+        [Illustration: At this the titanic thing went wholly,
+                       colossally mad.]
+
+
+                       The Red Hell of Jupiter
+
+                        _A Complete Novelette_
+
+
+
+
+                            By Paul Ernst
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The Red Spot_
+
+[Sidenote: What is the mystery centered in Jupiter's famous "Red
+Spot"? Two fighting Earthmen, caught by the "Pipe-men" like their
+vanished comrades, soon find out.]
+
+
+Commander Stone, grizzled chief of the Planetary Exploration Forces,
+acknowledged Captain Brand Bowen's salute and beckoned him to take a
+seat.
+
+Brand, youngest officer of the division to wear the triple-V for
+distinguished service, sat down and stared curiously at his superior.
+He hadn't the remotest idea why he had been recalled from leave: but
+that it was on a matter of some importance he was sure. He hunched his
+big shoulders and awaited orders.
+
+"Captain Bowen," said Stone. "I want you to go to Jupiter as soon as
+you can arrange to do so, fly low over the red area in the southern
+hemisphere, and come back here with some sort of report as to what's
+wrong with that infernal death spot."
+
+He tapped his radio stylus thoughtfully against the edge of his desk.
+
+"As you perhaps know, I detailed a ship to explore the red spot about
+a year ago. It never came back. I sent another ship, with two good men
+in it, to check up on the disappearance of the first. That ship, too,
+never came back. Almost with the second of its arrival at the edge of
+the red area all radio communication with it was cut off. It was never
+heard from again. Two weeks ago I sent Journeyman there. Now _he_ has
+been swallowed up in a mysterious silence."
+
+An exclamation burst from Brand's lips. Sub-Commander Journeyman!
+Senior officer under Stone, ablest man in the expeditionary forces,
+and Brand's oldest friend!
+
+Stone nodded comprehension of the stricken look on Brand's face. "I
+know how friendly you two were," he said soberly. "That's why I chose
+you to go and find out, if you can, what happened to him and the other
+two ships."
+
+Brand's chin sank to rest on the stiff high collar of his uniform.
+
+"Journeyman!" he mused. "Why, he was like an older brother to me. And
+now ... he's gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was silence in Commander Stone's sanctum for a time. Then Brand
+raised his head.
+
+"Did you have any radio reports at all from any of the three ships
+concerning the nature of the red spot?" he inquired.
+
+"None that gave definite information," replied Stone. "From each of
+the three ships we received reports right up to the instant when the
+red area was approached. From each of the three came a vague
+description of the peculiarity of the ground ahead of them: it seems
+to glitter with a queer metallic sheen. Then, from each of the three,
+as they passed over the boundary--nothing! All radio communication
+ceased as abruptly as though they'd been stricken dead."
+
+He stared at Brand. "That's all I can tell you, little enough, God
+knows. Something ominous and strange is contained in that red spot:
+but what its nature may be, we cannot even guess. I want you to go
+there and find out."
+
+Brand's determined jaw jutted out, and his lips thinned to a
+purposeful line. He stood to attention.
+
+"I'll be leaving to-night, sir. Or sooner if you like. I could go this
+afternoon: in an hour--"
+
+"To-night is soon enough," said Stone with a smile. "Now, who do you
+want to accompany you?"
+
+Brand thought a moment. On so long a journey as a trip to Jupiter
+there was only room in a space ship--what with supplies and all--for
+one other man. It behooved him to pick his companion carefully.
+
+"I'd like Dex Harlow," he said at last. "He's been to Jupiter before,
+working with me in plotting the northern hemisphere. He's a good man."
+
+"He is," agreed Stone, nodding approval of Brand's choice. "I'll have
+him report to you at once."
+
+He rose and held out his hand. "I'm relying on you, Captain Bowen," he
+said. "I won't give any direct orders: use your own discretion. But I
+would advise you not to try to land in the red area. Simply fly low
+over it, and see what you can discern from the air. Good-by, and good
+luck."
+
+Brand saluted, and went out, to go to his own quarters and make the
+few preparations necessary for his sudden emergency flight.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The work of exploring the planets that swung with Earth around the sun
+was still a new branch of the service. Less than ten years ago, it had
+been, when Ansen devised his first crude atomic motor.
+
+At once, with the introduction of this tremendous new motive power,
+men had begun to build space ships and explore the sky. And, as so
+often happens with a new invention, the thing had grown rather beyond
+itself.
+
+Everywhere amateur space flyers launched forth into the heavens to try
+their new celestial wings. Everywhere young and old enthusiasts set
+Ansen motors into clumsily insulated shells and started for Mars or
+the moon or Venus.
+
+The resultant loss of life, as might have been foreseen, was
+appalling. Eager but inexperienced explorers edged over onto the wrong
+side of Mercury and were burned to cinders. They set forth in ships
+that were badly insulated, and froze in the absolute zero of space.
+They learned the atomic motor controls too hastily, ran out of
+supplies or lost their courses, and wandered far out into space--stiff
+corpses in coffins that were to be buried only in time's infinity.
+
+To stop the foolish waste of life, the Earth Government stepped in. It
+was decreed that no space ship might be owned or built privately. It
+was further decreed that those who felt an urge to explore must join
+the regular service and do so under efficient supervision. And there
+was created the Government bureau designated as the Planetary
+Exploration Control Board, which was headed by Commander Stone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Under this Board the exploration of the planets was undertaken
+methodically and efficiently, with a minimum of lives sacrificed.
+
+Mercury was charted, tested for essential minerals, and found to be a
+valueless rock heap too near the sun to support life.
+
+Venus was visited and explored segment by segment; and friendly
+relations were established with the rather stupid but peaceable people
+found there.
+
+Mars was mapped. Here the explorers had lingered a long time: and all
+over this planet's surface were found remnants of a vast and intricate
+civilization--from the canals that laced its surface, to great cities
+with mighty buildings still standing. But of life there was none. The
+atmosphere was too rare to support it; and the theory was that it had
+constantly thinned through thousands of years till the last Martian
+had gasped and died in air too attenuated to support life even in
+creatures that must have grown greater and greater chested in eons of
+adaptation.
+
+Then Jupiter had been reached: and here the methodical planet by
+planet work promised to be checked for a long time to come. Jupiter,
+with its mighty surface area, was going to take some exploring! It
+would be years before it could be plotted even superficially.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brand had been to Jupiter on four different trips; and, as he walked
+toward his quarters from Stone's office, he reviewed what he had
+learned on those trips.
+
+Jupiter, as he knew it, was a vast globe of vague horror and sharp
+contrasts.
+
+Distant from the sun as it was, it received little solar heat. But,
+with so great a mass, it had cooled off much more slowly than any of
+the other planets known, and had immense internal heat. This meant
+that the air--which closely approximated Earth's air in density--was
+cool a few hundred yards up from the surface of the planet, and dankly
+hot close to the ground. The result, as the cold air constantly sank
+into the warm, was a thick steamy blanket of fog that covered
+everything perpetually.
+
+Because of the recent cooling, life was not far advanced on Jupiter.
+Too short a time ago the sphere had been but a blazing mass. Tropical
+marshes prevailed, crisscrossed by mighty rivers at warmer than blood
+heat. Giant, hideous fernlike growths crowded one another in an
+everlasting jungle. And among the distorted trees, from the blanket of
+soft white fog that hid all from sight, could be heard constantly an
+ear-splitting chorus of screams and bellows and whistling snarls. It
+made the blood run cold just to listen--and to speculate on what
+gigantic but tiny-brained monsters made them.
+
+Now and then, when Brand had been flying dangerously low over the
+surface, a wind had risen strong enough to dispel the fog banks for an
+instant; and he had caught a flash of Jovian life. Just a flash, for
+example, of a monstrous lizard-like thing too great to support its own
+bulk: or a creature all neck and tail, with ridges of scale on its
+armored hide and a small serpentine head weaving back and forth among
+the jungle growths.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Occasionally he had landed--always staying close to the space ship,
+for Jupiter's gravity made movement a slow and laborious process, and
+he didn't want to be caught too far from security. At such times he
+might hear a crashing and splashing and see a reptilian head loom
+gigantically at him through the fog. Then he would discharge the
+deadly explosive gun which was Earth's latest weapon, and the creature
+would crash to the ground. The chorus of hissings and bellowings would
+increase as he hastened slowly and laboriously back to the ship,
+indicating that other unseen monsters of the steamy jungle had flocked
+to tear the dead giant to pieces and bolt it down.
+
+Oh, Jupiter was a nice planet! mused Brand. A sweet place--if one
+happened to be a two-hundred-foot snake or something!
+
+He had always thought the entire globe was in that new, raw, marshy
+state. But he had worked only in one comparatively small area of the
+northern hemisphere; had never been within thirty thousand miles of
+the red spot. What might lie in that ominous crimson patch, he could
+not even guess. However, he reflected, he was soon to find out, though
+he might never live to tell about it.
+
+Shrugging his shoulders, he turned into the fifty story building in
+which was his modest apartment. There he found, written by the
+automatic stylus on his radio pad, the message: "Be with you at seven
+o'clock. Best regards, and I hope you strangle. Dex Harlow."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dex Harlow was a six-foot Senior Lieutenant who had been on many an
+out-of-the-way exploratory trip. Like Brand he was just under thirty
+and perpetually thirsting for the bizarre in life. He was a walking
+document of planetary activity. He was still baked a brick red from a
+trip to Mercury a year before: he had a scar on his forehead, the
+result of jumping forty feet one day on the moon when he'd meant to
+jump only twenty; he was minus a finger which had been irreparably
+frost-bitten on Mars; and he had a crumpled nose that was the outcome
+of a brush with a ten-foot bandit on Venus who'd tried to kill him for
+his explosive gun and supply of glass, dyite-containing cartridges.
+
+He clutched Brand's fingers in a bone-mangling grip, and threw his hat
+into a far corner.
+
+"You're a fine friend!" he growled cheerfully. "Here I'm having a
+first rate time for myself, swimming and planing along the Riviera,
+with two more weeks leave ahead of me--and I get a call from the Old
+Man to report to you. What excuse have you for your crime?"
+
+"A junket to Jupiter," said Brand. "Would you call that a good
+excuse?"
+
+"Jupiter!" exclaimed Dex. "Wouldn't you know it? Of course you'd have
+to pick a spot four hundred million miles away from all that grand
+swimming I was having!"
+
+"Would you like to go back on leave, and have me choose someone else?"
+inquired Brand solemnly.
+
+"Well, no," said Dex hastily. "Now that I'm here, I suppose I might as
+well go through with it."
+
+Brand laughed. "Try and get you out of it! I know your attitude toward
+a real jaunt. And it's a real jaunt we've got ahead of us, too, old
+boy. We're going to the red spot. Immediately."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dex's sandy eyebrows shot up. "The red spot! That's where Coblenz and
+Heiroy were lost!"
+
+"And Journeyman," added Brand. "He's the latest victim of whatever's
+in the hell-hole."
+
+Dex whistled. "Journeyman too! Well, all I've got to say is that
+whatever's there must be strong medicine. Journeyman was a damn fine
+man, and as brave as they come. Have you any idea what it's all
+about?"
+
+"Not an idea. Nobody has. We're to go and find out--if we can. Are you
+all ready?"
+
+"All ready," said Dex.
+
+"So am I. We'll start at eleven o'clock in one of the Old Man's best
+cruisers. Meanwhile, we might as well go and hunt up a dinner
+somewhere, to fortify us against the synthetic pork chops and bread
+we'll be swallowing for the next fortnight."
+
+They went out; and at ten minutes of eleven reported at the great
+space ship hangars north of New York, with their luggage, a
+conspicuous item of which was a chess board to help while away the
+long, long days of spacial travel. Brand then paused a little while
+for a final check-up on directions.
+
+They clambered into the tiny control room and shut the hermetically
+sealed trap-door. Brand threw the control switch and precisely at
+eleven o'clock the conical shell of metal shot heavenward, gathering
+such speed that it was soon invisible to human eyes. He set their
+course toward the blazing speck that was Jupiter, four hundred million
+miles away; and then reported their start by radio to Commander
+Stone's night operator.
+
+The investigatory expedition to the ominous red spot of the giant of
+the solar system was on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_The Pipe-like Men_
+
+
+Brand began to slacken speed on the morning of the thirteenth day
+(morning, of course, being a technical term: there are no horizons in
+space for the sun to rise over). Jupiter was still an immense distance
+off; but it took a great while to slow the momentum of the space ship,
+which, in the frictionless emptiness of space, had been traveling
+faster and faster for nearly three hundred hours.
+
+Behind them was the distant ball of sun, so far off that it looked no
+larger than a red-hot penny. Before them was the gigantic disk of
+Jupiter, given a white tinge by the perpetual fog blankets, its
+outlines softened by its thick layer of atmosphere and cloud banks.
+Two of its nine satellites were in sight at the moment, with a third
+edging over the western rim.
+
+"Makes you think you're drunk and seeing triple, doesn't it?"
+commented Dex, who was staring out the thick glass panel beside Brand.
+"Nine moons! Almost enough for one planet!"
+
+Brand nodded abstractly, and concentrated on the control board.
+Rapidly the ship rocketed down toward the surface. The disk became a
+whirling, gigantic plate; and then an endless plain, with cloud
+formations beginning to take on definite outline.
+
+"About to enter Jupiter's atmosphere." Brand spoke into the radio
+transmitter. Over the invisible thread of radio connection between the
+space ship and Earth, four hundred million miles behind, flashed the
+message.
+
+"All right. For God's sake, be careful," came the answer, minutes
+later. "Say something at least every half hour, to let us know
+communication is unbroken. We will sound at ten second intervals."
+
+The sounding began: _peep_, a shrill little piping noise like the
+fiddle of a cricket. Ten seconds later it came again: _peep_.
+Thereafter, intermittently, it keened through the control room--a
+homely, comforting sound to let them know that there was a distant
+thread between them and Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lower the shell rocketed. The endless plain slowly ceased its rushing
+underneath them as they entered the planet's atmosphere and began to
+be pulled around with it in its revolution. Far to the west a faint
+red glow illumined the sky.
+
+The two men looked at each other, grimly, soberly.
+
+"We're here," said Dex, flexing the muscles of his powerful arms.
+
+"We are," said Brand, patting the gun in his holster.
+
+The rapid dusk of the giant planet began to close in on them. The thin
+sunlight darkened; and with its lowering, the red spot of Jupiter
+glared more luridly ahead of them. Silently the two men gazed at it,
+and wondered what it held.
+
+They shot the space ship toward it, and halted a few hundred miles
+away. Watery white light from the satellites, "that jitter around in
+the sky like a bunch of damned waterbugs," as Dex put it, was now the
+sole illumination.
+
+They hung motionless in their space shell, to wait through the
+five-hour Jovian night for the succeeding five hours of daylight to
+illumine a slow cruise over the red area that, in less than a year,
+had swallowed up three of Earth's space ships. And ever as they
+waited, dozing a little, speculating as to the nature of the danger
+they faced, the peep, peep of the radio shrilled in their ears to tell
+them that there was still a connection--though a very tenuous
+one--with their mother planet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Red spot ten miles away," said Brand in the transmitter. "We're
+approaching it slowly."
+
+The tiny sun had leaped up over Jupiter's horizon; and with its
+appearance they had sent the ship planing toward their mysterious
+destination. Beneath them the fog banks were thinning, and ahead of
+them were no clouds. For some reason there was a clarity unusual to
+Jupiter's atmosphere in the air above the red section.
+
+"Red spot one mile ahead, altitude forty thousand feet," reported
+Brand.
+
+He and Dex peered intently through the port glass panel. Ahead and far
+below, their eyes caught an odd metallic sheen. It was as though the
+ground there were carpeted with polished steel that reflected red
+firelight.
+
+Tense, filled with an excitement that set their pulses pounding
+wildly, they angled slowly down, nearer to the edge of the vast
+crimson area, closer to the ground. The radio keened its monotonous
+signal.
+
+Brand crawled to the transmitter, laboriously, for his body tipped the
+scales here at nearly four hundred pounds.
+
+"We can see the metallic glitter that Journeyman spoke of," he said.
+"No sign of life of any kind, though. The red glow seems to flicker a
+little."
+
+Closer the ship floated. Closer. To right and left of them for vast
+distances stretched the red area. Ahead of them for hundreds of miles
+they knew it extended.
+
+"We're right on it now," called Brand. "Right on it--we're going over
+the edge--we're--"
+
+Next instant he was sprawling on the floor, with Dex rolling
+helplessly on top of him, while the space ship bounced up twenty
+thousand feet as though propelled by a giant sling.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The peep, peep of the radio signalling stopped. The space ship rolled
+helplessly for a moment, then resumed an even keel. Brand and Dex
+gazed at each other.
+
+"What the hell?" said Dex.
+
+He started to get to his feet, put all his strength into the task of
+moving his Jupiter-weighted body, and crashed against the top of the
+control room.
+
+"Say!" he sputtered, rubbing his head. "Say, what _is_ this?"
+
+Brand, profiting by his mistake, rose more cautiously, shut off the
+atomic motor, and approached a glass panel again. "God knows what it
+is," he said with a shrug. "Somehow, with our passing into the red
+area, the pull of gravity has been reduced by about ten, that's all."
+
+"Oh, so that's all, is it? Well, what's happened to old Jupe's
+gravity?"
+
+Again Brand shrugged. "I haven't any idea. Your guess is as good as
+mine."
+
+He peered down through the panel, and stiffened in surprise.
+
+"Dex!" he cried. "We're moving! And the motor is shut off!"
+
+"We're drawing down closer to the ground, too," announced Dex,
+pointing to their altimeter. "Our altitude has been reduced five
+thousand feet in the last two minutes."
+
+Quickly Brand turned on the motor in reverse. The space ship, as the
+rushing, reddish ground beneath indicated, continued to glide forward
+as though pulled by an invisible rope. He turned on full power. The
+ship's progress was checked a little. A very little! And the metallic
+red surface under them grew nearer as they steadily lost altitude.
+
+"Something seems to have got us by the nose," said Dex. "We're on our
+way to the center of the red spot, I guess--to find whatever it was
+that Journeyman found. And the radio communication his been broken
+somehow...."
+
+Wordlessly, they stared out the panel, while the shell, quivering with
+the strain of the atomic motor's fight against whatever unseen force
+it was that relentlessly drew them forward, bore them swiftly toward
+the heart of the vast crimson area.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look!" cried Brand.
+
+For over an hour the ship had been propelled swiftly, irresistibly
+toward the center of the red spot. It had been up about forty thousand
+feet. Now, with a jerk that sent both men reeling, it had been drawn
+down to within fifteen thousand feet of the surface; and the sight
+that was now becoming more and more visible was incredible.
+
+Beneath was a vast, orderly checkerboard. Every alternate square was
+covered by what seemed a jointless metal plate. The open squares,
+plainly land under cultivation, were surrounded by gleaming fences
+that hooked each metal square with every other one of its kind as
+batteries are wired in series. Over these open squares progressed
+tiny, two legged figures, for the most part following gigantic
+shapeless animals like figures out of a dream. Ahead suddenly appeared
+the spires and towers of an enormous city!
+
+Metropolis and cultivated land! It was as unbelievable, on that raw
+new planet, as such a sight would have been could a traveler in time
+have observed it in the midst of a dim Pleistocene panorama of young
+Earth.
+
+It was instantly apparent that the city was their destination. Rapidly
+the little ship was rushed toward it; and, realizing at last the
+futility of its laboring, Brand cut off the atomic motor and let the
+shell drift.
+
+Over a group of squat square buildings their ship passed, decreasing
+speed and drifting lower with every moment. The lofty structures that
+were the nucleus of the strange city loomed closer. Now they were
+soaring slowly down a wide thoroughfare; and now, at last, they
+hovered above a great open square that was thronged with figures.
+
+Lower they dropped. Lower. And then they settled with a slight jar on
+a surface made of reddish metal; and the figures rushed to surround
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Looking out the glass panel at these figures, both Brand and Dex
+exclaimed aloud and covered their eyes for a moment to shut out the
+hideous sight of them. Now they examined them closely.
+
+Manlike they were: and yet like no human being conceivable to an Earth
+mind. They were tremendously tall--twelve feet at least--but as thin
+as so many animated poles. Their two legs were scarce four inches
+through, taper-less, boneless, like lengths of pipe; and like two
+flexible pipes they were joined to a slightly larger pipe of a torso
+that could not have been more than a foot in diameter. There were four
+arms, a pair on each side of the cylindrical body, that weaved feebly
+about like lengths of rubber hose.
+
+Set directly on the pipe-like body, as a pumpkin might be balanced on
+a pole, was a perfectly round cranium in which were glassy, staring
+eyes, with dull pupils like those of a sick dog. The nose was but a
+tab of flesh. The mouth was a minute, circular thing, soft and flabby
+looking, which opened and shut regularly with the creature's
+breathing. It resembled the snout-like mouth of a fish, of the sucker
+variety; and fish-like, too, was the smooth and slimy skin that
+covered the beanpole body.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hundreds of the repulsive things, there were. And all of them shoved
+and crowded, as a disorderly mob on Earth might do, to get close to
+the Earthmen's ship. Their big dull eyes peered in through the glass
+panels, and their hands--mere round blobs of gristle in the palms of
+which were set single sucker disks--pattered against the metal hull of
+the shell.
+
+"God!" said Brand with a shudder. "Fancy these things feeling over
+your body...."
+
+"They're hostile, whatever they are," said Dex. "Look out: that one's
+pointing something at you!"
+
+One of the slender, tottering creatures had raised an arm and leveled
+at Brand something that looked rather like an elongated, old-fashioned
+flashlight. Brand involuntarily ducked. The clear glass panel between
+them and the mob outside gave him a queasy feeling of being exposed to
+whatever missile might lurk in the thing's tube.
+
+"What do we do now?" demanded Dex with a shaky laugh. "You're chief of
+this expedition. I'm waiting for orders."
+
+"We wait right here," replied Brand. "We're safe in the shell till
+we're starved out. At least they can't get in to attack us."
+
+But it developed that, while the slimy looking things might not be
+able to get in, they had ways of reaching the Earthmen just the same!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The creature with the gun-like tube extended it somewhat further
+toward Brand.
+
+Brand felt a sharp, unpleasant tingle shoot through his body, as
+though he had received an electric shock. He winced, and cried out at
+the sudden pain of it.
+
+"What's the matter--" Dex began. But hardly had the words left his
+mouth when he, too, felt the shock. A couple of good, hearty Earth
+oaths exploded from his lips.
+
+The repulsive creature outside made an authoritative gesture. He
+seemed to be beckoning to them, his huge dull eyes glaring
+threateningly at the same moment.
+
+"Our beanpole friend is suggesting that we get out of the shell and
+stay awhile," said Dex with grim humor. "They seem anxious to
+entertain us--_ouch!_"
+
+As the two men made no move to obey the beckoning gesture, the
+creature had raised the tube again; and again the sharp, unpleasant
+shock shot through them.
+
+"What the devil are we going to do?" exclaimed Brand. "If we go out in
+that mob of nightmare things--it's going to be messy. As long as we
+stay in the shell we have some measure of protection."
+
+"Not much protection when they can sting us through metal and glass at
+will," growled Dex. "Do you suppose they can turn the juice on harder?
+Or is that bee-sting their best effort?"
+
+As though in direct answer to his words, the blob-like face of the
+being who seemed in authority convulsed with anger and he raised the
+tube again. This time the shock that came from it was sufficient to
+throw the two men to the floor.
+
+"Well, we can't stay in the ship, that's certain," said Brand. "I
+guess there's only one thing to do."
+
+Dex nodded. "Climb out of here and take as many of these skinny
+horrors with us into hell as we can," he agreed.
+
+Once more the shock stung them, as a reminder not to keep their
+captors waiting. With their shoulders bunched for abrupt action, and
+their guns in hand, the two men walked to the trap-door of the ship.
+They threw the heavy bolts, drew a deep breath--and flung open the
+door to charge unexpectedly toward the thickest mass of creatures that
+surrounded the ship!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a measure their charge was successful. Its very suddenness caught
+some of the tall monstrosities off guard. Half a dozen of them stopped
+the fragile glass bullets to writhe in horrible death on the red metal
+paving of the square. But that didn't last long.
+
+In less than a minute, thin, clammy arms were winding around the
+Earthmen's wrists, and their guns were wrenched from them. And then
+started a hand-to-hand encounter that was all the more hideous for
+being so unlike any fighting that might have occurred on Earth.
+
+With a furious growl Dex charged the nearest creature, whose huge
+round head swayed on its stalk of a body fully six feet above his own
+head. He gathered the long thin legs in a football grip, and sent the
+thing crashing full length on its back. The great head thumped
+resoundingly against the metal paving, and the creature lay
+motionless.
+
+For an instant Dex could only stare at the thing. It had been so easy,
+like overcoming a child. But even as that thought crossed his mind,
+two of the tall thin figures closed in behind him. Four pairs of arms
+wound around him, feebly but tenaciously, like wet seaweed.
+
+They began to constrict and wind tighter around him. He tore at them,
+dislodged all but two. His sturdy Earth leg went back to sweep the
+stalk-like legs of his attackers from under them. One of the things
+went down, to twist weakly in a laborious attempt to rise again. But
+the other, by sheer force of height and reach, began to bear Dex down.
+
+Savagely he laced out with his fists, battering the pulpy face that
+was pressing down close to his. The big eyes blinked shut, but the
+four hose-like arms did not relax their clasp. Dex's hands sought
+fiercely for the thing's throat. But it had no throat: the head, set
+directly on the thin shoulders, defied all throttling attempts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then, just as Dex was feeling that the end had come, he felt the
+creature wrench from him, and saw it slide in a tangle of arms and
+legs over the smooth metal pavement. He got shakily to his feet, to
+see Brand standing over him and flailing out with his fists at an ever
+tightening circle of towering figures.
+
+"Thanks," panted Dex. And he began again, tripping the twelve-foot
+things in order to get them down within reach, battering at the great
+pulpy heads, fighting blindly in that expressed craving to take as
+many of the creatures into hell with him as he could manage. Beside
+him fought Brand, steadily, coolly, grim of jaw and unblinking of eye.
+
+Already the struggle had gone on far longer than they had dreamed it
+might. For some reason the grotesque creatures delayed killing them.
+That they could do so any time they pleased, was certain: if the
+monsters could reach them with their shock-tubes through the double
+insulated hull of the space ship, they could certainly kill them out
+in the open.
+
+Yet they made no move to do so. The deadly tubes were not used. The
+screeching gargoyles, instead, devoted all their efforts to merely
+hurling their attenuated bodies on the two men as though they wished
+to capture them alive.
+
+Finally, however, the nature of the battle changed. The tallest of the
+attackers opened his tiny mouth and piped a signal. The ring of
+weaving tall bodies surrounding the two opened and became a U. The
+creatures in the curve of the U raised their shock-tubes and, with
+none of their own kind behind the victims to share in its discharge,
+released whatever power it was that lurked in them.
+
+The shock was terrific. Without the glass and metal of the ship to
+protect them, out in the open and defenceless, Brand and Dex got some
+indication of its real power.
+
+Writhing and twitching, feeling as though pierced by millions of red
+hot needles, they went down. A swarm of pipe-like bodies smothered
+them, and the fight was over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_The Coming of Greca_
+
+
+The numbing shock from the tubes left the Earthmen's bodies almost
+paralyzed for a time; but their brains were unfogged enough for them
+to observe only too clearly all that went on from the point of their
+capture.
+
+They were bound hand and foot. At a piping cry from the leader,
+several of the gangling figures picked them up in reedy arms and began
+to walk across the square, away from the ship. Brand noticed that his
+bearers' arms trembled with his weight: and sensed the flabbiness of
+the substance that took the place in them of good solid muscle.
+Physically these things were soft and ineffectual indeed. They had
+only the ominous tubes with which to fight.
+
+The eery procession, with the bound Earthmen carried in the lead,
+wound toward a great building fringing the square. In through the high
+arched entrance of this building they went, and up a sloping incline
+to its tower-top. Here, in a huge bare room, the two were
+unceremoniously dumped to the floor.
+
+While three of the things stood guard with the mysterious tubes,
+another unbound them. A whole shower of high pitched, piping syllables
+was hurled at them, speech which sounded threatening and contemptuous
+but was otherwise, of course, entirely unintelligible, and then the
+creatures withdrew. The heavy metal door was slammed shut, and they
+were alone.
+
+Brand drew a long breath, and began to feel himself all over for
+broken bones. He found none; he was still nerve-wracked from that last
+terrific shock, but otherwise whole and well.
+
+"Are you hurt, Dex?" he asked solicitously.
+
+"I guess not," replied Dex, getting uncertainly to his feet. "And I'm
+wondering why. It seems to me the brutes were uncommonly considerate
+of us--and I'm betting the reason is one we won't like!"
+
+Brand shrugged. "I guess we'll find out their intentions soon enough.
+Let's see what our surroundings look like."
+
+They walked to the nearest window-aperture, and gazed out on a
+startling and marvelous scene.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Beneath their high tower window, extending as far as the eye could
+reach, lay the city, lit by the reddish glare of the peculiar metal
+with which its streets were paved. For the most part the metropolis
+consisted of perfectly square buildings pierced by many windows to
+indicate that each housed a large number of inmates. But here and
+there grotesque turrets lanced the sky, and symbolic domes arched
+above the surrounding flat metal roofs.
+
+One building in particular they noticed. This was an enormous
+structure in the shape of a half-globe that reared its spherical
+height less than an eighth of a mile from the building they were in.
+It was situated off to their right at the foot of a vast, high-walled
+enclosure whose near end seemed to be formed by the right wall of
+their prison. They could only see it by leaning far out of the
+window; and it would not have come to their attention at all had they
+not heard it first--or, rather, heard the sound of something within
+it: for from it came a curious whining hum that never varied in
+intensity, something like the hum of a gigantic dynamo, only greater
+and of a more penetrating pitch.
+
+"Sounds as though it might be some sort of central power station,"
+said Brand. "But what could it supply power for?"
+
+"Give it up," said Dex. "For their damned shock-tubes, perhaps, among
+other things--"
+
+He broke off abruptly as a sound of sliding bolts came from the
+doorway. The two men whirled around to face the door, their fists
+doubling instinctively against whatever new danger might threaten
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The door was opened and two of their ugly, towering enemies came in,
+their tubes held conspicuously before them. Behind came another
+figure; and at sight of this one, so plainly not of the race of
+Jupiter, the Earthmen gasped with wonder.
+
+They saw a girl who might have come from Earth, save that she was
+taller than most Earth women--of a regal height that reached only an
+inch or two below Brand's own six foot one. She was beautifully
+formed, and had wavy dark hair and clear light blue eyes. A sort of
+sandal covered each small bare foot; and a gauzy tunic, reaching from
+above the knee to the shoulder, only half shielded her lovely figure.
+
+She was bearing a metal container in which was a mess of stuff
+evidently intended as food. The guards halted and stepped aside to let
+her pass into the room. Then they backed out, constantly keeping Dex
+and Brand covered with the tubes, and closed and barred the door.
+
+The girl smiled graciously at the admiration in the eyes of both the
+men--a message needing no inter-planetary interpretation. She
+advanced, and held the metal container toward them.
+
+"Eat," she said softly. "It is good food, and life giving."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For an instant Brand was dumbfounded. For here was language he could
+understand--which was incredible on this far-flung globe. Then he
+suddenly comprehended why her sentences were so intelligible.
+
+She was versed in mental telepathy. And versed to a high degree! He'd
+had some experience with telepathy on Venus; but theirs was a crude
+thought-speech compared to the fluency possessed by the beautiful girl
+before him.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked wonderingly.
+
+"I am Greca"--it was very hard to grasp names or abstract terms--"of
+the fourth satellite."
+
+"Then you are not of these monsters of Jupiter?"
+
+"Oh, no! I am their captive, as are all my people. We are but slaves
+of the tall ones."
+
+Brand glanced at Dex. "Here's a chance to get some information,
+perhaps," he murmured.
+
+Dex nodded; but meanwhile the girl had caught his thought. She
+smiled--a tragic, wistful smile.
+
+"I shall be happy to tell you anything in my power to tell," she
+informed him. "But you must be quick. I can only remain with you a
+little while."
+
+She sat down on the floor with them--the few bench-like things
+obviously used by the tall creatures as chairs were too high for
+them--and with the informality of adversity the three captives began
+to talk. Swiftly Brand got a little knowledge of Greca's position on
+Jupiter, and of the racial history that led up to it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Four of the nine satellites of Jupiter were now the home of living
+beings. But two only, at the dawn of history as Greca knew it, had
+been originally inhabited. These were the fourth and the second.
+
+On the fourth there dwelt a race, "like me," as Greca put it--a
+kindly, gentle people content to live and let live.
+
+On the second had been a race of immensely tall, but attenuated and
+physically feeble things with great heads and huge dull eyes and
+characters distinguished mainly for cold-blooded savagery.
+
+The inhabitants of the fourth satellite had remained in ignorance of
+the monsters on the second till one day "many, many ages ago," a fleet
+of clumsy ships appeared on the fourth satellite. From the ships had
+poured thousands of pipe-like creatures, armed with horrible rods of
+metal that killed instantly and without a sound. The things, it
+seemed, had crowded over the limits of their own globe, and had been
+forced to find more territory.
+
+They had made captive the entire population of the satellite.
+Then--for like all dangerous vermin they multiplied rapidly--they had
+overflowed to the first and fifth satellites--the others were
+uninhabitable--and finally to the dangerous surface of Jupiter itself.
+Everywhere they had gone, they had taken droves of Greca's people to
+be their slaves, "and the source of their food," added Greca, with a
+shudder; a statement that was at the moment unintelligible to the two
+men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brand stared sympathetically at her. "They treat them very badly?" he
+asked gently.
+
+"Terribly! Terribly!" said Greca, shuddering again.
+
+"But you seem quite privileged," he could not help saying.
+
+She shook her dainty head pathetically. "I am of high rank among my
+people. I am a priestess of our religion, which is the religion of The
+Great White One who rules all the sky everywhere. The Rogans" (it was
+the best translation Brand could make of her mental term for the slimy
+tall things that held them captive) "--the Rogans hold my fate over
+the heads of my race. Should they rebel, I would be thrown to the
+monster in the pen. Of course the Rogans could crush any revolt with
+their terrible tubes, but they do not want to kill their slaves if
+they can help it. They find it more effective to hold their
+priestesses in hostage."
+
+Brand turned from personal history to more vital subjects.
+
+"Why," he asked Greca, "are the shining red squares of metal laid
+everywhere over this empire of the Rogans?"
+
+"To make things light," was the reply. "When the Rogans first came to
+this mighty sphere, they could hardly move. Things are so heavy here,
+somehow. So their first thought was to drive my enslaved people to the
+casting and laying of the metal squares and the metal beams that
+connect them, in order to make things weigh less."
+
+"But how do the plates function?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Greca did not know this, save vaguely. She tried to express her little
+knowledge of the scientific achievements of the savage Rogans. After
+some moments Brand turned to Dex and said:
+
+"As near as I can get it, the Rogans, by this peculiar red metal
+alloy, manage to trap and divert the permanent lines of force, the
+magnetic field, of Jupiter itself. So the whole red spot is highly
+magnetized, which somehow upsets natural gravitational attraction. I
+suppose it is responsible for the discoloration of the ground, too."
+
+He turned to question the girl further about this, but she had got
+nervously to her feet already.
+
+"I'll be taken away soon," she said. "I was brought in here only to
+urge you to eat the food. I must be interpreter, since the Rogans
+speak not with the mind, and I know their hateful tongue."
+
+"Why are they so anxious for us to eat?" demanded Dex with an uneasy
+frown.
+
+"So you will be strong, and endure for a long time the--the ordeal
+they have in store for you," faltered the girl at last. "They intend
+to force from you the secret of the power that drove your ship here,
+so they too may have command of space."
+
+"But I don't understand," frowned Brand. "They must already have a
+means of space navigation. They came here to Jupiter from the
+satellites."
+
+"Their vessels are crude, clumsy things. The journey from the nearest
+satellite is the limit of their flying range. They have nothing like
+your wonderful little ships, and they want to know how to build and
+power them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She gazed sorrowfully at them and went on: "You see, yours is the
+fourth space ship to visit their kingdom; and that makes them fearful
+because it shows they are vulnerable to invasion. They want to stop
+that by invading your planet first. Besides their fear, there is their
+greed. Their looking-tubes reveal that yours is a fruitful and lovely
+sphere, and they are insatiable in their lust for new territories.
+Thus they plan to go to your planet as soon as they are able, and kill
+or enslave all the people there as they have killed and enslaved my
+race."
+
+"They'll have a job on their hands trying to do that!" declared Dex
+stoutly.
+
+But Brand paled. "They can do it!" he snapped. "Look at those
+death-tubes of theirs. We have no arms to compete with that." He
+turned to Greca. "So the Rogans plan to force the secret of our motors
+from us by torture?"
+
+She nodded, and caught his hand in hers.
+
+"Yes. They will do with you as they did with the six who came before
+you--and who died before surrendering the secret."
+
+"So! We know now what happened to Journeyman and the others!" burst
+out Dex. "I'll see 'em in hell before I'll talk!"
+
+"And me," nodded Brand. "But that doesn't cure the situation. As long
+as ships disappear in this red inferno, so long will the Old Man keep
+sending others to find out what's wrong. The Rogans will capture them
+as easily as they captured us. And eventually someone will happen
+along who'll weaken under torture. Then--"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He stopped. A dread vision filled his mind of Earth depopulated by the
+feebly ferocious Rogans, of rank on rank of Earth's vast armies
+falling in stricken rows at the shock of the Rogans' tubes.
+
+Greca caught the vision. She nodded. "Yes, that is what would happen
+if they found ways of reaching your globe."
+
+"But, God, Brand, we can't allow that!" cried Dex. "We've got to find
+a way to spike the guns of these walking gas-pipes, somehow!"
+
+Brand sighed heavily. "We are two against hundreds of thousands. We
+are bare-handed, and the Rogans have those damned tubes. Anyway, we
+are on the verge of death at this very moment. What under heaven can
+we do to spike their guns?"
+
+He was silent a moment: and in the silence the steady hum from the
+domed building outside came to his ears.
+
+"What's in that big, round topped building, Greca?" he asked quietly.
+
+"I do not know, exactly," replied the girl. "There is some sort of
+machinery in it, and to it go connecting beams from all the square
+metal plates everywhere. That is all I know."
+
+Brand started to question her further, but her time was up. The two
+guards poked their loathsome pumpkin heads in the doorway and
+contemptuously beckoned her out. She answered resignedly, in the
+piping Rogan tongue, and went with them. But she turned to wave shyly,
+commiseratingly at the two men; and the expression in her clear blue
+eyes as they rested on Brand made his heart contract and then leap on
+with a mighty bound.
+
+"We have in ally in her," murmured Brand. "Though God only knows if
+that will mean anything to us...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_In the Tower_
+
+
+"What I can't figure out," said Dex, striding up and down the big bare
+room, "is why we're needed to tell them about the atomic motor.
+They've got our ship, and three others besides. I should think they
+could learn about the motor just by taking it apart and studying it."
+
+Brand grinned mirthlessly, recalling the three years of intensive
+study it had taken him to learn the refinements of atomic motive
+power. "If you'd ever qualified as a space navigator, Dex, you'd know
+better. The Rogans are an advanced race; their control of polar
+magnetism and the marvelously high-powered telescopes Greca mentions
+prove that; but I doubt if they could ever analyze that atomic motor
+with no hint as to how it works."
+
+Silence descended on them again, in which each was lost in his own
+thoughts.
+
+How many hours had passed, the Earthmen did not know. They had spent
+the time in fruitless planning to escape from their tower room and go
+back to the ship again. Though how they could get away in the ship
+when the Rogans seemed able to propel it where-ever they wished
+against the utmost power of their motor, they did not attempt to
+consider.
+
+One of Jupiter's short nights had passed, however--a night weirdly
+made as light as day by red glares from the plates, which seemed to
+store up sunlight, among their other functions--and the tiny sun had
+risen to slant into their window at a sharp angle.
+
+Suddenly they heard the familiar drawing of the great bolts outside
+their door. It was opened, and a dozen or more of the Rogans came in,
+with Greca cowering piteously in their midst and attempting to
+communicate her distress to Brand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the head of the little band of Rogans was one the prisoners had not
+seen before. He was of great height, fully two feet taller than the
+others; and he carried himself with an air that proclaimed his
+importance.
+
+The tall one turned to Greca and addressed a few high-pitched, squeaky
+words to her. She shook her head; whereupon, at a hissed command, two
+of the Rogans caught her by the wrists and dragged her forward.
+
+"They have come to question you," Greca lamented to Brand. "And they
+want to do it through me. But I will not! I will not!"
+
+Brand smiled at her though his lips were pale.
+
+"You are powerless to struggle," he said. "Do as they ask. You cannot
+help us by refusing, and, in any case, I can promise that they won't
+learn anything from us."
+
+The tall Rogan teetered up to the prisoners on his gangling legs, and
+stared icily at them. Crouched beside him, her lovely body all one
+mute appeal to the Earthmen to forgive her for the part she was forced
+to play, was Greca.
+
+At length the Rogan leader spoke. He addressed his sibilant words to
+Greca, though his stony eyes were kept intently on the Earthmen.
+
+"He says," exclaimed Greca telepathically, "to inform you first that
+he is head of all the Rogan race on this globe, and that all on this
+globe must do as he commands."
+
+Brand nodded to show he understood the message.
+
+"He says he is going to ask you a few questions, and that you are to
+answer truthfully if you value your lives:"
+
+"First, he wants to know what the people of your world are like. Are
+they all the same as you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dex started to reply to that; but Brand flung him a warning look.
+"Tell him we are the least of the Earth people," he answered steadily.
+"Tell him we are of an inferior race. Most of those on Earth are
+giants five times as large as we are, and many times more powerful."
+
+Greca relayed the message in the whistling, piping Rogan tongue. The
+tall one stared, then hissed another sentence to the beautiful
+interpreter.
+
+"He wants to know," said Greca, "if there are cities on your globe as
+large and complete as this one."
+
+"There are cities on Earth that make this look like a--a--" Brand cast
+about for understandable similes--"like a collection of animal
+burrows."
+
+"He says to describe your planet's war weapons," was the next
+interpretation. And here Brand let himself go.
+
+With flights of fancy he hadn't known he was capable of, he described
+great airships, steered automatically and bristling with guns that
+discharged explosives powerful enough to kill everything within a
+range of a thousand miles. He told of billions of thirty-foot giants
+sheathed in an alloy that would make them invulnerable to any feeble
+rays the Rogans might have developed. He touched on the certain
+wholesale death that must overtake any hostile force that tried to
+invade the planet.
+
+"The Rogan shock-tubes are toys compared with the ray-weapons of
+Earth," he concluded. "We have arms that can nullify the effects of
+yours and kill at the same instant. We have--"
+
+But here the Rogan leader turned impatiently away. Greca had been
+translating sentence by sentence. Now the tall one barked out a few
+syllables in a squeaky voice.
+
+"He says he knows you are lying," sighed Greca. "For if you on Earth
+have tubes more effective than theirs why weren't you equipped with
+them on your expedition here to the red kingdom?"
+
+Brand bit his lips. "Check," he muttered. "The brute has a brain in
+that ugly head."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rogan leader spoke for a long time then; and at each singsong
+word, Greca quivered as though lashed by a whip. At length she turned
+to Brand.
+
+"He has been telling what his hordes can do, answering your boasts
+with boasts of his own. His words are awful! I won't tell you all he
+said. I will only say that he is convinced his shock-tubes are
+superior to any Earth arms, and that he states he will now illustrate
+their power to you to quell your insolence. I don't know what he means
+by that...."
+
+But she and the Earthmen were soon to find out.
+
+The Rogan leader stepped to the window and arrogantly beckoned Brand
+and Dex to join him there. They did; and the leader gazed out and down
+as though searching for something.
+
+He pointed. The two Earthmen followed his leveled arm with their eyes
+and saw, a hundred yards or so away, a bent and dreary figure trudging
+down the metal paving of the street. It was a figure like those to be
+seen on Earth, which placed it as belonging to Greca's race.
+
+The tall leader drew forth one of the shock-tubes. Seen near at hand,
+it was observed to be bafflingly simple in appearance. It seemed
+devoid of all mechanism--simply a tube of reddish metal with a sort of
+handle formed of a coil of heavy wire.
+
+The Rogan pointed the tube at the distant figure.
+
+Greca screamed, and screamed again. Coincident with her cry, as though
+the sound of it had felled him, the distant slave dropped to the
+pavement.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was all. The tube had merely been pointed: as far as Brand could
+see, the Rogan's "hand" had not moved on the barrel of the tube, nor
+even constricted about the coil of wire that formed its handle. Yet
+that distant figure had dropped. Furthermore, fumes of greasy black
+smoke now began to arise from the huddled body; and in less than
+thirty seconds there was left no trace of it on the gleaming metal
+pavement.
+
+"So that's what those things are like at full power!" breathed Dex.
+"My God!"
+
+The Rogan leader spoke a few words. Greca, huddled despairingly on the
+floor, crushed by this brutal annihilation of one of her country-men
+before her very eyes, did not translate. But translation was
+unnecessary. The Rogan's icy, triumphant eyes, the very posture of
+his grotesque body, spoke for him.
+
+"That," he was certainly saying, "is what will happen to any on your
+helpless planet who dare oppose the Rogan will!"
+
+He whipped out a command to the terror-stricken girl. She rose from
+her crouching position on the floor; and at length formulated the
+Rogan's last order:
+
+"You will explain the working of the engine that drove your space ship
+here."
+
+Dex laughed. It was a short bark of sound, totally devoid of humor,
+but very full of defiance. Brand thrust his hands into the pockets of
+his tunic, spread his legs apart, and began to whistle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A quiver that might have been of anger touched the Rogan leader's
+repulsive little mouth. He glared balefully at the uncowed Earthmen
+and spoke again, evidently repeating his command. The two turned their
+backs to him to indicate their refusal to obey.
+
+At that, the tall leader pointed to Dex. In an instant three of the
+guards had wound their double pairs of arms around his struggling
+body. Brand sprang to help him, but a touch of the mysterious
+discharge from the leader's tube sent him writhing to the floor.
+
+"It's no use, Brand," said Dex steadily. He too had stopped
+struggling, and now stood quietly in the slimy coils of his captors'
+arms. "I might as well go along with them and get it over with. I
+probably won't see you again. Good luck!"
+
+He was borne out of the room. The Rogan leader turned to Brand and
+spoke.
+
+"He says that if your comrade does not tell him what he wants to know,
+your turn will come next," sobbed Greca. "Oh! Why does not The Great
+White One strike these monsters to the dust!"
+
+She ran to Brand and pressed her satiny cheek to his. Then she was
+dragged roughly away.
+
+The great door clanged shut. The heavy outer fastenings clicked into
+place. Dex had gone to experience whatever it was that Journeyman and
+the rest had experienced in this red hell. And Brand was left behind
+to reflect on what dread torments this might comprise; and to pray
+desperately that no matter what might be done to his shrinking body he
+would be strong enough to refuse to betray his planet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_The Torture Chamber_
+
+
+Swiftly Dex was carried down the long ramp to the ground floor, the
+arms of his captors gripping him with painful tightness. Heading the
+procession was the immensely tall, gangling Rogan leader, clutching
+Greca by the wrist and dragging her indifferently along to be his
+mouthpiece.
+
+They did not stop at the street level; they continued on down another
+ramp, around a bend, descending an even steeper incline toward the
+bowels of Jupiter. Their descent ended at last before a huge metal
+barrier which, at a signal from the leader, drew smoothly up into the
+ceiling to disclose a gigantic, red-lit chamber underlying the
+foundations of the building.
+
+In fear and awe, Dex gazed around that huge room.
+
+It resembled in part a nightmare rearrangement of such a laboratory as
+might be found on Earth; and in part a torture chamber such as the
+most ferocious of savages might have devised had they been
+scientifically equipped to add contrivances of supercivilization to
+the furthering of their primitive lust for cruelty.
+
+There were great benches--head-high to the Earthman--to accommodate
+the height of the Rogan workmen. There were numberless metal
+instruments, and glass coils, and enormous retorts; and in one corner
+an orange colored flame burnt steadily on a naked metal plate, seeming
+to have no fuel or other source of being.
+
+There was a long rack of cruelly pointed and twisted instruments.
+Under this was a row of long, delicate pincers, with coils on the
+handles to indicate that they might be heated to fiendish precision of
+temperatures. There were gleaming metal racks with calibrated
+slide-rods and spring dials to denote just what pull was being exerted
+on whatever unhappy creature might be stretched taut on them. There
+were tiny cones of metal whose warped, baked appearance testified that
+they were little portable furnaces that could be placed on any desired
+portion of the anatomy, to slowly bake the selected disk of flesh
+beneath them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dex shuddered; and a low moan came from Greca, whose clear blue eyes
+had rested on the contents of this vast room before in her capacity as
+hostage and interpreter for the inhuman Rogans.
+
+And now another sense of Dex's began to register perception on his
+brain.
+
+A peculiar odor came to his nostrils. It was a musky, fetid odor, like
+that to be smelled in an animal cage; but it was sharper, more acrid
+than anything he had ever smelled on Earth. It smelled--ah, he had
+it!--_reptilian_. As though somewhere nearby a dozen titanic serpents
+were coiled ready to spring!
+
+Looking about, Dex saw a six-foot square door of bars in one wall of
+
+They travelled next day, reaching London at half-past two.  Betty had
+gone up in the early morning to prepare the way.  The dogs had been with
+Aunt Rosamund all this time.  Gyp missed their greeting; but the
+installation of Betty and the baby in the spare room that was now to be
+the nursery, absorbed all her first energies.  Light was just beginning
+to fail when, still in her fur, she took a key of the music-room and
+crossed the garden, to see how all had fared during her ten weeks'
+absence.  What a wintry garden!  How different from that languorous,
+warm, moonlit night when Daphne Wing had come dancing out of the shadow
+of the dark trees.  How bare and sharp the boughs against the grey,
+darkening sky--and not a song of any bird, not a flower!  She glanced
+back at the house. Cold and white it looked, but there were lights in her
+room and in the nursery, and someone just drawing the curtains.  Now that
+the leaves were off, one could see the other houses of the road, each
+different in shape and colour, as is the habit of London houses. It was
+cold, frosty; Gyp hurried down the path.  Four little icicles had formed
+beneath the window of the music-room.  They caught her eye, and, passing
+round to the side, she broke one off. There must be a fire in there, for
+she could see the flicker through the curtains not quite drawn.
+Thoughtful Ellen had been airing it!  But, suddenly, she stood still.
+There was more than a fire in there!  Through the chink in the drawn
+curtains she had seen two figures seated on the divan.  Something seemed
+to spin round in her head.  She turned to rush away.  Then a kind of
+superhuman coolness came to her, and she deliberately looked in. He and
+Daphne Wing!  His arm was round her neck.  The girl's face riveted her
+eyes.  It was turned a little back and up, gazing at him, the lips
+parted, the eyes hypnotized, adoring; and her arm round him seemed to
+shiver--with cold, with ecstasy?
+
+Again that something went spinning through Gyp's head.  She raised her
+hand.  For a second it hovered close to the glass.  Then, with a sick
+feeling, she dropped it and turned away.
+
+Never!  Never would she show him or that girl that they could hurt her!
+Never!  They were safe from any scene she would make--safe in their nest!
+And blindly, across the frosty grass, through the unlighted drawing-room,
+she went upstairs to her room, locked the door, and sat down before the
+fire.  Pride raged within her.  She stuffed her handkerchief between her
+teeth and lips; she did it unconsciously.  Her eyes felt scorched from
+the fire-flames, but she did not trouble to hold her hand before them.
+
+Suddenly she thought: 'Suppose I HAD loved him?' and laughed.  The
+handkerchief dropped to her lap, and she looked at it with wonder--it was
+blood-stained.  She drew back in the chair, away from the scorching of
+the fire, and sat quite still, a smile on her lips. That girl's eyes,
+like a little adoring dog's--that girl, who had fawned on her so!  She
+had got her "distinguished man"!  She sprang up and looked at herself in
+the glass; shuddered, turned her back on herself, and sat down again.  In
+her own house!  Why not here--in this room?  Why not before her eyes?
+Not yet a year married! It was almost funny--almost funny!  And she had
+her first calm thought: 'I am free.'
+
+But it did not seem to mean anything, had no value to a spirit so
+bitterly stricken in its pride.  She moved her chair closer to the fire
+again.  Why had she not tapped on the window?  To have seen that girl's
+face ashy with fright!  To have seen him--caught--caught in the room she
+had made beautiful for him, the room where she had played for him so many
+hours, the room that was part of the house that she paid for!  How long
+had they used it for their meetings--sneaking in by that door from the
+back lane?  Perhaps even before she went away--to bear his child!  And
+there began in her a struggle between mother instinct and her sense of
+outrage--a spiritual tug-of-war so deep that it was dumb, unconscious--to
+decide whether her baby would be all hers, or would have slipped away
+from her heart, and be a thing almost abhorrent.
+
+She huddled nearer the fire, feeling cold and physically sick.  And
+suddenly the thought came to her: 'If I don't let the servants know I'm
+here, they might go out and see what I saw!'  Had she shut the
+drawing-room window when she returned so blindly?  Perhaps already--! In
+a fever, she rang the bell, and unlocked the door.  The maid came up.
+
+"Please shut the drawing-room, window, Ellen; and tell Betty I'm afraid I
+got a little chill travelling.  I'm going to bed.  Ask her if she can
+manage with baby."  And she looked straight into the girl's face.  It
+wore an expression of concern, even of commiseration, but not that
+fluttered look which must have been there if she had known.
+
+"Yes, m'm; I'll get you a hot-water bottle, m'm.  Would you like a hot
+bath and a cup of hot tea at once?"
+
+Gyp nodded.  Anything--anything!  And when the maid was gone, she thought
+mechanically: 'A cup of hot tea!  How quaint!  What should it be but
+hot?'
+
+The maid came back with the tea; she was an affectionate girl, full of
+that admiring love servants and dogs always felt for Gyp, imbued, too,
+with the instinctive partisanship which stores itself one way or the
+other in the hearts of those who live in houses where the atmosphere
+lacks unity.  To her mind, the mistress was much too good for him--a
+foreigner--and such 'abits!  Manners--he hadn't any!  And no good would
+come of it.  Not if you took her opinion!
+
+"And I've turned the water in, m'm.  Will you have a little mustard in
+it?"
+
+Again Gyp nodded.  And the girl, going downstairs for the mustard, told
+cook there was "that about the mistress that makes you quite pathetic."
+The cook, who was fingering her concertina, for which she had a passion,
+answered:
+
+"She 'ides up her feelin's, same as they all does.  Thank 'eaven she
+haven't got that drawl, though, that 'er old aunt 'as--always makes me
+feel to want to say, 'Buck up, old dear, you ain't 'alf so precious as
+all that!'"
+
+And when the maid Ellen had taken the mustard and gone, she drew out her
+concertina to its full length and, with cautionary softness, began to
+practise "Home, Sweet Home!"
+
+To Gyp, lying in her hot bath, those muffled strains just mounted, not
+quite as a tune, rather as some far-away humming of large flies.  The
+heat of the water, the pungent smell of the mustard, and that droning hum
+slowly soothed and drowsed away the vehemence of feeling.  She looked at
+her body, silver-white in the yellowish water, with a dreamy sensation.
+Some day she, too, would love! Strange feeling she had never had before!
+Strange, indeed, that it should come at such a moment, breaking through
+the old instinctive shrinking.  Yes; some day love would come to her.
+There floated before her brain the adoring look on Daphne Wing's face,
+the shiver that had passed along her arm, and pitifulness crept into her
+heart--a half-bitter, half-admiring pitifulness.  Why should she
+grudge--she who did not love?  The sounds, like the humming of large
+flies, grew deeper, more vibrating.  It was the cook, in her passion
+swelling out her music on the phrase,
+
+     "Be it ne-e-ver so humble,
+      There's no-o place like home!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+That night, Gyp slept peacefully, as though nothing had happened, as
+though there were no future at all before her.  She woke into misery.
+Her pride would never let her show the world what she had discovered,
+would force her to keep an unmoved face and live an unmoved life.  But
+the struggle between mother-instinct and revolt was still going on within
+her.  She was really afraid to see her baby, and she sent word to Betty
+that she thought it would be safer if she kept quite quiet till the
+afternoon.
+
+She got up at noon and stole downstairs.  She had not realized how
+violent was her struggle over HIS child till she was passing the door of
+the room where it was lying.  If she had not been ordered to give up
+nursing, that struggle would never have come.  Her heart ached, but a
+demon pressed her on and past the door.  Downstairs she just pottered
+round, dusting her china, putting in order the books which, after
+house-cleaning, the maid had arranged almost too carefully, so that the
+first volumes of Dickens and Thackeray followed each other on the top
+shell, and the second volumes followed each other on the bottom shelf.
+And all the time she thought dully: 'Why am I doing this?  What do I care
+how the place looks?  It is not my home.  It can never be my home!'
+
+For lunch she drank some beef tea, keeping up the fiction of her
+indisposition.  After that, she sat down at her bureau to write.
+Something must be decided!  There she sat, her forehead on her hand, and
+nothing came--not one word--not even the way to address him; just the
+date, and that was all.  At a ring of the bell she started up.  She could
+not see anybody!  But the maid only brought a note from Aunt Rosamund,
+and the dogs, who fell frantically on their mistress and instantly began
+to fight for her possession. She went on her knees to separate them, and
+enjoin peace and good-will, and their little avid tongues furiously
+licked her cheeks. Under the eager touch of those wet tongues the band
+round her brain and heart gave way; she was overwhelmed with longing for
+her baby. Nearly a day since she had seen her--was it possible?  Nearly a
+day without sight of those solemn eyes and crinkled toes and fingers! And
+followed by the dogs, she went upstairs.
+
+The house was invisible from the music-room; and, spurred on by thought
+that, until Fiorsen knew she was back, those two might be there in each
+other's arms any moment of the day or night, Gyp wrote that evening:
+
+"DEAR GUSTAV,--We are back.--GYP."
+
+What else in the world could she say?  He would not get it till he woke
+about eleven.  With the instinct to take all the respite she could, and
+knowing no more than before how she would receive his return, she went
+out in the forenoon and wandered about all day shopping and trying not to
+think.  Returning at tea-time, she went straight up to her baby, and
+there heard from Betty that he had come, and gone out with his violin to
+the music-room.
+
+Bent over the child, Gyp needed all her self-control--but her
+self-control was becoming great.  Soon, the girl would come fluttering
+down that dark, narrow lane; perhaps at this very minute her fingers were
+tapping at the door, and he was opening it to murmur, "No; she's back!"
+Ah, then the girl would shrink!  The rapid whispering--some other
+meeting-place!  Lips to lips, and that look on the girl's face; till she
+hurried away from the shut door, in the darkness, disappointed!  And he,
+on that silver-and-gold divan, gnawing his moustache, his
+eyes--catlike---staring at the fire! And then, perhaps, from his violin
+would come one of those swaying bursts of sound, with tears in them, and
+the wind in them, that had of old bewitched her!  She said:
+
+"Open the window just a little, Betty dear--it's hot."
+
+There it was, rising, falling!  Music!  Why did it so move one even when,
+as now, it was the voice of insult!  And suddenly she thought: "He will
+expect me to go out there again and play for him. But I will not, never!"
+
+She put her baby down, went into her bedroom, and changed hastily into a
+teagown for the evening, ready to go downstairs.  A little shepherdess in
+china on the mantel-shelf attracted her attention, and she took it in her
+hand.  She had bought it three and more years ago, when she first came to
+London, at the beginning of that time of girl-gaiety when all life seemed
+a long cotillion, and she its leader.  Its cool daintiness made it seem
+the symbol of another world, a world without depths or shadows, a world
+that did not feel--a happy world!
+
+She had not long to wait before he tapped on the drawing-room window.
+She got up from the tea-table to let him in.  Why do faces gazing in
+through glass from darkness always look hungry--searching, appealing for
+what you have and they have not?  And while she was undoing the latch she
+thought: 'What am I going to say?  I feel nothing!'  The ardour of his
+gaze, voice, hands seemed to her so false as to be almost comic; even
+more comically false his look of disappointment when she said:
+
+"Please take care; I'm still brittle!"  Then she sat down again and
+asked:
+
+"Will you have some tea?"
+
+"Tea!  I have you back, and you ask me if I will have tea Gyp!  Do you
+know what I have felt like all this time?  No; you don't know. You know
+nothing of me--do you?"
+
+A smile of sheer irony formed on her lips--without her knowing it was
+there.  She said:
+
+"Have you had a good time at Count Rosek's?"  And, without her will,
+against her will, the words slipped out: "I'm afraid you've missed the
+music-room!"
+
+His stare wavered; he began to walk up and down.
+
+"Missed!  Missed everything!  I have been very miserable, Gyp. You've no
+idea how miserable.  Yes, miserable, miserable, miserable!"  With each
+repetition of that word, his voice grew gayer.  And kneeling down in
+front of her, he stretched his long arms round her till they met behind
+her waist: "Ah, my Gyp!  I shall be a different being, now."
+
+And Gyp went on smiling.  Between that, and stabbing these false raptures
+to the heart, there seemed to be nothing she could do. The moment his
+hands relaxed, she got up and said:
+
+"You know there's a baby in the house?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"Ah, the baby!  I'd forgotten.  Let's go up and see it."
+
+Gyp answered:
+
+"You go."
+
+She could feel him thinking: 'Perhaps it will make her nice to me!' He
+turned suddenly and went.
+
+She stood with her eyes shut, seeing the divan in the music-room and the
+girl's arm shivering.  Then, going to the piano, she began with all her
+might to play a Chopin polonaise.
+
+That evening they dined out, and went to "The Tales of Hoffmann." By such
+devices it was possible to put off a little longer what she was going to
+do.  During the drive home in the dark cab, she shrank away into her
+corner, pretending that his arm would hurt her dress; her exasperated
+nerves were already overstrung.  Twice she was on the very point of
+crying out: "I am not Daphne Wing!"  But each time pride strangled the
+words in her throat.  And yet they would have to come.  What other reason
+could she find to keep him from her room?
+
+But when in her mirror she saw him standing behind her--he had crept into
+the bedroom like a cat--fierceness came into her.  She could see the
+blood rush up in her own white face, and, turning round she said:
+
+"No, Gustav, go out to the music-room if you want a companion."
+
+He recoiled against the foot of the bed and stared at her haggardly, and
+Gyp, turning back to her mirror, went on quietly taking the pins out of
+her hair.  For fully a minute she could see him leaning there, moving his
+head and hands as though in pain. Then, to her surprise, he went.  And a
+vague feeling of compunction mingled with her sense of deliverance.  She
+lay awake a long time, watching the fire-glow brighten and darken on the
+ceiling, tunes from "The Tales of Hoffmann" running in her head; thoughts
+and fancies crisscrossing in her excited brain.  Falling asleep at last,
+she dreamed she was feeding doves out of her hand, and one of them was
+Daphne Wing.  She woke with a start.  The fire still burned, and by its
+light she saw him crouching at the foot of the bed, just as he had on
+their wedding-night--the same hungry yearning in his face, and an arm
+outstretched.  Before she could speak, he began:
+
+"Oh, Gyp, you don't understand!  All that is nothing--it is only you I
+want--always.  I am a fool who cannot control himself. Think!  It's a
+long time since you went away from me."
+
+Gyp said, in a hard voice:
+
+"I didn't want to have a child."
+
+He said quickly:
+
+"No; but now you have it you are glad.  Don't be unmerciful, my Gyp!  It
+is like you to be merciful.  That girl--it is all over--I swear--I
+promise."
+
+His hand touched her foot through the soft eiderdown.  Gyp thought: 'Why
+does he come and whine to me like this?  He has no dignity--none!'  And
+she said:
+
+"How can you promise?  You have made the girl love you.  I saw her face."
+
+He drew his hand back.
+
+"You saw her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was silent, staring at her.  Presently he began again:
+
+"She is a little fool.  I do not care for the whole of her as much as I
+care for your one finger.  What does it matter what one does in that way
+if one does not care?  The soul, not the body, is faithful.  A man
+satisfies appetite--it is nothing."
+
+Gyp said:
+
+"Perhaps not; but it is something when it makes others miserable."
+
+"Has it made you miserable, my Gyp?"
+
+His voice had a ring of hope.  She answered, startled:
+
+"I?  No--her."
+
+"Her?  Ho!  It is an experience for her--it is life.  It will do her no
+harm."
+
+"No; nothing will do anybody harm if it gives you pleasure."
+
+At that bitter retort, he kept silence a long time, now and then heaving
+a long sigh.  His words kept sounding in her heart: "The soul, not the
+body, is faithful."  Was he, after all, more faithful to her than she had
+ever been, could ever be--who did not love, had never loved him?  What
+right had she to talk, who had married him out of vanity, out of--what?
+
+And suddenly he said:
+
+"Gyp!  Forgive!"
+
+She uttered a sigh, and turned away her face.
+
+He bent down against the eider-down.  She could hear him drawing long,
+sobbing breaths, and, in the midst of her lassitude and hopelessness, a
+sort of pity stirred her.  What did it matter?  She said, in a choked
+voice:
+
+"Very well, I forgive."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+The human creature has wonderful power of putting up with things. Gyp
+never really believed that Daphne Wing was of the past.  Her sceptical
+instinct told her that what Fiorsen might honestly mean to do was very
+different from what he would do under stress of opportunity carefully put
+within his reach.
+
+Since her return, Rosek had begun to come again, very careful not to
+repeat his mistake, but not deceiving her at all.  Though his
+self-control was as great as Fiorsen's was small, she felt he had not
+given up his pursuit of her, and would take very good care that Daphne
+Wing was afforded every chance of being with her husband. But pride never
+let her allude to the girl.  Besides, what good to speak of her?  They
+would both lie--Rosek, because he obviously saw the mistaken line of his
+first attack; Fiorsen, because his temperament did not permit him to
+suffer by speaking the truth.
+
+Having set herself to endure, she found she must live in the moment,
+never think of the future, never think much of anything. Fortunately,
+nothing so conduces to vacuity as a baby.  She gave herself up to it with
+desperation.  It was a good baby, silent, somewhat understanding.  In
+watching its face, and feeling it warm against her, Gyp succeeded daily
+in getting away into the hypnotic state of mothers, and cows that chew
+the cud.  But the baby slept a great deal, and much of its time was
+claimed by Betty.  Those hours, and they were many, Gyp found difficult.
+She had lost interest in dress and household elegance, keeping just
+enough to satisfy her fastidiousness; money, too, was scarce, under the
+drain of Fiorsen's irregular requirements.  If she read, she began almost
+at once to brood.  She was cut off from the music-room, had not crossed
+its threshold since her discovery.  Aunt Rosamund's efforts to take her
+into society were fruitless--all the effervescence was out of that, and,
+though her father came, he never stayed long for fear of meeting Fiorsen.
+In this condition of affairs, she turned more and more to her own music,
+and one morning, after she had come across some compositions of her
+girlhood, she made a resolution. That afternoon she dressed herself with
+pleasure, for the first time for months, and sallied forth into the
+February frost.
+
+Monsieur Edouard Harmost inhabited the ground floor of a house in the
+Marylebone Road.  He received his pupils in a large back room overlooking
+a little sooty garden.  A Walloon by extraction, and of great vitality,
+he grew old with difficulty, having a soft corner in his heart for women,
+and a passion for novelty, even for new music, that was unappeasable.
+Any fresh discovery would bring a tear rolling down his mahogany cheeks
+into his clipped grey beard, the while he played, singing wheezily to
+elucidate the wondrous novelty; or moved his head up and down, as if
+pumping.
+
+When Gyp was shown into this well-remembered room he was seated, his
+yellow fingers buried in his stiff grey hair, grieving over a pupil who
+had just gone out.  He did not immediately rise, but stared hard at Gyp.
+
+"Ah," he said, at last, "my little old friend!  She has come back! Now
+that is good!"  And, patting her hand he looked into her face, which had
+a warmth and brilliance rare to her in these days.  Then, making for the
+mantelpiece, he took therefrom a bunch of Parma violets, evidently
+brought by his last pupil, and thrust them under her nose.  "Take them,
+take them--they were meant for me.  Now--how much have you forgotten?
+Come!"  And, seizing her by the elbow, he almost forced her to the piano.
+"Take off your furs.  Sit down!"
+
+And while Gyp was taking off her coat, he fixed on her his prominent
+brown eyes that rolled easily in their slightly blood-shot whites, under
+squared eyelids and cliffs of brow.  She had on what Fiorsen called her
+"humming-bird" blouse--dark blue, shot with peacock and old rose, and
+looked very warm and soft under her fur cap.  Monsieur Harmost's stare
+seemed to drink her in; yet that stare was not unpleasant, having in it
+only the rather sad yearning of old men who love beauty and know that
+their time for seeing it is getting short.
+
+"Play me the 'Carnival,'" he said.  "We shall soon see!"
+
+Gyp played.  Twice he nodded; once he tapped his fingers on his teeth,
+and showed her the whites of his eyes--which meant: "That will have to be
+very different!"  And once he grunted.  When she had finished, he sat
+down beside her, took her hand in his, and, examining the fingers, began:
+
+"Yes, yes, soon again!  Spoiling yourself, playing for that fiddler!
+Trop sympathique!  The back-bone, the back-bone--we shall improve that.
+Now, four hours a day for six weeks--and we shall have something again."
+
+Gyp said softly:
+
+"I have a baby, Monsieur Harmost."
+
+Monsieur Harmost bounded.
+
+"What!  That is a tragedy!"  Gyp shook her head.  "You like it?  A baby!
+Does it not squall?"
+
+"Very little."
+
+"Mon Dieu!  Well, well, you are still as beautiful as ever.  That is
+something.  Now, what can you do with this baby?  Could you get rid of it
+a little?  This is serious.  This is a talent in danger. A fiddler, and a
+baby!  C'est beaucoup!  C'est trop!"
+
+Gyp smiled.  And Monsieur Harmost, whose exterior covered much
+sensibility, stroked her hand.
+
+"You have grown up, my little friend," he said gravely.  "Never mind;
+nothing is wasted.  But a baby!"  And he chirruped his lips. "Well;
+courage!  We shall do things yet!"
+
+Gyp turned her head away to hide the quiver of her lips.  The scent of
+latakia tobacco that had soaked into things, and of old books and music,
+a dark smell, like Monsieur Harmost's complexion; the old brown curtains,
+the sooty little back garden beyond, with its cat-runs, and its one
+stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost's rolling
+eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to come week
+after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away, basking in
+his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous feeling that
+she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to play very
+finely some day.
+
+The voice of Monsieur Harmost, softly gruff, as if he knew what she was
+feeling, increased her emotion; her breast heaved under the humming-bird
+blouse, water came into her eyes, and more than ever her lips quivered.
+He was saying:
+
+"Come, come!  The only thing we cannot cure is age.  You were right to
+come, my child.  Music is your proper air.  If things are not all what
+they ought to be, you shall soon forget.  In music--in music, we can get
+away.  After all, my little friend, they cannot take our dreams from
+us--not even a wife, not even a husband can do that.  Come, we shall have
+good times yet!"
+
+And Gyp, with a violent effort, threw off that sudden weakness. From
+those who serve art devotedly there radiates a kind of glamour.  She left
+Monsieur Harmost that afternoon, infected by his passion for music.
+Poetic justice--on which all homeopathy is founded--was at work to try
+and cure her life by a dose of what had spoiled it.  To music, she now
+gave all the hours she could spare. She went to him twice a week,
+determining to get on, but uneasy at the expense, for monetary conditions
+were ever more embarrassed. At home, she practised steadily and worked
+hard at composition. She finished several songs and studies during the
+spring and summer, and left still more unfinished.  Monsieur Harmost was
+tolerant of these efforts, seeming to know that harsh criticism or
+disapproval would cut her impulse down, as frost cuts the life of
+flowers.  Besides, there was always something fresh and individual in her
+things.  He asked her one day:
+
+"What does your husband think of these?"
+
+Gyp was silent a moment.
+
+"I don't show them to him."
+
+She never had; she instinctively kept back the knowledge that she
+composed, dreading his ruthlessness when anything grated on his nerves,
+and knowing that a breath of mockery would wither her belief in herself,
+frail enough plant already.  The only person, besides her master, to whom
+she confided her efforts was--strangely enough--Rosek.  But he had
+surprised her one day copying out some music, and said at once: "I knew.
+I was certain you composed.  Ah, do play it to me!  I am sure you have
+talent."  The warmth with which he praised that little "caprice" was
+surely genuine; and she felt so grateful that she even played him others,
+and then a song for him to sing.  From that day, he no longer seemed to
+her odious; she even began to have for him a certain friendliness, to be
+a little sorry, watching him, pale, trim, and sphinx-like, in her
+drawing-room or garden, getting no nearer to the fulfilment of his
+desire.  He had never again made love to her, but she knew that at the
+least sign he would.  His face and his invincible patience made him
+pathetic to her.  Women such as Gyp cannot actively dislike those who
+admire them greatly.  She consulted him about Fiorsen's debts.  There
+were hundreds of pounds owing, it seemed, and, in addition, much to Rosek
+himself.  The thought of these debts weighed unbearably on her.  Why did
+he, HOW did he get into debt like this?  What became of the money he
+earned?  His fees, this summer, were good enough.  There was such a
+feeling of degradation about debt.  It was, somehow, so underbred to owe
+money to all sorts of people.  Was it on that girl, on other women, that
+he spent it all?  Or was it simply that his nature had holes in every
+pocket?
+
+Watching Fiorsen closely, that spring and early summer, she was conscious
+of a change, a sort of loosening, something in him had given way--as
+when, in winding a watch, the key turns on and on, the ratchet being
+broken.  Yet he was certainly working hard--perhaps harder than ever.
+She would hear him, across the garden, going over and over a passage, as
+if he never would be satisfied. But his playing seemed to her to have
+lost its fire and sweep; to be stale, and as if disillusioned.  It was
+all as though he had said to himself: "What's the use?"  In his face,
+too, there was a change.  She knew--she was certain that he was drinking
+secretly. Was it his failure with her?  Was it the girl?  Was it simply
+heredity from a hard-drinking ancestry?
+
+Gyp never faced these questions.  To face them would mean useless
+discussion, useless admission that she could not love him, useless
+asseveration from him about the girl, which she would not believe,
+useless denials of all sorts.  Hopeless!
+
+He was very irritable, and seemed especially to resent her music lessons,
+alluding to them with a sort of sneering impatience.  She felt that he
+despised them as amateurish, and secretly resented it. He was often
+impatient, too, of the time she gave to the baby.  His own conduct with
+the little creature was like all the rest of him. He would go to the
+nursery, much to Betty's alarm, and take up the baby; be charming with it
+for about ten minutes, then suddenly dump it back into its cradle, stare
+at it gloomily or utter a laugh, and go out.  Sometimes, he would come up
+when Gyp was there, and after watching her a little in silence, almost
+drag her away.
+
+Suffering always from the guilty consciousness of having no love for him,
+and ever more and more from her sense that, instead of saving him she
+was, as it were, pushing him down-hill--ironical nemesis for vanity!--Gyp
+was ever more and more compliant to his whims, trying to make up.  But
+this compliance, when all the time she felt further and further away, was
+straining her to breaking-point.  Hers was a nature that goes on
+passively enduring till something snaps; after that--no more.
+
+Those months of spring and summer were like a long spell of drought, when
+moisture gathers far away, coming nearer, nearer, till, at last, the
+deluge bursts and sweeps the garden.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+The tenth of July that year was as the first day of summer.  There had
+been much fine weather, but always easterly or northerly; now, after a
+broken, rainy fortnight, the sun had come in full summer warmth with a
+gentle breeze, drifting here and there scent of the opening lime blossom.
+In the garden, under the trees at the far end, Betty sewed at a garment,
+and the baby in her perambulator had her seventh morning sleep.  Gyp
+stood before a bed of pansies and sweet peas.  How monkeyish the pansies'
+faces!  The sweet peas, too, were like tiny bright birds fastened to
+green perches swaying with the wind.  And their little green tridents,
+growing out from the queer, flat stems, resembled the antennae of
+insects.  Each of these bright frail, growing things had life and
+individuality like herself!
+
+The sound of footsteps on the gravel made her turn.  Rosek was coming
+from the drawing-room window.  Rather startled, Gyp looked at him over
+her shoulder.  What had brought him at eleven o'clock in the morning?  He
+came up to her, bowed, and said:
+
+"I came to see Gustav.  He's not up yet, it seems.  I thought I would
+speak to you first.  Can we talk?"
+
+Hesitating just a second, Gyp drew off her gardening-gloves:
+
+"Of course!  Here?  Or in the drawing-room?"
+
+Rosek answered:
+
+"In the drawing-room, please."
+
+A faint tremor passed through her, but she led the way, and seated
+herself where she could see Betty and the baby.  Rosek stood looking down
+at her; his stillness, the sweetish gravity of his well-cut lips, his
+spotless dandyism stirred in Gyp a kind of unwilling admiration.
+
+"What is it?" she said.
+
+"Bad business, I'm afraid.  Something must be done at once.  I have been
+trying to arrange things, but they will not wait.  They are even
+threatening to sell up this house."
+
+With a sense of outrage, Gyp cried:
+
+"Nearly everything here is mine."
+
+Rosek shook his head.
+
+"The lease is in his name--you are his wife.  They can do it, I assure
+you."  A sort of shadow passed over his face, and he added: "I cannot
+help him any more--just now."
+
+Gyp shook her head quickly.
+
+"No--of course!  You ought not to have helped him at all.  I can't
+bear--"  He bowed, and she stopped, ashamed.  "How much does he owe
+altogether?"
+
+"About thirteen hundred pounds.  It isn't much, of course.  But there is
+something else--"
+
+"Worse?"
+
+Rosek nodded.
+
+"I am afraid to tell you; you will think again perhaps that I am trying
+to make capital out of it.  I can read your thoughts, you see.  I cannot
+afford that you should think that, this time."
+
+Gyp made a little movement as though putting away his words.
+
+"No; tell me, please."
+
+Rosek shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"There is a man called Wagge, an undertaker--the father of someone you
+know--"
+
+"Daphne Wing?"
+
+"Yes.  A child is coming.  They have made her tell.  It means the
+cancelling of her engagements, of course--and other things."
+
+Gyp uttered a little laugh; then she said slowly:
+
+"Can you tell me, please, what this Mr.--Wagge can do?"
+
+Again Rosek shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He is rabid--a rabid man of his class is dangerous.  A lot of money will
+be wanted, I should think--some blood, perhaps."
+
+He moved swiftly to her, and said very low:
+
+"Gyp, it is a year since I told you of this.  You did not believe me
+then.  I told you, too, that I loved you.  I love you more, now, a
+hundred times!  Don't move!  I am going up to Gustav."
+
+He turned, and Gyp thought he was really going; but he stopped and came
+back past the line of the window.  The expression of his face was quite
+changed, so hungry that, for a moment, she felt sorry for him.  And that
+must have shown in her face, for he suddenly caught at her, and tried to
+kiss her lips; she wrenched back, and he could only reach her throat, but
+that he kissed furiously.  Letting her go as suddenly, he bent his head
+and went out without a look.
+
+Gyp stood wiping his kisses off her throat with the back of her hand,
+dumbly, mechanically thinking: "What have I done to be treated like this?
+What HAVE I done?"  No answer came.  And such rage against men flared up
+that she just stood there, twisting her garden-gloves in her hands, and
+biting the lips he would have kissed.  Then, going to her bureau, she
+took up her address book and looked for the name: Wing, 88, Frankland
+Street, Fulham. Unhooking her little bag from off the back of the chair,
+she put her cheque-book into it.  Then, taking care to make no sound, she
+passed into the hall, caught up her sunshade, and went out, closing the
+door without noise.
+
+She walked quickly toward Baker Street.  Her gardening-hat was right
+enough, but she had come out without gloves, and must go into the first
+shop and buy a pair.  In the choosing of them, she forgot her emotions
+for a minute.  Out in the street again, they came back as bitterly as
+ever.  And the day was so beautiful--the sun bright, the sky blue, the
+clouds dazzling white; from the top of her 'bus she could see all its
+brilliance.  There rose up before her the memory of the man who had
+kissed her arm at the first ball.  And now--this!  But, mixed with her
+rage, a sort of unwilling compassion and fellow feeling kept rising for
+that girl, that silly, sugar-plum girl, brought to such a pass by--her
+husband. These feelings sustained her through that voyage to Fulham.  She
+got down at the nearest corner, walked up a widish street of narrow grey
+houses till she came to number eighty-eight.  On that newly scrubbed
+step, waiting for the door to open, she very nearly turned and fled.
+What exactly had she come to do?
+
+The door was opened by a servant in an untidy frock.  Mutton!  The smell
+of mutton--there it was, just as the girl had said!
+
+"Is Miss--Miss Daphne Wing at home?"
+
+In that peculiar "I've given it up" voice of domestics in small
+households, the servant answered:
+
+"Yes; Miss Disey's in.  D'you want to see 'er?  What nyme?"
+
+Gyp produced her card.  The maid looked at it, at Gyp, and at two
+brown-painted doors, as much as to say, "Where will you have it?" Then,
+opening the first of them, she said:
+
+"Tyke a seat, please; I'll fetch her."
+
+Gyp went in.  In the middle of what was clearly the dining-room, she
+tried to subdue the tremor of her limbs and a sense of nausea. The table
+against which her hand rested was covered with red baize, no doubt to
+keep the stains of mutton from penetrating to the wood. On the mahogany
+sideboard reposed a cruet-stand and a green dish of very red apples.  A
+bamboo-framed talc screen painted with white and yellow marguerites stood
+before a fireplace filled with pampas-grass dyed red.  The chairs were of
+red morocco, the curtains a brownish-red, the walls green, and on them
+hung a set of Landseer prints.  The peculiar sensation which red and
+green in juxtaposition produce on the sensitive was added to Gyp's
+distress. And, suddenly, her eyes lighted on a little deep-blue china
+bowl. It stood on a black stand on the mantel-piece, with nothing in it.
+To Gyp, in this room of red and green, with the smell of mutton creeping
+in, that bowl was like the crystallized whiff of another world.  Daphne
+Wing--not Daisy Wagge--had surely put it there! And, somehow, it touched
+her--emblem of stifled beauty, emblem of all that the girl had tried to
+pour out to her that August afternoon in her garden nearly a year ago.
+Thin Eastern china, good and really beautiful!  A wonder they allowed it
+to pollute this room!
+
+A sigh made her turn round.  With her back against the door and a white,
+scared face, the girl was standing.  Gyp thought: 'She has suffered
+horribly.'  And, going impulsively up to her, she held out her hand.
+
+Daphne Wing sighed out: "Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen!" and, bending over that hand,
+kissed it.  Gyp saw that her new glove was wet.  Then the girl relapsed,
+her feet a little forward, her head a little forward, her back against
+the door.  Gyp, who knew why she stood thus, was swept again by those two
+emotions--rage against men, and fellow feeling for one about to go
+through what she herself had just endured.
+
+"It's all right," she said, gently; "only, what's to be done?"
+
+Daphne Wing put her hands up over her white face and sobbed.  She sobbed
+so quietly but so terribly deeply that Gyp herself had the utmost
+difficulty not to cry.  It was the sobbing of real despair by a creature
+bereft of hope and strength, above all, of love--the sort of weeping
+which is drawn from desolate, suffering souls only by the touch of fellow
+feeling.  And, instead of making Gyp glad or satisfying her sense of
+justice, it filled her with more rage against her husband--that he had
+taken this girl's infatuation for his pleasure and then thrown her away.
+She seemed to see him discarding that clinging, dove-fair girl, for
+cloying his senses and getting on his nerves, discarding her with caustic
+words, to abide alone the consequences of her infatuation.  She put her
+hand timidly on that shaking shoulder, and stroked it.  For a moment the
+sobbing stopped, and the girl said brokenly:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I do love him so!"  At those naive words, a painful
+wish to laugh seized on Gyp, making her shiver from head to foot.  Daphne
+Wing saw it, and went on: "I know--I know--it's awful; but I do--and now
+he--he--"  Her quiet but really dreadful sobbing broke out again.  And
+again Gyp began stroking and stroking her shoulder.  "And I have been so
+awful to you!  Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, do forgive me, please!"
+
+All Gyp could find to answer, was:
+
+"Yes, yes; that's nothing!  Don't cry--don't cry!"
+
+Very slowly the sobbing died away, till it was just a long shivering, but
+still the girl held her hands over her face and her face down.  Gyp felt
+paralyzed.  The unhappy girl, the red and green room, the smell of
+mutton--creeping!
+
+At last, a little of that white face showed; the lips, no longer craving
+for sugar-plums, murmured:
+
+"It's you he--he--really loves all the time.  And you don't love
+him--that's what's so funny--and--and--I can't understand it.  Oh, Mrs.
+Fiorsen, if I could see him--just see him!  He told me never to come
+again; and I haven't dared.  I haven't seen him for three weeks--not
+since I told him about IT.  What shall I do?  What shall I do?"
+
+His being her own husband seemed as nothing to Gyp at that moment. She
+felt such pity and yet such violent revolt that any girl should want to
+crawl back to a man who had spurned her.  Unconsciously, she had drawn
+herself up and pressed her lips together.  The girl, who followed every
+movement, said piteously:
+
+"I don't seem to have any pride.  I don't mind what he does to me, or
+what he says, if only I can see him."
+
+Gyp's revolt yielded to her pity.  She said:
+
+"How long before?"
+
+"Three months."
+
+Three months--and in this state of misery!
+
+"I think I shall do something desperate.  Now that I can't dance, and
+THEY know, it's too awful!  If I could see him, I wouldn't mind anything.
+But I know--I know he'll never want me again.  Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I wish I
+was dead!  I do!"
+
+A heavy sigh escaped Gyp, and, bending suddenly, she kissed the girl's
+forehead.  Still that scent of orange blossom about her skin or hair, as
+when she asked whether she ought to love or not; as when she came,
+moth-like, from the tree-shade into the moonlight, spun, and fluttered,
+with her shadow spinning and fluttering before her.  Gyp turned away,
+feeling that she must relieve the strain and pointing to the bowl, said:
+
+"YOU put that there, I'm sure.  It's beautiful."
+
+The girl answered, with piteous eagerness:
+
+"Oh, would you like it?  Do take it.  Count Rosek gave it me."  She
+started away from the door.  "Oh, that's papa.  He'll be coming in!"
+
+Gyp heard a man clear his throat, and the rattle of an umbrella falling
+into a stand; the sight of the girl wilting and shrinking against the
+sideboard steadied her.  Then the door opened, and Mr. Wagge entered.
+Short and thick, in black frock coat and trousers, and a greyish beard,
+he stared from one to the other.  He looked what he was, an Englishman
+and a chapelgoer, nourished on sherry and mutton, who could and did make
+his own way in the world.  His features, coloured, as from a deep
+liverishness, were thick, like his body, and not ill-natured, except for
+a sort of anger in his small, rather piggy grey eyes.  He said in a voice
+permanently gruff, but impregnated with a species of professional
+ingratiation:
+
+"Ye-es?  Whom 'ave I--?"
+
+"Mrs. Fiorsen."
+
+"Ow!"  The sound of his breathing could be heard distinctly; he twisted a
+chair round and said:
+
+"Take a seat, won't you?"
+
+Gyp shook her head.
+
+In Mr. Wagge's face a kind of deference seemed to struggle with some more
+primitive emotion.  Taking out a large, black-edged handkerchief, he blew
+his nose, passed it freely over his visage, and turning to his daughter,
+muttered:
+
+"Go upstairs."
+
+The girl turned quickly, and the last glimpse of her white face whipped
+up Gyp's rage against men.  When the door was shut, Mr. Wagge cleared his
+throat; the grating sound carried with it the suggestion of enormously
+thick linings.
+
+He said more gruffly than ever:
+
+"May I ask what 'as given us the honour?"
+
+"I came to see your daughter."
+
+His little piggy eyes travelled from her face to her feet, to the walls
+of the room, to his own watch-chain, to his hands that had begun to rub
+themselves together, back to her breast, higher than which they dared not
+mount.  Their infinite embarrassment struck Gyp.  She could almost hear
+him thinking: 'Now, how can I discuss it with this attractive young
+female, wife of the scoundrel who's ruined my daughter?  Delicate-that's
+what it is!'  Then the words burst hoarsely from him.
+
+"This is an unpleasant business, ma'am.  I don't know what to say. Reelly
+I don't.  It's awkward; it's very awkward."
+
+Gyp said quietly:
+
+"Your daughter is desperately unhappy; and that can't be good for her
+just now."
+
+Mr. Wagge's thick figure seemed to writhe.  "Pardon me, ma'am," he
+spluttered, "but I must call your husband a scoundrel.  I'm sorry to be
+impolite, but I must do it.  If I had 'im 'ere, I don't know that I
+should be able to control myself--I don't indeed."  Gyp made a movement
+of her gloved hands, which he seemed to interpret as sympathy, for he
+went on in a stream of husky utterance: "It's a delicate thing before a
+lady, and she the injured party; but one has feelings.  From the first I
+said this dancin' was in the face of Providence; but women have no more
+sense than an egg.  Her mother she would have it; and now she's got it!
+Career, indeed! Pretty career!  Daughter of mine!  I tell you, ma'am, I'm
+angry; there's no other word for it--I'm angry.  If that scoundrel comes
+within reach of me, I shall mark 'im--I'm not a young man, but I shall
+mark 'im.  An' what to say to you, I'm sure I don't know. That my
+daughter should be'ave like that!  Well, it's made a difference to me.
+An' now I suppose her name'll be dragged in the mud.  I tell you frankly
+I 'oped you wouldn't hear of it, because after all the girl's got her
+punishment.  And this divorce-court--it's not nice--it's a horrible thing
+for respectable people.  And, mind you, I won't see my girl married to
+that scoundrel, not if you do divorce 'im.  No; she'll have her disgrace
+for nothing."
+
+Gyp, who had listened with her head a little bent, raised it suddenly,
+and said:
+
+"There'll be no public disgrace, Mr. Wagge, unless you make it yourself.
+If you send Daphne--Daisy--quietly away somewhere till her trouble's
+over, no one need know anything."
+
+Mr. Wagge, whose mouth had opened slightly, and whose breathing could
+certainly have been heard in the street, took a step forward and said:
+
+"Do I understand you to say that you're not goin' to take proceedings,
+ma'am?"
+
+Gyp shuddered, and shook her head.
+
+Mr. Wagge stood silent, slightly moving his face up and down.
+
+"Well," he said, at length, "it's more than she deserves; but I don't
+disguise it's a relief to me.  And I must say, in a young lady like you,
+and--and handsome, it shows a Christian spirit." Again Gyp shivered, and
+shook her head.  "It does.  You'll allow me to say so, as a man old
+enough to be your father--and a regular attendant."
+
+He held out his hand.  Gyp put her gloved hand into it.
+
+"I'm very, very sorry.  Please be nice to her."
+
+Mr. Wagge recoiled a little, and for some seconds stood ruefully rubbing
+his hands together and looking from side to side.
+
+"I'm a domestic man," he said suddenly.  "A domestic man in a serious
+line of life; and I never thought to have anything like this in my
+family--never!  It's been--well, I can't tell you what it's been!"
+
+Gyp took up her sunshade.  She felt that she must get away; at any moment
+he might say something she could not bear--and the smell of mutton rising
+fast!
+
+"I am sorry," she said again; "good-bye"; and moved past him to the door.
+She heard him breathing hard as he followed her to open it, and thought:
+'If only--oh! please let him be silent till I get outside!'  Mr. Wagge
+passed her and put his hand on the latch of the front door.  His little
+piggy eyes scanned her almost timidly.
+
+"Well," he said, "I'm very glad to have the privilege of your
+acquaintance; and, if I may say so, you 'ave--you 'ave my 'earty
+sympathy.  Good-day."
+
+The door once shut behind her, Gyp took a long breath and walked swiftly
+away.  Her cheeks were burning; and, with a craving for protection, she
+put up her sunshade.  But the girl's white face came up again before her,
+and the sound of her words:
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I wish I was dead!  I DO!"
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+Gyp walked on beneath her sunshade, making unconsciously for the peace of
+trees.  Her mind was a whirl of impressions--Daphne Wing's figure against
+the door, Mr. Wagge's puggy grey-bearded countenance, the red
+pampas-grass, the blue bowl, Rosek's face swooping at her, her last
+glimpse of her baby asleep under the trees!
+
+She reached Kensington Gardens, turned into that walk renowned for the
+beauty of its flowers and the plainness of the people who frequent it,
+and sat down on a bench.  It was near the luncheon-hour; nursemaids,
+dogs, perambulators, old gentlemen--all were hurrying a little toward
+their food.  They glanced with critical surprise at this pretty young
+woman, leisured and lonely at such an hour, trying to find out what was
+wrong with her, as one naturally does with beauty--bow legs or something,
+for sure, to balance a face like that!  But Gyp noticed none of them,
+except now and again a dog which sniffed her knees in passing.  For
+months she had resolutely cultivated insensibility, resolutely refused to
+face reality; the barrier was forced now, and the flood had swept her
+away.  "Proceedings!" Mr. Wagge had said.  To those who shrink from
+letting their secret affairs be known even by their nearest friends, the
+notion of a public exhibition of troubles simply never comes, and it had
+certainly never come to Gyp.  With a bitter smile she thought: 'I'm
+better off than she is, after all!  Suppose I loved him, too?  No, I
+never--never--want to love.  Women who love suffer too much.'
+
+She sat on that bench a long time before it came into her mind that she
+was due at Monsieur Harmost's for a music lesson at three o'clock.  It
+was well past two already; and she set out across the grass.  The summer
+day was full of murmurings of bees and flies, cooings of blissful
+pigeons, the soft swish and stir of leaves, and the scent of lime blossom
+under a sky so blue, with few white clouds slow, and calm, and full.  Why
+be unhappy?  And one of those spotty spaniel dogs, that have broad heads,
+with frizzy topknots, and are always rascals, smelt at her frock and
+moved round and round her, hoping that she would throw her sunshade on
+the water for him to fetch, this being in his view the only reason why
+anything was carried in the hand.
+
+She found Monsieur Harmost fidgeting up and down the room, whose opened
+windows could not rid it of the smell of latakia.
+
+"Ah," he said, "I thought you were not coming!  You look pale; are you
+not well?  Is it the heat?  Or"--he looked hard into her face--"has
+someone hurt you, my little friend?"  Gyp shook her head. "Ah, yes," he
+went on irritably; "you tell me nothing; you tell nobody nothing!  You
+close up your pretty face like a flower at night.  At your age, my child,
+one should make confidences; a secret grief is to music as the east wind
+to the stomach.  Put off your mask for once."  He came close to her.
+"Tell me your troubles.  It is a long time since I have been meaning to
+ask. Come!  We are only once young; I want to see you happy."
+
+But Gyp stood looking down.  Would it be relief to pour her soul out?
+Would it?  His brown eyes questioned her like an old dog's. She did not
+want to hurt one so kind.  And yet--impossible!
+
+Monsieur Harmost suddenly sat down at the piano.  Resting his hands on
+the keys, he looked round at her, and said:
+
+"I am in love with you, you know.  Old men can be very much in love, but
+they know it is no good--that makes them endurable. Still, we like to
+feel of use to youth and beauty; it gives us a little warmth.  Come; tell
+me your grief!"  He waited a moment, then said irritably: "Well, well, we
+go to music then!"
+
+It was his habit to sit by her at the piano corner, but to-day he stood
+as if prepared to be exceptionally severe.  And Gyp played, whether from
+overexcited nerves or from not having had any lunch, better than she had
+ever played.  The Chopin polonaise in A flat, that song of revolution,
+which had always seemed so unattainable, went as if her fingers were
+being worked for her.  When she had finished, Monsieur Harmost, bending
+forward, lifted one of her hands and put his lips to it.  She felt the
+scrub of his little bristly beard, and raised her face with a deep sigh
+of satisfaction. A voice behind them said mockingly:
+
+"Bravo!"
+
+There, by the door, stood Fiorsen.
+
+"Congratulations, madame!  I have long wanted to see you under the
+inspiration of your--master!"
+
+Gyp's heart began to beat desperately.  Monsieur Harmost had not moved.
+A faint grin slowly settled in his beard, but his eyes were startled.
+
+Fiorsen kissed the back of his own hand.
+
+"To this old Pantaloon you come to give your heart.  Ho--what a lover!"
+
+Gyp saw the old man quiver; she sprang up and cried:
+
+"You brute!"
+
+Fiorsen ran forward, stretching out his arms toward Monsieur Harmost, as
+if to take him by the throat.
+
+The old man drew himself up.  "Monsieur," he said, "you are certainly
+drunk."
+
+Gyp slipped between, right up to those outstretched hands till she could
+feel their knuckles against her.  Had he gone mad?  Would he strangle
+her?  But her eyes never moved from his, and his began to waver; his
+hands dropped, and, with a kind of moan, he made for the door.
+
+Monsieur Harmost's voice behind her said:
+
+"Before you go, monsieur, give me some explanation of this imbecility!"
+
+Fiorsen spun round, shook his fist, and went out muttering.  They heard
+the front door slam.  Gyp turned abruptly to the window, and there, in
+her agitation, she noticed little outside things as one does in moments
+of bewildered anger.  Even into that back yard, summer had crept.  The
+leaves of the sumach-tree were glistening; in a three-cornered little
+patch of sunlight, a black cat with a blue ribbon round its neck was
+basking.  The voice of one hawking strawberries drifted melancholy from a
+side street.  She was conscious that Monsieur Harmost was standing very
+still, with a hand pressed to his mouth, and she felt a perfect passion
+of compunction and anger.  That kind and harmless old man--to be so
+insulted!  This was indeed the culmination of all Gustav's outrages!  She
+would never forgive him this!  For he had insulted her as well, beyond
+what pride or meekness could put up with.  She turned, and, running up to
+the old man, put both her hands into his.
+
+"I'm so awfully sorry.  Good-bye, dear, dear Monsieur Harmost; I shall
+come on Friday!"  And, before he could stop her, she was gone.
+
+She dived into the traffic; but, just as she reached the pavement on the
+other side, felt her dress plucked and saw Fiorsen just behind her.  She
+shook herself free and walked swiftly on.  Was he going to make a scene
+in the street?  Again he caught her arm.  She stopped dead, faced round
+on him, and said, in an icy voice:
+
+"Please don't make scenes in the street, and don't follow me like this.
+If you want to talk to me, you can--at home."
+
+Then, very calmly, she turned and walked on.  But he was still following
+her, some paces off.  She did not quicken her steps, and to the first
+taxicab driver that passed she made a sign, and saying:
+
+"Bury Street--quick!" got in.  She saw Fiorsen rush forward, too late to
+stop her.  He threw up his hand and stood still, his face deadly white
+under his broad-brimmed hat.  She was far too angry and upset to care.
+
+From the moment she turned to the window at Monsieur Harmost's, she had
+determined to go to her father's.  She would not go back to Fiorsen; and
+the one thought that filled her mind was how to get Betty and her baby.
+Nearly four!  Dad was almost sure to be at his club.  And leaning out,
+she said: "No; Hyde Park Corner, please."
+
+The hall porter, who knew her, after calling to a page-boy: "Major
+Winton--sharp, now!" came specially out of his box to offer her a seat
+and The Times.
+
+Gyp sat with it on her knee, vaguely taking in her surroundings--a thin
+old gentleman anxiously weighing himself in a corner, a white-calved
+footman crossing with a tea-tray; a number of hats on pegs; the
+green-baize board with its white rows of tapelike paper, and three
+members standing before it.  One of them, a tall, stout,
+good-humoured-looking man in pince-nez and a white waistcoat, becoming
+conscious, removed his straw hat and took up a position whence, without
+staring, he could gaze at her; and Gyp knew, without ever seeming to
+glance at him, that he found her to his liking.  She saw her father's
+unhurried figure passing that little group, all of whom were conscious
+now, and eager to get away out of this sanctum of masculinity, she met
+him at the top of the low steps, and said:
+
+"I want to talk to you, Dad."
+
+He gave her a quick look, selected his hat, and followed to the door.  In
+the cab, he put his hand on hers and said:
+
+"Now, my dear?"
+
+But all she could get out was:
+
+"I want to come back to you.  I can't go on there.  It's--it's--I've come
+to an end."
+
+His hand pressed hers tightly, as if he were trying to save her the need
+for saying more.  Gyp went on:
+
+"I must get baby; I'm terrified that he'll try to keep her, to get me
+back."
+
+"Is he at home?"
+
+"I don't know.  I haven't told him that I'm going to leave him."
+
+Winton looked at his watch and asked:
+
+"Does the baby ever go out as late as this?"
+
+"Yes; after tea.  It's cooler."
+
+"I'll take this cab on, then.  You stay and get the room ready for her.
+Don't worry, and don't go out till I return."
+
+And Gyp thought: 'How wonderful of him not to have asked a single
+question.'
+
+The cab stopped at the Bury Street door.  She took his hand, put it to
+her cheek, and got out.  He said quietly:
+
+"Do you want the dogs?"
+
+"Yes--oh, yes!  He doesn't care for them."
+
+"All right.  There'll be time to get you in some things for the night
+after I come back.  I shan't run any risks to-day.  Make Mrs. Markey give
+you tea."
+
+Gyp watched the cab gather way again, saw him wave his hand; then, with a
+deep sigh, half anxiety, half relief, she rang the bell.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+When the cab debouched again into St. James' Street, Winton gave the
+order: "Quick as you can!"  One could think better going fast! A little
+red had come into his brown cheeks; his eyes under their half-drawn lids
+had a keener light; his lips were tightly closed; he looked as he did
+when a fox was breaking cover.  Gyp could do no wrong, or, if she could,
+he would stand by her in it as a matter of course.  But he was going to
+take no risks--make no frontal attack. Time for that later, if necessary.
+He had better nerves than most people, and that kind of steely
+determination and resource which makes many Englishmen of his class
+formidable in small operations. He kept his cab at the door, rang, and
+asked for Gyp, with a kind of pleasure in his ruse.
+
+"She's not in yet, sir.  Mr. Fiorsen's in."
+
+"Ah!  And baby?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I'll come in and see her.  In the garden?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Dogs there, too?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  And will you have tea, please, sir?"
+
+"No, thanks."  How to effect this withdrawal without causing gossip, and
+yet avoid suspicion of collusion with Gyp?  And he added: "Unless Mrs.
+Fiorsen comes in."
+
+Passing out into the garden, he became aware that Fiorsen was at the
+dining-room window watching him, and decided to make no sign that he knew
+this.  The baby was under the trees at the far end, and the dogs came
+rushing thence with a fury which lasted till they came within scent of
+him.  Winton went leisurely up to the perambulator, and, saluting Betty,
+looked down at his grandchild. She lay under an awning of muslin, for
+fear of flies, and was awake.  Her solemn, large brown eyes, already like
+Gyp's, regarded him with gravity.  Clucking to her once or twice, as is
+the custom, he moved so as to face the house.  In this position, he had
+Betty with her back to it.  And he said quietly:
+
+"I'm here with a message from your mistress, Betty.  Keep your head;
+don't look round, but listen to me.  She's at Bury Street and going to
+stay there; she wants you and baby and the dogs."  The stout woman's eyes
+grew round and her mouth opened.  Winton put his hand on the
+perambulator.  "Steady, now!  Go out as usual with this thing.  It's
+about your time; and wait for me at the turning to Regent's Park.  I'll
+come on in my cab and pick you all up.  Don't get flurried; don't take
+anything; do exactly as you usually would. Understand?"
+
+It is not in the nature of stout women with babies in their charge to
+receive such an order without question.  Her colour, and the heaving of
+that billowy bosom made Winton add quickly:
+
+"Now, Betty, pull yourself together; Gyp wants you.  I'll tell you all
+about it in the cab."
+
+The poor woman, still heaving vaguely, could only stammer:
+
+"Yes, sir.  Poor little thing!  What about its night-things?  And Miss
+Gyp's?"
+
+Conscious of that figure still at the window, Winton made some passes
+with his fingers at the baby, and said:
+
+"Never mind them.  As soon as you see me at the drawing-room window, get
+ready and go.  Eyes front, Betty; don't look round; I'll cover your
+retreat!  Don't fail Gyp now.  Pull yourself together."
+
+With a sigh that could have been heard in Kensington, Betty murmured:
+"Very well, sir; oh dear!" and began to adjust the strings of her bonnet.
+With nods, as if he had been the recipient of some sage remarks about the
+baby, Winton saluted, and began his march again towards the house.  He
+carefully kept his eyes to this side and to that, as if examining the
+flowers, but noted all the same that Fiorsen had receded from the window.
+Rapid thought told him that the fellow would come back there to see if he
+were gone, and he placed himself before a rose-bush, where, at that
+reappearance, he could make a sign of recognition.  Sure enough, he came;
+and Winton quietly raising his hand to the salute passed on through the
+drawing-room window.  He went quickly into the hall, listened a second,
+and opened the dining-room door.  Fiorsen was pacing up and down, pale
+and restless.  He came to a standstill and stared haggardly at Winton,
+who said:
+
+"How are you?  Gyp not in?"
+
+"No."
+
+Something in the sound of that "No" touched Winton with a vague--a very
+vague--compunction.  To be left by Gyp!  Then his heart hardened again.
+The fellow was a rotter--he was sure of it, had always been sure.
+
+"Baby looks well," he said.
+
+Fiorsen turned and began to pace up and down again.
+
+"Where is Gyp?  I want her to come in.  I want her."
+
+Winton took out his watch.
+
+"It's not late."  And suddenly he felt a great aversion for the part he
+was playing.  To get the baby; to make Gyp safe--yes!  But, somehow, not
+this pretence that he knew nothing about it.  He turned on his heel and
+walked out.  It imperilled everything; but he couldn't help it.  He could
+not stay and go on prevaricating like this.  Had that woman got clear?
+He went back into the drawing-room.  There they were--just passing the
+side of the house. Five minutes, and they would be down at the turning.
+He stood at the window, waiting.  If only that fellow did not come in!
+Through the partition wall he could hear him still tramping up and down
+the dining-room.  What a long time a minute was!  Three had gone when he
+heard the dining-room door opened, and Fiorsen crossing the hall to the
+front door.  What was he after, standing there as if listening?  And
+suddenly he heard him sigh.  It was just such a sound as many times, in
+the long-past days, had escaped himself, waiting, listening for
+footsteps, in parched and sickening anxiety. Did this fellow then really
+love--almost as he had loved?  And in revolt at spying on him like this,
+he advanced and said:
+
+"Well, I won't wait any longer."
+
+Fiorsen started; he had evidently supposed himself alone.  And Winton
+thought: 'By Jove! he does look bad!'
+
+"Good-bye!" he said; but the words: "Give my love to Gyp," perished on
+their way up to his lips.
+
+"Good-bye!" Fiorsen echoed.  And Winton went out under the trellis,
+conscious of that forlorn figure still standing at the half-opened door.
+Betty was nowhere in sight; she must have reached the turning.  His
+mission had succeeded, but he felt no elation.  Round the corner, he
+picked up his convoy, and, with the perambulator hoisted on to the taxi,
+journeyed on at speed.  He had said he would explain in the cab, but the
+only remark he made was:
+
+"You'll all go down to Mildenham to-morrow."
+
+And Betty, who had feared him ever since their encounter so many years
+ago, eyed his profile, without daring to ask questions. Before he reached
+home, Winton stopped at a post-office, and sent this telegram:
+
+"Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.--WINTON."
+
+It salved a conscience on which that fellow's figure in the doorway
+weighed; besides, it was necessary, lest Fiorsen should go to the police.
+The rest must wait till he had talked with Gyp.
+
+There was much to do, and it was late before they dined, and not till
+Markey had withdrawn could they begin their talk.
+
+Close to the open windows where Markey had placed two hydrangea
+plants--just bought on his own responsibility, in token of silent
+satisfaction--Gyp began.  She kept nothing back, recounting the whole
+miserable fiasco of her marriage.  When she came to Daphne Wing and her
+discovery in the music-room, she could see the glowing end of her
+father's cigar move convulsively.  That insult to his adored one seemed
+to Winton so inconceivable that, for a moment, he stopped her recital by
+getting up to pace the room.  In her own house--her own house!
+And--after that, she had gone on with him! He came back to his chair and
+did not interrupt again, but his stillness almost frightened her.
+
+Coming to the incidents of the day itself, she hesitated.  Must she tell
+him, too, of Rosek--was it wise, or necessary?  The all-or-nothing
+candour that was part of her nature prevailed, and she went straight on,
+and, save for the feverish jerking of his evening shoe, Winton made no
+sign.  When she had finished, he got up and slowly extinguished the end
+of his cigar against the window-sill; then looking at her lying back in
+her chair as if exhausted, he said: "By God!" and turned his face away to
+the window.
+
+At that hour before the theatres rose, a lull brooded in the London
+streets; in this quiet narrow one, the town's hum was only broken by the
+clack of a half-drunken woman bickering at her man as they lurched along
+for home, and the strains of a street musician's fiddle, trying to make
+up for a blank day.  The sound vaguely irritated Winton, reminding him of
+those two damnable foreigners by whom she had been so treated.  To have
+them at the point of a sword or pistol--to teach them a lesson!  He heard
+her say:
+
+"Dad, I should like to pay his debts.  Then things would be as they were
+when I married him."
+
+He emitted an exasperated sound.  He did not believe in heaping coals of
+fire.
+
+"I want to make sure, too, that the girl is all right till she's over her
+trouble.  Perhaps I could use some of that--that other money, if mine is
+all tied up?"
+
+It was sheer anger, not disapproval of her impulse, that made him
+hesitate; money and revenge would never be associated in his mind. Gyp
+went on:
+
+"I want to feel as if I'd never let him marry me.  Perhaps his debts are
+all part of that--who knows?  Please!"
+
+Winton looked at her.  How like--when she said that "Please!"  How
+like--her figure sunk back in the old chair, and the face lifted in
+shadow!  A sort of exultation came to him.  He had got her back--had got
+her back!
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+Fiorsen's bedroom was--as the maid would remark--"a proper pigsty"--until
+he was out of it and it could be renovated each day.  He had a talent for
+disorder, so that the room looked as if three men instead of one had gone
+to bed in it.  Clothes and shoes, brushes, water, tumblers,
+breakfast-tray, newspapers, French novels, and cigarette-ends--none were
+ever where they should have been; and the stale fumes from the many
+cigarettes he smoked before getting up incommoded anyone whose duty it
+was to take him tea and shaving-water.  When, on that first real summer
+day, the maid had brought Rosek up to him, he had been lying a long time
+on his back, dreamily watching the smoke from his cigarette and four
+flies waltzing in the sunlight that filtered through the green
+sun-blinds.  This hour, before he rose, was his creative moment, when he
+could best see the form of music and feel inspiration for its rendering.
+Of late, he had been stale and wretched, all that side of him dull; but
+this morning he felt again the delicious stir of fancy, that vibrating,
+half-dreamy state when emotion seems so easily to find shape and the mind
+pierces through to new expression.  Hearing the maid's knock, and her
+murmured: "Count Rosek to see you, sir," he thought: 'What the devil does
+he want?' A larger nature, drifting without control, in contact with a
+smaller one, who knows his own mind exactly, will instinctively be
+irritable, though he may fail to grasp what his friend is after.
+
+And pushing the cigarette-box toward Rosek, he turned away his head.  It
+would be money he had come about, or--that girl!  That girl--he wished
+she was dead!  Soft, clinging creature!  A baby! God!  What a fool he had
+been--ah, what a fool!  Such absurdity! Unheard of!  First Gyp--then her!
+He had tried to shake the girl off.  As well try to shake off a burr!
+How she clung!  He had been patient--oh, yes--patient and kind, but how
+go on when one was tired--tired of her--and wanting only Gyp, only his
+own wife?  That was a funny thing!  And now, when, for an hour or two, he
+had shaken free of worry, had been feeling happy--yes, happy--this fellow
+must come, and stand there with his face of a sphinx!  And he said
+pettishly:
+
+"Well, Paul! sit down.  What troubles have you brought?"
+
+Rosek lit a cigarette but did not sit down.  He struck even Fiorsen by
+his unsmiling pallor.
+
+"You had better look out for Mr. Wagge, Gustav; he came to me yesterday.
+He has no music in his soul."
+
+Fiorsen sat up.
+
+"Satan take Mr. Wagge!  What can he do?"
+
+"I am not a lawyer, but I imagine he can be unpleasant--the girl is
+young."
+
+Fiorsen glared at him, and said:
+
+"Why did you throw me that cursed girl?"
+
+Rosek answered, a little too steadily:
+
+"I did not, my friend."
+
+"What!  You did.  What was your game?  You never do anything without a
+game.  You know you did.  Come; what was your game?"
+
+"You like pleasure, I believe."
+
+Fiorsen said violently:
+
+"Look here: I have done with your friendship--you are no friend to me.  I
+have never really known you, and I should not wish to.  It is finished.
+Leave me in peace."
+
+Rosek smiled.
+
+"My dear, that is all very well, but friendships are not finished like
+that.  Moreover, you owe me a thousand pounds."
+
+"Well, I will pay it."  Rosek's eyebrows mounted.  "I will.  Gyp will
+lend it to me."
+
+"Oh!  Is Gyp so fond of you as that?  I thought she only loved her
+music-lessons."
+
+Crouching forward with his knees drawn up, Fiorsen hissed out:
+
+"Don't talk of Gyp!  Get out of this!  I will pay you your thousand
+pounds."
+
+Rosek, still smiling, answered:
+
+"Gustav, don't be a fool!  With a violin to your shoulder, you are a man.
+Without--you are a child.  Lie quiet, my friend, and think of Mr. Wagge.
+But you had better come and talk it over with me. Good-bye for the
+moment.  Calm yourself."  And, flipping the ash off his cigarette on to
+the tray by Fiorsen's elbow, he nodded and went.
+
+Fiorsen, who had leaped out of bed, put his hand to his head.  The cursed
+fellow!  Cursed be every one of them--the father and the girl, Rosek and
+all the other sharks!  He went out on to the landing.  The house was
+quite still below.  Rosek had gone--good riddance!  He called, "Gyp!"  No
+answer.  He went into her room. Its superlative daintiness struck his
+fancy.  A scent of cyclamen! He looked out into the garden.  There was
+the baby at the end, and that fat woman.  No Gyp!  Never in when she was
+wanted.  Wagge!  He shivered; and, going back into his bedroom, took a
+brandy-bottle from a locked cupboard and drank some.  It steadied him; he
+locked up the cupboard again, and dressed.
+
+Going out to the music-room, he stopped under the trees to make passes
+with his fingers at the baby.  Sometimes he felt that it was an adorable
+little creature, with its big, dark eyes so like Gyp's. Sometimes it
+excited his disgust--a discoloured brat.  This morning, while looking at
+it, he thought suddenly of the other that was coming--and grimaced.
+Catching Betty's stare of horrified amazement at the face he was making
+at her darling, he burst into a laugh and turned away into the
+music-room.
+
+While he was keying up his violin, Gyp's conduct in never having come
+there for so long struck him as bitterly unjust.  The girl--who cared
+about the wretched girl?  As if she made any real difference!  It was all
+so much deeper than that.  Gyp had never loved him, never given him what
+he wanted, never quenched his thirst of her!  That was the heart of it.
+No other woman he had ever had to do with had been like that--kept his
+thirst unquenched. No; he had always tired of them before they tired of
+him.  She gave him nothing really--nothing!  Had she no heart or did she
+give it elsewhere?  What was that Paul had said about her music-lessons?
+And suddenly it struck him that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing, of
+where she went or what she did.  She never told him anything.
+Music-lessons?  Every day, nearly, she went out, was away for hours.  The
+thought that she might go to the arms of another man made him put down
+his violin with a feeling of actual sickness.  Why not?  That deep and
+fearful whipping of the sexual instinct which makes the ache of jealousy
+so truly terrible was at its full in such a nature as Fiorsen's.  He drew
+a long breath and shuddered.  The remembrance of her fastidious pride,
+her candour, above all her passivity cut in across his fear.  No, not
+Gyp!
+
+He went to a little table whereon stood a tantalus, tumblers, and a
+syphon, and pouring out some brandy, drank.  It steadied him.  And he
+began to practise.  He took a passage from Brahms' violin concerto and
+began to play it over and over.  Suddenly, he found he was repeating the
+same flaws each time; he was not attending.  The fingering of that thing
+was ghastly!  Music-lessons!  Why did she take them?  Waste of time and
+money--she would never be anything but an amateur!  Ugh!  Unconsciously,
+he had stopped playing.  Had she gone there to-day?  It was past
+lunch-time.  Perhaps she had come in.
+
+He put down his violin and went back to the house.  No sign of her! The
+maid came to ask if he would lunch.  No!  Was the mistress to be in?  She
+had not said.  He went into the dining-room, ate a biscuit, and drank a
+brandy and soda.  It steadied him.  Lighting a cigarette, he came back to
+the drawing-room and sat down at Gyp's bureau.  How tidy!  On the little
+calendar, a pencil-cross was set against to-day--Wednesday, another
+against Friday.  What for? Music-lessons!  He reached to a pigeon-hole,
+and took out her address-book.  "H--Harmost, 305A, Marylebone Road," and
+against it the words in pencil, "3 P.M."
+
+Three o'clock.  So that was her hour!  His eyes rested idly on a little
+old coloured print of a Bacchante, with flowing green scarf, shaking a
+tambourine at a naked Cupid, who with a baby bow and arrow in his hands,
+was gazing up at her.  He turned it over; on the back was written in a
+pointed, scriggly hand, "To my little friend.--E. H."  Fiorsen drew smoke
+deep down into his lungs, expelled it slowly, and went to the piano.  He
+opened it and began to play, staring vacantly before him, the cigarette
+burned nearly to his lips.  He went on, scarcely knowing what he played.
+At last he stopped, and sat dejected.  A great artist?  Often, nowadays,
+he did not care if he never touched a violin again.  Tired of standing up
+before a sea of dull faces, seeing the blockheads knock their silly hands
+one against the other!  Sick of the sameness of it all! Besides--besides,
+were his powers beginning to fail?  What was happening to him of late?
+
+He got up, went into the dining-room, and drank some brandy.  Gyp could
+not bear his drinking.  Well, she shouldn't be out so much--taking
+music-lessons.  Music-lessons!  Nearly three o'clock.  If he went for
+once and saw what she really did--Went, and offered her his escort home!
+An attention.  It might please her.  Better, anyway, than waiting here
+until she chose to come in with her face all closed up.  He drank a
+little more brandy--ever so little--took his hat and went.  Not far to
+walk, but the sun was hot, and he reached the house feeling rather dizzy.
+A maid-servant opened the door to him.
+
+"I am Mr. Fiorsen.  Mrs. Fiorsen here?"
+
+"Yes, sir; will you wait?"
+
+Why did she look at him like that?  Ugly girl!  How hateful ugly people
+were!  When she was gone, he reopened the door of the waiting-room, and
+listened.
+
+Chopin!  The polonaise in A flat.  Good!  Could that be Gyp?  Very good!
+He moved out, down the passage, drawn on by her playing, and softly
+turned the handle.  The music stopped.  He went in.
+
+When Winton had left him, an hour and a half later that afternoon,
+Fiorsen continued to stand at the front door, swaying his body to and
+fro.  The brandy-nurtured burst of jealousy which had made him insult his
+wife and old Monsieur Harmost had died suddenly when Gyp turned on him in
+the street and spoke in that icy voice; since then he had felt fear,
+increasing every minute.  Would she forgive?  To one who always acted on
+the impulse of the moment, so that he rarely knew afterward exactly what
+he had done, or whom hurt, Gyp's self-control had ever been mysterious
+and a little frightening. Where had she gone?  Why did she not come in?
+Anxiety is like a ball that rolls down-hill, gathering momentum.  Suppose
+she did not come back!  But she must--there was the baby--their baby!
+
+For the first time, the thought of it gave him unalloyed satisfaction.
+He left the door, and, after drinking a glass to steady him, flung
+himself down on the sofa in the drawing-room. And while he lay there, the
+brandy warm within him, he thought: 'I will turn over a new leaf; give up
+drink, give up everything, send the baby into the country, take Gyp to
+Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome--anywhere out of this England, anywhere, away
+from that father of hers and all these stiff, dull folk!  She will like
+that--she loves travelling!'  Yes, they would be happy!  Delicious
+nights--delicious days--air that did not weigh you down and make you feel
+that you must drink--real inspiration--real music!  The acrid wood-smoke
+scent of Paris streets, the glistening cleanness of the Thiergarten, a
+serenading song in a Florence back street, fireflies in the summer dusk
+at Sorrento--he had intoxicating memories of them all!  Slowly the warmth
+of the brandy died away, and, despite the heat, he felt chill and
+shuddery.  He shut his eyes, thinking to sleep till she came in.  But
+very soon he opened them, because--a thing usual with him of late--he saw
+such ugly things--faces, vivid, changing as he looked, growing ugly and
+uglier, becoming all holes--holes--horrible holes--Corruption--matted,
+twisted, dark human-tree-roots of faces!  Horrible!  He opened his eyes,
+for when he did that, they always went.  It was very silent.  No sound
+from above.  No sound of the dogs.  He would go up and see the baby.
+
+While he was crossing the hall, there came a ring.  He opened the door
+himself.  A telegram!  He tore the envelope.
+
+"Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.--WINTON."
+
+He gave a short laugh, shut the door in the boy's face, and ran upstairs;
+why--heaven knew!  There was nobody there now!  Nobody! Did it mean that
+she had really left him--was not coming back?  He stopped by the side of
+Gyp's bed, and flinging himself forward, lay across it, burying his face.
+And he sobbed, as men will, unmanned by drink.  Had he lost her?  Never
+to see her eyes closing and press his lips against them!  Never to soak
+his senses in her loveliness!  He leaped up, with the tears still wet on
+his face. Lost her?  Absurd!  That calm, prim, devilish Englishman, her
+father--he was to blame--he had worked it all--stealing the baby!
+
+He went down-stairs and drank some brandy.  It steadied him a little.
+What should he do?  "Letter follows."  Drink, and wait? Go to Bury
+Street?  No.  Drink!  Enjoy himself!
+
+He laughed, and, catching up his hat, went out, walking furiously at
+first, then slower and slower, for his head began to whirl, and, taking a
+cab, was driven to a restaurant in Soho.  He had eaten nothing but a
+biscuit since his breakfast, always a small matter, and ordered soup and
+a flask of their best Chianti--solids he could not face.  More than two
+hours he sat, white and silent, perspiration on his forehead, now and
+then grinning and flourishing his fingers, to the amusement and sometimes
+the alarm of those sitting near.  But for being known there, he would
+have been regarded with suspicion.  About half-past nine, there being no
+more wine, he got up, put a piece of gold on the table, and went out
+without waiting for his change.
+
+In the streets, the lamps were lighted, but daylight was not quite gone.
+He walked unsteadily, toward Piccadilly.  A girl of the town passed and
+looked up at him.  Staring hard, he hooked his arm in hers without a
+word; it steadied him, and they walked on thus together.  Suddenly he
+said:
+
+"Well, girl, are you happy?"  The girl stopped and tried to disengage her
+arm; a rather frightened look had come into her dark-eyed powdered face.
+Fiorsen laughed, and held it firm.  "When the unhappy meet, they walk
+together.  Come on!  You are just a little like my wife.  Will you have a
+drink?"
+
+The girl shook her head, and, with a sudden movement, slipped her arm out
+of this madman's and dived away like a swallow through the pavement
+traffic.  Fiorsen stood still and laughed with his head thrown back.  The
+second time to-day.  SHE had slipped from his grasp.  Passers looked at
+him, amazed.  The ugly devils!  And with a grimace, he turned out of
+Piccadilly, past St. James's Church, making for Bury Street.  They
+wouldn't let him in, of course--not they!  But he would look at the
+windows; they had flower-boxes--flower-boxes!  And, suddenly, he groaned
+aloud--he had thought of Gyp's figure busy among the flowers at home.
+Missing the right turning, he came in at the bottom of the street.  A
+fiddler in the gutter was scraping away on an old violin.  Fiorsen
+stopped to listen.  Poor devil!  "Pagliacci!"  Going up to the man--dark,
+lame, very shabby, he took out some silver, and put his other hand on the
+man's shoulder.
+
+"Brother," he said, "lend me your fiddle.  Here's money for you. Come;
+lend it to me.  I am a great violinist."
+
+"Vraiment, monsieur!"
+
+"Ah!  Vraiment!  Voyons!  Donnez--un instant--vous verrez."
+
+The fiddler, doubting but hypnotized, handed him the fiddle; his dark
+face changed when he saw this stranger fling it up to his shoulder and
+the ways of his fingers with bow and strings.  Fiorsen had begun to walk
+up the street, his eyes searching for the flower-boxes.  He saw them,
+stopped, and began playing "Che faro?"  He played it wonderfully on that
+poor fiddle; and the fiddler, who had followed at his elbow, stood
+watching him, uneasy, envious, but a little entranced.  Sapristi!  This
+tall, pale monsieur with the strange face and the eyes that looked drunk
+and the hollow chest, played like an angel!  Ah, but it was not so easy
+as all that to make money in the streets of this sacred town!  You might
+play like forty angels and not a copper!  He had begun another tune--like
+little pluckings at your heart--tres joli--tout a fait ecoeurant! Ah,
+there it was--a monsieur as usual closing the window, drawing the
+curtains!  Always same thing!  The violin and the bow were thrust back
+into his hands; and the tall strange monsieur was off as if devils were
+after him--not badly drunk, that one!  And not a sou thrown down!  With
+an uneasy feeling that he had been involved in something that he did not
+understand, the lame, dark fiddler limped his way round the nearest
+corner, and for two streets at least did not stop.  Then, counting the
+silver Fiorsen had put into his hand and carefully examining his fiddle,
+he used the word, "Bigre!" and started for home.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+Gyp hardly slept at all.  Three times she got up, and, stealing to the
+door, looked in at her sleeping baby, whose face in its new bed she could
+just see by the night-light's glow.  The afternoon had shaken her nerves.
+Nor was Betty's method of breathing while asleep conducive to the slumber
+of anything but babies.  It was so hot, too, and the sound of the violin
+still in her ears.  By that little air of Poise, she had known for
+certain it was Fiorsen; and her father's abrupt drawing of the curtains
+had clinched that certainty.  If she had gone to the window and seen him,
+she would not have been half so deeply disturbed as she was by that echo
+of an old emotion.  The link which yesterday she thought broken for good
+was reforged in some mysterious way.  The sobbing of that old fiddle had
+been his way of saying, "Forgive me; forgive!"  To leave him would have
+been so much easier if she had really hated him; but she did not.
+However difficult it may be to live with an artist, to hate him is quite
+as difficult.  An artist is so flexible--only the rigid can be hated.
+She hated the things he did, and him when he was doing them; but
+afterward again could hate him no more than she could love him, and that
+was--not at all.  Resolution and a sense of the practical began to come
+back with daylight.  When things were hopeless, it was far better to
+recognize it and harden one's heart.
+
+Winton, whose night had been almost as sleepless--to play like a beggar
+in the street, under his windows, had seemed to him the limit!--announced
+at breakfast that he must see his lawyer, make arrangements for the
+payment of Fiorsen's debts, and find out what could be done to secure Gyp
+against persecution.  Some deed was probably necessary; he was vague on
+all such matters.  In the meantime, neither Gyp nor the baby must go out.
+Gyp spent the morning writing and rewriting to Monsieur Harmost, trying
+to express her chagrin, but not saying that she had left Fiorsen.
+
+Her father came back from Westminster quiet and angry.  He had with
+difficulty been made to understand that the baby was Fiorsen's property,
+so that, if the fellow claimed it, legally they would be unable to
+resist.  The point opened the old wound, forced him to remember that his
+own daughter had once belonged to another--father.  He had told the
+lawyer in a measured voice that he would see the fellow damned first, and
+had directed a deed of separation to be prepared, which should provide
+for the complete payment of Fiorsen's existing debts on condition that he
+left Gyp and the baby in peace.  After telling Gyp this, he took an
+opportunity of going to the extempore nursery and standing by the baby's
+cradle.  Until then, the little creature had only been of interest as
+part of Gyp; now it had for him an existence of its own--this tiny,
+dark-eyed creature, lying there, watching him so gravely, clutching his
+finger.  Suddenly the baby smiled--not a beautiful smile, but it made on
+Winton an indelible impression.
+
+Wishing first to settle this matter of the deed, he put off going down to
+Mildenham; but "not trusting those two scoundrels a yard"--for he never
+failed to bracket Rosek and Fiorsen--he insisted that the baby should not
+go out without two attendants, and that Gyp should not go out alone.  He
+carried precaution to the point of accompanying her to Monsieur Harmost's
+on the Friday afternoon, and expressed a wish to go in and shake hands
+with the old fellow.  It was a queer meeting.  Those two had as great
+difficulty in finding anything to say as though they were denizens of
+different planets. And indeed, there ARE two planets on this earth!
+When, after a minute or so of the friendliest embarrassment, he had
+retired to wait for her, Gyp sat down to her lesson.
+
+Monsieur Harmost said quietly:
+
+"Your letter was very kind, my little friend--and your father is very
+kind.  But, after all, it was a compliment your husband paid me."  His
+smile smote Gyp; it seemed to sum up so many resignations.  "So you stay
+again with your father!"  And, looking at her very hard with his
+melancholy brown eyes, "When will you find your fate, I wonder?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+Monsieur Harmost's eyebrows rose.
+
+"Ah," he said, "you think!  No, that is impossible!"  He walked twice
+very quickly up and down the room; then spinning round on his heel, said
+sharply: "Well, we must not waste your father's time. To work."
+
+Winton's simple comment in the cab on the way home was:
+
+"Nice old chap!"
+
+At Bury Street, they found Gyp's agitated parlour-maid.  Going to do the
+music-room that morning, she had "found the master sitting on the sofa,
+holding his head, and groaning awful.  He's not been at home, ma'am,
+since you--you went on your visit, so I didn't know what to do.  I ran
+for cook and we got him up to bed, and not knowing where you'd be, ma'am,
+I telephoned to Count Rosek, and he came--I hope I didn't do wrong--and
+he sent me down to see you. The doctor says his brain's on the touch and
+go, and he keeps askin' for you, ma'am.  So I didn't know what to do."
+
+Gyp, pale to the lips, said:
+
+"Wait here a minute, Ellen," and went into the dining-room.  Winton
+followed.  She turned to him at once, and said:
+
+"Oh, Dad, what am I to do?  His brain!  It would be too awful to feel I'd
+brought that about."
+
+Winton grunted.  Gyp went on:
+
+"I must go and see.  If it's really that, I couldn't bear it.  I'm afraid
+I must go, Dad."
+
+Winton nodded.
+
+"Well, I'll come too," he said.  "The girl can go back in the cab and say
+we're on the way."
+
+Taking a parting look at her baby, Gyp thought bitterly: 'My fate? THIS
+is my fate, and no getting out of it!'  On the journey, she and Winton
+were quite silent--but she held his hand tight.  While the cook was
+taking up to Rosek the news of their arrival, Gyp stood looking out at
+her garden.  Two days and six hours only since she had stood there above
+her pansies; since, at this very spot, Rosek had kissed her throat!
+Slipping her hand through Winton's arm, she said:
+
+"Dad, please don't make anything of that kiss.  He couldn't help himself,
+I suppose.  What does it matter, too?"
+
+A moment later Rosek entered.  Before she could speak, Winton was saying:
+
+"Thank you for letting us know, sir.  But now that my daughter is here,
+there will be no further need for your kind services.  Good-day!"
+
+At the cruel curtness of those words, Gyp gave the tiniest start forward.
+She had seen them go through Rosek's armour as a sword through brown
+paper.  He recovered himself with a sickly smile, bowed, and went out.
+Winton followed--precisely as if he did not trust him with the hats in
+the hall.  When the outer door was shut, he said:
+
+"I don't think he'll trouble you again."
+
+Gyp's gratitude was qualified by a queer compassion.  After all, his
+offence had only been that of loving her.
+
+Fiorsen had been taken to her room, which was larger and cooler than his
+own; and the maid was standing by the side of the bed with a scared face.
+Gyp signed to her to go.  He opened his eyes presently:
+
+"Gyp!  Oh!  Gyp!  Is it you?  The devilish, awful things I see--don't go
+away again!  Oh, Gyp!"  With a sob he raised himself and rested his
+forehead against her.  And Gyp felt--as on the first night he came home
+drunk--a merging of all other emotions in the desire to protect and heal.
+
+"It's all right, all right," she murmured.  "I'm going to stay. Don't
+worry about anything.  Keep quite quiet, and you'll soon be well."
+
+In a quarter of an hour, he was asleep.  His wasted look went to her
+heart, and that expression of terror which had been coming and going
+until he fell asleep!  Anything to do with the brain was so horrible!
+Only too clear that she must stay--that his recovery depended on her.
+She was still sitting there, motionless, when the doctor came, and,
+seeing him asleep, beckoned her out.  He looked a kindly man, with two
+waistcoats, the top one unbuttoned; and while he talked, he winked at Gyp
+involuntarily, and, with each wink, Gyp felt that he ripped the veil off
+one more domestic secret.  Sleep was the ticket--the very ticket for him!
+Had something on his mind--yes!  And--er--a little given to--brandy?  Ah!
+all that must stop!  Stomach as well as nerves affected.  Seeing
+things--nasty things--sure sign.  Perhaps not a very careful life before
+marriage.  And married--how long?  His kindly appreciative eyes swept Gyp
+from top to toe.  Year and a half!  Quite so!  Hard worker at his violin,
+too?  No doubt!  Musicians always a little inclined to be immoderate--too
+much sense of beauty--burn the candle at both ends!  She must see to
+that.  She had been away, had she not--staying with her father?  Yes.
+But--no one like a wife for nursing.  As to treatment?  Well!  One would
+shove in a dash of what he would prescribe, night and morning.  Perfect
+quiet.  No stimulant.  A little cup of strong coffee without milk, if he
+seemed low.  Keep him in bed at present.  No worry; no excitement. Young
+man still.  Plenty of vitality.  As to herself, no undue anxiety.
+To-morrow they would see whether a night nurse would be necessary.  Above
+all, no violin for a month, no alcohol--in every way the strictest
+moderation!  And with a last and friendliest wink, leaning heavily on
+that word "moderation," he took out a stylographic pen, scratched on a
+leaf of his note-book, shook Gyp's hand, smiled whimsically, buttoned his
+upper waistcoat, and departed.
+
+Gyp went back to her seat by the bed.  Irony!  She whose only desire was
+to be let go free, was mainly responsible for his breakdown!  But for
+her, there would be nothing on his mind, for he would not be married!
+Brooding morbidly, she asked herself--his drinking, debts, even the
+girl--had she caused them, too?  And when she tried to free him and
+herself--this was the result!  Was there something fatal about her that
+must destroy the men she had to do with?  She had made her father
+unhappy, Monsieur Harmost--Rosek, and her husband!  Even before she
+married, how many had tried for her love, and gone away unhappy!  And,
+getting up, she went to a mirror and looked at herself long and sadly.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+Three days after her abortive attempt to break away, Gyp, with much
+heart-searching, wrote to Daphne Wing, telling her of Fiorsen's illness,
+and mentioning a cottage near Mildenham, where--if she liked to go--she
+would be quite comfortable and safe from all curiosity, and finally
+begging to be allowed to make good the losses from any broken
+dance-contracts.
+
+Next morning, she found Mr. Wagge with a tall, crape-banded hat in his
+black-gloved hands, standing in the very centre of her drawing-room.  He
+was staring into the garden, as if he had been vouchsafed a vision of
+that warm night when the moonlight shed its ghostly glamour on the
+sunflowers, and his daughter had danced out there. She had a perfect view
+of his thick red neck in its turndown collar, crossed by a black bow over
+a shiny white shirt.  And, holding out her hand, she said:
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Wagge?  It was kind of you to come."
+
+Mr. Wagge turned.  His pug face wore a downcast expression.
+
+"I hope I see you well, ma'am.  Pretty place you 'ave 'ere.  I'm fond of
+flowers myself.  They've always been my 'obby."
+
+"They're a great comfort in London, aren't they?"
+
+"Ye-es; I should think you might grow the dahlia here."  And having thus
+obeyed the obscure instincts of savoir faire, satisfied some obscurer
+desire to flatter, he went on: "My girl showed me your letter.  I didn't
+like to write; in such a delicate matter I'd rather be vivey vocey.  Very
+kind, in your position; I'm sure I appreciate it.  I always try to do the
+Christian thing myself. Flesh passes; you never know when you may have to
+take your turn. I said to my girl I'd come and see you."
+
+"I'm very glad.  I hoped perhaps you would."
+
+Mr. Wagge cleared his throat, and went on, in a hoarser voice:
+
+"I don't want to say anything harsh about a certain party in your
+presence, especially as I read he's indisposed, but really I hardly know
+how to bear the situation.  I can't bring myself to think of money in
+relation to that matter; all the same, it's a serious loss to my
+daughter, very serious loss.  I've got my family pride to think of.  My
+daughter's name, well--it's my own; and, though I say it, I'm
+respected--a regular attendant--I think I told you. Sometimes, I assure
+you, I feel I can't control myself, and it's only that--and you, if I may
+say so, that keeps me in check."
+
+During this speech, his black-gloved hands were clenching and
+unclenching, and he shifted his broad, shining boots.  Gyp gazed at them,
+not daring to look up at his eyes thus turning and turning from
+Christianity to shekels, from his honour to the world, from his anger to
+herself.  And she said:
+
+"Please let me do what I ask, Mr. Wagge.  I should be so unhappy if I
+mightn't do that little something."
+
+Mr. Wagge blew his nose.
+
+"It's a delicate matter," he said.  "I don't know where my duty lays.  I
+don't, reelly."
+
+Gyp looked up then.
+
+"The great thing is to save Daisy suffering, isn't it?"
+
+Mr. Wagge's face wore for a moment an expression of affront, as if from
+the thought: 'Sufferin'!  You must leave that to her father!' Then it
+wavered; the curious, furtive warmth of the attracted male came for a
+moment into his little eyes; he averted them, and coughed.  Gyp said
+softly:
+
+"To please me."
+
+Mr. Wagge's readjusted glance stopped in confusion at her waist. He
+answered, in a voice that he strove to make bland:
+
+"If you put it in that way, I don't reelly know 'ow to refuse; but it
+must be quite between you and me--I can't withdraw my attitude."
+
+Gyp murmured:
+
+"No, of course.  Thank you so much; and you'll let me know about
+everything later.  I mustn't take up your time now."  And she held out
+her hand.
+
+Mr. Wagge took it in a lingering manner.
+
+"Well, I HAVE an appointment," he said; "a gentleman at Campden Hill.  He
+starts at twelve.  I'm never late.  GOOD-morning."
+
+When she had watched his square, black figure pass through the outer
+gate, busily rebuttoning those shining black gloves, she went upstairs
+and washed her face and hands.
+
+For several days, Fiorsen wavered; but his collapse had come just in
+time, and with every hour the danger lessened.  At the end of a fortnight
+of a perfectly white life, there remained nothing to do in the words of
+the doctor but "to avoid all recurrence of the predisposing causes, and
+shove in sea air!"  Gyp had locked up all brandy--and violins; she could
+control him so long as he was tamed by his own weakness.  But she passed
+some very bitter hours before she sent for her baby, Betty, and the dogs,
+and definitely took up life in her little house again.  His debts had
+also be contrary to humanity if they were to hang about, or to cause
+starvation of the men on board in mid-voyage on account of the mere lack
+of coal or food. Beyond this, the spirit of the law of nations is that a
+neutral ought to allow nothing. Can any one boldly assert that the
+theory of asylum can be applied with fairness to a case like that of the
+Baltic Fleet, which is far from seeking asylum, but is deliberately
+endeavouring to administer coups to its adversary and proceeding to the
+very seat of war. If he can do so, where is the justice and equity of
+the so-called law of nations, which the Occidentals boast of, not
+without just title, and claim that it forms one of the essential parts
+of Christian morality?
+
+7. As to the talk about the three-mile limit of the territorial waters,
+there is already much divergency of opinion even amongst the jurists. To
+put it forth as a defence in a case like that of the Baltic Fleet
+affairs seems to me too puerile. The matter, however, becomes all the
+more grave when even that limit is not observed, and it has been
+constantly ignored by the Baltic Fleet.
+
+Such are the views which we Japanese have taken in the matter. Some
+French journals (erroneously basing their assertions on the views I have
+personally expressed) say that Japan has taken up English views of
+international law in opposition to the Continental views, so that France
+ought not to yield to Japan's protest. This contention is not correct.
+We do not hold these views because they are English ones: we do so
+because they are in our opinion the only views which are
+_internationally_ just and equitable. We are now fighting against a foe
+so formidable, as the whole world knows, that to us it is a matter of
+life and death. We have sufficient patience and fortitude, but we cannot
+run the risk of sacrificing our very existence without some protest when
+we think that we are not being treated with justice and equity.
+
+I am glad to add that the views we hold seem to have come at last to be
+shared by the more responsible part of the French amongst the
+governmental circle, as well as by the general public. The newspapers
+which are still sticking to their old contention are very few in number,
+and they seem to have some particular reasons of their own. I can never
+think a nation like France could consciously and wilfully offend against
+justice and equity, and the only thing we anxiously hope for is that the
+declaration of the French Government may be honestly and effectually
+followed up. Whatever may be one's intention, the drift of events often
+creates unlooked-for incidents, and that too often against one's will,
+when it is too late to avoid the consequences. Let all parties concerned
+be careful in this matter of vital importance.
+
+[1] The _Deutsche Revue_, June 1905.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+JAPAN AND EUROPE[1]
+
+
+You ask my opinion on the future of the Yellow Peril cry. From an
+ethical point of view it is an unjust and unreasonable accusation. From
+a practical point of view it is idle and useless talk.
+
+I have spoken and written on these particular points so often that I do
+not feel inclined to reiterate any more. I will, however, consider the
+matter from a different point of view and solicit any answer which may
+be advanced against my conviction. I do not do this from any thought of
+vanity; I should be very sorry if it were ever taken in that sense. I
+would simply ask those who agitate and cry the Yellow Peril, the means
+they would suggest for the adopting of their propaganda, if their words
+are not to be empty ones.
+
+Suppose any country wanted to subjugate Japan, and should want to send
+an army to fight on the soil of Japan, what number of men do they think
+would suffice? No general in the whole world would, I am sure, be bold
+enough to undertake the task with under one million men. I have reason
+to believe even that number would not suffice, but for a moment let it
+be that number. What country in the world can send that number over the
+broad ocean? Germany, France, England, or America? Russia seems to have
+the greatest chance, being nearer to Japan. But her experience is
+already known.
+
+Suppose the idea of a land campaign be abandoned, and only a fleet be
+sent to intimidate Japan by sea battles, or by harassing her commerce.
+There would certainly be a better chance for any of the Occidental
+fleets than for the armies, in coping with the forces of Japan. Above
+all, I frankly admit that England would be the most formidable foe in
+that respect. But excepting England, is there any other country that can
+say with certainty that it can easily crush the Japanese navy? Is it
+Germany? is it France? or is it--America?
+
+But supposing our navy were crushed; what next? It would, of course, be
+a very ugly thing for us, but it would not mean the subjection of Japan.
+Our sea-coast towns may be bombarded, our commerce may be harassed, but
+Japan will still subsist within her soil, for she can live without
+depending on any other country for food. And, besides, disturbance of
+commerce would not be a loss only to her.
+
+Moreover, any country which should embark on such an enterprise would
+have need to think it over twice (or, indeed, three or four times)
+before undertaking it, and to calculate the probable benefit it could
+get therefrom, and the probable expenses it would incur; not to speak of
+the result of any possible failure. It may be presumed that Japan would
+not tamely be intimidated by any action undertaken by any country which
+is not based on justice and equity, and which, therefore, is not open to
+reason.
+
+Further, is there any country which would willingly embark on such an
+enterprise single-handed? I think not. The reason is too obvious for me
+to elucidate.
+
+Putting aside altogether any question of justice and equity, if such an
+enterprise is to be embarked upon at all, it would have to be by common
+action of all the Western Powers, somewhat similar to that when the
+combined forces of Europe rose against France some hundred years ago.
+
+But let me ask if such a thing is possible under the present
+circumstances? The claims of Japan to the kind consideration of humanity
+have already become so widely spread that she could no longer be
+trampled upon easily. Man is, after all, a rational being. Do the
+writers of the articles on the Yellow Peril (articles which even now
+repeatedly make their appearance) not know the fact that even in France
+there is a large number of people who have recently purchased Japanese
+bonds, not to speak of Germany, where those bonds have been openly
+floated by banks of high standing? Even if all the governments of the
+West should be willing to agree to such an enterprise, I do not think
+the people at large would move with them.
+
+Japan is modest enough, Japan is honest enough. Why does she deserve a
+general ostracism? She might become, it is possible, a Power of the
+world. She might become, it is possible, more civilised on the lines of
+occidental civilisation, after which she strives so earnestly. Are these
+to be blamed as her sins?
+
+To me the Yellow Peril cry, which is so often revived in some quarters
+of the Continent, is either a sort of what we call 'guchi,' that is to
+say, useless repetition of complaint of some unreasonable
+disappointment, or a perpetuation of wicked instigation and selfish
+intention. In either case, it is not at all a laudable action; indeed, I
+may say it is wasteful calumny for no material good will come of it
+inasmuch as its object can never be achieved from the very condition of
+the world. The people who entertain that idea would be doing far better
+service to their country, to the progress of civilisation, to the
+general cause of humanity, if only they put aside such a silly notion,
+and busy themselves in teaching their fellow country-folks to accustom
+themselves to the changed circumstances of the time. It would be a far
+more manly and noble act if they revised their old notions, which in a
+measure may be called prejudice.
+
+As to ourselves, the Japanese, we shall only be glad if we can enjoy a
+peaceful and harmonious life in the happy family of the world, as we are
+determined to do, in spite of all the obstacles which may be laid before
+us.
+
+[1] Written for the _Potentia Organisation_, July 1905.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE INDO-CHINA QUESTION[1]
+
+INTERVIEW WITH THE BARON SUYEMATSU
+
+
+The eminent statesman, Baron Suyematsu, kindly dictated in English to
+one of our editors answers relating to certain questions with regard to
+the relation between Japan and Europe, especially France and Germany.
+
+     With the disclosure of the alleged Kodama report in view, how far
+     may one give credit to the alleged Japanese plan of invasion of
+     Indo-China?
+
+I know all that has been written in France on the subject. All those
+rumours appear to me to have come originally from Russia, and to have
+been put into circulation in order to excite French opinion against
+Japan, in other words, it is nothing else than a mere repetition of the
+Yellow Peril cry.
+
+Japan does not covet Indo-China. I have shown elsewhere that the French
+colonies in the Far East have no perceptible influence upon the
+situation of Japan, either from a political or an economical point of
+view. Japan has sufficient to do at home, she does not want to plunge
+into external adventures, such as meddling with Indo-China or picking a
+quarrel with a country like France. You may be sure that it would be
+more politic for France to cultivate amicable relations with Japan than
+irritate her by such accusations. Even if those accusations honestly
+represent the true sentiment of the French, the Japanese would only take
+them for malicious manœuvres directed to aid Russia, and they could
+not produce any good impression on the minds of the Japanese.
+
+     Is there any reason to believe that the so-called Kodama report was
+     forged in Russia rather than in France?
+
+I have demonstrated elsewhere that the document which was recently made
+public and attributed to Kodama containing some military indications on
+the plan of an invasion of Indo-China is a perfect forgery. I have
+exposed elsewhere several technical errors therein which would never
+appear in an authentic official document. But whether it is authentic or
+not, I do not attach any importance to the matter, from a political
+point of view at least. It is the duty of all the military and naval
+authorities to keep themselves ready for any emergency. For example,
+France ought to keep herself always prepared for any possible
+difficulties which may arise on her frontiers in the east, and in the
+south, and on the western coasts; the same with Germany, with Austria,
+with Italy, even with the United States.
+
+It appears to me that, if the general staff-office of France or of
+Germany, or the military or naval authorities of any country whatever,
+were to remain without the least knowledge as to what measure should be
+taken in case of a danger, they would be neglecting their duty to their
+country. I can then say that all the Japanese officers, both in the army
+and in the navy ought to study constantly the measures which Japan
+should take in any emergency. I believe it is the same in every country
+in Europe. This, however, does not belong to the sphere of practical
+politics. It is the duty of statesmen and politicians to maintain a
+friendly relationship with all other countries as far as possible; and,
+consequently, to keep absolute control over their armies and navies. The
+army and navy ought to serve as instruments and machines in their hands,
+and not they, the civilians, become the instruments of the army and
+navy. You may be quite assured that in Japan the army and navy are the
+machines of the statesmen, and that the statesmen are not their
+machines.
+
+     Can the fabrication of the so-called Kodama report be demonstrated
+     by a precise fact?
+
+I shall not say whence the document emanated. I believe it was composed
+by some one who does not lack a certain knowledge of Japan, but who has
+drawn false deductions from his knowledge of similar matters of other
+countries. Here is the best example. The document speaks of the native
+contingents of Formosa. Now there exist no such forces in Formosa. The
+garrisons of Formosa are sent there from Japan. On the other hand, in
+the colonies belonging to other countries there are generally troops
+formed of native contingents. It is notably so in French colonies. The
+author of the document in question, reasoning from these facts, thought
+that it ought to be the same with Formosa.
+
+     Has Japan any fear of another alteration of the Treaty of
+     Shimonoseki being imposed upon her?
+
+The combined action of Russia, Germany and France, for imposing on
+Japan an alteration of the Treaty of Shimonoseki appears to us to have
+been a great error on their parts. I can positively say that there are
+many eminent persons in Germany and in France who regret that action.
+Even in Russia, in certain quarters, a belief seems to be entertained
+that, but for the fault then committed, the present misfortunes would
+not have happened. As to ourselves, we are not hypnotised by the errors
+then committed by those three powers. We intend to remain friends of
+France, of Germany, and even of Russia, in spite of the injustice we
+have suffered, provided, of course, those powers wish to keep
+friendship.
+
+We do not overlook the possibility of another combination which those
+powers may have an idea of forming against us, and it behoves us to be
+watchful. Nevertheless, to tell you my candid opinion, it is scarcely
+possible that a similar intervention should be renewed. I do not think
+France would push her docility so far as to follow Germany a second
+time. It would be necessary that Germany should set the example, aided
+by Russia and France, to come out to the Far East, especially because
+the Russian fleets have ceased to exist. I admit that the German fleet
+is strong, but I do not believe it is powerful enough for one to say
+with certainty that it can easily crush Japan. At all events, what
+pretext has Germany to enter into war in the Far East? Among other
+things also she would have to count on the opinion and sentiments of two
+countries at least, I mean England and the United States. I do not,
+therefore, consider a new combination possible. Japan cannot be
+intimidated by mere barking.
+
+If, however, Europe should choose to take such a course, we should
+gravely reflect. I do not believe your country for example would ever
+undertake an expedition against Japan. You have disapproved a small
+expedition to Tonkin and we are a little more serious than the
+Tonkinese. France might no doubt, if her honour demanded it, judge it
+worth the pain to engage in a war with Japan, but under no other
+circumstance do I believe her disposed to take such a part.
+
+Japan will always continue to advance on the lines of occidental
+civilisation. I do not see the reason which will prevent Japan from
+acting in concert with France or Germany, provided of course these
+powers do not enter upon an action which may appear to her altogether
+unjust or iniquitous, in which case she may not be able to march with
+them hand-in-hand.
+
+     Would Japan be offended by France introducing civilisation into
+     Indo-China?
+
+We are not at all opposed to your introducing Western civilisation into
+your colonies. On the contrary we shall be quite contented, but in
+introducing your civilisation into your colonies you have to be prepared
+that it signifies an amelioration of the condition of the natives. If it
+were so, why should we make the least objection? But in the hypothesis
+that the introduction of civilisation has in view neither amelioration
+of the condition of the natives nor progress of commerce and industry,
+we might then conceive a sort of suspicion. Supposing that you augment
+the garrisons, the fortifications, the naval forces, one would see in it
+nothing but an expansion of your military power and not an introduction
+of civilisation in the sense understood in France. Even in that case we
+would not raise objections, unless it were done with a view to menace
+us; but here I shall offer you a suggestion. Is it really worth your
+while to develop there incessantly your military and naval forces in
+order to oppose Japan? Would not the enterprise be rather costly? Would
+it not be infinitely better to employ your energy in cultivating a good
+understanding between your country and ours instead of rivalling each
+other by crossing armaments?
+
+[1] _L'Européen_, August 5, 1905.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE AUSTRALIAN QUESTION[1]
+
+AN INTERVIEW
+
+
+Baron Suyematsu gave a _Daily News_ representative his opinion of the
+'Spectre of Japan' as conceived by many Europeans. The Japanese Baron, a
+burly, cheerful man, laughed heartily as he dealt with the alarmist
+fears of the 'Yellow Peril.'
+
+Our talk began over Mr. Bruce Smith's notice of motion in the Australian
+Parliament.
+
+'Yes, I have seen the proposal,' said Baron Suyematsu, 'and I am very
+glad an Australian representative has taken up the question. He proposes
+to amend the Immigration Restriction Act so as to permit Japanese to
+enter the Commonwealth. The reason given is that Japan has placed
+herself in the front rank of nations, has granted religious freedom, has
+established consulates, and become the honoured ally of Great Britain. I
+understand that Australian papers are saying there is no chance of the
+motion being carried. I care not whether the motion is carried or not
+this time. Of one thing I am certain--it will be carried eventually.
+
+'What reason has Australia for shutting out the Japanese?'
+
+'The dread of cheaper labour and of the "Yellow Peril," as it is called.
+Whatever there be in that, it certainly does not apply to the Japanese.
+This is already being realised in Australia, as Mr. Bruce Smith's motion
+shows. The Japanese are making it clear that they have to be regarded by
+Europeans in a different light from the rest of Asiatics. Europeans
+consider themselves superior to all other races. I do not blame them for
+thinking that, for of modern civilisations theirs is certainly the best.
+But with the exception of the British people, Europeans have not yet
+realised that modern Japan is built up on European methods. She has no
+more to do with the so-called "Yellow Peril" than America has. She takes
+her place by the side of the other powers, with very much the same
+civilisation as theirs. England having been the first to recognise the
+new Japan, I am certain her colonies will soon follow. That is why I
+feel it is only a question of time before Australia excludes Japan from
+its Restriction Act.'
+
+
+A MISTAKEN IDEA
+
+'Yet Australia has been talking freely enough about the Japanese
+menace.'
+
+'I know. It is quite a mistaken idea of the Australians that if Japan
+triumphs in the present war she would be a menace to Australia. They say
+that if we win we shall be masters of the East and the paramount power
+in Eastern waters. What, they ask, is to become of Australia, if we take
+it into our heads to make a descent upon their shores?'
+
+Baron Suyematsu again laughed boisterously, as one who can afford to
+make merry at an extravagant idea.
+
+'The whole thing is so utterly preposterous,' he went on, 'that it
+would not be worth considering were it not typical of what is being said
+all over Europe. Our fight for national existence against Russia has
+been misconstrued everywhere. We seem to have filled the Western world
+with all sorts of vague fears, France is saying that we shall soon
+deprive her of Indo-China. Germany declares we have designs on
+Kiao-chau. The Dutch say that Java is no longer safe from our
+machinations. Never was such nonsense talked of a country which, after
+all, is but fighting to preserve its national existence.'
+
+'And you say Japan has no intention of arming the Asiatics against the
+Europeans?'
+
+'The whole idea is absurd. Japan wishes to become one with the European
+nations. I might even say she aspires to become a member of the European
+family. It is a mistake to think that Japan is going to form a
+Pan-Asiatic Association. Japan is the only country in the East that can
+rise on European lines. Her example could not be followed by other
+Asiatic countries. We are said to be the successors of the Tartars, at
+one time the disturbers of the world's peace. Nothing of the kind.
+Russia would be more fittingly the successor of the Tartars. The Tartar
+races have been merged in the Russian Empire.
+
+'I am sure,' added Baron Suyematsu, in a final word, 'that Europe will
+soon find its fears about the "spectre of Japan" are all ill-founded.
+England, I am glad to believe, never had those fears, and before long I
+hope to see her colonies in the same frame of mind. I hope the
+Commonwealth Parliament will lead the way.'
+
+[1] _The Daily News._
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE AND AMERICA[1]
+
+AN INTERVIEW
+
+
+'Our people,' said Baron Suyematsu, 'like the British people, favour
+the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. They also favour its
+extension. The nature of such extension demands careful thought, of
+course. I will not go into details, but I will say that a more effectual
+alliance is desirable from the standpoints of both England and Japan,
+and I also think from the standpoint of America. Japan's interest is too
+obvious to require mention; but England's interest, in my opinion, is
+equally real. Russia and England are in contact throughout Asia and
+friction is constant. England needs strengthening against Russia and
+also against other powers active in the Orient.
+
+
+MONROE DOCTRINE OF THE PAST
+
+'America's relation to this problem is more difficult. Monroeism is
+thought to stand in the way. I appreciate the delicacy of venturing to
+discuss the policy of a nation other than my own, but I feel that
+Americans are too sensible to resent an honest expression of opinion.
+Monroeism is not part of the constitution, but the dictum of a
+statesman. This dictum was made when our planet was very large, before
+the development of steam and electricity. The nations were isolated and
+insulated by distance and non-communication.
+
+'At that time American theory and practice relative to foreign affairs
+were in harmony. America was actually self-contained, but to-day the
+world is a tiny ball and America's flag and America's interests are on
+every sea. America is sovereign in Hawaii and the Philippines, and yet
+the American people cling to the idea of leaving distant matters alone.
+Nevertheless the state department is widely and intelligently active.
+
+
+AMERICAN INTEREST WORLD-WIDE
+
+'Theoretically you do not participate, actually your participation bears
+upon international events everywhere. Witness Secretary Hay's initiative
+respecting the Jews, as well as despatch after despatch aimed at Russian
+aggression in Manchuria. The world's interests are becoming woven into a
+solid fabric. Great nations cannot escape the responsibility this
+involves. American theory and practice, in my judgment, will go on
+diverging until the notion of non-participation will be merely an
+antiquated abstraction.
+
+'Therefore I refuse to regard as hopeless the idea of an
+American-Anglo-Japanese alliance, guaranteeing the peaceful development
+of the vast resources of the Far East. Such an alliance exists
+essentially now--an alliance springing from cognate ideas, wishes,
+purposes and principles. This is the best possible foundation for that
+formal compact which the evolution of industry and commerce seems to me
+unmistakably to foreshadow.'
+
+[1] An extract from the _Chicago Daily News_.
+
+
+NOTE TO DIALOGUE V.
+
+Since the bulk of the present work went to press, I came across the
+following communication printed in the _Outlook_. I take the liberty of
+subjoining it herewith, without any vain intention of flaunting the
+virtues of my countrymen.--K.S.
+
+
+JAPANESE CHARACTER
+
+_To the Editor of the_ OUTLOOK
+
+SIR,--I have received during the last few weeks letters bearing such
+eloquent testimony to the nobility of Japanese character that I am
+sending you some extracts in the hope of your publishing them. The
+letters are from a friend of mine, who with her husband has lived in
+Yokohama for many years, and can therefore speak with considerable
+authority. The first extract is about the soldiers themselves--
+
+     Mine you know is a busy life, and I found work among the military
+     hospitals and also among the brave wives of the soldiers so
+     fascinating that from the New Year till early June I let all social
+     duties slip, so much so that I had a nervous breakdown in June, and
+     since then have had to go very slow.
+
+     We had a splendid time at our seaside cottage at Negishi this
+     afternoon, any amount of our dear brown soldiers round us. There
+     are five hundred quartered in that fishing village just now; they
+     were resting, bathing, boating, washing their clothes or cooking
+     their chow, but never a rude word or an uncouth action; no
+     rowdyism, but all as civil, quiet, good-tempered, and alert as
+     possible; they are a marvel; and my children go in and out among
+     them and love them, like I do! I could _kill_ white idiots when I
+     hear them speak of those fine fellows as 'an inferior race.' Ye
+     gods! 'inferior' with never a camp follower to their name, and
+     rapine unknown even after the fiercest fight! What European race
+     can show a record like that? I wish I could be home for six months
+     and tell what the soldiers and their wives are--what miracles of
+     cheerful patience and manly dignity the wounded men are as they lie
+     hacked and maimed, sometimes till almost all semblance of manhood
+     is gone, yet never a murmur does any one hear from their lips--no,
+     not if they are armless, legless, and even _blind_. And you would
+     not dare condole with them! They say and believe they 'are greatly
+     honoured.' When they embrace Christianity, they shame the brightest
+     Christian among us, and I come away from visiting the hospitals
+     feeling so small, so humble, yet at peace with all the world. We
+     have very, very much to learn from this great people.
+
+This second extract, about a soldier's wife, may come home to your
+readers even more:--
+
+     I allow two families a small sum of money every week. One case is
+     that of a young woman, under twenty years of age, who has a child
+     and an aged parent to keep, and her husband went to the war a few
+     weeks ago, leaving her penniless and on the verge of having another
+     baby. A few days ago, when I went to take her weekly money, she
+     refused to take it, saying she had got a little work to do and
+     could now manage without any help, as there were so many in much
+     greater need of help than herself; and she would not take the
+     money, though she was earning even less than I was allowing her.
+     _That_ is what I call a real heroine.
+
+     How many at work amongst our poor last winter could give such
+     evidence to character as that?--I am, sir, yours, etc.
+
+     ENGLISHWOMAN.
+
+
+NOTE TO DIALOGUE VIII.
+
+Before the preceding pages had been printed two events worth mentioning
+here took place. One is the lamented death of Sir Henry Irving. The
+other is the public discussion which took place under the auspices of
+the London Shakespeare League, on the best method of presenting
+Shakespeare's plays on the modern stage. On the latter subject perhaps I
+may add a word. While in Japan the tendency is to introduce
+women-players into the company of male players, and improvement of
+scenery is much sought after on European lines, both of which are due to
+the occidental influence, it is curious to notice that exactly reverse
+movements, namely the dispensing with the female players and the
+returning back to the primitive simplicity of stage properties, are
+advocated in England by competent persons with regard to the
+representation of Shakespeare. I extract below among others a passage of
+the speech of Mr. Bernard Shaw on the occasion of the discussion
+referred to above:--
+
+     When Mr. Gilbert said that he would like to see the women's parts
+     played by boys, he was not uttering a jest. In some of the
+     performances at Westminster School, he had seen boys in women's
+     parts much more effective than any professional actress. If women
+     players had been proposed to Shakespeare, he would not only have
+     been scandalised, but he would have pointed out that it was
+     impossible to get the force from women that was obtained from boy
+     actors.
+
+
+NOTE TO THE ARTICLE ON 'COMMERCIAL MORALITY'
+
+In the October number of the _Anglo-Japanese Gazette_ (London) is
+published a criticism by Mr. Curtis, editor and proprietor of the _Kobe
+Herald_, on 'the ridiculously sweeping assertions,' as he calls it, made
+by Mr. Longford in his article. I subjoin herewith a passage which
+relates to Mr. Longford's assertion that a 'cordon' is drawn by the
+Japanese round the trading centres of Yokohama and Kobe, and that
+foreign merchants are suffering under the 'thraldom':--
+
+     Well, let me say that no sane, fair-minded man who knows anything
+     whatever of his subject would ever dream of accusing the whole
+     Japanese people of a lack of commercial morality. All this talk
+     about a cordon being drawn round the treaty ports is rubbish. No
+     such barrier exists, save perhaps in the imagination of a few who
+     cannot shake off the prejudices and disabilities of the past. The
+     idea sounds absurd to me, knowing, as I do know, that all the
+     go-ahead firms have been doing their utmost for some time past to
+     open up connections in the principal cities. Mr. Longford seems to
+     think that business is conducted in Japan to-day just as it was
+     twenty years ago. He apparently does not know that some foreign
+     houses have trusted clerks or travellers all over the country; that
+     some foreign business men run up to Osaka and Tokio daily; and that
+     business journeys to Maidzuru--the great, fortified naval base on
+     the Sea of Japan--Nagoya Sasebo, Hiroshima, and other important
+     centres, are matters of everyday experience now.
+
+In the same number of the same journal is also published an important
+article from the pen of Sir Tollemache Sinclair, Bart., concerning
+Bishop Awdry's letter published in the _Times_. Sir Tollemache strongly
+repudiates the accuracy of the bishop's charge of dishonesty and
+immorality against the Japanese, which Sir Tollemache calls the bishop's
+'utterly erroneous accusations,' basing his contention upon an elaborate
+comparison of the statistical facts of Japan and many other nations
+relating to several important subjects having bearing on the question.
+Among other things, he writes:--
+
+     This clerical censor, who endeavours to find a mote in his Japanese
+     brother's eye, but does not see the beam in his English brother's
+     eye, cut the ground from under his own feet on the subject of the
+     imaginary dishonesty of Japanese traders, for he tells us that a
+     house was built for him by Japanese tradesmen admirably without any
+     contract, and at a moderate expense; and I should like to know, if
+     any Englishman did the same thing in England, whether he would not
+     be unmercifully fleeced. Bishop Awdry says he is a friend of the
+     Japanese, but they will probably say to him, after reading his
+     letter, 'Save us from our friends, as to our enemies we will take
+     care of them ourselves.'
+
+And he winds up the article with these words:--
+
+     What excuse has he to offer for the gross and discreditable and
+     unfounded insults which he has heaped on the heads of those under
+     whose protection, and in the enjoyment of whose hospitality, he
+     resides.... In short, it may justly be said of the letter written
+     by this superfluous bishop, 'what is true is not new, and what is
+     new is not true.'
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Adoption, the custom of
+  _Advance Japan_, Morris's
+  Age, ways of counting
+  _Aïda_, the opera
+  Ainslie, Dr. Daniel, his mission to Nagasaki
+  Aizu, Lord of
+  America's sympathy for Japan
+  American Press, views of war with Russia given to the
+  Anglo-French, Russo-Japanese _entente_
+  Anglo-Franco Diplomacy in Japan
+  Anglo-Japanese Alliance and America, an interview
+  Army, the Japanese
+    -- state of, after fighting
+  Army and Navy, organisation of
+  Arisugawa, Prince
+  Art, Japanese
+  Ashikaga
+  Aston, Dr.
+  Australian Question, the
+
+
+  Bank of Japan.
+  'Black Room President,'
+  Books on Japan
+  Bracken, a talk about
+  British East India Company
+  Buddhist Sects
+  Budha, Amida
+  _Bukum_
+  Bushido
+    -- discourse on
+    -- history of the term
+    -- its literature
+  _Bushiku_
+  Bushi-Zoku
+
+
+  Calendar, the Japanese
+  Calumnies on Japan
+  Card-playing
+  Cards, description of
+  Character of the Japanese
+  Chastity
+  Chauvinism, fear of
+  Chess-playing in China
+   -- in Japan
+  _Chiku-ba-sho_
+  China, the difficulty of reform in
+    -- the future of
+    -- and Russia, secret treaty between
+  Chinese jurisprudence
+    -- banking system
+  Chivalry, Japanese
+  _Chokai_, Gunboat
+  Chosiu
+    -- troops
+  Christianity and Japan
+  Chrysanthemums, the culture of
+  Climate in Japan
+  Code of honour, the Japanese
+  Commerce and industry of Japan described
+  Commercial morality of the Japanese described
+  Communication, means of, in Japan
+  Corea
+  Currency, Japanese
+
+
+  Daidoji Yiuzan
+  Daimio explained
+    -- and Samurai, difference between
+  Danjiuro
+  Deaf and dumb, the treatment of
+  Death, the Japanese conception of
+  _Deutsche Revue_
+  Diet, the
+  Difficulty of distinguishing _R_ and _L_
+  Duels
+  Dwellings, details of
+
+
+  Earrings, remarks on
+  Eating fruit without peeling
+  Education in Japan
+    -- the system of
+    -- common and military
+  _Elementary Lessons on Budo_
+  England, her political attitude.
+  England and America, relations between, with regard to Japan
+  English Press views on Japanese character
+    -- sympathy for Japan
+
+
+  Feeling and sentiment in Japan
+  Feudal system in Japan
+  Fiction, Japanese
+  Fighting, modes of
+  Finance of the Imperial Government at the beginning of the
+    Great Change
+  _Financial and Economical Annual_
+  Financial system, progress of
+  Firearms, the first use of, in Japan
+  Flowers, art of arrangement of
+    -- sale of
+  Food, Japanese
+  Forecast on the issue of the war
+  France and her women
+   -- relations with England
+  French Nationalists and Socialists with regard to Japan
+  Fushimi, battle of
+
+
+  Garden, a Japanese, described
+  Geishas, their life
+  German policy
+  'Go,' the game of
+  Government, the Japanese
+    -- described
+  'Great Change,' the
+  Greek and Roman comedies
+    -- customs
+  Greek inspiration
+  Griffis, the Rev. W.E.
+
+
+  Hakodate
+  Hana-karuta
+  Hanawa
+  Hearn, Lafcadio
+    -- life of
+    -- remarks on
+  Hetaira
+  Hideyoshi
+  Hirosé, Commandant
+    -- Mrs., her letter to an English Admiral
+  Hizen
+  _Hogen Monogatari_
+  House of Representatives
+
+
+  Imperial Army Department
+    -- Government and military reform
+  _Imperial Japan_
+  Imperial succession
+    -- Troops
+  _Independent Review_
+  Indo-China Question
+  Inouyé, Count
+    -- a sketch of his life
+  Intermarriages, Japanese
+  International Conventions and Japan
+  Irving, Sir Henry, and the Japanese stage
+  Ito, Marquis
+    -- an old speech by
+    -- a sketch of his life
+  Izawa Hanrioshi
+
+
+  _Jane Eyre_ and Japan
+  Japan after the war
+    -- Emperor of, his powers
+    -- and America, relations between
+    -- and Europe, relations between
+    -- and foreign capital
+    -- and Russia, a priest's views on
+  _Japan Times_
+  Japanese, the age of
+    -- as correspondents
+    -- love tale, a
+    -- reform, how brought about
+    -- tariff
+    -- Vendetta
+  Jiujitsu, discourse on
+    -- and wrestling, a comparison of
+    -- the Willow Mind style
+
+
+  Kagoshima
+    -- bombardment of
+  Kaibara Yekken
+  Kataki-uchi
+  Katsura, Count
+  Kawakami
+  Kawasé,
+  Kido
+  Kikugoro
+  Kiusiu
+  Kioto
+  Kite flying
+  Kites
+  Koizumi Yakumo
+  _Kokkwa_, a monthly on Art
+  Komura, Baron
+  Kumazawa Banzan
+  Kuroda
+  Kuropatkin, General
+  Kwanto, plain of
+
+
+  Lady's opinion on Japanese women, A
+  Languages, remarks on
+  Languages of China and Japan
+  _Lays of Ancient Rome_
+  _Le Matin_, 35.
+  _Lectures by Yamaga Soko_
+  Legislation, evolution of
+  Lines on hailstones
+  Little, Archibald
+  Local administration
+  Loti, Pierre
+
+
+  Macaulay
+  _Maritana_, the opera
+  Marriage ceremonies, description of
+  Massage
+  Matoni, Monsieur
+  Matrimony, preliminary inquiries in respect to
+  Matsukata, career of
+  _Mikado's Empire_
+  Military organisation
+    -- training
+    -- for boys
+    -- service, hereditary, abolished
+  Mongolian troops
+  Moon scenes
+  Morality of Japan, compared with other nations
+  Mothers and wives, Japanese
+  Music, Japanese
+
+
+  Nagasaki
+  Nakaodo, a
+  Nakaye-toju
+  Names, Japanese
+  Napoleon
+  National banks
+  Nationality, abuse of Japanese
+  Navigation in the Japan Sea
+  Navy, the Japanese
+    -- its history
+  Nelson
+  Neutrality question, the
+  'New Commoners,' and the history of their emancipation
+  Night fêtes in Japan
+  Nobility, the Japanese
+    -- methods of addressing
+  Nogi, General, and religion's meaning
+  Notions of pardon and forgiving
+  Nozu, General
+
+
+  Occidental Civilisation
+    -- vulgarity
+  Okubo
+  Okuma, Count
+    -- a sketch of the life of
+  Osaka
+  Oyama Marshal
+
+
+  Paris
+    -- a motor ride round
+    -- by night
+  Peace prospects, observations of
+  Physique, the Japanese
+  Political attitude of England
+  Political organism of Japan
+  Port Arthur
+  Press, the, and the war
+  Printing, the art of
+  Pronunciation of Japanese
+  Public baths
+
+
+  _Questions and Answers on Bun and Bu_
+
+
+  Raffles, Sir Stamford, his appreciation of Japan
+  Railways, construction of
+  Red Cross Society
+  Religion in Japan
+    -- discussions on
+  Religion, Japanese meaning of
+  Restoration, the Japanese
+  Revenge, Japanese
+  Revolution, discussion on the Japanese
+  _Risen Sun_, the
+  Rodjestvensky, Admiral
+  Romance, Japanese
+  'Ronin,'
+  Roosevelt, President
+    -- and jiujitsu
+    -- his partiality towards Japan
+  Russia, Emperor of
+    -- and Japan, a priest's views on
+  Russian defeat, the cause of
+  Russian views of the Japanese
+  Russo-Japanese War, outbreak of
+  Russophile papers
+
+
+  Sada-Yakko
+  Sadanji
+  Saga, prince of
+  Saigo
+  Saionji, a sketch of the life of
+  Samurai
+    -- and Daimio, difference between
+    -- and fighting
+    -- explained
+    -- discipline of the
+    -- the soul of
+    -- mother illustrated by a drama
+  Satcho
+  Satow, Sir E.
+  Satsuma
+    -- formation of the
+    -- war
+    -- the cause of
+  Scenery of Japan
+  Sekigahara, battle of
+  _Self-Help_, Smiles's
+  Semitic sympathy
+  Shido,
+  Shikwan
+  Shimadai
+  Shimazu Saburo
+  Shintoism, its sensitiveness to pollution
+  Shipbuilding yards, origin of
+  Shiwa Yoshimasa
+  Shizoku, the title
+  Shogun
+  Shogunate
+    -- financial system of
+    -- troops
+  Simonoseki, treaty of
+  Singing insects
+  Sino-Japanese war
+  Sketches of some chief figures of actual Japan
+  Snow scenes
+  Social morality, discussion on
+  Social condition of Japan
+  Socialism and Japan, discussion on
+  Sotsuibushi, or Police-master-general
+  Sports, Japanese
+  Stage, the Japanese
+  'Standard of Living,' an essay
+  Stoessel, General
+  Summer resorts of foreigners
+  Sumoo
+  Superstition, Japanese.
+  Swords
+
+
+  Taira
+  Takasago
+  Takasugi
+  Takeda Shingen
+  Telegraphs in Japan
+  Telephones in Japan
+  _Things Japanese_ (1898)
+  Togo, Admiral
+  Tokio
+    -- the history of
+    -- the patois of
+  Tokugawa
+    -- régime
+    -- Feudatories under
+  Tolstoy, Count Leo
+  Trans-Siberian Railway
+  Trip to Japan, details concerning
+  Tsu-shima, battle of
+
+
+  Uta-Karuta
+  Utamaro
+
+
+  Washington, George
+  Weapons, Japanese
+
+
+
+
+
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  Babylonian-Assyrian
+  Birth-Omens
+
+  And
+  Their Cultural Significance
+
+
+  by
+  Morris Jastrow, jr.
+  Ph. D. (Leipzig) Professor of Semitic Languages in the University
+  of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia)
+
+
+  Gießen 1914
+  Verlag von Alfred Töpelmann (vormals J. Ricker)
+
+
+
+
+  =Religionsgeschichtliche
+  Versuche und Vorarbeiten=
+
+  begründet von
+  Albrecht Dieterich und Richard Wünsch
+  herausgegeben von
+  Richard Wünsch und Ludwig Deubner
+  in Münster i. W.      in Königsberg i. Pr.
+
+  XIV. Band. 5. Heft
+
+
+
+
+  To
+
+  SIR WILLIAM OSLER
+
+  Regius Professor of Medicine
+  Oxford University
+
+  This volume is dedicated
+  as a mark of esteem and admiration.
+
+  "Most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd."
+    (King Henry V, 2d Part, Act IV, 5, 164.)
+
+
+
+
+=Analysis=
+
+
+  Divination in Babylonia and Assyria                                1
+
+  Three chief methods: hepatoscopy, astrology and birth-omens      1-6
+
+  Spread of Hepatoscopy and Astrology to Hittites, Etruscans,
+  Greeks and Romans and to China                                   3-4
+
+  The Transition motif in religious rites and popular customs      5-6
+
+  Omen collections in Ashurbanapal's Library                       6-7
+
+  Birth-omen reports                                              9-12
+
+  Animal Birth-omens                                             12-28
+
+  Double foetus                                                  13-16
+
+  Principles of interpretation                                   14-15
+
+  Multiple births among ewes                                     17-18
+
+  Malformation of ears                                           19-22
+
+  Excess number of ears                                          20-22
+
+  Ewe giving birth to young resembling lion                      23-26
+
+  Ewe giving birth to young resembling other animals             27-28
+
+  Human Birth-omens                                              28-41
+
+  Twins                                                          29-30
+
+  Monstrosities                                                     30
+
+  Multiple births                                                   31
+
+  Malformation of ears                                           32-33
+
+  Malformation of mouth, nostrils, jaws, arms, lips, hand        33-34
+
+  Malformation of anus, genital member, thigh, feet              35-36
+
+  Principles of interpretation                                      36
+
+  Misshapen embryos                                                 37
+
+  Weaklings, cripples, deaf-mutes, still-births, dwarfs          38-39
+
+  Talking infants, with bearded lips and teeth                      39
+
+  Infants with animal features                    32. 33. 35-36. 40-41
+
+  Study of Human Physiognomy among Greeks and Romans             43-44
+
+  Resemblances between human and animal features                    45
+
+  Porta's and Lavater's Views                                    45-48
+
+  Study of Human Physiognomy based on birth-omens                49-50
+
+  Birth-omens in Julius Obsequens                                50-52
+
+  Birth-omens in Valerius Maximus                                   52
+
+  Cicero on birth-omens                                          53-54
+
+  Macrobius on birth-omens                                          55
+
+  Birth-omens among Greeks and in Asia Minor                     56-58
+
+  Birth-omens as basis of belief in fabulous and hybrid
+  beings                                                         59-62
+
+  Dragons, Hippocentaurs and hybrid creatures in
+  Babylonian-Assyrian Literature and Art                         63-64
+
+  Fabulous creatures of Greek Mythology and Birth-omens          64-66
+
+  Egyptian sphinxes                                              67-70
+
+  Totemism                                                          70
+
+  Metamorphosis of human beings into animals and vice versa      70-72
+
+  Talking animals in fairy tales                                    71
+
+  History of monsters and persistency of belief in monsters      72-78
+
+  Lycosthenes' work                                              73-75
+
+  Summary                                                        78-80
+
+  Index                                                          81-86
+
+
+
+
+  "... they do observe
+  unfather'd heirs and loathly births of natures"
+                                        (King Henry V. 2nd part
+                                           Act IV, 4, 121-122).
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+As a result of researches in the field of Babylonian-Assyrian divination,
+now extending over a number of years[1], it may be definitely said that
+apart from the large class of miscellaneous omens[2], the Babylonians and
+Assyrians developed chiefly three methods of divination into more or less
+elaborate systems--divination through the inspection of the liver of a
+sacrificial animal or Hepatoscopy, through the observation of the
+movements in the heavens or Astrology, (chiefly directed to the moon and
+the planets but also to the sun and the prominent stars and
+constellations), and through the observance of signs noted at birth in
+infants and the young of animals or Birth-omens. Elsewhere[3], I have
+suggested a general division of the various forms of divination methods
+into two classes, voluntary and involuntary divination, meaning by the
+former the case in which a sign is deliberately selected and then
+observed, by the latter where the sign is not of your own choice but
+forced upon your attention and calling for an interpretation. Hepatoscopy
+falls within the former category[4], Astrology and Birth-omens in the
+latter.
+
+Each one of these three methods rests on an underlying well-defined theory
+and is not the outcome of mere caprice or pure fancy, though of course
+these two factors are also prominent. In the case of Hepatoscopy, we find
+the underlying theory to have been the identification of the 'soul' or
+vital centre of the sacrificial victim--always a sheep--with the deity to
+whom the animal is offered,--at least to the extent that the two souls are
+attuned to one another. The liver being, according to the view prevalent
+among Babylonians and Assyrians as among other peoples of antiquity at a
+certain stage of culture, the seat of the soul[5], the inspection of the
+liver followed as the natural and obvious means of ascertaining the mind,
+i. e., the will and disposition of the deity to whom an inquiry has been
+put or whom one desired to consult. The signs on the liver--the size and
+shape of the lobes, and of the gall bladder, the character or
+peculiarities of the two appendices to the upper lobe, (the processus
+pyramidalis and the processus papillaris), and the various markings on the
+liver were noted, and on the basis of the two main principles conditioning
+all forms of divination (1) association of ideas and (2) noting the
+events that followed upon certain signs, a decision was reached as to
+whether the deity was favorably or unfavorably disposed or, what amounted
+to the same thing, whether the answer to the inquiry was favorable or
+unfavorable.
+
+In the case of Astrology,--a relatively more advanced method of
+divination,--the underlying theory rested on the supposed complete
+correspondence between movements and phenomena in the heavens and
+occurrences on earth. The gods, being identified with the heavenly
+bodies,--with the moon, sun, planets, and fixed stars--or as we might also
+put it, the heavenly bodies being personified as gods, the movements in
+the heavens were interpreted as representing the activity of the gods
+preparing the events on earth. Therefore, he who could read the signs in
+the heavens aright would know what was to happen here below. Astrology
+corresponded in a measure to the modern Weather Bureau in that it enabled
+one to ascertain a little in advance what was certain to happen,
+sufficiently so in order to be prepared for it. Compared with Hepatoscopy,
+Astrology not only represents a form of divination that might be
+designated as semi-scientific--only relatively scientific of course--but
+also occupies a higher plane, because there was no attempt involved to
+induce a deity unfavorably disposed to change his mind. The signs were
+there; they pointed unmistakably to certain occurrences on earth that were
+certain to occur and it was the task of the diviner--the =bârû= or
+'inspector' as the Babylonian called him--to indicate whether what the
+gods were preparing would be beneficial or harmful. Both Hepatoscopy and
+Astrology as developed by the Babylonians and Assyrians =bârû=-priests
+exerted a wide influence, the former spreading to the Hittites and
+Etruscans and through the one or the other medium to Greeks and Romans[6],
+while Babylonian-Assyrian Astrology passing to the Greeks became the basis
+for Graeco-Roman and mediaeval Astrology, profoundly influencing the
+religious thought of Europe[7] and in a modified form surviving even to
+our own days. The chain of evidence has recently been completed[8] to
+prove the direct transfer of the cuneiform astrological literature to
+Greek astrologers and astronomers. The possibility also of a spread or at
+least of a secondary influence of both systems to the distant East is also
+to be considered. In fact considerable evidence is now available to show
+that Babylonian-Assyrian astrological notions and in part also
+astronomical data spread to China[9].
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The observation of signs observed in young animals and in infants at the
+time of birth constitutes a third division of Babylonian-Assyrian
+divination, quite equal in prominence to Hepatoscopy and Astrology. Here
+too we are justified in seeking for some rational or quasi-rational basis
+for the importance attached by Babylonians and Assyrians, and as we shall
+see by other nations as well, to anything of a noteworthy or unusual
+character observed at the moment that a new life was ushered into the
+world. The mystery of life made as deep an impression upon primitive man
+and upon ancient peoples as it does on the modern scientist, who endeavors
+with his better equipment and enriched by the large experience of past
+ages, to penetrate to the very source of life. A new life issuing from
+another life--what could be stranger, what more puzzling, what more
+awe-inspiring? If we bear in mind that there is sufficient evidence to
+warrant us in saying that among peoples in a primitive state of culture,
+the new life was not associated with the sexual act[10], the mystery must
+have appeared still more profound. The child or the young animal was
+supposed to be due to the action of some spirit or demon that had found
+its way into the mother, just as death was supposed to be due to some
+malicious demon that had driven the spirit of life out of the body. The
+many birth customs found in all parts of the world[11], are associated
+with this impression of mystery made by the new life; they centre largely
+round the idea of protection to the mother and her offspring at a critical
+period. The rejoicing is tempered by the fear of the demons who were
+supposed to be lurking near to do mischief to the new life and to the one
+who brought it forth. The thought is a natural one, for the young life
+hangs in the balance, while that of the mother appears to be positively
+threatened. All bodily suffering and all physical ailments being ascribed
+to the influence of bad demons, or to the equally malevolent influence of
+persons who could by their control of the demons or in some other way
+throw a spell over the individual, Birth, Puberty, Marriage and Death as
+the four periods in life which may be regarded as critical and
+transitional are marked by popular customs and religious rites that follow
+mankind from primitive times down to our own days. A modern scholar, Van
+Gennep, who has recently gathered these customs in a volume and
+interpreted them, calls his work 'Rites de Passage', i. e., customs
+associated with the four periods of transition from one stage to the other
+and which survive in advanced forms of faith as Baptism, Confirmation,
+Marriage ceremonies and Funeral rites, just as the chief festivals in all
+religions are the 'Rites de Passage' of nature--associated with the
+transition periods of the year, with the vernal equinox, the summer
+solstice, the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice or, expressed in
+agricultural terms, with sowing time, with blossoming or early harvest
+time, with the later harvest time and with the period of decay.
+
+The significance attached to birth omens is thus merely a phase of the
+ceremonies attendant upon the passage of the new-born from its mysterious
+hiding place to the light. The analogy between the new life and the
+processes of nature is complete, for the plant, too, after being hidden in
+the earth, which is pictured in the religions of antiquity as a 'great
+mother', comes to the surface.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The field of observation in the case of the new-born among mankind and in
+the animal world is large--very large, and yet definitely bounded. Normal
+conditions were naturally without special significance, but any deviation
+from the normal was regarded as a sign calling for interpretation. Such
+deviations covered a wide and almost boundless range from peculiar
+formations of any part of the body or of the features, to actual
+malformations and monstrosities. The general underlying principle was, the
+greater the abnormality, the greater the significance attached to it; and
+as in the case of the movements in the heaven, the unusual was regarded as
+an indication of some imminent unusual occurrence. We are fortunate in
+possessing among the tablets of Ashurbanapal's library, unearthed by
+Layard just fifty years ago and which is still our main source for the
+Babylonian-Assyrian religious literature, many hundreds of texts
+furnishing lists of birth omens and their interpretation[12], just as we
+have many hundreds of texts dealing with liver divination[13], and even
+more dealing with Astrology[14], apart from the many hundreds of texts
+dealing with miscellaneous omens of which up to the present only a small
+proportion has been published[15]. From this division of the great
+collection gathered by Ashurbanapal's scribes chiefly from the temple
+archives of Babylonia, it appears that the =bârû=-priests made extensive
+collections of all kinds of omens which served the purpose of official
+hand-books to be consulted in case of questions put to the priests as to
+the significance of any particular phenomenon, and which were also used as
+textbooks for the training of the aspirants to the priesthood.
+
+Confining ourselves to the birth-omens[16], the first question that arises
+is whether the signs entered are based on actual occurrences or are
+fanciful. In the case of many entries, as will presently be made evident,
+the anomalies noted rest upon =actual= observation, but with the desire of
+the priests to embrace in their collections all possible contingencies so
+as to be prepared for any question that might at any time arise, a large
+number of signs were entered which the diviners thought _might_ occur. In
+other words, in order to be on the safe side the diviners allowed their
+fancy free rein and registered many things that we can positively say
+never did occur and never could occur[17]. With the help of hand-books on
+human and animal pathology, we can without difficulty distinguish between
+two classes. Thus, twins being regarded as significant and triplets even
+more so, the priests did not stop at this point but provided for cases
+when four, five six up to eight and more infants were born at one
+time[18]. Again in regard to animals, inasmuch as bitches and sows may
+throw a litter of ten and even more, the priests in their collections
+carried the number up to thirty[19] which is, of course, out of the
+question. For sheep and goats the number was extended up to ten, though it
+probably never happened that more than triplets were ever born to an ewe
+or to a mother-goat. Even twins are rare, and I am told that there are few
+authenticated cases of triplets.
+
+Malformations among infants and the young of animals were of course
+plentiful, but here too the anomalies and monstrosities are not as
+numerous and varied as were entered in the handbooks of the Babylonian and
+Assyrian diviners. The factor of fancy to which I have referred enters
+even more largely in the entries of many actual malformations, through the
+assumption of a more or less fanciful resemblance of some feature or of
+some part of an infant or of the young of an animal with the features or
+parts of some animal.
+
+An excess number of limbs--three legs or four arms in the case of an
+infant, or five or six legs in the case of a lamb, puppy, pig or foal, or
+two heads--is not uncommon. On this basis the priests entered cases of
+excess legs and arms and heads up to nine and more[20]; and similarly in
+regard to ears and eyes.
+
+That, however, despite the largely fanciful character of the entries in
+the omen texts, these collections not only rested on a firm basis of
+actual observation, but served a practical purpose is shown by the
+examples that we have of official reports made by the =bârû=-priests of
+human and animal anomalies, with the interpretations attached that
+represent quotations from the collections[21]. A report of this kind in
+reference to an animal monstrosity reads in part as follows[22]:
+
+     'If it is a double foetus, but with one head, a double spine, two
+     tails and one body, the land that is now ruled by two will be ruled
+     by one person.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with one head, the land will be safe.'
+
+We have here two quotations from a text furnishing all kinds of
+peculiarities connected with a double foetus and we are fortunate in
+having the text from which the quotations are made[23]. Evidently an ewe
+has given birth to a monstrosity such as is here described, the case has
+been reported to the diviners who furnish the king[24] with this report,
+indicating that since the monstrosity has only one head, what might have
+been an unfavorable omen is converted into a favorable one.
+
+Another report[25] regarding a monstrosity born of a sow reads:
+
+     'If a foetus has eight feet and two tails, the ruler will acquire
+     universal sway. A butcher, Uddanu by name, reported as follows: A sow
+     gave birth (to a young) having eight feet and two tails. I have
+     preserved it in salt and kept it in the house. From
+     Nergal-eṭir[26].'
+
+Here we have the name of the =bârû=-priest who made the report expressly
+indicated. The report begins with a quotation from the collections,
+indicating the interpretation to be put upon the occurrence, after which
+the report of the actual event that took place is given in detail; and
+Nergal-eṭir is careful to add that he has preserved the specimen as a
+proof of its occurrence, precisely as to-day such a monstrosity would be
+bottled and kept in a pathological museum. In another report[27]
+containing various quotations from the collections of birth-omens and
+closing with one in regard to a mare that had given birth to two colts,
+one male and one female, with smooth hair over the ears, over the feet,
+mouth and hoofs, which is interpreted as a favorable sign[28], the one who
+makes the report adds 'Whether this is so, I shall ascertain. It will be
+investigated according to instructions'. Evidently, the facts had not been
+definitely ascertained and the diviner, while furnishing the
+interpretations for various possibilities, promises to inform himself
+definitely and report again as to the exact nature of the unusual
+occurrence. Frequently these omen reports contain interesting and
+important allusions to historical events which are then embodied in the
+collections[29]. In fact the event which followed upon any unusual or
+striking sign, whether in the heavens or among the newly born or what not,
+was carefully noted and on the principle of =post hoc propter hoc= was
+regarded as the event presaged by the sign in question. The definite
+indication of the interpretation to be put upon the omen itself was
+supplied by the actual event that followed upon the appearance of some
+sign, though it was not supposed that the sign would always be followed by
+the same occurrence. The point to which attention was primarily directed
+was whether the occurrence was of a favorable or an unfavorable nature. If
+favorable, the conclusion was drawn that the sign was a favorable one and
+hence in the event of its recurrence some favorable incident might be
+expected according to existing circumstances--victory in an impending
+battle, suppression of an uprising, recovery of some member of the royal
+household who may be lying ill, good crops at the approaching harvest or
+whatever the case may be--or in general a favorable answer to any question
+put by a ruler. The same would apply to a combination of signs, one of the
+fundamental principles of divination being--once favorable, always
+favorable.
+
+Among the birth-omen reports we have one containing a historical reference
+of unusual interest[30].
+
+     'If the foetus is male and female--omen of Azag-Bau who ruled the
+     land. The king's country will be seized.
+
+     If a foetus is male and female, without testicles, a son of the
+     palace[31] will rule the land or will assert himself against the
+     king.'
+
+We must assume in this case that a monstrosity has been born, having
+partly male and partly female organs. The priest by way of interpretation
+notes a series of signs registered in the collections, all prognosticating
+an abnormal state of affairs--a woman on the throne, captivity, seizure
+of the throne by an usurper and revolt. We frequently find in the
+collections several interpretations registered in this way,--a valuable
+indication of the manner in which these collections were compiled by the
+priests from a variety of documents before them. The name of this female
+ruler, hitherto known only from this report and from a list of proper
+names in which Azag-Bau occurred, has now turned up in an important list
+of early dynasties ruling in the Euphratean Valley, discovered and
+published by Scheil[32]. We may conclude, therefore, that at the time that
+Azag-Bau sat on the throne or shortly before, such a monstrosity actually
+came to light. As an unusual occurrence it presaged something unusual, and
+was naturally associated with the extraordinary circumstance of a woman
+mounting the throne. Azag-Bau according to the newly discovered list is
+the founder of a dynasty ruling in Erech as a centre and whose date
+appears to be somewhere between 2800 and 3000 B. C.--possibly even
+earlier. As a founder of a dynasty that overthrew a previous one, Azag-Bau
+must have engaged in hostilities with other centres, so that the second
+interpretation that 'the king's country will be seized' may well refer to
+some historical event of the same general period. Be that as it may, the
+important point for us is that we have here another proof of the practical
+purpose served by the observation of birth-omens.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Passing now to some illustrations of birth-omens from the collections of
+the =bârû=-priests, let us first take up some texts dealing with omens
+from the young of animals. Naturally, the animals to which attention was
+directed were the domesticated ones--sheep, goats, cows, dogs, horses and
+pigs. Among these the most prominent is the sheep, corresponding to the
+significance attached to the sheep in liver divination where it is, in
+fact, the only animal whose liver is read as a means of forecasting the
+future[33]. As a result of this particularly prominent position taken by
+the sheep in birth-omens, the word =isbu=, designating the normal or
+abnormal foetus--human or animal--when introduced without further
+qualification generally indicates the foetus of a sheep[34].
+
+A text[35] dealing with a double foetus, i. e., of a sheep[36], reads in
+part as follows:
+
+     'If it is a double foetus with slits (?) on the head and tail, the
+     land will be secure.
+
+     If it is a double foetus and enclosed[37], confusion in the country,
+     the dynasty [will come to an end].
+
+     If it is a double foetus, encompassed like an enclosure, the king
+     will [subdue ?] the land.
+
+     If it is a double foetus and encompassed like an enclosure, confusion
+     in the land, hostilities [in the country].
+
+     If it is a double foetus, encompassed like an enclosure, with slits
+     on the body, end of the dynasty, confusion and disturbances in the
+     country.
+
+     If it is a double foetus, encompassed like an enclosure, with twisted
+     necks and only one head, the land will remain under one head.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+     If it is a double foetus, the heads enclosed, with eight legs and
+     only one spine, the land will be visited by a destructive storm[38].
+
+     If it is a double foetus with only one head, the land will be secure,
+     the ruler will prevail against his enemy, peace and prosperity in the
+     country[39].
+
+     If it is a double foetus with one head, a double spine, eight feet,
+     two necks and two tails, the king will enlarge his land.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with one head, double spine, two tails and
+     one body, then the land that is ruled by two will be ruled by one.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with only one head and one spine, eight
+     feet, two necks and two tails, the king will enlarge his land.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with only one neck, the ruler will enlarge
+     his land.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with only one spine, the ruler will enlarge
+     his land.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with only one mouth, the land will remain
+     under the command of the king.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with only one breast, the land will be
+     enlarged, rule of a legitimate king.
+
+In order to grasp the principles underlying the interpretation of such
+omens, we must take as our starting point the conceptions connected with
+the various parts of the body. Bearing in mind that the omens deal
+primarily with public affairs and the general welfare and only to a
+limited extent with private and individual concerns[40], the head of the
+foetus by a natural association stands for the ruler or occasionally for
+the owner of the mother lamb. One head to the double foetus, therefore,
+indicates unity--a single rule--whereas two heads point to disruption of
+some kind. If the double foetus is so entwined as to be shut in within an
+enclosure, a similarly natural association of ideas would lead to the
+country being shut in, in a state of confusion, the land in a condition of
+subjugation or the like. On the other hand, if merely the heads are
+enclosed so as to give the impression of unity and the rest of the two
+bodies is disentangled, the unfavorable sign is converted into a favorable
+one. A second principle involved in the interpretation results in a more
+favorable conclusion if the double foetus shows less complications. So, a
+single neck or a single spine or a single breast or a single mouth point
+again, like a single head, towards unity and therefore to flourishing
+conditions in the land. In the case of legs and tails, to be sure, the
+conditions seem to be reversed--the eight legs and two tails and two necks
+with one head pointing to enlargement of the land, whereas a double foetus
+with only six or five feet forebodes some impending misfortune[41].
+
+Let us proceed further with this text.
+
+     If it is a double foetus, one well formed and the second issuing from
+     the mouth of the first[42], the king will be killed and his army will
+     [revolt ?], his oil plantation and his dwelling will be destroyed[43].
+
+     If it is a double foetus, the second lying at the tail [of the
+     first], with two breasts and two tails, there will be no unity in the
+     land[44].
+
+     If it is a double foetus, and the second lies at the tail of the
+     first and enclosed and both are living, ditto.
+
+     If it is a double foetus, and one rides over the other, victory,
+     throne will support throne.
+
+     If it is a double foetus and one rides over the other and there is
+     only one head, the power of the king will conquer the enemy's land.
+
+     If it is a double foetus, one above and one below, with only one
+     spine and eight feet, four [Variant: 'two'] ears, and two tails,
+     throne will support throne.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with the faces downward, approach of the son
+     of the king, who will take the throne of his father, or a second son
+     of the king will die, or a third son of the king will die.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+     If it is a double foetus with five feet, serious hostility in the
+     country, the house of the man will perish, his stall[45] will be
+     destroyed.
+
+     If it is a double foetus with six feet, the population will be
+     diminished, confusion in the land.
+
+     If it is a foetus within a foetus, the king will weaken his enemy,
+     his possessions will be brought into the palace[46].
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+     If a foetus gives birth to a second foetus[47], the king will assert
+     himself against his opponent.
+
+It will be observed that in quite a number of cases two alternative
+interpretations are given, one of an official character referring to the
+public welfare, or to occurrences in the royal household[48], the other of
+an unofficial character bearing on the welfare of the individual to whom
+the mother lamb that had produced the monstrosity belonged. One foetus
+issuing from the other, or one within the other, appears to have been a
+favorable or an unfavorable sign, according to the position of the second.
+If the one lay above the other, the association of ideas pointed to a
+control of the ruler over his enemy. In some cases, the association of
+ideas leading to the interpretation is not clear; and we must perhaps
+assume in such instances an entry of an event that =actually= occurred
+after the birth of the monstrosity in question. A certain measure of
+arbitrariness in the interpretations also constitutes a factor to be taken
+into consideration; and the last thing that we need to expect in any
+system of divination is a =consistent= application of any principle
+whatsoever.
+
+The text passes on to an enumeration of the case of an ewe giving birth to
+more than two lambs. The 'official' interpretations are throughout
+unfavorable[49], and the priests were quite safe in their entries which
+were purely arbitrary in these cases, since such multiple births never
+occurred. It is worth while to quote these interpretations as an
+illustration of the fanciful factor that, as already indicated, played a
+not insignificant part in the system unfolded.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to three (lambs), the prosperity of the country
+     will be annulled, but things will go well with the owner of the ewe,
+     his stall will be enlarged.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to three fully developed (lambs), the dynasty
+     will meet with opposition, approach of an usurper, the country will
+     be destroyed.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to four, the land will encounter hostility, the
+     produce of the land will be swept away, approach of an usurper,
+     destruction in the land.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to four fully developed lambs, [locusts (?)]
+     will come and [destroy] the country.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to four, approach of an usurper, the country
+     will be destroyed.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to five, destruction will ravage the country,
+     the owner of the house will die, his stall will be destroyed.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to five, one with the head of a bull[50], one
+     with a lion-head, one with a jackal-head, one with a dog-head and one
+     with the head of a lamb[51], devastation will take place in the
+     country.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to six, confusion among the population.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to seven,--three male and four female--, the
+     king will perish.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to eight, approach of an usurper, the tribute
+     of the king will be withheld.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to nine, end of the dynasty.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to ten, a weakling will acquire universal
+     sovereignty[52].
+
+The general similarity of the interpretations may be taken as a further
+indication that the =bârû=-priests were simply giving their fancy free
+scope in making prognostications for conditions that could never arise;
+nor is it of serious moment that in the case of triplets the
+interpretation is favorable to the owner of the ewe, or that in the case
+of ten lambs, even the official interpretation is not distinctly
+unfavorable--in view of the purely 'academic' character of such entries.
+
+An extract from a long text[53] furnishing omens derived from all kinds of
+peculiarities and abnormal phenomena noted on the ears of an
+animal--primarily again the sheep, though no doubt assumed to be
+applicable to other domesticated animals--will throw further light on the
+system of divination devised by the =bârû=-priests, and will also
+illustrate the extravagant fancy of the priests in their endeavor to make
+their collections provide for all possible and indeed for many impossible
+contingencies.
+
+     If a foetus[54] lacks the right ear, the rule of the king will come
+     to an end, his palace will be destroyed, overthrow of the elders of
+     the city, the king will be without counsellors, confusion in the
+     land, diminution of the cattle in the land, the enemy will acquire
+     control[55].
+
+     If the foetus lacks a left ear, a god will harken to the prayer of
+     the king, the king will take the land of his enemy, the palace of the
+     enemy will be destroyed, the enemy will be without a counsellor, the
+     cattle of the enemy's country will be diminished, the enemy will lose
+     control.
+
+     If the right ear of the foetus is detached, the stall[56] will be
+     destroyed.
+
+     If the left ear of the foetus is detached, the enemy's stall will be
+     destroyed.
+
+     If the right ear of the foetus is split, the herd will be destroyed
+     or the leaders of the city will leave (it)[57].
+
+     If the left ear of the foetus is split, the herd will be enlarged,
+     the leaders of the enemy's country will leave (it).
+
+     If the right ear of the foetus is split and swollen with clay, the
+     country [will have a rival].
+
+     If the left ear of the foetus is split and swollen with clay, the
+     enemy's country will have a rival.
+
+     If the right ear of the foetus is destroyed, the stall will be
+     enlarged, the stall of the enemy will be diminished.
+
+     If the outside of the right ear is destroyed, the land will yield to
+     the enemy's land.
+
+     If the right ear of the foetus lies near the cheek[58], the enemy
+     will prevail against the power of the king, the king will be without
+     counsellors, a ruler will not inhabit the land, or the son of the
+     king of universal sway[59] will be king.
+
+     If the left ear of the foetus lies near the cheek, an enemy will be
+     installed in the royal palace.
+
+     If the right ear of the foetus lies near the jaw, birth of a
+     demon[60] in my land, or in the house of the man[61].
+
+     If the left ear of the foetus lies near the jaw, birth of a demon in
+     the enemy's land, or the land of the enemy will perish.
+
+The guiding principle of the interpretation in these instances is the
+natural association of the right as your side and the left with the
+enemy's side. A defect on the right side is unfavorable to you, i. e., to
+the king or to the country or to the individual in whose household the
+birth occurs, while the same defect on the left side is unfavorable to the
+enemy and, therefore, favorable to you. The principle is quite
+consistently carried out even to the point that if the sign itself is
+favorable, it is only when it is found on the right side that it is
+favorable to you, while its occurrence on the left side is favorable to
+the enemy.
+
+Defects of any kind appear to be unfavorable, whereas an excess of organs
+and parts are in many instances favorable, though with a considerable
+measure of arbitrariness.
+
+     If the foetus has two ears on the right side and none on the left,
+     the boundary city of the enemy will become subject to you.
+
+     If the foetus has two ears on the left side and none on the right,
+     your boundary city will become subject to the enemy.
+
+     If the foetus has two ears on the right side and one on the left, the
+     land will remain under the control of the ruler.
+
+     If the foetus has two ears on the left side and one on the right, the
+     land will revolt.
+
+     If within the right ear of the foetus a second ear[62] appears, the
+     ruler will have counsellors.
+
+     If within the left ear of the foetus there is a second ear, the
+     counsellors of the ruler will advise evilly.
+
+     If behind the right ear of the foetus there is a second ear, the
+     ruler will have counsellors.
+
+     If behind the left ear of the foetus there is a second ear, confusion
+     in the land, the land will be destroyed[63].
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+     If a foetus has [four] ears, a king of universal sway will be in the
+     land.
+
+     [If a foetus has four ears], two lying in front (and) two in back,
+     the ruler will acquire possessions in a strange country[64].
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+     If behind the right ear, there are two ears, visible on the
+     outside[65], the inhabitants of the boundary city will become subject
+     to the enemy.
+
+     If behind the left ear there are two ears visible on the outside, the
+     inhabitants of the boundary city of the enemy will become subject to
+     you.
+
+     If a foetus has three ears, one on the left side and two on the right
+     side, the angry gods will return to the country.
+
+     If a foetus has three ears, one on the left side and two on the
+     right, the gods will kill within the country.
+
+     If within the right ear of a foetus there are three ears with the
+     inner sides well formed, the opponent will conclude peace with the
+     king whom he fears, the army of the ruler will dwell in peace with
+     him.
+
+     If within the left ear of a foetus there are three ears with the
+     inner sides well formed, thy ally will become hostile.
+
+     If behind each of the two ears there are three ears visible on the
+     outside, confusion in the land, the counsel of the land will be
+     discarded, one land after the other will revolt.
+
+     If within each of two ears there are three ears visible on the inner
+     side, things will go well with the ruler's army.
+
+     If within each of the two ears there are three ears, visible on the
+     outside and the inside, the army of the ruler will forsake him and
+     his land will revolt.
+
+     If within each of the two ears there are three ears, visible on the
+     outside and the inside, the army of the ruler will forsake him and
+     his land will revolt.
+
+     If the ears of a foetus are choked up[66], in place of a large king a
+     small king will be in the land.
+
+In general, therefore, an excess number of ears points to enlargement,
+increased power, stability of the government and the like; and this is
+probably due in part to the association of wisdom and understanding with
+the ear in Babylonian[67], for as a general thing an excess of organs or
+of parts of the body is an unfavorable sign, because a deviation from the
+normal.
+
+In the same way as in the case of the ears, we have birth-omen texts
+dealing with the head, lips, mouth, eyes, feet, joints, tail, genital
+organs, hair, horns and other parts of the body[68]. In many of these
+texts dealing with all kinds of peculiar formations and abnormalities in
+the case of one organ or one part of the body or the other, a comparison
+is instituted between the features or parts of one animal with those of
+another and the interpretation is guided by the association of ideas with
+the animal compared. A moment's reflection will show the importance of
+this feature in extending the field of observation almost =ad infinitum=.
+A lamb born with a large head might suggest a lion, a small long head that
+of a dog, or a very broad face might suggest the features of a bull. From
+comparisons of this kind, the step would be a small one to calling a lamb
+with lion-like features, a lion, or a lamb with features recalling those
+of a dog, a dog and so on through the list, the interpretations being
+chosen through the ideas associated with the animal in question. A text of
+this kind[69], of which we have many, reads in part as follows.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, the abandoned weapons will make an
+     attack (again), the king will be without a rival.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but with a head of a 'rain bow'
+     bird[70], the son will seize the throne of his father.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are
+     (also) human, the power of the king will conquer a powerful country.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are those
+     of a lamb, the young cattle will not prosper.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are those
+     of an ass, severe famine will occur in the country.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but (some of) the features are those
+     of a dog, Nergal[71] will cause destruction.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion but (some of) the features are those
+     of a =khupipi=[72], the ruler will be without a rival and will
+     destroy the land of his enemy.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, but with the mouth of a wild cow,
+     the rule of the king will not prosper.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion but with the mouth of a bull, famine
+     will ensue.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the horny exuberance of an ibex
+     on its face, prices will be lowered[73].
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the horny exuberance of an ibex
+     on its face and if the eyes are open[74], prices will be high.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with fatty flesh on the nose, the
+     land will be well nourished.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, and the right temple is covered with
+     fatty flesh, the land will be richly blessed.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, and the left temple is covered with
+     fatty flesh,--rivalry.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion, and it is covered all over with
+     fatty flesh, the king will be without a rival.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion but without a head[75], death of the
+     ruler.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the gorge torn off[76],
+     destruction of the land, the mistress[77] will die.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a lion with the gorge torn off and a
+     mutilated tail[78], the land [will be destroyed (?)]
+
+From texts like these it would appear that the phrase of 'an ewe giving
+birth to a lion' had acquired a purely conventional force to describe a
+lamb whose head or general features suggested those of a lion. It may have
+come to be used indeed for a newly born lamb of unusually large
+proportions. Hence one could combine with the description of a lion-lamb
+such further specifications as that it also suggested human features, or
+looked like an ass or a dog, or that while it came under the category of a
+lion-lamb, it yet had some of the features of a normal lamb. At all events
+we must not credit the Babylonians or Assyrians with so absurd a belief as
+that an ewe could actually produce a lion. Such a supposition is at once
+disposed of when we come to other texts where we find entries of an ewe
+producing a whole series of animals--a jackal, dog, fox, panther, hyena,
+gazelle, etc. and where we must perforce assume resemblances between a
+young lamb and the animals in question and not any extravagant views of
+possible cross-breeding[79]. To clinch the matter, we have quite a number
+of passages in which the preposition 'like' is introduced[80] instead of
+the direct equation, showing that when the texts speak of an ewe giving
+birth to a lion, a jackal, a dog, etc., the priests had in mind merely a
+resemblance as the basis of such statements.
+
+The general idea associated with the lion in divination texts is that of
+power, success, increase and the like. The sign, therefore, of an ewe
+producing a lion is a favorable one; it is only through attendant
+circumstances that the character of the sign is transformed into an
+unfavorable or partly unfavorable omen. So in case the lion-lamb has a
+head suggestive of the variegated colors of the rainbow bird, the sign
+still points to power, but to a power exercised by the crown prince
+against the father. If some of the features suggest those of an ass or of
+a dog or of a pig, the ideas associated with these animals convert what
+would otherwise have been a favorable sign into an unfavorable one. The
+mouth of a wild cow or of a bull, thus interfering with the complete
+identification of the young lamb as a lion-lamb, similarly, brings about
+an unfavorable interpretation. Fatty flesh by a natural association points
+to increased prosperity, while mutilations of the head, tail or of any
+other part naturally carry with them unfavorable prognostications.
+
+It is interesting to see from a long list of comparisons of a new-born
+lamb with all kinds of animals[81] the extent to which the association of
+ideas connected with the animals in question is carried.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a dog ... the king's land will revolt.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a beaver[82] (?), the king's land will
+     experience misery.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a fox, Enlil[83] will maintain the rule of
+     the legitimate king for many years, or[84] the king will strengthen
+     his power.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a Mukh-Dul[85], the enemy will carry away
+     the inhabitants of the land, the land will despite its strength go to
+     ruin, the dynasty will be opposed, confusion in the land.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a panther, the kingdom of the ruler will
+     secure universal sway.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a hyena (?), approach of Elam.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a gazelle, the days of the ruler through the
+     grace of the gods will be long, or the ruler will have warriors.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a hind, the son of the king will seize his
+     father's throne, or the approach of Subartu will overthrow the land.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a roebuck, the son of the king will seize
+     his father's throne, or destruction of cattle[86].
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a wild cow, revolt will prevail in the
+     land.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to an ox, the weapons of the ruler will prevail
+     over the weapons of the enemy.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to an ox that has _ganni_[87], the ruler will
+     weaken the land of his enemy.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to an ox with two tails, omen of Ishbi-Ura[88],
+     who was without a rival.
+
+     If an ewe gives birth to a cow, the king will die, another king will
+     draw nigh and divide the country.
+
+One might have supposed that such omens represent a purely imaginative
+theoretical factor, but the introduction of the historical reference
+proves conclusively that the Babylonians and Assyrians attached an
+was--different,' she whispered.
+
+'How?' my lady muttered.
+
+'He swore at me,' Marie answered in the same tone. 'And he spoke of
+you--somehow differently.'
+
+The Countess laughed, but far from joyously. 'I suppose to-night--I
+must see him?' she said. She tried as she spoke to press herself more
+deeply into the pillows, as if she might escape that way. Her flesh
+crept, and she shivered though she was as hot as fire.
+
+Once or twice in the hours which followed she was almost beside
+herself. Sometimes she prayed. More often she walked up and down the
+room like one in a fever. She did not know on what she was trusting,
+and she could have struck Marie when the girl, appealed to again and
+again, would explain nothing, and name no quarter from which help
+might come. All the afternoon the camp lay grilling in the sunshine,
+and in the shuttered room in the middle of it my lady suffered. Had
+the house lain by the river she might have tried to escape; but the
+camp girdled it on three sides, and on the fourth, where a swampy
+inlet guarded one flank of the village, a deep ditch as well as the
+morass forbade all passage.
+
+She remained in her room until she heard the unwelcome sounds which
+told of the general's return. Then she came into the outer room, her
+eyes glittering, a red spot on either cheek, all pretence at an end.
+Her glance withered Fraulein Max, who sat blinking in a corner with a
+very evil conscience. And to Marie Wort, when the girl came near her
+on the pretence of adjusting her lace sleeves, she had only one word
+to say.
+
+'You slut!' she hissed, her breath hot on the girl's cheek. 'If you
+fail me I will kill you. Begone out of my sight!'
+
+The child, excited before, broke down at that, and, bursting into a
+fit of weeping, ran out. Her sobs were still in the air when General
+Tzerclas entered.
+
+The Countess's face was flushed, and her bearing, full of passion and
+defiance, must have warned him what to expect, if he felt any doubt
+before. The sun was just setting, the room growing dusk. He stood
+awhile, after saluting her, in doubt how he should come to the point,
+or in admiration; for her scorn and anger only increased her beauty
+and his feeling for her. At length he pointed lightly to the women,
+who kept their places by the door.
+
+'Is it your wish, fair cousin,' he said slowly, 'that I should speak
+before these, or will you see me alone?'
+
+'Your spy, that cat there,' my lady answered, carried away by her
+temper, 'may go! The women will stay.'
+
+Fraulein Max, singled out by that merciless finger, sprang forward,
+her face mottled with surprise and terror. For a second she hesitated.
+Then she rushed towards her friend, as if she would embrace her.
+
+'Countess!' she cried. 'Rotha! Surely you are mad! You cannot think
+that I would----'
+
+My lady turned, and in a flash struck her fiercely on the cheek with
+her open hand. 'Liar!' she cried; 'go to your master, you whipped
+hound!'
+
+The Dutch woman recoiled with a cry of pain, and sobbing wildly went
+back to her place. The general laughed harshly.
+
+'You hold with me, sweetheart,' he said. 'Discipline before
+everything. But you have not my patience.'
+
+She looked at him--angry with him, angry with herself, her hand to her
+bosom--but she did not answer.
+
+'For you must allow,' he continued--his tone and his eyes still
+bantered her--'that I have been patient. I have been like a man
+athirst in the desert; but I have waited day after day, until now I
+can wait no longer, sweetheart.'
+
+'So you tamper with my--with that woman!' she said scornfully.
+
+The general shrugged his shoulders and laughed grimly. 'Why not?' he
+said. 'What are waiting-women and the like made for, if not to be
+bribed--or slapped?'
+
+She hated him for that sly hit--if never before; but she controlled
+herself. She would throw the burden on him.
+
+He read the thought, and it led him to change his tone. There was a
+gloomy fire in his eyes, and smouldering passion in his voice, when he
+spoke again.
+
+'Well, Countess,' he said, 'I am here for your answer.'
+
+'To what?'
+
+'To the question I asked you some time ago,' he rejoined, dwelling on
+her with sullen eyes. 'I asked you to be my wife. Your answer?'
+
+'Prythee!' she said proudly, 'this is a strange way of wooing.'
+
+'It is not of my choice that I woo in company,' he answered, shrugging
+his shoulders. 'My answer; that is all I want--and you.'
+
+'Then you shall have the first, and not the last,' she exclaimed on a
+sudden impulse. 'No, no--a hundred times no! If you do not see that by
+pressing me now,' she continued impetuously, 'when I am alone,
+friendless, and unprotected, you insult me, you should see it, and I
+do.'
+
+For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed; but his voice,
+notwithstanding his mastery over it and in spite of that laugh, shook
+with rage and resentment. 'As I expected,' he said. 'I knew last night
+that you hated me. You have been playing a part throughout. You loathe
+me. Yes, madam, you may wince,' he continued bitterly, 'for you shall
+still be my wife; and when you are my wife we will talk of that.'
+
+'Never!' she said, with a brave face; but her heart beat wildly, and a
+mist rose before her eyes.
+
+He laughed. 'My legions are round me,' he said. 'Where are yours?'
+
+'You are a gentleman,' she answered with an effort. 'You will let me
+go.'
+
+'If I do not?'
+
+'There are those who will know how to avenge me.'
+
+He laughed again. 'I do not know them, Countess,' he said
+contemptuously. 'For Hesse Cassel, he has his hands full at Nuremberg,
+and will be likely, when Wallenstein has done with him, to need help
+himself. The King of Sweden--the brightest morning ends soonest in
+rain--and he will end at Nuremberg. Bernhard of Weimar, Leuchtenstein,
+all the fanatics fall with him. Only the banner of the Free Companies
+stands and waves ever the wider. Be advised,' he continued grimly.
+'Bend, Countess, or I have the means to break you.'
+
+'Never!' she said.
+
+'So you say now,' he answered slowly. 'You will not say so in five
+minutes. If you care nothing for yourself, have a care for your
+friends.'
+
+'You said I had none,' she retorted hoarsely.
+
+'None that can help you,' he replied; 'some that you can help.'
+
+She started and looked at him wildly, her lips apart, her eyes wide
+with hope, fear, expectation. What did he mean? What could he mean by
+this new turn? Ha!
+
+She had her face towards the window, and dark as the room was
+growing--outside the light was failing fast--he read the thought in
+her eyes, and nodded.
+
+'The Waldgrave?' he said lightly. 'Yes, he is alive, Countess, at
+present; and your steward also.'
+
+'They are prisoners?' she whispered, her cheeks grown white.
+
+'Prisoners; and under sentence of death.'
+
+'Where?'
+
+'In my camp.'
+
+'Why?' she muttered. But alas! she knew; she knew already.
+
+'They are hostages for your good behaviour,' he answered in his cold,
+mocking tone. 'If their principal satisfies me, good; they will go
+free. If not, they die--to-morrow.'
+
+'To-morrow?' she gasped.
+
+'To-morrow,' he answered ruthlessly. 'Now I think we understand one
+another.'
+
+She threw up her hand suddenly, as if she were about to vent on him
+all the passions which consumed her--the terror, rage, and shame which
+swelled in her breast. But something in his gibing tone, something in
+the set lines of his figure--she could not see his face--checked her.
+She let her hand fall in a gesture of despair, and shrank into
+herself, shuddering. She looked at him as at a serpent--that
+fascinated her. At last she murmured--
+
+'You will not dare. What have they done to you?'
+
+'Nothing,' he answered. 'It is not their affair; it is yours.'
+
+For a moment after that they stood confronting one another while the
+sound of the women sobbing in a corner, and the occasional jingle of a
+bridle outside, alone broke the silence. Behind her the room was dark;
+behind him, through the open windows, lay the road, glimmering pale
+through the dusk. Suddenly the door at her back opened, and a bright
+light flashed on his face. It was Marie Wort bringing in a lamp. No
+one spoke, and she set the lamp on the table, and going by him began
+to close the shutters. Still the Countess stood as if turned to stone,
+and he stood watching her.
+
+'Where are they?' she moaned at last, though he had already told her.
+
+'In the camp,' he said.
+
+'Can I--can I see them?' she panted.
+
+'Afterwards,' he answered, with the smile of a fiend; 'when you are my
+wife.'
+
+That added the last straw. She took two steps to the table, and
+sitting down blindly, covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders
+began to tremble, her head sank lower and lower on the table. Her
+pride was gone.
+
+'Heaven help us!' she whispered in a passion of grief. 'Heaven help
+us, for there is no help here!'
+
+'That is better,' he said, eyeing her coldly. 'We shall soon come to
+terms now.'
+
+In his exultation he went a step nearer to her. He was about to touch
+her--to lay his hand on her hair, believing his evil victory won, when
+suddenly two dark figures rose like shadows behind her chair. He
+recoiled, dropping his hand. In a moment a pistol barrel was thrust
+into his face. He fell back another step.
+
+'One word and you are a dead man!' a stern voice hissed in his ear.
+Then he saw another barrel gleam in the lamplight, and he stood still.
+
+'What is this?' he said, looking from one to the other, his voice
+trembling with rage.
+
+'Justice!' the same speaker answered harshly. 'But stand still and be
+silent, and you shall have your life. Give the alarm, and you die,
+general, though we die the next minute. Sit down in that chair.'
+
+He hesitated. But the two shining barrels converging on his head, the
+two grim faces behind them, were convincing; in a moment he obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                             THE FLIGHT.
+
+
+One of the men--it was I--muttered something to Marie, and she snuffed
+the wick, and blew up the light. In a moment it filled the room,
+disclosing a strange medley of levelled weapons, startled faces, and
+flashing eyes. In one corner Fraulein Max and the two women cowered
+behind one another, trembling and staring. At the table sat my lady,
+with dull, dazed eyes, looking on, yet scarcely understanding what was
+happening. On either side of her stood Steve and I, covering the
+general with our pistols, while the Waldgrave, who was still too weak
+for much exertion, kept guard at the door.
+
+Tzerclas was the first to speak. 'What is this foolery?' he said,
+scowling unutterable curses at us. 'What does this mean?'
+
+'This!' I said, producing a piece of hide rope. 'We are going to tie
+you up. If you struggle, general, you die. If you submit, you live.
+That is all. Go to work, Steve.'
+
+There was a gleam in Tzerclas' eye, which warned me to stand back and
+crook my finger. His face was black with fury, and for an instant I
+thought that he would spring upon us and dare all. But prudence and
+the pistols prevailed. With an evil look he sat still, and in a trice
+Steve had a loop round his arms and was binding him to the heavy
+chair.
+
+I knew then that as far as he was concerned we were safe; and I turned
+to bid the women get cloaks and food, adjuring them to be quick, since
+every moment was precious.
+
+'Bring nothing but cloaks and food and wine,' I said. 'We have to go a
+league on foot and can carry little.'
+
+The Countess heard my words, and looked at me with growing
+comprehension. 'The Waldgrave?' she muttered. 'Is he here?'
+
+He came forward from the door to speak to her; but when she saw him,
+and how pale and thin he was, with great hollows in his cheeks and his
+eyes grown too large for his face, she began to cry weakly, as any
+other woman might have cried, being overwrought. I bade Marie, who
+alone kept her wits, to bring her wine and make her take it; and in a
+minute she smiled at us, and would have thanked us.
+
+'Wait!' I said bluntly, feeling a great horror upon me whenever I
+looked towards the general or caught his eye. 'You may have small
+cause to thank us. If we fail, Heaven and you forgive us, my lady, for
+this man will not. If we are retaken----'
+
+'We will not be retaken!' she cried hardily. 'You have horses?'
+
+'Five only,' I answered. 'They are all Steve could get, and they are a
+league away. We must go to them on foot. There are eight of us here,
+and young Jacob and Ernst are watching outside. Are all ready?'
+
+My lady looked round; her eye fell on Fraulein Max, who with a little
+bundle in her arms had just re-entered and stood shivering by the
+door. The Dutch girl winced under her glance, and dropping her bundle,
+stooped hurriedly to pick it up.
+
+'That woman does not go!' the Countess said suddenly.
+
+I answered in a low tone that I thought she must.
+
+'No!' my lady cried harshly--she could be cruel sometimes--'not with
+us. She does not belong to our party. Let her stay with her paymaster,
+and to-morrow he will doubtless reward her.'
+
+What reward she was likely to get Fraulein Max knew well. She flung
+herself at my lady's feet in an agony of fear, and clutching her
+skirts, cried abjectly for mercy; she would carry, she would help, she
+would do anything, if she might go! Knowing that we dared not leave
+her since she would be certain to release the general as soon as our
+backs were turned, I was glad when Marie, whose heart was touched,
+joined her prayers to the culprit's and won a reluctant consent.
+
+It has taken long to tell these things. They passed very quickly. I
+suppose not more than a quarter of an hour elapsed between our first
+appearance and this juncture, which saw us all standing in the
+lamplight, laden and ready to be gone; while the general glowered at
+us in sullen rage, and my lady, with a new thought in her mind, looked
+round in dismay.
+
+She drew me aside. 'Martin,' she said, 'his orderly is waiting in the
+road with his horse. The moment we are gone he will shout to him.'
+
+'We have provided for that,' I answered, nodding. Then assuring myself
+by a last look round that all were ready, I gave the word. 'Now,
+Steve!' I said sharply.
+
+In a twinkling he flung over the general's head a small sack doubled
+inwards. We heard a stifled oath and a cry of rage. The bars of the
+strong chair creaked as our prisoner struggled, and for a moment it
+seemed as if the knots would barely hold. But the work had been well
+done, and in less than half a minute Steve had secured the sack to the
+chair-back. It was as good as a gag, and safer. Then we took up the
+chair between us, and lifting it into the back room, put it down and
+locked the door upon our captive.
+
+As we turned from it Steve looked at me. 'If he catches us after this,
+Master Martin,' he said, 'it won't be an easy death we shall die!'
+
+'Heaven forbid!' I muttered. 'Let us be off!'
+
+He gave the word and we stole out into the darkness at the back of the
+house, Steve, who had surveyed the ground, going first. My lady
+followed him; then came the Waldgrave; after him the two women and
+Fraulein Max, with Jacob and Ernst; last of all, Marie and I. It was
+no time for love-making, but as we all stood a minute in the night,
+while Steve listened, I drew Marie's little figure to me and kissed
+her pale face again and again; and she clung to me, trembling, her
+eyes shining into mine. Then she put me away bravely; but I took her
+bundle, and with full hearts we followed the others across the field
+at the back and through the ditch.
+
+That passed, we found ourselves on the edge of the village, with the
+lights of the camp forming five-sixths of a circle round us. In one
+direction only, where the swamp and creek fringed the place, a dark
+gap broke the ring of twinkling fires. Towards this gap Steve led the
+way, and we, a silent line of gliding figures, followed him. The moon
+had not yet risen. The gloom was such that I could barely make out the
+third figure before me; and though all manner of noises--the chorus of
+a song, the voice of a scolding hag, even the rattle of dice on a
+drumhead--came clearly to my ears, and we seemed to be enclosed on all
+sides, the darkness proved an effectual shield. We met no one, and
+five minutes after leaving the house, reached the bank of the little
+creek I have mentioned.
+
+Here we paused and waited, a group of huddled figures, while Steve
+groped about for a plank he had hidden. Before us lay the stream,
+behind us the camp. At any moment the alarm might be raised. I
+pictured the outcry, the sudden flickering of lights, the galloping
+this way and that, the discovery. And then, thank Heaven! Steve found
+his plank, and in the work of passing the women over I forgot my
+fears. The darkness, the peril--for the water on the nearer side was
+deep--the nervous haste of some, and the terror of others, made the
+task no easy one. I was hot as fire and wet to the waist before it was
+over, and we all stood ankle-deep in the ooze which formed the farther
+bank.
+
+Alas! our troubles were only beginning. Through this ooze we had to
+wade for a mile or more, sometimes in doubt, always in darkness; now
+plashing into pools, now stumbling over a submerged log, often up to
+our knees in mud and water. The frogs croaked round us, the bog moaned
+and gurgled; in the depth of the marsh the bitterns boomed mournfully.
+If we stood a moment we sank. It was a horrible time; and the more
+horrible, as through it all we had only to turn to see the camp lights
+behind us, a poor half-mile or so away.
+
+None but desperate men could have exposed women to such a labour; nor
+could any but women without hope and at their wit's end have
+accomplished it. As it was, Fraulein Max, who never ceased to whimper,
+twice sank down and would go no farther, and we had to pluck her up
+roughly and force her on. My lady's women, who wept in their misery,
+were little better. Wet to the waist, draggled, and worn out by the
+clinging slime and the reek of the marsh, they were kept moving only
+with difficulty; so that, but for Steve's giant strength and my lady's
+courage, I think we should have stayed there till daylight, and been
+caught like birds limed on a bough.
+
+As it was, we plunged and strove for more than an hour in that place,
+the dark sky above us, the quaking bog below, the women's weeping in
+our ears. Then, at last, when I had almost given up hope, we struggled
+out one by one upon the road, and stood panting and shaking,
+astonished to find solid ground under our feet. We had still two miles
+to walk, but on dry soil; and though at another time the task might
+have seemed to the women full of adventure and arduous, it failed to
+frighten them after what we had gone through. Steve took Fraulein
+Anna, and I one of the women. My lady and the Waldgrave went hand in
+hand; the one giving, I fancy, as much help as the other. For Marie,
+her small, white face was a beacon of hope in the darkness. In the
+marsh she had never failed or fainted. On the road the tears came into
+my eyes for pity and love and admiration.
+
+At length Steve bade us stand, and leaving us in the way, plunged into
+the denser blackness of a thicket, which lay between it and the river.
+I heard him parting the branches before him, and stumbling and
+swearing, until presently the sounds died away in the distance, and we
+remained shivering and waiting. What if the horses were gone? What if
+they had strayed from the place where he had tethered them early in
+the day, or some one had found and removed them? The thought threw me
+into a cold sweat.
+
+Then I heard him coming back, and I caught the ring of iron hoofs. He
+had them! I breathed again. In a moment he emerged, and behind him a
+string of shadows--five horses tied head and tail.
+
+'Quick!' he muttered. He had been long enough alone to grow nervous.
+'We are two hours gone, and if they have not yet discovered him they
+must soon! It is a short start, and half of us on foot!'
+
+No one answered, but in a moment we had the Waldgrave, my lady,
+Fraulein, and one of the women mounted. Then we put up Marie, who was
+no heavier than a feather, and the lighter of the women on the
+remaining horse; and Steve hurrying beside the leader, and I, Ernst,
+and Jacob bringing up the rear, we were well on the road within two
+minutes of the appearance of the horses. Those who rode had only
+sacking for saddles and loops of rope for stirrups; but no one
+complained. Even Fraulein Max began to recover herself, and to dwell
+more upon the peril of capture than on aching legs and chafed knees.
+
+The road was good, and we made, as far as I could judge, about six
+miles in the first hour. This placed us nine miles from the camp; the
+time, a little after midnight. At this point the clouds, which had
+aided us so far by increasing the darkness of the night, fell in a
+great storm of rain, that, hissing on the road and among the trees, in
+a few minutes drenched us to the skin. But no one complained. Steve
+muttered that it would make it the more difficult to track us; and for
+another hour we plodded on gallantly. Then our leader called a halt,
+and we stood listening.
+
+The rain had left the sky lighter. A waning moon, floating in a wrack
+of watery clouds to westward, shed a faint gleam on the landscape. To
+the right of us it disclosed a bare plain, rising gradually as it
+receded, and offering no cover. On our left, between us and the river,
+it was different. Here a wilderness of osiers--a grey willow swamp
+that in the moonlight shimmered like the best Utrecht--stretched as
+far as we could see. The road where we stood rose a few feet above it,
+so that our eyes were on a level with the highest shoots; but a
+hundred yards farther on the road sank a little. We could see the
+water standing on the track in pools, and glimmering palely.
+
+'This is the place,' Steve muttered. 'It will be dawn in another hour.
+What do you think, Master Martin?'
+
+'That we had better get off the road,' I answered. 'Take it they found
+him at midnight; the orderly's patience would scarcely last longer.
+Then, if they started after us a quarter of an hour later, they should
+be here in another twenty minutes.'
+
+'It is an aguey place,' he said doubtfully.
+
+'It will suit us better than the camp,' I answered.
+
+No one else expressed an opinion, and Steve, taking my lady's rein,
+led her horse on until he came to the hollow part of the road. Here
+the moonlight disclosed a kind of water-lane, running away between the
+osiers, at right angles from the road. Steve turned into it, leading
+my lady's horse, and in a moment was wading a foot deep in water. The
+Waldgrave followed, then the women. I came last, with Marie's rein in
+my hand. We kept down the lane about one hundred and fifty paces, the
+horses snorting and moving unwillingly, and the water growing ever
+deeper. Then Steve turned out of it, and began to advance, but more
+cautiously, parallel with the road.
+
+We had waded about as far in this direction, sidling between the
+stumps and stools as well as we could, when he came again to a stand
+and passed back the word for me. I waded on, and joined him. The
+osiers, which were interspersed here and there with great willows,
+rose above our heads and shut out the moonlight. The water gurgled
+black about our knees. Each step might lead us into a hole, or we
+might trip over the roots of the osiers. It was impossible to see a
+foot before us, or anything above us save the still, black rods and
+the grey sky.
+
+'It should be in this direction,' Steve said, with an accent of doubt.
+'But I cannot see. We shall have the horses down.'
+
+'Let me go first,' I said.
+
+'We must not separate,' he answered hastily.
+
+'No, no,' I said, my teeth beginning to chatter. 'But are you sure
+that there is an eyot here?'
+
+'I did not go to it,' he answered, scratching his head. 'But I saw a
+clump of willows rising well above the level, and they looked to me as
+if they grew on dry land.'
+
+He stood a moment irresolutely, first one and then another of the
+horses shaking itself till the women could scarcely keep their seats.
+
+'Why do we not go on?' my lady asked in a low voice.
+
+'Because Steve is not sure of the place, my lady,' I said. 'And it is
+almost impossible to move, it is so dark, and the osiers grow so
+closely. I doubt we should have waited until daylight.'
+
+'Then we should have run the risk of being intercepted,' she answered
+feverishly. 'Are you very wet?'
+
+'No,' I said, though my feet were growing numb, 'not very. I see what
+we must do. One of us must climb into a willow and look out.'
+
+We had passed a small one not long before. I plashed my way back to
+it, along the line of shivering women, and, pulling myself heavily
+into the branches, managed to scramble up a few feet. The tree swayed
+under my weight, but it bore me.
+
+The first dawn was whitening the sky and casting a faint, reflected
+light on the glistening sea of osiers, that seemed to my eyes--for I
+was not high enough to look beyond it--to stretch far and away on
+every side. Here and there a large willow, rising in a round, dark
+clump, stood out above the level; and in one place, about a hundred
+paces away on the riverside of us, a group of these formed a shadowy
+mound. I marked the spot, and dropped gently into the water.
+
+'I have found it,' I said. 'I will go first, and do you bring my lady,
+Steve. And mind the stumps. It will be rough work.'
+
+It was rough work. We had to wind in and out, leading and coaxing the
+frightened horses, that again and again stumbled to their knees. Every
+minute I feared that we should find the way impassable or meet with a
+mishap. But in time, going very patiently, we made out the willows in
+front of us. Then the water grew more shallow, and this gave the
+animals courage. Twenty steps farther, and we passed into the shadow
+of the trees. A last struggle, and, plunging one by one up the muddy
+bank, we stood panting on the eyot.
+
+It was such a place as only despair could choose for a refuge. In
+shape like the back of some large submerged beast, it lay in length
+about forty paces, in breadth half as many. The highest point was a
+poor foot above the water. Seven great willows took up half the space;
+it was as much as our horses, sinking in the moist mud to the fetlock,
+could do to find standing-room on the remainder. Coarse grass and
+reeds covered it; and the flotsam of the last flood whitened the
+trunks of the willows, and hung in squalid wisps from their lower
+branches.
+
+For the first time we saw one another's faces, and how pale and
+woe-begone, mudstained and draggled we were! The cold, grey light,
+which so mercilessly unmasked our refuge, did not spare us. It helped
+even my lady to look her worst. Fraulein Anna sat a mere lifeless lump
+in her saddle. The waiting-women cried softly; they had cried all
+night. The Waldgrave looked dazed, as if he barely understood where he
+was or why he was there.
+
+To think over-much in such a place was to weep. Instead, I hastened to
+get them all off their horses, and with Steve's help and a great
+bundle of osiers and branches which we cut, I made nests for them in
+the lower boughs of the willows, well out of reach of the water. When
+they had all taken their places, I served out food and a dram of
+Dantzic waters, which some of us needed; for a white mist, drawn up
+from the swamp by the rising sun, began to enshroud us, and, hanging
+among the osiers for more than an hour, prolonged the misery of the
+night.
+
+Still, even that rolled away at last--about six o'clock--and let us
+see the sun shining overhead in a heaven of blue distance and golden
+clouds. Larks rose up and sang, and all the birds of the marsh began
+to twitter and tweet. In a trice our mud island was changed to a
+bower--a place of warmth and life and refreshment--where light and
+shade lay on the dappled floor, and the sunshine fell through green
+leaves.
+
+Then I took the cloaks, and the saddles, and everything that was wet,
+and spread them out on branches to dry; and leaving the women to make
+themselves comfortable in their own way and shift themselves as they
+pleased, we two, with the Waldgrave and the two servants, went away to
+the other end of the eyot.
+
+'I shall sleep,' Steve said drowsily.
+
+The insects were beginning to hum. The horses stood huddled together,
+swishing their long tails.
+
+'You think they won't track us?' I asked.
+
+'Certain,' he said. 'There are six hundred yards of mud and water,
+eel-holes, and willow shoots between us and the road.'
+
+The Waldgrave assented mechanically; it seemed so to me too. And
+by-and-by, worn out with the night's work, I fell asleep, and slept, I
+suppose, for a good many hours, with the sun and shade passing slowly
+across my face, and the bees droning in my ears, and the mellow warmth
+of the summer day soaking into my bones. When I awoke I lay for a time
+revelling in lazy enjoyment. The oily plop of a water-rat, as it dived
+from a stump, or the scream of a distant jay, alone broke the laden
+silence. I looked at the sun. It lay south-west. It was three o'clock
+then.
+
+
+[Illustration: We were alone.... I whispered in her ear ...]
+
+
+A light touch fell on my knee. I started, looked down, and for a
+moment stared in sleepy wonder. A tiny bunch of blue flowers, such as
+I could see growing in a dozen places on the edge of the island, lay
+on it, tied up with a thread of purple silk. I started up on my elbow,
+and--there, close beside me, with her cheeks full of colour, and the
+sunshine finding golden threads in her dark hair, sat Marie, toying
+with more flowers.
+
+'Ha!' I said foolishly. 'What is it?'
+
+'My lady sent me to you,' she answered.
+
+'Yes,' I asked eagerly. 'Does she want me?'
+
+But Marie hung her head, and played with the flowers. 'I don't think
+so,' she whispered. 'She only sent me to you.'
+
+Then I understood. The Waldgrave had gone to the farther end. Steve
+and the men were tending the horses half a dozen paces beyond the
+screen of willow-leaves. We were alone. A rat plashed into the water,
+and drove Marie nearer to me; and she laid her head on my shoulder,
+and I whispered in her ear, till the lashes sank down over her eyes
+and her lips trembled. If I had loved her from the first, what was the
+length and height and breadth of my love now, when I had seen her in
+darkness and peril, sunshine and storm, strong when others failed,
+brave when others flinched, always helpful, ready, tireless! And she
+so small! So frail, I almost feared to press her to me; so pale, the
+blood that leapt to her cheeks at my touch seemed a mere reflection of
+the sunlight.
+
+I told her how Steve had made the guards at the prison drunk with wine
+bought with her dowry; how the horses he had purchased and taken out
+of the camp by twos and threes had been paid for from the same source;
+and how many ducats had gone for meats and messes to keep the life,
+that still ran sluggishly, in the Waldgrave's veins. She listened and
+lay still.
+
+'So you have no dowry now, little one,' I said, when I had told her
+all. 'And your gold chain is gone. I believe you have nothing but the
+frock you stand up in. Why, then, should I marry you?'
+
+I felt her heart give a great leap under my hand, and a shiver ran
+through her. But she did not raise her head, and I, who had thought to
+tease her into looking at me, had to put back her little face till it
+gazed into mine.
+
+'Why?' I said; 'why?'--drawing her closer and closer to me.
+
+Then the colour came into her face like the sunlight itself. 'Because
+you love me,' she whispered, shutting her eyes.
+
+And I did not gainsay her.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                               MISSING!
+
+
+We lay in the osier bed two whole days and a night, during which time
+two at least of us were not unhappy, in spite of peril and hardship.
+We left it at last, only because our meagre provision gave out, and we
+must move or starve. We felt far from sure that the danger was over,
+for Steve, who spent the second day in a thick bush near the road, saw
+two troops of horse go by; and others, we believed, passed in the
+night. But we had no choice. The neighbourhood was bleak and bare.
+Such small homesteads as existed had been eaten up, and lay abandoned.
+If we had felt inclined to venture out for food, none was to be had.
+And, in fine, though we trembled at the thought of the open road, and
+my heart for one grew sick as I looked from Marie to my lady, and
+reckoned the long tale of leagues which lay between us and Cassel, the
+risk had to be run.
+
+Steve had discovered a more easy though longer way out of the
+willow-bed, and two hours before midnight on the second night, he and
+I mounted the women and prepared to set out. He arranged that we
+should go in the same order in which we had come: that he should lead
+the march, and I bring up the rear, while the Waldgrave, who was still
+far from well, and whose continued lack of vigour troubled us the more
+as we said little about it, should ride with my lady.
+
+The night seemed likely to be fine, but the darkness, the sough of the
+wind as it swept over the plain, and the melancholy plashing of the
+water as our horses plodded through it, were not things of a kind to
+allay our fears. When we at last left our covert, and reaching the
+road stood to listen, the fall of a leaf made us start. Though no
+sounds but those of the night came to our ears--and some of these were
+of a kind to reassure us--we said 'Hush!' again and again, and only
+moved on after a hundred alarums and assurances.
+
+I walked by Marie, with my hand on the withers of her horse, but we
+did not talk. The two waiting-women riding double were before us, and
+their muttered fears alone broke the silence which prevailed at the
+end of the train. We went at the rate of about two leagues an hour,
+Steve and I and the men running where the roads were good, and
+everywhere and at all times urging the horses to do their best. The
+haste of our movements, the darkness, our constant alarm, and the
+occasional confusion when the rear pressed on the van at an awkward
+place, had the effect of upsetting the balance of our minds; so
+that the most common impulse of flight--to press forward with
+ever-increasing recklessness--began presently to possess us. Once or
+twice I had to check the foremost, or they would have outrun the rear;
+and this kind of race brought us gradually into such a state of alarm,
+that by-and-by, when the line came to a sudden stop on the brow of a
+gentle descent, I could hardly restrain my impatience.
+
+'What is it?' I asked eagerly. 'Why are we stopping?' Surely the road
+is good enough here.'
+
+No one answered, but it was significant that on the instant one of the
+women began to cry.
+
+'Stop that folly!' I said. 'What is in front there? Cannot some one
+speak?'
+
+'The Waldgrave thinks that he hears horsemen before us,' Fraulein Max
+answered.
+
+In another moment the Waldgrave's figure loomed out of the darkness.
+'Martin,' he said--I noticed that his voice shook--'go forward. They
+are in front. Man alive, be quick!' he continued fiercely. 'Do you
+want to have them into us?'
+
+I left my girl's rein, and pushing past the women and Fraulein, joined
+Steve, who was standing by my lady's rein. 'What is it?' I said.
+
+'Nothing, I think,' he answered in an uncertain tone.
+
+I stood a moment listening, but I too could hear nothing. I began to
+argue with him. 'Who heard it?' I asked impatiently.
+
+'The Waldgrave,' he answered.
+
+I did not like to say before my lady what I thought--that the
+Waldgrave was not quite himself, nor to be depended upon; and instead
+I proposed to go forward on foot and learn if anything was amiss. The
+road ran straight down the hill, and the party could scarcely pass me,
+even in the gloom. If I found all well, I would whistle, and they
+could come on.
+
+My lady agreed, and, leaving them halted, I started cautiously down
+the hill. The darkness was not extreme; the cloud drift was broken
+here and there, and showed light patches of sky between; I could make
+out the shapes of things, and more than once took a clump of bushes
+for a lurking ambush. But halfway down, a line of poplars began to
+shadow the road on our side, and from that point I might have walked
+into a regiment and never seen a man. This, the being suddenly alone,
+and the constant rustling of the leaves overhead, which moved with the
+slightest air, shook my nerves, and I went very warily, with my heart
+in my mouth and a cry trembling on my lips.
+
+Still I had reached the hillfoot before anything happened. Then I
+stopped abruptly, hearing quite distinctly in front of me the sound of
+footsteps. It was impossible that this could be the sound that the
+Waldgrave had heard, for only one man seemed to be stirring, and he
+moved stealthily; but I crouched down and listened, and in a moment I
+was rewarded. A dark figure came out of the densest of the shadow and
+stood in the middle of the road. I sank lower, noiselessly. The man
+seemed to be listening.
+
+It flashed into my head that he was a sentry; and I thought how
+fortunate it was that I had come on alone.
+
+Presently he moved again. He stole along the track towards me,
+stooping, as I fancied, and more than once standing to listen, as if
+he were not satisfied. I sank down still lower, and he passed me
+without notice, and went on, and I heard his footsteps slowly
+retreating until they quite died away.
+
+But in a moment, before I had risen to my full height, I heard them
+again. He came back, and passed me, breathing quickly and loudly. I
+wondered if he had detected our party and was going to give the alarm;
+and I stood up, anxious and uncertain, at a loss whether I should
+follow him or run back.
+
+At that instant a fierce yell broke the silence, and rent the darkness
+as a flash of lightning might rend it. It came from behind me, from
+the brow of the hill; and I started as if I had been struck. Hard on
+it a volley of shouts and screams flared up in the same direction, and
+while my heart stood still with terror and fear of what had happened,
+I heard the thunder of hoofs come down the road, with a clatter of
+blows and whips. They were coming headlong--my lady and the rest. The
+danger was behind them, then. I had just time to turn and get to the
+side of the road before they were on me at a gallop.
+
+I could not see who was who in the darkness, but I caught at the
+nearest stirrup, and, narrowly escaping being ridden down, ran on
+beside the rider. The horses, spurred down the slope, had gained such
+an impetus that it was all I could do to keep up. I had no breath to
+ask questions, nor state my fear that there was danger ahead also. I
+had to stride like a giant to keep my legs and run.
+
+Some one else was less lucky. We had not swept fifty yards from where
+I joined them, when a dark figure showed for a moment in the road
+before us. I saw it; it seemed to hang and hesitate. The next instant
+it was among us. I heard a shrill scream, a heavy fall, and we were
+over it, and charging on and on and on through the darkness.
+
+To the foot of the hill and across the bottom, and up the opposite
+slope. I do not know how far we had sped, when Steve's voice was
+heard, calling on us to halt.
+
+'Pull up! pull up!' he cried, with an angry oath. 'It is a false
+alarm! What fool set it going? There is no one behind us. Donner und
+Blitzen! where is Martin?'
+
+The horses were beginning to flag, and gladly came to a trot, and then
+to a walk.
+
+'Here! I panted.
+
+'Himmel! I thought we had ridden you down!' he said, leaving my lady's
+side. His voice shook with passion and loss of breath. 'Who was it? We
+might all have broken our necks, and for nothing!'
+
+The Waldgrave--it was his stirrup I had caught--turned his horse
+round. 'I heard them--close behind us!' he panted. There was a note of
+wildness in his voice. My elbow was against his knee, and I felt him
+tremble.
+
+'A bird in the hedge,' Steve said rudely. 'It has cost some one dear.
+Whose horse was it struck him?'
+
+No one answered. I left the Waldgrave's side and went back a few
+paces. The women were sobbing. Ernst and Jacob stood by them,
+breathing hard after their run. I thought the men's silence strange. I
+looked again. There was a figure missing; a horse missing.
+
+'Where is Marie?' I cried.
+
+She did not answer. No one answered; and I knew. Steve swore again. I
+think he had known from the beginning. I began to tremble. On a sudden
+my lady lifted up her voice and cried shrilly--
+
+'Marie! Marie!'
+
+Again no answer. But this time I did not wait to listen. I ran from
+them into the darkness the way we had come, my legs quivering under
+me, and my mouth full of broken prayers. I remembered a certain
+solitary tree fronting the poplars, on the other side of the way,
+which I had marked mechanically at the moment of the fall--an ash,
+whose light upper boughs had come for an instant between my eyes and
+the sky. It stood on a little mound, where the moorland began to rise
+on that side. I came to it now, and stopped and looked. At first I
+could see nothing, and I trod forward fearfully. Then, a couple of
+paces on, I made out a dark figure, lying head and feet across the
+road. I sprang to it, and kneeling, passed my hands over it. Alas! it
+was a woman's.
+
+I raised the light form in my arms, crying passionately on her name,
+while the wind swayed the boughs overhead, and, besides that and my
+voice, all the countryside was still. She did not answer. She hung
+limp in my arms. Kneeling in the dust beside her, I felt blindly for a
+pulse, a heart-beat. I found neither--neither; the woman was dead.
+
+And yet it was not that which made me lay the body down so quickly and
+stand up peering round me. No; something else. The blood drummed in my
+ears, my heart beat wildly. The woman was dead; but she was not Marie.
+
+She was an old woman, sixty years old. When I stooped again, after
+assuring myself that there was no other body near, and peered into her
+face, I saw that it was seamed and wrinkled. She was barefoot, and her
+clothes were foul and mean. She had the reek of one who slept in
+ditches and washed seldom. Her toothless gums grinned at me. She was a
+horrible mockery of all that men love in women.
+
+When I had marked so much, I stood up again, my head reeling. Where
+was the man I had seen scouting up and down? Where was Marie? For a
+moment the wild idea that she had become this thing, that death or
+magic had transformed the fair young girl into this toothless hag, was
+not too wild for me. An owl hooted in the distance, and I started and
+shivered and stood looking round me fearfully. Such things were; and
+Marie was gone. In her place this woman, grim and dead and unsightly,
+lay at my feet. What was I to think?
+
+I got no answer. I raised my voice and called, trembling, on Marie. I
+ran to one side of the road and the other and called, and still got no
+answer. I climbed the mound on which the ash-tree stood, and sent my
+voice thrilling through the darkness of the bottom. But only the owl
+answered. Then, knowing nothing else I could do, I went down wringing
+my hands, and found my lady standing over the body in the road. She
+had come back with Steve and the others.
+
+I had to listen to their amazement, and a hundred guesses and fancies,
+which, God help me! had nothing certain in them, and gave me no help.
+The men searched both sides of the road, and beat the moor for a
+distance, and tried to track the horse--for that was missing too, and
+there lay my only hope--but to no purpose. At last my lady came to me
+and said sorrowfully that nothing more could be done.
+
+'In the morning!' I cried jealously.
+
+No one spoke, and I looked from one to another. The men had returned
+from the search, and stood in a dark group round the body, which they
+had drawn to the side of the road. It wanted an hour of daylight yet,
+and I could not see their faces, but I read in their silence the
+answer that no one liked to put into words.
+
+'Be a man!' Steve muttered, after a long pause. 'God help the girl.
+But God help us too if we are found here!'
+
+Still my lady did not speak, and I knew her brave heart too well to
+doubt her, though she had been the first to talk of going. 'Get to
+horse,' I said roughly.
+
+'No, no,' my lady cried at last. 'We will all stay, Martin.'
+
+'Ay, all stay or all go!' Steve muttered.
+
+'Then all go!' I said, choking down the sobs that would rise. And I
+turned first from the place.
+
+I will not try to state what that cost me. I saw my girl's face
+everywhere--everywhere in the darkness, and the eyes reproached me.
+That she of all should suffer, who had never fainted, never faltered,
+whose patience and courage had been the women's stay from the
+first--that she should suffer! I thought of the tender, weak body, and
+of all the things that might happen to her, and I seemed, as I went
+away from her, the vilest thing that lived.
+
+But reason was against me. If I stayed there and waited on the road
+by the old crone's body until morning, what could I do? Whither could
+I turn? Marie was gone and already might be half a dozen miles away.
+So the bonds of custom and duty held me. Dazed and bewildered, I
+lacked the strength that was needed to run counter to all. I was no
+knight-errant, but a plain man, and I reeled on through the last hour
+of the night and the first grey streaks of dawn, with my head on my
+breast and sobs of despair in my throat.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                              NUREMBERG.
+
+
+If it had been our fate after that to continue our flight in the same
+weary fashion we had before devised, lying in woods by day, and all
+night riding jaded horses, until we passed the gates of some free
+city, I do not think that I could have gone through with it. Doubtless
+it was my duty to go with my lady. But the long hours of daylight
+inaction, the slow brooding tramp, must have proved intolerable. And
+at some time or other, in some way or other, I must have snapped the
+ties that bound me.
+
+But, as if the loss of my heart had rid us of some spell cast over us,
+by noon of that day we stood safe. For, an hour before noon, while we
+lay in a fir-wood not far from Weimar, and Jacob kept watch on the
+road below, and the rest slept as we pleased, a party of horse came
+along the way, and made as if to pass below us. They numbered more
+than a hundred, and Jacob's heart failed him, lest some ring or buckle
+of our accoutrements should sparkle and catch their eyes. To shift the
+burden he called us, and we went to watch them.
+
+'Do they go north or south?' I asked him as I rose.
+
+'North,' he whispered.
+
+After that they were nothing to me, but I went with the rest. Our lair
+was in some rocks overhanging the road. By the time we looked over,
+the horsemen were below us, and we could see nothing of them; though
+the sullen tramp of their horses, and the jingle of bit and spur,
+reached us clearly. Presently they came into sight again on the road
+beyond, riding steadily away with their backs to us.
+
+'That is not General Tzerclas?' my lady muttered anxiously.
+
+'Nor any of his people!' Steve said with an oath.
+
+That led me to look more closely, and I saw in a moment something that
+lifted me out of my moodiness. I sprang on the rock against which I
+was leaning and shouted long and loudly.
+
+'Himmel!' Steve cried, seizing me by the ankle. 'Are you mad, man?'
+
+But I only shouted again, and waved my cap frantically. Then I slipped
+down, sobered. 'They see us,' I cried. 'They are Leuchtenstein's
+riders. And Count Hugo is with them. You are safe, my lady.'
+
+She turned white and red, and I saw her clutch at the rock to keep
+herself on her feet. 'Are you sure?' she said. The troop had halted
+and were wheeling slowly and in perfect order.
+
+'Quite sure, my lady,' I answered, with a touch of bitterness in my
+tone. Why had not this happened yesterday or the day before? Then my
+girl would have been saved. Now it came too late! Too late! No wonder
+I felt bitterly about it.
+
+We went down into the road on foot, a little party of nine--four women
+and five men. The horsemen, as they came up, looked at us in wonder.
+Our clothes, even my lady's, were dyed with mud and torn in a score of
+places. We had not washed for days, and our faces were lean with
+famine. Some of the women were shoeless and had their hair about their
+ears, while Steve was bare-headed and bare-armed, and looked so huge a
+ruffian the stocks must have yawned for him anywhere. They drew up and
+gazed at us, and then Count Hugo came riding down the column and saw
+us.
+
+My lady went forward a step. 'Count Leuchtenstein,' she said, her
+voice breaking; she had only seen him once, and then under the mask of
+a plain name. But he was safety, honour, life now, and I think that
+she could have kissed him. I think for a little she could have fallen
+into his arms.
+
+'Countess!' he said, as he sprang from his horse in wonder. 'Is it
+really you? Gott im Himmel! These are strange times. Waldgrave! Your
+pardon. Ach! Have you come on foot?'
+
+'Not I. But these brave men have,' my lady answered, tears in her
+voice.
+
+He looked at Steve and grunted. Then he looked at me and his eyes
+lightened. 'Are these all your party?' he said hurriedly.
+
+'All,' my lady answered in a low voice. He did not ask farther, but he
+sighed, and I knew that he had looked for his child. 'I came north
+upon a reconnaissance, and was about to turn,' he said. 'I am thankful
+that I did not turn before. Is Tzerclas in pursuit of you?'
+
+'I do not know,' my lady answered, and told him shortly of our flight,
+and how we had lain two days and a night in the osier-bed.
+
+'It was a good thought,' he said. 'But I fear that you are half
+famished.' And he called for food and wine, and served my lady with
+his own hands, while he saw that we did not go without. 'Campaigner's
+fare,' he said. 'But you come of a fighting stock, Countess, and can
+put up with it.'
+
+'Shame on me if I could not,' she answered.
+
+There was a quaver in her voice, which showed how the rencontre moved
+her, how full her heart was of unspoken gratitude.
+
+'When you have finished, we will get to horse,' he said. 'I must take
+you with me to Nuremberg, for I am not strong enough to detach a
+party. But this evening we will make a long halt at Hesel, and secure
+you a good night's rest.'
+
+'I am sorry to be so burdensome,' my lady said timidly.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders without compliment, but I did not hear what
+he answered. For I could bear no more. Marie seemed so forgotten in
+this crowd, so much a thing of the past, that my gorge rose. No word
+of her, no thought of her, no talk of a search party! I pictured her
+forlorn, helpless little figure, her pale, uncomplaining face--I and
+no one else; and I had to go away into the bushes to hide myself. She
+was forgotten already. She had done all for them, I said to myself,
+and they forgot her.
+
+Then, in the thicket screened from the party, I had a thought--to go
+back and look for her, myself. Now my lady was safe, there was nothing
+to prevent me. I had only to lie close among the rocks until Count
+Hugo left, and then I might plod back on foot and search as I pleased.
+In a flash I saw the poplars, and the road running beneath the
+ash-tree, and the woman's body lying stiff and stark on the sward. And
+I burned to be there.
+
+Left to myself I should have gone too. But the plan was no sooner
+formed than shattered. While I stood, hotfoot to be about it, and
+pausing only to consider which way I could steal off most safely, a
+rustling warned me that some one was coming, and before I could stir,
+a burly trooper broke through the bushes and confronted me. He saluted
+me stolidly.
+
+'Sergeant,' he said, 'the general is waiting for you.'
+
+'The general?' I said.
+
+'The Count, if you like it better,' he answered. 'Come, if you
+please.'
+
+I followed him, full of vexation. It was but a step into the road. The
+moment I appeared, some one gave the word 'Mount!' A horse was thrust
+in front of me, two or three troopers who still remained afoot swung
+themselves into the saddle; and I followed their example. In a trice
+we were moving down the valley at a dull, steady pace--southwards,
+southwards. I looked back, and saw the fir trees and rocks where we
+had lain hidden, and then we turned a corner, and they were gone.
+Gone, and all round me I heard the measured tramp of the troop-horses,
+the swinging tones of the men, and the clink and jingle of sword and
+spur. I called myself a cur, but I went on, swept away by the force of
+numbers, as the straw by the current. Once I caught Count Hugo's eye
+fixed on me, and I fancied he had a message for me, but I failed to
+interpret it.
+
+Steve rode by me, and his face too was moody. I suppose that we should
+all of us have thanked God the peril was past. But my lady rode in
+another part with Count Leuchtenstein and the Waldgrave; and Steve
+yearned, I fancy, for the old days of trouble and equality, when there
+was no one to come between us.
+
+I saw Count Hugo that night. He sent for me to his quarters at Hesel,
+and told me frankly that he would have let me go back had he thought
+good could come of it.
+
+'But it would have been looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, my
+friend,' he continued. 'Tzerclas' men would have picked you up, or the
+peasants killed you for a soldier, and in a month perhaps the girl
+would have returned safe and sound, to find you dead.'
+
+'My lord!' I cried passionately, 'she saved your child. It was to her
+as her own!'
+
+'I know it,' he answered with gravity, which of itself rebuked me.
+'And where is my child?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'Yet I do not give up my work and the task God and the times have
+given me, and go out looking for it!' he answered severely. 'Leaving
+Scot, and Swede, and Pole, and Switzer to divide my country. For
+shame! You have your work too, and it lies by your lady's side. See to
+it that you do it. For the rest I have scouts out, who know the
+country; if I learn anything through them you shall hear it. And now
+of another matter. How long has the Waldgrave been like this, my
+friend?'
+
+'Like this, my lord?' I muttered stupidly.
+
+He nodded. 'Yes, like this,' he repeated. 'I have heard him called a
+brave man. Coming of his stock, he should be; and when I saw him in
+Tzerclas' camp he had the air of one. Now he starts at a shadow, is in
+a trance half his time, and a tremor the other half. What ails him?'
+
+I told him how he had been wounded, fighting bravely, and that since
+that he had not been himself.
+
+Count Hugo rubbed his chin gravely. 'It is a pity,' he said. 'We want
+all--every German arm and every German head. We want you. Man alive!'
+he continued, roused to anger, I suppose, by my dull face, 'do you
+know what is in front of you?'
+
+'No, my lord,' I said in apathy.
+
+He opened his mouth as if to hurl a volley of words at me. But he
+thought better of it and shut his lips tight. 'Very well,' he said
+grimly. 'Wait three days and you will see.'
+
+But in truth, I had not to wait three days. Before sunset of the next
+I began to see, and, downcast as I was, to prick up my ears in wonder.
+Beyond Romhild and between that town and Bamberg, the great road which
+runs through the valley of the Pegnitz, was such a sight as I had
+never seen. For many miles together a column of dust marked its
+course, and under this went on endless marching. We were but a link in
+a long chain, dragging slowly southwards. Now it was a herd of
+oxen that passed along, moving tediously and painfully, driven by
+half-naked cattle-men and guarded by a troop of grimy horse. Now it
+was a reinforcement of foot from Fulda, rank upon rank of shambling
+men trailing long pikes, and footsore, and parched as they were,
+getting over the ground in a wonderful fashion. After them would come
+a long string of waggons, bearing corn, and hay, and malt, and wines;
+all lurching slowly forward, slowly southward; often delayed, for
+every quarter of a mile a horse fell or an axle broke, yet getting
+forward.
+
+And then the most wonderful sight of all, a regiment of Swedish horse
+passed us, marching from Erfurt. All their horses were grey, and all
+their head-pieces, backs and breasts of black metal, matched one
+another. As they came on through the dust with a tramp which shook the
+ground, they sang, company by company, to the music of drums and
+trumpets, a hymn, 'Versage nicht, du Häuflein klein!' Behind them a
+line of light waggons carried their wives and children, also singing.
+And so they went by us, eight hundred swords, and I thought it a
+marvel I should never see beaten.
+
+When they were gone out of sight, there were still droves of horses
+and mighty flocks of sheep to come, and cargoes of pork, and more foot
+and horse and guns. Some companies wore buff coats and small steel
+caps, and carried arquebuses; and some marched smothered in huge
+headpieces with backs and breasts to match. And besides all the
+things I have mentioned and the crowds of sutlers and horse-boys that
+went with them, there were munition waggons closely guarded, and
+pack-horses laden with powder, and always and always waggons of corn
+and hay.
+
+And all hurrying, jostling, crawling southwards. It seemed to me that
+the world was marching southwards; that if we went on we must fall in
+at the end of this with every one we knew. And the thought comforted
+me.
+
+Steve put it into words after his fashion. 'It must be a big place we
+are going to,' he said, about noon of the second day, 'or who is to
+eat all this? And do you mark, Master Martin? We meet no one coming
+back. All go south. This place Nuremberg that they talk of must be
+worth seeing.'
+
+'It should be,' I said.
+
+And after that the excitement of the march began to take hold of me. I
+began to think and wonder, and look forward, with an eagerness I did
+not understand, to the issues of this.
+
+We lay a night at Bamberg, where the crowd and confusion and the
+stress of people were so great that Steve would have it we had come to
+Nuremberg. And certainly I had never known such a hurly-burly, nor
+heard of it except at the great fair at Dantzic. The night after we
+lay at Erlangen, which we found fortified, trenched, and guarded, with
+troops lying in the square, and the streets turned into stables. From
+that place to Nuremberg was a matter of ten miles only; but the press
+was so great on the road that it took us a good part of the day to
+ride from one to the other. In the open country on either side of the
+way strong bodies of horse and foot were disposed. It seemed to me
+that here was already an army and a camp.
+
+But when late in the afternoon we entered Nuremberg itself, and viewed
+the traffic in the streets, and the endless lines of gabled houses,
+the splendid mansions and bridges, the climbing roofs and turrets and
+spires of this, the greatest city in Germany, then we thought little
+of all we had seen before. Here thousands upon thousands rubbed
+shoulders in the streets; here continuous boats turned the river into
+solid land. Here we were told were baked every day a hundred thousand
+loaves of bread; and I saw with my own eyes a list of a hundred and
+thirty-eight bakehouses. The roar of the ways, choked with soldiers
+and citizens, the babel of strange tongues, the clamour of bells and
+trumpets, deafened us. The constant crowding and pushing and halting
+turned our heads. I forgot my grief and my hope too. Who but a madman
+would look to find a single face where thousands gazed from the
+windows? or could deem himself important with this swarming, teeming
+hive before him? Steve stared stupidly about him; I rode dazed and
+perplexed. The troopers laughed at us, or promised us greater things
+when we should see the Swedish Lager outside the town, and
+Wallenstein's great camp arrayed against it. But I noticed that even
+they, as we drew nearer to the heart of the city, fell silent at
+times, and looked at one another, surprised at the great influx of
+people and the shifting scenes which the streets presented.
+
+For myself and Steve and the men, we were as good as nought. A house
+in the Ritter-Strasse was assigned to my lady for her quarters--no one
+could lodge in the city without the leave of the magistrates; and we
+were glad to get into it and cool our dizzy heads, and look at one
+another. Count Hugo stayed awhile, standing with my lady and the
+Waldgrave in one of the great oriels that overlooked the street. But a
+mounted messenger, sent on from the Town House, summoned him, and he
+took horse again for the camp. I do not know what we should have done
+without him at entering. The soldiers, who crowded the streets, showed
+scant respect for names, and would as soon have jostled my lady as a
+citizen's wife; but wherever he came hats were doffed and voices
+lowered, and in the greatest press a way was made for him as by magic.
+
+For that night we had seen enough. I thought we had seen all, or that
+nothing in my life would ever surprise me again. But next day my lady
+went up to the Burg on the hill in the middle of the city to look
+abroad, and took Steve and myself with her. And then I found that I
+had not seen the half. The city, all roofs and spires and bridges,
+girt with a wall of seventy towers, roared beneath us; and that I had
+expected. But outside the wall I now saw a second city of huts and
+tents, with a great earthwork about it, and bastions and demilunes and
+picquets posted.
+
+This was the Swedish Lager. It lay principally to the south of the
+city proper, though on all sides it encircled it more or less. They
+told me that there lay in it about forty thousand soldiers and twenty
+thousand horses, and twenty thousand camp followers; but the number
+was constantly increasing, death and disease notwithstanding, so that
+it presently stood as high as sixty thousand fighting men and half as
+many followers, to say nothing of the garrison that lay in the city,
+or the troops posted to guard the approaches. It seemed to me, gazing
+over that mighty multitude from the top of the hill, that nothing
+could resist such a force; and I looked abroad with curiosity for the
+enemy.
+
+I expected to view his army cheek by jowl with us; and I was
+disappointed when I saw beyond our camp to southward, where I was told
+he lay, only a clear plain with the little river Rednitz flowing
+through it. This plain was a league and more in width, and it was
+empty of men. Beyond it rose a black wooded ridge, very steep and
+hairy.
+
+My lady explained that Wallenstein's army lay along this
+ridge--seventy thousand men, and forty thousand horses, and
+Wallenstein himself. His camp we heard was eight miles round, the
+front guarded by a line of cannon, and taking in whole villages and
+castles. And now I looked again I saw the smoke hang among the trees.
+They whispered in Nuremberg that no man in that army took pay; that
+all served for booty; and that the troopers that sacked Magdeburg and
+followed Tilly were, beside these, gentle and kindly men.
+
+'God help us!' my lady cried fervently. 'God help this great city! God
+help the North! Never was such a battle fought as must be fought
+here!'
+
+We went down very much sobered, filled with awe and wonder and
+great thoughts, the dullest of us feeling the air heavy with portents,
+the more clerkly considering of Armageddon and the Last Fight.
+Briefly--for thirteen years the Emperor and the Papists had hustled
+and harried the Protestants; had dragooned Donauwörth, and held down
+Bohemia, and plundered the Palatinate, and crushed the King of
+Denmark, and wherever there was a weak Protestant state had pressed
+sorely on it. Then one short year before I stood on the Burg above the
+Pegnitz, the Protestant king had come out of the North like a
+thunderbolt, had shattered in a month the Papist armies, had run like
+a devouring fire down the Priests' Lane, rushed over Bohemia, shaken
+the Emperor on his throne!
+
+But could he maintain himself? That was now to be seen. To the
+Emperor's help had come all who loved the old system, and would have
+it that the south was Germany; all who wished to chain men's minds and
+saw their profit in the shadow of the imperial throne; all who lived
+by license and plunder, and reckoned a mass to-day against a murder
+to-morrow. All these had come, from the great Duke of Friedland
+grasping at empire, to the meanest freebooter with peasant's blood on
+his hands and in his veins; and there they lay opposite us,
+impregnably placed on the Burgstall, waiting patiently until famine
+and the sword should weaken the fair city, and enable them to plunge
+their vulture's talons into its vitals.
+
+No wonder that in Nuremberg the citizens could be distinguished from
+the soldiers by their careworn faces; or that many a man stood morning
+and evening to gaze at the carved and lofty front of his house--by St.
+Sebald's or behind the new Cathedral--and wondered how long the fire
+would spare it. The magistrates who had staked all--their own and the
+city's--on this cast, went about with stern, grave faces and feared
+almost to meet the public eye. With a doubled population, with a huge
+army to feed, with order to keep, with houses and wives and daughters
+of their own to protect, with sack and storm looming luridly in the
+future, who had cares like theirs?
+
+One man only, and him I saw as we went home from the Burg. It was near
+the foot of the Burg hill, where the strasse meets three other ways.
+At that time Count Tilly's crooked, dwarfish figure and pale horse's
+face, and the great hat and boots which seemed to swallow him up, were
+fresh in my mind; and sometimes I had wondered whether this other
+great commander were like him. Well, I was to know; for through the
+crowd at the junction of these four roads, while we stood waiting to
+pass, there came a man on a white horse, followed by half a score of
+others on horseback; and in a moment I knew from the shouting and the
+way women thrust papers into his hands that we saw the King of Sweden.
+
+He wore a plain buff coat and a grey flapped hat with a feather; a
+tall man and rather bulky, his face massive and fleshy, with a close
+moustache trimmed to a point and a small tuft on his chin. His aspect
+was grave; he looked about him with a calm eye, and the shouting did
+not seem to move him. They told me that it was Ba[=n]er, the Swedish
+General, who rode with him, and our Bernard of Weimar who followed.
+But my eye fell more quickly on Count Leuchtenstein, who rode after,
+with the great Chancellor Oxenstierna; in him, in his steady gaze and
+serene brow and wholesome strength, I traced the nearest likeness to
+the king.
+
+And so I first saw the great Gustavus Adolphus. It was said that he
+would at times fall into fits of Berserk rage, and that in the field
+he was another man, keen as his sword, swift as fire, pitiless to
+those who flinched, among the foremost in the charge, a very
+thunderbolt of war. But as I saw him taking papers from women's hands
+at the end of the Burg Strasse, he had rather the air of a quiet,
+worthy prince--of Coburg or Darmstadt, it might be,--no dresser and no
+brawler; nor would any one, to see him then, have thought that this
+was the lion of the north who had dashed the pride of Pappenheim and
+flung aside the firebrands of the south. Or that even now he had on
+his shoulders the burden of two great nations and the fate of a
+million of men.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+                       THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.
+
+
+After this it fared with us as it fares at last with the driftwood
+that chance or the woodman's axe has given to a forest stream in
+Heritzburg. After rippling over the shallows and shooting giddily down
+slopes--or perchance lying cooped for days in some dark bend, until
+the splash of the otter or the spring freshet has sent it dancing on
+in sunshine and shadow--it reaches at last the Werra. It floats out on
+the bosom of the great stream, and no longer tossed and chafed by each
+tiny pebble, feels the force of wind and stream--the great forces of
+the world. The banks recede from sight, and one of a million atoms, it
+is borne on gently and irresistibly, whither it does not know. So it
+was with us. From the day we fell in with Count Leuchtenstein and set
+our faces towards Nuremberg, and in a greater degree after we reached
+that city, we embarked on a wider current of adventure, a fuller and
+less selfish life. If we had still our own cares and griefs, hopes and
+perils--as must be the case, I suppose, until we die--we had other
+common ones which we shared with tens of thousands, rich and poor,
+gentle and simple. We had to dread sack and storm; we prayed for
+relief and safety in company with all who rose and lay down within the
+walls. When a hundred waggons of corn slipped through the Croats and
+came in, or Duke Bernard of Weimar beat up a corner of the Burgstall
+and gave Wallenstein a bad night, we ran out into the streets to tell
+and hear the news. Similarly, when tidings came that Tzerclas with his
+two thousand ruffians had burned the King of Sweden's colours, put on
+green sashes, and marched into the enemy's camp, we were not alone in
+our gloomy anticipations. We still had our private adventures, and I
+am going to tell them. But besides these, it should be remembered that
+we ran the risks, and rose every morning fresh to the fears, of
+Nuremberg. When bread rose to ten, to fifteen, to twenty times its
+normal price; when the city, where many died every day of famine,
+plague, and wounds, began to groan and heave in its misery; when
+through all the country round the peasants crawled and died among the
+dead; when Wallenstein, that dark man, heedless of the fearful
+mortality in his own camp, still sat implacable on the heights and
+refused all the king's invitations to battle, we grew pale and gloomy,
+stern-eyed and thin-cheeked with the rest. We dreamed of Magdeburg as
+they did; and as the hot August days passed slowly over the starving
+city and still no end appeared, but only with each day some addition
+of misery, we felt our hearts sink in unison with theirs.
+
+And we had to share, not their lot only, but their labours. We had not
+been in the town twenty-four hours before Steve, Jacob, and Ernst were
+enrolled in the town militia; to me, either out of respect to my lady,
+or on account of my stature, a commission as lieutenant was granted.
+We drilled every morning from six o'clock until eight in the fields
+outside the New Gate; the others went again at sunset to practise
+their weapons, but I was exempt from this drill, that the women might
+not be left alone. At all times we had our appointed rendezvous in
+case of alarm or assault. The Swedish veterans strolled out of the
+camp and stood to laugh at our clumsiness. But the excellent order
+which prevailed among them made them favourites, and we let them
+laugh, and laughed again.
+
+The Waldgrave, who had long had Duke Bernard's promise, received a
+regiment of horse, so that he lay in the camp and should have been a
+contented man, since his strength had come back to him. But to my
+surprise he showed signs of lukewarmness. He seemed little interested
+in the service, and was often at my lady's house in the Ritter
+Strasse, when he would have been better at his post. At first I set
+this down to his passion for my lady, and it seemed excusable; but
+within a week I stood convinced that this no longer troubled him. He
+paid scant attention to her, but would sit for hours looking moodily
+into the street. And I--and not I alone--began to watch him closely.
+
+I soon found that Count Hugo was right. The once gallant and splendid
+young fellow was a changed man. He was still comely and a brave
+figure, but the spirit in him was quenched. He was nervous, absent,
+irritable. His eyes had a wild look; on strangers he made an
+unfavourable impression. Doubtless, though his wounds had healed,
+there remained some subtle injury that spoiled the man; and often I
+caught my lady looking at him sadly, and knew that I was not the only
+one with cause for mourning.
+
+But how strange he was we did not know until a certain day, when my
+lady and I were engaged together over some accounts. It was evening,
+and the three men were away drilling. The house was very quiet.
+Suddenly he flung in upon us with a great noise, his colour high, his
+eyes glittering. His first action was to throw his feathered hat on
+one chair, and himself into another.
+
+'I've seen him!' he said. 'Himmel! he is a clever fellow. He will
+worst you, cousin, yet--see if he does not. Oh, he is a clever one!'
+
+'Who?' my lady said, looking at him in some displeasure.
+
+'Who? Tzerclas, to be sure!' he answered, chuckling.
+
+'You have seen him!' she exclaimed, rising.
+
+'Of course I have!' he answered. 'And you will see him too, one of
+these days.'
+
+My lady looked at me, frowning. But I shook my head. He was not drunk.
+
+'Where?' she asked, after a pause. 'Where did you see him, Rupert?'
+
+'In the street--where you see other men,' he answered, chuckling
+again. 'He should not be there, but who is to keep him out? He is too
+clever. He will get his way in the end, see if he does not!'
+
+'Rupert!' my lady cried in wrathful amazement, 'to hear you, one would
+suppose you admired him.'
+
+'So I do,' he replied coolly. 'Why not? He has all the wits of the
+family. He is as cunning as the devil. Take a hint, cousin; put
+yourself on the right side. He will win in the end!' And the Waldgrave
+rose restlessly from his chair, and, going to the window, began to
+whistle.
+
+My lady came swiftly to me, and it grieved me to see the pain and woe
+in her face.
+
+'Is he mad?' she muttered.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'Do you think he has really seen him?' she whispered. We both stood
+with our eyes on him.
+
+'I fear so, my lady,' I said with reluctance.
+
+'But it would cost _him_ his life,' she muttered eagerly, 'if he were
+found here!'
+
+'He is a bold man,' I answered.
+
+'Ah! so was he--once,' she replied in a peculiar tone, and she pointed
+stealthily to the unconscious man in the window. 'A month ago he would
+have taken him by the throat anywhere. What has come to him?'
+
+'God knows,' I answered reverently. 'Grant only he may do us no harm!'
+
+He turned round at that, humming gaily, and went out, seeming almost
+unconscious of our presence; and I made as light of the matter to my
+lady as I could. But Tzerclas in the city, the Waldgrave mad, or at
+any rate not sane, and last, but not least, the strange light in which
+the latter chose to regard the former, were circumstances I could not
+easily digest. They filled me with uneasy fears and surmises. I began
+to perambulate the crowd, seeking furtively for a face; and was
+entirely determined what I would do if I found it. The town was full,
+as all besieged cities are, of rumours of spies and treachery, and of
+reported overtures made now to the city behind the back of the army,
+and now to the army to betray the city. A single word of denunciation,
+and Tzerclas' life would not be worth three minutes' purchase--a rope
+and the nearest butcher's hook would end it. My mind was made up to
+say the word.
+
+I suppose I had been going about in this state of vigilance three days
+or more, when something, but not the thing I sought, rewarded it. At
+the time I was on my way back from morning drill. It was a little
+after eight, and the streets and the people wore an air bright, yet
+haggard. Night, with its perils, was over; day, with its privations,
+lay before us. My mind was on the common fortunes, but I suppose my
+eyes were mechanically doing their work, for on a sudden I saw
+something at a window, took perhaps half a step, and stopped as if I
+had been shot.
+
+I had seen Marie's face! Nay, I still saw it, while a man might count
+two. Then it was gone. And I stood gasping.
+
+I suppose I stood so for half a minute, waiting, with the blood racing
+from my heart to my head, and every pulse in my body beating. But she
+did not reappear. The door of the house did not open. Nothing
+happened.
+
+Yet I had certainly seen her; for I remembered particulars--the
+expression of her face, the surprise that had leapt into her eyes as
+they met mine, the opening of the lips in an exclamation.
+
+And still I stood gazing at the window and nothing happened.
+
+At last I came to myself, and I scanned the house. It was a large
+house of four stories, three gables in width. The upper stories jutted
+out; the beams on which they rested were finely carved, the gables
+were finished off with rich, wooden pinnacles. In each story, the
+lowest excepted, were three long, low windows of the common Nuremberg
+type, and the whole had a substantial and reputable air.
+
+The window at which I had seen Marie was farthest from the door, on
+the first floor. To go to the door I had to lose sight of it, and
+perhaps for that reason I stood the longer. At last I went and
+knocked, and waited in a fever for some one to come. The street was a
+thoroughfare. There were a number of people passing. I thought that
+all the town would go by before a dragging foot at last sounded
+inside, and the great nail-studded door was opened on the chain. A
+stout, red-faced woman showed herself in the aperture.
+
+'What is it?' she asked.
+
+'You have a girl in this house, named Marie Wort,' I answered
+breathlessly. 'I saw her a moment ago at the window. I know her, and I
+wish to speak to her.'
+
+The woman's little eyes dwelt on me stolidly for a space. Then she
+made as if she would shut the door. 'For shame!' she said spitefully.
+'We have no girls here. Begone with you!'
+
+But I put my foot against the door. 'Whose house is this?' I said.
+
+'Herr Krapp's,' she answered crustily.
+
+'Is he at home?'
+
+'No, he is not,' she retorted; 'and if he were, we have no baggages
+here.' And again she tried to shut the door, but I prevented her.
+
+'Where is he?' I asked sternly.
+
+'He is at morning drill, if you must know,' she snapped; 'and his two
+sons. Now, will you let me shut my door? Or must I cry out?'
+
+'Nonsense, mother!' I said. 'Who is in the house besides yourself?'
+
+'What is that to you?' she replied, breathing short.
+
+'I have told you,' I said, trying to control my anger. 'I----'
+
+But, quick as lightning, the door slammed to and cut me short. I had
+thoughtlessly moved my foot. I heard the woman chuckle and go slipshod
+down the passage, and though I knocked again in a rage, the door
+remained closed.
+
+I fell back and looked at the house. An elderly man in a grave, sober
+dress was passing, among others, and I caught his eye.
+
+'Whose house is that?' I asked him.
+
+'Herr Krapp's,' he answered.
+
+'I am a stranger,' I said. 'Is he a man of substance?'
+
+The person I addressed smiled. 'He is a member of the Council of
+Safety,' he said dryly. 'His brother is prefect of this ward. But here
+is Herr Krapp. Doubtless he has been at St. Sebald's drilling.'
+
+I thanked him, and made but two steps to Herr Krapp's side. He was the
+other's twin--elderly, soberly dressed, his only distinction a sword
+and pistol in his girdle and a white shoulder sash.
+
+'Herr Krapp?' I said.
+
+'The same,' he answered, eying me gravely.
+
+'I am the Countess of Heritzburg's steward,' I said. I began to see
+the need of explanation. 'Doubtless you have heard that she is in the
+city?'
+
+'Certainly,' he answered. 'In the Ritter Strasse.'
+
+'Yes,' I replied. 'A fortnight ago she missed a young woman, one of
+her attendants. She was lost in a night adventure,' I continued, my
+throat dry and husky. 'A few minutes ago I saw her looking from one of
+your windows.'
+
+'From one of my windows?' he exclaimed in a tone of surprise.
+
+'Yes,' I said stiffly.
+
+He opened his eyes wide. 'Here?' he said. He pointed to his house.
+
+I nodded.
+
+'Impossible!' he replied, shutting his lips suddenly. 'Quite
+impossible, my friend. My household consists of my two sons and
+myself. We have a housekeeper only, and two lads. I have no young
+women in the house.'
+
+'Yet I saw her face, Herr Krapp, at your window,' I answered
+obstinately.
+
+'Wait,' he said; 'I will ask.'
+
+But when the old housekeeper came she had only the same tale to tell.
+She was alone. No young woman had crossed the threshold for a week
+past. There was no other woman there, young or old.
+
+'You will have it that I have a young man in the house next!' she
+grumbled, shooting scorn at me.
+
+'I can assure you that there is no one here,' Herr Krapp said civilly.
+'Dorcas has been with me many years, and I can trust her. Still if you
+like you can walk through the rooms.'
+
+But I hesitated to do that. The man's manner evidenced his sincerity,
+and in face of it my belief wavered. Fancy, I began to think, had
+played me a trick. It was no great wonder if the features which were
+often before me in my dreams, and sometimes painted themselves on the
+darkness while I lay wakeful, had for once taken shape in the
+daylight, and so vividly as to deceive me. I apologised. I said what
+was proper, and, with a heavy sigh, went from the door.
+
+Ay, and with bent head. The passing crowd and the sunshine and the
+distant music of drum and trumpet grated on me. For there was yet
+another explanation. And I feared that Marie was dead.
+
+I was still brooding sadly over the matter when I reached home. Steve
+met me at the door, but, feeling in no mood for small talk just then,
+I would have passed him by and gone in, if he had not stopped me.
+
+'I have a message for you, lieutenant,' he said.
+
+'What is it?' I asked without curiosity.
+
+'A little boy gave it to me at the door,' he answered. 'I was to ask
+you to be in the street opposite Herr Krapp's half an hour after
+sunset this evening.'
+
+I gasped. 'Herr Krapp's!' I exclaimed.
+
+Steve nodded, looking at me queerly. 'Yes; do you know him?' he said.
+
+'I do now,' I muttered, gulping down my amazement. But my face was as
+red as fire, the blood drummed in my ears. I had to turn away to hide
+my emotion. 'What was the boy like?' I asked.
+
+But it seemed that the lad had made off the moment he had done his
+errand, and Steve had not noticed him particularly. 'I called after
+him to know who sent him,' he added, 'but he had gone too far.'
+
+I nodded and mumbled something, and went on into the house. Perhaps I
+was still a little sore on my girl's account, and resented the easy
+way in which she had dropped out of others' lives. At any rate, my
+instinct was to keep the thing to myself. The face at the window, and
+then this strange assignation, could have only one meaning; but, good
+or bad, it was for me. And I hugged myself on it, and said nothing
+even to my lady.
+
+The day seemed long, but at length the evening came, and when the
+men had gone to drill and the house was quiet, I slipped out. The
+streets were full at this hour of men passing to and fro to their
+drill-stations, and of women who had been out to see the camp, and
+were returning before the gates closed. The bells of many of the
+churches were ringing; some had services. I had to push my way to
+reach Herr Krapp's house in time; but once there the crowd of passers
+served my purpose by screening me, as I loitered, from farther remark;
+while I took care, by posting myself in a doorway opposite the window,
+to make it easy for any one who expected me to find me.
+
+And then I waited with my heart beating. The clocks were striking a
+half after seven when I took my place, and for a time I stood in a
+ferment of excitement, now staring with bated breath at the casement,
+where I had seen Marie, now scanning all the neighbouring doorways,
+and then again letting my eyes rove from window to window both of
+Krapp's house and the next one on either side. As the latter were
+built with many quaint oriels, and tiny dormers, and had lattices in
+side-nooks, where one least looked to find them, I was kept expecting
+and employed. I was never quite sure, look where I would, what eyes
+were upon me.
+
+But little by little, as time passed and nothing happened, and the
+strollers all went by without accosting me, and no faces save strange
+ones showed at the windows, the heat of expectation left me. The chill
+of disappointment took its place. I began to doubt and fear. The
+clocks struck eight. The sun had been down an hour. Half that time I
+had been waiting.
+
+To remain passive was no longer bearable, and sick of caution, I
+stepped out and began to walk up and down the street, courting rather
+than avoiding notice. The traffic was beginning to slacken. I could
+see farther and mark people at a distance; but still no one spoke to
+me, no one came to me. Here and there lights began to shine in the
+houses, on gleaming oak ceilings and carved mantels. The roofs were
+growing black against the paling sky. In nooks and corners it was
+dark. The half-hour sounded, and still I walked, fighting down doubt,
+clinging to hope.
+
+But when another quarter had gone by, doubt became conviction. I had
+been fooled! Either some one who had seen me loitering at Krapp's in
+the morning and heard my tale had gone straight off, and played me
+this trick; or--Gott im Himmel!--or I had been lured here that I might
+be out of the way at home.
+
+That thought, which should have entered my thick head an hour before,
+sped me from the street, as if it had been a very catapult. Before I
+reached the corner I was running; and I ran through street after
+street, sweating with fear. But quickly as I went, my thoughts
+outpaced me. My lady was alone save for her women. The men were
+drilling, the Waldgrave was in the camp. The crowded state of the
+streets at sunset, and the number of strangers who thronged the city
+favoured certain kinds of crime; in a great crowd, as in a great
+solitude, everything is possible.
+
+I had this in my mind. Judge, then, of my horror, when, as I
+approached the Ritter Strasse, I became aware of a dull, roaring
+sound; and hastening to turn the corner, saw a large mob gathered in
+front of our house, and filling the street from wall to wall. The
+glare of torches shone on a thousand upturned faces, and flamed from a
+hundred casements. At the windows, on the roofs, peering over
+balconies and coping-stones and gables, and looking out of doorways
+were more faces, all red in the torchlight. And all the time as the
+smoking light rose and fell, the yelling, as it seemed to me, rose and
+fell with it--now swelling into a stern roar of exultation, now
+sinking into an ugly, snarling noise, above which a man might hear his
+neighbour speak.
+
+I seized the first I came to--a man standing on the skirts of the mob,
+and rather looking on than taking part. 'What is it?' I said, shaking
+him roughly by the arm. 'What is the matter here?'
+
+'Hallo!' he answered, starting as he turned to me. 'Is it you again,
+my friend?'
+
+I had hit on Herr Krapp!' Yes!' I cried breathlessly. 'What is it?
+what is amiss?'
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. 'They are hanging a spy,' he answered.
+'Nothing more. Irregular, but wholesome.'
+
+I drew a deep breath. 'Is that all?' I said.
+
+He eyed me curiously. 'To be sure,' he said. 'What did you think it
+was?'
+
+'I feared that there might be something wrong at my lady's,' I said,
+beginning to get my breath again. 'I left her alone at sunset. And
+when I saw this crowd before the house I--I could almost have cut off
+my hand. Thank God, I was mistaken!'
+
+He looked at me again and seemed to reflect a moment. Then he said,
+'You have not found the young woman you were seeking?'
+
+I shook my head.
+
+'Well, it occurred to me afterwards--but at which window did you see
+her?'
+
+'At a window on the first floor; the farthest from the door,' I
+answered.
+
+'The second from the door end of the house?' he asked.
+
+'No, the third.'
+
+He nodded with an air of quiet triumph. 'Just so!' he said. 'I thought
+so afterwards. But the fact is, my friend, my house ends with the
+second gable. The third gable-end does not belong to it, though
+doubtless it once did.'
+
+'No?' I exclaimed. And for a moment I stood taken aback, cursing my
+carelessness. Then I stammered, 'But this third gable--I saw no door
+in it, Herr Krapp.'
+
+'No, the door is in another street,' he answered. 'Or rather it opens
+on the churchyard at the back of St. Austin's. So you may have seen
+her after all. Well, I wish you well,' he continued. 'I must be
+going.'
+
+The crowd was beginning to separate, moving away by twos and threes,
+talking loudly. The lights were dying down. He nodded and was gone;
+while I still stood gaping. For how did the matter stand? If I had
+really seen Marie at the window--as seemed possible now--and if
+nothing turned out to be amiss at home, then I had not been tricked
+after all, and the message was genuine. True she had not kept her
+appointment. But she might be in durance, or one of a hundred things
+might have frustrated her intention.
+
+Still I could do nothing now except go home, and cutting short my
+speculations, I forced myself through the press, and with some labour
+managed to reach the door. As I did so I turned to look back, and the
+sight, though the people were moving away fast, was sufficiently
+striking. Almost opposite us in a beetling archway, the bowed head and
+shoulders of a man stood up above the common level. There was a little
+space round him, whence men held back; and the red glow of the
+smouldering links which the executioners had cast on the ground at his
+feet, shone upwards on his swollen lips and starting eyeballs. As I
+looked, the body seemed to writhe in its bonds; but it was only the
+wind swayed it. I went in shuddering.
+
+On the stairs I met Count Hugo coming down, and knew the moment I saw
+him that there was something wrong. He stopped me, his eyes full of
+wrath.
+
+'My man,' he said sternly, 'I thought that you were to be trusted!
+Where have you been? What have you been doing? _Donner!_ Is your lady
+to be left at dark with no one to man this door?'
+
+Conscience-stricken, I muttered that I hoped nothing had gone amiss.
+
+'No, but something easily might!' he answered grimly. 'When I came
+here I found three as ugly looking rogues whispering and peering in
+your doorway as man could wish to see! Yes, Master Martin, and if I
+had not ridden up at that moment I will not answer for it, that they
+would not have been in! It is a pity a few more knaves are not where
+that one is,' he continued sourly, pointing through the open door. 'We
+could spare them. But do you see and have more care for the future.
+Or, mein Gott, I will take other measures, my friend!'
+
+So it had been a ruse after all! I went up sick at heart.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+                     THE HOUSE IN THE CHURCHYARD.
+
+
+The heat which Count Leuchtenstein had thrown into the matter
+surprised me somewhat when I came to think of it, but I was soon to be
+more surprised. I did not go to my lady at once on coming in, for on
+the landing the sound of voices and laughter met me, and I learned
+that there were still two or three young officers sitting with her who
+had outstayed Count Hugo. I waited until they were gone--clanking and
+jingling down the stairs; and then, about the hour at which I usually
+went to take orders before retiring, I knocked at the door.
+
+Commonly one of the women opened to me. To-night the door remained
+closed. I waited, knocked again, and then went in. I could see no one,
+but the lamps were flickering, and I saw that the window was open.
+
+At that moment, while I stood uncertain, she came in through it; and
+blinded, I suppose, by the lights, did not see me. For at the first
+chair she reached just within the window, she sat down suddenly and
+burst into tears!
+
+'Mein Gott!' I cried clumsily. I should have known better; but the
+laughter of the young fellows as they trooped down the stairs was
+still in my ears, and I was dumfounded.
+
+She sprang up on the instant, and glared at me through her tears. 'Who
+are--how dare you? How dare you come into the room without knocking?'
+she cried violently.
+
+'I did knock, my lady,' I stammered, 'asking your pardon.'
+
+'Then now go! Go out, do you hear?' she cried, stamping her foot with
+passion. 'I want nothing. Go!'
+
+I turned and crept towards the door like a beaten hound. But I was not
+to go; when my hand was on the latch, her mood changed.
+
+'No, stay,' she said in a different tone. 'You may come back. After
+all, Martin, I had rather it was you than any one else.'
+
+She dried her tears as she spoke, standing up very straight and proud,
+and hiding nothing. I felt a pang as I looked at her. I had neglected
+her of late. I had been thinking more of others.
+
+'It is nothing, Martin,' she said after a pause, and when she had
+quite composed her face. 'You need not be frightened. All women cry a
+little sometimes, as men swear,' she added, smiling.
+
+'You have been looking at that thing outside,' I said, grumbling.
+
+'Perhaps it did upset me,' she replied. 'But I think it was that I
+felt--a little lonely.'
+
+That sounded so strange a complaint on her lips, seeing that the echo
+of the young sparks' laughter was barely dead in the room, that I
+stared. But I took it, on second thoughts, to refer to Fraulein Max,
+whom she had kept at a distance since our escape, never sitting down
+with her, or speaking to her except on formal occasions; and I said
+bluntly--
+
+'You need a woman friend, my lady.'
+
+She looked at me keenly, and I fancied her colour rose. But she only
+answered, 'Yes, Martin. But you see I have not one. I am alone.'
+
+'And lonely, my lady?'
+
+'Sometimes,' she answered, smiling sadly.
+
+'But this evening?' I replied, feeling that there was still something
+I did not understand. 'I should not have thought you would be feeling
+that way. I have not been here, but when I came in, my lady----'
+
+'Pshaw!' she answered with a laugh of disdain. 'Those boys, Martin?
+They can laugh, fight, and ride; but for the rest, pouf! They are not
+company. However, it is bedtime, and you must go. I think you have
+done me good. Good night. I wish--I wish I could do you good,' she
+added kindly, almost timidly.
+
+To some extent she had. I went away feeling that mine was not the only
+trouble in the world, nor my loneliness the only loneliness. She was a
+stranger in a besieged city, a woman among men, exposed, despite her
+rank, to many of a woman's perils; and doubtless she had felt Fraulein
+Max's defection and the Waldgrave's strange conduct more deeply than
+any one watching her daily bearing would have supposed. So much the
+greater reason was there that I should do my duty loyally, and putting
+her first to whom I owed so much, let no sorrow of my own taint my
+service.
+
+But God knows there is one passion that defies argument. The house
+next Herr Krapp's had a fascination for me which I could not resist;
+and though I did not again leave my lady unguarded, but arranged that
+Steve should stop at home and watch the door, four o'clock the next
+afternoon saw me sneaking away in search of St. Austin's. Of course I
+soon found it; but there I came to a check. Round the churchyard stood
+a number of quiet family houses, many-gabled and shaded by limes, and
+doubtless once occupied by reverend canons and prebendaries. But no
+one of these held such a position that it could shoulder Herr Krapp's,
+or be by any possibility the house I wanted. The churchyard lay too
+far from the street for that.
+
+I walked up the row twice before I would admit this; but at last I
+made it certain. Still Herr Krapp must know his own premises, and not
+much cast down, I was going to knock at a chance door and put the
+question, when my eyes fell on a man who sat at work in the
+churchyard. He wore a mason's apron, and was busily deepening the
+inscription on a tablet let into the church wall. He seemed to be the
+very man to know, and I went to him.
+
+'I want a house which looks into the Neu Strasse,' I said. 'It is the
+next house to Herr Krapp's. Can you direct me to the door?'
+
+He looked at me for a moment, his hammer suspended. Then he pointed to
+the farther end of the row. 'There is an alley,' he said in a hoarse,
+croaking voice. 'The door is at the end.'
+
+I thought his occupation an odd one, considering the state of the
+city; but I had other things to dwell on, and hastened off to the
+place he indicated. Here, sure enough, I found the mouth of a very
+narrow passage which, starting between the last house and a blind
+wall, ran in the required direction. It was a queer place, scarcely
+wider than my shoulders, and with two turns so sharp that I remember
+wondering how they brought their dead out. In one part it wound under
+the timbers of a house; it was dark and somewhat foul, and altogether
+so ill-favoured a path that I was glad I had brought my arms.
+
+     their independence (Crichton and Wheaton, i, 375, 376; Geijer, pp.
+     50, 81, 89, 97, 103), so that they ultimately enabled Gustavus Vasa
+     to throw off the Danish yoke. Yet they had at first refused to
+     recognise him, being satisfied with their own liberties; and
+     afterwards they gave him much serious trouble (Otté, _Scandinavian
+     History_, 1874, pp. 228, 235; Geijer, pp. 109, 112, 115, 116, 118,
+     120-24). Slavery, too, was definitely abolished in Sweden as early
+     as 1335 (Geijer, pp. 57, 86; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 316, 333). As
+     regards the regal power, the once dominant theory that the Swedish
+     kings in the thirteenth century obtained a grant of all the mines,
+     and of the province of the four great lakes (Crichton and Wheaton,
+     i, 332), appears to be an entire delusion (Geijer, pp. 51, 52).
+     Such claims were first enforced by Gustavus Vasa (_id._ p. 129). As
+     regards the clergy, they appear from the first, _quâ_ churchmen, to
+     have been kept in check by the nobles, who kept the great Church
+     offices largely in the hands of their own order (Geijer, p. 109),
+     though Magnus Ladulas strove to strengthen the Church in his own
+     interest (_id._ pp. 52-53). Thus the nobles became specially
+     powerful (_id._ pp. 50, 56, 108); and when in the fifteenth century
+     Sweden was subject to Denmark, they specially resented the
+     sacerdotal tyranny (Crichton and Wheaton, i, 356).
+
+In Sweden, as in the other Scandinavian States, however, physical strife
+and mental stagnation were the ruling conditions. Down till the
+sixteenth century her history is pronounced "a wretched detail of civil
+wars, insurrections, and revolutions, arising principally from the
+jealousies subsisting between the kings and the people, the one striving
+to augment their power, the other to maintain their independence."[670]
+The same may be said of the sister kingdoms, all alike being torn and
+drained by innumerable strifes of faction and wars with each other. The
+occasional forcible and dynastic unions of crowns came to nothing; and
+the Union of Calmar (1397), an attempt to confederate the three kingdoms
+under one crown, repeatedly collapsed. The marvel is that in such an age
+even the attempt was made. The remarkable woman who planned and first
+effected it, Queen Margaret of Norway, appealed in the first instance
+with heavy bribes for the co-operation of the clergy,[671] who,
+especially in Sweden, where they preferred the Danish rule to the
+domination of the nobles,[672] were always in favour of it for
+ecclesiastical reasons.
+
+Had such a union permanently succeeded, it would have eliminated a
+serious source of positive political evil; but to carry forward
+Scandinavian civilisation under the drawbacks of the medieval difficulty
+of inter-communication (involving lack of necessary culture-contacts),
+the natural poverty of the soil, and the restrictive pressure of the
+Catholic Church, would have been a task beyond the power of a monarchy
+comprising three mutually jealous sections. As it was, the old strifes
+recurred almost as frequently as before, and moral union was never
+developed. If historical evidence is to count for anything, the
+experience of the Scandinavian stocks should suffice to discredit once
+for all the persistent pretence that the "Teutonic races" have a faculty
+for union denied to the Celtic, inasmuch as they, apparently the most
+purely Teutonic of all, were even more irreconcilable, less fusible,
+than the Anglo-Saxons before the Norman Conquest and the Germans down
+till our own day, and much more mutually jealous than the quasi-Teutonic
+provinces of the Netherlands, which, after the severance of Belgium,
+have latterly lost their extreme repulsions, while those of Scandinavia
+are not yet dead.[673] The explanation, of course, is not racial in any
+case; but it is for those who affirm that capacity for union is a
+Teutonic gift to find a racial excuse.
+
+With the Reformation, though that was nowhere more clearly than in
+Scandinavia a revolution of plunder, there began a new progress, in
+respect not of any friendliness of the Lutheran system to thought and
+culture, but of the sheer break-up of the intellectual ice of the old
+regimen. In Denmark the process is curiously instructive. Christian II,
+personally a capable and reformative but cruel tyrant, aimed throughout
+his life at reducing the power alike of the clergy and the nobles, and
+to that end sought on the one hand to abolish serfdom and educate the
+poor and the burghers,[674] and on the other to introduce Lutheranism
+(1520). From the latter attempt he was induced to desist, doubtless
+surmising that the remedy might for him be a new disease: but on his
+enforcing the reform of slavery he was rebelled against and forced to
+fly by the nobility, who thereupon oppressed the people more than
+ever.[675] His uncle and successor, Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein,
+accepted the mandate of the nobles to the extent of causing to be
+publicly burned in his presence all the laws of the last reign in favour
+of the peasants, closing the poor schools throughout the kingdom,
+burning the new books,[676] and pledging himself to expel Lutheranism.
+He seems, however, to have been secretly a Protestant, and to have
+evaded his pledge; and the rapid spread of the new heresy, especially in
+the cities, brought about a new birth of popular literature in the
+vernacular, despite the suppression of the schools.[677] In a few years'
+time, Frederick, recognising the obvious interest of the crown, and
+finding the greater nobles in alliance with the clergy, made common
+cause with the smaller nobility, and so was able (1527) to force on the
+prelates, who could hope for no better terms from the exiled king, the
+toleration of Protestantism, the permission of marriage to the clergy,
+and a surrender of a moiety of the tithes.[678] A few years later (1530)
+the monasteries were either stormed by the populace or abandoned by the
+monks, their houses and lands being divided among the municipalities,
+the king and his courtiers, and the secular clergy.[679] After a stormy
+interregnum, in which the Catholic party made a strenuous reaction, the
+next king, Christian III, taking the nobles and commons-deputies into
+partnership, made with their help an end of the Catholic system; the
+remaining lands, castles, and manors of the prelates going to the crown,
+and the tithes being parcelled among the landowners, the king, and the
+clergy. Naturally a large part of the lands, as before, was divided
+among the nobles,[680] who were in this way converted to Protestantism.
+Thus whereas heathen kings had originally embraced Christianity to
+enable them to consolidate their power, Christian kings embraced
+Protestantism to enable them to recover wealth and power from the
+Catholic Church. Creed all along followed interest;[681] and the people
+had small concern in the change.[682]
+
+Norway, being under the same crown, followed the course of Denmark. In
+Sweden the powerful Gustavus Vasa saw himself forced at the outset of
+his reign to take power and wealth from the Church if he would have any
+of his own; and after the dramatic scene in the Diet of Westeras (1527),
+in which he broke out with a passionate vow to renounce the crown if he
+were not better supported,[683] he carried his point. The nobles, being
+"squared"[684] by permission to resume such of their ancestral lands as
+had been given to churches and convents since 1454, and by promise of
+further grants, forced the bishops to consent to surrender to the king
+their castles and strongholds, and to let him fix their revenues; all
+which was duly done. The monasteries were soon despoiled of nearly all
+their lands, many of which were seized by or granted in fief to the
+barons;[685] and the king became head of the Church in as full a degree
+as Henry VIII in England;[686] sagaciously, and in part unscrupulously,
+creating for the first time in Scandinavia a strong yet not wholly
+despotic monarchy, with such revenues from many sources[687] as made
+possible the military power and activity of Gustavus Adolphus, and
+later the effort of Charles XII to create an "empire"--an effort which,
+necessarily failing, reduced Sweden permanently to her true economic
+basis.
+
+Apart from those remarkable episodes, the development of the
+Scandinavian States since the sixteenth century has been, on their
+relatively small scale, that of the normal monarchic community with a
+variously vigorous democratic element; shaken frequently by civil
+strife; wasting much strength in insensate wars; losing much through bad
+kings and gaining somewhat from the good; passing painfully from bigotry
+to tolerance; getting rid of their old aristocracies and developing new;
+exhibiting in the mass the northern vice of alcoholism, yet maintaining
+racial vigour; disproportionately taxing their producers as compared
+with their non-producers; aiming, nevertheless, at industry and
+commerce, and suffering from the divisive social influences they entail;
+meddling in international strifes, till latterly the surrounding powers
+preponderated too heavily; disunited and normally jealous of each other,
+even when dynastically united, through stress of crude patriotic
+prejudice and lack of political science; frequently retrograding, yet in
+the end steadily progressing in such science as well as in general
+culture and well-being. Losses of territory--as Finland and
+Schleswig-Holstein--at the hands of stronger rivals, and the violent
+experiences and transitions of the Napoleonic period, have left them on
+a relatively stable and safe basis, albeit still mutually jealous and
+unable to pass beyond the normal monarchic stage. To-day their culture
+is that of all the higher civilisations, as are their social problems.
+
+
+§ 4
+
+In the history of Scandinavian culture, however, lie some special
+illustrations of sociological law. The remarkable fact that the first
+great development of old Norse literature occurred in the poor and
+remote colonial settlement of Iceland is significant of much. To the
+retrospective yearning of an exiled people, the desire to preserve every
+memory of the old life in the fatherland, is to be attributed the
+grounding of the saga-cult in Iceland; and the natural conditions,
+enforcing long spells of winter leisure, greatly furthered the movement.
+But the finest growth of the new literature, it turns out, is due to
+culture-contacts--an unexpected confirmation, in a most unlikely
+quarter, of a general principle arrived at on other data. The vigilant
+study of our own day has detected, standing out from the early
+Icelandic literature, "a group of poems which possess the very qualities
+of high imagination, deep pathos, fresh love of nature, passionate
+dramatic power, and noble simplicity of language, which [other] Icelandic
+poetry lacks. The solution is that these poems do not belong to Iceland at
+all. They are the poetry of the 'Western Islands'"[688]--that is, the
+poetry of the meeting and mixing of the "Celtic" and Scandinavian stocks
+in Ireland and the Hebrides--the former already much mixed, and
+proportionally rich in intellectual variations. It was in this area that
+"a magnificent school of poetry arose, to which we owe works that for
+power and beauty can be paralleled in no Teutonic language till centuries
+after their date.... This school, which is totally distinct from the
+Icelandic, ran its own course apart and perished before the thirteenth
+century."[689]
+
+     Compare Messrs. Vigfusson and Powell's _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_,
+     1883, vol. i, Introd. pp. lxii, lxiii; and, as regards the old
+     Irish civilisation, the author's _Saxon and Celt_, pp. 127, 128,
+     131-33.
+
+     The theory of Celtic influence, though established in its
+     essentials, is not perfectly consistent as set forth in the
+     _Britannica_ article. Thus, while the Celticised literature is
+     remarked for "noble simplicity of language," the true Icelandic,
+     primarily like the Old English, is said to develop a "complexity of
+     structure and ornament, an elaborate mythological and enigmatical
+     phraseology, and a regularity of rhyme, assonance, luxuriance,
+     quantity, and syllabification which it caught up from the Latin and
+     _Celtic_ poets." Further, while the Celticised school is described
+     as "totally distinct from the Icelandic," Celtic influence is also
+     specified as affecting Norse literature in general. The first
+     generations of Icelandic poets were men of good birth, "nearly
+     always, too, of Celtic blood on one side at least"; and they went
+     to Norway or Denmark, where they lived as kings' or chiefs'
+     henchmen. The immigration of Norse settlers from Ireland, too,
+     affected the Iceland stock very early. "It is to the west that the
+     best sagas belong: it is to the west that nearly every classic
+     writer whose name we know belongs; and it is precisely in the west
+     that the admixture of Irish blood is greatest" (_ib._). The facts
+     seem decisive, and the statements above cited appear the more
+     clearly to need modification. It is to be noted that Schweitzer's
+     _Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur_ gives no hint of the
+     Celtic influence.
+
+But the Icelandic civilisation as a whole could not indefinitely
+progress on its own basis any more than the Irish. Beyond a certain
+point both needed new light and leading; for the primeval spirit of
+strife never spontaneously weakened; the original Icelandic stock being,
+to begin with, a selection of revolters from over-rule. So continual
+domestic feuds checked mental evolution in Iceland as in old
+Scandinavia; and the reduction of the island to Norwegian rule in the
+thirteenth century could not do more for it than monarchy was doing for
+Norway. Mere Christianity without progressive conditions of culture
+availed less for imaginative art than free paganism had done; and when
+higher culture-contacts became possible, the extreme poverty of Iceland
+tended more than ever to send the enterprising people where the culture
+and comfort were. It is in fact not a possible seat for a relatively
+flourishing civilisation in the period of peaceful development. The
+Reformation seems there to have availed for very little indeed. It was
+vehemently resisted,[690] but carried by the preponderant acquisitive
+forces: "nearly all who took part in it were men of low type, moved by
+personal motives rather than religious zeal."[691] "The glebes and
+hospital lands were a fresh power in the hands of the crown, and the
+subservient Lutheran clergy became the most powerful class in the
+island; while the bad system of underleasing at rack-rent and short
+lease with unsecured tenant-right extended in this way over at least a
+quarter of the better land, stopping any possible progress." For the
+rest, "the Reformation had produced a real poet [Hallgrim Petersen], but
+the material rise of Iceland"--that is, the recent improvements in the
+condition of the people--"has not yet done so,"[692] though poetry is
+still cultivated in Iceland very much as music is elsewhere.
+
+Thus this one little community may be said to have reached the limits of
+its evolution, as compared with others, simply because of the strait
+natural conditions in which its lot was cast. But to think of it as a
+tragically moribund organism is merely to proceed upon the old
+hallucinations of race-consciousness. Men reared in Iceland have done
+their part in making European civilisation, entering the more southerly
+Scandinavian stocks as these entered the stocks of western Europe; and
+the present population, who are a remnant, have no more cause to hang
+their heads than any family that happens to have few members or to have
+missed wealth. Failure is relative only to pretension or purpose.
+
+The modern revival of Scandinavian culture, as must needs be, is the
+outcome of all the European influences. At the close of the sixteenth
+century, in more or less friendly intercourse with the other Protestant
+countries of north Europe, Denmark began effectively to develop a
+literature such as theirs, imaginative and scientific, in the vernacular
+as well as in Latin; and so the development went on while Sweden was
+gaining military glory with little enlightenment. Then a rash attack
+upon Sweden ended in a loss of some of the richest Danish provinces
+(1658); whereafter a sudden parliamentary revolution, wrought by a
+league of king and people against the aristocracy, created not a
+constitutional but an absolute and hereditary monarchy (1660),
+enthroning divine right at the same instant in Denmark and Norway as in
+England. Thereafter, deprived of their old posts and subjected to
+ruinous taxes, the nobility fell rapidly into poverty;[693] and the
+merchant class, equally overtaxed, withdrew their capital; the peasantry
+all the while remaining in a state of serfdom.[694] Then came a new
+series of wars with Sweden, recurring through generations, arresting, it
+is said, literature, law, philosophy, and medicine,[695] but not the
+natural sciences, then so much in evidence elsewhere: Tycho Brahe being
+followed in astronomy by Horrebow, while chemistry, mathematics, and
+even anatomy made progress. But to this period belongs the brilliant
+dramatist and historian Holberg, the first great man of letters in
+modern Scandinavia (d. 1754); and in the latter half of the eighteenth
+century the two years of ascendency of the freethinking physician
+Struensee as queen's favourite (1770-72) served partially to emancipate
+the peasants, establish religious toleration, abolish torture, and
+reform the administration. Nor did his speedy overthrow and execution
+wholly undo his main work,[696] which outdid that of many generations of
+the old régime. Still, the history of his rise and fall, his vehement
+speed of reconstruction and the ruinous resistance it set up, is one of
+the most dramatic of the many warnings of history against thinking
+suddenly to elevate a nation by reforms imposed wholly from
+without.[697]
+
+Thenceforward, with such fluctuations as mark all culture-history, the
+Scandinavian world has progressed mentally nearly step for step with
+the rest of Europe, producing scholars, historians, men of science,
+artists, and imaginative writers in more than due proportion. Many names
+which stand for solid achievement in the little-read Scandinavian
+tongues are unknown save to specialists elsewhere; but those of Holberg,
+Linnæus, Malte-Brun, Rask, Niebuhr, Madvig, Oehlenschläger,
+Thorwaldsen, and Swedenborg tell of a comprehensive influence on the
+thought and culture of Europe during a hundred years in which Europe was
+being reborn; and in our own day some of the greatest imaginative
+literature of the modern world comes from Norway, long the most backward
+of the group. Ibsen, one of a notable company of masters, stood at the
+head of the drama of the nineteenth century; and the society which
+sustained him, however he may have satirised it, is certificated abreast
+of its age.
+
+
+§ 5
+
+In one aspect the Scandinavian polities have a special lesson for the
+larger nations. They have perforce been specially exercised latterly, as
+of old, by the problem of population; and in Norway there was formerly
+made one of the notable, if not one of the best, approaches to a
+practical solution of it. Malthus long ago[698] noted the Norwegian
+marriage-rate as the lowest in Europe save that of Switzerland; and he
+expressed the belief that in his day Norway was "almost the only country
+in Europe where a traveller will hear any apprehension expressed of a
+redundant population, and where the danger to the happiness of the lower
+classes of people is in some degree seen and understood."[699] This
+state of things having long subsisted, there is a presumption that it
+persists uninterruptedly from pagan times, when, as we have seen, there
+existed a deliberate population-policy; for Christian habits of mind can
+nowhere be seen to have set up such a tendency, and it would be hard to
+show in the history of Norway any great political change which might
+effect a rapid revolution in the domestic habits of the peasantry, such
+as occurred in France after the Revolution. Broadly speaking, the mass
+of the Norwegian people had till the last century continued to live
+under those external or domiciliary restraints on multiplication which
+were normal in rural Europe in the Middle Ages, and which elsewhere have
+been removed by industrialism; yet without suffering latterly from a
+continuance of the severer medieval destructive checks. They must,
+therefore, have put a high degree of restraint on marriage, and probably
+observed parental prudence in addition.
+
+When it is found that in Sweden, where the conditions and usages were
+once similar, there was latterly at once less prudential restraint on
+marriage and population, and a lower standard of material well-being,
+the two cases are seen to furnish a kind of _experimentum crucis_. The
+comparatively late maintenance of a powerful military system in Sweden
+having there prolonged the methods of aristocratic and bureaucratic
+control while they were being modified in Denmark-Norway, Swedish
+population in the eighteenth century was subject to artificial stimulus.
+From about the year 1748, the Government set itself, on the ordinary
+empirical principle of militarism, to encourage population.[700] Among
+its measures were the variously wise ones of establishing medical
+colleges and lying-in and foundling hospitals, the absolute freeing of
+the internal trade in grain, and the withdrawal in 1748 of an old law
+limiting the number of persons allowed to each farm. The purpose of that
+law had been to stimulate population by spreading tillage; but the spare
+soil being too unattractive, the young people emigrated. On the law
+being abolished, population did increase considerably, rising between
+1751 and 1800 from 1,785,727 to 2,347,308,[701] though some severe
+famines had occurred within the period. But in the year 1799, when
+Malthus visited the country, the increased population suffered from
+famine very severely indeed, living mainly and miserably on bark
+bread.[702] It was one of Malthus's great object-lessons in his science.
+On one side a poor country was artificially over-populated; on the
+other, the people of Norway, an even poorer country, directly and
+indirectly[703] restrained their rate of increase, while the Government
+during a long period wrought to the same end by the adjustment of its
+military system and by making a certificate of earning power or income
+necessary for all marriages.[704] The result was that, save in the
+fishing districts, where speculative conditions encouraged early
+marriages and large families, the Norwegian population were better off
+than the Swedish.[705]
+
+Already in Malthus' youth the Norwegian-Danish policy had been altered,
+all legal and military restrictions on marriage having been withdrawn;
+and he notes that fears were expressed as to the probable results. It is
+one of his shortcomings to have entirely abstained from subsequent
+investigation of the subject; and in his late addendum as to the state
+of Sweden in 1826 he further fails to note that as a result of a
+creation there after 1803 of 6,000 new farms from land formerly waste,
+the country ceased to need to import corn and was able to export a
+surplus.[706] It still held good, however, that the Norwegian
+population, being from persistence of prudential habit[707] much the
+slower in its rate of increase, had the higher standard of comfort,
+despite much spread of education in Sweden.
+
+Within the past half-century the general development of commerce and of
+industry has tended broadly to equalise the condition of the
+Scandinavian peoples. As late as 1835 a scarcity would suffice to drive
+the Norwegian peasantry to the old subsistence of bark bread, a ruinous
+resort, seeing that it destroyed multitudes of trees of which the value,
+could the timber have found a market, would have far exceeded that of a
+quantity of flour yielding much more and better food. At that period the
+British market was closed by duties imposed in the interest of the
+Canadian timber trade.[708] Since the establishment of British free
+trade, Norwegian timber has become a new source of wealth; and through
+this and other and earlier commercial developments prudential family
+habits were affected. Thus, whereas the population of Sweden had all but
+doubled between 1800 and 1880, the population of Norway had grown even
+faster.[709] And whereas in 1834 the proportion of illegitimate to
+legitimate births in Stockholm was 1 to 2.26[710] (one of the results of
+foundling hospitals, apparently), in 1890 the total Swedish rate was
+slightly below 1 to 10, while in Norway it was 1 to 14. The modern
+facilities for emigration have further affected conjugal habits.
+Latterly, however, there are evidences of a new growth of intelligent
+control.
+
+In recent years the statistics of emigration and population tell a
+fairly plain story. In Norway and Sweden alike the excess of births over
+deaths reached nearly its highest in 1887, the figures being 63,942 for
+Sweden and 29,233 for Norway. In 1887, however, emigration was about its
+maximum in both countries, 50,786 leaving Sweden and 20,706 leaving
+Norway. Thereafter the birth-rate rapidly fell, and the emigration,
+though fluctuating, has never again risen in Sweden to the volume of
+1887-88, though it has in Norway. But when, after falling to 43,728 in
+1892, the excess of Swedish births over deaths rises to 60,231 in 1895,
+while the emigration falls from 45,000 in 1892 to 13,000 in 1894, it is
+clear that the lesson of regulation is still very imperfectly learned.
+Norway shows the same fluctuations, the excess of births rising from
+23,600 in 1892 to nearly 32,000 in 1896, and again from 27,685 in 1908
+to 29,804 in 1909, doubtless because of ups and downs in the harvests,
+as shown in the increase of marriages from 12,742 in 1892 to 13,962 in
+1896.
+
+In Denmark the progression has been similar. There the excess of births
+over deaths was so far at its maximum in 1886, the figures being 29,986
+in a population of a little over 2,000,000; whereafter they slowly
+decreased, till in 1893 the excess was only 26,235. All the while
+emigration was active, gradually rising from 4,346 in 1885 to 10,382 in
+1891; then again falling to 2,876 in 1896, when the surplus of births
+over deaths was 34,181--a development sure to force more emigration. In
+1911 the population was 2,775,076--a rapid rise; and in 1910 the surplus
+of births over deaths was 40,110. The Scandinavians are thus still in
+the unstable progressive stage of popular well-being, though probably
+suffering less from it than either Germany or England.
+
+Here, then, is a group of kindred peoples apparently at least as capable
+of reaching a solution of the social problem as any other, and visibly
+prospering materially and morally in proportion as they bring reason to
+bear on the vital lines of conduct, though still in the stage of curing
+over-population by emigration. Given continued peaceful political
+evolution in the direction first of democratic federation, and further
+of socialisation of wealth, they may reach and keep the front rank in
+civilisation, while the more unmanageably large communities face risks
+of dire vicissitude.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 638: As in Carlyle's _Early Kings of Norway_, the _caput
+mortuum_ of his historical method. Much more instructive works on
+Scandinavian history are available to the English reader. The two
+volumes on _Scandinavia_ by Crichton and Wheaton (1837) are not yet
+superseded, though savouring strongly of the conservatism of their
+period. Dunham, who rapidly produced, for Gardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia
+series, histories of _Spain and Portugal_ (5 vols.), _Europe during the
+Middle Ages_ (4 vols.), and the _Germanic Empire_ (3 vols.), compiled
+also one of _Denmark, Sweden, and Norway_ (3 vols. 1839-40), of inferior
+quality. But Geijer's _History of Sweden_, one of the standard modern
+national histories of Europe, is translated into English as far as the
+period of Gustavus Vasa (3 vols. of orig. in one of trans. 1845); and
+the competent _History of Denmark_ by C.-F. Allen is available in a
+French translation (Copenhagen, 2 tom. 1878). Otté's _Scandinavian
+History_, 1874, is an unpretending and unliterary but well-informed
+work, which may be used to check Crichton and Wheaton. The more recent
+work of Mr. R. Nisbet Bain, _Scandinavia: a Political History of
+Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from 1513 to 1900_ (Camb. Univ. Press,
+1905), is useful for the period covered, but has little sociological
+value. For the history of ancient Scandinavian literature, the
+introduction to Vigfusson and Powell's _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ (1883),
+and Prof. Powell's article on Icelandic Literature in the 10th ed. of
+the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, are preferable to Schweitzer's
+_Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur_ (1886, 2 Bde.), which,
+however, is useful for the modern period.]
+
+[Footnote 639: See Geijer's _History of the Swedes_, Eng. tr. of pt. i,
+1-vol. ed. p. 30, as to the special persistence in Scandinavia of the
+early religious conception of kingship. Cp. Crichton and Wheaton's
+_Scandinavia_, 1837, i, 157.]
+
+[Footnote 640: Such New Testament passages as _Rom._ xiii, 1-7, and
+_Titus_ iii, 1, seem to have been penned or interpolated expressly to
+propitiate the Roman government.]
+
+[Footnote 641: It was by entirely overlooking this historic fact that M.
+Fustel de Coulanges, in the last chapter of his _Cité antique_, was able
+to propound a theory of historic Christianity as something
+extra-political. He there renounced the inductive method for a pure
+ecclesiastical apriorism, and the result is a very comprehensive
+sociological misconception.]
+
+[Footnote 642: Geijer, pp. 31, 33; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 102, 104,
+183, 184.]
+
+[Footnote 643: Tacitus, _Germania_, cc. 7, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 644: Cp. Zschokke, _Des Schweizerlands Geschichte_, c. 7, as
+to the psychological effect of an organised worship in a great building
+on heathens without any such centre. And see the frank admission of J.R.
+Green, _Short History_, p. 54, that among the Anglo-Saxons "religion had
+told against political independence."]
+
+[Footnote 645: Cp. C.F. Allen, _History of Denmark_, French tr.,
+Copenhagen, 1878, i, 55, 56.]
+
+[Footnote 646: Crichton and Wheaton, _Scandinavia_, i, 129-32; Hardwick,
+_Church History: Middle Age_, 1853, p. 115. Knut was a great supporter
+of missionaries. Hardwick attributes to Gorm a "bitter hatred" of the
+Church, and also "violence," but gives no details.]
+
+[Footnote 647: Even Svend is said to have laboured for Christianity in
+his latter years--another suggestion that it was found to answer
+monarchic purposes. See Hardwick, p. 115, _note 9_.]
+
+[Footnote 648: Cp. Dasent, Introd. to _The Burnt Njal_, p. ix.]
+
+[Footnote 649: Hardwick, as cited, p. 117.]
+
+[Footnote 650: Hardwick, as cited.]
+
+[Footnote 651: A warlike priest of Bremen is said to have converted him
+in Germany; and he was baptised in the Scilly Islands, which he had
+visited on a piratical expedition. Finally he was confirmed in England,
+which he promised to treat in future as a friendly State. (_Id._ _ib._)]
+
+[Footnote 652: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 151.]
+
+[Footnote 653: Cp. Hardwick. p. 118, _note 3_.]
+
+[Footnote 654: Though this was often of the most brutal description,
+there were some comparatively "mild-mannered" pirates, who rarely "cut a
+throat or scuttled ship." See C.-F. Allen, _Histoire de Danemark_, i,
+21.]
+
+[Footnote 655: Geijer, _History of Sweden_, Eng. tr. p. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 656: It is actually on record that the practice long subsisted
+in Iceland, despite the efforts of St. Olaf to suppress it. Hardwick,
+_Church History: Middle Age_, p. 119, _note_, citing Torfaens, _Hist.
+Norveg._ ii, 2, and Neander. Among the Slavonic Pomeranians in the
+twelfth century it was still common to destroy female children at birth.
+_Id._ p. 224, _note_.]
+
+[Footnote 657: Cp. C.-F. Allen, _Histoire de Danemark_, Fr. tr. 1878, i,
+20.]
+
+[Footnote 658: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que l'Angleterre? Une colonie
+français mal tournée."]
+
+[Footnote 659: Thus Rolf the Ganger fared forth to France because Harold
+Fairhair would not suffer piracy on any territory acquired by him.]
+
+[Footnote 660: _Essay on the Principle of Population_, 7th ed. p. 139.]
+
+[Footnote 661: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 254. Dr. Ph. Schweitzer
+(_Geschichte der skandinavischen Literatur_, § 19), makes the surprising
+statement that the quantity of old coins found in Scandinavia (over
+100,000 within the last century) proves that the ancient Scandinavian
+commerce was very great (_ein ganz grossartiger_). His own account of
+the occasional barter of the Vikings shows that there was nothing
+"grossartig" about it, and the coins prove nothing beyond piracy.]
+
+[Footnote 662: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 263, 287.]
+
+[Footnote 663: _Id._ pp. 251, 252, 277, 377.]
+
+[Footnote 664: _Id._ pp. 304, 305, 311.]
+
+[Footnote 665: _Id._ ii, 350. Cp. Laing, _Journal of a Residence in
+Norway_ (1834-36), ed. 1851, p. 135. Bain, however, pronounces that in
+Norway in the latter part of the fifteenth century "the peasantry were
+mostly thralls" (_Scandinavia_, 1905, p. 10).]
+
+[Footnote 666: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 305, 310.]
+
+[Footnote 667: _Id._ p. 332; Geijer, p. 135.]
+
+[Footnote 668: Geijer, pp. 88, 91; Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.]
+
+[Footnote 669: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 324.]
+
+[Footnote 670: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 331.]
+
+[Footnote 671: _Id._ p. 336.]
+
+[Footnote 672: Geijer, pp. 100, 109; Otté, _Scandinavian History_, 1874,
+p. 252.]
+
+[Footnote 673: Cp. Milman, _Latin Christianity_, 4th ed. ii, 225, on
+Anglo-Saxon separatism. Since this was written there has taken place the
+decisive separation between Norway and Sweden.]
+
+[Footnote 674: Otté, _Scandinavian History_, 1874, pp. 214-18. Himself
+an excellent Latinist, he sought to raise the learned professions, and
+compelled the burghers to give their children schooling under penalty of
+heavy fines. He further caused new and better books to be prepared for
+the public schools, and stopped witch-burning. Cp. Allen, _Histoire de
+Danemark_, i, 281.]
+
+[Footnote 675: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 377-79, 383; Allen, as cited, i,
+286, 310.]
+
+[Footnote 676: Otté, p. 222; Allen, i, 287, 290.]
+
+[Footnote 677: Crichton and Wheaton, i, 384-86; Allen, pp. 287-90.]
+
+[Footnote 678: Allen, i, 299, 300.]
+
+[Footnote 679: Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 386, 387. These writers
+suppress the details as to Frederick's anti-popular action; and Otté's
+history, giving these, omits all mention of his act of toleration.
+Allen's is the best account, i, 293, 299, 301, 305.]
+
+[Footnote 680: Crichton and Wheaton, pp. 394-96; Otté, pp. 222-24.
+According to some accounts, the great bulk of the spoils went to the
+nobility. Villers, _Essay on the Reformation_, Eng. tr. 1836, p. 105.]
+
+[Footnote 681: It is notable that even in the thirteenth century there
+was a Norwegian king (Erik) called the Priest-hater, because of his
+efforts to make the clergy pay taxes.]
+
+[Footnote 682: "The bulk of the people, at least in the first instance,
+and especially in Sweden and Norway, were by no means disposed to look
+to Wittenberg rather than to Rome for spiritual guidance" (Bain,
+_Scandinavia_, p. 86; cp. pp. 60, 64).]
+
+[Footnote 683: Geijer, p. 177; Otté, p. 234.]
+
+[Footnote 684: As the king wrote later to an acquisitive noble: "To
+strip churches, convents, and prebends of estates, manors, and chattels,
+thereto are all full willing and ready; and after such a fashion is
+every man a Christian and evangelical"--_i.e._ Lutheran. Geijer, p. 126.
+Cp. p. 129 as to the practice of spoliation.]
+
+[Footnote 685: Geijer, pp. 119, 129.]
+
+[Footnote 686: _Id._ p. 125; Otté, p. 236. The prelates were no longer
+admitted to any political offices, though the bishops and pastors sat
+together in the Diet.]
+
+[Footnote 687: See Geijer, pp. 129-36.]
+
+[Footnote 688: Prof. York Powell, article on Icelandic Literature, in
+_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 10th ed. xii, 621; 11th ed. xiv, 233.]
+
+[Footnote 689: _Id._ (11th ed. xiv, 234).]
+
+[Footnote 690: Bain, _Scandinavia_, pp. 100-1.]
+
+[Footnote 691: Powell, article on Icelandic Literature, _Ency. Brit._
+10th ed. xii, 621.]
+
+[Footnote 692: _Id._ p. 623.]
+
+[Footnote 693: Shaftesbury (_Characteristics_, ed. 1900, ii, 262) writes
+in 1713 of "that forlorn troop of begging gentry extant in Denmark or
+Sweden, since the time that those nations lost their liberties."]
+
+[Footnote 694: Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 104.]
+
+[Footnote 695: _Id._ ii, 321-22.]
+
+[Footnote 696: Laing in 1839 (_Tour in Sweden_, p. 13) thought the Danes
+as backward as they had been in 1660, quoting the ambassador Molesworth
+as to the effect of Lutheran Protestantism in destroying Danish
+liberties (pp. 10, 11). But it is hard to see that there were any
+popular liberties to destroy, save in so far as the party which set up
+the Reformation undid the popular laws of Christian II. The greatest
+social reforms in Denmark are certainly the work of the last
+half-century.]
+
+[Footnote 697: It will be remembered that the Marquis of Pombal, in
+Portugal, at the same period, was similarly overthrown after a much
+longer and non-scandalous reformatory rule, the queen being his enemy.]
+
+[Footnote 698: His particulars were gathered during a tour he made in
+1799. Thus the Norse practice he notes had been independent of any
+effect produced by his own essay.]
+
+[Footnote 699: _Essay on the Principle of Population_, 7th ed. pp. 126,
+133.]
+
+[Footnote 700: This was doubtless owing to the loss of Finland (1742), a
+circumstance not considered by Malthus.]
+
+[Footnote 701: Malthus (p. 141) gives higher and clearly erroneous
+figures for both periods, and contradicts them later (p. 143) with
+figures which he erroneously applies to Sweden _and Finland_. He seems
+to have introduced the latter words in the wrong passage.]
+
+[Footnote 702: _Id._ p. 141.]
+
+[Footnote 703: See p. 131 as to the restrictions on subdivision of farms
+by way of safeguarding the forests.]
+
+[Footnote 704: _Id._ p. 126. A priest would often refuse to marry a
+couple who had no good prospect of a livelihood: so far could rational
+custom affect even ecclesiastical practice.]
+
+[Footnote 705: Cp. Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 339-50; Laing, _Journal of
+a Residence in Norway_ (1834-36), ed. 1851, pp. 22, 23, 34, 35, 191,
+214.]
+
+[Footnote 706: Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 345. Laing (_Tour in Sweden_,
+pp. 277-82) thought the Swedish peasants better off than the Scotch,
+though morally inferior to the Norwegian.]
+
+[Footnote 707: Laing, _Norway_, p. 213.]
+
+[Footnote 708: Laing, as cited, p. 220; Crichton and Wheaton, ii, 368.]
+
+[Footnote 709: Sweden in 1800 stood at 2,347,303; in 1880, at 4,565,668;
+in 1900, at 5,136,441. Estimate for 1910, 5,521,943. Norway in 1815
+stood at 886,656; in 1910 at 2,391,782.]
+
+[Footnote 710: Laing, as cited, p. 103, _note_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE HANSA
+
+
+Systematic commerce in the north of Europe, broadly speaking, begins
+with the traffic of the Hansa towns, whose rise may be traced to the
+sudden development of civic life forced on Germany in the tenth century
+by the emperor Henry I, as a means of withstanding the otherwise
+irresistible raids of the Hungarians.[711] Once founded, such cities for
+their own existence' sake gave freedom to all fugitive serfs who joined
+them, defending such against former masters, and giving them the chance
+of earning a living.[712] That is by common consent the outstanding
+origin of German civic industry, and the original conditions were such
+that the cities, once formed, were gradually forced[713] to special
+self-reliance. _Faustrecht_, or private war, was universal, even under
+emperors who suppressed feudal brigandage; and the cities had to fight
+their own battle, like those of Italy, from the beginning. As compared
+with the robber baronage and separate princes, they stood for
+intelligence and co-operation, and supplied a basis for organisation
+without which the long German chaos of the Middle Ages would have been
+immeasurably worse. Taking their commercial cue from the cities of
+Italy, they reached, as against feudal enemies, a measure of peaceful
+union which the less differentiated Italian cities could not attain save
+momentarily. The decisive conditions were that whereas in Italy the
+enemies were manifold--sometimes feudal nobles, sometimes the Emperor,
+sometimes the Pope--the German cities had substantially one objective,
+the protection of trade from the robber-knights. Thus, as early as the
+year 1284, seventy cities of South Germany formed the Rhenish League, on
+which followed that of the Swabian towns. The league of the Hansa
+cities, like the other early "Hansa of London," which united cities of
+Flanders and France with mercantile London, was a growth on all fours
+with these.[714] Starting, however, in maritime towns which grew to
+commerce from beginnings in fishing, as the earlier Scandinavians had
+grown to piracy, the northern League gave its main strength to trade by
+sea.
+
+Its special interest for us to-day lies in the fact that it was
+ultra-racial, beginning in 1241 in a pact between the free cities of
+Lübeck and Hamburg,[715] and finally including Wendish, German, Dutch,
+French, and even Spanish cities, in fluctuating numbers. The motive to
+union, as it had need be, was one of mercantile gain. Beginning,
+apparently, by having each its separate authorised _hansa_ or
+trading-group in foreign cities, the earlier trading-towns of the group,
+perhaps from the measure of co-operation and fraternity thus forced on
+them abroad,[716] saw their advantage in a special league for the common
+good as a monopoly maintained against outsiders; and this being
+extended, the whole League came to bear the generic name.
+
+     See Kohlrausch for the theory that contact in foreign cities is the
+     probable cause of the policy of union (_History of Germany_, Eng.
+     tr., p. 260; cp. Ashley, _Introd. to Economic History_, i, 104,
+     110). As to the origin of the word, see Stubbs, i, 447, _note_. The
+     _hans_ or _hansa_ first appears historically in England as a name
+     apparently identical with _gild_; and, starting with a _hansa_ or
+     hanse-house of their own, English cities in some cases are found
+     trading through subordinate _hansas_ in other cities, not only of
+     Normandy but of England itself. Thus arose the Flemish Hansa or
+     "Hansa of London," ignored in so many notices of the better-known
+     Hanseatic League. Early in the thirteenth century it included a
+     number of the towns of Flanders engaged in the English wool-trade;
+     and later it numbered at one time seventeen towns, including
+     Chalons, Rheims, St. Quentin, Cambray, and Amiens (Ashley, _Introd.
+     to Economic History_, i, 109; cp. Prof. Schanz, _Englische
+     Handelspolitik_, 1889, i, 6, citing Varenbergh, _Hist. des
+     relations diplomatiques entre le comte de Flandre et l'Angleterre
+     au moyen âge_, Bruxelles, 1874, p. 146 _sq._). There is some
+     obscurity as to when the foreign Hansards were first permitted to
+     have warehouses and residences of their own in London. Cp.
+     Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, vol. i, §
+     68; and Ashley, i, 105, following Schanz, who dates this privilege
+     in the reign of Henry III, though the merchants of Cologne (_id._
+     p. 110) had a _hansa_ or gildhall in London in the reign of Richard
+     I. Under whatever conditions, it is clear that London was one of
+     the first foreign cities in which the German Hansard traders came
+     in friendly contact.
+
+A reciprocal and normal egoism furthered as well as thwarted the Hansard
+enterprise. Trade in the feudal period being a ground of privilege like
+any other, the monopolied merchants of every city strove to force
+foreign traders to deal with them only. On the other hand, the English
+nobility sought to deal rather with the foreigner directly than with the
+English middlemen; and thus in each feudal country, but notably in
+England,[717] the interest of the landed class tended to throw foreign
+trade substantially in foreign hands, which did their best to hold it.
+In the reigns of the Edwards privileges of free trade with natives were
+gradually conferred on the foreign traders[718] in the interests of the
+landed class--the only "general consumers" who could then make their
+claims felt--in despite of the angry resistance of the native merchant
+class. For the rest, in a period when some maritime English cities, like
+those of France and Germany, could still carry on private wars with each
+other as well as with foreign cities,[719] a trader of one English town
+was in any other English town on all fours with a foreigner.[720] When,
+therefore, the foreigners combined, their advantage over the native
+trade was twofold.
+
+Naturally the cities least liable to regal interference carried on a
+cosmopolitan co-operation to the best advantage. The Hansa of London,
+being made up of Flemish and French cities, was hampered by the divided
+allegiance of its members and by their national jealousies;[721] while
+the German cities, sharing in the free German scramble under a nominal
+emperor much occupied in Italy, could combine with ease. Cologne, having
+early Hansa rights in London, sought to exclude the other cities, but
+had to yield and join their union;[722] and the Hansa of London dwindled
+and broke up before their competition. As the number of leagued cities
+increased, it might be thought, something in the nature of an ideal of
+free trade must have partly arisen, for the number of "privileged"
+towns was thus apparently greater than that of the outside towns traded
+with. To the last, however, the faith seems to have been that without
+monopoly the league must perish; and in the closing Protestant period
+the command of the Baltic, as against the Dutch and the Scandinavians,
+was desperately and vainly battled for. But just as the cities could not
+escape the play of the other political forces of the time, and were
+severally clutched by this or that potentate, or biassed to their own
+stock, so they could not hinder that the principle of self-seeking on
+which they founded should divide themselves. As soon as the Dutch
+affiliated cities saw their opening for trade in the Baltic on their own
+account, they broke away.
+
+While the league lasted, it was as remarkable a polity as any in
+history. With its four great foreign factories of Bruges, London,
+Bergen, and Novgorod, and its many minor stations, all conducted by
+celibate servitors living together like so many bodies of friars;[723]
+with its four great circles of affiliated towns, and its triennial and
+other congresses, the most cosmopolitan of European parliaments; with
+its military and naval system, by which, turning its trading into
+fighting fleets, it made war on Scandinavian kings and put down piracy
+on every hand--it was in its self-seeking and often brutal way one of
+the popular civilising influences of northern Europe for some two
+hundred and fifty years; and the very forces of separate national
+commerce, which finally undermined it, were set up or stimulated by its
+own example. With less rapacity, indeed, it might have conciliated
+populations that it alienated. A lack of any higher ideals than those of
+zealous commerce marks its entire career; it is associated with no such
+growth of learning and the fine arts as took place in commercial
+Holland; and its members seem to have been among the most unrefined of
+the northern city populations.[724] But it made for progress on the
+ordinary levels. In a world wholly bent on privilege in all directions,
+it at least tempered its own spirit of monopoly in some measure by its
+principle of inclusion; and it passed away as a great power before it
+could dream of renewing the ideal of monopoly in the more sinister form
+of Oriental empire taken up by the Dutch. And, while its historians have
+not been careful to make a comparative study of the internal civic life
+which flourished under the commercial union, it does not at all appear
+that the divisions of classes were more steep, or the lot of the lower
+worse, than in any northern European State of the period.
+
+The "downfall" of such a polity, then, is conceptual only. All the
+realities of life evolved by the league were passed on to its
+constituent elements throughout northern Europe; and there survived from
+it what the separate States had not yet been able to offer--the
+adumbration, however dim, of a union reaching beyond the bounds of
+nationality and the jealousies of race. In an age of private war,
+without transcending the normal ethic, it practically limited private
+war as regarded its German members; and while joining battle at need
+with half-barbarian northern kings, or grudging foreigners, it of
+necessity made peace its ideal. Its dissolution, therefore, marked at
+once the advance of national organisation up to its level, and the
+persistence of the more primitive over the more rational instincts of
+coalition.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 711: Menzel, _Geschichte der Deutschen_, bk. ix, cap. 147;
+Kohlrausch, _History of Germany_, Eng. tr., pp. 157, 162, 257; Dunham,
+_History of the Germanic Empire_, 1835, i, 108; Sharon Turner, _History
+of Europe during the Middle Ages_, 2nd ed. i, 13. The main authority is
+the old annalist Wittikind.]
+
+[Footnote 712: Heeren, _Essai sur l'influence des Croisades_, 1808, pp.
+269-72; Smith, _Wealth of Nations_, bk. iii, ch. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 713: As to the process of evolution, see a good summary in
+Robertson's _View of the Progress of Society in Europe_ (prefixed to his
+_Charles V_), Note xvii to Sect. I.]
+
+[Footnote 714: The Spanish _Hermandad_ was originally an organisation of
+cities set up in similar fashion. E. Armstrong, _Introduction_ to Major
+Martin Hume's _Spain_, 1898, p. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 715: Lübeck was founded in 1140 by a count of Holstein, and
+won its freedom in the common medieval fashion by purchase. Hamburg
+bought its freedom of its bishop in 1225. Hallam, _Middle Ages_, 11th
+ed. iii, 324. Many Dutch, supposed to have been driven from their own
+land by an inundation, settled on the Baltic coast between Bremen and
+Dantzic in the twelfth century. Heeren, _Essai sur les Croisades_, 1808,
+pp. 266-69, citing Leibnitz and Hoche. Cp. G.H. Schmidt, _Zur
+Agrargeschichte Lübecks_, 1887, p. 30 _sq._]
+
+[Footnote 716: "The league ... would scarcely have held long together or
+displayed any real federal unity but for the pressure of external
+dangers" (Art. "Hanseatic League" in _Ency. Brit._, 10th ed. xi, 450).]
+
+[Footnote 717: Cp. Ashley, as cited, i, 104-112; Schanz, as cited, i,
+331.]
+
+[Footnote 718: Cp. W. von Ochenkowski, _Englands wirtschaftliche
+Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters_, 1879. pp. 177-82, 221-31.
+Cp. the author's _Trade and Tariffs_, pt. ii, ch. ii, § 1.]
+
+[Footnote 719: Hallam, _Middle Ages_, iii, 335. On private war in
+general see Robertson's _View_, note 21 to § i.]
+
+[Footnote 720: Ashley, i, 108, 109.]
+
+[Footnote 721: Whereas in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
+England and Flanders had freely exchanged trading privileges, in the
+fifteenth century they begin to withdraw them, treating each other as
+trading rivals (Schanz, i, 7, 8).]
+
+[Footnote 722: Ashley, i, 110.]
+
+[Footnote 723: This principle may have been copied from the practice of
+the Lombard _Umiliati_. The common account of that order is that when in
+1014 the Emperor banished a number of Lombards, chiefly Milanese, into
+Germany, they formed themselves into a religious society, called "The
+Humbled," and in that corporate capacity devoted themselves to various
+trades, in particular to wool-working. Returning to Milan in 1019, they
+developed their organisation there. Down to 1140 all the members were
+laymen; but thereafter priests were placed in control. For long the
+organisation was in high repute both for commercial skill and for
+culture. Ultimately, like all other corporate orders, they grew corrupt;
+and in 1571 they were suppressed by Pius V. (Pignotti, _Hist. of
+Tuscany_, Eng. trans. 1823, pp. 266-67, _note_, following Tiraboschi.)]
+
+[Footnote 724: In such accounts as M'Culloch's (_Treatises and Essays_)
+and those of the German patriotic historians the Hansa is seen in a
+rather delusive abstract. The useful monograph of Miss Zimmern (_The
+Hansa Towns_: Story of the Nations Series) gives a good idea of the
+reality. See in particular pp. 82-147. It should be noted, however, that
+Lübeck is credited with being the first northern town to adopt the
+Oriental usage of water-pipes (Macpherson, _Annals of Commerce_, 1802,
+i, 381).]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+HOLLAND
+
+NOTE ON LITERATURE
+
+
+The special interest of Dutch history for English and other readers led
+in past generations to a more general sociological study of it than was
+given to almost any other. L. Guicciardini's _Description of the Low
+Countries_ (_Descrizione ... di tutti Paesi Bassi_, etc., Anversa,
+folio, 1567, 1581, etc.; trans. in French, 1568, etc.; in English, 1593;
+in Dutch, 1582; in Latin, 1613, etc.) is one of the fullest surveys of
+the kind made till recent times. Sir William Temple's _Observations upon
+the United Provinces of the Netherlands_ (1672) laid for English readers
+further foundations of an intelligent knowledge of the vital conditions
+of the State which had been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+the great commercial rival of England; and in the eighteenth century
+many English writers discussed the fortunes of Dutch commerce. An
+English translation was made of the remarkably sagacious work variously
+known as the _Memoirs of John de Witt_, the _True Interest of Holland_,
+and _Political Maxims of the State of Holland_ (really written by De
+Witt's friend, Pierre Delacourt; De Witt, however, contributing two
+chapters), and much attention was given to it here and on the Continent.
+In addition to the many and copious histories written in the eighteenth
+century in Dutch, three or four voluminous and competent histories of
+the Low Countries were written in French--_e.g._, those of Dujardin
+(1757, etc., 8 vols. 4to), Cerisier (1777, etc., 10 vols. 12mo), Le
+Clerc (1723-28, 3 vols. folio), Wicquefort (1719, folio, proceeding from
+Peace of Münster). Of late years, though the lesson is as important as
+ever, it appears to be less generally attended to. In our own country,
+however, have appeared Davies' _History of Holland_ (1841, 3 vols.), a
+careful but not often an illuminating work, which oddly begins with the
+statement that "there is scarcely any nation whose history has been so
+little understood or so generally neglected as that of Holland"; T.
+Colley Grattan's earlier and shorter book (_The Netherlands_, 1830),
+which is still worth reading for a general view based on adequate
+learning; and the much better known works of Motley, _The Rise of the
+Dutch Republic_ (1856) and the _History of the United Netherlands_
+(1861-68), which deal minutely with only a period of fifty-five years of
+Dutch history, and of which, as of the work of Davies, the sociological
+value is much below the annalistic. All three are impaired as literature
+by their stale rhetoric. The same malady infects the second volume of
+the _Industrial History of the Free Nations_ (1846), by W. Torrens
+M'Cullagh (afterwards M'Cullagh Torrens); but this, which deals with
+Holland, is the better section of that treatise, and it gives distinct
+help to a scientific conception of the process of Dutch history, as does
+J.R. M'Culloch's _Essay on the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Commerce
+in Holland_, which is one of the best of his _Essays and Treatises_ (2nd
+ed. 1859). The _Holland_ of the late Professor Thorold Rogers has merit
+as a vivacious conspectus, but hardly rises to the opportunity.
+
+Of the many French, Belgian, and German works on special periods of the
+history of the Low Countries, some have a special and general scientific
+interest. Among these is the research of M. Alphonse Wauters on _Les
+libertés communales_ (Bruxelles, 1878). Barante's _Histoire des Ducs de
+Bourgogne_ (4th ed. 1838-40) contains much interesting matter on the
+Burgundian period. The assiduous research of M. Lefèvre Pontalis, _Jean
+de Witt, Grand Pensionnaire de Hollande_ (2 tom. 1884; Eng. trans. 2
+vols.), throws a full light on one of the most critical periods of Dutch
+history.
+
+Dutch works on the history of the Low Countries in general, and the
+United Provinces in particular, are many and voluminous; indeed, no
+history has been more amply written. The good general history of the
+Netherlands by N.G. van Kampen, which appeared in German in the series
+of Heeren and Uckert (1831-33), is only partially superseded by the
+_Geschichte der Niederlande_ of Wenzelburger (Bd. i, 1879; ii, 1886),
+which is not completed. But the most readable general history of the
+Netherlands yet produced is that of P.J. Blok, _Geschiedenis van het
+Nederlandsche Volk_ (1892, etc.), of which there is a competent but
+unfortunately abridged English translation (Putnams, vol. i, 1898).
+Standard modern Dutch works are those of J.A. Vijnne, _Geschiedenis van
+het Vaderland_, and J. van Lennep, _De Geschiedenis van Nederland_. For
+Belgian history in particular the authorities are similarly numerous.
+The _Manuel de l'histoire de Belgique_, by J. David (Louvain, 1847),
+will be found a good handbook of authorities, episodes, and chronology,
+though without any sociological element. The _Histoire de Belgique_ of
+Th. Juste (Bruxelles, 1895, 3 tom. 4to) is comprehensive, but disfigured
+by insupportable illustrations.
+
+
+§ 1. _The Rise of the Netherlands_
+
+The case of Holland is one of those which at first sight seem to flout
+the sociological maxim that civilisations flourish in virtue partly of
+natural advantages and partly of psychological pressures. On the face of
+things, it would seem that the original negation of natural advantage
+could hardly be carried farther than here. A land pieced together out of
+drained marshes certainly tells more of man's effort than of Nature's
+bounty. Yet even here the process of natural law is perfectly sequent
+and intelligible.
+
+One of the least-noted influences of the sea on civilisation is the
+economic basis it yields in the way of food-supply. Already in Cæsar's
+time the Batavians were partly fishermen; and it may be taken as certain
+that through all the troubled ages down to the period of industry and
+commerce it was the resource of fishing that mainly maintained and
+retained population in the sea-board swamps of the Low Countries. Here
+was a harvest that enemies could not destroy, that demanded no ploughing
+and sowing, and that could not well be reaped by the labour of slaves.
+When war and devastation could absolutely depopulate the cultivated
+land, forcing all men to flee from famine, the sea for ever yielded some
+return to him who could but get afloat with net or line; and he who
+could sail the sea had a double chance of life and freedom as against
+land enemies. Thus a sea marsh could be humanly advantaged as against a
+fruitful plain, and could be a surer dwelling-place. The tables were
+first effectually turned when the Norse pirates attacked from the
+sea--an irresistible inroad which seems to have driven the sea-board
+Frisians (as it did the coast inhabitants of France) in crowds into
+slavery for protection, thus laying a broad foundation of popular
+serfdom.[725] When, however, the Norse empire began to fail, the sea as
+a source of sustenance again counted for civilisation; and when to this
+natural basis of population and subsistence there was added the peculiar
+stimulus set up by a religious inculcation or encouragement of a fish
+diet, the fishing-grounds of the continent became relatively richer
+estates than mines and vineyards. Venice and Holland alike owed much to
+the superstition which made Christians akreophagous on Fridays and
+fast-days and all through the forty days of Lent. When the plan of
+salting herrings was hit upon,[726] all Christian Europe helped to make
+the fortunes of the fisheries.
+
+Net-making may have led to weaving; in any case weaving is the first
+important industry developed in the Low Countries. It depended mainly on
+the wool of England; and on the basis of the ancient seafaring there
+thus arose a sea-going commerce.[727] Further, the position of
+Flanders,[728] as a trade-centre for northern and southern Europe,
+served to make it a market for all manner of produce; and round such a
+market population and manufactures grew together. It belonged to the
+conditions that, though the territory came under feudal rule like every
+other in the medieval military period, the cities were relatively
+energetic all along,[729] theirs being (after the Dark Ages, when the
+work was largely done by the Church) the task of maintaining the
+sea-dykes[730] and water-ways, and theirs the wealth on which alone the
+feudal over-lords could hope to flourish in an unfruitful land. The
+over-lords, on their part, saw the expediency of encouraging foreigners
+to settle and add to their taxable population,[731] thus establishing
+the tradition of political tolerance long before the Protestant period.
+Hence arose in the Netherlands, after the Renaissance, the phenomenon of
+a dense industrial population flourishing on a soil which finally could
+not be made to feed them,[732] and carrying on a vast shipping trade
+without owning a single good harbour and without possessing home-grown
+timber wherewith to build their ships, or home-products to freight
+them.[733]
+
+One of the determinants of this growth on a partially democratic footing
+was clearly the primary and peculiar necessity for combination by the
+inhabitants to maintain the great sea-dykes, the canals, and the
+embankments of the low-lying river-lands in the interior.[734] It was a
+public bond in peace, over and above the normal tie of common enmities.
+The result was a development of civic life still more rapid and more
+marked in inland Flanders,[735] where the territorial feudal power was
+naturally greater than in the maritime Dutch provinces. Self-ruling
+cities, such as Ghent and Antwerp, at their meridian, were too powerful
+to be effectively menaced by their immediate feudal lords. But on the
+side of their relations with neighbouring cities or States they all
+exhibited the normal foible; and it was owing only to the murderous
+compulsion put upon them by Spain in the sixteenth century that any of
+the provinces of the Netherlands became a federal republic. For five
+centuries after Charlemagne, who subdued them to his system, the Low
+Countries had undergone the ordinary slow evolution from pure feudalism
+to the polity of municipalities. In the richer inland districts the
+feudal system, lay and clerical, was at its height, the baronial castles
+being "here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom";[736]
+and when the growing cities began to feel their power to buy charters,
+the feudal formula was unchallenged,[737] while the mass of the outside
+population were in the usual "Teutonic" state of partial or complete
+serfdom. It was only by burning their suburbs and taking to the walled
+fortress that the people of Utrecht escaped the yoke of the
+Norsemen.[738]
+
+     Mr. Torrens M'Cullagh is responsible for the statement that "it
+     seems doubtful whether any portion of the inhabitants of Holland
+     were ever in a state of actual servitude or bondage," and that the
+     northern provinces were more generally free from slavery than the
+     others (_Industrial History of the Free Nations_, 1846, ii, 39).
+     Motley (_Rise of the Dutch Republic_, as cited, pp. 17, 18)
+     pronounces, on the contrary, that "in the northern Netherlands the
+     degraded condition of the mass continued longest," and that "the
+     number of slaves throughout the Netherlands was very large; the
+     number belonging to the bishopric of Utrecht enormous." This is
+     substantially borne out by Grattan, _Netherlands_, pp. 18, 34;
+     Blok, _Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk_, i, 159, 160,
+     305-11, Eng. tr. i, 203-8; Wauters, _Les libertés communales_,
+     1878, pp. 222-30. As is noted by Blok, the status of the peasantry
+     fluctuated, the thirteenth century being one of partial
+     retrogression. Cp. pp. 318, 319, as to the general depression of
+     the peasant class. The great impulse to slavery, as above noted,
+     seems to have been given by the Norse pirates in general and the
+     later Norman invaders, who, under Godfrey, forced every "free"
+     Frisian to wear a halter. The comparative protection accruing to
+     slaves of the Church was embraced by multitudes. In the time of the
+     Crusades, again, many serfs were sold or mortgaged to the Church by
+     the nobles in order to obtain funds for their expedition.
+
+The cities were thus the liberating and civilising forces;[739] and the
+application of townsmen's capital to the land was an early influence in
+improving rural conditions.[740] But there was no escape from the
+fatality of strife in the Teutonic any more than in the ancient Greek or
+in the contemporary Italian world. Flanders, having the large markets of
+France at hand, developed its clothmaking and other industries more
+rapidly than the Frisian districts, where weaving was probably earlier
+carried on;[741] and here serfdom disappeared comparatively early,[742]
+the nobility dwindling through their wars; but the new industrial
+strifes of classes, which grew up everywhere in the familiar fashion,
+naturally matured the sooner in the more advanced civilisation; and
+already at the beginning of the fourteenth century we find a resulting
+disintegration. The monopoly methods of the trade gilds drove much of
+the weaving industry into the villages; then the Franco-Flemish wars,
+wherein the townspeople, by expelling the French in despite of the
+nobility, greatly strengthened their position,[743] nevertheless tended,
+as did the subsequent civil wars, to drive trade into South Brabant.
+
+In Flemish Ghent and Bruges the clashing interests of weavers and
+woollen-traders, complicated by the strife of the French (aristocratic)
+and anti-French (popular) factions, led to riots in which citizens and
+magistrates were killed (1301). At times these enmities reached the
+magnitude of civil war. At Ypres (1303) a combination of workmen
+demanded the suppression of rival industries in neighbouring villages,
+and in an ensuing riot the mayor and all the magistrates were slain; at
+Bruges (1302) a trade riot led to the loss of fifteen hundred
+lives.[744] When later the weaving trade had flourished in Brabant, the
+same fatality came about: plebeians rebelled against patrician
+magistrates--themselves traders or employers of labour--in the principal
+cities; and Brussels (1312) was for a time given up to pillage and
+massacre, put down only by the troops of the reigning duke. A great
+legislative effort was made in the "Laws of Cortenberg," framed by an
+assembly of nobles and city deputies, to regulate fiscal and industrial
+affairs in a stable fashion;[745] but after fifty years the trouble
+broke out afresh, and was ill-healed.[746] At length, in a riot in the
+rich city of Louvain (1379), sixteen of its patrician magistrates were
+slain, whereupon many took flight to England, but many more to Haarlem,
+Amsterdam, Leyden, and other Dutch cities.[747] Louvain never again
+recovered its trade and wealth;[748] and since the renewed
+Franco-Flemish wars of this period had nearly destroyed the commerce of
+Flanders,[749] there was a general gravitation of both merchandise and
+manufacture to Holland.[750] Thus arose Dutch manufactures in an organic
+connection with maritime commerce, the Dutch municipal organisation
+securing a balance of trade interests where that of the Flemish
+industrial cities had partially failed.
+
+The commercial lead given by the Hanseatic League was followed in the
+Netherlands with a peculiar energy, and till the Spanish period the main
+part of Dutch maritime commerce was with northern Europe and the Hansa
+cities. So far as the language test goes, the original Hansards and the
+Dutch were of the same "Low Dutch" stock, which was also that of the
+Anglo-Saxons.[751] Thus there was seen the phenomenon of a vigorous
+maritime and commercial development among the continental branches of
+the race; while the English, having lost its early seafaring habits on
+its new settlement, lagged far behind in both developments. Kinship, of
+course, counted for nothing towards goodwill between the nations when it
+could not keep peace within or between the towns; and in the fifteenth
+century the Dutch cities are found at war with the Hansa, as they had
+been in the thirteenth with England, and were to be again. But the
+spirit of strife did its worst work at home. On the one hand, a physical
+schism had been set up in Friesland in the thirteenth century by the
+immense disaster of the inundation which enlarged the Zuyder Zee.[752]
+Of that tremendous catastrophe there are singularly few historic traces;
+but it had the effect of making two small countries where there had been
+one large one, what was left of West Friesland being absorbed in the
+specific province of Holland, while East Friesland, across the Zuyder
+Zee, remained a separate confederation of maritime districts.[753] To
+the south-west, again, the great Flemish cities were incurably jealous
+of each other's prosperity, as well as inwardly distracted by their
+class disputes; and within the cities of Holland, in the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, while intelligible lines of cleavage between trades
+or classes are hard to find, the factions of Hoek and Kabbeljauw, the
+"Hooks" and the "Codfish," appear to have carried on a chronic strife,
+as irrational as any to be noted in the cities of Italy. Thus in the
+north as in the south, among Teutons as among "Latins" and among ancient
+Greeks, the primary instincts of separation checked democratic growth
+and coalition; though after the period of local feudal sovereignties the
+powerful monarchic and feudal forces in the Netherlands withheld the
+cities from internecine wars.
+
+     The most sympathetic historians are forced from the first to note
+     the stress of mutual jealousy among the cities and districts of the
+     Netherlands. "The engrained habit of municipal isolation," says
+     one, "was the cause why the general liberties of the Netherlands
+     were imperilled, why the larger part of the country was ultimately
+     ruined, and why the war of independence was conducted with so much
+     risk and difficulty, even in the face of the most serious perils"
+     (Thorold Rogers, _Holland_, p. 26. Cp. pp. 35, 43; Motley, pp. 29,
+     30, 43; Grattan, pp. 39, 50, 51). Van Kampen avows (_Geschichte der
+     Niederlande_, i, 131) that throughout the Middle Ages Friesland was
+     unprogressive owing to constant feuds. Even as late as 1670 Leyden
+     refused to let the Harle Maer be drained, because it would
+     advantage other cities; and Amsterdam in turn opposed the reopening
+     of the old Rhine channel because it would make Leyden maritime
+     (Temple, _Observations_, i, 130, ch. iii).
+
+     As regards the early factions of the "Hooks" and the "Codfish" in
+     the Dutch towns, the historic obscurity is so great that historians
+     are found ascribing the names in contrary ways. Grattan (p. 49)
+     represents the Hooks as the town party, and the Codfish as the
+     party of the nobles; Motley (p. 21) reverses the explanation,
+     noting, however, that there was no consistent cleavage of class or
+     of principle (cp. M'Cullagh, pp. 99, 100). This account is
+     supported by Van Kampen, i, 170, 171. The fullest survey of the
+     Hook and Cod feud is given by Wenzelburger, _Geschichte der
+     Niederlande_, i, 210-42. As to feuds of other parties in some of
+     the cities see Van Kampen, i, 172. They included, for example, a
+     class feud between the rich _Vetkooper_ (fat-dealers) and the poor
+     _Schieringer_ (eel-fishers). See Davies, i, 180.
+
+Thus dissident, and with feudal wars breaking out in every generation,
+the cities and provinces could win concessions from their feudal chiefs
+when the latter were in straits, as in the famous case of the "Great
+Privilege" extorted from the Duchess Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold
+of Burgundy, after her father's overthrow by the Swiss; again in the
+case of her husband Maximilian after her death; and previously in the
+reaffirmation of the ill-observed Laws of Cortenberg, secured from the
+Duke of Brabant by the Louvainers in 1372; but they could never deliver
+themselves from the feudal superstition, never evolve the republican
+ideal. When the rich citizens exploited the poor, it was the local
+sovereign's cue, as of old, to win the populace; whereupon the
+patricians leant to the over-lord, were he even the King of France; or
+it might be that the local lord himself sought the intervention of his
+suzerain, who again was at times the first to meddle, and against whom,
+as against rival potentates, the cities would at times fight desperately
+for their recognised head, when he was not overtaxing or thwarting them,
+or endangering their commerce.[754] It was a medley of clashing
+interests, always in unstable equilibrium. And so when sovereign powers
+on a great scale, as the Dukes of Burgundy, followed by the Archduke
+Maximilian, and later by the Emperor Charles, came into the inheritance
+of feudal prestige, the Dutch and Flemish cities became by degrees
+nearly as subordinate as those of France and Germany, losing one by one
+their municipal privileges.[755] The monarchic superstition overbore the
+passions of independence and primary interest; and a strong feudal ruler
+could count on a more general and durable loyalty than was ever given to
+any citizen-statesman. James van Arteveldt, who guided Ghent in the
+fourteenth century, and whose policy was one of alliance with the
+English king against the French, the feudal over-lord, was "the greatest
+personality Flanders ever produced."[756] But though Arteveldt's policy
+was maintained even by his murderers, murdered he was by his
+fellow-citizens, as the great De Witt was to be murdered in Holland
+three hundred years later. The monarchised Netherlanders were
+republicans only in the last resort, as against insupportable tyranny.
+Philip of Burgundy, who heavily oppressed them, they called "The Good."
+At the end of the fifteenth century Maximilian was able, even before he
+became Emperor, not only to crush the "bread-and-cheese" rebellion of
+the exasperated peasantry in Friesland and Guelderland,[757] but to put
+down all the oligarchs who had rebelled against him, and finally to
+behead them by the dozen,[758] leaving the land to his son as a
+virtually subject State.
+
+In the sixteenth century, under Charles V, the men of Ghent, grown once
+again a great commercial community,[759] exhibited again the fatal
+instability of the undeveloped democracy of all ages. Called upon to pay
+their third of a huge subsidy of 1,200,000 _caroli_ voted by the Flemish
+States to the Emperor, they rang their bell of revolt and defied him,
+offering their allegiance to the King of France. That monarch, by way of
+a bargain, promptly betrayed the intrigue to his "brother," who
+thereupon marched in force through France to the rebel city, now
+paralysed by terror; and without meeting a shadow of resistance,
+penalised it to the uttermost, beheading a score of leading citizens,
+banishing many more, annulling its remaining municipal rights, and
+exacting an increased tribute.[760] It needed an extremity of grievance
+to drive such communities to an enduring rebellion. When Charles V
+abdicated at Brussels in favour of his son Philip in 1555, he had
+already caused to be put to death Netherlanders to the number at least
+of thousands for religious heresy;[761] and still the provinces were
+absolutely submissive, and the people capable of weeping collectively
+out of sympathy with the despot's infirmities.[762] He, on his part,
+born and educated among them, and knowing them well, was wont to say of
+them that there was not a nation under the sun which more detested the
+_name_ of slavery, or that bore the reality more patiently when managed
+with discretion.[763] He spoke whereof he knew.
+
+
+§ 2. _The Revolt against Spain_
+
+That the people who endured so much at the hands of a despot should have
+revolted unsubduably against his son is to be explained in terms of
+certain circumstances little stressed in popular historiography. In the
+narratives of the rhetorical historians, no real explanation arises. The
+revolt figures as a stand for personal and religious freedom. But when
+Charles abdicated, after slaying his thousands, the Reformation had been
+in full tide for over thirty years; Calvin had built up Protestant
+Geneva to the point of burning Servetus; England had been for twenty
+years depapalised; France, with many scholars and nobles converted to
+Calvinism, was on the verge of a civil war of Huguenots and Catholics;
+the Netherlands themselves had been drenched in the blood of heretics;
+and still no leading man had thought of repudiating either Spain or
+Rome. Yet within thirteen years they were in full revolt, led by William
+of Orange, now turned Protestant. Seeing that mere popular Protestantism
+had spread far and gone fast, religious opinion was clearly not the
+determining force.
+
+In reality, the _conditio sine qua non_ was the psychological reversal
+effected by Philip when he elected to rule as a Spaniard, where his
+father had in effect ruled as a Fleming. Charles had always figured as a
+native of the Netherlands, at home among his people, friendly to their
+great men, ready to employ them in his affairs, even to the extent of
+partly ruling Spain through them. After his punishment of Ghent they
+were his boon subjects; and in his youth it was the Spaniards who were
+jealous of the Flemish and Dutch. This state of things had begun under
+his Flemish-German father, Philip I, who became King of Spain by
+marriage, and under whom the Netherland nobles showed in Spain a
+rapacity that infuriated the Spaniards against them. It was a question
+simply of racial predominance; and had the dynasty chosen to fix its
+capital in the north rather than in the south, it would have been the
+lot of the Netherlanders to exploit Spain--a task for which they were
+perfectly ready.
+
+     The gross rapacity of the Flemings in Spain under Philip I is
+     admitted by Motley (_Rise_, as cited, pp. 31, 75); but on the same
+     score feeling was passionately strong in Spain in the earlier years
+     of the reign of Charles. Cp. Robertson, _Charles V_, bk. i (Works,
+     ed. 1821, iv, 37, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 55, 77 78); and van
+     Kampen, _Geschichte der Niederlande_, i, 277, 278. It took more
+     than ten years to bring Charles in good relations with the
+     Spaniards. See Mr. E. Armstrong's _Introduction_ to Major Martin
+     Hume's _Spain_, 1898, pp. 31-37, 57, 76. Even in his latter years
+     they are found protesting against his customary absence from Spain,
+     and his perpetual wars. Robertson, bk. vi, p. 494. Cp. bk. xii,
+     vol. v, p. 417, as to the disregard shown him after his abdication.
+
+     While it lasted, the Flemish exploitation of Spain was as shameless
+     as the Spanish exploitation of Italy. The Italian Peter Martyr
+     Angleria, residing at the court of Spain, reckoned that in ten
+     months the Flemings there remitted home over a million ducats
+     (Robertson, bk. i, p. 53). A lad, nephew of Charles's Flemish
+     minister Chievres, was appointed to the archbishopric of Toledo, in
+     defiance of general indignation. The result was a clerico-popular
+     insurrection. Everything goes to show that but for the Emperor's
+     prudence his Flemings would have ruined him in Spain, by getting
+     him to tyrannise for their gain, as Philip II later did for the
+     Church's sake in the Netherlands.
+
+It is not unwarrantable to say that had not Charles had the sagacity to
+adapt himself to the Spanish situation, learning to speak the language
+and even to tolerate the pride of the nobles[764] to a degree to which
+he never yielded before the claims of the burghers of the Netherlands,
+and had he not in the end identified himself chiefly with his Spanish
+interests, the history of Spain and the Netherlands might have been
+entirely reversed. Had he, that is, kept his seat of rule in the
+Netherlands, drawing thither the unearned revenues of the Americas, and
+still contrived to keep Spain subject to his rule, the latter country
+would have been thrown back on her great natural resources, her
+industry, and her commerce, which, as it was, developed markedly during
+his reign,[765] despite the heavy burdens of his wars. And in that case
+Spain might conceivably have become the Protestant and rebellious
+territory, and the Netherlands on the contrary have remained Catholic
+and grown commercially decrepit, having in reality the weaker potential
+economic basis.
+
+     The theorem that the two races were vitally opposed in "religious
+     sentiment," and that "it was as certain that the Netherlanders
+     would be fierce reformers as that the Spaniards would be
+     uncompromising persecutors" (Motley, p. 31), is part of the common
+     pre-scientific conception of national development, and proceeds
+     upon flat disregard of the historical evidence. It is well
+     established that there was as much heresy of the more rational
+     Protestant and Unitarian sort in Spain, to begin with, as in
+     Holland. Under Ferdinand and Isabella the Inquisition seems to
+     have struck mainly at Judaic and Moorish monotheistic heresy, which
+     was not uncommon among the upper classes, while the lower were for
+     the most part orthodox (Armstrong, _Introd._ to Major Hume's
+     _Spain_, pp. 14, 18). Thus there is good ground for the surmise
+     that Ferdinand's object was primarily the confiscation of the
+     wealth of Jews and other rich heretics. (See U.R. Burke, _History
+     of Spain_, 1895, ii, 101; Hume's ed. 1900, ii, 74.) In Aragon,
+     Valencia, and Catalonia there was general resistance to the
+     Inquisition; in Cordova there was a riot against it; in Saragossa
+     the Inquisitor was murdered before the altar (Armstrong, p. 18;
+     Llorente, _Hist. crit. de l'Inquisition d'Espagne_, éd. 1818, i,
+     185-213; M'Crie, _Reformation in Spain_, ed. 1856, pp. 52-53. Cp.
+     U.R. Burke, as cited, ii, 97, 98, 101, 103, 111; Hume's ed. ii, 66,
+     70-71, 74-77, 82; as to the general and prolonged resistance of the
+     people). During that reign Torquemada is credited with burning ten
+     thousand persons in eighteen years (Prescott, _History of Ferdinand
+     and Isabella_, Kirk's ed. 1889, p. 178, citing Llorente. But see p.
+     746, _note_, as to possible exaggeration. Cp. Burke, ii, 113;
+     Hume's ed. ii, 84). In the early Lutheran period the spread of
+     scholarly Protestantism in Spain was extremely rapid (La
+     Rigaudière, _Histoire des persécutions religieuses en Espagne_,
+     1860, p. 245 sq.), and in the early years of Philip II it needed
+     furious persecution to crush it, thousands leaving the kingdom
+     (Prescott, _Philip II_, bk. ii, ch. iii; M'Crie, _Reformation in
+     Spain_, ch. viii; De Castro, _History of the Spanish Protestants_,
+     Eng. tr. 1851, _passim_). At the outset, 800 persons were arrested
+     in Seville alone in one day; and the Venetian ambassador in 1562
+     testifies to the large number of Huguenots in Spain (Ranke, _Hist.
+     of the Popes_, bk. v, Eng. tr. 1-vol. ed. p. 136).
+
+     Had Philip II had Flemish sympathies and chosen to make Brussels
+     his capital, the stress of the Inquisition could have fallen on the
+     Netherlands as successfully as it actually did on Spain. His
+     father's reign had proved as much. According to Motley, not only
+     multitudes of Anabaptists but "thousands and tens of thousands of
+     virtuous and well-disposed men and women" had then been "butchered
+     in cold blood" (_Rise_, p. 43), without any sign of rebellion on
+     the part of the provinces, whose leading men remained Catholic. In
+     1600 most of the inhabitants of Groningen were Catholics (Davies,
+     ii, 347). A Protestant historian (Grattan, p. 93) admits that the
+     Protestants "never, and least of all in these days, formed the
+     mass." Another has admitted, as regards those of Germany, that
+     "nothing had contributed more to the undisturbed progress of their
+     opinions than the interregnum after Maximilian's death, the long
+     absence of Charles, and the slackness of the reins of government
+     which these occasioned" (Robertson, _Charles V_, bk. v, ed. cited
+     of _Works_, vol. iv, p. 387). "It was only tanners, dyers, and
+     apostate priests who were Protestants at that day in the
+     Netherlands" (Motley, p. 124). The same conditions would have had
+     similar results in Spain, where many Catholics thought Philip much
+     too religious for his age and station (Motley, p. 76).
+
+     It seems necessary to insist on the elementary fact that it was
+     Netherlanders who put Protestants to death in the Netherlands; and
+     that it was Spaniards who were burnt in Spain. In the Middle Ages
+     "nowhere was the persecution of heretics more relentless than in
+     the Netherlands" (Motley, p. 36; cp. p. 132). Grenvelle, most
+     zealous of heresy-hunters, was a Burgundian; Viglius, an even
+     bitterer persecutor, was a Frisian. The statement of Prescott
+     (_Philip II_, Kirk's ed. 1894, p. 149) that the Netherlanders
+     "claimed freedom of thought as their birthright" is a gratuitous
+     absurdity. As regards, further, the old hallucination of "race
+     types," it has to be noted that Charles, a devout Catholic and
+     persecutor, was emphatically _Teutonic_, according to the
+     established canons. His stock was Burgundo-Austrian on the father's
+     side; his Spanish mother was of Teutonic descent; he had the fair
+     hair, blue eyes, and hanging jaw and lip of the Teutonic Hapsburgs
+     (see Menzel, _Geschichte der Deutschen_, cap. 341), and so had his
+     descendants after him. On the other hand, William the Silent was
+     markedly "Spanish" in his physiognomy (Motley, p. 56), and his
+     reticence would in all ages pass for a Spanish rather than a
+     "Teutonic" characteristic. Motley is reduced to such shifts of
+     rhetoric concerning Philip II as the proposition (p. 75) that "the
+     Burgundian and Austrian elements of his blood seemed to have
+     evaporated." But his descendant, Philip IV, as seen in the great
+     portraits of Velasquez, is, like him, a "typical" Teuton; and the
+     stock preserved the Teutonic physiological tendency to gluttony, a
+     most "un-Spanish" characteristic.
+
+     It is true that, as Buckle argues, the many earthquakes in Spain
+     tended to promote superstitious fear; but then on his principles
+     the Dutch seafaring habits, and the constant risks and frequent
+     disasters of inundation, had the same primary tendency. For the
+     rest, the one serious oversight in Buckle's theory of Spanish
+     civilisation is his assumption (cp. 3-vol. ed. ii, 455-61; 1-vol.
+     ed. p. 550) that Spanish "loyalty" was abnormal and continuous from
+     the period of the first struggles with the Moors. As to this see
+     the present writer's notes in the 1-vol. ed. of Buckle, as cited.
+     Even Ferdinand, as an Aragonese, was disrespectfully treated by the
+     Castilians (cp. Armstrong as cited, pp. 5, 31, etc.; De Castro,
+     _History of Religious Intolerance in Spain_, Eng. tr. 1853, pp. 40,
+     41); and Philip I and Charles V set up a new resistance. An alien
+     dynasty could set up disaffection in Spain as elsewhere.
+
+     It should be noted, finally, that the stiff ceremonialism which is
+     held to be the special characteristic of Spanish royalty was a
+     Burgundo-Teutonic innovation, dating from Philip I, and that even
+     in the early days of Philip the Cortes petitioned "that the
+     household of the Prince Don Carlos should be arranged on the old
+     Spanish lines, and not in the pompous new-fangled way of the House
+     of Burgundy" (Major Hume's _Spain_, p. 127). Prescott (_Philip II_,
+     ed. cited, pp. 655, 659) makes the petition refer to the king's own
+     household, and shows it to have condemned the king's excessive
+     expenditure in very strong terms, saying the expense of his
+     household was "as great as would be required for the conquest of a
+     kingdom." At the same time the Cortes petitioned against
+     bull-fights, which appear to have originated with the Moors, were
+     strongly opposed by Isabella the Catholic, and were much encouraged
+     by the Teutonic Charles V (U.R. Burke, _History of Spain_, 1895,
+     ii, 2-4; Hume's ed. i, 328 _sq._). In fine, the conventional Spain
+     is a manufactured system, developed under a Teutonic dynasty. "To a
+     German race of sovereigns Spain finally owed the subversion of her
+     national system and ancient freedom" (Stubbs, _Const. Hist._ 4th
+     ed. i, 5).
+
+No doubt the Dutch disaffection to Philip, which began to reveal itself
+immediately after his accession, may be conceived as having economic
+grounds. Indeed, his creation of fresh bishoprics, and his manipulation
+of the abbey revenues, created instant and general resentment among
+churchmen and nobles,[766] as compared with his mere continuation of
+religious persecution; and despite his pledges to the contrary, certain
+posts in the Low Countries were conferred on Spaniards.[767] But had he
+shown his father's adaptability, all this could have been adjusted. Had
+he either lived at Brussels or made the Flemings feel that he held them
+an integral part of his empire, he would have had the zealous support of
+the upper classes in suppressing the popular heresy, which repelled
+them. Heresy in the Netherlands, indeed, seems thus far to have been on
+the whole rather licentious and anarchic than austere or "spiritual."
+The pre-Protestant movements of the Béguines, Beghards, and Lollards,
+beginning well, had turned out worse than the orders of friars in the
+south; and the decorous "Brethren of the Common Lot" were in the main
+"good churchmen," only a minority accepting Protestantism.[768] In face
+of the established formulas concerning the innate spirituality of the
+Teuton, and of the play of his "conscience" in his course at the
+Reformation, there stand the historic facts that in the Teutonic world
+alone was the Reformation accompanied by widespread antinomianism,
+debauchery, and destructive violence. In France, Spain, and Italy there
+were no such movements as the Anabaptist, which so far as it could go
+was almost a dissolution of sane society.[769] From Holland that
+movement drew much of its strength and leadership, even as, in a
+previous age, the antinomian movement of Tanquelin had there had its
+main success.[770] Such was the standing of Dutch Protestantism in 1555;
+and no edict against heresy could be more searching and merciless than
+that drawn up by Charles in 1550[771] without losing any upper-class
+loyalty. Philip did but strive to carry it out.[772]
+
+Had Philip, further, maintained a prospect of chronic war for the
+nobility of the Netherlands, the accruing chances of wealth[773] would
+in all likelihood have sufficed to keep them loyal. In the early wars of
+his reign with France immense gains had been made by them in the way of
+ransoms and booty. When these ceased, luxury continuing, embarrassment
+became general.[774] But when Philip's energies were seen to be mainly
+bent on killing out heresy, the discontented nobles began to lean to the
+side of the persecuted commonalty. At the first formation of the
+Confederacy of the "Beggars" in 1566, almost the only zealous Protestant
+among the leaders was William's impetuous brother Louis of Nassau, a
+Calvinist by training, who had for comrade the bibulous Brederode. The
+name of "Gueux," given to the malcontents in contempt by the councillor
+Berlaimont, had direct application to the known poverty or embarrassment
+of the great majority.[775] There was thus undisguisedly at work in the
+Netherlands the great economic force which had brought about "the
+Reformation" in all the Teutonic countries; and the needy nobles
+insensibly grew Protestant as it became more and more clear that only
+the lands of the Church could restore their fortunes.[776] This holds
+despite the fact that the more intelligent Protestantism which latterly
+spread among the people was the comparatively democratic form set up by
+Calvin, which reached the Low Countries through France, finding the
+readier reception among the serious because of the prestige accruing to
+its austerity as against the moral disrepute which now covered the
+German forms.
+
+[As to the proportional success of Lutheranism and Calvinism, see
+Motley, pp. 132, 133; and Grattan, pp. 110, 111. (On p. 110 of Grattan
+there is a transposition of "second" and "third" groups, which the
+context corrects.) Motley, an inveterate Celtophobe, is at pains to make
+out that the Walloons rebelled first and were first reconciled to Rome,
+"exactly like their Celtic ancestors, fifteen centuries earlier." He
+omits to comment on the fact that it was only the French form of
+Protestantism, that of Calvin, that became viable in the Netherlands at
+all, or on the fact that indecent Anabaptism flourished mainly in
+Friesland; though he admits that the Lutheran movement left all
+religious rights in the hands of the princes, the people having to
+follow the creed of their rulers. The "racial" explanation is mere
+obscurantism, here as always. The Walloons of South Flanders were first
+affected simply because they were first in touch with Huguenotism. That
+they were never converted in large numbers to Protestantism is later
+admitted by Motley himself (p. 797), who thereupon speaks of the
+"intense attachment to the Roman ceremonial which distinguished the
+Walloon population." Thus his earlier statement that they had rebelled
+against "papal Rome" is admittedly false. They had rebelled simply
+against the Spanish tyranny. Yet the false statement is left
+standing--one more illustration of the havoc that may be worked in a
+historian's intelligence by a prejudice. (For other instances see, in
+the author's volume _The Saxon and the Celt_, the chapters dealing with
+Mommsen and Burton.)
+
+It was the Teutonic-speaking city populations of North Flanders and
+Brabant who became Protestants in mass after the troubles had begun
+(Motley, p. 798). When the Walloon provinces withdrew from the
+combination against Spain, the cities of Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges, and
+Ypres joined the Dutch Union of Utrecht. They were one and all reduced
+by the skill and power of Alexander of Parma, who thereupon abolished
+the freedom of Protestant worship. The Protestants fled in thousands to
+England and the Dutch provinces, the remaining population, albeit mostly
+Teutonic, becoming Catholic. At this moment one-and-a-half of the
+four-and-a-half millions of Dutch are Catholics; while in Belgium, where
+there are hardly any Protestants, the Flemish-speaking and
+French-speaking populations are nearly equal in numbers.
+
+Van Kampen, who anticipated Motley in disparaging the Walloons as being
+Frenchly fickle (_Geschichte_, i, 366), proceeds to contend that even
+the Flemings are more excitable than the Dutch and other Teutons; but he
+notes later that as the Dutch poet Cats was much read and imitated in
+Belgium, he was thus proved to have expressed the spirit of the whole
+Netherlands (ii, 109). Once more, then, the racial theory collapses.]
+
+Thus the systematic savagery of the Inquisition under Philip, for which
+the people at first blamed not at all the king but his Flemish minister,
+Cardinal Granvelle, served rather to make a basis and pretext for
+organised revolt than directly to kindle it. In so far as the people
+spontaneously resorted to violence, in the image-breaking riots, they
+compromised and imperilled the nationalist movement in the act of
+precipitating it. The king's personal equation, finally, served to make
+an enemy of the masterly William of Orange, who, financially embarrassed
+like the lesser nobility,[777] could have been retained as an
+administrator by a wise monarch. A matter so overlaid with historical
+declamation is hard to set in a clear light; but it may serve to say of
+William that he was made a "patriot," as was Robert the Bruce, by stress
+of circumstances;[778] and that in the one case as in the other it was
+exceptional character and capacity that made patriotism a success;[779]
+William in particular having to maintain himself against continual
+domestic enmity, patrician as well as popular. Nothing short of the
+ferocity and rapacity of the Spanish attack, indeed, could have long
+united the Netherlands. The first confederacy dissolved at the approach
+of Alva, who, strong in soldiership but incapable of a statesmanlike
+settlement, drove the Dutch provinces to extremities by his cruelty,
+caused a hundred thousand artisans and traders to fly with their
+industry and capital, exasperated even the Catholic ministers in
+Flanders by his proposed taxes, and finally by imposing them enraged
+into fresh revolt the people he had crushed and terrorised, till they
+were eager to offer the sovereignty to the queen of England. When
+Requesens came with pacificatory intentions, it was too late; and the
+Pacification of Ghent (1576) was but a breathing-space between grapples.
+
+What finally determined the separation and independence of the Dutch
+Provinces was their maritime strength. Antwerp, trading largely on
+foreign bottoms, represented wealth without the then indispensable
+weapons. Dutch success begins significantly with the taking of Brill
+(1572) by the gang of William van der Marck, mostly pirates and
+ruffians, whose methods William of Orange could not endure.[780] But
+they had shown the military basis for the maritime States. It was the
+Dutch fleet that prevented Parma's from joining "the" Armada under
+Medina-Sidonia,[781] thereby perhaps saving England. Such military
+genius and energy as Parma's might have made things go hard with the
+Dutch States had he lived, or had he not been called off against his
+judgment to fight in France; but his death well balanced the
+assassination of William of Orange, who had thus far been the great
+sustainer and welder of the movement of independence. Plotted against
+and vilified by the demagogues of Ghent, betrayed by worthless fellow
+nobles, Teutonic and French alike; chronically insulted in his own
+person and humiliated in that of his brother John, whom the States
+treated with unexampled meanness; stupidly resisted in his own
+leadership by the same States, whose egoism left Maestricht to its fate
+when he bade them help, and who cast on him the blame when it fell;
+thwarted and crippled by the fanaticism and intolerant violence of the
+Protestant mobs of the towns; bereaved again and again in the
+vicissitude of the struggle, William turned to irrelevance all
+imputations of self-seeking; and in his unfailing sagacity and fortitude
+he finally matches any aristocrat statesman in history. Doubtless he
+would have served Philip well had Philip chosen him and trusted him. But
+as it lay in one thoroughly able man, well placed for prestige in a
+crisis, to knit and establish a new nation, so it lay in one fanatical
+dullard[782] to wreck half of his own empire, with the greatest captains
+of his age serving him; and to bring his fabled treasury to ruin while
+his despised rebels grew rich.
+
+     As to the vice of the Dutch constitution, the principle of the
+     supremacy of "State rights," see M'Cullagh, p. 215; Motley, _Rise_,
+     pp. 794, 795 (Pt. vi, ch. ii, _end_), and _United Netherlands_, ed.
+     1867, iv, 564. Wicquefort (_L'histoire des Provinces-Unies_, La
+     Haye, 1719, pp. 5, 16), following Grotius, laid stress long ago on
+     the fact that the Estates of each province recognised no superior,
+     not even the entire body of the Republic. It was only the measure
+     of central government set up in the Burgundo-Austrian and Spanish
+     periods that made the Seven Provinces capable of enough united
+     action to repel Spanish rule during a chronic struggle of eighty
+     years. Cp. Van Kampen (i, 304), who points out (p. 306) that the
+     word "State" first appears in Holland in the fifteenth century. It
+     arose in Flanders in the thirteenth, and in Brabant in the
+     fourteenth. Only in 1581, after some years of war, did the United
+     Provinces set up a General Executive Council. In the same year the
+     Prince of Orange was chosen sovereign (Motley, pp. 838, 841).
+
+
+§ 3. _The Supremacy of Dutch Commerce_
+
+The conquest of Flanders by Alexander of Parma, reducing its plains to
+wolf-haunted wildernesses, and driving the great mass of the remaining
+artisans from its ruined towns,[783] helped to consummate the prosperity
+of the United Provinces, who took over the industry of Ghent with the
+commerce of Antwerp.[784] Getting the start of all northern Europe in
+trade, they had become at the date of their assured independence the
+chief trading State in the world. Whatever commercial common sense the
+world had yet acquired was there in force. And inasmuch as the wealth
+and strength of these almost landless States, with their mostly poor
+soil and unavoidably heavy imposts, depended so visibly on quantity of
+trade turnover, they not only continued to offer a special welcome to
+all immigrants, but gradually learned to forego the congenial Protestant
+strife of sects. It was indeed a reluctantly-learned lesson. Even as
+local patriotisms constantly tended to hamper unity during the very
+period of struggle, so the primary spirit of self-assertion set the
+ruling Calvinistic party upon persecuting not only Catholics and
+Lutherans, but the new heresy of Arminianism:[785] so little does
+"patriotic" warfare make for fraternity in peace. The judicial murder of
+the statesman John van Olden Barneveldt (1619) at the hands of Maurice
+of Orange, whom he had guarded in childhood and trained to
+statesmanship, was accomplished as a sequel to the formal proscription
+of the Arminian heresy in the Synod of Dort; and Barneveldt was formally
+condemned for "troubling God's Church" as well as on the charge of
+treason.[786] On the same pretexts Grotius was thrown into prison; and
+the freedom of the press was suspended.[787] It was doubtless the shame
+of the memory of the execution of Barneveldt (the true founder of the
+Republic as such),[788] on an absolutely false charge of treason, and
+the observation of how, as elsewhere, persecution drove away population,
+that mainly wrought for the erection of tolerance (at least as between
+Protestant sects) into a State principle.
+
+The best side of the Dutch polity was its finance, which was a lesson to
+all Europe. Already in the early stages of the struggle with Spain, the
+States were able on credit to make war, in virtue of their character for
+commercial honour. Where the king of Spain, with all his revenues
+mortgaged past hope,[789] got from the Pope an absolution from the
+payment of interest on the sums borrowed from Spanish and Genoese
+merchants, and so ruined his credit,[790] the Dutch issued tin money and
+paper money, and found it readily pass current with friends and
+foes.[791]
+
+Of all the Protestant countries, excepting Switzerland, the Dutch States
+alone disposed of their confiscated church lands in the public
+interest.[792] There was indeed comparatively little to sell,[793] and
+the money was sorely needed to carry on the war; but the transaction
+seems to have been carried through without any corruption. It was the
+suggestion of what might be accomplished in statecraft by the new
+_expertise_ of trade, forced into the paths of public spirit and checked
+by a stress of public opinion such as had never come into play in
+Venice. Against such a power as Spain, energy ruled by unteachable
+unintelligence, a world-empire financed by the expedients of provincial
+feudalism, the Dutch needed only an enduring resentment to sustain them,
+and this Philip amply elicited. Had he spent on light cruisers for the
+destruction of Dutch commerce the treasure he wasted on the Armadas
+against England and on his enormous operations by land, typified in the
+monstrous siege of Antwerp, he might have struck swiftly and surely at
+the very arteries of Dutch life; but in yielding to them the command of
+their primary source and channel of wealth, the sea, he insured their
+ultimate success. In the Franco-Spanish war of 1521-25 the French
+cruisers nearly ruined the herring fishery of Holland and Zealand;[794]
+and it was doubtless the memory of that plight that set the States on
+maintaining predominant power at sea.[795]
+
+Throughout the war, which from first to last spread over eighty years,
+the Dutch commerce grew while that of Spain dwindled. Under Charles V,
+Flanders and Brabant alone had paid nearly two-thirds of the whole
+imperial taxation of the Netherlands;[796] but after a generation or
+two the United Provinces must have been on an equality of financial
+resources with those left under Spanish rule, even in a state of peace.
+Yet in this posture of things there had grown up a burden which
+represented, in the warring commercial State, the persistent principle
+of class parasitism; for at the Peace of Münster (1648) the funded
+public debt of the province of Holland alone amounted to nearly
+150,000,000 florins, bearing interest at five per cent.[797] Of this
+annual charge, the bulk must have gone into the pockets of the wealthier
+citizens, who had thus secured a mortgage on the entire industry of the
+nation. All the while, Holland was nominally rich in "possessions"
+beyond sea. When, in 1580, Philip annexed Portugal, with which the Dutch
+had hitherto carried on a profitable trade for the eastern products
+brought as tribute to Lisbon, they began to cast about for an Asiatic
+trade of their own, first seeking vainly for a north-east passage. The
+need was heightened when in 1586 Philip, who as a rule ignored the
+presence of Dutch traders in his ports under friendly flags, arrested
+all the Dutch shipping he could lay hands on;[798] and when in 1594 he
+closed to them the port of Lisbon, he forced them to a course which his
+successors bitterly rued. In 1595 they commenced trading by the Cape
+passage to the Indies, and a fleet sent out by Spain to put down their
+enterprise was as usual defeated.[799] Then arose a multitude of
+companies for the East Indian trade, which in 1602 were formed by the
+government into a great semi-official joint-stock concern, at once
+commercial and military, reminiscent of the Hanseatic League. The result
+was a long series of settlements and conquests. Amboyna and the Moluccas
+were seized from the Portuguese, now subordinate to Spain; Java, where a
+factory was founded in 1597, was in the next generation annexed; Henry
+Hudson, an English pilot in the Dutch Company's service, discovered the
+Hudson River and Bay in 1609, and founded New Amsterdam about 1624. In
+1621 was formed the Dutch West India Company, which in fifteen years
+fitted out 800 ships of trade and war, captured 545 from the Spanish and
+Portuguese, with cargoes valued at 90,000,000 florins, and conquered the
+greater part of what had been the Portuguese empire in Brazil.
+
+No such commercial development had before been seen in Europe. About
+1560, according to Guicciardini,[800] 500 ships had been known to come
+and go in a day from Antwerp harbour in the island of Walcheren; but in
+the spring of 1599, it is recorded, 640 ships engaged solely in the
+Baltic trade discharged cargoes at Amsterdam;[801] and in 1610,
+according to Delacourt, there sailed from the ports of Holland in three
+days, on the eastward trade alone, 800 or 900 ships and 1,500 herring
+boats.[802] At the date of the Peace of Münster these figures were left
+far behind, whence had arisen a reluctance to end the war, under which
+commerce so notably flourished. Many Hollanders, further, had been
+averse to peace in the belief that it would restore Antwerp and injure
+their commerce, even as Prince Maurice of Orange, the republic's general
+and stadthouder, had been averse to it as likely to lessen his power and
+revenue.[803] But between 1648 and 1669 the trade increased by fifty per
+cent.,[804] Holland taking most of the Spanish trade from the shipping
+of England and the Hansa, and even carrying much of the trade between
+Spain and her colonies. When the Dutch had thus a mercantile marine of
+10,000 sail and 168,000 men, the English carried only 27,196 men; and
+the Dutch shipping was probably greater than that of all the rest of
+Europe together.[805]
+
+This body of trade, as has been seen, was built up by a State which,
+broadly speaking, had a surplus wealth-producing power in only one
+direction, that of fishing; and even of its fishing, much was done on
+the coasts of other nations. In that industry, about 1610, it employed
+over 200,000 men; and the Greenland whale fishery, which was a monopoly
+from 1614 to 1645, began to expand rapidly when set free,[806] till in
+1670 it employed 120 ships.[807] For the rest, though the country
+exported dairy produce, its total food product was not equal to its
+consumption; and as it had no minerals and no vineyards, its surplus
+wealth came from the four sources of fishing, freightage, extorted
+colonial produce, and profits on the handling of goods bought and sold.
+_Par excellence_, it was, in the phrase of Louis XIV, the nation of
+shopkeepers, of middlemen; and its long supremacy in the business of
+buying cheap and selling dear was due firstly to economy of means and
+consumption, and secondarily to command of accumulated money capital at
+low rates of interest. The sinking of interest was the first sign that
+the limits to its commercial expansion were being reached; but it
+belonged to the conditions that, with or without "empire," its advantage
+must begin to fall away as soon as rival States were able to compete
+with it in the economies of "production" in the sense of transport and
+transfer.
+
+In such economies the Dutch superiority grew out of the specially
+practical basis of their marine--habitual fishing and the constant use
+of canals. There is no better way than the former of building up
+seamanship; and just as the Portuguese grew from hardy fishers to daring
+navigators, so the Dutch grew from thrifty fishers and bargemen to
+thrifty handlers of sea-freight, surpassing in economy the shippers of
+England as they did in seamanship the marine of Spain. Broadly speaking,
+the navies which owed most to royal fostering--as those of Spain,
+France, and in part England--were the later to reach efficiency in the
+degree of their artificiality; and the loss of one great Spanish navy
+after another in storms must be held to imply a lack of due experience
+on the part of their officers.
+
+     One of the worst military mistakes of Spain was the creation of
+     great galleons in preference to small cruisers. The sight of the
+     big ships terrorised the Dutch once, in 1606; but as all existing
+     seacraft had been built up in small vessels, there was no
+     sufficient science for the navigation of the great ones in stress
+     of weather, or even for the building of them on sound lines. The
+     English and Dutch, on the other hand, fought in vessels of the kind
+     they had always been wont to handle, increasing their size only by
+     slow degrees. In the reign of Henry VIII, again, nothing came of
+     the English expeditions of discovery fitted out by him (Schanz,
+     _Englische Handelspolitik_, i, 321), but private voyages were
+     successfully made by traders (_id._ pp. 321, 327).
+
+     In the seventeenth century, however, and until far on in the
+     eighteenth, all Dutch shipping was more economically managed than
+     the English. In all likelihood the Dutch traders knew and improved
+     upon the systematic control of ship-construction which the
+     Venetians and Genoese had first copied from the Byzantines, and in
+     turn developed. (Above, p. 197.) Raleigh was one of the first to
+     point out that the broad Dutch boats carried more cargo with fewer
+     hands than those of any other nation (_Observations touching
+     Trade_, in _Works_, ed. 1829, viii, 356). Later in the century
+     Petty noted that the Dutch practised freight-economies and
+     adaptations of every kind, having different sorts of vessels for
+     different kinds of traffic (_Essays in Political Arithmetic_
+     [1690], ed. 1699, pp. 179, 180, 182, 183). This again gave them the
+     primacy in shipbuilding for the whole of Europe (_Mémoires de Jean
+     De Witt_, ptie. i, ch. vi), though they imported all the materials
+     for the purpose. When Colbert began navy-building, his first care
+     was to bring in Dutch shipwrights (Dussieux, _Étude biographique
+     sur Colbert_, 1886, p. 101). Compare, as to the quick sailing of
+     the Dutch, Motley, _United Netherlands_, ed. 1867, iv, 556. In the
+     next century the English marine had similar economic advantages
+     over the French, which was burdened by royal schemes for
+     multiplying seamen (see Tucker, _Essay on Trade_, 4th ed. p. 37).
+
+     The frugality which pervaded the whole of Dutch life may, however,
+     have had one directly disastrous effect. Sir William Temple noted
+     that the common people were poorly fed (_Observations upon the
+     United Provinces_, ch. iv: Works, ed. 1814, i, 133, 147); and
+     though their fighting ships were manned by men of all nations, the
+     tendency was to feed them in the native fashion. Such a practice
+     would tell fatally in the sea-fights with the English. Cp.
+     Gardiner, _Commonwealth and Protectorate_, ii, 123.
+
+In addition to this expertness in handling, the Dutch traders seem to
+have bettered the lesson taught them by the practice of the Hansa, as to
+the importance of keeping up a high character for probity. At a time
+when British goods were open to more or less general suspicion as being
+of short measure or bad quality,[808] the Dutch practice was to insure
+by inspection the right quality and quantity of all packed goods,
+especially the salted herrings, which were still the largest source of
+Dutch income.[809] And that nothing might be left undone to secure the
+concourse of commerce to their ports, they maintained under almost every
+stress[810] of financial hardship the principle of minimum duties on
+imports of every description. The one notable exception to this policy
+of practically free trade--apart from the monopoly of the trade in the
+Indies--was the quite supererogatory veto on the importation of fish
+from other countries at a time when most of the fishing of Northern
+Europe was in Dutch hands.[811] Where imports were desirable they were
+encouraged. Thus it came about that landless Amsterdam was the chief
+European storehouse for grain, and treeless Holland the greatest centre
+of the timber trade. Before such a spectacle the average man held up his
+hands and confessed the incomparable ingenuity of the Hollanders. But
+others saw and stated the causation clearly enough. "Many writing on
+this subject," remarks Sir William Petty, "do magnifie the Hollanders
+as if they were more, and all other nations less, than men, as to the
+matters of trade and policy; making them angels, and all others fools,
+brutes, and sots, as to those particulars; whereas," he continues,
+giving a sound lesson in social science to his generation, "I take the
+foundation of their achievements to be originally in the situation of
+the country, whereby they do things inimitable by others, and have
+advantages whereof others are incapable."[812] And Sir Josiah Child, of
+the same generation, declared similarly against transcendentalism in
+such matters. "If any," he roundly declares, "shall tell me it is the
+nature of those people to be thrifty, I answer, _all men by nature are
+alike_; it is only laws, custom, and education that differ men; their
+nature and disposition, and the disposition of all people in the world,
+proceed from their laws."[813] For "laws" read "circumstances and
+institutions," adding reservations as to climate and temperament and
+variation of _individual_ capacity and bias, and the proposition is the
+essence of all sociology. Economic lessons which Petty and Child could
+not master have since been learned; but their higher wisdom has hardly
+yet been assimilated.
+
+The sufficient proof that Holland had no abnormal enlightenment even in
+commerce was that, like her rivals, she continued to maintain the system
+of monopoly companies. Her "empire" in the East, to which was falsely
+ascribed so much of her wealth, in reality stood for very little sound
+commerce. The East India Company being conducted on high monopoly lines,
+the profits were made rather through the smallness than the greatness of
+the trade done. Thus, while the Company paid enormous dividends,[814]
+the imports of spice were kept at a minimum, in order to maintain the
+price, large quantities being actually destroyed for the purpose. For a
+time they contrived to raise pepper to double the old Portuguese
+price.[815] Such methods brought it about that when the republic had in
+all 10,000 sail, the East India trade employed only ten or twelve
+ships.[816] All the while the small class of capitalists who owned the
+shares were able to satisfy the people that the merely monetary and
+factitious riches thus secured to the Company's shareholders was a form
+of public wealth.[817]
+
+     It is a complete error to say, as did Professor Seeley (_Expansion
+     of England_, p. 112), that Holland "made her fortune in the world"
+     because the war with Spain "threw open to her attack the whole
+     boundless possessions of her antagonist in the New World, which
+     would have been closed to her in peace. By conquest she made for
+     herself an empire, and this empire made her rich." In the first
+     place it was not in the New World that she mainly sought her
+     empire, but in the East Indies, in the sphere of the Portuguese
+     conquests. Her hold of Brazil lasted only from 1621 to 1654, and
+     was not a great source of wealth, though she captured much Spanish
+     and Portuguese shipping. But even her eastern trade was, as we have
+     seen, small in quantity, and as a source of wealth was not to be
+     compared with the herring fishery. In 1601 John Keymor declared
+     that more wealth was produced by the northern fisheries "in one
+     year than the King of Spain hath in four years out of the Indies"
+     (_Observations made upon the Dutch Fishing about the Year
+     1601_--reprint in _Phoenix_, 1707, i, 225). The Dutch takings in
+     six months' fishing were then reckoned at 3,600,000 barrels, valued
+     at as many pounds sterling (_id._ p. 224); the fishing fleet
+     numbered 4,100 sail of all kinds, with over 3,000 tenders, out of a
+     roughly estimated total of 20,000; while the whole Indian fleet is
+     stated at only 40 or 50, employing 5,000 or 6,000 men (_id._ p.
+     223), as against a total of some 200,000 of Dutch seafaring
+     population. Howell, writing in 1622 (ed. Bennett, 1891, vol. i,
+     205), also puts the Amsterdam ships in the Indian trade at 40.
+     Professor Seeley's statement cannot have proceeded on any
+     comparison of the European Dutch trade with the revenue from the
+     conquered "empire." It stands for an endorsement of the vulgar
+     delusion that "possessions" are the great sources of a nation's
+     wealth, though Seeley elsewhere (p. 294) protests against the
+     "bombastic language of this school," and notes that "England is
+     not, directly at least, any the richer" for her connection with her
+     "dependencies."
+
+Against the class-interest behind the East India Company the republican
+party, as led and represented by De Witt, were strongly arrayed. They
+could point to the expansion of the Greenland whaling trade that had
+followed on the abolition of the original monopoly in that adventure--an
+increase of from ten to fifteen times the old quantity of
+product[818]--and the treatise expounding their policy strongly
+condemned the remaining monopolies of all kinds. But there was no
+sufficient body of enlightened public opinion to support the attack; and
+the menaced interests spontaneously turned to the factor which could
+best maintain them against such pressure--the military power of the
+House of Orange. The capitalist monopolists and "imperialists" of the
+republic were thus the means first of artificially limiting its economic
+basis, and later of subverting its republican constitution--a disservice
+which somewhat outweighs the credit earned by them, as by the merchant
+oligarchies of Venice, for an admirable management of their army.[819]
+
+
+"And you have no further thought of her?" she asked.
+
+"As far as marriage is concerned, no," I responded.  "Nevertheless, I
+still regard her as an intimate friend.  I was here only two or three
+hours ago chatting with her."
+
+"You!" she cried, glaring at me strangely.  "You were here--to-day?"
+
+"Yes," I replied.  "I thought she would certainly tell you of my visit."
+
+"She told me nothing.  I was quite unaware of it.  I was out, and the
+servants told me that a gentlemen had called in my absence."
+
+"I gave a card," I replied.  "It is no doubt in the hall."
+
+"No, it is not.  It has been destroyed."
+
+"Why?"  I asked.
+
+"For some mysterious reason known to Yolande."  Then, turning quickly
+again to me, she placed her hand upon my arm in deep earnestness,
+saying: "Tell me, is your love for her absolutely and entirely dead--so
+dead that you would not care to perform her a service?"
+
+Anderson's strange and startling story flashed through my mind.  I made
+no reply.
+
+"Remember the affection you once bore her," she urged.  "I am a woman,
+m'sieur, and I presume to remind you of it."
+
+I needed no reminder.  The recollection of those sweet idyllic days was
+still fresh as ever in my memory.  Ah! in those brief sunny hours I had
+fondly believed that our love would last always.  It is ever the same.
+Youth is ever foolish.
+
+"I should have loved her now," I answered at last, "were it not for one
+fact."
+
+There was a mystery which had ended our love, and I saw now an
+opportunity of clearing it up.  "To what fact do you refer?"
+
+"To the reason of our parting."
+
+"The reason!" echoed the Countess.  "I have no idea whatever of the
+reason.  What was it?"
+
+I held my breath.  Would it be just to tell her the truth?  I wondered.
+I reflected for a moment, then in a calm voice answered:
+
+"Because I discovered that her heart was not wholly mine."
+
+She regarded me with undisguised amazement.
+
+"Do you mean that Yolande had another lover?"
+
+"No!"  I cried with sudden resolve.  "This conversation is not fair to
+her.  It is all finished.  She has forgotten, and we are both happy."
+
+"Happy!" cried the Countess hoarsely.  "You are, alas! mistaken.  Poor
+Yolande has been the most unhappy girl in all the world.  She has never
+ceased to think of you."
+
+"Then I regret, madame," I responded.
+
+"If you really regret," she answered, "then your love for her is not
+altogether dead."
+
+She spoke the truth.  At this point I may as well confide to you, my
+reader, the fact that I still regarded my charming little friend of
+those careless days of buoyant youth with a feeling very nearly akin to
+love.  I recollected the painful circumstances which led to our parting.
+My memory drifted back to that well-remembered, breathless summer's
+evening when, while walking with her along the white highway near her
+home, I charged her with friendliness towards a man whose reputation in
+Brussels was none of the best; of her tearful protests, of my
+all-consuming jealousy, of her subsequent dignity, and of our parting.
+After that I had applied to the Foreign Office to be transferred, and a
+month later found myself in Rome.
+
+Perhaps, after all, my jealousy might have been utterly unfounded.
+Sometimes I had thought I had treated her harshly, for, truth to tell, I
+had never obtained absolute proof that this man was more than a mere
+acquaintance.  Indeed, I think it was this fact, or just a slight twinge
+of conscience, that caused a suspicion of the old love I once bore her
+to remain within me.  It was not just to Edith--that I knew; yet
+notwithstanding the denunciations of both Kaye and Anderson, I could not
+altogether crush her from my heart.  To wholly forget the woman for whom
+one has entertained the grand passion is often most difficult,
+sometimes, indeed, impossible of accomplishment.  Visions of some sweet
+face with its pouting and ready lips will arise, constantly keeping the
+past ever present, and recalling a day one would fain forget.  Thus it
+was with me--just as it has been with thousands of others.
+
+"No," I admitted truthfully and honestly at last, "my love for Yolande
+is perhaps not altogether dead."
+
+"Then you will render me a service?" she cried quickly.  "Say that you
+will--for her sake!--for the sake of the great love you once bore her!"
+
+"Of what nature is this service you desire?"  I asked, determined to act
+with caution, for the startling stories I had heard had aroused within
+me considerable suspicion.
+
+"I desire your silence regarding an absolute secret," she answered in a
+hoarse half-whisper.
+
+"What secret?"
+
+"A secret concerning Yolande," she responded.  "Will you, for her sake,
+render us assistance, and at the same time preserve absolute secrecy as
+to what you may see or learn here to-day?"
+
+"I will promise if you wish, madame, that no word shall pass my lips," I
+said.  "But as to assistance, I cannot promise until I am aware of the
+nature of the service demanded of me."
+
+"Of course," she exclaimed, with a faint attempt at a smile.  My words
+had apparently reassured her, for she instantly became calmer, as though
+relying upon me for help.  "Then as you give me your promise upon your
+honour to say nothing, you shall know the truth.  Come with me."
+
+She led the way down the long corridor, and turning to the left suddenly
+opened the door of a large and handsome bed-chamber, the wooden
+sun-blinds of which were closed to keep out the crimson glow of the
+sunset.  The room was a fine one with big crystal mirrors and a shining
+toilette-service in silver, but upon the bed with its yellow silk
+hangings lay a female form fully dressed, but white-faced and
+motionless.  In the dim half-light I could just distinguish the features
+as those of Yolande.
+
+"What has occurred?"  I cried in a hoarse whisper, dashing towards the
+bedside and bending down to look upon the face that had once held me in
+fascination.
+
+"We do not know," answered the trembling woman at my side.  "It is all a
+mystery."
+
+I stretched forth my hand and touched her cheek.  It was icy cold.
+
+In those few moments my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light of
+the darkened room, and I detected the change that had taken place in the
+girl's countenance.  Her eyes were closed, her lips blanched, her fair
+hair, escaped from its pins, fell in a sheen of gold upon the lace-edged
+pillow.
+
+I held my breath.  The awful truth was distinctly apparent.  I placed my
+hand upon her heart, the bodice of her dress being already unloosened.
+Then a few seconds later I drew back, standing rigid and aghast.
+
+"Why, she's dead!"  I gasped.
+
+"Yes," the Countess said, covering her face with her hands and bursting
+into tears.  "My poor Yolande! she is dead--_dead_!"
+
+The discovery appalled me.  Only a couple of hours before we had chatted
+together, and she seemed in the best of health and spirits, just as in
+the old days, until I had made the announcement of Wolf's presence in
+Paris.  The effect of that statement upon her had apparently been
+electrical.  Why, I knew not.  Had she not implored me to save her?
+This in itself was sufficient to show that she held him in deadly fear.
+
+Again I bent in order to make further examination, but saw the
+unmistakable mark of death upon her countenance.  The lower jaw had
+dropped, the checks were cold, and the silver hand-mirror which I had
+snatched from the table and held at her mouth was unclouded.  There was
+no movement--no life.  Yolande, my well-beloved of those long-past days,
+was dead.
+
+I stood there at the bedside like a man in a dream.  So swiftly had she
+been struck down that the terrible truth seemed impossible of
+realisation.
+
+The Countess, standing beside me, sobbed bitterly.  Truly the scene in
+that darkened chamber was a strange and impressive one.  Never before in
+my whole life had I been in the presence of the dead.
+
+"Yolande--Yolande!"  I called, touching her cheek in an effort to awaken
+her, for I could not believe that she was actually dead.
+
+But there was no response.  Those blanched lips and the coldness of
+those cheeks told their own tale.  She had passed to that land which
+lies beyond the range of human vision.
+
+How long I stood there I cannot tell.  My thoughts were inexpressibly
+sad ones, and the discovery had utterly upset me, so that I scarcely
+knew what I said or did.  The blow of thus finding her lifeless crushed
+me.  The affair was mysterious, to say the least of it.  Of a sudden,
+however, the sobs of the grief-stricken Countess aroused me to a sense
+of my responsibility, and taking her hand I led her from the bedside
+into an adjoining room.
+
+"How has this terrible catastrophe occurred?"  I demanded of her
+breathlessly.  "Only two hours ago she was well and happy."
+
+"You mean when you saw her?" she said.  "What was the object of your
+call?"
+
+"To see her," I responded.
+
+"And yet you parted ill friends in Brussels?" she observed in a tone of
+distinct suspicion.  "You had some motive in calling.  What was it?"
+
+I hesitated.  I could not tell her that I suspected her daughter to be a
+spy.
+
+"In order to assure her of my continued good friendship."
+
+She smiled, rather superciliously I thought.
+
+"But how did the terrible affair occur?"
+
+"We have no idea," answered the Countess brokenly.  "She was found lying
+upon the floor of the salon within a quarter of an hour of the departure
+of her visitor, who proved to be yourself.  Jean, the valet-de-chambre,
+on entering, discovered her lying there, quite dead."
+
+"Astounding!"  I gasped.  "She was in perfect health when I left her."
+
+She shook her head sorrowfully, and her voice, choking with grief,
+declared:
+
+"My child has been killed--murdered!"
+
+"Murdered!  Impossible!"  I cried.
+
+"But she has," she declared.  "I am absolutely positive of it!"
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+A PIECE OF PLAIN PAPER.
+
+"What medical examination has been made?"  I demanded.
+
+"None," responded the Countess.  "My poor child is dead, and no doctor
+can render her assistance.  Medical aid is unavailing."
+
+"But do you mean to say that on making this discovery you did not think
+it necessary to send for a doctor?"  I cried incredulously.
+
+"I did not send for one--I sent for you," was her response.
+
+"But we must call a doctor at once," I urged.  "If you have suspicion of
+foul play we should surely know if there is any wound, or any injury to
+account for death."
+
+"I did not consider it necessary.  No doctor can return her to me," she
+wailed.  "I sent for you because I believed that you would render me
+assistance in this terrible affair."
+
+"Most certainly I will," I replied.  "But in our own interests we must
+send for a medical man, and if it is found to be actually a case of foul
+play, for the police.  I'll send a line to Doctor Deane, an Englishman
+whom I know, who is generally called in to see anybody at the Embassy
+who chances to be ill.  He is a good fellow, and his discretion may be
+relied upon."
+
+So saying, I scribbled a line on the back of a card, and told the man to
+take a cab down to the Rue du Havre, where the doctor occupied rooms
+over a hosier's shop a stone's throw from the bustling Gare St. Lazare.
+
+A very curious mystery was evidently connected with this startling
+discovery, and I was anxious that my friend, Dick Deane, one of my old
+chums of Rugby days, should assist me in clearing it up.
+
+The Countess de Foville, whose calmness had been so remarkable while
+speaking with me before we entered the death-chamber, had now given way
+to a flood of emotion.  She sank back into her chair, and, burying her
+face in her hands, cried bitterly.
+
+I tried to obtain some further information from her, but all that
+escaped her was:
+
+"My poor Yolande!  My poor daughter!"  Finding that my endeavours to
+console her were futile, I went forth and made inquiries of the three
+frightened maidservants regarding what had occurred.
+
+One of them, a dark-eyed Frenchwoman in frilled cap, whom I had seen on
+my previous visit, said, in answer to my questions:
+
+"Jean discovered the poor mademoiselle in the petit salon about a
+quarter of an hour after m'sieur had left.  She was lying upon her face
+near the window, quite rigid.  He shouted; we all rushed in, and on
+examining her found that she was already dead."
+
+"But was there no sign of a struggle?"  I inquired, leading the way to
+the room indicated.
+
+"The room was just as m'sieur sees it now," she answered, with a wave of
+her hand.
+
+I glanced around, but as far as I could distinguish it was exactly as I
+had left it.
+
+"There was no mark of violence--nothing to show that mademoiselle had
+been the victim of foul play?"
+
+"Nothing, m'sieur."
+
+Could it have been a case of suicide?  I wondered.  Yolande's words
+before I had taken leave of her were desponding, and almost led me to
+believe that she had taken her life rather than face the man Wolf who
+had so suddenly arrived in Paris--the man who exercised upon her some
+mysterious influence, the nature of which I could not guess.
+
+"It was not more than fifteen minutes after I had left, you say?"  I
+inquired.
+
+"No, m'sieur, not more."
+
+"Mademoiselle had no other visitor?"
+
+"No, m'sieur.  Of that we are all certain."
+
+"And the Countess, where was she during the time I was here?"
+
+"She was out driving.  She did not return till about five minutes after
+we had made the terrible discovery."
+
+"And how did madame act?"
+
+"She ordered us to carry poor mademoiselle to her room.  Poor madame!
+She bore the blow with wonderful fortitude."
+
+
+That remark caused me to prick up my ears.
+
+"I don't quite understand," I said.  "Did she not give way to tears?"
+
+"No, m'sieur; she shed no tears, but sat erect, motionless as a statue.
+She appeared unable to realise that poor mademoiselle was actually dead.
+At last she rang, and sent Jean to you."
+
+"You are absolutely certain that mademoiselle had no visit or after I
+left?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"It would, moreover, not be possible for anyone to enter or leave
+without your knowledge?"  I suggested.
+
+"M'sieur understands me perfectly.  Mademoiselle must have fallen to the
+floor lifeless immediately after I had let you out.  She made no sound,
+and had Jean not entered with her letters, which the concierge had
+brought, my poor young mistress might be lying there now."
+
+The average Frenchwoman of the lower class is always dramatic wherever a
+domestic calamity is concerned, and this worthy bonne was no exception.
+She punctuated all her remarks with references to the sacred personages
+of the Roman Catholic religion.
+
+"You haven't searched the room, I suppose?"
+
+"No, m'sieur.  Madame gave orders that nothing was to be touched."
+
+This reply was eminently satisfactory.  I glanced again around the
+place, now dim in the falling twilight, and ordered her to throw back
+the sun-shutters.
+
+The woman went to the window and opened them, admitting a flood of
+mellow light, the last crimson of the glorious afterglow.  Up from the
+boulevard came the dull roar of the traffic, mingling with the sound of
+distant bells ringing the Ave Maria.  The bonne--an Alsatian, from her
+accent--crossed herself from force of habit, and retreated towards the
+door.
+
+"You may go," I said.  "I will remain here until the doctor arrives."
+
+"Bien, m'sieur," answered the woman, disappearing and closing the door
+after her.
+
+My object in dismissing her was to make a thorough search of the
+apartment, in order to discover whether any of Yolande's private
+possessions were there.  She had been denounced by Kaye and Anderson as
+a spy, and it occurred to me that I might possibly discover the truth.
+But she was dead.  The painful fact seemed absolutely incredible.
+
+The room was not a large one, but well furnished, with considerable
+taste and elegance.  There was the broad, silk-covered couch, upon which
+Yolande had sat in the full possession of health and spirits only a
+couple of hours before; the skin rug, upon which her tiny foot had been
+stretched so coquettishly; the small table, by which she had stood
+supporting herself after I had made the fatal announcement that Wolf was
+in Paris.
+
+As I stood there the whole of that strangely dramatic scene occurred to
+me.  Yet she was dead--dead!  She had died with her secret in her heart.
+
+At any moment Dick Deane might arrive, but I desired to be the first to
+make an examination of the room, and with that object crossed to the
+little escritoire of inlaid olive-wood, one of those rather gimcrack
+pieces of furniture manufactured along the Ligurian coast for
+unsuspecting winter visitors.  It was the only piece of incongruous
+furniture in the room, all the rest being genuine Louis Quatorze.
+
+One or two letters bearing conspicuous coats-of-arms were lying there,
+but all were notes of a private nature from one or other of her friends.
+One was an invitation to Vichy from the Baronne Deland, wife of the
+great Paris financier; another, signed "Rose," spoke of the gaiety of
+Cairo and the dances at Shepheard's during the past winter; while a
+third, also in French, and bearing no signature, made an appointment to
+meet her in the English tea-shop in the Rue Royale on the following day
+at five o'clock.
+
+That note, written upon plain paper of business appearance, had
+apparently been left by hand.  Who, I wondered, was the person who had
+made that appointment?  To me the writing seemed disguised, and
+probably, owing to the thickness of the up-strokes, had been penned by a
+male hand.  There was a mistake in the orthography, too, the word
+"plaisir" being written "plasir."  This showed plainly that no Frenchman
+had written it.
+
+I placed the letter in my pocket, and, encouraged by it, continued my
+investigations.
+
+In the tiny letter-rack was a note which the unfortunate girl had
+written immediately before being struck down.  It was addressed to
+"Baronne Maillac, Chateau des Grands Sablons, Seine et Marne."  The
+little escritoire contained four small drawers; the contents of each I
+carefully scrutinised.  They were, however, mostly private letters of a
+social character--some from persons whom I knew well in Society.
+Suddenly, from the bottom of one of the smaller drawers, I drew forth
+several sheets of plain octavo paper of a pale yellow shade.  There
+were, perhaps, half-a-dozen sheets, carefully wrapped in a sheet of
+plain blue foolscap.  I opened them, and, holding one up to the light,
+examined the water-mark.
+
+Next instant the truth was plain.  That paper was the official paper
+used in French Government offices for written reports.  How came it in
+her possession, if the accusation against her were untrue?
+
+I held it in my hand, glaring at it in bewilderment.  Sheet by sheet I
+examined it, but there was no writing upon it.  Apparently it was her
+reserve store of paper, to be used as wanted.  In the French Ministry of
+Foreign Affairs everything is methodical, especially the preparation of
+the dossiers.  A certain dossier had once fallen into Kaye's hands, and
+it contained sheets of exactly similar paper to that which I held in my
+hand.
+
+Eagerly I continued my search, striving to discover some writing which
+might lead me to a knowledge of the truth, but I found nothing.  I had
+completed an examination of the whole of the contents of the drawers,
+when it occurred to me that there might be some other drawer concealed
+there.  Years ago I had been offered an escritoire of this pattern in
+Genoa, and the sun-tanned fellow who endeavoured to induce me to
+purchase it had shown behind the centre drawer in the table a cunningly
+contrived cavity where private correspondence might be concealed.
+
+Therefore I drew out the drawer, sounded the interior at the back, and,
+finding it hollow, searched about for the spring by which it might be
+opened.  At last I found it, and next moment drew forth a bundle of
+letters.  They were bound with a blue ribbon that time had faded.  I
+glanced at the superscription of the uppermost, and a thrill of sympathy
+went through me.
+
+Those carefully preserved letters were my own--letters full of love and
+tenderness, which I had written in the days that were dead.  I stood
+holding them in my hand, my heart full of the past.
+
+In this narrative, my reader, it is my intention to conceal nothing, but
+to relate to you the whole, undisguised truth, even though this chapter
+of England's secret history presents a seemingly improbable combination
+of strange facts and circumstances.  Therefore I will not hide from you
+the truth that in those moments, as I drew forth one of the letters I
+had written long ago and read it through, sweet and tender memories
+crowded upon me, and in my eyes stood blinding tears.  I may be forgiven
+for this, I think, when it is remembered how fondly I had once loved
+Yolande, before that fatal day when jealousy had consumed me, and I had
+turned my back upon her as a woman false and worthless.
+
+Letter after letter I read, each bringing back to me sad memories of
+those days, when in the calm sunset hour we had wandered by the
+riverside hand in hand like children, each supremely content in each
+other's love, fondly believing that our mad passion would last always.
+In all the world she had been, to me, incomparable.  The centre of
+admiration at those brilliant balls at the Royal Palace at Brussels, the
+most admired of all the trim and comely girls who rode at morning in the
+Bois, the merriest of those who picnicked in the forest round about the
+ancient chateau, the sweetest, the most tender, and the most pure of all
+the women I knew--Yolande in those days had been mine.  There, in my
+hand, I held the letter which I had written from Scotland when on leave
+for the shooting, asking if she loved me sufficiently to become my wife.
+To that letter I well remembered her reply--indeed, I knew it verbatim;
+a tender letter, full of honest love and straightforward admission--a
+letter such as only a pure and good woman could have penned.  Yes, she
+wrote that she loved me dearly, and would be my wife.
+
+And yet it was all of the past.  All had ended.
+
+I sighed bitterly--how bitterly, mere words cannot describe.  You,
+reader, be you man or woman, can you fully realise how deeply I felt at
+that moment, how utterly desolate the world then seemed to me?
+
+Those letters I slowly replaced in the cavity and closed it.  Then, as I
+turned away, my eyes fell upon the photographs standing upon a small
+whatnot close by the escritoire.  They were of persons whom I did not
+know--all strangers, save one.  This was a cabinet portrait in a heavy
+silver frame, and as I took it up to scrutinise it more closely a cry
+involuntarily escaped my lips.
+
+The picture was a three-quarter length representation of a
+black-bearded, keen-eyed man, standing with his hands thrust idly in his
+pockets, and smoking a cigarette.  There was no mistaking those
+features.  It was the photograph of the man the discovery of whose
+presence in Paris had produced such an extraordinary effect upon her--
+Rodolphe Wolf.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+BY A THREAD.
+
+I was still standing by the window, holding the photograph in my hand,
+and gazing upon it in wonder, when Dick Deane was shown in.
+
+"What's the matter, old chap?  Are you the man in possession here?" he
+asked breezily, gripping me by the hand.
+
+He was a fair, merry-faced fellow of thirty-five, rather good-looking,
+smartly dressed in black frock-coat of professional cut, and wearing a
+pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.  He had been born in Paris, and had spent
+the greater part of his life there, except during the years when he was
+at school with me before going to Edinburgh, where he took his degree.
+Then he had returned to Paris, taken his French degree, and had soon
+risen to be one of the fashionable doctors in the French capital.  He
+was an especial favourite in the salons, and, like every good-looking
+doctor, a favourite with the ladies.
+
+"I'm not in possession," I answered.  "A very serious affair has
+happened here, and we want your assistance."
+
+In an instant he became grave, for I suppose my tone showed him that I
+was in no humour for joking.
+
+"What's the nature of the affair?" he asked.
+
+"Death," I replied seriously.  "A lady here--a friend of mine--has died
+mysteriously."
+
+"A mystery--eh?" he exclaimed, instantly interested.  "Tell me about
+it."
+
+"This place," I replied, "belongs to the Countess de Foville, a lady
+whom I knew well when I was at the Brussels Embassy, and it is her
+daughter Yolande who has been found dead in this room this evening."
+
+"Yolande de Foville!" he repeated, with knit brows.  "She was a friend
+of yours once, if I mistake not?" he added, looking me straight in the
+face.
+
+"Yes, Dick, she was," I responded.  "I told you of her long ago."
+
+"You loved her once?"
+
+"Yes," I answered with difficulty, "I loved her once."
+
+"And how did the unfortunate affair occur?" he asked, folding his arms
+and leaning back against a chair.  "Tell me the whole story."
+
+"I called here this afternoon, and spent half an hour or so with her," I
+said.  "Then I left and returned straight to the Embassy--"
+
+"You left her here?" he inquired, interrupting.  "Yes, in this very
+room.  But it seems that a quarter of an hour later one of the servants
+entered and discovered her lying upon the door, dead."
+
+"Curious!" he ejaculated.  "Has a medical man seen her?"
+
+"No.  The Countess sent for me as being one of her daughter's most
+intimate friends, and I, in turn, sent for you."
+
+"Where is the poor young lady?"
+
+"In her room at the end of the corridor," I answered hoarsely.
+
+"Is there any suspicion of murder?"
+
+"Apparently none whatever.  She had no visitor after I left."
+
+"And no suspicion of suicide?" he asked, with a sharp look.  "Did you
+part friends?"
+
+"Perfectly so," I responded.  "As to suicide, she had no reason, as far
+as anyone knows, to make an attempt upon her life."
+
+He gave vent to an expression which sounded to me much like a grunt of
+dissatisfaction.
+
+"Now, be perfectly frank with me, Gerald," he said, suddenly turning to
+me and placing his hand upon my shoulder.  "You loved her very dearly
+once--was that not so?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"I well remember it," he went on.  "I quite recollect how, on one
+occasion, you came over to London, and while dining together at Jimmy's
+you told me of your infatuation, and showed me her photograph.  Do you
+remember the night when you told me of your engagement to her?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And as time went on you suddenly dropped her--for what reason I know
+not.  We are pals, but I have never attempted to pry into your affairs.
+If she really loved you, it must have been a hard blow for her when she
+heard that you had forsaken her for Edith Austin."
+
+"You reproach me," I said.  "But you do not know the whole truth, my
+dear fellow.  I discovered that Yolande possessed a second lover."
+
+He nodded slowly, with pursed lips.
+
+"And that was the reason of your parting?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The sole reason?"
+
+"The sole reason."
+
+"And you have no suspicion that she may have committed suicide because
+of her love for you?  Such things are not uncommon, remember, with girls
+of a certain temperament."
+
+"If she has committed suicide, it is not on my account," I responded in
+a hard voice.
+
+"I did not express that opinion," he hastened to protest.  "Before we
+discuss the matter further it will be best for me to see her.  Death may
+have been due to natural causes, for aught we know."
+
+I stood motionless.  His suggestion that my sweetheart of the old days
+had committed suicide because I had forsaken her was a startling one.
+Surely that could not be so?
+
+"Come," my friend said, "let us lose no time.  Which is the room?"
+
+I led him along the corridor, and opened the door of the chamber in
+which she was lying so cold and still.  The light of the afterglow fell
+full upon her, tipping her auburn hair with crimson and illuminating her
+face with a warm radiance that gave her back the appearance of life.
+But it was only for a few moments.  The slanting ray was lost, and the
+pallor of that beautiful countenance became marked against the gold of
+her wondrous hair.
+
+In silence I stood at the foot of the bed watching my friend, who was
+now busy with his examination.  He opened her eyes and closed them
+again, felt her heart, raised her arms, and examined her mouth, uttering
+no word.  His serious face wore a look as though he were infinitely
+puzzled.
+
+One after the other he examined the palms of her hands long and
+carefully, then, bending until his eyes were close to her face, he
+examined her lips, brow, and the whole surface of her cheeks.  Upon her
+neck, below the left ear, was a mark to which he returned time after
+time, as though not satisfied as to its cause.  Upon her lower lip, too,
+was a slight yellow discoloration, which he examined several times,
+comparing it with the mark upon the neck.  He was unable to account for
+either.
+
+"Curious!" he ejaculated.  "Very curious indeed!"
+
+"What is curious?"  I inquired eagerly.
+
+"Those marks," he answered, indicating them with his finger.  "They are
+very puzzling.  I've never seen such marks before."
+
+"Do they point to foul play?"  I inquired, feeling suspicious that she
+had by some mysterious means fallen the victim of an assassin.
+
+"Well, no," he responded, after some hesitation; "that is not my
+opinion."
+
+"Then what is your opinion?"
+
+"At present I have none.  I can have none until I make a thorough
+examination.  There are certainly no outward marks of violence."
+
+"We need not inform the police, I suppose?"
+
+"Not at present," he replied, his eyes still fixed upon the blanched
+face of the woman who had once been all the world to me.
+
+I raised her dead hand, and upon it imprinted a last fervent kiss.  It
+was cold and clammy to my lips.  In that hour all my old love for her
+had returned, and my heart had become filled with an intense bitterness
+and desolation.  I had thought that all my love for her was dead, and
+that Edith Austin, the calm, sweet woman far away in an English county,
+who wrote to me daily from her quiet home deep in the woodlands, had
+taken her place.  But our meeting and its tragic sequel had, I admit,
+aroused within me a deep sympathy, which had, within an hour, developed
+into that great and tender love of old.  With men this return to the old
+love is of no infrequent occurrence, but with women it seldom happens.
+Perhaps this is because man is more fickle and more easily influenced by
+woman's voice, woman's glances, and woman's tears.
+
+The reader will probably accuse me of injustice and of fickleness of
+heart.  Well, I cannot deny it; indeed, I seek to deny nothing in this
+narrative of strange facts and diplomatic wiles, but would only ask of
+those who read to withhold their verdict until they have ascertained the
+truth yet to be revealed, and have read to the conclusion, this strange
+chapter of the secret history of a nation.
+
+My friend the doctor was holding one hand, while I imprinted a last kiss
+upon the other.  A lump was in my throat, my eyes were filled with
+tears, my thoughts were all of the past, my anguish of heart
+unspeakable.  That small chill hand with the cold, glittering ring--one
+that I had given her in Brussels long ago--seemed to be the only reality
+in all that hideous phantasmagoria of events.
+
+"Do not despair," murmured the kind voice of my old friend, standing
+opposite me on the other side of the bed.  "You loved her once, but it
+is all over--surely it is!"
+
+"No, Dick!"  I answered brokenly.  "I thought I did not love her.  I
+have held her from me these three years--until now."
+
+"Ah!" he sighed, "I understand.  Man always longs for the unattainable."
+
+"Yes, always," I responded.
+
+In that moment the memory of the day when we had parted arose gaunt and
+ghost-like.  I had wronged her; I felt confident that I had.  All came
+back to me now--that cruel, scandalous denunciation I had uttered in the
+heat of my mad jealousy--the false tale which had struck her dumb by its
+circumstantial accuracy.  Ah! how bitter it all was, now that punishment
+was upon me!  I remembered how, in the hour of my worldly triumph and of
+her highest hope--at the very moment when she had spoken words of
+greater affection to me than she had ever used before--I had made the
+charge against her, and she had fallen back with her young heart crushed
+within her.  My ring was there, still glittering mockingly upon her dead
+hand.  By the unfounded charge I had made against her I had sinned.  My
+sin at that moment arose from its grave, and barred the way for ever to
+all hope--to all happiness.
+
+The summer twilight was stealing on apace, and in the silence of the
+room there sounded the roar of life from the boulevard below.  Men were
+crying _Le Soir_ with strident voices, and all Paris was on its way to
+dine, and afterwards to enjoy itself in idleness upon the terraces of
+the cafes or at those al-fresco variety performances in the Avenue des
+Champs Elysees, where the entrance fee includes a consommation.
+
+Deane still held my old love's hand, bending in the dim light until his
+eyes were close to it, watching intently.  But I took no notice, for my
+eyes were fixed upon that face that had held me in such fascination, and
+had been so admired at those brilliant receptions given by King Leopold
+and the Countess of Flanders.  The doctor stretched forth his hand, and
+of a sudden switched on the electric light.  The next instant I was
+startled by his loud ejaculation of surprise.
+
+"Thank God!" he cried.  "She's not dead, after all!"
+
+"Not dead!"  I gasped, unable fully to realise his meaning.
+
+"No," he answered breathlessly.  "But we must not lose a single
+instant."  And I saw that with a lancet he had made an incision in her
+delicate wrist, and there was blood there.  "She is in a state of
+catalepsy, and we must do all in our power to bring her round."
+
+"But do you think you can?"  I cried.
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Do your best, Dick," I implored.  "Save her, for my sake."
+
+"Rely upon me," he answered calmly, adding: "Run along to Number 18 in
+the boulevard--the corner house on the right--and bring Doctor Trepard
+at once.  He lives au troisieme.  Tell him that I sent you, and that the
+matter is one of life or death."  He scribbled some words on a card,
+and, giving it me, added: "Tell him to bring this.  Meanwhile, I will
+commence artificial respiration.  Go!"
+
+"But do you think she will really recover?"  I demanded.
+
+"I can't tell.  We have already lost so much time.  I had no idea of the
+truth.  It has surprised me just as it has surprised you.  This moment
+is not one for words, but for actions.  Don't lose an instant."
+
+Thus urged, I snatched up my hat and tore along the boulevard like a
+madman.  Without difficulty I found Trepard's appartement, and on being
+admitted found him a grave-faced, rather stout old Frenchman, who, on
+the instant I mentioned Dick's name and gave him the card with the words
+upon it, naming some drugs he required, went into an adjoining room, and
+fetched a phial of tiny red pillules, which he held up to the light.
+Then he put on his hat, and descended with me to the street.  A fiacre
+was passing, which we took, and five minutes later we were standing
+together in the room where Yolande was lying.
+
+"This is a most curious case, my dear Trepard," began Dick, speaking in
+French--"a case of coma, which I have mistaken for death;" and,
+continuing, he briefly explained how the patient had been found in a
+state so closely resembling death that he himself had been deceived.
+
+The old Frenchman placed his hand upon her heart, and, withdrawing it,
+said:
+
+"She's breathing now."
+
+"Breathing!"  I echoed.  "Then she is recovering!"
+
+"Yes, old fellow," Dick replied, "she is recovering--at least we hope we
+shall save her."  Then, turning to his colleague, he raised her hand and
+pointed to the finger-nails, asking: "Do you notice anything there?"
+
+The other, adjusting his pince-nez, bent and examined, them one by one.
+
+"Yes," he answered at last.  "A slight purple discoloration at the base
+of the nails."
+
+"And upon the lower lip does anything strike you as peculiar?"
+
+"A yellow mark," he answered, after carefully inspecting the spot
+indicated.
+
+"And there?"  Deane asked, touching the mark upon the neck.
+
+"Very strange!" ejaculated the elder man.  "It is a most unusual case."
+
+"Yes.  Have you brought the hydrated peroxide of iron?"
+
+For answer the Frenchman produced the tiny tube, saying:
+
+"Then you suspect poison?"
+
+"Most certainly," he replied; and, taking a glass, he placed a single
+pillule in it, dissolving it in water, which he afterwards forced
+between the grey lips of my unconscious love.  Afterwards he glanced at
+his watch, observing: "We must give another in fifteen minutes."
+
+Then, drawing a chair to the bedside, he seated himself, holding her
+wrist and watching her countenance for any change that might take place
+there.
+
+"Have you no idea of the nature of the poison?"  I inquired eagerly.
+
+"None," he responded.  "Ask me no questions now.  When we have brought
+her round will be time enough.  It should be sufficient for you to know
+that she is not dead.  Why not leave us for the present?  Go and break
+the good news to the Countess."
+
+"You wish to be alone?"
+
+"Yes.  This is a serious matter.  Leave us undisturbed, and on no
+pretext allow her mother to enter here."
+
+Thus urged, and feeling reassured by their statement that she still
+lived and that the pulsations of her heart were already quite
+perceptible, I left the room, noiselessly closing the door after me, and
+sought the Countess in the small blue boudoir to which she had returned
+plunged in grief and dark despair.
+
+She was seated in a chair, motionless and statuesque, staring straight
+before her.  The blow had utterly crushed her, for she was entirely
+devoted to her only daughter now that her husband was dead.  I well knew
+how deep was her affection for Yolande, and how tender was her maternal
+love.
+
+The room was in semi-darkness, for she had not risen to turn on the
+light.  As I entered I did so with her permission, saying quietly:
+
+"Madame, I come to you with a message."
+
+"From whom?" she asked in a hard mechanical voice.
+
+"From my friend Deane, the English doctor whom I have summoned.  Yolande
+still lives!"
+
+"She lives!" she cried, springing to her feet in an instant.  "You are
+deceiving me!"
+
+"I am not, madame," I reassured her, smiling.  "Your daughter is still
+breathing, and is increasing in strength perceptibly.  The doctors say
+that she will probably recover."
+
+"Thank God!" she gasped, her thin white hands clasped before her.  "I
+pray that He may give her back to me.  I will go to her."
+
+But I held her back, explaining that both the medical men had expressed
+a wish to remain there alone.
+
+"But what caused that appearance so akin to death?" she asked quickly.
+
+"At present they cannot tell," I responded.  "Some deleterious substance
+is suspected, but until she has returned to consciousness and can give
+us some details of her sudden attack we can determine nothing."
+
+"But she will recover, m'sieur?" the Countess asked.  "Are you certain?"
+
+"The chances are in her favour, the doctors say.  They have given her a
+drug to counteract the effect of the poison."
+
+"Poison!  Was she poisoned?" gasped the Countess.
+
+"Poison is suspected," I answered quietly.  "But calm yourself, madame.
+The truth will be discovered in due course."
+
+"I care nothing so long as Yolande is given back to me!" the distressed
+woman cried.  "Was it your English friend who discovered the truth?"
+
+"Yes," I replied.  "He is one of the cleverest men in Paris."
+
+"And to him my poor Yolande will owe her life?"
+
+"Yes, to him."
+
+"And to you also, m'sieur?  You have done your utmost for us, and I
+thank you warmly for it all."
+
+"Madame," I said earnestly, "I have done only what a man should do.  You
+sought my assistance, and I have given it, because--"
+
+"Because of what?" she inquired sharply the instant I paused.
+
+"Because I once loved her," I responded with perfect frankness.
+
+A sigh escaped her, and her hand sought my arm.
+
+"I was young once, m'sieur," she said in that calm, refined voice which
+had long ago always sounded so much to me like that of my own dead
+mother.  "I understand your feeling--I understand perfectly.  It is only
+my poor daughter who does not understand.  She knows that you have
+forsaken her--that is all."
+
+It was upon my tongue to lay bare to her the secret of my heart's
+longings, yet I hesitated.  I remembered that calm, serious, sweet-faced
+woman on the other side of the English Channel, far from the glare and
+glitter of life as I knew it--the fevered life which the diplomat in
+Paris is forced to lead.  I remembered my troth to Edith, and my
+conscience pricked me.
+
+"Could it be possible," I reflected, "that Yolande was really in the pay
+of a Government hostile to England?"  Kaye was already nearing Berlin
+with the intention of searching out her actions and exposing her as a
+spy, while Anderson had already denounced her as having been a party to
+an attempt to secure the secret which he had carried from Berlin to
+Downing Street.
+
+With a mother's solicitude the Countess could for some time only speak
+of Yolande's mysterious attack; but at last, in order to prosecute my
+inquiries further, I observed, during a lull in the conversation:
+
+"At the Baroness de Chalencon's last night a friend of yours inquired
+about you, madame."
+
+"A friend?  Who?"
+
+"A man named Wolf--Rodolphe Wolf."
+
+The next instant I saw that the mention of that name affected the mother
+no less markedly than it had affected the daughter.  Her face blanched;
+her eyes opened wide in fear, and her glance became in a moment
+suspicious.  With marvellous self-possession she, however, pretended
+ignorance.
+
+"Wolf?" she repeated.  "I do not remember the name.  Possibly he is some
+person we have met while travelling."
+
+"Yolande knew him, I believe, in Brussels," I remarked.  "He appeared to
+be acquainted with you."
+
+"My daughter's friends are not always mine," she remarked coldly, with
+that cleverness which only a woman of the world can possess, and at once
+returned to the discussion of Yolande and the probability of her
+recovery.
+
+This puzzled me.  I felt somehow convinced that she knew the truth.  She
+had some distinct object in endeavouring to seal my lips.  What it was,
+however, I could not determine.
+
+She was expressing a fervent hope that her daughter would recover, and
+pacing the room, impatient to go to her bedside, when, of a sudden, Dick
+opened the door, and, putting his head inside, addressed me, saying:
+
+"Can I speak with you a moment, Ingram?"  She dashed to the door in
+eagerness, but after a word of introduction from myself, he informed her
+that Yolande had not sufficiently recovered to be disturbed.
+
+"Perfect quiet is absolutely necessary, madame," he urged.  "Your
+daughter, I am pleased to tell you, will live; but she must be kept
+absolutely quiet.  I cannot allow you to approach her on any pretext
+whatsoever."
+
+"She will not die, will she?" the woman implored distractedly.
+
+"No," he replied, in a voice somewhat strained, I thought, "she will not
+die.  Of that you may rest assured."
+
+Then turning to me, he beckoned, and I followed him out of the room.
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+THE OLD LOVE.
+
+"I don't like that woman, old fellow," were the first words Dick uttered
+when we were alone in the room in which Yolande had been found.
+
+"Why not?"  I asked, rather surprised.  "The Countess de Foville is
+always charming."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, saying:
+
+"One sometimes has strange and unaccountable prejudices, you know.  This
+is one of mine."
+
+"And Yolande," I asked, "what of her?"
+
+"She's better.  But it was fortunate I made the discovery just when I
+did, or she would no doubt have passed away.  I never saw an appearance
+so closely resembling death in all my experience; in fact, I'd have
+staked my professional reputation that there was no spark of life."
+
+"But what was the cause of it all?"  I demanded.  "You surely know the
+reason?"
+
+"No, we cannot yet tell," he answered.  "The marks puzzle us.  That mark
+on her lower lip is the most peculiar and unaccountable.  At present we
+can say nothing."
+
+"Then why did you call me out?"
+
+"Because I want to consult you," he replied.  "The fact is, that in this
+affair there is a strong element of mystery which I don't like at all.
+And, moreover, the few seconds during which I've seen the Countess have
+plainly impressed upon me the belief that either she has had something
+to do with it, or else that she knows the truth."
+
+I nodded.  This was exactly my own theory.  "Do you think Yolande has
+been the victim of foul play?"  I inquired a moment later.
+
+"That's my suspicion," he responded.  "But only she herself can tell us
+the truth."
+
+"You really think, then, that a dastardly attempt has been made upon her
+life?"  I cried incredulously.
+
+"Personally, I think there can be no doubt."
+
+"But by whom?  No one called here after my departure."
+
+"It is that mystery which we must elucidate," he said.  "All I fear is,
+however, that she may render us no assistance."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because it is a mystery, and in all probability she will endeavour to
+preserve the secret.  She must not see the Countess before we question
+her."
+
+"Is she yet conscious?"  I asked in eagerness.
+
+"Yes; but at present we must put no question to her."
+
+"Thank Heaven!"  I gasped.  Then I added, fervently grasping my friend's
+hand: "You cannot realise, Dick, what great consolation this is to me!"
+
+"I know, my dear fellow--I know," he answered sympathetically.  "But may
+I speak to you as a friend?  You won't be offended at anything I am
+about to say, will you?"
+
+"Offended?--certainly not.  Our friendship is too firm for that, Dick.
+What is it you wish to say?"
+
+I saw that he was uneasy, and was surprised at his sudden gravity.
+
+"Well," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "you'll forgive me for
+saying so, but I don't think that in this affair you've told me exactly
+the truth."
+
+"What do you mean?"  I inquired quickly.
+
+"I mean that when you parted from her this afternoon you were not
+altogether good friends."
+
+"You are mistaken," I assured him.  "We were as good friends as ever
+before."
+
+"No high words passed between you?"
+
+"None."
+
+"And nothing that you told her caused her any sudden grief?  Are you
+quite certain of this?" he asked, looking at me very fixedly through his
+glasses.
+
+"I made one observation which certainly caused her surprise," I
+admitted.  "Nothing else."
+
+"Was it only surprise?" he asked very calmly.
+
+"Surprise mingled with fear."
+
+"Ah!" he ejaculated, as though obtaining some intelligence by this
+admission of mine.  "And may I not know the nature of the information
+you gave her?"
+
+"No, Dick," I responded.  "It is a secret--her secret."
+
+He was silent.
+
+"You refuse to tell me?" he said disappointedly.
+
+"I am unable," I replied.
+
+"And if I judge rightly, it is this secret which has parted you?"
+
+"No, it is not," I answered.  "That's the most curious part of the whole
+affair.  The very existence of the secret has brought us together
+again."
+
+"You mean that you have forsaken Edith and returned to her?" he
+observed, raising his brows slightly in surprise.
+
+"No; don't put it in that way," I implored.  "I have not yet forsaken
+Edith."
+
+He smiled, just a trifle superciliously, I thought.
+
+"And the Countess is also in possession of this mysterious secret--eh?"
+
+"Of that I am not at all certain," I replied.
+
+He sniffed in distinct suspicion that what I had told him was not the
+truth.  At the same instant, however, the Countess entered and demanded
+to know the condition of her child.
+
+"She is much better, madame," he answered.  "Perfect quiet is, however,
+necessary, and constant observation of the temperature.  To-morrow, or
+the day after, you may, I think, see her."
+
+"Not till then!" she cried.  "I cannot wait so long."
+
+"But it is necessary.  Your daughter's life hangs upon a single thread."
+
+She was silenced, for she saw that argument was useless.
+
+A few minutes later Jean entered with a message from Trepard asking Dick
+and myself to consult with him.  We therefore left the Countess again,
+and passed along the corridor to the room in which my love of long ago
+was lying.  As we entered she lifted her hand slowly to me in sign of
+recognition, and in an instant I was at her side.
+
+"Yolande!"  I cried, taking her hand, so different now that death had
+been defeated by life.  "Yolande! my darling," I burst forth
+involuntarily, "you have come back to me!"
+
+A sweet, glad smile spread over her beautiful face, leaving an
+expression of calm and perfect contentment, as in a low, uncertain
+voice, as though of one speaking afar off, she asked:
+
+"Gerald, is it actually you?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "of course it is.  These two gentlemen are doctors," I
+added.  "This is my old friend Deane; and the other is Doctor Trepard,
+of whom I daresay you have heard."
+
+She nodded to them both in acknowledgment of their kind expressions;
+then in a few low words inquired what had happened to her.  She seemed
+in utter ignorance of it all.
+
+"You were found lying on the floor of the little salon soon after I
+left, and they thought you were dead," I explained.  "Cannot you tell us
+how it occurred?"
+
+A puzzled expression settled upon her face, as though she were trying to
+remember.
+
+"I recollect nothing," she declared.
+
+"But you surely remember how you were attacked?"  I urged.
+
+"Attacked!" she echoed in surprise.  "No one attacked me."
+
+"I did not mean that," I answered, rather puzzled at her quick protest.
+"I meant that you were probably aware of the symptoms which preceded
+your unconsciousness."
+
+"I felt a strange dizziness and a curious tightness in the throat and
+chest.  That is all I remember.  All became blank until I opened my eyes
+again and found myself lying here, with these two gentlemen standing at
+my side.  The duration of my unconsciousness did not appear to me longer
+than a few minutes."
+
+"Then mademoiselle has no idea of the cause of her strange illness?"
+inquired Deane in French.  "None whatever, m'sieur."
+
+"Tell us one fact," he urged.  "During the time which elapsed between
+your parting with M'sieur Ingram and your sudden unconsciousness, did
+anyone enter the room?"
+
+"No one; of that I am absolutely certain."
+
+"How were you occupied during that time?"
+
+"I was writing a letter."
+
+"And before you rose did you feel the curious giddiness?"
+
+"No, not until after I stood up.  I tried to shout and attract help, but
+could not.  Then I reached to press the bell, but stumbled forward, and
+the next instant I was lost in what seemed to be a dense fog."
+
+"Curious!" ejaculated Trepard, who stood by with folded arms, eagerly
+listening to every word--"very curious!"
+
+"Did you feel any strange sensation on the left side of your neck
+beneath the ear, or upon your lower lip?" inquired Deane earnestly.
+
+She reflected for a moment, then said:
+
+"Now that I remember, there was a curious numbness of my lip."
+
+"Followed immediately by unconsciousness?"
+
+"Yes, almost immediately."
+
+The doctors exchanged glances, which showed that the mark upon the lip
+was the chief enigma of the situation.
+
+Trepard glanced at his watch, dissolved yet another pillule of hydrated
+peroxide of iron, and handed her the draught to swallow.  The antidote
+had acted almost like magic.
+
+"You are absolutely certain that no person entered the room after Ingram
+had left?" repeated Deane, as though not yet satisfied.
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+Dick Deane turned his eyes full upon me, and I divined his thoughts.  He
+was reflecting upon the conversation held between us before we entered
+that room.  He was endeavouring to worm from her some clue to her
+secret.
+
+"My mother knows that I am recovering?" she went on.  "If she does not,
+please tell her.  She has been so distressed of late that this must have
+been the crowning blow to her."
+
+"I have told madame your mother everything," I said.  "Do not be uneasy
+on her account."
+
+"Ah," she sighed, "how I regret that we came to Paris!  I regret it all,
+Gerald, save that you and I have met again;" and she stretched out her
+hand until it came into contact with my coat-button, with which she
+toyed like a child.
+
+"And this meeting has really given you satisfaction?"  I whispered to
+her, heedless of the presence of the others.
+
+"Not only satisfaction," she answered, so softly that I alone could
+catch her words, and looking into my face with that expression of
+passionate affection which can never be simulated; "it has given back to
+me a desire for happiness, for life, for love."
+
+There were tears in those wonderful blue eyes, and her small hand
+trembled within my grasp.  My heart at that moment was too full for mere
+words.  True, I loved her with a mad fondness that I had never before
+entertained for any woman; yet, nevertheless, a hideous shadow arose
+between us, shutting her off from me for ever--the shadow of her
+secret--the secret that she, my well-beloved, was actually a spy.
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+AT THE ELYSEE.
+
+Having reassured myself of Yolande's recovery, I was compelled to rush
+off, slip into uniform, and attend a dinner at the Elysee.  The function
+was a brilliant affair, as are all the official junketings of the French
+President.  At the right of the head of the Republic, who was
+distinguishable by his crimson sash, sat the Countess Tornelli, with the
+wife of the United States Ambassador on his left.  The President's
+wife--who wore a superb gown of corn-coloured miroir velvet, richly
+embroidered and inlaid with Venetian lace, a veritable triumph of the
+Rue de la Paix--had on her right the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Lerenzelli,
+the doyen of the Diplomatic Corps, while on her left was my Chief, Lord
+Barmouth.
+
+The seat next me was allotted to his daughter Sibyl, who looked charming
+in rose chiffon.  During dinner she chatted merrily, describing a
+charity bazaar which she had attended that afternoon accompanied by her
+mother.  On the other side of her sat Count Berchtold, the secretary of
+the Austrian Embassy, who was, I shrewdly suspected, one of her most
+devoted admirers.  She was charming--a typical, smart English girl; and
+I think that I was proved to be an exception among men by reason of the
+fact that I did not flirt with her.  Indeed, we were excellent friends,
+and my long acquaintance with her gave me a prescriptive right to a kind
+of brotherly solicitude for her welfare.  Times without number I had
+chaffed her about her little affairs of the heart, and as many times she
+had turned my criticisms against myself by her witty repartee.  She
+could be exceedingly sarcastic when occasion required; but there had
+always been a perfect understanding between us, and no remark was ever
+distorted into an insult.
+
+Dinner was followed by a brilliant reception.  The great Salon des
+Fetes, which only a year before was hung with funeral wreaths, owing to
+the death of the previous President, resounded with that peculiar hum
+made up of all the intonations of conversation and discreet laughter
+rolled together against the sustained buzzing of the orchestra a short
+distance away.  The scene was one of glittering magnificence.  Everyone
+knew everyone else.  Through the crowd of uniforms--which always give an
+official reception at the Elysee the appearance of a bal travesti--I
+passed Monsieur Casimir Perrier, former President of the Republic;
+Monsieur Paul Deschanel, the lion of the hour; Monsieur
+Benjamin-Constant, always a prominent figure; Prince Roland Bonaparte,
+smiling and bowing; the Duchess d'Auerstadt, with her magnificent
+jewels; and Damat, the dapper Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour.
+All diplomatic Paris was there, chattering, laughing, whispering, and
+plotting.  Around me sounded a veritable babel of tongues, but no part
+of the function interested me.
+
+From time to time I saluted a man I knew, or bent over a woman's hand;
+but my thoughts were of the one woman who had so suddenly and so
+forcibly returned into my life.  The representatives of the Powers of
+Europe were all present, and as they passed me by, each in his bright
+uniform, his orders flashing on his breast and a woman on his arm, I
+asked myself which of them was actually the employer of my well-beloved.
+
+The startling events of the day had upset me.  Had it been possible I
+would have left and returned to my rooms for a quiet smoke and for calm
+reflection.  But my duty required my presence there; hence I remained,
+strolling slowly around the great crowded salon with its myriad lights
+and profuse floral decorations, until I suddenly encountered the
+wizen-faced, toothless old Baronne de Chalencon, whose salon was one of
+the most popular in Paris, and with whom I was on excellent terms.
+
+"Ah! my dear M'sieur Ingram!" she cried, holding forth her thin, bony
+hand laden with jewels.  "You look tired.  Why?  No one here to-night
+who interests you--eh?"
+
+"No one save yourself, Baronne," I responded, bending over her hand.
+
+"Flatterer!" she laughed.  "If I were forty years younger I might accept
+that as a compliment.  But at my age--well, it is really cruel of you."
+
+"Intelligence is more interesting to a diplomat than a pretty face," I
+responded quickly.  "And there is certainly no more intelligent woman in
+all Paris than the Baronne de Chalencon."
+
+She bowed stiffly, and her wrinkled face, which bore visible traces of
+poudre orchidee and touches of the hare's-foot, puckered up into a
+simpering smile.
+
+"Well, and what else?" she asked.  "These speeches you have apparently
+prepared for some pretty woman you expected to meet here to-night, but,
+since she has not kept the appointment, you are practising them upon
+me."
+
+"No," I said, "I really protest against that, Baronne.  A woman is never
+too old for a man to pay her compliments."
+
+We had strolled into a cool ante-room, and were sitting together upon
+one of the many seats placed beneath clumps of palms and flowers, the
+only light being from a hundred tiny electric lamps hung overhead in the
+trees.  The perfect arrangement of those ante-rooms of the Salle des
+Fetes on the nights of the official receptions is always noteworthy, and
+after the heat, music, and babel of tongues in the grand salon it was
+cool, quiet, and refreshing there.
+
+By holding her regular salon, where everybody who was anybody made it a
+point to be seen, the Baronne had acquired in Paris a unique position.
+Her fine house in the Avenue des Champs Elysees was the centre of a
+smart and fashionable set, and she herself made a point of being versed
+in all the latest gossip and scandal of the French capital.  She
+scandalised nobody, nor did she seek to throw mud at her enemies.  She
+merely repeated what was whispered to her; hence a chat with her was
+always interesting to one who, like myself, was paid to keep his ears
+open and report from time to time the direction of the political wind.
+
+Tournier, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his wife were her
+most intimate friends; hence she was frequently aware of facts which
+were of considerable importance to us.  Indeed, once or twice her
+friendliness for myself had caused her to drop hints which had been of
+the greatest use to Lord Barmouth in the conduct of his difficult
+diplomacy at that time when the boulevard journals were screaming
+against England and the filthy prints were caricaturing Her Majesty,
+with intent to insult.  Even the _Figaro_--the moderate organ of the
+French Foreign Office--had lost its self-control in the storm of abuse
+following the Fashoda incident, and had libelled and maligned "les
+English."  I therefore seized the opportunity for a chat with the
+wizen-faced old lady, who seemed in a particularly good-humour, and
+deftly turned the conversation into the political channel.
+
+"Now, tell me, Baronne," I said, after we had been chatting some little
+time, and I had learnt more than one important fact regarding the
+intentions of Tournier, "what is your opinion regarding the occupation
+of Ceuta?"
+
+She glanced at me quickly, as though surprised that I should be aware of
+what she had believed to be an entire secret.
+
+"Of Ceuta?" she echoed.  "And what do you at your Embassy know regarding
+it?"
+
+"We've heard a good deal," I laughed.
+
+"No doubt you've heard a good deal that is untrue," the clever old lady
+replied, her powdered face again puckering into a smile.  "Do you want
+to know my honest opinion?" she added.
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Well," she went on, "I attach very little importance to the rumours of
+a projected sale or lease of Ceuta to us.  I might tell you in
+confidence," she went on, dropping her voice, "that from some words I
+overheard at the garden-party at de Wolkenstein's I have come to a firm
+conclusion that, although during the next few years important changes
+will be made upon the map of the world, Ceuta will remain Spanish.  My
+country will never menace yours in the Mediterranean at that point.  A
+Ministry might be found in Madrid to consider the question of its
+disposal, but the Spanish people would rise in revolution before they
+would consent.  Spain is very poor, but very proud.  Having lost so many
+of her foreign possessions, she will hold more strongly than ever to
+Ceuta.  There you have the whole situation in a nutshell."
+
+"Then the report that it is actually sold to France is untrue?"  I asked
+eagerly.
+
+"A mere report I believe it to be."
+
+"But Spain's financial indebtedness to France might prove an element of
+danger when Europe justifies Lord Beaconsfield's prediction and rushes
+into war over Morocco?"
+
+"Ah, my dear M'sieur Ingram, I do not agree with the prediction of your
+great statesman," the old lady said vehemently.  "It is not in that
+direction in which lies the danger of war, but at the other end of the
+Mediterranean."
+
+Somehow I suspected her of a deliberate intention to mislead me in this
+matter.  She was a shrewd woman, who only disclosed her secrets when it
+was to her own interests or the interests of her friends at the Ministry
+of Foreign Affairs to do so.  In Paris there is a vast network of French
+intrigue, and it behoves the diplomatist always to be wary lest he
+should fall into the pitfalls so cunningly prepared for him.  The
+dividing line between truth and untruth is always so very difficult to
+define in modern diplomacy.  It is when the European situation seems
+most secure that the match is sufficiently near to fire the mine.
+Fortunate it is that the public, quick to accept anything that appears
+in the daily journals, can be placed in a sense of false security by
+articles inspired by one or other of the embassies interested.  If it
+were not so, European panics would certainly be of frequent occurrence.
+
+My Chief sauntered by, chatting with his close personal friend, Prince
+Olsoufieff, the Russian Ambassador, who looked a truly striking figure
+in his white uniform, with the Cross of St. Andrew glittering at his
+throat.  The latter, as he passed, exclaimed confidentially in Russian
+to my Chief, who understood that language, having been first Secretary
+of Embassy in Petersburg earlier in his career:
+
+"Da, ya po-ni-mai-u.  Ya sam napishu."  ("Yes, I understand.  I will
+write for you myself.")
+
+Keen antagonists in diplomacy though they very often were, yet in
+private life a firm friendship existed between the pair--a friendship
+dating from the days when the one had been British Attache in Petersburg
+and the other had occupied a position in the Russian Ministry of Foreign
+Affairs--that large grey building facing the Winter Palace.
+
+"The lion and the bear strolling together," laughed the toothless old
+Baronne, after they had passed.  "Olsoufieff is a charming man, but he
+never accepts my invitations.  I cannot tell why.  I don't fancy he
+considers me his friend."
+
+"Sibyl was at your reception the other evening," I remarked suddenly.
+"She told me she met a man who was a stranger in Paris.  His name, I
+think she said, was Wolf--Rodolphe Wolf.  Who is he?"
+
+"He was introduced by de Wolkenstein, the Austrian Ambassador," she
+replied quickly.  "I did not know him."
+
+"Have you never met him before?"  I asked, looking sharply into her
+eyes.
+
+"Once, I think, but I am not certain," she said, with a palpable effort
+to evade my question.
+
+I smiled.
+
+"Come, madame," I said good-humouredly, "you know Rodolphe Wolf quite as
+well as I do.  When you last met, his name was not Wolf.  Is not that
+so?"
+
+"Well," she answered, "now that you put it in that manner I may as well
+admit that your suggestion is correct."
+
+"And what is the object of his sudden visit to Paris?"
+
+"I cannot make out," she replied in a more confidential tone.  "As I
+tell you, de Wolkenstein introduced him, but, as m'sieur knows, I am
+very quick to detect a face that I have once seen, and I recognised him
+in an instant."
+
+"Sibyl told me that he had a long chat with her, and she described him
+as a most charming fellow."
+
+"Ah, no doubt!  I suspected him and watched.  It was evident that he
+came to my salon in order to meet her."
+
+"To meet Sibyl!  Why?"
+
+"That I cannot tell."
+
+"But I think, Baronne, we may be both agreed upon one point."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"That the man who now calls himself Rodolphe Wolf is here in Paris with
+some secret motive."
+
+"I am entirely in accord, m'sieur--quite.  Some steps must at once be
+taken to ascertain that man's motives."
+
+"It seems curious that he should have been introduced for the purpose of
+meeting Sibyl.  What information did he want from her?"
+
+"How can we tell?  You know better than myself whether she ever knows
+any secrets of the Embassy."
+
+"She knows nothing,--of that I am absolutely convinced," I responded.
+"Her father is devoted to her; but, nevertheless, he is one of those
+strict diplomatists who do not believe in trusting women with secrets."
+
+"Yet Wolf had a distinct object in making a good impression upon her,"
+she said reflectively.
+
+"No doubt.  As soon as she returned she began to talk of him."
+
+And next instant I recollected the strange effect the news of his
+arrival in Paris had had upon Yolande, and the curiously tragic event
+which had subsequently occurred.  All was puzzling--all inscrutable.
+
+A silence fell between us.  I was revolving in my mind whether I should
+ask this wizen-faced old leader of Society a further question.  With
+sudden resolve I turned to her again and asked:
+
+"O Baronne, I had quite forgotten.  Do you chance to know the Countess
+de Foville, of Brussels?  They have a chateau down in the Ardennes, and
+move in the best set in Belgium?"
+
+"De Foville?  De Foville?" she repeated.  "What, do you mean the mother
+of that little witch Yolande?"
+
+"Yes.  But why do you call her a witch?"  I demanded, with feigned
+laughter.
+
+"Why?" cried the old woman, the expression of her face growing dark with
+displeasure.  "Well, I do not know whether she is a friend of yours, but
+all I can tell you is that should she be, the best course for you to
+pursue is to cut her acquaintance."
+
+"What do you mean?"  I gasped.
+
+"I mean exactly what I have said."
+
+"But I don't understand," I cried.  "Be more frank with me," I implored.
+
+"No," she answered in that hard voice, by which I knew that mention of
+Yolande's name had displeased her.  "Remember that we are friends, and
+that sometimes we have interests in common.  Therefore, take this piece
+of advice from an old woman who knows."
+
+"Knows what?"
+
+"Knows that your friendship with the pretty Yolande is dangerous--
+extremely dangerous."
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+CONFESSION.
+
+Next day, when the manservant asked me into the tiny boudoir in the Rue
+de Courcelles, I found Yolande, in a pretty tea-gown of cream silk
+adorned with lace and ribbons, seated in an armchair in an attitude of
+weariness.  The sun-shutters were closed, as on the previous day, for
+the heat in Paris that July was insufferable, and in the dim light her
+wan figure looked very fair and fragile.  The qualities which imparted
+to her a distinct individuality were the beautiful combination of the
+pastoral with the elegant--of simplicity with elevation--of spirit with
+sweetness.
+
+She gave vent to a cry of gladness as I entered, rose, and stretching
+out her hands in welcome, drew a seat for me close to her.  I looked at
+her standing before me in her warm, breathing, human loveliness.
+
+"You are better, Yolande?  Ah! how glad I am!"  I commenced.  "Last
+night I believed that you were dead."
+
+"And if I had died would it really have mattered so very much to you?"
+she asked in a low, intense voice.  "You have forgotten me for three
+whole years until now."
+
+"I know--I know!"  I cried.  "Forgive me."
+
+"I have already forgiven," she said, allowing her hand still to remain
+in mine.  "But I have been thinking to-day--thinking ever so much."
+
+Her voice was weak and faltering, and I saw that she was not herself.
+
+"Thinking of what?"
+
+"Of you.  I have been wondering whether, if I had died, you would have
+sometimes remembered me?"
+
+"Remembered you?"  I said earnestly.  "Why, of course, dearest.  Why do
+you speak in such a melancholy tone?"
+
+"Because--well, because I am unhappy, Gerald!" she cried, bursting into
+sudden tears.  "Ah! you do not know how I suffer--you can never know!"
+
+I bent and stroked her hair, that beautiful red-gold hair that I had so
+often heard admired in the great salons in Brussels.  It had been bound
+but lightly by her maid, and was secured by a blue ribbon.  She had
+apologised for receiving me thus, but declared that her head ached, and
+it was easier so.  Doctor Deane had called twice that morning, and had
+pronounced her entirely out of danger.
+
+"But why are you suffering?"  I asked, caressing her and striving to
+charm away her tears.  "Cannot you confide in me?"
+
+She shook her head in despair, and her body was shaken by a convulsive
+sob.
+
+"Surely there is confidence between us?"  I urged.  "Do you not remember
+that day long ago when we walked one evening in the sunset hand-in-hand,
+as was our wont, along the river-path towards La Roche?  Do you not
+remember how you told me that in future you would have no single secret
+from me?"
+
+"Yes," she answered hoarsely, with an effort, "I recollect."
+
+"Then you intend to break your promise to me?"  I whispered earnestly.
+"Surely you will not do this, Yolande?  You will not hide from me the
+cause of all this bitterness of yours?"  She was silent.  Her breast,
+beneath its lace, rose quickly and fell again.  Her tear-filled eyes
+were fixed upon the carpet.
+
+"I would not break my promise," she said at last, clasping my hand
+convulsively and lifting her eyes to mine; "but, alas! it is now
+imperative."
+
+"Why imperative?"
+
+"I must suffer alone," she responded gloomily, shaking her head.  Her
+countenance was as pale as her gown, and she shivered as though she were
+cold, although the noonday heat was suffocating.
+
+"Because you refuse to tell me anything or allow me to assist you?"  I
+said.  "This is not in accordance with the promise made and sealed by
+your lips on that evening long ago."
+
+"Nor have your actions been in accordance with your own promise," she
+said slowly and distinctly.
+
+"To what do you refer?"
+
+"You told me that you loved me, Gerald," she said in a deep voice,
+suddenly grown calm.  "You swore by all you held most sacred that I was
+all the world to you, and that no one should come between us.  Yet past
+events have shown that you have forgotten those words of yours on the
+day when we idled in the Bois beneath the trees.  You, too, remember
+that day, do you not--the day when our lips met for the first time, and
+we both believed our path would in future be strewn with flowers?  Ah!"
+she sighed, "and what an awakening life has been to me since then!"
+
+"We parted because of your refusal to satisfy me as to the real state of
+your feelings towards the man who was my enemy," I said rather warmly.
+
+"But was it justifiable?" she asked in a tone of deep reproach and
+mingled sweetness.  Her blue eyes looked full upon me--those eyes that
+had held me in such fascination in the golden days of youth.  "Has any
+single fact which you have since discovered verified your suspicions?
+Tell me truthfully;" and she leaned towards me in an attitude of deepest
+earnestness.
+
+"No," I answered honestly, "I cannot say that my suspicions have ever
+been verified."
+
+"And because of that you have returned to me when it is too late."
+
+"Too late!"  I cried.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Exactly what I have said.  You have come back to me when it is too
+late."
+
+"You speak in enigmas, Yolande.  Why not be more explicit?"
+
+Her pale lips trembled, her eyes were brimming with tears, her chilly
+hand quivered in mine.  She did not speak for some moments, but at last
+said in a low, tremulous voice half choked by emotion:
+
+"Once you loved me, Gerald,--of that I feel confident; and I
+reciprocated your affection, God knows!  Our love was, perhaps, curious,
+inasmuch as you were English and I was of a different creed and held
+different ideas from those which you considered right.  It is always the
+same with a man and woman of different nationality--there must be a
+give-and-take principle between them.  Between us, however, there was
+perfect confidence until, by a strange combination of circumstances--by
+a stroke of the sword of Fate--that incident occurred which led to our
+estrangement."
+
+She paused, her blanched lips shut tight.  "Well?"  I asked, "I am all
+attention.  Why is it too late now for me to make reparation for the
+past?"
+
+I loved her with all my soul.  I was heedless of those words of the old
+Baronne, of Anderson's suspicions, and Kaye's denunciation.  Even if she
+were a spy, I adored her.  The fire of that old love had swept upon me,
+and I could not hold back, even though her touch might be as that of a
+leper and her lips venomous.
+
+"Reparation is impossible," she answered hoarsely.  "Is not that
+sufficient?"
+
+"No, it is not sufficient," I answered clearly.  "I will not be put off
+by such an answer."
+
+"It were better," she cried--"better that I had died yesterday than
+suffer like this.  You rescued me from death only to torture me."
+
+Her words aroused within me a distinct suspicion that her strange
+illness had been brought to pass because, using some mysterious means,
+she had made an attempt against her own life.  I believed that she had
+suffered, and was still suffering, from the effects of some poison, the
+exact nature of which neither Deane nor Trepard could as yet determine.
+
+"I do not seek to torture you, dearest," I protested.  "Far from it.  I
+merely want to know the truth, in order that I may share your
+unhappiness, as your betrothed ought to do."
+
+"But you are not my betrothed."
+
+"I was once."
+
+"But not now.  You taunt me with breaking that promise which I made
+three years ago, yet you yourself it was who played me false--who left
+me for your prim, strait-laced English miss!"
+
+In an instant the truth was plain.  She was aware that I had transferred
+my affections to Edith!  Someone had told her--no doubt with a good many
+embellishments, or perhaps some scandalous story.  In the salons through
+which we of the diplomatic circle are compelled to move, women's tongues
+are ever at work match-making and mischief-making.  On the Continent
+love and politics run always hand-in-hand.  That is the reason why the
+most notorious of the demi-monde in Paris, in Vienna, and in Berlin are
+the secret agents of their respective Governments; and many are the
+honest men innocently denounced through jealousy and kindred causes.  A
+false declaration of one or other of these unscrupulous spies has before
+now caused the downfall of a Ministry or the disgrace of a noble and
+patriotic politician.
+
+"I know to whom you refer," I said, with bowed head, after a moment's
+pause.  "It is currently reported that I love her.  I have loved her.  I
+do not seek to deny it.  When a man sustains such a blow as I sustained
+before we parted, he often rushes to another woman for consolation.  The
+influence of that second woman often prevents him from going to the bad
+altogether.  It has been so in my case."
+
+"And you love her now?" she cried, the fire of fierce jealousy in her
+eyes.  "You cannot deny it!"
+
+"I do deny it," I cried.  "True, until yesterday I held her in esteem,
+even in affection; but it is not so now.  All my love for you, Yolande,
+has returned to me.  Our parting has rendered you dearer and sweeter to
+me than ever."
+
+"I cannot believe it," she exclaimed falteringly.
+
+"I swear that it is so.  In all my life, although am compelled to treat
+women with courtesy and sometimes to affect flirtation, because of my
+profession as a diplomatist, I have loved only one woman--yourself;" and
+I raised her chilly hand to my lips, kissing it fervently.
+
+Mine was no mere caprice at that moment.  With an all-consuming passion
+I loved her, and was prepared on her account to make any sacrifice she
+demanded.  Let the reader remember what had already been told me, and
+reflect that, like many another man, I loved madly, and was heedless of
+any consequences that might follow.  In this particular I was not alone.
+Thousands before me had been allured to their ruin by a woman's eyes,
+just as thousands of brave women's hearts have been broken and their
+lives wrecked by men's false oaths of fidelity.  I have heard wiseacres
+say that the woman only suffers in such cases; the man never.  Whether
+that rule proves always true will be shown in this strange story of my
+own love.
+
+She drew her hand away slowly, but forcibly, saying:
+
+"You cannot love two women.  Already you have shown a preference for a
+wife of your own people."
+
+"It is all over between us," I protested.  "Mine was a mere passing
+fancy, engendered, I think, by the loneliness I suffered when I lost
+you."
+
+"Ah," (she smiled sadly), "that is all very well!  A woman, when once
+played false by the man she loves and trusts, is never the
+same--_never_!"
+
+"Then am I to understand, Yolande, that you refuse to pardon me, or to
+accept my affection?"
+
+"I have already pardoned you," she faltered; "but to accept the love you
+once withdrew from me without just reason is, I regret to say,
+impossible."
+
+"You speak coldly, as though you were refusing a mere invitation to
+dinner, or something of no greater importance," I protested.  "I offer
+you my whole heart, my love--nay, my life;" and I held her hand again,
+looking straight into those wonderful eyes, now so calm, so serious,
+that my gaze wavered before them.
+
+Slowly she shook her head, and her trembling breast rose and fell again.
+
+"Ours was a foolish infatuation," she answered with an effort.  "It is
+best that we should both of us forget."
+
+"Forget!"  I cried.  "But I can never forget you, Yolande.  You are my
+love.  You are all the world to me."
+
+Her eyes were grave, and I saw that tears stood in them.
+
+"No," she protested quietly; "do not say that.  I cannot be any more to
+you than other women whom you meet daily.  Besides, I know well that in
+the diplomatic service marriage is a serious drawback to any save an
+ambassador."
+
+"When a man is in love as I am with you, dearest, he throws all thoughts
+of his career to the winds; personal interests are naught where true
+love is concerned."
+
+"You must not--nay, you shall not--wreck your future on my account," she
+declared in a low, intense voice.  "It is not just either to yourself or
+to the Englishwoman who loves you."
+
+"Why do you taunt me with that, Yolande?"  I asked reproachfully.  "I do
+not love her.  I have never truly loved her.  I was lonely after you had
+gone out of my life, and she was amusing,--that was all."
+
+"And now you find me equally amusing--eh?" she remarked, with just a
+touch of bitter sarcasm.
+
+"Why should you be jealous of her?"  I asked.  "You might just as well
+be jealous of Sibyl, Lord Barmouth's daughter."
+
+"With the latter you are certainly on terms of most intimate
+friendship," she answered with a smile.  "I really wonder that I did not
+object to her in the days long ago."
+
+"Ah!"  I laughed, "you certainly had no cause.  It is true that we have
+been good friends ever since the day when she arrived home from the
+convent-school at Bruges, a prim young miss with her hair tied up with
+ribbon.  Thrown constantly together, as we were, I became her male
+confidant and intimate friend; hence my licence to give her counsel in
+many matters and sometimes to criticise those actions of which I don't
+approve."
+
+"Then if that is so, you care a little for her--just a little?  Now
+admit it."
+
+"I don't admit anything of the kind," I answered frankly.  "For five
+years we have been constantly together; and times without number, at
+Lady Barmouth's request, I have acted as her escort here and there,
+until she looks upon me as a kind of necessary appendage who has a right
+to chaff her about her flirtations and annoy her by judicious sarcasm.
+I don't entertain one single spark of love for her.  In brief, she has
+developed into an essentially smart girl, in the true sense of the word,
+and by reason of our constant companionship knows that to attempt a
+flirtation with me would result in a most dismal failure.  I accused her
+once, not long ago, of having designs upon my heart, whereupon she
+replied that to accomplish such a thing would be about as easy as to win
+the affection of the bronze Neptune in the garden-fountain of the
+Embassy."
+
+
+"You have been seen together a great deal of late?"
+
+"Who told you so?"
+
+"A friend who knows you both."  Then she added: "From my information I
+hear that last season you danced so much with her and were so constantly
+at her side that people were talking of a match between you."
+
+"Ridiculous!"  I exclaimed.  "Of course gossips are always too ready to
+jump to ill-formed conclusions.  As one of the staff of the Embassy, and
+her most intimate male friend, it was only courtesy to take her beneath
+my care.  When she had no other partner and wanted to dance, then she
+sometimes asked me.  I think she did it to annoy me, for she knew that I
+was never fond of dancing."
+
+"Do you remember the Countess of Flanders' balls at Brussels--how we
+danced together?" she remarked.
+
+"Remember them!"  I echoed.  "They were in the golden days when
+everything seemed to our eyes couleur de rose--the days when our love
+was perfect."
+
+She sighed again, but no word escaped her.  She was, I knew, reflecting
+upon those blissful days and nights when we met here and there at all
+hours and at all the best houses in Brussels, dining, lunching, dancing,
+and gossiping--together always.
+
+"Will you not resolve to forget the past, Yolande?"  I asked fervently,
+taking her hand in mine again.  "Come, tell me that you will--that you
+will not hold me aloof like this?  I cannot bear it--indeed I can't, for
+I love you;" and I bent until my lips touched her finger-tips.
+
+"I cannot!" she cried at last, with an effort rising and firmly
+withdrawing her hand from my grasp.
+
+"You cannot?  Why?"  I demanded, taken somewhat aback by her sudden
+attitude of determination.
+
+"I will not allow you to ruin yourself, Gerald, on my account," she
+declared in a very low but calm voice.
+
+"But why should my love for you prove my ruin?"  I cried madly.  "The
+truth is that you do not love me.  Why not admit it at once?"
+
+"You are in error," she hastened to protest.  "I do love you.  I love
+you to-day with the same fond affection as I entertained for you until
+that day--fatal to me--when you turned your back upon me and left me.
+But, alas! we can never now be the same to one another as we were then."
+She paused for a moment to regain breath; then, pale-faced, with eyes
+filled with tears, she gripped my arm frantically, crying: "Gerald, my
+love, hear me!  These are my last words, but I pronounce them--I make
+confession--so that you may understand the barrier that now lies between
+us."
+
+"Well," I said, "speak--tell me!"
+
+"Ah!" she cried hoarsely, covering her face with her hands, "you wring
+this confession from me.  I am the most unhappy girl in all the world.
+Would that I were dead that it was all ended!  If I did not love you,
+Gerald, I should deceive you, and leave you to discover the truth after
+our marriage.  But I cannot--I cannot!  Even though we shall part to-day
+for ever, I have resolved to be frank with you because I still have one
+single spark of honesty left within my heart!"
+
+"I don't understand," I exclaimed.  "Tell me."
+
+"Then listen," she said in a hard, unnatural voice, after a few moments
+of hesitation.  "When we were lovers in the old days I was, as you know,
+a pure, honest, upright woman, with thoughts only for my God and for
+yourself.  But I am that no longer.  I am unworthy your love, Gerald.  I
+am unfit to be your wife, and can never be--never!" and she threw
+herself upon the couch near by and burst into a flood of tears, while I
+stood there rigid as a statue.
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+DEANE SPEAKS HIS MIND.
+
+An hour later I was seated in my room at the Embassy staring blankly at
+the blotting-pad before me, utterly perplexed and bewildered.  I loved
+Yolande--nay, she was my idol; nevertheless she had firmly refused to
+allow me to resume my place at her side.  At one moment it seemed to me
+as though she had actually made a sacrifice for my sake; yet at another
+I could not help regarding both her and her mother with distinct
+suspicion.  My love's strange words were in themselves a sufficient
+self-condemnation.  Her service as a political agent had been secured by
+one or other of the Powers--France, I suspected; and, to put it plainly,
+she was a spy!
+
+This knowledge had come upon me like a thunderbolt.  Of all the women I
+had known and least suspected of endeavouring to learn the secrets of
+our diplomacy, Yolande was certainly the chief.  The events which had
+culminated in her accepting this odious office were veiled in mystery.
+Why had she done this?  Who had tempted her or forced her to it?
+
+Those tears of hers, when she had made confession, were the tears of a
+woman in the depths of despair and degradation, and I, loving her so
+fondly, could not but allow my heart to go forth in sympathy.  There was
+an affinity between us that I knew might some day prove fatal.
+
+But we had parted.  She had announced her intention of leaving Paris,
+accompanied by her mother, on the morrow, and had begged and implored
+that I would never seek her again.
+
+"I shall take care to evade you," she had said.  "To-day we meet for the
+last time.  We must each go our own way and strive our hardest to
+forget."
+
+Ah! to forget would, I knew, be impossible.  When a man has loved as
+ardently and intensely as I loved Yolande, memories cling to him and are
+carried to the grave.  You, reader, have loved in those half-forgotten
+days of long ago, and even now, with age creeping on, and, perchance,
+with grey hairs showing, sometimes give a passing thought to that fair
+one who in youth's golden days was your all in all.  The sound of a
+song, the momentary perfume from a woman's chiffons as she passes, the
+sight of some long-forgotten scene, stirs the memory and recalls those
+hours of love and laziness when the world was so very pleasant and
+seemed to have been made for you alone.  You recollect her sweet smile,
+her calm, womanly influence, her full red lips, and the fervency of her
+kisses.  The tender memory to-day is sweet, even though it be tinged
+with bitterness, for you wonder whom she has married, and how she has
+fared; you wonder, too, if you will ever meet again, or whether she is
+already dead.  The most charming reflection permitted to man is the
+memory of a half-forgotten love.
+
+I had been a fool.  This bitter truth was forced upon me as I sat there
+ruminating.  I had cast aside that patience and discretion which I, as a
+diplomatist, had carefully cultivated, and had actually contemplated
+marriage with a woman who had been denounced by Kaye as a secret agent.
+My own peril had been a grave one indeed, and as I reflected I began to
+wonder how it was that I should have so completely lost my self-control.
+Having arrived in the vicinity of the post, he prowled out on foot with
+his only friend. It was early, for he must do his deed while yet the
+lights were lit. Any one moving about after "taps" would surely be
+investigated by the guard. The country was not yet tranquil enough to
+permit of laxity in the matter of sentry duty, and the soldiers counted
+"ten" very fast after they challenged. He had laid aside his big hat,
+and was wrapped in his blanket. Many Indians were about, and he was less
+apt to be spoken to or noticed. He moved forward to the scout fire,
+which was outside of the guard-line, and stood for a time in some
+brushwood, beyond the play of the flames. He was closely enveloped in
+his blanket, and although Indians passed quite near him, he was not
+noticed. Suddenly he heard a detail of wagons clanking up the road, and
+conjectured rightly that they would go into the post. He ran silently
+toward them, and stooping low, saw against the skyline that the cavalry
+guard had worked up in front, impatient to shave the time when they
+should reach their quarters.
+
+It was a wood train, and it clanked and ground and jingled to the
+quartermaster's corral, bearing one log on the last wagon which was John
+Ermine and his fortunes. This log slid to the ground and walked swiftly
+away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The time for "taps" was drawing near, and the post buzzed in the usual
+expectation of that approaching time of quiet. A rifle-shot rang loud
+and clear up on the officers' row; it was near Major Searles's house,
+every one said as they ran. Women screamed, and Tongue River cantonment
+laid its legs to the ground as it gathered to the place. Officers came
+with revolvers, and the guard with lanterns. Mrs. Searles and her
+daughter were clasped in each other's arms, while Mary, the cook, put
+her apron over her head. Searles ran out with his gun; the shot had been
+right under the window of his sitting-room. An Indian voice greeted
+him, "Don' shoot; me killi him."
+
+"Who in h---- are you?" swore Searles, at a present.
+
+"Don' shoot, me Ahhæta--all same Sharp-Nose--don' shoot--me killi him."
+
+"Killi who? Who have you killed? Talk up quick!"
+
+"Me killi him. You come--you see."
+
+By this time the crowd drew in with questions and eager to help. A
+sergeant arrived with a lantern, and the guard laid rude hands on the
+Crow scout, Sharp-Nose, who was well known. He was standing over the
+prostrate figure, and continued to reiterate, "Me killi him."
+
+The lantern quickly disclosed the man on the ground to be John Ermine,
+late scout and fugitive from justice, shot through the heart and dead,
+with his blanket and rifle on the ground beside him. As he looked
+through the window, he had been stalked and killed by the fool whom he
+would not allow to shake hands with Katherine Searles, and a few moments
+later, when Sharp-Nose was brought into her presence, between two
+soldiers, she recognized him when he said, "Mabeso, now you shake
+hands."
+
+"Yes, I will shake hands with you, Sharp-Nose," and half to herself, as
+she eyed her malevolent friend, she muttered, "and he kept you to
+remember me by."
+
+
+
+
+     The following pages are advertisements of
+
+     THE MACMILLAN STANDARD LIBRARY
+
+     THE MACMILLAN FICTION LIBRARY
+
+     THE MACMILLAN JUVENILE LIBRARY
+
+
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN STANDARD LIBRARY
+
+
+This series has taken its place as one of the most important
+popular-priced editions. The "Library" includes only those books which
+have been put to the test of public opinion and have not been found
+wanting,--books, in other words, which have come to be regarded as
+standards in the fields of knowledge--literature, religion, biography,
+history, politics, art, economics, sports, sociology, and belles
+lettres. Together they make the most complete and authoritative works on
+the several subjects.
+
+=_Each volume, cloth, 12mo, 50 cents net; postage, 10 cents extra_=
+
+
+=Addams--The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets=
+
+BY JANE ADDAMS
+
+"Shows such sanity, such breadth and tolerance of mind, and such
+penetration into the inner meanings of outward phenomena as to make it a
+book which no one can afford to miss."--_New York Times._
+
+=Bailey--The Country Life Movement in the United States=
+
+BY L. H. BAILEY
+
+"... clearly thought out, admirably written, and always stimulating in
+its generalization and in the perspectives it opens."--_Philadelphia
+Press._
+
+=Bailey and Hunn--The Practical Garden Book=
+
+BY L. H. BAILEY AND C. E. HUNN
+
+"Presents only those facts that have been proved by experience, and
+which are most capable of application on the farm."--_Los Angeles
+Express._
+
+=Campbell--The New Theology=
+
+BY R. J. CAMPBELL
+
+"A fine contribution to the better thought of our times written in the
+spirit of the Master."--_St. Paul Dispatch._
+
+=Clark--The Care of a House=
+
+BY T. M. CLARK
+
+"If the average man knew one-ninth of what Mr. Clark tells him in this
+book, he would be able to save money every year on repairs,
+etc."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+=Conyngton--How to Help: A Manual of Practical Charity=
+
+BY MARY CONYNGTON
+
+"An exceedingly comprehensive work with chapters on the homeless man and
+woman, care of needy families, and the discussions of the problems of
+child labor."
+
+=Coolidge--The United States as a World Power=
+
+BY ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDGE
+
+"A work of real distinction ... which moves the reader to
+thought."--_The Nation._
+
+=Croly--The Promise of American Life=
+
+BY HERBERT CROLY
+
+"The most profound and illuminating study of our national conditions
+which has appeared in many years."--THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+=Devine--Misery and Its Causes=
+
+BY EDWARD T. DEVINE
+
+"One rarely comes across a book so rich in every page, yet so sound, so
+logical, and thorough."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+=Earle--Home Life in Colonial Days=
+
+BY ALICE MORSE EARLE
+
+"A book which throws new light on our early history."
+
+=Ely--Evolution of Industrial Society=
+
+BY RICHARD T. ELY
+
+"The benefit of competition and the improvement of the race, municipal
+ownership, and concentration of wealth are treated in a sane, helpful,
+and interesting manner."--_Philadelphia Telegraph._
+
+=Ely--Monopolies and Trusts=
+
+BY RICHARD T. ELY
+
+"The evils of monopoly are plainly stated, and remedies are proposed.
+This book should be a help to every man in active business
+life."--_Baltimore Sun._
+
+=French--How to Grow Vegetables=
+
+BY ALLEN FRENCH
+
+"Particularly valuable to a beginner in vegetable gardening, giving not
+only a convenient and reliable planting-table, but giving particular
+attention to the culture of the vegetables."--_Suburban Life._
+
+=Goodyear--Renaissance and Modern Art=
+
+W. H. GOODYEAR
+
+"A thorough and scholarly interpretation of artistic development."
+
+=Hapgood--Abraham Lincoln: The Man of the People=
+
+BY NORMAN HAPGOOD
+
+"A life of Lincoln that has never been surpassed in vividness,
+compactness, and homelike reality."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+=Haultain--The Mystery of Golf=
+
+BY ARNOLD HAULTAIN
+
+"It is more than a golf book. There is interwoven with it a play of mild
+philosophy and of pointed wit."--_Boston Globe._
+
+=Hearn--Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation=
+
+BY LAFCADIO HEARN
+
+"A thousand books have been written about Japan, but this one is one of
+the rarely precious volumes which opens the door to an intimate
+acquaintance with the wonderful people who command the attention of the
+world to-day."--_Boston Herald._
+
+=Hillis--The Quest of Happiness=
+
+BY REV. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS
+
+"Its whole tone and spirit is of a sane, healthy
+optimism."--_Philadelphia Telegraph._
+
+=Hillquit--Socialism in Theory and Practice=
+
+BY MORRIS HILLQUIT
+
+"An interesting historical sketch of the movement."--_Newark Evening
+News._
+
+=Hodges--Everyman's Religion=
+
+BY GEORGE HODGES
+
+"Religion to-day is preëminently ethical and social, and such is the
+religion so ably and attractively set forth in these pages."--_Boston
+Herald._
+
+=Horne--David Livingstone=
+
+BY SILVESTER C. HORNE
+
+The centenary edition of this popular work. A clear, simple, narrative
+biography of the great missionary, explorer, and scientist.
+
+=Hunter--Poverty=
+
+BY ROBERT HUNTER
+
+"Mr. Hunter's book is at once sympathetic and scientific. He brings to
+the task a store of practical experience in settlement work gathered in
+many parts of the country."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+=Hunter--Socialists at Work=
+
+BY ROBERT HUNTER
+
+"A vivid, running characterization of the foremost personalities in the
+Socialist movement throughout the world."--_Review of Reviews._
+
+=Jefferson--The Building of the Church=
+
+BY CHARLES E. JEFFERSON
+
+"A book that should be read by every minister."
+
+=King--The Ethics of Jesus=
+
+BY HENRY CHURCHILL KING
+
+"I know no other study of the ethical teaching of Jesus so scholarly, so
+careful, clear and compact as this."--G. H. PALMER, Harvard University.
+
+=King--Rational Living=
+
+BY HENRY CHURCHILL KING
+
+"An able conspectus of modern psychological investigation, viewed from
+the Christian standpoint."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger._
+
+=London--The War of the Classes=
+
+BY JACK LONDON
+
+"Mr. London's book is thoroughly interesting, and his point of view is
+very different from that of the closest theorist."--_Springfield
+Republican._
+
+=London--Revolution and Other Essays=
+
+BY JACK LONDON
+
+"Vigorous, socialistic essays, animating and insistent."
+
+=Lyon--How to Keep Bees for Profit=
+
+BY EVERETT D. LYON
+
+"A book which gives an insight into the life history of the bee family,
+as well as telling the novice how to start an apiary and care for
+it."--_Country Life in America._
+
+=McLennan--A Manual of Practical Farming=
+
+BY JOHN MCLENNAN
+
+"The author has placed before the reader in the simplest terms a means
+of assistance in the ordinary problems of farming."--_National
+Nurseryman._
+
+=Mabie--William Shakespeare: Poet, Dramatist, and Man=
+
+BY HAMILTON W. MABIE
+
+"It is rather an interpretation than a record."--_Chicago Standard._
+
+=Mahaffy--Rambles and Studies in Greece=
+
+BY J. P. MAHAFFY
+
+"To the intelligent traveler and lover of Greece this volume will prove
+a most sympathetic guide and companion."
+
+=Mathews--The Church and the Changing Order=
+
+BY SHAILER MATHEWS
+
+"The book throughout is characterized by good sense and restraint.... A
+notable book and one that every Christian may read with profit."--_The
+Living Church._
+
+=Mathews--The Gospel and the Modern Man=
+
+BY SHAILER MATHEWS
+
+"A succinct statement of the essentials of the New
+Testament."--_Service._
+
+=Patten--The Social Basis of Religion=
+
+BY SIMON N. PATTEN
+
+"A work of substantial value."--_Continent._
+
+=Peabody--The Approach to the Social Question=
+
+BY FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY
+
+"This book is at once the most delightful, persuasive, and sagacious
+contribution to the subject."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
+
+=Pierce--The Tariff and the Trusts=
+
+BY FRANKLIN PIERCE
+
+"An excellent campaign document for a
+non-protectionist."--_Independent._
+
+=Rauschenbusch--Christianity and the Social Crisis=
+
+BY WALTER RAUSCHENBUSCH
+
+"It is a book to like, to learn from, and to be charmed with."--_New
+York Times._
+
+=Riis--The Making of an American=
+
+BY JACOB RIIS
+
+"Its romance and vivid incident make it as varied and delightful as any
+romance."--_Publisher's Weekly._
+
+=Riis--Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen=
+
+BY JACOB RIIS
+
+"A refreshing and stimulating picture."--_New York Tribune._
+
+=Ryan--A Living Wage; Its Ethical and Economic Aspects=
+
+BY REV. J. A. RYAN
+
+"The most judicious and balanced discussion at the disposal of the
+general reader."--_World To-day._
+
+=St. Maur--A Self-supporting Home=
+
+BY KATE V. ST. MAUR
+
+"Each chapter is the detailed account of all the work necessary for one
+month--in the vegetable garden, among the small fruits, with the fowls,
+guineas, rabbits, and in every branch of husbandry to be met with on the
+small farm."--_Louisville Courier-Journal._
+
+=Sherman--What is Shakespeare?=
+
+BY L. A. SHERMAN
+
+"Emphatically a work without which the library of the Shakespeare
+student will be incomplete."--_Daily Telegram._
+
+=Sidgwick--Home Life in Germany=
+
+BY A. SIDGWICK
+
+"A vivid picture of social life and customs in Germany to-day."
+
+=Smith--The Spirit of American Government=
+
+BY J. ALLEN SMITH
+
+"Not since Bryce's 'American Commonwealth' has a book been produced
+which deals so searchingly with American political institutions and
+their history."--_New York Evening Telegram._
+
+=Spargo--Socialism=
+
+BY JOHN SPARGO
+
+"One of the ablest expositions of Socialism that has ever been
+written."--_New York Evening Call._
+
+=Tarbell--History of Greek Art=
+
+BY T. B. TARBELL
+
+"A sympathetic and understanding conception of the golden age of art."
+
+=Valentine--How to Keep Hens for Profit=
+
+BY C. S. VALENTINE
+
+"Beginners and seasoned poultrymen will find in it much of
+value."--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+=Van Dyke--The Gospel for a World of Sin=
+
+BY HENRY VAN DYKE
+
+"One of the basic books of true Christian thought of to-day and of all
+times."--_Boston Courier._
+
+=Van Dyke--The Spirit of America=
+
+BY HENRY VAN DYKE
+
+"Undoubtedly the most notable interpretation in years of the
+real America. It compares favorably with Bryce's 'American
+Commonwealth.'"--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+=Veblen--The Theory of the Leisure Class=
+
+BY THORSTEIN B. VEBLEN
+
+"The most valuable recent contribution to the elucidation of this
+subject."--_London Times._
+
+=Wells--New Worlds for Old=
+
+BY H. G. WELLS
+
+"As a presentation of Socialistic thought as it is working to-day, this
+is the most judicious and balanced discussion at the disposal of the
+general reader."--_World To-day._
+
+=White--The Old Order Changeth=
+
+BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
+
+"The present status of society in America. An excellent antidote to the
+pessimism of modern writers on our social system."--_Baltimore Sun._
+
+
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN FICTION LIBRARY
+
+
+A new and important series of some of the best popular novels which have
+been published in recent years.
+
+These successful books are now made available at a popular price in
+response to the insistent demand for cheaper editions.
+
+=_Each volume, cloth, 12mo, 50 cents net; postage, 10 cents extra_=
+
+
+=Allen--A Kentucky Cardinal=
+
+BY JAMES LANE ALLEN
+
+"A narrative, told with naïve simplicity, of how a man who was devoted
+to his fruits and flowers and birds came to fall in love with a fair
+neighbor."--_New York Tribune._
+
+=Allen--The Reign of Law=      =_A Tale of the Kentucky Hempfields_=
+
+BY JAMES LANE ALLEN
+
+"Mr. Allen has style as original and almost as perfectly finished as
+Hawthorne's.... And rich in the qualities that are lacking in so many
+novels of the period."--_San Francisco Chronicle._
+
+=Atherton--Patience Sparhawk=
+
+BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON
+
+"One of the most interesting works of the foremost American novelist."
+
+=Child--Jim Hands=
+
+BY RICHARD WASHBURN CHILD
+
+"A big, simple, leisurely moving chronicle of life. Commands the
+profoundest respect and admiration. Jim is a real man, sound and
+fine."--_Daily News._
+
+=Crawford--The Heart of Rome=
+
+BY MARION CRAWFORD
+
+"A story of underground mysterie."
+
+=Crawford--Fair Margaret: A Portrait=
+
+BY MARION CRAWFORD
+
+"A story of modern life in Italy, visualizing the country and its
+people, and warm with the red blood of romance and melodrama."--_Boston
+Transcript._
+
+=Davis--A Friend of Cæsar=
+
+BY WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS
+
+"There are many incidents so vivid, so brilliant, that they fix
+themselves in the memory."--NANCY HUSTON BANKS in _The Bookman_.
+
+=Drummond--The Justice of the King=
+
+BY HAMILTON DRUMMOND
+
+"Read the story for the sake of the living, breathing people, the
+adventures, but most for the sake of the boy who served love and the
+King."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+=Elizabeth and Her German Garden=
+
+"It is full of nature in many phases--of breeze and sunshine, of the
+glory of the land, and the sheer joy of living."--_New York Times._
+
+=Gale--Loves of Pelleas and Etarre=
+
+BY ZONA GALE
+
+"... full of fresh feeling and grace of style, a draught from the
+fountain of youth."--_Outlook._
+
+=Herrick--The Common Lot=
+
+BY ROBERT HERRICK
+
+"A story of present-day life, intensely real in its picture of a young
+architect whose ideals in the beginning were, at their highest, æsthetic
+rather than spiritual. It is an unusual novel of great interest."
+
+=London--Adventure=
+
+BY JACK LONDON
+
+"No reader of Jack London's stories need be told that this abounds with
+romantic and dramatic incident."--_Los Angeles Tribune._
+
+=London--Burning Daylight=
+
+BY JACK LONDON
+
+"Jack London has outdone himself in 'Burning Daylight.'"--_The
+Springfield Union._
+
+=Loti--Disenchanted=
+
+BY PIERRE LOTI
+
+"It gives a more graphic picture of the life of the rich Turkish women
+of to-day than anything that has ever been written."--_Brooklyn Daily
+Eagle._
+
+=Lucas--Mr. Ingleside=
+
+BY E. V. LUCAS
+
+"He displays himself as an intellectual and amusing observer of life's
+foibles with a hero characterized by inimitable kindness and
+humor."--_The Independent._
+
+=Mason--The Four Feathers=
+
+BY A. E. W. MASON
+
+"'The Four Feathers' is a first-rate story, with more legitimate thrills
+than any novel we have read in a long time."--_New York Press._
+
+=Norris--Mother=
+
+BY KATHLEEN NORRIS
+
+"Worth its weight in gold."--_Catholic Columbian._
+
+=Oxenham--The Long Road=
+
+BY JOHN OXENHAM
+
+"'The Long Road' is a tragic, heart-gripping story of Russian political
+and social conditions."--_The Craftsman._
+
+=Pryor--The Colonel's Story=
+
+BY MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR
+
+"The story is one in which the spirit of the Old South figures largely;
+adventure and romance have their play and carry the plot to a satisfying
+end."
+
+=Remington--Ermine of the Yellowstone=
+
+BY FREDERIC REMINGTON
+
+"A very original and remarkable novel wonderful in its vigor and
+freshness."
+
+=Roberts--Kings in Exile=
+
+BY CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
+
+"The author catches the spirit of forest and sea life, and the reader
+comes to have a personal love and knowledge of our animal
+friends."--_Boston Globe._
+
+=Robins--The Convert=
+
+BY ELIZABETH ROBINS
+
+"'The Convert' devotes itself to the exploitation of the recent
+suffragist movement in England. It is a book not easily forgotten, by
+any thoughtful reader."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+=Robins--A Dark Lantern=
+
+BY ELIZABETH ROBINS
+
+A powerful and striking novel, English in scene, which takes an
+essentially modern view of society and of certain dramatic situations.
+
+=Ward--David Grieve=
+
+BY MRS. HUMPHREY WARD
+
+"A perfect picture of life, remarkable for its humor and extraordinary
+success at character analysis."
+
+=Wells--The Wheels of Chance=
+
+BY H. G. WELLS
+
+"Mr. Wells is beyond question the most plausible romancer of the
+time."--_The New York Tribune._
+
+
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN JUVENILE LIBRARY
+
+
+This collection of juvenile books contains works of standard quality, on
+a variety of subjects--history, biography, fiction, science, and
+poetry--carefully chosen to meet the needs and interests of both boys
+and girls.
+
+=_Each volume, cloth, 12mo, 50 cents net; postage, 10 cents extra_=
+
+
+=Altsheler--The Horsemen of the Plains=
+
+BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
+
+"A story of the West, of Indians, of scouts, trappers, fur traders, and,
+in short, of everything that is dear to the imagination of a healthy
+American boy."--_New York Sun._
+
+=Bacon--While Caroline Was Growing=
+
+BY JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON
+
+"Only a genuine lover of children, and a keenly sympathetic observer of
+human nature, could have given us a book as this."--_Boston Herald._
+
+=Carroll--Alice's Adventures, and Through the Looking Glass=
+
+BY LEWIS CARROLL
+
+"One of the immortal books for children."
+
+=Dix--A Little Captive Lad=
+
+BY MARIE BEULAH DIX
+
+"The human interest is strong, and children are sure to like
+it."--_Washington Times._
+
+=Greene--Pickett's Gap=
+
+BY HOMER GREENE
+
+"The story presents a picture of truth and honor that cannot fail to
+have a vivid impression upon the reader."--_Toledo Blade._
+
+=Lucas--Slowcoach=
+
+BY E. V. LUCAS
+
+"The record of an English family's coaching tour in a great
+old-fashioned wagon. A charming narrative, as quaint and original as its
+name."--_Booknews Monthly._
+
+=Mabie--Book of Christmas=
+
+BY H. W. MABIE
+
+"A beautiful collection of Christmas verse and prose in which all the
+old favorites will be found in an artistic setting."--_The St. Louis
+Mirror._
+
+=Major--The Bears of Blue River=
+
+BY CHARLES MAJOR
+
+"An exciting story with all the thrills the title implies."
+
+=Major--Uncle Tom Andy Bill=
+
+BY CHARLES MAJOR
+
+"A stirring story full of bears, Indians, and hidden
+treasures."--_Cleveland Leader._
+
+=Nesbit--The Railway Children=
+
+BY E. NESBIT
+
+"A delightful story revealing the author's intimate knowledge of
+juvenile ways."--_The Nation._
+
+=Whyte--The Story Book Girls=
+
+BY CHRISTINA G. WHYTE
+
+"A book that all girls will read with delight--a sweet, wholesome story
+of girl life."
+
+=Wright--Dream Fox Story Book=
+
+BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT
+
+"The whole book is delicious with its wise and kindly humor, its just
+perspective of the true value of things."
+
+=Wright--Aunt Jimmy's Will=
+
+BY MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT
+
+"Barbara has written no more delightful book than this."
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+Apparent printer's errors have been retained, unless stated below.
+
+Page numbers cited in illustration captions refer to their original
+placement in the text. Illustrations have been moved near their mention
+in the text.
+
+"_" surrounding text represents italics.
+
+"=" surrounding text represents bold.
+
+Punctuation, capitalization, accents and formatting markup have been
+made consistent.
+
+Page 34, "Ba-chua-hish-a" changed to "Ba-cher-hish-a" for consistency.
+(Ba-cher-hish-a sobbed and wailed all night in her lodge, while the
+foster-father walked outside, speculating endlessly with his friends.)
+
+Page 94, "trial" changed to "trail". (Now we must blind our trail; their
+scouts will find it in the morning.)
+
+Page 5 of the Advertisements, "These" changed to "There". (There is
+interwoven with it a play of mild philosophy and of pointed wit.)
+
+Page 12 of the Advertisements, "JOHN" changed to "FREDERIC". (BY
+FREDERIC REMINGTON)
+
+Page 14 of the Advertisements has been left as originally published. The
+accompanying comment for "Aunt Jimmy's Will" by Mabel Osgood Wright has
+been left to read: "Barbara has written no more delightful book than
+this."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    “I BELIEVE”
+
+    AND OTHER ESSAYS
+
+    BY
+
+    GUY THORNE
+
+    Author of “When it Was Dark,” “First it was Ordained,”
+    “Made in His Image,” etc., etc.
+
+    LONDON
+
+    F. V. WHITE & CO., Limited
+    14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.
+
+    1907
+
+
+    RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,
+    BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
+    BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+      I. “I BELIEVE”
+     II. THE FIRES OF MOLOCH
+    III. THE HISTORICIDES OF OXFORD
+     IV. THE BROWN AND YELLOW PERIL
+      V. THE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT
+     VI. VAGROM MEN
+    VII. AN AUTHOR’S POST-BAG
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To F. V. WHITE, ESQUIRE.
+
+
+MY DEAR WHITE,
+
+The publication of this book is a business arrangement between you and
+me. Its dedication however has nothing to do with the relations of
+author and publisher in those capacities, but is merely an expression
+of friendship and esteem. This then is to remind you of pleasant hours
+we have spent together on the other side of the channel, in your house
+at London, and my house in Kent.
+
+Yours ever sincerely,
+
+GUY THORNE.
+
+
+
+
+“I BELIEVE”
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+“I BELIEVE”
+
+“_Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision_.”
+
+
+When I was a boy I made an occasional invasion of my father’s study,
+and in the absence of more congenial matter tried to extract some
+amusement from the shelves devoted to Christian apologetics. At any
+rate the pictures of the portly divines, which sometimes prefaced
+their polemics, interested me, and I was sometimes allured to read a
+few pages of their scripture. I remember that I enjoyed the sub-acid
+flavour of Bishop Butler’s advertisement, prefixed to the First
+Edition of his _Analogy_, at an early age, and I have thought lately
+that in certain circles one hundred and seventy years have not greatly
+modified the mental attitude.
+
+Hear what the Rector of Stanhope who, as Horace Walpole said, was
+shortly to be “Wafted to the see of Durham in a cloud of metaphysics,”
+says about his literary contemporaries--
+
+“It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons
+that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry, but that it
+is now at length discovered to be fictitious, and accordingly they
+treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among
+all people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a
+principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of
+reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the
+world.”
+
+Perhaps the difference between the times of George the Second and
+Edward the Seventh may be best discerned in the status and calibre of
+the popular penmen who in either age have found, or furnished
+amusement in a tilt against the Catholic Faith.
+
+The man in the street, as we know him, did not exist in the eighteenth
+century. He is the predominant person to-day, and he requires the
+services of able authors to assure him of immunity, when he is
+inclined to frolic away from chastity or integrity, much as did the
+county members who pocketed the bribes of Sir Robert Walpole and
+prated of patriotism.
+
+Fortunately for society the man in the street is a very decent fellow,
+and generally finds out before long that Wisdom’s ways are ways of
+pleasantness. A man may enjoy posing as an agnostic when he wants an
+excuse for--as the negro said--“doing what he dam please,” but when he
+takes to himself a wife, and children are born to him, a certain
+anxiety as to the continuity and perpetuation of these relationships
+begins to show itself. A man who has lost a little child, or waited in
+agonizing suspense to hear the physician’s verdict, when sickness
+overshadows his home, discovers that he needs something beyond
+negations, something that will bring life and immortality to light
+again within his soul.
+
+Moreover, the man in the street finds it necessary to come to some
+decision on other problems of existence. He is a citizen and must
+needs exercise his enfranchisement and give his vote at an election
+now and again. He must help to decide whether the State shall ignore
+religion and establish a system of ethical education, of which the
+ultimate sanction is social convenience, or maintain the thesis that
+Creed and Character are mutually inter-dependent.
+
+As he pays his poor rate wrathfully, or with resignation, its annual
+increase reminds him of the necessity of curing or eliminating the
+unfit. When he reads of Belgian and Prussian colonial enterprise, or
+ponders on the perplexing problem of the Black Belt which the Southern
+States must solve, he is compelled to consider whether it is true
+that “God has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all
+the face of the earth,” or whether this shall be accounted as another
+of the delusions of Saul of Tarsus whom Governor Festus found to be
+mad.
+
+Indeed, our friend, the man in the street, when he becomes a family
+man, without any pretensions to be a man of family, very often finds
+himself face to face with other problems. Shall he simply sing with
+the Psalmist “Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are
+the young children. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of
+them,” or shall he be guided by the gloss of a modern interpreter who
+maintains that the oriental quiver was designed to hold but two or
+three arrows at most?
+
+Even when the plain man confines his interests to his business and
+seeks relaxations in “sport” alone, endeavouring to evade the puzzles
+of politics and avoid all theologized inquiry, he cannot escape from
+ethical consideration. Professionalism in athletics and questions of
+betting and bribery contend with his conviction that there is
+something which ennobles man in running and striving for mastery, and
+it is futile to curse the bookmaker when his clients are so many, his
+occupation so lucrative.
+
+The average man gets little guidance from pulpit or press. It is dull
+work reading sermons, even if sermons came in his way. From time to
+time some eloquent bishop or canon is reported in the Monday morning
+papers, but journalists know that the publication of a summary with,
+in the case of a few of the preachers, some epigrams or denunciations,
+is all that can be permitted or expected. These may arouse the
+attention to the existence of evils, but give no guiding principle for
+their cure.
+
+The habit of attendance at some place of worship is easily abandoned
+in the days of bachelor freedom, and rarely regained in maturer years.
+Men for the most part find the preacher unconvincing. The usual
+audience does not desire discussion of difficulties. When the honest
+instinct of devotional worship is gratified by common praise and
+prayer, the people who regularly go to church, elderly, and orthodox
+in their own way, resent a demand upon their intellectual exertion,
+and the Northern farmer of Tennyson hardly misrepresents them, “I
+thought he said what he ought to ha’ said and I comed away.” The great
+Nonconformist societies may, in some congregations, give a larger
+latitude to the preacher, but his freedom is rather in the direction
+of divinity than of ethics. Mr. Rockefeller is a prominent pillar of
+Protestantism in the States, and Mr. Jabez Balfour, in another
+congregation at Croydon, apparently knew no qualms of conscience
+before his actual conviction, which was public, of sin.
+
+There is an old proverb which tells us that “A man is either a fool or
+a philosopher at forty”--and, though proverbs are often only venerable
+prejudices in disguise, it is true that a man, who has attained his
+eighth lustrum and is of average ability, generally has come to
+certain definite conclusions as to the rudimentary laws of health. He
+knows enough about his body to avoid fatal errors in diet, and has
+learned the necessity of exercise and fresh air. But when he is called
+upon, as a member of the body politic, to decide questions of ethics
+on which the sanitation of society must depend, he feels himself at a
+loss. To many people it will seem a hard saying that a man must be
+either a fool or a philosopher at forty, but long ere he has reached
+that age he will have encountered problems of philosophy which it is
+impossible to shirk if he is to do his duty as a free man.
+
+St. Paul, it is true, when writing to a Christian Community in Asia
+Minor, bids them “beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy.”
+And the unfortunate habit of Bible Christians, of tearing a text from
+a treatise and making it into a precept, has thrown a sort of
+discredit upon philosophic thinking, while the mass of mankind will
+always prefer rules to principles of conduct. But in vain do we
+clamour against intellectual complications which are the inevitable
+endowment of these days. Life is necessarily intricate, subtle and
+anxious, and Democracy has made of each man a ruler and governor in
+his degree. Is it possible to point to a single principle which shall
+be a motive and a standard of duty, which shall establish a synthetic
+method after the ruthless analysis of the later Victorian days?
+
+How searching that analysis has been! Fifty years ago the man in the
+street might rarely read the Bible, but he had a tolerably assured
+conviction that the Bible was infallible, however resolutely he might
+refuse its interpretation by an infallible church.
+
+Then
+
+     “...the Essays and Reviews debate Begins to tell on the
+     public mind, and Colenso’s views have weight.”
+
+Plain people were taught to look on the Old Testament as a library of
+Hebrew literature containing not only poetry and history, but romance.
+
+When Colenso’s book first appeared, Matthew Arnold deprecated its
+publication since it brought criticisms familiar to men of culture
+before the notice of the public, without considering how the beliefs
+of “the vulgar” might be upset.
+
+The supercilious apostle of “sweetness and light,” himself contributed
+largely in later years to the general confusion in men’s minds, and
+the New Testament criticism has been introduced to the general public
+by Mr. Arnold’s accomplished niece.
+
+Our friend, the man in the street, was all unprepared!
+
+What had he ever been taught of theology, the Divine word to man? In
+his school-days, if his father was an income tax payer he probably had
+a weekly lesson in “Divinity,” when he construed a few verses of the
+Gospels in the Greek Testament, and showed up to his master, now and
+then, a map of the journeying of the Apostle Paul in Asia Minor and
+Eastern Europe. If his father expected him to be confirmed, in due
+course, some lessons in the catechism were added for his benefit, but
+prudent pedagogues took care not to endanger the popularity of a
+school, whether public or private, by any definite teaching which
+might be accused of being dogmatic. The head-master was probably a
+person of unsuspected orthodoxy, with a possible deanery or bishopric
+in view for his days of superannuation. His sermons in chapel used to
+set a fine standard of conduct before the boys, and were gracefully
+free from all mention of controversial questions. In due course they
+were published with the title _Sermons at Yarrow_, and enterprising
+parents turning over their pages would find little to criticize and
+much to admire. The Cross, if presented at all in these publications,
+was so bespangled with rhetorical jewellery that “Jews might kiss and
+Infidels adore.” And the children of Israel as public-school boys were
+never painfully conscious of any great difference between themselves
+and their baptized companions. But unfortunately only a few of the
+boys came under the civilizing instruction of the Chief. Bright young
+athletes from Oxford and Cambridge, lured into the ranks of pedagogy
+by their love of football and cricket, were the assistant-masters. A
+regular salary with holiday for a fourth of the year, the prospect of
+early marriage, and a remunerative boarding-house, attracted them to a
+pleasant position, and they had no wish to rebel against the
+time-table which made them teachers of “Divinity” for at least one
+hour in the week. All educated people should be tolerably familiar
+with a book so largely used in quotation as the Bible, and the
+succession of the Kings of Israel and Judah could be used in
+strengthening the memory, whilst the stories of “Jehu and those other
+Johnnies you know” were by no means devoid of picturesque incident.
+Greek Testament could also be made useful in the acquisition of a
+vocabulary, or in a lesson showing the difference between classical
+and vernacular Greek. “Of course we must leave the application of
+these studies to conduct to _Home influence_,” the headmasters would
+blandly observe, and between parent and pedagogue the teaching of the
+Christian Faith fell neglected to the ground.
+
+What chance had the boys so brought up, of forming any conception of
+the essential truths of Religion? A superficial acquaintance with the
+stories of Hebrew history, a perfunctory attendance at chapel, some
+well-meant exhortations on the subject of temperance and chastity, as
+the catechism was revived in their memories before they were brought
+to be confirmed by the Bishop, and some ability “to translate and give
+the context” of a few phrases from the Greek texts of the Gospels,
+these were their intellectual religious equipment for a life of fierce
+temptation from within and without. And when they encountered the
+storm and stress of modern social life they found that the critics had
+taken from them the old reverence of nursery days for “God’s Book,”
+their school training had taught them only a rough code of honour, and
+their chief restraint from any ignoble impulse was a feeling that to
+do certain deeds was not “good form.”
+
+A little lower down the social ladder the man in the street has fared
+no better in his boyhood. In the public elementary schools he has had
+a half-hour’s lesson in Scripture and catechism five days of the week,
+and annually the Diocesan, or the School Board, Inspector came round
+to ascertain whether the Syllabus of religious teaching had been duly
+followed. But only when devout parish priests had a talent for
+teaching and a love for boys and girls was any attempt made to give
+children a _religion_, and even in this case not very much could be
+done for those who left school for ever when they were twelve years
+old.
+
+A generation ago Lord Sherbrooke, on the extension of the franchise,
+told his contemporaries that it was time to begin “to educate our
+masters”--but we have not gone very far in our instruction of
+Christian Sociology, though as yet we have not adopted the Utilitarian
+basis of morals accepted by the French Republic, and endeavoured to
+establish principles of duty towards man without any reference
+whatever to a duty towards God.
+
+Can any one be surprised if the plain man be perplexed when he is
+called upon to decide questions of economy and morality without any
+guiding principle? As a matter of fact he makes no such effort.
+“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the
+Lord is near in the valley of decisions,” but the sun and the moon are
+darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The puzzled popular
+vote is but as the swing of the pendulum, first to this side, then to
+the other. “These fellows have been no good, let us give the others a
+show.”
+
+Yet assuredly there is a principle which is guidance and strength if
+only men could discern it. There are Teachers who can tell men of its
+beneficent power, but they are as yet few in number, and their voices
+are not sufficiently strong. When once these can get a hearing, men
+welcome their evangel and find in it a guide of life.
+
+I am persuaded that just as Bishop Butler, when he perused the preface
+of his _Analogy_, had no prescience of the young fellow of Lincoln,
+who was in a few years to give the Christian faith a fresh hold in the
+hearts of the common people, who gladly heard him, so in our time many
+of our Bishops seem unable to perceive the dawn of another “day of the
+Lord.”
+
+Indeed, it is our misfortune in England that Bishops are almost
+necessarily bad leaders. We are told when an election to the Papacy is
+imminent that this or that Cardinal is in the list of “Papabili”--a
+possible Pope--so in like manner we may almost select amongst the
+undergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge our future diocesans. These are
+men clever, shrewd, and hard-working, of estimable private character,
+and not without some modest patrimony. Early entered in the race for
+preferment, ambitious, and yet, _mirabile dictu_, devout, they are
+endowed first of all with the true qualification for episcopacy, a
+capacity for compromise and a pliant political mind. _Sic itur ad
+astra_ the excellent curate or tutor, the courteous and accomplished
+chaplain to the Bishop, the eloquent canon and ecclesiastical courtier
+is consecrated and enthroned. Henceforward for the rest of his days he
+must hurry from his study table, crowded with correspondence, to his
+confirmations, his diocesan society meetings, and his weary,
+humiliating attendance at the House of Lords. What wonder if Bishops
+discourage new ventures of faith, who have no time for thinking, no
+time for reading, and perhaps, sometimes, too little opportunity for
+prayer!
+
+And so we find them not unwilling to accommodate the Catholic Faith to
+the popular prejudice of the moment, acquiescing in an undogmatic,
+undenominational, more or less Christian creed. Popularity becomes the
+very breath of their nostrils, and they proceed to hide in an
+appendix to the Prayer-book, the hymn _Quicunque vult_.
+
+Yet the discerning can see that now is no time for keeping in the
+background the great truths of religion. Already men are being
+prepared in many ways to receive them.
+
+The Christian Faith in England is no longer hampered by certain
+arbitrary axioms of the Puritan Divines. In the sixteenth century men
+were almost compelled by the exigencies of the situation to discover
+some Infallible authority which they could set up over against the
+Infallibility of the Church of Rome, and they endeavoured to treat
+Holy Scripture as though the great library of Jewish and Christian
+writers contained a complete code of consistent legislation. A text
+was a convincing argument for the Divine right of Kings, or for
+binding them in chains, for the burning of witches or the destruction
+of a shrine, and although in the two following centuries the
+Protestant ministers taught men to modify this conception, and to
+realize the difference between the Old Testament and the New, the
+popular idea of Revelation allowed small scope for theological
+inquiry. The biographies of our literary men of the Victorian period
+have shown us how they were tempted to separate themselves from all
+public communion with the Church, by their misgiving that the Church
+was committed to an impossible position. Carlyle groaned for what he
+called an “exit from Houndsditch,” some deliverance from the Rabbinic
+interpretation and use of the Bible. Things are very different to-day,
+as Henry Sidgwick says in a letter to Alfred Lord Tennyson published
+by his son in a recent memoir. “The years pass, the struggle with what
+Carlyle used to call ‘Hebrew old clothes’ is over, Freedom is won.”
+And in the result a scientific criticism of the Old and New Testament
+is found to be compatible with, and often a compulsion to an
+acceptance of the Christian creed, not the creed of Calvin, or the
+Westminster Confession, but the reasoned statement of Nicæa. The
+student of physical science no longer believes that if he goes to
+church he must be taken to accept the cosmogony of Genesis, and on his
+side he no longer stumbles at the difficulty of miraculous events. He
+knows too much about the influence of mind over matter to say that it
+is impossible that Jesus Christ and His Apostles should have healed
+the paralytic and made the blind to see and the deaf to hear. He is no
+longer “cocksure” of his capability of drawing a line of division
+between the organic and the inorganic. He can conceive of the
+existence of spirits which can control and modify the ordinary laws
+of life. He finds it probable that evolution is not exhausted when Man
+has come into being, and can look forward to a spiritual existence
+without suspecting himself of superstition. Sacraments, the union of
+the spiritual with the material, seem to him to be in accordance with
+the laws of the Universe, and he would never now-a-days stigmatize
+them as “Magic.” However he may explain the methods by which cures
+were wrought upon the afflicted, the scientific man of to-day would
+not accuse St. Luke of falsehood because he tells us that, “God
+wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body
+were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases
+departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them.” Indeed the
+man of science knows himself to be on the track of discoveries which
+will show us secrets of personality and spiritual possession which
+will banish for ever the absurd incredulity of the eighteenth and
+nineteenth centuries.
+
+Who now-a-days would assert that “miracles do not happen,” when men
+like Sir Oliver Lodge are laboriously discovering some few of these
+laws of the Universe which give us these portents and signs? Who dares
+to sneer at Parthenogenesis or repeat the slander of Celsus about the
+Mother of God? Men only who have grown rusty in reposing on their past
+reputations and cannot see that materialism as a philosophy is dead.
+Day by day fresh evidence of the power of the spirit over matter
+bursts upon us. A plea for “philosophic doubt” of Professor Huxley’s
+infallibility is no longer necessary. The very distinction between
+matter and spirit grows more and more difficult as science develops
+analytical power. The minds of men are being prepared again to receive
+that Supreme revelation which told of the wedding of the earth and
+heaven, the taking of the Manhood into God.
+
+In truth, this is the one principle which can give men guidance in the
+tangled intricacy of modern life. It is necessary to salvation, _now_,
+not hereafter only, to believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord
+Jesus Christ.
+
+For, first of all, men need to be saved from the apathy of despair.
+They need some hope that there is an answer to the riddle of the
+Universe. Let them once begin to feel that it _may_ be true that the
+very God cares for His creatures and has made His love for them
+manifest by taking to Himself the body, mind and spirit of man, and
+joining for ever human nature to the Godhead, then through the
+darkness comes a human voice saying--
+
+    “O heart I made, a heart beats here!
+    Face, my hands fashioned, see it in Myself.
+    Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,
+    But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,
+    And thou must love Me who have died for thee.”
+
+A man regains his self-respect when once he has escaped from the
+paralyzing sense that his is only
+
+    “a life of nothings nothing worth
+    From that first nothing ere our birth
+    To that last nothing under earth.”
+
+And there is only one starting-point for those who journey on this
+quest of an answer to the enigma of life. They must resolutely abandon
+the long travelled “_a priori_ road.” They must understand that the
+science of to-day is not tied to any materialistic axioms, that
+metaphysic cannot be ignored by the physician, and that no competent
+scientist to-day would say of the Resurrection of Jesus on which
+ultimately depends His claims to our adoration, “_That could not
+happen_.” We know enough now of the laws of the Universe to know that
+we do not know them all.
+
+So some of us perceive that what is needed to-day is to arrest the
+attention of the man in the street, to get him to perceive that
+Christianity has much more to say for itself than he suspected, and
+that Christian Philosophy will place in his hand a clue which will
+guide him in the labyrinth of life.
+
+    “I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ
+    Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
+    All questions in the earth and out of it.”
+
+We must set men free from phrases and get them to think. It suits the
+game of the party politician to pretend that ethics are easily
+self-evident, and that there is a simple fundamental religion on which
+all men are agreed; but there is a question which must be insistently
+urged, and upon the answer to which all things depend, “What think ye
+of Christ?”
+
+Probably nothing has done more to alienate the man in the street from
+religious observance than the hypocritical pretence that all men are
+agreed about “simple Bible teaching.” He knows well enough that what
+really matters is whether a man believes or not that God became man.
+If ever the Labour Party should definitely declare for elementary
+education without religious teaching it will be because the men whose
+children attend the elementary schools know that they cannot read the
+New Testament without asking, “Is it true?”
+
+“Did Jesus Christ really die and rise again the third day according to
+the Scriptures?” “Did Jesus Christ go up into heaven in the sight of
+the apostles till a cloud received Him?” “Did Mary’s Son come to her
+as other babies come?” “Was Joseph Jesus Christ’s real father?” Our
+members of Parliament who have no leisure to know their own children,
+who keep them in the nursery till it is time for them to go to the
+Preparatory School, who leave their training to the governess and the
+head-master, may talk about “the cruelty of the religious differences
+which hinder the establishment of an efficient system of education for
+the children of the State.” But the men and the mothers who live with
+their children and talk to them about their lessons, know that a child
+will insist upon an answer to its questions. A father of a family in
+the artisan and labouring classes, if he be at all intelligent, loses
+all respect for ministers of the Gospel who pretend that there is no
+difficulty about the simple Gospel story, and losing his self-respect
+for the men who have appointed themselves his teachers, he is tempted
+to throw all theology aside. And if he ventures on this despairing
+expedient he finds himself in mental confusion again over ethics
+instead of theology, and there arises a prospect of anarchy and
+disorder. Capital is timid, so enterprise is checked. Poverty
+increases and riot follows, and it all ends, not now-a-days in the
+Napoleonic “whiff of grape-shot,” but in the rattle of the maxim in
+the streets and the desolation of a thousand homes.
+
+The experience of all civilization is that you cannot separate
+morality from religion. When the Romans lost their faith in the old
+gods and became “undenominational,” civic virtue decayed. When the
+genius of the Empire was set up for a universal Deity and men were
+bidden as good citizens to burn their few grains of incense before the
+statue of the reigning Emperor--the representative of an ordered and
+moral state--we know what happened. You cannot make an abstraction
+alive and deify Government. Laws, which have the sanction only of
+expediency, do but furnish mankind with exercise in evasion.
+Indefinite belief in the existence of “something not ourselves which
+makes for righteousness” has no motive force, and though men may rub
+on in some fashion or other by following ancient custom, and the law
+of use and wont, this can only be done in quiet times. And ours are
+not quiet times; indeed, the air is thick with principles which are
+forcing themselves into expression. The principles of Nationality or
+Cosmopolitanism, the comity of nations and the limits of destruction,
+international trades unionism, and the laws of marriage are recurring
+items upon the programme of every social science congress. All these
+dark questions are forced upon the attentions of men, and never was
+there greater need of some synthetic philosophy which may help us in
+their exploration. Are we going to put Christianity aside and rule out
+theology from our calculations?
+
+I may quote the testimony of the late Sir Leslie Stephen here. Every
+one knows that he held no brief to defend orthodoxy--
+
+     “To proclaim unsectarian Christianity is, in circuitous
+     language, to proclaim that Christianity is dead. The love of
+     Christ, as representing the ideal perfection of human nature,
+     may indeed be still a powerful motive, and powerful whatever
+     the view which we take of Christ’s character. The advocates of
+     the doctrine in its more intellectual form represent this
+     passion as the true essence of Christianity. They assert with
+     obvious sincerity of conviction that it is the leverage by
+     which alone the world can be moved. But, as they would
+     themselves admit, this conception would be preposterous if,
+     with Strauss, we regarded Christ as a mere human being. Our
+     regard for Him might differ in degree, but would not differ in
+     kind, from our regard for Socrates or for Pascal. It would be
+     impossible to consider it as an overmastering and all-powerful
+     influence. The old dilemma would be inevitable; he that loves
+     not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love Christ whom
+     he hath not seen? A mind untouched by the agonies and wrongs
+     which invest London hospitals and lanes with horror, could not
+     be moved by the sufferings of a single individual, however
+     holy, who died eighteen centuries ago.
+
+     “No; the essence of the belief is the belief in the Divinity of
+     Christ. But accept that belief; think for a moment of all that
+     implies, and you must admit that your Christianity becomes
+     dogmatic in the highest degree. Our conceptions of the world
+     and its meaning are more radically changed than our conceptions
+     of the material universe, when the sun instead of the earth
+     becomes its centre. _Every view of history, every theory of our
+     duty, must be radically transformed by contact with that
+     Stupendous Mystery._ Whether you accept or reject the special
+     tenets of the Athanasian Creed is an infinitesimal trifle. You
+     are bound to assume that every religion which does not take
+     this dogma into account is without true vital force. Infidels,
+     heathens, and Unitarians reject the single influence which
+     alone can mould our lives in conformity with the everlasting
+     laws of the universe. Of course, there are tricks of sleight of
+     hand by which the conclusion is evaded. It would be too long
+     and too trifling to attempt to expose them. Unsectarian
+     Christianity consists in shirking the difficulty without
+     meeting it, and trying hard to believe that the passion can
+     survive without its essential basis. It proclaims the love of
+     Christ as our motive, whilst it declines to make up its mind
+     whether Christ was God or man; or endeavours to escape a
+     categorical answer under a cloud of unsubstantial rhetoric. But
+     the difference between man and God is infinite, and no effusion
+     of superlatives will disguise the plain fact from honest
+     minds. To be a Christian in any real sense you must start from
+     a dogma of the most tremendous kind, and an undogmatic Creed is
+     as senseless as a statue without shape or a picture without
+     colour. Unsectarian means un-Christian.“--From _Freethinking
+     and Plainspeaking_ (pp. 122-4), by Leslie Stephen. (Longmans,
+     London.)
+
+The considerations which seemed to compel the clearheaded author of
+this extract to his own well-known intellectual position no longer
+apply. In England, at any rate, the Church is not bound down to any
+mechanical theory of the inspiration of the Bible, and accepts all the
+discoveries of Modern Physical Science without misgiving. Such books
+as the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Temple) gave us in his
+Bampton Lectures have long ago shown the futility of attempting to map
+out the exact terms of a reconciliation between the claims of science
+and religion, but they have shown that religion and science are _not_
+destructive and contradictory of each other.
+
+“The same principles are found in each. The principle of evolution,
+for instance, is as evident in the gradual development of religion as
+in the age-long process by which the natural world was created; the
+order and beauty and regular succession manifest in Nature can be
+traced also in the spiritual universe. The revelation which was
+formerly held to be violation of law is seen to be a revelation of
+higher law. The great postulate of science, the uniformity of Nature,
+is not infringed.”
+
+We know now that there are laws of the Universe which, if we knew more
+about them, would tell us how it was that a Virgin could conceive and
+bear a Son. It is not to us an inconceivable superstition that “The
+Son of Man” should have in His own person powers of which the
+rudimentary signs can be traced in all humanity, manifesting
+themselves from time to time. The day is long past when the
+resurrection of Jesus Christ can be set aside as a “cunningly devised
+fable.” No scientific man, who has not deliberately shut himself in an
+hermetically sealed materialism would say to-day that “Miracles” do
+not happen. It is a question of evidence.
+
+And educated men know that there is a science of metaphysics, that
+there is a science of psychology, that literary criticism is
+scientific, that the age of a document can be decided, that cumulative
+evidence cannot be ignored, and that simply to put aside the claims of
+Christianity without examination is absurd.
+
+But, as Sir Leslie Stephen shows, it is the Christianity of the
+Catholic creed that matters, and it is this Christianity of which the
+man in the street has need. It gives him a solution of those social
+and ethical problems which he must solve, which he can only neglect at
+the peril of natural degradation. For example, the position of women
+depends upon our belief or disbelief that Christ was born of the
+Virgin Mary. To say that monogamy is the natural evolution of
+humanity, that chastity in the young unmarried man is a product of
+civilization, that a high conception of a man’s duty to posterity will
+keep him from harlotry, is simply to show ignorance of history, of
+human nature, and of the world as it is. A man who talks now-a-days
+about the respect of marriage being a Teutonic contribution to the
+evolution of civilized society, is behind the times. We _know_ that
+respect for women, and marriage held in honour, are the creations of
+the Holy Catholic Church, which insists on the Incarnation of the Lord
+Jesus Christ.
+
+But the man in the street does not know these things. The discoveries
+in science, whether physical or psychical, do not reach him. Technical
+treatises are too strong meat for his intellectual digestion. The
+pulpit does not appeal to him. At every baptism in the Church of
+England the priest solemnly instructs the god-parents of the child,
+“Ye shall call upon him to hear sermons,” but for the most part the
+admonition is in vain. As a matter of fact, he picks up his religious
+notions from the newspaper press. And the newspaper press is not now
+controlled by men who have a distinct and definite belief in
+Christianity. It depends upon Finance, and financiers have other
+interests. The assertion of the Psalter, “Notus in Judæa” has been
+changed now-a-days into an interrogation, and we ask, “In Jewry _is_
+God known?” Let any man who has an intimate acquaintance with the
+newspaper world run over in his mind the names of the great newspaper
+proprietors, the editors of our journalistic press, the writers of
+leading articles, the rising young journalists; and when he has
+excepted a few Irishmen, who may happen to remain faithful to the
+Roman Catholic Church, to which they owe their education, how many men
+will he find who honestly believe the Nicene Creed, and are habitually
+present on the first day of the week at the Breaking of the Bread?
+
+The tone of the daily paper is tolerant. There is no rude hostility
+displayed towards definite Christian doctrines, but the toleration is
+politely contemptuous. “All wise men are of the same religion, and
+what that religion is wise men do not say.”
+
+It is true that in political matters the press has less power than it
+used to have. A magnate of finance cannot now seriously affect public
+opinion, though he may buy newspaper after newspaper, and sweep out
+the editorial staff to supply their places with men of his own choice.
+One wealthy wirepuller has other plutocrats to reckon with in
+questions of party politics, and a newspaper man who is dismissed by
+the proprietor of the _Tariff Reformer_ may find another editorial
+chair placed at his disposal by the owner of _The Standard of Free
+Trade_.
+
+The man in the street looks out for a newspaper which may strengthen
+his own party proclivities. He expects to find political questions
+discussed, but so far as religion is concerned he accepts without
+knowing it the current convention of the pressman, and imbibes a
+semi-sceptical atmosphere without misgiving or suspicion.
+
+And yet, as Sir Leslie Stephen saw, every theory of duty depends upon
+Belief or Disbelief in the Divinity of Christ. We may talk of duty to
+Society, duty to the Race, duty to Posterity, duty to Civilization;
+but the plain man will recall the question of Sir Boyle Roche: “I do
+not understand, Mr. Speaker, all this talk about our duty to
+Posterity! What has Posterity ever done for us?”
+
+You cannot control conduct by asserting that a man owes a debt to an
+abstraction which you vivify by printing it with a capital letter,
+and there remains always the question of the dying Lucretius--
+
+    “Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well.”
+
+The problem, then, which we have to solve is--how to arrest the
+attention of the average man to those Christian principles, of which
+the acceptance or definite refusal will determine the course of
+civilization during the next twenty years.
+
+The mere assertion of authority will not suffice, and men are not
+impressed in favour of Catholic doctrine simply by dignified ceremony
+and Ritual. We have only to look across the English Channel to be
+assured of this. Frenchmen have not been encouraged to study the
+evidences of Christianity. Bishops and priests have only advertised
+sceptical books by forbidding their perusal to the faithful; and as
+the devout have been instructed to live by faith, but not how to give
+a reason for the faith which is in them, in the result M. Viviani’s
+atheistic rhetoric has been placarded at the cost of the State in
+every commune throughout France.
+
+We may consider, then, if there be any method by which the man who
+does not read theological or scientific or philosophical books, the
+man who has left off going to church, or gets no help from the
+average sermon, the man who has no reverence for mere authority, may
+be induced to consider the Christian Revelation as offering him a key
+to those riddles of life which his civic responsibilities are
+perpetually propounding.
+
+Remember that his present condition may be roughly described as
+consisting of religious haziness and moral laziness. The moral
+laziness is being subjected to a series of rough shocks. He _must_
+make up his mind about some questions of morality. The relation of the
+sexes, the duties of property, the treatment of the subject savage,
+the survival of the unfit, the ethics of commerce, the control of the
+sale of alcohol, the education of children, these things he has to
+decide and he will ultimately decide. But he is at present perplexed,
+and his religious haziness is the reason of his perplexity. He perhaps
+has not reached the conclusion of his contemporary in France, but he
+is on the way to it. Those heavenly lights which M. Viviani declares
+that his Government has extinguished still shine faintly for men in
+England, though the mists obscure them.
+
+Can we get men to look upwards for light, and instead of cursing the
+ancient creed in a confused commination, to take Arthur Clough��s
+advice--
+
+    “Ah! yet consider it again.”
+
+I believe that there is a method, and as I mention it I am prepared
+for derision from all the “chorus of irresponsible reviewers, the
+irresponsible indolent reviewers.”
+
+I believe that Fiction will find those that can be reached by no other
+means. Fiction sometimes sets a man seeking for Fact.
+
+Very diffidently and very reverently I may remind my contemporaries
+that one, who has, at any rate, profoundly influenced the course of
+history, whatever view we may take of His person, did not disdain this
+method, “He taught them by parables.”
+
+“Let me tell you a story.” Is there any age of mankind which does not
+respond to the invitation and give audience? A story stilled the
+tumult of the nursery in our earliest days, when heavy storms shook
+the windows and the tedium of a long, wet afternoon had turned play
+into fretfulness. A story beguiled us into interest when our History
+lesson had seemed an arid futility in Fourth Form days, and our
+magisterial enemies began to show themselves human after all when they
+bade us read _The Last of the Barons_ as we were painfully plodding in
+the Plantagenet period, and found the War of the Roses a very thorny
+waste.
+
+It is strange to turn over the pages of eminent evangelical sermons
+of the early Victorian days and to notice how “Novel reading” is
+denounced. Probably the worthy divines who fulminated against fiction
+were thinking of their own boyhood, and the mischief which came to
+them from Fielding and Richardson and Smollett surreptitiously
+perused. Sir Anthony Absolute’s detestation of the circulating library
+survived in some provincial circles even when Sir Walter Scott had
+come to his own. The last forty years have altered things
+considerably, and though some men may pretend to despise novels,
+now-a-days they must take them into account. Wise and learned persons
+began to prescribe them, not only as a vehicle for the exhibition of
+wholesome but unattractive information, but as having a remedial value
+of their own. “The intellectual anodyne of the nineteenth century,” I
+remember that somebody called them--perhaps it was Sir Arthur Helps.
+It came about that those who had a secret and timid predilection for
+the story-book, but blushed a little if at Mudie’s counter they
+ventured to ask for a novel, found that their ordinary reading of
+Biography and Memoirs revealed some unsuspected sympathies of the
+illustrious and wise. Who would have thought that Darwin devoured
+novels and Dean Church did not disdain them, and that Mr. Gladstone
+sat up all night to finish _John Inglesant_? The respectable
+pater-familias has long ceased to proscribe novel reading, and the
+most austere biographer no longer hides as a revelation of weakness
+his hero’s literary divertisements. Finally, in this year of Grace
+1906 we are boldly told that Archbishop Temple could stand an
+examination in Miss Yonge’s novels, and on one occasion was heard
+keenly discussing with Lord Rosebery the careers of the May family in
+the _Daisy Chain_ as though they were living acquaintances. From being
+recognized as a recreation the novel has developed into a power, and
+Charles Dickens was a pioneer in its progress. It is the custom
+amongst certain “superior persons” to sneer at the novel with a
+purpose, and to suggest that authors attained remunerative results by
+taking some subject which was already ripe for discussion and weaving
+round it a web of fiction.
+
+Undoubtedly there is danger to-day of such artifice, but I maintain
+that the great reforms of the past century owed much to writers whose
+purpose was perfectly innocent. Cardinal Newman has told us of the
+literary influence of Sir Walter Scott, who turned men’s minds in the
+direction of the Middle Ages.
+
+“The general need,” he said, “of something deeper and more attractive
+than what had offered itself elsewhere, may be said to have led to
+his popularity; and by means of his popularity he reacted on his
+readers, stimulating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting
+before them visions, which when once seen are not easily forgotten,
+and silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might
+afterwards be appealed to as first principles.”
+
+If Cardinal Newman could thus maintain the value of Fiction in the
+great ecclesiastical movement which has regenerated the Church of
+England, I may claim without apology that the reform in Poor Law
+Administration gained the attention of the public when Dickens made
+“Bumbledom” ridiculous, and that the Court of Chancery was swept
+cleaner by the breezes which were blowing from _Bleak House_. Let any
+man run over in his mind the undoubted improvements in social matters
+during the last fifty years, and it will be seen how Fiction has
+assisted in their promotion. Did Charles Reade’s _Hard Cash_ do
+nothing to arouse the attention of the public to the condition of the
+insane? Did Sir Walter Besant’s novels turn no light on the sins of
+the sweater, or Charles Kingsley’s _Alton Locke_ show no reason for
+legalizing the Trade Union and the reform of the Law of Conspiracy?
+Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe may to-day be forgotten, but the southern
+states of North America would not dispute the influence of Fiction
+upon the public mind.
+
+The fact is that men, who generally read nothing else but newspapers,
+will read a good novel, and if the book brings before them principles
+which they have hitherto neglected, they will very often consider
+those principles again. It is necessary, however, that the novel shall
+appeal to them as being a fair record of the present or the past. They
+may as they read it be unable to pronounce on the thesis which is at
+the back of the book, but they will be led to consider and discuss it
+if the story, as a story, holds them. And it is here that the story
+which has a genuine religious motive often fails. Most of the great
+artists in fiction, when they have taken in hand a subject which is of
+religious interest, have written in a spirit of detachment. George
+Eliot’s _Romola_ is an example, and the result is that men are more
+interested in Tito Melema than in Savonarola. Novels in which religion
+is necessarily much in evidence have been written either by literary
+artists who have studiously endeavoured to lay aside their own
+personal convictions, or if the books have been written with a
+distinctly religious purpose the hero and heroine have been
+unconvincing, the people in the story have not been alive.
+
+When Cardinal Newman had abandoned prematurely his hope of maintaining
+the Catholic character of the Church of England, he did not disdain to
+employ his pen in the production of a novel with a religious purpose;
+but we are amazed to find that the exquisite grace of style which is
+one of the charms of the _Apologia_ could not render Charles Riding
+interesting, or the novel _Loss and Gain_, of which he is the hero,
+readable.
+
+It is perhaps dangerous to give another example from contemporary
+fiction, but those who justly admire Mrs. Humphry Ward’s subtle
+discernment of character and great and increasing mastery of form and
+style, will not be inclined to dispute the opinion that when, in
+_Robert Elsmere_, she undertook the defence of the modern Unitarian
+position, her hero was hardly a “Man’s man.”
+
+The reason is not far to seek. The average man knows too much of the
+darker side of life; and the necessary effort made by the author of
+religious novels to depict that of which they, fortunately for their
+own souls, have had no experience, is not successful. Charles
+Kingsley’s undergraduate days were perhaps not without knowledge of
+the shadows, but he is happier in the Schools of Alexandria, or in the
+spacious days of Great Elizabeth, than in a tale of modern life such
+as _Two Years Ago_. His Broad Church Catholic teaching does not always
+find its way to the man in the street, and Henry Kingsley, whose life
+was so different from that of his illustrious clerical brother, has
+more of human interest in his stories.
+
+The novel with a purpose, and especially with a religious purpose,
+fails only, when it does fail, because the author’s knowledge of the
+average man in his sins and his temptations to sin, is altogether
+incommensurate with his familiarity with the great religious and
+social problems of which his story would suggest a solution.
+
+It is often supposed that the men do not care to find the subject of
+religion introduced in fiction, that they resent religion in a novel,
+as children resent the administration of a medicinal powder in a
+spoonful of jam; but the expert witness of publishers demolishes this
+opinion. After all, the religious claim is insistent, and life is
+untruly depicted when men and women are described in a story as
+uninfluenced by it. There is something unreal in a book which has no
+Sundays in it. Critical opinion as expressed in the notices of books
+in the daily papers, and in more weighty reviews, is very misleading,
+simply because the reviewers are generally very young men or women
+who know more or less of literature but very little of life. The wrath
+of the young man fresh from the University at the success of those
+books which do not ignore the spiritual needs of men and women amuses
+the experienced author.
+
+“Faugh!” cries Mr. Jones of Balliol; “another batch of sin and
+sentiment!” “The Christian creed and the conjugal copula! Religion and
+Patchouli!” Yet the critic forgets that those who would reach the
+minds and hearts of men must deal with the problems of creed and
+character which men have to solve, each one for himself.
+
+Our censors, dilettante, delicate-handed, with their canons of
+criticism might do worse than reckon up the number of English novels
+which have lived on into the twentieth century. They will be surprised
+to find that they are nearly all novels with a purpose and a religious
+purpose for their “motif.” Charles Reade when he wrote _Never too late
+to mend_, not only helped forward the humane and intelligent treatment
+of criminals, he showed how the Divine Image was stamped indelibly on
+human nature, and where it seemed to be obliterated could be restored.
+But Charles Reade drew real men and women. His characters are not
+puppets of the play-house but are alive. And Thackeray--_Clarum et
+venerabile nomen_--making hypocrites his quarry, and raining his
+quiver full of satiric shafts upon the hateful crew, never scoffed for
+a moment at reverent things, but with bowed head and hushed footsteps
+passed by the sanctuary. Therefore, these men are still living forces.
+Men will read other novels of the past as women look at old-fashion
+plates, and amuse themselves with the differences and contrasts of
+succeeding generations, but the novels which men buy in their hundreds
+of thousands, the novels which are reprinted again and again, the
+novels for which the publishers wait as their copyright is expiring,
+like heirs expecting a rich man’s death, that each may endeavour to be
+first in the field with an edition which pays no royalty to the
+author; these novels are those which truly represented life as it
+seemed in other days, life seeking ever to be reassured that One has
+come who offers to those who walk in darkness the light of life.
+
+It is exasperating to some minds to discover that the man of the world
+is not altogether worldly, and that he finds in books which recognize
+religion as a considerable part of man’s life, something which gives
+to them reality and truth. Immature minds and inexperienced penmen are
+not impressed by the things which really matter, and in the interval
+between the University and man’s settlement in life much nonsense is
+written and spoken.
+
+I speak from personal experience; and when I look back upon the
+reviews I wrote ten years ago, it is with invariable consternation,
+and sometimes a real sense of shame.
+
+Nevertheless, there is some criticism of the religious novel which
+must be taken seriously. I have maintained that men generally in
+England are in a state of theological confusion, but that they are
+interested in religion if they can be induced to consider it. There
+is, as the great African Presbyter wrote seventeen hundred years ago,
+a natural response in the hearts of men to the chief articles of the
+Christian Faith. There is a _Testimonium animæ naturaliter
+christianæ_. But there are some who can only be described by a
+quotation: “They are the enemies of the cross of Christ.” They are
+determined that the Catholic creed shall have no place in the counsels
+and considerations of social legislation. Of Jesus Christ they have
+said, “We will not have this man to reign over us;” and if there be
+any chance that a man’s books may catch the eye of the public and
+rouse people to think whether opportunism is really statesmanship, and
+empiricism in politics really prudent, if, in a word, the principles
+of Christianity are offered as a solution of social problems, then
+the author is attacked on every side. It is suggested that his
+intention is insincere, that his knowledge is inadequate. The things
+which have been part of his painful discipline and development are
+described as his accepted environment. If a Bishop happens to find an
+illustration for a sermon in his pages, or a prominent Nonconformist
+divine recognizes that the laity like to read them, and says so; if
+any of those true hearts who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity
+have been ready to see that men who have been rescued _de profundis_,
+men who have had experience of [Greek: ta bathea tou satana] are not
+thereby disqualified for duty in the field of Faith; if, in a word,
+books which claim for Christianity the first place in the thought of
+the time are successful, a very malignant hostility is aroused.
+
+It is most probable that this hatred of Christianity will grow and
+increase. The world has never before been as it is to-day. The system
+of party politics has placed power in the hands of the democracy. The
+“working man” has at last discovered what he can do. He must make his
+choice between the secular and the religious principle. Hitherto the
+Christian pastors of the people have appealed to his emotions, and not
+without success. The emotions will always be the chief guides in
+conduct for many; but the leaders of the working men are hard-headed,
+well read in social science and politics; and, owing to the
+insufficient training of the clergy in these subjects, the politicians
+of the _proletariat_ have conceived a sort of contempt for the parson
+and the minister and the priest. The small body of Unitarians, wealthy
+from their constant intermarriage with the great Jewish families, and
+opposed to an aristocracy which has only in the last forty years been
+willing to receive them, has been quick to see that the working man
+must be alienated from the Catholic creed, and his vote secured at any
+cost. On the railway bookstalls we may note the activity of the
+Unitarian propaganda committee. Fifty years ago it was not necessary
+to consider the opinions of the man in the street: the Unitarian
+minister and his congregation were comfortable in the assurance of
+their own intellectual culture and their kindly interest for the
+poorer classes. In politics they were Liberals, for an Established
+Church interfered with their sense of superiority, and the landed
+proprietors and the hereditary aristocracy socially ignored them. But
+they had no notion of calling into existence an electorate which
+should endanger the supremacy of the capitalist, and, like
+Frankenstein, they are afraid of their own creations, now that the
+working man has become the dispenser of Parliamentary power. It is
+vital to their interests that he should be diverted from further
+attacks upon capital, and encouraged to believe that it is the priest
+who is his true foe. “_Le cléricalisme voilà l’ennemi_” is a
+convenient cry. A vague Deism is not dangerous to wealthy
+manufacturers; but if the clergy are going to take up Christian
+Socialism it is time to be up and doing. So every weapon against the
+creed of Christendom is being taken down and examined, and many an old
+fallacy is refurbished and employed once more. Celsus is disinterred
+from the tomb in which Origen had buried him, and his filthy slander
+of the Blessed Virgin is printed as though it were a new discovery of
+historical research. Collins is called into court again as though
+Bentley had never exposed his ignorance, and Hume’s _a priori_ method
+is revived as though it had never been discredited; whilst Strauss and
+Renan are quoted as authorities, as if Westcott and Lightfoot had
+never been known. Shunt the working classes on a new line of rails.
+Set them shrieking against sacramentalists, and swearing at
+sacerdotalists, and we may quietly arrange our commercial combinations
+and protect our manufacturing interests!
+
+I want to see the seats under the dome of St. Paul’s filled not by
+only the middle-aged middle classes, who for the most part are
+Christian in creed, but by the young artisans and craftsmen, and the
+strong politicians who fill the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and
+crowd the great Assembly Rooms of Birmingham and Liverpool when an
+election is drawing near. The timid members of the Episcopate who may
+be reminded that “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he
+that regardeth the clouds shall not reap,” are not our only Bishops.
+Occasionally a Prime Minister offers for election and consecration a
+man who can reach the minds and consciences of men. Is it too great an
+ambition for a storyteller to try to arouse in people’s minds a
+suspicion that after all something may be said for the Catholic Faith,
+and so to bring them to listen to those who know and can teach it?
+Each man must do his work with such tools as have come in his way. The
+Mission preacher will use his magnetic power, the artist whose skill
+it is to build or to paint, will make his appeal to the love of order
+and beauty, the musicians will meet the heart through the ear. May not
+the writer of fiction use his psychological training and his knowledge
+of many sides of human life to create a story which shall set men
+thinking about the old doctrines which he believes to have lost none
+of their regenerating power?
+
+There is danger lest men with good intentions should go blindly to
+work to redress and diminish social grievances. Individualism with its
+hateful cry, “Each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,”
+is now at a discount, but it may be replaced by a despotism of State
+regulation which will destroy the family and the home. There is, I
+believe, only one creed which can make the capitalist unselfish and
+the sons of labour satisfied, which will tell men that wealth means
+responsibility and that there is dignity in toil, which will teach the
+rich man to order himself lowly and reverently to those who are _his_
+betters and to hurt nobody by word or deed, which will teach the
+labourer that his chief need is not other men’s wealth, but the
+“carrière ouverte aux talents” and the determination to do his duty in
+that state of life, whatever it may be, unto which God _shall_ call
+him.
+
+It is the Holy Catholic Faith which makes equality of opportunity for
+all men its earthly ambition, and offers refreshment and hope to those
+who are not strong enough to strive with the rest. The old men saw
+visions and we have found that they were prophecies, a young man may
+dream dreams. My dream is that the men who are doing the work of the
+world to-day may be taught that Christ is their best teacher and the
+Incarnate God their refuge and strength.
+
+There is a tale of an acrobat and juggler who knew well that his
+tricks were the outcome of years of concentrated effort and constant
+exercise, and being moved by the Grace of God, he desired to offer the
+best thing he had to give to the Lord of Life. His best was his skill.
+He lived by it. Shown in the streets and the play places, it won for
+him his daily bread. His work was to give men amusement in their hours
+of recreation by an exhibition of his feats of strength and
+nimbleness. Could this, his one talent, be consecrated and devoted to
+God? So he considered, and humbly sought the sanctuary, and there
+before the Presence he performed his fantastic tricks which had cost
+him years of endeavour. The story is a parable which men have not been
+slow to read, and it has become the theme of the musician and artist.
+
+Shall I offend my fellow-writers if I repeat it here in this
+connection?
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRES OF MOLOCH
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE FIRES OF MOLOCH
+
+“_There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets._”
+
+
+Every three months with unfailing regularity small paragraphs appear
+in the daily papers headed “RECORD LOW BIRTH-RATE.” Some figures
+follow, and then occurs the sentence--unhappily a stereotyped one in
+our day--“_This is the lowest rate recorded in any quarter since civil
+registration began._”
+
+Now and again a blue-book upon the subject of the birth-rate is
+dissected by a journalist and the result appears in his newspaper as a
+series of startling figures. The story of England’s decadence is set
+out in the plainest language for every one to read.
+
+At rarer intervals still, some prominent clergyman or sociologist
+writes or lectures in order to call attention to what is going on, and
+thus to bring home the spiritual and economic dangers of our racial
+suicide.
+
+A few people read or listen and are convinced. A good many other
+people are too utterly ignorant of either the Philosophy of
+Christianity or the Science of Sociology to understand in the least
+what the point of view of the protesters is. According to their
+temperament, they smile quietly and dismiss the subject, or bellow
+their disgust at such a subject being mentioned at all.
+
+    “He who far off beholds another dancing,
+          And all the time
+    Hears not the music that he dances to,
+          Thinks him a madman.”
+
+A party which has the fools at its back is always in the majority, and
+discussion is stifled, alarm is lulled by the anodyne of indifference
+and the great number of honest folk who call themselves both Patriots
+and Christians have no time to spare from fighting and squabbling for
+money--in order that the dishonest men may not get it all.
+
+Half-a-dozen problems of extreme national importance confront every
+thinking English man and woman in 1907. The air is thick with their
+stir and movement, and so great is the noise and reverberation of them
+that true “royalty” of “_inward_ happiness” seems a thing impossible
+and past by in these troubled times. Be that as it may, it is quite
+certain that one of the most real and pressing of these problems is
+that summed up in the stock phrase “Record Low Birth-rate.”
+
+We hear a great deal about the doings of a class of people who are
+referred to as “The Smart Set,” and it is actually said that its
+influence is having a serious effect upon the national character. I do
+not believe it for a moment. It seems a folly to suppose that a
+handful of champagne corks floating on a cess-pool has any
+far-reaching influence upon the English home. I mention that small
+section of society constituted by the idle and luxurious rich,
+because, whatever their vices are, they are being used as whipping-boy
+for enormous numbers of people whose lives are equally guilty with
+theirs in at least one regard--in the matter of which I am writing
+now.
+
+I propose in this essay to discuss the question of the decline in the
+birth-rate from the Christian and Catholic standpoint. There is only
+one perfect philosophy, and all other half-true philosophies in the
+light of which we might consider such a momentous matter as this, lead
+only to the conclusion that expediency is the highest good. Without
+the incentive of the Christian Faith and without the light of the
+Incarnation one may sit in a corner and think till “all’s blue in
+cloud cuckoo land.” Christianity can alone be reconciled with
+Economics, theory and practice celebrating always the marriage of the
+King’s son, the wedding of Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and the
+material. Plato knew that it was impossible to raise the Greek state
+to the level of his philosophic principles, and Aristotle frankly
+abandons the attempt to connect ethics and politics with the highest
+conclusions of his creed. We are in the same position to-day if we
+ignore the supreme truth which is our possession and which was not
+vouchsafed to the great Greek thinkers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is one cause and one cause only of the decline in the birth-rate
+and the beginning of the country’s spiritual and material suicide.
+
+The way of Nature is for every species to increase nearly to its
+possible maximum of numbers. This is a proved law, and nothing but the
+limitation of families by artificial means, or infanticide, can check
+its operation.
+
+The truth is exactly as Dr. Barry put it nearly two years ago, “It
+
+GNEISS is the general name under which are comprised coarsely
+foliated rocks banded with irregular layers of feldspar and other
+minerals. The gneisses appear to be due in many cases to the
+crushing and shearing of deep-seated igneous rocks, such as
+granite and gabbro.
+
+THE CRYSTALLINE SCHISTS, representing the finer types of
+foliation, consist of thin, parallel, crystalline leaves, which
+are often remarkably crumpled. These folia can be distinguished
+from the laminae of sedimentary rocks by their lenticular form and
+lack of continuity, and especially by the fact that they consist
+of platy, crystalline grains, and not of particles rounded by
+wear.
+
+MICA SCHIST, the most common of schists, and in fact of all
+metamorphic rocks, is composed of mica and quartz in alternating
+wavy folia. All gradations between it and phyllite may be traced,
+and in many cases we may prove it due to the metamorphism of
+slates and shales. It is widespread in New England and along the
+eastern side of the Appalachians. TALC SCHIST consists of quartz
+and TALC, a light-colored magnesian mineral of greasy feel, and so
+soft that it can be scratched with the thumb nail.
+
+HORNBLENDE SCHIST, resulting in many cases from the foliation of
+basic igneous rocks, is made of folia of hornblende alternating
+with bands of quartz and feldspar. Hornblende schist is common
+over large areas in the Lake Superior region.
+
+QUARTZ SCHIST is produced from quartzite by the development of
+fine folia of mica along planes of shear. All gradations may be
+found between it and unfoliated quartzite on the one hand and mica
+schist on the other.
+
+Under the resistless pressure of crustal movements almost any
+rocks, sandstones, shales, lavas of all kinds, granites, diorites,
+and gabbros may be metamorphosed into schists by crushing and
+shearing. Limestones, however, are metamorphosed by pressure into
+marble, the grains of carbonate of lime recrystallizing freely to
+interlocking crystals of calcite.
+
+These few examples must suffice of the great class of metamorphic
+rocks. As we have seen, they owe their origin to the alteration of
+both of the other classes of rocks--the sedimentary and the
+igneous--by heat and pressure, assisted usually by the presence of
+water. The fact of change is seen in their hardness arid
+cementation, their more or less complete recrystallization, and
+their foliation; but the change is often so complete that no trace
+of their original structure and mineral composition remains to
+tell whether the rocks from which they were derived were
+sedimentary or igneous, or to what variety of either of these
+classes they belonged.
+
+In many cases, however, the early history of a metamorphic rock
+can be deciphered. Fossils not wholly obliterated may prove it
+originally water-laid. Schists may contain rolled-out pebbles,
+showing their derivation from a conglomerate. Dikes of igneous
+rocks may be followed into a region where they have been foliated
+by pressure. The most thoroughly metamorphosed rocks may sometimes
+be traced out into unaltered sedimentary or igneous rocks, or
+among them may be found patches of little change where their
+history maybe read.
+
+Metamorphism is most common among rocks of the earlier geological
+ages, and most rare among rocks of recent formation. No doubt it
+is now in progress where deep-buried sediments are invaded
+by heat either from intrusive igneous masses or from the earth's
+interior, or are suffering slow deformation under the thrust of
+mountain-making forces.
+
+Suggest how rocks now in process of metamorphism may sometimes be
+exposed to view. Why do metamorphic rocks appear on the surface
+to-day?
+
+MINERAL VEINS
+
+In regions of folded and broken rocks fissures are frequently
+found to be filled with sheets of crystalline minerals deposited
+from solution by underground water, and fissures thus filled are
+known as mineral veins. Much of the importance of mineral veins is
+due to the fact that they are often metalliferous, carrying
+valuable native metals and metallic ores disseminated in fine
+particles, in strings, and sometimes in large masses in the midst
+of the valueless nonmetallic minerals which make up what is known
+as the VEIN STONE.
+
+The most common vein stones are QUARTZ and CALCITE. FLUORITE
+(calcium fluoride), a mineral harder than calcite and
+crystallizing in cubes of various colors, and BARITE (barium
+sulphate), a heavy white mineral, are abundant in many veins.
+
+The gold-bearing quartz veins of California traverse the
+metamorphic slates of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Below the zone
+of solution (p. 45) these veins consist of a vein stone of quartz
+mingled with pyrite (p. 13), the latter containing threads and
+grains of native gold. But to the depth of about fifty feet from
+the surface the pyrite of the vein has been dissolved, leaving a
+rusty, cellular quartz with grains of the insoluble gold scattered
+through it.
+
+The PLACER DEPOSITS of California and other regions are gold-
+bearing deposits of gravel and sand in river beds. The heavy gold
+is apt to be found mostly near or upon the solid rock, and its
+grains, like those of the sand, are always rounded. How the gold
+came in the placers we may leave the pupil to suggest.
+
+Copper is found in a number of ores, and also in the native metal.
+Below the zone of surface changes the ore of a copper vein is
+often a double sulphide of iron and copper called CHALCOPYRITE, a
+mineral softer than pyrite--it can easily be scratched with a
+knife--and deeper yellow in color. For several score of feet below
+the ground the vein may consist of rusty quartz from which the
+metallic ores have been dissolved; but at the base of the zone of
+solution we may find exceedingly rich deposits of copper ores,--
+copper sulphides, red and black copper oxides, and green and blue
+copper carbonates, which have clearly been brought down in
+solution from the leached upper portion of the vein.
+
+ORIGIN OF MINERAL VEINS. Both vein stones and ores have been
+deposited slowly from solution in water, much as crystals of salt
+are deposited on the sides of a jar of saturated brine. In our
+study of underground water we learned that it is everywhere
+circulating through the permeable rocks of the crust, descending
+to profound depths under the action of gravity and again driven to
+the surface by hydrostatic pressure. Now fissures, wherever they
+occur, form the trunk channels of the underground circulation.
+Water descends from the surface along these rifts; it moves
+laterally from either side to the fissure plane, just as ground
+water seeps through the surrounding rocks from every direction to
+a well; and it ascends through these natural water ways as in an
+artesian well, whenever they intersect an aquifer in which water
+is under hydrostatic pressure.
+
+The waters which deposit vein stones and ores are commonly hot,
+and in many cases they have derived their heat from intrusions of
+igneous rock still uncooled within the crust. The solvent power of
+the water is thus greatly increased, and it takes up into solution
+various substances from the igneous and sedimentary rocks which it
+traverses. For various reasons these substances stances are
+deposited in the vein as ores and vein stones. On rising through
+the fissure the water cools and loses pressure, and its capacity
+to hold minerals in solution is therefore lessened. Besides, as
+different currents meet in the fissure, some ascending, some
+descending, and some coming in from the sides, the chemical
+reaction of these various weak solutions upon one another and upon
+the walls of the vein precipitates the minerals of vein stuffs and
+ores.
+
+As an illustration of the method of vein deposits we may cite the
+case of a wooden box pipe used in the Comstock mines, Nevada, to
+carry the hot water of the mine from one level to another, which
+in ten years was lined with calcium carbonate more than half an
+inch thick.
+
+The Steamboat Springs, Nevada, furnish examples of mineral veins
+in process of formation. The steaming water rises through fissures
+in volcanic rocks and is now depositing in the rifts a vein stone
+of quartz, with metallic ores of iron, mercury, lead, and other
+metals.
+
+RECONCENTRATION. Near the base of the zone of solution veins are
+often stored with exceptionally large and valuable ore deposits.
+This local enrichment of the vein is due to the reconcentration of
+its metalliferous ores. As the surface of the land is slowly
+lowered by weathering and running water, the zone of solution is
+lowered at an equal rate and encroaches constantly on the zone of
+cementation. The minerals of veins are therefore constantly being
+dissolved along their upper portions and carried down the fissures
+by ground water to lower levels, where they are redeposited.
+
+Many of the richest ore deposits are thus due to successive
+concentrations: the ores were leached originally from the rocks to
+a large extent by laterally seeping waters; they were concentrated
+in the ore deposits of the vein chiefly by ascending currents;
+they have been reconcentrated by descending waters in the way just
+mentioned.
+
+THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF THE METALS. It is to the igneous rocks that
+we may look for the original source of the metals of veins. Lavas
+contain minute percentages of various metallic compounds, and no
+doubt this was the case also with the igneous rocks which formed
+the original earth crust. By the erosion of the igneous rocks the
+metals have been distributed among sedimentary strata, and even
+the sea has taken into solution an appreciable amount of gold and
+other metals, but in this widely diffused condition they are
+wholly useless to man. The concentration which has made them
+available is due to the interaction of many agencies. Earth
+movements fracturing deeply the rocks of the crust, the intrusion
+of heated masses, the circulation of underground waters, have all
+cooperated in the concentration of the metals of mineral veins.
+
+While fissure veins are the most important of mineral veins, the
+latter term is applied also to any water way which has been filled
+by similar deposits from solution. Thus in soluble rocks, such as
+limestones, joints enlarged by percolating water are sometimes
+filled with metalliferous deposits, as, for example, the lead and
+zinc deposits of the upper Mississippi valley. Even a porous
+aquifer may be made the seat of mineral deposits, as in the case
+of some copper-bearing and silver-bearing sandstones of New
+Mexico.
+
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+HISTORICAL GEOLOGY
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD
+
+
+WHAT A FORMATION RECORDS. We have already learned that each
+individual body of stratified rock, or formation, constitutes a
+record of the time when it was laid. The structure and the
+character of the sediments of each formation tell whether the area
+was land or sea at the time when they were spread; and if the
+former, whether the land was river plain, or lake bed, or was
+covered with wind-blown sands, or by the deposits of an ice sheet.
+If the sediments are marine, we may know also whether they were
+laid in shoal water near the shore or in deeper water out at sea,
+and whether during a period of emergence, or during a period of
+subsidence when the sea transgressed the land. By the same means
+each formation records the stage in the cycle of erosion of the
+land mass from which its sediments were derived. An unconformity
+between two marine formations records the fact that between the
+periods when they were deposited in the sea the area emerged as
+land and suffered erosion. The attitude and structure of the
+strata tell also of the foldings and fractures, the deformation
+and the metamorphism, which they have suffered; and the igneous
+rocks associated with them as lava flows and igneous intrusions
+add other details to the story. Each formation is thus a separate
+local chapter in the geological history of the earth, and its
+strata are its leaves. It contains an authentic record of the
+physical conditions--the geography--of the time and place when and
+where its sediments were laid.
+
+PAST CYCLES OF EROSION. These chapters in the history of the
+planet are very numerous, although much of the record has been
+destroyed in various ways. A succession of different formations is
+usually seen in any considerable section of the crust, such as a
+deep canyon or where the edges of upturned strata are exposed to
+view on the flanks of mountain ranges; and in any extensive area,
+such as a state of the Union or a province of Canada, the number
+of formations outcropping on the surface is large.
+
+It is thus learned that our present continent is made up for. the
+most part of old continental deltas. Some, recently emerged as the
+strata of young coastal plains, are the records of recent cycles
+of erosion; while others were deposited in the early history of
+the earth, and in many instances have been crumpled into
+mountains, which afterwards were leveled to their bases and
+lowered beneath the sea to receive a cover of later sediments
+before they were again uplifted to form land.
+
+The cycle of erosion now in progress and recorded in the layers of
+stratified rock being spread beneath the sea in continental deltas
+has therefore been preceded by many similar cycles. Again and
+again movements of the crust have brought to an end one cycle--
+sometimes when only well under way, and sometimes when drawing
+toward its close--and have begun another. Again and again they
+have added to the land areas which before were sea, with all their
+deposition records of earlier cycles, or have lowered areas of
+land beneath the sea to receive new sediments.
+
+THE AGE OF THE EARTH. The thickness of the stratified rocks now
+exposed upon the eroded surface of the continents is very great.
+In the Appalachian region the strata are seven or eight miles
+thick, and still greater thicknesses have been measured in several
+other mountain ranges. The aggregate thickness of all the
+formations of the stratified rocks of the earth's crust, giving to
+each formation its maximum thickness wherever found, amounts to
+not less than forty miles. Knowing how slowly sediments accumulate
+upon the sea floor, we must believe that the successive cycles
+which the earth has seen stretch back into a past almost
+inconceivably remote, and measure tens of millions and perhaps
+even hundreds of millions of years.
+
+HOW THE FORMATIONS ARE CORRELATED AND THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD MADE
+UP. Arranged in the order of their succession, the formations of
+the earth's crust would constitute a connected record in which the
+geological history of the planet may be read, and therefore known
+as the GEOLOGICAL RECORD. But to arrange the formations in their
+natural order is not an easy task. A complete set of the volumes
+of the record is to be found in no single region. Their leaves and
+chapters are scattered over the land surface of the globe. In one
+area certain chapters may be found, though perhaps with many
+missing leaves, and with intervening chapters wanting, and these
+absent parts perhaps can be supplied only after long search
+through many other regions.
+
+Adjacent strata in any region are arranged according to the LAW OF
+SUPERPOSITION, i.e. any stratum is younger than that on which it
+was deposited, just as in a pile of paper, any sheet was laid
+later than that on which it rests. Where rocks have been
+disturbed, their original attitude must be determined before the
+law can be applied. Nor can the law of superposition be used in
+identifying and comparing the strata of different regions where
+the formations cannot be traced continuously from one region to
+the other.
+
+The formations of different regions are arranged in their true
+order by the LAW OF INCLUDED ORGANISMS; i.e. formations, however
+widely separated, which contain a similar assemblage of fossils
+are equivalent and belong to the same division of geological time.
+
+The correlation of formations by means of fossils may be explained
+by the formations now being deposited about the north Atlantic.
+Lithologically they are extremely various. On the continental
+shelf of North America limestones of different kinds are forming
+off Florida, and sandstones and shales from Georgia northward.
+Separated from them by the deep Atlantic oozes are other
+sedimentary deposits now accumulating along the west coast of
+Europe. If now all these offshore formations were raised to open
+air, how could they be correlated? Surely not by lithological
+likeness, for in this respect they would be quite diverse. All
+would be similar, however, in the fossils which they contain. Some
+fossil species would be identical in all these formations and
+others would be closely allied. Making all due allowance for
+differences in species due to local differences in climate and
+other physical causes, it would still be plain that plants and
+animals so similar lived at the same period of time, and that the
+formations in which their remains were imbedded were
+contemporaneous in a broad way. The presence of the bones of
+whales and other marine mammals would prove that the strata were
+laid after the appearance of mammals upon earth, and imbedded
+relics of man would give a still closer approximation to their
+age. In the same way we correlate the earlier geological
+formations.
+
+For example, in 1902 there were collected the first fossils ever
+found on the antarctic continent. Among the dozen specimens
+obtained were some fossil ammonites (a family of chambered shells)
+of genera which are found on other continents in certain
+formations classified as the Cretaceous system, and which occur
+neither above these formations nor below them. On the basis of
+these few fossils we may be confident that the strata in which
+they were found in the antarctic region were laid in the same
+period of geologic time as were the Cretaceous rocks of the United
+States and Canada.
+
+THE RECORD AS A TIME SCALE. By means of the law of included
+organisms and the law of superposition the formations of different
+countries and continents are correlated and arranged in their
+natural order. When the geological record is thus obtained it may
+be used as a universal time scale for geological history.
+Geological time is separated into divisions corresponding to the
+times during which the successive formations were laid. The
+largest assemblages of formations are known as groups, while the
+corresponding divisions of time are known as eras. Groups are
+subdivided into systems, and systems into series. Series are
+divided into stages and substages,--subdivisions which do not
+concern us in this brief treatise. The corresponding divisions of
+time are given in the following table.
+
+STRATA     TIME
+Group      Era
+System     Period
+Series     Epoch
+
+The geologist is now prepared to read the physical history--the
+geographical development--of any country or of any continent by
+means of its formations, when he has given each formation its true
+place in the geological record as a time scale.
+
+The following chart exhibits the main divisions of the record, the
+name given to each being given also to the corresponding time
+division. Thus we speak of the CAMBRIAN SYSTEM, meaning a certain
+succession of formations which are classified together because of
+broad resemblances in their included organisms; and of the
+CAMBRIAN PERIOD, meaning the time during which these rocks were
+deposited.
+
+Group and Era System and Period Series and Epoch
+
+               |Quaternary-----|Recent
+Cenozoic------|                |Pleistocene
+               |
+               |Tertiary-------|Pliocene
+                                |Miocene
+                                |Eocene
+               |Cretaceous
+Mesozoic------|Jurassic
+               |Triassic
+
+
+                                |Permian
+               |Carboniferous--|Pennsylvanian
+               |                |Mississippian
+Paleozoic-----|Devonian
+               |Silurian
+               |Ordovician
+               |Cambrian
+
+Algonkian
+Archean
+
+FOSSILS AND WHAT THEY TEACH
+
+The geological formations contain a record still more important
+than that of the geographical development of the continents; the
+fossils imbedded in the rocks of each formation tell of the kinds
+of animals and plants which inhabited the earth at that time, and
+from these fossils we are therefore able to construct the history
+of life upon the earth.
+
+FOSSILS. These remains of organisms are found in the strata in all
+degrees of perfection, from trails and tracks and fragmentary
+impressions, to perfectly preserved shells, wood, bones, and
+complete skeletons. As a rule, it is only the hard parts of
+animals and plants which have left any traces in the rocks.
+Sometimes the original hard substance is preserved, but more often
+it has been replaced by some less soluble material. Petrifaction,
+as this process of slow replacement is called, is often carried on
+in the most exquisite detail. When wood, for example, is
+undergoing petrifaction, the woody tissue may be replaced,
+particle by particle, by silica in solution through the action of
+underground waters, even the microscopic structures of the wood
+being perfectly reproduced. In shells originally made of
+ARAGONITE, a crystalline form of carbonate of lime, that mineral
+is usually replaced by CALCITE, a more stable form of the same
+substance. The most common petrifying materials are calcite,
+silica, and pyrite.
+
+Often the organic substance has neither been preserved nor
+replaced, but the FORM has been retained by means of molds and
+casts. Permanent impressions, or molds, may be made in sediments
+not only by the hard parts of organisms, but also by such soft and
+perishable parts as the leaves of plants, and, in the rarest
+instances, by the skin of animals and the feathers of birds. In
+fine-grained limestones even the imprints of jellyfish have been
+retained.
+
+The different kinds of molds and casts may be illustrated by means
+of a clam shell and some moist clay, the latter representing the
+sediments in which the remains of animals and plants are entombed.
+Imbedding the shell in the clay and allowing the clay to harden,
+we have a MOLD OF THE EXTERIOR of the shell, as is seen on cutting
+the clay matrix in two and removing the shell from it. Filling
+this mold with clay of different color, we obtain a CAST OF THE
+EXTERIOR, which represents accurately the original form and
+surface markings of the shell. In nature, shells and other relics
+of animals or plants are often removed by being dissolved by
+percolating waters, and the molds are either filled with sediments
+or with minerals deposited from solution.
+
+Where the fossil is hollow, a CAST OF THE INTERIOR is made in the
+same way. Interior casts of shells reproduce any markings on the
+inside of the valves, and casts of the interior of the skulls of
+ancient vertebrates show the form and size of their brains.
+
+IMPERFECTION OF THE LIFE RECORD. At the present time only the
+smallest fraction of the life on earth ever gets entombed in rocks
+now forming. In the forest great fallen tree trunks, as well as
+dead leaves, decay, and only add a little to the layer of dark
+vegetable mold from which they grew. The bones of land animals
+are, for the most part, left unburied on the surface and are soon
+destroyed by chemical agencies. Even where, as in the swamps of
+river, flood plains and in other bogs, there are preserved the
+remains of plants, and sometimes insects, together with the bones
+of some animal drowned or mired, in most cases these swamp and bog
+deposits are sooner or later destroyed by the shifting channels of
+the stream or by the general erosion of the land.
+
+In the sea the conditions for preservation are more favorable than
+on land; yet even here the proportion of animals and plants whose
+hard parts are fossilized is very small compared with those which
+either totally decay before they are buried in slowly accumulating
+sediments or are ground to powder by waves and currents.
+
+We may infer that during each period of the past, as at the
+present, only a very insignificant fraction of the innumerable
+organisms of sea and land escaped destruction and left in
+continental and oceanic deposits permanent records of their
+existence. Scanty as these original life records must have been,
+they have been largely destroyed by metamorphism of the rocks in
+which they were imbedded, by solution in underground waters, and
+by the vast denudation under which the sediments of earlier
+periods have been eroded to furnish materials for the sedimentary
+records of later times. Moreover, very much of what has escaped
+destruction still remains undiscovered. The immense bulk of the
+stratified rocks is buried and inaccessible, and the records of
+the past which it contains can never be known. Comparatively few
+outcrops have been thoroughly searched for fossils. Although new
+species are constantly being discovered, each discovery may be
+considered as the outcome of a series of happy accidents,--that
+the remains of individuals of this particular species happened to
+be imbedded and fossilized, that they happened to escape
+destruction during long ages, and that they happened to be exposed
+and found.
+
+SOME INFERENCES FROM THE RECORDS OF THE HISTORY OF LIFE UPON THE
+PLANET. Meager as are these records, they set forth plainly some
+important truths which we will now briefly mention.
+
+1. Each series of the stratified rocks, except the very deepest,
+contains vestiges of life. Hence THE EARTH WAS TENANTED BY LIVING
+CREATURES FOR AN UNCALCULATED LENGTH OF TIME BEFORE HUMAN HISTORY
+BEGAN.
+
+2. LIFE ON THE EARTH HAS BEEN EVERCHANGING. The youngest strata
+hold the remains of existing species of animals and plants and
+those of species and varieties closely allied to them. Strata
+somewhat older contain fewer existing species, and in strata of a
+still earlier, but by no means an ancient epoch, no existing
+species are to be found; the species of that epoch and of previous
+epochs have vanished from the living world. During all geological
+time since life began on earth old species have constantly become
+extinct and with them the genera and families to which they
+belong, and other species, genera, and families have replaced
+them. The fossils of each formation differ on the whole from those
+of every other. The assemblage of animals and plants (the FAUNA-
+FLORA) of each epoch differs from that of every other epoch.
+
+In many cases the extinction of a type has been gradual; in other
+instances apparently abrupt. There is no evidence that any
+organism once become extinct has ever reappeared. The duration of
+a species in time, or its "vertical range" through the strata,
+varies greatly. Some species are limited to a stratum a few feet
+in thickness; some may range through an entire formation and be
+found but little modified in still higher beds. A formation may
+thus often be divided into zones, each characterized by its own
+peculiar species. As a rule, the simpler organisms have a longer
+duration as species, though not as individuals, than the more
+complex.
+
+3. THE LARGER ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL GROUPINGS SURVIVE LONGER
+THAN THE SMALLER. Species are so short-lived that a single
+geological epoch may be marked by several more or less complete
+extinctions of the species of its fauna-flora and their
+replacement by other species. A genus continues with new species
+after all the species with which it began have become extinct.
+Families survive genera, and orders families. Classes are so long-
+lived that most of those which are known from the earliest
+formations are represented by living forms, and no sub-kingdom has
+ever become extinct.
+
+Thus, to take an example from the stony corals,--the ZOANTHARIA,--
+the particular characters--which constituted a certain SPECIES--
+Facosites niagarensis--of the order are confined to the Niagara
+series. Its GENERIC characters appeared in other species earlier
+in the Silurian and continued through the Devonian. Its FAMILY
+characters, represented in different genera and species, range
+from the Ordovician to the close of the Paleozoic; while the
+characters which it shares with all its order, the Zoantharia,
+began in the Cambrian and are found in living species.
+
+4. THE CHANGE IN ORGANISMS HAS BEEN GRADUAL. The fossils of each
+life zone and of each formation of a conformable series closely
+resemble, with some explainable exceptions, those of the beds
+immediately above and below. The animals and plants which tenanted
+the earth during any geological epoch are so closely related to
+those of the preceding and the succeeding epochs that we may
+consider them to be the descendants of the one and the ancestors
+of the other, thus accounting for the resemblance by heredity. It
+is therefore believed that the species of animals and plants now
+living on the earth are the descendants of the species whose
+remains we find entombed in the rocks, and that the chain of life
+has been unbroken since its beginning.
+
+5. THE CHANGE IN SPECIES HAS BEEN A GRADUAL DIFFERENTIATION.
+Tracing the lines of descent of various animals and plants of the
+present backward through the divisions of geologic time, we find
+that these lines of descent converge and unite in simpler and
+still simpler types. The development of life may be represented by
+a tree whose trunk is found in the earliest ages and whose
+branches spread and subdivide to the growing twigs of present
+species.
+
+6. THE CHANGE IN ORGANISMS THROUGHOUT GEOLOGIC TIME HAS BEEN A
+PROGRESSIVE CHANGE. In the earliest ages the only animals and
+plants on the earth were lowly forms, simple and generalized in
+structure; while succeeding ages have been characterized by the
+introduction of types more and more specialized and complex, and
+therefore of higher rank in the scale of being. Thus the Algonkian
+contains the remains of only the humblest forms of the
+invertebrates. In the Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian the
+invertebrates were represented in all their subkingdoms by a
+varied fauna. In the Devonian, fishes--the lowest of the
+vertebrates--became abundant. Amphibians made their entry on the
+stage in the Carboniferous, and reptiles came to rule the world in
+the Mesozoic. Mammals culminated in the Tertiary in strange forms
+which became more and more like those of the present as the long
+ages of that era rolled on; and latest of all appeared the noblest
+product of the creative process, man.
+
+Just as growth is characteristic of the individual life, so
+gradual, progressive change, or evolution, has characterized the
+history of life upon the planet. The evolution of the organic
+kingdom from its primitive germinal forms to the complex and
+highly organized fauna-flora of to-day may be compared to the
+growth of some noble oak as it rises from the acorn, spreading
+loftier and more widely extended branches as it grows.
+
+7. While higher and still higher types have continually been
+evolved, until man, the highest of all, appeared, THE LOWER AND
+EARLIER TYPES HAVE GENERALLY PERSISTED. Some which reached their
+culmination early in the history of the earth have since changed
+only in slight adjustments to a changing environment. Thus the
+brachiopods, a type of shellfish, have made no progress since the
+Paleozoic, and some of their earliest known genera are represented
+by living forms hardly to be distinguished from their ancient
+ancestors. The lowest and earliest branches of the tree of life
+have risen to no higher levels since they reached their climax of
+development long ago.
+
+8. A strange parallel has been found to exist between the
+evolution of organisms and the development of the individual. In
+the embryonic stages of its growth the individual passes swiftly
+through the successive stages through which its ancestors evolved
+during the millions of years of geologic time. THE DEVELOPMENT OF
+THE INDIVIDUAL RECAPITULATES THE EVOLUTION OF THE RACE.
+
+The frog is a typical amphibian. As a tadpole it passes through a
+stage identical in several well-known features with the maturity
+of fishes; as, for example, its aquatic life, the tail by which it
+swims, and the gills through which it breathes. It is a fair
+inference that the tadpole stage in the life history of the frog
+represents a stage in the evolution of its kind,--that the
+Amphibia are derived from fishlike ancestral forms. This inference
+is amply confirmed in the geological record; fishes appeared
+before Amphibia and were connected with them by transitional
+forms.
+
+THE GREAT LENGTH OF GEOLOGIC TIME INFERRED FROM THE SLOW CHANGE OF
+SPECIES. Life forms, like land forms, are thus subject to change
+under the influence of their changing environment and of forces
+acting from within. How slowly they change may be seen in the
+apparent stability of existing species. In the lifetime of the
+observer and even in the recorded history of man, species seem as
+stable as the mountain and the river. But life forms and land
+forms are alike variable, both in nature and still more under the
+shaping hand of man. As man has modified the face of the earth
+with his great engineering works, so he has produced widely
+different varieties of many kinds of domesticated plants and
+animals, such as the varieties of the dog and the horse, the apple
+and the rose, which may be regarded in some respects as new
+species in the making. We have assumed that land forms have
+changed in the past under the influence of forces now in
+operation. Assuming also that life forms have always changed as
+they are changing at present, we come to realize something of the
+immensity of geologic time required for the evolution of life from
+its earliest lowly forms up to man.
+
+It is because the onward march of life has taken the same general
+course the world over that we are able to use it as a UNIVERSAL
+TIME SCALE and divide geologic time into ages and minor
+subdivisions according to the ruling or characteristic organisms
+then living on the earth. Thus, since vertebrates appeared, we
+have in succession the Age of Fishes, the Age of Amphibians, the
+Age of Reptiles, and the Age of Mammals.
+
+The chart given on page 295 is thus based on the law of
+superposition and the law of the evolution of organisms. The first
+law gives the succession of the formations in local areas. The
+fossils which they contain demonstrate the law of the progressive
+appearance of organisms, and by means of this law the formations
+of different countries are correlated and set each in its place in
+a universal time scale and grouped together according to the
+affinities of their imbedded organic remains.
+
+GEOLOGIC TIME DIVISIONS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF HUMAN HISTORY. We
+may compare the division of geologic time into eras, periods, and
+other divisions according to the dominant life of the time, to the
+ill-defined ages into which human history is divided according to
+the dominance of some nation, ruler, or other characteristic
+feature. Thus we speak of the DARK AGES, the AGE OF ELIZABETH, and
+the AGE OF ELECTRICITY. These crude divisions would be of much
+value if, as in the case of geologic time, we had no exact
+reckoning of human history by years.
+
+And as the course of human history has flowed in an unbroken
+stream along quiet reaches of slow change and through periods of
+rapid change and revolution, so with the course of geologic
+history. Periods of quiescence, in which revolutionary forces are
+perhaps gathering head, alternate with periods of comparatively
+rapid change in physical geography and in organisms, when new and
+higher forms appear which serve to draw the boundary line of new
+epochs. Nevertheless, geological history is a continuous progress;
+its periods and epochs shade into one another by imperceptible
+gradations, and all our subdivisions must needs be vague and more
+or less arbitrary.
+
+HOW FOSSILS TELL OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE PAST. Fossils are used
+not only as a record of the development of life upon the earth,
+but also in testimony to the physical geography of past epochs.
+They indicate whether in any region the climate was tropical,
+temperate, or arctic. Since species spread slowly from some center
+of dispersion where they originate until some barrier limits their
+migration farther, the occurrence of the same species in rocks of
+the same system in different countries implies the absence of such
+barriers at the period. Thus in the collection of antarctic
+fossils referred to on page 294 there were shallow-water marine
+shells identical in species with Mesozoic shells found in India
+and in the southern extremity of South America. Since such
+organisms are not distributed by the currents of the deep sea and
+cannot migrate along its bottom, we infer a shallow-water
+connection in Mesozoic times between India, South America, and the
+antarctic region. Such a shallow-water connection would be offered
+along the marginal shelf of a continent uniting these now widely
+separated countries.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE PRE-CAMBRIAN SYSTEMS
+
+
+THE EARTH'S BEGINNINGS. The geological record does not tell us of
+the beginnings of the earth. The history of the planet, as we have
+every reason to believe, stretches far back beyond the period of
+the oldest stratified rocks, and is involved in the history of the
+solar system and of the nebula,--the cloud of glowing gases or of
+cosmic dust,--from which the sun and planets are believed to have
+been derived.
+
+THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. It is possible that the earth began as a
+vaporous, shining sphere, formed by the gathering together of the
+material of a gaseous ring which had been detached from a cooling
+and shrinking nebula. Such a vaporous sphere would condense to a
+liquid, fiery globe, whose surface would become cold and solid,
+while the interior would long remain intensely hot because of the
+slow conductivity of the crust. Under these conditions the
+primeval atmosphere of the earth must have contained in vapor the
+water now belonging to the earth's crust and surface. It held also
+all the oxygen since locked up in rocks by their oxidation, and
+all the carbon dioxide which has since been laid away in
+limestones, besides that corresponding to the carbon of
+carbonaceous deposits, such as peat, coal, and petroleum. On this
+hypothesis the original atmosphere was dense, dark, and noxious,
+and enormously heavier than the atmosphere at present.
+
+THE ACCRETION HYPOTHESIS. On the other hand, it has been recently
+suggested that the earth may have grown to its present size by the
+gradual accretion of meteoritic masses. Such cold, stony bodies
+might have come together at so slow a rate that the heat caused by
+their impact would not raise sensibly the temperature of the
+growing planet. Thus the surface of the earth may never have been
+hot and luminous; but as the loose aggregation of stony masses
+grew larger and was more and more compressed by its own
+gravitation, the heat thus generated raised the interior to high
+temperatures, while from time to time molten rock was intruded
+among the loose, cold meteoritic masses of the crust and outpoured
+upon the surface.
+
+It is supposed that the meteorites of which the earth was built
+brought to it, as meteorites do now, various gases shut up within
+their pores. As the heat of the interior increased, these gases
+transpired to the surface and formed the primitive atmosphere and
+hydrosphere. The atmosphere has therefore grown slowly from the
+smallest beginnings. Gases emitted from the interior in volcanic
+eruptions and in other ways have ever added to it, and are adding
+to it now. On the other hand, the atmosphere has constantly
+suffered loss, as it has been robbed of oxygen by the oxidation of
+rocks in weathering, and of carbon dioxide in the making of
+limestones and carbonaceous deposits.
+
+While all hypotheses of the earth's beginnings are as yet unproved
+speculations, they serve to bring to mind one of the chief lessons
+which geology has to teach,--that the duration of the earth in
+time, like the extension of the universe in space, is vastly
+beyond the power of the human mind to realize. Behind the history
+recorded in the rocks, which stretches back for many million
+years, lies the long unrecorded history of the beginnings of the
+planet; and still farther in the abysses of the past are dimly
+seen the cycles of the evolution of the solar system and of the
+nebula which gave it birth.
+
+We pass now from the dim realm of speculation to the earliest era
+of the recorded history of the earth, where some certain facts may
+be observed and some sure inferences from them may be drawn.
+
+THE ARCHEAN.
+
+The oldest known sedimentary strata, wherever they are exposed by
+uplift and erosion, are found to be involved with a mass of
+crystalline rocks which possesses the same characteristics in all
+parts of the world. It consists of foliated rocks, gneisses, and
+schists of various kinds, which have been cut with dikes and other
+intrusions of molten rock, and have been broken, crumpled, and
+crushed, and left in interlocking masses so confused that their
+true arrangement can usually be made out only with the greatest
+difficulty if at all. The condition of this body of crystalline
+rocks is due to the fact that they have suffered not only from the
+faultings, foldings, and igneous intrusions of their time, but
+necessarily, also, from those of all later geological ages.
+
+At present three leading theories are held as to the origin of
+these basal crystalline rocks.
+
+1. They are considered by perhaps the majority of the geologists
+who have studied them most carefully to be igneous rocks intruded
+in a molten state among the sedimentary rocks involved with them.
+In many localities this relation is proved by the phenomena of
+contact; but for the most part the deformations which the rocks
+have since suffered again and again have been sufficient to
+destroy such evidence if it ever existed.
+
+2. An older view regards them as profoundly altered sedimentary
+strata, the most ancient of the earth.
+
+3. According to a third theory they represent portions of the
+earth's original crust; not, indeed, its original surface, but
+deeper portions uncovered by erosion and afterwards mantled with
+sedimentary deposits. All these theories agree that the present
+foliated condition of these rocks is due to the intense
+metamorphism which they have suffered.
+
+It is to this body of crystalline rocks and the stratified rocks
+involved with it, which form a very small proportion of its mass,
+that the term ARCHEAN (Greek, ARCHE, beginning) is applied by many
+geologists.
+
+THE ALGONKIAN
+
+In some regions there rests unconformably on the Archean an
+immense body of stratified rocks, thousands and in places even
+scores of thousands of feet thick, known as the ALGONKIAN. Great
+unconformities divide it into well-defined systems, but as only
+the scantiest traces of fossils appear here and there among its
+strata, it is as yet impossible to correlate the formations of
+different regions and to give them names of more than local
+application. We will describe the Algonkian rocks of two typical
+areas.
+
+THE GRAND CANYON OF THE COLORADO. We have already studied a very
+ancient peneplain whose edge is exposed to view deep on the walls
+of the Colorado Canyon. The formation of flat-lying sandstone
+which covers this buried land surface is proved by its fossils to
+belong to the Cambrian,--the earliest period of the Paleozoic era.
+The tilted rocks on whose upturned edges the Cambrian sandstone
+rests are far older, for the physical break which separates them
+from it records a time interval during which they were upheaved to
+mountainous ridges and worn down to a low plain. They are
+therefore classified as Algonkian. They comprise two immense
+series. The upper is more than five thousand feet thick and
+consists of shales and sandstones with some limestones. Separated
+from it by an unconformity which does not appear in Figure 207,
+the lower division, seven thousand feet thick, consists chiefly of
+massive reddish sandstones with seven or more sheets of lava
+interbedded. The lowest member is a basal conglomerate composed of
+pebbles derived from the erosion of the dark crumpled schists
+beneath,--schists which are supposed to be Archean. As shown in
+Figure 207, a strong unconformity parts the schists and the
+Algonkian. The floor on which the Algonkian rests is remarkably
+even, and here again is proved an interval of incalculable length,
+during which an ancient land mass of Archean rocks was baseleveled
+before it received the cover of the sediments of the later age.
+
+THE LAKE SUPERIOR REGION. In eastern Canada an area of pre-
+Cambrian rocks, Archean and Algonkian, estimated at two million
+square miles, stretches from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence
+River northward to the confines of the continent, inclosing Hudson
+Bay in the arms of a gigantic U. This immense area, which we have
+already studied as the Laurentian peneplain, extends southward
+across the Canadian border into northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and
+Michigan. The rocks of this area are known to be pre-Cambrian; for
+the Cambrian strata, wherever found, lie unconformably upon them.
+
+The general relations of the formations of that portion of the
+area which lies about Lake Superior are shown in Figure 262. Great
+unconformities, UU' separate the Algonkian both from the Archean
+and from the Cambrian, and divide it into three distinct systems,
+--the LOWER HURONIAN, the UPPER HURONIAN, and the KEWEENAWAN. The
+Lower and the Upper Huronian consist in the main of old sea muds
+and sands and limy oozes now changed to gneisses, schists,
+marbles, quartzites, slates, and other metamorphic rocks. The
+Keweenawan is composed of immense piles of lava, such as those of
+Iceland, overlain by bedded sandstones. What remains of these rock
+systems after the denudation of all later geologic ages is
+enormous. The Lower Huronian is more than a mile thick, the Upper
+Huronian more than two miles thick, while the Keweenawan exceeds
+nine miles in thickness. The vast length of Algonkian time is
+shown by the thickness of its marine deposits and by the cycles of
+erosion which it includes. In Figure 262 the student may read an
+outline of the history of the Lake Superior region, the
+deformations which it suffered, their relative severity, the times
+when they occurred, and the erosion cycles marked by the
+successive unconformities.
+
+OTHER PRE-CAMBRIAN AREAS IN NORTH AMERICA. Pre-Cambrian rocks are
+exposed in various parts of the continent, usually by the erosion
+of mountain ranges in which their strata were infolded. Large
+areas occur in the maritime provinces of Canada. The core of the
+Green Mountains of Vermont is pre-Cambrian, and rocks of these
+systems occur in scattered patches in western Massachusetts. Here
+belong also the oldest rocks of the Highlands of the Hudson and of
+New Jersey. The Adirondack region, an outlier of the Laurentian
+region, exposes pre-Cambrian rocks, which have been metamorphosed
+and tilted by the intrusion of a great boss of igneous rock out of
+which the central peaks are carved. The core of the Blue Ridge and
+probably much of the Piedmont Belt are of this age. In the Black
+Hills the irruption of an immense mass of granite has caused or
+accompanied the upheaval of pre-Cambrian strata and metamorphosed
+them by heat and pressure into gneisses, schists, quartzites, and
+slates. In most of these mountainous regions the lowest strata are
+profoundly changed by metamorphism, and they can be assigned to
+the pre-Cambrian only where they are clearly overlain
+unconformably by formations proved to be Cambrian by their
+fossils. In the Belt Mountains of Montana, however, the Cambrian
+is underlain by Algonkian sediments twelve thousand feet thick,
+and but little altered.
+
+MINERAL WEALTH OF THE PRE-CAMBRIAN ROCKS. The pre-Cambrian rocks
+are of very great economic importance, because of their extensive
+metamorphism and the enormous masses of igneous rock which they
+involve. In many parts of the country they are the source of
+supply of granite, gneiss, marble, slate, and other such building
+materials. Still more valuable are the stores of iron and copper
+and other metals which they contain.
+
+At the present time the pre-Cambrian region about Lake Superior
+leads the world in the production of iron ore, its output for 1903
+being more than five sevenths of the entire output of the whole
+United States, and exceeding that of any foreign country. The ore
+bodies consist chiefly of the red oxide of iron (hematite) and
+occur in troughs of the strata, underlain by some impervious rock.
+A theory held by many refers the ultimate source of the iron to
+the igneous rocks of the Archean. When these rocks were upheaved
+and subjected to weathering, their iron compounds were decomposed.
+Their iron was leached out and carried away to be laid in the
+Algonkian water bodies in beds of iron carbonate and other iron
+compounds. During the later ages, after the Algonkian strata had
+been uplifted to form part of the continent, a second
+concentration has taken place. Descending underground waters
+charged with oxygen have decomposed the iron carbonate and
+deposited the iron, in the form of iron oxide, in troughs of the
+strata where their downward progress was arrested by impervious
+floors.
+
+The pre-Cambrian rocks of the eastern United States also are rich
+in iron. In certain districts, as in the Highlands of New Jersey,
+the black oxide of iron (magnetite) is so abundant in beds and
+disseminated grains that the ordinary surveyor's compass is
+useless.
+
+The pre-Cambrian copper mines of the Lake Superior region are
+among the richest on the globe. In the igneous rocks copper, next
+to iron, is the most common of all the useful metals, and it was
+especially abundant in the Keweenawan lavas. After the Keweenawan
+was uplifted to form land, percolating waters leached out much of
+the copper diffused in the lava sheets and deposited it within
+steam blebs as amygdules of native copper, in cracks and fissures,
+and especially as a cement, or matrix, in the interbedded gravels
+which formed the chief aquifers of the region. The famous Calumet
+and Hecla mine follows down the dip of the strata to the depth of
+nearly a mile and works such an ancient conglomerate whose matrix
+is pure copper.
+
+THE APPEARANCE OF LIFE. Sometime during the dim ages preceding the
+Cambrian, whether in the Archean or in the Algonkian we know not,
+occurred one of the most important events in the history of the
+earth. Life appeared for the first time upon the planet. Geology
+has no evidence whatever to offer as to whence or how life came.
+All analogies lead us to believe that its appearance must have
+been sudden. Its earliest forms are unknown, but analogy suggests
+that as every living creature has developed from a single cell, so
+the earliest organisms upon the globe--the germs from which all
+later life is supposed to have been evolved--were tiny,
+unicellular masses of protoplasm, resembling the amoeba of to-day
+in the simplicity of their structure.
+
+Such lowly forms were destitute of any hard parts and could leave
+no evidence of their existence in the record of the rocks. And of
+their supposed descendants we find so few traces in the pre-
+Cambrian strata that the first steps in organic evolution must be
+supplied from such analogies in embryology as the following. The
+fertilized ovum, the cell with which each animal begins its life,
+grows and multiplies by cell division, and develops into a hollow
+globe of cells called the BLASTOSPHERE. This stage is succeeded by
+the stage of the GASTRULA,--an ovoid or cup-shaped body with a
+double wall of cells inclosing a body cavity, and with an opening,
+the primitive mouth. Each of these early embryological stages is
+represented by living animals,--the undivided cell by the
+PROTOZOA, the blastosphere by some rare forms, and the gastrula in
+the essential structure of the COELENTERATES,--the subkingdom to
+which the fresh-water hydra and the corals belong. All forms of
+animal life, from the coelenterates to the mammals, follow the
+same path in their embryological development as far as the
+gastrula stage, but here their paths widely diverge, those of each
+subkingdom going their own separate ways.
+
+We may infer, therefore, that during the pre-Cambrian periods
+organic evolution followed the lines thus dimly traced. The
+earliest one-celled protozoa were probably succeeded by many-
+celled animals of the type of the blastosphere, and these by
+gastrula-like organisms. From the gastrula type the higher sub-
+divisions of animal life probably diverged, as separate branches
+from a common trunk. Much or all of this vast differentiation was
+accomplished before the opening of the next era; for all the
+subkingdoms are represented in the Cambrian except the
+vertebrates.
+
+EVIDENCES OF PRE-CAMBRIAN LIFE. An indirect evidence of life
+during the pre-Cambrian periods is found in the abundant and
+varied fauna of the next period; for, if the theory of evolution
+is correct, the differentiation of the Cambrian fauna was a long
+process which might well have required for its accomplishment a
+large part of pre-Cambrian time.
+
+Other indirect evidences are the pre-Cambrian limestones, iron
+ores, and graphite deposits, since such minerals and rocks have
+been formed in later times by the help of organisms. If the
+carbonate of lime of the Algonkian limestones and marbles was
+extracted from sea water by organisms, as is done at present by
+corals, mollusks, and other humble animals and plants, the life of
+those ancient seas must have been abundant. Graphite, a soft black
+mineral composed of carbon and used in the manufacture of lead
+pencils and as a lubricant, occurs widely in the metamorphic pre-
+Cambrian rocks. It is known to be produced in some cases by the
+metamorphism of coal, which itself is formed of decomposed vegetal
+tissues. Seams of graphite may therefore represent accumulations
+of vegetal matter such as seaweed. But limestone, iron ores, and
+graphite can be produced by chemical processes, and their presence
+in the pre-Cambrian makes it only probable, and not certain, that
+life existed at that time.
+
+PRE-CAMBRIAN FOSSILS. Very rarely has any clear trace of an
+organism been found in the most ancient chapters of the geological
+record, so many of their leaves have been destroyed and so far
+have their pages been defaced. Omitting structures whose organic
+nature has been questioned, there are left to mention a tiny
+seashell of one of the most lowly types,--a DISCINA from the pre-
+Cambrian rocks of the Colorado Canyon,--and from the pre-Cambrian
+rocks of Montana trails of annelid worms and casts of their
+burrows in ancient beaches, and fragments of the tests of
+crustaceans. These diverse forms indicate that before the
+Algonkian had closed, life was abundant and had widely
+differentiated. We may expect that other forms will be discovered
+as the rocks are closely searched.
+
+PRE-CAMBRIAN GEOGRAPHY. Our knowledge is far too meager to warrant
+an attempt to draw the varying outlines of sea and land during the
+Archean and Algonkian eras. Pre-Cambrian time probably was longer
+than all later geological time down to the present, as we may
+infer from the vast thicknesses of its rocks and the
+unconformities which part them. We know that during its long
+periods land masses again and again rose from the sea, were worn
+low, and were submerged and covered with the waste of other lands.
+But the formations of separated regions cannot be correlated
+because of the absence of fossils, and nothing more can be made
+out than the detached chapters of local histories, such as the
+outline given of the district about Lake Superior.
+
+The pre-Cambrian rocks show no evidence of any forces then at work
+upon the earth except the forces which are at work upon it now.
+The most ancient sediments known are so like the sediments now
+being laid that we may infer that they were formed under
+conditions essentially similar to those of the present time. There
+is no proof that the sands of the pre-Cambrian sandstones were
+swept by any more powerful waves and currents than are offshore
+sands to-day, or that the muds of the pre-Cambrian shales settled
+to the sea floor in less quiet water than such muds settle in at
+present. The pre-Cambrian lands were, no doubt, worn by wind and
+weather, beaten by rain, and furrowed by streams as now, and, as
+now, they fronted the ocean with beaches on which waves dashed and
+along which tidal currents ran.
+
+Perhaps the chief difference between the pre-Cambrian and the
+present was the absence of life upon the land. So far as we have
+any knowledge, no forests covered the mountain sides, no verdure
+carpeted the plains, and no animals lived on the ground or in the
+air. It is permitted to think of the most ancient lands as deserts
+of barren rock and rock waste swept by rains and trenched by
+powerful streams. We may therefore suppose that the processes of
+their destruction went on more rapidly than at present.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE CAMBRIAN
+
+
+THE PALEOZOIC ERA. The second volume of the geological record,
+called the Paleozoic (Greek, PALAIOS, ancient; ZOE, life), has
+come down to us far less mutilated and defaced than has the first
+volume, which contains the traces of the most ancient life of the
+globe. Fossils are far more abundant in the Paleozoic than in the
+earlier strata, while the sediments in which they were entombed
+have suffered far less from metamorphism and other causes, and
+have been less widely buried from view, than the strata of the
+pre-Cambrian groups. By means of their fossils we can correlate
+the formations of widely separated regions from the beginning of
+the Paleozoic on, and can therefore trace some outline of the
+history of the continents.
+
+Paleozoic time, although shorter than the pre-Cambrian as measured
+by the thickness of the strata, must still be reckoned in millions
+of years. During this vast reach of time the changes in organisms
+were very great. It is according to the successive stages in the
+advance of life that the Paleozoic formations are arranged in five
+systems,--the CAMBRIAN, the ORDOVICIAN, the SILURIAN, the
+DEVONIAN, and the CARBONIFEROUS. On the same basis the first three
+systems are grouped together as the older Paleozoic, because they
+alike are characterized by the dominance of the invertebrates;
+while the last two systems are united in the later Paleozoic, and
+are characterized, the one by the dominance of fishes, and the
+other by the appearance of amphibians and reptiles.
+
+Each of these systems is world-wide in its distribution, and may
+be recognized on any continent by its own peculiar fauna. The
+names first given them in Great Britain have therefore come into
+general use, while their subdivisions, which often cannot be
+correlated in different countries and different regions, are
+usually given local names.
+
+The first three systems were named from the fact that their strata
+are well displayed in Wales. The Cambrian carries the Roman name
+of Wales, and the Ordovician and Silurian the names of tribes of
+ancient Britons which inhabited the same country. The Devonian is
+named from the English county Devon, where its rocks were early
+studied. The Carboniferous was so called from the large amount of
+coal which it was found to contain in Great Britain and
+continental Europe.
+
+THE CAMBRIAN
+
+DISTRIBUTION OF STRATA. The Cambrian rocks outcrop in narrow belts
+about the pre-Cambrian areas of eastern Canada and the Lake
+Superior region, the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. Strips
+of Cambrian formations occupy troughs in the pre-Cambrian rocks of
+New England and the maritime provinces of Canada; a long belt
+borders on the west the crystalline rocks of the Blue Ridge; and
+on the opposite side of the continent the Cambrian reappears in
+the mountains of the Great Basin and the Canadian Rockies. In the
+Mississippi valley it is exposed in small districts where uplift
+has permitted the stripping off of younger rocks. Although the
+areas of outcrop are small, we may infer that Cambrian rocks were
+widely deposited over the continent of North America.
+
+PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. The Cambrian system of North America comprises
+three distinct series, the LOWER CAMBRIAN, the MIDDLE CAMBRIAN,
+and the UPPER CAMBRIAN, each of which is characterized by its own
+peculiar fauna. In sketching the outlines of the continent as it
+was at the beginning of the Paleozoic, it must be remembered that
+wherever the Lower Cambrian formations now are found was certainly
+then sea bottom, and wherever the Lower Cambrian are wanting, and
+the next formations rest directly on pre-Cambrian rocks, was
+probably then land.
+
+EARLY CAMBRIAN GEOGRAPHY. In this way we know that at the opening
+of the Cambrian two long, narrow mediterranean seas stretched from
+north to south across the continent. The eastern sea extended from
+the Gulf of St. Lawrence down the Champlain-Hudson valley and
+thence along the western base of the Blue Ridge south at least to
+Alabama. The western sea stretched from the Canadian Rockies over
+the Great Basin and at least as far south as the Grand Canyon of
+the Colorado in Arizona.
+
+Between these mediterraneans lay a great central land which
+included the pre-Cambrian U-shaped area of the Laurentian
+peneplain, and probably extended southward to the latitude of New
+Orleans. To the east lay a land which we may designate as
+APPALACHIA, whose western shore line was drawn along the site of
+the present Blue Ridge, but whose other limits are quite unknown.
+The land of Appalachia must have been large, for it furnished a
+great amount of waste during the entire Paleozoic era, and its
+eastern coast may possibly have lain even beyond the edge of the
+present continental shelf. On the western side of the continent a
+narrow land occupied the site of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
+
+Thus, even at the beginning of the Paleozoic, the continental
+plateau of North America had already been left by crustal
+movements in relief above the abysses of the great oceans on
+either side. The mediterraneans which lay upon it were shallow, as
+their sediments prove. They were EPICONTINENTAL SEAS; that is,
+they rested UPON (Greek, EPI) the submerged portion of the
+continental plateau. We have no proof that the deep ocean ever
+occupied any part of where North America now is.
+
+The Middle and Upper Cambrian strata are found together with the
+Lower Cambrian over the area of both the eastern and the western
+mediterraneans, so that here the sea continued during the entire
+period. The sediments throughout are those of shoal water. Coarse
+cross-bedded sandstones record the action of strong shifting
+currents which spread coarse waste near shore and winnowed it of
+finer stuff. Frequent ripple marks on the bedding planes of the
+strata prove that the loose sands of the sea floor were near
+enough to the surface to be agitated by waves and tidal currents.
+Sun cracks show that often the outgoing tide exposed large muddy
+flats to the drying action of the sun. The fossils, also, of the
+strata are of kinds related to those which now live in shallow
+waters near the shore.
+
+The sediments which gathered in the mediterranean seas were very
+thick, reaching in places the enormous depth of ten thousand feet.
+Hence the bottoms of these seas were sinking troughs, ever filling
+with waste from the adjacent land as fast as they subsided.
+
+LATE CAMBRIAN GEOGRAPHY. The formations of the Middle and Upper
+Cambrian are found resting unconformably on the pre-Cambrian rocks
+from New York westward into Minnesota and at various points in the
+interior, as in Missouri and in Texas. Hence after earlier
+Cambrian time the central land subsided, with much the same effect
+as if the Mississippi valley were now to lower gradually, and the
+Gulf of Mexico to spread northward until it entered Lake Superior.
+The Cambrian seas transgressed the central land and strewed far
+and wide behind their advancing beaches the sediments of the later
+Cambrian upon an eroded surface of pre-Cambrian rocks.
+
+The succession of the Cambrian formations in North America records
+many minor oscillations and varying conditions of physical
+geography; yet on the whole it tells of widening seas and lowering
+lands. Basal conglomerates and coarse sandstones which must have
+been laid near shore are succeeded by shaly sandstones, sandy
+shales, and shales. Toward the top of the series heavy beds of
+limestone, extending from the Blue Ridge to Missouri, speak of
+clear water, and either of more distant shores or of neighboring
+lands which were worn or sunk so low that for the most part their
+waste was carried to the sea in solution.
+
+In brief, the Cambrian was a period of submergence. It began with
+the larger part of North America emerged as great land masses. It
+closed with most of the interior of the continental plateau
+covered with a shallow sea.
+
+THE LIFE OF THE CAMBRIAN PERIOD
+
+It is now for the first time that we find preserved in the
+offshore deposits of the Cambrian seas enough remains of animal
+life to be properly called a fauna. Doubtless these remains are
+only the most fragmentary representation of the life of the time,
+for the Cambrian rocks are very old and have been widely
+metamorphosed. Yet the five hundred and more species already
+discovered embrace all the leading types of invertebrate life, and
+are so varied that we must believe that their lines of descent
+stretch far back into the pre-Cambrian past.
+
+PLANTS. No remains of plants have been found in Cambrian strata,
+except some doubtful markings, as of seaweed.
+
+SPONGES. The sponges, the lowest of the multicellular animals,
+were represented by several orders. Their fossils are recognized
+by the siliceous spicules, which, as in modern sponges, either
+were scattered through a mass of horny fibers or were connected in
+a flinty framework.
+
+COELENTERATES. This subkingdom includes two classes of interest to
+the geologist,--the HYDROZOA, such as the fresh-water hydra and
+the jellyfish, and the CORALS. Both classes existed in the
+Cambrian.
+
+The Hydrozoa were represented not only by jellyfish but also by
+the GRAPTOLITE, which takes its name from a fancied resemblance of
+some of its forms to a quill pen. It was a composite animal with a
+horny framework, the individuals of the colony living in cells
+strung on one or both sides along a hollow stem, and communicating
+by means of a common flesh in this central tube. Some graptolites
+were straight, and some curved or spiral; some were single
+stemmed, and others consisted of several radial stems united.
+Graptolites occur but rarely in the Upper Cambrian. In the
+Ordovician and Silurian they are very plentiful, and at the close
+of the Silurian they pass out of existence, never to return.
+
+CORALS are very rarely found in the Cambrian, and the description
+of their primitive types is postponed to later chapters treating
+of periods when they became more numerous.
+
+ECHINODERMS. This subkingdom comprises at present such familiar
+forms as the crinoid, the starfish, and the sea urchin. The
+structure of echinoderms is radiate. Their integument is hardened
+with plates or particles of carbonate of lime.
+
+Of the free echinoderms, such as the starfish and the sea urchin,
+the former has been found in the Cambrian rocks of Europe, but
+neither have so far been discovered in the strata of this period
+in North America. The stemmed and lower division of the
+echinoderms was represented by a primitive type, the CYSTOID, so
+called from its saclike form, A small globular or ovate "calyx" of
+calcareous plates, with an aperture at the top for the mouth,
+inclosed the body of the animal, and was attached to the sea
+bottom by a short flexible stalk consisting of disks of carbonate
+of lime held together by a central ligament.
+
+ARTHOPODS. These segmented animals with "jointed feet," as their
+name suggests, may be divided in a general way into water
+breathers and air breathers. The first-named and lower division
+comprises the class of the CRUSTACEA,--arthropods protected by a
+hard exterior skeleton, or "crust,"--of which crabs, crayfish, and
+lobsters are familiar examples. The higher division, that of the
+air breathers, includes the following classes: spiders, scorpions,
+centipedes, and insects.
+
+THE TRILOBITE. The aquatic arthropods, the Crustacea, culminated
+before the air breathers; and while none of the latter are found
+in the Cambrian, the former were the dominant life of the time in
+numbers, in size, and in the variety of their forms. The leading
+crustacean type is the TRILOBITE, which takes its name from the
+three lobes into which its shell is divided longitudinally. There
+are also three cross divisions,--the head shield, the tail shield,
+and between the two the thorax, consisting of a number of distinct
+and unconsolidated segments. The head shield carries a pair of
+large, crescentic, compound eyes, like those of the insect. The
+eye varies greatly in the number of its lenses, ranging from
+fourteen in some species to fifteen thousand in others. Figure
+268, C, is a restoration of the trilobite, and shows the
+appendages, which are found preserved only in the rarest cases.
+
+During the long ages of the Cambrian the trilobite varied greatly.
+Again and again new species and genera appeared, while the older
+types became extinct. For this reason and because of their
+abundance, trilobites are used in the classification of the
+Cambrian system. The Lower Cambrian is characterized by the
+presence of a trilobitic fauna in which the genus Olenellus is
+predominant. This, the OLENELLUS ZONE, is one of the most
+important platforms in the entire geological series; for, the
+world over, it marks the beginning of Paleozoic time, while all
+underlying strata are classified as pre-Cambrian. The Middle
+Cambrian is marked by the genus Paradoxides, and the Upper
+Cambrian by the genus Olenus. Some of the Cambrian trilobites were
+giants, measuring as much as two feet long, while others were the
+smallest of their kind, a fraction of an inch in length.
+
+Another type of crustacean which lived in the Cambrian and whose
+order is still living is illustrated in Figure 269.
+
+WORMS. Trails and burrows of worms have been left on the sea
+beaches and mud flats of all geological times from the Algonkian
+to the present.
+
+BRACHIOPODS. These soft-bodied animals, with bivalve shells and
+two interior armlike processes which served for breathing,
+appeared in the Algonkian, and had now become very abundant. The
+two valves of the brachiopod shell are unequal in size, and in
+each valve a line drawn from the beak to the base divides the
+valve into two equal parts. It may thus be told from the pelecypod
+mollusk, such as the clam, whose two valves are not far from equal
+in size, each being divided into unequal parts by a line dropped
+from the beak.
+
+Brachiopods include two orders. In the most primitive order--that
+of the INARTICULATE brachiopods--the two valves are held together
+only by muscles of the animal, and the shell is horny or is
+composed of phosphate of lime. The DISCINA, which began in the
+Algonkian, is of this type, as is also the LINGULELLA of the
+Cambrian. Both of these genera have lived on during the millions
+of years of geological time since their introduction, handing down
+from generation to generation with hardly any change to their
+descendants now living off our shores the characters impressed
+upon them at the beginning.
+
+The more highly organized ARTICULATE brachiopods have valves of
+carbonate of lime more securely joined by a hinge with teeth and
+sockets (Fig. 270). In the Cambrian the inarticulates predominate,
+though the articulates grow common toward the end of the period.
+
+MOLLUSKS. The three chief classes of mollusks--the PELECYPODS
+(represented by the oyster and clam of to-day), the GASTROPODS
+(represented now by snails, conches, and periwinkles), and the
+CEPHALOPODS (such as the nautilus, cuttlefish, and squids)--were
+all represented in the Cambrian, although very sparingly.
+
+Pteropods, a suborder of the gastropods, appeared in this age.
+Their papery shells of carbonate of lime are found in great
+numbers from this time on.
+
+Cephalopods, the most highly organized of the mollusks, started
+into existence, so far as the record shows, toward, the end of the
+Cambrian, with the long extinct ORTHOCERAS (STRAIGHTHORN) and the
+allied genera of its family. The Orthoceras had a long, straight,
+and tapering shell, divided by cross partitions into chambers. The
+animal lived in the "body chamber" at the larger end, and walled
+off the other chambers from it in succession during the growth of
+the shell. A central tube, the SIPHUNCLE, passed through from the
+body chamber to the closed tip of the cone.
+
+The seashells, both brachiopods and mollusks, are in some respects
+the most important to the geologist of all fossils. They have been
+so numerous, so widely distributed, and so well preserved because
+of their durable shells and their station in growing sediments,
+that better than any other group of organisms they can be used to
+correlate the strata of different regions and to mark by their
+slow changes the advance of geological time.
+
+CLIMATE. The life of Cambrian times in different countries
+contains no suggestion of any marked climatic zones, and as in
+later periods a warm climate probably reached to the polar
+regions.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE ORDOVICIAN AND SILURIAN
+[Footnote: Often known as the Lower Silurian.]
+
+THE ORDOVICIAN
+
+
+In North America the Ordovician rocks lie conformably on the
+Cambrian. The two periods, therefore, were not parted by any
+deformation, either of mountain making or of continental uplift.
+The general submergence which marked the Cambrian continued into
+the succeeding period with little interruption.
+
+SUBDIVISIONS AND DISTRIBUTION OF STRATA. The Ordovician series, as
+they have been made out in New York, are given for reference in
+the following table, with the rocks of which they are chiefly
+composed:
+
+    5 Hudson . . . . . . . . shales
+    4 Utica  . . . . . . . . shales
+    3 Trenton  . . . . . . . limestones
+    2 Chazy  . . . . . . . . limestones
+    1 Calciferous  . . . . . sandy limestones
+
+These marine formations of the Ordovician outcrop about the
+Cambrian and pre-Cambrian areas, and, as borings show, extend far
+and wide over the interior of the continent beneath more recent
+strata. The Ordovician sea stretched from Appalachia across the
+Mississippi valley. It seems to have extended to California,
+although broken probably by several mountainous islands in the
+west.
+
+PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. The physical history of the period is recorded
+in the succession of its formations. The sandstones of the Upper
+Cambrian, as we have learned, tell of a transgressing sea which
+gradually came to occupy the Mississippi valley and the interior
+of North America. The limestones of the early and middle
+Ordovician show that now the shore had become remote and the lands
+had become more low. The waters now had cleared. Colonies of
+brachiopods and other lime-secreting animals occupied the sea
+bottom, and their debris mantled it with sheets of limy ooze. The
+sandy limestones of the Calciferous record the transition stage
+from the Cambrian when some sand was still brought in from shore.
+The highly fossiliferous limestones of the Trenton tell of clear
+water and abundant life. We need not regard this epicontinental
+sea as deep. No abysmal deposits have been found, and the
+limestones of the period are those which would be laid in clear,
+warm water of moderate depth like that of modern coral seas.
+
+The shales of the Utica and Hudson show that the waters of the sea
+now became clouded with mud washed in from land. Either the land
+was gradually uplifted, or perhaps there had arrived one of those
+periodic crises which, as we may imagine, have taken place
+whenever the crust of the shrinking earth has slowly given way
+over its great depressions, and the ocean has withdrawn its waters
+into deepening abysses. The land was thus left relatively higher
+and bordered with new coastal plains. The epicontinental sea was
+shoaled and narrowed, and muds were washed in from the adjacent
+lands.
+
+THE TACONIC DEFORMATION. The Ordovician was closed by a
+deformation whose extent and severity are not yet known. From the
+St. Lawrence River to New York Bay, along the northwestern and
+western border of New England, lies a belt of Cambrian-Ordovician
+rocks more than a mile in total thickness, which accumulated
+during the long ages of those periods in a gradually subsiding
+trough between the Adirondacks and a pre-Cambrian range lying west
+of the Connecticut River. But since their deposition these ancient
+sediments have been crumpled and crushed, broken with great
+faults, and extensively metamorphosed. The limestones have
+recrystallized into marbles, among them the famous marbles of
+Vermont; the Cambrian sandstones have become quartzites, and the
+Hudson shale has been changed to a schist exposed on Manhattan
+Island and northward.
+
+In part these changes occurred at the close of the Ordovician, for
+in several places beds of Silurian age rest unconformably on the
+upturned Ordovician strata; but recent investigations have made it
+probable that the crustal movements recurred at later times, and
+it was perhaps in the Devonian and at the close of the
+Carboniferous that the greater part of the deformation and
+metamorphism was accomplished. As a result of these movements,--
+perhaps several times repeated,--a great mountain range was
+upridged, which has been long since leveled by erosion, but whose
+roots are now visible in the Taconic Mountains of western New
+England.
+
+THE CINCINNATI ANTICLINE. Over an oval area in Ohio, Indiana, and
+Kentucky, whose longer axis extends from north to south through
+Cincinnati, the Ordovician strata rise in a very low, broad swell,
+called the Cincinnati anticline. The Silurian and Devonian strata
+thin out as they approach this area and seem never to have
+deposited upon it. We may regard it, therefore, as an island
+upwarped from the sea at the close of the Ordovician or shortly
+after.
+
+PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS. These valuable illuminants and fuels
+are considered here because, although they are found in traces in
+older strata, it is in the Ordovician that they occur for the
+first time in large quantities. They range throughout later
+formations down to the most recent.
+
+The oil horizons of California and Texas are Tertiary; those of
+Colorado, Cretaceous; those of West Virginia, Carboniferous; those
+of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Canada, Devonian; and the large
+field of Ohio and Indiana belongs to the Ordovician and higher
+systems.
+
+Petroleum and natural gas, wherever found, have probably
+originated from the decay of organic matter when buried in
+sedimentary deposits, just as at present in swampy places the
+hydrogen and carbon of decaying vegetation combine to form marsh
+gas. The light and heat of these hydrocarbons we may think of,
+therefore, as a gift to the civilized life of our race from the
+humble organisms, both animal and vegetable, of the remote past,
+whose remains were entombed in the sediments of the Ordovician and
+later geological ages.
+
+Petroleum is very widely disseminated throughout the stratified
+rocks. Certain limestones are visibly greasy with it, and others
+give off its characteristic fetid odor when struck with a hammer.
+Many shales are bituminous, and some are so highly charged that
+small flakes may be lighted like tapers, and several gallons of
+oil to the ton may be obtained by distillation.
+
+But oil and gas are found in paying quantities only when certain
+conditions meet:
+
+1. A SOURCE below, usually a bituminous shale, from whose organic
+matter they have been derived by slow change.
+
+2. A RESERVOIR above, in which they have gathered. This is either
+a porous sandstone or a porous or creviced limestone.
+
+3. Oil and gas are lighter than water, and are usually under
+pressure owing to artesian water. Hence, in order to hold them
+from escaping to the surface, the reservoir must have the shape of
+an ANTICLINE, DOME, or LENS.
+
+4. It must also have an IMPERVIOUS COVER, usually a shale. In
+these reservoirs gas is under a pressure which is often enormous,
+reaching in extreme cases as high as a thousand five hundred
+pounds to the square inch. When tapped it rushes out with a
+deafening roar, sometimes flinging the heavy drill high in air. In
+accounting for this pressure we must remember that the gas has
+been compressed within the pores of the reservoir rock by artesian
+water, and in some cases also by its own expansive force. It is
+not uncommon for artesian water to rise in wells after the
+exhaustion of gas and oil.
+
+LIFE OF THE ORDOVICIAN
+
+During the ages of the Ordovician, life made great advances. Types
+already present branched widely into new genera and species, and
+new and higher types appeared.
+
+Sponges continued from the Cambrian. Graptolites now reached their
+climax.
+
+STROMATOPORA--colonies of minute hydrozoans allied to corals--grew
+in places on the sea floor, secreting stony masses composed of
+thin, close, concentric layers, connected by vertical rods. The
+Stromatopora are among the chief limestone builders of the
+Silurian and Devonian periods.
+
+CORALS developed along several distinct lines, like modern corals
+they secreted a calcareous framework, in whose outer portions the
+polyps lived. In the Ordovician, corals were represented chiefly
+by the family of the CHOETETES, all species of which are long
+since extinct. The description of other types of corals will be
+given under the Silurian, where they first became abundant.
+
+ECHINODERMS. The cystoid reaches its climax, but there appear now
+two higher types of echinoderms,--the crinoid and the starfish.
+The CRINOID, named from its resemblance to the lily, is like the
+cystoid in many respects, but has a longer stem and supports a
+crown of plumose arms. Stirring the water with these arms, it
+creates currents by which particles of food are wafted to its
+mouth. Crinoids are rare at the present time, but they grew in the
+greatest profusion in the warm Ordovician seas and for long ages
+thereafter. In many places the sea floor was beautiful with these
+graceful, flowerlike forms, as with fields of long-stemmed lilies.
+Of the higher, free-moving classes of the echinoderms, starfish
+are more numerous than in the Cambrian, and sea urchins make their
+appearance in rare archaic forms.
+
+CRUSTACEANS. Trilobites now reach their greatest development and
+more than eleven hundred species have been described from the
+rocks of this period. It is interesting to note that in many
+species the segments of the thorax have now come to be so shaped
+that they move freely on one another. Unlike their Cambrian
+ancestors, many of the Ordovician trilobites could roll themselves
+into balls at the approach of danger. It is in this attitude,
+taken at the approach of death, that trilobites are often found in
+the Ordovician and later rocks. The gigantic crustaceans called
+the EURYPTERIDS were also present in this period.
+
+The arthropods had now seized upon the land. Centipedes and
+insects of a low type, the earliest known land animals, have been
+discovered in strata of this system.
+
+BRYOZOANS. No fossils are more common in the limestones of the
+time than the small branching stems and lacelike mats of the
+bryozoans,--the skeletons of colonies of a minute animal allied in
+structure to the brachiopod.
+
+BRACHIOPODS. These multiplied greatly, and in places their shells
+formed thick beds of coquina. They still greatly surpassed the
+mollusks in numbers.
+
+CEPHALOPODS. Among the mollusks we must note the evolution of the
+cephalopods. The primitive straight Orthoceras has now become
+abundant. But in addition to this ancestral type there appears a
+succession of forms more and more curved and closely coiled, as
+illustrated in Figure 285. The nautilus, which began its course in
+this period, crawls on the bottom of our present seas.
+
+VERTEBRATES. The most important record of the Ordovician is that
+of the appearance of a new and higher type, with possibilities of
+development lying hidden in its structure that the mollusk and the
+insect could never hope to reach. Scales and plates of minute
+fishes found in the Ordovician rocks near Canon City, Colorado,
+show that the humblest of the vertebrates had already made its
+appearance. But it is probable that vertebrates had been on the
+earth for ages before this in lowly types, which, being destitute
+of hard parts, would leave no record.
+
+THE SILURIAN
+
+The narrowing of the seas and the emergence of the lands which
+characterized the closing epoch of the Ordovician in eastern North
+America continue into the succeeding period of the Silurian. New
+species appear and many old species now become extinct.
+
+THE APPALACHIAN REGION. Where the Silurian system is most fully
+developed, from New York southward along the Appalachian
+Mountains, it comprises four series:
+
+    4 Salina  . . . shales, impure limestones, gypsum, salt
+    3 Niagara . . . chiefly limestones
+    2 Clinton . . . sandstones, shales, with some limestones
+    1 Medina  . . . conglomerates, sandstones
+
+The rocks of these series are shallow-water deposits and reach the
+total thickness of some five thousand feet. Evidently they were
+laid over an area which was on the whole gradually subsiding,
+although with various gentle oscillations which are recorded in
+the different formations. The coarse sands of the heavy Medina
+formations record a period of uplift of the oldland of Appalachia,
+when erosion went on rapidly and coarse waste in abundance was
+brought down from the hills by swift streams and spread by the
+waves in wide, sandy flats. As the lands were worn lower the waste
+became finer, and during an epoch of transition--the Clinton--
+there were deposited various formations of sandstones, shales, and
+limestones. The Niagara limestones testify to a long epoch of
+repose, when low-lying lands sent little waste down to the sea.
+
+The gypsum and salt deposits of the Salina show that toward the
+close of the Silurian period a slight oscillation brought the sea
+floor nearer to the surface, and at the north cut off extensive
+tracts from the interior sea. In these wide lagoons, which now and
+then regained access to the open sea and obtained new supplies of
+salt water, beds of salt and gypsum were deposited as the briny
+waters became concentrated by evaporation under a desert climate.
+Along with these beds there were also laid shales and impure
+limestones.
+
+In New York the "salt pans" of the Salina extended over an area
+one hundred and fifty miles long from east to west and sixty miles
+wide, and similar salt marshes occurred as far west as Cleveland,
+Ohio, and Goderich on Lake Huron. At Ithaca, New York, the series
+is fifteen hundred feet thick, and is buried beneath an equal
+thickness of later strata. It includes two hundred and fifty feet
+of solid salt, in several distinct beds, each sealed within the
+shales of the series.
+
+Would you expect to find ancient beds of rock salt inclosed in
+beds of pervious sandstone?
+
+The salt beds of the Salina are of great value. They are reached
+by well borings, and their brines are evaporated by solar heat and
+by boiling. The rock salt is also mined from deep shafts.
+
+Similar deposits of salt, formed under like conditions, occur in
+the rocks of later systems down to the present. The salt beds of
+Texas are Permian, those of Kansas are Permian, and those of
+Louisiana are Tertiary.
+
+THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. The heavy near-shore formations of the
+Silurian in the Appalachian region thin out toward the west. The
+Medina and the Clinton sandstones are not found west of Ohio,
+where the first passes into a shale and the second into a
+limestone. The Niagara limestone, however, spreads from the Hudson
+River to beyond the Mississippi, a distance of more than a
+thousand miles. During the Silurian period the Mississippi valley
+region was covered with a quiet, shallow, limestone-making sea,
+which received little waste from the low lands which bordered it.
+
+The probable distribution of land and sea in eastern North America
+and western Europe is shown in Figure 287. The fauna of the
+interior region and of eastern Canada are closely allied with that
+of western Europe, and several species are identical. We can
+hardly account for this except by a shallow-water connection
+between the two ancient epicontinental seas. It was perhaps along
+the coastal shelves of a northern land connecting America and
+Europe by way of Greenland and Iceland that the migration took
+place, so that the same species came to live in Iowa and in
+Sweden.
+
+THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. So little is found of the rocks of the
+system west of the Missouri River that it is quite probable that
+the western part of the United States had for the most part
+emerged from the sea at the close of the Ordovician and remained
+land during the Silurian. At the same time the western land was
+perhaps connected with the eastern land of Appalachia across
+Arkansas and Mississippi; for toward the south the Silurian
+sediments indicate an approach to shore.
+
+LIFE OF THE SILURIAN
+
+In this brief sketch it is quite impossible to relate the many
+changes of species and genera during the Silurian.
+
+CORALS. Some of the more common types are familiarly known as cup
+corals, honeycomb corals, and chain corals. In the CUP CORALS the
+most important feature is the development of radiating vertical
+partitions, or SEPTA, in the cell of the polyp. Some of the cup
+corals grew in hemispherical colonies (Fig. 288), while many were
+separate individuals (Fig. 289), building a single conical, or
+horn-shaped cell, which sometimes reached the extreme size of a
+foot in length and two or three inches in diameter.
+
+HONEYCOMB CORALS consist of masses of small, close-set prismatic
+cells, each crossed by horizontal partitions, or TABULAE, while
+the septa are rudimentary, being represented by faintly projecting
+ridges or rows of spines.
+
+CHAIN CORALS are also marked by tabulae. Their cells form
+elliptical tubes, touching each other at the edges, and appearing
+in cross section like the links of a chain. They became extinct at
+the end of the Silurian.
+
+The corals of the SYRINGOPORA family are similar in structure to
+chain corals, but the tubular columns are connected only in
+places.
+
+To the echinoderms there is now added the BLASTOID (bud-shaped).
+The blastoid is stemmed and armless, and its globular "head" or
+"calyx," with its five petal-like divisions, resembles a flower
+bud. The blastoids became more abundant in the Devonian,
+culminated in the Carboniferous, and disappeared at the end of the
+Paleozoic.
+
+The great eurypterids--some of which were five or six feet in
+length--and the cephalopods were still masters of the seas. Fishes
+were as yet few and small; trilobites and graptolites had now
+passed their prime and had diminished greatly in numbers.
+Scorpions are found in this period both in Europe and in America.
+The limestone-making seas of the Silurian swarmed with corals,
+crinoids, and brachiopods.
+
+With the end of the Silurian period the AGE OF INVERTEBRATES comes
+to a close, giving place to the Devonian, the AGE OF FISHES.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE DEVONIAN
+
+
+In America the Silurian is not separated from the Devonian by any
+mountain-making deformation or continental uplift. The one period
+passed quietly into the other. Their conformable systems are so
+closely related, and the change in their faunas is so gradual,
+that geologists are not agreed as to the precise horizon which
+divides them.
+
+SUBDIVISIONS AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. The Devonian is represented
+in New York and southward by the following five series. We add the
+rocks of which they are chiefly composed.
+
+    5 Chemung     . . . . . . sandstones and sandy shales
+    4 Hamilton    . . . . . . shales and sandstones
+    3 Corniferous . . . . . . limestones
+    2 Oriskany    . . . . . . sandstones
+    1 Helderberg  . . . . . . limestones
+
+The Helderberg is a transition epoch referred by some geologists
+to the Silurian. The thin sandstones of the Oriskany mark an epoch
+when waves worked over the deposits of former coastal plains. The
+limestones of the Corniferous testify to a warm and clear wide sea
+which extended from the Hudson to beyond the Mississippi. Corals
+throve luxuriantly, and their remains, with those of mollusks and
+other lime-secreting animals, built up great beds of limestone.
+The bordering continents, as during the later Silurian, must now
+have been monotonous lowlands which sent down little of even the
+finest waste to the sea.
+
+In the Hamilton the clear seas of the previous epoch became
+clouded with mud. The immense deposits of coarse sandstones and
+sandy shales of the Chemung, which are found off what was at the
+time the west coast of Appalachia, prove an uplift of that ancient
+continent.
+
+The Chemung series extends from the Catskill Mountains to
+northeastern Ohio and south to northeastern Tennessee, covering an
+area of not less than a hundred thousand square miles. In eastern
+New York it attains three thousand feet in thickness; in
+Pennsylvania it reaches the enormous thickness of two miles; but
+it rapidly thins to the west. Everywhere the Chemung is made of
+thin beds of rapidly alternating coarse and fine sands and clays,
+with an occasional pebble layer, and hence is a shallow-water
+deposit. The fine material has not been thoroughly winnowed from
+the coarse by the long action of strong waves and tides. The sands
+and clays have undergone little more sorting than is done by
+rivers. We must regard the Chemung sandstones as deposits made at
+the mouths of swift, turbid rivers in such great amount that they
+could be little sorted and distributed by waves.
+
+Over considerable areas the Chemung sandstones bear little or no
+trace of the action of the sea. The Catskill Mountains, for
+example, have as their summit layers some three thousand feet of
+coarse red sandstones of this series, whose structure is that of
+river deposits, and whose few fossils are chiefly of fresh-water
+types. The Chemung is therefore composed of delta deposits, more
+or less worked over by the sea. The bulk of the Chemung equals
+that of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. To furnish this immense
+volume of sediment a great mountain range, or highland, must have
+been upheaved where the Appalachian lowland long had been. To what
+height the Devonian mountains of Appalachia attained cannot be
+told from the volume of the sediments wasted from them, for they
+may have risen but little faster than they were worn down by
+denudation. We may infer from the character of the waste which
+they furnished to the Chemung shores that they did not reach an
+Alpine height. The grains of the Chemung sandstones are not those
+which would result from mechanical disintegration, as by frost on
+high mountain peaks, but are rather those which would be left from
+the long chemical decay of siliceous crystalline rocks; for the
+more soluble minerals are largely wanting. The red color of much
+of the deposits points to the same conclusion. Red residual clays
+accumulated on the mountain sides and upland summits, and were
+washed as ocherous silt to mingle with the delta sands. The iron-
+bearing igneous rocks of the oldland also contributed by their
+decay iron in solution to the rivers, to be deposited in films of
+iron oxide about the quartz grains of the Chemung sandstones,
+giving them their reddish tints.
+
+LIFE OF THE DEVONIAN
+
+PLANTS. The lands were probably clad with verdure during Silurian
+times, if not still earlier; for some rare remains of ferns and
+other lowly types of vegetation have been found in the strata of
+that system. But it is in the Devonian that we discover for the
+first time the remains of extensive and luxuriant forests. This
+rich flora reached its climax in the Carboniferous, and it will be
+more convenient to describe its varied types in the next chapter.
+
+RHIZOCARPS. In the shales of the Devonian are found microscopic
+spores of rhizocarps in such countless numbers that their weight
+must be reckoned in hundreds of millions of tons. It would seem
+that these aquatic plants culminated in this period, and in widely
+distant portions of the earth swampy flats and shallow lagoons
+were filled with vegetation of this humble type, either growing
+from the bottom or floating free upon the surface. It is to the
+resinous spores of the rhizocarps that the petroleum and natural
+gas from Devonian rocks are largely due. The decomposition of the
+spores has made the shales highly bituminous, and the oil and gas
+have accumulated in the reservoirs of overlying porous sandstones.
+
+INVERTEBRATES. We must pass over the ever-changing groups of the
+invertebrates with the briefest notice. Chain corals became
+extinct at the close of the Silurian, but other corals were
+extremely common in the Devonian seas. At many places corals
+formed thin reefs, as at Louisville, Kentucky, where the hardness
+of the reef rock is one of the causes of the Falls of the Ohio.
+
+Sponges, echinoderms, brachiopods, and mollusks were abundant. The
+cephalopods take a new departure. So far in all their various
+forms, whether straight, as the Orthoceras, or curved, or close-
+coiled as in the nautilus, the septum, or partition dividing the
+chambers, met the inner shell along a simple line, like that of
+the rim of a saucer. There now begins a growth of the septum by
+which its edges become sharply corrugated, and the suture, or line
+of juncture of the septum and the shell, is thus angled. The group
+in which this growth of the septum takes place is called the
+GONIATITE (Greek GONIA, angle).
+
+VERTEBRATES. It is with the greatest interest that we turn now to
+study the backboned animals of the Devonian; for they are believed
+to be the ancestors of the hosts of vertebrates which have since
+dominated the earth. Their rudimentary structures foreshadowed
+what their descendants were to be, and give some clue to the
+earliest vertebrates from which they sprang. Like those whose
+remains are found in the lower Paleozoic systems, all of these
+Devonian vertebrates were aquatic and go under the general
+designation of fishes.
+
+The lowest in grade and nearest, perhaps, to the ancestral type of
+vertebrates, was the problematic creature, an inch or so long, of
+Figure 297. Note the circular mouth not supplied with jaws, the
+lack of paired fins, and the symmetric tail fin, with the column
+of cartilaginous, ringlike vertebrae running through it to the
+end. The animal is probably to be placed with the jawless lampreys
+and hags,--a group too low to be included among true fishes.
+
+OSTRACODERMS. This archaic group, long since extinct, is also too
+lowly to rank among the true fishes, for its members have neither
+jaws nor paired fins. These small, fishlike forms were cased in
+front with bony plates developed in the skin and covered in the
+rear with scales. The vertebrae were not ossified, for no trace of
+them has been found.
+
+DEVONIAN FISHES. The TRUE FISHES of the Devonian can best be
+understood by reference to their descendants now living. Modern
+fishes are divided into several groups: SHARKS and their allies;
+DIPNOANS; GANOIDS, such as the sturgeon and gar; and TELEOSTS,--
+most common fishes, such as the perch and cod.
+
+SHARKS. Of all groups of living fishes the sharks are the oldest
+and still retain most fully the embryonic characters of their
+Paleozoic ancestors. Such characters are the cartilaginous
+skeleton, and the separate gill slits with which the throat wall
+is pierced and which are arranged in line like the gill openings
+of the lamprey. The sharks of the Silurian and Devonian are known
+to us chiefly by their teeth and fin spines, for they were
+unprotected by scales or plates, and were devoid of a bony
+skeleton. Figure 299 is a restoration of an archaic shark from a
+somewhat higher horizon. Note the seven gill slits and the
+lappetlike paired fins. These fins seem to be remnants of the
+continuous fold of skin which, as embryology teaches, passed from
+fore to aft down each side of the primitive vertebrate.
+
+Devonian sharks were comparatively small. They had not evolved
+into the ferocious monsters which were later to be masters of the
+seas.
+
+DIPNOANS, OR LUNG FISHES. These are represented to-day by a
+few peculiar fishes and are distinguished by some high structures
+which ally them with amphibians. An air sac with cellular spaces
+is connected with the gullet and serves as a rudimentary lung. It
+corresponds with the swim bladder of most modern fishes, and
+appears to have had a common origin with it. We may conceive that
+the primordial fishes not only had gills used in breathing air
+dissolved in water, but also developed a saclike pouch off the
+gullet. This sac evolved along two distinct lines. On the line of
+the ancestry of most modern fishes its duct was closed and it
+became the swim bladder used in flotation and balancing. On
+another line of descent it was left open, air was swallowed into
+it, and it developed into the rudimentary lung of the dipnoans and
+into the more perfect lungs of the amphibians and other air-
+breathing vertebrates.
+
+One of the ancient dipnoans is illustrated in Figure 300. Some of
+the members of this order were, like the ostracoderms, cased in
+armor, but their higher rank is shown by their powerful jaws and
+by other structures. Some of these armored fishes reached twenty-
+five feet in length and six feet across the head. They were the
+tyrants of the Devonian seas.
+
+GANOIDS. These take their name from their enameled plates or
+scales of bone. The few genera now surviving are the descendants
+of the tribes which swarmed in the Devonian seas. A restoration of
+one of a leading order, the FRINGE-FINNED ganoids, is given in
+Figure 301. The side fins, which correspond to the limbs of the
+higher vertebrates, are quite unlike those of most modern fishes.
+Their rays, instead of radiating from a common base, fringe a
+central lobe which contains a cartilaginous axis. The teeth of the
+Devonian ganoids show a complicated folded structure.
+
+GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF DEVONIAN FISHES. THE NOTOCHORD IS
+PERSISTENT. The notochord is a continuous rod of cartilage, or
+gristle, which in the embryological growth of vertebrate animals
+supports the spinal nerve cord before the formation of the
+vertebrae. In most modern fishes and in all higher vertebrates the
+notochord is gradually removed as the bodies of the vertebrae are
+formed about it; but in the Devonian fishes it persists through
+maturity and the vertebrae remain incomplete.
+
+THE SKELETON IS CARTILAGINOUS. This also is an embryological
+characteristic. In the Devonian fishes the vertebrae, as well as
+the other parts of the skeleton, have not ossified, or changed to
+bone, but remain in their primitive cartilaginous condition.
+
+THE TAIL FIN IS VERTEBRATED. The backbone runs through the fin and
+is fringed above and below with its vertical rays. In some fishes
+with vertebrated tail fins the fin is symmetric, and this seems to
+be the primitive type. In others the tail fin is unsymmetric: the
+backbone runs into the upper lobe, leaving the two lobes of
+unequal size. In most modern fishes (the teleosts) the tail fin is
+not vertebrated: the spinal column ends in a broad plate, to which
+the diverging fin rays are attached.
+
+But along with these embryonic characters, which were common to
+all Devonian fishes, there were other structures in certain groups
+which foreshadowed the higher structures of the land vertebrates
+which were yet to come: air sacs which were to develop into lungs,
+and cartilaginous axes in the side fins which were a prophecy of
+limbs. The vertebrates had already advanced far enough to prove
+the superiority of their type of structure to all others. Their
+internal skeleton afforded the best attachment for muscles and
+enabled them to become the largest and most powerful creatures of
+the time. The central nervous system, with the predominance given
+to the ganglia at the fore end of the nerve cord,--the brain,--
+already endowed them with greater energy than the invertebrates;
+and, still more important, these structures contained the
+would have made it illegal, during the War, to teach the doctrine that
+the Kaiser’s Government should be overthrown by force; and, since then,
+the support of Kolchak or Denikin against the Soviet Government would
+have been illegal. Such consequences, of course, were not intended, and
+result only from bad draughtsmanship. What was intended appears from
+another law passed at the same time, applying to teachers in State
+schools. This law provides that certificates permitting persons to teach
+in such schools shall be issued only to those who have “shown
+satisfactorily” that they are “loyal and obedient to the Government of
+this State and of the United States,” and shall be refused to those who
+have advocated, no matter where or when, “a form of government other
+than the Government of this State or of the United States.” The
+committee which framed these laws, as quoted by the _New Republic_, laid
+it down that the teacher who “does not approve of the present social
+system......must surrender his office,” and that “no person who is not
+eager to combat the theories of social change should be entrusted with
+the task of fitting the young and old for the responsibilities of
+citizenship.” Thus, according to the law of the State of New York,
+Christ and George Washington were too degraded morally to be fit for the
+education of the young. If Christ were to go to New York and say,
+“Suffer the little children to come unto me,” the President of the New
+York School Board would reply: “Sir, I see no evidence that you are
+eager to combat theories of social change. Indeed, I have heard it said
+that you advocate what you call the _kingdom_ of heaven, whereas this
+country, thank God, is a republic. It is clear that the Government of
+your kingdom of heaven would differ materially from that of New York
+State, therefore no children will be allowed access to you.” If he
+failed to make this reply, he would not be doing his duty as a
+functionary entrusted with the administration of the law.
+
+The effect of such laws is very serious. Let it be granted, for the sake
+of argument, that the government and the social system in the State of
+New York are the best that have ever existed on this planet; yet even
+then both would presumably be capable of improvement. Any person who
+admits this obvious proposition is by law incapable of teaching in a
+State school. Thus the law decrees that the teachers shall all be either
+hypocrites or fools.
+
+The growing danger exemplified by the New York law is that resulting
+from the monopoly of power in the hands of a single organization,
+whether the State or a Trust or federation of Trusts. In the case of
+education, the power is in the hands of the State, which can prevent the
+young from hearing of any doctrine which it dislikes. I believe there
+are still some people who think that a democratic State is scarcely
+distinguishable from the people. This, however, is a delusion. The State
+is a collection of officials, different for different purposes, drawing
+comfortable incomes so long as the _status quo_ is preserved. The only
+alteration they are likely to desire in the _status quo_ is an increase
+of bureaucracy and of the power of bureaucrats. It is, therefore,
+natural that they should take advantage of such opportunities as war
+excitement to acquire inquisitorial powers over their employees,
+involving the right to inflict starvation upon any subordinate who
+opposes them. In matters of the mind, such as education, this state of
+affairs is fatal. It puts an end to all possibility of progress or
+freedom or intellectual initiative. Yet it is the natural result of
+allowing the whole of elementary education to fall under the sway of a
+single organization.
+
+Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won because people
+have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to
+be. But in politics and economics, which have taken the place formerly
+occupied by religion, there is a growing tendency to persecution, which
+is not by any means confined to one party. The persecution of opinion in
+Russia is more severe than in any capitalist country. I met in Petrograd
+an eminent Russian poet, Alexander Block, who has since died as the
+result of privations. The Bolsheviks allowed him to teach æsthetics, but
+he complained that they insisted on his teaching the subject “from a
+Marxian point of view.” He had been at a loss to discover how the theory
+of rhythmics was connected with Marxism, although, to avoid starvation,
+he had done his best to find out. Of course, it has been impossible in
+Russia ever since the Bolsheviks came into power to print anything
+critical of the dogmas upon which their regime is founded.
+
+The examples of America and Russia illustrate the conclusion to which we
+seem to be driven—namely, that so long as men continue to have the
+present fanatical belief in the importance of politics free thought on
+political matters will be impossible, and there is only too much danger
+that the lack of freedom will spread to all other matters, as it has
+done in Russia. Only some degree of political scepticism can save us
+from this misfortune.
+
+It must not be supposed that the officials in charge of education desire
+the young to become educated. On the contrary, their problem is to
+impart information without imparting intelligence. Education should have
+two objects: first, to give definite knowledge—reading and writing,
+languages and mathematics, and so on; secondly, to create those mental
+habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound
+judgments for themselves. The first of these we may call information,
+the second intelligence. The utility of information is admitted
+practically as well as theoretically; without a literate population a
+modern State is impossible. But the utility of intelligence is admitted
+only theoretically, not practically; it is not desired that ordinary
+people should think for themselves, because it is felt that people who
+think for themselves are awkward to manage and cause administrative
+difficulties. Only the guardians, in Plato’s language, are to think; the
+rest are to obey, or to follow leaders like a herd of sheep. This
+doctrine, often unconsciously, has survived the introduction of
+political democracy, and has radically vitiated all national systems of
+education.
+
+The country which has succeeded best in giving information without
+intelligence is the latest addition to modern civilization, Japan.
+Elementary education in Japan is said to be admirable from the point of
+view of instruction. But, in addition to instruction, it has another
+purpose, which is to teach worship of the Mikado—a far stronger creed
+now than before Japan became modernized.[3] Thus the schools have been
+used simultaneously to confer knowledge and to promote superstition.
+Since we are not tempted to Mikado-worship, we see clearly what is
+absurd in Japanese teaching. Our own national superstitions strike us as
+natural and sensible, so that we do not take such a true view of them as
+we do of the superstitions of Nippon. But if a travelled Japanese were
+to maintain the thesis that our schools teach superstitions just as
+inimical to intelligence as belief in the divinity of the Mikado, I
+suspect that he would be able to make out a very good case.
+
+For the present I am not in search of remedies, but am only concerned
+with diagnosis. We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education
+has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of
+thought. This is due primarily to the fact that the State claims a
+monopoly; but that is by no means the sole cause.
+
+(2) _Propaganda._—Our system of education turns young people out of the
+schools able to read, but for the most part unable to weigh evidence or
+to form an independent opinion. They are then assailed, throughout the
+rest of their lives, by statements designed to make them believe all
+sorts of absurd propositions, such as that Blank’s pills cure all ills,
+that Spitzbergen is warm and fertile, and that Germans eat corpses. The
+art of propaganda, as practised by modern politicians and governments,
+is derived from the art of advertisement. The science of psychology owes
+a great deal to advertisers. In former days most psychologists would
+probably have thought that a man could not convince many people of the
+excellence of his own wares by merely stating emphatically that they
+were excellent. Experience shows, however, that they were mistaken in
+this. If I were to stand up once in a public place and state that I am
+the most modest man alive, I should be laughed at; but if I could raise
+enough money to make the same statement on all the busses and on
+hoardings along all the principal railway lines, people would presently
+become convinced that I had an abnormal shrinking from publicity. If I
+were to go to a small shopkeeper and say: “Look at your competitor over
+the way, he is getting your business; don’t you think it would be a good
+plan to leave your business and stand up in the middle of the road and
+try to shoot him before he shoots you?”—if I were to say this, any
+small shopkeeper would think me mad. But when the Government says it
+with emphasis and a brass band, the small shopkeepers become
+enthusiastic, and are quite surprised when they find afterwards that
+business has suffered. Propaganda, conducted by the means which
+advertisers have found successful, is now one of the recognized methods
+of government in all advanced countries, and is especially the method by
+which democratic opinion is created.
+
+There are two quite different evils about propaganda as now practised.
+On the one hand, its appeal is generally to irrational causes of belief
+rather than to serious argument; on the other hand, it gives an unfair
+advantage to those who can obtain most publicity, whether through wealth
+or through power. For my part, I am inclined to think that too much fuss
+is sometimes made about the fact that propaganda appeals to emotion
+rather than reason. The line between emotion and reason is not so sharp
+as some people think. Moreover, a clever man could frame a sufficiently
+rational argument in favour of any position which has any chance of
+being adopted. There are always good arguments on both sides of any real
+issue. Definite mis-statements of fact can be legitimately objected to,
+but they are by no means necessary. The mere words “Pear’s Soap,” which
+affirm nothing, cause people to buy that article. If, wherever these
+words appear, they were replaced by the words “The Labour Party,”
+millions of people would be led to vote for the Labour Party, although
+the advertisements had claimed no merit for it whatever. But if both
+sides in a controversy were confined by law to statements which a
+committee of eminent logicians considered relevant and valid, the main
+evil of propaganda, as at present conducted, would remain. Suppose,
+under such a law, two parties with an equally good case, one of whom had
+a million pounds to spend on propaganda, while the other had only a
+hundred thousand. It is obvious that the arguments in favour of the
+richer party would become more widely known than those in favour of the
+poorer party, and therefore the richer party would win. This situation
+is, of course, intensified when one party is the Government. In Russia
+the Government has an almost complete monopoly of propaganda, but that
+is not necessary. The advantages which it possesses over its opponents
+will generally be sufficient to give it the victory, unless it has an
+exceptionally bad case.
+
+The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but
+still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful.
+Equality of opportunity among opinions is essential if there is to be
+real freedom of thought; and equality of opportunity among opinions can
+only be secured by elaborate laws directed to that end, which there is
+no reason to expect to see enacted. The cure is not to be sought
+primarily in such laws, but in better education and a more sceptical
+public opinion. For the moment, however, I am not concerned to discuss
+cures.
+
+(3) _Economic pressure._—I have already dealt with some aspects of this
+obstacle to freedom of thought, but I wish now to deal with it on more
+general lines, as a danger which is bound to increase unless very
+definite steps are taken to counteract it. The supreme example of
+economic pressure applied against freedom of thought is Soviet Russia,
+where, until the trade agreement, the Government could and did inflict
+starvation upon people whose opinions it disliked—for example,
+Kropotkin. But in this respect Russia is only somewhat ahead of other
+countries. In France, during the Dreyfus affair, any teacher would have
+lost his position if he had been in favour of Dreyfus at the start or
+against him at the end. In America at the present day I doubt if a
+university professor, however eminent, could get employment if he were
+to criticize the Standard Oil Company, because all college presidents
+have received or hope to receive benefactions from Mr. Rockefeller.
+Throughout America Socialists are marked men, and find it extremely
+difficult to obtain work unless they have great gifts. The tendency,
+which exists wherever industrialism is well developed, for trusts and
+monopolies to control all industry, leads to a diminution of the number
+of possible employers, so that it becomes easier and easier to keep
+secret black books by means of which any one not subservient to the
+great corporations can be starved. The growth of monopolies is
+introducing in America many of the evils associated with State Socialism
+as it has existed in Russia. From the standpoint of liberty, it makes no
+difference to a man whether his only possible employer is the State or a
+Trust.
+
+In America, which is the most advanced country industrially, and to a
+lesser extent in other countries which are approximating to the American
+condition, it is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make
+a living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these
+big men have an outlook—religious, moral, and political—with which
+they expect their employees to agree, at least outwardly. A man who
+openly dissents from Christianity, or believes in a relaxation of the
+marriage laws, or objects to the power of the great corporations, finds
+America a very uncomfortable country, unless he happens to be an eminent
+writer. Exactly the same kind of restraints upon freedom of thought are
+bound to occur in every country where economic organization has been
+carried to the point of practical monopoly. Therefore the safeguarding
+of liberty in the world which is growing up is far more difficult than
+it was in the nineteenth century, when free competition was still a
+reality. Whoever cares about the freedom of the mind must face this
+situation fully and frankly, realizing the inapplicability of methods
+which answered well enough while industrialism was in its infancy.
+
+There are two simple principles which, if they were adopted, would solve
+almost all social problems. The first is that education should have for
+one of its aims to teach people only to believe propositions when there
+is some reason to think that they are true. The second is that jobs
+should be given solely for fitness to do the work.
+
+To take the second point first. The habit of considering a man’s
+religious, moral, and political opinions before appointing him to a post
+or giving him a job is the modern form of persecution, and it is likely
+to become quite as efficient as the Inquisition ever was. The old
+liberties can be legally retained without being of the slightest use.
+If, in practice, certain opinions lead a man to starve, it is poor
+comfort to him to know that his opinions are not punishable by law.
+There is a certain public feeling against starving men for not belonging
+to the Church of England, or for holding slightly unorthodox opinions in
+politics. But there is hardly any feeling against the rejection of
+Atheists or Mormons, extreme communists, or men who advocate free love.
+Such men are thought to be wicked, and it is considered only natural to
+refuse to employ them. People have hardly yet waked up to the fact that
+this refusal, in a highly industrial State, amounts to a very rigorous
+form of persecution.
+
+If this danger were adequately realized, it would be possible to rouse
+public opinion, and to secure that a man’s beliefs should not be
+considered in appointing him to a post. The protection of minorities is
+vitally important; and even the most orthodox of us may find himself in
+a minority some day, so that we all have an interest in restraining the
+tyranny of majorities. Nothing except public opinion can solve this
+problem. Socialism would make it somewhat more acute, since it would
+eliminate the opportunities that now arise through exceptional
+employers. Every increase in the size of industrial undertakings makes
+it worse, since it diminishes the number of independent employers. The
+battle must be fought exactly as the battle of religious toleration was
+fought. And as in that case, so in this, a decay in the intensity of
+belief is likely to prove the decisive factor. While men were convinced
+of the absolute truth of Catholicism or Protestantism, as the case might
+be, they were willing to persecute on account of them. While men are
+quite certain of their modern creeds, they will persecute on their
+behalf. Some element of doubt is essential to the practice, though not
+to the theory, of toleration. And this brings me to my other point,
+which concerns the aims of education.
+
+If there is to be toleration in the world, one of the things taught in
+schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not
+giving full assent to propositions which there is no reason to believe
+true. For example, the art of reading the newspapers should be taught.
+The schoolmaster should select some incident which happened a good many
+years ago, and roused political passions in its day. He should then read
+to the school children what was said by the newspapers on one side, what
+was said by those on the other, and some impartial account of what
+really happened. He should show how, from the biased account of either
+side, a practised reader could infer what really happened, and he should
+make them understand that everything in newspapers is more or less
+untrue. The cynical scepticism which would result from this teaching
+would make the children in later life immune from those appeals to
+idealism by which decent people are induced to further the schemes of
+scoundrels.
+
+History should be taught in the same way. Napoleon’s campaigns of 1813
+and 1814, for instance, might be studied in the _Moniteur_, leading up
+to the surprise which Parisians felt when they saw the Allies arriving
+under the walls of Paris after they had (according to the official
+bulletins) been beaten by Napoleon in every battle. In the more advanced
+classes, students should be encouraged to count the number of times that
+Lenin has been assassinated by Trotsky, in order to learn contempt for
+death. Finally, they should be given a school history approved by the
+Government, and asked to infer what a French school history would say
+about our wars with France. All this would be a far better training in
+citizenship than the trite moral maxims by which some people believe
+that civic duty can be inculcated.
+
+It must, I think, be admitted that the evils of the world are due to
+moral defects quite as much as to lack of intelligence. But the human
+race has not hitherto discovered any method of eradicating moral
+defects; preaching and exhortation only add hypocrisy to the previous
+list of vices. Intelligence, on the contrary, is easily improved by
+methods known to every competent educator. Therefore, until some method
+of teaching virtue has been discovered, progress will have to be sought
+by improvement of intelligence rather than of morals. One of the chief
+obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be
+enormously diminished by instruction as to the prevalent forms of
+mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day than it ever
+was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much easier
+than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy,
+the spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to
+the holders of power. Hence the increase in the circulation of
+newspapers.
+
+If I am asked how the world is to be induced to adopt these two
+maxims—namely (1) that jobs should be given to people on account of
+their fitness to perform them; (2) that one aim of education should be
+to cure people of the habit of believing propositions for which there is
+no evidence—I can only say that it must be done by generating an
+enlightened public opinion. And an enlightened public opinion can only
+be generated by the efforts of those who desire that it should exist. I
+do not believe that the economic changes advocated by Socialists will,
+of themselves, do anything towards curing the evils we have been
+considering. I think that, whatever happens in politics, the trend of
+economic development will make the preservation of mental freedom
+increasingly difficult, unless public opinion insists that the employer
+shall control nothing in the life of the employee except his work.
+Freedom in education could easily be secured, if it were desired, by
+limiting the function of the State to inspection and payment, and
+confining inspection rigidly to the definite instruction. But that, as
+things stand, would leave education in the hands of the Churches,
+because, unfortunately, they are more anxious to teach their beliefs
+than Freethinkers are to teach their doubts. It would, however, give a
+free field, and would make it possible for a liberal education to be
+given if it were really desired. More than that ought not to be asked of
+the law.
+
+My plea throughout this address has been for the spread of the
+scientific temper, which is an altogether different thing from the
+knowledge of scientific results. The scientific temper is capable of
+regenerating mankind and providing an issue for all our troubles. The
+results of science, in the form of mechanism, poison gas, and the yellow
+press, bid fair to lead to the total downfall of our civilization. It is
+a curious antithesis, which a Martian might contemplate with amused
+detachment. But for us it is a matter of life and death. Upon its issue
+depends the question whether our grandchildren are to live in a happier
+world, or are to exterminate each other by scientific methods, leaving
+perhaps to negroes and Papuans the future destinies of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+  APPENDIX
+
+  THE CONWAY MEMORIAL LECTURESHIP
+
+
+At a general meeting of the South Place Ethical Society, held on October
+22, 1908, it was resolved, after full discussion, that an effort should
+be made to establish a series of lectures, to be printed and widely
+circulated, as a permanent Memorial to Dr. Conway.
+
+Moncure Conway’s untiring zeal for the emancipation of the human mind
+from the thraldom of obsolete or waning beliefs, his pleadings for
+sympathy with the oppressed and for a wider and profounder conception of
+human fraternity than the world has yet reached, claim, it is urged, an
+offering of gratitude more permanent than the eloquent obituary or
+reverential service of mourning.
+
+The range of the lectures (of which the thirteenth is published
+herewith) must be regulated by the financial support accorded to the
+scheme; but it is hoped that sufficient funds will be eventually
+forthcoming for the endowment of periodical lectures by distinguished
+public men, to further the cause of social, political, and religious
+freedom, with which Dr. Conway’s name must ever be associated.
+
+The Conway Memorial Lecture Committee, although not yet in possession of
+the necessary capital for the permanent endowment of the Lectureship,
+have inaugurated and maintained the work while inviting further
+contributions. The funds in hand, together with those which may
+reasonably be expected from supporters of the Movement, will ensure the
+delivery of an annual lecture for some years at least.
+
+The Committee earnestly appeal for either donations or subscriptions
+from year to year until the Memorial is permanently established.
+Contributions may be forwarded to the Hon. Treasurer.
+
+On behalf of the Executive Committee:—
+
+(Mrs.) C. Fletcher Smith and Ernest Carr, _Hon. Secretaries_.
+
+(Mrs.) F. M. Cockburn, _Hon. Treasurer_, “Peradeniya,” Northampton Road,
+Croydon.
+
+
+  PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4.
+
+
+
+
+  [Footnotes]
+
+
+[1] I should add that they re-appointed me later, when war passions had
+begun to cool.
+
+[2] See _The New Republic_, Feb. 1, 1922, p. 259 _ff._
+
+[3] See _The Invention of a New Religion_. By Professor Chamberlain, of
+Tokio. Published by the Rationalist Press Association. (Now out of
+print.)
+
+
+
+
+Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
+images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected
+without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have
+been retained as printed. Words printed in italics are noted with
+underscores: _italics_.
+
+
+
+
+JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER
+
+
+FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES
+
+
+_The following Volumes are now ready_--
+
+    THOMAS CARLYLE. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON
+    ALLAN RAMSAY. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
+    HUGH MILLER. By W. KEITH LEASK
+    JOHN KNOX. By A. TAYLOR INNES
+    ROBERT BURNS. By GABRIEL SETOUN
+    THE BALLADISTS. By JOHN GEDDIE
+    RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor HERKLESS
+    SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By EVE BLANTYRE SIMPSON
+    THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. GARDEN BLAIKIE
+    JAMES BOSWELL. By W. KEITH LEASK
+    TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
+    FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. OMOND
+    THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS
+    NORMAN MACLEOD. By JOHN WELLWOOD
+    SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor SAINTSBURY
+    KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By LOUIS A. BARBÉ
+    ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. GROSART
+    JAMES THOMSON. By WILLIAM BAYNE
+    MUNGO PARK. By T. BANKS MACLACHLAN
+    DAVID HUME. By Professor CALDERWOOD
+    WILLIAM DUNBAR. By OLIPHANT SMEATON
+    SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor MURISON
+    ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By MARGARET MOYES BLACK
+    THOMAS REID. By Professor CAMPBELL FRASER
+    POLLOK and AYTOUN. By ROSALINE MASSON
+    ADAM SMITH. By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON
+    ANDREW MELVILLE. By WILLIAM MORRISON
+    JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. By E. S. HALDANE
+
+
+
+
+JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER
+
+
+BY
+
+E. S. HALDANE
+
+
+FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES
+
+PUBLISHED BY OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER
+EDINBURGH AND LONDON
+
+
+The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and
+the printing from the press of Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh.
+
+1899.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+INTRODUCTION                                                        7
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+EARLY LIFE                                                         11
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WANDERJAHRE--SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND--BEGINNING OF
+HIS LITERARY WORK                                                  27
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY                                    41
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES'                                 56
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF 'SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND THE
+NEW'--FERRIER AS A CORRESPONDENT                                   72
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FERRIER'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY--HIS PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS            88
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE COLERIDGE PLAGIARISM--MISCELLANEOUS LITERARY WORK             106
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PROFESSORIAL LIFE                                                 122
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS                                               138
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+LAST DAYS                                                         152
+
+
+
+
+JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Mr. Oliphant Smeaton has asked me to write a few words of preface to
+this little book. If I try, it is only because I am old enough to have
+had the privilege of knowing some of those who were most closely
+associated with Ferrier.
+
+When I sat at the feet of Professor Campbell Fraser in the Metaphysics
+classroom at Edinburgh in 1875, Ferrier's writings were being much read
+by us students. The influence of Sir William Hamilton was fast
+crumbling in the minds of young men who felt rather than saw that much
+lay beyond it. We were still engrossed with the controversy, waged in
+books which now, alas! sell for a tenth of their former price, about
+the Conditioned and the Unconditioned. We still worked at Reid,
+Hamilton, and Mansel. But the attacks of Mill on the one side, and of
+Ferrier and Dr. Stirling on the other, were slowly but surely
+withdrawing our interest. Ferrier had pointed out a path which seemed
+to lead us in the direction of Germany if we would escape from Mill,
+and Stirling was urging us in the same sense. It was not merely that
+Ferrier had written books. He had died more than ten years earlier, but
+his personality was still a living influence. Echoes of his words came
+to us through Grant and Sellar. Outside the University, men like
+Blackwood and Makgill made us feel what a power he had been. But that
+was not all for at least some of us. Mrs. Ferrier had removed to
+Edinburgh--and I endorse all that my sister says of her rare quality.
+She lived in a house in Torphichen Street, which was the resort of
+those attracted, not only by the memory of her husband, but by her own
+great gifts. She was an old lady and an invalid. But though she could
+not move from her chair, paralysis had not dimmed her mental powers.
+She was a true daughter of 'Christopher North.' I doubt whether I have
+seen her rival in quickness, her superior I never saw. She could talk
+admirably to those sitting near her, and yet follow and join in the
+conversation of another group at the end of the room. She could adapt
+herself to everyone--to the shy and awkward student of eighteen, who
+like myself was too much in awe of her to do more unhelped than answer,
+and to the distinguished men of letters who came from every quarter
+attracted by her reputation for brilliance. The words of no one could
+be more incisive, the words of no one were habitually more kind than
+hers. She had known everybody. She forgot nobody. In those days the
+relation between Literature and the Parliament House, if less close
+than it had been, was more apparent than it is to-day, and
+distinguished Scottish judges and advocates mingled in the afternoon in
+the drawing-room, where she sat in a great arm-chair, with such men as
+Sellar and Stevenson and Grant and Shairp and Tulloch. But her
+personality was the supreme bond.
+
+Those days are over, and with them has passed away much of what
+stimulated one to read in the _Institutes_ or the _Philosophical
+Remains_. But for the historian of British philosophy Ferrier
+continues as a prominent figure. He it was who first did, what Stirling
+and Green did again at a stage later on--make a serious appeal to
+thoughtful people to follow no longer the shallow rivulets down which
+the teaching of the great German thinkers had trickled to them, but to
+seek the sources. If as a guide to those sources we do not look on him
+to-day as adequate, we are not the less under a deep obligation to him
+for having been the pioneer of later guides. What Ferrier wrote about
+forty years ago has now become readily accessible, and what has been
+got by going there is in process of rapid and complete assimilation.
+The opinions which were in 1856 regarded by the authorities of the Free
+and United Presbyterian Churches as disqualifying Ferrier for the
+opportunity of influencing the mind of the youth of Edinburgh, from the
+Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in succession to Sir William Hamilton,
+are regarded by the present generation of Presbyterians as the main
+reliable bulwark against the attacks of unbelievers. If one may judge
+by the essays in the recent volume called _Lux Mundi_, the same
+phenomenon displays itself among the young High Church party in
+England. The Time-Spirit is fond of revenges.
+
+But even for others than the historians of the movement of Thought the
+books of Ferrier remain attractive. There is about them a certain
+atmosphere in which everything seems alive and fresh. Their author was
+no Dryasdust. He was a living human being, troubled as we are troubled,
+and interested in the things which interest us. He spoke to us, not
+from the skies, but from among a crowd of his fellow human beings, and
+we feel that he was one of ourselves. As such it is good that a
+memorial of him should be placed where it may easily be seen.
+
+R. B. HALDANE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+EARLY LIFE
+
+
+It may be a truism, but it is none the less a fact, that it is not
+always he of whom the world hears most who influences most deeply the
+thought of the age in which he lives. The name of James Frederick
+Ferrier is little heard of beyond the comparatively small circle of
+philosophic thinkers who reverence his memory and do their best to keep
+it green: to others it is a name of little import--one among a
+multitude at a time when Scotland had many sons rising up to call her
+blessed, and not perhaps one of the most notable of these. And yet,
+could we but estimate the value of work accomplished in the higher
+sphere of thought as we estimate it in the other regions of practical
+work--an impossibility, of course--we might be disposed to modify our
+views, and accord our praises in very different quarters from those in
+which they are usually bestowed.
+
+James Ferrier wrote no popular books; he came before the public
+comparatively little; he made no effort to reconcile religion with
+philosophy on the one hand, or to propound theories startling in their
+unorthodoxy on the other. And still we may claim for him a place--and
+an honourable place--amongst the other Famous Scots, for the simple
+reason that after a long century of wearisome reiteration of tiresome
+platitudes--platitudes which had lost their original meaning even to
+the utterers of them, and which had become misleading to those who
+heard and thought they understood--Ferrier had the courage to strike
+out new lines for himself, to look abroad for new inspiration, and to
+hand on these inspirations to those who could work them into a truly
+national philosophy.
+
+In Scotland, where, in spite of politics, traditions are honoured to a
+degree unknown to most other countries, family and family associations
+count for much; and in these James Ferrier was rich. His father was a
+Writer to the Signet, John Ferrier by name, whose sister was the famous
+Scottish novelist, Susan Ferrier, authoress of _The Inheritance_,
+_Destiny_, and _Marriage_. Susan Ferrier did for high life in Scotland
+what Gait achieved for the humbler ranks of society, and attained to
+considerable eminence in the line of fiction which she adopted. Her
+works are still largely read, have recently been republished, and in
+their day were greatly admired by no less an authority than Sir Walter
+Scott, himself a personal friend of the authoress.[1] Ferrier's
+grandfather, James Ferrier, also a Writer to the Signet, was a man of
+great energy of character. He acted in a business capacity for many
+years both to the Duke of Argyle of the time and to various branches of
+the Clan Campbell: it was, indeed, through the influence of the Duke
+that he obtained the appointment which he held of Principal Clerk of
+Session. James Ferrier, like his daughter, was on terms of intimate
+friendship with Sir Walter Scott, with whom he likewise was a colleague
+in office. Scott alludes to him in his Journal as 'Uncle Adam,' the
+name of a character in Miss Ferrier's _Inheritance_, drawn, as she
+herself acknowledges, from her father. He died in 1829, at which time
+Scott writes of him: 'Honest old Mr. Ferrier is dead, at extreme old
+age. I confess I should not like to live so long. He was a man with
+strong passions and strong prejudices, but with generous and manly
+sentiments at the same time.' James Ferrier's wife, Miss Coutts, was
+remarkable for her beauty: a large family was born to her, the eldest
+son of whom was James Frederick Ferrier's father. Young Ferrier, the
+subject of this sketch, used frequently to dine with his grandfather at
+his house in Morningside, where Susan Ferrier acted in the capacity of
+hostess; and it is easy to imagine the bright talk which would take
+place on these occasions, and the impression which must have been made
+upon the lad, both then and after he attained to manhood; for Miss
+Ferrier survived until 1854. In later life, indeed, her wit was said to
+be somewhat caustic, and she was possibly dreaded by her younger
+friends and relatives as much as she was respected; but this, to do her
+justice, was partly owing to infirmities. She was at anyrate keenly
+interested in the fortunes of her nephew, to whom she was in the habit
+of alluding as 'the last of the metaphysicians'--scarcely, perhaps, a
+very happy title for one who was somewhat of an iconoclast, and began a
+new era rather than concluded an old.
+
+          [1] In a _Life of Susan Ferrier_, lately published, an
+          account of the family is given which was written by Miss
+          Ferrier, for her nephew, the subject of our memoir.
+
+James Frederick Ferrier's mother, Margaret Wilson, was a sister of
+Professor John Wilson--the 'Christopher North' of immortal memory,
+whose daughter he was afterwards to marry. Margaret Ferrier was a woman
+of striking personal beauty. Her features were perfect in their
+symmetry, as is shown in a lovely miniature, painted by Saunders, a
+well-known miniature painter of the day, now in the possession of
+Professor Ferrier's son, her grandson. Many of these personal charms
+descended to James Ferrier, whose well-cut features bore considerable
+resemblance to his mother's. And his close connection with the Wilson
+family had the result of bringing the young man into association with
+whatever was best in literature and art. While yet a boy, we are told,
+he sat upon Sir Walter's knee; the Ettrick Shepherd had told him tales
+and recited Border ballads; while Lockhart took the trouble to draw
+pictures, as he only could, to amuse the child.
+
+In surroundings such as these James Frederick Ferrier was born on the
+16th day of June 1808, his birthplace being Heriot Row, in the new town
+of Edinburgh--a street which has been made historic to us by the
+recollections of another child who lived there long years afterwards,
+and who left the grey city of his birth to die far off in an island in
+the Pacific. But of Ferrier's child-life we know nothing: whether he
+played at 'tig' or 'shinty' with the children in the adjoining gardens,
+or climbed Arthur's Seat, or tried to scale the 'Cats' Nick' in the
+Salisbury Crags close by; or whether he was a grave boy, 'holding at'
+his lessons, or reading other books that interested him, in preference
+to his play. Ferrier did not dwell on these things or talk much of his
+youth; or if he did so, his words have been forgotten. What we do
+know are the barest facts: that his second name was given him in
+consideration of his father's friendship with Lord Frederick Campbell,
+Lord Clerk Register of Scotland; that his first name, as is usual in
+Scotland for an elder son, was his paternal grandfather's; and that he
+was sent to live with the Rev. Dr. Duncan, the parish minister of
+Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, to receive his early education. Dr. Duncan
+of Ruthwell was a man of considerable ability and energy of character,
+though not famous in any special sphere of learning. He is well known,
+however, in the south of Scotland as the originator of Savings Banks
+there, and his works on the Seasons bear evidence of an interest in the
+natural world. At anyrate the time passed in Dumfriesshire would appear
+to have left pleasant recollections; for when Ferrier in later life
+alluded to it, it was with every indication of gratitude for the
+instruction which he received. He kept up his friendship with the sons
+of his instructor as years went on, and always expressed himself as
+deeply attached to the place where a happy childhood had been passed.
+Nor was learning apparently neglected, for Ferrier began his Latin
+studies at Ruthwell, and there first learned--an unusual lesson for so
+young a boy--to delight in the reading of the Latin poets, and of
+Virgil and Ovid in particular. After leaving Ruthwell, he attended the
+High School of Edinburgh, the great Grammar School of the metropolis,
+which was, however, soon to have a rival in another day school set up
+in the western part of the rapidly growing town; and then he was sent
+to school at Greenwich, where he was placed under the care of Dr.
+Burney, a nephew of the famous Fanny Burney, afterwards Madame
+d'Arblay. From school, as the manner of the time was, the boy passed to
+the University of Edinburgh at the age of seventeen,--older really than
+was customary in his day,--and here he remained for the two sessions
+1825-26 and 1826-27, or until he was old enough to matriculate at
+Oxford. At Edinburgh, Ferrier distinguished himself in the class of
+Moral Philosophy, and carried off the prize of the year for a poem
+which was looked upon as giving promise of literary power afterwards
+fulfilled. His knowledge of Latin and Greek were considered good (the
+standard might not have been very high), but in mathematics he was
+nowhere. At Oxford he was entered in 1828 as a 'gentleman-commoner' at
+Magdalen College, the College of his future father-in-law, John Wilson.
+A gentleman-commoner of Magdalen in the earlier half of the century is
+not suggestive of severe mental exercise,[2] and from the very little
+one can gather from tradition--for contemporaries and friends have
+naturally passed away--James Ferrier was no exception to the common
+rule. That he rode is very clear; the College was an expensive one,
+and he was probably inclined to be extravagant. Tradition speaks of
+his pelting the deer in Magdalen Park with eggs; but as to further
+distinction in more intellectual lines, record does not tell. In this
+respect he presents a contrast to his predecessor at Oxford, and friend
+of later days, Sir William Hamilton, whose monumental learning created
+him a reputation while still an undergraduate. Sir Roundell Palmer,
+afterwards Lord Selborne, was a contemporary of Ferrier's at Oxford;
+Sheriff Campbell Smith was at the bar of the House of Lords acting as
+Palmer's junior the day after Ferrier's death, and Sir Roundell told
+him that he remembered Ferrier well at College; he described him as
+'careless about University work,' but as writing clever verses, several
+of which he repeated with considerable gusto. Of other friends the
+names alone are preserved, William Edward Collins, afterwards
+Collins-Wood of Keithick, Perthshire, who died in 1877, and J. P.
+Shirley of Ettington Park, in Warwickshire;[3] but what influences were
+brought to bear upon him by his University life, or whether his
+interest in philosophical pursuits were in any way aroused during his
+time at College, we have no means of telling. A later friend, Henry
+Inglis, wrote of these early days: 'My friendship with Ferrier began
+about the time he was leaving Oxford, or immediately after he had left
+it--I should say about 1830 or thereabout. At that University I don't
+think he did anything more remarkable than contracting a large tailor's
+bill; which annoyed him for many years afterwards. At that time he was
+a wonderfully handsome, intellectual-looking young man,--a tremendous
+"swell" from top to toe, and with his hair hanging down over his
+shoulders.' Though later on in life this last characteristic was not so
+marked, Ferrier's photographs show his hair still fairly long and
+brushed off a finely-modelled square forehead, such as is usually
+associated with strongly developed intellectual faculties.
+
+          [2] The gentlemen-commoners at Magdalen, as elsewhere, paid
+          higher fees and wore a distinctive costume; at Magdalen they
+          had a common room of their own, distinct from that of the
+          Fellows, or the Demies or Scholars, and seldom read for
+          honours. In Ferrier's days Magdalen College admitted no
+          ordinary commoners, and there were but few resident
+          undergraduates, many of the thirty demies being graduates
+          and non-resident. In the year of his matriculation there
+          were only ten gentlemen-commoners; thus, as far as
+          undergraduates went, the College was a small one.
+
+          [3] Mr. Shirley was Member of Parliament for South
+          Warwickshire, a well-known genealogist, and the author of
+          _The Noble and Gentle Men of England_.
+
+It is known that Ferrier took his Bachelor's degree in 1832, and that
+he had by that time managed to acquire a very tolerable knowledge of
+the classics and begun to study philosophy, so that his time could not
+have been entirely idle. For the rest, he probably passed happily
+through his years at College, as many others have done before and after
+him, without allowing more weighty cares to dwell upon his mind.
+Another friend of after days, the late Principal Tulloch, after noting
+the fact that Oxford had not then developed the philosophic spirit
+which in recent years has marked her schools, and which had not then
+taken root any more than the High Church movement which preceded it,
+goes on: 'It may be doubted, indeed, whether Oxford exercised any
+definite intellectual influence on Professor Ferrier. He had imbibed
+his love for the Latin poets before he went there, and his devotion to
+Greek philosophy was an after-growth with which he never associated his
+Magdalen studies. To one who visited the College with him many years
+afterwards, and to whom he pointed out with admiration its noble walks
+and trees, his associations with the place seemed to be mainly those of
+amusement. There is reason to think that few of those who knew him at
+Magdalen would have afterwards recognised him in the laborious student
+at St. Andrews, who for weeks together would scarcely cross the
+threshold of his study; and yet to all who knew him well, there was
+nevertheless a clear connection between the gay gownsman and the
+hard-working Professor.'
+
+In 1832, Ferrier became an advocate at Edinburgh, but it does not
+appear that he had any serious idea of practising at the Bar. This is
+the period at which we know that the passion for metaphysical
+speculation laid hold of him,--a passion which is unintelligible and
+inexplicable to those who do not share in it,--and as Ferrier could not
+clearly say in what direction this was leading him, as far as practical
+life was concerned, he probably deemed it best to attach himself to a
+profession which left much scope to the adopter of it, to strike out
+lines of his own. What led Ferrier to determine to spend some months of
+the year 1834 at Heidelberg it would be extremely interesting to know.
+The friend first quoted writes: 'I cannot tell of the influences under
+which he devoted himself to metaphysics. My opinion is that there were
+none, but that he was a philosopher born. He attached himself at once
+to the fellowship of Sir William Hamilton, to whom he was introduced by
+a common friend--I think the late Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. I know that he
+looked on Sir William at that time as his master.'
+
+Probably the friendship with Hamilton simply arose from the natural
+attraction which two sympathetic spirits feel to one another. It is
+clear that at this time Ferrier's bent was towards metaphysics, and
+that, as Mr. Inglis says, this bent was born with him and was only
+beginning to find its natural outlet; therefore it would be very
+natural to suppose that acquaintance would be sought with one who was
+at this time in the zenith of his powers, and whose writings in the
+_Edinburgh Review_ were exciting liveliest interest. A casual
+acquaintanceship between the young man of three-and-twenty and the
+matured philosopher twenty years his senior soon ripened into a
+friendship, not perhaps common between two men so different in age. It
+is perhaps more remarkable considering the differences in opinion on
+philosophical questions which soon arose between the two; for it is
+just as difficult for those whose point of view is fundamentally
+opposed on speculative questions to carry on an intercourse concerning
+their pursuits which shall be both friendly and unconstrained, as for
+two political opponents to discuss vital questions of policy without
+any undercurrent of self-restraint, when they start from entirely
+opposite principles. Most likely had the two been actually
+contemporaries it might not have been so easy, but as it was, the
+younger man started with, and preserved, the warmest feelings to his
+senior; and even in his criticisms he expresses himself in the
+strongest terms of gratitude: 'He (Hamilton) has taught those who study
+him to _think_, and he must take the consequences, whether they think
+in unison with himself or not. We conceive, however, that even those
+who differ from him most, would readily own that to his instructive
+disquisitions they were indebted for at least half of all they know of
+philosophy.' And in the appendix to the _Institutes_, written soon
+after Sir William's death, Ferrier says: 'Morally and intellectually,
+Sir William Hamilton was among the greatest of the great. A simpler and
+a grander nature never arose out of darkness into human life; a truer
+and a manlier character God never made. For years together scarcely a
+day passed in which I was not in his company for hours, and never on
+this earth may I expect to live such happy hours again. I have learned
+more from him than from all other philosophers put together; more, both
+as regards what I assented to and what I dissented from.' It was this
+open and free discussion of all questions that came before
+them--discussion in which there must have been much difference of
+opinion freely expressed on both sides, that made these evenings spent
+in Manor Place, where the Hamiltons, then a recently married couple,
+had lately settled, so delightful to young Ferrier. He had
+individuality and originality enough not to be carried away by the
+arguments used by so great an authority and so learned a man as his
+friend was reckoned, and then as later he constantly expressed his
+regret that powers so great had been devoted to the service of a
+philosophic system--that of Reid--of which Ferrier so thoroughly
+disapproved. But at the same time he hardly dared to expect that the
+labours of a lifetime could be set aside at the bidding of a man so
+much his junior, and to say the truth it is doubtful whether Hamilton
+ever fully grasped his opponent's point of view. Still, Ferrier tells
+us that from first to last his whole intercourse with Sir William
+Hamilton was marked with more pleasure and less pain than ever attended
+his intercourse with any human being, and after Hamilton was gone he
+cherished that memory with affectionate esteem. A touching account is
+given in Sir William's life of how during that terrible illness which
+so sadly impaired his powers and nearly took his life, Ferrier might be
+seen pacing to and fro on the street opposite his bedroom window during
+the whole anxious night, watching for indications of his condition, yet
+unwilling to intrude on the attendants, and unable to tear himself from
+the spot where his friend was possibly passing through the last agony.
+Such friendship is honourable to both men concerned.
+
+Perhaps, then, it was this intercourse with kindred spirits (for many
+such were in the habit of gathering at the Professor's house) that
+caused Ferrier finally to determine to make philosophy the pursuit of
+his life--this combined, it may be, with the interest in letters which
+he could not fail to derive from his own immediate circle. He was in
+constant communication with Susan Ferrier, his aunt, who encouraged his
+literary bent to the utmost of her power. Then Professor Wilson, his
+uncle, though of a very different character from his own, attracted him
+by his brightness and wit--a brightness which he says he can hardly
+bring before himself, far less communicate to others who had not known
+him. Perhaps, as the same friend quoted before suggests, the attraction
+was partly due to another source. He says: 'How Ferrier got on with
+Wilson I never could divine; unless it were through the bright eyes of
+his daughter. Wilson and Ferrier seemed to me as opposite as the poles;
+the one all poetry, the other all prose. But the youth probably yielded
+to the mature majesty and genius of the man. Had they met on equal
+terms I don't think they could have agreed for ten minutes. As it was,
+they had serious differences at times, which, however, I believe were
+all ultimately and happily adjusted.'
+
+The visits to his uncle's home, and the attractive young lady whom he
+there met, must have largely contributed to Ferrier's happiness in
+these years of mental fermentation. Such times come in many men's lives
+when youth is turning into manhood, and powers are wakening up within
+that seem as though they would lead us we know not whither. And so it
+may have been with Ferrier. But he was endowed with considerable
+calmness and self-command, combined with a confidence in his powers
+sufficient to carry him through many difficulties that might otherwise
+have got the better of him. Wilson's home, Elleray, near the Lake of
+Windermere, was the centre of a circle of brilliant stars. Ferrier
+recollected, while still a lad of seventeen years of age, meeting there
+at one time, in the summer of 1825, Scott, Wordsworth, Lockhart, and
+Canning, a conjunction difficult to beat.[4] Once more, we are told,
+and on a sadder occasion, he came into association with the greatest
+Scottish novelist. 'It was on that gloomy voyage when the suffering man
+was conveyed to Leith from London, on his return from his ill-fated
+foreign journey. Mr. Ferrier was also a passenger, and scarcely dared
+to look on the almost unconscious form of one whose genius he so warmly
+admired.' The end was then very near.
+
+          [4] This meeting occurred after the Irish tour of Scott,
+          Miss Anne Scott, and Lockhart, when they visited Wilson at
+          Elleray. Canning was staying at Storre, in the
+          neighbourhood.
+
+Professor Ferrier's daughter tells us that long after, in the summer of
+1856, the family went to visit the English Lakes, the centre of
+attraction being Elleray, Mr. Ferrier's old home and birthplace. 'The
+very name of Elleray breathes of poetry and romance. Our father and
+mother had, of course, known it in its glorious prime, when our
+grandfather, "Christopher North," wrestled with dalesmen, strolled in
+his slippers with Wordsworth to Keswick (a distance of seventeen
+miles), and kept his ten-oared barge in the long drawing-room of
+Elleray. In these days they had "rich company," and the names of
+Southey, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and Coleridge were to them familiar
+household words. The cottage my mother was born in still stands,
+overshadowed by a giant sycamore.'
+
+We can easily imagine the effect which society such as this would have
+on a young man's mind. But more than that, the friendship with the
+attractive cousin, Margaret Wilson, developed into something warmer,
+and an engagement was finally formed, which culminated in his marriage
+in 1837. Not many of James Ferrier's letters to his cousin during the
+long engagement have been preserved; the few that are were written from
+Germany in 1834, the year in which he went to Heidelberg; they were
+addressed to Thirlstane House, near Selkirk, where Miss Wilson was
+residing, and they give a lively account of his adventures.
+
+The voyage from Leith to Rotterdam, judging from the first letter
+written from Heidelberg, and dated August 1834, would appear to have
+begun in inauspicious fashion. Ferrier writes: 'I have just been here a
+week, and would have answered your letter sooner, had it not been that
+I wished to make myself tolerably well acquainted with the surrounding
+scenery before writing to you, and really the heat has been so
+overwhelming that I have been impelled to take matters leisurely, and
+have not even yet been able to get through so much _view-hunting_ as I
+should have wished. What I have seen I will endeavour to describe to
+you. This place itself is most delightful, and the country about it is
+magnificent. But this, as a reviewer would say, _by way of
+anticipation_. Have patience, and in the meantime let me take events in
+their natural order, and begin by telling you I sailed from Leith on
+the morning of the second of this month, with no wind at all. We
+drifted on, I know not how, and toward evening were within gunshot of
+Inchkeith; on the following morning we were in sight of the Bass, and
+in sight of the same we continued during the whole day. For the next
+two or three days we went beating up against a head-wind, which forced
+us to tack so much that whenever we made one mile we travelled ten, a
+pleasant mode of progressing, is it not? However, I had the whole ship
+to myself, and plenty of female society in the person of the captain's
+lady, who, being fond of pleasure, had chosen to diversify her
+monotonous existence at Leith by taking a delightful summer trip to
+Rotterdam, which confined her to her crib during almost the whole of
+our passage under the pressure of racking headaches and roaring
+sickness. She had a weary time of it, poor woman, and nothing could do
+her any good--neither spelding, cheese, nor finnan haddies, nor bacon,
+nor broth, nor salt beef, nor ale, nor gin, nor brandy and water, nor
+Epsom salts, though of one or other of these she was _aye takin'_ a wee
+bit, or a little drop. We were nearly a week in clearing our own Firth,
+and did no good till we got as far as Scarborough. At this place I had
+serious intentions of getting ashore if possible, and making out the
+rest of my journey by means that were more to be depended on. Just in
+the nick of time, however, a fair wind sprang up, and from Scarborough
+we had a capital run, with little or no interruption, to the end of our
+voyage.' An account of a ten days' voyage which makes us thankful to be
+in great measure independent of the winds at sea! Holland, our
+traveller thinks an intolerable country to live in, and the first
+impressions of the Rhine are distinctly unfavourable. 'The river
+himself is a fine fellow, certainly, but the country through which he
+flows is stale, flat, though I believe, not unprofitable. The banks on
+either side are covered either with reeds or with a matting of rank
+shrubbery formed apparently out of dirty green worsted, and the
+continuance of it so palls upon the senses that the mind at last
+becomes unconscious of everything except the constant flap-flapping of
+the weary paddles as they go beating on, awakening the dull echoes of
+the sedgy shores. The eye is occasionally relieved by patches of naked
+sand, and now and then a stone about the size of your fist, diversifies
+the monotony of the scene. Occasionally, in the distance, are to be
+seen funny, forlorn-looking objects, trying evidently to look like
+trees, but whether they would really turn out to be trees on a nearer
+inspection is what I very much doubt.' At Cologne he had an amusing
+meeting with an Englishman, 'whom I at once twigged to be an Oxford
+man, and more, even, an Oxford tutor. There is a stiff twitch in the
+right shoulder of the tribe, answering to a similar one in the hip-bone
+on the same side, which there is no mistaking.' The tutor appears to
+have done valiant service in making known the traveller's wants in
+French to waiters, etc., though 'he spent rather too much of his time
+in scheming how to abridge the sixpence which, "time out of mind," has
+been the perquisite of Boots, doorkeepers, etc.' 'But,' he adds in
+excuse, 'his name was Bull, and therefore, as the authentic epitome of
+his countrymen, he would not fail to possess this along with the other
+peculiarities of Englishmen.' From Cologne, Ferrier went to Bonn, where
+he had an introduction to Dr. Welsh, and then proceeded up the Rhine to
+Mayence. He does not form a very high estimate of the beauty of the
+scenery. He feels 'a want of something; in fact, to my mind, there is a
+want of everything which makes earth, wood, and water something more
+than mere water, wood, and earth. We have here a constant and endless
+variety of imposing objects (imposing is just the word for them), but
+there is no variety in them, nothing but one round-backed hill after
+another, generally carrying their woods, when they have any, very
+stiffly, and when they have none presenting to the eye a surface of
+tawdry and squalid patchwork,' thus suggesting, in his view, a series
+of children's gardens--an impression often left on travellers when
+visiting this same country. His next letters find him settled in the
+University town of Heidelberg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WANDERJAHRE--SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND--BEGINNING OF HIS LITERARY LIFE
+
+
+In the present century in Germany we have seen a period of almost
+unparalleled literary glory succeeded by a time of great commercial
+prosperity and national enthusiasm. But when Ferrier visited that
+country in 1834 the era of its intellectual greatness had hardly passed
+away; some, at least, of its stars remained, and others had very
+recently ceased to be. Goethe had died just two years before, but Heine
+lived till many years afterwards; amongst the philosophers, though Kant
+and Fichte, of course, were long since gone, Schelling was still at
+work at Munich, and Hegel lived at Berlin till November of 1831, when
+he was cut off during an epidemic of cholera. Most of the great men had
+disappeared, and yet the memory of their achievements still survived,
+and the impetus they gave to thought could not have been lost. The
+traditional lines of speculation consistently carried out since
+Reformation days had survived war and national calamity, and it
+remained to be seen whether the greater tests of prosperity and success
+would be as triumphantly undergone.
+
+We can imagine Ferrier's feelings when this new world opened up before
+him, a Scottish youth, to whom it was a new, untrodden country. It may
+be true that it was his literary rather than his speculative affinities
+that first attracted him to Germany. To form in literature he always
+attached the greatest value, and to the end his interest in letters was
+only second to his attachment to philosophy. German poetry was to him
+what it was to so many of the youth of the country from which it
+came--the expression of their deepest, and likewise of their freshest
+aspiration. The poetry of other countries and other tongues--English
+and Latin, for example--meant much to him, but that of Germany was
+nearest to his heart. French learning did not attract him; neither its
+literature nor its metaphysics and psychological method appealed to his
+thoughtful, analytic mind; but in Germany he found a nation which had
+not as yet resigned its interest in things of transcendental import in
+favour of what pertained to mere material welfare.
+
+Such was the Germany into which Ferrier came in 1834. He did not, so
+far as we can hear, enter deeply into its social life; he visited it as
+a traveller, rather than as a student, and his stay in it was brief.
+Considering the shortness of his time there, and the circumstances of
+his visit, the impression that it made upon him is all the more
+remarkable, for it was an impression that lasted and was evident
+throughout all his after life. Since his day, indeed, it would be
+difficult to say how many young Scotsmen have been impressed in a
+similar way by a few months' residence at a University town in Germany.
+For partly owing to Ferrier's own efforts, and perhaps even more owing
+to the 'boom'--to use a vulgarism--brought about by Carlyle's writings,
+and by his first making known the marvels of German literature to the
+ordinary English-speaking public, who had never learned the language or
+tried to understand its recent history, the old traditional literary
+alliance between Scotland and France appeared for the time being to
+have broken down in favour of a similar association with its rival
+country, Germany. The work of Goethe was at last appreciated, nothing
+was now too favourable to say about its merits; philosophy was suddenly
+discovered to have its home in Germany, and there alone; our insularity
+in keeping to our antiquated methods--dryasdust, we were told, as the
+old ones of the schools, and perhaps as edifying--was vigorously
+denounced. Theology, which had hitherto found complete support from the
+philosophic system which acted as her handmaid, and was only tolerated
+as such, was naturally affected in like manner by the change; and to
+her credit be it said, that instead of with averted eyes looking
+elsewhere, as might easily have been done, she determined to face the
+worst, and wisely asked the question whether in her department too she
+had not something she could learn from a sister country across the sea.
+Hence a great change was brought about in the mental attitude of
+Scotland; but we anticipate.
+
+Ferrier, after leaving Heidelberg, paid a short visit to Leipzig, and
+then for a few weeks took up his abode at Berlin. From Leipzig he
+writes to Miss Wilson again: 'How do you like an _epistola_ dated from
+this great emporium of taste and letters, this culminating point of
+Germanism, where waggons jostle philosophy, and tobacco-impregnated air
+is articulated into divinest music? It is fair-time, and I did not
+arrive, as one usually does, a day _behind_ it, but on the very day it
+commenced. It will last, I believe, some weeks, and during that time
+all business is done on the open streets, which are lined on each side
+with large wooden booths, and are swarming with men and merchandise of
+every description and from every quarter of the world. It very much
+resembles a _Ladies' Sale_ in the Assembly Rooms (what I never saw),
+only the ladies here are frequently Jews with fierce beards, and have
+always a pipe in their mouths when not eating or drinking. As you walk
+along you will find the order of the day to be somewhat as follows. You
+first come to pipes, then shawls, then nails, then pipes, pipes again,
+pipes, gingerbread, dolls, then pipes, bridles, spurs, pipes, books,
+warming-pans, pipes, china, writing-desks, pipes again, pipes, pipes,
+pipes, nothing but pipes--the very pen will write nothing but pipes.
+Pipes, you see, decidedly carry it. I wonder they don't erect public
+tobacco-smoke works, lay _pipes_ for it along the streets, and smoke
+away--a city at a time. Private families might take it in as we do
+gas!'
+
+Ferrier appears to have spent a week at Frankfort before reaching his
+destination at Leipzig. He describes his journey there: 'At Frankfort I
+saw nothing worthy of note except a divine statue of Ariadne riding on
+a leopard. After lumbering along for two nights and two days in a
+clumsy diligence, I reached Leipzig two days ago. I thought that by the
+way I might perhaps see something worthy of mention, and accordingly
+sometimes put my head out of the window to look. But no--the trees, for
+instance, had all to a man planted their heads in the earth, and were
+growing with their legs upwards, just as they do with us; and as for
+the natives, they, on the contrary, had each of them filled a
+flower-pot, called a skull, full of earth, put their heads in it, and
+were growing _downwards_, just as the same animal does in our country;
+and on coming to one's recollection in the morning in a German
+diligence you find yourself surrounded by the same drowsy, idiotical,
+glazed, stained, and gummy complement of faces which might have
+accompanied you into Carlisle on an autumn morning after a night of
+travel in His Majesty's mail coach.'
+
+Berlin impressed Ferrier by its imposing public buildings and general
+aspect of prosperity. It had, of course, long before reached a position
+of importance under the great Frederick's government, though not the
+importance or the size that it afterwards attained. Still, it was the
+centre of attraction for all classes throughout Prussia, and possessed
+a cultivated society in which the middle-class element was to all
+appearances predominant. Ferrier writes of the town: 'Of the inside of
+the buildings and what is to be seen there I have nothing yet to say,
+but their external aspect is most magnificent. Palaces, churches,
+mosque-like structures, spires and domes and towers all standing
+together, but with large spaces and fine open drives between, so that
+all are seen to the greatest possible advantage, conspire to form a
+most glorious city. At this moment a fountain which I can see from my
+window is playing in the middle of the square. A _jet d'eau_ indeed!!
+It may do very well for a Frenchman to call it that, but we must call
+it a perfect volcano of water. A huge column goes hissing up as high as
+a steeple, with the speed and force of a rocket, and comes down in
+thunder, and little rainbows are flitting about in the showery spray.
+It being Sunday, every thing and person is gayer than usual. Bands are
+playing and soldiers are parading all through the town; everything,
+indeed, is military, and yet little is foppish--a statement which to
+English ears will sound like a direct contradiction.'
+
+Our traveller had been given letters to certain Berlin Professors from
+young Blackie, afterwards Professor of Greek in Edinburgh University,
+who had just translated Goethe's _Faust_ into the English tongue. 'I
+went about half an hour ago to call upon a sort of Professor here to
+whom I had a letter and a _Faust_ to present from Blackie--found him
+ill and confined to bed--was admitted, however, very well received, and
+shall call again when I think there is a chance of his being better. I
+have still another Professor to call on with a letter and book from
+Blackie, and there my acquaintance with the society of Berlin is likely
+to terminate.' One other introduction to Ferrier on this expedition to
+Germany is mentioned in a note from his aunt, Miss Susan Ferrier, the
+only letter to her nephew that has apparently been preserved: whether
+or not he availed himself of the offer, history does not record. It
+runs as follows:--
+
+    'EDINR., _1st August_.
+
+    'I could not get a letter to Lord Corehouse's German sister
+    (Countess Purgstall), as it seems she is in bad health, and not fit
+    to entertain vagabonds; but I enclose a very kind one from my
+    friend, Mrs. Erskine, to the ambassadress at Munich, and if you
+    don't go there you may send it by post, as it will be welcome at
+    any time on its own account.'
+
+It was, as has been said, only about three years previously to this
+visit that Hegel had passed away at Berlin, and one wonders whether
+Ferrier first began to interest himself in his writings at this time,
+and whether he visited the graveyard near the city gate where Hegel
+lies, close to his great predecessor Fichte. One would almost think
+this last was so from the exact description given in his short
+biography of Hegel; and it is significant that on his return he brought
+with him a medallion and a photograph of the great philosopher. This
+would seem to indicate that his thoughts were already tending in the
+direction of Hegelian metaphysics, but how far this was so we cannot
+tell. Certainly the knowledge of the German language acquired by
+Ferrier during this visit to the country proved most valuable to him,
+and enabled him to study its philosophy at a time when translations
+were practically non-existent, and few had learned to read it. That
+knowledge must indeed have been tolerably complete, for in 1851, when
+Sir Edward Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton) was about to republish his
+translation of Schiller's Ballads, he corresponded with Ferrier
+regarding the accuracy and exactness of his work. He afterwards, in the
+preface to the volume, acknowledges the great services Ferrier had
+rendered; and in dedicating the book to him, speaks of the debt of
+gratitude he owes to one whose 'critical judgment and skill in
+detecting the finer shades of meaning in the original' had been so
+useful. Ferrier likewise has the credit, accorded him by De Quincey, of
+having corrected several errors in _all_ the English translations of
+_Faust_ then extant--errors which were not merely literary
+inaccuracies, but which also detracted from the vital sense of the
+original. As to Lord Lytton, Ferrier must at this time have been
+interested in his writings; for in a letter to Miss Wilson, he advises
+her to read Bulwer's _Pilgrims of the Rhine_ if she wishes for a
+description of the scenery, and speaks of the high esteem with which he
+was regarded by the Germans.
+
+It was in 1837 that Ferrier married the young lady with whom he had so
+long corresponded. The marriage was in all respects a happy one. Mrs.
+Ferrier's gifts and graces, inherited from her father, will not soon be
+forgotten, either in St. Andrews where she lived so long, or in
+Edinburgh, the later home of her widowhood. One whose spirits were less
+gay might have found a husband whose interests were so completely in
+his work--and that a work in which she could not share--difficult to
+deal with; but she possessed understanding to appreciate that work, as
+well as humour, and could accommodate herself to the circumstances in
+which she found herself; while he, on his part, entered into the gaiety
+on occasion with the best. A friend and student of the St. Andrews'
+days writes of Ferrier: 'He married his cousin Margaret, Professor's
+Wilson's daughter, and I don't doubt that a shorthand report of their
+courtship would have been better worth reading than nine hundred and
+ninety-nine out of every thousand courtships, for she had wit as well
+as beauty, and he was capable of appreciating both. No more charming
+woman have I ever seen or heard making game of mankind in general, and
+in particular of pedants and hypocrites. She would even laugh at her
+husband on occasion, but it was dangerous for any volunteer to try to
+help her in that sport. A finer-looking couple I have never seen.[5]
+
+          [5] Another sister married William Edmondstoune Aytoun, the
+          poet. It was regarding Professor Aytoun's proposal for Miss
+          Wilson's hand that the following story is told. When the
+          engagement was being formed, Aytoun somewhat demurred to
+          interviewing the father of the lady, and she herself
+          undertook the mission. Presently she returned with a card
+          pinned upon her breast bearing the satisfactory inscription,
+          'With the author's compliments'! Aytoun, as is well known,
+          was extremely plain, and it was of his bust in the
+          Blackwoods' saloon, a recognisable but idealistic likeness,
+          that Ferrier remarked, 'I should call that the pursuit of
+          beauty under difficulties.'
+
+During her infancy Edinburgh had become Mrs. Ferrier's home, though she
+made frequent visits to Westmorland, of whose dialect she had a
+complete command. The courtship, however, had been for the most part
+carried on at the picturesque old house of Gorton, where 'Christopher
+North' was temporarily residing, and which, situated as it is
+overlooking the lovely glen made immortal by the name of Hawthornden,
+in view of Roslin Chapel, and surrounded by old-fashioned walks and
+gardens, must have been an ideal spot for a romantic couple like the
+Ferriers to roam in. Another friend writes of Wilson's later home at
+Elleray: 'In his hospitable house, where the wits of _Blackwood_
+gathered at intervals and visited individually in season and out of
+season, his daughter saw strange men of genius, such as few young
+ladies had the fortune to see, and heard talk such as hardly another
+has the fortune to hear. Lockhart, with his caricatures and his
+incisive sarcasm, was an intimate of the house. The Ettrick Shepherd,
+with his plaid and homely Doric, broke in occasionally, as did also De
+Quincey, generally towards midnight, when he used to sit pouring forth
+his finely-balanced, graceful sentences far on among the small hours of
+the morning. There were students, too, year after year, many of them
+not undistinguished, and some of whom had, we doubt not, ideas of their
+own regarding the flashing hazel eyes of their eloquent Professor's
+eldest daughter.' But her cousin was her choice, though wealth offered
+no attraction, and neither side had reason to regret the marriage of
+affection.
+
+At the time of his marriage Ferrier had been practising at the Bar,
+probably with no great measure of success, seeing that his heart was
+not really set upon his work. It was at this period that he first began
+to write, and his first contribution to literature took the form of
+certain papers contributed to _Blackwood's Magazine_, the subject being
+the 'Philosophy of Consciousness.' From that time onwards Ferrier
+continued to write on philosophic or literary topics until his death,
+and many of these writings were first published in the famous magazine.
+
+Before entering, however, on any consideration of Ferrier's writings
+and of the philosophy of the day, it might be worth while to try to
+picture to ourselves the social conditions and feelings of the time, in
+order that we may get some idea of the influences which surrounded him,
+and be assisted in our efforts to understand his outlook.
+
+In the beginning of the nineteenth century Scotland had been ground
+down by a strange tyranny--the tyranny of one man as it seemed, which
+man was Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who for many long years
+ruled our country as few countries have been ruled before. What this
+despotism meant it is difficult for us, a century later, to figure to
+ourselves. All offices were dependent on his patronage; it was to him
+that everyone had to look for whatever post, advancement, or concession
+was required. And Dundas, with consummate power and administrative
+ability, moulded Scotland to his will, and by his own acts made her
+what she was before the world. But all the while, though unperceived, a
+new spirit was really dawning; the principles of the Revolution, in
+spite of everything, had spread, and all unobserved the time-spirit
+made its influence felt below a surface of apparent calm. It laid hold
+first of all of the common people--weavers and the like: it roused
+these rough, uneducated men to a sense of wrong and the resolution to
+seek a remedy. Not much, however, was accomplished. Some futile risings
+took place--risings pitiable in their inadequacy--of hard-working
+weavers armed with pikes and antiquated muskets. Of course, such rebels
+were easily suppressed; the leaders were sentenced to execution or
+transportation, as the case might be; but though peace apparently was
+restored and public meetings to oppose the Government were rigorously
+suppressed, trade and manufactures were arising: Scotland was not
+really dead, as she appeared. A new life was dawning: reform was in the
+air, and in due time made its presence felt. But the memory of these
+times of political oppression, when the franchise was the privilege of
+the few, and of the few who were entirely out of sympathy with the most
+part of their countrymen or their country's wants, remained with the
+people just as did the 'Killing-time' of Covenanting days two centuries
+before. Time heals the wounds of a country as of an individual, but the
+operation is slow, and it is doubtful whether either period of history
+will ever be forgotten. At anyrate, if they are so as this century
+closes, they were not in the Scotland known to Ferrier; they were still
+a very present memory and one whose influence was keenly felt.
+
+And along with this political struggle yet another struggle was taking
+place, no less real though not so evident. The religion of the country
+had been as dead as was the politics in the century that was gone--dead
+in the sleep of Moderatism and indifferentism. But it, too, had
+awakened; the evangelical school arose, liberty of church government
+was claimed, a liberty which, when denied it, rent the Established
+Church in twain.
+
+In our country it has been characteristic that great movements have
+usually begun with those most in touch with its inmost life, the
+so-called lower orders of its citizens. The nobles and the kings have
+rather followed than taken the lead. In the awakening of the present
+century this at anyrate was the case. 'Society,' so called, remained
+conservative in its view for long after the people had determined to
+advance. Scott, it must be remembered, was a retrogressive influence.
+The romanticism of his novels lent a charm to days gone by which might
+or might not be deserved; but they also encouraged their readers to
+imagine a revival of those days of chivalry as a possibility even now,
+when men were crying for their rights, when they had awakened to a
+sense of their possessions, and would take nothing in their place. The
+real chieftains were no more; they were imitation chieftains only who
+were playing at the game, and it was a game the clansmen would not join
+in. Few exercises could be more strange than first to read the account
+of Scottish life in one of the immortal novels by Scott dealing with
+last century, and then to turn to Miss Ferrier or Galt, depicting a
+period not so very different. Setting aside all questions of genius,
+where comparison would be absurd, it would seem as if a beautiful
+enamel had been removed, and a bare reality revealed, somewhat sordid
+in comparison. The life was not really sordid,--realism as usual had
+overshot its mark,--but the enamel had been somewhat thickly laid, and
+might require to be removed, if truth were to be revealed.
+
+So in the higher grades of Edinburgh society the enamel of gentility
+has done its best to prejudice us against much true and genuine worth.
+It was characterised by a certain conventional unconventionality, a
+certain 'preciosity' which brought it near deserving a still stronger
+name, and it maintained its right to formulate the canons of criticism
+for the kingdom. Edinburgh, it must be recollected, was no 'mean city,'
+no ordinary provincial town. It was still esteemed a metropolis. It had
+its aristocracy, though mainly of the order of those unable to bear the
+greater expense of London life. It had no manufactories to speak of, no
+mercantile class to 'vulgarise' it; it possessed a University, and the
+law courts of the nation. But above all it had a literary society. In
+the beginning of the century it had such men as Henry Mackenzie, Dugald
+Stewart, John Playfair, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Thomas Brown, not to speak of
+Scott and Jeffrey--a society unrivalled out of London. And in later
+days, when these were gone, others rose to fill their places.
+
+Of course, in addition to the movement of the working people, there was
+an educated protest against Toryism, and it was made by a party who, to
+their credit be it said, risked their prospects of advancement for the
+principles of freedom. In their days Toryism, we must recollect, meant
+something very different from what it might be supposed to signify in
+our own. It meant an attitude of obstruction as regards all change from
+established standards of whatever kind; it signified a point of view
+which said that grievances should be unredressed unless it was in its
+interest to redress them. The new party of opposition included in its
+numbers Whig lawyers like Gibson Craig and Henry Erskine, in earlier
+days, and Francis Jeffrey and Lord Cockburn later on; a party of
+progress was also formed within the Church, and the same within the
+precincts of the University. The movement, as became a movement on the
+political side largely headed by lawyers, had no tendency to violence;
+it was moderate in its policy, and by no means revolutionary--indeed it
+may be doubted whether there ever was much tendency to revolt even
+amongst those working men who expressed themselves most strongly. The
+advance party, however, carried the day, and when Ferrier began to
+write, Scotland was in a very different state from that of twenty years
+before. The Reform Bill had passed, and men had the moulding of their
+country's destiny practically placed within their hands. In the
+University, again, Sir William Hamilton, a Whig, had just been
+appointed to the Chair of Logic, while Moncreiff, Chalmers, and the
+rest, were prominent in the Church. The traditions of literary
+Edinburgh at the beginning of the century had been kept up by a circle
+amongst whom Lockhart, Wilson, and De Quincey may be mentioned; now
+Carlyle, who had left Edinburgh not long before, was coming into
+notice, and a new era seemed to be dawning, not so glorious as the
+past, but more untrammelled and more free.
+
+How philosophy was affected by the change, and how Ferrier assisted in
+its progress, it is our business now to tell; but we must first briefly
+sketch the history of Scottish speculation to this date, in order to
+show the position in which he found it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY
+
+
+In attempting to give some idea of philosophy as it was in Scotland in
+the earlier portion of the present century, we shall have to go back
+two hundred years or thereabout, in order to find a satisfactory basis
+from which to start. For philosophy, as no one realised more than
+Ferrier, is no arbitrary succession of systems following one upon
+another as their propounders might decree; it is a development in the
+truest and highest significance of that word. It means the gradual
+working out of the questions which reason sets to be answered; and
+though it seems as if we had sometimes to turn our faces backwards, and
+to revert to systems of bygone days, we always find, when we look more
+closely, that in our onward course we have merely dropped some thread
+in our web, the recovery of which is requisite in order that it may be
+duly taken up and woven with the rest.
+
+At the time of which we write the so-called 'Scottish School' of Reid,
+Stewart, and Beattie reigned supreme in orthodox Scotland; it had
+undisputed power in the Universities, and besides this obtained a very
+reputable place in the estimation of Europe, and more especially of
+France. As it was this school more especially that Ferrier spent much
+of his time in combating, it is its history and place that we wish
+shortly to describe. To do so, however, it is needful to go back to its
+real founder, Locke, in order that its point of view may fairly be set
+forth.
+
+In applying his mind to the views of Locke, the ordinary man finds
+himself arriving at very commonplace and well-accustomed conceptions.
+Locke, indeed, may reasonably be said to represent the ideas of common,
+everyday life. The ordinary man does not question the reality of
+things, he accepts it without asking any questions, and bases his
+theories--scientific or otherwise--upon this implied reality. Locke
+worked out the theory which had been propounded by Lord Bacon, that
+knowledge is obtained by the observation of facts which are implicitly
+accepted as realities; and what, it was asked, could be more
+self-evident and sane? It is easy to conceive a number of perceiving
+minds upon the one hand, ready to take up perceptions of an outside
+material substance upon the other. The mind may be considered as a
+piece of white paper--a _tabula rasa_, as it was called--on which
+external things may make what impression they will, and knowledge is
+apparently explained at once. But though Locke certainly succeeded in
+making these terms the common coin of ordinary life, difficulties crop
+up when we come to examine them more closely. After all, it is evident,
+the only knowledge our mind can have is a knowledge of its own
+ideas--ideas which are, of course, caused by something which is
+outside, or at least, as Locke would say, by its _quality_. Now, from
+this it would appear that these 'ideas' after all come between the mind
+and the 'thing,' whatever it is, that causes them--that is to say, we
+can perhaps maintain that we only know our 'ideas,' and not things as
+in themselves. Locke passes into elaborate distinctions between primary
+qualities of things, of which he holds exact representations are given,
+and secondary qualities, which are not in the same position; but the
+whole difficulty we meet with is summed up in the question whether we
+really _know_ substance, or whether it is that we can only hope to know
+ideas, and 'suppose' some substratum of reality outside. Then another
+difficulty is that we can hardly really know our _selves_. How can we
+know that the self exists; and if, like Malebranche, we speak of God
+revealing substance to us, how do we know about God? We cannot form any
+'general' impressions, have any 'general' knowledge; only a sort of
+conglomeration of unrelated or detached bits of knowledge can possibly
+come home to us. The fact is, that modern philosophy starts with two
+separate and self-existent substances; that it does not see how they
+can be combined, and that the 'white-paper' theory is so abstract that
+we can never arrive at self-consciousness by its means.
+
+Berkeley followed out the logical consequences of Locke, though perhaps
+he hardly knew where these would carry him. He acknowledged that we
+know nothing but ideas--nothing outside of our mind. But he adds the
+conception of self, and by analogy the conception of God, who acts as a
+principle of causation. Whether there is necessary connection in his
+sensations or not, he does not say. Hume followed with criticism,
+scathing and merciless. He states that all we know of is the experience
+we have; and by experience he signifies perceptions. Ideas to him are
+nothing more than perceptions, and whether they are ideas simply of the
+mind, or ideas of some object, is to him the same. If we begin to
+imagine such conceptions as those of universality or necessity, of God
+or the self, beyond a complex of successive ideas, we are going farther
+than experience permits. We cannot connect our perceptions with an
+object, nor can we get beyond what experience allows. Custom merely
+brings about certain conclusions which are often enough misleading. It
+connects effect and cause, really different events: it brings about
+ideas of morality very often deceptive. We have our custom of regarding
+things, another has his--who can say which is correct? All we can do
+is, what seems a hopeless task enough--we can try to show how these
+unrelated particulars seem by repetition to produce an illusionary
+connection in our minds.
+
+Both mind and matter appear, then, to be wanting, and experience alone
+is suggested as the means of solving the difficulty in which we are
+placed--a point in the argument which left an opportunity open to Kant
+to suggest a new development, to ask whether things being found
+inadequate in producing knowledge, we might not ask if knowledge could
+not be more successful with things. But it is the Scottish lines of
+attempted solution that we wish to follow out, and not the German.
+Perhaps they are not so very different.
+
+Philosophy, as Reid found it, was in a bad way enough, as far as the
+orthodox mind of Scotland was concerned. All justification for belief
+in God, in immortality, in all that was held sacred in a century of
+much orthodoxy if little zeal, was gone. Such things might be believed
+in by those who found any comfort in so believing, but to the educated
+man who had seriously reflected on them, they were anachronisms. The
+very desperateness of the case, however, seemed to promise a remedy.
+Men could not rest in a state of permanent scepticism, in a world
+utterly incapable of being rationally explained. Even the propounder of
+the theories allowed this to be true; and as for others, they felt that
+they were rational beings, and this signified that there was system in
+the world.
+
+A champion arose when things were at their worst in Thomas Reid, the
+founder, or at least the chiefest ornament, of the so-called Scottish
+School of Philosophy. He it was who set himself to add the principle of
+the coherence of the Universe, and the consequent possibility of
+establishing Faith once more in the world. Reid, to begin with, instead
+of looking at Hume's results as serious, regarded them as necessarily
+absurd. He started a new theory of his own, the theory of Immediate
+Perception, which signified that we are able immediately to
+apprehend--not ideas only, but the Truth. And how, we may ask, can this
+be done?
+
+It had been pointed out first of all that sensations as understood by
+Locke--that is, the relations so called by Locke--might be separated
+from sensation in itself; in fact, that these first pertained to mind.
+Hence we have a dualistic system given us to start with, and the
+question is how the two sides are to be connected? What does this
+theory of Immediate Perception, which Reid puts forward as the
+solution, mean? Is it just a mechanical union of two antitheses, or is
+it something more?
+
+As to this last, perhaps the real answer would be that it both is, and
+is not. That is, the philosophy of Reid would seem still dualistic in
+its nature; it certainly implies the mechanical contact of two
+confronting substances whose independence is vigorously maintained, in
+opposition to the idealistic system which it superseded; but in
+reference to Reid we must recollect that his theory of Immediate
+Perception was also something more. As regards sensation, for example,
+he says that we do not begin with unrelated sensations, but with
+judgment--that is, we refer our sensations to a permanent subject, 'I.'
+Sensations 'suggest' the nature of a mind and the belief in its
+existence. And this signifies that we have the power of making
+inferences--how we do not exactly know, but we believe it to be, not by
+any special reasoning process, but by the 'common-sense' innately born
+within us. Common-sense is responsible for a good deal more--for the
+conceptions of existence and of cause, for instance; for Reid
+acknowledges that sensations alone must fail to account for ideas such
+as those of extension, space, and motion. This standpoint seems indeed
+as if it did not differ widely from the Kantian, but at the same time
+Reid appears to think that it is not an essential that feelings should
+be perceptively referred to an external object; the first part of the
+process of perception is carried on without our consciousness--the
+mental sensation merely follows--and sensation simply supposes a
+sentient being and a certain manner in which that being is affected,
+which leaves us much where we were, as far as the subjectivity of our
+ideas is concerned. He does not hold that all sensation is a percept
+involving extension and much else--involving, indeed, existence.
+
+Following upon Reid, Dugald Stewart obtained a very considerable
+reputation, and he was living and writing at the time Ferrier was a
+young man. His main idea would, however, seem to have been to guard his
+utterances carefully, and enter upon no keen discussions or
+contentions: when a bold assertion is made, it is always under shelter
+of some good authority. But his rounded phrases gained him considerable
+admiration, as such writing often does. He carried--perhaps
+inadvertently--Reid's views farther than he would probably have held as
+justifiable. He says we are not, properly speaking, conscious of self
+or the existence of self, but merely of a sensation or some other
+quality, which, by a _subsequent suggestion_ of the understanding,
+leads to a belief in that which exercises the quality. This is the
+doctrine of Reid put very crudely, and in a manner calculated to bring
+us back to unrelated sensation in earnest. Stewart adopted a new
+expression for Reid's 'common-sense,' _i.e._ the 'fundamental laws of
+belief,' which might be less ambiguous, but never took popular hold as
+did the first.
+
+There were many others belonging to this school besides Reid and
+Stewart, whom it would be impossible to speak of here. The Scottish
+Philosophy had its work to do, and no doubt understood that work--the
+first essential in a criticism: it endeavoured to vindicate perception
+as against sensational idealism, and it only partially succeeded in its
+task. But we must be careful not to forget that it opened up the way
+for a more comprehensive and satisfactory point of view. It was with
+Kant that the distinction arose between sensation and the forms
+necessary to its perception, the form of space and time, and so on. As
+to this part of the theory of knowledge, Reid and his school were not
+clear; they only made an effort to express the fact that something was
+required to verify our knowledge, but they were far from satisfactorily
+attaining to their goal. The very name of 'common-sense' was
+misleading--making people imagine, as it did, that there was nothing in
+philosophy after all that the man in the street could not know by
+applying the smallest modicum of reflection to the subject. Philosophy
+thus came to be considered as superfluous, and it was thought that the
+sooner we got rid of it and were content to observe the mandates of our
+hearts, the better for all concerned.
+
+What, then, was the work which Ferrier placed before himself when he
+commenced to write upon and teach philosophy? He was thoroughly and
+entirely dissatisfied with the old point of view, the point of view of
+the 'common-sense' school of metaphysicians, to begin with. Sometimes
+it seems as though we could not judge a system altogether from the best
+exponent of it, although theoretically we are always bound to turn to
+him. In a national philosophy, at least, we want something that will
+wear, that will bear to be put in ordinary language, something which
+can be understood of the people, which can be assimilated with the
+popular religion and politics--in fact, which can really be _lived_ as
+well as thought; and it is only after many years of use that we can
+really tell whether these conditions have been fulfilled. For this
+reason we are in some measure justified in taking the popular estimate
+of a system, and in considering its practical results as well as the
+value of its theory. Now, the commonly accepted view of the
+eighteenth-century philosophers in Scotland is that there is nothing
+very wonderful about the subject--like the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ of
+Molière, we are shown that we have been philosophising all our lives,
+only we never knew it. 'Common-sense'--an attribute with which we all
+believe we are in some small measure endowed--explains everything if we
+simply exercise it, and that is open to us all: there has been much
+talk, it would seem, about nothing; secrets hidden to wise men are
+revealed to babes, and we have but to keep our minds open in order to
+receive them.
+
+We are all acquainted with this talk in speculative regions of
+knowledge, but we most of us also know how disastrous it is to any true
+advancement in such directions. What happens now is just what happened
+in the eighteenth century. Men relapse into a self-satisfied indolence
+of mind: in religion they are content with believing in a sort of
+general divine Beneficence which will somehow make matters straight,
+however crooked they may seem to be; and in philosophy they are guided
+by their instincts, which teach them that what they wish to believe is
+true.
+
+Now, all this is what Ferrier and the modern movement, largely
+influenced by German modes of thought, wish to protest against with all
+their might. The scepticism of Hume and Gibbon was logical, if utterly
+impossible as a working creed and necessarily ending in absurdity; but
+this irrational kind of optimism was altogether repugnant to those who
+demanded a reasonable explanation of themselves and of their place in
+nature. The question had become summed up in one of superlative
+importance, namely, the distinction that existed between the natural
+and supernatural sides of our existence. The materialistic school had
+practically done away with the latter in its entirety, had said that
+nature is capable of being explained by mechanical means, and that
+these must necessarily suffice for us. But the orthodox section adopted
+other lines; it accepted all the ordinarily received ideas of God,
+immortality, and the like, but it maintained the existence of an
+Absolute which can only be inferred, but not presented to the mind,
+and, strangest of all, declared that the 'last and highest consecration
+of all true religion must be an altar "To the unknown and unknowable
+God."'[6] This so-called 'pious' philosophy declares that 'To think
+that God is, as we can think Him to be, is blasphemy,' and 'A God
+understood would be no God at all.' The German philosophy saw that if
+once we are to renounce our reason, or trust to it only within a
+certain sphere, all hope for us is lost, as far as withstanding the
+attack of outside enemies is concerned. We are liable to sceptical
+attacks from every side, and all we can maintain against them is a
+personal conviction which is not proof. How, then, was the difficulty
+met?
+
+          [6] _Philosophy of the Unconditioned_ (Sir William
+          Hamilton), p. 15.
+
+Kant, as we have said, made an important development upon the position
+of Hume. Hume had arrived at the point of declaring the particular mind
+and matter equally incompetent to afford an ultimate explanation of
+things, and he suggested experience in their place. This is the first
+note of the new philosophy: experience, not a process of the
+interaction of two separate things, mind on the one hand, matter on the
+other, but something comprehending both. This, however, was scarcely
+realised either by Hume or Kant, though the latter came very near the
+formulation of it. Kant saw, at least, that things could not produce
+knowledge, and he therefore changed his front and suggested starting
+with the knowledge that was before regarded as result--a change in
+point of view that caused a revolution in thought similar to that
+caused in our ideas of the natural world by the introduction of the
+system of Copernicus. Still, while following out his Copernican theory,
+Kant did not go far enough. His methods were still somewhat
+psychological in nature. He still regarded thought as something which
+can be separated from the thinker; he still maintained the existence of
+things in themselves independent and outside of thought. He gives us a
+'theory' of knowledge, when what we want to reach is knowledge itself,
+and not a subjective conception of it.
+
+Here it is that the Absolute Idealism comes in--the Idealism most
+associated with the name of Hegel. Hegel takes experience, knowledge,
+or thought, in another and much more comprehensive fashion than did his
+predecessors. Knowledge, in fact, is all-comprehending; it embraces
+both sides in itself, and explains them as 'moments,' _i.e._
+complementary factors in the one Reality. To make this clearer: we have
+been all along taking knowledge as a dualistic process, as having two
+sides involved in it, a subject and an object. Now, Hegel says our
+mistake is this: we cannot make a separation of such a kind except by a
+process of abstraction: the one really implies the other, and could not
+possibly exist without it. We may in our ordinary pursuits do so,
+without doubt; we may concentrate our attention on one side or the
+other, as the case may be; we may look at the world as if it could be
+explained by mechanical means, as, indeed, to a certain point it can.
+But, Hegel says, these explanations are not sufficient; they can easily
+be shown to be untrue, when driven far enough: the world is something
+larger; it has the ideal side as well as the real, and, as we are
+placed, they are both necessarily there, and must both be recognised,
+if we are to attain to true conceptions.
+
+Without saying that Ferrier wholly assimilated the modern German
+view,--for of course he did not,--he was clearly largely influenced by
+it, more largely perhaps than he was even himself aware. It
+particularly met the present difficulties with which he was confronted.
+The negative attitude was felt to be impossible, and the other, the
+Belief which then, as now, was so strongly advocated, the Belief which
+meant a more or less blind acceptance of a spiritual power beyond our
+own, the Belief in the God we cannot know and glory in not being able
+so to know, he felt to be an equal impossibility. Ferrier, and many
+others, asked the question, Are these alternatives exhaustive? Can we
+not have a rational explanation of the world and of ourselves? Can we
+not, that is, attain to freedom? The new point of view seemed in some
+measure to meet the difficulty, and therefore it was looked to with
+hope and anticipation even although its bearing was not at first
+entirely comprehended. Ferrier was one of those who perceived the
+momentous consequences which such a change of front would cause, and he
+set himself to work it out as best he could. In an interesting paper
+which he writes on 'The Philosophy of Common-Sense,' with special
+reference to Sir William Hamilton's edition of the works of Dr. Reid,
+we see in what way his opinions had developed.
+
+The point which Ferrier made the real crux of the whole question of
+philosophy was the distinction which exists between the ordinary
+psychological doctrine of perception and the metaphysical. The former
+drew a distinction between the perceiving mind and matter, and based
+its reasonings on the assumed modification of our minds brought about
+by matter regarded as self-existent, _i.e._ existent in itself and
+without regard to any perceiving mind. Now, Ferrier points out that
+this system of 'representationalism,' of representative ideas,
+necessarily leads to scepticism; for who can tell us more, than that we
+have certain ideas--that is, how can it be known that the real matter
+supposed to cause them has any part at all in the process? Scepticism,
+as we saw before, has the way opened up for it, and it doubts the
+existence of matter, seeing that it has been given no reasonable
+grounds for belief in it, while Idealism boldly denies its
+instrumentality and existence. What then, he asks, of Dr. Reid and his
+School of Common-Sense? Reid cannot say that matter is known in
+consciousness, but what he does say is that something innately born
+within us forces us to believe in its existence. But then, as Ferrier
+pertinently points out, scepticism and idealism do not merely doubt and
+deny the existence of a self-existent matter as an object of
+consciousness, but also because it is no object of belief. And what has
+Reid to show for his beliefs? Nothing but his word. We must all,
+Ferrier says, be sceptics or idealists; we are all forced on to deny
+that matter in any form exists, for it is only self-existent matter
+that we recognise as psychologists. Stewart tries to reinstate it by an
+appeal to 'direct observation,' an appeal which, Ferrier truly says, is
+manifestly absurd; reasoning is useless, and we must, it would appear,
+allow any efforts we might make towards rectifying our position to be
+recognised as futile.
+
+But now, Ferrier says, the metaphysical solution of the problem comes
+in. We are in an _impasse_, it would appear; the analysis of the given
+fact is found impossible. But the failure of psychology opens up the
+way to metaphysic. 'The turning-round of thought from psychology to
+metaphysic is the true interpretation of the Platonic conversion of the
+soul from ignorance to knowledge, from mere opinion to certainty and
+satisfaction; in other words, from a discipline in which the thinking
+is only _apparent_, to a discipline in which the thinking is _real_.'
+'The difference is as great between "the science of the human mind" and
+metaphysic, as it is between the Ptolemaic and the Copernican
+astronomy, and it is very much of the same kind.' It is not that
+metaphysic proposes to do _more_ than psychology; it aims at nothing
+but what it can fully overtake, and does not propose to carry a man
+farther than his tether extends, or the surroundings in which he finds
+himself. Metaphysic in the hands of all true astronomers of thought,
+from Plato to Hegel, if it accomplishes more, attempts less.
+
+Metaphysic, Ferrier says, demands the whole given fact, and that fact
+is summed up in this: 'We apprehend the perception of an object,' and
+nothing short of this suffices--that is, not the perception of matter,
+but our apprehension of that perception, or what we before called
+knowledge, ultimate knowledge in its widest sense. And this given fact
+is unlike the mere perception of matter, for it is capable of analysis
+and is not simply subjective and egoistic. Psychology recognises
+perception on the one hand (subjective), and matter on the other
+(objective), but metaphysic says the distinction ought to be drawn
+between 'our apprehension' and 'the perception-of-matter,' the latter
+being one fact and indivisible, and on no account to be taken as two
+separate facts or thoughts. The whole point is, that by no possible
+means can the perception-of-matter be divided into two facts or
+existences, as was done by psychology. And Ferrier goes on to point out
+that this is not a subjective idealism, it is not a condition of the
+human soul alone, but it 'dwells apart, a mighty and independent
+system, a city fitted up and upheld by the living God.' And in
+authenticating this last belief Ferrier calls in internal convictions,
+'common-sense,' to assist the evidence of speculative reason, where,
+had he followed more upon the lines of the great German Idealists, he
+might have done without it.
+
+Now, Ferrier continues, we are safe against the cavils of scepticism;
+the metaphysical theory of perception steers clear of all the
+perplexities of representationalism; for it gives us in perception one
+only object, the perception of matter; the objectivity of this _datum_
+keeps us clear from subjective idealism.
+
+From the perception of matter, a fact in which man merely participates,
+Ferrier infers a Divine mind, of which perceptions are the property:
+they are states of the everlasting intellect. The exercise of the
+senses is the condition upon which we are permitted to apprehend or
+participate in the objective perception of material things. This,
+shortly, is the position from which he starts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+'FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES'
+
+
+'If Ferrier's life should be written hereafter,' said one, who knew and
+valued him, just after his death,[7] 'let his biographer take for its
+motto these five words from the _Faery Queen_ which the biographer of
+the Napiers has so happily chosen.' Ferrier's life was not, what it
+perhaps seems, looking back on its comparatively uneventful course,
+consistently calm and placid,--a life such as is commonly supposed to
+befit those who soar into lofty speculative heights, and find the
+'difficult air' in which they dwell suited to their contemplative
+temperaments. Ferrier was intrepid and daring in his reasoning; a sort
+of free lance, Dr. Skelton says he was considered in orthodox
+philosophical circles; a High Tory in politics, yet one who did not
+hesitate to probe to the bottom the questions which came before him,
+even though the task meant changing the whole attitude of mind from
+which he started. And once sure of his point, Ferrier never hesitated
+openly to declare it. What he hated most of all was 'laborious dulness
+and consecrated feebleness'; commonplace orthodoxy was repugnant to him
+in the extreme, and possibly few things gave him more sincere pleasure
+than violently to combat it. The fighting instinct is proper to most
+men who have 'stuff' in them, and Ferrier in spite of his slight and
+delicately made frame was manly to the core. But, as the same writer
+says, 'though combative over his books and theories, his nature was
+singularly pure, affectionate, and tolerant. He loved his friends even
+better than he hated his foes. His prejudices were invincible; but,
+apart from his prejudices, his mind was open and receptive--prepared to
+welcome truth from whatever quarter it came.' Such a keen, eager nature
+was sure to be in the fray if battle had to be fought, and we think
+none the worse of him for that. Battles of intellect are not less keen
+than battles of physical strength, and much more daring and subtlety
+may be called into play in the fighting of them; and Ferrier, refined,
+sensitive, fastidious, as he was, had his battles to fight, and fought
+them with an eagerness and zeal almost too great for the object he had
+in view.
+
+          [7] The late Sir John Skelton, K.C.B.
+
+After his marriage in 1837, Ferrier devoted his attention almost
+entirely to the philosophy he loved so well. He did not succeed--did
+not perhaps try to succeed--at the Bar, to which he had been called.
+Many qualities are required by a successful advocate besides the subtle
+mind and acute reasoning powers which Ferrier undoubtedly possessed:
+possibly--we might almost say probably--these could have been
+cultivated had he made the effort. He had, to begin with, a fair junior
+counsel's practice, owing to his family connections, and this might
+have been easily developed; his ambition, however, did not soar in the
+direction of the law courts, and he did not give that whole-hearted
+devotion to the subject which is requisite if success is to follow the
+efforts of the novice. But if he was not attracted by the work at the
+Parliament House, he was attracted elsewhere; and to his first
+mistress, Philosophy, none could be more faithful. In other lines, it
+is true, he read much and deeply: literature in its widest sense
+attracted him as it would attract any educated man. Poetry, above all,
+he loved, in spite of the tale sometimes told against him, that he
+gravely proposed turning _In Memoriam_ into prose in order to ascertain
+logically 'whether its merits were sustained by reason as well as by
+rhyme'--a proposition which is said greatly to have entertained its
+author, when related to him by a mutual friend. Works of imagination he
+delighted in--all spheres of literature appealed to him; he had the
+sense of form which is denied to many of his craft; he wrote in a style
+at once brilliant and clear, and carelessness on this score in some of
+the writings of his countrymen irritated him, as those sensitive to
+such things are irritated. He has often been spoken of as a living
+protest against the materialism of the age, working away in the quiet,
+regardless of the busy throng, without its ambitions and its cares.
+Sometimes, of course, he temporarily deserted the work he loved the
+best for regions less remote; sometimes he consented to lecture on
+purely literary topics, and often he wrote biographies for a
+dictionary, or articles or reviews for _Blackwood's Edinburgh
+Magazine_. As it was to this serial that Ferrier made his most
+important contributions, both philosophic and literary, for the next
+fifteen years, and as it was in its pages that the development of his
+system may be traced, a few words about its history may not be out of
+place, although it is a history with which we have every reason to be
+familiar now.
+
+About 1816 the _Edinburgh Review_ reigned supreme in literature. What
+was most strange, however, was that the Conservative party, so strong
+in politics, had no literary organ of their own--and this at a time
+when the line of demarcation between the rival sides in politics was so
+fixed that no virtue could be recognised in an opponent or in an
+opponent's views, even though they were held regarding matters quite
+remote from politics. The Whig party, though in a minority politically
+and socially, represented a minority of tremendous power, and possessed
+latent capabilities which soon broke forth into action. At this time,
+for instance, they had literary ability of a singularly marked
+description; they were not bound down by traditions as were their
+opponents, and were consequently much more free to strike out lines of
+their own, always of course under the guidance of that past-master in
+criticism, Francis Jeffrey. Although his words were received as
+oracular by his friends, this dictatorship in matters of literary taste
+was naturally extremely distasteful to those who differed from him,
+especially as the influence it exerted was not a local or national
+influence alone, but one which affected the opinion of the whole United
+Kingdom. For a time, no doubt, the party was so strong that the matter
+was not taken as serious, but it soon became evident that a strenuous
+effort must be made if affairs were to be placed on a better footing,
+and if a protest were to be raised against the cynical criticism in
+which the Reviewers indulged. Consequently, in April 1817, a literary
+periodical called the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ was started by two
+gentlemen of some experience in literary matters, with the assistance
+of Mr. William Blackwood, an enterprising Edinburgh publisher, whose
+reputation had grown of recent years to considerable dimensions. This
+magazine was not a great success: the editors and publisher did not
+agree, and finally Mr. Blackwood purchased the formers' share in it,
+took over the magazine himself, and, to make matters clear, gave it his
+name; thus in October of the same year the first number of _Blackwood's
+Edinburgh Magazine_ appeared. From a quiet and unobtrusive 'Miscellany'
+the magazine developed into a strongly partisan periodical, with a
+brilliant array of young contributors, determined to oppose the
+_Edinburgh Review_ régime with all its might, and not afraid to speak
+its mind respecting the literary gods of the day. Every month some one
+came to their ears as Miss Higgins, who had charge of the little
+group, posed them against an old, overturned dory. "A perfect
+type--native--girls----freedom----wild beauty----" She resented the
+rotting dory. Vick had leaned against a crimson velvet chair. Why,
+her hair had not been combed since the morning before, her skirt
+was in tatters where she had torn it climbing into Top Notch; she
+was horribly conscious of her long legs, bare, brown, and bruised.
+
+Sidney found that posing in the morning sun on a beach at Provincetown
+was not the lark Vick had declared posing for the great Stuart Gelding
+had been. But then Vick had flirted a little with Stuart Gelding and
+had always had a cup of tea with him and his wife afterward; these art
+students appeared to have forgotten that their models were human with
+legs that ached from holding a position and arms that trembled with
+very eagerness to move. It was not one bit of fun.
+
+Then, after an interminable time, Miss Craig called out cheerily;
+"There, that's enough for this morning," and came down to the dory,
+opening a little crocheted bag. From it she took two crisp one dollar
+bills. "Take this, girls, and divide it. And we are ever so
+grateful--you were splendid types. We'll have you again some day."
+
+Sidney's hand had barely closed over her dollar bill when she spied a
+woman and a girl slowly walking along the wharf, watching with interest
+the artists who were still at work. The girl looked startlingly
+familiar to Sidney. She gave a little gasp and ran forward.
+
+"_Pola!_" she called loudly.
+
+The girl turned in astonishment at the sound of her name, stared for a
+moment, then quickly advanced laughing.
+
+"Why, you're the Romley girl, aren't you? Of _all_ the things! What are
+you doing here?"
+
+"I'm visiting my aunt," explained Sidney, suddenly conscious of her
+appearance and in consequence painfully ill-at-ease.
+
+"Oh, and do they hire you to pose? What fun! I suppose that's a sort of
+costume they make you wear, isn't it?"
+
+"Y--yes," Sidney faltered, miserably. Pola's manner was prettily
+condescending and she made no move to join Sidney on the beach.
+
+"I'm a wreck myself," Pola went on, airily surveying her trim and
+elegant person. "Mother and I are motoring. And I made her bring me
+down here to see my cousin. He's an artist and lives here summers.
+He'll just despise seeing us because he comes here to get rid of
+everything home. And the car's broken down and goodness knows how long
+we'll have to stay."
+
+"Pola!" Her mother called sharply.
+
+Pola waved her hand toward her mother. "Yes, mamma!" Then, to Sidney,
+"Isn't it simply rare our meeting like this? It shows how small the
+world is. I must run now! By-by!" She gave the slightest flip of her
+hand in sign of leave-taking and, turning, ran lightly up the wharf
+toward her mother.
+
+Sidney's eyes followed her, devouring her dainty clothes, the
+tight-fitting motoring hat, the buckled pumps. Pola--the Pola she had
+carried enshrined in her heart! That heart hurt now, to the core. She
+had dreamed of a meeting sometime, somewhere, had planned just what it
+would be like and what she'd say and what Pola would say. And now Pola
+had turned a shoulder upon it.
+
+Mart's laugh behind her roused her.
+
+"Who's Guinevere, anyway? Her ma called her just in time--we might a
+hurt the doll-baby!"
+
+Sidney turned on Mart fiercely. "She's a friend of mine," she cried, in
+a voice she made rough to keep the tears from it. "And she's _not_ a
+doll-baby."
+
+"All right--go and play with her then--she's crazy about you, I guess."
+And with that Mart swung on her heel and stalked away, her head in the
+air.
+
+Poor Sidney hurried back to Sunset Lane to hide her humiliation and her
+dismay. For some reason she could not understand she had offended Mart.
+And Pola had snubbed her. It had indeed been a cruel fate that had
+brought Pola out on the wharf at that precise moment!
+
+She spent a lonely afternoon in Top Notch, too miserable to even pour
+out her heart to "Dorothea." Then she helped Aunt Achsa prepare supper
+and after supper, which was lonely, too, for neither Lavender nor Mr.
+Dugald were there, she insisted upon clearing up the dishes while Aunt
+Achsa went down to Tillie Higgins'.
+
+Swishing her hands in the soapy water Sidney pondered sadly the things
+she had longed to learn of Pola. Her name--why she hadn't even found
+out her name! What had her teacher said of that theme she had written
+on her visit to the Romley house? Where did Pola live? Of course she
+might see her again--Pola had said that they'd be in Provincetown for a
+few days, but she did not _want_ to see her; she did not want Pola to
+see Sunset Lane and the little gray cottage and Aunt Achsa and
+Lavender. Pola would laugh at them and she would hate her!
+
+At that moment footsteps crunched the gravel of the path and a shadow
+fell across the kitchen door. Sidney turned from the table. There stood
+Mr. Dugald and with him--Pola.
+
+"I've brought my cousin, Sidney. She blew out to the Cape with that
+ill-wind we felt this morning. If you know what we can do with her I'll
+be your slave for life."
+
+Playfully pushing Dugald Allan aside Pola walked into the kitchen.
+
+"Isn't he horrid? You wouldn't dream that he's really crazy about me,
+would you? I told him how we'd met, even before this morning. He'd
+written home that Miss Green's cousin was here but I never dreamed it
+was you. I'm so sorry I didn't have a chance to introduce you to mother
+this morning. But mother wants me to take you back to the hotel. You
+can have a room right next to mine and we'll have scads of fun--You'll
+come, won't you?" For Sidney's face was unyielding.
+
+Like one cornered, Sidney stood straight against the table, her hands,
+red from the hot dish water, clasped tightly behind her back. Though
+she knew that Pola was trying to make amends for her rudeness of the
+morning, something within her heart turned hard. The dusty idol was
+crumbling to bits of clay.
+
+"She's only inviting me because Mr. Dugald has told her to," she
+reasoned inwardly. And aloud she answered in a steady voice:
+
+"I'm sorry, but I simply can't leave Aunt Achsa. You must come here and
+we'll find lots of jolly things to do--"
+
+"Here?" laughed Pola, glancing around the old kitchen.
+
+"Why not here?" roared Mr. Dugald. "As long as you've broken into our
+Secret Garden we'll introduce you to some things you've never done
+before in your life. Only Sid will have to find some suitable clothes
+for you, and you'd better leave your complexion on the dressing table."
+
+Pola accepted his banter good-naturedly. "I shall be deeply grateful,
+old dear, if you _will_ introduce me to any sensations I have not
+experienced before. There, now, will that hold you for awhile?" She
+turned to Sidney. "We quarrel like this all the time, but it's fun and
+I always have the last word. I make him so mad he can't think of
+anything withering enough to say and I seize that strategic moment to
+cease firing. You see, I practice on Dug. I _will_ come tomorrow if I
+may. Now, Duggie dear, lead me out of this funny lane or else I'll
+_never_ find my way back to mamma. Goodby, Miss Romley."
+
+Behind Pola's back Mr. Dugald cast such a despairing, apologetic and
+altogether furious look toward Sidney as to make Sidney suddenly laugh.
+And with her laugh all her sense of dismay and humiliation vanished.
+She forgot her red hands and the big gingham apron and the dishes
+spread about her in her amusement over Pola's pathetic attempt to be
+very grown-up and sophisticated. And _so_ ill-bred! How ashamed Mr.
+Dugald had been of her!
+
+Then a thought struck Sidney with such force that she sat down in the
+nearest chair. Why, if Mr. Dugald was Pola's own cousin, belonged to
+the grandeur that was Pola's, he would _never_ be attracted by poor,
+plain Trude. Her beautiful hopes were shattered! She felt distinctly
+aggrieved.
+
+However, there was Vick. Sidney hated to give Mr. Dugald to Vick, who
+always got everything, yet it seemed the only thing to do if any of the
+sisters were to have him. Almost sadly she went to her room, opened her
+satchel and took from it a small framed photograph of Victoria, a
+photograph which, while it did not flatter Victoria, paid full justice
+to her enticing beauty. Considering it, Sidney reflected on how lucky
+it was that at the last moment she had put the pictures of her sisters
+into her baggage. Then she carried it to the kitchen and stood it on
+the narrow mantel next to the clock where Mr. Dugald's eyes must surely
+find it. Unlike the snapshot of Trude the picture remained there
+undisturbed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+                                PEACOCKS
+
+
+Early the next day Pola appeared with Mr. Dugald in Sunset Lane in a
+simple garb that must have satisfied even her exacting cousin. Her mood
+was in accord with her attire as though she had left her sophistication
+behind with her silks and her rouge. She declared she felt as "peppy as
+they make them" and ready to do anything anyone suggested. And Mr.
+Dugald, resigned to wasting two weeks to entertaining his young cousin,
+of whom he was really very fond, promptly offered an astonishing
+assortment of suggestions from which he commanded the girls to choose.
+
+"Why, you wouldn't believe there were so many things to do!" cried Pola
+with real enthusiasm. "Sidney, you'll have to decide." And Sidney at
+once decided upon a tramp to Peaked Hill on the ocean side with an
+early picnic supper.
+
+In the days that followed, Sidney's first admiration for Pola returned.
+Though Pola would never again be the idol she was much more enjoyable
+as a chum. Her spirits, though an affectation, were infectious and gay;
+in her pretty clothes and with her pretty face she made Sidney think of
+a butterfly, a fragile, golden-winged, dainty flitting butterfly. She
+professed to enjoy everything they did--even to the picnics. She
+tramped endlessly in her unsuitable shoes without a murmur of fatigue
+and Sidney suspected that she really _did_ care a great deal for her
+cousin Dugald's approval.
+
+With Mr. Dugald they motored to Highland Light and to Chatham. They
+toured the shops at Hyannis. They sailed with Captain Hawkes on the
+_Mabel T_. They rose very early one morning and went to the Coast Guard
+Station to watch the drill and then ate ham and eggs with Commander
+Nelson. More than once Sidney donned the cherry crêpe de chine and
+dined with Mrs. Allan and Pola and Dugald at the hotel, feeling very
+grand and traveled.
+
+But to Sidney's deep regret Pola professed an abhorrence of swimming.
+
+"Just please don't _ask_ me," she had begged, shuddering. "I loathe it!
+It's one of my complexes. Of course I've gone swimming in almost every
+body of water on the globe, but I hate it. You'll spoil my fun
+_utterly_ if you even try to make me!" After that Sidney could not
+urge. She did not know what complexes were, but Pola had made them
+sound real and convincing and a little delicate. Though Sidney missed
+the jolly swims with Lavender and Mart she refrained from even a hint
+of her feelings.
+
+Often when they were together Pola waxed confidential over her cousin.
+"He's a thorn in Aunt Lucy's side," she explained one day as the girls
+lounged in Pola's room at the hotel, a huge box of candy on a stool
+between them. "She always wants him to go in for society and to go
+abroad with her and do all the fashionable resorts on the Continent,
+but couldn't you _see_ him? Not for Duggie boy, ever! When she starts
+planning something like that he bolts off somewhere and the next thing
+you hear is that he's painted a wonderful picture and sold it or had
+first mention or a gold medal. Of course that makes him terribly
+interesting and there are dozens of single ladies from forty to
+fourteen itching to catch him. And Dug's such a simple old dear that he
+doesn't know it. But his mother does and she has them all sorted over
+and the eligible ones ticketed. You see Dug will be dreadfully rich
+some day and goodness knows what he'll do with the money for he hasn't
+the brains of a child where business is concerned. His father's even
+richer than Dad."
+
+Sidney literally blinked before the picture Pola drew--blinked and
+blushed that she had dared angle for Mr. Dugald herself like the
+forty-to-fourteen single ladies. Mr. Dugald belonged to a world that
+was foreign to the Romley girls, Pola's dazzling, peacock-world.
+
+Sidney felt immensely flattered that Pola had taken her in among her
+peacocks. (Secretly, too, she considered that she carried herself well
+among them. She was most careful of her dress, now!) She did not know
+that Pola's sort instinctively seeks out someone to dazzle, that Pola's
+generosity was a part of the dazzling process. She thought Pola
+wonderful to accept so casually her gilded privileges. Why, if Pola
+didn't like a dress or a hat or a pair of shoes she simply didn't wear
+it; she could buy anything she wanted from any one of the priceless
+bits of jewelry in the shops at Hyannis to the delectable sweets in the
+tea-rooms on Commercial Street. She could do just as she pleased--even
+more than Mart, for _she_ never had to darn or mend or wipe dishes or
+dust or hang up her clothes or brush them. Realizing all this Sidney
+came to forgive that first condescension that had stung; she thought
+Pola little short of an angel to be so prettily friendly with them all.
+
+So engrossed was Sidney in basking in Pola's favor that for a time she
+felt no compunctions at deserting Mart and Lavender; in fact she did
+not even think of them. Both Mart and Lavender had become suddenly very
+busy with affairs that kept them out of sight. If, once in awhile,
+Sidney wondered what they were doing something of Pola's or something
+Pola said quickly crowded the thought from her head. But one afternoon
+they encountered Mart as they strolled toward the Green Lantern to sit
+under its gay awnings and drink tea. Sidney introduced Mart to Pola and
+to cover Pola's rude stare she added quickly: "We're going down to the
+Green Lantern, Mart. Won't you come with us?" conscious as she said it
+that her voice sounded stilted.
+
+"No, thanks. I'm going to do something lots more exciting than sitting
+_there_! And I'm in a hurry, too." And with that Mart swung on past
+them, her head high.
+
+Sidney had a moment's longing to run after her and coax her to come,
+but Pola's light giggle checked her. "Isn't she a riot? I'd have _died_
+if she'd come with us!"
+
+"Oh, Pola--she'll hear you!" pleaded Sidney.
+
+She hated herself because she did not tell Pola at once how bravely
+Mart shouldered her responsibilities, about gran'ma, who looked to Mart
+for everything. Instead she simply walked along with Pola and let Pola
+giggle. Pola, sensing Sidney's feelings, slipped her arm through hers
+and gave it an affectionate little squeeze.
+
+"You're such a funny child," she said softly. "You'd be nice to
+anything. I can't, of course, for I go around to so many places and
+mother's warned me often about strangers. Anyway, it's lots nicer for
+just us two to be together, isn't it?"
+
+But in spite of Pola's soft flattery and countless lumps of sugar the
+tea tasted bitter to Sidney and the Green Lantern, with its futurist
+awnings, its bizarre hangings and cushions, had no allure. The thought
+came suddenly to Sidney that it had been a whole week since she had
+even seen Mart; in that time she had scarcely exchanged more than a
+half dozen words with Lavender.
+
+To the tune of Pola's ceaseless chatter Sidney's thoughts kept darting
+back to that uncomfortable fact. Pola always talked of things she had
+done at home, abroad, at school, of her boy friends whom she called
+"men." She liked to hint of countless "affairs" which simply must not
+come to her mother's attention, assuring Sidney that she was absolutely
+the only one to whom she confided these deep intrigues. She had worn
+Guy Townsend's fraternity pin the whole winter before and not a soul
+had known whose pin it was for Guy was tabooed by mothers in general
+and Mrs. Allan in particular. Now Pola was simply crazy over a Jack
+Sicard who was playing the lead in "Hearts Aquiver." But not even
+Jack's manly beauty, as described by Pola, failed to draw from Sidney
+more than a mild: "He must be cute." Pola gave way to vexation.
+
+"You're scarcely listening to me, Sidney Romley, when I'm telling you
+things I haven't told a _soul_! I believe you're still thinking of that
+ridiculous girl we met."
+
+"She isn't ridiculous!" Sidney was prompt enough now in Mart's defense.
+"She looks funny, but you see I've gotten well acquainted with her and
+she's awfully nice."
+
+"Oh, _nice_, of course! But _anyone_ can be nice! You know perfectly
+well, Sidney, that there's as much class in this country as there is in
+Europe and being _nice_ does not break down social barriers."
+
+Sidney had no answer ready for this. Curiously into her mind flashed
+what Mr. Dugald had said about the solid aristocracy. But somehow she
+knew Pola would not understand this. Pola went on:
+
+"I'm a dreadful little snob, anyway. But I suppose that is the result
+of my education. It would be funny to go to the most expensive schools
+and have all the culture that Europe can offer and _not_ be a snob."
+
+Still Sidney stared into her teacup. She thought Pola was all wrong,
+but she did not know how to say it. Pola herself had told her that she
+had gone to Grace Hall because it had no examinations and graduated a
+girl anyway--so much for Pola's education. And culture--what benefited
+all the culture of Europe if Pola found enjoyment only in the company
+of youths her mother would not permit in the house?
+
+Pola mistook Sidney's silence for hurt. "You goose, I'm not saying I
+think I'm any better than _you_ are! But you must see that neither of
+us are a bit like that native girl!" Which admission Pola considered
+most generous.
+
+"I wasn't thinking about whether you are any better than I am or not.
+I've been brought up, you see," with a rueful laugh, "to believe that
+my father being a poet set _me_ a little apart from everyone else. And
+I've hated it. What I was thinking was that there really isn't any
+class difference in people--except what we make ourselves, like the
+League building a barrier around me and you thinking you're in another
+class from Mart because you're rich. Maybe it isn't really the outside
+things that count, maybe it's the big things we have got or haven't got
+inside us--"
+
+"Like what?" demanded Pola.
+
+Sidney was thinking of Lav's self-effacing ambition to serve the world
+from the seclusion of a laboratory, of Mart's cheerfulness in the face
+of her lot and her loyal affection for her exacting and rheumatic
+grandmother; of the courage of Mart's grandfather, Ambrose Calkins, who
+had lost his own life in going back to his sinking schooner for the
+cook who could not swim; of her own ancestor, Priscilla Ellis. _Those_
+were the things which set people apart from their fellows, Sidney
+thought, but the understanding was too new in her own heart for her to
+find words in which she could tell Pola of it. "Like what?" Pola
+demanded again and this time her voice was a little haughty.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," Sidney laughed. "I'm all mixed up. I guess I was
+trying to say something Mr. Dugald said once to me."
+
+"Oh, _Dug_!" laughed Pola. "He's nutty about all that! Look at the way
+he lives here on the Cape. But mother says he'll get over it when he
+marries. Now I have no intention of getting serious this grand day so
+let's have another piece of that chocolate fudge cake--it's on me, too,
+remember!" Which was Pola's pretty way of pretending she did not know
+that Sidney did not have any money with her. The dollar Sidney had
+earned for posing had long since been spent.
+
+Sidney was relieved that Pola had rescued her from the "deep water." At
+the same time she suffered from the sense that she had not made Pola
+see Mart in another light. She had failed in loyalty. The sparkling
+blue of the bay that stretched before them only reminded her that this
+was the hour she usually went swimming. Due to Pola's "complex" she had
+not gone swimming for a whole week.
+
+Even with her mouth full of the fudge cake, she vowed to herself that
+the very next day she would hunt out her chums and her old pastimes.
+Pola and Mr. Dugald must plan without her!
+
+She had promised to dine again at the hotel with Pola and her mother
+but as soon as she could after dinner she returned to Sunset Lane.
+Because of her determination her heart was lighter. And her way was
+made easier, too, for Mrs. Allan had told Pola at dinner that the
+"Truxtons were at Chatham Bars." Pola had been as excited over the
+Truxtons as her mother.
+
+"Can we go and see them right away?"
+
+"Not tonight. But I have arranged for a car and Shields will drive us
+over tomorrow. We can stay there for a few days. I shall welcome the
+change for this place has been very stupid for me, my dear."
+
+"Poor mamma! I've been selfish. It'll be a lark seeing Cora Truxton
+again!" Pola had explained to Sidney: "We met the Truxtons at Nice.
+Cora and Millicent are both older, but they're the _cutest_ girls. Will
+we go in the morning, mamma?"
+
+Pola's manner had indicated that the coming of the Truxtons into their
+plans raised a barrier that now excluded Sidney. Throughout the dinner
+she had talked exclusively of the trip on the morrow and the renewing
+of that acquaintance that had begun in Nice. But Sidney felt nothing
+but a sense of escape.
+
+She found Aunt Achsa alone in the cottage on Sunset Lane. She was
+sitting on the doorstep, "coolin' off." Sidney sat down beside her.
+
+"Where's Lavender?" she asked, wishing Lavender was at home that she
+might begin her "making up" at once.
+
+"Don't know. And I wish I did. Don't know what's gotten into that boy.
+I'm as worried as can be."
+
+"About Lav? Oh, what's the matter?" For Aunt Achsa was close to tears.
+Something must have happened to break her habitual optimism.
+
+"He's acted so queer like lately. Cal'late you'd of noticed it if you
+hadn't been off so much with Mr. Dugald's folks. I thought it might a'
+been his stomach and I put a powder into his coffee, but he ain't been
+a mite different--"
+
+"But what does he do, Aunt Achsa? He looks all right--"
+
+Now Aunt Achsa hesitated. One tear separated itself from its fellows
+and rolled down her withered cheek and dropped upon her withered hand.
+She looked at it, startled, then lifted her hand and dashed it across
+her eyes.
+
+"I swum, I'm cryin'. Don't know as I know when I've cried before. And
+cryin' before I have anything as I can see to cry for. But Sidney, I
+set such a lot on that boy--it's like I was his mother and his father
+and his brothers and his sisters all mixed up in one--gran'ma, too. He
+was such a little mite when I took him, y'see and then he's not like
+other boys and I've had to do a heap of lovin' to make up to him. I've
+prayed every day of my life for the Lord to keep him happy in spite of
+things and that was a pretty big prayer for I don't suppose the Lord
+wants us all to be happy all the time, that ain't His way of bringing
+us up. But I thought He might make an exception for Lav. Land sakes,
+how I go on--and you nigh to cryin' yourself." For she had caught
+Sidney blinking back something glistening from her own eyes.
+
+"Aunt Achsa, Lavender is wonderful. He's talked to me a lot and he's
+going to be a great man some day, I know. He has the grandest plans
+shut away in his heart and he _is_ happy--"
+
+Aunt Achsa looked at her, startled. "Plans--how _can_ he when he's--"
+She bit off the words. Her lips trembled.
+
+"Aunt Achsa, it doesn't matter what one's like on the outside!" Now
+Sidney floundered for the second time in one day under the pressure of
+her own thoughts. "I mean--Lav can do anything he wants to do, anyway.
+And he's working hard reading and studying and some day, after awhile,
+he'll go away somewhere and study more--"
+
+"Sidney Romley, you're _crazy_!" cried Aunt Achsa, in a quavering
+voice. "Go away! How _can_ he go away when we ain't even the money to
+go 'sfar as Orleans. And he ain't plannin' to go on anyone's _charity_!"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean he's going away _soon_! I shouldn't have told anyway
+for Lav told me as a secret. But I thought maybe it would make you
+happier knowing he had great ambitions. And he'll tell you sometime
+himself."
+
+When Aunt Achsa spoke it was in a thin, grieved voice.
+
+"It's what I didn't want him to ever take into his head. Goin' off
+somewhere--alone. For I'm too old to go with him and he'll need me!"
+
+"Oh I wouldn't have told you if I'd thought it would make you unhappy.
+He won't go for a long time, Aunt Achsa. And when he does he'll come
+back real often."
+
+Now Aunt Achsa sat so still that Sidney thought she had consoled her.
+But Aunt Achsa was facing in her own way this at which Sidney had
+hinted, drawing for it from that courage of hers that had not yet been
+exhausted. Well, if it was best for Lavender some day to go away she'd
+send him away with a smile even though the heart that had taken him, a
+wee baby, from the dying mother did burst with loneliness. Besides,
+even if Lavender went away she could go on praying to the Lord to keep
+him "happy"--no distance could keep her from doing that!
+
+"It's like as not his plans in his head that's makin' him act so quiet
+like and short-spoken. And last night he didn't sleep in his bed at
+all!"
+
+"Why, Aunt Achsa, where _was_ he?" gasped Sidney, really startled.
+
+"I don't know, dearie. He used to take to spells like that when he was
+little. But lately he's got over them. I followed him once and I found
+him out in the sand dunes lying flat on his face cryin' awful--out loud
+and beatin' his arms. I let him be. I stole home and I never let on I
+knew. When he came back all white lookin' I had a nice cake ready--roll
+jell, his favorite."
+
+"Do--do you think he was out in the sand dunes--last night?"
+
+"I don't know. He come in about nine o'clock, awful quiet and I didn't
+ask him anything, but I just set his breakfast before him as though the
+morning wa'n't half over. And then he went off again and I ain't seen
+him sense. I thought mebbe it was these folks of Mr. Dugald's--"
+
+"What do you mean, Aunt Achsa?" But Sidney knew what she meant.
+
+"Like as not Lav's plain jealous. Mr. Dugald hasn't had any time for
+anything but toting this Pola round everywhere and Lav notices it. He
+hasn't any right to be jealous as I can see for Miss Pola is Mr.
+Dugald's own cousin, but Lav thinks the sun rises and sets in Mr.
+Dugald. And like as not he misses you--"
+
+"I've missed Lav dreadfully. I didn't know how much I missed him and
+Mart until today when it came over me suddenly that the things I was
+doing with Pola weren't really much fun--just at first they were
+because they were different. I'm afraid, Aunt Achsa, that I love
+different things! But tomorrow I am going to play all day long with Lav
+and Mart, see if I don't. I can't wait for tomorrow to come!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                                "HOOK!"
+
+
+Sidney found it a little difficult to take up the fun with her
+erstwhile chums where she had left off. When she stopped at the
+Calkins' house directly after breakfast, Mart coolly declined to go
+anywhere with her, and smiled scornfully at her bare legs.
+
+"I s'pose your million-dollar friend is otherwise engaged today!"
+
+Sidney truthfully admitted that she was. "She's gone to Chatham with
+her mother to see some people they know. And I'm glad. I've been just
+dying for a good swim. Let's go out to the _Arabella_ this morning."
+
+But Mart declared she was tired of all that. In fact she was tired of
+doing lots of the silly things they'd been doing. She'd promised Gert
+Bartow to go there right after lunch.
+
+Sidney had no choice but to go on alone in search of Lav. She was
+discouraged to the point of tears. Yet she knew in her heart that she
+deserved Mart's coldness. She remembered how she had felt once when
+Nancy had deserted her for a new girl at Miss Downs'. And it had
+seriously threatened their friendship.
+
+As she wandered slowly toward the town Sidney wondered what Mart and
+Gert Bartow were going to do. Gert Bartow was a girl of nineteen at
+least, and much more grown up than even that. Mart had pointed her out
+to Sidney. Sidney wished Mart had asked her to go with her to Gert's.
+She felt very lonely.
+
+Perhaps she had spoiled everything. Pola would come back, of course,
+but, somehow, Pola's glamour had faded. After all, what, besides tons
+of candy and quarts of sweet mixtures and much glitter, had there been
+to it? The sweets and the glitter and Pola's endless confidences of
+"men" had left Sidney jaded and bored, though she did not know it; she
+did know that she was suddenly lonely for Mart and Lav and the
+stimulating pastimes they seemed to find always right at hand.
+
+As she approached Rockman's, wandering there from force of habit, she
+saw Lav pushing off in a dory. She ran down the wharf, hailing him.
+
+"Oh, Lav, take me with you!" she pleaded, breathlessly.
+
+He hesitated a moment before he swung the dory back to the wharf.
+Something of the look Mart had given her flashed into his eyes.
+
+Then: "Come on if y'want to," he answered ungraciously.
+
+As she sat down in the bow of the boat Sidney wanted to cry more than
+anything else, but Lav's dark face suddenly reminded her of what Aunt
+Achsa had told her. Perhaps he had been out in the sand dunes last
+night, lying on his face, sobbing aloud! She began chattering with
+resolute cheerfulness.
+
+"Isn't it hot this morning, Lav? Where are you going?" Lav answered
+shortly that he was going out to the _Arabella_. Sidney noticed a book
+in his pocket, but said nothing. She ventured other remarks concerning
+the activities in the bay to which Lavender answered in monosyllables,
+if at all.
+
+"Oh, look, the _Puritan's_ in, Lav!" And even to this Lavender only
+grunted: "It's been in two days!"
+
+By the time they reached the _Arabella_ Sidney's remorse was yielding
+to a spark of indignation. Lav needn't be _quite_ so mad for, after
+all, it had been his own precious Mr. Dugald who had thrown her and
+Pola so constantly together! And if Lav had not hidden himself away he
+most certainly would have been included in all the plans. It was not
+fair in Lav to act so cross.
+
+"I know you came out to read, Lav, and I've some thinking to do, so I'm
+going up in the bow and leave you quite to yourself," Sidney said as
+they boarded the _Arabella_, and if in her tone there was something of
+Mart's tartness, it may be forgiven for Sidney had been punished enough.
+
+"I don't care if you hang 'round," Lav conceded. "It's too hot to read,
+anyways. I thought maybe there'd be a breeze out here. What's that?"
+For he had suddenly spied an object lying on the deck close to the rail
+as though it had dropped there from someone's pocket.
+
+At almost the same moment Sidney spied it, too. Both darted for it.
+Lavender reached it first and picked it up and examined it with
+frowning eyes.
+
+"It's a knife!" cried Sidney, at his elbow.
+
+"Sure it's a knife. Anybody can see that. What I want to know--"
+
+"Let me look at it. Isn't it Mr. Dugald's?"
+
+"No, it isn't Mr. Dugald's. He hasn't been out here for a week. And
+that knife wasn't here yesterday for I'd a' seen it."
+
+"Let me look at it, Lav," pleaded Sidney, for Lav, a curious expression
+on his face, had covered the knife with his hand.
+
+"It's funny, that's all I got to say. I mean--how it come here."
+
+"Lavender Green, show me that knife this minute! You act so mysterious
+and I have a right to know why."
+
+Slowly Lavender placed the knife in Sidney's eager hands. It was an
+ordinary case knife such as the fishermen carried, but Lavender pointed
+to two initials that had been carved on the case.
+
+"J.S."
+
+"J.S." repeated Sidney; then she cried: "Why--J.S.! That's Jed Starrow!"
+
+"Sure it's Jed Starrow!"
+
+"But how did it get on the _Arabella_?"
+
+"That's what I'd like to know."
+
+"He's _been_ on the _Arabella_, Lav!"
+
+"Or someone of his gang."
+
+"Isn't that _funny_? What would he come here for?"
+
+Lavender was silent. And Sidney, staring at him as though to read from
+his face some explanation, suddenly fell silent, too. The secret that
+Cap'n Davies had laid upon her weighed heavily. She _wished_ she could
+tell.
+
+"Sid, I haven't played square," Lavender suddenly blurted out,
+flushing. "We promised to tell one another if any one of us found out
+anything and _I did_--and I didn't tell!"
+
+Lavender's admission faded beside the fact that he knew something.
+
+"Oh, what?" Sidney cried.
+
+"I wasn't going to tell you. I thought you didn't care anything about
+the pirates any more. And the laugh's sort o' on me, anyway, because I
+thought we were all crazy to suspect Jed Starrow."
+
+"Tell me quick, Lav," commanded Sidney, quivering with excitement.
+
+Lav leaned against the rail. To tell his story meant confessing his
+state of mind.
+
+"I guess I've been sore because you and Mr. Dugald fooled 'round with
+those new folks. Jealous. I get that way lots of times--all hot inside
+because I'm different. And I go off somewhere alone and stay there
+until I fight it down."
+
+"I know, Lav. Aunt Achsa told me. Did you go to the dunes?"
+
+"One night I did. Stayed there all night. But one evening I went out on
+the breakwall. There's a place out there where the rocks are piled so's
+to make a cave. I used to play there a lot when I was a little kid. I
+crawled into it. And I hadn't been there very long when I heard
+somebody talking--two men. They were up close so's I heard everything
+they said."
+
+"And what did they say, Lav? Oh, tell me quick!"
+
+"I could only get scraps of it. I didn't dare look, I didn't dare move.
+But one fellow called the other Jed. I heard 'em say something about
+'risk' and a 'stranger from Boston asking too many questions 'round
+Rockman's to be healthy,' and Jed Starrow--I'm dead sure it was his
+voice--said, sort of blustering like, 'Let them search the _Puritan_!
+They won't find anything on her _now_!' And the other fellow answered
+him: 'There's too much in this, Jed, to take any chances.' That's what
+they said, Sid, and then they went on."
+
+"Oh, Lav, they're pirates!"
+
+"Well, not exactly pirates, but they're up to _something_ that's sure.
+Maybe they're rum-runners. There's a lot of that going on. I thought
+you were crazy, but I guess you weren't."
+
+Sidney's lips trembled with eagerness. As long as Lavender knew what he
+knew she felt that she would be justified in telling him what Cap'n
+Davies had told her.
+
+"It isn't rum--Lav," she whispered, "It's _diamonds_!"
+
+"Diamonds! Oh, go on, where did you get that stuff?"
+
+"It's diamonds, Lav." Then Sidney solemnly repeated what the old
+Captain had told her concerning the letter and the reward. "He asked me
+not to tell a soul, but you're different because you know. And he said
+that the reward would be posted everywhere in two weeks at least and
+it's that long now. Everyone will know soon."
+
+"Sid, five thousand dollars!" Lavender whistled.
+
+"If someone 'round here's doing it Cap'n Davies wants to catch him
+himself. He says he doesn't want the reward but he wants to punish the
+man who's hurting the honest name of this part of Cape Cod. I think
+that's a grand spirit."
+
+Lavender's shoulders lifted. Why couldn't someone else save the fair
+name of Cape Cod--someone like a crippled boy whom most of the
+towns-people looked upon as a loafer?
+
+"I'd like to catch 'em, myself," he said slowly in such a low voice
+that Sidney barely caught the words.
+
+"Oh, Lav, why not? We have as good a chance as anyone, knowing as much
+as we do. What'll we do first?" For Sidney was ready for adventure.
+
+Suddenly Lavender realized that he was gripping the knife in his hand.
+He looked down at it.
+
+"What we ought to do first is to find out how this knife got here.
+Let's put it where we found it and go back around the other side of
+that schooner so's no one on the _Puritan_'ll see us. Then we can come
+out late this afternoon and if it's gone--well, we'll know someone came
+to look for it!"
+
+"And then we'd know for sure that someone had been on the _Arabella_."
+
+"That's the idea. You get on quickly for a girl, Sid. Come on, now,
+we'll pull the dory round to the starboard side."
+
+Sidney caught herself tiptoeing across the deck of the_ Arabella_. In
+her excitement she scarcely breathed. Every move, every act, was
+fraught with significance. Lavender took the precaution to beach the
+dory at an abandoned wharf near Sunset Lane.
+
+"Just as well not to show ourselves 'round Rockman's."
+
+"When can we go out to the _Arabella_?"
+
+"Not 'till four o'clock. We can go out to swim just like we always do.
+Even if they see us they won't think it's funny for us to do that.
+They'd think it funnier if we didn't."
+
+Sidney admitted the truth of this, but wondered how she could live
+until four o'clock!
+
+As they walked up Sunset Lane Sidney reminded Lavender that, because of
+their promise, they ought to tell Mart. But when they stopped at the
+Calkins' house they found that Mart had already gone to Gert Bartow's.
+
+"Oh, dear," sighed Sidney, with an added pang of remorse.
+
+At four o'clock Sidney and Lavender went out to the _Arabella_ to swim
+as they had done always before Pola's coming. Except for a brightness
+in Sidney's eyes, an alertness about her whole body, and the occasional
+significant glances that passed between them they both appeared quite
+normal. Lav talked casually of the heat of the day.
+
+"Gee, the water'll feel great. This is the hottest day we've had yet."
+
+"I can't wait to get in." Most certainly Jed Starrow, had he been
+listening, could not have guessed how closely Nemesis pressed upon his
+heels!
+
+Lavender pulled up alongside of the _Arabella_ and deliberately made
+the boat fast.
+
+"We got to act as though we haven't found the knife, y'see," he warned.
+"As though we were going just swimming."
+
+In her eagerness to board the _Arabella_ Sidney stumbled. Lavender had
+to clutch her to keep her from tumbling into the water.
+
+"Oh!" They both cried in one sound as they clambered to the deck--for
+the knife was gone!
+
+"Well, _that_ means they'd been on the _Arabella_. Jed Starrow dropped
+that knife and he missed it and came back to look for it!"
+
+"Lav, I believe they've hidden their treasure on the _Arabella_!"
+Sidney still reverted to the more romantic terms of buccaneering.
+"Let's look for it now!"
+
+"With 'em watching maybe from the _Puritan_? I guess not. We got to go
+ahead and swim the way we always do, Sid. Don't let's even appear to be
+talking about anything. Come on, I'll beat you in!"
+
+For the space of the few minutes while the water closed about her with
+delicious coolness Sidney forgot everything in an intoxication of
+delight. Presently she came back to the _Arabella_ and climbed aboard
+with a sigh of utter content. "Thank goodness _I_ haven't any
+complexes," she laughed, shaking the salt drops from her bobbed head.
+"And now what?"
+
+Lavender pulled on the light sweater he had worn over his bathing suit.
+
+"When it gets dark I'm coming out to the _Arabella_ and stay all night.
+Maybe they'll come back and I'll find out why. That fellow said
+something 'bout Rockman's not being safe. They'll learn the _Arabella_
+isn't safe either!"
+
+"But Lav, I'm coming with you!"
+
+"You can't. And this isn't any work for a girl to get mixed up in."
+
+Sidney drew herself to her full height.
+
+"Lavender Green, if you think you're going to lose me _now_ you're
+mistaken. I guess we went into this in a sort of partnership and it's
+going to hold. I found out just as much as you did! And if you come out
+to the _Arabella_, _I'm_ coming, and Mart, too, if she's home."
+
+Lav still hesitated.
+
+"Aunt Achsa won't let you. How'd you get away?"
+
+This staggered Sidney for a moment, then she thought of a "way." This
+was Wednesday night and Miss Letty had said that on Wednesday night she
+was going to drive to Truro and that Sidney might go with her. From
+Truro Miss Letty was going on to Wellfleet. Aunt Achsa would think
+Sidney wanted to see Cap'n Davies again. She explained all this
+breathlessly to Lavender. "This is important enough to warrant a fib.
+And when it's all over Aunt Achsa will understand. Let's go home now
+and find Mart."
+
+Unwillingly Lavender conceded Sidney's right to share with him his
+night's vigil at any cost. Again they beached the dory near Sunset Lane.
+
+Now they found Mart at home. Sidney put her head in the door, made
+certain that gran'ma was not in hearing, and cried "Hook!"
+
+Mart had only to look once at Sidney's face to know that something had
+happened. Sidney dragged her out to the Lane and there she and
+Lavender, in words as quick as pistol shots, told the story.
+
+"Meet us down on the beach near Milligan's at eight o'clock," Lav
+whispered, as they parted.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+                               THE GLEAM
+
+
+Exactly at the appointed hour Sidney met Lavender on the beach. She was
+breathless and a little worried for it had been neither easy nor to her
+liking to deceive Aunt Achsa. Aunt Achsa had declared that a storm was
+"comin'" for she could smell it in the air and Tillie Higgins had seen
+Sam Doolittle start for the backside with his pike pole and that meant
+a blow for Sam didn't waste steps. "'Tisn't likely Letty Vine'll _go_
+to Truro tonight."
+
+"But I'll _see_ if she's going, anyway," Sidney had cried and had raced
+off, a sweater over her arm.
+
+"I wish I could tell her how very important it is and then she'd
+understand, but I can't for maybe she wouldn't understand," Sidney
+thought as she hurried to the rendezvous.
+
+"Gee, how'd you ever get away?" asked Lav, admiringly, but Sidney had
+no opportunity to explain for at that moment Mart joined them, eager
+and excited.
+
+"I put some cookies in my pocket," she exclaimed. "You can't tell
+what'll happen."
+
+"Good. And I've got matches."
+
+Sidney wished she had thought of something to bring. Lav went on:
+
+"It isn't dark enough to go out yet. We got to be awful careful. You
+girls sort o' walk up the beach as though we weren't all together."
+
+Lavender was actually pale and his eyes burned fiercely. Sidney looked
+at him admiringly. She knew he was not thinking of the reward but of
+the fair name of the Cape.
+
+Obediently the girls strolled up the beach. And, as they turned, a
+voice hailed them. To their consternation Pola came flying toward them.
+
+At sight of her Sidney bit her lips with vexation. She gave a sidewise
+glance at Mart and saw Mart's chin set stubbornly.
+
+"Sidney--wait a minute!" Pola called and Sidney could do nothing but
+wait until Pola came up to them.
+
+"I thought you were going to stay in Chatham tonight."
+
+"I should say _not_!" Pola had enough breath to make her answer
+expressive. "I was never so bored in my life. Those Truxton girls are
+_stupid_. And I kept wondering what you were doing. I coaxed mother to
+let Shields bring me back and she said she would provided I came and
+stayed with you tonight. Can you squeeze me in? Dug will give me his
+room, I know."
+
+Sidney cast a wild glance toward Mart. She started to answer, then
+stopped. Pola looked from her to Mart and back again to Sidney.
+
+"What's the mystery? If you don't want me I'll go to the hotel."
+
+"Oh, Pola, it isn't that. It's--it's--"
+
+"Sidney Romley I'll bet you're up to something! And if you are, you
+simply have got to let me in on it! I'm just pepped up to some
+excitement. Tell me what's up."
+
+The girls turned slowly and walked toward Lav and the dory, Pola
+between them.
+
+"It isn't any fun," Sidney explained slowly. "It's something
+serious--and--and dangerous. And you'll have to ask Mart and Lav if you
+can come with us."
+
+"You'll let me go, won't you, Mart?" Pola begged with friendly
+entreaty, forgetting she had ever thought Mart a riot.
+
+Sidney introduced Pola to Lavender and turned away that she might not
+see the pain that flashed across Lavender's face.
+
+"Pola came back to stay all night with me. She wants to go with us and
+if she doesn't I guess I'll have to go back home."
+
+"I'll do anything you say," promised Pola. "I'm so curious that I'm
+fairly bursting."
+
+"I don't care, but you'll have to take off your shoes and stockings,"
+muttered Lav, scarcely looking at Pola.
+
+"Oh, I'll do that! I'll do _anything_!" Pola flopped upon the beach and
+commenced removing her sport shoes. "And I won't even ask any questions
+until you're ready to tell me." Rising, her small feet pink against the
+sand, she saluted Lav with mock solemnity.
+
+"There, Captain Lavender Green, I'm at your command."
+
+Her pretty acquiescence won the girls at once. If any doubt assailed
+them as to the prudence of letting Pola go, their admiration for Pola's
+gameness stilled it. Sidney rolled Pola's shoes and stockings and her
+own in her sweater and hid them behind some logs. Then the little party
+waded out to the dory and embarked.
+
+"We're going to the _Arabella_," Sidney whispered to Pola. She felt
+Pola shiver, but the girl made no protest. "We have to go 'round this
+way so's no one can see us from the harbor. Sh--h!"
+
+Silently they boarded the old hull, Lavender last. With the line from
+the dory in his hand the boy considered.
+
+"If anyone comes up and sees the dory they'll know someone's aboard."
+
+"That's true. What'll we do?" whispered Sidney, anxiously.
+
+"We can set her adrift. It's an old tub anyway."
+
+"But how'll we get ashore?"
+
+"The tide'll be out towards morning."
+
+"You mean _swim_?" cried Pola. "But I _can't_ swim! I--I--"
+
+True, Pola's complex! Sidney hastened to reassure her.
+
+"When the tide's out it won't be over your head. And I'll help you."
+
+Lavender had already let the line of the dory slip out of his hand.
+They saw the old boat become a shadowy outline as the tide carried it
+slowly away, then--nothing. Pola caught Sidney's hand and held it.
+
+"I'm not frightened--but it's so--_spooky_!"
+
+It had been decided that they should conceal themselves in the
+fo'castle cabin. They groped their way forward, Sidney guiding Pola in
+the dark, for Lavender dared not light any of his matches. Stumbling,
+scarcely breathing, they slipped down the companion ladder and crawled
+into the small, ill-ventilated cabin. Sidney sat down upon some
+tarpaulins. Pola crouched close to Sidney's side. Lav and Mart stowed
+themselves upon one of the bunks.
+
+"There--now we'll wait!"
+
+"I--I wish I knew what _for_!" whispered Pola. The smell of rank bilge
+water, the lift and drop of the boat sickened her. The wind was whining
+and that and the swish of the water against the sides of the boat
+terrified the girl.
+
+In a few short words Lav vouchsafed Pola a little information. Like
+Sidney he admired the girl's gameness though he was beginning to wish
+they had not let her come.
+
+"How long do you think we'll have to wait? And what if no one comes?"
+
+"We'll have to wait until most morning anyway before the tide is out.
+And if no one comes tonight we'll have to come out again, that's all.
+We're not in this business for any fun!"
+
+"Oh--h!" sighed Pola, clinging closer to Sidney.
+
+The wind howled over their heads with increasing velocity and Sidney
+thought involuntarily of the snugness of Miss Letty's buggy. Miss Letty
+was probably almost to Truro now. And Aunt Achsa thought she was with
+her!
+
+"Is--is the boat tied tight?" asked Pola; and Lav assured her that it
+was. "The wind could get a lot worse and you'd be as safe out here as
+in your bed at home."
+
+After a long while Mart muttered, "What's that?" The others leaned
+forward in the blackness of the cabin. They had all felt rather than
+heard a soft thud as though something had touched the side of the boat.
+And in a few moments heavy footsteps came straight toward the fo'castle.
+
+"Oh, will they come _here_?" breathed Pola, shaking. And for answer
+Sidney caught Pola's arm with a warning clutch.
+
+For an instant it seemed that the footsteps must descend to the cabin.
+But at the companionway they halted. A voice came, heavy and thick.
+
+"I tell you it ain't safe to take it off now. They got a man on
+Rockman's and another on Teal's and no knowin' how many in the bay!
+Every constable on the Cape's here, damn them! And old Davies's been
+'round all day and he ain't rigged up for any picnic!"
+
+"If we don't take it off tonight Lav Green may find it--or that girl--"
+
+At that someone laughed, horribly. "Huh--_him_! Why we could twist
+every crooked bone in his body until he wouldn't know 'em. Him--ha,
+that's a joke! Why, a look 'ud scare him to a pulp. The girl, too."
+
+Sidney, reaching her hand out instinctively, caught Lavender's and held
+it tight. She felt the writhing of his body.
+
+A new voice broke in above them. "I got a better scheme. Listen.
+We'll--" But the voices suddenly died to silence; the footsteps moved
+away.
+
+The four, huddled in the darkness of the cabin, drew long trembling
+breaths.
+
+"Lav, those diamonds are on this boat!"
+
+"Sh--h. I know it. But we got to be careful. They haven't gone yet. We
+got to wait. And we'll wait until we find 'em. Damn them _I'll_ show
+them who's crooked!"
+
+"Hush," implored Sidney. "Of course you will"
+
+"Isn't it most morning? I--I wish I was home," quavered Pola; but no
+one paid any heed to her.
+
+With the howling of the wind, the slap-slap of the water, it was
+difficult to make out whether the men had left the boat or not. Once
+Lav crawled to the top of the companion ladder but a muttering like a
+human voice drove him back. Queer sounds struck upon their sensitized
+ears. And the boat seemed to lift to a new motion.
+
+They waited for an interminable time. Then Mart spoke quickly.
+
+"Lav, we're moving!"
+
+Lav needed no warning. He, too, had missed the pull of the boat on the
+anchor rope. He shot up the ladder.
+
+"Oh, what's the matter?" cried Sidney and Pola, forgetting all caution.
+
+Mart had no time to explain her fears. In an instant Lav was back,
+fairly throwing himself into the cabin.
+
+"We're drifting! They cut the anchor rope! We're drifting out! Fast!
+Way out! To sea!"
+
+That had been the "better scheme." To cut the _Arabella_ free from its
+mooring and let the wind and tide carry it out into the bay. At first
+Starrow had not favored the plan; he had declared that it was too much
+risk, that the wind was shifting and freshening fast and that the old
+tub might open a seam, but Joe Josephs had convinced him with: "the
+_Arabella_ would be good for a week out in a nastier sea than this.
+It's safer than riskin' runnin' afoul one of Phin Davies' men ashore.
+Guthrie's _Sally_'ll stand this squall and pick up the _Arabella_ easy
+and we can reckon sure on the course the old tub'll take, even 'lowin'
+for the wind to shift."
+
+As she comprehended what had happened Pola screamed. Mart and Sidney
+dragged her with them up the ladder. Lav was at the side of the boat
+tearing off his blouse.
+
+"Oh, Lav, what'll we do! What are you going to do now?" cried Sidney.
+
+"It's so black," wailed Pola. "I'm--sick!"
+
+"I'm going to swim ashore. It's the only way. I don't know how long
+this old tub'll stand a sea and the wind's rising. We got to get help."
+
+"You shan't swim alone, Lavender Green. We'll _all_ swim. That's
+nothing of a swim--"
+
+"You can't! You forget--Pola."
+
+Sidney wheeled in consternation. "Pola's complex!" The girl was
+crouched, now, on the deck, an abject, wailing figure.
+
+"You go with Lav, Mart," said Sidney in a quiet voice. "I'll stay with
+Pola."
+
+"What do you think I am? I guess I'll stay with her too!"
+
+"But your grandmother--"
+
+"Oh, gran'ma!" Mart's voice choked. "But she'd be the one to _tell_ me
+to stay--"
+
+"It's no use our all trying it," muttered Lav. "I'll get there or I
+won't get anywhere."
+
+"Maybe it's too far for you to swim!" Sidney was at Lavender's side,
+her hands on his arm. The boy's form in its light underwear showed
+pitifully crooked but Sidney saw him straight and she saw the gleam in
+his eyes. Suddenly she remembered what Vick had said so lightly about
+the Grail. Ah, she was seeing its gleam now, transcendently beautiful,
+in Lav's eyes! She dropped her hold of his arm.
+
+"You see, I've _got_ to try it, Sid." And she understood. He went on:
+"I'll swim for the lighthouse. They can telephone from there to
+Rockman's. You girls find a light and signal with it. Don't lose your
+nerve, Sid." He poised for an instant on the rail then plunged into the
+black water.
+
+"Oh, _Lav_," cried Sidney. She leaned far over the side of the boat.
+She could see nothing but a crest of foam. "Mart, he's--he's--drowned!"
+
+Pola screamed again.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+                       "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG!"
+
+
+In the sunny embrasure of Mrs. White's morning room Trude Romley sorted
+over the mail that Pepper, the butler, had brought in. So gay and
+colorful was the room itself with its cretonnes, its soft tinted walls,
+its singing birds, in wicker cages, that it seemed a part of the
+fragrant garden that crowded close to the French windows. A tiny
+fountain splashed azure blue water over delicately sculptured nymphs; a
+flowering vine trailed around the windows.
+
+The mail arranged, Trude sat back in the cushions of a great wicker
+chair and with a long breath of delight enjoyed the beauty around her.
+Each day Edgeacres enraptured her anew and roused in her a wonder as to
+why it should be her lot to be there. "It ought to be Vick or Issy,"
+she would apologize to the nodding flowers or to Mitie, the yellow
+warbler.
+
+And as might be expected Trude had found innumerable ways of making
+herself useful to Mrs. White as an expression of her gratitude. There
+were telephone calls she could answer, letters she could write,
+shopping she could do, ordering, she even conferred with old Pepper and
+Jonathan, the gardener. She drove with Mrs. White in the afternoon and
+served tea to the callers who flocked to the house from the nearby
+summer hotels.
+
+"I do not know how I ever got along without you, my dear," Mrs. White
+had said more than once. "What do you do to make yourself so
+invaluable? It seems as though just to look at you one leans on you!
+Even Pepper is saying 'Miss Trude thinks this and Miss Trude thinks
+that--'"
+
+Her benevolent interest in her husband's wards, a certain pride in
+saying to her friends: "My husband, you know, is looking after the
+daughters of Joseph Romley, who was a college friend of his," had grown
+into a real fondness for Trude. "I have never appreciated the dear girl
+when she's been with us before," she declared to her husband. "I
+suppose it was because we were in town, then, and I was too busy to get
+acquainted with her. Why, she's really pretty. And she makes such a
+slave of herself to her sisters! She hasn't any life of her own. I
+don't believe they appreciate it, either. It's a shame she doesn't
+marry some nice young man--" Mrs. White's kind always found virtue's
+reward in the proverbial "nice young man."
+
+Mr. White agreed with her on every point but this. "If she deserted
+that household it would fall! She's the only one that isn't like her
+father."
+
+"Then she must find someone who'll take the family with her," Mrs.
+White asserted determinedly. But having no godmother's fairy wand she
+had not been able, during the summer weeks, to bring the prince to
+Edgeacres; her husband's acquaintances were too bald and round to play
+the part of princes.
+
+Trude had not minded the dearth of young men. Since her unhappy
+experience on a former visit she was glad of that dearth. The serenity
+of the summer, the relaxation and rest from responsibilities had
+brought a lovely freshness to her face, a brightness to her eyes that
+was not all a reflection of the brightness about her. The sheer luxury
+of loafing, of not having to think out petty problems or worry one
+single minute was all her old-young heart now asked. Once in awhile, of
+course, she fretted because Isolde was not enjoying Edgeacres with her,
+or getting to know how really nice Aunt Edith White was. Where Vick and
+Sidney were concerned she had no remorse for Vick was seeing new lands,
+doubtless conquering them, and Sidney was happy at Cape Cod; but she
+could not help thinking that Issy must be working too hard at the
+Deerings--getting up early in the morning and typing all through the
+hot day and doubtless fussing over the housework and the small babies
+as well.
+
+Trude thought of the mail. Again there had been no letter from either
+Issy or Sidney! Sidney really _ought_ to write. Perhaps it _had_ not
+been wise to let her go off alone with relatives of whom they knew
+nothing!
+
+Suddenly a postmark on one of the letters on the little table at her
+elbow caught her eye. Provincetown. Trude caught it up apprehensively.
+That letter might be from their Cousin Achsa! She turned it over and
+over, wishing she might open it.
+
+"Good morning, my dear! I get up with the birds myself and find that
+you're up before me!"
+
+Trude laughed, to cover her anxiety. "I told Jonathan I'd inspect his
+new beds this morning."
+
+"There, didn't I say you were supplanting me in Jonathan's esteem? But
+he only wants you to admire them and smile at him. He knows you know
+nothing about gardens, even though you are a very wise young woman! Ah,
+the mail--is there anything there worth looking at before breakfast?"
+
+"Two cards, three advertising envelopes and--and two personal letters."
+Trude held out the two letters, her heart beating in her throat.
+
+Mrs. White glanced at them indifferently. She turned one as though to
+tear open the envelope, then stopped to play with Mitie. Next she gave
+her attention to Pepper who appeared in the door to summon her to
+breakfast. And all the time Trude's eyes were beseeching her to open
+them--to open _one_ of them quickly.
+
+Trude followed her into the breakfast room and sat down across from
+her. After she had eaten her fruit Mrs. White took up the envelope that
+was postmarked Provincetown and studied it while Trude waited.
+
+"Why, that's from Laura Craig--a cousin of mine. I remember now she
+said she was going to study in a summer school on Cape Cod. I hope the
+girl's getting on. She's dependent upon her own labor." As she spoke
+she spread out the sheet. A sketch dropped to the table.
+
+Trude drew a long breath. She had not known how worried she was. She
+wanted to laugh aloud now from sheer relief. Because she had to do
+something she took up the sketch with a murmured: "May I?"
+
+"Laura writes it's a little sketch she made in class. 'This will show
+you I am improving. It's from life. It will give you an idea of the
+delightful types we find around here, types that you will not find
+anywhere else. These are two little vagabonds whom you see almost
+anytime on the beach or around the wharves--as wild and free and
+beautiful as the seagulls--'"
+
+Mrs. White looked up from the letter to take the sketch and exclaimed
+aloud at Trude's face. It had gone deathly white.
+
+"My _dear_, what is it?"
+
+For a moment Trude could not answer. She was staring at the sketch as
+though she could not take her eyes from it.
+
+"Read that again! These are types--you find these girls any time on the
+wharves--wild--vagabonds! Oh, Aunt Edith that's--_that's_--_Sidney_!"
+
+"Why, it _can't_ be, Trude. You said--"
+
+Trude shook her head. "I can't help what I said. It's Sidney. I--know.
+The likeness is true--there can't be anyone else who looks like Sidney!
+But she's barefooted--and--and so--_slovenly_--and--_her hair_! She's
+cut her beautiful hair!"
+
+Mrs. White took the sketch forcibly from Trude. She frowned over it.
+One of the girls certainly did look like Sidney as she remembered the
+child from their one meeting.
+
+"How do you explain it, Trude?"
+
+Trude sighed heavily. "I can't explain it. There's something wrong
+somewhere. And it's my fault, Aunt Edith. I--I consented--we all
+consented to let Sidney go off down there just so that we could go
+ahead with our own plans. But we thought--we felt _certain_ that these
+cousins were very nice--I--I mean had a lovely home and were rich so
+that Sidney might get something out of her visit that she couldn't get
+at home. It sounds shameful to _say_ it."
+
+"I understand, my dear. But what made you think so?"
+
+"The--the letter this Cousin Achsa wrote. It _was_ a very nice letter!"
+
+"Well, _I_ have always thought you could judge anyone's character and
+background by a letter. There must be something wrong. This girl--"
+pointing to the sketch, "is positively shocking! At least she would be
+around here."
+
+"I remember now something Sidney said--when she was begging us to let
+her go away. 'I want to be different! I want to go somewhere where I
+won't be Joseph Romley's daughter. I want adventure and to do exciting
+things--' Those were her very words! I didn't take them seriously then,
+but, oh, Aunt Edith, perhaps she meant them more than we guessed!" Poor
+Trude rose quickly to her feet. "Aunt Edith, I simply _must_ go to
+Provincetown at once. May I ask Pepper to find out about trains?
+You'll--you'll understand, won't you? I can't be happy one minute until
+I see the child. I feel that it's all my fault."
+
+Mrs. White was all concern. She summoned Pepper and instructed him to
+find out the first train; she sent her maid to Trude's room to pack her
+clothes. And last she wrote a generous check.
+
+"You may need it, my dear. It is nothing. Don't thank me. I wish I
+could do more. Somehow your shoulders seem too young to carry so much
+responsibility!"
+
+So on the selfsame day that Sidney and the others set out upon their
+adventure Trude was journeying to Cape Cod. She missed connections at
+Boston and hired an automobile to take her to Provincetown, in her
+heart thanking Mrs. White for the check that made this possible. Two
+blow-outs delayed her journey so that it was midnight when she reached
+her destination. She could scarcely hunt out the Greens and Sidney at
+that hour. She took a room at the hotel for the night and sat for a
+while at its window straining her eyes out into the darkness. The
+howling of the wind intensified her apprehension; somewhere out in that
+strange blackness that enwrapped her was her little sister. Perhaps
+Sidney needed her that very moment!
+
+Finally she crept into bed and fell into a troubled sleep. She did not
+hear the running steps that passed under her window or the muffled
+voices of excited men.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+                         "WHAT THE NIGHT HELD"
+
+
+"Oh--h, take me back to the cabin!" moaned Pola.
+
+"I guess we might as well," muttered Mart. Their matches had been long
+since exhausted; they had been of little avail for the one ship's light
+on the boat was without oil.
+
+One on each side of her, Mart and Sidney helped Pola down into the
+cabin. The boat was rolling heavily now in the rough sea, each lift and
+drop sending terror to the three young hearts. In the blackness of the
+night the waves looked mountain high. Even Mart was glad to shut them
+from view.
+
+"If--if we're going to drown I'd rather drown in--a--room," gasped
+Pola, clinging to Sidney and burying her face in Sidney's shoulder.
+
+It seemed to the girls as though months had passed since Lav had
+plunged to what they felt certain was his death. The _Arabella_ had
+tossed about on the roughening water like some wild thing, her old
+timbers creaking and groaning under their new living. Just at first
+Sidney and Mart had been too concerned in quieting the panic-stricken
+Pola to face their danger; not until Pola had exhausted herself did
+they think of their possible fate.
+
+Unless Lav succeeded in reaching the beach and giving an alarm, they
+might toss about for days or be dashed to pieces on some reef. Or,
+worse fate, Jed Starrow and his gang might find the boat and--
+
+"Wh-at are you thinking about, Mart?" whispered Sidney after a long
+time of silence, broken only by the howling of the wind and the
+pounding of the water. "Let's talk--and then we can't hear--"
+
+"Don't be afraid, Sidney," Mart spoke calmly. "You sort o' belong to
+the Cape and we Cape folks don't think anything of drowning. We sort of
+expect to, sometime--" But here her voice broke with a tremble. "I--I
+was thinking of gran'ma. I wish I'd been better to her. I talk back to
+her lots of times when I shouldn't."
+
+"But you _are_ good to her, Mart. And--_I_ was thinking of Aunt Achsa.
+I shouldn't have deceived her--about coming out here. I fooled myself
+into thinking that even a lie didn't matter considering what we were
+trying to do. But the honor of Cape Cod isn't worth anything happening
+to Lav. And if anything does happen there won't be anyone to tell about
+Jed Starrow, anyway! Oh, Mart, I can't bear to _think_ about Lav. Why
+did we let him do it? Dear old Lav. I've been mean to him, too. He
+adores poetry and I--I never even told him that my father was a poet
+and that I know lots and lots of poems and--and--that I've written most
+a book myself."
+
+"Honest, Sid, was your father a poet? And you can write it yourself?
+Gee," softly. "I wish I could do something like that. I'd rather be
+like that than anything else. I just pretend that I hate school and
+books and such things--it's because I had to stop going to school to
+stay with gran'ma that I've put on that I didn't have any use for it.
+Even when I was sort of laughing at you, Sid, down in my heart I was
+feeling aw'fly proud that you'd want to fool 'round with anyone like
+me--I'll _always_ be proud."
+
+"Oh, Mart--" Sidney faltered. "I wish I could put into words what Mr.
+Dugald taught me when I first came here. That it's the big inside
+things that really count. He told me so's I'd see Aunt Achsa and Lav as
+they really are. And, Mart, your giving up school to take care of your
+grandmother is a big thing, a real thing! You don't want to forget it."
+
+"Oh, I'm--I'm--sick!" broke in Pola.
+
+"Sit up straight and talk and you won't think about it," commanded
+Mart, so sternly that Pola straightened, her white face wan in the
+darkness.
+
+"I don't see how you _can_ talk when you're--may be--going--to die!"
+
+"Well, talking helps you more than crying."
+
+"But I--I don't _want_ to--die."
+
+"Who does?" retorted Mart roughly. Nevertheless, touched by Pola's
+helplessness, she found Pola's hand and held it close in hers. "But
+let's face whatever happens with our heads up!"
+
+"To the wind," breathed Sidney, shivering.
+
+"I--I just can't be brave like you two. I--I'm an awful coward. I can't
+help it. I've always been afraid to even try to swim. I'm afraid of
+lots of things. Oh, I'm afraid to--to--"
+
+Sidney caught Pola's other hand.
+
+"Don't say it, Pola. Maybe someone will find us. And probably you can't
+help feeling afraid."
+
+Mart suddenly remembered the cookies she had brought. She found them
+where she had hidden them at the back of one of the bunks.
+
+"Here, eat a cookie and you'll forget things. I'm hungry, aren't you,
+too?"
+
+Pola ate with nervous greed. Sidney bit off a piece but found it dry in
+her mouth. She was thinking of her sisters and the safety of the dear
+old house; as vividly as though it hung in a picture before her eyes
+she saw the little circle around the dining room table, the embroidered
+square of Indian cloth, the green shaded lamp, Issy's books and Trude's
+sewing, Vick's sketching things, the girls at their beloved tasks--and
+her chair empty! Oh, what if she never sat again in that dear circle?
+Her heart broke in an agony of longing for Trude.
+
+A sudden thought roused Pola to a feeble show of spirit.
+
+"If I had known how to swim we'd all be ashore now! And you two stayed
+with me! I--I don't believe I'm worth that, girls." She spoke with
+gloomy conviction.
+
+But Mart answered with a promptness that settled that question forever.
+"Forget it. Why, you don't think we could a' done anything else, do
+you? And now I'm going up on deck and get some air. We must be most to
+Halifax by this time."
+
+"_Halifax!_" But this time Pola did not scream.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lavender, after his first plunge, had struck out toward the lighthouse.
+His Mr. Dugald had taught him the science of swimming and because it
+was the one thing he could do easily and well, in spite of his
+misshaped body, Lavender had taken pride in perfecting the practice.
+His assurance helped him now; he had no fear, he knew how to save his
+strength; he swam first with one stroke, then with another, always
+keeping in sight the beacon of light.
+
+But after a little it came to him that the yellow gleam did not seem
+any closer; in fact, it grew fainter; he knew then, with a moment's
+panic, that the tide and wind were too strong for him. He cursed his
+frail strength, with a smarting in his eyes that did not come from the
+salt water.
+
+There was only one thing he could do. Turn his back on the friendly
+light and strike out in the direction of the beach. It would be
+further, but the cross currents of the tide would not impede his
+progress so much.
+
+For a long time he fought ahead stubbornly, changing his strokes, even
+swimming on his back. But his breath came with increasing difficulty, a
+sharp pain stabbed at his side. He labored on. The pain grew sharper
+and caught at him like a horrible vise. Once he yielded to it and sank
+down, down into the black water. But it passed and, as he rose, he
+struck out again, blindly, now, for he had lost all sense of direction.
+
+"Oh, God! Oh, God!" he shouted in his heart. His Aunt Achsa's God,
+whose All-embracing Love he had questioned because that God had made
+him crooked, must help him now! "I _got_ to get help!" God _must_ hear
+him.
+
+A great exhaustion seized him. He sank again with a quivering breath.
+But now his feet touched sand. With new strength he plunged ahead.
+Again he was in deep water but he swam with eager strokes. The dreadful
+pain stabbed but he did not heed. Now he saw moving lights. He was near
+the beach! With a heartbreaking effort he fought the strength of the
+water, finally gaining the shallow depths. He heard voices nearby in
+the darkness.
+
+Knee-deep in the water he tried to shout but he had no strength. A
+terrible faintness was creeping over him. His arms outstretched, he
+stumbled forward toward the voices. Oh, he must _not_ yield to that
+overpowering sleepiness until he had made them know!
+
+"Help--help!" he gasped, reeling toward the shadowy forms.
+
+"What the blazes--" A man ran forward. Two others came at his heels.
+
+"Why, _it's Lav Green_!" one of them cried.
+
+"The _Arabella_--adrift out there--Sidney's on it--oh--_help_! And then
+Lavender slipped into the strong arms that reached out to catch him.
+
+"Quick, the _Sally_! She's at Rockman's!" Captain Davies ran toward
+Rockman's wharf. Before Jed Starrow's men, concealed behind the shed
+could guess their intention, three men had jumped into the big motor
+boat and had swung her free of the wharf.
+
+"What the hell--" shouted an ugly voice after them, but the _Sally_
+only chugged out into the darkness of the bay.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Look, Sid--light! It's--it's--morning!" Mart's voice came in a thin
+whisper. For a long time the girls had lain huddled against the
+taff-rail of the boat, too weary and disheartened to even talk.
+
+Sidney lifted her face to the tiny streak of light that gleamed palely
+in the east.
+
+Then she shook Pola ever so slightly. Poor Pola had fallen into a sleep
+of exhaustion. She stirred now with a little cry. "What is it?"
+
+"It's morning--daylight. See--there--"
+
+"Oh--h!" Pola whimpered. "Is that all?" She clung to Sidney in fresh
+terror. "If we're going to die--I'd rather not _see_--"
+
+"Hark," cried Mart, suddenly leaning forward. "Don't you hear
+something? Girls, that's a motor boat! I _know_! Quick. Let's signal!
+Yell! Wave something! _Anything!_" She sprang to her feet, leaning her
+body against the rail for support as the boat rolled in the heavy sea.
+She cupped her hands to her lips and shouted lustily. "Come on, girls!"
+she commanded.
+
+"Maybe it's the pirates," wailed Pola.
+
+"I don't care if it is! I don't care _what_ it is!" And Mart and Sidney
+lifted their chorus.
+
+Out of the mist that lay over the surging water a small, gray object
+gradually shaped. The chug-chug of an engine now came distinctly to
+their ears. After a little they could make out the forms of two men
+standing. And then someone shouted faintly.
+
+Pola, a solemn happiness transfiguring her face, clung to Sidney.
+
+"Girls," she whispered, "We're going to be saved! And I'll never forget
+this night--never. Or you two. Or what you've done! Or what you _are_.
+And I'm never going to get over being ashamed of myself!"
+
+Sidney had some solemn resolutions of her own shaping in her heart but
+the moment gave her no time to pronounce them.
+
+"Mart!" she cried. "It's _not_ Jed Starrow! It's--it's--Cap'n Phin
+Davies! And that means that--_Lav_--_made_--_it_!" And happy tears ran
+down her cheeks.
+
+Under the skilled guidance of the man at its wheel the _Sally_ soon
+came alongside of the _Arabella_. Cap'n Davies promptly boarded the
+schooner and the next instant Sidney was in his arms.
+
+"All I'll say is praise be to God!" the old mariner muttered. "And now
+I cal'late you and your mates here are 'bout ready to abandon your
+cruisin'--"
+
+"Lav, is he--all right?" demanded Sidney, still clinging to Cap'n Phin.
+
+"Well, he jest about made port and how he is now I can't say for I
+didn't waste any time shippin' in the _Sally_. Lucky for us it was
+lyin' there at Rockman's. Give us a hand, Saunders, while we load on
+this cargo of distress!" A roughness in the old man's voice betrayed
+that the big heart was not as light as he would have the girls think.
+For hours they had searched the bay with only their knowledge of tides
+and winds to guide them; more than once the others had been ready to
+abandon the search as futile, but the Captain had held them stubbornly
+to it.
+
+Pola needed no urging but leaped into the _Sally_ and sank to its
+bottom with a long gasp of relief. Sidney and Mart were about to follow
+her example when a word from Cap'n Davies held Sidney.
+
+"We'll let a government boat pick up the _Arabella_. We'll take no
+chances tryin' to tow her in with the _Sally_." And then Sidney thought
+of the treasure.
+
+"But the diamonds!" she cried.
+
+"_Diamonds_--" Cap'n Davies stared at her, his mouth open.
+
+"Why, yes, they're on this boat. They _must_ be! We were in the forward
+cabin watching and Jed Starrow came on board and they talked right
+where we could hear. They were going to take them off and then they
+decided it wasn't safe and they'd wait and they went away. And then
+they must have cut the boat adrift. But we're _sure_ they're on this
+boat."
+
+"So that was it! Of all the low-down dastardly tricks! Well, never mind
+your diamonds, now. We got to get back to shore and let a few folks
+know--"
+
+"But I won't _go_ until we've looked!" Sidney protested, almost in
+tears. "Why, that was why we risked everything! And Lav wants to save
+the name of the Cape--the--the way--you do! Oh, please look!"
+
+The old Captain dropped his hold of the girl's arm. "Well, I'll be
+ding-blasted!" he stormed. But he motioned to Saunders. "Climb aboard
+and give us a hand. 'Taint likely they'd hide their stuff above deck.
+You look round the stern and the girls and me'll give a hunt forward.
+Of all the stubborn, crazy-headed female pieces you'll beat 'em all!"
+
+While Saunders searched the stern of the schooner the Captain and
+Sidney and Mart searched the fo'castle cabin. Sidney, tugging away the
+heavy tarpaulins, disclosed a small wooden box.
+
+"I'm _sure_ it wasn't there before--" she cried. "Why--why, I was
+_sitting_ on it--"
+
+Cap'n Davies lifted the box. "It's pretty big to be diamonds but it
+looks suspicious like! And you're sure it wasn't there before? That it
+ain't the property of that summer boarder of Miss Green's?"
+
+Sidney's face was flaming with excitement. "Oh, I'm _sure_! The other
+stuff was there but there wasn't any box under it. If I hadn't been so
+excited listening I'd have realized I was sitting on something
+different. Can't we look inside?"
+
+"We won't take the time to look at anything now, mate. We'll get
+ashore. I reckon by this time there are folks strainin' their eyes for
+a sight o' you--"
+
+He fairly pushed Sidney and Mart ahead of him and toward the _Sally_.
+Saunders lifted the girls into the smaller boat, then took the box.
+
+"To Rockman's. Quick as you can make it," snapped Cap'n Phin.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+                        "YOU NEED A BIG BROTHER"
+
+
+Aunt Achsa had not slept through the storm. Accustomed though she was
+to the howl of the wind and the roar of the pounding surf, tonight it
+filled her heart with dread. Lavender had not come home.
+
+Twice during the night hours she crept to the door of his small room
+and peered in, shielding her candle with a trembling hand. For a long
+while she sat in the window straining her eyes into the darkness. The
+cats came and rubbed her bare ankles and Nip meowed plaintively. She
+picked him up and cuddled him to her.
+
+Suddenly a moving object in the lane caught her attention. It separated
+itself into the forms of men, men moving slowly as though they bore a
+burden. They turned into the garden patch.
+
+"Lavender!" Aunt Achsa cried, jumping up quickly, shaking. "Oh--my boy!"
+
+But that was the only sound she made. She opened the door as though she
+had been waiting for these men with their limp burden. She directed
+them to carry the boy to his own room. She moved aside for Doctor
+Blackwell who had come with the others, an old pair of flannel trousers
+drawn over his night shirt. She felt Mr. Dugald put a restraining arm
+over her shoulders and nodded as though to say: "I'm all right--just
+look out for Lavender."
+
+One of the men coming back from Lavender's room offered an explanation.
+"Those young 'uns were on the _Arabella_ and it broke from its
+moorin's. The boy swum ashore to give an alarm. Plucky, I say--don't
+know how he did it."
+
+"Those young ones--_who_?" cried Dugald Allan.
+
+"Why, I cal'late that gal Sidney and I don't know who else--"
+
+"Sidney went with Miss Vine!" protested Achsa.
+
+But at that moment Miss Letty appeared in the door, as scantily clad as
+the doctor had been. From her window which faced Doctor Blackwell's
+house, she had heard the men summoning him. She had lost no time in
+getting to Sunset Lane.
+
+"Who went with me? Where? What's happened?"
+
+Now Aunt Achsa let her whole weight drop against Mr. Dugald.
+
+"Didn't Sidney go 'long to Truro with you?" she asked falteringly.
+
+"I didn't go to Truro. Knew this storm was comin'. Where--"
+
+"Oh--h!" Aunt Achsa moaned Mr. Dugald motioned to Miss Vine.
+
+"Take care of things--here. I'm off--"
+
+"Cap'n Davies and Jim Saunders and Pete Cady's gone out in the
+_Sally_," cried one of the men who had brought Lavender home. But
+Dugald Allan had plunged into the darkness without hearing him. The men
+rushed after him.
+
+Miss Vine pushed Aunt Achsa into a chair.
+
+"You're not going to cross any bridges 'til you come to them, Achsy
+Green. Doctor Blackwell brought Lav into this world and he isn't going
+to let him quit it without putting up a pretty good fight. Jeremiah
+Berry's in with him and he's as good as two women. You wrap that shawl
+'round you 'til I can light a lamp and get you some clothes. You're
+shivering like it was December. I'll put the kettle over, too--"
+
+Oddly huge and gaunt in the shadowy room, Miss Vine moved and talked
+briskly to keep up Aunt Achsa's nerve and her own against the black
+fear that held them.
+
+Mr. Dugald ran with all speed to Rockman's, the other men after him. As
+their hurrying steps echoed through the silent street heads popped out
+of windows, doors opened. Then more men, half-dressed and dressing as
+they ran, rushed after them toward Rockman's. They knew, with that
+intuition inbred in seacoast communities, that something was wrong. Old
+Simon Tibbetts, too crippled to join the gathering crowds, rang up
+Commander Nelson at the Life Guard station on the backside.
+
+When, in the gray light of the dawn, the _Sally_ chugged up to
+Rockman's wharf with its precious cargo Sidney and Mart found a weary,
+anxious crowd of men and women gathered there. And as Cap'n Davies and
+Saunders lifted the girls ashore a lusty shout of rejoicing went
+up--eager hands reached out to touch the rescued as though to make
+certain they were safe and sound.
+
+Sidney had eyes only for Mr. Dugald who seemed to tower above them all,
+his eyes dark lined with the strain of anxious watching, his mouth set
+sternly. And strangely enough, at first, Dugald Allan saw only Sidney,
+yet it was not strange, for the white-faced, shrinking, abject girl,
+barefooted and disheveled, who was hiding behind Mart and Sidney, had
+little semblance to his gay young cousin.
+
+Mr. Dugald opened his arms and Sidney ran into them like a little
+child, and clung to him. He felt her slender body shaking.
+
+"I--I can't help crying. I wanted Trude--so much!"
+
+"_I_ was thinking of Trude, too. Thank God!" But Sidney was too moved
+at the moment to wonder at his words or that the cheek he bent to hers
+was wet with tears.
+
+Then Dugald Allan spied Pola shivering forlornly behind Mart and
+Sidney. "_You_--" he cried, pushing Sidney aside. "I thought you were
+at Chatham!" His mouth tightened in a straight, stern line. "What is
+all this? But wait, I must get Sidney back to Aunt Achsa. You shall
+explain things as we go along."
+
+He hurried the girls through the crowd which parted, smilingly, to let
+them pass. On Commercial Street he hailed old Hiram Moss, who with an
+eye to business in the midst of tragedy, had harnessed his horses to
+his ancient cab and had them ready for an emergency.
+
+After he had bundled his charges in Dugald Allan turned to Sidney.
+
+"Now give me some inkling of what started this crazy adventure. Thank
+God it has not ended as it might have ended though Lavender is still
+fighting for his life! Answer me, Sidney."
+
+But before Sidney could begin her tale she had to know what had
+happened to Lavender.
+
+"Fighting for his life? But--he _got here_, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes--he reached shore, by an effort so great as to completely
+prostrate him. They took him home. I left Doctor Blackwell with him."
+Dugald Allan spoke shortly and his crisp sentences had the effect of
+stunning poor Sidney. She shivered and leaned close to him. Her voice,
+when she spoke, came with a childish tremor.
+
+"Oh, Lavender _can't_ die. If he does--it will be all my fault! I
+started everything. I--I told him about the diamonds--"
+
+"_Diamonds_--"
+
+"Yes--the diamonds. That's why we went out on the _Arabella_--" In
+broken sentences Sidney told the story; she wanted Mr. Dugald to know
+that they had cared most for the honor of Cape Cod!
+
+"And we found them--a big box--at least we _think_ it's the diamonds!
+Cap'n Phin Davies says it's _something_ queer!"
+
+Dugald Allan's exclamation had much the character of an explosion.
+"_Diamonds!_ What nonsense! You've risked bereaving three homes for
+what is probably nothing more than a case of rum. If ever a girl needed
+a big brother to keep her in check, you do!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                                DIAMONDS
+
+
+During the early morning hours of that summer day that Sidney was
+destined never to forget, the girl passed through every emotion that a
+fifteen-year-old heart can suffer.
+
+First, to her dismay no one at the cottage had seemed to rejoice, as
+the crowd on the wharf had rejoiced, at her rescue. When Mr. Dugald led
+her in Miss Vine was making coffee at the stove and all she said was:
+"Well, you're all right! Better go to bed now as quick as you can and
+keep out from under foot." Then Mr. Dugald had taken Pola back to the
+hotel. Aunt Achsa was with Doctor Blackwell and Lavender. Sidney had
+tried to summon sufficient courage to ask Miss Vine's forbidding back
+for some word of Lavender, but the words failed in her throat. Cold,
+forlorn, hungry, she crept to her room, threw off her clothes and
+huddled down into the bed-clothes.
+
+They would all blame her--Miss Vine and Mr. Dugald, Aunt Achsa, Doctor
+Blackwell. Probably now Pola would have more complexes to suffer;
+Pola's mother would be angry and they could never be friends again. And
+Mart--Aunt Achsa had said old Mrs. Calkins could be terrible when she
+was "worked up!" Even if Lavender lived Aunt Achsa would never forgive
+her and if he _didn't_ live--Mr. Dugald had said he was fighting. Those
+boards creaking faintly meant that Doctor Blackwell and Aunt Achsa were
+helping Lavender fight. Dear old Lav with his fine dreams!
+
+The desperate longing for Trude shook her. She sobbed into her pillow.
+And yet the longing brought only added remorse. Trude would scold her.
+Trude would take her home. That meant stinging humiliation. How Vick
+would laugh at her when everything was over. A case of rum! Sidney
+writhed under the soft covers.
+
+Somewhere boards creaked again--Lavender's fight. Sidney pictured the
+doctor and Aunt Achsa bending over him. And outside everything was so
+quiet and gray. That was the way death probably came, Sidney thought.
+
+On the morrow they would send her home--in disgrace. She might not even
+be allowed to see Lavender, or Mart, or Pola--or Mr. Dugald. Someone
+would telegraph to Trude and Trude would meet her back at Middletown.
+She would live a long, sad life of penance behind the crumbing stone
+wall she had so detested.
+
+But the thought of the wall and the shelter of the old house brought
+such a surcease of torment that the girl had fallen into a heavy sleep.
+When she wakened it was to a consciousness of bright sunshine--and
+someone looking at her, someone different, and someone smiling.
+
+She sat bolt upright and rubbed her eyes. Then she flung out her arms
+with a low glad cry that was half sob.
+
+"Trude--_Oh, Trude!_"
+
+Trude held her long and close, stroking the shorn head, murmuring
+soothing words. Finally Sidney wriggled from her.
+
+"Have you come to take me home? But how could they send for you so
+quickly? How long have I been asleep? Oh, Lavender--is he--is he--"
+
+"One question at a time, Sid. Lavender is better. He'll be all right,
+the doctor says, after a good rest. Yes, I think I'd better take you
+home. No, they did not send for me." Briefly, as though now that
+earlier concern was of little consequence, Trude told of the sketch
+that had so bewildered and alarmed her.
+
+"I couldn't understand," she finished.
+
+"I couldn't either, at first. You see the boarder--the man who has
+boarded here so long and is dreadfully fond of Aunt Achsa wrote that
+letter to me and wrote it _nice_ so as to please her, and, at
+first--but, oh, Trude, Aunt Achsa _is_ wonderful and so is Lavender,
+really, truly, even though they are poor--"
+
+"Hush, Sidney." Trude's eyes darkened with feeling. "You do not have to
+tell me that. I have learned _that_ in only a few hours. Oh, I have
+seen straight into souls--those kind men on the street, as concerned as
+though you belonged to them, and here--Aunt Achsa with her great
+courage and her love. And that Miss Vine--they're so _simple_--and so
+fine--it made me ashamed of my silly standards, my fears."
+
+"And Lavender is best of all--"
+
+Now quick tears shone like stars in Trude Romley's eyes. She reached
+out her hands and caught Sidney's.
+
+"Oh, Lavender--when I think what _he_ did I--I--" She could not finish,
+but Sidney understood the gratitude that was in her heart. She leaned
+her face against Trude's shoulder with a long sigh.
+
+"I'm cured of lots of things, Trude. I wanted something different but I
+didn't want all _this_ to happen! You see I _made_ Lavender and Mart
+believe it was diamonds Jed Starrow was hiding when it was probably
+only a case of rum--"
+
+Suddenly Trude straightened. "I almost forgot. A boy came here and said
+a Captain Davies wanted you to come down to Rockman's wharf as soon as
+you could. That was two hours ago. You see it is nearly noon now. You'd
+better dress quickly and I'll go out and fix you some breakfast."
+
+Sidney obeyed reluctantly. In her mingled remorse and humiliation she
+shrank from facing the world. She was not even curious as to why Cap'n
+Phin wanted to see her.
+
+By the time she had dressed Trude had a poached egg and a glass of milk
+ready for her. Miss Letty was with Lavender and Aunt Achsa had gone to
+bed.
+
+Sidney begged so hard that Trude accompany her to Rockman's that Trude
+put on her hat and went with her. And poor Sidney needed Trude's
+support for Sunset Lane was thronged with curious men and women; as
+they walked along the waterfront fishermen and tourists and boys and
+girls stared and nodded and Sidney's sensitive soul mistook their
+obvious interest for ridicule. She walked with lowered eyes lest she
+encounter Mrs. Calkins or Pola's mother.
+
+Cap'n Phin was waiting outside the door of the shed on Rockman's wharf.
+He nodded to Sidney and Trude and beckoned them inside. At any other
+time, in any other state of mind, Sidney would have thrilled to his air
+of mystery.
+
+Four men sat in wooden chairs tipped at various angles and on the floor
+before them stood the wooden box from the _Arabella_. The men nodded
+and smiled at Sidney and brought their chairs to the floor as though to
+attention.
+
+Cap'n Davies solemnly motioned Sidney and Trude to two vacant chairs
+and then cleared his throat.
+
+"I cal'late, Miss Sidney, that you've a sort o' interest in this cargo
+we brought in on the _Sally_ so we stood by 'til you hove in sight.
+Now, mebbe it's what we think it is and mebbe it isn't. Si, give a hand
+and unload."
+
+One of the men knelt down by the box and proceeded to open it with a
+hammer and a chisel. The others leaned forward with interest. Sidney
+held her breath.
+
+The man Si, having torn off the cover, put his hands into the paper
+wrappings and drew forth yards and yards of magnificently embroidered
+fabric that made Sidney and Trude gasp in admiration and astonishment.
+But the others were plainly disappointed. A low murmur of disgust went
+around the room.
+
+"Give it here," one of the men asked. And as Si handed over the
+contraband it slipped from his hands. He caught at it quickly to save
+it from the dirt of the floor. Suddenly something small and gleaming
+fell from the folds and rolled upon the floor.
+
+"I'll be ding-blasted!" roared Cap'n Phin. Someone swore softly. The
+man Si dropped to his knees. Sidney blinked.
+
+Cap'n Phin seized the silk and unwound it. And among the countless
+folds he found a cunningly contrived pocket filled with hundreds of the
+priceless gems.
+
+For a moment no one spoke. The daring of it all, the wealth of the
+glistening jewels, held each man in the room. Cap'n Phin folded the
+gorgeous silk and passed it to one of the men.
+
+"I guess this belongs to you in trust for Uncle Sam," he said gravely.
+"Our business is with one Jed Starrow." He turned to Sidney who was
+trembling violently. "Now, matie, will you tell these men how you
+happened to ship aboard the _Arabella_ last night?"
+
+Sidney's story tumbled out in quick, eager words and in careful detail.
+The men listened closely. The one who had taken the diamonds "in trust
+for Uncle Sam" made notes in a small black book. When she had finished
+Cap'n Phin nodded, his face serious.
+
+"Reckon we'd better not question Lav Green just yet, he's pullin' out
+of the fog. We got enough as 'tis to hold Jed Starrow. If I ain't much
+mistaken he'll turn yellow when we face him and squeal on the folks
+higher up what's paid him to hurt the name of the Cape. That'll do for
+now, little gal."
+
+“By the way, I think your old admirer, Severance, must be about to put
+himself in silken fetters, as Boswell would say. I caught him buying an
+unusually fine sapphire in Tiffany’s yesterday. Said it was for his
+sister. H’m—h’m.”
+
+“Ah! I wonder who it can be?”
+
+“Don’t know. Hasn’t looked at a woman since you left. But I have a
+strong suspicion that it is some one here in Newport.”
+
+“Here! I wonder if it can be Edith?”
+
+“Miss Decker? Sure enough. Never seemed to pay her much attention,
+though. She’s not my style; too much like sixteen dozen other New York
+girls.”
+
+He buttoned up his coat, braced himself against it, and gave his
+moustache a frantic twist.
+
+“Mrs.—Jessica!” he ejaculated desperately, “you are engaged to
+me—won’t you—won’t you—”
+
+She drew herself up and glanced down upon him from her higher chair with
+a look of sad disapproval.
+
+“I did not think it of you, Teddy,” she said. “And it is one of the
+things of which I have never approved.”
+
+“But why not?” asked Teddy, feebly.
+
+“I thought you knew me better than to ask such a question.”
+
+“I know you are an angel—oh, hang it! You do make me feel as if you
+_were_ my mother.”
+
+“Now, don’t be unreasonable, or I shall believe that you are a tyrant.”
+
+“A tyrant? I? Horri—no, I wish I was. What a model of propriety you
+are! I never should have thought it—I mean—darling! you were always
+such a coquette, you know. Not that I ever thought so. You know I never
+did—oh, hang it all—but if I let you have your own way in this
+unreasonable—I mean this perfectly natural whim—you might at least
+promise to marry me in a month. And, indeed, I think that if you are an
+angel, I am a saint.”
+
+“Well, on one condition.”
+
+“Any! Any!”
+
+“It must be an absolute secret until the wedding is over. I hate
+congratulations, and if we are going to have a sensation we might as
+well have a good concentrated one.”
+
+“I agree with you, and I’ll never find fault with you again. You—”
+
+Miss Decker almost ran into the room.
+
+“Jessica!” she cried. “Oh, dear Mr. Dedham, how are you? Jessica, mother
+has one of her terrible attacks, and I must ask you to stay with her
+while I go for the doctor myself. I cannot trust servants.”
+
+“Let me go! let me go!” cried Teddy. “I’ll bring him back in a quarter
+of an hour. Who shall—”
+
+“Coleman. He lives—”
+
+“I know. Au revoir!” And the girls were alone.
+
+“There!” exclaimed Miss Decker, “we have got rid of him. Now for the
+others. You slip upstairs, and I’ll dispose of them one by one. You are
+taken suddenly ill. Teddy will not be back for an hour. Dr. Coleman has
+moved.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+A lamp burned in the sea-room, and the two girls were sitting in their
+evening gowns before a bright log fire. Miss Decker was in white this
+time—an elaborate French concoction of embroidered muslin which made
+her look like an expensive fashion plate. Jessica wore a low-cut black
+crêpe, above which she rose like carved ivory and brass. The snakes
+to-night were held in place by diamond hair-pins that glittered like
+baleful eyes. In her lap sparkled four rings.
+
+“What shall I do?” she exclaimed. “If my life depended upon it, I could
+not remember who gave me which.”
+
+“Let us think. What sort of a stone would a politician be most likely to
+choose?”
+
+Mrs. Pendleton laughed. “A good idea. If couleur de rose be synonymous
+with conceit, then I think the ruby must have come from Mr. Trent.”
+
+“I am sure of it. And as your author is always in the dumps, I am
+certain he takes naturally to the sapphire.”
+
+“But the emerald—”
+
+“Is emblematic of your deluded Teddy. The solitaire therefore falls
+naturally to Mr. Severance. Well, now that you have got through the
+first interviews in safety, what are you going to do next?”
+
+“Edith, I do not know. They are all so dreadfully in earnest that I
+believe I shall finally take to my heels in down-right terror. But no, I
+won’t. I’ll come out of it with the upper hand and save my reputation as
+an actress. I will keep it up for two or three days more, but after that
+it will be impossible. They are bound to meet here sooner or later.
+Thank Heaven, we are rid of them for to-night, at least!”
+
+The manservant threw back the portière.
+
+“Mr. Trent!”
+
+“Heavens!” cried Edith, under her breath; “I forgot to give orders that
+we were not receiv—how do you do, Mr. Trent?”
+
+“And which is his ring?” Jessica made a frenzied dab at the jewels in
+her lap. She slipped the sapphire on her finger and hid the others under
+a cushion. Trent, who had been detained a moment by Miss Decker,
+advanced to her.
+
+“It is very soon to come again,” he said, “but I simply had to call and
+inquire if you felt better. I am delighted to see that you apparently
+do.”
+
+“I am better, thank you.” Her voice was weak. “It was good of you to
+come again.”
+
+“Whose ring is that?”
+
+“Why—a—to—sure—”
+
+“Jessica!” cried Miss Decker, “have you gone off with my ring again? You
+are so absent-minded! I hunted for that ring high and low!”
+
+“You should not be so good-natured, and my memory would turn over a new
+leaf. Here, take it.” She tossed the ring to Miss Decker and raised her
+eyes guiltily to Trent’s. “Shall I go up and get the other?”
+
+“No. But I thought you promised never to take it off.”
+
+“I forgot that water ruins stones.”
+
+“Well, it is a consolation to know that water does not ruin a certain
+plain gold circlet.”
+
+“Mr. Boswell!”
+
+Jessica gasped and looked at the flames. A crisis had come. Would she be
+clever enough? Then the situation stimulated her. She held out her hand
+to Boswell.
+
+“You have come to see me?” she cried delightedly. “Mr. Trent has just
+been telling us that you came down with him, and I hoped you would call
+soon.”
+
+“Yes, to be sure—to be sure. You might have known I would call soon.”
+He bowed stiffly to Trent, and, seating himself close beside Jessica,
+murmured in her ear: “Cannot you get rid of that fellow? How did he find
+you out so soon?”
+
+“Why, he came to see Edith, of course. Do you not remember how devoted
+he always was to her?”
+
+“I do not—”
+
+“May I ask what you are whispering about, Mr. Boswell?” demanded Trent,
+breaking from Miss Decker. “Is he confiding to you the astounding
+success of his last novel, Mrs. Pendleton? Or was it a history of the
+United States? I really forget.”
+
+“Not the last, certainly. I leave it to you to make history—an abridged
+edition. My ambition is a more humble one.”
+
+“Oh, you will both need biographers,” said Mrs. Pendleton, who was
+beginning to enjoy herself. “I will give you an idea. Join the
+Theosophists. Arrange for reincarnation. Come back in the next
+generation and write your own biographies. Then your friends and
+families cannot complain you have not had justice done you.”
+
+“Ha! ha!” said Trent.
+
+“You are as cruel as ever,” said Boswell, with a sigh. “Where is my
+ring?” he whispered.
+
+“It was so large that I could not keep it on. I must have a guard made.”
+
+“Dear little fingers—”
+
+“You may never have been taught when you were a small boy, Mr. Boswell,”
+interrupted Trent, “that it is rude to whisper in company. Therefore, to
+save your manners in Mrs. Pendleton’s eyes, I will do you the kindness
+to prevent further lapse.” And he seated himself on the other side of
+Jessica and glared defiantly at Boswell.
+
+“Mr. Severance and Mr. Dedham!”
+
+Severance entered hurriedly. “I am so glad to hear—ah, Boswell! Trent!”
+
+“How odd that you should all find your way here the very first evening
+of your arrival!” And Jessica held out her hand with a placid smile.
+Miss Decker was more nervous, but five seasons were behind her. “Ah!”
+continued Mrs. Pendleton, “and Mr. Dedham, too! This is a most charming
+reunion!”
+
+“Charming beyond expression!” said Severance.
+
+Trent and Boswell being obliged to rise when Miss Decker went forward to
+meet the newcomers, Severance took the former’s chair, Dedham that of
+the future statesman.
+
+“You are better?” whispered Severance. “I have been anxious.”
+
+“Oh, I have been worried to death!” murmured Teddy in her other ear.
+“That wretched doctor had not only moved but gone out of town; and when
+I came back at last and found—”
+
+“Mr. Severance,” exclaimed Trent, “you have my chair.”
+
+“Is this your chair? You have good taste. A remarkably comfortable
+chair.”
+
+“You would oblige me—”
+
+“By keeping it? Certainly. You were ever generous, but that I believe is
+a characteristic of genius.”
+
+“Mrs. Pendleton,” said Boswell, plaintively, “as Mr. Dedham has taken my
+chair, I will take this stool at your feet.”
+
+Trent was obliged to lean his elbow on the mantelpiece, for want of a
+better view of Mrs. Pendleton, and Miss Decker sat on the other side of
+Dedham.
+
+“How are you, Teddy?” she said.
+
+“Young and happy. You must let me congratulate you.”
+
+“For what?”
+
+“I see you wear Severance’s ring. Ah, Sev, did the ring suit your
+sister?”
+
+“To a T. Said it was her favourite stone.” He stopped abruptly. “What
+the deuce—” below his breath; and Jessica whispered hurriedly:—
+
+“Edith was looking at it when Mr. Trent came in, and forgot to return
+it.”
+
+“Ah! Boswell, I am sure you are sitting on Mrs. Pendleton’s foot. By the
+way, how is your aunt?”
+
+“Dead—better.”
+
+“I wonder you could tear yourself away so soon,” said Trent, viciously.
+“You’d better be careful. She might make a new will.”
+
+“Don’t worry. I spent the happiest fifteen minutes of my life with her
+this afternoon. She promised me all.” He turned to Severance. “You have
+been breaking hearts on the beach, I suppose.”
+
+“Which is better, at all events, than breaking one’s head against a
+stone wall.”
+
+“Politics brought you here, I suppose, Mr. Trent,” interrupted Miss
+Decker. “I hear you made a stirring speech the other night.”
+
+“I did. It was on the question of Radicalism in the Press _versus_ Civil
+Service Reform. Something must be done to revolutionise this hotbed of
+iniquity, American politics. Such principles need courage, but when the
+hour comes the man must not be wanting—”
+
+“That was all in the paper next morning,” drawled Boswell. “Mrs.
+Pendleton, did you receive the copy of my new book I sent a fortnight
+ago? Unlike many of my others, I had no difficulty in disposing of it.
+It was lighter, brighter, less philosophy, less—brains. The critics
+understood it, therefore they were kind. They even said—”
+
+“Don’t quote the critics, for Heaven’s sake,” said Severance. “It is
+enough to have read them.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Pendleton,” exclaimed Teddy, “if you could have been at the
+yacht race! Such excitement, such—”
+
+“To change the subject,” said Trent, with determination in his eye,
+“Mrs. Pendleton, did you receive all the marked papers I sent you
+containing my speeches, especially the one on Jesuitism in Politics?”
+
+“Don’t bother Mrs. Pendleton with politics!” exclaimed Boswell, whose
+own egotism was kicking against its bars. “You did not think my book too
+long, did you? One purblind critic said—”
+
+“Good night, Mrs. Pendleton,” said Severance, rising abruptly. “Good
+evening,” and he bowed to Miss Decker and to the men. Jessica rose
+suddenly and went with him to the door.
+
+“I am going to walk on the cliffs—‘Forty Steps’—at eleven to-morrow,”
+she said, as she gave him her hand. “This may be unconventional, but _I_
+choose to do it.”
+
+He bowed over her hand. “Mrs. Pendleton will only have set one more
+fashion,” he said. “I shall be there.”
+
+As he left the room by one door, Jessica crossed the room and opened
+another.
+
+“Good night,” she said to the astounded company, and withdrew.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+Severance sauntered up and down the “Forty Steps,” the repose of his
+bearing belying the agitation within.
+
+“Why on earth doesn’t she come?” he thought uneasily. “Can she be ill
+again? She is ten minutes behind time now. What did it mean—all those
+fellows there last night? She looked like an amused spectator at a play,
+and Miss Decker was nervous, actually nervous. Damn it! Here they all
+come. What do they mean by keeping under my heels like this?”
+
+Dedham, Trent, and Boswell strolled up from various directions, and,
+although each had expectation in his eye, none looked overjoyed to see
+the other men. There were four cold nods, a dead pause, and then Teddy
+gave a little cough.
+
+“Beautiful after—I mean morning.”
+
+“It is indeed,” said Severance. “I wonder you are not taking your
+salt-water constitutional.”
+
+“I always take a walk in the morning;” and Teddy glanced nervously over
+his shoulder.
+
+Boswell and Trent, each with a little missive burning his pocket, turned
+red, fidgeted, glared at the ocean, and made no remark. Severance darted
+a glance at each of the three in succession, and then looked at the
+ground with a contemplative stare. At this moment Mrs. Pendleton
+appeared.
+
+Three of the men advanced to meet her with an awkward attempt at
+surprise, but she waved them back.
+
+“I have something to say to you,” she said.
+
+The cold languor of her face had given place to an expression of haughty
+triumph. A gleam of conscious power lay deep in her scornful eyes. The
+final act in the drama had come, and the dénouement should be worthy of
+her talents. She looked like a judge who had smiled encouragement to a
+guilty defendant only to confer the sentence of capital punishment at
+last.
+
+“Gentlemen,” she said, and even her voice was judicatorial, “I have
+asked you all to meet me here this morning”—(three angry starts, but
+she went on unmoved)—“because I came to the conclusion last night that
+it is quite time this farce should end. I am somewhat bored myself, and
+I have no doubt you are so, as well. Your joke was a clever one, worthy
+of the idle days of autumn. When I received your four proposals by the
+same mail, I appreciated your wit—I will say more, your genius—and
+felt glad to do anything I could to contribute to your amusement,
+especially as all the world is away and I knew how dull you must be. So
+I accepted each of you, as you know, had four charming interviews and
+one memorable one of a more composite nature; and now that we have all
+agreed that the spicy and original little drama has run its length I
+take pleasure in restoring your rings.”
+
+She took from her handkerchief a beautiful little casket of blue onyx,
+upon which reposed the Pendleton crest in diamonds, touched a spring,
+and revealed four rings sparkling about as many velvet cushions. The
+four men stood speechless; not one dared protest his sincerity and see
+ridicule in the eyes of his neighbour.
+
+Mrs. Pendleton dropped her judicial air, and taking the ruby between her
+fingers, smiled like a teacher bestowing a prize.
+
+“Mr. Boswell,” she said, “I believe this belongs to you;” and she handed
+the ring to the stupefied author. He put it in his pocket with never a
+word.
+
+She raised the emerald. “Mr. Trent, this is yours?—or is it the
+sapphire?”
+
+[Illustration: “‘WELL, WHY DON’T YOU GO?’”]
+
+“The emerald,” snorted Trent.
+
+She dropped it in his nerveless palm with a gracious bend of the head,
+and turned to Teddy.
+
+“You gave me a solitaire, I remember,” she said sweetly. “A most
+appropriate gift, for it is the ideal life.”
+
+Teddy looked as if about to burst into tears, gave her one beseeching
+glance, then took his ring and strode feebly over the cliffs. Trent and
+Boswell hesitated a moment, then hurried after.
+
+Jessica held the casket to Severance, with a little outward sweep of her
+wrist. He took it and, folding his arms, looked at her steadily. A tide
+of angry colour rose to her hair, then she turned her back upon him and
+looking out over the water tapped her foot on the rocks.
+
+“Why do you not go?” she asked. “I hate you more than any one on earth.”
+
+“No. You love me.”
+
+“I hate you! You are a brute! The coolest, the rudest, the most
+exasperating man on—on earth.”
+
+“That is the reason you love me. My dear Mrs. Pendleton,” he continued,
+taking the ring from the casket and laying the latter on a rock, “a
+woman of brains and headstrong will—but unegoistic—likes a brutal and
+masterful man. An egoistical woman, whether she be fool or brilliant,
+likes a slave. The reason is that egoism, not being a feminine quality
+primarily, but borrowed from man, places its fair possessor outside of
+her sex’s limitations and supplies her with the satisfying simulacrum of
+those stronger characteristics which she would otherwise look for in
+man. You are not an egoist.”
+
+He took her hand and removed her glove in spite of her resistance.
+
+“Don’t struggle. You would only look ridiculous if any one should pass.
+Besides, it is useless. I am so much stronger. I do not know or care
+what really possessed you to indulge in such a freak as to engage
+yourself to four men at once,” he continued, slipping the ring on her
+finger. “You had your joke, and I hope you enjoyed it. The dénouement
+was highly dramatic. As I said, I desire no explanation, for I am never
+concerned with anything but results. And now—you are going to marry
+me.”
+
+“I am not!” sobbed Jessica.
+
+“You are.” He glanced about. No one was in sight. He put his arm about
+her shoulders, forcing her own to her sides, then bent back her head and
+kissed her on the mouth.
+
+“Checkmate!” he said.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+    GERTRUDE ATHERTON was born in San Francisco and received her
+    early education in California and Kentucky, but her best
+    training was in her grandfather’s library, a collection, it is
+    said, of English masterpieces only, containing no American
+    fiction whatever. Yet Mrs. Atherton is as thorough an American
+    as a niece, in the third generation, of Benjamin Franklin should
+    be.
+
+    It seems to have been the English critics who first recognised
+    her originality, power, intensity, vividness, and vitality, but
+    from her first book, “What Dreams May Come,” published in 1888,
+    her writings have revealed the unusual combination of brains and
+    feeling. This gives her work both keen, clever strength and
+    brilliancy of colour, developed through years of hard work, many
+    of which were spent abroad, and reaching their best
+    manifestation in her latest fiction, the one quality in “The
+    Conqueror” and the other in “The Splendid Idle Forties.” Both of
+    these books go to prove the foresight of Mr. Harold Frederic,
+    who, shortly before his death, declared her to be “the only
+    woman in contemporary literature who knew how to write a novel,”
+    and that her future work would be her best. Another eminent
+    English critic, Dr. Robertson Nicholl, spoke for some of the
+    best students of modern literature in saying:—
+
+        “Gertrude Atherton is the ablest woman writer of fiction
+        now living.”
+
+    In her most notable novel, “The Conqueror,” Gertrude Atherton
+    has chosen in “the true and romantic story of Alexander
+    Hamilton” a subject which would have attracted few woman
+    writers, and has handled those parts of it with which many men
+    have busied their brains in such a way that _The New York Times
+    Saturday Review_ remarked that it
+
+        “Holds more romance than nine-tenths of the imaginative
+        fiction of the day and more veracity than ninety-nine
+        hundredths of the history. She is master of her
+        material.”
+
+    “Certainly this country has produced no writer who approaches
+    Mrs. Atherton,” says one critic, while another adds that to have
+    so “re-created a great man as Mrs. Atherton has done in this
+    novel is to have written one’s own title to greatness.” All
+    alike regard it as “a thing apart” (_The Critic_); “a remarkable
+    production, full of force, vigour, brains, and insight” (_Boston
+    Herald_); “an entrancing book . . . brilliantly written”
+    (_Glasgow Herald_). “It is hardly too much to say that she has
+    invented a new kind of historical novel” is the comment of the
+    _Athenæum_ (London), with the addition that “the experiment is a
+    remarkable success.”
+
+    Equally strong in fascination and vigour is “The Splendid Idle
+    Forties,” but as far removed from “The Conqueror” as were the
+    Eastern and Western seaboards of this country in the times of
+    which the stories treat, “the long, drowsy, shimmering days
+    before the Gringo came,” to the California of which she writes.
+    “Pointed, spirited, and Spanish” are these “rich and impressive”
+    stories; “such as could hardly have been told in any other
+    country since the Bagdad of the ‘Thousand and One Nights.’ The
+    book is full of weird fascination, and will add to Mrs.
+    Atherton’s deservedly high reputation,” says _The Athenæum_.
+
+        “In this book even more than in her others is shown that
+        imaginative brilliancy so striking as to set one
+        wondering what is the secret of the effect. . . . For
+        the rest, her charm lies in temperament, magnetic,
+        restless, assertive, vivid.”—_Washington Times._
+
+    In close relation to “The Conqueror” stands Mrs. Atherton’s
+    still more recent selection of “A Few of Hamilton’s Letters,”
+    chosen from the great bulk of his state papers and other letters
+    in such a way as to bring to the average reader the means of
+    estimating the personality of this remarkable man from his own
+    words. Incidentally it is the surest refutation of some of the
+    hasty criticisms upon the picture of him in “The Conqueror,”
+    where, as Mr. Le Gallienne justly observes, “it was reserved for
+    Mrs. Atherton to make him really alive to the present
+    generation.”
+
+
+
+
+                      The Macmillan Little Novels
+
+                          BY FAVOURITE AUTHORS
+
+                  Handsomely Bound in Decorated Cloth
+                       16mo        50 cents each
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+                            PHILOSOPHY FOUR
+                     A STORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
+                             By Owen Wister
+                    Author of “The Virginian,” etc.
+
+                             MAN OVERBOARD
+                         By F. Marion Crawford
+                 Author of “Cecilia,” “Marietta,” etc.
+
+                         MR. KEEGAN’S ELOPEMENT
+                          By Winston Churchill
+             Author of “The Crisis,” “Richard Carvel,” etc.
+
+                     MRS. PENDLETON’S FOUR-IN-HAND
+                          By Gertrude Atherton
+                Author of “The Conqueror,” “The Splendid
+                          Idle Forties,” etc.
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                       66 Fifth Avenue, New York
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+Spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in the original
+publication. Punctuation errors have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) from page images generously made
+available by Internet Archive/American Libraries
+(https://archive.org/details/americana)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 51064-h.htm or 51064-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51064/51064-h/51064-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51064/51064-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
+      https://archive.org/details/rubiytofmoto00well
+
+
+
+
+
+RUBÁIYÁT OF A MOTOR CAR
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+RUBÁIYÁT OF A MOTOR CAR
+
+by
+
+CAROLYN WELLS
+
+Author of
+Idle Idyls, Folly For The Wise,
+A Nonsense Anthology, &c.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+With illustrations by
+Frederick Strothmann
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Dodd, Mead Company
+1906
+
+Copyright, 1906, By The Curtis Publishing Company
+Copyright, 1906, By Dodd, Mead and Company
+Published, March, 1906
+
+
+
+
+                          ¶To the crank that
+                          makes the machine go
+
+
+                       Rubáiyát of a Motor Car
+
+        Wake! For the “Honk,” that scatters into flight
+        The Hens before it in a Flapping Fright,
+          Drives straight up to your Door, and bids you Come
+        Out for a Morning Hour of Sheer Delight!
+
+        Come, fill the Tank, adjust the Valve and Spring,
+        Your Automobile Garments 'round you Fling;
+          The Bird Of Time wants but to get away;
+        (I think that name’s a rather Clever Thing!)
+
+        And as the Corkscrew drawing out the Cork,
+        I crank my Car and try to make it work.
+          You know how little while we have to Ride;
+        And once departed, may go to New York.
+
+        Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
+        Whether the Car shall jerk or sweetly run,
+          The Wine of Life is in a Motor Trip,
+        (Though all the Parts keep breaking One by One!)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        Why, if the Soul can know this Glorious Game,
+        All other Stunts seem dry and dull and tame;
+          This is the ultimate, triumphant Joy,
+        Automobile Elation is its Name!
+
+        Would you your last remaining Thousands spend
+        About the Secret? Quick about it, Friend!
+          A Hair perhaps divides This Make from That—
+        And on that Hair, prithee, may Life depend!
+
+        Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
+        The thoughtful Soul to Catalogues retires;
+          He scorns his Last Year’s Runabout, and to
+        The Newest, Biggest Touring Car aspires!
+
+        Each Year a Hundred Models brings, you say;
+        Yes, but who buys the Car of Yesterday?
+          And every Mail brings in New Catalogues
+        That make a Last Year’s Model fade away!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        Waste not your Hour nor in the Vain pursuit
+        Of Demonstrators who will loud Dispute;
+          “This one is Best, because it’s painted Red!”
+        “That One, because it has a Louder Toot!”
+
+        ’Tis only a Beginner, young and green,
+        Who Thinks he wants an Odorless Machine;
+          What Fragrance is to Rose or Violet,
+        So to the Motor-Car is Gasolene.
+
+        Some advocate Gear-Driven Cars, and Some
+        Sigh for a Jockey-pulley yet to come;
+          Oh, crank your Car, and let the old thing Go!
+        Nor heed the Brake upon your Sprocket Drum.
+
+        ’Tis but a Toy on which one spends a Pile,
+        And Brags about it for a Little While;
+          Ambition rises—and the Foolish Man
+        Sighs, and prepares to buy Another Style.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        They say The Lion and The Lizard keep
+        The Record for Hill-climbing, rough and steep;
+          I do not know those Makes. I’ll hunt them up.
+        I’d like to Buy one, if they’re not too Cheap.
+
+        You know, my Friends, with what a Brave Carouse
+        I put a Second Mortgage on my House
+          So I could buy a Great Big Touring-Car,
+        And run down Chickens, Dogs, and even Cows!
+
+        For it my Future Income did I owe,
+        And with mine own Hand wrought to make it go;
+          And this was all the Wisdom that I reap’d—
+        “We cost like Thunder and like Lightning go!”
+
+        And those “Accessories” Advertisements
+        That offer you Supplies at slight Expense;
+          You read them over, and they always make
+        Your own Belongings look like Thirty Cents.
+
+        Look to the Blowing Horn before us—“Lo,”
+        “Gaily,” it says, “Into the World I blow!”
+          Behold its lovely Bulb, and Sweet-toned Reed,—
+        (The most Expensive in the Garden Show!)
+
+        I had to have a Snakeskin Auto-Coat,
+        A Leather Foot-Muff, lined with Thibet Goat;
+          A Steering-Apron, and a Sleeping-Bag;
+        For these things Help a Motorer to Mote.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        And then my Luncheon-Kit, and Hamper, swell,
+        Robbed me of Many a Hard-Earned Dollar! Well,
+          I often wonder what the Dealers buy
+        One-half so Easy as the Folks they Sell.
+
+        Myself when Young, did eagerly frequent
+        Garage and Club, and heard Great Argument
+          About it and about,—yet evermore
+        Came out more Addled than when in I went.
+
+        Indeed, with my big Car I’ve run so long
+        It seems to me there’s Always something Wrong;
+          Faulty Ignition, or a Blown Out Shoe,
+        Or maybe the Compression is too Strong.
+
+        Then to the Laughing Face that lurks behind
+        The Veil, I lifted up mine Eyes to find
+          Two pouting Lips, demurely murmuring,
+        “I don’t see why you Ever bought This Kind!”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        Indeed, I’ve learned to treat it as a Joke
+        When Nuts work loose, or Carburetors choke;
+          And then, and then—the Spring, and then the Belt,
+        A Punctured Tire, or Change-Speed Lever broke!
+
+        A Look of Anguish underneath the Car,
+        Another Start,—a Squeak,—a Grunt,—a Jar!
+          The Aspiration Pipe is working loose!
+        The Vapor can’t get out! And there you are!
+
+        For I remember Stopping by the Way
+        To tinker up the old Machine one day,
+          And with a Reckless and Unbridled Tongue,
+        I muttered,—Well, I Wouldn’t like to say!
+
+        Why, even Saints and Sages would have cuss’d
+        If, speeding through the World, their Tires had Bust!
+          Like Foolish People now, whose words of Scorn
+        Are utter’d while their Mouths are Stopt with Dust.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        When suddenly, an Angel Shape was seen
+        Approaching in an Up-to-date Machine,
+          Bearing a Vessel which he offered me,
+        And bid me smell of it. ’Twas Gasolene!
+
+        The Stuff that can with Logic Absolute
+        The Two-and-Seventy Jarring Parts confute;
+          The Sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
+        A Drop of Oil will into Power transmute.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        Whose Secret presence through the Motor’s Veins
+        Running Quicksilver-like defies our pains;
+          Cutting up tricks from here to Jericho,—
+        We try to start the Car,—but it Remains!
+
+        Strange, is it not, that of the Myriads who
+        Have Empty Tanks and know not what to do,
+          Not one will Tell of it when he Returns!
+        As for Ourselves,—why, we Deny it too.
+
+        What! Out of Oily Nothing to invoke
+        A Powerful Something, born of Fire and Smoke!
+          An Unremitting Pleasure, if it goes;
+        An Everlasting Worriment, if broke.
+
+        We are no other than a Moving Row
+        Of Automobile Cranks that come and go.
+          And what with Goggles and Tale-windowed Veils,
+        In Motoring Get-up, we’re a Holy Show!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        But helpless Pieces of the Game bestowed
+        Upon the Checker-board of Hill and Road;
+          Hither and Thither moved and sped and stopped,
+        And One by One back to the Garage towed.
+
+        The Car no Question makes of Ayes or Noes,
+        But Here or There as strikes its Fancy goes.
+          But the Bystander, offering Advice,
+        He knows about it all—He knows—HE KNOWS!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        And if in Vain down on the Stubborn Floor
+        Of Earth you lie. And weary, cramped and sore,
+          You gaze to-day; you may be jolly sure
+        To-morrow ’twill be worse than ’twas before!
+
+        Yesterday’s Troubles made you Mad for fair.
+        To-morrow’s Trials too, will make you Swear.
+          Crank! For you know not What’s the hitch nor Why!
+        Crank! For you know not When you go, nor Where!
+
+        Each Morn a Thousand Troubles cause Delay.
+        Yes: but you left Some unfixed Yesterday;
+          And this first Impulse that should bring the Spark—
+        Confound this old Igniter, Anyway!
+
+        You Thaw your Freezeless Circulation first;
+        Then mend your Puncture Proof Tire where it Burst.
+          Helpless you Skid upon your Anti-Skids,
+        But Starting a Self-Starter is the Worst!
+
+        Perhaps you get out your Repairing-Kit,
+        And try to Regulate the Thing a bit;
+          You test the Coil, adjust the Shifting-Gear,—
+        And then it Goes? Not so you’d Notice it!
+
+        And that Inverted Man, who seems to lie
+        Upon the Ground, and Squints with Practis’d Eye.
+          Lift not your Hands to him for Help. For he
+        As impotently works as you or I.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        Ah, Love, could You and I with him conspire
+        To Fix this Sorry Scheme of Things entire,
+          Would we not take it all apart, and then
+        Remodel with no danger of Back-Fire?
+
+        Ah, make the most of Time we yet may spend
+        Before we too, into the Dust descend;
+          Dust unto Dust. Under the Car to lie,
+        Sans Coat, sans Breath, sans Temper, and—sans Friend!
+
+        And that Reviving Herb, whose Tender Green
+        Upon the Julep Cup is sometimes seen,
+          Ah, interview it lightly, for you know
+        You’ll need your Wits to manage your Machine.
+
+        Ah, my Beloved, fill the Lamps that shed
+        A steady Searchlight on our Path ahead;
+          To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be
+        Myself with Yesterday’s Seven Thousand Dead.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        Why, if your Car can fling the Dust aside,
+        And flying, through the Air of Heaven ride,
+          Were’t not a Shame, were’t not a Shame, I say,
+        Within Speed Limit, tamely to abide?
+
+        What! Without asking, stop our Speed immense?
+        And, without asking, Jailward hurried hence!
+          Oh, many a Cop of this Forbidding Mien,
+        Must rue the Memory of his Insolence!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        And fear not lest a Smashup closing My
+        Account and Yours, Machines no more shall fly;
+          The Eternal Motorist has ever bought
+        Millions of Bubbles like ours, and will buy.
+
+        I sometimes think that every Shining Star
+        Is but the Tail Lamp of a Motor Car;
+          Which leap’d from Earth in its mad Ecstasy,
+        And into Space went Speeding Fast and Far.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+        And this I know. Though in a Magazine
+        Perfectly-running Motor Cars I’ve seen,
+          It’s quite a Different Proposition when
+        They’re on the Road, and filled With Gasolene!
+
+        The Moving Motor speeds, and having Sped,
+        Moves on. Nor all the Cries and Shrieks of Dread
+          Shall lure it back to settle Damage Claims;
+        Not even if the Victims are Half Dead!
+
+        And when at Last you’ve mastered Belts and Bolts,
+        When with no fear of Side-Slips, Jars or Jolts,
+          Your Sixty H. P. Racer licks up Miles
+        At Lightning Speed,—turn on a few more Volts!
+
+        Then in your Glorious Success exult!
+        When your Car plunges like a Catapult,
+          Sit tight! Hold hard! Pass Everything in Sight!
+        And you will be Surprised at the Result!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                 *        *        *        *        *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s note:
+
+Spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained as in the
+original publication.
+
+
+Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 51070-h.htm or 51070-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51070/51070-h/51070-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/51070/51070-h.zip)
+
+
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      https://archive.org/details/raidersofsarhadb00dyeruoft
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD
+
+
+[Illustration: A TYPICAL GORGE IN THE SARHAD.]
+
+
+THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD
+
+Being the Account of a Campaign
+of Arms and Bluff Against the
+Brigands of the Persian-Baluchi
+Border during the Great War
+
+by
+
+BRIGADIER-GENERAL R. E. H. DYER, C.B.
+
+With Numerous Photographs and Two Maps
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+H. F. & G. Witherby
+326 High Holborn, W.C.
+1921
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+With the greatest diffidence I have at last made up my mind to write
+the story of my small campaign with the Sarhad Raiders in 1916.
+
+This campaign sinks into utter insignificance when compared with the
+great deeds done in other theatres of war by men who said nothing
+about them. But, insignificant as it was, it forms part of the mosaic
+of the Great War, and for this reason may be of some general interest.
+
+I take this opportunity of paying a tribute to all the officers who
+took part in this little campaign. Their untiring devotion to duty,
+and their efforts to do their utmost under conditions that were often
+more than trying, accounts for its success.
+
+I would like, in particular, to mention Major Landon of the 35th
+Scinde Horse, whose great knowledge of the people and their country
+was invaluable; Major Sanders of the 36th Sikhs; Colonel Claridge of
+the 28th Light Cavalry; Captain Brownlow and Captain Hirst, both of
+the 28th Light Cavalry; Major Lang; Captain Moore-Lane; Lieutenant
+Bream of the Hazara Pioneers, and Captain English, R.A.
+
+In addition I would mention how much, not only I, but the old country
+owes to Khan Bahadur, the Sarhad-dar, and to Idu, non-commissioned
+officer of the Chagai Levies.
+
+The photographs are from snapshots taken by various officers during
+the campaign.
+
+  R.E.H.D.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER I
+
+  ORDERS FOR THE WEST
+                                                             PAGE
+  I receive my orders--German agents and India--Their
+  routes--A deal in chauffeurs--Concerning an appetite
+  and sausages--Nushliki--The last of civilisation--Further
+  information--Sand-holes and digging--Petrol
+  in the desert                                                15
+
+
+  CHAPTER II
+
+  THE ROAD TO ROBAT
+
+  Mushki-chah--The native contractor--An evening
+  rencontre--Idu of the Chagai Levies--The native idea of an
+  airship--Idu the invaluable--Robat                           30
+
+
+  CHAPTER III
+
+  A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
+
+  An "intelligent" officer--Matters political--Three tribes
+  and a fourth--Their women and inter-tribal laws--Sarhad
+  conditions--A summons to the Chiefs--A bid
+  for rank--Telegraph wires and Sheitan--Two first-class
+  liars--A strategic scheme--An ungazetted
+  General--Lost kit--Swallows and flies--Forces available--
+  Communications freed--The Kacha levy and a shock--Mirjawa    37
+
+
+  CHAPTER IV
+
+  BLUFF AND ARMS
+
+  Ladis and its fort--A force without arms--First sight of
+  the enemy--Shah Sawar and more bluff--Battle--Bluff
+  succeeds--Casualties--Bad news from the North--Idu's
+  proposition--Jiand's stragglers--Jiand's white flag          55
+
+
+  CHAPTER V
+
+  KHWASH AND MORE BLUFF
+
+  Jiand's surrender--A political lecture--Jiand's
+  oath--Bluff for Khwash--The army moves forward--Khwash
+  and its fort--Mahommed-Hassan comes in--Beetles as
+  scavengers--Halil Khan comes in--Rifle prices, a
+  comparison--Idu's warning--News of Izzat--Order of
+  march--Bluff for Bampur--The meteor hole                     69
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI
+
+  A FULL BAG OF PRISONERS
+
+  The march to Kacha--The food supply--Flowers in the
+  Wilderness--Galugan--Repeated strategy--Juma Khan comes
+  in--The bag is full--The throne of the dancing
+  maidens--Landon declines--Idu's doubts--Suspicions
+  aroused--Halil Khan closes up--Kacha, oaths, and
+  thumb-marks--The Chiefs depart--Bad news                     87
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII
+
+  THE RACE FOR KHWASH
+
+  Plans and routes--Car versus legs--An equestrian
+  interlude--The trap in the gorge--More digging--Rendezvous--
+  Mrs Idu and gastronomy--A reinforcement--A message to
+  Landon--Izzat's men--Idu's romance--A "British
+  Bulldog"--The car abandoned                                 103
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII
+
+  KHWASH AND THE SECOND SURRENDER
+
+  Doubts dispelled--Organisation for defence--Idu's
+  "Exiat"--And its result--Jiand arrives--Idu's second
+  visit--The Sarhad-dar arrives--Landon at last--Jiand's
+  visit of ceremony--The Gul-Bibi--Shah Sawar's
+  treachery--We call on the "Rose Lady"--A carpet and the
+  Sarhad-dar's advice--Another Durbar--Returned
+  loot--Temporary peace                                       122
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX
+
+  TREACHERY AND ITS SEQUEL
+
+  Further reinforcements--Entrenchments and gardens--
+  Government inquiries--Food supplies--An offer to
+  Jiand--Murad and straw--Shah Sawar again--Sentence--Idu's
+  suggestion--Re-enter the Rose Lady--News of Jiand's
+  intentions--A vital moment--A round-up--The Sarhad-dar's
+  advice--A Bhusa hunt--Distrustful wives                     143
+
+
+  CHAPTER X
+
+  FAILURE AND FRESH PLANS
+
+  Slave buying--A diet discovery--Poetic justice--Disposition
+  of prisoners--Incredible news--The Sawar's story--Disposal
+  of forces--The march to Kamalabad--Jiand gains his
+  freedom--Retreat to Khwash                                  165
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI
+
+  SUCCESS IN MINIATURE
+
+  The night attack--The Hazaras arrive--Jiand retires--We
+  march on the Sar-i-drokan valley--Cavalry strategy--
+  "Gushti's" decision and opinion--"The Hole of
+  Judgment"--Attack and retirement--A lost and regained
+  water-supply--The Sarhadis as humorists--The mud
+  fort--Halil Khan's arrival--The fight at dawn--Exit
+  Halil Khan--A prophet--The Hazaras' request                 181
+
+
+  CHAPTER XII
+
+  VICTORY AND PEACE
+
+  News of the herds--Towards Dast-Kird--Water!--Mutton for
+  all--Dast-Kird--A stampede--Back to Khwash--On the track
+  of the Gamshadzais--Twice a prophet--The Sarhad-dar's
+  roost--Before Jalk--Rejected terms--More strategy and a
+  bloodless victory--Remain only terms and sick leave         201
+
+
+  INDEX                                                       221
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+                                                             PAGE
+  A TYPICAL GORGE IN THE SARHAD                     _Frontispiece_
+
+  IN DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN NASARATABAD AND ROBAT     _Facing_   25
+
+  "A GOOD LIAR," LANDON'S ORDERLY AND CHIEF SPY         "      49
+
+  QUESTIONING A SARHADI PRISONER                        "      59
+
+  JIAND'S MEN COMING IN TO PARLEY                       "      71
+
+  KHWASH FORT                                           "      75
+
+  SURRENDERED RAIDERS, (CENTRE) JIAND,
+  (RIGHT) SHAH SAWAR, (LEFT) HALIL KHAN                 "      89
+
+  CAMEL CORPS SAWARS AT THE TERMINATION OF AN
+  EXPEDITION                                            "      97
+
+  THE DURBAR AT KHWASH                                  "     141
+
+  RAIDER CHIEFS AT THE DURBAR AT KHWASH                 "     141
+
+  RAIDED SLAVES ON THE WAY TO THEIR HOMES               "     167
+
+  A PERSIAN GIRL CAPTURED BY JUMA KHAN                  "     167
+
+  CAPTURED RAIDERS ON THE WAY TO KACHA                  "     173
+
+  ON THE MARCH TOWARDS GUSHT, AND THE MORPEISH HILLS    "     185
+
+  HAZARAS ON A PICKET POST BELOW WHICH HALIL KHAN
+  WAS KILLED                                            "     197
+
+  WATER! ON THE MARCH TO THE SAR-I-DROKAN               "     203
+
+  HAZARA PIONEERS WIDENING A PASSAGE FOR LOADED CAMELS  "     215
+
+  CHAHGIRD FORT IN JALK                                 "     217
+
+
+
+
+MAPS
+
+                                                              PAGE
+  SKETCH MAP OF THE PERSIAN-BALUCHI-AFGHAN FRONTIERS  _Facing_  15
+
+  SKETCH MAP OF THE FIGHT IN THE MORPEISH HILLS           "    181
+
+
+[Illustration: _Sketch Map of the Persian-Baluchi-Afghan frontiers_]
+
+
+
+
+THE RAIDERS OF THE SARHAD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ORDERS FOR THE WEST
+
+  I receive my orders--German agents and India--Their
+  routes--A deal in chauffeurs--Concerning an appetite and
+  sausages--Nushliki--The last of civilisation--Further
+  information--Sand-holes and digging--Petrol in the desert.
+
+
+Towards the end of February, 1916, General Kirkpatrick, Chief of
+Staff at Delhi, sent for me and gave me orders to take charge of the
+military operations in South-East Persia.
+
+Although Persia, as a country, was neutral during the War, there is
+a certain district in the South-East, abutting on to the frontiers
+of Afghanistan and of Baluchistan, and known as the Sarhad, which is
+occupied by a number of nomad tribes who claim absolute independence.
+At this time these tribes were causing considerable embarrassment and
+difficulty to the Indian Government.
+
+The Germans and their agents, who were past masters in the art of
+propaganda, were still endeavouring, as they had done for years
+before the outbreak of hostilities, to work upon the discontented
+portion of the Indian population in the hope of rousing them into
+open rebellion. They believed this to be quite possible, in spite of
+the magnificent way in which India had offered her resources of men
+and money to the British Raj, and hoped thereby to handicap us still
+further in our great struggle in the West.
+
+They were pouring their agents, with their lying propaganda, into
+India via Persia and Afghanistan. Afghanistan, like Persia, was
+nominally neutral, but she was breaking her neutrality by many open
+acts of aggression, and was offering every facility in her power
+to the German agents in their passage through her territories, and
+thence into the Punjab.
+
+To reach Afghanistan, however, the German agents had to pass through
+some part of Persia. The Persian Government placed no restrictions on
+the movements of either British or Germans, of which fact the latter
+took full advantage.
+
+A glance at the map will show that apparently the easiest route for
+them to take across Persia was in the North, in the Russian sphere of
+influence, and to approach Afghanistan through Korasan; or, failing
+this, by a route rather farther South, across the Lut Desert, in the
+direction of Birjand. As a matter of fact they had tried both these
+routes, but without much success, owing to the inhospitable nature of
+the country through which they had to pass and also to the opposition
+they met with from the Hazara tribes round Herat, who, belonging
+as they do to the Shiah section of the Mahommedan religion, are at
+daggers drawn with the Afghans, who belong to the Sunni section.
+
+Therefore the Germans had to try yet another road, and succeeded
+farther South where they had failed in the North. By taking the
+longer route through Kerman and Narmashir in the South and South-East
+of Persia, they found easy ingress into Afghanistan.
+
+To effect this, however, they had to make friends with the nomad
+and war-like tribes of the Sarhad. These tribes were traditionally
+friendly to the British, but the Germans had bribed them heavily
+and had moreover assured them that Germany had turned Islam and
+that the Kaiser William himself was a convert to their religion. As
+the Sarhad tribes were always out for a good thing for themselves,
+and as they believed the lie about the German conversion, they had
+allowed themselves to be tricked into helping the Germans. This
+they were doing not only by permitting them to pass through their
+territory, but also by harassing the lines of communication between
+the inadequately small British frontier posts.
+
+The story of Germany having turned Mahommedan, farcical as it was,
+was nevertheless a potential source of grave danger for us in India.
+It must be remembered that Germany's ally, Turkey, was Mahommedan,
+and that in helping us against Germany, the Mahommedans of India were
+already being called upon, indirectly, to fight against their own
+co-religionists. When, in addition, India was assured that powerful
+Germany was winning, so her agents avowed, in every theatre of war,
+it was inevitable that in time her loyalty to us must suffer.
+
+It was vital to stop this lying but insidious propaganda, and the
+first step was to prevent German agents from entering India at all.
+To do this the nomad tribes of the Sarhad must be brought back into
+line with their old policy of friendship with Britain. Hence my
+orders from General Kirkpatrick.
+
+He instructed me to proceed without a moment's unnecessary delay to
+Quetta, where I was to receive more detailed instructions.
+
+On leaving him I hurried, with car and native chauffeur, to the
+railway station, and asked for a truck on which to place the car
+for entrainment to Nushki. The station-master assured me I was
+asking for an impossibility. A great Maharajah, then travelling, had
+commandeered every available truck for his suite, luggage and cars.
+I told him that the Government business on which I had been sent was
+all important, and, by a little persuasion, soon had myself on the
+way to Pindi and the car on the way to Nushki.
+
+Arrived at Pindi I found I had exactly one hour left in which to
+catch the train for Quetta. There was no time to pack, sort out kit,
+or decide what should, or should not, be taken on a campaign which
+might last only a few weeks or many months, and which might assume
+a political aspect sooner than expected. My servant, Allah-dad, was
+therefore directed to take everything for sorting out when time could
+be spared, and I rushed off to try and "do a deal" with General Sir
+Gerald Kitson, before starting.
+
+I realised that a motor-car might play an important part in this
+prospective campaign, as it would be necessary to travel for long
+distances in a land of no railways and no regular roads, the best
+road to be hoped for probably being a sandy track used by camel
+caravans. I had already had some experience of difficult motoring
+with an inefficient chauffeur, so naturally wanted to secure the best
+man that could be got.
+
+I must here explain that I possessed an English chauffeur, Allan
+by name, and that General Kitson employed his brother in the same
+capacity. Now, without any disparagement of _my_ Allan, I knew his
+brother to be a more practical and experienced man. General Kitson
+generously gave his consent to an exchange of chauffeurs.
+
+I may as well say, at once, that it was a lucky day for me that saw
+Allan of the 9th Middlesex Regiment enter my service, for, during
+the months to come, he was as cheery and full of resource as he was
+ready for any event, however untoward. His appetite stood forth as
+the only thing that ever caused me uneasiness, and I must admit that
+I have never met a man with one of such colossal proportion. As an
+instance--on one occasion, when camped out in the desert, between
+Nushki and Robat, and supplies were none too plentiful, we cooked
+twelve sausages for breakfast.
+
+I had one, and then was persuaded by Allan to attempt a second. I
+only succeeded in disposing of half of it. I then got up and left
+Allan to have his own breakfast. Allah-dad, being a Mahommedan, of
+course refused to touch sausage.
+
+At lunch-time Allah-dad asked what I would have to eat, and got the
+answer, "Oh, some of the cold sausages left from breakfast."
+
+Allah-dad replied, "But there are no sausages, Sahib. Allan has eaten
+them all."
+
+I expostulated, maintaining that it was impossible. No normal man
+could have eaten ten and a half large sausages. But Allah-dad was
+not to be shaken. It may be well imagined that the feeding of my
+chauffeur during the months to come loomed up as one of my minor
+anxieties.
+
+From Pindi I went to Quetta by train, my car, with the native
+chauffeur having gone direct to the then rail-head at Nushki, in the
+North of Indo-Baluchistan.
+
+At Quetta I laid in a store of petrol, spare tyres, a few personal
+necessities, reported to General Grover for orders and information,
+and then proceeded to Nushki; which place was reached, and the car
+picked up, on, if I remember rightly, the 25th of February.
+
+This day in Nushki was to prove the last in a civilised town for
+many months to come. The look of the country lying before us so
+intimidated my native chauffeur that he came to me, a short time
+before we were due to start, with a countenance torn with grief and,
+with lamentations and protestations of sorrow, told me that both his
+father and mother were ill, and that it was vital for him to return
+and succour them. As I had been in two minds as to the advisability
+of taking the rascal with me, this sign of the white feather at the
+very outset at once decided the point, and I gave him to understand
+that he could go and bury as many of his relations as he pleased.
+With a countenance swiftly transformed to cheerfulness he left me.
+
+Just before starting a wire was handed in from a high political
+official at Quetta informing me that the Baluch Raiders had already
+cut our lines of communication, were right across my path, and he
+advised, if not ordered, me not to proceed.
+
+However, as explicit military instructions were to endeavour to reach
+Robat (near the Koh-i-Maliksia), a hill at which the Baluch, Afghan
+and Persian frontiers meet, as well as that of the district known as
+the Sarhad, with the least possible delay, and as I knew the Raiders
+were across my path even before I left Quetta, I saw no reason for
+altering previously made plans or for delaying my departure.
+
+Accordingly I started on the journey to Robat early on the morning of
+the 27th. I reckoned it would take at least five days to reach that
+town, as the route it would be necessary to follow would be fully
+three hundred and seventy-five miles. I already knew that it would
+be essential to make many long détours round freshly formed sand
+dunes and other obstacles, for it must be remembered that there was
+no proper road but only a rough camel-track continually blown over
+and obliterated by sand, along which supplies were taken from India
+to Robat, and the small garrison posts which we had established at
+various points Northward.
+
+The mention of small garrison posts may lead the reader to suppose
+that this area of wild activity was fairly well policed, but, as a
+fact, one battalion of Indian infantry, a regiment of Indian cavalry
+and, I believe, four mountain guns, constituted the entire force
+of regulars holding a front of close upon three hundred miles. It
+was small wonder, then, that the Sarhad tribes, commonly known as
+Raiders, from their raiding proclivities, who knew every inch of the
+country, could climb like cats, and could do long marches on short
+rations, had succeeded in cutting our lines of communication, and in
+carrying off our supplies.
+
+I could, therefore, look for no further help for the time in the
+matter of supplies and so took with me all that I thought would be
+necessary for our three hundred and seventy-five mile trek across the
+sandy wastes lying between Nushki and Robat.
+
+Petrol was, at the moment, the most important of our needs; we had,
+therefore, to carry with us all we should require, making allowance
+at the same time for mishaps. Moreover, we had to take enough food
+and water to last Allan, Allah-dad and myself for five or six days.
+
+As regards personal luggage we travelled absolutely light, leaving
+all kit to follow at a slower pace on camels, together with my horse,
+Galahad. I had some compunction in leaving the latter behind, but my
+orders were concise and urgent--to reach Robat, endeavour to get into
+touch with all our scattered posts, and effect a combination against
+the Raiders at the earliest possible moment.
+
+A start was made very early in the morning, but the first day's
+journey proved disappointing. Instead of doing the ninety miles
+planned, we only accomplished thirty. The track was even worse than I
+had expected, for we constantly ran into sand-hills, and had to dig
+the car out. I have never done so much digging in my life as I did on
+that journey to Robat. Sand-hills were, however, only a portion of
+our afflictions, for, in addition, there were many water pools and
+small shallow lakes--due to recent rain--which had to be taken at a
+rush, or somehow circumvented.
+
+So serious, at last, did our rate of progress become that, as we
+approached what seemed to be the hundredth of these wide, shallow
+pools, I lost patience and ordered Allan to drive straight through.
+
+He attempted to carry out the order, but about half-way we sank up
+to the axle and stuck. No power on earth would induce the car to
+budge another inch, and, though we all three got out into the water,
+and lugged, pushed and dragged at the wretched car, no impression
+could be made upon her.
+
+So we remained till, at last, about two a.m., I caught sight of a
+light on a small hill not very far away in the west, and, on going
+over to it, found a sort of recluse, or holy man, quietly cooking his
+food. After the usual courtesies I asked him to come and help me to
+pull my car out. He replied that he was an old man and could not do
+much by himself, but that a caravan of nomads, who had arrived the
+evening before, were encamped close by. So off I went again, flushed
+my "quarry", and, with the help of large bribes, persuaded all the
+able-bodied men to come back to the car. Fortunately we carried a
+good strong rope as part of our kit, so soon had the car out and
+running again.
+
+Allan was never again ordered to drive through water on that route.
+
+[Illustration: IN DIFFICULTIES BETWEEN NASARATABAD AND ROBAT.]
+
+On the second day our troubles recommenced, for we had barely done
+a dozen miles than we stuck in another sand-hill, and the laborious
+digging-out process had to be done all over again. Fortunately, the
+party who had got the car out of the lake the night before were close
+behind, and for an obvious reason. They had been given so many rupees
+for their timely help that, knowing the difficulties lying ahead,
+they had followed in the hope of further largesse. They got it.
+
+Once safely out again I made a tour of inspection round the car, but
+only to find more trouble.
+
+"Hullo, what on earth is this, Allan? She's leaking!"
+
+Allan smiled a superior smile. "I don't think so, sir. My cars don't
+leak."
+
+But a moment later his superiority turned to consternation, and he
+was burying his head in the bowels of the car.
+
+After a moment's inspection he showed a face of such utter dismay
+that it would have been comical had not the situation been so serious.
+
+"Great Scott, sir! I must have left the petrol tap turned on, and the
+tank is nearly empty."
+
+Here, I'm afraid, my language was violent, and it was some minutes
+before Allan was able to ascertain exactly how much petrol we had
+left. His calculations established the fact that we had lost some
+fourteen gallons. This meant that we should have to walk the greater
+part of the last two hundred miles of our journey. A pleasant
+prospect in that forbidding country. But orders were to go on, and go
+on we did.
+
+That day we made good time, and before evening had done the ninety
+miles set as a day's march. But, as we had lost so much ground the
+previous day, I determined to go on as long as Allan could stick at
+the driving wheel, and we went on--to a post called Yadgar.
+
+I should explain that in this barren, townless, roadless district
+there are occasional small rest-houses, very modest types of Dâk
+bungalows, established by the Indian Government for the benefit of
+travellers, or soldiers on their way to frontier duty. They are quite
+bare except for a camp bed or two, a tub, a table, a few chairs and a
+wash-hand basin, with a _chokidar_, or keeper, in charge.
+
+Such a rest-house we found at Yadgar, and being not only very tired
+and dusty, but filthily dirty, as the result of our struggles with
+the car, we pulled up to try and get a superficial wash.
+
+I jumped out and tried the door. It was locked, and I banged loudly
+without getting any answer. It would not do to lose an unnecessary
+minute, for the many miles we should have to walk later on loomed
+unpleasantly ahead, but I knew there were pretty certain to be water
+and washing-basin behind that door, and did not intend to leave them
+unused if I could help it, _chokidar_ or no _chokidar_. So, I took a
+butting run with my shoulder, the door gave, and I set out in search
+of the water tub.
+
+An open door on my right showed me a small room, absolutely empty,
+except for a row of tins against the wall. Knowing that petrol was
+carried in such tin drums I went and examined them. The next moment
+Allan heard a shout that brought him hastily inside, wondering
+whether I had gone mad, had been bitten by a wild beast, or was
+being murdered.
+
+"Look!" I cried, as he came running up to me. "Look at those tins and
+tell me what's inside!"
+
+Allan seized hold of one of the drums, read what was written on it,
+gave it a shake, and we could both hear the blessed sound of lapping
+inside.
+
+"It's petrol, sir," he whispered in an awed voice.
+
+Petrol in the desert--petrol where one would as soon have expected to
+find a Bond Street jeweller!
+
+At first we could neither of us believe it. Personally I imagined we
+had both got temporary jim-jams, but Allan, with his usual stolid,
+common sense, opened one of the drums, tested the contents, and
+pronounced it to be first-class petrol. There were seven drums, each
+containing four gallons.
+
+"This means we'll motor, not walk into Robat after all, sir," said
+Allan, with a grin and sigh of relief. The thought of those miles of
+desert--nearly two hundred of them--which confronted us after the
+mishap had been haunting us both like a nightmare.
+
+At this moment the _chokidar_ returned, in great trepidation, fearing
+a dressing-down for being absent from duty. But I was far too elated
+at the turn of events to want to swear at anyone.
+
+I asked him where the petrol had come from, and whose it was. He
+shook his head, and said he had no idea. It had always been there. It
+belonged to no one, and no one had put it there, so far as he knew.
+He had never seen a car there before; in fact, he had never seen a
+car anywhere before, and could not understand how it was that men
+could travel on a thing which was not alive, which was not like any
+horse or camel he had ever seen.
+
+This was all very good hearing, so I proceeded to tell him that the
+petrol belonged to me, and, as he quite cheerfully acquiesced, I gave
+him a receipt which he could show to any Government official in case
+of needed absolution in the future. As we now had means to finish our
+journey by car, I decided to spend the night at the rest-house.
+
+After a simple camp meal Allan, worn out with the strenuous work of
+the past two days and night, was quickly snoring in the deep sleep of
+exhaustion, so I went for a stroll.
+
+As I paced up and down I tried to draw up some preliminary plan
+for the coming campaign. But such occupation was somewhat futile,
+as, until I could reach Robat, I had no knowledge at all as to the
+strength and composition of the force that would be at my disposal.
+But upon one thing I made up my mind--even at that early stage--I
+would do my utmost to show these Raiders, who were doing us so much
+harm, that they could not do this with impunity. The lesson once
+driven home, an endeavour should be made to become friendly with
+them, to win them back to our side, and, so to speak, appoint them as
+doorkeepers of the Baluchistan frontier; but doorkeepers with their
+rifles pointed at our enemies instead of at ourselves.
+
+In the midst of these meditations I found myself stumbling with
+fatigue, so, with a last look at the beauty of the night, I turned
+indoors, and in a few minutes was sound asleep, and making up for the
+"whiteness" of the night before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE ROAD TO ROBAT
+
+  Mushki-chah--The native contractor--An evening rencontre--Idu
+  of the Chagai Levies--The native idea of an airship--Idu the
+  invaluable--Robat.
+
+
+On the third day we made good progress, fate being kind in helping us
+to avoid the sandy pitfalls which had hitherto been our undoing, and,
+by nightfall, we found ourselves approaching the post of Mushki-chah.
+
+Here we found the road blocked with a number of camel caravans
+carrying Government food supplies for our scattered posts along the
+frontier. These posts were already in difficulties owing to the
+Raiders' interference with their commissariat.
+
+As can be imagined there was a great deal of noise, the native
+drivers gesticulating and talking in a way which proved that
+something was afoot. I got out of the car and asked who was in charge
+of the caravan. A huge native contractor was pointed out to me, and,
+summoning him to my side I asked him what all the hubbub was about.
+
+He was in a state of great agitation and told me that he had received
+information from several reliable sources that the whole of the
+countryside ahead of them was in the hands of the Raiders, and that,
+therefore, it was useless to go a step further.
+
+I expostulated with the man, pointing out that, by the terms of his
+contract, he must go on, and that if he did not the soldiers for whom
+he was bringing supplies would die of starvation.
+
+But he was dogged. He knew too well the methods of the Raiders with
+the men they captured.
+
+"It's no use, Sahib," he said, respectfully but firmly. "My men will
+not go on as they are unarmed, and a single armed Raider is enough to
+hold up the whole caravan."
+
+I knew the man was right, but persisted in my efforts to persuade him
+to chance it, pointing out that he might be lucky enough to elude the
+Raiders and to win through.
+
+"If the Government will give me a military escort I will go, but not
+without," was his final word.
+
+I had no authority to compel him to go on, so gave up the struggle.
+But I realised more than ever how imperative it was to endeavour
+to reach Robat without a moment's unnecessary delay, and start
+conclusions with the Raiders, whose menace was growing more dangerous
+every day.
+
+We were, therefore, on the road very early next morning, for I hoped
+to make Saindak that night. I had intended to go by Borgar, but now
+that I knew--for I had verified the contractor's statements, and
+believed them to be correct--that that place was in the hands of
+the Raiders, I elected to go by an alternative route, known as the
+_Webb-Ware_ route, which is practically out of use nowadays, hoping,
+thereby, to avoid the enemy.
+
+It was still dark when we set off on the most strenuous part of our
+journey; climbing, making détours, digging the car out again and
+again till we were all three worn out in body and temper. We hardly
+halted that day, for the necessity for speed was as fully realised by
+Allan as by myself.
+
+When night fell we had not yet sighted Saindak, but I knew we could
+not be very far off, and cursed the coming of the night which made
+it impossible to see where we were. I knew we had got off the camel
+track somehow, for the ground was even more bumpy than it had been,
+and was frequently intersected by nullahs or rocky ravines, which
+made the going positively dangerous. If the car were knocked right
+out of action our difficulties would reach the last stage of disaster.
+
+At last, in despair, Allan stopped, saying it was useless going on
+any further. We might overturn the car at any moment and smash it as
+well as ourselves. He submitted that the only sane thing would be to
+camp just where we were and wait for daylight, when we might regain
+the camel track.
+
+I knew he was right, but said I would make one final effort on foot
+to find the track, and directed him to give me the hurricane lamp we
+carried on the car.
+
+Stumbling and slipping over the broken ground in the pitch darkness,
+the lamp barely lighting up my immediate path, I had wandered some
+distance from the car when I heard voices. Instantly I thought of the
+Raiders who were over-running the district. It would be too galling,
+too humiliating to be captured by them before the campaign, on which
+I was building such high hopes, had even begun.
+
+Noiselessly I put out the lamp and listened in the dense darkness.
+There was absolute silence for some minutes, and I stood stock still.
+Then voices sounded again, and I conjectured that there were not more
+than two, or at the most three, speakers.
+
+I thought rapidly, and finally decided that there would not be many
+men in front of me. Had there been anything approaching an encampment
+of the Raiders in the neighbourhood, there would have been lights,
+camp fires and considerable noise. The voices I had heard probably
+belonged to men who had seen the lights of the car, and had come to
+find out what it was.
+
+I turned swiftly and made my way back to the car, where I had
+foolishly left my revolver. Recovering my weapon I warned Allan in a
+whisper of the voices I had heard, and told him to be ready to stand
+by. Then I made my way back in the darkness, and when I had regained
+the spot, called out loudly, in Hindustani, "Who's there?"
+
+Instantly a voice answered, "I am Idu of the Chagai Levies, friendly
+to the British Government."
+
+I then called out who I was, and, immediately, three fully armed men
+came forward in the darkness.
+
+I asked them what they were doing there, and the voice that had
+answered me before replied that they were all three members of the
+Chagai Levies, and that they, and about fifty others, had come out to
+fight me.
+
+"To fight me?" I exclaimed. "Whatever for?"
+
+"Well, Sahib," returned the man who had said his name was Idu, "we
+thought you were a German airship." And he went on to explain that
+for a long time he and his companions had been watching powerful
+lights floating about in the sky, and as they knew that Germans were
+the only people in the world who had _hawaiijihaz_ or airships, they
+were convinced the lights they had seen belonged to one of these. And
+when it had alighted on the hill in front of them, the majority of
+his companions had been so terrified that they had run away, and only
+himself and his two comrades had had the bravery to stay where they
+were and face the unknown danger.
+
+Then it dawned on me what he was driving at. The flashing electric
+lights of the car, lighting up the distant, rising slopes of the
+desert, had appeared to these men to come from the sky, and my
+harmless motor-car the dreaded German airship. Cars, of course, along
+this route were as great a novelty as airships, and doubtless not one
+of the men in front of me had ever seen one before.
+
+I reassured them as completely as I could, adding that I was
+delighted to meet such redoubtable warriors, and hoped that now they
+would come with me and help me, as my business was to fight Germans,
+airships and all. This was strictly true, for, but for German
+influence, there would have been no need to wage war on the Raiders
+who had only been induced to become our enemies by lying German
+propaganda.
+
+Idu said they would be only too glad to go with the Sahib and to help
+him fight the enemies of the British Raj. He also told me that he had
+already saved my life once that evening.
+
+"How was that?" I asked, my spirits rising as I gazed through the
+darkness at my first three recruits.
+
+"Well, Sahib," returned Idu, "when the airship, which you say is
+no airship, stopped, in a little while we saw the figure of a man,
+carrying a lantern moving towards us, and Halil here," laying his
+hand on the shoulder of one of his pals, "lifted his rifle and was
+about to shoot. But I said, 'Nay. See, it is but one man. Let us wait
+and see who he is.' And then the lantern went out and there was no
+longer a target."
+
+"You did well, Idu," I said solemnly. "You have most certainly saved
+my life, and as you seem to be as intelligent as you are brave, I
+shall appoint you to my personal staff. I am the officer who has
+been sent out to take command of the forces along the Sarhad, and in
+Seistan. But at the present moment my chief concern is to find the
+right road to Saindak. Can you show it to me?"
+
+Idu laughed. "I could lead you there blindfold, Sahib."
+
+I felt the difficulties of the road were now over, and, piloted by
+these three stalwarts, the car--a source of the utmost excitement
+and wonderment to them--Allan, Allah-dad and my weary self were, ere
+long, safe in the rest-house of the small mud fort at Saindak.
+
+The following morning, after a good night's rest, I had a long talk
+with Idu, and the very favourable impression I had formed of the man
+the night before was greatly increased. I found him by daylight to be
+a highly intelligent-looking, splendidly proportioned fellow of about
+five feet eight, with a big black beard. I had glimpses, even then,
+of the keen sense of humour which was to do so much to lighten the
+difficulties of the ensuing campaign. Never once in all the months to
+come did I find his wit and humour fail.
+
+As after-events proved he was absolutely invaluable. In fact, I often
+called him, and told him that I called him, my "head." Not only did
+he know every yard of the country, but he knew by name practically
+every one of the Raiders, knew their peculiarities and their weak
+points as well as their strength. Idu was a man in a million, and I
+should like to think that, some day, this public appreciation of him,
+and of what he did to help in this campaign, may reach him.
+
+After breakfast and my talk with Idu, we set out on the last march of
+the first phase of my journey, and reached Robat by two o'clock in
+the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
+
+  An "intelligent" officer--Matters political--Three tribes
+  and a fourth--Their women and inter-tribal laws--Sarhad
+  conditions--A summons to the Chiefs--A bid for rank--Telegraph
+  wires and Sheitan--Two first-class liars--A strategic scheme--An
+  ungazetted General--Lost kit--Swallows and flies--Forces
+  available--Communications freed--The Kacha levy and a
+  shock--Mirjawa.
+
+
+My first visit in Robat was to the officer who had been commanding
+the scattered British forces up to that date. He was a very sick man,
+and had been holding out with the utmost difficulty until he could be
+relieved. Here I met Major Landon of the 35th Scinde Horse, one of
+the three Intelligence Officers employed by the Indian Government in
+Persia.
+
+I very quickly realised that Landon was an officer of very high
+intelligence, as well as an Intelligence Officer, and that he had a
+fund of information concerning the country, and the conditions and
+characteristics of the inhabitants of both Persia and Baluchistan. In
+fact, I judged that he would be such an asset that, then and there, I
+invited him to become my Brigade-Major, although I ruefully remarked
+that I had, at present, no brigade!
+
+He was keen to accept, but did not know how the authorities at Simla
+would view his acceptance of such a post, and asked me whether I
+should be willing to shoulder the responsibility of annexing him for
+the campaign. Considering that my shoulders were broad enough, I
+promptly replied that my orders had been to take command of all the
+scattered forces I could find and co-ordinate them, and that I looked
+upon him as my second "find," Idu and his two companions being the
+first. Further, that he was here as Intelligence Officer and would
+acquire no intelligence sitting down in Robat, whereas, if he came
+with me, he would get all he wanted at first hand!
+
+I set myself to pick up all the information I could about the
+conditions of British "influence" in this part of Persia, and on
+the borders of Afghanistan. To make it in any way clear why we had
+any influence here at all we must revert to the old fear of the
+threatened advance of Russia on India, in the days before Russia
+became our ally in the Great War.
+
+Slowly and gradually Russia had been extending her influence in the
+Pamirs until her outposts on the Oxus River were only eight marches
+from Chitral. Evidently, as a wide counter, strategic move, the
+Indian Government had sought to increase its own influence with
+Persia and Afghanistan by pushing forward her outposts to Robat and
+Nasaratabad.
+
+Consequently, at the time of which I am writing, Robat, Nasaratabad
+and Birjand were held lightly by chains of small posts composed
+entirely of Indian troops and some local levies commanded by British
+officers. Our lines of communication running from Birjand to Nushki,
+a distance of about six hundred miles, were held, in widely scattered
+posts, by only one battalion of Indian Infantry and one regiment of
+Indian Cavalry and four mountain guns. Thus it will be seen that it
+was very difficult to obtain any troops for a movable column.
+
+A British Consulate had also been established at Nasaratabad, which
+is on the borders of Afghanistan and Persia. During the War the
+importance and influence of the Consul increased considerably, as he
+was in a position to gather information which was of great value to
+the military commanders, who constantly sought his advice.
+
+There was also a Baluch Political Officer, known as the Sarhad-dar,
+who worked under orders from the British Political Officer at Quetta.
+The Sarhad-dar, to a certain degree, controlled the Sarhadi Raiders,
+occasionally with the help of the Chagai Levies, which were raised by
+the Indian Government for this particular work.
+
+Supplies were brought to these scattered posts by camel caravans from
+India.
+
+Communication with India was maintained by means of the telegraph.
+Later on it became necessary to send out a wireless troop from India
+to establish communication between my force at Khwash and Saindak.
+
+At the same time I did my best to learn all I could about the tribes
+amongst whom I was going to operate, their ways and customs, and the
+nature of the country in which they lived.
+
+A glance at the map will show the situation and boundaries of the
+Sarhad--literally meaning boundary. It will be seen that it extends
+from Jalk in the East to Galugan in the West. The Eastern part, from
+Jalk to Safed-koh, is held by a tribe known as the Gamshadzais, under
+their notable leader, Halil Khan.
+
+The central portion is held by the Yarmahommedzais under Jiand
+Khan, an elderly man, who has been undisputed chief, and a sort of
+over-lord of the whole of the Sarhad, for very many years. He has
+been looked upon by his own and neighbouring tribes as well-nigh a
+demi-god. As Jiand enters later, and largely, into this narrative all
+further description of him will be reserved till actual contact is
+established with him.
+
+Khwash--known also as Vasht or Washt--is the capital of the Sarhad,
+and is situated within Jiand's jurisdiction, although he is not the
+actual owner of the town. The word Khwash literally means "sweet,"
+and, I believe, owes its name to the water, which is, by the way,
+quite warm when it appears at the surface of the ground in the
+immediate vicinity.
+
+The Western portion of the Sarhad, extending roughly from Khwash to
+Galugan, is held by the Ismailzais under their redoubtable leader,
+Juma Khan.
+
+All three of these tribes possess approximately one thousand
+families apiece, and, of course, each family has many members, as
+well as large numbers of camels, and herds of sheep and goats.
+
+Each of these tribes, at the time of which I write, could muster,
+roughly, from one to two thousand riflemen, chiefly armed with Mauser
+courage. As the man emerges upon the narrow platform, he is engulfed in
+the swirling flakes, and often is pinned against the masonry so tightly
+by the wind that he cannot move a limb; at other times he is swept
+almost off his feet. While engaged in his freezing task, he also runs
+the risk of being drenched by a rising comber.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            _By permission of the “Syren and Shipping.”_
+
+COMBINED KITCHEN AND LIVING-ROOM IN THE LIGHTHOUSE.]
+
+The men on the lonely, exposed Tillamook Rock, off the Oregon coast,
+have had more than one occasion to respect the storm-fiend. One night,
+while a fearful gale was raging, a huge mass of rock was torn away from
+the islet, snatched by the waves, and thrown high into the air. It
+fell with terrific force upon the dome of the lantern, splintering the
+roof and smashing the light, so that no welcome rays could be thrown
+from the tower again that night. The keepers at once set to work with
+the fog-signal, and during the hours of darkness worked like slaves,
+blaring out a warning by sound which they were unable to give visually.
+
+Fortunately, such an experience as befell the keepers of the American
+Thimble Shoal light is very rare. This beacon marks the shoal of that
+name, and is, or rather was, a screw-pile iron lighthouse, marking 11
+feet of water at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, U.S.A. On
+December 27, 1909, the keepers were immersed in their tasks, when there
+was a terrible crash followed by a dismal rending and splitting. The
+building shivered from top to bottom. The keepers were thrown off their
+feet, and when they regained their wits they found that the schooner
+_Malcolm Baxter Junior_, while being towed by a tug, had blundered into
+them, and had carried a considerable portion of the building away. The
+impact upset the light; the scattered oil burst into flame, and within
+a few minutes the lighthouse was blazing like a gigantic bonfire. The
+keepers stuck to their posts, and endeavoured frantically to extinguish
+the outbreak, but their efforts were too puny to make any impression.
+At last, when a foothold was no longer possible with safety, and under
+extreme pressure, they abandoned their charge. When the flames had
+completed their destructive work the lighthouse presented a sorry
+sight, being a mass of broken and twisted ironwork. A wooden tower was
+erected with all despatch, and a fog-signal was installed, so that the
+men could carry on their duties while the reconstruction of the station
+was hurried forward.
+
+The keepers turn their hands to strange occupations. Fretwork,
+wood-carving, poker-work, and similar hobbies, are practised freely.
+A few devote their leisure to intellectual improvement to fit them
+for other walks in life. The keeper of Windward Point, Guantanamo
+Bay, Cuba, devoted his energies to studying, and obtaining diplomas
+in, mechano-therapy and suggestive therapeutics, as well as becoming
+proficient in Esperanto. The keepers of two other American lights set
+themselves to the mastery of jurisprudence, and in due course resigned
+their positions and rented offices in the city, where in the course of
+a few years they built up very remunerative legal practices. As a rule
+the lighthouse-keeper is an expert handy-man, as he is compelled to
+complete a whole list of duties in addition to maintaining the lights.
+In the summer the metal and wooden lights have to be given a coat of
+paint, while plumbing and other displays of skill in metal have to be
+carried out, even if only temporarily.
+
+The calling is exceedingly healthy, which accounts for the immunity
+from illness which these men enjoy. Also, as a rule, the land-lights
+are set amidst wild romantic surroundings. Some years ago a number of
+American families, in the search for a quiet, health-restoring rest,
+were in the habit of spending their vacations at lighthouses, to the
+financial profit of the keepers. Eventually, however, the authorities,
+fearing that the keeper might be distracted from his duties, issued a
+summary order forbidding this practice, much to the disgust of the men,
+and “attractive lighthouse apartments” became a thing of the past. In
+Great Britain an order was issued that “no ale or other intoxicating
+liquor be allowed to be sold in any lighthouse.” The precise reason for
+this strange ordinance is not quite clear, but it is significant to
+note that it came into force immediately after the disastrous fire at
+the Leasowe lighthouse, on the Wirral shore.
+
+The lighthouse invariably is an object of attraction among the general
+public, but this interest seldom goes to the length narrated by a
+keeper of one of the West Indian lights. One night two of the men at
+this particular station decided to hunt for red crabs on the beach
+below. They started off with a hurricane lamp, but were astonished,
+when they gained the foreshore, to see a large sloop hard and fast
+on the reef, although the night was beautifully clear and the light
+was burning brilliantly. With much effort the keepers got out their
+dory, put off to the wreck, and endeavoured to get the sloop out of
+her uncomfortable position, but, finding her too well fixed, took off
+the passengers. The survivors were housed in the keepers’ quarters
+until next morning, when they were succoured. The head-keeper asked the
+captain how he managed to get into such a position, and to his surprise
+learned that, as the passengers were anxious to obtain a clear close
+view of the light, the master had stood inshore, not knowing that the
+reef over which vigil was mounted ran out far into the water. That
+navigator paid dearly for his attempt to satisfy curiosity. His sloop
+broke up, since she was impaled too firmly to be salvaged.
+
+It is not often that the utter loneliness and monotony of the daily
+round unhinges a keeper’s mind, but this awful fate overtook the warden
+of a somewhat isolated American light. The man had served with Admiral
+Dewey off Manila, and upon his return home the Government placed him in
+charge of a station as an occupation for the evening of his life, and
+as a recompense for faithful service. He settled down with his wife and
+family, but the isolation soon began to affect his brain. For days he
+would absent himself from the light, which would soon have failed had
+it not been for the unswerving devotion of his wife and the assistance
+of one of two friends living in the locality. They spared no effort
+to keep the beacon burning, lest the authorities might hear about
+the keeper’s strange behaviour, and deprive him of his charge, and,
+incidentally, of his livelihood. In due course the incident did reach
+the authorities, and, not knowing what was the matter with the man,
+they took action accordingly. As the keeper entered the station after
+one of his inexplicable expeditions of a fortnight’s duration, he was
+arrested for desertion. He was examined promptly by two doctors, who
+found him hopelessly insane, and was incarcerated in an asylum, where
+in the course of a few days he became a raving lunatic.
+
+Often the keepers, although only condemned to imprisonment for a
+certain period at a time, have to tolerate a longer stay, owing to
+the relief-boat being unable to approach them. In some instances the
+delay may run into five weeks or more. During the winter the relief of
+the Eddystone, Longships, Wolf, Fastnet, Skerryvore, and Dhu-Heartach
+lights is always a matter of extreme uncertainty. Although the men
+have to provide themselves with supplies, a reserve is maintained at
+the station by the authorities for such emergencies. Even some of the
+land stations are not approachable readily. There is the Punta Gorda
+light-station on the Californian coast, the situation of which is wild
+and forbidding. There is a landing about eight miles above the station,
+but it is extremely precarious. Still, unless a certain element of risk
+is accepted in coming ashore here, it is necessary to face a tramp or
+stage journey of nearly fifty miles across country in order to gain the
+lighthouse.
+
+The lighthouses in the Red Sea are, perhaps, among the most unenviable
+and trying in the world. This stretch of water, lying between two
+blistered coasts of sand, is no more or less than an oven, where even
+the strongest constitution finds it difficult to hold out for long.
+Moreover, the absence of civilization, owing to the extreme aridity of
+the country, renders the life exceptionally depressing. In the summer
+the heat is wellnigh intolerable. The thermometer hovers between 95°
+and 110° F. in the shade throughout the twenty-four hours, so that
+night brings no relief to the oppressiveness.
+
+At some of the stations the men seek a little diversion, and
+incidentally add occasionally to their pocket-money, by shark-catching,
+which is a tolerably profitable pursuit, since these waters are thickly
+infested with this fish. The jawbone and backbone invariably find ready
+purchasers, the former being mounted as a curiosity, while the backbone
+forms a novel and serviceable walking-stick.
+
+One method of trapping these monsters which affords keen delight was
+related to me. The requirements are an electric battery, some rope, a
+few feet of electric wire, a cartridge, and an empty box, with a chunk
+or two of bad meat. The cartridge is fitted with an electric primer,
+the wire of which stretches to the battery. This cartridge is buried
+in a hunk of meat, the whole being dangled from a box--an empty cask is
+better--which serves as a float, while a rope is stretched from the box
+to the shore, with the electric wire spirally wound round it. A short
+length of chain is preferable, if available, to attach the bait to the
+float, but a short piece of rope will do. This novel line is thrown
+into the water, and the man keeps his eye on the float, with one finger
+on the battery. The hungry shark, espying the tempting morsel, makes a
+grab and swallows it, but the chain prevents him tearing away with it.
+The pull causes the float to disappear, the man’s finger presses the
+button, and the trick is done. There is an explosion, and pieces of
+shark and showers of water fly into the air. The incident is all over
+too quickly for the fish to marvel about the strange indigestibility
+of the tainted meat he grabbed so greedily. The men enjoy this sport
+hugely when it can be followed, as they regard the shark with intense
+detestation.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            _By permission of the “Syren and Shipping.”_
+
+KEEPER CLEANING THE LAMP AFTER IT HAS COOLED DOWN.]
+
+Despite the vigilance of the various Powers, slave-running is still a
+lucrative business on these forbidding coasts. Now and again a forced
+labourer gets away from his taskmaster, and comes panting into the
+lighthouse territory. This is sanctuary to the hapless wretch, and
+although the keepers invariably receive a call from the runaway’s
+master, he meets with scant courtesy, while his demand for the
+surrender of the fugitive is answered by a point-blank refusal. The
+slave-driver may storm, threaten, and abuse, to his heart’s content,
+and, as he is generally a past-master in Arabian invective, the
+keepers have to listen to a pretty tune. But the slave is kept in the
+lighthouse until the relief-tender makes its periodical call, when he
+is taken back to Suez and liberated.
+
+Fortunately, owing to the extreme care that is manifested by the
+authorities, mishaps at a lighthouse are few and far between. The
+men are supplied with rules and regulations which are drawn up with
+an eye for every possible emergency. Yet accidents will happen, due
+in the majority of instances to familiarity bred of contempt. The
+majority of these calamities occur in connection with the explosive
+fog-signalling apparatus, although every device is adopted to safeguard
+the men. At one of the Scottish stations a keeper was manipulating
+the fog-signal, but, flying in the face of instructions, he caused
+the charge to explode prematurely. The man escaped injury, but the
+detonation shattered several panes of glass in the lantern.
+
+One of the keepers of the Rathlin light, on Altacarry Head, was not so
+fortunate. The White Star Canadian liner _Megantic_ was rounding the
+corner of Ireland to enter the last lap of the homeward journey one
+Saturday evening, when the captain’s attention was arrested by a signal
+of distress flying from the lighthouse. The interpretation of the
+signal revealed the fact that a doctor was wanted, so, easing up the
+ship, he lowered a boat, and the doctor was sent away to the island.
+Upon landing he found one of the men in dire straits. He had been
+cleaning the fog-gun, when a charge, which had been left in the weapon
+inadvertently upon the last occasion it was used, exploded. The man’s
+arm had been wrenched off, and he was burned terribly. It was a stroke
+of luck that the liner hove in sight at the moment she did. There was
+no chance of extending succour to the injured man on the spot, and he
+would have died before a doctor could have been summoned by boat from
+Ballycastle, nine miles away. The surgeon bound up the man’s injuries,
+lowered him into his boat, and, on regaining the liner, placed him
+in the hospital, where he was tended until the vessel’s arrival in
+Liverpool, where he was landed and placed in hospital.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+            _By permission of “Syren and Shipping.”_
+
+A LIGHTHOUSE BEDROOM.
+
+Owing to the limited space the furniture is reduced to the minimum, the
+bunks being built against the wall.]
+
+More remarkable was the accident which happened at the Flannen Islands
+light-station in 1900; it remains an unsolved mystery to this day. This
+is one of Scotland’s lonely lights, mounting guard over a group of
+islets fifteen miles off the Hebrides. On December 26 the relief-tender
+approached the station on her usual fortnightly visit, but, to the
+amazement of those on board, no signs of the keepers or the usual
+signals were to be seen, while the lantern was not dressed in its
+daylight garb. The crew landed hurriedly, wondering what was amiss.
+They found the lighthouse absolutely deserted; not a sign of any of the
+three keepers was to be seen or heard. They examined the log, and found
+that the light had not been burning for some days, the last entry being
+made about 4 a.m. nearly a week previously. The rock was searched, but
+yielded no clue to the mystery of the complete disappearance of the
+men. The light had not been abandoned; it had simply burned itself out.
+It was a fortunate circumstance that very little shipping frequents
+these seas during the winter, or there would have been one or two
+marine disasters, as the islands are often wrapped in fog.
+
+It is surmised that one of the men ventured outside on to a rocky ledge
+in the early hours of the morning. According to the log, a vicious
+storm was raging at the time, and probably in the darkness the man was
+swept off his feet and carried into the sea. The second keeper on duty,
+marvelling at the non-return of his assistant, evidently had roused his
+other companion, and the two had instituted a search in the storm, only
+in turn to be caught by a wave and carried away.
+
+In Great Britain, since 1860, men only have been employed by the
+Trinity House Brethren for the maintenance of the lights, but in
+the United States women still are engaged in this duty. Some of the
+British lights have been controlled by one family through two or
+three generations. It was only a few years ago that a Darling retired
+from the vigil on the Longstones of Farne Islands, the scene of Grace
+Darling’s heroism, while for a century and a half one family kept the
+South Foreland light faithfully. The Casquets light off Alderney, in
+the Channel Islands, was maintained by one family, some of the children
+spending the whole of their lives on the rock, son succeeding father at
+the post of duty.
+
+On the American coast, however, women are more extensively employed.
+Seeing that many of the lights are burned in a low tower projecting
+from the dwelling-house, this circumstance may be readily understood,
+as the duties beyond the maintenance of the light are not exacting.
+One of the most notable instances, however, is the Point Pino light
+at the entrance to Monterey Bay, on the Californian coast, the
+guardianship of which has been in feminine hands for the past thirty
+years. For something approaching half a century a woman maintained the
+Michigan City harbour light on the Great Lake of that name. Indeed,
+the associations were so deep-rooted and long that the beacon became
+popularly known as “Miss Colfax’s light,” after the name of its keeper.
+Even when she attained the age of eighty years she was as active and
+attentive to her charge as on the day, in 1861, when she first assumed
+responsibility for its safe-keeping.
+
+In those times there was a beacon established on the end of the wooden
+pier, which railed off an area of the restless lake for the purposes of
+the inland port. Those were strenuous days. Her home was on shore, and
+every night and morning she tramped the long arm of woodwork to light
+and extinguish the lamp. Lard-oil was used, and during the winter the
+food for the lamp had to be heated to bring it into a fluid condition
+before she set out from home. It was no easy matter struggling along on
+a blusterous, gusty evening, with a pail of hot oil in one hand and a
+lamp in the other, over a narrow plank. Often, when a gale was raging,
+progress was so slow that by the time the beacon was reached the oil
+had cooled and congealed, rendering it a difficult matter to induce
+the lamp to burn. Once set going, however, it was safe for the night,
+as the heat radiated from the burner kept the lard melted. In addition
+to this lamp, there was another light in the tower projecting from the
+roof of her house, which had to be maintained, and this, being the main
+light, was the more important of the two.
+
+In 1886 the pier tower was taken out of her hands for ever. A furious
+gale, such as is peculiar to these inland seas, and which cannot be
+rivalled on the ocean for fury, was raging. At dusk she started on her
+usual journey. Time after time she was wellnigh swept off her feet, so
+that she staggered rather than walked, for the spray and sand flecking
+her face nearly blinded her. When she gained the tower she paused, and
+observed that it was trembling violently. Undismayed, she ascended, lit
+the light, and tramped back to the shore. Scarcely had she gained the
+mainland, when, glancing seawards, she saw the light sway from side
+to side for a second or two, and then make a dive into the water. A
+few moments later a crash reverberated above the noise of the storm:
+the decrepit pier had succumbed at last. Hers was a lucky escape, but
+she hurried home, and sat by the main light gleaming from her roof all
+that night, apprehensive that some vessel might endeavour to make the
+harbour and come to grief. When the pier was rebuilt, a new beacon
+was placed on its extremity, but its upkeep was taken over by the
+harbour authorities, leaving only the shore light in the trusty woman’s
+keeping, the wicks of which for over forty years were trimmed and lit
+at dusk, and extinguished with the dawn, with her own hands.
+
+During the migratory season of the birds extraordinary sights are
+witnessed around the light at night. The brilliant glare attracts
+enormous flocks, which flit to and fro. As the monster flaming spoke
+swings round, the birds, evidently blinded by the glare, dash with such
+fury against the glass panes of the lantern as to flutter to the floor
+of the gallery with broken necks and wings, while large numbers, dazed
+or killed, fall into the water. The birds are of all species, and at
+times may be picked up by the basketful. Then the light-keepers are
+able to secure a welcome change in their dietary. Moths, too, often
+hover in clouds round the light, and are of such variety that an hour
+on the gallery would bring infinite delight and rich harvests to the
+youthful entomologist who has to be content to hunt around electric
+lamps in quiet streets at night.
+
+While the lamp is burning, time cannot drag, owing to the multitude
+of details which compel the keeper’s constant attention. The official
+log has to be kept posted with a host of facts, such as temperature,
+barometric readings, weather conditions as they vary from hour to
+hour, behaviour of the lamps, etc.; while, when the lighthouse is
+a marine signal-station as well, passing ships have to be signalled
+and reported. The spell of labour varies from four to five hours or
+more. Obviously, the task is more exacting and arduous in the winter
+than in summer. During the former season the lamps have to be lighted
+as early as 3.15 p.m., and are not extinguished until eight o’clock
+the next morning. In the summer, on the other hand, the lamps may be
+required for less than six hours or so. In northern latitudes where the
+daylight is continuous owing to the midnight sun, the light scarcely
+seems necessary. Yet it is kept burning during the scheduled hours of
+darkness.
+
+Thus, night in and night out the whole year round, a comparatively
+small band of faithful toilers keeps alert vigil over the dangers of
+the deep, for the benefit of those who “go down to the sea in ships,
+and do their business in great waters.” The safety of thousands of
+human lives and of millions sterling of merchandise is vested in
+their keeping. The resources of the shipbuilder, the staunchness of
+the ship, the skill and knowledge of the captain--all would count for
+nothing were it not for the persistent, steady glare of the fixed,
+the twinkling of the occulting, or the rhythmic, monotonous turning
+spokes of the revolving light, thrown over the waste of waters from the
+lighthouse and the lightship.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Aberbrothock, Abbot of, 96
+
+  Acetylene: as illuminant, Daléngas, 49, 274;
+    systems for floating lighthouses, 238, 278, 285-95;
+    cost of lighting by, 282;
+    dissolved, French system of using, 291;
+    use in Sweden, 291-94
+
+  Acetylene gun, the, 68-71
+
+  Admiralty, the: adoption of the siren, 60-61;
+    use of the Wigham light, 296
+
+  Adriatic shoreline, 203
+
+  “Aga” principle of lighting, 274, 277, 291, 293;
+    adopted by the United States, 294-95
+
+  Ailly, Pointe d’, 303
+
+  Ailsa Crag, system of fog-signalling, 63-65, 66
+
+  Alaska: trade of, 173;
+    controlled by the Lighthouse Board, 206;
+    unattended lighthouses, 277;
+    coastline 284
+
+  Alderney coastline, 12-13
+
+  Alexander, Lieutenant B. S., the Minot’s ledge-light, 8, 179
+
+  Alexandria, Pharos of, 2-3
+
+  Allerton Point lighthouse, 6
+
+  Altacarry Head, 313
+
+  Ambrose Channel, 251
+
+  American Thimble Shoal lighthouse, 308
+
+  Amour Point light, 169
+
+  Anderson, Lieutenant-Colonel William P., 172, 174, 217
+
+  _Anglo-Saxon_, Allan liner, wreck, 163-64
+
+  Anticosti, 171
+
+  Antifer, Cap d’, lighthouse, 39
+
+  Antipodes, the, 239
+
+  Arbroath, 97
+
+  Arena Point, 204
+
+  Argand burner, the, 47, 55, 79, 219
+
+  Argyll, Duke of, 115;
+    lays foundation-stone of Skerryvore, 105
+
+  Ar-men light, Finisterre, 20-24
+
+  Arthur, Port, 214, 217
+
+  _Assyrian_, the, wreck, 164
+
+  Astoria, 13, 185, 188, 193
+
+  Auckland coastline, 236, 237, 238
+    harbour, 238
+    Islands, 239
+
+  Auer, Dr. von, the incandescent mantle, 47-48
+
+  Australia: lighthouses of, 229-39;
+    unattended lighthouses, 283
+
+  Austria, lighthouses, 48
+
+
+  Bache, General Hartmann, 63;
+    Brandywine Shoal light, 200-201
+
+  “Back lights,” 20
+
+  Ballantyne, A., the Tillamook Rock lighthouse, 185-95
+
+  Ballycastle, 313
+
+  Baltic Sea, unattended lighthouses of the, 274, 278, 291
+
+  Bar lightship, Mersey, 240
+
+  Barnard, General, the Minot’s Ledge light, 178-82
+
+  Barra Head, 113
+
+  Barra Island, 113
+
+  Barsier rock, 269
+
+  Bauld Cape light, 169
+
+  “Bay of the Dead,” Finisterre, 21, 22
+
+  Beachy Head lighthouse, 24-27, 94
+
+  Belfast, 306
+
+  Bell Rock lighthouse, 9;
+    lighting, 53;
+    fog-signals, 59;
+    the reef, 96-97
+
+  Bell-buoys, 68
+
+  Belle Ile, 51;
+    the beacons, 169;
+    the Northern light, 170-71;
+    the Southern light, 169;
+    the auxiliary light, 169-70;
+    isolation of, 171
+
+  Belle Ile, Straits of, 162, 163, 169
+
+  Bells: on lighthouses, 58;
+    submarine, 249-50
+
+  Biscay, Bay of, gales, 3-4
+
+  Bishop Rock lighthouse, 38, 51, 81-87
+
+  Black Prince, the, in Gascony, 4
+
+  Black Sea, lighthouses on the, 18-19
+
+  Blau liquid gas, 48-49
+
+  “Blowing-holes,” 62-63
+
+  Bluff, the, 236
+
+  Bois Blanc Island, 211
+
+  Bordeaux, trade of, 3-4
+
+  Boston Harbour: lighting, 6, 33-4, 196;
+    Minot’s Ledge light, 176-82
+
+  Bothnia, Gulf of, unattended lighthouses, 268, 274
+
+  Bounty Islands, 239
+
+  Bourdelles, M., investigations, 56, 219
+
+  Brandywine Shoal light, 200-201
+
+  Brebner, Alexander, 117
+
+  “Breeches-buoy,” used at Tillamook Rock, 187-89
+
+  Bréhat, Heaux de, Reynaud’s tower, 149-53
+
+  Bréhat, Isle of, 149
+
+  Bremerhaven, 132, 138, 139, 141
+
+  Brett, Cape, lighthouse, 238
+
+  Brewster, Sir David, lighting methods, 29
+
+  Bridges and Roads, Department of, 148
+
+  Bristol Channel: the Flat Holme light, 7;
+    unattended lighthouses, 278-79
+
+  British Columbia coastline, 284
+
+  Brittany coastline, 148
+
+  Brothers light, the, 234-35
+
+  Bull Rock lighthouse, 39
+
+  Bullivant cableways, 25-26
+
+  Bungaree Norah. _See_ Norah Head
+
+  Buoys: bell and whistle, 68;
+    gas-buoys, 244;
+    the Willson, 286-89;
+    combined light and whistling, 290
+
+  Büsun, 226
+
+  Byron Bay, 232
+
+  Byron Cape, 232
+
+
+  Cabrillo Point light, 205
+
+  Calf Rock light, 123
+
+  California coastline, 204
+
+  Campbell, General, 270
+
+  Campbell Island, 239
+
+  Canadian Marine Department, 8;
+    systems of building, 18-19;
+    fog-signalling apparatus, 66-68;
+    lighting of the coastline, 161-75;
+    lighting of the Great Lakes, 208-17;
+    floating lighthouses, 286
+
+  Caribou Island lighthouse, 216-17
+
+  Carmel Head, 94
+
+  Carolina, North, 240
+
+  Carrington, W. H. T., 25
+
+  Casquets lighthouse: the approach to, 12-13;
+    keepers of the, 314
+
+  Castle Point lighthouse, 238
+
+  Casuarina Island, 55
+
+  Catoptric system of lighting, 28
+
+  Centre Island lighthouse, 237
+
+  Chance Bros. and Co.: systems of lighting, 33, 36, 42, 55, 256;
+    the hyperradiant method, 38-39;
+    lenses, 40;
+    clockwork mechanism, 43-44;
+    the incandescent mantle, 48;
+    works carried out by, 53, 222
+
+  Channel Islands coastline, 269
+
+  Charles, Cape, 200
+
+  Chatham Island, 239
+
+  _Chauffer_, the, 4-6
+
+  Chesapeake Bay lights, 199, 200, 308
+
+  Chicken Rock light, 9, 94, 238
+
+  China, coast-lighting, 258-59
+
+  Clear, Cape, 121
+
+  Coffin Island, 171
+
+  Cohasset Rocks, 177
+
+  Colchester Reef lighthouse, 210, 216
+
+  Colfax: “Miss Colfax’s light,” 315-16
+
+  Collinson, Sir Richard, rocket system invented by, 58-59
+
+  “Colossus,” the Rothersand caisson, 138-9
+
+  Colton family, the, 170
+
+  Columbia River, 183, 184, 185
+
+  Colza oil as illuminant, 46, 47
+
+  Concrete, reinforced, use of, 18, 174
+
+  Cook’s Strait, 233, 234, 237
+
+  Cordouan, rocks of, 4
+
+  Cordouan, Tour de, 4-5, 30
+
+  Cornish plunderers of the Wolf Rock, 88
+
+  Corunna lighthouse, 3
+
+  Couedie, Cap de, lighthouse, 55
+
+  Courtenay, whistling device, 290
+
+  Creach, electric light at, 156
+
+
+  Daboll, C. L., invention of the trumpet fog-signal, 59, 60
+
+  Dalén, Gustaf: the sun-valve, 49;
+    system of lighting, 274, 275, 291;
+    unattended lights, 269;
+    honour for, 291 note;
+    experiments, 292-93
+
+  Danger Point, 230
+
+  Darling, Grace, 95, 314
+
+  Daudet, Alphonse, “Phares de Sanguinaires,” 93
+
+  Delaware Bay, 143, 199, 200
+
+  Denmark, coastline, lighting, 48
+
+  Detroit River, Lower, 208
+
+  “Deviline” toy whistle, 61
+
+  Dewey, Admiral, 310
+
+  Dhu-Heartach lighthouse, 9, 107, 113-20, 311
+
+  Diamond Shoal, dangers of, 205-6;
+    the lightship, 251-53
+
+  “Diaphone,” the, 67, 68, 165
+
+  Dieppe, 303-304
+
+  Differential arc, use of, 227-28
+
+  Dioptric system of lighting, 37, 220
+
+  Disappointment Cape lighthouse, 186
+
+  Distances, table of, 52
+
+  “Divergence,” 39
+
+  Dog Island lighthouse, 237
+
+  Doty burner, the, 238
+
+  “Double-shell” principle of construction, 200
+
+  Douglass, Sir James: design for the new Eddystone, 78-80;
+    preservation of the Bishop Rock, 86-87;
+    system of lighting, 223
+
+  Douglass, William, and the Fastnet, 123
+
+  Dover Harbour lightship, 245
+
+  Dover, the pharos at, 3
+
+  Doyle Fort, 271-74
+
+  _Drummond Castle_, wreck, 148
+
+  Dues, lighthouse, 4, 7, 239
+
+  Duluth, 214
+
+  Duncansby Head, 108
+
+  Dunedin, N.Z., 236
+
+  Dungeness light, 94
+
+  Dunkirk, 249
+
+
+  Earraid, 115, 116
+
+  East Cape, N.Z., 236
+
+  East Indies Archipelago, 257
+
+  Eddystone lighthouse: lighting of, 38, 41, 55;
+    fog-signals, 59;
+    description, 72, 82;
+    the Winstanley construction, 73-4;
+    John Rudyerd’s lighthouse, 74, 75, 94;
+    Smeaton’s work, 75, 78, 80;
+    the Douglass tower, 78-80;
+    keepers of, 311
+
+  “Eddystones,” 72
+
+  Edinburgh, Duke of, 79
+
+  Egmont, Cape, 233
+
+  Electricity: as luminant, 50-51, 148, 218, 295-96;
+    used in operation of derrick, 159
+
+  _Eider_ lightship, 249
+
+  Erie, Lake, 208, 216
+
+  Estevan Point light, 174
+
+
+  Fair Isle lighthouse, 39
+
+  “Family of Engineers (A),” 8-9
+
+  Faraday, Professor, 218
+
+  Farallon Beacon, 205
+
+  Farallon Isles, fog-signalling on, 63
+
+  Farne Islands, 95, 314
+
+  Faro, the, 3
+
+  Fastnet lighthouse, 121-31;
+    lighting, 41;
+    keepers, 311
+
+  Ferro-concrete, use in construction, 18-19
+
+  _Feu-éclair_, the, 56
+
+  Finisterre, Cape, 3;
+    the Ar-men light, 20-24
+
+  Fire Island lighthouse, 250
+
+  Fire Island lightship, 240, 242, 250
+
+  Fisher’s Island Sound, 203
+
+  Flamborough Head light, 95
+
+  Flannen Islands lighthouse, 9, 113;
+    disappearance of keepers, 313-14
+
+  Flat Holme light, the, 7
+
+  Florida coastline, 201
+
+  “Focal point,” 39
+
+  Fog-signals: discharge of guns, 57-58;
+    rockets, 58-59;
+    explosion of gun-cotton, 59;
+    the Daboll trumpet, 59-60;
+    the siren, 60-62;
+    blowing-holes, 62-63;
+    installation on Ailsa Crag, 63-66;
+    diaphone on Ailsa Crag, 66-68;
+    the acetylene gun, 68-71;
+    diaphone at Cape Race, 165;
+    Belle Ile diaphone, 170
+
+  Foix, Louis de, 4-5, 8
+
+  _Forfarshire_, the, 95, 314
+
+  Forteau Bay, 169
+
+  Forth, Firth of, lighthouses in, 7, 218-19
+
+  Fourteen Foot Bank, 132, 143-47
+
+  Foveaux Strait, 237
+
+  Fowey Rocks lights, 201-3
+
+  French coast: lighting of, 148;
+    lightships, 243, 249
+
+  French Lighthouse Commission (1811), 29
+
+  Fresnel, Augustin: system of lighting, 28, 33, 286;
+    adopted by the United States, 36
+
+
+  Gap Rock lighthouse and signal-station, 264
+
+  Gas Accumulator Company, of Stockholm, 49, 274, 291
+
+  Gas as illuminant, the incandescent mantle, 47-48
+
+  Gasfeten tower, 274
+
+  Gedney’s Channel, lighting of, 295-96
+
+  General Superintendent of Lights, office of, 197-98
+
+  Georgian Bay, 216
+
+  Gerholmen light-boat, 294
+
+  Germany: coastline of, lighting, 48, 50-51;
+    the lightship service, 249-50
+
+  Gironde lighthouse, 19
+
+  Gironde, the, rocks of the estuary, 3-4
+
+  Goodwin Sands, 205, 240, 244-45, 248
+
+  Grand Banks, the, 163
+
+  Grande Braye Rock, 296
+
+  Grand Trunk Pacific, 173
+
+  Granite, use of, 18
+
+  Great Lakes of North America: lighting of the, 27, 173, 208-17;
+    Lighthouse Board, control of, 206;
+    floating lighthouses, 286
+
+  Green Cape lighthouse, 232-33
+
+  “Grouting,” 27
+
+  Guantanamo Bay, 308
+
+  Guernsey coast lighthouse, 9, 16;
+    unattended lights, 269
+
+  Gun-cotton, explosion of, 58, 59
+
+
+  Halifax Harbour: lights, 192;
+    the “Outer Automatic,” 290
+
+  Halpin, George, the Fastnet lighthouse, 121-23, 129
+
+  Hand Deeps, 79
+
+  Hanois lighthouse, 16
+
+  Hargreaves, Riley and Co., 260
+
+  Harkort, Society of, Duisburg, 133-34:
+    the Rothersand contract, 136-43
+
+  Hatteras, Cape: coastline, 147, 251-53;
+    sandbanks, 205-6, 240
+
+  Hauraki Gulf, 238
+
+  Hawaiian Islands, 206
+
+  Hebrides, lighthouses of the, 112, 313
+
+  Heligoland lighthouse, 133, 218;
+    use of the rocket system, 59;
+    the electric installation, 224-26
+
+  Hellespont, Sigeum lighthouse, 2
+
+  Henlopen Cape, light, 199
+
+  Hennebique system, 260
+
+  Henry, Cape, lighthouse, 20, 199-200
+
+  Héve, Cape, lighthouse, 218, 219
+
+  _Hinemoa_, New Zealand Government steamer, 235, 236, 238
+
+  Hoheweg lighthouse, 138
+
+  Hole-in-the-Wall, Vancouver, 174
+
+  Holland coastline, 48
+
+  Holmes, Professor, fog-horns, 60-62, 64, 66, 218
+
+  Holophotal revolving apparatus, 33
+
+  Hong-Kong, 264
+
+  “Hoo-doo,” 91
+
+  Horaine, plateau of, 153-56
+
+  Horn, Cape, 268
+
+  Hornum light, the electric installation, 226-28
+
+  Howe, Cape, 230, 232
+
+  _Huddart Parker_, liner, wreck, 236
+
+  Hudson Bay coastline, 268
+
+  Hugo, Victor, “The Toilers of the Sea,” 269
+
+  Hunting Island tower, South Carolina, 19-20
+
+  Huron, Lake, 211
+
+  Hynish harbour, 107
+
+  “Hyperradiant,” the, 37, 41;
+    the quicksilver trough, 42-43
+
+
+  “Ice-breakers,” 201
+
+  “Ice-stoves,” 200-201, 210
+
+  Inchcape. _See_ Bell Rock
+
+  Ingrey, Charles, scheme for Ailsa Crag, 64, 66
+
+  Invercargill, 237
+
+  Iona, 100
+
+  Ireland, Congested Districts Board beacons, 282-83
+
+  Irish lights, Commissioners of, 7;
+    the Fastnet, 123, 127
+
+  Iron, use in construction, 19-20
+
+  Islay, 298
+
+
+  Jamaica coastline, lighting, 283
+
+  Japan, coastline, lighthouses, 9-10, 257-58
+
+  Java, 257
+
+  Jersey coastline, 243
+
+  Jument of Ushant, 156, 160
+
+
+  Karachi, unattended light, 281
+
+  Kavanagh, James, the Fastnet, 125, 128
+
+  “Kingdom of Heaven,” 92
+
+
+  Labrador coastline, 169, 268
+
+  Lagerholmen lighthouse, 278
+
+  Lampaul, Bay of, 157
+
+  Land’s End coastline, 247
+
+  Lard-oil as fuel, 46, 47
+
+  Leasowe lighthouse, 16;
+    fire at, 309
+
+  Lenses, preparation, 39, 40
+
+  Lewes, Delaware, 144
+
+  Lewis, Isle of, 113
+
+  Lewis, Winslow, invention of, 34, 35
+
+  “Light-boats,” 294
+
+  Lighthouse Board, U.S.A., 178-79
+
+  Lighthouse dues, origin, 4, 7;
+    levy of, 7, 239
+
+  Lighthouse Literature Mission, 306
+
+  Lighthouses, construction of, 174;
+    wooden towers, 198;
+    electric, of the world, 218-28;
+    unattended, 267-83;
+    floating, 284-300
+
+  Lighting: candles, 33;
+    Fresnel system, 28-33;
+    holophotal revolving apparatus, 33;
+    hyperradiants, 33-41;
+    sperm-oil, 46;
+    colza-oil, 46-47;
+    lard-oil, 46, 47;
+    petroleum, 47-48, 296-98;
+    paraffin, 47-48;
+    oil-gas, 48-49, 296;
+    various gases, 49-50;
+    electric lighting, 50-51, 148, 295-96;
+    acetylene system, 69-71, 238, 291
+
+  Light-keepers, life of the, 301-17
+
+  Lights: wood or coal in open braziers, 28;
+    tallow candles, 28;
+    indentification of, 32;
+    classification of, 37, 44-45;
+    “divergence,” 39;
+    focal point, 39;
+    white and coloured, 45-46;
+    candle-power, 51, 53;
+    subsidiary, 53-55;
+    duration of flash in revolving, 55-56
+
+  Lightships: the Stevenson unattended, 70;
+    maintenance of, 240-41;
+    description, 241-42;
+    the Minquiers light, 243-44;
+    average crew for, 244-45;
+    incidents, 244-55;
+    illuminating apparatus, 255-57
+
+  “Light valve,” the Dalén, 275-78
+
+  Lipson’s Reef, 55
+
+  Little Brewster Island lighthouse, 196-197
+
+  Lizard Head, 72, 82, 94
+
+  Lizard lighthouse, 94, 218
+
+  Lloyd’s, signalling-station at the Fastnet, 131
+
+  Longfellow, lines to Minot’s Ledge light, 176
+
+  Longships light, 82, 92, 311
+
+  Longstones lighthouse, 95, 314
+
+  Louis XIV. and the Eddystone, 75
+
+  Lundy Island, 92
+
+  _Lupata_, sailing-ship, wreck, 183
+
+  _Lusitania_, French emigrant steamer, wreck, 164
+
+  _Ly-ce-moon_, steamer, wreck, 233
+
+
+  Mackinac, Strait of, 211
+
+  Macquarie, tower, 231
+
+  Magellan, Straits of, 268;
+    unattended lighthouses, 274-75
+
+  Malacca Straits lighthouse, 257;
+    One Fathom Bank, 259-64
+
+  Malay Peninsula, 257
+
+  _Malcolm Baxter Junior_, schooner, collision with the lighthouse, 308
+
+  Man, Isle of, Chicken Rock light, 94
+
+  Manacles, wrecks on the, 7
+
+  Manilla, 310
+
+  Manora breakwater, the Wigham light, 281
+
+  Manora Point light, Karachi, 39-41
+
+  Maria Van Diemen, Cape, lighthouse, 237, 238
+
+  Marine and Fisheries, Department of, Canada, 171
+
+  Marine Department, New Zealand, 233
+
+  Matthews, Sir Thomas, 26;
+    light designed by, 278-79, 299
+
+  May, Isle of, lighthouse, 7, 218-23
+
+  _Megantic_, White Star liner, 313
+
+  Meldrum, Sir John, the North Foreland lighthouse, 81
+
+  Mendocino, Cape, lighthouse, 204-5
+
+  Ménier, Henri, 171
+
+  Mercury float, the, 42, 43, 56
+
+  Meriten (De), dynamos, 221, 223
+
+  Mersey lightship, 240
+
+  Mew Island lighthouse, 38, 41
+
+  Mexico, Gulf of, coastline, 201
+
+  Michigan City Harbour light, 315-16
+
+  Michigan Lake, lighting of, 208, 211, 214, 215, 217
+
+  Minches, the, 112, 113
+
+  _Minnehaha_, wreck of the, 82, 83
+
+  Minot’s Ledge light, 11, 74, 204;
+    Captain Swift’s tower, 176-78;
+    General Barnard’s structure, 178-82
+
+  Minquiers lightship, 243-44
+
+  _Mohegan_ wreck, 7
+
+  Moko Hinou, 238
+
+  Monach Island light, 113
+
+  “Monolithic” method of construction, 16-19
+
+  Montagu Island lighthouse, 30-31
+
+  Monterey Bay, 315
+
+  Morocco, Cape Spartel light, 207
+
+  Moye system of lighting, 69
+
+  Muckle Flugga, 109-112
+
+  Mull, Isle of, 102, 115
+
+  Mull of Kintyre, 108
+
+  Murray, Hon. A., 260
+
+
+  Nantucket Shoals lightship, 250
+
+  Navesink lighthouse, 51, 218
+
+  Needles light, the, 94
+
+  New Jersey coastline, 218
+
+  New London, Connecticut, Race Rock lighthouse, 203-4
+
+  New South Wales, lighthouses of, 230, 231, 232-33
+
+  New York Harbour: lighting, 218, 295;
+    lightships, 251
+
+  New Zealand: system of lighting, 33;
+    lighthouses of, 229-30, 233-35;
+    the lighthouse-keepers, 235;
+    unattended lighthouses, 268
+
+  Newfoundland coastline, 162, 169
+
+  Newhaven, 303
+
+  “No. 87” lightship, 251
+
+  Norah Head lighthouse, 232
+
+  Norderney lightship, 242, 249
+
+  Nore lightship, 240, 242, 245
+
+  _Norge_ liner, wreck, 299
+
+  Norman Cape light, 169
+
+  North Cape, New Zealand, lighthouse, 237, 238
+
+  North Foreland light, 81
+
+  North German Lloyd Atlantic liners, 132, 137
+
+  North Island, New Zealand, coastline, 233
+
+  North Ronaldshay lighthouse, 33
+
+  North Unst lighthouse, 9, 109, 110-12
+
+  Northern lighthouses, Commissioners of, 8-10, 37, 63, 64, 94, 96,
+          100-02, 105, 109, 114, 219
+
+  North-West lightship (Mersey), 240
+
+  Nova Scotia: Sable Island lighthouse, 166;
+    floating lighthouses, 285, 290
+
+  Nuremberg, tests carried out at, 225-26
+
+
+  Oil-gas, compressed, use of, 48, 296
+
+  One Fathom Bank lighthouse, 259-64
+
+  “One-tenth flash,” 294
+
+  Ontario Lake, 217
+
+  Oregon coastline, 13, 195
+
+  Orkneys coastline, 108, 109
+
+  Otter Rock lightship, 9, 297-99
+
+  Ouessant, Ile d’. _See_ Ushant
+
+  “Outer Automatic,” Halifax Harbour, 290
+
+  Outer Diamond Shoal lightship, 147
+
+  Outer Minot light, 177, 178
+
+
+  Panama Canal, unattended lighthouses, 277
+
+  “Panels,” system of dividing the light by, 31-32
+
+  Paraffin, use of, 47
+
+  Paris Exhibition of 1867, 61
+
+  _Paris_, wreck of the, 7
+
+  Parry sound, 216
+
+  Patents granted for upkeep of beacons, 5-6
+
+  Pei Yu-Shan lighthouse, 39
+
+  Pencarrow Head lighthouse, 234
+
+  Pentland Firth, 108
+
+  Pentland Skerries light, 109
+
+  Petroleum gas, use of, 47, 48, 279, 296-98
+
+  _Phare_, the term, 3
+
+  _Phares, Service des_, 19, 148, 219
+
+  _Pharos_, constructional vessel, 110
+
+  Pharos, the, Dover, 3;
+    of Alexandria, 2-3
+
+  Philippines coastline, 206
+
+  Phœnicians, beacons erected by the, 3
+
+  Pilgrim Fathers, the, and lighthouses, 6
+
+  Pilotage, Board of, Sweden, experiments with acetylene, 292, 293-94
+
+  Pino Point lighthouse, 315
+
+  Pladda, Island of, 64
+
+  Planier lighthouse, 219
+
+  Platte Fougère, land-controlled station of, 269-74, 283
+
+  Pleasanton, Stephen, 197-98
+
+  Plenty, Bay of, 236
+
+  Plymouth Harbour, 72
+
+  Plymouth Hoe, 80
+
+  Poe, General O. M., Spectacle Reef lighthouse, 211-14
+
+  Portland Canal, 173
+
+  Portland, Duke of, lighthouse on the Isle of Man, 7
+
+  Portland stone, used for building Eddystone, 76
+
+  Port of Dublin Corporation, 121
+
+  Potomac, ice-shores of the, 200-201
+
+  Potron, Charles Eugène, generosity of, 157, 159-60
+
+  Prince Rupert, port of, 173, 284
+
+  Pulsometer Engineering Company, Reading, 66
+
+  Punta Gorda light-station, 311
+
+  Puysegur Point, 237
+
+
+  Queenstown harbour floating light, 297
+
+
+  Race, Cape, lighthouse, 39, 43;
+    the lens, 40-41;
+    clockwork mechanism, 43;
+    fog-signalling apparatus, 67;
+    dangers of, 162-64;
+    the first beacon, 164-65;
+    the new beacon, 165
+
+  Race Rock lighthouse, 203-4
+
+  Ralph the Rover, 96
+
+  Rame Head, 72
+
+  Rathlin light, 313
+
+  Rattray Briggs lighthouse, 9
+
+  Ray, Cape, 164
+
+  Red Rock lighthouse, 210, 216
+
+  Red Sea lighthouses, 311
+
+  Rennie, John, the Bell Rock light, 97
+
+  Reyes Point, 205
+
+  Reynaud, Léonce, tower on the Heaux de Bréhat, 149-53
+
+  Rhins of Islay, 113
+
+  Ribière, 8
+
+  Rock Island, 124
+
+  Rock of Ages lighthouse, 210, 214-15, 216
+
+  Rockall, the, 299-300
+
+  Rockets, use of, 58-59
+
+  Rose of Mull, the, 113
+
+  Rothersand lighthouse, 11, 218;
+    the first attempt, 132-36;
+    work of the Society Harkort, 136-43
+
+  Round Island lighthouse, 39
+
+  Royale, Isle, 214
+
+  Rudyerd, John, the Eddystone lighthouse, 74, 75, 92-93
+
+  Russell Channel, the, 269-70
+
+  Russian lighthouse authorities, 18
+
+  Rutingen lightship, 242, 249
+
+
+  Sable Island, 162;
+    description, 165-66;
+    lighthouses and chief station, 166-67;
+    the west end light, 167-68;
+    the east end light, 168
+
+  St. Agnes light, 81
+
+  St. Catherine’s Downs, 223
+
+  St. Catherine’s lighthouse, 55, 94, 218;
+    the electric installation, 223-24
+
+  St. Clair, Lake, 208
+
+  St. David’s Head, 92
+
+  St. John’s, Newfoundland, 164
+
+  St. Kilda, 300
+
+  St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 163;
+    dangers, 171
+
+  St. Lawrence River:
+    fog-signalling apparatus, 66-68;
+    entrance, 162;
+    the ice, 172;
+    lighting of the, 172-73
+
+  St. Malo Harbour, 243
+
+  St. Mary’s, 85
+
+  St. Peter Port lighthouse, 269-70
+
+  Sambro Island lighthouse, 162
+
+  Samoan Islands, American, controlled by the Lighthouse Board, 206
+
+  San Francisco: bay, 63;
+    coastline, 205
+
+  Sand, lighthouses built on, 132-47
+
+  Sandbanks, signposts of the, 240-56
+
+  Sandy Hook lighthouse, 199, 295
+
+  Sarnia, 216
+
+  _Salara_, the, wreck, 232-33
+
+  Sault Ste. Marie, 216
+
+  Scammon’s Harbour, 212
+
+  _Schiller_, German packet, wreck of, 86
+
+  Schukert, 225
+
+  Scilly Island, 81, 82, 247
+
+  Scotland: lighting, 50;
+    sea-rock lights of, 96;
+    the coastline, 108
+
+  _Scotsman_, Dominion liner, 171
+
+  Scott, C. W., and the Fastnet, 123-24, 129
+
+  Scott, Sir Walter, _quoted_, 100, 101
+
+  “Screw-pile lighthouses,” 19, 83, 200-203, 261-62
+
+  Sea-rock lighthouses, construction, 20 _et seq._
+
+  Serrin-Berjot lamps, 221-23
+
+  Seven Hunters. _See_ Flannen Islands
+
+  Seven Stones lightship, 242, 248-49
+
+  Seven Wonders of the world, 2
+
+  Shark-catching, 311-12
+
+  Sherman, General, 211
+
+  Shetlands coastline, 108-109
+
+  Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 82
+
+  Sigeum lighthouse, on the Hellespont, 2
+
+  Singapore, 257
+
+  Siren, the, developments, 59-60, 159
+
+  Skerries light, 94
+
+  Skerryvore lighthouse, 11, 59, 100-107, 113, 311
+
+  Slave-running, 312
+
+  Slight, Mr., the modern siren, 62
+
+  Smalls, The, 92-93
+
+  Smeaton, John, the Eddystone lighthouse, 8, 75-78, 80
+
+  _Smeaton_, the, 97-99
+
+  Smith, Thomas, 9, 219
+
+  Solent, the, 94
+
+  Sound, aberration of, 68
+
+  South Carolina, lighthouses of, 19-20
+
+  South Foreland lighthouse: lighting, 38, 95;
+    electricity adopted, 218-19;
+    keepers of the, 314
+
+  South Island, N.Z., coastline, 237
+
+  South Solitary Island lighthouse, 230, 231
+
+  South Stock light, 94
+
+  Southey, ballad of the Bell Rock, 96
+
+  Spain, early beacons, 3
+
+  Spartel Cape lighthouse, 207, 300
+
+  Spectacle Reef lighthouse, 74, 210-14, 215-16
+
+  Sperm-oil, as luminant, 46
+
+  “Spider-web braces,” 201
+
+  Spurn Point lighthouse, 38-39
+
+  Standard Oil Co., 282
+
+  Stannard’s Rock lighthouse, 214, 216
+
+  Start Point, 94
+
+  Stephens Island, 233
+
+  Stevenson, Alan: “Skerryvore,” 9, 100-107;
+    improvements in lighting, 32-33;
+    table of distances by, 51-52
+
+  Stevenson, Charles, 9
+
+  Stevenson, David, “North Unst,” 9
+
+  Stevenson, David and Charles: the acetylene gun, 68-71;
+    the unattended light, 269;
+    the Platte Fougère fog-signal, 270-71;
+    the Otter Rock light, 297;
+    scheme for Rockall, 300
+
+  Stevenson, David and Thomas: works carried out by, 15, 53;
+    the Chicken Rock light, 94;
+    building of the Dhu-Heartach, 114-20
+
+  Stevenson, family of engineers: preeminence of, 8-10;
+    systems of lighting, 36-38;
+    adoption of electricity, 219-22;
+    work in Japan, 258;
+    characteristics, 305
+
+  Stevenson, George, and the Fastnet, 122
+
+  Stevenson, Robert, and the Bell Rock lighthouse, 9, 97-100;
+    Skerryvore, 101
+
+  Stevenson, Robert Louis, “A Family of Engineers,” 8-9
+
+  Stevenson, Thomas, 9, 222
+
+  Stewart Island, 237
+
+  Stornoway lighthouse, lighting, 53-54
+
+  Strain, Samuel H., 306
+
+  Subsidiary lights, 53-55
+
+  Suez, 312
+
+  Sugar-Loaf Point lighthouse, 232
+
+  Sule Skerry lighthouse, 9, 39
+
+  Sumatra, 257
+
+  “Sun-valve,” the Dalén, 275-78
+
+  Superior, Lake, lighting of, 214, 216, 217
+
+  Sweden: floating lighthouses, 291;
+    unattended lighthouses, 277-82
+
+  Swift, Captain W. H., the Minot’s Ledge light, 176-78, 182
+
+  Sydney lighthouse. _See_ Macquarie Tower
+
+
+  _Tararua_, steamship, wreck of the, 236, 237
+
+  Tay, Firth of, 96
+
+  Terawhiti, Cape, 238
+
+  Thames lightships, 240-41
+
+  Thomas, O. P., 260
+
+  Three Kings Rock, 236
+
+  Tierra del Fuego, 268
+
+  Tillamook Head, 183
+
+  Tillamook Rock lighthouse, 13-15, 183-95, 204;
+    the keepers, 307-8
+
+  Tiri-Tiri Island lighthouse, 236-38
+
+  Torrain Rocks, 113
+
+  Tory Island lighthouse, 39
+
+  Trade, Board of:
+    collection of light dues, 7-8;
+    and the siren, 61;
+    Mr. Ingrey’s scheme, 64;
+    adoption of electricity, 219
+
+  Trewavas, John R., death of, 14-15
+
+  Triangle Island, British Columbia, light, 174
+
+  Trinity House Brethren: purchase of patents, 6;
+    maintenance of English lights, 7, 26;
+    adoption of the Daboll trumpet, 60;
+    and the Eddystone, 77;
+    and the Wolf Rock, 88-89;
+    and the Whiteside light, 93;
+    and the Fastnet, 122;
+    adoption of electricity, 218, 223;
+    the light on the Seven Stones, 248
+
+  Trinity House Museum: Smeaton’s clock, 76-77;
+    Bishop Rock fog-bell, 85-86
+
+  _Triumph_, steamship, wreck, 236
+
+  Tyndall, Professor, 59
+
+  Tyree, island of, 100, 102, 105, 107
+
+
+  United States Corps of Engineers, 63, 198
+
+  United States Lighthouse Board, 13 36, 195;
+    coastline lighting, 20, 196-207;
+    methods of lighting, 46-47;
+    inauguration, 198;
+    extent of control 206-7;
+    lighting of the Great Lakes, 208-17;
+    lightship service, 255;
+    adoption of the Aga light, 294-95
+
+  United States Typographical Engineers, 176
+
+  Unst, island of, 112
+
+  Ushant, 148, 156, 157
+
+  Ushant Island, 158
+
+
+  Vancouver, 173;
+    coastline, 284
+
+  Vancouver Island, 174
+
+  Victoria, 173
+
+  _Victoria_, steamer, wreck, 303-4
+
+
+  Waipapapa Point lighthouse, 236, 237
+
+  Walker, James, 8;
+    Bishop Rock light, 84-5
+
+  Wanganui, N.Z., 233
+
+  Water-gas, 48
+
+  Wellington, N.Z., 233-4
+
+  Weser River estuary, 132
+
+  West Indies lighthouses, 309
+
+  White ant, ravages of the, 264-66
+
+  White Shoal lighthouse, 215, 216
+
+  Whiteside light, 92, 93
+
+  Whistles on lighthouses, 58
+
+  Wigham light, 279-280, 282, 296-97
+
+  Willson, Mr. Thomas: the acetylene automatic light, 285-89, 291, 294
+
+  _Winchelsea_, wreck of the, 72, 74
+
+  Windward Point, Cuba, 308
+
+  Winstanley, Henry: the Eddystone lighthouse, 73
+
+  Wireless installation: on the Fastnet, 131;
+    station, Sable Island, 167;
+    Belle Ile, Southern Point, 170;
+    the Eider lightship, 249
+
+  Wirral, 16, 309
+
+  Wolf Rock lighthouse, 14;
+    blowing holes, 63, 87-92;
+    relief, 311
+
+  Women as lighthouse-keepers, 314-15
+
+  Wrath, Cape, 112
+
+  Wreckers of the Wolf Rock, 88;
+    Chinese, 258-59
+
+
+BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
+predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
+changed.
+
+Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
+quotation marks retained.
+
+Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
+
+Index not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page references.
+
+Ditto marks in the Index have been replaced by the actual text.
+
+Empty, featureless areas along the side(s) of some illustrations have
+been removed by Transcriber. This allowed those illustrations to be
+shown larger and with greater detail.
+
+Page 233: “Ly-ce-moon” likely is a misprint for “Ly-ee-moon”.
+
+
+
+
+(http://mormontextsproject.org), with thanks to Trevor
+Nysetvold for proofreading.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEFENSE OF THE FAITH
+
+AND THE SAINTS
+
+
+BY
+
+B. H. ROBERTS
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"The Gospel"
+
+"Outlines of Ecclesiastical History"
+
+"New Witness for God"
+
+"Mormon Doctrine of Deity"
+
+Etc., Etc.
+
+VOLUME II.
+
+
+Salt Lake City
+
+1912
+
+
+
+GENERAL FOREWORD
+
+No word of Preface is necessary to this Volume, except to say that
+in presenting it to his readers, the author feels that that he is
+fulfilling a promise made to them when Volume I of the series was
+issued.
+
+A word of explanation will be found as an introduction to each
+subdivision of the book, which excludes the necessity of making any
+reference to such subdivisions in this General Forward.
+
+THE AUTHOR.
+
+Salt Lake City, January, 1912.
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+GENERAL FOREWORD
+
+
+Part I.
+
+ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.
+
+Schroeder-Roberts' Debate.
+
+Foreword.
+
+The Appearing of Moroni.
+
+The Book of Mormon.
+
+Description of the Nephite Record.
+
+THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.
+
+By Theodore Schroeder.
+
+I.
+
+Solomon Spaulding and his first manuscript.
+
+Spaulding's rewritten manuscript.
+
+Erroneous theories examined.
+
+II.
+
+How about Sidney Rigdon?
+
+Rigdon's prior religious dishonesty.
+
+Rigdon had opportunity to steal the manuscript.
+
+Rigdon's only denial analyzed.
+
+Rigdon and Lambdin in 1815.
+
+Rigdon exhibits Spaulding's manuscript.
+
+Rigdon foreknows the coming and contents of the Book of Mormon.
+
+III.
+
+From Rigdon to Smith via P. P. Pratt.
+
+Rigdon visits Smith before Mormonism.
+
+The conversion of Parley P. Pratt.
+
+Rigdon's miraculous conversion.
+
+The plagiarism clinched.
+
+IV.
+
+For the love of gold, not God.
+
+Concluding comment.
+
+THE ORIGIN OF THE BOOK OF MORMON.
+
+By Brigham H. Roberts.
+
+I.
+
+Justifications for replying to Mr. Schroeder.
+
+Preliminary considerations.
+
+Various classes of witnesses.
+
+Conflicting theories of origin.
+
+Mr. Schroeder's statement of his case.
+
+The facts of the Spaulding manuscript.
+
+The task of the present writer.
+
+The enemies of the Prophet.
+
+"Dr." Philastus Hurlburt.
+
+Rev. Adamson Bently, et al.
+
+II.
+
+The "second" Spaulding manuscript.
+
+The failure of Howe's book.
+
+The Conneaut witnesses.
+
+E. D. Howe discredited as a witness.
+
+The Davidson statement.
+
+Alleged statement of Mrs. Davidson, formerly the wife of Solomon
+Spaulding.
+
+The Haven-Davidson interview.
+
+Mrs. Ellen E. Dickinson's repudiation of the Davidson statement.
+
+Reverend John A. Clark and the Davidson statement.
+
+Mutilation of the Haven-Davidson interview.
+
+Mr. Schroeder and the Davidson statement.
+
+Why Mr. Schroeder discredits the Spaulding witnesses.
+
+III.
+
+The connection of Sidney Rigdon with the Spaulding manuscript.
+
+Of Rigdon's alleged "religious dishonesty."
+
+Rigdon's opportunity to steal Spaulding's manuscript.
+
+Did Rigdon exhibit the Spaulding manuscript.
+
+Did Rigdon foreknown the coming and contents of the Book of Mormon?
+
+Alexander Campbell and the Book of Mormon in 1831.
+      {Morning}                                                  553-555
+      {Evening}                                                  556-557
+      General                                                    558-574
+
+
+                                BOOK FIVE
+  METRICAL PSALMS                                                575-600
+
+
+                                 BOOK SIX
+  RESPONSES, CHANTS, DOXOLOGIES, AND AMENS
+      {Responses}                                                601-609
+      {The Lord’s Prayer}                                            610
+      {Offertories}                                              611-612
+      {Benedictions}                                             613-614
+      {Doxologies}                                               615-618
+      {Amens}                                                    619-623
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+  PRINCIPAL WORKS CONSULTED                                          395
+
+
+                                 INDEXES
+  (1) Index of Scripture Texts                                       400
+  (2) Topical Index of the Metrical Psalms                           402
+  (3) Composers and Sources of Tunes                                 402
+  (4) Authors, Translators and Sources                               407
+  (5) Alphabetical Index of Tunes                                    412
+  (6) Original First Lines of Translations                           417
+  (7) Index of First Lines                                           419
+
+
+
+
+                                PREFACE
+
+
+The aim of this book is to serve as a companion to the _Mennonite
+Hymnary_. It seeks to explain, as far as possible, the origin of the
+words and music of every hymn in the _Hymnary_.
+
+The great lyrics of the church, contributed by every age since the days
+of the apostles, are a precious heritage, and a source of inspiration
+and power. This work is intended to foster an understanding of and love
+for our hymns, new and old, and to stimulate the time-honored and
+blessed practice of congregational singing in the church today.
+
+The _Handbook_ may be found useful as an aid (1) in the private study of
+hymns or their use in family devotions; (2) in selecting suitable hymns
+for the many and varied services of public worship; (3) in preparing
+special music services or hymn sings where such occasions are planned to
+improve the singing in the church; (4) for study groups in hymnology in
+churches and schools. The historical development of hymnology may be
+followed in the brief “Introduction to Our Hymns and Tunes.”
+
+The author has endeavored to make the work as comprehensive as possible
+without overburdening the reader with too many details. Many hymns have
+interesting stories connected with their origin and use while others,
+equally valuable, were just written, without drama or incident, the poet
+scarcely knowing how or why, except that the Inner Voice spoke. The
+apocryphal tales which have been circulated concerning some hymns have
+been studiously avoided. The aim has been to include only such material
+as seems to bear genuine marks of authenticity. The bibliography of
+“Principal Works Consulted,” found elsewhere in the book, indicates the
+main sources.
+
+The original versions of translated hymns are not always readily
+available and for that reason they are reproduced in the _Handbook_.
+Translated hymns are usually selections from a much larger number of
+stanzas and it is often instructive to be able to study the whole
+structure of the original work.
+
+_Acknowledgements._ I wish to acknowledge valuable help received from
+the following and to express hereby my gratitude to them: to Dr. Robert
+McCutchan, author of _Our Hymnody_, who generously responded to my
+request for information on a dozen or more hymns on which I had no data;
+to Dr. Henry Wilder Foote, of Harvard University, author of _Three
+Centuries of American Hymnody_, for biographical material on several
+hymn writers, and the use of books from his private library; to Dr.
+Reginald McAll, Executive Secretary of the Hymn Society of America for
+helpful material; to Dr. Ruth Messenger, Archivist for the Hymn Society
+of America, who furnished nearly all the Latin originals, and the
+Italian original of Savonarola’s hymn, and information concerning these
+hymns; to Dr. Armin Heussler, author of a forth-coming handbook to the
+_Evangelical hymnal_, for material on several of the chorales; to Wm.
+Runyan of the Hope Publishing Company, and to Dr. John Trowbridge of the
+Bible Institute of Los Angeles, for information concerning several of
+the gospel songs; to Dr. Cornelius Krahn who made the rich hymnic
+treasures of the Mennonite Historical Library at Bethel College
+available to me; to the late Rev. C. E. Krehbiel who loaned me material
+from his private library for this work but did not live to see its
+completion; to B. Bargen for help in preparing the manuscript for
+publication; to Mrs. Beatrice Buller for reading the manuscripts and
+proofs of the German chorales; to my wife, Charity Steiner Hostetler,
+who read all the manuscripts and proofs and whose constant interest and
+assistance were indispensable; and to others, too numerous to mention,
+who in any way facilitated the completion of the work.
+
+The book, written during spare moments of a busy pastorate, is sent
+forth with the prayer that, in spite of errors and imperfections, it may
+inspire all who use it to sing with greater devotion the praises of Him
+who loved us and redeemed us.
+
+                                                        Lester Hostetler
+
+  The Parsonage
+  Bethel College Mennonite Church
+  North Newton, Kansas
+  January 20, 1949
+
+
+
+
+                           EXPLANATORY NOTES
+
+
+In the interest of brevity and to avoid repetition, certain recurring
+words are abbreviated:
+
+_Hymnary_ is used for _Mennonite Hymnary_.
+
+_c._ (_circa_) means approximate date.
+
+_Tr._ is prefixed to the names of all translators.
+
+_Anon._ (anonymous) means without any name acknowledged, as that of
+author or composer.
+
+The word “Number” has been omitted: thus Hymn 22 means Hymn No. 22.
+
+_Cf._ means compare. (Latin: confer).
+
+The original texts of German hymns found throughout the _Handbook_,
+especially in the section of Chorales, Book IV, are the versions used in
+one or more of the following works: _Gesangbuch mit Noten_, (Berne,
+Ind., 1890); _Gesangbuch der Mennoniten_, (Canadian, 1942); _The
+Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal_, (Concordia Pub. House, 1942);
+_Gesangbuch zum gottesdienstlichen und häuslichen Gebrauch in
+Evangelischen Mennoniten-Gemeinden_, (Konferenz der süddeutschen
+Mennoniten zu Ludwigshafen a. Rh. 1910); and Knapp, _Evangelischer
+Liederschatz_. Many variations occur in the texts as found in these
+versions, the explanation of which would require a much greater
+knowledge of German hymnody than the author possesses. An effort has
+been made to bring the spelling into conformity with the modern German
+practice of omitting the “h” where it was formerly used with the “th”;
+the use of “ss” instead of “sz”; and printing the initial letter of the
+pronouns referring to Deity, in lower case rather than with capitals.
+
+
+
+
+                 AN INTRODUCTION TO OUR HYMNS AND TUNES
+
+
+                 With Illustrations From the _Hymnary_
+
+  1. Definition of a Hymn.
+  2. The Beginnings of Christian Song.
+  3. Hymns of the Eastern Church: Greek and Syriac.
+  4. Hymns of the Western Church: Latin.
+  5. Hymns of the Bohemian Brethren.
+  6. Hymns of the Reformation: The German Chorales.
+  7. Hymns of the Reformation: The Metrical Psalms.
+  8. Psalm Versions.
+  9. English Hymnody.
+  10. American Hymns.
+  11. The Gospel Songs.
+  12. Women Hymn Writers.
+  13. Mennonite Hymnody.
+  14. Antecedents of the _Mennonite Hymnary_.
+  15. The Translation of Hymns.
+  16. Church Unity in the Hymn Book.
+  17. Hymn Meters.
+  18. Hymn Tunes.
+  19. John Wesley’s Rules for Singing.
+
+
+                        1. Definition of a Hymn.
+
+St. Augustine, 354-430, gave a definition of a hymn, which has been
+widely accepted:
+
+  A hymn is the praise of God by singing. A hymn is a song embodying the
+  praise of God. If there is merely praise but not praise of God it is
+  not a hymn. If there be praise, and praise of God, but not sung, it is
+  not a hymn. For it to be a hymn, it is needful, therefore, for it to
+  have three things—praise, praise of God, and these sung.
+
+A recent definition, accepted by the Hymn Society of America, is that of
+the late Carl F. Price:
+
+  A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally
+  conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the
+  worshiper’s attitude toward God, or God’s purposes, in human life.
+
+L. F. Benson, America’s foremost hymnologist, defines a hymn in these
+simple words:
+
+  The Christian hymn ... is a form of words appropriate to be sung or
+  chanted in public devotions.
+
+A hymn is to be sung _by a congregation_. Its message must be simple,
+not subtle. It must read well and sing well. In modern usage, the hymn
+is not limited to the praise of God but includes other moods of worship
+such as resignation and consecration.
+
+
+                  2. The Beginnings of Christian Song.
+
+Hymn singing has always been associated with Christian worship. Jesus
+and the Twelve sang a hymn, presumably a portion of the _Hallel_ (Ps.
+115-118), after the Supper was ended. Paul and Silas sang hymns, “songs
+of the night,” during the midnight hours of their imprisonment in
+Philippi. The great Apostle recognized the value of song when he
+exhorted the churches thus:
+
+  Be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns
+  and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the
+  Lord. Eph. 5:18, 19.
+
+  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and
+  admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
+  singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Col. 3:16.
+
+  I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding
+  also. I Cor. 14:15.
+
+The Jewish converts who at first composed the church had a rich heritage
+of song in the Book of Psalms. This was their hymnbook, used in the
+Temple worship and in the home and probably also in the synagogue
+services. The use of the Psalms, carried over from the Jewish service,
+forms to this day an important element in Christian worship.
+
+Besides the Psalms, the early church sang the nativity lyrics that adorn
+the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke. It also made extensive use
+of _Hallelujah_ as a part of the people’s praise, adding, in the course
+of time, the _Gloria Patri_, the _Sanctus_, the _Te Deum_, and other
+canticles.
+
+The nativity hymns in Luke, five in all, are extensively used in Roman
+Catholic and Anglican services.
+
+  _Ave Maria_ (Hail Mary). 1:28-29, 42-45. The salutation of Gabriel and
+  of Elizabeth.
+
+  _Magnificat._ “My soul doth magnify the Lord....” 1:46-55. Hymn of the
+  Virgin Mary.
+
+  _Benedictus._ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel....” 1:68-79. Song of
+  Zacharias.
+
+  _Nunc Dimittis._ “Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.”
+  2:29-32. Song of Simeon.
+
+  _Gloria in excelsis._ “Glory to God in the highest....” 2:14. Song of
+  the Angels. Used as a part of the Roman mass and often found in
+  Protestant hymns, e.g., “Angels we have heard on high” 82.
+
+
+              Beginnings of Christian Song in the Hymnary
+
+  _Psalms._ Book Five. 575-600.
+  _Gloria Patri_ 606-7.
+  _Ter Sanctus_ (_Trisagion_) “Holy, holy, holy” 601-2.
+  _Te Deum._ “Holy God we praise Thy name” 519. A metrical translation
+          of an ancient version.
+
+
+           3. Hymns of the Eastern Church: Greek and Syriac.
+
+The ancient Eastern Church developed a rich hymnody, rising steadily in
+the fourth century until it reached its culmination in the eighth and
+ninth centuries. Since it employed the Greek and Syriac languages, its
+hymnic treasures remained almost completely hidden and unknown to the
+English speaking churches for many centuries. It is only in recent
+years, through the efforts of scholars like John Mason Neale and Edward
+Caswall that some of the Eastern hymns have been translated and made
+available for modern use. Eastern hymns are characterized by an
+objective, dignified, contemplation of God. Except when confessing sin
+and unworthiness, they contain nothing of the subjective feelings of the
+worshipper such as is found in many modern hymns. Though there is very
+little in the _Hymnary_ from the Eastern Church, our collection is
+enriched by the inclusion of a small number of hymns from this source.
+
+
+                       Greek Hymns in the Hymnary
+
+    Clement of Alexandria, 170-220, “Shepherd of tender youth” (398)
+    Candle Lighting Hymn, “O gladsome light” (34)
+    Synesius, c. 375-430, “Lord Jesus, think on me” (196)
+    St. Germanus, 634-734, “A great and mighty wonder” (526)
+    St. John of Damascus, 8th century, “The day of resurrection” (115)
+            “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain” (113)
+    St. Stephen the Sabaite, 725-94, “Art thou weary, heavy-laden” (143)
+    Candle Lighting Hymn, “Darkening night, the land doth” (32)
+
+
+                 4. Hymns of the Western Church: Latin.
+
+Two great names are associated with the music of the Western Church:
+Ambrose, c. 340-97, known as the “Father of Hymnody in the Western
+Church;” and Gregory the Great, 540-604, the missionary-minded pope, and
+reformer of church music.
+
+Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, not only composed hymns and music but
+stimulated others to do the same. Under his leadership there developed a
+large body of church music based upon four scales, which came to be
+known as Ambrosian Chant. Although widely known as a scholar,
+theologian, and preacher, Ambrose’s most lasting influence was upon the
+music of the church. None of his hymns are found in our collection.
+
+Gregory the Great, two centuries later, carried forward the work of
+Ambrose. He added four more scales or modes to the Ambrosian system,
+thus giving to the repertory of church music more definiteness and
+variety. The music that developed during the papacy of Gregory came to
+be known as Gregorian Chant, or plainsong, or plainchant. It is “plain”
+because unadorned, unharmonized and unmeasured. Its rhythm is the free
+rhythm of speech, the beats falling irregularly. The Gregorian Chant
+remained the music of the church for a thousand years and forms the
+basis of all Roman Catholic music today. Some of these chants were
+adapted by Luther for congregational singing, and set to words in the
+vernacular of the people. A few of the tunes, usually in a form scarcely
+recognizable from the original, are used today in Protestant hymnals, as
+for instance, the tune “Hamburg.” Some of the music in the Amish church
+services is traceable to the Gregorian Chant.
+
+The singing in the medieval church was liturgical in character and
+confined to the clergy and trained choirs. This was its weakness. The
+laity was not expected to sing, neither were they able to do so.
+Congregational singing, so important in our worship today, had for
+centuries been unknown in the Roman Catholic Church. Reform was
+inevitable and it came in due time.
+
+While only remnants of the music survive, many hymns from the Western
+Church have been translated from the Latin and a few choice ones have
+found their way into the _Hymnary_.
+
+
+                       Latin Hymns in the Hymnary
+
+    Prudentius, 348-c. 413, “Bethlehem, of noblest cities” (88)
+    Gregory the Great, 540-604, “Father, we praise Thee” (24)
+    Anonymous, 6th or 7th century, “Christ is made the sure” (277)
+            “Joy dawned again on Easterday” (415)
+    Theodulph of Orleans, 9th century, “All glory, laud, and honor”
+          (100)
+    Bernard of Clairvaux, 1091-1153, “Jesus the very thought” (155)
+            “O sacred Head, now wounded” (539)
+    Bernard of Cluny, 12th century, “Jerusalem, the golden” (262-3)
+    Anonymous, 12th century, “O come, O come, Emmanuel” (67)
+    Savonarola, 1452-98 (Italian), “Jesus, Refuge of the weary” (536)
+    Anonymous, 17th-18th centuries, “O come, all ye faithful” (80)
+            “The year is gone beyond recall” (382)
+
+
+                   5. Hymns of the Bohemian Brethren.
+
+The followers of John Hus who came to be known as the Bohemian Brethren,
+and later as the Moravians, were the first Protestant group to introduce
+congregational singing into their worship. They also published the first
+Protestant hymnbooks, one in 1501 and another in 1505, containing 89 and
+400 hymns, respectively, in their native Bohemian tongue. Their efforts
+to introduce congregational singing were sternly opposed by the Roman
+hierarchy. The Council of Constance condemned Hus to be burned at the
+stake and warned his successor, Jacob of Misi, to cease the singing of
+hymns in the churches. It decreed:
+
+  If laymen are forbidden to preach and interpret the Scriptures, much
+  more are they forbidden to sing publicly in the churches.
+
+As a result of their persecution, the Brethren in 1508 sent out
+messengers to search for true Christian people into whose communion they
+might apply for admission—one to Russia, one to Greece, one to Bulgaria,
+and one to Palestine and Egypt. All returned unsuccessful. No such
+Christians had been found. They therefore remained in their own country,
+giving themselves assiduously to the translation and printing of the
+Bible.
+
+In 1522 the Brethren sent two messengers to Luther to greet him and ask
+his advice. Luther became interested in them and welcomed their
+fellowship. He was impressed with the hymnbook the Brethren had
+published, and later used some of the hymns in his own work.
+
+Two centuries later, the Brethren, known now as the Moravians, settled
+on Count Zinzendorf’s estates in Saxony, spreading rapidly from thence
+into other countries in Europe and to the United States. One of
+England’s foremost hymn writers and hymnologists, James Montgomery, was
+an adherent to their faith.
+
+
+          Bohemian Brethren and Moravian Hymns in the Hymnary
+
+    Michael Weisse, 1480-1534, “Christ, the Lord, is ris’n again” (544)
+            Tunes: “Mit Freuden Zart” (512), “Ravenshaw” (292)
+    von Zinzendorf, Nikolaus L., 1700-60, “Jesus, still lead on” (574)
+    von Zinzendorf, Christian R., 1724-62, “Man of sorrows” (537)
+    Henriette Luise von Hayn, 1724-82, “I am Jesus’ little lamb” (430)
+    James Montgomery, 1771-1854, “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed” (65)
+            “Angels from the realms of glory” (81)
+            “Go to dark Gethsemane” (107) and many others
+
+
+           6. Hymns of the Reformation: the German Chorales.
+
+The movement toward congregational singing, inaugurated by the Bohemian
+Brethren, was soon to be merged into the greater Reformation movement.
+Luther’s influence on the worship and music of the church was
+revolutionary. For a thousand years the laymen had had no part in church
+song. Congregational singing was unknown. Ambrosian music had at first
+been introduced for congregational use but it became more and more
+liturgical, thrusting the laity into the background. The Gregorian Chant
+which followed was never intended for use except by the priests and
+trained choirs. The followers of Hus pioneered in congregational
+singing; but it was Luther and his followers who brought it into full
+fruition.
+
+Luther was a born music lover and a musician of adequate training.
+Moreover he possessed a remarkable gift for writing hymns in clear
+thought to bring the Word of God home to the hearts of the common
+people. He and his followers put songs on the lips of the German people
+and they sang themselves into the Reformation. So effective were these
+songs that his enemies in the Roman church declared that “Luther’s songs
+have damned more souls than all his books and speeches.”
+
+_Chorales._ The word “chorale” (“choral” in German) refers to the hymn
+tunes of Lutheran Protestantism, though in common usage the term
+includes the words associated with the tunes. The melodies had much to
+do with the popularity of the songs. They came from various sources.
+Many of them were original compositions by Luther and others; some were
+borrowed from the hymn books of the Bohemian Brethren; a considerable
+number were adaptations of plainsongs used in the Catholic Church; still
+others were adopted from beloved folksongs. Luther was an eclectic in
+his choice of music. He used any tune from any source that suited his
+purpose. Many thousands of chorales came into existence in Germany
+during his time and the two centuries that followed. The hundreds still
+in use represent the best in church music today. They are characterized
+by a plain melody, a strong harmony, and a stately rhythm; all of which
+adapts them well for effective congregational singing.
+
+The chorales at first did not have the regular rhythms that they later
+took on. The steady progression of even notes, invariable in Bach’s day,
+had come only gradually into use. Some of the recent hymnbooks, in the
+interest of greater variety of rhythm, are returning to the original
+“rhythmic chorales.”
+
+Though _unison_ singing has been widely practiced and is advocated today
+by some good authorities in church music, Luther encouraged part
+singing. In his first Preface to the _Geystliches Gesangbücklin_, 1525,
+he wrote:
+
+  These songs have been set in four parts, for no other reason than
+  because I wished to provide our young people (who both will and ought
+  to be instructed in music and other sciences) with something whereby
+  they might rid themselves of amorous and carnal songs, and in their
+  stead learn something wholesome, and so apply themselves to what is
+  good with pleasure, as becometh the young.
+
+The period of the German chorales may be said to have begun with Luther,
+1483-1546, and ended two centuries later with J. S. Bach, 1685-1750.
+Bach brought the chorale tunes to their highest perfection, using many
+of them in his larger choral works. He composed about 30 original
+chorale melodies, wrote reharmonizations for approximately 400, and
+composed many chorale preludes for the organ which are in wide use
+today.
+
+The German hymns and chorale tunes, used constantly in the home and
+school, as well as in the church, have been of great importance in our
+Mennonite worship in the past. They constitute the main body of material
+in all our German collections of hymns. In an effort to preserve and
+emphasize this rich heritage, there was incorporated into the _Hymnary_,
+a special section, Book III, made up exclusively of chorales.
+
+
+                     German Chorales in the Hymnary
+
+  16th Century
+    Martin Luther, 1483-1546, “A mighty fortress is our God” (549)
+            “From heaven above to earth I come” (527)
+            “Out of the depths I cry to Thee” (531-2)
+    Nicolaus Selnecker, 1532-92, “Now cheer our hearts” (557)
+    Philipp Nicolai, 1556-1608, “Wake, awake, for night is flying” (522)
+            “How brightly shines the Morning Star” (529)
+  17th Century
+  (_1_)—_Period of The Thirty Years War—1618-48_
+    Johann Heerman, 1585-1647, “Ah, dearest Jesus” (534)
+    Josua Stegman, 1588-1632, “Abide with us, our Savior” (559)
+    Matthaus von Löwenstern, 1594-1648, “Lord of our life” (278)
+    Georg Weissel, 1590-1635, “Lift up your heads” (523)
+    Heinrich Albert, 1604-51, “God who madest earth” (573)
+    Ernst Homburg, 1605-81, “Christ, the life of all the living” (535)
+    Michael Schirmer, 1606-73, “O Holy Spirit, enter in” (546)
+    Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76, “O sacred Head, now wounded” (539) and
+          others
+    Gerhard Tersteegen, 1697-1769, “God reveals His presence” (506)
+            “O power of love, all else transcending” (517)
+  (_2_)—_Later 17th Century_
+    Johann Franck, 1618-77, “Deck thyself, my soul,” (552)
+    Tobias Clausnitzer, 1619-84, “Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier” (553a)
+    Georg Neumark, 1621-81, “He who would be in God” (571)
+    Johann Scheffler, 1624-77, “I am the Lord, O hear my voice” (565)
+    Joachim Neander, 1650-80, “Heaven and earth, the sea” (510)
+  _18th Century_
+    Johann Mentzer, 1658-1734, “O that I had a thousand voices” (509)
+    Erdmann Neumeister, 1671-1756, “Sinners Jesus will receive” (466)
+    Benjamin Schmolck, 1672-1737, “My Jesus, as Thou wilt” (250)
+    Philipp F. Hiller, 1699-1769, “O Son of God, we wait for” (524)
+            “What mercy and divine compassion” (562)
+    Christian F. Gellert, 1715-69, “How great, almighty is Thy” (516)
+    Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750. The life of the great musician
+          marks the close of the German Chorale period and for that
+          reason his name is placed here. None of Bach’s original
+          chorale melodies are found in the _Hymnary_ but use is made of
+          a number of his harmonizations. See 539, 545, 556, 557, 564,
+          566.
+
+
+           7. Hymns of the Reformation: The Metrical Psalms.
+
+While the German people, under the leadership of Luther, were singing
+chorales set to original religious poems, a large section of
+Protestantism, under the influence of John Calvin, confined itself to
+the singing of Psalms. To the French reformer, now preaching at Geneva,
+hymns were “man-made,” whereas the psalms were the inspired word of God
+and the only proper vehicle for the praise of God. Calvin, unlike
+Luther, was not a musician, and at first permitted only unison singing,
+unaccompanied. Part singing and instrumental accompaniment seemed to
+savor of the frivolous and worldly, an opinion which Calvin, however,
+was soon to modify. For two hundred years the Calvinistic churches on
+the Continent and in Britain were influenced in their worship song by
+the strict views of Calvin, limiting themselves to the metrical psalms
+and scriptural paraphrases. The German people in the meantime produced a
+rich treasury of original religious lyrics, contributed by some of their
+best poets.
+
+
+            Psalter Tunes and Metrical Psalms in the Hymnary
+
+  _Genevan Psalter_ Tunes, 1551.
+            O Seigneur (19)
+            Old 134th (128, 132, 616)
+            Rendez à Dieu (306)
+            Old 124th (354)
+            Old 100th (594)
+  _Scottish Psalter_, 1650.
+            Book Five (575 to 600) with a few exceptions
+  _New Version_, 1696, Tate and Brady.
+            “Through all the changing scenes of life” (583)
+            “As pants the hart for cooling streams” (586)
+            “O come, loud anthems let us sing” (18)
+            “While shepherds watched their flocks by night” (73-4)
+
+
+                           8. Psalm Versions.
+
+The use of the psalms in singing, first on the Continent, then in
+England and Scotland, and later in America, brought forth many metrical
+versions of the psalter, the principal ones being the following:
+
+a. _The Genevan Psalter_, begun 1539, published complete in 1562. It was
+made at the request of John Calvin by Clément Marot, court poet of
+France, and Theodore Beza, a French scholar. It became the psalm book
+for the Reformation churches on the continent, and is spoken of as the
+most famous book of praise the Christian Church ever produced. It was
+issued in at least one thousand editions and translated into a number of
+tongues. Some of the original tunes are still in use, e.g., “Old
+Hundredth.”
+
+b. _The Anglo-Genevan Psalter_, Geneva, 1556. This was used by John
+Knox, the Scottish reformer, and his followers who fled the persecutions
+of “Bloody Mary,” and formed a congregation at Geneva. The book
+incorporated some of the Sternhold and Hopkins versions which were in
+use in England, and added others.
+
+c. _The Old Version_, Sternhold and Hopkins, completed in 1562. Used in
+England for 134 years. It is entitled, _The Whole Booke of Psalmes_, but
+came to be known as the “Old Version.”
+
+d. _The Bay Psalm Book_, Boston, 1640. This was the first book printed
+in English-speaking America. It was made to obtain greater literalness
+to the Hebrew original than was found in the versions then in use. The
+book reigned supreme among the English churches in New England for over
+a century. Seventy editions of it were printed in America, the last in
+1773. Eighteen editions appeared in England, and twenty-two in Scotland.
+There were no tunes given it until 1698, then only 13, with the air in
+the bass.
+
+e. _The Scottish Psalter_, completed 1650. Special mention is made of
+this version of the Psalms because it is the source of nearly all the
+selections of metrical psalms which constitute Book Five of the
+_Hymnary_. The number of versions and editions of psalms which appeared
+on the Continent and in England were numerous and confusing, each
+claiming its own special merits. Finally, in the interests of better
+literary diction and greater unity in singing in the Scottish
+Presbyterian churches, the General Assembly authorized a new version.
+The result, after many years’ work, was the famous _Scottish Psalter_ of
+1650 which remains the standard work in Scotland today.
+
+There is a certain “dignified crudeness” in some of the literary
+expressions but the psalms have long been learned in this version and
+have become an important part of the religious training and experience
+of millions of English speaking people, especially in Scotland.
+
+The Scottish Psalter first appeared with words only. There were no notes
+and no suggestions for melodies. The succeeding one hundred years were a
+time of confusion. The tunes used were few in number, such as the
+leaders had learned from various sources, and passed on to succeeding
+generations by rote. The time came when better singing and better tunes
+were demanded and gradually the psalter appeared with tunes. Early tune
+versions put the melody invariably in the tenor. The latest edition,
+printed in 1929, by the Oxford Press, contains the best Psalm tunes
+which had gradually come into use, many of them arranged with
+“Faux-bourdon” (wherein the congregation sings one or more verses to the
+melody while the choir supplies the harmony), and “Descant” (a second
+melody over that of the tune).
+
+f. _The New Version_, Tate and Brady, London, 1696. This version
+gradually supplanted the _Old Version_ of Sternhold and Hopkins, and
+held its place in the worship of the church for 150 years. It was
+adopted, in 1789, by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
+States and bound with the prayer book of that Communion.
+
+The above versions are only a few of the large number of psalters that
+were published by the Calvinistic churches on the Continent, in Great
+Britain, and in America. The metrical psalms were designed for the
+singing church. They were intended to restore song to the people in
+their worship, serving in this respect a similar purpose to the chorales
+in Germany.
+
+Some of the psalm books were published without music, some with the
+melody only, and others in four-part harmony. The statement is
+frequently made that Calvinistic Protestantism approved only unison
+singing. The appearance of numerous books, complete with four voice
+parts, points to the contrary. It is true that Calvin at first
+encouraged unison singing only, regarding harmony more in the nature of
+amusement than the worship of God; but upon observing the effectiveness
+of singing in Germany, he soon changed his views and became more liberal
+in this respect.
+
+
+                          9. English Hymnody.
+
+The youthful, courageous Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, an ardent dissenter,
+pioneered the movement which resulted in a flood of hymns and hymnbooks
+in the English churches. Watts was not satisfied with the psalm singing
+of his time, which by now had become formal and lifeless. Parts of the
+psalter, he pointed out, were obviously not written in the spirit of the
+Gospel. “By keeping too close to David,” he wrote in one of his
+Prefaces, “the vail of Moses is thrown over our hearts.” Watts removed
+that “vail,” Christianizing the psalms and composing during his lifetime
+more than 600 original hymns, expressing in the language of the time,
+the thoughts of the worshippers. Through his influence, his age, the
+18th century, became the first age of hymn singing in England.
+
+John and Charles Wesley, following Watts, made enormous use of hymn
+singing in their evangelistic work, giving the movement for
+congregational singing a powerful impetus. Charles is said to have
+composed over 6,000 hymns.
+
+From the Wesleys onward through the 19th century, the hymn writers in
+England became numerous. The restrictive shackles of psalm singing had
+been broken and the creative urge to worship in new forms resulted in a
+vast number of original religious lyrics and the publication of hundreds
+of hymnbooks. The development can be summarized here only in outline
+form.
+
+
+                     English Hymnody in the Hymnary
+
+  Early—17th Century
+    Henry Wotton, 1568-1639, “How happy is he” (208)
+    George Herbert, 1593-1633, “Teach me, my God and King” (226)
+    John Milton, 1608-74, “Let us with a gladsome mind” (64)
+            “How lovely are Thy dwellings fair” (592)
+    Thomas Ken, 1637-1711, “Awake, my soul, and with the sun” (25)
+            “All praise to Thee, my God, this night” (33)
+            “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow” (618)
+    Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, “The spacious firmament on high” (50)
+            “How are Thy servants blest” (338)
+  18th Century
+  _1. Two Independents_:
+    Isaac Watts, 1674-1748, “Father of English Hymnody”
+            “When I survey the wondrous cross” (105-6)
+            “Joy to the world! the Lord is come” (70)
+            “God is the refuge of His saints” (257)
+            and many others
+    Philip Doddridge, 1702-51, “How gentle God’s commands” (56)
+            (and 128, 167, 218, 383, 465)
+  _2. The Wesleys and their Associates_:
+    John Wesley, 1703-91, translations (170, 226, 246, 508, 558)
+    Charles Wesley, 1707-88, “Bard of Methodism”
+            “Come, Thou long-expected Jesus” (69)
+            “Jesus, Lover of my soul” (158-9)
+            “Love divine, all loves excelling” (178-9)
+            and many others
+    William Williams, 1717-91, “Sweet Singer of Wales”
+            “Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah” (160)
+    John Cennick, 1718-55, “Lo, He comes, with clouds” (130)
+            “Jesus, my all, to heav’n is gone” (468)
+    Thomas Olivers, 1725-99, “The God of Abraham praise” (14)
+    Edward Perronet, 1726-92, “All hail the power of Jesus” (3, 4, 5)
+  _3. A Calvinistic Antagonist of Wesley_
+    Augustus Toplady, 1740-78, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me” (148)
+  _4. The Olney Hymnists:_
+    John Newton, 1725-1807, “Glorious things of thee” (274)
+            “Safely through another week” (284)
+            “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound” (463)
+    William Cowper, 1731-1800, “God moves in a mysterious way” (60)
+            “O for a closer walk with God” (197)
+            “There is a fountain filled with blood” (492)
+  _5. Others—18th Century:_
+    Anne Steele, 1716-78, “Father, whate’er of earthly bliss” (251)
+    Joseph Grigg, c. 1720-68, “Behold a Stranger at the door” (141)
+            “Jesus, and shall it ever be” (192)
+    Robert Robinson, 1735-90, “Mighty God, while angels bless” (46)
+            “Come, Thou fount of every blessing” (189)
+    John Fawcett, 1740-1817, “Blest be the tie that binds” (41)
+            “Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing” (45)
+  Modern English—19th Century
+  _1. Earliest_:
+    Thomas Kelly, 1769-1854, “Look, ye saints, the sight” (119)
+            “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices” (123)
+            “On the mountain top appearing” (336)
+    James Montgomery, 1771-1854, “Prayer is the soul’s sincere” (184)
+            “Angels, from the realms of glory” (81)
+            “In the hour of trial” (195) and many others
+    Robert Grant, 1779-1838, “O worship the King” (7)
+            “Savior, when, in dust to Thee” (145)
+    Reginald Heber, 1783-1826, “Holy, holy, holy” (1)
+            “Bread of the world in mercy broken” (304)
+            “From Greenland’s icy mountains” (333)
+    Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871, “Just as I am, without one plea” (458)
+            “O holy Savior, Friend unseen” (233)
+            “My God and Father, while I stray” (245)
+    Henry Milman, 1791-1868, “Ride on, ride on in majesty” (101)
+    John Bowring, 1792-1872, “In the Cross of Christ I glory” (110)
+            “Watchman, tell us of the night” (66)
+            “God is love; His mercy brightens” (55)
+    Henry F. Lyte, 1793-1847, “Abide with me” (40)
+  _2. The Oxford Group_:
+    John Keble, 1792-1866, “New every morning is the love” (22)
+            “Sun of my soul, Thou Savior dear” (30)
+    Matthew Bridges, 1800-94, “Crown Him with many crowns” (118)
+    John Henry Newman, 1801-90, “Lead, kindly light” (162-3)
+    Richard Trench, 1807-86, “Lord, what a change within” (183)
+    Frederick Faber, 1814-63, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” (58)
+            “Faith of our fathers” (154)
+    Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, 1823-95, “There is a green hill” (104)
+  (_Translators of Latin and Greek Hymns_)
+    John Chandler, 1806-76, “Christ is our Cornerstone” (9)
+            “What star is this” (87)
+    Edward Caswall, 1814-78, “Bethlehem, of noblest cities” (88)
+            “Jesus, the very thought of Thee” (155)
+    John M. Neale, 1818-66, “O come, O come Emmanuel” (67)
+            “All glory, laud, and honor” (100)
+  _3. Translators of German Hymns_:
+    Catherine Winkworth, 1829-78, “Wake, awake for night” (522)
+            and 24 others
+    Frances E. Cox, 1812-97, “Sing praise to God” (512)
+            “Jesus lives” (543)
+    Jane L. Borthwick, 1813-97, “Be still, my soul” (54)
+            “My Jesus, as Thou wilt” (250)
+            “Jesus, still lead on” (574)
+    Sarah Borthwick Findlater, 1823-1907, “O happy home” (358)
+  _4. Other Hymnists—19th Century_:
+    Christopher Wordsworth, 1807-85, “Gracious Spirit,” (174)
+            “O day of rest and gladness” (285)
+    Horatius Bonar, 1808-89, “I heard the voice of Jesus say” (142)
+            “I lay my sins on Jesus” (444)
+            “When the weary, seeking rest” (203) and others
+    Alfred Tennyson, 1809-92, “Strong Son of God” (149)
+            “Sunset and evening star” (265)
+            “Ring out, wild bells” (379)
+    Henry Alford, 1810-71, “We walk by faith, and not by sight” (152)
+            “Come, ye thankful people, come” (377)
+    W. W. How, 1823-97, “O Jesus, Thou art standing” (144)
+            “For all the saints who from their labor rest” (317)
+            “O Word of God Incarnate” (289) and others
+    Godfrey Thring, 1823-1903, “From the Eastern mountains” (89)
+            “Thou to whom the sick and dying” (370)
+    Adelaide Proctor, 1825-64, “My God, I thank Thee” (177)
+            “I do not ask, O Lord” (471)
+    Edward H. Bickersteth, 1825-1906, “Peace, perfect peace” (256)
+    John Ellerton, 1826-93, “Savior, again to Thy dear name” (43)
+            “Now the laborer’s task is o’er” (315)
+            “Throned upon the awful tree” (109) and others
+    S. Baring-Gould, 1834-1924, “Now the day is over” (29)
+            “Onward, Christian soldiers” (225)
+    Edwin Hatch, 1835-89, “Breathe on me, breath of God” (135)
+    Frances R. Havergal, 1836-79, “Take my life, and let it be” (215)
+            “Lord, speak to me, that I may speak” (296)
+            “Thou art coming, O my Savior” (126) and others
+    Samuel Stone, 1839-1900, “The Church’s one foundation” (273)
+    George Matheson, 1842-1906, “O love that wilt not let me go” (175)
+  Recent English Hymns
+    Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936, “Father in heav’n” (401)
+    Stopford A. Brooke, 1832-1916, “Let the whole creation cry” (49)
+    John Oxenham, 1852-1941, “In Christ there is no East” (320)
+            “Peace in our time, O Lord” (357)
+    Percy Dearmer, 1867-1936, “Remember all God’s children” (436)
+    Richard Roberts, 1874—, “For them whose ways” (166)
+    Laurence Housman, 1865—, “Father Eternal” (354)
+
+
+                          10. American Hymns.
+
+The English speaking colonists who settled in America during the 17th
+century continued the psalm singing traditions of their forebears in
+England. The practice prevailed in their churches for two hundred years.
+The first book printed by them was the _Bay Psalm Book_, in 1640, at
+Cambridge, Massachusetts. It contained no original hymns. The singing of
+psalms, and later of hymns borrowed from England made up nearly the
+entire repertory of church music until the middle of the 19th century.
+
+On the other hand, the German speaking colonists, including the
+Mennonites, had brought with them the hymn books of the Lutheran
+tradition and continued the use of the German chorales in their worship.
+The two streams of hymnody, English psalms and German chorales, went
+their independent courses for two centuries, scarcely influencing each
+other.
+
+In the meantime there was very little original hymnody produced in
+America, with the exception of the work of the Wesleys during their
+brief experiment in Georgia, and the composition of certain hymns and
+tunes by the German people of Pennsylvania, which have remained, until
+recently, in manuscript form. Timothy Dwight’s hymn on the church, “I
+love Thy Kingdom, Lord” (275) is probably the earliest American hymn
+still in use.
+
+After the middle of the 19th century the number of hymn writers became
+large and their works came into increasing use, some choice examples
+finding their way into English hymnbooks. America���s original
+contribution to Christian hymnody has not been only the Gospel Songs
+represented by the writings of Fanny Crosby, but the more permanent
+works of Whittier, George W. Doane, Hosmer, Samuel Longfellow,
+Washington Gladden, S. F. Smith, and many others. Our musical
+contributions have been less conspicuous, but the tunes of Mason are
+coming into their own again and many of them will doubtless survive for
+a long time, as will also those of Bradbury, Hastings, and others.
+
+The tendency today in American hymnbooks is to unite the best in English
+and German traditions. The _Hymnary_ illustrates this trend. It makes
+large use of the English hymns while at the same time preserving a
+considerable body of the German chorales. In keeping with this trend,
+the recent hymnbooks of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and other
+churches of English origin, incorporate some of the German chorale tunes
+and in some cases the translations of the words. The hymn books of our
+time have become the channels through which flow the rich contributions
+to the stream of Christian hymnody from Christian people of all times
+and places.
+
+
+                     American Hymns in the Hymnary
+
+  Early American
+    Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817, “I love Thy kingdom, Lord” (275)
+    Thomas Hastings, 1784-1872, “Hail to the brightness” (332)
+    Henry Ware, Jr., 1794-1843, “Happy the home when God” (361)
+    Wm. B. Tappan, 1794-1849, “’Tis midnight; and on Olive’s brow” (103)
+    Francis Scott Key, 1779-1843, “Lord, with glowing heart” (511)
+    George W. Doane, 1799-1859, “Softly now the light of day” (36)
+  19th Century
+    Leonard Bacon, 1802-81, “O God, beneath Thy guiding hand” (367)
+    John G. Whittier, 1807-92, “Dear Lord and Father” (181)
+    Ray Palmer, 1808-87, “My faith looks up to Thee” (150)
+    S. F. Smith, 1808-95, “The morning light is breaking” (324)
+    Oliver W. Holmes, 1809-94, “Lord of all being, throned afar” (53)
+    E. H. Sears, 1810-76, “It came upon the midnight clear” (75)
+    W. H. Burleigh, 1812-71, “Lead us, O Father, in the paths” (164)
+    Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-96, “Still, still with Thee” (23)
+    Sylvanus Phelps, 1816-95, “Savior, Thy dying love” (220)
+    Arthur C. Coxe, 1818-96, “O where are kings and empires” (276)
+    Elizabeth Payson Prentiss, 1818-78, “More love to Thee” (472)
+    Edward Hopper, 1818-88, “Jesus, Savior, pilot me” (161)
+    George Duffield, Jr., 1818-88, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” (193)
+    Samuel Longfellow, 1819-92, “Holy Spirit, Truth divine” (136)
+    James Russell Lowell, 1819-91, “Once to every man” (346)
+    Anna Warner, 1820-1915, “We would see Jesus” (201)
+    John H. Hopkins, 1820-91, “We three kings of Orient are” (90)
+    Eliza Scudder, 1821-96, “Thou Grace Divine, encircling all” (57)
+    Samuel Johnson, 1822-82, “Father, in Thy mysterious” (188)
+    Jeremiah E. Rankin, 1828-1904, “God be with you” (365)
+    Joseph H. Gilmore, 1834-1918, “He leadeth me” (478)
+    Phillips Brooks, 1835-93, “O little town of Bethlehem” (84)
+  Recent American Hymns
+    Washington Gladden, 1836-1918, “O Master, let me walk” (223)
+    Frederick L. Hosmer, 1840-1929, “Not always on the mount” (98)
+    Mary Lathbury, 1841-1913, “Day is dying in the west” (31)
+            “Break Thou the bread of Life” (288)
+    Frank Mason North, 1850-1936, “Where cross the crowded” (222)
+    M. Woolsey Stryker, 1851-1929, “Almighty Lord, with one” (390)
+    Henry van Dyke, 1852-1933, “Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee” (10)
+    Louis F. Benson, 1855-1930, “O sing a song of Bethlehem” (92)
+    Maltbie D. Babcock, 1858-1901, “This is my Father’s world” (48)
+    Katherine Lee Bates, 1859-1929, “O beautiful for spacious” (343)
+    Milton S. Littlefield, 1864-1934, “O Son of man, thou” (373)
+    Jay T. Stocking, 1870-1936, “O Master Workman” (93)
+    Wm. M. Vories, 1880—, “Let there be light, Lord God” (353)
+    Harry Webb Farrington, 1880-1931, “I know not how that” (99)
+    W. Russel Bowie, 1882—, “Lord, through changing days” (402)
+    Howard Arnold Walter, 1884-1918, “I would be true” (207)
+    Earl Marlatt, 1892—, “‘Are ye able,’ said the Master” (392)
+
+
+                           11. Gospel Songs.
+
+During the latter part of the 19th century there came into use, both in
+the United States and in England, a type of religious song known as the
+Gospel Song. Less dignified than the chorales or the English hymns,
+these songs made a popular appeal and were widely used in prayer
+meetings and revivals.
+
+The words of the typical Gospel Song are usually simple and easily
+remembered and concern themselves largely with the individual’s
+salvation. The personal pronouns “I” and “my” predominate. The tunes are
+rhythmic and catchy and always have a refrain added. Their harmonies are
+largely built on the simple tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords. The
+masses of the people readily learned to sing these tunes and experienced
+a thrill in singing them which the use of the more stately and solid
+hymns failed to effect.
+
+The great bulk of these songs were produced in America during the latter
+half of the 19th century and were found extremely useful in large mass
+meetings. The evangelistic work of Moody and Sankey during the 1870’s,
+1880’s, and 1890’s brought the Gospel Songs into special prominence and
+the Salvation Army has made them known in nearly every country in the
+world. Collections of Gospel Songs sold by the millions of copies and
+every denomination was affected, to a greater or lesser extent, by this
+type of singing.
+
+Since the standard of music and words in the Gospel Songs is
+considerably below that which prevails in our best hymnals as well as in
+secular music and literature taught in the public schools, churches
+should seriously consider the ultimate effect of their too frequent use.
+It is a fallacy to assert that the people will respond to nothing
+better. Gospel Songs have a legitimate place, particularly in special
+services and revivals, but they leave much to be desired in the total
+work and worship of the church. Neither the music nor the words possess
+the strength and dignity entirely adequate for the worshipful praise of
+the Eternal.
+
+The principal names associated with Gospel Songs are the following:
+
+_Authors._ Fanny J. Crosby, Philip P. Bliss, Robert Lowry, Katherine
+Hankey, E. A. Hoffman, and many others. Most of the words, though not
+all, were written by Americans during the latter part of the nineteenth
+century. Miss Crosby was by far the most prolific of them all and many
+of her works are found in all modern hymnals of denominations that use
+this type of music. In Germany, Ernst Gebhardt became the leader of the
+gospel song movement, composing words and music, publishing numerous
+song books, and serving as song leader in great revival meetings.
+
+_Music._ William B. Bradbury, Robert Lowry, W. H. Doane, Philip Philips,
+James McGranahan, George C. Stebbins, P. P. Bliss, D. W. Towner, Wm. J.
+Kirkpatrick, and others.
+
+_Song Leaders._ P. P. Bliss, Ira Sankey, James McGranahan, George C.
+Stebbins, Charles Alexander, Homer Rodeheaver.
+
+It should be noted that there is no absolute line of demarcation between
+hymns and some of the Gospel Songs. Some of the numbers in the Gospel
+Songs section of the _Hymnary_ might well be classified as hymns, e.g.,
+Nos. 441, 444, 447, 458, 463, 468, 470, 471, 472, and 492. Either words
+or music meet the generally accepted standards of a hymn.
+
+
+                        12. Women Hymn Writers.
+
+There have been no outstanding women composers of church tunes but some
+of our finest lyrics have been contributed by women, as the following
+list from the _Hymnary_ will show:
+
+  _German_
+    Katharina von Schlegel, b. 1697, “Be still, my soul” (54)
+    Henriette Luise von Hayn, 1724-82, “Weil ich Jesu” (430)
+  _English_
+    Anne Steele, 1716-78, “Father, whate’er of earthly bliss” (251)
+    Marianne Nunn, 1778-1847, “One is kind above all others” (447)
+    Harriet Auber, 1773-1862, “Our blest Redeemer” (138)
+    Dorothy Ann Thrupp, 1779-1847, “Saviour, like a shepherd” (395)
+    Charlotte Elliott, 1789-1871, “Just as I am, without one plea” (458)
+    Margaret Mackay, 1802-87, “Asleep in Jesus” (314)
+    Sarah Flower Adams, 1805-48, “Nearer my God, to Thee” (202)
+    Jemima Luke, 1813-1906, “I think when I read that sweet” (427)
+    Anne Brontë, 1820-49, “Believe not those who say” (210)
+    Cecil Frances Alexander, 1823-95, “There is a green hill” (104)
+    Adelaide Proctor, 1825-64, “My God, I thank Thee” (177)
+    Elizabeth Clephane, 1830-69, “Beneath the Cross of Jesus” (112)
+    Anna L. Coghill, 1836-1907, “Work, for the night is coming” (221)
+    Frances R. Havergal, 1836-79, “Take my life and let it be” (215)
+    Dorothy Blomfield, 1858-1932, “O perfect love, all human” (312)
+    Jessie Adams, 1863—, “I feel the winds of God today” (391)
+  (_Translators_)
+    Frances Cox, 1812-97, “Sing praise to God” (512)
+    Jane L. Borthwick, 1813-97, “Be still my soul” (54)
+    Sarah Borthwick Findlater, 1823-1907, “O happy home” (358)
+    Catherine Winkworth, 1829-78. Numerous hymns. Foremost translator of
+          German chorales.
+  _American_
+    Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-96, “Still, still with Thee” (23)
+He began to cough. Joyce put his arm around him for support, and tended
+him gently.
+
+“You have a lot to do, old man,” he said soon after. “The foolscap
+has come, and a great jar of ink, and you can start copying out the
+manuscript to-morrow.”
+
+“Ah yes, I can do that,” said Noakes.
+
+“Now go to sleep. I ’ll sit by you, if you like,” said Joyce.
+
+He moved the lamp to a ledge behind Noakes’s head, and sat down near by,
+with the budget of newspapers. Noakes composed himself to sleep. At last
+he spoke, without turning round.
+
+“Joyce.”
+
+“Yes, old man.”
+
+“Make me a promise.”
+
+“Willingly.”
+
+“Bury that dear lady’s letter with me.”
+
+“Will it make you happy to promise?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I promise,” said Joyce, humouring him. “Now I’m not going to talk
+to you any more.”
+
+A few minutes later, his breathing told Joyce that he slept. The
+newspapers fell from Joyce’s hand, and he put his elbows on his knees
+and crouched over the smouldering logs. Noakes spoke truly. There was
+little chance of recovery. He would be left alone again soon. It would
+be very comfortless. The poor wreck who was dragging out his last days
+upon that wretched bed had been an unspeakable solace to him. Without
+his womanlike devotion he would have died of fever six months back on
+the Arato goldfield. Without the influence of his calm fatalism, he
+would have given up heart long ago. Without his steadfast purity of
+soul, he would have gone recklessly to the devil. The thought of losing
+him was a great pang.
+
+He himself, too, was far from strong. The climate, the hard manual
+labour for which he was physically unfit were telling upon him heavily.
+He yearned for home, for civilised life, for the lost heritage of
+honour. Yvonne’s letter, telling of the little commonplaces of the lost
+sweet life of decent living, had revived the ever dormant longing. He
+began to dream of her, of that last day he had seen her, of her voice
+singing Gounod’s serenade.
+
+It was difficult to picture her as married to his cousin Everard, whom,
+in the days of his vanity, he had despised as a prig and now dreaded as
+a scornful benefactor. It was a strange mating. And yet she seemed happy
+and unchanged.
+
+The wind blustered outside. The cold draught whistled through the room.
+Joyce rose to his feet with a shiver, went to a corner for a couple of
+sacks, which he threw over the sleeping man, and, after having wistfully
+read Yvonne’s letter once more, ascended the ladder to the loft, where
+the shapeless mattress of dried grass and sacking awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--HISTOIRE DE REVENANT
+
+Ostend is a magnificent white Kursaal on the Belgian coast. Certain
+requisites are attached to it in the way of great hotels and villas
+along a tiled _digue_, and innumerable bathing-machines on the sands
+below. There is an old town, it is true, somewhere behind it, with
+quaint narrow streets, a Place d’Armes dotted round with cafés, and
+a thronged market-square; there is also a bustling port and a fishing
+population. But the Ostend of practical life begins and ends at the
+Kursaal. Were it to perish during a night, the following day would see
+the exodus of twenty thousand visitors. The vast glass rotunda can hold
+thousands. Within its precincts you can do anything in reason and out of
+reason. You can knit all day long like Penelope, or you can go among
+the Sirens with or without the precautions of Ulysses. You can consume
+anything from a biscuit to a ten-course dinner. You can play dominoes at
+centime points or roulette with a forty-franc minimum. You can listen to
+music, you can dance, you can go to sleep. You can write letters, send
+telegrams, and open a savings-bank account. By moving to one side or the
+other of a glass screen you can sit in the warm sunshine or in the keen
+sea wind. You can study the fashions of Europe from St. Petersburg to
+Dublin, and if you are a woman, you can wear the most sumptuous garments
+Providence has deigned to bestow on you. And lastly, if you are looking
+for a place where you will be sure to find the very last person in the
+world you desire to see, you will meet with every success at the Kursaal
+of Ostend.
+
+Such was Mrs. Winstanley’s passing thought one day. She was there with
+Sophia and Evan Wilmington. It was always a great pleasure, she used
+to say, to have young people about her; and very naturally, since young
+people can be particularly useful in strange places to a middle-aged
+lady. The brother and sister fetched and carried for her all day long,
+which was very nice and suitable, and Mrs. Winstanley was in her
+most affable mood. On the day in question, however, she saw, to her
+astonishment and annoyance, Canon Chisely and Yvonne making their way
+towards her through the crowded lines of tables.
+
+“Good gracious, Everard!” she said as they came up. “How did you find
+your way here? I thought you were going to Switzerland.”
+
+“So we are,” replied the Canon. “We have broken our journey. And as for
+getting here, we took the boat from Dover and then walked.”
+
+“The frivolity of the place is infecting you already, Canon,” cried
+Sophia, with a laugh. “I hope you are going to stay a long time.”
+
+“Oh, not too long,” said Yvonne. “It wouldn’t be fair to the Canon, who
+needs some mountain air. This is just a little treat all for me.”
+
+She glanced at him affectionately as she spoke. It was good of him to
+tarry for her sake in this Vanity Fair of a place.
+
+“We were going by Calais, as you know,” said the Canon, explanatively
+to Mrs. Winstanley. “We only changed our minds a day or two ago--we
+thought it would be a little surprise for you.”
+
+“Of course it is--a delightful one--to see dear Yvonne and yourself.
+Where are you staying?”
+
+“At the Océan,” said the Canon, “and you must all come and dine with us
+this evening.”
+
+“And will you come to the _bal_ here afterward?” asked Sophia. “Evan has
+run across some college friends--or won’t you think it proper?”
+
+“I am going to wear the whole suit of motley while I am here,” replied
+the Canon gaily.
+
+He kept his word, not being a man of half measures. No check should be
+placed on Yvonne’s enjoyment. She had been moping, as far as Yvonne could
+mope, during the latter dullness of Fulminster; now she expanded like a
+flower to the gaiety around her. The Canon found an aesthetic pleasure
+in watching her happiness. Her expressions of thanks too were charmingly
+conveyed. Since that unfortunate attempt on his part, over a twelvemonth
+back, to instruct her in the responsibilities of her position, she had
+never exhibited toward him such spontaneous feeling. He let her smile
+upon whom she would, without a twinge of jealousy.
+
+Yvonne enjoyed herself hugely. She danced and jested with the young men;
+she chattered in French to her table d’hôte neighbours, delighted to
+speak her mother’s tongue again; she staked two-franc pieces on the
+public table, and one afternoon came out of the gaming-room into the
+great hall where the Canon was sitting with Mrs. Winstanley, and poured
+a great mass of silver on to the table--as much as her two small hands
+joined could carry.
+
+“I thought gambling was against your principles, Everard,” said Mrs.
+Winstanley, after Yvonne had gone again.
+
+“I am sacrificing them for my wife’s happiness, Emmeline,” he replied,
+with a touch of irony.
+
+“Yes, it would be a pity to spoil her pleasure. She is such a child.”
+
+“I wish we all had something of her nature,” said the Canon.
+
+Mrs. Winstanley noted the snub. She was treasuring up many resentments
+against Yvonne. In her heart she considered herself a long-suffering
+woman.
+
+“You seem to enjoy it too, Everard,” said Yvonne to him that evening.
+They were sitting near the entrance watching the smartly-dressed people.
+“And I am so glad to be alone with you.”
+
+He was pleased, smiled at her, and throwing off his dignity, entered
+into the frivolous spirit of the place. Yvonne forgot the restraint she
+had always put upon her tongue when talking to him. She chattered about
+everything, holding her face near him, so as to be heard through the
+hubbub of thousands of voices, the eternal shuffling of passing feet,
+and the crash of the orchestra in the far gallery.
+
+“It is a _Revue des Deux Mondes,_” she said, looking rapidly around
+her, with bright eyes.
+
+“How?” asked the Canon.
+
+“The _beau_ and the _demi_,” she replied, wickedly. She shook his knee.
+“Oh, do look at that woman! what does she think a man can see in her!”
+
+“Powder,” answered the Canon. “She has been using her puff too freely.”
+
+“She has been putting it on with a _muff_,” cried Yvonne.
+
+He laughed. Yvonne had such a triumphant air in delivering herself of
+little witticisms.
+
+A magnificently dressed woman, in a great feathered hat and low-dress,
+with diamonds gleaming at her neck, passed by. “You are right, I fear,
+about the two worlds,” said the Canon.
+
+“Are n’t there crowds of them? I like to look at them because they wear
+such beautiful things. And they fit so. And then to rub shoulders with
+them makes one feel so delightfully wicked. You know, I knew a girl
+once--she went in for that life of her own accord and she was awfully
+happy. Really. Is n’t it odd?”
+
+“My dear Yvonne!” said the Canon, somewhat shocked, “I sincerely trust
+you did not continue the acquaintance, afterwards.”
+
+“Oh, no,” she replied, sagely. “It would not have done for me at all.
+A lone woman can’t be too careful. But I used to hear about her from my
+dressmaker.”
+
+Her point of view was not exactly the Canon’s. But further discussion
+was stopped by the arrival of the Wilmingtons, who carried off Yvonne
+to the dancing-room. The Canon, drawing the line at his own appearance
+there, strolled back contentedly to the hotel to finish the evening over
+a book.
+
+Two mornings afterwards Yvonne was walking by herself along the _digue_.
+They were to leave for Switzerland the next day, and she determined to
+make the most of her remaining time. Sophia Wilmington, for whom she
+had called, had already gone out. The Canon, who was engaged over his
+correspondence, she was to meet later at the Kursaal. It was a lovely
+morning. The line of white hotels, with their al fresco breakfast tables
+spread temptingly on the terraces, gleamed in the sun. The _digue_ was
+bright with summer dresses. The sands below alive with tennis players,
+children making sand-castles, and loungers, and bathers, and horses
+moving among the bathing-machines. Yvonne tripped along with careless
+tread. Her heart was in harmony with the brightness and movement and
+the glint of the sun on the sea. Once a man, meeting her smiling glance,
+hesitated as if to speak to her, but seeing that the smile was addressed
+to the happy world in general, he passed on his way. It was easy to
+kill time. She went down the Rue Flammande and looked at the shops. The
+jewelry and the models of Paris dresses delighted her. The display
+of sweets at Nopenny’s allured her within. When she returned to the
+_digue_, it was time to seek the Canon at the Kursaal.
+
+The liveried attendants lifted their hats as she ran up the steps and
+passed the barrier. She gave them a smiling “_bonjour_.” Neither the
+Canon nor any of the friends being visible on the verandah, she entered
+the great hall, where the morning instrumental concert was going on.
+She scanned the talking, laughing crowd as she passed through. Many eyes
+followed her. For Yvonne, when happy, was sweet to look upon. She was
+turning back to retrace her steps, when, suddenly, a man started up from
+a group of three who were playing cards and drinking absinthe at a small
+table, and placed himself before her.
+
+“_Tiens! c’est Yvonne!_”
+
+She stared at him with dilated eyes and parted lips and uttered a little
+gasping cry. Seeing her grow deadly white and thinking she was going to
+faint, the man put out his arm. But Yvonne was mistress of herself.
+
+“_Allons d’ici_,” she whispered, turning a terrified glance around.
+
+The man raised his hat to his companions and signed to her to come. He
+was a handsome, careless, dissipated-looking fellow, with curly hair and
+a twirled black moustache; short and slightly made. He wore a Tyrolese
+hat and a very low turned-down collar and a great silk bow outside
+his waistcoat. There was a devil-may-care charm in his swagger as
+he walked--also an indefinable touch of vulgarity; the type of the
+_cabotin_ in easy circumstances.
+
+Yvonne, more dead than alive, followed him through the deserted _salle
+des jeux_ on to the quiet bit of verandah, and sank into a chair that he
+offered. She looked at him, still white to the lips.
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes,” he said laughingly, “why not? It is not astonishing.”
+
+“But I thought you dead!” gasped Yvonne, trembling.
+
+“_A la bonne heure!_ And I seem a ghost. Oh, I am solid. Pinch me. But
+how did you come to learn? Ah! I remember it was given out in Paris. A
+_canard_. It was in the hospital--paralysis, _ma chère_. See, I can only
+just move my arm now. _Cétait la verte, cette sacrée verte--_”
+
+“Absinthe?” asked Yvonne, almost mechanically.
+
+He nodded, went through the motions of preparing the drink, and laughed.
+
+“I had a touch lately,” he went on. “That was the second. The third I
+shall be _prrrt--flambé!_ They tell me to give it up. Never in life.”
+
+“But if it will kill you?”
+
+“Bah. What do I care? When one lives, one amuses oneself. And I have
+well amused myself, eh, Yvonne? For the rest, _je m’en fiche!_”
+
+He went on talking with airy cynicism. To Yvonne it seemed some horrible
+dream. The husband she had looked upon as dead was before her, gay,
+mocking, just as she had known him of old. And he greeted her after all
+these years with the-same lightness as he had bidden her farewell.
+
+“_Et toi, Yvonne?_” said he at length. “_Ça roule toujours?_ You
+look as if you were brewing money. Ravishing costume. _Crépon_--not
+twenty-five centimes a yard! A hat that looks like the Rue de la Paix!
+_Gants de reine et petites bottines de duchesse!_ You must be doing
+golden business. But speak, _petite_, since I assure you I am not a
+ghost!”
+
+Yvonne forced a faint smile. She tried to answer him, but her heart was
+thumping violently and a lump rose in her throat.
+
+“I am doing very well, Amédée,” she said. The dreadfulness of her
+position came over her. She felt sick and faint. What was going to
+happen? For some moments she did not hear him as he spoke. At last
+perception returned.
+
+“And you are pretty,” Amédée Bazouge was saying. “_Mais jolie à
+croquer_--prettier than you ever were. And I--I am going down the hill
+at the gallop. _Tiens_, Yvonne. Let us celebrate this meeting. Come and
+see me safe to the bottom. It won’t be long. I have money. I am always
+_bon enfant._ Let us remarry. From to-day. _Ce serait rigolo!_ And I
+will love you--_mais énormément!_”
+
+“But I am already married!” cried Yvonne.
+
+“Thinking me dead?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He looked at her for a few seconds, then slapped his thigh and, rising
+from his chair, bent himself double and gave vent to a roar of laughter.
+The tears stood in Yvonne’s eyes.
+
+“Oh, but it’s comic. You don’t find it so?”
+
+He leant back against the railings and laughed again in genuine
+merriment.
+
+“Why, it’s all the more reason to come back to me. _Ça y met du salé_.
+Have you any children?”
+
+Yvonne shook her head.
+
+“_Eh bien!_” he exclaimed, triumphantly, stepping towards her with
+outstretched hands. But she shrank from him, outraged and bewildered.
+
+“Never, never!” she cried. “Go away. Have pity on me, for God’s sake!”
+
+Amédée Bazouge shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
+
+“It’s a comedy, not a tragedy, _ma chère_. If you are happy, I am not
+going to be a spoilsport. It is not my way. Be tranquil with your good
+fat Englishman--I bet he’s an Englishman--In two years--bah! I can amuse
+myself always till then--my poor little Yvonne. No wonder I frightened
+you.”
+
+The affair seemed to cause him intense amusement. A ray of light
+appeared to Yvonne.
+
+“You won’t interfere with me at all, Amédée--not claim anything?”
+
+“Oh, don’t be afraid. _Dès ce moment je vais me reflanquer au sapin!_ I
+shall be as dead as dead can be for you. _Suis pas méchant va!_”
+
+“Thank you,” said Yvonne. “You were always kind-hearted, Amédée--oh,
+it was a horrible mistake--it can’t be altered. You see that I am
+helpless.”
+
+“Why, my child,” said he, seating himself again, “I keep on telling you
+it is a farce--like all the rest of life. I only laugh. And now let us
+talk a little before I pop into the coffin again. What is the name of
+the thrice happy being?”
+
+“Oh, don’t ask me, I beg you,” said Yvonne shivering. “It is all
+so painful. Tell me about yourself--your voice--Is it still in good
+condition?”
+
+“Never better. I am singing here this afternoon.”
+
+“In the Kursaal?”
+
+“Why, yes. That’s why I am here. Oh, _ca marche--pas encore paralysée,
+celle-là_. Come and hear me. _Et ton petit organe à toi?_”
+
+“I am out of practice. I have given up the profession.”
+
+“Ah, it’s a pity. You had such an exquisite little voice. I regretted
+it after we parted. Two or three times it nearly brought me back to
+you--_foi d’artiste!_”
+
+“I think I must go,” said Yvonne after a little. “I am leaving Ostend
+to-morrow and I shall not see you again. You don’t think I am treating
+you unkindly, Amédée?”
+
+He laughed in his bantering way and lit a cigarette.
+
+“On the contrary, _cher ange_. It is very good of you to talk to a poor
+ghost. And you look so pathetic, like a poor little saint with its harp
+out of tune.”
+
+She rose, anxious to leave him and escape into solitude, where she could
+think. She still trembled with agitation. In the little cool park, on
+the other side of the square below, she could be by herself. She dreaded
+meeting the Canon yet awhile.
+
+“Do give up that vile absinthe,” she said, as a parting softness.
+
+“It is the only consoler that remains to me--sad widower.”
+
+“Well, good-bye, Amédée.”
+
+“Ah--not yet. Since you are the wife of somebody else, I am dying to
+make love to you.”
+
+He held her by the wrist, laughing at her. But at that moment Yvonne
+caught sight of the Canon and Mrs. Winstanley, entering upon the
+terrace. She wrenched her arm away.
+
+“There is my husband.”
+
+“_Nom de Dieu!_” cried Bazouge, stifling a guffaw before the austere
+decorum of the English churchman. “_Ça?_ Oh, my poor Yvonne!” She shook
+hands rapidly with him and turned away. He bowed gracefully, including
+the new-comers in his salute. The Canon responded severely. Mrs.
+Winstanley stared at him through her tortoise-shell lorgnette.
+
+“We have been looking all over the place for you,” said the Canon,
+as they passed through the window into the _salle des jeux_, leaving
+Bazouge in the corner of the verandah.
+
+“I’m sorry,” said Yvonne penitently.
+
+“And who was that rakish-looking little Frenchman you were talking to?”
+
+“An old friend--I used to know him,” said Yvonne, struggling with her
+agitation. “A friend of my first husband--I had to speak to him--we went
+there to be quiet. I could n’t help it, Everard, really I could n’t.”
+
+“My dear child,” said the Canon, kindly, “I was not scolding you--though
+he did look rather undesirable.”
+
+“I suppose you had to mix with all kinds of odd Bohemian people in your
+professional days?” said Mrs. Winstanley.
+
+“Of course,” faltered Yvonne.
+
+They went through the great hall. At the door they parted with Mrs.
+Winstanley, who was waiting for the Wilmingtons. “We will call for you
+on our way to the concert this afternoon,” said the Canon.
+
+“Thanks,” said Mrs. Winstanley, and then, suddenly looking at Yvonne--
+
+“Mercy, my dear! How white you are!”
+
+“There’s nothing the matter with me,” said Yvonne, trying to smile.
+
+“It’s past our _déjeuner_ hour,” said the Canon, briskly. “You want some
+food.”
+
+“Perhaps I do,” said Yvonne.
+
+She went with the Canon on to the _digue_, and walked along the shady
+side, by the hotels, past the gay terraces thronged with lunching
+guests. But all the glamour had gone from the place. An hour had changed
+it. And that hour seemed a black abyss separating her from happiness.
+
+An hour ago she had looked upon this kind, grave man who walked by
+her side as her husband. Now what was he to her? She shrank from the
+thought, terrified, and came nearer to him, touching the flying skirt of
+his coat as if to take strength from him.
+
+They entered the crowded dining-room, where the _maître d’hôtel_ had
+reserved them a table. She struggled bravely through part of the meal,
+strove to keep up a conversation. But the strain was too great. Another
+five minutes, she felt, would make her hysterical. She rose, with an
+excuse to the Canon, and escaped to her room.
+
+There she flung herself down on the bed and buried her face in the cool
+pillows. It was a relief to be alone with her fright and dismay. She
+strove to think, but her head was in a whirl. The incidents of the late
+scene came luridly before her mind, and she shivered with revulsion. A
+rough hand had been laid on the butterfly and brushed the dust from its
+wings.
+
+The Canon came later to her room, kindly solicitous. Was she ill? Would
+she like to see a medical man? Should he sit with her? She clasped his
+hand impulsively and kissed it.
+
+“You are too good to me. I am not worth it. I am not ill. It was the
+sun, I think. Let me lie down this afternoon by myself and I shall be
+better.”
+
+Surprised and touched by her action, he bent down and kissed her.
+
+“My poor little wife.”
+
+He stepped to the window and pulled the curtain to shield her eyes from
+the glare, and promising to order some tea to be brought up later, he
+went out.
+
+The kiss, the term, and the little act of thoughtfulness comforted her,
+gave her a sense of protection. She had been so bruised and frightened.
+Now she could think a little. Should she tell Everard? Then she broke
+down again and began to cry silently in a great soothing pity for
+herself.
+
+“It would only make him unhappy,” she moaned. “Why should I tell him?”
+
+She grew calmer. If Amédée would only keep his promise and leave her
+free, there was really nothing to fret about. She reassured herself with
+his words. Through all his failings toward her he had ever been “_bon
+enfant_.” There was no danger.
+
+Suddenly a thought came that made her spring from her bed in dismay. The
+concert. She had forgotten that Amédée was singing there. Everard was
+going. He would see the name on the programme, “Amédée Bazouge.” There
+could not be two tenors of that name in Europe. Everard must be kept
+away at all costs.
+
+She rushed from the room and down the stairs, in terrible anxiety lest
+he should have already left the hotel. To her intense relief, she saw
+him sitting in one of the cane chairs in the vestibule smoking his
+after-lunch cigar. He threw it away as he caught sight of her at the
+head of the stairs, breathless, and holding the balusters, and went up
+to meet her.
+
+“My poor child,” said he in an anxious tone. “What is the matter?”
+
+“Oh, Everard--I don’t want any more to be left alone. Don’t think me
+silly and cowardly. I am afraid of all kinds of things.”
+
+“Of course I ’ll come and sit with you a little,” he replied kindly.
+
+They entered her room together. Yvonne lay down. Her head was splitting
+with nervous headache. The Canon tended her in his grave way and
+sat down by the window with a book. Yvonne felt very guilty, but yet
+comforted by his presence. At the end of an hour, he looked at his watch
+and rose from his seat.
+
+“Are you easier now?”
+
+“You are not going to the Kursaal, Everard?”
+
+“I am afraid Emmeline is expecting me.” She signed to him to approach,
+and put her arms round his neck.
+
+“Don’t go. Send her an excuse--and take me for a drive. It would do me
+good, and I should so love to be alone with you.”
+
+It was the very first time in her life that Yvonne had consciously
+cajoled a man. Her face flushed hot with misgivings. It was with a
+mixture of her sex’s shame and triumph that she heard him say.
+
+“Whatever you like, dear. It is still your holiday.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII--Dis Aliter Visum
+
+But the best laid schemes of Yvonnes and men often come to nothing.
+While she was devising, on her drive along the coast, a plan for
+spending a quiet dangerless evening at the hotel, Mrs. Winstanley was
+sitting in solitary dignity at the concert, nursing her wrath over
+Professor Drummond’s “Natural Law in the Spiritual world,” a book which
+she often perused when she wished to accentuate the rigorous attitude of
+her mind.
+
+Yvonne had reckoned without Mrs. Winstanley. Otherwise she would have
+offered her a seat in the carriage. As it was, Mrs. Winstanley felt
+more resentful than ever. Under the impression that the Canon was to
+accompany her to the Kursaal, she had graciously dispensed with the
+escort of the Wilmingtons, who had gone off to see bicycle races at the
+Vélodrome. She was left in the lurch.
+
+To dislike this is human. To wrap oneself up in one’s sore dignity is
+more human still, and there was much humanity that lurked, unsuspected
+by herself, in Mrs. Winstanley’s bosom. It asserted itself, further,
+in certain curiosities. She had seen that morning what had escaped the
+Canon’s notice--the stranger’s grasp on Yvonne’s arm and the insolent
+admiration on his face. This fact, coupled with Yvonne’s agitation, had
+put her upon the track of scandal. The result was, that at the concert
+she made interesting discoveries, and, piecing things together in her
+mind afterwards, bided her time to make use of them.
+
+It would be for the Canon’s sake, naturally. A woman of Mrs.
+Winstanley’s stamp is always the most disinterested of God’s creatures.
+She never performed an action of which her conscience did not approve.
+But she was such a superior woman that her conscience trembled a little
+before her, like most of the other friends whom she patronised. She did
+not have to wait long. The Canon called upon her soon after his return
+to invite herself and the Wilmingtons to dinner. It was his last
+evening at Ostend, and Yvonne was not feeling well enough to spend it,
+as usual, at the Kursaal.
+
+“Yvonne is still poorly, Everard?” she asked, with her air of
+confidential responsibility.
+
+“A little. She has been gadding about somewhat too much lately, and it
+has knocked her up.”
+
+“Has it not occurred to you that her encounter this morning may have had
+something to do with it?”
+
+“Of course not,” replied the Canon, sharply. “It would be ridiculous.”
+
+“I have reasons for not thinking so, Everard. The man was singing at the
+Kursaal this afternoon. Here is his name on the programme.” She
+handed him the slip of paper. He read the name among the artistes. “M.
+Bazouge.” He returned it to her.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Does it not seem odd to you?”
+
+“Not at all. A relation of her first husband’s, I suppose. In fact
+Yvonne said as much.”
+
+“I could not help being struck by the name, Everard. It is so peculiar.
+I remembered it from the publication of the banns.”
+
+“I compliment you on your memory, Emmeline,” said the Canon.
+
+Mrs. Winstanley drew herself up, offended.
+
+She walked from the window where they were standing to a table, and
+fetched from it a newspaper.
+
+“Do you remember the Christian name of Yvonne’s first husband?”
+
+The Canon drew himself up too, and frowned.
+
+“What is the meaning of all this, Emmeline? What are you trying to
+insinuate?”
+
+“If I thought you were going to adopt this tone, Everard, I should have
+kept my suspicions to myself.”
+
+“I certainly wish that you had,” said he, growing angry. “It is an
+insult to Yvonne which I cannot permit. My wife is above suspicion.”
+
+“Like Caesar’s,” said the lady with a curl of the lip. “Do you know that
+we are beginning to quarrel, Everard? It is slightly vulgar. I am your
+oldest friend, remember, and I am trying to acquit myself of a painful
+duty to you.”
+
+“Duty is one of the chief instruments of the devil, if you will excuse
+my saying so,” replied the Canon.
+
+“Oh, very well then, Everard,” she said hotly. “You can go on being
+a fool as long as you like. I saw your wife struggling in this man’s
+embrace, more or less, this morning. Two or three strange coincidences
+have been forced upon my notice. For your sake I have been excessively
+anxious. My conscience tells me I ought to take you into my confidence,
+and I can do no more. You can see the Christian name of this Bazouge
+in the Visitors’ List, and adopt what course of action you think fit.
+I wash my hands of the whole matter. And I must say that from the very
+beginning, two years ago, you have treated me all through with the
+greatest want of consideration.”
+
+The Canon did not heed the peroration. He stood with the flimsy sheet
+clenched in his hand and regarded her sternly. She shrank a little, for
+her soul seemed to be naked.
+
+“You have tried to ferret this out through spite against Yvonne. Whether
+the horrible thing you imply is true or not, I shall find it hard to
+forgive you.”
+
+Mrs. Winstanley shrugged her shoulders. “In either case, you will come
+to your senses, I hope. Meanwhile, considering the present relations, it
+might be pleasanter not to meet at dinner to-night.”
+
+“I am sorry to have to agree with you, Emmeline,” said the Canon.
+
+She made him a formal bow and was leaving the room; but his voice
+stopped her.
+
+“Your anxiety cannot be very great, or you would wait to learn whether
+your suspicions are baseless or not.”
+
+She paused, in a dignified attitude, with her hand on the back of a
+chair, while he adjusted his gold pince-nez and ran through the list.
+
+“You are right so far,” he said coldly. “The names are identical.”
+
+They parted at the door. The Canon walked back to his hotel with anger
+in his heart. In spite of cumulative evidence, the theory that his
+cousin had insinuated was prima facie preposterous. It was important
+enough, however, to need some investigation. But the feeling uppermost
+in his mind was indignation with Mrs. Winstanley. He was too shrewd a
+man not to have perceived long ago her jealousy of Yvonne; but beyond
+keeping a watchful eye lest his wife should receive hurt, he had not
+condescended to take it into serious consideration. Now, beneath her
+impressive manner he clearly divined the desire to inflict on Yvonne
+a deadly injury. To have leaped at such a conclusion, to have sought
+subsequent proof from the Visitors’ List, argued malicious design. He
+could never forgive her.
+
+Still the matter had to be cleared up at once. On his arrival at the
+Océan, he went forthwith to Yvonne’s room, and entered on receiving an
+acknowledgment of his knock. She was standing in the light of the window
+by the toilet table, doing her hair. The rest of the room was in the
+shadow of the gathering evening.
+
+“Well,” she said, without turning, “are they coming?”
+
+The grace of her attitude, the intimacy of the scene, the pleasantness
+of her greeting, made his task hateful.
+
+“No,” he said, with an asperity directed towards the disinvited guest.
+“We shall dine alone to-night.”
+
+But his tone made Yvonne’s heart give a great throb, and she turned to
+him quickly.
+
+“Has anything happened?”
+
+“A great deal,” said the Canon.
+
+Where he stood in the dusk of the doorway, the shadow accentuated the
+stern lines of his face and deepened the sombreness of his glance. His
+brows were bent in perplexities of repugnance. It was horrible to demand
+of her such explanations. To Yvonne’s scared fancy, his brows seemed
+bent in accusation. That was the pity of it. For a few seconds they
+looked at one another, the Canon severely, Yvonne in throbbing suspense.
+
+“What?” she asked at length.
+
+He paused for a moment, then threw his hat and the crumpled Visitors’
+List on to the table and plunged into the heart of things--but not
+before Yvonne had glanced at the paper with a sudden pang of intuition.
+
+“Emmeline has discovered, Yvonne, that the man--”
+
+He got no further. Yvonne rushed to him with a cry of pain, clung to his
+arm, broke into wild words.
+
+“Don’t say any more--don’t--don’t. Spare me--for pity’s sake. I did not
+want you to know. I tried to keep it from you, Everard! Don’t look at me
+like that?”
+
+Her voice ended in a note of fright. For the Canon’s face had grown
+ashen and wore an expression of incredulous horror. He shook her from
+him.
+
+“Do you mean that this is true? That you met your first husband this
+morning?”
+
+“Yes,” said she, with quivering lips. Question and answer were too
+categorical for misunderstanding. For a moment he struggled against the
+overwhelming.
+
+“Are you in your right senses, Yvonne? Do you understand what I asked
+you? Your first husband is still alive and you saw him to-day?”
+
+“Yes,” said Yvonne again. “Didn’t you know when you came in?”
+
+“I did n’t know,” he repeated almost mechanically.
+
+The blow crushed him for a while. He stood quite rigid, drawing
+quick breaths, with his eyes fixed upon her. And she remained still,
+half-sitting on the edge of the bed, numb with a vague prescience of
+catastrophe, and a dim, uncomprehended intuition of the earthquake and
+wreck in the man’s soul. The silence grew appalling. She broke it with a
+faltering whisper.
+
+“Will you forgive me?”
+
+The poor little commonplace fell in the midst of devastating
+emotions--pathetically incongruous.
+
+“Did you know that this man was alive when you married me?” he asked in
+a hard voice.
+
+“No,” cried Yvonne. “How could I have married you? I thought he had been
+dead nearly three years.”
+
+“What proofs did you have of his death?”
+
+“A friend sent me a number of the Figaro, with the announcement.”
+
+“Was that all?”
+
+“Yes,” said Yvonne.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” he insisted, “that you married a second time,
+having no further proofs of your first husband’s death than a mere
+newspaper report?”
+
+“It never occurred to me to doubt it,” she replied, opening piteous,
+innocent eyes.
+
+The childlike irresponsibility was above his comprehension. Her apparent
+insensibility to the most vital concerns of life was another shock to
+him. It seemed criminal.
+
+“God forgive you,” he said, “for the wrong you have done me.”
+
+“But I did it unknowingly, Everard,” cried poor Yvonne. “If one has to
+get greater proofs, why did you not ask for them, yourself?”
+
+The Canon turned away and paced the room slowly, without replying. At
+last he stood still before her.
+
+“Among ordinary honourable people one takes such things for granted,” he
+said.
+
+“Forgive me,” she said again, humbly.
+
+But he could find no pity for her in his heart. She had wronged him past
+redemption.
+
+“How much truth was there in the newspaper story?” he asked coldly.
+
+She told him rapidly what Amédée Bazouge had said concerning his attack
+in the hospital and his subsequent stroke.
+
+“So the man is wilfully killing himself with absinthe?” he said.
+
+“It appears so,” replied Yvonne with a shudder.
+
+“Could you tell me what passed between you otherwise--in general terms?”
+ he asked, after a short silence. “You explained your position? Or did
+you leave him in ignorance, as you were going to leave me?”
+
+“I told him--of course. It was necessary. And he laughed--I thought to
+spare you, Everard.”
+
+“Spare me, Yvonne?”
+
+“Yes,” she said, simply, “I could have borne all the pain and fright
+of it alone--why should I have made you unhappy? And _he_ said he would
+never interfere with me, and I can trust his word. Why should I have
+told you, Everard?”
+
+“Do you actually ask me such a question, honestly?”
+
+“God knows I do,” she replied pitifully.
+
+“And you would have gone on living with me--I not being your husband?”
+
+“But you are my husband,” cried Yvonne, “nothing could ever alter that.”
+
+“But good God! it does alter it,” cried the Canon in a voice of anguish,
+breaking the iron bonds he had placed on his passion. “Neither in the
+eyes of God nor of man are you my wife. You have no right to bear my
+name. After this hour I have no right to enter this room. Every caress
+I gave you would be sin. Don’t you understand it, child? Don’t you
+understand that this has brought ruin into our lives, the horror of
+loneliness and separation?”
+
+“Separation?” said Yvonne.
+
+She rose slowly from her seat on the bed and stared at him aghast.
+
+The twilight in the room deepened; the shadow of a wall opposite the
+window fell darker. Their faces and Yvonne’s bare neck and arms gleamed
+white in the gloom. They had spoken with many silences; for how long
+neither knew.
+
+“Yes,” replied the Canon in his harder tones, recovering himself “It
+means all that.”
+
+“I am to go--not to live with you any more?”
+
+“Could you imagine our past relations could continue?”
+
+“I don’t understand,” she began feebly. And then the darkness fell upon
+her, and her limbs relaxed. She swayed sideways and would have fallen,
+but he caught her in his arms and laid her on the couch.
+
+“Thank you,” she murmured faintly.
+
+She hid her face in her hands and remained, crouched up, quite still, in
+a stupor of misery. The Canon stood over her helplessly, unable to find
+a word of comfort.
+
+The sight of her prostration did not move him. He had been wounded to
+the very depths of his being. His pride, his honour, his dignity were
+lacerated in their vitals. He burned with the sense of unpardonable
+wrong.
+
+“It is self-evident,” he said at last, “that we must part. Our remaining
+together would be a sin against God and an outrage upon Society.”
+
+She rased herself wearily, with one hand on the couch, and shook her
+head slowly.
+
+“Such things are beyond me. No one will ever know.”
+
+“There is One who will always know, Yvonne.”
+
+She pondered over the saying, as far as her tired, bewildered brain
+allowed. It conveyed very little meaning to her. Theology had not
+altered her child-like conception of the benevolence of the Creator.
+After a long time she was able to disentangle an idea from the
+confusion.
+
+“If it is a sin--don’t you love me enough to sin a little for my sake?”
+
+“Not that sin,” he said.
+
+Yvonne lifted her shoulders helplessly.
+
+“I would commit any sin for your sake,” she said. “It would seem so
+easy.”
+
+Curiously assorted as they were, a poetic idealism on the one side and
+grateful veneration on the other had hitherto bound them together. Now
+they were sundered leagues apart; mutual understanding was hopeless.
+Each was bewildered by the other’s moral attitude.
+
+The logical consequences of the discovery, that appeared so luridly
+devious to the Canon’s intellect, failed entirely to appeal to Yvonne.
+She referred them entirely to his personal inclinations. On the other
+hand, the Canon had a false insight into her soul that was a chilling
+disillusion.
+
+The beauty of her exquisite purity and innocence had always captivated
+in him the finer man. It was a mirage. It was gone. Emptiness remained.
+She was simply a graceful, non-moral being--a spiritual anomaly.
+
+Yvonne shivered, and rising, walked unsteadily to the wardrobe, whence
+she took a dressing-jacket. Putting it on, she returned to the couch. It
+was almost dark. The Canon watched her dim, slight figure as it passed
+him, with a strange feeling of remoteness. A hundred trivial instances
+of her want of moral sense crowded into his mind to support his
+view--her inability to see the wrong-doing of Stephen, her indefinite
+notions in religious matters, her mental attitude toward the girl that
+had gone astray, of whom she had been talking only the night before, her
+expressed intention of hiding this terrible discovery from him. He had
+been duped, not by her, but by his own romantic folly.
+
+Yet what would his life be without her--or rather without his illusion?
+An icy hand gripped his heart. He turned to the glimmering window and
+stared at the blank wall.
+
+Presently a moan struck upon his ear. He wheeled round sharply, and
+distinguished her lying with helpless outspread arms on the couch. Mere
+humanity brought him to her side.
+
+“I am so tired,” she moaned.
+
+“You must go to bed,” he replied in a gentler voice than hitherto. “We
+had better part now. To-morrow, if you are well enough to travel, we
+will leave for England.”
+
+“Let me go alone,” she murmured, “and you go on to Switzerland. Why
+should your holiday be spoiled?”
+
+“It is my life that is spoiled,” he said ungenerously. “The holiday
+matters very little. It is best to return to England as soon as
+possible. Between now and to-morrow morning I shall have time to reflect
+upon the situation.”
+
+He struck a match and lit the candles and drew down the blind. The
+light revealed her to him so wan and exhausted that he was moved with
+compunction.
+
+“Don’t think me hard, my child,” he said, bending over her. “It is the
+bitterest day of our lives. We must pray to God for strength to bear it.
+I shall leave you now. I shall see that you have all you want. Try to
+sleep. Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night,” she said miserably.
+
+And so, without touch of hand, they parted.
+
+The hours of the evening wore on, and night came. At last she cried
+herself to sleep. It had been a day of tears.
+
+They left Ostend quietly the following morning by the Dover boat. During
+the whole journey the Canon treated Yvonne with the deferential courtesy
+he could always assume to women, seeing to her comforts, anticipating
+her wants, even exchanging now and then casual remarks on passing
+objects of interest. But of the subject next his heart he said not a
+word. The crossing was smooth. The sea air revived Yvonne’s strength.
+
+His silence half comforted, half frightened her. Had he relented? She
+glanced often at his impassive face, in cruel anxiety to pierce to the
+thoughts that lay behind. Yet a little hope came to her; for fear of
+losing it she dared not speak. To her simple mind it seemed impossible
+that merely conscientious scruples could make him cast her off. If he
+loved her, his love would triumph. If he persisted in his resolve, he
+cared for her no longer. In this case her future was very simple. She
+would go back to London and sing.
+
+She seemed to have cried her feeling away during the night--such as he
+had left unbruised and untorn. For the quivering flesh is only sensitive
+up to a certain point of maceration. He had trodden upon her pitilessly;
+but she felt no resentment. In fact, she would have been quite happy if
+he had put his arms round her and said, “Let us forget, Yvonne.” By the
+end of the journey she had cajoled herself into the idea that he would
+do so.
+
+A suite of rooms received them in the quiet West End hotel where the
+Canon always stayed. They dined alone, the discreet butler waiting on
+them, for the Canon was an honoured guest. When the cloth was removed,
+the Canon said in his even voice:--
+
+“Are you sufficiently recovered, Yvonne, to discuss this painful
+subject?”
+
+“I am quite ready, Everard.”
+
+“We will make it as short as possible. What I said last night must
+remain, whatever be the suffering. I have loved you deeply--like a young
+man--in a way perhaps ill befitting my years. The memories, for they are
+innocent, will always be there, Yvonne. If I did not seek strength from
+Elsewhere, it might wreck my life to part from you.”
+A young teacher was telling her pupils the story of the emotional lady
+who, to put her lover to the test, bade him pick up the glove which
+she had thrown down into the arena between the tiger and the lion. The
+lover does her bidding, in order to vindicate his character as a brave
+knight. One boy, after hearing the story, at once states his contempt
+for the knight's acquiescence, which he declares to be unworthy.
+
+“But,” says the teacher, “you see he really did it to show the lady how
+foolish she was.” The answer of the boy sums up what I have been trying
+to show: “There was no sense in _his_ being sillier than _she_ was, to
+show her _she_ was silly.”
+
+If the boy had stopped there, we might have concluded that he was
+lacking in imagination or romance, but his next remark proves what a
+balanced and discriminating person he was, for he added: “Now, if _she_
+had fallen in, and he had leapt after her to rescue her, that would
+have been splendid and of some use.” Given the character of the lady,
+we might, as adults, question the last part of the boy's statement, but
+this is pure cynicism and fortunately does not enter into the child's
+calculations.
+
+In my own personal experience (and I have told this story often in the
+German ballad form to girls of ten and twelve in the High Schools in
+England) I have never found one girl who sympathised with the lady or
+who failed to appreciate the poetic justice meted out to her in the end
+by the dignified renunciation of the knight.
+
+Chesterton defines sentimentality as “a tame, cold, or small and
+inadequate manner of speaking about certain matters which demand very
+large and beautiful expression.”
+
+I would strongly urge upon young teachers to revise, by this
+definition, some of the stories they have included in their repertory,
+and see whether they would stand the test or not.
+
+IV.--_Stories containing strong sensational episodes._ The danger is
+all the greater because many children delight in it, and some crave for
+it in the abstract, but fear it in the concrete.[19]
+
+An affectionate aunt, on one occasion, anxious to curry favour with
+a four-year-old nephew, was taxing her imagination to find a story
+suitable for his tender years. She was greatly startled when he
+suddenly said, in a most imperative tone: “Tell me the story of a
+_bear_ eating a small boy.” This was so remote from her own choice
+of subject that she hesitated at first, but coming to the conclusion
+that as the child had chosen the situation he would feel no terror
+in the working up of its details, she began a most thrilling and
+blood-curdling story, leading up to the final catastrophe. But just as
+she had reached the great dramatic moment, the child raised his hands
+in terror and said: “Oh! Auntie, don't let the bear _really_ eat the
+boy!”
+
+“Don't you know,” said an impatient boy who had been listening to a
+mild adventure story considered suitable to his years, “that I don't
+take any interest in the story until the decks are dripping with gore?”
+Here we have no opportunity of deciding whether or not the actual
+description demanded would be more alarming than the listener had
+realised.
+
+Here is a poem of James Stephens, showing a child's taste for
+sensational things:--
+
+    A man was sitting underneath a tree
+    Outside the village, and he asked me
+    What name was upon this place, and said he
+    Was never here before. He told a
+    Lot of stories to me too. His nose was flat.
+    I asked him how it happened, and he said,
+    The first mate of the  “Mary Ann”  done that,
+    With a marling-spike one day, but he was dead,
+    And a jolly job too, but he'd have gone a long way to have
+      killed him.
+    A gold ring in one ear, and the other was bit off by a crocodile,
+      bedad,
+    That's what he said: He taught me how to chew.
+    He was a real nice man. He liked me too.
+
+The taste that is fed by the sensational contents of the newspapers
+and the dramatic excitement of street life, and some of the lurid
+representations of the Kinematograph, is so much stimulated that the
+interest in normal stories is difficult to rouse. I will not here dwell
+on the deleterious effects of over dramatic stimulation, which has been
+known to lead to crime, since I am keener to prevent the telling of too
+many sensational stories than to suggest a cure when the mischief is
+done. Kate Douglas Wiggin has said:
+
+“Let us be realistic, by all means, but beware, O Story-teller, of
+being too realistic. Avoid the shuddering tale of ‘the wicked boy who
+stoned the birds,’ lest some hearer should be inspired to try the
+dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill.”
+
+I must emphasise the fact, however, that it is only the excess of
+this dramatic element which I deplore. A certain amount of excitement
+is necessary; but this question belongs to the positive side of the
+subject, and I shall deal with it later on.
+
+V.--_Stories presenting matters quite outside the plane of the child_
+(unless they are wrapped in mystery, which is of great educational
+value).
+
+The element I wish to eliminate is the one which would make children
+world-wise and old before their time.
+
+A small American child who had entertained a guest in her mother's
+absence, when questioned as to whether she had shown all the
+hospitality the mother would have considered necessary, said: “Oh! yes.
+And I talked to her in the kind of ‘dressy’ tone _you_ use on your ‘At
+Home’ days.”
+
+On one occasion I was lecturing in the town of Cleveland, and was to
+stay in the house of a lady whom I had met only once, in New York, but
+with true American hospitality she had begged me to make her house my
+home during the whole of my stay in Cleveland. In writing to invite
+me, she mentioned the pleasure it would afford her little ten-year-old
+daughter to make my acquaintance, and added this somewhat enigmatic
+sentence: “Mignon has asked permission to dedicate her _last_ work to
+you.” I was alarmed at the word _last_, given the age of the author,
+and felt sorry that the literary faculty had developed quite so early,
+lest the unfettered and irresponsible years of childhood should have
+been sacrificed. I was still more troubled when, upon my arrival,
+I learned that the title of the book which was to be dedicated to
+me was “The Two Army Girls,” and contained the elaborate history of
+a double courtship. But, as the story was read to me, I was soon
+disarmed. A more innocent recital I never heard--and it was all the
+quainter because of certain little grown-up sentences gathered from the
+conversation of elders in unguarded moments, which evidently conveyed
+but slight meaning to the youthful authoress. The final scene between
+two of the lovers is so characteristic that I cannot refrain from
+quoting the actual words. Said John: “I love you, and I wish you to be
+my wife.” “That I will,” said Mary, without any hesitation. “That's all
+right,” said John. “And now let us _get back to the Golf Links_.”
+
+Oh, that modern writers of fiction would “get back to the Golf Links”
+sooner than they do, realising with this little unconscious philosopher
+that there are some reactions from love-making which show a healthy and
+balanced constitution.
+
+Experience with children ought to teach us to avoid stories which
+contain too much _allusion_ to matters of which the hearers are
+entirely ignorant; but, judging from the written stories of to-day,
+supposed to be for children, it is still a matter of difficulty to
+realise that this form of allusion to “foreign” matters, or making a
+joke the appreciation of which depends solely on a special and “inside”
+knowledge, is always bewildering and fatal to sustained dramatic
+interest.
+
+It is a matter of intense regret that so very few people have
+sufficiently clear remembrance of their own childhood to help them to
+understand the taste and point of view of the _normal_ child. There
+is a passage in the “Brownies” (by Mrs. Ewing) which illustrates the
+confusion created in the child mind by a facetious allusion in a
+dramatic moment which needed a more direct treatment.
+
+When the nursery toys have all gone astray, one little child exclaims
+joyfully:
+
+“Why, the old Rocking-Horse's nose has turned up in the oven!”
+
+“It couldn't” remarks a tiresome, facetious doctor, far more anxious
+to be funny than to sympathise with the joy of the child; “it was the
+purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin marbles.”
+
+Now, for grown-up people this is an excellent joke, but for a child
+who has not yet become acquainted with these Grecian masterpieces, the
+whole remark is pointless and hampering.[20]
+
+VI.--_Stories which appeal to fear or priggishness._ This is a class of
+story to be avoided which scarcely counts to-day and against which the
+teacher does not need a warning; but I wish to make a passing allusion
+to it, partly to round off my subject and partly to show that we have
+made some improvement in choice of subject.
+
+When I study the evolution of the story from the crude recitals
+offered to our children within the last hundred years, I feel that,
+though our progress in intelligent mental catering may be slow, it
+is real and sure. One has only to take some examples from the Chap
+Books of the beginning of last century to realise the difference of
+appeal. Everything offered then was either an appeal to fear or to
+priggishness, and one wonders how it is that our grandparents and their
+parents ever recovered from the effects of such stories as were offered
+to them. But there is the consoling thought that no lasting impression
+was made upon them, such as I believe _may_ be possible by the right
+kind of story.
+
+I offer a few examples of the old type of story:
+
+Here is an encouraging address offered by a certain Mr. Janeway to
+children about the year 1828:
+
+“Dare you do anything which your parents forbid you, and neglect to
+do what they command? Dare you to run up and down on the Lord's Day,
+or do you keep in to read your book, and learn what your good parents
+command?”
+
+Such an address would have almost tempted children to envy the lot of
+orphans, except that the guardians and less close relations might have
+been equally, if not more, severe.
+
+From “The Curious Girl,” published about 1809: “Oh! papa, I hope you
+will have no reason to be dissatisfied with me, for I love my studies
+very much, and I am never so happy at my play as when I have been
+assiduous at my lessons all day.”
+
+“Adolphus: How strange it is, papa, you should believe it possible for
+me to act so like a child, now that I am twelve years old!”
+
+Here is a specimen taken from a Chap-book about 1825:
+
+Edward refuses hot bread at breakfast. His hostess asks whether he
+likes it. “Yes, I am extremely fond of it.” “Why did you refuse it?”
+“Because I know that my papa does not approve of my eating it. Am I to
+disobey a Father and Mother I love so well, and forget my duty, because
+they are a long way off? I would not touch the cake, were I sure nobody
+could see me. I myself should know it, and that would be sufficient.”
+
+“Nobly replied!” exclaimed Mrs. C. “Act always thus, and you must be
+happy, for although the whole world should refuse the praise that is
+due, you must enjoy the approbation of your conscience, which is beyond
+anything else.”
+
+Here is a quotation of the same kind from Mrs. Sherwood:
+
+“Tender-souled little creatures, desolated by a sense of sin, if
+they did but eat a spoonful of cupboard jam without Mamma's express
+permission.... Would a modern Lucy, jealous of her sister Emily's doll,
+break out thus easily into tearful apology for her guilt?--‘I know
+it is wicked in me to be sorry that Emily is happy, but I feel that
+I cannot help it.’ And would a modern mother retort with heartfelt
+joy?--'My dear child, I am glad you have confessed. Now I shall tell
+you why you feel this wicked sorrow'--proceeding to an account of the
+depravity of human nature so unredeemed by comfort for a childish mind
+of common intelligence that one can scarcely imagine the interview
+ending in anything less tragic than a fit of juvenile hysteria.”
+
+Description of a Good Boy. “A good boy is dutiful to his Father and
+Mother, obedient to his master and loving to his playfellows. He is
+diligent in learning his book, and takes a pleasure in improving
+himself in everything that is worthy of praise. He rises early in
+the morning, makes himself clean and decent, and says his prayers.
+He loves to hear good advice, is thankful to those who give it and
+always follows it. He never swears[21] or calls names or uses ill words
+to companions. He is never peevish and fretful, always cheerful and
+good-tempered.”
+
+VII.--_Stories of exaggerated and coarse fun._ In the chapter on the
+positive side of this subject I shall speak more in detail of the
+educational value of robust and virile representation of fun and of
+sheer nonsense, but as a representation to these statements, I should
+like to strike a note of warning about the element of exaggerated and
+coarse fun being encouraged in our school stories, partly because of
+the lack of humour in such presentations--a natural product of stifling
+imagination--and partly because the train of the abnormal has the same
+effect as the too frequent use of the melodramatic.
+
+You have only to read the adventures of Buster Brown, which for years
+formed the Sunday reading of millions of children in the United States,
+to realise what would be the effect of coarse fun and entire absence
+of humour upon the normal child in its everyday experience, an effect
+all the greater because of the real skill with which the illustrations
+are drawn. It is only fair to state that this series was not originally
+prepared or intended for the young, but it is a matter of regret
+(shared by most educationists in the States) that they should ever have
+been given to children at all.
+
+In an article in _Macmillan's Magazine_, Dec. 1869, Miss Yonge writes:
+“A taste for buffoonery is much to be discouraged, an exclusive taste
+for extravagance most unwholesome and even perverting. It becomes
+destructive of reverence and soon degenerates into coarseness. It
+permits nothing poetical or imaginative, nothing sweet or pathetic to
+exist, and there is a certain self-satisfaction and superiority in
+making game of what others regard with enthusiasm and sentiment which
+absolutely bars the way against a higher or softer tone.”
+
+Although these words were written nearly half a century ago, they are
+so specially applicable to-day that they seem quite “up-to-date”:
+indeed, I think they will hold equally good fifty years hence.
+
+In spite of a strong taste on the part of children for what is ugly
+and brutal, I am sure that we ought to eliminate this element as far
+as possible from the school stories--especially among poor children.
+Not because I think children should be protected from all knowledge
+of evil, but because so much of this knowledge comes into their life
+outside school that we can well afford to ignore it during school
+hours. At the same time, however, as I shall show by example when I
+come to the positive side, it would be well to show children by story
+illustration the difference between brute ugliness without anything
+to redeem it and surface ugliness, which may be only a veil over the
+beauty that lies underneath. It might be possible, for instance, to
+show children the difference between the real ugliness of a brutal
+story of crime and an illustration of it in the sensational papers,
+and the apparent ugliness in the priest's face of the “Laocoon” group,
+because of the motive of courage and endurance behind the suffering.
+Many stories in everyday life could be found to illustrate this.
+
+VIII.--_Stories of infant piety and death-bed scenes._ The stories
+for children forty years ago contained much of this element, and the
+following examples will illustrate this point:
+
+Notes from poems written by a child between six and eight years of age,
+by name Philip Freeman, afterwards Archdeacon of Exeter:
+
+    Poor Robin, thou canst fly no more,
+    Thy joys and sorrows all are o'er.
+    Through Life's tempestuous storms thou'st trod,
+    But now art sunk beneath the sod.
+    Here lost and gone poor Robin lies,
+    He trembles, lingers, falls and dies.
+    He's gone, he's gone, forever lost,
+    No more of him they now can boast.
+    Poor Robin's dangers all are past,
+    He struggled to the very last.
+    Perhaps he spent a happy Life,
+    Without much struggle and much strife.
+
+            _Published by John Loder, bookseller, Woodbridge, in 1829._
+
+The prolonged gloom of the main theme is somewhat lightened by the
+speculative optimism of the last verse.
+
+    Life, transient Life, is but a dream,
+    Like Sleep which short doth lengthened seem
+    Till dawn of day, when the bird's lay
+    Doth charm the soul's first peeping gleam.
+
+    Then farewell to the parting year,
+    Another's come to Nature dear.
+    In every place, thy brightening face
+    Does welcome winter's snowy drear.
+
+    Alas! our time is much mis-spent.
+    Then we must haste and now repent.
+    We have a book in which to look,
+    For we on Wisdom should be bent.
+
+    Should God, the Almighty, King of all,
+    Before His judgment-seat now call
+    Us to that place of Joy and Grace
+    Prepared for us since Adam's fall.
+
+I think there is no doubt that we have made considerable progress in
+this matter. Not only do we refrain from telling these highly moral
+(_sic_) stories but we have reached the point of parodying them,
+in sign of ridicule, as, for instance, in such writing as Belloc's
+“Cautionary Tales.” These would be a trifle too grim for a timid child,
+but excellent fun for adults.
+
+It should be our study to-day to prove to children that the immediate
+importance to them is not to think of dying and going to Heaven, but
+of living and--shall we say?--going to College, which is a far better
+preparation for a life to come than the morbid dwelling upon the
+possibility of an early death.
+
+In an article signed “Muriel Harris,” I think, from a copy of the
+_Tribune_, appeared a delightful article on Sunday Books, from which I
+quote the following:
+
+“All very good little children died young in the story-books, so that
+unusual goodness must have been the source of considerable anxiety to
+affectionate parents. I came across a little old book the other day
+called ‘Examples for Youth.’ On the yellow fly-leaf was written in
+childish, carefully sloping hand: ‘Presented to Mary Palmer Junior, by
+her sister, to be read on Sundays,’ and was dated 1828. The accounts
+are taken from a work on _Piety Promoted_, and all of them begin with
+unusual piety in early youth and end with the death-bed of the little
+paragon, and his or her dying words.”
+
+IX.--_Stories containing a mixture of Fairy Tale and Science._ By this
+combination you lose what is essential to each, namely, the fantastic
+on the one side, and accuracy on the other. The true Fairy Tale should
+be unhampered by any compromise of probability even--the scientific
+representation should be sufficiently marvellous along its own lines to
+need no supernatural aid. Both appeal to the imagination in different
+ways.
+
+As an exception to this kind of mixture, I should quote “The Honey Bee,
+and Other Stories,” translated from the Danish of Evald by C. G. Moore
+Smith. There is a certain robustness in these stories dealing with the
+inexorable laws of Nature, though some of them will appear hard to the
+child; but they will be of interest to all teachers.
+
+Perhaps the worst element in choice of stories is that which insists
+upon the moral detaching itself and explaining the story. In “Alice in
+Wonderland” the Duchess says, “‘And the moral of _that_ is: Take care
+of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.’ ‘How fond
+she is of finding morals in things,’ thought Alice to herself.” (This
+gives the point of view of the child.)
+
+The following is a case in point, found in a rare old print in the
+British Museum:
+
+“Jane S. came home with her clothes soiled and hands badly torn. ‘Where
+have you been?’ asked her mother. ‘I fell down the bank near the mill,’
+said Jane, ‘and I should have been drowned if Mr. M. had not seen me
+and pulled me out.’ 'Why did you go so near the edge of the brink?‘
+'There was a pretty flower there that I wanted, and I only meant to
+take one step, but I slipped and fell down.’ Moral: Young people often
+take but one step in sinful indulgence (Poor Jane!), but they fall
+into soul-destroying sins. There is a sinful pleasure which they wish
+to enjoy. They can do it by a single act of sin (the heinous act of
+picking a flower!). They do it; but that act leads to another, and they
+fall into the Gulf of Perdition, unless God interposes.”
+
+Now, apart from the folly of this story, we must condemn it on moral
+grounds. Could we imagine a lower standard of a Deity than that
+presented here to the child?
+
+To-day the teacher would commend Jane for a laudable interest in
+botany, but might add a word of caution about choosing inclined planes
+as a hunting-ground for specimens and a popular, lucid explanation of
+the inexorable law of gravity.
+
+Here we have an instance of applying a moral when we have finished our
+story, but there are many stories where nothing is left to chance in
+this matter, and where there is no means for the child to use ingenuity
+or imagination in making out the meaning for himself.
+
+Henry Morley has condemned the use of this method as applied to Fairy
+Stories. He says: “Moralising in a Fairy Story is like the snoring of
+Bottom in Titania's lap.”
+
+But I think this applies to all stories, and most especially to those
+by which we do wish to teach something.
+
+John Burroughs says in his article,[22] “Thou shalt not preach”:
+
+“Didactic fiction can never rank high. Thou shalt not preach or teach;
+though shalt pourtray and create, and have ends as universal as
+nature.... What Art demands is that the Artist's personal convictions
+and notions, his likes and dislikes, do not obtrude themselves at all;
+that good and evil stand judged in his work by the logic of events,
+as they do in nature, and not by any special pleading on his part. He
+does not hold a brief for either side; he exemplifies the working of
+the creative energy.... The great artist works _in_ and _through_ and
+_from_ moral ideas; his works are indirectly a criticism of life. He
+is moral without having a moral. The moment a moral obtrudes itself,
+that moment he begins to fall from grace as an artist.... The great
+distinction of Art is that it aims to see life steadily and to see it
+whole.... It affords the one point of view whence the world appears
+harmonious and complete.”
+
+It would seem, then, from this passage, that it is of _moral_
+importance to put things dramatically.
+
+In Froebel's “Mother Play” he demonstrates the educational value of
+stories, emphasising that their highest use consists in their ability
+to enable the child, through _suggestion_, to form a pure and noble
+idea of what a man may be or do. The sensitiveness of a child's mind
+is offended if the moral is forced upon him, but if he absorbs it
+unconsciously, he has received its influence for all time.
+
+To me the idea of pointing out the moral of the story has always seemed
+as futile as tying a flower on to a stalk instead of letting the flower
+_grow out_ of the stalk, as Nature intended. In the first case, the
+flower, showy and bright for the moment, soon fades away. In the second
+instance, it develops slowly, coming to perfection in fulness of time
+because of the life within.
+
+X.--Lastly, the element to avoid is _that which rouses emotions which
+cannot be translated into action_.
+
+Mr. Earl Barnes, to whom all teachers owe a debt of gratitude for the
+inspiration of his education views, insists strongly on this point.
+The sole effect of such stories is to produce a form of hysteria,
+fortunately short-lived, but a waste of force which might be directed
+into a better channel.[23] Such stories are so easy to recognise that
+it would be useless to make a formal list, but I shall make further
+allusion to this in dealing with stories from the lives of the saints.
+
+These, then, are the main elements to avoid in the selection of
+material suitable for normal children. Much might be added in the way
+of detail, and the special tendency of the day may make it necessary to
+avoid one class of story more than another; but this care belongs to
+another generation of teachers and parents.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[18] Such works as “Ministering Children,” “The Wide, Wide World,”
+“The Fairchild Family,” are instances of the kind of story I mean, as
+containing too much analysis of emotion.
+
+[19] One child's favourite book bore the exciting title of “Birth, Life
+and Death of Crazy Jane.”
+
+[20] This does not imply that the child would not appreciate in the
+right context the thrilling and romantic story in connection with the
+finding of the Elgin marbles.
+
+[21] One is almost inclined to prefer Marjorie Fleming's little
+innocent oaths. “But she was more than usual calm. She did not give a
+single dam.”
+
+[22] From “Literary Values.”
+
+[23] A story is told of Confucius, that having attended a funeral he
+presented his horse to the chief mourner. When asked why he bestowed
+this gift, he replied: “I wept with the man, so I feel I ought to _do_
+something for him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ELEMENTS TO SEEK IN CHOICE OF MATERIAL.
+
+
+IN “The Choice of Books” Frederic Harrison has said: “The most useful
+help to reading is to know what we shall _not_ read, ... what we
+shall keep from that small cleared spot in the overgrown jungle of
+information which we can call our ordered patch of fruit-bearing
+knowledge.”[24]
+
+Now, the same statement applies to our stories, and, having busied
+myself, during the last chapter, with “clearing my small spot” by
+cutting away a mass of unfruitful growth, I am now going to suggest
+what would be the best kind of seed to sow in the patch which I have
+“reclaimed from the Jungle.”
+
+Again I repeat that I have no wish to be dogmatic, and that in offering
+suggestions as to the stories to be told, I am only catering for a
+group of normal school-children. My list of subjects does not pretend
+to cover the whole ground of children's needs, and just as I exclude
+the abnormal or unusual child from the scope of my warning in subjects
+to avoid, so do I also exclude that child from the limitation in choice
+of subjects to be sought, because you can offer almost any subject to
+the unusual child, especially if you stand in close relation to him and
+know his powers of apprehension. In this matter, _age_ has very little
+to say: it is a question of the stage of development.
+
+Experience has taught me that for the group of normal children, almost
+irrespective of age, the first kind of story suitable will contain an
+appeal to conditions to which they are accustomed. The reason of this
+is obvious: the child, having limited experience, can only be reached
+by this experience, until his imagination is awakened and he is enabled
+to grasp through this faculty what he has not actually passed through.
+Before this awakening has taken place he enters the realm of fiction
+(represented in the story) by comparison with his personal experience.
+Every story and every point in the story mean more as that experience
+widens, and the interest varies, of course, with temperament, quickness
+of perception, power of visualising and of concentration.
+
+In “The Marsh King's Daughter,” H. C. Andersen says:
+
+“The Storks have a great many stories which they tell their little
+ones, all about the bogs and marshes. They suit them to their age and
+capacity. The young ones are quite satisfied with Kribble, Krabble,
+or some such nonsense, and find it charming; but the elder ones want
+something with more meaning.”
+
+One of the most interesting experiments to be made in connection with
+this subject is to tell the same story at intervals of a year or six
+months to some individual child.[25] The different incidents in the
+story which appeal to it (and you must watch it closely, to be sure the
+interest is real, and not artificially stimulated by any suggestion on
+your part) will mark its mental development and the gradual awakening
+of its imagination. This experiment is a very delicate one, and will
+not be infallible, because children are secretive and the appreciation
+is often (unconsciously) simulated, or concealed through shyness or
+want of articulation. But it is, in spite of this, a deeply interesting
+and helpful experiment.
+
+To take a concrete example: let us suppose the story of Andersen's Tin
+Soldier told to a child of five or six years. At the first recital, the
+point which will interest the child most will be the setting up of the
+tin soldiers on the table, because he can understand this by means of
+his own experience, in his own nursery: it is an appeal to conditions
+to which he is accustomed and for which no exercise of the imagination
+is needed, unless we take the effect of memory to be, according to
+Queyrat, retrospective imagination.
+
+The next incident that appeals is the unfamiliar behaviour of the toys,
+but still in familiar surroundings; that is to say, the _unusual_
+activities are carried on in the safe precincts of the nursery--in the
+_usual_ atmosphere of the child.
+
+I quote from the text:
+
+“Late in the evening the other soldiers were put in their box, and the
+people of the house went to bed. Now was the time for the toys to play;
+they amused themselves with paying visits, fighting battles and giving
+balls. The tin soldiers rustled about in their box, for they wanted to
+join the games, but they could not get the lid off. The nut-crackers
+turned somersaults, and the pencil scribbled nonsense on the slate.”
+
+Now, from this point onwards in the story, the events will be quite
+outside the personal experience of the child, and there will have
+to be a real stretch of imagination to appreciate the thrilling and
+blood-curdling adventures of the little tin soldier, namely, the
+terrible sailing down the gutter under the bridge, the meeting with
+the fierce rat who demands the soldier's passport, the horrible
+sensation in the fish's body, etc. Last of all, perhaps, will come
+the appreciation of the best qualities of the hero: his modesty, his
+dignity, his reticence, his courage and his constancy: he seems to
+combine all the qualities of the best soldier with those of the best
+civilian, without the more obvious qualities which generally attract
+first. As for the love-story, we must not _expect_ any child to see
+its tenderness and beauty, though the individual child may intuitively
+appreciate these qualities, but it is not what we wish for or work for
+at this period of child-life.
+
+This method could be applied to various stories. I have chosen the _Tin
+Soldier_ because of its dramatic qualities and because it is marked off
+(probably quite unconsciously on the part of Andersen) into periods
+which correspond to the child's development.
+
+In Eugene Field's exquisite little poem of “The Dinkey Bird” we find
+the objects familiar to the child in _unusual_ places, so that some
+imagination is needed to realise that “big red sugar-plums are clinging
+to the cliffs beside that sea”; but the introduction of the fantastic
+bird and the soothing sound of the Amfalula Tree are new and delightful
+sensations, quite out of the child's personal experience.
+
+Another such instance is to be found in Mrs. W. K. Clifford's story of
+Master Willie. The abnormal behaviour of familiar objects, such as a
+doll, leads from the ordinary routine to the paths of adventure. This
+story is to be found in a little book called “Very Short Stories,” a
+most interesting collection for teachers and children.
+
+We now come to the second element we should seek in material--namely,
+the element of the unusual, which we have already anticipated in the
+story of the Tin Soldier.
+
+This element is necessary in response to the demand of the child who
+expressed the needs of his fellow-playmates when he said: “I want to go
+to the place where the shadows are real.” This is the true definition
+of “Faerie” lands, and is the first sign of real mental development
+in the child when he is no longer content with the stories of his own
+little deeds and experiences, when his ear begins to appreciate sounds
+different from the words in his own everyday language, and when he
+begins to separate his own personality from the action of the story.
+
+George Goschen says[26]:
+
+“What I want for the young are books and stories which do not simply
+deal with our daily life. I like the fancy (even) of little children
+to have some larger food than images of their own little lives, and
+I confess I am sorry for the children whose imaginations are not
+sometimes stimulated by beautiful Fairy Tales which carry them to
+worlds different from those in which their future will be passed....
+I hold that what removes them more or less from their daily life is
+better than what reminds them of it at every step.”
+
+It is because of the great value of leading children to something
+beyond the limited circle of their own lives that I deplore the
+twaddling boarding-school stories written for girls and the
+artificially-prepared Public School stories for boys. Why not give them
+the dramatic interest of a larger stage? No account of a cricket match,
+or a football triumph, could present a finer appeal to boys and girls
+than the description of the Peacestead in the “Heroes of Asgaard”:
+
+“This was the playground of the Æsir, where they practised trials of
+skill one with another and held tournaments and sham fights. These last
+were always conducted in the gentlest and most honourable manner; for
+the strongest law of the Peacestead was, that no angry blow should be
+struck, or spiteful word spoken upon the sacred field.”
+
+For my part, I would unhesitatingly give to boys and girls an element
+of strong romance in the stories which are told them even before they
+are twelve. Miss Sewell says:
+
+“The system that keeps girls in the schoolroom reading simple stories,
+without reading Scott and Shakespeare and Spenser, and then hands them
+over to the unexplored recesses of the Circulating Library, has been
+shown to be the most frivolizing that can be devised.” She sets forward
+the result of her experience that a good novel, especially a romantic
+one, read at twelve or fourteen, is really a beneficial thing.
+
+At present many of the children from the elementary schools get their
+first idea of love (if one can give it such a name) from vulgar
+pictures displayed in the shop windows, or jokes on marriage culled
+from the lowest type of paper, or the proceedings of a divorce-court.
+
+What an antidote to such representation might be found in the story of
+
+  Hector and Andromache,
+  Siegfreid and Brunhild,
+  Dido and Æneas,
+  Orpheus and Eurydice,
+  St. Francis and St. Clare.
+
+One of the strongest elements we should introduce into our stories for
+children of all ages is that which calls forth love of beauty. And the
+beauty should stand out, not necessarily only in delineation of noble
+qualities in our heroes and heroines, but in beauty and strength of
+language and form.
+
+In this latter respect the Bible stories are of such inestimable
+value--all the greater because a child is familiar with the subject,
+and the stories gain fresh significance from the spoken or winged word
+as compared with the mere reading. Whether we should keep to the actual
+text is a matter of individual experience. Professor R. G. Moulton,
+whose interpretations of the Bible Stories are so well known both in
+England and the States, does not always confine himself to the actual
+text, but draws the dramatic elements together, rejecting what seems to
+him to break the narrative, but introducing the actual language where
+it is the most effective. Those who have heard him will realise the
+success of his method.
+
+There is one Bible story which can be told with scarcely any deviation,
+and that is the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the Golden Image. Thus, I
+think it wise, if the children are to succeed in partially visualizing
+the story, that they should have some idea of the dimensions of the
+Golden Image as it would stand out in a vast plain. It might be well
+to compare those dimensions with some building with which the child is
+familiar. In London the matter is easy, as the height will compare,
+roughly speaking, with that of Westminster Abbey. The only change in
+the text I should adopt is to avoid the constant enumeration of the
+list of rulers and the musical instruments. In doing this, I am aware
+that I am sacrificing something of beauty in the rhythm,--on the other
+hand, for narrative purpose, the interest is not broken. The first time
+the announcement is made, that is, by the Herald, it should be in a
+perfectly loud, clear and toneless voice, such as you would naturally
+use when shouting through a trumpet to a vast concourse of people
+scattered over a wide plain; reserving all the dramatic tone of voice
+for the passage where Nebuchadnezzar is making the announcement to the
+three men by themselves. I can remember Professor Moulton saying that
+all the dramatic interest of the story is summed up in the words “But
+if Not....” This suggestion is a very helpful one, for it enables us to
+work up gradually to this point, and then, as it were, _unwind_, until
+we reach the words of Nebuchadnezzar's dramatic recantation.
+
+In this connection, it is a good plan occasionally during the story
+hour to introduce really good poetry which, delivered in a dramatic
+manner (far removed, of course, from the melodramatic), might give
+children their first love of beautiful form in verse. And I do not
+think it necessary to wait for this. Even the normal child of seven
+(though there is nothing arbitrary in the suggestion of this age) will
+appreciate the effect--if only on the ear--of beautiful lines well
+spoken. Mahomet has said, in his teaching advice: “Teach your children
+poetry: it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes heroic
+virtues hereditary.”
+
+To begin with the youngest children of all, here is a poem which
+contains a thread of story, just enough to give a human interest:
+
+MILKING-TIME.
+
+    When the cows come home, the milk is coming,
+    Honey's made when the bees are humming.
+    Duck, Drake on the rushy lake,
+    And the deer live safe in the breezy brake,
+    And timid, funny, pert little bunny
+    Winks his nose, and sits all sunny.
+                                                  _Christina Rossetti._
+
+Now, in comparing this poem with some of the doggerel verse offered
+to small children, one is struck with the literary superiority in the
+choice of words. Here, in spite of the simplicity of the poem, there
+is not the ordinary limited vocabulary, nor the forced rhyme, nor the
+application of a moral, by which the artist falls from grace.
+
+Again, in Eugene Field's “Hushaby Lady,” the language of which is most
+simple, the child is carried away by the beauty of the sound.
+
+I remember hearing some poetry repeated by the children in one of
+the elementary schools in Sheffield which made me feel that they had
+realised romantic possibilities which would prevent their lives from
+ever becoming quite prosaic again, and I wish that this practice
+were more usual. There is little difficulty with the children. I can
+remember, in my own experience as a teacher in London, making the
+experiment of reading or repeating passages from Milton and Shakespeare
+to children from nine to eleven years of age, and the enthusiastic
+way they responded by learning those passages by heart. I have taken,
+with several sets of children, such passages from Milton as “Echo
+Song,” “Sabrina,” “By the rushy fringed Bank,” “Back, shepherds, back,”
+from _Comus_, “May Morning,” “Ode to Shakespeare,” “Samson on his
+blindness,” etc. I even ventured on several passages from _Paradise
+Lost_, and found “Now came still evening on” a particular favourite
+with the children.
+
+It seemed even easier to interest them in Shakespeare, and they learned
+quite readily and easily many passages from “As You Like It,” “Merchant
+of Venice,” “Julius Cæsar”; from “Richard II,” “Henry IV,” and “Henry
+V.”
+
+The method I should recommend in the introduction of both poets
+occasionally into the Story-hour would be threefold.
+
+First, to choose passages which appeal for beauty of sound or beauty
+of mental vision called up by those sounds: such as, “Tell me where is
+Fancy bred,” Titania's Lullaby, “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon
+this bank.”
+
+Secondly, passages for sheer interest of content, such as the Trial
+Scene from “The Merchant of Venice,” or the Forest Scene in “As You
+Like It.”
+
+Thirdly, for dramatic and historical interest, such as, “Men at some
+time are masters of their fates,” the whole of Mark Antony's speech,
+and the scene with Imogen and her foster-brothers in the Forest.
+
+It may not be wholly out of place to add here that the children learned
+and repeated these passages themselves, and that I offered them the
+same advice as I do to all Story-tellers. I discussed quite openly
+with them the method I considered best, trying to make them see that
+simplicity of delivery was not only the most beautiful but the most
+effective means to use; and, by the end of a few months, when they
+had been allowed to experiment and express themselves, they began
+to see that mere ranting was not force, and that a sense of reserve
+power is infinitely more impressive and inspiring than mere external
+presentation.
+
+I encouraged them to criticise each other for the common good, and
+sometimes I read a few lines with over-emphasis and too much gesture,
+which they were at liberty to point out, so that they might avoid the
+same error.
+
+A very good collection of poems for this purpose of narrative is to be
+found in:
+
+    Mrs. P. A. Barnett's series of _Song and Story_,
+                                          Published by A. and C. Black.
+
+And for older children:
+
+    _The Call of the Homeland_, Anthology.
+      Edited by Dr. Scott and Miss Katharine Wallas, Published by
+        Blackie and Son.
+
+Also in a collection published (I believe) in Boston by Miss Agnes
+Repplier.
+
+    _Golden Numbers_.
+                                        (K. D. Wiggin and N. A. Smith).
+
+It will be realised from the scanty number of examples offered in
+this section that it is only a side issue, a mere suggestion of an
+occasional alternative for the Story-hour, as likely to develop the
+imagination.
+
+I think it is well to have a good number of stories illustrating the
+importance of common sense and resourcefulness. For this reason I
+consider that stories treating of the ultimate success of the youngest
+son are very admirable for the purpose, because the youngest child,
+who begins by being considered inferior to the elder ones, triumphs in
+the end, either from resourcefulness, or from common sense, or from
+some high quality, such as kindness to animals, courage in overcoming
+difficulties, etc.[27]
+
+Thus we have the story of Cinderella. The cynic might imagine that it
+was the diminutive size of her foot that ensured her success: the child
+does not realise any advantage in this, but, though the matter need not
+be pressed, the story leaves us with the impression that Cinderella had
+been patient and industrious, forbearing with her sisters. We know that
+she was strictly obedient to her godmother, and in order to be this
+she makes her dramatic exit from the ball which is the beginning of
+her triumph. There are many who might say that these qualities do not
+meet with reward in life and that they end in establishing a habit of
+drudgery, but, after all, we must have poetic justice in a Fairy Story,
+occasionally, at any rate.
+
+Another such story is “Jesper and the Hares.” Here, however, it is
+not at first resourcefulness that helps the hero, but sheer kindness
+of heart, which prompts him first to help the ants, and then to
+show civility to the old woman, without for a moment expecting any
+material benefit from such actions. At the end, he does win by his own
+ingenuity and resourcefulness, and if we regret that his _trickery_
+has such wonderful results, we must remember that the aim was to win
+the princess for herself, and that there was little choice left him. I
+consider the end of this story to be one of the most remarkable I have
+found in my long years of browsing among Fairy Tales. I should suggest
+stopping at the words: “The Tub is full,” as any addition seems to
+destroy the subtlety of the story.[28]
+
+Another story of this kind, admirable for children from six years and
+upwards, is “What the Old Man does is always Right.” Here, perhaps,
+the entire lack of common sense on the part of the hero would serve
+rather as a warning than a stimulating example, but the conduct of
+the wife in excusing the errors of her foolish husband is a model of
+resourcefulness.
+
+In the story of “Hereafter--this”[29] we have just the converse: a
+perfectly foolish wife shielded by a most patient and forbearing
+husband, whose tolerance and common sense save the situation.
+
+One of the most important elements to seek in our choice of stories is
+that which tends to develop, eventually, a fine sense of humour in a
+child. I purposely use the word “eventually,” because I realise first
+that humour has various stages, and that seldom, if ever, can you
+expect an appreciation of fine humour from a normal child, that is,
+from an elemental mind. It seems as if the rough-and-tumble element
+were almost a necessary stage through which children must pass--a
+stage, moreover, which is normal and healthy; but up to now we have
+quite unnecessarily extended the period of elephantine fun, and though
+we cannot control the manner in which children are catered for along
+this line in their homes, we can restrict the folly of appealing too
+strongly or too long to this elemental faculty in our schools. Of
+course, the temptation is strong, because the appeal is so easy. But
+there is a tacit recognition that horse-play and practical jokes are
+no longer considered an essential part of a child's education. We note
+this in the changed attitude in the schools, taken by more advanced
+educationists, towards bullying, fagging, hazing, etc. As a reaction,
+then, from more obvious fun, there should be a certain number of
+stories which make appeal to a more subtle element, and in the chapter
+on the questions put to me by teachers on various occasions, I speak
+more in detail about the educational value of a finer humour in our
+stories.
+
+At some period there ought to be presented in our stories the
+superstitions connected with the primitive history of the race, dealing
+with the Fairy (proper), giants, dwarfs, gnomes, nixies, brownies
+and other elemental beings. Andrew Lang says: “Without our savage
+ancestors we should have had no poetry. Conceive the human race born
+into the world in its present advanced condition, weighing, analysing,
+examining everything. Such a race would have been destitute of poetry
+and flattened by common sense. Barbarians did the _dreaming_ of the
+world.”
+
+But it is a question of much debate among educationists what should
+be the period of the child's life in which these stories are to be
+presented. I myself was formerly of opinion that they belonged to
+the very primitive age of the individual, just as they belong to the
+primitive age of the race, but experience in telling stories has taught
+me to compromise.
+
+Some people maintain that little children, who take things with brutal
+logic, ought not to be allowed the Fairy Tale in its more limited
+form of the Supernatural; whereas, if presented to older children,
+this material can be criticised, catalogued and (alas!) rejected as
+worthless, or retained with flippant toleration.
+
+Now, whilst recognising a certain value in this point of view, I am
+bound to admit that if we regulate our stories entirely on this basis,
+we lose the real value of the Fairy Tale element--it is the one element
+which causes little children to _wonder_, simply because no scientific
+analysis of the story can be presented to them. It is somewhat
+heartrending to feel that Jack and the Bean-Stalk and stories of that
+ilk are to be handed over to the critical youth who will condemn the
+quick growth of the tree as being contrary to the order of nature, and
+wonder why Jack was not playing football in the school team instead of
+climbing trees in search of imaginary adventures.
+
+A wonderful plea for the telling of early superstitions to children is
+to be found in an old Indian Allegory called “The Blazing Mansion.”
+
+     “An old man owned a large, rambling mansion--the pillars
+    were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and
+    combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there
+    was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he
+    saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching
+    fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But
+    inside, the children went on amusing themselves quite happily. The
+    distracted father said: ‘I will run in and save my children. I will
+    seize them in my strong arms, I will bear them harmless through the
+    falling rafters and the blazing beams.’ Then the sad thought came
+    to him that the children were romping and ignorant. ‘If I say the
+    house is on fire, they will not understand me. If I try to seize
+    them, they will romp about and try to escape. Alas! not a moment to
+    be lost!’ Suddenly a bright thought flashed across the old man's
+    mind. ‘My children are ignorant,’ he said; ‘they love toys and
+    glittering playthings. I will promise them playthings of unheard-of
+    beauty. Then they will listen.’
+
+    So the old man shouted: ‘Children, come out of the house and see
+    these beautiful toys! Chariots with white oxen, all gold and
+    tinsel. See these exquisite little antelopes. Whoever saw such
+    goats as these? Children, children, come quickly, or they will all
+    be gone!’
+
+    Forth from the blazing ruin the children came in hot haste. The
+    word ‘plaything’ was almost the only word they could understand.
+
+    Then the Father, rejoiced that his offspring was freed from peril,
+    procured for them one of the most beautiful chariots ever seen:
+    the chariot had a canopy like a pagoda: it had tiny rails and
+    balustrades and rows of jingling bells. Milk-white oxen drew the
+    chariot. The children were astonished when they were placed inside.”
+                                              (_From the “Thabagata.”_)
+
+Perhaps, as a compromise, one might give the gentler superstitions to
+very small children, and leave such a blood-curdling story as Bluebeard
+to a more robust age.
+
+There is one modern method which has always seemed to me much to be
+condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for
+fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this
+we are tampering with folk-lore and confusing stages of development.
+
+Now, I know that there are individual children that, at a tender
+age, might be alarmed at such a story, for instance, as Little Red
+Riding-Hood; in which case, it is better to sacrifice the “wonder
+stage” and present the story later on.
+
+I live in dread of finding one day a bowdlerized form of “Bluebeard”
+(prepared for a junior standard), in which, to produce a satisfactory
+finale, all the wives come to life again, and “live happily for ever
+after” with Bluebeard and each other!
+
+And from this point it seems an easy transition to the subject of
+legends of different kinds. Some of the old country legends in
+connection with flowers are very charming for children, and as long as
+we do not tread on the sacred ground of the Nature Students, we may
+indulge in a moderate use of such stories, of which a few will be found
+in the Story Lists.
+
+With regard to the introduction of legends connected with saints into
+the school curriculum, my chief plea is the element of the unusual
+which they contain, and an appeal to a sense of mysticism and wonder
+which is a wise antidote to the prosaic and commercial tendencies of
+to-day. Though many of the actions of the saints may be the result of
+a morbid strain of self-sacrifice, at least none of them were engaged
+in the sole occupation of becoming rich: their ideals were often lofty
+and unselfish; their courage high, and their deeds noble. We must be
+careful, in the choice of our legends, to show up the virile qualities
+rather than to dwell on the elements of horror in details of martyrdom,
+or on the too-constantly recurring miracles, lest we should defeat our
+own ends. For the children might think lightly of the dangers to which
+the saints were exposed if they find them too often preserved at the
+last moment from the punishment they were brave enough to undergo. For
+one or other of these reasons, I should avoid the detailed history of
+St. Juliana, St. Vincent, St. Quintin, St. Eustace, St. Winifred, St.
+Theodore, St. James the More, St. Katharine, St. Cuthbert, St. Alphage,
+St. Peter of Milan, St. Quirine and Juliet, St. Alban and others.
+
+The danger of telling children stories connected with sudden
+conversions is that they are apt to place too much emphasis on the
+process, rather than the goal to be reached. We should always insist on
+the splendid deeds performed after a real conversion--not the details
+of the conversion itself; as, for instance, the beautiful and poetical
+work done by St. Christopher when he realised what work he could do
+most effectively.
+
+On the other hand, there are many stories of the saints dealing with
+actions and motives which would appeal to the imagination and are not
+only worthy of imitation, but are not wholly outside the life and
+experience even of the child.[30]
+
+Having protested against the elephantine joke and the too-frequent
+use of exaggerated fun, I now endeavour to restore the balance by
+suggesting the introduction into the school curriculum of a few purely
+grotesque stories which serve as an antidote to sentimentality or
+utilitarianism. But they must be presented as nonsense, so that the
+children may use them for what they are intended, as pure relaxation.
+Such a story is that of “The Wolf and the Kids.” I have had serious
+objections offered to this story by several educational people, because
+of the revenge taken by the goat on the wolf, but I am inclined to
+think that if the story is to be taken as anything but sheer nonsense,
+it is surely sentimental to extend our sympathy towards a caller who
+has devoured six of his hostess' children. With regard to the wolf
+being cut open, there is not the slightest need to accentuate the
+physical side. Children accept the deed as they accept the cutting
+off of a giant's head, because they do not associate it with pain,
+especially if the deed is presented half-humorously. The moment in the
+story where their sympathy is aroused is the swallowing of the kids,
+because the children do realise the possibility of being disposed of
+in the mother's absence. (Needless to say, I never point out the moral
+of the kids' disobedience to the mother in opening the door.) I have
+always noticed a moment of breathlessness even in a grown-up audience
+when the wolf swallows the kids, and that the recovery of them “all
+safe and sound, all huddled together” is quite as much appreciated by
+the adult audience as by the children, and is worth the tremor caused
+by the wolf's summary action.
+
+I have not always been able to impress upon the teachers that this
+story _must_ be taken lightly. A very earnest young student came to
+me once after I had told it, and said in an awestruck voice: “Do you
+Correlate?” Having recovered from the effect of this word, which she
+carefully explained, I said that as a rule I preferred to keep the
+story apart from the other lessons, just an undivided whole, because
+it had effects of its own which were best brought about by not being
+connected with other lessons.[31] She frowned her disapproval and said:
+“I am sorry, because I thought I would take The Goat for my Nature
+Study lesson, and then tell your story at the end.” I thought of the
+terrible struggle in the child's mind between his conscientious wish to
+be accurate and his dramatic enjoyment of the abnormal habits of a goat
+who went out with scissors, needle and thread; but I have been most
+careful since to repudiate any connection with Nature Study in this and
+a few other stories in my répertoire.
+
+One might occasionally introduce one of Edward Lear's “Book of
+Nonsense.” For instance:
+
+    There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,
+    Who wished he had never been born;
+    So he sat in a chair till he died of despair,
+    That dolorous Man of Cape Horn.
+
+Now, except in case of very young children, this could not possibly be
+taken seriously. The least observant normal boy or girl would recognise
+the hollowness of the pessimism that prevents a man from at least an
+attempt to rise from his chair.
+
+The following I have chosen as repeated with intense appreciation and
+much dramatic vigour by a little boy just five years old:
+
+    There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!
+    I perceive a young bird in this bush!”
+    When they said, “Is it small?” he replied, “Not at all!
+    It is four times as big as the bush!”[32]
+
+One of the most desirable of all elements to introduce into our stories
+is that which encourages kinship with animals. With very young children
+this is easy, because in those early years when the mind is not clogged
+with knowledge, the sympathetic imagination enables them to enter into
+the feelings of animals. Andersen has an illustration of this point in
+his “Ice Maiden”:
+
+“Children who cannot talk yet can understand the language of fowls and
+ducks quite well, and cats and dogs speak to them quite as plainly as
+Father and Mother; but that is only when the children are very small,
+and then even Grandpapa's stick will become a perfect horse to them
+that can neigh and, in their eyes, is furnished with legs and a tail.
+With some children this period ends later than with others, and of such
+we are accustomed to say that they are very backward, and that they
+have remained children for a long time. People are in the habit of
+saying strange things.”
+
+Felix Adler says: “Perhaps the chief attraction of Fairy Tales is due
+to their representing the child as living in brotherly friendship with
+nature and all creatures. Trees, flowers, animals, wild and tame, even
+the stars are represented as comrades of children. That animals are
+only human beings in disguise is an axiom in the Fairy Tales. Animals
+are humanised, that is, the kinship between animal and human life
+is still keenly felt; and this reminds us of those early animistic
+interpretations of nature which subsequently led to doctrines of
+metempsychosis.”[33]
+
+I think that beyond question the finest animal stories are to be found
+in the Indian Collections, of which I furnish a list in the Appendix.
+
+With regard to the development of the love of nature through the
+telling of the stories, we are confronted with a great difficult in the
+elementary schools, because so many of the children have never been out
+of the towns, have never seen a daisy, a blade of grass and scarcely a
+tree, so that in giving, in form of a story, a beautiful description
+of scenery, you can make no appeal to the retrospective imagination,
+and only the rarely gifted child will be able to make pictures whilst
+listening to a style which is beyond his everyday use. Nevertheless,
+once in a way, when the children are in a quiet mood, not eager for
+action but able to give themselves up to the pure joy of sound, then
+it is possible to give them a beautiful piece of writing in praise of
+Nature, such as the following, taken from _The Divine Adventure_, by
+Fiona Macleod:
+
+“Then he remembered the ancient wisdom of the Gael and came out of the
+Forest Chapel and went into the woods. He put his lip to the earth,
+and lifted a green leaf to his brow, and held a branch to his ear,
+and because he was no longer heavy with the sweet clay of mortality,
+though yet of human clan he heard that which we do not hear, and saw
+that which we do not see, and knew that which we do not know. All the
+green life was his. In that new world, he saw the lives of trees, now
+pale green, now of woodsmoke blue, now of amethyst; the gray lives of
+stone; breaths of the grass and reed, creatures of the air, delicate
+and wild as fawns, or swift and fierce and terrible, tigers, of that
+undiscovered wilderness, with birds almost invisible but for their
+luminous wings, and opalescent crests.”
+
+The value of this particular passage is the mystery pervading the whole
+picture, which forms so beautiful an antidote to the eternal explaining
+of things. I think it of the highest importance for children to realise
+that the best and most beautiful things cannot be expressed in everyday
+language and that they must content themselves with a flash here and
+there of the beauty which may come later. One does not enhance the
+beauty of the mountain by pulling to pieces some of the earthy clogs:
+one does not increase the impression of a vast ocean by analysing the
+single drops of water. But at a reverent distance one gets a clear
+impression of the whole, and can afford to leave the details in the
+shadow.
+
+In presenting such passages (and it must be done very sparingly)
+experience has taught me that we should take the children into our
+confidence by telling them frankly that nothing exciting is going
+to happen, so that they will be free to listen to the mere words. A
+very interesting experiment might occasionally be made by asking the
+children some weeks afterwards to tell you in their own words what
+pictures were made on their minds. This is a very different thing from
+allowing the children to reproduce the passage at once, the danger of
+which proceeding I speak of later in detail. (See Chapter on Questions.)
+
+We now come to the question as to what proportion of _Dramatic
+Excitement_ we should present in the stories for a normal group of
+children. Personally, I should like, while the child is very young
+(I mean in mind, not in years) to exclude the element of dramatic
+excitement, but though this may be possible for the individual child,
+it is quite Utopian to hope we can keep the average child free from
+what is in the atmosphere. Children crave for excitement, and unless we
+give it to them in legitimate form, they will take it in any riotous
+form it presents itself, and if from our experience we can control
+their mental digestion by a moderate supply of what they demand, we
+may save them from devouring too eagerly the raw material they can so
+easily find for themselves.
+
+There is a humorous passage bearing on this question in the story of
+the small Scotch boy, when he asks leave of his parents to present the
+pious little book--a gift to himself from his Aunt--to a little sick
+friend, hoping probably that the friend's chastened condition will make
+him more lenient towards this mawkish form of literature. The parents
+expostulate, pointing out to their son how ungrateful he is, and how
+ungracious it would be to part with his Aunt's gift. Then the boy can
+contain himself no longer. He bursts out, unconsciously expressing the
+normal attitude of children at a certain stage of development: “It's
+a _daft_ book ony way; there's naebody gets kilt en't. I like stories
+about folk getting their heids cut off, or stabbit through and through,
+wi' swords an' spears. An' there's nae wile beasts. I like Stories
+about black men gettin' ate up, an' white men killin' lions and tigers
+an' bears an'----”
+
+Then, again, we have the passage from George Eliot's “Mill on the
+Floss”:
+
+“Oh, dear! I wish they would not fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
+hurt you?”
+
+“Hurt me? No,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large
+pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at
+meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added:
+
+“I gave Spooner a black eye--that's what he got for wanting to leather
+me. I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”
+
+“Oh! how brave you are, Tom. I think you are like Samson. If there came
+a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?”
+
+“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions
+only in the shows.”
+
+“No, but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa where it's
+very hot, the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book
+where I read it.”
+
+“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”
+
+“But if you hadn't got a gun?--we might have gone out, you know, not
+thinking, just as we go out fishing, and then a great lion might come
+towards us roaring, and we could not get away from him. What should you
+do, Tom?”
+
+Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying: “But the
+lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?”
+
+This passage illustrates also the difference between the
+highly-developed imagination of the one and the stodgy prosaical
+temperament of the other. Tom could enter into the elementary question
+of giving his school-fellow a black eye, but could not possibly enter
+into the drama of the imaginary arrival of a lion. He was sorely in
+need of Fairy Stories.
+
+It is for this element we have to cater, and we cannot shirk our
+responsibilities.
+
+William James says: “Living things, moving things or things that
+savour of danger or blood, that have a dramatic quality, these are
+the things natively interesting to childhood, to the exclusion of
+almost everything else, and the teacher of young children (until more
+artificial interests have grown up) will keep in touch with his pupils
+by constant appeal to such matters as those.”[34]
+
+Of course the savour of danger and blood is only _one_ of the things to
+which we should appeal, but I give the whole passage to make the point
+clearer.
+
+This is one of the most difficult parts of our selection, namely, how
+to present enough excitement for the child and yet include enough
+constructive element which will satisfy him when the thirst for
+“blugginess” is slaked.
+
+And here I should like to say that, whilst wishing to encourage in
+children great admiration and reverence for the courage and other fine
+qualities which have been displayed in times of war, and which have
+mitigated its horrors, I think we should show that some of the finest
+moments in these heroes' lives had nothing to do with their profession
+as soldiers. Thus we have the well-known story of Sir Philip Sidney and
+the soldier; the wonderful scene where Roland drags the bodies of his
+dead friends to receive the blessing of the archbishop after the battle
+of Roncevalles[35]; and of Napoleon sending the sailor back to England.
+There is a moment in the story of Gunnar when he pauses in the midst of
+the slaughter of his enemies, and says, “I wonder if I am less brave
+than others, because I kill men less willingly than they.”
+
+And in the “Njal's Burning” from Andrew Lang's “Book of Romance” we
+have the words of the boy Thord when his grandmother, Bergthora, urges
+him to go out of the burning house.
+
+“You promised me when I was little, grandmother, that I never should go
+from you till I wished it of myself. And I would rather die with you
+than live after you.”
+
+Here the moral courage is so splendidly shown; none of these heroes
+feared to die in battle or in open single fight, but to face a death by
+fire for higher considerations is a point of view worth presenting to
+the child.
+
+In spite of all the dramatic excitement roused by the conduct of our
+soldiers and sailors,[36] should we not try to offer also in our
+stories the romance and excitement of saving as well as _taking_ life?
+
+I would have quite a collection dealing with the thrilling adventures
+of the Life-Boat and the Fire Brigade, of which I hope to present
+examples in the final Story List.
+
+Finally, we ought to include a certain number of stories dealing with
+Death, especially with children who are of an age to realise that it
+must come to all, and that this is not a calamity but a perfectly
+natural and simple thing. At present the child in the street invariably
+connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories
+of Death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great
+cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and
+unselfishness; or of Death coming as a result of treachery, such as
+we find in the death of Baldur, of Siegfried, and of others, so that
+children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of
+stories dealing with death that comes naturally, when our work is done
+and our strength gone, which has no more tragedy than the falling of
+a leaf from the tree. In this way we can give children the first idea
+that the individual is so much less than the whole.
+
+Quite small children often take Death very naturally. A boy of five
+met two of his older companions at the school door. They said sadly
+and solemnly: “We have just seen a dead man!” “Well,” said the little
+philosopher, “that's all right. We've _all_ got to die when our work's
+done.”
+
+In one of the Buddha stories which I reproduce at the end of this book,
+the little Hare (who is, I think, a symbol of nervous Individualism)
+constantly says: “Suppose the Earth were to fall in, what would become
+of me?”
+
+As an antidote to the ordinary attitude towards death, I commend an
+episode from a German folk-lore story called “Unlucky John,” which is
+included in the list of stories recommended at the end of this book.
+
+The following sums up in poetic form some of the material necessary for
+the wants of a child:
+
+
+THE CHILD.
+
+    The little new soul has come to Earth,
+      He has taken his staff for the Pilgrim's way.
+    His sandals are girt on his tender feet,
+      And he carries his scrip for what gifts he may.
+
+    What will you give to him, Fate Divine?
+      What for his scrip on the winding road?
+    A crown for his head, or a laurel wreath?
+      A sword to wield, or is gold his load?
+
+    What will you give him for weal or woe?
+      What for the journey through day and night?
+    Give or withhold from him power and fame,
+      But give to him love of the earth's delight.
+
+    Let him be lover of wind and sun
+      And of falling rain; and the friend of trees;
+    With a singing heart for the pride of noon,
+      And a tender heart for what twilight sees.
+
+    Let him be lover of you and yours--
+      The Child and Mary; but also Pan,
+    And the sylvan gods of the woods and hills,
+      And the god that is hid in his fellow-man.
+
+    Love and a song and the joy of earth,
+      These be the gifts for his scrip to keep
+    Till, the journey ended, he stands at last
+      In the gathering dark, at the gate of sleep.
+                                                      _Ethel Clifford._
+
+And so our stories should contain all the essentials for the child's
+scrip on the road of life, providing the essentials and holding or
+withholding the non-essentials. But, above all, let us fill the scrip
+with gifts that the child need never reject, even when he passes
+through “the gate of sleep.”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] Chapter I, page 3.
+
+[25] This experiment cannot be made with a group of children, for
+obvious reasons.
+
+[26] From an address on the “Cultivation of the Imagination.”
+
+[27] “The House in the Wood” (Grimm) is a good instance of triumph for
+the youngest child.
+
+[28] To be found in Andrew Lang's Collection. See list of Stories.
+
+[29] To be found in Jacob's “More English Tales.”
+
+[30] For selection of suitable stories among legends of the Saints, see
+Story Lists.
+
+[31] I believe that I am quite in a minority among Educationists in
+this matter. Possibly my constantly specialising in the stories may
+have formed my opinion.
+
+[32] These words have been set most effectively to music by Miss
+Margaret Ruthven Lang. (Boston.)
+
+[33] From “Moral Instruction of Children,” page 66. “The Use of Fairy
+Tales.”
+
+[34] From “Talks to Teachers,” page 93.
+
+[35] An excellent account of this is to be found in “The Song of
+Roland,” by Arthur Way and Frederic Spender.
+
+[36] This passage was written before the Great War.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+HOW TO OBTAIN AND MAINTAIN THE EFFECT OF THE STORY.
+
+
+WE are now coming to the most important part of the question of
+Story-Telling, to which all the foregoing remarks have been gradually
+leading, and that is the Effects of these stories upon the child, apart
+from the dramatic joy he experiences in listening to them, which would
+in itself be quite enough to justify us in the telling. But, since I
+have urged upon teachers the extreme importance of giving so much time
+to the manner of telling and of bestowing so much care on the selection
+of the material, it is right that they should expect some permanent
+results, or else those who are not satisfied with the mere enjoyment of
+the children will seek other methods of appeal--and it is to them that
+I most specially dedicate this chapter.
+
+I think we are on the threshold of the re-discovery of an old truth,
+that the Dramatic Presentation is the quickest and surest, because
+it is the only one with which memory plays no tricks. If a thing has
+appeared before us in a vital form, nothing can really destroy it; it
+is because things are often given in a blurred, faint light that they
+gradually fade out of our memory. A very keen scientist was deploring
+to me, on one occasion, the fact that stories were told so much in the
+schools, to the detriment of science, for which she claimed the same
+indestructible element that I recognise in the best-told stories.
+Being very much interested in her point of view, I asked her to tell
+me, looking back on her school days, what she could remember as
+standing out from other less clear information. After thinking some
+little time over the matter, she said with some embarrassment, but with
+a candour that did her much honour:
+
+“Well, now I come to think of it, it was the story of Cinderella.”
+
+Now, I am not holding any brief for this story in particular. I think
+the reason it was remembered was because of the dramatic form in which
+it was presented to her, which fired her imagination and kept the
+memory alight. I quite realise that a scientific fact might also have
+been easily remembered if it was presented in the form of a successful
+chemical experiment: but this also has something of the dramatic appeal
+and will be remembered on that account.
+
+Sully says: “We cannot understand the fascination of a story for
+children save in remembering that for their young minds, quick to
+imagine, and unversed in abstract reflection, words are not dead things
+but _winged_, as the old Greeks called them.”[37]
+
+The Red Queen (in “Through the Looking-Glass”) was more psychological
+than she knew when she made the memorable statement: “When once you've
+_said_ a thing that _fixes_ it, and you must take the consequences.”
+
+In Curtin's Introduction to “Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians,” he
+says:
+
+“I remember well the feeling roused in my mind at the mention or sight
+of the name _Lucifer_ during the early years of my life. It stood for
+me as the name of a being stupendous, dreadful in moral deformity,
+lurid, hideous and mighty. I remember the surprise which, when I had
+grown somewhat older and began to study Latin, I came upon the name in
+Virgil where it means _light-bringer_--the herald of the Sun.”
+
+Plato has said: “That the End of Education should be the training by
+suitable habits of the Instincts of Virtue in the Child.”
+
+About two thousand years later, Sir Philip Sidney, in his “Defence of
+Poesy,” says: “The final end of learning is to draw and lead us to so
+high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay
+lodgings, can be capable of.”
+
+And yet it is neither the Greek philosopher nor the Elizabethan poet
+that makes the every-day application of these principles; but we have
+a hint of this application from the Pueblo tribe of Indians, of whom
+Lummis tells us the following:
+
+“There is no duty to which a Pueblo child is trained in which he has
+to be content with a bare command: Do this. For each he learns a
+fairy-tale designed to explain how children first came to know that
+it was right to ‘do this,’ and detailing the sad results that befell
+those who did otherwise. Some tribes have regular story-tellers, men
+who have devoted a great deal of time to learning the myths and stories
+of their people and who possess, in addition to a good memory, a vivid
+imagination. The mother sends for one of these, and having prepared a
+feast for him, she and her little brood, who are curled up near her,
+await the Fairy Stories of the dreamer, who after his feast and smoke
+entertains the company for hours.”
+
+In modern times, the nurse, who is now receiving such complete
+training for her duties with the children, should be ready to
+imitate the “dreamer” of the Indian tribe. I rejoice to find that
+regular instruction in Story-telling is being given in many of the
+institutions where the nurses are trained.
+
+Some years ago there appeared a book by Dion Calthrop called “King
+Peter,” which illustrates very fully the effect of story-telling. It
+is the account of the education of a young prince which is carried on
+at first by means of stories, and later he is taken out into the arena
+of Life to be shown what is happening there--the dramatic appeal being
+always the means used to awaken his imagination. The fact that only
+_one_ story a year is told him prevents our seeing the effect from day
+to day, but the time matters little. We only need faith to believe that
+the growth, though slow, was very sure.
+
+There is something of the same idea in the “Adventures of Telemachus,”
+written by Fénélon for his royal pupil, the young Duke of Burgundy; but
+whereas Calthrop trusts to the results of indirect teaching by means of
+dramatic stories, Fénélon, on the contrary, makes use of the somewhat
+heavy, didactic method, so that one would think the attention of the
+young prince must have wandered at times; and I imagine Telemachus was
+in the same condition when he was addressed at some length by Mentor,
+who, being Minerva (though in disguise), should occasionally have
+displayed that sense of humour which must always temper true wisdom:
+
+Take, for instance, the heavy reproof conveyed in the following
+passage:
+
+“Death and shipwreck are less dreadful than the pleasures that attack
+Virtue.... Youth is full of presumption and arrogance, though nothing
+in the world is so frail: it fears nothing, and vainly relies on its
+own strength, believing everything with the utmost levity and without
+any precaution.”
+
+And on another occasion, when Calypso hospitably provides clothes for
+the shipwrecked men, and Telemachus is handling a tunic of the finest
+wool and white as snow, with a vest of purple embroidered with gold,
+and displaying much pleasure in the magnificence of the clothes, Mentor
+addresses him in a severe voice, saying: “Are these, O Telemachus, the
+thoughts that ought to occupy the heart of the son of Ulysses? A young
+man who loves to dress vainly, as a woman does, is unworthy of wisdom
+or glory.”
+
+I remember, as a schoolgirl of thirteen, having to commit to memory
+several books of these adventures, so as to become familiar with the
+style. Far from being impressed by the wisdom of Mentor, I was simply
+bored, and wondered why Telemachus did not escape from him. The only
+part in the book that really interested me was Calypso's unrequited
+love for Telemachus, but this was always the point where we ceased to
+learn by heart, which surprised me greatly, for it was here that the
+real human interest seemed to begin.
+
+Of all the effects which I hope for from the telling of stories in the
+schools, personally I place first the dramatic joy we bring to the
+children and to ourselves. But there are many who would consider this
+result as fantastic, if not frivolous, and not to be classed among the
+educational values concocted with the introduction of stories into the
+school curriculum. I therefore propose to speak of other effects of
+story-telling which may seem of more practical value.
+
+The first, which is of a purely negative character, is that through
+means of a dramatic story we can counteract some of the sights and
+sounds of the streets which appeal to the melodramatic instinct in
+children. I am sure that all teachers whose work lies in the crowded
+cities must have realised the effect produced on children by what they
+see and hear on their way to and from school. If we merely consider
+the hoardings, with their realistic representations, quite apart from
+the actual dramatic happenings in the street, we at once perceive
+that the ordinary school interests pale before such lurid appeals as
+these. How can we expect the child who has stood open-mouthed before
+a poster representing a woman chloroformed by a burglar, whilst that
+hero escapes in safety with her jewels, to display any interest in the
+arid monotony of the multiplication-table? The illegitimate excitement
+created by the sight of the depraved burglar can only be counteracted
+by something equally exciting along the realistic but legitimate side;
+and this is where the story of the right kind becomes so valuable, and
+why the teacher who is artistic enough to undertake the task can find
+the short path to results which theorists seek for so long in vain. It
+is not even necessary to have an exceedingly exciting story; sometimes
+one which will bring about pure reaction may be just as suitable.
+
+I remember in my personal experience an instance of this kind. I had
+been reading with some children of about ten years old the story from
+Cymbeline, of Imogen in the forest scene, when the brothers strew
+flowers upon her, and sing the funeral dirge,
+
+    “Fear no more the heat of the sun.”
+
+Just as we had all taken on this tender, gentle mood, the door opened
+and one of the prefects announced in a loud voice the news of the
+relief of Mafeking. The children were on their feet at once, cheering
+lustily, and for the moment the joy over the relief of the brave
+garrison was the predominant feeling. Then, before the Jingo spirit
+had time to assert itself, I took advantage of a momentary reaction and
+said: “Now, children, don't you think we can pay England the tribute
+of going back to England's greatest poet?” In a few minutes we were
+back in the heart of the Forest, and I can still hear the delightful
+intonation of those subdued voices repeating:
+
+    Golden lads and girls all must
+    Like chimney-sweepers come to dust.
+
+It is interesting to note that the same problem that is exercising
+us to-day was a source of difficulty to people in remote times. The
+following is taken from an old Chinese document, and has particular
+interest for us to-day.
+
+“The Philosopher Mentius (born 371 B.C.) was left fatherless at a very
+tender age and brought up by his mother Changsi. The care of this
+prudent and attentive mother has been cited as a model for all virtuous
+parents. The house she occupied was near that of a butcher: she
+observed at the first cry of the animals that were being slaughtered,
+the little Mentius ran to be present at the sight, and that, on his
+return, he sought to imitate what he had seen. Fearful lest his heart
+might become hardened, and accustomed to the sights of blood, she
+removed to another house which was in the neighbourhood of a cemetery.
+The relations of those who were buried there came often to weep upon
+their graves, and make their customary libations. The lad soon took
+pleasure in their ceremonies and amused himself by imitating them.
+This was a new subject of uneasiness to his mother: she feared her
+son might come to consider as a jest what is of all things the most
+serious, and that he might acquire a habit of performing with levity,
+and as a matter of routine merely, ceremonies which demand the most
+exact attention and respect. Again therefore she anxiously changed the
+dwelling, and went to live in the city, opposite to a school, where her
+son found examples the most worthy of imitation, and began to profit
+by them. This anecdote has become incorporated by the Chinese into a
+proverb, which they constantly quote: The Mother of Mentius seeks a
+neighbourhood.”
+
+Another influence we have to counteract is that of newspaper headings
+which catch the eye of children in the streets and appeal so powerfully
+to their imagination.
+
+Shakespeare has said:
+
+    Tell me where is Fancy bred,
+    Or in the heart, or in the head?
+    How begot, how nourished?
+      Reply, reply.
+    It is engendered in the eyes
+    With gazing fed: and Fancy dies
+    In the cradle where it lies.
+      Let us all ring Fancy's knell.
+      I'll begin it--ding, dong, bell.
+                                                “_Merchant of Venice._”
+
+If this be true, it is of importance to decide what our children shall
+look upon as far as we can control the vision, so that we can form some
+idea of the effect upon their imagination.
+
+Having alluded to the dangerous influence of the street, I should
+hasten to say that this influence is very far from being altogether
+bad. There are possibilities of romance in street life which may have
+just the same kind of effect on children as the telling of exciting
+stories. I am indebted to Mrs. Arnold Glover (Hon. Sec. of the National
+Organisation of Girls' Clubs), one of the most widely informed people
+on this subject, for the two following experiences gathered from the
+streets which bear indirectly on the subject of story-telling:
+
+Mrs. Glover was visiting a sick woman in a very poor neighbourhood,
+and found, sitting on the doorstep of the house, two children, holding
+something tightly grasped in their little hands, and gazing with much
+expectancy towards the top of the street. She longed to know what they
+were doing, but not being one of those unimaginative and tactless
+folk who rush headlong into the mysteries of children's doings, she
+passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still
+in the same silent and expectant posture half-an-hour later that
+she said tentatively: “I wonder whether you would tell me what you
+are doing here?” After some hesitation, one of them said, in a shy
+voice: “We're waitin' for the barrer.” It then transpired that, once a
+week, a vegetable-and flower-cart was driven through this particular
+street, on its way to a more prosperous neighbourhood, and on a few
+red-letter days, a flower, or a sprig, or even a root sometimes fell
+out of the back of the cart; and those two little children were waiting
+there in hope, with their hands full of soil, ready to plant anything
+which might by golden chance fall that way, in their secret garden of
+oyster-shells.
+
+This seems to me as charming a fairy-tale as any that our books can
+supply.
+
+Another time Mrs. Glover was collecting the pennies for the Holiday
+Fund Savings Bank from the children who came weekly to her house. She
+noticed on three consecutive Mondays that one little lad deliberately
+helped himself to a new envelope from her table. Not wishing to
+frighten or startle him, she allowed this to continue for some weeks,
+and then one day, having dismissed the other children, she asked him
+quite quietly why he was taking the envelopes. At first he was very
+sulky, and said: “I need them better than you do.” She quite agreed
+this might be, but reminded him that, after all, they belonged to her.
+She promised, however, that if he would tell her for what purpose he
+wanted the envelopes, she would endeavour to help him in the matter.
+Then came the astonishing announcement: “I am building a navy.” After
+a little more gradual questioning, Mrs. Glover drew from the boy the
+information that the Borough Water Carts passed through the side
+street once a week, flushing the gutter; that then the Envelope Ships
+were made to sail on the water and pass under the covered ways which
+formed bridges for wayfarers and tunnels for the “navy.” Great was the
+excitement when the ships passed out of sight and were recognised as
+they arrived safely at the other end. Of course the expenses in raw
+material were greatly diminished by the illicit acquisition of Mrs.
+Glover's property, and in this way she had unconsciously provided the
+neighbourhood with a navy and a Commander. Her first instinct, after
+becoming acquainted with the whole story, was to present the boy with a
+real boat, but on second thought she collected and gave him a number of
+old envelopes with names and addresses upon them, which added greatly
+to the excitement of the sailing, because they could be more easily
+identified as they came out of the other side of the tunnel, and had
+their respective reputations as to speed.
+
+Here is indeed food for romance, and I give both instances to prove
+that the advantages of street life are to be taken into consideration
+as well as the disadvantages; though I think we are bound to admit that
+the latter outweigh the former.
+
+One of the immediate results of dramatic stories is the escape from
+the commonplace, to which I have already alluded in quoting Mr.
+Goschen's words. The desire for this escape is a healthy one, common to
+adults and children. When we wish to get away from our own surroundings
+and interests, we do for ourselves what I maintain we ought to do for
+children; we step into the land of fiction. It has always been a source
+of astonishment to me that, in trying to escape from our own every-day
+surroundings, we do not step more boldly into the land of pure romance,
+which would form a real contrast to our every-day life, but in nine
+cases out of ten the fiction which is sought after deals with the
+subjects of our ordinary existence--namely, frenzied finance, sordid
+poverty, political corruption, fast society, and religious doubts.
+
+There is the same danger in the selection of fiction for children:
+namely, a tendency to choose very utilitarian stories, both in form and
+substance, so that we do not lift the children out of the commonplace.
+I remember once seeing the titles of two little books, the contents of
+which were being read or told to small children of the poorer class:
+one was called “Tom the Boot-black,” the other, “Dan the News-boy.”
+My chief objection to these stories was the fact that neither of
+the heroes rejoiced in their work for the work's sake. Had Tom even
+invented a new kind of blacking, or if Dan had started a splendid
+newspaper, it might have been encouraging for those among the listeners
+who were thinking of engaging in similar professions. It is true, both
+gentlemen amassed large fortunes, but surely the school age is not to
+be limited to such dreams and aspirations as these! One wearies of the
+tales of boys who arrive in a town with one cent in their pockets, and
+leave it as millionaires, with the added importance of a Mayoralty, not
+to speak of a Knighthood. It is true that the romantic prototype of
+these boys is Dick Whittington, for whom we unconsciously cherish the
+affection which we often bestow on a far-off personage. Perhaps--who
+knows?--it is the picturesque adjunct of the cat--lacking to modern
+millionaires.[38]
+
+I do not think it Utopian to present to children a fair share of
+stories which deal with the importance of things “untouched by hand.”
+They too can learn at an early age that “the things which are seen are
+temporal, but the things which are unseen are spiritual.” To those who
+wish to try the effect of such stories on children, I present for their
+encouragement the following lines from Whitcomb Riley:
+
+
+THE TREASURE OF THE WISE MAN.[39]
+
+    Oh, the night was dark and the night was late,
+    When the robbers came to rob him;
+    And they picked the lock of his palace-gate,
+    The robbers who came to rob him--
+    They picked the lock of the palace-gate,
+    Seized his jewels and gems of State
+    His coffers of gold and his priceless plate,--
+    The robbers that came to rob him.
+
+    But loud laughed he in the morning red!--
+    For of what had the robbers robbed him?
+    Ho! hidden safe, as he slept in bed,
+    When the robbers came to rob him,--
+    They robbed him not of a golden shred
+    Of the childish dreams in his wise old head--
+    “And they're welcome to all things else,” he said,
+    When the robbers came to rob him.
+
+There is a great deal of this romantic spirit, combined with a
+delightful sense of irresponsibility, which I claim above all things
+for small children, to be found in our old Nursery Rhymes. I quote from
+the following article written by the Rev. R. L. Gales for the _Nation_.
+
+After speaking on the subject of Fairy Stories being eliminated from
+the school curriculum, the writer adds:
+
+“This would be lessening the joy of the world and taking from
+generations yet unborn the capacity for wonder, the power to take a
+large unselfish interest in the spectacle of things, and putting them
+forever at the mercy of small private cares.
+
+A Nursery Rhyme is the most sane, the most unselfish thing in the
+world. It calls up some delightful image,--a little nut-tree with a
+silver walnut and a golden pear; some romantic adventure only for the
+child's delight and liberation from the bondage of unseeing dulness: it
+brings before the mind the quintessence of some good thing:
+
+'The little dog laughed to see such sport'--there is the soul of
+good humour, of sanity, of health in the laughter of that innocently
+wicked little dog. It is the laughter of pure frolic without
+unkindness. To have laughed with the little dog as a child is the best
+preservative against mirthless laughter in later years--the horse
+laughter of brutality, the ugly laughter of spite, the acrid laughter
+of fanaticism. The world of Nursery Rhymes, the old world of Mrs.
+Slipper-Slopper, is the world of natural things, of quick, healthy
+motion, of the joy of living.
+
+In Nursery Rhymes the child is entertained with all the pageant of
+the world. It walks in Fairy Gardens, and for it the singing birds
+pass. All the King's horses and all the King's men pass before it in
+their glorious array. Craftsmen of all sorts, bakers, confectioners,
+silversmiths, blacksmiths are busy for it with all their arts and
+mysteries, as at the court of an Eastern King.”
+
+In insisting on the value of this escape from the commonplace, I cannot
+prove the importance of it more clearly than by showing what may happen
+to a child who is deprived of his birthright by having none of the
+Fairy Tale element presented to him. In “Father and Son,” Mr. Edmund
+Gosse says:
+
+“Meanwhile, capable as I was of reading, I found my greatest pleasure
+in the pages of books. The range of these was limited, for story-books
+of every description were sternly excluded. No fiction of any kind,
+religious or secular, was admitted into the house. In this it was to
+my Mother, not to my Father, that the prohibition was due. She had a
+remarkable, I confess, to me somewhat unaccountable impression that to
+‘tell a story,’ that is, to compose fictitious narrative of any kind,
+was a sin.... Nor would she read the chivalrous tales in the verse of
+Sir Walter Scott, obstinately alleging that they were not true. She
+would read nothing but lyrical and subjective poetry.... As a child,
+however, she had possessed a passion for making up stories, and so
+considerable a skill in it, that she was constantly being begged to
+indulge others with its exercise.... ‘When I was a very little child,’
+she says, ‘I used to amuse myself and my brothers with inventing
+stories such as I had read. Having, as I suppose, naturally a restless
+mind and busy imagination, this soon became the chief pleasure of
+my life. Unfortunately, my brothers were always fond of encouraging
+this propensity, and I found in Taylor, my maid, a still greater
+tempter. I had not known there was any harm in it, until Miss Shore (a
+Calvinistic governess), finding it out, lectured me severely and told
+me it was wicked. From that time forth I considered that to invent
+a story of any kind was a sin.... But the longing to invent stories
+grew with violence. The simplicity of Truth was not enough for me. I
+must needs embroider imagination upon it, and the folly and wickedness
+which disgraced my heart are more than I am able to express....’ This
+(the Author, her son, adds) is surely a very painful instance of the
+repression of an instinct.”
+
+In contrast to the stifling of the imagination, it is good to recall
+the story of the great Hermits who, having listened to the discussion
+of the Monday sitting at the Académie des Sciences (Institut de France)
+as to the best way to teach the young how to shoot in the direction
+of mathematical genius, said: “_Cultivez l'imagination, messieurs.
+Tout est là. Si vous voulez des mathématiciens, donnez à vos enfants à
+lire--des Contes de Fées._”
+
+Another important effect of the story is to develop at an early
+age sympathy for children of other countries where conditions are
+different from our own. There is a book used in American schools
+called “Little Citizens of other Lands,” dealing with the clothes,
+the games and occupations of those little citizens. Stories of this
+kind are particularly necessary to prevent the development of insular
+notions, and are a check on that robust form of Philistinism, only
+too prevalent, alas! among grown-ups, which looks askance at new
+suggestions and makes the withering remark: “How un-English! How
+queer!”--the second comment being, it would seem, a natural corollary
+to the first.[40]
+
+I have so constantly to deal with the question of confusion between
+Truth and Fiction in the mind of children that it might be useful
+to offer here an example of the way they make the distinction for
+themselves.
+
+Mrs. Ewing says on this subject:
+
+“If there are young intellects so imperfect as to be incapable of
+distinguishing between Fancy and Falsehood, it is most desirable to
+develop in them the power to do so, but, as a rule, in childhood,
+we appreciate the distinction with a vivacity which as elders our
+care-clogged memories fail to recall.”
+
+Mr. P. A. Barnett, in his book on the “Commonsense of Education,” says,
+alluding to Fairy Tales:
+
+“Children will _act_ them but not act _upon_ them, and they will
+not accept the incidents as part of their effectual belief. They
+will imagine, to be sure, grotesque worlds, full of admirable and
+interesting personages to whom strange things might have happened.
+So much the better; this largeness of imagination is one of the
+possessions that distinguish the better nurtured child from others less
+fortunate.”
+
+The following passage from Stevenson's essay on _Child Play_[41] will
+furnish an instance of children's aptitude for creating their own
+dramatic atmosphere:
+
+“When my cousin and I took our porridge of a morning, we had a device
+to enliven the course of a meal. He ate his with sugar, and explained
+it to be a country continually buried under snow. I took mine with
+milk, and explained it to be a country suffering gradual inundation.
+You can imagine us exchanging bulletins; how here was an island still
+unsubmerged, here a valley not yet covered with snow; what inventions
+were made; how his population lived in cabins on perches and travelled
+on stilts, and how mine was always in boats; how the interest grew
+furious as the last corner of safe ground was cut off on all sides and
+grew smaller every moment; and how, in fine, the food was of altogether
+secondary importance, and might even have been nauseous, so long as we
+seasoned it with these dreams. But perhaps the most exciting moments I
+ever had over a meal, were in the case of calves' feet jelly. It was
+hardly possible not to believe, and you may be quite sure, so far from
+trying it, I did all I could to favour the illusion--that some part of
+it was hollow, and that sooner or later my spoon would lay open the
+secret tabernacle of that golden rock. There, might some Red-Beard
+await this hour; there might one find the treasures of the Forty
+Thieves. And so I quarried on slowly, with bated breath, savouring
+the interest. Believe me, I had little palate left for the jelly; and
+though I preferred the taste when I took cream with it, I used often to
+go without because the cream dimmed the transparent fractures.”
+
+In his work on Imagination, Ribot says: “The free initiative of
+children is always superior to the imitations we pretend to make for
+them.”
+
+The passage from Robert Stevenson becomes more clear from a scientific
+point of view when taken in connection with one from Karl Groos' book
+on the “Psychology of Animal Play”:
+
+“The Child is wholly absorbed in his play, and yet under the ebb and
+flow of thought and feeling like still water under wind-swept waves, he
+has the knowledge that it is pretence after all. Behind the sham ‘I’
+that takes part in the game, stands the unchanged ‘I’ which regards the
+sham ‘I’ with quiet superiority.”
+
+Queyrat speaks of play as one of the distinct phases of a child's
+imagination; it is “essentially a metamorphosis of reality, a
+transformation of places and things.”
+
+Now to return to the point which Mrs. Ewing makes, namely, that we
+should develop in normal children the power of distinguishing between
+Truth and Falsehood.
+
+I should suggest including two or three stories which would test that
+power in children, and if they fail to realise the difference between
+romancing and telling lies then it is evident that they need special
+attention and help along this line. I give the titles of two stories of
+this kind in the collection at the end of the book.[42]
+
+So far we have dealt only with the negative results of stories, but
+there are more important effects, and I am persuaded that if we are
+careful in our choice of stories, and artistic in our presentation
+(so that the truth is framed, so to speak, in the memory), we can
+unconsciously correct evil tendencies in children which they only
+recognise in themselves when they have already criticised them in
+the characters of the story. I have sometimes been misunderstood on
+this point, therefore I should like to make it quite clear. I do
+_not_ mean that stories should take the place entirely of moral or
+direct teaching, but that on many occasions they could supplement
+and strengthen moral teaching, because the dramatic appeal to the
+imagination is quicker than the moral appeal to the conscience. A child
+will often resist the latter lest it should make him uncomfortable
+or appeal to his personal sense of responsibility: it is often not in
+his power to resist the former, because it has taken possession of him
+before he is aware of it.
+
+As a concrete example, I offer three verses from a poem entitled “A
+Ballad for a Boy,” written some twelve years ago by W. Cory, an Eton
+master. The whole poem is to be found in a book of poems known as
+“Ionica” (published by George Allen and Co.).
+
+The poem describes a fight between two ships, the French ship
+_Téméraire_ and the English ship _Quebec_. The English ship was
+destroyed by fire. Farmer, the captain, was killed, and the officers
+taken prisoners:
+
+    “They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead;
+    And as the wounded captives passed, each Breton bowed the head.
+    Then spoke the French lieutenant, 'Twas the fire that won, not we:
+    You never struck your flag to _us_; you'll go to England free.'[43]
+
+    'Twas the sixth day of October, Seventeen-hundred-seventy-nine,
+    A year when nations ventured against us to combine,
+    _Quebec_ was burned and Farmer slain, by us remembered not;
+    But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot.
+
+    And you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mind
+    Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind;
+    Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest,
+    And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest.”
+
+This poem is specially to be commended because it is another example of
+the finer qualities which are developed in war.[44]
+
+Now, such a ballad as this, which, being pure narrative, could
+easily be introduced into the story-hour, would do as much to foster
+“_L'entente cordiale_” as any processions or civic demonstrations,
+or lavish international exchange of hospitality. It has also a great
+practical application now that we are encouraging visits between
+English and foreign children. Let us hope the _entente cordiale_ will
+not stop at France. There must be many such instances of magnanimity
+and generosity displayed to us by other nations, and it might be
+well to collect them and include them among stories for the school
+curriculum.
+
+But in all our stories, in order to produce desired effects we must
+refrain from holding, as Burroughs says, “a brief for either side,” and
+we must leave the decision of the children free in this matter.[45]
+
+In a review of Ladd's _Psychology_ in the “Academy,” we find a passage
+which refers as much to the story as to the novel:
+Mr. Myre read the letter; and, as he read, his face became more like
+the hue of badly-made paste.
+
+He was a long time reading it, Gaston Latour’s sleepy eyes never
+leaving him.
+
+He burst into a harsh laugh, and flung the letter into the air:
+
+“A challenge, eh? ... ha-ha! ho-ho-ho!... Tell your cousin, Monsieur
+Latour, that the duel is relegated to the limbo of opera-bouffe.
+Ho-ho-ho! We do not do these things in England.”
+
+He prepared himself for a flight of oratory.
+
+Gaston Latour nudged the other youth--they bowed solemnly and withdrew.
+
+“Ho-ho! ha-ha-ha!” laughed Quogge Myre.
+
+
+The following morning Mr. Quilliam O’Flaherty Macloughlin Myre’s name
+was posted in every club in Paris, and struck from the list of those to
+which he had belonged; so it came about that he had to live his day at
+cafés.
+
+And it was as he stood at a table, giving authoritative utterance with
+loud yawing voice to a group of youths that sat about him, vowing that
+he had determined to shake the dust of Paris from off his splay feet
+and to start a great renaissance of the English drama, when a handsome
+young woman, sister to Gaston Latour, entered the place, walked
+straight up to Mr. Myre, and struck him a sounding buffet on the ear
+that sent his hat flying from his head.
+
+Quilliam O’Flaherty stooping down in confusion to search for the hat,
+she kicked him violently behind.
+
+There was a roar of laughter from the students seated round about, and
+they tapped the handles of their knives upon the tables, singing:
+
+“Opera-bouffe, bouffe, bouffe! Opera-bouffe, bouffe, bouffe!
+Hey-hey-hey! bouffe-bouffe-bouffe!”
+
+Then the girl flogged Quilliam with a horse-whip, thrice:
+
+Once for France.
+
+Once for womanhood.
+
+And once because she liked it.
+
+The whip whistled.
+
+It was said that he had been seen to strike at her--but she parried the
+blow with her left, and countered between his eyes with the butt-end of
+the whip--which was loaded.
+
+He fell.
+
+It was homeric.
+
+It was at this stage, so the scandal went, that he scrambled under a
+table; but she lugged at his collar to get him out; and as he clung
+to the leg of the table she gripped him by the moustache so that she
+pulled off one side of it.
+
+But she herself owned this to be as inartistic as it was unintentional,
+stamping her foot with annoyance at the mischance. Indeed, she
+apologized most handsomely; for, said she, pathetically, when she had
+got it she did not know what to do with it.
+
+It was an anticlimax.
+
+She threw down the whip and said he might now go home.
+
+He now went home.
+
+
+There is little reason to doubt that the horsewhipping by Gaston
+Latour’s sister hastened Mr. Myre’s desire to start the great
+renaissance of the English drama.
+
+As he stood before the mirror in his rooms at his hotel and shaved
+off the remains of his drooping moustache by the candle’s light, and
+soothed the aching bumps that were risen upon his face, he sniffed
+loudly through a swollen nose--he had very tender places--and decided
+to go to Rouen until the hair grew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV
+
+  _Which has to do with Blue Blood and a Jade-handled Cane_
+
+
+The duel got upon the town.
+
+Rupert Greppel, strutting with hidalgic air, was concerned in bringing
+about several affairs. No one was hurt. There was much braying of asses.
+
+
+The Lord Montagu Askew, dainty, foppish, in the mode, and the
+Honourable Rupert Greppel, hidalgic, head in air, stood before a shop
+window in the Rue de la Paix and gazed at their splendid reflections;
+whilst past them moved on the pavement or whirled by in barouches
+the great world of Paris--_hig-lif_ sunning its butterfly wings,
+honey-questing, sipping at any dew that the gods left lying abroad.
+
+Montagu Askew held his jade-handled cane mincingly, and he glowed with
+a gentleman-like glow, for his dove-coloured little book of poems
+tinted all the bookstalls.
+
+More than one woman of high rank this morning had stopped her carriage
+to congratulate him on the exquisite lyric wherein the vast firmament
+at break of dawn was likened to the grey of a woman’s glove--indeed, it
+became the vogue of the drawing-rooms--people sang it.
+
+As a fact, Montagu Askew was acknowledged lord of chamber music.
+Indeed, in his slender careful verse was no rude hint of the
+full-blooded Rabelaisian love of life; it was innocent of the
+suggestion of a large emotion; he played upon the accepted measures and
+the well-authenticated rhyme; he startled with no surprises; he sounded
+no new note--Montagu never forgot he was a gentleman. Not for him the
+uncouthness to fling open loud-clanging gates to a new world. He was
+pretty and serenely mannered before everything, disdainful of them that
+skipped a foot to the hot jigging blood, or such as showed a strong
+disdain; nor was he wanting in contempt for the natural emotions.
+When he condescended to so low an act as to seek nature, he walked
+through the well-groomed spaces of the world, well-trimmed parks at the
+outside, where an elaborate etiquette had made the rules even for the
+trees to grow in seemliness with a most gentlemanly existence. For him
+were no disturbing peerings into human destiny--he raised no rough
+alarms by strenuous aims and vigorous thinking. Pretty, dandified,
+he--always. Sinning easily enough, but always like a gentleman. Never
+a crudity. As a perfumed fan fluttered by jewelled slender fingers,
+blowing cool fragrant airs that kiss the painted cheek of some
+frail beauty, he uttered his lines--obscene often, but by the most
+gentlemanly of innuendoes. The unmannerly thing was the only sin. The
+display of a profound emotion was the depth of ill-breeding. So sang
+he, tunefully always, guiltless of all rough accent of originality;
+sang of peacocks and green carnations and blue roses, of butterflies
+and pools and dragonflies and souls, of ivory and silver, and of
+dawn and dusk and dew, and white shoulders sweet, beauties who moved
+languidly with rustle of silk--so wafted he to you nothing more vibrant
+than whisper of women and scent of perfumed chambers and flowers and
+bowers and rose and amarynth and asphodel and daffodil, of moonlight
+and music and kiss and gavotte and little tiny things--and always in
+the most gentlemanly manner. He milked the unicorn. Always a would-be
+suggestion of mysterious deep-hid symbolism that ended where it began,
+and at most only the dark hint of well-bred tragedy.
+
+He moved impatiently now, as impatiently as he might, complaining that
+the shop-window into which he deigned to cast his reflection was tinted
+with amethyst.
+
+“Come, Greppel,” said he--“let us gaze at ourselves in another
+window--this is an ageing colour.”
+
+
+Then came the terrible tragedy of a fire at a charity bazaar; a most
+patrician function with much upper clergy in it was smitten with sudden
+and awful death. Montagu Askew was in the business. He was one of the
+few that came out alive.
+
+In the rush of the distraught ladies, princesses, duchesses, maids, to
+the sole outlet of the seething hell, Montagu Askew got caught near the
+door--frantic hands of terrified women clutched at him for help--he was
+almost within reach of the free air--could see the sunlight a few paces
+before him--a frightened girl clung to his arm in the awful crush, then
+another--women’s skirts got under foot as they made for the door, and
+they went down. He tried to shake himself clear of the two girls, he
+was a little slender man.... The heat was hellish.... One of the girls
+tripped on her skirt and fell, clinging to him. He beat her down with
+the jade-handled cane--fought his way blindly through the rush of women
+for the door--stood at last out in the sunlight.
+
+Some coachmen were dashing into the fiery furnace, lifting up and
+bringing out fainting women, whose muslin skirts were in flames.
+
+But Monty Askew was frightened.
+
+He smoothed his ruffled dress and went home.
+
+
+Montagu Askew, entering a café with Rupert Greppel one evening, saluted
+Noll Baddlesmere, where he stood amongst a group of students; and a
+silence fell upon the place.
+
+Noll nodded:
+
+“That’s a handsome cane, Askew,” said he--“though they tell me the
+women have a poor opinion of it.”
+
+Askew’s little gloved hands trembled, and he turned white with
+anger--as pale as Montagu Askew allowed himself to turn:
+
+“It has belonged to my forefathers for seven generations,” he
+said--“and every man of them backed his acts with his sword.”
+
+Noll laughed; shrugged his shoulders:
+
+“If your acts are hereditary, it is an excuse for you,” he said.
+
+
+The following morning, Rupert Greppel and a French cousin called upon
+Noll; and Rupert stiffly asked if he could refer him to two friends.
+
+“No,” said Noll--Doome was with him--“no--I do not associate with men
+who associate with Lord Montagu Askew.”
+
+Rupert Greppel paused, dumbfounded:
+
+“I do not think you understand,” he said. “Lord Montagu Askew
+challenges you to fight him.”
+
+“Tell Lord Montagu Askew from me,” said Noll, “that I only brawl with
+men. Good-morning.”
+
+
+The whisperings at the clubs are said to have hit Lord Montagu Askew
+harder than a pistol-bullet; but Lord Montagu, from lack of experience,
+is not an authority on being hit with pistol-bullets. He never takes
+part in ungentlemanly encounters where people are hit. Indeed, he
+maintains a wondrous silence, except that he challenged Noll; and the
+jade-handled cane has joined the ancestors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV
+
+  _Wherein a Man of the World commits the Indiscretion of putting his
+    Experiences into Writing_
+
+
+“Dear Noll,” writes Horace Malahide about this time, “I have a son.
+He speaks English as yet with a strong foreign accent--but lack of
+experience may have more than something to do with it. If you come,
+I’ll let you play with him.
+
+I live in a whirl of tangled emotions in these days.
+
+T’other evening I went home, to my father’s marble halls, to seek
+the old gentleman on an affair of hot urgency. It was in the long
+hours. I lost some temper--the butler being a sphinx of ducal
+know-nothingness--so I rang up the housekeeper. Yes, she knew where a
+telegram would find Sir Pompey if I would leave it with her.
+
+I!
+
+Leave it!
+
+Gods! said I, am I utterly disinherit?
+
+Forthwith the heir of this branch of the Malahides demanded the address.
+
+It lay at St. John’s Wood!
+
+I nodded ‘That will do’ to the twain, and dismissed them; and, they
+being dismissed, I whistled long.
+
+Naughty old gentleman!...
+
+The next morning Pa did not return. Mid-day passed. Evening stole
+on.... The dusk saw me descend at the doors of the address in St.
+John’s Wood from mine hansom cab.
+
+I must preach the decencies; thus I, strengthening the intention as I
+rang.
+
+‘Sir Pompey Malahide is here,’ said I sternly to the smart maid that
+opened the door.
+
+‘Yes, sir,’ said she.
+
+‘I desire to see my father,’ said I, and marched boldly towards the
+furious racket that filled the room near at hand--the paternal roar
+distinctly discernible, bassoonlike as though he cried small coal.
+
+I flung open the door--burst upon the riot----
+
+On the floor lay the Byronic Bartholomew Doome with three children
+rolling over him--three, no less!--another in his arms--Sir Pompey
+Malahide, my father, on all fours, pretending to be a she-bear, his
+coat-tails over his head, shaking a footstool in his teeth, and
+growling like an ass in pain--and seated on the immaculate waistcoat of
+the dark mysterious Bartholomew the most beautiful young woman I have
+ever seen. The din infernal--and Pa the worst part of the din.
+
+‘What does this mean, Pa?’ cried I.
+
+They gathered themselves up, shamelessly--laughed--ye gods, twittingly,
+at _me_! Wholly unabashed, Pa, shaking himself into comfort in his
+clothes, slapped me upon the back:
+
+‘Horace, my son----’
+
+‘Don’t be familiar, Sir Pompey,’ said I. ‘You are speaking to the heir
+to a baronetcy.’
+
+The baronet laughed vulgarly:
+
+‘Mrs. Bartholomew Doome,’ he said--‘allow me to introduce to you
+Horace, my son--at least, my reputed son.’
+
+Bows, chassées, and greetings.
+
+‘Horace--the Misses Doome, Master Horace Doome, and Master Oliver
+Doome----’
+
+The old gentleman slapped me upon the back again with mighty hand that
+near drove me down amongst the fire-irons.
+
+He dug me in the ribs:
+
+‘The rogue’s been married this seven years,’ cried he; ‘and now he’s
+signed the deeds as partner in Malahide and Son, and you’re just in
+the nick of time, the fool of a lawyer is upstairs--only--look here,
+Horace, you must, like Doome, sign a bond not to touch the business
+arrangements--you and he would wreck the counting-house in six
+months....’
+
+Doome took an early opportunity to draw me aside and to whisper to me
+the grave disappointment it must be to all who respected him if they
+should discover the real Don Juan, begged me not to expose him, and
+pointed out the serious loss of prestige he must suffer in the eyes of
+the British Public; so we sat down together on a sofa and pitied him
+for his decencies.
+
+Luddy, luddy! how the homely virtues will persist!
+
+The idol of our youth, the dark, mysteriously wicked man--with feet of
+honest clay and a clean simple heart after all! Even prolific, and----
+
+Well, damn romance, say I....
+
+Oh, and more!
+
+Even the gods fall out--drift apart.
+
+Aubrey and the O’Myre go different ways--Aubrey in pain that O’Myre
+has now discovered that there is no great work of art without a moral
+purpose--Aubrey holding that Aubrey himself is sufficient purpose. He,
+Aubrey, avers that he has found himself--nothing matters after that.
+He must back to Paris. There the women have secular lips and voices
+of brocade and understand being loved. Tiens! He will in future give
+his splendid talents to attack the Philistinic brutality of strength
+and the barbarity of the over-rated glory in mere outdoor delight
+that to-day holds England in poisonous embrace; in all the pride of
+effeminacy he withdraws into the palace of his Egoism, where he is
+lord--back to Paris--_there_ are mirrors, where he may reflect upon
+himself, take himself up by the roots and dwell upon his own image!
+
+I expect he will come back to us occasionally to see what he looks like.
+
+The egregious O’Myre also hath descended on London town--stays,
+however, but a little while----
+
+Yet a wondrous thing of a man, the O’Myre--the most consistent surely
+of all created things--always wrong. He and _The Times_. He must have
+been suckled on half-truths, and nurtured on the Irish Bull; he now
+browses on false conclusions. But with what an air! Nevertheless, he
+has it all on the most philosophic basis--has for ever been blaming
+something for his lack of greatness. It now appears the English drama
+is dead. The O’Myre will breathe new life into it.
+
+Meanwhile, he has laid it down, like a minor god with a throaty tenor
+voice, that scenery destroys the illusion of the drama--therefore it
+comes about to-day that if you would be in the vogue with the ladies
+you must go in state not to the play, but to the dress rehearsal--the
+bare theatre and the dinginess being alone at back, the low tone
+and the cobwebs and the like giving mystery to the spoken word that
+requires for enunciation but beautiful lips. God! how the ducks quack!
+
+Thus mews he much monstrous wisdom, sitting like a pale emotional
+maggot upon the apple of discord that is called the modern drama.”...
+
+
+The rest of the letter is a matter of affection and goodwill. A man
+is always ridiculous about his first-born--exaggerative, egotistical.
+As though he had invented the business. Whereas, like heredity,
+immortality, and the latest fashion, it is thrust upon us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI
+
+  _Wherein our Hero, and Another, go Home_
+
+
+The sunlight that had painted the white face of Paris with a hundred
+hues all day had given place to a gentle drizzle as the twilight fell;
+and the steady downpour had driven Noll into a restaurant which he was
+not in the habit of frequenting; it had kept him there in its bright
+rooms until he knew every face and every trick of gesture of the people
+who sat about him.
+
+The night was well advanced when he sallied out into the light rain;
+turning up his collar, he strode homewards.
+
+He paid small heed to the rain; and as he turned out of the well-washed
+street into the courtyard where he had his lodging, and climbed the
+stairs to his room, he scarcely noticed that he was wet.
+
+The rustle of women’s petticoats was in his ears, and when he walked
+abroad in these days he was aglow with the sense of the warm regard
+of women’s eyes, that glanced upon him from the dark shadows of
+rakish hats; the walk and movement of women found a rhythmic echo in
+his thinking. The warmth of the coming summer was in his blood. His
+instincts were jigging to the dancing measure of the season.
+
+As he flung off his wet clothes he was seized with a whim to go to the
+tavern of _The Golden Sun_; and he decided to humour the whim.
+
+He lit a candle and flipped through a book until it was close on
+midnight. But he was restless--and he arose eagerly when it was time to
+go....
+
+
+As Noll, reaching the bottom step, fumbled at the door that led into
+the tavern of _The Golden Sun_, a young woman in black came languidly
+down the stairs, and he held the door open for her to pass in.
+
+The light fell on the delicate features of Madelaine. She smiled with
+pleasure, seeing him.
+
+They entered and stood together--a song was being sung--and as the last
+chords were struck, she slipped her hand within his arm; and he left
+it there. She shared the cordial greeting that Noll received from the
+faded poets and frequenters of the place. She was very beautiful--but
+her face pathetically pale. Noll noticed a dizzy tendency to cling to
+his arm, as though she feared to fall. He found a table, and made her
+sit down beside him.
+
+“Madelaine,” said he--“you look as if you wanted food.”
+
+She sighed sadly:
+
+“Ah, yes--for years,” she said.
+
+He called for a drink and some biscuits for her; and whilst they were
+being brought, he asked her:
+
+“What became of you, Madelaine--after the old widow Snacheur was
+killed?”
+
+She sighed sadly:
+
+“I went to work in a millinery shop.” She shrugged her slender
+shoulders. “They starved me too,” she said--“just like the widow
+Snacheur. So----”
+
+She slipped her hand through his arm, laid her head against his
+shoulder, and smiled:
+
+“But do not let us think of these things--it is so warm here.”
+
+The touch of the affectionate hands, the childlike caress of the girl,
+the confidence and the clinging of her warm body to him, thrilled him.
+She was in all the fresh beauty of her young womanhood; and the simple
+black gown, threadbare and worn as it was, only enhanced the beauty of
+her skin and pronounced the delicacy of her colour and the richness of
+her splendid hair.
+
+The girl increased the restlessness that had possessed the youth all
+day. She brought to him the sweet whiteness and the subtle grace of
+Betty--filled his senses with the atmosphere of the handsome girl who
+had filled all his dreams from boyhood. It brought to him the most
+importunate craving of man, the love of woman.
+
+Noll sat brooding for awhile. Yet even in the vigorous lust of life
+that held his young years, even as he sat there in the thrill of his
+sweetest memories, he vaguely felt the gentle presence of these simple
+faded artistic folk about him; and he realized how indelibly the word
+Failure was written across them all. The coats were, if anything, more
+faded; the shoes more worn; the eyes alone lit up with the wonted glow
+of delight in art. A little praise was their rich barmecidal feast.
+
+The greybeards, and the youths, and those between, they were all still
+hoping to create the masterpiece--there was not, amongst them all,
+energy enough to create more than the delicate measure of a gust of
+chamber-music.
+
+A burst of applause followed the recital of a poem.
+
+Noll roused with a start:
+
+“Come, Madelaine,” said he--“this heavy air is making you faint. Come
+with me and we’ll have some supper.”
+
+She gathered her skirts with wonted grace of gesture and took his arm;
+and they made their way out of the room almost unnoticed.
+
+As the doors closed on them, she turned in the dim ill-lit passage,
+drew down his face to her between her two hands, and kissed him.
+
+She clung to him:
+
+“Thou must give me a bed too,” she whispered hoarsely; “I have no bed.”
+
+She was trembling.
+
+“You are tired, Madelaine,” he said.
+
+She nodded:
+
+“I have had no sleep for three nights.”
+
+“What have you been doing?” he asked.
+
+“I walked about the streets,” she answered simply.
+
+“Come,” he said, “we must first sup.”
+
+She gathered up her skirts, and slipped her hand through his arm. They
+climbed up to the courtyard, and so into the street, and out into the
+night.
+
+
+Madelaine sat on the side of the bed and undressed.
+
+It was a sadly simple undressing.
+
+She was languid with sleep.
+
+Noll went and looked out of the window, where Paris lay below him,
+blinking her thousand eyes....
+
+He roused and went to the bed.
+
+The dark head on the pillow lay very still. The girl was fast asleep.
+
+Noll went back to the window--it was the window from which Horace had
+gazed down upon the world the night before Noll and Betty had come to
+Paris.
+
+And as Noll so stood, his brows hard knit upon the problems of his
+life, the night slowly passed.
+
+The rustle of a woman’s skirt had been in his ears all day--in his
+blood. This girl had brought back to him, of a sudden, the fragrance of
+his marriage.
+
+And this beautiful winsome girl--what was to be the end?
+
+The very question sobered him.
+
+Suddenly it was as though he had left the din of the noisy thoroughfare
+of life and had entered the majestic silence of a mighty cathedral;
+and from the great mysterious deeps a whisper came to his ears, each
+syllable roundly phrased, clear, unhesitating, a chapter of this
+strange book of life that he had so lately read--the book that had
+fired his blood and aroused his energy. The breath of these pages
+seemed to give him decision and free air, where before he had been
+drifting aimlessly, going he knew not whither, caring not overmuch.
+This book had braced him--it was a call to battle. He had had enough of
+beds of roses and daffodils and idyllic trances. The phrasing of _The
+Masterfolk_ came to him now:
+
+“Nature has ordered that certain things shall be; and to him who
+disobeys her ordering she is cruelly merciless. She has decreed that
+he shall be most dominant, shall breed the fittest race, shall know
+the fullest life, shall achieve the highest destiny, who abides
+by the woman he loves. And him who is unclean she flings upon the
+dunghill--him and his seed for ever. Of the love of man for woman,
+Nature has spoken with no uncertain voice; and Nature’s judgment is
+final. He that fears to love a woman sets himself against the supreme
+law of life; he ends in unnatural vice; he is against the design of
+life; celibacy Nature will none of--for celibacy stultifies life and
+ends the race. Promiscuous love she condemns utterly and punishes
+heavily with loathsome disease and with foul decay; the races of
+promiscuous love are become of the scum of the earth, and are dying
+out. Against the love of many women also, once and for all, she
+has spoken. The peoples of many wives Nature is sweeping into the
+waste corners of the world. Nature is her own jury--Nature alone her
+own judge. She hath not said the Masterfolk cannot break from her
+ordering, but that they shall not. On every breach of her vigorous laws
+Nature waits with weaponed hand. At the elbow of every vice stands
+foul-breathed disease.
+
+There is no sin in the love of man and woman. The woman has committed
+no sin in loving--she has but accepted the overwhelming urging of life.
+It is her chiefest glory. Man has committed no sin in loving; his life
+has ordered it; and the Masterfolk obey life. It is his chiefest glory.
+Who so glum a dullard but smiles to see lovers meeting! But he sins
+foully who is guilty of the repudiation--foully against the woman,
+criminally against his race, blasphemously against his godhood, and
+damnably against his manhood. Such are not of the Masterfolk.
+
+They of the inferior manhood, lacking in the force of character
+necessary to the full acceptance of the duties of the Masterfolk in
+love, have not the virile force to abide by a woman of the Masterfolk;
+and these come out when the lamps are lit and there are shadows in the
+land, and skulk about the by-lanes, and commit mean adulteries with
+frail women, and have the habit of repudiating debt. Such cannot breed
+the Masterfolk. They shall not. For these cower from the strengthening
+risks that dog a strenuous life; they would have the delight of
+marriage without the courage....”
+
+Noll opened the window.
+
+There came from the street below the hoarse cry of a prostitute.
+
+
+He went into the room, lit a candle, and sat down at his desk.
+Everything in the place whispered of Betty this night.
+
+He wrote a letter:
+
+  “DEAR MADELAINE,
+
+  I am called home.
+
+  I leave my rooms and all in them to your care, knowing that they will
+  be in good hands. I leave you also all the money I can spare, to keep
+  you in decency and comfort until I return.
+
+  I shall send, early in the day, for the large leather bag which you
+  will find labelled and ready by the door.
+
+                                                                  NOLL.”
+
+And when he had sealed this letter he wrote another:
+
+  “DEAR BABETTE,
+
+  I hear that you arrived in Paris with Horace yesterday. By the time
+  you get this letter I shall have left my house in the clouds. Last
+  night I found Madelaine at _The Golden Sun_. She was without home,
+  without means, except the sweating pay of mean industries on which
+  no honest woman can live; she was without a bed. But her blood is
+  dancing with life--not with a desire to cower in sweating-dens.
+  She was drifting. I gave her all these things that I might, last
+  night--and she is now asleep here.
+
+  Come to her as soon as you get this, and let her feel that she is not
+  alone. She will babble all her news to you--it will be better for her
+  than babbling it to me.
+
+  Tell Horace not to go back to the haunts of his youth. The wine is
+  not nearly so good as we thought it. The illusion is the sweet thing.
+  Don’t break the butterfly.
+
+  Tell him also that both of you have much of my heart.
+
+                                                           Yours,
+
+                                                                   NOLL.
+
+  P.S.--I am tired of myself. I am off to find Betty.”
+
+Noll sealed the letter and wrote a third--to the concierge:
+
+  “MADAME,
+
+  I am called away to England. Mademoiselle Madelaine Le Trouvé has
+  been good enough to take charge of the rooms until madame and
+  myself return. Pray give the enclosed to your little ones ‘from the
+  Englishman who knows how to laugh.’
+
+                                      Agréez, etc.,
+
+                                                    OLIVER BADDLESMERE.”
+
+He stole to where Madelaine slept, and on the chair by her bed he put
+her letter and some banknotes.
+
+He collected clothes from about the room, packed them into his large
+leather kit-bag, and carried it to where the candle gave light. From
+the walls he took down the portraits of Betty and one or two trinkets,
+and very carefully wrapped them up. They too went into the bag.
+
+He was near singing more than once. The place was astir with the sound
+of Betty’s skirts, the echo of her gaiety, the sound of her light
+footstep. The air was sweet with the breath of her uncomplaining
+good-nature.
+
+He shut up the bag, tied a label upon it, put on his cloak and hat,
+blew out the candle, and softly let himself out of the room.
+
+
+In the darkness Noll stood upon the bridge at the end of the Boule
+Miche, the pleasant highway of youth. But he now knew no indecisions.
+
+He realized that his mere intellect had led him into the veriest
+pedantries--had nearly led him into irretrievable blunders. He saw that
+man’s highest was rooted in the body, that heaven was no fantastic
+dream, but here and now for the winning on this healthy brown earth.
+He had been letting it slip by him, whilst he dreamed of pasteboard
+nothingnesses.
+
+He realized that the emotion felt was nearer to the centre of life than
+all thought. He cast from him the devil of mere intellect, and it went
+out of him demurely into the darkness, like some poor thin-souled nun,
+who crushes down into barrenness the splendid emotions of the life
+within her which are her very godhood, in fantastic hope to win an
+eternity of vague bliss, she who by the very act shows her inability
+to enjoy bliss--for, heaven and hell and all the eternities shall
+yield her no such bliss as the dear human loves may do--the æons of
+immortality shall never bring her the delight that she might know in an
+hour of a lover’s embrace or the dear touch of a nestling child at her
+lean breasts.
+
+As the awakened youth stood there, the black night passed over the edge
+of the populous city, and its smoky shadow slowly followed it. The
+lights of the lamps paled in the dawn; the stars went out; and out of
+the daffodil east the day came up--and there was light in the world.
+
+
+Before the day was well begun, Noll went home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the still grey dawn, in dripping drizzle, Gavroche the anarchist
+slouched forth from prison-cell to his harsh doom.
+
+He was dejected.
+
+He missed the band, the public eye, the shouts of the comrades.
+
+What, Gavroche! this is thy dramatic moment--thou hast the stage all to
+thy sole swaggering self--and though thou roused at daybreak from thy
+broodings to lilt a braggart song with all thy best intent to play the
+reckless swashbuckler, the florid eager pressman can only report that
+thou didst sing “somewhat palsily.”
+
+Tush, man! Is it thus thou goest to thy end? Hath thy desire to be
+Ruthless Overman brought only this about--that thou art to become no
+better than manure? Where is now thy dream of Ruthless Overman? Nay,
+what avails at all now thy Overmanhood, Gavroche? does not thy neck
+feel rather with unpleasant shiver of discomfort the overlordship
+of the Commonweal? The aristocrat despised it yesterday, and thou
+to-day. Hast thou, even thus late, a glimmering that thy vaunted
+Ruthless Brutality is to be snipped by the might of this Commonweal,
+thy unspeakable windpipe slit at a stroke of the ordered shear that
+falls on the bidding of that overwhelming force which is the public
+good--the power of that sneered-at race that is to thy silly little
+individual hand’s strength as the might of the sea to the spite of some
+flab stinging medusa!
+
+Yet, if the insignificance of thy little petty self irk thy conceit
+at this moment, what of the scented, gloved, and dandified gentlemen
+who write the anarchic words that have led thy conceit to seek some
+shabby fame in flinging a bomb amongst innocent people! What of them
+whose lyric pens have pointed the way to the Uselessness of the old
+and sick and far-too-many and superfluous ones! What of them that go
+scot-free--whose philosophies led thee to kill the old miser-woman and
+to slay the drunken carter to thine own Egoism’s enrichment? Tsh! thou
+wert but a tool after all, thou with all thy strange gabble of Ruthless
+Overman, putting to the touch of practice what the gloved gentlemen
+were content to prate of--Might being Right and the rest.
+
+Well, thou goest to thy dunghill alone--they to their social triumphs.
+And, when all’s said, the aristocratic ideal has brought rich harvests
+as well as the shearing of necks to its idolaters--and they have had
+their emotional moments in intervals of starving the race and filching
+from the poor and from the widow and the fatherless.
+
+Nay, doth not Europe, bereft of protestations, bow, hat in hand, to
+the Almanach de Gotha? And the fine gentry therein, weak-knee’d and
+inbred and ridiculous, do they not claim divine rights and special
+places reserved in church and the tribute of the Formalities all set
+and square to their comical little greatnesses? And multitude of
+lackeys!... Gods! are they not even Envied!
+
+Verily, Gavroche, thou hast been lacking in the diplomacies. It is that
+which has been thy chief offence against thyself. These others bray as
+loudly--but the accent is more tuneful.
+
+
+So, the same dawn, the self-same lamp of day, sees us all going each on
+our so different way.
+
+
+
+
+OF THE BLOSSOMING OF THE TREE OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII
+
+  _Which has to do with the Binding of Books in Half-calf and the
+    Whimsies of Calf Love_
+
+
+When Noll had left his baggage in a quiet hotel by the Strand, and
+had refreshed his body with much splashing of himself in water and a
+change of clothes, he sallied out into the streets of London in a vague
+wonder and surprise as to how to begin the search for Betty, yet firmly
+determined to start straightway in his quest--the Baddlesmere jaw set
+firm.
+
+The summer afternoon was closing in, and the Strand was gay with
+people cheerily making their way homewards from work or amusement. But
+homewards Noll did not take his steps; he felt a certain sense of shame
+about going to his own people without Betty at his side--and this, too,
+not on his own account, but that it seemed disloyal to Betty and likely
+to make her future entrance into the family circle an embarrassment to
+her--so sudden was the suddenness with which he had stepped into the
+realm of his manhood!
+
+The young fellow had been too restless to stay in the dingy mute rooms
+of the hotel; he could think it out better in the open--striding to his
+thinking. It was in the blood--he smiled at the restless walk of Lord
+Wyntwarde up and down that library, of the strange trick that came out
+in his mother at times....
+
+Ah, London, thou queen of cities, that filchest for ever the hearts of
+them that dare to love thee! Radiant in thy sunshine, fantastic in thy
+murk, it is when thou puttest on the habit of thy lilac twilight that
+thou showest all thy majesty--thy tiring maids, the handsomest women
+of the world, helping thee to thy wondrous mantle of many hues--pale
+whitenesses and opal greys, beribboned with purple and ultramarine and
+the sooty tinge of dusky shadows, adorned with diamonds of a hundred
+flames and wrought through and through with gold and silvery strands,
+and thus and so, with smoky art, spinning thyself a mystic robe that it
+is full fit only the Queen of all cities shall wear.
+
+And what a splendid stage, thy realm, to strut it in! Thy large drama
+knows no curtain, thy magnificence no boundary but man’s narrow sight.
+Thy whisper and the song of thee, and thy strange melodies, no strings
+of violins nor the resounding hollows of deep orchestral ’cellos
+can yield. From the music of thy ways, where goes thy multitudinous
+traffic with roll of many wheels, and lurches the gaudy omnibus with
+reeking horses twain, and lumbers the thundering dray, and winds in
+and out the teeming welter the quick black hansom seeking the hackney
+fare, with jigging of horse-bells that sound a catchy measure to the
+shuffle of many feet, from out thy swarming hive there comes the breath
+of vigorous life and thinkingness and the atmosphere of quick wits
+and alert wills that have the habit of decisive action and of dogged
+enthusiasms.
+
+And the faces that pass, with lingering glance out of the dusk, the
+pale sweet faces of thy beautiful women and the handsome figures of a
+vigorous race, how much larger vastnesses are in the communion of these
+eyes than in wide empty spaces of unthinking continents!
+
+The mystic dusk turns thy many habitations to a thousand shadowy
+palaces, thy very vulgarities to dulcet musicalities. What comedies are
+in the making in thy wide hospitable lap to-night! what tragedies! what
+heroic strivings! what bemeaning indecencies! what crimes!
+
+Thy very mud holds something of dark mysterious lustre--being that
+which is trod out of thy pageant and thy history.
+
+He only loves thee best who, being divorced from thee, comes to
+thee again out of the years. He flips thy mantle with no cockney
+familiarity, but hears in the hollows of his reverent ears the æolian
+whisperings of thy large significance....
+
+
+The sound of footsteps ceased to rouse the echoes in the empty street,
+as Noll came to a halt before Netherby Gomme’s doorway. He hesitated
+for a moment; ran up the steps; and rang the bell.
+
+The smoky twilight that held the place was passing into sooty darkness,
+turning the staid street of lodging-houses into a way of fairy
+habitations, the lemon flames of gas-lamps showing a sweeping curve
+of light down its long length to the far rumble of the city’s distant
+traffic.
+
+A key coughed in its wards as it shot back the bolts of the lock; and
+the door yawned open.
+
+Noll turned at the sound of its unlatching.
+
+The mother of Netherby Gomme stood in the dark hollow of the doorway;
+and a grim triumph lurked in her eyes.
+
+Noll saluted her, hat in hand; and she returned his greeting with a
+grave smile of surprise.
+
+“Is Netherby at home, Mrs. Gomme?” he asked.
+
+The grim triumph slipped back to her eyes, and came lurking into the
+corners of the old mouth again:
+
+“He came home from his honeymoon to-day, Noll,” she said--“will you go
+up and see him?”
+
+Noll walked into the house, and the door was shut behind him with
+a triumphant slam. He followed the grim old lady into the little
+sitting-room, and as he went the memory of the queenly figure of the
+little child Betty as she walked into the dingy room and kissed the
+jealousy out of this old woman’s heart, came back to him like the
+fragrance of her sweetness, so that for a while he could not speak what
+he would have said.
+
+“It was only the other day,” she said, “that you were boys together....
+To me it is only yesterday that he was a--little one--in my--arms.”
+Her eyes filled with tears. “But it is all gone.... This passing of
+youth is as strange as death....” And she added after awhile: “I think
+he--was glad--to come back.”
+
+Something of the light of triumph came stealing back to the old
+tear-stained face.
+
+“And Julia?” he asked.
+
+“I’ve sent her out to get tickets for the theatre,” she said drily.
+“They will want amusing badly to-night--and the tuning of the fiddles
+would always rouse my Netherby.... But you’d better go up and see him,
+Noll--you used to know the way.”
+
+
+Noll made a pause to take breath at the top of the stairs (how he and
+Betty had raced up those steps!). He pushed open the attic door.
+
+In the midst of the smudgy dusk that filled the room, his head in his
+hands, elbows on knees, sat the dim figure of Netherby Gomme, sobbing
+pitifully.
+
+Noll shut the door softly, and went up to the bowed man:
+
+“Good God, Netherby!” said he--“what’s this?”
+
+He gripped his hand upon the other’s shoulder, affectionately.
+
+Gomme signed him to a seat:
+
+“Sit down, Noll--I’ll be all right in a minute.” He blew his nose.
+“No--better still, light the gas. I must stop. Tears will not bring
+back one’s dead, nor grief annul the things that are done. Light up! A
+man can only cry comfortably in the dark.”
+
+Noll struck a light, turned on the tap of the wrought-iron gas-jet; and
+the gas leaped into flame.
+
+The old attic was gone.
+
+In its place was a picturesque medieval room of quaint nooks and
+demure corners, with stiff wooden settles of curving line against the
+wall, and low bookshelves round the rest of the walls; and above, on a
+deep coloured frieze under the low ceiling, was a long space of rigid
+trees from the land of Morris, green trees that yielded vasty purple
+and golden fruits on close-bunched foliage--and in the blue intervals
+between the stilted trees sailed white-sailed many-coloured galleons
+and purple triremes--and on the wall beneath the frieze and above
+the long curves of the low bookshelves was a yellow space splashed
+with huge orange-coloured dogs, with emerald eyes and scarlet mouths,
+that leaped along on hind legs to the chasing of each other and an
+occasional orange stag amidst mighty flowering plants that seemed
+to whirl in autumn tints with cunning running lines half-flower,
+half-leaf. And here and there was a knight in armour, and a hawk upon
+his wrist, and clothes upon his horse, and about him was always written
+_Soe sirre Gallahydde gotte hyme pryckynge to hys pilgrymmynges_; and
+when the knight was faded blue the writing was russet green; but when
+the knight was russet green the writing about him was faded blue. And
+here and there was a lady with hair in plait, and she wove at a loom,
+and sang with ruddy lips, and the writing about her was _Chaunted the
+Queene ande weaved hyre tale righte Fyttyngelye_; and when the queen
+was orange yellow the writing was white, and when the queen was white
+the writing was orange yellow. The old bookshelves, with their gay
+untidiness of many-coloured books, were gone; and in their place in
+more severe order on dark oaken bookshelves of suave design were ranked
+books all bound exactly alike in uniform yellow half-calf bindings. The
+floor was rich-stained and polished, and in the middle of it lay a rug
+of the yellow of saffron.
+
+The old attic was now so rich of hue and yet so stiffly chaste that
+Noll almost rubbed his eyes to see if he were awake.
+
+It was indeed a handsome room; and yet----
+
+Some faint whisper of the how and the why these things had chanced
+flashed through Noll’s consciousness. Here Julia had put the savings of
+her hard-won earnings. A tidy mind frets at the ordered disorder of the
+workshop. She was of a precise habit that has a ruthless distaste for
+chips. She had secretly consulted the old lady, who had grimly advised
+her to “let the man’s room be”; but he who takes to the council of war
+a decided intention is irked by opposition, and smiles away the wisdom
+of older heads as the mere caution of senility. And indeed there was
+something of the poetic intention behind her gentle obstinacy, as there
+was behind everything she did; for (and she knew it in her secret heart
+to be not wholly without a little of such jealous venom as her gentle
+blood could hold) she had been passionately set upon bringing into this
+man’s life a fresh influence, a fragrance that she was sure he had
+not known--she was aglow with the glamour of the love-mood to be the
+all-in-all in the atmosphere of her lover’s day. And as the rich crave
+ever to be more rich, so she, queening it in her little parish, was
+blind to the simple fact that all the subtle and gracious tenderness of
+her gentle womanhood had won her a larger empire over her lover than
+any she could hope to win by petty endeavour. The old lady, her wise
+old eyes seeing that the other had come to consult the oracle with the
+answer rather than the question, had nodded her willingness, after the
+first demur, to comply with the younger woman’s whim. And the nod of
+surrender once given, she had addressed herself, during their absence
+on the honeymoon, to carrying out the young wife’s instructions to the
+uttermost detail, even employing no small sum out of her own small
+income to the perfecting of it.
+
+And, be it remembered, for her the doing had been no light ordering--it
+was a flagellation of her own nakedness with cruel whips; for, as each
+change obliterated a footprint of the past, the atmosphere in which the
+boy and man had wrought their career swiftly vanished--the very hint of
+an early struggle had departed from the place.
+
+Noll felt how the room must have struck Netherby in the face as he
+leaped up the stair and flung open the door to be welcomed to its
+old genial comradeship after his journey and absence from his beloved
+things.
+
+Noll’s eyes came back from his thoughts to rest on the bent shoulders
+of the disconsolate man; and Netherby realized that the other had
+digested the situation.
+
+He sighed sadly, his head in his hands:
+
+“Poor Julia!” he said--“ she must never know. She has done this during
+our absence--as a surprise. And,” he added grimly: “it was!”
+
+Noll smiled:
+
+“But, Netherby, my dear old boy; you must not fret. You are famous,
+man----”
+
+“Oh yes--quite. A duchess has asked me to dinner--without my wife.”
+
+Noll put out the light:
+
+“Let us sit in the dusk for awhile, Netherby, as we have sat many a day
+and settled the affairs of the state. We have laughed at care here;
+and kicked the world about like a football, and striven to dig up the
+roots of the Universe--the Why and the Wherefore and the Whence and the
+Whither.”
+
+Netherby sighed:
+
+“Ah, Noll, the old room is gone. I have to begin all over again. These
+stiff prude seats compel me to order--tell me harshly that I must not
+be dreaming overmuch, nor thinking--which is next door to dreaming--but
+nag me to be up and doing, boiling pots or eggs or hitting something
+or pushing at things. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere. The medieval
+rigours warn me to be done with visions and the reading of the visions
+of others; and their hard oaken seats rise up and assault me where I
+would sit upon them.... But that is nothing. They have left me not even
+my books. I am bewildered--bewildered--wholly bewildered.”
+
+He sighed sadly, and went on:
+
+“Ah, Noll, he only knows the whole delight of having possessed a
+child who has lost it.... Books are one’s most intimate friends--they
+never change--never play us a shabby trick. How they eat into one’s
+friendship, each dressed in his individual habit! the very ugliness
+of some a reason for seeking to win their confidence; perhaps a
+reason for an easy familiarity--we dog-ear them the more--mark them
+the more--love them the more. Put them in handsome ranks uniform, and
+their individuality is gone--like sisters that are primly arrayed to
+the same pattern to simper through a tedious garden-party. We begin to
+find faults where was once only affection; and their outward seeming
+being now alike, like critics we seek to taste not the delights
+within, but carp because this has not Shakespeare’s wit nor that the
+thunders and the music of Carlyle. These that were once our closest,
+most garrulous, most intimate friends have gone to join the silent
+ranks of library editions that no one reads. These stiff and formal
+backs, these ornamental edges, these dandified and dyed airs, repel me
+from my ancient friendships. The intimacy of years is broken--frozen.
+They open no longer eagerly at the old accustomed places, stained
+with frequent thumbings, where my own hand cut the dear intimate
+leaves--they are deckle-edged and bedamned and horrible which were wont
+to be delightfully impertinent. I cannot find my way in the old garden
+that I loved--the old dog-ears are smoothed out, gone--my pencillings
+erased, their whisperings mute, they nudge my elbow no more. These, my
+one-time boon companions snub me; give me but the flabby handshake of
+necessity. They open their houses to me mincingly, and yawn affected
+utterance. They no longer tickle me in the ribs, touching me on the
+sleeve, nor beckon; they do not chuckle familiarly--nor brood with
+me upon the roll and march of the great significancies. Their new
+clothes are insistent--upon them as upon me. They smell of the oil of
+respectability like gagged Sunday-school children. We know each other
+no longer--except with formal bow and elaborate etiquette--as when a
+royal person enters the room of entertainment and puts good-fellowship
+to the rout.”
+
+He made a pause, and, passing his gaunt hand over his brow, he added
+sadly:
+
+“I have come home to find myself in a strange land.... Shining-faced
+respectability has usurped my chair.... My kingdom has slipped from
+me.... The flowers in my garden are dead.”
+
+Noll patted him on the back:
+
+“Tut, tut, man--you have come into a new kingdom.”
+
+He heard Julia’s voice upon the stair; and he saw that the other had
+heard it, for he stood up and forced a smile upon his long sad face.
+
+Noll went close to him hurriedly:
+
+“One word, Netherby--quick, before she comes--do you know where Betty
+is?” he asked hoarsely.
+
+Netherby smiled a sad smile:
+
+“Ah, Noll, that _you_ should have to ask _me_ that!”
+
+
+Noll passed Julia at the stair-head and left them together.
+
+As he stepped across the hall he hesitated, turned, and went into the
+old lady’s room. She was sitting in the window, looking out; and she
+turned at his footfall.
+
+Noll bent down and kissed the old face; and he saw that the harsh light
+had gone out of her eyes:
+
+“Won’t you be a little lonely here to-night?” Noll asked her.
+
+“No,” she said--“she has taken seats for all three of us.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII
+
+  _Wherein it is suspected that, on Occasion, the Trumpet of Fame is not
+    Wholly Immaculate of the Hiccup_
+
+
+Pangbutt’s handsome studio had been cleared for a reception; and the
+deliberate old butler, throwing open the great folding-doors, walked
+stiffly into the room and glanced an orderly eye round the brilliantly
+lighted details in a last complacent survey before the near arrival of
+the guests.
+
+He started at a loud peal of the door-bell, and pulled out his watch:
+
+“I hope they are arriving early enough!” said he. “It comes of arsking
+these here artists to the house.... They’re always hungry and they’re
+always noisy, and they’re always thirsty. Even if I suffered from these
+here afflictions I’d have the manners not to show it.” He shrugged his
+shoulders. “I call it letting ourselves down. They don’t even know how
+to put on their clothes like Christians.”
+
+He straddled stiffly out of the room, grumbling and mumbling.
+
+“Leastwise not like Christians of the Established Church,” he
+growled....
+
+He returned after awhile through the great hollow of the handsome
+doorway, ushering in four guests.
+
+When they had entered, he said stiffly:
+
+“Mr. Pangbutt, I fear, will not be down for several minutes, gentlemen;
+he has only just come in to dress.”
+
+He drew out his watch from his pocket, and glanced at it aggressively.
+
+Robbins laughed gently, and winked to the others:
+
+“We _are_ a trifle early, Dukes, I am afraid,” said he, going up to the
+dignified old man--“but if Mr. Rippley _will_ insist on sitting between
+the reins on the top of the hansom, the cabby drives hard to escape the
+inquisitive attention of the police--a body of men, Dukes, that live
+feverishly anxious to catch something and are bored with the greyness
+of the popular virtue.”
+
+He tapped the old man on the shirt-front.
+
+The butler bowed stiffly, and withdrew.
+
+Fluffy Reubens strode airily into the middle of the room and surveyed
+it:
+
+“I say,” said he--“portrait painting seems to pay, eh?”
+
+Lovegood coughed:
+
+“H’m--n’yes,” he grunted; and added tragically: “When you can paint
+portraits.”
+
+“Get out!” said Fluffy, and flung himself into an easy-chair.
+
+Rippley strolled round the room and tested the electric lights; his
+hands itching to be at any devilment:
+
+“Oho!” said he--“so the curtain is to go up to-night and discover the
+real Anthony Bickersteth--the man of mystery--the writer of _the_
+book!... I suppose it ain’t Pangbutt himself!”
+
+Aubrey at the mantelpiece, gazing at himself in the mirror, said simply:
+
+“Bosh!”
+
+“Rather a dramatic situation when you come to think of it, eh?” said
+Fluffy Reubens, lolling his full length in the easy-chair.
+
+Rippley, his hands in his trousers pockets, considered the situation
+with reflective eye fixed on the carpet:
+
+“And a rippin’ dramatic emotion, eh! To feel one’s self being wrangled
+about from one end of the country to the other----”
+
+Aubrey turned languidly from the mirror:
+
+“Ah!” said he, “and then to listen to it all, robed in the delightful
+invisible cloak of pseudonymity!”
+
+Rippley laughed drily:
+
+“No, no, Aubrey, old man--that wouldn’t have suited you at all. You
+wouldn’t have lasted at it for a fortnight.”
+
+Lovegood smiled:
+
+“We need not get into the quarrelsome stage about it yet,” he said in
+his big deep voice: “We shall be tearing him to pieces in magazine
+articles to-morrow and flinging him to the dogs of the lower journalism
+to snarl at before the year is out.... The failures are always
+suspicious of popularity.”
+
+Aubrey turned to the mirror again, and said “Bosh!”
+
+Fluffy Reubens winked at the others:
+
+“I don’t see that this chap Anthony Bickersteth’s work is a snap better
+than Caroline Baddlesmere’s; and he’s prigged a lot of her ideas----”
+
+Aubrey turned round to the room, took up a picturesque literary
+attitude, elbow on mantel, his cheek leaning on his long fingers,
+legs crossed, essaying to realize the portraits of the thirties, and,
+rousing from his adoration of himself, he said petulantly:
+
+“My dear fluffsome Robbins, I have repeatedly told you that Caroline
+Baddlesmere lacks breadth of view and a man’s humour--to say nothing of
+that certain something of subtle atmosphere that is called genius....
+You really ought not to give me the trouble of reiterating these simple
+truths.... You compel me to feel as blatantly insistent as a bookmaker
+on a race-course----”
+
+He was interrupted by the entrance of the old butler, ushering in
+Bartholomew Doome and Andrew Blotte--Andrew in very much crushed and
+wrinkled evening dress, and looking unutterably shabby, Doome well
+groomed.
+
+Bartholomew Doome laughed:
+
+“Yes,” said he, “yes, yes--I heard what Aubrey was saying; but Aubrey
+is a poet, not a critic.”
+
+Lovegood laughed a funny deep nasal laugh.
+
+But Rippley had turned to the strange figure of Andrew Blotte. He smote
+him on the shoulder with strong genial hand:
+
+“Cheer up, Andrew,” he cried.
+
+Blotte smiled wearily; he roused from his brooding; he was very pale:
+
+“Where’s the bar?” he asked gloomily.
+
+Rippley laughed:
+
+“Vanity Fair has not opened her drinking-saloons yet,” he said. “We’re
+all before our welcome.”
+
+Blotte sighed, and said absently:
+
+“I have come to tell Pangbutt I cannot sup with him to-night.” He
+smiled a pale sad smile; and, rousing, added moodily: “I came into my
+Irish estates last night--took over the keys of my castle in Spain....
+Last night I slept under the blue quilt, and filled my belly with the
+north wind. And,” he added hoarsely, “to-night I sup with the gods.”
+
+Rippley shook the moody man by the shoulders, and gripping them in his
+big kind hands, he said:
+
+“Shut up, Blotte; you’ve got to sup with _us_ to-night--gods are a
+large order, even Aubrey is not yet translated.”
+
+Blotte roused; laughed; strode into the middle of the great room. He
+turned gloomily:
+
+“No--I go to a mighty banquet, old friend. I go to sup with the gods
+to-night.”
+
+“Now, now,” said Fluffy Reubens, sprawling in two chairs. “Chuck it,
+Blotte--you make me feel as cold as a dead undertaker.... Lor!” he
+yawned, “this is precious slow.” He yawned again: “Paul Pangbutt’s a
+confounded long time, ain’t he? Scenting his beard, I suspect!”
+
+Andrew Blotte roused from his mood, and he began to pace up and down
+the room as before: “No more Italian waiters for me--with cursèd oily
+locks,” he cried--“no more grease-spots on dingy grey tablecloths that
+hide their offences under smiling napkins!... To-night I shall be
+waited upon by the gods.... Never again the boiled potato; never again
+the homely bun, damn them!... This is the night of life--a night for
+music and gaiety and minstrelsy.... Hunger shall cease, and pain----”
+
+Rippley went up to him and took him by the shoulder, kindly:
+
+“Stop it, Blotte. Aren’t you well, old man?”
+
+Blotte laughed:
+
+“Well?... Psha! I am like a boy. The new genius arrives to-night. And I
+go off--to sup with the gods.... The world has forgotten Andrew Blotte.”
+
+Rippley turned, a twinkle in his eye, to the others:
+
+“I say, boys,” said he--“as it’s to be a unique night, and Blotte
+about to be translated, and may be in the papers in the morning----”
+
+Blotte laughed grimly, where he paced:
+
+“Oh, yes,” he growled--“I shall be in the papers to-morrow. Have no
+fear of it.”
+
+Rippley slapped him on the shoulder:
+
+“Then,” said he, “we ought to give Pangbutt’s house an air. There
+is a lack of the grand manner here. One man-servant is ridiculously
+inadequate. At least three of us ought to assist to wait on the guests.
+Doome and Fluffy and I and--and you, Blotte--would make a ripping lot
+of waiters, and it wouldn’t be half so slow as talking art and rot
+to people who don’t know.... Genius shall serve the mob. This night
+must never be forgotten. By Macready, yes--Pangbutt used to play at
+play-acting! But where are his properties?”
+
+Blotte was striding the room; he laughed:
+
+“Ay, ay--the gala-night of life should be gay and joyous,” cried
+he--“all the candles lit, as for a bridal.” He came to a halt, scowled
+at the dark hollow of the great doorway, and strode thither.
+
+The old butler was lurking suspiciously outside.
+
+Blotte grabbed him by his coat lapel, and drew him into the light:
+
+“Hireling fellow,” said he, “bring more lights. This place is like a
+damned omnibus.”
+
+The old butler held out an expostulant palm in dignified remonstrance:
+
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen--the guests will be arriving in a few minutes----”
+
+Rippley went up to him, and gripping his fingers in the old servant’s
+waistcoat, pulled him into the room.
+
+“Don’t talk like an unfrocked bishop, Dukes--it’s most irreligious,”
+said he. “Look here”--he slapped the old man’s chest jocosely--“your
+master and the amateur aristocracy used to have private theatricals
+here. Where are his wigs and make-up things? Where does he keep them?
+Quick!”
+
+The old butler promptly began to retire backwards upon a handsome
+cabinet:
+
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen; surely I have no need to remind you that Mr.
+Pangbutt’s wigs are his private property,” said the shocked, anxious
+old man. “I haven’t Mr. Pangbutt’s permission----”
+
+Rippley followed him up, grimly smiling:
+
+“Get out, you old panjandrum!” said he. “You’ve shown the hiding-place,
+you naughty old deceiver. Go away!”
+
+He pushed the expostulating old man from the cabinet, and, throwing
+open the drawers, proceeded to ransack them.
+
+“Hullo!” he cried--“splendid!”
+
+He struck a match:
+
+“Spirit lamp--everything. Ginger! Here’s a glorious short beard affair
+that goes down the middle of the chin and all along the throat.”
+
+He put it on.
+
+“By Clarkson, makes me look like a ducal butler--I’ll be butler.”
+
+He flung off his coat, and his deft fingers began to fix the disguise
+on his chin.
+
+The butler touched him upon his shirt-sleeve in dignified despair:
+
+“Gentlemen,” said he--“this is not decent. I repeat--it is not honest.”
+
+“Go hon!” said Rippley, punching the old man in the ribs with his
+elbow, and working away at the fixing of his throat-beard. “Look here,
+Fluffy,” he called hurriedly--“you and Doome _must_ run this pompous
+old dolt downstairs and shoot him into the cellar--and lock him in.
+Quick! or the people will be arriving.... I hear carriage-wheels.”
+
+Robbins and Doome seized the shocked old man and hurried his protesting
+stiff being out of the room and down the stairs.
+
+Rippley followed them to the top of the stairs, making up his disguise
+as he went:
+
+“Look here, boys,” he called down in a hoarse whisper--“if the old
+fool will swear not to move away from the hall door until we release
+him you needn’t put him in the cellar.... What?... Eh?... He says he
+surrenders? That’s all right then. Now back with you--quick! or the
+guests will be here--or Pangbutt himself.”
+
+There was a loud ring at the door-bell.
+
+Rippley skipped back to the cabinet: and from the cabinet he ran to
+Andrew Blotte:
+
+“Blotte, old boy,” said he, pulling a red wig over the gloomy man’s
+head and combing the lank red hair down the sides of his pale
+face--“you must look after the cloak-room and change the tickets and
+mix the hats.... Ha-ha!” He laughed mock-tragically. “This night must
+never be forgotten!”
+
+“It never will,” said Blotte; and laughing grimly he got striding again
+in the red wig, as Fluffy Reubens and Doome burst into the room.
+
+“Here, Fluffy,” said Rippley, “quick, man! put on this yellow wig, and
+comb it well over your eyes. There isn’t a moment to be lost; Doome,
+here’s a black moustache and a greyish wig--this is the way to stick it
+on--see? Splendid! Makes you look like a broken-down Italian tenor.”
+
+He searched about in the cabinet and found a stubbly black wig which he
+pulled over his own hair, and was at once a son of France:
+
+“Look here, boys, I’m head-waiter, see! And when I bow, you bow: and
+when I rub my hands, you rub your hands; and don’t forget the foreign
+accent--try to talk English as you used to talk French.... Doome, you
+stand at the landing below, and see that old Dukes don’t stir a step
+from the door--and bawl up the names from him. And you, Fluffy, play
+the general ass. I’ll stick to the door here.... Are we all right
+now?... No, Blotte’s not enough disguised. Here, Doome, fasten this
+fierce moustache on his lip, whilst I shut up.... O lor! here they
+come!”
+
+Rippley had scarcely hurried into his coat when there entered and
+halted in the great doorway a hesitating figure in the white satin
+dress of a courtier of Charles the First, lace frills at his weak
+knees, white stockings, white shoes, and holding a plumed hat in his
+hand.
+
+His eyeglass dropped out of his eye, and he stood there stuttering and
+aghast.
+
+There was a titter.
+
+“Sharles ze Foorst--risen from ze dead!” announced Rippley.
+
+“I say”--the affected drawl discovered Ffolliott. “Rippley told me it
+was a--fancy-dress--affair,” he said plaintively. “And to come early.”
+
+There was a wild shout of laughter.
+
+Ffolliott looked round nervously at the strange faces, and recognising
+Aubrey at last, by the mirror, he said peevishly:
+
+“I am exceedingly displeased with Rippley--he--he chose my dress.”
+
+Rippley wiped the tears from his eyes:
+
+“Well--don’t you see we are nearly all in disguise? ... except Aubrey,
+who thinks that because he looks like an ass no one will know him.” He
+turned to the others: “I say, boys,” he added, chuckling, “things are
+beginning to move at last. This _is_ going to be a unique night.”
+
+“Hush!”
+
+They had all turned to Blotte, and a strange silence fell upon the room.
+
+Andrew Blotte stood listening, as to some strange sounds. He roused:
+
+“Ay, I sup with the gods to-night.... And I can hear the guests
+arriving--all the clever fellows that have made the world a
+delight--and with them come the dear dead companions that worked with
+us, and sang with us, and drank with us--in Paris.... I know them--they
+talk such damned bad French.”
+
+Rippley went and touched him on the shoulder:
+
+“Blotte, old boy; you’re very queer to-night,” he said. “You make me
+feel as blue as a newly-clipped hearse-horse.”
+
+Blotte roused, and moved towards the door; halted; turned to them all:
+
+“I say I sup with the gods to-night--and mix the hats--and set the
+table in a roar.... I must hasten away.... I hear them call.... God
+bless you, dear boys! we shall meet in sunshine----”
+
+Rippley stepped to the door:
+
+“Quick!” said he in a hushed whisper, “make a line, quick there,
+you Fluffy, Doome, Blotte, to my left here at the door. Here comes
+Pangbutt.... He blows his nose like the old nobility.... Come along.
+Blotte--don’t look like a broken-down anarchist in an advanced stage
+of pip. You must affect the smiling, friendly, neapolitan manner,
+expectant of a fee.”
+
+As Blotte’s pale face took on a deathly smile, Rippley bowed, and there
+stepped into the open doorway the well-groomed figure of their host.
+
+Pangbutt halted, perplexed.
+
+He gazed in vague consternation at the Vandyke travesty in white silks
+before him--turned to the solemn countenances of the four waiters:
+
+“May I ask what, in the name of Beelzebub, is happening in this house?”
+he asked.
+
+Rippley clasped his hands together unctuously, bowed, smiled a large
+Italian smile. He advanced a step, and said with a strong foreign
+accent, picking his words with slow deliberation:
+
+“Sir Pangboot--it has arrive to ze domestic bootler that he is
+indispose sudden-ment. I am he’s friend that he have ask to take he’s
+place, vis my asseestants.... Your house shall have ze much honour in
+my hands--we have the habit to attend ze best families----”
+
+There was a loud ringing of the door-bell.
+
+Pangbutt put his hand over his eyes:
+
+“I must be going mad,” he said.
+
+Rippley bowed:
+
+“Sir Pangboot--me and me friends, we speak not very well ze
+Engleesh--but we much understand it well--and----”
+
+“Yes, yes.” Pangbutt dismissed them impatiently. “Get to your
+business.... Curse it! I wonder what on earth ails Dukes.”
+
+As the four comic-looking foreign waiters left the room, he hesitated,
+bewildered. And Rippley, as they passed out, nearly burst a bloodvessel
+as the tragic Blotte’s moustache fell off. But Pangbutt had suddenly
+remembered that he was host; and advancing into the room he turned to
+the others:
+
+“I beg your pardon, I am late I fear.”
+
+He shook hands with Lovegood and Aubrey; and, turning to Ffolliott, a
+faint smile flickered over his worried face:
+
+“Ffolliott!... Sorry to be late, but there have been domestic
+difficulties--my butler has gone sick.”
+
+The guests were arriving fast.
+
+“Mistair Maupassant Fosse!” bawled Rippley at the door.
+
+The little man glared at the servant, fussed into the room, and tripped
+across to his host.
+
+“A nickname they have for me,” he said--“a nickname....”
+
+Rippley watched Blotte solemnly tramp down the stairs, his wig on one
+side; heard him announce to a lady, just arrived, that he was going to
+sup with the gods; and he was gone.
+
+Groups of guests came swarming up the stairs and passed into the studio.
+
+Rippley, glancing into the studio, saw the white satin dress of
+Ffolliott move uneasily amongst the arriving guests; and he heard his
+thin, affected drawl as he explained to his host:
+
+“D’you know--I feel such an ass----”
+
+Pangbutt patted him upon the shoulder:
+
+“Never mind,” said he absently--“it can’t be helped. Make the best of
+it.”
+
+“Oh, but I assure you--they told me it was to be a fancy-dress affair.”
+
+Rippley bawled at the door:
+
+“Sir Gilders Cinnamon!”
+
+Sir Gilders Persimmon shuffled into the room; and Pangbutt went to meet
+the old baronet.
+
+“Lady Persimmon coming to-night, Sir Gilders?” he shouted into his ear;
+the old man shook his head.
+
+“Sorry,” bawled Pangbutt into his ear; “Sir Gilders, allow me to
+introduce Mr. Fosse, who, I need not tell you, is the well-known
+critic. He has written a eulogy of Anthony Bickersteth that is to
+appear in a few days--you must win his favour to your poems.”
+
+The old baronet cackled with senile laughter.
+
+Fosse threw up his head. He glowed. He felt that all eyes were upon him.
+
+“Yes,” he said--“my eulogy appears to-morrow.” He forgot to bawl.
+
+Sir Gilders put his hand to his ear: the entrance and stir of the
+arriving guests and their announcement and greetings perplexed his weak
+hearing:
+
+“Eh?” said he--“borrow? Why borrow?”
+
+“No, Sir Gilders,” cried Fosse, getting very hot--“I did not say
+borrow--I said my eulogy appears to-morrow.”
+
+“Why?” asked the old man.
+
+There was a titter....
+
+Ffolliott, thinking he saw someone he knew, went up to Lovegood and
+slapped the big man on the back:
+
+“Hullo, old chap!” cried he.
+
+Blank consternation came upon him as Lovegood slowly turned and
+solemnly faced him. The weak-knee’d, foolish Ffolliott faltered
+nervously:
+
+“Oh, er--er--I thought you were someone else,” he drawled.
+
+Lovegood nodded gloomily.
+
+“I am,” he said sepulchrally.
+
+Ffolliott tittered confusedly:
+
+“Ye-yes--indeed,” he said, twisting his fingers and fidgeting. “D’you
+know, I feel such an awful ass----”
+
+Lovegood coughed:
+
+“But that is no excuse for your being in the other ass’s skin!” he
+growled.
+
+“Oh, but don’t you see--that’s just it! They told me it was a
+fancy-dress affair....”
+
+“Eh?” bawled Sir Gilders Persimmon.
+
+All eyes turned from Ffolliott to the perspiring Fosse. The little man
+shifted uneasily under the fire of many amused critical eyes.
+
+“I was saying,” shrilled the minor critic in his thin jerky voice,
+“that the man who does not play whist is laying up a sad old age for
+himself.”
+
+The old baronet shook his head:
+
+“The man who what?”
+
+Fosse licked his lips sullenly:
+
+“The man who doesn’t play whist,” shrieked Fosse, reddening miserably.
+
+“What about him?” asked Sir Gilders peremptorily.
+
+“Lays up a sad old age for himself,” screamed the miserable little man.
+
+The old gentleman knit his brows:
+
+“A reformed rake?” he asked testily....
+
+But attention was diverted from the fussy little minor critic’s despair
+by the murmur of admiration which greeted the entrance into the room
+of a beautiful woman to whom Quogge Myre was paying aggressively
+marked court as the announcement of her name called the regard of
+the assembled guests to her arrival. Myre was ever for stealing the
+lime-light. He was a born filcher of honour. But the beauty’s calm
+dismissal of him, as she swept towards her host, gave Myre a sudden
+hysteric desire to talk loudly and hide his chagrin; and he turned at
+the sound of Fosse’s voice, raised in argument, as hyena goes to offal.
+Fosse in his despair had turned from Sir Gilders, and launched into the
+discussion round about him:
+
+“In the arts,” he was saying, “woman does not, cannot, shine. She only
+exists--on sufferance. A woman’s province----”
+
+Myre had strolled towards the voice:
+
+“I am flattered to find,” said he, “that Mr. Fosse has been reading me.
+He is right. A woman’s province is to be beautiful; and if she write
+at all she may write of the nursery--of the domesticities. A woman
+has not the experiences of life--she writes only from intuition. She
+cannot experience the emotions of a man--cannot describe all shades of
+life--is too careful of her skirts to have been on the heights and in
+the gutters----”
+
+Lovegood coughed:
+
+“Never,” said he, with big deliberate voice--“never shall I again
+approach a municipal sewer without an ecstatic thrill.”
+
+Quogge Myre took no notice of the shaft:
+
+“A woman,” said he, “cannot be in the thrash and fume of life. She only
+peeps out fearfully over the window-blind at the doings of the world.
+She has not physical strength----”
+
+Somebody coughed:
+
+“Tra-la-lee!” said he--“opera--bouffe--bouffe--bouffe.”
+
+Myre went suddenly dumb....
+
+Sir Gilders Persimmon had shuffled over to Fosse, who was wetting his
+lips, eager to leap into the debate, when Myre’s yawing should give
+opportunity, and, button-holing the fussy little man, the deaf old
+gentleman asked him:
+
+“You said, sir, that the reformed rake did what?”
+
+“No, Sir Gilders--I said that the man who does not play whist is laying
+up a sad old age----”
+
+The old gentleman poked him slyly in the lean ribs:
+
+“Makes the best husband, eh! Indeed, yes--very likely--very likely. But
+it’s dangerous doctrine--it’s----”
+
+“No, Sir Gilders,” shrieked the perspiring little man--“I say the man
+who does not play _whist_.” He coughed--his voice breaking. “Oh, damn
+this old gentleman!” he added, moving irritably away from him....
+
+Quogge Myre turned to Pangbutt:
+
+“Now, Pangbutt, mind you, I don’t say that this Anthony Bickersteth is
+a Balzac; but he has the true genius for literature. How can you define
+these things? It is there, or it is not there!”
+
+Fosse skipped up to the group:
+
+“What _I_ say--what _I_ say----”
+
+Quogge Myre stared at his little disciple with contempt; a sneer played
+about his puffy lip--became too tense for silence:
+
+“This man repeats what I say--what I _used_ to say--like flattery,” he
+said.
+
+Lovegood smiled grimly:
+
+“Oh,” said he--“_he_ stays in Paris sometimes now. And there are the
+French newspapers.”
+
+Myre shrugged his shoulders:
+
+“I have changed all my ideas on these subjects----”
+
+But the ridiculous figure of Ffolliott strolled nervously up to the
+group, and interrupting the critical vapourings of Quogge Myre, he said
+with affected drawl:
+
+“D’you know, I feel such an awful ass--and I don’t get used to it.”
+
+Lovegood gazed at him solemnly:
+
+“Young fellow,” said he--“you must not be egotistical--it’s bad for the
+morals. Try and forget yourself in that disguise.”
+
+“I can’t,” drawled Ffolliott miserably--“I am quite angry with
+Rippley--he told me it was a fancy-dress affair--and----”
+
+Fosse turned his back upon him impatiently:
+
+“I repeat,” said he--“and I have a signed article in _The
+Discriminator_ to prove it--a genius has arrived.”
+
+“By Pegasus?” sneered Aubrey, raising ironic eyebrows.
+
+Lovegood laughed:
+
+“No--by omnibus,” said he. “Let us all be winged asses to-night. Fosse
+has not secured a government monopoly.”...
+
+From the great doorway:
+
+“Mistair and Mrs. Nezzerbie Gomme!” announced Rippley; and as the pair
+were greeted by all near them, Rippley stepped to the head of the great
+stairs, and going up to a pompous man as that worthy set foot on the
+topmost step, he said to him confidentially:
+
+“I say, mister, would you mind running down the stairs and telling the
+fellar with the red hair that I want him?”
+
+Sir Tankerton Wollup swelled slowly:
+
+“Pooh--pooh!” said he, drawing himself up; and he strutted to the door.
+
+“Poof--poof!” said Rippley. “Giddy old thing!”
+
+He glanced over the balustrade down to the next landing, and caught
+Doome’s eye:
+
+“Beelzebub!” he growled--“the whole town’s coming to this silly
+theatrical affair.... I say, we ought to go and see that Andrew
+Blotte’s mixing the hats thoroughly. Hullo! There’s Anthony Baddlesmere
+just arrived. Wait, I’ll come down. I want to see him.”
+
+He made his way down through an ascending stream of newly-arrived
+guests, with some difficulty, just as Ffolliott, seeing Sir Tankerton
+Wollup hesitate at the door, went up to the great man mincingly, and
+said affectedly:
+
+“Oh, I say, Sir Tankerton--d’you know, I feel such an awful ass--but
+they told me it was a fancy-dress affair.”
+
+Sir Tankerton, staring with bloodshot eyes of ruffled dignity at the
+thing before him, sniffed.
+
+“Go away!” he said testily.
+
+Ffolliott went away.
+
+As the pompous millionaire stood irresolute at the doorway, an
+absent-minded snuffy little old gentleman shuffled up to his elbow,
+followed at a couple of paces by a little faded old lady of withered
+prehistoric design, and, touching him on the sleeve inquiringly, said:
+
+“My good man--before you announce our names, will you tell me which is
+the host? I have never seen my host before--in fact----”
+
+“Poof--poof!” squealed Sir Tankerton Wollup, and strutted into the room.
+
+“Dear me!” The little old gentleman turned to his little old lady; and
+added in a confidential undertone:
+
+“A most extraordinary person--a most extraordinary _house_!... But I
+have always heard, my dear, that Bohemia was a strange country.... In
+fact, Charlotte, it’s _rather_ thrilling, is it not?”
+
+The little withered lady, all pleased excitement, said: “_Quite_
+thrilling, James!”
+
+Pangbutt seeing awkwardness at the door, and missing the loud
+announcement of names, went a few paces closer to it to meet his
+newly-arrived guests.
+
+The little old gentleman entered the room vaguely, the dandruff of
+the philosophic habit upon his coat-collar, and his wig full of
+reasons--very markedly a professor. He had the air of cataloguing
+ideas. The little old lady, a couple of paces behind him, followed him.
+
+Pangbutt exchanged greetings with him.
+
+Said the professor:
+
+“Good-evening, sir; my sister’s husband’s brother-in-law, Sir Gilders
+Persimmon, was good enough to say that you would allow me to meet
+Mr. Anthony Bickersteth here.... I am writing a work to disprove
+the insanity of genius.... It is a part of my theory that the human
+personality cannot be hidden by artifice--that the strong temperament
+shows itself in the vigorous growth of the hair--and so on.... I
+am, sir, I may have forgotten to say, Professor Curtis.... I am an
+inveterate novel-reader.... My wife keeps a diary.... Where are you,
+Charlotte? Ah, yes. But, fervently as I admire Mr. Bickersteth’s prose,
+I should like to suggest to him that in his next work he might make
+more of that unworked mine, the folk-lore of the London coster--or
+greengrocer.... I am most anxious that Mr. Bickersteth should be a
+virile person whose moustache springs out strongly from under the
+nostrils, with a tendency towards ruddiness in the colouring.... But
+I fear that on this--what I may call his--er,” he tittered--“his
+unveiling, I am too thrilled.”
+
+He kept button-holing Pangbutt:
+
+“Too thrilled to--er--I am thrilled, sir, thrilled, as indeed is
+Charlotte--oh, ah, yes--Charlotte!” He searched about behind him for
+the little old lady, who moved up to his side. “Oh, ah, yes--there
+you are, Charlotte! Allow me to introduce Mr. Pangbutt, our host.
+May I ask, sir, if Mr. Anthony Bickersteth has yet arrived? No?...
+How fortunate! How very fortunate!... Charlotte, I am becoming quite
+excited.”
+
+Pangbutt led them to chairs.
+
+Two richly-dressed ladies of an age that discovers as much as is
+concealed by considerable dressing, hesitated at the door; and one,
+taking a last amused glance over her shoulder at some incident that
+passed upon the stairs below, tittered, and, turning, swept the room
+with keen regard through her raised lorgnettes.
+
+“How amusin’! how absolutely amusin’!” she crooned. “I like literary
+and artistic people _so_ much.”
+
+“Yes,” said the other, “they are _so_ different to one’s own class....
+And actresses _dress_ so well!”
+
+She flung back an elaborate head of jewels, and whispered something to
+the lady of the lorgnettes.
+
+The lady of the lorgnettes laughed:
+
+“Really?” said she
+
+“H’m, h’m!--yes. Pills.”
+
+“Mr. Pangbutt’s father?”
+
+“H’m, h’m! Yes. I assure you.”
+
+“Dear me! And he has such a very distinguished manner!”
+
+“And--d’you know?”
+
+She whispered.
+
+“Lady Persimmon? Indeed?”
+
+The lady of the lorgnettes nodded mysteriously. The withered eyes
+expressed shocked surprise. She gave a funny little laugh. The
+lorgnettes were raised again, and she said, surveying the assembled
+guests critically through the glasses:
+
+“I absolutely _adore_ literary people--and artists--and actors--and
+those sort of persons. It is so strange to think they have all slept
+in attics. And really, it’s quite the _fashion_ to go on the stage
+now.... Who’s the fright in the post-office red?... Oh! is it?... Lady
+Margaret’s son has gone on the stage.... Gerty, do you know who that
+dark creature is? with the Italian-looking person.... Oh, yes; and the
+young fellow is getting on wonderfully. You see, they like to have
+a gentleman on the stage--besides, he acts in the most gentlemanly
+manner--quite unlike a professional actor. And then, of course, his
+manager is rather exclusive--he called the company together the other
+day, and told them that he did not expect them to recognise him in
+the street. It’s so nice for the young fellow to be with such a
+_gentleman_.”
+
+“Yes. Our gardener’s son has joined a circus too. Such an amusin’ boy,
+he was.”
+
+“It brings it all so home to one, doesn’t it!”
+
+“Doesn’t it, indeed! But I confess I have always been fascinated by the
+stage. There’s somethin’ so very romantic about livin’ in green-rooms
+and paintin’ your face, and--pretendin’ to be someone else.”
+
+The other whispered in her ear.
+
+The lorgnettes were flicked open again, and glittered upon Sir Gilders
+Persimmon.
+
+“Indeed! But he is so very old--and she--but there is such a difference
+of social rank between a baronet’s wife and a mere painter--surely!
+Still, he _is_ very old. Almost permissible sin, Gerty.”
+
+They both tittered.
+
+“My dear,” said the other, “you are really quite naughty.”
+
+Sir Gilders pounced upon Fosse, whom he had followed round the room,
+put up a hand to aid his dull hearing, and said:
+
+“You were speaking of dotage----”
+
+Fosse winced uneasily:
+
+“No, sir,” he shrieked--“I was _not_ talking of dotage. I say that the
+man who does not play whist lays up a sad old age for himself.” And,
+turning on his heel impatiently, “The devil take the man!” said he, and
+walked away.
+
+Ffolliott espying the two newly-arrived ladies across the room, made
+his way to them:
+
+“Do you know, Miss Foljambe Pfinch,” he said--“I feel such an ass; they
+told me it was a--fancy--dress--affair.”
+
+The lorgnettes were turned upon him:
+
+“It’s that ridiculous Mr. Ffolliott,” said she; and laughed
+immoderately.
+
+Ffolliott sighed, and turned away:
+
+“Everybody seems to think I am an ass to-night,” he said wearily. “Oh,
+there’s Fosse. I don’t like Fosse--but I’ll talk to _him_. No--he’s
+talking to another man. I think I’ll go home. No, I won’t, I’ll sit
+down.”
+
+He sat down.
+
+“Every fellow does something idiotic in his life,” he said.
+
+He watched Fosse button-hole Gomme; and he saw Gomme’s lips smile
+amusedly as he gazed at the floor, listening to him.
+
+He bent all his attention to hear what passed between the two.
+
+“Now, you know, Mr. Gomme,” said the fussy little man--“in
+confidence, all these fellows take themselves too seriously to-day.
+Look at Rippley! he’s utterly uncultured--he hasn’t an aitch in his
+composition.”
+
+Gomme nodded:
+
+“But there isn’t an aitch in composition,” he said demurely.
+
+“N-no.” Fosse stammered, becoming nervous. “But he can’t even pronounce
+the names of the ancients whose gods he models!”
+
+Gomme smiled:
+
+“No--but he can model ’em.”
+
+Fosse was puzzled for an answer:
+administration of Aconite, Acetanilide, etc.
+
+ANTIRHEUMATIC.--A medicine that prevents or cures rheumatism, as Sodium
+Salicylates, etc.
+
+ANTIPYRETIC.--A medicine which reduces body temperature in fever, as
+Quinine Sulphate, Salicylic Acid, etc.
+
+ANTISEPTIC.--A medicine which arrests putrefaction on or in the body, or
+hinders septic decomposition by killing the germs that produce it or by
+checking their development, as Carbolic Acid, Zinc Sulphocarbolates,
+etc.
+
+ANTISPASMODIC.--A medicine which prevents or removes spasmodic
+contraction of voluntary or involuntary muscles, as Belladonna,
+Valerian, Chloral Hydrate, etc.
+
+ANTITOXIN.--A counter poison or antidote generated within the body to
+counteract the toxins of bacteria. Antitoxins are frequently injected
+hypodermically in the treatment of certain infectious diseases and also
+to immunize against disease, as Tetanus Antitoxin for the treatment of
+tetanus or lockjaw, etc.
+
+ANTIVENENE.--A name applied to blood-serum of animals rendered immune
+against snake-poison owing to its antidotal properties.
+
+ANTIZYMOTIC.--A medicine preventing fermentation, as Salicylic Acid,
+etc.
+
+APERIENT.--A medicine possessing a mild laxative or purgative effect, as
+Rochelle Salts, etc.
+
+APHRODISIAC.--A medicine which stimulates sexual appetite, as
+Cantharides, Nux Vomica, Phosphorus, Alcohol and general tonics, etc.
+
+AROMATIC.--A medicine characterized by a fragrant taste or odor, as
+Aromatic Spiritus of Ammonia, Ginger and the essential oils, etc.
+
+ASTRINGENT.--A medicine which contracts vessels and arrests discharges,
+as Tannic Acid, Ergot, etc.
+
+AUXILIARY.--A medicine that assists the action of another, as Chloral
+Hydrate would assist Bromide of Potassium in checking excitability.
+
+BITTER.--A medicine with a bitter taste, stimulating the
+gastro-intestinal secretions without materially affecting the general
+system, as Qussia Gentian, etc.
+
+BLENNORRHAGIC.--A medicine which increases the secretions of mucus, as
+Eucalyptus, Balsam Tulo, etc.
+
+BLISTER.--An agent which, when applied over the skin, produces vesicles
+resulting from local inflammatory exudate of serous fluid between the
+epidermis and true skin, as applications of Cantharides, etc.
+
+BOLUS.--A large pill or a round mass of food prepared by the mouth for
+swallowing.
+
+BOUILON.--A nutritive medium for the culture of micro-organisms prepared
+from finely chopped beef or beef extract.
+
+CACHEXIA.--A deprived condition of general nutrition, due to serious
+diseases, as Tuberculosis, Scrofula, Syphilis, Cancer, etc.
+
+CALEFACIENT.--A medicine applied externally to produce a sensation of
+warmth to the part to which it is applied, as Turpentine, Mustard,
+Capsicum, etc.
+
+CALMANT.--A medicine that reduces functional activity, as Bromide of
+Potassium, Aconite, etc.
+
+CALMATIVE.--A medicine which has a quieting or a sedative effect, as
+Morphine, Cannibus Indica, etc.
+
+CALORIFACIENT OR CALORIFIC.--A heat producing substance which has the
+power of developing heat in the body, as Cod Liver and Olive Oil, Fats,
+etc.
+
+CARDIAC DEPRESSANT OR SEDATIVE.--A medicine which lessens the force and
+frequency of the heart’s action as Aconite, Potassium Nitrate, etc.
+
+CARDIAC STIMULANT.--A medicine that increases the force and frequency of
+the heart’s action when in a depressed condition, as Alcohol, Nux
+Vomica, Ether, etc.
+
+CARDIAC TONICS.--Are medicines that do not act as quickly as cardiac
+stimulants, but they strengthen the heart muscles which regulate
+pulsation, as Digitalis, Nux Vomica, etc.
+
+CARMINATIVE.--A medicine that allays pain by causing the expulsion of
+gases from the alimentary canal, as Aromatic Spiritus of Ammonia,
+Asafetida, Turpentine, etc.
+
+CATALEPTIC.--A medicine causing animals to lose control of their
+muscles, as Cannibus Indica, etc.
+
+CATALYTIC.--A medicine supposed to break down, destroy or counteract
+morbid agencies existing in the blood, as Calomel, Arcenous Acid, etc.
+
+CATHARTIC.--A medicine which hastens the evacuation of the bowels, as
+Aloes, Castor Oil, etc.
+
+CATHARTIC CHOLAGOGUE.--A medicine that stimulates the evacuation of the
+intestines and the flow of bile at the same time, as Podophyllin, etc.
+
+CATHARTIC DRASTIC.--A medicine which produces violent action of the
+intestines with griping and pain, as Jalap, Arecoline, etc.
+
+CATHARTIC HYDRAGOGUE.--A medicine that causes abundant watery discharges
+of feces, as Common Elaterium, etc.
+
+CATHARTIC SALINE.--A medicine which increases intestinal secretions and
+prevents re-absorption, and mechanically excites peristaltic action, as
+Magnesium Sulphate, etc.
+
+CATHARTIC SIMPLE.--A medicine that is more active then a laxative, but
+is accompanied by some griping; it causes active peristalsis and larger
+and softer stools than laxatives, as Rhubarb, Aloes, etc.
+
+CAUSTIC.--A medicine or agent used to destroy living tissue, as Caustic
+Potash, Silver Nitrate, etc.
+
+CAUTERY.--An agent used to sear or burn living tissue, with a cautery or
+a caustic, as a hot iron or Nitric Acid, etc.
+
+CAUTERY ACTUAL.--A metal instrument heated by an electric current or by
+flame, used to destroy bone or muscular tissue or for producing
+counter-irritation, much preferred to setons in diseases of the bones
+especially of their joints, as in Bone Spavin, Ringbone, etc., also
+valuable in the treatment of sprained tendons. The methods used are
+either puncture or line firing.
+
+CAUTERY POTENTIAL.--A chemical used for destroying or cauterizing flesh,
+as Nitric Acid, etc.
+
+CHALYBEATE.--A medicine containing iron, as Tincture Chlorid of Iron.
+
+CONDIMENT.--A medicine used to improve palatability of food, as
+Fenugreek, Aniseed, Salt, Pepper, etc.
+
+CONSERVATIVE.--A medicine or substance used for the preservation of
+other medicines without loss, as Alcohol, Honey, etc.
+
+CONSTRINGENT.--A medicine which causes contraction of organic tissues,
+as Tannin, etc.
+
+CONVULSANT.--A medicine which causes violent and unnatural contractions
+of muscles (convulsions) as Nux Vomica or its derivative, etc.
+
+CORDIAL.--A medicine which increases the strength and raises the
+vitality when depressed, as Aromatic Spirits of Ammonia, Alcohol, etc.
+
+CORRECTIVE or CORRECTANT.--A substance used to modify or make pleasant
+the action of a cathartic or other medicines, as Acacia, Coriander, etc.
+
+CORROSIVE.--A substance that destroys organic tissue either by direct
+chemical means or by causing inflammation and suppuration, as Mercuric
+Chloride, Nitric Acid, etc.
+
+COUNTER IRRITANT.--A substance or medicine which produces superficial
+inflammation artificially in order to exercise a good effect, by
+stimulating functional activity of a part, thus promoting repair upon
+some adjacent or deep-seated morbid process, as Blistering or Firing,
+etc.
+
+CUMULATIVE POISON.--A medicine which finally acts as a poison after
+several successive doses have been taken with little or no apparent
+effect, as Arsenic, Strychnine, etc.
+
+DEBILITANT.--A medicine which diminishes the energy of organs, as
+Bromide of Potassium, Lobelia, etc.
+
+DEFERVESCENT.--A medicine that reduces temperature, as Quinine Sulphate,
+Aconite, etc.
+
+DELIRIANT OR DELIRIFACENT.--A medicine which produces delirium, as
+Opium, Stramonium, Alcohol, etc.
+
+DEMULCENT.--A mucilaginous or oily, soothing blend to protect irritated
+skin or mucous membranes, as Carron Oil, White of an Egg, etc.
+
+DEOBSTRUENT.--A medicine which removes functional obstructions in the
+body, as Castor Oil, Magnesium Sulphate, Aloes, etc.
+
+DEODORANT OR DEODORIZER.--A substance to conceal or destroy foul odors,
+as Crude Carbolic Acid, Chloride of Lime, etc. Noxious odors may also be
+destroyed and absorbed with freshly burnt charcoal or dry earth.
+
+DEPLETORY.--A medicine which diminishes the quantity of liquid in the
+body, as Iodide or Nitrate of Potassium, etc.
+
+DEPRESSANT.--A medicine which lessens vital power, as Opium, Aconite,
+etc.
+
+DEPRESSO-MOTOR.--A medicine that depresses motor activity, as Sodium or
+Potassium Bromide, etc.
+
+DEPURANT.--A medicine for cleaning foul wounds and abscesses, as
+Hydrogen Peroxide, etc.
+
+DEPURATORY.--A medicine which purifies the blood, as Sulphur, Iodide
+Potassium, etc.
+
+DERMATIC.--A medicine used in diseases of the skin, as Resorcinol, Zinc
+Oxide, etc.
+
+DERIVATIVE.--A substance used in drawing away blood or liquid exudates
+from diseased parts by creating an extra demand for them in some other
+part of the body, as Mustard, Capsicum, Cantharides, etc.
+
+DESICCANT.--A medicine used for drying up sores, as Tannic Acid, Boric
+Acid, etc.
+
+DESICCATIVE.--A medicine which dries up secretions, as Zinc Oxide,
+Camphor, etc.
+
+DESICCATORY.--A medicine used externally to dry up moisture or fluids
+from wounds, as Tannic Acid, Starch, etc.
+
+DESQUAMATION.--A medicine which removes scales from the skin, bones and
+mucous membranes, as Potassium Iodide, etc.
+
+DETERGENT.--A substance for purifying and cleansing wounds, ulcers, as
+Hydrogen Peroxide, Soap and Water, etc.
+
+DIAPHORETIC.--A medicine which causes an increased amount of
+perspiration, as Pilocarpine, Ginger, etc.
+
+DIARRHETIC.--A substance or medicine which causes increased frequency
+and lessened consistency of fecal evacuations, as Mandrake.
+
+DIETETIC.--A medicine having nutritious properties, as Olive or Cod
+Liver Oil, etc.
+
+DIGESTANT.--A medicine that assists digestion of food, in the mouth,
+stomach or intestines, as Pancreatin, Pepsin, etc.
+
+DIGESTIVE.--A medicine which promotes the process of digestion, as
+Gentian, Qussia, Nux Vomica, etc.
+
+DILUENT.--A medicine that dilutes the secretions of organs, as Magnesium
+Sulphate, Gamboge, Arecoline, etc.
+
+DISCUTIENT.--A substance or medicine having the power of causing an
+exudation to disappear, as Iodide of Potassium, Red Iodide of Mercury,
+etc.
+
+DISINFECTANT.--A medicine which destroys septic poisons of communicable
+diseases; its special function is to kill or hinder the development of
+those germs or bacteria which produce diseases, as Carbolic Acid,
+Chloride of Lime, Formaldehyde, etc.
+
+DISSOLVENT.--A medicine that promotes solution of tissues of the body,
+as Potassium Iodide, etc.
+
+DIURETIC.--A medicine that increases the secretions of the urinary
+organs, as Potassium Nitrate, Buchu, Turpentine, Spirits Ether Nit, etc.
+
+DRASTIC.--A medicine having a severe purgative or cathartic effect on
+the bowels, as Croton Oil, etc.
+
+EBOLIC.--A medicine causing contraction of the uterus, and thus
+producing abortion, as Ergot, etc.
+
+ELECTUARY.--A substance used to lessen irritability or increase the
+palatability of medicines, as Sugar, Honey, Molasses, Water, etc.
+
+ELIMINATIVE.--A medicine having power of expelling or casting out,
+especially waste products, as Arecoline, Magnesium Sulphate, etc.
+
+EMETIC.--A substance or medicine having the power to induce vomiting, as
+Apomorphine, Ipecac, etc.
+
+EMMENAGOGUE.--A medicine which stimulates menstrual flow, as Potassium
+Permanganate, etc.
+
+EMOLLIENT.--A substance used externally to soften, sooth and relax parts
+to which they are applied as vegetable poultices, oils, etc.
+
+EPISPASTIC.--A medicine producing a blister, as Cantharides, Aqua
+Ammonia Fort, etc.
+
+ERRHINE.--A medicine that increases nasal secretions, as Formalin,
+Capsicum, etc.
+
+EVACUANT.--A medicine which causes the emptying of an organ, especially
+the bowels, as Magnesium Sulphate, Aloes, etc.
+
+EXCITANT.--A medicine that arouses functional activity, as Nux Vomica,
+Alcohol, etc.
+
+EXHILARANT.--A medicine which cheers or stimulates the mind, as
+Strychnine, Alcohol, etc.
+
+EXPECTORANT.--A medicine that acts upon the pulmonary mucous membranes
+to increase or alter its secretions, as Lobelia, Chloride of Ammonia,
+etc.
+
+FEBRIFUGE.--A medicine which lessens bodily temperature, as Quinine,
+Acetanilid, Aconite, etc.
+
+FUMIGATION.--Is a process of disinfection by exposure to the fumes of a
+vaporizing disinfectant, as Formaldehyde.
+
+GALACTAGOGUE.--A medicine or substance which stimulates the secretions
+of the mammary glands, thereby increasing the flow of milk, as
+Senegaroot, Pilocarpine, etc.
+
+GERMICIDE.--A medicine which destroys germs of any kind whether bacilli,
+spirilli or micrococci, as Bichloride Mercury, Carbolic Acid, etc.
+
+HEMATINIC.--A medicine that increases the proportion of hematin or
+coloring matter in the blood, as Iron, Arsenic, etc.
+
+HEMOLYTIC.--A medicine which causes the breaking down of the blood
+corpuscles, as Mineral Acids.
+
+HEMOSTATIC.--A medicine which stops bleeding, as Tincture Chloride of
+Iron, Ergot, etc.
+
+HEPATIC DEPRESSANT OR SEDATIVE.--A medicine that decreases the function
+of the liver, as Plumbi Acetate, Morphine, etc.
+
+HEPATIC STIMULANT.--A medicine which increases the functions of the
+liver, as Calomel, Podophyllin, etc.
+
+HIDROTIC OR HYDROTIC.--A medicine that stimulates perspiration (sweat),
+as Pilocarpine, Spirits Ether Nit., etc.
+
+HYDRAGOGUE.--A medicine which causes full watery evacuations from the
+bowels, as Arecoline, Gamboge, etc.
+
+HYPNOTIC.--A medicine which produces sleep, as Chloral Hydrate,
+Morphine, Potassium Bromide, etc.
+
+HYPOSTHENIC.--A medicine which causes weakness, debility, as Lobelia.
+
+IDIOSYNCRASY.--A peculiarity of constitution that makes one person or
+animal react differently to medicines or other influences from most
+persons or animals.
+
+INSECTICIDE.--A substance used to destroy insects, as unrefined carbolic
+acid, benzine, etc.
+
+INTOXICANT.--A drug which excites or stupifies, as alcohol, etc.
+
+IRRITANT.--A medicine or agent causing heat, pain and tension due to the
+increased flow of blood to the part, as heat, mustard, etc.
+
+LACTAGOGUE.--A medicine which increases the flow of milk, as extract of
+malt, jaborandi, etc.
+
+LAXATIVE.--A medicine that loosens the bowels; a mild cathartic or
+purgative, as potassium nitrate, sulphur, etc.
+
+LENITIVE.--A substance having the quality to relieve pain or protecting
+tissues from the actions of irritants, as fats, oils, etc.
+
+LIQUEFACIENT.--A medicine which promotes the liquefying processes of the
+system, as potassium iodide, etc.
+
+LITHAGOGUE.--A medicine which expels calculi (or stones) from the
+kidneys or bladder, as benzoic acid, etc.
+
+LITHOLYTIC or LITHONTRIPTIC.--A medicine to dissolve calculi (or stones)
+as benzoate of ammonia, carbonate of potassium, etc.
+
+LUBRICANT.--A substance which soothes irritated surfaces of the throat
+and their fauces, as honey, olive oil, etc.
+
+MEDICAMENT.--Any medicine used in the treatment of diseases or wounds.
+
+MEDICINE.--Any substance for the cure of disease.
+
+MYDRIATIC.--An agent which dilates or enlarges the pupil of the eye,
+whether used internally or externally, as atrophine.
+
+MYOTIC.--Any agent that contracts the pupil of the eye, whether applied
+to the eye or taken by the mouth, as eserine, arecoline, etc.
+
+NARCOTIC.--A medicine which produces sleep and relieves pain, but first
+cause cerebral excitement, as chloroform, ether, belladonna and alcohol,
+etc.
+
+NEPHRITIC.--A medicine used in diseases of the kidneys, as buchu, uva
+ursi, etc.
+
+NERVINE.--A medicine that calms nervous excitement or acts favorably in
+nervous diseases, as potassium bromide, chloral hydrate, etc.
+
+NUTRIENT.--A medicine which builds up the waste tissues of the system,
+as cod liver oil, general tonics, etc.
+
+OBTUNDENT.--Any agent which relieves irritation or reduces sensibility,
+as opium, poultices, etc.
+
+ODONTALGIC.--Any substance for the relief of toothache, as oil of
+cloves, morphine, etc.
+
+ODORANT.--Any substance with a pronounced odor, as naphthaline,
+asafoetida, etc.
+
+OPIATE.--A drug which causes sleep, as chloral hydrate, opium, etc.
+
+OXYTOCIC.--Any agent that produces parturition, as cotton root, ergot,
+etc.
+
+PANACEA.--A medicine curing all diseases; a cure all, as some patent
+medicines.
+
+PARASITICIDE.--A substance that destroys various animal and vegetable
+organisms or parasites which live upon the surface of the body, as
+mercurial and sulphur ointment, etc.
+
+PARTURIENT or PARTURIFACIENT.--Any agent assisting in the birth of the
+young, as ergot.
+
+PERISTALTIC.--A medicine which increases the movements of the
+longitudinal and transverse muscular fibers of the intestines and
+assists them in expelling their contents as nux vomica, arecoline, etc.
+
+PLACEBO.--Any medicine or inert substance given for the purpose of
+satisfying the patient, rather than for its medical effects, as sugar,
+fenugreek, anise, etc.
+
+POISON.--An agent that when introduced into the body either destroys
+life or impairs seriously the functions of one or more of its organs, as
+potassium cyanide, hydrocyanic acid, etc.
+
+POTENTIAL.--A medicine which possesses restorative effects, but is
+delayed in its effects, as potassium iodide, arsenic, etc.
+
+PRESERVATIVE.--A substance which prevents decomposition of another
+substance, as acetanilid, boric acid, etc.
+
+PREVENTIVE or PROPHYLACTIC.--A medicine or method that tends to prevent
+disease, as quinine for the prevention of malaria, vaccine, hygienics,
+etc.
+
+PROTECTIVE.--A substance used for protecting the parts to which it is
+applied, as collodion, etc.
+
+PUNGENT.--Any substance producing a sharp, pinching, penetrating effect,
+as ammonia.
+
+PURGATIVE.--A medicine causing copious evacuations of the bowels. (See
+Cathartics.)
+
+PUSTULANT.--A medicine which irritates and gives rise to the formation
+of pustules, as cantharides, croton oil, etc.
+
+RECUPERATIVE.--A medicine which restores health and energy, as extract
+of malt, cod liver oil, etc.
+
+REFRIGERANT.--A medicine or agent having cooling properties or the power
+of lowering internal or external temperature, as potassium nitrate,
+aconite, cold water, etc.
+
+RELAXANT.--A substance which causes relaxation of muscular tissues, as
+chloroform, chloral, etc.
+
+REPARATIVE.--A substance used to restore debilitated tissues of the
+body, as general tonics, nitrogenous foods, etc.
+
+RESOLVENT.--A substance indicated in the treatment or absorption of
+hard, callous tissue, as iodine and its preparations.
+
+RESTORATIVE.--A medicine that aids in restoring the health, as nux
+vomica, arsenic, etc.
+
+REVULSANT or REVULSIVE.--An agent which produces irritation and draws
+fluids from other parts diseased, as poultices, cantharides, etc.
+
+RUBEFACIENT.--A medicine or agent causing irritation and redness of the
+skin, as turpentine, mustard, etc.
+
+SEDATIVE.--A medicine which diminishes functional activity, as potassium
+or ammonium bromide, etc.
+
+SEPTIC.--An agent causing poisoning resulting from the absorption of
+products of putrefaction, as bacteria.
+
+SIALOGOGUE.--A medicine stimulating the flow of saliva, as pilocarpine,
+arecoline, ginger, capsicum, etc.
+
+SOMNIFACIENT or SOPORIFIC.--A medicine which produces drowsiness and
+sleep, as morphine, chloral hydrate, potassium, bromide, etc.
+
+SORBEFACIENT.--A medicine used to produce abortion, as ergot.
+
+SPECIFIC.--A medicine or agent which has a distinct curative influence
+on an individual disease, as potassium iodide in actinomycosis (Lumpy
+Jaw) or oxygen in milk fever, etc.
+
+STIMULANT.--A medicine which quickens or increases functional activity,
+as strychnine, ammonium carbonate, alcohol, etc.
+
+STOMACHIC.--A medicine which increases functional activity of the
+stomach, as quassia gentian, etc.
+
+STOMATIC.--A medicine used in diseases of the mouth, as boric acid,
+potassium chlorate, alum, etc.
+
+SUPERFACIENT.--A medicine causing unconsciousness from which the patient
+can be roused, as opium, bromide of potassium, etc.
+
+STYPTIC.--An agent that checks bleeding by causing contraction of the
+blood vessels, as tincture chloride of iron, ergot, etc.
+
+SUCCEDANEUM.--A medicine which may be substituted for another possessing
+similar properties, as chloral hydrate for potassium bromide, or aloes
+for linseed oil, etc.
+
+SUDORIFIC.--A medicine or agent which produces an increased quantity of
+perspiration (sweat) as ginger, pilocarpine, Dover’s powders, etc.
+
+SUPPURANT.--A medicine or agent promoting pus formation, as poultices,
+cantharides, croton oil, etc.
+
+SYNERGIST.--A medicine which co-operates or assists the action of
+another, as chloroform with ether, cantharides with red iodide of
+mercury, etc.
+
+TAENICIDE.--A medicine which destroys tape worms, as extract of male
+fern.
+
+TAENIFUGE.--A medicine which expels tape worms, as areca nut, pumpkin
+seed, oil of turpentine, etc.
+
+TETANIC.--A medicine or agent which increases the irritation of the
+spinal cord or muscles producing spasms, as strychnine, etc.
+
+TONIC.--A medicine promoting nutrition and giving strength to the body,
+as arsenic, cod liver oil, etc.
+
+TOPIC or TOPICAL.--A substance or agent for external use, applied
+locally, as a liniment.
+
+TOXIC.--A condition produced by a poison, as a result of an over-dose of
+medicine or the absorption of bacterial products.
+
+TRICOPHYED.--A medicine promoting the growth of hair, as pilocarpine,
+cantharides, capsicum, etc.
+
+UTERINE.--A medicine acting upon the uterus, as ergot.
+
+VEHICLE.--A medicine or agent used as a medium or base for the
+administration of medicines, as syrups, oils, water, etc.
+
+VERMICIDE.--A medicine which destroys parasitic worms, as turpentine,
+iron sulphate, tobacco, creosote, etc.
+
+VERMIFUGE.--A medicine which expels parasitic worms, as arecoline,
+aloes, etc.
+
+VESICANT.--A medicine which forms pustules containing white serum, as
+cantharides.
+
+VIRUS.--A poison of an infectious disease, especially one found in the
+system of an animal suffering from an infectious disease, as hog
+cholera, cowpox or rabies virus, etc.
+
+VULNERARY.--Any medicine or compound used in the treatment of wounds, as
+ointments, liniments, etc.
+
+
+
+
+ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICINES
+
+
+The following methods of administering medicines in order of their
+rapidity of absorption, beginning with the method by which absorption is
+most rapid, and following with those by which absorption is less rapid
+and finally least rapid: 1. Intravenous, by injection into veins. 2. By
+inhalation (volatile drugs). 3. Subcutaneous, by injection into
+subcutaneous tissue. 4. Intratracheal, by injection into the trachea (or
+wind pipe). 5. Oral, by the mouth. 6. Rectal, by the rectum. 7.
+Inunction, by the skin. 8. Intramammary injections.
+
+
+
+
+WHEN MEDICINES SHOULD BE ADMINISTERED
+
+
+The curative effects of medicines may be restrained, changed in form or
+prevented by untimely administration.
+
+Medicines intended to act on the mucous membrane of the stomach should
+only be given when that organ is empty. If distant parts are to be
+affected in the most prompt and efficient manner and the medicine is
+free from distinct irritating qualities, it should be taken on an empty
+stomach; as when digestion is going on, the contents of the stomach are
+acid in reaction and if alkalies are given combinations take place and
+salts are formed. If alkalies are given before digestion begins,
+diffusion of the acid-forming constituents of the blood takes place, and
+in this way the acidity of the gastric juice is promoted; likewise acids
+given before meals increase the diffusion of the alkaline constituents
+of the blood.
+
+
+
+
+METHODS OF ADMINISTERING MEDICINES
+
+
+Drenching, bit, balling gun, capsule gun, bottle, dose syringe and
+hypodermic syringe.
+
+Anaesthetics administered in feed bags or proper inhaler.
+
+
+
+
+TABLES USED IN PRESCRIPTION WRITING
+
+
+APOTHECARIES OR TROY WEIGHT.
+
+  20 Grains (Granum)                (Gr. or Grs.) = 1 Scruple.
+   3 Scruples (Scrupulum)           (Sc.) = 1 Drachm (60 Grs.)
+   8 Drachms (Drachma)              (ʒ) = 1 Ounce.
+  12 Ounces (Uncia)                 (℥) = 1 Pound (℔)
+
+In prescription writing the pound sign should not be used; always
+express large quantities by ounces.
+
+
+APOTHECARIES’ LIQUID MEASURE.
+
+  60 Minims (Minimum)               (M. or Ms.) = 1 Fluid Drachm.
+   8 Fluid Drachms (Fluid Drachma)  (fl. ʒ) = 1 Fluid Ounce.
+  16 Fluid Ounces (Fluid Uncia)     (fl. ℥) = 1 Pint.
+   2 Pints (Octarius)               (O.) = 1 Quart.
+   4 Quarts or 8 Pints = 1 Gallon   (congius--C.)
+
+In prescribing liquids the abbreviation for Quarts (Qts.) is never used.
+If a quart is desired it is expressed as two pints (Oij).
+
+
+APPROPRIATE EQUIVALENTS OF WINE UNITS IN DOMESTIC MEASURES.
+
+  Teaspoon      = ʒi.
+  Dessert spoon = ʒii.
+  Table spoon   = ℥ss.
+  Cup           = ℥iv.
+  Tumbler       = ℥viii.
+
+
+
+
+TABLES FOR REGULATING THE DOSES FOR YOUNG ANIMALS
+
+
+HORSES.
+
+  3 years old and upward, full dose.
+  From 1¹⁄₂ years old to 3 years, ¹⁄₂ dose.
+  From 9 to 18 months old, ¹⁄₄ dose.
+  From 4¹⁄₂ to 9 months old, ¹⁄₈ dose.
+  From 1 to 4¹⁄₂ months old, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.
+
+
+CATTLE.
+
+  2 years old and upward, full dose.
+  From 1 to 2 years old, ¹⁄₂ dose.
+  From ¹⁄₂ to 1 year, ¹⁄₄ dose.
+  From 3 to 6 months, ¹⁄₈ dose.
+  From 1 to 3 months, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.
+
+
+SHEEP.
+
+  2 years old and upward, full dose.
+  From 1 to 2 years old, ¹⁄₂ dose.
+  From ¹⁄₂ to 1 year, ¹⁄₄ dose.
+  From 3 to 6 months, ¹⁄₈ dose.
+  From 1 to 3 months, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.
+
+
+PIGS.
+
+  1¹⁄₂ years and upward, full dose.
+  From 9 to 18 months old, ¹⁄₂ dose.
+  From 4¹⁄₂ to 9 months, ¹⁄₄ dose.
+  From 2¹⁄₂ to 4¹⁄₄ months, ¹⁄₈ dose.
+  From 1 to 2¹⁄₂ months, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.
+
+
+DOGS.
+
+  From ¹⁄₂ to 1 year old, full dose.
+  From 3 to 6 months, ¹⁄₂ dose.
+  From 1¹⁄₂ to 3 months, ¹⁄₄ dose.
+  From 20 to 45 days, ¹⁄₈ dose.
+  From 10 to 20 days, ¹⁄₁₆ dose.
+
+
+THE ART OF PRESCRIBING
+
+The prescription should be as brief and simple as possible. It should be
+explicit and clearly written. It may be expressed either in Latin or in
+English. The manner in which the medicine is to be used should be
+specified. Important instructions as to the rule, systematic regulations
+or diet of the patient are sometimes necessary.
+
+Prescriptions usually contain two or more of the following four
+representative constituents: (1) The _basis_ or active ingredients. The
+practice of conjoining several active medicines has wisely been
+abandoned. Occasionally, however, it may be advantageous to give
+together two medicines producing their effects in somewhat different
+ways. Thus, spasms of the bowels are more often effectually controlled
+by the conjunction of a stimulant like ether and an anodyne like opium
+than by either given alone. Pain which is not alleviated by either
+morphine or atropine is sometimes abated by giving them together. (2)
+The _adjuvant_ is introduced in order to increase, moderate or modify
+the action of the basis. Frequently its chief object is to insure
+solubility and ready absorption. (3) A _corrective_ is occasionally
+required to temper the effects of the basis. Thus a small dose of opium
+is prescribed with oil or other laxative in cases of diarrhoea; ginger
+is generally added to the aloetic mass to prevent its griping. (4) The
+_vehicle_ generally consists of some comparatively inert substance,
+added to facilitate administration, such as the treacle, linseed meal or
+licorice powder used as an excipient for boluses and pills, the
+benzoated lard or vaseline used for making ointments, and the water
+given in drenches.
+
+Example:
+
+  ℞
+    Barb. Aloes                  ℥i.
+    Calomel                      ʒi.
+    Ginger                       ʒii.
+    Molasses                     ℥ss.
+  M. et fiat massa, in bolus 1.
+    Sig. Give at once.
+                                --John Jones.
+
+In the above prescription aloes is the basis; calomel as an adjuvant,
+ginger as a corrective, molasses as an excipient.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A prescription is composed of several parts, which may be considered as
+follows:
+
+  1. Heading.
+  2. Names and quantities of drugs.
+  3. Directions to compounder.
+  4. Directions to attendant.
+  5. Signature of writer.
+
+  1. For Gray Tom. July 22, 1916.
+    ℞
+      { Cupri sulph.,
+  2.  { Ferri. sulph. exsic., aa. ℥iss.
+      { Pulv. belladonna fol.,
+      { Pulv. gentian rad. aa. ℥iii.
+  3. M. Ft. Chart No. XII.
+  4. Sig.--One powder three or four times daily in syrup.
+                                                    --John Jones.
+
+
+
+
+ABBREVIATIONS
+
+
+PRESCRIPTION WRITING.
+
+Words, phrases and abbreviations commonly used in prescription writing.
+
+  ℞--means take thou.
+  M.--Misce, mix.
+  Fiat--make.
+  Ad.--add, to make.
+  Et.--means and.
+  Sig.--Signa, label, or write thus.
+  Numerus--number.
+  O.--Octarius, a pint.
+  Ter.--thrice.
+  C. or Cong.--Congius, gallon.
+  Dies.--diem, day.
+  Q. S.--Quantum sufficiat. Sufficient quantity.
+  Bene--well.
+  q. s. ad.--quantity sufficient to make certain amount.
+  Q. h.--quaqua-hora, every hour.
+  aa.--ana. Of each.
+  S.--Semis, means half.
+  S. S.--Semi or Semissis means one-half.
+  Cum.--with.
+  Stat.--statim, immediately.
+  B. I. D.--Bis in die. Twice daily.
+  T. I. D., or T. D.--three times daily, Ter in die.
+  Q. D.--quarter in die; four times daily.
+  P. Æ.--Partes æquales, equal parts.
+  Div.--divide.
+  Gtt.--Guttæ, drops.
+  Grs.--Grains.
+  ʒ--Drachma, dram.
+  ℥--Uncia, ounce.
+  M.--Minims about a drop.
+  ℈--Scruple.
+  M. ft.--mistura fiat; let a mixture be made.
+  Pil.--Pilula; pill.
+  Destil.--Destilla; distill.
+  Liq.--liquor a solution.
+  Pulv.--Pulvis; powder.
+  Fl.--fluidus, fluid.
+  Bol.--Bolus, large pill.
+  Cola--strain.
+  Filtra--filter.
+  Capsula--cap. A capsule.
+  Charta--chart. A paper (medicated).
+  Dosis--Dos. A dose.
+  Massa--Mass. A pill--mass.
+  Unguentum--Ungt. An ointment.
+  Syrups--Syr. A syrup.
+  Vinum.--Vin. A wine.
+  Aqua fontana--Aq. font.--Spring water.
+  Aqua destillata--Aq. dest.--Distilled water.
+
+
+
+
+ACIDUM BORICUM--BORACIC ACID--BORIC ACID
+
+
+DERIVATION.--Made by evaporation and crystallization of a solution
+obtained by passing steam issuing from rocks in volcanic regions of
+Italy, through water; or by the action of hydrochloric or sulphuric
+acids upon borax. Recovered by filtration and recrystallization.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Transparent colorless scales, of a somewhat pearly luster,
+six-sided tricline crystals, or a light white, very fine powder,
+slightly unctuous to the touch; odorless, having a faintly bitterish
+taste, and permanent in air. Soluble in water, alcohol, glycerine, etc.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 drs.; foals and calves, 20 to 30 grs.;
+sheep and pigs, 30 to 40 grs.; dogs, 5 to 20 grs.
+
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+GLYCERITUM BOROGLYCERINI--GLYCERITE OF BOROGLYCERIN
+
+Composed of boric acid, 310 parts; glycerin to make 1,000; prepared by
+heat (303° F.).
+
+ACTIONS.--Boric acid is a non-volatile, non-irritating antiseptic,
+deodorant and astringent, it arrests fermentation of minute organisms,
+free of irritating effects in solution, when applied to wounds; it
+lessens suppuration, and is as effective as carbolic acid; can be used
+in any strength from the pure powder or saturated solution to the
+mildest form.
+
+USES.--Boric acid is indicated for all purposes for which an antiseptic
+is used; it is used in diarrhoea in foals, calves and dogs, combined
+with other drugs; it has a slightly astringent action of itself; it is
+excreted in the urine, consequently would exert its influence on the
+bladder in cystitis, cystic catarrh; 1 part in 800 prevents the
+development of anthrax-bacilli; useful in skin diseases, also used in
+keratitis and catarrhal and purulent conjunctivitis, six to ten grains
+to the ounce, with atropine or cocaine when very painful. Useful in
+distemper of dogs where the bowels are affected, as an antiseptic.
+Boric acid is preferred to carbolic acid as an antiseptic for dogs. On
+account of the paralyzing effect of carbolic acid on the nerves, it
+hinders the healing of wounds to a certain extent, while the boracic
+acid does not.
+
+Boric acid may be applied pure to wounds and sores or mixed with other
+suitable drugs as a dusting powder. Equal parts of boric acid and zinc
+oxide make a cheap and effective healing powder; to an itching wound the
+addition of an equal quantity of acetanilide increases its value. A
+saturated solution (four per cent) is useful as a vaginal and uterine
+douche and to flush the bladder in cystitis.
+
+
+
+
+ACIDUM CARBOLICUM CRUDUM--CRUDE CARBOLIC ACID
+
+
+DERIVATION.--A liquid consisting of several different constituents of
+coal tar, particularly creosol and phenol, obtained by fractional
+distillation.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A nearly colorless, or reddish-brown liquid of a strong
+disagreeable and creosote-like odor, and gradually turning darker on
+exposure to the air and light. Soluble in fifteen parts of water.
+
+
+
+
+PHENOL--ACIDUM CARBOLICUM--CARBOLIC ACID
+
+
+DERIVATION.--Obtained from crude carbolic acid by agitation with caustic
+soda, heating to 338° F., and adding hydrochloric acid. Then by
+agitation with sodium chloride, digestion with calcium chloride, and
+distillation at a temperature between 336° F. and 374° F. and finally by
+crystallization.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Phenol in its pure state is a solid at ordinary
+temperatures, crystallizing in minute plates or long rhomboidal needles,
+white or colorless, of a peculiar odor recalling that of creosote, and
+an acrid burning taste. It is likely to be colored pinkish or brown
+under the influence of light and air. Soluble in about 19.6 parts of
+water, and very soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, glycerin, fixed
+and volatile oils.
+
+ACTIONS.--Phenol in large and undiluted doses is an irritant and
+narcotic poison; it is used as an antiseptic, parasiticide, antiferment
+and sometimes used as a local anaesthetic or anodyne in a 2 to 5 per
+cent solution; also as a caustic, but should not be used as a caustic as
+a burn from it heals very slowly.
+
+USES.--Internally as a gastric sedative in small doses for vomiting in
+dogs; is administered in various contagious and infectious diseases with
+the view of preventing or arresting the development of micro-organisms;
+it coagulates albumen, is not nearly so active as bichloride of mercury;
+1 part to 500 parts of water prevents the growth of anthrax and other
+bacilli. Full doses produce gastro-enteritis, and collapse, which may
+end fatally; it is a muscular and nerve paralyzer, both internally and
+externally, it kills by paralyzing the muscles of respiration and the
+heart. It is chiefly eliminated from the system by the kidneys, giving
+the urine a brownish color.
+
+IN SURGERY.--A three to five per cent solution is used for washing out
+wounds, a two to three per cent for hands, and for itching of the skin,
+carbolic acid three or four drachms, glycerine two ounces to one pint of
+water. Do not use over large surface on dogs and not at all on cats.
+
+Phenol treatment for Tetanus, which has given very good results and I
+would recommend one drachm in three ounces of water, injected
+hypodermically in the region of neck and shoulder every two or three
+hours until twelve injections were given and less frequently thereafter.
+
+DOSES.--Of the phenol: Horses and cattle, 10 to 40 grs.; sheep and pigs,
+5 to 10 grs.; dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 gr., well diluted.
+
+TOXICOLOGY.--Dogs and cats are especially susceptible to the action of
+carbolic acid, therefore great care must be exercised when washing,
+especially cats, with any preparation containing carbolic acid.
+Disinfecting and deodorizing cat’s quarters with any preparation
+containing carbolic acid makes them sick.
+
+ANTIDOTE.--Sulphates of soda or magnesia. Atropine sulphate
+hypodermically is a very valuable antidote. Alcohol and vinegar have
+been used with good results, both internally and externally.
+
+
+
+
+ACIDUM SALICYLICUM--SALICYLIC ACID
+
+
+An organic acid, existing naturally in combination in various plants,
+but largely prepared synthetically from carbolic acid.
+
+DERIVATION.--Made by passing carbonic dioxide through sodium carbolate
+at a temperature of 428° F. (220° C.). 2 NaC₆H₅O (sodium carbolate) +
+CO₂ = Na₂C₇H₄O₃ (sodium salicylate) + C₆H₆O (phenol). Sodium salicylate
+is treated with hydrochloric acid when salicylic acid is precipitated.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Light, fine, white, needle-shaped crystals, odorless,
+having a sweetish, afterwards acrid taste; permanent in air. Soluble in
+alcohol, ether and hot water; borax increases its solubility.
+
+DOSE.--Horses, 2 to 6 drs.; cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; sheep, 1 to 2 drs.;
+pigs, 30 to 40 grs.; dogs, 5 to 20 grs.; should be given well diluted;
+large doses are recommended for fevers, but smaller doses more often
+repeated in rheumatism.
+
+
+
+
+SODII SALICYLAS--SODIUM SALICYLAS
+
+
+DERIVATION.--Made by the action of salicylic acid on sodium carbonate.
+The solution is filtered and heated to expel carbon dioxide.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A white amorphous or crystalline powder or scales; odorless
+and having a sweetish, saline taste. Permanent in air. Soluble in water,
+alcohol and glycerine.
+
+DOSE.--Same as for salicylic acid.
+
+
+
+
+PHENYLIS SALICYLAS--PHENYL SALICYLATE (Salol)
+
+
+DERIVATION.--Made by heating salicylic and carbolic acids with
+phosphorous pentachloride.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A white crystalline powder; odorless, or having a faintly
+aromatic odor, and almost tasteless. Permanent in air. Insoluble in
+water, soluble in ten parts of alcohol and readily soluble in
+chloroform.
+
+DOSE.--Same as for salicylic acid.
+
+ACTIONS.--Salicylic acid, sodium salicylate and phenyl salicylate are
+powerful antiseptic, anti-rheumatic, diaphoretic, cardiac depressant,
+antiferment and antipyretic. Salicylic acid is in addition irritant and
+astringent, continued in large doses is apt to derange digestion; best
+to be administered on a full stomach.
+
+USES.--For acute rheumatism, influenza, strangles and purpura where
+there is much sloughing; also as a surgical wash, salicylic acid one
+part, borax one part to thirty or forty parts of water. Salicylic acid
+is a more powerful antiseptic than carbolic acid. Salicylic of soda is
+freely antiseptic. Salicylic acid is highly recommended in intestinal
+flatulence, given in two drachm doses with one ounce of aromatic spirits
+of ammonia. In gastric-flatulence give two drachms in capsule, repeat in
+half hour if necessary.
+
+
+
+
+ACONITUM--ACONITE--MONKSHOOD
+
+
+DERIVATION.--Aconite is obtained from the root of aconitum napellus,
+which grows in Northwestern North America, Europe and Asia in
+mountainous regions, and cultivated in the United States for its
+beautiful flowers.
+
+PROPERTIES.--The fresh leaves have a faint narcotic odor, most sensible
+when they are rubbed. Their taste is at first bitterish and herbaceous,
+afterwards burning and acrid, with a feeling of numbness and tingling on
+the inside of the lips, tongue and fauces, which is very durable,
+lasting sometimes many hours. When long chewed they inflame the tongue.
+The dried leaves have a similar taste, but the acrid impression
+commences later. Their sensible properties and medical activity are
+impaired by long keeping. They should be of a green color, and free from
+mustiness. The root has a feeble earthy odor. Though sweetish at first,
+it has afterwards the same effect as the leaves upon the mouth and
+fauces. It shrinks much in drying and becomes darker, but does not lose
+its acrimony. Those parcels, whether of leaves or roots, should always
+be rejected which are destitute of this property. Aconite root is
+officially described as being “slenderly conical, 4 to 10 cm. long, 10
+to 20 mm. thick at the crown; occasionally split; longitudinally
+wrinkled; dark brown and marked with coarse whitish root-scars; fracture
+short, horny or mealy; internally whitish or light brown; the cambium
+zone irregular and 5 to 7-angled; odor very slight; taste sweetish, soon
+becoming acrid and developing a tingling sensation, followed by
+numbness.”
+
+Preparations of the leaves are not official in the U. S. P. The root is
+five times stronger than the leaves.
+
+CONSTITUENTS.--The alkaloid representing the action of the drug is
+aconitine, which is precipitated by ammonia from an aqueous solution of
+an alcoholic extract of the root of various species. It is a colorless,
+crystalline or amorphous, gray powder, almost insoluble in water, and
+soluble in 22 parts of alcohol, in 44 parts of ether and 1 part of
+chloroform. Its salts are soluble in water. Aconitine or its solutions,
+unless very dilute, are too poisonous to be tasted.
+
+Commercial preparations vary in purity and strength, and since it is
+extremely poisonous its internal administration is undesirable.
+Pseudo-aconitine, aconitine and other alkaloids in combination with
+aconitic acid have been obtained from aconite, but their identity and
+chemistry are uncertain.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 3 to 20 grs.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 3 grs.;
+dogs, ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₁₁ gr.
+
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+FLUIDEXTRACTUM ACONITI--FLUIDEXTRACT OF ACONITE
+
+Made by maceration and percolation with alcohol and water and
+evaporation. Assayed so that each 100 c. c. contains 0.4 gm. aconitine.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 5 to 20 m.; sheep and pigs. 2 to 5 m.; dogs,
+¹⁄₁₀ to 1 m.
+
+
+TINCTURA ACONITI--TINCTURE ACONITE
+
+Made by maceration and percolation of aconite, 100; with alcohol and
+water to make 1000.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 20 m. to 1 dr.; sheep and pigs, 10 to 20 m.;
+dogs, 2 to 10 m.
+
+Fleming’s Tincture (non-official) (79 per cent).
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 8 to 20 m.; dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 2 m.
+
+
+ACONITINA--ACONITINE
+
+Not used to any extent in veterinary practice; is very unreliable and
+varying in strength. Aconitine often contains a considerable proportion
+of aconite and benzaconine, and so varies in activity, which is a great
+objection to the use of one of the most powerful drugs known.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₃₀ to ¹⁄₅ gr.; dogs, ¹⁄₂₀₀ to ¹⁄₁₀₀ gr.
+subcutaneously.
+
+Actions of aconite, its preparations and derivative are anodynes and
+sedatives, acting specially on the peripheral endings of the sensory
+nerves, on the heart and on respiration. Aconite kills by respiratory
+arrest.
+
+Its physiological actions as a cardiac and respiratory sedative renders
+it a febrifuge; it is also diaphoretic and diuretic. It is prescribed in
+acute febrile conditions, and in the earlier stages of acute local
+inflammation. It is used topically to relieve pain.
+
+GENERAL ACTIONS.--Locally applied, in virtue of its action on sensory
+nerves, aconite produces first irritation, tingling and twitching and
+subsequently numbness and anesthesia. The tincture of aconite is
+rapidly absorbed and quickly passed into the tissues, as is shown by
+the blood of a poisoned dog five minutes after the drug has been
+administered, being transferred into the veins of another dog without
+producing the physiological action of the poison.
+
+TOXIC EFFECTS.--One and one-half drachm of the tincture (equal to about
+one drachm of aconite root) is given as the minimum fatal dose for the
+horse, one-half drachm will occasionally cause very serious symptoms and
+where an idiosyncrasy exists as little as fifteen minims will cause
+toxic symptoms.
+
+It causes great muscular weakness, dimness of sight; pupil at first may
+be dilated or contracted, but as the end approaches remains dilated;
+shallow irregular and labored respiration, a slow and small pulse,
+becoming rapid and imperceptible near the end. Gulping, frothy saliva,
+flatulence, belching, retching, nausea, etc. There is often a peculiar
+clicking sound made from the constant attempts at swallowing.
+
+Coldness of surface, clammy sweat, anxious countenance, extreme weakness
+of the extremities, lowering of temperature 2 to 3 degrees, abolishment
+of sensation, reflexes and motility and finally death from paralysis of
+the heart and respiration, with or without convulsions, consciousness
+being preserved until near the end, when carbon dioxide narcosis sets
+in.
+
+USES.--It antagonizes the fever process, when properly used is a most
+valuable drug; it is indicated in all affections, characterized by high
+resisting pulse, dry, hot skin and elevated body temperature; is useful
+in acute throat affections as laryngitis, pharyngitis and perotiditis,
+in small doses often repeated. Indicated in acute inflammation of the
+organs of respiration. For pleurisy and perotiditis, at the outset, give
+aconite with opium. Aconite is indicated in simple fevers or in
+puerperal fever, inflammation of the brain; in acute or inflammatory
+rheumatism, in acute local inflammation, as arthritis or inflammation
+resulting from bruises, sprains, etc.
+
+In lymphangitis, laminitis and enteritis, if called in first stages of
+enteritis give 20 ms. of aconite and repeat with 10 or 15 ms. every hour
+and between times gives fluid extract of belladonna 15 to 20 ms. every
+hour and externally woolen blankets wrung out of hot water and wrapped
+around the body.
+
+In mammitis is also useful in large doses, combined with phytolacca; in
+spasmodic colic brought on by drinking cold water, give 30 to 60 ms. of
+the tincture of aconite with other colic mixture; in congestion of the
+bowels or liver, or in congestion of any part, small repeated doses are
+better than large ones. It is also advantageously used in lung
+disorders.
+
+
+
+
+AETHER--ETHER--PURE ETHER
+
+
+A liquid composed of about 96 per cent, by weight, of absolute ether or
+ethyl oxide, and about 4 per cent of alcohol containing a little water.
+
+DERIVATION.--Prepared by distillation of alcohol with sulphuric acid.
+There are two steps in the production of ether; sulphorvinic acid and
+water are formed in the first step. Sulphorvinic acid is then further
+acted upon by alcohol. The distillate is freed from water by agitation
+with calcium oxide and chloride and subjected to redistillation.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A transparent, colorless, mobile liquid, having a
+characteristic odor and a burning and sweetish taste. Ether is highly
+volatile and inflammable; its vapor, when mixed with air and ignited,
+explodes violently. Miscible in all proportions with alcohol,
+chloroform, benzine, benzol, fixed and volatile oils. Ether is a solvent
+for fats, oils, alkaloids, resins, gutta percha and guncotton. Upon
+evaporation ether should have no residue. Ether vapor is heavier than
+air and consequently etherization should never be done above a light or
+fire.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 1 to 2 ozs.; sheep and pigs, 2 to 4 drs.;
+dogs, 10 ms. to 1 dr.
+
+As an anaesthetic, horses and cattle require from 4 to 16 ozs. Smaller
+animals from 4 drs. to 4 ozs. Chloroform is usually prescribed for
+large animals and ether for smaller animals. Ether never paralyzes a
+healthy heart, while chloroform sometimes does. For anaesthetic purposes
+see anesthesia.
+
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+SPIRITUS AETHERIS--SPIRIT OF ETHER
+
+Composed of ether, 325 parts, alcohol to make 1000.
+
+DOSE.--Same as ether.
+
+
+SPIRITUS AETHERIS COMPOSITUS--COMPOUND SPIRIT OF ETHER--HOFFMAN’S
+ANODYNE
+
+Composed of ether, 325 parts; alcohol, 650 parts; ethereal oil, 25
+parts.
+
+DOSE.--Same as for ether.
+
+ACTIONS.--Ether is anodyne, antispasmodic, diaphoretic, anthelmintic; a
+cardiac, respiratory and cerebral stimulant, an anesthetic and a
+narcotic poison; one of the best and quickest acting, diffusible,
+general stimulants, acting on the heart reflexly from the stomach. It is
+a powerful secretory stimulant, acting especially on the secretions of
+the stomach, salivary glands and pancreas. On the cerebrum and the motor
+and sensory nerves, its actions are similar to that of alcohol, but more
+prompt and less protracted; it is eliminated quickly, chiefly by the
+lungs.
+
+When inhaled, it first causes irritation of the fauces, a sense of
+strangulation and cough, then a stage of excitement in which the visible
+mucous membranes are flushed and the respiration and pulse quickened; a
+convulsive stage generally follows, with rigid muscles and respiration
+stertorous; this subsides and complete insensibility is established, the
+muscles being relaxed and the reflexes abolished; in fact all of the
+functions of the body are suspended, except respiration and circulation.
+
+If the inhalation be continued these too become paralyzed, death usually
+resulting from slow paralysis of respiration (chloroform paralyzes
+quickly); the heart pulsating long after breathing has ceased. Atropine
+hypodermically is the best antagonist to the toxic effects of ether,
+also artificial respiration and injections of brandy.
+
+USES OF ETHER.--When mixed with alcohol, as the spirit, ether mixes
+readily with water. It is excellent in indigestion with flatulence; it
+checks gastric fermentation, expels the gas and overcomes irregular and
+violent gastro-intestinal movements; hence, is also very good in
+spasmodic colic. In spasmodic colic, best to combine with cannabis
+indica or belladonna. When used as a vermifuge it should be followed by
+a purge. Used diluted one to ten to dislodge worms in the rectum. A most
+reliable remedy for collapse. Ether and alcohol are indicated in
+parturient paresis, ether with aqua ammonia may be used intravenously
+when the cow is unable to swallow. Sulphuric ether and alcohol or whisky
+are also good in parturient eclampsia of bitches, though aromatic spirit
+of ammonia is better; for chills, spirit of nitrous ether; also useful
+in convalescence from debilitating disease. Ether is a very good remedy
+in Thumps. Ether may be used for local anesthesia, applied as a spray,
+from an atomizer, about one ounce, usually being enough for the painless
+opening of abscesses or fistulae, but cocaine is better in our patients.
+_As an anesthetic_ it should be used in preference to chloroform, for
+the smaller and young animals, especially dogs, which are easily killed
+by chloroform. Ether is less prompt in action but much safer than
+chloroform, as it never paralyzes a healthy heart; it should be inhaled
+in as concentrated a form as possible, very little air being allowed, so
+it will exert its effects quickly, in the dog; a light or fire of any
+kind should not be allowed near, as ether is very inflammable and its
+vapor explosive. Always have a bottle of aqua ammonia fort. at hand as a
+restorer.
+
+
+
+
+ALCOHOL
+
+
+Alcohol is derived directly from fruit sugar, and indirectly from
+starch. The grains, as wheat, rye, corn; and potatoes, supply starch
+most economically. The starch in these substances is converted into
+glucose by heating with very dilute sulphuric acid, or by fermentation
+with malt. Glucose is further acted upon by yeast containing the Torula
+cerevisiae, which converts 15 per cent of glucose into alcohol and
+carbonic dioxide. The weak alcohol resulting is subjected to repeated
+distillation until sufficiently pure and concentrated. In the natural
+fermentation of fruit sugar in grape juice, during the formation of
+wine, the amount of alcohol is self-limited to 15, rarely 20 per cent,
+since the ferment is killed by a larger amount of alcohol than this.
+
+DERIVATION.--The official alcohol is derived from rectified spirits, by
+maceration, first with anhydrous potassium carbonate, then freshly fused
+calcium chloride, and finally by distillation.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A liquid composed of about 92.3 per cent, by weight, or
+94.9 per cent, by volume, of ethyl alcohol (C₂H₅OH) and about 7.7 per
+cent, by weight, of water (U. S. P.). A transparent, colorless, mobile
+and volatile liquid, of a characteristic rather agreeable odor and a
+burning taste. Specific gravity about .816 at 15.6° C. (60° F.).
+Miscible with water in all proportions and without any trace of
+cloudiness. Also miscible with ether chloroform. It is readily volatile
+at low temperature, and boils at 78° C. (172.4° F.). It is inflammable
+and burns with a blue flame.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 1 to 3 oz.; sheep and pigs, 2 to 4 dr.; dogs,
+1 to 2 dr. Diluted four to six times its bulk of water.
+
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+ALCOHOL ABSOLUTUM--ABSOLUTE ALCOHOL
+
+Ethyl alcohol, containing not more than one per cent, by weight, of
+water.
+
+DERIVATION.--Percolation of the purest alcohol through quicklime, out of
+contact with the air, and redistillation in vacuo.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Transparent, colorless, mobile and volatile liquid, of a
+characteristic rather agreeable odor and a burning taste. Very
+hydroscopic. Specific gravity not higher than 0.797 at 15.6° C. (60°
+F.).
+
+
+SPIRITUS FRUMENTI--WHISKY
+
+DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid obtained by the distillation of the
+mash of fermented grain (usually of mixtures of corn, wheat and rye) and
+at least four years old.
+
+PROPERTIES.--An amber-colored liquid having a distinctive odor and
+taste, and a slightly acid reaction. Its specific gravity should not be
+more than 0.945, nor less than 0.924, corresponding, approximately, to
+an alcoholic strength of 37 to 47.5 per cent, by weight, or 44 to 55 per
+cent, by volume. Contains no more than traces of fusel oil. The
+alcoholic liquors owe their flavor to bouquet to ethers which are only
+developed in course of time. The amylic alcohol, or fusel oil, in whisky
+is therefore converted into ethers, which give the characteristic flavor
+to whisky.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 oz.; sheep and swine, 1 to 2 oz.; dogs,
+1 to 4 dr., diluted three to four times its bulk in water.
+
+
+SPIRITS VINI GALLICI--BRANDY
+
+DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid obtained by the distillation of the
+fermented unmodified juice of fresh grapes, and at least four years old.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A pale amber-colored liquid, having a distinctive odor and
+taste and a slightly acid reaction. Its specific gravity should not be
+more than 0.941, nor less than 0.925 at 15.6° C. (60° F.),
+corresponding, approximately, to an alcoholic strength of 39 to 47 per
+cent, by weight, or 46 to 55 per cent, by volume, of absolute alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.
+
+
+SPIRITUS JUNIPERI COMPOSITUS--COMPOUND SPIRIT OF JUNIPER
+
+DERIVATION.--Oil of juniper, 8; oil of caraway, 1; oil of fennel, 1;
+alcohol, 1,400; water to make 2,000.
+
+Compound spirit of juniper is similar to gin in its therapeutic action.
+Contains about 15 per cent more alcohol. Gin is made by distillation of
+fermented malt and juniper berries. Gin differs from the other alcoholic
+preparations therapeutically in being more diuretic.
+
+DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.
+
+
+RUM (not official)
+
+Rum is made from a fermented solution of molasses by distillation. It
+contains, by weight, from 40 to 50 per cent of absolute alcohol. Rum
+does not differ physiologically from alcohol. There is no authoritative
+Latin name for rum.
+
+DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.
+
+
+VINUM ALBUM--WHITE WINE
+
+DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid made by fermenting the juice of fresh
+grapes, the fruit of Vitis vinifera, free from seeds, stems and skins.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A pale amber or straw-colored liquid, having a pleasant
+odor, free from yeastiness and a fruity, agreeable, slightly spirituous
+taste, without excessive sweetness or acidity. The Pharmacopoeia (1890)
+directs that the wine should contain from 7 to 12 per cent, by weight,
+of absolute alcohol. California Hock and Reisling, Ohio Catawba, Sherry,
+Muscatel, Madeira or the stronger wines of the Rhine, Mediterranean and
+Hungary come within the pharmacopoeial limits. Wines containing more
+than 14 per cent of alcohol are usually fortified, i. e., have alcohol
+or brandy added to them, and much imported Sherry and Madeira contain 15
+to 20 per cent, by weight, of absolute alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Same as that for whisky.
+
+
+VINUM RUBRUM--RED WINE
+
+DERIVATION.--An alcoholic liquid made by fermenting the juice of fresh
+colored grapes, the fruit of Vitis vinifera, in presence of their
+skins.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A deep red liquid, having a pleasant odor, free from
+yeastiness, and a fruity moderately astringent, pleasant and slightly
+acidulous taste, without excessive sweetness or acidity. Should contain
+not less than 7 nor more than 12 per cent, by weight, of alcohol. Native
+Claret, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Hungarian wines may be included within
+the pharmacopoeial limits of vinum rubrum. Port (vinum portense) is
+fortified with brandy during fermentation, and contains 15 to 25 per
+cent, by weight, of absolute alcohol. Port is astringent from tannic
+acid in the grapes, skin and stalks, or the astringency may be due to
+logwood. Red wines are said to be rough, contain tannic acid and
+therefore are astringents. Dry wines are those which contain little
+sugar. The wines develop ethers with age and these improve their flavor
+and action.
+
+Champagne contains about 10 per cent of absolute alcohol and carbonic
+acid gas, which acts as a local sedative upon the stomach. Ale, stout
+and beers contain from 4 to 8 per cent of alcohol, together with bitters
+and malt extracts.
+
+Cider contains 5 to 9 per cent of absolute alcohol. Imported sherry (B.
+P.) contains 15 to 20 per cent of absolute alcohol.
+
+Alcohol is the solvent most commonly employed in pharmacy, dissolving
+alkaloids, resins, volatile oils, balsams, oleo-resins, tannin, sugar,
+some fats and fixed oils.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 3 to 6 oz.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 3 oz.; dogs,
+2 dr. to 1 oz.
+
+ACTIONS.--Alcohol is a cerebral excitant and finally becomes a
+depressant and a narcotic poison.
+
+It is anesthetic, antiseptic, antiparasitic, rubefacient (if confined),
+mild astringent, coagulate albumen; a local refrigerant by virtue of its
+rapid evaporation, unless confined by bandage, oiled silk, etc., when it
+is absorbed by the tissues and causes a sensation of warmth.
+
+In medical doses it is a powerful general stimulant; it is very
+diffusible, and is partly oxidized by the organism, and partly excreted;
+thus alcohol acts as a food.
+
+Small doses relax the blood vessels, stimulate the gastric glands,
+promote appetite and digestion; lessen the elimination of waste
+products, by preventing rapid tissue waste; causes a feeling of warmth,
+and temporarily, though slightly, raises the body temperature. It
+stimulates the heart and increases the functional activity of all
+organs, especially the kidneys and skin.
+
+Large or too long continued doses derange the appetite and digestion,
+congest or inflame the stomach and liver. Eight ounces of alcohol killed
+a horse. Alcohol is poisonous and should be used with caution.
+
+USES.--Are numerous, used principally as a stimulant, either in one
+large dose, 2 to 3 ounces of alcohol, or better, in small repeated
+doses, 1 ounce every 1, 2 or 3 hours, can be conjoined with other
+stimulants such as sulphuric ether, aromatic spirits of ammonia,
+digitalis, etc.
+
+It is used in anesthetic mixtures, such as alcohol, ether and
+chloroform, combined in different proportions; in snake bites it is
+administered in very large doses.
+
+In blood poisoning alcohol is a most potent drug, sustaining the heart,
+lowering the temperature and acting as a germicide. Alcohol makes an
+excellent dressing for wounds; applied locally to threatened bed-sores,
+frequently prevents their formation. It is useful in colds at their
+outset, or in a chill to restore the balance of the circulation and
+prevent or overcome internal congestion by relaxing the blood vessels of
+the periphery.
+
+All alcoholic liquors are useful in debilitating diseases, such as
+influenza, in two or three ounce doses repeated every three or four
+hours. One-half to one drachm of quinine to one ounce of alcohol, for
+influenza or febrile diseases in general, excepting brain and spinal
+disease; useful in convalescence. In colic alcohol can be used with a
+great degree of success; it will act as a carminative antispasmodic and
+stimulant, used in collapse and weak heart; in septicaemia and pyaemia
+it has notable antiseptic and antipyretic effects. Useful in carbolic
+acid poisoning, alcohol, or alcoholic liquors, act as a chemical
+antidote besides overcoming the shock produced by the acid. It may also
+be used locally for carbolic acid burns.
+
+The effects of alcohol are noticed in ten or fifteen minutes after
+administration and will be shown by a better condition of the pulse, the
+weak pulse becoming stronger and firmer; the quick pulse slower, the
+breathing becomes more natural, eyes brighten up and in fact a general
+improvement is shown.
+
+Externally alcohol is used alone as a strengthening application to weak
+tendons and muscles; or after a race, is used to rub on the legs,
+combined with other drugs as a liniment, as alcohol, soap-liniment and
+witch hazel; can be used in surgery as an antiseptic.
+
+To toughen the skin of tender or thin skinned horses who gall or chafe
+easily under the collar and saddle, alcohol will be found a most
+satisfactory application.
+
+
+
+
+ALOE BARBADENSIS--BARBADOES ALOES
+
+
+The thickened juice of the leaves of Aloe vera, Linn., Aloe chinensis,
+Bak., and probably other species, evaporated to dryness.
+
+HABITAT.--The Barbadoes Island.
+
+PROPERTIES.--In hard masses, orange, brown, opaque, translucent on the
+edges; fracture waxy or resinous; odor saffron-like; taste strongly
+bitter. Almost entirely soluble in alcohol; most used in veterinary
+medicine.
+
+CONSTITUENT.--Aloin; a resin; volatile oil; gallic acid.
+
+DOSE.--Horses, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; cattle, 1 to 2 oz.; sheep, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.;
+pigs, 2 to 4 dr.; 20 gr. to 1 dr.
+
+
+
+
+ALOE SOCOTRINA--SOCOTRINE ALOES
+
+
+The juice that flows from the transversely cut leaves of Aloe Perryi,
+Baker, evaporated to dryness.
+
+HABITAT.--Eastern Africa.
+
+PROPERTIES.--In hard masses, occasionally soft in the interior; opaque,
+yellowish-brown, orange-brown or dark ruby-red, fracture resinous. When
+moistened it emits a fragrant saffron-like odor; taste peculiar,
+strongly bitter. Almost entirely soluble in alcohol and four parts of
+boiling water. The powdered socotrine aloes is brighter and redder, and
+the odor less disagreeable than that of Barbadoes Aloes.
+
+CONSTITUENTS.--About the same as Barbadoes Aloes.
+
+DOSE.--Same as Barbadoes Aloes.
+
+
+
+
+ALOINUM--ALOIN
+
+
+A neutral principle obtained from several varieties of aloes, chiefly
+from Barbadoes and Socotrine Aloes.
+
+DERIVATION.--Obtained by pulverizing and macerating aloes in cold water,
+and evaporating the resulting solution in vacuo. Aloin crystallizes out
+and is dried between folds of bibulous paper. It is purified by repeated
+solution in hot water, filtration, recrystallization, and finally by
+solution in hot alcohol and crystallization.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A micro-crystalline powder or minute acicular crystals,
+lemon yellow or dark yellow in color, possessing a slight odor of aloes
+and intensely bitter taste. Soluble in water and alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 3 dr.; sheep, 20 to 60 gr.; pigs, 10 to
+40 gr.; dogs, 11 to 20 gr.; combined with other purgatives.
+
+
+PREPARATIONS
+
+
+TINCTURA ALOES ET MYRRHAE--TINCTURE OF ALOES AND MYRRH
+
+Made by maceration and percolation of purified aloes, 100 parts; myrrh,
+100 parts, and liquorice root, with alcohol and water to make 1000.
+
+DOSE.--Dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.
+
+ACTION.--Aloes is a purgative, acting chiefly on the large intestines;
+small doses are bitter tonics; it stimulates both peristalsis and
+secretion, increases secretion of bile; is also diuretic; applied
+externally it is stimulant and desiccant; the Barbadoes is the most
+active and uniform in its effects.
+
+Aloes should be kept in lumps in tin cans or other good containers, only
+powdered for immediate use; in melting aloes don’t let the temperature
+rise above 120 degrees as it impairs the activity by converting the
+active aloin into inert resin. Aloes operate in from 12 to 24 hours
+after administration; don’t repeat an aloetic purge until 24 hours have
+elapsed. It also does not cause catharsis. In about 15 hours, the
+patient should be exercised, but returned to the stall as soon as the
+desired effect is evident. If it fails to act in 24 hours, linseed oil
+may be given. Aloin appears to contain the active principles of aloes,
+and is usually as operative, but some manufactures are ineffective.
+
+USES INTERNAL.--In dyspepsia with capricious appetite, irregularity of
+the bowels, hide-bound horses, worms; is used in colic, both spasmodic
+and flatulent, for overloaded condition of the bowels; to promote
+excretion of waste products from the bowels and the blood, and
+consequently relieve febrile symptoms; rheumatic attacks, skin
+irritation, swollen limbs and inflamed joints; in lymphangitis to
+prevent and aid in curing. By attracting the blood to the bowels, it is
+useful in congestion or inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, full
+doses being necessary; in paralysis, paraplegia or hemiplegia or
+reflexed paralysis due to indigestion, give full doses. Aloes should not
+be used in irritation or inflammation of the alimentary canal or piles.
+It is not advisable to give an aloetic purge when the temperature is
+above 102° F. Nor in hemorrhage from the rectum; in high fevers it is
+apt to cause superpurgation, also should not be used where there is
+great debility or weakness. In influenza the bowels are apt to be
+irritable and oil is preferable to aloes. Don’t use during pregnancy;
+may cause abortion. For young foals or other animals, the gentler
+purgative, such as linseed or castor oil should be used. The medical
+value of aloes being large, it is impossible to enumerate all the
+diseases in which it is useful. Externally the tincture of aloes and
+myrrh is sometimes applied as a stimulant to wounds, and powdered aloes
+is mixed with plaster of paris in making splints for dogs to prevent
+these animals from biting and tearing them off. Internally aloes should
+be combined with ginger, nux vomica and given in capsule or bolus.
+
+
+
+
+ALUMEN--ALUM
+
+
+DERIVATION.--From alum slate, shale, schist, a native mixture of
+aluminum silicate and iron sulphide. This is roasted and exposed to the
+air, when the sulphur is oxidized into sulphuric acid and combined in
+part with aluminum and iron to form sulphates. The mass is lixiviated
+with water, and aluminum and iron sulphates together with sulphuric acid
+are recovered in solution. The solution is concentrated and to it is
+added potassium chloride. The double sulphate of potassium and aluminum
+(alum) is formed, which crystallizes out on cooling, while potassium
+sulphate and ferric chloride remain as by-products. Alum is purified by
+recrystallization.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Large, colorless, octahedral crystals, sometimes modified
+by cubes or crystalline fragments; without odor, but having a sweetish
+and strongly astringent taste. On exposure to the air the crystals are
+liable to absorb ammonia and acquire a whitish coating. Soluble in nine
+parts of water, insoluble in alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 dr.; sheep and pigs, 20 gr. to 1 dr.;
+emetic for dogs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.
+
+
+ALUMEN EXSICCATUM--DRIED ALUM
+
+Commonly termed burnt alum, is alum deprived of its water of
+crystallization by heat.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A white granular powder, odorless, having a sweetish
+astringent taste, soluble in twenty parts of water at 60° F. Is a
+powerful astringent and escharotic.
+
+
+ALUMINI HYDROXIDUM--ALUMINUM HYDROXIDE
+
+DERIVATION.--Made from alum, 100 parts; monohydrate sodium carbonate, 43
+parts; water, a sufficient quantity. Mix hot, boiling solutions of alum
+and sodium carbonate. Precipitate strained, washed and dried.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A white, light, amorphous powder; odorless and tasteless;
+permanent in dry air; insoluble in water or alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Same as alum.
+
+
+ALUMINI SULPHAS--ALUMINUM SULPHATE
+
+DERIVATION.--Aluminum hydroxide is dissolved in diluted sulphuric acid,
+and the solution is filtered and evaporated to dryness.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A white, crystalline powder, without odor, having a
+sweetish and afterwards astringent taste; permanent in the air; soluble
+in one part of water; insoluble in alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Same as alum.
+
+ACTIONS.--Astringent, at first excites flow of saliva, then markedly
+decreases it; coagulates pepsin, thus it would derange or entirely
+arrest digestion; it also stops peristalsis and produces constipation,
+though sometimes it induces diarrhoea by irritation. It arrests
+secretions in general and in the circulation contracts the capillaries;
+it is in this way it arrests secretions, especially those of mucous
+surfaces, and stops capillary hemorrhage. The sulphate of aluminum is
+mildly caustic, astringent and antiseptic. Dried alum is caustic and
+astringent.
+
+EXTERNALLY.--Dried alum is a caustic, in contact with raw sores, on
+account of its affinity for water. Alum has no action on unbroken skin,
+but applied to mucous membranes or denuded parts it is antiseptic and
+astringent; coagulates albumin of discharges; precipitates or coagulates
+albumin of the tissues; squeeze blood out of the vessels; reduces
+inflammation and makes the part whiter, brings together and denser. Alum
+is a hemostatic, stopping bleeding by compression of the structures
+surrounding the vessels and by causing blood to clot.
+
+USES.--In diarrhoea and dysentery, but other astringents are safer and
+better, as it may lock the bowels too tight, may be used in weeping
+sores or weeping skin diseases; in long standing nail wounds by putting
+one-half to one pound into the soaking tub, also in same way for injured
+coronets, with raw bulging surfaces that bleed easily, also for sore
+mouth, sometimes mix a little boric acid; useful in bleeding piles, and
+in mild solution alum one ounce to water one pint for sore throat; also
+used internally for bloody urine (haematuria) and for open joints apply
+the powdered alum to arrest the flow of joint oil (synovia). For
+catarrhal ophthalmia, after the acute stage, an alum lotion five grains
+to one ounce of water is very serviceable; for granular lids rub with a
+crystal of alum. Alum should never be used too strong over the eye as it
+seems to have the power of dissolving the cornea; a solution containing
+ten grains of alum to the ounce of water may be used in canker of the
+ear of dogs; also for leucorrhoea and prolapsus of the rectum; dried
+alum may be used as a caustic whenever a caustic is indicated, but is
+not recommended for this purpose. For a powerful drying powder,
+especially useful when excessive granulation exists. It causes sloughing
+of the dead tissues and is indicated when the use of the knife is
+inadmissible.
+
+
+
+
+AMYLIS NITRIS--AMYL NITRITE
+
+
+A liquid containing about 80 per cent of amyl nitrite, together with
+variable quantities of undetermined compounds.
+
+DERIVATION.--Obtained through distillation of nitric and amylic alcohol.
+Distillate purified by sodium carbonate.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A clear, yellow or pale yellow liquid, oily, very volatile,
+peculiar and very diffusive ethereal odor and a pungent aromatic taste.
+Insoluble in water, but soluble in all proportions in alcohol, ether and
+chloroform.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.; sheep and pigs, 5 to 15 ms.;
+dogs, 2 to 5 ms.; amyl nitrite is very seldom given internally;
+hypodermically, one-half this dose. By inhalation, same as given
+internally. It should be fresh as it rapidly deteriorates.
+
+ACTIONS.--It stimulates the heart’s action, greatly dilates the
+arterioles by paralyzing their muscular coats; causes a sense of
+fullness in the brain with vertigo, fall of blood pressure due to
+dilation of the arterioles, lowering of temperature; when the vapor is
+applied direct to muscular or nerve tissues it suspends or completely
+arrests its functional activity; it depresses the nervous system and
+unstriped muscular fiber. Overdoses cause death by respiratory failure.
+
+USES.--Epileptic attacks may be warded off by its being inhaled;
+spasmodic asthma, used either internally, hypodermically or best by
+inhalation; in strychnine poisoning, angina pectoris in tetanus, and as
+a heart stimulant. It is useful as an inhalation in bringing about
+recovery from deep chloroform and anesthesia.
+
+
+
+
+ANISUM--ANISE
+
+
+ORIGIN.--The anise plant is a native of Egypt and the Levant, but has
+been introduced in various parts of that continent. It is also
+cultivated occasionally in the gardens of this country. The fruit is
+abundantly produced in Malta and Spain; in Romagna, in Italy, whence it
+is largely exported through Leghorn, and in Central and Southern Russia.
+
+DESCRIPTION.--Ovoid, laterally compressed, 4 to 5 m. m. long; carpels
+usually cohering and attached to a slender pedicel; grayish or
+greenish-gray to grayish brown; each with a flat face and five light
+brown filiform ridges and about 16 oil-tubes; odor and taste agreeable
+and aromatic. The anise berries are dried and ground, this being the
+form in which it is usually used.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 1 to 2 oz.; sheep and pigs, 2 to 3 dr.; dogs,
+10 to 30 gr.
+
+
+OLEUM ANISI--OIL OF ANISE
+
+A volatile oil distilled from the fruit of star anise.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A colorless or pale yellow, thin and strongly refractive
+liquid, having the characteristic odor of anise, and a sweetish, mildly
+aromatic taste. Specific gravity about 0.975 to 0.985. Soluble in an
+equal volume of alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 20 to 30 m.; sheep and pigs, 5 to 10 m.; dogs
+and cats, 1 to 5 m.
+
+ACTIONS.--Anise is an aromatic stimulant, stomachic and carminative. It
+is used to relieve indigestion and flatulence, to communicate an
+agreeable flavor to many medicines, and to diminish the griping of
+purgatives. Oil of anise resembles in action other volatile oils.
+
+USES.--The oil of anise is employed with olive oil or alcohol to kill
+fleas or lice on dogs, rubbed over the skin; and one drop of the pure
+oil may be placed on the feathers of fowl to cause destruction of lice.
+The oil of anise is sometimes prescribed to disguise the odor of drugs,
+and is ordered in cough mixtures for its expectorant properties.
+
+The fruit is given all animals (generally powdered) on their
+food--frequently with sodium bicarbonate and ginger--to relieve mild
+forms of indigestion and flatulence through its stomachic and
+carminative effects.
+
+
+
+
+ANTIMONII ET POTASSII TARTARS--ANTIMONY AND POTASSIUM TARTRATE--TARTAR
+EMETIC
+
+
+DERIVATION.--Make a white paste with cream of tartar, antimony trioxide
+and water. Set aside 24 hours, boil in water 15 minutes and crystallize.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Colorless, transparent crystals of the rhombic system,
+becoming opaque and white on exposure to the air, or a white granular
+powder without odor and having a sweet, afterwards disagreeable,
+metallic taste. Soluble in water, insoluble in alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 dr.; sheep, 2 to 5 gr.; pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1
+gr.; dogs, ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₂ gr. As an emetic for pigs, 4 to 10 gr.; dogs, 1
+to 2 gr.
+
+ACTIONS.--Tartar emetic is a systemic and local emetic, a diaphoretic,
+cardiac and arterial sedative and a gastro-intestinal irritant. It is a
+powerful waste producer and stimulates the secretions of the stomach,
+intestines, salivary glands, liver and pancreas. Large doses cause
+nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, while toxic doses are followed by
+vomiting (in animals that can vomit), serious blood purging, great
+depression of the circulation and respiration weakness, collapse and
+death. Tartar emetic is also a vermifuge.
+
+USES.--Tartar emetic is too mild as an emetic in poison cases. In asthma
+of dogs it may be used in from ¹⁄₁₀ to ¹⁄₂ grain doses to relax spasm
+and promote secretion. For horses its most valuable use is to expel the
+common round worms from the intestines, for which it is very
+efficacious; given in two drachm doses once or twice daily in the feed
+for four to six days, or one-half ounce dissolved in water is given on
+an empty stomach followed by a full dose of linseed oil.
+
+
+
+
+ANTIPYRINA--ANTIPYRIN
+
+
+Phenyl-hydrazine is acted upon by aceto-acetic ether, when
+phenyl-monomethyl-pyrazolon, ethyl alcohol and water results.
+
+PROPERTIES.--Colorless, odorless, scaly crystals, of a bitterish taste.
+Soluble in water, ether and chloroform.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 3 to 4 drs.; sheep and pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.;
+dogs, 5 to 20 grs.
+
+ACTIONS.--Powerful antipyretic, anodyne and local anesthetic,
+antiseptic, cardiac depressant; it reduces temperature very quickly,
+usually within half an hour and the effects continue two or more hours.
+It can be administered by the mouth, hypodermically or intertracheally;
+as an antiseptic it diminishes oxidation, and promotes heat loss by
+dilating the cutaneous vessels, but more probably by depressing the
+activity of the calorifacient centers.
+
+USES.--Used in high fever where the temperature must be reduced quickly,
+as in sun-stroke, acute rheumatism; in man a solution of antipyrine from
+four to ten per cent strength up, is sprayed into the nostrils for
+hay-fever. Acetanilide is a better and safer and much cheaper drug for
+febrile diseases.
+
+
+
+
+AQUA AMMONIAE FORTIOR--STRONGER AMMONIA WATER
+
+
+An aqueous solution of ammonia containing twenty-eight per cent, by
+weight of the gas.
+
+DERIVATION.--Evolve ammonia gas by heating ammonium chloride with
+calcium hydrate and pass it into water.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A colorless, transparent liquid, having an excessively
+pungent odor and a caustic alkaline taste.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 drs.; sheep and pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 dr.;
+dogs, 5 to 10 m. Should be diluted one drachm to one pint of water.
+
+
+AQUA AMMONIAE--AMMONIA WATER
+
+An aqueous solution containing ten per cent by weight of ammonia gas.
+
+DERIVATION.--Same as strong ammonia water.
+
+PROPERTIES.--The taste is not so caustic and the odor is less pungent
+then the stronger water of ammonia.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 2 drs.;
+dogs, 10 to 20 m. Should be diluted one drachm to half pint of water.
+
+
+SPIRITUS AMMONIAE--SPIRIT OF AMMONIA
+
+An alcoholic solution containing ten per cent., by weight of the ammonia
+gas.
+
+DERIVATION.--A solution of caustic ammonia in alcohol.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A colorless liquid, having a strong odor of ammonia. This
+preparation of ammonia possesses properties of ammonia and alcohol.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.; sheep and pigs, 1 to 2 drs.;
+dogs, 10 to 20 m. Should be diluted in water.
+
+
+SPIRITUS AMMONIAE AROMATICUS--AROMATIC SPIRIT OF AMMONIA
+
+DERIVATION.--Ammonium carbonate 3.4%, aqua ammonia 9%, oil of lemon 1%,
+oil of lavender flowers 0.1%, oil of nutmeg 0.1%, alcohol 70%, and
+distilled water to make 100 parts. Diluted in water.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A nearly colorless liquid when first prepared, but
+gradually acquires an amber color. It has a pungent ammoniacal odor and
+taste.
+
+ACTIONS.--These four proportions of ammonia are gastric and general
+stimulants. They stimulate the cardiac respiratory and spinal systems.
+They irritate the nose when inhaled, but reflexly they stimulate the
+circulation and respiration, they are good stimulants as they do not
+affect the brain. The aromatic spirits of ammonia is also a carminative.
+Externally they are rubefacients, and when confined are vesicants.
+
+USES.--Its antacid and stimulant properties recommend ammonia in
+indigestion, tympanites, and spasmodic colic, especially in cattle and
+sheep. Stimulating the spinals and respiratory systems, it is valuable
+in the treatment of influenza, pneumonia, pleurisy and similar
+complaints. The fumes of ammonia are occasionally used to arouse animals
+from shocks, collapse, or chloroform intoxication, but must be used
+cautiously, lest excessive irritation of the respiratory mucous membrane
+be produced. It is a promptly acting antidote in poisoning by opium,
+aconite, digitalis, and ether narcotic and sedative drugs. It may be
+administered much diluted in the usual way, injected subcutaneously and
+intravenously, and also applied externally, in the treatment of
+snake-bites. On account of its producing bronchial secretion, and
+assisting in its expulsion, ammonia is serviceable as a stimulating
+expectorant. To develop its more general effects its alcoholic
+proportions should be prescribed as spirit of ammonia or the aromatic
+spirit of ammonia. Externally used in the form of liniment of ammonia,
+with oils, camphor, etc., proves useful as a stimulant in rheumatism,
+stiff-joints, muscular strains, sore throat, pleurisy, pneumonia and
+influenza, and for preventing the rapid chilling of fomented surfaces.
+It relieves the irritation caused by nettles, and by bites and stings of
+insects.
+
+
+LINIMENTUM AMMONIAE--AMMONIA LINIMENT
+
+Is made by mixing ammonia water, 350; cottonseed oil, 570; alcohol, 50;
+oleic acid, 30. The above is recognized by the U. S. P. and is
+advantageously used on muscular strains and where an external stimulant
+is indicated.
+
+
+LIQUOR AMMONII ACETATIS--SOLUTION OF AMMONIUM ACETATE
+
+An aqueous solution of ammonium acetate containing about seven per cent
+of the salt, together with small amounts of acetic acid and carbon
+dioxide.
+
+DERIVATION.--Ammonium carbonate is gradually added to cold, dilute
+acetic acid until the latter is materialized.
+
+PROPERTIES.--A clear, colorless liquid, mildly saline and acidulous
+taste, and an acid reaction.
+
+Incompatible with acids and alkalies.
+
+DOSE.--Horses and cattle, 2 to 4 oz.; sheep and pigs, ¹⁄₂ to 1 oz.;
+dogs, 2 to 6 drs.
+
+ACTIONS.--Diaphoretic, antipyretic, mild stimulant, mild diuretic, mild
+expectorant and stomachic.
+
+USES.--Its uses are recommended in febrile and inflammatory attacks,
+especially in influenza, distemper, etc., combined with other medicines,
+improves the appetite; can be used externally as a refrigerant over
+swollen and inflamed tendons.
+
+
+AMMONII CARBONAS--AMMONIUM CARBONATE
+
+spring. The illumination showed a moldy chamber with water dripping from
+the walls in places.
+
+At some distant day the chamber had evidently been occupied by human
+beings, for a great fire-place was cut in the rock at one end, and there
+were niches in the wall which had doubtless been used for storage. The
+floor was smooth, showing the work of human hands.
+
+“Get onto the fire-place!” whispered Jimmie. “Where do you suppose the
+smoke goes? There’s no chimney on the mountain.”
+
+“Probably it escapes through some opening in the rock,” Ned answered.
+
+“Do you suppose,” Jimmie asked, “that the smoke vent is large enough for
+us to hide in?”
+
+Before the words were out of the boy’s mouth, Ned was making toward the
+fireplace. The light was out now, but Jimmie had no difficulty in
+following the boy in the darkness.
+
+“Ned!” he called softly in a moment.
+
+“Come on up!” whispered Ned.
+
+“Turn on the light, then,” Jimmie advised.
+
+Ned switched on the electric, but kept it inside the chimney into which
+he had climbed. Only a faint radiance reached the opening below.
+
+“Give me your hand,” whispered Ned, “and I’ll give you a lift.”
+
+The sound of voices and footsteps now echoed loudly through the cavern.
+Lights were flashing here and there, and when Jimmie at last found
+himself inside the chimney, he knew that the very room he had recently
+left was being occupied by the outlaws.
+
+The electric light was out again, and the boy groped with his hands in
+the darkness. Much to his surprise they failed to locate his chum.
+
+“Ned!” he called softly. “Where are you hiding?”
+
+Jimmie heard a chuckle in the darkness and felt a hand on his shoulder.
+Then Ned whispered in his ear:
+
+“I guess I’ve stumbled on one of the hidden cells of the mission!” he
+said. “Anyway there’s a hole leading out of this chimney that’s big
+enough to keep house in.”
+
+“We’ll be finding a train of cars and an East river ferryboat next,”
+Jimmie chuckled. “We always do find something when we go away from camp.
+If we don’t find anything else, we find trouble.”
+
+It was thought safe, now, to turn on the electric light. The rays showed
+a room perhaps twelve feet in size with furniture and furnishings of the
+description of those in the chamber below. Although the apartment seemed
+to be somewhere near the center of a lofty finger of rock which lifted
+from the eastern slope of the mountain, the air was remarkably fresh and
+pure.
+
+“There’s an opening somewhere,” Ned suggested. “A shut-in room like this
+would asphyxiate one if there were no ventilation.”
+
+“Then I think we’d better be finding it!” Jimmie advised. “Just listen
+to those fellows chewing the rag in the room we recently left!”
+
+The boys remained perfectly silent, then, and listened. There seemed to
+be several men in the chamber below, and two were talking in angry
+tones. There were plenty of torches below, too, for the red flare and
+the stink of them came into the boys’ hiding place by way of the
+fire-niche below. This is what the boys heard:
+
+“You can see for yourself, Huga,” a voice which Ned recognized as that
+of Toombs, was saying, “that the boy is not here.”
+
+“But I am certain I heard footsteps running in this direction when I
+stood in the darkness before you men came in!” Huga answered. “He must
+be in this chamber somewhere.”
+
+“Look for yourself!” Toombs advised crossly.
+
+“Isn’t there some hiding place in the walls?” asked Huga.
+
+Ned nudged Jimmie as they heard this, and both moved farther back in the
+hiding place. It will be understood how intently they listened for the
+next sentence.
+
+“You ought to know that,” Toombs answered; “you are supposed to know all
+about this old mission, while I am fresh from Wall street.”
+
+“I have never heard of any secret passage or room in this part of the
+excavation,” the half-breed replied.
+
+“Then stop arguing that the boy is here!” roared Toombs.
+
+Huga made no reply, but the boys heard him poking about in the
+fireplace. Presently a light flashed into the chimney.
+
+“He’s after us now all right!” whispered Jimmie.
+
+“Keep still, you little dunce!” Ned said.
+
+“If he sticks his head up here, soak him!” advised Jimmie.
+
+“Don’t you think I won’t,” Ned returned.
+
+But Huga did not enter the huge old fireplace at all. When he flashed
+his light into the chimney he saw only straight up, and the vertical
+passage from the fire-flue was too small for even a small cat to
+negotiate.
+
+The chamber into which the boys had found their way was directly at the
+back of the flue, and might have been seen by a more careful man. The
+boys chuckled as the half-breed turned away.
+
+In a few minutes the sounds of pursuit ceased entirely. Lights no longer
+flashed about the room, creating a faint mist in the fireplace below.
+Still the boys were not certain that the outlaws had abandoned the hunt.
+
+“Say, Ned,” Jimmie whispered, directly, poking Ned in the ribs, “you
+didn’t bring one of those bear steaks with you, did you?”
+
+“Why, Jimmie,” Ned said in pretended amazement, “you’re not getting
+hungry, are you? I’m astonished at that!”
+
+“Hungry!” repeated the boy. “I feel as if I could eat my way through
+this rock like a mouse eats through cheese! And I could drink a barrel
+of water. There never was such a thirst.”
+
+“Well,” Ned suggested, “we’d better wait here a little while, until
+things get quieted down, and then make a break for the passage.”
+
+“All right,” Jimmie said with an air of resignation, “I’ll crawl back
+here in the corner and try to imagine that I’m in charge of a pie wagon
+on Third avenue. Perhaps I can dream a pie or two!”
+
+The boy leaned back in an angle of the chamber and prepared to continue
+the discussion regarding the different kinds of pies sold at the old
+Williams street corner. As he did so, the support of his back gave way,
+his heels flew up in the air, and he tumbled all of a heap into a
+passage which seemed to begin at that corner of the room.
+
+Hearing the fall and the exclamation of impatience which came from the
+boy’s lips, Ned turned on the electric and saw Jimmie lying on his back
+in a tunnel probably a yard in size each way. There were plenty of
+indications that the tunnel had been cut through solid rock.
+
+As far as Ned could see; that is, as far as the eye of the electric
+carried; there were no breaks in it. Directly a chill breeze blew in
+from the opening, and the boy knew that the passage touched the surface
+of the mountain not far away.
+
+“Je-rusalem!” shouted Jimmie, “hold up the light and let me see if I’m
+all here. That’s the second tumble I’ve got in this consarned old hole
+today.”
+
+“If every tumble you get in life brings such results as this,” Ned
+declared, “you ought to go around the world looking for tumbles!”
+
+“They hurt, just the same!” Jimmie declared, rubbing the back of his
+head. “I got an awful bump on my coco!”
+
+“Well, crowd along!” advised Ned.
+
+“Crowd along?” repeated Jimmie. “What for?”
+
+“Use your nose,” advised Ned.
+
+Jimmie sniffed elaborately and hit Ned a resounding whack on the back.
+Then he sat down on the bottom of the passage.
+
+“Say, Ned, look here!” he said. “When we got into this scrape, we didn’t
+look for any old Franciscan monks to help us out, did we? Two or three
+hundred years ago, when they dug this passage through the rock, they
+hadn’t any idea they were digging it for us, had they?”
+
+“This is a mysterious world,” Ned answered. “It seems to be unnecessary
+for us to plan any mode of escape. The wise old chap who formed the
+Franciscan order in Europe, hundreds of years ago, prepared the way of
+escape for us!”
+
+“That’s what he did!” answered Jimmie. “And I wish he had gone a little
+farther and prepared a good fat meat pie for us.”
+
+“Jimmie,” Ned chuckled, “some day you’ll get into a corner where you
+won’t get anything to eat for a week. I never knew a boy who thought so
+much of his stomach as you do!”
+
+“May the day be long delayed!” laughed Jimmie.
+
+“Well, crawl along!” Ned advised, “and I’ll see if I can get this slab
+of stone you pushed out back in its place.”
+
+It was by no means a difficult task to replace the stone, as it was thin
+and had been nicely fitted into the opening. In a short time the boys,
+proceeding mostly on their hands and knees, came to the end of the
+tunnel and looked out over a valley tucked in between two great summits.
+
+The snow-line was not far away and the air was cold, notwithstanding the
+direct rays of the sun.
+
+There was no one in sight, no moving object anywhere, as the boys paused
+at the mouth of the passage and gazed about. Judging from the location
+of the sun, they were looking straight west.
+
+“Now,” Ned said after a pause, “if we follow this little valley straight
+to the south, we’ll come out somewhere near our camp.”
+
+“Yes,” Jimmie answered, “I have a pious notion that our brownstone front
+is carved into the face of a continuation of that ridge on the other
+side of the little valley.”
+
+“Perhaps we’ll find the Boy Scout messenger at the camp,” Ned suggested.
+
+“If we do,” Jimmie declared, “I’ll change his face for him!”
+
+“I can’t understand the fellow,” Ned admitted.
+
+“Gee!” cried Jimmie, “He came out into the woods and told Frank and I to
+beat it, then went up into the camp and led you into the clutches of
+these outlaws. If I had his head in chancery right now, I’d ‘beat it’,
+all right! He ought to get a thousand years!”
+
+“I hope the boys are all safe,” said Ned.
+
+Jimmie told his chum of the arrival of Gilroy, and then the two boys
+hastened toward the camp.
+
+“The outlaws were discussing the advisability of taking all the boys
+into their care,” Ned said, as they hustled along, “so I’m afraid
+they’ve been there and taken the lads by surprise.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+                        IN QUEST OF INFORMATION
+
+
+Left at the camp by the departure of Ned and Jimmie, Jack, Frank and
+Harry sat for a long time in the warm sunshine in front of the barrier
+and discussed the situation. Gilroy had tucked himself into a collection
+of blankets at the rear of the cave and was sound asleep.
+
+“What do you think Jimmie had in his mind when he went away alone?”
+asked Harry. “He merely had some plan to carry out.”
+
+“Oh, he’s always going off alone,” Jack answered.
+
+“Some day he’ll go away alone and won’t be able to get back!” Frank put
+in. “He won’t always be able to get out of his scrapes.”
+
+“Pretty foxy boy, that!” Jack declared.
+
+“What strikes me as being singular,” Frank suggested, “is that Jack’s
+father never said a word to him about this land business.”
+
+“Father never talks his business over with any one,” Jack broke in.
+
+“If we had only known about the outlaws being here in the hills,” Harry
+suggested, “we might have kept out of sight of them for a long time.
+But, you see, they found us first.”
+
+“And they used a nice, crooked little spy to do it with!” Frank
+exclaimed. “This little alleged Boy Scout who stole our provisions last
+night, and crept into the woods to tell Jimmie and I to beat it, and
+then brought a note to Ned to get him away from the camp, must be
+playing a leading part for the sneaks.”
+
+“He’s doing all of that!” Jack agreed. “I don’t believe he’s a Boy Scout
+at all. He’s just picked up a word or two and a sign.”
+
+“Perhaps we’ll run across him again,” Frank said. “If we do, I’ll find
+out whether he’s a Boy Scout or not!”
+
+“Well,” Jack exclaimed, springing to his feet, “are we going to sit here
+all day and let Jimmie do all the hunting? We ought to get out in the
+mountains and help find Ned.”
+
+“Look here, boys!” Harry cried, “do you see anything to the east there
+that looks at all familiar?”
+
+“Do you mean the smoke coming up over the tops of the trees?” asked
+Frank. “I noticed that several minutes ago.”
+
+“Well, just keep your eye on it,” Harry advised, “and see if it brings
+anything to your mind.”
+
+“Sure it does!” shouted Frank, all excitement now. “There are two
+columns of smoke close together, and you ought to know what that means.”
+
+“Indian sign! Boy Scout sign! Means ‘Help is wanted’!” exclaimed Harry.
+“We’ve got to go and see what it is.”
+
+“It may be Jimmie,” Jack suggested.
+
+“It’s either Jimmie or that messenger boy,” Frank said. “If it’s Jimmie,
+he’s really in trouble, and if it’s the messenger boy, he’s doing it to
+get more of us into his clutches.”
+
+“Then we’d better go well armed and ready for any kind of a reception,”
+Jack advised. “No knowing what we’ll find.”
+
+“What’ll we do with Gilroy?” asked Frank.
+
+“Aw, let him sleep,” advised Harry.
+
+“Sure, let him sleep,” Jack put in. “He’ll be all right ’till we get
+back. No one will molest the camp in daytime.”
+
+“Seems to me that we ought to leave someone here,” Frank said.
+
+“All right, you can stay if you want to!” Jack declared. “Harry and I
+are going down there to see what the trouble is about.”
+
+“Aw, come on, Frank!” Harry urged. “There won’t anything happen to
+Gilroy! He may have a bad dream, but that’s about all.”
+
+“How far do you suppose that signal is from here?” asked Frank.
+
+“Not more than half a mile,” Harry explained.
+
+“Then I’ll go,” Frank decided. “I don’t like the idea of sitting around
+the camp and letting you boys have all the fun. Besides,” he continued,
+“if it is the messenger who is making the signals, you’ll need all the
+help you can get.”
+
+“Come running, then!” advised Jack, starting down the slope.
+
+As the reader will remember, the signal observed by the boys had been
+built by Jimmie in the hope of attracting the attention of Ned, or of
+Norman, the boy who had made himself so conspicuous that morning. In
+building the fires and creating the columns of dense white smoke by
+heaping on green boughs, the boy had not given serious thought to the
+effect his action might have on his chums.
+
+In fact, at the time of his leaving camp, he had not fully decided what
+course to pursue, and for this reason he had not informed the boys of
+his intention to set a signal for the benefit of the mysterious Boy
+Scout. Even at the time of making the signal, he had no idea that it
+would actually draw his three chums away from the camp.
+
+He might have known what the effect would be, but, though he did stop to
+consider for a moment, he did not take in the whole situation. Jimmie
+usually acted on impulse, and so the signal lifted to the sky without
+any explanation having been made to the Boy Scouts who were certain to
+see it.
+
+It will be remembered that when Jimmie descended from the elevation
+where the fires had been built he did so in order to hasten in the
+direction of a smoke signal which he saw to the north. The result of
+this was that he was out of the vicinity of the fires long before the
+boys reached that point.
+
+When the three lads came to the finger of granite upon the top of which
+the two fires showed, they first made a careful examination of the
+thickets close by and then ascended to the top.
+
+“These fires were made to constitute a signal, all right!” Jack
+declared, poking at the now dying embers.
+
+“Sure!” answered Frank. “You see, no cooking was done here, and there is
+no camp in sight.”
+
+“Besides, the position of the blazes on this high rock shows that the
+fires were built so that the columns of smoke might be seen,” suggested
+Harry. “It was Indian talk, all right!”
+
+“Well, there’s no one here in need of help so far as I can see!” laughed
+Jack, “and so we may as well go back to the camp.”
+
+“That’s the thing to do,” Frank urged. “To tell the truth, I don’t feel
+exactly right about leaving Gilroy there alone.”
+
+“Aw, we’ll hear him sleeping before we get within a rod of the cave,”
+laughed Jack. “Gilroy is a good old chap, and father thinks a lot of
+him, but he doesn’t know much about this kind of a life. I’ll bet that
+right now he’s dreaming about grizzly bears, and lions, and crocodiles,
+and panthers.”
+
+From their position in the forest, after their departure from the rock,
+they could see nothing of the signal from the north which had attracted
+Jimmie’s attention, so there seemed nothing for them to do but to return
+to camp. Therefore they set out at good speed.
+
+After a short walk, Jack beckoned the boys to his side and suggested
+that they take a route to the camp different from that which they had
+followed on leaving it.
+
+“You see, boys,” he explained, “that was a signal, all right, and we
+haven’t found out the cause of it. So far as we know, it was put up to
+get us away from the camp.”
+
+“I’m beginning to think it was,” Frank announced. “Either to get us away
+from the camp for the purpose of capturing us, or for the purpose of
+raiding our provisions.”
+
+“Well,” Jack went on, “if we duck away to the south and return to the
+camp by a new course, anyone watching for us might watch in vain.”
+
+“That’s the idea!” Harry answered.
+
+“Then here we go the south,” Frank suggested, starting away at as swift
+a gait as was possible in the thicket.
+
+They had proceeded but a short distance when every tree bole of good
+size immediately in front of them seemed to their astonished eyes to
+yield a scowling, dirty half-breed. The boys drew their guns.
+
+“No use, lads!” a voice said, speaking in good English. “The men in the
+bushes have you covered. Anyway, there’s no harm intended.”
+
+“Why the holdup?” demanded Jack.
+
+The man who had spoken now advanced to Jack and looked him keenly in the
+face. Although carrying the general appearance of the gang of
+half-breeds at his back, the boys could see by the fellow’s face and
+manner that he was different from the others.
+
+“You are Jack Bosworth?” he asked.
+
+“That’s my name,” replied the boy.
+
+“You are here on a mission for your father?”
+
+“I am here on a hunting trip.”
+
+“With business on the side, eh?”
+
+“No business at all,” replied Jack.
+
+“We know better than that!” the stranger answered.
+
+“What do you want of us?” asked Jack.
+
+“We want information now in your possession,” answered the fellow,
+looking Jack sharply in the eyes.
+
+“What kind of information?”
+
+“We want to know where certain documents are.”
+
+“You’ll have to ask some one else, then.”
+
+“We are certain that you have the information we require.”
+
+“If I had,” Jack answered, “you never would get it from me.”
+
+“You will gain nothing by being obstinate,” the fellow said. “Remember
+that we have Ned Nestor, the alleged juvenile detective, at our camp. He
+seems inclined to keep what information he possesses to himself, and,
+before proceeding to extreme measures with him, we decided to lay the
+case before you. I am afraid Nestor will receive rough treatment at the
+hands of my allies unless the information they demand is given them.”
+
+“So that was a lying message you sent Nestor, was it?”
+
+“There’s no use in discussing the matter at length,” the other stated.
+“I think I’d better take you boys into camp and let the boss talk with
+you. And let me warn you now, before anything more is said, not to
+attempt resistance. If you do, there’ll be shooting done, and it won’t
+be my men who will get hurt! Now, face about to the north and march away
+to camp, like good little boys. We don’t want to hurt you, but we insist
+on having our way in the matter of this information. Perhaps Nestor may
+be able to convince you that you ought not to be so obstinate.”
+
+“I don’t think Nestor will attempt anything of the kind,” replied Jack,
+“and I think that you are a great big bluff!”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+                          GILROY AND THE BEAR
+
+
+When, at last, Ned and Jimmie, still watching about for hostile forces,
+came to the barricaded camp, the fire had burned down and no one was in
+sight. Ned regarded the wall of rock with a smile.
+
+“Isn’t that great?” Jimmie asked.
+
+“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do much good in case of an attack,” Ned
+suggested. “We’d soon get hungry and thirsty and have to surrender.”
+
+“Anyway, it’s an all right thing to shoot from!” Jimmie announced. “If
+you’d seen the way we sweat rolling those rocks, you’d think it was all
+right, anyway. I wonder where the boys are.”
+
+“I was thinking more about the boys than about the barricade,” Ned
+admitted. “Were they all here when you left?”
+
+“All sitting in front of the entrance,” Jimmie replied, “except Gilroy,
+and he was asleep on a pile of blankets in the cave.”
+
+“He may be there yet,” suggested Ned. “Suppose we go and see.”
+
+Jimmie made his way through the narrow entrance, found a searchlight,
+and turned a round circle of flame on a great heap of blankets in a back
+corner. There was no one in the cave at all save only himself.
+
+Before returning to report to Ned, the hungry boy seized a plate of corn
+pones and a can of tinned beans from the provision chest.
+
+“Look here, Ned,” he said in a moment, appearing before his chum with
+his mouth full of beans, “the appetite of our midnight visitor seems to
+be for confidential clerks as well as for bread. Someone has stolen
+Gilroy! Anyway, he’s not in the cave!”
+
+“He may have gone away with the boys,” suggested Ned.
+
+“He wasn’t thinking of going away with the boys when I left,” Jimmie
+answered. “He was telling how much he liked New York, and how he’d like
+to pound his ear for about three days and nights.”
+
+“Anyway,” Ned decided, “we’ll wait here a little while and see if they
+don’t return. In the meantime, you can get yourself something to eat.”
+
+“Don’t you call this something to eat?” asked Jimmie.
+
+“One poor little can of beans and one poor little plate of corn pones
+won’t make much of an impression on your appetite,” Ned laughed. “What
+you need is one of those neat little bear steaks, about as large as a
+warming pan. You’ll have plenty of time in which to cook it.”
+
+“And that means that I can cook one for you, too?” asked Jimmie.
+
+“Why, of course you can!” returned Ned.
+
+“I’d like to cook one for the Boy Scout who got us both into such
+trouble,” Jimmie declared. “I’d put poison on it!”
+
+“Now, don’t you be too severe on that Boy Scout,” Ned advised.
+“According to your own story, he warned you and Frank in the thicket,
+and I know very well that he wanted to tell me something, but didn’t
+dare do it.”
+
+“Well, here’s another thing,” Jimmie explained. “When I went out to look
+for you, I gave the ‘help’ smoke signal from the top of a granite rock
+in the pines. In five minutes after the columns of smoke became large
+enough to be seen at a distance, the signal was answered from the north,
+it seemed to me from the vicinity of the old mission. Now, of course,
+you didn’t send out that signal.”
+
+“I rather think not,” smiled Ned.
+
+“Then it was sent up by this crooked messenger boy with the intention of
+getting us out to look for you. He believed, of course, that we would
+regard the call for help as coming from you and rush away from camp.”
+
+“Don’t be too sure of that,” warned Ned. “There’s something about that
+boy I rather like. Besides, he really is a member of the Wolf Patrol,
+New York.”
+
+“My own patrol?” exclaimed Jimmie. “I never saw him at the club room. He
+told me that he belonged to the Wolf Patrol, but I didn’t believe it. I
+think he’s a fake.”
+
+“Time alone will tell,” answered Ned. “I’m going to believe in the boy
+until I get some positive proof that he really is crooked.”
+
+Jimmie was about to continue the argument when a succession of shrieks
+and calls for help came from the forest on the slope below.
+
+“Now, what’s that?” demanded Jimmie. “That isn’t any of our boys!”
+
+“Help! Help! Help!” cried the voice.
+
+“No,” Ned agreed, “our boys don’t make a racket like that.”
+
+“Say!” Jimmie shouted, springing to his feet. “I bet you the next dollar
+I don’t find that that’s the fat clerk, Gilroy!”
+
+“The voice sounds like that of a fat man,” Ned laughed.
+
+“Gilroy’s fat all right!” Jimmie exclaimed. “He’s got one of those pink
+baby faces that make you hungry to look at. He makes me think of a roast
+of veal, and he’s got a cute little round bald spot on the top of his
+head. And he wants to be dignified and speaks his words impressively.
+Say, Ned,” the boy continued, “I wouldn’t mind having that fellow get
+into some kind of a mixup out here!”
+
+“Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Oh Lord!” cried the voice from the forest.
+
+“That’s Gilroy, all right enough!” Ned declared. “Why don’t you go down
+and see what he wants, Jimmie?” he added.
+
+“Aw, he ain’t talking to me!” cried the boy.
+
+“Then I presume I’ll have to go,” Ned said, rising from his seat in
+front of the barrier. “Perhaps he’s been stung by a bee.”
+
+“He didn’t get crippled in his shrieker,” Jimmie suggested.
+
+Ned stepped into the cave and secured an automatic revolver to replace
+the one taken from him at the old mission, and also passed one to
+Jimmie. Then the two hastened into the forest in the direction of the
+sounds.
+
+The call for help continued to come, although the voice of the man came
+hoarser at every call. When the boys finally came close enough to
+distinguish words spoken in low tones, they heard a warning.
+
+“Shoot!” he cried. “There’s a lot of bears under this tree!”
+
+Although convulsed with laughter, the boys moved more cautiously after
+this. At last they came to the pine from which the voice proceeded.
+There was a rustle in the thicket as they advanced, and they saw a black
+object shambling away.
+
+“There’s Gilroy’s flock of bears!” Jimmie shouted.
+
+“And a little bit of a black bear at that,” Ned laughed. “If Gilroy had
+made an ugly face at him, he’d have run away!”
+
+The tree into which the fat confidential clerk had climbed was not a
+large one. In fact, it was swaying dangerously under his weight. As he
+moved his position at sight of the black back of the bear, the slender
+upshoot to which he clung gave way and he came clattering down through
+the few lower branches.
+
+“Oh my! oh my! oh my!” he shouted. “I never should have come into this
+blasted country! I shall be eaten alive!”
+
+Instead of rushing to Gilroy’s assistance, his rescuers, boy-like, sat
+down on the mat of pine needles which strewed the ground and roared with
+laughter. Gilroy eyed them angrily without attempting to rise to his
+feet. His rage only made the scene more amusing.
+
+“Why didn’t you shoot him?” he demanded at length.
+
+“Shoot him?” repeated Jimmie. “That bear is a great deal more frightened
+than you are. At the rate of speed he’s now going, he’ll strike the
+arctic circle at exactly four-fifteen tomorrow morning!”
+
+“He chased me up the tree,” whined Gilroy. “He nipped at my heels as I
+left the ground, and I heard his teeth grinding together in the most
+frightful manner. I’ll never get over this!”
+
+“I guess he would have climbed the tree after you in about another
+minute,” Jimmie declared, with a sly wink at Ned. “You see, it’s just
+this way, Mr. Gilroy,” he went on, “the bears out here are hungry for
+fat clerks from Wall street. I’ve heard they make stews of ’em,” he
+concluded.
+
+Gilroy now arose to his feet and stood gazing into the thicket in the
+direction of the bear’s disappearance. Jimmie’s assertion that bruin
+would hit the Arctic circle early the next morning seemed to give him
+great comfort. As the distance between the bear and himself increased,
+he grew braver and began throwing out his chest.
+
+“What a chance that was for me to kill a bear!” he began, boastfully,
+“If I’d only had a gun with me, I might have had a fine rug made out of
+his hide! It would have been fine to show my friends.”
+
+“Sure it would!” declared Jimmie. “I’m glad you didn’t remember that you
+had a gun in your pocket. The bears out here are pretty sensitive about
+being shot at. If you’d blazed away at that cub, and hadn’t shot him
+dead in his tracks the first time, he would have eaten you.”
+
+Gilroy put his hand to his pistol pocket and a look of pretended
+amazement came over his fat face.
+
+“Upon my word!” he said, “I thought I left my gun in the bunk!”
+
+“After this,” Ned advised, “always keep your gun in sight when you go
+into the forest. Suppose there had been no tree to climb, what then?”
+
+“I should have grappled with him, sir!” exclaimed Gilroy. “I certainly
+should have grappled with him.”
+
+“You would have had to catch him first,” Jimmie grinned.
+
+“How long since you left the camp?” Ned asked, after Jimmie had
+introduced the two.
+
+“Perhaps half an hour ago,” was the answer. “When I went to sleep, the
+boys were sitting by the fire, but when I woke there was no one in
+sight. I came out to look for them.”
+
+“I understand you came on a mission for Jack Bosworth’s father?” asked
+Ned after a pause.
+
+“Yes,” was the reply, “at the request of my employer I came on this most
+dangerous mission. I shall be glad to see New York again.”
+
+Ned hesitated a moment and then asked:
+
+“Did Mr. Bosworth ever say anything to you about a set of documents he
+wished us to bring to light?”
+
+“He did not,” was the answer.
+
+“His purpose in sending you, then, was to secure, by means of our help,
+proof connecting a corporation he is fighting with unlawful acts which
+have been or may be committed in this section?”
+
+“That is exactly the idea!” answered Gilroy.
+
+“Come on,” Jimmie shouted, “let’s get back to camp. I begin to feel
+hungry already. Perhaps the boys have returned.”
+
+Before Gilroy would move out of the forest he insisted on pinning up
+certain rents in his clothing and combing out his mussed up hair with
+his fingers. There were also numerous scratches on his face, caused by
+contact with the rough branches of the tree, and these he thought
+necessary to nurse carefully with his handkerchief.
+
+“Oh my!” laughed Jimmie, as the fat confidential clerk struggled under
+difficulties to make himself more presentable. “If you think you’re in a
+muss, just look at this beautiful new khaki uniform I put on only a day
+or two ago! It’s a peach, ain’t it?”
+
+“It certainly is in a mess,” admitted Gilroy.
+
+“Of course,” grinned Jimmie. “I fell down a chute, and rolled into the
+basement of a mountain, and climbed up a smutty chimney, and fell into a
+secret passage and had all kinds of sport! Ned and I have had a glorious
+morning. You should have been with us.”
+
+The confidential clerk frowned slightly, but made no reply.
+
+When the boys reached the camp, after giving a great deal of mental and
+physical assistance to the clerk, they found it just as they had left
+it. The boys had not returned.
+
+“Now, what kind of blockheads do you think they are to go away and leave
+the camp like this?” Jimmie asked.
+
+The boy did not know, of course, that his own signal, shown from the
+granite rock, had led to their departure, and also to their subsequent
+encounter with the half-breeds.
+
+“We don’t know why they left,” Ned answered, “but we must suppose that
+they had some good reason for doing so.”
+
+“Do I understand,” Gilroy asked, “that something has happened to your
+companions?”
+
+“All we know about it is that they’re not here,” replied Jimmie.
+
+“There are altogether too many bears in this forest,” suggested Gilroy.
+“The lads may have encountered some of them.”
+
+“That’s a fact!” laughed Jimmie. “Perhaps we’d better go out and see if
+we can find a group of pine trees bearing a mess of Boy Scouts.”
+
+“This is a serious matter,” Ned interrupted. “Judging from our own
+experiences, the boys may be having a bad time of it.”
+
+“The outlaws are none too good to commit murder!” Jimmie asserted.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+                         THE DEVIL’S PUNCH BOWL
+
+
+“See here, boys,” Frank Shaw suggested, as the three boys moved on
+through the forest, almost entirely surrounded by repulsive half-breeds,
+“this will be a fine story for Dad’s newspaper. ‘Captured by Bold, Bad
+Men; or, Why Little Frankie Didn’t Get Home to His Beans’! That would be
+a fine title for the story, and I’ll ask Dad to print a picture of three
+boys wandering through a jungle surrounded by a bunch of cheap skates
+that no decent dog would bark at.”
+
+“Keep still!” whispered Harry. “What’s the use of stirring these people
+up? We’re in no shape to scrap with them!”
+
+“And then,” Frank went on, “Dad might take a notion to send an
+expedition out here to round up these dirty greasers. If he does, I’m
+coming out just on purpose to see them hanged.”
+
+“Cut it out!” advised Jack.
+
+“Of all the rotten, unwashed specimens of humanity I ever came across,”
+Frank continued, speaking in a still louder tone, “this escort of ours
+takes the bun. They’re imitation bad-men all right.”
+
+“A little of that goes a long way, young man,” the leader of the party
+said. “It makes no difference to me what you say, but several of these
+men understand the English language and can speak it fluently.”
+
+“I presume so,” returned Frank. “I’ve seen just such a collection as
+that in jail in New York. Say, honest, Captain,” he went on, “if a bunch
+like this should run up against the strong-arm squad in New York, they’d
+get their heads beaten off just because of their ugly mugs.”
+
+“Aw, what’s the use!” demanded Harry.
+
+By this time several of the guards were casting ugly glances at Frank,
+who seemed to regard their disfavor with great joy.
+
+“You’d better come on ahead and walk with me, young fellow,” the leader
+said, taking Frank roughly by the arm and jerking him to a position in
+front. “If you get back there where those ugly ones are, they’ll put a
+couple of bullets into your back and swear that you were trying to
+escape.”
+
+On his way to the front of the party, Frank passed Jack and paused for a
+second only to whisper in his ear:
+
+“Now, these ginks will be watching me every minute, waiting for a chance
+to shoot. You may catch them off their guard directly and when you do,
+cut and run!”
+
+“So that’s what you did all the talking for?” queried Jack.
+
+“You bet!” answered Frank. “And while you’re running, I’ll do a little
+sprinting myself.”
+
+“Here, you!” shouted the leader, almost lifting Frank’s feet from the
+ground as he dragged him away.
+
+“What were you whispering to that boy?” demanded one of the others.
+
+“I was telling him,” Frank answered, making an insulting face, “that I
+used to have a dog that looked exactly like you.”
+
+The fellow thus insulted sprang for the boy with upraised fist. The
+leader blocked his rush by imposing his own burly form, and the two went
+down together. The half-breeds sprang forward, too, the intention
+evidently being to assist their companion as against the leader.
+
+Frank let out a yell which might have been heard half a mile away, and
+the three boys darted down the mountainside, followed by harmless shots
+from the guns of the half-breeds.
+
+The incident had taken place on a rocky level flanked by steep slopes on
+each side. The place, in fact, was almost like a shelf of rock cut into
+a long fifty percent grade.
+
+The ledge was narrow, and as the bunch clung together where the leader
+and his opponent still struggled, one of them slipped over the edge of
+the declivity and started downward. Naturally he caught hold of the
+first object within his reach, and this happened to be the shoe of the
+outlaw nearest to him. This man, in turn, caught another, and two more
+tried to pull up the falling ones, with the result that in about half a
+minute five of the half-breeds were rolling and tumbling heels over head
+down the rocky slope.
+
+The boys were not far out of their path, but they managed to elude the
+downrushing bodies as they swung by. Notwithstanding the gravity of the
+situation, the boys shrieked with laughter as the clumsy fellows went
+tumbling down, uttering vicious curses at the boys, at the mountain and
+at each other.
+
+“I wish I had a gun now!” shouted Frank.
+
+As he spoke a formidable weapon which seemed to be half revolver and
+half sawed-off shotgun, flew out of the hands of one of the involuntary
+acrobats and landed against Frank’s side with a great thud.
+
+Frank seized the weapon and backed away. By this time the leader was on
+his feet shouting wrathful commands for the boys to return.
+
+“Easy, now,” Frank shouted, moving away to the south. “If any of you
+ginks lift a finger until we get into the timber line, I’ll empty this
+load of slugs into the thick of you.”
+
+The leader, more daring than the others, sprang down the slope, his
+great boots scattering fragments of rock and sending them hurtling down
+upon the heads of the half-breeds below. Frank was about to fire when
+the man lost his balance and joined the procession of those making for
+the bottom a la log.
+
+“Here we go!” shouted Frank.
+
+The boys raced along the slope until they came to a point of timber
+which, following a more fertile spot, thrust itself up the ascent. Here
+they disappeared, considering themselves reasonably safe in the
+seclusion of the forest. Frank examined his gun and found it empty.
+
+“Good thing that dub didn’t know it was empty!” he laughed.
+
+“Don’t stop now to throw bouquets at yourself!” grinned Harry.
+
+“That’s right!” Jack declared. “We want to be getting back to the camp.
+Gilroy’ll have a fit if he wakes up and finds us gone.”
+
+“Don’t you ever think those half-breeds will give up the chase here,”
+Frank suggested. “Do you know what they’ll do?” he asked, “They’ll
+circle around and get between us and the camp! That’s what they’ll do.”
+
+“I sometimes think,” Harry snorted, turning to Jack, “that Frank is
+getting so intelligent that he may have the gift of speech conferred
+upon him. He certainly has that proposition right.”
+
+“Well, if we can’t go back to camp,” Jack asked, “where can we go?”
+
+“We’ll have to glide into some gentle dell in the bosom of a friendly
+hill!” laughed Harry, “and send a scout out to watch those fellows spy
+upon the camp.”
+
+“If they’ve got a detachment of half-breeds guarding every squad of Boy
+Scouts that have strayed away from the camp today,” Jack laughed, “they
+must have an army in here. Ned was coaxed away by a fake note; Jimmie
+went to find Ned and got lost himself, and we go out to answer a call
+for help and get mixed up with a lot of half-breeds. I guess we’ll have
+to take a company of state troops with us next time we go camping.”
+
+“Well, let’s be moving,” urged Frank. “Those fellows’ heads will be just
+sore enough when they quit rolling to shoot at anything in sight. They’d
+string us up if they caught us now.”
+
+In accordance with this reasoning, the boys turned south in the thicket
+then shifted to the east, then whirled back in a northerly direction. At
+one time they heard the shouts of the half-breeds on the slope far away
+to the south.
+
+“They think we kept right on south,” laughed Jack. “Now,” he went on,
+“we’ll walk north a long ways, climb the slope to the snow line, and
+come out on the camp from above. How’s that strike you boys?”
+
+“It listens good to me,” Frank answered. “Do you suppose Ned is back
+there yet?” he continued.
+
+“It struck me,” Jack replied, “that the half-breeds we encountered were
+out looking for Ned or Jimmie.”
+
+“You’ll have to guess again,” Harry put in. “The ginks we encountered
+were stationed there to catch any Boy Scout who came in answer to that
+signal. That’s some more of the work of that crooked messenger.”
+
+“Well, I hope the bears won’t devour Gilroy while we’re gone,” Frank
+suggested. “It’s likely to be night before we get back.”
+
+The boys walked for a long distance, and it was three o’clock by their
+watches when they turned up the slope. They would have felt less
+comfortable during the latter part of their journey if they had known
+that they were passing within a few hundred yards of the headquarters of
+the outlaws at the old mission.
+
+After a time they came to what looked like a wrinkle in the face of the
+grand old mountain. They proceeded up this with no little caution, not
+knowing but enemies might be watching there. It was just such a place as
+outlaws lurking for prey or cowering from officers would be apt to seek.
+The wrinkle, or gully, led almost to the snow line and finally ended in
+a little dip which lay between two summits rising side by side, like
+jagged rows of teeth.
+
+“I’m half starved and half frozen!” Harry declared, as he rested for a
+time in the depth of what had once been a mountain lake, but which had
+been drained by the gully. “If I ever get back in little old New York
+again, I’m going to get Dad to make me a gasoline buggy with a snout
+nine feet long, and I’m going to push traffic aside on Broadway for the
+next thousand years.”
+
+“How often have you said that?” laughed Jack.
+
+“Let’s see,” Frank put in, “this is the twelfth trip we boys have taken,
+either in the interests of the Secret Service or on vacations, so this
+makes twelve times that Harry has promised never to leave New York again
+once he gets back there.”
+
+“That’s all right!” Harry grinned. “You fellows ain’t half so hungry as
+I am or you wouldn’t feel so gay over it.”
+
+“Now, how far are we from camp?” asked Jack.
+
+“About two miles on the level,” Frank suggested, “and about four hundred
+miles the way the surface of the ground runs.”
+
+After a short rest the boys proceeded south, climbing over jutting
+spurs, dipping into depressions, and sliding over stony slopes until
+they were almost too tired to take another step.
+
+“We’ll get used to this in a month or two,” Harry said, sitting plump
+down on a boulder.
+
+Frank followed the boy’s example, except that he stretched himself at
+full length, while Jack pushed on a few steps and stood peering over a
+rim of rock which lay directly in their way.
+
+“Look here, boys!” Jack finally called. “You remember the place in
+Mexico called the Devil’s Cauldron? Well, this is it!”
+
+“What have you found now?” demanded Frank sleepily.
+
+“Here’s a round hole in the mountain,” Jack answered back, “that you
+might hide a city block in. It’s deep and the sides are almost smooth.
+Looks like the pit Kipling gets one of his characters in, only there’s
+rock instead of sand.”
+
+The boys rose to their feet and looked over the ledge.
+
+“And right there in the bottom,” Harry exclaimed, “is a pool of water so
+clear that it looks like a diamond!”
+
+“Running water, too,” added Frank. “Now, where do you think that water
+comes from, and where does it go to?”
+
+“Runs through a pass, foolish!” answered Jack.
+
+“But there’s no break in the formation,” Frank insisted.
+
+“Then it runs through a tunnel manufactured by itself!” Jack explained.
+“Anyway, it gets out somehow.”
+
+“What a dandy place to catch mountain trout!” shouted Harry.
+fourteen hours at a stretch. They must be swift as lightning in their
+movements, and possessed of judgment, ability, and nerve.
+
+It was impossible, of course, for Bob to pick out an ideal rear crew
+from merely having seen the men in action for a scant few minutes. He
+did not try. He simply used his very excellent judgment, reserving
+mentally the right to change his mind whenever he felt like it, and
+juggle the men around as he chose.
+
+The principal necessity was to start things moving. When he had done so,
+Bainbridge returned to camp with the twofold object of giving the cook
+his orders, and having a final settlement with Schaeffer. The latter was
+not particularly pleasant, but it was important. The man must quit the
+crew at once. Bob had made up his mind not to let the fellow spend even
+the night where he would have a chance to talk with and perhaps
+influence the others. With this determination uppermost, he passed by
+the mess tent to the other where the men slept, pulled aside the flap,
+and stepped inside.
+
+The place was a mess of blankets and half-dried clothes, but to Bob’s
+surprise it was vacant of anything in the nature of a man. Evidently
+Schaeffer had recovered and vamoosed. Thoughtfully he sought the cook,
+and put the question.
+
+“Came in here an’ got some grub a full hour ago,” that servitor
+explained briefly. “When he’d eat it he went off agin.”
+
+“Didn’t he say where he was going?” Bainbridge asked.
+
+The cook shook his head. “Nary word.”
+
+“And you didn’t happen to see what direction he took?”
+
+“Nary a sight,” was the reply. “I was busy inside.”
+
+Bob frowned for a second, and then shrugged his shoulders. After all,
+what did it matter where the fellow had gone, so long as he had taken
+himself away? It was very natural for him to avoid the man who had so
+humiliated him, though it was rather puzzling to have him slip away
+without apparently encountering any one.
+
+Bob proceeded to give his orders to the cook, explaining that he would
+have to pull up stakes at once and start down the river.
+
+“The boys will be a long way from here by nightfall,” he said, “so
+you’ll have to hustle. I’ve saved out a couple of men to help you and
+the cookee, who’ll be under your orders till you pitch camp to-night.”
+
+Outside the mess tent he hesitated an instant. Then he entered the other
+tent. This time he did not pause by the door, but crossed hastily to the
+farther corner, where there was a small space crudely partitioned off
+from the main portion. This would be Schaeffer’s sanctum, of course, and
+Bob entered it curiously--only to stop with an exclamation of mingled
+surprise, anger, and chagrin.
+
+The place was in the utmost disorder. Blankets were rolled up in a ball
+and flung into the corner. Articles of wearing apparel were scattered
+about, while over everything were sifted scraps of white paper in
+seemingly endless quantity. It was these torn scraps that roused Bob’s
+indignation. He seemed to know intuitively, without the evidence of the
+limp, empty book covers here and there, that the foreman had taken time
+to tear into shreds every record and paper connected with the drive
+which he possessed. Time books, scalers’ measurements--everything--had
+been destroyed practically beyond the possibility of reconstruction.
+There would be no accurate way now by which the firm could figure their
+profits or costs or labor charges. The very paying of the drive crew
+would be a matter of guesswork.
+
+“Jove!” exclaimed Bainbridge through his clenched teeth. “I didn’t know
+a man could be so rotten!”
+
+He stared at the wreck for a minute longer, and then turned over with
+his foot the square, wooden box which lay upset in the middle of the
+mess. Apparently it had served Schaeffer as a receptacle for these same
+records. It was quite empty, but underneath lay something which brought
+a thoughtful, questioning expression into the searcher’s face, and made
+him stoop to pick it up.
+
+“Thirty-eight caliber,” he murmured, staring at the freshly opened
+pasteboard box which had contained fifty cartridges. “Hum!”
+
+Presently he let it drop again. He did not move for a space, but stood
+staring at the ground with that same odd, thoughtful pucker in his
+forehead.
+
+There was nothing surprising in the fact of Schaeffer’s being armed,
+Neither was it strange for a man in the riverman’s position to carry off
+his ammunition loose instead of in the box. That was not the point. It
+was simply the train of thought aroused which struck Bainbridge
+unpleasantly. He felt Schaeffer to be capable of almost any villainy
+provided it could be accomplished with safety to himself. The
+humiliation of that fight, too, had added a powerful incentive to the
+one already offered by Crane and the Lumber Trust for the eclipse of Bob
+Bainbridge. And a total eclipse would be so easy! Just a single shot
+fired from the bushes at a moment when there was no one else about to
+see or hear. In this wild country the chances of escaping were infinite.
+The man might not even be suspected.
+
+Bob suddenly moved his shoulders impatiently, frowned, and turned away.
+A moment later his eyes twinkled mirthfully.
+
+“Another minute and I’d have the undertaker picked out,” he chuckled.
+“The scoundrel hasn’t the common courage to do murder. All the same,” he
+added, with a decisive squaring of the shoulders, “I’ll put a crimp in
+his little game about those records. I’ll have cookee scrape ’em all up,
+and ship the whole bunch down to John. That clerk, Wiggins, can put ’em
+together, I’ll bet! Patience is his middle name--patience and picture
+puzzles. We’ll have the laugh on Pete, after all--hanged if we won’t!”
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. IN THE SWIFT CURRENT
+
+The clumsy, slow-moving scow loaded with the cook’s outfit and a supply
+of bedding followed the drive downstream, and, that night, fastened up
+to the bank close to the inlet of Deer Pond, the middle one of three
+small bodies of water strung along the length of the Megantic. It was a
+full day’s work, much better than Bainbridge had hoped for, and, as he
+approached the big drying fire flaming up at one side of the camp made
+by Charlie Hanley, the cook, Bob shook his own hand in silent, grinning
+self-congratulation. He knew that they were far from being out of the
+woods yet, but a good beginning always means a lot, and he had no word
+to say against this start-off.
+
+Presently the various driving crews appeared, wet to the skin from the
+waist down, and ravenously hungry. The drying racks were swiftly
+steaming with the soggy garments, and the men fell to upon their supper
+without a second’s delay. There was little conversation--they were too
+busy for that; but Bainbridge noticed with satisfaction that a certain
+element of good-tempered raillery seemed to prevail. Evidently the crowd
+as a whole bore no grudge against the man who had given them such a
+tongue-lashing that morning. In fact, if one could judge from their
+manner toward their boss, they thought a lot more of him for having done
+so.
+
+Next day all hands did even better, and nightfall found them at the
+inlet of Loon Lake, with the drive before them. Bob could not understand
+it. All day he had been expecting some disagreeable happening of a
+nature to retard their progress which could be laid at the door of the
+trust. When it did not come he was almost disappointed. It was
+impossible to believe that Crane had given up so easily; he was not that
+sort. He would explode a bombshell of some sort soon, and the longer he
+delayed the more deadly was likely to be the nature of his attack.
+
+However, there was nothing to be gained in discounting the future, nor
+time to spare for fretting over the unknown. Bob was far too busy during
+the daylight hours even to think of Crane or his satellites. It was a
+ticklish job to get the drive across even so small a body of water as
+the so-called lake, and it took one entire day and the better part of
+another. It was done without mishap, however, and Bainbridge was just
+congratulating himself on having got safely over one of the most
+disagreeable bits of the entire distance when Jerry Calker approached
+him as he stood watching the last few logs bob slowly out of the lake
+into the swifter current of the stream.
+
+“Jack wants to know can you spare him a few minutes, sir,” he explained.
+“There’s a bit of trouble down below.”
+
+“What kind of trouble?” Bob asked swiftly, turning downstream without an
+instant’s delay; and walking by the side of the dynamite man.
+
+Calker scratched his head slowly. “I ain’t quite certain sure, Mr.
+Bainbridge,” he drawled, “but I got a idea there’s a fellow with a mill
+who’s run out a sortin’ boom that’s goin’ to hang up our drive if we
+ain’t mighty keerful.”
+
+“A mill!” exclaimed Bob incredulously. “Why, there isn’t such a thing
+within twenty miles--at least, there wasn’t three months ago.”
+
+Calker grinned. “Thought it looked kinda new. I couldn’t rightly say
+that it’s finished, but there ain’t no manner of a doubt about the boom.
+The jam had started before I come away, an’ I left Jack havin’ it hot
+an’ heavy with a red-headed son of a gun who sure looked as if scrap was
+his middle name.”
+
+Bainbridge frowned, but asked no further questions. He scarcely spoke,
+in fact, during all of the four miles, but it was evident to his
+observing companion that he was doing a lot of thinking.
+
+Long before reaching the point of obstruction it became evident that
+another jam had formed. The current grew more and more sluggish, and the
+progress of the logs downstream became slower and slower, until at
+length the entire surface of the water was covered with floating timber.
+These in turn crowded upon one another with a rapidity which threatened
+to equal that first jam unless something was swiftly done.
+
+Hurrying on, Bob presently caught up with a throng of his own men, who
+had apparently just landed from the dangerous, constantly shifting
+surface of the river. They looked at him with a frank curiosity, as if
+wondering what he meant to do in this emergency. On the faces of a few
+were expressions of grim, anticipatory amusement, but Bainbridge heeded
+these no more than he had the others. Without pausing even glancing to
+right or left, he strode on, and reached the scene of action.
+
+On the same bank, a little way back from the water, stood a small
+building, so hastily thrown together that the roof was not yet
+completed. One or two men were standing near it, staring interestedly at
+the crowd gathered about something at the water’s edge which Bob at once
+saw to be one end of a massive, well-constructed log boom. The other
+end, out beyond the middle of the river, was supported by some stout
+spiles, and the whole affair took up so much of the stream’s width that
+Bainbridge’s drive had jammed against it hard and fast.
+
+All this Bob took in without slackening his pace. Reaching the outer
+edge of the circle, he pushed through to where Jack Peters, his jam
+boss, stood facing a compact group of six or eight strangers, gathered
+closely about the end of the boom, Jack was florid with rage, and
+choking with impotent fury. The strangers composing the little group
+instantly struck Bob as being singularly strong and rugged. They looked
+as if they had been picked for their physical efficiency. Each one was
+armed with rifle or pistol, while their leader, a competent-looking
+person with red hair and whiskers, held in one hand a snub-nosed,
+businesslike automatic.
+
+“Well, Jack,” Bainbridge said curtly, as he reached the foreman’s side,
+“what’s the trouble?”
+
+Before Peters could reply the red-haired man took a single step forward
+and faced Bob.
+
+“I can tell you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” he snapped viciously.
+“This river hog o’ yours thinks he kin play the devil with my boom, but
+he’s got another guess comin’. I own this land an’ that sawmill. I got a
+right to run my booms out in the river same as anybody else. I ain’t
+lookin’ for trouble, but the first man as tries any monkey business
+wants to look out, that’s all.”
+
+Bainbridge raised his eyebrows, and let his gaze wander leisurely from
+the man’s head to his heels with an expression which brought an added
+touch of color to the already flushed cheeks.
+
+“Indeed!” he drawled. “Who are you?”
+
+“Who be I?” retorted the other angrily. “Humph! I don’t see that it
+makes no difference, but my name’s Joyce--John Joyce. An’ I ain’t the
+kind as backs down an’ takes water, believe me!”
+
+A singularly irritating smile curved the corners of Bob’s lips. His
+unruffled composure served, as he hoped it might, to increase the rage
+of Mr. Joyce.
+
+“Do you realize that you’re obstructing navigation?” he inquired
+suavely.
+
+“I don’t admit it,” snapped Joyce. “There’s plenty of room for your
+drive to git past if you had a gang that knew their business, instead of
+a lot o’ greenhorns.”
+
+“I dare say you could give us all points,” Bainbridge murmured smoothly,
+with just the right inflection of sarcasm to sting. It had suddenly
+occurred to him that the fellow’s object was to make him lose his
+temper, and thus precipitate a clash, during which almost anything might
+be accomplished. Not only did he refuse to let go his grip, but he did
+his very best to goad Joyce himself into flaming out, and possibly
+betraying a few secrets.
+
+“That’s hardly the question, though,” he went on swiftly. “Strikes me
+you’ve been rather premature in running out the boom. Your mill isn’t
+operating, and I have yet to see a single log coming downstream except
+our own.”
+
+“Never you mind that,” retorted Joyce hotly. “Do you think a man’s going
+to wait till his timber comes in sight afore makin’ arrangements to take
+care of it? You can’t come over me with no soft talk like that. The
+boom’s there, an’ there it stays. Half the river’s clear for you to use,
+an’ that’s all you gets.”
+
+“Hum! That’s your last word, is it?” inquired Bainbridge quietly. “You
+even refuse to let us swing the boom around so we can break our jam?”
+
+“I do!” replied the red-haired individual emphatically. “The first man
+that tries to monkey with my property will wish he hadn’t, that’s all I
+got to say.”
+
+He raised his automatic significantly, but Bob was not even looking at
+him. The young man’s gaze had swept out to the face of the jam, and in
+an incredibly short space an accurate picture of its appearance had been
+photographed on his brain. Still without giving Joyce the satisfaction
+of a glance, he turned away, motioning Peters to accompany him.
+
+“A put-up job, of course,” he said tersely, when they were through the
+circle of his own men. “Same gang who bought Schaeffer.”
+
+The jam boss nodded in a troubled way. ���I’m afraid they’ve got us bad,
+too. It’s goin’ to take one long time pickin’ that jam apart, but I
+can’t see anythin’ else to do. I spose I’d better start ’em at it right
+away, sir.”
+
+“Not at all,” retorted Bob swiftly. “Do nothing of the kind. Let ’em
+stay just where they are, Jerry!”
+
+At the sound of his imperative undertone Calker hustled up. There was a
+brief interchange of words between the trio, during which the faces of
+both lumberjacks brightened--amazingly. Then all three disappeared into
+the bushes a little way upstream, from which they did not emerge for a
+considerable time.
+
+When they finally appeared, Bainbridge held by his side a shapeless
+package of considerable size. Had not Peters and Calker walked so close
+beside him as he bent his way leisurely toward the crowd about the jam,
+it would probably have been noticed that this package was made up of a
+dozen or more sticks of giant powder fastened securely together, and
+depending from a sling of stout manila rope.
+
+The line of rivermen had turned, and were watching his approach with
+interested curiosity, but Joyce and his gang could see nothing. Reaching
+the men, Bob paused, struck a match, and carefully lighted the end of a
+protruding fuse. As it sputtered up he gave a short, sharp word of
+command, the line of men opened instantly to let him through, and a
+second later he stood not a dozen paces from Joyce, deliberately
+swinging the deadly package round and round his head.
+
+For a second there was a breathless hush. Then the red-haired man leaped
+forward.
+
+“Stop!” he roared. “You young whelp, if you----”
+
+He broke off with a gurgling sound, and the color left his face. With a
+final swing, Bob loosened his hold on the bundle, which curved in a
+perfect arc over the rear of the jam, over the jagged crest, and dropped
+swiftly out of sight amid the massive timbers upended in confusion along
+the face and close to the spot where protruded the freshly driven spiles
+which had caused all the trouble.
+
+An instant later the whole throng of men hustled frantically for cover.
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE POWER BEHIND IT ALL
+
+In less than sixty seconds--so close had been Bob’s calculations--came a
+detonation which shook the earth, making several of the running men
+stagger and lose their stride. Up spurted a great mass of water,
+carrying with it massive logs leaping like agonized things alive. They
+fell back again, followed by a shower of débris mingled with fine spray,
+which the wind sifted down on the heads of the ducking, dodging men.
+
+From his place behind a stump Bainbridge rose swiftly, shielding his
+face with one crooked arm from the rain of chips and splinters and bits
+of bark, and stared eagerly toward the jam. It took but a moment to see
+that the spiles had disappeared, and the boom was shattered. Moreover,
+the key logs of the jam were so loosened that the whole drive was again
+on its way downstream. Bob turned to Peters with a gesture of
+satisfaction.
+
+“She’s off, Jack,” he said. “Get a wiggle on, now, and rush her along.
+The water’s dropping every minute, and we’ve got a mean stretch to cover
+before we strike the Penobscot. I’ll go back and hustle the rear
+along----”
+
+He stopped abruptly, and whirled around as a voice, shrill and trembling
+with passion, was raised behind him.
+
+“You’ll pay for that, you meddlin’ pup! I’ll teach you to go blowin’ up
+folks’ property, an’ mighty near committin’ murder! I’ll show you you
+can’t play tricks on John Joyce an’ get away with it. That game might
+work with some, but it won’t----”
+
+Things happened so swiftly after that that even the men standing around
+were quite unable to understand exactly what was doing, and which of the
+two was really the one who started the trouble.
+
+The instant Bob turned he saw that Joyce was either beside himself with
+rage, or giving a most astonishingly good imitation of that condition.
+His face was purple, with veins standing out on his forehead like cords.
+His eyes glared with that combination of rage and hate which a badly
+frightened man almost invariably feels for the cause of his mental
+disturbance. The automatic was leveled in his hand, and one finger
+trembled on the trigger.
+
+For a single instant Bainbridge stood rigid, every muscle suddenly
+tensing. Perhaps he read a hint of Joyce’s purpose in the fellow’s eye;
+perhaps it was simply intuition which made him guess what was coming. At
+all events, suddenly, and without warning, he launched his lithe body
+through the air exactly as in the manner of the old forbidden flying
+tackle.
+
+His shoulder struck Joyce’s knees, and the wicked, snapping shot of the
+revolver rang out at precisely the same moment. There was a yell of
+fury, followed by a crash. Then almost oppressive silence.
+
+Bob was on his feet like a cat, fingers gripping the automatic he had
+snatched from the owner’s nerveless hand. His jaw was hard, and there
+was a glint of more than anger in the eyes he bent upon Joyce’s
+supporters hurrying up to the aid of their chief.
+
+“Hands up!” he cried out harshly, “Quick!”
+
+He did not have to speak twice. There was something in his voice,
+coupled with an emphatic gesture with the automatic, which made those
+six men, big and powerful as they were, obey him with remarkable
+unanimity.
+
+“Take their guns, Jack,” continued Bainbridge, in that same commanding
+voice.
+
+Peters stepped forward to obey. The first man drew back instinctively,
+and started to pull down the hand which held a revolver. Without an
+instant’s hesitation Bob fired. The bullet struck the upraised weapon on
+its blued-steel barrel, wringing a cry of surprise and pain from the
+fellow’s lips as he dropped the gun.
+
+There was no more trouble after that, Peters collected four revolvers
+and two Remingtons. Then he glanced questioningly at Bainbridge.
+
+“Throw ’em in the river,” the latter commander curtly. “’Way out in the
+middle, where they can’t be recovered.”
+
+The riverman walked a few steps toward the bank; then, pausing, he
+glanced back at the straight young figure standing behind him.
+
+“They’re mighty good guns,” he said hesitatingly. “Seems a shame to
+throw ’em away like this.”
+
+Bainbridge returned briefly: “I’m simply pulling the stings of this
+gang.”
+
+He watched his man fling the weapons, one after another, into the
+stream, and then, sending the automatic splashing after the others, he
+turned suddenly back to the six humiliated individuals before him.
+
+“Go!” he commanded, with a momentary flare of passion. “Beat it, and
+don’t let me set eyes on you again--understand? I won’t be so easy on
+you the next time. Here, take that scum with you. He’s only stunned.”
+
+He waited, staring from under lowered lids, until the gang had
+disappeared in the bushes, half dragging, half carrying their stunned
+leader with them. Then, with a long sigh, he turned slowly and smiled at
+Peters.
+
+“All right, Jack,” he said quietly. “I don’t think we’ll have any more
+trouble here. Just hustle all you can to make up for this delay.”
+
+Peters grinned, and snapped out some orders to the men which sent them
+flying along the bank and even out on the stream over the tumbling logs.
+But as they went they cast glances of open, unadulterated admiration at
+the young man coolly brushing a bit of mud from one shoulder, and their
+comments to each other left no trace of doubt of their thorough approval
+of everything he had said and done.
+
+Bob heard some of them, and when the men had gone on he smiled a bit. To
+get that drive down successfully he knew he must have the men with him.
+He knew also that deliberate planning could not have accomplished that
+result half so well as this encounter with the tools of the Lumber
+Trust. The whole affair had proved a great piece of luck for him,
+thought the young lumberman. His meditation was broken in upon by the
+sound of a strange voice.
+
+“I had no idea lumbering was such a strenuous occupation.”
+
+A moment later Bainbridge was looking into a pair of pleasant, friendly
+eyes set in the handsome face of a man of about fifty. He was roughly
+dressed in well-worn, but finely made fishing clothes, and carried a
+good trout rod in one hand. There was, too, about the stranger an air of
+forceful capability which attracted the younger man.
+
+“It’s not usually quite so full of incident,” said Bob; “but I don’t
+believe you’d ever find it exactly tame.”
+
+The stranger smiled, and made a comprehensive gesture with his hands.
+“And this is your idea of incident,” he murmured whimsically. “I should
+call it something decidedly stronger.”
+
+He hesitated for an instant, then moved closer to Bob.
+
+“You’re going downstream, aren’t you? Do you mind if I walk along with
+you? My camp’s down that way.”
+
+Bainbridge acquiesced readily. There was something very taking about the
+stranger, and within ten minutes he found himself chatting as if to an
+old friend. His companion turned out to be Wolcott Sears, of Boston, on
+a two weeks’ trip in the Maine woods. The name was only vaguely
+familiar, but Bob felt sure from his manner that he was a man of
+affairs. He was tremendously interested in hearing all about the
+peculiar conditions of this particular drive, and before Bainbridge
+realized it he had given a brief narrative of his fight with the Lumber
+Trust and the events which had grown out of it.
+
+“You interest me extraordinarily, Mr. Bainbridge,” the older man said,
+in his crisp, decisive way, when at last they paused at the point
+several miles below the scene of the last jam, where Sears had to branch
+off to reach his camp. “Things of this sort always do, for it’s only
+those one has to struggle for which are really worth while. You’ve
+certainly had to fight hard in this case, but you’ve practically won
+out, haven’t you? After this last fracas I shouldn’t suppose there’d be
+much chance for further interference.”
+
+Bob shrugged his shoulders and smiled a little. “You sadly underestimate
+the power of the trust, Mr. Sears. I shan’t be beyond the chance of
+interference until the drive is safe in our mill booms at Lancaster, and
+even then it wouldn’t surprise me if they’d try to work some dirty
+trick.”
+
+Sears frowned indignantly; then his face brightened.
+
+“In spite of everything I think I should bet on you.” he chuckled.
+“There’s a certain vigor in your method of dealing with these people
+which makes for success. I really believe you’ll win, Mr. Bainbridge,
+and I surely hope so. It has been a great pleasure to meet you, and I
+trust one to be repeated. I shall be hereabouts for some time yet, and
+may run across you before I leave.”
+
+Bob warmly reciprocated his feeling, and, after a hearty handshake,
+turned south along the river, while Sears disappeared in the undergrowth
+to the westward.
+
+“Fine man,” commented the younger man aloud. “Hope I do run into him
+again. Meanwhile, however, the rear isn’t coming along half quick
+enough, and I haven’t seen a darn thing all afternoon of the wangan. I
+hope nothing’s happened to it and the grub. That would be one awful
+blow!”
+
+It was one that was spared him. Within half an hour the clumsy scow hove
+in sight. It tied up to the bank a little later, and before dark
+preparations for supper were going on merrily.
+
+Bob did not get in till later. Assured that all was well with the cook
+and his staff, he went on downstream to see how Peters and his gang were
+progressing. On his return he discovered a stranger warming himself by
+the drying fire. He looked like an old-time woodsman, and the instant
+Bainbridge appeared he was on his feet, extracting an envelope from the
+interior of his hat.
+
+“From Mr. Tweedy, sir.”
+
+The young lumberman ripped it open without a premonition of the blow in
+store for him. It was natural for Tweedy to write. He would be reporting
+his success in the matter of credit, of course, and probably gloating
+over the amount of manufactured lumber he had sold in so short a time.
+Bainbridge noted that it had been written in the Bangor office the night
+before. Then, settling himself by the fire, he proceeded to read:
+
+  Dear Bobby: It’s all up with us, boy. We’re done, and we may as well
+  admit it first as last and make what terms we can with the gang. I
+  can’t get credit anywhere. Crane’s been ahead of me and spilled the
+  beans each time. What’s more, Gastich absolutely refuses to renew that
+  note. Says he must have the cash for some stocks he’s carrying, and
+  all that; but you know what it means. It’s due in less than a week,
+  and I can’t for the life of me see an earthly way of scraping the
+  money together. Last of all--and worst of all--I haven’t been able to
+  make a single sale of lumber for the simple reason that the trust has
+  cut prices below cost and has taken every customer from us. If I cut
+  to meet them they go lower. You can see that. They’ve got the stock
+  and the resources. Crane’s set out to ruin us at any cost, and he’s
+  succeeded. It hurts like sin to say it, boy, but there’s nothing left
+  to do but give in and make the best terms we can. Let me hear from you
+  at once. Yours ever, John Tweedy.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. NO QUITTER
+
+The letter dropped into Bob’s lap, and for a long minute he sat staring
+into the yellow, dancing flames. His face was blank, and just a little
+white, for the blow had been a heavy one, and totally unexpected. He
+could not seem to understand it. It was unbelievable that he and Tweedy,
+who had been fair and square in every one of their business dealings,
+could be forced to the wall by such a monster of corruption as Elihu
+Crane.
+
+There must be some mistake. Tweedy must have been thrown into one of his
+unjustifiable panics. That was it, of course.
+
+Bob picked up the letter to read it carefully again.
+
+He perused it to the last word, and then leaned back against the
+sapling, his face drawn and somber. It really did not sound like a
+mistake. It was all clear and logical, and singularly cohesive. It was
+the sort of thing Crane would delight in planning and putting into
+execution--the cutting of prices on a competitor. Tweedy had written
+that if they attempted to cut under the trust’s present rates, there
+would be a further reduction. That was quite true. Bob knew, because he
+had had a vast deal of experience with the trust’s method of doing
+business. They would ruin him, no matter how great the cost, because he
+was dangerous to their continued well-being. With Bainbridge in the
+ring, and fighting vigorously against the graft and wholesale theft of
+timberlands, those juicy melon cuttings which had been so pleasing to
+the stockholders would cease--therefore Bainbridge must go.
+
+Presently Bob’s eyes fell again to the letter, and somehow that single
+sentence seemed to stand out as if written in capitals: “It hurts like
+sin to say it, boy, but there’s nothing left to do but give in and make
+the best terms we can.”
+
+For a second Bob stared, the blood rushing into his face, a crimson
+flood. Make terms with Crane? Go on his knees to that scoundrel, who had
+long ago parted with the last shred of decency and self-respect? Not
+much!
+
+They must have resources enough to meet that note, at least. The trust
+could not keep the price of lumber down indefinitely. They must weather
+the storm in some way. And when this drive was safe at the mills, ready
+to be cut into lumber, they would have the laugh on Elihu Crane.
+
+Oblivious to the men about him, even to the fact that the cook had some
+time ago announced supper, Bainbridge began to search his mind for means
+of staving off the evil day. Most of the stocks and bonds constituting
+his private fortune had been already pledged as collateral for loans to
+the firm. He still had a few thousand dollars’ worth of Steel Preferred
+which could be sold; and there was Pinecrest, the beautiful and costly
+home on the outskirts of Bangor, which had been left him by his father.
+It should not be difficult to raise a mortgage of ten thousand, at
+least, on the place.
+
+“The note’s for ten thousand, so that’s all straightened out,”
+Bainbridge murmured, with a snap of his fingers. “The money from the
+stock can go for current expenses. I’ll fix it up this very night.”
+
+He did. Fortunately Tweedy held his power of attorney with the right to
+sign checks and execute papers of any sort, so it was possible for him
+to put through these deals without his returning to Bangor. That another
+note for nearly as much as the first fell due in little more than a
+fortnight Bainbridge knew quite well. By that time, however, he fully
+intended to have the drive down as far as their mill at Lancaster, fifty
+miles or so above Bangor. And it is always possible to raise money on
+timber, even in the rough.
+
+Of course, if the trust continued their campaign of cutting prices Bob’s
+plans would be materially affected. He could not believe, however, that
+they would do such a thing for any great length of time. A dollar meant
+as much to them as to any one, and even the pleasure of ruining a
+competitor would scarcely compensate for the loss of so much money.
+
+A long letter of instruction and explanation was written to Tweedy that
+night, and despatched the first thing in the morning by the trusty hand
+of Joe Moose, the Indian. That off his mind, Bob returned to his drive
+with renewed vigor, for the necessity for haste was now even greater
+than before. It was a question of getting the logs down in double-quick
+time or being dragged into the bankruptcy court; and that sort of
+notoriety did not appeal in the least to the young man.
+
+It was this feeling of necessity which got Bob up next morning before
+the blackness of the night was more than faintly tinged by streaks of
+pale gray in the east. He wanted to be off and doing; even necessary
+inaction chafed. It seemed an eternity before the men had finished
+breakfast, and were ready for the day’s work. As a matter of fact, they
+took less time than usual, for something of Bainbridge’s intense
+eagerness for speed seemed to have made itself felt.
+
+All morning Bob worked like a Trojan getting the drive out into the
+Katahdin River. He did not storm and swear at his men, as many bosses
+do. Instead he had a way of jollying them along in a manner which might
+sound superficially like fun, but which held more than an undercurrent
+of seriousness. He treated them as human beings, not as if they were
+slaves from whom every last atom of work was to be extracted. And yet,
+when the need arose, he could hand out a rebuke, the caustic sting of
+which was enough to make a man’s hair stand on end. The result was that
+the crew soon admired him, and when they found how urgent was the need
+for haste they fell to with a will, and gave the best that was in them.
+
+Bainbridge was not long in perceiving their attitude, and it gratified
+him intensely. He had never actually had charge of a drive before. He
+knew the theory, of course, but that is very different from the
+practical operation; and the discovery that he could handle a
+rough-and-ready crowd like this in a manner so totally different from
+that generally practiced by bosses of crews gave him no small
+satisfaction.
+
+By dint of constant labor, at which Bob spared neither himself nor his
+men, the drive was successfully swung into the slightly larger river by
+two o’clock. There was no real respite even then. The stream was almost
+as difficult as the Megantic, and constant watchfulness was necessary to
+prevent fresh jams at a number of points. Consequently the men snatched
+a hurried dinner in relays and hustled back to work again.
+
+It was about three, and Bob had just left the spot where only the most
+strenuous personal labor on the part of himself and four river jacks had
+kept the drive from jamming. He was hot and sweaty, and generally weary
+as he continued his way downstream, and his wrath was naturally instant
+when, on suddenly rounding a bend, he came upon Curly Kollock, cool,
+calm, and unruffled, sitting comfortably on a rock, enjoying a
+cigarette.
+
+As the latter saw Bainbridge, he flushed slightly, and half rose from
+the bowlder. Then, with a stubborn twist of his lips, he sank back
+again, pulling hard on the cigarette, and doing his best to look
+unconcerned.
+
+Bob walked straight up to him, and stopped.
+
+“Well,” he said bitingly, “I’m sorry you’ve lost the use of your feet
+and hands. Is it paralysis?”
+
+Kollock’s flush deepened, and he mumbled something inane about taking a
+smoke. He found that he had arisen, apparently without volition, and was
+standing before the other man, who stared at him a long half minute.
+
+“This is no rest cure,” said Bob at length. “You’re paid for helping the
+drive along. I don’t want any loafers in this gang. Understand? Now, get
+down to the head of the drive--and do something!”
+
+Kollock’s face was flaming, and his eyes gleamed angrily. “I don’t take
+that line of talk from anybody!” he growled, clenching his fists
+threateningly. “I’ll----”
+
+“You’ll do what I said, and do it quick!” Bainbridge’s voice was not
+raised above a conversational pitch, but there was a ring in it which
+seemed to take the fight and bluster out of the big riverman with the
+effectiveness of a keen knife thrust into an inflated bladder. For a
+second he stood in awkward silence, swallowing hard in his
+embarrassment. Then he raised his head again.
+
+“I don’t need your job,” he said, in a poor imitation of devil-may-care
+defiance. “I’ll get my time, and----”
+
+Bainbridge cut him short. “You’ll get down to the drive and _work_. Beat
+it now--quick!”
+
+Without another protesting word, Kollock turned meekly and obeyed.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. THE TEST
+
+Before he had taken a dozen steps, Kollock was furious with himself, and
+by the time Bainbridge was out of sight the wrath of the riverman had
+risen to a white heat.
+
+From the first he had tried to dislike Bainbridge. Pete Schaeffer had
+been his friend, and after he had been whipped Curly made up his mind
+that there could be no getting along in a crew bossed by the victor.
+Then came that brief but pointed interview with Bob which affected him
+so oddly. He had never before had anybody tell him that he was to be
+trusted; most bosses had been emphatic in saying the opposite thing. Or,
+if they kept silent, they showed in a dozen obvious ways that they
+considered him in the same class with his notorious brother.
+
+Then there was the incident of the day before. Curly could not help
+admiring the manner in which Bainbridge had handled the crowd that was
+trying to hold up the drive. It was exactly the sort of thing he would
+like to have done himself, and his heart warmed toward the man with the
+courage and ability to act in that fashion. Moreover, Jack Joyce was an
+old enemy of his, and the sight of the fellow’s humiliation had inclined
+the riverman even more strongly toward the man who had brought it about.
+
+But that was over now, he told himself furiously as he stamped along the
+stream, hands clenched and face set in a black scowl. He hated
+Bainbridge! The man had no right to jump on him that way. How did he
+know what had been the cause of Kollock’s behavior? He had asked no
+questions, given Curly no chance to explain even had the latter been
+inclined to lower himself to that extent. He had taken it for granted
+that the river jack was loafing in spite of the fact that record as a
+worker was equal to that of the best.
+
+This was where the sting lay. Kollock was aggrieved and disgruntled
+because of what was, to him, a very good reason. There had been a
+definite object in his pause by that stone. The night before he had
+received a brief note from Bill, in which he was urged to “make use of
+any chance you git to do--you know what.”
+
+Curly did know “what” very well. It meant that he was to thwart and
+delay the progress of the drive by any means in his power. _Any_ means!
+The simplest, of course, was to cause some to happen to Bainbridge
+himself. Bill had not hesitated to suggest several ways by which this
+happy end could be reached. None of them appealed particularly to Curly.
+He was not overscrupulous, but he disliked doing up a man in cold blood
+without giving him even a ghost of a show. Still, Bill had done him good
+turns more than once when he was out of work; and, last but not least,
+there was the financial side of the affair. Curly had never been told
+who or what was back of these attacks on the independent lumber company,
+but he knew there was plenty of money in it.
+
+All this he had been thinking over as he sat smoking that cigarette. In
+the end he decided to have nothing to do with it. Bainbridge had trusted
+him and played square. For that reason he would be equally square and
+aboveboard, and let this dirty work alone.
+
+That was what he _had_ decided, but now----
+
+He gritted his teeth, glared fiercely around, and came to an abrupt
+stop. Every instinct of the riverman was aroused. On his left the river
+dropped over short falls into a narrow gorge. It was a spot where things
+were likely to happen at any time, and where a man or two should have
+been stationed continually. Curly knew, in fact, that there had been men
+here all morning. They had been called away for some purpose, leaving
+the little falls unguarded. And as he stood there his practiced eyes
+told him that he was beholding the very start of a jam.
+
+A log, plunging over the falls, upended. Another was thrust under it. A
+third and fourth, coming down together, caught on the obstruction, all
+being held by some stones rising midstream. Before the current could
+tear them loose several more timbers were forced against the mass which
+was piling up so swiftly, bridging to the opposite shore.
+
+To carry out that angry resolve of a minute or two ago, Curly should
+have rolled himself another cigarette, and watched the growing damage
+with a sardonic smile. He did nothing of the sort. For a flash he had
+forgotten his grievance, and was a “river hog,” pure and simple. The
+stoppage must be broken before it reached the proportions of a real jam.
+There was no one else to do it, and so he leaped to the task without a
+second’s pause for thought.
+
+Upstream he ran a few feet, his eyes fixed on the surface of the river
+above the falls. Then he saw what he wanted. An instant later, using his
+peavey much as a pole vaulter does his pole, he leaped straight out over
+the water, landed squarely on a big log, and was carried down to the
+falls--and over them.
+
+He took the drop easily, riding the log with that perfect balance which
+is second nature to the seasoned riverman. When the timber bumped
+against the rapidly forming jam, Curly leaped again, thrusting the log
+down as he did so, and landed on the solid barrier. Scrambling lightly
+over to the face of this, he thrust deftly with his peavey into the
+mass, and began to work desperately to loosen the key log--that first
+upended stick of pine which had started the whole trouble, and which
+must be started before the rest of the barrier would give.
+
+He got a good hold on it, but the thing defied his efforts to tear it
+loose. It was wedged too tightly for even his great strength, and,
+though he seemed to feel it move slightly, he strained his muscles to
+the utmost in vain to accomplish anything further. Presently he
+realized, with a thrill, that the jam was piling up behind him faster
+and faster. He ceased his efforts, and clamping the peavey on timber
+above the key log, pried it free, and sent it bobbing downstream.
+Another followed, and another still. Sweat poured in streams from him,
+trickling blindingly into his eyes, but he did not stop to wipe it away.
+There was no time. He must go on doing his best till help came, or
+else----
+
+A faint jar shook the jam. A second later Curly felt a hand lightly
+touch his shoulder. A familiar voice sounded in his ear:
+
+“Good work, son! Where’s that trouble maker? Oh, I see. Let me drop down
+to that ledge, where I can get a good hold. That’s the idea. Now grip
+her above me. Fine! Ready, now? Yank away!”
+
+It was Bainbridge--swift, agile, incredibly fresh considering what he
+had accomplished that day. For a moment or two Curly did not realize
+that this was the man he hated. He simply felt an overwhelming
+thankfulness that some one had come at last, and obeyed orders
+mechanically and without question.
+
+But as his peavey gripped the end of that troublesome log, there
+suddenly flamed into Curly’s mind--temptation. Bainbridge stood below
+him, perched perilously on the very face of the jam. A little
+thrust--the tiniest movement of the riverman’s arm--would send him
+plunging into the stream, while another movement would suffice to drop
+one of the looser logs upon him. There were no witnesses; the whole
+affair would pass as an unfortunate accident. A chance like this, so
+easy, so absolutely safe, would never come again.
+
+“Now!” broke in the crisp voice of the lumberman. “Hard over, boy.
+Toward me--all you know how!”
+
+Curly’s muscles strained as he threw every ounce of strength into the
+pull. The key log creaked and groaned as if agony but was thrust
+gradually forward. Curly felt it moving faster and faster, and
+instinctively he prepared for that backward leap which would carry him
+out of reach of the treacherous avalanche of falling logs.
+
+A second later his peavey was torn from his hands by the sudden collapse
+of half the face of the jam. The logs at his side vanished in the
+unexpected rush, but that on which he stood remained firm for a precious
+moment. Below him he saw Bainbridge whirl like a cat and grasp for
+something solid. Instantly he bent over, reaching out both callous,
+muscular hands, and as swiftly Bob gripped them. There was a heave, an
+upward scramble, another crash as the remainder of the jam disappeared
+into the foaming water. But the two men had leaped in time, and a moment
+later they were standing together on the bank.
+
+“Thank you--Curly,” Bainbridge said in a level voice. “That was
+touch-and-go for a minute.”
+
+That was all, but somehow Curly knew that what he had done was
+understood and appreciated. In the stress of the peril which the two had
+shared shoulder to shoulder like common brother river hogs, Kollock’s
+anger and hate had vanished utterly. He no longer desired revenge. His
+attitude of a scant half hour before seemed small and mean and petty. He
+had saved the life of the man his brother wanted out of the way, and,
+given the opportunity, he would do it as promptly again.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE LIMIT
+
+Curly Kollock’s interest and liking for his boss grew stronger day after
+day. There was something about Bob Bainbridge which stirred the finer
+qualities in his nature, and brought twinges of shame to the young
+riverman whenever he thought how near he had come to throwing his lot
+with his brother. If Bill ever showed up he resolved to tell him just
+what he thought of him, too. But in the meantime, not being much of a
+penman, he made no effort to answer the letter. It was sufficient that
+he considered himself cut loose from the whole miserable bunch. If they
+were expecting aid from him in their plotting they were doomed to
+disappointment.
+
+More and more often as they descended the Katahdin River, the boy was
+stirred to anger at the constant succession of moves made by that gang
+of crooks against the man who fought them practically alone and
+singlehanded.
+
+Along the river were several dams placed for the purpose of regulating
+the head of water and facilitating the process of driving. They belonged
+to the trust, but their owners were bound at all times to allow a normal
+head of water when it was called for. Instead of doing this now, they
+played all sorts of tricks on Bainbridge. When he particularly needed
+plenty of water to float his drive past a shallow or narrow spot, the
+gates were arbitrarily shut down, and the drive hung up. Again, at one
+point where the middle part of the drive had jammed and the crew were
+occupied in picking it instead of using dynamite, the gates which Bob
+had personally closed were raised without warning, letting down a flood
+of water which struck the jam with terrific force. It gave instantly,
+carrying three men with it. Two managed to escape by a miracle, and were
+dragged ashore with broken limbs; the other was crushed and drowned.
+
+After that Bainbridge placed guards at the various dams with
+instructions to shoot any one who attempted to interfere with them. This
+resulted in a terrific outcry on the part of Crane’s underlings, an
+appeal to the law, injunctions, and all that sort of thing. To which
+Bainbridge paid no attention whatever. He went on his way calmly,
+knowing well that they could not stop him in this manner, and willing to
+put up with the inconvenience that would follow when it was all over and
+he had returned to civilization.
+
+Mr. Wolcott Sears continued his fishing trip along the route the
+lumbermen were following, and began frequently to appear in camp for an
+evening pipe with Bainbridge. One evening they had a private conference,
+which lasted until the small hours, and the Boston capitalist finally
+departed, leaving Bainbridge apparently much gratified.
+
+The crew was with Bob to a man. By this time they had gathered an
+inkling of the plot against the firm, and of the stakes involved. Men
+had strayed into camp telling of the extraordinary reductions made by
+the trust in the price of manufactured lumber. Large sales had resulted
+to various parties, report said, thus preventing Bainbridge & Tweedy, as
+well as several other small independents, from disposing of a single
+plank.
+
+The lumberjacks were not slow in putting two and two together. They
+remembered rumors current in the big woods for many months of the fight
+which had started between the trust and this man who was their boss. It
+was a fight to the finish, people said, in which one side or the other
+must go under, From all appearances it looked to these earnest,
+simple-minded woodsmen as if Bainbridge would be vanquished unless he
+could get that drive safely into the mill booms; and to that end they
+strained every nerve. They toiled from dawn to dark, staggering into
+camp each night so utterly weary that they sometimes fell asleep with
+their supper half eaten before them; only to be up before daybreak to do
+it all over again.
+
+It was a period of stress and strain, but it ended at last when the
+drive was ushered into the Penobscot, to be seized by the strong current
+and urged on toward the mills at Lancaster, that goal which had seemed a
+little while ago so unattainable, yet which was now so near.
+
+That very afternoon was perpetrated the crowning outrage. Bainbridge was
+shot at from the bushes--shot at deliberately with an intent to kill
+which was defeated only by the miracle of chance which made him bend
+over to tighten a shoe lace at the precise moment of firing.
+
+Wild with fury, the men who were present dashed in pursuit of the
+would-be assassins, but to no purpose. They were in the land of
+civilization now, where there were motor cars. By the time the crowd of
+rivermen had surged up the bank and plunged through the undergrowth, the
+rascally tools of the trust were well away, leaving their pursuers to
+rage impotently that there was not a gun in the party with which the
+tires could be punctured and the car stopped.
+
+The most angry of them all was Curly Kollock. He had double cause for
+wrath, having received that morning a letter from the very town of
+Lancaster toward which they were striving so hard to push the drive.
+Brief it was, and to the point. He had played the traitor, Bill wrote
+scathingly. There was only one way by which he could rid himself of the
+stigma, and return to the good graces of the gang. He must come at once
+to a certain house on the outskirts of the town, prepared to place
+himself absolutely in his brother’s hands.
+
+When the younger Kollock read those lines he swore roundly. That even
+Bill should dare write in such a manner made him rage. He was no man’s
+slave, and there were bounds beyond which even a brother could step. He
+was on the point of asking for time off to come to a definite, final
+settlement with the crowd when the attempted shooting occurred. At first
+this cowardly deed only added to his rage, but swiftly in its wake came
+unwonted gravity.
+
+Disagreeable, even serious, as all those other persecutions had been,
+not one of them held the weight of this last culminating effort to put
+Bob Bainbridge out of the running. That Bill was mixed up in it Curly
+had no doubt, and the realization frightened him. He had always looked
+up to his older brother with admiration and a little awe, and he could
+not bear now to think of him mixed up in anything so contemptible. There
+was the danger involved, too, and altogether the youngster felt as if he
+must see Bill at once and try to make him cut the gang and get away. His
+efforts might have no effect, but there was at least a chance.
+
+That night--or rather early in the morning, while it was still pitch
+black--he slipped quietly out of camp without a word to any one. He
+reached Lancaster at four in the afternoon, having made most of the
+journey in a scow doing about six miles an hour. Going at once to the
+address given in the letter, he found that his brother had gone out not
+fifteen minutes before.
+
+“Mebbe if you step in an’ wait he’ll be back soon,” suggested the
+slatternly woman who kept the house.
+
+Curly was shown to a room on the second floor back, where he recognized
+a number of Bill’s belongings scattered about in the usual disorder.
+Perhaps it was the sight of them which aroused in the young fellow an
+increasing doubt of his ability to do what he came for. Would this man,
+who had never been in the habit of taking any one’s advice, listen to
+him? He wondered, and then, unable to remain still, arose and paced the
+floor anxiously.
+
+Presently he dropped in a chair before a rough deal table, on top of
+which was tacked a large sheet of blotting paper. A corner of white
+"You don't happen to have lost one of your crew, tryin' to desert by
+swimmin', sir?"
+
+"Have you picked him up?  What's his name, does he say?"
+
+"It's Smith, sir."
+
+"That's the man," said Sant.  "I want him badly."
+
+But Smith cried out:
+
+"This is kidnappin', Mr. Sant.  I refuse to go."
+
+"Oh, Smith," said Sant, "I'll take all the chances of it's bein'
+anythin' you like.  Throw them a rope."
+
+And the _Triumphants_ towed alongside.
+
+"Up you go," said Benson.
+
+"I won't," said Smith.
+
+"Won't you?" asked Benson.  "We'll see about that.  Hook on there,
+Billings."
+
+And the next moment Smith was jammed in a running bowline round his
+waist.
+
+"Sway him up," said Benson; and the crew of the _Harvester_ hoisted
+the notorious robber with about the only feelings of pleasure they
+were likely to know till they reached New York.  And the
+_Triumphants_ pushed off as they heard the mate address Mr. Smith in
+language which did his reputation and the reputation of the ship most
+ample justice.
+
+"There's talk and there's a fore-topsail-yard-ahoy voice for you,"
+said Benson.  "Oh, Mr. Smith will be looked after, he will.  Now,
+chaps, pull for it, or the admiral will be waitin', and if that
+'appens, 'twill be 'Stand from under.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE POLICY OF THE _POTLUCK_.
+
+Concerning the permanent and immutable characteristics of ships, the
+unhappy man who has never had his limited range of vision broadened
+by a trip in a sailing ship must of necessity know little.  He
+probably falls into the fallacy, common even among those who follow
+the sea, that a partial or entire clearance of her "crowd" will quite
+alter her nature; whereas sailors being sailors--that is, people of
+certain fairly definite attributes--any given environment makes them
+much the same as those who preceded them.
+
+But entire changes in the _personnel_ of a vessel rarely take place.
+The officers change, but the crew remains: the crew goes, but
+officers stay.  Or more frequently some few men are favourites of one
+or two of the officers, and they mingle with the new crew like yeast,
+till the ancient fermentation is visible once more.
+
+Ships (to speak thus of their companies) talk of the same subjects
+over a million miles of changing seas: they have a permanent stock of
+subjects.  These include all which are perennially of interest to
+seafaring men, such as homes _versus_ boarding-houses, but they
+include also something more individual, something more intimately
+connected with the essence of that particular vessel.  And the one
+unending topic of interest on board the _Potluck_ was foreign
+politics.
+
+How this came about no one knew, though many theories were set afloat
+and sunk again every Sunday afternoon.  Some said that the first
+captain of the _Potluck_ was called Palmerstone, and that he
+introduced the subject of England _versus_ the world as soon as he
+came on board.  Others swore that they had been told by a clerk in
+the employ of the firm that there had been a discussion over her very
+keel concerning the introduction into her frame of foreign oaks.
+
+"This was the way of it," said Jack Hart, who was the chief upholder
+of this particular theory, and the son of a little shipbuilder--"the
+lot that built her at Liverpool was the mixedest crowd of forsaken
+cranks as ever handled timber.  So the clerk said.  And one had a
+hankerin' for teak and another for hoak (with odd leanin's now and
+agin for Hafrican and Portugee and French hoak), and another he said
+'Cuban Sabicu,' and another's word was 'Hackmatack' and 'chestnut'
+hevery time.  So they shoved in bits here and bits there till she was
+a reg'lar junk-shop o' samples.  And that's the reason she's a
+foreign talking argument ship.  And a mighty good reason too."
+
+The crowd listened in silence.
+
+"If you knew as much about arguin' as you know (_seemin'ly_) about
+timbers as no man ever heerd of, your argument might stand," said
+Mackenzie, a withered old foc'sle man.  "But it ain't to reason as
+the natur' of the woods in a ship should make us talk this way or
+that.  If so be a ship was built o' teak, d'ye think we'd talk the
+'jildy jow,' you black 'son of a gun' lingo?"
+
+Hart shook his head.
+
+"No ship ain't never built all of teak as I ever heerd of, and so
+your eye's out, Mac.  But a man with 'arf an eye could see the
+knowledge of her bein' so built might lead right hup to talk about
+the stren'ths of the countries as well of the vally of their timbers."
+
+"So they might," said the almost convinced crowd.  "Now Jack Hart 'as
+the gift, so to speak, of seein' through things."
+
+"And once started, who'd stop it?" asked Jack triumphantly.  "I
+knowed a ship as 'ad fresh crowd after fresh crowd in her, but she
+for ever 'ad a black cat aboard.  And they talked 'cat' to make you
+sick.  And I knowed another as 'ad from launch to her hultimate
+pilin' up in the Bermudas the fashion of calling the skipper the
+'Guffin.'  And hevery skipper was the 'Guffin,' new and old, go or
+stay.  But when we broke hoff to hargue, why, we was talkin' about
+them French jossers and whether Sallis-bury was a-goin' to let 'em
+chip into our game and straddle the Nile."
+
+"That's so," said the crowd, and the House was rough.
+
+Meanwhile, the skipper, or "old man" (who henceforward, by the way,
+was called the "Guffin"), and his two mates were discussing the
+latest aspect of world politics, as they drank whiskey and water.
+
+"What's wrong with Salisbury," said the Guffin, who was as stout as a
+barrel and as sturdy, "is, that he ain't got a backbone.  He just
+lets 'em blow him about like so much paper.  What he wants is
+stiffenin': he's like a sprung spar.  That's what he's like."
+
+The mate, a tough-looking dog with hair like anæmic tussac grass in
+patches on his face, shook his head.
+
+"I've a greater opinion of him, captain, than you have.  All his
+double shuffle is cunning.  It's getting back so's to lead them
+French on.  Mark me, he'll play them yet a fair knock-out."
+
+The Guffin sneered.
+
+"He may have cunnin', Lampert, but he ain't no real tact.  Now,
+diplomatic tact, I take it, is not givin' way into the gutter, but
+just showin' as you're a nice pleasant-spoken chap as don't mean to
+be put on.  It's my good opinion as these foreigners don't yearn to
+fight us.  And men like you and me, Lampert, gets to learn the way of
+handlin' foreigners.  Who has so much experience with 'em as them in
+command of English ships?"
+
+"That's so," said the second mate, who had been listening.  "Now last
+v'y'ge in the _Battleaxe_, there was a Dago in my watch as come from
+the betwixt and between land where Spain jines France.  And he was
+the Dagoest Dago I ever sailed with.  But I knew the breed, and the
+first time he opens his garlicky mouth I hauled off and hit him.  And
+then I took his knife away and snapped the point off.  And I says to
+him, 'Now, you black beggar, every time at muster you'll show me that
+knife, and there'll be peace in the land.'  And he done so, and there
+was peace."
+
+The captain (or "Guffin") smote his thigh.
+
+"You're right, Simcox, you're right, and if Salisbury was to take a
+leaf out of your log-book in respects of handlin' Dagoes, 'twould be
+better for all concerned.  But no, not him.  He goes on seein' them
+French make a fleet and he lets 'em!  He actually sees 'em with their
+fleet sharpenin' on the grindstone and never says from the poop,
+'Chuck that overboard, you swine, or I'll come and 'andle you so's
+you'll be glad to die.'"
+
+The second mate was much gratified, as was obvious by his standing
+first on one foot and then on another.  But Lampert was not so
+pleased.
+
+"Why, you talk--you, captain and you, Simcox--as if they had a fleet.
+Why, it's my opinion--and experts say 'ditto' to me there--that a
+string o' band-boxes with crackers in 'em, and all on a mud-flat,
+would do as much harm as the French fleet--unless they blows up when
+we takes 'em."
+
+The Guffin shook his head.
+
+"Well, you know, Lampert, as I never 'ad no opinion of their fleet.
+But that ain't the question.  Salisbury may have 'is reasons for not
+takin' it away, though I fails to see 'em; but the real question is,
+why we don't have a man with guts and go in command.  It's my firm
+belief as there's many a merchant captain as could work the
+diplomatic game to better hadvantage.  Look at the experience we has,
+dealing with owners contrary as hell, and with consignees and with
+'arbour-masters and pilots.  Where Salisbury is wrong, is in his not
+goin' about and freshin' up his mind.  And he works by rule o' thumb
+and dead reckoning.  It ain't no wonder we can see where's his eye's
+out."
+
+"It ain't," said the compliant Simcox.
+
+"Well," sighed Lampert, "I owns freely as I don't feel that sure I'd
+like to run his show."
+
+The Guffin laughed.
+
+"But you ain't 'ad my experience yet, Lampert.  Now, I'd hundertake
+to come right down into the harena, and make them French and Germans
+sit up like monkeys on a horgan while I played the tune."
+
+"I believe you," said Simcox, rubbing his hard hands.
+
+"Look at the difficulties we 'as to contend with," said the skipper,
+with a rapidly thickening utterance and an increasing loss of
+aspirates--"look at the vig'lance we 'as to use.  Rocks _and_ shoals
+_and_ hother ships.  It's 'igh education to be a master-mariner, and
+the Board of Trade knows it--knows it well.  This 'ere crowd's all
+English except that one Dutchman, but if so be we'd English and
+Dagoes, and Dutchmen and Calashees, I'd 'ave showed you and Salisbury
+'ow to 'andle mixed sweets.  Vig'lance, difficulties, bright
+look-out, and the rule o' the road.  And look at the chart!  That's
+me!"
+
+And very shortly afterwards the triple conversation ceased, for the
+captain lay snoring in his cabin.
+
+The _Potluck_ was a barque of eleven hundred tons' register, and was
+bound for Adelaide, with a general cargo of all mixed things under
+heaven and on earth.  Now she was engaged in running down her
+easting, and, as her skipper believed, was somewhere about Lat. 44°
+30' S., Long. 50° E., and not far off the Crozets.  The westerly
+winds were blowing hard, but had the worst chill of winter off, for
+the month was September.  Nevertheless, as old Jones, the skipper,
+was on a composite track, with a maximum latitude of 45° S., and was
+bound farther south still it might have been to the advantage of all
+concerned if he had drunk less, talked little, and minded his own
+business instead of arguing foreign politics.
+
+But to each man Fate often gives his chance of proving what he boasts
+to be his particular skill in the universe.
+
+When Lampert relieved Simcox at midnight, the weather was thick, and
+neither man's temper was of the sweetest, so they had a bit of a
+breeze.
+
+"What kind of a relief d'ye call this?' growled Simcox.
+
+"I call it a very good relief," replied Lampert, "and a darned sight
+better one than you deserve.  You owe me ten minutes even now."
+
+He looked down the scuttle at the clock.
+
+"Why, you owe me twenty."
+
+Simcox flew out with pretended politeness.
+
+"Oh, make it half an hour!  Don't let's haggle about such a trifle.
+What's it matter if I stand here waiting?  Can't I keep the whole
+bloomin' watch for you?"
+
+"Go to hell," said Lampert sulkily.
+
+And Simcox went below.
+
+"To be a sailor is to be a natural born fool," said Lampert,
+addressing the bitter and unkindly elements at large, "and to be on
+board a ship with such a windy gassing crowd, from the old man down
+to the cook, is very trying.  It's very trying."
+
+The wind took off a little later, but the weather was still thickish.
+
+"It's like lookin' through a haystack," grunted Lampert, "but there,
+bar an island or so there's nothing to speak of in our way.  And if
+the skipper will crack on, and it a week since we saw the sun, it's
+the owners' look out, not mine."
+
+He spoke with a certain bitterness, as though he would really enjoy
+being wrecked, in the trust that the _Potluck_ was not insured, and
+that old Jones would get his certificate cancelled, or at least
+suspended.
+
+"'Twould give the old ass time to study foreign politics," sneered
+Lampert, as it breezed up again.
+
+And five minutes' later, while Lampert was lighting his pipe half-way
+down the cabin stairs, he heard a bellow forward which made him drop
+thoughts of tobacco.
+
+"Breakers ahead!"
+
+The watch came out on deck and ran aft; and were followed by the
+watch below in various articles of attire, not calculated to keep
+them very warm.
+
+The _Potluck_ had been running with the wind nearly dead aft.
+
+"Starboard, starboard!" roared Lampert.  "Oh, steady; hold her there!"
+
+The vessel ran off to port at a sharp angle to her wake.
+
+"Up here some," yelled the mate, "and set the spanker!  Stand by
+the----  My God!"
+
+And, as old Jones and Simcox came on deck, the _Potluck_ was hard and
+fast ashore.  With one simultaneous crack the three topmasts went
+over the side, and as the men and officers jumped under the shelter
+of the weather rail, Lampert and those of the watch who were with him
+came tumbling down from the poop.  They reckoned on a boiling sea
+coming after and sweeping them away.  But though the malignity native
+to matter had set the _Potluck_ ashore, by good luck she was hard and
+fast in the one sheltered cove on the island.  When Lampert by
+instinct altered her course to port, as he heard the coast breakers
+at the starboard bow, he had run her in between two ledges of rock,
+of which the outer or more westerly one acted as a complete
+breakwater.
+
+The skipper, who had been lying flat when the others jumped for the
+main deck, got up and crawled forward to the break of the poop.  He
+was half-paralysed with a mixture of funk and rage.  He addressed
+himself and his remarks to the sky, the sea, and the island, but
+above all to Lampert.
+
+"You man-drowning, slop-built caricature of a sailorman, what 'ave
+you bin and done with my ship?" he bellowed.  "Oh, Lord, I'm a ruined
+man; by gosh, I'll murder you!"
+
+He tumbled down on the main deck and made for Lampert, who easily
+dodged him.
+
+"Shut up, you old idiot!" said the mate contemptuously.  "Who but me
+told you that if you drove her in thick weather, and no sun seen for
+a week, you'd pile her up?"
+
+Simcox caught Jones and held him.
+
+"Good lord, sir," said the second greaser, "it's no time to fight."
+
+"No, it ain't," said Jack Hart boldly.
+
+That a foremast hand should dare to shove his oar in, almost cowed
+the poor old Guffin.  It was something out of nature.
+
+"It ain't no time for jawbation," insisted Hart, about whom the
+others had gathered.  "It's time for thinkin' out the politics of the
+situation, and if I'm not mistaken we shall be able to walk ashore by
+the morning, and there won't be no ship for any one to command--so
+what's the use of jaw?  I say get up stores, eh, Mackenzie?"
+
+"Don't ask me," said old Mac.  "I was thinkin' that mighty soon we'd
+be able to settle that question about the buildin' of the _Potluck_."
+
+And as by this time Jones was calming down and was rather inclined to
+cry, Lampert came up to the restive crowd.
+
+"You dry up, Hart," he said roughly.  "Until the ship's broken up,
+you're on the articles.  Say another word and I'll break your jaw."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Hart respectfully.
+
+Until dawn they loafed about the deck and in the cabin and foc'sle,
+discussing whether they were on one of the Crozets or what, and
+whether they would stay long there, and if so what, and so on.
+
+And just as the dawn broke over the island they got an awful
+surprise.  They saw a man standing on the low cliff on about a level
+with the jagged splinters of the fore-topmast where it had gone short
+in the cap.
+
+"The bloomin' hisland's in'abited," cried a foremast hand, and every
+one rushed forward to interview the gesticulating stranger.
+
+"Wod's the bloke say?" asked the crowd.  "Oh, say it again!"  And the
+stranger said it again.
+
+But the crowd shook a unanimous head.
+
+"I believe the silly galoot don't talk English," cried Hart; "'ere,
+where's Dutchy?"
+
+They shoved their one "Dutchman" forward, and after some interchange
+of utter un-intelligibilities, listened to by every one with bated
+breath, Hermann turned round.
+
+"I not versteh, captain.  I denk him ein French."
+
+The Frenchman was joined by two or three more, and then by a dozen.
+
+"Why, they're all French," said the disgusted crowd.  "What's
+Frenchmen doin' on any island of ours?"
+
+And until the sea went down, which it did sufficiently to allow them
+to get ashore at about ten o'clock, they discussed the question as to
+whether the Crozets were English or not.  It was settled by old
+Mackenzie.
+
+"All islands as don't belong to any one belongs to us," he said; "it
+was arranged so by Disraeli."
+
+They got ashore with some risk, and were greeted by the Frenchman in
+the most amiable way.
+
+"Poor beggars!" said the crew; "it must be 'ard on a soft lot of
+things like them to be on a des'late hisland.  Ain't it a wonder
+Froggies ever goes to sea?  But does they belong 'ere, or was they
+piled hup same's hus?"
+
+Hart found himself alongside a Frenchman with a long red Liberty cap
+on, and a big pair of ear-rings in his ears.
+
+"Goddam," said the Frenchman.
+
+"That's what we say," cried Hart.  "Here, you chaps, he speaks
+English."
+
+"Hurrah!" said the crowd.
+
+"I spike Engelish," nodded the stranger.
+
+"How'd you come 'ere?" asked the eager chorus.
+
+The Frenchman nodded.
+
+"Goddam!" he said, smiling.  "Ship!  Por'smout'--London!  I spick
+En'lish."
+
+"Well, then," said Hart desperately, "just dry up with your mixed
+hogwash, and spit it all out free as to 'ow you came 'ere, and wot
+the name o' this bally rock is, and who's its in'abitants.  Now, give
+it lip!"
+
+"Hart's a nateral born speaker, and 'as a clear 'ead," said the
+crowd.  "'E puts it in a nutshell, and don't run to waste in words."
+
+But the Frenchman looked puzzled.
+
+"Comb wiz," he said; "spik En'lish besser," and he pointed over the
+low rise.
+
+"Steady!" said Hart; "boys, I'm not clear as to whether we hain't
+bein' led hinto a hambush.  It hain't nateral for shipwrecked
+Englishmen to find Frenchies shipwrecked too!"
+
+"It ain't," said the crew suspiciously.
+
+"And even if it's all right, we bein' strangers might be led into
+makin' a treaty without knowin' all there is to know.  I vote waitin'
+till the officers comes up."
+
+They squatted down on rocks and on the lumps of tussac grass till the
+captain and the two mates came along with the rest of the Frenchmen.
+Hart communicated his suspicions to the skipper, who was decidedly
+under the influence of alcohol.
+
+"That's all right," said the Guffin thickly.  "_We_ can manage
+Frenchmen.  They ain't goin' to make no French Shore question on no
+more of our islands.  One Newfoundland's enough for me.  I'll show
+you n'gotiations--'gotiashuns is my forte!"  And he led the way over
+the hill.  Below them they saw the wreck of a French barquantine.
+
+"Blimy," said the crowd, with a frown, "if they 'aven't got the best
+part of our hisland!"
+
+
+It was not to be endured by any lot of Englishmen under the sun, that
+the best part of this rock should be occupied by their natural foes,
+and soon there was evidence that in any attempt to turn the Frenchmen
+out the British leader would have a united nation at his back.
+
+The Guffin and the two mates argued it, and Lampert was the
+Opposition.
+
+"W'y, wot's this you're sayin'?" asked the disgusted skipper; "did I
+think to 'ave shipped a Verning 'Arcourt among my lot?  You're a
+Little Englander, and nothin' but it, Lampert."
+
+"They was here first," said Lampert obstinately.
+
+"But the hisland is British ground," urged Simcox, "and where our
+flag flies no Frenchman can have the best.  We gives 'em liberty to
+trade, and they can take what's left.  What for have we always beat
+'em if we're to give in now?"
+
+"Continuosity of foreign politics is my motter," said the skipper.
+"With continuosity and joodishus firmness, and a polite 'hout o'
+this,' you'll see 'em listen to reason, and evacuate.  I shall send
+hin my hultimatum this very afternoon.  And you, Simcox, shall be
+hambassador."
+
+Simcox looked anxious.
+
+"Well, captain, I was thinking it would be judicious policy to send
+in the Dutchman.  It will remind them that Europe is more or less
+agin them, and to have a Dutchman here will make 'em think twice
+afore they elects for war."
+
+The skipper shook his head.
+
+"No, Simcox, it looks judicious on the surface, but takin' deeper
+thought it ain't.  It would aggerawate them, and that ain't policy.
+We fights if we must, but don't start it by doin' anythin' unpleasin'
+more'n askin' for our rights.  And in n'gotiashuns it ain't policy to
+remind 'em deliberate of the time the Prooshians beat 'em.  And
+moreover it's accordin' to no tradition I've heard of to send a
+furriner as hambassador.  No, Simcox, you shall go.  I'll draw up the
+hultimatum at once."
+
+He returned on board the wreck of the _Potluck_, and in company with
+a bottle of brandy strove with the situation, while the crowd and
+their spokesman, Hart, argued like a House of Commons.
+
+"It ain't any good talkin'," said Jack, "and hevery one knows that
+give a Frenchman the chance of hargument he'll talk a government
+mule's 'ind leg off.  'Hout of this,' is the on'y hargument a
+Frenchman hunderstands."
+
+"But they seems to be a good many more of 'em than us," suggested the
+crowd.
+
+"Come to that," said Hart, "it's the on'y just ground we 'as to go
+for 'em.  For if they was on'y ekal numbers, it'd be cowardly to
+whack 'em, and I for one would be on the side of just goin' down
+there and shovin' them out peaceful.  I'm for the hultimatum right
+off.  I wonder 'ow the Guffin will put it.  Say, boys, 'ere 'e comes!"
+
+The "old man" staggered up with a sheet of paper in his hand.
+
+"Have you done it, sir?" asked Simcox.  "Let's hear it."
+
+"Yes, read it out," said Lampert, with half a sneer, which the
+skipper did not notice.
+
+The crowd gathered round as the captain squatted on a rock.
+
+
+"On board the British barque _Potluck_, belonging to the British port
+Liverpool; owners, McWattie & Co.; Captain Abednego Jones.
+
+"MR. SIMCOX,--Sir----"
+
+
+"Eh, what?" said the astounded Simcox.
+
+"It's addressed to you, Simcox," said the skipper blandly.
+
+"Why?" asked Simcox.
+
+The skipper shook his head impatiently.
+
+"I thought you'd 'ave knowed, Simcox.  You're the hambassador, and
+you've to communicate this to 'em."
+
+"Oh, go on, sir," said the crowd.
+
+The skipper resumed:
+
+
+"MR. SIMCOX,--Sir, you'll be so good as to be so kind as to
+communicate the contents of this 'ere letter to them French of the
+wreck we don't know the name of, and tell them to clear.  For there
+ain't no reasonable grounds for supposin' this ain't a British
+hisland (seeing that mostly all hislands is) and they've by comin'
+'ere first got and taken possession of the best bit of it, which
+can't be allowed, as it's contrary to law in such case made and
+purvided.  So you'll inform 'em it ain't goin' to be put up with, and
+they must evacuate immejit and resume the _statues quo_----"
+
+
+"What's that?" asked Simcox.
+
+"It's Latin, you unutterable ass," said the skipper, with a look of
+withering contempt.
+
+"I don't know Latin," said the poor second mate.
+
+"And who expected it of you?" asked the skipper.  "It means that
+things are to go on as they was afore they come:
+
+
+"----resume the _statues quo_, and don't stand no hargument.  You are
+to tell 'em it will be considered an unfriendly hact, and that we 'as
+cleared for haction in consequence of not believing them such cowards
+as to quit.  But quit they must, and no mistake, or we resort without
+delay to the arbitrage and general haverage of war.  Given this day
+on board the British barque _Potluck_ by me,
+
+"CAPTAIN ABEDNEGO JONES."
+
+
+"First rate!" said the crew.  "That'll give 'em the jumps."
+
+"And how am I to translate it?" asked the miserable Simcox.
+
+"That's your look-out," said the Guffin, with a hiccup.  "Shall I
+keep a dog and bark myself?  Now, 'urry and get it hover.  And let
+hevery one 'ave a weapon, 'andspikes and belayin' pins.  Now go,
+Simcox!"
+
+"Hart, come along with me," said Simcox.
+
+And as the "old man" was engaged in keeping his balance, he made no
+objection.
+
+"I think this is a herror of judgment, sir," said Hart; "my hidea of
+a hultimatum was jumpin' on 'em unexpected, and givin' 'em toko afore
+they know'd where they was.  My notion of fightin' (and it pays
+hevery time) is to haggravate your man till he's ready to 'it, but to
+'it 'im fust.  An' if I thinks a cove will 'it me in five minutes, I
+lets no time go by in hanticipatin' 'im.  But this will warn 'em."
+
+"But they have no one who really knows English, Hart," groaned
+Simcox; "and I don't know the first word of French."
+
+"Never mind, sir," said Hart encouragingly.  "I've 'ad many a row
+with a Frenchy, and I never knowed my 'avin' not the least notion of
+what 'e meant ever stopped the fight from comin' off.  If so be I see
+you get stuck, I'll come in, sir."
+
+And they were met by the French sailor who thought he spoke English.
+
+"I spik En'lish, goddam," said the Frenchman.  "Leaverpool,
+Por'smout'; mais le capitaine spik besser."
+
+"Good-mornin'," said Simcox meekly to the French captain, a long
+unhappy looking man, who might have been the skipper of a
+_chasse-marée_ for all the style he put on.
+
+"Mais, oui----" said the captain.
+
+"This 'ere paper is for you," said Simcox, "and by the powers I hope
+you can't read it."
+
+He handed the ultimatum to the Frenchman, who studied it while his
+crew came round.
+
+"Je ne peux pas le lire, monsieur," he said at length.
+
+Simcox turned to Hart.
+
+"There, now what the blazes am I to do when he talks that way?"
+
+"Just hexplain it," said Hart, as he helped himself to a chew.  "Say,
+'Hout o' this!'"
+
+"It means you've got to go," said Simcox; "you can't be allowed to
+stay in the best part of our island."
+
+"Goddam," cried the Frenchman, with his hand in his hair.  "I spik
+English, two, tree word: pilote, feesh, shannel, owaryo!"
+
+"Owaryo?" asked Simcox.
+
+"That's his way o' sayin' 'How are you?'" interjected Hart, who was
+contemptuously sizing up the French sailors.
+
+"Ah, how are you?" said Simcox.
+
+"Owaryo," replied the French captain, smiling.
+
+"Very well, thanks," said Simcox; "but I'm the ambassador."
+
+"Ma foi, ambassadeur!  You spik Français?"
+
+"And you've just got to get," added Simcox.
+
+"March!" cried Hart.
+
+The Frenchmen "jabbered" a bit among themselves.
+
+"Quoi donc?  Marcher?" asked their skipper.
+
+"We, old son," said Hart; "marshay if you like.  Just pack up and
+quit.  We gives you an hour to gather up your dunnage.  Now do you
+understand?"
+
+Whether the Frenchmen understood or not it was tolerably obvious they
+did not like the tone with which Hart spoke, or the looks of evident
+disfavour he cast at them.  The captain turned away.
+
+"Stop!" said Hart, and he went in for a dumb pantomime, in which he
+vaguely suggested that over yonder hill was an army of Englishmen.
+
+"And we mean 'avin' our rights," he ended with.  And just then old
+Jones appeared in sight.
+
+"Are they jossers goin' to evacuate or not?" he bellowed.  "What's
+their captain say to the _statues quo_?  Don't they know the first
+thing about diplomatics?  Tell 'em that to prepare for peace we makes
+war."
+
+"War it is," said Hart, and he launched himself at a crowd of
+Frenchmen, as his mates came tumbling down the hill.
+
+The fight was short, sharp, and pretty decisive, for the _Potluck's_
+crowd numbered ten able seamen, one ordinary seaman, and two boys, or
+with the captain and the two mates, sixteen in all.  Against this
+array there were twenty-one Frenchmen, and though Hart, in his first
+onslaught, knocked down two, he was himself stretched out by a third
+armed with a broken hand-spike.  And Simcox fled with the infuriated
+foreigners at his heels.  The true battle (for this was but an affair
+of outposts) joined on the crest of the rise, and in five minutes the
+English were in flight for the shelter of the piled-up _Potluck_.
+Old Jones was keeled over once, but Lampert and Mackenzie dragged him
+away and got him down to the ship.  He swore most terribly.
+
+"'Ere's a pretty kettle o' fish," said he at last; "a pretty lot I
+'as to my back to let a few Frenchies lick 'em this way.  What's the
+good o' diplomatics if my men 'asn't the guts to support me?  Where's
+that Simcox?"
+
+"Here, sir," said the ambassador.
+
+"Who told you to start a row?" demanded the skipper.  "Don't you know
+your duty?  You was to give 'em the hultimatum and retire dignified.
+Do you call it retirin' dignified to run and beller like a bull-calf?"
+
+Simcox looked sulky and injured.
+
+"How was I to look dignified with six of 'em after me--and two with
+knives and one with a meat-chopper?" he asked.  "And as for startin'
+a rough house, 'twas Hart as done it."
+
+"Where's Hart?" yelled the Guffin.
+
+"'Ere, 'Art, where are you?" said the crowd.
+
+"I believe he's a prisoner," said Lampert.
+
+"Oh, Lord," said the crowd, "but Jack never 'ad no discretion."
+
+"We must 'ave him liberated," said the skipper firmly.  "No man of
+mine must be in the 'ands of them mutilatin' French.  Simcox, you'll
+'ave to go to 'em again and open n'gotiashuns!"
+
+"No, sir," said Simcox, "if you'll excuse me, I'll do nothin' of the
+sort.  I've had my fill up of bein' ambassador."
+
+"This is mut'ny," said the skipper; "but under the painful national
+circumstances I shan't do nothin' but order you to your cabin, where
+you'll consider yourself in custody."
+
+Simcox looked greatly relieved, and went without delay.
+
+"Mr. Lampert, you'll be hambassador," said the old man, after a drink
+of brandy.
+
+The mate looked the skipper up and down.
+
+"I'll see you further first," he cried.  "'Twas you that started the
+row and the trouble, and you can get out of it as you like."
+
+"This is rank mut'ny," said the skipper, "and you could be 'ung for
+refusin' duty.  But under the painful nash'nal circumstances you can
+retire to your cabin and be your own bloomin' policeman till peace is
+restored, when I'll try you and sentence you, you run and scuttle
+swine you."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said the mate contemptuously.
+
+"Now, men," said the skipper thickly, "what I wants is 'earty
+support.  Who'll volunteer for to be hambassador?"
+
+The crew looked at each other and shook their heads.  They scuffled
+with uneasy feet on the lopsided deck.
+
+"They're standin' upon the 'ill as thick as pea-sticks," said one of
+the boys.
+
+"Speak hup," roared the skipper.
+
+The crew shoved old Mac in front.
+
+"We've revolved the notion up and over," said Mac, "and we've come to
+the conclusion, sir, there ain't nothin' to be got by sendin'
+ignorant men like we on such errands."
+
+The skipper hiccupped angrily.
+
+"Who asted you to think?  But I ain't the man to press unwilling
+lubbers into goin' aloft, _I_ can lead the way.  Go into the
+fo'castle, you dogs, and consider yourselves under arrest.  Go!"
+
+"Blimy," said the crowd, "but we're all in our own custody, so we
+are.  Now what's the old man goin' to do?"
+
+They watched him from the fo'castle as he staggered into his own part
+of the ship.
+
+"I'll be my own hambassador," said Jones.  "I'll show 'em 'ow to work
+things with dignity; I'll show that ass Lampert what's o'clock.  What
+you wants in such cases made and provided is tact, and go, and
+innerds.  Innerds is the chief need.  Why fight if palaver'll do?
+Where I was wrong was to send a galoot like Simcox.  But what could I
+do but work the best with the tools I 'ad?  If I'd gone myself, we'd
+'ave made peace afore there was a row."
+
+He came staggering out of the cabin with a case of brandy and laid it
+on the after capstan.
+
+"I guess I'll have a boy," said Jones.  "'Ere, you scum, send me
+Billy."  And Billy came aft.
+
+"I releases you temp'ry without bail," said the skipper fiercely, "so
+puckalow that case and foller me.  No, you wait till I gets a
+tablecloth as a signal I'm willin' to 'ave peace."
+
+When he came out with a cloth he went ashore and stumbled up the
+hill, followed by the boy Billy, bearing the case of brandy.  He
+found the crew of the Frenchmen lining the crest, and heard them talk.
+
+"Say, Johnny French," said old Jones, "if you wants war, prepare for
+peace.  Who's the captain?"
+
+"Sapristi!" said the French captain.
+
+Jones nodded.
+
+"Give it up, old son.  It warn't my fault, if relyin' on the
+discretion of ambassadors ain't a fault: and maybe you can swaller
+the hultimatum with some real good brandy throwed in.  And is your
+name Sapristi?"
+
+"Nom de Dieu----" began the Frenchman, but Jones waved his hand with
+dignity.
+
+"Call yourself what you like, but 'ave you got anythin' in the way of
+a marlinspike or a splice bar as'll open this yer case?"
+
+The foreigners, perceiving that the Englishman was on an errand of
+peace, gathered about the case, and soon discovered from the
+stencilled inscription that it at any rate pretended to come from
+Cognac.
+
+"Goddam," said the little red-capped Frenchman who had first
+discovered them.  "Cognac!  I spik English--brandee, Por'smout',
+Lon-don!"
+
+Jones made signs that he presented the case to them.
+
+"I ain't above makin' a concession or two," he remarked
+confidentially to the French captain; "but if I'd listened to my lot
+on board, it would 'ave been blood up to the neck."
+
+The Frenchman shook his head.
+
+"You bet it would 'ave bin," said Jones earnestly, "but what d'ye say
+to 'avin' a drink?  Billy, gimme your knife."
+
+And with it he started opening the case, while the Frenchmen's eyes
+gleamed in pleasing anticipation.  They had not had a drink for
+weeks.  And as they carried the case down to the ship with Jones and
+their own captain in the rear, they concluded that the English were
+not such bad chaps after all.
+
+"But where's my man 'Art!" asked Jones, when he came to the French
+camp.
+
+"'Ere I be," cried Hart, who was lashed hard and fast to a round
+rock.  "Lord, captain, but I've 'ad a time.  Can't you cut me adrift,
+sir?"
+
+Jones shook his head.
+
+"You interferin' galoot, it serves you right.  And as for that, the
+'ole crew's under arrest, where I put 'em for mut'ny, and I don't see
+as I should so pick and choose among 'em as to use my hinfluence to
+'ave you let go.  At any rate, bide a bit, and I'll see."
+
+For it was obvious that the drinking was going to begin.  The French
+captain served the liquor out in a small glass to every one, and
+presently some of his melancholy disappeared.  He gave an order to
+one of his men who brought two more glasses, one for the English
+captain, and one for himself.
+
+"I looks towards you," said Jones.
+
+"À votre santé," cried the Frenchman.  "Monsieur, vous êtes un homme
+de coeur quand mêne."
+
+"I don't savvy, but I dessay you means well," said the captain.
+"Now, if I'd thought to bring along the signal book we might 'ave 'ad
+quite a talk.  But time enough; I dessay afore we're took off I shall
+patter your lingo like blazes.  Shall I cut my man loose there?"
+
+He pointed to Hart, and though two of the Frenchmen, who had black
+eyes, remonstrated against the deed of mercy, Hart was unlashed and
+given a drink.
+
+"Here's to you, old cocklywax," said Hart, with a scrape of his leg.
+"I bears no grudge, not me."
+
+And very soon the French and English skippers were talking to each
+other at the rate of knots, while Hart sat in a crowd of Frenchmen
+and told them all about everything.
+
+
+It was close on sundown when Jones returned to the _Potluck_.  He had
+to be helped up the side by some of the crew.
+
+"Ain't we under arrest?" they asked.  "Does we dare come out?"
+
+Jones hiccupped.
+
+"I releases you on your own recognition," he said.  "So down you come
+and 'elp."
+
+When he put his foot on the deck, he mustered all hands aft.
+
+"And you, Lampert, and you, Simcox!"
+
+The two mates came out of their cabins.
+
+"And where's Hart?"
+
+"If you please, sir, he's drunk," said Billy.
+
+"Arrest 'im," said the skipper; "what's 'e mean by it?  Now, look
+'ere, you bally lot, what does you think of yourselves?"
+
+The crew appeared uneasy.
+
+"I went all by my lone," said the skipper, hanging on to the poop
+ladder, "all by my lone I went, and I brings back peace!  Do you
+'ear?  But when I sent you, what use was you?  I released 'Art, who's
+repaid me by bein' unable to see an 'ole in a ladder; and I've
+concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the French.  Next
+time (if so be a German ship comes ashore) I'll go out as my own
+hambassador.  No, Simcox, never more!  No, Lampert, never, never
+more!  I just speaks to that French crowd, and they are civil and
+drink fair.  They recognised they'd met their match.  Their skipper
+says, says he, 'Captain Jones, I owns fair and square I'm not your
+ekal at diplomatics.'  He adds, moreover, 'Captain Jones, damn me if
+I believe your match is to be found.'  And I says, with dignity (with
+dignity, Simcox), 'Right you are!'  That's what I says.  And as for
+you, you ratty galoots, you'll treat 'em when you meets 'em just the
+same as if they wasn't French.  Do you 'ear me?  That's my
+hultimatum.  Now you can go.  That'll do the watch."
+
+He turned to the mates.
+
+"I thought better of you two, so I did," he remarked sadly.  "But
+there, you 'aven't 'ad my experience, and when I gets 'ome I shall
+see as them that is in power at the Furrin Office 'ears 'ow I done
+it.  Salisbury ain't my stiffness of backbone, and 'e ain't my tact.
+If so be as 'e was to invite them Frenchmen to dinner, it would be
+different.  They knows (as the French captain owned to me; fair and
+square 'e owned it) they don't 'ave no nat'ral right to hislands and
+col'nies.  Make the Frenchmen's 'omes 'appy and they'll stay at 'ome.
+Think it hout; you'll see 'ow it could be done.  There now, that'll
+do you.  I disarrest you!"
+
+And the "old man" rolled cheerfully for his cabin.
+
+"By my lone I done it!" said the Guffin.
+
+
+
+
+THE CREW OF THE _KAMMA FUNDER_.
+
+The stars of European science, who had been shining in a wonderful
+constellation over Quebec, were just about to leave Canada in that
+well-known comfortable liner, the _Nipigon_, when a most annoying
+thing happened.  The cattle-ship _Abbitibbe_, never famous at any
+time for minding her helm, got her steam steering gear jammed as she
+was passing the _Nipigon_, and took a wide sheer to port when she
+should have altered her course to starboard.  The peaceful
+preparations of the passenger boat were broken up, and her crew
+received the wild charge of the _Abbitibbe_ with curses, which,
+though effectual in heating the atmosphere, were no use as a fender.
+The _Nipigon_ was cut down to the water's edge, and the scientific
+lights of Europe were much put out.  They hurried ashore in the most
+irregular and unscientific manner, and, having sent others for their
+baggage, began to make preparations for going to New York, as no
+other good passenger boat was leaving the St. Lawrence for a week.
+
+But Nature, possibly out of revenge for the unseemly curiosity
+evinced by all men of science, was beforehand with them.
+Misfortunes, as was once observed by an intelligent, if pessimistic,
+anthropoid ape, never come singly.  It was the twelfth of November,
+and a sudden blizzard, bringing all the snow it could carry, broke up
+communication with the south.  If the men of science were to keep
+their appointments with their universities, it was necessary to sail
+from Canada at once.  They shipped themselves under protest upon the
+_Nemagosenda_, of 2,900 tons register, which was little better than a
+tramp, and was commanded by Captain Joseph Prowse.
+
+"Immortal Jehoshaphat!" said Captain Prowse; "here's a go!  What, we
+with passengers?  Oh, get out!"
+
+"You've got to take 'em," said the agent philosophically; "maybe
+they'll teach you something, and it'll be a good advertisement."
+
+"Gah'n!" said Prowse; "carryin' scientific jossers won't bring better
+freight next season.  I wish you'd get me chock up with cattle.  I
+can't stand scientists; my sister married one that was an 'erbalist
+in the Old Kent Road--and since he went to chokey I've lost conceit
+with science.  However, if it must be--why, send 'em along!"
+
+Captain Prowse was not a popular skipper with sailors.  They said
+that he was a "hard nut" and a "sailor-robber," and that his American
+experience had made him nearly as deadly as any American captain with
+a belaying-pin.  But sailors' experience only works backward: they
+are good at reminiscence only, and the _Nemagosenda_ got a crew in
+spite of the captain's reputation.  It is possible they would not
+have shipped if they had known that men of European light and leading
+were to come with them.  Those who follow the sea have a great
+respect for knowledge, but they despise men in soft hats and
+spectacles.  And it cannot be denied that scientific men are as a
+rule too simple and gentle to look as if they could take care of
+themselves.  According to Jack, that is the first duty of man, though
+137. Placentas shortly adnate to the partition of the ovary and more or
+less distinctly stalked. 138 Placentas adnate to the partition of the
+ovary throughout their whole length or almost so. 141
+
+138. Flowers unisexual or polygamous, 5-merous. Corolla-lobes
+unappendaged. Fruit globose. Shrubs.--Species 20. Madagascar and
+neighbouring islands. Some species yield dyes or medicaments; several
+are poisonous. =Danais= Comm.
+
+Flowers hermaphrodite. Corolla-lobes usually with a thread-or
+club-shaped appendage on the back. Fruit oblong or linear. Trees. 139
+
+139. Anthers concealed within the corolla-tube. Flowers 4-merous.
+Corolla urn-shaped. Fruit loculicidal. Leaves opposite.--Species 1.
+West Africa. Used medicinally. =Pseudocinchona= A. Chev.
+
+Anthers projecting at least partly beyond the corolla-tube.
+Corolla-lobes appendaged. Flowers usually 5-merous. 140
+
+140. Fruit loculicidal. Corolla usually funnel-shaped.--Species 3. West
+Africa. =Corynanthe= Welw.
+
+Fruit septicidal. Corolla urn-or bell-shaped. Leaves whorled.--Species
+3. West Africa. They yield timber and medicaments. (Under _Corynanthe_
+Welw.) =Pausinystalia= Pierre
+
+141. Fruit loculicidal. Calyx-segments subulate, deciduous.
+Corolla-lobes erect. Style shortly lobed. Trees. Leaves herbaceous.
+Stipules glandular-toothed. Bracts partly petal-like.--Species 8.
+Tropics. =Hymenodictyon= Wall.
+
+Fruit septicidal. 142
+
+142. Fruit splitting downwards from the apex. Calyx-segments
+lanceolate, leaf-like, deciduous. Corolla violet.--Species 4.
+Madagascar. =Schismatoclada= Bak.
+
+Fruit splitting upwards from the base. Calyx-segments persistent.
+Corolla pink or yellowish. Stamens of the long-styled flowers inserted
+in the middle of the corolla-tube, those of the short-styled at its
+mouth. Placentas thick.--Species 3. Cultivated in the tropics. They
+yield medicaments (especially quinine). =Cinchona= L.
+
+143. (133.) Ovary 5-celled. Stigmas 5. Stamens 5, inserted a little
+above the base of the corolla-tube. Corolla salver-shaped, with a long
+tube. Calyx-segments unequal. Flowers in panicles. Herbs.--Species 1.
+Southern West Africa (Angola). =Pentacarpaea= Hiern
+
+Ovary 2-celled. Stigmas 1-2. 144
+
+144. Placentas club-shaped, ascending from the base of the ovary-cells,
+few-ovuled. Shrubs or undershrubs. Flowers in terminal cymes, 4-merous.
+145
+
+Placentas attached to the partition of the ovary. 147
+
+145. Calyx-segments distinctly unequal, one or several of them
+considerably enlarged. Corolla tubular or funnel-shaped. Stamens
+inserted in the corolla-tube. Fruit bursting irregularly. Stipules
+lacerated.--Species 15. Tropics. (Under _Carphalea_ Juss.)
+=Dirichletia= Klotzsch
+
+Calyx-segments equal. 146
+
+146. Calyx inversely umbrella-shaped, membranous at the base of the
+segments. Corolla salver-shaped. Stamens inserted at the throat of
+the corolla. Fruit opening loculicidally. Leaves linear.--Species 1.
+Madagascar. =Carphalea= Juss.
+
+Calyx not inversely umbrella-shaped, with 4 lobes alternating with
+small teeth. Corolla tubular. Stamens inserted in the corolla-tube.
+Leaves ovate.--Species 1. Island of Socotra. =Placopoda= Balf.
+
+147. Calyx-segments distinctly unequal, usually one of them much
+enlarged. 148
+
+Calyx-segments equal or nearly so. 151
+
+148. Corolla glabrous at the throat. Style 2-lobed. Fruit loculicidal,
+with a persistent and a deciduous valve. Herbs. Flowers in
+cymes.--Species 10. Central Africa. =Virecta= Afzel.
+
+Corolla hairy at the throat. Style 2-cleft. 149
+
+149. Flowers in spikes. Fruit with septicidal and loculicidal
+dehiscence. Undershrubs.--Species 12. Tropics. =Otomeria= Benth.
+
+Flowers in fascicles, cymes, or panicles. Fruit with loculicidal
+dehiscence. 150
+
+150. Corolla red or violet. Stamens inserted in the upper part of the
+corolla-tube. Herbs or undershrubs. Stipules divided into awl-shaped or
+bristle-like segments.--Species 35. Tropical and South Africa. Some are
+used as ornamental plants. (_Neurocarpaea_ R. Br.) =Pentas= Benth.
+
+Corolla yellow or white. Stamens inserted at the throat of the corolla.
+Shrubs or trees. (See 128.) =Mussaenda= L.
+
+151. Stamens inserted in the lower part of the corolla-tube. Anthers
+converging above or cohering into a tube, opening at the top. Corolla
+rotate. Style simple, with a capitate stigma. Fruit opening with a
+lid or irregularly. Herbs. Stipules undivided. Flowers in spike-or
+umbel-like cymes.--Species 2. Central Africa. =Argostema= Wall.
+
+Stamens inserted in the upper part of the corolla-tube or at its mouth.
+Anthers neither converging nor cohering, opening lengthwise. 152
+
+152. Flowers in racemes, 5-merous. Calyx-segments linear. Corolla
+white, funnel-shaped; tube rather short. Anthers included. Placentas
+spindle-shaped. Style 2-cleft. Creeping herbs.--Species 1. East Africa.
+=Dolichometra= K. Schum.
+
+Flowers solitary or in sometimes capitate or scorpioid cymes, often
+collected in false racemes or panicles. 153
+
+153. Flowers in one-sided cymose inflorescences, 5-merous. Stamens
+inserted in the corolla-tube, included. Placentas filiform.
+Style-branches spatulate. Fruit narrow, compressed, few-seeded, with
+septicidal and loculicidal dehiscence. Climbing herbs. Stipules
+lanceolate.--Species 1. Central Africa. =Hekistocarpa= Hook. fil.
+
+Flowers in head-like or lax, not one-sided cymes, or solitary. 154
+
+[Illustration: CAPRIFOLIACEAE.
+
+_FLOW. PL. AFR._
+
+_Pl. 145._
+
+J. Fleischmann del.
+
+Viburnum rugosum Pers.
+
+_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Flower. _C_ Lower part of the flower cut
+lengthwise. _D_ Fruit. _E_ Cross-section of fruit.]
+
+[Illustration: VALERIANACEAE.
+
+_FLOW. PL. AFR._
+
+_Pl. 146._
+
+J. Fleischmann del.
+
+Valeriana capensis Vahl
+
+_A_ Aboveground part of the plant. _B_ Flower. _C_ Anther. _D_ Flower
+cut lengthwise (without the anthers). _E_ Stigma. _F_ Fruit. _G_ Seed
+cut lengthwise.]
+
+154. Flowers 5-merous. Corolla shortly funnel-shaped. Anthers included.
+Style 2-cleft. Fruit opening loculicidally at the apex. Herbs. Stipules
+entire or toothed. Flowers in lax cymes.--Species 1. Tropical and
+South-east Africa. (Under _Oldenlandia_ Plum.) =Pentodon= Hochst.
+
+Flowers 4-merous, very rarely 5-merous, but then solitary or in pairs
+or style simple. 155
+
+155. Fruit opening by a lid, few-seeded. Flowers 4-merous. Corolla
+rotate. Placentas globose, with 3-4 ovules. Undershrubs. Flowers in
+terminal fascicles.--Species 1. Northern East Africa (Somaliland).
+=Mitratheca= K. Schum.
+
+Fruit opening lengthwise or remaining closed.--Species 120. Some of
+them yield vegetables, dyes, or medicaments. (Including _Hedyotis_ L.
+and _Pentanopsis_ Rendle). =Oldenlandia= Plum.
+
+
+FAMILY 220. CAPRIFOLIACEAE
+
+Leaves opposite. Flowers hermaphrodite. Sepals 5, united below. Petals
+5, united below. Stamens 5, inserted on the corolla. Ovary inferior.
+Ovules axile, pendulous. Fruit a berry or a drupe. Seeds with a
+straight embryo and fleshy albumen.--Genera 4, species 15. North and
+East Africa. (Plate 145.)
+
+1. Ovary 1-celled when fully developed. Ovule 1. Style very short,
+3-parted. Anthers turned inwards. Flowers in corymbs, regular, at least
+the inner ones. Fruit a drupe with a 1-seeded stone. Shrubs or trees.
+Leaves entire, toothed, or lobed.--Species 4. North Africa. They yield
+timber and medicaments or serve as ornamental plants, so especially the
+guelder-rose (_V. Opulus_ L.) and the laurustinus (_V. tinus_ L.); the
+latter has poisonous fruits. (Plate 145.) [Tribe VIBURNEAE.] =Viburnum=
+L.
+
+Ovary 2-5-celled. Ovules 2 or more. Fruit a drupe with 3-5 stones or a
+several-seeded berry. 2
+
+2. Ovary with 1 ovule in each cell. Style very short, 3-5-parted.
+Anthers turned outwards. Corolla rotate. Flowers regular, in panicles
+or corymbs. Fruit a drupe. Leaves pinnately dissected.--Species 4.
+North and East Africa; one species (_S. nigra_ L.) only naturalized.
+The latter yields wood, pith, oil, edible fruits, and medicaments;
+another species is poisonous. “Elder.” [Tribe SAMBUCEAE.] =Sambucus= L.
+
+Ovary with 2 or more ovules in each cell. Style long. Anthers turned
+inwards. Flowers more or less irregular. Fruit a berry. Leaves entire,
+toothed, or lobed. Shrubs. [Tribe LONICEREAE.] 3
+
+3. Ovary 2-3-celled.--Species 6. North-west Africa. Some are used as
+ornamental or medicinal plants. “Honeysuckle.” =Lonicera= L.
+
+Ovary 5-celled. Fruit many-seeded.--Species 1. Naturalized in the
+Azores. An ornamental plant. =Leycesteria= Wall.
+
+
+FAMILY 221. VALERIANACEAE
+
+Herbs or undershrubs. Leaves opposite or all radical, without stipules.
+Inflorescence cymose. Calyx not distinctly developed at the time
+of flowering. Petals 5, united below. Stamens 1-3, attached to the
+corolla-tube. Anthers turned inwards. Ovary inferior, with 3 cells,
+two of which are empty and sometimes rudimentary. Ovule 1, pendulous,
+inverted. Style simple; stigma entire or 3-parted. Seed exalbuminous;
+embryo straight.--Genera 4, species 35. (Plate 146.)
+
+1. Stamen 1. Corolla spurred. Calyx-limb developing into a feathery
+pappus crowning the fruit. Fruit 1-celled.--Species 5. North Africa.
+Used as ornamental plants. =Centranthus= DC.
+
+Stamens 2-3. Corolla not spurred, but sometimes gibbous. 2
+
+2. Stamens 2, more rarely 3, two of which are united. Corolla 2-lipped;
+tube long, with a minute gibbosity near the base. Calyx-limb toothed.
+Branches of the inflorescence thickened.--Species 4. North-west Africa.
+=Fedia= Moench
+
+Stamens 3, free. Corolla not 2-lipped. 3
+
+3. Calyx-limb rolled inwards at the time of flowering, developing
+afterwards into a pappus of feathery bristles. Fruit 1-celled.
+Corolla-tube usually gibbous. Perennial herbs or undershrubs. Leaves
+divided.--Species 5. North-west, East, and South Africa. Used as
+medicinal or ornamental plants. (Plate 146.) =Valeriana= L.
+
+Calyx-limb entire or toothed. Corolla-tube without a distinct
+gibbosity. Annual herbs.--Species 20. North and South Africa and
+northern East Africa. Some species, especially _V. olitoria_ Poll., are
+used as salad. “Cornsalad.” =Valerianella= Haller
+
+
+FAMILY 222. DIPSACACEAE
+
+Herbs or undershrubs. Leaves opposite, without stipules. Flowers in
+heads; each flower with an epicalyx embracing the ovary. Petals 4-5,
+united below. Stamens 2-4. Anthers turned inwards. Ovary inferior,
+1-celled. Ovule 1, pendulous, inverted. Style simple; stigma entire
+or 2-parted. Fruit enclosed by the epicalyx, dry, indehiscent. Seed
+albuminous; embryo straight.--Genera 7, species 50. (Plate 147.)
+
+1. Involucral bracts in many rows, imbricate, usually stiff and smaller
+than the scales of the receptacle. Calyx-teeth numerous. Corolla-lobes
+4. Stigma entire.--Species 15. (Plate 147.) =Cephalaria= Schrad.
+
+Involucral bracts in 1-3 rows. 2
+
+2. Involucral bracts united. Epicalyx with 8 pits near the apex.
+Calyx-teeth 5. Stigma entire.--Species 2. North-west Africa. (Under
+_Scabiosa_ L.) =Pycnocomon= Hoffmsg. & Link
+
+Involucral bracts free. 3
+
+[Illustration: DIPSACACEAE.
+
+_FLOW. PL. AFR._
+
+_Pl. 147._
+
+J. Fleischmann del.
+
+Cephalaria rigida (Spreng.) Schrad.
+
+_A_ Flowering blanch. _B_ Flower with epicalyx and bract. _C_ Lower
+part of the flower cut lengthwise.]
+
+[Illustration: CUCURBITACEAE.
+
+_FLOW. PL. AFR._
+
+_Pl. 148._
+
+J. Fleischmann del.
+
+Momordica Charantia L.
+
+_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Male flower cut lengthwise. _C_ Sepal.
+_D_ Anther. _E_ Female flower cut lengthwise. _F_ Staminode. _G_
+Cross-section of ovary. _H_ Fruit. _I_ Seed. (_H_ from Curtis’
+Botanical Magazine, plate 2455.)]
+
+
+3. Scales of the receptacle stiff and pointed. Calyx-teeth usually 4.
+Stem prickly or bristly.--Species 5. North and East Africa. Several
+species are used in the manufacture of cloth and in medicine. “Teasel.”
+=Dipsacus= L.
+
+Scales of the receptacle herbaceous or replaced by hairs. Stem glabrous
+or hairy, rarely bristly. 4
+
+4. Scales of the receptacle nearly as large as the flowers. Epicalyx
+with 8 longitudinal furrows. Calyx-teeth 5. Stigma entire.--Species
+2. North-west Africa and Cameroons. They yield dyes and medicaments.
+(Under _Scabiosa_ L.) =Succisa= Coult.
+
+Scales of the receptacle much smaller than the flowers or replaced by
+hairs. 5
+
+5. Calyx-teeth 4-6. Stigma 2-parted. Epicalyx with 8 longitudinal
+furrows or ribs and a saucer-shaped limb. Receptacle scaly.--Species
+18. Some of them are used as ornamental or medicinal plants. =Scabiosa=
+L.
+
+Calyx-teeth 8-24. 6
+
+6. Calyx-teeth 8. Epicalyx without distinct furrows or ribs, and with a
+narrow, toothed limb. Receptacle hairy.--Species 2. North-west Africa.
+Used as ornamental or medicinal plants. (Under _Scabiosa_ L.) =Knautia=
+Coult.
+
+Calyx-teeth 12-24. Epicalyx with 8 longitudinal furrows and a
+saucer-shaped limb.--Species 6. North Africa and Abyssinia. (Under
+_Scabiosa_ L.) =Pterocephalus= Vaill.
+
+
+ORDER CAMPANULATAE
+
+
+SUBORDER CUCURBITINEAE
+
+
+FAMILY 223. CUCURBITACEAE
+
+Nearly always prostrate or climbing and tendril-bearing plants. Leaves
+broad, usually with pedate nervation. Flowers unisexual or polygamous,
+regular or nearly so, 5-merous. Calyx of united sepals. Stamens 4-5,
+four of them united in pairs, rarely all united or all free. Anthers
+usually opening outwards. Ovary inferior. Ovules inverted. Style
+undivided or cleft. Fruit berry-like, but sometimes dehiscent, more
+rarely dry and indehiscent. Seeds with a leathery or woody testa and a
+straight embryo, without albumen.--Genera 42, species 270. (Plate 148.)
+
+1. Filaments all united into a column. [Tribe SICYOIDEAE.] 2
+
+Filaments free or united at the base or in pairs. 5
+
+2. Anthers 2-3, horizontal, straight or slightly curved. Staminal
+column very short. Male flowers in panicles, yellowish. Tendrils
+2-cleft.--Species 1. East Africa. (Under _Gerrardanthus_ Harv.)
+=Cyclantheropsis= Harms
+
+Anthers 3-5, erect and much curved or twisted. 3
+
+3. Flowers usually dioecious, the female with staminodes. Ovules
+numerous, horizontal. Herbs. Tendrils simple or 2-cleft. Female
+flowers solitary.--Species 30. Central and South Africa. Some species
+have edible fruits or serve as ornamental or medicinal plants.
+(_Cephalandra_ Schrad.) =Coccinia= Wight & Arn.
+
+Flowers monoecious, the female without staminodes. Ovule 1, pendulous.
+Tendrils 3-5-cleft. Male flowers in racemes or panicles. 4
+
+4. Female flowers solitary or in pairs. Anthers free. Fruit large,
+fleshy. Shrubs. Flowers whitish.--Species 1 (_S. edule_ Swartz).
+Cultivated and sometimes naturalized in North Africa, the island of
+St. Thomas, and the Mascarenes. The stem yields fibres, the roots and
+fruits are edible and contain starch. =Sechium= P. Browne
+
+Female flowers crowded in heads. Fruit small, with a leathery rind.
+Herbs. Flowers greenish.--Species 1. Central Africa; also cultivated in
+the Mascarene Islands. Yields starch and medicaments. =Sicyos= L.
+
+5. Stamens 5, one of them sterile; filaments free; anthers more
+or less cohering, 2-celled. Petals unequal, undivided. Ovary
+incompletely 3-celled; ovules few in each cell, pendulous. Styles 3;
+stigmas 2-lobed. Fruit 3-valved at the apex. Seeds winged. Shrubs.
+Tendrils 2-cleft. Flowers dioecious, the male in racemes, the female
+solitary.--Species 4. Central and South Africa. Used medicinally.
+(Including _Atheranthera_ Mast.) [Tribe FEVILLEAE.] =Gerrardanthus=
+Harv.
+
+Stamens 4-5, united in pairs, hence apparently only 2-3, rarely stamens
+5, free and all fertile. 6
+
+6. Anther-cells straight or slightly curved, rarely shortly inflexed at
+the base or apex. [Tribe MELOTHRIEAE.] 7
+
+Anther-cells much curved or twisted, U-or S-shaped. [Tribe
+CUCURBITEAE.] 19
+
+7. Anther-cells (pollen-sacs) 4. Flowers large, rose-coloured, the male
+without a rudimentary pistil. Calyx-segments toothed. Petals ciliate.
+Ovary oblong, 3-5-celled. Ovules numerous. Style 1. Fruit very large.
+Leaves compound. Tendrils 2-cleft.--Species 2. Tropics. They yield
+edible oily seeds and medicaments. (Including _Ampelosicyos_ Thouars).
+[Subtribe TELFAIRIINAE.] =Telfairia= Hook.
+
+Anther-cells 2, rarely (_Melothria_) 4, but then flowers small, white
+or yellow, the male with a rudimentary pistil, fruit small, and leaves
+simple. 8
+
+8. Disc at the base of the style distinctly developed. [Subtribe
+MELOTHRIINAE.] 9
+
+Disc at the base of the style indistinct or wanting. [Subtribe
+ANGURIINAE.] 10
+
+9. Calyx with a cylindrical tube and long, awl-shaped segments. Anthers
+sessile, attached by the back. Male flowers solitary or 2-3 together,
+female solitary.--Species 3. Central Africa. =Oreosyce= Hook. fil.
+
+Calyx with a campanulate tube and short segments. Anthers attached
+by the base.--Species 30. Tropical and South Africa. They yield
+vegetables and medicaments, or serve as ornamental plants. (Including
+_Mukia_ Arn., _Pilogyne_ Schrad., and _Zehneria_ Endl.) =Melothria= L.
+
+10. Stamens inserted at the throat of the calyx. 11
+
+Stamens inserted in the calyx-tube. Climbing or prostrate herbs. 12
+
+11. Stem erect, woody, tree-like. Leaves more or less deeply divided.
+Flowers monoecious, the male in panicles, without a pistil. Stigma 1,
+3-lobed.--Species 1. Island of Socotra. =Dendrosicyos= Balf. fil.
+
+Stem prostrate or climbing, herbaceous. Stigmas 3.--Species 30. Central
+and South Africa, one species also cultivated in North Africa and the
+Mascarene Islands. Some species yield edible fruits and medicaments, or
+serve as ornamental plants. (Plate 148.) =Momordica= L.
+
+12. Anther-cells inflexed at the apex. Connective broad. Flowers
+small, yellow, monoecious, the male with a rudimentary pistil. Stigmas
+3.--Species 2. West Africa. They yield edible fruits, oily seeds, and
+medicaments. (Including _Cladosicyos_ Hook., under _Zehneria_ Endl.)
+=Cucumeropsis= Naud.
+
+Anther-cells straight, slightly curved, or inflexed at the base. 13
+
+13. Calyx-tube long, cylindrical. Flowers dioecious, the male
+in panicles, the female in racemes. Ovules numerous. Stigmas 2,
+2-cleft.--Species 1. Madagascar. =Trochomeriopsis= Cogn.
+
+Calyx-tube short, campanulate. Flowers nearly always monoecious. 14
+
+14. Male flowers solitary or in fascicles or heads. Stamens with a
+lengthened or broadened connective. 15
+
+Male flowers in racemes. 16
+
+15. Stigma 1, lobed. Ovules few in each ovary-cell. Staminodes of the
+female flowers minute or wanting. Flowers small, yellowish-green.
+Fruit opening by a lid.--Species 20. Tropical and South Africa.
+=Corallocarpus= Welw.
+
+Stigmas 3-5. Ovules numerous. Staminodes hair-like or
+strap-shaped.--Species 30. Some of them (especially the cucumber, _C.
+sativus_ L., and the melon, _C. Melo_ L.) yield edible fruits, oily
+seeds, and medicaments, or serve as ornamental plants. =Cucumis= L.
+
+16. Leaf-stalk with a small, fringed, stipule-like leaf at the base.
+Calyx-segments awl-shaped. Male flowers without a rudimentary pistil,
+female without staminodes. Connective not prolonged. Ovules 2-3 in each
+cell.--Species 2. Central and South-west Africa. (_Ctenolepis_ Hook.)
+=Blastania= Kotschy & Peyr.
+
+Leaf-stalk without a stipule-like leaf at its base. 17
+
+17. Stem short. Flowers appearing before the leaves, the male with a
+rudimentary pistil, the female with linear staminodes. Calyx-segments
+narrow. Connective narrow, not prolonged. Stigmas 3. Ovules numerous.
+Leaves lobed.--Species 1. South Africa. =Pisosperma= Sond. & Harv.
+
+Stem long. Flowers appearing with the leaves. 18
+
+18. Staminodes in the female flowers thread-like, curved. Connective
+not prolonged at the apex. Male flowers without a rudimentary
+pistil. Stigmas 1-2. Ovules numerous. Calyx-segments broad. Fruit
+bottle-shaped. Seeds globose. Leaves toothed or lobed.--Species 3.
+South Africa to Ngamiland. =Toxanthera= Hook.
+
+Staminodes in the female flowers small or wanting. Connective prolonged
+at the apex, very rarely not prolonged, but then fruit oblong, without
+a beak, and leaves deeply divided. Ovules usually few.--Species 15.
+Central and South Africa. Some are used as ornamental or medicinal
+plants. (Including _Coniandra_ Schrad. and _Rhynchocarpa_ Schrad.)
+=Kedrostis= Medik.
+
+19. (6.) Ovules solitary in each ovary-cell, erect. Style surrounded at
+the base by a disc. Staminodes present in the female flowers. Anthers
+cohering. Petals undivided.--Species 1. West Africa and Canary Islands.
+(Including _Trianosperma_ Mart.) [Subtribe ABOBRINAE.] =Cayaponia=
+Manso.
+
+Ovules 2 or more in each ovary-cell or upon each placenta, horizontal,
+rarely ovary 1-celled with 2 ovules, one erect, the other pendulous. 20
+
+20. Petals slit at the edge, free or nearly so. Calyx-tube long. Stem
+climbing. Leaves cleft or compound. Tendrils 2-3-cleft. Male flowers in
+racemes. [Subtribe TRICHOSANTHINAE.] 21
+
+Petals not slit. 22
+
+21. Stamens combined into 3, projecting beyond the calyx-tube.
+Male flowers with a rudimentary pistil. Fruit snake-shaped. Leaves
+3-7-lobed. Tendrils 3-cleft. Flowers white.--Species 1. Cultivated
+and naturalized in Madagascar and the neighbouring islands. Used as
+a vegetable or as an ornamental or medicinal plant. “Snake-gourd.”
+=Trichosanthes= L.
+
+Stamens 5, free, seated in the calyx-tube. Male flowers without a
+rudimentary pistil. Fruit pear-shaped. Leaves ternately compound.
+Tendrils 2-cleft.--Species 1. Madagascar. =Delognaea= Cogn.
+
+22. Corolla distinctly campanulate, lobed or cleft. Ovules numerous.
+Flowers large or medium-sized, the male without a rudimentary pistil.
+Leaves entire, toothed, or lobed. [Subtribe CUCURBITINAE.] 23
+
+Corolla more or less rotate. [Subtribe CUCUMERINAE.] 26
+
+23. Calyx-segments pinnately dissected. Female flowers without
+staminodes. Style long, inserted on the disc. Stigmas 3, 3-5-lobed.
+Fruit dry. Tendrils simple.--Species 4. Tropics. (_Raphidiocystis_
+Hook.) =Rhaphidiocystis= Hook.
+
+Calyx-segments undivided. Female flowers provided with staminodes. 24
+
+24. Flowers monoecious. Style short and thick. Stigmas 3-5, 2-lobed.
+Tendrils 2-or more-cleft.--Species 4. Cultivated and sometimes
+naturalized. They yield edible fruits, oil, and medicaments, and serve
+as ornamental plants. “Pumpkin.” =Cucurbita= L.
+
+Flowers dioecious. Style long. Stigma 1, 3-lobed or 3-partite. Tendrils
+simple or 2-cleft. 25
+
+25. Anthers cohering. Staminodes of the female flowers from subulate to
+oblong. Fruit small. (See 3.) =Coccinia= Wight & Arn.
+
+Anthers free. Staminodes of the female flowers conical or globose.
+Fruit rather large.--Species 6. Central Africa. (Including
+_Staphylosyce_ Hook.) =Physedra= Hook.
+
+26. (22.) Calyx-tube of the male flowers long, cylinder-or
+funnel-shaped. 27
+
+Calyx-tube of the male flowers short, top-or bell-shaped. 32
+
+27. Anthers connate. Female flowers without Staminodes. Flowers large,
+white or yellow. 28
+
+Anthers free or loosely cohering. Female flowers provided with
+staminodes. 29
+
+28. Flowers monoecious. Anthers folded lengthwise. Ovary oblong.
+Leaf-stalk without glands at the apex.--Species 20. Tropical and South
+Africa. (_Peponia_ Naud.) =Peponium= Naud.
+
+Flowers dioecious. Anthers twisted transversely. Ovary
+globose.--Species 9. Tropics. Used medicinally. =Adenopus= Benth.
+
+29. Flowers small or medium-sized, yellow or red. Anthers cohering.
+Rudimentary pistil of the male flowers conical. Stigma 1, 3-lobed.
+Seeds flattened. Root tuberous.--Species 15. Tropical and South Africa.
+Some species have edible roots also used in medicine. (Including
+_Heterosicyos_ Welw.) =Trochomeria= Hook.
+
+Flowers large. Rudimentary pistil of the male flowers gland-like or
+wanting. Stigmas 3. Climbing herbs. 30
+
+30. Flowers monoecious, white, solitary. Style very short. Stigmas
+2-lobed. Fruit with a woody rind. Seeds flattened. Leaves undivided;
+stalk with 2 glands at the apex. Tendrils 2-cleft.--Species 1 (_L.
+vulgaris_ Ser., bottle-gourd). Tropics; also cultivated and naturalized
+in extratropical countries. It yields edible fruits, also used for
+making bottles and other utensils, and serves as an ornamental and
+medicinal plant. =Lagenaria= Ser.
+
+Flowers dioecious. Tendrils simple. 31
+
+31. Male flowers in racemes. Leaves undivided.--Species 5. West Africa.
+=Cogniauxia= Baill.
+
+Male flowers solitary or in clusters. Corolla yellow. Stamens with a
+broad connective. Staminodes bearded at the base. Stigmas heart-shaped.
+Fruit fleshy. Seeds nearly globose. Leaves lobed; stalk without
+glands.--Species 4. Central Africa. (_Euryandra_ Hook.) =Eureiandra=
+Hook.
+
+32. (26.) Anthers connate. Flowers dioecious, the male in clusters and
+without a rudimentary pistil, the female without staminodes. Leaves
+undivided. 33
+
+Anthers free or loosely cohering; in the latter case flowers
+monoecious. 34
+
+33. Stem herbaceous, without tendrils. Leaves linear. Anthers with a
+scale at the base.--Species 1. Abyssinia. =Eulenburgia= Pax
+
+Stem woody, climbing, bearing tendrils. Leaves broad.--Species 3. West
+Africa. They yield oily seeds. =Dimorphochlamys= Hook.
+
+34. Anthers cohering; cells horse-shoe-shaped. Flowers monoecious, the
+male in umbels and with a rudimentary pistil, the female solitary and
+without staminodes. Stigma subcapitate. Herbs. Leaves lobed, with a
+stipule-like leaf at the base. Tendrils simple. Flowers white. Fruit
+small.--Species 1. West Africa. (Under _Bryonia_ L.) =Dactyliandra=
+Hook. fil.
+
+Anthers free, at least when fully developed. 35
+
+35. Stamens inserted at the throat of the calyx. 36
+
+Stamens inserted in the tube of the calyx. 39
+
+36. Calyx without scales at the base. Flowers dioecious, yellow or
+green, the male solitary or in clusters, the female solitary, with
+5 staminodes. Ovary globose. Placentas and stigmas 5. Fruits large.
+Leafless, nearly erect, spiny shrubs.--Species 1. German South-west
+Africa and Angola. Yields edible fruits and seeds and medicaments.
+=Acanthosicyos= Welw.
+
+Calyx with 2-3 scales at the base. Ovary bottle-shaped. Placentas and
+stigmas 1-3. Climbing or prostrate herbs. 37
+
+37. Ovules 2. Stigma 1, capitate. Flowers large, yellow,
+monoecious, the male 2-3 together at the base of the leaf-blade,
+without a rudimentary pistil, the female solitary or in pairs,
+without staminodes. Fruits small. Leaves slightly lobed. Tendrils
+simple.--Species 3. Central Africa. (_Raphanocarpus_ Hook.)
+=Rhaphanocarpus= Hook.
+
+Ovules 3 or more. Stigmas 3. 38
+
+38. Ovules few. Fruit constricted between the seeds.--Species 1. East
+Africa. (_Raphanistrocarpus_ Baill.) =Rhaphanistrocarpus= Baill.
+
+Ovules numerous. (See 11.) =Momordica= L.
+
+39. Male flowers in racemes. 40
+
+Male flowers solitary or in clusters, yellow. 43
+
+40. Female flowers in racemes or clusters, small. Ovules few. Male
+flowers without a rudimentary pistil. Fruit more or less globular.
+Tendrils simple.--Species 4. North Africa. Poisonous and used
+medicinally. =Bryonia= L.
+
+Female flowers solitary. Ovules numerous. 41
+
+41. Flowers dioecious large, white, the male without a rudimentary
+pistil. Stigma 1, 3-lobed. Fruit large, globose. Leafstalk with two
+glands at the apex. Tendrils 2-cleft, rarely simple.--Species 1.
+Tropical and South Africa. =Sphaerosicyos= Hook.
+
+Flowers monoecious. Stigmas 3, 2-lobed. Leaf-stalk without glands. 42
+
+42. Tendrils cleft. Leaves lobed. Fruit dry, opening by a lid.--Species
+7. Tropical and South Africa; one species also cultivated in North
+Africa. They are used as vegetables and medicinal plants; some have
+edible, others poisonous fruits; the fibres of the fruit are employed
+for making sponges, hats, and various utensils; the seeds are oily.
+=Luffa= L.
+
+Tendrils absent. Leaves undivided. Flowers yellow, the male without
+a rudimentary pistil. Fruit fleshy, ejecting the seeds when
+ripe.--Species 1. North Africa. A poisonous and medicinal plant.
+“Squirting cucumber.” =Ecballium= A. Rich.
+
+43. Male flowers without a rudimentary pistil. Ovules few.
+Stem climbing. Tendrils two-cleft. Flowers in clusters, small,
+yellowish-green, monoecious. Fruit small, globular.--Species 1.
+Tropics. Used as an ornamental and medicinal plant. =Bryonopsis= Arn.
+
+Male flowers with a rudimentary pistil. Ovules numerous. 44
+
+44. Connective of the stamens with a 2-cleft appendage at the apex.
+Tendrils simple, rarely wanting. (See 15.) =Cucumis= L.
+
+Connective of the stamens not prolonged at the apex. Tendrils
+2-3-cleft. Stem prostrate. Leaves lobed or divided. Flowers large,
+monoecious. 45
+
+45. Calyx-segments leaf-like, serrate, recurved. Flowers
+solitary.--Species 1 (_B. hispida_ Cogn.). Cultivated in various
+regions. The fruits are eaten and used in medicine. =Benincasa= Savi.
+
+Calyx-segments awl-shaped, entire.--Species 4. They yield edible fruits
+(chiefly from _C. vulgaris_ Neck., water-melon), edible oily seeds, and
+medicaments; some are poisonous. (_Colocynthis_ L.) =Citrullus= Neck.
+
+
+SUBORDER CAMPANULINEAE
+
+
+FAMILY 224. CAMPANULACEAE
+
+Leaves entire toothed or lobed, without stipules. Petals usually
+united below. Stamens as many as the petals. Anthers turned inwards.
+Ovary inferior or half-inferior, rarely (_Lightfootia_) superior,
+2-10-celled, rarely (_Merciera_) 1-celled. Ovules inverted, numerous
+and axile, rarely few and apical or basal. Style simple. Fruit a
+capsule, rarely a nut or (_Canarina_) a berry. Seeds with fleshy
+albumen; embryo straight.--Genera 26, species 400. (Including
+_LOBELIACEAE_ and _SPHENOCLEACEAE_.) (Plate 149.)
+
+1. Anthers connate. Flowers more or less irregular, solitary or in
+racemes or panicles. [Subfamily =LOBELIOIDEAE=.] 2
+
+Anthers free, rarely (_Jasione_) cohering at the base, but then flowers
+regular and in heads. 7
+
+2. Petals free. Flowers nearly regular, small, greenish-yellow, in
+many-flowered terminal and lateral racemes.--Species 2. Madagascar.
+=Dialypetalum= Benth.
+
+Petals united below. 3
+
+3. Corolla-tube slit down to the base or nearly so, at least on one
+side. Stamens free from the corolla or nearly so. 4
+
+Corolla-tube not or but shortly slit. 6
+
+4. Fruit linear. All anthers hairy at the apex.--Species 1. South
+Africa. (Under _Lobelia_ L.) =Grammatotheca= Presl
+
+Fruit roundish. 5
+
+5. Anthers and stigmas ripe at the same time. All anthers hairy at the
+apex. Odd sepal in front.--Species 12. South and East Africa and Comoro
+Islands. Some are used as ornamental plants. (Including _Dobrowskya_
+Presl and _Parastranthus_ Don, under _Lobelia_ L.) =Monopsis= Salisb.
+
+Anthers ripe before the stigmas. Odd sepal usually behind.--Species
+120. Southern and tropical Africa, Madeira, and Azores. Some are
+poisonous or are used as ornamental or medicinal plants. (Including
+_Isolobus_ A. DC. and _Metzleria_ Presl) =Lobelia= L.
+
+6. Filaments adnate to the corolla on one side to beyond the middle.
+Corolla white.--Species 1. Naturalized in the Island of Réunion. A
+poisonous and medicinal plant. =Isotoma= Lindl.
+
+Filaments free from the corolla or shortly adnate to it. Corolla
+blue or white.--Species 10. South and North-west Africa. (Including
+_Enchysia_ Presl) =Laurentia= Neck.
+
+7. (1.) Flowers distinctly irregular. Ovary 2-celled. Fruit opening
+loculicidally and septicidally.--Species 30. South and Central Africa.
+Several species have edible tubers. [Subfamily =CYPHIOIDEAE=.] =Cyphia=
+Berg
+
+Flowers regular or nearly so. [Subfamily =CAMPANULOIDEAE=.] 8
+
+8. Corolla imbricate in the bud. Style very short, without collecting
+hairs. Ovary 2-celled; placentas thick, suspended from the top of the
+partition. Fruit opening by a lid. Flowers in spikes, small, greenish
+or yellowish.--Species 1. Tropics and Egypt. [Tribe SPHENOCLEEAE.]
+=Sphenoclea= Gaertn.
+
+Corolla valvate in the bud. Style with hairs or viscid glands for
+collecting the pollen. [Tribe CAMPANULEAE.] 9
+
+9. Carpels 5, as many as the sepals or stamens, and alternating with
+them. 10
+
+Carpels as many as the sepals or stamens, but opposite to them, or
+fewer. 11
+
+10. Corolla rotate or broadly campanulate, deeply cleft, yellow or
+red. Filaments broadened at the base. Fruit opening laterally by many
+transverse slits. Large herbs or undershrubs. Leaves elliptical.
+Flowers large, in panicles.--Species 2. Madeira. Used as ornamental
+plants. =Musschia= Dumort.
+
+Corolla tubular or narrowly campanulate. Filaments not broadened. Fruit
+opening loculicidally by 5 apical valves. Seeds few. Small herbs.
+Leaves linear. Flowers small, solitary or in clusters.--Species 4.
+South Africa. =Microcodon= A. DC.
+
+11. Filaments adnate to the corolla halfway or higher up. Fruit opening
+by an apical lid. 12
+
+Filaments free from the corolla or nearly so. 13
+
+12. Ovules 2 in each ovary-cell, suspended from the top of the cell.
+Flowers blue, in raceme-or panicle-like cymose inflorescences. Leaves
+linear. Herbs or undershrubs. =Siphocodon= Turcz.
+
+Ovules many in each cell, attached to the inner angle. Flowers red, in
+heads. Leaves ovate. Shrubs.--Species 1. South Africa. =Rhigiophyllum=
+Hochst.
+
+13. Anthers cohering at the base. Petals free or nearly so. Ovary
+2-celled. Fruit opening loculicidally at the top. Flowers in heads
+surrounded by an involucre.--Species 4. North Africa. =Jasione= L.
+
+Anthers free. 14
+
+14. Ovules 4, basal. Ovary 1-celled, sometimes incompletely 2-celled.
+Corolla tubular-funnel-shaped. Fruit dry, indehiscent, 1-, rarely
+2-4-seeded. Undershrubs. Flowers solitary, axillary.--Species 4. South
+Africa. =Merciera= A. DC.
+
+Ovules axile, usually numerous. Ovary 2-10-celled. 15
+
+15. Fruit a roundish berry. Flowers solitary, terminal, large, nearly
+always 6-merous. Corolla bell-shaped, yellow or red. Filaments
+broadened at the base. Leaves opposite, the lower whorled.--Species 3.
+East Africa and Canary Islands. They yield edible roots and fruits and
+serve as ornamental plants. =Canarina= L.
+
+Fruit a capsule, rarely a nut. Flowers usually 5-merous. 16
+
+16. Fruit narrow, opening by an apical lid and sometimes also by
+lateral slits, more rarely remaining closed. Ovary 2-celled. 17
+
+Fruit opening by apical valves or by lateral valves, slits, or pores. 18
+
+17. Flowers in terminal heads. Corolla tubular. Ovary ovoid.--Species
+1. South Africa. (_Leptocodon_ Sond.) =Treichelia= Vatke
+
+Flowers terminal and solitary, or in lateral glomerules. Ovary
+oblong.--Species 15. South Africa. Some are used as ornamental plants.
+=Roëlla= L.
+
+18. Fruit opening by lateral, but sometimes nearly apical valves,
+slits, or pores. 19
+
+Fruit opening loculicidally at the apex, usually broad. 22
+
+19. Fruit narrow, opening by pores or slits. 20
+
+Fruit broad, opening by valves. 21
+
+20. Fruit opening by long slits. Ovary 2-celled. Corolla funnel-shaped
+or narrowly bell-shaped.--Species 20. South Africa. =Prismatocarpus=
+L’Hér.
+
+Fruit opening by short slits or pores. Ovary 3-celled. Corolla
+wheel-shaped or broadly bell-shaped.--Species 4. North Africa.
+They serve as ornamental plants; the root is edible. “Venus’s
+looking-glass.” =Specularia= Heist.
+
+21. Corolla tubular. Ovary 2-3-celled. Style projecting far beyond the
+corolla. Flowers in panicles.--Species 1. North-west Africa. Used as an
+ornamental plant; the root is edible. =Trachelium= L.
+
+Corolla bell-or funnel-shaped. Ovary 3-5-celled. Style not or slightly
+projecting beyond the corolla.--Species 25. North Africa and northern
+Central Africa. Several species are used as vegetables or as medicinal
+or ornamental plants. =Campanula= L.
+
+22. Stigma-lobes 2-10, narrow. 23
+
+Stigma-lobes 2-3, broad, sometimes very small. 24
+
+23. Petals free or nearly so, narrow.--Species 50. Southern and
+tropical Africa. (Plate 149.) =Lightfootia= L’Hér.
+
+Petals obviously united below, or broad.--Species 80. Some of them
+serve as ornamental plants. (Including _Cervicina_ Del.) =Wahlenbergia=
+Schrad.
+
+24. Petals free or nearly so, narrow, blue. Herbs.--Species 6. Central
+and South-west Africa. =Cephalostigma= A. DC.
+
+Petals obviously united below. 25
+
+25. Corolla bell-shaped, deeply cleft, yellow. Style equalling the
+corolla. Fruit opening at the top and laterally. Seeds numerous. Stem
+woody. Species 1. Mascarene Islands. (Under _Wahlenbergia_ Schrad.)
+=Heterochaenia= A. DC.
+
+Corolla narrowly funnel-shaped, shortly lobed. Style much exceeding
+the corolla. Fruit opening at the top only. Seeds about ten. Stem
+herbaceous.--Species 1. Morocco. (Under _Trachelium_ L.) =Feeria= Buser
+
+
+FAMILY 225. GOODENIACEAE
+
+Shrubs or trees. Juice not milky. Leaves alternate, undivided, without
+stipules. Flowers in axillary cymes, irregular, hermaphrodite. Calyx
+truncate or 5-toothed. Corolla 5-lobed, slit open behind, with folded
+aestivation. Stamens 5, alternating with the corolla-lobes, free from
+the corolla. Anthers free, turned inwards. Ovary inferior, 2-celled.
+Ovules solitary in each cell, erect. Style simple. Stigma capitate,
+surrounded by a fringed cup. Fruit a drupe. Seeds with fleshy albumen;
+embryo straight.
+
+Genus 1, species 2. Tropical and South Africa. They yield wood for
+carpenters’ work, pith used in the manufacture of paper, vegetables,
+and medicaments. =Scaevola= L.
+
+
+FAMILY 226. COMPOSITAE
+
+Leaves simple and exstipulate, but sometimes dissected or provided
+with stipule-like auricles. Flowers seated upon a dilated or elevated
+receptacle and arranged in sometimes spike-like or one-flowered
+heads which are surrounded by an involucre. Heads either containing
+only hermaphrodite flowers, several of which are sometimes sterile
+(male), or consisting of hermaphrodite or male central (disc-) flowers
+and female or neuter marginal (ray-) flowers, more rarely heads
+unisexual or reduced to a single flower. Calyx-limb (pappus) formed
+of sometimes connate scales or hairs, fully developed only in fruit,
+or wanting. Corolla of united petals, in the hermaphrodite and male
+flowers 3-5-lobed with valvate aestivation, regular (tube-, funnel-,
+or bell-shaped) or 2-lipped or 1-lipped (strap-shaped), in the female
+flowers sometimes wanting. Stamens as many as the corolla-lobes and
+alternate with them, inserted in the corolla-tube. Anthers connate,
+rarely free, opening inwards by
+
+[Illustration: CAMPANULACEAE.
+
+_FLOW. PL. AFR._
+
+_Pl. 149._
+
+J. Fleischmann del.
+
+Lightfootia subulata L’Hér.
+
+_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Flower cut lengthwise. _C_ Fruit. _D_ Seed.]
+
+[Illustration: COMPOSITAE.
+
+_FLOW. PL. AFR._
+
+_Pl. 150._
+
+J. Fleischmann del.
+
+Vernonia Baumii O. Hoffm.
+
+_A_ Flowering branch. _B_ Flower. _C_ Flower cut lengthwise and
+pappus-bristle. _D_ Anther from front and back.] two longitudinal
+slits. Ovary inferior, 1-celled. Ovule 1, erect, inverted. Style of
+the fertile hermaphrodite flowers cleft into two branches, which bear
+stigmatic papillae on the inner face or the margins, and hairs on
+the outer face, on both sides, or at the top; style of the sterile
+flowers usually entire. Fruit indehiscent, mostly dry. Seed solitary,
+with a thin coat usually adnate to the pericarp, exalbuminous.
+Embryo straight; radicle short, inferior.--Genera 327, species 4200.
+(Including _AMBROSIACEAE_.) (Plate 150.)
+
+1. Corolla of all flowers strap-shaped (ligulate). Juice milky. [Tribe
+CICHORIEAE.] 2
+
+Corolla of the hermaphrodite and male flowers not strap-shaped. Juice
+not milky. 31
+
+2. Scales on the receptacle enclosing the fruits. Thistle-like
+herbs.--Species 3. North Africa and northern East Africa. Used as
+vegetables and in medicine. [Subtribe SCOLYMINAE.] =Scolymus= L.
+
+Scales on the receptacle not enclosing the fruits or wanting. Not
+thistle-like plants. 3
+
+3. Pappus of all or of the inner fruits consisting of feathery bristles
+which are sometimes broadened at the base or surrounded by simple
+bristles or by a small crown. [Subtribe LEONTODONTINAE.] 4
+
+Pappus consisting of simple, smooth or rough, in some cases shortly
+ciliate bristles, or of such bristles and scales, or only of scales
+sometimes ending in a not feathery, in some cases shortly ciliate awn,
+or of scales united into a small crown, or wanting altogether. 10
+
+4. Pappus-bristles, at least on the inner fruits, with interwoven
+pinnae. Receptacle without scales. 5
+
+Pappus-bristles with not interwoven pinnae, in 1 or 2 rows. Flowers
+yellow. 7
+
+5. Pappus-bristles and involucral bracts in one row. Flower-heads
+terminal, solitary, large or rather large. Leaves linear.--Species 3.
+North Africa; one of the species also naturalized in St. Helena. Used
+as vegetables or in medicine. “Salsify.” (Including _Geropogon_ L.)
+=Tragopogon= L.
+
+Pappus-bristles and involucral bracts in several rows. 6
+
+6. Fruits obliquely truncate at the top; hence pappus lateral.
+Flower-heads terminal, solitary; flowers yellow. Leaves
+radical.--Species 1. North-west Africa (Algeria) =Tourneuxia= Coss.
+
+Fruits straight at the top.--Species 7. North and Central Africa; one
+species only cultivated. They yield edible roots, food for silkworms,
+and medicaments. (Including _Podospermum_ DC.) =Scorzonera= L.
+
+7. Receptacle with scales between the flowers. Involucral bracts
+in several rows.--Species 6. North Africa; two of the species also
+naturalized in South Africa, St. Helena, and the Mascarenes. Used in
+medicine. (Including _Seriola_ L.) =Hypochoeris= L.
+
+Receptacle without scales. 8
+
+8. Involucral bracts in one row. Fruits with a hollow beak.
+Pappus-bristles in two rows. Flower-heads solitary.--Species 2.
+North Africa and Cape Verde Islands; naturalized in South Africa.
+=Urospermum= Scop.
+
+Involucral bracts in several rows. 9
+
+9. Leaves all radical. Stem simple or scantily branched. Pappus