camel in the Libyan desert, with an Ababdeh guide, and three
baggage-camels to tie one down to their own exasperating pace. However,
even two and a half miles an hour mount up in time, and at last, on the
third evening, from the blackened slag-heap of a hill which is called
the Jebel Kurkur, Hilary Joyce looked down upon a distant clump of
palms, and thought that this cool patch of green in the midst of the
merciless blacks and yellows was the fairest colour effect that he had
ever seen. An hour later he had ridden into the little camp, the guard
had turned out to salute him, his native subordinate had greeted him in
excellent English, and he had fairly entered into his own. It was not an
exhilarating place for a lengthy residence. There was one large,
bowl-shaped, grassy depression sloping down to the three pits of brown
and brackish water. There, also, was the grove of palm trees beautiful
to look upon, but exasperating in view of the fact that Nature has
provided her least shady trees on the very spot where shade is needed
most. A single wide-spread acacia did something to restore the balance.
Here Hilary Joyce slumbered in the heat, and in the cool he inspected
his square-shouldered, spindle-shanked Soudanese, with their cheery
black faces and their funny little pork-pie forage caps. Joyce was a
martinet at drill, and the blacks loved being drilled, so the Bimbashi
was soon popular among them. But one day was exactly like another. The
weather, the view, the employment, the food--everything was the same.
At the end of three weeks he felt that he had been there for
interminable years. And then at last there came something to break the
monotony.
[Illustration]
One evening, as the sun was sinking, Hilary Joyce rode slowly down the
old caravan road. It had a fascination for him, this narrow track,
winding among the boulders and curving up the nullahs, for he remembered
how in the map it had gone on and on, stretching away into the unknown
heart of Africa. The countless pads of innumerable camels through many
centuries had beaten it smooth, so that now, unused and deserted, it
still wound away, the strangest of roads, a foot broad, and perhaps two
thousand miles in length. Joyce wondered as he rode how long it was
since any traveller had journeyed up it from the south, and then he
raised his eyes, and there was a man coming along the path. For an
instant Joyce thought that it might be one of his own men, but a second
glance assured him that this could not be so. The stranger was dressed
in the flowing robes of an Arab, and not in the close-fitting khaki of a
soldier. He was very tall, and a high turban made him seem gigantic. He
strode swiftly along, with head erect, and the bearing of a man who
knows no fear.
Who could he be, this formidable giant coming out of the unknown? The
precursor possibly of a horde of savage spearmen. And where could he
have walked from? The nearest well was a long hundred miles down the
track. At any rate the frontier post of Kurkur could not afford to
receive casual visitors. Hilary Joyce whisked round his horse, galloped
into camp, and gave the alarm. Then, with twenty horsemen at his back,
he rode out again to reconnoitre. The man was still coming on in spite
of these hostile preparations. For an instant he hesitated when first he
saw the cavalry, but escape was out of the question, and he advanced
with the air of a man who makes the best of a bad job. He made no
resistance, and said nothing when the hands of two troopers clutched at
his shoulders, but walked quietly between their horses into camp.
Shortly afterwards the patrol came in again. There were no signs of any
dervishes. The man was alone. A splendid trotting camel had been found
lying dead a little way down the track. The mystery of the stranger's
arrival was explained. But why, and whence, and whither?--these were
questions for which a zealous officer must find an answer.
[Illustration]
Hilary Joyce was disappointed that there were no dervishes. It would
have been a great start for him in the Egyptian army had he fought a
little action on his own account. But even as it was, he had a rare
chance of impressing the authorities. He would love to show his
capacity to the head of the Intelligence, and even more to that grim
chief who never forgot what was smart, or forgave what was slack. The
prisoner's dress and bearing showed that he was of importance. Mean men
do not ride pure-bred trotting camels. Joyce sponged his head with cold
water, drank a cup of strong coffee, put on an imposing official
tarboosh instead of his sun-helmet, and formed himself into a court of
inquiry and judgment under the acacia tree. He would have liked his
people to have seen him now, with his two black orderlies in waiting,
and his Egyptian native officer at his side. He sat behind a camp-table,
and the prisoner, strongly guarded, was led up to him. The man was a
handsome fellow, with bold grey eyes and a long black beard.
"Why!" cried Joyce, "the rascal is making faces at me." A curious
contraction had passed over the man's features, but so swiftly that it
might have been a nervous twitch. He was now a model of Oriental
gravity. "Ask him who he is, and what he wants?" The native officer did
so, but the stranger made no reply, save that the same sharp spasm
passed once more over his face. "Well, I'm blessed!" cried Hilary Joyce.
"Of all the impudent scoundrels! He keeps on winking at me. Who are you,
you rascal? Give an account of yourself! D'ye hear?" But the tall Arab
was as impervious to English as to Arabic. The Egyptian tried again and
again. The prisoner looked at Joyce with his inscrutable eyes, and
occasionally twitched his face at him, but never opened his mouth. The
Bimbashi scratched his head in bewilderment.
"Look here, Mahomet Ali, we've got to get some sense out of this fellow.
You say there are no papers on him?"
"No, sir; we found no papers."
"No clue of any kind?"
"He has come far, sir. A trotting camel does not die easily. He has come
from Dongola, at least."
"Well, we must get him to talk."
"It is possible that he is deaf and dumb."
"Not he. I never saw a man look more all there in my life."
"You might send him across to Assouan."
"And give some one else the credit? No, thank you. This is my bird. But
how are we going to get him to find his tongue?"
The Egyptian's dark eyes skirted the encampment and rested on the cook's
fire. "Perhaps," said he, "if the Bimbashi thought fit----" He looked at
the prisoner and then at the burning wood.
"No, no; it wouldn't do. No, by Jove, that's going too far."
[Illustration]
"A very little might do it."
"No, no. It's all very well here, but it would sound just awful if ever
it got as far as Fleet Street. But, I say," he whispered, "we might
frighten him a bit. There's no harm in that."
"No, sir."
"Tell them to undo the man's galabeeah. Order them to put a horseshoe in
the fire and make it red-hot." The prisoner watched the proceedings with
an air which had more of amusement than of uneasiness. He never winced
as the black sergeant approached with the glowing shoe held upon two
bayonets.
"Will you speak now?" asked the Bimbashi, savagely. The prisoner smiled
gently and stroked his beard.
"Oh, chuck the infernal thing away!" cried Joyce, jumping up in a
passion. "There's no use trying to bluff the fellow. He knows we won't
do it. But I _can_ and I _will_ flog him, and you can tell him from me
that if he hasn't found his tongue by to-morrow morning I'll take the
skin off his back as sure as my name's Joyce. Have you said all that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you can sleep upon it, you beauty, and a good night's rest may it
give you!" He adjourned the Court, and the prisoner, as imperturbable as
ever, was led away by the guard to his supper of rice and water. Hilary
Joyce was a kind-hearted man, and his own sleep was considerably
disturbed by the prospect of the punishment which he must inflict next
day. He had hopes that the mere sight of the koorbash and the thongs
might prevail over his prisoner's obstinacy. And then, again, he thought
how shocking it would be if the man proved to be really dumb after all.
The possibility shook him so that he had almost determined by daybreak
that he would send the stranger on unhurt to Assouan. And yet what a
tame conclusion it would be to the incident! He lay upon his angareeb
still debating it when the question suddenly and effectively settled
itself. Ali Mahomet rushed into his tent.
"Sir," he cried, "the prisoner is gone!"
"Gone!"
"Yes, sir, and your own best riding camel as well. There is a slit cut
in the tent, and he got away unseen in the early morning."
[Illustration]
The Bimbashi acted with all energy. Cavalry rode along every track;
scouts examined the soft sand of the wadys for signs of the fugitive,
but no trace was discovered. The man had utterly disappeared. With a
heavy heart, Hilary Joyce wrote an official report of the matter and
forwarded it to Assouan. Five days later there came a curt order from
the chief that he should report himself there. He feared the worst from
the stern soldier, who spared others as little as he spared himself. And
his worst forebodings were realised. Travel-stained and weary, he
reported himself one night at the general's quarters. Behind a table
piled with papers and strewn with maps the famous soldier and his Chief
of Intelligence were deep in plans and figures. Their greeting was a
cold one.
[Illustration: Bimbashi Joyce
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by R. Talbot Kelly, R.I._]
"I understand, Captain Joyce," said the general, "that you have allowed
a very important prisoner to slip through your fingers."
"I am sorry, sir."
"No doubt. But that will not mend matters. Did you ascertain anything
about him before you lost him?"
"No, sir."
"How was that?"
"I could get nothing out of him, sir."
"Did you try?"
"Yes, sir; I did what I could."
"What did you do?"
"Well, sir, I threatened to use physical force."
"What did he say?"
"He said nothing."
"What was he like?"
"A tall man, sir. Rather a desperate character, I should think."
"Any way by which we could identify him?"
"A long black beard, sir. Grey eyes. And a nervous way of twitching his
face."
"Well, Captain Joyce," said the general, in his stern, inflexible voice,
"I cannot congratulate you upon your first exploit in the Egyptian army.
You are aware that every English officer in this force is a picked man.
I have the whole British army from which to draw. It is necessary,
therefore, that I should insist upon the very highest efficiency. It
would be unfair upon the others to pass over any obvious want of zeal or
intelligence. You are seconded from the Royal Mallows, I understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"I have no doubt that your colonel will be glad to see you fulfilling
your regimental duties again." Hilary Joyce's heart was too heavy for
words. He was silent. "I will let you know my final decision to-morrow
morning." Joyce saluted and turned upon his heel.
"You can sleep upon that, you beauty, and a good night's rest may it
give you!"
[Illustration]
Joyce turned in bewilderment. Where had those words been used before?
Who was it who had used them? The general was standing erect. Both he
and the Chief of the Intelligence were laughing. Joyce stared at the
tall figure, the erect bearing, the inscrutable grey eyes.
"Good Lord!" he gasped.
"Well, well, Captain Joyce, we are quits!" said the general, holding out
his hand. "You gave me a bad ten minutes with that infernal red-hot
horseshoe of yours. I've done as much for you. I don't think we can
spare you for the Royal Mallows just yet awhile."
"But, sir; but----!"
"The fewer questions the better, perhaps. But of course it must seem
rather amazing. I had a little private business with the Kabbabish. It
must be done in person. I did it, and came to your post in my return. I
kept on winking at you as a sign that I wanted a word with you alone."
"Yes, yes. I begin to understand."
"I couldn't give it away before all those blacks, or where should I have
been the next time I used my false beard and Arab dress? You put me in a
very awkward position. But at last I had a word alone with your Egyptian
officer, who managed my escape all right."
"He! Mahomet Ali!"
"I ordered him to say nothing. I had a score to settle with you. But we
dine at eight, Captain Joyce. We live plainly here, but I think I can do
you a little better than you did me at Kurkur."
[Illustration
THE ANT-LION
BY J. H. FABRE
("The Insects' Homer")
_Painting and Drawings by_ E. J. DETMOLD
_Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Copyright U.S.A., 1914, by
Hughes Massie & Co._
MY big and little readers, look at the picture illustrating this story
and tell me what you see. First of all, a hideous little monster. It has
six short legs and an enormous body--the sign of an insatiable
appetite--and carries on its head two sharp-pointed, curved, movable
horns, which open and shut like a savage pair of pincers. Suppose we
were to hear that, in a desert island, a monster like that, but the size
of a wolf, was just emerging from the thick jungle and making for a
traveller, for some modern Robinson Crusoe, and that, in another moment,
it would be sticking its tusks into him, how thrilling we should find
it! We should hope that the man whose life was in danger was armed with
the most effective weapons, which would help him to come victorious out
of the contest: a twelve-chambered revolver at least, to say nothing of
a breech-loading rifle and explosive bullets!
But we must not take an unfair advantage of the animal's ugly appearance
in order to provoke unnatural excitement, for what I am about to tell is
history and not a fairy-tale: proper, genuine history. I will lose no
time in saying that the creature is quite harmless to any of us, even
the smallest. By this I do not mean to suggest that it has not a very
fierce and brutal temper; only, the victims of its bloodthirsty
instincts move in a world so tiny that we tread it under foot unnoticed.
It is an ogre, ever hungering after fresh meat, like the famous ogre of
your fairy-tales: you know, the one who welcomed Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his
brothers to his house one evening, meaning to put them all in a pie like
so many pigeons; in short, just the sort of ogre who makes your blood
run cold.
[Illustration]
Our little monster, then, wants its dinner, a thing not always easy to
find in this world, especially for an ogre. Hunger is gnawing at its
inside; it must eat or die. Its usual prey is the Ant, a good runner,
whose nimble legs promptly take to flight and baffle the clumsy,
corpulent hunter's attempts to attack her. You might as well tell the
Tortoise to run and catch the Gazelle. Our ogre possesses no greater
agility in comparison with the Ant; and moreover there is another reason
that makes it quite impossible for him to run after anything: like the
Crab, he can only really walk backwards, which is not exactly the way to
overtake your quarry when it's in front of you.
To be fat and heavy, to walk backwards and to be obliged to have live
Ant for one's dinner is a difficult, a very difficult problem. What
would you do in such a case? Come, try to find something! Rack your
brains! You can think of nothing? Well, never mind: plenty of others,
including myself, could not think of anything either.
Everyday common-sense, expressed in proverbs, tells us over and over
again that necessity is the mother of invention. This great truth, which
we have learnt by personal experience, we shall learn once more from the
Ant-hunter. But first let us give him a name, to simplify our story.
Naturalists call him the Ant-lion, a very happy term, which reminds us
that, like the Lion, he lives by carnage, slaughtering live prey, in
this case Ants. Now that we have christened him we can go on.
When he wants his dinner, the Ant-lion says to himself:
"You're a fat little beggar, you know, short-legged and slow-moving;
you'll never catch Ants by running after them. On the other hand, you
can walk backwards, that's capital; you have a head flattened like a
navvy's shovel, that's first-rate; your pincers are long and grip like a
knife, that's perfect, absolutely perfect. We'll use that talent for
walking backwards; we'll use those tools, the shovel and tongs; we'll
make craft take the place of the agility which we lack; and the dinner
will come along."
No sooner said than done. In a nice dry spot, warmed by the sun and
sheltered from the rain by an overhanging rock, the wily animal selects
a place where Ants are incessantly moving to and fro on household
matters. Gravely, with the mathematical accuracy of an engineer tracing
the foundation of a well-planned building, the Ant-lion walks backwards,
with his body dug into the sand; he turns and turns and in this way
hollows out a groove shaped like a perfect circle. Then, still moving
backwards and still digging deeper and deeper into the sand, he repeats
the circuit many times over, but gradually coming nearer the centre,
where he arrives in the end. If any obstacle, such as a large bit of
gravel, which would spoil the work, makes its appearance, the Ant-lion
takes it on his flat head and, with a vigorous jerk of his neck, flings
it to a distance over the edge of the hole. We should use a shovel in
exactly the same way to throw out the rubbish when digging.
[Illustration]
The result of this labour is a sort of funnel, two inches wide and a
little less in depth. For that matter, each Ant-lion scoops himself out
one proportioned to his size: the larger ones, the giants of the family,
produce one almost big enough to hold an orange; the younger and smaller
ones are content with a hollow which a walnut would fill. But, whether
great funnels or modest dents, all these cavities are constructed on one
and the same principle: the slope is very steep and formed of extremely
loose sand; nothing, however light, can set foot upon it without
producing a landslip, followed by a headlong fall.
When the work is finished, the scoundrel buries himself in the sand,
right at the bottom of the funnel; his pincers alone appear outside,
ever ready to snap, but nevertheless hidden as far as possible. And now
the Ant-lion remains completely motionless and waits; he waits for
hours, for days, for weeks, if necessary, for his patience is
unequalled; he waits for his dinner to come to him, as he cannot go
after his dinner himself.
Let us do as he does and wait, very attentively. What will happen? See,
an Ant comes trotting along, suspecting no harm, bringing a little honey
in her crop for her mates, who are working at a distance, just as the
goodwife, on the stroke of noon, brings the reaper his midday meal in
the fields. In her hurry, or perhaps in her heedlessness, she has not
seen the precipice. She steps upon it, but only just on the edge. It
makes no difference: as soon as her foot is on the perfidious slope, the
sand gives way and the poor thing is dragged down. If our eyes were
sharp enough, we should see signs of fierce delight betrayed by the
formidable jaws at the bottom.
Thank goodness! A microscopic bit of straw has interfered with the
landslide. The fall ends in the middle of the slope; and the Ant,
recovering her balance, tries to scramble back to the top. The sand
trickles under her feet; no matter: she goes to work with so much
prudence, she so skilfully makes use of the smallest solid support, she
is so careful to move sideways instead of going straight up the slope
that it looks as though the climb ought to be achieved without fresh
impediment. Her knees, her delicate feelers seem atremble with
excitement. One more effort, only a little effort, and the thing is
done. The edge is there, close by; the Ant must reach it.
[Illustration]
Alas, she does not reach it! Suddenly from the sky there falls upon the
poor wretch, thick as hailstones, a rain of grains of sand, which, for
the tiny Ant, is as bad as a regular rain of pebbles. Who is the brute
that takes delight in thus stoning the distressed Ant, who clings in her
despair now to this side, now to that, as best she may, so as not to
roll to the bottom of the precipice? The brute is the Ant-lion, the
ruffian, lying in ambush down in his funnel. See what he is doing. He
takes on his flat head a load, a shovelful of sand, and flings it in the
air towards the Ant, with a sudden, quick jerk of the neck, like the
movement of a spring. The shovelfuls follow rapidly, one after the
other. Whoosh! And whoosh! Do you want another? There's one! You don't
want another? There's one all the same!
What can the Ant do, I ask you, on the slope of that terrible trap,
where the ground falls from under her in a rushing torrent, while a hail
of pebbles dashes down from above? In vain she struggles, with all the
pluck of despair: for each step forward she takes three back, coming
nearer and nearer to the dreadful jaws that are waiting for her at the
bottom of the funnel. Bruised and dazed with the stoning, she rolls over
and over, right into the jaws. The jaws seize her and everything
disappears under the sand; not a trace remains of the recent tragedy.
Peacefully buried in the sand of his lair, the Ant-lion devours his
astutely-captured prey. When the meal is over, there remains a dry
carcass, which must be thrown away, for, if left in the funnel, it might
frighten any game in future and betray the hunter in his ambush. A jerk
of the shovel, that is to say, a toss of the flat head, flings it
outside the hole.
Then the Ant-lion repairs the damage done to his trap, removes the
coarser grains of sand, touches up the slopes to make them ready for a
new slide. He buries himself as I have described and awaits the coming
of the next Ant.
That is how the Ant-lion secures his dinner. And yet there are people
who say that animals have no sense!
[Illustration
AN ANGEL OF GOD
_A TRUE STORY_
BY ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER
_Drawings by_ STEVEN SPURRIER, R.I.
"YOU may talk about the Germans as much as you like," remarked Mrs.
Batterby with her customary decision; "but, for my part, I have no doubt
that we shall beat them in the end: no doubt whatsoever!"
"Still, the German hosts are very numerous, and their artillery is
magnificent," said Mrs. Veale, who, much as she longed for the defeat of
Germany, longed for the defeat of Mrs. Batterby still more.
Little Miss Skipworth hastened, as usual, to thrust in the olive-branch.
"Dear Mrs. Batterby is thinking of the superior courage of our brave
English soldiers," she explained gently.
But Mrs. Batterby could not stand being Bowdlerised, or even translated.
"No, I wasn't, Matilda; at least not at that particular minute, though
nobody admires the courage of the British Army more than I do, and
always have done, and especially with Lord Kitchener at their head and
in action against the enemy. I've got a very high opinion of the British
soldier myself; none higher: much too high, in fact, to allow him to
wear a collar to his bed-jacket like the one you are making, Matilda,
without speaking a word in his defence."
Matilda collapsed at once: she was composed of the most collapsible
material ever provided for the manufacture of souls. "What is wrong with
my collar, Mrs. Batterby? I thought I was exactly copying the pattern
sent to us by the Red Cross. Anyway, I was trying to do so."
"Trying and succeeding are two different things, which I should have
thought you'd have found out by this time, Matilda, and you
five-and-forty, if you are a day! Give me the collar, and I'll fix it
for you, or else the wounded soldier that wears it will wish he had died
in the trenches before he had the chance of putting it on."
It was the afternoon of the Red Cross weekly working-party, held in the
village of Summerglade, in the early stages of the Great War. The party
was a small one, consisting of Mrs. Batterby, a farmer's wife, in whose
parlour the meeting was held; Mrs. Veale, the wife of the village
doctor; Mrs. Windybank, a gloomy widow; and Miss Skipworth, an ingenuous
and tender-hearted spinster. Between Mrs. Batterby and Mrs. Veale there
existed a bitter and abiding warfare.
"May I ask what you were thinking of--if not of the bravery of our own
dear soldiers--when you expressed your assurance of the ultimate success
of the Allied Forces?" asked Mrs. Veale, with her needle in her fingers
and the light of battle in her eye.
"By all means," replied Mrs. Batterby; "and, a civil question demanding
a civil answer, I don't mind telling you that I feel sure we shall win,
because we know that God is on our side and is fighting for us."
"But their numbers are so great and their guns so magnificent," repeated
Mrs. Windybank with a lugubrious sigh. "I sometimes fear that they will
win in the end, and we shall all be blown up by Zeppelins and trampled
underfoot. I'm sure I pray every morning that our armies may win, but I
tremble when I think of the forces against us."