IV

We began going out shooting again. Glahn felt he had wronged me, and

begged my pardon.

“And I'm dead sick of the whole thing,” he said. “I only wish you'd make

a slip one day and put a bullet in my throat.” It was that letter from

the Countess again, perhaps, that was smouldering in his mind. I

answered:

“As a man soweth, so shall he also reap.”

Day by day he grew more silent and gloomy. He had given up drinking

now, and didn't say a word, either; his cheeks grew hollow.

One day I heard talking and laughter outside my window; Glahn had turned

cheerful again, and he stood there talking out loud to Maggie. He was

getting in all his fascinating tricks. Maggie must have come straight

from her hut, and Glahn had been watching and waiting for her. They

even had the nerve to stand there making up together right outside my

glass window.

I felt a trembling in all my limbs. I cocked my gun; then I let the

hammer down again. I went outside and took Maggie by the arm; we walked

out of the village in silence; Glahn went back into the hut again at

once.

“What were you talking with him again for?” I asked Maggie.

She made no answer.

I was thoroughly desperate. My heart beat so I could hardly breathe. I

had never seen Maggie look so lovely as she did then--never seen a real

white girl so beautiful. And I forgot she was a Tamil--forgot everything

for her sake.

“Answer me,” I said. “What were you talking to him for?”

“I like him best,” she said.

“You like him better than me?”

“Yes.”

Oh, indeed! She liked him better than me, though I was at least as good

a man! Hadn't I always been kind to her, and given her money and

presents? And what had he done?

“He makes fun of you; he says you're always chewing things,” I said.

She did not understand that, and I explained it better; how she had a

habit of putting everything in her mouth and chewing it, and how Glahn

laughed at her for it. That made more impression on her than all the

rest I said.

“Look here, Maggie,” I went on, “you shall be mine for always. Wouldn't

you like that? I've been thinking it over. You shall go with me when I

leave here; I will marry you, do you hear? and we'll go to our own

country and live there. You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

And that impressed her too. Maggie grew lively and talked a lot as we

walked. She only mentioned Glahn once; she asked:

“And will Glahn go with us when we go away?”

“No,” I said. “He won't. Are you sorry about that?”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I am glad.”

She said no more about him, and I felt easier. And Maggie went home

with me, too, when I asked her.

When she went, a couple of hours later, I climbed up the ladder to

Glahn's room and knocked at the thin reed door. He was in. I said:

“I came to tell you that perhaps we'd better not go out shooting

to-morrow.”

“Why not?” said Glahn.

“Because I'm not so sure but I might make a little mistake and put a

bullet in your throat.”

Glahn did not answer, and I went down again. After that warning he

would hardly dare to go out to-morrow--but what did he want to get

Maggie out under my window for, and fool with her there at the top of

his voice? Why didn't he go back home again, if the letter really asked

him, instead of going about as he often did, clenching his teeth and

shouting at the empty air: “Never, never! I'll be drawn and quartered

first?”

But the morning after I had warned him, as I said, there was Glahn the

same as ever, standing by my bed, calling out:

“Up with you, comrade! It's a lovely day; we must go out and shoot

something. That was all nonsense you said yesterday.”

It was no more than four o'clock, but I got up at once and got ready to

go with him, in spite of my warning. I loaded my gun before starting

out, and I let him see that I did. And it was not at all a lovely day,

as he had said; it was raining, which showed that he was only trying to

irritate me the more. But I took no notice, and went with him, saying

nothing.

All that day we wandered round through the forest, each lost in his own

thoughts. We shot nothing--lost one chance after another, through

thinking of other things than sport. About noon, Glahn began walking a

bit ahead of me, as if to give me a better chance of doing what I liked

with him. He walked right across the muzzle of my gun; but I bore with

that too. We came back that evening. Nothing had happened. I thought to

myself: “Perhaps he'll be more careful now, and leave Maggie alone.”

“This has been the longest day of my life,” said Glahn when we got back

to the hut.

Nothing more was said on either side.

The next few days he was in the blackest humor, seemingly all about the

same letter. “I can't stand it; no, it's more than I can bear,” he would

say sometimes in the night; we could hear it all through the hut. His

ill temper carried him so far that he would not even answer the most

friendly questions when our landlady spoke to him; and he used to groan

in his sleep. He must have a deal on his conscience, I thought--but why

in the name of goodness didn't he go home? Just pride, no doubt; he

would not go back when he had been turned off once.

I met Maggie every evening, and Glahn talked with her no more. I noticed

that she had given up chewing things altogether; she never chewed now. I

was pleased at that, and thought: She's given up chewing things; that is

one failing the less, and I love her twice as much as I did before!

One day she asked about Glahn--asked very cautiously. Was he not well?

Had he gone away?

“If he's not dead, or gone away,” I said, “he's lying at home, no doubt.

It's all one to me. He's beyond all bearing now.”

But just then, coming up to the hut, we saw Glahn lying on a mat on the

ground, hands at the back of his neck, staring up at the sky.

“There he is,” I said.

Maggie went straight up to him, before I could stop her, and said in a

pleased sort of voice:

“I don't chew things now--nothing at all. No feathers or money or bits

of paper--you can see for yourself.”

Glahn scarcely looked at her. He lay still. Maggie and I went on. When

I reproached her with having broken her promise and spoken to Glahn

again, she answered that she had only meant to show him he was wrong.

“That's right--show him he's wrong,” I said. “But do you mean it was

for his sake you stopped chewing things?”

She didn't answer. What, wouldn't she answer?

“Do you hear? Tell me, was it for his sake?”

And I could not think otherwise. Why should she do anything for Glahn's

sake?

That evening Maggie promised to come to me, and she did.

V

She came at ten o'clock. I heard her voice outside; she was talking

loud to a child whom she led by the hand. Why did she not come in, and

what had she brought the child for? I watched her, and it struck me that

she was giving a signal by talking out loud to the child; I noticed,

too, that she kept her eyes fixed on the attic--on Glahn's window up

there. Had he nodded to her, I wondered, or beckoned to her from inside

when he heard her talking outside? Anyhow, I had sense enough myself to

know there was no need to look up aloft when talking to a child on the

ground.

I was going out to take her by the arm. But just then she let go the

child's hand, left the child standing there, and came in herself,

through the door to the hut. She stepped into the passage. Well, there

she was at last; I would take care to give her a good talking to when

she came!

Well, I stood there and heard Maggie step into the passage. There was no

mistake: she was close outside my door. But instead of coming in to me,

I heard her step up the ladder--up to the attic--to Glahn's hole up

there. I heard it only too well. I threw my door open wide, but Maggie

had gone up already. That was ten o'clock.

I went in, sat down in my room, and took my gun and loaded it. At twelve

o'clock I went up the ladder and listened at Glahn's door. I could hear

Maggie in there; I went down again. At one I went up again; all was

quiet this time. I waited outside the door. Three o'clock, four o'clock,

five. Good, I thought to myself. But a little after, I heard a noise and

movement below in the hut, in my landlady's room; and I had to go down

again quickly, so as not to let her find me there. I might have

listened much more, but I had to go.

In the passage I said to myself: “See, here she went: she must have

touched my door with her arm as she passed, but she did not open the

door: she went up the ladder, and here is the ladder itself--those four

steps, she has trodden them.”

My bed still lay untouched, and I did not lie down now, but sat by the

window, fingering my rifle now and again. My heart was not beating--it

was trembling.

Half an hour later I heard Maggie's footstep on the ladder again. I lay

close up to the window and saw her walk out of the hut. She was wearing

her little short cotton petticoat, that did not even reach to her knees,

and over her shoulders a woolen scarf borrowed from Glahn. She walked

slowly, as she always did, and did not so much as glance towards my

window. Then she disappeared behind the huts.

A little after came Glahn, with his rifle under his arm, all ready to go

out. He looked gloomy, and did not even say good-morning. I noticed,

though, that he had got himself up and taken special care about his

dress.

I got ready at once and went with him. Neither of us said a word. The

first two birds we shot were mangled horribly, through shooting them

with the rifle; but we cooked them under a tree as best we could, and

ate in silence. So the day wore on till noon.

Glahn called out to me:

“Sure your gun is loaded? We might come across something unexpectedly.

Load it, anyhow.”

“It is loaded,” I answered.

Then he disappeared a moment into the bush. I felt it would be a

pleasure to shoot him then--pick him off and shoot him down like a dog.

There was no hurry; he could still enjoy the thought of it for a bit. He

knew well enough what I had in mind: that was why he had asked if my gun

were loaded. Even to-day he could not refrain from giving way to his

beastly pride. He had dressed himself up and put on a new shirt; his

manner was, lordly beyond all bounds.

About one o'clock he stopped, pale and angry, in front of me, and said:

“I can't stand this! Look and see if you're loaded, man--if you've

anything in your gun.”

“Kindly look after your own gun,” I answered. But I knew well enough

why he kept asking about mine.

And he turned away again. My answer had so effectively put him in his

place that he actually seemed cowed: he even hung his head as he walked

off.

After a while I shot a pigeon, and loaded again. While I was doing so,

I caught sight of Glahn standing half hidden behind a tree, watching me

to see if I really loaded. A little later he started singing a hymn--and

a wedding hymn into the bargain. Singing wedding hymns, and putting on

his best clothes, I thought to myself--that's his way of being extra

fascinating to-day. Even before he had finished the hymn he began

walking softly in front of me, hanging his head, and still singing as he

walked. He was keeping right in front of the muzzle of my gun again, as

if thinking to himself: Now it is coming, and that is why I am singing

this wedding hymn! But it did not come yet, and when he had finished his

singing he had to look back at me.

“We shan't get much to-day anyhow, by the look of it,” he said, with a

smile, as if excusing himself, and asking pardon of me for singing while

we were out after game. But even at that moment his smile was beautiful.

It was as if he were weeping inwardly, and his lips trembled, too, for

all that he boasted of being able to smile at such a solemn moment.

I was no woman, and he saw well enough that he made no impression on me.

He grew impatient, his face paled, he circled round me with hasty steps,

showing up now to the left, now to the right of me, and stopping every

now and then to wait for me to come up.

About five, I heard a shot all of a sudden, and a bullet sang past my

left ear. I looked up. There was Glahn standing motionless a few paces

off, staring at me; his smoking rifle lay along his arm. Had he tried to

shoot me? I said:

“You missed that time. You've been shooting badly of late.”

But he had not been shooting badly. He never missed. He had only been

trying to irritate me.

“Then take your revenge, damn you!” he shouted back.

“All in good time,” I said, clenching my teeth.

We stood there looking at each other. And suddenly Glahn shrugged his

shoulders and called out “Coward” to me. And why should he call me a

coward? I threw my rifle to my shoulder--aimed full in his face--fired.

As a man soweth...

Now, there is no need, I insist, for the Glahns to make further

inquiry about this man. It annoys me to be constantly seeing their

advertisements offering such and such reward for information about a

dead man. Thomas Glahn was killed by accident--shot by accident when

out on a hunting trip in India. The court entered his name, with the

particulars of his end, in a register with pierced and threaded

leaves. And in that register it says that he is dead--_dead_, I tell

you--and what is more, that he was killed by accident.